An Artist Among Animals

by Bandy

Rating: teen
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Rarity, Other, Thriller, Caramel
Length: 92731

Trouble looms in post-war paradise. When Rarity reveals an extraordinary debt to the Equestrian bank, Twilight Sparkle decides to help her friend the only way she can: by robbing banks.

Trouble looms in post-war paradise. Rarity’s overly generous sales strategy coupled with her unsavory dealings in the illegal Equestrian fur trade have sunk her deep into debt. With every day bringing her closer to homelessness, she is forced to assume her ex-life as a highbrow thief under the hoof of Equestria's last great crime lord, Don Noir.

Meanwhile, Twilight Sparkle searches for a way to help her friend. Her solution: bank robbery! Teaming up with a disgraced and disfigured con-pony, Twilight dives headfirst into the murky depths of the Equestrian underworld. Will she be able to sort everything out by the time Rarity's rent is due? Or will she wind up behind bars just in time to see Rarity wind up on the streets?

Set seven years after a cataclysmic war between pony and griffonkind, An Artist Among Animals chronicles a leader’s descent into corruption, a coward criminal’s mad dash for redemption, a broken veteran's struggle to save his soul, and an artist’s battle to retain her morals while still finding a way to make tons of cash.

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Cover art by Acreuball.

Published 2017-02-21 21:30:02 UTC
Last updated 2017-07-13 15:58:26 UTC

0: Prelude

Slanted moonlight like a low bent note fell from the heavens into twilight below.

Caramel Apple scrambled up the western wall of the crystal castle. The moon glowed like a streetlamp in the sky, casting a singular wall of light for him to ascend. His hooves burned under the strain. The castle’s walls weren’t just sheer--they were flawless. Far behind him bloomed the fire of a distant and endless war.

When he finally made it to the edge of the front balcony and threw himself over, he saw a beautiful mosaic of stars. The night was cool and clear. He smiled and imagined them sparkling all around him. A harsh chuckle escaped his lips in between gasps as he let his cheek rest against the floor. The castle threw off a subtle purple glow. No doubt he was laying on millions of bits worth of gems, flattened into a floor fit for a king. Purple lace curtains flanked a single, wide doorway leading into the castle. The moonlight transformed everything around him. The floors glowed lavender. The walls reflected moonlight into the corners

After a moment of rest, he got to his hooves and looked over the railing. From this height he could trace his path all the way down the castle wall, through the sleeping city below, all the way to the wasting plains beyond the city’s protective influence, finally terminating at the strange lights dominating the western horizon. It was a fire, that much he knew. Roaring silently from beyond the northern mountains, imminent like an explosion whose shockwave hadn’t reached him yet.

Hoofsteps came from beyond the balcony curtains. Caramel whipped around, but there was nowhere for him to hide. Grimacing, he flexed his hooves and attacked the wall once more. He barely got up ten meters before his grip gave out and he slid down the wall. His two bottom hooves made contact with the lip of the balcony entryway just as the curtains billowed open.

Four crystal guards and the gem prince emerged from the doorway. The guards took up posts at the balcony door below while the prince walked to the railing. The five of them stood there for a moment, statuesque except to blink at the raging inferno a few hundred miles away. When they moved, their bodies cast opaque, angled shadows over the floor.

Caramel looked into the night sky, desperate for celestial direction, a star-map to guide him through. His body was all twisted up, balanced perilously on his two hind legs. He let his breath out slowly as he ran a free hoof along the rock in search of something to hold onto. Opaque shadows closed in on his periphery.

More hoofsteps came from inside the castle. The guards stiffened. The silk curtain covering the doorway slid across the body of the gem princess as she walked slowly onto the balcony.

“Will it stop?” she asked the prince.

“No, your majesty,” he replied. “From its origin, the fire has consumed about eighty percent of the forest. Our agents say only the complete exhaustion of its fuel source will kill it.”

“So the whole forest will go.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

The princess sighed and turned her head towards the guards. “You may go back inside,” she told them. As they exited, she and the prince hung themselves over the balcony and stared at the ground far below. A beat of silence passed before the princess mumbled, “Your majesty.”

The prince chuckled. “Gotta keep up appearances.”

“Anything from your source?”

“She’s been very traumatized by this whole experience. If Equestria loses--”

“As if they’ll lose at this point.”

“--she could be tried for a war crime. At any rate, she’s very distraught.”

“You can’t mean she’s responsible.”

The princess trailed off. Caramel traced his remaining path of ascent to the top of the castle. He could feel it in his hooves--he wouldn’t make it. As his mind raced, he went back to staring blankly at the fire. From his perspective it looked as if somepony had ripped the sunrise open and spilled it across the horizon. The fires of a distant and endless war grafted orange light onto silvery clouds.

“The domestic outcry will be severe,” the prince said.

“If you think she’s in danger--well, we’ll have to be secretive about it, but I’ll make sure she can get asylum here. She’s as much family to me as she is to you. We’ll protect her.”

Caramel’s muscles ached. Strange lights filled his head. The moon and the sun glowed together in the twilight sky.

“At any rate, the fire could never reach the rainbow plains. Even if it did, we’d have the mountains to stop it,” the prince said.

“I’m not worried about the fire. The politics of burning a protected forest to the ground are a firestorm of their own.”

Caramel nearly slipped.

The prince chuckled. “Always the politician, my dear.”

The two kissed softly in the firelight. The prince lingered a moment longer on the balcony as the princess went back inside, his eyes half-lidded. Caramel clenched his barrel and held his breath.

“Are you coming inside,” the princess’s voice drifted through the curtain, “or are you going to make me finish my work all alone?”

The prince smiled and tossed his blue mane back proudly. “Coming, your majesty.”

The balcony grew quiet again. Caramel heard the distant echo of hoofsteps fading further into the castle. Beyond the castle, the hum of the invisible shield protecting the city formed a tritone against his ears.

He counted to ten, looked down to make sure the guards hadn’t stuck around, uncrumpled his legs from beneath him as slow as he possibly could, and made to lower himself onto the balcony.

Three legs slipped simultaneously. He grabbed at the ledge, missed, and fell onto the balcony. He hit the hoofsteps of royalty facefirst.

Once he wiped the little spackle of blood from the floor, he dug out his knife and slipped into the castle. The silk curtain felt divine against his fur, but he dared not linger there. As he made his way deeper into the castle, he thought about how he would kill a crystal guard if he had to. He couldn’t just stab it to death, for the blade would shatter against its crystal body. He couldn’t strangle it, because--again, the thing was made of crystal. The only reasonable way seemed to shoot it in the face a few times, not that discharging a firearm in an enemy palace would do him any good.

After a few minutes of searching he found an unguarded stairwell. As he climbed, he wondered whether or not all of this was really necessary. If the crystal empire really was made out of crystal, it might have been wiser to just steal a wall from somepony’s house on the outskirts of town, or maybe an older crystal pony. His thoughts turned to crystal nursing homes, then crystal graveyards. He wondered whether or not the crystallites buried their dead and whether or not they decomposed.

When he finally reached the uppermost room of the tower, he was sweating but overjoyed. During his ascent he had figured out how to kill a crystal guard. All he had to do was throw it from a high place--like the top of a stairwell--and watch it shatter like glass below.

He took the last two steps in one stride and looked around the tower room.

The crystal heart didn’t spark the same kind of awe as it had from ground-level. It bobbed above a star-shaped emblem embossed into the floor, rotating slightly. The open design of the room let him look out on the entirely of the crystal empire. A few lights pulsed dimly far below him. Looking south, he saw the distant firestorm again. It seemed brighter than the heart.

Caramel stepped over a few obvious pressure alarms and took the heart gingerly in one hoof. To his surprise, it weighed almost nothing at all. His brow furrowed, and he turned it over only to bend it cleanly in half.

He looked up and saw the silhouette of another pony leaning on one of the outer columns.

Sensing she was had, she twirled around the column and smiled. Caramel yanked a knife from his boot and said, “I’ll kill you.”

A shout echoed up the stairwell, followed by the sound of scuffling metal shoes. The other guards must have found the body.

Her smile sparkled against full black camouflage. Something glowed inside her ornate saddlebag. “Try,” she said joyfully.

Another shout from the stairwell distracted him. His eyes shot to the opening, then back to the mare. The knife felt good in his hooves. “Give me the heart. I’ll kill you.”

A curl of hair fell across her face and split it right in two. “Not with that attitude you won’t.”

Caramel gripped the fake heart and took a step away from the stairs. Warm air blew from the north. The firestorm was almost upon him. He could feel his core heat up. ”Give me the heart,” he said again, “or I’ll kill you.”

Boots hammered against crystal. The guards were coming to get him now. The climb was long, but he could hear their panting. They were almost on him.

“No,” the mare said one final time, “and that’s that. I’m sorry I have to leave you here.” Her pale eyes pulsed the color of nearby stars. “I’m really truly sorry.”

Caramel drew his face back in a snarl and threw the fake crystal heart at the mare just as the first guard entered the room. It sailed wide and and fell into the night. The guard, a unicorn, dropped his rifle and dove after it. The mare tossed another smile towards Caramel and fell backwards into empty space. Caramel followed her to the edge, but she was gone.

He turned to find the room full of guards, huffing and puffing and brandishing pikes and guns and swords. They fanned out quickly, cutting off the stairs. A few pegasus guards flew over his head and dove out of sight. The knife felt good in his his hooves. The firestorm burned away on the horizon. He twirled it in the air and threw it as hard as he could at the nearest guard. It bounced off his cheek in a torrent of sparks and skittered out of sight.

Without the knife he had nothing. He stepped back to the edge of the tower and gauged his fall. The moon hung above him, its light a towering beam for him to descend. Cold winds burned the skin on his face with the chill of the lower atmosphere. Down was freedom. Down was four broken legs for sure. Down was life. He exhaled and prepared himself for a drop.

Just before he could fall, the guards pounced. He managed to punch one guard in the teeth before another rose up with a knife in hoof and slashed his face open just above his upper lip. He twisted and staggered, inadvertently dodging a fireball and walking into another guard’s club.

His center tipped. The guards grabbed his rear legs just before he could fall to his death. He flailed and writhed and clutched at his burning face, but his legs would not budge. The blade had clawed deep into his face. His wails were eaten alive by the atmosphere. The guards shouted over and over. Blood poured down his face, into his nose, into his eyes, into his hair, into the air. His forelegs went limp. Caramel’s world redshifted to near-blackness, except for one thing.

He stared west, into the fires of a distant and endless war.

1: I7#11

Twilight Sparkle exited one screaming nightmare and entered another.

In her new dream somepony was banging on the main door of her castle. The noise was faint, but growing. In a tangle of fancy blankets and fear, Twilight rolled off the bed. She fumbled to grab a bag of combat charms taped to the underside of her nightstand as she wriggled her way out of her sheets. “Spike?” she called.

A few charms fell out of the bag as she opened the door. One of them activated and killed the little pot of flowers she had planted the other day to spruce up the hallway. She hoofed another one and moved towards the main foyer. Somepony shouted her name outside. It was just like the ration riots all over again. “Spike?” she called again.

A scaly head poked around the door to the main foyer. Twilight pressed the charms against her side so as not to alert Spike. “Yeah yeah, I got it. Don’t cramp your worrying muscle.” He paused. “Did those zebrican violets die already? I thought they bloomed year-round.”

Twilight shrugged. “The door, Spike.”

As Spike ran to the main door, Twilight quietly teleported the bag of charms back to her bedside table. She felt around her room with her magic until she found her favorite jacket on the floor, a frayed but comfortable thing with a high collar and coarse, fuzzy lining on the inside. Another flash of magic, and she was fully dressed. The fabric had a way of tempering her anxiety. She sighed low and made her way to the foyer.

Whoever was knocking at the door finally stopped, only to make a musical out of barging in and shrieking at the top of her lungs, “Twilight! This is important!”

Twilight groaned. “You do realize I leave the back door open for you and the girls to get in?”

Through the doorway marched a hysterical parody of Rarity, hair bent and makeup running comically down her cheeks. Every other step she stomped her right hoof, in which she held a crumpled piece of thick stationery. She left a smudged trail of hoofprints as she walked along the crystal floor, three of hair product and one of running ink.

“This is serious,” she repeated, softer this time. “This is so incredibly serious, Twilight. You have to help.” She bit her lip and blurted, “You have to!”

“First, you need to calm down.” Twilight took Rarity by the shoulder and turned her around towards the nearest alcove in the main foyer. “Spike, would you please fix us some tea? Something calming. Put some caffeine in mine, and don’t mix the two up.”

With Spike distracted, Twilight sat Rarity down on one of the stone benches built into the alcove. On the wall across from them hung the soaring white banner of the Celestial Day to celebrate Victory Day a number of years ago. Just down the hall flew the Lunar Night and Cadencial Heart banners. Twilight preferred this alcove the most because it was the only spot in the main foyer where she couldn’t see her own banner hanging directly opposite to Celestia’s.

“What’s wrong, Rarity?” Twilight asked once she was absolutely sure her friend wouldn’t hyperventilate. “I haven’t seen you so distraught in years.”

“I’m sunk, that’s what’s wrong. I’m sunk.” As she spoke, Rarity crumpled the piece of stationery in her hooves with delicate care. “I don’t know how this happened. I knew my business practices were unconventional, but this isn’t unconventional Twilight. I was never unconventional. It wasn’t unconventional to open an upscale boutique in a farming town. It wasn’t unconventional to give away more dresses than I ever sold. It wasn’t unconventional to expand when business flagged. Do you want to know what I was? It wasn’t unconventional, Twilight. I was an idiot!”

The stationary flew across the room. It rolled a few lengths before coming to rest against the bench on the opposite side of the room.

“You’re not an idiot Rarity,” Twilight soothed. “Please, just calm down.”

“I was an idiot Twilight, but it always worked. That was the lunacy of it. It always worked. Ponyville loved the idea of a Canterlot native and her dresses, and they loved how I was so charitable, and they loved that they could get the fashion of the big city in their own backyard. I made money, Twilight. That’s the insanity of all this. I was wealthy.”

“Spike,” Twilight called down the hall, “please hurry with the tea.”

“It was all a sham, though.” Deranged laughter floated towards the high ceiling. “I was never wealthy. I made everypony think I was. Even me. I spend my entire life acting as the embodiment of generosity, and I end up as broke as a smashed piggy bank. What kind of irony is that? I’m sunk. I’m worse than broke.”

Expensive porcelain clattered from around the corner. In ran Spike, holding two cups and a tea kettle, still glowing orange. As he busied himself and Rarity with pouring tea, Twilight got up and walked across the hall. The balled up piece of stationery looked so pathetic, yet it burned with anticipation. It glowed like the kettle.

Twilight picked it up. As she uncrumpled it, she looked up with an uncertain eye at the Celestial day banner.

She turned towards Rarity. The words on the page glowed like the kettle. Spike kept handing Rarity tissues. She kept blowing her nose and dabbing her makeup and throwing them on the floor next to the kettle. The tissues burst into flames as they touched the smoldering kettle, leaving ashy piles of carbon and soot where they combusted. Twilight looked up at the massive purple banner directly above them, bearing her cutie mark.

“Is this correct?” Twilight asked.

“Thank you Spikey Wikey,” Rarity said, “you have no idea how much it means to have some comfort right now.”

“Is this letter accurate?” Twilight asserted. Half a hallway separated them now. Twilight’s cutie mark banner imposed purple. The words burned like the kettle. Another tissue burst into flames.

“Yes,” Rarity said, finally turning to face Twilight, tea in one and hoof and tissue in the other. “It’s all true. I’m worse than broke. Spike, may I have more tea?”

“No, stop with the tea for a second.” She commanded, though Spike kept pouring anyway. “This doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“It’s moving pretty fast for me too, dear,” she said as she held out her cup for Spike.

“Spike, please!” Twilight shot him a dirty look. Taking the hint, he picked up the kettle and scurried back to the kitchen.

“He was only trying to make me feel better,” Rarity mumbled.

“Can we please focus on this letter?”

“I’ve been focused on it all morning. It’s taken months off my life, and I’ve only read it five times. By the way, I know I won’t change your mind on your choice of apparel, but deep jungle camo-green doesn’t go well with your coat.”

“Fifty thousand? Fifty thousand, Rarity?” Twilight tugged at the middle of her jacket. “You are the most popular designer in Ponyville, second most popular in Canterlot, fourth most popular in Fillydelphia and sixth in Manehatten. Your revenue streams are cross-continental.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“How does this happen?” Twilight asked.

“It can only mean my business model is flawed. I gave away more dresses than I ever sold, but somehow I always came out ahead. The shops in the cities, the expansions--it all more or less equaled out.”

Twilight did some basic math in her head. Fifty thousand bits times fifty two. Answer divided by fifty two to check it. Rarity’s single debt could power the entirety of the royal guard for one whole week. “How long do you have?” she asked.

“Until the end of the month,” Rarity replied. “It’s there on the bottom of the letter. Last paragraph, right under the big final warning message. I’ve been hounded by the bank before, but it’s always just worked itself out. One crisis or another came along, and we saved the world, and everything was fine. If I don’t pay up, the ENB won’t be lenient with me.”

“They’ll take the boutique,” Twilight surmised.

“Worse, I’ll have to live like those dirty smelly hobos in the refugee camps,” she moaned. “I’ll have to beg for change like an animal and sew patches all over my clothes just to fit in.”

“We won’t let it come to that. There has to be something we can do before then. A month is not a lot of time, but we’ve saved the world in less.”

“Well.” Rarity’s voice turned. “You know a lot about law and government. And Equestria is the only government left in the west whose currency is still stable. And you do happen to have a say in the implementation of the budget.”

The implication sank in. Cold crystal stung Twilight’s back as she leaned on the bench. The walls glowed like stained ice. Celestia’s cutie mark banner burned in the background. “Be that as it may,” Twilight started slowly, “any budgetary action would require a three-fourths ruling by the princess council. Given that our war debts are still very high, I would say the rest of the council would be unlikely to let a case of nepotism this large pass under the radar.”

“It’s not really nepotism. That’s a very strong word.”

“Whatever kind of word it is, it’s just not going to happen. We have to think of something else. How about throwing a sale of some kind? I’m sure your loyal customers would be able to put a dent in your number.”

“That’s not possible,” Rarity said flatly. “Unless I start charging ten thousand bits per dress, though that is an option, I would have to churn out dresses like mad to make enough. Frankly, it’s unthinkable.”

“I’m sure you could do it--”

“I’m sure I could too, but my integrity as an artist would be ruined if I started churning out one size fits all fashion. I can’t do that again.”

“Perhaps there’s some sort of loophole in your tax plan. If we look through the math of the plan you’re on, we might be able to find some loophole that would allow for an extension, or some sort of refinancing. Have you considered other kinds of bankruptcy?”

Rarity clammed up. “I’ve already checked,” she said, “and there’s nothing in the fine print to swing in my favor.”

“With all due respect, I am more knowledgeable in tax law and finances. I’m confident that somewhere in this messy situation there’s some fine print that can help you.” Twilight pointed to the ugly red headline on the bank notice. “It’s the same as any bureaucracy, and like I always say, if we wanted you to know about it, we wouldn’t make the font so small.”

“Look, Twilight, I appreciate that you want to help, but any further thought on the matter would just be hopeless optimism, and I have had plenty more than enough of that today.”

Rarity tried to brush her mane back and bumped Twilight’s shoulder. Had the bench shrunk in the cold? A hot blush bloomed on her cheeks as she slid away from her friend. “Who else have you told? For that matter, who else do you plan on telling? If this is a matter of tact to you--”

“It’s not a matter of tact,” Rarity cut her off. She stood up, her eyes drifting across the opposite wall until they settled on one of the several sloping columns of blue crystal jutting out at the buckle points. “Twilight, I’m in debt to the bank.”

All the back-and-forth finally started to get under Twilight’s skin. “So, what did you want me to do about it? If all you came here to do was ask for a government loan, I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”

Rarity backed away. Her eyes were all over the place, over the walls, over the banners, over Twilight. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have asked you for that. I’m sorry.”

“Well, don’t just leave,” Twilight implored. “You can’t untell me, so now I want to help. A legal solution will reveal itself if we just slow down and approach this from the right angle.”

“I can’t, don’t you see, I’m sorry,” she raved. “A fire that dims will die. The artist Rarity can't die because she ran out of money.”

“Do you have any idea what you’re going to do about this?”

“No!” Here it was. Here was anger, boiling to the surface, sputtering and cooling, spit out like hot tea. “These things just work themselves out! A month is no close shave considering what we’ve been through. If the whole natural order upends itself, or if the stock markets drop, or if the griffons decide to throw another godsdamned war, then I don’t rightly care! This is going to work out,” she chanted. “I should--go make a dress.”

“That’s absurd--Rarity, don’t go. You’re gonna lose your house!”

With a manic shrug, Rarity made for the door.

“Where are you going?” Twilight called out.

“I have to inform our friends,” she replied over her shoulder. “It would be rude not to tell them. May I have that letter?”

The paper flew out of Twilight’s hooves, clasped in pure blue magic. The crinkles and creases disappeared as it moved through the air. When Rarity caught it, the stationery was perfect again. Large red letters bounded off the page. FINAL WARNING, they read.

“Have a good day, Twilight.”

The letter glowed like the kettle. Twilight tried to run after her friend but tripped over the teacup she had left beside the bench. Hot water sizzled on the tile, then cooled in an instant.

“Rarity, wait--”

“I can’t, don’t you see, I’m sorry,” Rarity called out just before the front door slid shut.

Twilight listened to the echo of the door as it bounced around high above her and died somewhere in the crystal vaulted rafters. Her fur felt damp from the tea she had spilled, but she didn’t move her leg to avoid the puddle. Instead, she turned her head to stare at the banners lining the wall again.

Before the war, before the events leading up to the war, the banners had featured stylized pastorals of the various lands of Equestria. Cadance’s banner once depicted a great swelling mountain range with snowcapped peaks. Soft, vague clouds rose from the mountain’s surface, trailing into a rainbow waterfall reminiscent of the Cloudsdale style. Likewise, Luna’s banner had once contained a twilight sun throwing rays of glittering pink into a starlit heavenscape. The star map was accurate. Twilight had checked.

Celestia’s banner used to depict a roaring ocean with clouds of mist rising from its surface. The clouds morphed as they went higher up the banner into a towering thunderhead feeding the earth with rain. Only the burning sun remained.

The banner that Twilight’s had replaced held a great tree, equally representative of the tree of harmony and the great forests that dominated Equestria. Its roots triangulated at the bottom of the banner, forming a great mountain at its base, the rock of nature. From its peak soared a single branch, soaring straight up before fragmenting into smaller leaved branches.

All that was gone now. Some important decorator thought it would promote national identity. So there they were. The old banners were in big boxes in the basement somewhere.

The more Twilight stared, the more she heard it. Weights draped across her shoulders and flowed down her sides like a fine dress. The old forgotten pastorals decorated her coat, embossed beneath the skin and fur.

She licked her lips and tasted blood. The tapestries shifted in the light--red, then purple. The patterns cracked like dry scars. The letters glowed like the kettle. FINAL WARNING. Should Twilight be concerned? FINAL WARNING. No, but it helped to be. She needed something to focus on or she would turn into this, into mush, staring at banners on the wall and letting her mind go. She needed this. She had to help Rarity. She needed to save her or they would both fall. She felt it each time she looked at something for too long and lost focus. Her whole mind went up. Things blurred. Her speech slurred. Fire burned within her.

Twilight Sparkle closed her eyes and woke up.

2: A Short Story

Ponyville didn't have a shady part of town, so much as it had a part of town that was shady.

Rarity remembered the morning when a landscaping team from out of town rolled through town lugging a monstrous dirt-caked drill and proceeded to lay fifty trees before noon. The whole town was abuzz. The machine shook and groaned and spit out dirt at the push of a button. A testament to modern progress, they called it. Equestria had beaten its guns into its plowshares, and whatever was left into giant landscaping drills.

Most of those trees still stood, leaning softly against the fence of Ponyville park. From just after midday onward they cast long shadows across the whole street. During winter they would shed branches onto the flat rooftops of the businesses beneath them.

Rarity didn't notice the shadows. The heat persisted despite the shade.

She looked right. Then left. Then right again. Then left again. Then she repeated the whole process three more times. Her horn lit up, illuminating a nearby alleyway. Then she looked right again. Then left again. At some point it had almost turned into a game. If it hadn't been as deadly important as it was, she would have sung to her movements. You do the pony polka and you turn yourself around and put your hooves behind your head you have the right to remain silent--

The whole process made her feel like an idiot, but embarrassment was better than getting caught. Nopony was around to see her anyway, but that was the whole point of the rhythmless dance: to make sure. Rarity looked right again, just for good measure. That's what it's all about.

Rarity lifted her head high and trotted through the line-up, her eyes peeled to one building in particular. Tree branches frayed a rough, single story silhouette a similar color to Rarity's tail.

She thought of a song, hummed to herself, and raised her hoof.

One and two and three, two and--and three and--

A metal peephole, partially concealed by the uneven grain of the rust patterns, blinked. From behind the door came a muffled voice.

"You've got rhythm."

"I do, thank you," Rarity replied, her tone cool and collected, her eyes fixated on a rust spot next to the top hinge.

The door glided open on well-oiled hinges. A large white pony sporting an equally large leather jacket eyed the alley behind her with distaste.

"Miss Rarity."

"Mister Snowflake."

"You got an appointment?"

"No. But it's urgent."

He sighed. "Only for you, Miss Rarity."

"You are such a dear." She patted his shoulder, testing the jacket’s texture. "How does the jacket fit? Too tight around the top? I still love how it accents your coat."

"It fits perfect, Miss Rarity. I'd wear it around town every day if it were legal."

"Oh, you. I'm just glad it still fits. Mistreated leather can shrink, you know."

Snowflake leaned against the wall and looked down. "Forgot about that much. How did you like the record?"

"I played it last night while I was working. It's quite catchy."

"Thank you, Miss Rarity.” Snowflake stood up straight again. “Mister Noir let me pick it out myself. I know how much you like the big band stuff."

"You are too kind," she beamed her signature smile. "There's just something magical about big bands. Like a memory coming to life before your eyes."

"Pretty words, Miss Rarity." Snowflake's hoof brushed against a second door behind him. "Sorry to keep you. Mister Noir's right inside. He's not busy."

"Not a problem."

Her parting smile lit the tiny entry room with ease, but the encroaching, rotting darkness of the main foyer weighed her lips down. The walls wavered before her eyes, shrinking like mistreated leather when she looked away. Torn cracks of light vented through the window, where they reflected off a thin layer of smoke stuck to the ceiling. From one corner sprouted a weedy gramophone spinning an unplayed record.

Something metal snapped into place. A glass bottle clattered. Shadows thrown over the back of a low couch came to life. "Shit,” somepony mumbled.

"Mister Noir," Rarity stated, "it's your most fashionable and loyal customer." She paused, then added, "please put down that gun."

From behind a rich, deep desk at the head of the room peeked an aging stallion, his features all lost in the darkness except for a pair of glowing gold eyes.

"Miss Rarity. Did you have an appointment?"

"No, but it's urgent."

"Well, your urgency has cost me a bottle of good cider." Noir's hoof moved to the side of the desk. Rarity flinched, then relaxed as a lamp lit up and cast the shadows aside. Two henchponies who had appeared behind the couch dropped a pair of hoofguns and slouched into the furniture. Even in the light, Noir’s grey fur seemed to bleed into the wall behind him.

"I can replace it, don’t worry. I know a good friend who makes good cider."

"So I've been told." Noir swept his hoof across the table, sending several empty bottles and a few papers to the floor. "I apologize for the inconvenience in getting the record to you. We've recently had some troubles with prying eyes, and I can't have our system getting out. I always thought our knock was pretty clever. I’d like to keep it.”

"Of course."

Noir sniffed the air, then turned his head towards the couches. "Turn the music back on."

In a flash the two cronies were up, dashing over to the gramophone and jamming the needle into the record. A metallic squeal cut through the air, and a moment later the sound of an old trumpet filled the room.

Rarity's ears perked out of habit. Her hooves twitched in time to the rhythm.

One, one two three one, one and--three one--

"This is last week's record."

Noir nodded. "We don't usually keep the records--darn shame too, they're good tunes--but I liked this song especially. Some young pissbeak group made it, but these old swingers were able to spruce it up." He hummed the rhythm to himself. One, one two three one, one and--three one--

The record skipped. Noir returned to reality in a gasping cloud of smoke.

"So Miss Rarity, what brought you here without an appointment? I trust our last shipment of furs was up to par?"

"Oh. Yes." Rarity coughed. "The shipment was up to par, and then some. You are the best at getting the mediums I need to properly express my artistic ideas. Have you seen Snowflake's new coat?"

"The big one?"

"Yes, the big one."

"Guards the door, right?"

"The coat--look, you have always been good to me in getting what I need. And I have always provided for you so you could do that. Now, I'm afraid, I'm in need."

"Everypony's in need of something," Noir mumbled, suddenly agitated.

"This is a special case."

“How appropriate.” He paused to belch, then leaned back in his chair and ran a hoof through his fraying grey mane. “Excuse me.”

“If you could pay attention to what I’m trying to say--”

“I am eliminating unnecessary thoughts.” He sat up in his chair. “Now here's a necessary one: the only difference between between two ponies who want something is who's willing to take it from somepony else. Greed is the last expression of free will."

"You can't be free if you're a slave to bits."

"Or exotic furs."

Rarity grimaced. A drunk Noir would be more difficult to work with--though not impossible.

"Don’t be that way, Mister Noir. You are the first pony I came to in this time of need. That speaks to your ability to provide. To be generous. My business is in trouble. It has been brought to my attention that I have an extraordinary debt to the bank, and if I can't get a large sum of bits to them by the end of the month they'll take the boutique."

“Which bank?”

“The national bank.”

"I don’t own that one. And you think I'm the one with a money problem!"

"But you would have a problem without my business--which is always free of extraneous loose ends and always profitable for all involved." She placed her hoof on the edge of the table as gently as she could. Her presence was enough. "Look at this from a business standpoint. The golden days of the Equestrian Marefia are over. Ever since Alexandro Philarmonica was killed and his family in Los Pegasus disbanded, your way of life has gone downhill."

"They drew that upon themselves. That’s what happens when you try to kill all your competition.”

"They were the biggest family in the country. How long did it take their empire to come down? Four days. It was that easy."

Noir grumbled and reached for the bottle. His hoof patted the table and came up empty.

"So, ponies started talking. If it was that easy to disband the largest criminal enterprise in Equestria, they must not really be that powerful. Why should they do business with an organization that can't command power? Or respect? Would you even bother yourself with black market dealings ten years ago? Now they're your chief source of income."

"My chief source of income is you, Miss Rarity. I don’t follow the rules. I just go with them."

The seething look in Noir's eyes, like a panicked animal, gave her pause. "I apologize for bringing up the Philarmonicos. I know your past with them."

"Do not think you know anything. What do you want from me?"

“I’m only asking for a favor."

"A favor."

"Yes. An extension on my payment. I need some time to get my affairs in order, and at this time I do not have the funds to reimburse you for the latest shipment.”

Noir cocked his head, as if curious. Something snapped in his front hoof. The bottle sailed into the wall and exploded. "That's a problem,” he growled. "After all I've done for you, Element of Generosity, you go and do this to me.”

Rarity remembered just how imposing a figure Noir was when he stood up. Old and fat and wrinkled and cornered. “Please think of all the things I’ve done for you. Your business skills are unparallelled--you have to see the benefits to our continued partnership. I’ve created the most lucrative line of fur clothes in all of Griffonia--”

“I smuggle your furs to Griffonia because they don’t allow fur coats in Equestria. If it weren’t for me, you’d be nothing. If it weren't for the law, we’d be nothing.” Noir sighed. "If you can’t help me make money, then what good are you to me?”

“I'll find a better way to get your money, then."

“Better? You can pay me in bits or gold, and you clearly don't have any bits left."

“I’ll find a better way,” Rarity repeated, this time more feebly.

“There we have it, then.” He held up his hoof, adorned with a thin gold watch. “We are mere channels through which the money can flow, and right now I need it to flow in my direction. Do you get it? I can't survive if I'm constantly being nice."

"Be reasonable, Mister Noir.” Rarity leaned against her chair and looked at the ground. “There must be some room for compromise here."

"I will not compromise, no matter how much you bat your eyelashes at me. Money is power, Miss Rarity. We can become the axis on which the world spins, if we can afford it."

"Well, I can't afford it." Rarity turned up her nose in a last-ditch effort to take control of the situation.

Another bottle sailed through the air and hit the wall. This time it fell to the floor with a thunk, unbroken. Rarity wondered briefly whether or not Noir kept all his empty bottles behind his desk on purpose.

"Then we'll just have to get our money some other way,” he said.

"How do you mean?"

Noir shrugged. "If you were anypony else, I would send my men out and burn your house to the ground.”

Rarity looked around for an unoccupied couch to faint on.

"But," he continued, "that seems like a waste of potential. I know what you’re capable of. Call it an alternate method of payment."

"And what does that mean?" Rarity asked. Her eyes darted to the door, then to the couches still occupied by the apathetic goons.

Noir leaned across the table, his eyes glinting like gold bars.

"Fine gems. No government-standardized value, and still very pricey on the proper markets."

"Oh. Well." Laughter was ill-fitting for the tense, smoky air, which was why it hurt Rarity's ears to hear herself chuckling. "Why didn't you just say so? I can go out in the fields beyond Ponyville and dig you up a wagonload of gems in no time at all."

Noir shook his head. "Those uncut gems you have are of no value to me. I don't want dirt gems."

"I assure you, they are not worthless."

Noir didn't seem to care. "What I need is cut gems. In the market world it's the cut that makes all the difference. Fine gems fit for rings and crowns and magical artifacts.”

Rarity snorted helplessly. “You can’t be serious--do you remember what happened the last time I tried robbing someone?”

“Come back in a few days. I’ll have a plan for your job then.”

Rarity drew back. "I am no petty criminal."

"Actually, this kind of robbery is a felony. So don't worry about petty criminality. That'll be a snowflake compared to the avalanche that will bury you if you get caught."

"Regardless, I will not participate in your ghastly odd-job.”

His laugh unsettled Rarity. "You already do participate. You are the one who buys. You are the one who sends my carriers to Griffonia weighed down with the products you made. Your success was the product of my labors." He noticed some hesitation, some snide comment half-forming between her lips. "Or I could just burn down your house." Like a bored schoolcolt, he put his hooves under his chin to prop his head up. "That would be fun. I haven't commited a good act of arson in too long. The problem is my image. I can't be seen throwing marelotov cocktails into somepony’s open window. I'm too important a figure. Cops know me. I can't risk my own livelihood when I'm destroying somepony else's. That's why I'm leaving the choice up to you, Miss Rarity." Folding his hooves behind his head, he leaned back in his chair and bared his teeth in a mad smile. "There’s always a way to run.

A rare autocarriage roared down the street. Rarity bristled at the noise. She was losing her edge. Everything about this situation wore her down, the cigarette smoke, the money, the smell, the anger she couldn’t express. She felt like a shiny rock in a press being cut down to size. "I have no choice, then. You'll get your gems.”

Noir’s smile widened. "You're a good mare, Miss Rarity. You got sense in you. That’s the problem with ponies today. They care too much. All these hippie love groups and liberals and activists. They don’t get it. They’re so busy trying to save the world they fail to see that in the long run they’re not really changing anything. Money flows. Trees grow. You and me, we take what we need.”

Rarity wondered briefly if Noir was trapped behind his fine wooden desk, drinking himself into the past. What would he be content with? Money? The elimination of conflicting thoughts? He didn’t want happiness, that was for certain. It would elude him so long as he continued down his path, and he knew it as well as she did. Maybe he stayed behind his desk and refused to go out for fear of realizing how terribly he had miscalculated.

Noir motioned towards the door, and that was the end of it. His face vanished behind a curtain of descending smoke. All except for two leering red-rimmed eyes. “See you soon,” he crooned.

The metal door shut behind her. She looked right. Then left. Then right again. She coughed up smoke, looked left again, and ran away.

3: The Wind Blows Sinister

The second most comforting thing to Twilight was her friends.

A quick walk around the town turned up little. Rarity was obviously out of the question. Fluttershy would never look her in the eyes again. Rainbow Dash was not the best pony to see about this kind of thing. Pinkie Pie was stuck at work. It seemed her decision was already made. She dragged herself over to Applejack’s house and collapsed into the old rocker on the front porch.

While she sat there, waiting for somepony in the house to notice her, she looked at the high rooftops of Ponyville’s expanding business district. Her memories were slippery, and immortality would only make things worse, but if she squinted hard she found she could make the brutal square buildings slip out of the light. As the sun flared against panes of pastel light and caught dark patches of shingled rooftops and riverbanks, banking against the curvature of her half-shut eyes and the lashes in between, Twilight smiled. Ponyville looked just like it did in her memories.

The screen door opened. Twilight felt eyes on her, but she kept hers almost closed. Here was her image of peace. If she could just focus for a little while longer, perhaps the image would burn into her memory like a sun spot.

Applejack shook her. Twilight jerked in the rocker. Her hoof was freezing.

“You alright?” Applejack asked without letting go.

The image was gone. Her peace vaporized in the sun. “I’m okay. Sorry for occupying your porch.”

Applejack finally let go. “You coulda knocked and let me know you were out there. I feel bad to leave you sittin’ out here,” she said with a sincere look as she pulled up a chair from the other side of the porch.

“It didn’t seem right at the moment.”

“How long have you been out here?”

Twilight looked back towards Ponyville. The sun reached towards the taller buildings as if it also wanted to obliterate them. “I need some council, Applejack. You’re the only one who’s available.”

“Shoot, aren’t I the guest of honor,” she chuckled.

Twilight turned the rocker to face her friend. “Rarity came to my house today. She’s in trouble.”

“About the bank, right?” Applejack flashed a grim smile. “She came here this morning wailing up a storm about it. Fifty thousand bits.” She shook her head. “It’s not my place to tell ponies how to track their finances.”

“She came here first?”

“According to her she already talked to Pinkie about it. I told her the same thing Pinkie probably told her. I’m strapped for time and cash myself. The farm is still rebounding. We won’t be in the black for another few years at least. I gotta think big picture here, I said. I gotta think about the future.”

Acres of trees threw shifting brushstrokes of green into the sunlight. They splashed in the background to the sound of rustling leaves. “I want to help her,” Twilight said with conviction, “but I’m afraid my status might make any effort on my part seem like nepotism. I can’t just give her money.”

Applejack nodded slowly and said, “We both have to think of the big picture.” She looked down, and Twilight noticed a hint of shame in her eyes. “I suppose I could spare my pension from the ration department. You have a princess stipend too, I’m sure. Dash gets pension too.”

“That wouldn’t be enough on it’s own.”

They both sat back in their chairs. Twilight’s rocked softly. Applejack’s stayed perfectly still. “I know. Just thinkin’ out loud.”

“How is Dash? Have you seen her lately?”

Applejack shook her head. “You know how she gets. Applebloom’s working her hard to attend this graduation party she’s cooked up. They’re gonna string lights and hire a band and everything, and Applebloom wanted her to do some tricks like she used to. Said her classmates would have a field day with her. That--” she chuckled, “that was not the right thing to say, lemme tell you what.” A lazy breeze swept between the rows of apple trees and rolled across the porch. It occurred to Twilight the wind in town didn’t really smell like anything. Out here was a different story. “I’m making progress, I think. How’re you?”

“I don’t know,” Twilight said. “Busy. Cadence and Celestia cooked up this idea of taking the Crystal Heart around Equestria on a big victory tour to boost morale. It’s visiting all the major cities, including Ponyville.”

Applejack hummed in surprise. “That idea’s almost as bad as Applebloom’s.”

“I thought so too, until I got saddled with helping to organize the whole thing.”

“Now it’s a good idea?”

“No, it’s still a bad idea. The good idea would have been letting me organize it myself.”

Applejack laughed.

“Cadence wants the thing guarded by Crystallites, and Celestia wants a royal guard presence on top of that. They figure that if enough soldiers are around it won’t get stolen again. Have you ever tried to get two armies to coordinate?”

“Reckon I haven’t.”

“Well, the easiest way is to declare war.” Twilight smiled a little and tapped her hoof against the floorboard. “I just can’t stop thinking about Rarity. I’m doing fine. Spike is fine. Shiny and the parents are making the best of things in Canterlot. Luna and I had to block an attempt by some unicorn corporation from monopolizing the sale of hypoallergenic painkillers last week. These businesses are getting crazier every day. Equestria is ready to shoot tanks and planes out the wazoo--”

“But we don’t need tanks anymore.”

“Exactly.” Twilight felt the breeze again. What was the scent? “I still can’t stop thinking about Rarity.”

The wind died. Twilight shivered as her core heated up. Applejack shifted in her chair. Maybe she felt it too.

“Listen, Twilight. You know how big the Apple family is, right? We cover all four corners of the map. Every country, every service. There’s Apples. We believe in big families. For that matter, remember you’re as much an Apple as I am. Our porch is yours.”

“Thanks,” Twilight smiled.

“When a family is big enough, and there’s no threshold for this, but when a family is big enough, you’re bound to find one of everypony in it. There’s builders and welders and farmers and businessponies--you get the picture. When a family like ours is big enough, you find that there’s one of everypony in it. Somepony who agrees with you, somepony who doesn’t.” She gave Twilight a vague look. “Somepony who can help.”

Nervous air drifted up from the floorboards. “How exactly can one Apple help with a debt that big?”

Applejack rubbed her temples. “You’re not gonna like this Twilight. I know you want to help Rarity, but this could become precarious very quickly. Whatever you decide to do about Rarity’s problem, you gotta promise me you’re not gonna overreact or go crazy or turn me in. Do you understand Twilight? You can’t turn me in for this. The farm will go under without me.”

Shifting brushstrokes of green splashed in Applejack’s eyes to the sound of rustling leaves. They shook with passion.

“I have to be adamant about this. The indictment about the ration department almost killed me. I can’t survive in prison, Twilight. I belong out here. You can’t overreact.”

“I promise Applejack,” she said dumbly. “Please--what is it?”

The chair and Applejack both squeaked as they stood up. “Wait here.”

Twilight moved her head closer to the house as a few muffled voices floated through the cracks in the screen door.

“It ain’t no government pony, is it?”

“No, you’re fine, just get out here already.”

The door opened. Twilight snapped forward. The rocker squeaked and lurched. Applejack stepped onto the porch, followed by a tarnished gold earth pony Twilight vaguely recognized from a few of Applejack’s family reunions. With his tight slick back mane and muscular barrel, he would have looked just like a model for a war bond poster if it weren’t for the hideous scar running the length of his face between his upper lip and snout.

When he saw Twilight, he beamed. The scar tissue along his face wadded up at the seams. “Why didn’t you tell me it was one of the princesses?” he leveled at Applejack before dragging the chair right next to Twilight and kissing her hoof. “Your majesty.”

“Oh goodness, that’s not necessary, please,” Twilight blushed. “Pardon me--most ponies aren’t so eager when they first meet me.”

His laugh was full bodied, like fine beer. “They don’t send princesses to catch criminals, only to commute them.” His eyes darted around. “You’re not here to commute me, are you?”

His laugh smelled like beer too. Twilight gave Applejack a look and said, “I won’t comment on your hiring practices, Applejack, but what is he talking about?”

“You’re here to help that one unicorn with the bank debt, right?” Caramel interjected. “Good thing, too. The way she looked, she’s a goner without some sort of godly assistance--which, by the way, pardon my asking, but are you a goddess? I’ve always kinda wondered. Maybe that’s a rude question, but Celestia and Luna control the sky, Cadence, can control ponies, and you don’t really control all the much of anything, but you’re still an alicorn so that’s gotta count for something, right?” He turned to Applejack. “Right?”

Applejack looked momentarily dumbfounded before speaking. “When Rarity came over here,” she started slowly, “I dragged him over. He lives in that big apartment complex on the south side of town, and every other day of the year he works in the orchards and earns his keep like the rest of us, every other day of the year, Twilight, honest. He talked to her, tried to offer his help, but Rarity wouldn’t have it.”

“She got real pale in the face--well, paler,” Caramel added, “and I guess that’s when she came crying to you, right?”

Applejack kicked him gently. “He was just about to get back to working the orchard, but maybe you two can come up with a more roundabout solution for helping Rarity.”

Twilight considered her words very carefully. When she went to speak, she still came up blank. All her politicking classes failed her. Finally, she settled on a vague, “I haven’t seen you around the farm very often.”

“It was only recently that I came to Sweet Apple Acres,” Caramel replied.

“What brought you here?”

“I needed work.”

“Where did you work before this?”

“I served in the army. Fought in the war.”

“After the war, too? Did you extend your service?”

Caramel frowned. “I’m a simple pony, Twilight. I was never able to crack the intricacies of diplomatic talk, but if I’m reading you right, and that much I know I’m pretty good at, I’d say you’re trying to diplomatically ferret out my crimes.” His face stretched, revealing his teeth. “You don’t have to think so hard on my behalf, Twilight! All you gotta do is ask.”

Twilight hesitated. “What crime did you commit?”

“Desertion,” he drawled. “I figured you weren’t here to commute me, but I didn’t think you’d be here to interrogate me!” he said with an uproar of laughter. Applejack dug her hooves into the floorboards. They squeaked terribly under the weight. He continued, “You and I are both here for the same reason, Princess.”

“Call me Twilight, please.”

The wind blew sinister across his torn up face. “You and I are both here for the same reason, Twilight.”

“We were talking about Rarity,” Applejack reminded them.

Caramel leaned back in his seat. There was that smile again, all torn up and pink and hairless. “Of course. I’m sure you are thinking that I have some underlying motive to help you and your friend. I do. It’s money. I want lots of money. I grew up poor, Twilight. I lived poor, I fought poor. I darn near died poor once, and I won’t have that. This solution I have in mind is going to net us a great sum of money, a sum that I propose we split evenly between us, to the tune of twenty thousand bits each.”

Twilight shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t even think about any of this before I know what it is exactly you’re proposing we do. It sounds like you want us to break the law.”

Caramel sighed with the breeze. It smelled, too. “Whatever you decide to do about your friend’s problem, you gotta promise me you’re not gonna turn me in. Do you understand Twilight? You can’t turn me in for this. I’ve been to prison. I can’t go back. You can’t do that to me, understand?” Turning to his cousin, he added, “Do you mind giving us a minute?”

As Applejack stepped back inside, Twilight tried to imagine all the horrible awful violent things Caramel might propose. She thought back to Ponyville and its hulking steel buildings slicing through the space between thatched roof cottages. Pink against gold.

“Now, you gotta promise you won’t have me arrested for what I’m about to tell you.”

“I can’t do that,” she started.

“Oh yes you can. It’s as simple as raising your right hoof and saying it.”

“Fine. I promise. Now please, I just want to help my friend.”

“I do too, Twilight, I do too. But in order to help her, we’re gonna need to break a few rules.” Twilight saw his eyes as he leaned closer. Brushstrokes of green splashed in his eyes. “You figured that much else by yourself, yes?” he asked, tapering his voice to barely more than a whisper.

Twilight nodded. “I can’t agree to it without knowing what it is.”

“Of course, yes. You’re reasonable. I get that. Here’s what I have planned. Within the next three or so weeks, I have planned a series of--” he stopped, looked around, scooted his chair as close to Twilight’s as he could, and whispered, “I have planned a series of bank robberies that upon completion will leave us with approximately forty one thousand bits. This is a big deal, I can see it in your eyes, and I don’t begrudge you for it. This is an extreme step, but in a situation like this extreme steps are necessary. We are both in need of money, for very different reasons, yes, but we are still both in need of money all the same. I think that with your magical proficiency and my experience, we could execute several very safe and effective bank heists with little to no damage and zero negative repercussions. Think about it this way. The ENB is too big to fail. What will forty thousand bits mean to them? Nothing. It means nothing to them. You were talking earlier about corporations and their power grabs? Here is a way to take one corporation that I’m sure is at the government’s throat trying to secure more power for itself and reign it in. If the ENB is focused on internal damage, they will take a break from hounding you and the crown. They do hound you, don’t they?”

“I suppose they do,” Twilight said.

“There you have it then. Not only will you be saving your friend from losing her life’s work, you would also be gaining valuable time. You could pass business reforms while the corporation of all corporations licks its wounds. We wouldn’t be putting anypony out of a job. As little violence as possible. Certainly no killing. My pride stems from my professionalism.”

“How many do you have planned?” Twilight asked. Her words felt hot, but they turned to ice the moment they left her lips.

“At this point, a few. Look, what rulers haven’t broken their own laws for the greater good? Celestia did it when she banished Luna. The griffon king thought he was doing it when he tried grabbing more resources for his starving nation. Those were tough decisions they made for something more important than themselves. The kingdom. The people. Your friend. These are all worth breaking laws for, yes? Friendship conquers all.”

“Friendship conquers all,” Twilight echoed.

“You won’t need to worry about my motives. I’m a shameless thief, and what’s more, I know it. I’m in this for the money. I want to be rich, Twilight. Can you blame me? But in the end our objective is the same. We need cash. I’m too dumb to play the stock market, and you’re absolutely right in not pursuing the diversion of government funds into your friend’s pocket. Absolutely right. We were never given another option, Twilight, but that doesn’t mean we have to let life get the better of us.”

The floor squeaked. The breeze blew. Ponyville glared in the distance. The sky was above and the earth was below. What else was there to do? Twilight tried resettling herself in her chair and squinted off into the distance, towards her castle. Towards home. Where was it in all the progress? Where was the burnt remnants of her old library home, for that matter? What new building sat on top of it? A cottage? A school? A skyscraper?

“If you want to be an equal partner in this, meet me in the alleyway behind the Ponyville bank in three days’ time promptly at noon. If you show up, then I’ll consider the agreement ratified. If not, I’ll presume you chose a different route, with no hard feelings.” His chair squeaked as he leaned across his chair’s arm to face Twilight directly. “And if half the Ponyville police department is there waiting for me, I’ll know exactly who it was that ratted me out.”

Twilight nodded. Words didn’t feel right. They felt too malleable, like they might be twisted and hardened and stabbed into her back when she wasn’t paying attention.

Caramel was an Apple, that much was for sure. He would keep his silence. She wasn’t worried about him.

Caramel cupped his mouth and shouted, “Hey AJ! Bring out the business cider!”

As they waited for Applejack, Twilight said, “So, desertion, you said?”

“Yup,” Caramel replied.

“You know, the government formally pardoned all the draft-dodgers a few years ago. I don’t know if you went into hiding domestically or went out of the country, but whatever the case--”

“I’m no draft-dodger,” Caramel said plainly, his eyes hard and out of focus.“I deserted my post. Hippies got the pardon. Nobody’s pardoned me yet.”

Applejack emerged from the house gripping a tray of thin glass cups in her teeth. She mumbled, “This ain’t even your house,” before making another trip for a tall bottle of aged cider.

“There’ll be more time for pleasantries,” Caramel said as he grabbed a glass. “For now, let’s share a drink.”

Twilight noticed a date written in marker on the side. “Is that the date this was bottled?”

“Probably,” Applejack replied. “Truth be told, Granny does most of the bottling, and she still dates her pension checks to before the war. Gods know how old this one is.” She cracked it open and smiled as foam spilled over the lip. “Just like in the commercials.”

Twilight took a glass and swirled the ice around. Cold outside to dull the heat within. She heard the breeze against her ears. Nothing was more comforting.

4: Kind of Something Whatever Blue

A bad secret burned in Twilight’s throat, aching to be expelled.

She hummed to herself as she walked along the dirt road to Rarity's boutique, all sharps and flats and no melody. Her voice cracked above the A flat, and no amount of modulation could weld it back together. Thoughts of Rarity brought back all the shame of the previous evenings. Twilight Sparkle thought things through as a rule. The prospect of defying the establishment she existed in, the system that gave her purpose and pension checks, scared her out of focus.

Her mind shut down piece by piece. She tried conjuring books to mind, then nursery rhymes, but they disappeared every time she blinked. To unthink was sweet poison. On a whim, she took a walk around town to clear her head and wound up in front of the boutique, knocking on the door.

Just as she realized what she had done, Rarity answered the door and pulled her into fashionable hell. Streamers littered the floor alongside ancient rolls of fabric. From the ceiling hung rows of dyed fabrics, drying and dripping their excess onto the floors. A column of ponyquins stood at attention against the far wall. A second row behind them awaited their fate from a distance.

"Rarity, your house,” Twilight said.

"It's the artist at work,” she replied despondently. “There’s a method to this madness, I swear."

Twilight levitated a roll of fabric with the intent to reshelve it only to have it immediately smacked out of her grasp. It tumbled across the room before crashing into a nearby display rack.

"Please, don't touch the fabric," Rarity insisted. "I must make every bit count. I can't buy any more."

Between the indignation and the magical backlash, Twilight almost noticed something fall from the top of the rack. It glowed blue and disappeared a moment later, leaving a few scattered hairs floating to the floor. "I think you're making this a little too hard on yourself,” Twilight said, though she knew it wasn’t true.

"I have to,” Rarity replied. “My previous self wasn't good enough. It was insufficient."

"It, like, the art?”

Rarity coughed. "I've come to the conclusion that there is a two-pronged path before me. I can move out of my long, selfless, elegant shadow and wither into a corporate mockery like what almost happened when I opened the shop in Manehatten. I could rip up my code of conduct and ride my image straight into the ground at a massive profit, or stick to my four and remain full of artistic worth and pride, except I’d be homeless.”

"Neither of those sound good.”

"So you see my dilemma."

“Is it possible to sell out for just a little while?”

"There’s no in between here. Sometimes things are just one way or the other. I've already thrown myself into the first route."

Twilight furrowed her brow.

"Well, obviously. It's the one that involves me selling lots of dresses.” Rarity moved to inspect another bolt of fabric which had fallen over before Twilight came around. “ And don’t give me that look. I am going to save my business. It will haunt me forever to do this, but I see no other option. I would rather live clinging to the ashes of my career than die with my head held high above the dominion of a cardboard box. I will cling to what I know with all my might."

“Maybe not. This is just what I came over to talk to you about, actually,” Twilight said on a whim.

“What’s that now?” Rarity asked, still focused on the fabric.

“Well, I’m just a humble servant of the people, but I do get pension from the war department, and a stipend for princessly duties, and I still get my librarian’s paycheck from the town. I want to help you, with your art and your debt. I want to commission a dress.”

Rarity appeared in front of Twilight all at once, like she had been waiting behind a veil of fabric for a cue, and wrapped her up in a hug. “That’s wonderful, Twilight. Just wonderful. Thank you! You and all my other friends inspire me so much. I’m so happy to have the opportunity to create for you again. You’ll love the results!”

“I always do,” Twilight affirmed. “So, I plan to pay in bits, which might make transactions with the bank more difficult, but it’s the easiest way for me. Is that okay?”

“No, it’s not at all okay,” Rarity replied. “For you, I could not charge. Fine art is its own reward.”

Already, Twilight could see the devices of her friend’s expressions come to life. Shears and tape measures came to life on their shelves. “Yes, but that’s exactly what sent you into debt in the first place, so take the bits,” she insisted. “This is a good investment for me.”

“I suppose I can’t say no, then. What sort of monetary amount would you like to put into the dress?”

“Something to the tune of twenty thousand bits.”

Rarity gently set her bolts of fabric on the ground. The shears and tape measures floated gracefully through the air and aligned themselves on the work table. Pages of notes came together in a crisp pile next to the working implements. The sound of a kettle come to boil cut through from the kitchen. Rarity sat down daintily across from Twilight and looked her in the eyes. The rims of her glasses cut her blue eyes right in half. She opened her mouth to speak and lingered there for just a moment, focused but unsure, before saying, “I’m sorry Twilight, I believe there has been some sort of miscommunication here.”

“No,” Twilight said with a hint of a smile on her face, “you heard me right.”

“So I did.” Rarity’s horn glowed. The kettle died down. A harsh sound like a chuckle came from deep inside her. “You want to give me twenty thousand bits for a dress? In all seriousness?”

“Really and truly. It will be taxing, no pun intended, but I’ve rationed before.”

Rarity let her finish out of politeness and then threw herself into Twilight’s arms. “You can’t be serious,” she laughed gaily, “you just can not be serious!”

The two twirled around and cried out in joy. Rarity seemed on the verge of crying as she plopped a wet kiss on Twilight’s cheek and sang thank-you’s into her ear for the world to hear, all sharps and flats and no melody.

“Twilight, can I tell you something?” Rarity said, her head still pressed against Twilight’s neck.

“Of course.”

“In my anxiety and stress, I told you a lie. I was never going to sell out. I said I would, and I don’t think I would have, but it was so tempting. All I ever wanted to do is make dresses.” She pulled away. Her smile cracked at the edges like old money. “It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I could never even make enough dresses by the month’s end, let alone sell them.”

“So what will you do about the rest of the debt?”

“I’ll tell you exactly what I plan on doing.” Two cups floated from the kitchen. “I’m going to drink this tea with my best friend, and then I’m going to make a dress worth twenty thousand bits.” Their magic intertwined as Twilight took the teacup. Rarity’s aura felt stronger than it had in weeks. “I can’t even begin to say how thankful I am,” she chuckled. “My social graces are failing me. I really don’t know how to articulate--this incredible gift you’ve given me.”

“You’ve helped me so much over the years. I’m glad there’s something I can do.”

“You’ve given me some of my life back. Twenty thousand bits of it, anyway.” She laughed again, but the cheer was all used up. “I guess twenty thousand bits isn’t even worth a whole month of my life!”

The teacups clinked awkwardly. Twilight laughed politely and stared behind Rarity, towards an open window facing the street.

“Is the draft bothering you?” Rarity asked. “I needed some fresh air earlier, but I feel much better now.”

“It’s fine.”

“Nonsense, I can hear it in your voice. It’s really no trouble.” Rarity set down her teacup and trotted to the window. “No trouble at all,” she echoed as she slid the window shut. She lingered there for a moment longer, her eyes reflected in the glass, staring into the far-gone twilight that had just begun creeping over the outskirts of town. The afternoon had slipped away without them. Another evening was set to begin.

“Are you okay?” Twilight asked.

“What color scheme do you prefer,” Rarity asked, her eyes still and unmoving in the glass, “the deep blue I experimented with on your last gala dress, or something more gilded?”

“You don’t have to make it with actual gold,” Twilight said.

“Perhaps silver accents. And it won’t be real silver. No need to worry about that extra weight,” she chuckled flatly. “Silver will go well with your color, but that is also Princess Luna’s color. I don’t want to cause a stir with you wearing Luna’s colors. Perhaps a little bit of gold. I could perhaps style it off Celestia’s color scheme.” She squirmed happily in place and looked towards her fabrics. “White would go well with your purple, but it can’t be overdone.”

Celestia’s cutie mark banner burned in Twilight’s imagination. “Perhaps something other than white,” she interjected.

“Misty sky blue maybe, then--oh, and speaking of sky blue, we should get together with Rainbow Dash sometime. I write her letters, you know, when she doesn’t feel like going out. She says she misses our old slumber parties so much. I think it would be lovely to get together sometime.”

Sensing an opportunity, Twilight nodded. “I have a meeting with Cadence this weekend about the Crystal Heart tour, but if you can convince her to do it next weekend I’ll bring punch.”

Rarity sang a single note way out high. “It’s like everything’s back to normal,” she breathed with joy. “I’ll write her a letter as soon as I’m finished with this brainstorming session. My friends inspire me so much!”

Twilight couldn’t help but smile. “How is Dash? I haven’t talked to her at all this week.”

“Well, you know how it goes with her. The bird is trapped, but the cage is open. I just wish she would stop worrying about her scars. She’s so outgoing.”

“Some time with her friends would do her good.”

Rarity nodded, fire in her eyes. “I’ll make sure it happens. I’ll even invite Fluttershy. Even though she won’t come on principle, I know she’ll be happy knowing she was included.”

“Good. That’s kind of you,” Twilight said, though she wasn’t sure if she meant it or not. “Do you really think Dash will come?”

“Yes. I have this wonderful plan. All I have to do is hold the get-together in the evening. Dash will figure nopony can see her well if she flies fast enough, and for once in her life she’ll be on time. She gets to stretch her wings, go outside without being stared at, and we all get to see our friend again. Everypony wins.”

“If only you had been this crafty with your finances, maybe you wouldn't be in this whole mess,” Twilight almost said. Instead, she nodded and replied, “Good thinking.”

Rarity smiled back and lit up her horn. More bolts of cloth floated down from the rack, while across the room the ornate window curtains zipped across the line and cut the sunlight out of the room.

“You’ve improved a lot with your telekinesis,” Twilight noted.

“I’ve been practicing. I need my spells to be in tip-top shape once I really start cranking out new material. I still have thirty thousand bits to make up.”

Twilight wondered if that would be enough. All at once she noticed how dim the room had gotten. She looked around to see half a dozen telekinetic lights drawing the rest of the curtains shut. Colors faded. It was as if clouds had covered the sun, though slim crescents of light from the high circular windows still splashed in patches and puddles across the opposite wall. Twilight gave Rarity a questioning look.

“I like this light,” Rarity said. “It makes the room feel cooler. I think I want your dress to be cool. Not cool like how the griffons use the term, no offence to them of course, they can use it however they want, but I was thinking more the proper form of the word. I think I want your dress to capture a cool moonlit twilight. It would accentuate your compassionate nature. Well, it would do that and make you a bit more approachable. I know you're always fretting about that.” She chuckled. “Imagine. Twilight Sparkle, the cool princess.”

But Twilight didn’t feel cooler. Twilight burned. Twilight raged against herself. Her friend's smile felt like a slap in the face. Her own fake smile felt like a slap in the face. She thought things through as a rule. Well, she had thought through Caramel’s plan from every angle and every walking path around town, and she had concluded with absolute certainty that the whole thing was one big knee-jerk reaction. She had conditioned herself against those, yet here she was. She had voted against increasing postwar aide to Griffonia three times. She had thrown all that relief money back into the Equestrian economy and staved off another domestic famine.

Somepony tapped her on the shoulder. Twilight jumped.

“I’m sorry, dear,” Rarity chuckled apologetically, “but you seemed a bit spaced out.”

“No, sorry,” Twilight replied. “I was just thinking about how cool I’ll look in this new dress.”

Laughter at such a dark time was a luxury. Rarity’s laugh sounded luxurious, anyway. “It’s just the dress that looks cool. You’ll be, dare I say it, you’ll be hot!” She laughed again, long and slow and sharp and flat. “I have an idea, Twilight. I think it’ll be fun. Are you doing anything for the next hour or so?”

Here was an opportunity. Twilight had to go home. She had to help Spike with some new books that just came in. She had to do some research. She had to sit in her bed and think about the attack charms taped to her nightstand. “No,” she said instead.

Rarity gave her an emphatic look and said, “If you’re interested, how would you like to be a part of the creative process?”

“How would I do that?”

“You can experience the art of the dress! Have as much fun with it as you’d like. It’ll make the dress all the more special to you, knowing you put your own work into it.” Rarity made a display of levitating a few glass jars onto the table. “What you can do is take that fabric over there, the blue stuff--yes, that one there, take that fabric and draw your favorite star map onto it with the paste in that jar there. Just magic the stuff on there, it won’t stick to your aura,” she giggled. “Then, cover the whole thing in that special glitter there.”

“And I should dump the glitter back into the jar when I’m done?”

“Yes please. The swath is big enough that I can use it for multiple things depending on how the dress turns out. It’s a utility, basically.” She laughed again, tittering and nervous, sharps and flats. “It will look cool.”

Twilight looked at Rarity to find her staring deeply at the shuttered window across the room. She cleared her throat politely and said, “Rarity?”

The aura around the room crackled with distortion. Scissors snipped. Fabrics creased. Rarity spun around. Her tea sloshed and left a long trail down the side of the cup. Her eyes locked with Twilight’s, and they both saw fire.

“I'm sorry,” Twilight stammered, “I didn't mean to startle you.”

Rarity’s magic stabilized. The fire was gone. She straightened herself up and batted her mane back into shape as she said, “Please, don't worry about it.” She moved towards the record player on the opposite side of the room, but embraced Twilight at the last second. Her eyes were way up close now. Twilight had trouble keeping herself out of them, eternities of hue. “I was feeling all sentimental, and now I’m afraid I’m going to cry.”

“Well, you don’t have to do that,” Twilight said plainly.

Rarity nodded and hummed something blue. Flat thirds and sharp ninths fell into her mane and tangled there.

Twilight knew what she had to do.

7: An Abundance of Bad Guys

To a member of the Equestrian Intelligence Service, your real face was your greatest disguise.

When the EQUIS was formed in the darker years of the war, its primary goal was to kill spies and crush dissidents. Their favorite technique was sending dissidents intimidating letters in the mail full of photographs of war-dead and brain surgery patients and victims of autocarriage accidents. They used this method to unsettle the dissident, and to let them know the government knew where they lived. The end goal wasn’t necessarily to turn the public against the dissident. The end goal was to make the dissident turn against the public. If the dissident they were after stopped writing to every newspaper and talking to every radio station, that was great, but it would be even better if they just melted down in public and snapped at some poor innocent waitress while they were eating lunch. You can’t beat a rebel by pushing them down when they stand up for the world--you win by convincing them the world’s not worth standing up for. When the public sees that anger turned against them, they will begin to distrust the dissident, who in turn distrusts them on a much deeper level. The public sees a paranoid pony lost in their delusion, and the dissident sees informants in their friends and spies in their waitresses.

The real spies, they usually just shot.

That was years ago. Though the existence of the Equestrian Intelligence Service had been kept a secret from all but the princesses and a few important military leaders, the agency had undergone a significant overhaul since the war ended. Now, the EQUIS solved mysteries.

Two EQUIS agents weaved their way through the crowd of reporters and police towards the bank. One looked right while the other looked left, locked in poetry. They were trained too well for this, but that was beside the point. To anypony outside the system they looked like the other plainclothes detectives who had taken to snooping around at the behest of the Ponyville PD. Only their eyes gave them away--dull like tinted plexiglass, the look of the old Scoltscilian marefiosos.

The lead stallion, McTough, found the chief of the Ponyville police and whispered a few words into his ear. As they made their way into the bank, ponies began to stream out. After a minute, the two were alone.

“So how’d your date go, Bats?” McTough asked.

“Terrible,” Bats replied. “We went to that one Scoltsilian place, the one that gives you unlimited breadsticks with whatever you ordered. I thought she was gonna think I was a cheap jerk, but it turns out she loves the place.”

“Was that the terrible part?” As he spoke, McTough meandered his way towards the rear door leading to the alley, eyes on the ground.

“No, I’m getting to the terrible part. We hit it off really well in the restaurant, right? The food wasn’t great, but I’m not the kinda pony who buys you a fifty-bit steak on a third date. The service paycheck won’t allow it. She loved her salad thing, I don’t know what it was called. It had a lot of fancy stuff in it. She loved it, that’s the point. I’m gonna get hungry if I talk any more about the food.”

As McTough reached the back door, he turned abruptly and held out his hoof like he had a gun. “I’m listening, go on.”

“So we finish up at the restaurant, and I foot the bill, and let me tell you, thank the gods that mare bought a salad. I walk her home after that--she lives in this really nice apartment near the palace. It’s got a view of the palace from one side, and the other is close enough to the edge of the city that you can see most of the way down. There’s no camps or nothing around it.”

“I thought you said she was poor,” McTough said as he drew his hoof across the lobby, then continued creeping forward. “She worked retail, didn’t she?”

“Yeah, she does, but I guess her dad’s wealthy. He bought her the apartment and then made her find her own way from there. She’s not stuck up like a rich mare would be. She was nice.”

“Respectable man.” McTough imagined a room full of screaming ponies, targets on their heads, their panic inciting fire in the chamber of his imaginary hoofgun. One by one they fell to the floor, their hysterical faces twisted and mashed in.

“Yeah. This mare, she turned out well.” Bats chuckled. “No subtext there, but you know how I feel about redheads.” More imaginary ponies crumpled under the gunfire. McTough split a smile. “So anyway, I walked her home. We were hitting it off the whole way there. It was like Victory Day, swear on my life. Sparks flying everywhere. I was halfway thinking she was gonna invite me inside.”

“Did she?”

“No. Here’s the terrible part. We get to her doorstep and she says, I’ll paraphrase, she said, Bats, you’re a really good stallion. I don’t think any stallion has ever been as nice to me as you have.”

“Good grief.”

“Bats, she says, I want to be very honest with you. I really like you. I want the two of us to be serious with each other. I want us to be a couple.”

The imaginary ponies disappeared. McTough shook his head. “Shit, I’m sorry Bats.”

Bats nodded. “I almost said yes. She was alright. She was a good one. Good ones don’t stoop to our level.”

“You would have quit to be with her?”

“I’m not saying I would have done that. We’ve only been out on three dates. I’m not saying I would’ve married the mare. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have, either.”

“So you broke it off with her?”

“No, we’re going on another date next week, but it’s over.” Bats threw a few files onto the center counter. “Anything?”

McTough shook his head. “Clean entry, clean exit. Nothing left behind. All we have to go on are the witnesses.”

“The Ponyville PD has a unicorn on staff who wants to do a sweep of the place for DNA. He did it once before we got here but came up with nothing.”

“Tell him he can have the room when we’re done. There’s too much DNA in here anyway to be conclusive. Bring in the witnesses.”

“Yes sir.”

For the next few hours, they talked to all fifteen people who had been in the bank, from the customers to the teller to the manager who had been in the bathroom when the robbery took place. Though the individual accounts varied slightly, all present agreed that there was one coltish mare with orange fur and a purple mane, and a golden-colored stallion with green eyes and a southern drawl to his voice. The stallion seemed to be in charge. He was the only one with a gun. The teller in particular was helpful with providing a more detailed description of the stallion’s mannerisms.

Once they ushered the witnesses out, they let the unicorn from the Ponyville police back in. As they left the bank, McTough said, “Bonnie and Clydesdale, it seems.”

“There are no leads in the files. This seems like an isolated incident. Maybe they’re a married couple who got in trouble with the bank.” Bats shrugged. “Without any leads, the case will go cold in a hurry.”

“Ponyville is a pretty tired place,” McTough said. “When we get back to the motel room, let’s look at the larger Ponyville file and see if there were any other investigations going on prior to this.” The two fell into step as they crossed the yellow line. The crowd had already begun to disperse. The press was packing up and going home. Concerned citizens formed a few groups, but most of them stood alone. “There aren’t a lot of criminals in this town.”

The file turned out to be disappointingly thin. Among the potential leads they had brought along in their big work trunk, Ponyville’s was only the second smallest in the lot, right after Appleoosa.

McTough and Bats settled into a pair of creaky chairs in the corner of their motel room and started digging.

What they found were connections. The last legitimate agency investigation in Ponyville had taken place eight years ago, during the final stage of the war. One of the Elements of Harmony, Rarity, had been stealing ration cards through her position in the propaganda department. The EQUIS couldn’t pin her, so they had an agent throw a small firebomb through her kitchen window just to prove a point.

As it turned out, Rarity also had mob connections.

“Pull out the file on the fur trade, would you?” McTough asked. “Look at this--Rarity has alleged connections with the Griffonian fur trade. It’s all just hearsay, but arrest me now if there are any other criminals in town willing to knock over a bank. If it’s involved, she’s shielding herself with a middleman.”

“A griffon is behind all this?” Bats asked.

McTough shook his head. “We monitor the griffons too well for that. The middleman’s got to be a pony.”

“A marefiosa.”

“Maybe. The old mobs are dead, but if there’s one still operational in Ponyville, it might have a hoof in this robbery.” He looked at Bats. “Play the devil’s advocate here.”

Bats hummed and scratched his mane slowly, moving his head but not his hoof. “The mob theory is a stretch. We have no evidence for it. Cash-strapped lovers holds water, though.” Somewhere far outside, the moon rose from beyond the horizon. “This is about Noir.”

“No it's not.”

“Starless hells, it is!”

“It's not anything about that. Don't stick your nose into that, you asshole.”

“Hey, don't call me an asshole, alright? You're the asshole.”

“Oh, I'm the asshole?”

“You're gonna get us both fired. You're the asshole.”

“I'm not gonna get you fired--”

“No, screw you, I don't want to hear it.” Bats straightened the papers on the table. “You know what the agency’ll do to you if you go vigilante?”

McTough looked at the floor and nodded.

“Then follow up on Bonnie and Clydesdale! Jeez, you're gonna get us both indicted.”

“You follow up on Bonnie and Clydesdale. I'm gonna follow my hunch.”

Bats stood up. “Gods above McTough, they're gonna put you in the Mountain if you mess up! At best you're hindering my investigation.” He pointed helplessly at the door. “Dont screw me over man.”

“It's ‘sir’. I am your--”

“Alright, sir. Dont screw me over, sir.” Bats sat back down. “This is a solid lead. Let's do our job.”

“I’m gonna do my job, okay? Don’t question my competence when I’ve been doing this years longer than you have. Don’t question me. I’m fine.” McTough pushed the chair out of his way as he strode across the room. “We’re hungry, that’s the problem. We’re at each other’s throats because we’re hungry, that’s all. I’m gonna order us some pizza.”

“Pizza isn’t what’s eating me,” Bats said from across the room as McTough picked up the telephone receiver. “If you’re gonna ignore me at least put jalapeños on it.”

The room heated up in a hurry. Bats stepped outside to clear his head and was immediately struck by the rising moon. “Shit,” he muttered. “Think the pizza place will deliver this late?”

Bats couldn’t see McTough pause over the telephone. The menu crumpled and uncrumpled in his hoof with each knock of the rusting air conditioner in the corner. His mind moved someplace else. His vision doubled as memories collided. He saw the room full of screaming ponies again, not moving this time, just screaming. McTough sat across from a gorgeous mare with a fiery red mane making moony eyes at him. Across the room, a younger version of Noir dressed in his Chicoltgo police uniform herded nineteen ponies against a wall, an automatic strapped to his hoof. Once they were all in place, he raked the line with bullets until he ran out of ammo. He stared at the bloodstained wall for a few seconds, though with his back turned McTough couldn’t see the look on his face. Then he walked outside, threw his automatic into a bush, and headed to the police station. The mare across from him giggled in delight and sipped a tall glass of water with a straw.

“Jalapeños,” McTough said. “Fine.”

8: Borderline Pornographic

Out of the five pictures sitting atop Noir's desk, four were of a stallion's backside.

Noir poured over them, one hoof clutching a pen and jotting down notes and the other filling in the spaces between the scribbles with an awkward two-beat. Occasionally, he would circle some outstanding detail and rub his temple. The pieces were all present, faded at the edges and yellowing in spots. All Noir had to do was think.

It was not a day to be thinking.

From the other side of the room, Rarity cleared her throat for the second time.

“You don’t have an appointment,” Noir said, looking up from his papers. The windows opposite him flew like retreating clouds. “Do you care about my time at all?”

“I'm here to ask you to reconsider your robbery proposal,” she explained. “Recent developments have arisen which will put a very large sum of bits into my hooves at the end of the month. I can get you money with interest through perfectly legal, straightforward means. No police, no EQUIS. I just need time. If you give me one month--just one month, Mister Noir, that’s all I’m asking for--you have it at my word that you’ll be more than compensated for your patience.”

Noir looked down at the photographs again. “I used to think I was at an age where I could afford to be patient. Recent events have proven this is not the case.”

“I plan on releasing a new clothing line by the end of the week inspired by the elegant romanticism of Manebocher’s bridal wear and translated into the everyday wear of the common pony. I call it, All That Glitters is Gold--”

“Rarity, I gave you a simple ultimatum. My money is due back to me by the end of the month. I am truly sorry to hear about your business failures, but the reality is I simply don’t care. You’re worth as much as you’re worth, and that’s it. Don’t embarrass yourself by pleading twice.”

“You’re being unreasonable--”

“And I refuse to argue the same thing twice.”

Rarity shot back, "You of all ponies should know how difficult it is fighting a two-front war.”

Noir tapped his hoof against the hardwood floor and sighed. “If this is about the heart--”

“It is.”

“Ok, then--look at it from an objective perspective. You pulled off the most significant robbery of the decade. The Crystallites’ entry into the war meant less Equestrians getting hurt. The only thing you did wrong was rat out the griffons you sold it to--but from an objective standpoint, you had already gotten your money, so why hurt all those crystallites? That’s not what I would have done, but I’m looking at it from an objective point of view.”

“Look, Mister Noir,” Rarity backtracked, “all I need is the extra month--”

“I have a better idea,” Noir said, cutting her off. “I’ve come up with a plan for your heist.”

Rarity took a step forward and immediately regretted it. “I want to work with you, but we have to be reasonable here.”

Noir felt a headache coming on. He twisted his head in search of a bottle and found only papers. “I am--” he paused to cough, “That is why I have devised a plan. In two days’ time, you will rob Barcleigh Jeweler’s in midtown. Get in, go to the safe in the back room, pick out the best gems you can find, and bring them back here to me. I know you're good with gems, so it shouldn't be a problem for you to get the cream of the crop." He tapped his desk. "This is important. Only take enough to get by. Not enough to be noticed. The old stallion who runs the place is going soft in the head with postwar madness, so he won’t notice if a few jewels go missing--so long as you’re very careful about which pieces of his stock you take.”

The air around Rarity flashed hot.

Noir continued, “You were a prolific thief during the war years. You kept half the town fed between your furs and your ration card heists. Doing bad in the name of good is the ultimate sacrifice.” Noir stilled. For a long moment, the room was silent. “That is a lesson which has served me well over the years. You helped others then. Now help yourself. You’re not an idiot Rarity, so do it.”

Rarity threw her mane behind her head, but it swung back into its original position. She blew it away in annoyance. “I don’t want to admit that you're right about not being able to help myself, so I won’t.”

“But you will concede this is the only way,” Noir pressed.

Rarity squirmed. “I’m not going to say yes.” The floor seemed to shift beneath her, stilted into two dimensions. “But, I will listen if you choose to talk.”

Noir nodded. “Think of it like a ration card fix. Only take what won’t be noticed--the stones he’s cut but not fixed into jewelry yet. Just remember, you must bring back enough to satisfy the debt. The last shipment contained--” Noir picked up pictures of the stallion’s backside only to find duplicates underneath. “Uh--I have the specifics of the last shipment organized and available, should you require it.”

“I would like to see them, yes.”

“It’s--Uh. Yes.” Noir shuffled the papers around. “About. Well. It’s about twenty six thousand bits.”

“Are you sure?”

Noir shot her a cruel look. “You do this, and your debt is settled.” His next words came out all at once in a leering whoosh. “You do not want to fight a two-front war, do you?”

Rarity’s mouth opened. Her head cocked to one side. Her eyes burned, an immense fire on the horizon, just close enough to catch the smell of it drifting over the horizon. A memory burned at the edges. Before her was the reality of suffering--her suffering. The reality of finance. Industry. Rationing inflation deflation living breathing machinery. Beyond was chaos. A way to end her suffering. The past.

“I do not wish to fight a two front war, Mister Noir,” she finally spoke.

“Good.” Noir arched his back and looked up to the ceiling, where a terrific battle was being re-enacted in his imagination. “See to it that the necessary preparations are made. I’ll be seeing you soon, Miss Rarity.”

“Thank you,” she hissed.

Noir nodded. His henchmen descended from their places to usher Rarity out. She huffed, but offered no resistance.

Just before she passed through the innermost door, Noir spoke up. “Rarity.” She turned slowly, like an old model. “They called it a two-front war in the papers. It wasn’t exactly that. Mostly we were fighting our way up the mountains. The griffons would attack us from the high ground, then fly behind us. That’s why they called it a two-front war.”

“Ah,” she said vaguely. “The war of the Billy Goats.”

Once she was out of the room, a haunted quiet fell over the place. In the silence, Noir felt weak. Lightheaded. Exposed. The past came alive took Noir back to the Borderlands in the form of a tremendous explosion. A memory not completely buried clawed at the grey matter containing it, screeching like a griffon slicing through thin mountain air. The smoke above his head was a shadow, then ten, then twenty.

Without any warning the craggy earth around him exploded. He fell to one side, clutching his helmet out of instinct. His helmet--what a thing to keep him alive! He and a hooffull of his friends had the sense and paint to camouflage theirs before they set out on patrol. The others had laughed. Who needed camouflage? They would butcher the griffons like the animals they were. Keep them from ever coming back. They had it.

But now the ground was on fire and ponies weren’t laughing. It burned his hooves. There was snow everywhere, in his uniform, soaking into his belongings, his rations, the newspaper clippings he read in his spare time, his mane, everywhere except on the ground so he could extinguish his boots. What a sight he must have been--a pony with his jaw set half-open with a mismatched uniform and a snow-white helmet running around with his boots on fire. The sight of it! The fire!

He reeled as another explosion tore apart a nearby building. They were targeting the houses. His eyes could see the danger, but his hooves would be on fire soon, so he dove into the closest house he could find, stumbling on the single stair and falling to pieces all over the rough wooden floorboards.

His helmet fell off. He ignored it and flailed about like an injured animal until his boots were off. Another blast from outside shook the house, and he pressed his cheek to the floor to keep his head from spinning.

From across the room he heard somepony cough.

He shot to attention only to fall backwards onto his rear. Splayed out on the floor of the single-room building were the half-assembled bodies of his former friends. They reeked and spewed gas and blood, and he was right in the middle of it. One of them was on fire.

Training kicked in, and he rushed to throw the burning blanket away. Finally, mercifully, his legs began to burn. Thank the gods--he could feel again. The pain hurt enough to keep him focused.

The booming grew louder outside, churning the air into dust soup, fading, waiting, regurgitating. Blood in his mouth. Leaking from his broken nose. Among the half-soldiers he felt complete. The bombs would not fall on him that day. He was a hollow target. The munitions would go right through.

He threw himself outside and ran towards the front line. A few seconds later, a bomb fell right through the roof.

Nine years later, Noir shuffled the pictures of the stallion’s backside on his desk and eyed the partially shuttered windows. He saw a flash of white pass by the window, but other than that he was alone. Dull aches subverted the previous pain.

Out rolled the middle drawer. Out came the aspirin, rattling eight to the bar against the throbbing from his joints. Out came four tablets, then five. Take five, and take a ride. Out to lunch. Out of his mind.

He learned back in his chair as the aspirin took effect and left it all behind.

9: Amateur Bebop

Darting around Ponyville at night reminded Rarity of when the ration riots broke out.

The night it all went down, Rarity was in Chicoltgo doing a photoshoot. She nearly fell off the top of the monolith’s head when one of her camerapegasi noted how the fires were messing with the exposure. Canterlot was burning, twinkling above the city lights like a star falling through the atmosphere.

She tried contacting Twilight, then her family. Only the latter replied. She spent a few hours knitting with her mother and chatting with Sweetie Belle about her grades. As she left, she slipped her mother a photo album full of ration cards. When she was alone in her hotel penthouse again, she wrote a letter to her father. In the space between her walk from the room to the post office she decided now would be a great time to rob the nearest government building and steal all their ration cards. Standing on the street across from the municipal building, she couldn’t even see the fires.

Six ponies died in the riots. Applejack took her first and only vacation of the war. Twilight cut hers short. Rarity got enough ration cards from the one municipal building to keep her family fed for the rest of the war, all the way down to the second cousin. Rainbow Dash wrote a letter home inquiring about Applejack. Rarity saw the Borderlands for the first time the next day on a chariot ride back to Ponyville. The whole mountain range looked like the spine of an ancient predator breaking free from the earth. She made Applejack some new boots and tried not to think about her father.

There was no fire this time. No moonlight, either. Rarity dropped the see-me-not illusion and let her hooves glide noiselessly over the cobblestone. Outside was where the real danger was. Once she made it inside she could relax a bit.

The streetlights across from Barcleigh’s made her nervous. The sun was gone but the light was not. The audience had packed up and gone home. The glint in her eyes came from across the street.

Amateur percussion, the clap of hooves on cobblestone, floated easy on the moonlight.

On occasion, Rarity would baffle herself with a new dress. She would be sitting down, reading the morning paper and drinking tea, when out of nowhere sixteen hours would slap her across the face. When she recovered, a new dress would stand before her, and her hooves would be pricked and bloody. She would tell her friends the next day, “I just don’t know what came over me.”

Time would fly by at such an alarming rate she wouldn’t have time to comprehend her genius until it was gone. It meant nothing to her. It was a gap in her memory, a piece of her past cut out and sewn together. Art! Her muse! A part of her time but not herself. Time set apart. A piece of herself. Was time art? The concept had to be. The indescribable momentum time represented was not. It kept growing and ticking until it became infinite. Then again, if you really truly tried you could find meaning in any brushstroke, any insignificant modifier, any wrong note. Up and down. Insignificant. Flat seventh!

The past was wide but short. It tore up the road behind ponies like her and laid it down before them. They could walk forever on a few worn-out feet of pavement.

The percussion crescendoed as Rarity approached the door. She hated it. She wanted it to stop. She wanted to steal it from the air and flatten the sound waves with her hooves into something sharp and stick them into whoever else was out this late.

The inside would provide quiet. Quiet and escape.

She slipped around the corner, opened the door, and slid inside.

Rarity knew the owner from having mended a small tear in his dress blues a few years ago. Of course the door would be unlocked. What did he have to fear with an arsenal like his? He owned a dozen rifles and Celestia-knows how many blades stashed all around his living quarters. Half of them were griffon guns with triggers and bolts he couldn’t operate.

Mainly he carried an ankle-revolver, one he liked to display at parties and open houses. Quite the feat of engineering, he was fond of noting. Instead of having to load bullets one by one, you snapped a clip of five bullets into the side. Easy to use. User friendly. Big bullets! Kills griffons at fifty yards no problem. Real war-hero talk.

He scared Rarity a little. Every time she pledged her allegiance to Equestria and nodded with a crowd celebrating Victory Day, he was there. Now she was in his place of business, his home, violating his privacy and stealing his shit.

Without pausing to peek up the stairs leading to the second floor, she went to the safe room door and nudged it open. The safe stood in the middle of the room, guarded by file cabinets, its door wide open and unlocked.

She touched the safe door once, then again, harder this time. It swung on well-oiled hinges. The gems gleamed from inside their plastic cases. She shrugged and took them all.

Next stop was the work room, where the jeweler kept his works in progress. Those wouldn’t be worth as much as the ones from the safe room, but they would be much easier to take than the finished ones from the display cases. Plus, she wouldn’t have to cut her hooves up punching through the glass to get to the prizes inside. Real-life robbery wasn’t all smashing and grabbing. A true artist had enough finesse to circumvent brutality.

The haul was as good as she could have expected. Several completed gems sat stacked next to a pavilion cutting tool on one desk, where she also found an immaculately-finished green diamond, a byproduct of the irradiated wastelands separating Equestria from the Changeling Empire, still stuck to the dopstick. On the other table she found a second cutting tool, along with a small envelope full of rough purple amethyst. They wouldn’t fetch as much. She took them all.

From somewhere outside came another beat of amateur percussion. Awkward. Heavy on the downbeat. Opening the front door.

Rarity took a running step and dove behind the nearest display case. She threw her hooves up and curled her body into a ball to dampen the light of her horn as she shut the saferoom door behind her. The gems refracted sound like light. Her heartbeat drummed on above the sound of hoofsteps filling the room. Rarity flinched at the noise. It was all too loud. They moved like a pair of shitty tap dancers. She stretched and fit herself into the shadows. A fine evening gown of curvaceous darkness. A blanket over a terrified filly during an air raid. The same. The enemy.

“What do we do now?” one asked. “This is why we need a plan.”

“Hey--afterwards,” the other whispered. “There’s a big safe behind that door. Crack it and thin out the merchandise.”

Rarity glanced through the glass. Two distorted figures, a caramel stallion and a coltish mare with orange fur and a purple mane, crept through the room.

“What does that mean?”

“Just take some of the stuff. Not too much, not too little. I’ll be in the work room over there. Holler if you need me.”

The two split up. One melted into the shadows while the other made for the saferoom. It took her nearly a minute to creep past the door.

As soon as the orange mare was in the saferoom, Rarity crawled towards the work room. The gems she already had weren’t enough. She needed more.

As she reached the door, the figure lit a match and ripped his mask off. His face was all worries and wrinkles, all pressed together. The color of his fur, that awful shade of yellow. Piss yellow. Like a griffon’s beak.

He looked right. Then left. Then towards the table. The matchlight caught in his eyes. They burned the lacquer on the table. Doubt. There was the old fire. Anger! She knew the look. The same look that compelled her to steal ration-cards so the citizens of Ponyville wouldn’t starve during the shortages. The same look the protesters from out of town had on when they picketed the Equestrian office in Ponyville. Unfair treatment, they said. Why should the hometown of the Elements get more food than the rest of them? Was Applejack corrupting the system to feed her friends? Launch an investigation! Investigate! Riot!

He stared like that until the match ran out. Darkness, the old facade.

“Caramel--” the orange mare hissed.

Rarity flinched and hugged the other display case as the mare emerged emptyhoofed.

“Caramel--” she whispered as she opened the work room door, “There’s a problem--”

Rarity flicked open her switchblade.

“Caramel?” the mare whimpered.

“Sunset, I said holler, not sneak up on me.” He chuckled a little and relaxed.

“Sorry, Sunrise. I have a problem. Well, I found a problem.”

“What is it?” he asked. Rarity could hear his impatience.

“There isn’t anything in the safe. It was wide open when I got in the room.”

“That’s pretty strange,” he said. Hoofsteps plodded their way towards Rarity until she was certain they would trample her. The stallion struck a match and illuminated the room in a soft, foreign glow. Rarity couldn’t help but smile as the mare’s face creased up.

“Put out that match,” she stuttered, “there’s a fire alarm in the main room.”

Rarity looked up and fell forward. Her hoof caught the edge of the door. The sound of its hinges squealing roared through the room.

“Caramel,” the mare whispered, “I think I saw somepony.”

Rarity slid silently towards the front door on her side. She dared not displace her weight. The floorboards squealed, the dirty informants.

“Nah, the jeweler would’ve made much more noise coming down the stairs,” the other one said. “He’s pretty fat, remember? We’re okay.”

Using the display case, Rarity lifted herself up. There she stood, still as stone, trapped in rock, superheated until it crystallized. Her eyes were prismatic stones, catching the faint light and tearing it into the rainbow. Her mouth hung open in concentration as she inched open the front door.

“Next time,” the mare murmured as she moved around the nearest display case, “we are going to have a plan.” Her horn lit up. “We are going to make a plan and stick to it.”

The stallion peered out from behind her. “Yeah, okay.”

He lifted his hoof, hesitated, then touched her shoulder. Rarity bolted.

The mare reeled. A sick, trickling stream of magic stretched from her horn and engulfed an ornamental mirror sitting on the display case. The mirror glowed purple, then green. Then the whole thing lurched and melted, buckling under the magical heat.

Feet from freedom, Rarity dove against the display case closest to the door and covered her mouth. The orange mare stumbled away in horror and knocked into the carousel behind her. It caught the ambient light and threw it across the room. Rarity’s ears were charred and ringing. She couldn’t even hear the noise.

The stallion took a step towards the steaming, still-glowing husk, his eyes glowing like emeralds.

“I’m sorry--” she gasped. “I’m sorry. I saw something move--”

“Holy shit,” he breathed.

“Look, it’s a reflex--”

“Where’d you learn to do a thing like that?”

The lights snapped on. The shop glittered like one giant diamond. Then the room tore itself apart with a tremendous, stabbing shriek.

Above the noise came a thump from the second floor. Then another. The mare looked up. Her mouth opened. Inhale. Exhale. “We should go.”

Absently, he raised his hoof and smashed through the display case. Rarity grit her teeth and waited for an opening.

“What are you doing?” the mare shouted.

As he shoveled up a handful of rubies, displays and all, he replied, “Stealing.” A ceiling sprinkler blossomed to life just above her head and drenched her with freezing water before she could reply. Another thump came from above them. He failed to stifle a laugh. “Admit it, this is kinda--”

A round of buckshot tore through the ceiling.

The mare launched herself towards the door. The stallion grit his teeth and hugged the smashed up display case. Little bits of insulation drifted into the shower of brownish water and settled on the floor. The house recoiled.

He smashed another display case, but another round came through the ceiling before he could grab anything. He howled with rage and bolted out the door.

Rarity watched the two until they disappeared around the corner, then took off in the opposite direction. She ran past the row of streetlights, past the garbage cans, past the noise and into the scenic quiet of Ponyville late at night.

She paused to rest a few blocks away. She put her head between her legs and panted. This was no ration riot. Canterlot had not burned. Applejack was still safe. Twilight was still safe. Rainbow Dash still had a face. She still had it.

More gunshots pinged off the alley walls, one after the other. The first got her attention. The next got her moving. At first she thought they were just more bolts of magic.

A siren sounded in the distance, headed her way.

She glanced up and realized they were not the same.

10: Gold was the Color of his Hoof, then Pink Blues

Darting around Ponyville at night reminded Twilight of when the ration riots broke out.

The night it all went down, Twilight was in Ponyville taking a weekend off--her first weekend off in three years. She dropped her favorite mug when she saw Canterlot in flames from the domed window of her observatory. It twinkled in the distance like a star falling through the atmosphere.

She tried getting messages through to the princesses, then Applejack, but got no reply. For all she knew the griffons had just firebombed the capital. For all she knew the same could happen to Ponyville. Before she could formulate a plan she had flung herself from the confines of the castle into the streets of Ponyville, searching the skies for griffon war parties, charging shield spells, throwing combat charms left and right. She remembered the glow in the distance playing off the buildings. Fire and moonlight made the background sparkle.

A riot is first and foremost a bureaucratic issue. When the investigation finally kicked off three days later, Twilight Sparkle found herself filling water glasses and passing papers. Given that Applejack was the director of the Ministry of Harvest, and the Ministry of Harvest may have been responsible for the insufficient management of crops that led to the shortages that led to the riots, and Twilight happened to be a good friend with Applejack, and it would be a lot to ask the citizens to trust their government before they had even put all the fires out--given all that, Twilight had been asked to recuse herself and help with the administrative side of the investigation.

That meant passing papers and filling water glasses. Luna and Celestia, the two chief presiders, never touched their glasses in three weeks of public investigation. Cadence, the impartial third party, drank a little. The Crystal Empire hadn’t entered the war yet. She smiled a lot more then, even during the investigations. She was happy to be there.

Five ponies died in the riots. The princesses found no evidence of corruption. Applejack stepped down anyway. Twilight bought more combat charms and started stashing them around her place. A few in the closet, a couple in the entryway. One on top of the coat rack, painted brown to make it blend in. A bag taped to the underside of her nightstand, just in case.

There were no flames this time. No moonlight, either. Twilight felt the earth beneath her as she ran. Still as stone, trapped in rock, superheated until it crystallized. Her eyes were prismatic stones, catching the faint light from the street and tearing it into the rainbow. Her mouth hung open in concentration.

Twilight ran until she couldn’t hear the alarms, though the ringing from the gunshots persisted. She peered over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of a figure in the alley behind her. She eased up a little and let her hooves clap against the cobblestone.

“Caramel,” Twilight said. She jogged to his side and eyed his heaving silhouette. “Caramel.”

“It’s Sunrise, dangit,” he panted.

A noise from the mouth of the alley drove them to motion again. Saddlebags filled with gems rattled against their ribs. When they exhausted themselves again, they stopped to catch their breath.

“He couldn’t have followed us,” Twilight said. “I don’t think he can run at all.”

“Yeah? I didn’t think you’d try to godsdamn vaporize me.”

“I’m sorry, okay? You scared me. Why’d you try and grab me?”

“I was trying to reassure--” he leaned against an alley wall and slid to the ground, clutching one hoof. “I was trying to reassure you.”

“Your hoof is bleeding,” she panted. “Why’d you go and smash those display cases?”

“I didn’t know--” Caramel tried to clutch his aching ribs, but his saddlebags kept getting in the way. “I didn’t know he’d have a shotgun.”

“He’s an earth pony, isn’t he? How in Celestia’s name--how does an earth pony use one of those things?”

“He was shooting through the floor--there’s no way he would have hit us anyway.”

Her horn flashed. “Give me your hoof and hold still.”

Caramel looked into the coltish mare’s eyes. They looked wounded somehow, strange and spackled with moonlight like sulfa powder. He reached towards her face and wondered if his hoof would go right through it.

Twilight grabbed it before he could touch her. Her horn flashed again, and blisters of purple fire erupted from the cuts. Little pieces of glass removed themselves from the wound and evaporated. Caramel writhed.

“Don’t scream,” Twilight said, “I’m not sure if we were followed. That first flash was a magical x-ray. You didn’t break anything, but your ribs are bruised. You’ll be sterile for the rest of the month, by the way. Sorry about that.”

“What?” he said between gritted teeth. Fire worked its way up his arm, leaving hairless marks on his leg where the cuts had been.

“Look, it’s an emergency spell. I was worried you were going into shock. I couldn’t teleport you if you were in shock.”

Caramel was already on his hooves again, shaking away the last traces of fire from his arm. He squinted as the last of the cuts sealed up and flared out, exposing fresh pink scar tissue. A siren sounded in the distance, headed their way.

Caramel put his hoof over his old scar. “No need,” he said. “Let’s go.”

He glanced down and realized they looked the same.

11: The Most Fanciful Mare in All the Land

Rarity had a headache, the kind stemming from a late night and a brush with death.

The sun was too bright. It flew through the open windows and blossomed inside the stolen gems as she sorted them in her fitting room. Twice a day the sun would come through those windows. It looked so nice!, the customers raved. Natural light on lavender walls. They gawked as they bought--was the door locked?

Rarity stood up, walked to the door, and checked the lock. It rattled and stuck. She still felt watched.

She sat back down at the table and stared at the partially finished dress before her. Carved up. Made to fit. Just the right width. Was the door locked? She couldn’t even remember. How many gems had she found last night? Absentmindedly, she picked up one of the amethysts from the pile. It looked nice in her hoof, but it was flawed on the inside. She had to hold it up to the light to notice, but when she did the deformity set itself into her vision.

The door was locked.

She looked back down at the pile of gems on the floor. Most of the pile had already been appraised. Only the amethysts were left. The sun moved away from the window until all that was left was a wet pool of light on the floor near the corner. She tried her best not to think. If she really threw herself into something, she could slip into autopilot and time would just rush on by.

Once Rarity finished, she scooped the gems into their own drawstring bags, placed them into her saddlebags, and took off towards the shady part of town.

She took a few steps towards town. Paused. Turned. Pulled out the house key. Missed the hole. Left a long scratch on the doorknob. Tried again. Jammed the key into the lock. Twisted.

Walked across town.

and three four one, and... and three four and--and

The door to Noir’s palace opened in a rush of hot, stale air. Rarity tasted tar. Snowflake ushered her in without a word.

“Thank you, Snowcone,” Noir grumbled from across the room.

“I wasn’t aware you smoked,” Rarity said, nodding at a lit stub sitting in the ashtray on Noir’s desk. “The place always did smell like cigarettes, I suppose.”

“I don’t smoke. I light them for the smell.” He dragged in a breath. “That’s my last one.”

Rarity groped for a response in the half-dark. “I can’t say I’m experienced enough to tell the difference between brands. Is it something you do--”

“Shut up,” Noir said. He breathed in hard and let his chest fall slowly. Breathing reminded him of his age. He creaked and rattled and coughed. “What’s in your bag?”

“Your payment.”

“It’s not a recording device, is it?”

“Of course not.”

“No one’s paying you to spy on me? No one’s coercing you into ratting me out?”

“The only pony who is being paid here is you, Mister Noir.”

She took a step forward. Noir held up his hoof. Out of the corners of her eyes Rarity noticed the henchponies stand up.

“In the borderlands,” Noir started, “a few months before the war ended. There was an unexploded piece of ordnance stuck in the ground right beneath a loose outcropping of rock. Probably ours. Who knows. We deemed it too dangerous to remove by hoof, so we threw grenades at it from a distance until it exploded.” He leaned forwards. “You should have seen the earth. It danced. The outcropping came apart and buried a little village a ways down. It wasn’t anypony’s fault. We didn’t think the whole outcropping would come out. We didn’t think ahead.” The cigarette collapsed into a pile of ash. “Where are my gems?”

Rarity breathed a sigh of relief and hefted her bag onto the table. “Green diamonds and purple amethyst are in the two envelopes. The plastic bags have some quartz that could fetch a good price, and some rubies as well--those are the red ones there.”

“Very good,” Noir replied. “They’ll make fine meal. Maybe I can eat them like cereal, with some cool milk. Then I’ll shit them out whole in a few days and flush them down the toilet, and they’ll be worth about as much as they are sitting on my desk right now.”

Rarity laughed. Flat seventh fall to major third. “I beg your pardon?”

In response, Noir slapped a newspaper down atop the gems. “You’re so smart. Read it.”

An ugly pause settled over the room. Rarity looked away before she looked at the paper. Finally, she said, “I assure you--”

“Read it out loud,” Noir said. “Nice and clear.”

Rarity tapped her hoof on the table. “The historic Barleigh’s jewelery shop operated by--”

“Read the headline.”

“Spree of terror,” Rarity hissed. “The headline says spree of terror.”

“Good, now keep reading.”

Rarity felt the ceiling collapsing on her. Little pieces of ash floated all around her. The house buckled to get a better view. “The historic Barleigh’s Jewelery Sshop operated by local veteran Finer Cut became the scene of the most violent robbery in nearly a decade when an unknown assailant--” she nodded her head--“an unknown assailant entered the shop and made off with nearly a quarter of Mr. Cut’s merchandise. Adding insult to injury, the thief smashed multiple display cases and fired three rounds of buckshot into the ceiling before escaping. Police say the suspect also left traces of magical residue consistent with forbidden dark magic spells. The total losses after damage total over thirty three thousand bits--”

She stopped reading and looked up at Noir.

He chuckled sadly. “Thirty three thousand--what the fuck were you thinking?”

Rarity took a deep breath and snapped.

“What the fuck was I thinking?” she squealed. “What the fuck are you thinking?”

Cracked all the way through. Millions of years of coincidence, wasted.

“I’m thinking you just advertised our brand to every officer of the law who reads the Foal Free Press.”

“These are lies. These are all lies.” Rarity squeaked like a saxophone. “The safe was open. Finer Cut forgot to close it. He shot through the floor, not the other way around.”

“I’ll bet it was the owner who smashed all his shit, too. I’ll bet he conjured up some forbidden dark magic by tapping his dirt pony hooves on the ground and doing a little dance and making all his shit disappear--”

“Don’t be so racist--”

“I told you to take enough to pay back what you owe. I didn't tell you to put half the store in your pocket!"

"I did! I took only the gems from the safe and back room." Her eyes darted down to the table to find the gems, and saw nothing. “I--they’re right here. They’re all right here. I swear.”

“Honestly! You’re no better than the damn pissbeaks I had to work with after the war. A bunch of vandals and thieves--and thugs. I’m glad you’re not the element of honesty, or our nation would be fucked.” He tossed the paper aside and grabbed one of the envelopes. "So where did all those gems go?" he asked. “I’m missing seven thousand bits here.”

Rarity thought of a few things to say, but they might get her killed. One might get her a few nods in a gallery a hundred years after she died. The other might get her happy. The other might get her shot. Who knew? Who could deny the desire of the artist to be influential? Cherished in museums? Who decided what went into museums, anyway?

She broke Noir’s gaze and stuffed the gems back into her bag. “If you really can’t believe me, I’ll just keep them.”

Grey confetti fell from the ceiling and choked the air. Balloons swelled with excitement and burst like gunshots. Noir glared at her like a clown, strange and sad.

“The EQUIS is back in town,” he murmured.

Rarity gave him a damaged look.

“Officially one agent was sent to aid in the investigation of the bank robbery. I’m sure you don’t know anything about that either. But this”--he pointed to the newspaper--“will be more than sufficient reason to bring a unit to town. They are here, or they will be here soon. In this hour I need all the cash I can get. I can’t keep getting screwed over by middlemares embroiled in private affairs with banks.”

“Don’t you know?” Rarity asked. Her eyes drifted into space. Empty and forlorn. “Corporations are ponies now.”

“Isn’t that funny. Now since you clearly have enough excess funds to pay off your debt to the bank--”

“Now hold on a second--!”

“Since you have enough excess funds to pay off your debt to the bank, you’ll have no trouble devoting your time to helping me accrue the necessary funds I need to shake the EQUIS. I’ll need lots of bribe money. An ungodly amount of bribe money. I help you by letting you keep the seven thousand you skimmed off the top, and you help me in return.”

“Now--don’t interrupt me again--”

“This is--”

“Don’t you interrupt me again!” Rarity threw her hooves at Noir in a vague, angry gesture. “You’ve done nothing but badger me without so much as letting me get a word in.”

Noir crossed his hooves.

“I know what this looks like. Noir, Mister Noir, I know as well as you do, this looks bad. But you must believe me. Outside forces are at play here.”

Slowly, Noir stood from his desk chair and made his way towards Rarity, pacing around her like a shark. Just when she couldn’t take the tension anymore, the staring, just as she was about to squeal--, Noir bent over and picked up the newspaper on the floor.

“You’re right. There are outside forces at play here.” He plopped back down into his chair and sighed. “Seven thousand bits. Maybe that doesn’t seem like a lot of money to you, but to the rest of us, that’s a lot of money. That’s seven thousand bits you took from me. That’s seven thousand bits you need to earn back.”

The artist finally ran out of inspiration. Her muse ran away with the party favors. The violence was over. Today’s headlines.

She sniffled and wiped a tear from her eye. Her hoof came back black.

12: Conditions

From her seat in the air conditioned train car, a coltish orange mare with a purple mane watched the desert speed by.

Caramel sat across from her. He leaned over the table between them, whispering his plan. “It’s a real classic job,” he said, his voice low and cool. “You want a plan?--that’s fine. The plan is, shoot the security camera and the teller if you have to, just make sure you get that security camera. I’m gonna barricade the door.”

As he went on, Twilight stared out the window and counted the blanched tree trunks that popped through the cracked earth like chimney vents. One in particular caught her eye, a massive old tree with a cancerous growth on one side, slanted like a jackboot in mid-step. It faced north, marching forward forever towards Canterlot.

“Hey,” Caramel snapped, “listen to me.”

“Sorry," she replied. "Can you repeat the stuff you said after you told me to commit murder?”

He chuckled. “I saw that tree too. Pretty cool, right?”

She put her nose to the glass, but the tree must have marched away. Only the desert remained. Another blast from the overhead vent made her shiver. She pulled at her jacket. Twenty two miles til.

“Is there anything else I should know?” she asked.

“Yeah, don’t do anything suspicious until we’re inside the bank and the doors are closed. Hey, don’t zone out again. That’s important. Everypony in this town owns guns. If we go charging in shooting the place up, they’re gonna mob us when we come out. We can handle--” he grabbed Twilight’s hoof and pulled her away from the window. “We can handle the ponies in the bank. So long as it’s just them we gotta deal with, this is gonna go smoothly.”

Twilight nodded. “Sorry for spacing out.”

“It’s because I’m talking too much, I just know it,” he chuckled.

She smiled through the stress and said, “Not at all,” hoping the ponies sitting around her would take it as romantic. That was their cover this time. Family or lovers or something.

Twilight didn’t feel like a lover. She loved her friends, and she loved her parents, and she loved Celestia and Luna and Cadence and her country. She was supposed to love the other ponies on the train. She looked around at their undersized ties and mismatched suits. They weren’t so different. Their minds were elsewhere. Lingering on the shadows. Conducting business. Providing. Rewinding. Wary of griffons. Always elsewhere.

The dunes outside thinned out, exposing rocky soil. Ancient homesteads and cattle communes popped up, closer and closer to the tracks, until a town took shape. Row by row everyone got up and left the train. Caramel paused at the station door to grab a tourist pamphlet detailing the canyon hiking trails to the south of town, then made straight for the bank. Twilight smiled through the stress and followed.

“You good?” Caramel asked as the bank came into sight. “Right side top corner.”

“I forgot to ask--why do we need to shoot the camera again?”

“If we don’t, the authorities might conclude we’re disguising ourselves some other way. This makes our geddup believable.”

They stepped up a pair of concrete steps to the bank door. The sun was wide and fierce above them, but Twilight still felt the chill of the air conditioning vent. She nodded to Caramel. Family or lovers or something.

Caramel shoved open the door. Twilight took two steps inside and dialed in the camera in the corner. She didn’t need her eyes for this. She felt it. When she heard the door swing shut behind her, she pointed at the camera. The noise it made sounded like an explosion, though Twilight knew better. She made sure to destroy every piece of it, tear apart every atom and let physics do the rest. It was her job to destroy the camera, so she shredded it into oblivion. That just happened to sound kind of like an explosion.

“Holy cow!” Caramel announced as he jammed a screwdriver into the lock. “That was so cool, I’m jealous I didn’t do that myself. And if you don’t want that to happen to your pretty little heads, then you’ll do as we say.”

Twilight kept her horn lit as Caramel sauntered to the counter and tossed a burlap sack to the teller. A unicorn in the corner tried snapping a hoofgun onto his wrist, but Twilight yanked the firing pin into the next dimension before he could get a shot off.

“So,” he said, “pretty crazy thing, right?” He leaned against the table and slicked his mane back. His voice dropped. “I take it this is your first time being robbed?”

“Yes, sir,” the teller replied.

“I like your eyes. They’re nice.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You’re very welcome. Tell me--do you have any hobbies?”

“Not getting robbed, sir.”

Finally Caramel took notice of the awful, crushing silence in the room. While he was flirting with the teller Twilight had gathered up the customers and herded them into the corner. It wasn’t a normal crowd, all screaming and shouting. It bore down on him like an angry mob. The crowd behind Twilight was watching him. He could feel it. All those eyes. Like they could change him. Him! The nerve! Nerves pinching in his back.

“Cute,” he said, and threw his saddlebag across the counter. “If you would.”

Tappa-tappa-tappa-tappa-tappa. Five bits. Or a hundred. Or a hundred. Who knew? The customers sure did. Caramel sure did. The sound of coins on the counter played behind them. A hundred more, maybe. Not as much as Barcleigh’s.

Fear, the old familiar tune. Nervous dancing. Movement! Twilight locked eyes with an older stallion in the back of the crowd fiddling with something in his jacket pocket. She wondered if he felt the same cold she did, even all the way out here in the desert, a cold like the end of the universe was closing in on her, when he tried to pull something from his pocket. She could have used her magic to subdue him, but instead she walked right up to him and took his hoof in hers. They locked eyes, and she shook her head. There was the power! There was the dance.

Fear, the old familiar tune. Flat seventh. Screaming! Twilight could mold fear, manipulate it into submission, force it into compliance. Fear was a weapon. It struck her heart each time without fail and jolted her veins full of a strange and awful electricity. Now she could see the current in the old stallion’s eyes.

Caramel snatched up the bags and tossed one to Twilight. She caught it without breaking eye contact.

“Hey.” He grabbed her shoulder. “Leave him.”

As he made for the door, Twilight nodded to his saddlebags. “I think your bag is rigged with a rusting agent. Don’t open it until I can make sure.”

“Look at you with the plan.” He smiled.

Fear, the old familiar tune. Applause. Motion! The audience trying to leave! The old stallion barreled through the crowd, his eyes wild and cold. In an instant he was between them, jamming the barrel of a hoofgun right into Caramel’s face and firing over and over again.

Caramel flinched and clocked the geezer in the temple. Twilight had her hoof on the deadbolt, ready to melt it and free the door. So close. The whole mechanism popped and disappeared. Fear took over. An overhead air conditioning vent blasted her square in the face. Using her magic, she picked up the firing pin from where she had thrown it and pinned the stallion’s hoof to the floor. There was the charge. Now she felt alive! This was the dance, the tall terrible partner who had circled for for seven years and just now took her hoof. Something like a chuckle rose from inside. It bent and blued until it hit a good note and fell all the way into the back of her throat. This was every war she had won, every bad decision that didn’t matter in the grand scheme. This was the dance.

Caramel howled in pain, “You freak!” and kicked his outstretched leg.

Out of the corner of her eye, Twilight noticed the bank teller reach below the counter.

Caramel pointed. “Don’t--”

The alarm went off. The victims covered their ears. Twilight snapped up and vaporized one of the decorative mirrors purely on instinct. Caramel snarled at the noise and shouted, "Damn it, we’re leaving."

He unzipped his bag as he walked towards the exit. The rusting agent inside popped and covered his hoof with dust. He shook it off without a care and pointed towards the speaker in the corner. It exploded in a shower of sparks. The wail of the burglar alarm fizzled, drooped, and fell to the floor--dead--along with the rest of the speaker. Twilight recoiled as her ears rang.

He turned back towards the crowd just in time to be struck in the chest by the force of utter and complete silence. The eyes were upon him. A history of conflict in a stare. Twilight’s, charged and cloudy. The old stallion’s, shivering and deep. The teller’s, calculating and metallic. The eyes spoke in place of noise.

Caramel tried to sigh, but he coughed instead. “Would you all just shut up?”

“You shot that thing right next to my ear!” Twilight shouted. Something had happened to Caramel. Rusty powder covered one hoof. Some of it was smeared across his cheek. His eyes looked just like the barrel of his ankle-revolver--a small circle pointed right at her forehead.

“Shut up. All of you shut up.”

Twilight backed away and tripped over herself.

Caramel raised his hoof and pointed at the ceiling again. A chunk of drywall fell on him in a shower.

“Quiet. Would you just shut up? Everyone quiet.” He turned back towards the old stallion. His voice was animal, staccato gunshots. “What did you call me?”

The old stallion tried to yank his hoof free and groaned again.

“Sunrise!” Twilight called to no avail. The dance was over, it had been over for years, but her mind kept spinning and spinning. Sublime spin, like a drunken stupor. Something terrible had to be coming--she was certain of it. There would be an angry mob around the corner coming to lynch them, or some other old hero with a gun she hadn’t already disarmed. If she tried to run she’d just fall over. If she stayed a little while longer--she might just catch another dance.

“Tell me what you said.” Caramel raised his hoof and pointed.

“Freak.” Words pooled in the geezer’s throat. “You just want to scare us with your screwed up face.”

It was loud. Louder than it had ever been before. Caramel could hear it so vividly. Her saccharine laugh. Cardboard. The war clouding the backdrop. Bobbing up and down and up and down and up and down and--

The hoofgun clattered to the floor, louder than a gunshot.

Caramel blinked, then picked it up again. He pointed at the ceiling again. The bank and its occupants reeled, but stayed in place. He took Twilight by the hoof and stumbled out the front door towards the sirens. The next moment they were gone, carried away on the wake of the gunshots, swallowed up by the shivering desert.

History of a War

When Noir was Seventeen, it was a very good year.

A famine had just broken out when Noir left his homeland of Scoltcilia. The first of the great northern vineyard to die closed its gates the day he boarded a long, bullet-like airship aimed for Equestria.

That morning, as Noir packed with his family, his father gave him a revolver. The barrel was long and sleek and silver. They stared, awestruck at the awful thing, before wrapping it up and placing it in one of Noir’s carry-on bags.

The ride went without incident, save a troubling newspaper article about more farms going under. Years of high demand for Scoltcilian produce had reduced nutrient cycling to a laughable offense. The money was in durum wheat and tomatoes, and the money was right now.

And it didn’t start out as a famine, of course. What plague starts out in its deadliest form and regresses? The soil was not dust you would find in an Appleosian flower garden. It was strong. But a new form of bug which could thrive in a bucket of pure pesticide was stronger. The only thing that could kill the bugs was a freak cold-snap. When that too hit the island, the bugs suffered and died along with their food supply, and the ponies’. Then, when the cold melted away, the bugs came back.

It was a very good year for travel companies, but not as good as they might have hoped.

The distance made him bitter like bad wine. In his letters home--ones he had to send two months in advance to assure they would get to their destination on time--he told his family he was fine.

Meanwhile, the famine worsened. Day by day, like a wasting disease. It festered in houses, in the pitiful growls of small bellies. An open sore, exposed in times of quiet and sacred silence. Churches gave up. Churches! Hope for the hopeless! Pray for food! Gods, Celesia, Luna, save us! You can’t help us? Why? Divinity can’t save us from bugs? Who are they to decide the fate of ponies? They would be better off squashed.

All this Noir read from his new home in Chicoltgo, purchased with what would have been a meager college fund. He found a job, then another, then another, until his resume was a mess of reputable names and warnings against this employee’s acute anger problems. His references raved about his unparalleled abilities in sales.

But what did Noir care? He had taken enough off the top to sustain him. He sipped the brim until it receded into the barrel, too far away for him to reach. It was a fine year, but over the months his thirst grew greater. Opportunities around the city began to shrink, slimmer and slimmer, until there was no source of income--his or someone else’s--left to manipulate. As the help wanted section in the newspaper disappeared, so too did the letters he received from Scoltcilia. The famine had earned its name, and Noir’s family had to sell most of their possessions to get by.

They ran out of ink before paper, so they wrote with used charcoal embers from the previous night’s fires. Their writing suffered, too. He could see the hunger in their hoofwriting. The starved swirls, the ravenous dips. They hurried through their writing, as if he would send them food for writing him.

Their final correspondence contained only 15 words. Mama is feverish. Only thieves eat. Famine is in from Griffonia. Please send money Love

Initially, Noir had puzzled over the odd space in the letter. For a few months, the mystery compelled him to survive as he waited for another letter. An explanation, another mystery--something to keep him wondering. He went so far as to save the note, pinning it up on his wall while all the others had gone into the hearth after a good long read.

A month passed. It was a very good month. Not for Noir, but for someone out there. The imagined successes of the elite made him sick with jealousy. He longed for money. He longed for more than a short wait in the Ponyville breadline--a line which, over the course of the months after his family’s final letter, grew steadily to include businessponies and models, artists and clockmakers, college dropouts and accountants. Microcosms of society lined up and waited.

It was in one of these lines--the longest one he had ever seen and wouldn’t be topped until the next day--that he learned the meaning of the letter. Coincidentally, the truth came about through his insatiable temper.

“I can’t tell if your hearts are beating,” he called to the crowd, “because you’re all standing so damn still.”

“Hey, cálmate carcamano. We gotta eat too,” a pony with a Brayzilian accent said.

“You don’t have to eat here. You have jobs.”

Yeah, but no food,” replied another stranger from behind him. “No food in supermarkets, can’t eat nothing.”

“Where are you all coming from?” Noir turned towards the first speaker. “You’re dressed in good clothes. You speak strongly. You’re not suffering. Why are you here with low-lifes like me?”

“We are low-lifes, carcamano. The famine what from Pissbeaker finally came round and hit us.”

“Imports--no good anymore,” the pony behind Noir spoke up. “Imports dead. They take exports, but no pay for us. It’s charity.”

“You’re wrong--the famine started in Scoltcilia.”

“It’s a festering wound, carcamano. Griffonia is gonna infect us. They did this to us, that’s all I’m trying to say.”

A murmur went up around Noir, a chorus of nodding heads and vague hums of agreement.

Noir frowned, hesitated, and bolted from the line. It closed in behind him with a final call of, “Where you going, carcamano? You a pissbeak sympathizer or something?”

Noir grew quiet. Where was his family now? Had they moved in search of food? Were they dead? Something clicked, and the space in the letter fell into place. His hoofsteps clattered on the rough street sides, an echoing war chant growing louder and louder as the streets narrowed.

He ran through time. The buildings dipped, then soared high above him. Forte piano crescendo. The higher they got, the closer they came to him, narrowing harrowing a run across a busy street carriage screaming past him his family is dead the famine is in Griffonia carriage--whoosh!--too close he doesn’t care his family is dead dead dead dead dead five ponies traveling along the Scoltcilian countryside begging for work carriage the famine is from Griffonia carriage somepony shouting a cop? what good will a cop do you can’t arrest a famine with handcuffs only help and who will give it but Equestria except now Equestria is in a famine there are ponies in suits in breadlines the famine is in Griffonia--

Noir was on the other side of the street. What had been an orderly street disintegrated into chaos as carriages veered and honked their horns. He reeled and stumbled away towards his apartment.

Buildings rose up to obscure the sun at uneven intervals, throwing Noir into odd shades of shadow and light.

He ran into a newspaper salespony--almost knocked him over, too. While the old stallion was busy picking up his wares from the ground, Noir tucked one into his body and ran away. Light, then dark, then light, then dark, then light--electrical light.

Noir slammed the apartment door shut behind him. He cut a path into the couch, then the table, knocking the latter onto its side, before reaching the wall where the letter was pinned.

He tore it off the wall, sunk to the ground, and read the letter again, and again. Five times in total.

From beneath him he pulled the slightly crumpled newspaper and laid it next to the letter. The headline proclaimed in bold letters:

GRIFFONIAN FAMINE HITS HOME
SOURCES WITHIN EQUESTRIAN GOVERNMENT CONFIRM REPORTS OF PESTICIDE-RESISTANT LOCUST IN EQUESTRIAN BORDERS
EASTERN FARMERS UNPREPARED FOR FREAK COLD SNAP
GRIFFONIAN IMMIGRANTS, IMPORTS TO BLAME, SAYS CROWN
SCOLTICILA CONTINUES TO SUFFER UNDER SIMILAR INFESTATION! DEATH TOLL FROM HUNGER RISES
ALL THIS NEWS AND MORE ONLY ONE BIT

It clicked into place, like the bolt of a rifle. His mother must have tried to correct his father (who, being the only one besides Noir who could write in the family) after he had written that the famine was in Griffonia. They didn’t want to waste energy scratching the word out. The famine wasn’t just in Griffonia. It had originated there.

In the following weeks, the word spread, first by newspaper and then by word of mouth. By the time homeowners started to find anti-griffon leaflets stuffed in their mailboxes, Griffonia had been unofficially charged with rampant incest, torture of political partisans, violent atheism against the Princesses, violent theism against the Princesses, and aggression in the form of a string of unknown assailants attacking the border mountains on the Northeast border of Equestria and Griffonia.

The princesses denied griffon involvement, stating the attacks were merely raids conducted by desperate villagers, but refused to comment when asked what species the attackers belonged to. They also denied that it was griffon immigrants smuggling infected produce into Equestria to sell at local markets that had caused the bug to jump from one country to another. Their response to such an allegation was a wordy shrug. In time, they would even have to clear the griffon name of purported sky-terrorism as questions rose as to whether it was the griffons behind the savage cold snap and not just the regular flux of the earth’s weather. All the while, the pamphlets grew bolder in color and darker in tone.

None ever showed up under Noir’s door. None were necessary, as far as he was concerned.

The sentiment grew harsher with the weather. The awful snap that had plagued Griffonia and Scoltcilia manifested in the heart of Equestria. A perpetual alien wind blew protest signs and leaflets across the streets, carrying the message from one side of Chicoltgo to another.

And when Equestria seemed ready to burst at the seams--a statement from the Crown! Increased windigo activity in the lower atmosphere! The product of an unnatural wave of racism. The princesses implored their subjects not to spit fire at the innocent griffons, but instead use it to warm their homes and their relationships with Equestria’s sister state.

It was a very good year for parchment stores. Large-font letter stencils and posterboard flew off the shelves.

Why was it his fault, Noir wondered, that his nation had suffered? His fault, that his surrogate home now required an expensive heating unit he didn’t have? His fault, that a loaf of bread would have cost him a day’s wages--if he could find a job? His fault, that griffons had brought a plague upon his kind? His fault? Some probably believed that, too.

He would show them.

Anti-griffon marches didn’t get off the ground until the price of corn spiked. The grain could be imported. The fruit could be hydroponicized. The cold could be combated with a coat or two. But the corn! The corn was Equestria’s worldly staple. It equalized cuisine. Everyone from the lowliest workhorses to the princesses themselves ate corn on a regular basis. Corn oil fried their food and corn syrup sweetened it and fermented corn turned it alcoholic. Call it corn-crazy.

When the corn became infected and then froze, the bottom fell out. Half the market destabilized and toppled. When the Equestrian market went down, it took a few others with it, mainly the floundering Griffonian trade partnerships keeping the country off the edge of the financial plateau. The loss of the corn market, it could be argued, dragged the world into war.

The griffons, having no more central market to rely upon to regulate the distribution of food, turned to local black markets which flourished with both bad crops and crime. The images of bug infested produce stained with pesticide and fights over hunks of bread only served to solidify the Equestrian opinion. The griffons couldn’t be satisfied with the destruction of the Equestrian way of life--no, they had to go and destroy themselves too. What good were they, when they couldn’t even keep their own country out of turmoil? And then drag Equestria with them? Who were they to decide the fate of ponies? They would be better off squashed.

As the black markets became more competitive, the average griffons lost their foothold in the business to wealthy mafiosos who swept in and bought up the food only to turn around and sell it at a tremendous markup. The whole landscape went straight to shit.

And things were not better on the homefront--or any front. Noir had never been to an anti-griffon march before, or a march at all for that matter. But--but!--now seemed the opportune time to start! Let his voice be heard! Equestria was a free country, unlike the tyrannical Griffonia, ruled by sex-crazed gods of destruction and an archaic ruling class. Here he could speak his mind.

Except he didn’t--not at first. It didn’t take courage to march--it took hatred. Noir hated the griffons, sure, but for some reason the regular weekly intervals of shouting coming from down the streets inspired him to stay inside and cook his hatred in habitual isolation.

He had never seen a griffon in person, but the newspaper advertisements of terrifying claws and beaks shredding flesh and a grin stained piss-yellow through the black and white print gave him sufficient evidence. Inside his little slice of hell, emotions leaked out of him like sound from a squeaky chair, bounced off the walls, and hit him a second time. Thoughts, too--they resonated better than any violin.

It took violence to spur Noir into action. As in the past, so in the future. The formula of these things was almost cliche. Somepony would incite the police. It was a simple, repetitive refrain, but a catchy one. Shout something at a cop. Cop gets close, threatens you with arrest or some other mild punishment. Get up in his face. Cop pushes you away. Bump into him. Cop breaks out the billy club. All hell breaks loose. You do the pony polka and you turn yourself around and put your hooves behind your head you have the right to remain silent. And that’s what it’s all about.

And one night, a rote scene of horrific violence took place right outside Noir’s window. A police pony with a billy club and a protester with a chipped piece of brick. One went into the other, and the other went into the flat below Noir via the exposed window. Noir was sleeping at the time. He slept through the crash of glass only to awake to the panicked cries of his downstairs neighbor. Help! Help! Gods! He’s bleeding! The rugs! Amateur bebop.

So! Out into the night he went, to the tune of a wailing trumpet filling the air with nonsense notes. Like sirens! All he meant to do was survey the damage--really. He was going to go back inside right after he caught a glimpse of the shattered glass, the frantic struggle of a pony in handcuffs, the blood.

What he hadn’t counted on was the violence--gods, the rush of violence! It grabbed him as he exited the building and forced a deep breath of smoke into his lungs, until he had to pant just to keep from passing out.

He had heard the protests before. But now! Gods above! The violence was firsthoof! There was a carriage on fire, there was a pony sitting on his own broken bones. There was a police pony with a cracked piece of headgear. There was the future! What a rush! Wander the streets and survey the damage. To see was to be, and be empowered. All this chaos, and Noir was alive in the middle of it!

Before he could react the sweeping tide of temporary anarchy swept him up. A carriage soared past him, a tilted cobblestone away from total collapse. Police in dark visors jumped out as it sped by, rolled, and started dismantling the protesters.

--And all of a sudden there were protesters! Scores of them! Ten, twenty, who knew? In the initial high of the moment Noir had failed to notice the stream of ponydom rampaging around him. These apparitions had come about from thin air. He was in an abandoned metropolis one moment--

And the next he had been pushed, hard, in the back.

Noir went down hard on his side. Another limb sailed into his chin, cranking his head around his spine. Blood flowed from his mouth. There was a riot. Police were hitting ponies.

Someone had hit him. Was it one of the police ponies in dark visors? A fleeing fugitive? This was the consequence of violence; acute and unrelenting pain.

He got up. Stood up on his own hooves. Teetered. Stabilized. The cart was gone. A pony or two ran across the street. The tide had ebbed, leaving Noir alone in the middle of a broken street with a busted face, spitting blood. Wasn’t he in his home a few moments ago? Where was his family? Where was the easy sunshine of Scoltcilia? When had it turned into slow-burning snow-falling hell?

He finally saw his neighbor’s house with the shattered window, all the way down the street. The police pony must have backed their target into the window hard enough to crack it. A few pieces were missing. Presumably the suspect had fallen to the floor inside. All in all the damage wasn’t that bad.

He looked around and opened his mouth to cry out. Bloody spittle trickled from his lips. He coughed. Where was the violence? Where was the dance? Tangled up tango--down the street.

That night, he slept in a grove of trash cans on the outskirts of a small park near his house. To return to his home in such a state seemed criminal.

So he hid like the cowards, the passive protesters who couldn't afford to have their bones broken and fur burned.

Ponies would run by, close enough to reach out and grab him.

Flames lit the night. Street lamps and carriages. Burning.

He’d hide from the lights on the city green, when he was seventeen.

When noir was twenty one, it was a very good year.

It was a very good year for all able-bodied stallions aged eighteen to twenty five.

On the long and lonely train ride to basic training, Noir wondered to himself how many of the stallions around him would ride their draft number into the grave. He never got the chance to dwell on it--the train was far too loud, and it moved far too quickly--but for that time on the train, with the whole of Equestria flying by, empty fields and dull-colored towns, the sun, the moon, the stars, the sun, the things he would inevitably protect, it was okay.

War, he decided, didn't deserve a memoir. War was what? Strategized violence. Attack here, build a base there, bomb that town, drop incendiary charges in that forest. The border attacks, as much as they intensified, didn’t really have any chance of succeeding. Hungry griffons in rags with spears and flintlock rifles against armored members of the Equestrian Long Patrol--who would win those fights? And what were the griffons fighting for? Food? Temporary shelter? If by some miracle the griffons actually succeeded in their attack and drove the ponies out of their forward base, they could stay there for about a day before the far-reaching hoof of the Equestrian Air Force came down on them--another few days more if they just killed everypony in the base. Left to its own devices, the border disputes would settle themselves. Why the princesses saw fit to charge the whole of Griffonia with armed assault and make plans to reciprocate didn’t quite add up to him.

War was the prolongation of violence. What was war again? A drawn-out release of violence? Bullshit. War transcended violence. Violence was brief and temporary. A punch in the gut. Wars lasted--how long? Years. Months. However long it took.

What was war? A great juicer. And everyone--Noir and his family and the griffons--was a lemon.

War wasn’t fair. Ponies died in their sleep from hypothermia and got shot while they walked to the breakfast line and stepped on landmines in the middle of good jokes. Most of the other casualties were thinking of something better when they got juiced. What a waste! Life and voice! Pony and hatred.

War wasn’t worth Noir’s memories. But violence has a way of sticking in place--a moment detached from time. The initial months of the war skated by like Noir couldn’t, and individual memories--a recruit getting chewed out for forgetting to lock the bathroom stall door, a collective first experience with guns (but not for him), the train ride to the borderlands where he learned he would be fighting in a snowy and mountainous environment shortly after being outfitted with a thin overcoat, the shout of a recruit eating snow as they pushed up the base of one of the many mountains dividing Equestria with Griffonia--snapped like bullets hitting the dirt in front of him, pushing up strange flowers made of snow and frozen rock.

War! Get in the mentality of it. Civilian no more. You’re a killer now. Noir? Who was he? Oh? A pony? A rifle and a helmet, fueled by food stolen from natives, fueled by hate, a near-inexhaustible--but still finite!--amount of hate.

How long can a pony hate? A day? A year? Forever? Hateful ponies look back with sadness. Their families are gone and they themselves will soon follow suit.

Noir could hate for a very long time.

A shift. Minor to major. A glorious battle, followed by a terrible slog. The years burned with chemicals and a sticky kind of petrol spray that turned everything it touched black and wrinkly, like mistreated leather. The vapors looked just like a battery of carriage tires burning, burning a hole through the mountains of Griffonia. The flames, it seemed, reached for the core of the earth itself. Trying to reunite with the one single continuous fire that could only be extinguished by the extinction of the entire planet.

He came undone, when he was twenty one.

When noir was thirty five, it was a very good year.

It was a very good year for ponies who could shave away years like they could a five o’clock shadow. Skin and fur and bones could be manipulated. Only the eyes told true age. Take a razor to their throat and miss, time after time, stroke after stroke, until they were neat and presentable--downright spiffy even, in a pair of dress blues.

Noir considered the option for a very long time. He would stand in the bathroom of the same dingy flat he had lived in before the war broke out--a flat that would have been somepony else’s, had not the landlord taken Noir’s service into consideration and cut him a deal that only resulted in a slight increase in rent. How very lucky for him! Some of his friends had nothing--and hold a razor to his chin.

It probably would have been more symbolic and satisfying to hold it against his neck, but that would put his foreleg at an awkward angle and it hurt after a few minutes. So he would hold it to his chin and pretend it was against his neck, though the feeling wasn’t quite as good.

But as weeks turned into months, he began to forget about how good or bad it felt. The razor was a small bit of security, like the pension checks that arrived in the mail every month. He basked in the quiet isolation of his flat, grew like a potted plant into his surroundings.

And he watered well! At first with cheap swill beer from convenience stores to ward off cold, then with harder and finer years.

He discovered that he could condition himself to enjoy hunger. That was the day he was able to reassess his finances and buy more booze.

And finances! Gods above, he had to worry about finances again! In the army you had to worry about getting shipped off to a far-away country to die by the talons of some rabid unthinking savage of a griffon, but you sure didn’t have to worry about getting audited for forgetting to do your taxes. The fear of death may not have been imminent, but in a strange sort of way it was an almost preferable comfort to the horrible thought of losing his home, the only unchanging thing in this post-war period of reconstruction. If you get shot in a war, it’s the bad guy’s fault. If you miss your tax deadline and wind up homeless--that’s on you.

Apartments were spreading into suburbs and the carriages were getting sleeker and the buildings were getting taller--but his family’s final letter was still hanging on the wall. The house, it seemed, had mummified itself in dust during the time Noir spent fighting. A replica of a dingy old flat with skin the color of jaundice and a repulsive beauty that beckoned to be stared at but not disturbed. Aside from the dust, everything was as it was. The drawn shades gave it a sort of acidic orange glow, a look of perpetual early-morning.

And Noir didn’t want to disturb it. He only wanted to live there. Occasionally drink too much and make a mess, but nothing more. That was what he wanted from life, then. To get by and to be left alone. What he really needed more than anything else, more than money and liquor, was to sort out his memories--were they memories anymore? Were they still happening every night when he closed his eyes? When he heard the lid of the garbage can slamming shut in the alley below?

That was another reason why he didn’t want to disturb the flat. He was worried about leaving a mark.

When Noir got out of the train that had taken him from the station by the border to Chicoltgo, they had ushered him and his remaining friends without fanfare into a large conference room with no chairs and no desk. There they were told they might have nightmares or vivid hallucinations. They were given a set of phone numbers printed on a large notecard to call, just in case.

He tossed the card in the trash before he left the station. He didn’t want to bring it into the house. He was back. He was home from war. The griffons had signed an armistice. The war was over.

He didn’t want to take the card into his house. He didn’t want to see it. He didn’t want to leave a mark. The nightmares continued, until one night in a feverish scramble beneath the covers he kicked over his nightstand. He just happened to get his hooves under the lip of it and buck hard enough. It was there. Then it was over.

What a sight he must have been. A pathetic waste of a stallion. The card was gone. The nightstand was over. What was he to do? Spiral? How long did he sit there staring at the overturned nightstand? Disgusting. He didn’t even have the nerve to fix it for five whole days. There was his mark.

Regrets? He had a few. Throwing away that card was one of them.

Going out was another--but did he have a choice? Groceries needed buying, trash needed taking out. He could lock his windows and draw the shades and live in his filtered sunrise, but he couldn’t survive in it. Besides--where else but in the city’s bars would he be able to get drinks as cheap as they were?

He could bank on a few free drinks if he dressed in his army blues, and moved from bar to bar periodically, partially to avoid seeming like a mooch and partially to avoid being recognized. He could flirt with liquor as much as he pleased--neither it nor he would remember by tomorrow morning. But other ponies could. They might remember his awful angel eyes, his temper, his dress blues, the way he would stare at his boots and shake his hooves a little bit before speaking. Ponies like Noir got remembered, one way or another, in moments and memories. He wanted to be a part of neither. The war had blasted him inside himself. His body had weathered the bombs and bullets, but his soul had caved in. People could reach in, but they wouldn’t find much. It takes effort on both sides to heal, and Noir no longer contained the will to reach out.

And that’s what ponies would try to do, when they remembered Noir. Reach out. Try and save him. They knew what he was going through. They wanted to help? Can I buy you a drink? Why don’t you just talk about it? War trauma, you say? I read about that once. Nasty stuff. I’m so sorry you lost your mind. If it’s any consolation, you look just fine.

He did look just fine--was he ever dashing! Strong and tall and fit; the picture of equine health and fertility. He couldn’t communicate with actions the unending wariness, the marionette self-inflicted listlessness that blasted his mind into a hyperaware coma. How the hell do you talk about something like that? How do you think? He saw everything, remembered everything. His mind couldn’t work properly due to the sheer amount of information it took in. Permaflow on a highway. It crippled him--but his legs were still chiseled and steady.

Alcohol made him unremember. He drank to forget, back then; an unamusing and boring pastime. Money couldn’t remember. Money was a passive addiction. You would never give away rock candy you bought off the streets for a loaf of bread, but you could spend extorted money without trouble.

So for some time--a few years, probably. He didn’t keep track of his birthdays--he remained a ghost of an unknown soldier. He thought it would be best. He was right. And eventually, despite all his efforts, despite all his moving around and staying still and wordlessly begging and staying as far away from everypony as he possibly could, he was recognized.

It didn’t happen for any one reason. Noir had his uniform on. He sat at a bar drinking a beer that didn’t belong to him. He hated the taste--but it was free! It was late, late enough for the lights to be low and the music easy and sad.

Not late enough. Not dark enough. Not slow enough.

In walked the future: a static point to move towards, and eventually away, in the same continuous line. A finely dressed stallion with strong legs and a sharp midsection accented by gold-lined shoulder boards. His face was an unmoving picture partially concealed by dark sunglasses.

Was he ever dashing!

He was more than handsome, though. He was intelligent. Observant enough to notice the service patch on Noir’s uniform. Quiet enough to slip into the spot next to him without being noticed. Fast enough to grab Noir’s foreleg with his own and proclaim with a subtle quiver of emotion that grabbed the whole room’s attention, “Gods above. You’re a billy goat. I don’t see many of us around.”

Noir replied, “Well, there were a lot of suicides.”

Noir grimaced as this strange new stallion sat down next to him. Within moments they got right down to the awful business of being remembered. War stories were dragged up from their mass graves. Prostitutes in the border cities were scrutinized. Dead friends were mocked. Over the course of a few hours, Noir was dragged back into the past by--what was his name, Noir asked?--McTough. They had been in the same camp for a month or so during a lull in the fighting, when Griffonia pulled some of its forces from the mountains to amass them on their border with the Crystal Empire to wait for an attack that wouldn’t happen for over a year.

They had played a game of cards together, McTough--that was his name, right?--told him. Apparently Noir didn’t want to part with his bits when he lost, so he offered to fight McTough for them.

They didn’t fight--Noir would have remembered that. Ponies remember violence. Nopony gives a damn about a lost card game. You can shake that off. But fights are imprinted into the flesh of your face and the pits of your memories. You remember a good fight. You remember a good ass-whooping.

Noir didn’t whoop McTough’s ass over a few bits. How else was he supposed to remember him?

But McTough didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he was being awfully reserved about meeting another pony from his unit, especially with the reputation the billy goats had among enlisted personnel. His demeanor betrayed nothing but precision and calculated gestures. McTough, Noir soon learned, was very good at being neutral. It drove him crazy, too. What was a pony without emotion? Where did all the piss and vinegar go? He had to be good at hiding it--that was it. His head must have been a clusterfuck of thoughts to bottle up and conceal.

Those, and memories.

Here’s what happened over the evening. They drank some more. McTough picked up the tab, a gift which Noir repaid by humoring the conversation. Talking was tough and it hurt Noir’s head, but he did it anyway. He thought it might be good for him. The best way to cope with stress was to vent it. That was common sense.

With time it became a bit easier. The end of each sentence left him with a pleasant buzz, a simpleminded form of euphoria. Had he been drinking? No--it was the talking that made him feel good. Noir had no money. Other ponies paid for drinks. McTough was another pony.

And through the talk, through the reminiscing and the omitting, Noir realized he remembered everything. And once more--it made him feel good.

Crazy! He had been going about it wrong. How had he been doing it before? Listening? Understanding? Trying to? How stupid. He couldn’t understand any of it--the war, his part in it, the nightmares. Why try?

But he could remember it. Gods above--he could remember it! That was as good as understanding. In the wee small hours of the morning in the dim amber light of the bar, Noir remembered his frailty. He could have died in the war, or he could have swallowed a bad oyster, or gotten hit by a speeding carriage. Why hadn’t he?

Who knew? Who cared? For the life of him Noir couldn’t remember why the war had started, but for those hours in the bar with McTough he remembered the days he would have naturally forgotten, the average days where nopony died before his eyes and all he had to worry about was ducking low enough when moving through the shallow rocky trenches connecting the machine gun posts and keeping his socks dry.

That was as gratifying as writing a dissertation on war itself.

He tried to think of a dissertation on war itself just for the heck of it. A spur-of the moment thought. All he could think of was “wasteful.” There was the simplicity he wanted. A clear and objective goal to strive for. War was wasteful. Remembering was good.

Wouldn’t you know!--It would lead him to his grave.

When they ran out of war stories to tell, the present reasserted itself with such force that Noir coughed out the sad state of his living situation. Like someone had hit him on the back hard enough to push the air out of his lungs.

He sat there agape in silence as McTough told him about open positions in his own line of work--the Chicoltgo Metropolitan Police Department. How they were a bit low on level-headed and experienced decision-makers. How the office gave special consideration to veterans. How he could put a good word in with the commissioner.

But first--Noir had to make a promise. First to McTough--then, later, he promised, to the commissioner to make it official. He wouldn’t touch another drop of alcohol again. Alcohol was destructive, they deemed. It would inhibit Noir’s ability to perform as a member of the force. This was their ultimatum; five seconds of serious thought and a nod of his head.

“You’ve been drinking all night with me,” Noir said.

“We’ll need to work on your observation skills, then,” McTough replied as he pointed to a single full glass collecting condensation in front of him.
.
That five seconds turned into a few more hours. The yes was worth the same.

From that day onward Noir stayed out the bars. He ordered grape soda at restaurants despite the jeers of his fellow officers and guzzled it down as if he were trying to float away. He stuck to his promise.

Of course, he still drank heavily. Only now it was in secret. Reserved. An intimate sexual encounter with the past in the confines of his tiny bedroom. He was done beating it out of his memory with booze bottles. From that day on he promised himself to remember all that he had intentionally forgotten over the years. He played music to pave the road to the past and he drank to make it slippery, so when he inevitably stumbled he would slide.

It was a very good year when his life stabilized, when he no longer had to bear the indignity of charity, when he had passed training and gotten his badge, when the feeling of freedom and his dependence on alcohol put each other into tipsy equilibrium.

And then, like all good sob stories, it came undone. There was his pride! It was always in the past.

Noir and McTough were assigned to a case involving exotic furs being smuggled illegally into the country through the assets of the family Philarmonico, a family of Scoltcilian descent who built a name in the classical music scene while accruing a fortune in the illegal fur trade. Their name was known throughout Equestria as one of the last great marefia families. The rest had been crushed by the war, yet they remained. Their endurance unnerved city officials.

Who better to take the case of such monumental proportion than an upstart veteran and his glassy-eyed partner in crime?

The two were to pose as slightly revised versions of themselves. They were both disillusioned war vets who couldn’t integrate into civilian life. They had heard about the Scoltcilian organization through family back home--that was the revised part of their characters--and wanted the opportunity to continue their war. When they acrued enough evidence, they would route the entire organization.

They did it all, and well! They knew they would probably be killed by the end of the operation, brutally and slowly in a basement or, hopefully, quickly and suddenly while they waited for the bus. A shot through the back of the head--what a fantasy! Painless and surprised, with a half-formed look of serine curiosity on their faces. They had access to the files on the Philarmonico gang. They signed the forms, then the wills. McTough gave his family heirloom, a gold watch with a studded amethyst centerpiece, to a relative in Fillydelphia. Noir burned his family’s last letter. Just before he held it over his stovetop burner he recognized his sacrifice; his sentimental last gift from his family for their safety--if they were still alive. Who knew what a powerful marefia boss could do with an overseas address?

Over the next year, Noir found out exactly what could be done. McTough couldn’t make any progress--he turned away all the dirty jobs--but Noir flourished. The best good guy, it seemed, was a bad guy. They were doing just fine until all the bad guys died.

What probably happened was a large group of marefiosos from a clan on the other side of the city were lured to a newly acquired Pihlarmonico restaurant with the promise of a deal on a new shipment of exotic leather from northern ranches of Griffonia, the ones that hadn’t been irradiated during the war. Seven arrived in total, representing the branches of the family and their guards. They went into the restaurant, with its nice stone walls and purple drapes peeking from behind the windows, later determined to have no real business in it whatsoever. Upon sitting down, they were promptly overwhelmed by several stallions dressed in military uniforms. Thinking it to be a raid, the marefiosos surrendered. They were promptly shot execution-style in their seats. The shooters dumped their guns into the Chicoltgo river and fled the country with the help of the Philarmonicos.

What probably didn’t happen was this: Noir hadn’t been told why he needed to shoot--all he had been told was that this act of good faith would solidify his standing in the Philarmonico family. This was the only way to make sure he was totally loyal to the family. All he had to do was put on his uniform and tell them to surrender.

He hadn’t shot a gun in years. He missed the first few times, but it sprayed wide enough.

He tried sneaking back to the police station only to be trailed by McTough and photographed leaving the scene of the crime. Bail was set at half a million bits, just to make sure nopony would try to bail Noir out. The public wanted justice! And the police would ensure it in spectacular fashion.

That is, until Tom Philarmonico, son of the don of the Philarmonico marefia, walked into the Chicoltgo police station with a suitcase full of gold bars.

“One of your prisoners has a dinner appointment with my father,” he told the stunned officer working the counter. “This is easier than rescheduling."

The Philarmonicos drove Noir out of prison, past McTough, past the past, past his future. They desired his further assistance. They walked out of jail and into a bright black limo waiting for them on the street corner.

Their chauffeurs would drive, when he was thirty five.

But his days grew short. It was the autumn of his years.

His dreams curdled and turned to nightmares again. He drank and drank and drank, yet he could still remember. Worse--it made him remember. This was his penance. This was what he had to do. He had to remember all of it. Forget the present. Fuck the future. He needed the past. Needed it! All of it! The story wouldn’t come in pieces. He had to swallow it all at once like a stiff shot. Again and again so he would never forget.

It was a mess of good years. And then, a mess of years.

Noir took a sip of his wine and swirled it around in its glass before setting it down on the desk. A vintage. Made before the war. When the northern vineyards could still produce quality grapes.

He took a sip and smiled bitterly at the taste. It was a very good year.

13: Some Kind of Light Show

“I would have put on some tea, Twilight,” Rarity said over her shoulder as she picked another water bottle out of the fridge, “but sacrifices had to be made.”

Twilight sipped it gracefully as Rarity listed off her grocery bill. She imagined hot tea, then warm milk, then microwaved tap water.

“I would have put on some tea, Twilight,” Rarity said over her shoulder as she picked another water bottle out of the fridge, “but sacrifices had to be made.”

Twilight sipped it gracefully as Rarity listed off her grocery bill. She imagined hot tea, then warm milk, then microwaved tap water.

“How about your air conditioner?” she asked. “You can save plenty of money by turning it down.”

“Please,” Rarity scoffed happily. “There’s sacrifice, and then there’s suicide.” She sat down behind her sewing machine and paused for a moment to look out the front window.

“How’s the dress coming along?” Twilight asked.

“Beautifully, I should say. I decided to use your constellation pattern as accents on the back, around your wings. The interplay of light should draw attention to your regal wings, especially when you’re flying.”

“Sounds impressive.”

“Believe me, I’m just as impressed as you are,” Rarity chuckled. Her hooves hit fabric. The sewing machine chattered rudely beneath them. “Sometimes I have these passions, and I just don’t know what comes over me, but I blink and a few hours pass and I have a new piece of the puzzle in front of me.” Over and over the motor turned. “I hardly know where the time goes.”

Twilight motioned to the nearby couch. “May I?”

“Please,” Rarity replied without looking up. “Honestly, my worry with this dress is it may not be done by the end of the month. All these things to do, and all the things I want to do with your constellations.” she fiddled with the needle and restarted the machine. “I wouldn’t worry, at any rate. Whether it takes a week or a month or, I don’t know.” she tutted and played with the needle again. “You’ll be the coolest mare in Canterlot.”

Decades ago, Twilight imagined the stars from her balcony at the Golden Oaks Library, where she could peer into the abyss with her telescope. Before that, she imagined them from the roof of her parents’ Canterlot flat. As night approached, she would ask her father politely to help her up to the roof, where she would sit in the shadow of the castle until the sun went down and the sky became hers. The stars stayed the same--it was her perch beneath them that made the lights so special.

Now, when she thought of the stars, she saw them through the bedroom window of her castle. She pictured the faint light coming in on moonless nights, playing across the crystal, scattering, refracting, reacting to the room, falling across her bedsheets and setting a mood. The stars stayed the same--it was she who had changed. Where was the professional diplomat? Where was the accomplished general? Where was the hopeful learner who wanted to know all the world's secrets? Where was the scared little filly who pointed at the Whitetail Woods and burned it to the ground?

“How is Rainbow Dash?” Twilight asked.

“Just fine. She is fighting me hoof and nail, but I’m going to get her down by next week for some quality time. Probably, I don’t know, Saturday? It’s best to plan these things in advance so we have enough time to communicate with Dash. Look at the letter she sent yesterday.”

“What’s in it?”

“It’s not what’s in it. Just look at it.”

Twilight turned the parchment over a few times. “Her cursive is really taking off.”

“I know. I’m hoping she develops the Canterlot accent to go with it. She’ll be a new mare.” Rarity let out a long laugh and kept sewing. “I’m so happy for her.”

The rough cursive spoke to Twilight in tripping syllables. It rushed and pulled. Still, it looked better than the last letter. She must have been practicing. The image of Rainbow Dash laboring over a spelling workbook brought a smile to her face.

It occurred to Twilight that no matter how hard Dash or any of them tried, they would never be new mares again. They were aging. She realized it every day in little ways. Her bangs sagged without the aid of mane product. The hot swing in her hips dragged. Life was autumn, the slow falling of fiery-colored leaves making way for an ashy winter. There was no cream for that.

As Rarity chattered away on the sewing machine, Twilight descended into a dark old dream, a fragment of biased memory. Only her friends kept her going. Her friends, her second most comforting thing. Maybe in a year or so there would be another friendship emergency, something that would force the six of them to work together again and save the world. They could put aside their differences and do something important.

The sewing machine paused. Rarity went into the kitchen and returned with two glasses of cheap moscato. Ten minutes later, she repeated the ritual. The first time they toasted to Rainbow Dash. The second time, they didn’t toast at all. Rarity hummed standards in reverse. Twilight made a game out of rolling the wine around in its glass faster and faster until it touched the lip and taping a sip when it stilled.

They just sat there, working and thinking, until Twilight decided it was time to leave. “Here is the first installment of your commision,” she said, floating a folded check to Rarity’s work table. “I know this dress is going to be special. I know it.”

Rarity crossed the room and gave Twilight a big hug. Her moscato circled around them as they embraced. Here was comfort. Here was the dance Twilight wanted. There were the strings. There was the check on the floor, blown around by the air conditioning vent. Twilight felt warm, but the cold gave it wings. She shivered in strange elation.

14: Interlude

That night Twilight dreamt about the attempt on her life.

Generals and their aides strode around the vast table, making notes and moving the little tokens across the landscapes of Equestria. Their shadows doubled and tripled under incandescent lights. Communicators lined the wall, buzzing like muted trumpets. Twilight’s hoofsteps beat an echoed rhythm up the bare rock walls. Above the table hung a series of stunning stalactites, wet and smooth with water. A few hundred meters above them, Canterlot slept easy.

Twilight walked up to the table. The crowd parted around her. The light grew brighter. The table was glowing now. The tokens marched across its surface of their own volition. Without thinking, she knew where each piece needed to go. She reached out to touch one.

Just as she grabbed it, the ceiling exploded. Stalactites fell from the ceiling and impaled the table inches from Twilight’s hoof. She dropped the piece and dodged another falling chunk of rock. The trumpets ripped out their mutes and blasted a dissonant alarm. Aides threw themselves over their generals and hustled them out of the room.

A griffon dropped from one of the holes in the ceiling, gun in each talon. It snarled and pointed at the closest general. Two bullets hit him square in the back. “The war room has been breached,” somepony cried over the speaker system. “Article five enacted.”

Twilight heard the words and immediately charged her horn. In craning her head to get a better shot at the intruder, she tripped over the crushed body of another aide. Her first bolt sailed high and wide, into the ceiling.

The griffon turned on her. It raised its guns as Twilight charged another spell.

An instant before it could fire, a purple cloud surrounded its arms, fully paralyzing them up to the elbows. Its eyes went wide. It shook its head in fear.

Twilight didn’t see it. In another moment, she had yanked the griffon’s arms clean off its body. Green blood jetted from the stumps. Fur and feathers fell away as the griffon let out an animal hiss. Changeling eyes glowed beneath the half-melted griffon facade.

Twilight charged another spell, aimed, and incinerated the intruder. Strange ash spilled across her face. She closed her eyes and her mouth, but it got in her nose. She recoiled and looked for another intruder.

The room was empty. A few bodies littered the floor. A voice on the intercom told everypony to make their way up to the main basement of the castle via the catacomb hallways. Before she left, she trotted over to the communications table and incinerated all the documents in one clean sweep of magical fire. Papers leapt from the table and danced in the air. Their wild motion transfixed her. She didn’t notice the hoofsteps behind her.

Someone grabbed her by the shoulder and whirled her around. She yelped and leaned back. Flames touched her wings. It was a general’s aide, his body pale, blood smeared across the side of his face, eyes yellow and shot, thick hooves locked on her shoulders, tearing at her fur. Twilight couldn’t fight. She never fought in this dream. He opened his mouth and like dragon fire the words came pouring out across her face-- ”We have to leave!”

Twilight woke up on her stomach. She tasted her tropical conditioner. One leg hung over the side of the bed, resting on the bottom shelf of her nightstand.

Without opening her eyes, she took stock of herself. Breathe in. Feel the bag taped to the underside of the nightstand. Breathe out. Let the pillow trap the warmth. Breathe in. The night was cool. She could feel it through the blankets. Breathe out. The pillow was warm. It felt good. Breathe in. Breathe out. Forgive yourself, forget yourself.

On a whim, she crawled out of bed and went down the hallway. “Spike?” she called softly. The tall crystal pillars trapped the sound. Breathe in. No answer. Breathe out. “Spike?”

A little purple light made the crystal around her sparkle. The night felt cool and easy. Twilight could still remember her hooves wrapped up in the sheets, the soft melancholic protest against wake.

A few rooms over, she found Spike asleep at a half-sized work table. Spread around the table were a dozen or so half-finished sketches of a tall, lean dragon swinging a fiery sword at a sneering cadre of ninjas. The lines were clean and the figures were bold. Everything on the page pointed towards the dragon’s chestplate, where a six-pointed star was embossed in shaded gold. Flipping through the pages gave her a glimpse into the world of Dragoon the Dragon, savior of ponykind and defender of Equestria. Spike snored into his arm, a silly-looking savior taking a well-deserved nap.

As she perused, she noticed a larger sheet of paper tacked to the bench, beneath the comics. The loose pages came to life and organized themselves somewhere out of the way as Twilight peered at the strange drawing. A silhouette of a mare sat at the edge of a bed. Her body was crumpled and her head bent low between her legs. Jagged shutters partially covered a window behind her. One side of her body was bathed in light, the other in an indigo shadow. Tracing the outline from head to hoof, Twilight noticed the colors ever so slightly skew from their borders. In the light of an implied moon were the distinct shapes of treetops sprouting from her fur. Moving across the strange body, the trees grew sparser. In the shade they were hardly more than sharp black stumps.

Twilight looked at Spike. He snored again and moved his hand over the corner of the drawing. No signature. No mark. Just a mare. Just art. She spread the comic pages out again and levitated Spike down the hall to his bedroom. She didn’t have to think about it too hard. She knew where he was going.

Without Spike around, Twilight found the emptiness of the castle alluring. She wandered from corridor to corridor, opening doors at random, looking for problems to solve. She polished a few scratches in the crystal in the foyer, which led to righting fallen book rows in the library, which led to the kitchen--and who could walk into a fully stocked kitchen and not at least grab a bowl of cereal?--which led to dusting the tables in the evening room. In the wee hours of the morning, this place felt like it hadn’t been touched by another living soul in years.

As the sun rose she turned on her radio and flicked through the dial, trying to find the station Rarity had been listening to earlier. Where was the dance? Where were the strings? She moved past morning talk shows and top 40 playlists, past the news, past the oldies, past the radio plays, all the way up to the top of the frequency range and then back down again.

Spike descended the stairs halfway and rubbed his eyes. “Twi?” he asked sleepily.

She stopped the dial halfway between stations. The castle echoed static isolation.

15: Mares Who March

Rarity was almost certain the marefia wouldn’t burn her house down. But not completely certain.

The shades were drawn and pinned shut, except for the one window facing the road which she would periodically peak through. She had convinced herself she was spending more time working on putting a freshly-bedazzled collar onto a gem-studded tux than looking at the window from her work bench. It was just a nice view--that was all. It gave off a nice light. It put her in a working mood.

And she was supposed to hang a big banner advertising the sale outside! How could she do that if the marefia was waiting for her outside? She had access to neither long poles nor other ponies to do it for her. She even tried consciously procrastinating, but that only yielded a good record being magically lowered onto the gramophone in the corner of the room at the wrong time.

“In a sentimental mood,” she hummed. “I’m within a world so heavenly...”

She was right, in a way. This was a sort of heaven. She could have picked a work song--Work Song, perhaps, or Sixteen Tons. Something to get her angsty and broody and jumpy. Something to get her in the mood to hurt herself running her hooves through her sewing machine or stabbing herself with pins (though to her dismay she bloodied her hooves getting all those curtains shut, so that suffering was pretty much pointless). But for the life of her she couldn’t stop the record from floating from the bottom of the pile, upsetting the two dozen or so records she kept beside her alphabetical catalogue for spontaneous occasions like this. Sometimes it was nice to be the pony everypony wanted you to be. Emotional. Royal. Purple? Blue. Ella Fitzmareald. A true artist. Ugly as a sack of potatoes with legs--but then again, Rarity was no Ella Fitzmareald.

She trailed off. The marefia wasn’t waiting outside with marelotov cocktails. Noir didn’t do that kind of thing--not anymore. Not to ponies like Rarity. Other ponies got whacked and shivved and shanked and faded and erased and taken care of and--killed, but Rarity was not one of them. Worry would turn her hair grey. What was the use? She was alone now. The house was empty. Sweetie Belle was with her parents. The town outside was asleep. It was--what, six thirty? Six forty? Nopony was awake to touch her. Firebombs could eat fabric but not ideas, so long as they didn’t kill the pony thinking them.

She looked out the window again.

The marefia wasn’t outside. Nopony was outside. It was six thirty in the morning. They were all inside in various states of sleep, some snoring and some sighing, some drinking up dreams and others slurping coffee from hot mugs.

She looked around. The place empty, its occupants were in various states of unsleep. Where was her tea? She put down her fabric and trotted into the kitchen. Her mug was right where she left it. A little trickle of liquid had slid down the side and left a trail behind it. The urgency of half an hour ago--where was it now? The fabric had needed to be sewn as if it would soon become her last tether to the world. The window needed monitoring--who knew? The marefia might be out there with firebombs.

Now what? The rush was gone. The fabric ceased to be anything but fabric, the window anything but a window. Art? A vision of the future? It seemed impossible to assign any real meaning to her toils when she was away from them. Fabric. Waiting. What awful things to spend a life on. There could be so much more in the real. Her abstract art, her dresses, her gems--what were they compared to space rockets and microscopes? Did the world need more artists? Did they need artists at all? Ponykind would go on without art. Not so for science. What was the consequence of Rarity’s kind vanishing? She didn’t know.

Art perpetuated itself. Books inspire books and paintings inspire paintings and music inspires music and dresses inspire dresses and she hadn’t looked out the window in a bit. Selfish, maybe. But she was glad. Art seemed very much a tenant of what ponykind was: a small and weird being floating on a rock whose days were controlled by gods who happened to look just like them. More than mere resemblance, though--she could see her face reflected in her gems!

She found little bits and pieces of herself in her art. Did that make her selfish or a narcissist? She longed to find something in her dressmaking but didn’t quite know what she was looking for. Something like gratification, only more permanent. There wasn’t a word in Equine for that feeling of longing for something but not knowing what you were longing for. A few other languages, Griffon and Minotaur and maybe Seapony, but not Equine. She had to come up with a long string of complicated words to properly express her thoughts, and by the time she was through her audience would have been bored away. She pitied the writers, really. Dresses were flashy and bold. She could glue diamonds to them! Books were flat and lifeless. They lasted longer than a dress, but their entropy was enormous. Dresses burned for a little while. She knew the point at which book paper burned--451 degrees fahrenheit. She had to burn a few during the winters of the war years. She wasn’t proud of it, but it was better than torching her dresses. They would have flared up like mad and then burned up in an instant.

She picked up the tea cup and slurped. Nopony was around. They wouldn’t hear the noise.

She smiled a little. Still warm. What did she want? A warm cup of tea. And there it was.

The heat moved through the mug into her hooves. She liked holding her mugs with her hooves. It wasn’t as effective or proper as holding it with magic--but again, nopony else could really see her here. It was pleasant, but it wasn’t enough. Truth be told, she didn’t really care all that much about her body. It was a thing to be stuffed into dresses and fill out the curves.

She wanted more! It’s just that she didn’t know what she wanted more of. Rationalization couldn’t stop it. Warm tea couldn’t stop it. Dressmaking couldn’t stop it. She was an eternally hungry mare with a picky appetite.

She hadn’t checked the window in some time. She took the tea with her, suspended in magic, and let it trail behind her. Just in case the marefia was out there--which they weren’t--she would have to look proper.

The street was empty. Everypony was asleep. She should be asleep. All she had to do was put up the banner advertising her sale. She could finish her tea while she worked and then go back to sleep.

It was a nice fantasy. She would have loved to believe it. But the view from the window enveloped all her thoughts. She could stand there for a few minutes and not a single thought would pass through her mind. Like she was dead. Darkness in its aging grey preparing to leave, and the dim figures of houses and a road. This was the time of the day she liked the most. She slept through it most of the time to avoid it, but now she was stuck by the window, staring into the empty street. No marefia. No art. Not even houses or a road. Nothing. Rarity thought nothing. Here she could stare and ponies would think her an artist deep in thought. Thinking about how many yards of fabric to use for her next creation, or how far away somepony would have to be to throw a firebomb through her window. You know--the thoughts of an artist. And not really have to think at all. Just stare and stare and stare--

And then drop her tea and duck as a carriage rolled around the bend.

The mug didn’t shatter, but the tea got all over the floor. It was the marefia! Come to burn her house to the ground! Could you imagine it? Rarity, on fire! Burning alive! Running around and wailing and falling to the floor and catching the carpet on fire. Her jaw went slack as she looked for a place to hide. The whole building was wood and fabric. Powderkegs lined the walls. Shelves of fabric. Her dresses. Burning. Everything burning!

She wouldn’t have to worry about paying down her debt. Dying would square her debt with Noir and nullify her debt from the bank. Or maybe it wouldn’t. Banks were banks--maybe they would transfer the debt to Sweetie Belle, or her parents.

So what was she supposed to do--catch the bomb and throw it back? Rarity didn’t actually serve in the war like Dash had. She stayed behind.She designed posters and stole ration cards from Applejack and the ration department. She appeared on television shows and blew kisses into radio microphones.

She rose to her trembling hooves and chugged what was left of the tea in one burning gulp. A drop rolled down her chin and left a trail. She would not die with the taste of smoke in her mouth.

As the carriage approached, she shut the curtains with her magic and moved to the middle of the room. Beams of light shot through the curtains behind her as the sun broke the horizon. She threw the needle off the record player and listened to the approaching wheels. Slanted sounds filled her head. A jagged image of her father dressed in his army uniform flashed before her eyes. She raised the empty cup above her head.

The carriage got softer and softer as it drove up the road. The crush of wheels abated. A moment passed. The sun rose.

Ever so slowly, Rarity crept to the front window. She gripped the curtain rod with her magic and puffed out a breath. Slanted morning light pooled between fabric and glass. Just for good measure, she grabbed the rest of the curtain rods on the first floor and yanked them open all at the same time.

The window was empty. Morning rushed in the open windows. Her knees trembled and straightened. She spun around. Blue skies. Storefronts. Distant skyscrapers. No mobsters. No fire.

The room spun. Her fur exploded into color as she stumbled beneath a skylight. The warmth beneath her hooves made her feel like she was dancing. She pirouetted and pressed her head against the front window. A long sigh curled from between her lips and fogged up the glass. Bits of makeup left a pale imprint of her forehead as she pulled away.

Through the glass, Rarity saw Ponyville’s skyscrapers in the distance. The sun flared against panes of pastel light, cutting long shadows into the sides of houses. She looked further and saw herself reflected in the glass, light pooling in her wide eyes like oil, the outline of her face slipping further out of focus the closer she got.

Hot bile flooded her throat. The curtains snapped shut with a rush of air.

Rarity’s father, shortly before marching off to die in the war, told her that when a problem raised its pissbeak head, you had to keep your chin up and look it in the eyes.

Once she felt good and empty she let go of her mane, which she had been holding over her head. A series of foul-tasting noises came out of her mouth.

This is where Rarity differed. The ugly yellow of her father’s racist nightmares left her unfazed. She never fired any bullets or chanted the racist slogans they threw up on her war bond posters. All she did was pose for the cameras and the artists and designers did the rest.

She rested both hooves on the porcelain and sighed as long as she could. Once her lungs were empty she flexed her barrel until she coughed. Acid filled her mouth.

She lowered her chin again.

Maybe she had it all wrong. Maybe she gave so much of her stock away because she didn’t want to deal with the money. She bled cash and hoarded gems.

She made the mistake of sniffling. Bitter smells rushed in through her nose. She lowered her chin and puked some more. Water splashed against the side.

It smelled like garbage--or was that just a flashback. A sea of garbage, like the one in the middle of the West Ocean. Imagine it! All that trash. No wonder the fish were dying. The smell must have been unbearable.

Rarity felt a lot like a fish. Drowning in air. The bile and acid still inside her slid down her throat, burning every cell it touched. Pollution. Nonchord tones. Slide down the scale, slippery like bleach, like wet rocks in the thinning atmosphere in pictures in books inside her--

Her. Nonsense. Nonchord tones. Latching onto anything and running with it. Third to first, then make the third the first. Bad notation bad composition bad gem placement bad stitching bad mindset bad art. Her mind was always on something else while she sewed. The market price of imported tuna for Opal or the streak on the front windows or the reminders she put up to jog an extra half mile for missing yesterday’s workout. Where was the line between lack of conviction and lack of a chance? A real artist would take the fire in their belly and belch it like a dragon and shape a dress from it. A real artist would stare into the gems of her dress and see refracted a rainbow of tangents cross stitches weaves and desire. Hot like lust, only not as sexy.

Rarity turned away and hugged the floor. In the clean white tile she recognized her silhouette lying beneath her. The closer to the tile she got, the sharper it became. Warm breaths clung to it, yet it was cool to the touch. She put her forehead down and let it soothe her. Here she was stripped down. Here was nobody, atrophy, the death of an idea. She knew it, she knew it, it was her--but here there was nothing to know.

Soon enough the worry returned, clear as the light through the front window.

She stood up and went to her refrigerator in the kitchen, where she grabbed a six-pack of Sweet Apple Acres apple lager in fancy glass bottles. She paused to watch the insulated door close.

Then, like her father, she marched off towards Noir’s.

17: Say Something Vague, Make Them Feel Afraid

Bats hit her again just as McTough walked through the door, visor and all.

He frowned at the bleeding mare strapped to the chair. Her orange fur clung to her body, saturated by cold sweat. “Did the coffee machine break again?” he asked Bats.

He shrugged in response.

“Coffee’s burnt all to hell,” he mumbled.

Bats nodded and respectfully took up his post in the corner. Noir circled the mare once, then poured the coffee over her head. He waited until she was done screaming before sitting down on the opposite end of the table.

McTough hated interrogation rooms. They reminded him of the roomy modernistic confessionals of the church his parents forced him to attend as a child. He was a man aching to serve justice, and he could do surprisingly little of that in this room. Law was on the streets with the drug dealers and the murderers and, in this case, the thieves. Few times did a true confession come out here, and never a good arrest. Almost always it was silence, and then the horrible proper talk of lawyers, eight to the bar to the crowbar to the side of his head.

“You know why I’m here?” he asked. He felt a headache coming on, but he closed his eyes and it went away.

No response.

“Do you know why you’re here?” he repeated, his tone as flat as a mirror.

The mare shook her head violently, along with the rest of her body. Her mane fell around her face in purple knots as she came to rest. She looked up and saw her pathetic bleeding face reflected in the visor he wore over his face. Horrified, she looked up at the lights until her vision swam with white spots.

“Multiple witnesses identified you as a member of the two-pony gang that’s been robbing banks around Ponyville. You don’t remember that?”

She shook again. No, she probably meant.

“So you didn’t do it?”

No no. Two shakes. Or yes.

“Are you going to talk?”

She shook all over.

Turning to Bats, McTough heaved a sigh. “You didn’t give her a concussion, did you?”

He shrugged.

“What have you been doing to her this whole time?”

No response.

“Look miss, one nod means no, two nods means yes. Is that clear?”

Nod.

“Where did you put all the money?”

Silence.

“Did you hide it in your home? Did you put it in a bank?”

Nod. Nod.

“Was that a yes for each? Or a no?” he asked impatiently.

Nod. Reset. Nod. Hard reset. She was shaking again.

“Did you give her a concussion?” McTough asked Bats.

“She’s just terrified, that’s all sir,” he replied.

McTough sighed into his hooves so as not to fog up the visor. Justice was blind, but it was also impatient. He straightened his posture and corrected his vision so his head aligned with hers. This way he could focus on her potential liar’s tells while still projecting a sense of unblinking all-seeing authority upon her. “Look, miss, we have irrefutable testimony that you are the mare who robbed these banks.”

He stood up. From the file cabinet in the corner he produced a thin manilla envelope. “You have no account with that bank. No business with it whatsoever. You’re on summer break from the university of Fillydelphia--which lines up with the dates of all these robberies.”

“Goin’ for your master’s,” Bats added. “Student debt piles up pretty fast these days.”

“Equestria always needs more political scientists.”

“Working on your thesis, too? We recovered it from your hotel. Very studious of you.”

“What’s it about?” Bats asked.

McTough opened one of the files on the table and tilted his head back to read the print. “Moral and Consequential Effects of Rigorous and Overbearing Legal and Governmental Systems on the Psychology and Emotional Well-Being of its Citizens.”

“Sounds like pissbeak-speak to me.”

“Pretty pissbeak-speaky. But I don’t think that’s what you were going for, right?”

No, or maybe half-yes.

“Anyway, it’s got too many conjunctions. It needs work.”

“Like that one song,” Bats chimed in from the corner. “Conjunction junction, what’s your function.”

The two agents bobbed their heads in unison and finished the line, “Hook together words and phrases and clauses.”

The writer despaired in silence, unable to defend her work.

“Anyway,” Noir continued, waving the papers in front of his face like an ornate fan, “I would like to be lenient on you since you obviously have a lot to contribute to the political and moral landscape of Equestria, but I’m afraid you’re putting me in a corner. I don’t know what else to think when you won’t even make the effort to defend yourself from all these accusations.”

No no no no no. Or yes yes no.

“Understand our position here. Think of me. What can I do? I am tasked with dispensing justice. I really truly believe in it. All the evidence points to you, and your partner of course.”

No no no. Yes no? No yes?

“The crime of first degree robbery, which is what you’ll be indicted for, carries a sentence of five to fifty years imprisonment. That’s one count. You and your partner have three counts on your head. You can gamble that the judge will go easy on you since you pay your taxes on time and go on charity missions to the Borderlands, but I assure you he won’t.”

Half-no.

“Nopony will go easy on you. You’re a menace to society. Understand me? A menace to society. You nearly killed an old veteran for his jewels and shot up a pair of banks. You’ve gained a name for yourself, though you don’t actually have a name officially. We don’t want this turning into a Bonnie and Clydesdale story. We’re gonna lock you up until you die to make sure nopony tries to pull a vigilante self-helper again.”

The mare wailed. The noise sounded otherworldly.

“The only pony who will try and cut you any slack here is me. Understand?” He rapped his hoof on the tabletop. “Me. I’m the only one who can help you here. Understand? Understand? Nod.”

No.

“If you come clean, if you give us info on your partner--his name, where he lives, who he sleeps with at night--I can probably convince the judge to give you five years plus community service. You love this community don’t you? Your record says you already do plenty of community service. It’ll be like nothing’s changed.”

She opened her mouth.

“There, see? You love community service. It’ll be alright. Here--we’ll compromise. You don’t have to talk.” Like magic, he whisked a pen and paper from beneath the table and placed it in front of her. “You can just write down the details we need.” He motioned to the other agent. “Untie her hooves, would you?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it. She’s a fighter. Kickboxes and everything.”

“Kickboxing? What does a university mare need with kickboxing?”

“That’s probably how she manufactured all those daring escapes. A little illusion magic and lots of brute force.”

“I don’t think he special talent is illusion magic.”

“Well, how else did she mask her magical signature and pull off all those advanced spells?”

“What’s her cutie mark again?”

“Fiery heart. A passion for public speaking.”

Yes yes.

“Are you going to untie her or not?” McTough asked.

“I think it would end poorly for us.”

“You’re scared of her?”

“You saw what she did to the receptionist. He’s impotent now.”

“We’re not allowed to marry. What do you have to lose? Going on another date tomorrow?”

The mare clenched her teeth.

“Look, I have my baton on me, so if she tries to kick you where the sun doesn’t shine I’ll just beat her to death and then you won’t have to worry about your Genghis Khan complex.”

“Twilight Sparkle.”

The mare had a hideous voice. She gurgled when she talked, like she had just eaten an excess of chocolate, and she spit when she hit the ‘S’. Her head lolled. Half-liquid blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

The two agents exchanged a glance. “What was that?” McTough asked.

She coughed up a long trail of mucus and fluid onto the table. McTough deftly moved the pen and paper out of the way.

“Twilight Sparkle,” she repeated. “I wanted to visit Twilight Sparkle.”

“So,” he leaned into the word, dragging it, a cadenza before his resolution--”you’re saying you’re in town to visit Princess Sparkle, whom you should always address formally, who would help you with your dissertation out of the goodness of her own heart? You’re not here to exact revenge on the big bad bankers who are piling up their chips against you?”

“She’s an associate fellow at Fillydelphia U,” the mare rasped.

McTough stood up and motioned the other agent towards the door. “Excuse us.”

“What do you think?” the other agent asked once the door shut behind them.

“I don’t think it’s her.” McTough pulled up one of the five folding chairs spread around a metal table bolted to the ground. He motioned towards the two-way mirror, where a bruised and broken mare sobbed onto the table, restraints on all four legs holding her upright. “The evidence doesn’t really stack up against her. It’s bizarre, but I don't think she’s our Bonnie.”

“What, you believe her? Maybe the princess is our Clydesdale. Maybe they’re lesbian lovers in secret, and rob banks to finance their indecent lifestyle.”

“Don’t talk about the princess like that.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m not saying Princess Sparkle is involved. But the evidence against her isn’t damning enough. We’ll need more information out of her. There are other orange and purple mares out there. But we can probably delegate it to the peons or trainees. I don’t think this is worth our time when we could be tracking down more valuable leads.”

“Do you have any valuable leads? I don’t.”

McTough hesitated. Tapped his hoof on the bottom of the chair. Ting tingka-ting, it went, like a busted old ride cymbal. “I think it’s connected to Noir somehow.”

“Celestia, is that all you can think about?” The other agent threw his hooves up. “We have a real crime spree falling right into our lap, and you’re worried about chasing down that washed up marefia cop piece of trash?”

“He is more important than a few banks.”

“No, sir, he’s not. This is important. this is what’s happening today. This has ponies writing letters to their princess. Noir and his backwards marefia bullshit is old news.” He paused. “You’re not trying to throw this mare away so you can spend more time chasing Noir, are you?”

“Of course not.”

“Of course not. I’m worried--for you and this case. If this mare slips through our hooves and then winds up shooting up the next bank she robs--” He realized his mistake just as it came flying out of his mouth, a disgusting drooly mix of blood from an old wound and acid. “If this mare ends up being Bonnie, it’s on us.”

“I’m worried about the big picture. The ENB gets robbed again--big deal. They’re required to insure their customers. They could fold completely and nopony would be down a single bit, bar the shareholders.” He paused. “What if whoever is behind this decides to grow a pair and go after the Crystal Heart?”

“Gods. The victory tour. I forgot about that.”

“And that still leaves the question of our Clydesdale. Even if we have half the operation locked up in that room sobbing her eyes out, he is still very capable of killing for it.”

“Gods.”

“The ultimate bargaining chip. He could start a second great war. The Crystal Empire would bomb us to shreds for allowing their Heart to disappear on our watch. You know they would.”

“So you think Clydesdale is Noir?”

Old memories rang in Noir’s skull like distant gunshots. He saw the ponies again, screaming and falling to the floor just behind his reflection. He counted them again. 19, same as always. “Noir’s too old. He can’t run anymore, and he wasn’t handsome enough to be charming in his better years. I think if we catch our Clydesdale we’ll find Noir’s hoofprints all over him. Maybe he puts his hoof on a map and Bonnie and Clydesdale run in with guns. Maybe he’s got them blackmailed. You know how it goes, if you’re in debt to him you’re in debt for life.”

“Maybe.”

McTough nodded at the mirror again. “Someone should call a doctor.” He stood up and took a step towards the door leading to the main workroom of the police station. “I’m going to take a walk, then. Maybe get some coffee that doesn’t taste like shit. Would you like some?”

“Was that an order?”

The door slammed behind McTough. Bats reeled in surprise, bobbing his head like the pummeled idiot in the mirror.

18: Trio Sonata Something

The way Twilight’s hoofsteps echoed over themselves, she could have sworn her spirit was dancing.

The music came from a party a few blocks away, or the bars, or everywhere. It wandered aimlessly through the streets, trailing Twilight and Caramel but never quite confronting them. Distance twisted it, augmented and diminished it. All sharps and flats and no melody. This kind of music belonged in a dance hall ten years ago. They were just now hearing the echo.

Twilight tried to step with the music for a bit, but failed. The echo threw her out of time. Her shadow danced all out of proportion, like the drunken shadow of Fred Astaire.

“You like jazz?” Caramel asked.

“Yes, I guess,” Twilight said. “Got us through the war.”

“Got some fond memories of dancing.”

“Me too.”

The tune ended abruptly. The band must have packed up and gone home.

The allure of the empty stage was too much. Silence gave way to the muffled sound of somepony vomiting. The sound hit like a splash cymbal stinger square across Twilight’s face. She scrunched up her nose and pretended to smell it. “Somepony has to clean all that up.”

“I always thought puke was biodegradable. Like how shit can be fertilizer.”

“It’s still important to keep the town clean. Ponies will use that alley during the day. It’s gross.”

“Do ponies get cutie marks for public maintenance? Cleaning up puke?” He chuckled and listened again for the sound of retching. He knew just when to let silence do the talking.

The lull of these early morning hours made Twilight feel important, like the night was waiting patiently for her to speak. The perfect quiet, the diminuendo before the crescendo. The trained conversationalist.

She stopped in the middle of the street.

“What’s up?” asked Caramel.

“It’s so quiet,” she breathed.

“All the sensible ponies are in bed. It’s just us and the partiers now.”

“Shh.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

When Twilight closed her eyes, not even the evenly-placed streetlamps could interrupt her. The night was hers. The stars gazed into her, waiting their turn to speak. The dark spaces in between sucked her in. Caramel kicked a rock. It skittered onto the sidewalk and stopped.

Take it in, she thought. This will be the last moment of silence.

“All the sensible ponies are in bed,” she echoed. Left, right left right--march two three four spin two three four Caramel at her side four one two three four--V7 in the distance, the start to another five hours of swing. “That makes us partiers?”

Caramel smiled. “I suppose so.”

They passed a few ponies as they went along, smiling and bleary, and a few of the latter, smiling and bleary in an entirely different context. Two patrols, one Equestrian and one Crystallite, marched past them. Towards the town square.

“Are you a partier?” Twilight asked.

“Not really. It’s fun, but my genes gave me a bum liver and a trend towards addiction.”

“I completely understand.”

“Do you now?”

“Diplomats avoid drinking socially as a rule of hoof. Less holes for the news to exploit. I’m expected to drink as a part of certain cultural rituals, though.”

“That sounds like a good time,” Caramel replied with a broad, knowing smile. “Tell me about that.”

“Okay, well--for example, in the Griffonian province of Provintsiya it’s customary for visiting diplomats from a victorious country to drink the host under the table. It’s got something to do with demonstrating dominance. The host is a four hundred pound butterball of a local warlord, and his wings are as ceremonial to his griffonhood as his medals are to his heroism during the war.” Caramel snorted as Twilight added, “Griffon mead tastes, oh goodness, it tastes awful, lemme tell you!”

“Did you beat him?”

“Absolutely not. Gave up after the fourteenth mug. The warlord was used to being denied the rite because of his body, so he shrugged off my failure and ceremonially fell to the floor and vomited. The rest of the visit went well. Also, every New Year’s Eve the princesses have a ceremonial champagne toast.”

The moonlight glanced off Caramel’s smiling eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever tried griffon mead before.”

“You don’t want to.”

“I don’t agree with that at all. We could be in Griffonia tomorrow if we took the high-speed trains.”

Twilight hesitated and buried her head into the flared collar of her army jacket. “There won’t be a ‘we’ soon, so it’s best to not think about it.”

“Right,” he nodded once to her and once to the alleyway. “Right, sorry.”

Twilight winced. The music picked up again--more jazz!--but the sounds of the tavern drowned it out. The conflicting rhythms made it hard to think.

In a faraway voice, Caramel started to hum in time with the music. “You’ll have to remind me where the door is.”

They turned a corner. No longer hidden by the rows of tall houses, Twilight’s castle towered like a pillar of light falling right from the moon itself.

“Around back. It’ll take us through the kitchen. We can grab some cereal or something.”

Twilight smiled as she opened the door and wiped her hooves on the little welcome mat. The hallway didn’t seem so long sometimes. On nights like this it felt cozy.

“Your dragon pal--is he awake?” Caramel asked as they walked.

“He’s never up past midnight. What kind of cereal do you like?”

When they reached the kitchen, Twilight wasted no time raiding the pantry. As she tore through the cupboards, Caramel set his billfold and keys on the counter. Boxes of cereal and a carton of milk floated behind her as she made her way through the tall corridors towards the basement. Caramel stayed a few paces behind and pushed the trailing bowls along. “Sure is a big place.”

“It’s a palace,” Twilight replied.

“Don’t you ever get lost?”

“I live here,” she laughed.

They walked on in silence until they reached a large blast door carved into the crystal. “This is it?” Caramel asked.

“Yeah. Listen, before we get down there and lose track of things, I just wanted to say thank you for doing this.”

“No problem at all,” Caramel nodded. “If this is our last one, we better do it right. We can’t stumble with the finish line in sight.”

“Yeah,” Twilight said slowly. “Couldn’t agree more.” She motioned towards the blast door. “If you wouldn’t mind helping with this.”

“Why’d you put this thing here?” Caramel grunted as he lifted the central lever.

Twilight twisted a dial, and the door swung open with a hiss. She stared down into the darkness. “Just in case,” she said.

It only took a few stairs for smooth crystal to end and hard concrete to begin. The cereal floated ahead of them now, the glow from Twilight’s telekinesis throwing thin light up the walls. At the bottom of the stairs, a set of fluorescent lights flickered on. Twilight shivered. The sun was somewhere far away from here.

“We won’t be in the lab proper,” Twilight informed him, “but we can take up the conference room.”

“This place has a conference room?”

Twilight nodded. “It’s not a big one.” She pushed a few buttons on a keypad next to the door. Tritones and green lights played across the pad. The door slid open, revealing another pair of doors. As Caramel stepped through the doorway, he noticed it was nearly as thick as the first one.

“What do you do down here?” he asked.

“During the war we tested chemical agents down here. Now it depends on the season. This month I’m analyzing rocks from my friend’s old rock farm. They soaked up so much radiation over the past decade that they started to glow.”

“I didn’t know rocks could do that.”

“That’s why we’re analyzing them.” Twilight paused, her hoof on the right door’s handle. “But we’re here to make a plan.” A box of cereal tapped Caramel on the back of his head as it floated past him. He took one last look around before following it inside.

They sat down on opposite side of a long wood table. To their right was a large whiteboard. To their left were five empty chairs on each side. The whole room was cool and quiet. Undisturbed. The brightly-colored cereal poured itself into a pair of bowls and settled down on the other side of the table.

Twilight grabbed hers without hesitation. “Study fuel,” she said with a smile.

Caramel stared at his bowl for a moment, then leaned back in his chair. The fluorescents above him felt oppressive. How far beneath the earth were they? A few meters? Twenty? Thirty? The walls felt like they had been here forever, white painted bedrock sitting dormant for millions of years until they had come along and set up shop.

Twilight noticed Caramel hadn’t touched his cereal. “Did you want a different kind?” she asked. “If you’d prefer skim milk, there’s some upstairs.”

All of a sudden the table intrigued him. The light on the lacquer veins of dark wood beneath it led his eyes to the other side of the room, then back to Twilight. “Remember back to when we first agreed to this partnership,” he said, “back at the Acres. What was the number I gave you? The number of bits we’d make? It was, forty thousand, right?”

“Yeah, twenty apice.”

Caramel nodded slowly, as if he were about to fall asleep. “Well, I was wrong. We’re probably gonna skate by with closer to thirteen.” The lights flickered once and started to drone. Caramel realized he could hear Twilight’s breathing from across the table. “I’m sorry.”

“Thirteen...” Twilight tapped her hoof against the table. “Well, thirteen just won’t cut it. Rarity needs every penny of that twenty thousand, and even then it still might not be enough.” Her brow furrowed, and she looked around for something to write with.

“Look, I can see you’re mad--”

“I’m not mad. I’m focusing.” She conjured a pencil and paper and starting scribbling calculations. “Thirteen’s just not going to cut it. We have to find another way.”

“Look, I’ve thought about this harder than you have. I’m telling you, there’s no other way.”

“What do you mean? We just have to find some other place to rob.” She looked up from her papers. “What, we can’t just find more banks to rob?”

“That’s not the problem. You’re a smart mare, Twilight. Think about it from a statistical point of view. The more jobs we pull, the more resources the government is gonna throw at us. So we gotta balance how many jobs we do. The lower that number, the better. But we still gotta hit our money goals, so we gotta look at what kinds of jobs we’re doing. A few isolated robberies with large payoffs would be a happy medium, except the larger the payoff the more dangerous it’ll usually be. So we gotta think about safety, too. You can’t spend money if you’re dead.”

A strange smile flitted across Twilight’s face. “You’re smarter than you look.”

“I’m not smart, I’m just good at what I do. Now up until now we’ve been keeping to the safe zone. Smaller jobs, smaller payoff, less danger. Tonight we gotta decide whether or not to leave.”

Twilight squinted into the lights. Soon enough she would turn them off again. Caramel would walk out the back door and never come back. The jobs would end. The fear and exhilaration she shared with Caramel would fade into the mess of her mind like an unsettling dream. She would wake up the next morning and forget the detail, one by one, until there was nothing left. The spin would stop. The dance would end. The hall would empty, and Twilight would be left alone again, with nothing to do but listen to the echo.

Unless.

She leveled her eyes at Caramel. “What if I knew of a perfect heist?”

“Well,” he started, “first you’d have to explain what exactly a perfect heist is.”

“What if there was a single job with a large payoff?” Twilight’s eyes glowed. Some payoff indeed.

“Odds are it’ll be too dangerous. We’re smart, Twilight, but we’re not good.”

“We don’t have to be good if we’re smart,” she said. “I think I know of a job. You might not like it, but it’s not any worse than the jobs we’ve already pulled. The only difference is that I already know every last detail about it.”

Caramel leaned across the table. “How’s that?”

“Because I approved it. I oversaw it. I constructed it.” Her eyes were wide now, her chest rising and falling with hot breaths. “Everything about this job has already been designed, built, and installed by my signature.”

Caramel cast a glance out the doorway, partly to make sure the castle’s other tenant wasn’t lingering on the stairs and partly to avoid the unsettling energy in Twilight’s eyes. “

“We’re gonna steal the crystal heart.”

The chairs squeaked. The lights buzzed. The faces on the cereal boxes smiled from the other side of the table. Twilight looked around the room. Where had the earth gone? She sat in a hole beneath the earth and plotted. Where had it all gone? The earth was cosmically tied to the burning sun, but down here night and day ceased to exist. Had the sun already risen?

“The heart’s victory tour will bring it through Ponyville in a few days’ time--”

“I know that,” he said.

“Then you also must know that I’m in charge of the event. I have intimate knowledge of every detail that could make or break a potential burglary.” She paused. “I also know that if the heart gets away, that’s my horn on the chopping block. I’m not here to ruin my career or start another war.”

“I tried war. Not interested in another one. Money is all I need.”

“Good. I think I have a plan, and I think it’s a good one. If we can pull this off, the Crystal Empire will have the heart, you’ll have the honor of being the stallion who saved it from the griffon thieves who tried to take it, and we’ll have five million bits.”

“Five million?”

“Five million bits, each. It’s not impossible. It just requires great minds and good timing and a plan. You’re impulsive, Caramel, and normally that works for you, but we can’t afford to wing this. I also can’t afford to do this without you.”

“What are you getting out of this?” Caramel asked. “Believe me, I’m all for it. Good for you for taking the initiative. But why?”

The lights and their buzzing--Twilight couldn’t stand it. She put her head on the desk. Her forehead burned against the cool wood. “We shouldn’t have given the tavern so much business. Give me a minute?”

Caramel stood up and walked around the table. “I think I do want some cereal after all.” He poured his bowl back into the box and ripped open another with his teeth before returning to his seat.

He took a bite and shook his head. “That’s good.” He waved his spoon at the slumped figure across from him. “That’s real good.”

Upstairs, Spike woke up.

He lifted his head from his drawing table and rubbed his eyes. Dragoon the Dragon stared back from the page, his arms raised above his head, sword ready to crash down on the wealth of empty page beneath him. Spike smiled and added a premonition of a ninja beneath his hero before setting the pen down again.

With a stretch and a groan he slipped out of his seat and headed down the hallway. Back in the old library the floor would have squeaked with every step. Now the walls were wider and the ceiling was higher, but he hardly made a sound.

On a whim he wandered past his bedroom and down the stairs. He went from corridor to corridor, opening doors at random, looking for a mess to clean up. Tonight there was nothing, so he made for the kitchen, recalling the smell of leftover smoked salmon. It smelled just as good in his imagination as it did when he cracked open the tupperware container and put it in the microwave.

After a minute of watching the fish spin on the turntable, he leaned his arms against the countertop and let his head droop between them. This was his favorite time of the day. In the dark and quiet, the castle truly felt like a castle.

The microwave beeped a single high note. Spike turned with a ravenous look in his eye and juggled the hot container to his seat. Just as he was about to take his first bite he noticed a billfold and a ring of keys sitting on the opposite side of the countertop.

Without looking away from it, he took a bite of the salmon. It would have tasted better if he hadn’t noticed. He took a few more cautious bites before curiosity got the better of him.

The keys were just keys, but the billfold looked packed. Spike glanced down each corridor leading to the kitchen before opening the billfold. right away he noticed bank statements where the bits should have been, all dated recently, all large deposits, all to some Zebrican bank whose name Spike couldn’t pronounce. In the front pockets were the business cards of shoe tanners and orange farmers and fashion designers and lots and lots of Apples. On the other side was a flap concealing a government ID card and an ultra-thin folding knife. Spike looked down each hallway again and wondered whether there was an Apple roaming the castle somewhere.

He finished the rest of the salmon, though his appetite left him hoping for something larger. The walk back to his bedroom took him past the basement blast door, which he noticed was open. He peeked down the staircase at the second blast door. It looked like a natural extension of the concrete, a white mass of stone sitting dormant for millions of years, unseen by sentient eyes until he came along.

He shrugged and went back upstairs. Dragoon needed more ninjas to kill.

Behind the blast walls, Twilight lifted her head and looked towards the door. Caramel stared at her expectantly from across the table, smacking his lips and sipping the last of the milk from his bowl.

“Sure you’re not gonna throw up?” he asked.

“Mm’good.” When she went down beneath the earth the spin seemed to subside. After all these years she realized she was used to it. Dependent on it. “I’m okay.”

“Y’know, if you wanna wait until you feel better--”

“No!” She bolted upright like a rifle being charged. “We have to plan this tonight.” Caramel kept his eyes on her as she moved to the whiteboard and uncapped all the markers at once. “We’ll have to line up a buyer as soon as possible. You’ll need to make some calls. You have contacts, I’m sure. Lead with something like, I’m Caramel Apple and my rate projection is set astronomically high!”

“Rate projection?”

“Let’s look at the larger picture. If we steal it, then we have supreme control over who it gets sold to and where it goes up until we physically give it up.” She jotted down a few large port cities on the east coast. “If you have contacts on the coasts, or up north close to the griffon border, we could scout for the best opportunities. We’ll have to make sure we find a group or individual who is competent enough to get it across the border, but not strong enough to keep hold of it when we bring the Crystallites down on him.”

“The Crystallites?”

“Yeah. We have to make sure whoever we give it to won’t have the connections to make the heart disappear quick enough.”

Caramel smacked his lips again. “I don’t think I understand where this plan is going, exactly.”

“Here, let me make a timeline!” Twilight kicked the whiteboard. It flipped around an unseen hinge built into the wall, exposing a second clean side. “We’ll take the heart, and then deliver it about ten hours later to whoever we decide to sell it to. That’ll give the militaries of the Crystal Empire and Equestria enough time to mobilize, though they’ll still be more or less in a state of disarray by the ten-hour mark. We can make the drop around that ten-hour mark, and then as soon as we’re back here in Ponyville we’ll anonymously inform the EQUIS about the heart’s whereabouts. That’ll be fifteen to twenty hours after we steal the heart, depending on where we have to go to, whether we can use high-speed rail lines or teleportation pads or something else--transportation is a semantic at this stage.” She beamed and kicked the whiteboard again. “Just like I said earlier, the buyer can’t be too powerful that they can make the heart disappear in five to ten hours. We’ll be in back in Ponyville with all the money by the time the weight of our militaries come down on the culprits. We’ll be breaking up a crime ring and saving Rarity all in one swoop!” She threw the markers back into their tray and turned around. “So, do you have a buyer in mind?”

Caramel chuckled slowly, mirthlessly. He stared at the whiteboard like a radio box broadcasting a declaration of war. “You wanna rat on our buyer?”

“Yes,” she said plainly, “that would be the most effective solution.”

“You know they’ll kill em. If we rat, the Crystallites are gonna bring their stony butts down on them, and no one survives.”

“I have faith that the military of the Crystal Empire will handle the information we give them in an appropriate way.”

“It’s one thing to sell the heart away and wash our hooves. If we pave the way for those Crystallites, if someone finds out--nopony in the business will ever trust me again.”

“With five million bits, will you really need all those connections?”

His hoof tapped a stilted two-beat against the tile. This was earth-shattering, yet the earth didn’t budge. It had swallowed him up long ago. “I think I know a few griffons who fit our bill. Why don’t we make a list and narrow it down?”

Twilight beamed. Two more markers floated towards the whiteboard. Caramel turned in his chair to stand up and bumped his leg against something underneath the desk. A small black bag covered with cracked strips of tape fell to the floor.

The air shook like they were inside a giant drum. Caramel fell backwards into a pool of sparks. Twilight stood on top of the desk, her horn on fire, eyes trained on the blast doors. Caramel shot to his hooves and lashed at his back, where bright red sparks dug into his back. “Gods!” he cursed, but he couldn’t hear it over the ringing.

“It’s okay!” Twilight shouted after a few seconds. The sparks sputtered out on the floor, leaving a trail of black marks leading back to the mouth of the bag. Overtones from the blast rang in their ears. “Everything’s okay! Everything is just fine.”

Flat ninths. Overtones. More cursing. Caramel squinted and nudged the bag with his hind leg. “What in the starless hells is in that bag?”

“The bag?” Twilight couldn’t help herself. She let out a laugh, all sharps and flats and no melody. She hopped off the table as Caramel picked it up, still smoldering. “I forgot that was still here. Caramel, I’m so sorry--” she stifled another laugh, “I’m really sorry.”

“What are these things?”

Twilight took the bag and emptied its contents onto the table. “These are old defense charms. They’re like grenades you prime with magic instead of pulling a pin.”

“How come it went off, then?”

“They’re old things. The magical bonds decay over time. Are you familiar with exponential decay?” She turned the bag over in her hooves. “The tape must be just as old. Gosh, I haven’t put any new charms down here since before the war ended.”

“Yeah.” Caramel put his head in his hooves and chuckled. In a few seconds they were both laughing hysterically. “I don’t suppose--I don’t suppose you have a bottle of whiskey taped under there too, do ya?” he teased. “Gods in heaven, we need some more of that! Twilight, Twilight, listen--we can’t do this without having another drink. There has to be some godly liquor in this castle. Whiskey, bourbon, vodka, gods above, warm beer! Twilight!”

“Another?” she wailed, clearly enjoying herself. “I can’t handle another!” As she spoke, her horn glowed, and a bottle of aged whiskey bottled before either of them were born appeared on the table, along with bitters, cherries, and iced glasses. “I just can’t!”

As they plotted, Twilight’s mind drifted back to the bag of charms. She imagined them in the dark, forgotten. Waiting.

The whiskey was done in an hour. So was the cereal. So were they.

As Twilight sealed the blast door and followed Caramel up the stairs, it dawned on her that she had forgotten the charms down there. In her state the earth seemed to pull her straight down through the concrete and into the earth beneath. She shrugged the feeling off and focused on getting up the stairs.

Together, she and Caramel retraced their steps through the castle, down the long corridors to the kitchen, where she threw all the empty boxes and bottles in the trash can. Caramel made a face as he picked up his keys and billfold. “Smells like meat,” he said.

“Must be the salmon in the fridge.”

“I didn’t eat any salmon. Did you?”

She smiled a strange, enigmatic way. “No.”

“I don’t want to think about it.” He pointed down the hallway. “Shall we?”

He left with a nod and a smile. The moon hung low in the sky behind him. The shadow he cast down the hallway was long and wide, but it disappeared as soon as Twilight closed the door behind him. She thought she heard retching noises coming from beyond the wall, but she couldn’t be sure. Now that she was alone she felt the weight of the entire castle hanging above her head. She almost heard it speak, though she was too drunk to hear.

Spike was waiting for her in the kitchen. He nodded down the hallway and asked, “Who was that guy?”

Twilight took a few deep breaths and poured herself a tall glass of water. “Government worker. He’s going to be assisting the, the transference of government funds for a new project.” She downed the whole thing in one gulp and smiled too brightly for the early hour.

“Are you alright? I know this government stuff is secret, so don’t tell me what you don’t have to tell me, but you look like you’re about to pass out.”

“Don’t be worried. I’ll be fine.”

“Is this because of the crystal heart? I know its visit is stressing you out. Is it okay?”

“Of course, Spike. It’s fine.” Twilight wondered if there would be a gun battle when she stole it. It would be a pretty lopsided one, but a possibility. “It’s just fine.”

“You’re worrying me, Twilight. I thought we made a promise not to seal the blast doors without telling me first.”

Gods, she did say that. Years and years ago. Why had he never brought it up until now? Hundreds of tons of crystal, all hanging above her head. “Spike, please. I’m sorry, you’re right, but tonight has been very taxing.” Twilight wondered if she would be allowed to use her magic if she got in a gun battle. Were there rules to gunfights?

“You really freaked me out, that’s all,” Spike mumbled.

“I’m sorry. I promise I won’t do it again.”

“Are you the one who's been robbing the banks?” he wanted to say.

Twilight stared into the vast and endless crystal silence and chugged another glass of water.

“That guy had something to do with the Crystal Heart, doesn’t he,” Spike went on. “I can feel it. I’m connected to it like the Crystalites are, ever since I saved it.” He waddled up to Twilight and grabbed her hoof. “You have to protect it, Twilight. It’s so important to the world. You have to protect it.”

Deep down, Twilight knew he was only trying to get through to her. The way his eyes sparkled with dragonfire--he burned with compassion.

She knew if it all fell down and crushed her, he would sink too. Now he was an accomplice by conviction. No matter what happened, no matter what she did, no matter where the dance took her, he would suffer. He would suffer and burn. He would stir the ashes and fill her urn and wonder if he could have done something to stop it.

“I love you,” she squeaked, and marched away.

As she collapsed into her bed, her mind turned to the aged whiskey in her belly, in her veins, in her brain. She imagined the bottle sitting in a cellar somewhere, aging. Waiting.

The spin crept up on her, until she could have sworn her spirit was dancing.

Another Flower Blooms in the Whitetail Woods

Twilight Sparkle had a bad dream.

She was trapped in a small office room filled with swirling papers and lots of bodies. Folding tables stacked high with advanced radio equipment lined the walls. Ponies breezed around the room on the tide of papers, chattering away in morse code.

At some point, an entire stack of them toppled to the floor. Nopony seemed to notice. The papers got trampled. They didn’t have time to pick them up.

This was the worst part of Twilight’s dream; its timelessness. The dream didn’t end--it merely looped at an opportune moment. Either she was stuck where she was now, behind her desk, behind the circus playing out before her, or she was a few minutes in the future. Only on a very rare occasion did the dream progress logically, the way she remembered.

Dreams didn’t follow the rules of time. She was a passive observer to an impending calamity that inched a little closer with every second yet never quite reached her, and she was in the middle of absolute and wrenching stillness in the moments after.

She preferred the chaos of a crowded room. It gave her a place to hide.

One of the ponies floating around the room started a new pile on her desk and said, “They’re two minutes off target, princess.”

Twilight replied, “Any sign of anti-air elements? More griffon flyers?”

“No Princess.”

“Proceed on course. Make sure the quick response team is fully fueled. I submitted the paperwork for extra fuel twenty minutes ago. It should have gone through to the prep team by now.”

The soldier broke eye contact and pointed towards the fallen stack of papers being swirled around the floor. A brutish staff sergeant kicked his way through the largest collection, tearing a few pages apart. Twilight and the soldier winced together.

“See if you can’t get a courier over there, please. I don’t want the magic platform running out of power halfway across the mountains and dumping our reaction team in the snow.”

“Yes, princess.”

Twilight watched the soldier run away for as long as she could until ten other ponies stepped between them. She sighed.

Did she have a name anymore? Princess. Her official title. A public official ceased to be human in wartime--and peacetime, for that matter. They became their title. Princess. Soldier. Did that soldier have a name? Yellow coat, bright eyes, atrocious green hat. Twilight didn’t think to look at her name tapes until she was too far gone. It was odd--the only ones who ever really wore green during the war were specialized units of deer. Odd.

She must have been one of the desk jockeys slinging classified documents through shredders and mailboxes and mailboxes converted into shredders for convenience’s sake. A bureaucrat. How had she wound up in the most important room in all of Canterlot that evening? Extra ponypower, probably. More couriers, and--gods above, somepony who could properly file lots of papers at once would be more valuable than a hundred tons of bombs out there. Bureaucrats never started wars, but by Celestia bureaucrats filed the documents that ended wars.

Twilight looked over the crowd. She could have sent somepony else, relegated the task to a dumber pony with longer faster legs and less of a brain to weigh them down.

But--but!--she was here. The mare she needed was running away from her at breakneck speed. There were papers in front of her, dozens of them, tossed onto her desk and into her lap in passing gestures of dismissal by the ponies in the room. Nopony bothered with staples. The documents kept coming and not enough of them were being picked out to be destroyed to keep up.

Her hoof went up, then down. The din was awful. Why didn’t she just ask everypony to quiet down a little? She couldn’t think. Did she need to? Typewriters clickyclack-clickyclack-brrring ponies walking hard-hooved boots and formal dress shoes clickyclack-clickyclack boxy leyline communicators hissing and crackling like a muffled fire about to explode from beneath a canvas bag the warring nation of Griffonia is about to attack Canterlot stop advance team discovered in Whitetail Woods stop enough to induce panic in local populace stop dispatch Wonderbolt squad to suppress from air stop please quiet down stop princesses advised shut down court and were evacuated to greater Canterlot catacomb network awaiting further information other importants in castle saferoom orchestrating countermeasures stop why is it so loud stop aerial bombardment deemed hazardous due to dry season stop it’s a cycle stop may produce forest fire stop they speak louder because they can’t hear themselves and in doing so drown out everypony around them stop protesters outside gates to be ushered inside castle proper in event of attack stop potential PR campaign stop

What were her thoughts in all this? Were they the notes on the transcription in front of her? Or were they in the head of her speech writer who would be alerted of the discovery in about an hour to give him time to craft a press release regarding why Twilight Sparkle almost burnt down a protected wilderness area.

Twilight couldn’t think--how could she? It wasn’t her fault, though sometime many years in the future somepony or other would undoubtedly pin the blame on her. The room was loud. Papers flew in the door and onto her desk, then off again. Ponies shouted coordinates and status updates--one of the Wonderbolts had to turn back due to a bent primary messing with her descent patterns, the rest of the squad was still okay--over each other.

A brief exchange crystallized in her mind. It probably originated there--though she couldn’t tell for sure.

“It’s Rainbow Dash?” one officer asked another. “She’s the scrappiest Wonderbolt out of the lot.”

“I’ll bet it’s because of what happened in Gallopili.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. This is her first time back in the field since that all went down.”

“Can you blame her for being skittish? Not that the similarity holds any weight--”

“No. It’s probably not. I’m just saying--the two missions are sorta similar.”

“And did you see her face? With your own eyes? Gods above.”

The papers on her desk slid over each other. A few of them fell to the floor, deceased. The rest remained just a few inches away from her. She felt as if she could almost reach out and touch them.

The fuzz from the communications devices intensified as the Wonderbolt squad hit a pocket of magical interference. Hardly mission-ending, but the static caused the room to swell and retract in regular intervals, as if the building was breathing hard to get rid of a headache.

It was only a dream of course--the building couldn’t breathe.

A dream.

“Princess.”

“Final permission from the princesses are in.”

“Wonderbolts are two minutes off target.”

“Why are we shouting?”

“Weather charts from Cloudsdale are in, Princess.”

“Princess?”

“Yes,” Twilight replied. “Uh--what? Who was that addressed to?” Four ponies raised their hooves, then lowered them at the same time. “The--one about the weather.”

A pony in a suit stepped forward. “Yes Princess, weather reports are the same as usual. Dry and warm. Still no rain in the forecast due to the cloud rationing.”

“See what you can do about getting some clouds for our reaction force in case they need to put out a fire. We have weather pegasi, right?”

Another pony stepped between Twilight and the suit. “Yes Princess. A squad of pegasi, most of them former weatherponies, a couple mages, and a squad of earth ponies with teleportation capabilities.”

“Okay. Keep the earth ponies away from the fire itself, should one break out. The pegasi can do their magic with the clouds while the earth ponies dig fire trenches around the forest should it come to that. They have spades, right?”

A garbled message crackled over the communicator. “We’ll use our hooves if we have to, Princess.”

It unnerved Twilight that somepony else had been listening to her conversation. There was no privacy in this room. The walls heard her every word.

It briefly occurred to her, then didn’t, that there were almost certainly recorders in the room. In case somepony messed up and got everyone killed, they would need the tapes to assess what and who went wrong. The technology didn’t exist to monitor her thoughts, but she kept her mind blank just in case.

Private thoughts were detrimental to the process of deciding which places to bomb, Twilight knew. Science and the arts could harbor it, but war couldn’t. There wasn’t enough time and there wasn’t enough room for opinions. Only what was before you. Whatever you could comprehend, you acted on. Whatever you couldn’t, you remembered. Days and days and days of content--yet you would always come back to the things you could not understand.

The unknown is a drug that some try to escape and others try to embrace. Nopony would ever admit it, but both outcomes ended the same way.

Twilight looked towards the corners of the room, where the surveillance cameras were located. She stared into its eye, a wide black drop of paint at the end of a box. How many ponies were watching her--if any were at all?

She didn’t know. There it was--the unknown! Twilight Sparkle hated the unknown. She yearned to escape it permanently, a little at a time. Did that mean she tried to escape the unknown or embrace it? She didn’t know. She couldn't think in this room--everypony was shouting. It was so loud!

She raised her hoof and waved to the camera.

“Princess Sparkle?”

She turned. Her hoof snapped to her side. Rigid and stiff; the princessly pose. Anything else would not do. Anything else would alert the ponies watching her of her duress. “Yes?” she asked, her voice monitored by somepony else, and then a moment later herself.

“The squad’s ready to initiate their attack run. We need your final approval to go through with it. And, it’d probably be best to listen in, Princess. For posterity's sake.”

“Posterity?”

“Don’t you want to tell your grandfoals about the day you saved Canterlot?”

“They’re going to attack Canterlot?” Twilight’s eyes shrunk. That had not been included in her mission briefing.

“Well, they’re in range to. We think that’s what--princess, are you really unaware?”

With a great lurch, Twilight rose from her chair and felt the tole sitting at perfect attention had taken on her body. “How far away are they from their target?” she asked the soldier.

“They’re just about to cross the forest threshold. They should be on target in one minute.”

One minute--what a riot!

The past was a glutton when Twilight least needed it to be. It savored seconds, devouring them with a slow slackjawed bite that left Twilight’s nerves shot. Fifty five seconds. These other ponies all looked so busy. Why couldn’t Twilight be busy? She wanted a job. She didn’t want to command ponies. She wanted to educate. She wanted to be a teacher. Fifty seconds. She wanted to bring her books to the nations and enlighten a generation and then die when she no longer had the capacity to learn. The capacity to know better. Forty five seconds. That’s what she was; a failure. Because she didn’t know any better. She didn’t know anything about military command. She knew what other ponies had done in the past. That had kept her afloat until now. Forty seconds. But she didn’t have any real skills. She was an artist who made exact copies of famous portraits and sold them at low prices. She was a cover band. Who the hell cares about cover bands? Thirty five seconds. This was real. This was now. What did she know about dropping bombs on a forest in a precise enough manner to not start a forest fire? What did she know about the new ways Equestrian scientists were creating to more effectively destroy other living things? Thirty seconds. It was beyond her how they came up with some of these tools. What did they know about rockets that could rip through a forest without burning the trees? Twenty five seconds. All she knew was in the past. Not this. This mission was real! It was in the present! Twenty seconds. The ponies throwing themselves into the fire had just talked to her. They talked. They could hear her--hear the words she said! Fifteen seconds. They were alive, and some of them might not be in a matter of seconds. What did they know? They were soldiers, sworn to defend Twilight Sparkle and the princesses with their lives. They didn’t know what to do. That’s what soldiers were good for; they followed orders. Ten seconds. They don’t know how to make things better and they can’t live with not doing anything. They aren’t supposed to have all the answers. Twilight was supposed to have all the answers. That was the nature of her position. She didn’t. Five seconds. Maybe Twilight was wrong about herself--maybe she really was a soldier, because she didn’t know what on earth to do--

“Where are they?” Twilight blurted. “It’s been a minute--what’s going on? What’s happening?”

A few heads turned to stare at Twilight, and for the first time she noticed immense bags under each and every pony’s eyes. Had she gotten any sleep last night? Had she ordered anypony else to get some? She couldn’t remember--there was no room to remember. The present was here. The past was eating away at it, slow but steady.

“You counted, Princess?” one asked.

Twilight stared back only to find Spike staring back at her. “You counted?” he asked, horrified. “You counted all the bodies? How is that--how was there anything left?”

The typewriters clacked away in the background, their keys falling to the page in a regular heartbeat. Padded footsteps against hardhood, crafting words like swords. You’d be surprised, she wanted to say, at the miniscule amount of body actually needed to declare a lump of ash a body. She wanted to talk to Spike about the incident report, the pictures. The blackened talons lying on the earth as if they had been casually discarded there. She was good at picking those kinds of details, finding the small traces of humanity that hadn’t been obliterated by the fire. She did it to herself everyday, It still overjoyed her to find a shard of bone or a piece of horn. It meant she hadn’t been completely burned up yet.

“Princess Sparkle,” the radio blared, “we are on target.”

“What do you see?” one of the officers across the room asked on Twilight’s behalf. “Is the camp there?”

“We see a camp--”

“It’s something--”

“It’s smaller than we expected--”

All three Wonderbolts spoke at once, then paused to let the other finish.

“And?” Twilight blurted out.

“And--Princess, it appears there’s about a two griffons down there.”

“I count ten--no, nine?”

“No--there’s a couple over there in the clearing with the tents, then there’s a couple by the treeline--”

“About two dozen,” can the third voice, sturdier than the rest. “There’s more or less two dozen. Could be more if they’re out and about patrolling the forest.”

In Canterlot, Twilight wheeled around to face the room. The ponies closest to her had sensed something brewing and had stopped to stare at the communicator. Now they looked to her. In the background, a courier placed another file of papers onto her desk.

“I thought--our intel said it was closer to a hundred.”

“Princess,” one of the Wonderbolts spoke through the communicator, “I can see the camp. There’s a couple tents in a circle around a heating box. They’ve probably been cooking on it.”

“I--” Twilight paused. “I thought it would be bigger.”

“Are we clear to begin bombardment?” the communicator asked. “Princess?”

“I thought it would be--camp. Our camp. Like, barracks and a flagpole.”

“Princess?”

“What good would a flagpole do in the forest?” one of the soldiers beside her mumbled.

The room glowed purple. A document appeared at Twilight’s side, pulled from one of the many file cabinets behind her. “Look. Here. Estimates showed upwards of a hundred griffons setting up an advance outpost in the Whitetail Woods. Likely origin is from the remnants of their fifth aviation unit. Likely objectives are attacks on the surrounding metropolitan areas. Ponyville and Canterlot in range. Canterlot, being a more symbolic target, is more likely to be attacked.” She looked up from her paper in desperation. “Where are all the griffons?”

The typewriters insisted. Chugging away. New papers--new intel, perhaps? Enemy strength was overestimated--payload reduction strongly advised due to fire hazard? Twilight had heard it all before. Who had made the initial report? Had anypony seen the camp with their own eyes until now?

The communicator popped and fizzed before spitting out a non-reply. “Are we clear to begin bombardment?” the Wonderbolt asked again.

Should she? Twilight finally remembered she had to give the final go-ahead to begin dropping bombs and the unease that came with it. She pictured two dozen Griffonian flags, neatly folded and delivered to houses across the empire. No coffin--she would make sure there was nothing left to bury. Was that all it took to become brutal--necessity? If she really had to do this--no. Hypotheticals led to thought. She couldn’t think right now. She had to make a decision. She wasn’t brutal. She wasn’t a devil. She was just terrified of making a mistake. She was in a war. What else was she supposed to do--argue for peace? Fluttershy tried to do that. She was probably still outside the castle walls, holding a sign with the draft-dodgers and the conscientious objectors and the peace advocates. How would she feel when it came out that Twilight gave the order to almost burn down the Whitetail Woods? It was a protected preserve.

Would she and Fluttershy still be friends after the war? In Twilight’s dream she wasn’t sure. She couldn’t possibly know what would happen next.

Was it worth it? She asked herself as she took hold of the communicator with her magic and brought it to her lips. She kissed the metal on accident and cringed as a loop of feedback cut through the room. Ponies were moving again. They were alive. She was about to say a few words, and then let go.

“This is Princess Sparkle. Sequence eight, seven, negative, ten.”

“You’re authorized.”

“I think they see us.”

“No, they’re just walking around.”

“I think they see us.”

“Do it!”

No more talking, Twilight wanted to say. If it hadn’t been counter-intuitive to her point she would have screamed it. Picked up the closest pony and shaken them until they fell apart. Why couldn’t these ponies realize what she had just done? They were running around again, darting in and out of the room, yanking paper from typewriters and feeding more into their metallic jaws, shouting over each other. Precious Metals had to be informed. More paperwork to fill out. Go ahead. Scream until you’re hoarse. Nopony can hear in this room. There’s no privacy. There’s no thought. It’s all a single action, like the many parts of a muscle flexing simultaneously, or a ripple of fire passing through dry brush.

“Bombs away,” she somehow heard. “Bombs away. Bombs away. Bombs away.”

Bombs away. Bombs away. Twilight couldn’t breathe. Here were the consequences. She shouldn’t breathe! Fire! Fire everywhere! Her hooves were made of parched earth, her mane cracked branches. Her heart burst into flames. Each beat brought another explosion. Each beat of her pulse pushed the flames out a little further, until it reached the bottoms of her hooves. Her foundation was alight. Mares and gentlecolts, fillies and foals, Twilight Sparkle was on fire!

She burned until the bombs hit the ground and sucked the oxygen out of her. While they were still in the air, she backed up. Heard the whistling. Was it the air current around the Wonderbolt fliers? It had to be. She had filled out paperwork so that they could use bombs that fell silently. This wasn’t an air raid. It was a series of aerodynamic and mathematical calculations followed by a tremendous explosion.

And then the fire ate up her foundation, she she was falling.

Tumbling, tumbling, tumbling down! Twilight Sparkle was falling like she had been dropped instead of the bombs. Falling, spinning, full of fire and death and so pent up--so hell bent on keeping it inside the only possible release would be a violent and sudden explosion. She hit her chair the moment the communicators filled with a disgusting static hiss--Whoosh!--rising up, snaking its fingers through the cords of the communicators and then through naked space itself, reaching out from the mesh-coated speakers, propelled by sine waves, making to cauterize her ears shut.

Somewhere in it all--somewhere far removed from the chaos, a flower bloomed in the Whitetail Woods.

The naked breeze swayed it from side to side. The forest floor collected the sounds of early morning, the distant birds and their useless flapping, the creaking, the groaning, the confident hum of life building itself up atop the dead, into droplets which condensed on the flower’s petals.

Somewhere in it all--somewhere far removed from the chaos, another flower bloomed in the Whitetail Woods.

The naked breeze swayed it from side to side. It sucked in a rush of dry air as its petals rushed outwards. It ate up the trees, the birds, the griffons--the forest floor itself seemed no less immune. The earth itself was burning. In a place teeming with life, there was no better place for a thing like fire. It ate what it could and clung to what was left; the air, the brush, the pitiful tents. It moved without sound through the trees like an ancient predator. Older than animals, older than them. Seconds old--but who was counting?

Ponies were fickle. They changed their minds. But fire was unthinking. Fire had a lot in common with ponies. It was beautiful and at times terrifying, and at its very heart burned the desire to survive. Fire didn’t die quickly or easily. You had to smother it or bury it alive or starve it. Fire didn’t go out beautifully. It sputtered and sparked and coughed and screamed.

To call it carnivorous was an understatement. It clung to carbon. It ate everything organic.

Twilight Sparkle listened on in horror as the fire surged around the camp. The bombs weren’t on target. Somepony had made a mistake. They fell just to the left into the treeline. The trees fractured, then disappeared. The tents billowed and burned.

All at once the radio swelled with a dozen different voices, all shouting. The room spun. Everypony was talking. Talking talking talking talking talking and she couldn’t hear a word of it, like she was the odd filly out sitting in the corner of the lunch room, eating, drinking up the noise. Listening.

She listened as, in a matter of seconds, the fire surrounded the clearing. The Wonderbolts could hardly see it. It took root among the dry brush on the ground before it could snake its way up the trees and blossom among the leaves.

It roared with savage finality. The whole room heard it above its own noise. Half a minute had passed since the bombs hit the earth and pushed up their strange flowers.

“We can’t control this,” Twilight heard the Wonderbolts say in a few different ways. “We need to call the reaction force--”

“We can fly back and get fire suppressant--”

“We won’t make it back in time--”

“Rainbow Dash would--we can too--”

All the talk finally resonated with Twilight. She understood, as she had a hundred times before. This was the worst part of the dream.

The past hour of conversation, planning, execution, and reaction slammed into her chest just a tiny bit off-center to the left. Spike appeared above her, performing rapid chest compressions with his stubby little hands, screaming, “What do I do? What do I do?” over and over. Twilight tried to push him away but failed, first because her hoof went right through him and then because he didn’t exist. Was this what guilt felt like? She didn’t know--she was right. She burned the griffons alive and she was right.

All that pain, the noise, the stiffness in her chest, the burning, the fire, built up and built up. Fighting and screaming didn’t make it go away. It lingered.

That was the last straw. In a fury--in a panic? Who knew?--she vaulted out of her chair and skirted her desk. Her legs flexed, and she flew through the hot dry air. She was too trapped to extend her wings--but there was room to move forward, into the middle of the chaos, towards the row of communicators and their respective operators.. There was always a way to run.

She had a moment mid-lunge to think about what she was about to do. It had happened--how many times before had it happened? She wasn’t angry at herself or any of the ponies in the room or the griffons. They were only wrong. She had been wrong before. It was okay to be wrong. The only real emotion she could conjure was sadness mixed with confusion. She had been wrong before. What had happened to her then?

The next second she slammed into the nearest communicator operator and grabbed the communicator with her bare hooves. Magic? What magic? She was a griffon, a primitive savage with a penchant for violence. The operator struggled, cried out in surprise, then went rigid. Twilight wrenched the microphone from her hooves and stumbled backwards.

The cord got tangled in the struggle and wrapped around the operator’s neck. As Twilight retreated behind her desk, it went taut and dragged the operator out of her chair to the floor. The circus train followed Twilight the few remaining steps to her deskside.

She put the microphone to her lips and spoke into it. She couldn’t remember, but it was probably more like a wail.

“Let it burn!”

Strange flowers bloomed somewhere far away. Twilight Sparkle was their caretaker now.

The desk stretched on and on and on. Why did she even need a desk? Only other ponies out things on her desk. Important ponies had desks. Important ponies signed papers and kept pictures of their loved ones on their desks. What was a nice big desk good for if you didn’t use it right, other than to make the room seem smaller and to make the pony sitting behind it appear larger?

What did Twilight have on her desk? Stacks of papers, falling over in the breeze. A standard-issue hoofgun she was able to keep in the bottom left drawer as opposed to in her belt holster thanks to her status. A few rock candies Pinkie had given her the week before. Her crown. A bottle of water. The operator she was inadvertently strangling; she was partially on top of the desk now, facing upwards, her back arched over the edge, beating out SOS with the back of her head.

Twilight noticed a peculiar thing. Silence. Thank the gods! Silence. The room was utterly quiet save the gasps of the communicator operator, who slid down the side of the desk and kicked herself headfirst into the desk while making a disgustingly wet wheezing noise.

Fire crackled in the communicators. The noise brought to mind summer bonfires with her family, roasting s'mores and looking at the stars. How high up were the Wonderbolts? High enough to avoid the heat of the blaze--but not high enough to avoid hearing it? Something almost compelled her to order them higher, until the only sound she heard was static. She was a commanding officer, she reminded herself in a hot flash of pride. She was a princess.

The operator wheezed again. Twilight was strangling her--yes. The princess stared at her subordinates with the cornered glint of a rabid animal until she realized she was still holding the microphone.

The operator gasped and curled up in a ball as Twilight dropped the microphone. Breaking eye contact with everypony in the room, she snatched up her own communicator microphone, perched on the left side of her desk for easy access.

It was like she was giving a press conference all over again. The first one she had ever given ended with her tearing up and relinquishing the podium to Princess Celestia. The reporters had understood. They left that part out of the papers. Weakness was bad for morale. Griffons scoffed at weakness.

She addressed the silent assembled crowd.

“Let it burn. Call off the reaction force.”

“Princess?” one of the Wonderbolts accused.

“The griffon team--the griffons down there are still capable of escaping and completing their mission. They’re still capable of mounting an assault on Canterlot.”

“Due respect, Princess, but no they’re not,” another Wonderbolt replied. “I count five moving targets. They’re all totally encircled by the fire. Let us help them--”

“You will do no such thing!”

She hadn’t intended to shout. She did anyway. Her mane was everywhere. It fell into her eyes and sliced the ponies before her into pieces. Funny--their fractured faces all seemed terrified. For a moment Twilight wondered if they were just mirroring her look.

“You will do no such thing,” she repeated. “I will not have Equestria’s capital put under siege. Not one griffon will get out.” Why did she sound so harsh? Her words buckled opposition like that of a grizzly general. What the hell was wrong with her? She was right.

“Princess, please,” one of the couriers begged, “let the reaction force deal with the fire. If we send them out now there’s still a chance of saving the whole of the forest. We don’t have to let the griffons scar the land.”

“No, no, no, no, no.” Twilight swung her head like a pendulum. The rest of her upper body got caught in the momentum and moved along with it. “I will not be contradicted on this.”

“Twilight,” Rainbow Dash wailed in her ear, “Why did you ground me? Why couldn’t I be there for my teammates?”

“Why Twilight?” Fluttershy cried. “Why?”

All six of her friends spoke at the same time. “Why?” Their heads manifested onto the bodies of the courriers and officers and operators. Like the changeling invasion all over again. “Why?”

She cast a fleeting glance out the window and wondered how long it would take a frightened and charred griffon to reach her office.

She turned back to find the disgusted gazes of her subordinate officers, couriers, operators.

“I will do whatever it takes to protect my home,” Twilight snapped. “Not one griffon will see this castle. I will do whatever it takes. And you!” she pointed with the microphone. “You all want the same thing I do!”

They didn’t look too convinced. That much was expected. Twilight wasn’t a good soldier. She wasn’t a good leader. A good leader would have inspired confidence. All she did was piss her soldiers off and burn down a forest.

But she wasn’t done! Every muscle inside her told her to collapse and end the dream, but she couldn’t. She had to keep going. Once again she ate the microphone and said, “Did you hear that? I will do whatever it takes to protect Canterlot. Are you with me?”

Silence.

Then, “Yes, Princess.”

Twilight nodded. It had to be this way. The only ones who didn’t seem to understand that grave necessity were the couriers and runners and operators and officers sharing her office, staring at her as if she had just executed somepony.

“Resume your tasks,” she told them, “we have to complete the mission.” Her voice cracked. What an awful princess she made; couldn’t even keep her voice steady in front of her own subordinates!”

“Princess,” one of the junior officers in the rear spoke up, “the mission is over. It didn’t call for this.”

“Fire’s getting bigger,” the communicator hissed.

The junior officer passed a grim look over the row communicators and continued. “There was no plan for this. We didn’t know what to do.”

“Princess!” the communicator squealed in obvious panic.

“What do you mean you don’t know what to do?” Twilight asked. “I made plans for every contingency. There’s, like, twenty of them. In that file cabinet over there. I triple-checked the double-checks.”

“Princess!”

“I planned everything out. There are no surprises in a good plan.”

“Except you.”

Now it was Fluttershy who stood before her. Her mane was everywhere. Pieces of it fell in front of her eyes and cut Twilight into pieces. Her hooves were black and burned. She took a step towards Twilight, exposing a limp in her left forehoof.

“Except you. We didn’t count on you. We were prepared to save the animals, we had everything going for us. We had funding and we had lots of ponies ready to help. We could have saved the forest. But we didn’t ever expect you.”

“Fluttershy--”

“Princess!”

“No Twilight.” Fluttershy’s face bled the worst kind of sadness, the kind Twilight knew was her making. “You can’t undo this. You let the Whitetail Woods burn to the ground. It didn’t even stop there, you know. It burned the ground. All those little animals who took shelter underground?” She sniffed. “Why did you do it?”

“Fluttershy,” Twilight stammered, “I had to. You understand, don’t you? I had to. This was the only way.”

“Was it something I did? I know the protests may have been distracting, but--” Twilight’s friend could no longer look her in the eyes as she added, “Is this because you hate me?”

“No! No, please don’t think that. Please no. Fluttershy, don’t think I hate you.I don’t hate you. This is a mistake!” But the idea was already there. One was terrified of the other, and the other was terrified of the other being right. Twilight was right. Fluttershy was terrified of her.

“Why, Twilight?” Fluttershy wailed. The noise came with a terrific blast of feedback that knocked Twilight backwards into her desk. Mind reeling, guts tangled, face on fire--were those tears?--ears ringing, soul splintered, she fell at Fluttershy’s feet. Something like the noise at the very edge of a record played in her ears. Maybe it was the communicators. I probably wasn’t.

“Please forgive me. I’m sorry.”

“Princess!”

“Twilight.”

“You don’t understand!” Now she was screaming, shredding up her vocal chords to be heard above the noise--what noise? “If one griffon gets through, the city will panic. We’ll have to institute martial law. Ponies will die. If not by the griffons, then by the panic that’ll come about. The city will look weak. If we look weak, the griffons might try this again. The ponies in this city are weak. They won’t be strong when we need them to. They can’t do it. I need to be strong for them.”

The air went cold, then hot and sticky, flashing through many seasons of uncomfortable silence. “And this is how you show your strength?” Fluttershy finally asked. “Why?”

“Please forgive me!” she sobbed again, hot dry and high, a clarinet player standing up to take his one-note solo. “This isn’t my fault. I’m sorry.”

“Please princess,” Fluttershy said, “tell us why? Why?”

“We can still be friends, can’t we? Right?” Begging--what a disgrace to the crown. A year had passed. When was the last time Twilight had been to Fluttershy's cottage--just because? Then two. Who was the stranger at the edge of the forest? Who was the princess who for months after the armistice treaty was signed refused to come out of her castle and join in the town’s celebrations? Who read natural history books to feel reconciled? Who stocked a fire extinguisher next to the door?

How many years does it take to forget enough to forgive? The same, Twilight reasoned, as it took to win a war. But she was still alive--just dreaming--and that day hadn’t come yet. She would know, eventually.

The apparition of Fluttershy faded away, leaving her once more alone in her tiny office crammed full of ponies staring at her like she had just committed a war crime.

“Princess?”

“What?” she snapped, whipping her head towards one of the communicator operator she hadn’t just suffocated. This one, a sad, brightly-dressed stallion with a microphone glued to his hoof with sweat, pointed to the box.

“It’s not a television. What is it?”

He replied, “Princess, they’re trying to fly away.”

At first Twilight thought it was the Wonderbolts trying to fly away. In her mind there was mutiny, a hushed conversation, a nod of the head in one direction and then the other, towards home.

She took a rushed step towards the communicator, then almost tripped over the softly sobbing body of the operator she had accidentally strangled. Recalling her past mistakes, she backpedaled to her desk and grabbed her microphone. "Wonderbolts, you will not leave the scene. You will not defy a direct order or I will have you disavowed for treason, do you understand?"

She silently hoped she didn’t sound too angry. She would have flown away a long time ago. It was all her nerves, really. They made her voice jump in intensity without her meaning to.

"Princess, we're still here."

Twilight blinked. She looked at the stallion at the communicator and squinted. "Then who's trying to fly away?"

“They are, Princess. The griffons.”

If the room weren’t silent before, it was now. The typewriters hammered away. clackaclackaclackaclackaclacka--like they were old friends chatting away, while in the background a radio reported more deaths from the Borderlands. A normal, peaceful afternoon with her friends for Twilight.

She opened her mouth and drew a breath just in time to hear a horrified screech, the mad rush of a violin bow pressed too hard against its strings, blast through the radio. The microphone slipped from her hoof, left to dangle by the cord.

The noise rose into tragic dissonance and crystallized in a moment of sheer and utter panic. Twilight went limp. She leaned into the desk but felt nothing. Her body betrayed her. She was listening to somepony die. She knew it. She was responsible, and now she had to listen to somepony die.

“What is that?” Twilight shouted only to be interrupted by another wail. Somepony was dying--they had to be! Ponies didn’t make those sounds. Animals made those sounds as they were being torn apart by an ancient predator.

Chaos filled the room, sprouting from the communicator boxes.

“What is going on?” Twilight shouted again. Where was her training now? Etiquette and poise--what were those? The blood rushed to her head and carried all the heat of her body with it. Who was it? Twilight pressed her head to the microphone, felt its momentary coolness, and stammered, “Is anypony injured?”

“Nopony’s injured princess,” something like a voice replied from the other end. It quivered and shook, a body suffering shellshock. “The air is too hot. They’re burning.”

Twilight didn’t know what was worse; the wailing or the relief she felt that it was only griffons being burned alive. Another awful noise from the box perished the thought.

“I think Fleet’s hurt,” a brave Wonderbolt announced. More flyers chimed in.

“We might need to evacuate her.”

All four Wonderbolts paused and stared at each other. Fleetfoot grimaced as more tears froze in her eyes. They knew what was at stake. Up here the winds whipped around their faces. If they drifted down far enough, their bodies would thaw.

Soarin’ pulled his microphone away from his throat so it couldn’t pick up any vibrations. “We need to help them.”

“Fleet’s eyes are messed up,” Spitfire said after removing her own microphone. “We should scrap the bonfire and help her.”

Soarin’ pointed at the inferno. “We need to help them--”

“Get yourself together and help Fleet.”

“Gods above, can’t we help them?”

Spitfire tried to shake Soarin’, but he shrugged her off. His eyes were in the flames. “Do you see that?” he said, and pointed down. The colors down below pulsed with life. Above them was nothing but blue.

“Holy shit,” Spitfire murmured.

“He’s looking at us--gods, he’s looking at us--”

Fire raged all around them. Spitfire shoved Soarin’s face away from the fire. “Go help Fleet.”

“He’s looking at us!--”

Static. Twilight wondered where the signal had gone.

“Help Fleet,” she heard Spitfire say through the communicator.

“Okay. Okay, I’m gonna go help Fleet.”

“Princess is listening.”

“Okay. I’m gonna go help Fleet.”

Twilight didn’t hold it against them for the way they acted. When they were all debriefed, it was revealed that only four griffons actually tried to fly away through the fire. From what the Wonderbolts could gather, their last witnessed moments were agony. They watched as the survivors flew straight up, their arms extended, clawing for clouds. They watched their wings combust, their royal plumes explode into flames. They watched them writhe and then fall, pinwheeling down into the rapidly-growing flames. They heard screaming, then nothing at all. The buzz had faded into the background. Temporary tinnitus for the technological warrior. This was the consequence of fighting wars through boxes.

Twilight bore all this, the dialogue, the defriefs, without complaint. She had to. But she had to step in eventually. The end neared. The dream was almost complete. All she had to do now was--

“Dismiss that order!” she cried.

“What?”

“Gods--”

“Do not retreat,” Twilight heard herself say. “If any of those griffons make it out they will be out for blood.” She looked out her window again. Was that smoke on the horizon? Couldn’t be--the war existed solely in her radio. “Do not retreat. Make sure no griffons get out.” She almost added “alive,” but somehow that seemed too cruel.

“Gods above--”

“Soarin’, don’t clog the channel. Princess, this fire is getting out of control. There will be no survivors.”

“Keep in high formation until you are absolutely sure they’re gone,” Twilight ordered.

The radio judged her, silently, like the rest of the room. Here was the end! The part that made her wake up without fail every time.

The Wonderbolt gulped and sighed into his radio. “Yes, Princess.” He then moved the mic away from his face, as if that would keep Twilight from listening. These communicators were too good for old-fashioned tricks. She was omnipotent. A circuit, bound by copper wire to the Wonderbolts.

That’s how she heard the Wonderbolt say, “Pull up a cloud. We have to watch it.”

“All of it?”

Static.

The hammers of the typewriters thundered on in the background. On and on and on, fading into a buzz roll long tone, fading into the past, fading into the creak of Twilight’s bedroom door as it swung open.

Spike, his stubby hands clutching a feather duster, walked in on a sleeping Twilight splayed out over a copy of "Bank Robbery and Grand Theft for Dummies, Vol. Seven.”

He let the door swing until it knocked over the fire extinguisher sitting against the wall. It hit the floor like a bombshell without a charge inside.

The past surrendered control of her mind. Twilight lurched into a ball, sucking in air like fire in a confined space. In an instant she had stuffed the books beneath her bed.

"Twilight?” Spike screwed up his face in confusion. “You have room on your shelves for those.”

“I had to,” she replied in a whisper.

Thrum, thrum, thrum, the inked hammers went. She heard them now. Sometimes she didn’t, and those were good days--but right now she could make out their faint beats against paper.

Spike’s face grew sullen. He bit his lip, then took a cautious step towards Twilight. When she didn’t move, he moved closer and set the feather duster on her nightstand. “I’ll be right back, okay?” he told her, at once authoritarian and vulnerable. Twilight thought it was kind of cute.

He came back a minute later with a cup and a spoon. “Sorry, it’s only instant tea. I didn’t want to bother with the tea leaves. Takes too long. And do you know how messy those things can be?”

“You spilled them, didn’t you.”

“No. What’s a guy to do when he doesn’t have magic to help him open bags?”

“Spike, you have fingers,” Twilight chuckled, slightly, then in a stumbling repeat. “That’s, like, the best possible body part to have in terms of ripping things open.”

“Ripping stuff open is really easy--but do you know how tough it is to keep everything in the bag once it rips? You kinda jerk it upwards when the bag opens--and everything flies up!” He mimed an explosion and hoped for a laugh.

He got it. “I’ll remember to put a horn on you first chance I get.” Twilight smiled, the first time in what seemed like seconds. “I’ll strap you down in my evil lair in the basement and zap it onto you.”

He got another, a quiet contemplative one fading into silence.

“I was thinking,” Twilight started.

“You do that a lot.”

“About how Rainbow Dash hurt herself.”

“She did? When? Yesterday? Is she okay? Did she fly into a tree again?”

“No. It was some time ago. She didn’t fly into anything, really. It just kinda happened. She must have overextended her wing and caught a weird air current at the same time, or something.”

“She seemed fine the last time I talked to her. That was only yesterday morning, I think. She flies fine, too. When did this happen exactly? It must not have been that big of a deal if she’s up and about now.”

“It was a big deal to her,” Twilight replied. “You know how she can get.” Twilight paused, and then admitted, “I’m really glad Rainbow Dash hurt herself.”

Spike looked away. “Come on Twilight, don’t talk like that. She’s your friend.”

“Really. I’m glad she hurt herself,” Twilight repeated. “She had to sit on the sidelines. She couldn’t do a thing.”

“Don’t think about that kind of thing.” Spike took a nervous sip of the tea.

“She was so heartbroken she couldn’t participate. Even after everything that happened afterwards. Rainbow Dash is such a good person. She didn’t care what happened. She was sad she couldn’t be with her friends and support them. She wanted to help them and she couldn't. That’s why she was so sad. She’s such a better person than I am.”

“Twilight--”

“Fluttershy would have never forgiven her. She didn’t forgive me. She said she did, but I can see it whenever the six of us are together. She walks on the opposite side of the group,” she said as if it were an admission of a war crime. “I’m glad it was me and not Dash. They’ve been friends since they were foals. I’m glad they still get to be friends.”

Spike was inconsolable. “Look, Twilight, whatever you’re thinking about, you need to get it out of your mind. Thinking about it won’t do you any good. You need to focus on the good things you have instead of--”

“Spike,” Twilight interrupted as she reached towards the tray for her tea, “please.”

“It’s not good for you.”

“May I have some tea?”

“Do you think about how I feel when you say this kinda stuff?”

Twilight picked up a glass and poured herself some tea. Spike tossed a sugarcube in before she could pull it into her chest. It probably had medicine in it, but Twilight didn’t care anymore.

“So what are you doing up here?” Twilight asked between sips.

“I was going to sweep under the bed. But maybe I should just wait until later.” Spike hesitated, the words caught in the vocal filter keeping him from shouting and screaming at Twilight to forget. “Or never,” he finally spoke. “Maybe you should do it yourself from now on if you’re gonna hide books under there.”

She smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. I didn’t mean to alarm you.”

“That’s not what I’m alarmed at, but thanks.”

“If you just leave the duster here I can take care of it.”

Spike nodded. He set his empty tea cup back on the platter and made for the door.

“Oh, Spike?” Twilight stuttered, then added, “Can you come back in a little bit? We haven’t had a day to ourselves all month."

The scales on the sides of Spike’s head perked up. “Sure thing,” he replied, measuring his words to last long enough to seem casual. “I can bring some lunch up too if you want. Or we can go out someplace.”

“In a little while, sure.” Twilight nodded. “Let’s eat in. Crowded places don’t sound as nice as here.” She almost said she didn’t have the nerve to face other ponies. She didn’t, though. Spike didn’t need that on his mind. He was such a good friend. She didn’t need to dump her troubles on him. He reminded her on occasion that he would be okay talking about the war with her. She knew he could handle it, but part of her still dreaded the notion of weighing him down like that. Why should he worry about her? Talking was selfish.

Twilight put the teacup she didn’t realize she was holding next to the feather duster and rolled around on the bed, searching for a position she could tolerate lying motionless in for another hour or two. Without really thinking she pulled the books and papers from beneath her bed. The books went back behind the bookshelf where a magically-induced blind spot concealed a small hole in the wall. The papers went into a binder--they hadn’t fared as well as the books. She would have to uncrumple and retranscribe them some other time.

“By the way,” Spike added, sticking his head through the doorway, “don’t forget--uh--” he hesitated as Twilight jumped. “you promised to have tea with Rarity and Rainbow Dash tonight.”

Twilight’s heart sank.

“Let’s just focus on lunch first,” she said.

“I can tell them you’re sick in bed.”

“I think I really am sick.”

“Are you really?” Spike’s voice radiated with concern.

Twilight sighed and rubbed her head. “Nevermind. Just tell me when they get here, Spike.”

The door gently clicked shut. Twilight laid her head on the closest pillow and tried to forget about the tea growing cold on the nightstand.

19: Rarity's Diversion

Rarity put the phone down and closed her eyes.

The bedsheets were sweaty and hot, but she dared not move a muscle. This room did not belong to her. The design was not her own, the swaying drapes too deep a purple, the ponyquins covered in some tasteless hack’s unfinished work. The walls felt flimsy, the wiring faulty, like it would burst into flames at any moment. Her pillow was a land mine. The luxurious Prench faux feathers were metal ball bearings, and the thread count was high. Rarity was not the kind of pony to skimp when it came to thread counts.

Somewhere along the line of endless preparation, she had turned into a child. Her usual cold confidence evaded her. The bravado of a full palette and an empty canvas painted an infinite set of failures.

These fits of artistry were going to kill her, one of these days.

She never felt them coming on, and only much later, when she had time like now to think back, did she realize their extent. She wasn’t crazy, but gods above--sometimes she wondered. She would do whatever it took to save her passion. The true artist had a set mind on a mindset, a force of nature--a force of herself--to force herself to completion. Rarity had a one-track mind--it’s just that the track didn’t always lead her to the same place every day. Some days, it led to the sewing machine. Other times, Noir’s safehouse. Other times, the open window, the curtains still wide and purple and vulnerable.

Where was she now? In the basement, finishing the final adjustments to her supplies, darting through the dark room, hitting her shin on the vanity, willing herself to keep the lights off, slinking into bed. The elegant curtains furrowed in the breeze. Why hadn’t she closed the windows like she should have? Firebombs could sail through on the breeze, or a griffon. Gods above, griffons. Porlly iffin. Iffin lion be a griffin, he be wary of the giffin’. If the griffin be a lion, he be wary of the lions--roar, liars. Once he has a mighty sting, and a mane, and leather wings. Flies like shiny little star and consumes it where she are.

Delirium, what a scary word. One scary word indeed. Burnt out sounded shallow, but easier to swallow. Why was she such a mess? Burnt out on art. Why had she reduced herself to Noir’s help? Burnt out on funds. Why had she broken in the first place--why were her dresses covered in a sheen of paste and diamonds? Delirium. The phone was ringing, but the line was unplugged. The EQUIS was calling and she didn’t feel like talking. She just wanted it to be over.

Why the dresses? Do this and that, do what you can, and then you’ll find that you feel grand. Why the dreams? Inspiration. Why the destruction? Inspiration. Maybe it didn’t even occur to her that she would sink into darkness for days at a time.This and that. But she could go on after the fact and keep talking dresses and funds and how important art was to her on a spiritual level.

Rarity wasn’t a spiritual pony, though she hoof-delivered her dresses when she could for the sake of not being spiritually lonely. Not like Twilight, not as frightening. Altars and holy books and never again a sacrifice--unless it was herself. All she believed in was art, pure art. Money? Money was for the career artists without true artistic integrity. Monetary art disgusted her. Pop tunes were radioactive and couldn’t be properly appreciated until they had cooled down for a few decades. The true artists died penniless!

The true artists also made art. Crystal hearts could buy gold fabric for ten lifetimes, diamond paradigms for five. An eviction notice couldn’t cover the rear end of a newborn foal. Made-up integrity for a made-up profession. When Twilight wanted progress, she invented it, made it up. Governments achieved what the individual could not, and art vise versa. When Rarity wanted progress, she made a dress and gave it away for free. Governments taxed--but that’s why you pay money to see the masterpieces of Equestria and not the Masterpieces: by Equestria.

Elitist! The elite! The government oppressed her with taxes while she dodged the zombified pubic and their radioactive tastes. The perfect balance of oppression and opportunity. A golden age was about to dawn--they always did right after wars--and she was about to be shut out by poverty. Money! Woe!

Money, the root of her clientele, the root of her propagation, the seed of her incineration. No money means no material means no marketing means no fancy dinners means no wine means no tea means no imports means no furs--furs!--means no brainwashed clients with horrible taste--but salvageable, with Rarity’s divine inspiration--salvageable, for the divine inspiration, and good!, for choosing her to save them. These ponies, for all their flaws, knew a true artist from the pack. The richest sacks of Canterlot and beyond didn’t shell out for the mediocre. Griffons paid more than ponies--but Noir wouldn’t be much longer, not with all his money. Revenge buzzed in her ears. Music--

The drape rustled against the wall. Rarity resisted the urge to scream.

Somepony started a record player in the near distance. Music rolled through the room, a slow motion shockwave of wind, and disturbed the covers. And the pretty pony princesses played uptempo bebop and all was good. That’s what the Gods said. Let them swing, and there was swing. Let them jive to the groove, and there was bebop. Let them rock and roll and rhythm burst a drum solo from nothing. So it went. Amen (spiritually, not religiously). And upon that rock they built--Jazz. Forget it. What professional would perform this washed up swing anyway? Old news. Scat was shit and God blew up the fucking Whitetail Woods.

But blasphemy. A misnomer. Four gods, not one--and gods didn’t care about the trees. But there was one in town--a big one, in the biggest period-clash in the entire town. Made out of crystal!

Blasphemy. What word Twilight used? Never loved herself, so no--she wouldn’t forgive the rest of them, either. Loved the ponies but held them at bay. Loved to have them over but never let them stay.

Never enough room for new art. Artists back in the day told happy stories. Then they ran out of happy stories, so they told sad stories. Then they ran out of sad stories, so they told stories that didn’t make sense. There was nothing for art now but the past. Maybe that's why artists are all so sad. They're in the business of saying things, and they've run out of things to say.

The music picked up, faint but pulsing. Let’s go sinning, it’s so good for you, let’s go sinning, where the skies are blue, with the sin, prisoner, artist, feel as free and happy as you’ve never been. Swing your hips and knock over your shit and off to the races we go--to go sinning!

And she’ll be. But what sin? The one she shared? A moment of weakness to be kept out of public records forever, didn’t exist--worse than didn’t exist, negatively unexisted and destroyed more of her precious time? Totally happened, but god--s forbid, snitching is so blasé. Why should it have happen, when it might as well not? With the inventive curse we sin and it’s. It’s. It is. Back-stabbers, clearing the shelves of blood and dust and starting fresh. She just wanted it to be over.

And sin for Rarity and a sin for Noir, sin and let’s imagine you’re safe, run away in a million ways, lock up your doors but keep the windows open. Rarity did not need to be saved or sinned over. She was an artist, a real mare, didn’t need to be sinned over, she was fine, she was fine all by herself. She was fine, all by herself and her ponequins and all the jewelry and don’t move and sitting still your head’s on a land mine she had herself she was okay she was fine she had the world on a string wrapped around her finger and she was going to keep her house and she would sleep in this bed again only then she would be able to afford real pillows with a higher thread count

and more ammunition to place under her head. Noir insulted her artistry with his--his. Thinking she needed money. She was the most fanciful fucking mare in the history of fanciful mares. Or did she? Her art was so good it was banned. Maybe she’d rat on Rarity, too.

Rarity served two masters, The Four, that is, the goddesses of which Twilight was a quarter, and art. Twilight, Rarity didn’t even know who she served, besides Celestia. Maybe Rarity really was a needy greedy snake. Noir destroyed a part of her immortal conscience because little old Rarity couldn’t handle the stress of an artist’s fate--well, she god damned could, thank you very much. All the money could go straight into her tea so she could drink it, absorb its essence, breathe it out, shit it, fuck it, money, she needed it, fuck it, she needed the high thread count, Rarity The Most Fanciful Fucking Mare in All the Land needed the higher thread count, she needed art, she needed her pillows to feel more like pillows and less than landmines

if she stayed quiet they would only serve her own self interest, see, it’s failing, she’s failing, she’s if that’s what her family would have wanted maybe they shouldn’t have been so successful given her so much money. Now she could just let it happen, like she wanted to just

with the

land mines

art could be pure as her virginal spirit and her coffers black and tapped like the phone line , if she just sat back and let it happen, she could

later need to call the police and tell them how horrible she felt, listen to some music. They had, what’s the name, therapy with music, no name, but a beautiful thought. Art heals. That’s all she wanted. Heal the self-image, heal the soul. Make a pony in a dress feel sexy. Addicted to feeling artsy turned her on, revved her proverbial sewing machine. Feeling sublime and helpless and pinning it on the whole world, they just didn’t understand her, just didn’t get it. They’d get it after she died, probably. Or a few years after that, or that, or that. They’d look at them in museums and marvel. Nopony could ever wear them again for fear of damaging it. Protesters would target Rarity dresses to hurl paint at. The beauty! All that work and effort, all the dedication, the years of prison time for damaging a historical artifact, all the love in their hate! She would eat it up. Gobble it up, slam it down like a shot of fireball

sails in the darkest sea, one two three, spinning, sinning,

felt a fear unlike any and the floorboards creaked so that was all the alarm she would need unless god s came through the window floating on a beam of light, but she would notice that. They’d chant or something. She’d go to hell--did Pontius Pilate actually go to hell? Nobody ever said. He washed his hands and then disappeared, growing old between the pages of the holy book, waiting

But it changed on her. up and changed. Not her fault, but her consequence. And some change all that money in sacks just sitting there. Any real artist would have burned it like forest fire sinking to the floorboards the land mine off her pillow diving deep into the pits of what nothing to fear, just her imagination into the heart of her incompetence, her failure artist sham fuck-up. A mare of many hats with many hats to wear, has neither time to see the sky or really even care. her fault

The phone

Blue of blues, gods of gods, amen heretic blackest night tomorrow the sky would be blue, this much she knew. her fault for waking up her fault for ratting

pick up the phone

Nothing much about it but fabric make a sketch or two in a fit of artistry do it kill yourself forget about the sketches a give yourself up give up yourself like you did Noir

To be freely associated with that which had had had had had would finish her. Sketches on paper but she only had her hoof and s nothing the folds of thread count-oriented furniture story purchase

To be truly immortal you have to die first only then

you’ll be seo secxx sexy

when you die and you’re an artist keep the window open not to forget how you this you wanted this to be over

want this

i

Rarity fell asleep.

20: Nothing I'd Rather Be Doing

Twilight saw flames in the wood grain of the conference room desk.

“I suppose that’s everything,” she said as she leaned across the table. Caramel yawned and pushed a notebook across the table. “Did you have any questions? I know we kind rushed through the guard detail.”

“I’m good,” Caramel replied. His voice was sunk low in his throat. “For all the work we’re doing, we better get this right.”

She chuckled. “Now you’re thinking like a scholar.” Her horn touched the table. Condensation from her breath rolled over the lacquer and evaporated. Beneath it, the flames remained.

Decades of life created fuel for this fire. The patterns coalesced into tongues of fire and fell apart into ash. Though the grain stayed the same, the pictures she saw in them changed. Embers became eyelashes, pillars of fire became churning clouds whipped high above the earth by atmospheric winds. They took on new shapes the longer she looked. Fire to clouds to eyelashes to shapes that made no sense.

She paused and looked around the conference room. The walls were clean. The carpet had been soaked and steamed free of soot. Caramel sat on the other side of the room, his legs resting on the chair in front of him. One of Spike’s painting easels held a large diagram of the mayor’s office and four big slides of transparent plastic at the head of the table. Each layer was dotted with guard configurations and escape routes. They caught the light in broad crescent shapes.

“I heard a song about a place called Isfahan once,” Caramel said. A slow smile creeped onto his face. “It was beautiful. Right in the center of Saddle Arabia. Maybe I’ll move there for a few years. They got no laws like we do here. All you need to do is be good to your neighbor and nopony’ll touch you.”

Twilight recalled studying Saddle Arabian law during the war in preparation for diplomatic visits. “I would have guessed Manehatten. Someplace with a lot of nightlife.”

“You woulda!” His laugh sounded hollow in the small room. “I’ll bet Isfahan’s got nightlife. Without any electric lights, the stars must be beautiful.” He bobbed side to side, watching the reflections of light come off the plastic slides. “I’ll bet the whole city comes out at night and just watches them.”

“I’ll bet.”

Caramel sat back in his chair and drawled, “Isfahan.”

Twilight leaned on the other side of the table, where the wood was cooler. “What’ll you do there? Years are long.”

“That they are. Maybe I’ll take up a trade. Maybe I’ll steal more.” He shook his head in delight. “Maybe I can steal the stars, bottle them up and bring them back to Equestria. I’ll sell them off a cart just like Applejack sells her apples.”

Twilight made a face. “I thought you’d move there to get away from the crime.”

“Come on, Twilight. There’s crime everywhere. There’s crime in Manehatten and there’s crime in Canterlot and there’s crime in your backyard--and there’s definitely crime in Isfahan. And if there’s not, then when I get there, by the Gods above, there will be.”

“Saddle Arabians are pretty strict about crime.”

“There are less criminals over there, too. If you want something stolen in Isfahan, you gotta want it pretty bad.” He stroked his face thoughtfully, feeling the creases of skin where soft fur met scar tissue. “There’s more of an untapped market for me to fill. If the whole city is full up with bad guys already, then what’s the point? But if I’m the only bad guy in the city--” he clapped his hooves on the table with a start, “that’s the ticket.” Nodding to Twilight, he added, “Bad guys need good guys to hide behind.”

Twilight watched his head move from side to side, his half-lidded eyes transfixed on the map. “We should pack up our stuff.”

He blinked, and the spell was over. “Right. Won’t need too much anyway.”

Everything they would need had already been brought downstairs hours before. Sitting next to a pair of empty glass cider bottles were two cardboard boxes. One was full of rope and bullets. The other just had a folded service jacket, wrapped tightly in laundromat plastic wrap, and two pairs of dusty black boots.

As they packed, Twilight chanced another question. “What about your family?” she asked. “Applejack will miss the extra help on the farm.”

“Yeah, the farm might hurt a bit,” he agreed as he stuffed the length of rope into his saddle bag. “Not really my prerogative, though. Applejack owns the farm. Big Macintosh owns the farm. The Appleoosian clan owns the farm.” He shrugged. “I don’t own any farms.”

“Did you like working on the Acres?”

“I suppose. I never liked honest living. It’s slow, and ponies live short lives. You don't have to worry about that though,” he chuckled.

“Yeah.” Twilight felt compelled to smile even though she wasn’t happy. It was a pure gut reaction. Unwrapping her jacket and filling her saddlebag with maps lit a fire in her heart. She loved teaching. She loved it when a plan came together. She loved making maps and timetables. She loved the strategy of creating order out of chaos, the calm before the storm. She wondered if she had interpreted her cutie mark incorrectly somewhere along the way. Maybe she was meant to be a really good secretary.

Caramel spoke up again. “Seems like all the Apples I ever knew died on farms. I don’t wanna die on a farm.” The word came out soft and slow, like the rush of sand across a faraway desert floor. “I’ll be the first Apple to live in Saddle Arabia.”

Twilight turned one of her boots over to inspect the heel. “I think there have already been Apples in Saddle Arabia.”

“Have there?”

Another boot. “Applejack showed me a few family photo albums some time back. A few Apples from the Fillydelphia clan went there on vacation and loved it so much they stayed.” Another boot. “This must have been fifty years ago, before they restricted travel from Equestria. The pictures made the whole country look so green--”

Twilight flipped over her last boot and yelped with surprise as a dozen shiny war medals poured out. Ribbon bars clattered on the table and fell to the floor. Her honorary Zebrican Service Medal crumpled in a colorful heap. Pocket-sized service manuals for weapons she never used took flight like terrified doves.

Spike poked his head around the basement door and called down, “Is everypony okay down there?”

“Yes Spike,” Twilight said as she swept the medals back into her boot. “Please shut the door.”

“Which one?”

“Both.”

“Twilight, I’m worried about you.”

“Spike!”

The door slammed shut.

Caramel stared intently at the desk as Twilight fumbled with the boots. One by one they went back into the box.

“I didn’t wear my boots before,” she chuckled nervously. “I’ll be fine without them.”

“Is he listening to us?” Carmel asked.

Twilight had already returned to the table. Ten new thoughts occupied her hooves and horn. Distraction took its toll. Eventually she just floated her boots back into the box and closed it.

“I feel like we’ve been doing this longer than we actually have,” she said to no one in particular.

“Time sure flies when you’re having fun,” he chuckled. “Sorry.”

Twilight tried to remember the last time she had been in this room without Caramel. She eyed the door, gauging its width. Could she move the desk out of here in one piece, or would she have to break it up into sections? Could she just teleport it without breaking it? How many outlets were in the room? One for a computer, one for a refrigerator. The lights were already wired, so she didn’t need a lamp. Maybe something dim for when she wanted to read, though. A bad, too. Twin bed. Economical. Space-saving. Weld the doors shut--both doors and collapse the stairwell. The more Twilight thought about it, the more she realized how easy it would be to spend the rest of her immortal life in this single conference room.

One plastic buckle on the strap of Twilight’s saddlebag in particular wouldn’t snap for some reason. On the sixth try and let out a sigh and tried magically bending it back into place, only to snap one of the teeth.

She cursed and dropped the broken piece on the table. Caramel gave her a bemused look. “You alright?”

“I don’t know why I’m doing this,” she muttered bitterly.

Caramel put his bag down and walked over to Twilight. “Look, how about I finish up for you and you hit the hay?. I’ll fix your strap.”

“I want to do it myself.”

“I can do it.”

She picked up her saddlebag again, eager to hold something, feel something between her hooves. “I’ve passed tests more important than this on less sleep. I pulled all-nighters all the time. I did it in grade school. My all-nighters lasted for days!”

Caramel put his hoof on her shoulder. “Please get some sleep. Go relax for a few hours. Get yourself in the right mind. You’re so concerned about tomorrow, but we both have to be sharp behind the ears if we want this to go well. A clear head is just as important as a--functional saddlebag strap.”

“I’m not tired,” she contested.

“Look, Twilight, we both need this to go right. If you freak out about something as small as the backpack strap during the job, and I’m not saying it’ll be broken, I’m gonna fix it right now, but if you lose your cool over something small like that it could hurt us. Okay?” He shook her. “You need to stay cool.”

The walls were cool and inviting. Why leave? Where was the fire beneath the lacquer? Pressed by machines and glossed over--but it still burned in the back of Twilight’s head. “Sorry,” she said.

“It’s fine. This isn’t a test, is all. Did you ever wear a magicproof vest to an exam?”

“I don’t need a magicproof vest.” Making extra certain to avoid eye contact, she took a reluctant step away from the table. She saw the vest from the corner of her eye. The way they sat on the table betrayed their bulk. “I’m gonna double-check my gear in the morning after I’ve triple-checked it, anyway. Can you please stick to the itemized list this time?”

“Crystal clear.”

“No vests.”

“You’re gonna wear the vest, Twilight.”

Twilight sighed. Her head felt swimmy, like she had just stepped away from a marathon study session. Remembering was the hardest part about studying. Any kid with a book could read, but remembering took a lot more than eyes. Little details clotted together. She was tired--yes. She had to wake up early tomorrow--yes. For what?--who knew?

“Has it been a month yet?” she slurred.

“Little under a month.”

“Little under a month,” she intoned as she walked out of the conference room. “I don’t think I’m doing this for Rarity anymore.”

Caramel laughed. It shook the walls and busted the blast doors clean off their hinges. “You never were.”

She paused at the threshold and leaned against the second blast door’s handle. “Hey, Caramel--look at me?”

“Yeah?”

Slim crescents of light hid the fire in her eyes. “I am a magicproof vest.”

She plodded up the stairs, past a pacing Spike. He moved his mouth a bit and pointed at her like he was trying to say something, but Twilight knew better. She finally noticed her ears were ringing. The hum snuck up on her. Her wings beat Spike away, a slow check pattern of rushing and contracting air, up and down, in and out. An exposed set of living lungs.

Without really realizing it, she fell into her bed. Lights flashed behind her eyelids, the strobing pulse of a digitized nuclear clock counting down to zero. Five, four, three, two one--

Twilight drifted off to sleep just as the castle exploded.

The blast rocked the rigid crystal frame of the castle. Dissonant wails filled the halls. Twilight threw herself out of bed and felt the underside of her nightstand for her bag of defence charms. She slung it over her shoulder and darted out the door, head on a swivel, covering her angles and checking her corners.

Progress was slow at first. There were so many doors to open, so many rooms to scan, and so many scans to choose from. Changelings? Discord? Domestic terrorists? “Spike?” she called over the wail of the fire alarms. “Spike?”

A chunk of crystal cracked loose from the ceiling and hit her on the head. She went down hard and hit her shoulder. The adrenaline cushioned the blow. Maybe the griffons had bombed Ponyville. Maybe they firebombed it as revenge. Maybe they had just begun to firebomb it.

Security alarms went off. E, G-sharp, B. The basement had been breached. Combined with the E-flat of the smoke alarms, they formed a barbaric polytonal chord and stomped on the back of her head eight to the bar.

“Spike?” she tried to shout over the madness. Thick black smoke tinted with pockets of sick purple and green and beautiful gold pooled on the main floor. Horns screamed in her ears. The rite had begun! The holocaust was complete, the castle in shambles. The war had well and truly begun! The alarms got louder as she approached them. They phased like the brightness of the moon.

A picture frame containing a captured moment of Twilight and her friends at the beach fell from the wall with a crash. She pointed her hoof at the noise, and the whole portion of the wall burst into flames.

She realized then the smoke had a single point of origin. It poured from the entrance to the basement. A tunnel attack, maybe? Spike had just been down here a moment ago. So had she.

A quick fanning spell blew the smoke to the corners but left the crystal floors and rugs stained black. Leaning against one of the interior columns a few yards down the long hall lay the unmoving body of Spike the dragon.

She fell to his side, driving up a great cloud of clinging blackness in the process. “Spike,” she tried to say, but the alarms washed out her voice completely. Who knew if she was actually talking?

He looked fine, aside from being covered in soot. His chest moved up and down. He hadn’t broken anything. No lacerations. No obstructed airways. She laid him on his side and turned to face the basement door, where smoke once again pooled on the floor.

Another fan spell and the stairs were clear. She tossed two crystals into the cavernous hole, one to temporarily suspend all dangerous chemical reactions from taking place and turning the air into poison, and the other, which was linked to her heartbeat and set to trigger a small detonation should it cease, so no enemy of Equestria could hold up more than a couple scraps of dead princess as a trophy.

More alarms! All the safety precautions built into the walls over the years. All the notes she hadn’t been able to copy. All the work. All the love. E, G-sharp, B. E-flat. She stumbled down the stairs, deeper and deeper into the hole in the earth, into the smoke, into her nightmare.

The stairs led down to a hellish forest. Trees popped and burned and screamed as flames licked their topmost branches. Their cries swallowed the alarms’ buzzing for moments at a time, phasing in and out of prominence. Patches of lingering winter snow turned the dirt to black mud. Glowing shapes like burning leaves took flight, twisted, screamed, popped, fell back to earth.

She saw caramel leaning against a tree, holding his saddlebag. Half of him was streaked with blast marks as black as the smoke. The other half was disturbingly clean, like it had forgotten to dress appropriately.

She called out to him. He turned.

The blast had ripped him apart. Blood poured from a gash in his neck, from his ears. Skin melted like plastic. The alarms faded into the ever-present ringing in Twilight’s ears, then resurfaced with more fury and violence than before.

“It was the same bag,” he said. The section of his jaw that was still connected to his face dangled oddly. Fire scorched his hooves, but he made no notice of it. “You retaped it to the damn desk,” he said again, calmly. The left side of his skull gleamed in the fire light. She watched his exposed facial muscles flex and contract as he spoke, transfixed in horror. “This could have been you.”

Horns! Screaming! Alarms! Atonal madness! A dozen musical interpretations of hell played over each other set to spring madness, the god of war--Twilight Sparkle--who looked on in horror at her creation. E! G-sharp! B! E-flat!

“This could have been you!” he wailed, throwing his voice like a wild animal in pain. “This could have been you!”

The radios in Twilight’s ears exploded into action. Morse code? A warning? Percussion?

“This could have been you,” he repeated. “You could have prevented this. I was so handsome.” He reached out to her with his arm, but it fell off his body into the fire at his hooves. It hissed like burning wood as it decayed. From the stump grew a tremendous tree, taller than all the rest. It forced him to his knees. Its roots pushed his face into the fire. He screamed in agony as the expanding root system crushed him flat. The tree burned like a funeral pyre. Morse code chattering in her ear, beeping, beeping, beeping.

Twilight's alarm clock hit the wall and came apart. The time was 2:05 AM, and everything was quiet.

21: ii7

“Something’s going to happen tonight, Caramel.”

Caramel stared straight ahead and kept his pace towards Ponyville’s main square. “Is that so?”

“When we break through the rooftop window’s security and get onto the topmost balcony--when we have to deal with the guards inside the building.”

“Mhmm.”

“When we get to those guards, I have to cast that knock-out spell. You remember that?”

“Yeah. It’s that magical-neural relay thing. Like, uh, kinking a hose that carries the life force of the universe instead of water. Course I do.”

“Listen. When I do that, when I cast that spell--and this is more or less instantaneous--I’m going to start crying.”

Caramel frowned. The buildings rose taller and taller on either side of them, gleaming in the sunlight. “You’re gonna cry?”

“It’s unavoidable. I’ve tried before. When you touch their magical-neural relay, when you lay your magic on it and start twisting, their consciousness arcs through you like electricity. Their memories jet into your head. You live their whole lives in an instant--become them, basically.”

“That’s freaky. Can you really not put it out of your head?”

“Memories don’t work like that. I can’t forget them. I can’t even focus on specific ones. Memory to us is fragmented because we know our own thoughts. I remember one thing at a time, or a couple things, or a pattern. Not everything at once. But everything I’ve ever seen and heard and touched is there. It’s running in the background. It’s unconscious. One brain can’t deal with two sets of consciousness--there’s bound to be some extent of emotional damage--”

“Emotional damage?” Caramel scoffed.

“This is serious. If something I see in there causes me to lose control of the spell for whatever reason. You have to shoot them.” Caramel turned his head. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“I won’t.”

“You won’t?”

“Nope. One loud gunshot and the whole job is over. If they see us, we need to act quickly and quietly. Can’t you take care of them with the same spell?”

“The spell doesn’t work like that. It’s not a violent spell, just an invasive one. Plus I’d be too emotionally compromised to cast another spell for at least another minute or so.”

“You’re missing the point.”

“It’s more fair that way, too. Bullets only have a seventy to eighty percent chance of killing the guards if you shot at them blindly, which I assume you’ll do. So long as you hit them it’ll incapacitate them, which is all we need. If I mount a counterspell, there wouldn’t be ashes to collect. One hundred percent mortality rate. That’s the math of a combat mage.” She looked at him earnestly. “You can’t argue with math.”

“Are you serious?”

“Caramel, contained somewhere within my brain is the trigger for a magical spell that would drag the two closest neighboring dimensions through our dimension while retaining their general shapes. The effect is sorta like walking into an infinitely dense wall of piano wire at faster than the speed of light. Three separate universes would get shredded simultaneously. I am trying to be as fair as possible.”

“You couldn’t have told me this during our meetings?” A pair of autocarriages rushed past them, muffling his words. “You must get a real kick out of those spells to keep ‘em in your brain like that.”

Twilight would never admit it, but on some level Caramel was right. It calmed her down a little when she needed to remind herself of her place in the world. Sitting on a rainbow, with the ripcord of the universe wrapped around her hoof.

She turned the corner onto Main Street and almost bumped into a crowd of ponies lined up along the street. It snaked several times around a hastily constructed barricade and disappeared inside the mayor’s office. Neon signs lined the road.

“I know the guards, Caramel. I appointed most of them. I’m not gonna kill them.”

“Alright, but nopony’s killing anypony if we do this right. What’s got you so bent on these killing contingencies? Nopony’s gonna die.”

“Somepony’s gonna die. Someopny always dies. We’re so lucky, but it doesn’t make sense. We aren’t dead. You cast these spells and somepony dies. That’s how it works.” She gestured to the off-duty guards walking away from the mayor’s office. “I just get that feeling our luck won’t hold. Luck doesn’t hold. That’s why it’s luck.” Caramel scoffed. “Three universes, Caramel. Three dimensions. Do you know how large a dimension is?”

Somepony finally noticed the newest princess of Equestria cutting their place in line. The crowd came alive. Ponies turned. Cliques disbanded and reformed.

“Are you ready?” Caramel asked.

“Your majesty!” One of Equestria’s royal guards broke formation and trotted towards her. “It’s an honor to receive you.” He stopped at a respectful distance and bowed.

“Thank you, Lieutenant Brass Bell.” Twilight shot Caramel a look of caution before returning her attention to the guardspony. “You know you don’t need to bow to me.”

“Just doing my job, Princess.”

“Of course,” she chuckled.

“I regret to inform you that we do not have an official visit on the books. We can clear the hall for your tour, but it will take several minutes.”

“That’s not necessary. Let the tours continue. I just want to pop in with the general crowd and take a look around.”

“Yes, your majesty.” The lieutenant looked at Caramel, who flinched at the sight of golden armor. “Is he with you?”

“Yes, lieutenant.”

“I’ll fetch him a lanyard.”

The three of them walked towards the mayor’s office, the lieutenant making a path through the onlookers to the door, where another five guardsponies stood waiting.

“Excuse us, everypony,” one of the guards announced. Three snapped to rigid attention while the last opened the set of double doors leading inside. The flurry of guard activity made Caramel’s fur prickle, but Twilight payed him no mind. This was her element; the human aspect of bureaucracy.

She nodded to the guardspony holding the door. “Thank you Sergeant Silvercrest.”

Once they were through the door, Caramel whispered, “You can tell the difference?”

“You can’t?”

The sound of more guards snapping to attention stayed any conversation. Multiple tour groups stopped to gawk at the princess. Twilight paused as well, admiring the dramatic facelift the mayor’s office had undergone to accommodate the Crystal Heart exhibition. Displays and smaller exhibits poured from what used to be a series of conference rooms. The second floor, where most of the private offices resided, had been cordoned off. A sign saying CRYSTAL HEART MAIN DISPLAY NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY hung above the main meeting hall. Just as Twilight feared, a thick metal horseshoe three ponies tall and just as wide braced the door.

Two more guards, one of them the standard gold and the other a shimmering purple crystal, ushered the two through the crowd. Caramel inched closer to Twilight.

"Shouldn't there be more crystal guards here?" Caramel muttered to Twilight. "It's their heart."

"You're right. Wherever the heart goes is technically Crystal soil.”

"Maybe they have different labor laws. Maybe they get more breaks or something. I wouldn't put it past them. They're practically socialists up there."

Lieutenant Brass Bell returned from one of the administrative rooms and hoofed a lanyard to Caramel. “Make sure you wear this at all times,” he instructed. “This will mark you as the princess’s plus-one. You two have full access to the facilities, public and administrative. If you need anything, just ask anypony in uniform.”

Twilight and Caramel nodded in unison.

“Brass Bell?” Carmel mused as the guardspony wandered off. “That doesn’t seem like a soldierly name.”

“Lieutenant Brass Bell is an accomplished horn player. He was part of the Fillydelphia symphony before he got drafted.” Twilight walked a slow circle around Caramel as she spoke, her horn pulsing faintly. “I must be getting a faulty magic reading. Maybe there’s too many ponies in the room.”

“Well, do it again. Royal guards make me nervous.”

She hesitated. “There. Again. There’s nothing.”

“There can’t be no magic in this room.”

“That’s what I’m saying. Maybe it’s a large-scale magical cancellation field. But we would feel that the moment we stepped into it.”

“Whatever it is, we’ll adjust. We’re flexible.”

“There’s never nothing. I must be doing something wrong.”

“Keep circling and you’ll attract somepony’s attention.” He laid a hoof on her shoulder and tugged her towards the main doors. “Let’s take a walk.” As they approached the exit, the noticed a squad of Crystal guards congregated just outside the door, partially blocking their path. “Oh, there they all are. I didn’t see them when we came in.”

“Maybe they were on break,” Twilight echoed, caught in Caramel’s pull.

“Right. So, why don’t your princessly thing and make a path. I’d rather not look at crystal guards, if it’s all the same to you.”

At that point the crystal guards finally noticed the princess standing behind them. The five of them drew back in hesitation before shuffling into formation and bowing like conquered savages.

“One more time around the place,” Twilight muttered. “Then we can go.”

Caramel nodded, his eyes fixed on the guards. “Thanks.”

23: Two Colts in Purgatory Playing with Guns

Bats burst through the door to find Noir deep in thought.

“Canterlot just called,” he said as he threw a saddlebag full of gear onto the desk. From behind the glass of Ponyville PD’s only private office, Bats watched as a few officers trickled in through the front door. More would come soon. “Tip’s good. They gave us the entire department.”

McTough nodded slightly.

“Are you deaf? The whole thing’s gone fuck-side up.”

“I heard you the first time,” he said without taking his eyes off the shuttered windows.

“Are you serious?” Bats threw a black vest across the table. His eyes darted around the bag until he found what he was looking for. “They’re giving us the department. We’re in the books. We’re in charge now.”

“I said I heard you.” Bright fluorescent overheads killed the natural light before it could get into the room. It sat on the shutters, neither moonlight nor streetlamplight. Just white.

“Gods in the sparkling city above, McTough, was it you?”

McTough locked eyes with Bats. It was a scary feeling to know a stallion behind a mask. “Me?”

“Did you call in the tip on Noir?” Bats looked at the front door. More officers were coming in. They milled around in the main lobby, chatting and throwing saddlebags across their barrels. Some glanced in their direction. “Did you?”

“A mare called in the tip. Probably just a client who got screwed.”

Bats tapped his hoof and looked away. “Whatever you were hoping for, this just turned into a very sensitive situation.” Noir realized he was counting the officers in the other room. “We’re gonna have to handle this very carefully if we want to keep our jobs. I’ve drawn up a plan--it’s a meat grinder, but it’ll get results. I’m gonna go out there and coordinate the department. You’re gonna call in one of the special guard units from Canterlot. I’ll take the Ponyville plots and we’ll surround Noir’s business. We’ll tell him to surrender, and when he says no you come in with the guard unit and they crack the house like an egg. That way it’s out of our hooves.” He looked back to Noir. “Would you please pretend to be a little concerned here?”

“How many officers are here?” Noir asked.

“Twenty three. It’s the whole department, administrators and all.”

The shadows shifted across Noir’s face as he stood up. He turned around and held out his hoof like he had a gun. “I think there’s a better alternative. Bringing more guards into town will just make the Crystalites nervous.”

“Think we should build walls around his house? Maybe throw together some catapults and wait him out?”

Noir pointed his hoof at a cop outside. The office’s location in the center of the room gave him a clear view of the entire lobby. Fire welled up in his hoof. He swept his hoof from left to right, catching each officer as he want along. He imagined their surprise turning to horror, a split second of pure terror before the fire found them.

With only four officers left before the gunfire reached the other wall, Noir put his hoof down. “Keep the officers occupied until tomorrow morning. Plan something complicated.”

“You’ll get the guards, then?”

“Tomorrow morning, ride up in a big convoy. Make a lot of noise. Turn your sirens on all the way to Noir’s house. Block the place in and walk through the front door. Take Noir’s body out and rule it a suicide.”

Bats groaned and slapped the table. “You can’t keep doing this--”

“Watch it--”

“Sir, gods above, you can’t keep doing this, sir.” Bats jabbed his hoof at the officers outside the room. Most of them clustered together around a communal snack table, smiling and sharing jokes. A few stared worriedly into the office, their faces half hidden behind steaming cups of coffee. “This isn’t about you, this is about our jobs. They’ll put you in the mountain--”

“If they put me in the mountain, I know exactly who I’m gonna be sharing my cell with. For both our sakes, make tomorrow’s raid convincing.”

For the first time in McTough’s memory, Bats was silent. He had such a particular way of staring. The corners of his mouth were dead set, his jaw square, his ears perked but motionless. He had seen the look plenty of times when Bats was working. But McTough had never seen his eyes like this before. There had always been a visor. Now they trembled in the light. At him.

Bats held him there until his gaze was stolen away by the officers in the lobby, who by this time had run out of things to socialize about and had taken to staring at the two EQUIS agents in the office. McTough counted them again. Twenty three.

Finally, Bats broke his silence. “Listen, sir, we’re in this together. Agency’s looking for excuses to can old hacks like us. They don’t want war vets anymore. We depreciate faster. Don’t give them a reason to think we’re liabilities.”

“What has the agency ever done for us, anyway,” Noir muttered, his lips barely moving. One by one, from left to right, he locked eyes with the cops. A few averted their eyes. The rest just stared. It made him sweat. They could see into his eyes. He could feel it.

“That sounds like something Noir would say.” Bats reached across the table and hoofed the telephone receiver to Noir. “Call the guard. If they go in there and he shoots back, you’ll get what you want. If he gives up, he’s still going to jail.”

“You don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“I know he’s not bulletproof.” Bats gave him one final stare before exiting the room. The cops in the lobby snapped into their roles, and the whole place roared back to life. Somewhere in the tango of uniformed ponies, Bats slipped his visor on.

McTough leaned back on the table and stared out the window again. It shouldn’t have been this way. If it weren’t for Noir, it would have never been this way. He closed his eyes, and he was in his autocarriage again, driving towards the old Chicoltgo police station. He imagined the consistency of the air, how it felt as it slipped over his hoof. The carnage was behind him. The blood spoke where words could not. He turned on the radio and rolled down the other windows. He couldn’t possibly know his partner was racing back to the same police station, one hoof pinning a camerabag and a cutiemark concealing jacket to his side, the other three pumping madly through the streets, searching for his carriage in the dark. His eyes flashed left and right, then straight ahead. They trembled in the light.

He couldn’t possibly have known.

24: V7b9

Slanted moonlight like a low bent note fell from the streetlights into Twilight below.

She looked up, desperate for celestial direction, a star-map to guide her through the maze of security in the building even though she already knew the way. Light from the moon reflected off its metal pole and into her eyes. Too much light on the ground--odd for Ponyville, but acceptable for a miniature fortress holding the heart of a nation in a low-level bureaucrat's office home. Flood lights reflected daylight into the street. Five crystal guards stood at the front door, unmoving except to relieve each other of watch. When they moved in front of the lights, their bodies cast opaque, angled shadows.

"Hey, Caramel," Twilight whispered over her shoulder, "whatever happened to Barcleigh? The pony who owned that jewelry shop?”

“Hmm? Oh, I don’t know.” Caramel looked a little bit ridiculous with his ski-mask bunched up above his eyes, but she reminded herself how equally ridiculous she looked, her leggings collecting mud, her half-buttoned jacket swaying when she moved, her mask hung on her horn to keep the scratchy fraying edges out of her eyes.

“It had to be in the newspapers, or something.” Caramel shrugged. Twilight went back to her papers. The subtle curves of her face caught the light in pools. Shadows spread across her chin and sealed her mouth shut, but not before she said, “Guard’s changing.”

Five more Crystallites appeared from down the street. Their armored bodies glowed in the light like immolation protesters. The two thieves slunk deeper into the alley, willed their bodies to melt into the earth a little bit more. The shadows tilted at bizarre attention, then settled. The street was quiet. Weekdays were always pretty quiet.

“If we do this right,” Twilight said, “everything will go back to normal. Rarity can have her life back.”

Caramel risked a chuckle. “You’re not still doing this for her, are you?”

All of a sudden, Twilight wasn’t sure. The duality of it, night and day, streetlamps and dark alleyways. The boutique, Rarity’s dresses, her fabrics, the special patterns she kept in the locked closet in the back of the store. She could see the tilt of the scales now, lining up with the shadows of the guards. She felt the imbalance and realized that somewhere along the line she had made a mistake.

Caramel nudged her shoulder. “Old guard’s gone. Let’s do it.”

Caramel pulled a book of disposable matches from his pocket and picked up a length of thin coiled wire from the ground. Twilight placed her body between the contact site and the street while Caramel tugged on the fuse to make sure it was securely beneath the closest garbage can. They locked eyes. Exhaled in unison. Twilight’s breath felt hot like dragonfire.

Twilight struck the match and hugged it to her chest, along with the fuse. Smoke shot from the end of the wire before the flame dimmed to a smoldering hiss. Caramel shot deeper into the alley. Twilight tucked the rest of the fuse behind the garbage can and took off after him.

They hung a left at the first crossroads, then another into the open street. A street light whizzed over their heads, then reset and made another run. White light like pale, fat moonbeams pointed them towards the street corner, where they could see the guard’s floodlights.

The walls fell away. They dashed across the open street to the relative safety of an exposed dead-end alleyway two shops adjacent to the mayor’s office.

The floodlights weren’t pointed directly at them, but that made them none the less bright. One more service road between their current position and the mayor’s office. If the guards turned their heads slightly to the left, or if they made a little too much noise--Twilight knew the guards wouldn’t shoot her, but she still worried all the same.

Caramel kicked her in the rear. She grit her teeth and ate dirt to the next alleyway.

“Should be any second now, You didn’t run the fuse through any puddles on accident?” Caramel panted into her ear. Adrenaline and experience kept his voice to a whisper, but Twilight could tell he was suffering physically.

“Are you okay?” she hissed back.

“Just a cramp.”

“Have you been drinking or something?”

“Don’t go accusing me of something I didn’t--.”

The night belched a staccato baritone note. Golden sparks sprayed the new guard to the joyous wail of fireworks. Trashcans flew from the alley’s mouth and crashed to the street.

Caramel bared his teeth. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five--” On the last count he launched himself around the corner. Twilight gasped and followed.

In her brief moment of exposure, Twilight captured a tilted picture of the old wartime. Two guards, one with a black blast mark on his breastplate, charged into the alley. Two more rushed towards a cracked floodlight spitting sparks. The fifth threw his burning helmet onto the road and kicked up a cloud of dirt to smother it. As she raced beneath the floodlight, the lighting shifted. Caramel’s shadow melted into the wall of the mayor’s office. She craned her neck as she ran, her eyes drawn to the flickering fire on the fifth guard’s helmet.

For some reason, she let herself run full-barrel into the wall of the mayor’s office. The pain in her shoulder was tremendous, but the image of a furious guard stomping his own helmet into the dirt burned her on a level only the worst physical pain could reach. She only had a moment to realize the pain before Caramel’s hoof shot from the shadows and--by her injured shoulder, of course--dragged her away from the light.

“Did they see you?” Caramel asked once they had retreated behind the building. He didn’t bother to hide his voice now.

“We set one of them on fire.”

“Yeah?” He gestured towards the street. “Feels like the gods are watching out for us tonight.”

“I’m sure they’re trying,” she replied solemnly.

Twilight unfurled her wings and flew. One, two, three, four, five--another seven wingbeats and she would be level with the second floor balcony. Another twelve and she would touch down on the third floor balcony connected to the roof She had calculated for the exact number of wingbeats she needed to get up to the roof without making too much unnecessary whooshing noises and giving herself away. Her math had actually given her 23.95 wingbeats, but she decided to follow Caramel’s lead and approximate where necessary.

She got up to the roof just fine, but Caramel’s math burned her when she tried letting down a length of wire for him to climb up. The frayed end teased the earthbound pony below, dangling just a few inches above his reach.

Caramel made a frantic motion with his hoof.

Twilight mouthed. “No more,” and shrugged.

Caramel threw himself on his hind legs and snapped at the wire with his teeth while Twilight crept across the balcony to check on the guards out front. Thankfully, the fire on the one guard’s helmet had been extinguished, though the crest had been partially burnt away at the front. He and his furious friends had reconvened on the front steps. Every few seconds, one of them would turn their heads like they were expecting an attack.

“Should we call the garrison?” one of them asked.

“You two circle the building a few times, see if they blew up anything else--”

The rest of his orders were lost to history. Twilight shot across the balcony to find Caramel dragging a cylindrical aluminum trash can towards the wire. She waved madly, but Caramel was too focused on climbing up the stupid wire to realize it. He wore a great big smile on his face. He probably thought he was being very resourceful.

A look to her right revealed the two guards splitting from the circle. A few dozen more paces and they would be muzzle to muzzle with the stuff of their training.

Something about Caramel’s lopsided smiled frightened her more than the approaching guards did. It radiated ease. Uncaring. Power. Balancing on top of the trashcan might as well have made him the king of the universe--king of the guards, king of the trash can, king of her. He could make the guards stop dead in their tracks, or tip right off the can, or drag Twilight down with him.

She saw his outline twitch and stabilize. He hopped onto the rope, caught himself, and began to ascend--but not fast enough.

Up until this point she had resisted using magic due to the obvious lights and shimmering sound of mana materializing. Now as the guards strolled closer and closer to Caramel, she weighed the option. Twenty paces now, and closing. Maybe ten seconds. Probably less. And less, and less, and less, and less.

Caught! There was another dirty word. Twenty paces. All this time, she had never really thought about the ramifications of getting caught. Sure, she had fantasized about getting cuffed and tossed into the back of a police carriage, but the dream always ended there.

What would come next--a trial? Who would try her? Celestia? The shame! She would never live it down. Ten paces until she had to look her mentor in the eye and plead guilty.

Twilight ripped another firework, a round ariel charge, and chucked it as hard as she could at the trash can. As the can clattered to the ground, she lit up her horn and blasted Caramel, wire and all, to her side.

She clamped his mouth shut. “Swallow,” she commanded. His adam’s apple bobbed as he forced himself once, then twice, to obey. Meanwhile, she tracked the voices of the guards as they sprinted towards the source of the noise.

Above his muffled gagging she heard one of the guards say something about the garrison. They quickened their pace and were soon out of sight.

Caramel wrestled himself from Twilight’s grip and sputtered. When Twilight registered the disparity, how hard she had been pressing Caramel into the floor, she relented and pulled out a granola bar from her pack. “Just in case we got stranded inside the air ducts for a few days,” she said.

Caramel snatched the granola bar. “How’d you know I was gonna puke?”

“Everypony pukes their first time teleporting. I did, you did, Celestia probably did. I just guessed it was your first time and adjusted.”

“How close were they?”

“Couple more seconds and they would have seen you. They probably saw you a little, but the firework distracted them enough to make them not think anything of it.”

He nodded slowly. “Nice save.”

Twilight smiled. She liked hearing that. “I’ll disable the alarm on the window while you finish up. Take the wrapper with you.”

“Thank you,” he mumbled. In their own odd way, they were pretty good partners. Were they friends, though? Twilight decided that question was best left unanswered as she clamored up the roof.

The windowpane itself wasn’t alarmed--or the frame, or the glass, or the space around the glass. In fact, the only thing keeping the window from swinging wide open in the breeze was a thin metal bolt lock on the inside.

“Caramel.”

He stuffed the rest of the granola bar into his mouth and climbed over. “What’s up?” he asked between bites.

“Look at this,” she pointed at the window like it was spewing pus and blood. “Tell me I’m not seeing this.”

“Well, you can see it enough to point it out to me.”

She pointed to the window. “Tell me what this is.”

‘Is that a trick question?” Her look sharpened. “It’s a window.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Oh, so it was a trick question.”

“No!” she hissed. “It’s not a window. It’s a hole, a big hole. Look!”

“Looks like a window to me.”

“Caramel, there are no alarms on this window,” she explained, her brow furrowing as she went on. “Wires, sensors, trips, magical--wait.” Her horn sputtered a dim sparkle. “Yeah, no magical traps.” She turned and scuttled to the next window. “Same thing. There’s nothing but a lock.”

“It’s done a pretty good job of keeping us out so far.”

“This isn’t part of the plan,” she growled. “There are supposed to be wires to cut or censors to break or something. It doesn’t make sense. These windows are supposed to be locked.”

“The windows are locked, Twilight.”

Her horn flashed. The lock glowed red and evaporated.

“There. Now it’s not locked. That spell should have set off every alarm within a hundred yard radius.”

“Then why the heck did you cast it?”

“Something’s not right here, Caramel!”

Caramel hiked up his saddlebag. “Even bad people get lucky sometimes. Still have that wire?”

Though a decade and a half of wartime expansion and peacetime subtraction had reshaped the hall from a circle to more of a circle with a rectangle jammed into its side, Twilight could still pick out the balcony below her, the catwalks clinging to the walls, the banners that hung like thin sheets of stone in the still air.

Twilight paused just before her hooves touched the uppermost balcony, right under their entry window. So much was wrong already. The place felt too still, like nopony had set hoof in it for weeks, and the primary lights were all off. Ghostly security lights outlined the emergency exits and the exhibit room.

The display case itself, its sharp lights visible from the balcony, was a generous donation from the local jeweler’s, who had just refurbished it after somepony had broken in and smashed the glass.

She looked up to Caramel and flashed her hoof three times, then pointed to the far side of the room. Two Equestrian guards flanked the main doors, with another completing a slow march around the room’s parameter.

They dropped to the balcony floor one after the other without a sound, which raised another host of questions. Chief among them was the nagging worry that the ground had been completely covered by invisible lasers. It wasn’t--another couple of checks made sure of that--but the feeling of unluck just kept on pecking away at her focus.

“Aren’t there five?” Caramel whispered and flashed his hoof five times. Twilight shrugged. “Are they?”

She flinched when she saw him reach for his knife. “Two right below us, ground floor.”

“That’s it?”

Up went her hoof, like she were drinking a pint of Applejack’s cider.

Despite the mask, and the dark, and the stress, she saw Caramel smile. He was gone a moment later, a shadow slinking across the catwalk towards the other balcony. Now Twilight’s real work began.

With Caramel gone it was easy to clear a space for herself. She got down into a praying position, with her head up towards the window. Moonlight slid through the windows, parallel lines of light banking through the air and down the walls. It was pretty, she thought. She liked this moment the most, the minute or so before the place came alive, when everything was so perfectly still you could pretend you were the living centerpiece of a great scenery piece carved entirely of marble. And the lighting! Dust clung to the moonlight. Even on the floor it seemed more substantial than the hardwood. If Twilight only had a pair of wire brushes, she could play a great drum solo on those tilted squares of battered light.

But motion made stillness so magic, and Twilight had to keep going. If only she could stay here for a few hours more. Thank Celestia for this wonderful night. Thank Luna, who suffered a thousand years of airless torture to reveal its truest beauty. Maybe whistle and listen for an echo. It had been some time since she last set hoof in here, aside from earlier that day. The town hall was a relic with a castle a few blocks away, but a relic that looked nice and contributed to the rustic appeal. If this was the reason why Twilight would have to leave it forever, then so be it.

The ground trembled. Hooves rooted into the floor, she felt the movements of the five guards. They moved in pulses, stomping in a uniquely Equestrian way. They coughed with a neutral accent. She felt them, their cool armor and its warm padding, their hopes and dreams.

She hated this spell, really truly hated it for what it was about to do to her.

Her horn flared to life. Shadows disintegrated in the light. A new age of fire upon Equestria!

The guards raised their guns in shock, but it was already too late. Using the leylines as a guide, Twilight forced herself into each guard’s conscious mind. There she found the magical equivalent of their brain stem, the neural relay bridged by magic no knife could ever cut. One one side was a brain and a body; on the other, infinity.

She pinched and twisted, each and every one of them at the same time.

Five guards hit the floor simultaneously. Helmets clattered, glasses shattered, guns fell useless from cold hooves. Twilight choked on her breath and started to cry uncontrollably.

“No kidding,” Caramel muttered. He pointed at all five guards just to be safe, but none stirred. “We’re good,” he called to Twilight. She was really wailing at this point. Thank goodness the military had insulated the building so well in case of a weather-based attack, or the guards outside would have heard her for sure.

“I saw them,” Twilight stammered. The mask soaked up her tears until she ripped it off. “Saw them all. Gods, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Caramel trotted up the stairs and touched her shoulder. “It’s okay. You did it.”

“I saw them Caramel,” she sobbed. “I saw them.”

“Easy now. Easy.” Caramel offered her some water, which she drank in shallow gulps. Without looking at her he said, “Don’t think about it.”

“No, I’m sorry, gods.” She swallowed hard and coughed, her voice less frantic now, more pleading for help. “I never even tried it before. I should have tested it. I don’t know who, but I should have. I should have known.”

“You’re okay, you’re fine--”

“I killed myself,” she moaned. “I didn’t think this through. I thought their thoughts and dreamed their dreams and I had to pinch it and twist it. It was like suicide. Five times.”

“It’s okay--”

“Five times!”

“Hey! Calm down.” Authority! There was the Caramel she needed. Uncaring. Shellshock. Apathy. Get up. “Get up.”

Her legs wobbled. “Help.”

“No.”

“Caramel.”

He tucked his hoof under her shoulder and hoisted her up. “I’m going to barricade the front door.” He turned to go, but paused. “Talking ‘bout killing yourself--you’re freaking me out.”

“Sorry.”

“You didn’t kill yourself, okay? You’re here.”

Twilight made it to her hooves without really realizing it. “Yeah. I’m here.”

“You’re here.”

“I’m here,” she chanted as she wiped the tears from her face. Soulless autonomy overpowered her shellshocked conscience. Twilight Sparkle was back in control.

He nodded. “Focus on here. We’re here. We made it.”

Without guards to impede them, the trip to the ground level took only a few minutes. They found not a single trap or alarm in the whole room. No lasers on the floors, much to Caramel’s relief, no terrified guardsponies hiding in the bathroom--nothing.

“This is--” Twilight coughed up more tears. “This is all wrong. Everything’s wrong. Look--the exhibit should be rigged to explode, but it’s not. The schematics showed detonation wire strung beneath the floorboards. There’s--nothing.”

“Your documents weren’t totally wrong.”

“They’re all wrong!” She sniffled again, the last sign of weakness. “Everything’s wrong.”

“Maybe the maps you took were dated?” Caramel pointed towards the unconscious guards. “They might have new orders on them.”

In their state, it made perfect sense. Rip the armor off the almost-corpses and check their pockets for official documents.

“This one had a really troubled life,” Twilight noted as she rifled through one of the guard’s pockets. “Most guards do. It’s sad. They grow up violent--there’s just nothing we can do. I hope he doesn’t get fired.” Surprised resolution crossed her face, though nopony would ever know it. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t. The guard was so good for him.”

Caramel looked at the guard in Twilight’s hooves for a moment, then resumed searching.

Personality, the enemy of progress! Twilight focused on rifling through pockets and skimming small papers and prayed that the memories would pass into the background, along with the soft hum of what had to be--couldn’t be, lasers?

“Do you hear that?” she asked. “Don’t say anything. Just listen.”

Caramel gave her a harsh look but complied. “Can’t be central air,” he said after a few seconds.

“Can’t be the lights, either.”

Twilight laid the guard gently across the floor. Caramel just let his slump. “We should take a moment and think. That’s not a natural sound. We need to approach this slowly.”

“Gods almighty.” Caramel tore the rubber band off a leather bound personal journal and threw it across the room. It skittered across the floor until it hit the opposite wall without triggering a single alarm. “Maybe we should just walk in and grab it.”

Twilight cringed at the noise. “Easy--”

“Easy, yeah, but you’re the one crying.” Twilight took a step closer to him, eyes spilling fire. “Look, stop trying to think. The doors are all unlocked and the guards are all stupid, and you act like that isn’t the biggest miracle you’ve ever seen.”

“It’s not a miracle--”

“It’s all wrong, yeah. I know.”

“What’s getting into you?”

Caramel took a step towards the crystal heart’s storage room.

“I’ll bet if I walked through that door, nothing would happen.” The room bent inward. Cringed. Caramel sensed it. He burst out into a great big smile and said, “If I walked through that door, nothing would happen.”

“Caramel, stop it. Help me look for documents. We need to find documents.”

He took a step towards the door.

“Caramel. The documents!”

Another step.

“Caramel!”

He paused five paces from the door. “Everything we’ve done this past month has been a joke. We shoot shit for days on end and then we run in and screw it all up. It’s a screw-up, that’s what it is.”

“What are you doing?” she hissed. Her nervous glance followed the sound as it crashed around the high ceiling. “Did that spell do something to you too? Sit down, I should have buffered for collateral. We don’t have a contingency for this--”

“No, don’t you point that horn at me. I humored you all this time, but--you know what? We didn’t need it, any of it. Plans and contingencies.”

“Okay, okay, we didn’t need any of it. Please, step back and think for a second.”

“Do you know me? This whole month, and do you even know who you’re talking to? I’m not so perfect at my craft that I’ve transcended history. I am not the pony who walks in the opposite direction when he could run into--right through that door.” Anger bloomed in the dark like a strange flower. “I am the contingency.”

Drum solo! Frantic percussion! Squealing high horns, the sound of soft horseshoes on polished floors! Caramel lowered his shoulder and rushed the heart room.

Perhaps they both thought they’d explode the instant they crossed the threshold. They expected alarms, at least. Maybe the end of the world. Or the end of the story, or them. Either way, Caramel forgot where he running to, only that he was running through something. Momentum picked him up by the ears and threw him face first to the floor. Twilight screamed as he rolled.

“Gods, fuck!” Cursing felt oddly therapeutic, given the circumstances. “Fuck,” she hissed again. “We’re dead, we’re dead, we’re dead.”

Nopony moved out of mutual understanding. Waiting. Seconds ticking, then whirring, then buzzing.

Caramel rolled onto his back and patted the floor. “Nothing happened.”

“We’re dead. We’re dead.”

“Works every time.” He let loose a laugh that shook the walls. “Works every time!”

Twilight throws herself against the wall, her horn brimming with purple fire. Covering her angles, checking her corners. “Are you mental?” she shouted, utterly contemptuous to the guards outside, or anypony else for that matter. “That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen anypony do.”

“But it worked!”

A dim purple halo ignited on the ceiling and curled to the floor. Only when the last flames licked the carpet and extinguished themselves did Twilight stand upright.

“We are the luckiest ponies on the face of the earth.”

“If we were lucky,” Caramel started, “we wouldn’t have to steal the darn thing in the first place--”

“Stop it. Just stop.”

“I think we’ll be okay from here on out.”

“You’re nuts.” The insult therapy stabilized Twilight’s nerves to the point where she could push herself off the wall without falling over. She approached the opened door backwards in quiet, reverent steps, eyes on the upper windows. “Is the heart in there?”

Caramel turned around. “Yeah, it’s definitely here. There’s a pedestal in the back of the room, covered with a canvas. Something’s glowing underneath it, that has to be it.”

“What color is the light?”

“Bluish? Light blue, sorta.”

“That’s it,” Twilight breathed. The image of it in her hooves became very clear in her mind. “Can you see anything on the other side in the way of alarms?”

He traced the door frame with his eyes to find a bulky black box attached to the wall above the door, partially connected to the frame with plastic casing. “Yep, hold on. Got a box.”

Twilight halted a few paces from the door. “Tell me what you see. Try not to move so much, it might be a pressure alarm.”

“Just a black box in the center of the doorframe. Rectangular, little bigger than a hoofball.”

“Okay. That’s not promising, but okay. Anything else? Wires?”

“Um, yeah, there’s a jumble of wires coming out both sides of the box. Most of them run into the doorframe itself. Some kinda shielding spell, maybe?”

“It didn’t do a very good job, if it was a shielding spell.”

“I’m gonna hit it with my flashlight,” Caramel said.

“What? No!”

“I just want to get a feel for what’s inside it, that’s all.”

“You can’t feel with your flashlight. Don’t be so obtuse--”

Five solid taps echoed through the hall. The box whirred. A gear grinded and popped. Twilight made a full rotation, her horn on fire, ready for something nasty.

“Hmm,” Caramel tilted his head, deep in thought. “Sounds like it’s mostly mechanical. It rang a lot, too. That means there’s no magic trigger. In fact, I guess there’s no magic anything inside it.”

“It’s a non-magical device?”

“I suppose so. Magic eats up sound more than water. No way it’d ring that much if it were full of magical crystals or something.”

“Then the wires are fake?”

“Definitely not fake. They’re insulated wires. Magically conductive.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Magic conducting wires without magic?”

“Could be acoustic resonance. They have basic censors at the end and pick up vibrations.”

“Acoustic resonance devices need electricity, which is magical.” Something compelled her to leap through the doorway just like Caramel. “I think I’m gonna risk it. If it didn’t go off for you...”

Caramel made a disapproving hum. “Wait a second.” He took a deep breath. “If the box isn’t magic and the wires aren’t magic. They, oh fuck.” He launched himself away from the door with frantic steps. “Stop!” he shouted. “Stop. Don’t move. Don’t go through the door.”

Twilight paused, her hoof planted an inch from the divide.

“It’s not non-magical,” Caramel echoed. “We’re idiots. It’s anti-magical. Those wires are magic detectors. They soak up magic and ferry it back to the box, which triggers the alarm.” Caramel shot her the deranged look of a feral criminal behind bars. “It’s rigged to go off if something overly magical walks through the door. I don’t know what it does when it goes off. That has to be it.”

“Why didn’t you set the alarm off?”

“I must not have enough magic in me. I don’t have any friends, my family’s dead, I don’t love anything aside from money, and I’m an earth pony to boot. I didn’t have enough magic to trip the alarm--but you--”

“I have friends and family, and I’m the immortal goddess of magic,” she breathed. “Shoot.”

They both took a few steps back on reflex, like they had just discovered a bomb. In all reality, a bomb would have been easier to deal with. “This must be why those crystal guards seemed so off earlier today.”

“Why’s that?” Caramel asked. Under any other circumstance it would be funny to watch him pace and shuffle on the tips of his hooves. Seeing him frightened almost made the whole development funny.

“Crystal ponies are full of magic, every cell of their body,” Twilight explained. “Regular old ponies can channel magic through them, but crystal ponies sweat the stuff. That’s the only reason they’re alive in the first place--they’re rocks, for goodness sakes. They’re made of rocks. It’s all the magic giving them life. They’re like nuclear reactors for magic.” That’s why the crystal guards were all outside today. That’s why they didn’t want to bow to us. They couldn’t get near the heart and risk setting off the anti-magic alarm even if they needed to, and they were pissed off about it.” She ran across the room, towards the closest unconscious guard. “These guards are all earth ponies, too.”

“What would happen to them if they tried stepping through the field? Out of curiosity’s sake.”

“Depending on how the box is programmed, the field will either set off an alarm or split atoms as it drops. It’s like a gate, you see. It drops from top to bottom like a tangible gate would, just at near the speed of light. That or it doesn’t, I don’t know.”

“That won’t happen to us though, right? Different chemicals, different body compositions, different outcome.”

“We’re not prepared for this,” Twilight mumbled. “I can’t believe it.”

“We’re also not gonna be in half,” he seethed. “What happens if I rip the box off the wall?”

“It’ll activate.”

“I’ll snip all the wires then. That’ll work. The box can’t feel if we cut its feelers.”

“There’s probably a failsafe so if one of the mechanical sensors gets overwhelmed or incapacitated the alarm will go off anyway.”

Twilight watched Caramel pace around the inside of the room. Moonlight fell between them, suspending his ravenous glowing eyes in limpid light.

“Can we just cut a hole through the wall?” Twilight suggested.

“If my guess is right, there’s more wires built into the walls. If we disturb them, we’re toast.” Twilight joined his pace, equidistant steps parallel to the door so she could see Caramel at all times. “Okay. Let’s just wait a minute and think.”

“I don’t know what to do,” he finally spoke. “Is there a contingency for this?”

Twilight thought for a second. Tapped her hoof on the floor, eight to the bar. “There might be something.”

“Okay, something’s better than nothing. Lemme have it. I can do anything. I’m the freaking god of robbery.”

Twilight shook her head. “Remember what I did to those guards?”

“No. Sorta.”

“I might be able to do that to myself.”

“And then, what, I drag you through the shield and slap you until you wake up?”

“No. Okay. This is gonna be academic, so sorry. The neural-magical relay is located on top of the pony’s spinal cord. If you could see it, it would look like a second spine running from your head out your spine and into your body. Like veins with magic instead of blood, and they’re all attached to this main spinal element. If you’re a unicorn it runs to your horn through your skull bone, and if you’re a pegasus it flares out into your wings. Earth ponies have neither, but they have larger veins and greater numbers of them, especially in their legs. Got that?”

Caramel made a face and nodded vaguely.

“Okay. So if you snap the neural-magical relay, the pony dies. If you clamp it, like I did to those ponies, they lose consciousness--they lose their life spark for a few hours. Their bodies still work, but they are basically self-sustaining vegetables.” Twilight took a sharp, shallow breath. “Here’s the thing. If I were to kink it, block it partially somehow, I could choke the flow of magic to the body. Not enough to make me pass out, but enough to hinder the magic flow to my body for a few minutes so I could pass through undetected. Once that’s done we’ll just wait until the effects wear off and teleport out, just like we planned.”

“You won’t trigger the thing when you’re inside?”

“Well, it’s not going off from the heart just sitting there, and it’s got more magic in it than ten of me put together, so we should be okay.” She shrugged helplessly. “So long as I can get through the alarm’s shell, it should work.”

“Do you feel like rolling those dice?” he asked.

Twilight nodded. “The relay resists obstruction like the spine resists snapping. I was only able to do it to those guards because I’m more powerful than them. I should be fine.”

“How fine?” Caramel asked. “Five minutes and a shot of whiskey fine, or fine like leave and try again another day fine?”

“We don’t have the second option.” Twilight’s own body started catching on to her plan. She felt sweat form on her back where it hadn’t been before. He breathing sped up. “We don’t have any options. We have an option for fending off waves of Equestrian secret service, but not this. I made up a contingency for if the building was rigged with megaspell crystals, and I didn’t prepare for this.” She slammed her hoof to the floor. “I should have seen this.”

“Okay, calm down. Don’t start crying again. How fast do you think you’d be able to do that whatever you just said?”

“If I could cancel out my own natural defenses, it’d only take a minute or two.” A thought occurred to her, and it almost made her laugh. “If there’s one thing that can overpower Twilight Sparkle, it’s Twilight Sparkle.”

Caramel felt a pang of worry shoot up his spine, but he didn’t let it phase him. “Alright then.”

She nodded, but her horn remained dim. “Remember when I was crying about those guards?”

“Yeah.”

“I told you that when you touch somepony’s magical-neural relay, their magic arcs through you and you--you become them, in a way.”

“Yeah.”

“If I touch my own relay, I become myself becoming myself.” She furrowed her brow. “I don’t know if that will start a chain reaction of Twilights becoming Twilight until the universe implodes, or if it’ll hurt, or what.”

“It might be neither of those things,” Caramel reminded her.

“Caramel, remember when I said I had to kill myself, five times?”

Caramel nodded.

“Imagine that happening to me. I’d be killing myself killing myself.”

Caramel bit his lip in thought. “No,” he finally said, “it’d be like--look, this is serious. We don’t have all the time in the world.”

“Okay. I’ll do it.” The hair on her legs prickled. “I’ll do it,” she repeated. “If I scream or fall over and stop moving, you have to run over here and get me.”

“Empathy might trigger the alarm. Heck, fear might. Fear’s magic.”

“Don’t do this to me,” she whimpered. “Not now. Of all times.”

“Okay, okay, I promise. Now kill yourself we you can get on with this job.”

For the second time that night, Twilight assumed a meditative position on the floor and lit up her horn. She wasted no time finding her target. Turning into the purely magic state tore the physical from the abstract. Ponies became opaque silhouettes with veins of fiery plasma stretching from head to hoof, centered on a main artery atop the spinal cord connected to the magical-neural relay in the neck, which in turn fed into the infinite movement of the leylines above her head. The leylines themselves moved through the air like electrons did; theoretically. In the realm of magic, the only reality was fire, burning in the blood of the living.

Caramel was there. He burned dimly in the other room and made an impatient motion with his hoof. From the corner of her eye she caught the faintly pulsing glow of five guards. Even now, the clamping spell she had placed on their magical-neural relays pulsed the color of grass scorched dry by the sun. Yellow, and it was time for them to go. Red, and the spell disintegrated.

She turned to focus on herself and inadvertently threw herself into third person. Twilight Sparkle sat before her, shining brighter than all the others combined, all her good intentions, all her fear, all her hatred--yes, she could see it now, hatred, pure and sublime, deep inside her mind. Hatred for the undefined, the word she did not know, the atom she could not control, the fire she could not bend to her will. The only mind she could not tame laid bare before her. A sacrifice of fire for a vengeful goddess! Extinguish this flame so another can burn forever, somewhere in the shattered ruins of the Whitetail Woods.

Pure anger overwhelmed her. From this perspective, Twilight Sparkle was nothing--another shadow darting between trees, a bit of magic. Nothing more. No more. The time had finally come for her to kill the only part of Twilight she hadn’t already razed herself.

She reached for Twilight’s neck and twisted.

Strange exquisite pain shocked her into her own skin. Shadows screamed in agony as they crashed together into solid shapes. Twilight Sparkle was in control. She bore down against the pain, against her own biology dragging her towards unconsciousness. Pain like fire, omnipotent and primal. She gasped and wailed and gnashed her teeth like a savage wild beast broken by a higher master. The ring of magic around her neck lept to her mane, then her sides, then her tail, then finally her feet, until fire consumed her mane, until her body glowed white hot in anguish. Twilight Sparkle was killing herself.

Her legs buckled. Memories she didn’t know she had lived flashed across her vision in dizzying technicolor. She dug her shoulder into the floor until she felt the ache. That would be her tether. From there she analyzed the pain. Her suffering was not irrelevant. It served a purpose. Suffering was good. To die by her own hoof was the final absurd consequence of her choice to wage war on herself, the final hopeless charge to confront her faceless enemy on its own terms. She saw it now. In a moment of pure academic joy she understood why the griffons she fought in the war laughed at the notion of surrender. She wailed and poured it on.

In her agony, she hallucinated Rarity materializing from the shadows and collapsing at her side, her eyes wide with panic.

“What did you do?” she sobbed as she dug a sewing needle from her bag. “What did you do to me?” Rarity raised the sewing needle high above her head and slammed it into Twilight’s neck. She twisted the needle around her spine and brought it up through the soft tissue until it burst from a second point just next to the first. “You’re burning, gods, you’re burning!” she wailed.

Twilight felt a tug on her neck, different from the rest of the pain. Rarity must have threaded something through the needle before sticking her.

“I can’t stop it--gods--” Rarity tested the wire. Fire snaked through the open wounds in her neck and touched her spine. Bones combusted. Rarity pulled harder. Twilight’s neck came up while her face angled steeply into the floor.

Here was her opportunity! Twilight pressed her cheek to the floor and leveraged all her weight against the wire. Rarity pulled again. The wire caught between two vertebrae and sent Twilight into a fit of pathetic spasms and gasps. Eyes wide open, watching the magical fire close around her like teeth, she felt the nearness of death, an infinite stillness.

Rarity roared and put all her weight into one final pull. Just when Twilight could stand it no more, Rarity crossed the wires and knotted the two ends together with a beautiful flick of her hoof, like a real artist. She pulled the ends apart and buried the knot in the center of Twilight’s back, then disappeared.

The spell was complete. Purple fire clawed the hardwood floor in an effort to consume it and died. Her mane settled. The heat discoloring her body faded to a dim glow, then nothing at all. Twilight buckled. Had her rear been a few inches higher, she might have done a perfect somersault. Instead, she flopped onto her side and threw up a little. Caramel rushed to her side.

“Did I do it?” she coughed.

“I don’t know,” Caramel replied, his eyes wide in horror. “Do you feel less magical?”

“I feel, yeah, I feel weird.” she nodded her whole body forward, then tipped in the opposite direction. “There’s, potholes in my head, like the good stuff went away and it’s just the bad stuff.”

“Um,” Caramel replied.

“What was I just saying? You told me to go kill myself, and then I did, and then you asked me if I feel different, and then I dunno what.” She scratched the back of her neck. “Is this how earth ponies fell all the time?”

He rubbed his neck. “Turn around for me?”

Twilight went to check the spot and winced. “What is it?”

“Fire? Gods, it looks like you’re bleeding fire.” Sure enough, glowing purple liquid beaded at the base of a thin spout of flame--also purple. “Are you okay?”

“No, my shoulder is, it really hurts. Like, ever since that--what was it, the robbery at the bank, the one with the smoke pillars and that. Ever since then when I fell on my shoulder it’s been giving me problems.”

“Okay. Okay, your shoulder’s feeling bad. I’ll make a note of that. Any--uh, anything else? Anything by your neck?”

“I feel dizzy,” she mumbled. “You know how you stretch really hard in the morning, and then you fold back into your normal shape and your whole head is just--” she gasped, swelling up with awe. “Just filled with stars! Stars burn, but they’re so far away nopony realizes it.”

“Okay. Shoot. Maybe run one of those tests on yourself? You love running tests.”

“I love tests! I take them all the time. Sometimes I even get to make them for Cheerilee and, oh it’s so kind of her.”

“Can’t you focus?” He danced with her beside the door, frantic tapping on the floorboards.

“Oh, I can--explain that. When you choke yourself or hyperventilate, you get that, dizzy, you know?, hypoxia. You get hypoxia, and you see stars. Well, I am just so used to swimming in magic that my brain is, sorta getting magically--sorta undergoing magical hypoxia.”

Twilight choked on her own spit, hocked up a glob of blood, and teetered through the door.

Caramel stretched and caught her before she could hit the floor. “Does this usually happen?” he asked.

“I haven’t actually, books, I haven’t actually studied it. There’s nothing on it to study, because when you deprive a creature of magic like I did, it dies.” She cackled, “But not Twilight Sparkle!”

Caramel pulled himself away, towards the heart’s pedestal. A thin trickle of purple fire stuck to his hoof and burned him. “How are we gonna get out now?” he thought out loud as he stomped it out. “We didn’t think this through.”

“We’re stuck? We’re not stuck!” she declared. “There isn’t even a door. We can walk out whenever we want.”

“Just--keep your eyes peeled. Do you--Twilight. Look already.”

“I can’t see,” she muttered. “What are we looking for again?”

“Wires, more booby traps. Something. How long is this supposed to last?”

Twilight leaned forward and glared at the dark shadow on the bridge of her snout. “No, not that. It’s, Rarity’s thing, the crystal heart. When we’re done, what?”

“That won’t matter until we actually get the heart.” Darkness! Cold and colorful. There was the Caramel she knew. He didn’t really care about magical hypoxia. Shellshock. Apathy. Get your head up. “Get your head up.”

“The pedestal,” Twilight groaned. “What if there’s alarms?”

He plod on towards the back of the room where the pedestal stood, “If your maps were wrong, we’ll do it the old fashioned way.”

“Beat ‘em to death with swords!” she snorted. “Celestia said there used to be honor in beating somepony to death with a sword.”

Caramel narrowed his gaze to the pedestal, now just a few hooves away. Light bled through the thick canvas and cast a dim shadow on Twilight. She peered over his shoulder only to teeter and catch herself again. Untamed music built around them, a subsonic rumble that started in the floorboards and lifted the dust from the corners, shook their knees until they trembled, and then swelled some more, all through their bodies, up and up until Caramel raised his hoof and threw away the canvas, building, building, building, cut!--

Cut! Silence! Cut to horrified silence! Strings wailing in shock and confusion, horn gnashing their teeth, grinding them down on their mouthpieces! The pedestal had adopted a new centerpiece; a large pink cupcake.

“That’s not the crystal heart,” Twilight said.

“We have to go,” Caramel whispered. His face burned as white and pale as moonlight.

“What? No, we gotta, find the crystal heart. What we came here for.” Caramel grabbed Twilight’s bruised shoulder and squeezed. She let out a pathetic yelp of pain and surprise. Caramel’s hooves were freezing. “Are you okay?”

“We have to go right now.” Twilight stared deep into his eyes and marveled at the polarized emotions contained within him. Hooves colder than ice and eyes brimming with fire and the rest of him stuck in limbo, freezing in the cold, teased with warmth by the memory of a colossal fire burning a few hundred kilometers behind him. “She might still be here.”

“I’m technically braindead, hypoxiated, and you’re--you’re still making less sense than--” Twilight turned, squealed a high note, and sent a magical pressure wave into the warm body creeping behind her. “It touched me!” she wailed as the assailant sailed through the door and into the main room.

“She’s here! Gods above, as I live and breathe, she’s here!”

Frenzy swallowed Caramel’s voice as he pulled a dagger from his boot and charged. Metal moved in complex rhythm capped by a delicate click. He recognized the noise and slowed for a split second, just long enough to duck the butterfly knife slicing through the air.

The attacker spun herself to meet him and grabbed his knife-wielding hoof at the elbow. using his momentum, she slammed him into the floor face first and jammed a hoof in his spine.

“Can your little mind even comprehend the time it takes to make this coat sparkle?” she roared. “Allow me to demonstrate how valuable this body is in relation to your life!”

“Rarity?” Twilight said from inside the storage room.

Moonlight danced off a pale coat, reflecting the ghost of an ancient monster long buried in the lunar soil. The creature who whipped around to face Twilight was a Rarity Twilight had never seen. Before her stood a relic of the old war, a battle she never knew over resources she couldn’t control. Eyes shattered, face twisted, blood pouring from the gash on her snout, down her face and into her mouth.

“Twilight. Oh--” Bloody spit foaming with tiny bubbles dripped on the floor as she spoke. “This isn’t--no.”

Caramel took the opportunity to kick the knife from Rarity’s hooves. Her eyes reignited. Blood flowed. She swung at Caramel, who rolled and sent another kick into the side of her front knee. Rarity groaned and went down. She aimed another kick, but could only throw one leg out before they both curled and locked. Carmel dodged it with ease and threw a jab into her side.

“What did you do to me, Rarity?” Twilight wailed above the fray. “Where were you? It’s hurting me!”

Worry flashed across Caramel’s face. Rarity seized the opportunity and sent her injured knee into Caramel’s face. They collided and fell in opposite directions, panting like feral dogs.

“Twilight.” Rarity stumbled over a response. “I know this all seems very sudden--but you have to believe me. You did this to yourself.”

“You were there,” Twilight sniffled. “You stuck a sewing needle through my neck.”

“No, I did no such thing. There was fire on your neck. All I did was touch you. I wanted to help you. And then you started screaming and you scared me so much--I just didn’t know what to do.”

“I’m gonna kill you, soon as you’re done chatting,” Caramel growled.

“No, you most certainly will not.” She touched her nose and recoiled at the blood staining her pure white coat. “Who have you gotten in with, Twilight?”

“A thief,” Twilight replied plainly.

“Err--listen Twilight. You need to leave, now.” She aimed her gaze at Caramel. “Both of you.”

Caramel said nothing, and dug around in his saddlebag for another knife.

“You’re on the wrong side of something too large for him to understand. As are you, Twilight.”

“Rarity,” Twilight said, “we’re trying to help you. We--we’re gonna help you!”

At last, the final pieces came together. A great disillusion clouded Rarity’s mind. “We can forget we ever saw each other. You won’t have to associate with this disgusting criminal underbelly a second longer. Go home. I just want to make dresses.”

“You can’t,” Twilight interrupted. “You--just can’t! Rarity, I’m sorry. I’m your friend, and, friends gotta, this is an intervention--no, sorry. It’s not an intervention. But--you should have seen your face!” she cried. “Your face! You broke. I had to save you. I have to!”

“I’m fine--”

“You’re lying!” Twilight took a stilted step forward and fell to the floor. “You’re a liar.” The strange flower on her neck wilted and fell across her shoulder, and she cried out in pain. “Let me help you. Please.”

Rarity and Caramel abandoned their standoff and rushed to Twilight in the pedestal room. The latter skid to a stop in front of the door and tried to halt Rarity, but she blew right past him. He stammered, “There’s alarms!” and ran in after her.

“What did she do to herself?” Rarity asked as she knelt at Twilight’s side. Dollops of flame spread across her shoulder blades like the blooming petals of a bright poisonous flower. Stems shot up, grasping moonlight, gasping for air, and collapsed into the whole.

A great moan, like the throes of a dying soldier, filled the hall. “I am doing the right thing!”

A memory of the great war surfaced. Rarity was in a dress, standing over a row of soldiers with bandages and labels. Mountains loomed in the distance. Her celebrity entourage ran across the helipad, screaming her name. A boy with blood seeping from his neck and mouth roared, “Did we get ‘em? The bastards!”

“I’ve never seen something like this,” Rarity said. “This is--this is way above us.” Twilight howled in pain. Rarity clenched her teeth and stifled tears. “We leave. We forget the crystal heart and leave.”

Caramel gave up on the saddlebag and dove at Rarity again. They tumbled right into Twilight, who wailed again and clutched her neck until her hoof caught on fire.

“Look--stop, stop! Don’t touch her!” Rarity snarled beneath Caramel. She lashed out with her one unpinned leg, missing Caramel’s face by a few inches. “Don’t touch her neck. She’s bleeding magic.”

Caramel’s face took on a look Twilight had never seen before. “If we leave a body here,” he grunted, “they’ll think it was you all along.”

“Look at her! Look at her!” Rarity locked eyes with Twilight. “She’s suffering.”

Caramel cast a long glance at Twilight. His ears perked at the little noises she made. Slowly, he relented and let one of her hooves go. With the balance in her favor, she flicked her tail, dislodging a defence charm she had concealed in the curls. It rolled without a sound towards Twilight.

Before Rarity could push Caramel off, he closed his eyes and punched her right in the jaw.

“We are so much less valuable than that heart,” he said in that low, slippery voice. “Can you imagine?--a princess of Equestria brought to ruin! It’d be twice as priceless!”

Rarity lit up her horn, but the interference spewing from Twilight’s neck destabilized the spell and dropped her on her injured shoulder.

“What’s your plan, Cup-Caper? Kill me and walk out the front door with your friend? Get away again?” Liquid fire bubbled like tree sap from Twilight’s neck and pooled on the floor around her. She kicked feebly and nudged herself backwards to escape it, but the trail followed her. Her eyes locked on the charm as it rolled slowly past her and into the crystal heart room. She choked on a warning and reached for Caramel. “The only exit is from the third story windows. I can carry her. Can you?”

Rarity burst out a laugh. “Want to know the truth? I wasn’t sorry. I never was sorry.” She smirked, her smile bent crooked by the blow. “You’re a sack of raw meat. You’re griffonfeed. I’ll bet you were the one setting off fireworks outside. Bring the whole guard to investigate them, sure, good plan! If there were a draft I’d assume you ran right through the wall to get inside.” She yelped in pain as Caramel leaned into the floor, crushing her legs beneath him. “Without Twilight you’d be nothing. I’ll bet you didn’t so much as unlock the windows on your way in.”

“Yes! As a matter of fact, we did unlock one window on our way in here!”

“Liar!” she roared. “I unlocked them first!”

The whole building rocked to one side. The outside wall of the heart’s storage room exploded, tossing the three thieves into the mess of liquid flame and vomit Twilight left behind. The lights snapped on. Thick oppressive floodlights smothered the moonglow and cast Rarity and Caramel in horrified relief. A light bulb burst somewhere above them. A shower of sparks eclipsed the fire consuming Twilight. Tritone alarms ripped through the hot dust in the air.

Caramel lept to his hooves, clawing at a patch of fire on his foreleg. “Twilight, get up!” he shouted and pointed his hoof at the remnants of the wall. Chunks of loose wood and insulation exploded burst behind Rarity, showering the floor with strange confetti.

Raging panic seized Rarity. The sound of gunfire made her remember--or maybe it was a premonition of something to come--the horrific taste of murder in her mouth. She dove to Caramel’s knife and threw it. The blade sailed wide right and stuck in the wall.

Caramel’s hoofgun clicked empty. Caramel wrenched the clasp open and flung the whole gun into the dust. It hit the floor and skittered to a stop a few paces beside Rarity.

“I’ll kill you!” he snarled. “I know who you are!” He reached for his knife and roared when he realized it wasn’t on the floor anymore.

“And I know you too!” Rarity threw back. “Caramel Apple, former ranch hand and director of imports of the town of Appleoosa, disgraced soldier of the Equestrian Army, whose color is so not black, and quite the looker in his hayday.” Caramel belched fire and charged through the doorway and into the dust cloud. “Oh, sorry,” she cackled, “still a sore topic?”

Caramel swung wildly. She dodged left, then right, then jumped right over him, out of the dust. She rolled backwards, a dizzying acrobatic switch, and popped like a rimshot on the hardwood floor.

Pieces of the main room’s wall crumbled, splintering the alarmed doorway and pouring debris onto the floor. Caramel cleared the pile with a grunt and lunged at Rarity, who spun to the right, deflecting Caramel’s momentum into the floor. Bells roared in his ears, chiming the hour. He let out an animal howl and gave chase.

"I was so handsome!" he snarled.

"I know!” she replied as she ducked away from another charge.

Beaded tears fell from Twilight’s cheeks. “Stop it, stop it, stop it,” she cried, “I’m awake! I’m awake! It was just a dream, I woke up!”

Neither fighter paid her mind. Rarity backed herself into a corner just in time to notice the front door shake. She blasted the lock with a variant of a catgut suture spell and sealed herself in, condemning herself to the fire and frenzy until the makeshift magical hold disintegrated. By her panicked estimates, she had two minutes. Or however long it took the guards to realize there was a rear entrance.

Twilight cried out again. “I’m sorry Spike! I’m sorry, this is all my fault, where are you, I’m sorry.”

Caramel took a moment to sweep the hair out of his face. “S’her fault,” He spoke in ragged breaths. “S’your fault,” he repeated at Rarity.

"Last I recall you tripped."

Caramel staggered back, clutching his face as if he had been shot. He twisted, his face imperceivable sorrow and then pure fire. His eyes were burning. He howled and pointed at a glass case to his right. It exploded into a million pieces.

“Caramel!” Twilight shouted. “Stop it, make it stop--”

“Haven’t you stolen enough from me?” he wailed.

“I could say the same for you and the sovereign nation of the Crystal Empire,” she replied. “But since you asked, I’m just here for the heart again.”

“Again?” Twilight whimpered.

Rarity grew very serious. “I’m sorry, Twilight. I’m really truly sorry.”

The pounding on the door swelled like the rumble of deep drums. “Hear that?” Caramel said as he pointed to the door. “They’re here for the pony with the heart in their hooves.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Rarity warned.

But Caramel had already grabbed the knife from Twilight’s scabbard. He moved on Rarity with a venomous grin much older than his own face. “I’ll kill you,” he said, voice dripping like foul-tasting blood, like liquid fire, like hatred.

Twilight looked on in horror as Caramel’s body disintegrated in time with the beating of the drums. First his silhouette flashed at random points and flung itself apart as her eyes narrowed. Then his whole head twinkled like a star in a cartoon, a shining diamond, contracting--no, not that, not organic, shimmering, like a dense point of light, in and out, breathing.

“No,” she heard Rarity say as she threw something towards Caramel, “and that’s that.”

Caramel’s head flew off his body. The rest of him staggered after it. Twilight gasped. “You can’t kill him!” The drumming stopped, but the heartbeat flexing nervous tick tick tick tick tick in her eye persisted. “You can’t just kill him!”

The rest of her plea was drowned out as a white hot flash consumed the room. The air shook like they were inside a giant drum. Caramel fell backwards in a shower of sparks, clawing at his face. “Gods!” he cursed, but he couldn’t hear it over the ringing.

Colors redshifted and disappeared. The sound of Caramel’s body hitting the floor with a deadweight thud spurred Twilight to her hooves. “Spike?” Twilight called into the cavity of the high ceiling. “Spike?”

The front door exploded--blasted clean off its hinges! Fire! A piece of the thick wooden door crashed into Twilight’s side with concussive force. Pain--beautiful pain!, the goddess godsend sent to sober her up, the miracle, the ancient breathing animal, pain!--shot through her body. Twilight Sparkle was alive! Twilight Sparkle was on fire!

The room was clear now. Crystal clear. Time slowed. Caramel on her right, burns on his face, blood on his leg, wood speared through his shoulder, Rarity just behind him, diving over the pile of rubble towards the hole in the wall, five crystal guards charging through the door, guns drawn, twenty more behind them, Spike nowhere in sight, cupcake still on the pedestal.

Whether it was intention or not, Twilight would never know. Whether she finally had enough of the helplessness or the vice around her magical-neural relay stretched or she just plain got spooked and flexed the wrong magic muscle--she didn’t know. All her mind knew in that moment was reaching into the air and pulling in dust, breathing it in, and exhaling the friction while in the same moment tapping into the leyline running next to her head and siphoning raw flammable magic through her horn in the form of a spark in order to cause, to her best estimations, a giant fucking bolt of lighting.

It slammed into the first wave of guards, physically picked them up and threw them. They hit the wall and laid still. The remaining guards flinched and spread out to cover their friends.

Tears filled Twilight’s eyes. Again, the heads of the guards twinkled. It was the crystal--only crystal twinkled like that. Not regular pony heads. Just crystal. “No,” she rasped, just as the guards let out a combined roar--crescendo!--and pulled their weapons. Two combat mages, one on either side of her, charged their horns, but not at her.

The guard commander pointed at Twilight. The bullet embedded itself into Twilight’s vest and knocked her onto her side.

Caramel yelled, “I told you!” just before a bolt of bright white magic from one of the combat mages slammed into his temple. His eyes swam in their sockets, and he laid still. The last thing Twilight saw before the guards descended on her was Caramel, mouth agape, eyes screaming, arms stuck out like a grotesque ponnequin.

The guards dragged her to her hooves, after a few minutes of rough handling and hoofcuff-slapping. One of them ripped her mask off. “Isn’t their princess’s purple?” he remarked as he slapped an inhibitor ring over her horn. Another tried to bandage her neck, but the gauze caught fire before he could finish wrapping it.

As they escorted the two out, two more squads of guards rolled in. One shining, one not. An exemplary union of two nations’ armies. The Equestrians stumbled to a halt as they recognized their princess, while the Crystalites laughed at their soft treatment of criminals.

Somepony on her left, an Equetsrian, grabbed her limp foreleg and pulled. The hoofcuffs bit into her ankles as she fell onto her shoulder. Her cry of pain alerted more guards on both sides of her. Forelegs descended from all directions and clawed at her, yanked her one way, then the other. A grand-prize tug of war. Crystalites on her right swept up the Equestrians flanks and shoved them away, forming a stone wall between her and her army, the cheaters.

In the ensuing argument, weapons were drawn, threats made, declarations of violence implied and stated and abated. Caramel almost managed to throw himself down the stairs and roll away before more guards hopped from their carriage and stomped on him. The two sets of guards turned on each other. A standoff ensued. None of it mattered.

As the Equestrian guard looked on, stunned and speechless with their guns pointed at their new enemies, the numerically superior crystallites dragged the princess and her accomplice towards the nearest friendly carriage.

A group of fast-moving armored wheelers flew into the street, temporarily blocking their path and almost starting a second great war when they bumped into the lead crystal guard. Their guns swiveled like pinprick eyes and stared.

Before anyone could tell them otherwise, the lead gunner fired a string of bullets into the ground in front of the Crystalites. The earth exploded and the shouting resumed. Ponies crawled atop the carriage and banged on the hatch. The eyes went cross. Fitting that the symphony end with percussion--but it couldn’t, it never could, all music must end in silence, music is life and life must end and so life must finish in silence or was it really a life at all?, and--there it was, the ear-splitting cymbals metal plates metal-plated doors slamming shut how it should have ended there! but Twilight was still sitting there in the Crystal Empire’s transport carriage hoofcuffed and helpless begging for it to end light from her neck wound burning her shadow into the opposite wall bleeding tears helpless over failure traitor worthless dizzying swimming in the sound of the end

.

25: Surrender

Noir learned at a very young age there was always a way to run.

He licked his lips and looked up at the sky and watched the stars swell, cresting and falling in the haze of his bleary drunken eyes. It was windy, and he hadn't had enough to drink. Somewhere on the opposite side of town, a siren sounded. Soon ponies would roll out of their beds to see the commotion and wonder what new disaster had struck their town. All according to plan. He tried to smile, but it didn’t stick.

It was the bar's fault for not serving him enough. Bars were supposed to serve him alcohol, mold his dead end into an escape. And it was those damn pegasi who messed with the weather patterns, and the griffons for holding Equestria back, and McTough for turning him in when he was trying to do his damn job. Always someone else to blame. Always another way to run.

As Noir wandered down the streets of Ponyville in the direction of the shady side of town, his life flashed before his eyes.

The alcohol made specifics slippery. When Noir looked around he could make out rows of huge vague shapes on both sides of him, like the silhouettes of mountains. A few of them still had tiny campfires burning away, illuminating a few odd potted plants and windowsills. An earth pony in some kind of uniform lounged against a cracked third floor window and read a book.

Lights flashed beyond the peaks--or were they rooftops? Noir wondered how Rarity would react to such a disturbance. Probably indignantly. She wasn't the kind of mare to curl up in the shadows and take an interruption of her art lying down. She was a real work of art herself. She knew the process.

Noir passed one of the main thoroughfares but forgot to check the street signs at the intersection. Before he knew it the landscape had shifted again. Tall buildings stared at him with their many eyes, some closed in contemplation or shuttered in shame, others thrown wide open to reveal silhouetted ponies inside, floating in the rich light . Clubs with their seedy smells and cigarette smoke sent screams of pain and music from their small windows. Lost? Nonsense--he was as lost as a musician who didn’t know his chords. Nonsense notes fulfilled him. Atonality sated him. Money sated him.

Where was he? Lost? In retreat?

The war was over--and yet!--here he was, running from the enemy again. The enemy was the pony in the visor, his old friend. He longed for the days when he could tell a bad guy by the fur on their back and the piss-colored beak on their face. Where? Where was he? Alone? Where was he--lost? The war was over, but a part of him was still in the mountains.

He craned his head upwards again. The stars shifted behind a patch of softly swaying branches. A breeze fell down his body and transported him back in time to his childhood, where he had once looked at the same stars and dreamed of a future beyond famine and war, a future in the great land of opportunity.

Noir looked at his home, his shady street. His land of opportunity.

He sighed and approached the door.

And one... and four and one... three and--and--one, two--

“Shit,” he grumbled. “It’s me. I forgot the stupid knock--would you just let me in?”

The peephole slid open. “I hate to sound rude, boss, but you’re the one who came up with the knock in the first place.”

“Open the door already.”

The peephole slid shut. The door’s insides clicked and rolled and squealed. “I really like the knock thing,” Snowball said. “I think it’s clever.”

Noir pushed him aside. “The bar wouldn’t serve me. Can you believe that?”

“I thought the bar was under our protection.”

“I can burn down a bar,” he replied sagely, “but you can’t burn down a pony’s morals.” Noir’s henchponies stood up from the couch as he walked by. “Don’t you do anything but sit there?” he snapped.

The duo gave each other a look, and nodded.

“On my couch,” he mumbled. “This world is truly insane.” When he reached his desk, he pulled a flask from one of the drawers and shook it. “Shutter the windows and lock all the doors down. Kill the outside lights, too. From this moment on this building is a tomb.”

“Is something wrong?” one of the henchponies asked.

“There will be a tremendous amount of police activity tonight, and I will take no chances.”

“Were you followed, sir?”

Moonlight spilled through the cracks between the curtains, like searchlights. Noir flinched.

The henchpony noticed Noir’s reaction and busied himself with shuttering the rest of the windows as quickly as he could. “I took a detour, stayed out of the way,” he said over his shoulder as he used a long pole to draw the shutters closed. “When you’re in the light there’s nothing to fear.”

The henchponies stole a glance outside anyway, just to be sure.

“If only we could steal the light,” Noir rambled. “Then there would be nothing to fear.” The thought of it gave him a strange feeling of comfort. Sanctuary. Unseen--and dark.

How big were those windows, anyway? Small--but small enough to keep a pony from fitting through them? A fit and agile police stallion might be able to squeeze through them in a few seconds, but they might as well have been sealed with steel bars for a fat old fart like Noir. Many ways in, but no ways out. Two doors that opened from the outside. Always a way to run.

Outside the hideout, a police carriage veered around the street corner, lights flashing and sirens screaming. Red and blue lights painted the wall in streaks like wild gunfire.

Noir lept from his chair. He swung a bottle over his head, ready to bring it crashing down onto the desk, ready to stab, swing, crush, kill the light, kill the ponies in the light, kill the light, kill the safety, the safe--where was it?--lost?--behind him?--the awful realization you forgot where you placed something you had held just a moment ago--or how long had it been--had it been long enough?

The henchponies drew the last window shut. The light went away. The sirens fell into the distance to join a growing and unsettling background noise.

Noir stopped himself before the bottle in his hoof could shatter against the desk. “Ah--shoot,” he muttered, foreleg swinging like a rusty pendulum until he realized there was still liquid in the bottle. “Shoot,” he muttered again as he wiped the dripping stain on his chest. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore,” he said to nopony in particular.

And yet--and yet!--it all seemed so very clear. Clarity--rationalization--that’s what Noir really needed. Four ribbons of light as thin and heavy as piano wire. He had to get his head out of his sweet-smelling bottle and look out the window. See? He was doing it! More lights. Red to blue to white, but not the same white as before. Whenever he bobbed his head the color smeared across the darkness, but whose fault was it but his for being tired, and tiredness for making him want to drink, and drunkenness that made his eyes bleary? The EQUIS wasn’t outside. Nopony was outside. It was one thirty in the morning. Nopony loitered outside the shady parts of backwater towns at one thirty in the morning. They were all inside in various states of sleep, some snoring and some sighing, some drinking up dreams and others slurping coffee from hot mugs and aiming their eyes at the door like nighthawks, waiting. More lights.

The dark all around these four slits of light, the empty blank black space between Noir and epiphany, brought him to his center. He liked the dark. You could steal light, in a way. You could change light, discolor it distort it warp it. But the dark--no. Nopony could steal the dark away. The absence of thought brought him to oneness. The blank plane towards which he drank gave him a way to run. From himself? From the police? From everypony else too, maybe? Who he ran from was never a concern--eventually, he would have to run from everything. So it all came down to the exit strategy.

All of a sudden the thought consumed Noir. He looked around at his palace. The place was empty, its occupants in various states of unrest. More lights.

Where was his liquor? Where was his way out? He eased himself out of the chair and, hooves planted firmly on the desk for support, waddled to the corner where the milk crates of cider were stacked.and trotted into the kitchen. Some of whatever he had spilled on himself earlier made his hooves sticky as he grabbed another bottle. The urgency of that time--where was it now? This new drink needed to be consumed like it was the last drop of pure alcohol left on earth. The window needed monitoring. Who knew? The EQUIS might be out there with firebombs.

The thrill was gone. Waiting for--what?--what an awful way to spend a life. There could be so much more waiting for him in the darkness. All he had to do was--look!

Noir turned his head up, as if in prayer. Four ribbons of light as thin and heavy as piano wire.

“Powder keg,” he said.

“Yes sir?” said the first henchpony anxiously.

“Do you know why I like the night more than the daytime?”

“Why’s that, sir?”

“Because no one can belittle us for living on the shady side of town--because when it’s night every part of town is the shady part of town.” he cracked a wide smile and let out a huge laugh.

Powder Keg joined in too, after a moment.

“Powder Keg,” Noir said once he finished laughing.

“Yes sir?”

“Open the shades facing the road.”

“Uh, sir, you just told us to close them,” said the second henchpony.

“I know what I said, Indigo, and I know what I’m saying now.” His old frown reappeared and banished the humor from his voice. “Do it.”

“Yes sir.”

Powder Keg and Indigo nodded in unison, walked over to the two front-facing windows on either side of the door, and threw the shutters open. The glass glowed a pearlescent white, and he couldn’t distinguish the sky from the moonlight. It all just glowed.

Another carriage shot light through the window. Every cop in Equestria had to be using this road. The contrast threw his vision into red. Hot knives flooded and faded, searing the background a shade above black. This time, the red didn’t fade--just pulsed and flooded the background with residual light. No more pearlescent white. So much for the pretty moon. The shades were drawn and shut, except for the windows facing the road. The town outside was asleep. It was--what, one thirty? one forty? Nopony was awake. Bullets could tear through windows and walls but not ideas.

“Uh, sir?” Indigo asked. “Are you sure these lights aren’t for us?”

But they still could kill the pony thinking it. Then what?

“There’s a standoff in town, or whatever was supposed to happen. It’s not for us.”

“Are you sure?”

“Do you not trust me?” Noir snapped.

“Of course I do, sir. But.” Indigo rose from the couch. “I just gotta check, to be safe.”

“There is no need for any of that. You’ll only attract attention to us, gawking out the window like that.”

“PK, help me up.”

Powder Keg followed Indigo to the window.

“Don’t look out that window,” Noir snarled.

Powder Keg crouched low so Indigo could stand on his back and get his eyes over the window sill. If he stood on his tip-hooves he could see the whole street, as well as most of the closest sidewalk. If somepony stood at the door and looked up, they could see a dark purple snout fogging up the window--but Indigo would not see them. More lights! Disjointed melodies of car horns! Red light bruising Indigo’s face!

“Get down from there!” Noir ordered.

“Gods above,” Indigo whimpered.

“What is it? What do you see?” Noir stood up from his desk. The bottle returned to his hoof, his faithful defense.

“There’s a carriage, sir. Parked along the other side of the road.”

“It might not be for us.”

“There’s only one officer though. He’s--secret police sir. He’s EQUIS.” He gave a confused grunt before getting off Powder Keg’s shoulders. “I don’t get it. Just one?”

Noir’s eyes went to the desk, the many myriad of papers that no longer mattered scattered around him. He ran his hoof across them. A few rustled. Mostly they stayed exactly where they were.

In a way, Noir felt cheated. Every previous escape had led up to this one. Every bullet he dodged in the Borderlands, every filthy griffon he killed for his country, every moral compromise he accepted without question, every criminal he let live in the name of McTough’s parody of justice, every soul he killed including his own, every filthy griffon he killed for his business--and where was it? Where was the path--the way out! The front door? Did the path end here?

The sound of a rifle being loaded drew his attention. The two henchponies had summoned Snowball, and together they were ripping the cushions off the couch.

“That’s my couch,” Noir pleaded.

In reply, Powder Keg pulled a machine gun from the couch, bandoliers and all. “This is the biggest one we’ve got?”

“But it won’t matter if it’s just one cop,” Snowball said.

“Yeah, but there’s more than just one cop in this town.”

“Regardless,” Indigo interjected, “You’d have to carry it wherever we go. It’ll weigh you down.”

“Right.” Powder Keg threw it to the floor. “We’ll need to make a quick exit out the back, then. Inky, check the fire escape. It’ll activate the alarm, but the building will probably be all shot up anyway, so who cares?”

“Why does my home have an industrial fire escape?” asked Noir.

Indigo shrugged as he moved towards the back. “It is a place of business, isn’t it?”

The corners of Noir’s vision blurred. For the first time in a long while he had no idea where to go. "Run,” he finally said.

“We picked a good night to be had,” Indigo continued obliviously from around the corner. “Fire escape’s clear, PK. Grab the go-bags and make sure the boss has all the documents he can carry.”

“Leave. Run,” Noir repeated.

Indigo heard Noir but could not understand. “I’ve got the white phosphorus. Once we’re all out the place gets torched, so make sure the boss has his documents. If he’s not carrying them, they’re gone.”

"Leave!” he roared.

The henchponies halted in the middle of the room. Indigo took an uncertain step towards the door before turning on his hooves and giving Noir an uncertain look. “Sir--”

“Take the fire escape--and turn the damn thing off before you go. The noise would kill me."

"Sir, this isn’t the time for honor. Battle is never the time for honor--"

"Any minute now, that agent is going to come through that door. He’s going to blow it down and get in here, no matter how many locks we put on it. It was never about the locks. You can stay here and get arrested, or try and fight your way out for me. And I guarantee, you will be shot to death. I should know how terrible being shot to death is. You are all going to leave me now. I’m giving you the chance to save yourselves, so you better wise up and recognize a good opportunity when you see it.”

"Sir--"

"I give you my blessing. Go do whatever faggots do these days, I don’t care."

Indigo paused. “Sir,” he finally said, “I’m not paid to understand your motives, but if you stay here, you’ll be thrown in prison forever. They’ll put you in shackles and chain you to the wall until you rot, then drill holes in your bones and chain the bones to the wall.”

“All my life,” Noir said, “I’ve been running from something. There’s always a way to run.”

“Sir--Mister Noir, sir, staying here is suicide.”

“Don’t presume you know what’s best for me,” he snarled through clenched teeth. “I will survive this confrontation. I do not intend to die tonight, Indigo. There are many ways to run away.”

Indigo glanced at his accomplices, then back to Noir. Anger flashed behind his steely eyes. They reminded Noir of a younger version of himself. “Listen, sir,” he spoke. “Don’t make us die for you.”

Noir grabbed a hooffull of papers from his desk and threw it at them. They burst apart like a flock of graceless white birds before they could reach Indigo and fell to the floor, stone dead. “I am not a horrible person,” he shouted. The birds’ display took his breath away and made his next incantation a terminal wheeze. “I am not--is that, is that what you think this is all about?”

The wall behind them flickered red, signaling the approach of a strange and primordial beast as old as time. “We can’t wait any longer for him,” Indigo said to Powder Keg. His head turned, but his eyes stayed locked on Noir. “We have to go.”

"You think I’m finished,” spat Noir. “You think I’m some old hack. You think I’m too tired to run--there is more than one way to run away!” He jabbed his hoof at Indigo. “You watch. There is always another way to run away.”

Indigo shook his head. “Come on guys. We’ll take the scenic route past the mayor’s office, then break for the main road to Canterlot.”

Noir kept himself absolutely still, his lips locked tight, refusing to say a word.

Indigo and his partner started for the door, but paused a few steps from freedom. “Snowball, come on,” Powder Keg said, “we gotta go.”

“You go,” Snowball replied. “I’m staying with Mister Noir.”

“What?”

Noir gave his guard a strange look. “This is none of your business.”

“Well, he made his decision.” Indigo grabbed Powder Keg’s hoof. The two nodded to each other and rushed out the door, where the darkness was waiting to swallow them alive.

With just the two of them in the room now, the place seemed much bigger--though there was still no place to hide.

“You really should go,” Noir told Snowball. “He’s not here for you.”

“That’s who he’s getting.” Snowball’s eyes flashed passion. “This is what I want, Mister Noir.”

Noir sighed. Snowball was running too. "You're a loyal man... uh."

Noir trailed off. A moment of silence passed. The walls flickered, like the whole thing was about to go up in flames and collapse.

"Snowflake."

"Right. Snowflake."

Red fell across Snowflake’s confused face. He took a step back, then another, towards his lonely bastion at the front door.

“You should really stay away from the doors. I meant it,” Noir called after him.

“I’m the doorman,” Snowflake replied, his voice all cool and ice. “It’s my job to man the door.”

All at once Noir realized how deathly quiet it was outside. Without anypony talking he finally realized that none of the carriages outside had their sirens on. They all just glowed.

He fell back into his chair. The cushions heaved a sigh and relented to his weight. Snowball walked back to the entry way and shut the door behind him. Half a dozen locks snapped into place. The tomb was sealed.

Here at last was the long and straight path, the final stretch Noir would ever have to run. Away went the unhappy thoughts, the memories, the past tense. Noir is. Not was, or would be. Noir was not running away--quite the opposite. Noir is sitting in his desk, watching the shadows curl up the walls like tongues of fire, regretting the loss of the colt whose name he honestly couldn’t remember, regretting the loss of so many years, rejoicing that it is almost finished.

He sat up. The blood rushed to his head. Of course--beer before liquor, never sicker, why could he never remember that one rule? He reached for his bottle out of pure muscle memory, out of pure shameful addiction. The room spun away, left and right and finally behind. Like a sound that bent forever upward but never moved, the same four falls rolled across his vision like gasoline floating atop water. Unseen forces pushing it up from below and displacing it but never actually moving it far enough to be considered away. Was this what it was like to stop running? Fifty five years of life, and he didn’t even realize the whole world was spinning. Round and round and round! After all this time, he should have gotten used to the spin. But it wasn’t his fault, no! Noir ran in whichever direction meant life. Things changed, but to him they always felt about the same.Only now was he realizing that the rest of the world had moved on without him. He just ran further and further into the past while McTough figured things out and aligned himself for a head-on collision--

The front door exploded. The metal stayed in tact, but a few well-placed charges buckled the hinges. Noir heard it hit the ground. Snowflake shouted. Then there was a muffled boom. It could have been a gunshot or debris clattering against the second door.

Noir gripped his bottle by the neck and tensed himself, waiting for the second jolt. He moved but couldn’t feel it. Fine wine trapped in a cellar. Sitting. Waiting.

It came a moment later, sending the second door flying into the center of the room. Smoke and red light poured in through the front door and danced like fire on the smoky ceiling. The entryway looked like something out of the old Inferno scriptures--like the gods themselves were spitting fire at Noir, trying to cook him before devouring him whole.

Through the smoke, Noir noticed a crumpled white heap crushed by the remnants of the outermost door, held together with a scorched leather jacket. Though it shouldn't have, the sight sent him into a blind rage.

“You--fucker!” Noir shouted into the jaws of death. He flung the bottle into the doorway where it disappeared, trailing liquid on the floor.

The smoke parted. A long figure cloaked in black stepped through the doorway.

"He didn’t have to die," Noir groaned, his head still reeling with the echoes of the blast. “That stallion did not have to die.”

“He wasn’t hiding behind that door out of fear.”

“He did nothing to you.”

“That’s not counting the four ponies he killed before you hired him.”

Shades of red ricocheted off McTough’s black visor as he stepped out from behind the smoke.

“I’ll save my breath if you save yours,” Noir snarled, leaning into the desk until it--and he--creaked and cracked.

“No, you’ll listen to what I have to say,” McTough replied.

“Always so righteous!” Noir hit the desk. Bottles rattled and fell to the floor. The orchestra swelled. Sineightra started to sing! “Tell that to a judge--tell it to the gods! Tell them! Holy spirits, I had to kill him, I had to! He believed, your honor! He believed he was right! I had to do it! So I’m the bad guy here--well I’m not the one who’s been chasing a bad memory for seven years!”

McTough’s lips curled, down.

Noir knew deep down the little crack in McTough’s armor meant nothing, but it made him feel at once angry and strangely powerful. He pitched a smile and said, "No one's watching you now. You're not acting for EQUIS anymore. So what are you doing here?"

“You’re being detained for the murder of nineteen--”

Noir heaved and groaned. “They were scumbags, McTough! They died so Canterlot could be safe again.”

“I thought you’d have a better answer by now, but I guess you don’t. You’re a disappointment.”

“I’m the disappointment? How do you think I feel? I’m the one who had to watch them suffer. I had to finish them off. How do you think I feel about it?

For the first time in a long time, Noir watched the facade fall. McTough’s voice betrayed his anger, even as it slid from behind his impenetrable black visor. “You are the one who disappointed me. We were the one thing separating Equestria from the griffons raping and shooting each other for fun across the border. We killed so many of them to save Equestria. We saved everything, and then you got in with the Philarmonicos and destroyed it for them. You’re no better than them, Noir.”

“I think you think I’m some crazy murderous psycho. I killed those ponies to save Canterlot from a plague of Philarmonicos. They were the enemy.”

“You are the enemy. You’re the enemy of decency and you’re the enemy of the state.”

“I saved lives. I saved hundreds of prostitutes from a life of slavery, a thousand dirt-poor rock candy peddlers who would have otherwise been competition. I can’t show you the lives I saved, but you can show me the ones I ended. That’s why you have decency and I don’t, even when we’re pulling the same stunts. So don’t pretend decency is some big deal, because it’s not. You’re either decent or you’re smart, and no dummy ever walked through my doors uninvited.”

McTough hoofed the revolver strapped to his side. “I tried. That’s what the system’s all about. I was decent as long as I could. I really tried.” The gun rocked back and forth in its holster. A pony’s gun gave away things their words and faces never could.

“Think back to when we were rookie cops patrolling the refugee slums in Canterlot. Remember the way the foals would stare at us? I’ll tell you something--they were really just staring at our guns. Guns fascinated them. They grew up around them, the war and the camps and everything else. They hated us every day we occupied their lives and we hated them every second they occupied our city--but everypony understood what the guns meant.” Noir licked his lips, aching for a bitter taste of alcohol. “They knew.”

The hesitation disappeared. McTough slapped his hoof into the revolver’s clamps and locked the device in place around his leg.

“You could have killed me seven years ago,” Noir thought out loud. “You didn’t have to scare the shit out of me and kill my guy. You waited for this moment.” Noir pointed at McTough with an empty hoof only to realize his mistake when a shiny new revolver flew halfway to level and paused, glistening in the red light. “That’s a new gun. Is that what the department gave you when they snipped off your nuts?” Noir asked. When he got no reply, he continued, “Why’d you wait until now? Why? You didn’t have to kill... him.” He gestured towards the door, the smoke, the light. “It didn’t have to be here.”

McTough considered Noir’s words before replying, “I think you know why the kid is dead. As for why I’m here--” McTough made a vague gesture above him. “This is your business. It’s your life’s work.”

“It’s my house,” Noir replied dryly.

“Alright then, this is your house. This is where you’re most vulnerable. If you attack a pony on the street, he will destroy everything he can grab trying to fight back. But if you attack him where he lives, it all becomes so much more personal. He lives there--sleeps there, eats there, shits there. He feels safe. You take that safety away and it shakes him to his core. All of a sudden you start knocking down doors and breaking tables, and it’s personal. That’s his door you’re kicking, his chair you’re swinging.”

Noir barred his teeth.

McTough continued, “Noir, I’m here to put the fear of the gods in your heart. I had to make you fear the law. I had to make you fear me.”

“I’m not afraid,” he hissed.

“If we both don’t believe in what we’re doing, we’re just two ponies killing each other. There’s no sense to it. If we both believe we’re the good guy, nopony really learns their lesson--but if I really truly believe I’m good and you really truly believe you deserve it, then I win. The law wins.”

“You can’t make me believe I’m the bad guy here. I saved--”

“There! You don’t have to know it. You don’t even have to admit it to yourself. It comes out in different ways. Like running. Are you tired of running? Is that why you stayed while your friends snuck out the back door?”

“Fuck you.” Words like bile dripped from Noir’s mouth. They plink--plinked on the table in time with his breathing.

“You don't have to believe me. You fear me. That’s what I need.”

“I am not the pawn in your little moral crusade!”

McTough raised a stubby revolver and snapped the hammer back.

“Wait--wait wait wait wait wait.” Noir raised his hands. Cymbals crashed. The buildup to the final crescendo had begun! “Wait a damn minute! Don’t--don’t shoot me yet. I have something that might be of interest to you. Call it an apology.”

McTough paused. The front sight quivered in the air, then dropped at a shallow angle. If he fired now, he might catch the desk at a good enough angle to send splinters into Noir’s face. “What is it?” he asked.

With a desperate, runaway smile, Noir turned to the picture behind the wall. “You think I’ve played all my cards. You think I’m out of tricks. Nowhere to run. But I’ve learned there is more than one way to run away.”

Nodding as if to convince himself, Noir spun around and flung the framed art hanging behind him from the wall. It landed in the corner and shattered. The revolver snapped back into place.

“You wouldn’t shoot your best friend in the back, would you?” Noir tossed over his shoulder. Before McTough had a chance to answer, Noir stepped aside to reveal a sizeable safe built into the wall. “It’s not the most original place for a safe, but when you have metal doors and guns and henchmen, you don’t worry too much about home invasion. Would you please put that thing down?”

A few practiced flicks of the lock, and the safe door was open. McTough took a slight step forward, forehoof unwavering. Where was the music? Noir felt it swelling inside him. He rooted his legs to the floor and stuck a hoof out like he would try and catch the bullet, knocking the safe door wide open in the process. It hit the wall with a thud and swung forwards. Noir flinched and caught it with his hoof before it could swing closed again. “See?” he said. “Look--look.”

Inside the safe were dozens of gold bars, untarnished by dealers’ marks or imperfections. Sineightra would have crooned at the sight--For what is a man? What has he got?--

McTough snapped the revolver’s hammer into place.

“Ah ah ah--wait wait wait, don’t do that, don’t do that.” Noir tucked his head behind his outstretched leg. “You don’t want to do that. If you do that you’ll have no reason to take the contents of this safe and, in return for my safe passage from this building, retire into a life of luxury no cop will ever earn in five lifetimes of service. No more running around, risking your neck for the system. How long do you think they’ll keep you before they throw you to the sharks? You’re getting old, McTough-guy. Those knees--do they pop when you get out of bed? Mine do. Does your back hurt when you’re through with your morning stroll to get the newspaper? Mine do. Do you huff and puff when you run after the bad guys who are just trying to run away, same as you? This is the sum of my life’s work! What do you think of that?”

McTough’s lips curled. “I think I won.”

The happy look on Noir’s face took a turn for the worse. “Oh, shut it, would you? I think I won,” he mocked. “Where do you get off?”

McTough took another step forward so his legs were spread evenly.

Noir opened his mouth and skipped a beat. “And--gods above, McTough-guy, you’re an honest pony, but you’re a smart pony too. You could buy half the crime rings the EQUIS is chasing with this kind of money. You could buy the whole force matching battle tanks. Forget nighttime bar raids. You’d be an unstoppable force.” In the absence of the duo’s voices, the room descended into mad silence. Smoke rushed into the gap between them where air seemed thinnest, burning their eyes, choking them. The music played on and on. “Do you hear me? You’d be an unstoppable force!”

Noir’s mouth moved a little, then tasted something bitter and shut on reflex. McTough remained absolutely still, his revolver pointed at the base of the desk. The visor caught a shaft of light from across the room and glinted red, the bloodshot tired eye of justice.

"I’m not sure you understand--the gravity of this, this little safe.” Noir exposed his yellowed teeth. “I devoted my life to the acquisition of material goods so that one day I would be able to bribe you out of killing me. This is everything I possess. I cashed all my checks. It’s all there, every penny I’ve earned since I left the police force.”

McTough said nothing. Noir wished he could see McTough’s eyes, just for a second. He couldln’t even remember what color they were.

“Wait--stop. Stop!” he shouted indignantly. The timpani rolled, swelling with the blaring horns, and shook the Earth. “This is everything!” Noir’s back cracked as he spun around, sending bolts of pain through his body. “This is everything!” he repeated. McTough almost shot him where he stood, until he realized he wasn’t drawing a gun but hefting one of the gold bars out of the safe. “You want it? Take it! Take it all!” With a mighty howl, he threw the bar over the table, where it clattered pathetically on the floor a few feet in front of McTough. There was the fire, the old Scoltcilian youth who lived for nights like these.

Noir threw a second, then a third bar. No matter how hard he strained, no matter how much he roared, they all fell short of their mark.

“Take it!” His voice cracked and shattered. It showed his age now. He was old, too old. He had some very good years--had. “Take it, please, take the gold.”

The air in the room crackled, like it was about to combust. Noir remembered now--McTough’s eyes were black shatterproof plastic.

“There’s no more you’ll ever get. I am the richest pony in Equestria.”

Drums rolled into his chest and crested. Sineightra wailed atop indignant screaming horns. They were proud! They were mad!--I did it my way!--

McTough shot Noir. Five rounds, right in the chest.

Noir fell backwards into his chair to the crash of cymbals, to an old pianist’s final fearful chords suspended in time, to an aging stallion’s resigned silent smiling--Yes, it was my way--

Faint traces of gunsmoke curled into frowns and smiles on their way to the ceiling. Mctough snapped the cylinder open and cursed as an unused bullet fell into his waiting hoof along with the empty cartridges. The unused bullet went into the cylinder. The cartridges went into his pocket for recycling.

Outside, half a dozen police carriages roared to a halt. The entire Ponyville police department emerged, covered head to hoof in mismatched riot gear. Shouting gave way to dead silence as they formed up in the middle of the street and waited.

McTough grunted, snapped the revolver back into its holster, and stole a glance at the back door. From his position he could see past the line of trees, deep into the Ponyville Park. Dark branches protruded from the trunks at wild angles like mangled rifle barrels pointed at him. Another step forward and they’d open fire. He could try to run, but they would rip him apart.

Pearlescent white broke through the hard reds and blues as the police lights shut off, one by one. No sirens. Where was the wail? Where was the end?

McTough raised his hoof in surrender and walked outside.

26: As Always

It wasn’t until Rarity cut her tongue open on the knife that she realized things had changed.

The knife, along with a few droplets of blood, fell down to the concrete below. She scrunched her face up like a trumpeter hitting a high note and squeezed her lips shut, partly to stifle a cry of pain and partly to make sure no more evidence spilled over her trail. Tonight had been bad--a failure, if not for the fact that she had succeeded--but, thank the gods, tonight would end. For better or worse, she would wake up tomorrow a free mare. She would make some tea. Her cup would runneth over and she would feel the great burden of wealth slide from her shoulders and into her coffers where she would keep whatever sum the Crystal Heart fetched from her Griffonian contacts. Noir would be a distant memory, a flickering shadow thrown across a shady street in the part of town she would never visit again. She could live the life of a true artist, unshackled by wealth. She could sleep without worrying about being firebombed.

A good night’s rest always made her feel better.

Blood pooled in her mouth. She sucked air through her nose and tried to think of a solution. Spit or swallow? Full or hollow? She tried to be artistic about it and pick the taste apart for all its foul intricacies, but focusing on it only made it worse. Her whole face ached. She moaned and curled up until she felt her rear hooves start to slip. She stretched each hoof one at a time and redoubled her grip. It wasn’t too far a fall--but nopony falls if they can help it.

What was she even doing up here? None of this was a part of the plan. She was no Twilight Sparkle when it came to planning, but she had experience in this kind of thing.

Then again, look what happened to Twilight Sparkle.

She panicked and swallowed. Bitter iron touched the back of her throat. Her gut wrenched, and she heaved a mouthful of blood all over herself. It clotted in the creases of her clothes, cascaded down the twisted metal in channels. She teetered atop the chain link fence, forelegs bowed on the top pipe, hind legs shoved through the holes of the fence, jaw agape in pain. Mute and crippled.

Rationalization wouldn’t help. She thought herself down the fence a dozen times before her own blood reached the spot where her rear legs clasped the fence. She felt herself slipping, but couldn’t focus. The gash on her tongue wouldn’t stop bleeding. Lights soared into the night sky from the direction of the mayor’s office.

Three hooves slipped simultaneously. The other one held on tight, but one was enough. She pinwheeled over the fence and fell over her knife. The backpack containing the crystal heart smacked against the ground like a hundred panes of glass cracking all at once. Sirens cascaded through the streets and into the endless night time starscape above her rattled head.

At least she had fallen the right way. She wouldn’t have to scale the fence twice.

Slowly, in jagged breaths, Rarity realized the fall had knocked the wind out of her. Or maybe the knife had just run her through and collapsed her lung. Rarity didn’t know what getting the wind knocked out of her felt like. She didn’t exactly know what having a lung collapse felt like either, though. She rolled onto her side with a wheeze and clutched her side, half expecting to find the blade lodged hilt-deep beneath her ribs.

But it wasn’t. A quick look over her shoulder revealed it was still on the ground, just lying there.

The next breath came a little easier, though when she pushed her luck and tried to pick herself up her vision swam and she collapsed again. Some suffering.

So she did what she could without moving too much. Slid her knife back into its strap on her hind leg, checked her mane (it was ruined), made sure she wasn’t broken (she wasn’t). The Crystal Heart still needed checking, but her backpack had fallen out of her reach, and she wasn’t about to suffer the indignity of crawling through the dirt and grime to get it. It could have cracked during the fall. Sure sounded like it did, at least. Would it sell as well with a crack in it? It may have just made a funny sound when it hit the ground. It hadn’t exploded, so it still worked properly. Magical items had an unstable nature to them; something to do with leylines or pressure differentials, something like that--Twilight knew more about it than she did, as always--that made them prone to explode if they got chipped or cracked. The Crystal Heart had enough magical energy to level a city, so the lack of cataclysmic explosions played in her favor, as always. It probably just came down at a weird angle. Twilight would know why--probably something about lattice bonds and internal pressure and vibrations and sound. She’d be able to explain it, as always.

She looked up at the night sky and saw red. Sirens from all over the city called out for her.

Was Twilight even alive right now? The last time Rarity saw her before the guards got her--had she exploded? No, that was the door. Right. But she was hemorrhaging magic--right from her neck, too. How much magic could one pony lose before they turned inside out? In a lot of ways, Twilight was like the Crystal Heart; fragile and powerful and coveted by criminals. Her muscle and sinew and bones and guts were stuffed with immense magical potential energy. A big enough crack and she would explode, too. Maybe she already had, sometime in the past month, and Rarity hadn’t noticed. Twilight Sparkle kept many secrets. All this blood and bruising--it might just be fallout.

More blood leaked from the side of her mouth, but she payed no attention to it. One drop or a whole bleeding puddle--evidence was evidence. She just had to hope nopony would notice it, or the suits at the weather factory would schedule a surprise thunderstorm to keep everypony inside while the military locked down the area.

Had Rarity killed her best friend?

She crawled towards the fence, hacking blood, very unladylike, grabbed the bottom links, curled up into them, and sobbed. Was this the kind of pain that haunted great artists? If so, she wanted nothing to do with art ever again.

The tears only lasted a few minutes. When they were out and done with, she rubbed her eyes and stared into space. The stars would have been beautiful, if they weren’t clipped by the buildings and washed out by the streetlights. She could still see the big dipper, except for its handle. The remaining stars formed a great big indigo box in the sky.

Rarity rolled over. She didn’t want the stars anymore. Stars--what were they? Nothing but explosions. Maybe if she were in a different mood or a different life, they’d hypnotize her. But she had seen enough explosions for tonight.

Speaking of explosions, and lack thereof--Rarity pushed herself away from the fence and propped herself up on two hooves, reclining like she might on a fainting couch. In this position, she scooted across the ground towards her bag. Dirt be damned--the ensemble hadn’t survived the getaway unscathed, and she was going to burn it after the job was done anyway. Evidence is evidence, no matter how chique.

She got to the bag and unzipped it. Inside sat one, intact, not-exploding crystal heart. Though the glow was too revealing to conduct a thorough check, it was safe to assume she hadn’t damaged it.

With her mind and her loot accounted for, Rarity stole away towards the shady side of town.

As she snuck through the backstreets and shallow shadows, something occurred to her: when it’s night, every part of town is the shady part of town.

“Hmm,” she chuckled, “shady part of town.”

The thought took her away from the dirt and crime for a candid moment. In her little joke, she was Rarity, performing a late-night walk through her hometown. The trees rose up on either side and stared curiously at the display, twisting and parting and throwing beams of moonlight her way to show their appreciation. Here she didn’t have to hide. The streetlamps cast fat pearlescent spotlights on Noir’s business. The street was completely empty. Not a police carriage in sight, not one red or blue light. No friends she had killed.

Still.

She looked right. Then left. Then right again. Then left again. Then she repeated the whole process three more times. Her horn lit up, illuminating a nearby alleyway. Then she looked right again. Then left again. If it hadn't been as deadly important as it was, she would have sung to her movements. You do the pony polka and you turn yourself around--

But it wasn’t a game. That’s what it’s all about. When had her own antics ceased to amuse her? When had she lost her luster? Perhaps the crystal heart had leeched it--that’s why it shone so brightly tonight of all nights, when she wanted it more than ever to flicker and die.

As she trotted up to the door, she briefly wondered whether or not Twilight would try to kill her. It seemed ludicrous--but then again Rarity had just knowingly dragged herself along the ground like a wounded animal and ruined her outfit beyond repair, so all bets were off.

She got to the door and eyed the building. The walls were a rough royal purple, almost the same as her tail. Flakes of orange rust sat in clumps on the ground. The thought of all that metal dandruff on her hooves made her wince--but the door would not knock itself.

One-and, four-and--,and...--one-,,four.,.two-,...e-uhm--

“Uh--Snowball,” Rarity called into the door, “I’m sorry, but I forgot the knock. It’s Rarity. You need to let me in. It’s urgent.”

No reply.

She looked around again, the same old tired tiring dance, and knocked again.

The door, hinges and all, collapsed inward. It fell atop something bulky lying in the doorway that kept it from settling evenly on the floor. The second door was cracked wide open and leaning against the frame like an aged figure draped across the length of the doorway.

Rarity looked over her shoulder again and dug out her knife.

Experienced hooves kept her silent as she creeped over the door and peered through the hole. It occurred to her that if somepony was waiting inside for her, she would probably be dead in a few moments. All the best artists were cut down before their time--but Rarity didn’t want to die, not tonight, not ever. She wanted to make dresses and money until the end of time.

“Noir?” she called. No use hiding herself, though she looked in no way presentable for a formal meeting with all the blood and grime clinging to her fur. Given the state of the door as she pushed it aside, she doubted Noir would be as concerned with her appearance.

Rarity tried the lightswitch to no avail. Whatever had torn the doors open must have shattered the lights, too. Moonlight slid through the open windows and diffused halfway to the floor. Her coat would have looked beautiful in this light. “Noir?” she called a second time. Her voice rang against the wall as if the whole room had splintered. She briefly wondered if he was dead--but of course he wasn’t, Rarity was just being an idiot and stamping her hoofprints onto what looked like a vacated crime scene. What she needed was light. If this was a trap, if she was about to fight, let her kick and scream in the light.

Rarity opened the bag and took out the crystal heart. As she held it up, she let her other hoof tighten around her knife. “I’ve got it,” she taunted the shadows as they fell away under the weight of the light, “don’t you--”

In the gentle, shimmering glow of her prize, she saw Noir.

She took a shaky step towards his body and tripped over a bar of gold lying on the floor. She let out a yelp as she went down. Her muscles ached. Her night was supposed to be over. First Twilight, now this--did ponies just die by association now? A pony who lives in the shadows is condemned to die in the shadows, but Rarity was still alive, wasn’t she?

Maybe she just had the wrong perspective. Maybe she was the shadow, corrupting the good, murdering the rest, falling over time and money indiscriminately. First on her knees, then on her hooves, she approached Noir.

Blood had sprayed from the five gaping holes in his chest onto the desk. All the war stories she had been told by bold newspaper headlines had made it explicitly clear what happens to a pony when you shoot them, but not until she saw it up close did she realize how violent a death by gunfire must be.

She reverently nudged Noir’s chair. His body spun slightly until one of his legs hit the side of the desk and stopped him.

She stared into his eyes.

“Well,” she whimpered, “I guess this means my debt is gone.” Somehow, she laughed. She clamped her hoof over her mouth, but not before she had a chance to hear herself. Something about her voice had broken. Something about her mind had broken. Tears dropped lifelessly down her cheeks. This was supposed to be poetic and tidy and artistic. Here was something that could be twisted into divinity. Here was god of the underground with five bullets in his chest! Why did she sound like the criminal?

She reached into the unlocked bottom right drawer and pulled out Noir’s spotless revolver. Never mind hoofprints, never mind DNA. Her need was not pure, or lustful, or heartfelt. It was pathological.

She stuck it in her mouth.

The lights outside redshifted and subsided. The crystal heart glowed on and on and on.

She didn’t know what to do with her tongue. It just sat there in her mouth. Moving it left or right only made her taste the metal. She felt like vomiting again at the taste. Here was every ration card she had stolen during the war. Here were her fine exotic furs. Here was her god damn art and her god damn sacrifice. Dead with five bullets in his chest. Leveled to spin lead through her magical-neural relay and stop her dead--

A real artist might be inspired. A better pony might be horrified. Rarity tasted the metal and gagged. A real artist might appreciate this great tragedy as a large-scale work of art unfolding right before her eyes on a lifesized canvas. A real artist would swoon at the gore. A real artist would roll in the blood, giggle, drink it. A real artist would feast upon the flesh of the dead, suck the marrow from his bones. A real artist would assign some meaning to it all--any meaning, it didn’t really matter what. A real artist would contribute! A real artist wouldn’t just stand there. A real artist would add another shade of red to the floor.

Rarity tried to pull the trigger. Bitter iron touched the back of her throat. Her gut wrenched. The revolver tipped out out of her hooves. It fell with a thud into a pool of Noir’s blood. Some canvas.

More lights outside. Not for her, but close enough to remind her this was a crime scene now. The room went dark again as she shoved the crystal heart back into its bag. She took one last look at Noir’s body before her eyes could readjust to the light, an elegant and dead silhouette wrapped in one of her own custom tailored four-piece suits. An odd rush of pride swept through her, though it only made her shake more. He died in her suit. He died wearing her art. In a way, that made his body her own work of art. Some canvas!

Before she climbed over the front doors, she used her magic to pick up the bloody revolver from the floor. She dangled it a leg’s distance from her face, scrutinized the miniscule carvings on the side. Scoltcilian, a little gibberish calligraphy, and Noir’s old family seal. Five bullets. No serial number.

Shadows tilted off their natural axes, like their necks had been snapped. Deep, bleeding purple touched the walls. Rarity’s fur bristled as white light like a beam of moonlight fell across the revolver before her.

Without a second thought she furrowed her brow and vaporized it.

"Nasty business,” she whimpered, licking fresh blood off her lips. “I should--go home and make a dress.”

27: Postlude One

The bars had been pumped full of so many magical counter-spells they generated their own heat.

Celestia draped herself across the prison door and let the heat roll over her. She imagined walking through the center of the sun, enveloped in her own aura, fire and fission soaking into her bones, and passing through to the other side renewed and purified. She pictured Twilight with her, but only for an instant--she was fried before she could break the surface.

Behind the humming bars, Twilight shivered in her cot. “Princess, don’t touch that, your coat will get all dirty.”

Celestia smiled, her first of the day. “The bars kill bacteria. It’s better than hoof sanitizer, really.”

“I didn’t know they could do that.”

“The bars kill bacteria so the pony inside can’t mutate them and make a virus.”

“You’re worried about the pony plague? Down here?”

The smile went away. “It’s a suicide deterrent, Twilight.”

“Oh.”

Fire. Always fire. Celestia was the sun, and the sun was fire. Hearth’s warming eve and funeral pyres. Fire carried her immortal essence. The spark of life, maybe. Celestia could never know for sure what happened before she was created, so it was entirely plausible she was the light that gave life to the universe. History books lied. Advisors lied. She didn’t really know whether the world was fine on its own when she dropped in or just an infinite powder keg.

"I suppose it goes without saying how sorry I am for all this."

What did Celestia know anyway? Poor Twilight. Celestia was so hopelessly confounded by a great many things. "Sorry is not what I want to hear right now."

"Then what do you want to hear? I'll say anything. I'll rat. I'll give whatever names you need. I want to help--I'm not the bad guy."

Celestia squinted as sunlight snuck through the small barred window and hit her face. She shifted a few paces to the right, stretched, and leaned into the bars again. Her eyes burned through the floor next to Twilight. "Right now I'm more disappointed that you let the heart get away from you, even if you were trying to steal it. Things would have been much easier if you had been successful. Are you sure you can't remember anything about the assailant who took it?"

"No," twilight lied, "with my injury, I didn't get a good look at them."

Celestia nodded. "Is it any better?”

Twilight nodded, rubbing a singed spot of fur on her shoulder. “I didn’t die, did I? It sure felt like it.”

“You nearly severed your magical-neural relay. I had to replace it and create a new leyline to feed it, but you should be fine. I’ll have to teach them to you sometime.”

“Maybe later,” Twilight suggested, awestruck.

Celestia nodded. “One of the guards you hurt has breakdowns periodically. Every few hours he shuts down. His relay is still twisted."

"I know. I can fix him, but the doctors won't let me near him. This cell has fourteen design flaws. Five of them are compromising. I could be done in five minutes, but I’m worried if the guards try to subdue me I’ll hurt them. Please, let me fix him.”

Celestia looked down. “This cell is the one we use when we can’t contain a prisoner in a normal cell. Starswirl spent a few drunken nights in here shooting lasers at the wall, back before he had discovered lasers. I put Luna in here once during our childhood when she wouldn’t stay in time out. A few criminals got executed in here too.” Twilight stepped over the stains as she scrambled into the corner. “If we took them outside they would have teleported away. Magic is as dangerous as it is miraculous. You of all ponies--”

"I would have turned him in," twilight whimpered, clutching the back of her neck. She let out a breath as her back hit the cold bedrock walls. "His plan was to travel into griffonia and sell it. I was gonna put a tracking spell on it. Rat on the buyers, Caramel, myself, everyone. I was gonna blow the lid off it. I never intended for it to get away."

"I know you didn't."

The sliver of light from the window fell away as the sun set. In a few minutes, the day guard would shuffle back to the barracks and the batpony night guards would take their place. The gates to Canterlot castle would close, and the day would end. The cell would be as it was in the night.

The more Celestia thought about her imminent departure, the more she appreciated the odd sense of peace. This wasn’t an ordinary prison. These catacombs held living skeletons, but somehow the place seemed twice as dead. The walls had a way of eating the echoes so that no matter where she was, she knew exactly how alone she was down here with Twilight.

“Have you slept?” Celestia asked.

“Did they find it?”

“Have you slept, Twilight?”

“What does that matter? You have to leave soon--don’t you? Tell me, please, if you don’t tell me I won’t be able to think about anything else until you come back.” Something in her eyes--sparks, but no warmth. Fear? “You’re coming back, right? Eventually? I’m immortal. I can wait. But please tell me.”

Celestia sighed quietly, and heard every sound. “Nineteen griffons are dead in their port city, I can’t recall the name. The thief must have crossed the border during the night before word could spread and sold it.”

“Was it the griffon king’s soldiers?”

“Oddly enough, no. According to our records the only criminal ties the group had were to the underground fur trade that died out after the war.”

“It wasn’t us who went in, though, was it?” Twilight sat up straight. “Did we invade Griffonia again?”

“Nothing short of Luna’s capture would make me invade that country again. The Crystalites are responsible.”

“Tell me it wasn’t Cadence. I know she feels obligated to lead battle charges, but this--”

“Cadence did not lead the assault. They were able to get a team in and out using long range teleportation links.”

“Have you heard from Cadence yet?”

Celestia shook her head. “She left early this morning with Shining Armor.”

“Does she know--” Twilight asked, but stopped herself.

The earth sighed, deep and lonely. Celestia couldn’t get much further from the sun than this. She could still feel it--she always felt it. But here in the depths of the catacombs she felt something else tugging her in the opposite direction. It pleaded her--go down! Further and further, deeper into the maze, until she never came back up again.

"Would you please sentence me to death?" Twilight asked.

"No,” came Celestia’s automatic response.

"I deserve it, though. I deserve to be shot like a traitor. I am a traitor."

"Whether or not you deserve it is irrelevant."

"I think it is."

"Then you still have much to learn, Twilight. There are more important roles you must fulfill in the coming weeks. You have a duty to Equestria--"

"Please kill me." Twilight slammed herself into the bars, pressed her nose into the opening next to Celestia's. She saw every flicker of light in her eyes. "Please, like me up against a wall and shoot me. Hang me. I don't care. Please."

Celestia brought herself to bear. Back straight, shoulders back, chin up but not too far, no longer leaning on the bars, she looked like a goddess again. "No," she asserted, "you can not run from your mistakes.”

“How is this running?"

Celestia paused. "Twilight," she said in a voice much softer than before, "there are many different ways to run away.”

Twilight stepped over the stains, sat down on her bed, and covered her mouth. “Okay,” she said into her hoof.

“Back before the age of diplomacy, even just a few hundred years ago, wars were more frequent. Rulers did what they want. If I don't seem shocked at this, it’s because I’ve seen rulers wiser and stronger than you stoop much lower doing what they believe is right. I believe you have a greater role to play. Your destiny did not end when that prison wagon shut its doors. A millennia from now you might still be trying to right this wrong, but a millennia from now Equestria might need the princesses as much as it needs them now.”

Outside the castle, the sun fell lower.

“Is Caramel still alive?” Twilight asked.

“Alive, and awaiting trial.”

“They’ll kill him.”

Celestia looked down at the stains on the floor.

“What do I do?” Twilight asked. “It’s over, it’s all over, and I’m still going. I want it to stop.” She turned to Celestia. “How do I make it stop?”

Celestia felt it all the way around, above and below. Twilight looked upon her in agony--goddess, princess, mentor, under stress, in duress, second-best--and Celestia clutched the sun helplessly so the earth wouldn’t swallow her up.

“I am--so hopelessly confounded by a great many things,” Celestia said.

Twilight picked herself up from the cot. She bit a little piece of dry skin off her lip and said, “I prayed to the gods so hard that nopony would get hurt.”

Celestia felt the earth turn and turn and turn.

“I think I know why it didn’t help,” Twilight continued.

“Why’s that?”

“It’s because they’re not gods. I am.”

Celestia paused. Interrupting a crisis of faith seemed so unimaginably cruel.

Twilight chuckled sadly. “It’s heresy, but what does that matter now if I don’t really believe it?”

“That’s a very dangerous assertion.”

“Dangerous in the wrong head. The cult leaders and crazies had ulterior motives, power or possession or money, or something. They thought they were god because it would be good for them.” Twilight turned to face the window, her eyes drifting across the bars and the outside. Faint monkish chanting filled her head. “I wonder if the old gods are scared of themselves, too.”

Celestia saw the sun reflected in Twilight’s eyes, and she was very, very afraid.

“Are you afraid?” Celestia asked.

Twilight turned to face the wall so she could no longer look her teacher in the eye. “Everything I touch bursts into flames.”

The earth implored her. Sink, it said. Way down in the center of it all, where it’s cool and dark and silent, where Twilight was not in a cell, where the war was just a distant memory, where everything was going to be okay. All she had to do was turn around and walk. Sink, the earth whispered, and leave her here. Leave her. Leave her--

Celestia tore herself away from the bars and hailed the guards. “Unlock the door, please,” she said.

“Your Majesty--” one guard began.

“Twilight is under my personal guard now. Report that to your commander right away if you’d like, or wait for me to tell him tonight when he wakes up, it doesn’t matter.” A pause. “The keys, guard.”

The two pat ponies flashed each other a look. The one closest to Celestia dug into his pockets and fished out a thin metal disk. “If I may speak freely, your majesty?”

“Of course.”

“She’s safer in here.”

Celestia slid the disk into the lock. “Duly noted.”

The walls hissed, cutting Twilight off before she could beg Celestia to reconsider. Beautiful oranges and reds and yellows lit up the walls, the reflection of an out-of-place sunset, moving up the walls in the path left behind by the rising sun just a minute earlier, darkening to lush, bruised purples and blues as they progressed. Twilight felt the counterspells snap around her and shivered. Without the giant radiator that was the cell door, cold enveloped the room.

The colors faded with the warmth. Twilight blinked back half frozen tears. She was not free. The sun was somewhere far away from her. Watching her. The earth tugged at her heart--Sink, it said.

Celestia opened the cell door. “Come with me,” she told Twilight.

Twilight stood. She stole another glance at the walls around her. Brown and black, like every other patch of raw earth. If she tried, she could blast a hole right through it and escape. The wall with the window was obviously the thinnest, but she didn’t have to go that route. She could topple the entire mountain if she wanted and crawl through the rubble. She could vaporize the mountain of earth and rock above her head, and Canterlot with it. She could walk back to Ponyville on a long and flat road, then flatten the road to cover her tracks.

She had no reason to escape. Celestia was standing in the doorway, offering her hoof. Freedom from the earth and the bars. And yet--and yet!--something like a repressed animal instinct burned her frozen limbs. Run. Run from the sun, run from Celestia, run from your friend, tear the mountain down around you bury your burden in stone rip it apart and run burn the city above and run--

“Twilight.” Celestia’s voice took her, like it always had. Did she know? Of course she knew. Celestia always knew. The decision to leave was no longer Twilight’s.

So they took a walk, up the stairs, through endless corridors, past a few more pairs of wandering guards waiting to be relieved of their duty, past the night guard walking briskly in the opposite direction, past more windows and more light--the sun outside didn’t quite shine the way it had in the cell--all in silence. They walked and walked until the path widened, until the sleek vertical shadows cast by the iron bars in the windows dimmed beneath projections of stained glass and massive polished pillars rose from the floor to bear the burden of the high, archless ceiling. They walked until the earth finally ceased to pull at them. Sink!, they heard one last time. And then they were in the sun, and they were free.

Twilight grimaced. She hadn’t seen the sun in a few days.

Despite it, she followed the silhouette of her teacher onto a wide battlement connecting the tower they had just exited to another identical one a hundred yards or so away. Guards stood every ten paces. Most of them glittered in the sun. Twilight ducked her head, partly to avoid looking at the army she betrayed and partly to avoid the force field encapsulating the battlement. Given that this was the only way in and out of the catacomb prison, it made perfect sense to have it--but that didn’t stop Twilight from reading files of what happened to the escapees who jumped into it. Files usually came with pictures. How high was it again? Ten feet? Fifteen? She cowered in Celestia’s shadow and walked on.

“I guess it doesn’t mean much now, because there’s no really fixing this,” Twilight said, “but I really am sorry.”

“It means something to me, rest assured.”

Twilight eyed the guards through her periphery. She couldn’t shake the feeling they were doing the same. They weren’t quite at attention, but when you’re encased in armor and holding a spear you don’t need to look pointed to look sharp.

Her fur burned. The light of the sun burned. Her shame burned. Though she didn’t feel it, she knew Celestia was giving her a look. It burned, too. “I thought it was what I wanted,” Twilight blurted. Damn the guards. They would stare until they died, and then they’d be replaced. “I was so wrong. Please, believe me.”

Celestia considered Twilight’s words. Their hoofbeats sounded like old drums, slow and shallow. They could see all of Canterlot and the sprawling metropolis it had become, but thanks to a quirk in the force field’s creation nopony on the outside could see in--not unless somepony were to run into it, that is. “We have all done drastic things in the past,” she finally replied. “You know my history with my sister well enough. You know your war wasn’t the first one in which we had to kill griffons. It won’t be the last, I fear. We live too long and see many wars.” Her war. Twilight’s war. Was this her punishment? Having her name pinned to a war? The thought made her want to spread her wings and fling herself into the forcefield. Maybe Celestia sensed this--maybe that was why she said, “Twilight, sending my sister to the moon was a mistake. Fighting a war was not. Do you understand?”

As they approached the second tower, Twilight finally noticed one of the few hopelessly outnumbered Equestrian guard propped against the door filing their hoof.

“Has the day guard retired already?” Celestia said, alerting the guard to her presence. “My, how time flies.”

The guard dropped the file and bowed in one motion. "Your majesties."

Twilight looked up--and instantly regretted it, damn the sun--but this was more important than the sun and her eyes and the purple sunspots she’d be blinking back for hours thanks to the stupid perfect weather.

The guard drew herself up and made a crisp salute. "You have our thanks for choosing our humble prison. It was an honor incarcerating you, your majesty."

Her eyes shimmered like broken glass behind her visor. Twilight’s frown hardened into a brittle grimace. In her haste to study the ground she caught sight of the guard’s file lying on the ground beside her.

A snap judgement, followed by a snap of her horn. Panic and resignation. A flicker of magic as she opened the door for Celestia. A duplication spell pulling magic from a leyline outside the forcefield, something that wasn’t really supposed to be possible--but then again, neither was ripping out a pony’s soul through their spinal column, and had she balked at that challenge? Duplicate the elements, arrange the atoms, perform a cross-dimensional planing spell and lock it in fourth dimension so nopony could see it or touch it, so she could push it through the impenetrable rock of Canterlot mountain, through incalculable years of geology and a few magical failsafes, into the cell block of the little-known Canterlot prison reserved for ponies like Caramel Apple.

She gave it a soul, too, before she sent it off. For once, she didn’t really know what she did to that little file. She had sensed something while she was attacking the guards in Ponyville--and she realized that’s exactly what she had done, attacked them--something deep in the leylines than she could not reach in a hundred alicorn lifetimes. It frightened her. Not as much as the threat of the future or a sudden loud noise, but it was there. It would be there long after the future had come and gone. It moved through the magic like an ancient predator, silent, proud, clinging to life. A spark. Given the sheer impossibility of such a creature, even for a rule-breaker like herself, she surmised that the only rational thing it could be was a soul. Whether it was a big soul or a little soul or all of them or just one didn’t matter as much. If a pony of all things could have a soul, so too could a hoof file. She didn’t want to take any chances, at least.

And then it was done. She and Celestia were walking past the guard, who swept low again to pick up her file in a half-assed bow.

Twilight paused before she could enter the tower and stared across the horizon. She felt it, every last one of them, the fillies and colts and old folks. A sick twisted figment of her former self reminded her of her duty to them. She held their fire. She saw their souls. Every one of them burned with life.

In her infinite fallibility, Celestia took it as a sign of weakness. “We must go,” she told Twilight. “Follow me.”

Twilight spent one more aching second staring into the sun, burning bright spots into her eyes, before she tore herself away from the railing.

“Can I go home?” she asked.

“No. There is talk of more fighting. We need you here in the capital to coordinate diplomacy efforts. You were always the best out of us four when it came to coordinating.”

Twilight risked a glance over her shoulder, but they had already gone too far into the tower to see outside. She thought about Spike. “What kind of fighting?” she asked.

“There are rumors the Griffon king wants to avenge his loss in the war and gain back the borderlands. He won’t win, not with his nation still in disarray, but he has no shortage of hatred. That is all he needs. A pony is strongest when he is at his lowest. I’m afraid the same applies to our feathered neighbors."

The two walked side by side down a wide and winding staircase for what seemed like ten minutes until they reached a vault door. The weight of a million tons of rock hung above her head. The earth spoke her her again--sink, it said.

“You remember the war room,” Celestia said. “We’ve redesigned a bit since the assassination attempt.” Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Twilight taking small, measured steps backwards. “I know you don’t like this room after what happened, but it’s safe here now. You need to be an alicorn to get in.”

“Is there some sort of horn-lock like the last door? Horn locks can be broken.”

“You’ll be happy to know there aren’t any locks, because there aren’t any doors.” Celestia shot a stressed smile in response to Twilight’s confused hum and added, “The door is just for show. It doesn’t open. If you could somehow rip it away from the wall you’d find more wall behind it.”

“Where is the war room, then?”

Celestia tapped her hoof on the floor. “About fifty feet beneath us. The only way in is to perform a cross-dimensional planing spell.”

Twilight thought back to the file. “Lock yourself in the fourth dimension and just--sink?”

“Sometimes the simplest solutions are the most effective.” Celestia took note of the pain on Twilight’s face. “If you’d like, we can do it together--”

“No, it’s fine. I was just thinking about the castle.”

“Yours?”

Twilight nodded. “Spike should be going to sleep right about now. He’ll wonder where I’ve gone--he didn’t know about any of this.”

“Dragons live a very long time. I know he’ll understand, one day.”

“I hope so,” she said, lying through her teeth. The sad truth was, she hoped Spike hated her for what she had done. She hoped he would say something cruel, something that would linger for half her life. She hoped he would throw things, storm out, maybe leave for a few months. She longed to see resentment burning in his eyes. She wanted to see his face--just see it once more before she went into the war room, just once more, his eyes, it didn’t matter if he was happy or not. Just once more before she slipped beneath the cool earth. Once more.

Celestia’s form dissolved as she faded from three dimensions. Her eyes glowed like the fiery sun and then disappeared in a flash of light. The staircase echoed like the distant thunder of cannons.

Twilight turned her thoughts back to Spike one last time. She imagined him stretching his stubby arms over his head and yawning. She imagined him smiling at the sun as it poured through the castle window.

Then she lit up her horn and sank.

28: Postlude 2

Caramel winced at the bitter cold as he leaned against the prison bars.

He shifted in place until his fur became acquainted with the sensation, then continued shouting down the long hallway.

“I don’t think that’ll do you much good,” a soft voice said from the opposite corner of the room as he paused to breathe.

Caramel turned to face his cellmate, who had previously been sleeping on the bottom cot. “No one asked you.”

“I didn’t mean you can’t shout. I’m just saying it won’t help.”

“Yeah?” Caramel took a step forwards, away from the cold bars. Hot air flashed to anger in his lungs. It warmed his blood, shot through his eyes, leaked out his mouth, seeped through his pores. His skin hardened like scorched sand, setting his face in an obstinate mask. “You’d be wise to keep your opinions to yourself.” Forget the guards and their weapons. Boldness was his shank, experience his shield. He took a step closer to his cellmate.

“I’m not here to fight,” his cellmate replied, still just as cool as before. “I won’t be here long. I just thought I’d give you some advice.”

“Don’t need it.” Caramel scoffed. “I’ve been to jail before. I’ve escaped before. I’ve outrun armies.”

His cellmate laughed, exposing rows of towering, perfectly white teeth. “This isn’t jail. This is purgatory.”

Something in the way he said it sent Caramel into a hot fury. He felt the cool cell bars wrap around his heart and squeeze. Something inside that voice was diseased.

He rushed across the cell to the window, also barred, also cold. “Help me!” he screamed. “Somepony help me!”

He wrenched his cheek away from the bars and turned to face the door. Hoofsteps echoed down the dark, rocky corridor beyond their cell, but they stopped too soon to be headed his way. A minute passed. Still nothing.

“Told ya. You should listen before you shout yourself into a flu.”

“Ahh--we have to get fed. They have to feed us.” The air caught in Caramel’s throat. “When does the feeder come around?”

His cellmate pointed at a slot on the side wall. “Pulley-based delivery system.”

“No feeder, okay.” Blood rushed to his face. The sick tightness of claustrophobia rose from the bottom of his guts and twisted up his lungs. “They gotta be around sometime, to give us books, or to yell at us. Something.”

Caramel’s cellmate swept his hoof towards the door. “You’re in the deserters’ wing. It’s sensible that our punishment is to be deserted.”

Finally--his old ways caught up to him in one ecstatic jolt of panic. The single link between all his past escapes, the only unchanging variable that he could reliably exploit, was the pony element. The guards themselves. Walls could not be tricked. Metal bars could not be incapacitated. Sheer drops could not be killed and dragged into storage closets. Bad guys needed good guys. Some genius had figured out his formula and found the only way to foil it. Twilight, maybe--if she was still alive.

Was Twilight even alive? The last Caramel had seen of her, the liquid fire pouring from her neck had just ignited the fur on her shoulder, and then somepony hit him over the head and shut the door to Twilight’s carriage.

Caramel slid down the wall and crumpled. A deep sigh escaped his lips. The fervor would pass in time, as would his anger and eventually his fear. Maybe he could be institutionalized. Maybe they could make something out of him. “I can’t breathe,” he muttered.

Caramel’s cellmate laughed. “This place will be like home to you, eventually. Just let it happen.” When Caramel didn’t respond he stood up from the bed and extended his hoof. “I’m McTough.”

“Stop, stop it, I don’t want to shake your hoof, “Caramel shushed him. “I don’t care, I don’t want to know you’re name, I don’t want to care about where you came from, I don’t care. Do you understand me? I don’t care. Stop staring at me, can’t you hear? I don’t care.”

“Then you’re in the perfect place. You don’t care about anyone? That’s fine.” McTough took his time settling back into his bed. “No one cares about you either.”

Caramel bit his lip and resumed pacing around the cell. If he focused hard enough on his own hooves, the world would keep on spinning even after he stopped.

McTough chuckled at the antics. “Don’t worry, I won’t judge you for pacing. I’m only in here for a week or so. I can’t even imagine what you must be going through.”

Caramel looked up, then down again. He wished the guards in Ponyville would have just killed him. “Just a week?”

“I broke the law, same as you. Difference is I made Equestria better because of it. You’re just a coward.”

“You’re just a murderer,” Caramel shot back. He leveraged his hooves against the floor and pressed himself into the corner as hard as he could. The wall was another barrier to get through. The wall spoke to him. Burn, it whispered.

And how Caramel wanted to burn! Burn with fire, burn with life. Burn himself into the scared sacred psyche of every force of authority who challenged him. Prisons deprived him of oxygen. Was this what happened to a pony when you stripped him of his outlets?

“There has to be a way out,” Caramel muttered.

“There is no way out,” McTough repeated. “You can keep looking, just do it quietly.”

Caramel pointed his hoof at his cellmate, half-expecting his head to explode. “There is always a way out.”

Air rushed into the cell as a hot spear of purple magic shattered the space between dimensions. A purple flicker of light in the center of the cell threw shadows across the wall. Burnt aether scorched Caramel’s lungs, filled him with life. For about five seconds a flat beam of light shot between dimensions. Caramel saw a whitewashed sun, an armor-clad leg, and the bowed banged silhouette of Twilight Sparkle surrendering to her mistakes.

Out of the rift dropped a smoking black file.

He and his cellmate stared agape as the anomaly convulsed and collapsed on itself with a quiet wail of vibrating metal.

A moment of silence passed. The burnt dust and shadows settled into the cell once more.

From down the hall, a guard called, “Two weeks in solitary for the next guy who throws a spell.”

Caramel scrambled to his hooves.

“Don’t touch that,” his cellmate said.

Caramel ignored him and grabbed it. Threw it to the ground, clutching his burnt hoof. Stomped on it a bit. Picked it up. Bolted to the window.

“We don’t know what that could be--it could be anything.”

“It’s a file,” Caramel grunted as he started sawing at the window bars.

“Throw it into the hallway. They’ll extend my sentence if you do something stupid. I’m an accomplice now.”

“Watch me--”

“Throw it into the hallway. Escaping is twenty years.”

Caramel ripped the first bar out of the wall and threw it outside without pausing to watch it fall. “What’re you gonna do?” he asked over his shoulder. “Murder is fifty.”

“Damn it, would you stop?”

The second bar came out.

McTough backed into the cell door and shivered at the cold. “Guards!” he shouted in a hoarse voice. “Guards!”

Out came the third bar. The cut wasn’t clean. The file was wearing down and Caramel could see the outside, the colors of the sun as it set, the air--he could breathe! Without the bars, air rushed in. The file felt dangerous in his hooves. He felt dangerous. The sunset called to him. Burn, it whispered. Burn.

“Stop it, right now.” Caramel turned around and marveled--his cellmate wasn’t smiling anymore. “What was it you said? There’s always a way to run? I’m sure they’ll commute you eventually.”

Caramel strode across the cell in two big steps, raised his hoof, and slashed McTough’s throat.

By the time he hit the floor Caramel had already stuffed himself partially through the opening. He quickly discovered he hadn’t cut the middle bar enough when his hoof caught between it and the closest remaining bar. Jagged metal bit into his leg.

He looked down. The moon hung above him, its light a towering beam for him to descend. Cold winds burned the skin on his face with the chill of the lower atmosphere. Down was freedom. Down was four broken legs for sure. Down was life. Down went the sun. Chase it, he thought, chase the fire, sink--burn. He struggled harder and prepared himself for a drop.

The guards at the end of the hallway saw McTough’s hoof stretched over the bars. One guard took a few steps closer before noticing the pool of blood beneath it. He shouted to his partner and charged down the hall.

Caramel roared and shook himself. Each movement impaled his leg a little more on the uneven edge of the third bar. He was almost completely free now. Only his one leg remained trapped between the bars. Blood--his own blood--trickled down the outside of the wall as he tried to free it.

He looked up just in time to see the first guard stop at his cell door. Their eyes met, furious and wild and fire.

“Break-out! Break-out!” The guard, a unicorn, screamed.

The cell filled with burnt ozone as the guard lit up his horn. Caramel gave one final tug at his leg as a sticky fireball roared across the cell and exploded across his face.

His center tipped. Blood rushed to his head as he turned upside down. He flailed and writhed and clutched at his burning face, but his leg would not budge. The flames clawed deeper into his face. His wails were eaten alive by the atmosphere. Jagged metal touched bone. He convulsed in agony, beating against the wall with his other leg, hooves peeling, face on fire, torso freezing, leg bleeding--

And then he fell.

The wall passed on endlessly. Slanted moonlight framed his fall. Behind him, the sun flickered on the horizon like the fires of a distant and endless war.

5: An Old Stallion in a Barfight is the Most Dangerous Stallion in the Barfight

Noir, head pony of the Neo-Equestrian Marefia, was not a sentimental stallion.

He didn’t care too much that there was beer spilling into the lap of his favorite pair of pants. What bothered him more was the awkward lighting of the bar, the past twenty years of his life, and the griffon sitting next to him.

He looked down at the stain and muttered, “Shit.”

A griffon. It had to be a griffon. What a life, Noir thought. What a life to put a griffon next to him at this exact point in time. There were contraband rock-candy peddlers in one corner and anti-Celestian nationalists in the other and thieves all around, and the griffon had to sit next to him. He picked his mug up, straightened in his stool, and wobbled as he remembered the lack of a backrest. The beer sloshed in his stomach. Lights flashed in his periphery. He grasped onto the bar with all his might, pulled himself forward, and slammed the mug down onto the table. It took another ten minutes for the griffon to leave.

After Noir was sure the griffon had gone, he turned to the bartender and in a low voice asked, “Hey, did that pissbeak spill my beer?”

The bartender winced. His eyes darted towards the other customers. “That griffon,” he emphasized, “did not spill your beer.”

“Would you rather me say Griffonese-Equestrian?” he asked with a chuckle. “What a mouthful. Griffons may fly, but ponies control the sky.” He lifted his empty glass to toast, them pressed it into his lips and tipped his frame back with the mug. His face peeked out from behind the mug, blinking back confusion.

The bartender’s eyes flickered to the door again. “I think you should head home. It’s late. I’ll collect your tab.”

“I think you’ll do no such thing.”

“Tally up now and I’ll be too distracted to charge you for the last round.”

A sack of bits hit the table. “Well, if it makes your life easier.”

The bartender took the bag and tossed it behind the register. His eyes stuck on the door.

“Hey, aren’t you gonna treat those things with some respect?”

“I think the visors are here,” the bartender said.

“What?” Noir chuckled.

Then a battering ram flew through the door.

The massive steel bar skittered across the hardwood before rolling to a stop at Noir’s hooves, nearly knocking the stool out from under him. The ponies of the bar stared at it for a long moment.

The bartender rolled his eyes and ducked behind the bar. Somepony screamed. Then the door exploded.

The lights went out. The world fragmented into panes of opalescent glass. Light from the outside streamed through the windows in blocks and beams. Black shapes manifested from the shadows. They twisted into ponies in terrible black armor, with visors over their faces.

Noir kicked the stool out from beneath him. He hit the ground hard and stayed down. They didn’t need to announce their presence. The EQUIS had arrived.

Raw sound morphed into silhouettes. They rose and bolted for the exits only to be met by a mass of armor by the doors. A seething crush. Cops and robbers. The lucky ones on the fringe of the scuffle pushed their doomed friends into the fray and disappeared, carried by the crooked shadows into the dark.

Noir covered his ears and forced himself to get up. Two large ponies launched themselves between Noir and the bar, knocking him onto two hooves. He stumbled across the floor, over empty bottles and screaming ponies who didn’t know any better. Here was the past, knocking down his door! Coming to get him, swallow him back up where he belonged! Run, little pony, run! the walls seemed to scream. You don't stand a chance against time. It'll just keep kicking down doors until it catches you in the bath and drop a toaster into your lap.

Noir's legs were old. They popped as he ran. His lungs heaved. Acid burned the back of his throat. There were many ways to run away. Individuals blurred into a repeating theme. Legs, arms, part of a face. A tooth. A spatter of blood. Repetition on a theme. Violence? The stuff of the Marefia. Except now he was stuck in it. He remembered for a marvelous moment that he was, in fact, utterly trashed.

And then Don Noir, head of the Neo-Equestrian Marefia, tripped over his own hooves and careened into an EQUIS agent waiting by the exit.

The agent rocked back on his hind legs to keep from falling over. Noir scrunched his nose to keep it from pressing into the agent's cold, metal cheek. “Get off me,” Noir muttered.

Bottles sailed through the air. They caught the moonlight for a moment as they flew and glowed amber. The agent let out a roar of effort and threw Noir to the floor. More ponies tumbled past, locked in a near-death struggle. One of them was winning.

Noir noted how it was impossible to see an EQUIS agent’s eyes unless he was on the ground at their hooves looking up.

The agent paused, his hoof high over his head, then punched Noir in the belly. Half the detail lunged for a writing, cursing mare in the corner. Contraband rock candy from the irradiated western farms fell from her pockets and shattered on the floor.

Noir winced as the agent pinned him down. "How is the war on smuggled sweets going?"

"Good, for the nation's dentists,” the agent replied as he reached for his handcuffs. The mare screamed again. The agent's grip tightened. "When you go on trial, it will be the sweetest day of my life. I’m gonna squeal and you’re gonna squirm.”

“You’re pathetic.”

The sounds of the fight around them obscured Noir's chuckle. In the darkness, the agent couldn't see Noir's free hoof reaching for his sack of bits.

"There’s no marefia to run to anymore, little guy. You can’t buy them back from death.”

"A lot of ponies seem to share your opinion. What a shame. If only they know--if they truly desire a change, they need only purchase it."

Noir leaned in and kissed the agent on the nose. Then he swung the sack of bits with all his might at the bottom of the metal visor.

The helmet cracked and rolled across the floor. The agent gushed blood all over Noir as he dove after it. By the time another agent had rushed to his aid, Noir was gone, stumbling off through the back alley into the night, trailing the lucky and the clever as they fell backwards into the night, beating a drunken retreat towards his hideaway.

By the time he knocked on the door to his den of smoke his lungs were dry husks squeezed into his throat. "Snow," he coughed, "Snowdrop. Snowdew. Somepony!"

The slit on the door opened. "You didn't do the rhythm right--"

"Snowdrop, you idiot--it's me!" he wheezed.

"But you didn't play the rhythm right. You just sorta hit the door with your whole body once."

"It's the EQUIS. They were at the bar. Let me in right now."

"How do I know you're not a spy?"

"I got your name right, didn't I? How else would I know that, huh?"

Noir couldn’t see Snowflake's eyes flicker for just a single second with hesitation. For the first time, he realized he had something like power over Noir. Something like a choice.

He opened the door. "Sorry, boss," he mumbled, "lemme get you in here."

"There's a good boy." Noir shrugged Snowflake aside with his shoulder as much as his stench and opened the second door. "Put the carpet in front of the door. We need to lock this place down in case somepony followed me here."

"Boss, is that your blood?"

Noir looked down at his shirt. “Shit, it’s cold in here.”

Snowflake averted his eyes by grabbing the woolen runner partially rolled up at the base of the wall. He shook the dust free, coughed, and bunched it up in front of the door. “No one’ll get in now, boss.”

“Darn right,” Noir nodded. “Not even the strongest, deadliest military force in all of Equestria can get past a door with a rug in front of it. Now--you two,” The stallion rushed past the second door and into the main room, kicking up a fuss to wake the underworld. “Idiots. You’re still sleeping? Get up!”

The two goons on the couch jerked to attention, sporting groggy half-smiles hidden behind professionality.

“You weren’t,” Noir deadpanned.

“No, sir,” the larger of the two replied.

Noir groaned. “If there’s one thing I hope alcohol does, it’s make me brain-dead. Get your things together and lock the building down. And you--” he pointed to the second henchpony, “I’m freezing. Do something about it.”

Any trace of happiness disappeared from the goons’ faces. They saluted, turned, and ran right into each other.

Noir gurgled and belched. His head ached. He walked across the room and over to his desk. In one practiced motion Noir swept everything on the desk into the topmost drawer before locking it and throwing the key into the pot of a nearby ficus.

In all the clamor, Noir found a strange moment of silence. His ears twitched as he leaned towards the desk, raising a hoof to knock against the mahogany. The reverberations warped with undertones, muffled by the contents on the inside. Five times he knocked.

Great prophetic lights flashed in his mind. Gunshots. He tapped the desk as the past consumed him. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. One pony who brought him as low as dirt and tried to bring him six feet lower than dirt. A revolver. Armed and dangerous. Shoot on sight. Wide and terrified and filling with tears and lining up the front sight between the rear sight. Five slugs, buried in the front side of the mahogany desk. He knocked on the desk and felt each one slam into the desk while he cowered behind it, trembling hooves clutching a revolver as long as his foreleg, flinching as each bullet hit home. One of them found a weak point and went all the way through the desk. If he hadn’t slipped to his knees and tucked his head into the ground to muffle the sound of his weakness it would have went right through his temple. But it wouldn’t have been the first time dumb luck spared him, so he didn’t think too much about it.

Noir’s eyes shot to the door. Still closed. But for how long would it save him? He reached for the bottom left drawer and yanked it open, ignoring the tremor in his hoof as he did. Out came a comically large revolver and five oversized bullets in a plastic bag taped to the butt of the gun. They fell on the table and silenced everything. There were many ways to run away.

Something in the drawer jingled as Noir closed it. He blinked, opened the drawer again, and slid it shut. Same sound.

He frowned. Nothing else was supposed to be in the drawer. It was the “Last Resort” drawer. The label under the lock said so. What kind of last resort jingled? In a moment of weakness he forwent the revolver and dug around in the cabinet.

He pulled out a small, five-pointed star pin. Run through the pointed end was a photograph of two ponies. One of them waved a bottle of whiskey at the camera, sporting a drunken smile. The other wore a crooked helmet, its visor only partially down.

Snap, went the revolver.

Noir looked up--and look at that! The revolver was in his hoof.

Snap, it went again.

Using the desk for support, he slid to his knees.

Snap.

He buried his head into the carpet to muffle the sound of his weakness.

Snap.

From outside came the faint sound of sirens echoing off the low rooftops and spilling into open space. The clock chimed softly in the background. Another Wednesday had begun. The old night ran away without any trace.

Snap.

6: Much Bigger Fish

It was a sunny day when Twilight robbed her first bank.

She spent the first few hours of it wasting away in her bed, sobbing over a picture of her and Rarity in front of the boutique taken just before the war. In it, they wore matching blue sun hats with a big plastic flower blooming on the rim. Twilight had her old army jacket slung across her back. It had been a warm day. Spring, probably. They had gone out for lunch, or walked around the park--what they did exactly, Twilight couldn’t remember, but she knew it had been a warm day.

Spike came around once to see if she was okay, but he went away when he saw the picture.

The past felt alive, trapped between the two dimensions of the photograph. She closed her eyes and imagined spring. For an instant she could feel an otherworldly breeze tickle her back, but that just turned out to be an open window across the room.

Twilight got up and looked outside. The clouds were tall and white and far away. She could see the thatched roofs of old Ponyville laid out in winding rows before her, stretching all the way to the stream on the other side of town. Soft music from down the block drifted across the air. Was it today, or was it seven years ago? She wondered.

The alarm clock chirped a tritone. Twilight trotted over to the other side of the room and picked it up off the floor. The plastic screen had been dented slightly, preventing the hour hand from cycling into the new hour. The clock read 10:57.

Through the window, Ponyville came alive. It always did during spring.

She set the clock on the nightstand without bothering to fix the time, grabbed her coat, and teleported.

The reaction was instantaneous. Twilight’s imagination became reality. Vague shapes, sketches of faraway places, solidified into metal and stone draped in tall shadows. Color bubbled from the blank spaces. A thought became the curved ionic columns of the Ponyville bank, and her accomplice crouched over a black bag with a multitool in his hoof, and a flock of birds a block over. Autocarriages pushed air down the alleyway. The atmospheric tapestry lay still above her, blue and static. Wings, Twilight thought. What good were wings?

Caramel Apple threw down his tools and fell over. “Gods--shit,” he barked, dragging himself away from Twilight on his back.

“I’m so sorry,” Twilight replied automatically as she offered her hoof. “I hope you don’t mind I’m early.”

Caramel sprung to his hooves on his own and glanced down the alleyway, then along the rooftops. “No, I don’t mind.” He tapped his hoof awkwardly eight to the bar, then said, “Moment of truth, I suppose--what are you here to do?”

“I’m here to help,” Twilight replied.

“You’re here to help, okay,” Caramel nodded. “You’re not here to arrest me?”

Twilight shook her head.

Caramel threw his head back and let out a long sigh. A block away, the birds chirped at a passing pegasus, all sharps and flats and no melody. “That’s very good to hear,” he finally said. “I knew you were a smart pony, Twilight. And a compassionate one, to care about your friend so much.”

“Okay.” Twilight clapped her hooves together. “So, what’s the plan? Are we gonna scope the place out? Draw up some employee analysis?”

Caramel shifted his saddlebag. “The plan is, I’m gonna wave a gun around and demand money. The teller will give it to me. You’ll keep an eye on the customers. We’ll exit the same way we came in. From there, for lack of a more eloquent explanation, we’ll run away.”

“Oh,” Twilight stumbled over a response. “So, we’re doing it now.”

“Yup.”

“Shouldn’t there be more thought going into this?”

“We’re just robbing a bank. This isn’t diplomacy.”

Two autocarriages honked simultaneously a few blocks away. The tritone skidded across the rooftops.

“Apathy,” Caramel explained as he returned to his work. “ Keeps folks like us in business. What would you do if you walked down the street one day, looked down an alleyway purely by chance, and saw a hobo with a stick of dynamite in his hoof? Would you get closer? Certainly not. You’d just keep on walking right by. Not a second thought given.” He glanced at Twilight. “We'll have to figure out some sort of disguise for you, too. That coat won't cover it.”

“I thought of that too, and I’m happy to say I have a solution.”

With that, Twilight closed her eyes and dreamed up a face. A coltish mare, no older than she was now, with big round glasses and dreamy eyes came to mind. Her lips curled up naturally, but never split. A smooth purple mane fell across her face and was corrected into a loose bun. Little white freckles burned away the orange of her fur. The eyes flickered a few different shades of blue before settling on a shade just darker than midnight. They shined in the void, the blue like the dark, the whites like streetlights.

“Neat,” Caramel mused.

Twilight Sparkle opened her eyes and inspected herself for any errors. “I’m keeping the jacket,” she said in somepony else’s voice.

“Fine by me,” Caramel said with a comical shrug. “One last thing--no real names. You can’t risk incriminating yourself, and me, well, that won’t do me too much good, but I still want to go back to work at Applejack’s farm when this is all over.”

“You do?” Twilight asked. “I figured you were a criminal full-time. No offence.”

“None taken, none at all. I’ll be just as happy to put my criminality behind me. We’re in the same boat there,” he chuckled. “Believe it or not, I used to be handsome.” The scar tissue on his face creased and folded as he smiled. “Not anymore. Now I want to pick apples and be wealthy.”

“So, what should our names be?”

“I was thinking I could be Sunrise, on account of my coat being yellow. And hey, since you’re purple, you could be Sunset.” He tossed her a black ski mask. “Put that on. It’ll make the schtick more believable.”

“You don’t think it’ll be too close to my regular name?” Twilight asked as she pulled the mask over her face.

All of a sudden, Caramel was in her face. He put his hooves on her shoulders before she could finish adjusting her ski mask. The mask obscured the bottom of his face, so all she could see was his eyes. His jaw flexed as he spoke.

“It’ll be fine. Listen to me. We are about to do this. We are about to break the law. I know you just got here, but there’s a reason we can’t hang around. I need to know you’re committed to this.”

“I am,” Twilight insisted. “I’m committed.”

“We can’t half-ass this. I’m glad you’re here, but if you’re gonna back out, now’s the time. I need you with me or not at all.” His eyes burned with a predatory look. “If you’re not sure about this, you’d be better off popping back to your castle.”

Here was doubt assailing her. Here was fire and anger she couldn’t grasp. Here was the animal, ready to take control. "I just thought there would be more time," Twilight stated. Her voice hit the concrete and went cold.

Caramel looked behind her one more time, then nodded. “Alright. Okay.” He took a deep breath, but stopped short on the exhale. “Are there any, uh, pre-game rituals, so to speak, that you’d like to perform?”

Twilight shook her head slowly. A long strand of her mane fell across her face. She was quick to fix it. Wearing this disguise always made her feel like she had murdered some stranger's soul and stolen their body. Images of ultra-gory alien movie thrillers flashed through her mind. It seemed like the aliens in the movies always had yellow beaks instead of mouths.

“Good.” Caramel fixed a hoofgun to his foreleg and turned towards the door. “Fix your mask before you go in. Don’t zap anypony, either.”

Caramel did a little stretch, kicked in the door, and shouted something.

Twilight stepped back in shock. A scream ricocheted through the alley. It occurred to her that she was alone in the alley, all alone in a ski mask wearing the body of a mare who didn’t exist.

So she checked her corners and ran into the bank.

The interior looked jagged and oblong, like a modern painting. The customers struggled to suck in the air that had been punched from their guts by the surprise of Caramel’s entrance. Twilight remembered she had cashed a check here a few days ago.

Caramel rushed the counter and pointed at the teller. “Stack as much gold as you can carry onto this counter right now!” he ordered. “Sunset, watch those customers.”

Twilight turned on the other ponies. One look was enough to corral them into the corner, but she lit up her horn anyway. Wrapping her head around the leylines calmed her down. It felt good to tap into the fabric of the magical universe. It gave her strength.

“I don’t normally say this kinda thing because I’m a professional,” Caramel said to the teller, “but you are just the darn cutest thing I’ve seen all week.” He struck a big smile. “What do you think, Sunset? Cute as a button.”

“Yeah,” Twilight replied, unsure of who to focus on--the cute teller or the frightened crowd?--”cute as a button.”

The teller continued to huck rolls of bits across the counter.

Caramel leaned across the counter and pressed his snout between the metal bars of the teller’s station. “I can’t exactly ask you on a date, you understand. It’s not you.”

One of the customers tried to break for the door.

For the first time that day, Twilight was presented with a choice.

With her mind in the leylines, she could anticipate the stallion’s move. He got about two steps before Twilight’s horn spewed purple light like a bright gas torch. An incineration spell would have required less magic and less fine adjustments to keep the spell together, but she picked up the pony with telekinesis and tossed him backwards into the huddle of customers anyway.

“Play nice or she’ll vaporize you,” Caramel tossed over his shoulder. “Listen, can you go any faster? It’s supply and demand--look here, I demand and you supply.”

The crowd was starting to stir. There couldn’t have been more than a dozen ponies, a third of the elderly, but the way they looked at Twilight made her skin crawl. Her horn glowed, and she touched eternity. That calmed her down a little. Somewhere above her head wailed a one-note alarm. Funny, how she missed the little things like that.

“Should we go?” she asked Caramel.

He hopped a couple times, testing the weight of the saddlebags. “Yeah, we’ve about met our goal.” He winked at the teller. “It was a pleasure. A real pleasure.” Turning to Twilight, he nodded to the back door. “Same way we came in, Sunset.”

If Twilight had more time, she would have asked Caramel if it was really that easy--break down a door, stress a few ponies out, and run away. It seemed almost childish in its simplicity. Like a game she used to play with Cadence when she was a child in Canterlot. Cops and robbers. Unreal. How could it be?

All the stress leading up to the moment vaporized. She wasn’t alive. She was dreaming, falling through space into the cradle of her overbearing mind. She could think her way through a lucid dream. She was better off forgetting the alarms and the shouting and the smoke entirely and repeating to herself as she fell into a new, senseless, and perfectly applicable mantra. Forgive yourself, forget yourself. Forgive yourself, forget yourself. Absolve yourself of sin, and you can commit no wrong. Hallelujah! Praise Celestia! Celestia? Who was that? Celestia was a figment of the real life. Forgive yourself, forget yourself. What was real but what was underhoof?

She found out what was real a moment later, when she tripped going out the door and hit the pavement of the back alley face-first.

Caramel hit the pavement with his hooves a few lengths beside her. “Almost done. Let’s find a dark corner someplace far from here.”

From across town came a siren. They had time, but they ran all the same.

“People are inclined to look away,” Caramel puffed as they went. “Apathy!”

That was her comfort as she darted from side street to side street until they reached a musty tunnel beneath the big stone bridge leading out of town. Behind her, the outline of Greater Ponyville jutted from the ground. Sweet Apple Acres was not far away. Twilight remembered her talk with Applejack a few weeks ago. Or was it a few days? Time flew with the pace of the times until there was nothing left to do but look back and wonder if any of it really happened.

Caramel took a moment to compose himself. “I think we’re in the clear,” he panted. “Congratulations, Twilight.”

They regarded each other with a strange kind of dignity. “Well,” Twilight finally said, “that’s that. I hope we don’t have to do too many more of those.”

Did she mean it? It didn’t matter. Caramel was already peeling off his saddlebag. She was already the villain.

Where did that put them? Where was the line. Behind them--but where was it? Caramel seemed not to care. The line fell wherever it was most convenient, wherever it would slice off the largest piece of the pie for him. For Twilight, the line came down directly on top of her.

Caramel fell into silence as he unzipped his saddlebag and divvied up the take. Here was the lie that kept him going: right and wrong were separate entities. Robbing and lying was bad to one pony yet good to another. And justifiable to a third! So long as the majority believed it, the minority could abuse it. And if the majority got wise--well, he didn’t want to think about that.

Sirens shattered the silence. Caramel stood up to find his bag wasn’t so heavy anymore. The light of the sky dazzled all the more.

“Three thousand bits,” he announced. “That’s a good cut. Next time we’ll get more. Maybe we’ll hit a jewelry shop, just to keep things interesting for us. You’ll get your twenty thousand yet.”

The present caught up to Twilight all at once. The disguise shattered. The coltish mare with orange fur and purple hair fell apart around her. “Would Applejack mind if I waited at the farm until things died down in town?”

“That would be a bad idea,” Caramel replied. “I’m going back there myself. It would be much safer for the both of us if we went our separate ways here.” Noticing the hesitation on her face, he added, “No one will stop you. Don’t stop walking until you get to your castle. Don’t open up the bag for any reason until you’re in the castle. You’ll be fine.”

“How will we contact each other?” she asked.

“Always thinking ahead. You’re a smart mare, Twilight. Swing by the Acres tomorrow whenever time allows. We’ll discuss the next job there.” He paused for a moment to take in a cool breeze funneling through their hiding place, then stole away. “Until then.”

Twilight elected to wait five minutes before following suite. Once she was sure nopony else was around, she stepped out of the dark and into the shade. She looked up to find banks of long clouds moving across town, dulling the reflections of Ponyville’s skyscrapers to grey. The picture of herself and Rarity in the sun hats reappeared in her mind. It wasn’t from before the war, she realized--it had been a Victory Day celebration. Not lunch, or a walk in the park. The blue hats matched the blue of the Equestrian flag.

Even with the sirens, the town felt more subdued than before. Twilight elected to take a roundabout route through the old Ponyville market square. Anything to put distance between her and the bank.

As she made her way through the market, somepony called out to her.

“Peace, Princess,” Roseluck shouted from across the street. “Wonderful weather today. Thank you!”

Twilight stopped and stared. “Come again?” she asked, craning her neck.

“I said, nice weather today. Thanks for scheduling it,” Roseluck repeated. “I was worried for my begonias, but the cold front will do wonders for them.”

“Oh.” The diplomatic side of her kicked in on instinct. “You are very welcome. Enjoy your day.”

Roseluck held out an orange blossom. “Please.”

“Oh no, I couldn’t, please,” Twilight waved her off. “I couldn’t impose.”

Roseluck tucked the flower behind her ear anyway. “You’re too modest, Princess. Orange is in this season.” She closed her eyes and bowed softly. Twilight flinched. “You’ll be the coolest mare in court, Your Majesty.”

Twilight didn’t feel cooler. More clouds rolled in atop the old ones. Their ancient churning bodies reached out towards the reflective glass of Ponyville’s skyscrapers, clawing for life. They reached for the ground and tumbled off the edge of the glass into open space. She briefly wondered if she had been stabbed, or if she was going crazy. She took off her jacket and slung it across her back. What would she do next? She had options. Stray beams of sunlight cut through the overcast like memories of spring. Grabbing lunch or walking through the park--she would have to go home eventually. Or Rarity’s.

More sunlight came through. Strange lights flickered across the horizon, mirrored on the clouds. The sky moved faster. She was starving--hadn’t she eaten today?

The memory rolled over her like an overcast afternoon. She and Rarity had gone to the hayburger restaurant a few blocks from the castle, where one of the smaller skyscrapers now stood. The food wasn’t great, but they were running a half-off sale for military personnel. Twilight wasn’t sure whether she would need her old military ID or her current civilian ID to claim the discount, so she brought both and her jacket too, just in case. Rarity, not to be outdone by Twilight picking up the tab, brought her the sun hat as a thank-you.

The flower in her hat was orange, too.

16: Beat Your Cannons into Q-tips

Noir, shortly before marching off to join the war, promised himself that when a problem raised its pissbeak head, he would keep his chin down and hope it would aim at someone else.

It wasn’t a very honorable promise. Then again, Noir had no honor. Surviving in Equestria for the past few years assured him of it. The world moved too fast for him. Honor didn’t make sense.

When the train sped into the Chicoltgo station to take him away, he ducked between tearful goodbyes and promises of chastity and found a seat. On an impulse, he stuck his head through the window and watched the soldiers disappear into the train cars behind him. As they pulled away from the platform and the goodbyes turned to wails and faded into a rush of steam from the engine, Noir saw his face reflected in the window. The outline of his face slipped out of focus as Equestrian greenery gave way to the jagged rock of the Borderlands.

In the end it all worked out. The ponies slashed and stabbed and shot and firebombed their way through enough villages and strongholds to kill all the griffon defenders. Noir learned quickly that the honor of war came not in fighting better but by winning. Winning meant you got to go home, and home was where the honor was bestowed. In the field, honor went down with the dead. The honorable ponies had their high chins blasted off their faces. The honorable griffons were incinerated. The bombs fell like judgement. Honor from above.

In the end, Noir won, which meant he was the most honorable species on the battlefield by default. This meant none of these things bothered him while he slept. Was Noir less of a scumbag when he returned from the Borderlands? No. But he was more honorable.

He still had nightmares, but more about death than war. War was an opinion. Death was an unshakable tragedy--even to an honorable stallion like him. Seven years of peace could not undo the four of war. He wondered how many more it would take.

“Miss Rarity,” he spoke, twirling a pencil on his hoof, “do you understand the implications of such a promise?”

“I suppose I don’t,” she replied tersely. They were a few paces apart. Noir sat behind his desk, tapping his hoof on the table.

“The implication is other ponies die. One of the more racist billy goats--more racist than me, anyway--one of them lost his whole leg to a sniper when I didn’t pop out of my hole and shoot him. As he was getting carted off he told us, he said when a problem raises its pissbeak head, you have to keep your chin up so you could look it in the eyes.”

Rarity gave him a confused, bitter look. “I wasn’t aware carts could fit on the mountains.”

“It’s an expression. Somepony carried him on his back down the mountain. He still died.”

Between them, atop several half-penned contracts and a crushed piece of cardboard with the Sweet Apple Acres logo stickered to its side, sat a hooffull of bits.

“Your father died in the war, right?” he asked.

“That’s not something you should bring up in polite conversation.”

“But he did, didn’t he?”

“I brought that cider in the hope you would--at the very least not get drunk in front of me while I’m trying to talk business.”

“There is plenty of time to talk business. First I would like you to answer my question.”

“I don’t want to answer your question.”

“Then I don’t want to help you.”

It would feel wonderful to just slap Noir right across his face. Rarity moved closer to the desk until her knees hit the wood. Her hoof went up, then came down atop the bits. “Look at these, Noir. Look at them.” The way he recoiled into his chair as she shoved it into his face felt almost as satisfying as actually hitting him.

“What is so special about them?” Noir asked, yanking the bit out of her hooves and examining it down his nose.

“Look at the issue year.”

“SE 1016.”

“These bits are uncirculated. Brand new.”

“Okay. That’s nice. They look nice.” Noir’s eyes gleamed like the coins in his hoof. “Where did you get these?”

“I’m being commissioned by a high-ranking member of the Equestrian government. I have a way to get cash. I’ll have enough to pay the bank debt off by the end of the month. If I sell off my art at the same rate I am now--along with the private donations I’ve received from my friends, and now these commissions,” she said, “I’ll have enough to cover the whole debt.”

“Do I look like the ENB to you? Do you think I care about your affairs with them?”

“That’s what I’ve been leading up to. With this bank debt out of the way I’ll be able to focus all my efforts to paying you. When the ENB gets off my tail I’ll have all the time in the world to break even.”

“Don’t be that way.” Noir threw his voice up into the air so it sailed down like a parachute flare. “Do you even listen to me?”

“I’ve had my suspicions you’re just like you’re broken records over there collecting dust in the corner, but now I’ve confirmed it.” The pace of her voice quickened. Atonal notes flying up the scale. “I have done nothing but do as you say, time after time after time, I smuggled all your illegal candies and I bought into your ration card robberies and I let you take sixty percent of the goddess damn furs--”

“And now thanks to your blatant thievery, I’ve got the EQUIS breathing down my neck. That is your fault.”

“I can’t--”

“That is your fault.” His mouth flared like a trumpet’s bell. “Your fault. Do you know the EQUIS has sent a team of investigators to Ponyville to catch us? It’s not enough there’s some psycho Bonnie and Clydesdale couple out there shaking down boomertowns and interfering with your work--if that is what happened. Now the EQUIS is here. I can’t fight them with guns.”

“How much is my debt to you?”

Light from the overheads filtered through the smoke and sopped up the sound. The crespicularity hit Noir in the face. Four gleaming copper suns and one stylized moon shimmered like crashing cymbals on the desk.

Noir scooped the coins up and tossed them into the corner so they would stop ringing. “I am almost positive it’s more than five shiny bits.”

“Well?” she insisted. “I certainly can’t remember. I can’t remember how to do anything right now. You seem to be quite good at setting prices.”

“It is whatever I say it is.”

Rarity wailed before she could remember her place. “That is a grossly unfair answer for somepony who has been nothing but accommodating in delivering your riches on her own back.”

“So, do you think I owe you?”

“No, no that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying you should take our past dealings into consideration when deciding whether or not to firebomb my house.”

He had the nerve to chuckle. “Miss Rarity, the war taught me a great many things. One of them was how to live in the moment. You might die the next moment,” he hissed, reveling in his calculated punch and the unease it brought her, “so it’s important to get the most out of the present. Wring it dry--you owe it nothing. In a moment it’ll be the past, all dried up and sentimental. The world is not wine. It ages poorly. Right now, in this moment, you are a part of the problem. Now, I don’t go around firebombing all my problems.” He made an “O” with his lips and mimed an explosion.

Copper lumps rose in Rarity’s throat and sealed off her airway. She tasted bits on the back of her tongue and gagged, fighting down the urge to vomit her uncirculated currency all over the table. “Think about what this money could be. It could be--security from the EQUIS. Bribes are a long-term security measure. Burning my house down is hardly a security measure at all,” she spat as memories of her dead father exploded in flashes of red.

“Right now you are a problem to me. Tomorrow, you will also be a problem to me. Money can fix the short term and the long term. That’s why I need it. That’s why I need money. I need money. I need--” he slammed his hoof on the table. “I need money!”

The rimshot left his hoof aching. He reeled backwards into his chair. “You are a problem until you are a solution. That solution is money. You will walk out of this building a part of the solution. I promise you.” He pointed to Rarity and seemed shocked when she didn’t burst into flames. “I need more money. It’s that simple. I need more money. When the EQUIS comes knocking down my door, I will not fend them off with guns."

“What’s my debt?” Rarity asked feebly. “What’s the actual number?”

“If you do one more job for me, we’ll call our debt even.”

“I need assurances, Noir. I need assurances that as soon as this is over you’ll leave me and my house and my family alone.”

Noir threw his hooves up. The pipes clattered in the walls. “You have my word.”

Had they had this same conversation before? Go steal something--no--yes--no--yes--fine. The motions of pleading for her safety left Rarity feeling less scared and more lethargic. It wasn’t sparkling, nor was it on fire. A dangerous and passionate life of artistry spoiled the small everyday necessities involved with staying alive. Noir was the cashier at a grocery store. The thing he wanted stolen was somewhere in aisle 5. Smooth bossa nova jazz with a one-note melody played on the speakers. Was it really her fault she felt bored?

“What is my debt?” she asked again.

Noir placed a folded piece of paper on top of his desk and slid it towards Rarity. “The crystal heart.”

Rarity put her head in her hooves and studied the fine grains in the table. They lined up in uneven rows, like a bad postmodernist artist’s interpretation of a jail cell.

“I can’t.”

“It’ll be in Ponyville in a week’s time--”

“I know where it’ll be. I know why it’ll be there. I’m the ninth or tenth most powerful being in the world. And I’m telling you, I can’t. Nopony can.”

“It’s the perfect crime for a stallion in my position. With the right connections, I could bargain my pardon from the Equestrian government and still make a ransom sum.”

“Listen to yourself. If you somehow got your hooves on the heart, you’ll be pulling the pin out of the biggest grenade in pony history.”

“I’ll have the weight of two governments pushing against Celestia. She can’t become the queen who let the crystal heart disappear under her protection. She’ll listen.”

“She’s a princess, not a queen.”

“Queen sound scarier. They’ll call her a queen in time just like we called Staleighn a communist.”

“They’ll kill us both,” she replied with conviction. “If I don’t die stealing it, I’ll bring it back here and then we’ll both die. They’ll string us up in the Mountain and we’ll rot.”

“Calm down. This is not a discussion.”

“Oh my gods.” Rarity choked on her words. “I can’t do this anymore. You want me to die--I get it. This is how you kill me. You’re not trying to blow up my house, you’re just throwing me right into the path of a celestial meat grinder.” Her head swayed in time to the rhythm of her fragile voice, “I can’t. I really truly can not do it.”

“This is a nasty business,” Noir said. “But it’s business.”

“This is not business.” The music hit a dissonant chord inside her. Before she could flinch she slammed her hoof on the table. Pain shot through her leg, and she wondered if this was how Noir felt all the time.

“I wonder if all those animals whose fur you used thought the same thing right before they died,” Noir pondered. “Probably not--they’re animals.”

The room spun. Rarity remembered that she had sat in the spinny chair. She struck a resentful stare as her ride wound down. Her words felt familiar, like they had already been through this same ride before. There was Rarity in the chair. There was Noir across from her. There were the dim lights. There was the smoke, the shade. There was Ponyville outside. There was the dance. There were the strings. There was the comfort--the promise of more money.

“Miss Rarity,” Noir said, “if every real artist could be dissuaded by a single neighsayer, how many great paintings would not exist? Or books? Or music? Or--dresses?”

The dresses! At the mention of dresses Rarity all but collapsed. She wanted so badly to go home and close the window shades and focus on her sewing machine, put her head to the fabric and watch the needle almost drive through her hooves. Violence and its intimacy with the art of sewing relaxed her. The dresses were great, but the possibility of sewing herself into them on accident kept her excited. When she paused to look out the window she upped the chance of running her hoof into the needle and not even noticing it until she looked back down.

“I’ve got to go home,” she sighed. “I’ve got to go home and make a dress.”

Noir said nothing.

“You supported me for the longest time. You didn’t care about the furs, but you cared about what I did with them. You understand that sometimes, in order for an artist to push themselves, they must push society.”

“And the backlash--”

“The backlash doesn’t matter. All the taboo--it will be gone in a hundred years or so. Taboo today is shocking tomorrow is distasteful the day after and kinky by the week’s end. Right now my furs are confined to the griffon kingdom, but they will one day grace Equestria’s finest stores. I’ll be dead by then, but my name will live on.” Out came a sigh, an implied speech with implied wisdom. “But now I’m done. I need assurances. If I do this, you’ll leave me alone?”

Noir raised his right hoof. Metal-wheeled carriages scraped down the street outside, rattling and groaning. “You have my promise.”

It was then that the immense weight of time emerged from the smoke above and landed on her shoulders. Four years of war and seven of peace. Lifetimes, her lifetimes. The past never really went away, just refocused. A war went by, and she remembered the furs she made and the families she fed. Peace reigned, and she remembered the smell of jellied gasoline and chemicals, the whoosh of flames, the sight of her home as fire consumed it. The family was her own. The fire was the one burning on the western horizon as she stole the Crystal Heart. She remembered the pride of feeding her family through a famine and wondered where it had all gone.

She nodded her head.

“Excellent.” Noir clapped his hooves together. “Shall we toast to it?”

“If I get arrested,” Rarity mumbled, “The Crystal Empire will execute me like they did the griffon who stole it the first time.”

Noir replied, “They don’t use capital punishment anymore.”

Rarity walked to the corner of the room to pick up the bits Noir had thrown there, then weighed her options against them. She imagined fire. Starvation. Four years of war and seven of peace. “This are Crystalites we’re talking about. They’ll execute me on principle. They’ll do it in public.”

“You can risk them, or you can risk me.”

Her face contorted, a second piece of bad news delivered by a man in uniform. How many more until she was through?

22: Post-Expression

Frantic jazz exploded from the stack of speakers in the corner. Loose tools bounced across the tabletop. An ornate tranquilizer rifle propped against the opposite wall clattered to the floor. A tenor saxophone fell out of time and puked low notes.

Rarity took a sip from her teacup, her eyes sliding across the porcelain rim, slicing the bottom half of the room into white.

“Nasty business.”

She turned, and with a very unladylike roar smashed the teacup against the wall.

“I hope he dies,” she mumbled to herself as she recomposed herself and tightened the straps of her pack. All the anger inside her held together with mane ties and transparent glue splintered and dislodged. She thought about Sweetie Belle, the armed guards, the anonymous stallion who spun the grooves into their rifles--or did machines do that nowadays?--the tour guide who would not have a job tomorrow. She thought about Noir, and through no fault of her own she made a silent wish for his death. She hoped it would hurt, that his guts would spill out and hang there like fancy drapes. It was horrible, she knew it was--but at this point, it hardly mattered.

All her life she had wanted to do something big. Art could be death, and now she was about to find out whether or not art could also be life. Some expression.