A New Sun

Chapters

Conversation Two
Conversation Three
Conversation Four
Conversation Six
Conversation Seven, Followed by an Aside
Conversation Eight
Conversation Nine
Conversation Ten
Conversation Eleven, with Monologic Interlude
Conversation Twelve
Conversation Thirteen
Conversation Fourteen
Conversation Fifteen
Conversation Sixteen
Conversation Seventeen
Conversation Eighteen
Conversation Nineteen
Conversation Twenty
Conversation Twenty-One
Conversation Twenty-Three
Conversation Twenty-Four
Conversation Twenty-Five
Conversation Twenty-Six, with Interview
Conversation One
Conversation Five
Conversation Twenty-Two

Conversation Two

Princess Celestia stood groggily in more or less the center of Mag's kitchen. Mag was relieved to see that Celestia could get bedhead, though she wondered how that worked, exactly. Yes, she'd ridden on Celestia's back and could theoretically have taken the opportunity to run her fingers through her mane for the sake of science, but she'd been preoccupied.

“I don't know how you like your coffee, so I put a bit of milk in yours.”

Celestia floated the mug of coffee out of Mag's grip. “Thank you.”

Mag poured herself a cup of coffee as well, black, and sipped at it. “The toilet and shower are through the door across from the living room. You know what a shower is, right?”

“I'm familiar with the idea, yes,” said Celestia.

“Ooh, you're sarcastic in the morning. Are you hungry?”

Celestia took a hearty gulp of her coffee and stood still for a moment with her eyes closed. Then she said, “I beg your pardon. Yes, I'm hungry. How is the local pine? It smells a bit piquant for a morning meal, but perhaps something bracing would help.” Celestia looked out the kitchen window. “Oh. It snowed.”

“You eat pine?”

Celestia scratched her chin. “Frozen pine really does sound like a bit much, now that you mention it. But I take it you don't eat pine, frozen or otherwise.”

“Never tried it,” said Mag. “I doubt I can digest it. I have some leftover SpagettiOs I was planning to get rid of, but I can make a can of chicken noodle.”

“What are SpagettiOs?” said Celestia.

“Pasta in tomato soup, basically,” said Mag.

“And what is 'chicken noodle?'”

Mag pinched the bridge of her nose. “Right, I should have thought of that. Listen, my species is omnivorous. I'm guessing you aren't. Is that all right?”

“So long as your prey or herd animals are treated with dignity and as much kindness as is reasonable, yes,” said Celestia.

Mag cleared her throat. “Um. Sure. Basically.”

There was an uncomfortable pause. “I see,” said Celestia. “I'd prefer not to know the details, but if I find myself addressing your United Nations, I may have a few polite observations to make.”

“No chicken noodle for you, then. Got it.” Mag opened her cupboard and found it to be mostly empty. “Problem is, I don't have anything else. Maybe I should go to the grocery store. How about this: describe a complete meal for a typical horse princess and I'll see what I can do.”

“You mean pony princess, but you're very generous.” Celestia drained what was left in her mug. “Let me see if I remember the human diet enough to predict the contents of its marketplaces—yes, I think so. Would you like to share a breakfast of bread, olives and wine?”

“How European,” said Mag.

“Where is Europea?”

“Europe? Up and to the right across the ocean, on American maps at least.” Mag closed her cupboard door. “Yeah, sounds decent. I'll be back in about 45 minutes.”

“If I may offer an alternate suggestion,” said Celestia, placing her mug in the sink, “you could wait 10 minutes while I bathe and then I could come with you. I'd like to see how your world has changed since I last visited.”

“Is that a good idea? You're a lot to take, you know. There's also the fact that you're alien royalty, and look the part.”

Celestia's horn shimmered. She blurred around the edges and turned into a human.

Now she was a willowy woman with dark black skin and delicate features, wearing some kind of cream dress that would have looked more in place on the streets of ancient Greece, or at least Disney's Hercules. Her hair was a mess of tight, unruly black curls.

Mag stared at her. “I have questions.”

“I bet I have more questions than you,” said Celestia. “Let's discuss it after I take a shower.” She nodded to Mag and walked out.

“Wait,” said Mag. “You can't wear that.”

Celestia poked her head back through the kitchen doorframe. “Why not?”

“One, it's like 20 degrees out and your outfit has short sleeves. Two, people stopped dressing like that 2,000 years ago.”

“I don't get cold and I'm used to standing out, but I have no objections to blending in,” said Celestia. “If you give me an example of modern winter dress I can change the glamour to suit.”

“I'll google around while you take a shower,” said Mag.

“I'm going to do it quickly so I can find out what on earth it means to 'google around.'”

***

Eleven minutes later, Mag caught the smell of her own shampoo as Celestia peered over her shoulder.

“Is this device called a google?” said Celestia. She'd changed back to her normal appearance. She was also completely dry in spite of the fact that Mag had forgotten to give her a towel or tell her where they were.

“It's called a computer.” Mag pointed at the tower by her foot. “That's the part doing all the work.” She gestured at the screen. “This shows the work, and these two things down here let me control it all.” She pointed at the metal shelf over her bed. “The black box up there is the router. That receives the internet signal and sends it over to the computer tower down here, and the tower sends...” Mag happened to glance at Celestia and trailed off.

“It's complicated,” Mag summed up.

“If I asked for more details, would I understand the answer?” said Celestia.

Mag snorted. “I hope you don't ask, because you've just heard everything I know.”

“Human invention has come far,” said Celestia. “I can feel the signal that travels from the router to the tower, but I can't read the code. The tower decodes this signal, then?”

“Yeah,” said Mag. “Hey, are you saying you've been to Earth before?”

“Yes, a long time ago.”

“How long ago?”

Celestia thought about it. “Well, it was just a day trip, so I don't think I could say for sure, but I recall much discussion in the city forum on the recent Roman conquest over the city of Carthage.”

Mag typed “roman conquenst of Carthage” into the address bar. Celestia watched her fingers with fascination as she did so. Mag pointed at the screen.

Celestia smiled. “Ah, I see. It says 'Google' at the top left. You've just 'googled' something.” Her eyes traveled down the page. “And I see it corrected your spelling without being asked. That's not entirely polite.”

Mag shrugged. “It does it automatically. It's not trying to be rude; it's just a computer.”

Celestia looked back and forth between the screen, the tower, the keyboard, the router and Mag. “Let me see if I'm following you. Together these objects form an encyclopedia and a dictionary operating by immensely complex, mysterious means, and you have nothing to say in its favor but 'It's just a computer.' Are miracles so commonplace in your life that you've lost interest in them, or are you trying to impress me by pretending to be bored with the wonders of your world?”

“Probably both,” said Mag.

“And it receives this information through the air in your house, emitted from an equally inscrutable black box sitting calmly on a shelf in your bedroom.”

“That's right,” said Mag.

Celestia sighed. “And apparently it can also display human winter fashions.”

“Well, according to this, you're at least 2,200 years old, so I guess we're even,” said Mag.

“2,200 years,” mused Celestia. “Yes, I suppose it's been a while.”

“How old are you?” said Mag.

“Old enough that your question has less meaning than you think, but I would call myself young,” said Celestia.

“Compared to what? Continents?”

“Well, worlds,” said Celestia. “I am as old as Equis, and Equis died young.”

Celestia sat down on the floor and stared at her hooves, and neither she nor Mag said anything for a while. Mag performed a Google image search of winter fashion and browsed for a few minutes. After a while, Celestia looked up and watched the screen beside her.

“These all look terrible,” Mag finally said.

“Do you think so? I think they're all very elegant. Look there.” She pointed with a hoof at one model wearing a white long coat and matching knitted cap.

“She looks like a tube,” said Mag.

“But an elegant tube,” said Celestia. “I'm going to try it.” She stepped away from Mag's chair and changed once again into a tall black woman, now wearing the long coat and cap. Celestia twirled, stumbled, and caught herself.

Mag looked her up and down. “Well, fine, that's not bad, but you still need shoes, socks, pants, a shirt and a purse. Let me look them up. Also, don't fall over.”

“Human legs are deceptively complicated,” said Celestia.

Shoes turned out to be more difficult. Celestia quickly found a boot style she liked, but it had high heels, which she couldn't manage to take two steps in, and the uppers didn't fit properly when she changed the soles into flats. Eventually, Mag managed to find a similar boot online without the heels. Socks were easy. Celestia's shirt mostly wouldn't be visible under the coat, so Mag just pointed out a simple cinnamon top with long sleeves.

The pants were a sticking point.

“I think you're joking,” said Celestia.

“Not in the the slightest,” said Mag.

Celestia crinkled her brow at the computer screen. “No, I'm fairly certain you're joking.”

“Do I strike you as a person who tells jokes, Your Majesty?”

“I would rather you called me 'Celestia,' under the circumstances. And I am a politician—I know a poker face when I see one.”

“But I would never lie to a unicorn,” said Mag. “What's the problem? Is it the color?”

“It's a bit bright, yes,” said Celestia.

“Oh, I'm sure you could change it. Personally, I think they'd look good in a dark shade of plum.”

“I could do that,” said Celestia.

“Good, I'm glad we worked that out together.” Mag rotated her computer chair to face Celestia and folded her arms. “Well?”

“No, I think we'll keep looking for more pants,” said Celestia.

“Is it the cut?”

“No,” said Celestia.

“Does the fabric look uncomfortable?”

“I wouldn't say so, no,” said Celestia.

Mag spread her hands. “Then what could possibly be the problem?”

“The fact that the pants say 'juicy' across the back in sequined bubble letters,” said Celestia.

“If the sequins look scratchy, you could always replace them with glitter,” said Mag.

“I think I'll just wear the same bottoms you're wearing,” said Celestia.

“Jeans? With that coat?” scoffed Mag.

“Well, yes, unless you have a third idea,” said Celestia.

“Jeans are out of the question,” said Mag. “The back pockets would get in the way of butt words, and I wouldn't dream of sending someone outside without butt words to go with such a lovely coat.”

Celestia folded her arms to mirror Mag's. “Do you have pants that say 'juicy' on the back?”

“Tons,” said Mag. “Piles of them.”

“Show me.”

“I'm already dressed for the day and I don't want to get up. Here, we'll compromise. How do you feel about leopard print?”

Celestia rolled her eyes. A pair of slim black jeans popped into existence between her boots and coat.

“Boring,” said Mag. “Okay, well, I already found your purse. A purse is a little bag for carrying things in, by the way, and most women have one when they go shopping.”

“I know; we have purses in Equestria,” said Celestia, “but I don't think I can imitate that. It doesn't correspond to any part of my real form.”

“Oh, is that how it works? Well, it's not compulsory.”

Celestia glanced at the screen one more time. “Is your purse a plush shark as well?”

“Nah, it's just this,” said Mag, pulling her gray cloth handbag toward her from the other end of the desk. “Let me get some shoes on and we'll go. Of course, the upshot of all this is that you're horribly overdressed for a grocery store run.”

***

The clouds had all gone away before dawn and now the sky was a solid cobalt blue. It hadn't snowed more than a couple of inches and now it was all turning to dirty slush. It would be a cold walk to the store. Mag walked with her hands in her jacket pockets and her eyes on the ground in front of her, watching for ice. Celestia looked at everything else; the trees, the asphalt of the road they walked alongside, the fog of her breath, the guard rail, a passing bird. She walked with her thin, ungloved hands folded in front of her.

“I found an unopened pack of Marlboros with a lighter sitting on top outside of a liquor store when I was 17, ran off with it, smoked my way through it over the course of the month, bought another when I turned 18, and made a habit out of it.” She absentmindedly fiddled with her jacket pocket. It had been a while since her last cigarette. Did she still hate menthol more than she needed a smoke? Yes, still.

“Very well,” said Celestia. “Your turn.”

"Hm," said Mag. “What are the limits on the shapeshifting?”

“Let's see. I can only hold it for a couple of hours at most, and it's technically not so much a change in shape as it is a form of illusion that fools both sapient creatures and inanimate objects. It doesn't work on animals, and the rare person will suspect me of something without knowing why.”

“You made that face yourself?”

“In a way,” said Celestia, fiddling with her nose. “I picked the dark skin so as to look foreign, which would help me talk my way out of social mishaps. Other than that, the shape is based on my true self. For instance, I am tall with a narrow face, so my disguise is tall with a narrow face. This is made of cartilage, yes?”

This sounded promising. “Yes. But if you can change the color and the clothes then you can change anything about yourself, right?”

“I haven't experimented much and I suspect there are limitations I'm not yet aware of, but possibly,” said Celestia. “I'll try something right now.” She shifted again.

“Whoa, check for witnesses first,” said Mag, looking over her shoulder.

“I'll be revealing my nature to your species sooner or later, you know.” Celestia's voice had changed. She stopped and looked Mag in the eye, smiling faintly. Now she looked more or less like Mag—but taller, and with a narrower face. Her skin was also darker than Mag's, with higher cheekbones and softer eyes.

“Huh,” said Mag.

“You don't look as surprised as I'd hoped. Did it not work?” said Celestia.

“Kinda,” said Mag. “You look more like me, but a bit different. Prettier, for one.”

“Oh, Mag, you're already as beautiful as you can be, which is to say very much so,” said Celestia, laying a hand on her shoulder.

Mag rolled her eyes. “Thanks, mom, but you're laying it on a little thick.”

Celestia gave her an unsatisfied look and changed back to her earlier human form.

“Your turn,” said Mag.

Celestia thought. “I have one. There's a substance your people seem to use often. Your computer is encased in it, as is the device that made coffee, and your jacket seems to be woven out of it. What is it?”

“Oh, plastic?”

“Say again?”

“It's called 'plastic,'” said Mag. “It's made out of petroleum, I think. We drill oil out of the ground and do something to it, and then it changes to plastic. It can be any color including clear, it can be soft or hard, water doesn't hurt it, and I think it's really cheap to make things out of. You're going to see it all over the place.”

“Doubtless named for its malleability. Fascinating,” said Celestia. “Your turn.”

“Yeah, I've got one,” said Mag immediately. “Do your subjects all look like you? Because I don't know if I could handle that, to be honest.”

“Not quite like me,” said Celestia. “For instance, most ponies are the height of my withers, or your navel. I could sketch a few of my friends if you liked.”

“Yeah, I'll want to see that,” said Mag.

“My sister, of course, looks a bit more like me. I'll sketch her as well.”

“Your sister?”

“Mm-hm. Princess Luna,” said Celestia.

“What is she like?”

Celestia touched Mag's shoulder again. “You know, Mag, I really appreciate that you're referring to the people of my world in the present tense.”

“You'll see them again,” said Mag.

“Thank you,” said Celestia quietly.

“But really, what is your sister like?”

The road bent to the left. The downward grade leveled off.

“How to describe my sister,” Celestia said. “We rule together, I the day and she the night. Physically, she is taller than our subjects but shorter than I. The tip of her horn comes up to the top of my head. Her coat is a dark blue and her cutie mark is of the moon—on one flank it waxes, and on the other it wanes. She walks the dreams of our subjects, offering guidance and comfort where she can, and where she can't help, she stays by their side in some capacity so they don't have to be alone. Luna also raises and lowers the moon.”

“What do you mean, raise and lower the moon?” said Mag.

“Just that,” said Celestia. “She uses her magic to move the moon along its correct path.”

Mag stopped and faced Celestia. “What.”

Celestia stopped as well. “Is something the matter?”

“You mean that literally. Your sister moves the moon around. How big is the moon? Is it small or something?”

“I couldn't give you the exact dimensions, but during my... tenure as the moon's custodian,” and for a moment a haunted, faraway look flitted across Celestia's face, “I judged our moon to be about 2,000 miles in diameter and eight quintillion tons in weight, where a mile is 5,280 feet and a ton is 2,000 pounds, a foot is this distance,” she held her hands a foot apart, “and a pound is... well, it's a bit less than one twelfth of a gallon of water, and a gallon is 231 cubic inches, an inch being one twelfth of a foot. Is something the matter?”

“So you two can move moons around. Eight bazillion tons, 2,000 miles across, no big deal.”

“You seem uncomfortable again,” said Celestia.

“Sorry, but that's terrifying. I trust you, but, uh, maybe you should gloss over that one when you're talking to the world leaders.” Mag shook her head and went back to walking. “You can move the moon,” she muttered. “The actual moon.”

“And the sun, which is 866,738 miles across,” said Celestia.

“Oh come on!” said Mag, throwing her hands up and walking faster.

Celestia walked more briskly for a moment to catch up. “I suppose I have my next question, then. How do your sun and moon move? Do you humans have some sort of device? I wouldn't be surprised, considering your people's immense inventiveness and, if I may say so, what seems to be a tendency to hubris.”

“The moon orbits us and we orbit the sun,” said Mag.

“You orbit the sun? How strange. But what are the motive forces?”

“Gravity,” said Mag. She was no astronomer, but she knew the basics.

“I don't quite follow,” said Celestia. She stopped. “One moment,” said Celestia, and closed her eyes. Her eyebrows lifted steadily higher over the next few seconds. “Your planet is repeatedly almost falling into the sun, and your moon is falling to Earth?”

“I guess,” said Mag.

“And no part of this fills you with existential dread,” said Celestia.

“Nah,” said Mag.

“But surely that plays havoc with your climate.”

“Nope, it just makes winter and summer.”

“The seasons work autonomously as well.”

“Yours don't?”

“No, we do it ourselves. Everyone helps. The pegasi influence the effects of the sun by moving the clouds and guide the migrations of birds, while the unicorns and earth ponies handle everything else closer to the ground, such as clearing snow or tucking in the animals that hibernate.”

“Okay, your world is adorable,” said Mag. “It's also cool that you've got pegasi. But what's an earth pony?”

“Is that your question?”

“No, that's an interjection,” said Mag.

“I find it interesting that you've heard of unicorns and pegasi,” said Celestia. “An earth pony has neither wings nor horn, but is gifted with talents relating to life and growth.”

“Cool,” said Mag.

“Your turn.”

Mag hesitated. She'd have to broach this one tactfully, and tact had never been her strong suit. She just wasn't good at being considerate. The vocabulary of her social skills consisted of blunt honesty, silence, and occasionally lying like a rug; telling the truth in a kind way was probably the best way to get through life, she had to admit, but she was neither kind nor honest by nature. There was a reason she lived alone.

Oh, well. “What happened to your world?”

Celestia gave a desolate smile. “I should tell you as much as I can for the sake of the mission, I suppose." She gathered herself, then began her story. "It was very abrupt. I was squeezing lemon juice into a mug of tea in the evening after a long day of meetings, every single one of them regarding a nicety of the most recent minotaur-griffin trade agreement and its impact on cacao seed prices—which is more interesting than it sounds, I promise you—”

“Minotaurs and griffins. Of course.”

“Hush, please,” said Celestia. “Yes, minotaurs and griffins. We can discuss them some other time. Now, as I said, it was abrupt. It began with a terrible wrenching sensation. I looked out the window and saw the moon fade away. The torches dimmed and went out. I set down my tea and went out to the balcony, and I saw all the lights of Canterlot flicker and die. The wind slowed and stopped. The usual susurrus of my living city went silent. I heard a crackling sound from inside, and saw that my tea had frozen over.

“The stars went out one by one and I had to use my magic to feel the world around me. I felt the stone of the walls and floors go smooth and lose their texture, and as they did my carpet sank into the floor. The walls dissolved into mounds, like sand. I tried to shine a light to see, but the only thing left was flat, uninflected gray, and the balcony overlooked nothing but black. The only thing left was a mirror. I shined my light brighter, bright enough to see for miles and blind anypony who might look at me, hoping someone, somewhere would see. I heard no one. There was nothing left, only gray floor, a balcony, the black, great piles of sand—and mirrors.

“The mirrors had survived, standing in place where they used to lean or hang from walls, sometimes even in midair above a pile of sand, and that's when I worked out what had happened. Reflections are the edges of worlds, you see. A healthy world sees itself, is self aware in a manner of speaking. When you look at a mirror, at the edge of the world, you should see nothing but the world reflected back on itself. A world is a seamless whole where every edge simply loops back around like a chain with its two ends connected, or perhaps like the inside of a sphere. Do you understand?”

“Honestly? No,” said Mag.

“It's all rather abstract,” said Celestia. “Suffice to say a mirror should reflect the world, barring a magical effect of some kind, and the mirror of my bedroom did not. It had turned into a frame of solid black, just like the view from my balcony. My world was dying. It could mean nothing else.

“I took off from the balcony and searched for survivors. I found none, only silence and emptiness. I didn't even find the ground; the dark simply went down and down, forever so far as I know. I looked back and saw that my castle had gone, but I could still see the mirrors, now standing on nothing. Then I noticed that gravity and air had disappeared along with everything else. There was nothing left but mirrors, empty space, and me.

“I have no words to describe how I felt. I couldn't speak, couldn't weep. I perched on the frame of a mirror and sat still like a gargoyle. Mag, did you know there is no limit to how good or bad a person can feel? Every century I discover a new height of happiness I had never seen before, and when I stood there at that point and looked at the last night of my world, I found a depth of grief that...” she faltered. “In my life I have lost many loved ones. I carry the memory of...”

Celestia went silent. For the third time in 24 hours, Mag floundered for something to say and found nothing.

“I was there for some time,” said Celestia at last. “Then I thought about it. I still lived. Why? Equis is all that I am, but it had gone dark and I'm still here. Looking after my world is my entire purpose. If it dies then I am nothing, in the most literal possible sense. Therefore there was some irregularity, and, anyway, surely the death of a world is more gradual than that. I decided that, while I lived, so did Equis in some manner. Perhaps I really am all that's left. Perhaps my loved ones will live on in my heart and memories and nowhere else. But I believe there is some possibility that I can salvage something of it, and I will not accept its loss until I've explored every possible remedy. There are unknown quantities at work here that must be examined. I can ask questions. And, once I've learned what happened, I will bring all the resources of a goddess to bear.”

Celestia spoke calmly, without bravado. Since this morning Mag had noticed it was easier to be around her, maybe because Mag was acclimating to Celestia's presence, maybe because Celestia was acclimating to Earth, but now that same numinous weight was back, crushing, suffocating.

“What do you call a fish with no eyes?” Mag choked out.

Celestia blinked. “I don't—”

“Fsh,” said Mag. “What kind of tea is hard to swallow?”

“Th—”

“Reali-tea. What's the difference between you riding a bicycle in a ballgown and me riding a tricycle in shorts and a t-shirt? A-ttire. Why did the scarecrow get promoted? Bec—”

“Because she was outstanding in her field,” said Celestia.

Mag took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and let it out. “Right. Take note: bad jokes help with that thing you do.”

The corner of Celestia's mouth twitched. “Duly noted. Well done.”

“Yeah, that was clever of me. Hey, look. It's the big wooden bear. We're in town.”

Celestia looked up at the bear. It stood nearly as tall as the pine trees littered through town. Mag had no idea where it had come from or who had made it.

“I like this bear,” said Celestia. “Does it serve a purpose, or is it there for the sake of art?”

“I think it's just kind of there,” said Mag.

“Well then it's doing an excellent job,” said Celestia. She smiled up at it and then at Mag, and Mag wondered how real the smile was.

Author's Note

The goal is at least 2500ish words every week. Weekly deadline for now is Tuesday night, but I may change it to Fridays or something, depending on how things go when classes start.

Conversation Three

The local grocery store wasn't much bigger than where Mag worked. It carried fresh fruits and vegetables, canned goods, milk, eggs, and other basic food staples, along with junk food, cheap alcohol, cigarettes, candy, chewing tobacco, and an aisle in the back devoted to inedibles, mostly camping gear and cleaning products.

Mag walked in. “I am starving and I need a smoke. Let's just eat on the curb.”

Celestia followed, shutting the door behind her. “Do you walk to this store often?”

“No, only when I fly home on a magical pony queen and leave my car at work like a moron.” Mag pulled a basket from the stack, and put her purse inside it. “Now then. Shopping list: olives. Wine. Bread. Cigarettes. You get those, and I guess I'll get food for the week.”

Celestia nodded and took her own basket.

Mag had never shopped vegetarian before. Perhaps it was the size of the store, but vegetarian meals seemed to require a certain amount of actual cooking, rather than microwaves. You could nuke beans and the like, yes, but pasta and rice required work, and Mag normally preferred to save that sort of thing for special occasions. She supposed visiting royalty counted as a special occasion. But there was no vegetarian spaghetti sauce. She wouldn't have to make her own, would she? Mag pulled out her phone to look up recipes, feeling unpleasantly domestic. Surely there were simple sauce recipes.

Mag tapped the first recipe she saw that said “fast” in the title and frowned. What on earth was a shallot?

She kept searching until she found something reasonable, at least in comparison to the others, which all seemed to involve lots of preparation time, arcane ingredients, or both. Bottle of oil, jar of garlic, one onion, can of tomatoes, salt, pepper, Italian spices, bag of hard pasta. She grabbed another pot as well, as it appeared you couldn't cook elaborate meals with only one unless you wanted to cook each component of the meal one at a time.

She was just reading the back of a can of all-bean chili when Mag heard Celestia's delicate footsteps behind her.

“Problem?” said Mag.

“Mag,” said Celestia.

“Hold on.”

Celestia waited while Mag finished reading. She put the can back (beef for flavoring) and turned to see Celestia holding up a flashlight.

“Mag, look. A Mag-Light.”

Mag snort-laughed. A startled grunt sounded from the other end of the store and the manager looked around the corner to stare at the two of them. The old man saw Mag's shadow of a smile and stared.

“What?” said Mag.

He broke eye contact, shrugged, and walked away.

She looked at Celestia and saw that she'd raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, Spock?”

“Did he offend you?”

“Not really.”

“But enough that you stared him down,” said Celestia.

“If he'd be less nosy when I'm trying to shop, we'd get along fine.” Mag picked out two cans of pinto beans and walked to the dairy aisle.

Celestia trailed after her. “Has he been a problem before?”

“Not exactly. Although he's asked me questions before, 'What's your name' and all that, and I'm not really up for a conversation after work, you know?”

“I see,” said Celestia.

“I don't really want to carry a thing of milk, so that one can wait until after we get my car. Maybe we can swing by here again. Am I buying that flashlight? I may as well.” Mag plucked it out of Celestia's hands and put it in her basket. She noticed Celestia had nothing in her own basket. She further noticed that Celestia was still giving her a look.

“What?” said Mag.

“When I said 'I see,' I had assumed you'd have something more to say,” said Celestia.

“Like what? And what about the rest of the groceries?”

“Hm?” Celestia glanced down at her basket. “Oh. I apologize; I was distracted. I noticed most of the foods available here are very tightly packaged, perhaps because they must be shipped great distances—I know they must be because many of these products can't be easily grown in this climate. I also noticed how ornate the packaging is, and how each product has enough fine print to resemble a legal document. Most of the packages have elaborate labels on them, all very carefully designed. I was just beginning to consider possible connections between the complexity of human food packaging and the tendency for humans to wear clothes at all times, as if humans were packaging themselves or as if you were clothing your foodstuffs, when I noticed this interesting device with your name on it. Then I brought it to you to see what you'd say.”

“Oh,” said Mag. “Did you see any bread or olives?”

Celestia continued as if she hadn't heard. “You also asked, 'Like what?' This surprised me, as most people, when I say 'I see' in that way, tend to stop whatever they're doing and reconsider their actions.”

“What actions?”

“In this case? Evading smalltalk,” said Celestia.

“Is that seriously a big deal?” Mag headed for the canned goods aisle in search of olives.

“Yes,” said Celestia without elaborating.

Mag found herself getting annoyed. “Smalltalk? Why would I? What's in it for me?”

“You'd like to bargain, then?” Celestia smiled as if she'd won. “Very well. I can't claim to be any great cook, but I've learned to make a few recipes you may enjoy, and I see the ingredients to several of them on these shelves. I'll make one of them tonight if you go and have a civil conversation with the shopkeep.”

A vegetarian dinner made in Mag's kitchen with Mag's things wasn't as appealing as Celestia seemed to believe. Mag wasn't a vegetarian, wasn't wild about people touching her things, and would probably be in the kitchen right alongside Celestia, at first just to hang around awkwardly but, inevitably, to help cook, defeating the purpose of the deal. The only reason Mag didn't immediately refuse was because she didn't actually know how to say “no” to Celestia, and if she did manage to refuse, what then? Celestia might strike up a conversation of her own with the store manager and then draw Mag in anyway—Celestia was wily like that. Or she might let it pass, then be primly angry about it and give Mag the silent treatment. Or she might just leave. Would she be upset enough to leave? She'd only just arrived.

Mag glowered, but handed her basket to Celestia and said, “I'll get cigarettes and wine, and I'll talk to him for a bit. A little bit. You can handle the olives and bread, right?”

“Certainly,” said Celestia. “And Mag? Relax.”

“Come get me if there's a problem,” said Mag, trudging to the register.

“Hi,” she said.

“Good morning,” said the man. “Pall Mall, right?”

“Yeah, and your finest box of wine,” said Mag.

The man laughed. He was pushing 60 and bald as an egg. “Finest box. I like that. Well, I've got Franzia. Is that okay?”

“Sure,” said Mag.

The man palmed a pack of Pall Malls, set it on the glass counter, leaned over, grabbed the box in both hands, and set it next to the pack. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, my friend should be along with some groceries.”

“Hey, you know, earlier, that was the first time I've heard you laugh,” he said.

“It's a grocery store, dude,” said Mag. “Not that funny by nature. Wait. Do people laugh in here a lot?”

“Sometimes,” said the man. “They'll smile, anyway. All I'm saying is, I've never seen you without an annoyed look on your face, and then suddenly you're shopping in the morning with a beautiful woman who can make you laugh.” He gave her a sly look. “I met my husband in this grocery store, you know. It's a charmed place.” Then he looked self conscious. “Not that it's any of my business.”

“Wow, okay. First of all, I know something you don't know,” said Mag.

“What's that?”

“The real answer to that question is hilarious, but for now let's just say she's not my type.”

“Ah, I see. Fair enough.” He scratched his jaw with the heel of his hand and looked embarrassed. “Listen, I don't mean to—”

“Don't worry about it,” said Mag.

Celestia set her basket down next to the box of Franzia. “Good morning! I'm with her.”

“Good morning,” said the manager, clearly relieved. “We were just talking about you.”

“We were?” said Mag.

“Nothing too horrible, I hope,” said Celestia.

“Naw,” said the manager.

“Regardless, introductions are in order. Mag?”

“What?” said Mag.

“Introductions.”

“Sure. Uh, manager guy, what's your name?”

“Jorge,” said the man. “I run this little place. You need anything, I've got the best prices in town—no disrespect meant to any local convenience stores, of course, ha ha ha!”

“Ha ha,” said Mag. “Jorge, this is Celeste. Celeste, this is Jorge. My name is Mag. I'm behind the counter at the convenience store down the road, the one that doesn't sell gas but does have a broken slushy machine.” I have no social skills. I'm actively dying of hunger and I need a cigarette. I will eat you and smoke your bones if you don't let us get out of here soon. “Celeste is...”

Celestia interrupted. “Celeste is short for 'Celestia,' and I represent a foreign nation seeking international aid. Unfortunately I can't tell you much else for political, practical and personal reasons, but I can say I'm a friend of Mag's and I'm currently staying with her.”

Jorge gawked for a moment, closed his mouth with an effort, and turned to Mag. “Well, that wasn't my first guess.”

“Yeah, your first guess was that she was my new girlfriend,” said Mag, watching Celestia's face.

Celestia smiled wryly. “I don't think I'm her type.”

Jorge nodded. “Yeah, she said the same thing.”

Mag pulled her wallet out of her purse, glanced at Celestia's now surprisingly full basket, and put three 20s on the box of wine. Jorge seemed to take the hint and started to manually input prices into the register. Celestia leaned over to study the bills, then noticed the plastic Humane Society donation box, picked it up, read the text, flipped it over and read the back. Jorge stopped to watch her from under his eyelashes.

Celestia sighed, kissed the coin slot, set the box back down and walked out, shutting the door with care.

Jorge handed Mag her change and loaded the cans, tubs, and bottles into paper bags. “That country she says she represents. She's not really a diplomat, right? She has to be in charge.”

“Honestly? Yep,” said Mag. “Don't tell nobody.”

“No one would believe me. What country is she from?”

“Can't tell you and you wouldn't have heard of it anyway. Hey, can I borrow one of these baskets? I had to walk here because I left—”

“Left your car at work,” said Jorge. “Do you want me to drive you two over to your store? It's too cold to be walking.”

The last thing Mag wanted to do at this moment was spend more time with another human being, even one who'd turned out to be more or less inoffensive, but she didn't have any good reason to refuse. Now what?

Mag looked at the door to make sure Celestia wasn't listening in and said, “Celeste wanted to look around town a bit, so I was planning to walk us over to where my car is. That way she can take in the sights.” There. Barely even a lie.

“No? You sure?”

“Yeah, I'm sure.”

“All right, well, good luck and have a nice day. I hope everything works out for your friend.”

“So do I, and thanks,” said Mag. Then she stopped. “Seriously. Thanks.”

“For what?”

“I don't know,” said Mag. “I just felt like saying it.”

“Huh. Well, you're welcome.” Jorge waved. Mag walked out, closed the door behind her, and then realized you were supposed to wave back. She considered going back in to wave but decided not to. She'd barely gotten away.

Celestia was standing in a handicap parking space examining the sign. A nearby homeless man sat against the wall with a bottle in a crumpled paper bag, watching her. Mag maneuvered her basket of groceries to the crook of her arm and fished the receipt out of her change from the twenties, then handed the change to the homeless man along with the half a pack of menthols. She walked up to Celestia and lit a cigarette. She drew deeply and breathed the smoke out slowly, savoring the bite of the tobacco and the way the cold turned her smoke so thick.

She took another slow drag, let it out and said, “So. That kiss you gave the donation box. Did that do anything?”

“Almost nothing,” said Celestia.

“Almost nothing,” said Mag.

“Almost nothing,” confirmed Celestia.

“But not nothing.”

Celestia watched the plume of smoke and said, “You know, I'm increasingly tempted to present myself to your governments immediately. As I examine your world, I become more interested in doing what I can to help.”

“You'd be less dependent on me, at least,” said Mag. “Make a flashy entrance on the world stage and you'd be everyone's darling, at least until you start talking about changing things. I could see them giving you a limo and driver, and a monthly allowance. Not that I mind buying you things. Can I drive your limo?”

“What is a limo?” said Celestia.

“It's a car for rich people. Someone drives you where you want to go while you drink champagne in the back seat.”

Celestia gave Mag an appraising look. “What is your work history?”

Mag took the cigarette out of her mouth and tapped ash into the snow. “Are we being serious?”

“Yes,” said Celestia. “I know little about you, but I'm beginning to suspect I know more than most, and as the local Mag expert I judge you to be a woman of potential. What are your ambitions, Mag?”

“I don't really have any. I just wanted to coast through life, honestly.”

“Many have lived worthwhile lives with no goal but to be happy,” said Celestia.

“Right,” said Mag.

Celestia took Mag's hands. “Mag?”

“Yeah?”

Celestia leaned forward and said, “If you like your life as it is, why are you so unhappy?”

Mag took her hands back with as much tact as she could manage. “Unhappy?”

Celestia let go of Mag's hands but didn't move away. “Yes, I'd say so. I... know people, you see. I understand them. It may be a power given to me for the sake of fulfilling my responsibilities, or maybe it's a skill I've picked up by caring very much for very many people over a very long time. I've spoken with you and listened to the things you've said, and I've to a few conclusions. You are not shaped like my people, and as a human, you think differently and see the world differently than nearly anyone I've ever met. But you have the same look in your eyes that my sister once did, and our mutual friend Jorge wonders why you never laugh, and so do I.” Celestia lifted her chin and her tone grew imperious. “Write a resume. Submit it to me. I need to know more about your work history and existing skills, but I have a job opening and I want you to fill it.”

“Uh, wow,” said Mag. “What's the job? Not limo driving?”

“The human world is endlessly intricate and you understand it. I am also not used to working without help, frankly. I need both a guide and an aide-de-camp. We can put your restlessness to work, and as you work you can think on what you really want out of life.”

“I'd have to quit my other job, of course,” said Mag thoughtfully.

“If you do then my advice is to be polite, give adequate notice, and don't cut ties,” said Celestia.

“Because you won't be here forever and I'll need my old job back?”

“Because it's the proper way to do things,” said Celestia, wagging a finger playfully.

“What's an aide-de-camp?”

“You're asking questions. Good. An aide-de-camp is a personal assistant for a political or military figure. Different aides will have different responsibilities according to whom they assist. In your case, you would keep track of my schedule and contacts, prepare me for social events, and solve all the little problems that could undermine my efforts if not addressed by a competent person. You would arrange for meals, and for appropriate clothes for both of us. You'd maintain cordial working relationships, note the emphasis, with the servants and representatives of the mighty, and you yourself would be my representative when I'm not available. You'd follow me as I go about my day, especially at parties and the like, and take notes on future engagements or any promises I make. You may also have to read my mind sometimes, which is to say anticipating my wishes and acting accordingly. I wouldn't worry about that part, however, as you already do that very well, such as when you knew I would prefer to see more of the town than be taken directly to our next stop.”

Mag flushed. “You caught that, then.”

“I have excellent hearing,” said Celestia.

“So that was all right, then, the thing I said?”

“Arguably,” said Celestia, “but be careful. When my aide speaks, she speaks for me whether she intends to or not. I once had an aide who accidentally started a war because she thought she was speaking off the record, off the clock and purely on her own behalf, when in fact there is no such thing. Don't lie under any circumstances. Don't mislead unless lives are in immediate danger and you are perfectly certain I can't deal with the problem myself.”

Mag raised a finger. “Another question. What if it's a choice between lying and starting a war?”

“Tell the truth, fetch me, and let me talk them out of it.”

“And another. You realize this is the one job in the whole world I'm the least qualified for?”

“Just trust me,” said Celestia.

Celestia was turning out to be a smiler. Mag supposed it was a kind of political defense mechanism. People saw the smile and believed she was in control, that nothing was wrong. This time, Celestia was giving Mag the smile of a stage magician asking her volunteer to lie down in a box.

Mag had always wanted to be sawn in half. “Sure, but only because I'd like to see what a human tailor does when you ask one to fit a pony princess for a pants suit. You did say I'm in charge of wardrobe, right?”

Celestia's smile widened. “We can talk about that later. For now, I need your resume. Oh, and an application for dual citizenship as soon as Equestria is recognized as a sovereign nation, with the help of an attorney if possible. Your country allows this, yes?”

“America? Yeah, I think so. So I'm going to be an Equestrian?”

“America is a graceful name for a country. And yes, if you'd like. It's not completely necessary, but I think it could be very helpful.”

“If this turns into Dances With Wolves then I'm going to go home and stay there. Just saying. Also: I'm hungry and we're doing nothing about it. Let's eat on the curb and see if that homeless guy wants any olives.”

Celestia looked confused. “'Homeless guy?'”

“That guy,” said Mag, pointing. The man was still watching them. “Hey, dude. Want some bread, olives and boxed wine? We'll all have to drink right out of the box without touching the spigot, but we can make it work if we believe in ourselves enough. The other problem, though, is that I don't have a can opener for these olives. Maybe Jorge does. Let me... what? What is it?”

Celestia had grasped Mag's hand, and this time Mag didn't think she could have pried Celestia loose without a crowbar and a gob of lotion. The smile was gone and now Celestia wore a mask of calm. She approached the homeless man, pulling Mag behind her.

“My name is Princess Celestia, regent of Equis.” Her voice didn't shake, but her hand did. “What is your proper title, cousin?”

The homeless man got up. He was easily taller than Celestia, with a craggy face and wiry gray beard.

“Eldest,” he said, in a voice like sharkskin.

Author's Note

This fic is turning out to have so much dialogue that I'm just going to start naming the chapters "Conversation One," "Conversation Two," etc. so people know what they're getting into. This is a talky fic, a very talky fic indeed.

Conversation Four

Celestia gave the eldest her sunniest, gentlest smile. “I'm happy you found me. I had intended to begin searching for you after breakfast, but I could see no simple way to contact you and I've heard nothing of any palace or fortress you might maintain, so I wasn't certain how to go about finding you.”

The eldest returned the smile, or showed his teeth at least. “I'll walk over there,” he pointed at the mouth of an alley about 30 or 40 yards away, “and you two can talk amongst yourselves for as long as you need. Then you'll follow me if you want to discuss what you're doing in my world, and why one of my subjects is following you around like a duckling.”

Then he walked away. Celestia watched him like a cat watching a stranger.

“So,” Mag said.

“Your regent,” said Celestia. She let go of Mag's hand.

Mag massaged her fingers. Celestia had an impressive grip. “So why can't I feel him the way I feel you?”

“You can't feel him because you've always felt him,” said Celestia. “He guided the history of your species, and every single one of you have been influenced by him in countless ways. I don't know his powers or his methods, but I can tell you that, as regent, it is he who decided what it means to be human, what it feels like from day to day.”

The eldest had reached the alley. He leaned against the wall and lit one of the cigarettes Mag had given him, looking as if he was prepared to wait forever.

“Is that right,” Mag said under her breath.

“You've lived your whole life in the shadow of his hand.” Celestia shuddered. “Skies above, his aura. It feels like delirium and cold winds.”

“'Aura.' That's another word for the thing you do? Or you both do, I guess.”

“I think humans can feel my presence in the same way I feel his, yes,” said Celestia. “I wouldn't expect a species without magic to perceive auras, but I suppose encountering a foreign regent must be like finding a patch of snow in the desert, even to a creature who has never touched the aether and doesn't understand what it is she's feeling.”

“Huh. Well, your aura reminds me of Broadway music, or possibly a children's choir, if you were wondering.”

“I know. I've been told it's a bit cloying.” A look of concentration crossed Celestia's face. After some thought, she said, “Two aliens are sitting in a bar. One alien says, “Blorp, bloop, blee noog warble.' The second says, 'Goodness, I think you've had quite enough.”

Mag nodded. “Very corny. Good job. Did it help?”

“No,” said Celestia sourly. She squared her shoulders. “I suppose we'd better just follow him.”

Mag shrugged. “Fine with me. If it makes you feel any better, you're probably just as hard for him to take as he is for you.”

“I would just as soon seem harmless, but I'll keep that in mind,” said Celestia. “And I don't suppose I could convince you to stay behind while I talk with him?”

“Are you kidding?”

“He's an exceedingly dangerous being,” said Celestia. “He smells of madness, and I'm not certain how much value he would attach to an individual subject even if he is sane. I've spoken with regents who would harm one of theirs to make a minor rhetorical point, or because it didn't occur to them not to, or because they were hungry.”

“I'm not going anywhere. If you want to get into politics then this isn't going to be the last dangerous person we talk to, so I may as well get some practice in.” Not waiting for an answer, Mag walked toward the alley.

Celestia caught up. “As you wish. I'll do what I can to protect you. I would suggest you stay silent, but I get the feeling you already have other plans.”

“What gave you that idea?”

“You're wearing your poker face again.”

***

Most of the snow had melted by this time—this was California, after all—but little drifts of dirty snow still lay in certain shadows the morning sun couldn't reach. The eldest's alley was narrow, about six feet wide, so direct light hadn't touched it yet. Snow lined the bottoms of both walls, and the pile of wet trash stuck to the fence at the back of the alley was still frozen.

The eldest glanced at Mag and Celestia and stepped into the alley without looking back, apparently trusting them to follow him. They did.

He led them to the end of the alley and to a metal door to one side. The door had no handle. The eldest laid his hand where the handle would be, flexed his hand, and pulled. There was the sound of wrenching metal and the door opened as if his hand were a magnet. Inside was a flat plane of wood. The eldest shoved it with both hands and it tipped over, revealing itself to be a rotten pressboard bookcase. Behind the bookcase was an empty room lit by a broken window covered in bars. The walls, the floor, and the ceiling were all made of discolored concrete. Five large concrete blocks had been scattered in one corner, each the size of a park bench, and there was a pile of bricks next to the door, possibly an ex-fireplace. The room was otherwise bare, and colder than a meat locker.

The eldest stepped over the bookcase, walked to the corner, and sat on one of the concrete blocks with his back to the wall. “Today,” he rasped, “this room will be my court. We won't be disturbed. Princess, you're here as a supplicant, yes?”

“Yes,” said Celestia. She sat down on another block seven feet away. Mag followed suit.

“Uncomfortable?” said the eldest.

“Not terribly,” said Celestia.

“I mean your disguise,” said the Eldest. “You're dressed up as one of mine, but you aren't. Go on and make yourself comfortable.”

Celestia changed again. Mag was ready this time, watching carefully. The shift was almost instant, but this time she saw a transitional stage with wings, arms, forelegs, and back legs, shining and many-limbed like a Hindu deity.

She fluttered her wings a bit and shifted into a cat's sitting position. Now her eyes were level with the eldest's.

“Better?” said the Eldest.

“Much. It's not a difficult spell, but it does begin to feel constraining after a while,” said Celestia.

“Good. Welcome to my court. You are Princess Celestia, and you are Margaret Taylor Wilson. Don't look startled, girl; you're mine and I know everything about you. As for myself, I am eldest of the humans, wandering king, builder of cities. My name is none of your business.” He held out the paper sack with the bottle. “No toasts.”

Celestia took it, sipped lightly from it, wiped her lips, and passed it to Mag. Mag sipped as well, and choked.

“What the hell is this? It tastes like Wild Turkey and Nyquil.” She swallowed with some difficulty and handed it back to him.

“That's because it's Wild Turkey and Nyquil,” said the eldest. He drained the bottle and tossed it over his shoulder. It broke against the wall behind him. “Introductions and shared drink, as per the old rules. We can begin.”

Celestia nodded graciously. “Thank you for hearing me. I am—”

“Sorry, sorry, one thing,” said Mag. She stood up. Celestia gave her a warning glance, but stood up alongside her. The eldest stood up as well. Mag's forehead came up to his Adam's apple.

“Just as you like,” said the eldest. He gazed down at her with his calm, hard eyes.

“Cool. You're the regent of Earth?”

“That's right.”

“Guard and guide of the humans since the beginning of the species?”

“King and builder,” growled the eldest.

“But basically yes?”

“King and builder.”

“But basically yes.”

“Speak your piece,” said the eldest.

“I just wanted to make sure, first,” said Mag, and swung her fist in an uppercut.

The eldest stepped back with a smirk. Mag swung again. He ducked a few inches to the right.

“Mag!” barked Celestia.

The eldest caught her fist. She wrested it back, but didn't swing again.

“I get that a lot,” said the eldest to Celestia. “Something on your mind, my little girl?”

“History,” Mag hissed.

“Oh, one of those talks,” said the eldest, rolling his eyes.

“The trans-Atlantic slave trade. The Trail of Tears. JFK. The first world war. Jeffrey Dahmer. Stalin. The Holocaust, for Christ's sake.” Mag poked him in the chest. “Where the fuck have you been?”

“Everywhere,” said the eldest. “Sit down before you do something stupider.”

“Stop patronizing me and answer my question."

“I did. You think I'm going to give you a full accounting of my life up to this point? I don't owe you an explanation.”

Celestia interposed herself between the two humans. They stepped back, glaring at each other.

“I think we should discuss this in a different way,” said Celestia.

“Oh, but this is the human way,” said Mag.

“Melodrama?” said the eldest.

“Fighting.”

“Mag, eldest, please sit down,” said Celestia.

Mag ground her teeth, but sat down. So did the eldest, then Celestia.

“Thank you.” Celestia laid a hoof on Mag's arm. Mag felt smooth metal warmed by body heat—a horseshoe. “Mag, you are asking what sounds like a very valid question, but I can't condone violence. You call it the human way, but I've met many people from warrior cultures, and your actions just now wouldn't have fit in among any of them. Going out without a weapon and then attacking a larger opponent unarmed? I would call this the behavior of a normally peaceful person acting out of anger, not a trained warrior expressing herself in culturally appropriate ways.”

“You were also trying to talk about something important when I changed the subject,” said Mag, squeezing her eyes shut. “Sorry.”

“You do have the right,” said Celestia, frowning at the eldest. “As for you, old one, if you don't like to be asked impertinent questions, why would you teach them to be so curious and so angry? And I, too, wish to hear your answers to her questions, because the answers may change how I approach this hearing. I'm going to step back and let her speak first. Mag, would you like to try again?”

“Hold,” said the eldest. “Princess, you asked a rhetorical question just now and I'm going to answer it. It's simple. I taught them anger and curiosity by pretending not to exist, so of course I'm not going to want to answer questions.”

“You let people kill each other because you don't want them to know you exist?” said Mag.

The eldest sneered. “What do you want me to do? Go public? You think all the wars are going to stop if I go on the news and tell people to knock it off?”

“Well...”

“Are you seriously suggesting you can't stop a war?” said Celestia, genuinely surprised.

“I don't stop wars,” said the eldest.

Celestia looked at him as if he'd just eaten a child. “For ponies' sake, why not?”

The eldest took a last drag of his cigarette and flicked the butt away. He'd smoked it down to the filter. “Because I mostly can't. Oh, I can prevent them. I prevent wars all the time. If you all built a monument for every battle I've prevented, you'd run out of space for anything else." He lifted Mag's pack of menthols to his lips, sucked one out, struck a match on a concrete block, and lit up behind a cupped hand. “Can't prevent all of them, of course. Doesn't matter what I do—sometimes someone picks the wrong place and time to mention God or communism or whatever the fuck, and then it's off to kill and die. And I'm not a wizard. I can't walk onto a battlefield and stop time, and if I could, they'd just start dying again after I left. Sometimes humans kill. It's something we do.”

“What can you do?” said Celestia. “What are your powers?”

“Rude question. What are yours?” the eldest said.

“Words and reasoning,” said Celestia.

“And personal illusions, traveling between planes of existence, flight, complete control over the aether on a cosmic scale, a solid operatic soprano, 'excellent hearing,' playing string instruments with your hooves, horn lasers, flower arranging, immortality... the list goes on and on, doesn't it?”

“Those are some of my lesser tools, but yes. And you?”

“We can't all be sun gods,” said the eldest. “Me, I see everything. The past, the future, the world.” He pointed at Mag. “Her great-great-great-great grand-niece's social security number is going to be 114-27-5890.” He gestured to the both of them. “You two talked about how the Equestrian sun orbits Equis.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “The guy who owns this room on paper isn't going to notice the bag of broken glass until after he sells the building in a few years. Other than that, I can heal any wound I get, I know a few little tricks, and I've got two hands. You ever heard of chaos theory?”

“No,” said Celestia.

“Yeah,” said Mag.

“I forget how it works,” said the eldest, “but the idea is that a butterfly flapping its wings in South America can make hurricanes on the other side of the world. I know when and where every metaphorical hurricane butterfly is, so I go around smashing them.”

Celestia brightened with understanding. “Infinitesimal variables can come together to have a massive impact. You can foresee the results of all the variables, so, with enough planning, you're able to change the course of history.”

The eldest turned back to Mag. “So you get it, then? You all complained about the cold war, but it could have been a real war. You're welcome. You're mad about the Holocaust, but it could have been worse. They could have won. You're welcome. Trail of Tears? You should be grateful there are any Indians left. And this species would have died of plague a hundred times over in prehistoric times if it weren't for me. Just shut up.”

“Eldest,” said Celestia in a strange voice, “where is your brother?”

The eldest said nothing.

“You're a sibling,” said the Celestia. “This world was never made to be ruled by just one person, was it? It works, but it's lopsided and warped, like a house missing some of its supports. And there's an emptiness to you, a ragged hole in the shape of a loved one. You had a brother and now he's gone. Where is he?”

He smiled bitterly. “Am I my brother's keeper?”

Mag jumped backward off her seat, stumbled back, swallowed. “Are you saying you murdered him?”

The eldest shrugged.

“Oh, cousin, what have you done?” whispered Celestia.

“I smashed a butterfly,” said the eldest. "An important part of my job is controlling the variables in human history. My brother would have been the biggest variable, and there was only one way I could control him. It was almost the first thing I did in life. Do you know, killing a god is a lot easier when you can see every possible future? You just have to look for a future where he's dead, then see how that future came about, then make it happen.” His eyes narrowed. “What's wrong, princess? Never had to make a tough call before? Or maybe that story sounds familiar to you. You had a sister, didn't you?”

“Be careful what you say next, eldest,” said Celestia in a deadly soft voice.

Mag felt nauseous. “The oldest human, the guy who decided what it means to be human, kicked things off with a murder. That was our defining moment. It makes sense.”

“This is another reason I never explain myself,” said the eldest. “Listen to me. Live a couple of decades or walk a few miles, look around, and you'll see that right and wrong have changed a little. Walk further or live longer and even more changes. You want to know what life would be like if my brother were alive? It'd be incomprehensible to you as you are now. You'd be horrified. You wouldn't even call it civilization, and you wouldn't want to call them humans. The princess would have appeared on the lakeshore, climbed up the hill, met a few of us, and walked right back to the lake to search for a different world. I know this. I stood in that tall grass for the first time at my brother's side, looked at him, and saw. I saw all the futures of humanity, ladies, and this timeline is the only one I could stomach.”

“What, you're the good twin?” said Mag, attempting to process all this in terms she could understand.

“Hell no. I'm the murderer. He was the magical one, all glorious and perfect. His head was full of hopes and dreams, and then I strangled them out of him. Get off my back about this, but don't whitewash it, either. You know I can't enter a home? Our aether laid a punishment on me for what I did. I killed my family, so I can never have another, at least not like that. I can only wander.”

Mag's head whirled. She could just barely tolerate the idea of a flying unicorn princess, or pretend to, anyway. And this mad god fit nicely with what she knew of the world, or so she would have said if someone had described him to her a week ago as a purely hypothetical being. What she couldn't do was reconcile the idea of these two beings existing in the same multiverse. Mag sat down on the floor and pressed her hands to her eyes.

The eldest chuckled. “Let's move on before the mortal has a breakdown.”

“I have two things to say, first,” said Celestia.

“Go ahead,” said the eldest.

“One. I won't go into detail, but if you can see the future then you know I'm not bluffing when I say that, if you don't apologize to me for that comment about my sister, and to Mag for your cruelty, you won't like what follows.”

“Fine, fine,” said the eldest. “I'm sorry, Princess Celestia, for comparing the two of us. I was only saying we both know what it means to make terrible personal sacrifices for our people. Ms. Wilson, I could have dealt with your question in a kinder way, but I didn't, and for that I'm sorry. There, princess. Good enough?”

“For now,” said Celestia. “Two. In all the futures, was there a world where humanity would see your brother's murder as laudable?”

“Of course. If you can describe a world, it was a possibility at one point. Do you realize how many futures there are at any given time? In a chess game—one of the simplest worlds I've ever come across—there are 400 possible different board configurations after both players make their first move of the game. After they go a second time, it's about 200,000. After the third turn, the number is 121 million. Now imagine a board game as complicated as your world or mine, played over the course of eons. That board game is the game I'm playing every day.” He chuckled again. “Can you see why I decided to play both black and white, all those years ago? Me, I think maybe this is the world where I did the right thing. Who knows? And who cares? What's done is done. Did I answer your question?”

“To my satisfaction,” said Celestia.

“Then make your other request,” said the eldest with a languid, magisterial wave.

“Yes, I'd like to leave your company as soon as possible.”

“Then get to the point.”

Celestia sat up straighter. “I want to submit a request for safe passage and temporary residence in your world, along with any refugees I may find who would normally be under my protection. If you're willing, I would also like permission to bargain and treat with your people, helping wherever I may. I will neither make nor request any oath of fealty. I will offer no threat to your sovereignty. I—”

“Boilerplate, boilerplate,” said the eldest. “The standard refugee arrangement. Request granted. But what about your little friend? Protect her and order her around, if you like, but she's not yours.”

Mag took her hands off her eyes. “I'm not yours either, you bastard.” Celestia grinned back at her.

“You're my responsibility,” said the eldest. “That's what the word 'mine' means.”

Mag could have the rest of her philosophical crisis later. “Then I can't possibly be yours, because I'm my responsibility. I make my own decisions. Yeah, you created the world as it is. You're pretty much God. You even created me, sort of, because you made a bunch of choices about how history should go and now here I am. The only real limit on your power over the world is human nature, and you created that too, didn't you? But you know what?” She leaned against Celestia, laid a hand on her back, and rested a cheek on her neck. “Hail Satan.”

The eldest threw his head back and laughed. “Well, just call it a contract between the two of you and it'll be covered under the part of the agreement about bargaining with humans. But princess, don't ever forget that even if I gave her to you and declared you her regent, she'd still be a human. She always will be, and if you try to change that, you'll break her.” He cracked his knuckles and neck, stood, stretched his back, rolled his shoulders. Celestia stepped off her own block.

“We done here?” said the eldest.

“I'd say so,” said Celestia.

“Hopefully forever,” said Mag.

“Good. Thanks for the cigarettes,” said the eldest. “Oh, and Mag? Someone robbed your store last night because you left the door unlocked. I didn't do it.” Then he left.

Mag and Celestia stared at the door for a while. Mag covered her eyes with her hand again. Celestia folded a wing around her shoulders, and Mag pressed her face into Celestia's side.

Author's Note

I rewrote this chapter several times and it still looks like this.

Conversation Six

Watching someone open a path between dimensions should have been interesting. It wasn't.

Mag sat on the grass a few feet from the back with her forearms resting on her knees. “How long does this usually take again?”

Celestia stood in the water up to a little above her fetlocks, staring intently down at her own reflection. “As I've said twice already, it takes as long as it takes.”

Mag dug through her purse for something to do. “I'm more looking for a status update, here.”

“The status is that I haven't seen a frayed edge yet, and my friend keeps distracting me. The status was the same last time you asked how long this is going to take, and the status will be the same the next time you ask.”

“Frayed edge?”

“No reflection is perfect. Look for the tiny inconsistencies between the reflection and the world it reflects, and you've found the frayed edge.” Celestia had relaxed as she spoke. She seemed to like teaching.

Mag pointed. “The water is rippling and it makes you look goofy. There, an inconsistency.”

“Inconsistencies, not imperfections in the reflective surface. A hair of my mane in the wrong place. A cloud that's too far to the southeast. A faint light or distant face. Have you ever seen something strange in a mirror out of the corner of your eye? That was the frayed edge of reality.”

“Because I'd entered... The Twilight Zone,” said Mag dramatically. “Do they have TV in Equestria? No, probably not, because you didn't compare my computer to a television. But do you have film? Moving pictures?”

“Projected moving pictures,” said Celestia. She hadn't blinked since she'd started.

“Cool,” said Mag. “I should show you Youtube when we get back. We can do a Twilight Zone marathon. Hey, have you considered trying to surprise your reflection by doing something it wouldn't expect?”

“Yes. Most dimension travelers try that at some point. It doesn't work, unfortuna—there!” Celestia plunged her head into the water. The water didn't splash, and the waves of the lake passed through her neck as if it weren't there.

“Weird. What now?”

Celestia flicked her tail.

“What's that mean?”

Celestia flicked her tail again, more insistently.

Mag got up. “You want me to follow you? Sure.” She stepped offshore and her shoes filled up with near-freezing water. “Blah! You couldn't have mentioned how cold this was?”

Celestia flicked her tail once again.

“Okay, how about this? If I'm doing the thing you want me to do, flick your tail up. If not, then to the side.”

Celestia flicked her tail diagonally.

“That means I sort of am and sort of aren't, right?”

Celestia flicked her tail up.

“Can I get another hint?”

Celestia whipped Mag lightly on the leg with her tail.

“Oh, come on. I'm the one with wet socks. I'll catch my death in this.”

Celestia, still holding her head in place, sidestepped clockwise until her tail was next to Mag's hand.

“Grab your tail?” Mag did.

Now Celestia stepped forward and Mag followed her into deeper, colder water. Celestia's white back tilted as if she were going sharply downhill and then disappeared under the water. Mag took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

The cold was hellish. Mag wondered for a few painful moments whether Celestia was who she said she was, or if Mag had in fact fallen for the schemes of a kelpie with extremely circuitous hunting methods. Then there was light, followed by the vertigo that naturally came with gravity suddenly moving 90 degrees. Mag fell into warm grass and curled into a ball around her waterlogged purse.

“C-c-cold,” said Mag.

Celestia stood above her. “I beg your pardon for not warning you. I also wish I'd told you what to do next after I saw the edge, but we worked it out, so things turned out all right. Here, this should help.” Celestia's horn glowed.

Water crawled across Mag's skin and out of her clothes, pooling around her. Mag pulled herself halfway up, staggered a few feet away from the water, and dropped back down into a ball.

“Still cold?” Celestia's horn glowed again and the air warmed around them.

Eventually Mag uncurled herself and opened her eyes.

She lay on a grassy hill under an overcast sky of goldenrod clouds. Door-sized standing mirrors littered the hill, one every few yards in every direction, all of them unassumingly reflecting the grass and sky. Every mirror was framed and every frame was different. Celestia lay next to her on her belly, watching and waiting. A slow, dry breeze drifted down the hill.

“Better?” said Celestia.

“My phone is probably done for and I just soaked most of a pack of cigarettes, but other than that, yeah,” said Mag. She examined the mirror they'd come through and was disappointed to discover that for the most part it was just a mirror. It reflected Mag back at herself (brown hair in a ponytail, thin lips, slouching a bit) standing in the grass, with Celestia behind. Her reflection did nothing untoward so far as Mag could see, blinking as she blinked and shifting as she shifted.

The frame of the mirror was a point of interest, at least. Persons unknown had carved words and phrases into the wood in a variety of languages. Mag recognized some of the languages, but some were more alien. Some were impossible. One, a chain of interlocking hexagons with each link filled with blobby shapes, seemed to have altered slightly every time Mag glanced back at it. One was in French. None were in English.

Mag looked at Celestia in the mirror. “Where do these come from? What do they mean?”

“Travelers will sometimes leave notes on mirrors for each other. Small pieces of advice. Attempts to characterize the inhabitants.” Celestia pointed at the hexagons. “'The people of thirst.'” Then, at the French sentence. “'Enter in peace, but at arms.'” At a vertical column of shallow, serpentine scratches. “'The hollow lords.'” At a pair of pictograms so old that the breeze had eroded them as smooth as if they'd been sanded. “'Save them.'”

Mag traced those last words with her finger. They were the oldest message there.

Celestia approached. “This is the Valley of Mirrors. There are other places a reflection might lead to, but most lead here. It's the safest In-Between I know of for mortal travelers, but don't let your guard down. I only mean it's safer than, say, the Gray Sea or the Walled Path, and that isn't a difficult hurdle.”

“What should I look out for?”

“Other travelers, or things you don't understand.”

“I don't understand anything here,” said Mag.

“Then stay close and keep asking questions,” said Celestia.

Mag moved in close. “What's at the bottom of the valley?”

“A lake,” said Celestia.

“Does the lake have a reflection?”

“Yes, and the world it leads to is used as a kind of quarantine zone for dangerous artifacts,” said Celestia.

“Let me guess. No touchy?”

The corner of Celestia's mouth twitched. “Yes, no touchy. In fact, let that be your mantra so long as we're out of your world. When in doubt, no touchy.”

“Cool. So, just to confirm, I'm completely and utterly out of my depth here, right?”

“You have no idea,” said Celestia. “Shall we?”

“Yeah, I'm starting to think we shouldn't screw around,” said Mag.

“Then you're paying attention. Now that you're ready, we're going to teleport.”

Mag stepped back. “What?”

“Equestria is a great distance away, and we didn't bring food, drink, or supplies of any kind. Walking isn't feasible.”

“Teleporting??”

“It's perfectly safe,” said Celestia.

“How do you know? How does it work?”

“I know it's safe because some ponies can teleport if they work hard enough at it, and nopony has ever been hurt in transit,” said Celestia. “As for how it works, understanding it even in layman's terms would require you to have more senses than you seem to. Simply put, it's magic. I'll cast a spell that takes us from one location to another without our having to pass through the intervening space.”

“Okay, but how does it work? Does it break us down into particles, whizz us off to where we're going, and then put us back together?”

“No, it leaves the teleporting object or person intact. It's painless and instantaneous. There are no risks.”

“I don't—” then Mag realized what Celestia had just said and nearly collapsed with laughter. “'Nopony?' Seriously?”

Celestia frowned. “Is there a problem?”

Mag covered her grin with her hand. “No, no problem. Just another sugar rush. Hey, you know what? I feel all right about this now. Do your thing.”

First they were somewhere, and then they were somewhere else. It was as simple as that.

“My world,” said Celestia. She did not sound enthused.

This part of the valley looked more or less the same, right down to the positioning of the nearby mirrors, except for two things. Firstly, the slope of the hill had pitched a few degrees. Secondly, the mirror they now stood in front of didn't reflect the valley. Instead it showed an endless, starless night. The wooden frame was carved with new and different messages. This time, one was in English: “The beloved.” Mag didn't ask about the rest.

“After I cast a few spells on you, this will likely be the least dangerous part of the trip. There is nothing left to hurt you, after all.” Celestia tried to smile and failed. “This one will let you breathe.” Her horn glowed and something like a yellowish soap bubble appeared around Mag's head. “This will protect against the lack of air pressure, which, believe me, is far more important than it sounds.” The glow continued. Something almost but not quite like cloth wrapped itself snugly around Mag's hands and clothes.

“A space suit?” said Mag, looking at the cloth closely.

“A fan of speculative fiction, I see,” said Celestia.

Mag smirked. “Guess again. Humans have gone to space a bunch of times. We've even landed on the moon.”

Celestia raised an eyebrow. “You're joking again.”

“We have video evidence. I'll show you later.”

Celestia studied Mag's face. Her other eyebrow lifted to make a matching pair with the first. “You're serious.”

“Ha! Yeah, it's awesome. We totally went to the moon, hopped around a bit, planted a flag, drove a little golf cart thing, tossed a ball back and forth, and went back home. When we all finally kill each other and there's nothing left but the roaches, there'll still be that flag on the moon.”

Celestia rested a hoof on her cheek. “My word.” She said it with no irony at all.

“It happened because my country got into a space race with another country called the USSR because of a rivalry about economic principles. It's a long story.”

“And now I want to see a few of your history books,” said Celestia. She glanced at the black mirror. The light died in her eyes again.

Mag clapped her hands. “Come on. We get this over with, we go home, you run your tests, and then it's movie night.”

Celestia bowed her head and clenched her eyes shut. Mag hesitated, then laid a hand on Celestia's neck.

“This isn't going to take that long, right?” said Mag.

“No,” said Celestia quietly.

“And it'll help you get them back?”

“Possibly,” said Celestia.

“Well... whenever you're ready,” said Mag.

Celestia opened her eyes. She looked paler than usual, if that was possible, but determined. “Yes, of course it's possible. This has to be done. I have one more spell, and then, I'm sorry, but you'd better climb on my back again.”

Some tiny, starved little part of Mag's soul, the part that wanted seventeen kittens and wished it could fly, kept insisting that riding on Celestia's back was the bestest thing to ever happen to her and she should take every opportunity to repeat the experience. The rest of her dreaded it. Celestia was too small to ride comfortably, wasn't wearing a saddle, and didn't have anything Mag could really hang onto. If there was a way to do it that didn't end in pain, Mag hadn't found it.

“That's fine,” sighed Mag.

“Or I could try riding on your shoulders,” said Celestia.

“You joke, but I'll bet it'd be about as pleasant either way.”

“We can experiment later. Now, as you said, let's get this over with. The last spell changes how gravity affects you. Here you are.”

Celestia's horn flared one more time. Mag didn't feel any different until she lifted her arm, at which point she floated slowly upward.

Mag flailed. “Ah! What? Save me!”

Celestia grabbed Mag with her magic, sat her down on her back, and held her in place. “Your science hasn't found a way to do that, I take it. It's a small safety measure, in case you slip away from me. Now gravity will pull you to the nearest object as if that object were solid ground, regardless of that object's size, and, instead of pulling you harder as you get closer, it'll do the reverse. There should also be an effect that slows you down as you approach something, so you shouldn't be able to accelerate enough to harm yourself even if you somehow end up a thousand miles away from the nearest object.”

“You're surprisingly well prepared.”

“I once had another student who was fascinated with the idea of space. Starswirl extensively studied the nature of gravity and how magic interacted with it. He never made it to space, but he truly believed somepony would someday, and he did reams upon reams of original spellwork to ensure that ponykind was prepared.”

“And so you are,” said Mag.

“Yes. One more thing: we unfortunately won't be able to speak without air.”

“I know,” said Mag. “Do you think I can leave my purse here?”

“Without it being stolen, do you mean? I wouldn't worry. Travelers aren't so common, and they would likely be too cautious to touch an unfamiliar object in this place.”

Mag leaned over as well as she could from Celestia's back and let go of her purse. The gravity spell hadn't affected it, so it dropped to the ground. “No big deal if it rains, since it's already full of lake water. Okay, I'm good.”

“Then off we go.”

Celestia stepped into the mirror.

It wasn't like space. There were no stars and no light of any kind except from Celestia's horn, and the light fell on nothing. It was so quiet that Mag could hear her own rushing blood. Now Mag understood. This was the corpse of a universe.

Mag realized Celestia hadn't moved. She floated in place, wings and legs slack. Mag couldn't say anything to her, so she leaned forward and hugged her as best she could, the bubble around Mag's head distorting enough to let Mag lay her brow in Celestia's mane. Celestia seemed to understand and raised her head, flapping her wings once. Where were they going? Celestia had said something about samples, but hadn't given any further details.

Celestia's horn went out, and there was nothing to the world but the warmth of Celestia's fur.

***

Now Celestia had gone and Mag floated alone in the cold black nothing. She touched the head-bubble and found it to be intact. The spells were holding. When had Celestia left? Mag must have fallen asleep.

She supposed she should be afraid, but it was so peaceful now. For the first time in nearly a day the pressure in Mag's head was gone. She hadn't realized how heavy it had gotten. Now Celestia was gone and there was no one but herself. There was nothing left to worry about. No responsibilities, no one to speak to her, no one to upset or disappoint, nothing to clean because this was the cleanest place in all the worlds. When had she last felt this calm? Tuesday night in the town jail a few days after her 17th birthday. No, one of the guards had tried to strike up a conversation that night and wouldn't go away, and then someone in the drunk tank had moaned the entire night. At home on the weekend with nowhere to be? No, there was always, always something that needed doing, just one more thing, and then another. Had it been... never?

How would Celestia find her? In fact, how had Celestia lost her? Maybe the dark had eaten Celestia just as it had eaten her world. If that had happened, would her spells still work?

But it was possible Celestia was gone. Mag wondered why this didn't upset her. She could admit, at least in the privacy of her own mind at the center of death's empty heart, that she had loved Celestia on sight. Celestia was everything she didn't believe in. She was meaning and purpose, understanding, selflessness. There was that set of touchingly unrealistic moral principles that, so far as Mag knew, she had held throughout all her interminable life. Yes, it was only reasonable that she had faded away and would never come back. The only puzzle was how someone—ha, “somepony”—could last so long, how the real world could tolerate someone like that. And Mag would die here, of course. It was probably her own fault. But Celestia wasn't there to grieve over it, so it wasn't so bad.

“Who goes there?”

Mag flinched.

“You have wandered far from your proper place, mortal.”

Mag looked around, but saw no lights. “Where are you and how are you talking?” And what had she been thinking a moment ago? Suddenly it seemed so pointlessly maudlin. And surely Celestia was all right. Right?

I am nowhere, anymore.

“Really? Because if I can hear you, and the only thing I can hear is my thoughts, then it seems like you're in my head. That's not nowhere.”

“It matters not. Now identify yourself. What manner of creature are you, and why do you trespass here?”

“My name is Mag.” Acting on a hunch, she added, “I'm here with your sister.”

Ah, yes. Now there was a new aura pressing close. It wasn't so unlike Celestia's, with that same sense of silent song. This one made her think of music boxes. There were differences, however. Celestia's aura was overwhelming; her sister's was hypnotic and comparatively subtle. What was her name again?

“DO NOT MOCK ME. My sister and all my world has gone. I swear upon the memory of the stars that I will fill thee with a lifetime of waking nightmares if—”

“No, seriously,” said Mag. “She's fine. I don't know where she is right this second, but I think she's somewhere in Equestria collecting samples. She's going to die of happiness when she sees you.”

A pause. My sister is truly alive?

“Yeah, can you find her somehow? And bring me with you. She probably wants me back, and I want to see her face when you guys meet.”

“Truly? My sister is alive?”

“Yep,” said Mag.

"Truly??"

“Yeah, can you find her?”

There was no answer.

“Don't forget me,” said Mag.

“Alive,” said Celestia's sister damply. "She's alive? She's alive! She's alive!! And the others?"

“We're, uh, well, we're working on that one,” said Mag.

“Would that I could help you. There is nothing left of me but a dream, and you and I wouldn't even be able to speak if I hadn't caused you to sleep. Yet you've changed the flavor of my confinement with this news of my sister, and for that I thank you. You say your name is Mag? I shall remember it.”

“What, you're giving up? Let's work this out. We can get you out of here, I'll bet. Can you hitch a ride in my brain somehow?”

“Yes, I believe I could, but what then? Will you carry me around in your head for the rest of your life? I myself have been possessed in the past, and I have no wish to visit that experience on any other being, however willing.”

“You think I'm going to leave you here? Dude, it's fine. You want me to wake up and tell your sister I found you and then didn't do anything about it? What do you think she'd say?”

“She would tell you that you chose correctly, and that she is overjoyed to learn that I still live in some poor capacity. She will no doubt find a safe place for you, then come to visit me.”

Mag crossed her arms. “I've been arguing with gods all day and I've won every time so far. Give up and hop into my brain.”

“I'll not play into the self-annihilating impulses of some petulant human. I need simply wait for you to awaken, and our disagreement shall end.”

“Oh, you know what I am?”

“Yes, I now recall that my sister once told me of a distant world housing a species of plains apes in the rough shape of chimpanzees, but elongated in the same way the giraffe is an elongated goat. Warriors, she called you, and slavers. She praised your invention and adaptability but ultimately advised a policy of avoidance. Now I see your mind, and, in all candor, I have as little wish to dwell in the dreams of a human as I do to impose myself on the psyche of another.”

“You can read my mind?”

“Read it? We are in it. All that you see here is what you brought with you.”

Mag looked around. “Yeah, well, I can't see anything, unless that's what you're getting at, in which case that's an impressively dramatic thing to say. But I'm still right.”

“Let us say you are. what do you propose to do about it?” said the princess, amused.

“Bicker about it until you agree.”

“Then do continue making your argument. I shall simply wait in silence until—”

***

Mag woke up. She lay in the tall grass again under the yellow clouds, and Celestia was shaking her.

“Mag! Mag! What happened?”

“Your sister is still alive,” Mag muttered. God, it was bright here.

Celestia gasped. “You're all right. Oh, thank goodness, you're all right. I don't know what I would have done if I'd led you to your death. What did you say?”

Mag's mouth opened without her permission and said, “I'm alive, sister.” It was her own voice, but the intonations and pronunciations were different.

Celestia's face was a picture.

“Ooh, I win after all,” said Mag in her own voice. “What's up, other princess? Did you change your mind?”

Now the other princess spoke in her head. “No, but it appears I never had a choice in the matter. You have indeed won, but only by default. And it now occurs to me that, though I am an unwilling guest, it is wrong to hijack the use of your voice without your permission. Human, may I speak with my sister for a little while?”

Of course, Mag thought to the princess.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” said the other princess in Mag's head.

“Oh, I thought you'd be able to hear my thoughts,” said Mag. “Yeah, go ahead.”

Having someone else use Mag's mouth was by far the strangest thing she had ever felt. “I am all right, sister, and I'm overjoyed to see you. I thought I was all that remained of Equestria.”

Celestia shook off her astonishment and said, “What happened? How are you doing this? I miss your face, Luna. Where are you?”

“Alas, all that's left of me is my dreaming self, which this human now holds in her mind, and we must be content with that. As for what happened to Equis, I know nothing except what I witnessed from the edge of dreams.”

“I remember that you were asleep,” said Celestia. “Maybe that's how you survived. Did you find other dreamers after the world ended?”

“No, only the formless, gray remains of Dreamland, and I was alone there until I found the dreams of this mortal—the contents of which I will not describe to anyone, human Mag, so you needn't fear for your privacy,” said Luna.

“Thanks,” said Mag. “Good, I can take my mouth back whenever I need it. Hey, you know, you were worried, but I'm feeling okay with this so far. Anyway, don't mind me. You guys keep talking.”

“I promise you the novelty will wear thin,” said Luna. It seemed unfair that Luna could talk to Mag silently while Mag had to speak. “I shall do whatever I can to make this less difficult, but I think a time will come when we each regret today.”

“I didn't anticipate this at all,” said Celestia. “Mag, are you sure you're all right?”

“I think I am. I don't feel different or anything. Question: did this happen because I wanted it to?”

Luna answered Mag out loud, again speaking with Mag's own mouth. “No. This is a phenomenon caused by the freak intersection of forces, and however this happened, I can't imagine that our wishes played a part. Mine certainly didn't. Unless you have some sovereignty over dreams?”

“Nope, I never even remember my dreams. Well, at least that means it's no one's fault if this all turns tragic somehow,” said Mag.

“No one's fault, and yet our responsibility to prevent,” said Celestia.

“I concur. Take this seriously, Mag.”

Mag picked up her sopping purse and threw it at the back of another mirror. It bounced off with a slapping noise and spilled wet change into the grass. “Take this seriously? How? I'm permanently brain-pregnant with an extradimensional horse queen of the night.”

“Pony.”

“Yeah, that.” Mag leaned her shoulder against the mirror. She banged her temple against it a couple of times, trying to bludgeon a bit of sense into things in general. It didn't work. “You see, this kind of situation is what we in the business of apathy call 'fatal but not serious.' I mean, yeah, fine, okay. Okay. I hereby officially acknowledge that, even though I still think this is the best way Luna's situation could have worked out short of Luna spontaneously growing a body, it's true that things could get ugly if it turns out I can't handle having a god riding shotgun in my head, and I've got to be proactive in learning how to handle it. That said, you have to admit this is ridiculous.”

“I wouldn't call it that,” said Celestia.

“And what would you call it? Something more positive and inspirational? Please don't say 'an opportunity.'”

“I would call it step one.”

“And step two is what?”

“I don't know. Let's go and find out.” Celestia smiled encouragingly.

“You two realize, do you not, that the In-Between is not a place for giving away one's position with protracted conversation, then standing still?”

“So I'm told,” said Mag.

Celestia raised a hoof. “You know what? I've already figured out step two. In step two, we find a way for the three of us to have a conversation without me missing every other thing my little sister says.”

“She says this isn't the place to talk about this.”

Celestia teleported them back to Earth's mirror instead of answering; Mag's purse landed next to her. Celestia leaned in to whisper, “Luna is right. We need to be more cautious than we were just now. As a matter of fact it would be best if we were quiet until we've returned to Earth, in case something has picked up on our presence.”

“Your breath smells like Doritos,” Mag whispered back.

Celestia turned to the mirror, but looked back and waved her tail near Mag's hand. Mag grabbed it.

“Keep watch,” whispered Celestia, and fixed her gaze on her own reflection.

Mag knelt to pick up her purse. “What am I watching for?” she said, quietly enough that it only reached her own ears.

“Changes in the light,” answered Luna. “Patches of grass moving against the wind. The voices of people you know who shouldn't be here.”

Mag lowered her voice a bit more. “And that clicking sound?”

Somewhere out among the mirrors there approached a complex, rhythmic, metallic clicking, like a wandering orchestra of scissors. It was impossible to tell how close it was.

“Warn Celestia.”

“Hear that?” whispered Mag.

“Yes,” whispered Celestia, but didn't move, blink, or respond further.

Mag tried moving her mouth without vocalizing at all. “Now what?” Luna didn't answer.

She tried again in a whisper of a whisper. “Now what?”

“We can only wait for Celestia to find the edge. It is too late to flee, except into a mirror. There is nothing we can do to disguise our presence from it, for the collectors can feel both of your heartbeats through the vibrations in the ground. Combat is not an option.”

“Not an option? For Celestia?”

“Soft, human. Softly. We have attracted the attention of one creature already.”

“Mm.”

“Good.”

“Mm?”

“Combat is not an option because, when a collector is injured, the others come. All of them.”

“Gck.”

“You grasp the situation.”

The clicks were getting distinctly louder. Mag glimpsed a tendril in the distance, a whirring chaos of struts and wires—and then Celestia stepped into the mirror. Mag clenched the tip of Celestia's tail and darted after her.

The cold was even worse now that she was expecting it. Mag scrambled to reorient herself in those liminal, airless seconds, breached the surface of the lake and drank in the sight of the Earthly sky. Celestia hovered over Mag on her great swan's wings, lifted her out, and flew her to shore, where she performed the same drying and warming spells she had before.

When Mag felt alive enough to talk again, she said, “Tomorrow I'm going down the hill to buy a full length mirror that we can keep in the living room. We can use that from now on, instead of this ice-water freaking lake.”

“Every edge is cold, and a new path is always dangerous to pass through, but it's possible to get lucky. Perhaps you'll find a worthwhile mirror.”

“Mag?”

“Yeah?”

“May I borrow the rest of your body? Please, for a few minutes only. Just that.”

“Sure.”

Mag relaxed and Luna took over. Luna drew in and then let go of a shaking breath. She closed Mag's eyes, breathed deep again, smoother now, and breathed out. Then once again, in, out. Mag felt it all.

Luna tried to stand, but fell forward onto Mag's hands. “Sister,” she said.

Celestia helped her up. Luna stood straight for a bare second and then fell to her knees. She touched Celestia's shoulder. They hugged.

“We are alive,” said Luna.

“And together,” said Celestia.

“Then we are home.”

Conversation Seven, Followed by an Aside

“This is a car,” said Mag. It was a blue Saturn from late 90's with sun-damaged paint and a missing hubcap. They loaded the groceries into the car while Celestia explained plastic, even though Luna hadn't asked.

Celestia bent to look at the undercarriage. “Another amazingly complex device.”

“But what does it do?” said Luna.

“You can talk out loud whenever you like, you know,” said Mag.

“I would rather not impinge on your agency.”

“You're worried about abusing the poor little mortal, but I'm worried about you feeling trapped in there. Chill out and talk.”

“Sometimes I shall, then, but I intend to request permission whenever I have anything long-winded to say,” said Luna.

“That's fine,” said Mag. “By the way, the left hand is yours if I'm not using it.”

Mag's brow furrowed without her say-so. Luna said, “For emergencies only.”

“Whenever I'm not using it,” said Mag. “Something funny, Sunny?”

“You look like a madwoman, arguing with yourself like that,” said Celestia.

“Then my true colors are showing. But Luna knows all about that, right? She saw my dreams.”

“I have seen far worse.”

“Would you like to talk about it?” said Celestia.

“No way,” said Mag, and popped the hood to distract them.

“Oh, my,” said Celestia, walking a slow half-circle to admire the engine.

“But what does all this do? Is it some manner of unnecessarily complicated conveyance?”

“Luna keeps asking what it does,” said Mag.

“It's a vehicle,” said Celestia, proud to know it.

“How does it operate?”

“'How dost it operateth?'” said Mag in officious pseudo-British.

“I'm, like, so pointlessly obnoxious,” said Luna in bubblegum Californian.

“What light through yonder window breaks? Why, 'tis the east, and Luna shutting up is the sun!”

Silence followed.

“That's a wonderfully well-turned piece of verse, other than the break in meter in the second line,” said Celestia.

“Never mi—” Luna switched to Mag's voice. “Never mind our disagreement. Tell us where that line is from.”

“Shakespeare,” said Mag, “poet and playwright. Kind of a big deal, according to high school English teachers. I'll hook you guys up as soon as I can figure out a way to do it without having to sit through one of his plays myself.”

“You don't like his work?” said Celestia.

“His stuff is long, dense, archaic, and, well, the problem with inventing all the cliches is that now his work is cliched.”

“But do you recall the rest of the poem? What about the part you replaced?” said Luna.

“'And Juliet is the sun.' It's a love story. I don't remember the rest of it. Celestia, could you lock up the store?”

Mag heard every door lock simultaneously.

“Showoff,” said Mag.

Celestia smiled her Celestial smile. Mag stared at her longer than was polite.

“One second,” said Mag, and stepped around the corner of the store, where Celestia hopefully wouldn't see or hear.

“Okay, now that you're here, I have to ask,” Mag whispered to Luna. “How can she smile after what's happened? Is she faking it? I don't know what to say to her.”

“Faking it? I've known her since the beginning of the world, and even I am not always certain how to weigh the sincerity all of her smiles. I decided long ago to believe them all. She has an honest personality, after all, and why would she smile if she did not wish us to believe she meant it?”

“I don't know. Why does anybody hide their feelings?”

“Perhaps she smiles because she wishes to smile.”

Mag pondered. Should she ask? She might as well. “And you? How are you doing?”

“... I beg your pardon?”

“How are you doing? Everything that happened to her also happened to you, except you were stuck there. Don't answer if you don't feel like it.”

“I am in the light again with my sister. I do well enough for now. Is there anything else you wish to discuss?”

“Yeah, privacy,” said Mag. “Is that a thing anymore?”

“I do have good news on that front. I have been experimenting, and am finding ways to block out each of your senses.”

“Not sure how I feel about you putting yourself in a sensory deprivation chamber,” said Mag.

“Worry not. As I experiment I glimpse certain possibilities. For each sense of yours I block, I find another sense of my own—ones you don't appear to have access to.”

“You and Celestia keep bringing those missing senses up.”

“She means the aether, but I refer to senses neither of the two of you have. I am a warden of the ways, the margrave of the dreamers of Equis, and princess of the night. I have certain unique advantages.”

“All right, well, work on it.” Mag jogged back around the corner. Celestia had turned human again, worked out how to open the car door, and was now studying the steering wheel.

Mag knocked on the roof of the car. “Wrong side.”

“Are you sure? I learn very quickly, you know. How do you work a car?”

“If you have any attachment at all to your vehicle then I would advise against this.”

“Agreed,” said Mag. “Sorry, but nobody drives this without a license.”

Celestia crawled awkwardly to the other seat. “Is it a matter of law, then? I certainly wouldn't like to break the law. I'll apply for a license and then we can discuss this again.”

Mag got in, then got out again and scraped the ice off the windshield, then got back in and started the car. Celestia jumped, but then cocked her head to listen.

“But how does it work?” Luna burst out. Mag choked a bit; she'd been at the end of an exhale when Luna shouted.

“My apologies.”

“No worries,” said Mag. “Basically, the engine compresses gasoline vapor and then sets it on fire with a spark of electricity, the explosion pushes a piston, the piston turns the wheels, and then it does it again, and it all happens over and over again really fast. Then there's all this other junk, like fan belts and carburetors. I don't know what any of that does. You have to put gas in the car regularly, and this meter right here tells you how much gas you have left. The car also needs oil to keep all the metal from locking up, and you have to change that out every once in a while, and there are air filters for some reason. It needs coolant sometimes, and other fluids I can't remember right now. It shoots burnt gas vapors out of a tube in the back. Sometimes it breaks down and I don't know why. Then I pay some guys to fix it and hope they don't lie to me about what they did.”

“Why not learn more so they can't lie to you?” said Celestia.

“Because it shouldn't be my job to stop them from lying to me, because if I wandered around wondering how every single thing works then I'd never get anything done, and because I doubt I can learn enough about cars to call their bluff effectively anyway.”

“Hmm,” said Celestia.

“A disappointing answer, but it makes sense.”

“I want to drop these baskets off at the store and then I want to go home,” said Mag. “Anyone want to stop anywhere first?”

“Are the works of Shakespeare available on your Googling machine?” said Celestia.

“I'm not going to get through today without a poetry reading, am I? Yeah, they're probably somewhere out there on the internet. Let's at least eat lunch first.” Mag put on her seat belt. “Okay, guys, here's the thing. Cars are dangerous. If I drive off the road, I could end up rolling halfway down the mountain. If I crash into another car going the opposite direction with both of us going 30 miles an hour, that'd be like hitting a solid wall at a million miles an hour, mathematically speaking. In conclusion, if either of you is plotting to kill me then now's your chance. Still buckled up? Good, it's the law. Off we go.”

Celestia tensed up as Mag backed out, but relaxed when she saw that Mag had everything under control. She gave everything around her equal attention, from the window crank to the forest rushing by.

“So unmindful in the Ways Between, and yet such cautious eyes when you pilot your vehicle,” said Luna.

“If I screw up in Mirror Valley, I die. If I screw up on the road, I die and so do somebody's children, maybe. Watch "Red Asphalt" and then tell me I've got my priorities wrong.”

“This is some kind of instructional movie?” said Celestia.

“Yeah, how'd you know?”

“We had a few short documentary reels we'd show for government purposes,” said Celestia.

“Like what?”

“'Where Clouds Come From,' 'Magic and You,' various others.”

“I wish I could see them,” said Mag.

“Wasn't that your home, that we just passed?” said Celestia.

“Oh. Oops.” Mag pulled a U-turn and parked at the curb.

“'Your Magic and You,'” recited Luna while Mag and Celestia got out of the car and went inside. Her elementary schoolteacher imitation was dead on. “'In this video, we'll discuss the basics of what you can expect as you grow into your unicorn magic.' You should have your cutie mark by now—”

“Cutie mark,” muttered Mag, opening the door and putting her jacket in the closet next to the door. “Celestia, there's a thing next to my computer with a bunch of blank paper sticking out. Please please please show me what your ponies look like while I make lunch.”

Celestia shut the door behind her and changed to her real form. “I did say I'd do that, didn't I? Yes, I think I will.” She walked off.

“Sorry to interrupt,” said Mag. “Do you remember the rest of the video?” Mag unpacked the groceries. Good, Celestia had bought sandwich material. And what looked like every vegetable the grocery store sold.

Luna went right back to it. “You should have your cutie mark by now, but even if you don't, you likely have some experiences with your own magic. Maybe in ways you couldn't control! Don't worry, because that's completely normal. This movie was made to help teach you all about your growing powers.”

The movie got a bit technical after that. Then it started referencing onscreen diagrams and took for granted that Mag knew the meanings of phrases like “Clover vector,” and Mag decided Luna was messing with her.

Celestia walked back in and placed a few sheets of paper on the counter, then left the room without speaking. The couch springs creaked.

No other sound came from the living room and Luna went quiet as well. If it weren't for the silent music of Luna's aura, Mag could almost think the world hadn't gone mad. She finished tearing the lettuce, rinsed her hands, wiped them on a towel, and picked up the papers.

Celestia had gone for quantity rather than detail in her drawings. Every couple of square inches had its own pony, most of them minimalistic and fluidly illustrated, almost cartoony in places. Every pony had its own little scene. In one, a pony wearing a headscarf watered a pot of daisies on a table using a little watering can. In another, a young pony clung to the shoulders of an adult pegasus in flight. In yet another, an inquisitive, snouted face stared up at the viewer with opened mouth as if asking a question. There was a row of solemn guards with brush helmets, a nubby-horned unicorn eating a sandwich, a couple sharing a milkshake. They all had big bushy tails, almost like squirrels, but deliberately styled, just like their manes. It was a calm, kind world.

The last page was a little different. This was where all the detail had gone. In the top-left corner was a picture of what could only be Luna. Her eyes were stern but caring, and fathoms deep. Beneath the sketch were the words “Princess Luna.” The sketch to the right was a “Princess Twilight Sparkle and Spike the Baby Dragon.” There was something perennially young about the two, for lack of a better term. Twilight's stance, her expression, the little lizard guy on her back, the pile of books floating next to her, everything about her suggested someone who loved everything, wanted to know everything about everything, and never got tired of the world around her. Mag tried not to hate her.

Next were “Princess Cadance and Shining Armor.” Mag almost laughed. Now there was a power couple if Mag had ever seen one. Lord have mercy, were those two ever in love. They appeared to be getting married, which, considering they looks they were giving each other, was almost redundant.

“Pinkie Pie,” a cotton ball of joie de vivre. “Fluttershy,” wet kleenex with a rabbit. An arrogant “Rainbow Dash” that Mag immediately pegged as her favorite. “Applejack,” cowboy hat, lasso, named after an alcohol for some reason. And this “Rarity” obviously got up very early indeed every morning to get her hair like that.

Mag walked to the couch to find Celestia pretending to sleep, and leaned against the back of the couch to look down at Celestia.

“They seem fun,” said Mag.

Celestia didn't respond. Luna had nothing to say either.

“I like Rainbow Dash the best,” said Mag.

Celestia didn't move.

“Did you get your samples?”

“There was almost nothing to sample,” said Celestia without opening her eyes.

“Oh. What were you planning to get?”

“A sliver of wood from a mirror frame on the inside, some sand from the walls, any ambient energy, and a wisp of aether.” She held up a little corked bottle. “Here is that wisp. Equestria has an aether field, but it's as hollow as everything else there, now. No one has touched it since I left and it hasn't moved on its own. Nothing out of the ordinary for a dead world. As for the rest, they simply aren't there. No ambient energy, no sand, and all the mirror frames were gone.”

She smiled a nonsmile. “I'm glad you insisted on coming. After seeing all of that, I don't know if I would ever have bothered to leave.”

“That's a hell of a thing to say,” said Mag, keeping her voice conversational.

“'Hell.' Yes. A 'hell' of a thing to say.” She opened her eyes. “I've been wondering something. Should I really be so certain that a regent dies with her world? Books and my own experience tell me they do, but it's a hard thing to prove. Maybe we stay behind, like the mirrors. Maybe we count as mirrors ourselves. It makes a kind of metaphorical sense, wouldn't you say?”

Mag really wished Luna would say something, but she hadn't spoken since Mag had picked up the drawings.

“What will you do now?” said Mag.

“I don't know,” said Celestia. “No, I do know. I'll rest until tomorrow. Then I'm going back to the lake, and then to the lake at the bottom of the valley. There are many books down there, and I'm sure there must be something useful there. It's dangerous, but what is danger to me now?”

“I'm coming, obviously,” said Mag.

“Oh.”

“Really don't like what I'm hearing from you right now, by the way.”

“No?” said Celestia.

“It doesn't help anyway,” said Mag. She walked around the couch and sat down in the same place she'd fallen asleep last night. “Nothing you say or think is going to make you feel any different. That's how it works, when you stop caring. You could get up and eat lunch or you could stay right where you are. They'll both feel pointless, so why not get up?”

“Eat lunch. I could do that. And then shall I move across the country to live in an empty house in the woods? Shall I hide my heart under the bed and reach out to no one for years on end, avoiding everything that matters to me and hoping to go numb?”

“If it'd get you to eat a damn sandwich, sure,” said Mag.

Celestia covered her eyes with a hoof. “I'm ashamed. That was cruel of me to say.”

“Don't worry. You can't hurt me with that.”

“You can let go of the bravado, Mag. I know you felt that, and I'm sorry.”

“Whatever,” said Mag. “But don't knock the bravado. You've got your fake smiles, and I never stop fronting. It works. Any port in a storm, right?”

Celestia sat up. “I disagree with what you said a minute ago. I'm a great believer in the power of words. I've talked down armies and assassins. It matters what I say and think. I can stay productive if I work at it; I'll just have to be more careful of where my thoughts wander in the future.” She leaned over and hugged Mag. “I'll keep myself busy, helping your world and looking for a way to bring back mine. Thank you, Mag.”

Both of Celestia's wings were at her sides, and yet Mag felt a feather brush her shoulder. “I don't have it in me to hope to see Equestria again, and I hold little hope for a happy ending between the three of us. But I do hope we'll grow to understand one another, human Mag.”

“For a species that needs all four legs to walk, you people are awfully huggy,” said Mag.

***

“Tell me about the assassin,” said Mag through a bite of sandwich.

“The what?”

“You talked down an assassin. Tell me about that.”

“In exchange for the sandwich, I think I will.” Celestia dabbed her mouth with a cloth napkin. Mag didn't know where she'd gotten it, as the napkins on the table were paper, but there it was. “Some few decades ago I got an unusual bit of mail. A death threat, actually, written shakily in black chalk on rough, yellowish paper. It was sealed with the crest of Canterlot University in undyed beeswax. The content of the letter went on for some time, but the core of the matter was that the anonymous author intended to kill me because he wanted to know what would happen if I died.

“The writer was clearly unwell. If nothing else, a saner stallion wouldn't have given me so many ways to identify him. It took me less than an hour and a half to find the perpetrator (one Professor Redwood, a stallion who taught history at Canterlot U) and to confirm that he was well known for his erratic behavior and morbid interests. Some days later he burst into my bedroom with a blunderbuss at least four times his age and demanded that I light a candle so he would know where to aim. I refused; he might have hurt himself if I let him fire the weapon, and anyway, whatever he had loaded into the weapon was sure to damage my furniture. He said 'please,' and I offered to answer his question in exchange for his gun. He told me it wasn't a gun; it was an authentic griffin blunderbuss from the third griffo-minotauran war. I said I knew what it was, since I specifically recalled outlawing them. He apologized for breaking the law and said he'd surrender the weapon to the guards as soon as he finished using it to kill me.

“I asked him what in the starless hells he thought he would accomplish with all this. He asked if I'd gotten the letter. I told him I had, and that I spent the day pondering his question. I told him again that I would answer his question if he gave me the authentic griffin blunderbuss from the third griffo-minotauran war. 'The one you made illegal?' 'The very same,' I said. He set the gun down next to my bed and went over to the window to sit in the yellow wicker chair I typically take my tea in, hunkering down to listen.

“I'd written down my thoughts on the matter over the past few days, then arranged the resulting collection by subject and chronology. Now I lit a candelabra and read him the highlights. First I went over the immediate concerns, such as the contents of my will and what the legal repercussions would likely be for Professor Redwood. The will didn't seem to interest him that much and he just cocked his head like a bluejay when I started to talk about criminal justice, so I skipped ahead to describe my theory that Equestria would industrialize and revert to being a full scarcity society, and to make a few remarks on how these economic circumstances would likely interact with Equestria's growing counterculture and inevitable militarization. He was enraptured, and I always enjoy an appreciative audience, so I ended up reading that entire part out loud.

“After a few more pages I simply gave him the entire pile of papers and went back to sleep while he read them from the beginning. I never did get enough rest that night, though, because a maid came in a good hour before dawn and screamed for all she was worth. Honey-Do was always very tightly wound. My door guards came in and were understandably confused, until I pointed out the fireplace in the antechamber, and, more to the point, the sooty hoofprints leading from there to my door.

“Honey-Do screamed a bit more, and the guards shouted and stomped, and eventually Redwood looked up from his reading and asked everyone to be quiet. They didn't. Honey-Do scolded him for getting soot everywhere, which I'll confess I found cathartic, and the guards demanded to know what he was doing. The professor explained, once he could get a word in, that he'd come to kill me because he wanted to know what would happen. He apologized for the mess.

The rest of the week was thoroughly confusing for Professor Redwood, I'm afraid, but I arranged for a very comfortable and tastefully decorated padded room with plenty of reading material. We corresponded until his passing.”

“And he never tried to break out or send another threat? No hard feelings on either side?”

“Remember that we're discussing a stallion who could write endless reams of ingeniously insightful dissertations and academic papers within his field, but was incapable of buying groceries or having a lucid conversation. He was not a bad pony, just a confused one. I always enjoyed reading his letters. He understood my work in ways few others ever have, and I was one of the rare few who'd seen with her own eyes the ancient roads and battlefields that had always dominated his mind. We appreciated each other.”

“Enough chattering. What kind of barbarian doesn't own a table?”

“What do I need a table for when I've got a lap?” said Mag.

Author's Note

This one's a bit short and a bit shapeless because I'm having a busy week.

Conversation Eight

Mag stood in the bathroom with the door open, going over her cigarettes individually with a hair dryer. Celestia stood in the hall and read Mag's resume.

“You did well in high school, considering your circumstances,” said Celestia.

“It was something to do,” said Mag.

“Work history sparse and mostly irrelevant, but I'm offering on-the-job training, so that's not a problem. Steady work, and not a lot of jumping between jobs. Here's some kind of long number labeled 'SSN,' and it's displayed prominently, so I can only assume you have an especially good one.”

“Definitely,” said Mag.

“Contact information.' More long numbers. How does this work?”

Mag tossed her broken cellphone out the bathroom door. Celestia caught it.

“Open it,” said Mag. “No, from the bottom. Yeah. Okay, see those number buttons? If my phone worked, which it doesn't, you could put one of those phone numbers in and talk to the person next to the name.”

“Let me see,” said Luna. Celestia floated it back to Mag. Mag opened it and held it up for Luna to look at.

“And how far away can the other party be before this ceases to work?” said Luna.

“It's less about distance and more about satellite coverage. If the satellite signal can get to this phone and also to the other phone, I can talk to that person anywhere on Earth. The people who run the satellites charge more depending on whether you're calling another country, though, and which country.”

“A powerful tool,” said Luna.

“May I try?” said Celestia.

“My phone is broken, so it doesn't even turn on, but go ahead and push some buttons” said Mag, tossing the phone to Celestia and picking her hair dryer back up.

“If I could contact your previous employers, what would they tell me about you?” said Celestia.

“Technically, they're legally only allowed to tell you the date I started working for them and the date I stopped, and anything other than that is potentially slander,” said Mag.

“And if they were legally allowed to comment on your performance?”

“They'd tell you I'm even-tempered, fastidious, and quiet. The 97Cents store would tell you they let me go because a customer complained when I didn't smile back, and, if Mrs. Wattleson still works at the Bigfoot Museum, she'll tell you I'm a whore.”

“I imagine there's a story behind the latter. Do I need to know it?”

Mag considered throwing the cigarettes away. Drying them was taking forever, and they smelled like the lake. “I don't know, do you?” No, she'd keep drying.

“I very much doubt it,” said Celestia.

“Is the story amusing?” said Luna.

“Wattleson caught me checking out her son.”

“Ha!” said Luna.

“I see,” said Celestia.

“Is that a normal 'I see,' or the 'I see' where I'm supposed to get self-conscious and rethink the last few things I said?”

“The normal kind,” said Celestia.

Luna laughed in Mag's head. “Your are about to pay for that, I wager.”

“And have you ever been 'let go' for reasons that were unequivocally your fault? Please be as honest as you possibly can.”

Mag started to answer and then paused. She had a ready answer to that. She had a ready answer for most interview questions, in fact; acing interviews was Mag's specialty. The trick was to BS shamelessly. Celestia was unlikely to fall for that, however, and now all of Mag's interview instincts were sending false signals.

A more honest answer had also occurred to her, and it led to something she'd been hoping not to mention. Mag could explain now or she could evade the question until Celestia dragged it out of her. She'd have to answer.

“Well... to be honest, I might get fired in a few minutes, and if I do then I'll deserve it.”

“Oh?”

Mag turned the blow dryer off and readjusted her ponytail nervously. “Yeah, uh, well, remember how I ditched a day and a half of work and got the store robbed including the keys? I'm about to drive down to a payphone and call my boss to tell him about it. He's never been that impressed with me in the first place, he's getting tired of me, and this is probably the last straw.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” said Celestia. “He's been dissatisfied with your performance?”

“I think he thinks I've got an attitude problem, and he might have a point,” said Mag.

“And you were supposed to be at work today?”

“Yeah,” said Mag, wishing she could just shut the door and not have to talk about this anymore.

“For my sake?” said Celestia. “You could have left me to my own devices for the day.”

“Yeah, I know. I just really didn't want to go. Even before you showed up, I wasn't going to, not today and not tomorrow. I'm getting as sick of that job as my boss is of me, at about the same rate, and I'm getting lax.”

“I'm disappointed to hear that,” said Celestia. Mag withered.

“Your employer will decide the appropriate consequences,” said Luna.

“And then we'll say no more about it,” said Celestia. “But I can only hope you'll attach more importance to the job I give you. Are you supposed to be at work right now?”

"The store is open from 7:00 to 3:00 on Saturdays, so it'd close in about an hour,” said Mag.

“Then isn't that where you should be?”

***

The one thing Mag hadn't wanted was time to think, and, with no customers and a pristine store, she had almost an hour to herself. Well, not completely to herself. She would never be alone again, after all.

There was no point in getting worked up about it. She'd made a big show of being perfectly okay with Luna in her head for the rest of her life. The rest of—hang on. What would happen to Luna when Mag died? In fact, what would happen if they really did manage to bring back Equestria? Luna had a job to do, and if Luna didn't get her body back then Mag had better get packing. She could ask right now, of course, but she didn't have the guts, and anyway, someone might come in.

Are you sure you can't hear me? Mag thought at Luna. There was no answer.

Mag wondered if Luna would show up on a CAT scan, or how antipsychotic medications would affect her.

“What are you right now?” said Mag.

“Me?” said Luna.

“Yeah.”

“A dream.”

“And that means what, exactly? Are you a pattern of electrical impulses in my brain that somehow forms a separate consciousness, or are you a self-aware hallucination, or what?”

“You can think of me as the latter, if you wish, though I am in no way the product of your mind.”

“I think today would make a lot more sense if I had gone crazy,” said Mag. “I suddenly have an unreasonably beautiful friend who looks human except when no one is looking, and I think I pretty much met God this morning. Then I traveled dimensions on the back of the magical queen of unicorns and now I have a voice in my head that tells me to do things.”

“When have I told you to do things?”

“On the way here.”

“Did I? I don't recall.”

“Remember when that guy pulled out in front of me and you told me to rear-end him?”

“It was a suggestion at most.”

“Maybe, but it was a very strongly worded one. 'Run him down, that bog-spavined blaggard of an upright baboon,' you said. Did you know you slip into Elizabethan English when you're annoyed?”

“What is Elizabethan English?”

“Oh, you know, 'thou' and 'thee' and 'bog-spavined blaggard of an upright baboon.'”

“We call it Middle Equestrian, but yes.”

Mag decided to have a cup of coffee. She'd started the coffee machine when she came in along with the hot dog roller, and no one was likely to come in, so she might as well. She drank it black. It was cheap and vile, and oddly comforting. There was something defiant and alive about bad coffee. It burnt her tongue and left an acrid, almost sulfurous aftertaste, and right now it felt like a middle finger directed at the void. She decided to bring a thermos of it next time they went to Equestria.

Mag drained the mug, coughed, turned around to make sure no one had come in when she'd had her back turned, and said, “I just thought of something. Elizabethan English is what it is because of European history. It's got French loan words, German influences, bits of Latin from Roman occupation, all sorts of things that make it, well, earthly. It's an Earth language, and it evolved naturally. So where did Equestria get it?”

“Simple. Technically I am not speaking English. I am speaking Equestrian, and my nature is such that you understand it in your own language. The same applies to Celestia.”

“She never mentioned that,” said Mag. She looked at the clock on the register. Only 15 minutes to go.

“I believe you said you spoke to your regent today,” said Luna.

“I did?”

“You said you spoke to your god, did you not?”

“Yeah, and don't remind me,” said Mag.

“Celestia asked permission to stay, I suppose, as is proper. Did she bargain for others to come with her?”

“I think so,” said Mag. “She mentioned refugees. Or the eldest did. I forget. Either way, he probably knew you were coming, so I think he would have let us know somehow if he had a problem.”

“He knew? How can you tell?”

“He knows everything. It's his thing, I guess, along with murder, and being rude as all hell.”

“Murder?”

“The first thing he did on Earth was kill his brother so that he'd be the only one in charge of this operation.”

Luna answered with shocked silence.

“Explains a lot, don't you think?” said Mag.

“What possessed him to do that?”

“Do you mean literally? Either way, I don't know. Maybe you're right and the devil made him do it. Celestia says he's crazy.”

“I meant it figuratively, but that's a thought.”

“That he was born possessed? Wait. I just remembered I don't want to talk about him or think about him or remember his existence, not unless I have to. Let's talk about something else.”

“Then pray do something for me.”

“I don't pray, but sure,” said Mag.

“This is not a prayer. Put your paws—I mean hands—together.”

It sounded like praying, but Mag put her hands together anyway.

“Now draw them apart, but keep them flat.”

Mag did.

“A wooden chair.”

“What?”

“Do nothing but hold your hands in place. Simply listen, and picture each image as I give it. A leather bag of ice. A bowl of milk. The new moon. Message in a bottle. The color black.”

“Why are we doing this?” said Mag.

“It's a mental exercise. Dog hair on a sofa. Cold nose in fog. A kiss on the cheek. The color white. A dalmatian. A policeman. How do you feel?”

“Perplexed,” said Mag.

“And how do you feel now that I've asked how you feel?”

“Perplexed, intrigued, a little irritated.”

“The color red. The color black. The color white. White red black. Black white red. Black white red white. Black red white black.”

Mag sighed.

“Black red white black white red. Black red white black. Black red white red black. Black white red white black, and the aforementioned wooden chair. Black red white black. You may now put your hands down.”

“Are you messing with me again?”

“Yes.”

Mag put her hands down. “Literal plaything of the gods. Is this my life now?”

Luna's gave a whispering, feminine chuckle. “Is it really so shameful to amuse me? Ponies have traveled a thousand miles to exchange ten words with me in my court—to thank me, to forgive me, to spit at the floor before my throne. Fillies and colts have stood on their hind legs to whisper their little stories and questions in my ear. For one week last year I held the Court of Evening Flames; my servants built a great bonfire under the waxing moon and lined the streets of Canterlot with torches, and near ten-score bards came for no other purpose than to vie for my attention with their skills—tragedians, fools, dancers, jugglers, contortionists, snake-charmers, traveling storytellers sitting on rugs in the street, violinists and fiddlers, pianists and accordioneers... you have my attention, Mag, and they would have longed to be you, even to be a—what was your word?—'plaything.'”

“Are you actually this full of yourself, or are you still messing with me?”

“Messing with you? I would never mock your dour, unrelenting, almost religious allegiance to egalitarianism, always expressed with overfamiliar mien and affectionate rudeness.”

“Well you would say that, being part of a diarchy of infallible love and selflessness.” Mag blinked. “Comma, she said without sarcasm. You two are so weird. Have I mentioned that?”

“'Infallible love and selflessness?' One of us, perhaps, and I doubt even that, though she certainly expects much of herself.”

“Maybe she should. Your subjects all look like children, and she dotes on anything that'll hold still long enough.”

A customer walked in, some old man in a trucker's hat and half-inch-thick glasses who was obviously too nearsighted to see Mag glaring at him. He bought a 24-pack of O'Doul's, paid in exact change, and tore open the cardboard top on the way out of the building with a rattle of glass on glass. Mag didn't watch after that.

“They were indeed children, in most ways. Few mortals ever truly grow up. Those who do are often matters of legend.”

Mag checked the clock. Two minutes left. “Is that right?”

“It is. But of course I've seen exceptions. How about you? Would you like to become a matter of legend, Mag? An adult can change the world, even this world. I could aid you in this—if you will allow it.”

Mag emptied the register into the safe. This wasn't difficult, as the only things purchased in cash that day were a 24-pack of O'Doul's, a Slim Jim, a fun-size bag of Doritos, and a bottled soda. Mag remembered just in time that she needed to make change for her morning purchases; she triple-checked the arithmetic, as she wasn't sure she'd be allowed in the store after she called her boss and didn't want to make a mistake she couldn't fix. Luna waited patiently for Mag's response.

“I already signed on with Celestia,” said Mag at last. “Anyway, her offer was more concrete and less condescending.”

“She is a better salespony than I. Celestia can offer you a fulfilling and honorable life, and I imagine her pitch was a work of art. For my part, I offer only toil and understanding, and promise nothing else. I believe happiness is overrated. I do not sugarcoat. I'll never shield you from the consequences of your own decisions. But you want a concrete offer, don't you? All right. Magic.”

Mag flipped the “open” sign to “closed.” “Witchcraft lessons in exchange for my soul? You have my attention.”

“I don't know what you mean by that, so I shall just wait for you to clarify or give me a straight answer.”

Mag turned a few of the lights off, pulled her purse out from under the counter for possibly the last time, and walked out the back door. She stopped a few feet away and turned. “Here's the thing. You're the third person today to try acting like an authority figure, and of the three of you, you're the one inside my head. I sure as hell don't want an authority figure in my head. And on your end, if you're going to be stuck in a cage with someone until they die, would you rather be stuck with a student, or a, you know, a sort of, well...”

“Hm?”

“... a friend?”

“Then friends we shall be.”

“Well then, as a friend, could you maybe lock this door somehow?”

“Let us find out. May I use your left hand?”

“I already said you could.”

Mag's hand lifted up and pressed against the door above the lock. Nothing happened.

“Apparently I cannot.”

Luna let Mag's hand drop, but Mag put it back. “Would I be able to lock it myself, if I knew how?”

“I couldn't say. How many humans have done magic? What fuels human magic? What fuels you? Answer these questions and I may try to guess.”

“I'm having trouble with the idea of human magic when I think we've proven that I can't see your 'aether' thing and, what's more, you can use my hands to touch a door but you can't use my alleged magic to lock it. Why do you think I can do magic, and how does that relate to that word prayer hand thing you made me do?” It was the warmest part of the day, but the door had been in the shade all morning and Mag could feel frost melting under her hand.

“I guided you through a modified version of the magic assessment test—you would remember it from the documentary if you had been listening to it earlier. At first I wished to distract you from the dolor that had gripped you, while also confirming for myself that you truly couldn't touch the aether, but your results, while mostly indecipherable to me, were not null.”

“And yet humans can't see it.”

“For heavens' sake, please take your hand off the door. I can feel that too.”

“Turn off your sense of touch so you don't have to worry about it. You've figured out how, right?”

“I won't, because I believe you're trying to tell me something.”

“I just want to throw you off and keep you interested. And I'm doing it because garbage coffee, unfunny jokes, arguments, and cold doors seem to make me feel the most like myself when there's another supernatural being trying to recruit me for something. Also out of some kind of randomized spite that I didn't bother to think about, because I like to think I've made this into your problem instead of mine. What'll you do?”

“Simple. I'll drop the issue out of confusion. Your hand is beginning to warm the metal anyway.”

“I noticed. It's sort of like I won, isn't it? I beat the cold.”

“Then, by my count and insofar as I've understood you, you've gotten everything you wanted and you can put your hand down.”

Mag touched her left hand to her face. Luna yelped. Mag quickly wiped the ice off; she'd braced for the cold, but it'd still been unpleasant.

“This is what friendship means to you, I suppose.”

“I'm still feeling it out, to be honest.”

“Isn't everyone?”

Mag walked away. The door would have to stay unlocked, but she could see her handprint in the frost and it made her feel better somehow.

Mag walked around the back corner into the sun and up to the payphone. Two more things. Two more things. Two phonecalls and then she could feel like she'd done her duty for the day. Yes, she'd skipped out on work and probably should be ashamed of herself, and yes, both calls were likely to be horrible, and yes, her house was no longer a refuge from civilization and was now full of people who'd get very stern about housemates who dealt with their problems by eating a whole jar of peanut butter with a spoon while hiding under six blankets with the bedroom lights off and the door blocked with a tilted chair, which was a shame because that was what Mag really wanted at the moment.

But if she made two phone calls after everything else that had happened then she could feel like she'd had a human day and had also done something Maggish, something Maggy.

First she called her boss. His name was Amitabh Bachchan (no relation), and he was alright. He didn't raise his voice, though sometimes his voice could get very urgent, something Mag had had a problem with before because his Indian accent was as pure, thick and rich as the day he'd first stepped off the plane. Mr. Bachchan was in his sixties but looked forty, and had a sheepish, scruffy smile that had probably gotten him out of a lot of trouble over the course of his life. He had no particularly terrible flaws and Mag had always felt a little bad for dreading the sound of his voice every day. This weekend's carelessness turned out to be, yes, the proverbial straw that broke the proverbial camel's proverbial back. Mag would never clean that store again. He thanked her. She thanked him back. He said goodbye. So did she. He hung up.

“Yep,” said Mag to herself.

“There, there,” said Luna in a kindly but unsure voice. In a moment of emotional vertigo Mag realized this must be what it was like to be on the receiving end of her own awkward attempts to comfort Celestia for a pain she couldn't even claim to understand. She didn't know how to feel about that, so she decided to deal with the next thing. One more thing, and then she could go home.

She dialed a random ten-digit number. Someone picked up.

“Hello?” said some guy. It wasn't him. Mag hung up and mashed out ten more numbers. There was no such number, and the next number she tried was also unowned. The fourth one worked.

“Cute,” the eldest said over the line. “What the hell do you want?” A TV played some sort of Spanish talk show in the background.

Mag swallowed her pride. “Save them.”

“No. We done?”

“Who wrote that? Your brother? You?”

A window opened on the other end of the line, accompanied by the sound of traffic. “How should I know? It didn't happen in my world, so it's not my problem, so I can't see it.”

“Save them,” said Mag. “Has anyone ever asked you? Come on. Save us. Has anyone ever said please?”

“Yes, so don't bother. When you're immortal, trust me, sooner or later everything has happened to you at least once. People have begged me to save mankind in, what, 211 and a half different languages? No, 212 and a half. You want my advice? Save us yourself.”

Mag elbowed the metal of the phone box. “Say please.”

The eldest spat, hopefully out the window. “Oh, please.”

“Whatever. I figured I'd try.”

“One second,” said the eldest.

“What.”

“Do me a favor and put your hand on the brick wall, will you? Just for a second.”

Mag didn't move. “What's this about?”

“Just for a second, please.”

Mag leaned past the phone to touch the wall with a finger. “There.”

“No, with your whole hand.”

Mag laid her hand flat.

“Good. Now, listen, please. Thank you. By the way, hello, princess.” Luna didn't answer.

“Nice to meet you too,” said the eldest. “You listening, Ms. Wilson?”

“For about the next three seconds, and then we're freaking done.”

“Six seconds, actually.” His voice changed to a perfect imitation of Mag's father. “The first friends you make in years are some foreign negress and a California queer? Is that how we raised you?”

“GO TO HELL,” shouted Mag.

The brick wall cracked under her hand and the phone receiver in her other hand shattered. Mag jumped back from the phone box. She thought she could hear the eldest say “Sweet dreams,” but couldn't be sure.

Mag touched the crack in the wall. It passed laterally through the vertical height of eight bricks. The phone was all over the ground in a spray of black plastic and colorful wires. She looked over her shoulder for witnesses, picked up her purse from where she'd set it, slung it over her shoulder, and walked to her car.

“I didn't do that,” said Mag.

“I agree.”

“If anyone asks me if I saw who did it, I can truthfully say I didn't, and that I can't explain how it happened.”

“Perfectly true.”

“Glad we agree. Do I need to worry about breaking my car with magic? I'm a little worried about touching things right now, because seriously, I don't understand how that worked.”

“You needn't worry about that, but I believe you would feel better if you better understood what just happened. Would you like to discuss my tutelage again?”

Mag got in, slammed the door, turned on the heater, and accidentally revved the engine after a couple of false starts. “Can we talk about this later? I just want to go home.”

“As you wish, friend.”

Mag felt something loosen in her chest at the word “friend.” She'd always been a sentimentalist. If she weren't, she'd never put up with all these talking horses.

“Thank you,” said Mag.

“And can we discuss what that second talk was about?”

Mag adjusted the rear view mirror so the sun wouldn't get in her eyes as she pulled out. “He's the regent. He's a prick. My world sucks and it's his fault. He sees everything, like the damned panopticon. This includes the future, and he decided that this is the future he wants, so it really is his fault. I called him because I thought maybe it'd help if someone said 'please.' I know it's stupid, but if I didn't do it then I'd wonder for the rest of my life whether it would have worked. Don't tell Celestia, will you?”

“As you wish.”

“Friend,” said Mag to herself, driving away from her old job and leaving one last mess for someone else to clean up.

***

“Mag, I'm glad you're—” Celestia did a double-take. “Mag, are you okay?”

“I've been better,” said Mag, kicking her boots into the closet. “I've been fired and now I'm going to eat a jar of peanut butter in the bedroom.”

“It's just that the aether around you has an odd texture,” said Celestia. Her brow furrowed. “What do you mean you're going to eat a jar of peanut butter? I'm about to make dinner. You'll ruin your appetite.”

“I knew you wouldn't like my coping skills. Hey, so I'm grateful you're making dinner, but I need to disappear into my room and pretend to myself that I'll never come out again, m'kay? Just knock when you need help.”

“Do whatever you need to, Mag, and talk with me whenever you're ready,” said Celestia. She glanced back at Mag. “What is it?”

“Nothing. Luna is laughing herself sick at your housewife impression, is all. See you soon.” Mag stalked into the bedroom, turned the lights off, and fell into bed.

Author's Note

Posted at 3:47 AM. You got a complaint, that's my excuse. Tell me if you see a stupid mistake, though, such as how Mag never put money into the payphone.

I should fix that or something.

Conversation Nine

Mag dreamed.

She dreamed of marble pillars under the open sky, lit only by an unfamiliar moon. The floor was all one piece of smooth stone. Mag walked barefoot, like she used to over leaves and round, flat rocks in the woods of Mississippi so, so long ago, and her hair hung loose around her shoulders. Through an open door on the other side of the—was it a temple?—she could see the glow of a fire, and from the door issued a single indistinct voice. It seemed to be calling her name.

Mag walked to the door, confused but unafraid. The floor was cool under her feet but not cold. What stone was it? Alabaster. But she'd never seen it before, so how could it be in her dream, and why did she know what it was?

Mag pushed open the door and found a larger and better lit pillared marble and alabaster room with its own open ceiling, with Luna sitting in front of a bonfire as wide as Mag's house and taller than the big bear, though the fire burned silent.

Even if Mag hadn't seen Celestia's drawing, there was no mistaking Luna. She was the younger sister, yet her eyes looked older. Celestia would always look young, while Luna looked as if she was born old. Her smile was small, secretive, sincere, and her shadow spread hugely against the wall beside the door Mag had just walked through. Luna's shadow was sharp and perfectly still however the fire danced, and darker than the bottom of a coal mine.

Luna spoke.

The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single,
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle -
Why not I with thine?

Mag approached the fire and sat beside her. Luna turned to face the fire. They watched it together for a while.

"My point," said Luna, "is that I've access to the minds of Earth while you sleep. Do you recognize this poem?"

Mag shook her head.

"It is by Percy Shelley," said Luna.

"It sounds like a love poem," said Mag. Her voice sounded so strange in this place.

"It is," said Luna.

"Getting Stockholm syndrome?"

"What is that?"

"Is this really the place for talking?" said Mag. "It feels like it's supposed to be a quiet place."

"This place is of my own design and serves whatever purpose I wish it to, theoretically; but, having made it out of your own dreamstuff rather than mine, perhaps it carries properties I didn't put into it. Is it? Is this a quiet place, Mag?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'm just feeling quiet."

Luna closed her eyes, looked at the fire through her eyelids, lifted her nose to smell the air. "All of this is yours. Let your mood dictate its purpose. We will call it a quiet place, and be quiet together."

Mag leaned against Luna. She wouldn't do such a thing in the waking world, but surely the rules were different in dreams. Luna didn't protest.

Mag took soft, barefoot, low-gravity leaps over the gray sand, hair floating around her face. Luna flew beside her.

Some small, black prominence sat at the central mound of a great crater. Mag bound down the wall of the crater and then up the prominence to examine it, and found it to be an unfamiliar pony princess sitting stock still.

If princesses were Disney characters, this one was Maleficent. She had slitted cat's eyes, a black coat, wings like scythes, a suit of armor, and Luna's old eyes. Mag waved her hand in front of the new princess, who didn't move. Luna caught up and sat beside Mag, looking anywhere but at the black princess.

"Can I ask?" said Mag.

"I resolved some time ago to answer all questions honestly, that regard the Nightmare," said Luna.

"This is you."

"This was me."

"Did you really just sit here like this?"

"For a thousand years," said Luna. "I'll have the cod." She shut her menu and gave it to the waiter.

"Crab salad," said Mag, doing the same.

"Leila lina lu," said the waiter, and swam away.

"You're aware that cod is a type of meat?" said Mag.

"You're aware that this is a dream?" said Luna.

"Fair enough. I recognize this place, you know."

Luna changed into a human (the mirror of her sister, but a little shorter and with harsher features) and examined herself in the bowl of her spoon. "Yes?"

"I was a toddler. I never went in, but I liked the neon sign outside, though I couldn't read it. I asked if we could eat there. They told me it looked "pretty sleezy" and I didn't understand what "sleezy" meant, but I knew the word "pretty" and it only made me more curious. We never did go in, and now I dream about the place sometimes." She held up a drink coaster, a thick circle of cardboard embossed with the words "The Sleezypretty."

"Did you ever learn the true name of the place?" said Luna.

"I've never remembered this place, except in dreams," said Mag. "I'll forget everything when I wake up. And I'm sure it'd turn out to be a low-rent Hooter's knockoff or something equally banal, so I'd just be disappointed."

The food arrived with improbable speed. Luna tucked one of the black cloth napkins into the collar of her slinky evening gown and dug into the cod with every sign of enjoyment. This put Mag off her salad. She slid it to the side and ordered a Jack and Coke.

"There is something I'd like to discuss," said Luna.

"Hm?"

"Magic."

"Another of these," said Mag, waving her empty glass at a passing busser.

"Do you mean to get drunk?" said Luna.

"I hadn't thought that far ahead. Don't let me distract you. What's this about magic?"

"I'm afraid there is a possibility you'll need basic access to your magic before dawn tomorrow. We can discuss the whys later. For now, black red white black." Luna tipped her plate of fishbones into the bonfire. Mag sat down on the stone floor again and set her drink beside her.

Luna spoke mildly, conversationally, as if to avoid scaring Mag off. "The world of dreams is an excellent place to practice magic, I have always felt. The classic student's complaint 'But I can't do that' is inarguably foolishness here, for this is your dream. You needn't concern yourself with what is possible, here, only what is imaginable. Imagine yourself doing magic. Dream of magic, learn the feel of it, and carry that feeling into the sunlight. Do this, learn the processes, and all that is left is practice."

"I didn't say you could teach me magic," said Mag.

"May I teach you magic?" said Luna.

"Not just now. I feel so tired. I'm asleep, but I'm so tired. What does that mean?"

"You've had a trying day," said Luna.

"We all have," said Mag, "and between the three of us, I'm the one with the fewest problems. I'm being selfish by bringing it up."

"Nay. I have fewer problems than you, for a problem is only a problem insofar as it may be solved, and what you would call my problems are insoluble, whatever my sister's view. All that I love is gone, Mag, except for my sister, and there is nothing I can do about it. I shall cling to what I have left, therefore, as the survivor of a sunken ship clings to a piece of broken hull, and paddle to shore as best I can. Then I'll prove that it is possible to live with a broken heart."

"How can you stand it?" said Mag. Was that a cruel question? She couldn't take it back.

"I can't," said Luna.

"What can I do?"

Luna smiled. "You are already doing it."

Mag finished her drink and tossed the glass into the fire. "Celestia thinks she can bring back Equestria."

"To that I can only say that if hope were music, Celestia would be Mozart," said Luna.

"It's pronounced 'Mozart,'" said Mag.

"I don't care. Of course, in fairness, blind hope is how she accomplishes all her miracles. She turns traitors into sisters and mortals into legends. Celestia can be so very stubborn, and she has a talent for finding loopholes, so who can say for sure what she'll accomplish? But there is no bringing back the dead. But come; you don't yet wish to discuss magic, and, in all candor, I haven't the heart to discuss what has been lost. So, apropos of nothing and without any reference to tiring subjects or questions of rights to teaching, out of curiosity, what does the combination of the colors red, white, and black mean to you?"

"Sometimes I get the feeling you two are used to getting your way," said Mag.

"Should you respond with a flat 'no' to my question then I will drop the issue for now, but this is rather important. I'll explain why later tonight. Will you please answer?"

"All right, you've got me curious. What was your question again?"

"What does the combination of the colors red, white, and black mean to you?"

Mag, in a spirit of experimentation, closed her eyes and imagined the moon, but a different part than they'd seen tonight. She imagined them looking off the edge of a great cliff on the moon, opened her eyes, and found herself there. Details she hadn't pictured had filled themselves in, maybe from Luna's mind, maybe from somewhere else, wherever it was dreams really came from.

The fire was still there. Luna had brought it with them.

"Red, white, black," said Mag. "Weren't there four colors?"

"The full pattern is black, red, white, black," said Luna. "Don't concern yourself with the precise order for now. Now we discuss the introspective and the imaginative portions of magic."

"Black, red, white, black," said Mag. "White, black, red. Red black white. Black red white." Luna waited patiently.

"I guess the first thing I think of is snakes," said Mag.

"Snakes?"

"King snakes and coral snakes," said Mag.

"Yes?"

"Yeah. A coral snake is a secretive, reclusive type of poisonous snake they teach you to watch out for in America. The king snake isn't venomous, but it looks almost exactly like the coral snake, so you have to know the difference if you get bitten. The best way to tell the king snake from the coral snake is their stripe patterns, and there's a rhyme to remember what order the stripes are in for the two types of snake. 'Red touches yellow, kills a fellow. Red touches black, friend of Jack.' That rhyme is what I remember."

"Have you ever encountered either species of snake?" said Luna.

"Only king snakes," said Mag. "You know, they're called king snakes because they eat other snakes, including the poisonous ones."

"No coral snakes?"

"Nope."

"You seem to have some knowledge of snakes. Do they interest you?"

Mag shrugged.

"What else do red, white, and black call to mind?"

"Masks," said Mag.

"What sort of mask?" said Luna.

Mag dropped a rock off the precipice. It made no sound as it hit the bottom; there were no sounds here, except their voices. "African tribal masks."

"What purpose do they serve?"

"Oh, you know. People wear them to act out folktales and that kind of thing."

Luna nudged a rock off the edge as well. "And these masks are red, white, and black?"

"Some of them," said Mag.

"Masks and snakes. Very well. What do you think magic feels like?"

"Hopefully we're getting closer to the part where you tell me what you're looking for here. What do I think it feels like? I don't think I'd feel anything. I can't feel the aether. It'd be like Beethoven at his piano, playing music he can't hear."

"Let us discuss Beethoven some other time, when we both better understand what barriers to learning you must overcome. Anyway, I was being unclear. How would it make you feel, emotionally, to see yourself perform magic?"

"Confused," said Mag truthfully.

"To be expected. You've had no time to become comfortable with it."

"Now I have a question," said Mag.

"Ask," said Luna.

"Why did I break the wall and the phone when I got mad? If getting angry is what sets off the magic for me, why hasn't it ever happened before? Did you guys do something? Did the eldest?"

Luna looked pleased. "Ah, we approach the mechanics of magic. I'll speak in the simplest terms I can because all of this is new to you. Magic comes from the heart. It is an expression of your essential self. What you can do, as well as how you do it, is defined by how you see the world. When you broke that wall and that phone, you were reacting to something you saw in the world, reacting in a way that expressed something fundamental to your understanding of yourself and everything else. This is not so easy, and that is why you haven't done it before. It is possible you never would have performed any magic in your entire life, had the eldest not goaded you into it."

"I'm not thanking him until I see what comes of all this. So you're saying that telling the eldest to go to Hell is an expression of my essential self?"

"It is likely better to consider the feelings of the moment, rather than the words you spoke," said Luna. "Try to recall how it felt when the eldest first altered his voice, how you felt when he insulted Celestia, what the wall felt like under your hand, the smell of pine. Sift through the details, and what they felt like. This is where you'll find your power."

"What kinds of powers come from people who, uh, get their powers from getting mad?"

"It may not be anger," said Luna. "It could be fear. It could be the smell of spilled alcohol while the sun is in your eyes. Perhaps you'll cast your spells by recalling the feeling of being slightly hungry. Most likely, it's something you have no word for, or else something too precise for words."

"All right, then what does it say about me that my powers involve breaking things?"

Luna chuckled. "That depends. What does 'black red white black' mean? I've never seen that one. Not even close. I can only tell you it's inequine. The closest auric signature I've seen was of an old lantern frame, rusty and broken, once used in a lighthouse by an earth pony who carried it to work every day and back home every night. Used so often, over so many years, that it developed a magic of its own. White grey white red black, I think it was. I couldn't tell you what that signature meant either." Luna turned her head to the fire, as if hearing something. "Our time is up. One more thing..."

***

Mag woke up to a genteel knock on her bedroom door. "Dinner's ready," said Celestia. "Would you like to come out? We can talk about what happened, if you like."

"Be out in a second," mumbled Mag, and slid out of bed. She lifted her fingers to hook the hair out of her face, but noticed something in her hand that hadn't been there before. She turned on the light to look at it.

It was a drink coaster embossed with the words "The Sleezypretty."

"You've lived a life without magic," said Luna, "but today you found it in yourself, and now you must learn that the rules are not what you think they are. Be humble and be careful, or others will pay the price. Do you understand? Remember the red asphalt."

Distracted, Mag lost track of the coaster somewhere between the bed and the door. She never saw it again.

Author's Note

Surprise. It's a short chapter, but dammit, it exists. Editing tomorrow if I get a chance (midterms, oh god).

Conversation Ten

Mag stepped out of her bedroom into the too-bright lights of the hall and the smell of garlic bread.

"Ah, you're out," said Celestia from the kitchen.

"Yep," said Mag. She walked into the kitchen to see Celestia wearing a chef's hat of mysterious origin and vigorously stirring olive oil into a bowl of crushed greenery.

"This is an herbivore's dinner, I'm afraid," said Celestia, setting the bowl down.

"I'm not complaining. Do you even know how to cook meat?"

Celestia turned back to the stove to lift the dinner plate off the top of the pot of spaghetti - Mag didn't have a pot lid - and see how it was doing. "I have only the vaguest idea. If I had to cook meat, I would probably just grill it in a pan while trying not to look, then take it off the stove when the smell changed."

"That'd be how I cook literally everything that can't be cooked in a microwave, so that makes perfect sense to me."

"This meal is almost ready," said Celestia. "Where are your plates? I could only find the one."

"I only own one plate."

Celestia sighed a "What am I going to do with you" sigh.

"Oh, come on. What do I need a second plate for? Tell you what, I also have a bowl. Let me just find it."

"Is it the bowl I've got green beans in?" Celestia pointed with a hoof.

"Oh. Yeah, that's the one."

"At least you have two forks," said Celestia.

"Yeah, I lost the first one, so I bought another, but then I found it under the couch. Lucky, eh?"

"You also have a table," said Luna. "That pile of square objects in the bedroom is sitting on one."

"I thought about that, but can computers be moved?" said Celestia.

"Sure," said Mag. "I'll clear it off and then you can help me drag it out here. I was planning on setting the computer up in the living room anyway, then showing you how to use it. You can look up all the pop culture references I keep dropping."

"If you're going to bring it into the living room then I hope to spend time reading all about human history, actually."

"Party down. I'll go deal with that."

Mag had never bothered to buy a proper desk. She'd found a table at a yard sale for 15 dollars and it worked just fine. She got a lot of things from yard sales, including her tableware and the television. Why spend 30 bucks on 25 eating utensils for a one-person house when you could spend 20 cents for one fork and one spoon, and not have to drive off the mountain to do so?

Mag dragged the table into the kitchen - it wasn't as heavy as she remembered, so she didn't bother to get Celestia's help, though, come to think of it, Celestia could have just levitated it with far less effort - and explained the logic of having to spend less on silverware than one would have to spend on a pack of gum, and how easy it was to do the dishes when you never had to wash more than five things.

Celestia cut her off rather ruthlessly. "You need enough dinnerware for four people minimum, just like anyone else. Honestly, Mag, you should have at least allowed for the possibility that you'd make friends at some point."

"My friends could bring their own plates," said Mag.

"Well, you've made friends now," said Celestia, "and they're here for dinner, and they're both completely unarmed with any plates or spoons. Your logic has failed you. Here you go."

Mag accepted a plate of buttery bow tie pasta with pesto, steaming garlic bread dusted with basil, and a mound of green beans.

Mag set it reverently down on the table. "Thank you. Wow."

Celestia, now serving herself a bowl of the same, smiled. "It wasn't a difficult meal to make, and I said I'd cook you dinner if you spoke with Jorge." She made as if to put a pot lid back on the pot of pasta, remembered there wasn't one, and sat down.

"Who is Jorge?" said Luna.

"Runs the grocery store down the road," said Mag.

"There seemed to be some slight awkwardness between Mag and Jorge, so I encouraged them into a bit of small talk. You know I'm a great believer in the power of small talk."

"Yes, it's maddening," said Luna.

Celestia lifted her fork with magic, stabbed a single bow tie, lifted it up to eye height, and studied it critically. "I hope I got this recipe right. I also hope the pine nuts I gathered are fit for human consumption. Humans can eat pine nuts, yes? I remember them from the market in, ah, Greece, I think you called it, but perhaps things have changed."

"Yeah, we can eat pine nuts. Where on earth did you get pine nuts?" Mag looked out the window. "Wait, no. Seriously?"

"You live in a pine forest and you've never gathered pine nuts?" said Celestia.

"Mag, will you flaming well eat what's in front of you?" said Luna.

"Yes, do," said Celestia.

"Pushy, pushy, pushy," said Mag, and took a bite. It was excellent. Mag ruined it by dissolving into tears.

Celestia leaped to Mag's side of the little table with a flap of her wings and clutched Mag to her furry chest to coo promises of a better tomorrow while Luna offered panicked reassurances. Mag sniveled and blubbered out incoherent fragments of self-effacing apologies, as if she could possibly talk her way out of the situation when she couldn't talk.

Mag eventually fought it all back down and would have tried to act casual and go back to eating dinner, but Celestia wouldn't let go and pretended not to hear when Mag said she was fine. She spilled over again and could do nothing but lay her forehead on the table with her hands folded over the back of her neck, and wait for it to pass.

It did. Celestia, still not letting go, eventually said, "Any better?"

"I don't understand anything on any level," said Mag.

"You'll work it out. I'll help you."

"We both will. You have much to look forward to."

"You have all the time in the world to make sense of what's happening, and you will. You're an especially clever creature in an already brilliant world."

"I know not what to say, or what I can offer you that isn't already yours for the asking from either or both of us, but know that I would offer you any comfort if I only knew what you needed from us."

"I won't leave you alone."

"And neither shall I, for, well, obvious reasons, but I wouldn't if I could."

"We'll all look after each other, okay?"

"Rest. You've done well today."

And Mag was off again.

***

Celestia's table manners were the ultimate proof that courtesy was an art. All that puff about keeping your elbows off the table and making light, inoffensive conversation were just the bare minimum requirement of the medium, like the meter and rhyme restrictions of a sonnet. A sonnet could obey all the rules of poetry and still be a bad sonnet. A person could obey all the rules of dining and still look like a barbarian. Celestia was no barbarian; she was impeccably civilized without being precious. Words and gestures that would have seemed stiff even to a Victorian era baroness seemed casual with her. And yet Celestia never made Mag feel like she was being humored or tolerated.

She tried to draw Mag out, to get her to talk a bit about the local flora and what a person might find at a human yard sale, and when Mag had nothing particularly to say, Celestia took the hint with grace and kept the conversation going all by herself, letting Mag get by on nods and monosyllables.

Crying all over dinner. Lord. What had happened, really, that was such a big deal? Visiting royalty, got fired, compulsory headmate, cleaned the store, suddenly a sorceress, dip in the lake, yelled at a scary hobo, talking pony queen, don't know what to do. Whatever. Most of it wasn't even bad, from a purely objective point of view. There were people who'd kill to be her right now, abject terror or no, and not knowing what to do had been her base state of being for the past decade.

And now she was sitting there pitying herself, and it was clear that Celestia had decided to say something about it, because she'd stopped talking and had the look of someone constructing a tricky sentence.

"The aether seems to be reacting a bit differently to you than it did before. Has something happened?"

"I did magic. I can do magic."

"You can... hm. What happened, and how can I help?" Seeing Mag's face change at the question, she added, "We don't have to discuss this, of course, certainly not right now. I'm sure Luna knows the story and is already doing everything she can."

"Correct," said Luna.

"Long story short, I broke a couple of things I shouldn't have been able to break, and Luna says it was magic," said Mag. "But yeah, Luna's helping."

Celestia nodded. "Well, I hope you aren't planning anything in the way of actual lessons tonight. We're all exhausted."

"May I?"

"Hold on," said Mag. She finished her garlic bread, took her empty plate to the sink, and came back. "Okay."

"Mag has a most interesting signature," said Luna.

"Oh?" said Celestia.

"Black red white black. Have you ever seen such a thing?"

"Never," said Celestia.

"She and I have discussed the possible meanings. In general terms, it would appear to relate to the contemplation of a sensation or concept - well, I am sure you can see that much from the color results. We narrowed it down a bit further, though I am at a loss to explain the mechanisms behind the test to someone with no ability to perceive the aether and therefore cannot enlist her help except through metaphors and leading questions. A bit of gentle experimentation is in order. Some other time, of course."

"Of course," said Celestia.

***

Celestia flatly refused to take the bed, Mag couldn't imagine sharing the bed with her, and, when Mag made as if to lay down blankets for herself next to the couch, Celestia stood up, lowered her horn, and herded Mag into the bedroom.

"We need to get you a bed," said Mag.

"You need to get to bed," said Celestia.

"One thing. Please set up your computer in the living room. I know Celestia, and I suspect she'll have difficulties sleeping, which means leaving her to herself to think in the dark. This is no time to leave her alone with her thoughts. Apprise her of the device and perhaps she'll read herself to sleep."

"Good point," said Mag. She got up and made as if to go around Celestia, who was blocking the door.

"I'm setting up the computer," said Mag.

"Must you? I'm going directly to bed, you know."

"Yes, she will, whereupon she'll find that she cannot relax enough to fall asleep, and will be able to think of nothing else but what we have lost."

Celestia gave Mag a Look. "This is Luna's idea? Let her rest, Luna. I'll be fine."

"Someday, you will be," said Luna. "I swear it. But for now, read yourself to sleep with Mag's machine, and I shall send you dreams of cloudbursts over the sea, and of the glen in which we wore our first crowns, and of camomile baths in great steaming tubs."

"It's easy to set up," said Mag. "You plug the one thing into the other thing and then that thing into the wall. No problem."

Celestia, at a rare loss for words, stepped aside. Mag got her to levitate the table over to the corner near the wall socket and plugged things into things, turned it on, showed Celestia how the mouse worked, explained Google in a bit more detail, and pulled up a poetry website at Luna's suggestion. The whole process took 10 minutes and Celestia picked it up quickly.

"Thank you both," said Celestia as Mag walked back to her bed, "though you both worry too much. I'll be out like a light."

"Let us agree to ignore the optimist and leave her to her own devices. I'll see you on the other side. Worry not; your dreams will be peaceful."

"See you," said Mag, turned off the light, and crawled under the covers. Mag heard the couch creak and blankets shift. Then a while later, just before falling asleep, Mag heard the couch creak again, the swish of moving blankets, and then the clicking of a computer mouse.

***

"How did you find this dream?" said Mag.

"I didn't," said Luna. "This one is yours."

Mag, like a few hours ago in her dream, like 20 years ago in Mississippi, walked barefoot across the forest floor and wore her hair loose around her shoulders. Smooth riverstones framed a winding creek, flowing under a distant, winding canopy of hickory and oak foliage. Bluejays rattled and muttered and argued somewhere up there.

"I'd forgotten this place," said Mag.

"I am glad you remembered it again, then." Luna dipped her head to drink from the water.

"It didn't have a name, so me and my brothers called it 'The Crick.' We played here all day when we could, and I loved this place like I loved life." She pointed downstream. "Follow this and it leads to a gully next to a fat old walnut tree in the middle of a field. We called it the witness tree, even though I'm sure practically every tree in this forest witnessed the civil war. I don't know, it just looked to us like a tree that'd seen things in its lifetime." She leaned down, picked up a hickory nutshell, and tossed it into the water. It floated a few yards and caught up on the arch of an underwater tree-root.

"And that was your accent, I suppose," said Luna.

"My what?"

"Your accent changed. You did notice, didn't you?"

"No, actually," said Mag, consciously shifting back to Californian. "I thought I'd gotten rid of that."

"You could have kept it. You sound almost like the Apples."

"The what?"

"I believe you saw the picture of Applejack," said Luna.

Mag sat down. "So this family of ponies has a southern accent."

"Oh, are you keeping the accent after all?"

"What? Dammit! No. I got rid of everything that reminded me of home and I don't want any of it back. I was practicing my neutral accent before I drove over the Mississippi state line. Repeating everything the DJs said on the national radio stations, copying the way they talked, watching TV every night in the hotels and copying the newscasters."

"Do you wish to leave this place?"

"No. I don't know." Mag brushed leaves away from the forest floor to dig a hole in the dirt with a finger, just for something to do other than look at Luna looking at her. "No. I'd like to stay."

"It is certainly beautiful," said Luna.

"Yes, yes it is. I like everything about it. I like the squirrels, with their little hands and big tails. Sometimes you can also hear turkeys, but they're wary of people. They know we hunt them. I like that it's quiet now. I even like showing it to someone else."

Luna's eyes focused on something over Mag's shoulder, and narrowed. She leaned to the right, then walked and leaned further, peering through the trees at something.

Mag followed her line of sight. At first she saw nothing; then she noticed the same thing she'd seen in the crater - Nightmare Moon, unmoving, waiting.

"I beg your pardon," said Luna to Mag.

"Why?"

"I seem to have brought a memory with me. I was only thinking that something in this forest reminded me of the moon, and I suppose that brought it here."

"Is she dangerous?"

"No. She always has exactly as much power as you give her, and this image signifies nothing to you, so you give it no power."

"It's creepy. She's creepy. It. She. It. Okay, I'm having pronoun troubles."

"It hardly matters," said Luna. "Look over there." Mag looked. There wasn't anything to see. She looked back. Nightmare Moon was gone.

"There," said Luna.

"Cool trick," said Mag.

"The little tricks are often the best ones," said Luna. "I have sealed this dream. There will be no more dream shifts."

"Weren't you going to tell me something?"

"Hm?"

"Before dinner you said something about, uh, something. What?"

"Oh! Yes. We have work to do, I fear, though we may do it here in your forest. My sister is going to do something foalish. She plans to leave before dawn tomorrow, to head to the valley of mirrors and thence to the world in the lake. She plans to do it without us because she fears for our safety, both mine and yours."

"Not happening," said Mag.

"I knew you would say that. Shall we work together?"

"Obviously. But how do you know?"

"I know her," said Luna. "She despised seeing you come to harm today, and I believe she also worries that I am vulnerable while I dwell within a mortal mind. She has no doubt told herself she can manage just as well without us, that she would be more comfortable if she knew we were safe while she went into danger. This is just a post hoc rationalization, of course, and she forgets there are things in the world beneath the lake that may threaten even one such as she. Celestia needs another pair of eyes down there. I also believe she'll be less likely to take risks if she must consider our safety, and this is important, for she is in the mood to take risks."

"Has she been like this before?" said Mag.

"Not exactly like this, but personal loss is a part of life for we who must outlive our loved ones, so I am well acquainted with the ways in which she grieves. She is restless. She is by turns hyperproductive and paralyzed, throwing herself into ambitious projects in one hour and then hiding in her room pretending to sleep in the next. Assuming a placid face for the sake of her subjects, she paces and wanders the halls, stopping to stare at tapestries but not truly seeing them. It is best not to let her brood, or so I have found. I will sometimes ply her with distractions: new works of art, small interpersonal problems for her to solve, secret pranks. Sometimes it works. Then again, sometimes it is best to let her be, or to sit beside her and say nothing."

Mag wondered whether she had it in her to ask Luna what Celestia did when the situation was reversed. She didn't. Too bad she couldn't ask Celestia without Luna hearing the whole conversation. Was there a way to do that?

"So it's time to talk magic," said Mag.

"It's time to talk magic," confirmed Luna.

Author's Note

I wrote most of this just now and I've slept about two hours total in the past 36 hours. I hope it's at least coherent. Anyone sees a logical inconsistency, typo, or obviously bad decision or anything, do me a favor and tell me, will you?

Conversation Eleven, with Monologic Interlude

"Ahem," said Luna. "You have been assured of a restful sleep. We shall therefore avoid the more, shall we say, psychologically taxing exercises, focusing on gateway information, a thorough search for what precisely makes your magic work, and mental discipline. Please make yourself as comfortable as possible so we can begin."

Mag imagined herself a cigarette and settled in.

Luna held up a hoof. "No. Straighten your trunk, face me directly, and square your shoulders."

"That sounds less comfortable," said Mag.

"You'll get used to it. There are breathing exercises you must learn and posture is critical."

Mag decided not to waste time arguing, and rearranged herself into Indian position.

"That looks even more uncomfortable," said Luna.

"Nope," said Mag.

"Hm. We'll see how you feel after a while. Shift into a different position if you should need to. First, your breathing. We will start every lesson with breathing, which I'm sorry to say means no smoking."

And Luna taught Mag how to breathe. It was exactly as dull as one would expect, but at least it wasn't difficult. Mag breathed according to the pattern Luna had prescribed. Luna corrected her. Mag tried again. They kept doing this until there was nothing else for Luna to correct, and she sat in silence while Mag breathed.

"So this is basically meditation, right?" said Mag.

"No, but you'll learn that tonight as well. Keep breathing as I've instructed you, and while you practice that, you will learn the basic mechanics of magic."

"Like that documentary?"

"Yes, but arranged for an adult. I wouldn't wish you to feel as if I were talking down to you."

"Neat. You sure I can't have that cigarette?"

"Can you perform the breathing exercise while smoking?" said Luna.

"I plan to try sooner or later. Why not now, right?"

"Then feel free." Luna turned to the whiteboard and drew a series of vaguely mathematical but utterly unrecognizable symbols. "Now..."

After an interminable length of time full of jargon and apparent nonsense, Luna happened to look behind her to see Mag's face.

"You're kidding," said Mag.

"Why, not at all," said Luna.

"None of that meant anything to me. I understood one word in ten and the word was always 'the' or 'and' or, my personal favorite, 'obviously.' I feel like a caveman that wandered into the third quarter a college calculus class."

"Hm. I think I see the problem, and I should have thought of this much earlier. Does this help?"

Whole new categories of sensation flooded Mag's awareness. Mag jerked upright and her head lolled like the conductor of a seance. The trees were pillars of rushing water and the sky was a wall of light. The stream was life and death. Around Luna's head was a grayscale rainbow aurora, from her hooves stretched a shadow deeper than the sea and darker than the spaces between the stars, Mag's hands were wooden claws her breath was love her blood was silt her head was pain her bones seared like whiskey her

It all faded into halos and dusk, and Mag found herself spasming against a tree. Luna had her hoof on Mag's shoulder and watched her with concerned eyes. The aurora was still there around Luna's head, but Mag had to squint to see it, and her shadow was dim rather than dark.

"That was rash, and I apologize," said Luna.

"The hell was that?" said Mag, still shaking.

"I let you see the aether. But, like a fool, I made you too sensitive."

"Is this permanent? Will I wake up like this?"

"No. The only thing you'll take from this dream is understanding."

"Good," said Mag. She wanted to throw up. The aether was interesting now that Luna had turned the volume down, but it was obvious Mag wasn't made for this. "By the way, it kind of got lost in all the... all of that, but I think I saw Nightmare Moon again. She looked like drowning."

"Yes, that sounds like her," said Luna. She looked behind her. "Yes. Disturbing that she doesn't go away. Is something on your mind?"

"You were beautiful, you know," said Mag. "Really. Like those medieval Black Madonna statues. Or a Carlos Schwabe painting, or something. La Douleur. La Morte du Fossoyeur. Free us from all sin, Nephthys. Shield us from the judging day, Shalim. Though I walk through the shadow of the lady of night, I shall fear no evil. Why have the bluejays gone quiet?"

"The walls are breaking down. I think you had better wake up," said Luna. The ground turned to clouds and Mag began to fall -

***

then jerked awake. It was still dark outside.

"Take a break. I'm surprised this is necessary, but such is the price for my acting the fool. I apologize again, and you have my promise that I'll be more careful."

Mag had a headache. She got up to search her purse for a Midol without turning the lights on, found it, and swallowed it without water. She leaned against the wall and took stock.

It hadn't been so bad, really, once Luna had changed the settings. She'd have to look a few of those names up, though. She had no idea who Carlos Schwabe was.

"Hope I don't go all mythological like that every time you let me see the aether," said Mag.

"You still want to test it? There are certainly other ways to learn magic. I'm sure I can make my lectures more understandable if I slow down and clarify my terms."

"My options are to take a horrible math class or to drop acid? And that sounds like a tough choice to you? My favorite Beatles song is 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.' Let's do this. Anyway, it's just a dream."

"Just a... heavens preserve us. You're going to get us both killed."

"Killed? You?"

"Yes, me. Immortality is a relative term."

Mag got back into bed. "Yeah, well, I'm coming back anyway."

***

The halos were still there. Mag felt woozy, but tried to appear as sober as possible.

Luna looked unimpressed. "I need to know how lucid you are before we begin. Tell me again about Nephthys."

"Who?"

"What is your auric signature?"

"Some colors."

"What is your name?"

"Margaret Taylor Wilson."

"Age?"

"26."

"Where are we right now?"

"Mississippi. Wait, no, this is a dream. Or, no, this doesn't look like Mississippi anyway." It didn't. They sat in the alabaster temple under the strange stars.

"What is the last song you listened to?"

"Trick question, it was an instrumental. You know, the one played by that little girl with the mbira from the next village over? Just kidding; it was 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.'"

"I don't believe you," said Luna.

"Why would I lie?"

"Because you believe the study of magic would be more interesting this way. Then again, if you are canny enough to lie then you should understand what I tell you."

"Oh, then I'm slightly lying."

Luna's expression suggested this was the wrong thing to say. She later refused to let Mag smoke when Mag asked.

But magic was certainly more interesting now that Mag could see it properly. It turned out that "see" wasn't the right word. Luna started out with a demonstration, lifting a river rock and tossing it to Mag, and the only thing she could see with her eyes was the subtle field of light that surrouded the rock. Mag had another sense, now, however, one she had no words for, and that was where the show was. That throw of the rock had been every bit as complicated as Luna's lectures. This was going to be an uphill climb. Wait, where had the rock come from? Oh, they were by The Crick again. The world was so different now that it could be hard to recognize things.

"I'm relieved," said Luna.

"What?"

"Since you seem to be handling this well, more or less, we can take a more hooves-on approach. Pick up that rock, please."

Mag picked up the rock.

"This time, we shall start by searching for your source of power and go from there. We won't stop until we've found it, and you needn't worry about running out of time, for time is fluid here."

"Cool," said Mag, and dropped back into her earlier sitting position.

"Tell me about your father," said Luna.

"Aw, crap. Seriously?"

"Let me be more specific. Can you tell me how you felt about what the eldest said to you?"

"Is it too late to do the lecture?"

"Yes, because I am tired of dithering over study methods," said Luna.

"Dammit, I'd just managed to forget that. Fine, but if I spend hundreds of years breaking down every single thing that happened during that phone call and we don't find what we're looking for, I'm taking both of you out for dinner and a movie. Dinner is steak and the movie is Begotten."

"If this takes hundreds of years, I would be delighted to endure both just to make my sister suffer the same thing for forcing us to do all of this in the span of a single night. But it won't come to that. Now, first, tell me what his words meant."

Mag defined the words "negro" and "queer," and spent ample time on the connotations behind them when used by someone like her dad. Luna nodded along in a detached way like a police officer taking down a confession, prompting Mag to continue whenever she got too embarrassed to speak, and never once acted disgusted or surprised. Describing slavery and the KKK didn't faze her either, nor did Mag's halting explanation of LGBT issues.

"Two slurs with ugly histories, one of which was erroneously aimed at my sister," Luna summed up.

"And both my dad and the eldest are dicks," said Mag.

"I take it this is something your father would be likely to say?"

"Yes. Hanging out with people my parents hate is half the reason I went to the west coast," said Mag.

"You certainly seem to disagree with his opinions."

"I can't stand that shit. Even when I was little I thought dysaesthesia aethiopica sounded less like an actual illness and more like the sensible reaction to slave drivers being slave drivers, yet my dad pulled the word out every time he saw a tired-looking black man. And when I was a teen and I heard about men wanting to marry other men for the first time I said "Neat," and everyone all got pissed and read the bible at me like I was the crazy one. I am not crazy. Right? They're the crazy ones. It's obvious."

"'True' and 'obvious' are two different things, unfortunately," said Luna.

"Thank you."

"It must have been difficult hearing the eldest imitate your father."

"What? What's that mean? What are you getting at?"

"Why, nothing."

Mag shifted. Suddenly she couldn't get comfortable. "What do you mean, then?"

"You seem agitated," observed Luna.

"Yeah, because this turned into a therapy session all of a sudden and you're dropping coy hints about something. Aren't we getting distracted here? I thought we were looking for what triggered my magic."

"We are," said Luna. "We are dissecting every aspect of the event that triggered your first burst of magic in the hopes of recreating it under more controlled conditions. As for 'coy hints,' I merely think it would be unpleasant to hear someone you so dislike imitate your father, with whom you had what I suspect was a tempestuous relationship."

Mag scowled. "It's all right, you can say it. 'Daddy issues.'"

Luna blinked. "Daddy... issues?"

Disgust overwhelmed Mag. "Oh god. How much of my hate for the eldest is because...? Oh god, this is straight out of Freud."

"I am so very lost," said Luna.

"You know what, fine. I already knew I was messed up. Maybe this'll be fun. I'll bet my attitude towards you guys suggests some mommy issues as well, and wouldn't it be interesting if it turns out that I do magic by being a big ol' mess? How is this rock doing?" Mag looked at it closely. "Ooh, it has my thumbprint in it. That wasn't there before. Did you see me cast anything?"

"Not exactly," Luna said reluctantly.

"More yes than no, though, right?"

"How is it that we already approach a solution and yet you are now scaling the very heights of - no, no, hold. One moment. You asked how much of your dislike for the eldest comes from, um, this thing you are upset about. My familiarity with him is limited, but I can at least say that everything I know of him shows him to be an odious, snarling, ruthless, gnarled old treeroot of a man. I have never met him in person and know not what he looks like, but I am picturing a crocodile."

"Ooh, that felt great. Now do everyone else I hate."

"No, because I'm busy and so are you. Give me your rock."

Mag half flung, half tossed Luna the rock. Luna caught it with magic, clearly annoyed. "And now thou throwest rocks at me. No, do not apologize - I know. Listen; look you. This print is yours, made by your own thumb upon the surface of something you cannot mar by any means but magic - or machinery, so I suppose, but that is not to the point. This print is yours, and the force that caused it is yours, and the thoughts or feelings that brought it out of you are yours. Whatever you are so ashamed of, be it your history or the workings of your emotions or some human thing I cannot comprehend, it is yours. Yours to use, and your responsibility to use well. Is your magic fueled by something you consider unworthy? Then make it worthy, if that were possible, or if not, then be worthy yourself. Do you understand?”

They stared at each other. Then Mag looked down and said, “No, but I will. And I really am sorry.”

“I know,” repeated Luna. “Consider it forgotten. Only remember that, if your mindset is a part of your magic, then you must be very mindful indeed.” Now she smiled. “Then again, I think you've misunderstood. You didn't imprint the rock at the moment of any of our topic changes, not when the subject of your father came up, nor when the subject of your regent came up, nor when we discussed the both of them. You marked it halfway into the sentence about 'daddy issues,' right at the moment your face changed, presumably when the phrase 'daddy issues' first occurred to you. Be happy. We've almost found what we're looking for.”

“I still don't like it, but fine.”

“Understandable. Regardless, let us 'narrow things down,' as they now say.”

***

Narrowing things down turned out to be tedious, very much so. They talked all about fine distinctions and Luna started doing that thing again, the one where she listed off images and ideas, only this time Mag held her rock instead of holding her hands apart. At one point the rock turned squishy and glowed a little, but Luna hardly seemed to care. Mag asked why.

“We aren't just trying to replicate the effect anymore,” said Luna. “We are trying to do it consistently, on command. Parsley. Blue garage. The sensation of being stricken across the face. Cannibal cookbooks. Bowl of persimmons. Flower clock. Status quo. Webbing. A vile joke that makes you uncomfortable. A broken wall.”

The most aggravating part was the sensation of being watched. Mag didn't know if it was part of the test or something else. Was the image of Nightmare Moon back? She tried not to think about the Nightmare, but it was like trying not to think of a pink elephant.

“Yep, banana peels and bloody leaves, cool. Do you feel that?” said Mag.

“No,” Luna said firmly.

“So, yes,” said Mag.

“Do not dwell on it. It is dangerous even to discuss it. Even its image has a certain power, and such things never really die, nor can they ever be said to be far away, for they are only ideas and have no physical location as such. Ah, but there is an object lesson for you, once you grasp the workings of your magic. I have been poor prey for the Nightmare for years now because my mind and heart are the wrong shape; I have seen the kindness of my world now, bathed in it, let it shape me, having much to live for and little reason to despise my fate. But... now that I come to think of it...” a look of terror eclipsed her face. “Oh no. Oh, hell. Not this. Please, not this.”

Mag turned to see cat's eyes in the dark. Luna charged at the eyes with her horn, shouting, “Avaunt, thou tick!”

Heat and delirium burned Mag's world away.

***

“I hope you appreciate this. Do you have any idea how hard it is to wind her up that far?”

Mag sat in a shabby, red velvet chair next to a small wooden end table with a metal chalice full of some dark liquid. All of this was inside a great stone hall with great wooden beams high above. If there were walls or a ceiling, they were too far away to see; beyond a certain distance there was only the dark. In front of her sat herself.

The Mag in the other chair wasn't quite the same. She was taller. Her hands were steepled. She smiled gently. She wore a black steel tiara as thin as a wire, with a tiny white star of a gem set at its center just below her hairline. She had green cat's eyes.

“Relax,” said the Nightmare. “I only want to talk, and to make an offer. If you refuse, I will simply leave and wander the dreams of your people, looking for a willing host, harming neither you nor my old friend.” Such a gentle smile. Mag couldn't move, couldn't speak, and couldn't struggle.

There was a colossal crashing sound somewhere in the distance, followed by a world-ending shriek of rage and horror. Luna, thought Mag.

The Nightmare ignored it. “I hope you'll forgive me for monologuing, but I have a feeling this discussion will get uncivilized if I let you speak at this point. Let me explain the situation." It raised a hand and pulled a steaming goblet out of the air.

With a sip of its drink, the Nightmare began. "I've been watching you from the inside. No, I didn't change anything. You don't have to worry about that. I only thought I'd get to know you a bit before introducing myself.” The Nightmare never seemed to blink. “I'll tell you what I've seen so far, as an expression of respect. Respect is something of a watchword of mine, believe it or not, and I realize it goes both ways. For instance, I do not possess people, whatever you've been told and whatever you imagine."

The Nightmare studied her fingernails. "But that's interesting, isn't it? That's the pattern I've been seeing all day. They've all been trying to simplify things for you. They give you simple answers to complicated questions, and you feel suspicious but you let it go. Or you make an assumption and they don't correct you until it becomes relevant. Then they pretend they understand everything you say, or at least Princess Celestia does. I know it annoys you, but don't blame them – the princesses have spent millennia leading a people that, shall we say, generally aren't very good at handling complex abstractions?" It crossed its legs. "I recommend taking this up with them, politely of course. Just remind them that you prefer difficult truths to misleading or simplified metaphors, and tell them you don't expect them to know everything, that you'll still respect them if they show their ignorance.”

There was another massive boom. Dust fell from the rafters.

The Nightmare laughed softly. “Oh, Luna, beautiful soul. You know, I love my hosts. I truly do. Especially the ones that survive. When you see her again, tell her I'm always there if she wants to talk.”

Another shriek. An icy breeze ruffled Mag's clothing.

“She has yet to understand the limits of courage, I see. Her fear isn't going to stop empowering me just because she's pushed past it. Tell her that as well, will you? But I'm getting distracted. Sooner or later she's going to collapse into despair, and then she'll be too numb to be afraid, at which point she'll only be fighting the strength I draw from your fear. And you're hardly afraid of me at all. Why is that? Oh, I see. You think you have nothing to lose.” The Nightmare sighed. “I sound like such a storybook villain. Let me clear up a few misconceptions you've fallen into. Firstly, I am not some kind of tempter. Or, if I am, 'temptation' is an unfair characterization. Think about it. Temptation is only offering a choice, or, more likely, pointing out a choice that my host hasn't noticed.”

The crash was further away now.

“Secondly, do you remember what Luna said about power and responsibility? That applies to everyone, even me. I am what I am, and what I am is something that runs on the fear and terror of others. I can't change that, so I use it responsibly – that is, in support of my goals. What are my goals? Self fulfillment. What fulfills me? The chance to offer choices to a host and see them grow as a result. You see? There's nothing sinister about that.”

It wasn't a shriek this time, but an anguished wail. There was no ensuing boom.

“Thirdly, a small correction. Celestia thinks I take away the volition of my hosts. Quite the opposite. Again, I point out options. Yes, sometimes my hosts develop new habits, and sometimes they discover that the things they really want are horrible by the reckoning of the society they belong to, but I would never stand in the way of my hosts. I didn't stop Luna when she decided to destroy all that she loved, and I certainly didn't force her to do it. I only taught her how. If she'd wanted something else, I would have helped her with that instead.”

The Nightmare rested its head against the velvet of the chair. “Am I forgetting something? Never mind. I can simply come back if I have to. Let's bring this back to you and me. I should tell you I owe you a debt of gratitude for helping to let me into your world, and, if you'll let me, I would be interested in paying you back." It smiled again. "I'm looking for a new host. You aren't my first choice – I have my eye on a woman over in Eastern Europe, and I can hear her praying for divine intervention – but you have certain advantages I would be interested in nurturing, and you also have a hollowness inside of you that I would like to help fill.” Its brow furrowed. “You're starting to fear me more. Really? Well, I suppose that makes sense. I know how frightening it can be to face a choice. You're worried you'll make the wrong one. Does it help if I remind you that I won't hold a grudge against you if you refuse my offer? Nightmare Moon was the type to hold grudges, but I am not Nightmare Moon; that was Luna. Nightmare Moon was always Luna, and always will be. If it weren't then she wouldn't hate me so much. Yes, you understand.”

Mag had been waiting for another boom. There wasn't one. Oh, Luna, please don't let me find you crying, Mag thought.

The Nightmare waved a hand. “Don't worry. She'll be fine when you come back, and if she doesn't like seeing you with me, I know we can talk her around. She trusts you. And I can be very persuasive. The same goes for Celestia, who I've never had a chance to talk to. Now then, I put it to you. Would you like my help, or should I look for someone else who would appreciate my gifts, starting with that helpless woman in Eastern Europe? Accept me and I can show you how to help her, by the way. This isn't a hostage situation, regardless of what Luna thinks, the poor child.”

The Nightmare let Mag's mouth open. “Fuck off,” said Mag.

“Unimaginative and rude,” sighed the Nightmare. “Oh well. I leave you with a little tip; your magic is triggered by the memory of a memory of a rude awakening, but only if followed by a sense of black gratification. You know, like how one feels when her worst expectations have been vindicated. Now off you go. Promise made, promise kept. Have a lovely evening.”

The stone hall and the chairs and chalices and promises all whirled away and Mag stood in the alabaster temple under the stars a few yards away from Luna, who was huddled on the floor and crying piteously.

Dammit, thought Mag. She walked forward and hugged Luna's head. Luna shoved her back and glared searchingly at Mag's eyes through glassy tears, saw round pupils, and collapsed into Mag's lap.

“I told it no,” said Mag.

“G-g-g-”

“I'm fine. It's gone for now.”

And here was Luna, invincible Luna, crying in her lap, silent except for the occasional snuffle. She didn't look to be stopping any time soon. It wasn't hard to guess that this had been building up for some time. She'd almost convinced Mag that she really was on top of things, and possibly would have pulled it off if life weren't bullshit unfair.

That made three of them who'd been faking it. Celestia with her smiles, Mag with bluster, and then Luna with, come to think of it, her own form of bluster.

Mag combed Luna's starry hair with her fingers. "It's just as well that I signed on with Celestia for non-magic protege purposes. Of all these supernatural creatures whose first reaction to me is a job offer of some kind, she's the person who makes the least sense to me, so she must be who I can learn the most from, right? Not that I couldn't have told you all to back off and let me live my garbage life, or anything. But seriously, what is with you people? Do you all constantly feel the need to gather acolytes? Is it like when I see a wild animal and the first thing I want to do is take it home and turn it into a pet? Don't answer that."

Luna had gone still and had stopped sniffling, though her eyes were still clenched shut.

"I guess all I'm saying is that you're the opposite of Celestia. You're the one who makes the most sense to me. Not that we're not different, or anything. For instance, you don't make everything about yourself."

"I used to," said Luna thickly. "Don't blame yourself. It's what happens when you are shut up inside your own head for too long." She opened her eyes. "What did she tell you?"

"Who? Oh. It, and it's definitely an it, fed me this long and mostly pretty cliched Saturday morning cartoon villain line about wanting to help me. It had a couple of interesting things to say, and I'll run them by you, but I told it to fuck off. Then it put me back here and ran off to bedevil Eastern Europe."

Luna sat up quickly, alarmed. "Interesting things to say?"

"Yeah. Can the Nightmare lie?"

"Yes," said Luna.

"It told me that you guys keep oversimplifying your answers to my questions, and that I should tell you two that, believe it or not, I'd be happier with the truth. No, actually it said something a little meaner than that, but my version's better. So... Nightmare lie?"

Doubtfully, Luna said, "You ask me to risk giving you enough rope to hang yourself and half the world as well, but as you wish. Some hours ago I told you I wouldn't protect you from yourself, and now I must prove it. I know not if it can lie, in the strictest sense, but she - it - will sometimes neglect to mention important details. For instance, it never told me it was teaching me to destroy myself. One gets the feeling it teaches this lesson often, no?"

"Teaching people to destroy themselves?"

"Even so."

"I don't know if that fits," said Mag. "It talked about choices."

"Oh, that. Yes, that was the bit that convinced me, long ago. It galls me to see it didn't affect you."

"We've got thousands of years of fairy tales about how convincing the devil is, and the Nightmare pretty much talks like Hollywood Satan. It was a good sales pitch, but it always is in the stories, and humans see too many advertisements every day to not be a little cynical about offers to 'help.' Then there's the fact that I heard you screaming. It told me we could talk you into accepting Nightmare Mag, since you trust me and the Nightmare considers itself persuasive, but you didn't sound so easy to persuade. I couldn't see myself walking up to you with cat's eyes and telling you everything would turn out right."

Luna shuddered. "I'm glad you are so familiar with the old stories of humans. Odd how your Hollywood Satan sounds so much like the Nightmare."

"He does, doesn't he? Maybe the Nightmare has been here before and people started telling stories as a warning, and the story of the devil made it all the way to the 21st century. Lucky us."

"That sounds a little unlikely."

"Sometimes oral tradition comes in handy. But here's another thing. Check this out." Mag reached into her pocket and pulled out a rock. Memory of a memory of a rude awakening, black gratification, squeeze! Mag opened her hand. The rock hadn't changed. "Hm. Right. Either the Nightmare can lie after all, or I missed a step."

"Oh! You found the trigger?"

"The Nightmare told me what it was," said Mag.

"That worries me. Greatly."

"I hear you, but right now I'm sick of fretting about what other people are thinking all the time. Let's just go with it. Come on, tell me the next step."

"If you insist," said Luna.

Then it got technical, and stayed that way for the rest of the night.

Author's Note

I finished this a couple of days early because it's spring break and I had more time to write.

Conversation Twelve is the beginning of day two of A New Sun.

edit on Oct. 12, 2015: Cleaned up a few things.

Conversation Twelve

Mag sat in bed with her back against the wall and her legs under the covers, bleary but awake, enraptured. A sea-blue sphere the size of a marble hovered in place between her hands and cast shadows in the shape of her fingers on the walls on either side of her.

She could do magic.

She could do magic.

"Class dismissed," said Luna tiredly. "Well, I say 'class,' but a class is over in the span of an hour or two, while I believe we spent the equivalent of a solid week on experimentation and study. You have a frightening work ethic when you slumber. Monomaniacal, I would say. The price, as you can see, is that sleep was even less restful than wakefulness, and now we have to go and chase down my fool sister while you - and therefore we - feel like a mound of Cerberus vomit. Thou fiend, did we truly need to work all night?"

"Yes." Mag threw off the covers.

***

Mag stiff-armed her way into the convenience store that used to be her place of work. Mr. Bachchan, currently working the counter, saw her and went rigid.

"No worries, Mr. Bachchan, I'm just here as a customer." Mag took a Monster drink out of the fridge.

"I'm glad you are here," said Mr. Bachchan. "After we talked on the phone and I, well, when I let you go, I heard that you were entertaining an important guest of some kind -"

"If this is the start of an offer for my old job back, then no, you were right the first time. I think we both know you should have fired me years ago." Mag grabbed a bag of beef jerky from the rack and dropped them on the counter alongside a ten dollar bill, giving an apologetic glance behind her at the massively fat man with the beard and windshield wipers. "Keep the change. I go to my doom and I'm in a hurry. Better luck with your next employee."

"Doom? What is -" Mag ran out the door.

"Thou shouldst have just made coffee to begin with."

"But I didn't." Mag folded the container of beef jerky as best she could while running and holding the cold energy drink under her elbow. It was about an hour before dawn and mercilessly cold out.

"You could have smoked a cigarette as well. I do not at all like nicotine withdrawal. Celestia is not utterly without defenses, you realize that?"

Mag fumbled her breakfast into her left hand and used her right to cast her new light spell. She reveled in it for a moment, delighted in its sickly blue glow, and set it a little above her shoulder, where it hovered. "Withdrawal? This isn't bad at all. It's only been like 10 hours. Now if you'll excuse me from the conversation, I'm going to eat some dead animal and drink a quart of life while stumbling down a hill. Remember to tune out my sense of taste when I get to the jerky."

"I do not object to the occasional taste of meat when it is a dream or headed to someone else's stomach, rememb - faugh! Thou spentest money on this drink? Didst thou know before thou bought it that it tasted thus?"

Mag powerwalked down the path to the lake. Instead of answering Luna she stuffed a chip of jerky into her mouth.

"A quart of life, thou called it. If this taste reminds thee of life then I counsel burning your house down, moving to another country, and starting again."

Mag swallowed. "I see neither sister is a morning person."

"What morning? I see only night, a judgment I am well qualified to make. Thou shouldst also have brought a lantern. And I cannot imagine how thou canst be of such good cheer when thy head pounds like a freight train and thine eyes burn like its engine furnace."

"I can do magic," said Mag. "Anyway, I'm off to cast a spell I've never done except in dreams by throwing myself into a frozen lake, and then I'm going to hunt down a goddess so she can yell at me. It's a glorious morning."

"She'll be angry at the pair of us, not just thee, and I am the one who must - argh! Why have I not disconnected my sense of taste from thine? There. I shan't connect it again until thou hast eaten another meal and brushed thy teeth."

Mag stopped at the end of the path. It had frozen over again. She drained the energy drink can, set it upright on the ground, stomped it down to a flat circle of metal, and put it back in her jacket pocket. Then she walked to the lake and started on the rest of the beef jerky.

The lake had frozen over again. She hadn't brought an ice pick, but the ice wasn't all that thick, this being California. She broke the ice with the heel of her boot, dragging shards out as she went.

Someone crashed down along the path. Mag let her light spell dissipate just as a darting spot of light from a small flashlight came out of the woods, followed by the fat man who had been in line behind her, gulping air. Apparently he'd run the whole way.

"Don't - " he panted.

"Breathe, guy," said Mag.

"Don't do it," he said.

"Don't do what? No, don't answer. You just keep breathing, and let me get back to this. I'm kind of in a hurry."

"Don't do it," he said again. He had his hands on his knees and he looked like he might pass out, but his eyes were on Mag's.

"Do what?"

"I bet you," he panted, "that you have something to live for if you think about it."

"... what?"

"We could talk about it," said the fat man.

"I so don't have the time for this," said Mag.

"You could make time, though. Come back up to that little shop and let's talk about this. Do you really have to do this now?"

Mag stared at him. "What are you, a suicide hotline guy on his day off? I'm not here to kill myself. Go away. I mean, no huge hurry, don't, you know, hurt yourself by trying to run again, but seriously."

"You're not?" he said.

"Nope." Mag went back to breaking up the ice.

"What are you doing, then?"

"Watch and see," said Mag. No one would ever believe him, so she might as well put on a show.

The man kept talking. "Listen, whatever you're doing, couldn't you do this in the daylight, maybe? And until then, we could talk about, I don't know, maybe all the reasons it's nice to be alive and why ending your life isn't really a solution."

Mag shook her head in disbelief. "Who even are you?"

"John Hardly. I'm new in town."

"John, how do I convince you I'm not here to kill myself in as few words as possible without stopping what I'm doing?" She'd freed up a rough two-foot-wide circle of water, black in the dark.

"Well, what are you doing?" he said.

"Magic," said Mag.

"I think he has done enough to distract you. I absolve you of all future discourtesy to him necessary to make him shut up. First, lean down and face the water."

"Okay, I really think you should come with me," said John.

"Go away, John," murmured Mag.

"As I have said, you need not worry about watching the water for frayed edges; I am a warden of the ways, and I can see the edges without concerning myself with fraying."

"I remember," said Mag.

"Remember what?" said John.

"Now concentrate. Feel. Take your time; the purer your state of mind, the smoother the transition."

John walked up and laid a hand on Mag's shoulder. "Okay, I'm gonna have to - "

Mag spun around, flung his hand off, and almost punched him in the throat before she remembered that he was only trying to help in his own inconvenient and invasive way, and contented herself with saying, "John, if you go around grabbing women, sooner or later one of us is going to turn your face into a Cannibal Corpse album cover, no matter how helpful you think you're being."

"I just - "

"This goes double for women who need a cigarette but don't have time for one. Go away, John. Just go away."

John fell back a bit, all frustration and helpless concern. It made Mag feel like she was being callous, but this was the time to prioritize, and Celestia was priority one.

"Alas. We should find him after we return and let him know you are well. Now, have you cleared your mind? Good. Breathe, breathe again, trigger, and the edge is at cobra hood stripes Pagliacci. Huh. What is a Pagliacci? Never mind; GO!"

Mag closed her eyes, let the memory of the eldest's words play in her head, pictured Luna's collection of images, and hopped into the hole in the ice. Winter mountain lake water bit through Mag's clothes and into her bones. Before her feet touched the bottom of the lake, the spell kicked in and the cold between the worlds sucked the rest of the warmth out of her in one airless moment.

Gravity went perpendicular on her and dumped her on her back. She'd done it. It hurt like blazes and there was a thick fog in the air around her, but she'd done it.

"I had hoped - oh, this cold is hateful. I miss being immune to it. I had hoped Celestia would be in view, unlikely as it would have been. Very well. Can you move? You could cast that warming spell I taught you."

"Fog?" Mag said through chattering teeth.

"The mark of a nearly botched casting of the traveling spell. It is to be expected. You are inexperienced, distracted, not entirely awake, and human. In fact your performance is impressive, upon reflection."

Mag rolled onto her side and dragged a numb hand to her lips.

"Ready? Okay. Sunflower pottery."

Memory, sunflower pottery. Spell. Mag inhaled thick heat through her fingers. Most of the icewater sublimated. The cold of the in-between lingered, but at least she was dry.

"I suppose we can practice that one. Would that I could offer better instruction for it; casting through one's hands is even more different from Equestrian magic than I expected."

"I'll g-get b-better," said Mag.

"I know. Now, we must discuss our next move. Judging by the slope of the hill, the lake is a few miles away. We could walk, though I must stress the importance of quickness and silence."

Mag started walking downhill. "Because it'd attract the collectors if I were too loud?" she whispered.

"That is the most likely result, yes."

"The collectors that collect out-of-the-ordinary things in the valley and take them to the world under the lake?" said Mag.

"I mislike where you're going with this."

"Would it work, though?"

"It would, unfortunately."

"All right," said Mag. "Want to do it that way?"

"No, but I prefer it to letting Celestia wander alone. Let us explore other options first. For how long can humans run?"

"Career marathon runners? More or less forever. Me? Two or three minutes. How quick can you teach me to teleport?"

"That depends on how good your arithmancy is."

"That would be no. And if arithmancy is what it sounds like, I doubt teleportation is something I'll be doing anytime soon."

"I certainly have no excess of love for teleportation. It's one of the most cerebral spells I've ever come across. Its uses are many, but one must have an intuitive grasp of certain mathemagical concepts and a head for fast calculations."

"In short, I should start shouting for Celestia while I walk and hope either she or a collector finds us."

"Ugh. Let me think a moment."

"Is there a way to set up some kind of magical dog whistle that lets me get her attention from a distance without giving our position away to anything else?"

"We might devise something between the three of us at some point, some secret symbol, but I can think of nothing perfectly safe that would work at this moment. Then again, we can at least narrow down the possible creatures that might find us if you send out a magical sign she would recognize, but which does not give away our position."

"The sign isn't hard, at least. Black red white black. Is there a way we can get that into the air? Maybe project it onto the clouds and hope she figures it out?"

"Yes. Intensify the light spell, change its colors, and point it at the clouds."

Mag cast the spell again, held it between her hands a moment, tweaked the parameters... and the light went out.

"Nay. You altered the tertiary vector too quickly and breached the spell's morphic field. Summon it again."

"I love it when you say 'nay.' It's just the best pun."

"What pun? Nay, it doesn't matter. Stop giggling. Thank you. Now try again."

Mag stopped walking for the sake of concentration. This time she got it right. Four patches of color shone against the yellow clouds.

"I don't think I can walk and cast at the same time," whispered Mag.

"Then stand and cast. I will watch for threats; concentrate on maintaining the spell."

A few seconds later something growled some 20 yards to her right.

"Sodding blazes, that was quick. Run, Mag. Drop the spell and run."

Mag dropped the spell and ran. After a night (a week?) of Luna telling her what to do it was getting a little old, but she had not liked that growl. It sounded happy to see her.

"Peryton. A creature most like a cross between a deer and a bird. It feeds on the shadows of thinking creatures, a feeding which the victim typically does not survive, perhaps because one needs one's shadow to live, or perhaps because the peryton's loathing for all mortals other than itself incites it to murder those creatures it catches. Perytons can fly, but they are clumsy in the air. They can run, but their taloned hind legs are not suited to it. As such, the peryton must act as an ambush predator, and loses interest in fleeing prey provided the prey is quick enough."

Mag picked up speed, but could hear something gaining on her. After a few seconds of running she turned and saw the strange, front-heavy deer thing hopping behind her with the front-legs-then-back-legs gait of a rabbit. It had iridescent feathers, green fur, two smallish prongs for antlers, and an intent expression. Mag ran faster.

"If we make a habit of wandering other worlds, a jogging regimen may be in order. What do you think?

"Talk later," gasped Mag.

"Certainly."

***

Had Mag thought less of John for being so out of breath? She couldn't remember; she didn't right now, at any rate. Her heart drummed in her chest and she couldn't get enough air.

On the plus side, it had taken less than 10 minutes to shake off the peryton. On the negative side, she'd wasted almost 10 minutes. If Celestia could teleport to the lake, she would be long gone at this point.

"Another light show?" said Mag when she'd recovered a bit.

"Yes, for lack of a better plan."

The second time had a more positive result: nothing happened.

"How long should we keep this up?" said Mag.

"You are well winded, still, so you may as well maintain it for as long as you can. I had thought we'd catch up to Celestia. Curse the fat man! He slowed us down."

"I think you wanted us to move slower anyway," said Mag. "You wanted us to get better prepared. Coffee, cigarette, maybe a tire iron for the more rigorous forms of interspecies diplomacy. It made sense at the time, too."

"You do not blame me, I hope."

"No, though I wish you'd been a better guesser for when Celestia would leave."

"As do I."

"No offense meant. You know, to be honest, I was hoping the internet would keep her up all night and she'd forget all about leaving until it was too late. I should have found her a website with Bejeweled or Tetris to go along with Wikipedia."

"'Should have' and 'I wish I had' are useless considerations now."

"I've got my breath back, I'm sick of this, and I'm feeling drastic," said Mag.

"Plan C, then. Very well."

Mag let the spell drop, stuck the tips of her pinkies into her mouth, and whistled. It was a proper whistle, the kind that startled birds out of trees and traveled for miles to bounce off of distant mountains.

"CELESTIAAAAA!" Mag called, and dropped into a sprinter's stance. She didn't think she'd be able to run for very long this time, so if she had to bolt then she'd need to make it count.

Two things teleported behind Mag. One was a 10-foot mass of black smoke with two tiny eyes glowing white like stars. The other was Celestia. She grabbed Mag and teleported the both of them away.

They landed next to the lake. The smoke didn't follow, or if it had, it wasn't moving very quickly.

"Margaret Taylor Wilson, what do you think you're doing?" said Celestia. Mag noticed, to her dark delight, that Celestia looked nearly as tired as Mag felt. The internet could be so cruel to insomniacs.

"Don't you momvoice me," said Mag. "You snuck off to do something dangerous, and Luna says it'd be less dangerous if we came with you. What are you doing?"

Celestia glared. "Luna, is that true? Is that what you told her?"

"Yes, it is," said Luna. "Do you deny it? You slunk away into peril as we slept, an unnecessary risk carried out in an underhanded manner."

"You would have done the same thing in my place," said Celestia.

"Yes, and you would have tried to chase after me just as I did, except you would have failed, because I had to teach Mag magic in her sleep. Show her, Mag."

Mag conjured her sea-blue marble of light and held it up for Celestia's inspection.

"You two worked that out in a single night?" said Celestia.

"I rather think 'a single night' does little justice to how long it took, however technically accurate the statement," said Luna.

"I see. And you went to such great lengths to do something so dangerous. Mag, I'm honestly amazed at your new abilities and I'd love to help you develop them in whatever way I can, but I wish you hadn't come. Luna must have greatly overstated the dangers of the lake for people like me."

"Is that so?" said Luna.

"Yes," said Celestia firmly.

"The Plinth of Pasithee."

"It only activates if you touch it. Do you think I'm going to lean on it while I'm distracted?"

"The Rattling God."

"What would he be doing in there? Anyway, I hear he's mellowed over the centuries. I doubt he's even still looking for us."

"Oil rat ambush."

"I'd live, and, what's more, how would you two help with that?"

"One of us might see it coming."

"I'd still live," said Celestia.

"Irritating the collectors?"

"They would take me to the sculptor, and then I'm sure we could discuss it."

"You and your discussions," said Luna. "How would you negotiate with, say, a bookslide?"

"I can fly, Luna."

"You can also die. You were not always so cavalier about danger."

"Nope, nope, please don't respond to that," said Mag. "This sounds like the kind of argument that goes on forever and, like, I'm glad I'm here and I'm not leaving, but I also want to go home at some point. Can we please skip to the end of this argument?"

Celestia smiled. "What an excellent idea. I'll just teleport you back, make sure you get home okay, and return to what I was originally doing."

"No, the other end," said Mag.

"Wherein you accept we're coming with you," said Luna.

"Oh, that end. Fine, but only because, believe it or not, I trust you both. Yes, even you, Mag, except where your own well-being is concerned."

"Well, obviously," said Mag. "I'm a mortal and stuff. If I see any rattling oil rat gods, I'll be more than happy to hide behind you and look as inedible as I can."

"Good, but that's not what I meant. Look into the lake, please," said Celestia.

"Sure," said Mag, and walked up to the lake.

It was a normal enough lake, except for the cloudy but perfectly still water and the wrecked towers of junk metal protruding out of the surface here and there in the distance. It made a decent mirror, which, Mag supposed, was what Celestia had in mind.

"Yes, fine, I look like hell," said Mag.

"Luna, we need to talk about what a teacher should do when the student refuses to stop studying. I've got plenty of tips, because I know all about that one."

Mag raised a finger. "In my defense, I was wearing concealer and foundation yesterday."

"Your concealer must be a very impressive product if it could cover the way you're swaying gently right now," said Celestia.

"That's just nerves," said Mag. "Hey, I have an idea. Instead of questioning each other's judgment, let's go into the lake and get this over with. You're in charge, so what next?"

"Yes, I am," said Celestia. "On that note, let me explain something. The world under the lake, or 'Underlake' as some call it, is a sort of repository for all the most dangerous things in the valley. It has other purposes, of course, but that's the most relevant one right now, because we are here to retrieve one of the most dangerous things in existence - knowledge. Specifically, any knowledge we can find regarding the destruction of worlds. Planar curses, existential weapons, supercosmological phenomena, the practical effects of paradoxes. And by 'we,' I mean 'I.' Neither of you is to help with the search, but to act as a lookout. Do not look too closely at the things I examine, or you run the risk of bringing something back with us that we didn't intend to bring back. Just do what you came here to do."

"Watch your back," said Mag.

"Exactly. Is that acceptable to you?"

"Yep, I doubt I could help look for what you need even if I wanted to," said Mag.

"Luna?"

"I suppose," said Luna.

"You suppose?"

"Yes. Yes, I see the necessity. Look by yourself if you must, and we will act as scouts."

"Always make sure you can clearly see my eyes, both of you. We must be able to see each other at all times. If you get lost, stay where you are. If you can't stay where you are, stay as close as you can to where you last got lost, find somewhere safe, and stay there instead. If you meet the regent, be honest, be polite, and tell him everything you can about my whereabouts and what we're doing here. We have to talk to him sooner or later in any case, because I plan to ask him permission for anything I borrow."

"Oh, I thought this was a heist," said Mag.

"I'm afraid not. If you want a heist, you'll have to go to a different princess."

"It's me. She means me."

"Yeah, I worked that out," said Mag.

"Good," said Celestia.

"Hey," said Mag, "how come we can't just go to the curator in the first place and ask him for help?"

Celestia looked at the ground and kicked at it a bit with her forehoof. "Well..."

"Celestia mislikes him," said Luna cheerfully.

"'Mislike' is such a strong word," said Celestia.

Luna pressed on. "You didn't want to use the word, which is why you couldn't contrive of any way to describe your opinion of him. Right? But I, your loving sister, saw your plight and offered the solution, which is to mare up and admit that you are prepared to go to great lengths to avoid spending a moment more with him than necessary, and have thus designed your plan of attack with that in mind. You needn't thank me. Of course, thanking me would certainly be more mature."

Celestia sighed. "Thank you, Luna."

"Of course."

"Well, Luna, since you're here today and feeling so helpful, would you please tell me where an edge is so I don't have to sit here waiting for a fray?"

"I saw one a moment ago when Mag was admiring herself, a surprisingly simple one. 'Apaitijo.' Be wary; I see no danger, but there is some strangeness about it that I haven't yet fathomed."

Mag spoke up. "I know this spell, so I could - "

"No," said Celestia.

"No," said Luna.

"Luna has just said there's some kind of irregularity here," said Celestia.

"She is far better equipped to deal with any problems that arise," said Luna.

"I've been doing this longer than you can imagine. Whatever the problem, you can trust me to deal with it."

"And, while you've demonstrated a frankly pathological fascination with the magical arts, your version of this spell is still, shall we say, lacking?"

"I just thought I'd offer," said Mag.

"For which we're both grateful. Grab my tail, please, just like before. Ready? Good." She dropped somewhat abruptly into the lake, and Mag went down after her.

Luna had a point. Celestia's traveling spell was almost pleasant compared to Mag's. What was less pleasant was landing heavily on a polished stone floor, then looking up to see Celestia looking glumly at a large wooden door.

"We landed in front of the workshop," said Celestia.

"That was what was wrong with the edge," said Luna. "He tampered with it to direct all supplicants to his doorstep. We can hardly turn away from the door and help ourselves to the collection when the option of seeking his help from the first moment of our arrival is an option. Do you think he overheard us earlier?"

"Yes," said Celestia.

Conversation Thirteen

Celestia stepped up to the door, composed herself, and knocked twice. The door swung inward, revealing a room the size of an aircraft hangar.

The floor was more smooth stone, thousands of square yards of it, so polished and level that you could set a basketball down anywhere at all and it wouldn't roll a millimeter. The room, if 'room' could be applied to something so large that being in it felt like being outside, was also a mess. Rough cubes of various metals, mostly copper, bronze, brass, that kind of thing, lay scattered and stacked with no system of organization or eye for decor. Scrap and wreckage littered the floor as well, piles of steel shingles or scales, drifts of iron leaves, mounds of speckled wood ash and an apparently limitless array of other absent-minded arrangements of debris, waste, and raw material were all strewn around the space.

At the center of the room there was a worktable taller than a two-story building, and behind the worktable stood a giant.

He looked like a stocky human more than anything else, but with no eyes or eye sockets, and too many fingers with too many joints. He wore an apron of some kind of thick, stiff cloth, and something like pants. He was enormous.

Some tiny metallic thing fluttered down from the distant rafters of the room and landed on the giant's shoulder. The giant turned to it for a moment and turned back.

The giant spoke. His voice was so inhumanly deep that some syllables were simply too low for Mag's ears to register. "Cordial greetings to you, glorious one. You have chosen to make your presence known in the proper way, I see, but elected to let your most honorable sister wander. Do you plan to distract me while she digs through my collection?"

"I am here," said Luna.

"Oh? But is that not a mortal voice I hear?"

Then Celestia and Luna told their story. Mag noticed she didn't merit an introduction, not that she had any problem with that at all. She also noticed Celestia and Luna told the story very differently than they'd told it to Mag. The content was the same, but the delivery was fact-filled, unemotional, and full of precise language. Events were almost unrecognizable. Celestia had calmly observed the end of her world, checked her watch, proceeded briskly to a hospitable world, and made camp. After resting, she went back to Equestria to more closely examine its remains -

"Why did you not examine them while you were there the first time?" said the giant, whose title was apparently "sculptor," or "milord" if you were feeling familiar.

"I preferred to consider the situation in a more comfortable place, so I left as soon as I felt able," said Celestia.

Back in Equestria, Luna entered the mind of a mortal -

"Why did you bring a mortal with you to Equestria?" said the sculptor.

"My own reasons," said Celestia.

and then the three of them returned to camp. Neither Celestia nor Luna mentioned Earth, humans, or any detail on where they'd set up.

The sculptor noticed this. "What are you not telling me?"

"I think we've covered every relevant detail," said Celestia.

"For instance, you didn't provide a name for your mortal."

"This is Mag Wilson," said Celestia.

Well, there was the introduction. She would have to make the best of it. "Hiya, uh, milord."

"And what are you?" said the sculptor.

"A white human woman."

The thing on his shoulder fluttered. "Your first lie," said the sculptor. "I'm told you are brown, not white."

"It's just an expression. It means my skin is paler than some peoples'. Milord."

"Oh, a metaphor," said the sculptor disdainfully.

"I'll try to warn you next time I'm about to use one."

"Or you could be silent," said the sculptor.

"Yessir." This was not the time to start a fight.

The giant rested his strange hands on the table, palms down. He didn't look in her direction, but then again, he had no eyes. "I have taken up the responsibility of keeping a collection of dangerous devices, ideas, and knowledge here my world, with the aim of learning to counter them, or, in some cases, to suppress them. Yes, sometimes I work to suppress the transmission of dangerous ideas between the worlds. My collectors know which books they must collect from travelers, what thoughts must be kept in quarantine in the worlds in which they belong. Mortal, can you guess which world produces the greatest number of things I must ban? You may speak."

"Humans," said Mag.

"Earth," said the sculptor.

"Yes, sir."

He shook his head. "I would say you are not welcome here, human, but how can I? So many of the things here belong to humanity that some parts of my world look like an outpost of Earth, even though you so rarely venture out of your mirrors. Tell me, when your species makes war, does it still light wild boars on fire and chase them into the enemy?"

"No, we mostly just drop explosives out of flying machines. It's more efficient. Sir."

"So I've read," said the sculptor. "Princesses, your majesties, I cannot help you at this time. You look for knowledge. For our purposes, we might separate the knowledge in my possession into two categories: those which humans have found, and those which humans have not found. As for the first, it would be useless to give you information you can as easily get from your human friends, and as for the second, I have no intention of putting yet more dangerous information within their reach. However, once the mortal has died and Luna is free, if you leave the human world and swear not to return to Earth with the information you glean here, whatever it may be, I will give you access to my archives. Good day." He started fiddling with some tiny metallic thing on his worktable.

Celestia blinked a couple of times but didn't move. "Lord sculptor, I consider myself a good judge of character. Knowing my reputation, would you agree?"

"No, I wouldn't. I heard about that 'Nightmare Moon' incident. Now Princess Luna stands in front of me, such as she is, walking free and more or less alive. This is not an acceptable risk. If you had sense, you would leave her here."

Celestia's features went hard. She opened her mouth to speak. Mag, remembering what Celestia had said to the eldest when he'd brought up the subject of Nightmare Moon, decided to jump in.

"Your sculptorness, what if I asked if we could see the books in your human section?"

"Who is spea - oh, the mortal again. Why do you want to see the human library? Everything there is already known to your people."

Mag gave the sculptor her best smile and then remembered he was blind, and that he would be unlikely to appreciate a smile anyway. "We humans know all kinds of things we don't tell each other. I'll bet one of us knew something about magic at some point in history, and, from the sounds of it, there are probably copies of that person's notes."

He frowned a colossal frown. "Human books of dark magic? I have more than you two can carry." Now Mag smiled for real. "And as the books are the property of your people, and you are an individual of good standing with my library except insofar as you are human, the rules I live by insist that I give you what is yours if you ask for it. What sort of dark magic books are you looking for? No, you needn't tell me. I overheard Celestia earlier. Planar curses, existential weapons, supercosmological phenomena, the practical effects of paradoxes, and similar topics."

"Exactly," said Mag.

"I believe I have something," said the sculptor. Mag winked at Celestia. Celestia smiled gratefully but looked worried.

***

Mag had wondered what nonmagical books the sculptor was likely to ban. User manuals to modern military ordinance seemed like a good bet. The more poisonous political or social philosophies, such as eugenics and imperialism, would certainly be there. Mag held a private hope that there would be a wide variety of religious works as well. The thought of keeping Christianity quarantined to one world suited her just fine.

Judging by the size of the Underlake library of human written works, the sculptor didn't seem to approve of human books in general. The books were held in one room, but the boxes and shelves and piles and drifts and mountain ranges of books were so tall that even the sculptor needed a ladder, and the room was so wide that it would take him several minutes to jog across it.

These were the general facts of the place. The specifics evaded her. She was too dazed to think, because the sculptor had carried her there on his shoulder.

She would have preferred to walk, but the library was far too far away. Celestia couldn't teleport her because the sculptor had banned teleportation in his world so as to keep visitors under control. He suggested that Mag ride on Celestia's back. Mag and Celestia said "No" at the same time, and Celestia announced a rule: no human adults were allowed to ride on her back outside of exceptional circumstances such as midgets and emergencies.

"Is it really so bad?" said Luna.

"Yes," said Celestia.

"I still hurt. Didn't you notice?" said Mag.

"I did indeed, but I am hardly going to ask why your thighs and backside so hurt, nor allow myself to wonder too much at it."

The sculptor eventually offered to carry Mag. To his credit, he wasn't sullen or ungracious about it. The idea of carrying a human around didn't seem to bother him; it was just the solution to a problem, and he didn't hold it against anybody, no matter how inconveniently small they were.

So Mag had ridden on his shoulder the whole way, in between his cavernous, hairy ear on her right and some kind of clockwork toucan on her left, which was apparently the thing that had been talking to him. It kept one round, black, glass eye on Mag at all times and clacked its beak at her whenever she moved too suddenly.

The walk had been disappointing. It was all empty corridors, and if there were any oil rats, Mag didn't see them. This meant she had nothing to distract her from the sculptor's aura, a musty miasma of bloodless reason, scholarship, and a joyless sort of creativity. He was the college professor whose class no one wanted to take, the kind who would happily teach a class of four people and fail all of them, who lived alone and worked alone and published books no one read.

She didn't mind his crotchety attitude, she shared his contempt for humanity, she liked his annoying bird that he'd apparently made, and she could forgive his "I know better than you about your own world" attitude. She couldn't forgive him for not being lonely. Even the eldest stank of loneliness. But as for the sculptor, what did he care that he was alone? He had a bird, a clockwork bird that did exactly what it was told and never argued back. A clockwork bird for a clockwork person.

The sculptor kneeled and Mag climbed carefully down his sleeve. She jumped off and he stood up again to his full height. Celestia alighted next to her and looked up at the shelves, and up and up.

"This is the magic section," said the sculptor.

"What are you going to do while we search, wait around?" said Mag.

"Yes."

What a shame, thought Mag, that I plan to take my sweet time. "Hey, Celestia, are we going to help you look?"

"I... am not sure. Do you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

"The ill will. The sense of menace. Mag, I appreciate your being here and helping like this, but I'm beginning to agree that these are the kinds of books no one should read."

"No such thing," said Mag.

"You clearly are not as widely read as we are."

Celestia bit her lip.

"Okay, but they're not evil. I promise you the worst books in this room are the kind you can't feel. Point taken, though. I'll hang back."

Celestia looked relieved. She gingerly pulled a vellum scroll off a rack, unfurled it, and started reading. Mag sat down on the floor and waited in silence.

Celestia rolled the scroll back up with distaste and put it back where she found it. She picked up another book bound in dense wood and iron hinges. She set it down next to her with an air of sadness after a few pages of reading and moved on to what looked like a 9th grade algebra book, the margins filled with someone's notes written in livid green ink, eventually slapping it shut and throwing it back to its proper place in revulsion.

The sculptor absentmindly pulled one of his cubes of brass out of a pocket. He pinched off a piece as if it were wet clay and rolled it into a ball between his fingers. He worked it with his yellowish, serrated fingernails - no, Mag realized, not serrated. The edges of his nails were shaped like various tools, rows and rows of them. Awls, knives, needles, saws. Nothing with multiple parts, but surely everything else imaginable.

He made a little flower, regarded it for a moment, squished it back into his brass cube, put it back into his pocket, and went back to waiting.

"Sculptor, do you have any books on human art?" said Mag.

"No, why would I?" said the sculptor.

"In that case, can I get a glass of water? I've got something you'll hate."

The sculptor made a tiny brass cup, pulled out a flask, dipped the cup into the water, and passed the cup of water down to Mag.

"Thanks, lord. Okay, see this glass of water?"

"No," said the sculptor.

"Fine, do you see this cup of water?"

"No."

Oh, right. "But I have a cup of water right now, right?"

He turned to his bird, turned back to Mag. "Yes."

Mag set down the cup of water. "Okay, well I just turned it into an oak tree."

He turned to his bird again, then turned back to Mag. "No, you didn't."

"Sure I did."

"You did not."

"Whatever point you are making, I already like this game," said Luna.

"Well, its roots and branches are pretty stubby - "

"It has neither roots nor branches."

"- it can't reproduce - "

"That's because it isn't an oak tree."

"- it's not made of wood - "

"That is not an oak tree. Is this another metaphor? I recall you telling me you would warn me the next time you used a metaphor."

Mag smiled. "It's not a metaphor. It's an oak tree."

Luna decided to chip in. "Do you mean this is a representation of an oak tree?"

"Nope, it's an oak tree."

Celestia looked up. "But you must admit it looks more like a cup of water than an oak tree."

"Yes, but it only looks like a cup of water, when in fact it's an oak tree."

"I want my cup of water back," said the sculptor.

Luna laughed. "What cup of water?"

"I want the object we are discussing back."

Mag drank the water and held it up. "Here you go. It's about a yard above the ground." The sculptor took it and smashed it back into his cube.

Mag clapped her hands together. "Right! For my next trick, I'd like a newly dead tiger shark and a tank of formaldehyde."

"What is a tiger shark?" said the sculptor coldly.

"It's a type of water dinosaur," said Mag.

"A dinosaur cannot be aquatic by definition. And no."

"A crucifix and a jar?"

"Enough."

Mag let it go. She'd had her fun.

"Where did you get all that?"

"A sculpture class."

***

"Maybe we should just go," said Mag.

Celestia tossed yet another book back to where she found it. "There must be something here."

"Must there?" said Luna.

"You still have that," said Mag, pointing at the wooden book, the only thing Celestia hadn't put back.

"I almost wish I didn't," said Celestia.

"Then put it back," said Luna.

"What is it?" said Mag.

A shadow stretched over them as the sculptor knelt. "Paravasi Mageia, by Ignatius VI," he rumbled.

"Yes?" said Luna.

Celestia picked it up and opened it to the title page. "'Transgression Magic; or, dark magic for persons of uncommon principle.'" She shut the book. "These are a collection of essays on some of the more unsavory subjects related to magic. Two or three of the essays looked potentially relevant to us, if uncomfortable to read. The rest of the book... well, I am not comfortable bringing this back to Earth. It has also been thoroughly saturated in the atmosphere of the works around it, some of which are so depraved that they seem to be leaking."

"I think I feel it now, that miasma you were talking about," said Mag. "If I left something here and let it soak for a few years, I don't think I'd want it back."

"Exactly," said Celestia.

"I'm bringing this back anyway, though," said Mag.

"Ugh. As you wish, but I should be the one to carry it. This isn't something to be touched with one's skin. Well, I suppose we're done."

"Then I will show you the way out," said the sculptor. He pulled out his cube one more time, and, with the sound of shrieking metal, he flattened into a rough dish. He set it on the floor, pulled out his flask, and poured water into it.

"You keep the exit in your pocket?" said Mag.

"The occasional uninvited guest is inevitable, but I can at least prevent them from leaving until they give an accounting of themselves," said the sculptor.

"I'll remember that," said Mag.

"Step closer to the water, if you please."

"Where is the edge?" said Celestia.

"Iskie," said Luna.

"A tricky one, but there shouldn't be a problem," said Celestia. Mag grabbed her tail. She didn't much like Underlake, and leaving immediately sounded wonderful.

"Sculptor," said Celestia, "I believe you overheard us talking before we entered. I'm sorry. I just want you to know that, while it's true we've never quite gotten along, I've also always respected what you do. Thank you for your time."

"If it helps, I've never liked you either," said the sculptor.

"Thanks for giving my species its book back," said Mag.

"After spending two hours watching you three circumvent my rules regarding the spread of dangerous knowledge, I would say you deserve nothing less," said the sculptor.

"May you always remain exactly as you are, lord sculptor," said Luna. "Universally disliked," she added privately to Mag.

They left.

***

Mag rolled over onto her back and saw the peryton. The peryton saw Celestia and bolted. Mag grinned.

"Sister, before anything else, there is something we must discuss," said Luna.

"Yes?"

"The Nightmare is back."

"What?!" Celestia rushed forward to look closely at Mag, just like her sister had. "Are you two all right?"

"We're fine," said Mag.

"It made an offer to Mag, Mag cast her out, and the Nightmare left peacefully," said Luna.

"But where is it now?"

"Earth," said Luna.

"It said something about Eastern Europe," said Mag. "I'll show the place to you on a map later."

Celestia began to pace. "But of course it could be anywhere tomorrow, and somewhere else again the next day. We must find its host and keep them contained, or else who knows what could happen?"

Mag sat up and raised her hand. "Hey, I've been thinking. I don't know if the Nightmare can affect our world the same way it affected yours. The only host it could possibly take that'd be as bad as Luna would be the eldest, and I don't see him going for that kind of deal. I'm going to guess we get some kind of magical tyrant that needs to be put down, and a tyrant with powers doesn't sound so different from one with nukes. Scary, but it's not like we don't have those anyway."

"I brought it here, and that makes it my responsibility," said Luna. "And doubly glad would I be to do it if the task involved pulling down a tyrant. There is nothing I loathe so much as tyranny."

"I also have to wonder what the consequences would be for one of your already politically powerful tyrants to gain the power of the Nightmare," said Celestia.

"Fair enough," said Mag.

"Let's finish this discussion at your home," said Celestia. She teleported them to the mirror.

Mag stumbled. She would have appreciated a warning.

"I'm sorry," said Celestia.

"It's fine. Hey, I feel like I'm forgetting something important," said Mag.

"Oh! The book!" said Celestia. She poofed away, then poofed back with the book.

"Yeah, that must be it," said Mag.

"I have the same feeling, and it hasn't gone away."

"Huh," said Mag. "Another thing to work out at home. God, I would kick orphaned puppies for a cigarette right now. That and a real breakfast. I'm thinking fried mushrooms and scrambled eggs. Can you guys eat eggs?"

"Yes, and that sounds delightful," said Celestia.

Mag took Celestia's tail in hand again. They passed through the mirror...

... and burst out of the California lake together. Dawn had come and the sun was behind the treetops. Celestia broke through the ice on the surface of the lake by flinging her wings open; water and shards of ice sprayed to either side of her. She shook out her mane like a model in a shampoo commercial. Mag lurched out of the lake on all fours.

Mag looked up to see something of a tableau. The shore was absolutely crowded with people. Most of them were EMTs in wading boots and warm clothes. A coroner stood by, leaning against a tree and shivering. John Hardly sat on a nearby gurney, wearing two trauma blankets and looking teary. There was even a small news crew with a handheld camera, though no one had a microphone. The camera's red light was on.

There were ten humans onshore, not counting Mag herself, and all of them were staring at Celestia.

Mag stood up straight. "John Hardly, get over here so I can kick your ass."

Author's Note

Editing later. Bed now.

Conversation Fourteen

Every EMT immediately stepped in between Mag and John. It occurred to Mag that making her entrance with a physical threat to the wellbeing of their patient might not be the best way to introduce Celestia to emergency services.

"Just kidding," said Mag. It didn't seem to help. It certainly didn't inspire conversation.

Celestia clopped up behind her with a smile. "Always on the record," she whispered as she passed. Louder, she said, "Greetings, humans. My name is Princess Celestia. I come from the cursed world of Equestria, and I am searching the other worlds for a way to break that curse. If humanity is willing, I'd like to offer my help to your species in any capacity you would like, so long as it's peaceful and ethical. In return, I would appreciate any help you can give with breaking the curse."

"And now she calls it a curse," said Luna.

No one moved. At least the camera appeared to be rolling, so Celestia hadn't been completely wasting her breath. Celestia herself didn't seem bothered; she sat down next to Mag and waited.

Birds chirped.

The red light on the camera turned off. The cameraman didn't notice.

Then a tall EMT woman with square shoulders stepped forward and said, "You're not shivering."

"She doesn't get cold," said Mag.

"I meant you," said the EMT. Her name tag said “Lisa.”

"Oh, well, you know, the cold between the worlds gets a little easier to put up with when you accept that you can get as warm as you like and it'll still be there, that you're not dying, and that it'll go away on its own if you give it time."

Lisa the EMT walked briskly up to Mag, grabbed her wrist, and checked her pulse. “Pulse a little fast, breathing normal.” She shined a tiny but fiercely bright flashlight in Mag's eyes. "Look at me. No, open your eyes. Thank you." She turned around to her fellow EMTs. "Pupils dilating normally." This seemed to break up the stasis. One of the EMTs got out a notepad and started writing. A member of the news team fumbled out his phone and tried to dial, but dropped it on the ground and couldn't seem to pick it up without dropping it again. The cameraman noticed that something had happened to his camera and patted his numerous pockets for something or other. John kept on staring.

“Lay down. Reno, get her hair.” A strawberry blond man with broad shoulders darted in with a towel and dried off Mag's hair. EMT Lisa turned back to Mag. "I said lay down. Lay down! Thank you. Who's the president of the United States of America?"

"Argh – Caldwell," said Mag. EMT Reno's approach to drying people's hair was that of a rescue worker in a hurry rather than that of a hairdresser who cared about tips.

"What day is it?"

"Saturday," said Mag.

"What state is this?"

""California."

"Mentating properly," said the EMT.

"No. No, hold on," said Mag.

"Yes?"

"Are you just going to ignore the talking, flying unicorn?"

"Yes," said Lisa firmly. She held up a thermometer. "Put this in your mouth, please." Mag complied. Celestia watched everything unfold without comment, a picture of passivity and docility.

"Preexisting conditions?"

"Half a pack of cigarettes a day. Also, my friends are magical talking unicorns."

"Tobacco, okay. Anything else relevant?"

Mag gestured furiously at Celestia. "How is the painfully beautiful alien goddess not relevant?!"

"There wasn't anything about that in the hypothermia sections of my med texts. What I do remember from doing this for five and a half years is that someone who pops out of a frozen lake and isn't shivering is dying." EMT Lisa shoved the thermometer into Mag's hand. Mag put it into her mouth. Lisa pulled it out of her mouth, turned it around, and put it back in Mag's mouth the right way. “Reno, where the hell is the rest of the kit?”

EMT Reno fetched the kit without complaint, a dark blue canvas duffel bag. Lisa took the towel from him and scrubbed water off of Mag's arms. Mag snatched away the towel and began to dry herself, glaring at EMT Lisa.

“Are you refusing care?” said EMT Lisa.

“If I say yes, do I have to give the towel back?” said Mag.

“Yes,” said EMT Lisa.

“Then no. And your thermometer just beeped.”

“Then take off your shoes so I can check for frostbite,” said EMT Lisa. Mag complied with bad grace, though, to be fair, her boots were definitely sloshing.

EMT Reno took the thermometer out of her mouth. “96.9 degrees,” he said.

“Be more gentle, Reno,” said EMT Lisa, pulling Mag's left sock off by the toe.

“Oh for fuck's sake,” spat Mag. “Yo, news people! Don't you have phone calls to make? An alien showed up and there still aren't any black helicopters. If I don't see some menacing men in tuxedos and sunglasses pretty quick—”

Celestia cleared her throat.

“—I'm going to make purely figurative threats and then be annoyed in a cooperative and nonthreatening manner. Why isn't anybody interviewing my unicorn?”

“So are you John's girlfriend?” said EMT Lisa.

“No, I just met him this morning.”

“Do you think he's seeing anybody?”

“Ha! Seriously? Fine fine fine, don't get mad. I don't know, go ask him.”

“Good luck!” said Celestia with a smile. EMT Lisa's nostril twitched and she hurried away with the thermometer.

Mag watched her go with raised eyebrows. “I was going to ask if there was some kind of spell you could do to erase their memories, but it looks like you're already invisible to half the people here. Lucky you, eh?”

“Oh, they see me very well indeed,” said Celestia.

“I know. I was kidding. But what do you think the EMTs would do if I told them my new friend had hypothermia?”

“Oh! Do it,” said Luna.

“Nothing, because I would teleport you and me to the top of the hill before Ms. Lisa has the chance to think seriously about what to do in that situation,” said Celestia.

“Or maybe you could let me do it, because I really want to see one human pass out before the end of the day,” said Mag.

“Then you'll be needing a mirror, because you're looking worse and worse. Luna, how is she?”

“Lightheaded, jittery, and weak,” said Luna.

“She's exaggerating,” said Mag. “Luna, stop exaggerating.”

“I shall exaggerate as much or as little as I please. Neither of you need worry, however; the solution to Mag's illness is to sleep again, this time without my forcing your dreaming mind to behave as your waking mind does. She must dream.”

Celestia nodded, but her eyes were elsewhere. Mag followed her gaze to one of the reporters, who was approaching with a notepad. He was a potbellied man with a red-orange mustache and an old gray beanie, in his thirties or forties. He had a notepad and wore the face of a man about to wager his soul.

“You're Ms. Margaret Wilson?” said the man.

”Yeah, and this is Princess Celestia,” said Mag.

He stood up straight. “Does, uh, do... so it looked like her majesty speaks English?”

“I do,” said Princess Celestia. “May I help you, sir?”

He clutched his tie. “Your, er, your majesty, and you as well, Ms. Wilson, would you two care to answer a few questions?”

“Ah,” said Celestia, pleased.

“How about Luna?” said Mag.

“What?” said the reporter.

“You're talking to one human and two aliens,” said Mag. “The third has no physical form and she lives in my head.”

The reporter stared at her helplessly.

Mag nodded. “Too weird for you. Got it.”

“Do write that down though, please,” said Celestia. “That part is going to be difficult to explain to humanity, and it might be best if we mention it as early as possible.”

“I was rather hoping to be the secret princess,” said Luna.

“Don't worry; a lot of people aren't going to believe you exist,” said Mag.

“Good, then there is fun still to be had,” said Luna.

The reporter had a stub of a pencil set against the top line of his notepad, but hadn't written a word yet, or even looked down at it. He'd lost his nerve.

“Maybe you should just tell him what to write,” said Luna.

“Well then why not begin with what I said a moment ago? 'Greetings, humans. My name is Princess Celestia...'”

Celestia went through it all again for him, verbatim, matching the speed of his writing.

“There. I think that's a good start, don't you? Now write what Mag said, if you please.”

“Mag?” said the reporter.

“Me,” said Mag. “I said something about how Luna lives in my head because she doesn't have a body.”

He hesitated.

“If you give me the notepad then I could write it down for you,” said Mag, but the offer just seemed to make him uncomfortable.

Luna spoke up. “You asked them if they cared to answer a few questions, did you not?”

He scurried off to have a lively sotto voce discussion with the cameraman, came back, and said, “I just wanted to ask a few questions. How long have you been on Earth, your majesty? Wait, no, first, Ms. Wilson, could I have your contact information?”

“No, because I don't have a phone and I don't give out my street address,” said Mag.

“Since yesterday afternoon,” said Celestia.

“But do you mind if I contact you later?” said the man without looking up from his notepad, which was now rapidly filling up.

“Sure. Who are you again?”

“Bob, Bob Carpeter,” said Bob. He shifted his notepad to his other hand, pulled a bent business card out of his pants pocket, and passed it to Mag. “Please, please, please feel free to contact me within the next one or two days so we can set up a longer interview.”

“You said your name was Carpeter?” said Mag.

“Yeah, the business cards are wrong,” said Bob sheepishly.

Mag took Bob's pencil from between his fingers, crossed out the superfluous “n” the printers had put in “Carpeter” on the card he'd given her, and handed the pencil back to him. “Got it. More questions?”

“Yes.” Bob's demeanor changed. “Your majesty, how did you get here?”

“Through the reflection in the lake. Reflections are the edges of universes, and one can pass into and out of the spaces between universes if one has the magic for it.”

“What do you mean by magic?”

“Magic is the manipulation of the aether, which is a kind of energy field—that's magic energy, not heat or kinetic energy or anything like that—that permeates most universes. Humans can do it, or at least one can, but I've yet to meet a human that can actually perceive the aether. Then again, I haven't met very many humans, so who knows? Maybe it's just rare. Here, if I do this—” Celestia levitated a rock “—do you sense anything?”

“Did that rock just levitate?” said Bob, pointing with is pencil.

“Yes,” said Mag.

“Well, I see a rock floating in the air with a kind of faint glow around it, and another one around your horn. That's magic?”

“Yes,” said Celestia. “My sister, incidentally, has taught Mag a bit of magic as well.”

Bob looked at Mag. Mag cast her light spell, and it was much dimmer under daylight. Bob leaned in and squinted at it. “Huh.”

“It's my first day,” said Mag defensively. Technically true, so long as no one brought up the subject of subjective time.

“But you can teach this, ah, 'magic' to humans?” said Bob.

“As a matter of fact, I hope to teach it to humanity,” said Celestia.

“We need to talk about that,” said Mag through the side of her mouth. If Celestia put magic in the hands of humans, they'd weaponize it within the year. Now Celestia had promised, but maybe there was still something they could do, like keeping the more dangerous things to herself. Of course, that might not work either, as Mag had already come up with a couple of ways to hurt people using just the spells she knew so far. Could humans turn a light spell into a weapon, given enough time? Obviously. Somehow.

The cameraman had moved in to film over Bob's shoulder. Mag tried to keep Bob's head in between her and the camera lens, but Bob and the cameraman both kept shifting.

“Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself, your majesty?” said Bob.

“Certainly,” said Luna. “I am, or perhaps it would be better to say was, the princess of the night. I have other titles and so does my sister Celestia, but that was my first and greatest responsibility. And it has just occurred to me that you were addressing my sister.”

“I could tell you a great deal about both my sister and me,” said Celestia. “What kind of answer are you looking for?”

“Are you real?” said a hoarse voice from ten feet to the left. It came from a tall, tall EMT who had approached without Mag noticing. He was one of those permanently flush-faced people, with clusters of vivid freckles across his cheeks, and the cold had given him a dark red nose with matching earlobes. Something in his eyes suggested that, somewhere inside him, the sight of Celestia had knocked off a scab and left some wound open to the world.

Celestia faced him, read his nametag, looked up at him. “Yes, David, I'm real.”

He looked back down at her. “I don't know what to do about you,” he said nakedly.

“You don't have to do anything about me, David,” said Celestia, full of kind laughter.

Mag covered her eyes with a hand. She'd been prepared for stomping boots and fatigues and rifles, followed by labcoats and scalpels. She'd expected Celestia to bring out the selfish, callous, consuming, uncaring black heart of mankind. But so far everyone insisted on being a dork.

The cameraman had hunkered down. He now wore an “I'm five years old and it's Christmas morning” grin. Most of the humans had drifted forward like puppies faced with a stranger that smelled like food, except for Lisa and John, who had gotten to talking. Mag couldn't hear most of their conversation, but she caught the word “dinner.”

It turned out that not one of them had a cigarette.

***

After another 20 minutes of progressively more painful dorkery (the camera guy was named Benedek, loved 90's sitcoms, and had an “I want to believe” poster rolled up behind a door at home), a HAZMAT team arrived. One HAZMAT suit ordered all humans to clear the area, except for Mag, who needed to be quarantined as well. The news team was ushered off and the EMTs were made to leave.

“And I?” said Celestia.

“We have a vehicle and a safe location prepared, your majesty,” said the HAZMAT suit.

“I'm sticking with her,” said Mag.

“We have a separate vehicle for you, but we'll be taking you to the same building,” said the suit.

“And if I say I want to go with her anyway?” said Mag. Celestia nudged her from behind with her nose.

“You are a civilian and we don't have a legal right to detain you at this point in time, but we think it's in everyone's best interest if you come with us so we can check for possible contamination. Radiation, for example.”

In other words, they had already applied for an arrest warrant of some kind in case Mag decided she'd rather go home. Celestia gave Mag another warning nudge.

Right. She was a representative of Celestia and a future citizen of—what was it called? Equestria. She clammed up and looked to Celestia for help.

Celestia took center stage. “Hello. We'll be happy to come with you, but I do think Ms. Mag Wilson should stay with me, firstly, because she has spent over a day in my presence and presumably can't get any more contaminated; secondly, because my sister is in her mind in any case, from which she cannot be removed; and thirdly, because while I'm happy to accompany you to your safe place regardless, I find Ms. Wilson's presence comforting, and, while I wouldn't presume to know the minds of your superiors, if I were in their position, I'd prefer that the strange new being was comfortable.”

Celestia could probably have shortened all that to “pretty please.” In Mag's opinion, saying no to Celestia within five seconds of first meeting her was like saying no to gravity.

“That sounds reasonable,” said the suit. “If you don't mind, please stay still for a few minutes while we check for radiation and a few different harmful chemicals and gases.”

"Do you think the book counts?" said Mag.

"I doubt they could sense it, but yes, in spirit," said Celestia.

"The book? You mean that book?" said the suit, pointing with a gloved finger.

"Yes, this one," said Celestia. It sat on her back. It seemed to sit precariously in its place, but it hadn't moved much since Celestia had set it there, so maybe not. "This book is... how should I word it? Mag, any suggestions?"

"Bad juju," said Mag.

"How do you mean?" said the suit.

"It's spent centuries basking in some rather nasty magical effluvia, and now it's not something mortals should touch without magical preparation and care," said Celestia.

"Basically, don't touch the book and don't touch anything that touches the book," said Mag.

"And I would be wary of anything that touches anything that touched the book, as well," said Celestia.

The suit nodded calmly. "Is there any safe way for us to handle it in case of an emergency?"

"None whatsoever, at least nothing you have access to. You must trust me to keep it and protect it. Someday this may change, but for now, there is no likely scenario that would justify interacting with this book even indirectly."

"What Celestia hasn't mentioned is that the two of us might teach you how, Mag, but it would take time and would not be without risk. If you are interested then she shall probably need persuading."

Mag shifted a couple of inches away from the Paravasi Mageia. She really could feel it now, and she wasn't liking any more now than she had back in Underlake. It wasn't profane, not exactly, but it definitely wasn't wholesome, either.

"We might have more questions later, but all right."

Then they got to work. It took a thousand years and they found nothing interesting. About ten minutes in, Mag noticed her ashtray buried face-down in mud a few feet away and asked if she could get it. They respectfully asked her not to move, but were kind enough to pry her ashtray out of the dirt with some kind of long plastic thing, put it in a thick plastic bag with a drawstring, and set it aside for her, to be returned once they'd looked it over carefully.

“Fine so far,” said the suit who was in charge.

Mag folded her arms. “So are we going? Also, can I get a cigarette?”

“What do you plan to do with it?” said the suit.

“The obvious,” said Mag.

“We'll have to make a phone call about that one,” said the suit. “All right, pack it up. Your majesty, Ms. Wilson, please follow us up to the road. We have transportation ready.”

“I'm sure it's lovely,” said Celestia.

“This 'transportation' wouldn't happen to lock from the outside, would it?” said Mag.

“It doesn't, although we would appreciate it if you both stayed inside until we gave you the all-clear to get out again. We'll take you up the path after the other squad checks it and the road is blocked.”

“Just as you please,” said Celestia.

“Hey, how many people know about the princess right now?”

“I really couldn't say, Ms. Wilson,” said the suit.

“Ballpark it,” said Mag.

“I'm curious as well,” said Celestia.

The suit stood there for a few seconds. Mag wondered what his face looked like. “This is just a guess, you understand, but if I did have to guess... somewhere between five hundred and several million, depending on how convincing the public finds the recording.”

Mag nearly collapsed with laughter. Several HAZMAT suits flinched at the sudden movement. “It hit the actual news?! They aired it? I need to see the tape. No, I need an internet connection. No, I need omelets and cigarettes and cigarette omelets, and then maybe a shower, and then an internet connection.”

She tucked some stray hairs behind her ear. This had all been fun, for a given value for fun, but she was feeling less sentient as the sun climbed. Her body was beginning to realize it wouldn't be allowed to go back to bed anytime soon.

“Well, you're public knowledge now,” Mag stage-whispered to Celestia.

“And now we'll see what humanity and I can do for one another,” said Celestia happily.

Author's Note

Welp, this one's officially late. Now that work and school assignments are rolling in again, I may have to change the update schedule. We'll see.

Remember to point out errors. Grammar, logic, factual errors, it's all good. Are you an EMT and I got the hypothermia checks wrong? Speak up! Did I write "that" instead of "than" again? Say something, because that's just embarrassing.

Conversation Fifteen

Mag hadn't expected a semi truck. She also hadn't expected the semi truck to be fully equipped with carpeting, a couch, overhead lighting, a TV and DVD player with some Disney movies, and a small pile of art and photography books.

“You guys got all this together in an hour?” said Mag.

“Fifty minutes. It's a pleasure to meet you, your majesty.” A man got out of the driver's seat of the truck. He was all that Mag could have wished for: black suit, black sunglasses, nondescript brown hair and average build, lukewarm smile. Unlike the crowd from the lake, Celestia didn't seem to bother him at all. He took off his sunglasses. “For the next couple of days, if things go as everyone expects, I'll be your driver, butler, guide, whatever you need. Call me Jeff.”

“Delighted to make your acquaintance, Jeff,” said Celestia. She offered a hoof. Jeff took it without hesitation and bowed over it.

“And you'd be Mag Wilson. A pleasure.” He held his hand out.

“No armed guards?” said Mag, shaking his hand once.

“Do I count?” said Jeff. He opened his jacket to show a shoulder holster. “Oh, I almost forgot. Ellie is sitting up front. She's the backup. Ellie!”

A small, broad face appeared in the wing mirror of the truck and waved before going back to whatever it was doing. Celestia waved back. Mag didn't.

Jeff smiled indulgently. “You'll be seeing more of me than her, I think, but we're both at your disposal.”

“Do either of you have any special skills you'd like to share with me?” said Celestia.

“I'm glad you asked. We're in a hurry, so I'll explain fast. Ellie's the brains and I'm the brawn. Yesterday, Ellie was a field biologist working in Mexico and Honduras. You can expect to see her taking notes whenever her hands aren't on the wheel, and she might or might not have questions. As for myself, I work as a kind of personal security adviser slash bodyguard. My background is in military intelligence.”

“How very interesting,” said Celestia. It sounded like she'd learned a lot more from that speech than Mag had. “I don't make you nervous, I note. Well done.”

“People have been getting nervous? I apologize on their behalf.” He bowed slightly, possibly sarcastically or possibly not.

“There's no need to apologize for anyone. If I'm the only one of my kind to ever come to your world, then who's to say what is or isn't the proper reaction? I don't blame them for skittishness—or you for a lack thereof.”

“It's nice of you to say so. If you would both step this way, please? We're trying to move as quickly as possible to keep ahead of the press and the yahoos.”

“Very well,” said Celestia. She teleported the three of them into the back of the truck. Jeff looked around with curiosity but, again, a total lack of fear.

“Well we've got ice in our veins, don't we just,” muttered Mag. Never mind the sharp suit, Jeff's insouciance was getting on her nerves. He smiled at her and sat down in a nearby chair that had been bolted to the floor.

“I'll be staying here to keep the two of you company for the duration of the drive.” He reached up to a rope hanging from the rolling door and pulled it down. There was a moment of darkness and then the lights turned on. “First of all, your majesty, Ms. Wilson, this down here is the handle to open the door. Ellie is going to lock it from the outside for the sake of appearance, since we're trying to blend in with the rest of the traffic, but if you'll look here you'll see an emergency handle that opens the door whether it's locked or not.”

“And I can teleport us out at will,” said Celestia.

“And you can teleport us out at will,” said Jeff. “And this is the TV. It works like this...”

***

Mag opened her book, another book, a much better and more beautiful book. “The Candlestag,” she read, and peeked at Luna, who nodded encouragingly from the top of the great stag's back.

“The Candlestag,” read Mag. “A wanderer who teaches dreamers the central and only tenet of his religion: that we must melt to see.”

“Ayuh,” said the Candlestag. He was 20 feet tall, insofar as height meant anything in dreams, with a great rack of antlers with a burning candle standing between and on the tip of every tine. Wax dotted the dirt under and behind him in a path that stretched back over mountains and plains and lifetimes.

“Even he,” said Luna over Mag's shoulder.

“That's a good picture of him,” said Mag.

“It doesn't entirely capture the manliness of his profile, I feel,” said Luna, fluttering her eyelashes.

“Hrgh,” said the stag, blushing.

Luna landed back between his antlers. “Nor, being in pencil rather than paint, does the portrait depict the velvety nut-brown shade of his fur. Credit where credit is due, though; the artist had a talent for expressing lighting, and well expresses the way the glow of the candles dance in his eyes. Do they not?”

“He's four times taller than you,” said Mag.

“You are thinking again. Did we not agree to relax, Mag?”

“Think and dream are the same in French,” quoted Mag. That had been in the book too, the book of Pasithee, the book of book of book of books. A name to conjure by in the magical world, apparently.

“Have you seen the mask?” said Luna.

“Hrgh?”

“No? Then never mind. I have a second question. When I do this, can you feel my heartbeat?” Luna lay down again on the Candlestag's back.

“Jesus,” said Mag.

“Harrumph,” said the Candlestag.

“Hm?” said Luna. “A question of your own for my friend? What is it?”

“Hrgh.”

Luna stood behind Mag again. “He wishes to know whether it aches to be so real.”

“Sometimes,” said Mag. “What is the mask of Pasithee?”

“You're thinking again.”

“Sorry.”

***

Mag woke up. She'd drooled on the couch and it had gotten its vengeance by leaving a corduroy-patterned imprint on her cheek. The truck had parked and the door was open. Jeff and Celestia were gone. Ellie sat where Jeff had, writing something in a notepad.

Ellie was short and round. She had tousled hair, stubby fingers, and eyes that never stopped moving. A secret agent disguised as the kind of woman who knitted.

“Guh?” said Mag.

Ellie, without looking up from her writing, pointed to the floor at the foot of the couch. Mag hoisted herself up the back of the couch and looked down to find a piece of paper covered in rows of swooping symbols written in black Sharpie, above a cartoony picture of Celestia and Jeff walking away from a truck, both smiling.

Luna stepped in to translate.

“Allow me. 'My dear Mag,

“'I hope you feel refreshed after your nap.'”

She still felt terrible.

“'Mr. Jeff wanted to wake you so he could explain the situation, but I insisted, citing medical reasons. Ms. Ellie is there to take you to a private interview room, where a small group of officials want to ask you some questions about, among other things, what you intend to do next. In my own way I've made it clear that your freedom and wellbeing are supremely important to me, and I have every reason to believe these people, their associates, and most especially their superiors hope to establish a long-term working relationship.

“'They have questions for me as well, regarding my abilities and intentions. You can expect to see me by dinner, or even a little after lunch. If you don't see me after dinner then you both may assume that I've ceased to cooperate, and at that point, Mag, I leave you to Luna's care. She can be silly sometimes…' hmph. '… but she's a powerful ally and a good friend.' Sister, think not for even a moment that base flattery shall distract me from that jibe about being silly.

“Ahem. 'A few comments before you get to it. Remember that the three of us are here both to help and to get help, and all of our actions should be with that in mind. If they aren't trustworthy then we'll leave and look for someone who is. We aren't here to fight, only to talk.'

Yours,
Celestia'

P.S. Always on the record! Yes, even during confidential interviews.

P.P.S. I gave them a translation of this letter.'

“So ends the letter, followed by an amusing drawing.”

“Thanks,” said Mag.

Ellie looked up.

“Just talking to the princess in my head,” said Mag.

Ellie smiled. She was missing half her teeth.

***

Armed marines in dress blues took her to a little room with bad carpeting, overbright lights, and what couldn't possibly be anything except a one-way mirror. They sat her down at a table with firm deference and stepped behind her. No one searched her, not even her purse, which they let her keep on the table.

A woman in a dark blue pinstripe suit walked in with a thick collection of manila folders and stapled printouts. She addressed Mag without sitting down and didn't offer her hand. “Hello, Ms. Wilson. My name is Georgia. I'm here to discuss your experiences with the being called Princess Celestia. I would also like to confirm a few things and, in all candor, to get a sense of your personality. You are under no obligation to answer any of these questions, but you may wish to remember that many of them pertain to already public information.” Georgia sat down.

“None of you seem to have last names,” said Mag.

“We like to keep an informal office,” said Georgia.

“Who are you people?” said Mag.

“Independent contractors working closely with the Unites States government. Don't worry; it's all legal, and arranged with the best of intentions on all sides. Shall we begin? Good. In your own words, please describe the events pertaining to the Princess.”

“Sure,” said Mag. “I was taking a break from my job—I just got fired from that, by the way—and smoking by the lake, when a flying unicorn princess came out of some supernatural fog and passed out in front of me. I poked her in the earhole and she woke up. She flew me home and fell asleep on my couch, and I went to sleep as well. Then it was morning. I made coffee and went grocery shopping and brought back breakfast. Breakfast sucked.” Mag looked into the mirror behind Georgia. “You guys getting all this?”

“I'm sure they are,” said Georgia. “Please continue.”

“We went to her world to collect samples. She didn't find anything useful, but on the plus side, we found another flying unicorn princess. This one lives in my head because she has no body. Oh, no one told you about that one? Huh. Say hello, Luna.”

“Greetings,” said Luna.

“Excuse me for a moment.” Georgia stood and left the room.

“Rude,” said Mag.

Georgia came back in after a couple of minutes. “I apologize. My briefing was incomplete and I needed to confirm something. Greetings, Princess Luna. Ms. Wilson, please continue.”

“Where did I leave off?” said Mag.

“The part where we found one another,” said Luna.

“Okay. We went home, Celestia drew some pictures of her people, she made dinner, Luna taught me magic in my sleep, and today we went to another world and got a tome of dark and dangerous magics. Then we came back and got buried under a wave of nerds before being abducted by the Men in Black. The end. Any questions?”

“Give me a few minutes, please,” said Georgia. She pulled several pages of handwritten notes out of a folder and read it all the way through while Mag drummed her fingers on the table in what she hoped was an annoying way.

Georgia shut the folder. “You seem to have forgotten certain events. Would you mind starting again?”

“Sounds like you're comparing my version of events with Celestia's. Can I see those notes you've got, to refresh my memory?”

“I'm afraid these are confidential at this time,” said Georgia.

“I'm hurt by your lack of trust, Georgia.”

Georgia sat back and fixed Mag with a look. “During interviews like this, one must always consider the psychology of all parties involved. That's why I like to perform research.” She thumbed through the stack of folders next to her. “Here we have your arrest record. Her majesty told the interviewer that you mentioned borrowing your parents' vehicle without permission. You never got around to mentioning the rest of your record to her, unfortunately, such as your history of shoplifting. One wonders how you got a job at a convenience store with a record like that.”

“No convictions, and that was a long time ago,” said Mag.

“Nine years and four months,” said Georgia. She pulled out another folder. “I also have your college records here. The Young Socialists Club? Really?”

“Oh no, I've been found out! I'll never act in this town again. But seriously, it was a phase. You know what they say about experimenting in college.”

“I also read your final sociology essay. I found it... intense. Your professor filed a report to the mental health department of your school.”

“I got an A, though. Did you read through that whole pile today?” said Mag.

“Yes, I did. As of this morning, my job has been to learn as much about you as I can as quickly as I can. You are an unknown quantity in a situation already full of unknown quantities, and your influence over her majesty could make you a dangerous, dangerous person. Ms. Wilson—actually, may I call you Margaret?”

“No,” said Mag.

“Ms. Wilson, I've been reading about you all morning, and so far the best I can say for you is that you probably mean well. I've written something very similar in my report about you. The report is currently unfinished, but the only part I have left to write is a commentary on the contents of this discussion. Am I going to go back to my desk and type phrases like 'unhelpful and dishonest,' Ms. Wilson? I should inform you that this report is going to be widely read by key political figures all over the world tomorrow morning, Ms. Wilson. I have no particular emotional investment in your future, Ms. Wilson, but I strongly suggest, Ms. Wilson, for your own safety and happiness, that you cut the bullshit.”

Mag slapped the table. “Cut the bullshit? Tell that to your creepy, nameless organization full of creepy, nameless people, 'Georgia.' You've all been playing power games all day. I'm here to help Celestia and Luna, not you, and that's why I'm being cooperative, not for king and country. Yes, cooperative. I came of my own free will, I told you everything I was comfortable telling you, and I haven't tried to walk out. Doesn't that sound cooperative to you? This is my cooperative face. I know it's my cooperative face because if I were wearing my uncooperative face, someone would have pepper sprayed it by now. Right?” She twisted in her chair to look at the marines, who were staring straight ahead. Come to think of it, they didn't have pepper spray. They had handguns.

“This department is only a few hours old, so forgive us for not having a name or any business cards yet,” said Georgia.

“You know what? Fine. Here's the rest of it. She's the most feminine thing I've ever seen. She's a goddess. She's Girl Aslan. She's a Lisa Frank accessory given life. She's proof of the one thing we all know deep down, the thing that eats us when we can't sleep, that none of us is good enough. Look at her and then think about all the things you did that you aren't proud of and tell me you'd list off your whole arrest record on day two of meeting her. How about you, Ms. Georgia High and Mighty? Military background, comfortable in interrogation rooms, deadpan voice. How far have you taken your interrogations, hmm? Imagine explaining the necessity of waterboarding to Her Majesty Princess Celestia.”

“Anything else?” said Georgia.

“Lots, but I could take a break. You had something to say?”

She steepled her hands. “Nothing except that we all appreciate this sudden burst of honesty, as that's why I'm here in the first place. Please continue.”

“Uh, sure. You know she helped me clean a floor? I don't mean she swept it. I mean some people trashed my store while I was out, and we spent hours getting everything off the floor, from dried melted ice cream to broken glass. She hums show tunes to herself when she works, you know that? They sound like show tunes, anyway.”

“Cleaning?” said Georgia.

“Cleaning. Isn't that in the other interrogator's notes?”

“Interviewer, not interrogator, and I am not at liberty to divulge that information at this point in time.”

“And here I thought we were getting along. Yes, cleaning.”

“Hold. Why am I only hearing all of this now?” said Luna.

“Oh, dammit, you caught all that.” Mag gathered herself. “Here's the deal. I was angry literally all the time when I was younger. I did some stupid things and got myself arrested once or thrice, until one day a judge told me to grow up and I decided he had a point.”

“And I tried to plunge the world into eternal night. No, I want to know more about this mess. Do you recall any part of the process where she looked especially ridiculous? If so, can you describe it in enough detail that I can recreate it in a dream for teasing purposes?”

“Probably nothing you can work with. She tripped over a bucket, but only slightly. I thought it was sort of cute when she looked over at me to make sure I didn't see.”

“A pity.”

“Pardon me for interrupting,” said Georgia, “but what was that about eternal night?”

“Ask me again in my interview,” said Luna.

“We haven't arranged for one yet, your majesty. Frankly, most of the people in this building were sufficiently skeptical of your existence that we didn't make allowances for it. However, I think I should ask you whether you need anything.”

“A cigarette,” said Luna.

Mag thunked her head against the table. “THANK you. Oh my god.”

Georgia quirked an eyebrow. “The cigarette is for both of you?”

“We smoke,” said Luna.

“I see.” She turned to the mirror and gestured. “They'll see what they can do.”

“You know what else would be good?” said Mag.

“Food,” said Luna.

“Dinner is in forty minutes. Until then, let me prompt you a bit. Earlier you said you went to the store. Was Princess Luna with you at the time?”

“No,” said Mag.

“You were alone, then.”

“Oh, I get it. Nope. Celestia came with me using some kind of illusion shapechangey thing to make her look human. She made me talk to the store owner.”

“And she says you went home after that. Okay, that matches up.”

Well, well, well. Celestia hadn't told them about the eldest. Why not? They'd have to have a talk about that.

“Is something on your mind?” said Georgia.

“Yes,” said Mag. “I was just thinking that Luna hasn't heard a lot of this. We've been rushing around as well, so there hasn't been much time to tell each other stories.”

“I think I should ask that again. Ms. Wilson, is something on your mind?”

“Food and tobacco,” said Mag.

Georgia had been watching her face. “Yes, you've mentioned, but I'm beginning to think you're leaving something out again. Would you like to tell me what it is?”

“As soon as I figure out what you're talking about, yeah. Can I get a hint?”

“I wish you two would stop chasing each other's tails and get on with this interrogation,” said Luna.

“Then let's move on,” said Georgia after a short but pregnant silence. “There is a recently broken phone and wall behind the convenience store where you used to work. Would you like to comment?”

“Yeah, I was leaning against the wall making random phone calls when they both exploded. That was when I found out I can do magic. It was a complete accident, by the way.”

“Do you often call random numbers like that?”

“Do you have any idea how little there is to do up there in the mountains?”

“Do you often call random numbers like that?”

“Constantly.”

“I'm going to keep asking you. Do you often call random numbers like that?”

“Constantly.”

“Do you often call random numbers like that?”

“Constantly.”

“You're being unhelpful again,” said Georgia.

“Okay, how about this: I decline to answer.”

“Disappointing,” said Georgia. “Do you have anything else you'd like to tell me that pertains to the beings called Princess Luna and Princess Celestia?”

“Did I mention I can do magic?”

“In passing,” said Georgia.

“If that cigarette is here then I can show you something cool,” said Mag.

Georgia stood up and went to the door. Someone handed her a cigarette, a lighter, and an ashtray. She brought them to the table, set them down in front of Mag, and waited.

Mag picked up the cigarette with her right hand and snapped the fingers of her left while thinking sunflower pottery to herself. A small flame burned at the tip of her index finger. She lit her cigarette with it, and grimaced. “Menthol.”

“Menthol? Is that what that flavor is called? I rather enjoy it.”

Author's Note

More bad news: I need to take the next week off for essay-writing purposes. School is kicking my ass right now.

I've got a question. Should I change the fic description? The one I've got now is okay, but it doesn't tell people very much. If I added anything, what should it be?

Conversation Sixteen

It was the next day. They'd spent the night under observation. Mag had slept like a log anyway. She was now eating a bagel and seriously regretting the way she'd acted in the interrogation.

“Okay, let's rip off this bandaid and see what kind of damage I've done,” said Mag. They sat together at a cafeteria table. The cafeteria was mostly empty except for a few servers and more armed guards, though the armed guards were facing outward. Someone important had decided that everyone else in the compound was more dangerous to Celestia and Mag than Mag and Celestia were to them. Or Celestia had admitted yesterday that she could crush the planet like a beer can if she felt like it and no amount of guns would stop her.

“And here is mine,” said Celestia. They exchanged reports. The contents of the investigations had been partially declassified, and Celestia and Mag were on the list of recipients for a copy, to Mag's surprise. Celestia said she'd asked nicely.

The first two thirds of Celestia's report were physical specs, intelligence tests, motor tests, tests for reflexes, and a preliminary examination to figure out exactly what the hell magic was (no useful results at all), vision, hearing, an x-ray, a gamma ray, infrared scans for nothing particularly, an examination of the chemical composition of some of her fur and mane, and a bewildered note about Celestia's ability to reach behind her, pull out a violin, and then play it with hooves, despite the fact that she definitely didn't have it when she came in and hooves shouldn't have been able to operate a stringed instrument.

Her interview had been performed in front of a full panel of interviewers. At first the interviewers had stayed behind two feet of plexiglass. After a few preliminary questions, Celestia asked for a pot of tea and a light snack of mint leaves, which they provided. She invited them to join her. They did. Later, Georgia interviewed Celestia's interviewers to find an explanation for this strange decision (the first of many strange decisions they made, from the looks of it) and they'd all told her the same thing, that at the time it had seemed rude to refuse.

Mag had gotten grilled by Hell's coldest secretary and a pair of (admittedly well-dressed) goons, while Celestia had turned the interrogation into a tea party. It figured.

They discussed the aether over a shared plate of scones. The aether had little relation to any force or substance humanity was aware of, and was therefore difficult to describe to the interviewers. How could you explain light to a creature with no eyes? It didn't help that the magic and the aether seemed to work by a substantially different set of mathematical principles than normal physics, to the point where the resident physics PhDs had trouble wrapping their heads around the basic terminology in the equations, let alone how the numbers related to each other. It made Mag feel less stupid for not getting it when Luna had tried to explain it all from a theoretical point of view.

One of the interviewers, an old woman with several degrees in military history and strategy, had interrupted a discussion between Celestia and a mathematician by dropping her scone and, tears rolling down her cheeks, telling Celestia she was beautiful. A crowd of soldiers and scientists, jaded badasses and cold geniuses and complete assholes during their day jobs, somehow ended up participating in a god damned group hug.

Mag hoped everyone liked vegetarian, because Celestia would be running this place by Tuesday.

Mag wished people would stop hugging all over her friend. She appreciated that if anyone had the right to cry on Celestia, it was people who'd had to live in this world for twice and three times as long as Mag had, but... she was her friend. Mag had seen her first. Yes, it was unfair of her, fine, that was true. But still. Mine!

She sipped her coffee and skipped forward a couple of pages.

INTERVIEWER 6: You can play the violin? Really?
INTERVIEWER 8: How?
SUBJECT: Why, like this, Mr. Bradley. [plays violin.]
INTERVIEWER 8: Astonishing.
INTERVIEWER 3: Is that “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?”
SUBJECT: Yes, Ms. Ginny. I happened to watch it on the trip here with Mr. Jeff. The song is quite stuck in my head. [ceases to play.]
[applause.]

“You had them eating out of your metaphorical hand,” said Mag.

“We did get along well,” said Celestia, without looking up from the report. Mag hadn't so much as opened her own report yet, so she had no idea what Celestia had in front of her, but Celestia had the engrossed frown of someone solving the morning newspaper crossword.

“That bad, eh?” said Mag.

“Well...” said Celestia.

“All right, I'm going to finish reading the good news before I get to the bad news. In fact, let me finish this coffee first.”

“This really is fantastic coffee,” said Celestia.

“It's the soldiers out of Afghanistan, your majesty,” said Jeff, sitting down next to them with a tray of sausages, bacon, buttermilk biscuits with jam, a cruller, and a paper cup of coffee. “Afghan coffee is a delicacy, so American coffee tends to be pathetic in comparison unless you've got something special. Yesterday, while they were setting this up, a higher-up asked the boys if they wanted anything, someone said “the best coffee you can find,” everyone agreed, and now that's what we've got. I can sit here, right?”

“Please do,” said Celestia.

“I was there for your interview, your majesty. Great stuff. Where did the violin come from, anyway?”

Celestia just smiled.

“They told me you wouldn't answer, but I thought I'd ask anyway,” said Jeff, and crunched a strip of bacon.

“Make yourself at home, why don't you,” said Mag.

“Good morning to you too, Ms. Wilson,” said Jeff. “I wasn't there for your interview, but I read the report. I think Georgia likes you. What really happened in there? You two came out of the interview room, she looked exhausted and you were smoking a cigarette.”

“Are people saying we boinked in there yesterday? Because yes, that's exactly what happened. Tell everybody, especially Georgia.” Mag went back to the report. Interviewer 3 was now wondering whether Celestia could catch bullets. Celestia's answer was “probably.”

“Boinked?” said Luna. “What—oh, I see.”

“Surely the meaning was clear from context, Luna,” said Celestia.

“And that is why I worked out what it meant. But am I ever to get an interview? Two strange creatures have invaded this species's poxy little world, creatures the like of which they've never seen and hardly imagined, and it seems they couldn't sustain the interest to examine more than one. One would think incuriosity would be shameful in a world so utterly governed by rule of science. This will not stand. Jeff, interview me this instant.”

Jeff set his cup down. “Yes, your majesty. What's your name?”

“Luna.”

“Profession?”

“Alien invader.”

Mag perked up. “You know, none of you has actually said the report on me is bad. Is it full of glowing praise for my intelligence and conversational skills, and you guys have been waiting for a good chance to surprise me?”

Celestia said, “Here is a passage from the paragraph I was just reading. 'One possible interpretation of the data is psychopathy. The subject is glib, her interpersonal style is cruel and deceitful, she has a history of criminality, her fear response seems highly atypical—'”

“Holy crap.” Mag folded her arms on the table and dropped her face into the gap. “How do we fix this? What do I do?”

Celestia turned the page. “We'll get to that, but it isn't all bad. The author weighs the possibility of psychopathy, but ultimately rejects it on the grounds that you seemed 'genuinely contrite' about your past behavior, that you showed 'spontaneous empathy' when speaking with Luna, and that, in the end, 'One must always account for the temptation to unnecessarily pathologize unusual persons; further, in this particular case it is important to remember that the subject interpreted the situation as hostile. In a different and more accommodating setting, questioned by a different interviewer, Ms. Wilson could react very differently.'”

“That's surprisingly professional of her and now I feel worse,” said Mag.

“We can handle this,” said Celestia.

“How?” said Mag.

Jeff jumped in. “Excuse me, your majesties, Ms. Wilson, but is this really that important?”

“Important people are reading summaries of these things right this second,” said Mag. “Right now it looks like the file on me comes down to 'Possibly a psychopath.' I'm making Celestia look bad.”

“Oh, I do that all the time, and her reputation flourishes regardless,” said Luna.

“I'm having trouble getting used to that,” said Jeff.

“What?” said Mag.

“Princess Luna using your mouth to speak. It looks like you're possessed.”

“I pretty much am, but it's cool; we get along. And you seem different today. What's up with you?”

“Her majesty suggested that I relax a bit,” said Jeff.

“And where's whatserface, Ellie?”

“She disappears sometimes. Something to do with her research, I think.”

Mag turned back to Celestia. “Anyway, how do we deal with this situation?”

“We change the plan slightly. The report says you're an 'unusual person.' Why not work with that? You can become a personality. Humans seem to appreciate novelty, so say novel things, let your intelligence and mother wit shine through, and in general, be yourself.” Celestia smiled encouragingly.

“I've been myself all my life and I ended up living alone in the mountains, so let's not go crazy here,” said Mag.

“You'll have to develop a public persona, of course,” said Celestia.

“What happened to being myself?”

“The two aren't mutually exclusive. I act differently at the negotiation table than I do in a nursery, for instance, and yet I'm always Celestia. Multiple personas form a single, true, whole person. And before you tell me you can't possibly have a side that's appropriate for a public figure... we'll just see about that.”

“Whatever you say,” said Mag.

“Whatever I say,” agreed Celestia.

***

The compound in general had apparently decided they were harmless, but still needed an escort. Someone had found four female marines and set them to walking in front of Celestia wherever she went. Meanwhile, Jeff was to be hanger-on and official third wheel, and was probably a filthy spy.

“I figured it out,” said Mag. “The soldiers are so that someone doesn't come around a corner and suddenly get a faceful of goddessness.”

“Goddessness?” said Celestia.

“You literally make people break down in tears of awe at the sight of you, remember? Yes, goddessness. In fact, I'll bet these soldiers are having trouble. Yo, sergeant, how we doing?” Mag held up a hand for a high five. The soldier, an extremely stiff woman in the usual dress blues and a bun, blinked at her.

“Just kidding, I know you're actually a corporal. Surprise! I can read rank patches. My father was a military man. High five me, soldier.” Mag waggled her hand in the air. The soldier fidgeted indecisively. Mag waggled her hand again. The corporal high fived her with a hesitant pat.

“Yeah, that's right,” said Mag.

“Don't bully the guards, Mag,” said Celestia. She looked serious about it.

“Bully?”

“You're purposely making her uncomfortable.”

Mag stopped herself from asking the corporal herself if she was uncomfortable, since that would have made Celestia right. That was the bully thing to do, to pressure the victim into defending you.

Fine. “I'm not bullying her, and I can prove it. Watch this.” Mag turned to the corporal. “Sorry about that. I'm told I'm a psychopath.”

“You're not a psychopath,” said Celestia.

“Are you sure? I was starting to get used to the idea.”

“I've known hordes of psychopaths and you, miss, are no psychopath,” said Celestia with a wink.

“Maybe we should ask a neutral party. Corporal, on a one to ten scale, how psychopathic—oops. Celestia, am I supposed to leave them alone entirely?”

Celestia thought about it. “Corporal, who is your immediate superior?”

The corporal saluted. “You are, your majesty, except where your orders contradict those of my superiors.”

“Thought so,” said Celestia. “Corporal, no one told me that. I'm wondering if all of your officers even know that. I've been sensing serious communication problems in your organization since yesterday. Let me guess. Orders given and then changed by someone else, an environment of uncertainty, scrambling to invent new protocol and procedure...”

“So they really are your own personal guards,” said Mag.

“Mag, who tells you what to do?”

“Er. You? Also Luna, if I'm doing magic.” That hurt to say, for juvenile reasons. Ain't nobody told Mag what to do.

“And that's my point,” said Celestia. “Here we have more unclear orders. Are you in the chain of command, Mag? Where, exactly? How about Luna? Really, communicating with any of the three of us, no matter how lighthearted the exchange, is both an intimidating prospect and a potentially dangerous career move. So, to answer your original question, let's keep a light touch.”

The soldiers looked even stiffer than before, if that was possible. Celestia started walking again, now humming.

“So where did you want to stop first?” said Mag.

“I'm concerned about the book,” said Celestia.

“Mag, you're a human. Do you wish to speculate whether these other humans have done anything rash with it?”

“You guys made them swear they wouldn't mess with it or get close to it, and it's been like 10 hours, so I give it a one in five chance they did something stupid.”

“Am I an optimist for thinking those aren't bad odds?” said Celestia.

***

The corporal, whose name someone really should have asked about, opened the door in a tactical way, hand near her gun and standing to one side of the door. Mag couldn't see why, since the book wasn't likely to ambush anyone and, from everything Mag had seen (and read in the report), Celestia was invulnerable—to a fault, if you thought about it. If she'd gone out with the rest of her world, then—

“Mag?” said Celestia.

“Quit brooding, please,” said Luna.

They were all waiting for her just inside the door. Mag followed them into an indoor basketball court that the unnamed organization had converted into a containment room for the Paravasi Mageia. A thick partition of sheet metal and plexiglass divided the room down the middle, with the wooden book on the other side of the glass and Mag, Celestia and sundry others on the other. Folding chairs, card tables, and small cots had been set up, where scientists and more soldiers milled around comparing notes and eating vending machine snacks. Every one of them stood up or got out of bed when they saw Celestia. One scientist stepped forward. Whoever he was, he was sweating despite the chill of the room.

“Your majesty,” he said.

“Good morning, Mr. Bradley. You haven't approached the book, I hope,” said Celestia.

“No, your majesty. No one has come within 20 feet, and only one person has entered the room, and she's in quarantine until you can look at her. If you don't mind, your majesty.”

“You'd think a bunch of secret government scientists would go for lab coats instead of sweaters,” Mag said quietly to Luna.

“Yes, ma'am, we'll order some lab coats,” said Bradley.

“That wasn't an order and I don't think you have to do what I say anyway.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Ah, I see. This is another situation for that light touch.”

“For a couple days at least,” said Celestia.

A shadow of annoyance crossed Bradley's face. Ah, the brittle pride of the nerd.

“I suspect you've learned something from observing the book,” said Celestia. “Does anything stand out to you in particular?”

Bradley lost his nerve and completely failed to answer, staring at the wall behind Celestia. Mag allowed herself to snicker, in the hopes of pricking him into action. Bradley sent a glare her way and said, “W-w-well, what interests us most... uh. What interests us the most is that, uh, uh, we can't see anything dangerous about it. You told us there is, so we know there's something,” he added hastily, “but the fact that we can't sense it tells us quite a lot. We could be looking at a whole new scientific discipline.”

“The science of magic?” said Mag. He ignored her, instead scampering off to dig through his notes in a binder that sat in a ruffled nest of an unmade bed. She went after him.

“You know, I can do magic, and my magic is safe, so you and your guys can get a better look at it.”

At first he didn't answer, but looked thoughtful. Then he said, “That could be extremely interesting, ma'am, though we've collected a lot of info on her majesty's magic already, and with all respect, we can't make assumptions about the safety of magic in general.”

“Just remember that I offered,” said Mag, and walked back to Celestia. She didn't want to help and had only offered so she could feel better about laughing at him, and it was way to early in the day to put up with people calling her “ma'am,” but she hadn't expected him to outright refuse.

“Still don't want credit?” whispered Celestia.

“Nope,” whispered Mag. The three of them had been working on the assumption that someone was always listening, and therefore couldn't discuss the parts of Celestia's story that she'd left out, but going by the report, she had been very cautious about anything related to the book. She hadn't even mentioned that a human had written it. She also hadn't mentioned that Mag had helped get it, and Mag, despite the presumed eavesdroppers, had managed to communicate that she liked it that way. She hadn't been able to explain why, but the reason was that, now that she'd had a proper rest (what had she dreamed of last night? It had seemed important), she was certain the book would end up causing more problems than it solved. Could it help bring back Equestria? She didn't see how. Could it drag humanity into another arms race? Probably.

But there was no way to explain her misgivings to Celestia.

“I'm getting sick of this compound,” said Mag.

“Aye, I miss the sky,” said Luna.

Whatever-his-name-was, Bradley, brought back a few papers and a clipboard.

“Find something interesting?” said Celestia.

“A few things, your majesty, but I haven't pooled everyone's notes yet, and there are still tests that we—and I had some questions. Could you please?”

“'I'd be happy to answer, except where it puts others at risk,” said Celestia.

“That's the thing, your majesty,” said Bradley.

“What's the thing?” said Mag.

“For one thing, we don't know what the symptoms of effluvium poisoning are, at least for humans.”

“This containment room is prudently arranged and I see no risks taken, so that shouldn't be something to concern yourself with, unless you're planning to approach the book,” said Celestia.

“That's what we were just discussing,” said Bradley. “We'd like a closer look.”

“Welp!” said Mag.

“I don't recommend that,” said Celestia.

“Maybe you could build like a Mars rover and roll that in there instead? A 'book rover,' if you will.”

“If we could put a man on Mars then we'd do that instead of sending rovers.”

Mag raised an eyebrow at Celestia and performed a “Get a load of this guy” gesture at Bradley. “Okay, so what are the symptoms of book poisoning, your glorious majesty?”

“It may differ from species to species, of course—”

“Yes, yes!” said Bradley. “That's the kind of thing we need to know.”

“—but symptoms tend to be psychological in nature, and are often subtle. It may do almost nothing.”

“But not nothing,” said Mag.

“But not nothing,” said Celestia, nodding to Mag. “Touch it with a hand and you may simply find yourself in an unpleasant mood for a few hours. Or that night you will think to yourself that life can't possibly be worthwhile, and would it be so difficult to end it all? Or you may feel as if something is watching you from behind, or hear a voice whenever all the lights are out, or see creatures out of the corner of your eye. Bradley, this is not wise.”

“It's a calculated risk. We can keep an eye on the researcher who examines the book up close for as long as necessary when he comes out of the containment area.”

“And I think Georgia is some kind of psychologist, to be fair, not that this isn't stupid.” said Mag. “What are you hoping to do, poke it? Open the cover with a stick and get a look at the table of contents? I don't think it has a table of contents.”

“Oh? Have you seen the inside of it? Can you describe it, ma'am?”

“I never saw the inside because I don't care enough to risk looking. Creepy book, don't understand it, no touchy. That's as far as my knowledge goes.”

“Right, well, we're here to study the book, and, while we're aware of the fact that approaching the book is dangerous, it's a risk we all agree is acceptable, even if it's just to help diagnose and treat future cases of effluvium poisoning. Today we're field researchers, your majesty, and sometimes field researchers choose to take risks for the sake of science. Anyway, there have been scientists who made much greater sacrifices in the past. They're all our heroes. Science is worth what it costs.”

Celestia laughed quietly to herself. “Mr. Bradley, I've been wondering how your species could possibly have come so far in the last two thousand years. I think you've answered my question in part.”

Bradley took this as a good sign and pressed the advantage. “Your majesty, I'd like to ask permission to approach the book.”

“Denied, and I'm taking it with me.” Celestia poofed away, poofed back with the book balanced above her shoulders, poofed off to somewhere else entirely, and poofed back without the book.

“I've hidden it,” said Celestia. “I admire the courage of you and your fellow scientists, but I consider this book my responsibility for now, and if I have to slow the march of science in the fulfillment of that responsibility, I absolutely will.”

Mag patted the stricken Bradley on the shoulder. “Sorry about that. If it helps, now that magic is going to go public, someone's likely to discover black magic soon and then you'll get all the examples you could possibly want.”

“And those examples would get better medical treatment if we'd been allowed to carry on,” muttered Bradley.

“I get it, Brad. I really do. Like I said before, hit me up sometime if you want to look at some spells.” She looked to Celestia. “Now what?”

“Yes, Bradley, we'd all be happy to help your work, so long as no one is in danger. And Mag, I think it's time we spoke to the management. Let's search for the head office.”

“And a bathroom,” said Mag.

Bradley had slumped into a folding chair. “There's a restroom outside the door and 30 yards down the hall,” he said.

“Thanks. I'll come back.” Mag started to walk off. The corporal fell in step behind her.

Mag stopped and looked at the corporal. “What, you too? Or are—oops. Celestia, is she following me because someone told her I need a minder?”

“It's your report again, I'm afraid,” said Celestia. “In the conclusion, Georgia suggests putting you on suicide watch. It looks as if someone has decided to arrange exactly that, and for the sake of interspecies diplomacy, I recommend cooperating. Don't worry; I believe we can talk them out of it before the end of today.”

“Fffff—right, cool, whatever. Bradley was right, by the way.” Especially since it was humanity's book anyway, and moreover, Celestia had carried the book on her back with Mag standing right next to her for the better part of an hour and hadn't ever mentioned danger, so either the book had suddenly gotten more dangerous or Celestia was exaggerating the danger.

"I think we need to discuss this a bit more later today, Mag,” said Celestia. Mag supposed she meant they'd talk about it when they'd gotten away from the surveillance.

Author's Note

The two-week break is over, but I'm still busy, so the updates may still be late sometimes.

e: I've just realized this is a good time to say "Views expressed in this story do not necessarily represent the views of the author." That conflict is here to point out a difference in values between Celestia and this particular group of humans, not so I can climb up on my soapbox and tell everyone how I feel about the risk and/or worth scientific progress.

Conversation Seventeen

Mag dodged through a flock of chattering young officers on the way to the bathroom, none of them old enough to drink. They all looked so busy and purposeful, like people with credit scores and five-year plans. Many of them also had visible weapons, but this was less intimidating than the sense of earnest industriousness the staff conveyed. And every single one of them was younger than her. Mag didn’t belong here in any sense. One would think being allowed to wander free in a secret military installation would be interesting rather than irritating and dispiriting.

The corporal wasn't helping. She kept up with Mag without effort, blank of face and eyes fixed forward. Luckily, Mag had spent the past few days learning how to not be intimidated, and the “self-absorbed babbling” approach seemed to work as well here as anywhere. The corporal's lack of conversational contribution only allowed Mag to build a full head of steam.

“—and that's why it's so interesting that the species of louse native to gorillas is so similar to human pubic lice. Do you get it? It's because Early Man fucked a gorilla. Do you see? You probably see. But enough of that. Would you like to know how incredibly annoying it is to be around a sun goddess all day? The answer is a lot. She never seems to get dirty, even her mistakes are graceful and classy, and she's always right, even when she's wrong. And did you read that report? She can catch bullets. It makes me wonder what you guys are even for, to be honest. Don't try and take a bullet for her, by the way, if that wasn't already clear. Just step to one side and let them bounce off of her. The washroom is around this corner? Yep, cool.” Mag walked in. Some secretary-looking girl saw Mag in the mirror, recognized her, and bolted past Mag into the hall, insofar as bolting was possible while wearing heels.

“Five minutes,” said Luna, as per their standard agreement. Luna's aura mostly disappeared. She hadn't told Mag where she usually went. One more question Mag hadn't had time to ask.

“See that? I walk into a room and everyone flees. God, other people are so freaking weird.” Mag flicked a toilet stall open and went in. “That's the problem with public bathrooms. You've got a special room in the building set aside for us all to express one of the fundamental truths of humanity, that we are weird and gross. Have you ever thought about it? We try to cover up our dark secret with enclosed stalls, air fresheners, and floors of temple-like white tiles, but there's no getting away from the existence of butts. Speaking of butts, I'm just going to come out and say it. Celestia has the giantest damned butt. You know how I keep looking behind us? That's not because I'm watching for terrorists or Georgia; that's because one of these times I'm going to catch somebody having a look. I just know today there's some poor boy in this building having a sexual identity crisis because there's a gorgeous naked lady wandering the building, but she's some kind of horse monster thing, and he can't make it work in his head. It raises questions, though, doesn't it? I won't enumerate them, but let me just say I told her where the bathroom in my house is and then I never saw her use it. I'm not going to ask her how all that works because the truth may be some kind of Lovecraftian nightmare involving alien geometries and violations of the laws of thermodynamics, but one wonders. Is that butt for show? I don't know, man. I will say, though, that sooner or later someone is going to say something awkwardly sexual and then nobody is going to know what to say, especially me. What do you think? Don't worry, it's a rhetorical question. I suppose I could always start yelling about chauvinism, but let's face it, Celestia will know exactly what to say. And that, corporal, is why I know how you feel about being assigned to protect an invincible being. There's no point in feeling protective of her. Protect her from what? How? I think I may be the only person on this planet who found a way to help her, and I'll bet that's rare, because how much help can she possibly need? I don't think she needs any of us, not the likes of you and me, anyway. If it weren't for her sister living in my head, I would probably just get out of her way and go home. But no, the other pretty pony princess is in my head. It's a shame none of you can see Luna. Her butt isn't as big, but she makes up for it in style.” Mag flushed and came out of the stall.

Soap, cold water, scrub. “I don't mind telling you that this suicide watch is really annoying, not that I blame you personally. And hearing about it right after watching her crush some dork's dreams? Man. That was horrible. Were you watching that? I forget whether you were in the room. No, of course you were. Was she right or wrong to pull that stunt? I don't know. Normally whenever someone says something, I assume they're wrong and then work backward from there, but I can't seem to do that on Celestia. But Brickley, or Bradley or whatever—did you see his expression? Jesus. I don't know what to think right now.” Mag shook water off her hands and wiped them on her pants. “But I can't say that to Celestia's face. How? What if I say something, and then it turns out she can't change my mind? She always knows what to say, so on the day she doesn't, it'll be that much worse. Well, whatever. Good talk, corporal.”

“You need a drink.” Mag looked at the corporal. She stood against the wall near the entrance with her feet apart and her hands behind her back, just as she had when they came in together, and she still stared straight ahead.

“You're talking now?”

“No,” said the corporal.

“Fair enough. Can I get a name if I promise not to use it?”

“Bittermann.”

“An actual last name? I haven't heard one of those in days. I'm Mag Wilson.”

Corporal Bittermann didn't answer.

“Fair enough.” Mag reached for the door handle, but the door opened by itself. Mag found herself face to face with a baggy-eyed and surprised Georgia.

“Nope,” said Mag, and bolted down the hall.

***

The book was back where it had been.

“Did I miss something?” said Mag.

“Bradley and I have talked,” said Celestia, “and I now realize that I took neither your culture nor the nature of your species into account earlier.”

“You caved?!”

“I did indeed. One of my chief concerns is keeping hazardous items, knowledge included, out of my subjects’ reach. But I now see that their needs and values are different than the needs of humans, and I’m going to respect that. The book stays, and I apologize for not trusting you, Bradley. Again, though, this book is dangerous, and I simply can't guess at the level of damage it's capable of if misused.”

“Just don't read it,” said Mag.

“Why not?” said Bradley.

Oops, now she had to come up with a plausible reason that wasn't “this century's atom bomb.” That’d just make them more curious.

Screw it. “Because it could end up being this century's nuclear bomb,” said Mag. “This is a book on dark magic, or that's the impression I got. Is that right?”

“You could put it that way, though I think it's more complex than that,” said Celestia.

“Sure. But that's the thing. Here's an image for you. Imagine a human bomb, some kind of soldier who studies black magic and becomes a human weapon at the cost of his sanity, but it's marketed to the public as something other than black magic, like “war spells” or “regulated magic.” Imagine the government putting a project like that together and then threatening other nations with it. Fox News talking about fighting terrorists with our new weapon. Other countries start studying magic now that they know it exists, and soon we've got another cold war at best, and the thing is, I don't know where the limit to all this is. What can you do with black magic? How far can you go? Any opinions, Celestia?”

“Only that you're thinking small. Among your magic supersoldiers, a single genius could become a tyrant queen or king with no resources but magic. I can tell you many stories along that line. Sombra, Tirek...”

“Sauron,” supplied Mag.

“Actually,” said Bradley, “Sauron was a rebel Maiar and so was never a mere mortal to begin with.”

“The Witch-King, then. Gollum? I don't care about any of this, actually. Seriously, you caved?!”

“Sometimes I change my mind.”

“I can confirm that sometimes she changes her mind,” said Luna. “Shall I assume this ‘Sauron’ is another character in human folklore?”

“Well—”

“I didn’t even know you were allowed to cave like that.”

“What about the time you convinced me to take you to Equestria?” said Celestia.

“It’s different when it’s me getting you to cave,” said Mag.

“Stop saying ‘cave,’ and who is Sauron?” said Luna.

“I’ll say all the caves I want, and Sauron is some nerd thing. We can watch the movies the next time we have 10 hours to spare.”

Bradley went pale. “The movies? I mean, that is to say, what about the books? I’m sure their majesties would prefer—”

“The books suck. Do you really want to argue about this now, though?”

“No,” said Celestia, “because Bradley has mentioned something interesting. We are now officially in a hurry, so I’ll be succinct. We need to crash a meeting that could use my input, but which I, by some oversight, was not invited to. It was a pleasure to see you again, Mr. Bradley. Mag, shall we go?”

Mag trotted after Celestia. “We can’t teleport?”

“I would prefer not to teleport my new guards without their permission, and I can’t ask their permission without intimidating them, so we’ll be walking for now. They’re also there to make me more conspicuous, which allows others to prepare themselves for the sight of me. Why not let them?”

“You like having guards.”

“As a matter of fact I do. I have always traveled with guards when I could, and now, though they’re not quite mine anymore, I can almost let myself imagine... but enough of that. We are late.”

“Could you do me a favor?” said Mag. “Next time, instead of giving in when someone tries to change your mind, would you mind just being right the first time?”

“I’ll do what I can, but sometimes you’ll have to forgive me for being right the second time instead.”

“No promises.”

***

Corporal Bittermann opened the boardroom door for Celestia. Interesting—she'd never done that before, and now she’d done it in front of some very important people.

Celestia walked in, all confidence and stateliness, and Mag followed her into a room with a number of excellently dressed old men around two plastic folding tables set end-to-end. A projector sat in the middle of the tables, and it projected an image of Celestia’s achingly beautiful face across the opposite wall. Five aides lined one of the other walls.

Nice suits and cheap tables. This organization aimed to be intimidating, but sometimes it seemed slapdash. The consequence of always being in a hurry, maybe.

Most of the men stood up in alarm at the sight of the real-life Celestia walking in on them. She beamed at them. “There is no need to be alarmed; it’s only me. I’d like to introduce myself, though it looks as if you already know of me. My name is Princess Celestia.”

One man stood up to his full height and adjusted his suit coat. “Good morning, Princess. How may we help you?”

“I’d heard there was to be a meeting to write your statement to the public regarding my nature and intentions. I assumed, for reasons which I imagine are obvious, that my input would be useful—after all, I have managed my own public image for thousands of years, and you will want to know how I plan to present myself in public. I apologize for being late.”

The man remained standing. “Oh, you don’t need to worry about all that—”

“No apologies necessary? That’s very kind of you. I take it you haven’t started yet, then. In that case, shall I give my own presentation first, so you all know what you’re working with?”

The man smiled. “No, no, we’re doing just fine already, thank you. I know I speak for all of us when I say we’d prefer it if you took the time to rest from your journey, and, as I said last night, we invite you to explore the facility and speak with whoever you like.”

Celestia smiled back, and hers was better. “Oh, but I insist. I find meetings quite restful, my exploration has led me to all of you, and at the moment, you are all exactly the people I’d most like to speak to.”

Mag made two decisions at this point. The first was to take her place among the other aides against the side wall. The second was to keep her mouth shut.

“You insist?” said the man.

“Yes, I think you’ll find me extremely insistent, Mr. Joseph Gradely,” said Celestia.

“Joseph is fine. In fact I don’t think I introduced myself by my last name in the first place.”

“I like to be formal in settings like this,” said Celestia.

“So that’s why she asked me to find his last name in dreams,” said Luna.

Celestia turned the projector off with magic, stood next to the back wall, and projected an image of her own, an old-timey photograph of herself hovering over a crowd of ponies, wings spread, the rising sun directly over her head, gazing down at her subjects with an expression of queenly benevolence. The image was met with silence, though someone did scoff under his breath.

Celestia laughed. “Yes, it’s rather silly from a human perspective, isn’t it? But I can see I have something of an impact on humans—I’m old, not blind—so my usual approach to public relations may be very salvageable, so long as I allow for the human attitude toward, well, whatever it is I represent to all of you. The real question, as I see it, is how I might make the best possible impression on humanity in the following press conference. I'll be holding a press conference, by the way, and I look forward to seeing how you arrange it. Before we discuss image management, here is everything I expect to discuss at my press conference...”

Luna yawned theatrically in Mag’s head. Mag saw her point, but chose to pay attention anyway. What, exactly, were they doing here?

“Humans attach importance to clothes, and use them to interpret a person's social status and temperament. I will therefore wear nothing except my crown and collar. I don't believe I can learn to speak in the language of human clothing in time to say something coherent or tasteful, let alone something that accurately expresses how I would like to be seen in human terms. It would be best to present myself in nonhuman terms, and in those terms, I am already in one of my best outfits. Questions so far?” She didn't pause or look behind her, and no one raised his hand in any case. “Excellent. I expect the following questions there, but I don't mind other questions so long as I can decline to answer without offending.”

The first picture of Celestia changed to a picture of herself behind a wooden podium, looking approachable. Then the picture lost color and contrast, and a long list of questions in small print rolled down.

“In the interest of time, I won't answer all of these for you right now. Your scientists and officials covered most of these yesterday, if you're curious. I also don't expect anything like all of these questions to be asked, particularly the trap questions, though one must be prepared. Now we come to image management. Let's discuss proper terms of address.”

Proper terms of address. So that was the point—showing everyone who was boss.

***

Twenty minutes later, Celestia wrapped things up.

“... and that should do for the press pamphlets. Does anyone have anything to add? No? Excellent. Thank you for your time.” She let the final image disappear, a heraldic picture of Luna and Celestia in profile, and turned the projector back on. She sat down next to Joseph Gradely, shifted into a comfortable position, and looked around the room. “Who'd like to go next?”

“Actually,” said Joseph,” I think you've given us all a lot to think about.”

“And do,” said Celestia, “if it takes as long to arrange an international press conference on Earth as it does anywhere else. That's sensible, though I was looking forward to hearing what you all had to say. May I have all of your business cards before you go?”

Of course she could. They gave her everything she wanted and then left, along with their aides. Mag watched the latter carefully in the hopes that she'd learn something, but didn't get much out of it. Four stayed a respectful distance behind their employers, but one of them strode to Joseph Gradely's side and offered him a handkerchief. Gradely took it and mopped his brow. Then the door closed behind them, and Celestia, Mag, Corporal Bittermann, Celestia's nameless guards, and arguably Luna were the only ones in the room.

Mag adopted her best mother-Galadriel voice. "Don't bully them, Mag."

“Yes, well,” said Celestia.

“Kidding,” said Mag. “That was fun.”

“It loses its charm the hundredth time you see her do it,” said Luna.

“She does that a lot?”

Celestia filled several dixie cups from the water cooler in the corner and passed them all out. “It's something I like to do when somepony arranges a meeting in my own castle, then tries to keep it a secret from me. I show up just as it starts, seal the exits, and give them a speech about, oh, gravitational mechanics, the history of the tea trade, whatever I think would interest them least. That's what I normally do, anyway. This time I thought I'd make better use of the situation. I hope they found it informative.”

“I'm pretty sure it's my job to serve water,” said Mag.

“Oh? Oh yes,” said Celestia. “That reminds me. You did well.”

“I didn't do anything. Unless you count staying out of your way.”

“You reinforced my bid for authority by taking your place by the other aides. That was the moment I knew this would work.”

Mag scratched her head and wondered if she was being slow. “How did my walking to the other end of the room tell you this would work?”

“It was in the way they reacted. They hardly noticed you, and yet your move helped them understand what I was about to do, helped convince them it was a forgone conclusion that I'd be joining them.”

“I have no idea what she's talking about,” said Luna, “but you may as well accept it. She's decided you helped.”

“But aren't they just going to have their meeting somewhere else now, maybe in another building? We're not doing that again, are we?”

“Once was enough,” said Celestia. “They'll have their meeting, yes, but I've entirely changed their tone. Now they realize that, however cooperative I've been so far, I will also be making my own decisions in how I interact with humanity. I've also convinced them to arrange a public press conference for me, which lets me begin to form a rapport with news agencies and the public, independent of their influence. And yes, I'll get my press conference. They haven't learned how to ignore me yet.” She sipped her water. “Mm. Cold.”

“'Yet,'” said Mag.

“Yes, I have no doubt they'll learn quickly if they wish to.”

“This seems kind of...”

“Manipulative?” said Celestia.

“Warlike,” said Mag. “It's like you're teaching them to fight you.”

“I may be speaking a bit overdramatically. I don't think they see me as an opponent, only as a nonentity who doesn't need to be consulted about how her own business is to be carried out. Today I taught them better, while arranging for a bit of political capital in the form of a press conference.”

“You're very proud of that press conference,” said Mag.

“As a matter of fact I am,” said Celestia. “I'm looking forward to it. It's been quite a long time since I've made friends with a planet.”

Author's Note

This'll be the first chapter that saw the help of an editor, and he'll be helping with the next chapter as well, and possibly for the foreseeable future. His name is Arcanist Ascendant and everything bad about this fic is now officially all his fault, especially the things he couldn't possibly be responsible for. Yep, that's definitely how it works.

Thanks, broseph.

Finals are over (I just slam dunked three different essays and broke the glass on all three backboards, because I PUNISH at those things), so you people will be seeing chapters more often than once every two weeks.

Conversation Eighteen

Celestia's wanderings took them topside. Pale, thick-grained sand stretched out in every direction, punctuated by tufts of stunted little bushes. Seen from outside, the compound was an unassuming concrete bunker of a building next to a helicopter pad, surrounded by tall fences topped with coils of concertina wire. A graded driveway led down to a large, heavy door leading underground, currently closed, beyond which the semi-truck was probably still parked.

“Where did B—the corporal go?” said Mag. Most of the guards were still present, as was a subdued Jeff, but Corporal Bittermann had been called away an hour ago.

“I'm afraid she may be in trouble,” said Celestia. “Everyone in that room saw her open the door for me, and it's possible someone important has come to the wrong conclusion and decided to make her suffer for it. If that's true, though, then we won't be much help if we go and look for her.”

Mag lit a second cigarette with the glowing end of her first.

“You should light it with your finger, for practice,” said Luna.

“What, just all the time? Too hard. I lit the first one that way.”

“Practice. Practice every day. Practice every hour.”

“I'm doing the breathing exercises, aren't I?”

“That reminds me. You also haven't practiced meditation. Where is that drive of yours?”

Mag shrugged. “It comes and goes. That's how it is for me.”

“How strange. One doesn't often meet a feckless monomaniac. Luckily for you, now you have me to teach you how to be disciplined. Give me 25 flames, then another 25 at sundown, and I shall leave you alone on the subject until morning.”

“I could do the light instead.”

“I know you can do the light. You spent a subjective week doing the light. That is why you'll be doing flames.”

Mag gave her 25 flames. It took a total of 40 tries, which wasn't bad. What made it tedious, in Mag's opinion, were the mental readjustments one had to make after every failure. Worse, there was only so much “black satisfaction” one could manufacture. The magical trigger was nice when one wanted to dramatically light a cigarette while feeling especially cynical, but at the moment she was mostly just worried about Bittermann. That was one of the problems with marking someone out of the crowd and paying attention to their comings and goings. When the person on your mind was present, it was tiring to know them, to pay attention to them. Then they left, and it was a relief to be away and not have to think about them, but it also meant she couldn't keep an eye on them. What was Bittermann doing? Arguing with her sergeant, genuflecting in front of Joe Gradely's desk, eating a banana? There would be no knowing until she came back, and Mag never would find out where she'd been if Bittermann chose not to share.

“Good,” said Luna. “We'll continue at sundown.”

Thick gray clouds hung over distant mountains capped with January snow. Celestia looked at them, lost in thought.

The guards had watched Mag's magic out of the corners of their eyes while she cast her spell. They weren't asking questions, but Mag decided to answer them anyway. “No, it doesn't hurt. Yes, it's hard to do. No, I don't know whether you can do it too. Yes, Luna is real. No, it was just a phase.”

“I’m sure everyone is delighted you clarified all of that,” said Luna.

“Were you always this snarky?” said Mag.

“Only when necessary.”

“Necessary? I’m just filling some dead air. None of these people are talking,” said Mag.

“Then let silence reign until someone has something to say, or else say something meaningful yourself,” said Luna.

“No, seriously, it’s like you’re in a bad mood. I don’t know, whatever. I’m just glad to get some air, even though it’s surprisingly cold out. Where is this? Do any of you know?”

“I believe I heard the word ‘Nevada,’” said Celestia. “Is there a desert named ‘Nevada?’”

“Nevada is a state in the United States that’s mostly desert,” said Mag.

Celestia closed her eyes and faced directly up. A breeze passed by, sending ripples through the grass, brushing through her mane and then wandering away. The sky was overcast but still too bright after the underground hallways of the compound.

She threw her wings open and leapt into the air. Two of the soldiers cringed away before catching themselves and resuming their masks of indifference. Mag shaded her eyes with a hand to watch Celestia fly. She’d never seen it before; gone along, yes, but never seen it. Jeff squinted up as well, and stood beside Mag, and they watched Celestia together.

She climbed toward the sun behind the clouds with slow, powerful strokes, loud at first, but progressively softer as she rose. Her tail streaming behind her, her neck stretching out at the extremity of each flap, she looked like a pastel phoenix, like a dragon, like a distant kite, then a star in fog as she slipped into the clouds. Then she was gone.

Lovely to watch, horrible to ride, thought Mag. There was a lesson in there somewhere.

Luna sighed. “As I thought. Under the ceilings and in your safe little rooms, she had nothing to think about but her strange new acquaintances. Now she sees the sun in the clouds and it pulls her out of all the bustle and nonsense of politics. It reminds her of why we’re here, of all that we lost. I know what she is doing now. She sits on the surface of the clouds and looks at the sun. She cannot bear the company of others right now, save perhaps her sister, who can no longer follow her.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

Mag wondered how much training it took to pilot a helicopter safely.

“Is there something we should be doing?” said Jeff.

“Which of us are you talking to?” said Mag.

“I... hadn’t thought about it,” said Jeff.

“Don’t go forgetting there are two of us in here. There’s the nasty sarcastic one who once got arrested for disorderly conduct on a carousel—”

“—and the nasty sarcastic one who was once under citizen’s arrest for disorderly carousing on a school night,” finished Luna. “Jeff, Mag, other humans, if we are still here when she comes back then she’ll only feel guilty to see us waiting for her. We should return to the compound, leave the door open, and let her find us doing something meaningful and productive.”

“Guilty?” said Mag.

“We needn’t embarrass her by speaking of this out loud, but grief sometimes hurts my sister’s ability to see herself properly. In this case, she’ll conclude that she’s inconveniencing us if she finds us waiting for her on her return. Let us not give her such ammunition.”

“Gotcha. What do we do next?”

Luna thought about it a few seconds. “I don’t know. Celestia is the one with plans. I would as soon stay here until she comes down, but we must search for something to do.”

Mag looked around. There was a certain amount of awkward shuffling. “Hey, Jeff, you’re a military man. Any tips on pretending to be busy?”

“Convincing an officer that you’re busy is probably a little different from convincing a princess,” said Jeff.

“It’s up to me? Cool. I want to find the corporal.”

“And then what?” said Luna.

“Dunno. We can ask her how she feels about an early lunch, and she can mime the answer.”

***

They got lost. For her part, Mag blamed the identicality of the office hallways, as if a colony of perfectly square, mindless underground creatures had burrowed their way through the underside of the Nevada desert and disappeared, and then a crowd of equally mindless office denizens had moved in and painted everything in an especially soulless shade of off-white.

“I thought you’d worked here before,” said Mag.

Jeff sniffed. “Yes, that’s right. I’ve worked in every single military building in the world, and I’ve memorized the layout to all of them.”

“Then why did you allow us to lose our way?” said Luna.

“I was joking, your majesty.”

“I know. I’m going to blame you anyway.”

Mag decided to ask for directions. She pulled aside a bristle-haired little intern who happened to be passing by. “Hiya.”

He blinked. “Who are you? Are you a civilian?”

Someone who didn’t recognize her? “You are adorable. Have you seen a Corporal Bittermann around here in the past hour or so?”

He kept glancing down at her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I told you you’re adorable, and then I asked if you’d seen anyone named Corporal Bittermann. ‘Bittermann.’ Blonde girl with a skinny nose, taller than either of us?”

“When did you learn her name?” said Luna. “Oh, the bathroom. What happened in there?”

“Oh, man, it was crazy. As soon as you left she turned into a chatterbox. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.” Mag shook her head.

The intern was backing away, shaking his head in denial or disbelief. “Two voices? I should—I should—”

Mag poked Jeff in the bicep. “Do you have a badge you can show him? Maybe that would help.”

Jeff pulled a plastic photo ID out of his back pocket and showed it the to intern, whose eyes lit up. “You’re—”

“—helping Ms. Wilson find a friend,” said Jeff. “This is the civilian working with Princess Celestia. Can you point us in the right direction?”

“Absolutely, sir,” said the intern. “Down that way,” he pointed the direction Mag and her party had come from, “is the rec room, which is connected to the staff cafeteria, and then if you turn left, there’s the women’s dorms. If she’s off duty, sir, she should be in one of those places.”

“Thank you very much,” said Jeff. “You keep doing what you were doing, young man.”

The intern smiled, said “sir” again, and walked away.

“Well, well, well,” said Mag.

“Yes?”

Mag folded her arms. “That boy recognized you. Have you been holding out on us? Are you famous, Jeff?”

“Among certain circles, in a minor way,” said Jeff.

“Stop playing cool and lay it out for me. Secret agent? Spy? Sniper?”

“I’ve played a role in some high profile cases. You could call me a spy.” Jeff smiled slightly, in a way he obviously thought made him look debonair.

“Sneaking around in embassies, stealing important documents, cutting an important throat or two on the way out?”

“No, that sounds too difficult. I can achieve the same results by serving canapés to the mighty and asking a few innocent questions. Shall we?” He facetiously offered her an arm. Mag ignored it.

“Today I’m learning that government can make anything boring,” said Mag, and they doubled back down the hall.

***

They found Bitterman in the rec room, an empty cube of a room with high ceilings and a slight echo. A single ping pong table sat in the center, with no balls or paddles in sight. Some ten or twenty folding chairs were stacked against one wall next to a television and VCR. From the looks of it, Bittermann had unfolded a chair, set it down at one end of the ping pong table in the center of the room, drunk half a bottle of cinnamon vodka, and fallen asleep with her cheek on the table. No, no, her eyes were still open.

“There she is! Or... what’s left of her, the poor child. But if she’s drunk, I certainly hope she’s off duty.”

Mag went to the pile of folded chairs, brought it to the ping pong table, opened it next to Bittermann, and had a seat. “I’d ask what happened, but you’re pretty much telling me the whole story with this little tableau.”

“Fuck off,” said Bittermann without lifting her head.

“It seems like everyone’s in a mood today,” said Mag.

“Look at this,” said Bittermann, and tossed a wad of forms on the table. They had the look paper got when it had been held too tightly; what should have been straight edges were worried at by hands, and the stack had been folded into quarters. Mag opened it.

“DD Form 214,” said Mag. Jeff winced. He proceeded to read over Mag’s shoulder.

Mag read the first few lines. “It says you’re getting a medical discharge?”

“I opened a door, so they’re getting rid of me,” slurred Bittermann.

“Wow,” said Mag. Celestia might have underestimated how much she’d annoyed the people in charge. “What’s the medical issue? Oh. ‘Right index finger.’ Seriously?”

“Trigger finger,” said Jeff with a pitying glance downward. Mag followed his eyes to Bittermann’s finger. It looked fine, except that, unlike the other fingers of her right hand, it didn’t curl around the bottle. Maybe it didn’t bend properly.

“Have you talked to, uh,” Mag snapped her fingers a couple of times in an effort to remember, “whoever is supposed to be on your side? I know there’s some kind of officer lawyer guy.”

“You’re thinking of JAGs,” said Jeff, “and that’s a good idea for securing your benefits, corporal, but if you want my advice, you won’t argue against the discharge itself. See about getting the corps to pay for finger surgery, get the GI bill if you qualify for it, walk out with your head up, and live your life.”

“And no drinking before lunch,” said Mag. She stood up to take the vodka away. Bittermann snatched it off the table and glared at her. And then went rigid. She lifted her empty hand and stared at it in disbelief.

Mag looked down and saw the bottle standing in front of her. “Oh, sweet.” She picked it up. “How did I do that?”

“Interesting. How indeed?”

Bittermann pulled herself up, grabbed the table, and shoved it aside on screeching wheels. “That’s mine.”

Mag held the bottle behind her back. “No, it was yours. Now it’s mine.”

“Give it to me.”

“Nah, I’ll be keeping this.”

Bittermann tried to shove Mag, and fell on her. Mag held the bottle at arm’s length, but Bittermann had a longer reach, and managed to get her hands on it. Mag twisted away before Bittermann could get a proper grip.

“You’re not very good at unarmed combat, are you? She’s drunk and bipedal, so you might try tripping her.”

“Jeff, could you help me out here?” said Mag, dodging Bittermann’s drunken attempts to catch hold of her.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Jeff. He nodded his head toward the open door. “Would either of you like some coffee when you’re done with all that? I think I saw a vending machine around the corner.”

Mag grabbed Bittermann by the shirt collar and shoved her against the wall. Bittermann bounced off, lowered herself into a sprinter’s start, and charged. Mag tried to sidestep, but Bittermann caught her leg and pulled her to the ground. The vodka bottle spilled all over the both of them and rolled away, and Bittermann crawled after it. She picked it up, found that all the remaining vodka had spilled into the carpet, and threw the bottle at Mag, who, now on her feet, managed to catch it.

“Bitch!” shouted Bittermann.

The bottle shattered in Mag’s hand.

I won’t slap her, thought Mag. I will not slap her because suddenly I can break a bottle by squeezing it, and my hand is full of broken glass that somehow didn’t cut me, and for all I know I’d break her jaw.

“I’m trying to help,” said Mag through her teeth.

“Mag.”

Celestia stood in the door.

“Yes?”

“Right now I see a drunk woman sitting on the floor, and you’re standing over her with a broken bottle in your hand wearing an expression I would call ‘murderous.’ No, I know you’re helping—I can see how you two got to this point. Nevertheless, Mag, we’ll need to discuss what it means to be the most dangerous person in the room.”

The most dangerous? How? Mag looked around. Jeff was a secret agent, and there were all these active duty soldiers. And there Jeff was frozen by the door, grave, maybe a bit concerned. The gaggle of silent soldiers, worried. Bittermann, one hand raised as if to ward off a blow.

Mag dropped into a chair. “Oh.”

Celestia pointed her horn at the remains of the empty bottle. The shards and powdered glass flew back together. Mag set it down on the floor.

“We can discuss that later. Right now we have a problem,” said Celestia. She teleported the lot of them back to the gym that had been turned into a lab. Bittermann goggled. One of the guards surreptitiously began to count her fingers and toes.

“Your majesty!” Bradley ran up to Celestia. “We sealed off the room, including the vents, but—”

“Aw, shit,” said Mag. She approached the glass and looked at the spot where the Paravasi Mageia used to be.

“—but we were wondering if this was done with magic,” said Bradley. “Is there any way you can tell for sure?”

Mag shook herself and resolved to feel guilty later. Bittermann, though visibly spooked from teleportation, was coming to the same conclusion. The shock of suddenly finding herself elsewhere had sobered her up nicely.

Mag examined her own reflection in the glass section of the barrier, in her borrowed Semper Fidelis sweatshirt and borrowed black slacks. “If it’s magic, then that’d tell us how they got in here.”

“How?” said Bradley.

“Well done, Mag,” said Celestia. “Bradley, reflections are doors to other worlds. Personally I’d bet on the reflection in the floor.”

“And that raises questions,” said Luna. “What is on the other side of that reflection? Why did the perpetrator want the book? Come to that, how did he, she, it or they know the book was there in the first place?”

“That’d make it easy to grab the book without being seen, at least,” said Mag.

“Is that why no one saw what happened?” said Bradley.

Mag peered through the glass. “Can we get a closer look? What did you see?”

“I’ve asked everyone, and no one saw much of anything,” said Bradley, wiping sweat off his palms with his sweater. “Most of my people say they happened to be looking at their notes or the door or the cots at the exact second it happened. Even the cameras shorted out.”

“But can we go through the barrier?” said Mag.

“We’re still looking for the key.”

“No time,” said Celestia. She teleported to the other side of the barrier, taking Mag with her. “I’m going to check for strange auras, and then we’re leaving. “Luna?”

“Oh! ထ҉̷̧͞ည̸့̢̧͢͞͝͏္͜͡သ̷͜͞҉̧ြ̵̸̵͞င̡͠͏္͜҉̕း̶͡န̷̵́͝ည္̛͘͞͏̵̀͜း̛͟,” said Luna. Feeling the syllables pass through her mouth was an interesting experience, since Mag clearly felt words form and yet her mind couldn’t process a single syllable.

Bittermann, on the other side of the barrier with her fellow guards, had retreated into herself, standing a little apart from the rest of them. She looked so alone that Mag decided to give her something to occupy her mind.

She knocked on the glass. “Corporal, there’s something we need you to do.”

Bittermann stirred but refused to make eye contact. She jerked her head in what Mag interpreted as a nod.

“Cool. Go pick up a phone, dial any number, and tell anyone who answers that you need to talk to the weird old man. This is probably all his fault, so we might as well see what he’s got to say.”

Bittermann glanced up.“What do you mean, any number? What man?”

“Literally any number. It doesn’t matter.”

“Okay,” Celestia said to herself, and slipped into the floor hooves first. Mag grabbed her tail.

Celestia, still going through, said, “No! Mag, you can’t—”

They fell into the cold together.

Author's Note

It's been a while since the last update because I have a new job that I had to get used to and because this chapter saw major revisions at every stage. The next will be up extra quick because I've already written it.

This and the next chapter were originally a single chapter of the same length but double the content, but Our Glorious Editor Arcanis Ascendant went through it in Google Docs and slathered comments everywhere. Yeah, apparently he wants me to "describe things" and have scenes that occur in places that aren't "a featureless white void," and to occasionally indicate the passing of time. A 3.8k chapter ended up being a 7k+ chapter when I added all those extra words, so I decided to split it up.

Other changes AA insists on: releasing new chapters at some time other than "the dead of night," because apparently most people don't sleep through the daylight hours even though daylight has been obsolete since they invented the electric light bulb, unless you're all farmers, which I guess isn't completely impossible.

The next chapter should be ready in a day or two assuming nothing happens in the outernet. I just need to get rid of a cliffhanger so that we don't have two in a row, because honestly I don't really like those, and also finish a thing AA wants expanded. It won't be too difficult.

Conversation Nineteen

“Let’s try this a second time,” said a small, genderless, omnipresent voice. “Human, are you feeling better?”

“Better than what?” said Mag. She sat against a white wall, legs splayed, in an unadorned white room made of some kind of dimly glowing translucent material.

“Ah, wonderful!” said the voice. “You’ve stopped screaming. Princesses, I think she’s going to be okay.” No one answered him, and Mag could no longer feel Luna’s aura.

“Who are you and what did you do?” said Mag.

“You can call me Maker, and I think I’ve fixed you. One of you, at least. Tentacles crossed!” Mag didn’t see any tentacles however much she craned her neck.

She tried to shift over, completely failed to move her hips, and tipped over onto her side. “Um.”

“Is there a problem?” said the Maker.

“My legs aren’t working. I can feel them, but they’re not working.”

“Are those supposed to move? How odd. That does explain a few things, though. Here we are.”

Mag experimentally curled her toes, with success. She sat up. “We’re good.”

“Excellent,” said the Maker. “Are you experiencing any, er, I think the word is ‘pain?’”

“Nope. But what did you do? What’s wrong with me? How is Celestia, and where is Luna? And who are you?”

“In reverse order, I am the Maker, regent of this edge of the Void, a parent of thoughtfolk, and a warden of the ways. Princess Luna is in dreams, recovering; we’re having a good talk right now, catching up on things, the two of us being old friends from back before she went home. Princess Celestia is pulling herself back together with our help, and that’s going well, I’d say. As for what happened to you all, well, you looked at me.”

Mag fluttered her fingers, wiggled all her toes one by one, flapped her wrists, and generally looked for other things the Maker might have forgotten. “You’re a friend of the princesses, though?”

“Yes.”

“And they are going to be okay?”

“Yes.”

All of her limbs felt fine, but if the Maker hadn’t figured out what legs were for without being told, it was possible that some subtle process wasn’t running anymore. She could hear her heartbeat. She didn’t feel cold anywhere.

This would have been a good time for one of those EMTs.

“You’re sure they’re fine,” said Mag.

“They’re a bit shaken, maybe.”

“Shaken? What does that mean?”

“They’ll be fine. What about you?”

Mag decided to trust him, or it, or whatever. Him. It. Them. Her? Mag got up.

“So that’s how all that is meant to work,” said the Maker.

She tripped over nothing and fell onto her shoulder. Her left side began to tingle.

“Oops,” said the Maker. Mag passed out.

***

Luna sat in her starlit temple with her bonfire and a mug of coffee. Some kind of white, jointed, pony-shaped doll sat across from her on a little metal stand. Luna smiled at Mag as she approached.

“You’re okay?” said Mag.

“Quite well, now,” said Luna. “My old friend the Maker has just been telling me he’s having some trouble grasping the eccentricities of the human nervous system. I take it you are no longer in any pain?”

Mag sat down next to Luna and across from the pony mannequin. Luna had drawn a silly face on it with a red crayon.

“I’m good,” said Mag.

“Yes, I’ve at least managed to clear out that section of her memory without any complications,” said the mannequin in the Maker’s voice. “Princess Luna, would you mind introducing us?”

“You always were the polite one,” said Luna. “Maker, this is Margaret of Wilson, from California and Mississippi. She prefers Mag. Mag, this is Maker, a regent and fellow warden of the ways. While he has told me his proper name, I don’t think most mortals can comprehend it, so I won’t trouble to share it.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Margaret of Wilson,” said Maker.

“Charmed,” said Mag. “So you’re a mannequin in dreams?”

“That was her idea,” said Maker.

“Where is Celestia?” said Mag.

Luna pointed at the bonfire.

“What, like, in it?” said Mag.

“Yes," said Luna. "She'll be well enough in a few moments, but the sight of the Maker temporarily rendered her disembodied and insensate, as the nature of her existence is such that the two cannot look one another in the eye without one or both of them being temporarily reduced to pure Form. She must pass through a rebirth metaphor of some kind before she can return to her proper nature. Worry not; this sort of thing simply happens to us sometimes. Would you care for coffee?”

“Sounds good,” said Mag. A metal mug of coffee appeared on the ground in front of her. She sipped it and coughed. It tasted exactly like the stuff out of the machine at the convenience store.

“You seemed to like it before,” said Luna.

Mag sipped again. “No, I hate it. But there’s just something about awful coffee, don’t you think?”

“I take pains to avoid bad coffee, but to each her own, I suppose.”

“I would have offered you refreshment myself, as per the old traditions,” said the Maker, “but I’ve always had difficulty understanding certain concepts native to the worlds further away from the edge of reality, so I hope you’ll forgive the discourtesy—Hm.”

“Hm?” said Mag.

“Nothing, nothing wrong. I think I had better just... yes.” The mannequin swiveled a few inches.
“Princess Luna, are you sure you can’t turn off her ability to suffer?”

“Well, if pressed, I would tell you it’s more complex than that,” said Luna with obvious reluctance. “Pain is an odd thing. For those of us capable of experiencing it, pain is a deceptively important function of the self. There is no aspect of an individual that cannot experience it, and for good reason, for it is how a being communicates to itself that it’s being harmed. Interfering with a being’s ability to suffer is dangerous.”

“Whatever you two are talking about, I can already tell this is going to suck for me one way or another,” said Mag, peering into the flames. Maybe Celestia would show up with a better idea.

Luna continued. “Add to this the fact that altering a mind on such a fundamental level is prohibitively difficult even for me, and doing so may have unintended and permanent consequences. Do you see what I mean when I call it impossible?”

“How about a weregild to her or her species if anything goes wrong?” said the Maker.

“I’ve learned to dislike the concept of the weregild,” said Luna.

Mag turned her coffee to scotch and tried to drink it quickly. Wherever the two of them were going with this, she suspected she’d want some kind of psychological fortification. For the first time since Celestia came, Mag wondered if she would see another day, at least with her psyche intact. Luna laid a wing across her back.

“Then I suppose her survival must be considered paramount,” said the Maker.

“Of course,” said Luna with a hint of accusation.

“Excuse me for needing a hint or two to understand the value of something I’ve never seen before,” said the Maker, annoyed.

“Just think of her as an exceptionally fragile regent.”

“Oh my. Really?”

“Yes,” said Luna firmly.

“I‘d better start taking this seriously, then, I suppose. On the other hand, you’ve mentioned in the past that regents must be able to accept and accommodate pain for the sake of their worlds, so you’ve just made this simpler.” He swiveled back to Mag. Firelight gleamed on the plastic of his head and the crayon markings that made his face. “Here, Mag, is the problem I’ve been having. So far I’ve been trying to remove all your memories of me, and, shall we say, ‘roll back’ everything in your nervous system to before you saw me. I’ve succeeded in removing the memories, but I can find no way to truly return you to how you were before. Your consciousness, awareness, and experience are heavily interconnected in ways that make it impossible to remove all memory of my appearance without permanently damaging you.”

Mag made herself another cup of coffee. The scotch didn’t help, but coffee had helped yesterday after coming back from Equestria. “Would it help if you left a bit of that memory behind?”

“I think that may be the only thing I can do,” said the Maker. “That, or leave you paralyzed in the left side of your body at best. But if I return a faint sliver of the memory to you, I believe I can build from there and give you a fully functioning body, though it will be difficult for you in the short term. You should be able to handle the rest of it with your own healing processes, and I have no doubt that Luna can make that easier. Do you accept this?”

“I can live with that,” said Mag.

“Then I’ll begin immediately.”

Luna’s horn glowed blue and her shadow darkened, grew, and engulfed Mag. “Ready.”

Mag was never able to describe what followed after that. She could only make analogies to other experiences, and none of those analogies satisfied her. What was it like to remember the Maker? It was like waking up after a major surgery, and the sense that you’d been dismantled and they’d forgotten to put you back together. It was like running your tongue over the gap where a tooth used to be. It was the realization in the dead of night that you wouldn’t make rent, it was the sense of bewilderment and futility she’d felt when she’d first realized she was an adult, it was half a kitten fetus found in the bushes, the sensation of laughing through bloody teeth, the meaninglessness of all words, the sound of dripping stalactites in a lightless cave.

It ended with a glimpse of some vast shape floating in emptiness. The Maker, endless, inconceivable and unanswerable, with a surface texture of scabs and pig iron.

It was over in a moment and it would stick with her forever. Now Mag understood. Of course the Maker couldn’t wash the memory away without maiming her. You couldn’t see the Maker without putting a stain in the skin of your mind that you couldn’t scrub out without tearing away flesh, and you couldn’t see the utter edge of reality without bringing some of it back.

She came back to the dream of the bonfire and the mannequin. Nothing hurt; whatever was left of Mag in this place, it couldn’t feel anymore. Luna and the Maker faced the bonfire and didn’t notice her return.

All of the the bonfire’s paleness and silence had gone. Now it burned gold and blue, as loud as a waterfall and bright as spring lightning. The noise, the color, the movement, the life of it all coalesced at the heart of the flames, where two violet eyes opened.

Celestia stepped out of the fire, running a hoof through her mane and fluttering her wings a bit to shake off stray swatches of light. “Maker!” she laughed on noticing the pony mannequin. “That explains that. Still ideologically incompatible with the concepts of hope and meaning, then? And I see I’ve managed to embarrass Luna in front of her friends again. Speaking of tendencies to memorable first impressions, where is Mag? I assume someone blocked her senses in time.”

Luna shared a look with the mannequin. “Actually, Mag looked directly at the Maker. The sight broke her mind and the Maker has been trying to fit her back together in a way that doesn’t—”

The bonfire spasmed, but Celestia didn’t move. “She what? You what?”

“She was broken, so we fixed her,” repeated Luna in a reasonable voice.

The fire flickered again. So did Celestia’s eyes. “‘Broken’ and ‘fixed.’ You speak as if you’d kicked over another of the palace vases in the night. Since you two seem so at ease, shall I assume she’s made a full recovery?” It was clear she didn’t expect a “yes.”

“Almost,” said the Maker with false cheer. “She should already be here, in fact, and you can look at her yourself. I can’t think where she could have gone. Princess Luna, do you know?”

“She is here,” said Luna. She looked directly at Mag. “When we finished and brought her back into my dream, her psyche structure hadn’t yet stabilized, so she slipped into the dreaming substrate.”

“Then wake us up so I can see her,” said Celestia.

“As you wish,” said Luna.

***

Awake and returned to the Maker’s strange white room, now Mag hurt. She was balanced on her shins, cramps running up and down her thighs, arms flexed and fists clenched. The light was too bright. Every sound would have made her cringe if she could move her shoulders properly, but her muscles were all too stiff.

Mag raised her head and met Celestia’s intent gaze.

“I’m good,” croaked Mag.

Judging by the look on Celestia’s face, that was the wrong thing to say. “LUNA!”

“Don’t bellow so,” said Luna.

“She’s a mess,” Celestia snarled, her snout twisted with fury and her teeth bared, eyes full of hurt and terror.

“She’ll heal,” said Luna. “There will be a scar, but she’ll heal,”

Celestia ground her teeth and paced like a lion in a too-small cage. “Scars and healing. Scars! Healing! Callous little—” she rounded on Luna. “Luna, we are running out of friends, do you understand? What are we if there’s no one left to protect?”

For Mag’s part, she just wanted the argument to end. Angry Celestia was completely different from normal Celestia. Normal Celestia was an angel from on high and a big fuzzy animal. Angry Celestia was a reminder that angels were warriors, and that nature was full of big fuzzy animals that could knock your head off with a kick or a swipe.

None of this intimidated Luna, clearly. “You thought I would cover her eyes the instant we passed through? You’ve never asked me to do that to her before, and if you had, I would have counseled against it. Do you know a way we could have erased all remains of the Maker without also erasing essential processes? I don’t.”

“You could have involved me in the decision, at least. She’s my student! I have a responsibility to look after her.” Mag really, really wished Celestia either would stop shouting or make her point from more than three inches away from Mag’s nose.

“I’m sorry, but I wasn’t interested in arguing with you over this for subjective hours while Mag stood by and listened to us decide whether t’were better to harm her physically or psychologically.”

Celestia drew back and composed herself. “Oh, you’re sorry?”

Luna said nothing for a few awkward seconds. “Um. Yes?”

“Well, fine. So long as you’re sorry,” said Celestia primly, but in a more normal voice. She sat in place, looking coldly down at Luna and Mag. Then her legs wobbled and she began to blink rapidly. She made a sound in her throat.

"Over to you, I think. Here." Luna wrenched all of Mag’s muscles free at once. Mag caught herself before she could fall over, shuffled forward on her knees, and wrapped her arms around Celestia’s legs.

“I really will be fine,” said Mag.

Celestia lowered her head behind Mag’s shoulder. Mag couldn’t see her face, but her voice wobbled more than her legs. “Is that so?”

In reality, this question gave Mag trouble. All her limbs seemed to work, and whatever the Maker had done, it hadn’t even really hurt in a conventional sense. All she had as proof of injury was a sense of degraded wretchedness and the suspicion that though this feeling might fade with time, some part of it would remain with her for the rest of her life.

“I’ll get better,” said Mag. “I just need to go home so I can feel real again. Did you ask the Maker about the thing?”

Celestia sighed and kissed Mag’s forehead, to Mag’s shock. She wiped her eyes and straightened. “Luna talked with him about the thief before you entered the dream. The Maker didn’t know much, though he says the perpetrator ‘smelled familiar’ to him, or rather that the thief had interacted with someone the Maker would have recognized, if that someone had stolen the book herself.”

“Herself,” said Mag.

“Yes, we think the Nightmare was involved somehow. It would explain whatever it was about the thief that the Maker recognized,” said Celestia.

“The Nightmare looked like drowning when I saw it in dreams,” said Mag. “Was it ever a warden?”

“Of the ways?” said Luna. “No, but you might call her the daughter of one. You’ve noticed the auric similarities between the Nightmare and the Maker...?”

Mag managed a laugh. “Seriously? Well, shit. I’ll bet that’s awkward for you.”

“Quite,” said Luna. “The Maker and I have been skirting the subject. I’ve been impressed with his tact.”

“We should go,” said Celestia. “Maker, it was a pleasure to see you again, even given the circumstances. Luna, I’m still furious, but I don’t want to argue with you right now. We can finish that discussion the next time I’m asleep. Mag, reflexively grabbing my tail whenever I leave the plane is unwise, and while I desperately wish this hadn’t happened to you, I hope you’ve learned to be careful. Luna and I don’t have much left to lose.”

That last sentence struck Mag as unnecessary. Celestia’s gentle observation that this was her own damned fault had been almost comforting, leaving her a little more sanguine about the situation, but then Celestia had turned it into a guilt trip.

“Well?” said Celestia.

“I’ll be more careful,” mumbled Mag, unable to make eye contact.

“I regret nothing, though, for whatever it may be worth, I truly am sorry,” said Luna.

“Just wait until I get you alone.”

“One moment, please,” said the Maker. The ceiling of the room rippled and liquified. A white, translucent dollop of it sloughed down and fell to the floor. The ceiling went solid again, and the dollop took the shape of the pony mannequin from dreams minus the crayon.

“We’ve established I can’t say goodbye to you in person, so I’ll let my doll see you off,” said the Maker.

Mag stumbled back against the wall. “It’s not going to start moving, is it? I am not up to that.”

“Don’t worry. It used to move, but too many people have asked me to stop. It’s just there so you have something to look at when I say, Princesses Luna and Celestia, that it’s been a pleasure to see you again. It was nice to make your acquaintance as well, Mag. I wish we’d met under different circumstances.”

Mag waved awkwardly to the mannequin. “Yeah, you too. You’re unimaginably horrifying, but you seem decent. We should hang out.”

“I might be able to arrange that someday,” said the Maker. “Until then, don’t let me take too much of your time.” A wall turned into a mirror, giving Mag a good look at the twin streams of drying blood running from her eyes to her chin.

“How undignified. Rub it off with your sleeve before we go back.”

“What’s a sleeve?” said the Maker.

Mag jumped. “You can hear Luna when she talks in my head?!”

Celestia stepped through the mirror and Mag never got the answer to her question. The cold of the in-between punched through her again and left her lying on the gym floor. She decided to stay there until someone made her get up.

“We’re back,” said Celestia. After a muffled discussion on the other side of the barrier, the metal door clattered open and several pairs of thudding boots approached.

“You’re back!”

“Uh, is she okay?”

“You two just walked into the floor.”

“Is that blood on her face? Medic!”

“I’m a medic. Let me through. Yes, that’s definitely blood. I’ll call the medical department.”

Celestia clopped her hoof on the wooden floor to get everyone’s attention. “Excuse me. Thank you. I need a team of professionals to check Mag for every possible injury related to the nervous system. Mag, please don’t argue. The Maker means well, but he could have done absolutely anything to you.”

Mag was loaded onto a stretcher. She didn’t try to resist, instead putting her hands behind her head and trying not to think about scabs or pig iron. Before they could wheel her away, though, Bittermann shoved her way through the medics with a strange expression and a cellphone.

She held the phone out to Mag. “It’s for you.”

“Oh, right,” said Mag. She put one hand behind her head and made herself comfortable. “Stop the gurney, will you? I have to take this call.” She took a deep breath and put the phone to her ear. “Hi.”

She heard the sound of dishes clinking. “Didn’t I ask you not to call again?”

“I don’t remember that. Just help me out here. Was that you or the Nightmare or what?” One of the medics tried to wipe the blood off her face. She took the cloth away and went to work herself.

“Yes,” said the the Eldest. “Thank you, I’d love another helping.” Mag heard an elderly, feminine giggle.

“Yes to me or yes to the waitress? And stop flirting while I’m on the phone.”

“I’m too used to multitasking to stop, and that’s a yes to both of you,” said the Eldest.

“Yes? Yes it was you and the Nightmare? Are you serious?” Celestia turned and stared.

“That’s right,” said the Eldest.

“Traitorous madman!” shouted Luna.

“Traitor? I’m on the side of humanity and I always have been."

“That’s my mother.” Bittermann wrung her hands. She still looked a little drunk.

Mag put a hand on the receiver. “You called your mother?”

Over the phone there was the clink of glass on glass. "Pray let me refill your cup, ma’am."

“You said I could call anybody,” said Bittermann. “Do you know how long it’s been since I talked to my mother? Do you know how hard it is to get permission for a personal phone call around here?”

“Tell the corporal her mother is doing well,” said the Eldest. The other voice began to chatter happily about her daughter.

“The traitor says your mother is well,” said Luna. Mag took her hand off the receiver so Luna could talk. “You withered, raving old canker, what did the Nightmare promise you?”

“Promises? Not to me. I did it for many reasons, but the only one that concerns you is that you people need a fire lit under your asses—please pardon my language, Mrs. Bittermann—and what’s a little more South American political instability?”

“The book is in America,” said Luna to Celestia and the crowd.

“South America,” said the Eldest. “Anyway, I’d better go. It sounds like dessert has finished baking. If it makes you feel any better, you may as well not go through all the medical tests. The only thing the Maker changed that any human could sense is that your eyes have switched places. Don’t worry, you’ll never know the difference. Goodbye and don’t call again.” Mrs. Bitterman’s phone clattered into its cradle and the call ended.

“That’s my mother,” said Bittermann.

Mag gave her the phone. “She’s probably fine.”

“That’s my mother. Who is that man?”

“He’s got no reason to hurt her. Sounds like the opposite, to be honest.”

Celestia stepped in. “Thank you, Mag, that will be all. Corporal, if you leave to see your mother, how soon can you return? Where is she?”

“A rest home in Nebraska,” said Bittermann with no real presence of mind.

Bradley couldn’t contain himself anymore. “But where is the book? I thought you left to get the book.”

“The book is in South America,” said Luna.

Bradley didn’t hear the edge in her voice. “South America?! How? What were you three doing in there, then?”

Luna took over entirely, flinging Mag at Bradley and grabbing his lapels to support herself. “Yes, gone, thou clownish, scrofulous, whoreson catastrophe of a ninnyhammer! Speak to us that way again and, sun’s blood, I’ll show thee what we were doing.”

Celestia frowned. “Luna, please learn how to suffer fools. Bradley, please pay attention. Mag, I believe we were leaving for the hospital?”

“Eldest says there’s no point,” said Mag, sitting upright in spite of her protesting muscles. A medic tried to push her back down by the shoulders. She gently but firmly shoved him away. “Nebraska, then?”

“If someone would take Corporal Bittermann to Nebraska to check on her mother, I’d appreciate it,” said Celestia to no one in particular. Two guards jogged off.

Mag looked behind her to make sure no one was close enough to hear her whisper, then leaned in. “Can we adopt Bittermann?”

“I thought you already had,” Celestia whispered back.

Bradley raised a tentative finger. “Princesses, before you go, I’d just like to apologize for my tone earlier.”

“I’ve always appreciated a good apology,” said Celestia with a smile. “How about you, Luna?”

“We’ll see,” said Luna.

“Acceptable,” said Celestia. “Our next question is what we do to get the book. We absolutely must take care of this press conference while we still can, but that book shouldn’t be loose, and it most certainly shouldn’t be with the Nightmare. What is South America?”

“A continent,” said Mag. “It’s sort of big, though.”

“The Nightmare will make herself known in time,” said Luna darkly.

Celestia sat in silence on the gym floor for a few minutes. Mag got to her feet and shooed away the crowd. With some urging, most of the scientists and guards fell back a few feet, but the medics stared her down and Bradley just looked confused and offended.

Eventually, Celestia shook her head. “I dislike doing it this way, but I think we have to wait and watch for signs of the Nightmare in South America.” She clopped her hooves together. “Now, then! I’d like to relax. Let’s finish preparing for that press conference. Has Mag’s new wardrobe come in?”

“My what?” said Mag.

“There she goes, evading the real issue again.”

“Who is the Eldest?” said Bradley, unable to quit while he was behind.

“Just some asshole,” said Mag.

Author's Note

Sorry about the wait. I thought we could finish the spit and polish portion of this in a day or two, but I ended up adding another 2k words to it and then of course we had to edit it. On the plus side, my current job gives me plenty of time to write.

Oct. 19, 2015: Made an effort to better describe what happened to Celestia. Hopefully it'll confuse people less instead of more.

Conversation Twenty

The good news was that Mag didn’t have to pay for any of her new clothes. The bad news was that she also wouldn’t have to pay for new bras, since a male fashion designer had taken one look at her and announced to a room full of people that hers didn’t fit properly. The other good news was, hey, free bras.

The best news was that, after much hinting at, bargaining with, and whining to various officers, and finally just asking Celestia to arrange it, someone had installed a desktop PC in Mag, Celestia and Luna’s room.

Mag proposed that “everypony” (she wanted to use the word at least once) spend the rest of the day in their shared room for research and relaxation. Now they sat together in front of their new computer and read Youtube comments about Celestia.

“Play the video again,” said Luna. Youtube fascinated her.

“In a little while,” said Celestia, sitting next to Mag and reading along with fascination. Mag had never seen someone derive so much enjoyment from watching teenagers call each other Nazis, except in a spirit of schadenfreude. Her patience for idiots on the internet was astonishing. She chuckled and smiled indulgently at all the nicknames humanity had given her, from “Empress Deerbird” to “Sunbutt.” Tumblr shipped her with every fictional character and she bore it, however much Luna cackled at the racier works of fan art. The citizens of Twitter were engaged in a mass campaign for Celestia to be granted personhood, and, to Mag’s disquiet, most of the world’s politicians had everything and nothing to say on that subject. Celestia suggested patience. Reddit loved the whole concept of aliens but had doubts about certain elements of the situation. Celestia said she’d be happy to explain at the press conference.

She had endless faith in the press conference, now scheduled for tomorrow. Mag hoped her faith would turn out to be well placed.

“You could at least take off this gown,” groused Luna.

“In a little while,” said Mag. Her wardrobe, though hastily arranged by people who didn’t have her measurements and hadn’t even met her, was vast by Mag’s standards. Some of the items were more practical than others. Some of it was useless. Most of the shoes didn’t fit her, much of the jewelry was gawdy, she hated stockings, a couple of the dresses looked like lingerie to her admittedly somewhat prudish sensibilities, several of the earrings didn’t have mates, and, in the back of the delivery truck, an authentic Victorian ball gown stood arrayed on a wooden frame, complete with bustle and matching silk gloves. Mag couldn’t picture herself wearing it in public, so she got Celestia to help her put it on and resolved to wear it for the rest of the day. It came with a parasol.

Celestia found a floppy, wide brimmed sun hat for herself and hung one of the mateless earrings on the tip of her horn. Luna had Mag put on a black pillbox hat with a bow and veil. Mag pointed out that it didn’t match the gown; Luna said she saw no problem there, as it was Mag who was wearing the gown and Luna who was wearing the hat. Her argument was airtight. Mag put on the hat.

It was 4:14 in the afternoon and nothing mattered. It felt good to be silly. It felt good to feel.

Elbows on the computer desk and her head propped up on her hands, Mag dozed off while Celestia googled pictures of kittens.

***

“Whaddaya want?” said Luna, currently in the shape of a human and wearing a waitress uniform, standing next to Mag and the Candleman’s table, pen and notepad at the ready.

“What are the specials?” rumbled the Candleman. He had moose’s antlers and was so big that he shouldn’t have been able to get his legs beneath the table.

Luna counted them off on her fingers. Blue nail polish gleamed like steel. “Well, we got plum leaves in raspberry sauce, and I think there’s a bookcase fulla stuffy old biographies, or you could do the shadows of tall grass in a midmorning autumn breeze, glass tea, or biscuits and gravy. No, what am I saying? Biscuits is Tuesday.”

“I would like a saucer of glass tea, then,” said the Candleman. He laid down his menu and looked down at Mag, steepling his hairy fingers.

“The footsteps of the dead with a side of okra,” said Mag, laying her menu on top of the Candleman’s. Luna took their menus, popped her gum, and bustled away. Mag had never seen anyone bustle while wearing spike heels before. The Candleman folded his enormous hands and settled down to wait for his food.

Luna opened the door to the kitchen and set an order slip next to Mag, white-aproned head cook of the Sleazypretty. “Okay, hon, just like we practiced. Time to see the real power of dreams, eh?”

Mag opened the Book of Pasithee across the stovetop and began to read out loud. “Right. Here goes. ‘Where the wailing of the—’”

***

Someone knocked on the bedroom door, startling Mag awake.

“Black, sodding damn!”

“Wha’?” said Mag, wiping her mouth.

“Nothing. Attend to the visitor.”

Celestia looked up from a Wikipedia article on magic. “Come in.”

Jeff opened the door without coming in. He saluted sharply. “Your majesties, the President of the United States is waiting topside. He’d like to speak with you both.”

“Ugh, him,” said Mag, stretching. “We’d better change. What did I do with that really catty pants-suit? And a brush. We need a brush. Jeff, get out while I change.”

Jeff closed the door, but said, “Shall I tell them you’ll be up there in 20 minutes?”

“Ten,” called Celestia, magically running a brush through Mag’s hair while Mag looked for the suit she wanted.

She’d left it folded on a chair. It fit, more or less. Luna taught Mag how to tie the ascot.

“How does this look?” said Mag, turning in a slow circle on pointy black ballet flats.

“Professional,” said Celestia, with a thoughtful hoof under her chin. “Maybe a bit too forbidding, though the ascot lightens things up a little. What are you trying to say with this?”

Mag wished they had a mirror, but Celestia had asked for the bedroom mirror to be removed. “I was thinking something like, ‘I voted third party because I think you’re an opportunistic corporate shill, but I won’t bring it up if you don’t.’”

“Ah,” said Celestia dryly. “Then that ought to do the job. And your hair is brushed, so we’re almost ready. Seeing as we’re about to meet with the head of your nation, would you like me to do something more elegant than usual?”

“I’m an Equestrian and Equestrians have pony tails,” said Mag, tying her hair back herself.

“Many of us don’t, but I take your meaning,” said Celestia with a smile. She held up Mag’s makeup kit. “Would you care for a touch-up?”

“Yes. Are you going to need anything? A quick horn sharpening, maybe?” Celestia, of course, looked amazing at all times, but that was no reason not to ask.

“I’m ready,” said Celestia. “Jeff?”

“Yes?” Jeff said through the door.

“The two of us will be teleporting there, so I would appreciate it if you met us up there. One thing, however. What is the proper term of address for the president? Is it proper to bow, or are we to shake hooves—hands, I suppose I should say—or shall I simply keep my distance?”

“It’s ‘Mr. President.’ Knowing Randy Caldwell, he would probably rather shake hoof and hand. Yes, ma’am, we’ll meet you up there. But would you like an umbrella? It’s raining, you see.”

“No need,” said Celestia. “Luna, would you please take off that hat?”

“Fine,” said Luna, and took off the hat.

***

Celestia teleported the two of them 20 feet above the ground, Mag riding sidesaddle on her back. Celestia had prepared a spherical shield to keep the rain off, and Mag watched the water slide down the side of the invisible bubble. The drizzling rain painted the cement a darker gray, and between the clouds and the sun’s afternoon march to the horizon, natural light was becoming scarce.

A crowd of bodyguards in sunglasses clustered around a lone black umbrella. Celestia drifted down and landed 20 feet from the crowd.

A bodyguard held the umbrella over the head of United States President Randolph Caldwell in a long wool coat. He was shorter and handsomer in person than on television. He’d brought his smile today, a smile as carefree and feckless as the day he’d entered politics three decades ago. In terms of political capital, his smile was his fortune, and now it faltered as Celestia smiled back. Mag dismounted and tried to be as inconspicuous as she had been at the meeting.

She wished Celestia had accepted Jeff’s umbrella. Her shield bubble did the trick, but if the president of a country should have someone holding his umbrella, surely the queen of a universe shouldn’t have to use her own power to keep off the rain.

“Greetings, Mr. President,” said Celestia. “I’m honored and delighted to meet a world leader of Earth. I’d like to thank you and your people for hosting me.”

“My, my,” said the president softly. “My oh my.”

“Hm?” said Celestia.

“I thought I was prepared,” he said in a voice less cocky and more openly articulate than Mag had ever heard it. “I wasn’t. Hello, your majesty. The honor is all mine.” He bobbed his head and tipped an imaginary hat. “I was planning to stick around for a few hours for lattes and conversation, but now I think I’d better go. First, however, I’m going to do a little thinking out loud.”

He ran a hand over his stubble and put his hands in his pockets. “The other day, an aide brings me a laptop with a Youtube video and tells me a rural news network found a real live alien who wants to talk to me. I watch it because I always like to encourage my younger staff, and I think the CGI looks okay, but I don’t see anything except some Hollywood viral marketing. But wouldn’t you know it? People are taking it seriously. A HAZMAT team has already examined this very real and very cooperative alien, and it looks like some quasi-military organization has organized itself in a matter of hours to house and research her. They came into existence awfully fast. Awfully fast. I’m not sure how legal it is, considering the fact that I’m not hearing anything from immigration services or even animal control—”

“Sir—” began the man holding the umbrella.

“—but I know all the higher-ups of this organization personally and even some of the middle management, so I decide to let it stand and see what happens. I’ve heard of some of the researchers, too. You’ve even got kid-friendly science superstar Bradley Simon from PBS to study the ‘magic,’ and that’s a PR move if I’ve ever heard one.”

Celestia nodded along with interest, never interrupting and never appearing surprised.

The president kept smiling, kept talking. “The organization sends me some interesting paperwork, all about violins and mysterious books. Personally, my favorite part is the stuff about temperature tolerance. Have you ever heard of ‘absolute hot’? I sure hadn’t until this morning. The news says the Vatican is arguing over whether or not this alien princess is actually some kind of angel called a Principality. The internet is discussing what it means to be a person. Vegetarianism is becoming bigger. All very interesting. I also hear something about a political extremist mountain girl who got caught up in things, though she sounds a lot like a couple of people I met at Harvard. Hello, Ms. Wilson. Are you doing well?”

Celestia nudged Mag with a wing. “Sure,” said Mag.

“You sure? I heard something about bloody eyes. Wink if you’re being held against your will.”

Mag didn’t wink. “By your people? Technically not, I guess. By the princesses? No. The bloody eyes were from making eye contact with Cthulhu and that one’s all on me.”

“Sounds like you’ve got this all under control, then.” Randy Caldwell squinted at the mountains, which had turned gray over the past few hours under the light of the cloud-filtered setting sun. “Where was I?”

“Twittering and vegetarianism,” prompted Luna.

He looked at Mag and Luna from under his eyebrows. “Uh… huh.”

“I am Luna, princess of the night,” said Luna.

The president stared at Mag suspiciously for a few seconds. “… Right. Twitter and vegetarianism. But you see it, don’t you? You walked out of a lake yesterday and you’re already making waves. Are you a fad? That’s what it looked like until you landed just now. You know what I see now? I see someone who knows what I know: that you can take over the world by pretending to be harmless.”

“I’m not going to take over the world,” said Celestia, all firmness. Celestia glanced at Mag. “No,” she said again.

“Don’t look at me,” said Luna. “What would I want with this world?”

“Mag was looking disappointed,” said Celestia. “Mr. President, my goals are to see what humans can do about my cursed world, and to help humanity however I can.”

“Oh, I believe you,” said the president. “I can’t not believe you. I can’t imagine anyone disbelieving you about anything, and that spooks me, because humans get worrisome when they lose their skepticism. You don’t want to see what humans do when a whole lot of us are completely sure about something. You should be careful what you say, your majesty, because a lot of people are going to believe you.”

“I know what I’m capable of,” said Celestia. Somehow she made it sound reassuring.

“Whatever you say.” The president hooked a finger at a sunglassed man. “Leo, start the limo. I need to get out of here.” Leo got into the limo and turned the engine on.

President Caldwell didn’t get in right away. He watched the drizzling rain for a minute and then said, “You know what else bothers me? Everyone was too quick. I don’t think it’s really possible for a government or any of its associates to throw all of this together in a matter of hours. Someone knew you were coming. Do you know anything about that, your majesty? Ms. Wilson?”

“I really couldn’t say,” said Celestia with a baffled wave of her hoof.

“No ideas here,” said Mag.

“I see. Your majesty, it was a pleasure. I hope you’ll take it as a compliment when I say you scare the living hell out of me.” He got into his limo and shut the door. The tinted window hid his face.

“If it makes you feel any better,” said Mag to a now visibly troubled Celestia, “he’s up for reelection in a couple of years. Maybe you can encourage America to vote for someone less… cautious.”

“And more respectful,” added Luna. “You see, this is why democracy is nonsense and the best form of government is a theocratic absolute monarchy.”

***

“Not to mention,” said Mag, “the fact that of course he’s going to worry about you upsetting things. He’s a world leader and member of the establishment. He’s also a hidebound conservative masquerading as a progressive.”

They’d gone back to their room. Celestia had asked Jeff to have their meal delivered there, because she intended to read as much of human history as possible. “You could say the same of me,” said Celestia without looking up from Wikipedia.

“The established order sucks on Earth and nobody good is going to miss it,” said Mag. “Anyway, he’s wrong. The reason it’s the established order is because it’s self-perpetuating, and because humans are going to act like humans no matter what you do. If he’s right, good. If he’s wrong, fine.”

“You offered to help,” said Luna. “How did you intend to help without changing this world? But cleave to your principles, dear sister, apply yourself with all the kindness that is your nature, and surely Earth will only improve.”

“I have already given assurances that I wouldn’t harm the human way of life,” said Celestia, “and at the very least, I don’t have the right to risk changing it without understanding what damage I might cause. I’m confident that, if I can only learn enough and work closely enough with this world’s elected leaders, we can all benefit without global upheaval.”

“Well then good luck finding an unbiased history of the world,” said Mag, trying a different tack.

Celestia gave her an angry look. Mag quailed, but rallied. “Ask two humans what happened in America in 1492 and you’ll get three different answers. Wikipedia isn’t an academically accepted source, either, because absolutely anybody could edit that page. And were you seriously planning on reading 6,000 years of history overnight?”

Celestia’s expression became thunderous. “I am sick to death of knowing nothing. This is the closest thing I have to a solution.”

“Just relax and listen to Luna. Stick to your principles, learn as you go, and never let them see you sweat. Will you please relax?”

Celestia made an aggravated noise and studied the ceiling for a minute.

“I’ll try,” she said, “but we can’t forget the point the president has made. I speak with experience when I say the status quo is far more fragile than people give it credit for, and its true foundations aren’t often obvious to outside observers.”

Mag patted Celestia on the shoulder. “Worst case scenario, you ruin everything forever out of good intentions. Humans do that all the time, so you’ll fit right in.”

Author's Note

Shorter than I intended, but I thought I'd end up having to add a bunch of extra stuff after the first draft and I didn't.

Regardless, let's see about getting the next chapter out faster.

Conversation Twenty-One

Corporal Bittermann came back that evening. Mag and Celestia met her outside.

The rain had stopped, but the thick night clouds still obscured the moon and stars, leaving only the caged orange-yellow floodlights for illumination. Out past the parking lot, the light didn’t reach out more than a dozen feet, and in every direction Mag could see the formaldehyde yellow of the lights give way to the ink black of an overcast desert night. A week ago Mag would have found it otherworldly; now that she had seen other worlds, however, her senses picked out the signs that she was still on Earth, such as the thick wet breeze carrying the smell of the desert shrubs and cacti that had bloomed in the rain. The breeze was cold, but not as cold as the spaces between the worlds. Nothing felt cold in comparison to that. Mag had only bothered to bring a jacket so she would have a pocket for her cigarettes, though in the end she’d decided not to smoke when Bittermann showed up. Bittermann might want to shout at her a bit, and people always hated it when Mag lit up while they yelled at her.

Celestia wore a loosely tied fuzzy yellow scarf she’d salvaged from Mag’s new wardrobe. Mag didn’t see the point of the scarf, but kept her thoughts to herself.

Corporal Bittermann parked a jeep in the middle of the concrete a few yards away from the door and got out, pulling a stuffed backpack out of the back of the vehicle. She slung it over one shoulder and hoisted out a duffel bag as long as she was tall. She wore civilian clothes, a white canvas jacket over hiking pants, but she’d kept her combat boots.

“Let me get those for you,” said Celestia. She lifted the luggage out of Bittermann’s hand and off of her shoulder. Bittermann straightened, looked over at Celestia and Mag, and shuffled up to them. Her baggage floated beside her the entire way.

Bittermann halted a few yards from Celestia and Mag. She looked Mag in the face without speaking. Mag said nothing and neither did Celestia. Bittermann’s breath fogged the air as she breathed long, slow breaths, eyes darting between Mag and Celestia as if she were looking for something.

Bittermann didn’t belong in civilian clothes. Her bearing, her squared shoulders and broad jaw, the way she walked and the way she stood all spoke of a military person. She might have been pretty under better lighting, with her clear sharp eyes and dirty blonde hair pulled up in a loose bun. She was also on the tall side, a couple inches shy of six feet.

Celestia broke the silence. “Good evening. How is your mother?”

Bittermann chewed her lip. “Fine. Happy.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Celestia absentmindedly scuffed at the ground with her hoof. “I suppose you’re wondering who the Eldest is?”

Bittermann nodded with downturned eyes.

“I had hoped to keep this to myself because I think it would be best if his existence never became public knowledge, so while I won’t force you, I’d like to ask that you keep this to yourself.”

Bittermann pulled the collar of her jacket up around her neck and crossed her arms tightly. “Maybe. Who is he?”

Celestia lowered her voice. “An immortal guardian and leader of Earth.”

“What the f—” Bittermann caught herself. “What the fudge?”

“A sentinel of sorts,” Luna put in. “He is as old as the world, and the world is his charge. It is his responsibility to live and work and die for the sake of Earth.”

“The same responsibilities Luna and I have to Equestria,” added Celestia.

This, at least, seemed to energize Bittermann. Her brow lowered. “He didn’t sound anything like you on the phone.”

Mag kicked a rock into the darkness. “Yeah, well, that’s because he’s not like her. He’s like us.”

“He’s not like any of you that I’ve seen,” said Celestia in thoughtful tones.

Luna tilted Mag’s head. “He behaves thus so that no other human has to, perhaps?”

Celestia gave the pavement a firm stomp. “I don’t accept that. To me, he’s proof that a leader has to be more than just selfless and wise if they wish to be good. Imagine what Earth could be like if the Eldest were kind as well.”

Mag waved for the princesses’ attention. “Hey. Hi. Human here. I wouldn’t know anything about leadership and kindness and all that, but I do know the Eldest isn’t the only human in history who thought he was doing something terrible so no one else would have to, not by a long shot. Bittermann, back me up.”

Bittermann gave a tiny shrug.

“See?” said Mag. “Anyway, we don’t know that’s what he thinks he’s doing.”

“And you know this Eldest guy?” said Bittermann.

“Sorry for making you call him,” Mag said with an embarrassed headscratch. “I wasn’t thinking.”

Another tiny shrug.

The awkward silence returned for another few seconds.

Celestia bowed her head. “Corporal Bittermann, there’s something I’ve been longing to tell you. I am so sorry. Helping me has compromised your career, and if you like, I’ll do everything I can to re-secure your position. In essence, this happened to you because I went against the will of your superiors. If I went to them and apologized while pouring them a round of drinks, made a few meaningless concessions on the details of tomorrow’s press conference, and then just talked to them for a little while, I could change their entire perception of what happened at that meeting. Or, if they’ve gone their separate ways since this morning, I could accomplish the same thing with one of your human telephones. This is fixable.”

Mag squinted and shaded her face from the yellow floodlights so Bittermann wouldn’t see her grimace.

Luna didn’t bother to hide her disdain. “You want to go crawling after those fools? After they’ve done something so petty and craven to the corporal? Faugh! I’d rather dance for my supper for the rest of my life than watch you flutter your eyelashes at that tangle of dripping hagfish.”

“I don’t see—” began Celestia, and stopped. Bittermann had laughed.

Bittermann covered her mouth and worked to straighten her face. Through her hand she asked, “What’s a hagfish?”

“An especially slimy species of eel,” said Luna.

“No it’s not,” Celestia snapped back. “Eels are physically similar, but—”

“So you admit eels and hagfish are both a type of long, skinny fish.”

“It doesn’t matter. The point I am trying to make is that sometimes diplomacy requires a display of humility, especially for people like us.”

“Or an expression of pride and strength, as you yourself proved today.”

Mag waved for the princesses’ attention again. “Have you guys had this argument before? Did you figure it out last time? Because I don’t want to stand out here listening to an argument you two aren’t going to work out.”

“Good point,” said Luna, nudging Mag’s head to look Celestia right in the eyes. “She will writhe forever against the talons of reason if we let her. Let us change the subject.”

Celestia scoffed with all the force of a sitcom actress. “Ha! And now I’ve become the eel in this scenario. The princess of dreams, and she can’t control her own metaphor.”

“We’re hiring,” Mag beamed.

Bittermann’s eyes widened at Mag’s smile. She shifted her gaze to stare at her own boots. “I’ll think about it.”

They walked back to base together, Celestia and Luna still bickering. Bittermann gave Mag a wide berth.

***

The night shift of Celestia’s guards arrived and Bittermann drifted off to the barracks to, Mag could only assume, watch the rest of her shift talk amongst themselves while Bittermann sat to one side. Did Bittermann have any friends? Of course she did. Normal people made friends all the time for no reason except proximity, and in a compound with so many claustrophobic hallways and characterless rooms, even abnormal people might eventually feel the need to chat.

“Pay attention,” whispered Luna. Celestia and Jeff were in the middle of a tense conversation, Jeff with his hands out in an I-wish-I-could-do-something-but-I-can’t gesture.

“Next... week,” said Celestia, tasting the words.

“I’m sorry,” said Jeff.

“I was given to understand the press conference would be tomorrow.” Celestia didn’t look angry, but the quiet way she questioned Jeff suggested anger was a definite future possibility.

Jeff made the wish-I-could-help shrug. “I have it from the event planners that it just isn’t possible to get everything together in less than a week,” said Jeff. “They have to book a place, put the press kits together, find and then contact the right journalists, get a few legal things in order...” Jeff shook his head and looked Celestia in the eye. “I’m sorry, but we’re expecting to have everything together by the beginning of next week.”

Celestia nodded understandingly, but the tone of her voice didn’t change. “That makes perfect sense, of course. I’m used to living in the same city as nearly every major press organization in Equestria, I held my press conferences in my own court, and my own event coordinators often knew I would need a conference before I did, so they could anticipate my needs.” She gave Jeff a rueful half-smile. “I’m being presumptuous, aren’t I. Have I expressed my gratitude for the help you and your superiors have given me on this?”

Jeff’s face relaxed. He straightened and smiled back. “Several times, and we’re happy to help, I’m sure.”

“I do have to change my own plans to suit this new development, naturally.”

Jeff tensed. “Are there any messages you’d like me to pass along?”

Celestia threw a glance at Mag and Luna. “Yes, in fact. Some of the things I have to say to the public are time-sensitive, so tomorrow I’m going to fly to the nearest major city and make a few announcements to the public. I’m sure I can find a way to do it without making a scene, with a little trial and error.”

Jeff winced and chuckled. “I saw that coming. But you know, they’re not toying with you. It really isn’t feasible to get everything together in less than a week.”

Celestia’s cordiality dropped away like an anvil. She stepped closer to Jeff and lowered her voice a little more. “I’ll speak more clearly. What worries me is the possibility that next week someone is going to tell me there has been some kind of complication, or that your legal department is stuck, or that the mail is slower than you expected, or any number of other perfectly true and completely coincidental issues that can’t be solved except with time, and the conference will need to be pushed back further. The same will happen the week after that and the week after that and so on, until I either drop the issue or meet some kind of demand they haven’t yet made.”

“I know of no such plans, your majesty.”

“Good. After you describe this talk we’ve had to your superiors, please tell them I’m more than happy to discuss their needs as well as mine, in person or through more indirect means. As for my own needs, I’ll need to speak to humanity as a whole in the next two or three days, but if your superiors can’t arrange this then I’ll understand.”

“And then you’ll take the matter into your own hooves,” Jeff finished for her. “I’ll pass that along. Your majesty, has anyone ever called you a holy terror?”

“Yes. Do you have any other witticisms to share before you go?”

Jeff replied with a sharp salute and wry smile and then sauntered off with his hands in his pockets. Celestia drooped visibly the moment his back was turned. Turning a corner, he nodded to someone and disappeared out of view. The night shift of Celestia’s handlers rounded the corner and took their stations around Celestia, at a respectful distance but close enough to see and hear everything. The guards’ body language, both the day shift and night, had changed after what happened to Bittermann. They shut their charges out, looked away when Mag caught their eye, responded to questions with nothing more substantial than “yes’m.”

Cowards, thought Mag. Celestia was welcome to sympathize with them, but she wouldn’t. If they were willing to shut Celestia out and, by extension, act as if Bittermann had made a mistake, then they weren’t worth knowing. They didn’t have names. In Mag’s mind they would be Freckles, Dorky, Brown Eyes, Bunny, Admittedly Pretty, and Smug.

Mag held a tentative finger up and pointed it down the hall Jeff had taken. “So who won that one?” She hesitated. “And... who was the bad guy there?” She didn’t want to call Celestia out in front of witnesses, not twice in one day, but she wasn’t sure what she’d just seen.

“Negotiations don’t have winners, losers, or bad guys,” said Celestia, like a tired schoolteacher, “but I take your point. It might have been better to let them think I’m naive. And now I’d like to go to bed.” She lifted her head and gestured down the hall leading to their shared room. Celestia walked and Mag followed.

After a few minutes of walking and thick silence, Celestia said, “Mag, I need you to be completely honest, because this is important to me. Speaking as a human, do you think this is going to work? Should I stay here? Should I keep dealing with these people? Should I keep pushing for the press conference?”

“We do have an audience,” said Mag, nodding significantly at Brown Eyes.

Celestia huffed. “I’m exhausted and I don’t care anymore. I keep my secrets for the sake of humanity, not for ours, and does it really matter if I look weak? Please tell me what I should be doing differently.”

“Your plans should work,” Mag hedged. “The bedroom is this way, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s that way.”

“These hallways do seem to blur together, don’t they,” said Luna.

Celestia wasn’t done. “Your species can be so similar to my little ponies, but every once in a while I get the sense that, thanks to the way humans think, you hear my words differently than how I mean them.”

“But doesn’t everyone feel like that all the time?” asked Mag.

“Almost everyone,” Luna groused.

“Everyone, now,” said Celestia. “Here we are. Thank goodness.” She fumbled the door open by dropping her hoof limply onto the handle, took five slow steps into the room, and fell into one of two beds. Mag got ready for bed herself, pulling off her hairband and stripping to boyshorts and undershirt.

Celestia raised her head to look at Mag. “Have you ever thought about finding someone?”

“What?”

“Romance,” said Celestia.

“Gods, how would that work while I’m here?” There was a heartbeat’s length of an embarrassed pause. “Oh. Uh. I didn’t wish you to hear that. Don’t concern yourself with me.”

Mag made a show of rolling onto her side and resting a hand on her thigh. “Is that a question or a proposition?”

Celestia dropped her face into her pillow and laughed into it, narrowly missing the wall with the point of her horn. “Just a general question.”

Mag got under the covers and fluffed her pillow while considering how to answer Celestia without encouraging follow-up questions, but couldn’t come up with any answer but the truth. “I tried dating in college. It was nice, but I didn’t need it as much as a lot of people seem to, and I’ve never met a man I want to go to all that effort for.”

“How about a woman?” said Celestia.

“Women? No. Mares? I could be talked into it.” Mag made a kissy face.

“Oh, go to sleep.”

***

Luna tapped the blackboard with her yardstick. “Class, please turn to page 1,042,450,728,260.”

Mag flipped to the proper page in the Book of Pasithee and settled in for the lesson.

“And now I’d like you to start lucid dreaming,” said Luna. “Pull yourself together this time. You’ll need your wits about you.”

Mag sat up and let herself see things with a more logical mind. She sat in the front row of battered wooden desks in her old elementary school classroom, and Luna stood at the head of the classroom in her pony form. The Candle Marmoset sat in the back row writing something on the desk with his little paws and dripping wax from the candle on its head.

“Didn’t you used to be a moose?” said Mag. The Candle Marmoset chirped at her.

“Yes, Mag, pay attention,” said Luna.

“And what’s this book? I don’t speak this language.”

“Not when you’re lucid dreaming, you don’t.” Luna scratched an incomprehensible sentence on the blackboard with a stub of chalk. “Dreamland is its own world, the largest and oldest one. It has no leader, though some of its more powerful citizens act as guardians. Most of its people are sleeping mortals, but it does have its own true natives, many of whom could not function in any waking world. I like to consider myself one of them, now.” She growled wordlessly to herself.

Luna composed herself, trotted up to Mag, and tapped the book with a hoof. “You have here the book of Pasithee. With my tutelage, you have gained a comprehensive understanding of what it is capable of and even a few of its lesser uses. Then just now I told you to lucid dream and you lost most of what you learned, because the ways and workings of the Book of Pasithee are not compatible with the daylight mind. My hope is that you retained enough of it to help me. Do you understand everything I’ve said so far? Good.”

Mag picked up the book. It was heavier than anything she could have lifted while awake, heavier than a car, heavier than the world, heavier than…

Luna whapped Mag on the shoulder with her yardstick. “Stay lucid, please.”

It was a large tan book with a rough fabric cover, the kind of fabric that couldn’t be dusted and inevitably tore at the corners of the book as it aged, and just as this one had done. It was old, but it bore its age with dignity. The creased spine said “PASITHEE” in plain English. Mag opened it. There was no table of contents and the first chapter had no heading; the book simply began at the top of the page and ended at the bottom without line breaks—page after page of, so far as Mag knew, purest nonsense.

“We have reached the end of what you, a mortal whose mind is fundamentally rooted in the waking state, can understand as a dreamer. The Candle Marmoset has been of great help, though I don’t think you’ll remember how, and you really ought to thank him.”

Mag turned in her seat again and gave the marmoset a thumbs up. He returned the gesture.

Mag closed the book. “So why am I learning this?”

The stub of chalk shattered in Luna’s magic field. “Because this ‘no body’ business is going to end. Now. If not now, then tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then the day after that, or the day after that. If you are amenable, we are going to split every sleeping moment between the study of magic and of Pasithee, because I will not watch my sister fly away from me like that again.”

Fingering one of the dog-eared pages, Mag wondered if it wouldn’t be best to leave the princesses and go home after Luna found her way back into the world, but kept the thought to herself. “That sounds amazing, but why do you need my help? Sounds like you could do more with this book than I ever could.”

Luna laid her chin on the desk and glared at the back wall. “I was tempted. Believe me. The book would fight me at every step and bend all its power to smite me, but this is the world of dreams, where my whim is law.” She lifted her head an inch and thunked it back down on the desk for emphasis. “That would be villainous, however, and I’ve walked that path once already. No, the power of Pasithee properly belongs to mortals, not the likes of me. It is for deposing the likes of me, if necessary. Or you might use it to help me create a body that functions outside of dreams.” She smiled hopefully.

“Yeah, all right,” said Mag.

Luna hopped up and flapped into the air excitedly. “Good, good! I declare you my champion and a knight of Pasithee.”

“…What?”

“Those aren’t actual titles,” said Luna, landing with an air of sheepishness. “Insofar as the book of Pasithee is concerned, my authority, like the Lady of the Lake’s, begins and ends with bestowing it on an appropriate mortal and hoping they use it well. Try not to kill me with it, please.”

Mag took her hands off the book. “Okay, we need to talk about how to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“It was a joke.” Luna took Mag’s hands in her hooves and laid them back on the book. “I trust you.”

Mag took her hands away from the book again. “No, but for real.”

Luna set a hoof on the desk. “I respect your concern. Let me lay your worries to rest. Harming anyone at all with the Book of Pasithee would be a difficult, ongoing endeavor that simply cannot be performed unknowingly. It is impossible to take the book away from you without killing you, and when you pass away, the book reverts to me, whereupon I may once again find a worthy mortal. There is, of course, the possibility that you’re plotting to kill me.” Luna set her other forehoof on the desk and leaned forward to glare into Mag’s eyes. “Are you plotting to kill me?”

“No,” said Mag.

“A pity. I would appreciate a bit of cloak and dagger.”

The Candle Marmoset landed on Luna’s back and chittered. “An excellent point,” said Luna. “Princesses may knight people. Has Celestia knighted you? It would be amusing if I got there first.”

Mag groaned. “You and Celestia. God, it never ends. Will you people stop taking me so seriously?”

Luna hmphed. “Since I’ve met you, you’ve given me the impression of someone in need of another responsibility or two. Magic caught your interest for a little while, but now it is almost impossible to get you to practice, so I think another job will be good for you. We can alternate between subjects as you get restless. And whatever may be said of me, I don’t think I can be justly accused of taking you seriously.”

Mag raised a finger. “I practiced before bed.”

“I assigned 50 flames. You gave me 49.”

“That last one counted.” Mag snapped her finger and produced the flame again. “Yeah, it was on the wrong finger, but come on. I made fire with my bare hands. That’s got to be 99 percent of the job.”

“Fine, you made 99 percent of a flame. You made 49.99 of the flames I asked you to make rather than 50, thus failing the assignment.”

“Fine, I failed. I’ll do better next time. More importantly...” Mag riffled through the pages of the book. “Some things have been bothering me. You people use phrases like ‘meant to’ and ‘supposed to’ about yourselves and, say, things like this book right here. Where do regents come from? What makes you think your job is to look after your people, and how come these other regents think the same? Where did this book come from, and why is it ‘supposed to’ be used in a certain way?”

Luna considered for a moment. “These questions may be important, so we can take the time for them. Where do we come from? I come from the world my sister and I were born in, which came into existence as we did. I opened my eyes and saw my sister looking back at me. Celestia saw me enter the world, but she was young and newly formed, and she tells me she hadn’t the psychological constructs to know a leaf from a rock, let alone the mindfulness to properly perceive or even remember what my birth looked like.” She shrugged. “We had no concept of language, either, and thought works rather differently under such circumstances. What drives us to look after the people of our world? Blind instinct, and you may interpret that however you wish. And before you ask, I don’t know where worlds come from. What was your other question?”

Mag picked up the book and waved it in the air.

“Oh, yes.” A new piece of chalk drew a picture of a six-fingered fist pointed upward with an upside-down “U” on the wrist. “Pasithee was a legendary artificer who fancied himself a hero of the people. He hailed from a world with a cruel and selfish regent, and, after an extensive campaign of his own golem army versus the undead hordes of his regent, Pasithee managed to slay her. After seeing firsthand the depths to which a corrupt regent may sink, he concluded that no sapient being should have that power without a corresponding check on that power, and so he made a collection of tools, traps, and weapons intended to allow mortals to punish unworthy regents.”

Mag tapped her chin. “This book is for straight up killing gods, then.”

“Among other things, yes. Pasithee was a bigot who chewed with his mouth open, but I respect his legacy enough to admit he preferred to give all of his artifacts alternate, more peaceful uses than war and assassination.”

“And you’re trusting me with this.”

“Yes.” No hesitation.

Mag slapped her forehead. “Oh, come on. Teaching me magic I can kind of see because it means teaching me how to not go critical and accidentally kill someone, but there’s got to be someone better for this.”

Luna gave a sort of noncommittal sideways nod. “Waiting for someone more suitable could take millennia. You are moderately incorruptible and you don’t seem the type to go mad with power. You’ll do.”

“This thing still worries me,” said Mag.

“Good. You are a civilian holding an instrument of war, after all. Have you any further questions before we discuss the more intermediate uses of the book of Pasithee?”

“Yeah, can I learn a new spell yet? I want to learn about how I moved that bottle with my mind and I want to know how I broke it.”

Luna’s smiled like a tiger. “Oh, are you ready to discuss the incident with Bittermann? Good. I can give you Celestia’s lecture on the obligations that come with being the most powerful person in the room.”

“Oh god.”

Luna stood over Mag and lifted her chin with queenly righteousness. “The gods will not save you. Listen closely. You have collected a store of power over the past few days. You have friends in high places, you know magic but sometimes cannot control it, your fellow mortals know you’ve dealt with forces they can neither understand nor imagine, and now you are in possession of the book of Pasithee. You are dangerous and everyone around you knows it, and that gives you the potential to be a tyrant. I despise tyranny. I detest it above all things. If you abuse your power over others, your lessons from me will end.”

“I understand,” said Mag, and she did, though she suspected Celestia would have put it differently. Her interactions with humans over the past two days played out again in her head, and this time she replaced the hapless, scowling Mag Wilson of her own imagination with a new Mag, Mag in the eyes of the humans on base: an unsmiling stranger with unknowable powers.

“Excellent.” Luna’s face smoothed and softened. “As for your question, we can explore what you did with the bottle earlier today, but we must do so after you’ve made progress on the creation of my new body.”

“Cool.”

And now they were in an auditorium with a chalkboard larger than four movie theater screens. Luna, now sitting behind a podium, produced eight more sticks of chalk and began to scratch words and diagrams all over the board.

Mag raised her hand. “You’re doing that thing again.”

“What thing?” said Luna, still writing.

“The thing where you start using a bunch of jargon and I have no idea what’s going on.”

Luna took flight and hovered in place to examine the board from a further distance. “Hm... no, no I am not. You’ve known this language all your life. It’s the language you speak to yourself in your deepest dreams, when you are furthest away from wakefulness and are too fragmented and abstract to even contemplate that which you have only recently learned to stop thinking of as ‘the real world.’ I say again, you know this language, and the only thing you need learn is how to read and speak it in a more lucid state.”

“Neat,” said Mag.

“Isn’t it?”

“Also sort of unnerving.”

“Oh. Well, we can work past that. Now, then, let us begin with grammar, insofar as we may use such terms as ‘grammar.’”

Mag raised her hand.

Luna massaged an eyebrow with the tip of a hoof. “Yes, yes, you may use the facilities first. Awaken.”

***

Mag opened her eyes and shifted into a sitting position at the edge of her cot. Her hand was asleep, her legs were sore and she had the beginnings of a crick in her neck. Celestia had fallen into a restless sleep with her blanket pulled up past her chin so that Mag could only see her horn, closed eyes, and a bit of her mane, faintly luminous in the dark room. She slept facing Mag; Mag wondered if Celestia had been watching her sleep.

What had Celestia looked like before her world ended? Had she slept well? She still smiled and joked and teased in spite of everything she’d lost, and Luna had mentioned she’d always been like that, but Luna had also hinted that Celestia sometimes only pretended to be happy for the sake of her subjects. Had Celestia’s more sensitive or less worshipful ponies known, or had they all believed the illusion? What did it feel like to spend every day pretending to be invulnerable? Was it worth it?

Then again, that was none of Mag’s business, was it? However easy it was to let herself think she and the princesses were close, the truth was that they had nearly nothing in common and had only known each other for a week. She couldn’t even pretend to understand them.

Luna worked hard to be comfortable with Mag, to meet her halfway and trade friendly jibes, but sometimes Mag wondered if Luna wanted something different from Mag or if she wished her host had been someone less, well, bitchy. Bittermann had called Mag a bitch, and as much as Mag hated that word, it was true. And Celestia put up with it as well, for whatever reason.

“If you really must stare at my sister, perhaps you could endeavor to do so while she’s conscious? Observe the bare minimum of chivalry and give her the chance to catch you.”

“I was thinking about something completely different, but fine,” whispered Mag.

“Oh, you were brooding melodramatically in Celestia’s general direction? I used to do that constantly. Feel free to continue.”

Standing up, she flexed her hand open and closed and tried to shake out the pins and needles. Their shared bathroom, unfortunately, was on the other side of Celestia’s cot, with boxes and piles of unfolded clothes strewn in between, so there would be no going that way without tripping over something and waking up the princess. There would be a bathroom somewhere outside.

She stepped out into the harsh lights of the hallway, closed the door behind her as gently as she could, and headed where she believed the public restrooms to be. Brown Eyes and Bunny fell in behind her.

Mag stopped. “I don’t know where the nearest washroom is.”

Bunny pointed to the left.

“Lead on,” said Mag.

Without answering, Bunny went the direction she’d pointed. Mag followed her down a series of hallways they’d never been down before, past empty offices and under broken lights.

“Kinda feels like the bad side of town,” Mag to Bunny. “Let me guess. You took me to the ass end of nowhere because you’re annoyed I made you do something in the dead of night. Or did I get on someone else’s nerves?”

Bunny saluted firmly but otherwise communicated nothing.

“Yeah, well, whatever,” said Mag. “I’m not going to do anything about it. Just find a working toilet and we can all get back to where we were before, no trouble to anybody.” Mag had to force herself not to pat Bunny’s cheek.

“Acceptably nonthreatening,” said Luna.

Bunny and Brown Eyes found Mag a bathroom after another 10 minutes of marching. Mag was grateful for the chance to sit down.

“Five minutes.” Luna’s aura mostly disappeared.

There was this to be said for the military — they kept their facilities clean, even in the most disused parts of the compound. The toilet paper rolls were new and untouched, as was the soap dispenser, and everything reeked of disinfectant. Mag had worried her guards were leading her to the worst restroom in the compound, but no, this was a perfectly worthy restroom. It was just out of the way.

Mag came out whistling a tune she couldn’t name or remember more than three seconds of. Bunny and Brown Eyes were waiting on either side of the door with their hands at their sides.

Mag looked back and forth between them. “You guys seem tense.”

Brown Eyes shoved a taser into Mag’s side, just above her kidneys. The majority of Mag’s muscles went rigid, and seizing pain rushed through her. Bunny dispassionately punched Mag across the jaw, and Mag went limp. Brown Eyes put her taser away and caught Mag as she fell.

Someone wearing a hooded cape stepped out of the nearest empty office and laid a narrow, silk-gloved hand over Mag’s eyes.

***

Now Mag was sitting on the desk, hair disheveled and in her face, heart and head pounding. Luna looked down at Mag — she’d produced a few thick tomes of her own and was now flying in lackadaisical circles while reading three of them — and stopped in midair. She didn’t bother to flap her wings; she simply stood there.

“Why are you unconscious?” asked Luna.

Mag rubbed her jaw. “We’ve been kidnapped. You’ll be getting that cloak and dagger action, looks like.”

Luna smiled. “Excellent.” She teleported to Mag’s side. “What happened?”

Mag told her. Luna didn’t respond at first.

“Thoughts?” prompted Mag.

“She does resemble a bunny,” said Luna thoughtfully. “And I now fully agree you need to learn more spells.”

“Can you wake me up so we can yell for Celestia?”

Luna sat down by the desk, and her eyes darted back and forth as she thought. “That does sound more interesting than waking her up myself. First, however, I think we’d better begin your tutelage in magical combat. Someone cast a spell on you, and the caster will still be there when you wake up if your kidnappers are sensible. Oh, this is going to be fun.”

“Or we could see where they take us first,” said Mag, running her fingers through her hair to pull her bangs out of her face.

Luna nodded. “There’s little harm in that plan. No sensible Earthly power would dare harm us, so we make a poor hostage, and Celestia will fashion underclothes from our kidnappers’ entrails when she wakes to find that her sister and her security blanket were both stolen away in the night. They think they have a prisoner, but in fact they’ve led an enemy scout into their bosom.”

“Yeah,” said Mag absently. Celestia’s security blanket? That didn’t sound so bad. “Is it just me, or are these people incredibly stupid?”

“They managed our kidnapping efficiently enough. Let us give them the benefit of a doubt and allow that they might know something we don’t. But yes, it is also possible these people are either gravely misinformed or pitiably stupid.”

Mag drummed her fingers on the desk. “So what do you want to do, go back to learning about dream language, or get basic combat magic out of the way?”

“Judging by the last two altercations you participated in,” said Luna, “I think we’d better devote all of our time to combat.”

Mag shoved her chair back. “Works for me.”

Celestia’s security blanket? Yes, she could live with that. It was worth fighting for.

Author's Note

Edited by the glorious Arcanist Ascendant, who pours out the heavens.

A confession: "do the research" is a rule of writing, and I waited too long to research the exact mechanics of a press conference. Turns out it usually takes at least a week to arrange one, unless you're the president or something.
This means I had to rearrange some future plot points, but no worries, it ended up being a good thing. This actually solves a couple of problems on the writing end. The only price is that I had to awkwardly patch over it in the story itself with new plot points, that or go back to previous chapters and change some things, but even that issue only ended up being an opportunity to keep some things moving forward.

AA the Merciful, the Luxurious, the Lemon-Scented -- our editor -- had reservations about admitting all that in public. He's probably right (if you're going to hand out sausages, don't go showing people the inside of the sausage factory), but... eh.

Chapters will be a little longer from now on. This one is 6k words, which seems good to me.

edit: btw I picked out some songs for a soundtrack because I am the largest dork it is possible to be

Conversation Twenty-Three

The waiter’s shaking hands almost knocked over the tripod but caught it in time to save the camcorder.

“This is so cool,” he muttered.

The chef leaned over the counter between the kitchen and the dining area. “Remember, you’re off break in 20 minutes.”

The waiter murmured something unintelligible.

The diner was named “Reginald’s Famous Eggs.” Mag had never heard of it. Its only occupants at the moment were two sorceresses, their three uncomfortable minions disguised as United States marines (scrunched together in a booth across from a lone Corporal Bitterman, who was telling them off at length in a fierce whisper), two alien princesses (one of them living inside the mind of a mortal), Mag the mortal host, a waiter, and the chef. The waiter was a pimply teenager with a cavernously deep voice, the only male in the building, and the chef was a fat woman, a Jesus freak with bad teeth and a missing ring finger (everyone has a story). Mag couldn’t remember either of their names.

“Good catch, Kevin,” said Celestia, “and don’t worry, Eliza. He’s doing important work for me, and I’ll give him back in a few minutes.”

“Your food should be ready by then,” grunted Eliza, and pulled her head back into the kitchen. Mag had to give her credit; she feared nothing, neither royalty nor the occult. She was one of the most self-assured humans Mag had ever met. Kevin the Waiter wasn’t, and also openly feared Mag. Mag couldn’t see why; she had put on her new clothes before entering the building (a yellow sundress with clashing tennis shoes), so it probably wasn’t a case of a teenage boy’s girl-terror, and she had to be the least intimidating person in the room. Maybe it was because of Luna.

“After this, we can begin the interrogation,” said Luna with Mag’s mouth.

Lady Valérie Castan had occupied a state of visibly mingled awe, terror and despair since Celestia had appeared. In the past 10 minutes she’d paced, wrung her hands, hunched over and clenched her stomach, chewed her nails, and shook in place with her shoulders around her ears. Now she had her head down on the table behind folded arms. Her mother laid a hand on Valérie Castan’s shoulder and whispered something in her ear.

“Ready, your majesty,” Kevin said from behind the camera.

“Thank you, Kevin,” said Celestia. “Humanity, this is—”

Mag poked Celestia’s shoulder. “I don’t think the camera is rolling.”

“Sorry, your majesty. I’ll hit the button now.” He pushed a button.

“Thank you. Humanity, this is Princess Celestia. I’ve made certain promises to my current host, the American government, so certain comments I plan to make will have to wait.”

Mag liked that word “current.” It came with the implicit suggestion that plenty of other countries would be happy to take her in if the US jerked her around too much.

“I’m leaving this message to explain something I’ve done this morning. You see, last night, a young woman and her associates—whose names I don’t intend to share with the public—kidnapped Princess Luna, my sister, and Mag Wilson, my friend and employee. Don’t worry; I found them and everyone is fine.”

Mag ducked her head into the frame next to Celestia so Luna could wave at the audience while Mag gave a thumbs up with her other hand. “Yes, we are safe,” said Luna.

Celestia took a moment to smile at Luna, then faced the camera again. “In doing so I’m afraid I had to deconstruct a building. The walls and ceiling are stacked neatly beside the foundation and I’m happy to help transport those pieces if the building’s owner would like me to. Here is why I’m leaving this message: I want to make it clear that no one is hurt, that this was the most efficient way to curtail all possibility of a hostage situation, and that I don’t mean to threaten anyone. I’m only looking after my loved ones.”

Loved ones? Mag shivered. But what did Celestia mean that she didn’t intend to threaten anyone? She’d leveled a building and was now making a video to claim responsibility for it. America started wars over that kind of thing.

“You seem to be in a bad mood,” Luna said in Mag’s head.

Was she? She was. Everything was all wrong. They’d finally left that stupid compound, only to lose a fight and, from the sounds of it, go right back there after Celestia gave the kidnappers some time to whine and beg. And sooner or later Lady Valérie would start crying, something Mag really didn’t want to see; it would reinforce Mag’s growing suspicion that neither of them was the “good guy.” Not by Celestia’s standards. There was also that business about being handcuffed to a pole, getting slapped and chased around a warehouse in her underwear, and then completely failing to get back at her captors or even escape in spite of all her advantages.

“Mag, whatever troubles you, Celestia and I shall help.”

Mag nodded. No sense in worrying her.

“I’m making arrangements for a press conference to answer any questions you might have, about this or anything else, so you’ll be hearing more from us soon,” Celestia concluded.

“Is that the end?” said Kevin, breathless. Celestia nodded.

Kevin hit the button. The red light went off. He folded the camera viewer shut and packed away in a black case with practiced hands. “This is so, so cool. So that’s what that loud sound was? You took apart a building?”

“Yes, very carefully. I mentioned no one was hurt, right?”

Kevin ran a hand up his forehead and into his hair, laughing. “The abandoned warehouse. Oh, man, I have to get my dad to drive me out there after work. I always knew there’d be some kind of action scene out there.”

Eliza leaned through the window again. “And you brought the criminals in here? Well then they’d better mind their manners, praise God, and that’s all I’ll say.”

“I’m watching them,” Celestia assured her. “Now, then.” She approached the two Castans. The countess, her hand already on her daughter’s shoulder, lifted a finger to tap her. Lady Valérie jerked upright, saw Celestia looking at her, and quailed for a bare second before gathering herself, folding her hands in front of her on the table, and assuming a calm expression.

Celestia set aside a chair across from the countess and the lady and sat on the floor in its place. Mag read the mood of the situation and sat on a stool a good few yards away where she could see everyone at once.

Celestia looked grave. “I’d like to thank you for cooperating so far. I’m sure the five of you could have made things more difficult for us all. Would you like to continue this way?”

“Yes, thank you, Great One,” said the countess, bowing deeply in her seat.

Celestia didn’t acknowledge the countess’s words. “Lady Valérie Castan, I’m telling you I’m glad you haven’t fought with me so far. Would you like to continue cooperating? I’m going to be giving you several choices today, and this your first.”

Lady Castan’s answer had no voice behind it. The only thing Mag heard was the S at the end of “Yes.”

“I’m happy to hear that. Now I’d like you to give me some context for your situation. I need to know your side of the story. Can you do that for me, Valérie?”

The lady’s fingers curled on the table. She leaned forward in her chair, hardly breathing.

“Take your time,” said Celestia.

The diner went quiet for several minutes. Celestia waited patiently.

A pan clattered in the kitchen. The lady twitched and blurted out, “It was supposed to be me!”

“What was, Lady Valérie?” said Celestia.

Lady Valérie began to hyperventilate. Pity tinged Celestia’s eyes, but she stayed silent and let Countess Irénée help the lady. The countess squeezed Valérie’s shoulder. She tried to take her daughter’s hand, but she drew away and directed a glare at Mag. “The person who stays by your side and devotes her life to you, Great One,” snarled Lady Castan. “Your first human ally. Le Cercle knew you were coming to this world, Great One, and we’ve known for over a century. My ancestor is the seer who first saw you. He also saw a young woman who shadowed you, waited on you, and acted as your hands in a world made for hands rather than hooves.”

Mag kept her eyes on her shoes, because odds were good more than one person was staring at her.

The lady clenched a napkin. “Count Castan set in motion a plan to create this woman himself by arranging a circle of families devoted to you, and then left us to make sure we could respond to any word of your coming with a moment’s notice. We’ve worked together for the past century to ensure that your companion has every skill and trait anyone could possibly wish such a person to have. That’s what I was bred to be—I and certain others, though it was always assumed you’d choose a Castan rather than, I don’t know, a Nagdotieoue or a Viumbay.” She tossed a hand at Mag. “But strange are the ways of the gods, Great One, because you chose that. Le Cercle has failed you. Ow!” Lady Valérie jerked away from her mother.

“I wasn’t aware that I was making some kind of choice in the first place,” said Celestia dryly. “I’ll have more questions about Le Cercle des Lampes à Huile soon. For now, let’s start with how you infiltrated a military base.”

Lady Valérie gave her mother a sidelong glance. The countess nodded.

Celestia cleared her throat. “Countess Irénée, you’re here for emotional support, not to direct your daughter. You’re treading a fine line.”

The countess bowed again. “I sincerely apologize, Great One.”

Turns into a helicopter parent when the chips are down, thought Mag.

Celestia turned her attention back to Lady Valérie. “How did you infiltrate the compound?”

“The organization is ours,” said Lady Valérie. “I have top level clearance—I stole the ID of someone with clearance,” she amended. “I found a uniform. I put it on. I took the place of her majesty’s guards.”

“You and your friends. Don’t leave them out of this,” said Celestia.

“I made them do it,” said Lady Valérie. “They’re sworn to follow me.”

Celestia raised her voice so that her voice carried to Lady Valérie’s guards. “It would have been more loyal of them to prevent their friend from doing this.”

Bunny dared to turn her head and look Celestia in the eye. “You don’t know what it was like. The lady has been distraught for…” she petered off under Celestia’s attentive gaze.

Luna laughed aloud. “We are as old as light, and my sister has spent her life in the contemplation of the ebb and flow of the heart. If it be emotion, be assured she does know ‘what it was like.’”

“Sister,” said Celestia without looking away from Bunny, “you’re being too literal. She was about to ask me to consider the mood of the situation they were in.”

“Have it your way,” said Luna.

“Guard, I—” Celestia stopped and frowned at Luna, then started again. “—I understand how hard it can be to stand up to your friends, especially when you’ve been taught not to stand up to one particular friend.”

Lady Valérie went still.

“But in my world,” said Celestia, “we have a cliché to the effect that sometimes you have to protect your loved ones from themselves. You didn’t protect her. You helped her do this to herself, not to mention kidnapping my sister and my friend.”

“Leave her alone,” said Lady Valérie with her eyes squeezed shut. “Great One, please, leave her alone. You can’t expect a mere guard to face someone like you.”

“Maybe not, or maybe I can and should. Either way, I can tell them to think about what they’ve done. I also find the phrase ‘mere guard’ enlightening, but perhaps that’s something you should discuss with them yourself someday soon.”

Now Lady Valérie was doing breathing exercises.

Waiter Kevin rolled a cart up between the tables, loaded with plates of food. “Okay, ladies and, uh, actually, you’re all ladies, here we are.”

Lady Valérie dropped into a coughing fit. Between coughs she shouted, “You oaf, can’t you see this is not the time? Decorum!”

“And this is not the time to shout at people who are giving you food,” Celestia said, at the same moment Eliza yelled “Don’t you talk back!” from the kitchen.

Lady Valérie went back to her breathing exercises. Kevin wordlessly put a small plate of overcooked over-easy eggs in front of her and moved through the room to do the same for everyone else. The countess paid for it all, something Mag wished she’d predicted; if Mag had known, she would have either ordered nothing or ordered everything.

Celestia, faced with a scared teenage idiot and a plate of food, looked away from the girl to let her pull herself back together. “Thank you for this, Countess Castan. I’m quite hungry. Would you please tell me how you knew of my coming to Earth?” Celestia cut into an egg with her knife and yolk oozed out. She sliced out a wedge of egg, speared it on her fork, and floated the fork to her mouth. The rest of the room took this as permission to eat. Mag dove in; the smell had reminded her how hungry she was. The lady and the countess didn’t eat, Mag noticed, though the guards did, being practical people.

“It’s an honor to offer you food, your majesty—would you be offended if I call you 'your majesty?'”

“Not at all. In fact I prefer it to Great One,” said Celestia.

“I’ll inform the rest of Le Cercle of your preference,” said the countess. “As for your question, Le Cercle is a consortium of magical families who work together. We have a number of projects that we share, and one of them is collecting information on the future so we can prepare for it.”

“Do you work in concert with the eldest?” said Celestia.

“Who? Ah, the wanderer. No, we avoid him. His skills are impressive, but he has his own goals, and in any case we prefer to deal with persons who show proper respect.”

Celestia studied the countess. “Proper respect, from the eldest to a family of mortals. Are we speaking of the same person? A weathered old man with a bitter sense of humor?”

“I believe so,” said the countess. “Are you…” she paused to search for tactful language. “Your majesty, is it possible the man has told you he is the regent of this world?”

“Yes, and I can confirm that he is. Trust me.”

“You have all of our trust, your majesty, but…” There followed a cautious pause. “He is a deceptive creature, a man of power who abuses that power for his own strange ends. The wanderer who calls himself eldest has a long history of lying to Le Cercle, and everyone else who deals with him. But the original regent of Earth has passed away. We know this.”

“You are referring, perhaps, to the Eldest’s brother,” said Luna.

The countess looked at Mag and Luna. “Ms. Wilson, I’m beginning to wonder about you. You have two voices and two auras. One aura is of a mortal magic-user, not atypical, if somewhat cold and stained. The other burns silver.” She watched Mag. “That second aura is beautiful beyond description. Margaret Wilson, what are you?”

Lady Valérie looked incredulously back and forth between Mag and the countess. “Mother, excuse me, but I don’t see this second aura. Surely there’s some trick.”

Luna answered for Mag. “We are two beings in one body, a co-regent of Equestria and her mortal host. I am Luna, sister of Celestia and princess of the night.”

“It’s true,” said Celestia. “And for goodness’ sake don’t argue. No one can imitate Luna well enough to fool me, especially not in dreams, where we speak every night. Just accept it and show her the same respect you show me.”

Mag hadn’t known that last. Apparently Luna could be in two places at once in dreams. Then again, the word “place” didn’t have much meaning in the dreaming world.

“Or perhaps somewhat less respect,” said Luna. “Respect should be mutual, and I have little for your Circle as of now. It may also interest you to know that neither my sister nor I have any use for obsequiousness.”

Celestia cleared her throat. “That’s what I meant when I said your daughter attacked my sister.”

“Worry not,” said Luna. “I see no insult in attacking me, only in doing such a poor job of it. It is just as well. Had you acted competently, Mag and I would have been forced to treat you as a threat.”

Did that mean they’d have won if Luna had taken things more seriously? Did they lose because Luna held back? Valérie and Mag made eye contact as the lady gave Luna a hard look, and each realized the other was thinking something similar.

“Or to put it in another, less inflammatory way,” emphasized Celestia, “Luna had the situation in hand and no one was in serious danger. I’m coming to believe that.”

“Thank you,” said Luna.

“At any rate, we’re straying from the subject. You’ve told us you don’t accept the eldest’s regency. You’re mistaken, but it’s not important. How did you first hear of my coming? Did the eldest tell you?”

“Never, your majesty,” said the countess. “It was my great-grandfather, Count Valère Castan. He saw a second sun descend to seek allies and heroes to aid in her war against death, and swore that his descendants would be one of those allies. Most of his associates called him insane, but a few of his friends declared it a noble idea and made the same oath. We are Le Cercle des Lampes à Huile, and if you’ll have us, we would keep our word.”

If the countess had made her grand speech somewhere other than a diner in the middle of nowhere at a quarter after 9:00 AM in broad daylight, it would have been much more impressive. Perhaps if she’d made it in Dracula’s castle, or at Hogwarts. Here it sounded like a refined Shakespearian actor reciting lines for a fantasy miniseries. It was a credit to the countess’s delivery that no one laughed; in fact Lady Valérie appeared heartened, or at least she’d stopped shaking, and watched for Celestia’s reaction from under her eyelashes.

“That discussion must wait, I’m afraid,” said Celestia. “I think we’d both prefer to deal with your daughter’s actions first. Should I ask why you chose to bring this up now rather than later?”

“I thought it might interest you to know the Nightmare has sworn not to accept any of our allies or associates as a host,” said the countess.

“Or your exiles, or your criminals, or your business partners,” said Luna through a mouthful of egg. Mag would have appreciated some kind of warning.

Celestia’s eyes gleamed. “Oh? You’ve met with the Nightmare? I’ve changed my mind. I think we’d all like to discuss that first, because that information is important to me.”

With a lovely smile the countess said, “If we exchanged everything Le Cercle knows about the Nightmare for clemency for my daughter, you and your allies would qualify as our business partners.”

Celestia shook her head. “I don’t trust the Nightmare’s word, and your daughter is not walking away from this table without consequences, but I think everyone would be happier if I had more reason to trust you.”

Lady Valérie didn’t even blink at the word “consequences.” Maybe she’d already resigned herself to some kind of divine punishment from her goddess. Or maybe for her the worst had already happened, either when she got caught or months ago when she’d found out about Mag.

Kevin stood self-consciously with his feet together and his tray held in front of his chest with both hands. He sidled up to the guards, and Mag heard him say something like, “Should I be listening to this?”

“Probably not,” said Mag without lowering her voice. Celestia and the countess looked at Mag. “Sorry,” Mag told them. She beckoned Kevin over.

“Yes?” he said from behind his tray.

Mag leaned in to whisper. “I need black coffee from whichever percolator has been running the longest. Since last night, ideally. Burnt and gruesome, you get me?”

“And follow that with a better cup of coffee,” said Luna.

“We only have one percolator,” whispered Kevin.

“How long has it been on?” asked Luna.

“Half an hour.”

“Fuck,” said Mag. “Fine.” Kevin colored at the swearword and hurried away.

Satisfied that Mag was done interrupting her, the countess steepled her hands. “In that case, I’d be happy to tell you everything I know.”

“Please do so. Avoid conjecture, but be thorough.”

The countess bowed for the fourth time and pushed aside a plate of eggs she’d hardly touched. Mag contemplated taking it for herself.

“The night before last, every seer of ours, including myself, experienced a severe headache, a wave of anxiety, and the same image of two blue concentric hexagons against a black background. Is this symbol familiar to you, your majesty? Your majesties?”

“Not in the context of the Nightmare,” said Celestia. “Luna?”

“No, but it is possible she adopted an icon significant to her current host, should she have a host. Do you intend to eat that?”

“It is yours, your majesty,” said the countess. She looked at her daughter expectantly. Valérie’s jaw clenched. She glanced at Celestia and saw that the princess was watching. The lady picked up the plate of eggs and brought it to Mag and Luna, setting it in front of them with a sharp rap of plastic on fake wood.

“Thank you,” said Luna. Mag winked. The lady sat back down to seethe in silence.

“Anxiety, a severe headache, and an image of two concentric hexagons,” said Celestia.

“Yes. It meant nothing to us. The next morning we received a phone call from a girl or young woman. I would place her age between 16 and 20, but since the Nightmare spoke to us rather than the host, I couldn’t tell you much else about who the demon has taken.”

Kevin set Mag and Luna’s coffee on the counter. “Did you trace the call?” said Mag. Kevin leapt back into the kitchen.

The countess fixed Mag with an uncomfortable stare. “We had no reason to be prepared for a phone call we would need to trace, Ms. Wilson, and even less reason to keep that sort of equipment in my household, but please feel free to ask any worthwhile questions you happen to think of.”

Celestia’s empty plate happened to tap the table with a loud click. “I beg your pardon, I leaned on my plate while I wasn’t looking.” On purpose. “Yes, Mag, considering the fact I wouldn’t have known to ask that question, I’d appreciate your asking any questions you like. Thank you for pointing this out, Irénée.”

“I… understand, your majesty,” said the countess.

“I’m glad. We’ve been getting along so well up to this point. Now, please tell me everything you can recall about that discussion.”

“Yes, please do,” said Mag, swiveling her stool in a half-circle to face the countess.

The coffee wasn’t awful, to Mag’s chagrin.

The countess took a deep breath. “Yes. Yes, the Nightmare introduced itself by describing our experiences the previous night. She told me not to be alarmed, as it didn’t consider us an enemy either to itself or to its host. I asked to whom I was speaking; it told me it was speaking on behalf of its host, and wished to make an arrangement of noninterference. I told it Le Cercle des Lampes à Huile does not associate with dark forces or allies of those forces for any reason, and certainly not to make promises to them. The Nightmare told me its host expected as much, and assured me that, speaking on its own behalf, it could abide by that if we wished; the Nightmare, in perpetuity, would not take a member, ally, business partner, criminal, or exile of Le Cercle des Lampes à Huile as host, regardless of any individual members’ wishes.”

“Are those its exact words?” said Luna.

“Yes.”

Celestia scowled. “Part of the problem with making contracts with beings like the Nightmare is that, however carefully you read that contract, you can still discover later that you didn’t make the agreement you thought you did. And this is assuming it didn’t simply lie, a possibility I’m not willing to rule out.”

“Just as you say, your majesty.”

“And what did you say to her at that point?”

“Its host? Nothing. I wasn’t aware that she’d be able to hear me.”

“Pardon me, I misspoke. I meant, what did you say to it?”

“The host can hear you,” said Luna, “and it is unwise to discount her as a part of the situation. She has consented to her circumstances, whatever her motivations, and the Nightmare will value her wishes as it understands them even when the host has no volition left.”

The countess tapped the table in thought, then faced Luna and Mag. “Your majesty, I’m impressed with your understanding of these creatures.”

“I was a previous host, if that is your question.”

After a pause the countess said, “I see. In that case, is it possible to free the woman?”

“You would know more than I,” said Luna, “for I know nothing of human abjurations or weapons. We have a store of our own such things, but none of them directly defend against or counter creatures like the Nightmare, and we no longer have access to the force that purged the Nightmare from me.”

“We don’t know enough about that situation to make plans yet,” sighed Celestia. “What did you say to the Nightmare after that?”

“I asked it if it had anything else to say. It replied that our term ‘dark forces’ was just as inadequate for the classification of extradimensional beings as it would be for a Terrestrial person, and Le Cercle should consider changing our system to a case-by-case basis without reference to so-called morals.”

Luna scoffed. “Speaking as a dark force, that term lacks nuance but is absolutely salvageable so long as there are beings who use the phrase ‘so-called morals.’ More coffee.”

Kevin came out of the bathroom where he’d hidden and fetched the pot from the kitchen again. The bathroom was some distance away, but Luna’s voice tended to travel. He poured Mag and Luna another cup. He made as if to leave again, but stopped and faced the rest of the room. He held himself that way until Mag realized what he was thinking.

“Does anyone want coffee?” said Mag, loudly.

Celestia flashed a smile at Kevin. “A glass of water for everyone, I think. This is thirsty work.”

“Yes’m,” said Kevin.

“And was that the end of the phone call?” said Celestia.

“It told me to have an enjoyable week, and hung up.”

Celestia bowed her head in thought. She continued until Kevin brought seven glasses of water and two glass pitchers. Valérie drained hers in two gulps, to her mother’s consternation.

“Thank you, Kevin,” said Celestia. “You know, I’m beginning to dislike the effect of telephones on these kinds of things. A secondhand description of a telephone conversation doesn’t make for much to work with. Have you heard from the Nightmare at all since then?”

“Not once, your majesty.”

“And you aren’t lying.”

“I would never lie to you.”

“That was more a statement than a question.” Celestia leaned back and sipped from her water with a casual field of magic that arrested the attention of the room. “Okay. Let’s see. We have the implied threat, of course, the warning to stay away. That means either the Nightmare or its host believes you might be a threat to their goals, or would at least complicate things. It knows about you somehow, in spite of your being a secret society.” She looked out the window at the bright empty desert. “Why, incidentally? What do you accomplish with this secrecy?”

The countess was ready for that question. “In this age there seems to be this belief that everyone has the right to any piece of information, even the comings and goings and the skills and concerns of every person of power in the world. The Circle disagrees. How could the average person possibly learn enough about The Circle to use that knowledge responsibly?”

“I’m making magic a public fact,” said Celestia. “I notice none of you did the same. What does that mean to you?”

“We will happily adapt to any change you make to this world. We still wouldn’t ‘go public’ unless you command it, if that is your next question.”

“We’ll see.” Celestia waved away the conversational detour with a hoof. “So the Nightmare knows about you. I wonder what else it knows, and how it plans to use that knowledge. I’ll have to think about this.” And, true to her word, Celestia bowed her head in silent thought.

After the first two minutes of this, Mag decided Celestia would be staying in that position for some time. She decided to take a walk around the building. The stool squealed as she stood up, the loudest sound in the room; Lady Valérie’s guards pretended not to watch Mag leave. Bittermann, with a parting glare for all three of them, followed Mag out.

Pushing open the glass door exposed Mag to the dry heat of the morning and the faded asphalt highway they’d teleported next to half an hour ago. An empty gas station with four pumps, three of them out of order and wrapped up with yellow caution tape, stood opposite the diner with no other building within three miles. The town had no other buildings. It was meant to be a tiny place of rest for travelers, nothing else.

“Are you okay?” said Bittermann, squinting against the sun.

“We find ourselves quite well,” said Luna. “I wish you hadn’t seen my sister in such a state.”

“I think everyone on base is just relieved, actually,” said Bittermann. She pulled out a hip flask and took a swallow. “A lot of people have been wondering what would happen if she got angry.”

Mag eyeballed Bittermann. “It’s 9:00 in the morning and you’re chugging from a hip flask.”

“It’s apple juice, so cool your fudging jets,” said Bittermann. “Yeah, they’re relieved.”

“Huh.” Mag cupped a hand against the glass door to ward off the glare as she looked through. Celestia hadn’t moved an inch.

“You guys aren’t that okay,” said Bittermann.

“Am I one of the ‘guys’ now, then?” said Luna, amused.

Bittermann looked awkward. “Oh. Um. Do you… want to be?”

“Call me Luna,” said Luna.

Mag gave Bittermann a dirty look. “What do you mean we’re not okay? Don’t tell us how we feel.”

Bittermann scratched her head self-consciously. “Sorry. You’ve both been pretty mad. I’m pretty sure Celestia is angrier than either of you—”

“Correct,” said Luna.

“—but I get why. Wasn’t so sure about you guys. It sounds like you had it under control back in that warehouse. You won the fight the second they kidnapped you.”

“True,” said Luna.

Mag leaned against the door and folded her arms. “It didn’t feel like winning. It ended with us getting wrapped up in a tarp and Luna telling me the fight was over.”

“Yeah, well,” said Bitterman. She looked at Mag out of the corner of her eye. “I have nine black bracelets engraved with the names of friends I’m never going to see again, eight of them KIA and one of them after falling off a helicopter wing.”

“I am sorry for your loss,” said Luna.

“Living through the fight is winning. Everything else is politics.”

“Politics are also often a concern of mine,” said Luna, “but I take your point.”

Mag mechanically reached for a cigarette and then realized her latest pack was miles away.

Bittermann was looking through the window out of the corner of her eye. “What do you make of the girl?”

Mag ground her teeth. A guilt trip about soldiers from someone who wasn’t that much older than Lady Valérie, an increasingly boring and infuriating talk in a bad restaurant, and no cigarettes. Fuck this. “You know what? I’ll tell her exactly what I think of her.”

Mag shoved her way through the door and back into the cold diner. Celestia and the countess were deep in conversation about something or other. Mag strode up to the table and dropped both hands directly in front of the girl, who jumped but wouldn’t look at Mag.

“Hi,” said Mag. “Here’s the deal. This is the deal, all right? Here it is: fuck you.”

“Mag,” said Celestia with a note of warning. The lady stared forward with her back straight and her hands in her lap.

Mag kept her hands on the table and leaned toward Valérie. “You know what pisses me off about all this? It’s that you’re sitting there all cute and pissy like you’re at a parent teacher conference, while your friends and loved ones jump up to defend you. Why does someone like you get all of this? Let’s say the situation was the other way around, right?” Mag dragged her stool to the edge of the table and sat, glaring down at the lady.

“So it’s the other way around now. I never met Celestia—you did. A few days ago I was at home reading the news and feeling the way I always do at night, like I missed my bus stop a few miles back. Then I see you and Celestia together on the website, my brain throws a screw, and I decide to take your place. I don’t know, maybe I buy a rifle and try to shoot you from out of a crowd during the press conference. Say I miss. I probably would, because it’s been a long time since I’ve held a rifle and I never liked them anyway. So I get caught, right? Now what happens to me? Who’s on my side in that situation? Huh?”

Mag stood up and threw her hands open. “See all this? You have everything, you screechy little shit. And Celestia is totally going to let you go, by the way, so you can stop freaking out. Fuck it, if it were up to me I’d let you go too. I’d tell you to go home to your mother and figure out what to do with your life, like you should have done in the first place. There’s no other punishment she could give that’s going to help you or anybody.”

“It’s more complicated than that, I’m afraid,” said Celestia. “Remember that she’s also broken the laws of the land—”

“Such bellowing from the shrew!” shouted Lady Valérie. “What has she got that I haven’t?”

“Around ten years, about 40 pounds,” said Mag.

“She was there for me when no one else was,” said Celestia.

“She has earned our trust,” said Luna.

“I can roll up my tongue like a taco.”

“Her sarcasm comes from her sincerity, and she’s angry because it hurts her to see people suffer—which I believe is why she just now argued we let you off without punishment.”

“She fears next to nothing.”

“I don’t know what they’re talking about, but I am straight ruthless with a scrub brush. And did you seriously just interrupt Celestia?”

Now the girl started crying, in silence but copiously. Naturally her mother and friends jumped in to dote on her and offer tissues and whisper comforting things in French. Mag could have wrung her neck.

“Is this really helping her?” Mag said to Celestia, who had pity etched on her face again.

“That’s up to her,” said Celestia with a resigned sigh. “This is how it always goes when I find someone in a situation like this and show them the bigger picture. I see what enables their behavior and I see their way out, and occasionally it’s the same thing. It’s the same with a person’s flaws, which, after all, are only their strengths expressed in damaging ways.”

“We should not just let her go with no other consequence than making her face her own failings,” said Luna. “If we really must justify our arguments with philosophizing, I would submit that overlooking someone’s cruelties is no kindness. Refusing to discipline someone is refusing to give them the opportunity to learn discipline, and freedom from consequences is the ultimate prison.”

The lady had stopped crying. Now she was listening.

“Yeah, well, so long as we keep her out of the criminal justice system, I’ll just live with what you guys decide on,” said Mag. “That whole branch of the government is broken. She’ll leave prison with homemade neck tattoos and a crack addiction.”

The countess gasped and grabbed at her daughter’s sleeve. “No! No, no. No. I’m sure they would just deport her, and I know the Canadian courts would listen to reason. Surely.”

“Plea bargain for community service?” said Mag.

“I would accept that so long as it isn’t dangerous,” said Celestia thoughtfully.

“She has still offended two princesses,” Luna pointed out.

Mag didn’t quite roll her eyes. “Right, right, we care about that. Here, I have an idea. You guys could order her to not to be an awful little shit to her probation officer or the people she does her service with. She has to treat them like equals.”

Luna chuckled. “I do like that. Let her learn humility. Her pride will compel her to follow this agreement even where she believes violations would be undetectable, and I can check on her in her dreams if she gives me permission.”

Lady Valérie looked up at Luna with an emotion Mag didn’t recognize. “If you came to me in my dreams, would I see your face?”

“Yes.”

“Then I agree to all of it.”

“Interesting,” mused Celestia. “I imagine Dora, Sadie and Jody will be receiving the same punishment. Do any of you object to that? I’m going to add a stipulation that they don’t work with Valérie during their community service.”

“Why not?” said Bunny/Dora. Sadie/Pretty elbowed her to be quiet.

“Think about it,” said Celestia.

The guards huddled together to discuss the deal, but briefly. Jody/Brown Eyes nodded and looked not at Celestia but at Mag. “If it’s fine with the lady and her ladyship then it’s fine with us. Are you going to out Le Cercle?”

“I don’t plan to, but I can’t promise anything,” said Celestia.

The countess raised a finger. “Would their majesties be interested in my opinion?”

“How old is she?” asked Mag.

“17.”

“Then no,” Mag and Luna said together. That stopped Mag short. How had Luna done that?

But Celestia said, “Are you wondering whether we can convince this court in Canadia to show that much leniency to your daughter? If so, then just trust me. I’m certain I can keep your daughter out of prison.”

“As you command, your majesty,” said the countess.

“That’s right. Now, if we’re all agreed, here is the first part of our agreement. What were Mag’s exact words? Ah, yes. Lady Valérie Castan, I command you not to be an awful little shit to your probation officer or the people you do your service with. You must treat them like equals. Do I have that right?”

“It was ‘have to’ treat them like equals, sister.”

“Close enough. And now we’re going to find somewhere you can turn yourselves in. I’ll meet the five of you outside.”

“Check, please,” said Mag. This time it was the chef who bustled out in her apron and hairnet. She set a tray, a pen, and a pair of receipts in front of the countess, who scrawled in a small, looping signature and added a tip that took her several seconds to write in and made the chef’s eyes bug out.

The countess looked the chef in the eye. “You and your server have performed quite sufficiently in obeying the commands of Her Majesty Princess Celestia. I hope you’ll forgive the crassness of a monetary reward for such things.”

The chef gawked at the receipt. “That, uh. That’ll be just fine, ma’am.”

The countess and the lady stood and bowed in unison, and the guards curtsied despite wearing pants. The countess backed out of the room, still bowing. The guards straightened and followed her. Lady Castan lingered. “Wait. Please.”

She pulled a new napkin out of the dispenser and with slim fingers she unfolded it, refolded into another shape, twisted and shaped it, worried at it, licked a finger once and pressed it against a fold, closed her hands around the shape, and held it there. She set the finished product on the table.

It was an origami rosebud made of tissue, uncomplicated, but elegant in its own way. “Keep it in an empty vase,” said the lady. “It will grow, your majesty, but don’t plant it or water it. Just find a bigger vase when it outgrows the first one.”

Celestia picked up the flower with her magic and held it in front of her. She smiled tenderly. “Valérie, this enchantment is exquisite. I look forward to showing it to you when it opens.”

Lady Valérie didn’t smile back. She followed her mother, too dazed to notice she’d turned her back on Celestia. No one corrected her.

Mag rested her elbow on the table and her head on her hand, trying to relax. So that was the Castans. A family of quixotic anachronisms led by a barefoot seer and soccer mom pretending to be unflappable and mysterious. And then there was her spoiled basket case of a daughter, and the daughter’s team of Amazons.

Christ.

Celestia took a deep breath, held it, let it out after a few seconds. “Well, at least I’m beginning to get the hang of human diplomacy.”

“What happened to Bittermann?” said Mag. Celestia gestured with her horn.

Bittermann was marching towards Jody/Brown Eyes. She grabbed Brown Eyes by the arm, swiveled her around, and got in her face. Mag didn’t hear what followed, but the guards didn’t look happy. After some furious gesticulating from Bittermann and backtalk from the guards, the countess stepped in and said something to all of them. Dora started to argue, but the countess looked at her, and Dora let the subject go.

All three guards handed Bittermann their marine hats and blazers. Trousers and boots followed, leaving the three of them in their socks and underwear. Bittermann came back into the diner and set the uniforms on the table.

“These are the property of the United States government,” said Bittermann with extreme satisfaction.

Author's Note

Edited by the inimitable Arcanist Ascendant. Together, him and me can write a rad bromance.

I'm sure some people are going to be annoyed that Val's punishment for kidnapping an internationally significant figure is probation and community service and regular personal visits with Luna. Relax; I've got everything under control :pinkiecrazy:

And this one is slightly longer! Monthly chapters means more words per chapter, because chapter length doesn't seem to have much of an impact on how long editing takes.

Conversation Twenty-Four

Mag appreciated all of the groveling. Everyone outside the compound groveled, maybe not as impressively as Le Cercle had to Celestia until ten minutes ago, but certainly with aplomb. The pavement in front of the compound door was strewn liberally with people anxious to beg Celestia’s forgiveness.

The compound had, at first, met the kidnappers with guns bristling, demanding they get on the ground with their hands on the backs of their heads. Mag found this less satisfying than she’d expected. Certainly less tense, as it could not have been clearer that Celestia would protect Le Cercle from any bullets. She practically stood over her prisoners to prevent anyone from getting a clear shot. Mag suspected no one was going to pull the trigger on something that belonged to Celestia in any case. Celestia had a way of suggesting with her expression and posture that any sentient being standing in her sphere of awareness effectively belonged to her. In a completely benevolent way, of course.

Jeff, Jeff’s partner Ellie, and Something-or-Other Gradely from the meeting all lined themselves up in front of Celestia with an air of deep contrition. Mr. Gradely kept glancing in the direction of the countess and lady. He recognized them. Jeff ignored them, but obviously recognized them too. Mag couldn’t get a read on Ellie, but Mag doubted she alone was uninformed.

Celestia approached the trio. “I found them all. The countess and the lady would like to discuss something with you, and I see you know exactly what.”

“Your majesty—” began Jeff and Mr. Gradely simultaneously.

“First things first,” said Celestia. “Ladies?”

Lady Valérie stepped forward. “I, Lady Valérie Castan, am here to confess to the kidnapping of Margaret Wilson.”

“And we’re her accomplices,” said Sadie, one of the lady’s three underclothed and extremely annoyed guards.

“Those three are unarmed, obviously,” said Bittermann, three immaculately folded military uniforms over her shoulder. Sadie’s mouth thinned. Dora’s eyes went flat.

Mag considered the situation. Celestia had that calm little smile she wore when she was about to get her way, and Gradely was sweating again, though that might have been the heat. A game was going on and Celestia was winning.

What, exactly, was the game? No, it was clear enough. The compound had promised safety, and then some of their own sponsors had made off with Celestia’s human teddy bear, forcing Celestia to hunt them all down herself. She’d done it and now she was back again, and sooner or later she would innocently bring up the press conference they’d promised her, along with the ultimatum she’d delivered: “Have a preliminary pre-conference arranged by tomorrow or I’ll handle it myself in ways that leave you completely out of the loop.” And of course Celestia would be explaining the deal she’d struck with Le Cercle.

In her mind, Mag surveyed the next few hours and realized she didn’t have the energy for it. They would want her to describe exactly what happened, and Luna would have to give her own statement, and Celestia would raise hell in her usual agonizingly genteel fashion, and the countess would throw her weight around in that placid tone while walking around a military installment barefoot.

No, there was more to her feelings than that. Looking over her kidnappers, the soldiers, the executives in charge—the people who controlled Mag’s life—she felt horribly exposed. She wore clothes now, but they were the countess’s clothes, and all the other clothes she currently had, had come from the compound. All her clothes were at home, just as they had been when she was handcuffed to that chair.

“You know what? I need to not be here for a while,” Mag said to Celestia.

“I understand completely,” said Celestia. “You look tired, and you should be. Would you like to go to our room and rest?”

Mag nodded.

“Luna, would you please—”

“—look after her,” Luna finished. “Of course, sister.”

“Can I as well?” said Bittermann.

Celestia raised a playful eyebrow. “Can you what? Rest in our room, with Mag?”

“I meant guard the door,” said Bittermann hastily with another of her blushes. Mag felt the breezy whoosh of a social cue going over her head, but whatever it was, it could wait.

“Please do,” said Celestia.

“Those are your orders, then,” said Jeff. He reached behind his back and under his coat, unbuckled something, and pulled out an armpit holster and pistol, passing it to Bittermann. Bittermann pulled out the gun to look it over, then reholstered it and began to tighten the straps on the harness.

“If anyone tries to get around you, anyone at all, shoot them,” said Jeff, straightening his coat and tie.

Bittermann clipped the armpit holster in place. “Sir, those aren’t legal orders.”

Jeff shrugged. “Yes, that’s right. And you were technically AWOL this morning. But sometimes you’ve got to keep the bigger picture in mind, don’t you think?”

Celestia stepped between them. “If I may, as an alternative, you could call for Luna rather than using a weapon. Her solutions to trespassers will likely be safer for all involved. Wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Gradely?” Celestia said the last sentence with a proprietary smile.

“Yes, your majesty,” said Gradely. He smiled back, and then at Mag. “Ms. Wilson, as one of the heads of this organization I’d like to personally apologize. This is not going to happen again.”

Yep, the next few hours would be nauseating. Better to sleep through them until someone needed her for something. Mag walked past Gradely without responding and then to the building, with Ellie smiling at her for some damned reason.

Bittermann darted past Mag to open a staff door for Mag with a bow, and shot a look of bantam defiance at Gradely, but he wasn’t looking.

The staff door opened into rows of closed and padlocked storage units. Like everything else in the compound, the structure looked brand new and a little cheap.

“I haven’t been down this way before,” said Mag. “You’ll have to lead the way.”

“Yes, m—yes,” said Bittermann. “Yes. Good. Cool.”

“Did you just call me ma’am?”

Bittermann rolled her eyes. “No.” She began to walk.

Mag followed. “Is that right? Because when someone calls me ma’am, I take it as condescending except in the bedroom.”

“Jesus!” stammered Bittermann. “I was not going to call you ‘ma’am.’ I was going to call you ‘Mag,’ but then I stopped because I’d rather call you Wilson.”

“Oh. Well, ‘Wilson’ is a man’s name, but I’ve been calling you ‘Bittermann’ in my head, so it’s cool.”

Bittermann cleared her throat. “Yes. Anyway, we’re just going to keep going straight along this hallway until we reach the barracks, and then it’s a pretty short walk.”

“Okay.” Mag waited the bare minimum amount of time necessary for a change of subject to feel natural. “So how did your Celestia ride go?”

“What?”

Mag feigned nonchalance. “You went on a magical horsey ride. Remember? She let you ride on her back. How’d that work out for you, would you say?”

“I thought I liked flying. Turns out I don’t.”

***

Mag took a drink from Bittermann’s hip flask. She didn’t know why she had it, but then again, this was only a dream. It sure as hell didn’t have apple juice in it now, if Bittermann hadn’t been lying in the first place. Now it was throat-searing hard cider, thick and rich as blood. Mag passed it to Luna, who took a healthy swallow and passed it back to Mag. Mag took a long sip and handed it over to Luna. They passed it back and forth until it was empty.

The fire made two dots of pale light burn in Luna’s eyes. She wiped her mouth with a foreleg. “Mag, What have you learned from us so far?”

“What?”

“Don’t question it. This is the time to be formal.”

Learned? Luna had been teaching her, certainly. The answers there would be obvious. Had Celestia been trying to tell her something?

Well, yes. “You taught me some magic, and how to use the book of Pasithee, if I ever remember it while lucid. You taught me that the worst things about me are advantages too, and that ‘unworthy’ is just a word.”

“Good. What else?”

“Celestia showed me there are a thousand ways to say something. She showed me you can read minds if you pay attention, and care about people. She also showed me you can talk your way out of absolutely anything.”

“What else?”

What, more? “Are you looking for something specific?”

“I’m trying to get a feel for how you’re changing,” said Luna. She scooted closer to Mag. “You are tired, but there are things we can do in dreams that won’t drain you. Important things.”

“We haven’t made you a body yet,” Mag realized.

Luna smiled at the fire. “There is no rush, but I have a possible method in mind that would not disturb your rest, which uses the tools at hand and allows us to put you through your paces.”

Mag stood up, tottering a bit from the alcohol. Luna leaned over and caught her.

“Just sit,” said Luna. “This method requires that we sit in comfort.”

“Good.”

“We are going to tell a story together,” said Luna. “It is the story of how a human woman, through wisdom and courage, quested on behalf of a patron deity to find something that deity had lost. What shall we call this story?”

“Let’s call it ‘Mag the Unworthy.’”

“Irony? How literary.” She opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it. The corner of her mouth twitched. “Here, now. A thought occurs. Celestia would be annoyed, would she not, if I took any less than every possible precaution? I think you should take refuge in the narrative power of the number three. You have your book and you have your knowledge, so I’ll place a third power in your care. We are going to perform a little trade. Stand, step back from the fire, and sit again.”

Mag had to admit she felt apprehensive. Both of the gifts Luna mentioned had come with intimidating responsibilities, and the word “trade” didn’t help at all. Which of Luna’s things would she be looking after?

Mag stood up, stepped back, and sat down. Luna stepped into the space Mag had occupied, blocking the light of the fire and enveloping Mag in the shadow of the princess of the night.

A delicate weight settled on Mag’s shoulders, on the top of her head, on her feet and back and heart and behind her eyes. A pleasant kind of cold wrapped itself around her arms like the sleeves of a jacket. A peaceful, satisfied bittersweetness settled into her. Nostalgia for absent friends. The silence of stars. Memories of the smell of rain.

Mag exhaled and could see her breath.

She looked up to find Luna grinning down at her. “There. I don’t doubt you are now as safe from harm as any human that ever lived.” She went back to her place, still smiling at Mag. “Do you notice anything different?”

Mag hardly had to think. She looked behind her to see that, yes, now she had Luna’s shadow, hooves and all. Luna spread her wings and so did her shadow, even though it was no longer connected to her.

Mag raised her arms and saw movement near Luna. She waved her arms in the air and waggled her fingers, and so did the shadow that stretched away from Luna’s form.

Mag put her arms down. “Okay, so that’s interesting. Don’t you need your shadow? I think you told me these are important.”

“In the ‘real’ world,” said Luna, making air quotes around the word “real” with her hooves, “that shadow was my armor, or a small part of it, the part I wore in times of peace. It protected me well enough, though it tended to be redundant, as crossbow bolts and lightning strikes meant little to me in any case. In dreams it does nothing at all for me. I could count on my fingers the number of forces that can harm me here.”

“You don’t have fingers.”

“Precisely. Well, no, I exaggerate, but my shadow would not avail me in any of those situations.”

Mag concentrated on the new shadow and realized she could feel the ground underneath it. The shadow was sensitive, like fingertips.

“What about my shadow?” said Mag.

“I’ll keep it safe,” Luna promised. “In fact I think I might lay a few enchantments on it. Give me time and it shall be a suit of armor in its own right, and if anything it will be more useful to you than mine is now. Where were we? Ah…”

***

The legends of Mag the Unworthy are as numberless as the pine needles of her forest home.

(Huh? First I’ve heard of it.)

(Hush. You are arguing with dreams again.)

We have all heard of Mag the Unworthy, she with her book of dreams, her magic shadow, and her spells of making and unmaking. Which story shall I tell? Have you heard of the time she won an ancient tome of power from the cunning Giant of Underlake? You have? I see. Then shall I tell you about the time she defeated the Cult of the Sun with only her wits and her friends? Oh, but everyone knows that one. Perhaps the tale of how she looked into the eyes of the King of Naught, and kept her sanity?

(None of that is—)

(Hush.)

You know all of them, then. Well, here is a story that no one knows, not even me. We shall tell it together. This one is called, “How Mag the Unworthy Built a Goddess out of Dreams.”

(We’re both telling this?)

(If you’d stop interrupting, the story would build enough momentum to tell itself, and then you might step into your role and play your part. Hush.)

(Sorry.)

Now, Mag had a friend who never left her side. Her name was Luna, and though Luna was older than Mag, they were fast friends. It is possible you’ve heard of Luna as well, for she herself belongs to many old stories, under many different skies.

(I want to hear those too. Sorry.)

(Some other time, perhaps.)

At this point in Luna’s existence, she had been brought low by forces she didn’t understand. She had no home, nor any responsibility to hold on to, nor even a body with which she might search for a new purpose. She had only her sister, the great Celestia herself, and her friend, the legend Mag.

Though Luna was not ungrateful for her remaining friends, she wished to rebuild, and, having such a powerful friend, she decided to seek her help. It would be nothing short of miraculous to create a body that could pass into the waking world. But dreams were the seat of Luna’s greatest powers, and Mag had her magic Book of Pasithee; could they not arrange for a miracle? Luna enlisted Mag’s help, though Mag resisted, believing she was Unworthy and therefore incapable.

Luna taught Mag everything she could think of on the subject of dreams. Mag, for all her strength, was a mortal and therefore had certain limitations regarding memory, understanding, and consciousness. But she learned quickly, even greedily, for she was a human and therefore delighted in knowledge. Mag grew in strength, and when Luna could no longer tolerate being without a body, Mag was strong enough that Luna enlisted her help. Giving Mag her now famous blessed shadow—

(Am I going to—sorry—am I going to have this when I wake up?)

(I haven’t the faintest idea. We shall find out together. Isn’t learning fun? And hush.)

(Sorr—)

—Luna sent Mag the Unworthy to find a way.

Away from the fire and in the absence of light, Mag closed her eyes and felt for the strange new shadow. Yes, it was still there, and the darkness empowered it. The shadow wrapped around her like a heavy cloak. She could intuit well enough how it would work. In bright light, the shadow would sharpen to a scalpel’s edge and move however she wanted it to, cutting through anything from walls to wishes. In the dark, it would be the ultimate shield, a garment of protection and healing. Its weakness would be twilight, where its edge would be blunted and it would function only weakly as armor.

Mag hugged the book of Pasithee, tried to hold onto everything the princesses had taught her, and stepped deeper into her own dreams. And that would be important to remember—these were her dreams. They would work however she expected them to work, the rules would be rules she herself subconsciously set, and every enemy was her.

(That is a useful attitude to adopt so long as you remain cautious. Forgive my interruptions, but I don’t like to leave you alone.)

Whatever Mag needed, she would find it at the center of everything, and the center of the Earth was down. The answer would be beneath her feet.

Mag searched for a way to descend into the underside of the world, and found a crevice in the sand of an endless desert of hard, cracked earth. The crevice was only a foot wide, but deep enough that she couldn’t see the bottom. This would be her way down.

How should she get into the crack? She doubted she could squeeze her way in, and trying to do so would be undignified and uncomfortable. Mag opened her book and paged aimlessly through it, past diagrams, chants, capriccios, nocturnes, equations, limericks, and a painting of a little gray moth.

Mag stopped to contemplate the moth. The artist had taken a minimalist approach, summing up the portrait with all of six or seven watercolor strokes in muted shades of gray and brown. The moth, in spite of its simplicity, had a softness and an energy to it that told Mag it could be as real as she liked.

So, then. Ride the moth into the dark, or become the moth and fly down herself?

The latter. Mag pressed the picture to her forehead and dreamed of transformation. It didn’t hurt at all.

A little gray moth with an outsized shadow flew into the dark, and, to her mild surprise, she found she liked the shape. She had never thought of moths as vermin, only as butterflies with less charisma. It felt… fuzzy. She had fuzzy legs and fuzzy feelers, which felt pleasantly feminine. And what was a moth, after all? A small animal that only ate while it was a child and lost its mouth when it reached adulthood. It rested under the light of the sun and spent its nights chasing after lightbulbs, or, so Mag liked to imagine, trying to reach the moon. Inevitably the moth would die, whether to a predator or in an accident or by starving to death.

Moths couldn’t feel fear or pain. All they wanted was light. Yes, okay, they also wanted to mate, but this particular moth didn’t see any urgency there.

Mag landed on some kind of fibrous surface. She changed back into a human to see it better.

She’d hoped to be underground, but no; she had simply found another sky with its own moon. A palace of broken towers and crumbling stone stood before her. Seeing no other obvious direction to take, Mag walked through the doors, which had been broken open years ago in some siege.

She walked and walked, and the ruins slowly turned to a well-kept but empty palace home. Eleven-foot intricate bead curtains led her to a great throne room, lavishly decorated, with silver torch sconces and a tapestry on every wall. Two rows of incense sticks burned on the floor, and between the rows there sat a line of knitted rugs leading to a golden throne. In the throne sat a king, a hunched, goggled-eyed man with the curling tusks of a boar.

“Are you the Lord?” asked Mag.

“I am,” said the king.

“I come for a miracle,” said Mag.

“My gifts only go to the worthy,” said the king.

“Then you are not the Lord, only a lord. Where is the Lord of Lords?”

The king surged to his feet. “I am the Lord, and I’ll prove it by snapping your bones.” He reached down his throat and pulled out a hammer with a haft longer than he was tall.

Mag opened her hand and held up her mage’s light, and her winged, horned, four-hoofed shadow turned black and sharp. The king rushed at her, hammer held above his head. Mag threw the light behind her so that her blessed shadow darted forward. A sweeping wing cut off the king’s right tusk and the horn put out his right eye. He bellowed in fury, and the wind of his voice put out every torch in the castle, leaving only the glowing embers of the incense.

Mag put out her light and wrapped the shadow around her. The shadow hid Mag, but the smoke of the incense swirled around her so that the king could find her by following the trails. He swung his hammer at where he knew her to be—but his hammer passed harmlessly through Mag and broke the stone beneath her feet.

Mag opened her hand and cast her light again, this time in the king’s face. The light blinded him and sharpened Mag’s shadow again. She took his remaining eye and tusk.

“You want to talk about worth? You aren’t even worth killing. Here’s my gift to you: if you find the most pathetic creature in the world and kiss its hands, your eyes and tusks will grow back.”

Mag turned to the wall and walked deeper into dreams. In truth, she was fairly certain the king would cease to exist the moment she stopped dreaming of him, and wouldn’t have time to solve her riddle if he was even a conscious being in the first place, but Luna had made it clear that adhering to form was the important thing here.

(A typical story about arrogance and retribution, with overtones of the comic book serial. Would that human folktales were not so violent.)

Gentle ocean waves pawed at the shore and kneaded the sand. A red setting sun crested the horizon, turning the few scattered clouds to tawny pink.

“I need an overcast, moonless night,” muttered Mag.

(Certainly, but now that you’ve gotten that out of your system, please look for peaceful answers in the future. This may be fiction, but the results of your decisions will not be.)

The hero watched and waited, and in the fullness of time, the moon left the sky and clouds obscured the stars, and the sea turned black. Mag pulled her shadow around herself and waded into the sea, up to her knees, up to her hips, up to her neck. The chill of the shadow protected her from the chill of the sea. She closed her eyes and let herself sink into the dark.

Her eyes were useless here, but Luna’s shadow had grown vast, and allowed Mag to feel her way through the currents. Mag floated forward and drifted downward, and ran tendrils of shadow across the sea floor as she went, until she found the end of the shallows, past where Luna’s shadow couldn’t touch the bottom unless Mag swam down. She let herself sink. The Lord would be at the center.

How would she extract a miracle from the Lord, once she found him? She refused to pray, and eating his heart to gain his powers would probably make Luna uncomfortable. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought religion into things. But why shouldn’t she? These were the folk stories she knew best, and if she might have the opportunity to twist them to her own ends, all the better.

The sensation of sinking into a lightless void, compounded with the thought of being under the surface of the open sea, gave Mag a kind of twofold vertigo. Seawater stirred and churned around her like wind, and little vortices of water curled between her fingers.

In time, Mag’s feet found purchase in sand that had never seen any sign of the sun. The water around her was thick with detritus that fell like snow to the sea floor, the disintegrated remains of everything that had died at some point somewhere up above. All the rot of the ocean surrounded her, and things crawled through it, scavengers and blind invertebrates that lived off an eternal feast.

One evening in a fit of drunk, insomniacal research and arithmetic, Mag had calculated that, if every person who had ever lived were to be given a traditional Christian burial, the graves would cover all the land in the world and their tenants would be stacked six deep. Giving humanity a proper funeral (she'd mused, scratching at the bourbon bottle label) would require creativity. Sky burial? Cremation? Cremation was cheating.

She’d settled on sea burial. Everyone would be wrapped in sailcloth with a cannonball tied to their ankles, and would be thrown overboard by whatever inherited the Earth. Moths, possibly. The result of this plan would be landscapes of cloth sack mountain ranges across the sea floor, which had struck Mag as perfectly acceptable. If humanity was to be worm food, let the worms be six feet long.

But Mag never told anyone her idea, so the worms had to live on fish bones and empty shells.

But back to work. Could a gravekeeper be a king? Mag looked up and saw a disembodied bulb of bioluminescence. The bulb was a little larger than a beach ball, but was dim enough that it illuminated nothing except itself. Mag reflexively pulled back her shadow. She could imagine what was in front of her, and didn’t particularly want to touch it.

“Are you the Lord?” said Mag.

Mag imagined its teeth parting like the blades of a threshing machine from Hell. “I am the lord of this place,” said the invisible face from behind the light. Its voice was a whispered, uninflected croak, as if these were the first words it had ever spoken.

“I come for a miracle.”

The light bobbed as the lord considered. Then it said, “I do not give gifts. Swim back to the bright waters, lost one, and make your own miracles.”

“You are not the Lord,” said Mag.

“But I am the lord of this place,” said the lord of the deep, with the finality of someone too patient and elemental to bicker. The bulb of light wafted away, eclipsed by the lord’s body at it turned. Its scales were rough and its flesh was a livid white.

“Where can I find the Lord?” Mag asked it before it could leave.

The voice was distant. “That is a secret I keep.”

“I have a secret too,” said Mag. “Let’s trade.”

“Very well.”

“I’ll go first. When I was nine I got bit by a dog during full moon. I thought I was a werewolf for nearly a week after that, and got suspended for biting people. I think that was the happiest few days of my entire life.”

“Hm,” said the lord of the deep. “Dig.”

Of course.

Mag opened her book again and flipped through it; the water didn’t touch it. After finding no digging implements or elevators, Mag gave up and turned to the back page, which was blank. On the preceding page was a picture of a pencil. She pulled it into the story, the dream, and tapped the blank page thoughtfully. What would be the fastest way down?

Mag drew a circle and filled it in. She turned the book so that the spine faced her and held the book so that it blocked her view of the sea floor in front of her. The sand hissed and flowed over her feet toward where the book faced. She closed the book, and saw that she’d made the fastest way forward, something she decided would operate on dream logic rather than what she thought of as conventional physics. A vertical chasm, and she hadn’t drawn a bottom for it. It would go down until there was no “down” left to go.

The flow of the sand pulled her off her feet. She slid into the hole and went into freefall. Come to think of it, if she hadn’t needed to set up a fairy tale narrative, she could have done this in the first place.

This would be the third lord, magic number three. Luna would approve. Couldn’t she have come up with a story that didn’t involve otherworldly royalty? She’d met so many, recently.

The worst thing about falling to the bottom of the world was that it gave her time to think, and thinking in the dark was never something Mag enjoyed. Ambrose Bierce had defined the word “alone” as “in bad company.” Mag agreed in full.

The dream shifted, light returned, and all the water was gone. She was still in freefall and the ground was a considerable distance away, but she wasn’t worried. This didn’t feel like a dying place. It felt like a dead place, and to find yourself here was to find yourself beyond all harm except inevitability.

The other end of the cave mouth was no longer above her head, only a blank gray sky. Pillars of ash-white smoke stretched from the sky to the ground, falling rather than rising, and the surface was the same shade as the smoke.

Mag landed roughly on her feet, but it didn’t hurt—there could be no suffering here except what you brought with you, and even that would be muted. There was no sensation here that wouldn’t die out in time.

The ground was soft whitish dust, the product of the pillars of falling smoke that had coated the floor of this place since the beginning of the omniverse. The surface of the dust flowed slowly, slowly, in one direction. Mag decided to follow it.

She walked without tiring, already knowing what she would find. Did she know because she’d made it or because it was already obvious to her what this place was?

The flowing dust led her to the inevitable sinkhole, wide as the base of a mountain.

The pit, the end of the story, the end of the universe. King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It didn’t think; it was the absence of thought, the absence of anything at all. Now she knew what the clouds were. In the above worlds, where things could still feel and remember and exist, each thing would live out its purpose, and when its dharma ran out it would rot. The rot would lose all character in time. Bodies turned to dust, photographs turned to dust, plants, empty bottles, discarded papers, cigarette butts, books, hopes; all stories, in the end, turned to dust and fell, kept falling and falling until they came here inside a pillar of white smoke. Eventually, every single thing would disintegrate and slip into the hole, and then the last trace of it would be gone forever.

It was time to end the story and hope for a reward.

“Are you the Lord?” asked Mag. It was a futile question, but everything was futile here. Yes, this was the Lord of creation.

“I came for a miracle.” But there was no such thing as miracles.

But the hole did have one gift to offer: whatever happened to you, you could be absolutely certain there would come a day when you and all traces of your existence would be wiped out forever.

“There is no such thing as miracles, and nowhere left to go,” said Mag, and knew the story could only end one way. She walked to the edge of the hole and looked down into it. She raised her foot to take a step—

Luna’s shadow turned jet black, threw open its wings, and wrapped Mag up like a cocoon. Mag couldn’t move.

“Absolutely not. What is wrong with you? Look up.”

The shadow unwrapped again, and Mag found herself wearing four black moth’s wings the size of sails. She took a deep breath, and flapped them once.

They wouldn’t flutter like a normal moth’s wings. They were too big for that. They would be powerful enough to let her take off, however. Mag, turning her back to the pit so she wouldn’t have to look at the thing anymore, crouched, held her wings above her head, and flapped while jumping as hard as she could.

She took off, and, taking to the air, she saw why Luna had told her to look up. In the pillars, something glowed like a star. Mag, now realizing she was fighting a downdraft, pumped her wings harder and aimed at the clouds. There was something awkward about flying in human form, but Mag tried not to think about it.

The downdraft pushed harder inside the smoke, and Mag could no longer see anything except the glow. Mag flew blindly toward the glowing speck until she had it right under her nose. She wrapped her hands around it, and felt it warm her palms.

The story ended, and Mag was sitting once again in the light of Luna’s fire, but with her hands closed in front of her.

“I think I did it,” breathed Mag.

“Mag, do humans have such a thing as psychologists?” said Luna.

“No. What’s a psychologist?”

“Liar. But time may be of the essence. Open your hands, please.”

Mag held out the glowing speck. It seemed hollow, somehow, and eerie; but noble, like the death mask of a gentle queen.

Luna leaned in to examine the speck. Mag could feel the princess’s breath on the tips of her fingers. “Ah, yes. Here we are. This, dear adventurer, is a possible solution. Close your hands again, as tightly as you possibly can. Tighter. Now… wake up.”

***

Mag woke up with her hands clenched in front of her. She sat up and opened them again, and found that the speck was still there.

“Holy shit,” said Mag.

“Indeed. Now, I haven’t yet worked out how to access your magic, but if this is at all possible then I can do it with words alone.”

“Dream-thing, can you still recognize me when there is so little left of you?” said Luna. “Wake up. Your story needn’t be over. Together we may continue, and look after one another.”

The speck began to fade.

“God-thing, to whom did you belong in life? A city? A hero? Wake again, and become the body of the wanderer Luna.”

The speck dwindled into nothing. Luna sighed.

Mag dropped her head back into the pillow. “That’s it, then?”

“For this particular plan, yes. If it is any comfort, our execution was flawless except for the part where you tried to kill yourself—don’t for a moment think I forgot that, by the way.”

“I was caught up in the mood of the place.”

“And where did that place come from? You.”

“Did it?” said Mag. “It doesn’t feel like I made that pit. It feels like I found it. And if you’d been in that place too, you would know what I’m talking about when I say that it… sort of gets into your head.”

“The distinction between finding and making can be very hazy indeed where dreams and stories are concerned, so the nature of that place is your responsibility either way. And do you recall your drawing in the back of the book, of the hole with no bottom? Yes, you created the cave with the drawing, but it could as easily be a drawing of the pit.”

“The Throne,” said Mag. “That’s its name. It’s the throne of the true god.”

“I thought it was the Lord?”

“It needs a name, so I’m giving it a name. It’s the Throne.”

“I would rather forget it than name it,” said Luna.

Mag got out of bed. She would rather not go back to sleep while Luna was scolding her. She took off her hairband and pulled a black comb out of a drawer, deciding that, after getting her hair out of her face again, she would do something about the piles of clothes. Or should she shower first?

“Hm,” said Luna. “I spy something quite interesting.”

Luna used Mag’s left hand to point at the wall. Mag saw that she still had Luna’s shadow.

“Perhaps that is where the speck went,” said Luna. “I doubt my shadow will be at full power for you outside of dreams, but it should be potent protection all the same. And—”

The shadow tilted its head without Mag moving. It opened its wings wide and then closed them.

“Ha!” said Luna. Her shadow stood up and danced a quadrupedal dance. “Look! Look at me, Mag. You can see me in the waking world, can you not?”

“I see you,” said Mag, feeling a little better. If Luna could be happy with how things had gone then maybe it wasn’t so bad.

“Let’s find Celestia and see how long it takes her to notice,” said Luna.

“Sure,” said Mag, and pulled her shoes out from under the bed.

Author's Note

Yep, two weeks late. I made a blog post warning people that this would happen, because I've got a new job that involves typing around 6-9k words every night, which means my hands usually hurt too much to write much. But the show must go on.

Personally I think this chapter is the point where I've finally gotten so pretentious that some kind of intervention might be warranted, but AA's initial response was to call it "super metal." I know of no higher compliment. Anyway, if you people had the average aversion to pretension, you wouldn't have gotten this far into ANS in the first place.
I know what metal, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYzp8N-vlC4&list=PLecmVSL7rdztHvdVFI7T-w3YWHizudgqO
Cheesy, morbid, sentimental, gloomy, pretty. Hells yeah.

Speaking of Arcanist Ascendant, he threw down over the past few days, good god. I had trouble keeping up with the speed of his editing. I can't even make a joke. I'm at a loss for words.

Also got help from Cerulean Starlight, proofreader of the chapter. He proofread the entire fic, actually, and found a disgusting number of errors. I don't know if he wants to keep doing that, but he's welcome to. The rule is still in effect, though: regarding typos and factual errors and junk, if you see something, say something. Especially factual errors. AA is apparently a fucking robot and CS has eagle eyes, but come on, none of us even has a 4-year degree yet. Google only gets you so far.

Next chapter ETA: the end of December. Sorry.

Conversation Twenty-Five

Luna stopped Mag before they could leave the room. “Have you any spare change?”

“For… the Coke machine?”

“For your decay spell practice. A single coin is fine.”

Mag went to her purse, which sat on the floor in the corner. She would need a new one soon, and a wallet as well. Being dunked in a lake and left to sit hadn’t done the thing any good; its contents had begun to smell like slime and, lately, mildew.

She found a quarter and held it in her palm for Luna to see.

“Sufficient. Now we may leave.”

Mag pocketed the quarter. After today, the quiet tedium of magic practice sounded wonderful.

She opened the door. Outside the room, Bittermann was leaning against the far wall of the corridor. She startled into a salute, realized who it was, and dropped her hand. “Oh. Right. Hi, Wilson, your majesty.”

“Where is my sister?” said Luna.

***

The quarter turned into a peso. Mag held it out for Bittermann to see. “There, look.”

Bittermann stopped walking to squint at it. Mag stopped alongside her. Bittermann took it out of Mag’s hand to look at both sides.

Bittermann gave it back. “Weird. Can you reverse that?”

“No idea,” said Mag. She closed her hand around the peso, contemplated the futility of consciousness, and channeled her dharma decay spell. It grew heavier, and Mag opened her hand again to reveal a blank slug of nickel. “Not right now, maybe.”

“Perhaps it is a matter of practice,” said Luna.

“Maybe.” Mag closed her hand around it and cast her spell again. She felt the coin disintegrate, and powder puffed out between her fingers.

Mag dusted her hands off into a trash can. “Guess I’m done for now?”

“Aye. We learned, at least.”

***

Bittermann had taken them to yet another place Mag had never seen. It looked like a hotel hallway, with wider halls, better carpets, and more natural lighting than in the rest of the compound. The motivational posters here had frames. It smelled of a different and less caustic brand of disinfectant, and they’d even passed a window, thick and plastic and yellow, with spiderwebs in the corners. It looked out over the late afternoon desert, where the mountains had turned blue with the approach of evening.

Mag huffed and puffed while she climbed the stairs. Bittermann watched her critically. “You know, you could try doing PT. We’ve got trainers who can show you how to make the most out of it.”

Mag coughed. “I smoke. You want to kill me?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with getting in shape. Not that you look bad or anything,” Bittermann added quickly, “but everyone should exercise. Anyway, we’re here.”

Four very large, very armed, very male marines guarded a closed double door. Mag heard an argument from the other side.

Mag looked up at the tallest one, feeling even shorter than usual. “Yo.”

Lantern-jawed and meticulously shaven, the man looked down without tilting his head. “Ma’am.”

Bittermann pulled an ID card out of her pocket. “Corporal Bittermann escorting Margaret Wilson to the temporary communication room, sir.”

“Go ahead,” said the guard.

The “temporary communication room” looked like a multi-room luxury hotel suite, with an abundance of square footage, tasteful eggshell wallpaper, crown molding, its own kitchen with sink and dishwasher, a half-sized refrigerator, and a 36-inch flat screen television.

Mag heard voices from the other room. “Your majesty, it might be best—” this was Jeff’s voice, beleaguered and obviously expecting to be ignored.

An old man’s voice, played from a speakerphone, cut him off. “Well, this has been interesting, but I want to resolve this tonight. Joseph, you keep telling me there’s a problem with the extradition, but when I tell you to be clearer, you start to talk about your alien. What’s that got to do with extradition law, Joseph?”

“I’m still here, you know,” came Celestia’s voice with an edge of irritation.

“Really? Joseph, I thought this was supposed—”

This sounded like a good time to interrupt. Mag strode in. “Hey guys, notice anything different about me?” She stopped moving and her shadow didn’t; it flapped its wings and tossed its mane.

Celestia, sitting on a bed and glaring at a telephone lying in its cradle, looked up and flashed a strained smile. “Hello, Mag, Luna. Corporal Terry.” Mag saw a carton of cigarettes sitting next to Celestia, Newport, unopened. Mag felt for her lighter before remembering that Luna expected Mag to light cigarettes with her fingers.

Mag looked back at Bittermann, but Bittermann had slipped into her role as decorative bodyguard, standing with her back to the wall and staring at nothing. Terry? Really? No one had told her that. She should have asked.

The voice on the other end of the line grunted. “Joseph, come on. How many people are in there with you?”

Joseph Gradely sat beside the telephone with his hands folded on the desk. “Your honor, the security clearance for this convo is low enough that a civilian could theoretically sit in, and that voice you just heard is Ms. Wilson herself.”

“Oh? Good, someone relevant. Is the other one, what’s her name—Luna, is the other princess there?”

“I am here,” said Luna, guarded. “Why am I addressing a disembodied voice? This is a communicator of some kind, I suppose.”

Jeff sat backwards in a folding chair with his forearms resting on the back. He rubbed a tired hand across his face. “He’s an important judge in Canada, Justice Ovesian. I’ve never met him in person. We were just talking about the Castans. Bit of a stickler, it turns out.”

“Justice Ovesian,” echoed the speakerphone. “I’m speaking to Margaret Wilson, then?”

“Yep.” Mag sat down on the bed, next to Celestia.

“A prosecutor will be contacting you two to discuss today’s events, although Luna should be made aware that it has yet to be proven she can legally testify in a court of law. Regardless, the prosecutor tells me you can expect him tomorrow afternoon.”

“Sure, whatever,” said Mag, “but I don’t know if I’ll be around. Sometimes I have to go on adventures. More importantly, why does Celestia look like she wants to send you into space?”

Jeff pressed his eyes into the crook of his arm and groaned quietly.

Celestia gave Mag a warning look. “Mag Wilson is kidding, of course. I would never dream of harming a human.”

“So you’ve told us,” said Justice Ovesian. “I’m sure we all believe you on that count, and, uh, we welcome you to Earth. It’s nice to meet you. But… God, will you pretty please just leave?”

Celestia glared at the phone. “Thank you for your politeness, but it pretty pleases me to stay right where I am.”

“Then—”

“Allowing this situation to continue as it has thus far is unconscionable to me. For goodness’ sake, she’s just a sheltered teenager.”

“Your arguments are interesting, I’m sure, but not relevant in a legal context.”

Mag watched Celestia’s hackles go up. “Don’t patronize me about law. I’ve been legislating since before my species invented writing.”

“Then you understand why I’m not going to take any more time arguing with you.”

Celestia spoke through clenched teeth. “Justice Ovesian, what I understand—”

“I’m not going to argue with you.”

“You—”

“I told you I’m not going to argue with you. Joseph—”

All of the furniture in the room groaned. Jeff leapt away from his chair. “Yikes! You know what? Here’s a thought.”

The entire room focused on him. He adjusted his tie and cracked his neck under the scrutiny. “How about this? Before we agree on a date for the extradition, we need to hear from the kid’s attorney. In fact, we need the attorney down here so they can talk to everyone involved. Understand the meat of the situation and all that, make sure everything is aboveboard.”

The phone grunted in irritation. “Who are you, and what are you talking about? There’s no reason to delay the process over this.”

Joseph leaned back in his chair and steepled his hands. “No, I like it. I like that a lot. This is turning into a very high-profile case with lots of media exposure, and every aspect of it is going to be under public scrutiny. Keeping Ms. Castan’s lawyer happy is going to smooth things over in the long run.”

Jeff put his hands in his pockets. “That’s right. Any old irregularity could be spun into a mistrial by the right lawyer, eh? Wouldn’t want to lose your quarry on a technicality.”

“There are no technicalities in law,” said Justice Ovesian, “only fine distinctions that seem unimportant to the cynical and ignorant. But this is acceptable. I don’t like it, but it’s acceptable. Call me as soon as you have a hard date.”

“Will do,” said Joseph brightly. “Hey, it’s getting late, so why don’t I let you go?”

“Yes, I’d better go. And did you notice how much simpler this got when your alien left the room? Food for thought, maybe.”

Celestia hadn’t left; she’d only gone silent after Jeff had stepped in. Now she was giving a death-glare to a random spot of carpet, and hadn’t blinked in nearly a minute.

“Nice meeting you,” said Joseph, touching his still-steepled hands to his lips in a gesture that almost resembled prayer.

“Yes, nice meeting you. Have a good night.”

“You too,” said Joseph.

The judge hung up.

Three sets of eyes went to Celestia, who finally blinked. She took a calming breath and let it out. The men watched her, Joseph anxiously, Jeff with tired amusement and curiosity.

Mag decided to break the silence. “Hey, what an asshole, am I right? Let’s have him killed.”

Joseph laughed weakly. “No, we don’t do that. This definitely isn’t that kind of organization.”

“Yeah, right. A nameless military organization with an underground desert lair would never stoop that low.”

“We try to keep things legal here.” Joseph leaned back with his eyes closed. Quietly he said to himself, “I appreciate the challenge of helping to coordinate all the aligned initiatives of the compound.”

Jeff sighed. “Get dinner and go to bed, Joe.”

Celestia inhaled to speak and the room froze. She looked around and said, “Jeff, Mr. Gradely, thank you for your efforts today. I’m sorry for being difficult.” She stepped off the bed. Jeff and Gradely stood as well.

“And how long did that quarrel go on?” said Luna, speaking for the first time in minutes.

“Nearly two hours,” said Celestia. “And now I’d like to talk with Lady Castan and her little gang. They’ve been in a cell for a while and have been left alone long enough.”

“I’ll lead the way,” said Jeff with a smile. “I think I’d like to see that.”

Gradely brightened up. “And I’ll tell our guys outside to move me out. You told me you like these quarters, so we’re giving them to you.”

Celestia gave him a concerned look. “I am not going to move you out of your room, Joseph. Honestly, Jeff is right. If anything, I think I should teleport to the kitchen and ask them to send you dinner on a tray.”

Gradely was already waving a dismissive hand before the end of Celestia’s sentence. “I always appreciate the opportunity to solve a problem. Your current quarters are no longer appropriate.”

“What made them appropriate before?” asked Luna.

“I bet they’re rigged to blow in case we go hostile,” said Mag. She mimicked an expanding explosion with her hands. “Fwooogh!”

Jeff chuckled. “Good guess, but no. They’re scared to put you three near hazardous materials in case magic causes some kind of reaction. Your old room was built with defense in mind, actually. Armor in the walls, hard to reach for hostile forces, that kind of thing.”

“Gotcha. None of it helped last night, so it doesn’t matter where you put us.”

Gradely was unloading his desk drawers into a briefcase, mostly paperwork and office supplies. “More germanely, testing and observations have shown her majesty to be a fortress unto herself.” He closed the briefcase with a twin snap of clasps and pulled out a gray duffel bag. “It’s become clear that her abilities obviate most of our defensive measures, to the point where we can focus our efforts on such concerns as convenience and amenities.” He stopped what he was doing and spread his hands on the desk with the open smile of a politician. “Princesses, I’d like to take this opportunity to again convey my apologies—”

Mag gagged. “Oh my god, stop that. I’ll talk her around.”

Jeff winced again, and Celestia didn’t back her up. Had Mag said something wrong?

“All right. I hope you’re feeling well, Ms. Wilson.” Gradely walked out, calling, “Sergeant, I’ll be rooming in suite D now. Help me move my effects.”

Celestia gave Mag a sour look. “‘Talk her around’? I understand what you meant, but I am in no mood—” she faltered and looked down at the floor. Her eyes widened. “What—how? What? What in—”

Mag glanced at the carpet to see what Celestia was talking about. Luna’s shadow stood and flared its wings. “Ah, yes, that. I believe I’ll enjoy telling this story; it makes us both look quite clever. In essence, we performed a feat of narrative legerdemain in the context of dreams and then attempted to draw the consequences into the prosaic world.”

Celestia rolled her tired eyes. “And that means?”

“We built a folktale at the end of which I find the means to regain my body, and then we attempted to enact those means after Mag woke up. You see the result.”

“Huh?” Bittermann blurted out from behind Mag. She covered her mouth and cleared her throat. “Sorry.”

“They tried to sneak a dream into the real world,” Celestia translated. “Well, tell me the whole story.”

“The tale is called ‘Mag the Unworthy,’” proclaimed Luna. “Mag, that box says it contains cigarettes. Let us smoke while I tell it.”

“Next to an open window, please,” said Celestia.

Luna’s version of the dream was even more embarrassing than Mag expected. Luna obviously took more pride in Mag’s performance than Mag did. She used the same heavy-handed tone as when they’d first told it together, and either downplayed or left out the bits that made Mag look stupid. She also left out the part where Mag almost stepped into the pit.

At the end of the story Celestia clopped her forehooves in applause, with no visible sarcasm. Bittermann gave Mag a dewy-eyed look that for some reason made her uncomfortable.

Celestia chuckled. “Oh, I needed that. Mag, you’re a strange creature, and a special one.”

Mag fumbled for a way to nullify Celestia’s compliment. “What—no. No one is special. That’s just something they tell preschoolers so they don’t give up too early in life.”

Celestia snorted. “I can tell you’re flustered because you’re laying it on so thick, but it’s too late. I’m already impressed with you. You too, Luna. This reminds me of the time you tried to make two mirrors switch reflections, and the end result was two mirrors that only ever showed your face. Luna, I’m sure you’re disappointed, but you know, your powers often lead to some impressive accidents.”

Luna’s shadow shook its head. “I cannot disagree. They even put me in the body of a mortal without my consent. If indeed that is the work of my powers.”

Celestia gave Mag a sly smile. “It’s exhilarating to be right about something, after being so… horribly wrong, about so many things, over the past few days. And I must be a preschooler, because I still believe everyone is special. What do you have to say to that?”

“Let’s just go tell Castan she’s going to jail.”

***

Celestia and company teleported to the cells without fanfare. A marine in a folding chair looked up from his DS, goggled at Celestia, and snapped the device closed. He shot up from his seat and saluted, revealing a bare and startlingly hairy wrist. “Ma’am! No emergencies since you’ve left, ma’am!”

“Don’t let me interrupt you,” said Celestia. “Just open the outer door to the cells, please. I need to talk with your guests.”

“Yes, your majesty.” The guard with the DS and the arm hair took out a radio and spoke into it. “C9T2 opening door for princesses plus other two.” The radio crackled something unintelligible.

Luna added, in a voice perfectly audible to the guard, “Ponies regarded this use of teleportation as mildly rude, of course, to be darting from room to room in another’s household without warning. Luckily, humans are not familiar with our social conventions.”

The lock clicked open without the guard touching it. He entered the room and held the door open. “Your majesties.”

“How polite they’ve become while we slept,” observed Luna. “An attempt to placate me after this morning’s security failure, I assume? But I am notoriously implacable.”

The guard didn’t respond, so Mag stepped past him without comment.

The cells were overbright with the sterile blue of fluorescent tube lights set in a low ceiling, with well-scrubbed concrete walls and floor. Four of the six cells were empty and two contained two each, Brown Eyes and Admittedly Pretty in one cell, Bunny and Valérie Castan in the other. Eyes and Pretty were playing some card game again. Bunny and Valérie were laying in their respective beds. Valérie had taken the top bunk. All Mag could see of her was her face, which she’d just lifted to reveal red eyes, dyed black hair and smudged eyeliner, her foot hanging off the edge in an oversized white tube sock.

Bunny’s nose wrinkled and Mag realized she reeked of cigarettes. Then the prisoners, starting with Valérie, realized who had come to see them. Valérie dropped her face into her pillow on the pretext of lifting herself up, but Mag could see the girl scrubbing away the tears and running makeup. Bunny surged up from her seat on the bed and gripped the bars of the cell, looking trapped, wary, and protective. Eyes and Pretty went to their bars as well, Pretty with awe and Eyes with tired dignity. Together, they formed a united front.

Valérie dropped from her bunk and took a place by Bunny. “Your majesties,” she croaked, out of breath and raspy from crying.

Celestia had pulled that “princess smile” of hers into place, but then the fixed smile and the silence went on for too long and Mag saw that Celestia’s gaze kept returning to Valérie’s red face and ravaged makeup. The princess was at a loss, regardless of her expression.

Mag decided she’d have to handle it. “Hey, so I missed a bunch of what happened, but the gist of it is—”

Celestia cut her off. “Everything is going as planned.” She radiated maternal benevolence and sincerity. “Your Canadian officials learned to take me seriously after some coaxing, I had a very productive discussion with the judge, and an attorney is on the way to make sure you’re being taken care of. There’s still a lot to do, but I’m in control of the situation.”

Valérie sagged against the bars. “I… see. Thank you. Thank you, your majesty. I know I haven’t given you a reason to do any of this. I forgot to say this, but I’d dearly like it if you didn’t judge the Castan family by my own actions.”

“I don’t need a reason to do this, Valérie,” laughed Celestia. “I couldn’t do otherwise. This is what I am. If I can’t help you and people like you, what am I? Anyway, now you know. And if you’ll excuse me, I need to leave. Mag? Luna? I need to leave now.”

Valérie curtsied despite not wearing a dress. Her guards bowed with their hands resting on the spot on their hip where a sword might have hung.

Celestia teleported away with Mag and Luna before Valérie could speak.

***

Bittermann still wasn’t comfortable with sudden teleportation, judging by the way she flinched after realizing she was back in Celestia’s new bedroom. Mag patted her twice on the back. Bittermann looked away, but brushed Mag’s shoulder with the tips of her fingers.

Celestia stood stock still, staring at the same spot on the carpet she had while arguing with the judge. The fake smile was still in place.

“You are tired,” said Luna. “We can sort this out tomorrow.”

“Pure cowardice and we both know it,” Celestia muttered. “I really hate it when humans cry. I’m never sure what to do.” She looked up. “What am I doing? Luna, what am I doing?” She began to pace the room. “Am I even helping? I argued with a judge and only got him to dig in his heels, and then I told Ms. Castan a half-truth to make the both of us feel better. These are my accomplishments for the evening, other than—” Celestia’s voice caught. She started again. “Anyway, for the life of me, I can’t see what else I could have done.”

“You are keeping busy, is what you are doing. That is worthwhile even if you did nothing else productive. And who knows? Perhaps you’ve laid groundwork for future influence in Canada. Perhaps no one else likes this judge you met, and you’ve inadvertently made friends elsewhere by slapping his rump. It is also possible the Castan girl needed a comforting lie—not that I typically condone such things, but to be fair… it’s not as if… after all…” Luna floundered to a halt. Her shadow raised a hoof as if about to begin a sentence, then let it fall.

“You don’t typically condone such things,” Celestia said to the wall. “No, you don’t. And if you said she deserved better, you’d be right. I also told Mag I wouldn’t always protect humans from hard truths.”

Mag shrugged. “Eh.”

Celestia closed her eyes. “Lately I’ve been thinking about an old friend. I’ve been thinking of visiting, and I can’t stand to put it off anymore.”

“Who?” asked Luna.

“I’d rather go alone.”

“No,” said Luna.

Mag raised a finger. “Is this about danger? Because, I mean, speaking of protecting humans when you don’t need to, I keep living through things.” Changing, but still living. “And we talked about this already.”

“It’s safe, but I’m…” she gave Mag a helpless look. “This sounds childish, but I’d like to stop being a princess for a little while, and I can’t do it while you’re watching.”

Mag frowned in thought. “Sounds interesting. Does your hair stop waving? Do you get shorter?”

“No, it just looks like this.” Celestia removed her crown and collar, and set them on the bed with a clink of gold on gold. Nothing else changed. “It’s a social role, really. I’ve only had the title for a couple thousand years.” She laughed. “Luna, do you remember our original royal regalia?”

Luna snickered into a hoof. “Twin auroras, gilded barding, jeweled antlers. How impressive we thought ourselves.”

Celestia stuck her tongue out. “Like foals dressing themselves for the first time. I still like the auroras, though. The corona, the paraselene. Someday we should wear them ironically. When we run out of people who take us so seriously.”

“Have you noticed how rich this language is in figures of speech? At this moment, those that come to mind are ‘gilding the lily’ and ‘putting lipstick on a pig.’ Choose for yourself which most applied.”

“Both.” Celestia shook her head. “Heavens. I wish someone had laughed at us.” She closed her eyes. “I wish there was someone to laugh at us.”

“We are coming with you,” said Luna.

Bittermann leaned in. “And, um, I’m her bodyguard. So um. I have to.”

“And you can name me court jester when you go back to being a princess if you need someone to make fun of you,” said Mag. “Did you get around to reading any Shakespeare? He had a play about an old guy who stopped being king, and wandered the world with his faithful fool. Let’s just ignore how that story goes and pay attention to the established precedent. Eh? Eh?”

“No,” said Luna. “I’ve no use for fools who cannot juggle.”

“I can juggle,” said Bittermann timidly.

“You are hired.”

Celestia barked a non-laugh and cast a spell.

***

The smell of lakewater touched Mag’s nose. Now they were at the lake by the convenience store Mag had worked at until a few days ago. The sky was clear and the stars were out. Bittermann spluttered.

Mag whirled around in the dark. “Is there any kind of distance limitation on this, like, at all?”

Celestia, her attention fixed on the lake, didn’t answer.

So Luna did. “Well, technically, but it’s a distance of light-minutes. The only meaningful limit is that it must be on the same plane, and that she must have been there in the past.”

“So basically you guys can do whatever you want so far as the laws of physics are concerned,” said Mag. “Fine, cool, whatever, physics is stupid.”

“We’ve traveled farther in the past, you know,” murmured Celestia. “The distance between the mirror of my world and the mirror of yours is much further.”

Bittermann cleared her throat. “Your majesty?”

“Who?” said Celestia with arched eyebrow. “Luna is the only princess here.”

“Pri—ma’am, where are we?”

“The lake where I first came to this world. I’ll use the reflection in the water to find my way back into one of the spaces between planes.” The lake was beginning to freeze for the evening. Celestia broke the forming ice with a strike of her hoof and stepped into the water. “Luna?”

“The coordinates are damozel eglantine elegant fioritura. Pardon the complexity, but the water is largely frozen.”

Mag grabbed Celestia’s tail and Bittermann’s hand. Bittermann’s eyes widened and her arm stiffened, but after a moment she relaxed and let Mag lead her to the water.

Bittermann watched Celestia lowering herself into the water, saw that Mag was following her. “What’s going on? Magic again? P—ma’am?”

Mag tossed her pack of cigarettes onto the shore. “Clench your teeth or something, or maybe don’t. I don’t think anything will help. By the way, can pistols get wet?”

“Yes? Kind of? Are we really—ah! Sheezus!” Her hand tightened painfully around Mag’s as they stepped into the lake. Mag let herself fall forward.

***

Mag landed well, more or less. Her hands had gone numb, so she hadn’t noticed, but Bittermann had jerked away. Now she lay huddled on her side in the grass just as Mag had, though she also fumbled blindly for her gun and was trying to get her legs underneath her. Celestia cast her warmth spell over the three of them. Bittermann shuddered.

Mag helped her up. Bittermann leaned into Mag’s shoulder—she was surprisingly heavy, and Mag had to brace against her.

A person is touching me, thought Mag. It was a heady thought.

“I c-c-can feel y-you shaking too,” Bittermann breathed into the joint of Mag’s shoulder. She could feel Bittermann’s mouth moving. Again there was that discomfort; her awareness of others had sharpened a bit now that she’d slept and taken the time to relax, and there was something about Bittermann’s demeanor that stood out to Mag, a rawness or skittishness. She’d seen it before. Where?

“Yes, yes, we are all cold,” said Luna. “Celestia, what has gotten into you?”

Celestia looked over her shoulder. “We can talk later. It’s not safe here.”

“If we must, but you seem… perturbed. Alarmed.”

“I’ve been thinking,” said Celestia.

Bittermann clasped Mag’s shoulder and straightened. Her other hand hovered near the holstered grip of the pistol Jeff had given her. “Wh-what is—” another shiver shut her throat.

Celestia teleported them once again.

***

“You are beginning to alarm me as well. Why do we hurry? What do you expect to hear?”

Celestia looked into a mirror like any of the others, though the wooden frame had very few words carved into them.

Bittermann pointed at a row of curling symbols. “What does that mean?”

“Sh!” whispered Luna. “This place is not safe, particularly for mortals.”

Celestia glanced at Bittermann. “It’s the Equestrian word for ‘peace.’ I wrote it a long time ago.” And now Mag could see what Luna was talking about; it was subtle, but there was something about the way Celestia held herself. Her shoulders had the set of someone trying not to tremble.

***

This time Celestia cast her warmth spell the moment Mag and Bittermann passed to the other side of the mirror. Honestly it didn’t help as much as she would have liked, but Mag appreciated the thought.

The sky burned with stars. There was no moon, but the stars lit the air like moonlight, particularly one white-silver dime that Mag supposed was this world’s sun, larger and brighter than Earth’s pole star, but not as large or bright as Earth’s moon.

Bittermann was clinging to Mag again. Mag pried Bittermann free of her shoulder with what she hoped was an acceptable level of tact, and crouched to touch the ground.

“Huh,” muttered Mag. It was thick paper, dry with age but otherwise undamaged, not at all wrinkled by sun or rain. Mag’s searching hands found a seam between two sheets, and picked at the edge to see what lay underneath. She found another layer of paper like the first, and going by the resilience of the surface, there were likely other layers of paper under that.

Bittermann hadn’t looked at the ground. From the moment she’d entered the world, her eyes had latched onto the sky. “Where is this?” she whispered.

“If this world had a name, I never knew it,” said Celestia. “It’s the safest and most peaceful place I’ve ever heard of. Keep it a secret, please.” Annoyance touched her face. “In fact, don’t even mention it out loud on Earth. The Eldest would hear, and he’s the type of person who might plunder it somehow.”

“Well, I guess he could sell all the paper,” said Mag. “Now what?”

***

To Mag’s eyes it looked like a great willow tree more than anything, but with stiffer foliage that rattled together in a breeze Mag hadn’t noticed before. It muttered like rain. Under the tree Mag could see a reflection of the leaves and the stars; the tree grew out of a pond. The water pawed at the paper shore. It smelled restless and clean, and the breeze that passed over it was as cold as a bedsheet in winter.

“Don’t step into the water,” said Celestia.

“Aye, it’s deep as can be—quite literally, for there is another pool of water on the geographic antipode of this point, and we believe these two pools meet. But fear not; if you fall in, Celestia will fish you out.”

Mag heard the slicing of paper. She turned to see Celestia dragging the tip of her horn across the paper ground. She looked up. “Yes, of course. And have a drink, if you like.” She levitated a square of paper and began to fold. “This world used to be inhabited. It’s interesting, if bittersweet. Most worlds aren’t inhabited, you know, and many regents rule no one but themselves.” She’d made a paper boat. She set it on the water, and blew on it. The boat set sail.

Celestia looked away from Mag and at the ground. Mag heard, again, the sound of cutting paper. “When I first found this place I didn’t know what it used to be, but it became my secret haven, and over several years I noticed the taste of former sapience in the aether.” She folded another boat. “But I found no other remains. So I asked Luna—”

“Which was the first time you told me about this place,” said Luna.

“I enlisted her to examine the dreaming substrate of this world.” Celestia set off another boat.

“I did so,” said Luna. “I learned about the people of this place. I also learned that this world has but one tree, and that the tree dreams.”

Celestia loosed another two boats. “This paper is made from the leaves of this one tree. All of this paper, layers and layers of it, covering the globe. Quite an old tree, isn’t it?”

“The tree dreams of light. It sees patterns of light made by great lattices of twine that had once stretched across the sky in a mesh. It held up intricately-cut arrangements of the leaf-paper, shaped by the minds of artists and architects, mathematicians and poets, astronomers and papermakers.”

“Patterns of light are cast by shining light through a filter, of course.” Celestia set down her eleventh boat. “Each creature was, in essence, starlight passing through a paper filter. This race procreated by cutting new patterns into paper and holding that new paper filter up to the light, and greeting the being that emerged. There—do you like my fleet?”

Mag scowled into the shade. “I can’t see it. All your boats went under the tree, and it’s dark there. And it’s just as well, because they’re starting to come off as kind of macabre.”

Celestia shook her head. “Don’t worry. All of the paper filters are long gone, and this paper was only ever the ground. Imagine this as old concrete, like I’m skipping rocks.”

Mag imagined dropping a rock into this pool. Would it make it to the center of the world, or would it catch on the roots of the tree, or would the water pressure crush it to powder?

“This world didn’t always have an atmosphere,” said Luna. “The people of light did not breathe and the tree needed only water. And so, as long as the paper never got wet, the people of paper would never change and never die. It never rained, and there was no breeze to disrupt their paper cities or their filters of light.”

Mag watched the wind ripple the water. Celestia pushed one more boat into the shade of the tree.

“Stop the story,” sighed Mag. “I just… I get it. I can see the cities are gone and obviously there’s air to breathe. Something changed and I don’t need the details, because it’s going to be banal and sad and, by the way, please stop doing the thing with the boats. What’s wrong?”

Celestia looked up at the tree. “Do you remember what I said when I met you? If my people were truly gone, I would have disappeared with them. I’m one of them. I’m one of their regents, practically a piece of their soul. I helped define them. And anyway, while there are countless regents out there with no people who follow them, I couldn’t think of a single regent who survived the end of their people.” Celestia laid down. “I couldn’t think of one. Not one.” She clenched her eyes shut and curled up. “But on reflection, I knew of one after all. Look at it. Isn’t it beautiful? The last living thing on the planet.”

Luna stammered. “No, that—what—‘tis a tree. It cannot speak, nor rule, nor lead.”

“It dreams of the old world. It lives forever and it’s as old as the planet. It spent eons dropping paper leaves for the people of this world. And Luna, why does a tree have such an incredible aura? I remember how we used to wonder.”

“This means nothing,” said Luna with raised voice. “We mistook a trend for a true law, and now you found an exception, but this answers not why our world disappeared in the first place. Know you a precedent for the disappearance of an entire world?”

Celestia opened tortured eyes. “Luna, stop. This is just proof that you’ve been right all along. Our world ended, like all worlds do, and I talked myself into thinking I’d found a reason to—” she flinched, then surged up and locked eyes with Luna and Mag. “You know what else I hadn’t thought of? We do know someone else who saw the end of Equestria. The Nightmare. It was somewhere in our world. We can hunt it down and make it tell us everything it knows about what happened. Luna, that’s all I want anymore. I want to know what happened.”

Luna glared. “When I said it was impossible to bring back Equestria, you weren’t supposed to agree with me.”

“Luna, don’t ask me to keep thinking like that. You were right to give up.”

“Of course I gave up! You doe-eyed foal, your hope was based on a technicality regarding rules we have never been certain of in the first place. Resurrecting Equestria was always impossible. That is why it was your job instead of mine.”

Celestia laughed silently, kept on laughing, tried to stop, couldn’t. “You’re allowed to let go, and I’m not?”

“Because you’ll fix it! You always fix it!” Luna seized Celestia’s jaw and pulled Celestia to face her, with a strength Mag was absolutely certain she herself didn’t have. “Schemes, secrets, stratagems! Cease your games and reveal your true plan. I know you have one. Is it Mag? You do love your cat’s paws. So many problems you left to Twilight Sparkle, or Clover, or Starswirl, or even me when nopony else would—”

Celestia pried loose Mag’s left hand. “My only plan for Mag is to teach her things, maybe to learn a few things myself, and most importantly to be friends. And do you know what my plan was to save Equestria? I planned to think about it. And because on some level I knew what I was going to conclude, I then tried not to think about it.” She gestured at the mass of leaves with her horn. “Look at it. There’s my proof. A regent, once a leader of sorts, and now alone—purpose fulfilled, I suppose. In fact maybe we should congratulate it.”

Luna stamped Mag’s foot. “This is not the answer you were supposed to come to. Am I to do it instead? Then I shall. Mag, I hope you’ve been learning well, because it appears we must carry my sister’s weight.”

“Yes, yes,” Celestia laughed. “You think I can’t function without the hope of bringing back our world. Don’t worry. I have all of eternity to get used to it, and so do you.” Celestia smiled, and the smile reminded Mag of her own, bitter and hungry.

“You will never get used to it, and I won’t let you. Think of your people! Think on their faces. Even those who never saw you as their princess but were nevertheless our charge, the griffons and manticores, the birds, the trees, the dragons. No? If you cannot recall them and feel no need to bring them back, then I shall do it myself.”

“And you want to guilt me into helping you,” said Celestia. “And I will, of course. I don’t mind. We can trade places. You can plow the ocean in my place, and I can take your place in feeling superior for giving up.”

“Your terms are acceptable. Here, you spoke of some plan to hunt the nightmare. I like that. Let Canada have their smug little brat, and we can bend our efforts on collecting information.”

“I might just tell Canada I’m keeping their brat,” said Celestia thoughtfully. “I can reframe the situation and claim her as an enemy of Equestria, to accordingly be punished by its remaining leaders. Its—” Celestia’s voice caught. “We’re all that’s left. Scars and skies, Luna, we’re the last ponies in the multiverse. Not princesses anymore, really. We’re just the Sisters again.”

“For now.”

“Fine,” said Celestia. “Fine. We’ll keeping switching off roles until we’ve both accepted that it’s over, and then we can…” She looked at the stars. “I don’t know what we do. It doesn’t matter, I suppose. We can do whatever we like, forever, as soon as we work out what happened to Equestria. That’ll be our last responsibility as princesses. Mag, Theresa, we’re done here. We can leave.”

Bittermann came out from behind the tree with a waterlogged paper boat in her hands. Celestia glanced down at it. Bittermann, uncertainty and self-consciousness written on her face, held the boat closer.

“You can keep it if you like,” said Celestia gently. “I can’t speak for this regent, not exactly, but we can assume it loves mortals in its own way. I’m sure it would like the chance to give you something.”

Bittermann looked into the water. “Is there anything we can do?”

“I wish I knew,” said Celestia. “It has everything it needs. The only thing I’ve ever been able to think of is to rest here, and dream with it.”

Bittermann tucked her hands into her armpits. Her eyes traced the silhouette of the great tree and up to the stars. She caught Mag watching her, froze, and stopped breathing.

“So your name is Terry?” asked Mag.

Bittermann twitched at her own name and hugged herself tighter. They locked eyes and Mag put everything together with growing horror.

It was obvious if you really looked at her, and if you remembered she’d only just finished being a teenager. She was afraid of Mag in that particular way, afraid for her soul, because Mag could smash it with a few words.

A kid with a crush. On her. How? What? How? What the fuck? Wait, Bittermann was gay? Did Mag still have her riding crop somewhere? And since Mag was straight, did it matter?

Worlds away from Earth, and Mag was still having human problems.

Author's Note

Yeah, okay, so it's been like six months. I almost gave up, but then I didn't. I have the outline for the next chapter and a few scattered lines written, so let's see if I can get chapter 26 out without doing that thing where I just stop writing for months on end.

Editor And glorious Adonis Arcanist Ascendant and I spent a couple thousand words worth of comments in a Google Docs draft arguing about every other thing. And then I brought in a couple proofreaders, who had MORE to say. that'd be Cerulean Starlight and Sky Paladin, who would definitely have earned their pay if I were paying anyone for any of this. Yeah, they found a bunch of typos, grammar errors, some things I didn't make clear, repeated words... I don't understand how you people found the time to help with this, considering how much we had to do, but you did it. Thanks, my dudes.

As for the rest of you, yeah, I know you can't remember what's going on in this story anymore. My response is as follows: oops. I'll try not to do that again. :twilightsheepish:

Conversation Twenty-Six, with Interview

Privately, Mag considered herself a bigot.

She’d fought it for the last decade. She took a battery of sociology classes at the most infamously liberal college she could find, and spent days humiliating herself in those classes working through her remaining doubts. “How are we supposed to feel about white extinction?” she’d ask a professor. And the next week, “What is the gay agenda, anyway, and are heterosexuals allowed to help?”

Professors would laugh, then realize she was serious. Mag would play devil’s advocate until she ran out of counterarguments or until the professor lost all patience, whichever came first.

But the intellectual approach only took her so far, and dropping out didn’t help. Mostly what Mag took away from her college experience was a clearer view of who she wished she could be. She now understood that she shouldn’t clutch her purse and walk faster when passing a group of black men in the street, and so she didn’t. She knew to show no discomfort or disgust that her grocer was gay, because that would be cruel. She knew a number of synonyms for men in turbans, and she used none of them to describe her boss, because there was nothing wrong with wearing a turban.

And so she survived by never allowing instinct to guide her in social situations. It worked, so far as she could tell. Years of working registers also taught her that what she really didn’t like was customers. She also learned to dislike all college students, her neighbors, married people, pet owners, children, excessive talkers, people with careers, people with hobbies, attractive men, women wearing Tweety-Bird t-shirts, herself, her coworkers, and the management. One could argue this wasn’t any better, idiotic “I hate everyone equally” bumper stickers aside. But she’d changed herself into, if not a better person, at least a different one.

Mag and Bittermann—Theresa—stared at each other.

“Huh,” said Mag. “So… hm.” She noticed Celestia had wandered away at some point.

“Fetch me later,” Luna whispered in Mag’s head.

Bittermann cringed. “Oh, god. Not right now, okay? We’re on a mission.”

Mag scratched her cheek and avoided Bittermann’s eyes. “No? Not feeling sentimental right now?”

“No,” said Bittermann.

“You never said you were gay.”

“I’m not.”

Mag toed the paper at her feet. It crinkled. “I’m Californian, you know,” she half-lied. “We’re open-minded. Let’s talk about that.”

Bittermann just stood there, staring down at Mag, who couldn’t see her eyes in the dark. “This isn’t your problem.”

Mag found herself in an emotional gridlock. She’d made a friend. She’d made friends with a lesbian. Her new friend was attracted to her and wouldn’t talk about it. Mag was straight, but she got the feeling she’d fucked more women than Bittermann had, and she hadn’t gotten laid since college. She very much wanted to shave her legs.

Mag studied Bittermann’s hands, bluish white in the dark, long and slim, leading to angular limbs and square shoulders. She imagined holding that hand but didn’t reach out for it.

“So either I didn’t read things right, or you’re in the closet. Is it because you’re in the military?”

Bittermann walked away. “You didn’t read me right.”

“Fine,” Mag said to Bittermann’s back. She hoped that was the end of it. She hoped it wasn’t.

***

Mag lay in the dark of Celestia’s new room, on a low cot she’d set up in front of the dresser. She listened to Celestia’s even breathing but couldn’t make herself sleep.

She would have preferred a friend to a girlfriend. For that matter, she would have preferred a boyfriend to a girlfriend. She’d given girls a shot back in college and found the experience interesting in its own way, but not worth going out of her way for.

What was it like, to be with someone you didn’t hate? She’d never tried it. People Mag liked were too rare and precious to risk on a relationship. Better to screw people she disliked, didn’t trust, wouldn’t miss if they left. And that had been her attitude before she’d given up entirely on sex.

What would it be like? It might be like her very first time in the back of the family car, which she’d stolen that evening. They’d had to guide each other’s hands. They’d spoken in whispers even though there was no one around for miles. Mag had actually kissed his cheek.

Would it be like starting all over again? Now, here in the dark, that worried her more than anything else. She’d open herself up to making all the same mistakes she had in the past, but this time, it mattered.

She couldn’t talk to Celestia about it. Celestia had better things to worry about, and anyway, she’d be painfully upbeat and supportive, immediately absolve Mag of any past failures, tell her when to apologize and when to stay and when to leave.

And what would Mag do about Luna? How could one have a relaxed and spontaneous relationship with another friend looking out from behind your eyes? Luna wouldn’t always be able to leave, or even necessarily know when to leave, and Mag had no interest in a poly relationship that included Luna. And how did Bittermann feel about all this? Was that why she hadn’t said anything?

Mag bit her lip.

***

They sat together, watching Luna’s pale bonfire in her marble temple under the stars. Neither had anything to say. In the absence of conversation, Mag realized she could hear dripping water somewhere in the dark. She chose not to go out and look for it. Tonight, she didn’t want to leave the fire.

Luna closed her eyes and lowered herself to lie on the warm, striated marble floor. Mag lay back as well and let the fire warm the soles of her bare feet.

Mag tried to let her mind rest. She didn’t want to ruminate anymore. She was so tired of thinking and feeling. She felt as if her brain had been replaced with broken glass. Any thought that crossed her mind, any object or trinket that asked for her attention, jostled the shards painfully against the back of her eyes and the inner bones of her skull.

Celestia had given up. With Luna glaring into Celestia’s eyes, Mag had watched a light go out in them. Luna could be in more than one place at once in her dreams; was she with Celestia now? Were they sitting together in front of a similar fire? Did Celestia have a bonfire of her own, or did they share it? If Mag stepped through the bonfire in front of her, would she come out the other side under a different sky and find Luna and Celestia huddled together?

The broken glass shifted. Mag twitched away from the thought.

“You are having a bad dream,” said Luna.

Mag laced her fingers under her head. “At least it’s a quiet one.”

“No, elsewhere. This is my dream. Your own dreams carry on without you, like a hurricane that has lost its eye.”

Mag rolled to face the fire and rested her cheek on the tile. “I don’t need to know the details, right?”

“Mm. No.”

The bonfire was the same color as the stars.

“I want to go home,” said Luna.

***

Bittermann didn’t show up the next morning. Someone else had taken her shift, a stiff black woman in her 30’s who saluted to Celestia when she introduced herself, and now hadn’t put her hand down in hours. Luna quietly asked Mag whether it would be rude to ask the woman whether it felt any different to be black; Mag shook her head quickly and made sure her mouth was full whenever possible, just in case Luna hadn’t understood.

Celestia sat back from her half-empty bowl of Cheerios, tapped her spoon against the rim of the bowl to shake off a drop of milk, and set it on her folded paper napkin. She met Jeff’s eyes. “An interview,” she said. “And to your organization that’s the same as a preliminary press conference?”

Jeff held a hand up in apology. “I know, I know. Your majesty, I think we’ve accidentally given you the wrong impression about our resources.”

Celestia folded her hooves on the table in front of her. “Oh?”

“Yes, we have money, and, shall we say, a certain amount of foresight.”

Mag brushed toast crumbs from her hands and wished she had a plausible reason to ask about Bittermann. Instead she said, “Foresight as in… getting your orders from that magic cult thing, with their prophecies and junk?”

Jeff smiled. “As I said. But what we don’t have is political capital or non-clandestine relationships with any significant public force. Your majesties, I have the US president’s personal cellphone number in my pocket, but that’s not the same thing as being the president. I can’t call him whenever I like and I can’t count on him to have my back.”

Celestia’s eyebrows furrowed. “So rent an amphitheater in the nearest town and inform the local newspaper that I’ll be there tonight.”

“We also don’t move as quickly as we like to pretend. I’ll be honest—you scare the daylights out of a whole lot of important decision-makers out there. That means government oversight, and by multiple governments. We’re talking bureaucracy, phone-tag between nations, mountains of triplicate paperwork. I’d say every two minutes we talk generates another hour’s worth of forms I have to fill out.”

“And yet,” said Luna, “you don’t wish us to take matters in hand ourselves. You understand, do you not, that we can simply fly to any inhabited location on Earth, speak with anyone who happens by, and expect to see journalists of some kind within the hour? In fact, sister, why did we not do this in the first place? I’ve forgotten your reasoning.”

“A demonstration of good faith,” said Celestia. She picked up her spoon with her hoof and stirred her cereal. “I wanted them to see us working with humans and making friends. And…” Celestia stopped stirring. “I was, well, hoping their scientists or their machines could… could help us.”

“And this human organization might be the key, is your thinking. Or might it not. There are billions of humans. The answer could be to make inroads with their governments, but it might instead be to speak to as many as possible through as many channels as we can reach.”

“Hence the press conference, which would be the best of both worlds,” said Celestia. “Or, I suppose, this interview.”

“And,” said Jeff. “And this interview. Not or. We will give you the media event as soon as we can make it happen, but since the process gets more complicated the more we pursue this, I’m hoping you’ll accept an interview until we get this sorted out.”

“And apparently neither of us has any impact on Ms. Castan’s fate,” said Celestia. “Another little problem I could solve in a heartbeat if I took things into my own hooves. Jeff, here’s the problem. I’m no longer trying to save Equestria.”

“I still am,” Luna growled.

“She still is,” admitted Celestia. “But her approach to this kind of thing tends to be more straightforward.”

Luna smiled with Mag’s face. “I don’t dislike you or your masters, but I’ve no investment in your goodwill. If I wanted a press conference, I would have arranged it myself without asking your permission. If I wanted the Castan girl to stay out of prison, I wouldn’t have given her to you to begin with. I am predictable; you may always expect me to choose self-reliance over diplomacy.”

Celestia held up a hoof. “Well, let’s not forget that they’ve been housing and feeding us. And trusting us, too, which they don’t have to do.”

“Hmph. They trust us even less than I trust them, but I take your point.”

“Would you trust us?” Celestia drank her tea.

“No, but you would.”

“Vagabond gods were the responsibility of the night court, Luna.”

“And I had soup and soda crackers for all of them. But if they desired a press conference and mercy for one of our felons, I would have sent them to you.”

“And I’d have sent them back.”

Mag felt her eyebrows twitch with Luna’s irritation. “Fine, then. You wish to leave this to me? Then I say wait for the press conference, accept the interview offer for the sake of simplicity, arrange your own extradition treaty with America, and tell the president that kidnapping a princess and an Equestrian citizen far outweighs any crimes this girl committed against these other nations. Take her into your own custody and then leave her somewhere she might learn humility.”

Celestia considered her bowl of Cheerios. She lifted it with magic and drank the rest, both milk and soggy cereal, and set the bowl aside. “And the Nightmare?”

“We hunt it down.”

Celestia poured herself another cup of tea. “We do have an unexpected advantage there, don’t we? Mag has an artifact of Pasithee. Maybe the ideal one. How is her training going?”

Jeff, thoughtful with hands clasped in front of him, rippled a set of fingers against the back of his other hand. He made eye contact with Mag and she realized he wasn’t looking at Luna.

“Her training?” said Luna. “She is not conscious of most of it, still, and she certainly won’t be using the book to singlehoofedly slay a sentient concept. But give her long enough and she will become a weighty asset, though never a warrior, I think.”

Celestia sipped her tea. “Well, after all that, how can I say no? We’re going with your plans. Jeff, I’d like to explain certain points of Equestrian law to you.”

Jeff smiled. “I’m glad you two worked it out, though I should tell you your schemes for Ms. Castan aren’t going to make you very many friends.”

“Say rather that we’ll soon learn who our real friends are,” replied Luna. Celestia laughed ruefully.

Jeff nodded. “Regardless, let’s talk about that interview. It sounded like you’re interested?”

Celestia nodded acquiescence. “But I should tell you I’ve already promised one Bob Carpeter that he’d have the first interview, so I’ll have to insist he be involved. I’m not certain which press agency he works for, but we met on the lakeside, so you have his face on one of your recording devices.”

“We’ll contact him, your majesty. But one thing…”

“Hm?” said Celestia, with a note of warning.

“Mr. Carpeter works for a small-town news organization, and, since we’re hoping to print the interview, they just don’t have the resources to keep up with the demand we’ll probably be looking at. What if his crew worked with a larger organization?”

Celestia smiled. “Maybe. Do you have any in mind?”

“Well, it just so happens we’ve had quite a few offers.” He counted them off on his fingers. “The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, Us Weekly, People, Hong Kong Press, Al-Jazeera, Playboy—”

Mag frowned. “Playboy? What does Playboy want?”

“An interview,” said Jeff.

A grin crept up Celestia’s face. “Playboy sounds rather a lot like Playcolt. Would this news organization happen to publish photo collections of attractive women?”

“Alongside articles.” Jeff nodded. “They’ve had some high-profile interviews, actually. Martin Luther King, John Lennon…”

Mag didn’t know what was what anymore. Luna snickered, and Mag realized this was really happening.

“And how many weeks will it take to arrange this interview?”

“To get you in a room with a single interviewer? Give it a day.”

“I have plans tomorrow morning. What if everyone involved could teleport?”

***

Celestia made herself comfortable on the loveseat in the TV room of her suite, taking up both places. Sitting boyishly on the floor with his paunch tucked under a wood and glass coffee table, balding Bob Carpeter of The Big Bear Herald and Forecast arranged his notes in a rough circle around him. They consisted of pages torn from legal pads and little pocket notebooks, scraps of newspapers from other publications, and a printout of the Playboy submission guidelines, also covered in Bob’s handwritten scrawls. Jeff sat behind him in an armchair with his elbow on an armrest and his cheek resting on his knuckles, unmoving, watching Bob.

Mag stood behind Celestia and drummed her fingers on the top of the backrest cushion. Celestia glanced at Mag’s fingers. Mag stopped.

Bob glanced up at Celestia to smile nervously. “One moment, your majesty. I’m just figuring this out.”

The door opened and Bittermann peeked in. Celestia waved at her. Bittermann saluted quickly, shut the door with her other hand, and attempted the “unobtrusive, anonymous bodyguard” stance, but couldn’t quite manage the necessary stillness with Mag looking at her. Mag went to stand beside her, leaning against the wall with her hands behind her back.

“So,” said Mag.

“I’m on duty,” was Bittermann’s ready answer.

“You may take a short break to resolve this,” said Luna. “Talk amongst yourselves; I shall be back in five minutes.”

Bittermann blinked. “But—”

Luna’s shadow faded a bit, but Mag could see it move its wings and legs as if taking to the air. Luna conjured the shadows of a book and a gramophone, which levitated beside her. She opened the book with a hoof and read.

“I didn’t ask her to do that,” said Mag.

Bittermann’s eyes went to the shadow of the gramophone. “She’s playing music? Can you hear it?”

“Nope. I kind of wish I could. I don’t know what book that is, either. Anyway, hey, listen—”

Bittermann straightened and faced forward. “Yes, Ms. Wilson?”

Mag leaned against the wall with affected calm. She forced herself to make eye contact but couldn’t hold it. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable last night. I’m just going to say you’ve piqued my queeriosity, and if you want to do anything about it, come get me. Buy me dinner, or just hang out and talk. Or we can be friends again. Were we friends? I don’t know how that works. I don’t know anything, really, so just... tell me what you want.”

Bittermann blinked with what Mag decided to interpret as an affirmative.

That, so far as Mag could tell, was all she’d be getting out of her. Mag couldn’t think of anything appropriately graceful and reassuring, so she winked and went back to Celestia’s couch.

Handling that sort of thing in short bursts struck Mag as a good strategy. Less pressure, more time to think.

What was Bittermann’s problem, though? Would there be some kind of disaster if the Marine Corps found out? She couldn’t see why. You couldn’t get much more homoerotic than the military.

Mag set the mystery aside and focused on the situation at hand. She returned to Celestia’s side.

“—is why Luna is wrong about dessert wines. And I see my moral support is here. You said you were ready, Bob?”

Bob set a cassette tape recorder on the table and flipped a switch. “Ready.”

“Ask away.”

Bob stared at his notes and swallowed. “Yes. So… good afternoon, your majesty.”

Celestia turned up her chin and waved an officious hoof. “It is, it is indeed, with weather excellent for flying.” She dropped her hoof and her chin. “Relax. We’re all friends here. Maybe I can start with a question of my own. How did you enjoy the trip here?”

“The teleport? Well, I’m impressed, though I think one of these days we’ll all want to know how that worked.” Bob turned a page and chewed the eraser of his pencil. “Hm.”

“I apologize in advance for the paperwork,” said Celestia.

“Hey, we can start there if you don’t mind.” Bob flipped his notebook and opened to an empty page. “Paperwork?”

“Paperwork. I’m told any human who interacts with me has to fill out a great deal of paperwork afterwards. I hope someone warned you.”

“Yes, that was in Mr. Jeff’s briefing.”

Celestia’s eyes narrowed. “Briefing? I hadn’t heard about this. Jeff?”

Jeff closed his eyes and leaned back. “We had a nice little talk about obligations, journalistic and otherwise, just to make sure Bob understands the situation.”

Bob waved away Celestia’s concern. “No, yes, that was all straightforward. He just told me some of his people would want to talk to me after the interview about any sensitive information you might give me. He also told me not to worry about you, your majesty, and that you’re the safest person in the room.”

Celestia pretended to glower. “Oh, am I? I should turn every weapon in the building into wildflower bouquets, and turn all the armor into climbing ivy. Would that make you feel safer?”

Jeff coughed into his fist. “And that’s the first thing we’d like you to not include in your article, Bob.”

Bob crossed out what he’d written. “If you say so. We should move on. We humans have seen you on camera and obviously a lot of us are going to read this article, but we don’t know much about Princess Luna. Can you tell me about her?”

Celestia laughed. “Luna the pony, Luna the loved one? I could describe her forever. She’s my beloved little sister, the heart of my heart, my oldest friend, my most interesting nemesis, and my favorite person. She’s also foul-mouthed, arrogant, blunt, and self-righteous, and I love her for all that too. Reader, if you have a dream about her, be on your best behavior; it may in fact be her.”

“Wow,” said Bob. He checked the time on his tape recorder and wrote it down with a small note. The note said, “wow.”

He tapped his pencil on the paper. “And Princess Luna shares a body with Mag Wilson? Am I getting that right?”

“For the moment,” said Celestia.

Bob cleared his throat and rearranged his legs. “One theory I’ve heard—I don’t believe it, personally—is that either Ms. Wilson or Princess Luna isn’t real.”

“They’re both real. Right, Mag?”

“I’m 99% sure. I try not to think about it.”

“Two different auras,” confirmed Celestia.

Bob didn’t look at Mag. “The world has heard a few descriptions of Ms. ‘Mag Wilson,’ and some of them sound a little like your description of Princess Luna. Would you say the two are similar in any way?”

Celestia glanced at Mag. “How very carefully worded. Well, I think they’ve been rubbing off on each other, and I know they egg one another on sometimes, but that’s not what you meant. Two separate auras, Bob. One overlapping the other.”

“Sorry, your majesty. How did you meet Ms. Wilson?”

“I met her on the lakeshore immediately after passing into this world. Within five minutes she convinced me that humans could help me bring back my world.”

Mag hadn’t heard this before.

Bob hunkered over his notes. “How did she do that?”

“I asked her to describe humans. She told me you are all, to quote, ‘a murderous pack of absolute bastards.’”

Mag caught Jeff rolling his eyes. He saw her looking and flashed a reproachful smile, as if he’d caught her eating too many cookies.

“In other words,” continued Celestia, “she showed artfulness and a capacity for idealism, and by extension the same for all humans. What more could I want? It’s also possible that exhaustion and desperation made me optimistic, but optimism is better than the alternative anyway.”

Mag cringed inwardly. There was something almost tyrannical in the way the princesses attached meaning to every little thing people did. Sarcasm and offhand remarks became dangerous. What else had Mag said that Celestia saw hidden meaning in, gave secret importance to? What about Luna?

Bob was paying less attention to his notes now that he’d warmed up. He scribbled in his notebook absentmindedly. “And how can humans help?”

Celestia broke eye contact with Bob. “And now I have to tell you my conclusions about my quest. I’m sorry.” She closed her eyes and rested her head on the cushion. “I’m so sorry. You can’t help me. I’ve realized this over the past 24 hours. Do you know what the remains of Equestria look like? It’s an airless black void and nothing is left but dust and mirrors. Dead.”

She lay there silently, long enough that Mag thought she’d fallen asleep.

She pulled another cushion over her head and held it over her eyes with a cocked hoof. “You humans. You’re so excited about us. You thought you’d met another race of intelligent creatures, and your race didn’t have to be alone anymore—I can hardly imagine the terrible quiet of a world with only one race. But I’m afraid there are only two living ponies left. Luna, are you there? Talk to me.”

“I am here,” said Luna, “and you are wrong. No one is alone, not us and not the humans. Write that down, Bob Carpeter.”

Bob remembered what he was doing, picked up his pencil and began to write again, though with the same stricken expression. “Yes. Okay.”

Celestia sighed. “Luna is right. There are seven billion sapient beings in this world. I suppose my question should be, would humanity be interested in having seven billion and two? We’re still deciding where to go next, you understand, but this is a good world. Whatever Mag says.”

Celestia closed her eyes. Bob’s pencil had stopped; he just sat on the floor and watched her, interviewer and princess both silent.

“Luna, find me in my dreams,” said Celestia. She teleported away, and this time she didn’t take anyone with her.

***

They took a break.

“Pardon our melodrama,” said Luna.

Bob stared at the empty loveseat. “Yes. Right.”

“Bob is a diminutive for ‘Robert,’ yes? May I call you Robert instead?”

“No problem,” said Bob. His head dropped and he toyed with the eraser of his pencil, idly carving a groove into it with his thumb. “I pictured this all a little differently, I guess. Is that Princess Luna? I’m talking to Princess Luna now?”

“Yes,” said Luna. She held out Mag’s hand. “Charmed, Robert.”

Bob, seeing that Luna held Mag’s hand hanging down loosely, hunched down to kiss Mag’s knuckle. Mag wiped it against her pants when Bob looked away.

“Robert means ‘bright fame,’” said Luna, “and Bob means ‘to bounce.’ Do I have that right? Why do you go by the latter?”

He shrugged. “I just like to be less formal that way, your majesty.”

“For the sake of mutual respect, I prefer formality when speaking with inferiors—social inferiors, I mean. Political inferiors? I beg your pardon; you’ll have to imagine a less insulting term that doesn’t undermine my point.” Luna’s shadow coughed into a hoof, embarrassed. Bob didn’t notice. “In any case, Robert, you might interview me while my sister sleeps.”

“What questions should I be asking her?” Bob wondered to himself.

“Or me,” said Luna. “Anything will do, I would think.”

“Why is she horse-shaped?” he whispered.

“Planes influence one another. Concepts and forms travel on the zephyrs of shared dreams and are carried across the divides between aethers. But of course there are always differences. In our world, apes are beasts and equines are not.”

“Hm?” Bob scratched the back of his neck.

“Interview me,” said Luna, loudly.

Bob sat up and licked his pencil. “You know what? Actually, I do have some questions for you.”

“I would think someone should. Hurry, before she returns.”

Bob pulled out a pencil sharpener and grinded it back into a proper point. “Well, first, you and Princess Celestia were once rivals?”

“Oh, I was a proper villain,” said Luna, as if she were gossiping about someone else behind their back. “My sister and I rule in shifts, you see, each in our proper time.”

“I’ve heard you’re the princess of the night?”

“E’en so.” Luna sounded somewhat taken aback at being interrupted, but Bob didn’t notice. “I rule when the world sleeps. This is a fascinating duty in its own right, of course, but there is little glory in it, and many of my greatest victories have gone unknown; I was the lesser sister in the eyes of all.” Luna’s shadow glanced at the empty loveseat. “Almost all. In any case, it is also a lonely responsibility.”

“What responsibilities specifically? I mean, what did you do?”

“It is somewhat of a long list. I guided the night sky along its course—”

Jeff cleared his throat. “We’re keeping that kind of thing to ourselves for this interview, actually. We think people aren’t ready to hear about all that.”

“About magic?”

Jeff smiled apologetically. “About anything that might intimidate people. Her other majesty has already agreed to this. Some of your powers, like, oh, the star-moving, can be intimidating. We also don’t want to suggest any military implications you two might have.”

“We do have ‘military implications.’ My sister and I have sundered empires.”

“That’s the problem. Does anyone really need to know that? It’s not as if you’re going to declare war on humanity, and we don’t want to cause a panic.”

Luna sighed. “And if we do ever declare war on humanity, I suppose it’s just good sense not to tell you what we’re capable of. But as for your question—”

“Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether you two are kidding,” said Jeff.

“As to your question, Robert, let us simply say that at the time, my duties lay in matters of magic and ritual rather than the citizenry. It felt as if the ponies belonged to my sister and I had nothing but empty night, and I grew to hate her for it. No one hates like a sibling, Robert. I plotted to destroy her and everything she loved.”

“…and everything she loved,” Bob murmured as he wrote. “What’s that mean?”

“The daylight world. The sun. The society we ruled. I wanted to take it from her, and look into her eyes as I crushed it all between my hooves.”

“Gosh,” said Bob. He wrote a note in the margin.

“I enlisted the help of an alien spirit called ‘Nightmare’ and let it possess me. In the mingling of our souls, I found the might I required to defeat my sister.”

“And what did she do?”

“Pulled a set of artifacts from our treasury and used them to banish me to the moon. They are called ‘The Elements of Harmony.’”

Jeff winced. “I’d also rather we didn’t talk about magical weapons.”

“Then I suppose I’ll stop telling this story, since every plot element upsets you.”

“I think we can salvage it,” said Bob. “I know the public wants to hear from you, as well.”

The wings of Luna’s shadow lifted hopefully. “They do?”

“Absolutely. What happened to the spirit?” Bob checked his notes. “The Nightmare?”

“Banished with the magic artifacts we aren’t allowed to discuss, 1,000 years later, this time wielded by six heroes of the age. Celestia gave me the chance to mend my ways. I took it.”

Bob nodded with pursed lips. “Uh-huh, uh-huh. How long ago was that?”

“Two or three years ago, Robert.”

The room went quiet.

Mag stared at Luna’s shadow. “Girl, what? I thought this was a long time ago.”

Luna’s shadow shrugged. “’Twas a lifetime ago. The millennia I spent plotting her destruction feel more distant now than those ancient days before our quarrel.”

Celestia teleported in without warning or fanfare. Bob jumped up and knocked his knee on the coffee table, and Theresa’s hand shot into her open coat. Celestia yawned and studied the tableau with suspicion. “Are you hijacking my interview, Luna?”

“No, I am usurping it. This is my interview now. You may leave.”

Celestia sat down. “I think not. Is Luna revealing any state secrets?”

Bob passed her his notes. “I’m sure she didn’t. Here, this is what we were talking about.”

“No, mine! Don’t let her have that!”

“Sorry,” whispered Mag. There was nothing she could do.

The pages floated in front of Celestia. Her eyes scanned the pages. “Galactic-level telekinesis, the Nightmare parasite, magic weapons… No wonder you waited until I was asleep.”

Luna harrumphed. “It was not on purpose. The flow of conversation simply led me there. And it’s too late. What’s done is done and now it is in his records, indelible.”

“No, I see an eraser right over there.”

“You are a sewer of a sister, and if you alter a single letter I will renew my vow to destroy you. Robert, reclaim your notes before she does something she’ll be made to regret.”

Mag snatched Bob’s notes out of the air. “Bob says he can make it work.” She handed the papers to their owner. “Right?”

“I think so,” he said, taking them. “I do have a couple more questions for Princess Luna. Is that okay with everyone?”

“I would be delighted,” answered Luna.

“What do you think of Earth so far, your majesty?”

“Humans are howling mad, both individually and in aggregate, but you have redeeming qualities. I especially appreciate your absurd little toes.”

Bob turned his attention back to Celestia. “And you, your majesty?”

“I’ve answered that elsewhere, you know. But you’re brilliant, sensitive, and affectionate, and you have an unjustly low opinion of yourselves, which I think only speaks to a keen sensitivity to morality and ethics. If I had to pick one word, I’d choose ‘quixotic.’”

“Interesting. Got it, got it. Cool.” Bob rolled his pencil between his fingers. “And since Ms. Wilson is here—” He looked up at her.

“Huh?”

“The public hasn’t heard from you yet, regarding the Castan incident.”

Oh, Christ. “What about it?”

“Well… what do you think of what happened?” Bob shrank a bit as Celestia looked down at him coldly.

“Be more considerate, Bob,” Celestia warned.

Mag decided Bob shouldn’t get a chance to dig himself deeper. What did she think? She’d been trying not to think about it, actually, but some things had crossed her mind. “Well, Castan is a fucked up kid, basically. We talked a little. She was born into this reclusive family with a lot of weird expectations, and it all just kind of came crashing down when she saw me with Celestia. I don’t know what’s going to happen to her now. I’ll say this, there’s not much she could have done to me.”

Celestia’s eyes glittered with opportunity. “I’ve come to interpret things a little differently. In hindsight, Ms. Castan’s kidnapped both my sister and someone I consider an Equestrian citizen. Can you see how that would make me feel, under the circumstances? The current feeling in both the American and the Canadian political world is that she should be sent back to Canada for a trial for several alleged crimes. I’ve read that list of crimes, and according to the principles of Equestrian law, I don’t see anything more heinous than kidnapping my sister. I’ve declared national emergencies for less. And so I’m going to arrange extradition treaties with the relevant nations. She should be remanded to my custody and tried under Equestrian law.”

Over the course of Celestia’s speech, Mag saw Jeff’s face slowly twist into a kind of laughing grimace. He covered his face at the word “extradition.”

“And that’s all going to make it to publication,” ordered Celestia to both Bob and Jeff.

“Well of course,” said Bob, cluelessly. “But what’s the Equestrian punishment for kidnapping a princess and an Equestrian citizen?

“Typically? Some combination of supervision, separation from bad influences, gardening, maintenance duties in the palace, a curfew, a stern talking-to, a letter to the convicted criminal’s parents, and compulsory vocational training where appropriate,” Celestia said loftily.

Mag nodded along. “All very scary.”

The room was silent except for the scratches and ticks of Bob’s writing. He crossed a T and said, “Well, thank you all very much. We’ve reached the last question on my list. So, there’s been some speculation that you might adopt some kind of leadership role in human society. Have you considered that?”

Celestia smiled. “No, not even by example. I plan to make several grave mistakes very soon.”

Jeff muttered, “They’re gonna have me shot.”

Celestia kicked guiltily at the carpet. “Yes, I suppose I’ve made things a bit complicated for you. I’ll do what I can, of course. For example, I can probably catch bullets.”

“I’d appreciate that, ma’am.”

***

Bob turned off the tape recorder and gathered his notes.

“I enjoyed that,” said Celestia. “A pity I didn’t have the time to model as well, or I would have offered. I don’t suppose I’ll get a free issue when it comes out?”

Bob smiled nervously at Jeff, who smiled back. Bob tapped his notes straight. “I don’t know, your majesty. I’ve never worked for a magazine before, and definitely nothing this high profile. I hope they like my submission.”

“Well, I liked it very much, and found you very professional,” said Celestia.

Mag laid a hand on Celestia’s back. “So you’re okay, right?”

Celestia leaned her head on Mag’s shoulder. “It’s nothing.”

“You sure?”

“I’ll survive. We’ll all survive. But, Jeff, I’ve been meaning to ask. Have you found the Nightmare?”

He met Celestia’s gaze out of the corner of his eyes. “We think so, yes. Some scary things have been happening down in the Republic of Inca, in a large town near La Paz.”

“Mag, please collect information on Inca. In fact, I’d like every relevant book and textbook you can find, and please Google all of the internet Wikipedia pdf jay-peg webpage things you can find on its history over the last few hundred years. I’ll read them on the way there.”

Jeff frowned. “We have experienced professionals who can do this kind of thing, you know.”

“She’s my aide de camp. She’ll do fine.”

Author's Note

This would have come out a day or two ago, but I, uh, needed a minute to get back into the headspace for writing and editing this fic.

Much thanks to glorious and perfect editor Arcanist Ascendant, and to handsome proofreaders Sky Paladin and Cerulean Starlight. Amusing fact: three of the four of us have the same first name.

Conversation One

Mag stubbed out the butt of her cigarette in the ashtray she'd brought with her into the woods, and didn't light another. The air was wet and the trees dripped and rustled in the breeze. The rain had stopped for now but would start again in a couple of hours, and this was the time to take a break, or so Mag had decided 20 minutes ago. Her boss wouldn't be coming back to the Quik Eats until Monday, so she was tempted to close for the weekend. There wasn't much traffic on route 371 this far up the mountain, especially at this time of year, so she could plausibly tell her boss no one had come while he was gone. As for the needs of customers, well, if someone needed wiper blades or an ancient hot dog then they could just break in, couldn't they?

She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of her long winter jacket and studied the contents. Half the pack remained, but she didn't like menthol. She pocketed it again after a moment’s consideration, not bothering to take another cigarette, and continued down the dirt trail to the lake.

She thought about the cold front rolling in next week. She thought about going home and falling asleep in her bed, or perhaps on the floor if she couldn't be bothered to walk to her bedroom. She thought about television static and the sound of tires in snow, and wondered if she'd be less bored in the evenings if she got a cat, then decided not to get a cat because she wouldn’t be able to smoke in the house anymore, and because she wasn't sure she wanted another living being in her house, making noise and wanting things. Mag didn't want things, generally speaking, or nothing she was willing to put into words, and it made her house a peaceful, silent place. She also didn't want to clean out a catbox.

The lake was around the next bend in the trail. Some days she stood at the edge of the lake and watched the birds and bugs if they were out, and that was her plan this afternoon.

Today a soupy white fog covered the lake. Mag couldn't even see the other shore. The sky was partly cloudy at most and the lake had never been foggy in the day. The water was too still. Mag squatted next to the shore and decided to light another cigarette after all.

Now a tiny light glowed in the fog. Mag lit a cigarette and grimaced; she hated menthol. The light got bigger, or perhaps closer. Mag watched it. There weren't fireflies in this part of California, and this wasn't the season for them anyway. Perhaps it was someone with a lantern. But why a lantern in the daytime? Mag tried to put her plain red Bic back in her pocket and accidentally dropped it in the mud.

The light grew and changed. It was a warmer, rosier shade of white than the fog, and brighter than a lantern, so bright that Mag had to shade her eyes with her hand. It resolved into the most beautiful thing Mag had ever seen.

It walked across the water on four thin legs and burned with a corona of smokeless pastel flames.

It had light for skin and suns for eyes.

The water rippled with each step.

Mag fell backward and hid her eyes in the crook of her elbow. She couldn't breathe.

“I don't believe in... I don't believe in...” She couldn't finish the sentence. She uncovered her eyes.

The burning archangel, the goddess, the apocalypse of Mag's worldview stepped onshore and walked up to her. As it walked the light faded.

The fire shrank and became a horse's mane. Light turned into pearl fur and the suns burned down to pupils.

It half-fell into a resting position. Two white wings slackened open into the mud. It also had a long, straight horn—and a crown.

It opened its mouth and whispered, “Help them.” Quiet as the words were, they echoed oddly and shook pine needles from the trees. Then it—or she, judging by the voice—passed out.

Her head fell to the ground and Mag tried to catch it, but got poked by the horn. The angel-goddess's head splatted into the mud.

Mag crawled away, stood, stepped back, tripped over a rock, and dropped back to the ground. She stayed there and stared.

The creature seemed smaller now. Mag realized belatedly that the being looked as much like a horse as anything else. A unicorn? She had wings and a crown. The queen of unicorns?

She'd asked her to help “them.” Who? Mag peered into the mist, looking for someone else, and realized the fog was growing thinner. The opposite shore was visible now and looked the way it always did. They were alone.

Mag stood up again and took a few deep breaths.

“Help them,” muttered Mag. “Okay. Okay.” She leaned over the whatever-she-was. “How?” Whatever-she-was didn't answer. She looked too heavy to lift.

“Wake up,” Mag tried. Horse-Thing didn't move.

“Wake up, your majesty?” Nothing. Mag stepped back for a better look.

Her majesty was definitely horselike. Her mane had stopped moving but still looked slightly insubstantial, like a rainbow in a sprinkler, but with the thickness of skim milk. Her horn was the approximate length of Mag's forearm and hand. There was a stylized sun painted on her flank. These were all just details, however; what mattered was that she was the most unbearably beautiful thing Mag had ever seen. Mag wondered who she would have grown up to be if she'd seen this creature when she was younger.

She reached out and brushed the queen's ear with the tip of her fingers. The ear flicked and Mag pulled her hand back. Then she poked the ear again. The ear flicked again. Mag stuck her finger in the ear proper and the queen's eyes opened. Her majesty silently regarded Mag with one eye. Mag pulled her finger out of her ear.

“Sorry,” Mag murmured.

“Human?” Her voice was normal, now. She sounded like a cross between Galadriel and someone's mother.

“I go by 'Mag,' actually,” said Mag.

Her majesty stood up—the mud didn't stick to her fur—and looked around. “Earth, then.” She faced Mag. “Mag, my name is Princess Celestia.”

“A pleasure,” said Mag, sticking her hands in her pockets. They stood a few feet apart.

“There's no need to be intimidated,” said the creature.

“I'm not intimidated.”

“All right,” said her majesty gently. “Mag, I have a request.”

“It's not 'Take me to your leader,' is it?” said Mag.

Celestia's eyebrows went up. “It is. Have you dealt with this sort of thing before?” She looked behind her. “Is this lake a crossroads?”

“No and no. Probably.” She thought about it. “You know what? Maybe it is some kind of crossroads. I don't know anything anymore.”

Celestia gave her a pitying look. “Human, please relax. I can see this situation is making you uncomfortable, and for that I'm sorry, but I really do need your help.”

“I'm not uncomfortable,” said Mag. She started to step back, and stopped herself. “Anyway. What do you mean by 'leader?' Are you looking for more of a mayor, or the governor, or the president, or what?”

“I'm afraid I don't know his or her proper title,” said Celestia, “but I would prefer to meet with the leader of the humans if you can arrange it. Or perhaps you could simply point in the proper direction, if you'd prefer.” She blinked and her legs wobbled. “Or where I can find lodging. I've been walking through the fog between worlds for... quite some time, now.”

Mag shrugged. “Humans don't have a leader. We have the UN, I guess, the United Nations. As for lodging...” Mag tried to imagine the princess getting a hotel room and failed utterly. “Well, I guess there's, uh, my house?” Come to think of it, she couldn't imagine that either.

“Oh, I wouldn't want to impose.”

“Well, aren't we Ms. Manners,” said Mag.

Celestia wrinkled her immaculate white brow. “I'm afraid I don't follow.”

“Nothing, sorry. I just get sassy when I'm intimidated and uncomfortable.”

“Ah,” said Celestia.

Mag scuffed at the ground with her hiking boot. “Okay, listen. You are really, really, really, really weird. No offense meant.”

“None taken.”

“And kind of overwhelming. No offense.”

“I apologize.”

“You're forgiven.” Mag took a few deep breaths. “Right. Yeah, you're freaking me out, but I think I do want to help. I wasn't doing anything important anyway.”

Celestia bowed her head. “You have no idea how relieved I am.”

* * *

Mag led the princess back up the path.

“My world ended,” said Celestia.

And what could you possibly say to that? “Oh.”

“I was set to guard it and guide it, but all things end, I suppose. But why did I outlive it? Worlds have ended before, but its regent always goes with it. It's the way of things.” She looked up at the light of the setting sun cutting through the leaves of trees, then down at the dappled shadows. “Maybe it's not the end yet. Maybe this is something I can heal.”

“I don't know how I can help with that,” said Mag.

Celestia smiled. “You already are.”

It took a moment for Mag to recover from that smile. Every little thing Celestia did, every glance and every step, did that much more to crowd Mag out of her own head. “I don't even know what you're looking for,” she managed.

“Perhaps you'd feel better if I walked further away,” said Celestia.

“I'll get over it,” said Mag. “But seriously. What am I really going to do for someone like you?”

“You mentioned a couch I could use, to begin with. After that, I would like to know more about your UN.”

“We didn't talk about it in high school and I sort of dropped out of college,” said Mag, “but I can tell you it's a kind of, I don't know, council that sets up and sometimes enforces agreements between nations. If it's got a leader, he's probably elected.”

“Then that's not who I need to speak with first,” said Celestia. “It sounds like your regent prefers a light touch, or tends toward subtlety. We have until sundown tomorrow to contact them. If it takes longer, diplomacy is going to be a bit rocky.”

“Rocky?”

“A bit. How warlike would you say humans are?”

“We're a murdering pack of absolute bastards,” said Mag.

“Colorfully put. In that case, I'd rather we moved quickly. Your regent is likely to be very human indeed. Are you afraid of heights?”

“About as much as most,” said Mag. “Wait. Are you serious?”

“I'm afraid so. Which direction is your couch?”

“The same direction as my home. Go north over the straight road through town. Pass the huge wooden bear through the woods and look for the white house with the fewest pine trees, no lawn and no car in the driveway. That's my place.”

“What is a car?” said Celestia.

“You're going to see a lot of examples on the road. That should help.”

“Understood.” Celestia flared out her wings. “Climb aboard and hold onto my neck.”

Mag really wasn't up for this, but helping the princess was obviously more important than her feelings. She climbed aboard and focused on taking deep, slow, even breaths.

“Be brave,” said Celestia. She flapped her wings experimentally a few times, then launched straight up through the trees. Pine needles and cold winter air rushed past them and then Celestia burst out above the trees. She hovered in place for a moment, looking around for the road, then glided toward it.

“The air is very thin here,” said Celestia.

“What?” shouted Mag over the rushing wind. God, it was cold up here.

“There's the road. Goodness, is that what a car is? How interesting. And there's your town.”

Mag didn't enjoy the next few minutes in the slightest, but at least it went quickly. Celestia touched down in front of Mag's place, panting, and Mag rolled off Celestia's back and onto the ground.

“Cramp,” said Mag through gritted teeth. “Cramps. My world is cramps.”

“That,” said Celestia between gasps, “was a decision with quite a lot of downsides. For Heaven's sake, please give me somewhere soft to collapse.”

Mag tossed her house keys to Celestia without getting up from where she lay on the ground. Celestia caught them in a field of magic. Mag stared. “What was that?”

“Magic,” said Celestia.

“Okay, but what was that?”

“I'd be much happier to discuss pony biology in the future, as opposed to right now, when I'd be happiest to hear which of these keys opens your door.”

Mag staggered up her driveway, plucked the keys from Celestia's field (surprisingly easy, slightly tingly), picked out the correct one, and opened her door. She gestured for Celestia to follow her inside.

She preferred a clean house, and it was easiest to clean a house without much décor. She had no pictures or posters or flowers on her table. The walls were white and the carpet was beige. It was simplest this way.

“Thank you for inviting me,” said Celestia. She surveyed the front hallway. “You have a lovely home.”

“This way,” said Mag.

Celestia stopped when she saw Mag's living room, which was entirely bare except for the couch in the center of the room, which faced a large CRT television sitting on the floor against the opposite wall. Celestia, true to her word, walked up to the couch and collapsed into it. Mag realized at this point that she couldn't watch TV while Celestia slept and had nothing else to do for the night, so she sat down next to her TV and tried to knead the pain out of her arms and legs.

Oops. She'd forgotten to close the store. Oh, well.

Unicorn royalty slept softly on her couch. Mag felt numb. She usually did, around this time of day, but this was different. Tomorrow she was going to do something that mattered. She'd promised and she knew she wouldn't flake this time, because she didn't dare, not because her majesty seemed like the “Off with her head” kind of royalty but because making a unicorn sad was one thing she didn't want on her conscience. This was why she preferred to never get involved with anything important; yesterday there was a broken slushie machine and nothing on TV; today there was a heart-wrenchingly beautiful Mrs. Ed and an ominous deadline.

The princess's world had ended, so she'd walked until she found a new one. How long had it been since she'd rested? What did it feel like to lose everything you'd ever loved? Even in her sleep she looked tired.

The heater had been on all day, so it wasn't as cold as it could be. Nevertheless, Mag went to get two blankets out of the plastic tote at the foot of her bed, one with a Powerpuff Girls pattern and the other a hazy shade of seafoam green. She unfurled the Powerpuff Girls blanket over Celestia's still form and kept the green one for herself, curling up again next to the television. She realized she'd never had a house guest before.

“I'm sorry for being afraid,” she didn't say, and slowly fell asleep.

Author's Note

I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but it's fun so far. I hope I can keep this going.

e: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQZCOx3RdF8

Conversation Five

Celestia held the dustpan in place with magic as Mag swept Funyuns into it. The thieves had trashed the place.

“I would think you'd be angrier,” said Celestia. She had assumed her human disguise again.

“One thing I've learned about this job is that people turn feral the moment they walk into a convenience store,” said Mag. “If I started shouting every time someone acted like an animal in here, I'd never stop.”

Celestia emptied the dustpan into the plastic trash bin next to her. “Has this place ever been robbed before?”

“Not while I've been working here, but I think it's happened at least once. Okay, I think this aisle is good. What's in the next one?”

Celestia peered around around the corner of the next aisle. “Quite a lot of melted ice cream. It's mostly dried now.”

“Okay, time for the mop. Isn't that also the aisle they dumped the oil in?”

Celestia took another look. “Yes, over on the other end. Shall we use a towel for that part?”

“Could you do that, please? There are paper towels under the counter.”

“Of course,” said Celestia. She walked over to the lake of car oil at the end of aisle three while rummaging blindly with her magic through the shelves beneath the register. She found the roll of paper towels—a particularly large and thick brand of paper towels Mag regularly ordered from an industrial supply website because, as Mag had told Celestia, customers were animals—floated them over, and pulled off a sheet. Mag walked out the back door to get hot water from the bathroom, remembered that the thieves had stolen the keys to every door in the building including the bathrooms, and instead moved to the spigot against the back wall. She mixed up a bucket of soapy water, grabbed the mop, and went back in.

“Could you also pass me my putty knife?” said Mag. After another rummage, Celestia floated it over.

“Thanks.” Mag dipped the putty knife in the soapy water and got to scraping up ice cream. Celestia finished sopping up the oil and began gathering the empty wrappers strewn everywhere.

Mag remembered something. “Oh, you know what happened that was sort of like this? That time a pack of coyotes got in at night. They ate everything, puked it back up, and left. Less actual property damage and they didn't run off with my keys, but on the other hand, I had to clean it up by myself. Thanks, by the way.”

“I'm hardly going to stand around and watch someone else clean up a mess like this all on her own,” said Celestia, picking up shards of glass from the broken freezer door.

“You're royalty, though,” said Mag.

“Yes, this is novel for me. I've helped with disaster relief before, righting fallen trees and performing large scale counterspells and moving boulders from roads, that sort of thing, but I don't often clean a floor.”

“You're enjoying this, aren't you?”

“I thought it would be insensitive to say so, but yes,” said Celestia. She picked up and threw away the empty ice cream tubs all over the floor, and hummed a tune as she did it.

Mag shook her head. Celestia was wonderful, beautiful, as unquenchable as the sun, and as perfect as Mary Poppins, and Mag, to her own surprise, appreciated the company. But at the same time, Mag was beginning to understand why the ugly stepsisters hated Cinderella.

“Did you say coyotes?” said Celestia.

“Yeah, coyotes.”

“It's interesting. We had that species of animal in Equestria,” said Celestia.

“Why are our worlds so similar? Same language, same animals. Is it like that with all the worlds?”

“Most worlds have a number of things in common with each other, but not usually to this extent, no. I had to search for quite some time to find a world with so many similarities. Are you going to use that mop?”

“Right after I finish scraping up this ice cream,” said Mag. “You were looking for a world like yours, then?”

“I had hoped to find a world with inhabitants who understood magic on the same level my people do, so that they might help me determine what has happened to my world. Unfortunately your people seem to be mostly blind to the aether, and, so far as I've seen, you don't even detect it. On the other hoof, your grasp of nearly every other science beggars belief, so I'm expecting to find great help here. More importantly, I made a new friend.” She smiled and winked at Mag. “Yes, on the whole, this is a good place to set up.”

“What do you need to set up?”

“If you're just going to sit there, couldn't you let me use the mop?” said Celestia.

“I'm gonna use it as soon as I finish scraping,” said Mag. “If you want to clean up the rest of the oil, you could just use paper towels and dish soap. That might work better anyway.”

“We'll see, I suppose,” said Celestia. “To answer your question, I need to set up a laboratory. I'll know more about what I need by the end of today.”

“Why, what happens at the end of today?”

“There are some things I'd like to check in Equestria. Now that I've had time to rest and think, I've realized there are certain samples I need to collect, certain tests I need to run.”

“We're going dimension-hopping?” said Mag. “Cool!”

“'We?'” said Celestia. She deposited one last soapwater-and-oil-soaked paper towel in the trash, wet a cloth towel in a bucket of clean water, and rinsed the soap from the floor.

Mag braced herself for an argument. “Yeah, 'we.' You want me to sit around and wait for you while you go places no human has ever been?”

Celestia set the “wet floor” sign down where the oil had been and cast around for the next thing to clean. “That's what I'd planned, yes.”

“I have a better plan, and the plan is that you take me with you. And before you tell me it's dangerous, would you say it's more dangerous than the eldest? Because I survived that meeting just fine, and he even scares you.”

“If I had known then what I know now about your eldest, I would have pushed much harder for you to stay behind,” Celestia said sternly.

“And you didn't, and it was horrible, and I'm just dandy all the same,” said Mag. “Come on. Do you really want to fight about this? I don't. I'm not one to complain, and I want you to understand that I don't blame you for any of this, but honestly? Hanging out with you is the one and only good thing about my day so far. Even breakfast sucked, and I was looking forward to that.”

“I certainly can't say much for that wine, at least,” said Celestia. “Well, how about this? For the rest of today, you'll teach me about the human world, and then I'll make the Equestria trip tomorrow instead. The first part of today has been difficult, but we can make something of the rest of it.”

Mag tossed the putty knife into mop bucket and got up. “I'm going to stop being subtle. I was always awful at it anyway. I can't let you go back to Equestria alone because of what it was like for you last time you were there. I realize we just met, but having anyone with you while you're in there would be better than having nobody, right? I'm coming with you.”

And now Mag had embarrassed herself. She bent and fished around in the mop bucket for the putty knife, mostly for something to do other than maintain eye contact. You weren't supposed to come out and say that kind of thing, were you?

Mag glanced up at Celestia and saw a touched expression. “I... wasn't looking forward to that part.”

“Glad we settled that,” said Mag, and mopped the aisle. Her other reason for wanting to come was that she was feeling clingy, but there was no need to mention that.

***

Cleaning the store had taken hours. Celestia and her magic were an immense help, especially when it turned out that she could lock and unlock doors without a key, and, to Mag's amazement, could even fix the broken glass of the freezer door. Now the only problems were the empty register, the stock shortage, and the fact that, while magic could take the place of keys in the short term, sooner or later they would need the real thing. Mag couldn't decide whether it would be better to call a locksmith before or after her boss came back. She would also probably have to call her boss to tell him about all this, and the last thing she wanted to do right now was talk to someone with a legitimate reason to be angry with her.

Mag snapped the register shut. “I changed my mind. I am mad. Messing up some podunk mountain snack shack is childish, but hey, cleaning up after jerks is half my job. Robbing a convenience store is so mundane that I'm a tiny bit disappointed I wasn't there for it, so I could live the cliché and maybe get some pity points from my boss. But running off with the keys? They're threatening to do the same again sometime. What am I supposed to do, camp out in here until we get the locks changed?”

“I wonder if we could catch the thieves,” Celestia said.

“I don't even want to look at them,” said Mag.

“We could take the keys and perhaps the money back, and I wouldn't mind the chance to give them a talking-to,” said Celestia. “We could also call your local constabulary. You have one, I presume?”

“They wouldn't be able to do anything, and anyway, they'd want to catch the thieves, and what if they do? The thieves are probably teenagers. They'd go to juvie, and I wouldn't wish that on anybody. I know what I'm talking about; I spent a couple weeks there.”

“Juvie?” said Celestia.

“Juvenile hall. Jail for kids. And before you ask, no, I'm not a hardened criminal. It was just some stupid teenager stuff.”

“I trust you,” said Celestia. “It confuses and disturbs me that a child can go to jail for a crime that only merits a two week sentence, though. Surely there's a more appropriate punishment.”

Mag stripped open a Slim Jim. “It was going to be 24 hours, but I got in a couple of fights. Does that make it better or worse?”

“I think I don't know enough about your criminal justice system to comment,” said Celestia. “Do you mind if I ask what you did?”

“Ten years ago, I borrowed my parents' car without their permission. They reported it as stolen because they wanted to teach me a lesson. I got pulled over for coming to a rolling stop. The cop found out what happened and took me to the station, I got in a shouting match with the cop, then again with my mom over the phone, and then with my dad in person. Some other cop put his hand on my shoulder from behind and I turned around and decked him—I know, I know—and they sent me to juvie for the night to be 'scared straight.' Want some Doritos?”

“Some what?” said Celestia. Mag tossed her a small bag. “Oh, I see. Thank you. And judging by the empty wrappers we threw away, it opens like—ah, yes.” Celestia crunched a chip and motioned for Mag to continue.

Mag rang up the chips and Slim Jim, but she couldn't make change because there wasn't any in the register, so she wrote herself a sticky note about it and stuck it to the counter. “Anyway, there was this other girl in juvie that hated me on sight. No idea why. That escalated because neither of us knew how to back down, so, long story short, my stay got extended. It wasn't fun, but it could have been worse.”

Celestia nodded sympathetically and ate another chip.

“You aren't appalled at my dark past?”

“That isn't a dark past; that's a difficult adolescence. Goodness, these are salty. May I have something to drink?”

Mag tossed her a water bottle. Celestia opened it without difficulty—apparently they had twist tops in Equestria—and drank a third of it in one go. She set the bottle down on the floor and frowned at her Dorito-dust-stained hand. Mag tossed her the roll of paper towels.

“Thank you,” said Celestia. “As I was saying, I've never come across a culture in which adolescence is easy, and some individuals have it harder than others depending on personality and circumstances.”

“Yeah, well, I was an independent-minded and opinionated teenage girl in an authoritarian family,” said Mag. “They had me memorize every bible verse related to obedience when I was a little kid. I had to wear dresses, never pants, and I was supposed to call my parents 'sir' and 'ma'am.' There were a lot more rules, but maybe you get the picture. At some point I started testing boundaries. Little things. Sarcasm, lying, sitting without crossing my legs. They got mad, I got mad, they punished me, I retaliated, they punished me more, I pushed harder, so did they. We fought every day over every little thing. After a couple of years of this, it got to the point where the cops had to come over a couple times a week to pull us apart, and I loved that, because sometimes it meant I could spend the night in a cell rather than at home. Some of the best rest I got back then was behind bars. Eventually I turned 18, moved to the other side of the country without giving them an address, and just generally cut them out of my life. Oh, for—stop looking all sad. That was the best decision I've ever made.”

“But family—”

“No,” Mag said firmly. “You don't know how ugly it got. You don't know how it felt. Trust me. By the time I left, they were every bit as done with me as I was with them. I think they moved out right after I did, to make sure I couldn't ever come back. This is not one of those stories that ends in a tearful reunion where everyone forgives everyone else. God, will you stop looking at me like that?”

Celestia looked away, but her eyes didn't change.

“Sorry,” said Mag.

Celestia sighed. “I have seen families like that. There are few things I loathe more than the estrangement of a family member, but I understand that sometimes there's no other option.” She looked at Mag again. “You heard what the eldest said to me about my sister, I believe.”

“I remember,” Mag said.

“First, I'd like to say that both my actions and my motivations were completely different from his. The eldest's comparison doesn't apply in the slightest.”

Mag threw the Slim Jim wrapper at the trash can and missed. “You don't even have to say it. I could tell that that was just him being horrible. God, he's so horrible. What is wrong with that guy?”

The wrapper floated the rest of the way into the trash. “Madness, or something like it. The eldest sees everything—the past, the present, all possible futures, and every inch of your entire world in each of those contexts. We all take our cues from our environment, and the eldest's environment as he sees it bears little resemblance to what you or I would recognize as reality. I asked him if there was an alternate world where the murder of his brother was moral, and he said yes. What other strange worlds does he have in his head? Which world does his moral compass come from? What would such a man even value?”

“I don't know if you could call him crazy,” said Mag. “I've met people with brain problems before. You know, people who hear voices and believe weird things. Schizophrenic, that's the word. They weren't like him. Mostly they just seemed scared, and I walked away wishing they didn't have to feel like that. The eldest wasn't scared. He was a di—a jerk the entire time, and on purpose. He liked it when we got mad and he laughed when I freaked out. He was—you know what, no. I'm done thinking about him. It's just too horrible. What were you saying about your sister?”

“Let's walk down to the lake as I talk,” said Celestia. “I would like to use it again to travel the worlds, as it's easier to use a reflective surface I've passed through before. The trip to Equestria shouldn't take too long now that I know where this world is in relation to mine, so, with luck, we'll be back by lunch. Are you ready to go, or would you like to rest a bit more?”

“I'm ready.” Mag picked up her purse and walked around the counter.

***

“It's beautiful here,” said Celestia, looking up at the sun through the pine needles.

“Yeah, I like the mountains better than the city. I lived in LA a couple months and it was terrible.”

“LA?”

“Los Angeles. A huge city about a hundred miles to the west. It's full of smog and people and there's nowhere to park.”

Celestia gazed west. “A pessimistic answer, but I'd like to see one of your cities.”

“You were going to tell a story,” Mag reminded her.

“Yes, while we walk. Shall we?”

Mag led Celestia down a steep dirt path. At first it was just wide enough for one person, so that Celestia had to follow behind Mag, but it opened up and leveled out after a couple of twists in the trail, letting them walk side by side.

“Can anyone see us, do you think?” said Celestia.

“Well, this trail isn't exactly remote, but I can't see any houses, and I don't think there are that many people who would know about a rough little path that goes from the edge of the less popular side of the lake to the back of a convenience store.”

Celestia let the disguise slip away and breathed deep. “Much better.”

It was strangely easy to forget that Celestia was a pony. As a human she was merely regal, only slightly uncanny, barely angelic at all. There was always that same sense of pressure, but Mag was learning how to deal with it. But then, just when you got used to being around her, she changed back into a glorious pony princess.

“I've stalled long enough. I owe you a story.” Celestia settled into a steady, thoughtful walking pace, the better to think and talk. “I wish I could say it started with the parasite, but really, it started because she was alone. Luna is—was—is the princess of the night. She plays other roles as well, but what's important is that she always performed them at night, and our ponies have always slept through the night. They're afraid of the dark, and the dark is what she is. There was no one for her to talk to and no one to vent at. And I did nothing, because I didn't understand what I was seeing in her. People should not be alone in life, Mag.” She gave Mag a meaningful glance.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.”

“Good. Where was I? Right. Now, there is a kind of creature that preys on sentient beings. There's no proper name for it, but it's essentially a conceptual parasite. Each one is different, with different methods of predation and consumption. The one I am speaking of now, which some call Nightmare, preyed on loneliness by fostering jealousy and then making an offer of power in exchange for a say in the host's decisions. After convincing the host she had no one to care for and the only recourse was to punish the world, the parasite would make its sales pitch. If the host accepted the deal, she would find herself steadily growing in magical strength while losing progressively more control over her actions. Eventually she would have all the power in the world, and all the volition of a marionette.”

“'She,' you keep saying. Did it only prey on women?” said Mag.

“I'm not sure. I never allowed it to spread. I only say 'she' because its host was my sister.”

Mag winced. She could see where this was going. “What did you have to do?”

“I couldn't separate them, and someone like Luna is capable of immense destruction even without the parasite. I wanted to search for a way to cure her, but she forced my hoof by not allowing the sun to rise. I fought her, and imprisoned both her and the parasite inside the moon for a thousand years in the hope that I could come up with a plan before her return.”

“And did you? Come up with a plan, I mean?”

“I did. There are greater powers than I, and she and I used to have limited access to one of them, or perhaps I should say six of them. The elements of harmony, they're called. Have you heard the expression 'Omnia vincit amor?'”

Mag scratched the back of her neck in thought. “'Everything,' uh, something, 'love?' Is that 'Love conquers all?' I've heard that. I think someone wrote that in Ancient Greece.”

“That may be where I came across it,” said Celestia.

“I always liked 'Love is as strong as death' better. Love is cool and all, but since when does love beat death? Everything dies. Death always wins. It's like playing rock-paper-scissors-black hole.”

“Perhaps,” said Celestia.

“You used love to beat the demon?”

“I wouldn't use the word 'demon,'” said Celestia. “It's too dignified. It gives the parasite credit that it doesn't deserve. But yes, you could say that. I passed the elements of harmony into the care of six loving ponies. Individually the elements represented virtues, and the ponies lived lives devoted to, well, not always to the demonstration of that virtue, but certainly lives devoted to contemplating what it meant to be generous or kind or loyal. Together the elements and their ponies were a force of harmony and friendship. The elements are the nearest thing to the pure physical embodiment of love I've ever come across, and their power is limitless. They defeated Luna and the Nightmare at the height of their strength, and, when the six new bearers wielded the elements, they destroyed the Nightmare entirely. So, yes, I would say the 'demon' was defeated with love.”

“The demon that wasn't a demon,” said Mag.

“Just so.”

“What were the virtues? Which ones did you get, when you and Luna found them? Or could you both use all six if you wanted?”

“They divided themselves between us,” said Celestia. “ As for my elements, it hardly matters now, I suppose, but I had the elements of kindness, laughter, and generosity. She got loyalty, honesty, and magic. Neither of us really exemplified any of those traits, in hindsight, but I also think our ability to live those ideals was less important than the role they've played in our respective lives, just like the new bearers.” Celestia's face twisted with loss. “A student of mine became the element of magic. She would send me weekly letters on what she had recently learned about friendship, and those letters taught me to love them all. Skies and scars, I miss them so much.”

Mag laid her hand on Celestia's back. “What are their names?”

“Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy. Twilight Sparkle.” Then Celestia said suspiciously, “Is something wrong?”

“No, no, nothing, they're wonderful names,” said Mag. She should have known what to expect, really. This was not a good time to laugh. This was not a good time to laugh. It was vitally important that she not laugh.

“Oh, get it out of your system before you hurt yourself.”

Mag gave up and cackled. “I'm sorry! I can't help it. Your world is pure cane sugar. 'Good morning, Fluttershy!' 'Top of the mornin' to you, Twilight Sparkle.'” The laughter faded and all she was left with was confusion. “What I don't get is how something like your world can be real. In your world, ponies control the weather by pushing clouds around with what, flying steam shovels? Meanwhile, in my world, we have the plague.”

“Don't forget that we also had things like the Nightmare,” said Celestia. “You have computers. You have this forest. And, for all your studied cynicism, you're still willing to concede that love is as strong as death. Where did you learn that, if not in a worthwhile world?”

“You're getting preachier by the second. The lake is close, by the way.”

“I can smell the water,” said Celestia.

“I come down here on my lunch hour once or twice a week. The lake has a good smell to it.”

Celestia smiled. “It does, doesn't it?”

The lake came into view, with its bottle green water and tall grass growing along the shore. It was nearing noon. There were no clouds, and the reflection of the sun burned gold on the water.

“I'm sorry,” said Mag. “I wish I hadn't laughed at your friends' names.”

Celestia turned her nose up theatrically. “It's a nice day, so I'll forgive you if you admit that 'Mag' is a sillier name than the ones you laughed at.”

Mag crossed her arms. “Never. 'Mag' is a completely reasonable name, unlike 'Princess Celestia,' the strangest nonfictional name I've ever heard.”

"Insolence. But I need your help, so this bulrush shall take the punishment in your stead." Celestia bit the head off a nearby cattail crunched it vindictively.

Mag rolled her eyes. "Consider me chastised."

Author's Note

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHOHi5ueo0A

Conversation Twenty-Two

Mag woke up grinning.

It was horribly hot. Her jaw, shoulders and back all ached. She sat in a white lawn chair, hands cuffed with her arms encircling a pitted iron pole. The pole extended from the broken concrete floor to a distant ceiling of interlocking corrugated tin sheets, suspended by girders and steel pipes. It was also embedded in the cement. The building itself appeared to be some kind of abandoned warehouse. She couldn’t judge the size of the building; in every direction there were pallets of various home improvement goods stacked neatly and left to rot. There were no visible walls and there was no natural light. The air smelled of grease and rust. Mag was still in her boyshorts and undershirt, but someone had put socks on her feet while she slept.

“The first step of our plan is to determine whether our captors know something we don’t, or are just unutterably stupid,” said Luna.

Mag nodded. She remembered the plan perfectly well and didn’t need it repeated to her, but she wanted Luna to keep talking. So long as Luna was there, they were spies for Equestria; but the longer Luna kept quiet, the more Mag would feel like a hostage.

Someone shuffled a deck of cards. Mag looked past the pole to see three familiar soldiers who had slid several crates to the side to make a clearing, where they’d set up a card table and more lawn chairs for a game of stud poker, no betting. They’d stripped to their t-shirts but left their blue slacks on. They all looked miserable with boredom.

“Pair,” muttered Bunny, laying her hand face-up on the table and sliding it to the dealer with a brush of her hand.

“Same,” said Brown Eyes, and tossed her cards on top of Bunny’s.

Admittedly Pretty grunted, threw her own hand on the pile, set the rest of the deck on top of it, and shuffled it all together. Mag couldn’t tell who’d won. Admittedly Pretty dealt out another round.

Mag examined her handcuffs. Whoever had brought them didn’t believe in half measures. The cuffs were hinged Smith & Wessons, the kind of handcuffs most typically kept for inmates who could break more normal wrist restraints. Mag had heard of someone breaking cuffs like these, but the woman had been on PCP and she’d broken both of her wrists.

Mag knocked on the pole they’d cuffed her to in order to get their attention. “Hey, girls. How are we doing this morning?”

Admittedly Pretty—for expedience, it might be easier to think of her as A.M., or possibly just “Pretty”—glanced at Mag. She got out of her chair and raised her voice. “She’s awake.” The other soldiers stood as well.

“You girls are so fucked when Celestia finds us,” Mag said with a friendly smile.

“Be civil,” said a strident female voice. Its owner entered the clearing.

The stranger reminded Mag of a Renaissance Fair she’d once bummed around in. She wore a black cape with a black hood, black lace gloves that went up to the middle of her slender biceps, a black top with some kind of embroidery pattern Mag couldn’t make out, a layered black skirt, and black leather boots. The only pieces of color were the little silver chain that held her cape in place, and the jeweled dagger tucked into the black sash around her waist. The woman walked as if she had a book balanced on her head, with her hands folded behind her at the small of her back. Mag recognized her—it was the soldier she’d named “Smug” yesterday, now divested of her disguise as a marine.

“The balance of evidence currently leans toward ‘stupid,’” said Luna.

“I am Lady Castan,” said the woman in black, in a snooty accent of North American origin, though she barely sounded old enough to smoke. “The Circle has been watching you, and we are not pleased with your demeanor, your overfamiliarity with her highness Princess Celestia, the problems you pose to those who matter, your grotesque displays of ignorance on the subject of human magic in front of her highness, the degenerate physicality of what little magic you’re capable of, your presumptuousness, and your horrible swinish face. You’re a travesty. You’re a disaster. I’m here to replace you as the princess’s companion.” There wasn’t much of her. She was short and thin, and probably weighed less than 100 pounds, but she had a disproportionately loud voice. It reminded Mag of the time a lark had gotten into her house and couldn’t be convinced to leave or shut up.

Mag gave her a thumbs up. “Thanks for spelling all that out. You know I have a princess in my head, right?”

“Spare me your grandiose delusions,” said Lady Castan.

“That’s 2-0 in favor of stupid,” said Luna.

“Do you want to call it yet?” Mag said to Luna.

Lady Castan’s brow furrowed. “I beg your pardon?”

“Yes, she’s a fool. Now we shall see if we can learn more about this circle.”

“I asked you a question, cow.”

“Sorry, kid, just talking to the princess.”

“You will not address me as 'kid,'” said Lady Castan.

“Why not? You’re a kid. You’re wearing a Halloween costume in January, you’ve got no self-awareness, you’re teenage-skinny, you talk like a—”

Lady Castan snapped her fingers. “Jody?”

Brown Eyes stepped forward.

Lady Castan gave Mag a cool smile. “Slap her.”

Brown Eyes slapped Mag. She put her whole arm into it, but met Mag’s cheek with the tips of her fingers. It was meant to humiliate rather than cause any real pain, but it stung all the same.

Mag narrowed her eyes. “What the hell was that?”

“You will—”

“Not you,” said Mag. “Soldier, the kid told you to slap me, not caress my fucking cheek. Try again. Put your back into it.”

“Do so,” Lady Castan snapped. Brown Eyes used her palm this time, and Mag’s head jerked with the blow.

Mag blinked hard a couple of times. “Better.” She discreetly used the pole to fold her hand forward until she could get the tips of her fingers to touch the handcuff hinge. No one noticed.

“One more time, I think.”

Brown Eyes hesitated.

“Well?” Lady Castan said.

Mag tilted her chin toward Brown Eyes. “Gotta do what your little boss says, private.”

Brown Eyes, now unable to meet Mag’s eyes, slapped her again.

Mag was running out of spirit for this, but she couldn’t back down to someone like Castan. “That’s a C- effort, private. Is that the kind of marine you want to be?”

“Enough,” said Lady Castan. “You are clearly stalling. Apologize so I can stop wasting my time on you.”

“Stalling? I’m really not. I’m just trying to get into the right place emotionally, you know?”

Lady Castan got it. Her eyes widened in alarm.

Mag closed her eyes and let her aching jaw and sinking sense of the fundamental absurdity of the situation fuel her new spell.

Every spell Mag knew began with that same bitter joy at being right about something terrible, and her new spell was no different. That was the universal step one.

After the first step, the emotional ingredients varied according to the spell. In the case of her decay spell, the necessary component was the memory of a difficult night she’d had a couple of years ago (it hadn’t been a bad day, but it had ended with a bout of insomnia caused by the heat of summer, combined with a rancid dread at the thought of her whole life ahead of her).

Step three, the easiest step, was to contemplate futility. Recalling any Thomas Ligotti quote would do. If she couldn’t remember something from Ligotti then Lovecraft would work, or Kafka, or she could simply remember that glimpse of the Maker. All things considered, it was the easiest spell in her repertoire.

Simply put, the spell made things break down, but the exact mechanism troubled Mag on a philosophical level. When asked what exactly the spell did, Luna asserted that everything had its own, for lack of a better word, destiny. Every single thing had its own fate, purpose, nature, and proper place in the omniverse. According to Luna, anyway. To Mag it all sounded like pseudo-religious bullshit, and she’d almost said as much when Luna began to wax poetic about cutie marks and her own pride in belonging to a species so in harmony with destiny. Mag held her tongue and restricted herself to saying that Luna’s idea of destiny reminded Mag of the human ideas of telos and dharma. Luna responded enthusiastically once Mag had defined the two words, and after some discussion the two of them had taken to using the word dharma rather than destiny in the context of the decay spell.

In short, the spell let Mag temporarily separate an object’s connection to its own “dharma”. It worked wonderfully in spite of the complete nonexistence of telos, dharma, destiny, and all related concepts. Once again, the princesses had introduced Mag to something that violated her grasp of how reality worked, and there was nothing she could do about it except walk it off.

Mag smiled at Lady Castan and cast her decay spell on the handcuffs.

Lady Castan’s gloved hand covered Mag’s face again. Mag passed out.

***

“No.” Luna’s horn shone.

***

Mag’s head snapped up. The cuffs were now as soft as clay and lighter than paper. She pulled them apart and threw herself into the stacked pallets of lumber. Lady Castan shouted something, but Mag didn’t hear it.

She was wearing nothing but socks and underwear, she didn’t know where she was, and her enemies outnumbered her. This would take some finesse.

“She must not escape!” shouted Lady Castan. “Watch the exits. I’ll deal with her myself.”

“I wish you had asked about The Circle, but good enough. Now, I imagine this building is in a town of some kind, so we should be able to find a public place where this Lady Castan can’t do anything overt. Then we can wait for Celestia.”

Mag stopped to crouch behind a crate against the wall. “Clothes first,” she whispered. “When we made that plan, I thought I’d have clothes on.”

“You do have clothes on.”

“Clothes, not underwear. I’ll walk around a little more and hope someone left their jacket behind.”

“Your culture’s nudity taboo is as arbitrary as it is inconvenient.”

Mag had put ample distance between her captor and herself, but it was only a matter of time before Lady Castan found her. The lady didn’t bother to hide her own position, and shouted taunts every few seconds.

“You can run, but you can’t hide!”

Mag wondered what Lady Castan would do when she ran out of clichés.

“You are wearing clothes, Mag, and why should there be an unworn jacket anywhere here? Seek the obvious solution. You must cut through the wall, ideally without having to goad someone into slapping you, and then we can at least see what is outside.”

“No, and for the record, it’s not my fault I can’t wallow in existential dread when a LARPer is yelling at me.”

“There!” Castan pounced from around the corner of the crate Mag was hiding behind and slapped her hand across Mag’s eyes.

***

“Did you see that?” said Mag.

“Hm?” said Luna. They floated in the absolute dark where Mag had first met Luna.

“She was pulling her hand out of her pocket before she covered my eyes.”

“Astute. She may be using some kind of tool or substance. Can you get behind her?”

“Maybe, but I’ll have to either sneak up on her or pin her, and I can’t wrestle.”

“Do what you can.”

***

Mag lay on the ground face up. Lady Castan was squatting next to Mag, fumbling with a length of slim rope. Mag rolled to the side and the lady gave a startled shriek, falling against a tower of stone flower pots. Mag trundled after her on her hands and knees, realized before reaching her that she couldn’t bring herself to actually punch the little dweeb, and changed directions. Mag got to her feet and scurried away, and felt the bundle of rope bounce off her shoulders as she ran.

Several hundred feet of jogging and five tactical switchback turns later, Mag halted to catch her breath. She’d found her way back to the lawn chairs, card table and pole. Luckily none of the soldiers were there. On the other hand, maybe this was a good time for diplomacy.

“You know you’ve got nothing,” Mag called through her hands in between breaths. “You can’t put me to sleep, all your goons are busy guarding the exits, and I’m sure they’re liking you less and less every minute anyway.”

Castan didn’t answer, so she was probably trying to sneak up on her again. How did Lady Castan sneak around in boots?

Mag didn’t see any reason to stop talking. “Your plan is stupid anyway. How were you planning to make Celestia drop me in exchange for you?”

“HA HA!” A knee connected with the base of Mag’s spine. Mag tumbled to the ground with her back arched, landing on her side.

Lady Castan stood over her, wrestling with something behind her back.

“Gonna try the—urgh—sleep thing again?” groaned Mag. That knee had hurt more than it had any right to.

A sash around Castan’s waist slipped loose. She uncoiled it and flourished it open.

“Is that a yes?” said Mag.

“Your thug magic,” pronounced Lady Castan, “is no match for the artifice and subtle work of Le Cercle. I have countless tools and spells to subdue you.”

“And sharp little knees.”

The sash glowed, and snaked at Mag’s wrists. It coiled tight around them and dragged Mag’s arms behind her back, and fighting it made Mag feel like a child trying to escape an adult’s grip.

“Break that, if you can,” said Castan. She folded her arms and watched. “Do it, thug. Try. Cast your little spell.”

“Or you could simply use the password, which is ‘trois tasses.’ But if you cannot manage the accent, its magic wouldn’t be difficult for you to break; use your decay spell as before, but combine it with the image of a skeletal snake eating a moth.”

Mag pretended to struggle with her bindings for a minute. She stopped and rolled onto her back, hiding her hands from view as she had before. “Yep, you got me. Before we get to my comprehensive 10-page handwritten apology that I’m now offering to write, would you mind answering my question from before? How did you plan to convince the princess?”

“Her majesty never searched for other applicants,” said the lady, tapping her foot rapidly in an irritated staccato. “If she had, she would have discovered The Circle and its cadre of trained companions, each of us educated from birth to act as aides-de-camp, court magicians, servants, diplomats, bodyguards, and even maids. We’ve known for generations that her majesty would be coming and that she’d find someone like me to stay beside her. Do you understand? She needs someone like me. Not you. Me. My great-great-grandfather is the one who foresaw Princess Celestia’s coming in the first place. My mother is one of the leaders of the central council. I have been ready to take my proper place since I was 16. There is no better choice in all the world, and all I must do is free her from your thick-fingered clutches.”

“Pathetic as that is,” muttered Luna, “in all fairness, you really are being wonderfully helpful right now.”

The lady didn’t catch the way Mag’s voice changed. “Of course I am. I was bred for it.”

How many questions could Mag ask before Lady Castan got sick of monologuing? Best to keep her talking, and hope she couldn’t rant and think at the same time.

A horrible thought occurred to Mag. Who did the Nightmare go after? The lost souls, the failures, the powerless and desperate. People with nothing to lose. It’d have to be her first question.

“Yo, there’s a demon thing wandering around Earth right now. It’s called Nightmare. It isn’t, like, in your head right now, is it?”

Lady Castan’s blinked twice, slowly, in horror. “Do I look like a madwoman to you? Don’t joke about that. And the Nightmare has made it clear to every magical family in the world that she will never allow one of us to be her host, nor our allies, nor even our exiles, criminals, or business partners.” Her lip curled. “I see you didn’t receive the same promise.”

“She is clean of any influence,” Luna confirmed.

“No, but Celestia wouldn’t put up with it, so don’t worry about it. Next question, did your ancestor see why Celestia would come?”

“No. No one has perfect sight, not even the Castan family,” said the lady, straightening her cape and picking particles of sawdust from her hood.

“Really? Ever heard of the eldest?”

Lady Castan sniffed. “That old wanderer? An able seer, but ultimately a charlatan and pretender, as you would know if you’d been properly trained. Enough talk. Guards, come, and one of you must also find a writing utensil and 10 pages of paper.”

Boots approached. It was now or never. “Tw—No, it was tr—shit, that French ‘r’ is hard. Can’t you do it?”

“Trois tasses,” said Luna. The sash went limp. Mag tossed it aside and sprinted away to the sound of Lady Castan kicking over the card table in frustration.

“This is fun,” commented Luna.

This time Mag didn’t bother to duck and hide. She picked a direction and ran straight until she found one of the walls, an unadorned cinderblock expanse. Never mind the underwear; it was time to go. Considering how easily the lady and her guards could find Mag, cutting through the wall would take too long. She’d have to look for a proper exit.

She found one but didn’t reach it in time. Brown Eyes performed a baseball slide to block the way to a heavy emergency door that, according to a faded red and white plastic sign, would trigger a silent alarm and alert the fire department if opened. Mag stopped as well as she could in socks on a concrete floor, tripping slightly over a crack but not falling into Brown Eyes’s reach.

“Hold, Mag,” ordered Luna. “Guard, no matter where your allegiance truly lies, you have everything to lose. Whomever you serve, you are earning your master the enmity of two beings of nigh limitless power, patience, and a recently acquired overabundance of free time. Step aside and show us some small flicker of sanity.”

Brown Eyes shook her head. “The lady was raised to serve the princess, and I was raised to serve the lady. We’re all just doing what we’re made for.” Her voice was high but steady, the voice of someone about to be idiotically brave. She lunged.

“Worth a shot,” said Mag. She reached behind her back to lay her hand on a 50-pound bag of concrete, cast her new spell, sunk her fingers into the bag, and swung it in Brown Eyes’s direction. She hoped to throw it and let its mass reassert itself just as it left her hand, but she misjudged the timing and ended up dropping the bag at Brown Eyes’s feet.

Brown Eyes tripped over it and sprawled into Mag, the private’s shoulder making solid contact with Mag’s solar plexus. They went down together into a loose stack of 2x2 lumber that clattered and tumbled apart.

The blow to Mag’s chest left her breathing in tiny gasps. Brown Eyes, blood dripping from her nose but looking otherwise fine, flipped Mag over with her knee and saw that her opponent could hardly breathe, let alone fight.

“Got her!” shouted Brown Eyes. She crouched and said. “You need to relax your abdominal muscles. I’m going to help you up, okay? Fight over. I’m just gonna help you up.”

Luna spoke quickly. “We can surprise her if you still feel able to fight. I’ll relax your abdomen myself and let you breathe and run, if you can work through a few minutes of considerable pain, and then we shall look for another way. Or we can be captured, rest, and try again later. Nod to your left if you like the first plan, or to the right if you prefer the second.”

Mag nodded to her left. Brown Eyes took it for assent and helped Mag to her feet.

“As I said, this will hurt. Three, two, one…” Luna took over Mag’s abdomen. The bottom dropped out of Mag’s lungs and Luna forced her to gulp air. It felt like getting hit all over again.

“Easy! Easy,” said Brown Eyes, kneading Mag’s shoulder to calm her. Mag elbowed Brown Eyes in the cheek and shoved her back into the lumber with another clatter.

Luna had understated the pain. Mag could breathe, but it felt like drowning, or like a stitch in her side except centered under her ribs. Luna had retained control over Mag’s breathing, which was prudent. Mag would have held her breath if given the option.

Pretty rushed at her down a corridor of dead potted plants. Lady Castan followed behind with her sash wrapped around both fists and stretched between them like a garrote.

Mag couldn’t keep this up. Fighting three and a half people, it turned out, was hard.

Time to be pragmatic. Pretty was winding up for a football tackle. Mag waited until the last moment and stepped aside. Pretty caught her in one arm anyway and threw Mag to the ground in an undignified heap. Mag, winded, battered and dispirited, clapped her hand over Pretty’s ear and cast her decay spell again, offering a prayer to Satan and Saint Sartre that Luna was right about how it would affect living things.

Pretty’s jaw went slack, her grip loosened, and her eyes glassed over with a consuming numbness. She rolled off of Mag and into a fetal position, hands covering her face. Luna had been right.

Lady Castan swooped in to aim a kick at Mag’s face. Mag caught Castan’s foot, got up off the floor, and threw Castan’s leg to the side. Castan tried to turn it into a full spin, but Mag caught her cape while the lady’s back was turned, threw it over Lady Castan’s head, stepped on the back heel of her boot, and shoved her into the dead plants. Castan bounced back like an irate cat and swiped ineffectually at Mag’s face with her hands still wrapped up in the sash.

“Did you see? She has a bag of powder behind her back. Sleeping powder, no doubt. Take it and use it on—”

The edge of Brown Eyes’s boot buried itself in the back of Mag’s right knee, dropping Mag to the ground. Bunny chose that moment to step in and land a punch behind Mag’s ear.

***

“Mag, I shall wake you up one more time, but you need to understand this fight is over. You’ll not surprise them again.”

***

Someone, probably Brown Eyes, had thrown her jacket over Mag’s head and clenched it in place so that Mag couldn’t see, stand up, struggle effectively, or run away. She could hear someone unfolding a tarp.

“Tell me what you did to Sadie,” Lady Castan hissed in Mag’s ear.

“The soldier in a fetal position? Decayed her dharma for a bit,” said Mag, voice muffled.

“What did you say? One moment. Guards, the canvas.”

“Don’t struggle. Refusing to accept our failure will only damage our goals.”

Mag didn’t need telling. They’d thrown the tarp over her and were now weighing down the edges with what sounded like the giant stone flower pots. Someone used a K-Bar knife to saw a 6-inch breathing hole in the expanse of tarp next to Mag’s head, giving her a close-up view of Bunny’s narrowed eyes and clenched jaw. She shifted out of view and a disheveled Lady Castan loomed over her.

“Say it again. What did you do to Sadie?”

“Decayed her dharma. She’ll be fine.” She could breathe again, so long as she didn’t inhale too deeply, but running in circles and then taking a light beating had exhausted her.

Bunny glared down at Mag. “I’d be polite, if I were you. Tell us how to help Sadie.”

“Discipline, Dora,” said Lady Castan. “In the final analysis, she escaped because I lost my temper and didn’t pay attention. I lacked discipline.”

Castan stooped to meet Mag’s eyes. “Let’s take one another more seriously, yes? Guards, if this fat shrew keeps refusing to cooperate, we’ll tie the tarp around her, hook the bag of knockout dust over her mouth like a feedbag, and leave her here. It isn’t murder if she eventually escapes, as I’m sure she will. Do we understand each other, shrew?”

“Got it.”

“Good. Guardian Dora, find me that paper and pencil. Wilson, while she does that, tell me what you did to my guard.”

“Fucked up her sense of identity and purpose. Think soap opera amnesia plus midlife crisis, except it doesn’t last. Give her a while and she’ll be good to go, right, Luna?”

“Correct. She needs between five minutes and two days, subject to psychological variables such as how experienced she is at fighting depressive thoughts, and how much she relies on her principles to inform her decisions.”

Lady Castan walked out of Mag’s field of view. “Stop that.” Cloth shifted and boots creaked as Castan sat down on a nearby pile of wood. “In fact, stop speaking entirely.”

Mag closed her eyes and relaxed. She wouldn’t sleep, but she might as well rest before making one more attempt at teasing information out of the lady.

She’d lost.

She wasn’t supposed to lose this.

What had she done wrong?

A lot of things. If she’d tried to cut through the wall when Luna told her to, she might have escaped. The clothes hadn’t mattered to her that much, really, in hindsight; she simply hadn’t wanted the game to end. She wanted to be better than Castan, and she wanted as many people as possible to know it. That… hadn’t happened.

“I have no intention of watching or helping you write a 10-page apology to the little fool while Celestia is somewhere out there losing her mind. I believe we’ve done everything we can.”

“Yeah.” They’d gotten what they came for, and now it was time for scolding and guilt trips. Mag put two fingers in her mouth and, as she had done in the Valley of Mirrors, Mag whistled. She put her all into it, blowing as hard as she could and not stopping until she ran out of air.

Lady Castan leaped back into view with her hands over her ears. “What are you up to this time? Stop that at once! Thank you! Don’t ever do it again!”

“Fuck,” muttered Bunny. “That was a signal.”

“Then it is time to leave,” announced Lady Castan. “We wrap up the prisoner and put her into the back seat. She cannot be allowed to run free until my plan has come to fruition. Guards—”

Cracks shot through the concrete warehouse floor with a sound like a shotgun blast. Then the world turned to solid white. The sounds of shrieking metal and crumbling brick overwhelmed Mag’s senses, until a magical silence shut out all sound.

“KNEEL.”

Mag liked to think of herself as preternaturally resistant to demands from authority figures, but something in Celestia’s command overpowered Mag. Her legs automatically curled under her in what would have been a kneeling position if she’d been sitting or standing, and there could be no question that her captors had done the same.

“THERE WILL BE NO MORE VIOLENCE. NONE OF YOU WILL MOVE.”

Mag’s hearing and vision returned to see that Celestia flew 50 feet above her with a clear blue sky for a backdrop. The walls and ceiling were missing, exposing the inside of the warehouse to a pounding desert sun. Mag craned her neck and saw that Celestia had dismantled the entire building and set the pieces aside, broken walls and twisted roof stacked like pieces of a dollhouse. The tarp was gone.

Celestia descended. Mag saw her face, then wished she hadn’t. This wasn’t yesterday’s warrior angel; this was the unveiled goddess Mag had met when Celestia first came to Earth. Dimly Mag noticed that Bitterman rode on Celestia’s back.

“I AM EXTREMELY UPSET WITH EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU.”

“Could you not do that?” squeaked Mag.

“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW worried I was?!” said Celestia, face three inches from Mag’s and shining too brightly to look at. Bittermann dismounted with more grace than Mag had ever managed but still looked sore. Celestia spared her a glance, then continued. “I thought I made myself abundantly clear how unreasonable I intend to be when it comes to your safety. And you, Luna. Why did you let this happen? Don’t tell me it was your idea.”

“It wasn’t,” said Luna, “but I approved it. The idea was sound, I saw little risk, and we’ve collected some interesting information. Shall we discuss it?”

“No. Mag, is that a bruise?”

“Huh?”

Celestia pointed an effulgent hoof. “Your jaw.”

Mag felt along the line of her jaw and found a sore spot beneath her cheek. When had she been hit there? Right, Brown Eyes had slapped her.

“Luna, list her injuries.”

“There is a bruise on her jaw. She strained a muscle in her lower back, but it is not serious. One of the guards inadvertently struck her beneath the ribs. It still hurts, but I perceive no real harm done. A blister is forming on her left heel.”

Celestia turned to Lady Castan and her three guards. “And you? I see a bloody nose.”

Lady Castan, Brown Eyes and Bunny hadn’t kneeled so much as genuflected. Pretty stood on her knees next to Bunny’s arched back, staring at Celestia.

The lady lifted her head a quarter of an inch off the ground. With a trembling voice she said, “Great One, Guardian Jody got her bloody nose in a collision she insists was accidental. She tells me it isn’t broken.”

”Your species prepared a cult for Celestia’s arrival?”

“I’m more concerned about Guardian Sadie, Great One,” said Castan.

“Yes?” said Celestia.

“Please forgive her impropriety. Something has happened to her mind. It was some form of magic cast by your… by that… by her.” Lady Castan managed to fit a great deal of hate into the word “her.”

Celestia’s incandescence receded enough for others to look at her without losing their sight. She approached Pretty, whose eyes followed her. “What spell did Mag cast?”

“Your… she claims—”

“I beg your pardon, I was speaking to Luna.”

Lady Castan shut up.

“We are calling it her decay spell,” said Luna. “It temporarily decays an object’s connection with its own destiny, or dharma as Mag calls it. The particularities of the spell’s effect can be difficult to predict, but it always changes the target to be more malleable, conceptually. Restraints do not restrain, heavy things forget their weight, walls can be persuaded to stop walling things away, and people lose their sense of identity and purpose. Mag excels at it.”

Celestia sat down in front of Pretty. “Guardian, what is your name?”

Pretty stared askance at Celestia. She swallowed and said, “Sadie.”

“When you woke up this morning, that name meant something to you. That was your world. Do you remember anything else about it?”

“We have a framed charcoal drawing of you in the hall of commencement,” whispered Pretty.

Celestia’s eyebrows ticked up. “Of me. That’s… interesting. But never mind. What does the hall of commencement mean to you?”

Pretty, with faraway eyes, said, “I met the Lady Valérie Castan there for the first time. I was wearing my—yes, my uniform, my real uniform. They’d given it to me that morning and I was so proud. I had a glass of champagne in my hand that I was forbidden to drink, because I was on duty. I don’t remember what that duty was, but I remember Lady Castan in a gray velvet gown, with her own champagne. She told me she wasn’t allowed to drink hers either. We snuck away and got drunk and played video games. Not many people know that.”

“And where is the Lady Valérie Castan right now?”

Pretty pointed at Lady Castan without looking away from Celestia’s eyes.

“What is she like?”

“Cautious—usually. Talented magical artificer. Reads a lot. She made me a little clay pot last year for my birthday. She’s been angry for months over some kind of confidential thing. She threw plates, blew up about little things, broke down in a hallway once but wouldn’t say why. Now that Princess Celestia has come and she chose that Margaret Wilson woman, I think I get it. I’m glad to know what upset her so much. We were so worried.”

Pretty’s eyes cleared. She realized who she spoke to and where she was, and dropped into her own genuflection. Four foreheads now touched the ground.

Celestia sighed. “Get up. You’ve all made a terrible mistake and now the seven of us must decide what to do about it.”

“Eight, with your permission.”

Celestia looked behind her. Mag followed her gaze and saw a woman in a simple blue skirt and black blouse 15 yards behind them. She walked barefoot through the rubble with her hands folded behind her back.

Lady Castan froze in the process of standing up, and moaned from under her hood. “Oh, no.”

The woman set aside a grocery bag holding some kind of bundle and fell into her own genuflection. “Good morning, Great One. I greet you on behalf of Le Cercle de Lampes à Huile, known in the United States of America as The Circle of Lamps. I am the Countess Irénée Castan.”

“Stand,” said Celestia. The Countess Castan did so. “Congratulations. Your stealth teleportation spell must have been phenomenal, though I should tell you I’m in no mood to be snuck up on. When did you arrive? Are you the one who tried to scry me earlier?”

The countess walked forward, picking her way through shards of broken concrete without looking down. “I apologize, your glorious majesty. I arrived a few seconds ago, and yes, I tried to scry you earlier this morning. I apologize for that intrusion as well, but I was worried about my daughter.”

Celestia’s face was a judge’s dispassionate mask. “Did you tell your daughter to kidnap my friend and my sister?”

“No, nor did I know she would do it until she’d already insinuated herself into the American military base,” said the countess. “I did choose to stand back and watch after that, even when she kidnapped your friend.”

Celestia raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“To better understand my daughter. To get a sense for Ms. Wilson.” The countess stopped next to Mag and held out the bag. Mag took it from her.

“What’s this?” said Mag.

“Clothing,” said the countess, “and the proper term of address for a countess is ‘your ladyship.’”

Mag held the bag under her arm. “Thanks, but I’ll wait until we’re done here before I decide what to call you.”

The countess hadn’t waited for an answer. “Great one, I understand your anger. I also understand you intend to make certain decisions about my daughter’s future. I beg your leave to be a part of that discussion.”

“Luna?” said Celestia.

“Reasonable,” said Luna, “so long as Lady Valérie Castan speaks for herself today.”

“Fair,” nodded Celestia. “Ladies, I saw a diner on my way here. If no one minds, I’m going to teleport us there. We can go inside, and then we’ll discuss this.”

“And Wilson can put some clothes on,” Bittermann said under her breath, eyes fixed on a pebble, blushing.

“Prude,” said Mag.

Author's Note

Edited by Arcanist Ascendant, a man of wealth and taste.

Apparently I release a chapter a month, and they're looking like 6k words each. I'm not wild about this schedule (a month is plenty of time for readers to forget what's going on), but it's where my process is at right now. In my defense, releasing 6k words every month isn't THAT awful compared to 3.5k words every week, and I'll have you know these words are way harder than the words back in January.

Anyway, this chapter, like most other chapters, was an exercise and an experiment. This time I wanted to do an actiony chapter, maybe break things up a bit and force myself out of my comfort zone.

e: Tweaked a few words of dialogue to make Lady Castan slightly less of a stereotype in and of herself (while also making her more annoying - an accident, but I like it).
Talking in cliches and actually being a stereotype are two different things.

... wait, did one of my downvotes turn into an upvote? That's a new one.