Merry Go Round

by Pemberton

Rating: everyone
Tags: Alternate Universe, Adventure
Length: 13397

Like all things, the world that Twilight and her friends know must come to an end.

When Celestia disappears, her kingdom is left suddenly vulnerable to daunting forces from outside of Equestria intent on seizing the resources, the crown, and even the Elements of Harmony themselves. Thrust out of their home and into a place beyond of soaring achievement, staggering numbers, and things they don't understand, Twilight and her friends realize the true scope and nature of things, and that not even the Elements of Harmony can take on a whole planet alone. Struggling through a world much greater than they are, they come to understand that to restore their precious order and save their lost home, one course of action alone presents itself: making new friends.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2014-07-27 00:00:02 UTC

Prologue

She thought that she was running somewhere important, or that she was accomplishing some great task, but then she realized she was dreaming.

Twilight Sparkle jolted awake to History. It was the book she had been reading when she fell asleep, her forelegs hanging over the end of her reading podium and her head resting on the book like it was a pillow. It was a copy from the Canterlot Royal Library and was marked as the ninth volume, although Twilight had never seen or heard of the first, or the eighth, or any in between.

She yawned, surprised. She couldn’t remember the last time she fell asleep while she read. Twilight seemed to have all the energy she could ever want when she opened a book, even if it was late in the evening.

The library, which was also Twilight’s home, was dark though, and she decided that the darkness had something to do with it. She brought her front hooves down from her podium and dropped to all fours before trotting to the center of the room. She yawned again. All of the curtains were closed, and she could barely see.

Her horn shimmered purple and every drape opened at once. The sun came in, not as rays, but as a warm light that glowed inside of the library softly, like the sky at dawn. The polished shelves came into the light, filled with hundreds of books of different shapes and colors; some were tall, some were thick, some were red, blue, yellow, purple, orange. Pinkie had said one time that the shelves looked more like boxes of crayons.

The library, which was normally strewn with books, was tidy. There was no trace of her habits, of her practice of piling high stacks of books that interested her on tables and the floor, of the tendency of those piles to tip over, or of her friends causing commotions and knocking the contents from their places. It was serene lately, but was also lacking in something. Hardly any time passed between the messes that had plagued Twilight’s home since she moved to Ponyville and first met her friends, and without any magical tomes or scraps of paper on the ground for almost two weeks, the room was beginning to feel empty and even sad.

The library, which was often a sanctum of studying for Twilight, seemed more distracting than ever when the sun revealed its clean floors and no one was standing on them. Not even her little assistant was there to scurry back and forth, picking up books and complaining about the messiness of her study places.

Twilight walked to a window and saw that it was sunny and clear outside. Witch hazel crept from the bottom of the window and was moving quickly upwards. Twilight noted that she would need to trim it soon. Outside, Ponyville was swarming; earth ponies pulled carts, pegasi moved clouds, and unicorns arranged flowers, but all were working and had been working while Twilight slept. All of the activity was in preparation for the upcoming holiday, but Twilight had the day off. She turned. A small table sat nearby, and her calendar lay on top of it. She checked; yes, it was her day off. Her day off…

She slapped a hoof to her forehead. Her day off! The picnic! It was like someone had splashed cold water on her head, and she was suddenly awake. She looked up. A clock on the wall read that it was a little past two o’clock, meaning she still had time.

She scampered to her vanity, made sure her mane was in order, and ran a brush through it. Then she remembered that she was supposed to bring a snack, and ran back to her calendar. She checked it for a note – there it was – it read: Bring shakes- Applejack – blueberry Fluttershy - cream… and went on to list the rest of her friends’s choices. She smacked her head again. Of course the food she was bringing would take the longest to get. She never liked being late to begin with, and on top of that, she also hadn’t had time to sit down with her five close friends in what felt like a lifetime, so she threw on her saddlebag and shoveled in more than enough bits to pay for the drinks as fast as she could.

She double-checked her calendar a final time, and while she did, her eye wandered to an unopened envelope sitting atop a stack of unopened mail. It was a vivid red shade, and she wondered why she hadn’t seen it before, but figured that now was not the time to read it. She would have time to read it when she got back, but she had serious business to attend to, so she squinted in anticipation of the light, put her hoof against the door, and pushed.

The town of Ponyville was filled with the sun and sound of hooves patting against its simple roads and avenues, the voices from friends happily chattering to one another in the small clearing around Twilight’s library greeting her as she stepped out of the cool shelter of her home. Summer always brought the ponies outside, to talk, to sing or dance or have fun, or at this time in particular, to work, rolling carts and barrels and lifting boxes of all sorts of ornaments in preparation. Even as everypony’s backs were bent working, lifting curtains or planting flowers or hanging wreaths, the mood was still light, as ponies on break relaxed and chatted leisurely, and those at work stepped back every so often with smiles to admire how their handiwork and adornment was coming along.

Leftover pollen from the spring still floated in the air and tickled Twilight’s nose as she started in the direction of the smoothie store, and she sniffled and then sneezed loudly as she turned onto one of the streets, nearly toppling a mailman on his way to town hall as he left and she entered the ruckus of the preparations. The streets were filled with activity and supplies, strewn with streamers and sashes, swimming with ponies moving to and fro to do what had to be done for the coming holiday. Twilight tripped and nearly fell a number of times as she stepped around the ribbons and boxes that covered the ground, and bumped into more than a few other ponies in the calamity that spanned not only this street, but every street on the way to her destination, meaning that there was a lot of tripping involved in what would have normally been a short trip to the café. She did her best to keep up a brisk pace, but the town and the preparations had no time to stop and wait so that she could catch up with her schedule; the rest of Ponyville had its own schedule to keep up with on the week before the Summer Sun Celebration.

By the time Twilight reached the shop, scrambled through the door, and checked the clock, there was one minute remaining before she was to meet with her friends out at Sweet Apple Acres. Sighing in defeat, she turned to the somewhat perplexed shop worker and ordered each of the drinks on the list.

Four minutes later, Twilight hiked up to the top of one of Sweet Apple Acres’s outlying hills, where two thick trees cast shade over a checkered blanket, and her friends sat with sandwiches and snacks waiting for her.  It was the tallest hill on the farm’s property, peaking above every building in town but the few Pegasus cloud houses, allowing whoever stood on top of it a clear view of all of Ponyville’s colorful homes and shops and streets on a sunny day.  As Twilight came halfway up the hill, she took a moment to glance at the town, watching her neighbors and friends crawling about and going to work around town like bugs, or at least that ‘s how big they looked from the distance that Twilight watched them from. It had been good working with everyone over the past week, and she smiled proudly at the little town and the sum of their efforts, which could be seen even from where she stood.

Twilight didn’t have long to appreciate the view or the feeling though, because only a few moments after she stopped, she felt a weight removed from the tray of smoothies on her back.

“Thanks for the drink, egghead,” a voice came from above her.

Rainbow Dash floated into view ahead of Twilight, sipping on an orange smoothie that, when it was placed correctly, had been helping to balance the platter teetering on Twilight’s back.

The unbalanced plate suddenly tipped to one side and began to slide before Twilight could react, but it was caught before disaster struck by Sweet Apple Acres’s head farmer herself as she trotted up the hill.

“Ah gotcha there, Twi,” Applejack said, lifting the tray from Twilight’s shoulders with a single hoof. “You’re just on time, we were lookin’ forward to these.”

“Thanks, Applejack, but ugh, I’m sorry I’m late,” Twilight said. “I slept in way too much.”

“Are ya late?” Applejack asked, glancing to Rainbow, who looked up from her smoothie and shrugged. Applejack turned back. “Well nopony else is here yet, so don’t bother over it. Come sit down, we got everything set up already.”

Twilight and her two friends took their seats and their drinks on the blanket and started talking about their weeks, recounting their projects and experiences, having only seen each other in passing for the past couple of days. Twilight felt like she was coming out of the haze of a dream as she spoke with her friends once more. The urgency in her body began to fade and more life seemed to return to the world as they giggled and stretched out and relaxed under the cool trees. Rainbow Dash had been working extensively with the weather team to keep an eye in the sky so that Ponyville would be ready for any unwanted downpours days in advance, and Applejack’s already packed schedule had increased nearly two fold in the face of Princess Celestia’s arrival.

When the other two had finished, Twilight prepared to offer her own anecdotes, but found no words could come out as she felt an iron grip take hold around her chest and squeeze the air out of it.

“Hi Pinkie,” she managed to forceyell out, familiar with the style of hug, but just now remembering how much force her friend put into it.

“Omigosh, omigosh, Twilight! I haven’t seen you or partied with you or played with you in, like, forever! I mean I haven’t played with anypony really since we started, but I’ve seen them! Did you know that this was the longest time we didn’t see each other since we met? I was keeping count in my cake order book around the charts! Oh! And speaking of cakes,” she let go for a moment, “here!”

Before Twilight could enjoy air back in her lungs, a sweet, spongy piece of cake, or whole cupcake, was thrust into her mouth. She drew a heavy breath in through her nose, and although she hadn’t been expecting, or ready for, the food, she couldn’t think to herself that it didn’t taste and smell fantastic.

Pinkie’s grasp quickly released as she gasped and zipped over to Applejack and Rainbow Dash, giving them similar treatments.

At the same time, a pegasus touched down gingerly on the mat beside Twilight.

“Hello, Fluttershy, it’s good to see you,” Twilight said and smiled.

Fluttershy replied guiltily: ”Oh, it’s very good to see you too, Twilight. I would have come by but I’ve been so, so very busy with the animals-“

“It’s okay, Fluttershy,” Twilight laughed, “I haven’t really had time to go out of my way either.”

“Certainly,” Rarity added as she joined, coming up the hill and taking a seat beside Fluttershy, “we’ve all been very busy, I’m sure, though I do apologize for being late.”

“Don’t worry, Rarity, we have all day,” Twilight assured her, “what’s important is that we’re all here. Well, except Spike,” she looked around, “but he should be here soon. I know he reminded me about this last night.”

“We must wait for him to get here before we can eat, then,” Rarity decided, and then, reaching over to place a hoof on Twilight, added, “until then, you must tell me how your week has been in full, dear.”

Twilight happily recounted to her friend her duties over the past week. Mayor Mare had elected her as a sort of second in command, figuring that nopony would be more suited for the job of preparing the town for Princess Celestia than the ruler’s personal student. She was partially correct, since Twilight’s close relationship with the princess gave Rarity and the other members of the creative force working around the center of town an eye into Celestia’s tastes as Twilight pointed out which designs would please the princess, but, on the other hoof, Twilight had found that she herself was no good at designing. Her first attempt at sewing, for example, had resulted in a small fire in Town Hall.

Rarity had been present at the time of all that, though, so Twilight instead told her friend of the other sites around town that she had been supervising, which mostly involved simple descriptions of how they looked, and any great successes or disasters that had come along with the work.

Rarity nodded as Twilight spoke. “I took some time to tour the town and see your handiwork, darling, and I must say that I am extremely pleased with the way with the way the town has turned out. I may have to bring you into Carousel Boutique for your opinion more often, now,” she said warmly.

“Thanks, Rarity.” Twilight rubbed a hoof on the back of her neck. “But I’m just telling everyone what Celestia would like best. If you’re asking for anypony’s opinion, it should be hers.”

Rarity scoffed and waved a dismissing hoof. “Please, Twilight, you’re much too humble. Even if that were true, it would just underline the fact that Princess Celestia chose you to be the one that she’d share all of her interests and secrets with. I simply cannot imagine the feeling one must experience when coming home, only to look on the table and find that Princess Celestia had left a-“

“Letter!”

Spike charged up the hill, an arm stretched over his head, clutching an envelope with a familiar red wax seal holding it closed waving in the air.

“Spike, there you are!” Twilight rose to her hooves to greet her friend and assistant.

Spike skidded to a halt before the blanket “I was getting the silverware for you guys, but when I got this message from Princess Celestia, I knew I had to bring it to you right away!” he said in an unusually urgent and excited voice.

“Oh, well, okay,” Twilight said, puzzled.

A sparkling purple haze formed around the letter and lifted it from Spike’s grasp. Twilight brought it to her face, peeled the seal off cleanly, and folded back the top, revealing the message within. She slid it out and unfolded it to read, setting the envelope down at the same time.

She cleared her throat.

“Dear Twilight,

Though I will be meeting with you very shortly, I wanted to let you know how thrilled I am to be seeing you and your friends once more. Luna reminded me not too long ago of your actions at your brother’s wedding, and it spurred me to write to you and let you know that I become overwhelmed with pride every time I think of your efforts against Chrysalis, Discord, Nightmare Moon; but that the pride such events inspire comes nowhere near what I feel when I think of the work you’ve put into friendship, and the changes you’ve gone through since you came to Ponyville. I will be honored to spend another Summer Sun Celebration beside you, my faithful student, and I will see you very soon.

Love,

Princess Celestia”

Twilight and her friends all beamed as she read the letter, Rarity pressing her hooves to her cheeks and Rainbow Dash coming down out of the air to sit with the group.

“Aw, Spike, it’s just a letter telling us how proud she is, nothing to worry about,” Twilight said.

“Huh, yeah, sorry,” Spike replied, putting a hand on his chin. “I’ve had this feeling that something was wrong all week; I guess I just thought that the letter would say something bad.”

Twilight patted his head affectionately, saying, “don’t worry Spike, if anything is wrong, we’ll take care of it. Right girls?” she asked, look to the rest of the blanket.

“Yeah!”

“’Sure thing!”

“Uh huh!”

“Oh, yes.”

“Of course, dear.”

Twilight turned back and smiled at Spike.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. But don’t forget to listen to me if something bad actually does happen, okay? I still feel funny about something.” Spike said.

Twilight laughed and hugged Spike. “Of course, Spike; I’d never ignore you. Still, the only thing we need to worry about right now is getting Ponyville ready for the princesses.”

They broke the hug, and Spike took a seat beside Twilight.

“So, um, Spike, how was your week?” Fluttershy asked quietly.

As the talk around the picnic picked up again, Twilight brought her attention back to the letter. Her magic took hold of the paper once more, folded it back up, placed it in the envelope, and then dropped it in her saddlebag.  However, as she did this, the warmth that her teacher’s words stirred inside her did come with a feeling of puzzlement. Twilight knew that Celestia loved her with all of her heart, but the princess rarely sent letters as gushing as this one. Twilight began theorizing as to why her mentor sent such a note, but then stopped herself, figuring that she was letting Spike’s unease have an effect on her. Besides, she felt disrespectful being suspicious of such a heartfelt message, especially from somepony she looked up to as much as Celestia.

Putting away the letter without a further thought about it, Twilight jumped back into the conversation with her friends. Everypony was listening to Pinkie as she listed off the orders she had taken over the duration of the preparations.

“…So then after the mail team lost the first batch of muffins I baked another batch for them and then I got started working on the heeee-uge cakes done for Town Hall, but thankfully I had my ladder, and then when I was done with those some of those ponies in the wagons from out of town came by and ordered some stuff, so I did those, and then I went to bed, and then I woke up, and then I baked these,” Pinkie said as she raised the basket of pastries, “and then I came here, and then I told you guys about my week!”

“Have any of you guys checked out the ponies from out of town this year?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Applejack replied, “Nah, but Ah heard there’s some funny lookin’ ones. Or, that their carts were funny lookin’. Could be that the townsfolk just aren’t used to ‘em though, it’s only the second time.”

They all remembered the first time the trailers arrived last year, confusing the decorating process and adding to the already great chaos. Out of town ponies had always attended Summer Sun Celebration, and there was always one or two wagon homes parked in the town chosen for the ceremony, but only after The Elements of Harmony had defeated Nightmare Moon and Ponyville had been made official home of the Summer Sun Celebration two years earlier did ponies start flocking from all corners of Equestria to attend and catch a glimpse of the Elements of Harmony and their bearers, filling the inns and towing trailers into town. It had been very problematic at first, but Mayor Mare had found room for them since then in some of the town squares, and had worked with event planners to arrange them in the best possible way. Some even provided services or entertainment, and were offered spots in the main town square, where the townsfolk would set up stands and stages for games, shows, and food in celebration of Princess Celestia.

“I like them! Besides, more ponies around just means more ponies to party with!” Pinkie said.

“Definitely,” Spike agreed, “and they bring extra stuff, too. One of them even had gemstones last year. I hope they come back, their quartz was great.”

Applejack nodded. “Town does seem a little more lively with some more ponies around, doesn’t it? Certainly ain’t bad for business, neither.”

Rainbow added, “yeah, not to mention bigger crowds to watch my routine."

“Yes, well, do mind my sashes this year, darling. I don’t have enough fabric leftover for emergency repairs like last time,” Rarity replied.

“I’ll watch for ‘em,” Dash assured. “Besides, since I got this invitation for a free fortune telling –or, something- I can warn you ahead of time if my awesome flying is gonna wreck anything.”

Applejack’s ears perked up. “Hold on, now, you got one, too?”

Rainbow Dash cocked her head. “One what?”

“A letter. Y’know, one talkin’ about fortunes and the future and all that?”

“Oh. Yeah,” Rainbow Dash nodded.

Pinkie started waving a hoof frantically. “Oh! I got one too!”

“As did I,” Rarity said.

“Me too,” Fluttershy added.

“Ah only opened it this morning. Y’all don’t think he sent one to everypony in town, do ya?” Applejack asked.

Dash shook her head. “No way, mine was super personal. How about you, Twilight? Did you get one?”

“Oh, I’m not sure. I haven’t read any of yesterday’s mail yet. Did you see anything, Spike?” Twilight asked.

“Sorry, Twilight, but I don’t know either. It was pretty dark when I brought it all in last night. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.”

“Well do tell me if you find one, Twilight,” Rarity followed,” I have a feeling that whoever it was sent the letters to us only.”

Spike agreed. “That would make sense, wouldn’t it? I mean, what fortune teller wouldn’t want to work their stuff on the mares that hold the Elements of Harmony?”

“I bet you’re right, Spike,” Twilight said, “I guess it’s not everyday that somepony would get the chance.” She looked to her friends. “So are you guys going to go in?”

“Ah’ve still got plenty a’ work ta do around the farm, not to mention all the deliveries,” Applejack continued.

The rest of Twilight’s friends also were reserved about going to see the letter’s sender on account of their work loads.

Only Pinkie Pie seemed willing to actually meet the fortuneteller. “Well, I’m gonna meet them and give them my special Pinkie Pie Ponyville tour anyway, so I might as well get my fortune told! I wonder if he says good things will happen, that’s what the local fortune teller tells me every time I stop by!”

“I’ve been told the same, dear,” Rarity said, “but, on the topic of good things to come, I just remembered: we haven’t at all discussed summer plans after the ceremony has passed! I’ve been told of an exquisite art exhibit coming to Canterlot that I know you would all love to see! Well, some of you would love to see it, at the very least.”

Rainbow Dash shrugged at Rarity’s suggestion, but jumped onto the new topic she had brought up. “I’ve got a schedule of all the Wonderbolt shows this summer, and we gotta go see some of those!”

Soon enough everypony there was lobbing recommendations to their friends about shows and festivals and trips they should attend together, and as they did so, they all began to feel a great sense of anticipation and excitement, as though a school year was coming to a close, or they were embarking on an exotic vacation. Even though they loved the Summer Sun Celebration, they could all hardly wait to spend all the time they wanted with each other again, once the town was finished for the princesses and the holiday was over.

The group of friends spoke and ate for the better part of the day, and the sun had gone down by the time that any began to leave.

Twilight left after Rarity and Fluttershy, and, waving goodbye to her remaining friends, descended the hill with Spike, facing in the direction of the library.

As Twilight and Spike made they way back through the town, they noticed that the streets had become remarkably clearer since the morning. With one day left, things were being finalized around town and the clutter was being cleared away for the main event. Twilight and Spike took their walk slowly, taking detours and admiring and discussing how the decorations caught and reflected the nighttime lights of the town. Other ponies marveled on the street at the nearly finished project as well, while a few others finished hanging up their last banners of the day or carrying out their now-empty supply boxes.

When they reached the clearing around the library, the pair found that the space had been filled with all kinds of stalls and stands for the festival, though whoever was in charge had been considerate enough to leave an open path to the front door of Twilight and Spike’s home.

The library was pitch black as Twilight entered, and as she went to empty her saddlebags and place them where they belonged, her horn glowed, and the lights started coming on.

Spike said good night to Twilight and went to bed quickly, having nothing to do, as the library was already clean from sitting empty. Twilight considered following before she looked at the clock and realized that it was still hours before her usual bedtime.

Instead she crossed the floor and climbed back onto her reading podium to continue working on her book. However, as Twilight turned her head downwards to start reading, something out of the corner of her eye caught her attention instead.

The red letter from earlier in the day sat at the top of the neat pile of letters when she looked to it, standing out vibrantly against the typical white parchment beneath it. Twilight stared at it for a while, and then quickly glanced back to her book.

She looked hard at the pages before her, harder than she usually did when she read. History had been giving her a considerable amount of trouble; not because it was beyond her reading comprehension -she had yet to meet that book- but rather because of some intangible quality of it, some unfamiliar voice that she could sense through the diction and the syntax and delivery, like it wasn’t just providing information, it was teasing her because she’d never read such a book. She had tried all sorts of focusing techniques to help her block out her surroundings and read the book, but none had worked, and she had been making slow, slow progress. No book had ever pushed her away like this one. Something about the way it was written just made her uncomfortable.

The red letter wasn’t helping either, now. Twilight looked up again, and then back to her book again, and willed herself forward, but after about 5 minutes without so much as a page of progress, she gave up and turned her attention back to the envelope.

She slowly stepped down from the podium, still watching the red letter, as though it would disappear if she didn’t stay staring at it, and moved across the room. When she was close, Twilight could see a red wax seal that was indistinguishable from the paper from a distance. It was noticeably even; hardly any bumps had formed when the seal, a simple “x”, had been pressed into it. It must have been the perfect amount of wax. Twilight’s horn began to glow, but she stopped abruptly. She narrowed her eyes at the rose envelope, and something in her gut told her that she should take and open it with her hooves instead. Though Twilight wasn’t prone to gut feelings, and hardly ever followed them, she gave in to this one; it was trivial enough, she reasoned, though that trivialness also brought to mind the question of whether she needed more sleep each night after all.

Twilight brought her forelegs up to the table and grabbed at the letter. She clumsier with her hooves than her magic, and knocked some of the other envelopes on the ground and she lifted it off of the top of the heap and fumbled with it to get it open, but soon the seal was broken. She slid the paper out and unfolded it.

        “Dear Twilight Sparkle,” it began.

Her suspicions were confirmed as she read the letter and it described the occupation of the stallion who wrote as “providing visions and changes”, stated that he could be found in a carriage outside of town hall, and invited her there for a free appointment. The stallion, who had signed “Pure Plains” at the bottom, praised Twilight and her friends, and from what was written, he seemed genuinely excited to be there and interested in meeting the Elements of Harmony.

Twilight exhaled loudly and glanced at her book. She felt silly for it, but knew that there was no point in trying to read until she had met with Pure Plains. There was something that intrigued her about the “visions and changes” mentioned in the letter, and she didn’t feel like going back to the book that she had out right now anyway. She folded up the article and placed it back on the table. Making sure not to wake Spike, she cracked the front door open.

Town square looked like a festival in its own right when Twilight Sparkle arrived, packed with stalls and stands and carts all open, all lit up, and all busy. It was customary for the nights just before the holiday itself to host festivities of their own, and since just about everypony had finished with their work, the festivities of tonight were in full swing. Ponies filed through the corridors between the booths leisurely, browsing or stopping by, taking part in games or buying goods.

        Twilight wandered through the crowds aimlessly; the letter had given her no indication of how to find the fortune-telling carriage other than by its appearance. She roved through the area for a good ten minutes before she started simply asking the others in the crowd if they knew where to find the fortuneteller. She was in luck, because the first pony she asked had just come from seeing him, and was happy to give directions. Twilight thanked him and went on her way.

        She followed his directions, taking lefts and rights through the fair grounds, until she rounded a stall, the crowd parted for a moment, and all at once the carriage came into view.

        It was large, very large, pressing above its fellow roofs and hanging over the heads of the passersby, a rich mahogany hull glinting dimly by the candlelight around it and its windows reflecting the movement outside as ochre and brimstone whirlpools. It bore engravings that were minute and indecipherable from Twilight’s distance, but she could see that they ran the length of the borders around each panel and met where spiraling rope columns coiled together tightly and pushed up a yellow-gold roof trimmed and crested by white accents.

Twilight thought that as it waited before her that she would have known it as her destination even if she had not had a description to go by.

She began to press forward towards the abode across the crowd, but jolted, as if out of a dream, when she was stopped.

A hoof had come down on her shoulder and halted her. She looked down it to the face of a smiling mare who was pointing with her other hoof towards a booth nearby and a small group of ponies who had parted and seemed to be waiting for her.

The stallion running the stand, dull orange and brown-maned, spoke when Twilight’s attention had been drawn to him. “At last she hears! I had been calling to you for a little while, ma’am, and was worried you might have visited the hypnotist’s stall down the way!” He scratched a short beard and spoke with an accent and a booming tone that was unfamiliar to Twilight, but she laughed the same at his joke as she came closer.

“Dear miss,” the vendor went on, ”as of yet, nobody tonight has had the skill to open,” he stepped to the side, revealing with a flourish of his hoof a beautifully decorated box with a lock built into it, “the impossible lock! All of the wonderful ponies you see here have tried bravely, but to no avail! And yet, when my eyes fell upon you, I could sense something, something that told me you were the one to open this lock and earn the reward of 100 bits!”

The box was a deep purple, beige rimmed and flecked with silver designs. The lock looked to be silver as well, only there wasn’t simply a keyhole, but what seemed like a platinum patterned disc held within a round frame that attached to the latch in a way obscured by the adornments encrusting the box. The challenge itself sounded like a simple carnival game, so before she tried, Twilight asked how many bits it cost to try.

“That’s the finest part of the deal, ma’am: it’s free! To take on the mystery lock is costly enough in its own right, you’ll find!”

Her eyes widened. Free wasn’t something that was thrown around often when it came to such games, so either this stallion’s spirit had been overtaken by the festival, or he was sure that nopony would ever get his lock open.

There was no harm in trying, so Twilight agreed, and the stallion brought the box to her, along with a short bent piece of metal, and placed the two pieces on the counter.

"What's that?" Twilight asked, pointing to the little metal sliver.

"A lockpick, lass," the stallion responded.

Twilight had never heard of such a thing before, but could conclude what it was used for rather easily from the name. “Oh,” she said, ”am I allowed to use magic?”

The stallion smiled. “Certainly, certainly; whatever you wish my girl!”

Twilight nodded happily and her horn began to shimmer. The vendor leaned in and his eyes narrowed. A purple glow enveloped the lock, and Twilight frowned with concentration. She hadn’t ever actually picked a lock before, or even thought of trying such a thing, so the entirety of her process was built on chance and guessing. She had no way of knowing whether she was making any progress, and felt it was hopeless for her to try almost as soon as she started, until she felt a tingling in her horn.

An invisible force pushed her head back like a kick, although there was no pain, and her head suddenly felt muddled. Not dizzy, but in a way confused, as though somepony had just tried to teach her something and she hadn’t quite understood them.

She was prepared to investigate, or ask if anypony else had felt a sensation, until she heard a loud click before her. The vendor’s eyes widened and the disc bound to the lock began to spin. There was another click, and then another, and the disc spun faster and faster until it stopped abruptly and entirely, and the whole frame of the box widened by nearly an inch as the lock dropped forward and it creaked open slightly.

The crowd cheered, and the vendor threw his hooves up and joined in, shouting something Twilight didn’t quite catch before he drew his forelegs across the counter and onto Twilight’s shoulders.

“I don’t- I can’t believe it! You’ve done it, lass, you’ve actually done it! Over ten towns of nobody able to crack that accursed lock and you open it in a matter of seconds! I never thought I’d see the day!” He shook with laughter and then ceased, making a face like somepony had pinched him. “Your prize!” He broke away, took the box and disappeared behind a curtain.

He returned quickly, throwing the drape aside with a heavy-looking bag in place of the box, and hurried up to Twilight.

“For such an incredible display of skill, I have decided that a measly one hundred bits simply doesn’t do you honor, madam, so instead I bring you this: five times that amount for the victor!”

The crowd cheered even louder, some clapping their hooves while he dropped it in front of Twilight. Before she had time to claim that it was too much, the stallion cleared his throat, collected himself, and spoke again. “Now, now, in light of this, I’m afraid we will need to take some time off to reconfigure our impossible lock -and possibly change its name- so please, go about and enjoy what tonight has to offer, and return later and attempt to tackle the lock once more!”

Twilight shook her head. “This is too-“

The vendor waved a hoof. “No, no. Go on and take it, it’s yours,” he insisted. “I only request that you spend it wisely.” With that he escaped back behind the canvas cloth once more, and left Twilight alone with her winnings.

Turning over what the strange stallion had said in her head, Twilight came to the conclusion that he was happy to part with the money. And besides, it was five hundred bits.

A creaking reached her, and her ears perked and head turned to see the door of the carriage swinging open and then closed to let out a customer. They descended the stairs and Twilight settled in her head and pocketed the money. She crossed the corridor of ponies and walked to the steps of the trailer, looked up, and knocked on the door.

The door opened slowly after a moment of quiet, and from the space between the door and the frame, an earth pony poked out his head to see who was knocking. When his eyes fell on the mare on the steps, his face stretched into a smile and he threw the door outward excitedly. Twilight would have fallen off of the steps if she hadn’t been caught by the stallion’s hoofshake, which not only pulled her up, but also into the wagon.

“My goodness, goodness gracious! I don’t- you, here, in my carriage? Surely I’ve done something to deserve such good luck! Twilight Sparkle, student of Celestia, Element of Magic?” He laughed and shook her hoof furiously. “To simply meet you was a great goal, but to have you grace my business is an honor that you just cannot fathom!”

        Stunned and with an arm that was nearly being shaken off, Twilight sat silent and tried to formulate a response. What eventually came out was, “thank you.”

         “Thank- thank me?” He repeated incredulously. He pulled away and hurried over to a table. “Well, yes then- come, come, I’ve got everything set up already and I’m sure you only have limited time to bandy words with commoners like me.”

        Twilight stared back. “Actually it’s my day off,” she blurted without thought.

A startled look was the response she received, before the stallion slapped his own forehead. “Oh, of course!” he chuckled, “my apologies, Miss Sparkle, I forgot where I was.” He slid into the chair behind the desk, and Twilight caught a glimpse of his cutie mark on the way over: a shovel poised above a patch of grass.

        The table was pushed towards the back of the room, in front of a shelf holding dozens of neatly organized trinkets, and was strewn with all manners of cards and books and gadgets, so much so that there was no room for hooves, so Twilight rested them in her lap instead. A green candle burned, one of the few features the room had to offer that wasn’t a warm red shade. The walls themselves were the same mahogany as they were on the outside, as were the floorboards, but the ceiling glowed maroon, a hue shared by the vast majority of the furniture, cabinets, and drapery filling the inside of the trailer. Picture frames, some empty, others containing peculiar oil paintings, took up the space between the windows, which were an opaque emerald that let in light, but not much else. The stallion himself was a light red, and sported an umber overcoat that looked heavier and longer than most and matched his mane.

        The stallion swiped a practiced hoof across the table, collecting every card in a neat stack. In his other hoof he brought up a large purple book that he slapped down in the now open space.

        “There’s no need to introduce yourself, of course, but as for me, my name is Pure Plains, visionary and collector of knowledge by trade and hobby! I provide, and have provided, insight to clients high and low, from the good people that till the land to the fine individuals of royal company from one end of the world to the other! And again, the honor of meeting you is forever mine.”

        Twilight perked up halfway through his speech. “Royalty? Have you met with Princess Celestia or Luna?”

         “Well… no, not them. I’ve been blessed in this life, Ms. Sparkle, to have seen the world and crossed a great many borders, rivers, mountains, and seas. I’ve seen things a hundred times over that many will not see once; but this, in actuality, marks the first time I’ve ever been to Equestria.”

        “Really?” Twilight asked. She thought of those other places outside of Equestria. She didn’t come up with much.

        He nodded. “Yes! Complications are something one comes to expect at borders, of course, but so many had abounded at the specific moments I meant to come to Equestria, it simply never happened. However, when news reached me of the rising Elements of Harmony, I decided that I would have no choice to attend and see it all for myself! The legendary and lovely Princess Celestia, the Summer Sun Celebration, and of course, meet the Elements of Harmony.”

        “Have you met my friends, then? Pinkie Pie said that she was coming, but I’m not sure about everypony else.”

        The stallion stopped her with a dutiful hoof. “I’m afraid I have a policy of privacy, Ms. Sparkle. My work can be sensitive, and for their safety and mine, I don’t share my clients’s results.”

        “Oh, wow, okay,” Twilight responded, though she was puzzled by how a simple fortune telling could be dangerous to anypony. She pointed to the shelf behind the stallion. “What are all of those?”

He turned to look. “Oh, the figurines? Those are symbols, stand ins.” He carefully took one of the charms and held it in a hoof before Twilight. It was a little golden star. “Each one means something, and they’re very useful… though, we won’t be able to do anything with them tonight, I’m afraid. I’m running low on the herbs and roots necessary for the procedure they’d be used in. For now, they’re just decoration.” He placed the star back on the shelf.

“So do you live here?” Twilight asked.

        “Yes,” he replied, “what do you think of it?”

It was much more cramped than a normal house, but if it was only made to accommodate a single pony, she could understand its appeal. Though the stallion had left the wagon cluttered, she could see organization being much easier in such a small place. “I don’t know if I could fit all of my books in here, but it’s nice,” Twilight said.

The stallion beamed. “I’ve lived and traveled in here for quite some time. Certain individuals don’t seem to care for spending time in a carriage, but personally I prefer it. I find it rather cozy and endearing, yet adventurous at the same time. Plus it only makes sense for one who travels as I do, and I have all of the luxuries of a home, even a fireplace!”

Twilight looked around. “Is a fireplace really a safe thing to have in a wooden wagon?”

“Perfectly!” he smiled. “Provided, of course, that you know how to use it.” He paused. “That’s in the back, in the bedroom, before you start around looking for it. What you see now is the den, where I carry out most of my business.” He paused once more, and then with a jolt, continued, “ah! I’m talking too much of myself again. Speaking of business, we should begin, if you don’t mind?”

Twilight shook her head.

“Good, good.” He said, and unclasped the book, pulling aside the cover and half of the pages like he was opening a door.

“Now, Ms. Sparkle, I tend to begin these sessions with the more traditional techniques. May I borrow your hooves for a moment?”

Twilight brought her hooves over the table and he took them.

He leaned in closely and his eyes began to trace over her digit. As he went, his face scrunched into a squint, before he eventually nodded and let go.

He reached beneath the surface and brought out a small crystal ball next. He looked up and waved his own hoof around his forehead. “Could you, if you would, cast a light on this?”

Twilight’s horn glowed, and a white light appeared at the tip. She tilted her head closer.

The stallion frowned and hunched around the globe. He touched around it, putting down and then retracting his hooves as though it was hot to the touch.

        He pulled away quickly and nodded to Twilight that she didn’t need to continue her spell. She stopped, and he began to rub his head as his face twisted in focus. He played at the air and pointed into empty space with his hooves and his eyes fixated on nothing in particular, and his brow lowered in thought. He stopped to look back at the crystal ball, and then went back to thinking to himself, and looked back at the ball once more before he leaned back in his chair and sighed.

“Mm.” He shook his head.

“Is something wrong?” Twilight asked.

“No, no. Nothing more than usual… It’s not in my policy to lie, Ms. Sparkle, so I’ll be straightforward and tell you that I don’t believe crystal balls and hoof readings to always be terribly accurate. Or at least, my interpretation is that they aren’t,” he said.

Twilight didn’t understand. Why would a fortuneteller tell her that he didn’t believe in his own tactics?

“What do you mean? How come?” Twilight asked.

“A simple reason: every reading reveals the same very vague fate. You, like just about everypony else, are, according to your hooves and projections through the crystal ball, destined for great changes.”

Twilight frowned. “That can’t be right, my hoofprint is totally unique.”

“Oh, of course it is, and your refractions through the crystal ball are as well, but according to all of the techniques I’ve studied and compiled, once all of the connections are made, all of the points plotted out, the reading is identical,” he replied.

Twilight was confused. “Why are you doing this then? Why are you a fortuneteller if you don’t believe in fortune telling?”

The smile began to return to his face. “Ah, Ms. Sparkle, but I do. You see, I’ve pored over the many conventions and foundations of fortune telling for a great deal of my life, really. Hoof readings, crystal balls, cards, augury, astrology, haruspicy, even –though I assure you I didn’t dabble in that last one myself- and many more, and through all of my research I’ve come to find that many of them are ineffective, leading to the same result without variation if followed to their very science; you see, most don’t, or might push a reading or two and simply invent a fortune. However,” he said, looking down at the book, “through consulting previous studies, identifying similarities in each method, devising a new language, and applying that set of principles to a series of tests, not only have tried and true readings appeared, but revelations about one’s life; some that no individual is aware of until these revelations are placed before them! Imagine what there is to be found for you! What secrets might be revealed about you and your life? What awesome and terrific forces are at play? How will your life change according to what we find? The prospects are terrifying and promising all at once, and only this book will reveal it all!”

Thanks in part to the fact that the stallion was starting to sound a little crazy, his proposition sounded just the tiniest bit unnerving to Twilight, who inched away from the table as the stallion bent back over the book. His speech was laced with intense interest that didn’t just make Twilight nervous, it made her begin to actually believe him. Not to mention his remark about her life changing; she couldn’t imagine how that could be good. She had everything she needed already in Ponyville: friends, books, a home, and she still was never very far from Celestia or her brother in Canterlot.

However…

        It was hard to turn down the chance to learn something new or uncover secrets. After all, a student was meant to find answers, and if there were questions that she didn’t even know existed, how was she supposed to answer them? If there might be lessons that Twilight could learn about herself and walk away from this carriage with, then it was her duty to do so.

        Her attention came back to the stallion’s book and was once more filled with doubt.

        Twilight shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I don’t know.”

        “It won’t take long.”

        Twilight frowned.

        Pure Plains took his hooves off of the book and put them together. “The first thing you should do is admit to yourself that it sounds interesting.”

        Twilight couldn’t argue with that. She even agreed with him. Wholeheartedly, in fact. Duty and studies aside, Twilight understood that her own curiosity would not let her leave this wagon until she went through with whatever tests this stallion had. Besides, despite his fanfare, this stallion was still a fairgrounds fortuneteller who could always be a simple showman, and Twilight let her fears rest with that fact.

        She nodded. “Okay.”

        “Perfect! I knew you of all would see reason!” He cupped the candle on the table in one hoof and slid it to the center. “Now,” he flipped a couple of pages, “we’ll start with the flame.” He plucked the melting candle from its stand, on top of which he placed a fresh one that he pulled from his jacket.

        “Take this,” he offered the lit candle, “and light the new one, please.”

        Twilight’s magic gripped the green wax and brought the flickering end of it towards the peak of the other candle, where the flame was caught. Wax began to peel away from the precipice and roll down as the fire worked its way down the wick.

        The stallion cast his eyes down towards the page in front of him, looking up every now and again, and from where Twilight was sitting, all she could see of the parchment looked to be inscribed with overlapping circles.

        The stallion nodded to himself and began to rise from his seat and circle the table, still referring to his book. “Watch the smoke, Ms. Sparkle. I must do this at just the right moment, from the right direction, and what you see will only be there for a fleeting moment.”

        With that, a hoof came down on the candle, and smoke, more smoke than normal, curled out from beneath the obstruction. It poured around the stallion’s hoof and rose into the space above, lit by the lamps arranged throughout the carriage.

“The smoke,” Twilight said, “it made wings; what does that mean?”

        The stallion pulled away his hoof. “Wings?” He cleared his throat. “Wings could mean a great many things. Let’s try some other methods and make sure it wasn’t a fluke, shall we?”

        The following processes delivered similar results; readings involving dust scattered over the table and observing the shape of a trickle of water from a glass yielded curiously wing-like formations that lingered before they were blown away or dried up and evaporated.

        “Clearly not by chance,” the stallion stated with satisfaction. “These wings suggest something in your future, Ms. Sparkle. It could be figurative freedom, an elevation of some sort, a flight of sorts. Or of course, it could always mean literal wings. Though I’m not sure how that might figure into things.”

        “When do you think that will happen?” Twilight asked.

        The stallion shook his head. “There’s no way of knowing for sure. Whatever it represents could happen tomorrow, or years from now. The only thing that I can say for sure is that now that you’ve seen this symbol, you’ll know what it means when it happens.”

        “Is there anything else about my future that you can tell me?” Twilight asked.

“Not right now, no,” he returned. “I cannot always guarantee that my readings will be thorough, only that they will be true. I haven’t exhausted all of my techniques, of course, as that would take days, but the results that have come up so far lead me to believe that ‘wings’ will be the best we get for now. Now, if we tried again at another point in time, something else would surely come up. It’s just the nature of the craft.”

Twilight wasn’t completely content with that answer, but she didn’t push it. The stallion was wrapped up in glaring at his book again anyway. He placed his left foreleg down before her and, when he lifted it, the stack of cards that had been splayed out earlier were stacked tidily beneath. Turning over his hoof, he revealed the two top cards, which he had held onto. A purple square was printed on one, and a red circle on the other.

“Now, I want your answer to be the first thing that comes to mind. Which one of these is home?”

Twilight blinked. “What?”

“The first one that comes to mind,” the stallion returned.

Twilight frowned and brow furrowed in confusion. After thinking about it, she decided to play along. She reached for the purple square.

“Ah, very well,” the stallion said, and intricately placed the two cards on the open book below him. He took up two more, and asked her which was safer, then after that, which of two was closer to her, placing each card down carefully. He repeated the process until the stack was depleted, and then observed the final layout of cards and cross-examined them with the words on the opposite page.

“This will reveal what is important to you in life right now,” he explained.

Twilight knew that though anypony could tell him what was important to him themselves, this was likely a part of the stallion’s routine; a way to gain the belief of the participant.

The stallion smiled. “Friends: that’s what stares back from this reading the most; you’d all go to great lengths for each other. You didn’t always have friends that loved you like the ones you have now. Not until recently, even; but it’s felt like they’ve always been there, hasn’t it?”

Twilight rocked back in her chair, impressed and a tiny bit creeped out by the stallion’s accuracy on that last point. “You got that from your cards?”

He hovered his hoof above the cards. “Knowledge. You thirst to learn. Magic, most of all, but there are other interests in there as well. The desire to improve and redefine your understanding becomes one of your most defining qualities, and a fine one, at that. And here, something else, faith, it seems. You believe in others, in your mentors and friends and the good in things in Equestria.”

Twilight nodded slowly. His tactics were beyond her but his readings were accurate. She accepted now that this stallion may not be simple carnival fare after all.

The stallion held up the first two cards and they repeated the process, this time with different questions, such as which was waiting for her. He then explained that these cards determined what her role was in things, and what at that point in time she was most integral to.

“Family of course comes up, but again, the pattern that I can’t ignore is your circle of friends. They’re here once more, front and center. In addition to that, your teacher can be seen in the cards, as well as your role in your hometown, so Ponyville… ah, and your birth town, and… the whole territory, all of Equestria now.” He laughed to himself. “I suppose I should have expected it to come up one more time today.”

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked. Equestria hadn’t come up in any of her readings, after all.

The question changed the stallion’s expression to one of embarrassment. “Ah, nothing. Forgive me, I shouldn’t have said anything. It was against my policy. Tell me, do these make sense to you like the last set of results?”

Twilight hesitated. She nodded eventually, but made a mental note that she’d find out what the stallion was talking about, one way or another, before she left the trailer tonight.

The stallion cleared his throat again. “Now,” he said, “this test is going to tell us what truly has sway over you and your actions, where the control lies in your life. Again, the first thing that comes to your mind should be your answer.” He shuffled and stacked the cards and took two again, only this time, he flipped them to their other side.

“Which one of these is present?”

The flipped cards were the same, only the square was now white, and the circle black. Twilight pointed to the square.

The stallion nodded. He held up two more cards. “Which one is breathing?”

One card was a green triangle and the other was a red circle. Twilight pointed to the green triangle, the stallion nodded, and he held up two more.

“Which one is following you?”

Twilight wasn’t expecting that question. She looked at the stallion at first like he had made a mistake, but his tense stare indicated that that wasn’t the case.

These two cards were a little different. Every card used in the tests until now had been simple shapes and symbols of typical colors, but the circle on the left had an extra bump on its circumference and was an indigo darker than the blue of the cards Twilight had seen so far, and the square on the right was not only seemingly missing a wedge, but was also an off-white color that had not appeared at all.

She answered, and he picked another two. The questions began getting stranger and the shapes more outlandish and unrecognizable.

“Which is really safe?”

“Which watches you?”

“Which wishes you harm?”

Twilight found herself scratching at her own neck as the test progressed. There was something unnerving and invasive about the questions themselves, but she wouldn’t stop now; she was curious to see what the stallion had to say.

He put the last of the cards down and leaned back. His eyes darted back and forth over it, internalizing the layout before he let out a heavy sigh and rested his head on his foreleg. He turned a couple of pages on the opposite side of the book to check something, but only ended up shaking his head. “It doesn’t make any sense…”

“What? What is it?” Twilight asked.

He frowned. “Usually, Ms. Sparkle, the way this works, is by observing the alignment of the cards from a number of angles in correspondence to the figures placed upon the page with excruciatingly intricate mathematic precision which- ah, ehem, that’s not important. What usually occurs is that the readings provide a concept: friendship, home, country, something of the sort. But as of late concepts aren’t appearing, and if I refer to the language and solve this layout, all I am left with is a triangle, a square, and a circle. Though it isn’t congruent, if I were at least given a symbol of some sort, some meaning could be drawn from it, but such basic shapes…” his eyes narrowed, and without removing them from the book and cards, he drew open a drawer beneath the table, fumbled around in it, and then brought up a number of papers. His eyes widened as he shuffled through. “How could I have not noticed?”

Twilight was thoroughly lost. “Excuse me, Mr. Pure Plains? What are you doing?”

He shook his head. “It’s connected,” he said, and lunged back over the table. He held the parchment in one hoof and started to push around the cards with his other. He started talking, but Twilight figured that it was more to himself than anypony else. “The first one started here, and then the next one, the cards were here; and, yes, so on and so forth, six readings that are identical in result and yet when together they complete- or no, they don’t complete, they-” he stopped, then exhaled quietly. “A… loop? A loop; what could that mean?” he said meekly.

“‘What do you mean a loop?” Twilight asked.

He sat and held out a hoof to try and calm her. “Ah, uh, I can only theorize that whatever is happening is of some sort of significance, otherwise it wouldn’t occur at all. I wouldn’t believe something like this to be chance, of course; not with my methods; something must be amiss here. I don’t know if it was you and your friends, or perhaps where we are at this moment, but something is making this happen, something I’ve never encountered before now; of terrible consequence.”

“You mean my friends came in? And they all had readings like mine?” Twilight pressured.

The stallion’s face screwed up in irritation when he realized that he had leaked that fact. “Ah, well,” he began, and then bobbed his head in self-debate before sighing, “I suppose you already heard. Uh, yes, for the most part, they were similar, but the alignment of your cards and your friends for this last test is what confounds things. Each one is one step ahead of the configuration behind it, and one step behind the one before it. To arrange them in congruence with the readings of one mare after the other would be to simply move the cards around in a circle, none of them changing their rank among the others.”

Twilight shrugged. “Okay, so what’s the matter? It’s just similar readings.”

The stallion gulped. “No, no, no.” He shuffled and leafed through a couple of the papers around the table for an explanation. “It isn’t… something is wrong. Not even the Elements of Harmony would do such a thing, and it isn’t accident. It can’t be. Could it? No, no… the spiral,” he snapped up, “yes, the spiral, there must be something in that, some… but then where would that leave us?” he looked to Twilight as if she had an answer. Before she even thought of responding, he dove back into the papers, “it would… unless of course…” Only his pupils moved, locking onto the mare across the table. “Ms. Sparkle, have you ever seen anything… strange, around Ponyville?”

Twilight almost laughed. “What do you mean by strange? Cotton candy clouds? Crazy magicians bringing in Ursa Minors?”

The stallion waved her words away. “Volcanic activity?”

“Um, no,” Twilight replied.

“Tectonic, then? Earthquakes? Fault lines?” he continued.

“No,” Twilight repeated.

He went on, “sinkholes; cave-ins, noises you can’t explain, things in the sky that aren’t supposed to be there?”

“No, why? What does any of that have to do with fortune telling?” Twilight demanded; she didn’t like the idea of those things happening in Ponyville.

“It’s-“ The stallion never had a chance to finish the sentence. He was too taken off guard by the crystal ball, which at that moment slid to the center of the table by itself.

The stallion stared. Twilight did the same. The crystal ball didn’t move again. A noiseless number of moments crawled by as Twilight’s mind worked out the possibilities. She had seen no magic aura, and the stallion was an earth pony anyway, so it must be a trick of some sort, though Twilight could see no strings. She opened her mouth to ask him how he did it when the stray papers lying about curled and then flattened, before they all shot towards the crystal ball and slid beneath its base.

Twilight’s mouth dried. “Mr. Plains? Was that… you?”

The stallion’s book shut. It tipped, slowly, towards its back cover, and rose like a great monolith being hoisted by a devoted and ancient crowd. It came to a rest as it stood on end, midnight black, like a hole torn in the red of the room.

The stallion rose from his seat, marvel and excitement and fear in his eyes.

“Ms. Sparkle-“

It was dark, and the ringing that comes with silence filled Twilight’s senses. The stallion, Pure Plains, was gone, along with his papers, his books, and his carriage. A dreadful suspicion wracked Twilight in the sudden emptiness, as if the air itself doubted everything; the fortuneteller, the town, Equestria and Celestia, Twilight’s very own knowledge. There was something greater than her there, something that she knew surrounded her, something that she knew she was a part of, but she couldn’t even catch a glimpse of it. So spurred her mind was by whatever floated through the darkness, she hadn’t even yet thought to panic when it pulled her from Ponyville and brought her to wherever she sat now. She began to perceive that the pitch-black world, in which she could see only her own body, began to swirl with purpose. There was a stirring, and something rolled over and before her. Now the whole of the place was moving, she could tell, and the darkness started forming into things recognizable. A single spot appeared apart from the black-grey, a pin of light dropping through the veil, and the smoky shroud lifted up, high above Twilight, drifting to the sky, taking with it, as it seemed, every color from the sheet-white ground it left behind.

So the scene opened and revealed itself to Twilight Sparkle. Her hooves alone touched the virgin snow that stretched far beyond her and grew foggy and melded at the end of her vision with the slow grey of the sky and the solid mountains to one side of her. More pure snow came down, soft, light, fragile, in lilting glides and breathy spirals, touching on Twilight’s pelt or peppering her mane. She breathed a steamy mist into the air that grew hotly and then dissipated and somehow made the whole world emptier. The light that pierced through had been spent on the creation of what existed now and rested behind the heavy heavens of the place so that it all stood dimly and untouched by harsh heat, yet the plane didn’t chill Twilight. Rather, the dull air felt indifferent, neutral to the powers of temperature, as if ice and fire didn’t exist at all. Strange as it all were, familiarity was the sensation that reached Twilight, and it felt for a second as though she might be sitting in her library. She took the sight in but no steps, since there was nothing to move towards; where forests should have clustered in lowlands and scattered up the mountainsides there were no trees, where there should have been the chattering of ponies or creatures there were no voices, where the howl of cold wind should have reached her ears and stung her skin there was nothing, and her senses were rendered as bare as the treeless, voiceless, windless region, in which it appeared, from where she stood, that not even mute stones rested. The dark and heavy clouds didn’t even touch the mountain peaks, and all was still and alone.

When the darkness moved again, Twilight noticed it instantly. The leaden clouds began to slide across the sky, in hundreds of different directions, without the help of any pegasus teams, increasing in speed and urgency with each length they covered. The spectacle, captivating and terrifying in its nature, arrested Twilight’s attention completely, so much so that she stayed rooted in place, facing skyward, until her neck ached, her back ached, and the new smell reached her. As she watched, her nose was flooded swiftly with a scent that, in its suddenness, turned her stomach and nearly brought her to wretch; bitter and coppery, Twilight coughed heavily in its presence, and broke away from the sky to find the source. A myriad of reds, deep and heavy, were splashed across the snow, leaking and crawling towards her. The surface had become marred and pressed since she last saw it by a stampede of prints, some the size of hooves, others as large as manticores, none of which she had seen made, into which the colors seeped and filled as shallow pools. She was too confused to scream, but not so much that she didn’t move as the liquid advanced. She stepped back, and then back again, and again, as the stain crept on. Twilight turned to gallop when she realized that it wouldn’t stop, but tripped as she did so and planted herself in the deep snow. Craning her head, she could only whimper in anticipation as the sinister fluid surged on her position. Twilight couldn’t bring herself to shut her eyes, and watched helplessly as it curled to touch her back hoof with purpose and then, to her surprise, ceased entirely.

Twilight continued to lie on the ground, breathing shortly, watching the newly stagnant dye intently. The world seemed to have stopped once more, and her own panting was the only sound to be heard for a short instant, before another noise joined it. Visually nothing had changed, but the sound of a crackling traveled over the snow, joined by that of flowing, rushing water, and though Twilight braced herself and combed the place as best she could on her back for the source, she wasn’t at all prepared when the ground just beyond her back legs gave way and pushed down, falling below her sight.

Twilight sat in quiet contemplation, debating whether or not she should sit up and look into the crevice that had formed, when the heat touched her. The clouds had broken apart, and from where the needle of light had once peeked into the darkness, the sun now flew, the land exposed before it. In mere seconds, the snow dropped around her, quickly, and the green steeples of grass blades emerged, tiny at first, and then tall as the snow sank below them and into the dirt. Stunned, Twilight rose to her hooves to prepare for more changes. The clouds drifted apart, growing smaller and airier and whiter, and the sky behind them shone a clean blue. The great mountains still stood, and the snow atop them remained there, crowned by a number of clouds that circled and broke around the precipices. And yet, while the view was one out of a typical, fair summer’s day, it felt all at once alien to Twilight, a prospect far more foreign than the wasteland that had stood in its place only minutes before.

The wind returned then, a breeze that, when it stuttered or stopped until the next, made Twilight aware that it had grown actually very hot since the sun appeared. A buzzing came into the air as flies larger than those she was used to zipped around her. She started sweating, and shooing the bugs away, when the wind picked up again, and the red smell drifted back to her.

Tentatively, Twilight looked to where the ground had fallen in and took a few careful steps towards it. A ravine had been carved into the earth, and as she feared, a river of the heavy crimson liquid flowed through it. The smell was overpowering, but Twilight steeled herself and crouched down to look more closely. The scarlet stream was just that, on further inspection, but Twilight’s eyes soon caught, on the shore, a letter that, among a candle, a hammer, and other things, had washed up. She plucked the letter out of the dirt with her magic, only to bring it closer and find it to be an empty envelope. She dropped it, but as she did so she swayed, and saw, across the river, a stack of stone and wood.

Then the wind picked up again, only the cruel scent of the red river was not so bad this time; it seemed weaker, somewhat diffused. The wind died, and then blew once more, and a second smell became clear; sweet and rosy, it confused Twilight and the red smell. She looked down to the river, and the dark red was not quite as dark. Different hues and tints, soft and light, now ran through ravine as well, and as Twilight traced the river’s path, her eyes alighted on a great, blue-green sea at its end. The coppery smell gradually became harder to sense, and softer, until Twilight no longer noticed it.

Twilight turned back to the mountains and found that forests had sprung up from the ground, and the sounds of birds drifted towards her. The sun had since moved from its spot at the peak of the sky and was inching towards the horizon just quickly enough to be seen by the naked eye, although while Twilight watched it, she found a shade cast over her. Beside her now stood a small house of rock and lumber, and casting her eyes back over the stream she found another where the pile of materials had been. Something crept beneath her hooves, and she looked down to find a simple road had formed. Now she looked up, and there were more houses, but the one beside her was gone, it seemed, until her eyes caught the miracle of it all, the stone and timber refitting and rearranging itself, flying through the air with the swiftness and grace and purpose of honeybees, stacking, interlocking, reforming into a store, and then a clinic, and then a cafe, and then a meeting hall. The rest of the structures began to do the same, and the ground beneath Twilight lurched as a cobblestone road built itself and stretched forward, as though being unrolled or laid down by the stroke of a paintbrush, and carried her with it. The buildings disassembled, then grew in size, then again, then again. Shops became marketplaces, tree houses became towers, houses became manors. They rebuilt dozens of times, higher, further; a single building became a settlement, then a village, then a town, then a city.  Halls grew into palaces, stages into theaters, docks into harbors. As Twilight glided forward on the road, the buildings began to change. As they continued to reach higher and higher, a number of thin towers rose and puffed out smoke, and the wood began to disappear. Stone in the form of little red rectangles and smooth, white walls pushed everything to great and untold heights, and Twilight marveled as story built on top of story, towering fifty, then a hundred, then two hundred feet high. The rocks of the road beneath her shrunk and smoothed, pushing her forward still, as great beams now joined the calamity of pieces shooting through the air and planting themselves alongside one another, or laid down in a railway across the road. As everything grew taller still, panes of glimmering glass grew greater and streamed down the sides of the great towers, shrouding the skeletons of some solely with their shining visage. Roads sailed over one another and between the spires, as the one Twilight stood upon brought her finally to the edge of the sea. Behind her now stood a fortress-like entity, a monumental and utterly unseen evolution of what Twilight knew to be possible, unspeakable and unassailable in its sheer enormity and complexity; great grey or tan or mirror-like pillars that jutted up into the heavens, high above the world about them, bound together by rail and road and bridge, and the sun hung over the water.

The sky was blurred with the same hues as the river; a sanguine canvas above all, and though the sun looked like it might dip below the crest of the glittering water at any moment, it refused to set on Twilight or the world she stood among, and chose instead to say where it was: just beyond the reach of the earth, basking creation in its most brilliant and honest glow, putting its own color upon the surface of things, and forcing dark shadows out of the opposite end. One half of the dome of the sky burned and the other faded into the blue nature of the universe, but both stood still for Twilight as she stepped off of the street and onto the sandy shore to see the sunset better and put her hooves in the water.

        A flash of light blinded her, and for split second all of her senses were lost, until she came to and found herself back in the dim carriage, sitting across from the fortuneteller.

        The shelf behind the stallion was empty, and the table between the two ponies filled with the trinkets it had held. They were arranged carefully, neatly, in perfect rows.

        The stallion was smiling knowingly, like he had just been told a secret he had been waiting his whole life for. “Ms. Sparkle, you saw something, didn’t you?”

        Twilight’s eyes felt like they were rolling in her head, but she managed to nod.

        He nodded back. “Tell nobody what it was.”

        Twilight frowned. “What?”

        He only continued to smile. “I knew it was a very fragile thing, Ms. Sparkle, but now I understand it; truly, fully.”

        The stallion was making no sense to Twilight, but whatever dream she had just had left her with an incredible headache. She looked at the table, though, and had to ask the question: “how did those get there?”

        “You,” the stallion said. “In your trance, you moved each and every one down by hoof, and dropped them in place, perfectly.”

        “In my trance?” Twilight asked.

        “Somnambulism. Dreamwalking,” the stallion replied.

        It seemed strange, and she had never had a history of sleepwalking before, but the unusual and very real-feeling dream, along with the head pain, led Twilight to consider that it might be the truth. She rested a foreleg on the table and noticed something. Three of the charms had not been placed with the others, but instead stood off, away from the group, before her.

        An sphere, a cube, and a pyramid.

        Twilight wondered at them, and the stallion spoke up. “You handled those the most carefully, and spent the most time lining them up.”

        Twilight looked up. “What do they mean?”

        The stallion stood, and moved over to Twilight’s side of the table. He bent to get a closer look.

        “I’m not sure anymore.”

        He reached out a hoof and placed it on the crystal ball, which stood between the three trinkets and the rest of them. “But this, this I now know is the world as we know it.”

        “The world?” Twilight asked.

        “What does that mean?” the stallion replied.

        Twilight nodded.

        “It means that something out in it, something that must be magnificent, beyond imagination, infinite, put these, these shapes, in which no doubt some sort of indescribable power resides, before you,” the stallion said.

        Twilight could only think to ask: “Why?”

        The stallion shrugged. “It must be waiting for you.”