"Knight of the Crystal Empire, huh?" Muffins found her wife in the castle dining room, two little foals tucked under a wing, while holding two bottles of milk for them. "Big brave defender of Equestria?"

"Pfft, what would you know, you are just a derpy mailmare with the best wife in the world." Rainbow gave Muffins a look that did nothing to detract from how adorable the pegasus was, tending to two foals. "Besides, somepony has to look after them."

"And I am sure there aren't a dozen ponies who would jump at the chance." Muffins settled down, setting two bowls of porridge out. "Nope, poor Rainbow Dash, the only pony who could possibly help." She lifted two spoons up, one feeding herself, the other bringing a spoonful of food to Dash.

"They are awesome." Rainbow Dash had made up her mind, clearly. "Apple Seed and Winged Pattern." The two little foals opened their eyes at mention of their names, gazing up at the pegasus who was feeding them. A tiny black hoof lifted out of Winged's blanket wrapping to bop at Dash's snout.

Muffins leaned sideways, settling her head on Dash's shoulder, an odd action considering the alicorn was larger than her wife. "Yeah, they are." Muffins used her magic to continue on their breakfast, as the foals ate.

"… you need to eat." Twilight was pushing Applejack in, her voice stern. "Oh, there you are." She spotted her foals in the care of Rainbow and Muffins. "Thank you so much for taking care of them through this."

The presence of Twilight's foals broke Applejack from her stubbornness. She walked over and couldn't stop from kissing each on the cheek. "Dang it, okay Twi, get me some-" The earth pony got no further, a spoon piled high with porridge landed in her mouth. There was chopped apple through it, and it had been sweetened further still.

Twilight was sitting on the other side of the table, grinning at AJ. "We aren't leaving until that bowl is empty. Then we are both going to round up your brother and sister and they are going to eat too."

The snort of mirth from Muffins at the interaction drew Twilight's attention. "Just had the same conversation with Dash." The gray alicorn fed her wife another mouthful before she could voice complaint. "I heard what happened, Applejack."

The words stung still, but AJ had mundane things to worry about. "Ah… Ah wish I had time to be with her, one more time…"

"She looked happy last night." Twilight offered more food, but AJ seemed to have had enough. "A little more, please?"

"She was happy." Gel strode into the dining room, not stopping until he was beside Applejack. "She was ecstatically happy, as was everypony."

Applejack was surprised at how good it was when he put his forelegs around her and hugged. "Vinyl was the last to speak to her. She said she had made a deal, with The Tree. Wait a cotton-pickin' minute!" Even the foals blinked and looked to their mother in surprise. "Ah hadn't even thought of th' weddin' back then!"

"Are you mad she got her way?" Twilight ate some of Applejack's porridge now, knowing she needed her strength for the day ahead.

The room was quiet for a while, nopony talking until Winged Pattern pulled back from her bottle and burped loudly. Twilight reached out with her magic and collected her filly, nuzzling and licking around the little changeling's face.

"Nah, Granny Smith always got what she wanted, right to the end." Applejack picked up a spoon, eating a little more to keep herself busy.

"We should celebrate her life." Gel couldn't eat, not in the normal physical way nor in the changeling way, not right then. So he kept talking. "I… only knew Granny for a short while, but I doubt that mare would have wanted a sad funeral."

"A wake?" Applejack lifted her head, blinking. "That… that'd be just what she would want. Ah'll start getting things ready." She stood, having to almost fight free of Gel's cuddle, in the end the changeling had managed to kiss her three times before she broke free. She leaned closer to Rainbow Dash, kissing the cheek of her colt. "You be good, and do what Auntie Dash tells you."

Rainbow Dash colored. "Hey! I'm-"

"The most awesome aunt anypony could have." Muffins cut in, kissing Rainbow on the cheek and defusing any argument that might have arisen from bruised ego.

Gel looked across at Twilight and got a nod. The stallion got up and headed after Applejack without a word.

Another burp and Apple Seed proved that she had had enough milk by pulling away and, energizing her little horn, suddenly appearing beside Twilight. "What the…" Rainbow Dash blinked in shock. "At least she isn't going all crazy with it, like Flurry Heart did."

Twilight wrapped the filly in her other wing and pulled her close. "Even with the Fledgling's Forbearance spell, she still has a lot of power." The alicorn nuzzled each of her fillies.

"As if anything could stop Princess of Friendship, Twilight Sparkle's daughter from returning to her mother." Muffins did some nuzzling of her own, getting a hot blush in her wife's cheeks. "Things have changed, haven't they?"

Rainbow Dash looked to Muffins, then across to Twilight. She realized this question wasn't for her. "They have. The world where we were just barely mares, filly thoughts still in our heads… those days are behind us. The world is constantly in danger."

"Like we aren't bigger and totally more awesome than we were. We have more friends, closer friends, and all kinds of coolness." Rainbow Dash spread a wing, colored lightning dancing along her feathers. "And there is more incentive than ever to save it." The pegasus looked right at Twilight's wings, smiling.

Celestia read the notes, going through them a second time with Sunset sitting with her. "Twilight seems to think shadow magic might be the answer." Celestia focused and started making magic. She wasn't strong in this, but even a small percentage of her power was still a lot. A duplicate of Twilight Sparkle appeared, created from darkness. All the while she wove, Celestia watched Sunset's reaction.

"That doesn't hurt me…" Sunset reached a wing out to poke the shadow simulacrum. "So I need to learn this magic?"

"Yes and no." Celestia banished the clone of her student. "Twilight believes, rightly, that you won't be able to do much with the shadow magic directly, in truth nopony can. It gains strength by darkness within you." The alicorn Princess of the Sun smiled. "I don't think either of us have a great amount of tha-" She froze at the look of guilt on Sunset.

"I might have become a demon… briefly. And now I am… am I dead? Or whatever a vampony is." Sunset Shimmer closed her eyes, reflecting internally. "Even now I feel the desire to attack and drink you away…" She blushed, it would have been a bright blush, but her body reacted to things a little different now. "Teach me, please. I know we didn't part on the best of terms, but I was a silly filly then."

Celestia smiled and nodded. "I wouldn't have taught you this, back then, but you are ready for it now." She began to channel the dark magic, bringing it up into her horn. She knew her eyes drained down to red circles, streamers of shadow escaping them. "When you draw your magic, feel for another place inside you, it isn't the light and happy place where ponies love."

Sunset relaxed and closed her eyes. The dark beast always living in her, the hunger that, though it could be satiated, could never be collared. She immediately pushed that aside as a source, if she drew on her hunger, she would be more hungry. "It is in ponies, though, isn't it?"

"It is."

So she searched. Sunset's love for her friends only drew light, her respect for Twilight too. Then she felt that greed, the need for power. She barely had a moment to open the path before it surged through her, black power boiling from her horn, twisting her features to dark parodies. "This isn't nice…"

"Is it how you felt when you were… a demon?" Celestia closed off her own magic, banishing the effects it had on her. Her eyes widened as she looked at Sunset.

"It… it really does. I want things so much, I need more, I…" Sunset reached for those other things. Twilight Sparkle. Pinkie Pie. Fluttershy. Rarity. Each of her high-school friends she summoned gave her control over that darkness. Applejack. Rainbow Dash. The darkness was still there, she had a sick feeling it would always be there. "I think I have it."

"Who?" Celestia smiled, she knew what the answer was going to be, but it would help her student to hear the words aloud, to say them.

"Applejack. Twilight. Rainbow. Rarity. Flutters. Pinkie." Sunset opened her eyes, seeing through the shadows in the room even easier than ever now, she couldn't help trying something, reaching out to their darkness. She pushed, a shadow-hoof pushing from the dark nook on the other side of the room.

The demonstration of power surprised Celestia. "You have never learned this before?" Sunset shook her head. "Intuitive… you are a clever pony, Sunset Shimmer. Now let's try a new trick. Can you pull power from the shadow, and touch your other magic at the same time?"

Sunset startled so much she let go of the dark and it faded from her. "You mean both together? Wrapping my magic in darkness?" Celestia smiled to her student and turned the notes around. Unused to Twilight's particular brand of shorthand magical notation, Sunset couldn't understand the calculations, but she could see the sketches and read the notes. "Wrap it in darkness… no, that is all wrong. If I ever messed up, just a little, I would die." Sunset looked around for something and, in a flash of gold, writing implements and paper appeared.

Celestia watched as her brilliant student attacked the problem in a slightly different way to Twilight Sparkle. Memories of why she had chosen Sunset bubbled up, as did the reasons for dismissing her. She waited, watching the mare scribe page after page, her tongue poked out cutely to one side.

"Got it!" Sunset levitated up the last two pages. "If this works, it will weave the magic into one." She showed the notes to Celestia. "See! Even you could do this, it would result in spells that are a touch weaker in power, but the dark aspects would give flexibility and-"

"And would mean you don't get burned to a crisp." Celestia cut in, reaching a hoof up to boop Sunset on the nose. The vampony blinked and went cross-eyed, getting a chuckle from her mentor. "Are you ready to try it?"

"What… what if I am wrong?" Sunset felt a note of worry enter her, until she watched Celestia summon shadow again. "You will save me?" The strange-eyed alicorn princess nodded. "Just like always."

Reaching for the darkness first, Sunset wove it, bringing it up and out, swirling it around her horn. She knew her face had that same mask that Celestia's had. "Now the hard bit." She began to reach for her friends, in her head, and the darkness started to waver and then stop. "Fiddlesticks."

"Try again." Celestia kept her power flowing, always ready to envelope Sunset in the darkness.

She started over, drawing on darkness once more, getting it flowing before reaching for light. Again she dropped everything. "I can't do it!"

"Try again. This time, draw both at once. Like a mare working a spinning wheel with two types of wool. It is easier to blend them as you spin, than to weave a second strand into the first later." Celestia thought back and blushed at old memories.

Sunset wanted to ask when the Princess of the Sun ever worked a spinning wheel, but she wanted to focus on this. She didn't like the imagery of it, but she drew her friends into the dark, the oddly comforting dark. At first the mare thought she had lost the light in there, but then there was a giggle from within the darkness and then a strum of a guitar.

Light and dark wrapped together, flowed up inside her. She teased at them, thinning the power until it was almost transparent. She folded it upon itself, then again, and again, and again. Sunset worked and worked, blending the power together and finally letting it cascade from her horn. There was no puff of light, and no odd eye changes, but her horn did feel engorged with power.

"You did it." Celestia held the dark power, ready to save her student. "Let's see a spell." A piece of fruit appeared, Celestia floating it over and setting it before Sunset. "Turn this orange into an apple."

It was practically a filly's spell, but Sunset felt for sure the darkness couldn't do this on its own. Teasing that power through the process she had come up with, Sunset began to weave the spell. There was the dimmest flare of a spell she had ever seen, combined with a swirl of darkness after it and, sitting where the orange was, an apple remained. "I did it!"

"You used enough power to transform ten apples. Again, Sunset. This time I want a mango." Celestia reached a wing out, covering the vampony's shoulders.

Author's Note

Twilight is a clever mare, but Sunset was Celestia's student too, she is no slouch. But of course, she built on the ideas Twilight had already been working on. Teamwork!

Also, is Rainbow Dash going a little 'clucky'? Well, at least she has a close friend with foals to get a feel for her emotions with.

And Gel gives Applejack an idea for a good way to mark Granny's end. Some background on this, in the little town where I grew up, we never had funerals, only wakes.

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