Withdrawal

by Raugos

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark
Length: 83367

Twilight has developed a taste for stealing magic.

In the aftermath of her battle against Tirek, Twilight Sparkle is unwell. She wants more. She needs more. And she is afraid of what others might think of her.

But even in the midst of her growing despair that she has betrayed everything she stood for, she learns something about friendship and what it means to be an alicorn.

Published 2014-05-28 14:50:04 UTC
Last updated 2015-06-28 15:56:28 UTC

Chapter 1

“Yeah, that’s right. Kneel.”

“Not to a weakling like you. Not to a pony,” Tirek growled, spitting out a broken tooth.

Twilight glared at him from the air. Even after getting pummelled half a mile into the ground by the sheer force of her magic, after having all of his power evaporated like a puddle under the scorching sun, the monster remained defiant. Well, she couldn’t let that stand. Not after seeing him turn the library to splinters and ash.

She held his gaze as he struggled to stand upright in the bottom of the pit, scrawny and pitiful. She hovered in place for a while, waiting for him to take back his foolish words, but she soon realised that the monster had every intention of spurning her mercy.

“Then burn,” she said simply.

Tirek howled as Twilight channelled the power of the sun itself into a fiery beam of destruction. The surrounding rock in the pit began glowing cherry-red from the heat of the continuous blast, and the sound of bubbling magma quickly drowned out the monster’s voice.

She relented after a minute and watched the pool of lava glowing at the bottom of the pit as it slowly blackened and crusted up until it resembled a bleeding scab. Whether drowned or simply trapped beneath that crushing layer of formerly molten rock, it was no less than he deserved.

“That’s for Golden Oaks Library and my books! You hear me?” she screamed. “Nopony. Messes. With. My—”

* * * * *

“—Books!”

Twilight gasped and sat bolt upright in bed, instantly flaring her horn to pierce the darkness. She blinked several times, bewildered by the crystalline ceiling and walls, until she remembered that this was her new room. Even after two months since moving in, she still hadn’t gotten quite used to it.

It was pretty barebones as far as personal bedrooms went, with little more than a writing desk, wardrobe and a private bookshelf where she was attempting to re-acquire her collection of books. Spike lay curled up in his bed in the corner, still snoring softly.

She sighed and dimmed her horn before the sudden brightness woke him up and squeezed back under the covers in an attempt to go back to sleep. But it remained beyond her reach. She shivered in spite of the thick covers and quickly found that it had nothing to do with ambient temperature. Her bones and horn ached as if she’d pulled an all-nighter on top of running a marathon, and her head throbbed abominably somewhere behind her eyes.

Here we go again... she thought in resignation as she crawled out of bed and shambled over to the window. She paused for a moment to look at the clock – just past two in the morning – and turned her gaze to the moonlight drenched town of Ponyville. Slowly, her roving eyes focused on the dark mass of the Everfree Forest, seemingly drawn there against her will. Her heart rate shot up in anticipation.

After casting an uneasy glance at Spike’s sleeping form, she opened the window and leaped into the cold night air.

Twilight normally enjoyed night flights over town, but not like this.

She felt… hollow. Empty. Like an under-inflated balloon. Hunger gnawed away inside of her, the kind that mere food could never satisfy. And if it couldn’t get what it wanted, it seemed intent on trying to cannibalise her from the inside out anyway. She struggled to force a steady rhythm into her erratic wingbeats as she half-glided-half-tumbled in the air towards the Everfree Forest.

Some unicorns (and all alicorns) possessed some degree of awareness of magic in their vicinity all the time, but right now, hers was out of whack. Several magical hotspots like sleeping unicorns or minor enchantments about town glowed and resonated in her mind a little too brightly whilst others, at random, remained muted to the point of distraction. It did nothing to help her queasy stomach, and she had no desire to get reacquainted with her broccoli and asparagus dinner.

When she reached the edge of the forest, she quickly selected a reasonably dense area and dove straight in. After a brief search beneath the thick canopy, she found a nice place to comfortably sit down between the trunks of two weeping willows.

A manticore snarled at her from the shadows when she landed, but she quickly regained her composure after the initial surprise. Fighting a twenty-tonne thaumophage like Tirek had severely reduced her capacity for distress over trivial threats. She simply tapped into her reserves and used it to power a terror-inducing spell, much like the one that Sombra had used to booby-trap his secret chamber. The manticore fled, and so did a host of creatures within a thirty-stride radius.

Good. It was better for them that way. She didn’t want it on her conscience.

After casting a quick glance all around, Twilight positioned herself between the two willows and prepared her second spell. She had to delay it, though, when a wave of nausea smothered her senses in reaction to her recent expenditure of magic.

“Stop. Stop it,” she said through gritted teeth. “It was just a tiny spell. I’ll replace it soon.”

Once her body had settled somewhat, she went back to business. In her first few attempts, she’d had to bring along one of the books from Starswirl’s section in Canterlot’s Royal Library, but she’d memorised the spell matrices by now. She no longer needed focus crystals or reference materials to complete the entire sequence.

Twilight closed her eyes as the spell manifested, seeing in her mind’s eye the black tendrils laced with purple light lash out from her horn and disperse into the trees around her. The sounds of Everfree’s nocturnal wildlife suddenly died out, leaving her alone with her uncomfortably loud pulse. Then, after a minute or two, she felt the tell-tale trickle of the forest’s magic. It gradually thickened into a steady stream that pooled in the air around her, and when it reached critical mass, she began drawing it in.

Instead of absorbing the magic directly through her horn, Twilight channelled the stream towards her mouth and inhaled greedily. She shivered and nearly toppled over when the charged flow coursed over her tongue and down her throat, gathered in her lungs and raced like lightning through her nerves and veins. She stopped when her lungs were uncomfortably full, quickly expelled the useless air and then breathed in, eager for the next rush of energy.

Okay, that’s enough, she thought when she’d repeated the process four times.

But her body seemed to disagree, and she decided that maybe… just a little more wouldn’t hurt. She felt herself flush with the warmth that suffused her body, spreading from her lungs to her extremities. It filled her, resonated with her physical being, and it soothed the throbbing and aching in every bone, muscle and sinew.

Unfortunately, she’d exceeded the limit she’d set for herself tonight, and as she’d learned before, it came with a price. Opening her eyes, she beheld the wilting foliage of the trees around her. Everything, whether leaf, stalk, flower or vine bowed over or drooped as if the forest had gone through an extended drought. Not even the weeds and mushrooms were spared. A breeze rustled the treetops, bringing with it a light shower of shrivelled leaves. By her estimation, the damage extended at least a dozen strides in any direction from her place, and this blemish in the forest was the biggest one yet, bigger than all the other eleven patches she’d previously created.

Twilight grimaced at the sight. It’s getting worse, she thought, and gasped when pain dug its claws inside her chest.

She’d stolen magic, and it was rejecting the new form it inhabited. It writhed and coiled, surged and pulsed, as if trying to burst out of her and return to its true owners. She thought she could hear her bones grind and flesh creak as her body attempted hold itself together, leaving her natural magic to wrestle its foreign counterpart into submission. She groaned and stumbled, then curled up into a ball on the ground with her eyes shut tight when she felt as if her heart was being squeezed in a vice, raising the pressure in her veins until they were fit to burst.

Twilight had read about magical infusions gone wrong before, particularly ones that involved unwilling sources and casters who weren’t strong enough to contain the extra energy. The results weren’t pretty.

“No, not gonna happen. Not today,” she growled to herself, clenching every muscle in her body as if that could help to prevent it from being torn apart from the forces raging within.

Ever so slowly, the pain began ebbing away. When it had lessened to a minor itch in her chest, Twilight finally released the breath she’d held, panting like she’d just raced halfway across Equestria. She shivered again, but not from cold or weakness. Instead, a sense of euphoria flooded her as the foreign magic naturalised and integrated with her physical being, redistributing itself to all of her organs and extremities. She twitched involuntarily and suppressed a moan when the thaumaturgic current reached her horn.

Still alive. Looks like I win, again.

Twilight felt satisfied. Almost as satisfied as when she blasted Tirek in the face.

She was stronger than Everfree’s magic; she’d taken it as her own. She had overpowered the very essence of the forest, conquered that which struck fear into the hearts of Ponyvillians, and she could almost believe that none of the other princesses had ever accomplished such a feat. She chuckled giddily at the thought and relaxed, adjusting her position on the forest floor until she lay on her back, with her wings splayed out and her front hooves resting on her belly, staring at the moon through the canopy with a lazy smile on her face.

The surging current of magic in her nervous system gradually petered out, leaving a warm, fuzzy tingle underneath her skin. Her breathing and heart rate slowed accordingly. But best of all, she no longer felt so empty or useless.

It’s okay. Everything’s going to be all right…

Chapter 2

Wind rustled the treetops as Twilight lay still on the forest floor. She listened absentmindedly at first, too relieved that her latest bout of hunger for magic had been warded off for the time being. But after a while, the peaceful notes of insect mating calls soured, and the rustling of leaves and creaking of twigs and boughs grew ominous, as if promising revenge for an atrocity somepony had committed.

Twilight winced.

It’s me. I’m the one they’re after. Everything is not going to be all right.

She rubbed her temples and groaned.

“Great. Just great. You did it again,” she muttered. “I can’t believe this!”

She could just imagine the looks on her friends’ faces if they ever discovered her dirty little secret. She could easily guess what they’d say about that, too.

“Twilight, what the hay are you doing? That’s dark magic you’re messing with!” “Sugarcube, that don’t look healthy to me.” “She’s right, dear. Believe me; it cannot be good for you.” “Oh my, are you sure you didn’t hurt any animals when you did that?” “Silly Twilight, you’re not a bad guy, that thing’s only for a meanie-no-pants like Tirek!”

She stretched out her right foreleg and took in a deep breath, bringing her hoof close to her chest as she did so, and then stretched it out once more as she exhaled. She repeated the process a couple more times before she felt sufficiently prepared for the task ahead, and then leaped back onto all fours, acutely aware of the sound of leaves and twigs being crushed underhoof. Many of them had fallen before their time, thanks to her, and if she didn’t do something about it, the damage could worsen.

“Okay, Twilight, you’ve had your fix,” she murmured. “Time to give it back.”

Her mouth settled into a grim line as she focused her magic. Conceptually, it wasn’t very difficult to reverse the siphoning spell. A few tweaks here and there to the arcane matrices, and she’d reverse the flow of energy with very little wastage in the process. Its execution, however, was another matter entirely.

She gritted her teeth when, after a full minute of intense spell-weaving, she only managed to produce a purple trickle from her horn that quickly dispersed into her surroundings. Nothing else seemed forthcoming, so she had to abort the sequence and start over. She met with similar results on her second and third attempt, and she felt herself growing hot and twitchy-eyed.

Ugh!

She had to take a break for a minute when it her growing desire to snap something in half began interfering with the precision and nature of her magic. Every subsequent attempt ran the risk of producing an explosion instead of a siphon, and each failure only fouled her mood even further.

Get a hold of yourself!

Her failure wasn’t due to ineptitude. She was the Element of Magic, for crying out loud. But for some reason, she couldn’t get past the final step in returning the magic she’d stolen: letting go. She couldn’t, or wouldn’t, let go.

“Come on, you’ve gotten over this before. It’s not yours. Give it back…”

Twilight kept going, but by the time she had to abort her fourteenth spell, she felt thoroughly exhausted and any thought of trying again made her feel like curling up in a corner and crying. And it wasn’t due to arcane fatigue. Every time she tried to release the power she’d stolen, some treacherous part of her would clamp down and hold it tight. She would remember the feeling of emptiness and listlessness that would surely recur if she let it go. It came back. It always came back. Why give it up and repeat the cycle over and over again? Maybe she should just keep the magic so that she wouldn’t have to come back and take it again in a few days. A permanent solution was better than swinging back and forth. In fact, come to think of it, the best plan should involve taking in a little more magic to properly sate her hunger so she wouldn’t have to—

No!

Twilight slapped herself before that train of thought could go any further. She snorted and paced back and forth, stomping over the detritus on the forest floor.

As a princess, she was supposed to be above such base urges. She’d faced down villains like Nightmare Moon and Chrysalis, opposed their lust for power. She’d helped her friends and so many others deal with their problems. She remembered talking to Spike about how to deal with his urges when it came to building a hoard of his own, and he’d actually listened to her and acted on it. Almost daily, ponies came to her seeking help, and the thought of helping them in the day and secretly indulging in dark magic at night – and learning how to enjoy it from mimicking Tirek, no less – made her cringe. Each night brought her inexorably closer to another lapse in self-control. She’d steal magic without any rational thought, and her stupid conscience wouldn’t say a word until it was too late to do anything about it!

Something trickled down her temple, and she licked it when it got close to her mouth. Salty. She was sweating in spite of the night’s chill. In fact, she felt very much the opposite of her environment. The worst parts were her face and the tips of her ears.

She felt like a hypocrite. The fact that she couldn’t consistently view stealing magic with the revulsion it deserved made her feel like a traitor to everything she stood for. She’d crossed the line onto a slippery road, and a part of her didn’t want to go back. But she also knew that the only way forward led to… well... She didn’t truly know, but she could clearly see the pattern in Sombra’s and Tirek’s histories. She should never have taken that risk; her hunger could not be undone. She’d managed to turn away several times already, but she’d always come back…

What would Princess Celestia think of her? What would her friends think of her? A few times she’d come close to telling them, but then somepony would harp on about how she served as an example for all ponies in all matters concerning friendship or learning, and then she’d balk and keep her mouth shut for fear of destroying that pedestal they’d put her on. It was a long fall, and she couldn’t know for sure whom it would hurt more, her or everypony who saw her as their leader.

And that was just the beginning. How long before she started picking actual targets? Sometimes, even the mere thought of draining magic would quicken her pulse and ignite that greedy spark in the back of her mind. She knew where Zecora had hidden the Alicorn Amulet. More than once since her condition had manifested, she’d thought of retrieving it. Not to wear, but to take apart. To consume the power and potential that resided within. She’d even thought of using her new skills as a form of punishment. Need a villain kept under control? No problem, just send him to the purple princess. She’d take care of that right away!

Twilight licked her lips and swallowed more saliva than usual. Then, she realised the direction her thoughts had taken, and she began to tremble, grinding her teeth as her vision gained a reddish tint.

That’s enough. This ends now.

She had always managed to give back the stolen magic. But it looked like the day she’d feared had finally come; she’d slipped past the point of being able to muster the willpower to give it back. Well, if she could not bring herself to do it directly, there were other ways…

The Circle of Negation was a ward designed to serve as a booby trap for arcane vaults. Once primed, it would immediately strip anyone or anything that entered it of all non-native magic and enchantments. It had gained popularity since the changeling invasion, and she’d picked it up in short order. Its effectiveness against consumed magic was debatable – otherwise Princess Celestia surely would have used it against Tirek – but she wanted to try anyway. Perhaps it would work on her because she had yet to become that powerful. ‘Yet’ being the operative term.

After preparing the ward, she simply needed to let it finish priming. So she sat right in the middle and waited; it would only take a few minutes. But barely thirty seconds later, she began to have second thoughts. She’d not tested it properly. She hadn’t gone over the checklist for safety measures.

Twilight leaped into the air, and gasped at how badly she’d lost control again. A low growl escaped from between her teeth as she folded her wings and dropped like a rock. Once on the ground, she grabbed some nearby vines with her magic, twisted them together to form a crude length of rope, and proceeded to bind her wings and legs.

Not long after she’d made sure that she couldn’t so easily flee on impulse, the ward finally armed. It began with a tingling sensation around her fetlocks that slowly inched upwards, but felt unimpressive for the most part. But just before she could re-examine the ward to see if she’d made a mistake in setting it up, that little tingle grew into an angry jolt of lightning that shot up her legs. She shrieked as it coursed through her body, ripping through her nerves and up her spine, towards her horn. She barely had enough time to gasp before the magic that she’d stolen began squirming and writhing once more, and her body could not muster the strength to quell it. Her vision whited out as she felt something force its way out of her mouth and eyes, and she realised that she had essentially given herself the magical equivalent of a kick to the belly; she vomited the energy she’d stolen, and it sickened her as much as its biological counterpart would have.

Thankfully, the agonising process only lasted a few seconds, and the next thing Twilight knew, stars danced before her eyes as she lay prone on the forest floor surrounded by charred debris. Apparently, purging her had burned out the Circle of Negation. She seemed to have snapped her bonds as well.

It was done. She’d given back what she’d stolen.

Twilight heaved a sigh of relief and lay still. A nap seemed like an awfully good idea. She just needed to find a more comfortable spot to rest – if only her legs would stop trembling like that. But then she also noticed the feeling of emptiness creeping back into her chest. The euphoria of feeding had diminished to a fleeting memory that utterly failed to stave off the hunger for magic gnawing at her innards once again. Her natural magic felt so insignificant, so… inadequate. She wanted more. She needed more.

Twilight’s jaw dropped.

Too soon. It’s not fair. How could it be back already? It’s never been this fast. It’s not fair!

She began hyperventilating. She didn’t know what to do. But one little fact stood out clearly amidst the turmoil: she didn’t want to continue feeling hollow and feeble. The forest could spare some magic. Ponies would understand if she took a little of it permanently. They had to. Nopony deserved to feel this way…

“Stop… Why can’t I stop?” Twilight whispered as she prepared to siphon more magic from the forest.

But as the forest’s magic pooled in the air around her once more, some remnant of her discipline flared back to life in outrage at her attempt at a second helping of stolen magic.

Instead of drawing the energy in, she unleashed it before she could change her mind again. It pulsed when she loosened her magical grip on it, morphing into thermal and kinetic energy at an alarming rate. She gasped when she realised that she had inadvertently tainted it with her roiling emotions and tried to bring it back under her control, but it simply exploded out of her magical grip in the form of a shockwave that radiated from her position, sending trees and dirt flying in every direction. In the aftermath, Twilight found herself standing in the middle of a smoking crater. She gaped at the tree stumps smouldering and crackling in the heat as cinders drifted in the air like snow.

She sighed and hung her head. More damage. Wonderful. She pounded her hoof on the ground, mentally screaming at herself. It sank about an inch before striking what felt like a large rock, and for some reason, its refusal to give way set her temper ablaze once more.

Twilight pounded her hoof on the rock again, but to no avail. Grinding her teeth, she struck harder, but the thing stubbornly remained solid and immovable. And that was it. She snarled and pounded on it repeatedly with her hoof, throwing more and more of her alicorn strength against it with every successive hit. Before long, the treetops beyond the ring of destruction were rustling from the force of each impact. And yet the rock remained intact, sinking deeper into the ground instead of shattering. She could practically hear it mocking her in Discord’s voice. Her strength meant nothing to it.

Stupid rock!

With an inarticulate cry, she ripped it out of the ground with her magic, ignoring the queasiness that her magical expenditure had caused. Looking around, she spotted another rock nearby that the explosion had uncovered, and immediately began slamming her melon-sized one against it, picturing it as the head of Discord in statue form. He was the reason she’d gotten herself in this mess; if he’d just done his job and captured Tirek as Celestia had asked, she wouldn’t have had to go through all of this!

Flakes and chips flew in every direction, and soon chunks followed suit as she poured more energy into destroying them. But her rock seemed to be composed of stronger minerals – probably granite – and remained more or less whole when the she’d already pulverised the other. Twilight glared at the ovoid thing and tried to crush it with her magic, but once again, it resisted all of her efforts.

Oh, no you don’t. You’re just a stupid rock. I don’t need the power of four alicorns to end you. You hear me? I don’t need it!

She channelled every ounce of magic she had against it, clenching her teeth so hard that for a moment she thought they might crack. Her horn grew hot with the amount of power coursing through it. The granite resisted at first, but it eventually rewarded her with a grinding sound as its slowly lost structural integrity. Little by little, she shifted the application of force to concentrate on weakened areas, and the rock gradually lost its smooth, ovoid shape. A minute later, it resembled a broken ornament that somepony had hastily glued back together. But it took a lot of power to push it past that threshold, and she could already feel pain sinking its fangs into her horn.

But she kept at it, unwilling to give up. She wasn’t weak. Her magic would suffice. She didn’t need anypony else’s magic. She—

The rock exploded.

Twilight didn’t even have time to gasp before shards of granite grazed one side of her face and larger chunks battered her chest. Dust caked up her eyes, and she stumbled as she tried to wipe them out with a hoof. Then, the nausea hit her. She lurched forward, lost her balance and blindly threw up on the ground.

Eager to get away from the mess, she tried to get back onto all fours, but she only managed to stumble a few strides to one side before she collapsed. Then there, surrounded by the scent of scorched earth and the acrid stench of bile, with the realisation of her failure and hypocrisy and hunger for magic sapping her resolve to carry on, Twilight began to sob.

It’s just not fair…

Chapter 3

It’s just not fair…

Twilight sniffled and curled up tight when another bout of sobbing overwhelmed her. The trees encircling the freshly blasted clearing looked on from afar, cold and indifferent. She wanted to cry out for help, for somepony, anypony to fill the cloying silence and emptiness, but she knew that it was pointless. Nothing could help her. No one could help her.

Sometime later – she couldn’t tell how long she’d been crying for – the sound of hoofsteps reached her ears, slowly growing in volume.

Twilight shifted to sit upright, drawing in a shuddering breath as she did so, and ineffectually tried to wipe the dirt and tears out of her eyes to focus on the figure trotting towards her. She blinked hard to clear the stinging filth out of her eyes and let out something between a gasp and a sniffle when she saw the dark blue alicorn.

“Please tell me this is a dream,” she pleaded.

“I’m afraid you will find no solace there, Twilight. This is the waking world.”

Twilight sighed and tried to suppress another sob coming her way. She just managed to turn it into a strangled cough before she asked, “How did you find me? Did somepony see—did Spike send you a letter?”

Spike wasn’t the only one who’d noticed her lethargic episodes, but he’d naturally been the most persistent about trying to figure it out. Lying to him and everypony else that she was just tired, busy or whatever excuse she could come up with still made her ears burn. Maybe she hadn’t been careful enough and he’d actually seen her making her way to the forest…

Princess Luna derailed that train of thought when she sat on the ground beside her. “No, Spike wasn’t the one who notified me. I discovered your feeding spots not long ago, and it was a simple matter of watching and waiting for the source of residual dark magic to make an appearance again. Imagine my surprise when I found you lying here.”

Apparently, she’d not covered her tracks well enough. “How much did you see?”

Luna gazed at the destruction around them. “Quite enough, I believe.”

Twilight sniffled. “So what’s going to happen to me?”

“That will largely depend on you. Do you wish to talk about it?”

“That’s it?” Twilight bristled. How could she treat it so casually? “I’m messing around with dark magic, the same kind that Tirek used, and you’re just going to ask me whether I want to talk about it as if I’m just having a slightly bad day?”

Luna shook her head. “No, Twilight. Your situation is grave indeed. But I can also see that you have been hiding this for quite some time, and it is devouring you from within.”

“Well, it’s… it’s that.” Twilight gestured at the smouldering remains of a tree as if that could summarise her entire feelings on the matter. “I’m stealing magic from the Everfree Forest because I don’t have any stupid self-control. What else is there to talk about?”

“Tell me about it. What drove you to do something like this?”

“I… I don’t know. These past few weeks I’ve been feeling… off. I feel tired no matter how much sleep I get. It’s all so… empty and pointless. And I’m not sure if it’s the right word, but I get hungry whenever I think about magic—whenever I read on advanced spellcraft, it’s like going to a buffet after eating nothing for days and not being allowed to take a single bite. Sometimes I just can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve tried everything from Zecora’s brews to whatever spa treatment there is, and nothing seemed to work.” Twilight felt her ears flatten as she prepared to confess. “That is… until I started doing research on arcane infusions. I looked up every volume concerning Starswirl’s research on power siphons, and with a bit of thaumaturgic recombination with Sombra’s branch of magic, I found out how to, um… replicate the kind of spell that Tirek used against us. I tried it out, and… I’ve not been able to stop coming back.” She gestured at the ruined patch of forest in emphasis.

Luna put a hoof to her chin. “I seem to recall a letter of yours not long after you moved into your palace. You were unwell for a few days, but we ceased to receive word on your progress shortly after. I see now that we were mistaken in believing that you had made a full recovery. Why did you not provide further details of your ailment?”

“I didn’t want to bother you. Everypony was so busy patching up and sorting things out, so I tried figuring it out on my own,” Twilight replied. “And I also made a stupid mistake; I found a potential solution and tried it without asking or telling anypony. The first time, I tested the spell on a patch of poison joke. I—I overdid it. I killed it. But it felt so good to take in its magic, and I couldn’t stop coming back for more. I didn’t tell anypony because, well… it’s dark magic. I feel like I’m not in control of it anymore.”

“And how is your case any different from other ponies’? You are hardly the first to dabble in such things, and you will not be the last to be tempted by power. Whilst it is true that some met their downfall thusly, many have also found their way back from the brink.” Luna’s expression softened. “Even Starswirl was not above a few vices in his lifetime.”

Twilight frowned. “Well, it’s just that everypony’s been looking up to me. I don’t know what they’re going to think if they find out that I’m eating magic just like Tirek! I don’t deserve to be the Princess of Friendship. How can I honestly advise others when I can’t even deal with my own problems? I’ve messed up, I’ve—”

“Twilight, calm yourself. Nopony is here to judge you.”

She realised that she’d been shrinking away from Luna like a cowed rat whilst speaking. The moon princess stretched out a wing, beckoning her over, and it took more than a little courage on her part to nervously inch back to her side. Once she was close enough, Luna draped a wing over her shoulder and gently pulled her in. Twilight resisted at first, but Luna’s warmth somehow reassured her, drove away that pervasive sense of hopelessness, and she eventually gave in and nestled up to her like a chick to its mother.

“As I see it, you are putting yourself through a lot of needless grief and self-loathing, and believe me when I tell you that this road will only lead to destruction.”

“How do you know?”

Luna chuckled wryly. “I believe that Nightmare Moon would know a thing or two about bottling up feelings until they fester and rupture.”

“Oh. Right.” Twilight sighed. “So much for a princess practicing what she preaches. I’m an idiot.”

“No, you are simply still learning. If becoming a princess required being an immutable, infallible paragon of your virtues all the time, I’m afraid that none of us would ever have a claim to that title.”

Luna placed a hoof under Twilight’s chin and gently lifted it until their eyes met. “To err is equine, and it is understandable that you would want to keep this from the public. But at the same time, you must realise that this may not be something that you can endure on your strength alone. You have good friends, and if there is any real failure in your situation, I believe it would be in hiding from those who are in the best position to help you through this. Luckily for you, that door is still open.”

“But what will I tell them?”

Luna responded by embracing her with both wings. “The truth. You’ll find the right words when the time comes. But for now, nothing needs to be said.”

Twilight felt her tears welling up anew. Trembling, she returned the embrace and cried over her shoulder. As the floodgates opened, she felt the relief of a great weight being lifted from her back. She felt her anxiety melt away as, at last, she’d found somepony to help her hold up under the shame of giving in to her basest instincts. It wasn’t enough to fill the hollowness that plagued her, but for the moment, it was just bearable, and she felt content.

Luna had remained silent the whole while as Twilight poured out her pent up emotions, but she eventually eased her out of the embrace and began wiping her face with a handkerchief she’d conjured up. “Come now; let us get you cleaned up. You look li—Twilight?”

She stared at the alicorn’s horn. The blue aura mesmerised her with its tantalising familiarity, promising restoration and wholeness. She wanted it back… Her breathing grew heavy as she flared her own horn. Then, she heard Luna swear under her breath, and the lovely light winked out of existence.

“Sorry,” said Luna as she tended to her with hoof and wing instead of magic.

Twilight blinked in confusion. “What was that? Did I just try to—?”

“Drain my magic? Yes. You are suffering from Withdrawal.”

“What?”

“It’s the body’s reaction to a drastic loss of magic, similar to the weakness and despondency that we all felt after being drained by Tirek.”

She tilted her head. “Can’t be; I’ve gotten my magic back and not lost any of it since the attack.” She remembered reading about Withdrawal. It was a common ailment for magical beings, but the books never said anything about victims wanting to consume magic after recovering their strength.

“There is another aspect to it that is not well-documented because the circumstances leading to its manifestation are rare. You have tasted power, Twilight. The power of four alicorns infused to one body. And now, your body cannot stand the vast chasm between that and your natural magic. It is why you’ve been obsessively seeking out ways to augment your natural reserves, even against your better judgment.”

Luna seemed to know an awful lot about it, and her lack of surprise was a little disconcerting. Twilight couldn’t help but think that a lot of her trouble could’ve been avoided if somepony had just said something. “Are you saying that that stunt we pulled made me like this? Why didn’t anypony tell me?” she asked.

And now it was apparently Luna’s turn to grow nervous, for she ceased her ministrations and replied, “Partially. My sister feared that you might be affected, but we kept silent on the matter because drawing your attention to it might have induced or increased your desire to feed if it had already manifested. We grew worried when you displayed the symptoms, but at that time we could not tell whether it was due to Withdrawal or merely exhaustion after your battle against Tirek. When you appeared to have recovered, we were relieved and thought nothing more of it, not realising that you had simply chosen to… treat it in silence.”

She felt her jaw drop. “You knew this would happen to me? Even before transferring your magic?”

“No. Let us please be clear on that. The risk was present, yes, but we reasoned that it was unlikely because you were not going to possess our powers for long. But, you apparently took to our magic like a fish to water, as they say, and acclimated just enough to miss it when it was gone. In a way, it is a testimony to your natural talent that your body laid claim to our combined magic so quickly.”

Twilight scowled at the floor, clinging to the spark of indignation within her. She wanted yell at the princesses for keeping her out of the loop like that, but no matter how hard she tried fanning the flames, they died out when she realised that she hadn’t done much of a better job at keeping anypony informed about her condition. If she could make excuses, so could they. And she honestly didn’t feel up to the task of being angry at the moment; maybe she could do that later when she didn’t feel so down.

So she settled for a deep sigh and said, “Thanks, I guess…”

“I am sorry for tempting you. I should have realised that sensing my magic so close might… whet your appetite, so to speak.”

At least that gave her a less depressing subtopic to move on to. “But why your magic specifically?” she asked. “I’ve not lost control like that in front of any unicorn.”

“My power was once yours, if only for a while. Perhaps your body recognises it and wants it back.”

“So…” Twilight gazed at her elder hopefully. “I don’t suppose you have anything that will fix this? I’m all ears.”

“There is no quick solution to your problem, I’m afraid. You will simply have to endure and manage this condition. The emptiness will fade with time.”

Twilight’s ears drooped at the prospect. “But how will I do that? It feels so…” She paused when she struggled to find the right words to encompass the dreadful sense of emptiness.

“I know how terrible it feels. But if you cannot overcome your temptations – whose sources may include studying magic or coming into close proximity with sources of magic – then you may very well have to flee from them instead.”

“Flee?”

“Yes. You may have to keep away from any of your favourite activities which might exacerbate your hunger for magic, rather than engage in them and resist. It may seem cowardly, but your goal is to end your dependency, not to appear strong to others. Pride is a bitter pill to swallow, and the path to recovery may be long and arduous, but I can assure you that the freedom from this hunger will be well worth the torment to come.”

Something clicked in Twilight’s mind. “Luna, did you—have you gone through this before?”

The blue alicorn nodded. “You might recall my appearance immediately after having my powers stripped by the Elements of Harmony. Did you never wonder why I ceased to make public appearances after that party you threw for me in Ponyville?”

“Now that you’ve mentioned it…”

“After being Nightmare Moon for a thousand years, I had grown very accustomed to the immense power at my disposal. To lose nearly all of it so suddenly…” Luna shuddered. “It was one of the longest years of my life. Fortunately, Tia was there to help me to endure my self-imposed isolation from the things that tempted me most. After a few months, my body began to recover on its own, and by the end of the year, I was myself once again, albeit a little stronger and darker than before I allowed my resentment to cloud my judgment so long ago.”

Twilight remained silent as Luna’s word’s echoed into the night. She felt that she was going to need a lot of time to digest them, let alone act on those suggestions. But something still weighed heavily on her heart, and it took her a while of sitting in companionable silence with her fellow alicorn to find the right words to express it.

“Luna, there’s something I need to get off my back.” Twilight bit her lip, hesitant for fear of what she might think, but eventually decided that she’d rather get it into the open than let it chew her inside out. “You remember seeing me break that rock earlier?”

“It was hard to miss.”

“Well, I imagined doing that to Discord. What does that say about me?”

Luna leaned in close. “Go on. Surely there’s more to it.”

“Well, I sometimes feel like blaming him. If he had just captured Tirek, none of this would have happened.”

“It is natural to want things better than they are.”

Twilight averted her eyes. “Wanting it better is not what’s bothering me. The real kicker is that I’m mad at him because I feel like it’s his fault I’m now addicted to magic. Not because he betrayed all of us. My reasons are selfish, and no matter how hard I think about it, I cannot make myself care more about his betrayal than my own problems…”

“Well—”

“And there’s another thing…” Twilight paused in apprehension when she realised that she’d just interrupted her elder, but at Luna’s nod of acquiescence, she continued, “I can’t think of any other way to say this, so I’ll just say it. After Tirek wrecked the library, I snapped. I wanted revenge. I enjoyed fighting him. And I totally want to do something like that again. To feel all of that power ” – here, she raised both forelegs as if holding something immensely heavy with her hooves – “and throw all of it against my enemy to protect my home… I don’t think I’ve ever felt more – oh, what’s the word for it – more right. Alive. In control. Something like that.” She sighed and looked away once more. “And I’m afraid of how far I’d go to feel that again.”

There. I’ve said it. I’m a power-hungry, magic-eating alicorn itching for a fight.

She mentally braced herself, but the horrified exclamation or stern rebuke she’d expected never came. Silence reigned. Instead, when she’d finally mustered the courage to face Luna again, she found her gazing thoughtfully as if she was figuring out a particularly interesting math problem.

“Twilight, just how often do you get exercise?”

She blinked. “Huh? What does that—”

Luna held up a hoof. “Your difficulties may be twofold. On one hoof, you are concerned with your newfound lust for power. But on the other hoof, you might also be suffering from the lack of an outlet for stress and anxiety.”

“You mean like meditation? Cadance taught me some breathing exercises, if that’s what you mean.”

Luna smiled. “Everypony needs an outlet. My sister found hers in meditation, and it is apparent that Cadance has taught you her preferred method.” Her smile then grew into a wolfish grin. “But after hearing your thoughts, it seems that you would prefer something more… physically stimulating.”

Twilight felt her face redden as her mind explored the implications of those words. “Wait, are you saying…”

Luna’s grin faltered and twisted into a grimace just before she brought a hoof to her face. “No, that was an unfortunate choice of words,” she murmured. “Let us try that again; I meant that you may share my taste when it comes to dealing with stress. Whilst Tia and Cadance prefer to release their vexations through peaceful means, and occasion, liquors, I found a more direct outlet in sparring.”

Twilight frowned. “I don’t know… Wouldn’t that count as feeding my violent urges?”

“Oh, sparring is not the wanton violence you might have read about in Minotaur arenas, Twilight. Daring Do’s author has a lot to answer for in spreading that misconception…” Luna added in an undertone. “No, in true Equestrian martial traditions, you will be taught discipline and restraint in exercising your skill and power. If you truly desire sheer violence for its own sake as you fear, well, we shall cross that bridge when you get to it. But should you find it an effective means of unwinding, I would be more than happy to teach and train somepony who might one day be a match for me in the ring. Tia’s a worthy challenge, but she simply doesn’t favour it.”

Wow. She would never have imagined that she would one day consider getting into a sparring match with the Princess of the Night. She had never seen Luna so animated or enthusiastic before, posing in what must have been various combat stances, jabbing and swiping at an invisible opponent with hoof and wing as she speculated on the types of spells, weapons and barding that Twilight might develop a preference for.

“Of course, if you do not favour the martial arts, perhaps you might find an outlet in other sports,” Luna eventually conceded after her impromptu demonstration. “I believe Rainbow Dash would be only too happy to invite you into her realm of expertise.”

“I can imagine.” She’d be totally stoked to get back at me for those teaching sessions. Twilight smiled at the thought, then sighed as the weight of her problems loomed over her once more. “It doesn’t help me with my other issue, though. I can’t help thinking that Discord doesn’t deserve forgiveness for betraying us like that, especially after how much trust Fluttershy had placed in him.”

Luna grew pensive and looked wistfully to one side of the forest, but after following her gaze, Twilight couldn’t discern what had caught her attention, or if it was anything at all.

“Twilight, would you walk with me?”

“Umm, sure.” She swayed a little as she rose to all fours, but quickly steadied herself and pretended that an exposed root had tripped her. Despite her wooziness, she suspected that Luna wanted to show her something important, and feared that any weakness on her part might put an end the little excursion. She preferred putting up with a little discomfort than talking or thinking about the lingering emptiness within her.

As they left the ruined clearing and trotted under the dark canopy, Luna asked, “Do you believe everypony needs forgiveness?”

Twilight blinked in disbelief. “Are you saying that he deserves to be forgiven after kicking us in the back like that? I mean, sure, Fluttershy says he seemed sorry at the time, but he helped Tirek siphon everypony’s magic. It should’ve been obvious that he was helping that guy hurt ponies! How could he deserve forgiveness for that? And it was already his second chance!”

Luna shook her head. “Not deserve, Twilight. Need.”

Twilight frowned as she attempted to differentiate between the two whilst dodging low-hanging branches in the particularly thick patch of forest that they were trotting through. Luna’s silence indicated that she wanted to give her a chance to figure it out on her own, but she didn’t feel up to the challenge at the moment. Every thought about the draconequus and what he’d done created a spike in her blood pressure, particularly when combined with the awareness that his actions had indirectly led to her incessant hunger for magic.

For once, she just wanted an easy answer, so she swallowed her pride and admitted, “I don’t understand.”

To her brief puzzlement, Luna did not answer immediately. Instead, she forged ahead in the undergrowth towards some unseen goal, helpfully holding aside the heavier branches and vines so that she could follow more easily, until they suddenly breached the dense foliage and found themselves on a ledge overlooking the ravine that surrounded the Castle of the Two Sisters. Thick fog obscured the bottom of the ravine and flowed amongst the ruins, giving it the appearance of a skeletal city rising out of a misty river.

“Everfree City,” Luna announced wistfully. “Or what’s left of it.”

Twilight remained silent, anticipating the princess’ explanation.

“When I fought my sister for dominion over Equestria and my Eternal Night, I destroyed half of the castle and parts of the city in my attempt to subdue her.” She tilted her head towards the ruins in the distance, then added, “Stone quaked and crumbled beneath my power, and… there were some who did not escape in time.”

I had been wondering about that… She remembered the potion-induced vision of Nightmare Moon’s battle against Princess Celestia. Those energy blasts had caused substantial structural damage to the buildings, and to hear Luna confirm that the collapsed sections had actually claimed lives… She thought she felt a chill in the wind.

“Tell me, Twilight. Do I deserve forgiveness for that?”

She looked up and froze when she saw Nightmare Moon gazing mournfully at her with glistening eyes. She took a frantic step backwards and blinked, and Luna suddenly stood in place of the dark alicorn. Maybe it had just been a trick of the moonlight…

“Well, of course, you…” she began, but trailed off when she found that she couldn’t really finish that sentence. She had no right to speak for those who’d paid the price.

Luna averted her eyes and stared back at the ruined castle. “Tia forgave me. And though it took me a while to realise it, I needed her forgiveness to move beyond my mistakes and not constantly grieve over the past. But only just, for I will always be haunted by the ponies of Everfree whose forgiveness I will never have; I did not even get the chance to beg for it.”

Twilight stared at the ground as she pondered on her words. “So… are you saying that I must forgive him?”

Apparently, Luna had no intention of making things easy for her. “No. You are not obligated to forgive him. It is ultimately up to you to decide whether he needs your forgiveness, knowing full well that he might still squander it.”

“That’s not very helpful at all,” Twilight murmured.

“No, I suppose not. But it is the best I can do for now.” Luna sighed and draped a wing over her. “If you feel that Discord means nothing to you after what he has done, then by all means, withhold your forgiveness. But if there is some worth in granting him one more chance at redemption, whether for him, you or others, well… only you can answer that.”

“I guess…”

As they trailed off into companionable silence, Twilight leaned on Luna’s shoulder. It was late, her eyelids felt like they were made of lead, and she believed that she was going to need at the very least a full day’s rest to mentally shelf and catalogue every bit of advice that she’d been given. Fatigue washed over her in waves – each made her slump a little more and chipped away at any coherence left in her mind. She yawned, silently marvelling at Luna’s warmth and sturdiness – she’d make almost as good a cuddle buddy as Dad or Shining Armour.

Twilight yawned again…

—and yelped when she tumbled head first into the abyss. She jerked up and knocked the back of her head against something hard.

“Huh, what?” she cried, then cringed when she turned around and saw Luna rubbing her jaw. “Oh hayse—I mean, I’m sorry! I—I must’ve fallen asleep.”

Luna smiled and glanced downwards. “You sorely needed it, I would say. My shoulder normally makes a poor pillow.”

“Ah, heh heh…” Twilight grinned sheepishly when she spotted a line of drool on her blue coat. “I’m really sorry about that. I guess I really should get home. How long was I out for?”

“Almost an hour, by my reckoning.”

Twilight gasped at the realisation that she’d just treated Luna like a headrest for the better part of an hour. “You should’ve said something!”

Luna’s smile did not waver. Instead, she scoffed and waved aside her worrying with a hoof. “I would like to think that I’m capable of sacrificing a little dignity when it comes to letting my friends get some much-needed rest.” She then rose to all fours and beckoned Twilight to do the same, saying, “Come, let us be off. Can you fly?”

Stretching her shaky wings experimentally, Twilight murmured, “Umm…”

“Hmm. Best not to risk it, then. We will walk.”

Twilight nodded and followed suit.

If there was a pattern to the route that Luna took through the Everfree Forest, Twilight honestly couldn’t see it. She just seemed to have an uncanny knack for avoiding the overgrown, rocky, steep or otherwise hindering areas that Twilight and her friends frequently encountered on hoof. Still, she found the supposedly easy path enough of a challenge when she was tired, sleepy and thaumaturgically imbalanced, so aside from a few words exchanged, their trek out of the forest lacked conversation.

Once they had plodded all the way back to the shadow of the crystalline tree-palace in the centre of Ponyville, Twilight heaved a sigh of relief and gave Luna a grateful smile. “Thanks for everything. I… I really needed that.”

The princess nodded. “Rest well. I will see you again soon, and I imagine Tia will wish to speak to you herself when she hears about your excursion come morning.”

“Yeah.” Twilight looked towards the dark speck of Canterlot in the distance and sighed again when she felt a pang of emptiness stirring within her. “I’m going to have a few long days ahead of me, aren’t I?”

Luna patted her on the back with a wing and replied, “More than just a few, I’m afraid. But rest assured that they are not insurmountable. Rely on your friends to help you. When you find yourself succumbing to your temptations, you may very well find that being accountable to the ones you love gives you far more resolve than merely being accountable to yourself. It worked for me, and it might do the same for you.”

Despite her warm reassurance, Twilight couldn’t suppress a gulp when she thought of what lay ahead, waiting for her. “Okay, got it. Good night, Luna.”

“Fare thee well.”

With those parting words, Luna took to the air and vanished into the darkness, leaving Twilight alone with her thoughts. The hunger and hollowness lurked there, too, but it was partially smothered by the bone-deep weariness that threatened to plant her face-first on the ground. She chuckled at the thought of being found sleeping on the doorstep of her palace with her face plastered to the ground.

Getting the doors open without her magic presented a minor struggle, but after a few tiring minutes, she was climbing up the winding staircase to her chambers.

“Oh! Umm, good morning, Princess Twilight!” said a voice.

Twilight turned to its source and saw a young stallion carting along a basket of washed linen. His name escaped her, but she vaguely remembered that he was one of the new guys brought in to help with the upkeep of the massive palace. His chosen greeting was a silly one, though. Ponies weren’t supposed to be sleepy in the morning, and since she could hardly keep her eyes open at this point, logic dictated that it couldn’t be morning.

“Mm, good night…” she mumbled, shambling past him.

Thankfully, she ran into no other perplexing obstacles on her pilgrimage to her bed. After making sure that Spike was still asleep, she grudgingly took just enough trouble to get under the covers properly before surrendering to sweet, sweet oblivion.

Chapter 4

Heat. Humidity. Twilight didn’t like these things, so she squirmed, twisted and rolled until she found a cool, dry place. Unfortunately, as usual, her new position did not take very long to grow hot and soggy, so she repeated the process and shifted until she encountered another place that suited her needs.

Voices repeatedly called out to her between long intervals, beckoning her to some distant, unknown quest. She mumbled noncommittally to get them to leave her alone, and for the most part it seemed to work. On occasion, something would attempt to smother her with its hot thickness, forcing her to growl or hiss to get it to back off.

At times, she knew exactly where she was in the universe. At others, she felt lost and heavy-laden, unable to stop and find rest in a realm of shadows and cloying humidity, and at the same time unwilling to wander and give up what little comfort she already had. And all the while, a hole seemed to have opened up somewhere within her belly, allowing her insides to slowly leak away, shrivelling her up until she was nothing more than a papery husk.

“Help me…” she moaned into the vast emptiness.

But nothing, no one, came to her aid. All of the universe and eternity receded from her like a tide, leaving a vast, white, oppressive emptiness. She tried to scream when it tugged at her, stretching her so thin that she too became almost nothing, but sound itself had ceased to exist. The emptiness rushed into her mouth, clogging her so thoroughly that nothing could escape. Heat rippled through her body as something deep within squirmed and clawed at her innards. She was drowning in heat and steam.

No!

Twilight’s eyes snapped open, and she reflexively squeezed them shut when they smarted. She stuck her tongue out in disgust when she tasted a dry and stringy lump in her mouth, and it took her a while to realise that it was just her hair. It’d been responsible for poking her in the eyes, too. She sat up and tossed her mane to get it out of the way, then slumped back down as she attempted to remember her dream. Something terrible had awoken her, but the details were already slipping away like sand in an hourglass.

Shrugging, she turned her attention to other matters. Her bed was a frightful mess – the fabric beneath her was warm and damp with sweat, and cold beyond the borders of her current position right at the bottom left corner. A quick glance down the side revealed her pillow and blanket lying crumpled and forlorn on the floor of her bedroom.

Why’s it so dark?

The only illumination in the room came from a half-shuttered firefly lamp on her bedside table, right next to a crystal jug and fruit-filled basket. It puzzled her, since she couldn’t recall seeing anything of the sort before going to bed last night. The clock showed—

One o’clock in the morning? Did I just sleep the whole day away?

She apparently had. As if on cue, a loud snore from somewhere above head height confirmed that it was indeed night time. Glancing upwards, she found a lone cloud floating in the middle of the room, with a tell-tale cascade of rainbow hair dangling over the edge.

There weren’t many reasons for Rainbow Dash to be sleeping in her room, and she had a hard time coming up with one under the current circumstances. Her belly growled noisily, and she felt her eyes drawn towards the bedside table.

First things first.

She had a whole day’s worth of meals to make up for.

Twilight attempted to levitate the jug over, but after wobbling it enough to spill nearly a quarter of its contents over the table, she decided to simply use her hooves. Though clumsy from hunger-induced weakness, they were at least capable of bringing it to her mouth.

When she’d gulped down the last mouthful of water directly from the jug, she turned her attention to the fruit basket. The apples went first. She ravenously crunched into them, dribbling juice out of the corner of her mouth down to her chin, but her growling, clenched stomach prevented her from truly savouring its sweetness. She ate everything but the stalks before moving on to the grapes. Those disappeared quickly enough, too.

At some point, Rainbow or Spike mumbled something in their sleep, which only gave her enough pause to check that they hadn’t woken up and caught her stuffing her face like a parasprite.

Her belly felt a little distended by the time she began working on the oranges, so she was able to slow down and focus on enjoying what little was left. But something about the flavours didn’t feel right. The sweetness just didn’t have the edge, the intensity – it didn’t bring about the fulfilment that it should’ve. It was like tasting everything through a thin layer of cardboard that, when swallowed, filled the stomach but didn’t nourish…

No, think about something else. Need to—I’m a mess. I need to tidy up.

Twilight dropped the last piece of fruit, feeling like an utter slob. Her hooves were sticky with fruit juice and she didn’t need a mirror to tell that her hair was a frightful mess. So she slid off the bed, taking care not to wake Rainbow or Spike with her noise, and headed straight to the washbasin to clean herself up. It shouldn’t have taken more than a minute to do that and brush her mane, but her decidedly unwieldy magic and shaky hooves slowed things down considerably. She felt marginally better after making herself a little more presentable, but her use of magic had awakened that little something on the edge of her consciousness.

She sighed in resignation when it came crawling to the forefront of her mind. Now that her physical hunger had been sated, there was nothing left to distract her from the other hunger clamouring for her attention. Before this, if anypony had told her that it was possible to feel stuffed and ravenous, bloated and hollow at the same time, she would’ve happily informed them that such contradictory sensations occurring simultaneously was next to impossible. About as impossible as a unicorn spontaneously turning into an alicorn.

Oh, why’d I have to make a career out of flying in the face of impossibility?

Groaning softly, Twilight slumped to the floor and curled up into what she was coming to know as her favourite foetal position for personal crises and began stroking her tail in an attempt to soothe herself. It helped, but there was only so much it could do when everything looked so… colourless. Her brain told her that the bad lighting was probably to blame, but she couldn’t shake off the feeling of it, that any enthusiasm and appreciation that she’d ever had for anything and everything was slowly leaking out of her like water from a cracked vessel.

Except for magic.

Her heart raced at the mere thought of it. Raising her head, she cast a glance at the window, with its curtains drawn across like a veil for hidden treasure. She shivered and rose unsteadily, but veered off course when she’d crossed half the distance.

No, no, no. Need a distraction, she thought as she searched frantically. Her eyes then fell on the bookshelf.

Yes!

She picked a volume at random and frowned when she saw the title. Leylines of the World. No, reading about magical hotspots was just about the last thing she wanted to do in her situation. It went cover-down on the nearest table and without so much as a second glance from her. The next book, however, made her smile. It bore scorch marks and charred notches along its spine and lower half, which gave the impression of some cataclysm-scarred relic from her late, beloved library – one of the few that she’d managed to salvage. A hundred memories from happier, simpler times resided within its smoke-stained pages.

Daring Do and the Temple of Loom. Perfect.

Tucking the volume under a wing, she quietly made her way back to bed and settled on the coolest, driest spot she could find. But lying down and brushing against the smooth fabric didn’t quite have the soothing effect she usually enjoyed from slipping into bed; it all felt vaguely bland and numb. Still, she filed that disconcerting sentiment to the back of her mind and began reading.

If there was one thing Daring Do despised, it was being stranded in Prancylvania and living under a rock with nothing but moss and bark to eat…

After a minute, she started skipping pages, picking up speed as each subsequent pause on a random page failed to draw her into the story. Daring Do’s near miss with the cragadile pit only to fall into the pool of brain leeches didn’t make her heart pound or skin crawl like it used to. She felt only the tiniest bit of distress when Daring Do’s mother took a crossbow bolt to the belly in her stead – Twilight knew she’d get better in the last chapter, but still! And when Little Belfry betrayed Daring at the Red Griffon’s Wedding by poisoning her beer and burying her alive in a coffin filled with scorpions, she could hardly muster the outrage such a heinous act deserved.

Twilight snapped the book shut with a sigh and moaned with her face pressed flat into the bed mattress. The story felt contrived. Boring. Not real. Grey. Pointless. Something. She didn’t know.

But she did have a cure, and it was waiting for her beyond the window. She shuddered at the memory of draining the forest’s magic until leaves shrivelled and fell, savouring the thrill of energy coursing through her nervous system…

Twilight shook her head. No. Remember what Luna said. It’s not worth it. You need to fight—no, you may need to flee. Get help.

Was that the reason for Rainbow Dash’s presence in her bedroom? She considered waking her to ask, and had already hovered somewhat unsteadily up alongside the cloud when a pit formed in her stomach. Luna might’ve already told Dash and Spike and everypony else about what she’d done last night. She dropped back onto her hooves more loudly than she liked, but luckily the noise didn’t wake her roommates.

An overcast sky prevented much moonlight from pouring into her room once she’d opened the window, but a few gaps here and there did allow some shafts of light to reach down into Ponyville. And over to the south lay the Everfree Forest…

She grimaced when she failed to suppress a shiver of anticipation. She looked at Spike and Rainbow, still sleeping peacefully, then turned back to the forest.

Come on, you don’t need this…

She placed one hoof on the sill.

That’s far enough. Stop.

Her wings twitched eagerly.

Stop!

She fluttered her wings and hopped onto the sill, balanced and poised to take flight.

“Good evening, Twilight!”

“Yaaagh!”

She jerked backwards to get away from the serpentine figure that had just popped up from below the window, then flailed her hooves and wings when she lost her balance and toppled from her window perch, landing squarely on her back and shedding several feathers in the process.

“Oh. Oops,” said Discord.

“You!” Twilight pointed a hoof at him.

“Me!” Discord grinned.

“What are you—” Twilight began to yell before she quickly lowered her voice to a hiss to avoid waking Rainbow and Spike. “—what are you doing here?”

Discord waved a paw dismissively. “Oh, there’s no need for that, Twilight. I’ve given your buddies sleeping aids,” – he gestured towards them, and she saw that they both had corks stuffed into their ears – “so please feel free to yell as loud as you like. Goodness knows you could do with some stress relief.”

Twilight simply scowled at him. She kept her voice low – it would be just like him to whisk away the corks if she tried to yell – and growled, “I’m really not in the mood for you right now. What do you want?”

“What do I want?” Discord placed a paw on his chest, as if surprised that she’d just accused him of a crime, then grinned and said, “Well, since you’re so curious; I just happened to be in the neighbourhood when I noticed my favourite princess” – he gasped dramatically – “stealing magic from the Everfree Forest. Oh, the ignominy of it all!”

If her mood could be likened to a stoppered flask of acid, Discord had just performed the equivalent of placing it over a steady flame. Twilight righted herself and stomped over to the window. “So, what, are you here to gloat or something? Rub it in my face that I’m no better than anypony else?”

“Actually, it has come to my attention that Luna offered you some companionship and advice last night,” he said. Then, before she could stop him, he flew into the room with all the grace of an eel through water and curled – not too closely – around her. “And since I’m such a good friend, it would be a shame if I failed to do the same, would it not?” He then stroked his beard thoughtfully and added, “Besides, why would I rub that in your face? I thought you wanted to be considered no better than anypony else.”

Oh, for the love of…

Twilight ground her teeth and felt an eye twitch. She could’ve sworn that her mane and coat were getting knots, tangles and split ends just by being in his presence. “First of all, what makes you think I want your advice?” When Discord opened his mouth to respond, she quickly silenced him with a loud snort and turned away, growling, “We could’ve avoided all of this if you had just done your job and stopped Tirek when you had the chance. You kicked us in the back!” She then whirled back around and glared at him. The next words were meant to cut, and she knew deep down that she had no right to use them, but since Discord had poked her first, he’d made himself fair game. “Some reformation that was, huh? What’s your excuse for putting us through all of that?”

Discord’s grin faltered. Seeing his ears lower for a moment almost made her want to take back her words, but his self-assured, smug confidence only took a second to resurface and put things back in perspective. He clearly didn’t regret a thing.

“Oh, Twilight, it hurts to find that you hold me in such low esteem,” he lamented. “And so soon after forgiving me!”

She narrowed her eyes. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t consider that a mistake.”

Discord snapped his fingers, and a large roll of parchment popped into existence before him. Twilight flinched, but when his use of magic in such close proximity failed to exacerbate her cravings, she relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe she just hadn’t developed a taste for chaos magic. Yet.

“What’s this supposed to be?” she asked, turning her attention to the familiar geographical patterns of Equestria’s forests, mountains, rivers and settlements laid out on the parchment.

“It’s a map!” he proclaimed, sweeping his talons across it as if presenting her with a priceless artefact.

Deep breaths, Twilight. Deep breaths.

Rubbing her temple, she groaned and muttered, “I can see that. So what’s so special about it? Aside from those scribbles, I mean.”

“You’re a smart pony. Look closely.”

Twilight did, and at first it looked like Discord had simply scribbled randomly on the map of Equestria with a red crayon. But then she noticed a pattern; the scribbles were all one long, unbroken line. It started just south of Vanhoover, and methodically went from one town to another, zigzagging up and down the Y-axis whilst heading due east across the continent like a lawnmower.

She gasped. “Is this… is this the way you led Tirek through Equestria? You were guiding him to all of the settlements to feed on ponies’ magic!”

Discord nodded. “Mm hmm, you’ve got half of it. Keep looking.”

The pattern was as systematic as Applejack’s ploughing, except that the line deviated from the most efficient pathway several times throughout, and she frowned when she realised that most of those deviations were in the vicinity of Ponyville, Canterlot and the Everfree Forest. The line reached those sites only after it had covered most of Equestria, and Ponyville was the last.

Steering clear of Canterlot made sense; Tirek wouldn’t want to tangle with the princesses until he was strong enough to consume their considerable reserves of magic. But leaving Ponyville out of the picture did not. It would have been far simpler to go through Ponyville than to circumvent it several times over, and it wasn’t as if there was anypony there too powerful for him to feed on at that point. She might be an alicorn, but until the others had given her their magic, Tirek should’ve been powerful enough to finish her off on his own. Especially with Discord by his side.

“Were you trying to leave Fluttershy for last?” she eventually asked. “Is that what you’re trying to show me?”

“Well… you get half marks.” Discord snapped his fingers and dismissed the map, which fluttered out the window like a giant moth.

He then paced back and forth before Twilight with the air of a professor just about to deliver a particularly long lecture. “You already know that I was sent after Tirek because my ability to sense nearly all forms of magic far exceeds anypony else’s. Well, I found him easily enough, and got just a little smidgen worried when I saw him feeding. He’s gotten much better at it since I last saw him, and I did not fancy giving him the chance to practice on me.”

“So he scared you into betraying us? That still isn’t an excuse.”

Discord harrumphed. “Well, if you would let me finish…”

Fine… Twilight sat on her haunches, folded her forelegs and waited.

He conjured up a blackboard, plucked off his left horn and promptly scribbled away when it had morphed into a chalk stick. “Well, here’s where it gets interesting. Point One: My ability to have fun has been severely diminished since my reformation. Tirek offered me the chance to spread a little chaos for old times’ sake in exchange for some help, and I thought it wasn’t too bad a deal. After all, even I am not above a few vices.”

Twilight shook her head. “Your ‘fun’ was hurting other ponies. I still don’t see how you could view that as fair, especially after we all gave you a second chance.”

“Well, you hadn’t exactly been very gracious in your forgiveness,” he retorted. “With the exception of Fluttershy, the whole lot of you were quite ready to turn me back to stone at the drop of a hat.” He then jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards Rainbow’s sleeping form and added with a scowl, “Especially your colourful friend back there. How was I supposed to learn about friendship and forgiveness if the paragons of Harmony themselves – again, with the exception of dear Fluttershy – were all showing me nothing but sugar-coated hostility? I think Tirek was spot-on when he called me a pony-errand-boy.”

He... had a point. As much as she would have preferred taking an anvil to the face than admit it, she had treated him rather poorly. But then she remembered the white-hot agony of Tirek ripping her magic straight out of her horn, and she steeled herself against further remorse.

“That still doesn’t justify your actions,” she growled.

Without warning, Discord and the blackboard burst into a cloud of smoke. She coughed and flapped her wings to clear it, revealing what looked like a draconequus’ equivalent of a foal, with an adorably thick and blunt fang protruding from one side of his mouth. He stood on his stumpy, mismatched hind legs with his short arms folded, and he wore a smug look that practically drawled, “I’m better than you and you know it.” Rainbow Dash or Trixie would probably have killed to have a smirk like that.

Then, before she could comment, Junior Discord pointed a stubby talon at her and said, “Well, right back at ya’. Don’t you know that stealing magic is wrong?”

Oh my stars… Even the snootiest brat in Ponyville Elementary would’ve been put to shame by that whiny, smug, grating voice that six-year-olds used to talk down to their younger siblings.

Twilight flared her wings and towered over him. “What do you know about what I’m going through? I know it’s wrong, but it’s just so…” She groaned and stomped her hoof on the ground. “You have no idea what it’s like!”

“Ah, ah, ah. Stealing is stealing,” Junior Discord explained, waggling a finger. “It doesn’t matter if Twily is cranky-wanky. Only baddies do naughty things, and we all know what happens to baddies, don’t we?”

“I’m not a—why you little…”

Before she could finish, Junior Discord vanished in a puff of smoke and reappeared as a grown-up once more. He still had some residual smugness, though.

“That’s what it’s like hearing you ponies lecturing me on friendship and doing the right thing and all the other lovely things you tend to say,” he explained. “Oh, you little ponies, to presume to tell your elders – let’s face it, compared to my age, you’re all practically foals – how to behave. I’ll admit that it’s not very mature of me, but there are few things in this universe more satisfying than reminding bratty kids of their true place in it.”

Twilight continued frowning. It couldn’t be their fault if Discord believed that nopony could tell him how to behave just because he was older and more powerful than them. But then again, she found it hard to argue the point when only Fluttershy had cared enough to share with him the friendship that they all were supposed to embody.

“Okay, fine. We could’ve done better in that area,” she finally conceded. “What else do you have to say?”

“Point Two: What if I told you that I was on your side all along?”

She gave him an icy stare. “I’d call you a liar.”

He chuckled. “Now, now, let’s not be hasty. I merely pretended to be on his side so I could keep him away from Ponyville and Everfree Forest – to buy you time to get that rainbow power of doom ready to defeat him!”

“Likely story.”

“But it’s true!” he protested. “Besides, I convinced him to go easy on everypony.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Easy?”

“Well, yes. He would’ve been quite happy to drain everypony to the soul, but I got him to leave just a bit of magic so they wouldn’t be totally catatonic. After all, what’s an entertainer like me going to do without an audience? He even warmed up to the idea of having ponies to gloat over – it’s kind of unsatisfying if your victims are unconscious. In return, I promised to show him the fastest routes to the best feeding grounds and to conveniently gather his prey.” Discord winked. “And he didn’t even know that I was keeping him away from the Element Bearers.”

“And he believed you?”

“Insofar as I would be his guide, yes. But as for being best buddies forever and ever?” He chuckled. “Oh no. Not for a second. He knew I was up to something, but he liked my offer, and it was only natural for him to prepare to backstab me when he had what he wanted.”

“Aha!” Twilight pointed a hoof at him in triumph. “You’re bluffing. If you knew he was going to betray you, then how did he manage to do it? Fluttershy told me everything; you were totally caught off guard!”

“Well, of course I would have to act surprised and put myself at his mercy!” He folded his arms and raised an eyebrow as if she’d just said something silly. “Not doing so would have severely reduced the odds of receiving forgiveness from you ponies, which, let me remind you, was instrumental in your acquisition of the rainbow power.”

Twilight blinked, then shook her head in disbelief. “So… all that stuff you said about Scorpan’s amulet being a symbol of friendship – all of that was a lie, too? I can’t believe you—” she suddenly broke off, frowning as she scratched the back of her head. “Wait, that can’t be right. It wouldn’t have become the sixth key if you were lying…”

Discord grinned. “I wasn’t. When you ponies chose to forgive me, even after all I had done, I felt… something.” His expression grew solemn. “I can remember few instances in my life when something moved me,” – he placed a paw on his chest, where his heart was supposed to be – “and the moment you demanded my release when you could have so easily left me to rot, I realised that I had to add one more to that list. There was no need to pretend anymore. Friendship is amongst the greatest, if not the most powerful magic in this part of the universe. The only part left was to see if it was more powerful than Tirek combined with nearly all of the pony magic in Equestria.”

“But, I—you…” Twilight stared at him. “If that’s true – you were risking so much just conducting an experiment. You can’t do that!”

He shrugged. “I’d weighed the odds, and I found them favourable. In case you haven’t noticed – I would be disappointed if you actually haven’t – the universe seems particularly biased in favour of your pony ideals on friendship and the like. And if I lost, oh well. It’s not the worst that has happened to me. Chaos finds a way of surviving in the tiniest cracks of time.”

The most complicated way…

Twilight stared at the floor as she attempted to parse through all that he’d said. As much as she suspected that he was lying about something somewhere, she could also see a part of his convoluted logic in putting friendship to the test. Not that it made his methods any less objectionable…

“Real friends don’t test each other like that, you know,” she murmured.

“Oh, I suppose you’re right.” Discord sighed. “I guess that means I can’t pull that Blue Flu stunt again, can I? That was fun.”

“It would be nice if you didn’t, really.”

He snorted. “Okay, fine. Now that brings me to Point C. I—”

“Wait. The previous one was Point Two, not B,” Twilight interjected.

“Yes, Twilight, I can remember. I’m not senile, you know,” Discord huffed, folding his arms impatiently. “As I was saying – ” he paused, then scratched his chin thoughtfully with one eyebrow raised. “ – wait, what was I saying?”

“Point Three?”

Discord tut-tutted. “Don’t rush an old draconequus, my dear. Goodness, don’t they teach ponies to be patient these days?”

With a scowl, Twilight silently weighed the therapeutic benefits of slapping him with a wing, but decided that he probably wasn’t worth the effort. She settled for rolling her eyes instead.

“Anyway, as I was saying – oh, you’re going to love this one – I made a wager with Celestia that you wouldn’t be able to defeat Tirek if I didn’t mop him up right from the start. Given the fact that she holds you in such high esteem, she just had to show me that you deserved every drop of confidence she had in you.”

“That’s a lie. And—what would she even wager for in the first place? What could possibly be worth putting all of Equestria in danger?”

“In one outcome of the wager, I’d have gotten three twenty-sevenths of Equestria to call my own and do with as I pleased. In the other, I’d have to take her on a date for old times’ sake.” He waggled his eyebrows and added, “Would you like to guess who asked for which?”

Twilight felt an eye twitching. “You know what; I’m not even going to dignify that with a response. Is this all a joke to you? Aren’t you ever sincere about anything?”

“My dear, I am not always sincere.” He smiled. “And that is the most sincere statement you will ever hear from me.”

She groaned and whirled around, trudging away from him. “I… I’m just not in the mood to deal with you right now,” she murmured, slumping to the floor and fighting back tears. “Why can’t anything be simple anymore? I just want a clear, honest answer…”

Instead of the scoff, laugh or some other flippant response she expected from him, Discord remained silent for a distressingly long time. She did not like that. The silence felt like an opening for something far worse than his useless banter. The world seemed to stretch out until it became a vast emptiness in which she could only drift helplessly, doomed to wander eternity lost and alone…

Twilight gasped when she felt something brush against her back, but it turned out to be only the bushy end of Discord’s tail after he’d shifted closer and sat down next to her.

“Point Four: I, the formerly undisputed Master of Chaos, am losing my touch and was trying to hide the fact that loneliness and the desire for companionship had driven me to make a questionable, poorly thought-out alliance with someone whom I thought I could relate to,” he stated matter-of-factly.

His uncharacteristically sombre tone seemed genuine enough, but she still turned and looked up to make sure.

She blinked when she saw that Discord’s expression mirrored Luna’s mournful visage the previous night, and in spite of herself, she felt a little moved by his sudden change in demeanour. That is, until the rational part of her mind reminded her that he could be a pretty good actor when he wanted to. He’d even claimed as much only a few minutes ago.

“That’s sweet, but are you telling the truth?” she asked.

“Does it matter?”

She gave him a pointed look. “You should know this by now.”

“In that case, my answer is yes.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes and held his gaze for a long, long minute, before she finally said, “You know, I honestly can’t tell whether you’re being difficult on purpose.”

A ghost of a smile returned to his face. “Well…”

She huffed and turned away.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for putting you through all of that.”

She shook her head. “You know, at this point, it sounds like you’re more concerned with getting rid of your own guilt than helping me.”

“Yes. I’m sorry for that, too.” He sighed dramatically and lifted his paw and talon, as if he was holding up a particularly distasteful lump. “How do you ponies deal with this, this terribly debilitating emotion? It’s such a joy-killer!”

Twilight snorted. “Knowing what you consider ‘joyful’ activities, I think you could use more of it.”

“Taking jabs at me? Ooh, that was a quick recovery.” Discord whistled.

“What’s the point of all this? You said you came here to help me, but so far we’ve only talked about you.”

“But it’s taken your mind off your problem. Our conversation has really cut down your capacity to mope and feel sorry for yourself, hasn’t it?” He snapped his fingers and produced a small explosion of confetti from somewhere above her head, adding, “I’d say that a good dose of Uncle Discord’s chaos is exactly what’s needed to keep you from torturing yourself.”

Twilight had prepared a sharp reply in anticipation of more of his glibness, but the words stuck in her throat as she processed what he’d said. It was kind of true.

“Hmm. Maybe you’re right,” she murmured.

“Besides, you should wait at least a few centuries before going all-out with your magical feeding frenzy.”

She whipped her head around. “What?”

Discord brought up both paws and leaned back a bit in a gesture of surrender. “All I’m saying is that you should save the forbidden stuff for later when you’ve exhausted all other forms of pleasure or occupation. Skipping ahead to the heavy stuff like what you were doing yesterday will really shorten the time you have before you get bored of your existence.”

Implication that she’d even want to hurt others in a magical feeding frenzy aside, his words had touched upon something that had bothered her ever since her ascension to alicornhood. It sounded as if he knew a thing or two about near-immortality that the other princesses had yet to share with her. “Is a long life really so depressing? What—well, if you don’t mind me asking… what happened to you?”

He chuckled. “Oh, you know, the usual. I got tired of seeing the same things over and over again, so I started, ah, sampling every experience conceivable in an attempt to make my existence just a little bit more tolerable. You name it, I’ve probably tried it. But in the end, nothing really satisfied me, until I realised that my depression came from a lack of purpose, not a lack of finding new things to enjoy.” He suddenly spread his arms wide, and chromatic energy crackled and fizzed like lighting at his fingertips as he proclaimed, “And so I became Discord; Master of Chaos, Bringer of Nonsense, Holder of Phenomenal Cosmic Power and Pronouncer of Something-something the Unpronouncable!”

“So, you made it your life’s goal to torment ponies. Ponies like me and my friends. Like Fluttershy.”

He deflated a little at that. “Well, admittedly not the best idea I’ve ever had, but it did keep me entertained. Even though it brought me into direct conflict with certain beings…”

“Celestia and Luna,” Twilight said.

“Yes, them. Amongst others.” Discord shifted and whispered, “Would you like to know a secret?”

“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me regardless.”

“Oh, so cynical. And at such a young age!” he gasped before cracking a grin. “You make me proud. Well, the secret is that… I do envy Celestia for finding her purpose in something that the universe had little objection to. Don’t get me wrong; chaos is a lot of fun, but the universe isn’t very fond of it, and I did spend several centuries as a statue for overstepping my bounds.” He sighed. “And now that you ponies have managed to convince me that friendship is a little more desirable than I’d first thought, well, you’ve succeeded in making me regret a few decisions I’ve made in the past. I think I now see what Celestia does in you, her little project.”

Twilight rose to all fours, scowling, and poked him in the chest. “Excuse me, I’m not a project. I’m Princess Celestia’s student, and I think she cares for me more than most teachers would.”

“Oh, you misunderstand me, my dear.” Discord waggled a finger. “The two are not mutually exclusive; she cares about you, yes, but there’s no denying that you are also the culmination of centuries of shaping an entire species, nation and culture into alignment with what she believes is the most powerful force in the universe. You are the Princess of Friendship, the first who ascended where so many other apprentices throughout the centuries had failed.”

Twilight blinked. “Okay, I honestly didn’t see that coming.”

Discord chuckled. “Neither did I. Not until recently, at any rate. But my point stands; it’s what we do to avoid going crazy – well, crazier. Everypony needs a hobby, and Celestia’s just happens to be crafting an entire race’s legacy and its mark on the universe when most of you would call it a day after writing a book or revising the magical curriculum. And now that I am privy to the patterns in her grand design, I am most curious to see what path you will take.

“Will you lead ponykind into a new era of peace and harmony, and in doing so become masters of your world in ways that even I could only have dreamed of? Or will you surrender to your deepest, darkest instincts and become a cautionary tale of what happens when alicorns try to shape mortals into beings that they were never meant to become? Oh, this is all so exciting!” He clapped his paws and giggled in a way that would have been expected from a filly, then put an arm around her shoulder and gestured outward with his free paw as if showing her a grand vista. “I can already see it in the history books – The Legend of Twilight: The Last Alicorn.”

Twilight simply stared into space. Yeah. No pressure. How was she supposed to deal with that? Did Celestia really plan to make her into a legend? It made sense, in a convoluted sort of way.

Discord gave back her personal space and pulled thoughtfully at his beard. “You know, come to think of it, I take back what I said about immortality being depressing. It allowed me to meet you, the most interesting pony in a long, long time. I now have a chance to be a part of your story, to shape your path through Time the same way Celestia has.” He smiled, and it seemed like the first truly sincere, guileless one she’d gotten from him. “And I guess I could start small by making sure that you don’t turn into a rampaging magic-eater before you’ve had a chance to truly explore what you can achieve as the first Princess of Friendship. That would be a waste of your potential.”

“I, well…” Twilight bit her lip. “I’m going to need some time to come to terms with all that. Heck, I’m not even sure if I’m glad you told me all that, but I guess you meant well. You—you really do mean to help me, right? This isn’t another one of your schemes.”

“Well. What if I said that helping you is part of my current scheme?”

A feeble chuckle escaped her. “I… I guess that’s more than I can ask for right now.” She reached out to touch his shoulder but hesitated for a moment, wondering what the world had come to.

Oh, what the hay. She hugged him gingerly. “Thanks, Discord.”

“Oh, don’t mention it my dear.” He patted her on the head. “Besides, it’s always nice being near you. You’re adorable when you’re trying to quantify my insanity, and—say,” he scratched his chin thoughtfully, “does this mean that every time you’re about to engage in self-destructive behaviour, I get to prod, poke and annoy you out of it?”

In spite of herself, Twilight couldn’t help smiling at his childlike eagerness. “If you really want to see it that way, fine. Don’t push your luck, though. Moderation is important; there’s only so much of you that I, no, anypony can deal with at a time.”

“Advice for moderation? Coming from the pony who fought Tirek to a standstill?” Discord grinned and chuckled. “But, yes, I suppose I’ll eventually master the more subtle aspects of knowing when enough friendshippy chaos is enough.”

They sat together in silence for a while, watching the clouds roll across the dark sky. A gap would occasionally appear in the clouds, allowing a glimpse of the stars twinkling in the vast sea of dark blue. She smiled when she spotted a shooting star, and for a moment, wondered what it would be like if she ever lived long enough to play a part in shaping the world like Celestia and Luna had. Discord was right – she’d be throwing all of that away if she settled for something as short-sighted and self-serving as feeding her hunger for magic...

“Well then, this has been surprisingly fulfilling, but I really must get going. I still have some community service to render to the good citizens of Equestria, and the populace tends to panic less when they can’t see me in the dark,” Discord eventually announced with a sigh. He snapped his fingers, and a janitor’s uniform popped into existence over his frame. “Good night, Twilight.”

“Bye,” she whispered as he surged through the window, drawing out a gust of air. She heard a few popping noises like bottles being uncorked, then squeaked in surprise when four actual corks whizzed past her and out the window to trail after Discord’s snakelike form. A couple of seconds later, the window snapped shut.

“Gah, it wasn’t me, I swear!”

Twilight yelped and whirled around to find Rainbow Dash sitting bolt upright on her cloud, staring at nothing in particular.

“Ugh, what’s going on?” Spike murmured as he sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

Rainbow blinked and shook her head before finally focusing on Twilight. “Oh, hey Twilight. What’s for breakfast?” She then squinted at the clock and tilted her head. “Ookay. Never mind. What’s going on, Twi? Can’t sleep?”

Twilight shook her head.

“It’s still bothering you, huh? Princess Luna filled us in on what happened.”

Twilight froze. “She—she told you everything?”

Rainbow nodded. “Uh huh. Just us, though. Well, the part about sucking up magic and feeling bad about it and all that. That’s what’s got your mane in a tangle, right?”

“And you’re—” Twilight glanced at Spike and turned back to Rainbow. “You aren’t, um, mad? Or upset? Scared, maybe?”

Rainbow snorted. “Oh come on, Twi. What kind of friends do you think we are? If you guys forgave Spike for turning into a giant, rampaging dragon of greediness and knocking over half of Ponyville, I think we can get over you slipping up and eating a bit of magic.”

“Gee, thanks for pointing that out, Dash,” Spike muttered with his arms folded before turning to Twilight. “But yeah, she’s right. You helped me stop being so greedy; I think we can help you not go all power-crazy like Tirek. I think.”

“But it’s not the same!” she had been about to say, but then thought better of it. Spike wouldn’t appreciate it even if it were true. It probably wouldn’t help to dwell on that part of the problem anyway.

Be a little more positive.

She managed a little smile, even though it didn’t really reach her heart. “I guess you’re right.”

“Heh, when am I not?” Dash smirked, then bounced off her cloud and over to the firefly lamp. She opened the shutters fully, held it in her mouth and proceeded to flit about, lighting all the lamps in the room as she went along. At the same time, she realised that Spike had already straightened out her bed and had begun cleaning up the mess she’d made of the fruit-bowl and jug.

“Hang on, what are you guys doing?” She glanced at the clock. “It’s the middle of the night!”

“Well, if you can’t sleep, I’m not leaving you hanging.”

“Aren’t you working tomorrow?”

Rainbow waved a hoof. “Pssh. I’m taking leave to make sure my reading buddy’s okay. Besides, you don’t really want to stare at the sky all night and hear us snore, do you?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Yeah, and I get to stay up all night for once!” Spike chimed in.

Twilight whipped her head around to give him a scowl. “Hang on. Nopony said anything about staying up all night, Mister. You’re a growing dragon and you need your sleep.”

“Aww, but we’re doing it to take care of you!” he protested.

“It’s going to mess up your sleep pattern!”

“Heh, you mean like yours now?” Dash called out from the other side of the room, with her head buried inside one of the chests where Spike kept his comics and board games.

“But, friendship problems. Day Court. Library. I can’t shirk my duties as princess! I—”

“We can switch to a nightly schedule instead of a daily one, right? You still need your Number One Assistant no matter what time it is,” Spike interjected. “Come on, it’ll be totally cool. You can be like Princess Luna!”

“But—”

“Yeah,” Rainbow added as she deposited several boxes on Twilight’s bed. “Quit worrying and let your buddies entertain you tonight. Once you’re all sorted out, you can go back to being Regular Princess Egghead if you really want to. If work’s the problem, I’m sure one of us can fill in for you in the meantime. It’s not like we don’t know anything about friendship stuff. Or books.”

Twilight bit her lip. Taking a break from everything did seem very appealing at the moment. She couldn’t stomach the thought of learning how to deal with petitions in court or being around ponies outside of her circle of friends once Celestia brought the sun up. And staying up all night with no one to talk to was definitely off the table. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to change things up a bit; it couldn’t be worse than what she’d already done.

She glanced at Spike, who nodded with a huge, eager grin on his face.

“Come on; peer pressure, peer pressure, peer pressure!” Dash chanted gleefully, clapping her hooves each time in emphasis.

Twilight turned her head slightly, just enough to allow her a glimpse of the window at the corner of her eyes. Beyond the glass, out in the darkness lay the Everfree Forest. The one place where she dared satisfy the hunger gnawing away within her.

Will you surrender to your deepest, darkest instincts and become a cautionary tale of what happens when alicorns try to shape mortals into beings that they were never meant to become?

After a while, she turned back and found Rainbow Dash balancing a stack of boxes on each outstretched hoof. “What’ll it be, Twilight – Battle Chariots? Thundercloud? Drakes and Ladders?” Spike had also somehow managed to obtain a bowl of cookies and crackers without her noticing, which he promptly offered to her.

She closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath and released it slowly.

Steady, now. One day at a time. I might fall someday, but it won’t be today.

“Okay, you win,” she replied. “We’ll stay up, just this once.”

“Yes!” Rainbow and Spike cheered in unison.

Twilight’s smile felt genuine this time; seeing their happy enthusiasm dulled the edge of the hunger lurking within, and her heart swelled at the realisation that they were willing to be far better friends than she’d given them credit for. Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad after all.

She sniffled and wiped at her eyes before squaring her shoulders and pointing a hoof at one of the boxes that Dash was holding. “All right, it’s game time!”

Author's Note

Ugh. Writing Discord is hard. Still not entirely satisfied with how it turned out, but I think you guys have waited long enough.

Chapter 5

Dear Princess Celestia,

Remember what I said about my role as a princess before this whole mess began – the part about just smiling and waving? Well, I would like to officially withdraw that complaint and apologise for making it in the first place.

Smiling and waving when I feel like I have every reason to do the opposite has to be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Now that ponies have gotten used to the idea of coming to me for help with their friendship problems and the like, many of them seem to depend on me to project some measure of confidence and happiness when they have trouble finding it in their own lives.

I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to just yell that they have no idea how trivial some of their ‘problems’ are, and I’m really ashamed of that. It makes me wonder how many times you might have been in a similar situation – given your experience, I assume many. I’m sorry if I’ve ever added to your problems when you would’ve wanted nothing more than to just go to sleep and forget about everything.

Sorry, I’m getting off track. The point is this: thank you for helping me to keep things in perspective, especially when it meant showing me and everypony else love, calmness and optimism when doing so would have only hurt you on the inside. I think I have finally realised just how much ‘smiling and waving’ can do for others in their time of need, even if it sometimes means I’m technically only pretending to care. Well, serves me right for wanting to be part of the plan, huh?

Sorry, I didn’t mean that. Helping others as a princess is wonderful, but I think I still need more time to come to terms with the idea that showing distress publicly is kind of a big no-no in general. At least, outside of the direst of circumstances. I guess it’s something I really should have appreciated more when I was just a student. Still, if I had the chance to go back, I don’t think I would. I’ve discovered that some ponies are a lot wiser and more perceptive than anypony’s given them credit for. Lucky Clover, of all ponies, was the first to notice (or dare to point out) that I was faking when he came to me about dealing with his relationship problems. I’m not sure who ended up helping the other more in the end, but it was good to have a truly honest conversation with somepony who knew a thing or two about wanting to do things you know you shouldn’t.

On another note, today’s been a pretty good day. Levitation no longer makes my head spin, and I managed to fly the whole length of Ponyville without crashing. Woo hoo, go me. Also, I only threw up twice this morning, but I think that was mostly because I was too moody to eat a proper breakfast. Maybe I should try stuffing myself to see if it’s really an improvement. I could use the extra weight, anyway; Spike thinks my ribs were showing a couple of days ago. So much for worrying about staying in shape, what with all the good food everypony keeps offering me when they visit.

You know, I think I’m starting to appreciate dark humour. There’s something about poking fun at one’s misfortune that makes it seem less terrible. Similarly, I think I’m starting to appreciate profanity too. It’s sometimes quite effective at taking the edge off of my agony when I’m trying to chuck my entire digestive tract into the toilet. Luna gave me a list of situation-appropriate expletives last week. She says it’s from her guards, but somehow I don’t think terms like ‘spleeny codpiece’ and ‘loathsome toad’ are part of a modern vocabulary. Some samples event went as far as blaspheming the private parts of… certain individuals. I do have to be careful not to let any of those slip when I’m having one of my upchucking episodes around Spike, though.

I think the part I dislike most about this whole thing is that there’s no clearly defined journey that I could embark on to cure myself. No quest, no cure, no end. Just… perseverance. Luna tells me that she barely has to give much thought to her experience these days, but it’s hard for me to imagine reaching that point myself. You were right about relying on friends; I don’t know what I would’ve done without them around. Even Discord has been sort of helpful, even if it sometimes means taking on a mild headache to help me get a hold of myself.

Well, that’s it for now, I suppose. I wish I had more words, but going nineteen days without a magical infusion is wreaking havoc with my mental stamina. I can barely squeeze in five hours of study daily, nowadays. I know; I can’t believe it either.

Still your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle

* * * * *

A sigh of relief escaped her as she levitated the quill back into place. Her horn-writing had gotten rather wobbly at the last couple of paragraphs, but she considered it a vast improvement over her attempt the previous day. Although he’d tried to hide it, Spike clearly hadn’t been too happy about cleaning up all that spilt ink.

After rolling up the scroll and sealing it with wax, she tucked it under a wing and trotted out of her study. A short walk later, she found Spike in his ‘nest’ of pillows atop his bed, lying on his back as he read from the comic book held in his feet.

“Spike, I need you to send a letter to Princess Celestia for me, please,” she said.

“At once, Your Highness,” he instantly replied with a salute. “My flame is ever at your service!”

Twilight chuckled as he hopped off the bed and jogged to her side. “Which volume are you on?” She recognised the austere tone of the Knightmare.

“Seven. The one where she fights the reincarnation of King Sombra himself. I’m only halfway through and she’s already kicking flank!” he gushed as he swung an invisible sword at imaginary foes. After delivering what looked like a finishing blow, he grinned sheepishly and said, “Oh, umm, you wanted a letter. Gotcha. Let me go get the—”

“No need for that.” Twilight revealed the scroll and passed it to him. “It’s all good to go.”

“Oh, you already wrote it. You could’ve told me earlier, you know.”

She smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks, but I need the practice. My writing’s only going to get worse if I let you do all the heavy lifting.”

“Oh, okay.”

A brief flare, and they soon saw a streak of green flame swirling out the bedroom window.

Spike then clasped his hands together. “So, anything else you need?”

She shook her head and yawned. “Nope. In fact, I think—”

“You sure you don’t need anything? A book from the library? Something to eat? I could make you a snack.”

You’re being awfully helpful... Too helpful.

Twilight frowned and attempted to dissect his innocent smile, but he’d apparently gotten as good as she had with poker faces in the past weeks of dealing with ponies eager to curry favour with the newest princess. She glanced at the clock – and grinned when she noticed the time.

“Oh, I see what this is all about. It’s bedtime, isn’t it?”

He shifted his gaze. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Twilight. I’m only offering my services to the central figure of authority in my life.”

Fancy diction for a little dragon. She raised an eyebrow. “Discord has been teaching you how to use words, hasn’t he?”

“Umm, maybe.”

“Well…” Twilight made a show of mulling it over before finally giving him a little nod. “Okay, fine, you can read for a while longer. But I expect to find you properly asleep by the time I get back.”

He tilted his head. “When will that be?”

“Likely past your extended bedtime.”

Spike tensed a little. “Twilight, where are you going?”

She sighed inwardly as their daily ritual took hold. “I’m going out for a walk, maybe a bite to eat if I get hungry. I feel like a little exercise would do me good; I’m getting a little restless being all cooped up in the castle. I’m… I’m not going to steal any magic.”

Rebellious thoughts sank their claws into her heart as she made that declaration. Nopony would be the wiser if she really wanted to sample some magic. It wasn’t as if anypony could really stop her, either…

“Promise?” Spike asked.

Twilight forced herself to look him squarely in the eyes and said, “I promise.”

“Promise what?”

She took a deep breath and slowly released it as she mentally turned away from those rebellious notions. “I promise not to snitch any magic. I mean it.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” he said.

“Yeah. I know.”

Twilight plodded over to the window and shivered when a chilly autumn breeze blew in. A quick hop and a couple of wingbeats later, she had the cool night air caressing her wings as she descended to the street. It sure beat trotting out the door.

Huh. No wonder Rainbow seldom bothers with them.

A few ponies still went about their business in the streets; a couple waved at her as she trotted by. She smiled back but paid them little attention beyond that. The slightly humid air and overcast sky carried the promise of rain, which she openly welcomed as a change from the comfort of her crystalline castle. There were times when she needed its conveniences to recover from the more arduous stages of her affliction, but the outdoors often proved far better at crowding out the emptiness that always lurked at the edge of her consciousness.

It frequently seeped into her mind like a miasmic cloud, lulling her into a pit of despair of which only magic could pull her out.

She shook her head. No, I made a promise.

Well aware of the usual repertoire of tricks that she could fall prey to, Twilight made sure to keep her gaze firmly away from the direction of Everfree as she broke into a canter.

She galloped in a circular route through Ponyville, shifting course to one that led out of town when she realised that her noisy clip-clopping might disturb others. Prior to her ascension, twenty minutes of that would’ve reduced her to a huffing, exhausted heap on the ground, but her alicorn physique enabled her to persevere for nearly quadruple that time on a good day. Or night.

A slightly early Running of the Leaves wouldn’t hurt.

She took the north-western road out of town, skirting the Apple family’s property before heading directly for the woods. The canopy would be nearly every shade of brown, gold, orange and red by now, but they all looked more or less the same at night. Still, although she couldn’t enjoy the colours, the rustling they made as she galloped past the trees helped to calm her mind. Her speed and outspread wings created enough turbulence to drag the dried foliage in her wake, and she imagined herself a whirlwind ripping along the path, leaving behind all her cares and fears.

Somewhere along the way, she noted that the heavy clouds had begun releasing their loads of moisture. She welcomed the stimulation as raindrops pelted her coat, even the coldness that followed if they were large enough to seep in and wet her skin.

Anatomy had always occupied one of the lower rungs on the hierarchy of topics important to her, but it had gone up quite a few notches in the past couple of weeks as she dug into research on how her body was supposed to function – with and without her unusual condition. Twilight ticked off every symptom of fatigue on her mental checklist as she went farther and farther from Ponyville. Accelerated heart rate. Sweating. Heavy breathing. Burning muscles. Reduced coordination. And later on, pain. Rainbow Dash and Applejack had assured her that a little pain was good, though. It meant that she was building muscles. But more importantly, she could lose herself in the exhilaration of going so fast that the woods had dissolved into a blur of earth, leaves and tree trunks, with the wind roaring in her ears.

Twilight adjusted her gait and pace as needed, even allowing her wings to bear some of her weight every now and then so that no muscle was spared exertion. She ran and ran until the burning sensation had spread to every inch of muscle she could perceive, and she eventually came to a halt atop a grassy knoll, slick with rain and sweat. She collapsed and landed heavily enough to leave an indentation on the soft earth, savouring the sweet scent of grass even as she fought for breath.

Slight wheeze. Overdid it a little. Oops.

She squeezed her eyes shut as pain and fatigue caught up with her and clamped down on her entire body. Even something as simple as curling up proved to be beyond her cramping muscles. She simply had to lie flat on the ground and bear it.

Slowly, the pain ebbed away like receding heat on a lump of molten slag. She eventually recovered sufficiently to sit up and sigh in relief. It was still raining, and the sight of her wet coat actually giving off steam alerted her to the fact that she desperately needed a drink. Luckily, she knew a minor spell that enabled her to gather the water in her surroundings and fuse them together. After adjusting the magical field to avoid taking in her sweat, she slurped up the resulting globe of water. Once sated, she flopped onto her back and stared at the clouds as they emptied themselves onto the world.

Her heartbeat became a dull pounding in her ears as she closed her eyes and focused on everything else. The damp earth beneath her that was slowly warming up. The pattering of rain on her belly. The mild, omnipresent ache of exertion. Matted mane and coat. Chilled skin. Hot breath. Mild buzz in the horn from her recent spell. Euphoria from strenuous exercise. The rustling of trees in the wind…

No void to drag her down.

I’m alive.

No amount of magic in the world could beat that.

“I’m alive,” she said out loud, allowing herself a little smile when only the tiniest echo of her cravings tried to contradict her.

Day Nineteen, one less day to worry about.

She shivered. Now that the effects of adrenaline had worn off, she could feel the chill creeping into her bones.

Darn. I didn’t come out here just to catch a cold.

Twilight took a moment to weigh the benefits of teleporting straight home against walking, and concluded that the risk of a magically-induced migraine was worth the benefit of sparing herself over an hour of trotting in order to sink into a heavenly tub of warm water. Also, the sooner she got out of the rain, the better.

She closed her eyes and visualised the layout of the castle, reviewed the coordinates a couple of times and then tentatively powered up the teleportation sequence, ready to abort it at the first sign of trouble. A jarring hum in her skull made her a little queasy, but she found it no worse than the usual bouts and ploughed on until the spell had reached critical mass.

The world collapsed with the sound of rushing wind. Twilight endured several seconds of sensory deprivation before she popped back into real space and landed back-first onto a cold, hard surface. It wouldn’t have been so bad if her folded wings hadn’t been between her and the crystal flooring.

Ouch.

Next, she noticed that she had teleported to somewhere other than her bathroom. She’d made it to one of the hallways instead.

Slight miscalculation. Whoops.

Also, she probably should’ve gotten onto all fours before teleporting, because the hallway currently had a princess lying belly-up on the floor, dripping water all over the place with four muddy hooves clearly on display for all to see. Luckily, as far as she could tell, nopony had witnessed her undignified arrival.

She could just imagine a herald announcing, “Behold, the Princess of Friendship!” as a thousand ponies gaped at the spectacle.

Twilight adjusted for the spatial discrepancy and teleported again, silently apologising to the poor pony who would have to mop up the vaguely princess-shaped splatter of water and residual dirt in the morning.

Thankfully, her second attempt landed her directly in the bathtub.

* * * * *

After a warm and invigorating bath, Twilight found Spike snoring in bed and gently shut the door when she realised that she had no inclination to sleep at all. With the clock showing only eleven, she had plenty of time to herself. Too much, in fact, given that she didn’t feel like reading or studying.

What to do, what to do…

She eventually settled on retrieving a mop from one of the supplies closets and guiltily went straight for the crime scene of her initial teleport with a bucket of water in tow. Cleaning it up took a little more time than she’d expected, but far less than she’d hoped for. She needed something else to do.

“Ugh,” she groaned quietly.

It was amazing how time could multiply tenfold when her usual favourite activities were off the table. There was just so much of it all of a sudden.

As she pondered on the problem of finding something else to occupy her mind, she found herself twirling the rapidly drying mop in her magical grip. It brought a smile to her face as she recalled Spike imitating his favourite comic book heroes, and on a whim, she began swinging it around like a sword or spear.

How did Shining do it again?

She vaguely remembered the day he came home all excited about showing Mom and Dad his newly acquired proficiency with a spear. She tried emulating his moves, and then…

Inspiration. Clarity. Anticipation.

Is this the feeling that Rarity refers to when she has one of those moments?

Until she got better, it looked like studying would have to remain a less-than-appealing option in coping with her condition. Physical activity like her impromptu marathon proved an effective alternative, so maybe it was time to expand on that a little. She’d always been an advocate of the magic of learning, so it would certainly be a welcome experience.

She already knew the message she would get Spike to send as soon as he was able.

Dear Princess Luna, I accept your offer.

Chapter 6

Although Luna had received Twilight’s acceptance with much enthusiasm, they could not begin any lessons without extensive planning first. Her response letter had detailed a whole list of things that needed to be taken care of, and the most important ones pertained to her health and how much time she was willing to commit to the learning process.

At the very least, Luna expected her to stay in Canterlot for several days at a time for their sessions, and she still would have to practice on her own even when in Ponyville. Other ponies would have to cover for her while she was away.

Twilight had balked and stalled for a couple of days at the prospect of dedicating so much time to it, but eventually sent back a letter with her agreement when she reached the conclusion that it probably wouldn’t be any worse than what she’d already gone through.

Still, she did have to sort things out with the palace staff and rearrange her scheduled duties to accommodate the necessary changes. Luna had advised her to ensure that the new system worked before beginning their sessions, and so that left her about a week or so before she would have to report to Canterlot.

In the meantime, she’d have to find something else to occupy her time with. She’d gotten very used to running – and to a lesser extent, flying – already, so her exercise routine didn’t quite take the edge off her hunger for magic the way it used to…

* * * * *

“Hey, Twilight. You awake yet?”

She groaned into the pillow and pulled the covers more tightly over herself. The room hadn’t stopped spinning since the first rays of sun had entered through the window. Things were not shaping up to be a good day.

“Umm, Twi?” She felt him patting her gently on the back.

“What time is it?”

“It’s almost noon, actually.”

“Ugh, I’m terrible,” she moaned.

“Huh?”

Twilight threw the covers off and winced when the light assaulted her eyes. “I’ve not been this tardy for a while. I can’t—no, that’s not an excuse.” She sat up abruptly and nearly toppled over the edge when a wave of dizziness smothered her.

“Hey, what’s gotten into you? Take it easy,” Spike soothed. “There’ll be ups and downs, remember? We already talked about this. Princess Celestia said it’s okay if you’re not all raring to go at sunrise every single day. Don’t let it get you down in the dumps.”

She silently ground her teeth. I hear something along those lines. Every. Single. Day. Do you seriously think I can forget something like that?

“Don’t lecture me!” she snapped, and regretted her words almost instantly when Spike backed away a couple of steps, eyes wide. No, he did not deserve to be stung like that. Kneading her forehead, she sighed said, “I’m sorry. That was messed up. I’m messed up.”

He made a rather quick recovery, though, and accepted her apology with a grin. “Aww, don’t worry about that, Twi. I’ve got thick skin that’s getting thicker every day. You just concentrate on getting better.”

Twilight snorted. “Yeah. I’ll just be right here, getting better. Easy-peasy.”

“No, you’ll be getting better out there,” Spike corrected her as he gestured towards the door in emphasis. Then, a smirk formed on his face. “Besides, I have a totally awesome secret that’ll be sure to cheer you up in no time.”

About three seconds’ worth of silence passed between them as Twilight waited somewhat doubtfully for the big scoop, before she eventually said, “So… tell me, then?”

He waggled a claw at her. “Nuh uh. Not until you get downstairs and eat a healthy breakfast.” He glanced at the clock. “Err, brunch. You get the idea.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Really? You’re actually trying to make me feel better by keeping the thing you say will make me better away from me?”

Spike shrugged. “Food will be good for you, too. Might as well make it a two-for-one while I’m at it.”

“Who taught you how to drive a hard bargain?”

His grin widened. “Well, if you really want to know, I guess that’s another deal we could work out…”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “No thanks. I’m getting up.”

“Woohoo! I’ll go get the table ready!”

After Spike had dashed out of earshot, she sighed and slowly crawled out of bed. Wakefulness had done nothing for her dizziness – if anything, standing up only made it worse.

So, it’s going to be one of those days…

At times, she wondered how Luna had managed to pull herself out of a funk like this. Unlike her elder, she did not have the benefit several undisclosed centuries’ worth of experience to ignore or endure the emptiness in her being, just waiting for the perfect moment to make her feel worthless. Close proximity to sources of magic didn’t always trigger her symptoms, but on the occasions that they did…

She shuddered at the memory of taking in the ‘scent’ of ambient magic. Thankfully, her friends had been on hoof during said episodes, and they were usually quick to steer her away from trouble, sometimes with a little force if she got recalcitrant. Still, they couldn’t always prevent her from making a scene in public.

A dry chuckle escaped her when she remembered some of the rumours going around. Apparently, some had mistaken her involuntary displays of hunger for magic as lust, of all things. Poor Noteworthy. He didn’t deserve all that gossip for being right next to Twilight when she had an incident in the market, but she couldn’t bring herself to correct everypony that the real reason she’d been sniffing the air with an expression that bordered on Pinkie-Pie-thinking-of-chocolate-rain was due to somepony casting an unusually complex spell nearby – it had probably been that peddler of magical trinkets a couple of carts away. Of course, it hadn’t helped that Noteworthy had been positioned more or less exactly on the line between her and that source of magic, leading ponies to think that she’d been staring and breathing heavily, lustfully, at the sight of him.

Even though she’d probably outlast her condition, with the way things were going, she couldn’t say the same for her reputation…

Daily quota of self-pity: check. Get a move on, Twilight.

Thankfully, the room had stopped spinning like the world’s slowest carousel once she’d caught up on her personal hygiene for the day. She slowly made her way downstairs to the dining hall, shivering from the morning chill that still lingered in the air. Spike had already finished setting up their little brunch table in the corner closest to the crackling fireplace.

“So, what’ll it be? We got pancakes, baked grass, fresh strawberries, banana muffins, daisy sandwiches and orange juice,” he said as she took her seat, pointing to each dish with the spatula in his grip.

“That’s an awful lot of food for the two of us,” she commented.

“They’ll keep until dinner if you still feel like having them.” He waved the spatula nonchalantly and flipped a couple of pancakes onto his plate. “Want some?”

She nodded, even though her stomach didn’t feel up to the task. “Please.”

Eating felt more like an assault on her digestive system than anything, but she somehow managed to keep her food down. Once she had a pancake and several strawberries in her belly, she finally asked, “So, what’s this big secret you’ve been holding hostage?”

“Finish your food, first.”

Twilight folded her forelegs. “I’m full.”

Spike looked up from his plate of decimated pancakes and gave her a penetrating look. “Well,” he said, after taking stock of what she’d consumed, “you should at least finish your orange juice. A growing alicorn needs her nourishment.”

Twilight had been about to call him out for such a ridiculous statement when she realised that he’d been imitating her, and from the looks of it, he was enjoying their reversed roles immensely. She grinned in spite of herself and obediently took her orange juice. “Okay, you win, mom.”

“And don’t you forget it!” he said, waving the spatula at her the same way their mother would. That got another giggle out of her.

* * * * *

She patiently waited through the task of cleaning up once they were done with their meal, but Spike still saw fit to withhold his little secret from her. Instead, he’d simply instructed her to follow him as he led her out the palace, towards the centre of Ponyville.

Her gait had steadied out over the last fifty paces, and her stomach had more or less sorted itself out. Aside from fluctuating between mild lethargy and an intermittent need for something more stimulating than plain trotting, she felt pretty close to normal. All of which freed enough of her concentration to feel a little curious about Spike’s efforts to string her along with his secret.

“So, what exactly has you so excited today?” she asked. “You’ve never held onto a secret for so long after revealing the fact that you have one.”

“Heh. I’d tell you, but I think it’s something you have to see for yourself,” he replied without looking back. “Trust me; it’ll make your day!”

Twilight rolled her eyes but continued to trot obediently. She’d find out soon enough. For the time being, she focused on enjoying the simple walk in the warmth of the sun. She did get a few pings of magic as they went through town, but they fortunately were minor ones and elicited little more than some wishful thinking on her part.

The stallions proved to be another matter, though. A couple of them turned red pretended to go about their business when she caught them looking at her, and any mares in the vicinity soon began whispering to one another.

Rumours still making their rounds, I see.

“And here we are!” Spike finally announced.

Twilight blinked. She’d been concentrating so hard on ignoring everypony in their vicinity that she’d not noticed their destination. The hulking ruin of Golden Oaks Library stood before them, its bark blackened by the fire that had ravaged through its interior. The outward-pointing shards and splinters along the rim of the shattered trunk had been dulled by weather, but they still made the once-great tree resemble the remains of an exploded firecracker.

“Why are we here?” she eventually asked.

Instead of answering, Spike confidently strode towards the door and, before she could warn him that the charred thing might come off its hinges, pushed it open with little effort. It did produce a rather ominous creak, but it held together well enough instead of falling apart like she’d expected.

She followed him in wordlessly. The place had a lingering scent of ash about it, and their entry had stirred up little clouds of particles that danced and swirled in the shafts of light poking through splits and cracks in the tree’s outer wall. Bookshelves still lined the interior, now devoid of literature save for the scraps of blackened paper and bindings that hadn’t been completely devoured by the flames.

The floor felt grainy and dry beneath her hooves as she wandered aimlessly with her eyes turned skyward. She felt like an animal trapped in a dormant volcano as the memory of her last moments in the library swept her away.

“Hey—careful!” Spike cried out.

Twilight felt him straining against her as the world tilted, but she managed to snap out of it just in time before toppling onto him.

“Sorry. Got a little light-headed,” she mumbled as she re-oriented herself and tried to push the offending memory out of her mind. “So, what’re we looking for?”

He smiled and pointed up. “Thunderlane spotted it just this morning. He thought we might be interested.”

She followed his direction and squinted against the sunlight, then felt her rising query stick in her throat when she saw green. Her wings seemed to snap open of their own accord, and she crouched low and said to Spike, “Hop on.”

He did so, and after a slightly wobbly take-off, she beat her wings and rose up to a section of outer wall with a U-shaped gap in it that originally housed a window on the second level – their old living quarters. And up there, close to the top of the wall, was a little reddish-green stalk with several buds at its tip and two tiny leaves near its base.

It’s alive!

She hovered closer and delicately scraped at the area around the base of the stalk, then gasped when the charred crust fell away to reveal a streak of healthy wood that stretched further down until a ruined bookshelf obscured the rest of it.

“I can’t believe it; the tree’s still alive!” She felt positively giddy at the possibility of restoring Golden Oaks Library to its former glory. It would certainly take time, but what was that to an alicorn and dragon? “Oh, Spike, this is amazing. I can’t believe we missed this!”

“Well, everypony was pretty busy with clean-up and all the other stuff going on at the time,” he mused, “but, yeah, it’s awesome! You could get your old room back!”

“It’ll be your room, too,” she corrected.

“Huh. Not sure if I’ll still fit by the time it grows back.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t thought of that.

Spike must’ve noticed the dip in her enthusiasm. He patted her reassuringly and said, “Don’t worry about it, Twi. Who knows? The tree might grow faster than normal. And even if I get too big for the old tree, we’ve still got the crystally one over there.”

“I suppose…”

“Besides, I don’t want anything to get you down today. I did say that this’ll make you feel better, right?”

She matched his smirk with a smile of her own. “Yeah, you’re right. Thanks for showing me.”

A minute or two passed in silence as they hovered in place, admiring the beauty of a simple green shoot. Then, an idea occurred to her.

“Come on; let’s measure the extent of living tissue. We’ll get some idea of what it might look like once the dead wood rots away.” She summoned a quill and notebook as she spoke, which she then passed to Spike.

The growth proved limited to just that shoot and the narrow streak of living wood that it sprouted from, but they did find that it extended all the way down to the basement. The rudimentary lab had mostly survived the tree’s destruction by virtue of being underground, save for the more delicate apparatuses. Anything salvageable had been removed long since.

“Careful,” she said when some glass cracked underhoof.

One side of the wall had split open – probably from the pressure exerted by the blast – and allowed a mound of dirt to slide in. Thankfully, the living portion of the tree was safely on the other side of the basement, if a little small compared to the vast expanse of dead wood everywhere else. Still, she counted it as better than nothing. She couldn’t wait to see what new shape the mighty oak would take when it regrew.

They spent the better part of an hour taking measurements and sampling bits of wood and soil, and by the time they ascended back into the sunlight, they were both fit to give Rarity a panic attack for all the dirt and grime they were covered in. Not that Twilight cared. Spike whistled a tune as they trotted back home, and for once she actually joined in. She couldn’t remember the last time she just felt so… content.

It will do.

In the span of a few days, Twilight came up with a schedule and made time for excursions to the tree at least once every week. She read up on several volumes’ worth of material on the subject of botany and plant care, and even went so far as to acquire things like fertilisers and gardening tools in preparation to take care of the tree. Although it had proven resilient simply by surviving Tirek’s destructive magic, a host of other problems could finish what he’d started. She and Spike had to keep an eye out for certain types of fungi and wood borers, for instance. They needed to be vigilant.

Spike was right. The tree did provide her with something new to look forward to in life. She would often find herself looking forward to her next routine, even in the midst of her studies and time spent with her friends. A little troubling that the tree was growing more central to her mental stability like that, but she counted her blessings as they came, even if it did give her second thoughts about her commitment to combat training. By the time she and everypony else had found a suitable schedule to work around, three weeks had passed since she’d accepted Luna’s offer.

* * * * *

Luna’s Night Guards had a garrison of their own, and judging by appearances, it probably hadn’t seen much use until her return from banishment. If it weren’t for the dark blue and purple banners, ponies could probably be forgiven for mistaking it as a walled-off section of some noble’s keep that had fallen into disuse because its darker stonework didn’t fit in with the rest of Canterlot’s brighter aesthetics. Twilight found it kind of fitting for Luna’s guards; they had that noble-but-still-slightly-creepy theme down pat.

She gazed up at the stone arch looming over her and removed her hood, allowing the bat-pony guards on either side to get a good look at her face in the fading sunlight. One of them nodded and whistled sharply, and the massive oaken doors to the garrison slowly creaked open.

She mumbled a word of thanks and trotted in. Once the doors had shut, she cast the night vision spell that Luna had taught her in advance. Celestia would be lowering the sun any minute, after which there wouldn’t be much in the way of normal lighting for most ponies to see by in the training yard. All of Luna’s guards had excellent night vision – enchanted or gifted – and could see clearly even in the darkest night, so she’d opted to follow suit instead of troubling everypony with regular lamps.

“Ah, there you are!”

Luna came trotting towards her from what looked like the armoury, where she’d apparently been in conversation with the quartermaster. She couldn’t remember the last time Luna had been so enthusiastic about something, except maybe Nightmare Night. Twilight just hoped she could live up to her expectations.

“It has been a while. How have you been?” asked Luna.

Twilight shrugged. “The usual. I’m almost normal on some days, but those get balanced out by the crazy headaches every now and then. Tuesday was pretty bad; I couldn’t even read.”

“What about now? Are you cold?” Luna gestured towards Twilight’s garb with a worried frown.

She shook her head. “Actually, I just didn’t want ponies to see me coming here. I’ve got enough rumours floating around in Ponyville already; I don’t need more popping up around Canterlot.”

“Oh.” Luna tilted her head slightly. “Tis only a concern if you are keeping this a secret. Why have you done so?”

She felt herself redden. “I feel like a colt playing soldier. I don’t know—I’d like to see if this can work out before letting everypony know. I guess it’s a little silly, but that’s how I feel about this right now. Far as everypony is concerned, I’m just here on official business.”

“Hmm.” Luna’s brow furrowed. “Well, so long as I can account for your time spent here should questions arise, I suppose there is no harm in that. Now, are you ready to begin?”

Twilight nodded.

“Then take that cloak off. We shall have no need for it this evening, and I can guarantee the silence of the ponies who might see you here.”

After taking a moment to set aside her garment, she went after Luna.

“Now, most unicorns prefer magic as their first and most powerful defence. It goes twofold for you, since you are the Element of Magic. However, the horn is a weak point, and there may be instances when magic is neither an option nor a weapon that can take your enemy by surprise,” said Luna as she led Twilight to the training yard proper.

“Do you expect me to make more enemies like Tirek?” asked Twilight. She found it difficult to imagine that happening again.

Luna shrugged. “Your life will be long; who knows what may happen between now and its end? But that’s not our concern for today. You are already accomplished and learned in heart and mind – it is time to extend that discipline to body as well – for mastery over yourself, if not opponents who might threaten to harm you and what you hold dear.”

Twilight nodded. She could get along with that. She’d already come to appreciate exercise to an extent that she might have scoffed at less than two years ago. At the very least, she hoped it would help to fill the void until she had her condition firmly under control, and maybe put her troubled dreams to rest while she was at it. Sometimes, she still had nightmares of struggling against foes seen and unseen, and most of the time they bore the face of Tirek himself.

Luna brought her to a stop in front of what she assumed was a row of training dummies. Twilight scrutinised the nearest one; it consisted of a log planted firmly into the ground and had several thick, wooden rods protruding from its length at various angles.

“Well then, let us begin. Strike it.”

Twilight looked at her and then back to the dummy.

“Which part?”

“Any.”

Well, okay…

She turned around and shifted her balance in preparation to buck at the dummy, but hesitated when she realised that the protruding rods were a little too long for her taste. She’d probably get jabbed by one of them if she tried to hit the central log with her hind hooves. Thinking that she might’ve already failed some sort of test, she turned to Luna and found her sporting an amused smile.

“Bucking as the first move tends to be slow and predictable. Try something else,” she said.

Okay, here goes.

She struck the central pole with one of her front hooves instead. The wood felt very hard and produced hardly any noise – almost as if she’d struck stone instead.

“Good,” said Luna as she moved over to an identical training dummy. “Now, try this.” She raised a foreleg in a sweeping motion, slow and exaggerated for her benefit, and made contact with one of the protruding rods with the side of her foreleg instead of the hoof’s underside.

Twilight imitated her.

“Well done. Now put some force behind it.” So saying, Luna executed a much quicker version of the move and produced a solid thwack when she hit one of the rods.

Twilight felt her eyes widen. That was awfully loud. If the dummies were identical in material, it probably would’ve taken a full hind-legged buck to produce the same amount of noise from such heavy wood, and Luna had done it with her foreleg! Not to mention the agony that she should be feeling from the perpendicular force to her cannon bone…

Biting her lip, Twilight emulated the move on her own dummy.

Luna nodded in approval. “Even in your weakened state, you are likely still stronger than most of your friends, excepting Rainbow Dash and Applejack, though I am not certain of the pink one. Try again; use more of that strength.”

Twilight obeyed, but failed to extract any satisfying sound from the wood.

“Harder. Strike like you mean it.”

Twilight grimaced and struck with as much force as she dared, which got a muted knock out of the wood. A jolt of pain shot through her foreleg, but she managed to suppress her cry.

This time, Luna had a rather uncharacteristic smirk on her face. “Harder still, if you please. It’s enchanted ironwood; you need not fear breaking it.”

It's not the dummy I’m afraid of breaking, Twilight muttered in her mind, but she still obeyed. She imagined Tirek’s face on the dummy, taunting her, and struck out once more.

That finally produced a loud thwack similar to Luna’s, except that it came accompanied by a cry of pain. “Ow!”

“Oh, much better,” Luna exclaimed, thumping her hooves on the ground in applause. “Again!”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Twilight accused as she rubbed her throbbing foreleg.

“It is tradition,” Luna retorted with a chuckle. “My instructor took great pleasure in seeing a princess laid low in his training yard. But never mind—this should not be such a trying task for you. I seem to recall your success at pounding a rock into the ground some time back.”

It took her a moment to recall exactly what she was talking about. Then as the memory of that night in the Everfree came rushing back, she said, “I was mad and riding on a magic-induced euphoria at that time. I should probably mention that my leg hurt for days after that.”

“Yes, that is to be expected. Now, let us carry on; you must become acquainted with pain.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, Twilight; pain cannot be a stranger to you. Hoof to hoof combat will involve more than learning how to strike; it also involves learning how to endure pain and minimise injury from strikes you cannot evade or blows you must take in somepony’s stead.”

“That seems a little unnecessary when I can just throw up a barrier.” She cast a sideways glance at one of the guards at the far side of the training yard and added, “And don’t we have armour for that as well?”

Luna shook her head. “You should not be reliant on cumbersome equipment for self-defence. And as I’ve mentioned before, magic may not always be available to you; there may be times when you will wish to conserve your energy. Besides, you took on this challenge to hone your body, not your mind.”

“Sorry. I think I’m just making excuses,” Twilight murmured.

That brought back Luna’s grin. “Oh, believe me; you will wish to save those excuses for later. Come, let us partake in fun!” So saying, she stretched out a wing and slammed the leading edge into the dummy.

If Twilight hadn’t seen it for herself, she would’ve sworn that the sound could only have been made by an axe or hammer. She gulped and stared at her own dummy in silence, as if she could somehow convince it to become softer that way.

“You will learn that outside of a few easily avoidable attacks like bucking, striking your opponent in an unexpected manner can hurt you, too. The difference is in whether it will actually cause damage. You will wish to take the hit where there is a little more flesh to absorb the force instead of taking it directly to the bone and risking a fracture,” Luna suggested with an air of a teacher pointing out how a saw works. “With the right techniques, our wings can be almost as powerful as our legs when striking a foe’s vulnerable point.”

“Noted.” Twilight took a moment to gather her courage, then struck out with a wing, putting as much force behind the blow as she could. Her eyes closed involuntarily at the last second, but to her surprise, she did not feel any pain. In fact, she’d felt nothing…

She opened her eyes, and realised that her wing had stopped, trembling, just an inch away from the wood.

“Well, at least you have a strong sense of self-preservation,” Luna noted with a chuckle.

* * * * *

Luna had been firm and without mercy. She’d made her try again and again until she actually hit the stupid dummy with her wings. And when she’d finally made contact, Luna had made her repeat it over and over until she could hit it with enough power to make the dummy shake. Never mind that her wings felt bruised and swollen after that. And then she’d made her perform similar feats with just about every other limb. Foreleg punches and blocks, hind legged sweeps and kicks, back-winged slaps…

At some point she was convinced that the dummy was the one getting training in beating up an alicorn.

Several hours later, Twilight had somehow managed to stumble back into her guest room. She extricated herself from her sweaty cloak, then clambered onto the bed without even bothering with a much-needed shower. Her muscles would probably give out before she could even turn on the water.

The finest pillows and bed sheets provided by Canterlot’s palace staff might as well have been filled with spiky gravel as far as she was concerned. Even the most luxurious, cottony fabric stuffed with the fluffiest down could not provide enough cushioning to soothe her aching body.

“Ow, ow, ouch, ow…” she muttered as she slowly, agonisingly, eased herself under the covers.

Chapter 7

Twilight had placed rather lofty hopes on the recovery rate of Golden Oaks Library, but the tree somehow managed to exceed them, especially once she had taken the cold weather into account. In a span of just four weeks since their discovery, the green shoot had put out another five pairs of leaves and added nearly ten inches to its overall length, seemingly in defiance of the frost. She did not know the specifics of what had been done to make it so versatile, but she felt certain that the original cultivator would have been an accomplished enchanter or alchemist. The tree’s regrowth would probably get even more impressive after Winter Wrap Up.

She held the charred door open for Spike, then trotted out after him once she'd locked it with a crude bolt she’d installed. They didn’t want any colts or fillies playing around inside and falling into the basement.

As they plodded through the snow on the way back to the crystal tree-castle, she decided to go through their accumulated data once more. She levitated the notebook and pored over it, trusting Spike to lead her without bumping into anypony on the way.

Hmm, we might need to get help setting up structural supports, she noted when she got to their measurements of the fractured wall in the basement. A cave-in would definitely impede their research and efforts to—

“Twilight?” Spike’s voice disrupted her train of thought.

“Hmm?” She levitated the notebook aside and gasped when she nearly knocked him over because he’d stopped directly in her path.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. He then grimaced as he rubbed his shoulder and the back of his neck, saying, “I don’t feel so great. And,” – he massaged his temples – “is this what a migraine feels like? I think I’m getting one.”

Twilight bit her lip. Spike did look out of sorts. “Did you eat anything down there?”

He snorted. “Twi, I stopped swallowing random stuff ages ago.”

“Sorry. Had to be sure.” She grinned sheepishly.

Then, an idea occurred to her and she rapidly flipped through the notebook’s pages. Ah, there it is. Spotted some fungal growth on the southern side of the basement. “You might’ve been breathing in fungal spores or something. Looks like we’ll have to take more precautions from now on.”

“That’s got to be one mean mushroom if it can make me sick.” Spike frowned. “You don’t look all that great, either.”

She chuckled as she slipped the notebook back into her saddlebag. “No kidding. I’m pretty sure I don’t look good half of the time these days.” Between her occasional bouts and the borderline torture that Luna put her through weekly, she probably could’ve passed for a zombie. She stretched her legs and wings, wincing a little as her stiff muscles protested.

He’s right, though. Why do I just feel like I’ve just run a marathon?

“Well, we’ll see about getting some protection the next time we visit. I’m sure it’s nothing we can’t fix.”

Spike nodded, staring at the snowy ground. A moment passed between them before he looked back at her and said, “Umm, Twi, can I—”

“Sure. Hop on.”

He’d nearly fallen asleep by the time they got back, even though it was barely past two in the afternoon. Still, given how helpful he’d been with gathering data in the old library, she decided not to remind him of the day’s undone chores and deposited him in bed. A nap would probably do him good, and hopefully he’d not oversleep.

Once she’d settled Spike in, she headed straight for the castle library to look up on magical flora. She figured she’d have some time to do some research and find the cause of Spike’s lethargy before her appointment at the spa with the rest of the girls.

Several minutes later, though, she found her plan unexpectedly foiled. She didn’t find Leaves and Leylines on its designated shelf, and a quick rummage through her saddlebags and room failed to give her any clues on its location. She spent nearly thirty minutes searching the library on the hope that somepony – she, probably – had sorted it incorrectly, but it proved futile in the end.

Unbelievable. Where is it?

Had Spike deliberately hidden it? He might’ve thought he was doing her a favour since the book went into great detail on the magical properties of plants both foreign and native…

Nah. He wouldn’t do that.

In any case, she could just ask him later. If he’d hidden it on the assumption that reading it might whet her appetite for magic, and it actually might have several weeks ago, she supposed she could just let him hide it again once she’d consulted it.

* * * * *

“Begging your pardon, your Highness, but are you secretly a golem underneath that purple coat?”

“Leave out the ‘Highness’ bit and all that,” Twilight said as she lay flat on the massage table. Then, she frowned when she processed Lotus’ actual words. “Umm, what’re you talking about?”

“You’ve got more tension than a drawn bowstring,” Lotus clarified as she tentatively prodded Twilight’s back and wings. “And your muscles feel like rocks. Have you been wrestling bears or something?”

“Oh, please don’t do that,” Fluttershy half-whispered from a couple of tables away. “They don’t like it very much, I think.”

“Yeah, I remember seeing that…” Rainbow Dash shuddered. “Anyways, more important stuff: Twilight, have you been skipping out on stretching before and after exercise? Trust me – you don’t want to get a wing cramp while flying.”

“Relax, sugarcube. Twilight doesn’t like to break rules willy-nilly. I’m sure she’s taking your advice.”

“Doesn’t explain why she’s hard as a rock.”

“Oh! Do you think Maud will like her more, then?”

“Girls, if you would be so kind as to let the poor dear answer, I’m sure she’ll clear it up for everypony,” said Rarity.

Twilight suddenly felt grateful for their arrangement, lying face-down on parallel massage tables as masseuses worked on their backs. Nopony could see her biting her lip as she fumbled for a plausible answer.

“Well, I think I might be pushing it a little with the exercise. I’ll be more careful next time.”

Technically not a lie.

She couldn’t hold back a mental snort at that, though. The word ‘little’ didn’t exist in Luna’s dictionary when it came to their sessions. After she’d mastered beating herself up on a training dummy, she’d graduated to getting beaten up by the Princess of the Night herself. Being careful while sparring with her was about as effective as being careful while… wrestling a bear.

Ha ha.

At least it had the side effect of encouraging her appetite; she’d regained weight significantly, and in all likelihood mostly in the form of bone and muscle.

“If you say so,” Lotus replied.

The other girls had either bought it, or they’d become too absorbed in their treatment. Various groans and other inarticulate sounds of discomfort or pleasure punctuated the ensuing peace as their masseuses began massaging them in earnest.

Lotus knew her stuff. Twilight could practically feel her squeezing and kneading the tension out of her. She resisted the urge to twist and turn when Lotus got to a painful spot, and instead submitted to her ministrations as she gently stretched out a wing and applied pressure to the muscle at its base, sending forth a fresh wave of exquisite agony directly to—

“Aargh!”

“Sorry!” Lotus squeaked. “I didn’t think it was that tender.”

There was a second of utter silence, followed by distant clinking noises. Her shriek had probably startled somepony into dropping something. Twilight could practically feel everypony staring at her and appreciated the fact that she had her furious blush hidden by the face cradle. If this had been a mud bath, she’d probably have tried to sink to the bottom and hold her breath until the spa closed.

“Umm, you okay, sugarcube?” Applejack eventually asked.

No. “Yes.”

“Holey moley, that was a doozy!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“Pinkie’s right, darling. Are you certain that you’re quite all right?”

Twilight shifted uneasily as she delicately folded her wing. She had grown quite accustomed to getting battered in the ring, but it appeared that she might have strained herself a little more than expected if a massage could cause that much pain. In any case, her outburst had just advertised to everypony the fact that her body had been repeatedly subjected to physical trauma.

Terrible timing.

The idea of confessing her other activity in the presence of so many ponies did not appeal to her. Rumours in the spa would spread like wildfire.

She stalled and mentally debated the matter, but when the awkward silence threatened to return, she added, “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Would you like to continue?” Lotus asked. “I’ll be gentler now. Promise.”

She took a deep breath to calm her racing heart and slowly exhaled. “Okay.”

Twilight flinched when Lotus resumed her ministrations, but eventually relaxed when the stress began to flow out of her once more.

“Twilight, what’s going on?” Rainbow demanded after a while. “That totally sounded like a sprained wing. You’ve been up to something, haven’t you?”

She gulped. “Not really, no.”

“Not buying it. AJ?”

Silence dominated the room for a couple of seconds before the Element of Honesty gave her verdict. “Sorry, Twilight, but that sounded like a straight-up bluff to me.”

“Yeah, you’re only slightly better at lying than her,” Dash agreed with a chuckle.

“Hey!”

“Come on, even Fluttershy thinks so.”

“Oh, I’d rather not say…”

Rarity cleared her throat. “Darlings, if we could just get back to the heart of the matter...”

“Yeah,” Pinkie piped up, “we’re on to you, Twilight!” Then, after a second or two, she whispered, “Uh, this is fun, but what are we on to her for, again?”

Twilight could feel all their figurative eyes on her again as she racked her brain, but nothing remotely acceptable sprang to mind, especially after getting her bluff called.

Eventually, Fluttershy broke through the awkward silence. “Twilight, have you, umm… been doing that thing that you’re not supposed to be doing?”

What?

All at once, the tension in the atmosphere rose as Applejack added, “Did—did you get yourself hurt in the Everfree again?”

The other girls all voiced similar concerns, and it took her a moment to figure out why everypony was suddenly trotting on eggshells around her.

Wait. Did they think she was sneaking off to consume magic again? Her indignation at their accusations warred with her gratitude for their presence of mind to not to blurt out everything in front of the masseuses, but the spark of anger eventually fizzled out and gave way to resignation. Better to let them in on her secret training than continue suspecting her of practicing dark magic.

Then again, they might not approve of such an extreme pastime. At least, not one that frequently resulted in bruises and twisted muscle. As much as it hurt, she’d come to enjoy their sessions, when the world shrank until nothing existed beyond the duelling ring, where she could just focus on acting and reacting without the void to trouble her. And much like her regular exercising, the change it produced in her body felt genuine and earned, unlike stolen magic. She doubted she could enjoy it as much if there was a chance of somepony disapproving. A slim chance, but nevertheless a risk she didn’t feel like taking. Besides, she still felt embarrassed about the whole affair. She knew comic book characters with less corny origins.

She decided to try her luck. After all, Luna could vouch for her presence in Canterlot. She didn’t need to specify exactly what business she had in there.

“I’m just doing stuff in Canterlot. We just, you know, hang out and stuff.”

“And what sort of ‘hanging out’ means getting your wing twisted or something until you scream when somepony massages it?” Rainbow demanded.

“We—we exercise. Hard. Yes.”

Silence followed.

After stewing in it for several uncomfortable seconds, Twilight sighed and elaborated. “Okay, fine. I’ve gotten into sparring with Princess Luna. It usually gets… a little rough. Can we please keep it amongst ourselves? I’d rather not have everypony and their grandmother talking about it.”

For some reason, the silence stretched on, until Rarity said, “Is… is that what they’re calling it these days?”

Huh?

“Oh, not to worry, darling. Your secret’s safe with us. I just would never have pegged you for the sort. Nor Princess Luna, for that matter.”

“Wha—oh. Ooohhh…” Pinkie oohed thoughtfully.

“Well, I gotta agree with Rarity on this. I never would’ve suspected. Personally, I don’t see the point, but I guess since you’re a princess now, you get to do whatever you like so long’s no harm comes from it.”

Fluttershy squeaked.

A moment later, Rainbow Dash gave voice to Twilight’s sentiment nearly word for word. “Umm, I don’t get it. Why are you all acting so weird?”

Twilight heard some muffled whispering before Rainbow exploded. “She did what? But, but how… how is that possible?”

“Now, Rainbow,” Rarity interjected, “There’s nothing wrong with two—”

“Not the point!” Dash interrupted in turn. “Twilight’s getting laid? Before me?”

Everything fell into place inside Twilight’s mind for a split second before imploding from sheer worthiness of a facehoof. Short of getting onto stage to announce her personal life to every spa patron and employee in sight, Rainbow probably couldn’t have found a better way to spawn a swarm of rumours fit to follow her to the grave. She could almost hear them breeding in the hushed whispers drifting about the place right then and there…

Can’t I catch a break just for once?

Resisting the urge to rub her temples, Twilight sighed and said, “Girls, it’s not what you think. I…”

She frowned when they continued to chatter amongst themselves about her supposed, newfound love life. The frantic whispers on the edge of her hearing that may or may not have been purely her imagination remained as well. She twitched when an annoyance-induced surge of magic rippled through her body, frazzling up some of her hair.

Okay, Plan B.

First, she cast a sound containment spell around their section of the spa, and then sat up on the massage table, ignoring Lotus’ query. And then…

“Girls!” she bellowed.

That got everypony scrambling onto their haunches to see what was wrong. Except Fluttershy, who squeaked and froze to her table, but Twilight didn’t feel particularly sorry for that at the moment.

Something shattered in the ensuing silence.

“I’ll pay for that,” Twilight said without missing a beat. “Look, it’s not what you think it is. I’m sparring with Luna, okay? Literally. She’s teaching me martial arts, and that’s not a euphemism. I stay in Canterlot for a few days every week for my lessons, and I kept it to myself because I felt a little embarrassed about it, okay?”

“Oh,” said nearly everypony in unison.

Twilight sighed and flattened her ears. “And… I’m sorry for yelling. Can we move on and just enjoy the rest of the day?”

Rarity, now flushed crimson, grinned sheepishly and said, “Well, yes, indeed, Twilight. I’m very sorry for going with the more, ah… exotic interpretation of your statement. I had been reading some novels, you see...”

Applejack chuckled. “Yeah, I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions, too.”

“Me too,” Fluttershy whispered.

“Yes!” Rainbow pumped a hoof in the air. When all eyes turned to her, she shrugged and added, “Yeah, I guess it’s a good thing everypony’s got the facts straightened out, too.”

Pinkie sighed. “Aww, I totally had some party ideas for that. Why, I know somepony who has some really special st—”

Twilight could’ve hugged Rainbow Dash for derailing Pinkie’s verbal train of thought when she said, “Yeah, I don’t think she wants to know exactly how special that stuff is, Pinks. But,” – here, she narrowed her eyes at Twilight – “you’ve got to make it up to us for sneaking lessons in awesomeness without telling us. You started turning into a superhero without telling me! I thought we were best book buddies!”

Twilight rolled her eyes at Rainbow’s mock indignation. “All right, fine. What do I need to do?”

Rainbow grinned and rubbed her hooves together. “I wanna see you fight Princess Luna.”

In spite of a little trepidation at the prospect of having an audience whilst getting beaten up, Twilight couldn’t help matching Rainbow’s grin. She’d gotten better, and it would be nice to have somepony other than the occasional Night Guard to cheer her on.

“If you really want to, I’m heading to Canterlot this Friday. How’s that?”

Her friends all gave their assent, and with that settled, Twilight lifted the sound dampening spell and they finally got back to enjoying their massage session. She groaned in pleasure as Lotus resumed pushing and squeezing the tension out of her muscles.

“By the way, Lotus,” Twilight said, loudly enough for her sister and the rest of the staff present to hear, “Nopony’s going to be spreading around gossip about this, right?”

“I can’t make promises about our patrons – if they heard – but I can assure you that our staff’s lips are sealed on this matter.”

“Good. I’d hate to have to blow this place up.”

Lotus’ hooves froze on her back, and she heard everything else grind to a halt as well. She almost expected a cricket to start chirping.

So much for a little humour lightening the mood. She’d have to consult her reference books on how to effectively deliver jokes again.

In the meantime, Twilight forced out a chuckle. “I’m kidding.”

A collective sigh swept through the place.

“Yikes. I think I got it wrong; you could be a supervillain instead,” Rainbow commented.

If only being a comic supervillain was the worst I could do...

* * * * *

“Fair warning, my little pony: an audience of your friends will not make me go easy on you,” said a grinning Luna as they faced one another in the training yard.

Twilight flexed her wings as she stretched her legs until the joints popped, taking the opportunity for one last assessment of how far she could push herself this time around. Her bruises had recovered nicely since the spa treatment, but the intervals between lessons simply weren’t long enough for her to get back to a hundred percent before the next round. Until she became tough or skilled enough, she had to be wary of overstraining herself to the point of injury.

Still, the anticipation of action and a little violence set her heart pounding, and she noted with no small measure of satisfaction that it drowned out the echoing emptiness of the void along with the plaintive cries of her hunger. She had only one purpose: defend herself.

I’m alive.

“Understood,” she replied.

“Good.”

She heard a collective gasp from her friends when Luna leapt forward like a tiger, with a hoof drawn back for a powerful thrust. A quick sidestep allowed her to avoid the attack, but she quickly realised that Luna had anticipated her move with an outstretched wing. Ducking under the wing swipe prevented her from taking advantage of the opening Luna’s initial strike had offered.

Twilight tried to knock her off her hooves with a low, hind-legged sweep, but did not feel the desired impact. Instead, she got smacked by a wall of air as Luna used both wings to propel herself upwards and backwards, out of her reach.

She opted to conserve her energy and slowly approached Luna, who watched with stony silence. Once within leaping range, she feigned left and used her wings to propel her to the right instead, and swung out one hoof to clock Luna on the chin. Luna nearly fell for it; she’d shifted her balance to the left but still managed to twist around and block the swipe with her foreleg. She then locked Twilight’s foreleg in an iron grip that made her joints pop, and swung her round in a short arc before releasing her.

Twilight flailed forward and nearly tumbled head over hooves from her redirected momentum, but her wings served to stabilise and halt her movement before she got tossed out of the boundary.

“Hoo boy, that was a close one,” she heard Applejack say from the sidelines.

“Come on, Twilight, you can do it! You must be swift as a coursing riv—”

“Hush, Pinkie. Let her concentrate,” Rarity admonished.

At the corner of her eye, she spotted Rainbow throwing punches and kicks at the air as she hovered in place, probably imagining that she was the one duking it out with Luna. She noted that, although those moves looked pretty impressive, they would prove ineffective in an actual fight because hovering would give Rainbow very little force to throw behind those attacks. She would do bette—

A sharp jab in the ribs elicited a yelp from her. Not a serious hit by any means, but it felt like one of those warning hits Luna liked to use when she’d caught her severely off-guard. The ones that basically said “Hah, got’cha!” and made her feel annoyed that she’d let herself get so distracted.

Gritting her teeth, she closed in for another strike. Luna blocked and retaliated with the leading edge of her wing, which Twilight took to the shoulder in order to breach Luna’s defence and go for her pressure points. But the next thing she knew, a wall of blue feathers collided with her face. She sputtered and blinked rapidly to restore her vision, then reared up and steadied herself with her wings when she realised that she’d been pushed beyond her centre of gravity. It bought her just enough time to see Luna slam a foreleg into her exposed belly.

She grunted and went down like a sack of potatoes, clutching her stomach.

“Steady, Sparkle!” Luna barked as she stalked in a circle around her. “Your friends are not part of the battle; pay them no heed. Now, get up.”

Magic surged to the tip of her horn and threatened to burst free, but she suppressed the urge to start blasting away with her magic. Until she graduated to sparring with every weapon available, their duels strictly involved only hoof to hoof combat. Not that it helped much with ignoring her instincts, though.

Deep breaths, Twilight. Keep it together.

She exhaled and rose to meet Luna in battle once more. Their shadows danced in the torch-lit training yard as they traded blows, and she did her best to tune out the voices of her friends as they whispered and chattered amongst themselves. Only Luna’s voice deserved her attention, when she barked out instructions and commented on her techniques.

The world shrank to the familiar, tiny little spot in space and time where she could comfortably focus on the task at hoof. Not too different from learning and perfecting spell-casting techniques. Bone and muscle, instead of brain and magic. Luna her teacher, instead of Celestia.

Her heart rate climbed steadily as the sparring progressed, as did her breathing. Her muscles grew hot and heavy with exertion, and her coat and hair became matted with sweat. Pain burrowed and dug its way into her bone and flesh where she’d taken hits or overexerted herself. She swallowed in an attempt to relieve the dryness in her throat; though it didn’t help much since the inside of her mouth had already gone pasty.

Pace yourself; we’re just getting started…

Time lost meaning as she fought on and settled into the familiar rhythm of combat. Leap left, roll right, block, strike, block again, lunge, low sweep, block…

“Enough.”

Twilight almost failed to register Luna’s command thanks to the blood pounding in her skull. But when she did, she gratefully planted her haunches on the floor, huffing away like a pair of bellows as she waited for the pain in her muscles to ebb away. Not too excruciating, but she’d definitely done a better job of pacing herself last week.

It took her some time to notice the applause.

“Mighty impressive, Twilight!” Applejack called out as all five of them trotted over.

“Yeah! If I wasn’t already so awesomely dedicated to flying, I would totally ask Princess Luna to put me in class with you,” Rainbow said, just before she nudged Fluttershy and added, “You could probably use some training like that, too, eh?”

Fluttershy shrank a little. “Oh, no thank you. Being assertive is enough for me.” Then, to Twilight she said, “But it looks like you enjoy it, so I suppose it’s good for you. Even if it looks a little painful.”

“Yes, I for one am quite impressed by your sturdiness, darling.” Rarity threw a surreptitious glance at Luna, who had quietly stalked off and was busy drinking from a canteen. “I already knew Princess Luna was a little… boisterous, but, dear me did she get tough on you. Are you sure you’re quite all right?”

She tried to answer them, but her still-burning lungs resented the interruption of their efforts to replenish her breath, so she settled for a huffy smile instead.

“Sparkle, catch!”

Twilight turned just in time to grab the flying canteen with magic and stop it from colliding with her forehead. Wasting no time, she removed the stopper and savoured the chilled water as it ran over her tongue and soothed her parched throat. She drank long and deep, pausing only when her lungs clamoured for their turn at functioning again.

“We begin anew in five minutes,” Luna called out from across the training yard. “Be ready.”

Various exclamations rang out simultaneously as her friends stared at the Princess of the Night.

Rarity blinked. “Did I hear that correctly? Does she seriously plan to put you through another round of punishment so soon?”

“Sounds like it,” Applejack confirmed with a grim, respectful nod towards Twilight. “She’s really planning to make you hard as nails, ain’t she?”

“Whoa, there’s gonna be more?” Rainbow Dash slapped her on the back. “Could you try doing some roundhouse kicks this time? That’ll look totally epic!”

Fluttershy looked a little pale as Pinkie yelled back in protest, “Wait, Your Nightness, she just stopped. She’s still all huffy-puffy and shaky!”

Twilight held out a hoof and frowned when it trembled in the air. After concentrating a bit to steady herself, she returned her attention to her the rest of Luna’s reply, “—won’t give a chance to catch her breath in battle. She must persevere.”

“Umm, for how long?” Fluttershy asked as she cast a sympathetic glance at Twilight.

“The night is yet young; we have hours to kill. I shall relent only when she is well past shedding tears,” Luna answered with the air of one commenting on the weather. Stunned silence followed in the wake of her callous words, but Twilight noticed the hint of a smile playing on her lips as she trotted back into the ring.

“Whoa. She’s kidding. She’s kidding, right?” Pinkie whispered to the others.

Twilight felt a grin coming on as she rose and limbered up for another round. She could see Luna favouring her right foreleg just a tiny bit, which meant that she’d probably gotten a good hit in after all. The Princess of the Night would not remain an indomitable sparring partner forever.

She answered, “Yeah, that probably won’t happen. Don’t worry about it.”

Their relief showed clearly on their faces, so she almost felt guilty about upending their expectations, but there was something just too gleefully satisfying about being able to savour their dropped jaws or pinprick pupils when she added, “She only managed to make me cry once last week; that’s an average drop of eighty percent in frequency since I first began training.”

* * * * *

The top spire of the crystal castle gleamed golden in the light of the setting sun as Twilight spiralled somewhat shakily down towards Ponyville. Dash had already split off towards her cloud house, and it would be a while before the rest of her friends caught up by train.

She hit the ground just outside of town at a brisk trot and stumbled when a spasm in her wing unbalanced her.

Too close. Flying back had apparently been a bigger risk than she’d anticipated, even with Rainbow to escort her, but luckily her wings had held out until she’d gotten safely to the ground. But she didn’t let that dampen her mood; she was finally strong enough to fly back to Ponyville less than twenty-four hours after another gruelling three-day session in Canterlot. She wouldn’t turn up her nose at any little victory she found.

Although weary, she still found the walk home pleasant enough. Nocturnal insects began chorusing as the last rays of the sun faded away whilst fireflies danced in the tall grass. Ponies greeted her whenever she trotted past them, and for once she found it in her heart to smile and wave back.

After a while, though, Twilight noticed a mild itch in her magical sense. With her attention focused on it, she found that it differed from the regular pings of magic she could feel around Ponyville, in some way that she couldn’t quite place. Moreover, its source appeared to be following her.

She slowed down and cast a surreptitious glance back, but aside from Lyra and Bon Bon chatting and giggling rather noisily on a bench, she did not see anything out of the ordinary. It did not take long for her to confirm that Lyra’s inactive horn wasn’t the source of the unsettling magic.

“Huh,” she murmured under her breath before reluctantly carrying on.

Much to her dismay, the itch persisted. Twilight plodded on and shoved it to the back of her mind, choosing to believe that, whatever it was, no good would come out of checking it out. She had a good running streak of keeping clean and had no intention of risking it on some magical anomaly that may or may not tempt her into breaking her promises.

I need to get home.

The glowing windows on houses and lamps on either side of the street reminded her of the warmth awaiting her back at the castle, so she picked up the pace. The shadows beneath the bushes and trees seemed a little darker than usual, but that was probably due to her nerves. She tried humming a tune to distract herself, but she’d barely gotten halfway through it when she felt the spectre brush up against her magical sense again.

Stars above, something is following me.

Twilight whirled around and dropped into a fighting stance. She swept her gaze across the empty street and growled, “Who’s there?”

Nothing answered.

Frowning, she decided to take the risk and actively sought out the spectre with her own magic. Once she had its location, she focused her magic into a beam of light and shone it on a patch of bushes by the side of the street.

“I know you’re there. Come out before I make you,” she called out.

“Sorry!” the bushes yelped. They rustled for a couple of seconds before a pegasus mare popped out of the fronds and shadows. She had a tan coat, grey hair and greenish eyes, and she had some saddlebags strapped on.

Although relieved that it was only a pony and not something more sinister that her imagination had led her to believe, Twilight kept her guard up. The mare was clearly not from Ponyville, and she could still feel something decidedly ominous lurking in one of the saddlebags.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before. Who are you?” she asked.

“I’m Chippy. Really sorry for following you like that, Your Highness,” the mare said, bowing low and squinting against her horn light.

Twilight aborted her illumination spell and swapped it for night-vision instead. If trouble arose, she wanted to have the advantage. “Can I help you?”

Chippy shuffled her hooves nervously. “Actually, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s supposed to be the other way around?”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I’m here with the delivery, but I kind of wanted to make sure there wasn’t some mistake.”

Twilight frowned and tilted her head slightly as she asked, “What are you talking about?”

“Oh. I thought you—I had a note. Err…” Chippy’s mouth hung open for a moment before she reached for her saddlebags, but she hesitated at the last moment and simply stared rather awkwardly at the ground.

Against her better instincts, Twilight decided to pursue the subject. Because she didn’t like to see the nervous mare grow more and more uncomfortable under her gaze, and not because of the curious thrill shivering up and down her spine at the prospect of identifying the source of magic inside her packs.

It’s what Celestia would do. Yes.

“Never mind. You mentioned delivering something?” she prompted.

Chippy’s ears perked up, though she still appeared a little reluctant as she unbuckled one of the packs and presented it to Twilight. It wobbled in her magical grip as she undid the clasp, inching the opening wider and wider, until…

Oh.

Twilight almost giggled in relief when a mixture of nutty and herbal scents wafted out of the bag. She mentally berated herself for letting her imagination get so worked up over a little magic, to the point where she might’ve expected to find an eldritch abomination lurking in there. Still, she did find the magic’s ‘flavour’ a little strange and decided to proceed with her inspection.

The bag contained desiccated Gold Bracken fronds, Dragonseye seed pods, gnarled Blisterroots, plus a whole bunch of black, crusty seeds and rolled-up leaves she couldn’t identify. Identifying the one which made her horn itch proved difficult because they all possessed inherent magical qualities, though. She furrowed her brow and stared at each item in turn as she attempted to sort through their magical signatures.

“So, that’ll be around, say, eighty bits for the whole lot?” Chippy ventured.

Rather pricey for a bunch of herbs. Some of these are only good for…

And then, her legs turned to jelly as the details came back to her in a rush; she’d read about these before. Under the right conditions, combinations of these could be fermented, boiled or steeped to produce rather potent concoctions similar to Zecora’s brews, only with significantly more thaumaturgical properties. Some of them had history as ingredients for magical infusions.

Twilight fought down the panic welling up in her chest. Had somepony figured out her ailment? Had one of her friends let it slip? Maybe. Probably.

How? How could she know?

Whether by luck or logic, Chippy had positioned herself well to exploit her weakness.

Never mind. Focus. Think!

Twilight tried to take a deep, calming breath, but her lungs seemed determined to puff steadily away like a pair of bellows stoking a furnace, and her eyes felt glued to the bag’s contents. Now that she knew their purpose, they seemed to literally glow with promise, like distant lights to a pony lost in the dark. Sustenance to a pony dying of hunger…

“Are you all right, Your Highness?” Chippy sounded concerned.

Leave them.

She didn’t need them. It had been a while since she’d last siphoned anything; she couldn’t even properly remember what it felt like. Good? Probably. How good? Best left buried deep where she couldn’t recall.

Did the mare know exactly why she found the contents so interesting? Twilight tried schooling her features into an impassive expression and stole a glance at her, and one look into the mare’s eyes sufficed. Was that a knowing glimmer she saw? Greed? Triumph? Probably one of those; none bode well for her, in any case.

How did she know?

“I—No, I don’t want them,” she said, nearly dropping the bag as she thrust it back towards the pegasus.

“Are you sure?”

Well…

“Take it back!” she snapped.

“Wait, but I came here all the way from Hollow Shades! I had notes—”

“Sorry for your trouble, but I’m not interested,” Twilight repeated as she dropped it, spilling its contents onto the ground. She froze and stared as the seeds rolled everywhere, and then, fearful of how Chippy might react, prepared to teleport all the way back to her room. She caught a glimpse of confusion in her eyes before the world collapsed into nothingness.

Twilight slumped when she popped back into existence atop her bed. The spell left her a little light-headed, so after taking off her saddlebags, she simply lay still and waited for it to pass. The extra minute also gave her racing heart time to calm down before she trotted to the window and risked a peep. The vantage point allowed her to see the dark figure of a pegasus mare scrounging on the ground, apparently attempting to recover her goods.

Hope I didn’t ruin them…

Maybe not, since she could still sense their magic. They almost glowed like a beacon in the night, invisible to all but those who knew their value. An ache of longing stirred within her, but she quickly stomped her hoof and growled to herself.

Priorities! You’d just damaged somepony else’s wares!

Twilight pulled the curtains over and paced back and forth, wondering if she should go back and apologise. She imagined Applejack wouldn’t feel particularly cheerful if a prospective customer had dumped her wares onto the ground, and neither would Chippy. Probably.

As her eyes roved about the room searching for a solution, they fell upon her lockbox, where she kept her bits for everyday expenses, and her thoughts strayed back to the mare she’d left on the ground.

Well, Chippy had come a long way. It would be a shame to send her all the way back to Hollow Shades empty hoofed, especially if her little stunt had ruined the herbs. She had to make it up to her. The pegasus probably had a family to feed at home. After all, Hollow Shades did not have much trade beyond what they could forage in the surrounding forest, so wealth in that area did not come easily. Eighty bits would go a long way for anypony who lived there.

After counting out the bits and stuffing them into an old coin purse, she teleported straight back to Chippy. She apparently had just finished putting everything back into her packs, and whirled around to give Twilight a look that seemed of equal parts annoyance and concern.

“Yes?”

“I can, uh—I’ll take them,” Twilight murmured.

Chippy perked her ears and trotted closer. “Didn’t catch that, sorry.”

“Here. Eighty bits for the whole package,” she clarified as she levitated the coin purse over to her.

“Oh.” Chippy made short work of counting the bits and then gave Twilight a grateful smile as she passed the bag of herbs to her. “Thanks!”

Twilight nodded. “Don’t mention it.” When Chippy opened her mouth, she added, “Really, don’t.”

The faint clip clop of hooves signalled somepony’s approach, and—her breath caught in her throat when she glanced down the street and saw a couple of indistinct figures trotting towards them. No, no, no, she did not want anypony seeing her making shady transactions with strangers involving large sums of bits and saddlebags filled with rare magical plants. If word got around, her friends would definitely draw the wrong conclusions and she would never live down their disappointment no matter how mistaken they were because she had no intention of messing around with that kind of dark magic again!

“Sorry-gotta-go-bye!” she blabbered before teleporting back to her room.

Once safely surrounded by crystal walls, she recovered enough mental clarity to scold herself for not having the presence of mind to pry for more information. She needed to know if Chippy had figured out her condition, and if there were any other ponies who had as well. Unfortunately, a quick peep out the window put an end to that. The pegasus had apparently started up a friendly conversation with the ponies who’d scared her off, and they were already trotting towards the heart of Ponyville, presumably to grab a bite to eat or something. Unless she planned on stalking Chippy all night, she could be gone by morning, and—

I’m carrying her pack of exotic magical plants.

The stray thought obliterated her concerns about Chippy. She stared at the bulging thing in her magical grip.

Now what?

She could just dump them in the trash and try to forget the whole thing.

I should probably do that.

Or she could actually do something useful with them.

Would be a shame to waste everything; somepony worked hard harvesting them…

She opened the bag and rifled through its contents. Everything seemed intact, if a little gritty from their brief stint on the ground. More importantly, they still radiated magic, including the unusual variation that had first caught her attention. It felt intrinsically amorphous and rigid at the same time, which only made it all the more compelling. She already knew what poison joke magic ‘tasted’ like; she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that the others intrigued her. Given the poor documentation of such facts, she’d be contributing significantly to research. Yes.

Twilight ground her teeth when she noticed that she’d broken out into a cold sweat. Her breathing had grown heavy, and the inside of her mouth felt exceedingly moist. She swallowed and shook her head.

No, it should not become a problem. The herbs had their uses. She just needed to make sure that they didn’t go to waste. Even if she did try them out, she’d only prove to herself how little she needed them. She wouldn’t have stayed clean for this long if she could be so easily swayed. They would do nothing for her.

She sat on her haunches, then pulled out a cluster of Gold Bracken and took a moment to admire the way their iridescent fronds caught and reflected the lamplight in the room. Power resided in there as well, coursing through the rigid black veins on the undersides.

The gold then flashed green and purple as slivers of shadow danced over the fronds…

“Twilight?”

The lights faded and the fronds fell back into the bag as her magic sputtered out. She yelped and twisted around, feeling her coat hairs and mane standing on end so straight and stiffly that they probably would’ve given Pinkie’s deejay friend a run for her money.

“Spike?”

The dragon stood in the middle of the room and had, of all things, confetti scattered on and around him. He also looked a little dazed, but all of that vanished after he’d dusted himself off and gotten a clear look at her. He stiffened visibly. “Twilight, what’s that you got there?”

She clutched the bag close to her chest. “Nothing! It’s nothing.”

“That doesn’t look like nothing.” He took a couple of steps closer. “What’s going on?”

Twilight scooted backwards, shaking her head and working her mouth like a gasping fish as she tried to find the words to convince him to leave her alone.

That got him to stop, but he continued to shift uneasily where he stood. “Twi, you’re scaring me.”

Glancing down into the half-open bag, she felt echoes of her desire to fill the oppressive hollowness in her being return to the fore of her mind. The past few weeks had been good, but… she needed better. She needed more.

“I—I could use some help,” she murmured when she felt her dark magic stirring again.

“Okay, I’m coming. Just keep it together, all right?”

She nodded silently, listening to his claws going clack-clack on the floor as he inched closer.

“Almost there…”

She shut her eyes.

“I’m here,” he said, right in front of her. “I’m gonna take it from you now, okay?”

After a half-hearted nod, she felt a tug on the bag.

“Umm, can you loosen up a little more? We’re almost done. Come on, you can do it!”

Twilight grit her teeth as magic surged to the tip of her horn, but she fought urge to repel Spike with a barrier and dispersed the charge into thin air. In doing so, the hollowness grew a tiny, almost intolerable bit, but it at least served as a distraction. The next thing she knew, her hooves were empty, and Spike was busy dragging a stool over to the window.

She stared as he clambered onto it and held the bag out over the window ledge with both arms. His chest swelled with a deep breath, and a blinding jet of green dragonfire forced her to look away. She grimaced as the flames engulfed and devoured the bag’s contents. Bit by bit, the magic within dissolved and died out, accompanied by the snapping and crackling of burning vegetative matter.

After what felt like an eternity, Spike ended the display with a brief fit of coughing. “Oh wow, that stinks.” He hopped down, sooty-faced and with hands covered in black ash, then fixed her a grin and saluted. “Mission accomplished.”

Twilight turned away and curled up on the floor. She shivered on the cold crystal, but could not bring herself to move.

“Twi?”

She covered her face with a wing.

Spike’s claws tapped on the floor as he paced around for several minutes, apparently uncertain about what to do next. But he eventually settled down on the floor with her, carrying with him the scent of charred vegetation.

“I almost blew it,” she murmured.

“But you didn’t. That counts for something, right?”

Twilight shrugged half-heartedly. It didn’t feel like a victory to her.

Still, she appreciated it when Spike didn’t press the issue. Instead, he simply crawled closer and lay down with his back to her. Going by pure muscle memory, she wrapped a foreleg over him and pulled him closer for a cuddle. He still knew how to twist and turn so that his knobbly crest and spinal ridge wouldn’t dig into her. She remembered when he used to be frightened of the dark; funny how he now had his turn keeping her secure from a different kind of darkness.

They lay still for quite some time, listening to the clock’s ticking and feeling each other’s heartbeats. Her eyelids eventually grew heavy, but any chance of sleep got driven away by a loud gurgle from Spike’s belly.

“Hey.”

“Yeah?” she whispered.

“You wanna’ get something to eat? I think we’re already past dinnertime.”

Twilight then realised that her stomach could use some filling as well. It felt like it had shrunken and crumpled up.

“Sounds good,” she replied. “Just one question before we go.”

“Shoot.”

“How did you find me? I’m pretty sure you weren’t in the room when I got in. And I didn’t hear the door open.”

“Uh, didn’t you teleport me in? It felt like it.”

She frowned. “Actually, no.”

He shifted a little. “Then who did?”

Twilight ‘s frown deepened when she remembered the confetti. She knew only one other person aside from Pinkie who was a fan of the stuff and capable of spontaneously entering an enclosed space without using the conventional entrance.

Discord. It had to be. Had he been spying on her? If so, then why didn’t he intervene sooner, before she’d had a chance to get all mesmerised by the magical plants that Chippy had sold her? Her heart skipped a beat when she considered the possibility that he’d contrived the whole situation just to watch her squirm.

Or… maybe not. That kind of cruel manipulation belonged to the old Discord. Maybe he’d simply given her a chance to exert some self-control first, and intervened only when her failure had become obvious. Spike was an obvious candidate for someone who could get through to her without fearing retaliation.

She sighed and answered him. “If I’m correct, I owe Discord an apology.”

“I think I’m missing something here.”

Twilight shrugged and gently moved him to make room to get up onto all fours. She’d had enough of the crystal floor, even though they’d already warmed it up quite nicely. “We can talk over dinner. I’m starving.”

“Right. Just let me wash up and I’ll get the table ready!”

Before Spike could dash off, though, she grabbed him and hugged him tightly. “Thanks. I wouldn’t know what I’d do without you.”

He returned the hug and patted her gently on the back. “Hey, that’s what Number One Assistants are for.”

Chapter 8

Cold.

Damp.

Dark figures that periodically switched between the shapes of ponies and tentacular abominations swam in the air above her, forcing her onto the hard earth. She strained against them to no avail as they splayed her out and bound each limb, even her wings and tail, to the ground with coarse rope that chafed and burned. No amount of twisting and squirming could break her free.

Something within her groaned and cried out to the shadows, but received no answer.

Then knives appeared in the air before her, and she screamed.

She turned to the void within, crying for sanctuary, and it answered. Black shadow and purple light burst forth from her horn and engulfed the shadows looming over her, like fire on sawdust. Her bonds snapped, and she took the opportunity to surge to her hooves. Magic consumed the shadows and turned them to fiery ash, which she inhaled in turn.

She coughed and choked as the ash seared her throat and lungs, but it permeated the air like an omnipresent cloud that she couldn’t escape. Beating her wings stirred up more trouble instead of clearing the air. She tried to scream, but that only let more ash in.

Fire.

Heat.

She stumbled like a drunken mare in the storm of glowing cinders, blind and deaf as she drew closer and closer to asphyxiation.

Then…

“Enough.”

A thunderous voice pierced the smothering cloud, and a roaring, unidirectional gale put an end to the chaotic storm of smouldering particles. She braced herself as it blew everything away, until she stood alone in a black void dotted with stars.

And then Twilight opened her eyes.

She groaned and flung the blanket off, shifting here and there in an attempt to find a spot that wasn’t damp with sweat, but that only alerted her to the queasy condition of her stomach.

Ugh.

With precision and speed that only practice could give, Twilight crawled to the edge of the bed and leaned over what Spike had taken to calling the ‘chuck bucket’, which she always kept ready in case she needed to make a deposit. She held her position for what felt like five solid minutes, constantly re-evaluating her condition and wondering if it was safe to go back to sleep.

Unfortunately, her belly didn’t feel quite ready to surrender its contents, and yet felt too bloated and unsettled for her to lie down again. The mild ache in her horn and the slow spin of the room didn’t help very much, either. Eventually, she decided that the small chance of settling things quietly wasn’t worth sitting up all night on the verge of throwing up, so she tried to ‘help’ things along by prodding her belly.

A wave of nausea washed over her, but didn’t quite push her over the edge. Gritting her teeth, she fought through the hazy feeling in her horn and produced a directionless surge of magic in the hopes of exacerbating her—

Oh, shoot.

A torrent of her stomach’s contents surged up her throat and out her mouth and nostrils, and she was treated to the stench of a half-digested concoction of pineapple, grass, porridge and stomach acid. A second heave sent another wave of the acrid stuff up, and she mentally cussed away as she poured out her heart and soul into the bucket, pausing only long enough to draw ragged breaths.

She eventually stopped, but only after nearly a minute of dry-heaving. Still, clearing her stomach left her feeling a lot better, and she even managed to empty the bucket and rinse her mouth out in the adjacent bathroom before it stank up her room.

Once done, she stumbled back into bed and promptly burrowed under the covers.

Still alive.

* * * * *

Though she felt glad that the world had stopped spinning by the time Celestia had brought up the sun, she realised that she could no longer ignore the growing frequency of her bad dreams. If memory served, Luna had even seen fit to intervene the previous night. Taking into account the resurgence of withdrawal symptoms in the past week or so, that added up to a sign of trouble in the near future. It sometimes kept her from sleep when the other symptoms didn’t.

Eight twenty-three. Spike had already gone down to do his chores.

Sighing wistfully at the fantasy of sleeping in all day, Twilight left the warm bed and shivered all the way to the bathroom. Once presentable, she made her way to the study to go over her notes and checklist for the day.

Contrary to her suspicions, Chippy never came back to cause trouble, and nopony else tried to foist more magical exotics upon her. That left her wondering if that incident four weeks ago had just been a fluke of unrelated circumstances. A bit of research and questions here and there revealed a little of the mare’s background as a resident of Hollow Shades who made a living foraging for and selling organic rarities and collectibles in that remote valley; hardly the shady pony that any authority would even consider worth investigating. Whatever the case, so long as it never came back to bite her in the tail, she could live without knowing how the mare had crossed paths with her in such a specific way.

The missing books, on the other hoof…

Despite searching all over the place, even in the basement of the old library, they could not find any of the missing volumes. Having exhausted reasonable alternatives, she’d eventually settled on ordering new copies to replace them.

Four titles in unrelated fields – botany, warding and psychology – gone without a trace.

She muttered under her breath as she went downstairs for breakfast.

“Hey, is it okay if I hang out today? After my chores, I mean,” Spike asked as they ate alone in the secondary dining hall.

“Oh. Not keen on measuring the tree’s growth?”

He twiddled his claws. “Well, the Crusaders asked me if I could help them with something…”

She raised an eyebrow. “Do I want to know?”

“Probably not.”

“Well, just try to keep them from overdoing things, okay?”

Spike snorted. “Heh, you might as well ask for the moon while you’re at it. I’m just damage control.” He paused to demolish a sandwich, then added, “By the way, I ordered the new copies as you asked. Mr Dusty’s giving you a discount for getting a third set of books this quarter.”

Twilight efforts of crunching through a spoonful of cereal gradually slowed until her jaw came to a standstill.

A third set? When did that happen?

She hastily gulped down her mouthful. “Are you sure he got the right customer? I don’t remember ordering any other books recently.”

Spike shrugged. “I asked him, too. He seemed pretty sure about it.”

“This is weird. After you’re done with the CMC, can you triple-check our catalogue and purchase records?”

“Aww, but—”

“Please? I just want to make sure he isn’t sending stuff to us by mistake.” Her frown deepened. “Also, to see if we’re missing anything else. I don’t like what’s going on right now. If you run into anything weird, I’ll help you sort it out when I get back from Canterlot.”

“All right, I’ll get on it,” Spike replied.

With her morning meal finished, Twilight trotted over to him and patted him on the shoulder before retrieving her equipment for the old library.

She spent the rest of the morning inspecting nearly every inch and taking measurements of the enchanted oak, marvelling at its rapid recovery. Several new shoots had sprung up high on the outer wall regardless of the light snowfall, probably helped along by the fertiliser deposits she’d placed close to the root system in the basement.

“Hmmm,” she murmured when she finally came back outside. The sun was already on the western portion of the sky, and the distant chiming of town hall’s clock confirmed that it was a bit past noon.

I guess time flies when you’re being productive.

She glanced down at her summary.

- Estimated 8% increase in growth rate

- Low on fertiliser, remember to restock

- Soil moisture and acidity within optimal range

- Temperature slightly below comfort level, keep an eye out for hoarfrost

- 5 beetle grubs extracted, holes sealed with wax

- Fungal growth in lesions on eastern wall removed

- Some rust on tools. Must acquire drying crystals to keep in toolbox

- Double-checked for missing books again. No sign of them

- Next check due: approx. 7 days

Satisfied with the morning’s work, she placed the notebook back into her saddlebags and cast a glance in the direction of Canterlot, wondering if she could make a safe flight today. She flexed her wings experimentally and found to her surprise that they itched just a bit on her triceps. A quick inspection revealed no discernible insect bites, though that probably could be explained by her coming into contact with some fungal matter whilst cleaning out lesions in the oak’s wood. Come to think of it, she itched in a few other places as well, and detected a hint of an ache in some of her back muscles.

Probably just bad posturing whilst collecting data. Spike’s gonna’ have a field day telling me off.

Between that and her queasiness the night before, she decided to take the train instead. But only after a thorough bath.

* * * * *

Twilight grimaced when Luna landed a blow squarely on her midriff. She blocked the next thrust, then quickly slipped inside Luna’s reach and slammed an elbow into her chest, following with a quick slap of her wing to the back of the head. That got a rather satisfying grunt from her.

Yikes!

She didn’t expect Luna to wrap a foreleg around her barrel, though. The world spun in a whirlwind of snowflakes, stars and shadows for a second before she hit the ground with all of Luna’s weight on top of her. Air whooshed out of her lungs, followed by a groan when her body registered the pressure that her teacher was exerting on her limbs.

“You are surprisingly fierce and reckless tonight,” Luna commented as she released Twilight.

She hopped back into position and shivered a little as some of the wetness on her coat from the icy ground seeped down to her skin. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“Indeed. Would you care to talk about it?”

Twilight took Luna’s relaxed posture as an invitation to elaborate. She clearly considered it important enough to put their exercise on hold.

“Well, I’m actually not sure what’s wrong.”

“Talking would still help, I believe.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know; I feel like I’ve been losing ground in the last couple of weeks. I sometimes can’t stand being in the same room with somepony actively using magic or I’ll get all zombie-like creepy; I get sick in the middle of the night; and the bad dreams…”

“Are rather consistent in nature?” Luna offered.

“Yeah. I almost always start off helpless, and then I kind of break free, only to realise that I still have no control over my situation. It’s… unsettling.” She stared at the ground for a moment, then carried on. “And that’s not all. I’ve had some books mysteriously disappear, and then suppliers who claim that they’ve given me stuff I never ordered. In real life, I mean. There are times when I feel like I know what’s going on, but it turns out I really don’t have a clue…”

Luna remained silent.

“I can’t—I just feel like something’s waiting to go wrong. Rainbow and AJ are always going on about gut feelings, and I think I get that now.” She hung her head. “It’s completely unscientific, but it’s really hard to ignore.”

“Anxiety might be a product of overworking—”

“I don’t overwork!” Twilight snapped, then shrank back when Luna raised an eyebrow. “Sorry.”

“Perhaps we should continue another time?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ll manage. It helps take my mind off things for a while.”

“Do you promise to consider discussing this further? Burying your troubles would do no good.”

Twilight flexed her limbs and dropped into her practiced combat stance. “I promise. Let’s go.”

Somewhat reluctantly, Luna complied with a nod. As they sparred, she went back to metally cataloguing the changes her body went through as the evening wore on, carefully adjusting her expenditure of energy and fighting style to maximise efficiency and minimise risk of injury. She didn’t plan on prematurely wearing herself out and giving Luna more cause to worry.

But despite her best efforts to pace herself, her muscles seemed to reach the pain threshold much sooner than usual. It started off with an itchy kind of pain around her chest and in her limbs, like an insect bite that had been scratched to the point of breaking the skin. Though unusual, she did not consider it worth stopping to investigate.

Then the pain intensified into a burning sensation, and she wondered how she’d managed to strain so many muscles simultaneously. But she wasted no time wondering about that because Luna appeared to have lost the initiative in combat; her teacher seemed perplexed at first – maybe because of her shift towards a more aggressive onslaught of lunges, dashes and hoof swipes – but that quickly gave way to worry, and Twilight grinned at the prospect of putting her on the defensive for once.

“Sparkle,” said Luna.

Twilight ignored her searing muscles and spurred herself on, closing in for another strike, angling just a bit to the—

“Stop!”

Twilight braked with her wings and skidded a bit as she came to an abrupt halt in front of Luna.

“What?” she asked irritably, feeling a little cheated out of a possible victory.

Luna stared at her. Or rather, at something on her chest. Twilight followed her gaze and blinked when she saw streaks of red paint on her chest and legs. She also noticed a few crimson droplets spattered against the thin, greyish layer of snow on the ground. And then she realised that the burning sensations she’d felt corresponded with the red lines. As each breath expanded her chest, the lines would darken and droplets of red would swell out before they quickly soaked into her coat or ran down her legs. Pain spiked wherever her sweat mixed into the red lines.

A coppery scent reached her nostrils, and she reared up in panic, flinging specks of red all over the place. “Wha—why am I bleeding? What did I do wrong?”

She twisted and squirmed when Luna placed both hooves on her shoulders, but the gentle yet firm hold eventually helped her to stop hyperventilating.

“Field surgeon, now!” Luna barked as she herded Twilight towards shelter. Then, as the sound of a guard at full gallop faded away, she lit up a brazier, turned to Twilight and said, “Let me have a look.”

Twilight sat on her haunches within the warmth of the brazier’s coals, then forced herself to take a few deep, calming breaths. She closed her eyes and waited for her heart rate to drop a bit before she felt steady enough to ask, “What’s going on?”

“Hmm,” said Luna as she peered at one a wound on her foreleg. “I think we should wait for the expert’s assessment. Ah, here he comes.”

A bat-winged pony with first-aid supplies slung over his back flapped over, landed deftly by her side, and immediately began scrutinising her wounds and pressing lumps of gauze over them without so much as a hello. Unlike Luna, he went about his business as if inspecting an inanimate object for defects as opposed to a living patient, which Twilight found slightly disconcerting.

“This is Sickle Cell; I’m told he has terrible bedside manners,” Luna commented dryly.

“You’re thinking of doctors; playing nice wastes time on the battlefield,” the scruffy stallion replied without taking his eyes off the still-bleeding wounds.

“Umm, this isn’t a battlefield,” Twilight pointed out.

“Principle of the thing, Your Highness. Besides, soldiers don’t want a field surgeon going all mushy, ‘cause if I’m being nice to you, it means you’re dying and beyond my help.”

Luna chuckled at his response, and Twilight had a brief mental image of a dozen or so smart-mouthed stallions standing in a line before the Princess of the Night, auditioning for their roles as Night Guards by demonstrating their capacity for macabre humour.

“Argh!”

The weird thought vanished when Sickle pressed some stinging poultice onto her wounds. Now that her adrenaline had worn off, she had nothing to dull the blade-like pain in her torn flesh, and the knowledge that he was trying to help wasn’t quite enough to forgive his lack of warning. At the very least, she thought that he deserved the hiss and glare that she’d given him.

“Odd. Most of your lacerations are shallow and easily dealt with, but a couple of these are deeper than the slits on your skin would indicate. Very uneven tissue damage – gonna’ need stitches for those. Your coat’s remarkably intact, too,” Sickle commented with a frown before he gazed sternly at each of them in turn. “Seriously, what have you two been up to? It looks like your meat has ruptured.”

And you’re not helping!

Okay, that’s not true.

Twilight hissed and gritted her teeth as he continued working on her. Although he obviously meant well, that didn’t stop his efforts from feeling like he’d taken a saw to her skin. Between the agonising applications of poultice to her wounds, she managed to squeeze out a few words. “I don’t know what happened—ouch! We… weren’t doing anything – nngh! – unusual. They appeared out of nowhere!”

Then, an idea occurred to her, and she felt a slight chill as she turned to Luna and asked, “Is this another symptom of withdrawal?”

Luna shook her head. “It is not known to me, and any texts on the subject have never mentioned such… visceral side effects.”

“Whatever the case, you’re not in any condition to spar with Princess Luna,” Sickle interjected as he whipped out a suture kit filled with more needles and other bladed instruments than Twilight cared for. “Her Royal Highness has indicated that you do not respond well to magic at the moment, so we’re going manual with stitching you up. I’ll need to shave around your wounds to make room for that. Hold still, please.”

As much as she disliked having her coat crudely shaved and a needle and thread pulled through her skin, she did have to admire his skill at manipulating his tools with mouth and hooves that could almost rival a unicorn’s magical precision. Could she ever match that kind of skill in just about anything without magic? The thought of going through life without it made her legs turn to jelly, and guilt poked at her for all the times when she might’ve childishly pitied others for not having or being as good with magic as she was…

She stewed in those thoughts for a while as Sickle went about his business.

“And… we’re done,” he finally announced as he taped some gauze over the last wound. “No roughhousing until they’ve healed properly – I’ll keep an eye on you while you’re in Canterlot – and be sure to change the dressing if it gets soaked with blood. Bathing won’t be necessary, but if you absolutely have to, wait for at least a couple of days; you really don’t want water softening up the healing tissue and encouraging infection. Don’t apply soap to the wounds, but I suppose you’d figure that out anyway after you stop screaming. The sutures will dissolve after a while, but for the love of celery, don’t scratch when it starts itching. If you think you’re going insane, come see me and I’ll prescribe a practice sword so you can take it out on a training dummy. Or my apprentice, if you prefer.”

She nodded slowly as she attempted to parse through his barrage of instructions. “Okay.”

“Questions?” he prompted.

She eyed the patches of gauze on her body, noting the red blotches spreading out from the middle of each. The poultice had finally taken effect and dulled the pain, but they still hurt enough to make her wince when she flexed a leg. On top of that, nopony could tell her what had caused her skin to split open like an overcooked wheat sausage.

A big, purple sausage filled with blood…

She shivered and shrank inwards, staring at the ground. “I’m scared. I don’t know what’s going on anymore.”

“Not a question, but understandable,” Sickle replied. “I’ll admit that I’m stumped as well. I’d advise staying close to a hospital for the next week or two, just in case it’s a recurring symptom. Though, I still suspect that you just got a little too enthusiastic with combat training. You sure it didn’t involve any magic?”

“Whatever the cause, I am certain we shall discover it in due time,” Luna added as she placed a wing reassuringly on Twilight’s shoulder. “But for now, you should heed his words and rest in Canterlot.”

“For how long?” she blurted. “I mean, I’ve got duties, schedules, audiences—”

“That can all wait until you are restored to health,” Luna sternly interjected. “There will be others who will gladly perform your duties in your stead until you can return to Ponyville.”

Twilight bit her lip when the prospect of going home brought another concern to light. “What if this happens again in Ponyville? What if it happens while I’m asleep?” She felt the colour drain from her face. “Oh, what if Spike finds me bleeding out in bed? He’ll be—”

“Perfectly capable of notifying somepony who can help. If the Equestrian Games is anything to go by, he has proven quite capable of acting in a crisis,” Luna pointed out sternly. “But you are right; an episode at an unlikely hour can prove… detrimental.”

Luna turned to Sickle and inclined her head. “Thank you. You may return to your post.”

“Your Highnesses.” The stallion bowed and promptly trotted off.

“Are you well enough to walk?”

Twilight nodded.

“Come, then. I believe I have something that may help.”

Although reluctant to leave the warmth of the brazier, Twilight followed her from the garrison all the way back to the palace proper. Between the light snowfall and Luna keeping to the shadows, their journey through the streets remained uneventful and free from any interactions with passers-by. Once they got into the palace, though, avoiding attention proved impossible.

Everypony’s eyes widened when they beheld Ponyville’s resident princess trotting after Princess Luna, covered in patches of gauze that were already turning red from soaked blood, wincing whenever an overlong step stretched a wound. It reminded her of the stares she used to get after Ponyville’s couriers had nearly flattened her with a whole cartload of furniture. Thankfully, Luna’s steely gaze turned out pretty effective at making ponies lose interest in her, especially the servants and guards.

They ascended the winding stairs into Luna’s tower, and when they got to her chambers, she went straight to a sizeable, ornate chest sitting in a corner. At Luna’s request, Twilight sat and waited on the bed as she rummaged through its contents. After a moment, she heard the click of a key turning in its hole, and Luna came back carrying a lockbox that looked ancient with worn-out scratches and notches on its dark wood.

With great care, Luna pulled an amulet with a silvery chain from the little box. It had a diamond-like gem in its centre, which glowed with the same colour as Luna’s magic when she lit up her horn. Though only a brief display of alicorn magic, Twilight turned away and studiously ignored it. Once the blue glow had faded away, she turned back and found that the gem had turned into a brilliant sapphire that seemed to hum with stored energy.

“Are you familiar with lifeward amulets?” Luna asked.

She shook her head. “Only a little.”

“Not surprising, given their dwindling use since the advance of modern medicine. If you suffer any injury or ailment that puts your life in danger whilst wearing this amulet, the lifeward spell will activate and imbue you with a little energy to maintain consciousness and vital functions. It will also alert a keeper – myself, in this case – to your plight, and I shall come to your aid with all due haste, wherever you may be.”

Twilight admired the way the gem seemed to contain a swirling pool of tiny lights within and said, “That sounds really useful. Why don’t hospitals use this?”

“I imagine it is because they are rather difficult and expensive to craft; only a few mastered the art in my time, and such trinkets belonged almost exclusively to those rich enough to afford them. But more to the point: why bother when your modern contraptions can do as much without requiring a unicorn to operate? As I have come to understand, many pegasi and earth ponies have joined the ranks of healers.” Luna’s expression grew pensive as she held it out for inspection, as if remembering some time distant and long gone, before she chuckled and continued, “Still, it does have the advantage of range. This one is of exceptional quality and can alert me even whilst you are in Ponyville. The only downside is that you do have to wear it all the time, even whilst sleeping.”

“Wait,” Twilight cried, taking a couple of steps backwards when Luna drew close, apparently with the intention of putting it around her neck. “That thing has magic. What—what if I, you know, try to break it and soak up what’s inside?”

“There is a risk, that much is true. Try it on and see if it causes you distress. I shall intervene if you need assistance.”

Luna hoofed over the amulet, and Twilight took it as reluctantly as she would a firecracker with a lit and extremely short fuse. It felt a little warm, and her hunger stirred a little when she had it around her neck with the gem resting on her chest, but to her relief, it turned out no worse than being in close proximity to a typical unicorn. She could put up with that. With a little time, it should become nothing more than background noise that she could tune out.

“How do you feel?”

Twilight prodded it, in case a little movement might aggravate its effects, but it still felt relatively inert for something so magical. “I think it’s manageable,” she declared.

“Good. In any case, I have placed a failsafe ward that would quickly discharge its magic as harmless light if the amulet is damaged or tampered with.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” She glanced down at it and smiled a little. “Hmm, it’s kind of pretty, too.”

Luna nodded. “Then it is settled. Consider it a gift.”

Twilight mumbled her thanks as she turned the amulet over and around in her hooves to admire the intricate silverwork. It twisted and flowed around the gem like cresting waves, and curved into two points above and below the gem into the shape of a crescent moon.

She blinked. “Did somepony make this for you? The style fits your, umm, theme.”

Luna chuckled. “You imply that anything night-related is made in my name. But yes, Tia had this one crafted for me – ” she turned to look at the sky outside, and her gaze grew distant, “ – a long time ago, when she was my guardian as much as my sister.”

“Oh, wow.” The amulet suddenly appeared a little too special, too regal for her to wear. “Are you sure? I mean, it sounds like it means a lot to you.”

“It does, and it is also mine to give,” Luna replied with a smile. “Besides, it would be foolish to keep it hidden in a box when it can serve its true purpose. Also,” her smile turned a little sheepish, “I have to admit: at times, I see you as the little sister I never had. Not that I wish to usurp your brother’s place, of course—”

Oh, why not. She’s been acting like a good one, anyway.

Twilight hugged her, and then winced when Luna’s initially ginger reciprocation grew into a proper embrace that made her freshly treated wounds protest. Good thing that she couldn’t see her wince; Luna really seemed to appreciate the gesture, if her strength was any indication.

Ow.

At that moment, whether by luck or desperation, her stomach decided let loose a deep, hollow growl, like a manticore trapped in a well.

Luna broke off and stared critically at her belly, before she nodded gravely and said, “I concur; a good meal would help to offset your blood loss.” She then grinned mischievously and pointed a hoof viciously to the rest of the palace, as if ordering an army to advance. “I am feeling rather peckish, myself. Come; let us raid the royal kitchens!”

Chapter 9

Being an alicorn definitely came with some benefits. Her wounds healed at an extraordinary rate, and without needing much attention, too. She could’ve done without the itching, but that was a relatively minor complaint.

She had more cause to worry over the fact that they never found the cause of her spontaneous bleeding, though. Doctors and surgeons had a few theories, but they mostly centred on accidental self-mutilation during her sleep or parasites in her skin, none of which satisfied her, for obvious reasons. Firstly, Luna could attest to her normal appearance before sparring, and a thorough check up involving blood samples revealed no freaky infections or parasites. Magic seemed a more likely culprit, but the lack of latent energy from hexing or enchanting stymied everypony who got involved as well.

But as the days passed without any complications or recurrences, she felt increasingly content to put it all behind her and move on from there. After only a week and a half of rest and relaxation in Canterlot at Celestia’s and Luna’s insistence, Twilight’s wounds had pretty much healed completely without any scarring, and she felt eager to get back to her duties in Ponyville.

Her friends actually visited on the second day since the incident and sent her some mail after that, but she definitely wanted to see them again in person. Spike, on the other hoof, wrote almost daily, but she easily noticed his silence on certain matters related to work, probably in an attempt to keep her stress to a minimum. Not very efficient, since she’d have to deal with it when she got back, but she smiled and appreciated the thoughtful sentiment behind it anyway.

Twilight had intended to fly back to Ponyville the previous afternoon, but on a whim had decided to leave it till the wee hours. She didn’t have many opportunities for night flights and had long wondered how it would feel to take to the sky far away from civilisation, with only the moon and stars to light her way.

Now is as good as any time.

Twilight breathed deeply and savoured the crisp, cold air as she soared in the pre-dawn sky over the snowy landscape. The pegasi had scheduled for a clear sky that night after the heavy snowfall the day before, and Luna had painted a gorgeously brilliant sea of stars to light her way home. It felt good to stretch her wings after being grounded for so long, and she wanted to make the most of it before diving into the thick of things.

Instead of flying straight, she allowed the winds to carry her as they pleased, only correcting her flight trajectory when it deviated too far from her destination. Tiny clusters of yellow dots marked where villages and dwellings along the river and rolling hills still had their lights on, and she wondered what ponies would think if they saw one of the princesses flying around on her own.

She whiled away the night on her wings, enjoying the temporary freedom from responsibilities and worries. But that illusion could not last forever, and despite her very leisurely pace, she reached Ponyville at the crack of dawn. Powdery snow cascaded down the slanted roof of Town Hall when she landed on the highest balcony to watch the glimmering lights from windows and the wisps of smoke drifting from the chimneys.

It took a while, but the chilly morning eventually got through her coat and the fading warmth from her flight. She took that as her cue to head into the crystal tree, and maybe get a hot cup of tea or something. But as she flitted over to the crystalline spires, an idea popped into her head.

The long, leisurely flight after so much relaxing had left her feeling refreshed rather than weary, so sleep did not really appeal to her at the moment. Too early for ponies to be up, so calling on her friends for a chat or an outing had to wait, too. She could always do with some study time, though, or maybe—

Golden Oaks.

A sudden thrill went up and down her spine at the thought of checking on the tree’s progress. Having missed the last visit, she’d hopefully find plenty to do in taking care of her former home. Since the pegasi had scheduled for some heavy weather later in the day, she might as well channel her excitement into something productive and get it done before the snow got really thick.

The intensity and persistence of her excitement seemed odd, though. After coming up with the idea, Twilight had trouble keeping still, and her heart rate would jump a couple of notches higher every time she thought about the tasks awaiting her in its basement. She had butterflies in her stomach as well, like one of those difficult-to-sleep nights she’d spend tossing and turning in bed as she waited in anticipation for her exam results the following day.

Whatever the reason, she filed that observation away for later as she entered her room through the window and quietly slipped past Spike’s bed to retrieve her saddlebags from the study. After making sure that she had everything in order, she exited the palace through the same window and headed straight for Golden Oaks Library.

The light shade of blue on the eastern horizon had already spread to most of the sky at that point, but due to the rather chilly and slow morning, she saw only a few sleepy ponies coming out of their houses to start the day. Shivering partly from the cold and partly from anticipation, she quickly flapped up to a fair height and drifted into an easy glide down the street towards her old home. Despite the snowfall, the oak had very little snow or ice on it, and stood like a lonely, gnarled tower with a little bit of green at the top surrounded by a town covered in grey and white.

Twilight landed gracefully at the doorstep and smiled at the memories of welcoming others into the library as she opened the door. The interior looked much the same as before; the insulation provided by its outer wall prevented snow from piling up within, and if it weren’t for the scorch marks, she could almost see her home exactly as it had been before the flames.

But her smile fell as she trotted towards the basement trapdoor. First, a sense of dread and fear crept up on her, clinging to the back of her mind like a parasite. Every step forward became an exercise in willpower as her curiosity warred with the irrational surge in her desire to leave the tree and spend the rest of the day underneath her bed.

Something about it didn’t quite add up, though, so she cast her magical sense outward and frowned when her scan revealed an arcane ward – one apparently designed to induce fear in living creatures that entered its effective radius. Whoever had set up the ward clearly didn’t want anypony going near the basement’s trapdoor.

I disappear for just a couple of weeks, and this happens?

Now that she had identified the source of her fear, the ward lost its effectiveness, and she wasted no time in getting ready to explore the basement. She retrieved a crystal lantern from her saddlebags and charged it with a little magic. And just in case, she also kept some power in her horn ready for any surprises.

Darkness greeted her as the trapdoor creaked open, and the bluish light of her lantern revealed the winding stairs that curled downwards with the oak’s circumference. She held her breath and listened, but found only eerie silence as motes of dust floated in the glow of her lantern. She levitated it down first, half-expecting an intruder to burst out at any second. But nothing out of the ordinary presented itself, and she pondered the matter for a moment before charging up another two crystal lanterns to bring along. The extra light couldn’t hurt.

As soon as she got down past the trapdoor, she immediately felt several more wards ‘beneath’ the fear-inducing one. She recognised one for blocking out noise and another for keeping things hidden from scrying, similar in concept to the spell that Princess Celestia had used to keep the Elements hidden and protected from Discord. Their range stopped just at the trapdoor, which explained why she could sense nothing but the fear ward until she actually got past the entrance. She could feel another ward present in addition to those three: a rather complex one whose purpose she couldn’t yet identify due to its currently inert state.

What in Equestria is going on in here?

Twilight tensed up as she peered into the darkness beyond the lantern light, suddenly feeling glad of her extensive training with Luna. Given the difficulty of layering several complex wards with so little space to work with, she’d definitely found the work of somepony well-versed in magic, who could match her in skill and possibly in raw power, given her current state. But she felt sure that she could surprise the intruder with a few physical moves if their magic proved evenly matched.

Despite her self-assurances that she could deal with anything down there, her jaw remained clenched and her heart continued thumping far too loudly for her liking as she cautiously descended into the basement proper.

The all-too-familiar hunger had also reared up its ugly head at the presence of those wards, but for the moment, she felt capable of keeping it on a very short leash. It could gnaw and thrash and try to empty her inside out, but she had no intention of letting it get in the way of finding out just who was messing around with her beloved Golden Oaks Library.

Once her hooves struck the bottom floor, she spread her lanterns out to distribute light evenly throughout the basement. Her frown deepened when their light revealed a couple of desks with several stacks of books piled high on top of each at the far end of the chamber.

I definitely did not put those there.

Although admittedly neat and orderly, she only remembered ever bringing down some gardening tools and supplies, and some apparatuses for measuring the tree’s health and soil properties. Those she saw neatly set aside next to the desks, and they looked like they had not seen use for quite some time.

Twilight trotted forward, then shifted her gaze towards a section of wall whose wood appeared discoloured almost to the point of matching the darkness before she’d brought the lanterns in. And then, her jaw dropped when she found a gaping hole in the wall.

Actually, on second thought, it looked more like a tunnel or burrow. The surrounding wood had either rotten away or been bored through, and the opening was roughly circular in shape and nearly large enough for a small cart to fit through at its widest point. She vaguely remembered that the basement wall had split and fractured roughly at that spot during her initial visits, but she also recalled having dealt with the problem by shoring it up with supporting beams or something similar.

Twilight hastily set her saddlebags on the floor and dug out her notebook to consult her records, and—

Something rustled.

A tingle went down her spine and into her hooves as her ears swivelled in the direction of the gaping tunnel. Slowly, she turned her head towards it, and nearly leaped into the air when another rustle and creak followed. And then, she grimaced when a pang of emptiness filled her being. Whatever resided within that tunnel had magic, and its unusual flavour had whetted her appetite.

Okay, stay calm. It’s probably nothing you can’t deal with.

She slowly exhaled and levitated one of the lanterns into the tunnel, noting that it sloped downwards roughly at a forty-five degree angle, and had walls composed mostly of compacted dirt and rocks instead of the soft soil she’d expected. Maybe—

Something long and black lashed out and snagged the lantern, and before she could react, pulled it out of her magical grip and crushed its glass casing. The glowing crystals clinked to the ground and disappeared into a mass of ropey shapes.

Twilight blinked in silence for a moment before her common sense finally kicked in and screamed at her to either flee or get ready to defend herself. She attempted a hasty teleport and felt the world fall away… only to snap back in place as something pulled her back like an anchor on a wayward skiff. Briefly stunned by the magical whiplash, she tottered in place for a moment before recovering sufficiently to attempt setting up a shielding bubble. But the purple sphere had barely begun to take shape when she felt something wrap around her hind legs and pull them out from under her.

She shrieked as she crashed to the floor, and felt several more things coiling around her limbs. She twisted to get a look, and flailed when she saw the awfully familiar black vines covered in thorns writhing out of the hole. Some of them looked almost as thick as her legs.

No-no-no-no-no!

Twilight screamed for help and scrabbled at the dirt as they dragged her into the darkness. She managed to release a blast of magic from her horn, but it only repulsed the loose vines for a moment, and actually seemed to aggravate them once it had faded away. Panicked, she fumbled to channel a stronger blast, but the vines broke her concentration when they curled around her horn and squeezed. She screamed again and thrashed, but that only seemed to encourage them further. They coiled around her body and bound her limbs tightly to her sides, until she could barely even twist around. The pain in her wings told her that they’d probably twisted and broken more than a few feathers.

Then, they went for her throat. Not tightly enough to cut off her air, but firmly enough that she no longer dared to scream for fear of wasting what precious breath she could still get. Thorns dug into her hide, and she could feel the vines dragging her deeper into the pit. The light from the lanterns in the basement shrank away, until more of the vile tendrils blocked her sight and she had to force her eyes shut to avoid the risk of poking them out.

Plunder vines.

She remembered Celestia and Luna rising from the tangled snarl of thorny vines at the base of the Tree of Harmony. She remembered getting ensnared by the same plants as well.

Discord.

This had his name written all over it. He certainly had enough skill and power to place those wards, and though she couldn’t yet figure out why he would lay a trap like this, she promised to make him pay for putting such a dangerous plant underneath Golden Oaks Library, of all places!

Need to get out first.

She strained against the vines and then yelped when the thorns dug deeper into her flesh. If she tried any harder, they’d probably draw blood, if they hadn’t already. She prepared a spell, then gasped when she noticed magic flowing freely out of her horn and into the vines.

Unfortunately for her, unlike Celestia and Luna back then, she had no Elements or Tree of Harmony to save her from the thorny abominations as they drained her away to a mindless husk.

Her breath grew ragged and uneven as she contemplated the vast emptiness within that awaited her. Bad enough that she had less magic than she’d liked, but to have what little she had taken away against her will?

No, it can’t end like this!

She twisted and thrashed again, but to no avail. Sobs wracked her as the futility of her efforts came crashing down upon her.

I can’t.

How long would it take for somepony to find her? The fear ward that she should’ve disarmed would keep the curious at bay for a long while, and even if they formed a search party and somepony managed to bull their way through the artificial fear, they’d still have to deal with the nasty surprise waiting below…

Her heart skipped a beat.

What if it spreads out? What if it gets Spike?

She grit her teeth at the mental image of Spike calling her name, only to find the writhing mass of vines that would drag him underground to suffer the same fate as her, utterly helpless and alone in the darkness…

No, that’s not going to happen.

She could feel some nausea at the loss of magic, so she had to expend her power very carefully. With all those vines in the way, choking on her own vomit would effectively put a swift end to her struggle. Complex spells were out of the question, but she could gradually power up her horn in preparation for a simple one. The vines twitched as she poured some magic into her horn, and she felt the drain on her reserves quicken a bit. She ignored the sensation as she channelled more power, balancing between the increasing drain against the growing sum of energy she had stored up in her horn.

She felt sweat oozing out of her pores as the seconds ticked away. But eventually, the charge in her horn reached her projected critical mass. Despite the dire circumstance, she couldn’t help feeling some twisted glee as she recalled Luna’s lecture on some of her newly acquired alicorn traits.

I’m almost fireproof; you’re not.

Twilight squeezed her eyes shut more tightly, tensed up all of her muscles, and then converted all of the stored magic in her horn into thermal energy. Not all at once, or the resulting explosion could give her a concussion, but gradually increasing in strength, like an ignited sample of magnesium. She heard a loud hiss, followed by blinding light, searing heat, and the snap and crackle of burning vegetative matter.

Smoke filled her nostrils as the vines recoiled from the heat, but not enough to release her. With her eyes still closed, she twisted around to test the vines, but the firmness of their grip made her decide to release the remainder of her charged spell all at once to force it to loosen up.

You want my magic? Eat this!

In her childhood spent watching the myriad of celebrations and festivals in Canterlot, Twilight had once wondered what would happen if one of those huge fireworks went off course and exploded in her face. Apparently, the results included ringing ears, disorientation, singed hair and a whole lot of pain. At least the vines felt it too, for they loosened up sufficiently that she managed to snap the charred ones around her neck and chest.

It took her a moment or two to regain her bearings, during which she stared at the glowing cinders floating in the smoky air. She tasted blood when she sucked in breath through her nostrils. Once her head had cleared, she cast an illumination spell and grimaced at the sight of four still-intact vines wrapped around each leg. Growling, she dug her hooves into the dirt and pulled, using her wings to provide some reverse thrust. The vines pulled back, and for a moment, they seemed evenly matched, until another half-dozen or so lashed out to replace their charred kin.

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Twilight grunted as they snared her wings and wrapped around her neck.

She leaned backwards in an attempt to compensate, but her hooves and the dirt by themselves could not provide the traction and resistance necessary to hold against the vines. She slid and landed painfully on her tail just before getting dragged back into the mass of vines. Her horn’s light went out, and the darkness swallowed her once more.

No, not again!

Twilight felt like crying in despair when she felt them resume sapping her magic. But even though she only sobbed, something inside her screamed and roared as her strength faded away. It wanted her power back. It would not take no for an answer. With no alternative in sight, she looked inward at the vast expanse of emptiness awaiting her if she failed.

Failure is not an option.

Growling in disgust and cursing her weakness, she surrendered to the eldritch hunger.

Two could play at that game. She blinked away her tears, which glowed green and purple in the light from her horn and eyes. With disturbing ease, she recalled the arcane matrices and channelled the last of her reserves into powering her own siphoning spell. Black tendrils shot out of her horn and ensnared the vines themselves, and she took savage pleasure in watching them shiver and writhe, seemingly in pain, as the spell took back her magic by force. As quickly as she reclaimed her magic, she used more of it to power the siphoning spell, and before long, the vines closest to her showed signs of withering.

She inhaled deeply through her nostrils and shivered when she tasted the vines’ magic. If unicorn magic could be compared to water, then this variant was like some element in a constant state flux between solid, liquid and gas, with just about every flavour she’d ever tasted in her life all mashed together. In other words, it tasted of chaos, and she briefly recoiled at the thought of consuming more.

Failure is not an option.

The vines still held her fast. Twilight shook her head and inhaled more of their magic, listening to them shrivel and dry up. She yanked one of her forelegs backwards, and gritted her teeth when the vines around it raked her flesh with its thorns before snapping like an overburdened rope.

But before she could properly free herself, the familiar throbbing in her chest overwhelmed her as the foreign magic fought to break free from its new vessel. Her horn went out, and she clutched her chest with her free foreleg and groaned when the chaos magic strained against her mortal form, testing its limits and searching for a weak point to burst free.

The unexpected incapacitation gave the vines an opportunity to truss her up once more, and beyond the agony in her bones and veins, she vaguely felt them throwing more coils around her body with fresh tendrils.

“Just… wait. We’re having… another go,” she choked out between uneven breaths. The pain had already ebbed away to something tolerable, and she would soon have the strength and concentration to get back to weakening the vines.

Failure is not an option.

The vines tried to snag her horn when she recast the spell, but she swatted them aside with her free foreleg and quickly breathed in another helping of chaos magic. This time, she knew she had to use her physical strength as well, or the vines might try something else whilst she curled up on the floor to deal with the consequences of taking in so much magic.

She struggled to all fours, and when the next wave of pain came, she dug in three hooves and pulled with her other snared foreleg. Somepony screamed, but she ignored it and used the agony in her chest to blot out the feeling of thorns tearing at her as the vines either slipped loose or snapped. Once she had both forelegs free, she shifted her weight and focused on breaking the vines around her barrel. Sounds like snapping twigs and splintering wood filled the air, and she added her own ragged voice to them in between breaths of chaos energy.

The vicious plant sent out a particularly thick vine at her, probably in a last ditch attempt to reel her in, but she’d already broken so many and siphoned so much power that she nearly laughed when it wrapped around her midriff. She braced for the inevitable pull, and nearly toppled when it squeezed hard enough to make her ribs creak and yanked with far more force than she’d anticipated. Grunting, she wrapped both forelegs around it and stood on her hind hooves, as if playing tug-of-war, and pulled with every ounce of her strength reinforced with siphoned magic.

Failure. Is. Not. An. Option!

She heard something like the crack of a whip and stagger-stepped a few paces backwards when the resistance vanished. She used both wings to arrest her momentum before crashing to the ground, and proceeded to twist off the feebly twitching vine that had shifted up her torso and gotten stuck at the base of her wings. Slowly at first, then more forcefully once the thorns no longer stuck in her skin. And for good measure, she stomped on it after throwing it onto the ground.

As Twilight stood in place, panting heavily, she heard the crisp rustling and saw the feeble remnants of the plunder vines retreating deeper into the pit. Relief washed over her, and she turned to ascend the tunnel and get back to the light in the basement.

But after taking several steps, she gradually slowed until she came to a standstill, right at the tunnel entrance. The vicious plant still posed a threat, and she had a chance to deal with it permanently before it could recover and hurt anypony else.

She set her mouth into a grim line as she trudged back down and flared her horn to sweep aside the shadows. Now that she had proper lighting, she could estimate the tunnel’s length at around twenty paces. Some of the oak’s thick roots bulged out from the tunnel’s walls, but for the most part it looked very cleanly dug. And right at the end, the tunnel widened into a small chamber with muddy earth at the bottom. She saw the vines sprouting from several black, bulbous lumps that resembled thorny onions the size of pumpkins. Many had split ends that oozed bluish-black sap, and they seemed to recoil at her approach.

Good. So it knows what’s coming.

Twilight charged up her magic to burn the whole cluster of abominations with fire, but her incineration spell refused to manifest. She stared at the plant as a whirlwind of ideas swept through her mind.

Just this once…

The purple glow of her magic slowly intertwined with green energy.

It would be poetic justice.

Turning the tables made her smile. Black tendrils branched out from her horn and engulfed the vines, and before long, a sickly blue cloud of magic leached out of the vegetative matter as they withered and shrank. The withering began at the tips, and gradually ran the full length of the vines until even the swollen bases split and cracked like desiccated fruit.

And then Twilight drank in its power. Fire raced down her throat and roared through her lungs, then turned to lightning that arced through her nerves and veins before finally diffusing into every fibre of her being. It filled the emptiness, and she felt her body swell with renewed vigour.

She drained the plant within an inch of its life, then stopped as the tremors in her limbs signalled the onset of another internal power struggle. Not wanting to writhe and twitch in the filthy tunnel, she dashed upwards as quickly as her legs could manage before they finally succumbed to the muscle spasms.

Twilight’s groan dragged on into an agonised scream as she curled up on the basement floor. Her chest felt on the verge of splitting open from the pressure within, and her nerves burned with volatile, unruly energy. She attempted to exert her will on the chaos, but it resisted control and wreaked havoc with her body; her heart rate fluctuated wildly, her lungs repeatedly expanded beyond comfort and shrank until she wheezed for breath, her eyes roved in their sockets, and her limbs twitched independently as if they had minds of their own.

Keep calm, keep calm. You’ll get over it. You always do. Happy thoughts… that’s it…

Slowly, oh so slowly, her suffering petered out. She blinked and slowly rolled onto her back to stare at the ceiling, wincing a little. After shifting a little to ease the pressure on her wings, she shivered as the tingling worked its way from her spine to her extremities.

Still alive.

A soft moan escaped her when the warm, fuzzy tingle reached her horn, but gradually turned into a groan as she realised the enormity of her mistake.

“You blew it. For real, this time.”

She tried to get up, but her muscles did not feel up to the task of standing, so she let her head thump back onto the floor and stared off into space. Given all that she’d gone through, though, she couldn’t help feeling entitled to a little enjoyment of being whole again. So she waited for her bodily functions to settle back into their normal ranges, and whiled the time away counting stars on the ceiling that may or may not have been imaginary.

Ouch.

Her euphoria could not last forever, and when it finally faded away, the knives in her flesh came back. She rose to all fours and winced as the movement twisted or pulled the gashes left by the vines’ thorns. Her eyes widened when she saw the red smears on her coat and the considerable puddle on the floor.

An exploratory attempt at teleporting resulted in a mild tug from a spatial anchor, so that was out of the question. She probably didn’t have the time to disable the ward before suffering the consequences of severe blood loss. She flicked her gaze wildly about, searching for a solution to her predicament, and her eyes fell on the desks stacked with odds and ends. With luck, one of them might have medical supplies or at least something that she could improvise with to staunch her wounds.

She retrieved one of the crystal lanterns and set it on one of the desks. Both had rather tall stacks of tomes and inkwells, quills, a few sealed glass jars, metal instruments, phials and beakers on top of them, but after a quick sweep, she felt her eyes drawn to a pair of worn notebooks that looked like they had seen extensive and abusive use. One of them lay open to the middle pages, and had brownish stains and smudges on the paper.

Before reading it, Twilight shifted uneasily and glanced around; she didn’t want to get caught by surprise again. Despite finding no one else in the basement with her, she couldn’t shake off the feeling that somepony had their eyes on her. Magic pulsed in her horn as she ground her teeth and returned her attention to the crusty notebook.

Whatever. Anything that gets the jump on me is going to regret it.

The writing looked familiar, but she swept aside her ponderings on the owner’s identity when she realised that the pages contained very detailed and extensive notes on healing magic. She’d read a few medical journals for fun before and was no expert on the subject, but she felt pretty sure that no unicorn doctor had previously used the arcane matrices and primers detailed within. Her pulse quickened; the notebook’s owner had some very innovative ideas of interweaving unicorn, pegasus and earth pony magic to overcome each other’s limitations.

She stuck her tongue out one side of her mouth in concentration as she flipped through page after page, ignoring the mild metallic taste of her sweat. The notes were meticulous, but arranged so methodically and efficiently that she could absorb one concept after another without needing a break.

Twilight gasped when a splotch of red popped onto the page and hastily wiped it with a hoof, and then growled to herself when it turned into a nasty smear. She backed off a little to avoid bleeding on it again and resumed reading.

Within twelve minutes or so, she had memorised the process and felt ready to try the spell.

About time, too, she thought at the sight of the fresh puddle beneath her.

Twilight shut her eyes and started by coating her form in sensory magic. Every cut, every gash resembled a valley, every line of blood a river to her mind’s eye as her consciousness raced over her physical body, taking note of every irregularity that needed correction. After cataloguing her injuries, she followed up with the regenerative spell to weave her torn flesh and skin back together. Time had slowed, or maybe her perception had accelerated to the point where she could watch as blood droplets bulged out from gaps between the strands of tissue she wove together. The process stung like crazy, but the spell also granted her super-equine control over some of her non-voluntary functions, which enabled her to temporarily dull the transmission of pain through her nerves and retard her muscle spasms while she worked.

Mending anything deeper than half an inch proved exceptionally difficult, and after nearly tangling up a vein with muscle tissue, she decided to simply focus on healing her skin. Most of the damage was superficial, anyway; nature could take care of the rest. So, one after another, she sealed her wounds and finished just in time to watch a single breath stretch the newly-woven skin tissue on her chest. Pleased that the mended flesh held together, she then focused on re-growing her coat to hide any trace of the pinkish lines.

And… there we go.

Twilight sighed as the spell’s final component took effect; it dulled her aches until she felt as if she’d just had a long, hard run or flight instead of a life-threatening struggle with chaos-powered, thorny vines. The significant amount of magic she’d consumed could’ve played a part in that as well, but—no, she could worry about that later. She plopped onto her haunches, leaped up again and mentally chided herself for getting her tail and rump all sticky and disgusting.

Now that she didn’t have excessive blood loss hanging over her head, she could afford a little more thoroughness in her search and found some cleaning agents stowed under the desks, along with an ample supply of rags and medical gauze. She also spotted a crude faucet fixed to a pipe that went up through the ceiling.

Apparently, the place still had functional plumbing, though at a very low pressure. She used a wet rag to clean up the worst of her coat before turning around to stare at the huge mess in the basement. A trail of red splotches ran from the puddle beneath her, through the half-dried, body-sized splatter in the middle of the chamber, and into the hole from which wisps of smoke drifted out.

It’ll take ages to clean that up…

She shook her head and glared at the desks. That could be dealt with later. For now, she had to figure out who had set up such an elaborate trap in the middle of what was starting to look like a supervillain’s secret hideout or twisted laboratory.

Her suspicions about Discord’s involvement no longer held as much weight as before; despite the presence of his plants, the whole setup seemed a little too elaborate and precise for his style – for a trap, at any rate. And even if he had other uses for it, why bother with Golden Oaks Library when his amnesty granted him access to places vastly superior in terms of secrecy and usefulness?

No, it has to be—hey, wait a minute…

Twilight frowned when her eyes went over the piles of books; she recognised the visible titles, and when she shifted others to see their spines, she recognised nearly every single one. The missing books from the new library, the mysterious ‘extra’ copies from the supplier, plus a few others that shouldn’t have been accessible outside of the restricted sections in Canterlot Library…

So, somepony had snuck books off and smuggled them under her nose the whole time! Grinding her teeth, Twilight scrutinised the desks with renewed determination. The jars held an assortment of desiccated plant matter, more than a few of which had magical properties that might’ve whipped her other hunger into a frenzy if she hadn’t already fed so—moving on. One jar contained those black, crusty seeds that Chippy had sold her nearly three weeks back, and everything froze for a moment. She glanced at the tunnel behind her, and it took more than a little effort to resist flinging the jar of seeds away and smashing it against the wall.

That Chippy mare from Hollow Shades somehow had her hooves in this after all, and she’d been harvesting Discord’s plunder seeds! Could she be the culprit? Did she have accomplices? Was there a mastermind orchestrating something messed up? Possibly. Likely. An outsider would’ve needed somepony who had access to the crystal castle to have gotten her hooves on so many books without being discovered for so long. Not to mention the marepower necessary to set up a makeshift – she glanced around the ruined basement – lair of sorts complete with a nasty booby trap plant in just under two weeks, all without attracting any attention right in the middle of Ponyville!

But why?

Twilight rifled through one of the notebooks for clues. She found an entry on Chippy’s contact details and profession, along with the addresses of several other ponies from all over Equestria. An herbalist in Hollow Shades, a psychologist in Manehattan, a doctor in Baltimare, a botanist specialising in Ghastly Gorge ecology…

She bit her lip when she got to the part where the author had notes on the schedules of the townsfolk and castle staff, including hers and Spike’s. Business hours, pegasus weather plans, work life and wandering habits of her former neighbours...

Her brow furrowed as she read the notes on constructing the arcane wards protecting the basement, and then her remaining blood chilled when she started on the entries detailing various attempts at cultivating magical plants in the basement. Dragonseye perennials failed because they couldn’t subsist on crystal light. Too much clay in the tunnel soil for blisterroots, and they didn’t like pots. The plunder vines, though… they turned out perfect for the culprit’s plans. The author’s horn writing – probably too precise to be mouth writing – had grown scratchy and light from apparent excitement in those entries as he or she projected its growth rate and possible yield.

But something seemed off. There were a whole lot of entries, and a quick glance at the dates told her why: the first one started nearly eight, no, nine weeks ago.

Okay, that’s crazy. I was here. There’s no way they could’ve done that right under my nose, in between my visits. Not possible.

Twilight set the notebook down and scratched at her neck and chest with the edge of her hoof.

Time dilation? Probably not; that’s outside the skill and capacity of just about every unicorn alive today.

As she considered and discarded one theory after another, she picked up a third notebook and absentmindedly leafed through its pages.

I’m sorry.

Twilight’s string of hypotheses snapped at the intrusion of the stray thought. She focused on the book writing before her eyes, and then frowned. The middle of the notebook had wrinkled pages that looked like it had sustained some water damage, maybe from rain, and it had just two things on it: a date, about nine weeks ago, and the words, ‘I’m sorry’ written multiple times across several rows.

She flipped a page forward.

‘I’m sorry.’

Another page revealed multiple rows of the same words again and again.

‘Sorry. I wasn’t strong enough.’

‘Still can’t do it. I’m sorry, again.’

‘I’m an idiot.’

The messages all had gaps of a few days in between them, and the next few ones were written in more or less the same regretful or self-deprecating tone. The latest entry, just over two weeks ago, had only one sentence, and looked more like a giant scribble where the author had ripped the quill back and forth through paper like a knife to underline its last words:

‘TWILIGHT, YOU WEAK, SPINELESS COWARD.’

She bristled at the insult and felt her muscles tense up as she widened her stance ever so slightly in anticipation of an assailant appearing at any moment. Even when nopony did so, her hackles still refused to go down. So, it looked like somepony had a personal vendetta against her, and she must’ve stumbled upon their half-done project for exacting revenge on her. But who and why?

The rest of the notebook had empty pages, so she began flipping through it in the other direction in the hopes of shedding some more light on the author’s identity. The earlier pages contained extensive notes on more spellwork, specifically on spatial anchoring to block teleportation in and out, and another on psycho-thaumaturgy.

That one piqued her interest; she’d found no evidence of mind-affecting spells upon entering the basement, but if the author had used it in some way…

Twilight shuddered at the memory of Shining’s glazed expression when the changeling queen exerted her will upon him.

The notes were as detailed and methodical as the healing spell and had references to a couple of the books on psychology nearby. Later pages had extensive instructions on how to integrate some of the concepts with an arcane ward template to shift its effects toward the mind-magic spectrum.

As she read the notes, Twilight remembered that one time she tackled a greyed-out Applejack to the ground in order to administer a memory recall spell. The author evidently had more than a passing familiarity with the same spell, except that he or she had twisted and reapplied some of its components to damage memory recall rather than aid it. In other words, she’d invented a spell for wiping memories.

That’s bad. Very bad.

Twilight remembered sensing an unusual ward on her way in. Inert, but it only needed somepony to prime it in order to activate, and she had no intention of sticking around for that to happen.

But her curiosity demanded a couple more minutes with the notebook, and the next section had an easy how-to guide on priming the memory-wiping ward so that anypony who went through the trapdoor would have their memories from the past hours forcibly purged, adjustable with the amount of power fed into the spell.

The odd, repetitive lines started after that page.

Okay, if this were a novel, this is the part where the villain shows up. I need to get out of here right now.

She grabbed the incriminating notebook with her magic and whirled around to scoop up her forgotten saddlebags from the floor. But as she turned to make a break for it, her eyes settled on the dark tunnel to the monstrous plant, and for a moment, her legs refused to move.

Shoot. It’s still alive.

The plunder vines would probably grow back. She’d need to come back to make sure they didn’t get out of control and overrun the town. She should just finish it off. Yes. That would be prudent. But… then again, come to think of it, not many ponies had a chance to study such a unique plant. If careful, she could come back every few days and regulate its growth.

Her legs began carrying her towards the tunnel…

Grow back. Come back.

The words suddenly stuck out in her mind like a sore hoof, and she froze in mid-step to glance down at the books she held in her magic. The first one with healing magic, covered in drops of dried blood. The second one, filled with information on growing the vines. The third one, filled with dubious mind-magic spells.

Twilight’s mouth suddenly felt very dry. She tried to swallow, but the gummy stuff in her mouth refused to go down her throat.

Slowly, she trotted back to the desk, took a quill from its inkwell, and flipped the third notebook to the pages with series of repetitions. Biting her lip, she repeated the words ‘I’m sorry’ in her mind and wrote it just beneath the lowest line, near the bottom of the page.

Twilight’s eye twitched.

Aside from a few minor deviations, her writing matched the author’s perfectly. She flipped to the next page and tried it again. Another match. When a third attempt yielded the same result, she dropped the book onto the floor and sat on her haunches.

“Heh. This is crazy. Twilight, you’re crazy,” she choked out between shaky giggles.

An itch around her midriff demanded her attention, and she gladly scratched to give her hoof something to do before she started trotting in circles like a madmare. The itch gave way to a prick of pain, and her hoof slowly slid off her coat, tracing the now invisible gash beneath it.

An itch. One that she remembered well. A recognisable pain, too, given that her healing spell only went skin-deep. A little exertion, a stretch too far, a twist too many, and it would split again.

Stars above, I really am a coward.

“No… Not fair… Why?” she moaned, holding her head in her hooves as tears welled up and dripped onto the open notebook.

Everything fell into place as she stared into the abyss.

Golden Oaks had never needed her care; she’d simply used it as pretext for her little project to feed her hunger. Contact a mare with access to exotic magical herbs and maybe purge her memories after acquiring what she'd needed so she couldn’t spill the beans. Cultivate plunder vines under the oak. Ward the basement to hide it from everyone. Feed. Heal wounds if necessary. Guilt. Wipe own memories to get around her conscience. Hypothetical: temporary susceptibility to suggestion; use checklist to aid brain in creating false memories and encourage another visit. Repeat. Wipe Spike’s mind as well if he got involved. Any injuries beyond her skill to mend could simply be attributed to her sparring sessions with Luna.

A brilliant plan. An endless cycle of satiation and guilt. Twilight wiped her eyes and looked at the bloodstains on the floor.

No, it couldn’t go on forever. She couldn’t keep the plunder vines under control indefinitely; at some point, it must’ve gotten strong enough to fight back and injure her. And her extended stay in Canterlot had only allowed it to get even stronger. At some point, probability dictated that events outside her control or anticipation would allow it to defeat her; it had come uncomfortably close to that this time.

“No, I can fix this. There’s always a way. I got into this mess; I can get myself out,” she muttered, feeling the onset of a manic grin. “Burn it. Burn it with fire. I can end this right now.”

Twilight flared her horn, but couldn’t bring herself to set fire upon the desks. Memories of nights spent curled up in bed, crying herself to sleep as the emptiness within gnawed her mind and heart came unbidden. Sickness. Worthlessness. The world drained of all life and colour, with her wallowing in the river of time that had slowed and thickened into a cloying marsh that stretched to eternity. She couldn’t go back.

She hung her head as her spell died.

I’m not strong enough... Past Twilight, what the hay were you thinking?

Twilight slammed her hoof on the floor and ground it against the hardwood as she levitated the notebooks back onto the desk in the exact arrangement she’d found them.

You stupid, stupid pony. Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me? And now I’m going to do it to Future Twilight, too. Oh, stars above, I am so messed up.

She had half a mind to travel back in time and kick her past self’s flank into next Tuesday for coming up with such a devious and stupid plan. But that obviously hadn’t worked, or she wouldn’t have gotten into this mess in the first place. Or maybe doing so would only give Past Twilight the idea and cause a stable time loop with circular causality. Heck, for all she knew, she’d already done it and just forgotten.

But… that didn’t mean she couldn’t get some satisfaction out of pummelling stupid Past Twilight. Trying wouldn’t hurt, and it apparently never made a difference. Sniffling a bit, she got onto all fours and prepared to jump back into the past to deliver a well-deserved punch to her face.

Once done, she’d have to come up with more effective countermeasures against unforeseen deviations in her schedule. With any luck, they’d help to avoid another incident of letting the vines grow excessively strong.

But before she could finish the time spell, she felt a surge of magic from somewhere above the ceiling. Magic that her wards should have kept hidden from her senses. Alicorn magic. Her heart skipped a beat when she heard the trapdoor creak open.

“It’s here; I feel it. Make haste!”

Hooves thundered down the stair spiral. Twilight glanced down at her chest and touched the blood-spattered amulet around her neck with a trembling hoof. She tried to move, to hide, but her hooves had turned to stone and refused to obey.

Blue and golden light flooded the basement as Luna and Celestia reached the bottom of the stairs, and they gasped when they laid their eyes upon her. Barely a moment later, Spike, Rainbow, Pinkie, AJ, Rarity and Fluttershy came half-running, half-tumbling down the stairs, and their gaggle of voices turned to silence almost immediately. Rarity put a hoof to her head and promptly fainted onto Rainbow as the rest of them stared with their jaws hanging.

Celestia’s brow creased and the line of her jaw hardened as she swept her gaze around the basement. Her mane suddenly blazed with tongues of orange-yellow fire as she spoke with a rippling voice that promised ruination to the one who’d crossed her. “Twilight, who did this to you?”

“I—I don’t…” Twilight choked, frozen to the spot. She’d never seen her mentor so angry before.

“Sister, look,” said Luna as she pointed to a scrap of charred vine with a wing, “plunder vines!”

In the blink of an eye, Celestia’s horn flared and Discord appeared in a flash of light.

He turned to the sun princess, frowning, and said rather irritably, “Really, now, did you have to summon me quite so forcef—yikes!”

Discord’s form suddenly glowed with golden light and slammed onto the floor, hard enough to send cracks spidering out from the point of impact.

“Explain yourself. What have you done to her?” Celestia roared as Luna rushed over to Twilight.

Everything’s gone wrong.

Twilight leaped backwards and away from Luna, shaking her head as hyperventilation set in.

Say something, you coward!

Her mouth remained firmly shut even as she watched Discord squirm.

“Really, I have done nothing but help, I—”

Celestia slammed Discord into the floor again, levitated a piece of charred plunder vine into view, and thundered, “No lies, Discord!”

“It’s not his fault. I did everything! This whole thing was my idea! Please stop hurting him!” Twilight cried out.

Everyone stared at her with varying degrees of confusion.

Discord, still trapped in a golden aura with a trio of mini-Celestias flying in a circle around his head and sporting a swollen eye, chuckled and said, “You know, you could have saved me a concussion by saying that just a few seconds sooner.”

Understanding seemed to dawn on Luna’s face. Her gaze shifted between the two desks and the dark tunnel’s entrance littered with broken vines before focusing on her and boring right into her soul. Her ears and wings drooped as she whispered, “Twilight, what have you done?”

“I…”

I’ve betrayed everypony’s trust. I let Discord get hurt. I’ve dragged Spike and who knows how many others into this mess and violated their memories. Nopony is safe near me.

She remembered the seething fire in Celestia’s eyes as she demanded to know the culprit’s identity. But as the echoes of her admission and Luna’s question died away, that anger had turned to confusion, and then… to pity. She saw the same pattern happen with everypony else, despite her suspicion that they might not have gotten the whole picture.

Twilight grit her teeth as the barrage of coddling and sweet-talk began.

They dare to pretend they understand? To know that it’ll all get better just like that? Treating me like a foal… They have no idea what I’ve done to myself. As if any of them could’ve made it this far without breaking!

Illogical, irrational, and yet their affirmation of her weakness made her blood boil. Her vision shifted towards a greenish hue as they came forward, and she grinned when their eyes widened at the sight of purple and green lightning heading their way.

As one, the whole lot of them screeched to a halt and scrambled backwards as the half-dozen bolts struck the floor, and they stared at her in stunned silence as smoke wafted from a semicircle of charred wood between them. A second later, a bluish barrier appeared between them as well.

“Oww…” someone groaned.

A hole opened up in Twilight’s gut when she looked through Luna’s shield and saw Spike clutching his tail, blackened at the tip with a couple of loose scales glowing red-hot at their edges.

“Now see here, Twi, I know yer upset and all, but did you really—”

“What the hay, Twilight! We almost—”

“Calm yourself. There is no need—”

Everypony’s voices merged into a garbled mess of background noise as Spike turned his tearful eyes to her.

Twilight tried to say something, but words could never make up for what she’d done. Pathetic noises escaped her throat, feeble excuses for selfish actions that didn’t deserve anyone’s attention. She didn’t deserve anyone’s friendship. So undeserving, that Luna had even erected a barrier to protect everypony from her.

They’d disarmed her wards.

She closed her eyes and teleported away.

Cold air greeted her when she popped back into existence several thousand paces in the air and about a couple of miles away from Ponyville. She squinted against the wintry winds as they buffeted her around, carrying along snow and dark clouds.

After steadying herself, Twilight swept her gaze around, searching for a safe place to glide for a while. But she had to banish all thoughts of rest when three coloured streaks shot up into the sky from the centre of Ponyville, angling towards her. One gold, one blue, and one rainbow.

She couldn’t face them. Not after attacking everyone. Not after hurting Spike.

Twilight tried to teleport again, but the ache in her horn prevented the spell from manifesting. She’d have to rely on her wings for the time being. So she turned tail and fled as quickly as her wings could take her.

Unfortunately, her damaged feathers prevented her from reaching top speed, which would’ve been bad enough without taking into consideration the fact that she had Rainbow Dash, Luna and Celestia on her tail.

“Well, that got out of hoof in a hurry.”

Or Discord.

“Leave me alone,” she growled at him as he drifted in the air alongside her.

“You’ve actually surprised me,” he said with a grin, as if congratulating her on passing an exam. “I would never have expected such devious machinations from you, at least not so soon after your ascension. Thirty years? Oh, yes. But less than a couple? Oh my.”

“Twilight, please wait!”

She turned and saw that Celestia, Luna and Rainbow had come within shouting distance already.

Gritting her teeth, she powered through the pain in her horn and teleported as far as she could. Direction didn’t matter, so long as it took her far away from everypony.

A snowy mountain range appeared beneath her. But before she could even breathe a sigh of relief, she detected three instances of spatial warping as Discord, Celestia and Luna teleported after her. They appeared in a triangle around her, and she took a steep dive to escape.

She wove between the tall pines that grew on the mountains, but Discord proved agile enough to keep up with her whilst her fellow alicorns swept above the treetops, calling out to her. She flattened her ears to shut out their voices and concentrated on flying. An unexpected branch clipped her wing, but she managed to correct her spin in time to dive through the resulting shower of snow, duck behind a rocky outcrop and teleport whilst they had no line of sight. With any luck, they might miss her magic and assume she’d flown on.

A river in a snowy valley, this time. Slaking her thirst felt like a good idea. But just as she angled into a downward spiral, her pursuers returned, and she turned the spiral into another dive to pick up speed.

How do they keep finding me?

As if on cue, a particularly strong gust struck her and produced a muted, clinking noise somewhere near her chest. She looked down and snorted when she saw the lifeward amulet still around her neck, dancing in the wind.

Of course. Add that to the list of stupid mistakes I’ve made. One more wouldn’t hurt.

She ripped it off and tossed it to the winds.

After watching it disappear into the valley, Twilight looked up just in time to see Discord teleport directly in her flight path. She yelped and fired a blast of energy straight at him. He dodged it, but stupidly chose to fly by her side again.

“My dear, it would really help if you would just calm down and talk for a minute. We just—”

The void inside her writhed at the presence of so much active chaos magic. So close. She needed more.

No!

“Stay away from me!” Twilight shouted as she forced it back down and stormed ahead, cutting through the air like an arrow.

Discord didn’t listen, and neither did Celestia or Luna. They closed in on her, calling out, and she felt her blood heat up again at their stubbornness. Or maybe she had her hunger to thank for that. Either way, she couldn’t stop the flow of dark magic in her horn.

“I warned you. Leave me alone!” she roared as she twisted around to coast on the air resistance on her back and wings, relying on inertia to keep her going. And then, she let her hunger loose. Black tendrils whipped out and lashed at them, siphoning some power in the process.

Twilight drank as she beheld their shock and fear, and then teleported away before she could hit the ground.

A vast expanse of white and grey woodland greeted her, as did gale-force winds laden with snow. She hissed as they twisted her wings and attempted to shield herself from them, but the backlash of pain in her horn nearly made her lose what little control she had left. So she tried to ride the winds instead.

In that moment, after all the abuse they had endured in the tunnel and in the frigid air, her primaries snapped. Some parts broke off, whilst others simply bent sharply at awkward angles one after another as they lost structural support from their neighbours and yielded to the wind. Spreading her wings to brake only worsened the damage, but she had run out of ideas.

She screamed as she accelerated towards the ground. Even when she had run out of air, she couldn’t stop her wordless cry for help to draw breath. The wind’s howl grew into a roar in her ears as she backpedalled uselessly in the air.

Luckily, she retained enough awareness to spot a large snowdrift as it grew closer and larger, and she used the last of her strength to steer towards it. She had just enough intact feathers to alter her angle of approach, and once aligned, she spread her limbs to maximise her surface area and hopefully slow her velocity to something non-lethal.

What a way to go.

At the last moment, Twilight curled up tight and braced for impact, hoping that the snowdrift had enough volume to cushion her.

She felt a split-second of cold before a silent impact shook her body, like one of those times when she’d dreamed of falling and woken up just before hitting the ground. Except that this time, she couldn’t open her eyes, everything had gone numb, and she could hear the sound of splintering wood and planks cluttering against one another.

With a weary sigh, Twilight surrendered her consciousness to oblivion.

Chapter 10

“What… going… with her? We can’t—”

“Don’t… sure how…”

“… maybe we ca—wait, is… waking… oh darn.”

Twilight opened her eyes, but the world remained dark and empty. She reached out, hoping that the blackness was nothing more than a really thick curtain, but something restrained her foreleg. At the same time, she felt somepony hammering iron spikes straight into her bones.

Her scream died into whimpers and sobs as more spikes dug into her ribs and wings, splitting bone and flesh. She felt her muscles convulse, but that only made the agony spring up somewhere, everywhere else on her body.

“… still, Your Highness! I can’t… get her legs!”

“Can’t… just call…”

“Do it!”

Pressure clamped down on her limbs, and Twilight felt her bones bend and creak in ways that nopony should ever experience. The drive to scream warred with her incessant sobbing for control over her lungs, leaving half-shrieks and staggered sobs to escape from her mouth.

“Try… your… know, the thing!”

“But…”

“She’s too… can’t… her—augh, help!”

Twilight found enough strength to wrench a hind leg free and felt it strike something.

That something let loose a shrill yelp. Or maybe that was just her.

“Gah, close the… doing it now!”

All noise suddenly took on a thick, resonant quality, as if she had stepped into a cave. A yellow, or maybe greenish mist appeared at the corner of her vision, but no matter how she turned her eyes, they stubbornly remained outside of her focus.

“Hey, can you hear me?”

Twilight froze at the sound of Shining Armour’s voice.

“You’re hurt pretty bad. Just chill and relax, okay?”

Okay, that’s not Shiny.

Close, but not him. Something about the voice helped to calm her down, though. He sounded confident and caring, and ready to help in any way possible. Just like Shiny. Or Spike. Or Celestia if she had been a stallion.

“You’re safe here. I think. No, wait. Yes, you definitely are very safe. Nopony’s going to hurt you. Just keep still and try to relax. We’re going to make things as comfortable as possible.”

Twilight had forgotten about the rods of agony in her flesh and bones, but the momentary lapse had allowed the pain to ebb away. She sighed and winced when her movement twisted them a little, so she slowly, ever so slowly allowed her tightly-strung muscles to ease up. She sank into something soft on her back, with her wings protesting a bit at the additional pressure.

“That’s it. That’s it… You just get nice and comfy; we’ll take care of everything else…”

Good idea…

She sighed again and allowed her eyes to slide shut. Just before they closed properly, though, the mist in the corner of her vision flashed brightly like a green starburst firework, and the slumbering void within her chest stirred.

* * * * *

Twilight curled up tightly and shivered. A vile cramp in her belly refused to leave her in peace. Knives still dug into her flesh with every movement she made. Opening her eyelids turned out to be a mistake, crusted as they were with dried tears and other particles that stung her eyes.

Cold air infiltrated her nostrils and bit their insides, creating a surge of ticklish pain that went up to her brain like a bolt of lightning. One sneeze later, she felt wet, cold snot dribbling down her mouth.

Dull thumps echoed in the distance as she tried to wipe away the freezing stuff with a hoof. Something thick and heavy hampered her limb, though, and she only succeeded in clearing a little of it. Whatever it was, it had her all wrapped up.

“Bro, I think she’s waking up!”

Twilight winced and flattened her ears against the aural assault. The sheer high-pitched volume of the speaker’s voice sent flashes of white stars exploding in her vision despite her closed eyes.

“Nngghh, not so loud…” she moaned through her teeth.

“Oh. Sorry!”

She gritted her teeth and tried to burrow deeper into the thick lining around her body, and then hissed when the knives in her flesh poked her again. The movement must have also disturbed something vital, because she immediately felt a twisting, gnawing sensation grow in her gut like a gnarled root.

“Shush—quit yelling in her ear!” a deeper voice, the one that sounded a bit like Shining Armour, said. “Sorry about that. He’s just a little excited. How do you feel?”

Twilight groaned.

“Right. Stupid question. Sorry.”

A thick pause followed by the sound of somepony rummaging around before the voice came back. “Anything I can get you?”

Ropes of drying mucus stretched between her tongue and the roof of her mouth as she croaked, “Wa—er… drik…”

“One second. Tack, kitchen. Now.”

Two sets of hooves plodded on wood and grew muffled. Twilight flicked her ears back when a door slammed shut and tried to open her eyes again, but her tears had only turned the crusty stuff into sticky gunk that kept her eyeballs glued up and non-functional. She swallowed and winced when the parched wrinkles of flesh in her throat rubbed against one another. Saliva pooled under her tongue, and she had to work it extra hard to get some fluid in position for proper swallowing.

All the while, she heard their low voices, presumably in the kitchen, along with some clattering and tinkling.

The thumping of hooves returned just as a too-tiny gulp of saliva triggered her gag reflex. Her stomach twisted and heaved, but only a foul smell came up. Unfortunately, the spasm twisted her muscles sufficiently to dig the knives deeper.

Twilight shrieked and twitched about until a few unseen hooves of different sizes held her steady, and once the pain had subsided, she collapsed back into the warm depression in which she’d lain, breathing heavily.

“Got some water for you. We’ll need you to sit up a little straighter. I’ll say sorry in advance if it hurts to move. Are you ready?”

She had no choice but to nod, and winced when the two strangers helped to lift up her head and part of her torso so that she could lean her head and upper foreleg against something thick and soft – probably a couple of pillows. A second later, something cold touched her lips, and fluid trickled into her mouth.

She licked her lips and nosed forward to tip the glass’ contents into her mouth. Cold water dribbled in, and she gulped greedily.

“Steady, there. Don’t want you to choke.”

Twilight ignored the voice and kept at it. But all too soon, the flow of water ended, and she lashed her tongue at the trickle running down the side of her mouth before it could get away.

“More…” she murmured.

“Wow. That’s freaky,” the younger voice from earlier piped up. “Like the time I walked in on you and—”

“And just let me get you another glass!” the older voice hastily cut in. “Here.”

Twilight heard some sloshing, then felt the now-warm edge of the glass pressing against her lips again and eagerly repeated the process of replenishing her fluids. After licking off the last droplets, she relaxed her quivering muscles and leaned against the pillows. But something still felt very wrong.

Despite the water inside, her gut clenched, and she cringed as the echoing emptiness rose out of the depths like an eldritch abomination…

Her stomach growled.

Silence followed, and Twilight would have blinked if she could.

Oh.

“Heh. I think I can help with that, too.”

She heard more sloshing water, and a moment later, the glass returned to her lips. Curious about his solution to her predicament, she sipped tentatively and tasted water flavoured with apples. Carrot. Celery, too.

Then, some solids brushed against her tongue, and she instinctively bit down. She felt her eyebrows rise when the juicy, crunchy bits turned out to be chunks of finely diced fruit and vegies, and she mumbled her thanks as she chewed noisily.

In spite of her best efforts to savour the tasty mouthful, her shrivelled stomach demanded an offering and forced her to swallow. The strangers continued feeding her like so for several minutes, chatting amongst themselves, but she mostly ignored their words in favour of the bursts of flavour between long gulps of soothing, fresh water.

A light belch escaped her some time later, after which she sighed gratefully and snuggled up against the pillows as closely as her abused and tormented hide allowed.

* * * * *

Light flickered in the darkness, and Twilight slowly eased her eyes open.

Two shadows sat a little ways off from where she lay, silent and unmoving. Squinting, she blinked several times to clear her vision, and each one sharpened the dark shapes bit by bit until she recognised the two alicorns in the room with her. They lay on the ground with their backs to her, and the only signs of life came from their manes billowing softly in the frigid air.

Twilight tried to get up and approach them, but her bones and muscles protested with each minor movement by sending jolts of pain up her nerves. The thick covers wrapped around her also didn’t allow for much mobility.

After licking her parched lips to get some saliva flowing, she managed to whisper, “Hello?”

As one, Celestia and Luna turned to give her a sidelong glance.

Twilight felt a cold drop of sweat trickle down her forehead as she waited for them to say something. Hours seemed to stretch between them as they stared at her in utter silence.

Say something, please!

“Twilight…” Celestia began.

She leaned forward, straining against the smothering covers.

“We are… disappointed,” Luna finished.

The last word hit her like a cart of bricks rolling downhill. A thousand reasons fought their way to her lips, clamouring for her to give voice to them. They knew nothing about what she endured daily. She had put all her effort into controlling her worst impulses. The world had stacked everything against her. Nopony had ever gone through such an experience. Who were they to judge her? But every excuse died off as soon as her elders averted their eyes and rose to leave. She had nothing. They trusted her to keep things under control, and she’d tricked everypony and lied to them.

Twilight had failed.

She tried to crawl after them, but the weighty covers dragged her down, and pain gnawed at her limbs until they had whittled away the last of her resolve. A door slammed shut, and darkness flooded the already dim room.

Twilight twisted and turned, but nothing distinguished itself from the pervasive blackness. When the shadows themselves threatened to invade her through the eyes, she curled up and used her wings to hide herself from the world. Nopony had to look at her ever again.

* * * * *

Voices pierced the shadows.

Twilight stirred and flattened her ears, but they refused to leave her alone. She took increasingly drastic measures to keep the voices at bay, starting with turning away and escalating all the way to growling in their general direction. They still proved ineffective.

She didn’t care that they sounded urgent, but cracked an eye open just in case. Going by the dark blue saturating her surroundings, she placed the time somewhere between ‘lights out’ and ‘five minutes more’, which she took as full license for her next countermeasure.

After fighting some nausea to build up a small charge in her horn, she unleashed a pulse of energy that would hopefully zap her tormentors into silence. A distinct yelp reached her ears, followed by scattered thuds and tinkles and the thumping of retreating hooves.

Twilight sighed and allowed the shadows to wash over her once more.

But after a while, something else saw fit to keep her from resting. She squirmed and shifted in place, grunting and wincing when pain nipped and poked all over her body, but that failed to alleviate the urgent discomfort somewhere between her legs. She forced herself to keep still, but the sensation grew and expanded until her belly felt tight and she had to cross her hind legs to—

Oh, poop.

She scrambled to get onto all fours, flailed when a heavy layer of something threw her coordination out of whack, and yelped when she lost her balance and felt gravity take full control of her movement.

A gasp reached her ears, followed by a whoosh, and she collided softly against a pair of bars – no, forelegs – just before hitting the ground. The stranger murmured to her in a soothing voice as it disentangled her, and this time she found it relatively tolerable. Vaguely musical, even. Just enough to put up with because she had bigger things to worry about.

Hurry, hurry, hurry!

Twilight shivered as she tottered about in the darkness with nothing but the voice and a dim light to guide her way. If she strayed too far from the narrow, winding path, something warm would gently but firmly correct her vector and keep her from toppling over. Her hooves occasionally struck something hard and immovable, at which point the voice grew concerned and apologetic before it nudged her in a slightly different direction.

It took longer than she liked, but a watery pit eventually yawned before her, and the voice had enough sense to keep a respectful distance.

She let out a long sigh of relief when the pressure fled and everything became so comfortably loose, and then fumbled her way back towards the voice. It muttered something indistinct when she tripped and bumped into it with her horn, but soon relented and shifted to her side to guide her back.

When she reached her warm and safe spot in the darkness, she allowed it to wrap her up in warm safety.

“Thanks, Spike…” she mumbled.

* * * * *

Twilight clenched her jaw and tightened her lips, ignoring the sour taste and scent. Her stomach had other plans, though.

“Huuurggh!”

She had no idea whether she’d gotten the direction right this time, but the faint splattering noise and lack of mush running down her cheek suggested positive news for once.

“Yeah, let it out. You’ll feel better soon,” said the voice as a hoof patted her back gently.

‘Soon’ can’t come soon enough…

Even with her eyes closed, explosions of light and obnoxious colours kept popping up in her field of vision. The world rocked like a boat in rough water, and she had a throbbing ache stretching all the way from the tip of her horn to the base of her spine.

Why won’t it stop? Stars above, please make it stop…

Her magical sense kept probing her surroundings, searching for a spark of power to feed upon, but found only diffuse patches here and there that would barely sustain a mouse let alone a starving alicorn. No unicorns or magical trinkets within a thousand paces. The emptiness inside her chest writhed and wailed in anguish, sending a tidal wave of nausea up her throat.

“Huuurgg—ack—urrghh!”

She gasped for breath and spat out a glob of saliva that stuck to her chin and stretched down like a disgusting, elastic pendulum.

“Yuck. Is that the corn she had?”

The older voice sighed. “You should go to your room.”

“Fine. You never let me do fun stuff.”

“Do you seriously think this is fun?”

The younger voice paused, and even Twilight’s stomach and the spinning room ceased torturing her for just a moment to wait for its response.

“Umm… no?”

“Then?”

“Whatever. I’m going. See?”

Light hoofsteps faded away, after which Twilight clutched her aching belly and moaned, “Ugh, kill me…”

“Umm, regicide’s a pretty major crime, Your Highness. I don’t think I should obey that command.”

“I’ll—nngh—I’ll give you… a royal pardon.”

The silence which followed lasted for nearly a minute before the voice sighed and patted her on the back. “Oh, all right. Promise to hold on until this blows over, and then if you still want to die, I’ll go get the harpoon. But until then, I’m helping you stay alive. Deal?”

Despite the headache and incessant pulsing in her belly, Twilight frowned. Harpoons were meant for hunting really big game. A knife would have sufficed for a pony. Unless… Was he making an indirect remark on her physique? Did he think she was… large? She considered pressing him for clarification, but decided that only Rarity would bring that up when its relevance to her situation was tangential at best. Probably. She didn’t think she would want to know the answer, anyway.

She snorted. “Deal. But if you don’t do it properly, I’ll snap your neck.”

“Uh, sure. Let me just get that for you.”

Twilight fought to keep a burp down as he used a wet rag to wipe her face clean. For all she knew, that bubble of air might well turn out to be another wave of her stomach’s contents. She only let loose once he’d finished, and to nopony’s surprise, a horrid, bubbly eruption of mush came up with the air.

They spent what felt like another hour in silence, aside from her retching and the sympathetic noises her companion made every now and then. The nausea and headache eventually petered out to the point where she could finally lie down without fear of making a mess. The void still lurked down there, but after what she had gone through, its gnawing posed only a minor irritation. Sleepiness had overpowered it.

As her companion and nurse tucked her in, she mumbled, “Thanks.”

“Least I can do, Your Highness.”

She peered at him, but her eyes still couldn’t see very well and only made out a brownish figure with streaks of red standing by her bed. “I didn’t get your name.”

He seemed to hesitate for a moment before saying, “I’m Path Winder. Get some sleep first. We can chat more when you’re better.”

Twilight grunted. In spite of herself, she had to admit that she did feel a little better already.

He soon trotted off, leaving her to curl up and wait for sleep to take her. Her heart had an annoying habit of impeding her progress, though. Its incessant thumping sounded way too loud when she had her ears pressed into the pillow, and she could feel the pressure from each pulse travel the full length of her blood vessels even to the inside of her eyeballs. But just on the verge of sinking into sweet oblivion, she heard more hoofsteps coming back. Her ears flattened as she gritted her teeth at the disturbance.

“Umm. Hello?”

She bit back a grouchy response. She’d forgotten to ask for the younger one’s name. Probably a colt, or a filly with a lower-than-average voice. Strangely muffled, though.

“Yeah?” she mumbled without turning to face him or her.

“I’fe um… I’fe got somefing for you.”

Twilight slowly rolled over so she could get a look, but her weakened eyes still worked against her. She couldn’t see the youngster clearly, but could just make out the stuffed toy in his or her mouth, which explained the muffled voice.

Smarty Pants?

She squinted an attempt to take in its details as the youngster set it on her bed, but gave up when she only managed to ascertain that it had a greyish coloration and six limbs. A dragon or griffon, maybe? Too angular for a pegasus.

“His name’s Gorbash. I thought if he stayed with you, maybe you won’t cry all the time when you’re sleeping.”

Under any other circumstance, Twilight might have smiled at the youngster’s offer and patted him or her on the head for being so nice and thoughtful. She knew that fillies and colts seldom named their toys unless they had a special place in their heart, so the thought of depriving them of a favourite toy didn’t sit very well with her. Come to think of it—

I wish I had Smarty Pants right now…

Twilight bit her lip as the youngster pushed the plush toy closer to her.

So it’s a dragon. It’s not Smarty Pants, but…

She slid a foreleg out from her blanket and stroked the comfortably soft fabric, but she resisted on the grounds that her fellow princesses probably didn’t sleep with their toys, if they even had any.

Just then, a ripple of nausea forced her to tighten her jaw and aching abdominal muscles, followed by a bout of dizziness as she tried to siphon non-existent magic from her surroundings. She grunted once the discomfort had passed and then decided that she didn’t care anymore. She’d had enough of feeling sick and hungry at the same time and she wanted nothing more than to curl up and go to sleep with someone to keep her safe.

Twilight wrapped her foreleg around the stuffed dragon and pulled him in under the covers to cuddle up against her chest. Its comfortable shape and plushness felt familiar, and she found herself nuzzling it before her consciousness sank beneath the waves.

* * * * *

Another empty room.

Twilight retreated to the corridor from which she’d come and traced her steps back. A long, dim corridor stretched into darkness in either direction from where she stood. It had no obvious sources of light, but shadows nevertheless lay over the hard flooring at odd angles.

Her breathing and hoofsteps echoed as she crept through the labyrinth, unable to find a way out. Something followed her; she could hear it whispering as it drew nearer like a noxious cloud, listening for her beating heart and heavy breathing. Her every step produced a resonant clop that it could surely hear from a mile away.

She picked a turning at random and found it blocked by a door. It had no visible means for opening it, but she distinctly heard somepony’s voice coming through. Rainbow Dash’s voice.

The whispers grew louder, as did her pounding heart. She knocked on the door, but Rainbow didn’t answer. Striking harder did not yield any results, either. Twilight’s whispers soon turned into panicked gibberish, but Rainbow didn’t even seem to notice. Her voice still filtered through the door, ignorant of her plight. Glancing back to find the corridor darker than before, she resolved to break through and slammed her hooves into the door, but failed to produce even a scratch. She dared not scream.

All the while, the whispers grew louder.

She pounded on the door one last time before giving up and breaking into a full gallop back to the last turning. If her luck held out, she’d reach it before the whispering thing cut off her only exit.

Almost there…

The whispering turned into a scream of triumph as she skidded round the corner to see a smoky cloud vaguely in the shape of a pony floating towards her. Purple light leaked out of Twilight’s horn as black, wispy tendrils snaked out of every orifice it had and reached out towards her, eager to devour.

A scream stuck in her throat as she tripped over her own hooves, stumbled backwards and fell onto her rump. She then rolled over and scrambled up just as the cold seeped through her coat and into her bones. Luckily, she’d managed to redirect enough of her momentum to break out of its chilling grasp and bolted down the hallway to relative safety. Its triumphant scream turned into a howl of frustration as the distance between them grew.

More empty rooms awaited her, with the occasional door that barred her way. Some were silent dead-ends; some had her friends’ voices drifting through from the other side. And every single one of them ignored her, refused to grant her shelter.

Twilight slammed her hoof against Spike’s door and bit back a cry when pain lanced up her foreleg. She turned tail and fled before the whispering thing could catch her round a corner again. Her laboured breathing lost its rhythm as tears welled up in her eyes. Sobs wracked her even she barrelled through the labyrinthine palace like a madmare.

Her friends and family couldn’t hear her. Why would they? She was useless. Weak. Alone.

Hungry.

Twilight’s legs felt like concrete blocks moving through sticky mud. Slow. So, so slow and heavy. She gasped for breath as each successive step took more effort than the last. Without any source of power nearby, she had no hope of outrunning the shadow. It would consume her. Running would only delay the inevitable. No matter how far she went, the endless corridor held only emptiness and closed doors. Nopony would help her. Nopony even knew she existed anymore.

The whispers slithered into her ears as she stumbled and fell.

She whimpered and huddled against the wall, trying to make herself as small as possible. That was it. She had nowhere else to go. No point in trying anymore. She tucked her head under a wing and waited for the cold shadow to take her.

“Don’t give up, Twilight,” said a voice just behind her head.

She blinked, and then slowly twisted to look over her back.

A winged dragon with grey scales, purple underbelly and green eyes looked back at her, similar to Spike in size that it could comfortably sit on her back. The juvenile characteristics ended there, though. He had the proportions of an adult and the gravelly voice of a deep-chested, middle-aged stallion.

“Gorbash?”

The miniature dragon nodded. “That’s right. I suggest we leave before that thing finds us.”

“How?” She gestured towards the dark corridor. “It never ends. No matter what I do, it keeps going on and on and on…”

Her words trailed off as she turned her head to find that a doorway had opened up right at the dead end. The corridor stretched beyond, looking a little brighter than the one containing the shadow. She could hear its whispers twisting into slavering breaths as it drew closer to its prey.

“There’s an end to all of this. You’ll eventually find it,” Gorbash said. “It would be a shame to surrender after coming so far.”

Twilight shook her head. “I’ve tried for so long. All empirical evidence leans towards the conclusion that there is no end.”

Gorbash narrowed his eyes. “Did you just try to prove a negative?”

“I don’t… well—ugh, never mind! What about you?” she snapped back, feathers bristling. “What proof do you have that I’ll ever get out?”

He opened his maw to retort, then closed it. After a moment of silence, he said, “Fair point; I have no proof. But weighed against the chance that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, isn’t that worth fighting for?”

Twilight averted her eyes and slumped. “I… no. I can’t feel it anymore. I’m tired of fighting, running, hiding… everything. I can’t go on.”

“And what about your friends? They surely haven’t given up on you.”

She snorted. “Easy for everypony else to say. They don’t know… I failed so badly. I wouldn’t be surprised if they stopped bothering with me. I know I wouldn’t.”

Gorbash hopped off her back and slinked into view to frown at her. “Good thing they aren’t you, then. I think you might want to put a little more trust in the friendship that holds all of you together.”

Are you pinning this on me?

Her hoof trembled as she considered making her point very physically clear to him, but she relented when a chill seeped into her bones. It didn’t matter anymore.

“I’ve done all I can. Everypony will have to settle for that.” So saying, she lay flat on the floor, closed her eyes and simply waited for the shadow to claim her. Talking with him had done one good thing at least; she no longer felt afraid.

Gorbash sighed. “So be it. Nopony can ask more from you. That is, nopony but yourself, I suppose.”

She felt a warm weight press against her side, and she snapped her eyes open to find him sitting on his haunches right next to her, watching the darkness approach.

“What are you doing?”

“My job. Keeping you company.”

Despite herself, she felt a sense of urgency welling up from within. She glanced at the corridor and saw the shadowy figure shrouded in black smoke surging towards them like a tidal wave. Turning back to him, she sputtered, “Are you crazy? Do you even know what it’ll do to you?”

“A being composed of shadow and dark magic? I can imagine.”

“Then… why?”

He shrugged. “I think you’re a good pony who doesn’t deserve to face her demons alone.”

She tried to push him away, to get him to flee, but he stubbornly remained in place despite his stature. Failing that, she felt tears welling up as she said, “You—you don’t even know what I’ve done. I’ve lied, cheated and fai—”

Gorbash cut her off with a stern glare. “Don’t insult me, Twilight. You’ve made your choice. This one’s mine.”

And then the shadow’s piercing howls of victory filled her ears as it wrapped its black tendrils around them. She gritted her teeth as they ripped her purple aura away and stretched her like taffy. It didn’t physically hurt, but the emptiness returned in full force, and she longed to fill it by any means necessary. She wanted more. She needed more.

A grunt from Gorbash drew her attention for a moment, and she glimpsed the silhouette of his scaly figure squirming in the air as black tendrils held him fast. She cringed when they began tearing blue streams of energy from him; he bared his teeth and roared in defiance, but all too soon his voice grew strained with agony.

Twilight reached out with a hoof to pull him out of the inky blackness, but the floor beneath her suddenly fell away, and her heart leapt into her throat as she went into freefall.

* * * * *

A shallow cough accompanied a spasm in her chest, and she gasped for breath when she felt as if the insides of her lungs had stuck together. Her mane felt damp with sweat as she squirmed around to find a warmer, dryer spot on the bed.

No such luck. Twilight opened her eyes and then blinked slowly to clear the sticky haze clouding her vision.

Once. A dark shape popped up in front of her.

Twice. The fuzzy shape sharpened at the edges, and she managed to distinguish grey, purple and green amongst the black.

Thrice. The blobs of colours sharpened further and melted together.

Four blinks. The blurry edges finally resolved into sharp outlines, and she found herself snout to snout with Gorbash.

Twilight frowned at the stuffed dragon, wondering. His green, embroidered eyes and stitched-on smile didn’t have quite the same piercing quality as before, and she had a hard time imagining that gravelly voice coming from such a whimsically happy dragon.

She still had one foreleg hugging him, though.

Yawning widely, she peeled off the thick blanket over them and carefully placed Gorbash on the bedside table. Once she had him safely out of the way, she lay flat on her belly and stretched. Her muscles protested at first, but she eventually got her limbs to spread to their full lengths. A little pain here and there where movement tightened her skin, but it felt so good to work away the stiffness that she didn’t want to stop. She even arched her back and then bent backwards as far as she could go for good measure, groaning whenever her joints popped.

Twilight considered using magic to dry off the remains of her sweat, but a jarring ache in her horn dissuaded her the instant she tried to channel it.

Never mind. I’ll dry up soon, anyway.

She sat on her haunches atop the bed and took stock of the room. Its walls consisted of horizontal, unpainted beams of wood whilst its floor had polished planks. Warm light poured in from the single glass window and onto the bed, in stark contrast to the tall pines and mounds of snow outside. The room had some pretty good insulation; she only felt a minor chill when the weather indicated that she should’ve been freezing.

Aside from the bedside table and a really worn dresser with a cracked mirror, the room had no furniture or decorations to speak of. She leered at the bucket next to the bed and sniffed the air, expecting something foul to assault her nose, and then sighed when she only got the scent of pinewood. Somepony must’ve cleaned up after her last donation.

Something nipped her in the back, and she fluttered her wings to dislodge the biting insect. However, doing so triggered a few more pricks. She twisted around to look.

“Huh.”

Twilight extended her right wing and ran a hoof over her dorsal feathers. Somepony had clipped her primaries down to half their length; the exposed ends of the shafts had caused discomfort whenever they poked her. She also had a couple of bare patches on the leading edge of her wing, either through plucking or shearing forces upon impact, whilst the rest of her secondaries bore signs of recent preening. She didn’t quite know how to feel about a stranger preening her wings, but she guessed she could let it slide if it had spared some feathers from further damage.

Folding her wing, she moved on to inspecting the patches of gauze plastered all over her body. Most had gone brownish in the middle from dried blood, but she noticed some yellowish-green at the peripheries of the blotches as well. Probably from healing salves or anaesthetics, since stretching only caused her a little pain.

A voice drifted in from outside the room, and Twilight whipped her head around to the door in anticipation of a visitor. After a moment or two, though, she surmised that her host – Pathfinder, was it? – hadn’t realised that she’d woken up.

However, moving her head had alerted her to the fact that it felt like it had remarkably less inertia that usual. She froze when she ran a hoof through her mane and nearly planted her face into the floor as she tottered over to the dresser’s cracked mirror.

Well… that’s something.

It looked like somepony had taken a pair of blunt scissors to her mane in conjunction with a fork instead of a proper brush. Part of the mess atop her skull she could attribute to bed-mane, but on the whole, her new hairdo resembled an extra-short version of Rainbow Dash’s messy, windswept look. The longest hairs couldn’t have exceeded a couple of inches in length, maybe three at the back of her neck. Her tail had more or less suffered the same fate.

Twilight bit her lip as she turned and twisted this way and that to take in the absurdity of sporting the archetypal mane and tail of a street punk. She remembered seeing a few of them outside the nightclubs she’d passed by. Throw in some rings, studs and maybe a spiked collar and she could fit right in. The streaks of hard, brownish-black scabs around her hairline, forehead and cheek only added to the effect.

Thankfully, her horn looked relatively intact, barring some scratches at the tip that would easily fade with time.

No cracks. Good.

She stared at her reflection, wondering why somepony had seen fit to do that to her mane, and the answer came all too easily. Thorns. Fire. Dizzying speed. Impact. Ice.

On second thought, maybe I should be happy I’m even able to worry about how I look.

As the snatches of her airborne trip into the middle of nowhere faded away, the reason for her flight sank in like a bag of rocks. She slumped until she sat on her haunches and stared at the drawers before her, unseeing.

Piece by piece, she went through the series of events leading up to her present situation. A thousand variables presented themselves; a thousand alternate decisions leading to a thousand different scenarios that each had their own permutations down the series of possible actions she could have taken. Exponential alternate events. So many ways she could’ve prevented the catastrophe; so many ways she could’ve avoided hurting everyone…

“You there?”

“Gah!”

Twilight flailed backwards when a brown foreleg waved in front of her muzzle and tried to steady herself with backdrafts from her wings before she toppled. Unfortunately, her wings didn’t quite have the same surface area as before, so the uneven thrust only sped up her trip to the floor.

“Wow, you’re really jumpy. Why’re you staring at it?” His eyes flicked over to the dresser before turning back to her. “It’s not even that pretty.”

Twilight ignored the question in favour of examining the colt that had just entered the room. He looked about the same age as the CMC – maybe a little older – and had a light brown coat, lime-green eyes and a short mane and tail coloured like peanut butter and grape jelly. He had no cutie mark yet, but he did have a rather friendly smile – one that she didn’t feel like returning.

“Is this your home?” she asked.

“Uh huh.” He rubbed one hoof on his other foreleg a little bashfully and added, “My name’s Tacky Hutch.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow but decided not to comment. She knew ponies with odder names. In any case, she had more relevant details to pursue. After casting a glance out the window, she turned back to him and forced out a weary smile.

But before she could say anything, Tacky went ahead and said, “You’re Princess Twilight, right?”

“Ye—”

The words stuck in her throat for a moment as she envisioned Celestia, Luna and a whole host of guards descending upon the area to escort her back to Canterlot for a lengthy session of lecturing. Her muscles tensed for a moment, but she quickly got them back under control.

No use trying to hide. If they’ve called for help, there’s nothing I can do about it now. Just need to leave as soon as possible.

“Yes, just call me Twilight.”

“Okay, Twilight!”

His adoring grin gave her flashbacks of the Twilight Time incident, and she shivered internally before putting her smile back on. “Yes. Right… Where is this home located? I think I’m a little lost.”

“Oh, we’re in Tassel Woods. It’s a nice place.”

Twilight blinked.

“Near River Springs?” he supplied further with raised eyebrows.

She bit her lip as she racked her brain for obscure places to attach the names to.

“And big bro says my geography’s bad,” Tacky murmured with a roll of his eyes. “We’re a little further up from Vanhoover. I think. Hang on, lemme check the map.”

“It’s okay. You’ve told me enough. I’ll just be going now, if you’ll show me out.”

Tacky’s face fell. “What? You’re leaving already?”

So I can get a head start on the authorities.

Twilight nodded as she trotted to the door. “I’m in a hurry. I just want to thank your parents and be on my way.”

“But I don’t have—”

She didn’t pick up on the rest of Tacky’s words because the door suddenly swung open just as she reached out to open it. It struck her foreleg and sent a jolt of pain shooting straight up to her brain. The door hadn’t opened very forcefully, but her tender state served to make it feel like a load of bricks anyway. She shrieked and nearly toppled over as she hopped on the spot, then glared at the pegasus stallion in the doorway as she nursed her throbbing hoof.

The stallion stared at her in shock for a moment before he flattened his ears and dipped his head, saying “Oh, rats, I’m so sorry, Your Highness! I wasn’t expecting you up and running.”

“It’s… okay,” Twilight groused. “I should’ve been more careful, too.”

He nodded and gave her a reconciliatory smile. “Don’t know if you remember, but I’m Path Winder, by the way.”

Twilight vaguely recalled the disembodied voice that she’d mistaken for Shining Armour during her fevered half-dreams. Now that she’d had a chance to listen while lucid, she concluded that Path Winder only sounded a little like her brother. He had eyes of the same colour and unshorn fetlocks, but the similarities ended there with his mossy-brown coat, freckles, yellow hair streaked with red and a cutie mark consisting of a compass sprouting leaves on either side. If she’d judged correctly, he was about her age.

She nodded. “Nice to meet you. I’m sorry to have bothered you, but I really should go. Others are… waiting for me and—umm, would you mind moving, please?”

He’d barred her way by spreading his wings and held his ground even when she tried to push past him. His eyes shifted down to her hooves and then back up to her face before he put on a sceptical frown and said, “You’re just only recovering from a fever, fractured bones, blood loss and magic depletion, not to mention bashing a hole through my roof with your skull, and now you want to muck around for hours in the snow and ice? No offence, but are you nuts?”

Oh, you have no idea…

He did have a point, though. Now that he’d mentioned it, she did feel like she’d gotten on the losing end of a battle with a dragon.

“How long was I out for?”

“Four days, since you decided to drop by.” He paused for a moment, looking at her expectantly, before his good-natured grin got just a little strained at the edges.

“Wow. That’s lame, even for you,” Tacky deadpanned.

Twilight barely registered the fact that Winder had made a feeble attempt to inject humour into the conversation and focused on filtering out the rest of their words as she reassessed her situation with newfound information. Between the dull ache at the base of her horn, the nausea and the weakness in her bones, she clearly hadn’t given much rational thought to her options. Too much fear had taken part in her plans – way too much irrationality. She took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly to calm her nerves. If her friends and elders had seen fit to give her time and space alone, she’d make good use of it instead of jumping head-first into trouble with more half-baked plans.

She kneaded her forehead and sighed. “I guess breakfast wouldn’t hurt.”

* * * * *

Breakfast started out pretty awkwardly at the table. From her seat, she had a clear view of the living room, where Path Winder had done a roughshod job of patching up the Twilight-sized hole in the roof with wooden planks and slats. A few splinters curved downward around the edges, slowly dripping water from the snow above into the bucket sitting in the crater-like depression in the floor beneath them. Farther back, she could see the collapsed remains of the couch she’d flattened on impact.

“I know it hurt, but the way you totalled the couch was kind of awesome,” Tacky pointed out through a mouthful of cereal. “You ever plan to be a Wonderbolt? I bet you’d get to do all kinds of crazy stunts like that!”

“Not if I have any say in it.” Twilight cringed at the damage and turned to Path Winder. “I’ll pay you back for whatever I broke. And thanks for taking care of me, too.”

He grinned sheepishly. “Eh heh. Just taking my responsibilities seriously. Anypony else would’ve done the same for you.”

“You still deserve thanks for that.” Twilight glanced out a window and frowned. “Especially considering how long it’s taking the professionals to get here. It’s been four days, right?”

“Yeah, about that…” Winder averted his eyes and poked at his bowl of sliced fruit with a fork. “I actually haven’t told anypony about your, uh, unexpected visit.”

Twilight’s frown deepened. A princess literally dropping half-dead into your house would’ve been sufficient cause for just about anypony to call for help immediately, let alone four days.

“Why?”

Winder spread his hooves out in a gesture of helplessness. “Well, between patching you up, feeding ourselves and keeping the house above freezing in the middle of a blizzard with a giant hole in the roof, I didn’t have much time for anything else. River Springs is a half-hour flight away, and there’s no way I’m sending this little joker out on hoof in the middle of heavy weather like this. Not even for you. Sorry.”

“Hey, I can make it there and back just fine!” Tacky protested. “I know where the mayor’s house is.”

Winder snorted. “You mean like that time I had to pick you up from a ravine?”

“It was just one wrong turn…”

Twilight decided to jump in before the conversation could deviate further. “It’s okay, I can understand that.”

The world can get by without me a little longer.

She paused to pop a chunk of fruit into her mouth and made a show of chewing contemplatively. Despite Path Winder’s friendly outlook, something about him didn’t sit quite well with her. His reasons for keeping her whereabouts under wraps seemed reasonable enough and she couldn’t complain about the relative solitude, but her deep-seated hunger periodically stirred whenever she laid her eyes on him despite the lack of consumable magic in her environment.

I wonder…

After swallowing, she put on a smile and said, “Tell me about yourselves.”

Winder and Tacky shared a look before the older stallion shrugged and gestured for the eager colt to go ahead.

Twilight ate quietly as Tacky launched into a lengthy narrative about how Path Winder and his parents had found him in Hardy Hills Lodge, one of the bigger orphanages in Vanhoover. Of all the colts and fillies in there, they’d liked him the best because of course they did and adopted him the very next day without a single doubt that they would be a happy family forever and ever. He liked going to school, even though he sometimes missed his brothers and sisters at the orphanage. He didn’t miss the teasing and bullying there, though he still sometimes got that in school but at least he didn’t have to stay in there all the time and could go home to his big bro who only made fun of him in a way that he didn’t mind because he could do the same without hard feelings. When he grew up, he wanted to become a ranger like his big bro.

At some point, Winder took his turn. He apparently earned most of his keep as a tour guide for ponies looking to spend a holiday in the many chalets scattered throughout Tassel Woods, specialising in taking them through rough terrain to see the best sights the place had to offer. He also had a little experience in search and rescue. When not at work, he stayed at home looking after Tacky, since their parents had to work way off in Vanhoover for extended periods of time. In fact, he had just gotten him home from school when she’d crashed on their couch. They’d then had to spend the rest of their weekend looking after her, and—

“Just a moment,” Twilight interrupted.

Winder blinked. “Yeah?”

“Did you get any official medical training in your line of work?”

He tilted his head. “Well, that depends on what you consider official. My friends taught me how to set splints, dress wounds and treat most local poisons and diseases.” He grinned. “Never been to med school, though. Can’t afford it, and Mom and Dad aren’t paying.”

Hmm…

She leaned forward and watched him carefully. “Then how did you know I was suffering from magical depletion? Only trained medical staff are usually able to distinguish its symptoms from regular fatigue, and even then, it’s mostly unicorns who can confirm it. And yet, you seemed very sure that I’d burned myself out.”

She might’ve imagined it, but she thought she saw Winder stiffen a little before his confident smile returned.

“Lucky guess, I guess. Heh heh. If you had your magic, I imagine you would’ve used it to avoid crashing in the first place. Or fixing yourself up right off the bat after waking up; alicorns can do that, right?”

“I suppose...” She inspected one of the bandages on her foreleg and raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re really good at what you do, though. I can’t believe I’m feeling this much better in just four days.”

He shrugged. “You’re an alicorn. And, hey, I can’t take all the credit.” Winder pulled a protesting Tacky over and grinned as he tousled his mane, adding, “This guy probably sped things up with all the adoration he’s been giving you. He watched you sleep and sometimes sang to you. At least, I think that was supposed to be singing…”

“Ugh, I thought you weren’t going to bring that up!” Tacky whined.

Twilight blinked.

Path Winder glanced at the clock and turned to Tacky. “Anyway, look at the time. We’ve got to get a move on if we’re going to get you to school before the bell hits eight. Otherwise, Miss Protractor’s going to hit me instead.”

“Aww, do I have to?”

Winder frowned. “Tack, we’ve talked about this. The blizzard’s given you a long weekend, but it’s time for school again.”

Tacky flicked his eyes over to Twilight, back to his elder brother, then back to Twilight as he gestured to her with both forelegs and said, ‘But, but… Princess!”

Despite the unwanted diversion from grilling Winder for information, Twilight chuckled at Tacky’s attempt to imitate the CMC’s trademark pout. “Sorry, my little pony. As Equestria’s newest princess, I hereby decree that royal visits are no excuse for skipping out on education. I’ll still be around by the time you get back, anyway.”

Tacky’s eyes widened. “Really?”

She nodded.

“Huh. Thought you had plans to leave,” Winder quipped.

Twilight yawned and flexed her tattered wings experimentally. “I guess I could use a little more rest over here. If you wouldn’t mind, that is.”

“Oh, not at all. C’mon, Tack. Let’s get ready.”

Twilight continued munching in silence as colt and stallion cleaned up the table and prepared for the flight to River Springs. Just before shutting the door, Winder, with Tacky riding on his back, waved her goodbye and promised to be back in an hour or so and to tell her that she could help herself to whatever she needed.

What I need are answers, she thought as the door creaked shut.

She took a few moments to finish her breakfast before racing to a window to confirm that Winder and Tacky had gone. Once in the clear, she went straight for the trapdoor she’d spotted from the kitchen, hidden behind a couple of barrels.

Her heart pounded as she descended the steps into darkness, and she froze when a memory of thorny vines lashed out towards her. Sweat dampened her mane as she fumbled for a minor light spell, and she sighed in relief when purple light forced back the darkness, revealing a disappointingly normal cellar. It was nearly bare, save for some firewood, old furniture and several crates filled with old toys and other trinkets.

The void within rumbled its disapproval.

Twilight hesitated for a moment, paralysed by indecision. But then the memories of emptiness threatened to flood her mind, and with a groan she allowed her magical sense to radiate from her position, searching for the source of her agitation. As before, nothing especially magical leapt out at her, but she did pick up on some tiny signatures really close to her position. So close, that they lay right on… her body.

Opening her eyes, Twilight eyed the patches of gauze on her wounds, wondering if Winder had applied any medicinal plants with magical properties. She peeled one off and gasped when greenish strands of sticky material stretched between the gauze and the clotted blood on her pinkish skin.

Looks like no poultice I’ve ever seen…

She hurried back upstairs to the bathroom and wasted no time in stripping off every last patch of gauze and bandages. Most of them had similarly sticky green stuff, and she had to spend nearly half an hour washing everything off. Thankfully, her wounds didn’t bleed despite their raw appearance, and she soon felt clean once more.

After guiltily dumping the dirty towel aside, she picked up a patch of gauze to inspect the resinous green stuff more closely. It had no distinct smell, but she did get a lingering urge to eat it, much to her disgust. She tossed it aside and marched out to wait in the living room for Path Winder to return. Whatever his intentions, she needed to find out what he knew about the stuff he’d applied to her wounds. For what purpose, she hadn’t yet decided.

For knowledge. Yes.

Twilight ground her teeth.

And I still can’t stop lying to myself…

She found a comfortable spot on the ruined couch and lay there in wait.

The minutes ticked by, punctuated by the hypnotic tick-tock of the clock hanging on the wall. Twilight shook her head and rubbed her temples as her eyes grew heavier by the second, muttering to herself about the importance of her new objective, but for some reason she couldn’t remember why. She blinked once. Her eyes took a couple of seconds to reopen on the second blink. And then they refused altogether on the third.

Wait, why am I snoring?

* * * * *

The room had grown considerably dimmer when Twilight laboriously opened her eyes. Lying with her back on the crumpled couch, she had a clear angled view of the greying sky outside, and she wondered if Tassel Woods was really as isolated as Winder had claimed, given how quickly the weather had changed. Achieving that kind of one-eighty required a lot of pegasi working together. At least, until she glanced at the ticking clock.

Her jaw hung loose for a few seconds before her mental faculties re-established themselves sufficiently for an annoyed groan. Over five hours lost to an accidental nap. Five.

First things first, though...

She dashed to the bathroom, nearly knocking over a stool and a vase on the way. However, relief came at the price of her hunger gaining prominence. Her horn ached, and she felt hollow inside. A tingling sensation had worked its way into her extremities; they also trembled slightly when she tried to hold them out for inspection.

A long sigh escaped her. Even after all she’d been through, it still haunted her like a hungry shadow, unravelling her thread by thread…

Twilight started somepony rapped on the door.

“Everything all right in there? You’ve been a while.”

The void stirred at the sound of Path Winder’s voice, and then she remembered the covert task she’d set for herself just before falling asleep.

She found Winder waiting patiently for her when she finally exited the bathroom.

“Need anything? I’m already a little late picking Tack from school. You’ll be on your own until then.”

“I’ll be fine.” Twilight then smiled at him when she recalled something from her childhood. “You’re a great brother, you know that? I can imagine how much work it is to take care of a kid.”

Winder grinned and shrugged. “Ah well, the things I do for love.”

Twilight blinked.

It started with a trickle. She remembered sensing wisps of unusual magic about the house that seemed to linger around Winder, for some reason. She remembered his voice in her fevered state, tending to her as she fought her nightmares and withdrawal symptoms. The trickle gradually turned into a tidal wave. He seemed to know an awful lot about anatomy and magic for a non-unicorn with no training. Green light. Lots of green. Green in her dreams, green in her wounds.

Love.

“You sure you’re okay? You kind of spaced out for a moment.”

Twilight breathed slowly to still her heart and keep from trembling as she peered into his blue eyes. Nothing unusual struck her, and she averted her gaze before it could get awkward and faked a wince. “Actually, I’m sorry about the timing. I’m not feeling too great right now, but some food and hot water would be nice.”

Winder glanced at the clock and hesitated, and for a moment Twilight thought that he would say no. But then his smile returned with a nod. “Yeah, I can do that.”

Delay him. Figure something out. Whether your insane idea is correct would be a good starting point.

Twilight plodded back to the living room and sat on the thick rug as Winder went about his business in the kitchen. Hundreds of ideas came to her in the meantime, but none of them fit as well as what she had already guessed. Even if she was mistaken, she could not afford to wait to be proven wrong.

When he came back with her food and water, she took care to move very slowly, swaying about a little as if suffering from nausea and dizziness. The ploy worked, and though she could sense a little exasperation in the way he kept glancing at the clock, he remained close to help her eat and drink. Halfway through the meal, she decided to stall further by making small talk in between mouthfuls. Tacky’s wellbeing could depend on how much time she could buy.

A tenuous field of arcane perception allowed her to keep an eye out for any fluctuation in ambient magic throughout the conversation.

“Have you ever been to Canterlot?”

He shook his head. “Nah. Wish I could, though. I hear there’s lots of cool stuff there. Open wide.”

Twilight accepted mouthful of diced fruit he held out on the spoon and chewed slowly.

She’d not detected any reaction to the question. After swallowing, she continued, “Like the royal wedding?”

Winder brightened up. “Exactly! We don’t ever get that much excitement this far north.”

“You mean like the changeling invasion?”

“Well, I can’t say I would’ve liked that part of the wedding, specifically.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Was it very bad?”

Twilight flicked her eyes over to the empty bowl in his grip and then averted her eyes, making a show of recalling nasty details to buy some time. She still hadn’t picked up on any unusual activity beyond the faint attraction she had to him. Could she risk a more direct approach? After a moment, she decided to go ahead; she couldn’t think of any other way to stall him further without raising suspicion and giving him time to prepare. She felt well enough to defend herself if necessary.

So she locked eyes with him and said, “I was hoping you could tell me, actually.”

Path Winder blinked and tilted his head. “Huh?”

He looked genuinely confused by her question, and for a moment, she felt a little embarrassed for putting him in the spotlight like that. But then she detected a faint pulse of magical activity in him, like a spring slowly being compressed to store up kinetic energy. The signature originated from the vicinity of his forehead, where a horn should be, and felt nothing like a unicorn’s magic. It stirred her hunger all the same, though.

“Sorry in advance,” she whispered.

“Twilight, wha—”

Before he could finish, she charged up a spell and sent the bolt zigzagging his way. If he really was a changeling, it would strip way his disguise just like it had on the invaders in Canterlot. If not, it would just sting a little. And maybe burn a bit.

Winder’s question turned into an incoherent gurgle as the spell collided with and traversed the full extent of his body. He toppled off his seat and convulsed on the floor as the purple energy gave way to green fire that seared away his brown coat to reveal grey, mildly iridescent chitin. A curved horn sprouted on his forehead just as his gritted teeth turned into fangs.

When the flames vanished, she had a full-grown changeling curled up on the floor, holding its head with its eyes scrunched tight.

“Grwargh…” groaned ‘Path Winder’, blinking rapidly as he sat up on his haunches. When his pure-blue eyes regained focus, he stared at her and sputtered, “Wha—what the hay was that for? You ju—”

He stopped when he looked down and then stared at the holes in his forelegs. Some silence passed between them before he said, “Oh, grub. Uh, I can explain.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes. “Please do.”

“Well…”

Crash!

Twilight jumped into the air at the noise and whirled around to find a thousand pieces of shattered vase on the floor—a diversion. She whipped back around, powering up a protective shield as she did so, and felt some satisfaction when it deflected a storm of loose paper scraps, stationery and other odds and ends that had been lying about the house before then. Reflexively, converted the bubble into a radiating shockwave with just enough force to repulse everything and clear the air, and then saw the changeling coiling back to leap through the open window.

Oh, no you don’t!

She wrapped him in a field of magic and negated his forward momentum, wincing a little at the horn ache from the expense of magic, then dragged him back in and pressed him down onto the broken couch.

Unfortunately, the ache in her horn interfered with her grip, and the changeling’s counterspell easily broke through. The feedback blinded her momentarily, and she couldn’t dodge in time as he leaped forward and bowled her over onto her back. He swung a foreleg at her and then, as if on cue, her training with Luna kicked in.

Twilight deflected the blow with a foreleg, then rolled left and right to avoid his repeated attempts to stomp her flat. Once he’d slowed down to catch his breath, she kicked him in the belly, sending him flying. He created a real ruckus smashing into things. She tried to get up and go after him before he could recover, but for some reason she snapped back to her former position like a released rubber band, thumping her head on the floorboards.

What is tha—eww!

Wads of green goo clung to her coat around her belly, and she could feel more of them sticking to her back, mane, wings and legs, effectively likening her to a bug stuck on flypaper. She gritted her teeth and strained, but the gooey stuff was quickly stiffening. Worse still, she couldn’t risk using magic to burn them away when she couldn’t see them clearly.

“Oh… ouch...” The changeling stumbled into her field of vision and gave her an apologetic look. “Hey, um… we kind of started out on the wrong hoof, so if you could please sit still and—”

Twilight couldn’t hear him. The world seemed to darken and shrink around her, blotting out all light and sound. The stiffening resin tightened around her, crushing the air out of her lungs like the plunder vines had done. She couldn’t move.

No!

She screamed and bent forward, straining her abdominal muscles. The sticky resin ripped her mane, tugged feathers loose and pulled her coat, but she powered through the pain. Loud creaks gave way to splintering noises as the resistance vanished and she wrenched herself free to fix her eyes on the changeling furiously backpedalling towards a corner with flattened ears, wide eyes and panicked breaths. He looked like he’d wet himself.

Twilight snarled as she took a step towards him, mentally flipping through her arsenal of spells to find one appropriate for a changeling who had replaced an orphan’s adoptive brother.

“Where is the real Path Winder?” she growled.

The changeling gulped and scratched at the floor with a hoof, oozing green slime from the holes in his foreleg. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

The sound of somepony scraping hooves on a mat made both of them glance at the door, which swung open soon after to admit Tacky Hutch. He dumped his schoolbag by the side of the door and shook snow out of his mane as he entered, and then froze when he saw her and the changeling facing off. His eyes flicked between them several times in complete silence before he finally uttered, “Uh…”

“Tch’aik—ch’krrrk.”

Twilight barely had time to frown at the changeling for his outburst of cricket-like gibberish before Tacky suddenly clutched his chest and toppled to the floor, groaning. Without thinking, she dashed over to him, ignoring the sound of shattering glass that signalled the changeling’s escape through the window.

“Tacky, can you hear me? What did he do?” she cried as she examined his limp body for signs of injury.

His tongue lolled out.

Had he been hit with paralysing magic? She couldn’t remember seeing any aura. Biting her lip, Twilight charged up a spell to scan him for magically induced trauma.

The moment the beam of energy touched his barrel, Tacky flailed in place and yelped, “Nggh-hahaha-haa-ha! That tickles!” And immediately after, a look of horror crossed his face as he clapped both hooves over his mouth, as if he’d been caught saying something rude.

Twilight gaped for a moment before it dawned upon her.

“Wait—you were faking it?” she screeched. He’s getting away!

Tacky gasped and curled up as if expecting a blow, but she didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she dashed out the door, scanning the snowy woodlands for tracks. Flat snow spread out in all directions, interspersed with thick, bristly pines. Thick, grey clouds hovered low over the land as well, and any one of them could provide him with a safe hiding spot, especially since her tattered wings couldn’t get her airborne.

Twilight snorted and pounded a hoof into the dirt as she turned this way and that, searching again for the slightest physical evidence of his passage. As she lost precious seconds to the lack of information, her breaths grew hot and heavy, and with a final growl, she closed her eyes and turned to her magical sense. The void rumbled in approval as she traced his residual magic, leading skyward to a thick but surprisingly close formation of clouds. Probably within shouting distance.

Why’s he sticking around? Hoping I’ll overshoot?

Opening her eyes, she feigned attention at a different patch of clouds and quickly went through some calculations. Her horn still throbbed, but she figured she could push it far enough for a couple of well-placed spells. No second chances, though.

She took a deep breath to steady herself and whispered, “Three… two… one.”

Whirling around, she shot a bolt of energy at his cluster of clouds and felt a smile tug at her lips when he flailed in mid-air from the sudden loss of support. He dropped a short distance before his wings took over, and he quickly made a beeline for the nearest cloud.

He was too far for a telekinetic grab and probably too agile for a stunning blast, but she did have a surprise for him. It would hurt, but the reward felt proportionate to the risk. Her insides were already twisting in anticipation.

Here goes…

Cold, hard pain split down the middle of her horn as she teleported straight into the sky, and she popped back into physical space some twenty paces above him and proceeded to drop like a stone. He yelped when she collided with his back and bear-hugged him with every available appendage, effectively crumpling his wings between them.

“Wait, no-no-no—aaaagh!” he yelled as they plummeted towards the ground.

Twilight instinctively spread her wings to slow their fall, but they could only do so much against the acceleration. Still, they did help her aim for the thickest patch of snow she could see. He scored a few hits on her cheek and belly with his bucking and flailing, but she ground her teeth and held him tight as the wind roared in her ears.

At the last second, she shifted her wings and rotated so they’d hit the snow parallel to the ground and side by side; she didn’t want to risk crushing him underneath, and she had no intention of letting him use her as a cushion. With some luck, they wouldn’t find bedrock hiding beneath the snow or something similarly brutal, and hopefully they wouldn’t break anything completely vital.

A dull explosion abruptly cut off the roaring in her ears as darkness swallowed her. Muffled noises nudged at the edge of her consciousness before she inhaled a mouthful of pure cold and exploded to the surface, coughing up snow and dirt. Her right shoulder and hip ached abominably and her right legs refused to support her weight, so she favoured her left side as she dug the changeling out.

Finding no blood or cracks in his chitin, she proceeded to drag him by the tail to a spot with less snow. He sputtered and clawed feebly at the ground as they went.

“T’chaak! Have I… mentioned just how… insane you are?” he wheezed between breaths, no longer sounding like Path Winder. His voice had gone all husky and coarse.

We’re just getting started.

Twilight spat out his tail and turned around with the intention of rolling him onto his back and pinning him to the ground.

But just as she set her eyes on him, he muttered, “Sorry in advance.”

The snow beneath her exploded, and the world spun in earnest as she stumbled around like a drunken mare. Pain shot up her jaw and into her brain as she tasted blood, and then she saw the changeling scrambling onto his hooves to make a run for it.

Twilight had no intention of letting him get away with spin-kicking her square in the jaw like that. She lunged and caught his hind legs, forcing him to crash face-first into the snow. He attempted to buck her loose, but she had already risen to all fours. Next, she jumped to avoid his low sweep and blocked a foreleg strike as he spun and buzzed his wings to get back onto his hooves in a flurry of snow and dead leaves.

So he knows a thing or two about fighting. A soldier, maybe? Do changeling colonies have specialised social groups like ants or bee—

She discarded the thought to duck under a swipe at her head and lunged inside his defence to ram his chest with her good shoulder. A smile tugged at her lips when she heard his breath whoosh out, and she followed up with a punch to his belly. But her weakened right foreleg didn’t deliver enough force to stun him; she only got a pained grunt and a retaliatory clap to both temples for her trouble.

Rubbing her head with one hoof, she forced one eye open and squinted through the flashing stars in her vision to see him charging up a spell. She had no time to throw up a barrier, so she angled herself to take the green bolt to her shoulder where it would hopefully hurt the least.

A stunning spell. The current surged through her nerves when it made contact, throwing her coordination out of whack and sending her to the ground.

No. Failure is not an option!

And then the void surfaced. Even with her face pressed into the chilling snow, heat flowed through her veins as dark magic crackled from her horn. Green, purple and black lights danced beneath her eyelids as her heart pounded and her breaths grew heavy. Changeling magic – wispy, like fire and smoke intertwined with embers; not as unruly as chaos but a whole lot more nebulous than pony magic – it tasted of the will to live.

“Look, I don’t want to hur—”

Twilight snarled and lunged at him. He swung out at her in a panic, but she deflected the blow and reached out to lock her foreleg with his. He tried using his other foreleg, but she blocked that move as well. His wings twitched as they faced off with forelegs locked up between them. When she felt him shift his weight to deliver a kick, she threw her weight in the opposite direction to weaken his leverage.

“Stop fighting! He’s my—”

What?

Twilight ignored Tacky’s voice when the changeling suddenly gritted his teeth, threw back his head and slammed his forehead into hers at a slight angle to avoid damaging his horn. Stars exploded in her vision as she reeled from the blow, and then she growled and threw him a dirty glare. His eyes grew to the size of dinner plates when she snorted and retaliated with similar head butt.

The resounding crack and pain that followed pleased her immensely.

Though she found it hard to tell with his lack of obvious pupils, he seemed to go cross-eyed before he sagged and collapsed with a groan. She then pinned him on his back and inched closer to his horn, panting heavily as black tendrils laced with green and purple light writhed from hers.

She could hear Tacky shouting something again, but the words sounded indistinct when she had so much magical stimuli right in her face.

A thin line of blue blood ran down from the fracture on his forehead. Wincing, he murmured, “Please… look after Tacky. He’s got… no one else.”

Twilight unleashed her hunger and greedily inhaled the wispy stream of green fire that leaked from his horn. It burned on the way down before melting into a hot stream of energy in her lungs, racing through her veins and nerves. She shivered as the energy coursed through her body, driving away her pain.

And then, she froze when her consciousness latched onto a completely new set of stimuli. Similar to magic, she could sense them in three-dimensional space without the need for eyes or ears. One source appeared directly beneath her, radiating tantalising waves of yellow that urged her to give chase, whilst another approached some distance from behind, splashing out waves of red and yellow that made her mane hairs stand on end.

“Bro!”

The scream knocked Twilight out of her euphoria, and she barely had enough time to leap aside to avoid the brown and purple blur that cannonballed towards the changeling.

“Leave him alone!”

“Tack, no—get out of the way.”

Twilight reeled from the blast. For a moment, she thought that the changeling had thrown another spell at her, but her other senses could not confirm it. Tacky stood between her and the changeling, poised low and wide as if expecting an attack.

She hungered at the sight. Not the kind that plagued her belly or the hollow emptiness in her middle, but a third kind that gripped her heart and filled it with endless yearning for something more than her paltry existence. She longed to feed on the energy that flowed between them; the changeling’s concern for Tacky’s safety, and Tacky’s blind, unfettered affection. Love. Brotherly love. A sweet, pinkish aura tinged with sour-yellow fear and hot, reddish anger.

Oh, you can’t be serious. You have got to be kidding me!

Twilight squeezed her eyes shut and pressed two hooves to her ears to shut out the stimuli, but her new sense needed neither to function. She could still feel their roiling emotions nearby, so easily within reach and so, so utterly nourishing to her parched heart. A groan escaped her as she tried to wall off all thoughts of harvesting the bounty before her, and digging into the changeling’s magic on the side, but her body refused to obey for long. Her front hooves went back onto the ground and she began stalking towards them, visually blind but guided by the blazing aura flowing between them. She could feel the changeling taking some of it in, growing stronger, and she itched for her turn.

No, I am not picking up another habit. I am not hurting a child. Never-never-never!

She unleased a bolt of purple lightning into the sky, screaming at the unfairness of being doomed to feel and taste so much power without the right to consume it.

As the last echo faded into the distance, she collapsed onto the ground, wet with melted snow, sobbing as she hid her face with her forelegs. She made no attempt to stop the cold seeping into her bones; perhaps it could dull the immense longing within and make it just a bit more bearable.

Hooves crunched into the snow near her, and she trembled when a hoof rested on her shoulder.

“Hey, um…” he began hesitantly.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered.

The hoof lifted away for a moment, and then she felt him lie on the ground beside her.

“It’s okay. It’s a pretty normal reaction, actually.” He paused for a moment, then added, “Uh, minus the crazy moves and magic-eating part, of course.”

“I’m sorry.”

Twilight could taste his concern for her. Tinged with a little fear, but mostly sincere pity and care. She gasped when she felt it flow into her without any action on her part, and fresh tears welled up when she felt the warmth blooming in her heart. The hunger gradually eased off until she could ignore it. Trembling, she leaned on his shoulder and cried, feeling wholly undeserving of his empathy. He recoiled at first, but soon steadied himself and patted her gently on the back as she poured her sorrows away.

“Let’s get back inside,” he eventually said. “It’ll be dark soon, and this isn’t the best weather to chill out in. Heh. Chill out.”

Twilight heard a groan from Tacky, and she could practically feel his eye-rolling.

“You should’ve waited at school,” Winder quipped.

“Millstone’s uncle walked us to his place because you were late. I got home from there,” came the mumbled reply.

“He knows, doesn’t he?” she whispered as Winder helped her up.

“Eh?”

“He loves you even in this form. I feel it.”

His eyes widened. “You can? Oh, wow. Um, that’s right. I’ve got a lot of explaining to do, I think.”

Twilight cringed when his shoulder pressed into her tender ribs. “So do I. Just… hold off using any magic around me and I shouldn’t lose control.”

Though cold and windy, the walk back to the house proved relatively uneventful, save for the constant swirling of emotions around Tacky. When not under duress, Winder apparently could mask his emotions down to a barely perceptible, grey hum. On the other hoof, Tacky’s aura contained a mix of yellow-sour apprehension and silvery-sweet awe with a smattering of bitter-orange disapproval.

Stars above, I can literally feel him judging me…

“Wow. You’re a mess,” said Winder when they sat around the fireplace.

Twilight let out a hollow laugh. She still had a lot of his dried resin on her coat together with a whole mess of floorboard splinters, shredded paper, dirt and leaves stuck to her. Also, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed the broken mug and a whole book plastered to her flank. No wonder her balance had felt a little wonky.

She tried pulling a stick off her coat, but it stuck fast and threatened to take some hairs along with it.

“I need a shower,” she muttered. “I look ridiculous.”

“That won’t work.”

Twilight turned to Winder and waited. He looked away and rubbed the back of his neck for a moment before sheepishly saying, “Uh, you’re probably not going to like it.”

* * * * *

“You’re right. I don’t like this.”

Winder shrugged and gave his hoof another slobbery lick. “Desperate measures. Sorry.”

Twilight forced herself to keep still as he pressed the cold wetness into the sticky mess in her mane. It slowly loosened up, and bits of floorboard and dirt rained to the floor as cool liquid ran down her back. Fascinating; changelings could produce natural, adhesive resin from their leg pores that could be dissolved by their saliva; she just wished she didn’t have to experience it in such a disgusting way. At least he’d applied it by hoof instead of licking her directly. She shuddered at the thought.

“Okay, all done.” Winder finally said after nearly ten minutes of plucking detritus off of her and tossing them into a bucket.

He slumped by her side on the rug, and then peered at her back before gingerly tapping his hooves together and saying, “You’ve opened up some of your wounds again. Um, I can help with those. Same thing I did for you while you were… unconscious.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You actually put bodily secretions on my wounds?”

A hint of purple-spicy embarrassment made it through his emotional mask as he grinned sheepishly. “It speeds up healing and prevents infection. Don’t worry; it’s quite safe. It’s what we use to keep ponies alive in pods—”

“Pass,” Twilight deadpanned. She could deal with a little bleeding.

“Right. I’ll, uh… just go get us all something hot to drink, maybe fix something light for dinner.” He rose to all fours, then asked, “Tea or coffee?”

She stared at him.

His smile grew a little forced. “You look like a coffee kind of pony. Coffee it is. Yup!”

After he’d hastily trotted off to the kitchen, Twilight shook her head and turned her attention to Tacky. She found him watching her quietly from his spot on the rug. He hadn’t moved or said a word at all since coming in, and though her ability to sense emotions had diminished substantially since feeding on Winder’s magic, she could still detect a roiling sea of mixed feelings beneath his impassive expression. He apparently couldn’t decide whether to shun or idolise her anymore.

“Tacky,” she began uncertainly, “I’m sorry I hurt your brother. I… I didn’t mean it.”

He continued to stare at her for a moment or two, and then finally shrugged and turned away. He still watched her from the corner of his eye, though.

Twilight sighed and stared at the crackling fire.

This is going to be one heck of an awkward evening…

Author's Note

Hope the length can somewhat compensate for the long wait. :raritycry:

Chapter 11

“—there, Twilight?”

Twilight looked up from her bowl of mashed potatoes and found Path Winder on the other side of the table, tentatively waving a hoof to get her attention. Tacky still sat by his side, busy munching on his greens without making eye contact.

She stared in fascination at the holes in Winder’s foreleg for a moment, wondering just how much sticky resin he could secrete from those at any given time. It had taken her a good half-hour of scrubbing and soapy rinsing to convince herself that she’d gotten all of it out of her coat, but even an extra hour of guiltily hogging their bathtub in the hopes of soaking out her stress could not fully eradicate the memory of being glued to the floor like a stuck fly.

The victims in Canterlot had probably felt the sa—Twilight shook her head to clear her thoughts, remembering that he’d asked her something earlier.

“Sorry. You were saying?”

Winder gave her a nervous, fanged grin. “Well, not to say I’m uncomfortable wearing my natural form, but there’s still a teensy chance of somepony looking in through a window at this hour. I’d rather not have to explain why there’s a changeling having dinner with my brother and Twilight Sparkle in my house, you know? So, since I’m feeling much better now…”

Twilight remained silent for a moment. “I guess… we can give it a try. Give me a minute.”

She promptly left the table and cantered out of the dining room, past the hastily tidied living room with its newly boarded-up window, out the door and into the billowing winds. Pushing against the thick layer of powdery snow, she tried to deaden her magical sense and focused instead on how the moon lent a silvery glow to every surface it touched with its light, on how the wind snatched away her puffs of breath to carry them away between the skeletal pines. She swept a pile of snow away and hunkered down to hide from the wind, shivering as she counted down the seconds.

A pulse of changeling magic pricked at the back of her mind, coming from the direction of the house, but she studiously ignored it until the last of its energy had dissipated before leaping out of the snow to hurry back in.

By the time she got back to the dinner table, Winder the pegasus welcomed her to her seat with a smile as if she’d just gotten out of bed.

She sat down and sipped her hot coffee as quickly as she dared, just in time to see Tacky gulp down his orange juice and set the glass beside his empty bowl.

“Got homework tonight?” Winder asked.

Tacky wiped his mouth. “Uh huh.”

“Okay, then. You know the drill.”

Tacky gave him a look.

Winder shrugged. “Hey, if you want to let stuff pile up, that’s up to you. School doesn’t care if your bro’s just had a tussle with a princess.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going.”

Twilight watched in silence as Tacky trotted off to his room without so much as a glance back. For a moment, she missed the ability to get the gist of his emotions. What would it be like to live in a world where you could feel exactly how everypony else felt, all the time? It seemed incredibly useful and terrifying at the same time, to have your moods read by others as easily as an open book.

“How do you live with it?”

Winder looked up from his plate with stuffed cheeks. “Whaff’s thaf?”

“Well, I guess you should be okay with Tacky around, but was it always like that? I mean, have you ever gone without feeding on emotions for a long time?”

He swallowed, wiped his mouth with a hoof and stared at nothing as his eyes grew distant. “Yeah, it’s… not very nice. I’ll just leave it at that.”

“Is it—what happens if you go without feeding for too long?”

His eyes focused again as he gave her a wry grin. “Oh, it’s not dangerous, at least in the short term. We can subsist on physical food just like everyone else and just learn to deal with it. Drove me nuts a couple of times, but the older guys say that I never really got close to any serious damage.”

Twilight poked at her mashed potatoes. “Serious damage?”

“If we go without feeding on emotions for too long, say, about couple of months, we can get sort of messed up.” Here, he made a swirling motion with his hoof next to his head in emphasis. “Bit of depression, irritability, mood swings, aggressiveness, you know; all the fun stuff. Makes it even harder to feed because we become terrible at fitting in; magic is harder to use, and transformation’s really sluggish. If we don’t recover, we get sent back to the hive to do basic labour under very tight supervision; that’s probably all we’re good for at that point.”

“That sounds awful…”

Winder shrugged. “And then there’s still the long term problems.”

Twilight blinked and stared at him. “Wait—those are the short term effects?”

“Oh, yeah. In the real long term, love energy is specifically needed to, uh, fertilise Queenie’s eggs after they’re laid. No love means no little grubs hatching and running around. No kids means we’ll die out after some time. Then it’s all down to one queen finding enough love to start over again.”

Biting her lip, she felt her gaze slowly slip downward until she could make out intricate details in the grain of the table’s woodwork.

At least they have a reason.

She, on the other hoof, had no real excuse for her acquired taste. Their sanity and survival depended on it, but she had no evidence that feeding on magic could be that essential to her health.

After stealing a glance at him, she wondered just how much they resented ponykind for having things so easy, the same way she’d inwardly ground her teeth at her friends’ well-meaning but completely ignorant efforts to encourage her and advise her on how to deal with her condition. She remembered running a few seminars on identifying changelings after the attack, fully confident that she’d correctly and impartially judged them as parasitical opportunists eagerly waiting to prey on helpless ponies. Would the rest of her kind be as generous if her habit became public knowledge, without her social status to protect her?

To think that they’ve put up with know-it-all, first-hoof ‘experts’ like me steering public opinion of their kind through the ages…

The changelings still had plenty to answer for, but she and many others had failed to consider them beyond their immediate capacity to hurt ponies.

After a while, Winder took in a deep breath and sighed, seemingly to fill the silence between them. “So, yeah… To answer your question: we live with it because we have to. Can’t say I’ve never complained or wished for something different, but I’m pretty sure that wishful thinking and getting mad never fixed our problems. My siblings took a lot of trouble to hammer that through my thick skull.”

Twilight didn’t answer.

She wondered if, some years down the line, there’d be first-hoof victims of hers running around, spreading word of her insatiable hunger for power. Ponies fleeing at the sight of her. Arrows and spears pointed her way. Doors barred. Foals screaming. Friends forced to denounce her, or shunned for showing loyalty to ponykind’s newest public menace. The changeling queen laughing, immensely tickled by the irony…

“Twilight, what’s wrong?”

She took a gulp of lukewarm coffee. Then, after allowing the bitter taste in her mouth to linger for a while, she sighed and looked him in the eyes. “Winder, I—I have a problem.”

He shifted wordlessly in his seat, as if settling down for a long story.

After a couple of false starts, she finally managed to give an account of her battle with Tirek. He bristled at the mention of his name, but otherwise remained attentive throughout her tale. The crushing and yet elating weight of three alicorns’ magic swelling her reserves. The fierce, heart-pounding adrenaline of battle as they tore through mountains and split hills into valleys. The agony of having her magic drained away.

Winder had yet to say a word when she told of how she had searched for a way to replicate Tirek’s magic siphon. But something flickered in his eyes when she described the emptiness gnawing within, always waiting to spur her into action when she’d let her guard down. Recognition? Suspicion? It had already disappeared, so despite her curiosity, she carried on rather than risk losing momentum.

Twilight even told him of her secret project beneath Golden Oaks Library, including her cyclical violence and memory purge. That finally got his eyes to widen in surprise. Or maybe fear. Whatever the case, he quickly got it under control and went back to his attentive listener state, though she noticed that he had tightened up a little, as if to protect his vulnerable parts.

“—last thing I remember is crashing into a giant pile of snow. Which turned out to be your roof.”

Winder blinked. “Wow. And I thought being a changeling was an exciting life.”

She snorted. “I could do with a little less excitement.”

“Also, you’ve learnt how to fight from Princess Luna; you know spells for erasing memories; and you get a kick out of sucking the magic from everything around you.” He gulped. “Horse apples… I figured you were pretty powerful, but that’s a whole other level of scary.”

I am.

The words stopped just short of leaving her mouth.

Twilight ground her teeth in the ensuing silence, drew in a deep breath and forcefully expelled it. “Yes. I am addicted to magic. And it scares me. I’ve tried so many things, but it’s so hard to stop…”

Winder shuffled his hooves, apparently deep in thought.

It felt strange to hear that confession in her own voice. The words echoed in her mind, until it occurred to her that she’d never verbally confessed her problem to anypony. Somepony else had always explained things away on her behalf; she’d never borne the burden of doing so herself. The words tasted bitter and her cheeks and ears burned, knowing that she’d laid it all out in the open for him to judge. Yet, it strangely left her feeling a little lighter in the chest, as if a pressure had eased off somewhere.

There, I’ve said it. I can’t take it back. Unless…

She looked at Winder, then at a heavy bowl on the table and his easily-within-reach and completely unprotected head.

Twilight squeezed her eyes shut and grit her teeth.

No. Stop having thoughts like that!

“Why are you telling me this?”

The question wiped away the image of a conked-out Winder drooling on the floor. She blinked to clear her head and found him giving her a steady, penetrating gaze.

“I mean, I get that you want to explain why you did what you did, but it almost looks as if you’re hoping I’ll help you with that or something.”

She fiddled with her empty mug. “You got that from sensing my emotions, huh?”

“Nope. Your tone told me enough.” He sighed and downed the last of his drink. “If you were hoping I had some secret tip for turning off that hunger of yours, I’m afraid I’m gonna disappoint. I don’t even think they’re properly comparable. Best we can manage with emotional deprivation is toughing it out or sharing love energy when needed, and I don’t think you’re looking for either of those.”

Twilight nodded. “Yeah, it was a stupid hope.” Then, she felt a wry smile forming. “But talking about it still makes me feel better. Thanks for listening.”

“Glad to be of service.”

With that line of discussion leading to a dead end, she turned to the other issue that had lurked at the back of her mind. She glanced in the direction of Tacky’s bedroom and said, “So, how much of his adoption story is true?”

His expression sharpened immediately. “Twilight, let me start by saying that we haven’t told you any lies in that story. Tack is my legal adopted brother.”

Oh no, you’re not having it that easy.

“What I’ve heard so far still leaves plenty of room for… omitted details. I would know.”

Winder silently held her gaze for a moment, as if attempting to read her mind or sizing her up. All the while, she noted that he had one hoof fidgeting on the table. Eventually, he said in a very measured voice, “I guess I’d be an idiot to try fighting or running again, but… what do you plan to do with the information I give you?”

“I’m concerned for him. You’ve got nothing to worry about if you’ve done nothing wrong, but I can’t decide until I hear it from you.” She shrugged. “Also, talking distracts me from thinking about all that lovely magic in you.”

A pulse of magic raced up and down his body, and Winder stiffened for a second or two, pupils shrinking just a tiny bit before he blinked and shook his head. “Heh, been a while since I’ve been on the receiving end of some passive-aggressive manipulation. You sure you aren’t part changeling?”

“I’m positive.”

“All right, we might as well get comfortable. This way.”

She followed him to the living room and watched as he tossed a couple of cushions onto the thick rug before the fireplace, and followed suit when he lay down and beckoned her over. Then, as soon as she’d settled into the soft rug and the warmth radiating from the fireplace, he began his story.

“Our ‘parents’ are actually my siblings. They work disguised as a couple in Vanhoover – just in banking, mind you – and they got the idea from one of their colleagues when they mentioned something about not being able to have foals anymore.

“I was in high school at that time, hoping to get lucky with a special somepony along the way, but nothing worked out for long, so they got me to move over here and prepare a home somewhere out of the way. Long story short, I found this place, got a job as a ranger, and then they did all the paperwork and brought Tacky in.”

Twilight frowned. “Did he know right from the start?”

Winder snorted. “Heck, no. Only stupid or really inexperienced changelings try to build up relationships in full chitin. As far as Tacky knew, he was the luckiest colt in the world to get two parents and an older brother. We were never hungry again, and we even had enough to bring back to the hive every few months when my siblings could make the trip. We managed to keep it that way for nearly three years.”

She could hear the windows rattling and the muted howling of the wind outside, and she instinctively huddled closer to the fire and pressed herself into the thick rug. Upon seeing her shivering, Winder raised a wing in tacit invitation.

“No thanks, I’m okay.” Twilight motioned with a hoof for him to carry on. “Then how did he find out?”

Winder chuckled. “He’s smart, like you. He noticed things here and there. Scraps of chitin after I moulted, bit of resin here and there, when I got lazy and fixed stuff with my own, uh, resin. Caught me sleeping upside-down once when I wanted some alone time.” Winder chuckled. “Little guy started getting funny looks in school, apparently because he let slip about my habits that no sane pony should have. I got a real nasty surprise when he brought a doctor home; dude was convinced I had symptoms of some terrible disease. I managed to shake him off, but after that scare I panicked and begged Tacky not to blab about stuff like that in school anymore.”

“And he just agreed?”

“Hah! If only. Little grub was in that phase when he wouldn’t stop asking questions.” He covered his face with both hooves and dragged them downwards, groaning in emphasis. “Oh my gosh, between his pestering and the chance that he’d let something slip in school, I was losing so much sleep. I eventually showed him my real form just to end it.”

Twilight leaned forward. “And?”

“He was… surprisingly okay with that.” A grin split Winder’s face. “Even thought it was pretty cool.”

“Oh.”

“What’s wrong?”

She averted her eyes and stared at the woolly material beneath her hooves. “Nothing. It’s just that… I don’t think I’ll be as lucky with my friends.” Slowly, she lifted her head and gazed at him, as if she could find answers in his eyes. “I’m afraid to go home. Have you ever felt anything like that?”

A moment of silence passed between them before he nodded. “Yeah, I’ve had to leave a few places behind. Got a few former buddies here and there who’d turn me in to the authorities if I ever put those faces on again.”

Twilight considered asking whether he’d done anything to warrant such treatment, but decided against it just before opening her mouth. Whatever he’d done, it probably wouldn’t be worse than her own mistakes.

“Thinking of making things right?” he asked.

Oh, sure. That’ll be a piece of cake.

Outwardly, she sighed and rested her muzzle on her foreleg to stare at the flames as they slowly but relentlessly consumed the firewood. “I don’t even know how I’m supposed to do that.”

“Going back would be a good start. I’m pretty sure that you’d at least get a chance to explain before anypony thinks of dumping you in a cell.”

The largest chunk still had some semblance of the log it used to be, despite the glowing cracks on its surface and tufts of whitish-grey powder at the edges. Given time, even it would turn to ash, but for now, it lay solid and unmoving in the middle of the crackling flames whilst lesser pieces fell apart.

She nodded. “I guess you’re right.”

Winder said nothing more, and Twilight felt content to leave it that way. So she simply lay next to him on the rug, whiling away the night as they basked in the warmth of the fireplace. Eventually, though, the fire did grow weaker, and she felt the chill creeping back around her.

Just then, a sleepy-eyed Winder said, “So, what happens now?”

Twilight rose to all fours, groaning as her aching muscles protested. A massive yawn parted her jaws. “Bed sounds amazing.”

“Uh, yeah, that too. But I was thinking about what’s supposed to happen in the long run. You’ve just found a changeling who’s the legal guardian of an orphaned colt in the middle of the woods, and…”

His words trailed off as he gazed at her.

She blinked hard to steady the room, but it seemed intent on tilting and swaying all the harder. Yawning again, she drawled, “I’ll think about what I’m going to do about it in the morning. I really, really want to hit the hay right now. If you get any ideas and try to cocoon me in my sleep…”

“Oh no, not to worry; I’m not suicidal.” He grinned nervously and stifled a yawn of his own. “If anything, I’m the one who should be worried. You’re the one who can alter memories and blast mountains to bits.”

“I thought changelings had some degree of mind magic, too. I know what happened to my brother at the wedding.”

A thought suddenly occurred to her, and she narrowed her eyes, making him tense up a little. “Everything’s been going rather well since… what happened out there. How do I know you haven’t done something to me?” She shook her head to rid herself of the wave of sleepiness attempting to wash over her, then rose and plodded slowly over to him, growling, “Are you feeding on my emotions right now?”

Winder hastily scooted backwards and raised both fore hooves and wings in surrender. “Whoa, whoa, take it easy! I can’t mess with your head like that. Only a few freakishly talented guys besides Queenie can actually can do it—” Here, his stiff posture wilted. “Which is exactly what someone with mind-controlling powers would say to throw you off their trail…” The nervous grin returned. “Heh. You know, I don’t think there’s anything I can say to prove that I can’t do it.”

Another yawn assaulted Twilight, and she suddenly wondered why she’d gotten so upset in the first place. After a chuckle at the way his pupils had shrunken to pinpricks, she shrugged and said, “That’s… fair enough, I think. I’ve got no proof that I can’t or won’t rip out your memories, either, so I guess we’ll just have to trust each other.”

He nodded rapidly. “Yeah, I can do that. That sounds great.”

Twilight found the guest room nicely made up – Winder must’ve tidied it during her unplanned nap that afternoon – and nearly toppled over when the bed seemed to call out to her with its plumped pillows and smooth blanket. She moaned as she slid between the smooth fabric and curled up tight, allowing her body heat to accumulate in her cosy little space.

Something seemed to be missing, though.

She rolled over to get a view of the bedside table, groaning as the action put pressure on her wounds and overstressed muscles, and felt a small pang when she noticed the absence of Tacky’s stuffed dragon. After a wistful sigh, Twilight allowed herself to sink beneath the waves of sleep, listening to the muffled howling of wind and snow outside.

* * * * *

“We’re terribly sorry, Twilight, but after that little debacle in your old home, we’ve been forced to – how shall I put it? – limit our association with you in the public’s eye,” said Rarity from above.

Each of her friends had a window to themselves, high up on the face of the crystal castle. Every one of them looked as if they would much rather speak to somepony else. She felt like a dirty insect that had somehow wandered onto a table in one of Canterlot’s finest restaurants.

“What?”

Twilight leaped into the air, to surge up to the windows and speak to her friends face to face, but a whole blockade of royal guards swarmed in and blocked her way. No matter how she twisted and turned, darting here and there, she could not outmanoeuvre that many well-trained pegasi.

“What’s wrong with you? Let me through!” she yelled.

The guards didn’t answer.

Grinding her teeth, Twilight tried to bulldoze her way through them, but they simply huddled closer together, and their collective might proved more than equal to her alicorn strength. They shoved her back, and one saw fit to slam the butt of his spear into her ribs.

Thoroughly winded from the blow, she retreated to her original position and settled back on the ground, glowering at the stone-faced guards as they lined up around the crystal palace to bar her way.

“Don’t pay them no mind, Twilight,” Applejack called out. “They’re just here to keep Ponyville safe. Extra precautions and all that.”

“From what?” Twilight shouted back. “Why would Ponyville need that?”

Rainbow Dash tilted her head. “Really? Did you really need to ask that?”

Fluttershy said something as well, but the distance between them snatched away her words. Still, Twilight managed to read her lips and gesturing well enough to guess that she wanted her to turn around or something.

She did so, and gasped when she saw the forest of plunder vines draped over Ponyville. Every building had snarls of vines and thorns bursting out of the ground and wrapping themselves tightly around cracked walls, with individual strands snaking into doors and windows. Some vines were as thick as tree trunks, with thorns the size of spears that impaled anything in their way.

“I…”

“Everypony’s left town except us, Twilight,” a sullen voice said out from behind. “And it’s kind of your fault for growing that party-pooping plant underground. It got everywhere.”

“I didn’t mean it!” Twilight pleaded, whirling around to find a flat-maned Pinkie standing right behind her. “How was I supposed to stop something I didn’t know existed? Even then, I—I’m pretty sure that I took precautions. I never wanted to do anything that might put the whole town in danger. It was an accident!”

“Twi, this is way beyond the ‘accident’ classification of an event, even for you,” Spike called out from the castle. “You can’t expect us to just forget about it.”

“I know,” Twilight whispered as she hung her head. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Prove it. Fix it,” the royal guards chorused with low, stony voices.

She looked up and quavered at the sight of a hundred steely-blue eyes boring straight through her. Never in her lifetime would she have expected to find herself on this side of Celestia’s peacekeeping force.

Gulping, she turned to glance at the ruins of Ponyville. Had the vines noticed her presence? She didn’t remember seeing that many pointy ends facing eagerly in her direction the same way normal plants turned their shoots to face the sun.

“I—I’ll try.” She took a few steps towards the guards. “But first, can I see my friends before I—”

A cacophony of screeching steel answered her as the guards drew their blades.

Twilight halted, stunned by the display of force, and slowly turned back to face the vines, tail tucked between her legs. Each step forward filled her with dread, increasing the tension until she felt like her limbs could snap at any moment.

The plunder vines slithered towards her like thorny snakes.

Sweat poured down her neck. She remembered them whipping out of the darkness, trapping her and choking the life out of her. She couldn’t breathe; she couldn’t move. Her hooves gradually slowed until they outright refused to move, and all the while, the void within rumbled in anticipation of the meal ahead.

“No, no. I can’t do this. Please don’t make me go back there…” she whimpered.

But her friends did not answer. Neither did the guards. She looked back and found only shadows and mist that obscured everything from view, except the vines. They creaked and squelched as they drew closer, and Twilight could do nothing but wait for her inevitable doom.

Her pulse quickened as the seconds turned into minutes, but nothing attacked her. The thumping kept growing louder until she could hear nothing else. Shivers went up and down her spine like spiders, raising the hairs on her back. She wanted to explode into action, to run somewhere and hide, but her body no longer seemed interested in responding to her commands. She could only wait like a trapped animal.

Waiting.

Shivering.

Crying.

Surrounded by black, writhing vines.

* * * * *

Twilight peeled her eyelids open and snapped them back in place when the light blinded her.

After giving her eyes a moment to adjust to the brightness, she slowly opened them and sighed in relief at the sight of the wooden beams overhead. Winder’s house, and not the soulless, grey sky above a vine-infested Ponyville.

Finally. I thought it would never end...

The sun had removed most of the night’s chill in the air, so she quickly shrugged off the thick blanket, only to wince when it peeled away from her wounds. A few blotches of dried blood remained on the sheets, and she made a mental note to apologise to Winder about those.

Thankfully, the extent of her discomfort only went skin deep. She had no dizziness or other head-related ailment, her stomach felt fine, if a bit empty, and the void seemed relatively inert for the time being.

Throwing off the blanket had also revealed the identity of a soft lump close by. Gorbash lay on his side, still warm to the touch and fortunately not covered in any of her blood. She blinked, wondering just how he’d gotten beneath the covers with her in the night. A quick glance at the clock gave her some pointers, though. Nearly half past ten. Tacky had probably snuck in and deposited the stuffed dragon to keep her company again, sometime in the night or maybe earlier in the morning.

Aww, he’s such a sweet colt.

She carefully placed Gorbash on the bedside table and hopped off the bed. A few more muscles ached than in the previous night; nothing unexpected given her exertion yesterday. She stretched as much as she could bear, enjoying the sensation of her joints popping and loosening up.

Still feeling a little dirty after that dream, Twilight made her way to the washbasin by the dresser and doused her face with water. She repeated the process several times, imagining the dream’s grime and dust dripping bit by bit off her face in the mirror.

If Future Twilight from next Tuesday had looked like a war veteran, then she would qualify as a survivor of the end of civilisation. Rarity would probably faint at the sight of her freshly scabbed lacerations, and Rainbow would probably toss in some comment about her edgy coolness increasing by several orders of magnitude.

Her eyes had bags beneath them, and maybe she had just imagined it, but for a moment they almost appeared wraith-like, stretched over a deep well of weariness. She had occasionally seen that look in Celestia’s eyes when she allowed her regal composure to slip off, and a little more often in Luna’s.

She no longer looked like the bookish mare that Celestia had nudged into Ponyville.

“What happened to you?” she whispered, peering as if effort would enable her to find some image of her old self in there. Or, at least, the more recent Twilight who had seen fit to feed her insatiable hunger for magic on a chaos-bred organism behind the backs of her friends, and then not have the decency to even endure the shame of doing so by wiping her own memories of the deed. Repeatedly.

Why? Why did you do it? What thought process could have possibly led you to the conclusion that it was going to end in anything other than disaster?

If she squinted just right, the Twilight in the mirror had her old manecut, complete with an utter lack of physical injuries.

“Don’t judge me,” said her reflection.

Twilight blinked, then kneaded both ears and shook her head just in case.

Her reflection glared back at her and continued, “You know what it feels like. You would’ve done the same.”

She shook her head. “You don’t know that. I wouldn’t—”

“Don’t know what? That, after ages of having that emptiness pulling you inside out, you wouldn’t undertake a little experiment to see if there was a way to maintain a steady harvest to keep it under control? Or, after finding somepony else’s hard work, conveniently placed in your old home, decide not to make use of it?” Her reflection snorted. “It always happened; again and again. We are the same pony. You have no right to—”

Gritting her teeth, Twilight stomped a hoof on the floor. “But now I’m the one stuck cleaning up after your mess – the one that you didn’t even dare to own up to! You made an error in calculation somewhere, and decided that the best way forward was to repeat it using the same equation over and over again? Starswirl would be spinning in his grave if he knew his biggest fan had the experimental technique of a schoolfilly!”

Her reflection shrank back, stunned. A tremor ran through her and tears welled up in her eyes, but her jaw and brows remained hard-set as she glared in silence. Twilight’s heart faltered at sheer resentment there, and she wished she could take back her words, if only to stop the smouldering rage in those eyes from shattering the glass and tearing right through her.

Twilight took a step back, ready to bolt, but then Winder’s words came back to her. “I’m pretty sure that wishful thinking and getting mad never fixed our problems.”

Luna’s voice echoed in her mind, too. “I needed her forgiveness to move beyond my mistakes and not constantly grieve over the past.”

She dangled a hind hoof in the air for a moment, then sighed and brought it forward instead. She stopped inches away from the mirror and hung her head.

“You’re right,” she murmured. “I can’t judge you; I was just about ready to pass the ball to the next Twilight when it was my turn. I guess we have to thank Luna for breaking the cycle.”

She sniffled and looked up to find the mare in the mirror wiping her eyes with a hoof. The fire had gone out of her pupils, replaced with weary resignation that seemed to weigh her down until her ears, wings and tail drooped.

Her reflection opened her mouth to say something, but only a choked noise came out. She swallowed and sniffled before trying again with a cracked voice. “But I—yeah, I’m sorry for refusing to learn from what I did. Oh, that was such a stupid mistake…”

Twilight reached out, but her hoof only met solid glass. “It’s okay. I’ve done my share of stupid stuff, too. I… I forgive you. I can’t ever bring you back, but I can learn from you. I won’t make the same mistake.”

Her reflection didn’t answer.

She waited for a while, but after a couple of minutes had passed, it got pretty clear that the conversation had ended. She towelled herself dry, and a mirthless chuckle escaped her as she thought about the absurdity of the exchange. She’d apparently just conversed with her past self without the aid of time travel magic.

Then again, did that really count as her past self? If everypony’s personality consisted of the sum of their experience and memories, then the Twilight in the mirror should actually count as a different pony. Their paths had diverged significantly, and she had no way of knowing if their thought processes were exactly alike anymore. Heck, for all she knew, there could be a whole host of other ‘secrets’ that her old self had stashed away, contacts still thinking her a ‘collector’ of magical items, just waiting for her to rediscover.

Wait. If memories make who we are, and my spell involved permanently ripping them away, does that count as… oh no. Am I killing a Twilight every time that happens? That’s just—

Twilight saw the warning signs in her accelerated heartbeat and respiration, so she quickly rattled out that thought with a thump to her head and took deep, calming breaths. After that, she resolutely trotted away from the mirror and out the door without a glance back.

Great. My first existential crisis, and now I can apparently hold conversations with my reflections, too. Discord would be so proud.

Did that count as a sign of impending insanity on par with his? Even so, if this attitude proved essential to dealing with her problem, then maybe she could afford to be a little loopy. Did all long-lived ponies end up that way? It certainly would help explain Celestia’s occasional prankster streak and little smiles that seemed utterly lacking in context or cause, as if she had understood the world’s most obscure joke; or Luna’s partiality to the Royal Canterlot Voice coupled with a fondness for swinging weapons around in the training yard.

Whatever. I don’t care anymore.

She trotted out of the room, deliberately putting some spring into her steps. She’d had enough of feeling down and miserable all day.

Winder sat hunched over the dining table, nursing a cup of what smelled like strong tea as he stared out the window. A solid ray of sunlight shone in through the glass, and she could hear birds chirping outside. His sandwich lay forlornly on a plate with just one bite taken out of it.

“Morning, Winder,” she greeted.

“Uh huh. Yeah, morning.” He blinked hard, as if attempting to dislodge something from his eyes. “Sleep well?”

Thorny tendrils surrounded her in the dark, but she shook off the thought and threw it right to the back of her mind. Then, she gave him a wry smile and said, “Well enough, everything considered.”

“Glad you did. Wish I could say the same.” He tried to suppress a yawn, and failed rather spectacularly.

At her raised eyebrow, he sighed and added, “I was worried that I’d wake up today with no memory of Tacky. Or worse, that he wouldn’t recognise me, and then you’d both chase me out of my own house and leave me alone in the wilderness.”

“I think I can relate to that,” she whispered.

“Eh?”

She shook her head. “Never mind. Just a bad dream I had.”

Winder looked at her for a moment before nodding and pointing a hoof towards the kitchen. “Okay, then. Pantry’s over there; go help yourself to whatever you like. I think I left the coffee pot on the counter, but if you prefer some juice, it’s in the cold box.”

Twilight smiled her thanks and collected her breakfast without further ado. She came back to the table a while later, her tray laden with bread, cheese, chunks of turnip and a mug of warm coffee. Winder didn’t seem to have made much progress with his meal in her absence; it really bothered her to see him so downcast after he’d displayed so much cheer yesterday.

She sat next to him and waited for an opening, but he did not acknowledge her presence and continued to look out the window. When a polite cough failed to get his attention, she edged close enough that their forelegs on the table touched, and he started before turning to her in surprise.

“I just want to let you know that I’m sorry for dropping in and disrupting everything like that.”

“It’s okay. Besides, I think you already apologised last night. Like, several times already.”

Twilight tilted her head. “Did I? It’s all a bit hazy. Anyway, it’s best I apologise now when I’m more clear-headed.”

He smiled, though she could tell that he had to put a little effort into it. “In that case, apology accepted.”

That didn’t help much with the growing awkwardness, though. Winder had clearly worked himself into a funk, and Twilight believed she knew the reason, so she decided to dive right in before they both got too uncomfortable to talk about anything.

“Look, I know you’re worried about what’s going to happen to both of you.” She drew a deep breath and sighed. “I spent a long time after the invasion developing ways to detect and expose hidden changelings, but after what I’ve seen here and felt with your form of magic, I’m starting to think that there’s got to be a better way.”

She looked him straight in the eyes. “So long as you take good care of Tacky and make sure he gets a proper education, I promise not to expose you to the authorities.”

Winder’s ears perked up and his eyes brightened, but his tone remained cautious. “Really? As in, for the foreseeable future and all that?”

Twilight resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Well, I mean, so long as you don’t give me a real reason to call the guards. Like if you started kidnapping ponies or something.” She frowned, then added, “If you haven’t actually done it before, that is.”

“Umm…”

Winder suddenly seemed very fascinated by his hooves.

Shifting a little to maintain eye contact, she prodded him and said, “Are those ponies still captives?”

He shook his head. “Not anymore. We let them go after getting information for disguises. Too risky to hide them in town, too risky to move them out.”

Twilight studied him for signs of deceit, but found nothing she could pin as incriminating in his facial tics and body language. He’d said everything with a straight face and sincerity in his voice, and close proximity to an alicorn who’d recently sapped his magic could easily explain his slightly tense posture. But without official training in interrogative techniques, she had little else at her disposal to verify his story.

She sighed. “I don’t suppose there’s much point in asking whether you’re being honest, but I’m going to do it anyway. Tell me: is the Path Winder I see here, with all his quirks and personality – is that who you are, or some character you’re playing at the moment?”

Winder took a little too long considering the question, so she added, “I’m asking because I think I remember you changing tack several times last night. It’s like you were becoming a different pony every couple of minutes.”

“Really, that bad? But—” He threw up his hooves in defeat. “Hey, I was under some major stress, okay? I had a really hard time deciding whether I should play it all cool, submissive, sympathetic, smart or dumb for the princess who could squash me flat if I said the wrong thing. You were giving off all kinds of mixed signals.”

Twilight shrugged and swallowed her mouthful of bread and cheese before saying, “I guess I was stressed out, too, after teleporting from miles away and crashing straight through a solid roof.”

He gave a small chuckle. “Fair point. Okay, serious answer: Path Winder is not an imitation. He’s one pony I can be. At other times, I’ve been Leaf Arrow, Sunny Myrtle and Turtlevine. They’re all me. Kind of like how the Twilight who kicked my flank into next week and tried to eat up all my magic last night was also you; you just didn’t change your name between then and now. I—why are you smiling?”

That’s interesting, but the past Twilights would probably beg to differ, if they still existed.

Outwardly, she straightened out her expression and said, “Nothing. I just don’t think that’s exactly right. I lost control last night, but at least I wasn’t doing it on purpose. Changelings, on the other hoof, are still completely in control if they take somepony’s face to lie and cheat love out of somepony else.”

“Well, yeah. Can’t argue with that.” Winder averted his eyes. “We do what we can to survive, same as you.” He then looked back at her and offered a smile. “But since it’s so important to you, I can say that I’ve been Winder for so long that I usually prefer being him over changeling-me, now. He’s more polite and funny than Rind, anyway.”

She frowned. “Rind? Is that your real name?”

“Oops. This is the part where I’m supposed to knock you out, but I think I already know how well that’s going to go for me.” He tapped his hooves together nervously and grinned. “Mind if you keep that to yourself? Giving your real name to ponies is generally not cool amongst changelings. I’d rather not have to explain that to my elders.”

Gosh, why is he kind of cute when he’s afraid of me?

She suppressed a giggle and said, “I guess Tacky’s really lucky after all.”

“So…” Winder’s voice rose with optimism. “You’re not going to turn us in or anything?”

“If it helps avoid another Canterlot invasion or us kicking you out of your homes for no good reason, then I’d like to learn more about you and changelings in general.” She gave him a reassuring smile. “Maybe one day you guys could go out in public and nopony would kick up a fuss.”

He blinked. “Wow. Won’t that be the day. You really are the Princess of Friendship.”

“I have my work cut out for me.” Twilight glanced at the crumbs on her plate. “Oh, and I’ll also have to cover your expenses for looking after me…”

“Nah, don’t worry about that.” He waved a hoof and grinned. “If you can really manage what you’re planning to do, you’re welcome to crash into my house, in dire need of intensive care, anytime for the rest of your life.”

“Well, okay. If you’re sure.” Twilight still made a mental note to find some way to show her appreciation anyway. Maybe a present or two for him and Tacky.

The conversation seemed to have greatly improved Winder’s appetite, and after watching him plough through his meal with renewed gusto, she surprised herself by trotting back to the kitchen for a second helping. They ate together in companionable silence, and she could almost see herself back home with Spike, having breakfast in preparation for a long day of research. The sun pouring in from the window also reminded her of simpler times.

I can’t stay here, she realised with a pang.

* * * * *

They gladly spent the remainder of the day simply recovering from their ordeal. Twilight took delight in the opportunity to bombard Winder with questions on just about every aspect of changelings as they lounged in the living room, enjoying the sun’s rays. For the most part, he seemed to have no qualms about answering her questions save for certain details that he claimed he didn’t have the right to give away. At least, not yet. Twilight decided to ease up after a couple of hours because he’d started showing signs of discomfort with the subject. Instead, she told him of her tentative plans before finally settling on reading through a couple of his guidebooks on the local terrain and wildlife.

She took another power nap in the afternoon, and was just floating in the hazy realm between sleep and wakefulness when a piercing cry harpooned her right in the ears and dragged her out of its soothing waters.

“What? What do you mean she has to go?”

Twilight’s wings reflexively snapped open, flinging her upwards and sending pain shooting right into her brain as the battered appendages bore her full weight for a couple of seconds. She yelped and fell back onto her rump, twisting her head left and right in search for an assailant.

When no threat presented itself, she rubbed her gungy eyes to clear them up and found herself staring at the two heads poking through the half-open door to the bedroom.

The bigger pony peered down at his sibling and said in an undertone, “Dude, I told you not to yell! What are you supposed to say, now?”

“Sorry, bro.”

Winder frowned. “Ahem.”

Tacky winced and locked eyes with Twilight, ears flat. “Sorry, Twilight. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

Well, that’s one way to get him talking again.

She winced when her stomach churned and fought to keep down its contents. The room spun slowly, but she managed to ignore the sinking emptiness in her chest well enough to manage a smile and say, “That’s all right, Tacky.” She then glanced at the clock and shook her head. “It’s about time I got up, anyway; can’t remember the last time I slept so much.”

“Doing you good, I think,” Winder quipped. “Feeling better?”

Magic trickled up and down the full length of his body, just beneath the skin as he said those words. Twilight suspected that he hadn’t done it on purpose; her hunger had probably just sharpened her magical sense to the point of penetrating the masking effect of his disguise, but that didn’t make it any easier to ignore. Luckily, Tacky hadn’t triggered any of her cravings.

After taking a couple of breaths to steady herself, she kept her eyes on the floor and said evenly, “Yeah, better. But I’m going through some withdrawal right now and your magic feels really good.”

He took the hint quickly enough. “Both of us, or just me?”

“Just you.”

“Right.” He clapped Tacky on the shoulder. “Cheer her up, ‘kay? I’ll be in the basement or something until her Highness feels better. Yell if you need anything.”

His departure had an unanticipated side effect, though. Neither of the ponies left in the room had his aptitude for injecting small talk into the situation to keep the awkward silence away. She bit her lip as Tacky shuffled his hooves whilst standing in the doorway, neither saying a word.

The room hadn’t stopped spinning, so Twilight crawled back onto the bed and patted the vacant space beside her. Tacky accepted the invitation and hopped to her side, bouncing a little on the springy mattress. But before she could say anything, he spotted his stuffed dragon and discreetly sidled around her to retrieve it before settling back in place to cuddle it as if nothing had happened.

Twilight had to work the smile out of her system before she could recover enough solemnity to begin. “Look—I’m sorry, but I really can’t stay here. It’s not because I don’t like it here; it’s nice, but I have… unfinished business that I need to deal with back home. Friends to apologise to. For some bad things I’ve done.”

“Like last night?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Like that.”

“Did you really mean to hurt anypony?”

“Yes and no.” She paused, groping for the right words. “Have you ever gotten so scared that you didn’t own up to something you know was wrong? I let someone else get hurt for my mistakes and still got mad when everypony else tried to help me make things right.” She shuddered at the memory of Celestia slamming Discord into the ground.

Tacky nodded slowly.

“That’s why I have to go back. I have to say I’m sorry.”

A moment passed before he looked up at her and said, “Do you want a hug? Most times Big Bro gives me one after saying I’m sorry.”

She blinked. “But I haven’t actually apologised yet.”

“You did to us. ‘Sides, I won’t be there when you say sorry to your friends.”

“How do you even know I will?”

“I can tell,” he replied without missing a beat.

Wish I had that much faith in me…

“So…”

Slowly, Twilight allowed herself to smile. “Sure. I’ll take that hug.”

Despite his best intentions, her wings didn’t feel up to the task of surviving a hug, so she spread them and kept them well out of harm’s way as Tacky embraced her. But he was just so cute with the way he brought Gorbash into the hug as well that she didn’t have to pretend to hug him back, wondering if he’d ever gotten a hug from his real mother before circumstances left him in the orphanage. She did have to hide a wince as he put pressure on some of her lacerations and bruises, though.

Gosh, does love hurt, sometimes.

When they broke apart, he gave her his best imitation of the dreaded CMC pout. “You sure you couldn’t stay a little longer?”

Twilight raised an eyebrow and glanced out the window, where she could see the last of the sun’s rays disappearing beneath the horizon. She then turned back to smile at him. “Well, I don’t plan to bumble around in the dark, so you won’t have to worry about that until tomorrow. But what do you find so interesting about me, anyway?”

“You’re Princess Twilight!” he said with a big grin.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

He appeared to mull it over. “Well, my teacher says that you’re an amazing pony because you teach some of the colts and fillies in Ponyville. You’re the Princess of Friendship and you’re buddies with the coolest mares in Equestria!”

“Oh?” She wondered if his teachers had contact with Cheerilee or somepony else who could’ve told them about Twilight Time. At least, that’s what she thought he was referring to. “That’s nice, but I still don’t get why you want to spend so much time with me.”

“Wait here.” Tacky set Gorbash on the bed, hopped off and dashed out of sight.

As the pounding of his hooves faded away, Twilight frowned as she recalled some of the less savoury details of Twilight Time with the school’s colts and fillies. A sinking feeling unrelated to her hunger took hold, and she hoped that she hadn’t inadvertently sparked some sycophantic tendencies in the colt as she’d done to some of the kids in Ponyville. Some of the fillies had developed a habit of cultivating false friendships in exchange for popularity. What was he getting? A camera? Something for her to sign? A pair of scissors for some of her hair?

Please, let it not be for bragging rights in school…

She schooled her expression back to neutrality when he came prancing back in with his schoolbag, mentally preparing herself to let him down gently if he showed any sign of unhealthy obsession.

“What’s that?” she asked as he dug out a sizable volume.

A book to sign, maybe? Guess it could be worse.

He hefted it onto the bed and flipped it open. “You’re really good at math, right?”

Twilight stared at the equations for a moment before burst out laughing. And wincing, too, because it still hurt her ribs.

And to think I’d gotten myself so worked up…

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh, nothing.” Sighing in relief, she levitated the book closer and quickly glanced through his homework, nodding with approval at the sight of so many scribbles of eager but not-quite-there attempts to answer the questions. “I’ll guide you, but that’s it. I’m not actually going to do the work for you, okay?”

He nodded, pencil at the ready. “Le’sh go!”

Time flowed more easily as she dove into the familiarity of academia, enjoying the opportunity to cover something so refreshingly simple. It brought back memories of Shining sitting with her under the stars on the balcony as he helped with her homework, and later on when she’d done the same for Spike. The series of numbers and symbols gradually formed a river that helped her to drown out the pangs of longing and emptiness from the void, and she barely noticed her physical discomfort as Tacky piled on with the questions. Nothing quite compared to the joy she felt when Tacky’s puzzled frown turned into a triumphant grin as he scribbled down the correct answer.

Sometime later, Winder poked his head in. “Hey, dinner’s ready.”

“Mm hmm.”

“Noted.”

Silence for a moment, then…

“Uh, guys?”

Twilight and Tacky simultaneously looked up from their work.

Winder’s eyebrows shot up. “Wow, that’s creepy.” He then scratched the back of his head before putting on a sterner face. “Okay, dinner’s on the table, so put the books down and let’s eat. Can’t have either of you starving on my watch.”

Reluctantly, Twilight flipped the book shut and slipped it back into the schoolbag. She then looked at the clock and gasped. “Oh. That’s awfully late.” She grinned sheepishly when her stomach rumbled and added, “Sorry. We got a little carried away.”

“Well, if it helps him deal with maths and you with magic, then all for a good cause, I guess. Feeling even better, now?”

His eyes were focused on her forehead, and it took her a moment to realise that she’d been using magic for quite some time already. In very small amounts, but magic nonetheless, and she’d not felt any serious nausea or dizziness. She could only nod, a little stunned by the realisation.

He smiled and waved them over with a wing. “Good on you. Come on, then. Food’s getting cold.”

Tacky didn’t need telling again, and neither did Twilight.

Things may be looking up again, she dared to think. She’d had that thought before and knew well what happened after that, but that might as well have been in a different life, for a different Twilight. This time, she intended to make it last. If not forever, then at least for longer than her last attempt.

Author's Note

Remember the plunder vines in Chapter 9? I recently discovered that they totally exist. :twilightoops:

Chapter 12

It had taken Twilight the better part of three days to recover until she felt well enough to travel. In between, she occupied her time with reading, strolling short distances in the woods and sparring with a dead sapling. She also continued helping Tacky with his studies, much to Winder’s dismay that he’d never be able to keep up with the new, clever big sibling standard she’d set.

She still got the occasional bout of nausea and headaches, but Tacky and Winder often helped to offset her misery when she had to sweat, moan and dry heave into a bucket for what felt like hours. She did have to warn him off when her hunger got especially keen, but luckily that didn’t happen too often or for too long.

Overall, it had still given her enough time to plan her journey home.

“Promise you’ll come visit again?” Tacky asked as they stood on the path to River Springs Elementary.

Twilight nodded. “I’ll write, too.”

“All right. See you!”

Tacky trotted ahead towards the school, enthusiastically at first, but gradually slowed until he came to a stop a couple of dozen paces ahead. He glanced back at Twilight, fidgeting with apparent indecision on the spot, then came dashing back to give her a quick hug. Also, Twilight couldn’t say for sure, but she thought he looked a little red in the face as he practically zipped back up the path to the school and disappeared inside.

“Did he just—?”

Beside her, Winder sniggered. “Nah, don’t worry about it. Minor crush like that’ll last no more than a week, tops.”

“How do you know?”

“Ahem.” He thumped himself on the chest and gave her a pointed look.

She stared at him for a couple of seconds before finally catching on. “Oh, right.”

A neat little park sat adjacent to the school, and Twilight couldn’t resist taking a little break there before continuing on the next leg of their trip. Lying under the sun on one of the benches felt almost like home. A thin layer of snow covered the ground, but grass still poked through it in patches between the evergreen trees and stone decorations. She just needed Spike and a good book to complete the experience.

Twilight looked back at the school and watched for a couple of minutes as other children headed in. A few of them had elder siblings or parents as escorts, some of whom gave her odd looks. One couple might’ve even winked at Winder, who at least had the grace to look embarrassed when he realised she’d noticed. None of the ponies recognised her, given her shabby manecut and the thick jacket, scarf and leggings that Winder had supplied for her trip home.

Minutes passed without any objection from him, but he did politely cough a couple of times whilst looking at the town’s clock tower after the school bell rang. Twilight knew she shouldn’t stall any further, but that didn’t help with the sinking feeling in her gut whenever she thought of facing her friends back in Ponyville. Parts of the bad dream still clung to the back of her mind.

“Uh—”

He’d vocalised. Twilight knew that the time had come. “All right, all right.”

She hopped off the bench with a slightly nonplussed Winder following suit, and began trotting down the road towards Vanhoover City.

“You sure you don’t want to just call for, I don’t know, a chariot or something?” he asked. “Pretty sure the guards will reach us faster than lightning if you sent out a message right here in town.”

“I’ve made up my mind. This is something I need to do. No pomp, no ceremony, and definitely no media. You know I’ll never get to avoid those if I call for help all the way from here.”

Winder sighed. “Fair enough.”

They made their way southwest to the city on hoof, since she hadn’t yet regrown enough feathers for safe flight. In any case, she’d already crossed that off her list of options since she could more easily hide her wings than her horn.

After over half an hour plodding along surrounded by pine forest, the dirt path eventually turned into a properly paved road with significantly more traffic. Due to the relatively sunny weather, they passed many travellers from other outlying towns and tradesmares with their carts and carriages. Twilight initially had misgivings about the increased contact, but her rudimentary disguise held up and nopony paid her any attention. That suited her just fine. Another half hour of brisk trotting got them to the city outskirts.

“Okay, little detour from here,” Winder announced. He then retrieved a map from his saddlebag and unrolled it for her to see, pointing at their location and drawing an imaginary line southwest. “Just take this little road here, and we’ll reach Tall Tale in little over an hour.”

Twilight nodded. Before leaving the house, Winder had originally suggested taking the train straight from Vanhoover, but the thought of wandering in the city with thousands of ponies and potential magic-users did not sit well with her. So she’d settled for the second-nearest station outside of the city, where she ran a lower risk of overwhelming herself with temptation.

They lapsed into silence as they went past the outlying farmland around the city. Few ponies took this path, probably in part due to the rapidly deteriorating weather. The sky had darkened considerably, and Twilight quickly felt her growing appreciation for Winder’s foresight in packing so much stuff despite her desire to travel light. The thick clothing helped with the plummeting temperature and biting wind, and she had plenty of food in the saddlebags whenever she got peckish from all that trotting.

Front-left, hind-right, front-right, hind-left…

As Twilight settled back into the steady rhythm, she simply allowed her mind to wander.

After another hour or so, they reached the train station without incident. Snowflakes had begun drifting down from the sky at that point, so they both gratefully made their way into the station. It had a lovely fireplace going, which Twilight happily utilised whilst Winder got her ticket.

“Okay, your ride’s due real soon,” he said as he trotted back with a ticket under a wing. “Just remember that I’ve packed some spare bits if you need to get off the train for any reason.”

He passed the ticket to her, and then shuffled a little awkwardly on the spot. “So, I guess this is goodbye for now.”

Twilight promptly wrapped him in a hug. “Thanks, Winder. You’ve been a good friend.”

He gave her a sheepish grin. “Happy to be of service. Thanks for not, you know, spilling the beans and all that.”

Twilight felt her smile waver a bit. Winder caught on pretty quickly, judging by the sudden look of concern on his face, and she sighed.

“I have to be honest with you.” She glanced around, making sure that nopony was within earshot, then dropped her voice closer to a whisper. “I can keep my, uh, adventure here under wraps for a while, but I’ll probably have to tell Princess Celestia about you sooner or later. I don’t want—no, I can’t lie to her. She can see right through me with things like that. But she’s one of the greatest ponies around, so I trust that she’ll do the right thing.”

“Which is?”

Twilight shook her head. “I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure that she won’t want to hurt you or Tacky. And even if she does try to do something that might, I’ll…” She swallowed and thumped a hoof on the floor. “—I’ll make sure she sees the whole picture. I’ll do everything I can to make sure we do the right thing. I’ll figure something out.”

Winder glanced at the platform, ears perked as the train rumbled into view. He then turned back to her and nodded. “Heh. Can’t ask for much more than that. Take care.”

She turned and began trotting towards the platform. “Yeah. Let’s hope I last longer than the last round.”

“You’ll get there,” he called out. “Little steps. One day at a time.”

* * * * *

The sound of hooves shuffling through sand distracted Twilight from her writing. Looking up from her semi-circular stone table decked high with dusty tomes and scroll casings, she saw a pair of fairly young unicorn scholars trotting towards her from the vast expanse of sand dunes under the overcast, grey sky. Two friends, she remembered. Here to collect their study materials for the semester.

Twilight set aside the inches-thick volume on advanced arcane theory she’d been working on and rose to all fours. She then plodded through the thick layer of sand burying the tiled flooring between her workspace and the storage chest, careful to ensure that the heavy chain connecting the steel collar around her neck to the ground didn’t get dragged through any fragile objects. A quick rummage through the chest, and she pulled out a carefully preserved copy of ancient Equestrian history.

She trotted back with the book in tow, listening to the almost-musical clinking of her chains and carefully placed it on the counter. At the same time, the two students, one mare and one stallion, reached her and wordlessly displayed their identification cards. Twilight didn’t need to look closely; she recognised the Academy’s symbols well enough and offered a smile as they took it by hoof and placed it into the stallion’s large saddlebag. Apparently satisfied, they both acknowledged her presence with a nod and turned to leave.

Twilight watched them shrink into the horizon, until even the sand scattered by the wind obscured their figures in the fading light. The shifting sands soon removed any trace of their foray into her domain.

A whisper, almost indistinguishable from the winds pricked her ears, and she turned to inspect at the broken pillars and crumbling walls around her workplace, searching for its source. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, she gazed back at the horizon. Minutes passed. Or years, maybe. Hard to tell when so little changed at all.

Eventually, she went back to her workspace, adjusting the heavy collar to a more comfortable position. After a couple of false starts and wistful glances towards the horizon, she sighed and dove back into her work. Who knew? Her next visitor might even say hello.

* * * * *

“Hello? Miss?”

“Gnnngh… be there in a minute.”

Something pressed against her shoulder, and Twilight shied away from the pressure it put on a bruise. The incessant rumbling all around her didn’t help matters along. Too loud. Too cold. She couldn’t move.

“I’m very sorry, but you really should get up right now.”

Twilight grimaced when blue light flashed brightly enough to pierce through her eyelids. She gasped when she opened them to find a stallion’s face far too close for comfort, and had to resist the urge to kick him away or put up a barrier between them.

The train conductor retreated out of her personal space and flattened his ears in apology. “Sorry. Had to make sure you hadn’t passed out or something. What are you doing all the way back here?”

Twilight glanced around, noting the broken seats and dirty carpeting along with the scratched and stained windows. Her saddlebags lay by her side, and it looked like she’d used them as cushioning at some point during the ride. It took her a moment to remember why she’d secluded herself in the last, practically abandoned carriage of the train: she remembered growing restless in the presence of the few unicorns on board. A couple of the earth ponies probably had magical plants or trinkets in their luggage, too. She’d moved all the way back there to catch a break from it all, reasoning that nopony would want to sit in the most run-down carriage when they could easily find space in the nicer compartments.

“Right.” Twilight glanced out to the rolling countryside and turned back to the stallion. “Sorry. I must’ve fallen asleep. Are you here to check my ticket?”

He smiled. “That’ll be nice, yes.”

Twilight snatched her ticket from the bag and showed it to him, studiously ignoring his levitation spell as he inspected it.

“Miss, I’m afraid you’re already five stations past Ponyville.”

“Yes, I’ll be fine, I—wait, what?” She gaped at him and switched her gaze back out the window. “Oh. Oh no.”

“Uh huh.” He nodded in sympathy as he returned the ticket. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to disembark at Rockly Vale to get another ride back. That should be about four bits.”

Twilight nodded. “Okay, I’ll do that.”

“Please do.” His firm tone made it abundantly clear that he didn’t want to have to call security on her. He then gestured towards the front of the carriage and added, “Would you prefer to move up? It’s warmer and less, uh, dingy than in here.”

“I… I think I’ll stay. Thanks.” When the stallion looked ready to insist, she added, “I don’t feel too great right now; I’d rather not spread anything if it’s something more than a headache.”

His eyes flicked up and down as he looked at her from horn to hooves with worry lines etched onto his forehead. For her part, Twilight kept still and smothered the clamouring emptiness in her chest by picturing Tacky and the Crusaders all standing in the same carriage with them, and their fear and disappointment if she failed to keep it under a lid.

“You know, I thought I saw a doctor in the other carriage.” He looked over his shoulder. “Maybe I could—”

Twilight shook her head. “Please don’t trouble anypony. I’ll be fine.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. I promise I’ll come forward if I really need help.”

“Well… okay. Suit yourself.” He shrugged and began trotting back up the train, but paused at the door to the next carriage and said, “Just be careful and keep awake for the next stop.”

Twilight sat back down and simply stared at the closed door for several minutes, dreading the possibility that the conductor might’ve decided to send somepony to check on her anyway. But after a while, she relaxed and spent the next few minutes or so just watching the snowy countryside pass by.

When the train had come to a full stop, she pushed the door open and barged through the cold air that whooshed into the carriage. Rockly Vale station consisted of little more than the simple platform and a little office since it didn’t connect to any major settlements, so she at least didn’t have to line up in the middle of a crowd. Nopony else got off the train with her, either.

“One ticket to Ponyville, please,” she said to the mare at the counter, fishing for the necessary bits in her saddlebags.

However, she did not find any of the coins in their designated pouches. She glanced back at the mare patiently waiting for payment and smiled sheepishly before attempting another search. Unfortunately, the outcome remained the same. She found her dried fruit, biscuits and half-empty canteen exactly where she remembered them, but not a single bit. Vigorous shaking produced no clinking noises, and a quick glance back at the platform revealed no golden coins lying about.

Had they spilled out whilst she’d been sleeping on the train? Unlikely. She remembered checking her surroundings before disembarking for that exact reason. Could somepony have filched them during her sleep? Possible. Anypony could have gotten to her before the conductor came by. Then again, they could have just fallen out at some other point between purchasing her first ticket and now.

Shoot. I really should’ve kept a closer eye on those…

“Everything all right, miss?”

Twilight glanced back at the mare. For a moment, she considered revealing her identity to get a free ride back to Ponyville. Going back there would take at least three, maybe four hours on hoof, and the weather did not look too favourable with the overcast sky.

No, better not, she thought. A dishevelled Princess Twilight pulling rank for a free train ride out of nowhere would probably draw unwanted attention. She couldn’t see how that might possibly lead to an undesirable outcome at the moment, but she still didn’t want to take the risk.

How about asking nicely?

She didn’t need to say who she was. She’d already lost so much of her dignity that stooping to a little begging wouldn’t make much of a difference, anyway.

“Err, I think I’ve misplaced my bits. I don’t suppose I could—”

“Sorry, no,” the mare interjected. All at once, the ambient temperature seemed to dip a couple of degrees as her expression shifted from mild concern to rocky stoicism. She then delivered the rest of her words with all the droning efficiency of somepony who’d recited her lines many times over.

“Excepting dire circumstances, Equestria Railway’s policies prohibit me from giving away free tickets regardless of travel distance. If you like, you can speak to the manager, but he’s on lunch break at the moment. Please feel free to take a seat in the meantime.”

Twilight followed the mares gesture towards the stations lonely seats and turned back to dip her head in apology. “I—sorry. I’ll just be on my way. Thanks.”

She did feel a little annoyed by her sudden coldness, but decided not to make anything out of it. Poor mare probably got that way after dealing with lots of sappy stories from ponies who’d forgotten to bring enough bits for travel; hers probably wouldn’t sound any more compelling. So, after giving her another apologetic nod, Twilight exited the station and began trotting through the clearing parallel to the train tracks. She didn’t recall it going over any rivers or otherwise impassable terrain, so she felt pretty confident that she could simply follow it all the way home.

Her mind wandered back to the dream on the train.

Did it have any significance? She had some trouble recalling all the details, but… on some level that she couldn’t quite put a hoof on, it seemed like the right thing to do. Little by little, she slowed until she came to a complete stop by the side of the tracks. Save for the slight elevation of the tracks, the ground was pretty level in every direction. She could see the tracks going forward like a snake winding through a long road between snowy trees on either side, leading her back to… uncertainty.

The void tugged at her innards.

Could she really keep it under a lid forever? The next time she blew it, the consequences might far exceed the harm she’d done to herself this time. Others could get hurt, too.

She looked to the side and peered into the woods. No clear paths presented themselves, but she could imagine making her way through to find someplace to stay. Winder and Tacky managed on their own in the middle of nowhere and so did Zecora; maybe she could, too.

Exile.

The word echoed in her mind like a whisper in a cavern.

Twilight Sparkle, the Exile.

Could she pull off something like that? At least she wouldn’t have to worry about hurting anypony but herself.

Then again, the last time she didn’t have anypony but herself to worry about…

No.

Celestia might have willingly left her alone for the past few days, but she’d eventually start searching if she’d disappeared for too long. Everypony else would worry. Her family would get worried sick. They didn’t deserve that kind of treatment after all they’d done for her. Also… she owed everypony a long round of apologies and she didn’t want Tacky’s faith in her to prove misplaced.

Sighing, Twilight forced herself to keep moving. If she suddenly got lucky, somepony might feel generous enough to spare her some bits at one of the nearer stations. She could probably make it to Honeystalk in less than thirty minutes with a brisk trot.

About half an hour later, Twilight snorted as she cantered parallel to the tracks past Honeystalk Station.

Apparently, if Twilight isn’t a princess, then she defaults as stinky homeless mare to everypony who sees her outside of Ponyville.

Most of the ponies at the station had either ignored her requests for help or quickly made up an excuse to be somewhere else. She’d even caught wind of a couple of unsavoury remarks behind her back.

Once out of sight around a bend and hidden by the trees, she surreptitiously glanced around and stuck her muzzle under a lifted wing. As far as she could tell, she didn’t stink much more than the average pony after a couple of hours trotting through the countryside in thick, heavy clothing. Then again, avoiding attention had been her plan all along, so maybe she’d done a little too well that an unforeseen predicament like losing some bits could lead to so much extra work.

Twilight slid her wings out of the thick folds of fabric over her back and stretched them, testing her new plumage against the air. The very uneven resistance proved that they definitely weren’t flightworthy yet, but it still felt good to have some wind under them instead of keeping them hidden under clothes all day long.

My legs could use some exercise, anyway.

* * * * *

Judging by the sun’s proximity to the horizon, just peeping over the dark shadows of treetops and barely making it through the heavy precipitation in the air, Twilight guessed the time at somewhere around five in the evening.

This time, she felt doubly grateful to Winder for being a little paranoid about her safety and comfort than she’d thought necessary. The extra leggings and scarves he’d packed into her saddlebags had saved her from a couple of hours of miserable shivering in the middle of nowhere when the wind picked up and it started snowing. She probably looked like Shining when he’d greeted them on their first visit to the Crystal Empire, minus the goggles.

Straight down the icy, deserted road, she could already see the yellow-orange glows coming from the windows of Ponyville’s outermost houses.

Almost there.

The food helped, too. Without missing a step, she pulled down the edge of the scarf around her muzzle to insert the last piece of her dried fruit slices. She then slipped the scarf back in place and munched away as she trotted into town. That’ll give her something to do with her jaw other than grinding her teeth down with worry about what kind of reception awaited her once everypony realised that she’d come home with more injuries than she’d ever seen on most Royal Guards.

She took a more circuitous route through town instead of heading straight for the palace. Along the way, she did pass by a few ponies going about their business and finally realised what Zecora must’ve gone through on her occasional visits when they either gave her a very wide berth or made abrupt detours indoors. Not that she’d gotten much better treatment from ponies elsewhere, but after everything they’d gone through, she’d expected a little better from Ponyville than suspicious sidelong glances and hushed whispers behind her back. Though, she did have trouble deciding what to make of Berry Punch’s very direct invitation to follow her for a drink. It probably depended whether she’d already drunk herself past the point of recognising anypony she spoke to. Twilight politely mumbled her refusal and went on her way.

Her other hunger did stir in her chest a couple of times when she went past unicorn residences, but she managed to drone it out by playing out an imaginary math class in her head, switching to the most rigidly structured lecture on theoretical arithmetic she could think of when the void’s pangs threatened to break her concentration.

When she finally reached her destination, the… sameness of the palace caught her off guard. Nothing appeared to have changed much, aside from maybe having fewer lights coming out of the windows. She almost expected to find it abandoned with the door chained and bolted shut, but they parted easily at her touch.

A little bit of snow made it into the interior when she cautiously stepped in. She pulled down her scarf, and her breath fogged instantly in the frigid air. Though cold as the outside, the stark cleanliness within indicated that business had proceeded as usual for the skeleton staff, at least; they’d just neglected the heating. Looking down at the muddy tracks her hoof had left on the pristine flooring, she bit her lip and went back to the large mat to wipe them clean first. Once done, she ascended the stairs to the palace proper.

She remembered seeing light coming from their bedroom window, so she went there first.

Okay, this can’t be that hard. Just say hi and apologise.

Her hoof lingered in the air just inches from the door, though.

What if he’s angry? What then?

She bit her lip, wondering if she could find a way to defuse the situation if she upset him.

What if he’s run away to look for me?

Her heart skipped a beat at the thought. She’d never forgive herself if he got hurt whilst lost in the wilderness, searching for her when she should’ve stuck around and just owned up to her mistakes instead of running away like a coward.

She barged through the door with more force than necessary. “Spike, I’m so sorry! I, I—you’re not here. That means—”

No no no no!

Twilight whirled around and had galloped back halfway down the corridor before common sense finally reasserted itself. She slowed to a halt and mentally shook herself. No need to panic yet; he could have gone anywhere in the palace, or maybe even somewhere else in town. Or maybe he’d gone back to Canterlot to stay with Mum and Dad until she got back. Any of those at least had significantly higher probabilities of occurring than her worst case scenario. Still, she went half-cantering through the palace in search for him, starting with the library. Followed by the grand hall. And then the guest rooms. Her heart rate climbed up a notch after finding each place empty; even the staff had probably gone home.

She had finished her sweep and felt just about ready to actually ask for help finding him when she heard a faint sizzling coming from the far end of the dim kitchen.

The servant’s quarters.

They had their own little kitchen and living space there, and it would make sense for him to use those for cooking if he’d been left alone. It had much better heat conservation, and less to clean up, too.

The relative warmth there confirmed his presence. Twilight slowed her approach as the noise got louder and practically tip-hoofed her way into the little kitchen where she found Spike standing on a stool with his back to her, facing the stove. His body obscured the contents of the frying pan, but from the green light that flared up when he leaned forward, she could tell that he was using his own fire breath to cook… something. The scent that wafted over to her did not smell like anything anypony would ever want in her home; her stomach almost churned of its own accord.

She paused in the middle of the kitchenette, rummaging through her brain for the right words. ‘Hi’ sounded like an immense understatement after everything that had happened, but anything else also felt either forced or cheesy to her mind. And then… she noticed his tail. A few scales at the end just before the spade still had blackened edges, whilst the rest of them looked like new growth, considering the smaller sizes, lighter colouration and uneven pattern. It looked like a painful recovery – from an injury that she had caused.

Her ears flattened as she took a step backward.

Just then, Spike drew his tail close to scratch the tip. A very nasty itch, considering how much force he applied using his claws. She heard a faint crack, like a nutshell splitting in half, and he plucked loose a displaced, blackened scale. After holding it up to inspect it like one would a bit they’ve found on the floor, he shrugged and unceremoniously popped it into his mouth.

“Eww!”

“Huagh!” Spike leaped up, spun around in mid-air and landed rather haphazardly back onto the stool. He fumbled with the oily spatula for a second before recovering his grip and balance, and then brandished it at her, growling, “Who are you? Why’re you sneaking up on me? I can breathe fire and I’m not afraid to use it!”

Twilight thought she could taste a bit of bile. “Spike, why did you eat that? It’s unhygienic!”

He lowered the spatula and frowned. “Wait, who’re—Twilight?”

She lowered her eyes for a moment, then nodded.

A metallic clang resounded as Spike tossed the spatula onto the counter and leaped off the stool to charge straight towards her. Going by muscle memory, she lowered herself and leaned into his fierce hug, doing her best to hide her discomfort from her injuries.

A shuddering breath escaped her, followed by a sniffle. Tears welled up, and despite her best efforts to keep things solemn in preparation for her apology, she broke down when she heard him sobbing with his face buried in her clothes. Warmth seeped through as his hot tears soaked into her scarf.

“I—I’m so, so sor—sorry for hurting you,” she blubbered. “I’m sorry for running away.”

“H—hey, you came back, right? That’s the important part.” Spike emphasised that last bit by hugging her more tightly.

A sharp hiss escaped her. “Eek—careful. I think my ribs aren’t fully healed.”

“Sorry.”

He loosened up a bit, and they simply held each other, crying and making up for lost time.

She couldn’t remember how long they stayed that way, but they eventually parted, and Spike swept his gaze over her form. Slowly, he reached up and tugged at the scarf, pulling it down to reveal more scabs and bruises down her neck and chest. “Whoa. What happened to you? I mean, aside from, you know… And that’s a crazy manecut.”

Twilight brushed the top of her head, feeling the unruly and spiky hair poking through her coat. “It is, isn’t it?” She sniffled and wiped her eyes. “Long story short, I crashed into somepony’s house and spent a few days getting better. Nothing’s permanently broken.”

At least, as far as I can tell…

His eyes widened. “You gotta’ tell me about it over dinner.” He glanced back at the stove and scratched his head. “You eaten yet? I’ll whip something up if you’re hungry.”

“Speaking of dinner…” Twilight frowned at him. “We really should finish discussing the fact that you just ate one of your scales. Why?”

Spike grinned sheepishly and raised a claw. “Eh heh. Funny you should ask only now. I, uh, actually eat my shed scales whenever I can. Been doing it for some time since we moved from Canterlot.”

“I don’t remember ever seeing you do that.”

He twiddled his thumbs. “Never did it in front of you. Mum caught me doing it once and made me stop; I only started again after we moved in on our own. It’s… sort of on instinct, you know? Feels like the right thing to do. Scales need lots of minerals to grow, and I’m just putting it back in.” He scratched his head for a moment, thinking, and then snapped his claws. “You know, like how some bugs will eat their own moult or eggshells!”

“You sure you don’t just pass them out?”

“I don’t,” he deadpanned. “Don’t ask me how I know.”

She blinked as she digested that, then nodded slowly. “Okay. A little TMI, but okay.”

He nodded and rubbed his hands together. “So, what’ll it b—”

“Ah-ah-ah.” Twilight waved a hoof and strode past him, eliciting a panicked yelp as she went straight for the frying pan.

A brownish lump sat in the middle of it, still giving off steam. One sniff nearly sent her reeling, and she whirled back to face him. “Spike, is that what I think it is?”

“It… yeah.” His shoulders sagged. “It’s meat.”

“Where did you even get that?”

“Well, Pinkie knows this pegasus who knows how to hunt. Even eats what he catches, too. Scary guy. Anyway, I’ve been curious for a long time, so… I just asked for some?” He fiddled with the tip of his tail and averted his eyes. “I’m pretty sure dragons eat it every now and then.”

“Does it taste good?” A second later, Twilight quickly followed up in case he got the wrong idea. “No, I mean, do you feel like it’s important to your health? A part of your instinct?”

He nodded without making eye contact.

Twilight pondered on it for a moment before letting out a sigh. “I don’t fault Owlowicious for eating mice, so I can’t blame you, either. So long as it doesn’t affect you like a hoard would, and so long as you don’t eat anypony’s pets, I don’t think it’s something you should be ashamed about. You are a dragon, after all; we can’t force you to live like a pony in every way.”

Spike looked up with hope in his eyes. “So…”

She glanced back at the pan and stepped aside, shrugging. “Sure, go for it. Just remember to clean up or the staff might get a real scare. I’m not sure if anypony will ever want to touch that pan anymore.”

He grinned. “Good thing I bought this one just for myself, then.” After prodding the chunk of meat with his spatula, he nodded in satisfaction and hopped off the stool to pull another pan out of the lower cupboard. “So, what’ll you have?”

“Hay fries sound amazing right now,” she replied as she retrieved a bag of tea over from the larder. “And I think I can cook for myself.”

“No way.”

“But I—”

He shook his head and waved the spatula at her in emphasis. “No offence, but you look like a starving homeless mare. I’m making sure you have the best dinner ever, tonight.”

Not the most flattering comparison, but Twilight decided to let that slide in favour of his enthusiasm. He didn’t get to play big sibling very often, and she didn’t want to take that away from him so soon after getting reunited. So, she grinned and trotted over to the table, saying, “Fine, you win. But I’m taking care of breakfast tomorrow, okay?”

“If you’re up to it, sure.”

Twilight heated her mug of tea with a well-rationed heat spell and sipped casually, closing her eyes in bliss as she savoured the warmth and rich flavour. “Ooh, that’s perfect.”

“Oh right,” he suddenly exclaimed. “We’ve got to send a letter to Princess Celestia!”

A pang of guilt welled up the same time as she shuddered from the void’s cold grip on her insides. She failed to suppress a gasp, but the sizzling oil from Spike’s cooking had at least conveniently drowned out her voice. She took a moment to steady herself before she said, “Can it wait till after dinner?”

He turned around and tilted his head. “Don’t you want to see them?”

“I do. But maybe not tonight.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but she got her words out first. “Please? I—I just don’t know if I’m ready to face my friends yet.” She rubbed her forehead and sighed. “One step at a time. Can we just enjoy tonight by ourselves?”

“Promise me that you’re really okay? I mean, even if you need some space, can I at least tell ‘em that you’re back tomorrow? Everypony’s been real worried about you.”

She gave him a weak smile and nodded. “I promise to see everypony again, soon. I’m not running away again. I just need some time.”

“Well, if you’re sure.” He nodded and went back to cooking. And then, almost below hearing, she heard him add in an undertone, “Love you, Twi.”

She smiled, feeling another round of tears coming up. “Love you too, Spike.”

* * * * *

“Think that was the last of it?” Spike asked.

“Hrk—bleaarghh!”

Spike winced in sympathy as Twilight leaned over the side of the bed and gurgled out another torrent of brownish slop mixed with lovely, floating lumps into the bucket.

“What a way to—nngh—start the day. And I thought I was over this sort of thing…” she croaked.

“Should I tell everypony to come back another day?”

She started shaking her head but stopped when that threatened to send another wave up from her belly. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I think I should do this before I—urp—before I lose my nerve.”

Spike patted her gently on the back when she dry-heaved again. “You sure? Aren’t they, you know, making it worse? I remember something about that.”

Yes, they are.

She could feel the presence of a couple of alicorns in addition to several other unicorns in the halls below, all the way from her bedroom. Rarity’s magical signature felt familiar enough, but Celestia’s and Luna’s felt distorted, somehow. Definitely weaker than what she remembered, but too strong to be anypony else she knew.

Had she caused them permanent harm? She remembered stealing some of their magic as she fled from home…

She blinked and saw them. Right there, turning their backs to her when she couldn’t give a good enough reason for hiding that monstrosity right under Ponyville. How does one make up for something like that?

“I... maybe you’re right. Could you tell th—”

Twilight gasped when a flash of purple light exploded in the room, right next to the bed. Spike yelped and nearly toppled into the bucket, but she managed to hold him back with a wing whilst she used her foreleg to shield her eyes. When the afterimages had faded away, she saw herself standing on a sooty spot on the floor.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Future Twilight growled, pointing a primary feather at her the same way Spike could with a claw. “You didn’t go to all that trouble just to chicken out at the last minute.”

“Oh boy,” Spike commented.

“That’s right.” Future Twilight nodded at him. “Desperate times call for desperate measures. And I’m here to make sure I don’t blow it when I’m so close to setting things right.”

Twilight stared at her older self. She couldn’t have come from the immediate future; she had already regrown all of her feathers and hair. A couple of scars stood out on her muzzle and shoulder where the coat had thinned out a little, but aside from that, she looked healthy enough. The biggest difference, though, was in the way she carried herself; her eyes had a gaunt-like quality to them, as if ages of hardship haunted her, but she still balanced that out with a firm-set jaw and stood tall and steady like a Royal Guard – like Shining Armour.

She actually looked tough.

“Does… does this mean that I actually get better? It’s all over?”

Future Twilight chuckled. “Hah. Good one.”

Twilight blinked.

“Hmm. I guess I still need to work on my delivery technique. All right, I suppose I can give away this much: I’m not totally consumed by my problem yet, so at least you know you’ll get this far.” She then gave them a grim smile. “But of course, for all we know, I could break tomorrow and give Tirek a run for his bits, so there’s always that.”

She frowned. “When exactly are you from?’

“That information isn’t crucial in your situation.” Her older self grinned when Twilight’s eye twitched. “Now I know why everypony loves teasing me like this. Oh, it’s so nice to be on the other side of it!”

Twilight snorted and folded her forelegs. “Fine. Be that way. Anything else you’re here to do besides forcing me to meet my friends? Because right now I feel like refusing just to spite myself.”

Future Twilight kept grinning and held up a hoof. “You know, we never made good on that plan to punch our past self in the face.”

Spike shook his head. “Wow. Since when did you become the bruiser type?”

Despite probably idle threat, she bristled at her challenging tone. “That doesn’t scare me.”

“I also know the ending of Daring Do and the Song of Rice and Pyre.”

She felt her ears, wings and jaw go slack. “You wouldn’t. That hasn’t even come out yet. You’re bluffing!”

“Do you really want to risk that?”

Spike whistled. “I take that back, Future Twilight. You’ve become a monster.”

Twilight growled to herself and glared, searching for a way to circumvent the ultimatum. Then, finding none that didn’t involve a cataclysmic series of events or some degree of self-brutalising, she bowed her head in resignation. “Fine. I’ll see my friends today. Happy now?”

Her older self trotted forward, sat in front of her and placed a hoof under her chin. Twilight looked up and saw that her older self’s expression had softened, and for a moment, Future Twilight reminded her of Celestia.

“No, but you’ll be,” she said with an encouraging smile, “once you return to your friends. Trust me; it’s got to be better than the alternative.”

Twilight sighed. “Okay. But can you at least tell me how—”

“No.”

“But—”

“Nope! I’m not playing cheat sheet for you any more than necessary; you’re going to tough it out like I had to.”

Twilight blinked.

Her older self’s stern frown fractured with a twitch, and a giggle burst forth before she got it under control and gushed, “Oh, I’ve waited so long to deliver that line. Hee!” And then she switched back to her serious face. “But seriously, deal with it on your own. I’ve abused this spell enough as it is. Bye!”

And just like that, she vanished in another flash of light.

“So, that happened,” Spike quipped.

“Yup. I can’t believe I just used time travel to blackmail myself.” She rubbed her temples and let out her breath in one long, drawn out sigh. “This has all the signs of a bad habit in the making.”

“Want some water?”

“Not yet.”

Twilight closed her eyes and waited as her churning stomach settled down. Future Twilight had provided a nice distraction, but with her gone she had to go back to reciting her usual mathematical theorems and performing calculations in her head to avoid sinking into a funk. The routine helped to soothe the mind and blot out unwanted stimuli, and she eventually felt ready to try getting out of bed.

Spike helped her down slowly, and she found out with some relief that she could move around and get some things done without exacerbating her condition. After sipping some water from a glass he’d provided, Twilight proceeded to groom herself as best she could. They couldn’t do much about her injuries, but at least they could clean off the worst of the dirt from her trek across the countryside and cut down on the end-of-the-world survivor aspect of her appearance. Her mane refused to stay down with so little length to them, so she unfortunately had to leave it spiky. But at least her feathers had regrown sufficiently to appear almost normal, if a little uneven in places.

Once satisfied, they left the room and headed downstairs.

“Future You really could have cleaned the floor before going,” Spike grumbled as he cast a glance back at the room. “Magical residue is a nightmare to get off of crystal.”

“I’ll get it later. I have a feeling she did that on purpose to make me use magic.”

They paused outside the doors to the guest hall. Twilight felt as if her legs had turned to jelly, and that a spectral chain had looped around her neck to keep her from entering. She could just imagine all eyes falling on her as she opened the door, their judgement shattering any hope of mending bridges. Murmurs and whispers behind her back, accusations to her face, everypony calling back to her failure to control her worst instincts…

“Breathe, Twi. It'll be okay. I’ve got your back,” Spike said with a pat on her shoulder.

Twilight snapped her eyes shut and buried those thoughts.

Your friends are better than that. Don’t insult them. Let things play out first and move on from there.

Sighing, she opened her eyes and pushed against the doors. “Right. Let’s go.”

The guest hall could probably accommodate a thousand ponies at once, but it did have several alcoves along its sides to allow for cosier meetings with smaller groups of ponies. The nearest one had a several plush couches, bean bags, bookshelves and coffee tables arranged about, and she saw that everypony had already made themselves comfortable within. Upon spotting her approach, they all rose to greet her, which only made it more difficult for her to keep moving. She almost felt like a criminal being led to stand before a panel of judges. Her skin felt tight and oversensitive to changes in air temperature and her heart rate refused to drop down to anything that resembled a reasonable pace.

Twilight stopped just short of entering the alcove and forced out a weak smile. “Hi, everypony.”

“Sweetie!”

A purple and light grey projectile shot towards her in an instant, and Twilight very nearly reacted with a protective barrier. Thankfully, she didn’t send her mother flying and simply grunted when they collided with a bone-crushing hug.

Her mother released her and whirled around her in a frenzy, cataloguing her injuries between gasps and quick outbursts. “Young lady, you had us so worried! What happened to you? You’re hurt here, here and here and oh my goodness, are you—did you break your wings?”

“I’m okay, Mum. It’s not as bad as it looks. Just the feathers.”

She looked past her mother and saw Night Light hanging back, apparently content to let Twilight Velvet have his share of invading her personal space and fussing all over her for the time being.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Sure you’re okay?” he asked.

Not exactly.

She felt their magic. She wanted it. She needed it. But she could also feel Celestia and Luna lurking in the background, looking a little tense and uncomfortable. Despite showing no aura on their horns, she could feel some magical distortions that indicated stealthy spellwork. Probably had teleportation spells to get everypony out of harm’s way if she lost control.

No. Not this time. Keep it together.

Tacky had put his faith in her. Her family and friends had put their faith in her; they wouldn’t have shown up otherwise. If she couldn’t do it for herself, she could at least try not to shame them for their trust and forgiveness.

Failure is not an option.

“Twily?”

“I’m okay, Dad. It just takes a bit of getting used to.”

Her mother paused in her fussing. “Do you… do you need us to back off a bit?”

She shook her head. “I’ve got this. I’m okay, really.”

“Thank goodness.”

Twilight braced herself as her mother and father hugged her fiercely.

“Our little filly’s grown so strong…”

She felt herself tearing up all over again and sniffled as she returned their hug. “I love you. I’m sorry for scaring you.”

“It’s not your fault.” Night Light threw a pointed look at Celestia and Luna. “Don’t ever blame yourself for this.”

Twilight detected a steely undercurrent in his tone. The stiffness of his jaw also hinted at some unpleasant thoughts. “Dad, you… you don’t actually blame the princesses either, right?”

Her mother sniffled and wiped away a tear. “Let’s not get into that now, Sweetie. Everypony’s already said all that needs to be said about that.”

“I… yeah, okay.” She could leave that for another day.

“Shining and Cadance are on the way. They’ll get here later tonight,” Night Light announced. Then, he nudged her mother and added, “Come on, Honey, I think Twily’s friends want to have a turn as well.”

Her parents gave her a parting hug and retreated to one of the couches as her friends trotted over. Everypony looked pretty solemn; even Pinkie had managed to tone down on her usual exuberance, though only just a bit.

“Ooh, I like the new manecut!” she said as she flitted over to her side and explored the top of her mane with a hoof. “Hee hee, so spiky; it’s like a scrubbing brush!”

“Yes, darling. Umm, it does look a little… rugged.”

Twilight giggled at Rarity’s feeble attempt to conceal her horror. The eye-twitching, strained smile and slight pallor really gave away her feelings on the matter. “It’s okay; you can let it out. I can tell you’re itching to help me get it back into order.”

Rarity grinned sheepishly and sighed in relief. “Oh, of course, dear. I didn’t quite mean it that way, but I’ll be happy to help in any way I can.”

“Pfft. You kidding? That manestyle looks awesome. It’s almost as radical as mine!”

Twilight spotted Applejack rolling her eyes. “Come on, girls. After what she’s been through, pretty sure we can say the mane’s the least of her worries.” Her eyes softened when she focused on Twilight. “You holding up okay on the inside, sugar cube?”

“I think she already told her parents she was fine,” Fluttershy half-whispered from behind the others.

I can lie. I’ve had a lot of practice.

Twilight discarded the bitter thought and looked at each one of them in turn. Despite the ease of responding to everypony just now, taking the initiative did not come quite as easily. Her heart raced as she remembered the past few nights – the disapproval, disappointment and even fear. Celestia and Luna were watching her back there, lying in the shadows behind her friends. More than just dreams; too easy to cross over into reality. The words stuck in her throat like dry, burnt pastry, choking her into silence.

“Girls, I…”

Oh, for goodness sake. This again? I thought I’d already stopped clamming up five minutes ago!

It didn’t help much to clear her voice, though.

“It’s okay, Twilight. Take it slowly,” said Fluttershy.

Rainbow nodded. “Yeah. Nopony’s asking for an epic speech. Just say what’s on your mind and get it over with.”

Their smiles of encouragement did not match what she remembered. If that trend held up, then maybe the rest of it would deviate from her dream as well.

Here goes…

“Girls, I’m sorry for not trusting that you had my best interests at heart. I didn’t mean to get mad at you for wanting to make me feel better.” Twilight sighed and looked away. “I’m sorry for attacking you and running away. It’s all a bit hazy now, but I kept thinking you were all treating me like a foal when I knew I should’ve been punished instead. I—actually, never mind. That’s not important anymore. I don’t even know if I’m remembering things right.” She forced herself to stop biting her lip, then turned back to look them in the eyes once more. “Can you forgive me?”

“Of course we can, darling.”

“Yeah. S’what friends do, after all.

Fluttershy trotted close and hugged her. “We’re sorry, too, Twilight. If you thought we were babying you, well… we promise to respect your maturity in dealing with this.”

“Aww…” Pinkie sniffled and wiped her eyes. “Incoming group hug!”

Twilight choked back a sniffle as her friends surrounded her with warmth. “I missed you girls.”

“So did we, sugar cube. So did we.”

“Of course,” Rainbow said with a grin, “you know this means we’re gonna come down harder on you if you start pinching magic again, since you wanna be treated like a big mare and all that.”

“Dash!”

Twilight chuckled. “It’s okay, Rarity. She’s right; I have to own up to my mistakes and face the consequences, and I’d rather do it with you girls by my side than alone in exile.”

“Group hug: Round Two?” Pinkie asked.

Rainbow and Applejack rolled their eyes, but Twilight didn’t care as she pulled them all together again.

I guess it wasn’t so bad, after all, she thought as tears slipped out between her eyelids. When she opened her eyes again, all six of them separated to make room as Celestia and Luna came trotting into their midst. Her mother and father hung back, watching.

Celestia addressed the others. “May we take Twilight for a walk? We promise not to keep her for too long.”

“Don’t see why not. Yer the princess, after all.”

When nopony contested Applejack’s consent, Spike went over to their mother and took her by the foreleg. “Come on, while they talk, I can show you guys around. You’ve got to see the size of our new reading room!”

Celestia smiled and trotted in the opposite direction as he began leading everypony off on an impromptu tour of the palace. Twilight followed suit, with Luna trailing some distance behind. Tuning out their magical signatures proved easier than anticipated; she didn’t have to do much more than occupying her idle mind with the usual stuff she’d already tried.

She put on a little speed and trotted alongside Celestia. “Princess, are you okay?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

“Your magic. It feels weaker than normal.” She swallowed, but it didn’t do much to help her suddenly-dry mouth. She glanced back at Luna. “Did I cause permanent damage that time I, you know…”

“Oh, that.” Celestia smiled and shook her head. “No, you didn’t take anything we couldn’t recover on our own. But are you certain that our magic feels weaker?”

“Yes. It’s actually easier to ignore.”

“Ah. Then our countermeasures appear to work,” Luna piped up.

Twilight raised her eyebrows. “Come again?”

Celestia tilted her head forward and gestured with a hoof towards her horn. And then Twilight spotted it – a black, metallic ring around the base of her horn, partially obscured by her mane. Luna had one, too. Due to their height, she simply hadn’t noticed when they stood straight up.

She skidded to a halt as ice water flowed through her veins. “Wait, wait. You’re wearing anti-magic rings? But—but that’s insane! Why? You don’t have to do that for me, I—”

“Hush, Twilight.”

“But it’s poisonous. The taint! You—”

“Shh…” Celestra draped a wing over her and pulled her into a hug. “Don’t worry about us. What’s important is that we can spend time together without needlessly tormenting you.”

“Indeed. Besides, these aren’t the barbaric devices of old,” Luna added. “After you left, Tia dug up some old rings from the vault and set the brightest minds in Canterlot to devising a variant that didn’t torture and ultimately poison its wearer. These are the result of their efforts – you find our presence tolerable, do you not?”

Twilight could never imagine being forced to put one of those things on, let alone doing it on purpose. Only the most cruel of institutions in history ever used them freely – King Sombra’s rule was one – and within Canterlot itself, only the most unrepentant, hardened of criminals ever got that as punishment, and even then, ponies usually relented when they saw the effects of taint on the wearer: nausea, migraines, extensive hair loss and ghastly, burn-like marks on the skin.

Heck, the core metal that gave anti-magic implements their properties was even named Sombrarite. Anything with a name like that spelled bad news all around, but if somepony had managed to counteract taint’s effects…

“How’d you do it?” she asked as she inspected their rings. “Substitute materials? Alloying?”

Celestia smiled. “I thought that might pique your interest. Some resourceful ponies had diamond dog contacts; they provided us with metal samples that allegedly had similar properties. We discovered that one of them could suppress magic with only a fraction of the side effects. Not quite as effectively as Sombrarite, but as far as we can tell, it doesn’t harm alicorns in the short term. We get mild headaches, but they’re tolerable.”

It hurt, but Twilight silently vowed not to see them any more than necessary if they planned to wear those things whenever they met. Despite their assurances, she still wouldn’t trust those things until she personally got to see the papers on their testing procedures. Either that, or she’d just have to hold off until she’d built up a tolerance to the point where she could safely walk amongst them without struggling with the urge to drain them to the bone.

For the time being, though, Twilight could see their value. She wasn’t sure if she could’ve maintained control without the rings suppressing their magic.

She nodded. “Okay, can we talk about something else?”

“Anything you like, Twilight.”

“Uh…”

She hadn’t expected Celestia to let her steer the conversation so quickly. For a moment, she could only trot after her mentor in silence, searching for something that didn’t ultimately lead to depressing matters. Then, she decided that maybe she didn’t need words straight away. Following her like that had always assured her of safety back in Canterlot, when they might simply enjoy a walk together down the quiet hallways. They’d often done so if she had awoken in the middle of a nightmare.

These few weeks definitely qualify…

Celestia led her to a balcony and went out, heedless of the cold air, and then sat down on her haunches. Twilight followed her to the railings and gazed over Ponyville, which lay partially shrouded in morning fog, sheltered from the sun by heavy clouds. Not the best weather for outdoor activity on a Sunday morning, so she didn’t see many ponies outside – only a few shady figures hurrying about here and there.

She shivered when a stiff breeze sent the chill right through her.

“Sorry. Too cold?” Celestia asked.

Twilight shook her head. “No, it’s just, uh, stimulating. I’ll be okay.”

“Hmm.”

Celestia didn’t sound too convinced, and responded by shifting closer and draping a wing over her. Twilight first felt inclined to wriggle away and hold out on her own, but all that warmth in the soft feathers convinced her otherwise. Luna also sat by on her other side, angled just right to act as a barrier to the incoming wind.

She appreciated their companionship. The silence, not so much. Her mind somehow filled it with the echoes of somepony’s screams in the darkness – probably her own, though she couldn’t remember sounding like that. And though they wore inhibitors, she could still feel their magi—

Argh!

“What am I going to do?” she murmured. “It’s still there…”

Her elders didn’t answer immediately. Instead, they maintained a steady gaze over the town, like two statues frozen in time.

After what felt like a distressingly long stretch of silence, Celestia looked at her. “What we all do, Twilight: you move on and make the best of it.”

She sighed. “I hear that a lot.”

“It bears repeating,” Luna pointed out. “Sometimes we need reminders when life wears us down. Forgetting your mistakes is not the goal; learning from them is.”

I can’t ever bring you back, but I can learn from you.

She remembered saying the same to her reflection back in Winder’s house.

“Yeah. I guess I’ll have to try.” She stared at the floor as she leaned into Celestia’s side, feeling like a little filly lost in school again.

A thought struck her, and she flattened her ears in apology as she turned to face Luna. “I’m sorry, but I think I lost your lifeward amulet. I can’t remember where I was when I threw it away.”

Luna blinked several times as her brow furrowed in thought. Twilight could already see the pain in her eyes, in the way her ears laid back. The same for Celestia. All those memories, a precious gift from one sister to another, lost. All due to her carelessness…

But before she could say anything else, Luna regained her composure and locked eyes with her, saying, “In the grand scheme of things, it is just a trinket, Twilight. You are home and of sound mind; that is worth more than any mere necklace. All is forgiven.”

“I—but I…” Twilight coughed when she felt herself choking up on tears again and simply nodded. “I—thanks. I’m sorry. I just wish I hadn’t done nothing but hurt everypony so much with this whole mess.”

“Not true, actually,” Celestia pointed out.

Twilight blinked and looked up to see her smiling.

“Huh?”

“We found your notes. That healing spell of yours was far quicker and more effective than anything the best hospitals and colleges had in their grimoires.” Celestia paused for a moment, tilted her head thoughtfully, then added, “At least, the ones that don’t involve damaging another creature’s life essence. For something so potent, your spell was remarkably clean.”

“Really?”

Celestia nodded with a smile. “Yes, Twilight. You had a unique method of interweaving the inherent magic of all three races, and we already have a few colleges conducting research on how regular unicorns may replicate your spell with the assistance of pegasi and earth ponies. If their projections are correct, you’ve probably just advanced arcane medicine by several decades.”

Her jaw dropped. The possibility of contributing that much to medical research in one go had never crossed her mind. She could almost see professors with their lecture notes already. Calculations, spell matrices, potential amplifiers and catalysts. Pure, academic knowledge shared between ponies. The day seemed almost brighter, already.

“That… that’s nice,” she said with a little smile. Then, she remembered Golden Oaks Library, and a little of her enthusiasm drained away. “But what happened to the tree?”

Celestia and Luna shared worried looks, and Twilight felt a pit open up inside her.

“We are sorry, but we fear that the tree did not take well to the surge of chaos and dark magic so close to its roots.” Luna averted her eyes. “We did what we could; Discord even assisted in removing that vicious plant of his, but even a full purge of latent energies did not undo the damage. I fear that this time, the tree is well and truly dead.”

Twilight nodded.

So much for a happy ending.

Not that you deserved one, anyway.

Sight and sound lost their meaning as she remembered all the time she’d spent in there, studying by herself, spending time with friends, reading with Spike, learning, living. After losing it once, she never could have imagined destroying it herself. And yet she had, all because of her inability to control herself.

Her muscles tightened as details of that morning came back to her. Even after every—

“Twilight.”

Celestia’s soft but firm tone, in conjunction with a steadying hoof on her shoulder disrupted her train of thought, and she soon realised that she’d clenched up almost to the point of hurting. She wilfully loosened her muscles, imagining the tension leaving her like steam from a hot plate.

Then, she shook her head and murmured, “I don’t even feel like crying now. I think I should, given what’s happened, but I just feel… blank. What’s wrong with me?”

“Sorrow doesn’t always manifest as tears, and neither does regret,” Luna said as she draped a wing over her back. “And sometimes, it is all right to feel nothing. The pain may come later, or it may not, but you are not a bad pony if your heart has been temporarily overwhelmed to the point of numbness.”

“The more important thing is to learn to move on and not let it drag you down forever,” Celestia added.

“I’ll never be rid of this, will I? I can’t undo it.”

Luna shook her head. “Perhaps not immediately, but you should not lose hope of recovery. You may recall that I too suffered what you do, and it no longer troubles me overmuch. Others have even cast it off entirely throughout history. But even if it never leaves you completely, know this: we all have our burdens to carry, Twilight. Some are lifelong and heavier than others, true, but giving up is the one sure way to let them end you.”

Burdens…

She remembered that lonely dream in the desert, chained to the ground in an empty sanctuary.

Luna carried on, oblivious to the thoughts in her head. “You need not carry them alone, though. We may not be able carry each other’s burdens, but we can all still go together. That counts for something.”

Twilight looked out towards Ponyville and spotted the remains of the library in the distance. If she squinted just right, she thought she could see its browning shoots withering away. A deep ache set into her heart for a moment, but at the same time, so did steely resolve. It filled her, and the cold wind lost its bite.

If I have any say in the matter, Golden Oaks will be the last thing I ever destroy. I promise. If I have to drag my chains wherever I go for the rest of my life, then so be it.

Twilight nodded. “I think I understand.”

“Well, I suppose we can take our advice to heart immediately.” Celestia rose to all fours and carefully nudged her along. “We’ve kept you away from your friends and family long enough. They’ll like to spend the day with you for as long as you’re able.”

“We’ll want to hear about what you did whilst you were away, too,” Luna added.

Twilight faltered, drawing surprised glances from both of them.

Family.

“Sorry,” she hastily said. “I just remembered a promise I made. It’s, uh… complicated. I know it sounds like I’m hiding something, but I need time to figure things out until I’m ready to talk about it.”

Celestia nodded. “Take your time. We’ll listen when you need us.”

“Thanks. I think you’ll like to hear about the new friends I made.”

Twilight slowly trotted after them, remembering the time she spent with Winder and Tacky. Then, she added, “Also, I don’t know whether you were watching me or not, but thanks for giving me some space to clear my head on my own. I appreciate it.”

They took a fraction of a second too long to answer, and she caught them sharing a quick look. Celestia’s half-lidded, sideways glance with one raised eyebrow at Luna practically had ‘I told you so’ written all over it, and Luna fluttered her wings uneasily when Twilight looked directly at her.

Okay, what was it? Sentries in the clouds? Dreamwalking?

She didn’t feel angry. Just curious.

Luna dipped her head. “Apologies, Twilight. Tia had advised Discord and I against following you, but I… I did worry about your wellbeing. After hearing nothing of you for three days, I could no longer refrain from searching your dreams. When I found your mind and could estimate your physical location, I was quite ready to come charging in with a search party to bring you back. Possibly even against your wishes, like an overbearing sister.” She chuckled mirthlessly. “Fine irony, that.”

Twilight took a moment to rack her brain and then frowned. “That’s funny. I don’t remember seeing you in my dreams.”

Luna gave her a stern glare. “Don’t insult me, Twilight. You’ve made your choice. This one’s mine.” Her expression then softened, with a smile tugging at her lips. “Remember now?”

Twilight’s eyes widened, and she stared agape for a couple of seconds before she found her voice again. “Wait. You’re Gorbash?”

Celestia nodded gravely. “I’m sorry if you were disappointed.”

Luna elbowed her sister in the ribs, who then playfully batted her away and giggled. She huffed indignantly, returning her attention to Twilight. “You dreamed of him; I simply took advantage of the convenience. I wanted to keep you company. Tia, naturally, wasn’t very happy when she found out I’d gone behind her back on that.”

“Well, you actually helped me that night.” Twilight remembered the shadow stalking them, and her screams as it tore them apart.

“Luck. I think it could just as easily have ended in further resentment, had your dream been less perilous.”

After a moment’s thought, Twilight had to concede to that. “Maybe. I’m glad it worked out, anyway.”

“Speaking of working out…” Luna tilted her head this way and that as she inspected Twilight’s appendages and grinned wolfishly. “If you haven’t lost interest, we are long, long overdue for our next sparring lesson. I worry that you have softened with such a long break.”

As if.

“If we have the time, sure.” Far as she could tell, it hadn’t lost its value as a distraction. Learning seemed to help, whether physical or mental. Of course, she’d have to balance that out between all the other new things she had to do. Chiefly, figuring out a way to introduce everypony to the idea of peacefully having changelings in their midst without first going through a nationwide panic. Keeping up with Winder to learn about his culture in preparation for integration alone would take up a sizable portion of her time.

You’ll play your part. Hah. Careful what you wish for.

What she wouldn’t give to one day see a classroom with unicorns, pegasi, earth ponies and changelings together. Maybe toss in a couple of griffons and zebras, too.

“What are you smiling about?” Her mentor had tilted her head in puzzlement.

“Oh, just a friendship problem,” Twilight said. She looked between Celestia and Luna, then trotted past them and back indoors.

Little steps. One day at a time.

Author's Note

Fun fact: this story was supposed to end somewhere at the third or fourth chapter, but your enthusiasm and support encouraged me to flesh this out a little more thoroughly.

Thanks for keeping me going. Hope you had a good time! :twilightsheepish: