Shears

by Antikythera

Rating: teen
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia, Dark, Alternate Universe, Main 6, Drama, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Mystery, Spike
Length: 39147

Magic has to make sense, and so must everything else. That's what Twilight Sparkle believes, and that's the cornerstone of her sanity.

Twilight Sparkle is a troubled pony who just wants to understand—magic, history, the Elements of Harmony, how other ponies work, and how to live a functional, fulfilling life like everypony else. She excels in everything she does, because all she does is read. Some things are just harder for some ponies. But when she sets her sights higher, toward exploring the obscure terrain of interpony relationships and navigating the circuitous history of the Elements, she learns more than any book she's read could tell her. The world has its secrets for a reason.

Inspired by fiction in the vein of, e.g., HPMOR, Worm, Luminosity, Ra, and To the Stars. I identify this story as a so-called "rational" fiction; for more information, feel free to check out the subreddit /r/rational, or read my comment on /r/mylittlepony explaining some details about my goals and values regarding the story. If you'd like to see non-chapter progress updates, you can follow my twitter, @aknifeallblade.

Published 2015-11-19 03:30:02 UTC
Last updated 2016-10-31 20:59:16 UTC

Bridges, 1

Scales (Interlude)

The filly's small form shifts into some inscrutable posture. Her hooves tremble with ten thousand different emotions, each faint and distant as a star. With grave force of will, her taut, fraying vocal cords shiver into motion, betraying her skeleton-thin reply.

"...What does it feel like? What does it feel like?! It feels like... nothing. It feels like nothing at all!"

Princess Celestia rolls her weight onto her fore haunches and squints, unsure exactly how much distance separates the two of them.

"...I'm truly sorry to hear that, my little pony," she admits. "I regret that it's not what you'd hoped. But what, if I might ask, might those hopes have been?"

The filly shakes her head, gently freeing dingy purple locks to sweep across her eyes "I thought... I think I thought I would feel... different, somehow. Altered in some kind of way I could look forward to. But it... just feels like some of my coat mutated in color," she says, flatly. There is silence for a spell. "...I don't know what I wanted it to be, I just... really needed it to be something. For some internal candle to flare up, something to pull me towards being a normal pony."

The Princess takes a breath, and poises herself to continue. "This mark signals only the beginning of your adulthood." All visual features aside from Twilight have slipped away from her, but something could be at hoof's length and she wouldn't know in this lighting. "You've just demonstrated a truly awesome magical talent, the likes of which we haven't seen in one so young since Star Swirl." She opens a circuit through her horn, and reaches out to assay the room's topography. "You passed, Twilight. You've just guaranteed your admission to the most prestigious magical and scientific academy in the modern world." Her magic finds no purchase as far as her mind can grasp. "Twilight Sparkle, tonight has scored lines on you along which your fate will be cut." Even the floor beneath her hooves affords nothing for her magic to brush against. "How did you expect this moment to feel, my little pony, if not like there was a great missing passage in the libretto left unwritten?"

"...There's probably something to that," replies the foal. "I never could be satisfied with a book until she knew how it ends."

The Princess raises an eyebrow. "'She?'"

Twilight Sparkle nods. "Me."

"...How are you feeling, my little pony? Are your thoughts... unclear?"

"Only vacuously so."

Celestia frowns. "...I'm afraid I don't—"

"Princess, do you know where my parents are? I have to tell them I passed the entrance exam."

"...Twilight, my sweet filly, when you focused your magic so intensely—"

"But when they see my cutie mark... I've been waiting so long to be wrong about being... hollow, or whatever I am. And I have to explain that the universe agrees with her?"

"There many things your mark could mean, Twilight; I ask you not presume to understand it after just a few minutes." Princess Celestia notes Twilight's eyes as dreamily winced shut, and considers her options. She would much prefer to know exactly how much danger this young filly is in before she acts, but is searching for a reason to delay a magical response.

"Twilight, I need you to relax your magic—"

"No, no! ...Princess, don't go, she's crumbling, she can't control herself, stay stay stay stay—"

"I'm right here, Twilight," Celestia's voice breaks. "Your eyes are closed, but I'm right here."

Her eyelids screw tighter.

Princess Celestia's horn begins to glow a dull white. "Open your eyes, Twilight." She starts counting her heartbeats. "I am asking you to open your eyes."

Twilight is silent, still as a stone.

The Princess asks, slowly, firmly:

"Do you remember who you are, my little pony?"

The eyes open, though it's too dark to make out where they're looking. The small lavender creature reconfigures her features into an uninterpretable expression, and turns her neck to where the floor should be.

A long second expires.

"Yes, my little pony, I believe I do," she affirms.

Six. Celestia blinks. "...Good," she says. Seven. The Princess of Equestria's voice is level as she proceeds: "And what, then, is your name?"

The foal's eyes close once more, but this time, gently, with no resistance.

Though nothing can be marked as reference, Celestia can't suppress the feeling that the surrounding void is expanding.

She sees the tip of her glowing horn stretching imperceptibly away from her vision.

She turns her eyes back to the filly, but they slide off the edges of her portrait, tracing along her hairline and the thin frame of her mouth.

The foal's ears swivel down to lie compactly against the neck, as a sword might slide into a sheath.

The Princess' magic embarks for the filly, resigning her horn to darkness in its absence.

A mouth opens to speak.

Bridges, 2

Bridges, 1

Among Princess Celestia's royal duties is the daily raising of the sun, heralding the hours of the day in which ponies are to live their lives. This is performed publicly once per year at the Summer Sun Celebration in Canterlot, but otherwise occurs within the privacy of her quarters in Canterlot castle. The sunrise has become a metanym for Princess Celestia's reign as a whole, appearing on almost all royal iconography and every national seal. In other countries, they speak of the Crown; in Equestria, ponies speak of the Sun.

The magic strength required to cast the sun-raising spell is a testament to the Princess' unparalleled ability; prior to the Princesses' coronation, the entire unicorn tribe pooled their forces together each day in a trying ritual now known as "Daybreaking". This was fairly unreliable. The unicorns' spell contrasts with what Celestia now uses in that it was merely large-scale brute telekinesis, and as such they required line of sight with the clear sky. This rendered the process susceptible to the whims of the cloud-clearing pegasus tribe, who were left in a precarious position between the opposing pressures of the unicorn and earth pony tribes. Leaving the sky clear each day to permit a path for the sun would mean forgoing the regular rain crucial to the successful growth of earth pony crops, the food source for all three tribes. This was one of many stressors and sources of contention among the tribes which ultimately attracted the attention of the Wendigos. As unicorns and pegasi succumbed to hunger, control of the sun waned, and further strain was put upon the crops, already agitated from the cold. Having become a cultural symbol for the brutal, uncaring nature of the elements, the image of the sun finds much warmer purchase in Princess Celestia's iconography. The reader interested in celestial dynamics magic is directed to Spiral Flare's What Goes Up, a review piece compiling all facts about the Princesses' magical abilities that are in public record.

The earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns flourished together for the first time under the Princesses' hooves. It was under their rule that Canterlot, beating heart of Equestria, was founded and constructed, along with almost all sizeable modern settlements. (Notably, certain cities on the outskirts of Equestria (e.g. Ponepeii) predate the sisters' involvement.) Common sentiment is that an Alicorn ruler, harnessing the magic of unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies, is exactly what ponydom needed after the turbulent Reunification of the three largest tribes. The compassion and magnanimity of the sisters afforded nascent pony society the egalitarian support that, it was thought, any one representative from any one tribe could not.

The diarchical paradigm served Equestria well for several thousand years, staving off numerous external threats. However, the first substantial challenge for the kingdom came from within. One night, on the eve of the summer solstice, the sun simply failed to rise. In addition to the immediate, drastic obstacles to survival, this instigated panic among the ponies regarding the fate of their rulers. Cold, hungry ponies anxiously awaited a royal announcement that one of the Princesses had died. When the royal announcement finally came seven long days later, it was Princess Celestia, crownless, revealing that Princess Luna had betrayed her sister and her kingdom by refusing to lower the moon to make way for the sun. Princess Celestia explained that she had wielded some toolkit of magical artifacts known as the "Elements of Harmony" to banish her sister to the namesake moon she was so fond of, and that the remaining Princess herself would assume the mantle of positioning and animating both the sun and the moon. The elder Princess' role in the so-called "Dark Solstice" is largely unknown; despite theories that she spent that time battling Luna, or that she was verbally trying to dissuade her, or that it simply took her that long to find the elements or decide what to do with them, there is no fact of the matter known to ponydom.

Whenever pressed for comment, Princess Celestia reliably maintains that "Princess Luna's reasons were her own". It remains unclear whether this is to be taken as an admission of ignorance or as a gesture of respect for the younger royal's privacy, as nopony else knows the details of that final fateful conversation between the sisters. Some historians (notably Silk Feathers et al.) have noted that the only report of Princess Luna's betrayal comes from her sister, and since the fate of Princess Luna remains unknown to this day, this bias casts the events of the Dark Solstice in a questionable light. No plausible alternative to Princess Celestia's narrative of Princess Luna's deliberate betrayal has been supported by contemporary accounts, however.

Common theory, supported by terse intimations in Princess Celestia's speech, is that Princess Luna had grown resentful of the ponies' treatment of her night. Ponies, biologically and culturally diurnal, slept through the night with rare exception, while daytime and the sun remained powerful icons for the ponies' hope and survival. Perhaps Princess Luna had tired of her night being shunned, or taken for granted, despite its important role in daily life. Perhaps she had simply grown lonely. The reader is reminded that Princess Luna was pony herself, and that living nocturnally was kind to neither her body nor to her mental health. She lived every day alone; this fact was seen as a concern until well after her betrayal. And Princess Luna, if she is still alive, if she is indeed stranded alone on the moon, certainly has no more friends now than before.

The Elements of Harmony themselves are a subject of great mystery and intrigue, but the nature of their existence is currently understood to be a manifestation and reification of certain virtues esteemed in pony culture, namely generosity, honesty, kindness, laughter, loyalty, faith, and an unknown seventh. They take physical form in seven jewels of varying shape and color, typically affixed to golden jewelry. The origin of the elements has previously been of great debate, although interest has waned in poverty of any new developments in the past thousand years. In fact, the only two appearances of the Elements in pony history are the petrification of Discord and the banishment of Princess Luna. It is of important note that the Elements have never been seen to hold any destructive power. Such ability is thought to run contrary to their nature, one of patience and forgiveness. The Elements, too, have come to be seen as a symbol of the Princesses' rule, representing their refusal to condemn a foe to a permanent demise, while still uncompromising in their devotion to their kingdom.

Discord's petrification was the critical moment for the Princesses' political inception. It was Discord who cleaved the pony tribes apart and "unstuck" the sun and moon from their natural cycle, both of which issues the Princesses' hooves were instrumental in resolving. The exact moment of the Princesses' appearance, silhouetted against the solar eclipse in Discord's sky, is emblazoned in the memory and mythology of ponydom to this day. The Princesses were wearing the Elements on extravagant golden bangles, necklaces, and tiaras. After a brief confrontation, they encased the draconequus in stone, ending his rule. However, instead of taking the throne themselves, they absconded back into the twilight toward unknown ends, until their reappearance several hundred years later. This held ponies accountable for the integrity of their own society, and anarchy continued to reign even after the spirit of chaos was vanquished. The power vacuum was so absolute that the seeds Discord sowed bloomed fully into inter-tribe hatred, and the events that followed comprise the well-known story of Reunification, retold in the popular dramatization play performed yearly on Hearth's Warming Eve. For a more thorough account of Discord's rule and its lasting effects or on the Reunification, refer to chapters 6 and 7. It is of special note here, though, that in the battle with Discord, it was Princess Luna who wore and wielded the Element of Loyalty. This somewhat confounds the narrative of Princess Luna's betrayal, but provides not much more information on which to theorize.

In great contrast to the very public display of Discord's demise, Princess Luna's banishment occurred away from pony eyes. There is no record of the event except the almost pareidolic image of a mare's head in the topography of the moon. Princess Celestia decreed that Princess Luna be quarantined from anypony she might hurt, and that was that.

The fate of the Elements of Harmony is the subject of debate, considering their incredible power as magical artifacts and the curious bridge they build between harsh, angular nature and the soft warmth of the pony mind. They have only appeared in pony once, but in their legacy they stand as the de facto royal jewels. For a comprehensive history and reference guide to the little information available on the Elements of Harmony, the reader is directed to Soul Shimmer's report The Elements of Harmony.

Twilight Sparkle, lying alongside a slow Canterlot riverbank, staring at the midday sun overhead, following larger, more wandering thoughts, shuts the book.

Author's Note

This is the first segment of a story intended to spin the world of My Little Pony into something a bit more mature and a bit more internally consistent. One of my primary goals is to bring the reader into a world where both friendship and magic make sense, foundationally. It's relatively close to a single-point-of-divergence fic (by which I mean it isn't one at all). I like MLP quite a bit (obviously), but this is intended to be readable by those with no standing knowledge of canon.

Any and all feedback is appreciated; I've never written fiction before this work. Feel free to comment here or on the corresponding thread in /r/rational.

Bridges, 3

Bridges, 2

"Oh, er, hi girls," fumbles Twilight.

She's heard of the Elements before—everypony has—but this petrification power is new. The narrative of Discord's harsh and nonsensical rule is just one of many similar stories, of malevolent kings, queens, emperors, and monsters that had sunk their claws into Equestria before the Princesses's sheer power became quite so load-bearing. Ambient, lasting peace has persisted for so long now that these insurgents, though well-document, have mostly become foals' fables or spooky campfire tales. Nopony really doubts they're true, but nopony really thinks they're relevant to a kingdom as resilient and stable as theirs. Discord's is one she's never really looked into.

"Hi, Twilight! How are you?" says one of the three unicorn mares she's encountered en route to the library.

"I'm fine, Minuette. I was just enjoying a moment by the river," replies Twilight, her eyes suddenly struggling against the draw of her hooves.

Luna's story, however, is one Twilight knows well. It's easy; there's not much to know. The moon hung in the sky for far too long, then Celestia gave a speech, and that was that. Dumping responsibility for the moon onto Celestia's plate never seemed to burden her much; day and night continued exactly as ponies were accustomed to after the incident. The sun's long-awaited ascent marked Celestia's arrival, and fell back away a short 24 hours later, giving the ponies a longer day as meager compensation. She was probably always capable of controlling both bodies at once, anyway, but it did seem natural to cede the moon to somepony named Luna.

"Oh, that sounds great! It's a beautiful day, after all," says Twinkleshine.

"Eheh, yeah."

If Luna could command the moon, it doesn't make much sense to send her there and stop short of any further measure. Couldn't she wreak even more havoc, that close to the locus of her power? She supposes that some further form of neutralization must have been used, perhaps petrification again. Maybe somewhere on the surface of the moon there stands a grand statue of an Alicorn princess, rearing fiercely, face contorted into a grimace of realization and fear, maybe she was petrified from the hooves up, maybe she focused all her frantic energy into her horn, hoping to fudge a makeshift counterspell that would free her wings long enough to—

"Maybe I'll take a page out of your book and visit the river later," Twinkleshine tells her. She seems proud of using a reading-related pun on Twilight Sparkle. The sun looms in the distance over Twinkleshine's head, and Twilight finds it difficult to persuade her gaze to drift down to the faded pink mare speaking.

How much of Celestia's power do the Elements contribute? An Alicorn would probably be tremendously powerful on her own—but to raise the sun, every day, always maintaining her distinctive royal poise—is that within their natural ability? That would be a simply catastrophic amount of power to have trotting around on four hooves without some mysterious artifact or other. But she had never heard of an Alicorn harboring the slightest of ill intent, aside from Luna's rebellion a thousand years ago. Even that week-long confrontation had not ended with the moon crashing to earth. Come to think of it, she had never heard of an Alicorn besides Celestia, Luna, and her old filly-sitter Cadance, who certainly never exhibited any power that rivaled even Twilight's during the time she knew her. But Cadance herself was a only a teenager at the time—who knows? The elder Princesses were quite obviously out of Cadance's league, but they also had a several thousand years' head start. Maybe the sheer magnitude of their magic came naturally to anypony with a horn who happened to live that long. Her Alicorn sample size was simply too small; she'd need to find a book. And maybe pick up Spiral Flare's review article, too. But that would have to be after attending to the most pressing curiosity: the Elements of Harmony.

"So, uh... what are you doing later today?" asks Minuette, one forehoof lightly scratching the other.

"Ah, I've got some studying to do," says Twilight, finding herself mimicking the pastel blue unicorn.

The Elements do seem like they would have been the perfect counter to Discord, sure. But Luna, who once wielded three of them herself? What, exactly, happened inside her head? Did living functionally alone so long twist her thoughts up into something darker? Did she know her demand for pony nightlife didn't make biological sense? Did she even realize that her subjects would starve to death under eternal night? Why did Celestia wait so long to banish her? If Celestia could have handled the moon all along, wouldn't she have been able to ease Luna's burden? Couldn't they have shared both responsibilities, letting Luna see the light of day and participate in pony society? Did Luna ask? Did Celestia say no?

"Oh, does the Princess have another task for you?" guesses Twinkleshine.

Twilight unscrunches her face. "Uh, nah."

"Are you writing another research paper?" Minuette ventures.

"Probably not. I just found something pretty interesting that I want to know a bit more about," says Twilight.

"That sounds a whole lot more like plain-old reading than studying to me," declares Minuette, smiling.

Twilight is asking the kinds of questions Celestia does not like to answer. Celestia is a friendly pony, and it's always been obvious that she cares deeply about each and every pony in her kingdom, including Twilight. She is, regarding everyday matters, surprisingly approachable, but she has always declined to comment on her sister, to anypony, as long as anypony can remember. Twilight realizes that she herself has never asked, although she can't imagine why it would really feel different to Celestia coming from her. Twilight is certainly closer to the Princess than most civilian ponies, having been her personal protégé at the Princess's School for Gifted Unicorns. But she's just a student. Maybe if she couches the questions as a report on the power of the Elements of Harmony...

The three unicorns blocking the road to the library are staring at her expectantly.

"Ah, what was that?" Twilight blinks.

"I said, Moon Dancer's hosting a get-together in the South Canterlot Garden today. Do you think you can make it?" says Twinkleshine.

"Um, I don't think so. I have a lot of reading ahead of me."

She wonders whether only the Elements could have defeated Discord, who seems almost a force of nature in his abilities and mystery. The essence of all that is good and harmonious to be found in the world, the only thing capable of scourging a source of chaos personified—it might be just poetic enough to be true, which may very well be a serious criterion for something as fuzzy and strange as the Elements. And maybe the Elements were the only nonlethal tool Celestia could find strong enough to overpower her mad sister, not having the resolve to destroy her.

Lemon Hearts, not having spoken up so far, took a couple of steps towards Twilight, who couldn't help but take a step back. A tiny, tiny step.

The Elements are so phenomenally powerful, but their story ends with Luna's, neither of them ever to be seen again. What sort of greatness could ponydom achieve, if only they were recovered? Were they destroyed in the final blast at Luna? Did the Princess seal them away somewhere, that she might not be tempted to undo her spell and free her sister, hoping for some kind of forgiveness and absolution? Are they just lying in the royal vault?

"Twilight..." whispers Lemon Hearts, meekly, slowly, as if she's afraid of pushing the wrong button. "Is today one of your bad days?"

Where are the Elements?

"Sorry, girls, I... really need to go." Twilight forces a tiny awkward bow and begins to trot away before anypony can reply.

Bridges, 4

Bridges, 3

Twilight's room in the West Canterlot Tower is a large one; when the growing royal library was moved to the roomier ground floor, giving the space to the most voracious reader in the city was cheaper than renovating it, given its very specific design. Shelves tower to the top of each of the two floors, living space relegated to a small corner nook. Twilight, outgrowing the School for Gifted Unicorns library and accruing smidgens of prestige , was ready to move out of the slipshod SGU dorms, and so the top room of the east tower became hers, complete with one of all the duplicates in the royal collection. One of these, she hopes, is Predictions and Prophecies, referenced in the copy of The Elements of Harmony she tosses on the floor as she enters. She couldn't resist glancing through Elements for an hour or two before taking it up the tower for thorough study, and she was pleased with her serendipity in realizing while still at the library that she needed another book. Unfortunately, their copy had been rented out.

"Spike? Spike!" Twilight calls out, trying to remember what the baby dragon had said he'd be doing today.

"Hey, Twilight!" Spike calls out in turn. "Where have you been all day?"

"I was doing some reading down by the river. Do you know whether we have a copy of Predictions and Prophecies?" she asks. Seeing him walk out of the kitchen carrying a wrapped red box, she adds, "And what's that?"

"It's a gift for Moon Dancer! She's having a party today!" Spike flicks the last sapphire he's carrying into his mouth. "Didn't the girls tell you? It started half an hour ago!"

"Oh, yeah. I'm not going to go. Predictions and Prophecies?" she asks, her mind pawing idly at nothing while she waits for her answer.

"I think so, I'll check. Twilight, what do you have to do that's so important it can't wait till after the party? Moon Dancer's been planning it forever!" He starts

"How much have you heard about the Elements of Harmony?" Twilight regrets asking about the box. "Or Discord?" She's not expecting much, really. Spike's never been one for history, or anything else, really.

"Not much, just that one vanquished the other a long time ago. Twiliiight, I'm serious! I know you don't have anything important to do. I think this party is important to Moon Dancer." Even as he protests, he's wheeling one of the ladders over from the end of its shelf. He's barely strong enough to trudge it to the center. It can be nice to have a measure of control.

Twilight notices her hooves are aligned pleasantly within the gridlines of the wooden plank floor. Spike will keep at it for a while yet, but he's learned not to press too hard when Twilight wants to stay inside. Not everypony carries things the same. Different gaits. "I'm sorry, Spike, I just don't think I'm up to it." She pauses for a moment, trying on the heft of her next sentence, an old staple: "It's, uh, sort of a rough day for me." But it's not. It's not really a bad day. "I think I need to rest for a while." She's pretty much fine.

"...Okay, Twilight, if you say so," calls Spike back down the ladder, softened, and probably a little guilty. "Sorry for pressing so hard." Sorry, Spike. "But I found a copy of your—!" He fumbles it off the ladder as he tries to heave it down; Twilight catches it in her magic.

She is pressing hard, too, but in the only way she's learned how. "It's okay. I think it'll pass. I just want to brush up on some stories, is all." She arcs the book in front of her face as she turns to walk away. "I'm really sorry I can't go, but it's okay if you do." It's only fair, and Spike should really get social interaction beyond Twilight. Some days, she's the only pony he'll see. He's lived with her his whole life, and he seems normal enough, but Twilight's hardly such a role model. Spike is a pretty workable caretaker, when she really needs it, but he's only a few years old. Nopony should live starved for attention—not her burgeoning dragon assistant, not the fallen princess of the moon.

"...Twilight, you know I wouldn't leave you alone all night." He's walking towards his bed in the corner of the main floor, but a bit slowly, like he's not sure what he'll do when he gets there. "Don't worry. I'll keep you company."

Twilight nestles into the crook of the couch facing the west window. It's the wrong direction to catch a glance of Moon Dancer's party, but the right one for the setting sun. She fights not to open the book. Not quite yet. Twilight has to give a little back; she owes him. "Tell you what. Let me start looking through this for one hour, then ask me again, and I'll think about going to the party." She knows she won't agree even then; Spike probably knows too.

"Sure, Twi," he says, and comes in for a geometrically awkward hug.

She smiles, meaning it. "Thanks."

It's actually only a couple minutes before Twilight realizes this book has nothing for her. It takes her a little longer than it should to come to terms with. When a book disappoints, it's like a tiny star falling out of the sky: there are plenty more, sure, but you've still lost something.

Elements of Harmony: See Mare in the Moon.

Mare in the Moon: An epithet for the fallen Princess Luna. Defeated at the hooves of her sister Princess Celestia with the Elements of Harmony and imprisoned in the moon. Legend has it that on the longest day of the thousandth year the stars will aid her escape and she will bring about nighttime eternal.

"Ugh! This book is worthless!" Twilight slams it shut and closes her eyes, counting breaths. "The wording is ambiguous and fragmented. The so-called 'prophecies' are mostly too general to have any predictive power. And there's not a single citation in the entire book! For all I know this could have been written by some pony sitting in her lounge chair, making everything up on the spot!" Twilight stands up and starts pacing. "And has she ever heard of a comma?!"

Spike, having not had much luck in deciding what to do with himself, has apparently drifted off somewhat in his wicker bed. Too many uncut sapphires will do that to a baby dragon. By a couple sentences into Twilight's rant, though, he's alert enough to come out swinging: "Maybe you two just don't have much in comma," he says, and starts snickering.

Twilight ignores him, on purpose for once. "This was pretty much a waste of time. I'm going to go back to Elements of Harmony, I guess. Do you know where I put it?"

"Maybe somepony took it! Wait, I'm thinking of the Elements of Larceny." He restrains his cackling until he finishes delivering the pun, just barely. He's out of bed and trying to wander into the kitchen, but he's laughing his eyes shut and collides with the dividing wall.

Twilight is methodically combing the floor for the book like somepony else might look for her glasses, but she stops to giggle; she can't help herself. "Where'd you learn that word?"

"I was chatting with Cold Case a couple days ago, at Donut Joe's. You know, that day you realized you had an old edition of Fundaments of Wind Magic and freaked out? I didn't know what to do once you disappeared, so I just went for a snack."

"Eheh, oh. Yeah." Not one of her better days. She starts bending over to check under the shelves.

Spike is checking the opposite side of the door, and says, "Found it, Twilight!" He hefts the tome into his arms, taking a shaky step backwards in the process.

Twilight levitates it out of his hands, gusts off the fresh veneer of dust, and places it on the couch. Spike sniffles. She trots over herself and nestles in once again, but something strange is stopping her from opening the book, which is lying in front of her like a Magic Cube one twist away from solved. The longest day of the thousandth year... It's odd that this year's Summer Sun Celebration is the thousandth since Luna was banished, and it's even odder that she found that passage just two days before. But reading a book at a particularly unlikely time does not really lend any credibility to the work itself. Twilight knows this. But despite herself, her mind is whirring, conspiring, almost building something or tearing something down. She's entertaining threads of cosmic synchronicity and fate, threads she knows will embarrass her if pulled. Real life isn't a story; not every rising action has a climax. She puts a hoof on the cover of Elements.

But... wouldn't it be smart to make sure, at least? Take the tiniest precaution? There are probably a dozen old ponies' tales in that book just plausible enough to bear a little examination (if she were a bit less discerning) and she suspects that pretty much none of them would be worth it. But that's a bit of a slippery slope argument, or at least she convinces herself it is: she doesn't want to exhaust the book, scrounging for a scrap of truth. She only wants to investigate this legend, the one with a chance of being tied up with her own story. When it's exposed as fantasy, she won't skip to the next.

She's being swept away. She only ever waffles about doing something pointless when she knows she's going to do it anyway. Some ponies are experts at justifying their own behavior; they've had practice. She decides: if she hedges her point thoroughly enough, there's negligible cost to sending a letter to the Princess, and there's really nothing else she could do anyway.

"Spike, take a letter."

"Are you sure? It's sort of late for her, and she's probably been preparing for the celebration all day..." But again, the objection is just a gesture; the dragon fetches a quill and some parchment from the end table in the living nook. When Twilight nods, he says, "Okay, shoot."

Dear Princess Celestia,

In my studies, I've found a reference to a prophecy regarding your sister, Princess Luna. It states that she will return for the thousandth Summer Sun Celebration after she was banished, and that this time she will succeed in her goal to bring eternal night. I hold little faith in the veracity of the source, but I thought it might be best to bring it to your attention, the appointed day being so close. Enclosed is a photocopy of the text.

Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle

While she's dictating, Twilight prepares the spell she compiled for replicating print. As a fairly precise sequencing of intermediate-complexity spells, it's one of her more involved inventions, and she takes a small joy in finding an opportunity to use it. She pulls over a sheet of parchment herself, and places it on the page with the Mare in the Moon entry.

After Spike is done writing, she walks into her repurposed closet and shuts the door. She lays the book on the table and blows out the torch, then sets her mind to cast. First, she marks the ink with a glow, a composite spell that factors neatly into a metric, an illumination conjuration, and an infusion. Then, an illusion infusion is cast on the loose sheet, rendering it considerably less opaque. Next, a selectively substantial plane projection is pushed down onto the page, attuned to scale its physicality in inverse proportion to incident light. That's a barrier spell imbued with a metric. A sizable blob of ink is retrieved from the nearby well (involving another metric and an animation) and pressed down onto the barrier, with firm but regular force. Since she can't abjure non-magical material, the plane floats to the well, rolls itself up partway, funnels in the excess ink, and dissipates. Finally, a light breeze is directed orthogonally at the paper. The loose page solidifies back into view, and that's that.

The meager shine from the ink isn't enough to see by, but no hoof-eye coordination is demanded of Twilight, just concentration. It's embarrassingly draining, because of all the sequencing and automating metamagic (not to mention the two material identification metrics she wouldn't need if she were casting manually), but she doesn't care. It comes out perfect every time. She opens the door, hands the facsimile to Spike, and places the book back on the shelf.

Spike puts down the old copy of Ice Archery 101 he was thumbing through, and rolls the two papers together with some twine. He inhales sharply and blows out a spurt of green flame, incinerating the message. The smoke, sparkling a faint green, rises to the ceiling and floats out the open window.

Spike burps out a reply in another three hours, surprisingly late for the Princess to be awake. Twilight sets down What Goes Up and levitates the letter from his bed to her couch, untying it en route.

My dearest student Twilight Sparkle,

You know that value your vigilance and dedication to your studies and your kingdom. However, though I thank you for bringing it to my attention, I am not worried about this prophecy. Dusty old books make many fantastic claims. Please do not concern yourself further over the matter.

Incidentally, I have a new task for you. As you certainly know, this year the Summer Sun Celebration is being held in Ponyville. I am requesting the presence of my most logistically gifted student for supervision of the festival preparations. If this is acceptable, you will leave via chariot escort first thing in the morning. Report to the station; I'll have taken care of the rest.

While you are there, I humbly request you spend some time meeting the locals. Ponyville is very different from Canterlot, but it is full of brilliant, shining ponies nonetheless. It would delight me to no end if you were to befriend some of them.

Eternally yours,
Princess Celestia

P.S. I'm so proud of your photocopying spell. Keep up the captivating research!

It was almost inconceivable that Celestia would find any danger in the prophecy, but that really just makes it worse, more inexcusable. For a moment, Twilight feels something grinding in her head, one gear a poor fit for another. What did you expect, Twilight? You can do better than this, she thinks. Learn from it. The Princess's time is infinitely more valuable than yours.

Spike sees her lying there, head down, eyes closed, and comes over. "Hey, Twi, are you okay?" he says. There's no right answer.

"I really should have known better. I really should have. At least I found out we'll be visiting Ponyville sooner rather than later. We're spending the day there tomorrow." Twilight rises from the couch to start packing. While she's up, she steals a glance out the southern window, but nopony's in the garden.

Bridges, 5

Bridges, 4

The trip from Canterlot to Ponyville is about four hours long by air; Twilight has not been successful in occupying the first thirty minutes. She had enough time to read through Celestia's letter a few more times, enough to accidentally memorize it, but she has grown bored, and sometimes even she recognizes when a compulsion isn't healthy for her. Spike is napping, catching up on the sleep they missed from getting up so early, but she's too agitated to even try. She decides she wants to practice a little magic.

The chariot is flying at a pretty constant speed, fast enough to create a fairly chilling breeze through the passenger car, so it would be hard to do anything with fire magic. Wind magic would most likely just be stifled by the ambient gale. A barrier could be dangerous, because it would require constant force to remain steady in the wind, and if she loses control and it's anywhere in front of her, she's liable to smack herself in the face. She could practice metrics or metamagic, but it's not every day she's exposed to wind this strong. Casting in those fields wouldn't be much different than on the ground. Surely there's something interesting to do that capitalizes on the novelty of the scene...

She starts reciting the fields of magic in her head. Animation, projection, conjuration, vivification, abstraction... infusion! Most of her recent infusion practice has been wind magic practice as well, so an idea springs into her mind: maybe the natural wind is similar enough to a wind spell to capture it in an amulet; there's one way to find out. Her suitcase magically unzips, and she rummages through it, retrieving a modest emerald and a gold amulet with an empty cavity in the center for the stone. These are standard infusion supplies, jewelry being the go-to medium for persistent or stored magical effects. The highly regular crystalline structure of gemstones captures magic extraordinarily well in comparison to something compositionally erratic like stone or wood, and if you have made such a spellstone, you may as well put it around your neck or horn.

Typically she carries just one gem on her pony, since they're a hassle to maintain. It's a small topaz set into modest gold necklace, infused with an autotargeted vivification spell triggered by a magic flux metric. When a pony tries to cast a spell, either she has enough magic or she doesn't; there's little-to-no feedback on how much magic she has left, only whether it's enough. But if Twilight vivifies magic into the gem, it will immediately reflect (nearly) the same amount back at her. It's coded to work with only her own MR frequency spectrum. This means she can send increasingly stronger bursts, and when one fails, she has an upper bound on her magic reserve. The reflection coefficient diminishes as the day goes on, so she refreshes it every morning.

There's something alluring about having distilled thaumic power close-at-hoof. Twilight often slips into fantasies about being the kind of mare who could dispense any threat with ease, just by activating the right gem on her pony. Those gems are stored on ornate bangles and headdresses and lockets, and are arranged in a technicolor rainbows representing the full spectrum of magical function. She single-hoofedly extinguishes forest fires, reconstructs fallen bridges, incinerates rabid timberwolves, pinpoints rare flowers for antidotes, erects earthquake-resistant shelters with just a day's warning... In the wake of every hardship, duplicate gems automagically float from her space-warping satchel to replace those expended. She answers to nopony, to nothing except goodness and truth. She saves ponies because nopony else can. An eidolon conjuring wild abilities as needed, defender of ponykind, savior of the waking world.

Of course, there are problems with that insane reverie. For one, infused gems lose strength over time if not activated (the Inertial Decay Problem), and a majority of intense spells are medium-destructive when released anyway. Those issues make prohibitive such an extravagant collection, and Twilight doesn't even have much talent for infusion anyway. And even if she could be exactly as powerful and skilled as she fancies, nopony can be everywhere at once. But it doesn't really matter to Twilight. Everypony has a story they like to tell.

She shakes her head a fraction and looks down at the materials in her hooves. Right. It's fairly straightforward to absorb a magical gust into a gemstone, but she hasn't heard of anyone trying to capture a natural phenomenon. It's even a bit more novel than that, since the wind only exists in her own reference frame, although she doubts that will be a complication. First, she has to force her infusion spell to recognize the current as magical, else it won't see anything to bind to the emerald. That could be done in a couple ways: she could try simply infusing the wind with something (say, a glow, or a cooling spell), but she doesn't want to capture magically enhanced wind. A magically inert object won't accept a magic vivification, so that's a non-starter.

Hmm. What would happen if she infused the wind with a metric? Typically, a metric reports its measurements or classifications to the caster, be it a unicorn or whatever sequence or combination it's a subspell of. She predicts that this would end up with the metric reporting to the wind itself, and Celestia only knows what the wind would do with the information. Infusing with a pure metric is a simple enough idea that somepony must have tried it, but she doesn't know who. Until she lands and makes her way to a library to check, she can almost let herself believe she'll the first.

In theory, the wind will be considered magical after the infusion, even though all it's doing is throwing away information. So, in theory, that would allow the infusion spell to target it and, in theory, charge itself with wind magic. Disappointingly, the wind it emits would probably then be indistinguishable from ordinary magic wind. She briefly considers a metric to detect metrics, but her head begins to hurt. Either way, the acquisition of natural "pseudo-magic" would be very interesting indeed. There are a lot of things that could surprise her along the way, but it's worth a shot.

She will need a barrier, after all, so she'd want to put it above her. That way, she won't be in danger from behind it, but she won't block the wind from in front of it. It'll be in the shape of a tube, with the stern end solid. The bow end will be wind-permeable, but set to infuse incident matter with a metric. She'll let in run for a couple seconds, then target the emerald with an infusion.

She spends a bit of time thinking about whether any one metric might make more sense than another, but she can't see it mattering. She decides to go with the simplest one she can think of: report whether there is anything within 1 hoofstep of you. Normally, there would be an exclusion for the target of the metric, so it won't give constant, useless feedback, but she'll omit that, so that it will return a continuous stream of truth. The whole experiment will be fairly taxing, so the metric should be as efficient as possible.

She raises her forehooves into the air to get a rough feel for the wind speed, and can't help to crack a smile at her idea. In her peripheral vision, she notices the royal guard pegasus at her 4-o'clock give her a confused glance, shrug to himself, then refocus his attention on flight. That's okay; she doesn't have to explain. She turns around, lies down on her back, head pointing towards the front of the carriage, and gets to work.

It simply doesn't work.

She spends a long time building up confidence in her ability to maintain the projected tube relatively steady before she dared to actually put the emerald in it, so long that they've almost arrived by the time she actually carries out the steps. She only has enough time to try the full sequence twice. She'll try again someday, of course, maybe on the way back. But it simply doesn't work; the emerald infusion simply doesn't take. Troubleshooting, she discovers the wind inside the tube is indeed magical in nature, but the emerald doesn't care.

When Twilight and Spike arrive at the station, they're equally lethargic. Spike slept from departure to arrival, and is groggy; Twilight, having managed to eke out room to pace in the tiny carriage (she had to traverse it diagonally), is having trouble stomaching the thought of taking another step through this day. But they manage to lug their two suitcases off the chariot and start pulling them towards Golden Oak Library, along Ponyville mainstreet.

There are technicolor ponies loitering anywhere Twilight's eye picks out. Walking along the road, lounging outside cafes, swimming in the lakes. Two unicorn colts are even trying to climb a tree, without much success. Ponyville is so small that it almost seems like the whole town is out enjoying the summer air, but every store she passes has at least one pony in it, too. She feels like every pair of eyes is on her, but she convinces herself she's wrong: Ponyville doesn't typically get many visitors, but plenty of out-of-towners coming in for the Summer Sun Celebration would be arriving today, spending the night, and waking up before sunrise to attend. She probably doesn't stand out at all. Spike might not be so innocuous, but Twilight shouldn't have to deal with anypony before reaching—

Her path is intercepted by a bouncing earth pony, the most vivid pink Twilight's ever seen. Her mane and tail are so fluffy as to make her look like a walking mound of cotton candy. She bounds up close enough for Twilight to see her pastel blue eyes, lets out a deafening gasp truly impressive for her size, and flees as fast as her fuchsia legs can carry her. The whole exchange takes about five seconds, but that's long enough for Twilight to instinctively cower to the ground and start rocking. She stops herself after another second or two, but she knows it's too late; everypony saw, she knows it. Soon, she too is running. She reaches the library, drops her suitcase inside the door, and doesn't cry.

Bridges, 6

Bridges, 5

After his stubby legs lead him to the library and he shuts the door that Twilight left open, Spike finds her lying on the middle of the floor, legs splayed straight out, head down. "Twilight, it's okay! That pony was probably just crazy or something," he says. Spike doesn't know what will help, but it's a pretty good try. He puts a hand on her shoulder; she doesn't respond. He looks around, mind grasping. "Do you wanna spend like half an hour looking through the books, before we go check on the preparations?" He sees one of her ears twitch, and feels a small weight fall away.

She doesn't say anything, but gets up anyway, and brushes her mane out of her slightly damp face with a hoof. She gets to know the library. Ponyville's isn't nearly as big as Canterlot's, or even her own home, but it's respectable; it's well organized, and though there aren't many shelves, the ones there are are almost filled to capacity. Of course, Twilight beelines for the magic theory section.

Spike, doubtful that he's really done enough, says, "I mean, you'll probably never see that pony aga—"

"I don't wanna think about it anymore, okay? I'll be fine."

"Okay, Twi."

She feels conflicted about what she finds. On one hoof, it's a small section; on the other, what few books there are are almost all ones she's never heard of before. The Classical Element Controversy, The Conjurer's Guide to Alchemical Reagents, In Search of Lost Time Magic, Labeled Trees and You, Bale University's Intermediate Magic Exercises and Solutions... Her eyes glaze over a little, until she realizes that there's probably a reason she's never seen them before. A small library like Ponyville's wouldn't be held to quite to the same standard she's used to. Still, she feels confident enough in her ability to separate the chaff to pick up a copy of Intermediate Nonstandard Infusion and open it to the introduction.

Infusion is generally categorized into one of two types: alteration (imbuing an object with the properties of another spell) or suspension (a method of delaying the activation of a spell, to be triggered at a later time). For example, infusing a gem with a projection alteration will simply yield a more durable stone (albeit with some possibly surprising caveats—see section 6.1), whereas a projection suspension will only manifest in the presence of magical flux, while failing to trigger upon physical force. However, the suspended spell will decay considerably less quickly, because it is not continuously discharging its magic. Thus if one is worried about dropping her gem and shattering it, an alteration barrier is best; if she wants it to be defended from magical attacks, a suspension is the better tack. This illustrates that each of the two has its role in a serious magician's toolkit.

Twilight knows introductory infusion theory like the back of her hoof, but after her earlier failure, she doesn't deserve to skip past section 1.1.

Forty-five minutes later, Spike knows he can't wait any longer to tap her on the shoulder. "Hey, Twilight, we should really get started on the day," he tells her.

Superposing conjured materials via alteration infusion is widely considered dangerous. However, recent advances in transmutation (cf. A Quasistable Measure-Theoretic Method of Lattice Intersection by Waterwheel) have afforded material coincidence a much needed stability, both in formal grounding and in practice. Extremely fine-tuned dynamic physicality scaling is a must for a stable superposition; this entails a complicated array of interdependent metrics both infused in the gem and factored into the conjuration. Improper calibration will lead to spontaneous dissolution at best and explosive ejection at worst.

"Twi?" Spike shakes her, gently.

"Huh? Oh, is time almost up?" she says. She really wants to check the publication date of her book.

"Yeah. We should get moving," he says.

"...Okay." She levitates a bookmark from her suitcase to the fold in the book. She thinks about slipping a barrier in between the pages as well, but there's no way she could maintain concentration all day. After she closes the book, she takes a second to ground herself, and gets up from the bench. She pulls out the to-do list she obtained with her train ticket at the Canterlot station. First up is the catering; Twilight is to visit Sweet Apple Acres and ensure everything is in order.

As she walks away from her book, it's difficult to pry her gaze away from it. She knows it will be several hours before she will see it again. There are several ponies presently standing between her and further study. But it's straightforward enough to convince herself: Celestia did not pay her way to Ponyville for a night so that she could read. Twilight breaks her focus on the book, walks to the door, and reenters the world.

Sweet Apple Acres, a couple minutes' walk southwest of Ponyville, looks like the apple capital of Equestria. Acres indeed: the hills roll on as far as she can make out. Every tree is loaded with apples, and every apple is almost platonic in color and form. The barn, too, is impeccable at first glance, as if every barn ever constructed had referenced this one through time. It's into this barn (large enough to apparently include living space) that Twilight finds a burnt orange earth pony tugging a cart full of the farm's namesake apples.

"Um, excuse me? My name is Twilight Sparkle," Twilight probes, hoping somepony in the town is capable of speech beyond gasps. "And I'm—"

In an instant, the nameless mare is shaking her hoof and grinning. "Well, howdy! Nice to meetcha, Miss Twilight Sparkle! The name's Applejack, what can we at Sweet Apple Acres do ya for?"

Twilight attempts to withdraw her hoof as soon as she realizes what's happening, but it's another few seconds before Applejack lets go. "I'm, um, an emissary from Canterlot, and, uh, I'm here to supervise preparation for the Summer Sun Celebration. Are you in charge here?"

"Gee, somepony on a mission for the Princess! Well, we in the Apple family like to think of the farm as a team effort. The whole family's in charge!" Applejack says. She enters the kitchen and wheels out a cart, and Twilight sees it's filled with all sorts of desserts. Spike makes an audible gasp. "But the food's goin' great. We're doing apple pie, apple strudel, apple fritters, caramel apples, apple pancakes with apple butter and applesauce—"

"Uh, wow, okay, well. That does sound adequate." A pony named Applejack with three apples as her cutie mark, part of the Apple family, who own Sweet Apple Acres, an apple farm, making only apple-themed food. Fancy that. It's a bit odd to be serving primarily confections at a ceremony that starts immediately before sunrise, but at least there are pancakes for the normal ponies. She turns to leave. She's never met anypony half as outgoing and cheery as Applejack, and something just out of hoof's reach about it makes her uncomfortable.

Applejack speaks up, at a slightly higher register: "W-wait! Don't go just yet! Don't you wanna try somethin'?" Spike takes a step closer to her, but then notices Twilight's gesture waving him along.

"I'm, ah, not really one for sweets." Twilight starts trotting away. Spike tries to give her a meaningful glance, but she's looking dead ahead as deliberately as she's ever done anything.

"Well, uh, nice to meetcha! Hope I see you later?" Applejack calls to her, somehow shaping it into a question.

Twilight gets a couple meters down the road, staring at her hooves. She wants nothing more than to progress to the next task, but something starts tugging at her. She slows, then gives in and stops midstep. Turning, and finding Applejack still gazing in her direction, she gathers herself and starts trotting back. She's not going to disappoint the Princess twice in as many days.

"Hey, Applejack?" she says.

The orange pony's mouth curves back up. "Yeah? Didja change your mind?"

"No, I... just thought of a question."

"Shoot."

"What if somepony's allergic to apples?" Twilight sees Applejack's ears lower a fraction, and revels in catching such a tiny piece of body language.

Applejack says, "Nopony's allergic to apples in Ponyville. Believe me, I'd know."

"...Okay. But there are lots of ponies coming from out of town. Do you know everypony in Equestria?" says Twilight, making a sweeping gesture with one hoof.

"...I s'pose not." Her ears sink a touch more.

"Then what are those ponies supposed to eat? Or, Applejack, what if they just don't like apples?"

Applejack's ears droop all the way. "...I dunno."

"I have to request that there be apple-less options available for guests with nonstandard diets. Sorry for the inconvenience."

"I guess we could make some pancakes"—she gulps—"without apples. I'll make it happen. Neither of them knows what to say for a moment, but then Applejack continues, "You sure you don't wanna take a caramel apple for the road? Bein' a unicorn an' all."

Reign it in, Twilight. Give a little. "...Sure." She smiles, trying to mean it. Applejack grabs one off the tray; Twilight pulls it over to herself. The coating is perfectly uniform and is so thick she can see her reflection in it. She never thought she could describe a caramel apple as immaculate.

Bridges, 7

Bridges, 6

The next task is to ensure that the sky is cloudless for the festivities, so that everypony has a clear view of the morning sky. Like all other weather conditions, this is managed by local pegasi. A pegasus named Rainbow Dash is head of the Ponyville weather team, and wherever she is, whatever she's doing, the sky is not clear. Twilight, despite all her magical prowess, is grounded, so she's reduced to simply wandering around with her head turned to the sky. She quickly realizes that's no way to find somepony, so she musters the resolve to ask the first pegasi she meets—on the ground. Celestia's counting on her. She tells Spike, who seems excited at the prospect of Twilight initiating a conversation.

So when she encounters a gray-coated, platinum blond-maned mare eating a muffin on a cafe patio, she swallows and approaches. Walks up and starts talking, just like that. "Excuse me, do you have a second?"

The pegasus finds it necessary to introduce herself: "Oh, sure! I'm Derpy Hooves! Who're you two?" Her voice is considerably more sultry than Twilight had expected, but nevertheless she can sense the cheer and good will oozing out of her mouth. Like she's never met a unicorn before.

"I'm Twilight Sparkle, emissary of Princess Celestia. I'm overseeing festival preparations," says Twilight. "And this is my assistant, Spike."

Derpy motions to shake Twilight's hoof, but forgets there's a table in the way. She jostles the table, knocking off a set of unused silverware on the other side. The clatter seems to startle her, as she begins to rear up on her hind legs, but there hasn't stopped being a table in the way. This time the empty plate is close enough to the edge to fall, but this time, Twilight is poised to catch it.

"Oh, sweet catch! Sorry about that. But it's great to meet you! Take a seat! Would one of you like the other muffin?" she asks. You don't see that in Canterlot.

Twilight, reluctant to inspire Derpy to further motion and in general wary of accepting gifts, pointedly would not like the other muffin. She'll never understand how other ponies do it. How do you show your gratitude? How much do you reimburse? Too much of a puzzle, or at least not the right kind. "No, thank you."

Spike hops up onto the spare chair and takes the second muffin from Derpy's hoof. "Thanks, Derpy!"

Some ponies have figured it out. Twilight asks, "Are you on the weather team, by chance?"

Derpy says, "Oh, sure! I mostly just deliver mail, but I can help out in a pinch. Why?"

So are you on the team or aren't you?, Twilight thinks. "Have you seen a pony named Rainbow Dash today? The clouds need to have been cleared for the Summer Sun Celebration tomorrow, but it almost looks like rain."

"Oh, no, not today I haven't. Have you checked by the lake near the schoolhouse? I see her relaxing there all the time. Make sure to check on top of the clouds, she might be napping," Derpy says, embedding the remnants of the muffin in her mouth. Spike almost beats her—almost.

That brings the conversation to a natural close. Twilight feels a dirty mixture of independence and indulgence; she has all there is to get, but has nothing to give. As the silence presses down, she starts fidgeting with closings in her mind, trying them on one by one.

"So what do you like to do, Twilight?"

"Uh." Uh. "I, um, I read a lot." Don't scrounge for the scalpel, just get out the sledge. "I'm really in a hurry, so... Thanks for the advice, Derpy." Twilight starts walking away.

Spike hops off the chair and follows her, saying, "See ya later!"

Derpy stops licking the crumbs off her plate long enough to wave goodbye. "Oh, see you later!" she says, wet bits of muffin spewing out.

Pegasi, being largely unenthused with gravity, rarely deign to take naps on the ground when they could doze on much fluffier clouds. So it's no surprise when Twilight spots the head of a supine pony atop a cumulus, above the center of the lake. It's almost certainly Rainbow Dash, assuming her parents took a glance at her hair before naming her. What does surprise Twilight, however, is that Rainbow Dash is neglecting a crucially important task to do literally nothing instead.

"Hello? Are you Rainbow Dash?" she calls out. But her voice isn't carrying well enough to wake up the sleeping pegasus; the lake is fairly wide, and so half the lake is too. "Hellooo?" Nothing.

"It looks like she's out, Twilight," Spike says, helpfully. "Can you do something with your magic?"

Why yes, Spike, I can. She reaches out for her magic, and picks up a stone. She pulls it back, imagining an oversized slingshot strained to its snapping point—and stops. There's surely a less confrontational way to do this. She needs something less physical; it wouldn't do to agitate somepony so critical to the Celebration. How do normal ponies wake somepony up, without rocks? Spike looks at her, expectantly.

It's nontrivial to get any certain timber or tone out of a sonic illusion; ponies make careers out of it. Twilight's spent some time training her visual illusion skills, so she's moved beyond colors and shapes, but she's never devoted any time to sound. She has read Thunderclap's seminal treatise, though: she knows that for any precision, you need quantitative spectrographic data, but she thinks she can pull off a crude cymbal crash offhoof. Percussion should be comparably easier than a string instrument, she thinks; it's just things banging together, right? And so her mind fills with the conception of cymbals' sound, like it's the only sensory input she's ever known, the grassy lakeside fading into darkness, all but the noise slipping away...

As her horn's pink glow infringes on the crown of her vision, she hears the mess she's made. The cacophony indeed sounds like cymbals—maybe a couple hundred pairs of them at once, along with snares, hi-hats, toms, and a platoon of basses, all playing a brutal polyrhythm. Twilight doesn't even want to imagine what a trainwreck the Fourihay decomposition would look like. Know your limits, Twilight. She entertains the thought of making a run for it, but thinks of the Princess. Instead, she just gulps, and contemplates whether she should hope Rainbow Dash woke up or not.

It doesn't matter—Twilight sees Rainbow Dash's limbs flail, but the startled pegasus quickly composes herself. She turns onto her stomach and dangles her forehooves off the edge of her cloud. "Hey! What the buck didja do that for?" she yells, voice cracking.

"I'm sorry! I really need to speak to you. I didn't know that would sound so... grating," Twilight says, fighting not to paw the ground.

"Couldn't you just toss a rock at me or something? What are you doing here, anyway?" asks Rainbow Dash.

"I'm in charge of festival preparations for tomorrow." Twilight blinks, and Rainbow dash is standing before her, throwing her a suspicious side-eye. The rainbow lightning strike on her flank almost declares its own indignation.

"You sure? Because I've never seen you around before..."

Twilight feels a private relief at meeting a pony not so blindly trusting, although it's not making anything easier for her. "That's because I've never been here before. I'm Twilight Sparkle, and I live in Canterlot. This is my assistant, Spike." She pulls him out of the nearby bush he's cowering in. "We're here by order of Princess Celestia." Rainbow Dash leans back out of her personal space, and Twilight lets herself breathe out.

"Okay, I guess," Rainbow Dash says, "but couldn't you think of something smarter?"

Twilight should have run away. "I..."

"Sorry, I guess that's pretty mean of me." She leans back a little more, ears drooping a little. "I'm Rainbow Dash, by the way, but I guess you knew that. You can call me Dash. Or Rainbow, I guess."

Spike nudges Twilight. She feels the ground beneath shift a bit more towards level, and so she extends her hoof. "Glad to meet you, Dash." She is; there's still plenty to do. Should she bring up the weather yet, or—

"You too. So, anyway... why were you looking for me?"

You haven't figured it out? "I wanted to ask about all the clouds, since, as you know, the Summer Sun Celebration starts tonight..."

"Oh, right. Yeah, I just haven't gotten around to it yet," Dash says.

"I see. Uh, well, it's important to get it done sooner rather than later, so..."

"Yeah, I get it. I'll do it after my nap," she says, now trotting towards the lakeside.

"If you insist on napping, can't you ask the team to get started first?"

Rainbow's left ear twitches, and she turns back around. "I'm just gonna do it myself."

No you're not. "Is cloudbursting for the whole town really a one-pony job?"

Something connects in Rainbow Dash's head; she realizes what's missing: Twilight doesn't know who she is. Not really. "Of course not! Unless that pony is Rainbow Dash!"

Twilight's patience is swirling around the drain, any second to bottom out. "Prove it!" she finds herself saying.

"You got it!" And just like that, she's in the sky, kicking clouds out of existence. She starts with her disowned napping spot. Twilight feels a twinge of loss, for forsaken things, but then it's gone.

Spike says, "I guess we just leave her to it?"

"...I guess so. We'll keep in eye on the cloud cover and come back later if we need to," says Twilight, as she walks away.

Bridges, 8

Bridges, 7

There are three more items on Twilight's list, and there are three more ponies she might have to prod into action. The day is already one of her heaviest in a long time. Three more times she must meet somepony she has no information on whatsoever. She's not even halfway done. Three more times.

Spike, noticing her having stopped midstep, says, "Hey, Twi, that didn't go so bad. I think Dash likes you, actually. She just has a lot of spirit." He's softballing it, but Twilight figured that out herself. Rainbow Dash is the kind of pony who would like anypony issuing a challenge. And that's what feels like a rising tide around her hooves: that twisting, everting awareness of there being somepony in the world like Dash. Lots of ponies, in fact, who can prove what they've got to prove. Like the world owes them something they're trying to collect. Twilight rises to her own challenges, and to the Princess's, but nopony else's. She won't. Can't.

"I know, Spike. We just have to keep going. I'm okay," she says. It's probably true. The day is piling weights on the scale, but just fairly enough to keep it from tipping.

"Okay, Twi. Let me know if you need a break. It's still pretty early."

Twilight feels the sun creeping towards its apex, and starts walking again. "Maybe after we meet Rarity."

"Who's that?" says Spike, following.

"She's a seamstress who runs a fashion boutique in town. She's in charge of decorating Ponyville Town Hall for the Celebration. That's where we're hopefully going to find her."

The eidolon mare of her daydreams wouldn't have to entertain challenges or threats.

"Okay. I think that's further down this road," Spike says, pointlessly.

She'd be known for who she was, just by being it.

Twilight pushes open the doors to find the main hall as decadent as any she's seen in Canterlot. Dozens of banners in deep royal colors stream from the ceiling, proclaiming the eminence of Equestria, the sun, and Princess Celestia. The common area is replete with silver tables under brilliant white tablecloths, and the stagefloor is covered in a rich burnt red carpet. For once, it seems this pony has things completely under control. Twilight's gait picks up, shifting how she's carrying the day.

On that stage is a white unicorn levitating several strands of ribbon, each a different color. She's holding them up to the stage curtains in turn, assessing the combinations. It's evident enough that Rarity is finding such obsession in the smallest of details that Twilight can't imagine a problem slipping by, but she needs to introduce herself nonetheless.

"Excuse me, ma'am?" Quick and painless.

"Just a moment, darling, I'm 'in the zone' as it were!" the mare replies. She's still just looking at ribbons. Whatever, Twilight can wait. After a moment, the pale blue glows around Rarity's horn and ribbons fade. She turns around, and says, "Thank you, dear. Now what is it that i can do for—"

Something small inside her snaps in her eyes as they fall upon Twilight's topaz necklace. Her hooves reach for Twilight's throat. "Oh, dearest, whatever were you thinking? Topaz is not the gem for you. Here, indulge me and try on one this ruby choker I've been working—"

"Hooves off!" Twilight finds herself yelling. There's a beat of silence nopony knows what to do with. Twilight continues, quietly, "It's, uh, special to me. Personal." The amulet's not special because somepony loved her, or because somepony died. It's special because it's hers. It's a huge contribution to modern magic academia—figuring out how to store sufficiently complicated vivifications and metrics instead of suspensions took her days alone—and even though those papers and schematics are freely available, it's hers.

Rarity takes a step back. "...Good heavens. My sincerest apologies. I never meant to encroach upon your personal space, I'm merely... very enthusiast when the mood strikes me. I'm Rarity." She's looking Twilight dead in the eyes, in the most uncomfortably sincere apology Twilight's ever received, but Twilight finds her eyes drawn to her diamond trio cutie mark instead. "I've been cooped up with these ribbons and banners for several hours now. I do hope you'll forgive me, Miss...?"

"Twilight Sparkle," she says, and breathes. "And this is my assistant Spike," she says, gesturing at the inexplicably indisposed dragon. He's just staring at Rarity, who doesn't seem to notice.

"Miss Twilight Sparkle. I'm sorry, dear. What is it that you came to me for?"

"I'm, um, in charge of festival preparations." Twilight forces her hoof down from her necklace. "I'm sent here from Canterlot to ensure—"

"Canterlot?! My stars, why didn't you say so! The glamour, the sophistication! I've always dreamed of visiting! Why, you simply must tell me all about what it's like to live there!" Rarity, fanning herself with a hoof, has fallen over some degrees in an obvious pratfall.

"Uh. Okay, maybe at some point, but I'm kind of in a hurry at the moment. Again, I'm here to ensure that everything is going according to plan regarding the festival decorations. How are things coming?"

Rarity rights herself, a bit awkwardly, as if she didn't expect to have to do it alone. "Oh, they're going simply marvelously. The hall does look resplendent, if I might say so myself. Don't you think?"

"It does look pretty great. Well done!" says Twilight, injecting a modicum of cheer into her voice. She may very well get some time to read before the Celebration. "Is there anything lagging behind you might need help with? Anything I can do?"

"Why, yes! There's a crucially important task that I've been unable to complete alone," Rarity says, starting to grin. "Which of these ribbons best matches the rest of the decor?" She passes two ribbons to Twilight, one bright red and one muted yellow. Twilight takes them and holds them up to the drawn dark red stage curtains, as Rarity was doing. The yellow clashes far less. She switches them a few times, then tells Rarity as much.

"I do think you're right, darling. Whatever was I thinking, with that atrocious red? Thank you, dear."

Twilight knows when she's being thrown an easy bone to feel included, but she often doesn't mind. "Glad I could help," she says, and she is. "If there's nothing left, I think it's time for me to move on to the next task."

"If you say so, darling. But I simply must insist that you come back and see me sometime! I'll be in my boutique after a scant few hours.

"Okay," says Twilight, deeply unsure. "It was nice to meet you, Rarity."

"The pleasure's mine, dear!" She turns back to her work, tying up the yellow strands into exorbitant bows.

Bridges, 9

Bridges, 8

Off the roads from Ponyville, on the outskirts of the Everfree forest to the southeast, there's a cottage. The enormous bush sprouting through its roof leaves the cottage itself seeming something of an afterthought, a hole carved into the shelter of the leaves. The facades are covered in birdhouses of wildly varying sizes, and so are all the nearby trees, but there's not a peep to be heard when Twilight and Spike arrive. There's no answer to the door, so they walk around the side to find an empty wooden pen enclosing the neighboring hilltop. A soft yellow pegasus sits in this field, facing away.

Seeing her, Twilight calls out, "Excuse me! Are you Fluttershy?" But this seems to startle the young mare, who spins her head around her shoulder and doesn't stop staring back until Twilight crosses about half the distance between them. Then she gets up, turns to face Twilight, and sits back down. Despite her cheery pink butterfly cutie mark, she looks to be in a terrible mood, though Twilight is never quite able to pin down what sort.

"Um, Miss? Are you okay?" Twilight takes a step back once her gaze meets the pegasus's; for all her experience in not being okay, what works for Twilight is not what works for other ponies. There are many ways to not be okay. Some problems she can fix, some she cannot; the fine line between them is daily the scene of Twilight's greatest battles.

"Um, I'm fine," the mare whispers. She stands up, and starts surveying the treeline. "I'm just... worried, because... the Summer Sun Celebration is... tomorrow... but my choir has flown away!" Manifestly, she doesn't have the power for complete sentences inside her.

Twilight releases her breath. Thank Celestia it's a problem out in the world, she thinks. When Twilight brushes up against an external obstacle, some ceiling or filter on what she needs to do, the sort of impasse she's left in is almost a respite. Just a puzzle to be solved. So often, her problems have no support in the world at large. Those are the bad days: when nothing's wrong except her. Half the time, she has more control over the cold facts of external reality than her own struggling mind.

"Oh, that's perfect!" says Twilight. Fluttershy frowns. "I'm Twilight Sparkle, sent from Canterlot to oversee festival preparations. That must mean you're Fluttershy?"

Fluttershy, upon finally noticing she's talking to somepony she doesn't know, has retreated her face into her billowing pink hair. "Um... yes..."

"Okay. And you're in charge of the music for the Celebration?"

"...yes..."

"...Okay. And your birds have all flown off?"

Fluttershy releases some squeak of assent. Twilight's feeling unexpected shades of empathy; the notion of comforting Fluttershy is spinning idly like a top in her head. After meeting Rarity, the day isn't quite so heavy, and maybe she has the strength to experiment a little.

"Uh... I'm sorry, Fluttershy. Is talking to me making you uncomfortable?"

She shakes her head, mouth slightly agape. "N-no! You're not making me uncomfortable at all! I'm just... shy."

"Doesn't being shy mean you're uncomfortable around strangers?" Fluttershy's brow creases fractionally. "Ah, what I mean is, it's okay if that's the case. I wouldn't be offended. I just want to say that I mean you no harm and that I'm not judging you for it." Say what you mean, just like in your reports.

"Uh... okay. That helps, I... guess. Thanks." But she doesn't look any more at ease, really. Twilight hasn't done anything except sweep away the logical grounding for her feelings; Fluttershy's physiology took no notice. Oh well, at least she's talking again. Time for exposure therapy. Twilight counts it as a win.

"So, Fluttershy, what's happened with your birds? Where've they all gone?"

"Um... A while ago, there was this awful, awful noise, like... like an entire marching band fell down an endless staircase. It scared away all the birds in my choir, and I haven't managed to coax them back out of their nests. I sat down to think about what to do. Did you hear anything unusual in the last hour or so?"

Twilight is hardwired not to respond to certain questions.

"That makes sense. It's my job to help you bring them back so you can get back to practicing. What have you tried already?" Twilight says.

"Well, I tried asking nicely, then when that didn't work I got a bit stern with them, but they were still too scared, so I started promising birdseed, but that only draws them out one at a time, and when they peek out to see the empty field—"

"Okay, that's fine. Let me think whether there's something I can do with my magic." There's always something to be done with magic.

Carrot, or stick? Should Twilight lure the birds to the field, or drive them out of their nests? Explore the first possibility before you start burning down trees, Twilight. Sex and food—in her primitive understanding of animal behavior, these are what stir creatures into action. If she weren't an abject failure at acoustic magic, she could just mimic mating calls, but she's going nowhere near acoustic magic without remedial study. That leaves food. Fluttershy already determined that birdseed works, it's just not enough to draw out all the birds at once.

"Fluttershy, how much birdseed do you have?"

"Plenty! Too much, to be quite honest.

"Perfect. Can you help me bring some bags of it to the tree you're using to practice?"

The two of them pull back to the side of the cottage, against which several pony-sized sacks of birdseed are leaning. Twilight heaves one above her head with her horn. Fluttershy, unable to lift the bag clean off the ground and maintain lateral motion at the same time, starts dragging one behind her as she flies back to the field, wings aflutter.

They deposit the sacks at the base of the leafless tree centered in the field, and Twilight rips open the tops so that a level layer of birdseed is exposed on each. She asks Fluttershy to stand back, and lets herself fall into her horn. Wind picks up in a rough circle around them, first aligning in one direction, but quickly molded into a crude whirl. The idea is that the wind will pick up abundant birdseed scent. She can't directly induce wind farther than a few meters out, but if she creates enough turbulence within her ambit, hopefully the surrounding currents will carry the scent the rest of the way to the birds' homes. She maintains the spell for a few moments, then slips back into reality.

She's enveloped in happy, satiated chirping. Spitting birdseed out of her mouth and shaking it out of her mane, Twilight opens her eyes to success. Dozens of birds are presently devouring the open sacks. Twilight realizes her lure was completely indiscriminate—Fluttershy's choir wouldn't be bigger than ten or so, but every single bird in the area was drawn. But t's not a miss, so it's a hit.

Twilight glances at Fluttershy, smiling at the knowledge that magic has saved the day once again, and she didn't even have to light any nests on fire. But by the look on Fluttershy's face, the pegasus doesn't seem to match her enthusiasm. "Does that... did that help, Fluttershy?"

"Of course! I just, um... I can't really practice with so many noisy birds right here... and I don't think they'd like trying me trying to move the bags. I guess I'll just wait for them to finish eating. Maybe I'll... pick up some of the birdseed everywhere." Fluttershy is gently scraping a hoof across the ground. "Thanks for the... help, Twilight."

"Um, no problem." As usual, there as probably a smarter way. Either way, there's not much she can do here, and the outlook for the Celebration music is looking better than it was. It's time for Twilight to cut her losses.

"Well, I wish you the best of luck with further practice. I think it's time for Spike and I to..." Where is Spike? "Fluttershy, have you seen a baby dragon anywhere around here?"

Fluttershy's eyes pop open and she stares directly at Twilight. "Baby dragon?! No! Why, I've never seen a baby dragon in my whole life! You came with one?" She's taking step after step toward Twilight, who is nervously glancing sidelong at the cottage.

"He's my assistant. He was here when we arrived... He's supposed to stay by my side..." Something's wrong. Something must be wrong. She turns heel and gallops to the cottage. "Spike? Spike?!" The fringes of Twilight's vision begin to fray. "Spike!!"

"Heya, Twi! I'm in the cottage! Look at who I found!" she hears as she rounds the corner and peers through the open door. She sees him running in circles with a tiny white rabbit, like nothing bad has ever happened. Unsure of how to respond, she just leans her side against the doorframe until Fluttershy catches up.

"Oh, Angel! Did you find a playmate?" The bunny thumps, expressing some unspecified emotion. Fluttershy's wide smile strikes Twilight as one of the purest things she's ever seen. She needs to leave.

"...There you are. I was worried, Spike. You know you're not supposed to leave my side."

"Sorry, Twilight. But when I saw this little guy go into the cottage, I had to follow him! He's the smartest rabbit I've ever seen, he opened the door all by himself!" Spike says.

"We're done here, so we should move on to the last task."

"Oh, Twilight! You hadn't mentioned you know a baby dragon! He's so smart and sweet! Spike, I can't wait to hear all about your life!" says Fluttershy, standing behind Twilight in the doorway, becoming impassable.

Spike knows his birth story quite well, almost having mythologized it. Telling it is one of his favorite ways of meeting strangers. "Well, it all started from a little purple egg. Hatching me was Twilight's entrance exam for the School for Gifted Unicorns, but she was having a really hard time doing it until a huge rainbow—"

"Spike, we really need to get going. There's only one thing left on our list, but who knows how long it'll take? The last pony could be completely incompetent!" It's true, she's worried about meeting Tinder Heart, but more than anything, she just needs to go. An inchoate fear is rising within her; if the monologue continues, she won't have anything to say, but she won't keep silent.

"Okay, okay, Twilight. I'll make sure we come back around, Fluttershy. Don't worry! Soon you'll hear all about the great Spike the dragon and his triumphs and travails!"

"That sounds wonderful, Spike. I'll look forward to it," says Fluttershy, empty of patronization. Twilight doesn't know how she does it.

"See you later, Fluttershy." says Twilight, turning to the doorway which Fluttershy is still awkwardly standing within.

She finally steps out of the way, into the cottage, to coddle her rabbit. "Bye, Twilight! It was so nice to meet you!"

Author's Note

Sorry for the long delay. Finals suck.

Bridges, 10

Bridges, 9

While on the way to Tinder Heart's cottage, Twilight looks up at the now-clear sky, and ponders whether she should be proud of her actions in Ponyville . Certainly, she's accomplishing the task she's been given. In her private rhetoric, that's her gold standard: a double entendre for, yes, an exemplary prototype for comparison, but also for a shining ensign representing her expeditions in the name of Celestia. Carry out the responsibilities you have been given: this is how Twilight repays the Princess. But on the other hoof, it would come as no surprise if every single pony she's met today hated her. Applejack, Fluttershy, and Derpy, definitely. Rarity and Rainbow Dash, maybe, maybe not. And that insane pink earth pony must have thought she was a changeling infiltrator or a maggot crawling out of the darkened earth or Celestia knows what. She tries to remind herself that none of it matters, not really. In twenty-four hours, Ponyville will be a catalog of minor mistakes and victories to enumerate when taking inventory. She's here for one job, one which is proceeding well. Not without hiccup, but it's getting done.

Except that's not strictly true, is it? She doesn't have just one responsibility. The Princess's letter was very clear about her ancillary task in Ponyville: make friends. It's true, there doesn't seem to be much of a direct point in it. But the Princess has always worried about her, and she's wondered exactly how much that had to do in securing her position as the Princess's protégé, and how much that worry has guided Celestia's treatment of her in general. Certainly, both her notable status and her closeness to the Princess have helped mitigate her natural aversion to socialization. But, as time goes on and Twilight continually fails to achieve the same breakthroughs in pony interaction as she does in magical science, maybe the Princess believes more forceful measures are warranted, like a direct order.

"The fate of Equestria does not rest on me making friends!" Twilight exclaims to Spike.

Having not been paying attention to her internal monologue, he's confused. "Um, what's on your mind, Twi?"

"Celestia knows me. She knows I would interpret her 'suggestion' to make friends as a direct order, one that I'd be hopelessly incompetent at! What am I supposed to tell her? That I tried?! Twilight Sparkle doesn't just try to fulfill her responsibilities to the Princess!"

"Probably... nothing?" Spike offers. "It didn't seem like a demand to me, Twilight." But from the sound of it, she already knows that.

Twilight closes her eyes. She sees a brilliant golden flag billowing atop a dark, cloudy hill, deep in uncharted territory, on the edge of some fraying ancient map. Celestia knows Twilight isn't the kind of pony who could treat her word as anything but law. Celestia knows that some things are just harder for some ponies than others. Celestia knows Twilight. Celestia knows, but she still asked.

"I can't leave Ponyville without making at least one friend."

Twilight and Spike enter the candle shop to find a unicorn stallion sitting behind the counter, resting his head in his hooves. His coat is the color of faded bubblegum; his mane and tail are a blazing red at the roots, blooming into orange and then a faint white at the tips. Presently, his attention is riveted to an empty upper corner of the room, but he seems complacent, not anxious.

"From the looks of it, you must be Tinder Heart?" Twilight asks. He's even got markings to match: orange bursts on his hooves, and a faint glow around his muzzle.

He doesn't visibly snap into alertness, he just rights his head and looks at her. "Oh, hi! Yeah, that's me! Ponyville's resident candle-maker. How can I help you?" he says.

"I'm Twilight Sparkle, emissary of Princess Celestia. I'm sent to oversee preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration. This is my assistant, Spike." She realizes she'll never have to say that line again, and her mood lightens just enough to clear the coming hurdles.

"Oh, I see. Well, everything's going great on my end, Twilight Sparkle. We could step into the storeroom if you want to check things out for yourself."

"Sure, that sounds perfect," says Twilight. Striving to achieve both tasks in parallel, she adds, "Do you go by Tinder for short?"

"Sure enough, I do. And you go by Twilight, I assume?"

"...I do." She verifies his gaze is on her, then effects a smile.

"Great! It's wonderful to meet you, Twilight! And you too, Spike," he says to the dragon trailing behind them. He invites her to step around the counter, and opens the door behind it. "Well, here's the storeroom."

Twilight sees row after row of flawless hoofmade candles, and a tiny, ordered part of her purrs. She's dealing with a stallion who takes as much care of his stock as she does with her books. They're far more extravagant than any she's ever seen before; strips of wax are rolled down, twisted around, and scraped away in intricate designs. Some of the candles have their inner layers of color revealed by the peeling; some are just solid tones. Each is in a hue of the sun or the morning sky, and the shades vary from dark to light.

"They're so beautiful!" Twilight gasps. "I had no idea candles could be so gorgeous and regal!"

Tinder chuckles. "No one ever does. Care to take one as a housewarming gift? No charge, of course."

"That's quite all right. I'm only staying the night," says Twilight, before she catches herself. Accepting or giving gifts graciously is an effective way to kickstart a friendship, she's read. Hopefully, the ship has not sailed; other ponies often repeat themselves.

"Night's the best time for a candle!" There's still hope. "Besides, you look like a reader."

Twilight blinks. "How did you know?"

"Your diction and enunciation are impeccable. You've been staring into space since you got here. And last but not least, your friend Derpy told me so."

Friend? "She's been by?"

"Yep! Well, we met for muffins, rather." He grins. "I do confess, I already knew you were in town. I made sure everything here was in order. You should've seen this place an hour ago!"

Twilight smiles; she's been had, fair and square. "You win, Tinder. I would love to accept a candle."

"Spendid! Take your pick of any of them; I play no favorites. And there's more than enough for the festival, so don't worry."

Wait... Derpy went out for muffins again, after I met her at the cafe?

"If you need a firestarter, I'll toss in some flint, but I expect a study like yourself knows her way around a basic flame spell."

"You're right, I'm proficient with magic." Twilight doesn't quite know how to continue speaking, so she starts browsing the rows of candles, unsure of what criterion she's expected to choose by. She ends up picking a spiraling piece with alternating burnt yellow and umber layers, pretty much at random. "This one looks great." When she levitates it to her side, it's heftier than she expected, but it feels light as air to her at that moment.

"Wonderful! Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"I don't think so." There really isn't.

"Well, then." Tinder starts walking out of the storeroom. "It was great meeting you!"

"...You too, Tinder." She follows him, then walks out the door.

A few meters down the road, Spike can't withhold his enthusiasm any longer. "Twilight, you were great! I think you made a real friend!"

"I think befriending Tinder is setting the hurdle to the lowest height," she says, picturing his blazing scarlet heart of a cutie mark. "And there was no substance to that interaction, just pleasantries." She thinks of the minor prank he pulled on her, and she thinks about how her smile in response felt. "But... yeah. It did go pretty well."

"Well? He totally thought you were awesome!" Spike says.

Twilight pulls herself closer into her body. "...Maybe. Either way, the sky looks clear now, so it's finally time for us to go home."

"Sure, Twi," says Spike. "We have a couple hours before sunset. Do you wanna do anything before we go home for the night?" Spike knows perfectly well what her answer will be. He always does, but he always asks. They're almost to the library door, anyway.

"...It's been a long day, Spike. Even though it went better overall than I expected, I don't think further pony interaction would be... healthy," Twilight tells him.

She opens the door and screams.

Author's Note

Sorry for the long delay. University finals, major computer problems, vacation, and entirely too much drugs. Thankfully, life seems to be settling back down.

Comments are especially appreciated for this chapter. Let me know what you think of Tinder heart! It's very tricky introducing another main character, but I have my reasons. Thanks for waiting, and thanks for reading. =]

Marks, 1 (Interlude)

Bridges, 10

"But the Möbius function can only take the values zero, one, or minus one over a distributive lattice. It's only nonzero if it's evaluated on an interval isomorphic to a Boolean poset. If an interval is isomorphic to B sub n, the value of μ is minus one to the n. Otherwise, it's zero. The proof of the first of those two claims is straightforward: the endpoints of the argument interval map onto the minimum and maximum elements of B sub n, so the Möbius function is the familiar minus one to the difference in sizes of its arguments. Since it's here being evaluated from the empty set to the total set, the difference is just the size of the total set, or n. The proof in the opposite direction is more complicated, but a motivating example can be found in the poset induced by the 'divides' relation on the set of positive integers. First, note that this poset, D-sub-infinity, is the direct product of countably infinitely many chains, one corresponding to each prime number. The value of the Möbius function on this poset can be shown to depend only on the quotient of its arguments, the latter over the former, and in modding out that degree of freedom, the classical number-theoretic Möbius function is recovered. That the classical Möbius function is zero at any number divisible by the square of a prime is an extension of the fact that the value of the poset-theoretic μ on a chain is zero if the difference between the rank of its arguments is greater than one, viz. the number in D-sub-infinity is more than one prime-multiplication away from the multiplicative identity. If this is unclear, imagine actually writing down an element of D sub infinity in direct product form by enumerating its prime exponents qua component chain elements, recalling that the Möbius function distributes multiplicatively over poset direct product. And, of course, when multiplying by singular powers of new distinct primes, the sign alternates, because μ of n, n+1 is minus one in a chain. By a similar argument, we wish to show that any finite distributive lattice is vulnerable to a similar decomposition. In other words, we seek to—"

In an instant, the way forward has escaped her. She doesn't remember how to proceed. The proof is almost done. She doesn't know where to go. She's almost done, but she doesn't remember what comes next. Even though it's almost complete—

"She stopped!" she hears a voice say, like a postcard from a distant land.

What's the next step? Is it M sub three or N sub five that's the atomic nondistributive poset? Both? Is the fundamental theorem of finite distributive lattice relevant? But the claim is for an arbitrary lattice, not necessarily a finite one. She supposes it would only have to be locally finite to apply the FTFDL; possibly, she's forgetting a condition of the result. Or maybe, a simple inductive argument is strong enou—

"Can you hear us now, sugarcube?" says another.

"Yes." The numbers and symbols start fading. She feels their words crawling into her ears, squirming, pushing her thoughts down into her spine—

"Oh my goodness, I'm so glad!" A new pinprick poking through the void.

Another: "Do you wanna take the blanket off your face?" She counts no fewer than five voices swimming in the darkened waters; she does not want to remove the blanket. She tries to refocus on the one piecing together the distributive lattice theorem, but she can't remember what direction it was coming from.

"Twilight, can you still hear us?" says the pinprick.

Twilight? The asymmetric recognition is sending freezing pulses down and around her cortices. "...How do you know my name?"

"...We met today, Twilight. You used wind magic to draw back my birds."

She says nothing. Feels nothing. The connection isn't there.

"Girls, maybe all of us is a bit much for her right now." Six. "Why don't you leave her with me for a while?" says a purple dragon. How do I know he's a dragon? Or purple? After a pause: "It's okay, I know what to do." Another pause, then a murmur: "Don't take it personally, Fluttershy."

She hears the shuffling of dozens of hooves. Hundreds, maybe thousands, each of them in sync with no other. The droning clop is smothering, holding the blanket down over her mouth and nose.

She feels the dragon move fractionally closer to her, scaling his volume to match. "Hey, Twi. It's just us, now. Can you take the blanket off your face so I can see you?"

There's a new, swarming intimacy, seeming to blossom from nothing. Purple? She can, in fact, take the blanket off her face. She does. She sees him. It's Spike. It was always Spike.

"Spike? Where... What happened?" The last thing thing she can remember is trying to capture wind inside an emerald—no, that's not true, there was a white unicorn laying hoof on her spellstone—no, she received the most beautiful, ornate candle, but from where?—no, someone screamed, but who?—no, the last thing she remembers is posets, posets, posets, posets, posets, posets—

He's gazing into her eyes like he's never seen anything else. "You remember that pink pony who gasped at you in town?" No. "Her name is Pinkie Pie, and she gasped because she had never seen you before and she felt like she had to throw you a surprise party. That... didn't work out. You ran upstairs and got into bed, and by the time we caught up, you were rocking and mumbling about math."

"But you're okay now," he adds, while she thinks.

That's right, she met a pink earth pony today. In fact, she met a lot of ponies... why? She was checking their progress on... various things. Weather. Food. Decorations. Decorations... for? Twilight flails out of the bed. "What time is it?!"

"It's only been about thirty minutes, Twi." Twi? ...Oh. "Don't worry. The sun hasn't even set yet." He pushes a stool over to the window beside her bed and draws open the curtain.

Twilight breathes in the setting sunlight, and the day starts returning, piece by piece. It's time to try salvaging what's left to pick up. "Spike... who saw?"

"...Er. A couple ponies," he fidgets.

"Spike. Don't lie to me."

"Uh... everyone we met today except Tinder, and about six ponies I didn't know. But Twilight, nopony's judging you, you just got startled, it wasn't that bad..."

Twilight falls back onto the bed, hooves splayed. Her reputation in Ponyville is bucked, in one day flat. A new record. Something ripples inside, and she sighs. But at least Tinder didn't see, so maybe she can still claim to have succeeded in making a friend without making herself as much of a liar as a failure. There's nothing left to do here except wait for the Celebration, which she reminds herself she must still attend. Even the most hated pony in Ponyville has a job to do. She feels her error skitter over her side, across her flank, down into her hooves; heavy is the head of the pony who kneels beneath the crown.

But for the moment, there's nothing left to do, except read. "Who's still here?"

"The ponies you hadn't met all left, but the rest stayed with you to make sure you were okay, including Tinder, who got here a couple of minutes after we did. I dunno who's still downstairs."

Twilight never wants to find out who's still downstairs. "...Can you get me a book?"

Spike comes back up the stairs, alone excepting Twilight's personal copy of A Survey of Magical Fields and Attendant Mathematical Theory. It's her favorite book, which, quite frankly, says a lot. For many of her bedridden hours it's been an aegis between her and a pony, a thought, a world, whatever might ail her that day. Moreso than her bed, her blankets, her drawn curtains, even her closed door. To her, it not only separates, but distinguishes. It's a notoriously dense text, expounding elementary facts and overviews of countless mathematical fields and magical methods. It is (she says) the cornerstone of any serious magician's education. But she knows that every time she picks it up, she's probably the only pony in Canterlot plucking its abundant fruit; in modern estimation it is something that everypony wants to have read, but nopony actually reads. Being in Ponyville, that's all the more likely, and so nestling into it will be all the cozier and lofty. But sometimes, she doesn't even read it, just inters it in the bed with her, absorbing the sheer magnitude of magical elegance into her gentle hooves. Sometimes, even Twilight Sparkle needs company.

For the first few years of his life, Spike was not able to carry the volume for its enormity. But as in every other way, Spike has grown under Twilight's care, though perhaps not as much as the reverse. He has to trudge it up the stairs one at a time, but doesn't complain a word as she awkwardly watches. She feels such gratitude that she's begging herself to help, but the stairs are just out of range of her magic. She must get up to help by hoof, but her bed is so massive, the stairs so far away. And then he's at the top anyway. She plucks it out of his tiny, tired hands as soon as it's within her field, and pulls it the rest of the way.

"Thank you, Spike. ...Thank you."

"Sure, Twi. You know I'd do anything to help." He walks back over to the bed, looking up at the open curtains. "Let me know if there's anything else I can do, okay?"

"...Okay," she swallows. "Is there anyone left downstairs?"

"Nah, not anymore. I told them that you were okay and just wanted some alone time before the Celebration. Which, by the way..."

"...I still need to go to. I know." A shimmering, xanthous flag atop a desolate copse, billowing 3-D clouds threatening their frigid downpour... "I will." She leans from side to side, wrapping the blanket underneath her in the process.

"Okay, Twi. Make sure you get some sleep beforehoof. It's been a long day, and it'll be a long night, too."

"I'll try, in a couple hours." She's not sure whether that's true, whether it will be feasible to extinguish her mind long enough, or whether it would even be advisable to sink back into her void, but she will try to try.

"Okay. I'm gonna go get my bed and bring it up here," he says, and turns back towards the stairs.

"Spike?" Twilight sets back down the book onto the comforter.

"Yeah?"

"There is one more thing. Could you... could you bring the candle Tinder gave me up here?" Please. A single symbol of success.

Spike doesn't turn back around for a moment. "Uh... you sorta... lost concentration and dropped it, when you saw everypony."

For a second, the sun blinks out. "...Oh."

"It's okay, though. Tinder brought by another one, once he got here and heard what happened."

Twilight says nothing, but pulls the blanket back over her face, for once in full cognizance of her emotions. She starts to cry.

Spike walks to the stairs, gaze down. "It's okay, Twi. I promise, he wasn't mad. I think the second one is even prettier, anyway."

No reply.

"I'll bring it up."

As he leaves, something inside Twilight clicks into or out of place, and her mind flips over without her say. Some of her mind turns off, some of it on, and she pulls down the blanket and opens the book to the table of contents. She runs a hoof down the page, until her eyes catch the entry for infusion. She closes her eyes again. She tells herself, twice: I won't touch that section. I'll find something else to read. I'm not going to dwell on yet another failure I've made today. Then she does.

Author's Note

Tricky chapter, but I'm quite satisfied. I'll emphasize that comprehension of the opening math is not expected; it's not really intended to be followed. This chapter is obviously meant to be disorienting—but please let me know if you feel it's inaccessibly so.

Bridges, 11

Marks, 1 (Interlude)

Twilight walks into the office like diving into the sun.

At the central mahogany desk, a middle-aged white stallion sits, his hooves in his lap. His gaze follows Twilight as she ambles in, head down, and seats herself on his couch at his gesture. There are posters on the wall, dispensing platitudes, but her attention is drawn to his cutie mark, two interlocking silver puzzle pieces, visible underneath the surface of the desk. Maybe, here, something will click into something else... No, Twilight. No miracle cure fantasies.

"Hi, Miss Twilight Sparkle."

"...Hi."

"My name is Willing Hooves. It's great to finally meet you; your mom has told me quite a bit, but second-hoof knowledge never really serves to get to know somepony. Do you know why you're here, Twilight?"

"...Because I'm bucked up."

"...I suppose you could say that. But that's pretty harsh phrasing, and it doesn't convey much information. What do you mean by that?"

"I mean... I have... problems." She's been in the office about thirty seconds, and she's already fidgeting, stumbling, speaking as a far dumber pony than she is.

"That's a start, but what sort of problems, Twilight?"

She thinks of her conversation with her mother on the train ride, and does her best to re-conjure that begrudging acquiescence. You have to tell this stallion the truth, Twilight. If you don't speak deliberately and clearly to him, giving the appointment the best chance you can, then you're wasting everypony's time and money. "Do you want me to just, like, rattle them off? It's a lot."

"We have to start somewhere, and it's easiest for us to decide where to begin if I know the options. You will have influence over our path, but I assume you'd agree that some problems are more pressing than others. Our first few appointments will be a sort of triage, dealing with the most important problems first, as best we can, to get you into a position of stability, from which we can tackle more specific problems. So yes, please, if you're up to it. Rattle them off."

Absentmindedly staring at the "You only fail when you stop trying" plaque on the end table, Twilight forces herself to refocus on the patient stallion in front of her. Something gives, and the words begin to flow. She actually practiced this. She practices it a lot. "Okay. Uh. I'm not performing well in any of my classes except math and magic. I have severe motivational issues. I don't do much for fun except read. I have episodes where I get disconnected from reality, that I don't really understand. I get confused. I forget things. I don't feel like a real pony sometimes; I feel like I'm made of parchment, like I'm two-dimensional, or like I'm hollow. I get scared easily, by loud noises, and by crowds. And... I don't get along with other ponies. I don't have any friends. My classmates hate me. I don't talk to my brother. I don't get along with my mom. I never go out with anypony. I don't talk to anypony." And I hurt myself, in ways I don't always recognize, but it always leaves a mark.

"I see."

That's all you have to say? Twilight thinks, until she realizes therapists need time to think, too. She resumes her poster survey.

After a couple very quiet seconds, Willing Hooves brushes a silver lock out of his eyes and continues, "I understand you've seen psychologists before?"

"Yes. Three of them, in Canterlot. It's been a couple years since I've seen anypony, though, so I don't really remember how things went with them... we sort of gave up. No one really knew what to do with me. My problems aren't... normal. I'm just not like other ponies, even other ponies with problems. I've sort of accepted that I just don't get to live a life like everypony else's. I'm not happy, but I get by. I'm not failing out of school, and I don't cause other ponies problems. Nopony depends on me. So, I just sort of... keep living."

"I see. Let me ask you a more pointed version of the question I asked you earlier. Do you know why you're here? Why you're here, in Fillydelphia, two hours' train-ride from your home in Canterlot, instead of seeing somepony new there?"

"...Not really. Apparently, you're pretty good, I guess." She gently paws the arm of the couch.

"Thank you, but that's not exactly the full reason. It's because I specialize in dissociative disorders. Most psychologists deal more with general issues, things like acute depression, interpersonal problems, the sort of thing for which straightforward talk therapy is quite efficacious. The most common mental disorder that your typical psychologist can handle is called major, unipolar depressive disorder, which is a persistent depression, not necessarily sourced in daily events, with serious deleterious effects on somepony's life. That's all well and good, because it's a very important condition to recognize and treat, but it's also fairly direct to understand and approach. Maybe, this is something that you have. Maybe not. But I am convinced that there is more going on in your head than that, and if other psychologists are poorly equipped to help you, it's my hope that I am not. I believe, sincerely, that you could be living a much fuller life. You're an exceptionally smart pony, Twilight. We can build you a better life than the one you're living. All I require of you is a willing attitude. I am far from infallible, but I do know what I'm doing, and I have treated similar cases before, often with success. I know you are very scientifically minded, very data-driven, and I know you don't have much data on me or the process of mental health therapy. But let me ask you, preliminarily: how do you feel about the prospect of regular therapy? Do you think it is something you would be willing to cooperate with me in?

You have to say yes. You have to. You don't get to think about it. Stop thinking about it. "...Okay. I'm okay with it. I... want to be different. I want to be different in almost any way. I want to be anypony else."

Willing Hooves smiles his sad smile, as Twilight looks nowhere in particular. "Excellent, Twilight. I have the highest hopes for us. Let us waste no time in getting you the help you deserve. First, I would like you to tell me about your 'episodes', in as much detail as you feel is relevant."

"Okay. Let me collect my thoughts a little."

"Certainly."

How do I explain to a complete stranger what an episode is like, when I barely have a handle on them myself? It's impossible to fully explain a phenomenon whose primary effects are confusion and a complete divorce from every mental faculty. But she's written enough reports to know the only valid tack is to own what you don't know, not to craft some half-rumped guess. Just tell him whatever you can. Don't try to explain anything you don't understand. That's his job. Just start talking.

Twilight swallows, and starts, "To begin with, it happens primarily when I get scared or when things don't go my way. Minor episodes happen when I, like, can't find a book, or when somepony says something slightly sharp at school. Major episodes happen when things like... um... when bigger things happen. First, it starts affecting my vision. Maybe it just blurs, maybe it goes double, maybe it just sort of... diffracts? Doesn't come through quite straight? But most commonly, it's like the world is zoomed out. Like I'm looking at everything through a tube. And the worse the episode gets or the longer the episode goes on, the more the tube stretches out, and the farther the world shrinks away. Sounds get muffled, and... Sometimes I can't understand speech. Or respond. Sometimes I can't comprehend that somepony is speaking to me, specifically, and I tune it out without thinking about it, thinking they're talking to somepony else. Sometimes I just can't hear. Or..." She puts a hoof on her chin. "It's more like the signal just doesn't reach the right part of my brain, like, I hear it, but don't know what speech is, that it's something worth paying attention to. Sometimes... I can't feel my body. I can't feel my heartbeat, or my breathing, and it feels like I'm dying, or dead. I lose sensation in my hooves, and it makes it hard to walk. My magic just fades away, like my horn doesn't exist. It's like reality is like a pinprick in a huge black void. Sometimes, when I get really bad, I can't find the tiny world again among the darkness, and I just... am. Sometimes I can manage to think about math, which passes the time. But I can't think about anything else, it's like... something's cleaved away the entire concept of external reality." She hasn't exhausted what she could say, but she needs to move on. "And, even for a while afterwards, I forget things. Not facts about the world, like, where Appleloosa is, or who's the ruler of Equestria, or the quadratic formula, but facts about myself... my identity. Who I am. Where I live, who my mom and brother are, what my cutie mark is..." She looks away. "Sometimes I forget my name. Or that I'm Twilight Sparkle, like, she's not somepony else that I know."

"I'm sorry, Twilight." Willing Hooves brushes his mane out of his eyes again, and after a moment of contemplation, asks, "Can you tell me when these episodes started? And when the first major episode was?"

"It's been happening as long as I can remember. I don't have very many childhood memories, but... the earliest I remember was when I was around two and a half. I blacked out because my... my dad... wouldn't buy me the Celestia plushie I wanted. He said I had enough Celestia stuff already... which, in retrospect, was probably true. It happened pretty quickly that time. I was at the market stall, and the next thing I knew, I was at a restaurant. Mom and dad thought I needed food. I think I fainted, and my dad carried me there. It was the first episode that had effects beyond just zoning out. Apparently I didn't actually lose consciousness, just control, or awareness, like most of me was taken somewhere else. Under my breath, I was murmuring most of the time in between. I was just... counting. Just counting up from zero. I don't know if that was really the first episode, though. I was generally unresponsive as a filly a lot of the time... But... My dad spent a lot of time with me. He had leeway with work hours when I was young, since he did mostly independent work in his lab, so he would often just sit with me, with a hoof around my neck, while I did... nothing. He... he—" Don't think about dad. "...Anyway, that was the first time it got sorta bad in public."

"I see. It sounds like Night Light took good care of you."

"He did. But, um. Could we move on?"

"Sure, Twilight. I only want to dive in as deep as is comfortable for you, since we are just getting to know each other. Moving on: it's interesting to me that you had Princess Celestia paraphernalia as a filly, given your close relationship to her now."

"I guess so," says Twilight, as she feels a small flutter in her chest. "Well, she's always been a role model of mine. The most prominent one, by far. Have you ever thought about the incredible force of will it must take to be as old as she is, but still wake every day and carry the entire country? Or the world-rending power consolidated in that one horn? Or just thought about how much she knows?"

"I honestly cannot imagine the weight of being such a pony."

Twilight nods. 'Weight' is a good way to put it. Like the entire world rests on her haunches, because honestly, it probably does. "But... I threw out a lot of my Celestia stuff when I got my position with her. Just felt weird, uh, snuggling up to a plushie of my personal mentor. Plus, I don't know if she would ever come to visit me, but if she does, I don't want her to see a bunch of herself lying all over my room. She'd think I were, like, obsessed with her or something." And I'm not. Not anymore.

"That's understandable. What's your relationship with Princess Celestia like now?"

"Um, pretty professional. We mostly talk about magic. I don't really bring anything else up. She's not happy about my progress in other subjects, but she doesn't press too hard about it. And... we rarely talk about my... problems. I think she knows I don't like to talk about it, and that's her whole thing—she's whoever somepony needs her to be. I figure, if Celes—I mean, if Princess Celestia doesn't make an effort to fix me, then I must really be beyond help." And yet, here I am. "And I can't lay out all of my issues in front of the most powerful being in the world, the only living pony I even sort of get along with..."

"I see. That makes sense, I suppose, but is it really fair to say that she doesn't make an effort? Maybe she thinks it would do more harm than good to bring up certain things, but she still helps you. A wise, virtuous role model like her is a wonderful thing for a filly like yourself to have. Maybe you don't specifically talk about your dissociative episodes with her, but Twilight, my little pony, there is more that defines you than those episodes, and a growing filly needs more than just 'fixing'. I would expect she conducts your growth in myriad ways. It sounds like you're very lucky to have such a friend in the princess. Would you mind telling me about your first major episode?"

"I, um, well. Uh," Twilight stumbles, shaken by the sudden shift of topic. "It was, um... the night I got my cutie mark. At my entrance exam... the night I met the Princess," she says, now understanding why he asked. "Do you already... Did my mom tell you about it?"

"Yes, although if you're up to it, I'd much prefer to hear your account. I understand that it was extremely traumatic, but I want you to know that I'm very much on your side. Based on what I already know, I don't blame you for those events, nor anypony else."

Twilight looks down at her hooves, which she finds shaking, and surprisingly far away. "I... can't, I just... no, I'm not... Can we... not? Not yet."

"That's perfectly acceptable. I'm sorry for bringing it up, Twilight. We can broach the subject whenever you're ready; there's plenty left to talk about that isn't so stressful. Would you like some water, or a snack?" He gestures to the basket of fresh apples sitting on the corner of his desk nearest the couch; Twilight doesn't see.

"...No."

"...Okay." He leans back in his chair. "Let me know when you're ready to move on to something else."

Twilight shakes her head a fraction. "I'm okay. It's okay. I'm fine." She feels his gaze on her, burning, dry; a twinge of desperation flares. "So..."

"So, let's back up a bit and branch off somewhere else. You have a curious cutie mark. Would you mind telling me what it means to you? It's been about two years since you got it, correct?"

"That's right." Twilight contorts to look at the mark on her flank: a black circle, with seven nubs around the edge. Inside it, there's another circle in the negative space, this one toothless, white, and parted into semicircles. The separation between them aligns with two of the outer teeth, and as it extends, it breaks through and cleaves the whole mark in half.

"I... I've never really known exactly what it means. I think... I hope it has something to do with magical ability. Because the alternative is... I don't know. Maybe something I don't want to be good at."

"I can understand that. It's always very difficult for ponies who don't fully comprehend their cutie marks. Did your magical capacity increase when you received it?"

"Yes," Twilight admits.

"By how much, exactly?"

"...By a factor of six and a half. Something around there."

Willing Hooves removes his glasses. "...My. Did you learn any new capabilities?"

"...No. I mean, I don't know how I would tell, y'know? But at least I didn't feel any natural calling to some special ability. I tried all the things I'd heard about, some of the, like, 'lost fields', but... I just got a lot more magic. I'm at around 800 thaums now. That's all."

"Fascinating. I knew academy unicorns were gifted, but... most fillies your age are just now celebrating a hundred. I understand why you're so proficient in magic for your age." For my age? Such patronizing paternalism. I'm proficient in magic, period. And my thaumage isn't the only reason. "It's no great mystery that your cutie mark is to do with that."

That's not an answer, idiot! "But what does it mean?! I had an above average capacity before I got it, but a high number hardly constitutes a special talent. If my talent is magic, then what does the pattern represent? It's no magical symbol I've ever seen, and I've seen pretty much all of them I can get my hooves on! I've scoured ancient language and magic textbooks and it's nowhere! It's nothing! And why seven? The nubs aren't even regularly spaced; two of them are aligned with the parting down the center, but seven is odd! And the symbol in the negative space, a circle with a line through it... in math, it's the symbol for the empty set. The set with zero elements. A container with nothing in it, a waste of space. What the buck does that mean I'm good at? Being an empty shell of a pony? Is the universe itself trying to tell me I'm worthless, I'm nopony?!"

"Nonsense, Twilight. In my experience, cutie marks always carry some mark of great personal import and satisfaction, even if it's not always clear what. I believe the true meaning will come to you, in time. It always does. Your cutie mark is something to soon discuss in further detail, but not quite yet. Let's move on for now, as it seems to be rather stressful. So, Twilight, maybe we could discuss what helps you recover from these episodes? Would that be difficult at this point in time?"

Nopony has an answer for me, not one that's worth a buck. What's the point of asking? I'll never know what I'm meant to do with my life; I'll never figure out what to say when a stranger asks me what it means. Just forget the universe branded you with a magical slap in the face and move on. She sighs. "That's... fine. Well." What does help me recover? "It depends on how bad it gets. If I'm just zoomed out, or losing sensation, ponies can talk to me, sort of anchor me down. But it doesn't always... take. If I'm totally insensate, there's not really much anypony can do... and I feel helpless too, since I can't even conceive of why I'm upset. I just have to wait. It subsides anywhere from a couple minutes to a couple hours, typically."

"Do you typically recover alone?"

"Yes. Unless my mom or Celestia is there."

"I see. That's quite unfortunate, but can be addressed in due time. Do you have more to say about your recovery?"

"...Not really. I just basically endure until it fades. I don't have the agency to do anything else."

"Okay. Well, Twilight. Our session is drawing to a close, so I'd like to talk to you about my tentative diagnoses." Plural. "Before we do so, I'd like to emphasize that having a diagnosis is a good thing. It's not a good thing to have a mental disorder... not to say it's necessarily bad, either. But if somepony does have a disorder, it is far, far better for her to recognize it for what it is. There is no solution to a problem that comes without understanding; this is something I'm sure you already know. And each of us wants to comprehend who you are. Do you understand?"

Twilight takes a deep breath, and recites a personal litany that she pilfered when she first read Starski: If something is true, I want to believe that it is true. If something is not true, I want to believe that it is not true. The world exists independent of my beliefs; rejecting a fact does not render it untrue. Reality does not bend to my whim or preconceptions.

"I do."

"Okay, Twilight. Please, don't be discouraged by what I'm about to tell you. Feel free to stop me if you need to, it's okay. I would like to have one or two more sessions before I put anything in your chart, but these are my suspicions: first, severe avoidant personality disorder, explaining the extreme distance between you and other ponies and your abysmally low self-esteem despite your incredible competence. I suspect deponization and derealization, with episodes of psychogenic amnesia and dissociative fugues in crisis. Possibly a coping mechanism symptomatic of avoidant PD, possibly an independent condition; we'll have to see whether it's mitigated by the progress in managing APD that I'm quite sure we'll make. Most likely, that will be sooner than you think. You may have post-traumatic stress disorder from the events of your entrance exam, but I am unsure. I'm doubtful that you suffer from unipolar depression; you engage fully in what few activities in which you do participate, and you take care of your body and daily responsibilities. I do not suspect dissociative identity disorder itself, because I find no evidence your mind harbors multiple independent personalities. Are you still with me?"

Twilight snaps to. "Yeah."

"Okay. I don't expect you to fully understand everything I just said, but I am going to write it all down for you. I understand you're quite the reader; I suggest doing cursory independent research on each topic I mentioned, just to get an idea of what I'm telling you. Of course, we will talk in much finer detail about these conditions at our next session, among many other things, but a pony like you will benefit from getting a head start on the research. Also, starting next session, we will start proposing concrete strategies to help you deal with these trials. Take heart, Twilight. Diagnosing you correctly is the first step toward a much, much better life, and I am equipped to help you with each of these things, in time. How do you feel?"

He takes a quill in his mouth and begins scrawling on a small piece of parchment, and the scratching noise thereof carves his words into her brain. "I'm fine," she says, reflexively, and immediately recognizes it as a lie. Maybe Willing Hooves does too, maybe not, but it's okay: some lies are black, some are white.

Author's Note

Credit for the image of Twilight's cutie mark goes to Imosa.

Thorns, 1

A Survey of Magical Fields and Attendant Mathematical Theory, Table of Contents (Interlude)

A Survey of Magical Fields and Attendant Mathematical Theory, Sixth Edition
by Spectral Melody, Wavefront, and Pivot Point

Table of Contents

I Introduction & Background Requirements
II Changes from Fifth Edition
III Suggested Reading Orders
IV Notes on Spell Categorization

1 Animation (Force Magic)
1.1 Kinematics
1.2 Dynamics
1.3 First- & Second- Order Differential Equations
1.4 Isostatic Force
1.5 Thrust & Impulse
1.6 Telekinesis
1.7 Harmonic Oscillatory Motion
1.8 Higher-Order Differential Equations
1.9 Calculus of Variations
1.10 Coupled Oscillators
1.11 Nonlinear Systems

2 Projection (Barrier Magic)
2.1 Flat 2-Topes
2.2 Flat 3-Topes
2.3 (Approximately) Inelastic Collisions
2.4 Hyperplane Arrangements & Region-Counting
2.5 Curved Surfaces

3 Conjuration
3.1 Lattice Theory
3.2 Finite Distributive Lattices
3.3 Solid Conjuration
3.4 The Ideal Gas Law & Tracks-Well's Relations
3.5 Gas Conjuration
3.6 Fire Conjuration
3.7 Fluid Dynamics
3.8 Liquid Conjuration
3.9 Other Conjurations

4 Vivification
4.1 Integration of Surfaces
4.2 Complex Analysis
4.3 Thaumic Radiation (Electromagnetic & Magical)
4.4 The Magic Spectrum
4.5 MR Signatures
4.6 Magic Flux
4.7 EMR/MR Conversion
4.8 Illumination Magic
4.9 Magic Transference
4.10 Magic Fountains & Batteries, Natural & Artificial

5 Illusion
5.1 Plane Geometry
5.2 Linear Algebra
5.3 Visual Illusions
5.4 Kernel Convolution
5.5 Fourihay Series
5.6 Fourihay Transformation
5.7 Audio Illusions
5.8 Other Illusions

6 Mutation (Infusion)
6.1 Mutation Overview
6.2 Spell Interaction
6.3 Eigenvalues & Eigenspaces
6.4 Simplicial Complices
6.5 Suspension
6.6 Smooth Deformations & Homeomorphisms
6.7 Marked Hoof Chain Interpolation
6.8 Alteration
6.9 Infusion Interactions by Spell Type

7 Translocation (Space Magic)
7.1 Discrete Calculus
7.2 Nondifferentiable Symmetry Algebras
7.3 Teleportation (Objects)
7.4 Teleportation (Caster)
7.5 Smooth Topologies
7.6 Differentiable Symmetry Algebras
7.8 Spatial Deformation & Expansion

8 Identification (Metrics)
8.1 Information Theory
8.2 Error Propagation
8.3 Spatial Metrics
8.4 Chronometry
8.5 Spectrometry
8.6 Material Composition Metrics
8.7 Microstates, Macrostates, & Entropy
8.8 Thermometry
8.9 Magic Detection
8.10 Theoretical Limits on Certainty

9 Abstraction (Metamagic)
9.1 Spell Revision & Cancellation
9.2 Intermediate Logic
9.3 Sequencing
9.4 Conditional Structures & Passive Metrics
9.5 Subspells & Superspells
9.6 Enumerative Combinatorics
9.7 The Twelvefold Way
9.8 Rooted Trees & Hierarchical Spell Composition

10 Uncategorized, Non-Reproducible, or Otherwise Anomalous Magic

11 Noteworthy Open Problems
11.1 Materialism & the Physicality of Magic
11.2 Horn Physiology
11.3 Natural Magic Regeneration
11.4 Corrections to Energy/Momentum Conservation
11.5 Abjuration of Non-Magical Material
11.6 Non-Commutative Spatial Deformation
11.7 Divination
11.8 Temporal Magic
11.9 Non-Unicorn Magic

A Closing Remarks, Credits, & Thanks
B Bibliography
C Index
D List of Tables

Thorns, 2

Thorns, 1

A collective gasp ripples through the crowd as nopony says a word. Something opens itself up to Twilight: there is nothing anypony in this room can do against an Alicorn princess, if she means them ill. Twilight is by certain metrics one of the most developed mages in Equestria, or at least one of the most studied, but she has no combat training whatsoever, and she has no hope in Ponyville having a single proficient combat mage. She has never fought anypony before, and almost never hurt anypony. And even that time, she had help.

"Tell me, my little ponies," Luna spits, in open mockery of her sister. "Does any of you know who I am?

Twilight knows, of course. In that moment, it feels like the only thing she's ever known: On the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid her escape, and she will bring about nighttime eternal. But there's no point in singling herself out in the dark horse's attention. And anyway, her mind is saturated in frantic thoughts of escape; a desperate battle between fight and flight instincts is raging, and fight is being expediently routed.

"Not a single pony? Not one of you foals has heeded the prophecy of my return?"

Twilight has enough magic capacity for exactly one medium-range teleport, with roughly a twenty-two-second charge time. There's no way she's going to get away with a glowing horn for that long, or probably even a full second. If she can find something to get behind—

"I," screams the umbral god, "am Nightmare Moon." Her voice booms with an unreal authority. An ice-blue shimmer sparks at the end of her horn as she speaks the words.

...Huh? She's going by a different name?

"You may know me from your history books and old pony's tales as Princess Luna. But that princess of the old kingdom is dead."

Can an Alicorn sense ambient magic? Twilight fears hiding her horn's glow underneath a tablecloth, but being obliterated in a split second anyway. It's entirely possible that putting off checking out that Alicorn reference guide would become a fatal mistake. Twilight Sparkle, a pony who lives more in the written word than in reality, destroyed by reading the wrong books. Has Celestia ever sensed my magic from far away? She runs over whatever memories of Celestia come to her desperate mind... yes, in fact, just once. At her entrance exam. But that was sort of an exceptional circumstance...

"One thousand years ago, I was banished to the moon by my sister for beckoning the glory of eternal night. But tonight, I have escaped my lunar prison. I will reign forevermore, and the sun will never rise again!

As a suffocating sense of doom pervades her mind, Twilight's powerlessness pushes down upon her. There is exactly one pony in the kingdom who could hope to protest if Nightmare Moon decides to start murdering. Where is she?

"Princess Celestia is Princess no more! She has been vanquished by my cursed hooves! Run, my little ponies! Spread the word across the world of my return! Train your soldiers, mount your forces! Depose me if your meager hooves are able; the bearer of the Elements of Harmony welcomes all challengers!"

Twilight screams internally before the words are even fully processed. The... bearer? Something black unfurls within her, and her heart starts to mourn Celestia, until she can't feel it beat. Her hooves fail her, and she piles upon the ground.

"Your eschaton begins at this very moment! Savor your dying memories of the sun!"

Nightmare Moon's gangly forehooves each stomp onto the wooden planks in turn, and a crystalline blue shockwave ripples across the stage, shattering it end to end. At the same instant, every candle in the hall is snuffed without a sound. Four helical beams spray from her swirled horn and crash into the top corners of the room, dislodging chunks of rafters and stone. Ponies start screaming and scrambling for their lives as she looks on and laughs a laugh that sounds like something feral dying in an earthquake.

And then Nightmare Moon is gone, stepping through the same starry mist by which she arrived.

Twilight, unmoving, exhales, and her horn begins charging.

Twilight materializes directly in front of Spike's bed, sees it, screams, and gallops downstairs and out the door.

The streets near her library are eerily empty. How could I be so stupid? So bucking selfish?! After a few streets, she passes the fastest runners, mostly stallions, each giving her a look of utter confusion and pity. Maybe some of them who witnessed her earlier breakdown think she's amnesic right now, or in a fugue, running towards some deluded end, but nopony stops to turn her around. I need you to be okay. You have to be okay. The crowd thickens as she draws closer; by the time she's within a few streets of town hall, she's pushing through hundreds of hysterical ponies stampeding away.

But within the ruined starlit hall itself, there's nopony, excepting a purple dragon who is very alive and wandering around the stage. He runs over to her and takes her forehoof in a hug. "Twilight! I finally found you!"

"Spike! I'm so sorry! I teleported away as soon as she disappeared. I didn't even... I didn't even look for you! I didn't even remember! I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry, Spike!" Twenty-two inexcusable seconds I spent cowering with my eyes closed, thinking about the Princess.

Teardrops are falling on his green scales and purple head. He shivers and pulls away. "Shhh. Everything's fine, Twi. Princess Luna—I mean, Nightmare Moon is gone. This is just an empty room now. Are you okay?"

"Everything's fine? Everything's fine?! Ponydom faces certain extinction and everything's fine?"

Spike lowers his eyes and mutters, "You know what I mean, Twilight. I... I just mean... if you weren't okay, I..."

Twilight reins in her breathing and sits down on the cold burgundy carpet. "...I know. I'm safe, I'm fine... just out of breath and out of magic. Wait... that's weird. I'm fine. How am I even still conscious right now?"

"I don't know, but don't complain!" Gently, his mouth curls up. "This is not a bad time to still have your wits about you. What should we do?"

"That's the question of the millennium, Spike." She sighs. What should we do? There are more problems coming than there are stars in the sky. But to Twilight, right now, they feel just as distant. There's only one thing her tiny pony brain can imagine doing.

"I... I need to send a letter to Celestia." Spike's mouth opens a crack, but nothing comes out. "I know. Spike, I know. But I have to try. Just in case. I... I have to. I guess... let's just go home." She's unsure whether she holds a single shred of hope of successful delivery or whether her mind just needs a low-effort task to occupy itself, but either way, it's the only plan she has the willpower to think of.

Spike nabs a cold apple fritter from the catering table before scampering to catch the Twilight trotting away. This time, she walks, gaining and losing composure in bursts along the way.

When Twilight and Spike round the corner to the library, they see a white unicorn poised outside, seemingly scanning the empty streets.

"Rarity!" exclaims Spike, bee-lining towards her. "You're okay!"

"My stars, I'm so relieved to see you both again! Twilight, Spike, dearests, the girls are inside debating what to do about you two being missing. Come, come, ease their hearts!"

More ponies in my house, really? "And what, exactly, are you doing alone outside?"

"Well, the last time you entered your home to find a crowd of ponies you didn't expect, darling..."

"...Gotcha. Let's go inside. It's chilly." And it will only get colder, until we can't go outside without insulated clothing, until every tree in Sweet Apple Acres withers away, until... Twilight shakes her head as if to dislodge something, and follows Rarity's lead through the door.

Inside, she sees Fluttershy, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Tinder Heart, and a distant Pinkie Pie idly sitting in a corner. She has no doubt the mare came to force more friendship down her throat, but now's not the time to complain. Not quite yet.

"...Hi, girls." She sees five faces soften as each turns her way. Identically zero avenues of conversation are presenting themselves to her.

But the ball's not in her court; the strange ponies in her house all explode into smiles. "Good job staying alive out there!" says Rainbow Dash; "Oh my goodness gracious, I've never been so relieved," says a practically fainting Fluttershy simultaneously.

It's Applejack who first addresses her with something remotely substantive. "Hey, partner," she says, voice low and cautious. "How are you holding up?"

Twilight sees Pinkie Pie look over, attention hanging on the question. "Uh... surprisingly well. I escaped, but I had to go back because I for—because... because I had to get Spike," she meekly explains. "Is anypony hurt?"

"No, dear, we're all unscathed," replies Rarity. "However, I don't know whether that can be said about the whole town..."

Twilight recalls her gallop to town hall, scanning the memories for blood, but it's a technicolor blur. "I don't know. But there was nopony in town hall when I got there, so anypony hurt was still in good enough condition to leave. With help, maybe."

On that note, Fluttershy has to take a seat on one of the library couches. "Thank Celestia," murmurs Tinder.

Twilight stops blinking for a few seconds. She feels a familiar weight slowly rolling back down onto her, at the mention of her name. She can't reign the question in any longer, though she tries: "Why... what are you all doing here?"

"Well... a couple different reasons, to be honest," admits Applejack. "We know you don't have strong ties to anypony in Ponyville, and we didn't want you to be alone at a time like this. Coming from out of town, you must be scared half to death without somewhere homely to be." She turns from Twilight to face the closed window. "But we also figure now ain't a bad time to have such a smart pony around, for our sakes, either."

A pause, as she waits for somepony else to take up the mantle, but nopony does. "...We wanna start brainstormin' what we can do against Nightmare Moon. So Tinder and I thought we would try roundin' up all of your friends and comin' over, except Derpy's at home, 'cause she has foals to think of. But you two weren't here. We know you don't take too well to surprises, so Rarity volunteered to stand at the door to warn you, in case you came late. We were about to run back to town hall to see if you got... held up."

You mean crushed, thinks Twilight. And it's not just the surprise that bothered me earlier. But... 'all my friends'? All these ponies consider themselves my friends? Or at least Applejack or Tinder considers them such. And either way, they all agreed to come. Probably, word just got out about my talent before the festival, and they want to cluster around the strongest mage they can find. But even if that's the only reason, she can't say she minds the recognition. Just the ponies that come with it.

"Well, we're definitely fine." She starts eyeing books on the nearest shelves. A Pegasus's Guide to Botany. Falconry for Dummies. "But how, exactly, do you think ponies like us can protest the reign of somepony like Nightmare Moon?"

"We were, uh, hoping you had some ideas," shrugs Rainbow Dash.

Twilight has plenty of ideas, none of them failing to end in pony extinction. Right now, it doesn't even matter. "I have something I need to do, before I can handle that conversation." As everypony's gaze follows her to the wall nearest the door, she feels behind the checkout desk with her magic, and passes a quill and parchment to her assistant.

"Spike..."

"Twilight... are you su—"

"Take a letter."

My Princess Celestia,

Tonight, every pony in Equestria looks to the sky. We need you. I beg you, Princess, come back to us.

Your faithful student until every star falls,
Twilight Sparkle

Spike rolls it up and consumes it in his brilliant emerald flame.

Thorns, 3

Thorns, 2

Nopony says anything for a long time. The silence swells around Twilight's hooves until she knows they're waiting for her to justify her irrational behavior. "Look, I know it doesn't make sense, I just had to try, I just had to—"

Fluttershy takes a swift step up to her and takes her into a hug, and Twilight doesn't have the energy to resist. "I understand, Twilight," she says. "We all do. I promise."

Twilight looks into her eyes for a long second. She looks around the room at the ponies slowly nodding. In the opposite corner, Pinkie Pie is smiling the faintest smile Twilight thinks she's ever noticed. In a flash, she has a sudden vision of something impossible, and she knows if she can do it, she can do anything.

Fluttershy lets go after a few seconds, and Twilight walks over to Pinkie. Her mental floorboards start groaning and creaking, but it's too late to turn back. "Pinkie Pie?"

The pink pony's eyes meet hers, and neither has any idea what will happen next. "...Yes?" says Pinkie, tone impenetrable.

"I'm sorry for earlier. I'm glad you're here. Even a pony like me needs all the support she can get right now."

Pinkie's ears and face perk up, and she smiles that behemoth smile from when she introduced herself to Twilight the second time, and probably the first. "Twilight... There's nowhere I'd rather be than with you and with the rest of my friends! And I thought about what you said, and I realize that I can't see things the way you do without getting to know you better, or being you, which is impossible! I think." She puts a hoof to her chin. "Anyway, I figured something out that I wanna share with you."

"Yes?"

"Whether you're friends with somepony doesn't have to have a yes or no answer! It can just be kinda sorta, or itsy bitsy, or even teeny weeny! You don't have to be best buddies as soon as you meet! And I think maybe being not being super-duper close is sometimes the best way to be friends! Twilight, would you be my teeny weeny friend?"

Everypony is watching, including the side of Twilight that's collapsing for want of support, the side that's a sunless, starless sky. "...Okay," she says. It's the only answer. Twilight has figured something out, too.

Pinkie makes a fraction of a motion to hug her, but stops. "Woohoo! You won't regret it, I Pinkie-swear!" she yells in Twilight's face instead. "Now let's see what we can do about that big baddie!"

"Thanks, Pinkie, it means a lot," says Twilight. And she guesses it sort of does. "...Okay. You girls wanted to talk about Nightmare Moon? Let's talk about Nightmare Moon." She opens the ceiling hatch and lets in a trickle of the despair swirling above her head. "I... don't know what we can do, but here's what I do know. She is at least comparably strong to... Celestia. She can fly. She has the power to extinguish candles, teleport, fracture the ground, fire energy blasts, and control the moon. There's no way to know exactly how powerful she is yet, but there's no way it's not catastrophically. She's thousands of years old, and knows an unknown but probably huge number of arcane secrets and histories unknown to modern ponydom." Wood groaning, cracking under the weight of the flow. "And she's the bearer of... bearer of the... she has the Elements. I have no idea how she got free. I have no idea how she wrested control of the Elements from Celestia. I have no idea what her weaknesses are. I have no idea whether her stated motivations are true, because honestly, they don't make sense to me." Cold, dark water filling the hole she's digging. "I have no idea, really, what she wants from us, except our death. And I have no idea why she is even considered virtuous enough to wield the Elements at all."

A pause. "That, uh... sure is a thorough rundown," says Applejack.

"Darling, you make it sound so... hopeless," Rarity says, looking down.

"It... it is hopeless. I'm sorry, but I don't know what you want me to say."

"Say we'll do whatever we can," says Fluttershy.

"Say we'll do whatever it takes," corrects Rainbow Dash.

"Equestria has faced threats like this over and over for centuries," Applejack says. "It's gonna be rough, but I bet if the whole kingdom works together, we can take her down like a mad bull at a—"

"Girls, it doesn't work like that! We can't just decide to overthrow the strongest pony in Equestria, especially just by believing it! It's almost inconceivable that we could handle her even if she didn't steal the Elements. But she did. We haven't ever faced a threat like this! We've never been on the bad side of the Elements before! There is no known power in the kingdom that remotely rivals the Elements. Our enemy has them. Ergo, we've lost! It's over!" She's losing control over her inside voice and her heaving breaths.

Tinder has been idly staring at nothing in particular, but suddenly steps forward to her, and she sees his composure break for the first time since they met. "It's not over until we're dead, Twilight! This is real life, not chess! You don't get to resign! You're the most powerful mage for a hundred miles! We need you!"

Fluttershy capitalizes on Twilight's silence, and says, "Twilight... All over Equestria, there are foals being born. Tonight. Right now. They might never see the sun in their whole lives if ponies everywhere, ponies like us, don't do anything to stop her! It doesn't matter what happens to me, I can't sit here and do nothing. I'm more sure of it than I've ever been of anything." Her face is so blank and resolute as to be chiseled from granite.

Every part of Twilight's brain starts quivering, no pair resonating in sync.

She directs her gaze towards Rainbow Dash, who is grinning a sly expression like she just figured something out. "You're so smart, but you don't even realize that maybe she doesn't really have the Elements? Sometimes villains, y'know, lie? If you beat Celestia, you could just say you can use the elements, since only Celestia could do it anyway. It's not like Nightmare Moon showed 'em off."

A surprisingly savvy observation. But... "But wouldn't that lie collapse on her the first time she fails to produce the Elements in response to a threat?"

"...Huh. Maybe." Rainbow Dash tilts her head, then rights it again. "But maybe she thinks she's strong enough to make us believe she doesn't even need them, if she can kick everypony's rump without them. Like, she doesn't even have to use her full power to fight."

"That's... actually sort of believable. There's a chance it could be a ploy. But still..." Twilight says to the hooves her head is resting on.

"And if that's true... she's wrong. We have a shot."

"Like I said, I don't know what we could possibly do even if she's lying about the Elements. If even Celestia couldn't stop her..."

"Equestria has been good to us ponies for hundreds of years," says Rarity. "Dear, we've needed Princess Celestia for centuries. But this time, she needs us. To save the kingdom, and maybe to save her, too."

"But we don't even know she's still alive!" screams Twilight. "She spared Luna, but we don't know whether Luna..." Wait, what am I saying? "...No. No. You're right. That's not what matters. What matters is that we don't know she's dead."

Everypony's attention locks onto Spike as he burps out a piece of rolled parchment bearing the royal seal. Nopony says a word. Twilight grasps it in her magic and unrolls it into her trembling hooves.

"It says... You'll have to be smarter than a letter, Twilight Sparkle. That's it."

As Twilight begins to pace, cogs start turning. "Buck. Buck! She knows who I am. She knows I'm already trying to subvert her. She knows! Oh, buck, I probably just led her right to our door! I'm sure an Alicorn can intercept and trace a measly dragonfire letter! What was I thinking?!"

"Calm down, sugarcube," says Applejack. "Half the country's probably musterin' forces to strike back by now. I'm sure Nightmare Moon has better things to do than pay attention to us, since it's not like our group here knows what we're doin', to be honest."

"But I'm the Princess's protégé! How did I not realize it before? I'm a priority target!"

"Darling, I know you're an accomplished mage, but don't you think that's a bit presumptuous? Nightmare Moon didn't even seem to notice you in the crowd," offers Rarity.

"That's because she needs time to learn the state of things, what's happened since her banishment. I don't know how, but I suspect that's her top priority right now. She might raid the Canterlot library, or torture some of the royal guard, or, or... we have no idea what she's capable of, maybe she even knows divination!"

Tinder frowns at that. "There's no reason to jump to that conclusion... divination has been lost since before the Princesses ever appeared. There's barely any record of it at all. We can't let baseless fears stop us from fighting back."

"It's not a conclusion! I'm just trying to tell you that we have no idea what Luna's capable of! We don't know!"

"We don't have to know," he replies. "We just have to prepare for everything we can think of. If there's anypony I want on my side to do that, it's you, Twilight." His eyes start watering. "...Please. Maybe we can't win. But I know with your help we can push the odds."

Twilight is frantically trying on words and phrases in response, but she's not the next to speak.

"Twilight... please... I don't want everypony to die. I'm begging you. Help us."

She looks into the distant corner of the room at the pink pony sobbing as hard as anypony ever has. Something clicks shut in her brain, and something clicks open. Even as the darkness begins swirling back around her, she knows they're right. Everypony else is right. She's no alicorn, but she's powerful, and smart. Think about the problem for five minutes before you give up and claim it's impossible. You're just coming up with excuses to give up because you'd rather wallow in Celestia's death. But think about what she would want. You have to be... you have to be your own Celestia now.

Celestia didn't walk away.

"...Okay," she says. "You're right, all of you. I'll help you do... whatever it is we can. But I need some time to think. There are a lot of variables here, and there are a lot of very bad problems that are going to start arising very soon." Whatever she does next, she needs to be alone. The justification clicks into place: "Why don't you all go home and see your families? Tell them we're going to attempt a coup. I'll stay here and start thinking."

Everypony nods at this, as some of them wipe at their faces. They say their thanks, but Twilight has already begun brainstorming avenues of attack, methods of survival.

As they leave, she reflects a couple magenta bursts at her amulet, and makes a rough guess to the time. "It's about 6 AM. Let's meet back here at sunri—" starts Twilight, then stops.

"Twilight?" asks somepony.

She looks at them all, encircling her, her eyes wide and watering. She tries to pry open her mouth, but to no avail.

I have to see her again.

Thorns, 4

Thorns, 3

As soon as the door shuts, Twilight begins to pace, furiously, like the world will end if she stands still. If there's space, she likes to pace in circles, so she never has to stop to turn around. Sometimes, she lets herself believe she would have been valedictorian if only they'd let her take tests standing. Some thoughts are easy to think.

The context and gravity of her task are beyond her comprehension. There's nothing left to do except get started.

"Spike, before we start working on solutions in detail, we're going to write a comprehensive list of every problem we can think of. That way, we know exactly where we stand, and exactly what our priorities should be, before we get mired within solving a single problem. Write down each numbered item, with a few lines of blank space underneath."

"Okay, Twi." He hops up to the librarian's chair behind the desk. He's not tall enough to see over the counter, but he only needs to hear.

"First are the obvious ones. One: food. We're going to run out as soon as the crops begin to die from lack of sunlight, unless we start rationing immediately. Two: temperature. It isn't going to stop dropping until it's far below safe levels." Twilight reckons it will be maybe a matter of hours until it gets uncomfortably chilly, and a few more before it gets truly dangerous. Then, the thought occurs to her: the average pony won't have any clue what time it is without the sun or moon to gauge it by. Once her magic refills completely, she won't have any sort of natural timer, either. "Three: time-keeping. Relatively minor in the scope of things, but we're going to need a system in place in order to distribute rations, since we can't use the sun and moon. With me so far? "

"Absolutely," says Spike, though he's still scribbling.

While her mind's on the moon, she impulsively steps outside. A quick angle metric and some trigonometry tell her that the moon is directly overhead, within experimental uncertainty. It must have returned over the horizon at some point after the festival began, probably around when Nightmare Moon showed up. Of course they wouldn't even be so lucky as to have a reliable visual compass.

What else? What else does the sun provide? "Four: lighting. It's going to be dark, all the time. We need infrastructure for lighting the town and ponies' homes. Candles would work, although the first time it rains—oh. Five: the water cycle. It's going to be seriously disrupted without the sun to evaporate surface water. We may not see changes for a while, but it's going to pose problems of its own. Although, honestly, if we can make it long enough that it becomes an issue, I'd say we were doing pretty well."

Twilight's mind is still spinning, but nothing else comes rattling out. That might be all of the problems the sun's absence will cause, at least the one's she's equipped to recognize. But... that's not the only effect of Princess Luna's return, is it? I also need to address problems caused by Celestia's... disappearance. She won't call it anything else. Can't.

"Don't write this down yet, but six: power. With Celestia gone, there's going to be a serious power vacuum in Canterlot, and all of Equestria, until Nightmare Moon directly steps in. Ponies won't know who to turn to. I don't know what the chain of succession is. I don't even know whether Equestria has one. It just never seemed relevant. We've been stable so long that we assumed... I assumed the sun would shine forever. I don't know who's going to be making the decisions and decrees in Canterlot, because it's not like we have a vice princess. Maybe one of Celestia's advisers, but it doesn't matter, at least it's not something Ponyville has to solve. Whenever they figure out who's in charge, I would not like to be in her hooves, and be the figurehead against Nightmare Moon's reign. But whoever it is, Ponyville's going to have to talk to her, and so will every other city. We need country-wide unity in infrastructure if we're going to stand a chance at surviving, much less fighting back. So, six: hierarchy of command. No, scratch that, it's still not really our problem. Six: intercity communication. It's going to be too resource-intensive to keep trains running, all that coal could be used in much better ways, but we still have to keep the channels open. I'm not sure how Ponyville can help, but it's definitely our problem too."

She pictures the iconic mountainside capital, shrouded in darkness, with the full moon hung far above—

"Come to think of it, we don't know where Nightmare Moon even went. Maybe her first stop was Canterlot, and if that's the case..."

For the first time since she arrived in Ponyville, Twilight is glad she's not back home. She shakes her head a fraction. Focus. The girls agreed to return in ninety minutes, plus-or-minus their estimation skills. What else can you do with this time?

"Seven: power. ...Write it down this time; I mean something else."

"Twilight?"

"...We're completely out of our depth here. You, me, Ponyville, Equestria. For all my studying, I'm useless in a fight, and so is probably everypony we know. I harbor no delusion of slaying Nightmare Moon, but... even around Ponyville, things may become... rough. As food and clothing begin to dwindle..."

"...I get it."

Twilight stares through the window at the stars, subtly twinkling in an obscure, unrecognizable rhythm. It's almost like some facile scheme of communication, like they have something to say, some whispered wisdom with which she might save something. They're stalwart, invulnerable, but so far away... is that the cost?

"We need to know how to take care of ourselves. So do the girls. I'm not going to mandate combat training or anything, but there are certain steps we can take. I assume Rarity and Tinder don't know the first thing about magic, because almost nopony does. That will change."

It's a question of economy. She can pour as many intricate spells as she wants into a gem, but at the end of the day, what matters is its decay rate. Canterlot is renowned for its lapidaries, and as a professional mage, Twilight receives a large monthly stipend for the express purpose of aggregating choice infusion materials. As such, those in her possession are among the highest fidelity bits can buy. Specifically, they're almost worthless. For all the spellwork Twilight slaves over every waking hour, almost none of it is simple enough to put in a rock.

She eyes her list of candidate suspensions, for at least the fourth time.

• Automated force repulsion

• Automated barrier

• Automated illusion (what?)

• Automated distress signal (what?)

• Automated vivification retaliation

• Automated escape (how?)

Too many options, too little specificity in each. She realizes she's going about this backwards. Factor out the commonality between the different choices, and work with it first. ...I can't believe I wrote 'automated' six different times. What should the activation mechanism be? Even simpler, what could it be? What's utilitarian enough for a gem that it won't hog the magical real estate? It's considerably simpler than the holistic "What tools should I craft for my allies?" Figure it out, then work within the constraint of how much thaumage you have left.

Twilight fancies a react-to-threat mechanism, but she's growing increasingly confident that it won't work. In theory, there's nothing stopping her from crafting a specialized metric that detects incident force within the trigger range, namely six inches or so from the body of the pony wearing it. She can't help but realize that the same metric could easily be modified to detect vivifications above a certain power threshold, too. Immediately, she exiles that thoughtline. What good is that? No one in Ponyville is going to even try to fight with magic. No one has the raw capacity, except, maybe, you. Your job is not to protect them from Nightmare Moon directly. Your role is to maximize their chance of survival by accounting for whatever threats you can realistically handle. If any one of us meets Nightmare Moon again, she's dead. Period. Ergo, conditioning on that possibility is a complete waste of time. Check the hyperprotagonistic fantasies at the door to the apocalypse, please.

No, it's just too much complexity to pack into just the trigger. Even setting up the detection range for the top-level metric requires another metric to match the contours of the body. A complicated one. It could be simplified to a rough ellipse... but unless it's awkwardly centered at the stone itself, that's still stacking metrics, which gets expensive quickly. Twilight fantasizes about a metric that can just detect ill-will, as straightforwardly as that...

Except... she already knows how to do that. There is an exceedingly obvious way to trigger a suspended spell in response to threat. Almost the cheapest trigger mechanism she can think of, too.

Don't craft what sounds the most useful. Craft what is the most useful.

It's obvious Spike's got something on his mind, if only Twilight were looking. He's wringing his hands in a way that only a baby dragon could without looking maniacal. It's a testament to how nervous he is that he's waiting for her to notice: he knows she won't. After a while, he's swallowed enough times to work up to it: "Hey, Twi? Can I ask you something?"

"Sure." Her gaze is deep within a sapphire, her horn aglow in concentration.

"Are you... are you worried about your family? What do you think Twilight Velvet and Shining Armor are doing right now?"

"...I have no equestrian idea." That's all there is to say.

"Do you think they're safe?"

"I don't know, Spike." Her gears start skipping teeth.

"What about our friends? Lemon Hearts, Minuette, Moon Dan—"

The sapphire shatters in a surge of purple magic. "I know who my friends are, Spike. I don't know how they are or what they're doing. But I do know you couldn't pay me enough to set hoof within ten miles of Canterlot right now. What do you want from me?!"

"...Nothing, Twi. Sorry for bringing it up."

It's not until far too many minutes later that Twilight realizes he wasn't asking for her sake.

Author's Note

Hey there. Sorry for the long delay for this chapter. I've been pretty swamped with university projects for a week or two. I also apologize that it's pretty short; the next chapter will be longer.

If you'd like to see non-chapter progress updates, or hear anything else I have to say, you can follow the twitter account I just set up (@aknifeallblade).

Marks, 2 (Interlude)

Thorns, 4

By the time Twilight looks up from the final gem, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie have already arrived. After she deposits the diamond choker behind the library counter, she picks up their conversation, but doesn't turn towards them quite yet.

"...number of strong ponies in Equestria. I know most ponies are probably scared bitless right now, but trust me, there's no way she can stand against a whole country alone. I'm totally confident that we got this, it's just gonna be... intense. But we got this," Rainbow Dash is saying, voice cracking and quavering in obvious fear.

"But everything Twilight said is totally right!" Pinkie replies. "She's insanely old and smart and she's stronger than the strongest pony in the whole world! If she can wipe a pony off the map in the blink of an eye, it doesn't matter how many we send after her, and I bet she can! And we definitely don't have a country-sized plan sitting on the shelf waiting in case Nightmare Moon shows up and murders us all anyway! No one in Canterlot is going to have a clue what to do! We don't even know why she's really doing this! We don't know why she's killing us!"

"She... she can't be that smart if she thinks what's she's doing is a good idea. Pinkie... You can't think like that. You... you can't think like that, Pinkie! We have to make it through, we have to stay strong, I... I can't... we can't just give up! It's like taking her horn in your hooves and jamming it into your heart yourself!" She's crying. Twilight doesn't even need to see to know.

Tinder Heart pauses halfway through the door. "What in Celestia's name are you talking about?"

Rainbow Dash remembers who she is and collects herself in an instant. "We're talking about how there's no way we're gonna roll over and take it! If she's gonna take us down, she's gonna have to work for it!"

Pinkie Pie wanders over to the her corner from earlier in the night.

"That's what I like to hear, Rainbow. We have to keep up our spirits. It's natural to feel panicked, but we haven't had any time to gather our wits. Once we sit down and think things over, we're going to feel a lot better." Get real, Tinder. "Speaking of which, hi, Twilight. How have things gone?"

Twilight stops scratching the inkless quill against the parchment behind the desk and turns. "Things are going... okay. I've worked out what our first steps are. I have no idea how to start thinking long-term, but as soon as everypony arrives, I'll start going over what I have planned."

"That reminds me: Applejack said she'd be over in a little bit longer. She's explaining things to her grandmother, and sometimes it... takes time." Twilight nods. "Speaking of time, what do you mean, 'long-term'? Once we defeat Nightmare Moon, everything should go back to normal."

That's not true, Tinder. That's not true.

"I mean that no matter how well we pull off short-term solutions, I don't know how we're going to survive past a month, or maybe two. It's not what demands our attention right now, but still... The night has only just begun."

"A month?! Twilight... why are you thinking about how we'll get by a month from now?"

"I'm just planning ahead! Or recognizing the need to, anyway. What's wrong with that?"

"...You're assuming that we aren't going to depose Nightmare Moon, aren't you?"

...Am I?

"No she's not!" Spike exclaims, meeting Tinder's eyes. "But we need to consider both possibilities, and one needs a lot more thought to figure out."

Twilight nods, proud. "He's right. I'm not going to assume we won't defeat Nightmare Moon. But I'm not going to assume that we will, either. In case you didn't notice, the jury's still out."

She catches Tinder's ears swiveling downwards, as he says, "Fine. I guess I can't argue with that." It'll have to do.

As conversation lulls, Fluttershy enters. She does nothing to break the silence; she just steps over to where Pinkie Pie is lying on the ground and kneels next to her, hoof around her neck.

A few minutes later, somepony finally speaks up. "I actually agree with you, Twilight," says Rainbow Dash. "I do believe we're going to take her down. But I do agree that we have to be able to survive until we can make it happen, however long it takes. And that part might not be easy, either."

"...Thanks, Rainbow." More silence.

Some long minutes later, Rarity and Applejack eventually enter together, and Twilight catches enough of their chatter that she realizes they were talking about Applejack's grandmother. Another conversation she can't contribute to whatsoever. But they drop it as they walk into the room, and Applejack greets the group surprisingly warmly: "Howdy, girls. Everypony's family holding up alright?"

Some nods, some meek responses. Twilight hears Fluttershy whisper something gentle to Pinkie, but it doesn't resurrect the conversation. It doesn't matter. Everypony's here; it's time.

"Okay, girls," says Twilight. "I'm glad you all made it back. I've been working and planning since you left, and I think I have a rough sketch ready of what we need to do."

"Wonderful, darling. I'm sure all of us are eager to hear it. Do tell," says Rarity.

"I have a task for each of you. Let's not waste any more time." Yet even as she says it, she pauses. Where to begin? Start with something easy. Convince them you know what you're talking about, but don't start pushing the unpopular agendas yet. "Pinkie Pie, you know everypony in Ponyville, right?" she resumes.

"Uh-huh!" she squeaks. She leaps up, and bounds over to stand next to Twilight.

"Does the Ponyville schoolhouse have a bell?

She blinks. "Um, yeah, of course! But how'd you know I'd know? I said I knew every pony in Ponyville, not every bell! But we only have one bell anyway, so—"

"Good." What in the world happened to the Pinkie Pie from a few minutes ago? "Next question: who was the earth stallion onstage before the mayor? With the hourglass cutie mark?"

"Oh, that's Time Turner! He and I are like thiiis!" She leans up on her back hooves to cross her front two together, but disentangles them before she hits the ground. "He makes, you guessed it, hourglasses! And he's sorta got a thing for timekeeping, so we let him handle it for big events like the Summer Sun Celebration and the Sisterhooves Social obstacle course and the Running of the Leaves race and the—"

"Perfect. Can you find him? I have a task for which he's very well suited.

"Absolutely! I haven't talked to him in forever anyway! Whatcha want him to do?"

"I need you to listen very carefully to these instructions, so you can relay them to him, okay?" Twilight pulls a gem off the desk, and shows it to the group. "This emerald is going to flash and emit a ping every hour, plus or minus a few seconds. Every sixth hour, it pings twice. I need him to ring the schoolbell when it activates, as many times as what hour it is. We'll use military time, for obvious reasons. He'll need to find another pony or two to take shifts. The first pulse should be in around twenty minutes, and depending on whether it makes it to his hooves before then, the first hour he strikes will be either eight or nine. I've set up the gem so that it will lose pulse brightness and volume before timekeeping precision, so as time goes on, it will become harder to perceive. Ask him to find me when that happens. It's a very simple spell, so it should keep ticking for at least ten days, but I'm not sure when it'll become to difficult to hear. Got it?"

"Gosh, that's smart! I got it, I got it!" Pinkie grabs the gem in her mouth and bounds toward the door—

"No, wait! I also wrote down all those instructions for him." Twilight levitates a sealed scroll from behind the desk, and pushes it in Pinkie's direction.

"Whh dnnt..." Pinkie drops the gem from a mouth into a hoof. "Why didn't you just let me read it? Why'd you wait till after you told me to give it to me?"

"Redundancy. It's not a bad thing. It's how you do sensitive operations involving secondhoof instructions."

"Smrrt!" Pinkie grunts, the scroll and emerald in her mouth once again, the latter wedged into the open center cylinder of the former. She trots towards the door again.

"No, stay until I finish giving everypony their instructions. You might as well hear from me what's going to happen to Ponyville, starting as soon as we're done here. It's not going to be pretty, but urgent action is required on all of our parts if we want the town to survive the night."

Nopony really seems to know what to make of that, but the climate of the room is clinging to her words like dark waters rage below.

Next order of business. Like you rehearsed. "Applejack?"

"Yeah?"

"I need you to speak with the mayor, as a representative of Sweet Apple Acres. A pony can only survive without food for a couple days, and we're going to start running low very, very quickly. We're going to start rationing what we have immediately. We need to seize all edible goods from bakeries, cake shops, and whatever else there is in town. Also, we're going to salvage the leftovers from the festival, at least whatever doesn't have bits of rock all over it. We're going to store it all somewhere at your farm; figure out where. This isn't going to be a popular course of action, but it's one we simply have to take. Immediately. I don't know enough about pony biology to know the numbers, but work out with the mayor exactly how much every pony gets per day. That entails finding a complete list of all Ponyville citizens, which I assume the mayor's office keeps on file. I don't know how to account for all of the out-of-town visitors, but I would guess most of them are going to try to head home. The trains won't be running for long, but I expect one or two to go out within a day; hopefully everypony who wants out can leave." Everypony except me. Twilight shakes her head. "We're going to start eating the apples and other fruit first, since it'll spoil sooner, leaving the grain and the like for later. There are books on nutrition here if you need to consult a few to get the numbers on minimum consumption. Got it?"

"...Got it, sugarcube. I'll go talk to the mayor, then round up the food."

"Good. Return to me once the mayor agrees and once you have a projected date for... when we'll run out. That's when we'll start figuring out how to work around the poor growing conditions."

"Okay, Twilight," Applejack says, as she takes a step back and paints her face with a resolute expression directed toward the ground.

"Rarity?" addresses Twilight.

"Yes, darling, I'm here."

"To my understanding, most ponies around here don't have much need for warm clothing, since the winters here are pretty moderate. Is that the case?"

"You're correct, dear. Only the most fashion-aware ponies seem to bother with clothing themselves at all in Ponyville." Her lowered gaze betrays that she finds it a true tragedy.

"Okay. I need you to collect every winter coat you can find. Our goal is one per pony. As of right now, citizens are not allowed to own more than one, until we meet that goal. Yes, that includes you. You'll be in charge of distribution, too. Borrow a cart from Sweet Apple Acres if you don't have anything workable, pile all your extra coats into it, and start going door-to-door handing them out and taking in any extra. Right now, I assume everypony is in their homes, so this is the best time. Talk with the mayor's office if you run into problems, or if you think someone is holding out. After you make the rounds, I need you to focus on crafting more. Distribute them to foals and the elderly first. Optimize for warmth and efficiency, not anything else, and make sure they have hoods. Got it?"

Even Twilight can see the flash of pure scorn across Rarity's face at the mention of hoods, but in a split-second, it's gone again. "I understand, Twilight," she says. "You can count on me. I only have about eight spare coats, but I should be able to make something... serviceable... in no time at all."

"Good." Ponies' face are riveted to Twilight's. There's no going back. "Moving on. Tinder?"

"Yes?"

"You're going to be in charge of keeping the town lit. Gather some ponies to help you retrieve all the candles from town hall, and arrange them up and down the streets. Use whatever stock you have left as well. Be smart about the spacing; we only have so many before you make more. Prioritize bigger, more central streets. If you need to put one where there's a lot of grass, put it on a plate or something. I'm sure you're familiar with fire safety. Distribute one to each building as well, with some flint if there's enough. Tell them we'll get them more as soon as our bases are covered. As soon as that's done, I need you working to craft more. Enlist more ponies if you need to; we're aiming for every street illuminated and every house with two candles. After that, we're going to teach all unicorns a basic flame spell, to harness our natural regeneration for further light and heat and preserve the kindling. Got it?"

"The moonlight won't be enough to see by?"

"We don't know whether the moon will stay full yet, or whether it'll remain dead overhead. Besides, I have other plans for the sky. Trust me."

"...I see. All right, Twi. If you say so."

"Okay." The ball is rolling now, and there's no stopping, for anything or anypony. "Speaking of which, Rainbow Dash?"

"Yeah?" She flutters into the air, maybe to display her readiness, maybe for no reason at all.

"For the foreseeable future, we're going to maximize cloud cover over Ponyville. I need you to take the weather team and scrounge up every cloud you can find for miles, and move them directly over the town. We need all the thermal insulation we can get, since we aren't going to have the warmth of the sun. Also, we're going to need to manually stimulate the water cycle as best we can. I don't know how to handle compensating for the sun's evaporation of standing water, but the agriculture books say it rains less at night around Ponyville, so we might need to force it every once in a while. It's hard to know whether it'll really be necessary until we see whether it rains anytime soon, but we'll be watching, at least. It's not going to be fun for us, with the weather already being so cold, but the crops need it, and we do, too. Got it?"

"That's... that's super lame!" replies Rainbow Dash. "But... I get it." She lands, then sits on the ground, hooves extended, mouth firmly closed.

"Good. That's something that needs to happen ASAP, before we lose any more heat to the sky." One more. "Fluttershy?"

She looks at Twilight. Good enough.

"How well-trained are your birds? Could they be taught to carry letters back and forth from other towns?"

Fluttershy gently places a hoof on her chin. "Um..."

"Trains are going to stop running, and they're the primary channel of communication between distant regions. We need to keep abreast of what's happening in Canterlot, among other places."

"Um..."

"...And as an aside, it would greatly ease my mind to know where Nightmare Moon is, if anypony in Equestria even knows."

"I think it... might be possible?" Fluttershy finally speaks up. "I don't think they truly understand what cities are, and they definitely don't know where any given one is. But I think I could maybe make it work..."

"Great. I need you to at least try to talk to them about it. Make sure to emphasize how important it is, for their sake too. If it works out, send a message to the post office in Canterlot briefly explaining Nightmare Moon's appearance, just in case they somehow haven't heard, and ask them to send the bird back when they figure out who's going to run things. Maybe send a couple at once if you can. Got it?"

"There's a good chance they just won't understand. But I'll do my best, Twilight."

"Great. I have one more topic to address, then you'll each be on your way."

Without waiting a beat, Twilight levitates seven golden amulets and chokers from behind the library desk. It's a bit magic-indulgent to levitate seven things at once, but Twilight feels more in control than she ever has before, and she never realized exactly what it's like. A couple ponies gasp. There's one piece each of ruby, sapphire, quartz, opal, amethyst, and tourmaline. Aside from the inset stone, they're identical in style to the topaz amulet Twilight has worn for months.

"Jewelry? At a time like this?" asks Rainbow Dash. "What gives?"

"These aren't just rocks. Things around Ponyville might... change, with the coming conditions. I mean, some ponies' behavior may become... hostile. These gems are infused with a distress signal spell suspension triggered by blunt force. What that means is, if you throw it on the ground or clap it in your hooves, it will emit a loud sound and send colored light up into the air in a burst. Two of them are also set to trigger on a magic impulse, for Rarity and Tinder."

Rarity in particular can't seem to believe her eyes. "Dear, I appreciate the gesture... but I simply can't accept such an extravagant gift! Each of these must have cost at least a thousand bits!"

Twilight blinks. Come to think of it, I am, in fact, giving away tens of thousands of bits' worth in precious gems. I didn't even think about it. Still... this is a way better use than letting them sit around. I'm not going to get much theoretical research done anytime soon, to put it mildly. It comes to her mind how willingly they all accepted their tasks, how much authority they've given her already... These are ponies to be protected.

"Don't worry about it," she says. "I mean it. I get a huge monthly stipend for gems from the Canterlot royal government; I've got a couple dozen more sitting around my home. If we're going to take up these tasks, we might be in unpopular and contentious positions. For multiple reasons, it's very important that you only activate it if you feel you're in imminent physical danger. But trust me: you won't regret having something like this on hoof."

"Well..." Rarity replies. "They do sound useful. And I can't help but call them immaculate, too. Although gold isn't really the metal for me..."

Twilight scrunches her face at her. "Rarity..."

"Oh, pay me no attention! It's a truly thoughtful gift, one I'll graciously accept. Thank you, darling, sincerely."

"You're welcome, all of you."

"I'm not usually the type for fancy stuff like this, but it sounds mighty handy," says Applejack. "What you're saying about the town... I get. Ponies under bad times act different than what we're used to, girls. I trust Twilight's judgment."

Something thin begins to burn inside Twilight. Maybe a wick, maybe a fuse.

"Good. If there are no other objections, we'll continue. The color of each's pulse matches its stone, so I'm distributing them by coat color to the degree that I can. That way, we'll know who triggered the pulse. Sapphire for Rainbow, opal for Rarity, ruby for Tinder, tourmaline for Applejack, quartz for Pinkie. I recast the spell from my topaz on the amethyst, so I'll take that one, and the topaz goes to Fluttershy. Sounds fair?"

"But that's so... matchy!" wails Rarity, before she catches herself. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, dear. I understand that's the point." She giggles, for some reason. "'Opal' is actually my cat's name, you know."

Of course I don't know. "Anyway, wear them while you're doing anything commanding. Honestly, you might as well wear them twenty-four/seven; there's not really a reason to take them off. If anypony asks, just say it's a gift. It's true, after all."

Rainbow Dash comes up and snatches the blue stone in a flash, and she's holding it in one hoof, and she's pulling her other one, bent, out to the side, and too fast for Twilight to react.—

Almost too fast. Rainbow's outstretched hoof, still, pulses with magenta energy. "No, Rainbow!" she screams. "You do not want to fire that thing unless you have to. Especially indoors. Also, it only has charge for one or two uses, and I don't have the magic to recharge it for you right now. Finally, you don't need to clap it nearly that hard; you'd probably break the stone, and I don't have anything else blue."

"...Sorry, Twilight. It just sounds so... so cool, I wanna know how it works! Imagine being in a tricky spot and slamming this into your enemy's forehead or something! Then the cavalry comes charging in—"

"Rainbow, you have to take her word for it," pipes up Fluttershy. "I value my hearing, thank you very much," she says with great courage.

Celestia, this pony wants to weaponize it already. Calm your wings, Rainbow Dash.

"Be gentle with it, Rainbow. You don't want to make a fool out of yourself and call everypony for no reason to boot," says Applejack.

Rainbow Dash lowers the gem, her cheeks flushing a tinge of purple. "Okay, okay, you're right. My bad..." She sits and fastens the stone onto her body, first fastening it in the front, then spinning it around her neck.

Tinder has just started tapping a hoof against the floor. "Come on, girls, there's work to do. At this point we're just burning dayli... we're wasting time."

"I agree," says Twilight, with a pause. "It's time to put things in action. If there are no question, you should all be on your way."

Pinkie Pie bounds out the door, just like that. "I'll be back in a split! See ya!" she yells behind her. Yet she slows to a walk almost immediately after she leaves.

Other ponies say their thanks for the amulets, put them on, and start trotting out the door, most of them with resolute expressions. But Applejack lingers behind, and after the last pony starts walking away, speaks up.

"Twilight... I've gotta ask you somethin'," she says, looking somewhere else unknown.

"...Yes?"

"I really appreciate you steppin' in and takin' charge of things. Really, I do. You're an obviously qualified pony, and I know Celestia sent you to look over the festival for a reason." She stops.

"...Yes?" Twilight says, again. Ponies are presently in the slow, slow process of starving, Applejack.

"But I gotta say, you're not the mayor. Shouldn't you just be talkin' with her, instead of ordering us around directly?"

...Oh, yeah. The mayor is a thing. Well, too late now. I'm not doing anything that shouldn't be done, period. I'll talk with her if the need arises.

"That's a... fair point. I didn't really think about it. But everything I've commanded is necessary, Applejack. Most of it would be standard procedure for imminent poverty of resources. I'm confident the mayor won't have much to say about it."

"...Maybe not. But what am I supposed to say if she tells me she's making the decisions around here?"

Starving, Applejack. "If you fully understand your duty, you shouldn't have any problems pressing the point on the mayor. If you do, come back to me, and I'll convince her." Twilight turns and starts looking around for Spike, ready to move on to further dictation.

"Okay, Twilight. I'll give it a shot," Applejack replies, something grim on her face.

"Good. Why don't you get going," Twilight says. It's not a question.

"Okay, Twi." Applejack turns and leaves. "See ya later."

After Twilight calls out for him, Spike comes down the stairs, yawning, he asks, "Everything go okay?" He's got half an apple fritter hanging out of his mouth.

When did he—and where did he get—whatever. "Everything went quite well, yes. The girls are off on their tasks, and I've got some free time again."

"Oh, great. What are we going to be doing?" he says, through a second yawn.

Some of the hairs on Twilight's coat bristle up a bit, and she brings her hooves a little closer to square. It's a fair question, one she hasn't asked herself yet, but she knows the answer anyway.

"...We can only survive like this for so long," she says, finally.

Twilight Sparkle should not say the words she's about to say, and she knows it. There are smarter things to be doing. But the winds of power and control are blowing in her heart.

"I'm going to start thinking about how to fight back."

Thorns, 5

Marks, 2 (Interlude)

"Heya, Twilight! How's your day?" asks Twinkleshine, looming over Twilight's desk.

"Uh, good! I'm just scratching out some more notes before I pack up my stuff. That was a great lecture!" I bet you could take an algebraic approach to this, since the Fourihay transform operator is four-periodic....

"Eh, I sorta tuned it out once he started talking about inner products or whatever. Integrals aren't my thing."

Twilight puts down her quill. "Are you... serious? It was so fascinating! It's the fundamental grounding for the analysis and interpretation of—"

"More like the fundamental grounding for snores," Twinkleshine giggles.

You're more right than you know. "Twinkle! The Fourihay transform is the basis of all auditory magic! Without that technique, sound magic would still be sine waves! And Overtone is on the cutting edge of the field! I still can't believe he agreed to give a guest lecture, he must be so busy in Manehat—"

"Eh."

"...You even play the bass! Haven't you ever thought about incorporating magic into your playing? Backup chords? Harmonies? Reverb?"

Twinkleshine frowns and puts a hoof on Twilight's desk, leaning in close. "All that stuff is just fancy tricks for ponies who can't actually play! All I need is the instrument and a pick. Are you saying I'm a bad bassist?"

"No! But... imagine the possibilities, Twinkle. One day, ponies might give an entire concerts with nothing but their horns. Wouldn't that require skill, too?"

She rolls her eyes. "Anypony can cast a spell that's written for them, so not really."

"Uh, I'm saying they would write the spell too, obviously. And anyway, not anypony can cast any spell."

"You're one to talk."

"And I don't just mean it's a matter of capacity. It takes talent and practice, just like an instrument."

"I guess, maybe. But it's just a hypothetical anyway. I don't think sound magic will ever get that advanced."

"It certainly won't if ponies like you continue to not give a bit!" Twilight explodes.

Twinkleshine's hoof slips off the table and she bangs a front knee into the desk's leg. "Ow! Mother bu—I mean, golly gracious," she corrects as Overtone passes their corner on the way out the door. "Twilight, what's the big deal?! Why are you so angry all of a sudden? It's just math—"

"Leave me alone."

"Twi—"

"Go away! I have more to write down and I don't need any more distraction!" Her horn begins to glow the faintest magenta—

"Okay, okay! Yeesh! Remind me not to ask you how you are tomorrow, why don'tcha..." Twinkleshine mutters as she wanders away.

Twilight takes a deep breath. She breathes in the shuffling hooves on the ground, the faint scritch of chalk-on-chalkboard from the classroom on the other side of the wall, the winter wind whistling outside, the gentle scrape of her hoof along the cover of her notebook...

How can you not feel the power in these laws? She shakes her head and reopens the book.

I bet the transform operator has nice conjugacy properties. Let's see what its commutator with the complex conjugation operator is... She buries her head back in the parchment, and shuts the sounds back out.

"'Integrals aren't my thing,'" she mutters to herself.

"Oh, er, hi girls," fumbles Twilight.

"Hey there!" greets Minuette.

"Hi, Twilight! Whatcha doing?" asks Moon Dancer, eyes glancing down to the book between Twilight's hooves—which slams shut.

"Oh, nothing! Just doing some independent research," offers Twilight.

"Nifty! On what?" exclaims Moon Dancer, as she twists her head to peer at the cover—which gets shoved into Twilight's bag.

"Ah, nothing interesting, eheh... just some... projection... problem sets." Sure.

Minuette and Moon Dancer exchange odd looks with each other, while Lemon Hearts looks bemused.

Minuette's gaze eventually returns to Twilight's, and she says, "Well, we were gonna ask you if you're coming to Twinkleshine's recital? It's the big night!"

That's... tonight? But... "I, ah, have something to do. Sorry."

"That's what you always say!" Moon Dancer blurts. "You never make time for us!"

It is what she always says. But for once, it's true: Willing Hooves is leaving for a conference tomorrow, so they moved her second appointment to today.

"You know, that's a pretty weak lie. You could at least add some detail so we might believe it," pricks Minuette.

"I bet she just wants to read, like usual," states Moon Dancer.

"It's not a lie! It's just... personal, okay?"

"What, exactly, is so personal you can't tell your friends?" asks Moon Dancer.

Just lie, Twilight! Just lie! "It's, uh, a doctor's appointment." Euphemism works, too.

"Oh yeah? And what's so sick about you that we don't know about, huh? You never coughed or asked to leave class or anything today," points out Minuette.

There are lots of ways to be sick. "It's... personal... I'm sor—"

"What a load of bits! I'm so sick of dealing with you and your flakiness! Why can't you just be honest with us?" Minuette yells.

Same reason one might not do anything else: consequences. "I am being honest with you! I just don't wanna talk about it, okay?"

Minuette rolls her eyes and scoffs, then storms back out into the courtyard. Moon Dancer doesn't seem to know what to do, so she just trots along after her, leaving Lemon Hearts and Twilight each staring silently at the other. Finally, the yellow filly turns to the door as well. "I'm sorry, Twilight. I don't hold it against you. They... might. But I get it. Some things are personal, and that's that. Some things, you don't get to know."

"Lemon, I..." But she's gone.

Buck me.

Twilight's favorite tree is faring poorly this winter. Its branches are drooping under the weight of snow, and its leaves have long since vanished into the fall air. Nature's thin white blanket of slush is far inferior to her own, a tasteful gray; she nestles into the slight dip in the ground she's formed over her two years at the School and pulls a couple of pieces of fruit from her bag. She glances around and, seeing nopony, also retrieves and opens Psychopathology of Avoidant Personality Disorder. It's not written for the afflicted; it's for the mental health professionals in charge of their treatment. That's why she chose it.

It lasted through a respectable chunk of the day, but her projection bookmark couldn't survive her burst of anger towards Twinkleshine. She flips through the slim volume, continually scanning the treeline for wayward nosy ponies. She skims for the section on a therapist's role in APD treatment where she recessed after breakfast. While she finds it, she thinks of Willing Hooves, and his peculiar overconfidence. In the week since, she's yet to come to a decision as to just how intentionally affected it was, but she firmly believes it was at least some. No one could put that much faith in her. Not someone who knows as much about her as Dr. Hooves does.

She finds what she's looking for, this once. This passage has been on her mind for so many hours that a small trickle of pear juice dribbles out of her mouth as her she forgets to close it, devouring something else instead.

An individual with APD may be pulled in diametric directions by her desire to establish close social connections and her completely inability to engage in them. If she manages any social contact at all, she often comes off as "flaky," or unreliable, or disinterested. Be wary of avoidant therapy-interfering behaviors, such as excuses and preeminent obligations. Indeed, emotional distancing is a primary shibboleth of APD, but it is not a product of apathy. It stems from both her fundamentally impaired self-esteem and her strong behavioral conditioning against setting up situations in which she might face criticism. This hypersensitivity to criticism leads her to develop natural defense mechanisms, often escaping the given social context, sometimes devaluing the opinions and motivations of others. It is sadly far from uncommon for an APD individual to have exactly one session with a given therapist. Refrain from direct criticism; place no blame on the pony, merely her disorder.

Even within an emotionally intimate relationship, she may hold a distorted perception of her role. Often, minor slights escalate into major perceptions of rejection, or such perceived rejection is conjured from thin air. This implicit self-sabotage exacerbates the issues already posed by the difficulty of engaging in the relationship in the first place, leading many APD individuals to simply abstain from substantial contact altogether, by choice or by necessity. An APD individual seeking treatment in the first place is exceedingly rare, and almost exclusively happens upon the urging or pleading of her family or friends. This social aversion sometimes leads her to see other ponies as capricious or fickle, seemingly abandoning her at slightest provocation, and as such, she often feels at other ponies' mercy. On the other hoof, this means that, like with many other personality disorders, an APD individual often feels most comfortable in relationships and interactions of which she feels in control. Pragmatism is key: carefully manage the power dynamic in your relationship with your APD client, and cede control to whatever degree is necessary to maintain regular contact.

The book slams shut.

He... had that diagnosis in mind before he even met me, didn't he? He was so careful not to blame me for a single thing. And that must mean... he knows dad was my fault. He knows.

"Hey, Twilie! Good to see you," says the well-kept stallion Twilight's found fussing with his locker.

"Hey, Shine. Could you do me a favor tonight?" she asks.

"Sure, anything. What's up?" The locker shuts, just barely.

"Can you tell mom that I'll meet her at the train station this time? I wanna catch up with my friends for an hour or two after school." Twilight does her best to look him the eyes, as Shining Armor knows her tells.

"...Sure, Twi. Just make sure you aren't late. The train leaves at 5:30, so that's only two and a half hours. Keep an eye on the sky," he says, stepping into the straps of his bag, then pulling it up with his magic.

"I'll be careful. Thanks!"

"No problem. See you when you get home."

Thankfully, she finds them, and she doesn't have to spend two hours wandering around town by herself.

"Uh, hey, girls," she says to the four fillies giggling on a blanket in the school yard. They hear her, and turn, and she doesn't let herself look at their expressions. "I, uh, I'm sorry for how I acted today. Towards Twinkle, and towards all of you."

Lemon Hearts picks up the thread immediately. "Oh, it's okay, Twilight! It's nothing to worry about. We all forgive you. Right, girls?"

"Yeah!" says Moon Dancer. "It's no problem."

Minuette glances to the side, eyes down, but says, "It's... okay. We're cool."

Twinkleshine says nothing.

"I, um. I wanted to tell you... why I'm busy today," Twilight continues. "Was. Was busy."

Let's see how it feels to take power I'm not given.

Author's Note

Lots of projects due soon, so I'm calling no chapter next Friday. Apologies!

Thorns, 6

Thorns, 5

It's just Twilight and Spike, now. She's had many long years to get used to that dynamic, but right now, her thoughts are on another one. Tonight, six ponies put their trust in her to see them through the darkest time in Equestrian history. It's a grave weight, but somehow, one she finds her haunches surprisingly fit to bear. Other problems, unarguably smaller, fall from invisibly high, and strike upon joints and tendons. But for some strange reason, through some opaque pane, Twilight feels like she's been bracing herself for Princess Luna's return for years.

"I need every book mentioning Alicorns or Elements of Harmony we can find," she says to the dragon. She half-expects that number to be zero, but searching is what happens next nonetheless. No Equestrian notion could distract her; the path will be narrow, but so is straight down. "Or magically locating ponies. Or magical combat. ...Or anything that looks remotely relevant. Beggars and choosers."

"Gotcha, Twilight. I'll take the west wall," he replies.

She trots to the east, where she knows the sun is decidedly not rising, and looks not out the lonely window but at the shelves. Daring Do in Chupacabra Country. Succulent Growing for Absolute Idiots. The Blank-Flank Chronicles. Griffins: Culture and Customs. Twilight closes her eyes, and breathes in deep, and starts counting out the last ten seconds she'll allow herself to think of nothing at all. Eight... Seven... Six... F—

What must be the Ponyville school bell sounds, low but piercing, and Twilight shudders out of her empty reverie. Taking even ten seconds to herself when the pony species' fate hangs in the balance is inexcusable. She buries the private shame for later, and the next second, rakes her open eyes across the titles.

Chocolate Rain, or Whatever Happened to Discord?, by Bubblegum Mint.
Kingdom's Pride, by Looking Glass.
The Elements of Mystery, by Hullabaloo.
The Stones that Saved the World, by Aqua Vitae.
Combat Magic for the Gifted, by Second Wind.
Unicorn Foals: A Bully's Worst Nightmare, by Blackjack.
Professional Vivification, by Liquid Crystal.
The Sun's Mistress, by Blossoms Spring.
The Untold Beauty Secrets of the Princess, Exposed One-on-One!, by Thornless Rose.
Rebellion: Equestria, by Always Sunny.
Eternal Night, by Don'tcha Know.
Into Darkness: The Princess Time Forgot, by Sunglare.

"I admit, this is a better haul than I expected. Nothing about finding ponies through magic, but... it's not like I don't know plenty about that already." At this, Spike takes a worried step towards her, but she's already resumed speaking. "You're taking the books about the Elements. Write down any factual claim made about their history, abilities, whereabouts, or... anything else, really. I don't know what we're looking for. Use your discretion."

"Okay, Twilight. But... um..."

"Yes?"

"Are you hungry, Twi? You didn't eat at the festival, did you?" Spike asks, with a frown.

"...I'm peckish, I suppose. But you're asking because you're hungry too, aren't you?"

"Eheh... yeah," Spike laughs, nervously.

"...Sure, okay, we can eat. I brought a couple pears to snack on, back when I thought I'd be here for two days... That's all we have, though." She stops. "Unless you smuggled any more mystery fritters..."

Spike shrugs. "A pear sounds great!"

"Okay. But you have to read while you eat. And don't dribble on the books."

"Deal."

Unicorn Foals: A Bully's Worst Nightmare
by Blackjack

As the absolute first thing you read in this book, I want to tell you that violence is never the first answer. If you are reading this book to learn how to fight, make sure you've considered every other option beforehoof. In this preliminary chapter, we're going to go over a couple options that are much safer, easier, and more responsible than heading face-first into a fight.

First, have you tried talking to your bully? I'm not so crazy as to think it will always work. But if it even has a chance of working, it's a much better solution than any other, especially beating them up in kind. Let them know that you really don't appreciate whatever they're doing to you, and that you're not going to stand for it much longer. Maybe they don't realize what they're doing is hurting you. More likely, they do. But many bullies have second thoughts when you actually stand up to them and don't just cower and take it.

Next, threaten to take things to someone higher up. Most would-be bullies will turn tail and run at the first mention of involving a teacher or the principal. If a unicorn is bullying you with magic, then things are even easier: Tell them that the next time they cast a spell on you, you're going to head straight to a unicorn faculty member and ask them to analyze the magic residue on you. As soon as the adult detects the bully's magic signature on your body, their fate is sealed! Scientific proof that someone is screwing with you. The bully doesn't need to know that a magic signature diagnostic is well beyond the acumen of the average schoolteacher, do they?

Twilight is intrigued; this isn't something she's heard of before. She makes a note to confer with the vivification textbook later, and skips forward a couple pages, but this book doesn't seem to have much else to offer. Basic combat spells like energy bursts and a sputtering flame. Wind conjurations and darkness illusions to make yourself look "spooky".

The Untold Beauty Secrets of the Princess, Exposed One-on-One!
by Thornless Rose

Thornless Rose: Okay, we've zapped the recording stone. First of all, let me thank you one last time for agreeing to this interview, Your Brilliance.
Princess Celestia: The pleasure is truly mine, my little pony. What can I illuminate for you?
TR: Well, I figured we could start with a couple easy questions. First of all, facial masks: yea or nay?
PC: I suppose I'd have to say yea. Every now and then, it can be very relaxing to take a bit of time for myself.
TR: I see! And who makes facial cream fit for a princess?
PC: I import from Pickled Peach, who lives in a small hamlet west of Appleloosa. He's a very nice young colt; he's learning the family trade, you see...

...

Twilight starts skimming.

...

TR: Fascinating! Speaking of which, just how much beauty sleep do you get on the average night?
PC: On a typical night, maybe two or three hours. Running the country is a full time job, you know!
TR: My gosh! You look this wondrous with that little downtime? You heard it here, folks, the Princess doesn't even need a full night's rest to look this good! Makes you question your own sleeping habits, doesn't it?
PC: [giggle] Now, now, Rose. It's not something I recommend. Alicorn bodies are very resilient by nature, and it's hard to disturb their balance with quotidian concerns like food or sleep. I can't advise your listeners to try to start living on three hours of sleep a night. For the average pony, it's no way to live.
TR: I see, I see. In that case, how much sleep do you recommend for the average pony?

...

PC: I find it helps to refrain from eating right before bed, too. I haven't eaten less than three hours before sleep in, oh, I'd say two-hundred, two-hundred-fifty years.
TR: My word, Princess! Just how old are you, anyway?
PC: My little pony, I'm sure you know it's impolite to ask that of a grown mare!
TR: [gasp] You're right, you're right! I'm sorry, Princess, I didn't think—
PC: [giggle It's quite all right, Rose. I'm just having a bit of fun; I'm not offended.
TR: Okay, Your Brilliance. Then... if you aren't offended...
PC: I'm not. But that doesn't mean I'm going to answer. [giggle]
TR: That's... understandable. In any case, let's move on to coat grooming!

...

TR: And finally, I'm going to ask the question that's surely been on everypony's mind for years.
PC: Oh? And what might that be?
TR: Princess Celestia... who does your hair?
PC: [full-bodied laughter] Oh, Rose... [laughing continues] My dear... [clears throat] No one "does" my hair, my little pony. It, ah... it just does this on its own.
TR: ...No!!
PC: [laughing] Yes!
TR: There's no spell cast on it? No lost cosmetic arcana woven into the strands?
PC: Not as far as I know. As far back as I can remember, it's billowed in a virtual wind. Of course, it grows, and I do go in for a trim every couple decades.
TR: As far back as you can remember?
PC: Well, I have an excellent memory, Rose. But even I was once a foal.

...

TR: That's all the specific questions I prepared, Princess. But I'd like to ask you one last thing before we conclude. Is there anything we didn't cover that you'd like the beautiful ponies at home to know? A final piece of advice, or one last tip?
PC: Hmmm...
TR: Or, dare I ask... Princess Celestia, do you have any scandalous info for our curious readers? A bad habit you can't quit? An adviser you can't stand? A secret crush? Do you have any deep, dark secrets, Princess?
PC: [silence, then a giggle] I suppose I do, Thornless Rose. I suppose I do.
TR: [silence]
PC: [silence]
TR: ...Okay, well, that about wraps up our interview with the radiant and gorgeous Princess Celestia!

...

Twilight doesn't feel especially compelled to read the last page of the thin volume, and tosses it into a growing second pile. I can't believe Celestia would agree to something like this. Did this even happen?

Into Darkness: The Princess Time Forgot
by Sunglare

...

In the aftermath of the Dark Solstice, the question on everypony's lips was why. In this section, we take a look at the prevailing theories as to what, exactly, motivated Princess Luna to usher in what she planned to be eternal night. Jealousy, malice, or mere madness: These are the motivations primarily considered by historians both modern and contemporary. But, in addition to examining these possibilities, we'll scrutinize three more that rarely see the light of day: Stunted socialization, boredom, and loneliness. This tome strives to lay out all information that can be unearthed about the Princess's mental state in the days, weeks, or possibly years preceding the Solstice.

...

It is inarguable that Princess Luna was a fundamentally lonely pony. In addition to the distance inherently separating a royal and her citizens, Princess Luna did not take even the token efforts to intermingle with the populace that her sister did. While Princess Celestia hosted balls, dinners, wine tastings, Princess Luna hosted nothing and played no role in her sister's events. Princess Celestia even had the Summer Sun Celebration in her honor (which, let us be honest, is far more about the Princess than the sun). Princess Luna spent her days asleep and her nights alone. Even nocturnal ponies with graveyard-shift occupations saw none of her, locked inside her tower; even the royal guards and advisers slept at night. It was not infrequent for days or weeks to pass between public sightings of the Princess, which typically entailed just catching a glance of her out her spire-top bedroom window at dusk.

What is it like to live without pony contact for tens, possibly hundreds of years? What about a thousand? You and I, reader, will never know. In addition to lacking an Alicorn's ostensible immortality, we live in a society where socialization and community interaction is fundamental to everypony's wellbeing. We ponies are social creatures at our core. The unfortunate fact is that that includes Princess Luna, too, yet she lived in abject social poverty. The confluence of her elevated status, her nocturnal nature, and her apparent general standoffishness conspired to divorce her from the hearts and minds of the ponies.

It's far from inconceivable that near-total isolation could drive the Princess to unspeakable ends. However, is it really fair to brand that motivation as "madness?" If she had been maneuvered to the brink of catastrophic intent by forces largely outside her control, if she could cerebrate no other way to staunch the wound, if she truly were just insufferably, unbearably lonely, eternal night might start sounding like a reasonable option even to a pony of sound mind. No psychosis is necessary for desperate ponies to make desperate decisions. Imagine: an entire country of ponies dependent on your whim, the conception of your existence and power irrevocably wedged into the mind of every living soul, never to dwell in the shadows again.

In this light, we could even attempt to contextualize that Luna bore the Element of Loyalty. She indeed spent ages of her own life loyal in service to the kingdom, yet her apparent betrayal could scarcely be seen as loyal to any but the most twisted mind. Yet loyal it was: to herself. For the sake of argument, say this poor, lonely pony had reached the absolute limit of even her divine patience. Who knows what she would have done had she not reached her breaking point sooner rather than later? Who knows what she might have done to herself? What mortal mind can touch the depths of a despair hundreds of years in the making? It is not so difficult to see her rebellion as a tormented, desperate cry for help, in the only way she knew how. "Heed me, ponydom: I exist. I live. And I want to keep living."

Perhaps to you and I this prospect sounds deeply repugnant. But perhaps you and I have not spent a thousand years in quarantine. Perhaps you and I recognize the value of sincere friendship and respect. But perhaps we had somepony to teach us.

This brings us to the next factor contributing to the catastrophe: Princess Luna's almost certainly maladaptive expectations for interpony relationships. Yes, the only type of relationship she has ever been known to seek is dictatorial master and cowering subject. However, in all fairness, it's possible that she didn't realize there was any other kind, at least not suitable for someone of her stature. You and I, reader, have most likely been raised by loving parents, have mostly likely grown up alongside young fillies and colts our age, have most likely nestled into comfortable social niches and dynamics. We have been thoroughly socialized as loving, caring creatures, with rare exception.

But how was Princess Luna raised? Was she raised at all? Nothing is known about her childhood; she first appeared silhouetted against Discord's chaotic eclipse as an elegant, fully grown Alicorn. Did she and Princess Celestia even have parents? Were they ever even foals, or does their timeless nature stretch as far back in time as it does forward? Or, if they were born, and if they did age, perhaps they grew up alone. Perhaps they knew nopony but each other their entire lives until they took over the kingdom. Perhaps we witness in the sisters who a pony matured in isolation ends up being; perhaps their divergence as adults stems from minute differences in innate personality, spiraled through time beyond all prediction. Perhaps one sister or the other saw in her sibling a pony that she could never be. Perhaps they were never as similar as they were once perceived.

History may never know where its currents may have coursed had one intrepid pony sought to befriend the lonely Princess. Maybe it could have made a difference. Maybe not. Regardless, the Princess of Loyalty finds her final resting place on the moon that was her closest acquaintance all those long years, and ponydom may never even know whether she lies dead or alive. Either way, this author prays she found solace, and will not rest forever alone.

...

Twilight has never read any account of these events that set Luna in half such a sympathetic light. Who wrote this book, anyway? Even as a speculative account, it has an oddly familiar quality. Even as she turns over the claims and possibilities over in her mind, Twilight feels ashamed at the rotted taste they leave, but she can't deny how dirty the thought of understanding Luna makes her feel. Maybe she had things tough, sure. But it's hard to feel sorry for the pony who is almost certainly the reason you will die. Maybe even the proximate reason, if things go remotely well.

I've had it hard, too. Admittedly, maybe not a tenth as bad. But my socialization was rough. Is rough; it's still happening, even today, even tonight. But... I would never do what Luna's done. I couldn't. No matter how much power I had at the end of my horn, no matter how spurned and mistreated I felt at the world's hooves... I... I could never... intentionally... kill another living pony. And I still refuse to believe she isn't damn well aware that she's murdering us.

Twilight sinks to the floor, wet pages forgotten and crinkling underhoof. I... I'm a good pony, right? I'm still a good pony... right? she asks no one. She looks over to the dragon sitting across the room, who's eyeing the stem of a finished pear instead of the book lying in front of him. You know what he would say. But the thoughtline is a dead-end, she knows; she knows; she's explored it before, over and over; she knows nothing good awaits her at the bottom of its spiral, if it has a bottom at all.

We have to take her down, she thinks. But it doesn't feel right, that thought. It feels incomplete, or hollow, or... unrefined. Like there's a crystallization thereof that would better illuminate the path.

How about... I have to take her down.

Author's Note

Sorry for the quite long delay. I decided to take some time away from writing to focus on school, since the previous semester was my last, and it got pretty intense near the end. But now I've graduated, and I plan on moving back to a weekly-ish schedule sometime soon. It make take me some time to get back up to speed, though, since I no longer have a buffer. Thanks for being patient, and I hope you enjoy the chapter!

A Survey of Magical Fields and Attendant Mathematical Theory, Table of Contents (Interlude)

Bridges, 11

Twilight slinks through the opened door and sidles along a back wall, circling towards backstage. She did, in fact, manage to get a scant few hours of sleep. But that doesn't help her much to keep her eyes open, standing in the spotlight glare of everypony in the ballroom. Most ponies are turned away, towards the stage. But even they are staring, in a way; Twilight's shame lies before her; Celestia only knows how many ponies are thinking of her incident right at this second. She sends Spike to the desert table, then semicircumnavigates the room, stalking like a killer.

Nopony is on stage yet, which is permissible, as sunrise is twenty minutes from now. Twilight's here to check in with everypony she met today and ensure there are no last-minute complications. Really, she should have been here at least an hour ago, but she was someplace very far away instead. She starts scouting the crowd for relevant ponies.

Rainbow Dash is ambling through the air, engaging ponies with animated gestures and speech, sometimes cackling so hard she rolls onto her back. But her wings are never amused, and continue their work in austerity. The night sky outside is as clear and sharp as a cut diamond, so Rainbow Dash can have her fun.

The hall is decorated exactly as it had been earlier in the day, with the exception that there are, in fact, burnt yellow ribbons around the drawn stage curtains. Twilight can't spot Rarity among the guests, but there's nowhere else in town she would be. After a minute or two of wandering, she catches a glimpse of a white pony in a preposterously extravagant dress, and is satisfied. There's hardly any way that the decorations can suddenly run afoul, but Rarity is present, just in case.

The apple-flavored maze of confections is arranged on white-clothed tables following the sides of the hall, a meter or two off the wall. The desserts have proven wildly more popular than Twilight expected, but some ponies are just good at being wrong. Applejack and a large, red, apple-marked stallion are talking to Derpy, Applejack with a fairly stern look, and Twilight wonders how many apple muffins Derpy has devoured already. She sits down on the steps of the stage. The motion seems to catch Applejack's attention, and she glances in Twilight's direction, but quickly looks away. Or maybe not. It doesn't matter, Twilight. Ponies all around the room are sitting at tables cutting into apple pancakes, or absentmindedly levitating apple fritters into their mouths, or just browsing the selection with grins, like Spike. The catering is fine; it doesn't matter what Applejack is thinking.

Tinder's hoofwork is arranged neatly on every table, on every wall sconce, and in several instances hanging from the ceiling in golden chandeliers. The tables nearest the stage frame candles of midday-sun yellow, while those nearest the exit have faded into deep, flushed red. Tinder himself is nowhere to be found, but not for want of lighting, as the hall has an ambient, warm glow perfectly reminiscent of morning. These candles will all be extinguished after the Princess's speech so that the sun can crest from the darkness, but for now, the suffusion is providing a backdrop for almost everypony's good spirits.

All that's left is to check on Fluttershy's choir, and then wait for the Princess's arrival, which marks the festival's beginning. Twilight dismisses her mental checklist and trots backstage. That's where she finds Tinder, as well, chatting with Fluttershy in front of a metal choir stand. When she walks up, and they see her, there's something inexplicable cast in Fluttershy's eyes, but Tinder's are filled with warmth.

"Um, hi, girls," Twilight greets the two of them. "The candles all look wonderful, Tinder."

"Hey, Twilight! Thank you, I'm very happy with them! And I'm so glad you seem to be feeling better," he smiles.

"Hi, Twilight," squeaks Fluttershy.

"Thanks, Tinder. I'm sorry you two had to see... what happened. But I'm feeling a lot better after some rest. I just... don't take well to crowds, at least not without some warning." Do anything enough, and you'll pick up some skill; damage control is no exception.

Tinder holds out an open hoof. "It's no problem! Now we know that you aren't the type for surprise parties, that's all."

Fluttershy's eyes are on Twilight, but she's sporting a smile that strikes Twilight as... off, somehow. Twilight realizes she's simply not equipped to figure out how. Fluttershy says, "We'll make sure not to startle you in the future."

Show her you remember her name, thinks Twilight, in a burst of inspiration. "...Thanks, girls. So, Fluttershy, I'm here to ask about the choir..." That something in her eyes softens by a fraction, but Twilight doesn't see.

"Oh, I see! It's going well. Everything is back on track for the Celebration! Rehearsal finished fine, thanks to your help," says Fluttershy.

At least you can solve the problems you create for yourself, Twilight. "No problem, Fluttershy. It was just my duty."

She smiles at Twilight for an extra beat, waiting. Once she realizes Twilight considers the serve returned, she says, "Well, thanks nonetheless. Would you like to stay and chat to pass the time?"

"That's okay," says Twilight. "I need to make sure the rest of the preparations are coming along." All zero of them.

"Are you sure?" asks Tinder. "You've been running around all day. You worked so hard that I'm sure everything will go fine. Couldn't you just put your hooves up and relax until the Princess gets here?"

"I, uh... yeah, I'm sure. I'll be able to relax in due time, but I can't just write off the rest of my responsibilities. Sorry."

"Okay, Twilight," says Tinder, ears lowered. "We'll be backstage if you need us. Good luck! I'll catch up with you after the ceremony! I'll introduce you to my special somepony," he smiles as his ears perk back up.

"...Okay," she says, as she must. "Later, girls."

Twilight trots out from backstage and sits back down on the steps. Really, there's nothing left to do; she's not sure why she said otherwise. She puts her head into her hoof, trying to explain, but thinking nothing. Some things just happen. However, it's close enough to the appointed time that her movement near the stage prompts some crowd attention, and in a second or two, she sees a cotton-candy-pink pony bouncing toward her.

No. No, no. But the mare takes no heed to her mental protest. Impossibly quickly, she's at the foot of the stairs, hopping up, sitting next to Twilight, staring at her with ice-blue eyes.

"Hi, Twilight! I don't think you remember meeting me, so I'll just tell you what I told you the first time! I'm Pinkie Pie! When I saw you walk into town and I didn't know who you were I knew you must be new, because I know everypony and I mean everypony in Ponyville! And since you're new you must not know anypony! And if you don't know anypony that means you must not have any friends—"

"Stop!" Twilight screams. "I'm not lonely just because I'm new! I'm just a lonely pony!" Her vision is losing definition. "It's not your fault and it's not your responsibility to fix! Some ponies just don't get to have friends, it just doesn't work, they're too bucked up! It's my fault! How could it possibly be anypony else's?!"

The fuchsia pony's ears are suddenly trying to sink into her hooves. Twilight thinks she spots trickle of tears begin to form, but she can't be sure; they're so far away.

"I'm sorry, Twilight. I didn't know you were... like you are, okay? Most ponies love surprise parties, but I just didn't think about whether everypony did. But I think you're wrong!" Her smile cracks back into existence in an instant. "Everypony deserves a friend, no matter who she is, and I just know your life would be better with some. You don't have to befriend everypony in town at once, is all. We can start one at a time! I'll be your first, you don't even have to be my friend back! I know you're shy, but it's okay! Just don't think such negative thoughts and everything will work out!"

Without even waiting a beat, she extends a hoof for a hug, but Twilight flinches away, somehow now standing up and taking steps backwards. "I'm not just shy! I have real problems that can't be fixed by happy thoughts and hugging things out! I don't get to just buck up and bootstrap myself into a normal pony brain! I'm not just shy, I'm not just rusty, I'm not just inexperienced, I have diagnosed mental dis—"

She realizes she's yelling and crying onstage in front of a crowd, and slumps down onto her rump, eyes wide. She's too afraid to glance to the side to count the ponies listening. She sees the twinge of magenta clouding the upper fringes of her visual field, and finds she's charging a teleport. But the festival starts in a few minutes—but she's growing so cold—but Celestia is moments away, probably poised magnificently in her golden chariot, maybe thinking of Twilight at this very second—

"...Okay," says Pinkie Pie. "I'm sorry." Then she leaves. Just... walks away. It's the first time Twilight's seen her in any gait except a bounce.

Twilight's horn discharges in a fizzle. She stands up, and walks down the stage steps, eyes straight forward like the rest of the room is the sun, too bright, too hot. She finds Spike still at the catering table, having moved on from desserts to the pancakes. It doesn't seem like he heard; he's enthralled. She starts to say something, but stops herself. Let him eat cake, and enjoy the night. Sometimes she counts her blessings on her hooves: One, two. It'll do.

Twilight eventually claims a space on the edge of the crowd after she retrieves Spike, who is stuffing the last of the fritters into his maw. All the ponies she's met are interspersed in the crowd, eyes on the stage. She notices the lanky Tinder Heart resting his head on the shoulder of the oversized red Apple stallion who was managing the catering with Applejack, and feels a tiny tremor.

When the time comes, she sees a dingy gray earth stallion with an hourglass cutie mark exchange some words with a lighter brown earth mare. Her wispy gray hair bobs as she makes her way to the downstage podium.

"Hello, fillies and gentlecolts," she says, projecting clearly. "For those of you coming from out of town, I am the mayor of Ponyville. My name is Laissez-Mare. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for attending this year's Summer Sun Celebration in our humble town. Without further ado, it is my greatest pleasure to announce Her Eternal Radiance Princess Celestia." Twilight breathes out the gray shadows of the day. Regardless of the fumbling details of the day, she ensured the festival would be executed perfectly.

After the mayor walks backstage, the second layer of curtains opens.

Celestia is not behind the curtains.

Twilight's heart skips a beat or three.

Celestia does not appear on the stage. Somepony else does: A black mare in dusk-blue armor snaps into existence via a midnight haze of sparkles and stars. Her scintillating lavender cloud of a mane billows behind her, despite the perfectly still air of the auditorium, and it's like looking through an open window into the silent night sky. She stands as tall and as proud as Princess Celestia, and knows who she is, where she stands, what she wants. Twilight gazes upon her horn, easily twice as long as her own, and it fills her with a terror she's never known. Princess Luna has returned.