Sick Little Ponies (And One Dragon)

Chapters

Fluttershy: A Thousand Little Nurses
Applejack: The Sweet Apple Acres Infirmary Blues
Spike: Nothing To Worry About
Rainbow: The Great Plague Vector Stunt
Pinkie: The Party To Temporarily Suspend All Parties
Rarity: The Lady On Her Not-Quite-Deathbed
Twilight: Magic Minus Magic

Fluttershy: A Thousand Little Nurses

"...I'm sorry for asking, Applejack, but... are you sure you have to go?" Not as sorry as she'd been for having had to ask for help in the first place, requesting that her friend add any part of the labors involved in keeping the cottage running to those of retaining (and often, post-Crusade, rebuilding) the Acres. "...because it's okay if you stay a little longer, it really is..."

Applejack smiled down at Fluttershy, briefly brought up a foreleg and pressed it to the back of the yellow right ear. "Temperature ain't so bad. Ah think you'll be okay for the night, 'Shy. Ah know it takes a lot t' get you off yer hooves and into bed like this, and that's jus' part of why Ah didn't mind comin' out today, an' why Ah'll be back t'morrow, early -- before the Acres need their own tendin'. And Snowflake, he'll be in after that. Him and me, we've been gettin' everythin' settled. An' yeah, it's hard work, Ah know -- but it ain't so bad when you're teamed with somepony who jus' never stops workin'. An' now it's all done, least 'til the Sun is raised, or if somethin' hits overnight. An' as far as that goes -- Ah could stay, if'fin y'really needed me to. So could he, Ah reckon. But..." Stopped, looked away so that the embarrassment wouldn't be visible for more than a moment, with her hat automatically shifting to shade most of it.

Fluttershy knew what the trail-off meant, sighed and adjusted her position in the bed a little, momentarily staring at one of the little holes which led to the tunnels lacing through the walls. (There were many holes and tunnels, with no way to block them all.) She'd been training Snowflake to be her mission-activated substitute for over a year, and Applejack had picked up a few incidental things just from the time she'd spent at the cottage. But there were things neither of them were up to managing, and one of them...

"How's Marian?"

Applejack sighed. Without quite making eye contact, "Still pregnant. Real pregnant."

Fluttershy slowly nodded, still looking at the tunnel entrances. No bright eyes peered back at her: the two of them were alone in her bedroom. "...yes."

And that was the problem. Because Marian was real pregnant, as pregnant as it was possible to be without actually giving birth -- something which Fluttershy had been expecting to happen Any Minute Now for the last four days.

"If y'want me to," Applejack began to slowly, awkwardly offer, "Ah could -- well, y'could kinda talk me through it, or jus' tell me 'bout what t' expect now, an' then --"

"-- no," Fluttershy sighed. "...you shouldn't have to. She's friendly, Applejack, friendlier than anypony wants to believe, but... she'll be in pain. Things change when you're hurting that much. Personalities can twist, and she wouldn't understand what she did after it was over, or why, because she doesn't really think that way. But she... could lash out, especially at somepony she doesn't know as well. And Sweetbark won't see her, even though she's healthy, because..."

"Because of what she is," Applejack finished.

A sad nod. Ponies were nervous enough around normal badgers. And Sweetbark's endless attempts to protect her artificial 100% success rating (achieved by passing off any even remotely risky case to Fluttershy) would never allow her to treat a pregnant one, even a sow without a hard-won reputation for multiple births which turned into wriggling tangles. The cottage basement had been given an exposed dirt corner for the occasion, and Marian had burrowed in, brought the gifted grass down, arranged the circle -- then waited.

For four days.

Applejack looked at her for a while.

"Ah've gotta take care of mah own," she eventually said. "Family, tenants. But, 'Shy -- if y'really think y'need me tonight, Ah can ask Snowflake to send word ahead, let them know Ah'm stayin' the night. Ah don't mind. Y'jus' gotta ask. Say the word an' Ah'm here, Ah swear."

She wished she could.

"...no. But thank you for everything, Applejack. It helps... more than you might think. And thank Snowflake for me, but -- he's got to get home too."

"Jus' try t' get some extra sleep, then. Okay?"

Which would normally mean four hours instead of her standard three. But tonight...

Another check of the holes, moving past that special one. Still no eyes. They were -- waiting.

"...okay."

Applejack smiled, turned, and began to trot for the door --

-- paused.

"You sure there's nothing else?"

And the words did not reach her throat.

Take me with you.

Save me from --

-- no. Marian could not be moved, and so Fluttershy had to stay.

"...no. Luna watch over you on the road, Applejack. Good night."

The farmer smiled, but it felt like an uncertain specimen. And then she left.

Fluttershy lay still in her bed. She was not waiting for sleep to come and carry her into the nightscape under just-raised Moon: even given her illness added to complete solitude, true rest would not have come for hours. She wasn't straining to listen for the first sounds of Marian's labor, any more than she needed to sleep in the basement: one of her smaller friends would scurry up from the basement at the first signs, giving her the alert. She was just... waiting.

For it.

Because it always happened.

Illness was rare for her: the same endurance which allowed her to push on deep into the night seemed to protect her from a number of sicknesses, although anything especially virulent had a chance to get through, and there were times when she forced herself beyond the usual limits and found her body temporarily weakened and susceptible on the other side. But whenever sickness happened within the cottage, in the years since she had come to ground... it came close behind. There was no stopping it. She had tried. The only measure she had found was retreat to where it would not find her, and she'd risked that a few times, mostly during the winter, when the cottage was at its most stable: virtually no births, less in the way of emergencies, a chance of having that remain true for an entire night, and she needed rest to truly recover. But on two occasions, it had tried to follow, and...

Fluttershy sighed.

Maybe... maybe I can get through this time.

She wouldn't.

Maybe it won't be so bad.

It would.

Maybe Marian will start labor in the next two minutes, finish in five, and I can spend the night at the Acres.

Not a -- well, a tiny chance. Just enough to keep the faintest of hopes just barely alive and somehow, that made things all the worse.

What was holding it up? Probably Applejack. Those who lived on the Ponyville-facing edge of the cottage grounds would be watching the farmer's departure, making sure she was truly gone. That she couldn't interfere. So if her friend had been moving at a standard trot, then given the time required for the chain to pass signals into the heart of the cottage, she was probably looking at --

-- a pair of bright black eyes peered out at her from one of the little holes.

There was a smell of freshly-severed grass.

"...oh no..."

Then there were two more pairs.

"...please, it's okay, there's nothing to worry about..."

Eight.

"...really, if you'd just..."

Her bedroom door creaked open, the pressure of so many little (and some much larger) bodies forcing it inwards. And Fluttershy stopped counting numbers. Totaling species was somewhat more interesting.

When it came to the variety of animal residents on her grounds, with herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores all trying to live together when two-thirds of the population at least entertained instinctive fantasies about eating the remaining fraction... with the general exception of those awkward times when new arrivals were being settled in, there was peace at the cottage. A carefully enforced peace. Eventually, everyone understood the rules: when she was present, no one in the immediate area's mix did anything to each other, and when she wasn't there, neither were they. The groups divided themselves along invisible boundary lines, only coming together under her watchful gaze. And should she not be around, they did nothing to each other, because eventually, she would find out, and the consequences for that started with the Stare. By generally having the categories separated (with the exceptions of a few long-term residents who had truly learned to get along), the peace was kept.

There were wolves in her doorway, standing next to groundhogs. Hawks and mice kept silent company. Three shrews rested in the hollow of a bobcat's back. They had all come up together. They would all stay together.

"...I'm fine," she told them. "...everything's fine, really. Everyone can just go back to their places. But thank you for checking up on me. So... back down the ramp, and through the holes, everyone, and I'll maybe read for a while, someone lets me know how Marian is, and..."

They started to approach.

"...honestly, everything's okay, you know this doesn't --"

The wolves jumped onto her bed, laid down, one on each side. Each began to lick her, which was a temporary distraction from the squirrel who was standing on her snout, forepaws desperately trying to shove some rather fragrant grass into her mouth.

"-- please stop."

Which was a double mistake. First, because it opened her mouth, and the grass went in, landed at the back of her throat, and made her automatically swallow. Which triggered a cough, and the groundhogs scurried up, placed fat bodies against the sides of her head. Three cats arranged themselves around a hind leg and began to purr with all their might.

And the other part of the error was the constant one, the failure which always came when it was happening. She could tell them anything she liked, short of trying to add the force to make her requests into an actual order. And they would ignore her. After all, she didn't know what she was talking about. She wasn't thinking properly. She was sick.

And when she was sick...

The vibrations of purring stimulated the healing process in cats: somepony petting their ill companion could actually speed the recovery a little. Wolves licked wounds because their saliva seemed to serve as some sort of cleanser. Other animals instinctively knew the grasses which would make them vomit or help to bring a fever down, would seek them out whenever the need arose. For social species, grooming would begin as pack and flock members searched the coat of the ill for parasites. Some would bring back food, or try to push the sick one towards water. But it was all instinct. They never truly thought about what was wrong, or diagnosed. They just acted.

When she was sick... they tried to take care of her. All of them did. Because her talent allowed her to communicate, and she sometimes believed that one of the ways the communication happened was by tricking the recipient animal into thinking she was just an oddly-shaped member of its own species. Bears saw an exceptionally small bear who wasn't particularly interested in fish, badgers concluded she just wasn't interested in burrowing at that exact moment, and rabbits... well, Angel wasn't the best example to judge by. But to some degree, they generally accepted her as one of their own.

Which meant they treated her as if she was a member of their species.

When she was sick... any species at the cottage which had even the faintest instinct for treating the ill decided they had to take care of their own. And so they all did. At the same time. Every method, used in concert with every other method, because none of them truly understood what was wrong, and none would step or flap aside to let the others work because they all had to get their claws, talons, wings, and paws in. Too many cooks spoiled the meal, and too many nurses...

More grass was shoved at her mouth. She wondered if it was one of the vomit-inducing varieties, or if the first bunch had served there. At least for the latter question, she'd have an answer soon enough.

Abruptly, the squirrel moved. A red-tailed hawk landed on her recently-vacated snout and gazed impassively at her, looking down past the corpse held in its beak.

Oh no.

Of course. As always, she had to be fed.

The body was that of a small vole. Not a cottage resident: the hawk had been made to understand that much, and those members of the cottage community who would have normally been terrified into fleeing or striking by the display seemed to be treating it as the sum line for the harsh algebra of necessity. And so the hawk hopped down to pillow level, clearing space among several smaller birds, and began to make the corpse -- somewhat smaller, so it would be easier to swallow.

Her teeth ground against each other. Nothing would have made her open her mouth, which included the two raccoons currently giving it a valiant try, claws exerting pressure against the greater strength of her jaw. They were only trying to help, although that assistance wasn't necessarily being given to the hawk. They undoubtedly had their own medical procedure in mind and based on previous experience, it was almost guaranteed not to do anything worse than making her feel even sicker.

She tried not to think too much about the scent of blood soaking into her pillowcase. Or the scent of blood at all -- except that the hawk was now determinedly poking pieces at her closed mouth, trying to get her to eat so she could rebuild her strength. After four tries, it briefly dropped the -- section -- and screeched at her, effectively asking something along the lines of 'Why won't you let me help you?' And then it temporarily retreated, having decided that the solution was to create even smaller pieces.

However, this effectively created a portion of space for the bear. Just not enough of it, because the bear was why she hadn't bothered to lock the door. The collective solution of the cottage to locked doors and an ill caretaker was "bear," and new doors were expensive.

Fluttershy sighed, but only internally. And she felt little claws moving through her fur, and tiny beaks poking to check for ticks, her wings being preened in exactly the wrong way, enough bodies clustered around her to trap the heat and bring her temperature too far up, or at least that was what would have been happening if the breeze created by all the wings wasn't bringing it down again, at least for the exposed areas. She was too cold, and too hot, and her stomach was starting to churn while her nostrils desperately tried to pinch themselves shut. Birds sang into her ears because to them, falling asleep was the worst possible thing, and the bobcat tried to get her to rest because staying awake would only drain her strength. Nuts were shoved at her, along with grass, fruits, and pellets which had probably recently been in the vicinity of someone's digestive system. And a sudden determined pressure at her right flank meant someone had just decided she had to be thirsty, and the only thing to do was push her out of the bed as the first step in moving her towards water.

She closed her eyes, but only for a second. After that, she simply tried to look at one of the little tunnel entrances. A special one, at least on this night, the one her basement runner would use if anything happened with Marian. No eyes stared back at her from the hollow.

Fluttershy held as still as she could (although the shoving was getting really insistent now), and kept quiet simply because she no longer dared to speak at all. And endured.

"Mornin'! Ah know Ah'm a little early an' Ah probably made too much noise comin' in, but Ah woke up a bit before the usual an' decided to drop on by, jus' give you a start before Ah had t' think 'bout the Acres --" and Applejack stopped, slowly looking around the bedroom. The orange snout wrinkled, even as the eyes went wide with worry.

"'Shy? Were you bleedin' during the night? Ah can get the cart an' haul you t' the hospital right --"

"...it's not mine," she quietly said. "Thank you for coming, Applejack."

"Y'look -- tired. Really tired."

"...I didn't sleep much," Fluttershy understated.

"Marian?" It was the natural question.

"...no. Nothing the whole night. Not... for that. I should start on the feedings..."

Applejack still looked concerned. "There's shed fur all over your room. It was clean last night. An' feathers. All over your bed an' you. An' -- um... what's that over by your -- aw no, don't tell me, please don't let that be..."

There didn't seem to be a sigh deep enough to express her true feelings. "...it is."

And now the expression had shifted into horror. "Your crew had a fight? Dominance struggle 'cause you were out of action, or someone jus' decided they were hungry an' didn't care any more, an' --"

"-- no. It's just... it's hard to explain, I just --"

There was a scurrying noise within the wall. Both instinctively glanced in that direction as a twitching nose poked out. Three loud squeals filled the room, and then there was the sound of claws scrambling away.

"...that's the signal," Fluttershy wearily said. "Marian's starting." She slowly began to force her exhausted body out of the bed. "I've got to go..."

The hard head pushed at her.

"No, y'don't. Y'ain't slept. Yer sick, y'didn't sleep, an' y'got no strength for this. Ah can go --"

"-- you don't know what to do. Neither does Snowflake, and he won't be here for hours anyway. I have to go. I can... keep going. Long enough for this. But..."

And she hated to ask: she always did. Because she never wanted to impose, and there was always the fear that she wouldn't be at the cottage for the emergency which only she could attempt to fix. But without rest, without recovery... she wouldn't be good to anypony, much less anyone.

Marian had been keeping her on the grounds. But Marian's time had arrived. And after seeing the newborns into the world, welcoming them to Sun, cleaning and watching the first feeding, being there for those vital moments of arrival, imprint, and love... they could both rest.

"...is it okay... if I sleep at the Acres today? Please?"

Immediately, "'course it is. An' on the way -- are we gonna talk 'bout what happened in here?"

"...I think so." Fluttershy made it onto her hooves. "And maybe that'll help keep it from happening again. Once in a while, when it's safe. But for now, as long as you stay near the ramp, in the shadows, until it's over... let's just go say hello."

Applejack: The Sweet Apple Acres Infirmary Blues

"Ah'm fine."

"You ain't," Big Mac told her. He put his hoof down: the left forehoof, hard enough to produce a small echo.

Applejack glared at him from the bed. "Ah'm tellin' you, Ah'm fine. Ah can get out there an' get back t' work. Everythin' back t' normal. No fever, no sneezin', no night sweats, no nothin'. Ah know mah own body. Ah am the world's greatest authority on mah own body, an' Ah don't see how anypony else could ever claim t' be qualified. So Ah'm getting out there, an' Ah'm gonna --"

Big Mac stomped again, cutting off the words. Large hooves carried him to the window, and nimble teeth yanked the curtains open, revealing morning Sun glinting off their little mostly-hidden part of the world.

"Applejack, what do you see out there?"

A stupid question from her supposedly-smart big brother. "Snow. Duh. What, you're checkin' for double vision? 'cause Ah didn't have that as a symptom at'tall, so you're wastin' your time an' mine --"

"-- it's winter. The Acres are asleep, AJ. Y'aint gonna work because there's no real work to be done. Look -- I know you're tired of being in bed. Getting stuck sick for five days isn't easy on anypony. But I talked to the doctor, because you and I are sort of, you know, related, and I figured that after you spoke to her, you'd only tell me the parts you liked. Eyup, it's five days for the illness to break, like you said -- but then she said you've gotta spend one more resting, because your body's still weak and you shouldn't be pushing too hard, too fast. One more day, AJ."

The younger of the siblings in the room, half-propped up on pillows, crossed her forelegs over her rib cage and fumed. Refused to look at her brother.

"Am so better," a sulky voice insisted in a tone which shed at least a decade. (Better than she'd been, anyway.)

"You ain't."

"Ah can work." Still not meeting his eyes.

"Not when the work's already been assigned. I'm doing the snow patrol around the Acres. Granny will do the cleaning and cooking. Apple Bloom's gonna check on the tenants -- except for Cloven, because I'll do that personally. And that's all there was to do, AJ. Every last tenth-bit of labor is pushed out and accounted for, with none of it going to you. You've got one job: finish getting better. And that's the one you don't want to do."

"Ah'm sick of this bed."

"One more day."

"Ah'm sick of you tellin' me what to do." Nearly two decades lost now.

"One more --"

"-- Ah'm sick of everythin', except being sick, 'cause Ah ain't sick no more --"

"-- AJ?"

An equal mix of fury and frustration. "What?"

"I changed my mind. Apple Bloom's gonna do the patrol and all the tenants, Cloven included. Because my work assignment for today is sitting on you until tomorrow."

Green eyes locked on the matching hue.

"Y'wouldn't dare."

Softly, "Try me."

She flipped over, pushed her snout into the pillows.

Muffled by fabric-rendered apples, "Ah'm gonna get you for this. Next time you're sick, yer mine..."

"That's nice, AJ," Big Mac calmly said, and began to trot out of the room. "Granny's downstairs. You try to sneak out and she just might hear you. She doesn't and you'll leave hoofprints in the snow. Stay out in the snow long enough trying to cover them up, you'll get sick again and then it's five days on top of the one, plus another where you just might not try something stupid again. See you later. Probably around lunch."

The sound of the door closing behind him was absolutely nothing like a prison cell slamming shut. But it should have been.

There had been a day during the recently-passed autumn in which Twilight had mentioned a time-travel spell, something which could only be used once by any given pony. Applejack had, for a rare once, found herself instantly driven to learn about the casting, far more than enough to spend a few minutes eagerly asking for the details on how it worked -- but in the end, had sadly found herself at the conclusion she'd expected to reach all along: moving backwards gave the traveler a few seconds in a frozen past, with no way to alter what had come before. What she wanted most was forever beyond saving, and so in the end, she'd managed not to blame Twilight for getting her hopes up, even for a few minutes, and moved on with her life, because going forward still contained possibilities -- at least when trotting down the slow road, one moment at a time. And up until now, she'd never thought about the working again.

Of course, now it had turned into a new source of frustration.

He's jus' lucky Ah can't go back an' get mahself born first.

Applejack sighed, shifted onto her back, and stared at the ceiling. Wood. Nails. Familiar angles. She knew every hoofwidth of the ceiling. She'd probably had it memorized before entering kindergarten, and... she just didn't think about that much, because it was her ceiling and so full knowledge of every knot in the planks was a casual sort of thing.

It was her ceiling.

She'd never realized how boring it was.

Onto her side, staring out the window. Fresh snow covered the visible portion of the Acres, would have reached up to her knees if she'd been able to go out in it. Hard to move in, requiring either plowing or so much trampling down as to require four ponies to clear a path for one. Or just a single determined pony who wanted to go outside...

She sighed, flopped over, found herself staring at the little reading table on the other side of the room. The books stacked on top of it.

Ah've read all those.

She twisted her body a little more, looked up at the painting behind her hoof-carved headboard.

Ah've looked at that plenty of times. Switched to the picture on the nightstand. Seen that, too.

Her left foreleg stretched out, and her hoof tapped the enchanted lamp. The light came on. Again. The light turned off.

After that, she spent some time in varying the tap rate, trying to find a degree of beat to it, using one forehoof for activation and the opposite while the other weaved in random patterns over the convenience, trying to see what kind of shadows could be created. She only paused when the lamp began to flicker, and stopped at the exact moment it started to smoke.

A closer examination was made of her bedroom (which meant having to get up, but it wasn't as if Big Mac was anywhere in sight). There were no books under her bed, or at least, there weren't any which hadn't been there before. There was no point in trying to clean the little patch of carpet, because she'd need to beat it and that would mean going outside, or opening the window and -- well, she could do that, couldn't she? Open the window and drape the carpet over the ledge. Of course, that would mean beating the half which was outside because otherwise the dust and dirt would just fall back into her bedroom, but maybe if she somehow attached the beater to her tail, stood with her rear to the window, and just whipped carefully...

She got the window open, shivered in the blast of cold, then got the carpet edge between her teeth -- it did taste dusty, which justified everything -- and carefully hauled it to the window. Hooves pressed the edges against the lower part of the wall, and then it was just a matter of alternate hoof-by-hoof scooting, sort of like Rarity did on her sewing devices, until the edge was over the top and outside, she kept pushing and scooting and nudging the fabric, more and more was flowing over the ledge, she just about had it balanced and then she could find the beater and get some work done --

-- the goal had been 49% outside, 49% inside, and about 2% balanced across the ledge. Applejack achieved that goal, plus one unwelcome outside percent.

She stared at where the carpet had fallen into the snowdrift for a while, and wondered if there would be enough wind to cover it up in time. Closed the window.

More looking around.

There's a lot of apples in here.

Ah mean, Ah've got an apple over the door, apple at the foot of the bed, apple on the door, apples on the pillow...

It's kinda... boring.

Been in the same bedroom all mah life, least since Ah was old enough t' get mah own room. Every one of these apples was here when Ah showed up. Ain't been nothin' new on the walls or bed or nightstand or door since... since ever.

Ah care 'bout apples. Gotta, t' work on the Acres at'tall. But nopony said Ah had t' live in one.

She lowered her head, began to push furniture around. The nightstand went in front of the bed, with the lamp's curls of smoke showing the trail. The reading table was near the door for a while. Then it occupied the open doorway for a few minutes, because it had occurred to Applejack that having to hurdle it every time she entered or left might be good exercise and shortly thereafter, it occurred to her that the first occurrence had been idiotic. The painting came down, was hung off the end of the bed. Moved in front of the window. Placed back on the wall, but flipped around just in case the frame turned out to be an improvement and when that didn't work out in the original setting, she used it to cover up the apple on the door. The pillowcase was turned inside-out, followed by congratulating herself for already having gotten rid of the carpet scrap.

(She didn't move the picture on the nightstand. Some things were sacred.)

Applejack looked around. The room was somewhat less applely. Also considerably more disorganized, inexpertly redecorated, and kind of -- stupid.

A glance at the clock on the far wall, just to see how long it had been since Big Mac's departure, not to mention taking the first step in finding a new home for that too, something which just might make everything work together --

-- forty minutes.

Applejack softly groaned, then threw herself onto the bed, face-first. Several weary breaths were taken through the inside-out pillowcase.

"Ah'm bored," she told the world, or at least that portion of it which could hear her through a pillow.

The world didn't care.

"Read all those. Can't redecorate by just movin' stuff. Been in here too long. It's mah room, mah farm, mah home, but when Ah can't leave..."

The world displayed total disinterest in her pain.

"An' can't go outside."

The world snidely went on without her.

She blinked.

"Maybe Ah don't have t' go outside..."

Granny was cleaning on the ground floor, and for the purposes of Applejack's sneaking around, that was practically another country. She'd been sliding her hooves to avoid grandparent detection for years, and before that... well, the point was that she'd had a lot of practice. And it took no effort to get back into old habits, slowly shifting from room to room in search of entertainment. Staying silent wasn't a problem at all.

The problem was that there wasn't any entertainment to be found.

Big Mac's room... there were books, all right, and they fell into two categories. The first was an extensive set of farm journals which recorded the history of the Acres over generations: crop production patterns, projected sales, income and outgo. It was possible to spend a quiet hour curled up with one of those volumes, especially the older ones, but... that wasn't the sort of distraction she was looking for. And the other books were... something she didn't like looking at, because when Big Mac had decided not to attend college after all, right after -- it had happened -- he had kept the texts. Sometimes he still paged through them, and she knew he didn't like anypony seeing him doing it. There was nothing which could make her touch them, let alone attempt any degree of reading.

Granny's room: no books at all. Just a private gramophone, and a collection of ancient records from the first days when such pressings had been possible at all. But there had been sound recording devices before that -- and so there was another hoof-wound device next to that one, and it played wax cylinders, magically hardened to stand against time. The sound quality was -- less than perfect, the music itself far too old for her taste even when she factored all the scratchy noises out, and playing anything would have alerted Granny that Applejack was out of bed.

She still thought about it for a while. But she'd heard all of them already.

Apple Bloom... well, here she had to be truly careful, because her little sister was always on alert for signs of intrusion. Portions of the stupid Crusade were planned in that room, and this sometimes meant taking notes, which would later be hurried to the clubhouse for further inspection in order to make the upcoming disaster complete. But such plans still spent some time in that bedroom, as did pieces of prospective equipment which could, post-mark-finding-attempt, occasionally be identified from the remaining fragments, and so Applejack occasionally attempted a covert search, just to be ready for whatever nightmare the trio was about to unleash or more frequently, in desperate hopes of finding a way to stop it.

Her sister had a special, frequently-altered way of layering the toys at the top of the chest. It was always best to memorize the exact arrangement before moving anything.

Applejack began to look around. Books... schoolbooks, and nothing else: Apple Bloom only used magazines and stories as inspiration for Crusades, and frustratedly kicked the results back into the living room or library immediately after the most recent failure wrapped up, muttering over Twilight's vocal protesting of the indented covers. And for the school year she was currently attending...

Applejack decided she was exactly that bored, and nosed one open. The first few pages were familiar. Then she started to spot some things she'd forgotten, and her amazement over that led her to recall pretty much all of them, which made the rest of the text into a rather moot point.

A ball got pushed around for a while, and was then put back.

No evidence of Crusades in near-future progress. Nothing to read. She felt as if she was too old for the toys. The bed was not for bouncing on, if only in the name of keeping her sister from finding out she'd done it. Spending a few minutes trying to lasso herself as a new stunt meant using the lasso in a very confined space, along with the terrifying chance that she might succeed. She was down to a bathroom, emergency secondary pantry which was only used for family reunions, and linen closet. Anything else meant downstairs, and while there was every chance that Granny was asleep on her feet, there was every other chance that she wasn't --

-- hoofsteps, coming up the ramp.

Applejack froze.

Apple Bloom's bed. There was enough room to hide under it: Apple Bloom had tried getting away from her that way a few times. She got low, pushed --

-- there was enough room for Apple Bloom to hide under it.

Applejack stayed low, listening. The hoofsteps were moving towards the junior bedroom, and they were light enough to be those of her little sister. Getting caught in here was something she could make an excuse for, mostly based on age -- but being ratted out to Big Mac was a fresh, and suddenly very major, concern.

The sounds were still approaching, and it seemed as if there was some effort involved in softening those noises, but her sibling wasn't anywhere near getting a mark in that either. They seemed to pause in front of the doorway --

-- moved on.

And then there was the sound of a jump, or at least the end of one: four hooves solidly impacting the floor. This was followed by a creaking noise, a familiar one. More hoofsteps. The creak came again. And then silence.

Applejack blinked.

Did she jus'...

Oh, great. No wonder Ah ain't found anything in here for the last few weeks! She's switched it up! Ah'm doing the same thing an' she's...

But Ah jus' bet that if Ah go up there right now...

Yes, it would mean her sister catching her out of bed, and ratting out would undoubtedly commence over lunch. But it was also a chance to catch Apple Bloom before the next explosion went off, and that was something Applejack couldn't pass up.

Carefully, she straightened, slide-hoofed her way into the hall. Stared up at the length of rope hanging from the ceiling, the one her sister had to jump so high to reach -- but for her, it was just a casual neck tilt. And she knew a special way to pull, that little yank to the left which prevented any creaking from sounding at all...

The ramp silently came down, and Applejack made her quiet way into the attic.

It was oddly warm in the low-set space: heat moved up, and the interior insulation trapped most of it, making the place summerlike in winter and almost unbearable once the swimming holes began to call, especially given the staleness of the air. It was also hard to move in: Applejack had to walk with an almost-painful knee bend just to make any progress at all, and Big Mac did everything he could to avoid entrance. One more factor that made it her sister's new pre-Crusade haven.

There were beams directly over her lowered head, passing at regular intervals. She could barely made them out in the shadows, for there was only a single light source, and it had been moved. The hanging lamp had been fetched by careful teeth and shifted to an isolated corner, where the carrier sat among old boxes, eyes looking down.

Moving around containers. Trying not to hit anything, trying to be quiet. But nopony had heard her, and she was starting to wonder if anypony was even listening. The other occupant of the attic just sat in place and -- looked down.

Applejack closed in. Three body lengths left. Two...

"Whatcha up to, Apple Bloom?"

Her sister jumped, and somehow managed not to hit a beam. The midair half-rotation left the siblings facing each other.

"Nothin'." The denial was automatic, and was just as automatically disbelieved.

"Don't give me 'nothin''. If it was nothin', y'wouldn't be sneakin'. You're doin' somethin' up here, an' it's got somethin' to do with the Crusade, don't it? 'cause that's what everythin' is with you --"

Desperately, "-- Ah ain't! AJ, Ah swear, Ah ain't, not this time!"

And just like the records and wax cylinders, she'd heard it a few too many times before. "Why am Ah supposed t' believe that, after all the other times it was a lie? Move out of the way an' let me see what you were doin', or Ah'll move you and look mahself. Wouldn't hide somethin' if y'didn't think it was wrong, if y'didn't want me t' see, an' that always means you're plannin' trouble, Apple Bloom, trouble that comes with the other two attached an' maybe this time, you'll get so hurt that y'won't --"

Her sister, eyes staring at the floor, silently shifted half a body length to the right.

Applejack looked.

Kept looking.

Softly, "...when?"

A near-whisper. "When what?"

"When did y'find these?"

Oddly tired now. "Couple of moons ago. Thought there might be some things up here that we could... anyway, Ah found these. An' Ah've been comin' up here t' -- look."

Applejack stared at the old photo albums. The open one, which displayed the wedding...

Her body slowly settled onto the attic floor. It left Apple Bloom looking down at her, if only a little.

"Why didn't y'tell us?"

Her little sister's eyes closed.

"'cause you remember. You, an' Big Mac, an' Granny -- y'all remember. An'... an' Ah don't know... if Ah..."

The lamp was behind her sister. It lit the pictures perfectly. But the light could not pass through bodies, and so Applejack was barely able to make out the reflection of the first tear.

"Apple Bloom?"

With no conscious awareness from the younger, the right forehoof slowly scraped across the wood.

"Ah... kind of remember the funeral, Ah think. An' shiva. Maybe Ah hid under one of the tables a lot, ''cause Ah mostly remember hooves goin' by. But when Ah think 'bout them... it's harder. Gets harder every year, 'cause... nopony remembers from when they were a foal, except maybe Pinkie. An' it wasn't that long after that, not that long at all, an'... there's pictures downstairs, Applejack, pictures all over the house. Ah've seen those pictures, an' Ah remember 'em, Ah know 'em by heart. But... that's most of what Ah know now. Pictures. Ah remember -- pictures. It's hard to remember 'em, it keeps getting harder an' Ah can't stop it, an' when Ah found these, Ah thought... that maybe at least... Ah'd have something new t' remember, maybe even something that could make it stop being so hard..."

The words ran out. The tears did not.

Slowly, silently, Applejack eased her body forward, until her snout made contact with her sibling's wet face. And then she nuzzled, the nuzzle meant for family, and wondered how long it had been since she'd last done it.

"Ah'm... hard on you sometimes," she heavily said. "Part of that's 'cause Ah have t' be, since nopony else can be. 'cause -- an' Ah already know you're gonna ignore this part -- Ah'm worried. Worried 'bout you, worried that you don't listen an' everythin' that could come from that. An' it means... y'don't talk t' me as much as y'used to. Ah... kinda miss that. But when it's family, Apple Bloom -- no matter what happens... no matter how much trouble y'ever get in, groundin' or reparations an' all the rest... y'can always talk t' me 'bout family. An' Ah -- Ah hope y'heard that, truly heard it. Ah hope y'remember..."

There was no nuzzle coming back. Just moisture flowing into her coat.

"Still gonna yell at you," Appejack whispered. "Still gotta be the one who punishes when y'go too far an' just won't listen. Still -- still love you, Apple Bloom. An' Ah don't know if y'always believe that, these days. But Ah wanted t' say it. 'cause we're still family, an'... y'shouldn't be up here like this. No way, not ever again."

The softest whisper she'd ever just barely heard. "Ah ain't done nothin'... not this time... y'can't take this away, take them..."

"Not up here," Applejack said. "They'll look better downstairs, where there's more light."

Silence.

A sniffle.

And then a wet nuzzle against her coat.

As promised, their brother came in around lunch.

"What happened in here?" was the immediate first question as he stared at the rearranged bedroom.

"Decoratin'. Didn't take," Applejack smoothly replied.

"So you were out of bed."

"Yeah!" And that was from a suddenly-defiant Apple Bloom, who was next to her on the bed. "An' what are y'gonna do 'bout it? Sit on us or somethin'?"

He blinked at both of them.

"Ah woulda had t' use the bathroom sometime," Applejack pointed out. "Jus' lookin' for books, Mac. Apple Bloom found some."

"Oh?" He trotted a little closer. "What did you find, AB? Anything --" and he saw.

Five heartbeats, and then his eyes closed. They stayed that way for some time.

"Do -- do you mind..."

"Mind what, Mac?"

"Applejack... do you mind scooting over a little? If you don't mind the extra company."

"Naw, Ah don't. But get on slow. Y'take up a lot of room."

Rearrangement occurred, of a type Applejack was willing to live with. But then her brother paused.

"I should go get Granny."

"In a while," Applejack told him. "In a while."

He looked at her. Then Apple Bloom. Back to the book, and up again.

"Why?"

"'cause she remembers more," Applejack steadily said. "An' we don't. 'specially not the wedding, since Ah wasn't exactly born an' you weren't quite 'round yet. 'though Ah'm pretty sure Ah can see you puttin' a serious bulge on that dress. So can it be jus' the three of us for a while, or are you in some kind of hurry t' get somewhere?"

He thought it over for a while.

"Nope," he finally said. "You're on a sick day. I think I'm gonna take a personal one."

They slowly went through the books, which made for perfect entertainment as they openly imagined the stories which must have gone into each picture. And there were truly too many apples in the room, and Applejack was going to do something about that, soon. But for now...

...for a little while, she could pretend there were two more.

Spike: Nothing To Worry About

The little dragon, asleep in his basket on the loft floor, could not hear the two unicorn mares talking. Their tones and volume were being deliberately kept low, for they did not wish to disturb him. But still, they stayed close, because they did not wish to leave him just yet either. And they talked.

"...so when he just started to -- sway like that, I loaded him into the cart, put him under a blanket, and got him back here as quickly as I could, Twilight. It was so early, and the streets were so empty, that I do not believe anypony even saw us." The uniquely-accented voice was heavily weighted with concern, and a little bit more. "I briefly thought of trying a doctor, but -- well, after what happened last time, with those two -- I felt you should be the first resort. And also that you had to know before anypony else did, of course, as his sister. But first and foremost... that perhaps it had happened before. That you would know how to help him. And..." Rarity sighed. "At first, I thought he was just sweating. I asked him to wipe down before handling any more of my fabrics. How much more foolish could I have been, Twilight? It took me full seconds to remember that Spike does not sweat, never sweats, and by the time I realized that, he was beginning to sway, and he wasn't making any sense --"

The smaller mare sighed. "Rarity -- I know you're worried, and I know it's hard, especially after the last time. But he'll be okay. He's just a little sick."

A slow breath. "Forgive me for asking this: I understand that you would know better than anypony, but -- you are sure? He will recover?"

This triggered a deeper sigh. "You're forgiven, Rarity. If there's any emotion I know I don't have to put in a letter to the Princess, it's this one. Being worried about somepony... when you don't understand what's going on, and you don't know if there's anything you can do at all..."

Twilight sat down. Her eyes sought the floor, and her gaze stayed there.

Carefully, "The growth spurt -- it wasn't the first problem, was it?"

And softly, "He's the only one. The only one right now, anyway. I researched a lot over the years. There's been other dragons who lived with ponies, here and there. Every three generations or so. But none raised by ponies starting from the hatching on, not until him. And the ones who stayed... they didn't exactly write down books of their medical lore. So every time he got sick, I'd gallop to the Archives when I knew there wasn't anything there, I even tried to find some elder dragons once during second year when I really got freaked out, but the Princess stopped me and -- she did the right thing, I was about ten body lengths from the cave, but... I worry, Rarity. I'm always going to worry, because I don't know enough and there may not be any way to learn. Whenever he gets sick, I get scared..."

His sibling took a slow breath.

"...except this time. Because this is the second time he's had this. Which means I know what has to be done."

Rarity blinked. "Tell me, Twilight. Please, if there's any way in which I might help..."

Twilight's gaze came up, and she smiled. Just a little. "The funny thing is that you're more qualified to help than anypony."

A brief pause, and then "Details, please?"

"He needs to eat topaz. That'll speed the recovery. There was no book which knew what to do about this -- but the first time he caught it, his body did. About twelve hours after he started dripping, he woke up with a craving for topaz. And the more of it he ate, the better he felt. The problem is -- it has to be pink topaz."

Rarity frowned. "That is an issue. Topaz on its own is just about clear: the colors come from impurities in the soil and rock around it. The conditions for pink topaz... they are not common, Twilight, and I have no specimens of that particular gem in my stockroom at the moment. However..." and the frown inverted "...I do possess certain knowledge on where we might look. And should that fail, there are sellers we could contact. But as getting a shipment might take decidedly more time than a search... yes, I am more than happy to assist. However, the area I am thinking of is well away from the Dogs' warren, and my best digger is currently indisposed. I do not believe I can coax substitutes so far out under Sun, which means the unearthing process... oh, dear. Simply getting to them..."

Twilight shook her head. "It's not a problem. I'll just come with you and bring something I can push into the dirt."

Carefully, "Should we both be leaving him? That dripping..."

"He'll sleep for a while. Hours. I've been through this before, Rarity. And he's only a little bit sick."

The designer slowly exhaled -- and then took three times that amount of atmosphere back in. "Then -- what is that fluid coming off him? For I know it is not sweat."

"It's actually why he doesn't sweat." The tones immediately shifted into more of a lecturing cadence. "As near as I can work out... his skin normally secretes the fluid in microscopic amounts, and the scales absorb it, just about instantly. It's part of what gives them their luster -- and it might be all of what makes him fireproof. Once the scales absorb it, they're just about completely immune to heat. It's partially a conjunctive effect with the composition of the scales themselves: I tried putting some of the fluid on things the last time, and it made them heat-resistant -- but it's also sort of harsh on a lot of materials. It doesn't do anything to pony fur or flesh, but it's -- really nasty with binding glue. I thought I could protect some books, and..." She winced. "...I got the fines paid off. Eventually."

"And now, with his being sick?"

"I think his body is overproducing as some part of trying to regulate his temperature. It's hard to say, and I wish I knew more, I wish, but... it's harmless, as long as he doesn't touch the wrong things. He's going to be kind of dopey when he wakes up, he'll really be out of it for a while, almost like he's drunk. But he'll want topaz, and after he eats enough -- he'll be better. And the faster we can find pink topaz, the sooner that'll happen."

Rarity nodded, forced herself to present the outer appearance of relaxation. "Then let us begin. We can check the local shops on our way to the fringe: I do not expect to find anything, but if there's any chance we might be able to leave a portion by his basket, we should investigate it. Shall we?"

"Yes."

They began to move towards the ramp. Spike, still asleep, shifted in his basket. The clear, slightly brimstone-scented fluid soaked into the sheets.

"Twilight... forgive me for worrying, please, but it is Spike, and -- I do understand your fears, after the last time and today alike. But such events will trigger concern within me, and --"

"-- it's okay, Rarity. This time, it's okay." Twilight smiled. "There's nothing to worry about."

When it had originally happened, he'd slept for nearly half a day. He didn't remember that, really: he'd been rather young, and while not all of his earliest memories were lost, anything viewed through the fog of illness turned into an indistinct haze. But because he'd been so young at the time... his body hadn't had the same level of strength it did now. A younger dragon had wriggled in a smaller basket while Sun was moved entirely across the sky.

A somewhat more mature one opened his eyes.

He sat up. Rivulets of fluid ran down his scales, which were unable to absorb the unexpected bounty.

"Topaz," he muttered.

After a few moments, Spike managed to stand up, began to make his way towards the kitchen. The tip of his tail sagged to the floor, and the world's thinnest river trailed in its dragging wake.

"Topaz?" Spike asked the world as he reached the miniature kitchen, pulled up a stool so he could begin rifling through cabinets --

-- unfocused eyes stared at where his claws were gripping the wood. At how the shade of the wood was steadily darkening.

Dim memories flickered, and Twilight-taught priorities shifted.

"Don't touch books," he reminded himself. "Mustn't touch books. Not without dry hands."

He glanced behind him, through the open door and into the ground floor of the sister-free library. Lots of books. Too many ways to wind up touching them.

"Tissues."

The kitchen was carefully ransacked, with dark clawprints displaying the exact ordering of the procedure through their current level of dampness. No topaz. Also, which seemed worse, no tissues.

"Tissues?"

Spike tried to think. It wasn't easy. The haze inside his brain seemed to have been joined by a small fire, the sort of thing where he just wanted to curl up next to it in a comfortable basket and rest for a while. But he wasn't going to do that, because books were important and wet hands would damage books. He needed tissues, because Twilight would want him to use tissues, and so he had to get tissues. There were places in town where tissues could be found. He only had to think of one...

He stood still for a few minutes. A small puddle began to form around his walking claws.

The little dragon nodded to himself.

"Tissues," he decided, and left the library.

It had been a hard morning for Roseluck. But then, they all were.

For starters, Sun had been raised, and that was hardly a certainty. In fact, in the time since the Nightmare, she had often found it necessary to wake up a little early and -- check. Roseluck owned several clocks which she felt had been properly synchronized to the seasonal schedule, and if Sun was even a second off, it meant something disastrous might be happening with the Princess right now, something surely much worse than a mere momentary distraction caused by a courier, and she would begin to scramble for the door, desperate to alert everypony about the horrible, horrible -- and then Sun would come up.

After that, there was the weather to consider. Yes, it was regulated, but the teamwork which created that regulation was being led by Rainbow Dash, and how could that be anything less than begging for disaster, at least in those moments when the coordinator wasn't actually setting one up? And not only that, but Ponyville was surrounded by a wild zone, which occasionally sent its own air currents into town, and who knew what those might do? Why wasn't Rainbow stopping it? How could she just fall asleep on a cloud when a responsible pony would be continually patrolling the borders, searching for the smallest suspect gust, because Ponyville was surrounded by a wild zone. Just like every other settled zone in Equestria (but for those with the misfortune to be bordered by water and thus put everypony within at risk of drowning), all of which were sadly lacking in their efforts to enforce true security, and seriously, if it wasn't for having found her friends, who understood, Roseluck would have left a long time ago.

And today, there were insect infestations. Or rather, there weren't, at least not that she knew about, and that just might have been the worst of all possible things. The most recent issue of Proper Thought (which had contained a truly outstanding article: TheyWant You To Think You're Paranoid, which the Flower Trio had eagerly devoured -- by eating it after reading, to keep it away from them) had ended on a teaser: Coming Next Moon: Fifteen Insect Infestations Which May Be In Your House Right Now! And it hadn't said what any of them were, which meant that she, like her friends, had been inspecting her residence with snout as close to the floor as she dared, afraid to fall asleep because that was when they crawled on you, she'd gotten out her Hoovmat Suit (the most recent, and thus only the intact one) and tried to sleep in that, but there was always the chance of her house being infested with some previously unknown species of magical bug which just happened to be invisible and had the ability to phase through Hoovmat Suits, especially if you lived in Ponyville and had to deal with -- well, Ponyville. So Roseluck hadn't slept much, mostly due to all the little crawling sensations along her skin which were in no way produced by paranoid twitches which forced her fur to lie against the grain within a confining, fast-disintegrating Hoovmat Suit.

But it was time to head for work, where the worst thing which probably might happen was that one of her flowers would grow a giant bulb of a head, start speaking, and order her to bring it ponies to eat. She'd had a dream about that once, which had involved an unusual amount of singing.

Roseluck reluctantly shed her Hoovmat suit, or at least what was left of it: she hated doing so, but wearing it while working had an oddly detrimental effect on business. Took one last check of Sun through her heavily-curtained window (still raised), inhaled a suspicious sniff of the air (too wild), and took the greatest risk of her life, the one she went through just about every day when the Trio wasn't huddled together waiting for The End. She went outside.

And the dragon was right there.

The dragon scared her. Well, of course it scared her: it was a dragon. What Roseluck didn't understand was why everypony else wasn't scared. It breathed fire. It had those things on the ends of what should have been forelegs, and they weren't hooves. It stood -- well, the only other entity in town who would stand like that for any real period of time was Lyra, who was double-jointed in a way which had made Roseluck decide the composer was probably a monster in disguise and so she was just waiting for the imposter to slip. And some moons ago, it had -- gotten bigger. Much bigger. For a while. And sure, everypony in town had seen the Princess when she came to explain things, but how far could you trust somepony who controlled Sun with her mind, especially when you knew (or at least had read some interesting stories about, none of which ever matched each other and every last one of which was absolutely true) what had happened to the one who moved Moon? Everypony else had forgiven the dragon for something which supposedly wasn't his fault -- but not Roseluck. Roseluck was keeping an eye on him. From a safe distance.

It turned. It looked at her.

Its scales were slick. Fluid ran between them in thin lines, dripped off his claws, soaked the ground around him. The dirt absorbed the brimstone-scented stuff. Two of the cobblestones seemed to be smoking.

Hazy eyes blinked. Drops of fluid flew off its eyelids, and one came within six body lengths of hitting her.

The mouth opened. She could see the predatory teeth, strong enough to bite through gems. A mouth which opened in order to flame.

It made a sound.

And Roseluck did the only thing any pony of sense possibly could have done.

Spike stared after the screaming mare as she raced away at full gallop. Blinked in confusion. Frowned a little.

"...tissues?" he repeated to the just-about-absent party. It didn't seem to change anything. He thought about it as best he could, then decided he knew why, and corrected it just before she completely vanished.

"Please?"

Sound the alert! For the alert always needed to be sounded, especially when you lived in Ponyville and only two others usually had the intelligence to realize that alerts needed to be sounded at all. So Roseluck raced to their houses first, although she took care about her duties and made sure to call out warnings all along the way. But once she'd reached them and explained everything she knew (which took about two seconds) and everything she believed (an additional three crucial minutes), there was a Trio of ponies putting the settled zone on lockdown. She would take one half of Ponyville, Daisy could cover the other, and Lily Valley would go directly to the police because of all those among the Flower Trio who regularly went to the police in the name of sounding alerts (every last one of them), she was the one they had the most trouble kicking out in a hurry. But in this case, they might actually listen because it was the dragon and everypony remembered what had happened the last time, even if most of them had stupidly decided to forgive it.

So Roseluck raced down the streets. She paused to perch on fountains and statuary and helpful soapboxes and called out the alarm. And ponies... well, some of them ignored her, because ponies learned from experience, not from helpful magazines and worried discussions of the long-term detrimental brain-injuring effects from Sun and Moon control that went on deep into the night. But others paused, listened to see what it was all about this time, and yes, a few of them laughed -- all right, perhaps more than a few -- but the fact that it was the dragon gave a number pause. Because something had happened with the dragon once, and that meant things could happen again.

It meant ponies were listening. And that hardly ever happened. There might even be a chance to save the town, if only Lily had some luck with --

-- and there she was. Along with an officer.

Roseluck immediately jumped down from the fence, began to explain what she'd seen, as the first pony witness to the horror. Told the officer all about the hazy eyes and open mouth and fangs and the fluid, along with the flames and the slashing claws and the roars which had started to enter the event around the third time she'd talked about it, which meant that her traumatized mind was trying to protect her by providing the memory in small portions, and Roseluck was grateful for that. And of course she also had to mention the threat which the dragon had made to her very life, by declaring it had issues.

The officer seemed to be listening. Yes, listening with a rather dubious expression on her face -- but listening...

Another pony galloped up, an earth pony mare whom Roseluck had never seen before, went straight for the officer.

"My fence!" the new mare cried. "He -- my fence...!"

Spike frowned at the painted wood, idly traced a claw along a fresh portion.

There was a brief, strong smell of something very close to turpentine. And then the pastel blue line discolored into an equally pastel green.

He giggled a little, sat down in front of the fence, and idly drew patterns for a while. Most of them wound up looking like flowers.

"ACID!" the new mare cried out. "Acid at his touch! Why didn't anypony tell me there was a dragon in town? There aren't any dragons in any other settled zone! I never would have come here! I'd leave right now, but I can't go back there to pack when there's a dragon who secretes acid...!"

"And you're sure about this?" the officer said. "Because... look, you're new, I understand that. And --" she took a quick, rather odd glance at Lily and Roseluck "-- in this case, it's a little easier when it comes from somepony -- new. But... acid?"

"YES! Please, you have to stop him, before he touches a pony...!"

The officer took a breath.

"Right," she said, mostly to herself. "So there's something happening. I'll rally the station and get somepony on official town crier duty."

"...y-you," the new mare stammered, "...d-don't even have a town crier?"

The officer sighed. "It's usually a volunteer position. Nopony approach Spike --"

"-- who?"

"-- and we'll get on it. No interference, no attempts to stop him, and nopony should touch him. I'll see if anypony can find his sister --"

"-- two?" the new mare screamed. "There's two dragons in this town? At least? How about their parents? Do they have any other siblings? Why isn't there any warning posted? What kind of settled zone are you running here? How can anypony stand to live in a place like --"

"-- and we'll get on it," the officer forcefully repeated. "Please, miss, if you'll just let us..."

The new mare's knees gave out, one at a time, and she sagged to the ground.

The officer looked down at the softly-hued white and pink mare. Turned to Lily and Roseluck.

"You two..." and looked as if she was rejecting any number of words before settling on "...know what to do with a near-faint. Probably better than anypony in town. Take care of her?"

They nodded.

"Good. I'll go tell the station." And she left.

Carefully, Roseluck knelt down next to the new arrival, and gently said, "What's your name?"

"P-Phalae."

"Phalae," Roseluck smiled, and saw Lily do the same. "I think you and I are going to be really good friends."

The station was... active.

"Anypony got eyes on Twilight?" the chief asked.

"Can't find her. Or Rarity. We may be down two Bearers, and that's just the ones we know about. Luna kick it, why did it have to be the librarian gone this time..."

Worriedly, from a junior officer, "Those are the two he spends the most time around. They might have been --"

"-- don't think about it that way," the chief broke in. "Not until we've got evidence. Maybe they're looking for the solution and didn't tell anypony else."

"Without the others?"

"That's what we're trying to confirm."

Fur flew. So did several piles of paperwork, at least until the sudden wind current dissipated enough to drop it.

"All right, that's our flight moving for the cottage now. Who's searching the clouds?"

"It's her naptime. Who says she's using a cloud?"

"It's our best chance. Take it. And then go to the usual trees. How are we doing on those shield spells?"

"It's only been a few moons. Do you really expect us to find somepony in the precinct who can learn a shield working in a few moons?"

"I thought you were working on learning --"

"-- do I look like a librarian to you?"

"You're a stallion. You're navy blue. You're --"

"-- yeah, that's kind of my point. So just keep placing the physical barricades."

"Against something that breathes fire and just picked up an acid touch?"

"You've got a better idea?"

"Finding his sister."

"So keep going with that. Where is he now?"

"According to our last scout, he's still moving down Friesian Avenue. He's a little... smaller than what the Trio said. And --"

"-- his size may be fluctuating. Remember, do not approach. Celestia stomp it, the flames would have been bad enough... So he's pretty much going in a straight line?"

"Yes."

"All right. We can't assume he'll keep that up, but just for the sake of putting up a few more useless barricades, if we project that out for a while..."

A map was found. Quills were activated in the name of law enforcement.

They all stared at the results for a while.

"It's possible," one concluded. "We don't know what he wants right now. But last time, he got greedy. And if it's things he's after again..."

The chief nodded.

"Get some ponies there. Get the useless barricades up. Find casters with some decent strength, pegasi who can aim. I don't want to hurt him, not unless we know he's a threat --"

"-- but you heard -- and we saw, he's acting --"

"-- even with an extra witness involved, this still started with the Trio. One time, that postal mare accidentally dropped some envelopes on Daisy which were exactly the wrong shade of blue, and I got to spend three hours trying to convince her that the sky can't actually fall. And in the end, she told me I was covering it up. Just because something's happening doesn't mean it's what they say is happening. We don't hurt him unless he makes a move. Not Spike. Clear the streets and shops if those three didn't do it already, give him a clear path to where we can intercept him at the potential goal, get our forces ready, find the Bearers, and find Twilight. But unless we have proof that he's going after ponies -- we let him make the first move."

The streets were oddly empty. Spike hadn't truly noticed. He was focused on his goal. Move forward. Take care of the important thing. And, every so often, draw flowers. Drawing flowers was sort of fun.

He briefly paused in front of a jewelry store. For the second time that day, a head poked into the shop and asked a quick question.

"Topaz?"

The empty establishment provided no response. He sniffed the air.

"No topaz..."

Well, it wasn't much farther to the true goal now. He pushed onwards. And behind him, the little trench dug by lowered tail tip absorbed fluid, and that faint smell of brimstone filled the air, he walked and he dripped and he blinked away excess drops, and he thought about what he had to do, because it was hard to think of much else.

There seemed to be a rather large number of ponies up ahead, especially when compared to the almost none he'd been seeing recently. Maybe they could help, especially since they were in front of where he had to be.

Spike advanced.

"We've got eyes on him," a younger officer called out. "Size is normal: repeat, size is normal."

"Don't trust that!" Roseluck gasped. (She and the rest of the Trio had moved to the thickest concentration of police, as that seemed the safest place to be. Also, she was the only pony who knew just what was happening and the more she thought about it, the more she seemed to know.) "It could change at any second! And you can see it now, can't you? The dripping..."

And from behind them both, a strong stallion voice expressed an somewhat exasperated "Officers, I understand your concern. And I know it's a public street, even when it's front of a private establishment, so I can't ask you to leave. But the twelve of you, along with your guests, are completely blocking my entrance, and we're not even sure anything's wrong."

"It's him!" Roseluck cried out. "You can see it's him! Just like last time!"

With the most calm currently available in the settled zone. "The last time involved a great deal more mass."

"You have to listen --"

"-- the same way I had to listen when you told me that pulling my complete stock of imported avocados was the only way to prevent our brains from being consumed by avocado weevils."

"YES!"

"Which don't exist."

"That's what theywant you to think!"

"...they?" Phalae quivered.

Roseluck found the strength to smile. "Don't worry. We'll teach you. Before they can get to you and make you think they don't exist."

Weakly, "...oh... that's... nice."

"All right," the police chief said. "I can see the liquid now. He's dripping all over the place. That's new. And it's... having an effect on parts of the street. But not all of it. And it's really not acting like acid. I'm seeing a little smoke from where it's hitting flint, but that's it. And he looks..."

She frowned.

"...kind of like he's got a fever. Like he's not really focused right now. Almost drunk."

"He's a dragon!" Roseluck protested. "They don't get hot! And he can't get drunk, you remember about the drinking contest, the other pony went into a coma and --"

"-- the other pony," the chief slowly said, "slept for the majority of three days, mostly waking up to find a bathroom, not always in time. And --" another long look at it "-- it's like he's sweating."

"They don't do that either!"

The police chief turned to look at her for a moment. "How do you know?"

In a desperate rush because it was getting closer, "Because he's a dragon and if you don't get hot, you can't sweat and you'd only have a fever if you get sick, he's a dragon so he can't get sick, you have to attack before he reaches us, it's the town's only chance, he's not sick..."

The chief's entire body spun. Her snout was the width of three tail strands away from Roseluck's. Hot breath blasted into the earth pony's nostrils.

"How do you know?"

So many ponies! Spike smiled, altering the flow of several facial rivers in the process. With all those ponies, surely somepony would be able to help! And -- his focus snapped back into the singular -- the right pony. Already there. In front of the place, because he was a very considerate pony and knew Spike needed help. He was all about helping, wasn't he? Even for a fee.

Oh... the fee...

The dragon reached towards his right hip.

And Roseluck screamed.

"HE'S GOT A --"

"Nopony move!"

The others officers froze, responding to the order of their chief. Horns dimmed. Corona levels dropped. Hooves were motionless, waiting just above the surface of the cloud.

The little dragon's claw tip poked against an especially large, dome-like scale on his right hip, tilted it away from his body. Another tip flicked against the hollow interior.

Shyly, he held the object high.

"Officers?" the store's owner said. "It's a public street. And as a member of the public -- I'm going to use it."

"Don't --" a young officer started --

"-- exactly. Don't stop me."

The middle-aged light brown earth pony stallion stepped around the barricade. Slowly, he trotted forward, ignoring every order and attempt at clutching his safely-curled tail between desperate teeth, not to mention the sound of four mare bodies attempting to impact the ground. And he approached the little dragon.

"Yes?"

The claws elevated a little more. All of the fluid ran away from the object being held, leaving it perfectly dry.

"Tissues?" Spike asked, and offered the golden bit.

Mr. Rich smiled down at him.

"Ah," he said. "Yes. Just a moment, please..."

Spike nodded. Mr. Rich took the bit between his teeth, turned, and trotted back to the store. Spike sat down in the street to wait, patiently humming a little tune.

The officers stared at him. Then at Mr. Rich as he went inside and, in less than two minutes, came back out, the bit replaced by a large box. The businesspony trotted into the street, dropped the package in front of the walking claws.

"Your tissues, sir," he said.

"Thank you," Spike politely replied.

"You're quite welcome."

"Can't touch books without tissues," Spike explained. "Not when I'm sick."

Mr. Rich nodded, then glanced back at the barricade. The frozen ponies behind it.

"I'm taking him home," he said. "Should anypony spot his sister, please inform her that he's with me. She's likely on a medicine run, for whatever medicine might be suitable. Until then, I'll keep an eye on him. And -- Ms. Roseluck..."

Who immediately screamed again. "Sick dragon! We've got a sick dragon! Why isn't anypony doing something? We've got to --"

His nostrils briefly flared and somehow, it was enough to stop her.

"Avocado weevils," he snorted, and returned his attention to Spike. "May I walk you home, young sir?"

Spike thought about it. "Okay." He proudly picked up the box. "Topaz?"

"That's your medicine?" The little dragon nodded. "Regretfully, I don't have much of a jewelry department. Maybe when we get you home."

Another nod.

Mr. Rich smiled. And they walked down the street together, heading for the library.

It was two days later.

"So here it is," Twilight said as the field-surrounded scroll floated onto the police chief's desk. "When it comes to illness, that's a list of everything he's ever had since the day he was hatched. Every symptom, every treatment we were able to find -- everything. It doesn't mean there won't ever be something new, but that's what I know about and -- what I guess everypony else should have known about too. I'm sorry, I am, but he slept for nearly half a day the first time, and --"

"-- it's all right," Chief Miranda sighed. "You didn't think of it, even after what happened -- but I didn't think to ask, either."

"So what happens now?" Rarity quietly inquired. "Will there be any charges?"

The officer's lips quirked. "For 'Seeking a box of tissues with intent to pay for them'? No. I'm going to try and get the Trio on inducing a riot again, but Ms. Wishes' father is a very good lawyer who truly loves his daughter -- for some reason. We'll see if he can get them off again. I'm expecting a defense of 'dragon panic,' and I'm expecting to openly laugh on the witness stand when I hear that. A lot."

"I'm sorry," Spike quietly said, just barely visible in front of the desk. "I didn't mean to --"

"-- get sick?" Miranda asked. "And who does? You're feeling better now, Spike, and nothing bad happened. That's what matters. All I want you to do is what every citizen of Equestria should do after they've been falsely accused. Go home, talk it over with your family and friends, try to feel better, and -- if you can -- don't think about it any more than you have to. This is over."

"You're sure?" Twilight carefully asked. "Completely?"

"Well," Miranda reluctantly admitted, "not with the Trio. Not as long as they live here, not while they're addicted to their fear. But when it comes to having them try to rally the town just because there's a sick little dragon trying to do some shopping, and trying to convince us to stop him..."

She adjusted her position on the bench, smiled.

"...I'd say there's nothing to worry about."

Rainbow: The Great Plague Vector Stunt

The first thing Rainbow did when she stepped out of her bed on that most crucial of mornings was hit the floor.

Literally.

There was a sudden pressure in her ears, an odd roaring sound, the vapor surface seemed to tilt to the left and she automatically tried to adjust her foreleg planting to suit, only it turned out that her floor hadn't moved while her forelegs had, and that direction seemed to be a little more backwards than she'd originally intended, her hooves slid, which pitched her barrel forward, her head naturally came along with it, and...

She lay perfectly still on the cool surface until normal sound returned and the bedroom stopped trying to relocate itself to Cloudsdale. And then she did the second thing.

That did not just happen.

Denied everything.

Okay. I'm a little more tired than I should be, because I had so much trouble sleeping. Amazingly, the universe didn't tilt to the right just in trying to get away from the sheer blasphemy of the thought. Because today is -- today. So I didn't get quite enough sleep and I'll have a chance to make that up later, plus there's always wake-up juice. But that's what it was. I was tired and I didn't pay attention to how I was planting my hooves, and I only got up instead of flying out because I've got to save all my wingpower for later, so really, my legs are out of practice and it's all their fault. I'm fine. Nopony saw that.

She took an instinctive glance up at the huge terrarium which now occupied the space where her headboard had once been. A little green reptilian head was just starting to poke out of its shell, curious about the sudden noise.

Right. Nopony. "Morning, Tank..." she muttered, still on the floor. "I'll feed you. Gotta feed you now, because like we were talking about a million times in the last two moons, even though it's my day off from weather coordinating, I'll be gone all day. Because there's gonna be a line. And you can watch ponies from the line and figure out how everypony else is doing. What the competition is like. Only now I've got to try and find somewhere to nap. And wake up before they call my number." Fifty-six. Which was, quite frankly, ridiculous. Not that she was so far back -- the numbers had been assigned by random draw -- but that there was so many ponies even trying in the first place. The power of delusion ran strong, although it might be taking second place to the desire for having somepony famous interact with them, mostly by saying a rather bored "No," directly to their snout.

Tank wisely nodded, or at least made a movement which she could interpret as such.

"But first, I've gotta get up," she told him. "And find wake-up juice. I think we've still got some, unless you've been drinking it again. So..."

She stood up.

Or rather, she didn't.

She got her body about halfway raised. And then the roaring came back, which was shortly followed by the abrupt return of the floor.

That did not just --

But some things were too cruel to deny.

-- no, oh no, not today, please, not today, I can't have...

She needed a mirror. And in order to reach the mirror...

Rainbow groaned.

All right. The mind overrides the body. Which is usually stupid because my body knows best and my mind just takes too long, but -- not today, not today -- I've got to think about moving. Every leg, every joint. Don't risk the wings yet. Just... focus. One leg at a time. One, two, three, four. Four legs. Which was really too many for thinking about. Minotaurs didn't know how easy they had it. Here we go...

And she got up. The roaring returned, whenever it could -- but because she was concentrating, she was ready for it. Each leg shifted in turn, every move was planned. Slow and deliberate and careful and everything else that made her want to scream, but the thing which would cause even more pain than that had to be verified and there was only one way to do it. Step by far-too-considered step, she forced herself towards her bathroom mirror --

-- and there it was.

The whites of her eyes had taken on a light tinge of pink.

Rainbow screamed.

It took a while before the scream managed to reach anything resembling words, for the wail of agony needed nothing so crude as language to properly express itself. It made some of the fixtures in her home dance, it rearranged parts of her wall, and it made Tank very slowly shift out of his terrarium so he could go check on her, which was going to need about eight minutes and the second-worst part was, that was only quadruple the time she'd required for reaching the mirror. But eventually, the words came.

" -- no! I can't have Manière's, not today! I CAN'T!"

But she did.

She'd been spending a lot of time in the upper atmosphere over the last three weeks. Too much time. It had allowed her to practice in peace, it had given her privacy during a period when far too many delusional pegasi were clogging up the lower layers with their own efforts -- but it had also made her vulnerable. And so the disease had settled in for its usual three-day trial of vertigo.

It was possible to move when you had Manière's. Slowly, while thinking about absolutely everything involved. A truly focused pony might manage a slow trot. And as for flight -- yes, as long as you considered a one-way spread-winged glide from home to ground to be flying. But get distracted, or try to operate on instinct, and the fluid inside her semicircular canals would toss like the ocean during a storm, capsizing the pony trying to navigate a world whose surface had become churning water.

And today...

She glanced behind her. Back into her bedroom, towards the calendar.

Other ponies might have circled the date. Some would have stained it in ink. Rainbow didn't have to. The whiteness was harsh enough. The blank space of an unknown future, one which had just become fixed into failure.

The Wonderbolts Academy practical exam entrance trials are today.

There were two steps to getting in. The first was a simple written application, filled out in the most careful fieldwriting possible. (It normally would have been mouthwriting, but Twilight's style was somewhat more legible and Rainbow's final contribution had been the attached packet of recommendation letters, plus a signature.) And the second... well, nopony was going to be considered for the Wonderbolts based on paper alone, because recommendations could be faked, credentials forged, and even the most accurate, glowing report didn't let them see how you could fly.

Today, the Wonderbolts would be just outside Ponyville. For one day. And everypony who'd filled out an application, including the delusional ones, would fly for them. They would take notes. They would seldom speak to anypony about what they'd written down. They would move on to another settled zone about two hours before Sun-lowering, because it took the best of light to let them truly see what everypony was doing. And eventually, there would be a letter -- or not. But if there wasn't, then the rejected pony was free to try out again the next time they came through with the intention of conducting entrance exams.

In fourteen moons.

Rainbow screamed again. It seemed to be justified.

On the fourth go-round, she felt a hard little head butting against her right hind leg.

"It's..." Several seconds were required to get her breathing back under control. "It's nothing you can do, Tank. I'm sorry, I know you want to." She glanced back at him, which wasn't quite enough to trigger another episode any more than the look at the calendar had been, and saw the tortoise staring up at her with open concern, feet steady on the vapor. (The permanent version of the cloudwalking spell didn't work on anything over a certain fraction of bale-weight, but Tank had been well within the limit. And since Twilight hadn't been able to figure out that particular twist in the working, Rainbow's salary had been just barely capable of dealing with the cost.) "And there's nothing I can do. Not to cure it, or to get rid of the vertigo, even for a little while. You just try not to move too much for three whole days, but it's hours until the practical trials, there's nothing I can do to get it cured within hours, nothing anypony can do..."

She wanted to weep. But she was Rainbow Dash, and even with Tank as her only witness, even with something this cosmically unfair, that would have been too much. Instead, she simply allowed pink-tinged eyes to stare into the mirror as her tail drooped.

"Nothing..."

She blinked. So did the reversed self in the mirror.

Was there nothing?

Rainbow had hours. She was fifty-sixth: that wasn't going to be called for a long time. And she had friends...

"...you're a pony," Fluttershy eventually said as she slowly backed out of the chicken coop. She hadn't turned to face Rainbow in the entire time since arrival (although it wasn't from trying to avoid contracting the disease: Manière's wasn't contagious), and arrival had been hard enough. Rainbow had managed to glide down by using an emergency wing-locked position she hadn't thought about since flight camp, and had also extended the glide's duration using every thermal she could find on an early spring day -- but that hadn't been all that many. It had put her down closer to the cottage, but not close enough, and making her way out to the fringe...

Hours. She still had hours. But the clock was running, and doing so far faster than she currently could.

"I know I'm a pony! But if there's anything you have to treat vertigo in animals, you just have to up the dosage enough for my weight, or down if it's for someone like Harry, and then I'll --"

"-- you won't do anything. Because I won't give it to you." Fluttershy sighed. "And neither will anypony else. Rainbow, I know there isn't a cure, or even a real treatment. I remember all the ponies who got it during flight camp, and I know nothing's changed since or you wouldn't be here. But different species are just that. There isn't much which works for everyone, and when you try to make that include everypony... eventually, there's going to be a bad reaction. I know two things which moderate vertigo. One works on cats, the other is for squirrels. But the cat medicine makes dogs sick, sends raccoons into temper tantrums, and what it does on ponies is going to be a mystery forever because I'm not telling you what it is or giving it to you, plus I know you, Rainbow, which is why I lied and said it was for cats. And the squirrel mix is worse. Not that it's for squirrels. Rainbow, I know it's the Wonderbolts, and how important that is to you. But I care about your health more. And they'll be back --"

"-- in fourteen moons," Rainbow groaned. "Fourteen moons, Fluttershy. That's too long..."

The caretaker finally turned. "...why?"

Exasperated and no longer caring whether it showed, not that she usually did. "Why what?"

"...why can't you wait fourteen moons? There's always openings, every year. And you waited your whole life to get this far to start with... so what's fourteen more moons?"

And for the first time, the words came.

They only came internally. They were not voiced, and perhaps never would be. They would also be carefully forgotten within seconds of their arrival, because to not forget created a chance of remembering at exactly the wrong moment, which was the best way to make them come true. But still, they came.

Fourteen more moons is fourteen moons of missions.

Of monsters and magic nopony understands and disaster and crises and everything else.

In fourteen moons...

In fourteen moons, we could all be dead.

And then she pushed the words away.

"It's too long," Rainbow huffed. "Fluttershy, if you just gave me the tiniest dose imaginable -- one drop, you can give me one drop and then monitor me for a couple of hours. I'll tell you if I feel any better, if I feel anything, and then --"

"No."

And that was it. No hesitation, no pause to gather strength. Yellow hooves were firmly planted, wings slightly flared, the one visible eye locked into the pink taint within Rainbow's own.

"I won't risk your health," Fluttershy said. "I won't treat you as a test subject. I'll lie to you in order to keep you from trying anything on yourself, and if I have to, I'll follow you all day to make sure you don't do anything stupid, because you can't move fast enough to get away from me, not today. I'll do anything necessary to keep you from making yourself worse. I know this is important, Rainbow. But you're more important. Maybe --" and this created a pause "-- if it was something that was killing you, there were no doctors and no time and... you would die if nopony tried anything. Maybe then... if there was no other choice..."

The blue-green eye briefly closed.

"But this is just Manière's. So it's no, and it'll always be no. I don't experiment on ponies. Now do I have to follow you?"

Rainbow took six deep breaths, which was just enough for the drive to charge to ebb.

"No."

"Good," Fluttershy quietly said. "Go home."

"No," Rainbow solidly replied.

"There's nowhere else you can go. No doctors can treat you, no vets will try --"

And Rainbow shrugged, even as a wild fox grin began to manifest on her face.

"You said experiments..."

Twilight stared at her.

"Get out." It was sincere. It was forceful. It was also somewhat desperate.

Rainbow decided her only chance was to ignore all of it. "Twilight, I'm just asking you to do something you like doing anyway! Creating a new spell! Look, I asked you down into the basement because I wanted to show you I wasn't afraid to be down here!" With open pride in herself, "Unlike a lot of ponies I could name and aren't gonna because you probably know already. I trust you. I'm taking a chance on you because of that trust, and also because this is important and my friend is so good with magic that if anypony in the world could create a healing spell before my number comes up, she could! It's a challenge for you, right? A test. Don't you want to pass?" So -- " carefully looking around "-- is there anything you need me standing next to? Or attached to? How about drinking? I see that one beaker over there, it's already bubbling a little and --"

"-- parasprites," Twilight forcibly interjected, and very visibly shuddered.

"I have to eat parasprites? Oh, Celestia's heated hooves... is it because they're doing circles in the air all the time? You know, I never really thought about the way they fly, but when you really consider their wing patterns --"

"-- Stop. Talking."

And the words had been angry.

Rainbow blinked. Shut up from sheer shock.

Devices hummed around them, beakers bubbled. It was the only sounds Rainbow could pick up, other than Twilight's hard, furious breathing, the narrow rib cage heaving...

"I tried to create a new spell on the spot with the parasprites," Twilight said, and each word was its own kick, directed at a very close target. "They nearly ate the town. I tried a new variation on a spell out of nowhere at my first Winter Wrap-Up. Animation workings -- they're really just setting up a field to keep a pattern of movements going without the caster having concentrate on them. Come To Life... it's an overstatement. It's more like making a temporary machine with glowing gears. But I didn't want Applejack to know I was too weak to move the plow. So I hid my field, when I know doing that can make workings operate differently, and when it started to run away from me, I couldn't even cancel the working because I didn't understand how the altered casting operated at all. And then there was -- well, that was before I moved here. But you research, Rainbow. You figure out principles, you do micro-scale trials, sometimes for weeks, for moons. Under controlled conditions. Unless you're being stupid, or desperate, or -- me. Unless you're being me. And --"

Her head came up. The horn was dark, and for a moment, it seemed as if it might always remain so.

"I wouldn't experiment on you when you had insomnia. I'm not experimenting on you for vertigo. Not on a pony. Not ever. Not when something could --"

She stopped. The impacts of the words against the small purple body continued.

"...Twilight?"

The humming seemed to be getting louder, but that might have been because it temporarily didn't have breathing to compete with any more.

"I hope you pass the next trials," Twilight whispered. "In fourteen moons. And I'm guessing you don't want any of us coming to watch you then, any more than you did this time, because... I don't know. Maybe you didn't want us to watch in case you failed. Got hurt. Tried something new because you were experimenting and being stupid and somepony got --"

And the weight of the pain snuffed out all sound.

Or nearly all.

"Get out."

And that brought her to the last resort.

It had taken far too long. From home to Fluttershy's, all the way out at the border of the settled zone, right against the fringe. Then into the heart of town, to the library. And finally, abandoning settled zone for wild, even following a familiar path, one where no threats generally manifested, but having to do so at a time when it took all her focus just to trot, she was trying not to stumble, every distraction created a chance to fall and nopony with Manière's ever tried to move this much...

Still, she'd gotten there. She'd knocked on the door, been lucky enough to find the resident at home. Explained herself, as carefully as she could, trying to impress the need on an individual who might not have ever heard of the Wonderbolts (as hard as that was for Rainbow to conceive) until the moment the talk had begun.

Rainbow had just finished, or almost so. There were just a few words left, and she sent them into the air on wings of something very close to prayer.

"Can you help?" And waited.

Zecora sighed.

"Rainbow, please -- come inside. This doorway speech, I can't abide. We finish this inside my hut, for better and for worse. I wish your words to stay enclosed --" and another sigh "-- in case you need to curse..."

She slowly turned, trotted. Rainbow, already suspecting what the answer would be, followed, closing the door behind her.

A quick glance around. Rainbow was always on the hunt for new masks when she visited. Zecora had cool masks.

The zebra, tail slowly swaying, took a bench. Rainbow followed suit.

"I know how you see my position," Zecora slowly said. "Caught between medic and magician. But Rainbow, what need have I, for doses to cure pegasi? You hope for cure, and dream the "why" -- but the truth is, zebras cannot fly. In my land, your kind does not live -- well, no: a few: reasons they don't give. This disease, I do not know, because we never contract -- and thus the cure, I do not know, with no cause to act. I could remove the pink from your gaze: a simple dose suffices. But the vertigo behind it -- not through my devices. And like your friends, who wish you well, and to never see you hurt -- I will not risk your health to guesswork: that I must assert. I would help you if I could. And you came here, in hopes of 'should'. But fourteen moons, not long to wait. Please, Rainbow -- accept your fate."

And all Rainbow could do was put her head between her forehooves and close her eyes.

"This sucks," she said.

"I hope you understand that I am sorry... but better the sickness than a dead body."

"That one's a little forced," Rainbow muttered.

She heard the tiny smile. "In my tongue, it makes more sense. In yours, much closer to offense."

"So... all you could do is make my eyes look like I wasn't sick. And that's all you'll take a risk on."

"True, you."

"For all the good that does..."

...wait.

It's Manière's. There's two external symptoms. One is the pink tinge and the other is falling over a lot.

If you don't have the pink tinge, and you're careful...

Rainbow understood that most ponies came with an internal voice of caution. She really didn't understand how that worked, and sometimes believed it had to be damaging Fluttershy's hearing because the caretaker seldom listened to anything else. But suddenly...

You're going to be trying complex stunts. While you have Manière's. You're having enough trouble with walking.

What if I just did basic stuff? But did it better than everypony else? They're seeing too many pegasi today, and I know what the locals have for skill. It might not take much to impress, not much at all...

Flying. With Manière's.

I'm the best flier in town. If anypony could do it, I could.

Flying. With Manière's.

Fourteen moons.

Rainbow raised her head, opened her eyes. "Can I just get the eye stuff? Having this is bad enough. I don't want to look at it every time I pass a mirror."

Zecora silently nodded, got off her bench and headed for a bottle-filled shelf.

"Fifty-four now landing!" High Winds' voice had more than a touch of exhaustion in it: the day had been a long one. And given just who was landing, it also sounded slightly concussed. "Clear the area for fifty-four!"

Rainbow tried not to look. She'd arrived just in time to see the end of that particular trial, having made the mistake of glancing up just after claiming her rather late place in line. (The pony collecting forms had glared at her, silently demanding to know why Rainbow had nearly missed the trial. She hadn't risked losing any focus through making even a non-verbal reply.) There was only one pony ahead of her (with five behind her), and he was rather difficult to see past -- so she'd looked up, and that had nearly made her head swim all by itself, Manière's or not.

"Fifty-four, come to the table, please."

The pony approached. Waited. Sweat dripped from her body, mixed into the low-lying cloud which she was mostly standing within.

"Normally, I'd tell you to watch your mail a few weeks from now," the Wonderbolt said. "But..."

"Yes?" the pony enthusiastically chirped, because she nearly always had strength left for that.

High Winds helplessly glanced at Silver Zoom.

"Well..." the stallion carefully said, "I can safely say... I've never seen that."

"Any of that," High Winds quickly emphasized.

"But you... well, you take up -- a lot of room. More than we account for in the formations. Also, you weren't exactly going fast. At all. I mean, we can trot... plus you almost completely exhausted yourself just from those few minutes, and..."

They both looked at the third pony who was seated at the table. The pony Rainbow hadn't expected to be judging the trials at all.

"You're unique," Spitfire said. "But your style of flight is not suited to our needs, and so I can tell you not to expect a letter. However, I recommend that you continue to work on your performance. I think you may have found a niche' act. Or -- something."

The pony nodded. Drops of froth hit the table.

"Go see our medics before you go home," Spitfire concluded. "You need a cooldown. The tent is right over there, past what's left of the trial line. Thank you for coming."

"Thank you for letting me try out! I didn't even think I'd get that far!"

"Yes," Spitfire said in a not-very-well voice. "Well, we've had self-levitating unicorns try out before, so there's no space for 'race' on the written application. There's even been a few on the team."

Rainbow automatically ran down the list. Self-Propelled had made the initial species breakthrough, and he'd been followed by --

"-- but this was..." Spitfire visibly searched for a concluding word. "Different. Yes. Different. Very. All right. Fifty-five! Fifty-five to the takeoff area!"

Snowflake's huge body spontaneously tossed off a surprisingly-small shiver, and the stallion slowly trotted forward. The judges stared at him. (Rainbow missed most of that: she was watching the pony who was on her way out.)

"Oh, for..." Silver Zoom muttered in a tone which was probably meant to be barely heard. "At least she got off the ground..."

"Stop it," Spitfire said, and that voice was meant to be heard by everypony.

"Captain?"

"That's fifty-five?" Papers shuffled. "And here's his only attached recommendation. From Las Pegasus." One was hoof-pushed over. "I think you might recognize the name. And signature. It's rather hard to fake mouthwriting that bad."

Silver Zoom swallowed.

"Triple... Triple Twist?"

"Yes. And if the previous captain is willing to pause his lazy retirement long enough to sign off, then I want to see what's got him motivated to open his mouth for something other than giving a barely-legible autograph. Fifty-five, proceed to the takeoff area and begin your routine. We'll be watching. Closely."

Snowflake timidly nodded, and continued to trot. The most recent failed applicant passed him going the other way, sweat still falling from her body. It dripped down in unusual ways, for she was balanced on her hind legs, pushing the thing with her forehooves.

"Hi, Rainbow!"

"...hi, Pinkie..."

"I got worried! I thought you'd be here first thing and watch everypony!"

"Yeah. So did I. But -- stuff. Pinkie, you -- didn't tell me you were trying out."

"Well, I've got this..." The right forehoof affectionately patted the thing. "...and I hadn't taken it out for a while! Plus today's my day off, and I'd known it would be for a long time. So I thought, maybe the Wonderbolts haven't seen this before, and it would be really fun to show them after a day of watching everypony! And on the one in a million billion trillion chance they took me, we'd be Academy buddies!" She smiled. "But I guess I'll just have to visit. After you make it. So -- you still don't want any of us watching right?"

Especially now. "Right."

"That's okay. I'll just go get cooled down, and then I'll go home. Without looking back and peeking, I promise! Just come to Sugarcube Corner when you're ready to tell me about it! Celestia watch over you, Rainbow! See you!"

Pinkie pushed the thing away, with the single runner leaving a narrow skid trail in the dirt. Rainbow watched her go, silently thanking the Princesses for not having had the conversation produce a collapse into the ground. And then she focused on the trial area.

They were fairly close to the fringe, in an open pasture which didn't serve as farmland, or a sports staging area, or anything else except holding down potential land just in case the town needed to expand a lot more. Under normal circumstances, the area didn't host anything except grass, a few insects, and some birds who were looking for the insects. With the Wonderbolts in town... just about every cloud in the area had been wrangled down to ground level, more had been made on the spot, and the earth for what almost felt like gallops around was covered in density-altered vapor. The world had been crash-cushioned, and a few slow-shifting dents showed where they had already been needed.

Three Wonderbolts at the table. Five in the air, and she knew all of them instantly, even from that distance. Those were the monitors. Pegasi tended to have the best eyesight among the three main pony races (and saw more than anypony else), plus the judges had devices to boost their perceptions -- but still, a little mid-air judgment was helpful, and the monitors would fly down to consult after many routines. And Rainbow knew they were also present because there were times when it was possible to rescue a pony before the ground clouds needed to get involved. Along with others when it was necessary.

I'm not going to need them.

I'm really glad they're here, but I'm totally not going to need them.

I think...

...no, she couldn't even start looking at things that way: just the thought seemed to be making her dizzy. She just had to finish planning out her routine, something she'd been mentally reworking since she'd left the hut. The original composition had been trashed: there was no way she was going to attempt a Rainboom. A Rainboom required instinct, and Rainbow was going to be flying on concentration and thought, something which was already terrifying enough.

Basics, done better than anypony else. Enough to hint that I've got the more advanced stuff and just don't see any need to pull it out right now. That's the way to go.

Except that Spitfire's here. Who's seen me before.

I wish I knew how everypony else had managed the basics.

How the judges are rating the basics.

If I'd been here at the start, I'd know.

There was no helping it now. She simply sat back (because it was less legs to worry about), planned, and occasionally glanced up to see how the current trial was going. There was nothing there which surprised her: she'd seen Snowflake in the air before, which -- still took some getting used to. But she had experience with it. The judges...

"Fifty-five... now landing?" High Winds sounded more concussed than ever. "Clear the area for fifty-five! ...and maybe clear a lot of it..."

There was the usual WHUMP!

"Fifty-five, come to the table, please." Spitfire speaking first. That somehow felt... rare. Of course, given the state of the other two...

Snowflake approached. Waited.

"You are -- decidedly more maneuverable than I had expected," the captain slowly said. "A reasonable expectation, I think. But you're not really using techniques, and your landings need work. Still... I need to think this over, fifty-five. You'll have the final decision in a few weeks."

He nodded.

"So watch your mail."

"...yeah."

"Thank you for coming. And -- for showing me something." She glanced at High Winds and Silver Zoom, both of whom hadn't been able to close their mouths just yet. "I may want to see more of it. Fifty-six! Fifty-six to the takeoff area!"

Well, on the extremely dubious bright side, her wings were certainly rested...

Rainbow slowly trotted forward, up the provided incline and onto the cloud surface, focusing on every leg in turn. She risked a glance at the judges. At Spitfire.

Friendly, casual, with every bit of the camaraderie she naturally felt in their presence, "Hi. I think -- I know you remember me. We --"

Spitfire slowly nodded, and the mere motion was enough to stop Rainbow's words. "I'm aware of who you are."

"...yeah. I thought you would be. And --"

"-- and do you know what that makes you to me today? It makes you number fifty-six."

Rainbow was suddenly very aware of her knees, and the way all four had simultaneously tried to give out.

"Fifty-six, proceed to the takeoff area and begin your routine," Spitfire told her. And that was all there was to be said.

She forced her concentration, because it was now necessary to force her legs as well. Proceeded to the takeoff area.

From behind her, High Winds said "But that's --"

"-- an applicant. Who, for purposes of this trial, has yet to do anything. Her papers are in place. Her recommendations are -- unusually solid. But she has to perform, just like everypony else."

The center of the takeoff area. Rainbow looked up.

Thinking and flight. Not just advance planning and then letting instinct and practice carry the day: thinking about everything she was doing. How much could she truly accomplish in such a state? There had been no practice time, and...

Don't think about that.

Think about flying. Nothing else.

Basics, done better. Done perfectly.

But she knows me. She's probably expecting...

No. Basics. That's what I might be able to manage. That's what I'll do.

Five monitors.

Eight if the judges can get into the air in time.

"Fifty-six, we have other applicants --"

-- Rainbow spread her wings, pushed. And flew.

It was one of the hardest thing she'd ever done. The near-instant transmission of sensory data to muscle fibers, insight becoming reaction, was gone. Deliberately disabled, because to take her mind out of the way and just let flight happen was to let the lurking vertigo through. She had to think about each flap, individually consider every tenth-bit of information she had coming in. She considered the implications of the southerly chill gust just in time to not get out of its way, and then she had to think about how to turn her desperate recovery into something which looked like it was just another part of her performance.

Oh, she was managing -- to a degree. If it had been just a normal day, she might have even been able to go about her daily routine, more or less, although only if she agreed with the town's cruel collective proposition that said routine included at least two crashes. She stayed in the air through the first minute, and then a second. She managed a flip, but had to make it a much slower one than she would have liked, and felt the fluid in her ears beginning to shift. A fast spiral -- no, a slow one, and with the loops far too spread out, gentle curves only seen on the first day of flight camp. But she was managing the basics, wasn't she? Flying with Manière's. Who had ever done that? Possibly just her, plus a few other ponies who'd been equally as desperate. And she could see the monitors --

-- focusing on the monitors got her left wing clipped by a thermal, she scrambled to recover --

-- and they looked bored.

Oh no.

It's not enough.

No matter what Spitfire says, she knows me. She knows I'm capable of more than this. She's expecting more. The only impression I'm making is how boring I've suddenly gotten. And no matter what she said, she's expecting more and I'm boring her, I don't even have any flow because I'm thinking too much, everything she knows about me is being wiped away from boredom...

(She was thinking too much and about the wrong things, her concentration was beginning to slip, there was a distant roaring in her ears...)

I -- have to do something. Anything. Or they'll forget me, and it's fourteen moons before I can try to make them remember, fourteen moons, and --

-- she stopped thinking. The thoughts hurt too much.

She dove.

What had her instincts decided on, to impress the Wonderbolts? She didn't know. Just that a dive was the first stage of it, and then there would be a next stage, and when she finished, they would --

-- her ears roared. Fluid shifted. The world twisted, tilted, spun. Ground and sky inverted, and the last thing she saw before the true spiral began was the shocked faces of the monitors, who didn't know what she was trying, what had just gone so wrong...

...falling I'm falling oh Celestia Luna and Cadance I'm falling...

She couldn't get oriented. Everything was moving around her, everything. Her stomach recoiled, her muscles went tight, she couldn't focus, didn't know which way to make her wings move when she didn't know what any direction was, there was ground and sky and neither was where it should have been, atmosphere pummeled her as she cascaded through ever-tighter spirals, there were crash cushions below her but she was moving too fast and there was no time to think --

-- and once again, all thinking stopped.

The vertigo could have her senses. It could take her orientation.

But it could not claim her wings.

They flared. Tilted, about ninety degrees to the plane of rotation, on pure instinct. Feathering.

Drag decreased. Windmilling began to slow. But the only way to bleed off the momentum in time was --

-- her forelegs tucked under her body, her hind legs followed suit. She pulled her head back, instinctively mimicking Tank as she changed her position to present the smallest possible profile against the wind. Wings and a center steering entity. Nothing more.

Her wings tilted again, then pulled in somewhat, curled...

And she shot across the sky like one of the Founder's Day bottle rockets, twisting and spinning in a horizontal line as her tail created a prismatic contrail and Silver Zoom's shout filled the tunneled air.

It had taken the monitors some time to find her. More to silently walk her back. Nopony asked why she didn't want to fly to the trial site, not after what they'd just seen. And for the same reason, nopony asked why her knees kept shaking.

"Fifty-six," Spitfire said, and the voice seemed far too distant for the source being a mere seven body lengths away. "We have to --"

"-- that was the first stage of a shadowfount!"

Everypony looked at Silver Zoom, whose forehooves were on the table now, half-trampling Rainbow's recommendations. Rainbow had never seen a pony with eyes that wide -- or half-seen: she was still having some trouble getting her head up.

"Nopony does a shadowfount! Nopony's seen one since -- just the first stage, but -- I -- how did you -- you've got to tell me, those spirals, how did you figure out how to --"

"Stop."

Spitfire. Insistent. Forceful. Angry.

"Fifty-six," the captain of the Wonderbolts said. "We have to talk. Immediately. Alone. Follow me, please."

High Winds stared at her. Everypony did.

"But," the third judge protested, "Captain... that was a --"

"Stop." And the order was obeyed. "Now, fifty-six."

And Rainbow, hooves shuffling, legs barely straight, hearing that roaring getting closer again, followed.

Spitfire had led her quite some distance away, much further than Rainbow wanted to move under the circumstances, which was to say they'd moved at all and then kept right on doing it. All the way on hoof. But it had brought them to -- the medical tent.

Pinkie was already gone. Spitfire gave the doctors a hard look, and they were impacted into silence before any could say a word. All four retreated, and Spitfire gestured Rainbow to one of the beds, one with an open curtain around it, the hanging fabric mounted on a high circular railing.

"Sit."

Rainbow sat. Spitfire closed the curtain.

"First stage of a shadowfount."

Rainbow didn't seem to have any words. Spitfire had two more.

"Horse apples."

Rainbow's eyes closed.

"You lost it out there," Spitfire half-hissed. "Completely lost it. You figured out a recovery before you hit and about two seconds before the monitors would have reached you, but you lost it. The fact that your recovery method looked like a crude version of a first-stage shadowfount? Pure. Bucking. Coincidence. The others may be dazzled by what came at the end, enough to forget what led into it -- but I wasn't. You were barely up there. You were barely there, and barely staying up. Flight school dropout? Flight camp dropout? Worse. I almost expected that sort of routine from the pony who went before you, the one who was flying with half-amputated wings, assuming he could get off the ground at all. If I was grading this on the fairest curve possible, then the earth pony beat you. And I know you're better than that." Her volume was beginning to increase. "So what are you on? Field booster drug with some nasty side effects? Trying to give your techniques a push they don't need? Decided you had to be the best so much that you forgot about screenings? Have you been taking stuff this whole time and that's how you pulled the Rainboom off in the first place, but you finally got a bad batch? Because I can call in a doctor right now and test you for everything there is, and I'm giving you one chance to tell me what you took before I order them to prove it and kick you out of --"

"I have Manière's."

It had been a whisper. And yet, it was enough to completely stop Spitfire for two whole breaths.

"Bad lie, fifty-six. Your eyes are --"

"-- I have... a zebra friend. She's kind of halfway between a medic and a magician, and she couldn't cure me because zebras don't fly. But she could make my eyes look normal. So I did that, and... then I came out. I spent the whole day looking for anything to cure me and all I could do was make my eyes look right..."

Spitfire was staring at her now.

"You tried flying. With Manière's."

"I was practicing in the upper atmosphere, getting ready for the trials. I -- just got unlucky."

Softly, "Pegasi with Manière's can't fly."

Below a whisper. "I thought... if I just did the basics better than anypony... but the monitors, they looked... it's fourteen moons until next time, fourteen moons and missions and... I had to..."

Spitfire turned away from her.

"I'm sending a doctor in," she said. "To take your blood. The tests won't take long. Just enough time for me to judge the last applicants. You stay right here."

And Rainbow did.

The needle didn't hurt. Not more than everything else.

The trials were over. She'd heard one other pony being brought into the medical tent: strained left wing. Treated and gone.

Rainbow hadn't moved. At all.

The curtain parted. Spitfire was back. Not that it mattered.

"The tests are back."

Rainbow silently nodded. Regarded the floor, which wasn't currently spinning.

"They proved two things."

Waited.

"The first is that you have Manière's. A severe case. As bad as anything they've ever seen."

That didn't seem to require a nod.

"The second is that you're an idiot." Spitfire took a deep breath. "I'm going to remember that. The fact that you're stubborn, and determined, and stupid. Stupid in a way I don't think it's possible to measure, stupid in a way you can't teach and maybe stupid in a way you can't unlearn."

She shook her head, very slowly.

"It's about two hours before sunset. The practical trials are over. We're going to strike the tent, raise the clouds, and move on. The practical exam team will be back in fourteen moons."

And sighed.

"I'll be back in four days."

Rainbow blinked.

"Because Manière's lasts for three. Even a case as bad as yours. And it's going to be a pain in the tail on a level you don't understand, to scramble back here by myself and set everything up again. But you're stupid. You are so stupid that you tried to fly with Manière's -- and you made it work. You've got four days to get better and, if at all possible, smarter. Let me see you when you're not sick. And then... well, I can't promise a letter, not after this idiotic stunt. But I will promise you a second chance. And possibly your last. So make it count."

Rainbow nodded. Just barely.

"Got it?"

Again.

"Good. Now I'm going to go get an air carriage, and then I'm flying you home. Because I don't want you proving your idiocy again, not today. Stay here." She turned, started to trot away --

-- turned back.

"Have you ever seen a shadowfount?"

"Nopony has," Rainbow managed. "Just old mare's tales and -- some diagrams, partial ones, which have to be wrong because following them just makes you crash." She knew all about those crashes.

"But the surviving diagrams show what the complete first stage is supposed to look like. What you did."

It might have been the hardest admission of her life. "It was an accident." And given what had happened immediately after she'd gotten out of sight range, she hadn't thought of it as a first-stage shadowfount at all. More like the Vomit Comet.

"Or instinct."

Rainbow looked up. It would not have been in time to see the smile, if a smile had ever been there at all.

"Four days," Spitfire said. "Be ready."

And in the end, there was yelling and uniforms and badges, stunts and spinouts and lives at risk, ponies she admired and wanted to be like, then didn't ever want to see again, dreams discarded and renewed, an ending which led to a new beginning and an air path leading off into a future which might go on for more than fourteen moons.

But before all that... there was a letter.

Pinkie: The Party To Temporarily Suspend All Parties

The slightly chubby pink earth pony sat in the tiny spotlight which illuminated the center of the darkened room (and nothing else), blue eyes downcast, and spoke to the shadows.

"So it's like this," she steadily said. "I spent a lot of my filly years on the rock farm. We didn't have a lot of visitors, and I didn't go visiting or meeting ponies or... anyway, we were kind of isolated. So when it came to foal and childhood illnesses, I never had any. Because I didn't have anypony to catch them from."

She sighed.

"When I came to Ponyville, though..." she carefully continued, gaze refusing to seek the darkness. "...I was sort of trying to catch up with everything at once. Classes, and culture, and how ponies who didn't live on rock farms behaved -- which was really really hard because of all the days I was losing. Because my body was trying to catch up with everything else. I'd never had any of the childhood stuff, and suddenly I was around ponies who were going through all of it, and -- I got sick. For the first couple of years, I got sick a lot. But eventually, I -- caught up, I guess."

A small shrug. Curls bounced.

"Or at least that's what I thought," she told the shadows. "But now... now the Cakes have the twins. And a couple of weeks ago, they came down with -- well, it turns out I missed one. The doctor told me it takes a couple of weeks to -- incubate? Which is why I'm really just getting it now. That's a funny word, isn't it? Incubate? Like you're supposed to be stuck inside a box while it's working. Only... that's kind of what's gonna happen. I'll be in a box for two weeks. In my bedroom. I won't be allowed to go outside, and the only ponies who can see me will be ponies who've had it already because you can only have it once. That's fine, really, because just about everypony in the world's had it. Except for me, until right now. But I still can't go outside, just in case I run into any kids, and... that means I'll lose days again. It's harder to lose days when you have work, and commitments, and friends..."

Silence was her only response.

"So I'm going away," she concluded. "At least when it comes everything I have to do, for the Cakes and friends and Ponyville. I'm going away for two weeks, starting tomorrow because that's when the doctor thinks the big symptoms will come in. And you know what you do when somepony's leaving for a while?"

Her right foreleg came up, stabbed into the shadows, and hit the edge of the main lighting device.

Pinkie's friends surrounded her. Streamers surrounded her, tables laden with refreshments were on the right, the dance floor had been put together on the left side of the rented hall, Lyra was settling into position with the band behind her, and balloons blocked off every last possible view of the ceiling.

"You throw them a going-away party, sillies! Hit it!"

Lyra shyly smiled, and hooves moved across her instrument at the same moment Twofour's hooves went for the drums. The music began, the laughter started, and Pinkie happily nodded to herself as she began to circulate around the room, making sure everypony (and in fact everyone, as Cranky was in attendance) was starting to get into the good time.

Which admittedly felt as if it was going to take a little more work than usual.

Twilight was the first to carefully approach. "Are you sure you're going to be okay?"

"In two weeks," Pinkie tried to assure her. "I know it's a foal and filly illness, Twilight, but it's not one of those things that's worse when an adult gets it. I'm not worried about being sick, even though they told me my throat's gonna hurt a lot, it'll be hard to talk -- but there's a plus side! I get to eat all the ice cream I want!" A thoughtful pause. "I'm not sure it's possible for somepony to get sick of ice cream. I hope it isn't. But I guess I'll find out."

"So," Twilight awkwardly smiled as Caramel twirled by on her right, pursuing a decidedly disinterested Cloudchaser, "you decided to throw yourself a going-away party?"

"Who would know better how to do it?" Pinkie grinned. "I know my own tastes! Food, music, guests -- well, especially the guests this time. I had to make sure all the kids stayed home, just in case they hadn't had it yet. Well, except for Spike, of course." She nodded towards the current Master Of The Pastry Table, keeping careful watch over his realm. "Because he can't catch pony stuff, due to not being a pony. But there's another reason I had to be really really careful about who I invited, because --"

Pokey's horn cut in between them, and they both pulled back a little.

"Pinkie?" the game booth operator asked. "Would you mind taking a quick look at the punch trough? A couple of ponies are saying the mix isn't right."

"That's weird..." Pinkie immediately decided as she began to trot over. "Let me check." She approached the long wooden mini-river, dipped her head, sipped the red fluid, swished it around in her mouth before swallowing. "Huh. Twilight? I'm not really sure of my sense of taste right now. Could I get a second opinion? I think it needs a little more lemon, but I really need another pony on this."

Twilight gave the sloshing liquid an awkward look. "I -- usually don't use troughs, Pinkie..."

Eyelashes cheerfully batted. "But taste is just chemical interaction, right? And who's better with the chemical stuff than you? Please?"

It got her a reluctant smile. "All right. I guess when you put it that way, it's just checking on the experiment..." The unicorn's head went down, came back up. "I'd say add some more lemon too."

"Okay!" Pinkie smiled. "So we'll just add some now." She headed for the juicer, Twilight following.

"So what's the other reason you had to be so careful about who you invited?" the librarian asked.

It triggered a small sigh. "Because -- I'm going to be in my room for two weeks. Two whole weeks. And it's a really really awkward two weeks to be away from everypony, because there's just so much going on, things I promised to do which I could always do if I wasn't sick and we didn't have a mission, and I thought -- that maybe if I asked a lot of ponies to do only a few things each..." She trailed off, and the glance reluctantly made towards Twilight was an awkward one.

"They could cover for you?" Twilight easily guessed, and Pinkie sadly nodded. "That's not asking much, Pinkie! I'm sure that if you just ask ponies to do a few things each, they'll be able to find the time! And besides, how many things could you possibly have scheduled for the next two weeks?"

"Well..."

"Say that again," a dazed-seeming Rainbow slowly requested.

"Come out to the balcony with me and --"

"Buck off, Caramel. I was talking to Pinkie." The stallion slunk away. "Pinkie -- repeat that. All of it. Slowly."

"Okay..." A brief shrug expressed most of the confusion. "So first, you drop by Thunderlane's. His brother's having a party which you don't have to throw because he wants to do that himself and he's really afraid of something marey sneaking in. But between you and me, he's one of the worst gift-shoppers on the whole continent! I mean, he's the sort of pony who would go to an all-night pharmacy two hours before Sun-raising and take the --" Rainbow's eyes were starting to display a certain glimmer of recognition "-- only he's not as good at it as you are. But he wants some help shopping. Because he keeps trying to get his brother stuff that's macho and Rumble just wants things that are fun. You can do fun, right? But nothing marey!"

"Nothing marey," Rainbow carefully repeated. "What does that even mean?"

"He said it means no pink."

Frowning. "I know three pink stallions. And that's just on the west side of town."

"I know, I didn't get it either... Anyway, after that, it's Noteworthy's birthday, so make sure you go and say hello. And drop off the cake for his party: that's all you need to do there. It's also Blue's birthday and he's not having a party, but he is going on a date and you know Blue, the only way he's going to make it on time is if somepony puts their head into his ribs and shoves him all the way there. But you'll probably just have an easier time flying him over and then dropping him off. Only not from too high. So after that, it's Minuette. Now, for Minuette, I wrote everything down for you, and it shouldn't take more than thirty minutes to put together if you just make sure to get all her guests working on the setup before she comes in the door. But then you're lucky, because her house is right next to Stile's place, so all it'll take you is about two flaps and then -- Rainbow?"

"...what?"

"You're facehoofing."

"I know."

"A lot. Like, over and over."

"I know." The weather coordinator groaned. "Luna's frozen tail, Pinkie, what sort of Tartarus-chained schedule do you call this?"

Pinkie gave the answer some exceptionally careful thought. "...I call it... a slow weekend afternoon?"

"Urgh," Rainbow said, and probably should have left it at that. "Can you write all this down? And maybe a few diagrams for a couple of those setups..."

Sparkler danced by, a mug of punch surrounded by her signature glow. The mug, despite the fact that it was moving in time to the music, was safely encased in her field. The liquid inside the mug was not.

"...HEY!"

Sparkler looked to see where the splash had landed, noted the presence of a damp-faced, drip-snouted, furious Rainbow -- and laughed. "Sorry! Maybe I need a little help closing this! I'd better go find somepony qualified!"

None of the punch flashed into steam on Rainbow's face, but that was mostly because it didn't know how to work with a good moment. "HEY! Get back here, you --" and the unicorn slipped into the crowd. "Oh, one of these days..."

"You're dripping a little," Pinkie noted.

"I know," Rainbow grumbled. "I'm gonna go wash up before this stuff goes sticky."

"There's going to be a line at the bathroom," Pinkie pointed out, letting her tail keep time with the music. Lyra was really on form tonight. She'd initially been surprised when the composer had accepted her request to play at the party, but in retrospect, she supposed Lyra was just looking forward to not dealing with Pinkie's one-pony-band efforts for two weeks.

"So I'll fly home for a few --"

"-- no, don't do that. Hold still!"

"Hold --?"

Pinkie did it.

"-- GAH!"

"All done!"

"You licked me!"

"I know! All done!" Pinkie briefly smacked her lips.

"With your tongue! And -- you've got a really long tongue, you know that? But -- Pinkie, you just licked me!"

"So? It got the punch off."

"With your tongue."

Pinkie felt a certain compulsion to point out the obvious. "You're a pegasus."

"So? Feather fade, I think you got some of your spit in my mouth..."

"Which means you preen yourself. All the time. With your mouth. And tongue."

"Yeah, but... that's different."

"How?"

"It's my tongue. And ponies are looking at us..."

Pinkie shrugged. "Ponies always look at us. We're Bearers! Come in, let's get some cupcakes before they're all gone!"

"So how you holding up, kid? Because if I had to guess, I'd say 'not so good.' I usually don't catch you leaning against the curtains this early," Crankly patiently observed. "Believe me, if you're not up to the rest of this, I'm okay with making a few excuses and getting you home."

Pinkie managed a smile. "Just -- tired, Cranky. And a little hot. The doctor said symptoms would really start coming in soon. But I'm okay until the throat swelling starts."

"Throat swelling?" the donkey asked. "Oh... huh. You know, you never said what you had and I didn't see the twins when they had it, but I'm pretty sure I can guess now. Kid, are you sure you should be at this party?"

"We're all adults, Cranky! And that means everypony's had it, except for the ones who can't get it. That includes you, doesn't it?"

He nodded. "Donkeys can't get it any more than dragons can. But I spent a lot of years crossing Equestria, so I know something about pony illnesses. The twins caught it because pegasi and unicorns can get it. You're proof that earth ponies come down with it. But you're kind of making an assumption here, kid. That nopony at the party could ever get it. You're an adult, and you'd never had it until now. Why can't somepony else have missed it?"

"Because nopony else grew up on a rock farm," Pinkie skillfully reasoned. "They've all been around other ponies all their lives, lots of other ponies. And I wasn't, so..." Topic change. "Well, if I'm feeling hot, then I guess the clock really is running. So is it okay -- I know you and Matilda are starting to make plans now, and I don't want my plans to get in the way of your plans, but if you have any planned free time over the next two weeks, then I was planning on asking you to take over some plans on --"

He smiled, just a little. "Kick it to me, kid. I'm retired, remember? Party inclinations, low, happiness instincts, possibly zero. Time, though? Time, I've got -- but don't ask me how much is left... oh, don't give me that look: our humor's a lot like our literature. If you're not thinking about the implications by the end, there wasn't much point."

She started to give him that portion of the schedule, and got about a quarter of the way through it before Rarity pranced up to them.

"Pinkie? Have you seen any chocolate cupcakes? I was just trying the most darling hors d'oeuvre and I thought a bit of chocolate might set it off perfectly, but that section of the table seems to be rather suspiciously empty..."

"Spike's out," Pinkie said. "And I know that for a fact because I got the last one." She nodded to the little pastry, sitting on a nearby table. "But you can have it if you want to, Rarity. I only nibbled on a corner."

"Why, thank you, Pinkie," Rarity smiled. "I accept your gift in the spirit in which it was given. Truly, two weeks without you will be a trial."

"Well, you can always visit!" Pinkie happily pointed out. "Because you're an adult, so you've had it!"

"It, yes," Rarity nodded -- then stopped. "Pinkie -- exactly what is --" and frowned. "Dear, you appear to be a little flush. Should you even be here?"

"I'm okay," Pinkie told her, and decided it wasn't a lie. "I'll stop when I have to, Rarity, I promise. But can we talk later? Right now, Cranky sort of needs the rest of the schedule, or at least that little bit of it."

Another nod. "I'll circulate for a while. Fluttershy... well, nopony's been able to get her away from her chosen corner all evening. Perhaps a little chocolate will tempt her out. And after that, I believe I need to put some distance between Applejack and the trough before she once again attempts to tip the balance of power across our taste buds. Also, do not forget: I shall be requiring my assignments as well. Until then, Pinkie..."

They both watched the elegant tail until the crowd blocked the view.

"Good mare, right there," Cranky decided. "If you can get past the airs. Which takes a while. Back to the schedule, I guess. Unless you need some water. Or a cart home."

"No," Pinkie smiled. "But maybe a little ice cream. Okay, so after you drop off the pies..."

And at all the best parties, it ultimately came down to the hostess and those she cared about the most.

"One more dance," Pinkie insisted.

"No, dear," Rarity insisted slightly harder. "The clean-up crew has started to arrive, and I believe the hall owners would prefer to greet Sun from their beds. It is time to go home."

"We could stay and help clean up," Pinkie considered. "It's just being helpful. Do you know how much cleaning is required after a really good party? I do! And it's not a little bit, either. So if we pitch in --"

Fluttershy's visible eye blinked at her. "...I have to go home, Pinkie. It's hard enough being away this long. And..." A shapely foreleg stretched out as the pegasus took off, hovered just behind Pinkie's head and touched the back of her right ear. "...you're starting to run a temperature. You have to go home." And with that odd insistence, "Now."

"But I won't see anypony," Pinkie sighed. "Not once I'm home. Only the ones who can drop in, and maybe everypony's had it, but you all have work, and schedules, and your own lives. I can't go to anypony and it'll be hard, coming to me..."

Spike's right hand gently moved through her fur, the claws angled to avoid scratching. "We'll walk you home. How about that?"

"Fine..." And they left the hall.

The group was silent for a while as they moved under Moon and attentive stars, with Pinkie straining her gaze up towards the orb. Two whole weeks of being inside...

She sighed. "Stupid crumps." And trotted towards home.

It took her a few seconds to realize she was alone.

Pinkie turned. The other six were several body lengths behind her. Frozen, postures and expressions. Even Spike had turned into a scaly statue.

"Was it something I said?"

"Crumps?" Rainbow abruptly shouted. "You've got crumps? And you're trotting around outside like nothing's wrong? Don't you know how contagious that is? Maybe nopony's sure how it spreads, but as far as I can tell, just being around somepony with it is enough to catch it!"

Twilight was starting to go pale. "Didn't the doctor tell you to quarantine yourself immediately, Pinkie? She must have said --"

"-- I... well, I know I'm supposed to be in my room for two weeks, and no kids can visit unless they've already had it, but... I kind of got out of the office because the clock was running and I had to throw the party together fast before my time ran out and I couldn't see anypony for two whole weeks!" Urgently, "I guess she was still talking when I went for the door, but -- I had to think about everypony else! There wasn't time! And it doesn't matter, because except for Spike, who could never ever get it, you're all adults! You're done with it!"

Slowly, Rainbow touched down, landing on Fluttershy's right. They looked at each other. The animal caretaker silently shook her head. The weather coordinator facehoofed.

"Pinkie..." Rainbow began, her voice starting to approach growl, "we're from pegasus settlements. Some diseases have a lot of trouble getting up to cloud level because most of the ponies who get them can't fly."

"Mah... mah Mommy..." Applejack swallowed. "It was harvest time, Pinkie. She heard tell 'bout an outbreak at the school before Ah could go in that day. She had t' choose between exposin' me and gettin' it over with, or lettin' me catch it later, when there wasn't so much t' do. She kept me home, an'... Ah just never.... aw, no..."

Twilight could barely get her words past the frozen wince. "I -- stayed inside. Reading. A lot."

And Rarity's hooves were pawing at the road. "It would seem that luck... has a way of running out. Pinkie? Are you truly capable of trotting home? Is your illness such that you are unable to travel on your own?"

The blue eyes were a little wider than usual. "N-no..."

"I am glad to hear it. And given that..." She glanced at Rainbow.

The pegasus' gaze went tunnel vision.

"Pinkie?" Rainbow said in a too-calm growl. "Run."

She had been allowed into the group quarantine room. After all, it was perfectly safe for her. She'd already had it.

"So, everypony..." she carefully began.

Five ponies glared at her from their beds.

"...I know this is -- kind of my fault. Or really, it's totally my fault. Only everypony would have gotten it eventually, and now you've -- gotten it over with! And if you're going to be sick, isn't it best to be sick together? So really, I've been thinking it over, and I sort of wish you'd all been there with the twins when I was, and then we could have -- seriously, when you think about it, you're the lucky ones..."

The group glare didn't seem to be losing any intensity.

"But I can visit! I'll make sure to drop by every day, no matter what I have going on, and make sure everypony's okay. I can even bring some extra ice cream. Which you're going to get sick of, by the way. On the fifth day. In case anypony's wondering. So --"

"-- Pinkie," Rarity rasped out through her swollen throat.

"Easy, Rarity," Pinkie quickly jumped in. "Don't talk. It hurts to talk, I know..."

"Yes. As do I. And yet we will talk. Because you are the only one among us who can -- go outside."

"And," Twilight hoarsely added, "there's certain... schedules... checklists, really..."

"We all went an' put our bits t'gether," Applejack forced out. "Turned out we had enough t' hire a student baker. For two weeks. She'll be at Sugarcube Corner --" stopped, painfully coughed three times "-- in a few minutes, an' the Cakes know it. You've got the next couple of weeks off, Pinkie."

"Actually," Rainbow said, and the smile was not a reassuring one, "that's almost a lie. Or at least... it's the wrong way of putting it."

"...because," Fluttershy determinedly whispered, "...for the next two weeks... you work for us."

Pinkie tried to move. The direction was going to be forward. Probably. But it didn't matter, because it didn't happen, and it took a moment before she looked down and saw the glow of Twilight's field around her legs.

The librarian's own smile was slightly -- vicious.

"Hold still," Twilight told her. "This could take a while."

...and after she helped Spike with the reshelving, she had to go into the Boutique and compare the actual inventory of the stock to the sheet she was carrying, then subtract any of the sales the temporary had somehow miraculously managed and use that to figure out if there was anything missing, followed by the barn, oh how could Applejack be in need of barn repairs already unless the Crusaders -- well, that explained it, so the barn, and then she had to deliver the updated weather schedules to the entire team which was going to mean pedaling until her legs wanted to fall off, but they couldn't because they had to carry her onto the train and into the special livestock car which would take so many animals to a temporary host in Canterlot until their mistress could come back to them, a train which would take all night to run and return, trying to keep animals she couldn't talk to calm for the entire trip, and when she returned, she'd be bringing one back and there was no way of telling how Angel and Gummy would manage to live together for two whole weeks...

She made a silent vow to always listen to her doctor, and from now on, that meant to the end of the sentences. But until then...

Pinkie sighed.

"Stupid crumps."

There would have been more, but the schedule was before her. It was literally all she had time to say.

Still, she said it again just for emphasis, and so very nearly missed the train.

Rarity: The Lady On Her Not-Quite-Deathbed

It had taken nearly the last of her strength, simply shifting her legs within the fabric as her friends, there to comfort her in those final fleeting hours, helped her to don it. And then remove it, while she gave up both precious energy and fast-rushing seconds in the tilting of her head, so that horn would not snag fabric and force the museum (for surely there would be a museum exhibit in time, although it would have to wait for several pieces to be delivered following the final fashion show at her memorial service) to conduct repairs. Hours, ah, hours of what little time she had remaining, in feeling nothing more than cotton and linen and gems moving against her coat, time which could have been spent on other things had she simply thought to plan! For a true artist would have looked at the history of their medium, seen the potential problem lurking ahead, waiting to strike from the shadows, and chosen her armor accordingly. Her priorities had been lacking and, after the third hour had found nothing worth the final moments, she had started to feel the same way about her closet.

But her friends, covering up their true emotions under a hard-forced mask of grumbling impatience, had stayed by her side, or at least two of them had. (The others... well, there were events to plan, not to mention museums which needed contacting.) And in time, their labors had produced the desired result. The final desired result.

Rarity's weary body, struck down far too early, was sprawled across her bed. Sheets had been artfully tossed, inspected, and then tossed again. Ripples of silk caressed her form in a way nopony would ever have the chance to match. And for the centerpiece... the soon-to-be fallen artist herself, serving as the easel for the final canvas.

She was wearing the dress she intended to be caught dead in.

Well... not quite. For there was no time left for lies, and so Rarity would not allow a single one of them, not even to herself. It was not the ideal dress. It was a nightgown. One of her own designs, yes, and the best of them, but... no dress had worked out, for the soon-to-be-fatal illness was making her sweat, sweat quite heavily in fact, sometimes verging on the edge of froth, and when the moisture inevitably soaked through the fabric... well, it had changed the way the dress lay along her body, along with rendering a few portions into something a little more see-through than she would have normally liked. But a nightgown -- that was designed to cling. And because Rarity also had to account for the fact that there were evenings when a pony might be sweating a bit for all sorts of reasons, she had worked that into her original design, and so when her sweat reached the fabric, it made the nightgown -- well, part of her was slightly uncomfortable in having Spike see her that way. But then, it was the final hours and in a way, she supposed it gave him something special to remember her by.

Not that he would allow himself to show his pain and suffering.

"Are we done?"

He was so brave. And covering that emotion in expertly-faked exasperation only demonstrated his maturity. Ah, there would be tears later, when she could no longer see him, when he felt his pain would not wound her if expressed in drops of salt and hidden fire...

"Yes," Rarity sighed, and tossed her head to express unvoiced regrets. Then she realized that it altered the drape of manefall over silk, and tossed it the other way. "I believe... this will have to do. For there is no time to seek other options, Spike, no time for so many things in the final hours under Sun." Under Moon now, actually, but Sun had seemed a somewhat better fit for the statement. "But there will be time aplenty in the shadowlands, and I will be but waiting for you, and you for me. Know that I stand in the grass of the final fields, dearest ones, patiently awaiting our reunion, and never, ever feel that you must rush on my account. Waiting... simply waiting..."

"The shadowlands," Spike repeated, and perhaps it was that repressed sorrow which made his voice so weary.

There was also no time left for cushioning the blow. "Death, Spike! Oh, how could I not have seen it coming? For it is fate that tells the story and loves to trot out the same tales over and over again, making them only more tragic with each repetition and victim who could not see it coming!" One last angry lash of the tail to express her rage at the cruelly stolen years -- oh dear, and there went her carefully-arranged tail display. Rarity began making adjustments. "The artist, struck down in her prime -- and before she was truly discovered! But --" and this had truly not occurred to her until that very moment "-- death brings with it many gifts, dearest ones. For so many artists fail to have their creations recognized in life, but death? Ah, death says that there shall be no more creations to come under Sun and Moon, the catalog is complete and may be inspected as a frozen painting rather than a living work...!"

"...Rarity," Fluttershy softly said from her position at the foot of the bed, where the last of the rejected nightgowns was being carefully rehung, "you're not --"

"-- ponies will come, dearest ones. They shall come to Ponyville for reasons they can't even fathom. They will board the train, step off at our station, not knowing for sure why they are doing it. They will arrive at my shop door as innocent as foals, longing to see the new. 'Of course we won't mind if you have a look around,' you shall tell them. 'She would have wanted you to look.' They shall enter without even thinking about it, for it is time, precious time, which they still have, and art they lack. Oh, ponies will most definitely come..."

Fluttershy sighed, which was the only way the gentlest of her friends would allow the pain to show.

"...Spike? Step outside with me?"

They left her bedroom. Rarity finished adjusting her tail, then rotated her ears (which would normally be so easy to rotate back into their role in her chosen pose, but who knew when her strength would run out?) and tried to hear the final verbal gems dropping from beloved throats.

"She knows it's just a bad cold, right?" Spike asked, for that was the lie they had given him, when they still thought it would be possible to protect him from the pain.

Fluttershy sighed. "...and some muscle aches, temperature spikes, she's sweating a lot... maybe closer to a flu, Spike. Not Rhynorn's, because her field's been fine, even if she's having some trouble getting focused. But the fever is peaking now. It'll probably break overnight, and then she'll start to get better. She doesn't even need the hospital. Not that she'd let us take her..."

Well, of course she hadn't allowed them to move her. A true artist arranged the setting, and the colors of a hospital room...

"So why is she acting like this?" he asked, and she wished she could rub her right foreleg against his scales, one last time.

"Part of it's the fever," Fluttershy gently lied to him. "And the rest is the medicine. It... removes filters."

She imagined his posture and expression were as confused as his voice. "It does what?"

"...you know that point where Rainbow's tail is lashing while she tells Rarity to just cut back on the drama already, and Rarity pulls back just enough to keep from being dunked in the fountain?"

"Well -- yeah."

"...you know exactly where that line is and what happens if she crosses it?"

"...yeah."

"...she doesn't any more."

Silence. The silence of the grave. Rarity supposed she should start getting used to it.

Finally, a spine-crested head peeked around the edge of the doorway.

"Rarity? Do you need anything else?"

"No. Nothing, dearest one. Nothing there is still time for." Should she tell him? No: he knew. The words would only be inadequate in any case. "Please... leave me now. You should not see what is to come, nor should you be the one who finds me in the morning. Let others bring my body out under Sun, for I only wish that you bask in its rays and think of me now and again..."

He rolled his eyes. Such defiance! "We'll see you later."

At the funeral. They would all see her one last time under Sun, and then, in time... "Yes..." She allowed her eyelids to regretfully sag closed, for this was her final vision of her dearest one, and it was time to bring down the curtain. And for her final words... "Later, when there is nothing but time..."

Claws and hooves moved across the hallway floor, down the ramp. Then they were gone. And Rarity waited to die.

She kept waiting.

Well, really, if death was going to be so inconsiderate as to take her early in the first place, it should at least have the common courtesy not to keep a lady waiting.

There was a soft impact against her mattress. Well, now she would have to adjust the ripples again. Rarity forced her right eye to open, just enough.

Opal was staring at her.

"Ah, Opalescence! I know... I know you do not truly understand what is happening, nor the words I will speak to you now. But if only you could understand, you would know that I have planned for this, planned for you. There is a new home waiting. You shall not be neglected, not even for a moment. And if I could only ask you to arrange yourself within the final loop of my tail, using me as your bed..."

The cat's head tilted. Eyes narrowed.

"It would be art, you see -- or do not, as the case sadly happens to be. That your mistresses' body serves as final defense against the world after that fortress has been besieged, collapsed..."

The cat's right paw bapped her snout, and then Opal jumped down before stalking out of sight, for cats only appreciated their own posturings, and Opal was probably rather more concerned with her dinner...

...did Fluttershy feed her?

Of course she did. I can simply... wait. Yes, wait. My will is on file and requires no updating. The last of the Boutique's loan shall be paid to the bank when my assets are sold. Opal's arrangements are in place. My father will do his best not to cry until nopony can see him, my mother will put on a display of such force that merely everypony in attendance will question it, and my sister shall utterly fail to gain a mark in funeral conducting through destroying mine, because I have instructed the others to stop her at all costs. She will simply fling her body across my fallen form and --

-- actually...

...it's going to be my fallen form, isn't it?

And nothing else.

Somehow, she found the strength required for both of her eyes to shoot open.

She had her nightgown: she would be caught dead in precisely the proper colors, draping, and arrangement. Shortly after taking up her Element, she had sat down with her sketchbooks and planned out her funeral in great detail, for unlike some (Rainbow), Rarity truly understood the risks inherent in the missions, and additionally did not trust anypony to work out her taste through forensics. The full process had its marching orders, and was occasionally updated for color trends. The final fate of her useless body -- settled. But...

...my corpse.

It will be undressed.

How did I miss that?

And sadly, the answer came readily: she had not known when she would die, and so had not been able to predict what the fashions would be. Venturing a guess, projecting a variable value into an unknown future... it had felt like setting herself up for disaster, and even if her body would have no longer been capable of feeling embarrassment, she was sure her friends would have been humiliated on her behalf. She had not arranged for a funeral dress because she had possessed no knowledge of which dress might be appropriate.

This could not be allowed to stand.

Rarity mentally sorted through her entire wardrobe. There was time to write a final note, place it under her mane so that when she was moved from her home for the last time...

...no, that one won't work.

Nor will that one.

Or...

...oh dear.

She -- didn't have anything. Not which was suitable. She had only planned for being caught dead once, when the true number was twice, and that meant she had left her fate pressed between the hooves of the funeral director, who would likely save some bits by pulling out a generic, something which went on dozens of ponies before they were displayed and then came right off again, she would have to revive instantly within her final resting place simply so that the humiliation could have its proper effect, and the wait in the waving grasses would be passed while locked in a blush which could never fade...

NO!

"I shall not allow this," Rarity managed to voice. "Death will come, yes, that defeat is inevitable. But it shall only take me. It cannot have my dignity. For I am an artist, and if I truly have any strength remaining, let it be expended on this."

She tried to force herself upright. Her hooves slipped a few times on the silk. Fluttershy had told her that was from the medication. Fluttershy, who loved her enough to lie.

"No, I will do this," she panted as the sweat flowed, soaked the nightgown and created interesting new drape lines. "I am an artist."

Actually -- she had better words, floating in front of her inner vision, shimmering on waves of heat.

"I shall create one last time, and beautifully, before I die," Rarity told the uncaring world. "This shall be my swan sewing."

And with that, she was on her hooves.

She forced herself off the bed, not quite sure how she was going to get back on. Still... out the door, which seemed to be a considerable distance farther away than usual. Then through the hallway and down the ramp, into the Boutique proper -- which really took some work, for her senses didn't seem to know how to deal with the incline. Her hooves threatened to slip, fluid seemed to roar inside her ears, and the entire thing attempted at least three twisting rotations while she was still on it. Ultimately, it was simpler to lie down on belly and barrel, then slowly slide into the crash cushion at the base.

It took more time than she would have liked to reach her sketchbooks, mostly because she needed a few minutes before remembering it was possible to get back up again.

"Now," she whispered to Opal, who was once again taking shelter under a dressmakers' form, "I create."

Her field surrounded the quill on the third attempt. She stared at the blank page. Waited.

"Ah, but no!" she cried. "I am wasting time, Opal, a foolish waste! There are no hours for sketches, or trial gallops, or anything but -- creation! I must simply envision my final work, and then render it not in paper, but in cloth and gem!" Unless... would a paper dress suit? It would certainly make a statement... no, far too easy for it to tear while others attempted to place it on her fallen form. Stick with the basics, at least when it came to materials. "Let me simply... imagine."

She closed her eyes, just for a moment.

And she saw it.

It came to her, complete in a moment, without stages, without trials, without anything except completion. Came to her as if in a fever dream, and left her racing after it...

"Yes," she smiled, and felt so much of her strength ebb away simply from the manifestation of that expression. "I create, Opal, for I am an artist, and they shall all see that when my catalog is complete. To the last, I create..."

Whiskers twitched.

"Stay with me," Rarity whispered. "To the last."

The cat yawned.

And she began.

The fabrics: that took some time, for the instinctive focusing of her field around the object she wished to move was attempting to reach the shadowlands ahead of her. She had to truly push her concentration, and it made bolts dip in unexpected ways, knocking over a few shelving units which she had no time to straighten. Rarity offered silent apology to those who would have to clean up after her, but it could not be helped. There was prioritizing in progress, and the dress was all there was. All there would ever be.

To load the sewing device: more complicated than it should have been. To lay out the stitch lines without chalk, pattern, or thread... it saved precious seconds, becoming even more precious as their count dwindled down to the last few. Something she never would have attempted under normal circumstances, but... she would trust to her talent.

The dress was in her vision. The last dress. It floated, it danced, it hovered just a little away from her forelegs and begged her to give chase. She checked it often, making sure she was following the pattern properly, and if the dress seemed to have changed in the time since the previous glance? Then it meant she had not been looking closely enough.

There seemed to be a surprising number of gems strewn across the floor. She decided not to shout at Opal about playing with them again, because she loved her cat to the last.

The device whirred, and the undertone of humming blocked out any sounds which might have otherwise come from outside. The curtains had been drawn before her friends had departed, on her request: part of creating that proper setting. The entire universe could have just been her and Opal within a lonely shop floating in the void, along with a dress which was slowly being pulled into reality through the final efforts of straining field and hooves.

She would not die alone, for Opal was there, and her friends... she had not wished them to see it. But they were with her in spirit, were they not? Always. Even if she had never...

And then the nevers tried to march through her mind, for they wished to steal the last of her attention and time for their own.

Never discovered. Never truly appreciated.

Her field dimmed. The device slowed.

Never fell in love. Never woke up to see another pony lying beside me.

Threatened to stop, even as the tears threatened to start.

Never children...

...no.

One last favored child.

I am an artist. I create. A final birth.

The soft blue energy brightened. The device accelerated. And she sewed through the night, labor in so many senses, bringing that last vision into the world.

Weary eyes came up, regarded the dress. It seemed -- incomplete. And was that Sun beginning to touch her curtains? Had she reached a concluding dawn in those last minutes, with her labors still unfinished, with something lacking, something about the material and color, as if something had been overlooked, a puzzle she would not be able to solve...

Again, she looked at the dress as it rested near the device. Then at the true, as it hovered just out of her reach. And finally, she saw.

"Ah..." she whispered. "Yes. Yes, Opal... this is the last of me. It has taken the last of me to create. And so the only way to finish it, truly finish all of it... is to give it the last of me."

No strength to reach my bed. Nothing for arranging my form. And yet -- I am glad. For ultimately, is this not more appropriate for me? Setting and position. My friends shall arrive soon, and they will find me with my final child at my side, both illuminated by the first touch of Sun, and know me for who I truly was...

For anypony could put the last of themselves into their magic, if the need was truly there. This was the last sunrise of her life, and so newly-risen Sun would see Generosity give up the last of herself.

She did it.

The blue eyes slowly closed, and did not open again.

After a while, Opal stretched, yawned, crossed the floor, and then curled up into the empty loop left by her mistresses' fallen tail.

They quietly gazed down at the body, draped by a nightgown which had begun to dry out under the rays of Sun which came through recently-opened curtains. At the beautiful head, chin resting on the edge of her most favored sewing device. The closed eyes.

Fluttershy slowly, silently pulled her foreleg away from the white coat.

"...her fever's broken," she whispered.

They all watched Rarity's rib cage expand and contract for a while.

"So what do we do now?" Rainbow asked, forcing her volume to stay low.

"I think we've got to clean up," Spike whispered. "All these gem trays, and fabric all over the place... she shouldn't have to see that. Fluttershy can feed Opal, and Twilight can levitate Rarity back to her bedroom."

"I can't," Twilight softly stated. "Not yet." And looked at the dress.

The others followed suit. There was a certain inevitability to the process, which also described the reluctance.

"Oh," Applejack quietly groaned. "That. What are we gonna do with... that?"

"We burn it," Pinkie immediately stated.

"Um... that seems a little -- extreme, Pinkie. Ah know what Ah'm lookin' at, but still... Y'really think so?"

A moment of consideration. "Kill it. With fire. It's the only way to be sure."

Twilight nodded. "If she shouldn't have to see the Boutique like this... then she shouldn't have to see that. Ever. But we still can't do it yet, any more than I can bring her upstairs. Not until..."

They all looked again. And Spike sighed.

"How does anypony sew their own mane into the hock line?"

Twilight: Magic Minus Magic

For a few of the ponies who truly didn't know very much about her at all, the librarian's most distinguishing characteristic was her raw field strength: a power that required traveling quite some distance to the right on the Celestia Meter (Adjusted) for any attempt at measurement, with a number of individuals wondering if they should just run the line entirely off the graph. And it was certainly a notable facet of her existence, albeit one which most ponies discovered through tales and rumors and stories which generally ran at an accuracy rating of zero -- but it wasn't the only one.

There was curiosity, a potentially-endless drive to know, constrained by cautious ethical bounds. That slow-developing, often-tentative sense of empathy which she remained reluctant to rely on too much, lest something go bad when she inevitably got it wrong. And determination -- oh, that could sometimes be a major facet on the gem of personality. The drive to keep going, to push, to improve -- there were times when that was the aspect which dominated her life, or at least the majority of her hours. And when you combined curiosity with that determination and threw in what she was seeing as a real need, a problem which had to be solved -- well, that was when the unicorn could often be found trying to greet Celestia and Luna in turn for several days as she desperately worked, researched, and pushed to find the solution, for unlike her field strength, the librarian occasionally displayed determination in open abundance.

However, there were problems associated with that, and more than a few of them. Because for starters, she possessed more in determination than the small, exceptionally slender mare did in physical endurance.

Or constitution.

And, more often than not, especially when she had a problem to solve, common sense.

"Thaumaturgy Review," Twilight casually ordered as she squinted at the issue which wasn't quite providing the information she needed. (She was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with the thaum charge of the basement's lighting system, as the words seemed to be getting progressively harder to read with each passing hour.) "Volume 800, Issue 11. Bring that down."

Her brother said something which wasn't 'yes' or 'right away!', let alone 'I'm on it!' And so she ignored it, because he'd probably said some variation on those and really, the written words were what was important now. Also, finding out why they were dancing, possibly followed by asking them to teach her.

She kept reading, or at least tried to. The paragraphs were keeping a rather odd sort of beat.

"Spike?" she called up the ramp, unaware that he was still standing on her immediate left. "Did you find it yet?"

Claws gently poked at her flank. She blinked, turned.

"Go to bed," Spike repeated.

The head shake was instinctive. "We've got to keep going! If I don't figure out how to cast this security spell soon -- Spike, we've been lucky already, maybe lucky for too long. With this crime wave moving through Ponyville, all these thefts, and with some of the editions we're hosting at the tree, especially now that the Empire's entered the library exchange program..." Those three volumes were dense, slightly less fragile than they looked and, if you didn't have a full understanding of Ancient Crystalia, completely illegible -- but they did look really pretty under Sun, which slightly mitigated the headache which came from trying to read any part of them. "At some point, we're going to be a target. Maybe I had the Elements transferred back to the palace for a while, but we can't just take out that many books." (Or rather, she could, and magically, it could be done rather easily. It just meant... sending away books.) "And that means I need Star Swirl's Ultimate Lockdown. Now."

"Which only he understood how to cast," Spike sighed. "And that's still the case after four nights of this."

"I don't know..." Twilight thoughtfully countered. "Somepony put it on the tapestry that one time." The signature had been too faded to read. She'd tried. A lot.

"Which means it can be broken," Spike pointed out. "Because you broke it. Why use a spell somepony can break?"

"That would eliminate just about every spell," she sighed. "And I didn't break it, exactly. I sort of -- pulled on the wrong part, and -- well, at least the tapestry survived. For a while. And everypony's hair grew back. Spike, it's still the best option we have. Every other security spell in the world has somepony who truly knows how to counter it, and these thieves... they're using more magic than just about anypony I've ever seen. After the police asked me to consult on the third robbery... it's like there's at least twelve of them, a gang, so many signatures, too many spells for just one pony to really master..." said the unicorn who possessed what was believed to be the greatest learning capacity on the continent. "They're doing a lot. But I'm still guessing they can't break the Lockdown. Not properly. So like I said -- Volume 800."

"It's four in the morning," he replied instead of doing something sensible, like fetching Issue 11. "Again. And you're squinting at the text, you're too tired to think and you're too tired to recognize that, you've been pushing for too many days, and --"

He was her little brother. And so she ignored him and flipped to the next page, hoping to ambush the words before they really got a chance to start moving.

Spike stopped talking. Green eyes stared at her.

"Do that again." It was very close to an order.

"...do what?"

"Turn the page."

She frowned. "Why?"

"I want to see your corona. Your field. Just do it, Twilight. And -- then I'll go get Issue 11?"

As bribes went, belatedly fulfilling a request she'd already made wasn't exactly much. But under one of the other hooves, it was what she needed, so...

Her horn ignited at the most partial level of corona. Her field casually flipped the page. And on her right, outside her notice (but not that of her sibling), a beaker suddenly vibrated.

"Twilight... you're sparking."

She blinked. It seemed to take more effort than usual to open her eyes at the other end. "I am?" The attempt to cross her eyes in a way which would have them focus on her horn was automatic, and just as automatically (and anatomically) impossible.

"Envelop that issue in front of you. Carefully. And then look at it."

She did so, squinting, completely missing the sound of three beakers rattling. "Oh -- oh, dear..."

Her field was -- fizzing. Near-microscopic bubbles were in a state of near-constant rise and fall along the boundary, like water on the absolute edge of boil. And if Spike had said she was sparking...

"I am tired," Twilight sighed. "Too tired to try running any experiments tonight even if I did find something I could use. Okay, Spike. I'll go to bed --"

Rushing, hoping to get through in time "-- Twilight, I don't think that's just from being tired, your chemistry set just --"

"-- after Issue 11. Which you promised me. Bring it down?"

"Twilight -- a tired unicorn doesn't --"

"-- Spike. Issue."

He silently went up the ramp, came back down. Watched her in silence as she read, too focused on trying to make out the increasingly-jittery words to pick up on the sounds of the smaller pieces of equipment undergoing micro-shifts in position. And in the end, she closed the magazine, stretched her back and all four legs -- then yelped.

"OW! Okay, we were down here too long! Oooh, that's a cramp -- and that's another one -- and -- Spike, I'm sorry, but you have --"

Without a word, he balled his claws into fists, carefully pushed at the spots she indicated with field glow. (The issues which had been arranged throughout the laboratory shivered slightly.) And then he walked her up the ramp, staying close.

"I guess I did push it," Twilight sighed. "We'll just have to hope the library's security holds tonight, and that we wake up in time if it doesn't." For the police were trying to guard what they saw as the high-risk zones -- but with the Elements back in Canterlot, they oddly refused to perceive the library as the most necessary posting. "Fine. Bed." Because her head was swimming, and the ramp was a little blurry, and those muscle cramps hadn't completely gone away. Giving some time over to Luna (and perhaps a little for Celestia as well) was her only possible move.

Spike said something. She mostly ignored it. "No, I'm not. I'm just tired. I'll be fine in the morning."

He tried again.

"You're being silly," she yawned. "So silly... really, Spike, just because you were in the school with me and saw other ponies who had it, there's no reason to think I'd get it. I haven't had it yet, right?"

"You're a unicorn." That got all the way through, but only for a moment. "Any unicorn can --" and she lost the rest in her own yawn.

"Bed..." she sleepily muttered. "Time for bed... I'm her student and study time is over, so bed..."

The rest of the trip to the loft was made with Spike propping her up. She nearly dropped off twice along the way, and then a third time as he pushed at her hindquarters, trying to boost her all the way onto the mattress. After that, there was some confusion involved in the settling and tucking of blankets, but she missed pretty much all of it, already well on her way into the nightscape for a dream consultation with the caster whose work she could not match.

Spike sat on the edge of her bed for a while, occasionally glancing back towards his sleeping sister. There was no point at which he tried placing a scale-covered hand to the back of a furry ear, for a species which was just about immune to fire had a rather difficult time in gauging fine degrees of heat. He simply sat. Thinking.

She tried to move, which turned out to be the first mistake.

Ow.

Maybe she'd slept wrong. Or done -- something... before heading to bed. A few seconds were spent in searching her somewhat-blurry memories, which became a lot harder as she approached the end of what she was almost sure was the proper sequence: putting in that many waking hours under Moon for so many cycles in a row seemed to be taking a toll. A toll which was now being paid in muscle cramps, a mild headache (just enough to let her know it was there and not going away any time soon), and a desperate need for wake-up juice.

"Spike? Can I get some juice, please?" She winced at the sound of her own words. What had she done last night...? Well, obviously nothing critical: her tail was attached, all four legs were accounted for, and she'd made it to bed. "Lots of wake-up juice. Maybe all the juice we have. And a straw. I don't want to lift my head. And some headache medicine. So I can lift my head. And --"

-- no response.

She forced her body to shift, just enough to let her see the basket. Empty. Well, he'd probably gotten up before her. He could be in the kitchen, or straightening the library, or out and about in Ponyville -- but no matter what the reason was, it meant she could get her own juice. Assuming she could make it out of bed, which suddenly didn't feel like a guarantee.

One leg shifted, and she paused for the cramp to subside. Then two, and eventually all four were on the floor, she oriented herself towards the ramp, took a step and -- something else inevitably twinged.

Twilight sighed.

"Bathroom," she muttered, and went that way instead.

Cold water. Cold water in her face before anything else. She felt oddly hot, and that was probably just because she'd overslept -- she had overslept, right? -- long enough to have Sun warm her fur a little too much for a late spring morning. She entered the little bathroom, glanced at the sink, her horn ignited at the lowest possible level, and the tap turned.

Both taps turned. All the way. Water gushed into the sink at a force which wasn't really intended for use, which meant some of it rebounded and went into her face, where it certainly did the intended job -- if not quite at the intended temperature.

Also, the towels shot off the rack and skidded into her hind legs, three glowing washcloths wound up draped across her back, and the soap went off the wall so hard as to wind up coming back the other way, only at an angle which had it go off the other wall and into the ceiling, where most of it wound up lodged between fan mount and blades. The rest, now a sprinkle of impact-shed slivers, slowly fell about the room.

Twilight blinked, which got rid of all of the water and most of the soap.

Oh no.

Carefully, she looked into the mirror, and then ignited her corona again. She did not attempt to project her field, not even towards the still-gushing taps. A simple pre-movement summoning of her personal energy in the smallest imaginable amount...

The towels remained in place. The bathtub was happily static. The soap stayed where it was. And in her reflection, sparks flew from her horn, went in every possible direction, and landed nowhere she'd ever intended.

She extinguished the glow. For projecting it was now out of the question, and would remain so for days.

Rhynorn's Flu.

There had been cases at the Gifted School, because just about every unicorn was guaranteed to come down with it at least once in their life, with the unlucky and unwell going through the illness quite a bit more than that. Such cases had been quickly isolated for the four to seven days it took for the symptoms to fade, and then two more for safely, for nopony was quite sure how the sickness spread. Just that it tended to latch onto those who were physically weakest, or recently spent, with their body's defenses at their lowest ebb. Symptoms included muscle cramps, headache, a low-grade fever -- and field scattering.

A unicorn with Rhynorn's would find themselves unable to focus. Should they try to move an object -- that object might move. Or perhaps there would be something nearby that shifted instead. Possibly a number of low-weight items, as the sparks would subdivide the caster's energy among them, impart motion onto whatever they touched and had the strength to move. For an average unicorn, just attempting standard telekinesis in the middle of, say, a toy store could lead to a hailstorm of rebounding marbles. (Field dexterity was no factor in the number of things sent into motion, for none of them were under control.) And that was just with normal object manipulation. To attempt any degree of workings...

The headache could be treated. The muscle cramps would go away after taking the right medicine, at least for a few hours per dose. But there was no cure. And while every other symptom could be looked after, nothing allowed even the most temporary palliative for a unicorn's field.

Four to seven days during which she would be effectively unable to cast.

"...oh no," she whispered, and the words were hard. "I'm not -- I am not dealing with this. Not now." Not ever. "Not with thieves on the loose. Not when we could get a mission, not when --" and she didn't say it, not even to the mirror, but the image of the crown flashed in her mind, and --

-- the crown. Could it...?

It was in Canterlot, along with the other five. Retrieval would take a day, while openly experimenting with the Elements required five extra ponies and a truly good explanation for the Princess, who might not take "I'm sick" for an adequate answer.

But... the Elements were more than the jewelry. They were, to a certain extent, the ponies who bore them. And to that degree, the Element Of Magic... had no Bearer. For the one whom more than a few ponies saw merely as Magic now had none, and for that to continue...

It took several slow breaths before her reflection stopped shaking.

Four to seven days. That I know of. Medicine isn't my thing, plus I never got Rhynorn's, so I never really investigated it, not past when the first pony in school got it and I tore about the library trying to make sure it wasn't going to happen to me and be permanent. Maybe there is a treatment now, or even a cure. Sure, that sort of thing would have been all over the newspapers -- well, the medical journals -- but since when do I read medical journals? So the first item on the checklist is to go downstairs and research -- no, second. I have to treat myself, as far as I can. Get rid of the headache, the eye trouble, the symptoms that can be worked on. And then it'll be easier to research -- okay, third thing on the list: still have to use the bathroom. Badly. I should --

Eventually, the lid skittered to a stop against the base of the Reference section.

Spike was nowhere to be found. She had to do it all herself. And it was so hard.

She found herself pausing before just about every conceivable action. Stop: don't levitate the journals. Stop: nose the pages. And... it was making her feel all sorts of ways she didn't want to feel. 'Young' was a minor aspect of that, and generally ignored in favor of cowering under the blazing heat of 'incompetent'.

The journals had nothing helpful to say. And they took too long to search through, even when she used the year-end index volumes to desperately hunt for that one crucial subject, too long to remove and reshelve by mouth and yes, there were reinforced corners, always (some of which seemed to have recently picked up the minor indentations of claw tips), but she was putting her teeth on books and only kids did that or --

-- I can't do this, I'm supposed to be --

-- there were doctors in town. One was a complete idiot and Twilight had been investigating the legitimacy of his license for several moons, but Ponyville offered others to consult.

She grabbed her saddlebags -- stopped, put everything else back -- and then tried to remember how earth ponies and pegasi donned the things. The pegasi recollection came first, and after she rejected the idea of using leveraging wings which she would never actually have, she delved until she realized she'd never worn the things as a filly without having her parents put them on for her, and had never paid any real attention to how Pinkie and Applejack did it. Twelve minutes was spent in desperate wriggling, she never got them even remotely balanced, and then she realized she'd forgotten to load them with the older journals she'd been meaning to take to the hospital just to ask if anything had been a misprint.

And then she had to leave the library. There were no patrons to worry about: she suspected (and quickly confirmed) Spike had hung a Delayed Opening sign before taking to his basket, realizing she was almost guaranteed to oversleep. But there were thieves about, and Twilight -- couldn't activate the security spells, the ones which were currently attuned to her signature and no other. Would the criminals be bold enough to strike under Sun for the first time? Could they teleport out with her books, or walk through the walls, self-levitate themselves and their stolen bounty into the sky, forever beyond recovery...

But without Spike, she had no way to notify anypony that they had to come to the tree. And so, shaking with badly-repressed fear, her mouth turned the backup physical locks

Twilight gazed at the metal, silently said many of the prayers she knew, then made up a few more on the spot. Wrenched herself around and began to gallop for the hospital, passing a large number of somewhat-confused Ponyville residents on the way, some of whom immediately began to worry about what had put that expression on her face...

She got all of two blocks.

"Oh, good. Just the pony I wanted to see."

Twilight skidded to a stop. All four hooves briefly scrambled for purchase on the road, and her efforts left her about two body lengths away from the mayor. And Spike, on the older mare's left. And the chief of police.

The saddlebags unceremoniously fell off. Journals scattered past the lids which Twilight hadn't been able to properly secure.

"Ms. Sparkle," the mayor politely nodded. "If you would ignite your field for me, please? Just for a brief moment. No actual casting required."

Oh no...

She instinctively looked down at Spike, whose claws were relaxed. The reptilian expression was impassive.

"I don't want to," she quickly said, and wondered if that was enough.

"I did say 'please'," the mayor pointed out.

"And I'm saying no."

Ponies, always attracted to the drama of street theater, were beginning to slow in their trots and flights. To gather around them.

The mayor looked at Spike. Then at the police chief. The younger mare stepped forward.

"Twilight?" she began. "You're littering. It's not like you to just have magazines lying around, now is it? So -- would you mind cleaning that up?"

And Twilight, instinctively responding to the voice of a different kind of authority which was speaking to something near the heart of her, didn't think.

Okay. I can find where that issue landed. And the other one, that's just from two years ago, I can order it from the back catalog and pay for the replacement myself, from my salary, and if there's an emergency before then, the soaked one can still be read. Plus -- oh, right, that should have been first...

"I'm sorry, sir," she told one of the watchers, who was rubbing at his paper-bapped snout. "I didn't mean --"

The police chief cut her off with a sigh.

"Rhynorn's," the unicorn said, and looked to the mayor. "Like Spike thought."

Twilight stared at her brother. He stared right back.

"Why?" was the first question on the newest of checklists. "Why would you go and tell --"

"-- because I know you!" he suddenly yelled, and it was enough to push her back by half a hoofstep. "I've known you literally all my life! I grew up in a school where ponies were always getting it, I know what the onset looks like, but you ignored me because I'm your little brother, and I know you, Twilight, I know you'd start with the small stuff, the rational and reasonable, and when that failed, you might just keep right on going into theory and conjecture and anything that might work, especially with this!" His voice was getting louder, steadily approaching roar. "You've done the journals, you're about to do the hospital and there's no answers there because I already asked! Which means you'll just keep going forward along whatever you decided the track was, until you jump the rails. Not this time, Twilight! Not when you're sick! You won't listen to me, you hardly ever listen when you really need to -- so yeah, we're doing this here and now, because you left the library and there's nowhere else! You won't listen to me --" and quieter, all at once, but with the words so much more forceful "-- so I went over your mane."

He, too, looked to the mayor. Nearly everypony did, except for the few who were still focused on a suddenly-furious Twilight. "Spike, you don't have any right to go and --"

"-- Ms. Sparkle?"

The mayor's voice had a way of bringing silence.

"...yes?" Twilight eventually forced herself to venture.

"You are relieved of library command. Effectively immediately, continuing until the illness passes. Your sibling shall be in charge of the facility."

Twilight's hind legs went out from under her at the same instant her mind effectively froze. The mayor didn't bother to notice.

"Furthermore," the elected official went on, "all magical experimentation is to cease. Also immediately. You shall not further your studies, not in a way which requires the use of your field. You shall not attempt to invent a cure. And most especially, you shall not utilize your field in public --"

That got her brain going again. "You can't."

The mayor tilted her head slightly to the right. Glasses shifted. "Can't what?"

"Can't order me not to use my natural magic. It's like telling a pegasus she can't fly --"

"-- if a pegasus, through every flap of her wings, risked creating a tornado? Then she would be a public safety hazard. And yes, I could and would order her grounded for the duration. Any normal pegasus. Any normal unicorn. And you."

"But --"

"-- do you remember the parasprites?"

The wince was automatic, unstoppable and, given the size of the still-increasing crowd, very public.

"Ah. Yes, I see you do. Well, Ms. Sparkle -- so do I. Also a certain, shall we say, one-item upsurge in the local doll market." Thoughtfully, "And then there was that odd hopping citrus. I never did find out what that was about... The point is, Ms. Sparkle, that I, and the rest of the settled zone, have some experience with what you can create through both deliberate effort and forgiven mistakes. I am not particularly interested in learning what you might be able to accomplish through pure accident --"

"-- it won't happen! It can't!"

Another head tilt, to the left this time. "Oh?"

Twilight frantically nodded as she theorized for her very life. "The energy's too subdivided! There's no focus! Movement can be really casual for low weights, but unless it's your personal trick, you usually have to concentrate on a spell! And when you concentrate and the energy doesn't focus... Telekinesis just sort of -- works itself out on little things in the area, you saw that, and it's randomized, so a spell might sort of have the same problems --" I'm burrowing myself deeper into the haystack "-- but with a true working or just plain movement..."

She paused, desperately tried to work the math. Failed, because she had absolutely no idea what any part of the equation was supposed to look like. And, believing nopony else did either, lied.

"...with the subdivision, you'd never get more than -- three percent of the total thaums or caster's strength in any single effect!"

Silence did not greet her brilliant lie. Instead, the crowd began to murmur, and more than a few pulled back.

"Three percent of the unicorn who simultaneously levitated both water tower and Ursa Minor," the mayor said with what felt like a forced steadiness, "may be somewhere over one hundred percent of an average pony. Shut it down, Ms. Sparkle. Of your own free will. Or..." She nodded to the police chief.

That horn ignited. A saddlebag opened, and a thick cone of metal came floating out.

A restraint? "No, no..." She was breathing too fast, too hard, and everypony could see it... "That's for criminals, I haven't broken the law, you can't..."

"They can also be prescribed for medical reasons," the mayor quietly reminded her. "And you have Rhynorn's. All I have to do is get a physician to confirm the chief's diagnosis. And should it truly come down to a criminal complaint being required --" a long moment of silence, during which the history of Ponyville under Bearer residence marched in front of both mares "-- I'm certain I can come up with something."

"No." Not from Spike! Not from the mayor! Not when everypony knew she couldn't -- wasn't -- no! "I'm a Bearer. This is my Element. You don't have the authority to stop me!" Does she? "Not when it's that! I have to -- I might be needed -- and -- and..."

The mayor sighed.

"Very well," she shrugged. "I was hoping it wouldn't come to this. But..."

The crowd held its breath.

"Mr. -- hmm. If I'm addressing you this way, then the most natural surname to apply would be that of the House, yes? Especially given your formal adoption? Oh, good. In that case --- Mr. Twinkle?" Spike nodded. "Take a letter."

Twilight's eyes widened.

"Oh, no," she immediately insisted. "That's not going to work. The Princess will understand. She knows me. She knows about -- about us being needed. She'll --"

But Spike had removed scroll and ink from the chief's saddlebags, was standing at the ready. And the mayor took a breath.

"Dear Mrs. Velvet."

Twilight's breathing stopped. Her heartbeat nearly followed suit.

She stared down. At the one sapient being in the entire settled zone who had known to tell the mayor about that. The one who'd won before the battle had ever begun.

"You... you fewmet!"

Spike didn't say a word. The mayor simply said "Language, Ms. Sparkle, language. I trust you understand the consequences now?"

And Twilight fumed. She seethed. She plotted a thousand kinds of revenge in a moment and made plans to consult Rainbow on the refinement for seven hundred of them. But openly, the only thing she could do was...

"...yes."

The mayor nodded.

"Mr. Twinkle, the library is yours for the duration. Ms. Sparkle -- shut it down."

The word was too gentle for her current tastes. "Twilight --"

"Don't talk to me." She refused to even look at him, and felt as if that state might last forever.

"You know this is the best thing," Spike softly insisted as he carried her saddlebags. "You know what happens when you obsess. I had to --"

"-- Mom, Spike? Seriously? Mom?"

The trot was a slow one. A few ponies, curious to see if there would be an extra act, were trailing them as they made their way back towards the library. Two had just giggled.

"It worked," Spike said.

Her only counter was "Fewmet."

Immediately, "Horse apple."

That got her to turn. He was standing still, defiant claws on hips.

"...what did you --"

Calmly, "-- you heard me."

She had no words. There had to be words...

"I did what was best for you." Staring directly into her eyes. "Before everything went wrong. That's my job, and I did it right this time. It's not your fault for getting sick, Twilight, other than not listening to me for four straight nights and pushing yourself to the point where it was just easy for you to get sick. But it would be my fault if you -- obsessed, because I'm supposed to stop you, and for once, maybe, just maybe, that's what I did. So be mad at me. Hate me if you have to. And when you're done, I'll still be there, waiting to stop you again. Because I love you enough to stop you, every time I can."

Green eyes closed, opened. Sun reflected from lustrous scales.

"Can we -- can we just go home?"

Eventually, her head dipped. The dark horn gently touched his forehead, and he allowed it.

"Spike," she sighed. "I... you know that was really embarrassing, right?"

"It's more effective than fear," he pointed out. "A lot of the time, anyway. And with Mom -- it's sort of a mix. I'm sorry, Twilight, but I thought you'd sleep longer, and... it would happen at the tree."

Well, if extra embarrassment equaled extra effectiveness, then Spike had just discovered the most efficient policy enforcement measure known. She felt as if she was still blushing, although it was hard to tell how much of the heat radiating from her face was from that, as opposed to fever, and he was exactly the wrong entity to ask.

"Let's skip the library for now," she reluctantly decided. Under Sun. Everything's been under Moon so far, from what the police said. They won't try anything under Sun.

"But --"

"Pharmacy first. We always have headache medicine." The talks with Ratchette guaranteed that: one understood magic, one had a mark which let her comprehend the specialized enchantments which created devices and made pony lives that much easier -- and when both talked, each was guaranteed to leave the other's brain aching in the end. "But I still need doses for the rest of it." Excepting her field, which nothing could help. "And then we'll go back and... you'll be... I can't even run a library, Spike, I'm not even good enough to run the library..."

He sighed. "That was just the mayor trying to create one less reason for you to use your field. You can do shelving. You can check things out, and write fine notices --"

"-- mouthwriting. I don't even know if I remember how to mouthwrite. And I was trying to do some things just from checking the journals, I'm too used to my field, nothing can substitute for --"

She stopped. Looked inwards, which meant she missed picking up on the pegasi and earth ponies among the audience who chose that moment to walk away. Two went in front of them, and a small glittering object fell to the ground. Neither sibling saw the drop.

"Twilight?"

"Headache medicine," she distractedly said.

"We have that. You said so."

"Headache medicine -- means..."

She began to distractedly trot away.

Spike watched. Shrugged. Began to follow -- and then his nostrils flared. The little dragon looked down, and saw the reflection of Sun off facets.

"Huh," he said. Then, "...huh! All right! Lucky!"

He knelt down, scooped the oddly-rough reddish-purple find into a quickly-closed fist, then hurried to catch up.

Ponyville's only fix-it shop had a way of being crowded, even in those moments when there were no regular customers present at all. One visitor (with Spike now sent to guard the library), one proprietor -- and tools attached to the walls, hanging from the ceiling alongside an assortment of spare parts which the owner frequently needed to sort through, things which were being actively being worked on covered long tables, removed parts were carefully lined up (some with number-bearing cards next to them), and then there were intact shed housings and dented ones which just needed some restoration, giant spools of wire (mostly silver, a little aluminum, and a tiny, deliberately isolated fine-spun roll of platinum), completely broken pieces for practice, partially destroyed ones for tinkering, and too much of it coated in oil and grease and stranger fluids, all of which had their scents soaking into Twilight's nostrils, while the substances themselves inevitably found residence in client coats -- and for the owner, that temporarily-stained status was always one missed bath away from becoming permanent.

That shop owner (and lone employee) took a deep breath. Steel-grey fur shifted, and the short-cut copper mane had a few metal shavings drop away.

"Twilight --"

"-- no, let me explain why," Twilight verbally surged into the awkwardness-created gap. "I know it's asking a lot to borrow it -- one of them? How many do you have?"

"...four," the mechanic eventually answered. "A backup for the main one, and two older models I keep around just in case both of those get broken."

"So you have spares!" Oh, she'd been hoping... and it was the first good news of the day. "Ratchette, please. If it's a question of income, just treat it as a rental! I need it for at least four days, no more than seven, and we can work out the rate, you know I don't mind paying for --"

"-- so it's Rhynorn's," Ratchette quietly said.

"How do you --"

"-- four to seven days without your field, and you came here for that. It's kind of obvious, Twilight. But..." Another deep breath, and Twilight tried not to look towards the resulting motion at the mechanic's sides. "...I don't know if it'll help you. At all."

"It's a device!" Twilight hastily insisted. "Sure, that's more your mark than mine, but it's a device! We've got to have enough intersection for me to make this work! And Ratchette -- you're the only one. The only pony I've ever heard of who owns this, who designed and created a field prosthetic...!"

Ratchette sighed. Her feathers shifted with the movement. Her gaze was momentarily downcast towards the stained floor, and then the only pegasus device mechanic in the history of Equestria looked directly at Twilight with sad copper eyes.

Two simple words. "It's not."

Utter confusion. "I've seen you use it! It works! What do you mean, it's not --"

"-- it's not a device, Twilight. There aren't any enchantments. There isn't a single thaum anywhere. It's clockwork and springs and levers and tiny switches. It's a machine, and it's one which takes another machine just to get it wound up in the morning. You're not going to have any instinctive understanding of the magic behind it because there isn't any. It's just -- practice. After Stile and I put it together, it took me moons to gain any real proficiency, and I'm still practicing all the time, every day. And for you... even when you start to get the hang of it, it's not meant for the kind of weights you move. Nowhere near. I can pick up two-tenths of a bale with the strongest clamp. That's all. And everything stays within hoofwidths of your snout, and there's all the switches in front of my jaw, you don't know which ones to flip and I've never written a manual because I'm the only pony who uses it. Twilight -- it lets me twist wires and tilt parts. Make fine adjustments which my hooves, wings, and mouth never could. It lets me be a mechanic. But it's not a real substitute for a field, especially not in the ways you use yours. It picks things up, moves them, and puts them down. Small and close. That's all. And -- that's all it'll ever do."

She took a breath.

"Plus everypony keeps telling me I look like I have a giant steel spider eating my face."

"Ratchette --"

"And I'm alone in here most of the time when I'm working," the pegasus said. "I'm not sure it's a good look for somepony running a public library."

Twilight smiled at the young mare, who was actually rather pretty in those rare times when she was fully clean and wasn't attached to a metal arachnid. "Ratchette -- please?" Because maybe it was just a machine (and she'd never really thought about it that way at all), but it was a machine designed to simulate a few things about a field, and something was better than nothing. Plus Twilight knew she was smart enough to figure out a simple clockwork machine.

Hesitantly, "I don't --"

"-- I'll be careful."

"But it takes time --"

"-- what else am I going to do for the next few days?" Other than not sleep while waiting for a potential break-in which she could no longer stop. She couldn't even tune the security spells for somepony else: the current owner needed to personally do the shift to a substitute. "The mayor shut me down. And without my field, I... please, Ratchette?"

The pegasus' eyes moved, quickly. To Twilight's hooves, then up again.

"I -- okay. One of the older models, though. It's simpler. There aren't as many switches, and it's missing some of the tools I worked out later -- but you don't need those. You just want manipulators, and it'll manage some of that. But... I guess you could practice in here for a while, and I could draw a diagram showing which switch does what. Otherwise, it's trial and error, and I don't think you want to --"

It was Twilight versus a machine. How hard can that be? And Spike in the library alone, with criminals roaming through Ponyville, crooks who knew so many spells, in a time when Twilight couldn't do the most basic working...

"I've got to get back. Package it for me. I'll work it out when I get home."

"Twilight, I think that's a mistake --"

"You know all those new locks you just installed on your door? I don't have those. And I can't even activate --"

"-- I've got a lot of work today, but I can stop by tomorrow morning and put on some --"

"-- the prosthetic. To go. Thirty bits a day."

Ratchette winced. Twilight wasn't sure why.

"I'll... I'll just come by tomorrow," the mechanic said as she turned, headed for the storage area at the back. "To -- bring the winder. And... see how you're doing..."

There was a giant steel spider on her face. No actual eating was in progress.

Spike was standing five body lengths away, his tail nearly poking into the World Literature shelves. That was just silly. The clamps couldn't reach anywhere near that far.

"Are you ready?" he cautiously asked.

"I think so," Twilight said from her position behind the library's main desk, trying to minimize the distortion of her words. (There had been a single patron present when she'd first come in. Then she'd put it on, and after Roseluck's fainted body had once again been taken to her home, there were none.) "This is -- weird. The weight... actually, that's not so bad. It's lighter than I thought it would be, really. It looks like steel, but I think she used alloys for a lot of this. It's not so bad. It's just -- hard to get used to. Having weight there."

He nodded.

"My neck kind of aches."

"Do you need some more medicine?"

"No, I took it twenty minutes ago... Talking is weird. I can't open my mouth as much as usual. And there's all the little switches in front of my jaw. I'm not hitting them when I talk, but if I stick my tongue out a little -- oh, of course that's how it's designed, she has to talk to clients without wrecking anything..." She smiled, which was just barely possible. "I've seen her use it, Spike, but... I never really thought about how much had to go into designing it. She does so much, when she shouldn't be able to..."

A slow breath.

"All right. There's twelve switches. And five dials with little ridges: I guess my tongue pushes on those. Plus a slide-lever. And some -- some... I'll check the dictionary before we do those. I'm going to hit the switch on the far left now. And that should -- well, obviously it does something. Are you ready?"

Spike nodded, held up the scroll. "Ready."

"Okay." Twilight took a breath. "Label this as S1. Flicking it." Slowly, she stuck out her tongue.

It's just a machine. Spells are complex. Machines are easy.

What was she going to need, thirty seconds per switch, with most of that as the pause required to let Spike write things down? Twenty minutes would probably be more than enough to pick up on the basics.

Switch #1: picked up the checkout stamp.

Switch #2: experimental mane and fur curler. Because Ratchette had a rather lank fall for her short-cut style, and while it gave the mechanic less to clean at the end of any given day while suiting her face nicely, it was probably about time for a change, and so Ratchette had designed something which would arc backwards, go into fur and mane, and twist them into curls. Obviously. Because no matter what Twilight tried, that was the way things had worked out, and therefore that had to have been the design intent. Masterfully done, really. But still, after Switch #2, they'd put the Temporarily Closed sign on the library door. Just in case.

Dial #4: emergency alertness generator. Because after Twilight had pinched her own skin six times in a row, she was certainly alert.

Thingamajig #6: removed excess nostril hair. Actually, all nostril hair. (It took a while to move on from Thingamajig #6, and even longer before the last echoes of the scream faded away.)

Switch #9: tonsil inspection.

Switch #12...:

...Twilight hastily pawed the prosthetic off her face, dashed across all five body lengths, snatched up Spike's notes between her teeth, and with no other convenient means of destruction available, chewed them to death.

"We are never bringing up Switch #12."

"But --"

" -- in front of Ratchette. Or our friends. Or Mom. Especially Mom."

Spike was barely comprehensible through his giggles. "But..."

"EVER."

He nodded, although Twilight didn't trust the grin which came with it. And she sighed. "Look... let's try this by remote. Can you get me the long pointer?" He nodded, fetched the thin stick. "Okay. Get the prosthetic. Turn it -- right, switches towards me... You stand on the other side. Back up. A little more. No, a lot more. On the ramp is fine. And now I'll just poke them. With the stick. From a safe distance. And we'll start the note sheet over again. Except for Switch #12. Just cross out Switch #12. Three times. Ready?"

Another nod. Twilight took the pole up between her teeth. Switch #1...

"Twilight?"

She already knew.

"You hit, like, three at once there, plus a dial. And... I can see it from my end, the checkout stamp..."

...is still picked up. That was starting to feel permanent. Twilight glanced towards the nearest window. Sun was visibly on the descent. They'd been doing the testing for hours, and all she had was a partial list of disasters, which was nothing compared to the nightmare of theft...

She put down the stick just long enough to talk. "I'll try again. Switch #1."

Too many.

"Switch #1."

Even more.

"Switch #1 -- oh, buck this!"

It was instinct. Work from a distance. Precision movements. The tiniest possible exertion...

Most of the field's energy hit the prosthetic.

Spike worked on the results for twenty minutes, by claw. None of the switches ever unlocked. Twilight, sitting in a self-assigned corner, watched every last attempt to correct her failure. And sighed. She'd... cleaned up the portion of the Periodicals section which had switched over to NOW at the instant her illness had reached it. As best she could, which wasn't good enough. And now... now, all she could do was watch Spike, who had justifiably been given library command because she couldn't do anything...

"I'm going out."

Spike looked up at her from where he'd been conducting a small war on The Switch Which Would Not Be Written About.

"Just -- out," Twilight said, slowly trotting towards the door. "Just walking, Spike. I need to clear my head, and this isn't -- I'm not... out. I'm going out. Open the library. I'll be back before closing."

Rarity was on a buying trip: picking out fabric in Canterlot, and a moment could always be spared to pity the wholesalers. Fluttershy was too far out towards the fringe, Rainbow was generally hard to find in a hurry, and with most ponies wrapping up work for the day, Pinkie was too busy selling them treats for the way home. But it was a market day, and that meant she knew where to find Applejack.

There weren't any customers to interrupt, mostly because there hadn't been that much stock to sell: Applejack had a few things which were ready to go at this time of year (and Twilight vaguely suspected that the Cornucopia Effect was responsible for a couple of unusual harvest times), but that was it: a few. The majority had sold quickly, and the remainder would be the farmer's snack on the way home, for by the time she'd reached the cart, it was already being folded back into its more compact form. But Applejack stopped when she spotted Twilight on the approach. And then she listened.

Admittedly, the 'Ah'm listenin'' expressions on the earth pony's face didn't seem to be the standard ones. More -- exasperated. But Twilight didn't see much of that. She spent most of her talking time staring down at her own forehooves, as the market square closed around them and passing ponies who might have seen the public opening curtain seemed to giggle.

"I'm useless," she finished. "Completely useless. For four to seven days. I can't use my field, I can't cast anything, I can't move the tiniest switch without starting a disaster, and my poor Periodicals section... I... I can't do anything."

Applejack said two words.

"...what?"

"Ah said, 'perittómata távros'! An' Ah meant it!"

It didn't make any more sense the second time. "Applejack, I've never heard that, it doesn't even sound Equestrian..."

"It ain't," the farmer shot at her. "It's Minotaurus. Felt like a special occasion, somethin' none of the usual words were gonna work for. An Ah gotta say, it felt right, because it takes a whole new curse t' show jus' how Ah feel right now, listenin' t' this -- this -- perittómata távros!" A single hard nod. "Yeah, that's the stuff. Twi, Ah've been listenin' t' you for 'bout forty minutes, how y'can't do this and y'can't do that and everythin' else, and y'know what? Mah turn. Mah turn t' talk, yours t' listen. And here's what Ah've gotta say first: get your head out from under your tail. 'cause the only thing you're doin' back there is throwin' yourself a pity party, an' Ah don't wanna go. Ah've seen and heard what you're serving. It sucks."

Twilight head came up, and she knew she was blinking too fast, her breathing was starting to accelerate... "Applejack -- did I say something wrong?" And the desperation was rising faster than her pounding heart rate. "Please, you've got to tell me, I don't always know, I still don't always know and if I was offensive, I didn't mean to be, but I don't know what I said that was wrong --"

The orange forehoof lightly touched her mouth. Twilight stopped.

Applejack sighed, held her position with the right foreleg raised. Took two slow breaths. Lowered the leg, tapped Twilight's left and right forehooves.

"Y'were born," she quietly said. "An' y'started on magic quick, Ah know. Worked it out once from the stories y'told me. Early bloomer. An' your Surges were probably somethin' t' see when you were a foal, maybe from a distance. But in between... y'had years, Twi, years like every other unicorn has years, the years which Ah think keep a few of yours from gettin' a little too full of yourselves. The years when it was..."

The leg came up again. Touched mouth, left forehoof, right forehoof.

"All this stuff you're complainin' 'bout, that y'can't do for four t' seven days? Two-thirds of Equestria can't do it for their whole lives. An' here you are, bitchin' and complainin' and whinin' up a storm like Rainbow could never spin up, because poor you has t' go an' live like that for four t' seven days."

She slowly shook her head, with the hat never shifting. And Twilight couldn't say anything, didn't know if there was anything which could be said.

"Because y'can't show off. Because y'can't float stuff an' do flashy things an' be all public an'..." Stopped. "No. Ah'm sorry for that last. Ah know y'don't show off, not as anywhere near as much as some do, or that one did. But... y'still got pride. In your magic. An' sometimes, Twi... sometimes not much else. So when there's no magic, y'don't have anythin' to have pride in, an' y'still don't always have it in yourself even when y'should, and..." Another sigh. "Ah know, Ah really do. But... honestly, Twi..." and her lips momentarily quirked at the redundancy. "...sometimes, you're kind of annoyin'."

Were these the right words? Could any be? "I'm -- I'm sorry..."

"S'alright," Applejack said, and the word was not unkind. "You vented. Ah kinda... well, we're both done for now. But Twi..."

Mouth. Left forehoof. Right forehoof.

"...y'got what y'need."

And then her forehead, well away from the horn.

"Y'got plenty."

She smiled.

"Now go home. Ah can't come with: gotta lock down the Acres, with thieves on the loose. But Spike needs you t' help with the cleanup, an' you've gotta close shop, get on guard. So go home."

Carefully, trying to force herself past the weight of a disbelief which might never fully go away, "Applejack -- are we..."

"We're okay," the farmer said, and so it was the truth. "Get home."

"But..." Two worries would not go away. "If we get a mission -- or the thieves show up -- what am I supposed to do?"

"What y'do when we really need you to. The thing you're best at. Y'don't need to work magic t' know it: Spike proved that with the geese. So... y'come with us. Y'watch out for us. An' when we need you most... y'think."

She came in to find Spike yawning.

"Long day?" she asked him, smiling. "No research or experiments tonight, if that helps."

"No..." Spike yawned. "I just -- had dinner while you were out. And some lucky dessert. And... is it closing time yet?"

Sun was almost down. "Yes." And they'd had some patrons while she was out -- which her little brother, primarily concerned about where his next (and early) meal was coming from, hadn't straightened up after. "Come on... I'll help you clean up."

"But..." The biggest yawn so far, one which almost let her see the strange glands at the back of his mouth which she felt served for ignition. "...I'm in charge..."

"So I'm your assistant." Her lips quirked into a smile. "Tell me where to start."

It was... what two-thirds of Equestria did every day. More when you considered the younglings. And she'd been that young once. She'd been just like everypony else. Equality in youth.

Mouth. Hooves. And to direct them, brains.

She thought about her actions. She thought about how Applejack did things, some of Pinkie's more -- typical -- solutions. Factored out wings and made a few Fluttershy moves. Tried to remember what it had been like, when she was small, and found herself pushing with her head a lot, carefully angled to prevent her horn from scratching wood or tearing pages. It was harder than it should have been: she was severely out of practice. But... it was what the majority did, and would do for their entire lives.

So she did it. Not perfectly, not even close. But... three to six more days of practice. And some extra time after she recovered, so she wouldn't forget again.

It was hard. It was a challenge. It was a lesson.

But she decided to sleep on it before any attempt to render the education into Princess-suitable words, for emotionally, it had been a very long day, and Spike -- wasn't up to sending anything right now. He could barely keep his head up throughout the straightening, nearly fell asleep leaning against a broom, and it was she who had to prop him up all the way to his basket, being careful about her horn. It was understandable: her research had been pushing him hard too, and a younger body needed more sleep.

She took some medicine to keep the night aches down, got into bed, stared out the window and waited to fall asleep.

It didn't happen.

I'm worried.

No -- I'm stressed. About the thieves.

Maybe they won't hit the library at all. Not everypony understands about the value of rare book editions, much less knows where to try selling them. (She wasn't sure on that last bit herself, although part of her desperately wanted to find the black market so she could shut it down forever -- right after finishing up on some shopping.) Maybe we're okay.

A sigh.

Just rest.

She looked at the window. She looked at the clock. An average of twenty-two minutes passed between each change of view.

Figures. Maybe I'll just go downstairs and get a book --

Which was when she heard the rattling.

The library, like most such structures, had been designed to channel and, to some degree, magnify sound: it allowed the librarian in residence to quickly pick on offenders, along with rendering any attempt to sleep through one of Pinkie's welcoming parties into a truly impossible mission. Things going on by the door could easily be heard in the loft. And so... even though they felt they were being quiet and likely would not have woken her under normal circumstances, she was still awake and...

"Almost?"

"Yeah. Almost in. Can you believe this luck? Just give me a minute and I'll have the last lock off..."

Twilight pushed herself out of bed, tried to plant her hooves as quietly as possible, slide-walked to Spike's basket and carefully poked his shoulder.

"Spike!" An urgent hiss of a whisper, pitched in a way she knew would keep it from carrying down. "They're right outside! I need you to send a letter to the police chief! Let her know they're here, and then we just hide..."

He didn't wake up.

He breathed. He twitched a little. But she poked at him, again and again, even risked a tiny shove with the side of her horn and he would not wake up.

And that, combined with the sound of the last lock giving way, the door opening and the intruders coming in, was when she began to fear.

"Hear anything?" Mare voices, both of them. That one sounded a little older.

"No. They're asleep. Just keep it quiet, and it'll stay that way."

"What about the dragon? Are you sure that worked? That was our last charge on the Intensifier, and we used it on a rock..."

The grin was almost audible. "Yeah. Intensified its properties. Don't you trust my reading? Garnets make dragons sleepy. Boost our one that just can't possibly be anypony's jewelry, drop it right in front of him... you know he's gonna eat it. And hearing that little performance out there, knowing she doesn't have magic right now... we saved so many thaums because we didn't have to null out her security spells. I can wait to rip somepony off on getting the Intensifier back up if it means not nulling out a dozen little tricks on the way in."

"The original plan," the older said, "was to come into the library during operating hours, sneak into the pantry, and drug her food too. And with all those random Closed hours, we never got in. If she wakes up..."

"What's she gonna do? This tiny, thin sick little unicorn with Rhynorn's. Spark us to death?"

"Good point. All right... let me get the list out... okay, I can see it now." (The ground floor was still dark.) "Start with Ancient History: that's supposed to be her specialty and if I know that kind at all, she's added a few which aren't in the usual catalog. And if I've heard anything else about this one, it's that she puts everything back, exactly where it goes, every night."

And in the loft, Think.

Think, Twilight! Spike's not waking up. It usually takes a lot more than a single garnet to put him out, and that's why he used it for dessert -- but with whatever they did -- charge? Used a device to cast a spell they didn't know? That would explain the weirdness with the signatures. But there were so many -- focus! Spike's out. He's breathing normally, but he won't wake up until the altered garnet clears his system. That's hours. But it's dark in here and the front door is unlocked. They closed it behind them, I heard that, probably so the library would look normal from the outside. But it's unlocked. I could try to sneak down in the dark, get out, and reach the police station.

Except that I'd be leaving Spike in here with them. Get back while they're still here, wait outside the tree, they hear anypony, and it's a hostage situation with somepony who can't wake up and defend himself.

She looked down at the basket. Differential shadows and Moon-glinted scales resting in the dark.

Can I move him? No, that's not realistic. He's too heavy. I can shove the basket around, but that would take a long time and when we get to the ramp, it's guaranteed to make noise. I can't carry him in my mouth, or just hold him by an arm or leg or by his tail, and I can't get him balanced on my back. And I can't leave him.

She heard a small cry of delight, books being removed from the shelves...

Reach the central lighting device trigger, illuminate the tree? Ponies are used to me being up at this hour. All hours. They won't recognize it as a sign that something's wrong. And they'd run. With the books.

Maybe... maybe her best option was to stay right where she was. Guard Spike. Just -- let the thieves finish. And once they were gone, then she could rush to the police, maybe there would still be time to intercept...

And if they get away? With all those volumes? I can't replace...

I can't replace Spike.

I can't leave. I can't risk him.

I can't let them get to the loft. There's books up here. If they find anything missing, they might check to see what I've been reading. And I've got The Princess Bridle on the nightstand right now: if they've got a good list, that's on it.

I...

...have to stop them.

Right now.

Slowly, she pushed at the basket on its scrap of carpet, and the entire thing silently slid under her bed. One extra measure of protection. And then she slid her hooves, heading for the ramp.

They have a spell -- or a device -- to see in the dark. That's the only way they could read the spines. (Two more books came down: her heart twinged.) But they're facing the shelves. Or at least one of them is. And I can't see them. I can't even rely on creating glow, not where I want it, and... careful, careful...

Slide. Listen. Wait.

Could they hear her breathing? Her heartbeat? It felt as if those two things were almost all she could hear. But they were currently at the Ancient History section, her pride and joy, she knew where that was relative to the ramp and the answer was too close, maybe if she waited for them to shift...

"Pity about the Elements being moved," said the older.

"We'd never be able to sell them anyway," replied the younger. "Not without breaking them up for parts, if that's even possible. And you know... look, I'm okay with taking the books." With an extra hint of projection, "I'm fine with taking out a Bearer if it means we don't wind up in prison, because the enchantments would just find somepony new. But I'm not okay with sitting on six nice pieces of jewelry while the world ends. And going up to the Princess with a good lie about why we've got them isn't much of an improvement, because then our world pretty much ends, at least for the outside view."

They're willing to kill. It took a few seconds before she could move again.

"You're sure it would just find another Bearer?"

Smug, "Found this one, didn't it?"

"Well -- how about you?" A tiny laugh. "You'd make a pretty good Magic..."

"Tempting," was the simple reply. "Okay, how'd we do?"

"Beautiful. She's got a lot. Or --" that laugh again "-- had. But we're missing The Princess Bridle. Keep your eyes out for it, just in case it did wind up in another section. Could be on loan, though. Or -- maybe we'll check upstairs before we go."

Hoofsteps. They were moving. Away from the ramp. Twilight moved.

"Or," the older said, "I'll do that right now while you --"

Stopped.

"SHE'S UP!"

She turned, she looked at the ramp, she's going to --

And there was the sound of pounding hooves, heading for the ramp, coming towards her...

Twilight did the only thing she could do. She lowered her head and charged.

Get to the lights!

She couldn't cast. She couldn't aim glow into any part of the library and count on it to reach its destination. But she could still ignite her horn without projecting energy, and the most base level of wildly-sparking pinkish glow was just enough to let her make out the shape of the body pounding up the ramp towards her, the size, the mare's face was horribly distorted, she couldn't spot any features or anything resembling one, just bulk around the head, but the body was tall and wide and powerful and covered in things, the mare was huge and Twilight had been charging horn-down because that was a unicorn's last resort, but she didn't have enough momentum yet and there wasn't anything her small form would be able to do against such a large body without the luckiest of horn strikes in near-dark --

"I SEE YOU, YOU LITTLE --"

-- Twilight tripped.

On purpose.

And a fast-sliding little body aimed at vulnerable legs did a lot more than it would have from hitting higher up.

The thief was knocked off her hooves, went skidding down the ramp ahead of Twilight, who was already trying to recover and couldn't do it, scrambling to get up again and it wasn't working, they slid back to the ground floor together, skidded a short distance, went into a shelf --

-- books rained down on both of them, with the majority landing on the closer mare who'd hit first. The cries of pain inflicted by multiple atlases gave Twilight her chance. She tried to ignore the pain from where the The Ridiculously More Than Complete Guide To Mazein had grazed her right hip (and a direct hit would have been so much worse), scrambled up, she heard teeth snap at her heel as she moved, steering on memory, but there was another pony who could see her and the glow was enough to let her spot that body, just about as large, she dove to the left a split-second before the trampling, stretched out her right foreleg towards what she was praying was the right spot --

-- the lights turned on.

The one who'd gone into the atlases was slowly getting up. The other was braking at the end of her charge, getting ready to turn back. And...

...earth ponies.

They're earth ponies.

...I've never seen so many devices on two ponies in my life.

Gold there. Silver. That special glint of iridium, so rare and special. The perpetual danger of platinum. And it was all strapped onto multiple belts which wrapped around the bodies of both big mares, devices near the shoulders, hips, over their marks, and on their faces. Goggles on the face of the one who was still on her hooves, cones over the ears, built into a mask. She didn't know what two-thirds of the stuff did, and was familiar enough with the remainder to be terrified.

What little fur was visible on the fully-standing one was an unnatural darkness of shadow: dyed. But the mare who was still getting up... was equally dyed. A protective measure against identification. But shapechange workings beyond the outermost cosmetic effects was beyond the reach of normal magic: attempts to change features would shatter ponies from within as static bone moved in the only way it could. It meant the dye was a weak secondary line of defense. The face-obscuring goggled mask had been the first.

At least three devices had come off the belts on impact: she could see their edges among the volumes. So had the mask.

"Oh, isn't that too bad," the elder softly said. "She's seen my face."

The younger, almost fully turned now, hesitated. "We can go. We can go right now --"

"-- do you like my face, little sparkler?" the elder half-whispered.

"We can get to the door," said the one who'd originally been vocally willing to kill, who now seemed to feel something else entirely. "We can go --"

"She's seen me. She can identify me. Cops in every settled zone can look for us. It's never happened before. It's not happening now." All the way up. Hooves starting to paw the floor in a certain way. "And you said... you were fine with taking out a Bearer... So do you like my face, little sparkler? Is it a good thing to have as the last you'll ever see?"

And Twilight... was still trying to get up.

Then she stopped. Lay still on the floor near the checkout desk, head elevated just enough to see them.

"Get out of my library."

They stared at her. They laughed.

"Seriously," the elder smoothly whispered. "Those are her last words. That's all a Bearer can come up with before the trampling. No magic, little sparkler. You can't cast right now and I don't see a single device. You're not big enough for that horn to do much good, and it doesn't look like a sharp one to begin with. You're tiny, and you're out of ramps. So -- tell you what. New last words. I'll mail them to the precinct in time for somepony to repeat them at your memorial service. One last shot. What do you want ponies to remember you by?"

Twilight thought about it, and came up with what, under different circumstances, just might have been the worst last words in Equestrian history.

"We're closed for reshelving."

Her horn ignited. Partial corona. Single. Double. And she let the energy go. She let it go everywhere.

Sparks flew and, given that they were in the heart of the library, nearly all of them hit books.

Moving large numbers of objects... they generally had to match, for size and movement patterns alike. She could lift a hundred identical boxes as long as every last one was going in the same direction. Work with too many different shapes, throw in unusual kinetics, and it would tire her out: the animal stunt shortly before Trixie's return to Ponyville had been exceptionally ill-timed.

But these were mostly books, with some periodicals thrown in. And Twilight wasn't directing them. Nothing was. The energy acted at random, did as the illness wished, and what Rhynorn's Flu wished to do was scoop up a few hundred books and start accelerating them.

The first ones began to fly over her head. Twilight was gratified to see a decent percentage of hardcovers.

And then the screams began.

She didn't see most of what happened, for the sane thing to do was get to shelter, any degree of it available, and so she pushed her small body under her librarian's bench and used the checkout desk to shield her right side. But she saw enough. The books flew through the air, and too many of them went nowhere that would help, for that was how randomness worked: a number just wound up in different sections, at least three exited through different (closed) windows, and she thought she heard one simply put itself back. But with the sheer numbers involved, some of them were going to head for the mares. The mares who screamed, tried to dodge, get out of the way -- which just put them in the path of books which, until they'd moved, weren't going to hit.

The impacts resounded. The hardest ones came from volumes where Twilight had been lucky enough to have them land spine-first, which gave them the stopping power of a very large brick. One particularly satisfactory thud said The Ridiculously More Than Complete Guide To Mazein hadn't been done for the night, and it produced the loudest scream of all as a kneecap shattered.

"We've got to get out!" the younger screamed. "We can't --"

"I'M GOING TO KILL --"

"-- your foreleg's broken! There's too much noise! There's broken windows! Somepony's going for the police right now, you know it! Please, sis, please -- we've got to go now!"

Another impact: hind hoof into side. The younger gasped.

"And now she knows we're related," the elder snarled. "Get me out of here. Get me out before you do anything else..."

They staggered to the door, taking more hits along the way...

...gone.

Twilight's horn went dark, and she waited for the very last of the crashing sounds, plus ten seconds for safety, before she risked coming out from under the bench. Slowly got to her hooves, muscles aching from something more than illness, and looked around, just in time to see the first of her neighbors come through the open door.

"Twilight!" somepony gasped. (She wasn't sure who: her vision was starting to get blurry again.) "What happened? What happened... what happened to the library?"

She forced herself to look around. Squinted.

Books. Books everywhere. Books on the floor. On benches. Outside, since the window-breakers would have landed eventually. On the ramp, in the kitchen, covers open, pages visible, books which were upside-down and fallen open in a way that would crinkle pages, books twisted and scattered and put through chaos, and that was before she got to the magazines...

"Oh... oh dear..."

"Twilight?" asked that not-yet-identifiable pony.

"Is -- is anypony going to the police?" The room was starting to spin. Or maybe that was just her. "Because the thieves were just here. And then they left."

"We've got a pony on the gallop," came a stallion voice, somewhere behind the first pony. "Miss Sparkle, what happened?"

Hooves and mouth and brain and hundreds of books everywhere...

"Somepony? Please go upstairs and check on Spike. The bed shielded him, but he's not going to wake up for a while, they drugged him and... oh..." Twilight sighed as all four knees sagged, as she gulped at the air and did everything she could not to faint, "...this is going to be so much work..."

The thieves were on the run, or at least on the very severe limp. Every doctor for ten gallops around had been alerted to watch for a large earth pony mare with a broken kneecap. There had been no word yet -- but then, there hadn't been time for them to travel very far. And Twilight was assessing the damages. Windows needed replacing. No books had been lost, but some had been damaged, and one of those had been a volume whose wound made her want to weep -- but she had hopes that the Bradels could bring it all the way back. Snips' mother had skills.

The library was also being cleaned up. But for that, she had help.

"It's funny," Applejack remarked after her nimble mouth replaced another volume. "What happened in the end."

"How?" Twilight asked, after failing to match the same level of mandible dexterity.

"Well... y'didn't have magic. An' y'solved it -- with magic." Applejack shrugged.

Spike slowly trudged by, paused, yawned deeply. "What did you think she was going to do?"

"Dunno," Applejack admitted. "It sure ain't what Ah would have done, but Ah'm bigger. An' no horn. Still... kinda typical, Ah guess. Typical Twi. Even when she can't cast, she goes an' casts..."

And all Twilight could do was ruefully shrug. "We should take a break soon," she said. "I want to take Ratchette to the police evidence locker." She glanced over to where the mechanic was working on the Periodicals section. "We got seven of their devices, including the ones which got knocked off by the books -- but three of those are broken, and I want to find out if she can get them running again. I know what the goggles do, and I'm pretty sure the completely-discharged one is their Intensifier. I'm lost on the rest. But if they're something we can use, once the police don't need them any more, and if no original owner is looking for them... finders keepers."

"She'll have fun," Applejack decided. "For her idea of fun, anyways. Twi?"

"What?"

"Feelin' any better? The flu?"

"No. Still at least two and a half days to go."

"Yeah." A pause. "Feelin' better -- 'bout the rest of it?"

She thought about it, went to get another book, paused to rub Spike's spines.

Hooves. Mouth. Brain...

"Much."

...friends.

And family.