"Can we hurry, Rainbow Dash?" The nervous edge in Pinkie Pie's voice cut through the throbbing din like a cake knife. "I think they're still watching us."

"I'm not surprised, after what you said to those doormares!" I tried a lame half-smile to calm her down but I was pretty jittery myself. With the rush of the sugar and the calm of the salt both wearing off at once, this strange and joyless place became disturbingly Real ... the two of us stumbling around the front entrance hallways of the Cirque de Sorraia, attempting to find a door besides the one leading directly back to the gambling floor. Were there this many twists and turns in the hallways when we came in? Couldn't recall; that was several hours ago. Or was it days, or years? Time moves differently in the barsinos. The outside world no longer registers. You check in but you don't check out. Not unless you're broke, fired, or dead. We saw that in the eyes of all the gamblers, but still we allowed ourselves to fall right into the trap ... how could I have been so stupid?

"There!" Pinkie, standing slightly behind me, pointed a hoof over my shoulder. "Is that the elevator?!"

I shook my head. "That's a double-door utility closet. Keep looking."

"Darn. Oh, Dashie, what am I thinking? We can't go near the elevator even if we do find it! That's just what they want ... to trap us in a steel box and take us down to the basement. So Gruff can finish us off!"

"Pinkie, Gruff isn't here. Don't you remember? We just said that to freak out the hitchhiker."

"If there was a race with gryphons, then Gilda is here. And if Gilda is here, her grampa is here. And if Grampa Gruff is here ... " She trailed off into a black silence. The Fear is strong with this one, I thought, but maybe she's on to something. Ever since we found the Idol of Boreas only to lose it again, he's been out to get us. I half expected to see his withered face leering out at us from the next door we opened, that scarred blue vulture eye gleaming with the thrill of terminal revenge as he raises his claws and --

No! I can't let it control me too. I have to be the strong one this time. Calm Pinkie down, get her out of here, don't mind her feverish chant of "hurry hurry hurry hurry." Just make it back to the Minty. Turning one last treacherous corner, I saw an open window and knew what to do.

"Hold on," I whispered.

She understood instantly, throwing her hooves around my neck. We soared right out the window into the cool night air of the city, gliding towards the rear parking lot where the Great Red Dragon waited. When we got back to the Minty, I flew Pinkie straight out of the car and up to the window of our room, bypassing the lobby entirely; no reason to risk another scene in there, I thought. The window was almost entirely closed, no way to get in - but before I knew what was happening Pinkie had squeezed through anyway and opened it the rest of the way for me.

It was dark and quiet. No sign of trouble. "Okay, Pinks, we're back. We made it."

"Lock the window!" She zipped around the room, investigating every nook and cranny, presumably to see if anypony had come in and searched our belongings. Then she whipped not one but two hotel keys out of her mane and stared at them. "Guess we didn't need these, huh? Say, where did this one come from?"

She held up a key with an unfamiliar number on it.

"That's Sandy Parchment's room," I said, suddenly remembering. "She wanted to meet us here. I think the magazine sent her."

"Probably as a spy!" Pinkie shivered. "I saw her last night in the bar. She was trying to flag us down as we got on the elevator."

"Well, why didn't you hold the door?"

"We had other problems. You were seeing lizards and tossing your cookies."

I feel my cheeks turning red. "Oh ... yeah. That. She must be wondering what happened to us. I should probably go up and visit her, huh? Maybe we can compare our notes and still throw together a decent article here."

My friend shrugged. Something made me stop and take a closer look at her. She was still watching the floor, and her hair hadn't poofed up quite right. She wasn't herself yet. The scene in the Cirque had shaken her up pretty bad. To a pony like Pinkie Pie, parties are the Way and the Life, and Las Pegasus is the Promised Land. It's one big party, the party, 24/7 and 365 'til the sun burns out, or so the advertisements say. It must have been a nasty shock to visit here at last and see it was more like one big neon funeral: ponies assembling from all over Equestria just to stand in lines and stoically mourn the loss of all their bits, faces grim and feverish, chasing the ghost of The Big Score ...

"On second thought," I say, turning on the bedside lamps, "I can drop by Sandy's room tomorrow. Let's you and I stay here and just chill."

"It's already chilly in here, Dashie," she smiled without humor.

An idea sprang to mind. "We can make it warmer instead. Your sister gave me something special to surprise you with."

She immediately perked up. "A surprise present? For me?! I love surprise presents for me!"

I dug into my saddlebags and whipped out a large canvas pouch with 'Pie Family Rock Farm' inked on it.

"Maud's bath salts? But she never gives those out!"

"Except when a Doctor of Journalism promises to bring her back some rocks from the San Palomino Desert," I said. "Remind me to grab some before we leave."

"Thank you thank you thank you thank you!" Pinkie Pie gave me one of her most bone-crushing hugs before taking the pouch and diving all the way from the window to the bathroom, landing gracefully in the tub. "Grab the hay cubes and turn up the music! Sound! Singing! Bass! We must have bass!"

I complied while she turned on the faucet and poured in the pungent minerals. Before long she was submerged in green water and the gramophone was cranking out the first good vibrations of the day, a mind-bending group called The Nags. We each downed our first hay cube in unison, and gasped. The resulting cacophony of spices - sodium, dried tomato, basil, cilantro, lime - shot straight from my tongue to my brain, weaving sinuously into the music until my senses all seemed to join together, wanting to melt into one whole; needing only a source of heat to carry me higher.

I looked up at my friend and saw a huge, rapturous grin on her face, eyes glittering from the oasis, and I knew she was soaking in the very same experience I yearned for. Without a word I jumped in with her, and the warmth was indescribable; enough to purge all the dark thoughts that had been creeping through our minds since we arrived. I could actually see them leaving us, black oily things twisting helplessly and evaporating in the rising steam. Others would replace them, I knew; eventually the water would cool, the cubes would wear off, and we would remember we were still stuck in Las Pegasus, duty-bound to stay until the magazine was satisfied or the city swallowed us whole, whichever came first. Pinkie and I were like cake and frosting, but this went beyond friendship. In that moment we were one, and the night was ours, pure and unspoiled.

"Dashie," she said a few hours later as we climbed into bed. "Tell me about the Mares in the Moon."

She never gets tired of that story, no matter how many times I repeat it. And each time the memory grows a little stranger, never more so than on this nervous night in the desert. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era - the kind of peak that never comes again. What I didn't understand until very recently was that Ponyville, in the last few years before Nightmare Moon's return, was a special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run ... but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch the sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant ...

Twilight's history books call them Lunarians, but they had many names: Stargazers, Mares in the Moon, the Night Watch, Lunar Republicans and more. History is hard to know, but even without being sure of all the facts and dates it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash. My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or even forty nights - or very early mornings - when I left flight camp half-crazy and, instead of going home to my worried parents in Cloudsdale, streaked through the sky at nearly the speed of sound to reach the blue house next to the train station, or the tents at the foothills of the Canterlot Mountains, or even the lights at the border of Everfree Forest. Those were the only places I could find ponies who were just as wild as I was.

I wasn't a Lunarian myself; I didn't worship Nightmare Moon. I guess I never saw much sense in worshipping anything. But I was one of the few outsiders they trusted, and after hanging out with them I understood the appeal. Nopony was against Princess Celestia, but she was safe and familiar. Her sister was exotic and mysterious, and they would be the first generation to see her in a thousand years. Plus, how could the idea of eternal night not capture the imagination? They were convinced that Nightmare Moon's return would force a reckoning; not a war for the throne but a righting of old wrongs, a new age in which the dark was no longer feared but loved. Everypony has a vision of the Great Equestrian Dream and that was theirs. The old legend said "the stars will aid in her escape," and the Lunarians believed it. They gathered every night, wherever somepony had a telescope and the sweets were good, wanting to see it happen. Most of their friends and families didn't know they were involved in the group, and those who did wanted them to stop. But there was a fantastic universal sense that whatever they were doing was right, that they were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.

Needless to say, things changed when Nightmare Moon actually returned. We discovered what she really was: dangerous, authoritarian, threatening my friends. In helping Twilight Sparkle defeat her, I had done the right thing. Any faintly rational pony could see that. So, being very young and ... let's face it, pretty dense and self-centered at the time ... I didn't understand why some of those Ponyvilians looked so unhappy with me afterwards. By destroying Nightmare Moon, I had also destroyed their Dream. She was gone forever, leaving behind a sadly contrite anachronism called Princess Luna who would be allowed back into the royal chariot as it were, even trusted with a certain measure of power; but it was blindingly obvious to everypony that big sister was still holding the reins.

The history books will say that I made five very important new friends that night. But I lost a lot of old ones, too. Some of those ponies still won't speak to me and I can't say I blame them. On some nights, when everything is quiet, I fly all the way up to the highest spires of Canterlot and look south to the ruins of the old castle. With the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

The decision to flee Las Pegasus came suddenly. Or maybe I had planned it all along, in the back of my mind; the race was over and I'd written as much about it as I could think of, so why spend any more time in this floating sweat box? The bill was a factor, I think. Because I had no money to pay it. The Crown is legally responsible, of course; we signed nothing ... except for those room service tabs, which we shouldn't have. Now the Minty expected us to cover them. I'm a full time professional flier and part time writer, not a mathematician, and we never knew the full total anyway ... but seconds before the fight-or-flight reaction kicked in, my friend figured we had run up somewhere around 50 bits an hour, for forty-eight consecutive hours. A tad exorbitant to say the least.

"That's crazy," I said, staring frog-eyed at the totals Pinkie had calculated on the back of our last receipt, trying to ignore all the smiley-faces where zeroes should be. "How could it happen?"

But by the time I asked this question, there was no one around to answer it. My friend was gone.

She must have sensed trouble. She had replaced her sunglasses, said "I'll be back," and vanished from the room before I even knew what was happening. I could only hope she wouldn't be long. In the meantime ... panic. All these horrible realities dawned on me, creeping up my spine one after another. Here I was all alone in Las Pegasus with this expensive electric carriage, completely twisted, no spare cash, not even a decent story for the magazine - and on top of everything else, a goddess-damned gigantic hotel bill. We had ordered everything into that room that equine hooves could carry. Imported watercress, exotic southwestern lizard food, long-handled curry brushes, and about six hundred bars of translucent pink soap. The whole car was full of it - all over the floors, the seats, the glove compartment. Pinkie had worked out some kind of arrangement with the maids on our floor to have it delivered to us, six hundred bars of this weird transparent shit, and now it was all mine. Assuming I got out of here with my knees intact.

It is a weird feeling to sit by a closed hotel pool at four in the morning, hunkered down with a notebook and a gramophone warbling "one grain over the line, sweet goddess", saddled with a fantastic room service bill run up in two hours of actual reporting and forty-six hours of total madness, knowing that as soon as dawn comes you are going to make like Zephyr Breeze and take off without paying a single bit ... go tromping out through the lobby and call your red topless carriage down from the garage and stand there waiting for it with a suitcase full of dietary contraband ... trying desperately to look casual, conspicuous rainbow mane covered by a huge sombrero from the gift shop that would send Rarity into convulsions of laughter, hiding behind today's edition of the Las Pegasus Sun with a front-page headline screaming "ELEMENTS OF HARMONY CRASH SHORES CONCERT" ...

Any sane pony would have conceded, by that point, that the jig was up ... but I have always found sanity to be a mere inconvenience. Besides, this was the final step. We had taken all that cursed luggage down to the Dragon hours earlier. Now, it was only a matter of slipping the noose. But the minutes were ticking away and still no sign of the car. The waiting was maddening. Every instinct told me to just fly out of here; I was much too fast for any of these ponies to catch me, but I couldn't face Celestia if I came back without her wheels. Pacing, twitching, sweating, losing control. I could feel my whole act slipping -

And then I saw the Dragon, swooping down from a ramp in the next-door garage. Deliverance! I slung my saddlebags over my back and trotted outside. Very casual, very typical, yes indeed. Easy now. No sudden movements. Almost there.

"MISS BLITZ!"

It was the name I'd checked in under. The voice came from over my shoulder.

"Miss Blitz! We've been looking for you!"

I almost collapsed on the curb. Every cell in my brain and body seemed to sag ... no, I thought. I must be hallucinating. There's no one back there, no one calling ... it's a paranoid delusion, brought on by one of the many goodies sampled earlier that morning ... just keep smiling and walking towards the car ...

"AURORA BLITZ! Wait!"

Shit! He was real. No sense in running. With a shudder I turned to face my accuser, a small young earth stallion with a big smile on his face and an even bigger yellow envelope on his hoof. "We knocked on your door, but you weren't there. Then we saw you standing outside."

I nodded, too tired to resist. By now the Dragon had rolled up beside me, courtesy of a smirking valet who immediately made herself scarce, but I saw no point in even tossing my bags inside. They had me.

The clerk was still smiling. "This telegram just came for you," he said. "But actually it isn't for you. It's for someone named Dash, but it says 'care of Aurora Blitz.' Does that make any sense to you?"

I felt dizzy. It was too much to absorb at once. From freedom to some atavistic debtor's prison, and then back to freedom again - all in thirty seconds. I staggered backward and leaned on the car, feeling the vinyl upholstery with my trembling front hooves. The clerk, still smiling for some reason, was poking the telegram at me.

I nodded, barely able to speak. "Yes," I croaked. "That makes sense." I accepted the envelope and tore it open with my teeth.

URGENT SPEED LETTER

RAINBOW DANGER DASH
C/O AURORA BLITZ
SOUNDPROOF SUITE 105
MINTY HOTEL LAS PEGASUS

WHERE IN TARTARUS HAVE YOU BEEN YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO MEET ME TWO DAYS AGO TO COVER THE RACE STOP MAGAZINE OFFERS NEW ASSIGNMENT FIFTY THOUSAND WORDS MASSIVE PAYMENT CROWN WILL COVER ALL EXPENSES STOP THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF DIETICIANS INVITES YOU TO THEIR FOUR DAY SEMINAR ON DANGEROUS SALTS AND SUGARS AT DUNES HOTEL STOP WE HAVE RESERVATIONS AT MUSTANG LODGE EVERYTHING ARRANGED MEET ME THERE AT NOON AND BRING YOUR NOTES SO WE CAN FINISH MINTY 500 STORY STOP DO NOT LEAVE LAS PEGASUS REPEAT DO NOT LEAVE LAS PEGASUS STOP

SANDY PARCHMENT

I hate reading telegrams, but the message is clear enough ... just when I thought I could get my tail out of this city and be home free, those Canterlot sadists are dropping another assignment on me. I quit. I can't go through with it; there's no way. So what if they're offering more money? That's how they get you in this town; they give you enough chips to get hooked and then you're theirs, hopelessly in debt and begging for mercy, living on the street corner by the casino, carrying your own riding crop for the customers' convenience, selling your body to minotaurs just to get a good meal ...

"No!" I rasp, still holding the paper and trying to blink away those evil words.

"You mean it's not for you?" the clerk asked. "I checked the register for this mare Dash. She wasn't in there, but I thought she was part of your group."

"She is. Don't worry, I'll get it to her. Yes sir, you can count on me. Have to run. Very busy with, er, certain business. No minotaurs, no thanks. I'll be going now," I babbled clumsily and clung to the side mirror, anxious to flee.

"And one more thing, Miss Blitz," he said. Something in his tone made me stop and look at him again. His grin had suddenly taken on a malevolent tinge. "There's also the matter of your bill."

I froze, staring back at him through a fresh haze of naked terror. My heart felt like it was going to plummet straight out of my body, through the earth and all the way to Tartarus. The sick little bastard. He was enjoying this.

"Why don't you come with me, Miss Blitz ... if that is your real name."

"That won't be necessary, Check Box," a deep, rich voice chimed in from behind him. We both turned to see a solidly built dark brown pegasus stallion with a thick auburn mane and impressive mustache stroll up to the curb. His green and black pinstripe employee jacket matched the clerk's, except for the gleaming gold tag that said 'BOTTOM LINE - MANAGER'.

"Mr. Line?" Check Box faltered, his smile finally gone. He looked like a foal who'd just had his favorite toy taken away.

"Miss Blitz," the manager said firmly, "Happens to be a very important client on extremely sensitive business. I have assurances that her account will be settled. You may have already cost her precious time. Now if you would be so kind as to return to your post at the desk, I shall attempt to smooth things over and salvage this hotel's reputation with the Crown."

The young clerk turned red and made a choking sound. "Y-yes, sir!" he stuttered, hightailing it back to the building.

"Allow me to properly introduce myself," Bottom Line reached up and his face promptly split in two - courtesy of a hidden zipper - to reveal a mess of pink curls and mischievous sky-blue eyes. It was ridiculous, impossible. Costumes that perfect did not exist in real life. But then ... it was Pinkie Pie.

"Pinks," I sniffled, almost dizzy with relief. "You ... you're too good for this world."

"Hurry," she whispered.

"What about you?"

"I read the message. I'll catch up. I'll even muster and relish!" my friend giggled, zipped up, and was instantly Bottom Line again. "As I was saying, we sincerely apologize for the delay, Miss Blitz. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to be getting back. This hotel's not going to manage itself ... especially Room 105. Whoever stayed there really trashed that place."

With a smile I dove into the driver's seat and hit the juice, sending the car squealing across three lanes of traffic. Luckily it was too early for many carriages or chariots to be out on the road, so I made it down the street without killing myself or anypony else. Time was of the essence. I had to get away. A pony like myself is most comfortable in motion; driving would help me relax and ponder this incredible telegram from my correspondent. It was true; I was certain of that. There was a definite weird urgency in the message. The tone was unmistakable ...

On one hoof, I was in no mood or condition to spend another week in Las Pegasus. Not now. Not with all the bits I owed and a gryphon out for my blood. My friend pulled off a bonafide miracle to spring me loose, and I had pushed my luck about as far as it was going to carry me in this town - all the way out to the edge, in fact, and now the wolves were closing in. I could smell the ugly brutes.

On the other hoof, there was an argument for staying on. It was treacherous, absurd, and stupid in every way: a gonzo journalist in the grip of a seemingly constant sugar-frenzy being invited to cover a task force of anti-salt, anti-dessert enforcers gathered from all over Equestria to discuss the Nutrition Problem. But there was a certain bent appeal in the notion. For that matter, I would also get a wicked little thrill out of running a savage burn on one Las Pegasus hotel and - instead of becoming a doomed fugitive on some highway in the San Palomino Desert - just wheeling across town and checking into another Las Pegasus hotel. Repaint the car, take the sombrero, keep a low profile, avoid the slots, and I just might pull it off.

It was dangerous lunacy, but also the kind of thing a true connoisseur of edge-work could really make an argument for. It could be done ... with the proper supplies. Let nopony ever say that Rainbow Dash is afraid to live on the edge. And most importantly, I wasn't going to abandon my best friend in a place she hated - no matter what. If she had the gumballs to stay here, then so did I.

Dieticians, do your worst.

Author's Note

What next? I beseech the ghost of Mr. Thompson and await an answer, perhaps in vain ... but one never knows. We are diverging sharply from the source material now. The body twists and warps, but the spirit survives, I hope. Does the witch hunt control our lives? Are we destined to be foot soldiers in the War on Sugar? No, I say! It is a day of thanks; be merry. Save some room after that turkey for dessert, and do what Aurora Blitz and Dr. Gonzo Pie would do: indulge with joy.