Returning Home

Chapters

Broken Mirrors
Reconnaissance
Settling In
The Journey Ends
Okay How About Happily Ever After?
Fine! Don’t Listen to Me, I’m Just a Title!
Right, right, so... Projecting
Rifts
The Cracks Widen
Side Story
All Her Fault
Things Get Worse
Finding Rosy
The End
I Said The End
That’s It. I Give Up. I’m Leaving.
Pretend There is Door! I Just Slammed It.
Where’s the Title? Oh No! This is the Worst Possible Thing!
Out of Nowhere
I Said The Journey Ends, Dammit
No Don’t Try to Stop Me, I’ve Made Up My Mind
The Beginning

Broken Mirrors

Pinkie Pie woke up early in the morning, way earlier than she usually woke up. It didn’t help that she was camped out on the floor of her own room, but there was also a commotion downstairs, somepony knocking at the door and calling out politely if Pinkie Pie is awake in Twilight Sparkle’s voice. Pinkie struggled to her hooves, and stretched catlike, popping out her back and putting that spring back in her tail. Then she hurried downstairs, where the muffled sound of Twilight’s voice could be heard:

“Ohh, I hope she’s awake. I knew I should have waited until dawn I just knew it.”

With a wry smile just to herself, Pinkie Pie pulled open the door and greeted her awkwardly winged unicorn friend. “Hey Twilight!” she said pleasantly, “What’s up?”

“Oh good, you’re up,” Twilight said in quick relief, walking forward as she spoke, until Pinkie had to move backward to avoid the mare running into her. “I hope she slept well, the theory of alternate verses really is fascinating you know, I wonder if she knows anything about the mathematics involved, it’s all supposed to be quite proven to be impossible, of course, and yet here she is. Do you suppose she ran afoul of a powerful wizard, or a princess even, or a queen who banished her here for some awful transgression she committed? Oh, the possibilities are just—”

“Twilight!” Pinkie squeaked desperately, unable to back up anymore, as she’d run her plump rump right into the other wall.

“Huh?” Twilight said vaguely. She backed up, grimacing then, saying, “Sorry, it’s just I’m really excited about the possibilities of the mare actually being from another—do you think she’s available?”

“Well,” Pinkie offered a little more calmly, “Did you get any sleep last night?”

Twilight was trying not to blush as she weakly protested, “Maybe?”

“And what happens after you don’t go to sleep for a looong time?” Pinkie said patiently.

Twilight snorted, saying testily, “I sleep it all off when the crisis is passed? Listen, if you’re worried about me it’s—”

“No, it’s not that,” Pinkie cut in. “It’s just that this filly had a crisis last week, and she didn’t sleep for days, either! So... she’s probably gonna be sleeping a while.”

“...oh. Well, I can wait,” Twilight said, with an embarassed, yet disappointed smile.

“Okay,” Pinkie said, trotting a few steps away from her friend. Turning over her back to look at her though, Pinkie said uncertainly, “Can I get ya anything?”

“Oh, I’m fine Pink—” Cue her princessly stomach to start grumbling.

“How about I go start cooking up some cinnamon rolls?” Pinkie said.

While the day dawned, and Twilight waited for her cinnamon roll, Pinkie kept glancing to the back area nervously. The Cakes lived back there, along with their two adorable little foals. The twins hadn’t been a problem just yet, but if they were too rambunctious, they might wake up the mare, and they were always rambunctious in the morning. Nevertheless there wasn’t much she could do about it, so Pinkie used Twilight’s visit as motivation to get an early start, getting things warming, and unwrapping previously prepared pastries to start out sales in the morning, while the bakers got going on the next round. She made sure to start warming a pot of canned soup, even though the bakery didn’t sell soup, for obvious reasons.

The twins were the ones who woke up their parents, from the sounds of it. But maybe it was the wonderful smells that woke up the four of them. The noise wasn’t too bad though, and the new mare didn’t come downstairs. She was probably sleeping pretty soundly. Twilight Sparkle got her cinnamon roll, and that was especially important because if Pinkie knew anything about Twilight, she probably hadn’t eaten last night either. Twilight was calmer and fuller that way, watching Celestia’s morning sun shining over the horizon, through the assortment of tarts and pastries on display trays in the window.

Pinkie found herself starting to get worried about the mare upstairs again. What if she had woken up and was too shy to come down? What if she woke up and didn’t know where she was, and got really scared? So Pinkie put aside her baking duties for a moment, tossed her apron up onto a hook and trotted over to Twilight.

“Enjoy your breakfast?” Pinkie asked hopefully. Twilight nodded with a grateful smile, some sugary glaze still clinging to her muzzle.

“Thanks Pinkie, I hadn’t realized how hungry I was.”

“No problem,” Pinkie answered brightly, “Say, I was gonna go check on the mare just to make sure she’s doing okay. You wanna come with?”

“Would I!” Twilight declared excitedly, jumping straight up off her haunches. “The mare’s point of entry is just crawling with a kind of magic I’ve only read about before, extraspatial harmonics with a negative frequency! It’s what you would observe in theory if wormholes existed, and I’m starting to think that maybe they do! Do you—”

“Uhh, could we ask her, maybe?” Pinkie asked anxiously. “I’m a little rusty on my theoretical physics.”

“Oh, right, yes. Ask the dimensional traveller, that would be a good idea,” Twilight stated. “So... lead the way?”

“You can count on me!” Pinkie cheered (quietly), and went bouncing lightly for the kitchen. When Twilight followed her that way, instead of going upstairs, Pinkie turned and blushed embarassedly, saying, “Sorry, Twilight. I was just going to get her some soup. Be right back!” Twilight waited there at the base of the stairs, until Pinkie had poured out a bowl of salty vegetable broth, closing the lid on the serving bowl and placing it and a glass of water on a tray on her rump for safe transport.

“Okay!” Pinkie whispered, sidling up next to her friend. Pinkie led the way up the stairs to her own room then. Pinkie Pie gets to live in the cupcake, by the way!! Twilight followed up the stairs, and at the top, Pinkie carefully nosed open the door she’d left partially ajar. Her room was still dark with the curtains drawn, but Pinkie could vaguely see Gummy in his bathtub/terrarium, and the sleeping figure of the mare still lying in Pinkie Pie’s bed.

“One sec!” Pinkie whispered to Twilight, and then carefully froghooved into the room. The mare’s breathing was even, and she looked very peaceful there in Pinkie’s bed. But... maybe the mare didn’t have to stay asleep, since Twilight was waiting so patiently? And it had been like ten hours, so... it would probably be good if she tried to eat something else, by now.

Instead of waking her right away, Pinkie partially pulled open the curtains, and set the soup down on a table beside her, opening the lid enough to let the smell pervade the room. Then Pinkie gestured Twilight into the room, and led her over to where Gummy was sleeping. Or... whatever it is that he does. He stared, blinking slowly up at the both of them, as Pinkie whispered, “Hey there Gummy! You want Twilight to feed you, little guy?”

“But—the mare?” Twilight asked in confusion, looking over to the lump on the bed.

“Just let the soup do its magic,” Pinkie whispered assuringly, “We’ll give Gummy his food and then she’ll be all ready to wake up.”

Twilight nodded approvingly, saying quietly, “That’s very astute, Pinkie.”

Pinkie smiled and nodded, making a mental note to think of fun things to do with that incredible word. Astute! Stootey... toot? Right, so Twilight got to drop little fake jelly worms into the tubrarium, where Gummy snapped them right up. Once he wasn’t chasing the worms anymore, she and Pinkie went back over to the bed. Nudging the mare’s side gently, Pinkie whispered, “Wake up, sleepyhead!”

“Mhm?” the mare mumbled, sleepily opening her vivid blue eyes. “Oh—” she quickly inhaled, looking down at her hooves in surprise, and clutching the covers. “Oh—” she repeated, staring at herself dumbfoundedly, and then joyfully. “Oh, I’m okay!” she said, eyes closing in pure, sweet, unadultrated bliss.

“You want some soup, miss Okay?” Pinkie said, gesturing at the bowl to the mare. The mare looked wide-eyed at Pinkie, then looked at the bowl and with a flat expression said confusingly enough,

“Oh, a lid. Of course.”

But then she blinked and sat up more, looking at Pinkie with shimmering eyes, saying, “Thank you so much. That would be...”

And then her eyes kind of snapped to where Twilight was standing just behind Pinkie. Biting her bottom lip, openly staring, yeah this mare had a fan crush so bad on the new princess. The mare blushed heavily then, and tore her gaze away from Twilight, saying unsteadily to Pinkie Pie “T-thank you so much.”

Pinkie just removed the lid with the edge of a hoof, saying hopefully, “Well go ahead, dig in. It shouldn’t be too hot.”

The mare looked at the bowl, and then Pinkie, and then leaned towards the bowl, and then looked at Pinkie again.

“How do I...” she said uncertainly.

“Do you not have soup in your native verse?” Twilight cut in with tense curiosity, drawing the mare’s entire attention again. Twilight was trying to sound like she knew all about that sort of thing, but it was kind of a silly assumption to make. Still, what was going on with this mare?

The mare blinked at Twilight like a deer in a hunter’s sight, then replied in utter confusion, “What? No, we have soup. I just... how do I eat it?”

“Like this?” Pinkie tried, pantomiming taking a sip of soup right above it, going “Mmm, nomnomnom!”

The mare just looked at her blankly.

“So I just—” the mare said, tilting her head down, and looking at it uncertainly, then just... sticking her tongue in the bowl? She gave a disapproving hst at that, pulling her tongue back and staring at the soup hungrily.

“You don’t have bowls in your native verse, of course!” Twilight crowed triumphantly. “You see, a bowl is a concave receptacle for hot liquids and cereal, that—”

“I know what a bowl is,” the mare snapped frustratedly. “But how do I use it?”

She eeped then, and hid her nose under a hoof, looking at Twilight again.

Twilight blinked at her. “The... bite grip?” she tried uncertainly.

“Thank you! Yes. What’s that?” the mare exclaimed eagerly, her nervousness suddenly forgotten again.

“There’s a lip on the side...” Twilight said, gesturing vaguely with a hoof, “You bite that, so that you can lift the bowl.”

The mare pulled back and looked at the bowl’s lip, realization dawning in her eyes. Biting down on the rim of the bowl, she successfully raised it up into the air. She spilled a little soup, but Pinkie was going to wash her sheets pretty soon anyway. With a paranoid amount of care, the mare took a little drink.

Putting the bowl down, she said thoughtfully, “It’s not very convenient if you can’t talk while holding it...”

“Some ponies hold the bowl in their forehooves,” Twilight suggested, “But it’s common etiquette to only pick up the bowl when you’re drinking soup. With your mouth, I mean.”

The princess strode a few steps closer to the mare, looking at her looking at the bowl in fascination, in fascination. “So, they have bowls in your verse,” Twilight said in a hinting tone of voice, as the mare attempted another sip, “But they have a different design?”

The mare had to pause to put the bowl down again. “Oh, they’re the same design,” she said, with an even, blue eyed gaze at Twilight. “But they have a different use for the lip of the bowl, what you call the bite grip.”

“Really? What’s that?” Twilight asked curiously.

The mare stared at Twilight and opened her mouth as if to speak. Then, she blinked. Then, she looked down thoughtfully at the bowl again, mumbling, “I don’t... know...”

“I don’t suppose you could take care of her up here for a bit,” Pinkie said to Twilight, with an uneasy glance downstairs. Nothing smelled like it was burning, but she wasn’t sure if the Cakes were out there watching stuff yet. “I still have some things baking that I need to go check, and still some setup to do.”

“No problem, Pinkie,” Twilight said with a happy smile, “And thank you for this chance to get to know her better!”

The mare stopped in fumbling with the glass of water to look at Twilight nervously. Which was strange, because it was usually Pinkie Pie who made new ponies nervous—not that she tried to do so. Twilight was always the one who calmed them down and got them to climb down off of the flagpoles. So that had to be what was happening here, even if the mare seemed totally comfortable with Pinkie, but nervous around Twilight. Pinkie was probably just reading things wrong again.

So she left them, calling over her shoulder, “Mi casa su casa! Anything you need, just go ahead and use it.” Then she went trotting lightly down the stairs, returning to the downstairs kitchen to resume her incredibly exciting routine baking and setup procedures. First, Pinkie checked the—

Twilight Sparkle was at a loss. What do you ask an extradimensional traveller? Twilight didn’t want to seem snobbish, but she didn’t want to seem ignorant. Heavens knows, Equestria must have seemed a backwards, primitive verse, from the perspective of one who had mastered travelling between them. If it even was possible to travel between them, that is—but what else would explain that strange phenomenon the mare led them to, by her hoofprints in the snow? It couldn’t be a trick; performance art and theoretical physics just don’t mix! But... what to ask her?

“D-do you think I could um...” the mare said a bit desperately, leading Twilight to notice that she was unsuccessfully attempting to brace the drinking cup between her hooves in order to drink from it.

“Oh, no problem miss!” Twilight said pleasantly, levitating the cup and tipping it slightly forward that the mare could get a grip on it with her teeth. The mare stared at that in a frightened sort of fascination, but didn’t bite it. Did she not use cups the same way?

“It doesn’t have a bite grip, but it’s lighter so you should have no problem taking it in your teeth,” Twilight said. “Just firmly brace them, without biting down hard, and they should tighten reflexively at the weight on them.”

“I uh, drank from a cup before. It’s just I’ve never seen your magic,” the mare said, sounding superbly starstruck. “Is it—what does it feel like to do that?”

“To lift a cup?” Twilight asked uncertainly. The mare nodded.

“It’s um... I just wrap my magic around the cup and lift it,” Twilight said uneasily, “It’s kind of hard to explain to an earth pony—um, not that you’re stupid I mean, just you haven’t had a horn to deal with. It even took me a while to figure out how to just... lift a cup, but it was a long time ago, and I was a very little filly. Do they not have unicorns, where you’re from?”

“No, they don’t... they don’t have any of this,” the mare said, and then she at last took a drink. Twilight released her magic, and the mare spluttered as the cup’s weight tilted against her teeth, and would have lost it, and the water again, were Twilight not already ready with her horn.

“Careful!” Twilight said, levitating the water back into the cup, and the cup over to the mare again. “Sorry, I thought you had it.”

“Just... didn’t know you were going to let go of the cup,” the mare said equally awkwardly, “I didn’t know the um... common etiquette for that, if you hold it the whole time or not.”

“It really is fascinating how your verse’s ponies are so different from our own,” Twilight said, as the mare drained the cup completely dry, without once spraying the water all the way across the room in surprise.

Twilight placed the empty glass down on the tray, as the mare shyly smiled at her and said, “Thanks... Twilight. Or do you prefer Princess Twilight, or Twilight Sparkle?”

“Twilight is fine. We’re all friends here,” Twilight said bashfully, “And no need to thank me. You certainly aren’t going to be at your best in such a strange situation. Tell me, in your world you have no unicorns, and no use of bite grips. From what I’ve seen here, you seem to want to manipulate everything with your hooves. Is that how you do it, in your old world: stop and lift everything with your hooves?”

At that question, the mare gave Twilight the most strangely anxious look, and said meekly, “In my world, I don’t... have hooves.”

O.K. recalibrating here. “You don’t have—huh?? But... you do have hooves!” Twilight protested, pointing at the mare’s pretty cream hooves. Pretty filthy, at any rate.

“I sort of... changed into a pony,” the mare said, wincing as though she were squeezing the words out of a vice grip. “I don’t know how, or why, but I just... woke up like this. I used to be a... um... do you know what humans are?”

“Vaguely,” Twilight said, waving a hoof, “Mythical Monsters Made Manifest mentioned them, once. I think they’re native to Zebri—wait, you were a human?”

Instead of answering, the mare just stared at Twilight open-mouthed again. About what? If she’s such a huge fan, then surely she knows about Twilight’s prolific reading habits!

“I’m sorry it’s... yes, I was a human,” the mare said, shaking her head abashedly. “I must have transformed... that’s why I said I wasn’t supposed to be a pony.”

“Oh my,” Twilight said, her thoughts racing! “You really are in trouble, then! Not only did the transfer process take away your home and loved ones, but also thrust you into a strange form, totally alien to you!”

The mare grimaced as a sort of smile, and said, “No, it’s not so—” but Twilight was on a roll, declaring proudly,

“Well, worry not! You won’t have to be a pony for very much longer, if I have anything to say about it. You’ll be back to your old self before you know it! I’ve already got at least onetwo ideas for new spells that might be able to lead you safely back home, restoring your human form, all highly theoretical of course. I just hope your transformation won’t give you a negative opinion of ponies in the future.”

“I really don’t mind, I just...” the mare glanced down at her hooves again. Probably loathing them. It would be just like if Twilight woke up with a... a beak one day!

“It just takes some getting used to,” the mare said in forced pleasantness, trying to make Twilight feel better by looking at her with an honest smile. But it was clear this mare was suffering silently.

“I’m sure I could get you back quicker, if you tell me about the process by which you came here,” Twilight said hopefully, “Does your verse have dimensional travel as a commonplace thaumology? You clearly didn’t come through with any equipment, or in the most ideal of situations. Are you an explorer of alternate verses? Or a diplomat, perhaps? Was there a terrible accident in the laboratory that—”

“No, no, I’m just... I’m not anyone special,” the mare insisted, holding both her hooves up defensively still laying there in Pinkie Pie’s bed. “Nobody knows me, or c-cares, I’m pretty much nobody. Nothing special about me, and c-certainly I wouldn’t have access to technology that could do... this.”

“Were you a test subject of an experiment?” Twilight tried.

“Sometimes I wonder about that,” the mare grumbled quietly, but then looked at Twilight and added in a normal tone of voice, “No, I’m just... someone. With nothing anyone would remember about.”

“Then how did you get here?” Twilight asked utterly perplexed.

The mare looked at Twilight, face full of worry.

“If you tell me, then I can get you back, and you can return to your normal life,” Twilight said insistently. “That’s why I’m asking, because I want to help you!”

The mare’s eyes darkened at Twilight’s words, and she said in a curiously calm voice, “I don’t remember anything. I just went to sleep in my bed, and woke up face first in the snow, as a pony. It’s really okay though—”

“Oneirology isn’t unheard of for its influence on boundaries of reality,” Twilight mused, “But there are pretty hard limits to what a dream can project. I’m sure you’ve pinched yourself at least once in the past week of searching for Ponyville.”

The mare blinked at her, saying, “Uh, how does a pony pinch ...herself?”

“...by nipping your own arm?” Twilight replied confusedly. “It was just a bit of bad humor. But I can work with that. Somehow, your dream state must have become empowered with reality warping properties, that landed you here, as a pony. Yes, that could hm... well, it’s... something, at any rate.”

The mare huffed a frustrated sigh. Wait, frustrated? “Never mind,” she said glumly, “I just wanted you to know that I’m okay. B-being a pony.”

Why was the mare being so polite about it? Twilight raised an eyebrow at her, but decided not to comment further. Especially not when the mare then decided to ask, “Oh, do you know if there’s a mirror in here?”

“I think so, but this isn’t my room, so no promises,” Twilight said cautiously. “Why do you need a mirror?”

“I have been able to see myself a little bit in water, and windows,” the mare said, “But I haven’t seen a mirror yet. I’m just curious what I really look like... as a pony.”

“Well alright. I’ll see if there’s anything in her closet,” Twilight said contentedly, swinging the closet door open in her magic, “Pinkie has that sort of free spirit attitude, you see. She did say our home was her home, so it should be fine.”

When Twilight poked her nose in the closet, she found a rather large, swivelling full length mirror in there. Because it was Pinkie Pie. While Twilight rolled it out, the mare climbed down off the bed.

She immediately slid down on her rump like a foal, before carefully picking herself up onto all fours. Standing and lifting her head, the mare seemed stable, yet looked curiously at each leg, lifting them to test her sense of balance. Twilight wasn’t sure, but she did seem to recall that humans were bipedal, like minotaurs, so this must have been an extremely unnerving experience for the mare. But, she did ask to see a mirror, and it couldn’t hurt, right?

“Okay, if you’re sure about this,” Twilight told the pink haired mare, Twilight’s magenta hued magic sliding the mirror over their way. “But I want you to know,” Twilight nervously added, “That you are very aesthetically pleasing as a pony, even if you are a bit filthy, currently. It might disturb you to see this, but I assure you that you look very normal, even if it might seem strange to you.”

“I think I’ll manage,” the mare said with a shaky chuckle. “So um...” she tried to tilt her head around to see in the mirror, “Bring it over here, please?”

“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Twilight said reluctantly, presenting the mirror for the mare. Sure enough, the mare got very quiet upon seeing herself, revealing neither happiness nor sadness about what she saw. The mare lifted a hoof, then looked at it, then looked at the mirror again in a dazed sort of shock.

“I’m Twinkleshine, without a horn,” she said flatly, sounding disgusted yet amazed. She planted her hoof down again, continuing to silently regard herself in the mirror.

Twilight herself raised an eyebrow at the mare’s choice of words. “I wouldn’t say that,” Twilight argued. “Her snout isn’t as rounded as yours, and she has oval eyes, I’m pretty sure—wait, how do you know Twinkleshine?”

“Well, I’ve... seen her, um...” the mare said, pupils narrowing while Twilight squinted at her.

Feeling quite a bit peeved, Twilight seethed, “Are you seriously that much of a crazed fan, that you even have to stalk my friends in—”

Twilight’s brain screeched to a halt.

“How do you know Twinkleshine?” Twilight repeated at the mare, Twilight’s concern quickly growing, as she said, “How do you know my name? How do you know anything? You’re a human mare from another world! Another verse! An entirely different reality! How did you know about Sugarcube Corner? How did you know Pinkie Pie, and me? How could you be a fan of us, if you live in an entirely separate reality from our own? Were you spying on us across the dimensions? How? Were you sent here intentionally, to target us? Why would your verse want to target the Elements of Harmony, if not for malicious intent! Do you have that capability? What are you going to do to us?!

“How did you know my name?” Twilight demanded of the mare, “How did you know my name?!”

Absolutely terrified, the mare barely managed to squeal, “Twilight, the mirror—!”

(crack)

The mirror cracked, which is to say, the entire mirror cracked, not just the glass. The glass itself shattered and fell, as Twilight’s magic went numb at the realization that she’d just destroyed what had once been her best friend’s mirror. The frame broke into two pieces as it landed, and Twilight desperately grabbed what remained, to little avail.

It was enough to shock Twilight out of her panic though, and she shook her head at the mirror, telling it, “I’m so sorry, Pinkie.” She really hoped it didn’t have sentimental value.

Twilight turned to look at the mare evenly then, who’d fallen on her rump again and backed against the wall. It all made so much sense now. Twilight didn’t know how she did it, but somehow this mare had them all fooled. It had been so convincing, too! But now that the flaw in the mare’s argument came forth, it was obvious that what Twilight had discovered was, while an incredible feat, also an incredible ruse. Still, for her to go to this much effort...

“We’re not gods,” Twilight told the mare somberly. “We’re just ponies, who happened to be at the right place at the right time. Yes I have wings, and yes I did save the Crystal Empire, but not alone, and not just with those 12. It’s perfectly alright if you want to respect and admire me and my friends, for what we’ve achieved as ponies, but can’t you see this is going too far?”

“What...?!” the mare squeaked in frightened confusion.

“This!” Twilight gestured at the mare’s fallen form in general, while summoning a basket to deposit the glass shards in. “You went and starved yourself out in the wilderness, and you constructed some sort of highly advanced magical... prank, just to get my attention? Just to impress me? I’m a princess, not some kind of deity, missy! Why couldn’t you just... take the train to Ponyville, and talk to me? You think your magic can’t impress me, just by showing it to me?”

The mare just blinked at her, speechless.

“This is about Trixie, isn’t it?” Twilight said a little bitterly. “You think that it’s just a big game of one-upmareship, where you have to be bigger and better than her, or I’ll just be a big snob! Is that what you think?”

“I don’t—a snob? Trixie?!” the mare said, her eyes tearing up despite herself, as she braced unsteadily on her forehooves. “What are you saying?”

“I want you to get your friends,” Twilight told her cooly, pulling the mare up to her face in her magic, “And have them all report to me at the library. No more grandstanding, no more risky stunts, no more lying to the pony you’re trying to impress. Get all your fellow fans to the library, and I’m going to have a very long talk with you about the consequences of putting a pony up on a pedestal. Being a fan is one thing, but what they did to you, or you to yourself, is entirely unacceptable.”

“How am I supposed to do that?!” the mare wept as she hung there helplessly, “I don’t even know how I got here! I don’t even know any fans; how would they all fit in the library?”

“I didn’t mean all my fans,” Twilight said rolling her eyes at the struggling filly. Well, technically mare, but she was surely acting like a filly. “Just the ones who orchestrated this. Don’t tell me that you worked alone.”

“I... worked alone?” the mare parroted, just like she wasn’t supposed to do, and that got Twilight’s hackles up enough. Then, the mare said, “Orchestrated? I didn’t orchestrate anything!” and before Twilight could rebuke her for lying again, the mare exclaimed in tearful exasperation, “How do you even know about the show?!”

Twilight took a breath, then noticed her mouth was hanging open, and closed it. The... what? She opened her mouth to speak again and... what? “What show?” she asked, suspiciously. “Are you talking about a stage play?”

“N-no, more like a movie,” the mare wibbled.

Twilight shook her head, saying, “Are you asking for movie rights? Because there are channels for that sort of thing, that don’t involve pretending to be a lost traveller from another verse.”

“I am a traveller from another verse!” the mare bawled, intensely disquieted. “I have a s-show that I watch, that’s like a movie and you’re all in it! That’s how I found you! I mean that—that’s probably why I got sent here, because... because I wanted you to be real!”

“Okay, let’s just...” Twilight rubbed alongside her horn tiredly, “Let’s just start over again.”

“Twilight, what did you do?!” Pinkie Pie shrieked, as she burst in through the doorway.

“Oh, the mirror?” Twilight said with a nervous grin, “Sorry I got a little too—”

“Not the mirror!” Pinkie shouted, launching herself to tackle the mare right out of the grasp of Twilight’s magic, “Her!”

Twilight looked at the mare that Pinkie was hugging, who was now crying into her friend’s fluffy pink mane. The mare looked really upset, like she couldn’t stop her tears from coming. A bitter edge to her breathing, as if somepony had made her... cry.

Guilt welled up in Twilight like inky black oil from depths of the earth. “I’m so sorry,” Twilight said softly, but that seemed to upset the mare even more! “I didn’t mean to—” Twilight said, “This is serious, I mean... I just wanted to impress on you... I was just...”

And now Twilight was beginning to feel tears in her eyes. “Ohh!” she stomped in consternation, and lit up her horn. Winking out with a bright magenta flash, Twilight appearing no less than 300 feet away from Sugarcube Corner, before she decided to run away on her own hooves.

While Twilight had her very fascinating and eventful breakdown outside, Pinkie Pie found that the mare calmed quickly, once Twilight left.

“She’s a lot scarier in person,” the mare mumbled into Pinkie’s shoulder.

“There there,” Pinkie patted her on the back, “It’s all right.” She pulled the mare to arm’s length, smiling at her and saying, “You doing okay now?”

“I’m sorry,” the mare said, guiltily looking away from Pinkie Pie. Huh?

“What are you—” Pinkie started, but the mare looked at Pinkie Pie again, pleadingly this time, saying,

“I’m just not... it’s just so different! I’m not used to... being this way. I didn’t think I would feel so s-scared about it. I couldn’t even think! I...”

“You’re talking about how you were a big, brave humin, instead of a timid little pony, huh?” Pinkie suggested. The mare started to shake her head, then bit her lip, and switched to nodding her head. Huh.

“Yeah, that’s it. I’m just... ponies are really brave, though,” the mare said shakily. “Ponies are really brave,” she repeated more steadily, “And I’m just so much more...”

Lifting her hoof up between her and Pinkie, the mare rubbed the crook of the cannon against her cheek, and tried a smile. Pinkie didn’t know what to do. She left her to her own devices, backing up to give the mare some more space. Maybe it was a bad thing to do, but Pinkie Pie just wasn’t sure what to do at this point. Hug? Dance? Play? Party? Or just... not do anything? Could you do that?

Laughing nervously at the moisture she could see on her arm’s fur, the mare said, “I’m just so much more emotional now. I haven’t been able to cry in... in a good long time. And now I c-can’t not cry.”

“You want ponies to make you cry?” Pinkie declared in utter confoundment. A pony who didn’t like smiling? She’s happy because she’s sad?

She seemed calmer at least, as the mare said to Pinkie in a terribly solemn voice, “It’s a lot worse, when you have so many tears inside, and you just can’t let them out.”

That... hit Pinkie a little harder than it should have. She didn’t let it show, though. As Pinkie spoke with the mare that morning about silly, light hearted and inconsequential things, she wanted to know more about what this mare went through, but the mare really didn’t want to talk about it. And Pinkie Pie of all ponies could understand that.

So, leaving the mare to take a long needed shower, after teaching the mare how to take a long needed shower, Pinkie just had to get to baking and wondering. Baking, and wondering if the mare would be okay, and if there was something really, really wrong with her, and maybe Pinkie was wondering just a little bit about herself. When was the last time she cried? Not just to be funny. Like, really, for real cried? Pinkie couldn’t even...

She couldn’t even remember.

The sounds of the open market were starting to drift around, as ponies arrived and set up their stands. It was a quiet hubbub that gave Applejack that little fluttery feel inside, the excitement of starting another day with four barrels full of cider and a whole array of treats, preserves and apple butter, with good expectation that it’d all be sold come the afternoon.

She was just warming up the kettle of spiced cider when Twilight came along. Applejack would have tipped her hat at her friend, but the farm pony’d taken to wearing a wool stocking cap this time of year, and that didn’t really have a brim to tip.

“Howdy Twilight,” she told the approaching royalty.

“Oh, hello Applejack,” Twilight said in a seriously glum tone, her breath fogging the chilly morning air. Twilight Sparkle didn’t look like she was in the best of moods, so maybe the question Applejack had in mind wasn’t the best question to ask. You didn’t gain nothing by keeping it bottled up inside though, and Applejack reckoned Twilight came here to talk about it anyways.

“How you been?” Applejack asked all friendly-like.

“Just peachy,” Twilight drawled unconvincingly, not looking Applejack in the eye. “Listen, can I ask a favor of you?”

“Cider’s 2 bits a glass,” Applejack said with a hopeful smile, “Take it better part of an hour to warm though. It don’t taste right if you heat it up fast.”

“Not the cider! I—oh. Ha ha,” Twilight failed to laugh, rolling her eyes. “No, I just need your advice.”

“Ain’t that what friends are for,” Applejack mused, kicking a leg out to lean against her apple cart. “Now what can I do you for?”

“Well, see, there’s this mare,” Twilight said. “And I can’t tell whether she’s trying to hurt me or not, or whether I’m... accidentally hurting her. I really felt like we were connecting with each other, and then everything got out of hoof, and now I’m not sure if I should even approach her again. I don’t know if I should pursue her and try to mend our relationship, or just leave her alone, like she seems to want.” Glancing aside nervously, Twilight said, “I know you don’t want to be the go-to pony for loyalty stuff, but I really just need an outside opinion on this, and I think you’d have a better idea of what’s going on than me.”

“Look, ah don’t judge, Twilight,” Applejack said in a calming tone, “You cain be with whoever you wanna be with, and ain’t nopony got any right to criticise, just because she’s a mare. But it’s up to her to choose to be your special somepony.”

“I’m really not in the mood for jokes today, Applejack,” Twilight said in exasperation.

“About askin’ me a favor?” Applejack returned, confused. Twilight Sparkle squinted at Applejack cautiously, but the farm mare just looked at her with concern and Twilight didn’t say any more on the subject.

Instead, Twilight shook her head lightly and explained, “Pinkie Pie took in a homeless mare yesterday. It was all very sudden, but she seemed to think that the mare was special somehow.” It sounded like Twilight was getting into lecture mode, so Applejack busied herself getting a few more sticks in the cider’s fire, while turning an ear towards Twilight speaking at length of course.

“And she was special, it turns out,” Twilight said, “She has no record, no history, not even a name. Never seen in any neighboring towns, according to Pinkie at least, this mare just... wandered out of the woods yesterday, half frozen, starved and exhausted. She— she claimed to be from another world, Applejack. Another verse! From a totally different plane of existence!

“I thought she was just buttering us up at first,” Twilight continued fervently, “To get a free meal or something. And then I thought she was one of those crazy fans that not even Princess Celestia can get off our tails. So to prove that she was lying, and not really from a different reality, Rainbow Dash and I went to where the mare said she’d come from. Before the snow last night, it was pretty easy to follow her trail.”

Twilight shook her head, saying, “There was a portal there, though! Or there certainly used to be. There was a localized magical disaster! Something blew a hole in that forest 300 feet wide, and there was a magical signature there that I found completely unrecognizable. Me! The laws of physics were practically head over heels in that... that crater. So obviously she was telling the truth! And somehow she... came from another world.”

Twilight fiddled on her forehooves at that point, so Applejack said, “Fraid ah don’t see what the problem is here, Twi. You talked to Dash, the mare’s tellin’ the truth, so what’s the holdup? You really think she came from another world?”

“No, and that’s the problem!” Twilight retorted with a stomp. “I mean, yes... and no. I don’t know what happened in the woods, half a week ago, but something big definitely happened. I wrote to the princess last night. I think we’re going to have a whole team of arcanists studying the thing! But...

“Certain parts of the mare’s story just don’t check out,” Twilight said worriedly. “She knew us, Applejack. She knew my name before I even told her. How would she know that, if she was an entire world away from us? I don’t mean to be modest, but we’re not that famous! Are we?”

“I don’t rightly know, Twilight,” Applejack replied. “That hocus pocus stuff is a bit over mah head. But what did she say about it?”

“I tried to ask... okay, I was moderately upset with her, and tried to... get her to confess to setting this all up as some sort of elaborate prank,” Twilight said with a guilty wing lift that would’ve done Rainbow Dash proud. “And she just got so upset... I may have freaked out a little bit, and maybe I kind of... made her cry. So...”

“So you wanna know how to apologize to the mare without scarin’ her again,” Applejack said evenly.

“S...something like that, yes,” Twilight admitted, “But what I wanted to ask you was if I’m being unreasonable about all this. I mean, there are two explanations here, both of which are completely ludicrous. The first explanation is that the mare is some sort of strange creature who portalled here from another dimension using heretofore unknown thaumology, coincidentally got changed into a pony while doing so, and has no idea of how it occurred. And this other world has been somehow monitoring my life all the way back to Canterlot.

“The other explanation...” Twilight sighed, “Is that there is a group of fans of the Elements who are so crazy about us, that they developed an entirely novel magical field which has never been seen before in the arcane community, just to impress me more than Trixie did. Upon achieving this phenomenon, they then had one of their members wander in the forest for two days as if totally lost, in the middle of winter without any protection, just so that she could pretend to be a visitor from another world.”

“So... you think it’s crazy that she might be from another world,” Applejack said carefully, “But you think it’s crazy that she’d pretend to be, on account of what she’d done to convince you?”

“That’s about the sum of it,” Twilight said with a grateful smile. “I’m really sorry to dump on you like this, it’s just... I really need to figure this out, because if it’s the former then we might have a crisis on our hooves, and if it’s the latter, then we have a group of dangerously unstable ponies out there, wielding a completely unknown form of magic. Should I dispatch scientific teams, or law enforcement?”

“Well, eum...” Applejack scratched the ground musing, “What’d she say to get your attention when she tracked you down? Somethin’ all fanfillyish?”

“No, she... she didn’t approach us,” Twilight said thoughtfully. “Pinkie directed my attention towards her, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think she wasn’t looking for us at all.”

Applejack shook her head, saying, “Then her intentions ain’t obvious one way or another. Ya got two explanations alright, and neither of ‘em make a lick of sense. Don’t matter how dangerous it is then, since you cain’t tell what that mare thinks of you. You gotta talk to her, and learn more about her, but ya gotta have some tact, and... just... don’t let her rile you up. You want me to try talkin’ to her? You know how you can get all, kinda... well... y’know.”

“I suppose the first mistake was leaving me alone with somepony,” Twilight said with a morose, flat-eared sigh.

“Now don’t be like that, Twilight,” Applejack set an arm on her friend’s back... wings. Right. Wings now. “Somethin’ got you riled up, and I don’t care if’n it happens every Tuesday, you ain’t gonna get riled up without a good reason. Now I got customers comin’ but if you and this mare, what’sername?”

“I—I don’t exactly know yet,” Twilight admitted nervously.

Applejack continued steadily, saying, “So this... mare and you can come have dinner with me, and I’ll do mah best to suss her out, and keep both of you on the same page. That sound good?”

Twilight smiled at Applejack, saying, “Thanks... I really am worried about it, but it’s not like the world is going to end in half of a day. I should probably get some sleep, anyway.”

Twilight did look kind of frazzled and sleepless like she gets sometimes. So Applejack smiled back and said, “There, see? Get some sleep and ah know you’ll have no problem with yourself.”

“Right as usual, AJ,” Twilight smiled. “So, dinner at your place, I suppose?”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Applejack heartily agreed. “If there’s one thing that can bring out the best in a pony it’s a good, home cooked meal!”

“I better hold my appetite then,” Twilight said, quickly licking her lips, “But I don’t suppose a mug of cider will fill me up too much.”

Hovering her cheek above the surface of the cauldron, Applejack said, “Could be hotter temperature-wise, but it’s sure to warm your heart.”

Twilight laughed freely, and bought herself a tasty mug of cider to boot. Then, she went striding off to the library, to get a nice, good, long nap. When her counter spell woke her up with a gentle dinging noise, Twilight felt... marginally more pony than when she went to sleep. One of the frustrating things to find out about being a princess is you actually couldn’t cut back any more on sleep, even if you could do more while awake.

Twilight slid out from under her covers post-nap and rolled smoothly to her hooves, stretching like a cat until her back popped, then looking out the window at the grey sky overhead. So hard to tell the time of day, this time of year, but Twilight’s internal clock gave her a fairly good idea that it was getting on toward early afternoon. That was one thing that had improved upon her ascension, which was nice and convenient, even if a counter spell was more accurate.

Taking a calming breath in and out, Twilight Sparkle prepared to see about getting that mare over to Sweet Apple Acres.

Of course the mare wasn’t at Sugarcube Corner when Twilight got there. “She went out for a walk,” Mrs. Cake told Twilight. “A young mare like her was probably dying of boredom all cooped up there upstairs. Said something about working out the soreness, quite a sensible idea.”

“Any idea where she went?” Twilight asked hopefully, but Mrs. Cake shook her head.

“But we did manage to get her a little more presentable,” the plump blue baker said as an afterthought. “Just to get the worst out of her coat, and comb out her hair a bit. So don’t go looking for a mare who’s covered in burrs and holly now. She probably didn’t go far. The poor dear was still so exhausted, she was practically walking like a foal this morning!”

Twilight did find the mare nearby the bakery, seated up on a bench and all swaddled up in a nice thick shouldercoat. Too big for her, it was probably Mrs. Cake’s own coat. That family of bakers was so giving when they saw somepony in trouble, it was amazing. There was actually another pony sitting with the mare when Twilight found her, one of the hometown Ponyville unicorns, Twilight was pretty sure.

“You would be surprised how many ponies come down to the lake, especially on weekends,” the one pony said. The conversation prompted Twilight to vaguely remember the mare having been around the local swimming hole, which would explain the story mark of twin dolphins, but Twilight simply couldn’t place her name. She had a striped blue mane, and a lavender coat a shade somewhere between Twilight’s and the mystery mare’s.

Twilight really wasn’t sure how she felt about the safety of this. On one side, it looked like just two ordinary ponies having a normal discussion. On the other side, it looked like just two ordinary ponies having a normal discussion, one of whom was either a powerful, dark sorcerer, the tool of a powerful, dark sorcerer, or an alien visitor from another world.

Nevertheless, that was as far as the conversation got before one of the two mares noticed Twilight standing there looking their way. The pink maned one with blank thighs was facing away from Twilight, so it was the blue maned one who stopped talking first, and her eyes widened abruptly upon seeing she’d caught the interest of Twilight Sparkle. Pony Medley’s 100 Easy Steps to Joining a Conversation did say you should listen to the conversation for a bit, but it didn’t say anything about what to do if ponies suddenly stopped talking in your presence. So instead Twilight just blurted out,

“Hi! Hi. I’m really sorry to bother you. I just wanted to uh...” (lead you to my friend’s house so we can secretly interrogate you), “Find out how you were doing!”

“...me, your majesty?” the blue haired mare said, wide-eyed.

“I think she means me,” the pink-haired one said to the blue-haired one, which was indeed the case, before turning to face Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight had the attention of the mysterious mare out there on a park bench in the chilly winter day. Now if only she could figure out what to say to her.

Author's Note

Numeric slang among ponies:

• four = 10

• score = 20

• dozen = 30

• bunch = 100

• hundred = 1000

• onetwo = 12

• oneun = 11

To count by the earth pony system, carry after 3, going straight to 10. There is no fourth numeral. If you are dealing with large numbers, you might want to consider using the Clever numerals instead.

Reconnaissance

Pinkie Pie helped Mrs. Cake with their guest, an unremarkable looking mare possibly from another world, who needed now to dry herself off from the shower. Mrs. Cake was right there with a towel herself, and very interested in the mysterious pink haired pony. “Oh my, that does sound like quite an ordeal!” the soft blue Mrs. told their guest, using the towel in her hooves to scrub the worst of the water out of the mare’s pink mane and creamy white neck. “You spent days outside, in the middle of this winter weather?”

“Well, it was the closest I’ve ever come to dying,” the mare admitted, her soft pink hair still drooping over her eyes despite scrubbling it fluffy with the towel. “But that’s just because I haven’t done anything really daring before then. I’m sure other ponies go through stuff like this all the time. I made it to Ponyville okay, and I’m here now, so... so I’m okay with getting lost in the woods for a while.”

“Still, you shouldn’t be getting into those situations,” Mrs. Cake fussed, pulling the pink haired mare to lay on her belly in front of the dryer. The mare stared under her hair at the hot air vent in fascination, as Pinkie and Mrs. Cake fluffed out the moisture from her fur. “I hope you’re not planning to do anything like this ever again,” the cake matron said warningly.

“Oh,” their guest said, turning her attention to Mrs. Cake, or what of Mrs. Cake that could be seen of her through those pink bangs, at least. “Oh I definitely agree,” the mare said emphatically. “I won’t ever do anything like that again.”

She lifted her bangs with a hoof to peer at Mrs. Cake, but the industrious mare had already gotten a few hairpins in her mouth, and leaned forward, pinning the mane up to stay out of this mare’s eyes, without looking too artificial.

“Say, you’re good at this,” the mare said, looking appreciatively at herself in the mirror. “You can’t even see the pins! Is that how you get your hair to...” she looked at Mrs. Cake, swirling her hoof uncertainly.

Mrs. Cake chuckled at that, saying, “Not entirely, dearie. I do use a bit of mousse, and glitter on occasion, but I’ll let you in on the secret...”

Pulling a previously unseen hair stick out from her mane, Mrs. Cake revealed the very funny fact that she grew her bangs out, in order to fold them a few times, and pin it in place. It made her mane look like piped frosting, and now it just flooped down over her eyes even worse than their guest. Both the guest and Pinkie Pie giggled at that, though Pinkie had already seen Mrs. Cake’s undone mane before. But Mrs. Cake was just so funny!

Taking a moment on her haunches to pin her mane back into its folded frosting appearance, Mrs. Cake beamed in satisfaction, while their guest said to her, “That’s so neat! I didn’t even know you could do that with a mane!”

“Oh ask around,” Mrs. Cake suggested pleasantly, “You’ll find a lot of mares have their own tricks to a well behaved mane. You can’t always keep your mane in top shape from a positive attitude alone!”

Pinkie Pie leaned veeeeery close to Mrs. Cake, who looking at her, grudgingly admitted, “Well, unless you’re Pinkie Pie.”

The mare found that incredibly amusing for some reason, which was great as far as Pinkie was concerned. Free laughs! It made Pinkie feel like sunshine inside.

“Some ponies even dye their manes different colors,” Mrs. Cake continued to explain, “Or have them permed!”

“Like the mayor dyes her hair grey?” the mare asked.

Mrs. Cake blushed at that, saying in a subdued manner, “Oh, well, we... try not to talk about that anymore. It’s the mayor’s private business, but between you and me, I think she does it to look more dignified. There was a bit of a scandal about the mayor’s mane a while ago, involving some scamps you might see around town, the Story Mark Seekers?”

The mare stared, stunned.

“...something I said?” Mrs. Cake asked uneasily, lifting a hoof as she tilted her head at the mare in confusion.

The mare shook her head, breaking her frozen stare. “No, no it’s just... so... um... so, story marks, huh?” she asked emphatically, peering down at Mrs. Cup Cake’s cupcakes.

“Yep!” Mrs. Cake said brightly, turning her flank the mare’s way a little more so she could see the trio of cherry frosted cupcakes with a cherry on top, “I’ve been a baker since I was a filly. That’s how I met Carrot, in fact. Not a terribly interesting story, really. My parents and I were baking up a storm, and I just thought how great it is that I can do this for ponies. Carrot and I had a bake sale, and bam, story mark! He had his mark later, when we were working at a pastry shop in north Ponyville... well, it used to be there, until we opened our own store closer to to downtown, opening up Sugarcube Corner!”

“That’s a more interesting story than I have!” the mare said, gesturing with a forehoof at her blank hindquarters laid flat on the floor.

“Oh, well you’re young yet...” Mrs. Cake said with an unconvincing smile of appeasement, “I’m sure you’ll find your mark any... uh... time now!”

“Even if I don’t ever get a story mark,” the mare replied, continuing to look at her blank rump without the slightest bit of insecurity or remorse, “Just being here in Equestria is enough for me.”

Then she tried to stand up.

Her limbs quivering, the mare groaned and sunk all the way down to her belly. “Maybe not being sore absolutely everywhere would be good, too,” she mumbled against the floor grumpily.

One chilly, overcast day, in search of their mysterious, possibly otherworldly visitor, Twilight Sparkle found the pink and cream mare just sitting on a park bench, chatting with a blue haired pony who bore twin dolphins as a story mark. This young mare may have been terribly dangerous, but in fact she looked completely innocuous. She was just sitting there like any pony in Ponyville, having a conversation with a Ponyville born unicorn (rather than one of the more recent unicorn transplants from Canterlot)

Twilight didn’t exactly know the name of the unicorn with the blue mane. As for the cream colored earth pony mare, with her light pink mane more well combed now, curling merrily around her ears? Twilight didn’t even know if she had a name.

So while Blue-hair gaped at Twilight, Pink-hair attracted Blue’s attention. Facing forward, the pink haired mare calmly told the blue haired one, “I was sort of... Twilight helped me out yesterday, so she probably wants to talk to me.”

Turning her head in a full half circle to look over her back at Twilight, the pink-haired mare looked dizzy as she said, “Woah...”

...but recovered quickly from her inexplicable disorientation, and said to Twilight, “I–I’m really sorry about this morning, Twilight. I know you didn’t mean any harm, I’m just a little... out of sorts lately.”

“Yes, I’m really sorry about that—wait, you’re sorry?” Twilight said, blinking in surprise.

“I think we both got off on a bad foot,” the mare answered amiably to the purple princess standing just beside the bench these two were sitting at. “I do feel much better, now that I’ve had a chance to eat something... and Mrs. Cake let me borrow her coat. I’m not sure how you do um... payments in Ponyville. I... really don’t know what to do about getting a job.”

“You and me both, sister,” the blue haired pony laughed, “The lake is iced over until—” She looked at Twilight wide eyed again then, and stuttered, “O-oh, I mean, I-I’m sorry, Princess.”

“No, it’s fine, really,” Twilight said uneasily, in response to the blue haired mare’s nervous staring at her. She wasn’t sure what to do to calm—

“I’m pretty sure she’s the princess of Friendship,” the pink-haired mare said to the blue-haired one in an admonishing tone. Whose name was... something. Rrrgh, some princess of Friendship Twilight was, couldn’t even recall a mare’s name who’s been in town longer than she has. At least with the pink-haired mare, Twilight had an excuse for not knowing her name!

“What is she going to do to you,” Pink-hair joked to Blue-hair, “befriend you to death?”

Blue-hair blinked and gaped at the other mare, then whispered loudly, “Are you insane?! This is the princess! You can’t just—” and then she seemed to notice she was whispering loudly in front of Twilight, and clammed up again, an absolutely fake smile plastered on her face.

“Look, please, just...” Twilight exclaimed, trying to hold her wings tight to her sides. “Just pretend I’m not a princess, okay? Just—I moved here a dozen years ago, as a graduate student and a new librarian. And I just—just think of that, not what happened to me. Now can we have a normal conversation? I’m Twilight Sparkle. And who might you be?”

Twilight couldn’t help but notice both mares were not staring at her in surprise, but were instead staring in surprise at something slightly over and beyond her right side.

“And... Pinkie’s pantomiming behind me again, isn’t she,” Twilight said, turning her head behind herself to greet the enthusiastic pink pony, who was right behind Twilight Sparkle.

Pinkie Pie said, “Hi, Twilight! I was just checking on noname here and I just wanted to make sure you weren’t scaring her or anything, you know with your super princessy scariness because ponies are a bunch of big—”

“Okay, Pinkie, I get it,” Twilight interrupted tactfully, saying, “I’m much more well rested now, and I’m just asking her if I can—”

“Thiis is Sea Swirl,” came Pinkie’s voice behind Twilight. Twilight turned forward to face the bench again, and Pinkie was suddenly there, holding up the forequarters of a very anxious looking blue haired pony with deep pink fur. “She’s the Ponyville swim coach, and she takes ponies to the beach, for parties!”

“Aheh heh,” Sea Swirl apparantly said, trying to look confident and brave as she weakly waved a hoof. Then Pinkie bounced beside Twilight, and heaved under her chest, to lift Twilight partially into the air, saying,

“And this is Twilight Sparkle, my best friend! Did you know she’s a princess? ”

“Everypony knows that, Pinkie Pie,” Sea Swirl said in a wry drawl, then glancing nervously at Twilight again. Should Twilight what, do something silly to defuse her tension? Or would that just make ponies think she was crazy? In the end, Twilight just couldn’t think of what to do, to stop Sea Swirl’s assumptions about her, but at least Pinkie had given her one of the pony’s names.

Twilight turned to the mystery mare again, addressing her, while trying to ignore any “super princessy” stares she was getting from Sea Swirl, saying, “I just wanted to ask, if you would join me for dinner this evening, with my friend, Applejack.”

The pink haired mare turned her head to look at Twilight just a little bit sideways. She looked terribly excited, but at the same time terribly scared, and in general terribly conflicted about something. Worried about that look of alarm, Twilight hastily added, “I do want to talk with you about things, I admit, but she’ll um—she’ll be there to um... mediate?”

“Twilight wants you to meet her friend,” Pinkie whispered loudly in the mare’s ear. Wait, when did Pinkie get back over to the bench? Ugh.

“Yes,” Twilight confirmed happily to Pinkie and the mare. “I think you’ll love Applejack, and especially her cooking. So, I mean I didn’t expect you’d be busy or anything, but—”

“Do I really have to meet her?” the mare asked in a disappointed whinny. “I know I’m gonna have to meet you all, but I wanted to make it last at least a little longer than this.”

“What? You don’t have to meet Applejack,” Pinkie Pie blurted out, totally flabbergasted. “But she’s our friend! Why don’t you want to meet her?”

“Look, I just... I can meet her,” the mare sighed in conflict between the two mares, “I can, I guess. I mean there’s nothing wrong with it. I mean... fine we’ll go meet Applejack sometime.” She sighed resignedly.

“It should be okay,” the mare concluded, “I feel much better from yesterday. Still really sore, heh... actually I kind of barely made it out this far. I’ll probably be back at Pinkie’s after this, if... that’s okay with her and the Cakes.”

“Oh, I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you as much as Pinkie is,” Twilight said confidently. “They might seem businesslike on the surface, but the Cakes have a heart of gold between them. You just focus on recovering as much as you can. Listen, I’m sorry to try and... press you for meeting with Applejack. Really it’s for my sake more than yours. I just think she’d be good at... um...”

“Telling if I’m trying to swindle you or not?” the mare prompted thoughtfully.

“I wasn’t going to say anything, but yes she is good at... measuring a pony’s character,” Twilight replied, rocking on her hooves a bit cagily. “But I’m sure we both know that genuity is always the best policy, and you don’t need Applejack there to display basic pony courtesy.”

“Right, sure,” the mare said, not sounding as if she believed it herself.

“Great!” Pinkie announced between them, “Then it’s settled.” She pointed at the mare saying, “You take as long as you need, and don’t worry I didn’t need to sleep in my bed, anyway,” and then she pointed at Twilight and said, “And you don’t worry if the mare is gonna like your friends or not. Because she’s totally going to like Applejack!”

“I’m sure I will,” the mare said giving Pinkie Pie a guilty wince. “ I’ll be feeling better tomorrow, too. I didn’t get hurt I think. Just worn out, and a bit scared for a while there.”

“Well, no need to be scared any longer,” Twilight said, “You just focus on getting better, and I’m sure you’ll be reunited with your family before you know it.”

“Oh, right... that, ” the mare said glumly, suddenly refusing to look at her. “No hurry there, just... I will focus on getting better.”

“Did... I say something wrong?” Twilight asked, as the mare looked away. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Oh, no it’s fine, really!” the mare said, forcing herself to look at Twilight. “I’m really... grateful for all your help. I’d be in a lot of trouble if you hadn’t... talked to me.”

“Think nothing of it,” said Twilight Sparkle with a modest blush. “Now, I’ll leave you with your—”

Twilight noticed the blue haired, lavender pony was gone, along with Pinkie Pie, but that was no surprise.

“Oh, um... I may have scared your friend away, sorry,” Twilight winced. “These wings, you see,” she ruffled them for demonstration, “Mark me as a sort of... head of state. It’s honestly just a formality, but ponies still think that I might... you know, turn them into a toad for disobeying, or whatever Princesses are supposed to do to ponies.”

“That sounds more like a witch than a princess,” the cream colored mare mused.

Twilight blinked. Nopony ever even came close to implying that before! “Did you just call me a witch?” she asked in honest intrigue.

“Not if you aren’t going to change me into a toad, uh, princess,” the mare replied, irises narrowing.

That got a chuckle out of Twilight, who said, “You know, even if you are far from home, it’s nice sometimes to have someone here who isn’t all worried about my princessness. B-but I assure you I’ll do everything in my power to get you home, don’t worry.”

At that, the cream colored pony looked at her impassively, then just said, “Yeah, you will, won’t you.” But not in an excited way? It was kind of awkward.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to offend you or anything,” Twilight said with a grimace of a smile, “Say how about I pick you up instead? Then you won’t have to walk to Sweet Apple Acres!”

“Pick me up?” the mare said in confusion.

“Yes, I can bring a cart, and you won’t have to exert yourself,” Twilight said pleasantly, staring into space just a sec as she figured out the things she’d have to prepare for this to go over smoothly.

“But... why?” the mare asked in a frustrated tone. “Are you just in a hurry to get me to meet all your friends?”

“Something wrong with that?” Twilight queried. The mare shook her head at that, but...

“I just don’t see why I have to meet with her right away,” the mare said a bit irritably. “Can’t I at least have a few days, or something? I feel terrible!”

Twilight’s face fell at the mare’s strange callousness. “I... suppose so...” Twilight said unhappily, “But what’s wrong with meeting her? I’m sure Applejack would love you!”

“Yeah,” the mare said almost sounding... bitter about it? “And then you’ll...” she just trailed off then, really looking at Twilight now. “I’m really sorry,” the mare told Twilight with a sudden worried expression on her face. “I didn’t mean to upset you I’m just... kind of really sore, and I just wanted to sit for a while and stay... here. Can I just take a... raincheck for now? I really would love to meet her.”

“When do you think you’ll be feeling better?” Twilight asked hopefully. “You did have a bit of an ordeal there, but you’ve got that strong earth pony heritage, so I’m sure you’ll bounce right back. Er, I mean your biology, because obviously your heritage is of a human alien.”

The mare blinked at her with a blank expression, and then looked down at herself, saying with confident poise, “I have no idea how my biology works now.”

“Oh wow, you wouldn’t believe how interesting it is!” Twilight said with an eager smile, “I know of this great introduction to pony physiology. I’m quite eager to learn how your new pony anatomy differentiates from your true form, and perhaps what stallions are like in your world, too! I can also get you a book on comparative tribal anatomy. I think you’ll find it quite a fascinating read...”

The mare didn’t seem enthusiastic about any of that though? She seemed downright glum! Oh, of course. Twilight had to remind herself that not every pony knew the value of a good book as much as Twilight Sparkle. Still, it would have been nice if the mare was a bit of a bookworm... so hard to find ponies like that, this far downhill from Canterlot. But... this mare was probably into more mundane concrete things other than studying, like baking, or construction. It was really hard to say, as this mare’s rump was entirely devoid of a story mark.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to impose on you,” Twilight said blushing ashamedly, “I can get kind of overexcited about studying sometimes. But we all have our faults, right? You just recover at your own pace, and let me worry about the speed of your recovery.”

“Okay,” the mare said in a small voice. Her ears were still down though, and she seemed to not want to look Twilight in the eye.

“How about this,” Twilight offered, “When you feel up to walking to my library, go ahead and come to it. Then you and I can take a trot to Sweet Apple Acres, meet Applejack, and get some of that appletastic food in you!”

The mare choked back a chuckle at that. “Sure, that’d be great Twilight,” she said less anxiously, her ears turning up again. Then her eyes widened in surprise and she blurted out, “You still have your library?!”

Twilight blinked.

“I thought it was destroyed!” the mare said right back into her highly agitated state. “Oh no, he hasn’t attacked yet. You... you haven’t defeated a monster called Tirek recently, have you? Oh no I came at the worst time...”

“Calm down, mare!” Twilight declared to her, in one of the rare instances that it wasn’t the other mare yelling that phrase at Twilight Sparkle. “Tirek is gone! We defeated him. He’s gone forever! You don’t have to worry anymore.”

The mare didn’t seem mollified by that though, trembling as she said, “B-b-but your library was destroyed!”

Twilight’s ears went down.

“Yes... so much precious literature was lost,” Twilight said sadly. “I still only have half a copy of Predictions and Prophecies... and that copy had such sentimental value for me! But... our Rainbow helped me, remember? It’s pretty common knowledge that it gave me a home again, using the quintessence crystalline... the magic of crystals.”

“Oh, so... it did build it then,” the mare said distantly, looking around at the treetops for some reason. “And you just have a library inside your home.”

“Well... yes,” Twilight said uncertainly. That was technically true, but it was definitely an odd way to phrase it. “I didn’t stop being a librarian, just because everypony lent me their hopes and dreams for a moment,” she said, unable to stop a soft smile at what had happened back there.

“Sorry, I just...” the mare focused on her again, saying, “I was just scared that Tirek was going to come and... make me like that. It... it really looked like the worst feeling in the whole world.”

Looked like? Hmm, curious. The mare could have been from another world, but if she saw the battle between ponykind and Tirek, it would have to mean she somehow broke into this world without detection for (Twilight took a moment to calculate) one year and days DV. But again, Twilight wasn’t sure this mare even was from another world. She could also have been maintaining the ruse, because the mare wanted to pretend she was never caught in the terrible maelstrom of hopeless emptiness that monster had left in his wake.

Twilight wouldn’t blame anypony if they desperately wanted to pretend that it never happened to them.

This was clearly going to take a more delicate touch than Twilight was currently applying. “Great,” she said stepping back from the mare, “Just come by, once you feel better. I’d really appreciate it. Just don’t be surprised if you see Applejack around town on your own, eventually. She’s kind of a big deal around here.

“Anyway I’ll leave you to your um... sitting, and we’ll just take a rain check on that dinner date,” Twilight said reluctantly. “I still really want to spend some time to talk with you, see if we can help you out somehow.”

“Sure, if you like,” the mare said modestly, “I’ll take whatever help I can get, at this point. Hopefully I can repay your generosity someday.”

It warmed Twilight’s heart to think that she was not only appreciated, but part of the fundamental forces binding the universe together. “It’ll be payment enough, to see you reunited with your friends and family,” Twilight said warmly, prompting a shudder from the mare. Wait, shudder?

“Are you... okay?” Twilight asked as the mare worked her forelegs out from under her.

“I’m fine,” the mare assured her tensely, “I’m just worn out, from this little walk, and I really just want to get back at this point, and maybe eat something more.”

“Well, good, but let me know if you’re not, because I’d hate to think I’ve offended you,” Twilight fretted.

“It’s... fine,” the mare stated resignedly, looking down off the bench she was sitting on and stretching out a leg, and,

“Oh...” she groaned as she put weight on it. “Walking for days was not good to me.”

“You need any help?” Twilight offered, looking at the mare with concern.

The mare grimaced, and said, “Thanks, but...” as she put the other forehoof down, “Best thing for sore muscles is to move them now and then. I’ll just be going back to the bakery, anyway.”

She sort of walked her forehooves forward then, her back hoof slipping on the bench as she tried to plant it. Sort of not quite falling off, the mare pivoted around one rear leg, and then another, rising wobbly on her four hooves.

“Are you sure? ” Twilight said hovering over the somewhat splay hooved mare. “Don’t try to be brave. You’re barely standing on your hooves!”

“No, I’m not hurt too bad. I’m just not used to walking like this,” the mare said, taking a shaky step, and then another slightly more confident one.

“How do you normally walk?” Twilight asked curiously, following along as the mare’s steps reached would be generous to call a stately pace.

“I um—” the mare stumbled to a halt, then frowned. She appeared to be trying to rear up on her hind legs, but she wasn’t balanced enough to stay in the air, and came down solidly on her four hooves again. She stared down at her forehooves in consternation.

The pink haired mare then just started walking again, saying, “It’s about the other world, kind of a long story.”

“Oh,” Twilight said, remembering what Applejack warned her about. “I’ll just um... catch you later then, okay?”

“Sure thing, Twilight,” the mare said, “Or I don’t know if you prefer Princess Twilight now? It’s okay if you do.”

“I... honestly don’t , but it’s to be expected,” Twilight said, quite resigned to her situation. “And there is nothing wrong with acknowledging somepony’s accomplishments, so call me whatever you like” Twilight said accomodatingly, thinking a moment, before adding, “Though, we’ve talked so long, and I don’t think I have caught your name?”

Actually, the truth was that this mare had been maddeningly frustrating with her lack of revealing her name in any number of normal social opportunities to do so. But Twilight hadn’t tried just asking, directly. So she might as well shoot for the moon at this point!

The mare halted in her forward progress again at Twilight’s words. Twilight smiled at the mare hopefully. Staring forward at nothing for far too long, the mare looked at Twilight and with an edge to her smile, said, “Um, you know, I don’t... really... have one.”

“You don’t have one?” Twilight repeated incredulously.

“Yup, I don’t have one,” the mare said confidently.

“You don’t have a name,” Twilight clarified, just to be sure.

“Fraid not,” the mare replied insistently, again forcing herself to look at Twilight. Why was this mare forcing herself to look at ponies so much?

“Well, okay then... long story, I presume?” Twilight stated.

The mare looked like she wanted to say more, but sighed and nodded, saying anxiously, “Yes, it’s... complicated.”

“Don’t feel like you have to tell me,” Twilight cautioned her, “But we ponies use names a lot. You might run into problems if you can’t tell ponies your name.”

“Which I don’t have,” the mare insisted.

“...right,” Twilight agreed suspiciously. “Anyway, I’ll see you later.”

“Sure thing, Twilight,” the mare said unenthusiastically. She apparantly decided to just concentrate on her walking, then, and spoke no more. The mare made her way with Twilight over to Sugarcube corner, standing all on her own as she walked. She thanked Twilight again then, before plodding inside. Mr. Cake came trotting up to her, the door swung closed, and Twilight was alone.

Not hesitating, Twilight made herself scarce, and trotted down the cobbles in a slightly different direction from her library, needing a talk with a friend right now. She was feeling pretty ambivalent about that encounter, since she deliberately intended to restrain herself until the mare was feeling less threatened. Yet, Twilight still had no more hints as to whether the mare was a dark sorceress or a dimension travelling alien. That was gonna bother her.

The mare didn’t seem all that comfortable with Twilight Sparkle, but neither had the pony who actually belonged here. Were they both part of the cult that created that incredible magical phenomenon? Was Sea Swirl guilty of something that might constitute creepy cult worship again? Or... was Twilight Sparkle just not a very good friend?

Twilight was starting to hope that Equestria really was in peril, instead of the unhappy alternative.

“...and so, I need you to help get that mare set up with a tab,” concluded Pinkie Pie’s book-loving unicorn friend. Pinkie Pie listened patiently, while Twilight Sparkle addressed her party loving hot pink friend. (That means Pinkie Pie, by the way!)

Pinkie was away from Sugarcube corner at the moment, hosting Peachy Pie’s birthday party, when Twilight approached them to speak with the party pony. The princess acted like she didn’t appreciate Pinkie blowing the party horn so that its end tickled the tip of her snout, but Pinkie knew Twilight was laughing on the inside. Then Pinkie said, “Hi, Twilight!” and Twilight said hi.

Twilight talked about the mare, and how she might not be up for returning home for a while, which made Pinkie a little droopy, but Twilight then said she needed help getting the mare more settled in Ponyville, and that made Pinkie perk right up again. Then, Twilight told Pinkie that she needs her to help get that mare set up with a tab. Then Pinkie listened patiently, while wait no we already did that.

“I’ll do better than set her up with a tab,” Pinkie said eagerly. “I’ll give her a party! ” Several foals cheered at that, all of Peachy Pie’s friends gathered here. Ponies were both gathered here because it was a Peachy Pie, and because it was a Pinkie Pie party. But Pinkie wasn’t Peachy, and it’d make Peachy sad, if her own birthday got hogged by Pinkie, so Pinkie shooed them away saying, “Go play with your friends, sillies!” The foals cantered off giggling to play with the birthday foal, still no doubt anticipating the amazing party Pinkie Pie was gonna throw for this new mare.

“A party would be... fine, I guess,” Twilight told Pinkie, with a hint of frustration to her voice. “But she really does need some kind of record around here. I don’t even know what to call the mare, besides ‘the mare’ and she isn’t telling me anything!”

Pinkie pursed her lips thoughtfully, and said, “Okay... why would she tell town hall anything, then?”

Twilight gave a crafty grin at that, and declared, “Because she’ll have forms to fill out!”

Pinkie... was pretty sure Twilight believed that actually would work.

Nevertheless, mare needed a name. What else would Pinkie Pie write on the cake? “Hey you?” There was a golden opportunity in that, too. A party opportunity, for the mare with no name. And for that opportunity, Pinkie chose to ask her friend Applejack for some help. Applejack was really good at that town hall politicky stuff, and plus, with her taking the mare’s attention, that would be a perfect time for Pinkie Pie to set up her party! It was the perfect plan!

The morning dawned bright and grey-y, and Pinkie got a sore elbow from sleeping on the ground, but that was okay because her friend was feeling much better than she did the day before.

“Oh, I feel so much better!” she said in that sweet high voice of hers, standing in Pinkie’s room and looking at her own hooves in wonderment. “I can’t believe I’m here! I thought for a minute...”

The mare lifted her head and looked at Pinkie nervously, saying, “N-never mind it’s silly.”

“Don’t be silly, silly,” Pinkie said teasingly at her new friend without a name, “Being silly is silly, and that’s great!”

“You are the expert on being silly, I suppose,” the mare said with a twinkle in her eye and a smile hidden in the corner of her mouth.

Pinkie nodded enthusiastically, saying, “You betcha. I’m always silly, all the time!”

“Yeah, except when you start talking to rocks,” the mare said jokingly.

Pinkie Pie blinked at that, and then winced inwardly. “Oh, you saw that, huh...” she said with an unhappy wariness slipping out.

The mare stumbled forward, holding up an off white hoof reaching for Pinkie, saying, “Oh, I’m so sorry, it’s just—”

“No, no it’s alright,” Pinkie said a little unsurely. “You didn’t pick what the movies were going to show about us. And Rainbow Dash ...knows, so it’s okay. Let’s just get downstairs and get something to eat.”

With her eyes practically bugging out, the mare declared, “Oh my god, Pinkie I am so hungry. If you can give me anything I would be so grateful.”

“Looks like your appetite’s coming back,” Pinkie teased the mare, dancing over to the stairs down from her room. “We can set you up juuust fine, don’t you worry.

“Just um d-day olds or whatever,” the mare stammered, blushing crimson. “I promise I won’t need anything for long, just until I get a job or... however that works around here.”

“Got a plan for that too!” Pinkie declared, “Now, follow me!” and charged down the stairs.

Some moments later, Pinkie Pie walked back up the stairs, to help the mare come down them again.

The two were standing at a table in Sugarcube Corner, as if they were already friends together. The Cakes were busy with the twins and with baking, and stuff Pinkie really should have been helping with. But Pinkie Pie had to get some important information from this mare, before putting her plan into motion.

Pinkie was smiling more and more as the mare eagerly but clumsily ate her danish, and elderberry turnover, and carrot tart, and jelly toast, and she only splashed herself a little with the glass of milk, and she made it halfway through a bunch of kale before pausing, and looking up at Pinkie Pie.

“So... are you here for a reason, or do you just like watching me fail at eating?” said the messy muzzled mare.

“Oh!” Pinkie blinked, “No, it is a lot of fun watching you eat, because you’re so hungry it looks like everything tastes amazing!”

“It does taste amazing,” the mare admitted, “But it’s because your baking is amazing.

“Even the toast,” the mare said, leaning forward and taking another bite of it. “Ith crisp on the outside,” she said chewing it thoughtfully, “Moith on the inside...” a pause to swallow, “And doesn’t get all gummy when I chew it. Did you make this bread?”

“Oh, no actually,” Pinkie said with a little blush. “Golden Loaf makes most of the bread in Ponyville. She has a whole bakery for it, on the other side of town.”

“Everything else is amazing too,” replied the mare. “Did you make the...?”

“I made the turnovers, and the tarts and cake are by the Cakes,” Pinkie replied confidently. “But you don’t have to like it just because I made it.”

“It’s all so new to me honestly,” the mare said, “Your food is so different, and I’m ... different.” She leaned forward to take another bite out of a broad, dark green leaf. “Mmm, so good though,” she said savoring the taste.

The mare was enjoying herself so much, that it was making Pinkie Pie hungry, herself. Time to get this show on the road. Eager to move forward, Pinkie stepped next to the mare the mare and, carefully looking the other way, whispered, “So... what kind of cake do you like?”

The mare looked at her, then paused to clear her mouth.

“Is this about the party?” she asked.

Pinkie gasped! “You know about the party?” she declared in shock.

“Er, uh, yeah the um... Twilight warned me about you, that’s all,” the mare said nervously, “I don’t know know about the party, only that there might be a party.”

“Ohh. Well good, because there clearly is no party,” Pinkie Pie said leaning slyly against the mare, “I was just saying it for theoretical party sake. And in theoretical partiness, I just wanted to ask in theory what your favorite flavor of cake was.”

The mare couldn’t resist a laugh at that. Pure joy! She had such a sweet voice, it was a joy to hear her laugh. Pinkie thought it was a joy to hear anypony laugh though, except maybe Nightmare Moon.

“You know,” the mare said bemusedly. “I’m not sure I know what my favorite flavor of cake is.”

“What?? How could you not know that!” Pinkie hissed harshly to her, with eyes wide in shock. The mare’s own blue eyes looked back into Pinkie’s with an innocent curiosity, not offended at all by the question, which shouldn’t even really have been a question. Did she not have cake in her old verse?!

“My tastes are so different coming here,” the mare explained. “I ate hay, yesterday. Hay! Do you have hay cake?”

“All cake is hay cake!” Pinkie replied.

“Really?” the mare asked incredulously, forgetting the plate of delicious foods assembled before her.

Pinkie smiled knowingly and said, “Hay is absolutely essential to cake making.”

The mare blinked at her. “...how?” the mare asked, as if not wanting to hear the answer, but then why did she ask?

“It keeps the cake full bodied and gives it structure,” Pinkie explained, “And unlike fresh grass, it doesn’t taste hardly at all, so it’s really easy to add flavor to.”

“Do you have grass cake?” the mare asked curiously.

“No, but that’s a good idea,” Pinkie said thoughtfully, “Maybe if you used sweet grass, or lemongrass and sweetened it. But most grass isn’t sweet, so ponies don’t make cakes out of it.”

The mare continued to regard her a moment, before going to polish off another tart. Once she was done, she said in an admiring tone, “You really do know a lot about baking, Pinkie Pie.”

“Yeah... it’s kind of a jobby of mine,” Pinkie admitted, squirming shyly.

“It’s still pretty impressive,” the mare said, as she fiddled with the last bit of turnover. “You’re good at your job.”

“I pick up a few things here and there,” Pinkie said embarassedly, “But really what I do best is not just the cake, but the whole party! And I want to give you a super special one so that you can go home feeling great, when you return to your world!”

The mare didn’t respond to that at first, and not just because she was having trouble clearing out her mouth. But she said to Pinkie Pie after a worrisome delay, “Why are you... spending time with me, anyway? Aren’t there other ponies in town, who need your attention?”

“Hmm... not really?” Pinkie said tilting her head. “I can’t help everypony of course, but you looked like somepony I could help, and I just wanted to hear how you were doing just in case.”

“And what my favorite flavor of cake is,” the mare returned amusedly.

“That too, yeah,” Pinkie blushed out.

“Aren’t there other ponies who need help?” the mare persisted. “I don’t know them, but—”

“Exactly!” Pinkie said triumphantly. “Don’t worry about them so much. They all have friends who can help each other out when they’re in trouble. But you just came out of nowhere, and you don’t have any friends! So you just need some extra special help.”

“So why can’t any other pony help me, then?” she asked. “Why you?”

“I dunno,” Pinkie pondered. “Have you asked them?”

“They didn’t spend the night sleeping with me,” the mare said sounding mollified, and a bit disgruntled.

“Exactly,” Pinkie concluded again. “So there’s your answer. Now, what flavor of cake?”

“I... uh... raspberry...” the mare admitted quietly, a blush tinting her cheeks.

“Alrighty,” Pinkie chirped, “And what’s your favorite color?”

“Teal,” she said without hesitation. Well, at least some things this mare didn’t hesitate on!

“Alright, I think you’re all set!” Pinkie said cheerfully, “That’s all I need to know. I’m gonna go do some... things, and Applejack should be here pretty soon to help you get set up with town hall. So finish whenever you like, and she’ll show you where to go. Applejack’s an orange pony with—oh, you know her already, right?”

“Y-yeah,” the mare said almost guiltily. “Guess I’m meeting with her too.”

Pinkie blinked at that. “Yes?” she tried. “I just said Applejack should be here pretty soon to—”

“No, no I heard you Pinkie,” the mare replied with a tired, but grateful smile. “Go, get on to your... not partying, and I’ll go with her.”

Applejack wondered if she was working herself too hard again. It was so easy to just dote on her orchard, even with the trees all sleeping like they do in the wintertime. But once again, she found herself just a mite bit out of the loop.

So apparantly all this week, her friends had gotten all worked up over some mysterious, unnamed mare, who showed up under suspicious circumstances. Applejack managed to miss all the hubbub and hullabaloo of her return, which suited her just fine, but she felt a little guilty for not being there to help out until they called on her some days later.

It was a mighty curious mare that her friends came across. No past, no name, no origin outside of some portal out in the middle of the woods somewhere. Barely able to even walk like a foal, because she wasn’t originally a pony? But now the mare needed to live in the town for a while, so if she didn’t have a name now, she was gonna get one pretty soon.

Pinkie came to Applejack for help there, and good thing she did, because Applejack knew exactly what to do for a mare who was down on her luck, and looking to cut corners to get by. So Applejack would have been ready and willing to pick her up, and help her out. She would have done it without any compunctions, worries or doubts, but for one little thing that Twilight talked to her about.

Wouldn’t you know it, but apparantly this mare objected when Twilight offered to introduce her to Applejack! Takes some nerve to do that for a pony you haven’t even met! Applejack would have been totally willing to get some fat on that mare’s skin and bones that evening, but AJ just ended up just eating with her family as usual, when the mare declined the dinner date.

So Applejack was a little less than comfortable with the mare, when Pinkie asked for help with her again, but, well... Pinkie asked for help. Applejack wasn’t going to turn down a friend in need.

Rainbow Dash was cutting through the chilly winter air, her wings like blades that sliced through it and buoyed Rainbow Dash to great heights. Down, down on the earth, the beautiful landscape of Ponyville spread before her, with all the ponies getting about their business, going to and fro amid the straw roofed cottages. Something caught her eye, and Dash turned and saw that pink haired mare, the one Twilight said was from another world!

Maybe it was her curiosity, or her pride, but Rainbow Dash was curious about this otherworldly visitor. She’d kind of missed out on the whole thing where her friends found her and took her in, and Rainbow wanted to see what this mare was like, herself.

Flipping in the air, and flapping her wings powerfully, Rainbow Dash decellerated smoothly, descending with a practiced precision. Landing with a rush of adrenalin, the earth struck firmly against Rainbow Dash’s hooves, and as she turned to trot over to the mare, Rainbow Dash could see that she had stopped in her travels, and was openly staring Rainbow Dash’s way.

“So,” Dash said cockily, trotting up to the mare, “I hear you’re from another world!”

“I am I—w-wow,” the mare said with a giddy smile, “I’m really talking to Rainbow Dash! P-pleased to meet you.”

“You heard of me, huh?” Rainbow said with surprise, and a little delight. “Do I smell a fan?” she asked slyly.

“Not yet, actually,” the mare replied simply.

Dash nodded, strutting her stuff and saying, “Well look no fur—wait, you aren’t a fan?” She stumbled to a halt. Right, it was probably stupid of her to assume that ponies even knew about her, on a whole nother world.

“Because I’ve only heard of a few of your stunt moves!” the mare said excitedly, immediately making Rainbow Dash perk up. “If I could see some of your tricks for real I bet I would be a huge fan!” she gushed.

Dash beamed at that in relief, saying, “Now that I can understand. Hey maybe I could show you a few tricks. What have you heard of? The corked double whirl? The triple cloud buster?”

“No, those sound totally new to me,” the mare said. “All I can remember see—er, hearing of is the Sonic Rainboom, and that... thing you did to beat Trixie. And um... something where you turn a cloud into a trampoline, to save your friends?”

“Alright, so I just wanna get this out right away, the Rainboom is sort of a you gotta be there thing, not even I know when I can do it,” Rainbow Dash said testily, “The conditions have to be perfect, and nopony really knows what they are, yet.”

“It takes two Elements of Harmony to do it,” the mare explained. “Like you did something incredibly kind, standing up to those bullies for Fluttershy, and you were so generous, you forgot all about winning to save Rarity from falling.”

“Y—no, that’s—wait...” Rainbow’s brain stuttered to a halt at the mare’s simple explanation.

“If Pinkie Pie was ever really sad because you couldn’t do a rainboom, I bet it’d happen like... um...” the mare looked at her hoof perturbed. “I bet it’d happen easy... peasy,” she corrected herself in a squirrelish tone, continuing, “And if Applejack started telling everypony that you were going to do it, you totally would.”

Rainbow Dash just stared at her, speechless.

A second or two later, Dash backed up and stammered, “So uh, catch you uh, later uh... you. I have to... to go think about some things.” Then she blasted off into the sky, away from the surprised mare, Rainbow Dash’s head spinning with the possibilities. Was that really the missing factor? Helping her friends with their Element? It made such a strange sort of sense!

What was Rainbow Dash supposed to do with that information though? Did it mean that everypony was wrong about her? That she was wrong about herself? Was it Fluttershy’s, or Rarity’s power making it happen? Rainbow really couldn’t... she couldn’t really do a sonic rainboom, after all?

Somewhere down on the ground, a pink haired earth pony stared blinking after the fleeing rainbow trail in the sky. Her look of surprise turned into a giggle, and she said quietly to herself, “Totally worth it,” before turning and continuing on her way.

Settling In

It turns out their mystery mare wasn’t mean or ornery, or spiteful towards Applejack. She was downright giddy to see her, when Applejack showed up to teach her the ropes about Ponyville!

“Oh wow, Applejack!” she said, as bubbly as a brook upon seeing Applejack. She’d been at Sugarcube Corner, trying to help the Cakes with some bags of sugar, apparently, but stopped as soon as she saw Applejack stroll in, stumbling over her hooves as if this mare wasn’t even sure how to walk over that way.

“It’s really you!” the rosy pink haired mare said, with big blue eyes, “I am such a huge fan. Do you really own four orchards? Are they south of town? Oh, I hope they’re south of town. I practically memorized that map.”

“Y-yeah, but uh... you’re a fan of... mah apple farming?” Applejack asked, her face twisted in confusion as she hadn’t even introduced herself to the mare yet. “Not exactly the most glamorous of occupations, though I cain understand you lovin’ the end product.”

The mare blushed heavily then, and stuttered out, “S-s-sorry, yeah I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that the gang’s all here, right?” She looked at the door to the kitchen, saying thoughtfully, “Only pony I haven’t met so far is Fluttershy.”

“Oh, yew mean like the Elements,” Applejack said, with a little more understanding in her. “Shucks, if you know anything about the half dozen of us, you’ll know how slow Fluttershy is to warm to ponies. Almost never comes into town if not for our sakes. Kinda chummy with Rarity on the side.”

Striding up and chucking the mare in the shoulder, Applejack said sagely, “You best not try to hunt her down. If you wanna meet her, let her come at you, at her own pace. Ah sure ain’t here to drag you over to Fluttershy’s. Ah’m here to get you all settled at town hall, so you’ll be an honorary Ponyvillian!”

“Sure, okay!” little pink-hair said happily. “Let me just tell the Cakes, and then, lead the way!”

Applejack might have missed the theatrics, but the second morning of this mare’s recovery was pure joy, really seeing the town for the first time, with such a childlike sense of wonder in her eyes. Once her soreness faded to manageable levels, the mare’s unquenchable optimism was downright contagious. She walked out into that grey day, on wobbly legs, going way too slowly for Applejack’s tastes. She looked at the dismal weather, the chilly morning, and all the ordinary houses, whose eves were weighed down with snow, and said, with complete sincerity,

“This is so beautiful! ”

“Gawk later, farm girl,” Applejack told the pretty pink thing, in one of the most ironic statements she’d ever uttered, “We need to get you a tab, and some clothes of your own, before Rarity decides to bequeath her whole boutique to ya out of sheer force’a pity.”

“A-alright,” the mare said hesitantly, looking down at the thick, very blue woolen scarf wrapped around her neck, and looking down at her hooves. She deliberately stepped forward on them, raising her gaze as she did so to follow along after Applejack. Rosy’s ability to do something simple as walking was clumsy, but adequate. Applejack didn’t even want to think what’d happen if Rosy tried a canter, or a trot.

Applejack, the real farm pony, led this bedazzled mare carefully down to town hall, wondering how somepony could be so awestruck about some backwater village, that she’d look like a pony who just jumped off the turnip truck. Stranger things had happened, but it was kind of an odd reaction to Ponyville. Most outsiders couldn’t see just how beautiful Ponyville really was, and only saw it for what it wasn’t, which was fancy and sophisticated.

Now, Applejack had a good idea that there was some supernatural jiggery pokery about this mare, but she really didn’t grasp the sheer scale of it, until she spent some time with her. Not only was this mare a fan of Applejack and the other Elements, she seemed to have an uncanny knowledge about the lot of them, when she let something slip that is. She was real close-lipped about it, for some reason!

Like a for-instance, Applejack was trying to give the mare a little something to tell her friends back home, about the real ponies behind the hype, saying as they walked,

“Now Rarity’s a pony of sophistication, but ponies think that’s all there is to her. She knows how to get dirty when the going gets tough. If’n she had to put away all her frippery and finery to save the day, what do you think she’d say? Sorry, I’m too snooty to be a hero? I think ah hear mah oven on?”

“I love being covered in mud?” the mare retorted with a wry grin.

Applejack almost stumbled, before saying, “I— yeah... exactly that.”

She hadn’t ever told nopony about what went down over that debacle between her, Rarity, and somepony who didn’t deserve Rarity. Only ponies who saw that... tiff between them were Rarity herself and... and the dragon, Spike, who was even less likely to repeat something untoward about Rarity than Rarity was. Applejack had thought it was a secret.

“I did try going to town hall,” the mare told a thought lost Applejack, as they approached the large, columnar building, “But I couldn’t read the signs... I didn’t know where to go in there.”

“You couldn’t read the signs?” Applejack asked, looking back at the pink and cream pony. “You need spectacles or somethin’?”

The mare blushed and said, “No, it’s just that I don’t know how to... read.”

Now Applejack had stopped, and was staring at the mare head-on.

“You sure you’re not an enchanted lil’ foal?” Applejack asked skeptically, as ponies on the street parted to walk around the two of them.

“What?” the mare responded cluelessly.

“Pinkie had this notion that you were a lil’ foal, who got enchanted to be a grownup pony,” Applejack said in a calculating tone. “You sure do walk like one, and you don’t know how to read?”

“O-oh,” the mare realized, her blush deepening for a moment as she looked at Applejack beseechingly.

“No, I can read my language, I think,” the mare said nervously, calming as she spoke, “But yours is really ...different. My verse had a different language than yours, that’s all. Twilight told you about the verse... thing right? It’s like another world.”

“Sugarcube,” Applejack told her disapprovingly, “You just told me that you don’t speak mah language, in mah language. ”

The mare started to answer, but she paused a mite, and then asked in honest curiosity, “Wait, what language are we speaking?”

Applejack had to blink at that. How do you speak a language, without even knowing what language it is? “Equish?” she offered to the nervous mare, but no recognition shone in her eyes.

“Look ah dunno about this foreigner stuff, especially from weird magicky places,” Applejack said, a bit frustrated. “You oughta ask somepony who knows about it. For all ah know, maybe it’s normal that a pony from another country speaks like us, but writes different.”

“It makes sense though,” the mare countered, staring at her hoof thoughtfully. “They always used illegible writing in the show.”

“What show?” Applejack asked.

The mare looked up, and blushed at that. “Oh um... nothing special I mean... it’s a long story. I just have a different written language than you,” she said sort of sketchily, “But we have the same spoken language. I ...think.”

“Now fancy that,” Applejack said noncomittally. “Sounds like the sorta thing you oughta tell Twilight. She probably wants to know all about your other country, and let me tell you she loves the little details like that.”

“Not such a little detail,” the mare grumbled mostly to herself, but quickly said to Applejack, “Okay, so I just need some help reading, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Can’t say I do mind, but you’re gonna have to learn to read y’know, if’n you’re staying with us any amount of time,” Applejack told her cautiously. “Ah cain’t promise that you’re gonna get a chance to go home any time soon, so you might wanna get workin’ on that. For now, let’s just get you a tab, and get you set up with some supplies.”

“What’s a tab, anyway?” the mare asked innocently. “Is that like, credit?”

“Yeah, it’s a... list like, of the good deeds you done, and what was done for ya,” Applejack said. “Whenever you help somepony, they can take it to town hall and vouch for you. That way you can be sure you’re not helpin’ somepony who is playin’ you for a rube.”

The mare seemed surprised at this, so Applejack put a hoof on her shoulders, saying, “Don’t you worry none. Ponies’ll help you quite a bit, before anypony starts gettin’ worried about it. An’ there’ll be plenty for you to do pretty soon, when we wrap up winter around these parts. C’mon then, and let’s get you situated!”

“Alright Apple... Applejack,” the mare said somewhat reverently. “If you ponies can pull this off, that’s just incredible!”

“Just ...come along now,” Applejack said uncertainly, embarassed enough to hide her eyes under the brim of her hat. But for what, she just wasn’t entirely sure.

Getting into town hall was easy enough. Not too busy this early before lunch. But Applejack observed yet another peculiar exchange here, that the mare had with the recordspony. The conservatively blue recordsmare, with her mane in a little white bun, asked this pinkish haired mare a few questions, starting with, “What is your name?”

The mare fidgeted in place then, looking more like she was staring at a lion than a pony on the other side of a desk. “I don’t really... have one,” she admitted anxiously. A wordless pause, and she clarified, “I don’t have a name.”

“Yes, yes, I can see that, miss,” the recordspony replied sensibly enough, looking down at her completely empty form. “But you need a name for identification purposes, so...”

“So...?” the mare responded in a desperate whine.

“So, what is your name?” the recordsmare repeated, a little aggravated at this confusingly spookable pony.

“I told you. I don’t have one,” the other mare pleaded, sounding equally distressed with the notion.

Applejack wasn’t sure what was wrong with this mare, but it had to be some kind of cultural thing with her other country and all, and the silent standoff continued for entirely too many moments, before recordsmare asked in vague desperation,

“Aren’t you going to... pick a name?”

The mare blinked, wide eyed, and blurted out, “I can do that?!”

She blushed then, and lifted up her hoof nervously as the recordspony said in wry confusion,

“Well... yes. How else are you gonna get a name? I’m sorry, but our town needs everypony to have a name on record, miss. No name, no tab. Would you like some time to think of one?”

“Y-yeah I... I— I, um, thanks,” the mare said taking an unsteady step back from the desk.

“No problem miss,” the recordspony said, giving her a worried look. “Just don’t delay too long. It’s pretty cold out there. Now could you step aside and make room for the next pony?”

The mare did, and stumbled up to Applejack seeming all ways of addlepated. “I—sorry I didn’t know you could just pick a name,” she said apologetically. “I lost our place in line, I...”

“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” Applejack told her gently. “Ah guess you didn’t have names in your old country? It’s dead simple. You just think up something you’d like ponies to call you, and they start callin’ you that. Like a word or phrase that describes ya.”

“I know what a name is,” the mare said in annoyance.

“Well, okay then!” Applejack half shouted, feeling a little vexed herself at this point. This wasn’t supposed to be complicated. “Let’s just try to think up a few idears, see if you like any of ‘em,” she said patiently, “Based on your color maybe?”

“I didn’t think I got to pick, gosh... that makes a lot of sense, actually,” the mare said incredulously. “So um... I can change it, right?”

“If ponies get to know you by one name, it can be a hassle, but yeah?” Applejack said to the flowry pink haired mare, as best as she could advise this sort of thing. “Ah suppose you cain change it, before the old one sticks. You gotta pick a name you really like, though. Color names are pretty common round these parts, not all that distinctive though. How about... ah dunno, Pink Rose?”

“...is that an apple?” the mare asked suspiciously.

“Are you an Apple?” Applejack shot back, trying not to glare at her.

At least the mare got what Applejack was implying then, blushing and looking away, saying, “Right, sorry. Rosy is fine.”

“Rosy, not Rose?” Applejack asked curiously, but the mare only blushed harder, and stammered,

“W–whatever works.”

So all that hubbub over a name, and the mare went with the first one Applejack tossed out there? She musta had some strange naming conventions in her old country. Applejack knew a name as something important, and you had to put a lot of thought into what you wanted ponies to call yourself, but this mare seemed to just want something for ponies to call her. She barely wanted to consider any other possibilities.

But for better or for worse, Rosy Pink made a clumsy X in the visitor registry, by the spot where Applejack wrote her name in for her. At least X was written the same, for both of them.

With town hall out of the way, Applejack and the newly christened Rosy Pink took their temporary voucher on down through the town. Traffic was starting to pick up as lunchtime reared its ugly head, and Applejack was feeling a bit peckish herself, but she said she’d help with this simple task, and she was gonna do it. The mare—well, Rosy, Applejack supposed—was a lot less anxious now that they got that paperwork all done with. She was a curious sort, asking about everything from weather to pony politics.

“Shucks, Manehattan?” Applejack had been joking to the mare. “Let me tell you you’re lucky you showed up in Ponyville. Hatters don’t know the first thing about frugality. Why, ah don’t even think they got a tack shop in the whole city! That’s where we’re headed next!”

“We need to pick up some tacks?” the mare asked in a puzzled manner.

“No, the supply and tack!” Applejack corrected with a wink. “It’s over by Barnyard Bargains. They got a clearance rack; you cain get yourself somethin’ there for not much at all, until you get yourself back on your hooves. It won’t be pretty, but it’ll be functional an’ that’s what you need.”

The mare was quite impressed when they entered the store. “It’s like a hardware store!” she said brightly, looking around at the supplies, “Except for hors—for ponies!”

“Well who else would it be for, sheep?” Applejack said amusedly, “’cause sheep don’t know the first thing about saddlery.”

“What do sheep know?” the mare asked so innocently. She didn’t even know simple stuff like that!

“Eatin’ and sleepin’ mostly,” Applejack said offhoovedly, “You should try talkin’ to one sometime, see how far you get before you’re bored to tears.”

Rosy seemed a bit thrown off by that for some reason, like mare didn’t know what to say. She turned her pink mopped little head, looking around the store and murmuring, “I don’t know what we’re here for, exactly.”

“Somethin’ to keep you warm!” Applejack said smartly, trotting over to the clearance rack. “And don’t you worry about raisin’ your tab a little. These things would be sold for scrap if nopony wanted them, so they’re real cheap.”

Rosy finally figured it out once she had carefully walked up to where Applejack was waiting for her. She took a look at the items on the rack and said, “Oh... saddle blankets.”

“Well, you cain wear a saddle if ya wanna get fancy,” Applejack replied. “But most ponies just hold it on with a belt if they ain’t got a passenger.”

“A—wait...” she said in a totally flabbergasted tone, turning and staring at Applejack open mouthed. “Who... rides on ponies?”

“Animals and foals mostly?” Applejack said, cringing at yet another one of this mare’s weird reactions to completely normal things. “Usually somepony’s foal. It ain’t exactly common t’carry animals, but there’s saddles and carry cases for when you do. You gotta have a well trained critter, if you want ‘em to be able to ride on your bare back.” She grumbled under her breath, with a bit of dissatisfaction, “Well, unless you’re Rainbow ‘Iron Pony’ Dash...”

“...didn’t catch that last part,” Rosy said.

“Nothin’” Applejack replied, turning down her hat. “Now what’s it gonna be? They’re one size fits all.”

“Oh, um...” the mare looked down at the rack, touching it tentatively with a hoof to then more confidently slide the hangers around. “It looks like I have a choice between brown, and... brown.”

Applejack blinked at her, and then said a little irritably, “Ah meant the linin’.”

When the mare didn’t seem to understand, Applejack just pulled the one with the tighter weave out, saying, “Here, this’n’s a tighter weave.”

“Oh, thanks,” she said with a nervous smile, “So I just um... take it in my hoof?”

Sighing, Applejack folded the blanket and tossed it on her own rear, balancing it between the saddlebags she always wore around shopping time. “Let’s just go check out,” Applejack said wearily.

To be perfectly honest, Applejack was starting to get tired of this mare’s waifish curiosity. Was she a filly, or a grown mare? She didn’t seem like neither one! When Applejack showed her to the welfare shelter, the mare wasn’t acting disappointed or jaded. She acted like she was a filly in a candy shop. At the shelter!

“I can stay here?” she said, shifting excitedly on her hooves at the pastel, pleasantly heated but very plain interior. “You actually have a place for ponies? This is so incredible! I’ve never stayed at a homeless shelter before. Can I help? How does it work?”

“You talk to the overseer,” Applejack said curtly, “An’ she gives you a bed. I dunno the details. Ah dunno if you cain help or whatnot, but this’ll give you a place to sleep until you get back on your hooves.”

Rosy Pink nodded solemnly, and Applejack smiled, saying, “Good enough time as any for me to find out, I suppose. I’ll walk you in, make sure you’re set up, but then I gotta git. Chores don’t wait for nopony, y’hear.”

“Thanks, I’d really appreciate it,” Rosy said with a half smile. “I think I know even less about it than you do.”

Nodding, Applejack led the way, while Rosy hesitantly clipclopped after.

The building had a pretty nice lobby, with a desk for the receptionist to sit at, with brightly colored streamers connecting from it. There were some couches around the walls, for anypony waiting to talk to somepony to sit on, with some giggly noises coming from behind them. Applejack took the lead, trotting in and looking around. There were a few glows in the ceiling providing pretty good light all around, excepting where the balloons hanging from the ceiling cast shadows on the walls. There was no receptionist at the desk at all at the moment, only a pretty, triple layer cake with a swirly blue and pink frosting on it.

“Surprise!” shrieked Pinkie Pie, scaring Applejack half out of her wits as Pinkie and several other ponies erupted from behind chairs and couches, with party hats on and noise blowers going. After jumping out from hiding behind the cake... somehow, Pinkie dropped off the desk and said with a look of hurt confusion to the farm pony, “Applejack?! You weren’t supposed to come in first!”

“Oh, I’m surprised!” Rosy called out from behind Applejack, “Honest!”

“You an’ your surprise parties,” Applejack said teasingly, knocking the pink pony in the elbow.

“Well don’t just stand there, everypony,” Pinkie said to the crowd as Applejack trotted past her. “Let’s party!!”

Sometime earlier, Pinkie Pie hurried out of Sugarcube Corner, with her party supply wagon in tow. She already had the cakes baking, each one a delicious chocolate crumb, but now she only had half a day to get the party together. She stopped at the Streamer Emporium to stock up on rolls of streamers and bows, a big bag of confetti, and a bag of freshly homemade balloons. Then she went to table rentals and got a number of portable tables. Juniper’s Japery for the noise blowers and party hats, and Soft Glow’s for the candles. Pinkie didn’t know how many candles as technically it was this pony’s first year in Equestria as a pony and that was kind of like a birthday, but she figured she could improvise.

Hurrying down to the shelter, Pinkie didn’t spare a glance at the wide porch of the large cottage before trotting in, announcing, “Guess what!”

The receptionist there a green, white haired pony named If You May looked up on Pinkie’s arrival, her eyes lighting on Pinkie’s wagon hitch as Pinkie stood half in the door to the lobby. “You wanna throw a party?” May said curiously.

“There’s a mare coming to stay here, who just came to Equestria for the very first time, and the very first city she visited was Ponyville!” Pinkie responded.

“Well, that’s interesting news,” May said, adjusting her spectacles. “She a nice mare?”

“She’s really nice, but she’s kind of quiet and shy,” Pinkie said, “But not like Fluttershy. She isn’t afraid to talk to ponies! I think it’ll be really superrific if she stays here, and something tells me you won’t regret it!”

“Great!” May responded cheerfully, “What’s her name, do you know?”

“Er... she said she didn’t have one yet, so she’s gonna go pick one out at Town Hall,” Pinkie said. “So this is also her naming party!”

“Huh... how old is she?” May asked a bit skeptically.

“She’s a bit younger than me, but she isn’t a filly, but she just came from a faraway strange land where ponies didn’t have names,” Pinkie explained. “Anyway I only have an afternoon to set up, so if you’ll excuse me for a sec I’ll just dump these supplies off and go check on the treats!”

May gleefully smiled at that, saying, “Gosh Pinkie, I always love your parties here. You gonna invite a lot of ponies?”

“Sure!” Pinkie replied, “Anypony who I think might be a good friend for her!”

“So... everypony in Ponyville,” May countered dryly.

“I’m not that bad anymore,” Pinkie whined. “Maybe just half of everypony in Ponyville.”

Leaving May with a smile on her face, Pinkie went zipping back to Sugarcube Corner, and took out the cakes to cool. She put in the afternoon orders for the bakery itself, and started on the icing. Egg whites, powdered sugar, some glycerin, some extracts (vanilla, almond and orange!), and a whole lot of beating that Pinkie let the stand mixer take care of.

Then, she went to the pantry where they had a bunch of different cake fillings. She unsealed three raspberry jellies and piled those in between the two cake halves, making a double layer. Then she rolled out three quick sheets of marzipan, blanketing the cake under it and conforming it to the underlying shape. Now it was time for the icing!

Pinkie’s favorite thing was to add the food coloring almost at the very end, so that the icing ended up all swirly with color. She separated it into three bowls, one for pink, one for blue, and one for maroon. Slight swirl in each, her spatula skillfully scooped out the icing and spread it all over the cakes.

And finally, she piped on the cake in bright blue and yellow, “Welcome,” “To Ponyville” and left the middle blank, for filling in the pony’s new name.

Leaving that to rest, Pinkie took the afternoon stuff out of the ovens, basted and filled each of the pastries and flipped them onto cooling racks. The Cakes would take it from there. Then Pinkie zipped back to the welfare shelter, to scope out the situation.

So it looked like Berryshine was here with her daughter again. There was a gardener called Mr. Greenhooves, who had a hard time finding work when it was reeeally cold out, a unicorn from Vanhoover who hadn’t been here long enough to get a decent reputation, Lazy Eye Billie who was just kind of weird so other ponies didn’t like being around her. Nopony scary or dangerous or anything, not that those types tended to migrate in the direction of Ponyville. Nope, dangerous ponies who were down on their luck were hard to come by around here. Now, highly competent and skilled dangerous ponies, those were dime-a-dozen!

After pinning the streamers all around the room, and inflating the balloons, Pinkie went around town on her way back, and invited a bunch of ponies over for a super secret surprise party that would have streamers and balloons and cake and hot chocolate and marshmallows and games and cake.

She invited Roseluck and her friends, and Cherry Spices and Cherry Berry and Lyra Heartstrings and her friends, and Cranky Doodle but he said no, and Owloyscious but he said hoo, and with everypony headed that way, Pinkie stopped in at Sugarcube Corner, asking the Cakes if they would come too, and then working for the rest of the hour selling treats to ponies in the front.

Finally, Pinkie Pie loaded up the big swirly tasty cake in her wagon, along with a container of crumbled chocolate and sugar mix, and a big bag of puffed marshmallows, and sped on down to the shelter, where the ponies already there were helping finish her decorations. Pinkie made sure to thank each and every one of them as she set up the treats, and heated up a big pot of water for steeping the hot chocolate in.

When they heard Applejack and the mare headed this way, everypony hid behind things, and Pinkie scrunched down behind the reception desk, right behind the big central cake. Then, she leaped out, and shouted, “Surprise!” coming face to face with

...Applejack?

“Applejack?!” Pinkie whined, her forelegs drooping limply. “You weren’t supposed to come in first!”

So despite that fluff up, the party was super terrifically awesome, but of course! Who was planning it? Was it Pinkie Pie? Was Pinkie Pie planning the party? Yes, she was! There were snacks and games and party favors, and music playing on a trusty old phonograph that the mare was entirely too fascinated with.

Rosy was her name, it turns out! Rosy Pink! It was the shade of her mane, which was lots lighter than Pinkie Pie’s mane, which actually wasn’t pink even though ponies thought it was, because the rest of Pinkie Pie was pink. But as soon as Pinkie Pie heard that name, she hurried to the cake and took the bag of gel frosting, writing out “R o s y P i n k” in bright blue letters atop the swirly, buttery, creamy cake frosting. Rosy thanked her for that, but... her heart didn’t seem to be into it, but it also was? It was a strange thank you, as if Rosy was confused, but happy.

“You’re silly, you know that?” Pinkie Pie said to the mare, adjusting Rosy’s party hat that Rosy didn’t seem to know how to get on right. “How are you enjoying the party? Do you like the cake? It’s raspberry!”

Rosy took a fond look at the swirly colored slice of cake that somepony had generously helped onto a plate for her, saying, “It’s delicious! And these puffy things, with the cream in them? What are those?”

Pinkie blinked, looked at Rosy’s plate, and said curiously, “You mean cream puffs?”

Rosy slowly but surely planted her forehead on the edge of the table she was standing at. “Right, of course,” she grumbled, giving the puffs another wary look, before turning her blue eyes to meet Pinkie’s. “I haven’t actually ever had a cream puff before,” Rosy explained with an apologetic smile, “But it was really tasty. How does it... puff up like that?”

“Well... it’s pretty amazing actually. You don’t even need baking soda! Just eggs and water, and it works great!” Pinkie said happily. “Well, the cream part has pudding in it, but that gets squirted in later.”

The mare looked at the bits of cream left with a much more worried look on her face. Turning to Pinkie she said nervously, “Uh, so... how do you make... pudding?”

Pinkie blinked back, a little worried now herself and said, “You just beat together some eggs and sugar, and mix it in with the tapioca? I usually use dried egg whites, because you can mix everything but the milk that way, and it comes out really smooth. But why are you worried?”

“Oh, just... sorry I shouldn’t be worried, um...” the mare looked over her selection thoughtfully. “I just heard at one point that both our diets were completely vegetarian.”

“Huh,” Pinkie remarked, “That sort of sounds like that one song I sang that started a war.” She blushed, and added, “Iiit wasn’t a very big war, though.”

“For the record, I liked the song,” the mare said, inhaling more of her cake. “It wasth... creative.”

“You don’t have to say that just to be nice,” Pinkie said with a wince, “I know it was pretty awful.”

“No really,” the mare insisted, leaning towards Pinkie earnestly, “Ith ushed... hol on,” She chewed until her mouth was clear enough and said, “It used the word ‘vegetarian.’ I don’t know of any song that rhymes with vegetarian.”

“Oh, I got stuck on that part, so I just sort of um... skipped rhyming,” Pinkie admitted with a wince.

“Really?” the mare asked, blinking. “I thought you did?”

Pinkie Pie looked up and thought back, tapping her hoof to the beat as she recalled, “Something something both our diets are completely vegetarian~ we all eat hay and oats, why be at each other’s throats?”

“Wow, that... that doesn’t rhyme vegetarian at all, you’re right,” Rosy said rubbing at her chin. “I guess I just forgot, after all this time...”

“I think my best song was the Smile Song,” Pinkie said fondly. “Because I love to see ponies smile!” Her smile faltered and Pinkie had to look aside though, because she admitted, “I’m not so good at singing though, so I try not to sing all that much.” Her boisterous confidence returned as she was happy to say, “No, what I’m good at is parties, and baking!”

“Yeah,” Rosy said with a wry laugh, “Nothing like Fluttershy.”

“You betcha,” Pinkie agreed. “Between you and me,” she leaned close to whisper, “Fluttershy’s cooking is terrible!”

Rosy had a genuine laugh at that, saying, “I don’t think I ever saw her cook!

“...or eat,” Rosy added in a more concerned tone.

Pinkie... really didn’t know what to say about that. “What?” she tried.

Rosy looked up from her plate, blushing, saying, “O-oh nothing, it’s just that the um... show about you, it never showed Fluttershy eating, at first. Everyone started thinking she was a changeling, until finally they showed her eating some pancakes.”

“A changeling? ” Pinkie exclaimed in shock.

“Oh that’s not even the craziest theories people have about you six,” Rosy whispered conspiratorially, “The craziest one about you is that people started telling stories of an eeevil mare who fooled everyone into thinking she was a nice pony, but secretly she was making other ponies... into cupcakes!”

“Cupcakes?” Pinkie asked, her ears tilting down a bit. “What do you mean?”

Rosy glanced at Pinkie, and scrunched her muzzle, saying “N-never mind, it’s just a spooky story. I’ll tell it to you if we ever end up at a campfire.”

“Well okay silly, but I’ll hold you to that,” Pinkie said with a snarky grin.

“It’s seriously not that bad,” Rosy said nervously, “I know the RDP version anyway, which might even have you laughing, even though it’s still spooky.”

“Giggle at the ghostly, as I always like to say~” Pinkie said more cheerily, while Rosy leaned forward for another mouthful of cake.

“That is so true,” Rosy said enthusiastically around her cake. “Ith imposhible to be—” she paused, chewed, and swallowed. “It’s impossible to be scared of a scary story, if someone goes and makes fun of it!”

“Really?” Pinkie asked, not sure that was what she meant, by putting scary things in perspective. She admittedly couldn’t think of any counter-examples, but that couldn’t literally be true, could it?

“I swear it’s true,” Rosy insisted, “Some stories, I was so scared of, and then someone went and spoofed them, and showed how silly they could be. And suddenly I wasn’t scared at all!”

“Wow, I think you might be right!” Pinkie replied hopefully. “It’s not just you laughing at the spooks, but seeing them as funny that makes them not scary! But what if it really is dangerous?”

“Hm?” Rosy said, giving Pinkie a thoughtful look. “I guess it’s kind of like the boy who cried wolf then, so it could be dangerous not to be scared of things...”

“The boy who cried wolf?” Pinkie declared. “What on earth is that ?”

“It’s a story,” Rosy said, pretty much done with her cake now, just a bit of frosting left to lick off her lips. “About a um... a pony, who had to take care of a bunch of sheep. But he was really lazy and kind of mean, so he ran into town shouting that there were wolves hunting the sheep, and the other ponies went and penned the sheep up, and he didn’t have to watch them that day.

“Then, the next time he had to take care of the sheep, he did it again. He was supposed to be watching for wolves, but even when there weren’t any, he pretended there were, to scare all the sheep back into the pen. And—oh.”

Rosy fell silent then, and Pinkie waited, but the pastel mare didn’t say anything else. “Then what happened?” Pinkie prompted desperately.

“I–I think I know why you haven’t heard this story,” Rosy said, backing up a step from the table. “Sorry it’s just... it has a really bad ending. I forgot how it went... I never thought that... ugh, sorry.”

“It’s okay, silly. You don’t have to finish if you’re not comfortable with it,” Pinkie said laying a hoof on Rosy’s shoulder. “My favorite stories are happy stories, too! I bet they all had a big party, and worked out their differences together so that everypony was happy!”

“Yeah, that’s... that’s what happened,” Rosy said unconvincingly. She didn’t look happy still! Pinkie leaned in, with a wide eyed look at Rosy’s stubborn mouth. Wait for it. Waait for it.

“What are you doing?” Rosy laughed, backing up another step.

“Finding your smile!” Pinkie replied happily, as Rosy touched her own cheek with her hoof, a cheek that was genuinely smiling.

“They say there’s always a smile hiding in the corners of your mouth,” Rosy said agreeably. “Not many ponies actually go looking for it, though!”

“Well that’s just silly, silly,” Pinkie replied cheekily. “I find lots of smiles all over the mouth!”

“You keep calling me silly, but I think you’re the one who’s silly!” the mare accused in an amused tone.

Pinkie nodded enthusiastically, saying, “Yup. Silly’s my middle name! Pinkie ‘Silly’ Pie!”

“I thought it was Diane?” the mare quipped at her.

Pinkie was rearing up to follow up with a joke, but she stopped then. She settled her two front hooves to the floor. That uneasy feeling welled up in her, as she tried to understand how the mare just said that.

Turning away to only half face the mare, Pinkie said shakily, “I never told anypony that name, not ever.”

The mare’s face fell at that, and she lifted a hoof, stuttering out, “O-oh I’m sorry I–I didn’t know it would bother you. What’s wrong with your middle name?”

“Nothing’s wrong, but could you please pleeeease not tell anypony?” Pinkie entreated, hunching worriedly and glancing around at the partygoers. She didn’t think anypony heard. “I won’t get in trouble or anything,” Pinkie explained, “I just really really want to be just Pinkie Pie to everypony.” She would have told the mare why, but Pinkie didn’t really like to think about that, so she didn’t.

“Oh I won’t,” the mare assured her, “I know how important that is. I would never, um...”

The mare looked at Pinkie Pie for way too long, scoping her out, or thinking, or something. Pinkie didn’t know, because she wasn’t a mind reader. But maybe this mare was! Because then, the mare said steadily,

“I Pinkie Promise that I won’t tell anypony, if you don’t want me to.”

A smile leapt on Pinkie Pie’s face as she declared in delight, “You know about Pinkie Promises too??”

The mare nodded, carefully smiling again and saying, “Cross my heart and hope to fly. Stick a cupcake in my...” the mare looked at her hoof in apprehension. “Uh...”

“Eye,” Pinkie told her, sticking her own hoof in her eye to demonstrate. Pinkie’s remaining eye saw the mare look at her raised hoof worriedly though, saying,

“Sorry, I’m just not good with these yet. I don’t want to actually poke my eye out.”

“Good with what?” Pinkie asked curiously.

“Hooves,” the mare muttered, lifting a hoof again, and sort of moving it around, like she was trying to take a step forward. The hoof was still downturned, rather than aimed at the eye.

“Well, go ahead and take your time, then. I’m just gonna um... go check on the other partygoers,” Pinkie told the mare. Trotting off from Rosy’s staid stance beside one of the end tables, Pinkie found it hard to even focus on the other partygoers. Pinkie knew about the mare’s movie; Rosy had told her a little about it before getting her name, but Pinkie Pie hadn’t thought it would show... that. All the way back from when she was an itty bitty little twinkie Pinkie, back to... to when she moved to Ponyville?

Pinkie didn’t want to think about it any more, so she found Mr. Greenhooves and talked to him about fertilizers and shrubberies, and all the things he loved, that crazy old mule. Pinkie didn’t watch Rosy or anything. She just watched her meet Fluttershy.

Well, watched her not meet Fluttershy, rather. Fluttershy was waiting for Rosy over there by the wall away from the rest of the crowd, just like Pinkie had planned. Rosy was talking to lots of ponies, and Pinkie knew she looked dead directly at Fluttershy at one point. But Rosy just turned clumsily then, and went walking off in the opposite direction!

So Pinkie wasn’t curious about Rosy or anything, but she sure was curious about her! Rosy knew... things, and she acted funny in a way that just didn’t make sense sometimes. She seemed like a really nice pony too, very polite and friendly, and genuinely smiling even at Pinkie’s jokes! Pinkie Pie knew a genuine smile when she saw one. She just... didn’t know how somepony could watch all their lives, and know them all as much as best friends already, and not go say hi to Fluttershy?

Fluttershy didn’t seem upset by it though. She just smiled after the party, and told Pinkie Pie that Rosy could get to know her at her own pace.

Some days later, Twilight Sparkle was reshelving some returned books while dusting the rafters of her tree library, when who should come to see her other than the mysterious dimensional traveller! Of her own will for that matter, not at anypony else’s prompting!

Pinkie Pie had said she had a name, though Twilight didn’t recall what that name was at the moment. Twilight certainly recognized her, if nothing else for the mare’s strong resemblance to her old schoolmate Twinkleshine. Twilight laid the books she was working on back in their book cart, and trotted down the stairs to the pink haired, cream furred mare, who still had very blank thighs.

The alien was walking forward as if in a daze, and looking around like she’d trotted into the Taj Marehal itself. Her blue eyes were wide and full, and her mouth was hanging open, forgotten in the excitement of the moment. She wasn’t even aware that Twilight was standing here, was she?

“Welcome to the library!” Twilight announced in a level tone of voice, but still startled the alien pony, who jumped a foot back, then looked Twilight’s way with the most astonished expression on her face.

“Word has it you settled on a name,” Twilight said congenially. “Are you here to check out a book? That’s something you can do, now that you have a town record! What kind of... uh... book are you looking... for?”

Why wasn’t this mare responding to her? It was like she was dumbstruck with what to ask Twilight. “You need me to recommend some reading material...?” Twilight asked uneasily.

“Your library!” the alien blurted out shrilly, “It’s still here! ”

“Ssh,” Twilight said, folding her ears back at this strange mare’s excitement. “This is a library, so please: indoors voice.”

“Oh, sorry,” the alien said more quietly, losing a bit of her starry eyed wonder as rational thought crept back into her head. “I thought your library was destroyed!” she whispered to Twilight. “Didn’t you say Tirek destroyed it?”

“Well, he did heavily damage it,” Twilight replied. “But the roots remained alive. I don’t know what your alterniverse viewer revealed, but when Tirek was defeated by the Rainbow of Light, we were able to use its magic to undo much of the damage Tirek did. In particular, if you look over there, you can see one of the staircases is entirely crystelline. It’s a bit piecemeal, but I think it’s a beautiful effect, overall. You should see it in the summer. When the sunlight refracts in through the crystal wall section, it’s both beautiful, and useful light for reading by, while the green foliage provides plenty of shelter from direct sunlight.”

“How long ago did Tirek attack...?” the alien asked distantly, still looking with awe at the almost perfectly ordinary treehouse full of books.

“His attack was in the summer before last,” Twilight said cautiously. “Very recently, I know. It’s still fresh on a lot of pony’s minds, so you might want to be careful before bringing it up. Old wounds, you know.”

“Recently...” she looked at Twilight quizzically, but then sighed and said, “Sure, okay.”

“So, about your other verse,” Twilight asked eagerly. The mare only stiffened in response. “I’m very curious why you were sent here,” Twilight stated. “It might be an important clue for how to finish your quest and get you home.”

“Finish my... quest?” said the mare nervously.

Twilight smiled at her. “Yes, it might not seem like it, but you’re on a great adventure!” she said brightly. “Sometimes ponies or... humans who need a change in their lives will get sent to distant lands, where they can learn valuable life lessons about how important their home is.”

“Well yes, but...” the alien trailed off, eyeing Twilight worryingly sideways. “You mean that literally, aren’t you.”

“Well, I don’t mean to brag, but I have read several biographical accounts,” Twilight stated smugly. “I could look some of them up for you, if you like?”

“Yeah, I... I really want to find out about this verse,” said the alien mare. “But I still can’t read your language, so... do you have an alphabet book or something?”

Twilight was blushing so hard she thought she would die. “I’m so, so sorry,” she said hastily, putting a hoof on the mare’s shoulders. “I totally forgot that only your spoken language had changed with your form.”

“Yeah, and it’s... really weird, when I pay attention to it,” she said, also blushing and half hiding behind a hoof. “It feels like I’m just speaking words, but this can’t possibly be a human language.”

“What characterizes a human language?” Twilight asked curiously.

“I’m not sure I can say, because I don’t... remember, exactly,” the human mare replied with difficulty. “I think it was more... hootey?”

“Hootey?”

“Yeah, hooty, like, beoouuuuuuwup!” the alien replied loudly. Then she blushed, looking around at other library patrons staring at her in irritation, covering her mouth and whispering, “Sorry!”

“C’mon, let’s get you a basic foal’s reading book,” Twilight said, walking the creature toward the foal’s section. “It might help you understand your new manner of speech better, if you learn the basics of Equestrian grammar. And we can talk more about... hooting, I guess?”

“It’s not too bad,” the alien said quietly, following the lilac princess. “At least I can breathe through my mouth.”

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked in bewilderment.

“In my verse, horses can’t breathe through their mouths,” the pink haired pony murmured back. “Any language they made would have to be composed entirely of humming.”

Twilight cringed at the very idea.

Author's Note

They also can’t see purple!

The Journey Ends

The alien mare did end up checking out some basic reading, and expressed her utter delight that Twilight’s library home wasn’t blown to kingdom come anymore. Twilight remarked rather sarcastically that perhaps this mare’s altiverse viewer was pointed in the wrong direction, but the mare was most insistent that the verse it viewed was uncannily like their own. And that’s all she would say on the subject. Twilight tried wheedling her, cajoling her, teasing her, yet she didn’t budge once she’d realized what she was saying. She didn’t seem to like talking about what she knew of them, and nothing at all about her home in the human world.

Twilight at least managed to infer from accidentally leaked half sentences, that the alien lived in a human city, in a human apartment. Twilight came to conclude from that, that an advanced dimension faring civilization still had cities, and apartments, instead of some form of a higher order social organization. The mare certainly seemed normal, and not in any way advanced or enlightened beyond pony ken. She honestly seemed completely clueless, when Twilight tried to find the simplest things about her world’s potential for bispatial transception. The traveller claimed not to be a research subject, nor was she any kind of mad genius, so Twilight was at a loss to imagine how the alien got here in the first place. That left Twilight at a loss of how to help her, with whatever quest brought her to this strange land.

The mare never returned to the library, understandable since she only ever had the most basic of reading levels, but still it was disappointing. Twilight wanted to learn more about her and her world, before this human’s journey had ended, and the opportunity had passed. Twilight wanted to study with the Trotwood students, who were even now divining more and more about the human’s home in an attempt to find out how to return her there. Twilight wanted to help this alien mare, not be stonewalled by her ignorance, and reluctance to divulge the true nature of her verse!

But for better or for worse, Twilight Sparkle simply was not the pony destined to help this mare complete her quest.

“Twilight, a moment?”

“Oh, Applejack!” Twilight said, turning to look over her back with a smile, “How was the frontier symposium?”

The stetson bearing cowpony wasn’t smiling though, but had a look of honest worry on her face. “Met some ponies in a right pickle,” she said, walking staidly into the warm confines of Ponyville’s tree library, “And ah think they need our help. You ever hear of a town called Hayshire?”

“Aww,” Pinkie Pie whined, “But I wanted to play some more with Rosy first! Can’t we wait until next week, or next month or something?”

“Rosy?” Twilight responded blankly for a moment, while levitating a pack onto Pinkie’s back, “Oh, you mean the human?”

“Well, she’s not a human right now, but yeah?” Pinkie responded cattily, shouldering the supplies deposited on top of her.

“Be that as it may, the Trotwood team have the human situation well under control,” Twilight replied curtly, levitating another pack to go on top of Pinkie’s back. “We can’t wait another week, because the Hayshire township needs to harvest their crops now, or they’ll lose them to the first frost.”

“But I wanted to make friends with Rosy more!” Pinkie whined, adjusting to the weight of the new bag. It was really heavy, probably full of books. “She’s so fun!”

Twilight paused in her packing to regard Pinkie thoughtfully.

“I don’t know how close you want to get to the human,” Twilight replied with concern. “Remember she’s not going to be around forever. She has a family, and a home, and friends of her own, and she lives very far away from here. There’s going to be some point where you’re going to have to say goodbye.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Pinkie sighed, looking at the floorboards. “I hope she gets back to her real friends soon, so that she can start making friends again.”

“Don’t worry Pinkie,” Twilight said kindly, putting a hoof on her withers. “She has a big adventure of her own in front of her, and I’m sure she’ll pull through admirably. That’s what she’s here for, to learn an important life lesson, and find her way back home.”

“I thought she was here because her tee-vee exploded,” Pinkie asked, glancing at Twilight in confusion.

“That too?” Twilight said a little less confidently. “But... these quests have their way of working themselves out, so don’t feel like you need to go out of your way. I know you want to make everypony’s lives as full and happy as possible, and sometimes that means giving them space to find their own way.”

Pinkie nodded without further protest, and Twilight went back to packing her books and gear and stuff on top of the pink party pony.

“I wonder why their soil went bad?” Pinkie said, pulling the strap on the latest pack tight around her barrel. “That’s not a thing that usually happens to soil!”

“That’s why they asked Applejack to lend her expertise,” Twilight replied. “It could be any of several dozen issues including aether wellups, blights, fungal intrusions, imbalanced humours, stellar convergence, or even something regarding this dimensional boundary nonsense. I’ve packed whatever relevant texts I could,” she levitated a third, smaller pack on top of Pinkie’s second one, wincing at the pink pony’s burden, and saying, “Sorry, it’s just—”

“No... problem,” Pinkie said bearing under the strain. She sure wasn’t used to carrying around loads of books like this. It’d take her at least the afternoon to adjust.

“Anyway I have faith in Applejack’s judgement regarding such matters,” Twilight went on, levitating a medium sized pack onto her own back with an apologetic grin. “And if she can’t... find the problem,” Twilight said, testing her hooves underneath her, finding them sound to carry her own load, “Then I’m sure if we work together, we can find a solution!”

“You said it, Twilight!” Pinkie said cheerfully, “Now let’s go meet the others, and go make those plants grow, and those smiles glow!”

Their friends were waiting at the train station for them, Applejack with her packs full of seeds and tools, and galoshes, Fluttershy with her carriers of gophers and moles, Rarity with some emergency hats and jackets, as well as some tasteful gifts for ponies they might see. Twilight and Pinkie contributed books, more books, and some food too but Twilight didn’t have to know about the treats Pinkie had snuck along, instead of a few books that probably weren’t all that important anyway. On top of their individual contributions, everypony had a sleeping roll, and a cloak for any unreported snow storms.

“Oh my goodness,” Fluttershy said softly, in great excitement. “I’ve never been across the lunar ocean. Oh what strange and wonderful sights we may see there!”

“You mean strange and wonderful creatures, ” teased Rainbow Dash, making Fluttershy squeak, but not apologetically. They were the least loaded up of all of them, for two very different reasons.

“Personally, ah am looking forward to this,” Applejack said confidently, watching the train pull into the station. “About time somepony asked an Apple to oversee things down thattaway. Ah’m real sorry to drag y’all along with me like this.”

“It’s okay, Applejack. That’s what friends are for!” Pinkie Pie giggled liberally. “We’re going oversea to oversee!”

“Who knows what we might find there,” Rarity said a little less enthusiastically. “But whatever it is we encounter, we’ll be with you the entire way.”

“Shucks, what’d ah do to deserve y’all?” Applejack said with a blush and a hat tilt.

Twilight looked upwards, ticking off in the air on her hoof, “Well, you organized the Ponyville resistance, then you helped save your friends so we could imprison a spirit of chaos back in stone, then you—”

Applejack plugged her mouth, saying, “Ah didn’t mean literally.”

“There’s literally, and then there’s twi-literally,” remarked dryly a little purple dragon, wearing an adorable gem packed backpack of his own.

“All aboard, for Vanhoover!” the conductor called out, as the train made ready to leave the station.

“Is everypony ready?” Applejack asked, a lazy smile on her snout.

“Ready!” Pinkie cheered.

“Yeah!” Rainbow agreed heartily.

“You bet!” Spike said, giving the thumbs up.

“I sure hope so,” Twilight demurred.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Fluttershy admitted.

“Let’s hurry it up before the train leaves,” Rarity said impatiently.

“Well okay then,” Applejack said happily, rearing up to charge onto the boarding platform, “C’mon everypony, and let’s get her done!”

Several weeks later, a half dozen weary ponies and a baby dragon crawled up a long road into town. For the thousandth time, Applejack groaned to herself quietly, “Never... again...”

Nopony saw fit to question her.

It was a droopy eared, exhausted Applejack who approached the quiet town of Ponyville, along with a very worn out looking Pinkie Pie, a tired Rainbow Dash, a frazzled Rarity, a hungry looking Spike, Twilight Sparkle without her nose in a book, and a blushingly happy Fluttershy.

“Oh, I can’t believe we got to see a strocnocerous stampede!” Fluttershy continued to whisper excitedly. “And the wyvern spiders were just like I imagined! And—oh, would you look at that.” Fluttershy finished, falling silent and staring, as the bleary eyed Pinkie basically ran face first into a road sign without noticing it.

== P O N Y V I L L E ==➤

“Oh thank the heavens, we’re home! ” Applejack said in immense relief, pushing an unresisiting Pinkie Pie out of the way, “Oh Ponyville ah’ve missed y’all more’n a skeeter in a hurricane!”

She then proceeded to rear up and cradle the sign, kissing it tenderly

“Applejack, don’t you...” Rarity said wincing at her unusually enthusiastic friend, “Think maybe that your family would like to see you—”

“Apple Bloom!” Applejack shouted, pushing off from the sign. “They don’t even know we’re here yet! Ah sent a letter, but ah ain’t got no way to know if it arrived!”

“I’m sorry, Applejack,” Twilight said apologetically, shifting the supplies she was still carrying with her on her sore back. She’d levitate them but... not after that massive stop spell yesterday. “Spike did his best,” Twilight explained, “But I never thought to ask him to practice sending letters to Sweet Apple Acres.”

“Hey, I almost had it!” Spike protested a little irritably. “Dozenth time’s the charm!”

“I don’t know about you all,” Rainbow Dash declared, “But now that we’re here, I’m just gonna find a cloud and catch some zzz’s. I don’t even want to think about building myself a house again.”

She flapped heavily up into the air, proceeding at a more stately pace once she was airborne. Fluttershy looked after Dash with concern, but ultimately couldn’t help much, since ponies like Rainbow Dash were out of earshot before Fluttershy even took in a breath.

“I for one enjoyed the airy lands,” Fluttershy said to those who remained. “It was a lot of hard work, but we did so much good for those ponies!”

“Yeah... great parties,” Pinkie said agreeably, totally not swaying on her hooves. “I still have to get the recipe for their knock-out punch. It was like a flavor explosion!”

“Well, that partially explains their soil problems, at least,” Twilight said frankly. “Explosive fruits were the least of their worries, though. I’m glad we got them on the road to recovery.”

Pinkie’s nose still smelled like soot.

As the 12 returned to their home, Pinkie Pie went bounding off happily in search of Sugarcube Corner, in complete defiance of her still hefty encumberance. The lighter packed Rarity took Fluttershy, to see if the cottage keeper had survived taking care of her animals or not. Rainbow Dash was probably already konked out on a cloud somewhere. And Applejack went trotting straight for Sweet Apple Acres. That left Twilight and Spike to walk down the streets of Ponyville alone together, heading for their old familiar home, the Golden Oak library.

“I hope they found a librarian while we were gone,” Spike said worriedly. “I did not think that was going to take that long.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you to say, but I’m sure they managed,” Twilight said, smiling down at him, “We did manage to mail a letter to Amethyst before leaving for the Aeriolian fields. I’m sure she got somepony to at least take care of the place.”

Twilight’s stare turned serious as they trotted and strode forward respectively, and she grumbled somewhat more darkly, “But I’ll bet I’m going to need to spend at least a week getting all the books back in their proper places.”

“Huh, maybe I’m just forgetting,” Spike said curiously, “But do ponies usually act like that?”

“Huh?” Twilight said, lifting her gaze and looking to where Spike was pointing. He was pointing at a group of ponies who were walking along the street, but looking at each other anxiously, trotting hastily back in the other direction any time they started to get close to each other.

“Hm, that isn’t odd in of itself, but now that you mention it,” Twilight said, looking around. It was a bright sunny day, which was odd because all the grass and flowers were quite dry looking. It definitely should have rained a while ago. And ponies were taking odd routes, circituous paths that avoided going directly from point A to point B.

They might have continued on, but at least one pony noticed who was walking through town, along with a very distinctive little purple dragon.

“Twilight!” came the shout from Amethyst Star, “Don’t go into the shadow!”

Twilight was in far too pleasant a mood to comprehend that statement. “What?” she asked, looking at a very frazzled Amethyst stumbling towards her, Twilight stopping in her tracks. Was that why ponies were... wait. She looked at the building’s shadows, very short in the noonday sun. How long had it been noon...?

“Shadows... poisoned,” the less purple unicorn said, looking like she hadn’t slept in quite a while. “It got all over town, just a few days ago. Some kind of creature that lives in shadows. How did you... trains are running again?”

“We um... walked here,” Twilight said worriedly. “What’s going on? Should I be getting my friends?”

“Sorry, it—” Amethyst winced and put a hoof to her temple, saying, “It can give you a horrible headache if you don’t give in—it can move ponies around like puppets, it—I haven’t even been inside in days!”

“How did this happen?” Twilight asked in alarm, looking at the poor Amethyst, who moved back as Twilight approached too close.

“The human!” Amethyst exclaimed bitterly. “They said something came through the rift! That it was after her. She went—to go find help.”

“That sounds like a quest!” Twilight replied in fear and yet hope. If it was, then there had to be a way to solve this problem. “Does she—hold on, I have to go warn my friends.”

Ignoring the strain, Twilight pulled herself into a teleport, leaving everything she was wearing behind for maximum efficiency. She mapped a course through the cosmic field, struggling from weariness, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle, not as a princess’s principle pupil, and sometimes savior of the world. That’s what the slim winged unicorn told herself as she ignored the ache of her exhausted horn, teleporting straight into what might be an absolute disaster. Applejack!

The instant before Twilight vanished, she had made a mental checklist of her friends. Rainbow Dash would be out of any shadows, and possibly beyond what a Void creature could reach up there. Rarity and Fluttershy were relatively stately in their movement, and would be keeping out of the town proper if they were heading towards Fluttershy’s cottage. And with the sun in the sky as it was, even the shadows of these buildings were easy to avoid, also considering Pinkie’s love of the warm sun. That left Applejack who was currently about to trot right underneath her beautiful shaded apple —

Twilight appeared at the mouth of Sweet Apple Acres. Her horn blazed with light for a moment, before she confirmed that she was out of any shadows. Then, she went running in the opposite direction, hoping she would find Applejack along the way.

Twilight breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the trotting orange pony come round the bend, heading for her home. “Applejack!” Twilight gasped, “Void incursion. No time to explain. Do not touch any shadows, anywhere. Stay in the sun! Meet me outside the library!” Twilight closed her eyes then and her horn sputtered, but she focused it fiercely, and tried a teleport and... she lost it. Twilight popped out right in the middle of town. Darn it! She’d been aiming for Fluttershy’s cottage, but she just couldn’t hold it! Why did this have to happen when she had a strained horn? Why did she have to go and try to stop time yesterday?!

Of course Pinkie Pie was right there where Twilight appeared. “Pinkie!” Twilight exclaimed in relief. “The shadows are poisoned!” she shouted to the wide eyed pink pony. “Don’t let any shadow of anything or anypony touch you. And please just... drop your bags and hurry. I don’t know if I can warn Fluttershy and Rarity in time—”

Twilight cut off as she learned she was speaking to the empty space beneath a hovering supply pack, bedroll, pots, water canteens, shovels—you get the point. All that crashed to the ground prompting Twilight to jerk her hooves back. She reared up thinking her backpack was still weighing her down, and overbalanced backwards, right into the grasp of her own magenta magic. Twilight grunted with the strain of catching herself, but then shoved herself back down to all fours, right at the edge of a shadow. That was too close for comfort.

Well, Pinkie was gone, and if Pinkie reached the other two in time, it’d be more reliably than Twilight’s pitiful attempts to overstrain her horn even more. So instead, Twilight went looking for a pegasus. And there were very few pegasi in town, but Twilight did find one, sitting at a table with its parasol folded up, looking like everypony else did: hot and glum. She was a pretty pink thing with yellow blond locks of hair.

“Excuse me,” Twilight said to her. “But I need to warn my friend about this shadow problem, and she’s up on a cloud right now. I don’t suppose you could help?”

“What clouds?” she said miserably in a wobbly voice. Twilight... huh. Twilight looked up again, noting there were also no clouds in the sky. This was a distinctly unsustainable situation.

“Well, hopefully she’s gone out of town then?” Twilight asked uneasily. The pegasus mare just shrugged.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I can’t fly like this.”

Twilight peered at the pegasus’s perfectly healthy pink wings curiously. Seeing this, the mare clarified, “It jerks around every pegasus who tries to escape their shadow. I’d fall out of the sky before I even got off the ground.”

“Oh, this is terrible,” Twilight said sympathetically, touching the mare’s shoulder in a way that wouldn’t get their shadows intersecting. “I can’t believe we just left that rift unattended...”

The pegasus laughed tensely, saying, “That sure explains it then. I thought you Trottingdale ponies had been watching it!”

“Oh!” Twilight yelped, blushing with embarassment, “No I meant... me and my friends, you see, we’re... um... a friend of mine and I discovered the rift, and that’s who I was talking about, not Trotwood. I’m sure the Trottingdale ponies were very diligant, in fact. They’re the best research team in the kingdom.”

“Then why are we all jerky and headachy and sick inside?” the mare asked bitterly in return. “They should have stopped this!”

“Maybe there was something else involved,” Twilight suggested. “Something we don’t know about that explains it.”

“Oh, I don’t care I just wish this Faust-darned thing would let me fly again,” the mare groaned, putting her head in her hooves. “I’d never touch the ground again!”

“I’m terribly sorry you have to go through this,” Twilight said sympathetically, “All of you. I don’t know if my friends and I can help, but we’ll do everything we can.”

“You sure seem to have a high opinion of yourself,” the pegasus grumbled, glaring Twilight’s way. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Oh, where are my manners,” Twilight said with a blush, and a hoof to her shoulder. “I’m Twilight Sparkle. What’s your name?”

“You’re the princess?” the mare said, sitting up with interest. “You ca—agh” she winced, and held her hooves to her head. “Fluff—you should go. I think it—it’s trying to get me to—ack” her hoof spasmed away from her temple, reaching for Twilight suddenly. No, reaching for her shadow!

Twilight backed up, and the mare got a hold of herself. Well, in a manner of speaking. The mare started crying, collapsing against the table she was trying to stand at, but she wasn’t being compelled to move anymore. So, it was about the opposite of getting a hold of yourself.

Now that Twilight looked around, she could see other ponies who she recognized were few and far between, and keeping a very wide berth around her, far wider than any pony’s shadow would extend. And... it broke Twilight’s heart, because she had to watch this unknown pegasus mare just lose it, from something she never deserved, and Twilight couldn’t even go comfort her, because it was too dangerous to get near her!

Twilight’s mane blew in the air as Rainbow Dash landed behind her, shouting frantically, “Twilight! Something’s wrong with the shadows! Pegasi up there told me to never touch them, and that they’d get you all if you were down here!”

“Get the others,” Twilight Sparkle stated firmly, but quietly. “Applejack is in the sun outside her orchard. Pinkie and Rarity are with Fluttershy, away from the shadows in their cottage. I need you all to meet me at the library. Please hurry before it tries anything else. We need to use the Elements of Harmony.”

“Tha—that bad, huh—I mean, yes ma’am!” Rainbow stuttered then saluted, probably. Twilight didn’t even get a chance to face her friend, before Rainbow Dash had blasted off again into the sky.

Then Twilight sighed and started to trot towards the library, where her own supplies were lying crashed on the ground, when she’d teleported out from under them. It was time to get her Element of Harmony, and check on Spike as well. Spike was probably worried stiff, with all this shadow business throwing them immediately back into the fryer.

She found him huddled by Twilight’s discarded pack, looking scared but alright. Her little dragon was still quietly cowering there in the middle of the square beside it. “Spike!” Twilight said in relief, “I’m so glad you’re safe.” Spike looked up in fear, but his fear broke into a relieved smile. He stood up, and started running towards her, arms outstretched. The poor guy was so scared he just wanted a hug. Amethyst kicked him across the square.

Twilight stared in outright disbelief as her substitute planner outright kicked Spike across the square. “Stay back!” Amethyst shouted squaring off with Twilight. “He doesn’t—know to resist! It’s trying to make us—ahh!” She fell to one knee then, and Twilight saw in horror now, that Amethyst’s shadow was distorting jaggedly, like something was pulling it around, like it wasn’t even a pony’s shadow anymore.

“Twilight!” came Rarity’s voice, as she, Fluttershy and Pinkie came trotting up. “Thank heavens you warned us! We’ve stayed out of the shadows.” Each of them had already put on their elemental focii, a golden collar that each of them carried with them at all times.

“Ah’m a’comin’ Twilight!” came Applejack’s voice from the other direction.

“Hold on just a little longer,” Twilight whined to Amethyst. “We’ll banish this thing so hard it... will get banished really hard,” she didn’t have time to quip. She turned towards the others, Dash zooming down with Applejack in tow.

“We’ve been through the drill before,” Twilight said, “You’re all ready to use your Elements?”

“Ready!” Rainbow Dash said confidently.
“Ah won’t let you down,” Applejack agreed.
“Any time you’re ready,” Fluttershy said modestly.
“We’ll banish him so hard his butt will turn inside out!” Pinkie quipped.
“I’m ready to do whatever it takes!” Rarity replied.

“Good!” Twilight smiled, “Then let our powers com—wait hold on,” She lit her horn, lifting a flap in the packing supplies she’d been carrying and levitating out her own collar, its sparkling lilac star crowning the center. With that latched on her neck, she shouted, “Let’s do this!”

A cringing pony made a desperate break for them, as did Spike, but it was too late. The Harmony surged around them, holding the others away as each collar came to life on each pony’s neck, and all of Twilight’s friends remembered the deep power that lay within them all. All Twilight’s aches and pains faded away as she could feel her friends as one, surrounding her in a oneun pointed star of good will. One by one each of them lit up with readiness, and Twilight always felt privileged to join them, to open herself up to the friendship she never knew she so desperately needed.

Her friend Rainbow Dash flickered as her voice sort of... came, asking for all of them, “What do we even attack?” But Twilight smiled, as they all already knew the answer.

“We attack the darkness!”

Twilight’s only regret was she didn’t get to observe the effects of the Elements when she was... caught up in them. When the light had faded, and she had descended to the ground again, her first recognition that all was well was a collective cheer going up around her. Everypony was okay! Everypony was okay? It didn’t look all that different in fact, other than the expressions of absolute relief on the face of every pony looking their way.

“We sent that mean old darkness packing!” Pinkie Pie said cheerfully.

“That sure was a close’n,” Applejack said, looking around nervously.

“Is everypony okay?” Fluttershy asked, while Rarity asked, “Is everypony okay?” loud enough for anypony to hear.

“I think so!” somepony shouted from the crowd.

“I think you did it!” Amethyst said excitedly, stepping in place and watching her normal, passive, un-corrupted shadow do the same.

“That should clear up any extradimensional incursions!” Twilight called out loudly, looking around. “You can all go about your normal lives now!”

“Or we could have a party!,” Pinkie called out even louder. There was another collective cheer from the herd.

“Oh, thank you so much!” said that blonde haired pink pegasus, turning loops in the air. “I thought I’d never be free!”

“Seriously, Twilight, next time you go on a trip can you not leave extradimensional rifts lying around?” Amethyst asked wryly. “That was a serious problem!”

“I’ll do my best,” Twilight replied, “But how did it get this bad? No wait, we should save it for the town meeting.”

“Yeah, I really don’t know the details,” Amethyst admitted. “Shadows just started to act weird, and some ponies were being puppetted around. And the more it happened the sicker everypony got. I’ll go find the mayor and gather the other ponies so they can tell you the full story.”

“And I’ll just... find somewhere to sleep,” Twilight said, sagging under her accumulated exhaustion.

Amethyst blushed and said, “Don’t mind me, then,” trotting hurriedly off to make preparations. And finally, like her friends, Twilight Sparkle got to make her way back home. With great pleasure, she returned to her beloved tree library. After checking on Spike to make sure he got back okay too (he cleared the gems out of the pantry, and passed out in his basket), Twilight brushed her teeth, then ascended the crystelline staircase to her old bedroom. Snuggled up and fading into an exhausted slumber, Twilight had never felt so happy to lay in her warm, soft bed. There really was no place like home.

With the entire town in such relief, a little Pinkie Pie magic turned the town meeting into a big celebration, with balloons, and streamers, and one pony named Twilight Sparkle looking rather unamused, as she tried to get everypony to stop partying long enough for her to give her announcement. There were ponies who were very interested in Twilight’s announcement though, so it wasn’t too long before she had a decent assembly paying attention to her. Tapping her note cards perfectly aligned on the podium, Twilight happily told them all the good news.

“Greetings everypony!” Twilight said joyfully, “It’s not every day that I expect to run into great peril on my way back from the adventure, but with Void incursions you can never be too careful. If my measurements are correct, and trust me I triple-checked them,” she said, a nervous chuckle going through the crowd. “You can rest assured that all intruders, dimensional incursions, dimensional diversions and spatial anomalies have been patched up and removed from Ponyville, thanks to the Elements of Harmony, with a little help from the ponies who bear them.”

“But our research!” a pony in the front shouted in outrage. Twilight smiled and—wait, outrage? Not gratitude? She stared uncomprehending for a moment as the pony said, “We moved our entire operation from Trottingdale University in order to study this rift! And it’s just gone, just like that? There was so much we could learn from it!”

Oh. Trotwood. Of course.

Twilight smiled uneasily at the unfamiliar stallion. She hadn’t thought ponies would be upset at a time like this, but it kind of made sense in hindsight. “I... don’t know how to break this to you,” she said to the guy, “But when a Void creature has corrupted the shadows of all the ponies in Ponyville, that’s a little more important than just sticking your head in a portal to who knows where.”

“As it so happens, the probe spells we sent through the portal were measuring counter-rotational antispatial harmonics,” the stallion said snidely. Wait, what? Really? “To the laypony, that means—”

“A stable tri-decimal dimensional manifold?” Twilight exclaimed in shock. “That’s impossible! Did you use Dwell Deep’s Darkness Distinguishment to—”

“To remove any chance of cross-temporal current, yes, and we were about to employ Studious Stead’s—”

“Serial Shade Severance to remove the dynamic malquifescence,” Twilight said excitedly, “Which if below nanometers VQQ would conclusively prove the existence of a stable tri-decimal dimensional manifold, but—”

“But the shadow... creature, as it were, slipped in without our knowledge,” the stallion said, eyeing the confused crowd worriedly as the princess stared at him eagerly. “And it truely was an offensive foe. So as much as you could put it a little more politely, you do have a point. We can conduct our research on less... volatile things. We do have a lot of data collected to analyze anyway, and perhaps with it we can learn to prevent more such Void incursions, the next time it happens.”

“Let’s just hope there won’t be a next time,” Twilight said frankly, a little disappointed, but she could definitely restrain her thirst for knowledge to help these ponies feel better. “But... it’s a good thing to know diligent ponies like you are working so hard to be ready for it.”

She turned toward the greater populace again, announcing confidently, “Don’t worry, everypony! We may have lost a (priceless scientific opportunity) little bit of progress, but the Elements of Harmony will have returned all extradimensional travellers to their home dimensions, and closed the rift that their presence generated. There will be no more shadows coming from the woods to plague you.”

Most of the ponies seemed greatly relieved at that, but a blue mare with a head of wavey blonde hair caught her eye. “Miss? Um... Princess Sparkle?” the pony asked uncertainly, stepping forward.

“Twilight is fine,” Twilight said.

“Okay, Twilight, okay,” the mare said, collecting her hooves a moment, before looking up and asking worriedly, “What about Rosy?”

Twilight winced.

“Rosy was a... dimentional incurser pony,” the mare continued worriedly, “What happens to her?”

“Miss um...” Twilight prompted uneasily.

“Bluebell,”

“Bluebell,” Twilight said, “Rosy had a home of her own. She had friends and family to return to. The Elements would have done nothing other than send her safely home, because... she doesn’t belong here. Her presence was an imbalance in our world that would have held the rift open. I’m sorry if you thought she was going to be with us longer, but those shadows forced our hoof. If we had arrived sooner, we could have done something, maybe. But I’m not going to put ponies in danger, just to keep a traveller from her home.”

“So she is gone...” said Bluebell, her ears wilting. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

“I’m sorry you thought she was going to be around longer,” Twilight said gently. “We all loved ehm... ‘Rosy’ while she was with us. But Rosy will be reunited with her friends now. Her family. She’s in a better place.”

“I don’t think she wanted to go,” Bluebell said resentfully. She stared up at Twilight’s podium in a sudden defiance.

Twilight’s smile was full of sympathy though. “Could you come up here and tell me the story of how you came to be friends with Rosy?”

“I—no I-I...” Bluebell looked around nervously, backing into the crowd.

“No need to be nervous,” Twilight said soothingly, “Just tell me if I’m on the mark here. Rosy had... problems when she first came here, didn’t she?”

“S-she was clumsy as a foal at first, but she was getting better,” Bluebell said in a somewhat offended tone, “She learned how to do pretty well at the shelter. Helping other ponies, who didn’t really knew her. B-but she didn’t seem to know how to make friends at all. She just didn’t know how to get close to anypony.”

“Then, I’m guessing there was some sort of crisis that challenged that?” Twilight prompted hopefully.

“Y-yes actually!” Bluebell replied in surprise, “My foal broke her wing flying into a tree, and she was too ashamed to tell anypony, until it healed wrong. I-it needed corrective surgery, and the only surgery pony I could find who could do it was in Vanhoover. I was scared to go, because maybe it would... g-go badly, and my foal she was scared too and it was breaking her heart, a-and Rosy caught me crying about it one day.”

Bluebell seemed to brighten at that, losing a little bit of her nervousness as she told Twilight, “Rosy told me she’d walk with me all the way to Vanhoover, just like that. And she did. I’d never even done anything for her before! S-she even pulled the cart, and... we got to talking, and it turns out she was really nice!”

“Wouldn’t you normally fly your cart to Vanhoover?” Twilight asked curiously.

Bluebell started to nod, then shake her head, then look a little confused, finally saying, “I was gonna, but Rosy’s an earth pony, so we walked. M-made Rainy feel better, because she’s scared of being up too high with only one working wing.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t have an uneventful trip on your trek to Vanhoover,” Twilight postulated.

Nodding, Bluebell said with honest admiration, “Yes, princess! T-the cart broke down once, and Rosy was the one who found somepony to fix it. She just walked off and c-came back with another traveller, a handsome stallion too! He knew just how to fix the b-broken axle. She was so calm about it, you wouldn’t knew that she was shy at all!”

Bluebell rubbed a foreleg under her chin, before looking up and adding, “And Rosy also made little Rainy feel better. She was scared about the surgery, and that she couldn’t fly, but Rosy wouldn’t let her stay scared. She kept t-telling Rainy all about how she was gonna be able to fly again. She said that when you’re doing everything you can, and you’re still scared, that’s when you’re supposed to... laugh. And even fake laughing really helped her feel better. Helped us both. I’m not um...”

Bluebell blushed heavily, mumbling shamefully, “I’m not good with foals. I just sort of... had one. So... it turns out Rosy is good with foals, and Rainy really liked Rosy, so she’s been babysitting her since then, a-and Rosy and me just got along really well after that.”

Nodding, Twilight asked, “I trust your foal’s wing is better?”

Bluebell nodded, with a relieved smile. “She’s flying again i-if a little more carefully,” the yellow haired purple pegasus said. “Still scared of trees though.”

Twilight stepped back from Bluebell, and declared more for the crowd overall, “What you’ve told me is a tale told time and time again. A traveller finds themselves stranded in a strange land, where they learn the lessons they need to succeed in life. They make fast friends, they journey together, overcoming obstacles along the way, and ultimately they return triumphant. It was just the natural progression beyond that, for Rosy Pink to have to return home. She completed her quest, bettered herself, and it was time for her to return where she belonged.

“I know it might have seemed like Rosy didn’t want to go,” Twilight said to the purple pegasus, “But that shows what a caring pony she was. She didn’t want you to think she was suffering, but I can assure you that deep inside, her home was calling to her. She may have seemed to be happy to be here at the moment, but once the novelty wore off, you know as well as I do that she’d have been pining for her home.”

“I suppose so,” Bluebell said, looking away from the princess.

“Her heart was in returning home,” Twilight assured the mare. “That’s how these sort of things work. Ponies may travel to strange and wonderful places, but be it ever so humble...”

“...there’s no place like home,” Bluebell recited. “I guess you’re right. Sorry, princess. I just... kind of miss her already.”

“Miss Bluebell,” Twilight said, thinking back to her own motivations. “Have you heard the tale of Lighthouse Paul?”

“Can’t say I have, princess?” Bluebell said curiously.

“About years XG ago, a pony known as Nora Nother was lost at sea one day in a terrible storm,” Twilight said, again speaking louder for benefit of the whole crowd. “Everypony thought she had been taken by the waves forever. But back in her hometown of Pollack Spear, she had a special somepony named Lighthouse Paul, who ran the local lighthouse along with his father Lampie, to keep the ships from crashing into the rocks in stormy weather.

“Though ponies said she was lost forever, he never joined another herd. Every time he shone the lighthouse when there was a storm at sea, he never stopped hoping this was the one where she returned. Well, one thing led to another, and he took in a runaway orphan, who happened to be good friends with a dragon. And the dragon was so moved by Lighthouse’s devotion, that he went searching for the missing mare, to find what became of her, whether it was the bottom of the ocean, or a distant port city in Saddle Arabia.

“He found the mare in that port city, and the reason she’d never returned was she sustained a head injury in the shipwreck that robbed her of her memory. She’d built a new life for herself in that city, made new friends, and found new love, but she never could stop feeling like she was missing something, or somepony. The dragon managed to restore her memory, and she knew what she had been missing, were all the ponies she cared so much about back home.

“She was on the first ship to return to Pollack, but as fate would have it, that was also when a terrible storm blew in, and a great wave crashed into the lighthouse, dousing its wick and putting out its light. Her ship was sailing blind, so to speak, and they could not find the shore. It looked for sure that they would be dashed upon the rocks, so close to being together again.

“That’s when the dragon arrived, and used his flame to dry the damp wicks, and light the lighthouse. You might see a statue of him should you ever travel to Pollack, for his dedication and bravery that saved a love that might otherwise have been lost forever.”

Twilight paused for effect, and because the story always made her feel like crying. “Rosy was in the same situation as Nora, Bluebell,” she said, reminding the pony standing at the base of the podium that she was being directly addressed. “Lost in a strange land, far away from home. She had her own Lighthouse Paul, and Lampie, and the mourning townsfolk from her home, who all needed her to return. So I know she was...” Twilight grimaced inwardly, “A lot of fun to be around, but this wasn’t her home, and there were other creatures of her kind who needed her to return.”

“I never knew, princess,” Bluebell said, her own eyes shining with tears. “To think we was keeping her away from her special somepony!”

“You did nothing wrong in befriending her, Bluebell,” Twilight said comfortingly. “She’s back home where she belongs, thanks to the Elements of Harmony, and we can all get on with our lives now, with our real friends.”

“She was my—I mean, yes your highness, that makes sense,” Bluebell said in a torn sort of confusion. “I’ll try to get over her, with my friends. I was just disappointed, on account of it happened so fast I couldn’t even say goodbye. Thank you, princess. Sorry, princess.”

The mare backed back into the crowd before Twilight could think of any more ways to comfort her. Then somepony else came forward and shouted, “Are the rumors true that you fought the legendary air whales?”

Twilight’s ears went flat. “You don’t fight aeroceta,” she corrected the purple and white pony, “But it has been quite an exciting season. And it’s a story that I owe you all, after you went through so much in our absence. Rest assured my friends and I aren’t going to be leaving you again any time soon, barring of course any unexpected threats to Equestria.

She turned to the crowd and said, “It all started when the crops of the Hayshire township mysteriously started to fail, just when they needed them the most...”

As the evening wore on, and ponies of Ponyville began to turn in after the party, for their well earned rest, a lone figure crested the hill overlooking Ponyville from the northeast. She looked down at the quiet town settling down for the evening, and shouted, “Oh no! We’re too late!”

The mare attempted a clumsy run, but then stumbled, and almost fell over her own hooves. Choking back a scream of frustration, she trotted at a more careful pace, eating up the distance between her and the town. As the evening shadows grew long, it became apparant that not all was normal about this mare. Her saddlebags in particular, one of them held a soft, calm glow of light to it. As soon as she reached the edge of town, she whispered to her glowing saddlebag, “This is as close as I can risk. Come on out little guy, and do your thing.”

Without responding in words, a sinuous, 12 legged creature popped its head out of her saddle bag, whose fur glowed with that soft light her saddlebags had emitted. It scurried up her mane, to perch on her head, looking around while the pony stood beneath it looking up in concern. Then, it climbed down her body, and she held out a hoof as it leaped off of it and then just melted into a shadow. The shadow itself disintegrated like smoke at the creature’s passing, only slowly pulling itself together seemingly from bits of scattered darkness. The mare waited there, her soft pink tail curling close to her rump as she looked around at the long shadows, and the total lack of anypony in distress at all.

She blinked, her head tilting in puzzlement at the few ponies up and about, laughing, talking to each other, and striding around calmly in the evening. She looked down at a flash of light, as the creature seemingly climbed out of a shadow. Standing aground and lifting its first pair of legs up to face the mare, it looked at her and shrugged cluelessly.

“I... think we’d better go find Berryshine,” she remarked to the thing. “Everything looks... just fine around here.” It scurried up into her saddlebag in response and perched there while she trotted further into town. As an afterthought, she added, “And maybe Bluebell will know what’s going on.”

Author's Note

Well, I guess I’ll just throw all these chapters about the epic of Hayshire that totally exist and I’m totally not bullshitting you in the trash. The things I sacrifice for my art! :duck:

Long one coming up next week...

Okay How About Happily Ever After?

The portal closed with a snap. There was a second snap, as Twilight’s head whipped back around to stare at the central rift. It had fallen back to microscopic size, but the air around it was glowing an angry red, and twisting about with eerie distortions.

“Oh no,” Twilight said, lighting up her horn and—and it was like trying to wrestle an alligator. Her magic just didn’t work right around these disturbances. She surrounded it in a shield bubble, and smoothed out the spatial distortions one by one, wincing as each of them scraped against her magic unsettlingly.

“Don’t just stand there,” Twilight shouted anxiously, staring at the unstable rift, “Somepony go get her!”

“On it,” Rainbow Dash said, firing off into the sky above the clearing.

“Are you okay, Twilight?” Applejack asked tilting her head worriedly at the princess’s preoccupation with the glowy portal thing.

“The containment chamber,” Twilight said tensely, sweat trickling down her brow. “I need you to bring it here. Hurry, I don’t know what this thing is trying to do!”

Applejack zipped over and hefted the hundred or so pound thing on her back and zipped back to where Twilight was, saying, “Just plunk it down?”

“Don’t let it touch the rift!” Twilight instructed. “Open the front half and slide it around it, then close it around the rift.”

Applejack did so... very carefully. When she shut the two halves of the shell together, a hissing, whining hum that they all had been not hearing stopped sounding out, and Twilight relaxed, a little bit.

“This is only a temporary solution,” Twilight said undaunted. “I have to monitor this to make sure it doesn’t start to degenerate its containment. Thank you, Applejack.”

She looked away from the silvery egg for a moment to give Applejack a grateful smile. Then Twilight looked back, and her magic started crawling all over the surface of the silver.

The other four stood there a while, before Rarity asked, “Darling, is there something we can—”

“Yes, could you help me with this?” Twilight asked, without looking away from it. “I’m having a really hard time keeping it stable, and not just breaking it.”

“So you could use a subtle touch, is it?” Rarity said somewhat smugly, striding up to the sphere and lighting up her horn. “Oh that’s,” she said, wincing as she looked at it, “Oh my.”

“Yes, could you just... smooth out the whorls?” Twilight asked. “I can reseal any broken runes. And please Applejack, just... hold it steady while we’re working.”

“Can do, sugarcube.”

Rarity did what she could, while Twilight took care of the brunt of the work. She may have been the magical equivalent of 2.20 very powerful unicorns, but these containment chambers were usually managed by no less than three unicorns, and two earth ponies. And Twilight might have been part earth pony now, but she was actually kind of not that great as far as earth ponies went. She didn’t like to admit it, but she definitely had a long way to go in that regard. So while she appreciated Rarity’s unparalleled skill and finesse, Twilight honestly felt like the pony really keeping this together was Applejack.

“Pinkie!” she called out. “Pinkie Pie could you help Applejack do her... thing?”

“Ah ain’t doin’ no thing, but have some sensitivity, Twilight!” Applejack called out in aggravation, sort of... leaning against the sphere and eyeballing it. “Ain’t you seen what that mare did to Pinkie?”

Twilight’s eyes snapped away from the containment unit. Pinkie Pie was with Fluttershy, who was doing her best to comfort the pony, but Pinkie looked absolutely distraught. She had tears running down her cheeks, and whimpers fighting with sobs, and her hair was worryingly limp. Rainbow Dash said something about that once, that Twilight wasn’t supposed to hear about it, but...

There was a metallic bang from inside the containment chamber.

Twilight snapped her attention back to it, shouting, “Rarity, could you help Pinkie too? Rosy did something to her!”

Rarity nodded, delighting her horn, while Twilight lit up hers again. Twilight had to wait, while Rarity and Fluttershy dealt with whatever Pinkie was going through. She hated the idea that one of her good friends was upset, and all she could do was smooth out the antidimensional vibrations that might have damaged the containment. But that’s what she had to do, so she made sure to do it well.

Rainbow Dash returned then, with a whoosh and a heavy thump as her hooves hit ground. She crunched through the snow right over to Twilight, who looked at Dash questioningly. The first thing Twilight noticed was Rainbow Dash did not bring back Rosy Pink. The second thing Twilight noticed was Rainbow Dash looked positively furious.

Rainbow Dash blasted off away from that... hole in the air that made her wings ache from the wrongness of it. She soared over the trees, peering through the twisted bare branches of the White Tail woods, trying to make out where Rosy had gone. It was hard to see the pastel pony against all this snow, a little pink swatch of color Dash’s only clue that she’d found the mare, running down the trail making a beeline for Ponyville. But Rainbow Dash’s keen eyes soon picked her out, and the pegasus descended into a dive.

“And just where do you think you’re going?” Rainbow Dash said, slamming down in front of Rosy Pink.

The mare scrambled to a halt, her eyes wide in terror as she said, “No, I can’t—I can’t go back there! I’m not ready!”

“What you’re doing, is you’re bothering my friends!” Rainbow said angrily, fluttering up to stare the pony in the face. “Making life hard for everypony, and you know what? I don’t even care what’s so scary about an empty room with police tape on it. What, did you think they weren’t going to notice you disappeared? Come on,” she said, grabbing the mare about her forelegs and heaving her up into the air. “Let’s just get you home, and we can all call this problem solved.”

As her hooves left the ground, Rosy screamed, “Let me go, you monster! ”

“She blew me off!” Rainbow Dash shouted at Twilight anxiously. “She was being a total jerk! She called me a—a featherhead! I didn’t say anything to her, and she just... she just called me something really bad!”

“Well, that’s hardly called for,” came Rarity’s voice behind Rainbow Dash, “But you shouldn’t be disturbing Twilight. She’s in the middle of a very delicate operation at the moment. But please, do tell us why you returned without her?”

The mare hit the snowdrift hard as she plummeted out of Dash’s arms. Crawling to her hooves, Rosy glared defiantly up at Rainbow Dash, instinctively lowering to a defensive crouch, a glare Rainbow Dash never wanted to see again, a word she never ever wanted to be called again. “I’m not a m-monster!” Rainbow shouted down to the mare shrilly, “What is your problem?!”

“Yes you are,” the mare snorted out, “You all are! You do everything you’re supposed to do and everything always goes just like it should. You don’t even listen, and you don’t even think, and you don’t even care. I don’t want to go back! I never wanted to go back! You didn’t even notice! I changed my mind I’m not going. I won’t go! So just—just leave me alone!!”

“Fine!” Rainbow Dash shouted angrily, as the mare ran away, ignoring her. “Fine then, be that way!” With nothing to be done about the swiftly departing mare, the shaken pegasus flew up into the air again, heading straight for mission control, where she could find out what the buck that mare’s problem was.

“She said she didn’t want to do it anymore!” Rainbow Dash told Rarity grumpily. “I don’t know why, she just... got scared, and changed her mind. So she’s not coming back! What was I supposed to do, drag her here?”

Rainbow Dash noticed she was rising off the earth a little, and fluttered herself down to relative stability. “So, she’s not coming,” Rainbow Dash said resentfully, “She’s not coming back.”

“You have to bring her back!” Twilight shouted abruptly. “The fate of Equestria depends on it!”

“Fine, you bring her back, then!” Rainbow Dash said resentfully, turning her head towards her unicorn—er, sorta unicorn friend. “I’m not gonna be bullying ponies just because they won’t listen to me.”

“I can’t, because I’m trying to stabilize this—uggh,” Twilight turned back to the shell. “Just... everypony, go catch up to her. Fluttershy, Pinkie please. I don’t even know what’s wrong I just need you to help calm Rosy down and find out what’s wrong!”

Twilight risked a look, and Pinkie Pie was standing, looking shaky, but nodded in understanding. Fluttershy gave Twilight a long, sideways glance, and simply rose into the air, melting into the surrounding forest as she followed along the earth mare’s noisy trail.

Rainbow Dash followed Pinkie Pie, the two trotting quickly after the quiet pegasus. And Pinkie Pie was quiet too, which made Rainbow Dash really worried. “What’s wrong, Pinkie?” she asked her friend. “You seem really upset!”

“I... I don’t wanna talk about it,” Pinkie said tensely, “Just ask Fluttershy; she’ll tell you all about it. In the meantime we have to find Rosy and help cheer her up!”

“Fine, you’re right,” Rainbow Dash said, “You know me, always flying straight into it.”

Pinkie actually managed a giggle at that and said, “Oh Dashie, you’re fine. Let’s just find her, and we can all get this worked out like nice friendly ponies, even though she’s a human... not a pony.”

They trotted for a while, then looked up as hurrying their way was Fluttershy, and she was not accompanied by a pink haired earth mare.

“Did you find her?” Rainbow Dash asked worriedly.

“No,” Fluttershy said in grave concern. “I tried to follow her hoofprints, but we’ve all been walking along this trail today. I don’t know how far she could have gotten!”

Rainbow Dash recalled her encounter with Rosy, with the hurt, angry pegasus flying away as Rosy beat her hooves in the other direction, in a solid, steady gallop. “She could’ve gotten pretty far,” Dash said wincing. “You two stay on the trail. I’m gonna check the way outta the woods. Meet me there, okay?”

Rainbow Dash zoomed out to the edge of the forest, but there was no pink haired pony to be seen. Dash looked around, but none of the ordinary Ponyville townsponies in the outskirts here fit that description. There were a few pulling a wagon toward the market, from the wheat fields filled with giant rolled up bales of hay. There were some working on breaking the ice in a pond, so they could cart it into cellars for refrigeration purposes.

Rainbow Dash knew Rosy wasn’t all that fast. If she had been out here, there wasn’t any sort of cover, so Dash’s keen vision could’ve spotted her, but the 12 had been arguing for a while, so maybe Rosy had run all the way into town? No, she was probably still running along the trail, and would come bursting out any minute now.

While the strange rainbow pegasus waited there at the mouth of the forest, another pegasus and a pink earth pony came running out of the forest to meet her. Conferring together, the three of them were shaking their heads at each other. Two went running back into the forest together to try to spot where Rosy had left the trail, while the third gallopped into town, searching around for the pony she was looking for in the dying light. Meanwhile, 3.32 unicorns and Applejack slowly but surely managed to get the portal stabilized again, sealed off inside its silver runed chamber. But later when the three met with the other three, there were more heads shaking all around.

A deer rose her head up from where she’d been sleeping in the thicket, waiting until twilight. Ponies were being awfully noisy today. The Bearers were combing through the forest, looking for one extremely lost mare, and making a big mess of things in the process. Come twilight, the deer joined with several others, and politely asked the ponies to stop tromping up the woods. So the ponies left, and that resolved that matter, for everydeer’s concern.

The ponies’ problems though, were just beginning.

“What do you mean you saw her at the market?!”

“Ah mean what ah said! I saw her at the market!”

Twilight leaned her forehead against a nearby bookcase. Applejack had come running into her library the day after they had to give up searching for her. And supposedly Rosy was... at the market?

“She was just... at the market?” Twilight asked, unnerved. “What did she say? ”

“She didn’t say nothin’,” Applejack said angrily. “I tried to talk to her, and she just ran the other way. Ah’m sure it was her, though!”

“Where did she go?” Twilight asked hopefully.

“Ah dunno!” Applejack stomped. “She wouldn’t even say howdy, so ah just came to tell you I saw her, like you wanted me to do!”

“Yes, but...” Twilight squirmed in place, “I suppose it wouldn’t be right to chase her, but still. We were searching all evening for her!”

“Well, maybe we shouldn’t have,” Applejack retorted. “Maybe she’s scared of us now, on account she thinks we’re gonna force her through some strange tear in space.”

“I wouldn’t do that!” Twilight exclaimed in horror, but Applejack frowned, replying,

“You could’ve fooled me! Don’t we need her to go through, to close off that rift thing?”

“Well, yes,” Twilight said uncomfortably, “But that doesn’t mean we need to be rude about it. Why wouldn’t she want to go through? Her home is on the other side!”

“Ah dunno, but I do know that she ain’t talkin’ to me, so there’s not much I cain do about it,” Applejack growled. “Now I did my part, and ah wanted you t’know that Rosy’s fine. So ah’ll be at the market selling apples to ponies who ain’t afraid of me, if’n you need me.”

Twilight’s ears were down when Applejack left, but Applejack didn’t care. She was downright peeved at this whole messy business with Rosy. Couldn’t they just lock that rift up in that container thing and stop worrying about it? Obviously not, but Applejack wasn’t all that great at understanding the details, especially when explained to her by her recently bewinged friend. Rosy’s position on the matter made enough sense though. She didn’t want to go back, and she liked being a pony for some reason.

But to abandon her friends? To give up on her family? Applejack just couldn’t believe that was true. Rosy had to have somepony waiting for her on the other side. Family didn’t just up and disappear when it wasn’t convenient to have ‘em. Applejack didn’t know why Rosy was ignoring her responsibilities to her family, and she didn’t understand why anypony would do that.

So instead of grumbling about it with Apple Bloom, over at her apple stand, Applejack went trotting off to let the rest of her friends know that Rosy was alive and well. Well, alive at least.

Rarity was downright driven to find out about everything that happened. She was as plum curious about the whole thing as Applejack was. Applejack couldn’t help much though, as she still hadn’t talked to Rosy about this, and she couldn’t answer half the questions Rarity brought up. Rarity said she’d ask around, but she wasn’t gonna push Rosy to directly confront her, which suited Applejack just fine. It was probably a good idea to give that human mare some space for a while. Even though they just didn’t know what went wrong, something sure as hay did go wrong, and that kind of thing is dealt with best after a good steady timeout to think about things.

Pinkie Pie was... underjoyed to hear about the news. Applejack wasn’t surprised the pink pony already had an idea that Rosy made her way back to town. Those two both made the same sort of nonsense, if that made any sense. But Pinkie had been seriously shaken by what transpired over by the rift, and it didn’t take a lot to get a pony like Pinkie Pie to start doubting herself.

Applejack did end up finding out what was the matter with Pinkie Pie, and it was as simple as the fact that Pinkie Pie made Rosy cry. Applejack reassured Pinkie Pie that she was a good friend, and that there was something suspicious going on about that rift business. The fact that Rosy couldn’t even look at Pinkie Pie without crying, well that was something wrong with Rosy not Pinkie, and in fact it meant that Rosy cared about Pinkie Pie most of all.

That’s how Applejack figured it at least. That Applejack was the third to last pony Rosy’d talk to was... interesting. Rosy’d interacted with Applejack a whole lot since the shadow thing went down. But Pinkie was the one who first found her, and brought her in, and it took Applejack a while to warm up to Rosy at first, so it made sense in a way, if Rosy had saved Pinkie Pie for last. It was easier to part ways with your boss than with your friend after all.

Except one thing didn’t make sense about it. Applejack may have been less trouble for Rosy to part with than Pinkie Pie, but Rosy had not saved Pinkie Pie for last. Rosy had saved somepony else entirely, a pony who hardly even considered her a pony...

Without answers, and reluctant to approach Twilight herself about all this, Applejack galloped down to Fluttershy’s Critter Care. Applejack had to hurry at this point, because it’d taken a while to tell Twilight, Rarity and Pinkie Pie, and she still had two more friends to go. Applejack sure didn’t want to know what Apple Bloom was gonna do back at the cart all by herself, if sales started to pick up again.

Applejack had tried to teach the filly about the economics of market bits in past years, but frankly Applejack felt like she was the filly sometimes, with how well Apple Bloom understood things. It was great how that filly just snapped up ideas like candy tarts. Trouble is the filly had an ornery streak in her, and when Apple Bloom had her mind set on something, it was hard to convince her it was dead wrong. That’d happened far too often, and Applejack frankly wasn’t sure the filly was ready to watch the cart for ten minutes, much less an hour or so.

She found Fluttershy caring for a manul who according to Fluttershy had become injured while hunting pika and falling into a ravine. Out on the lawn behind Fluttershy’s cottage, the overly fluffy feline had a bandaged paw, and Fluttershy was trying to feed him a dead—eugh, well the cat’s reaction to it was sorta the same as Applejack’s. The wildcat looked at the not-living thing with a haughty disdain. And Applejack hated to break up such a touching moment, but it really wasn’t all that touching-like.

“Psst, Fluttershah,” Applejack said at a cautious distance so as not to spook the critter. The manul looked up at Applejack first, with a patently bored expression on his face.

“Hello, Applejack,” Fluttershy said with a smile, turning to face her friend, while the manul took the opportunity to limp away from her and go hide under the critter cave Fluttershy had set up by her cottage.

“Hey Flutters,” Applejack said, smiling back, “Got some good news for ya sorta. Rosy made it back into town, it turns out.”

“Oh?” Fluttershy said, idly combing at her long, flowing mane and looking away.

“Yep, just wanted you to know,” Applejack said in relief, “She’s still right miffed at whatever happened, didn’t even wanna talk to me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Fluttershy replied quietly.

“Ain’t no trouble. Anyway, I gotta git,” Applejack said, turning on her hooves for the road, “Gonna see if ah cain find Rainbow and tell her, then I gotta get back to mah apple stand.”

Fluttershy nodded, and Applejack tipped her hat, her hooves shortly pounding down the road leading away from the cottage.

Applejack didn’t find Rainbow Dash on the way back to her apple stand, but she did catch her that afternoon. Shouting up to the rainbow pegasus on a cloud, Applejack said, “Hey Rainbow Dash! You hear about Rosy?!”

Rainbow fluttered down with a frown on her muzzle. “What about Rosy?” she asked, making Applejack a little nervous to say,

“Ah saw Rosy earlier today and she’s fine, just avoiding us on account of the whole... thing or another.”

“Well good,” Rainbow snapped, “I’m glad she is too scared to even tell us that she’s okay. It’s not like we searched for her all night yesterday or anything.”

“I don’t think she means harm,” Applejack said uneasily. “She’s just havin’ problems.”

“Maybe she should tell us what her problems are, if she’s having them,” Rainbow replied, “Until then, she can just take a hike!”

Rainbow blasted off then, leaving Applejack looking up the brim of her hat after Rainbow Dash with concern.

In the days that followed, Applejack worried for her friends, and worried for Rosy’s ultimate fate. It was an unsettling feeling of wrongness about this whole thing that Applejack hadn’t felt before, not since one lonely morning long ago in Manehattan. Applejack was not near as worried sick as Twilight was, though.

Of course, Twilight wasn’t even thinking about Rosy at the moment. But boy was she worried!

“Oh my. Oh. Oh dear. Really? How could they possibly—how do they know? ” Twilight murmured in progressive agitation from the confines of her tree library. She stared in astonishment at what she’d managed to get her projector to show. A familiar song had begun coming out of tinny sounding crystals, as what Twilight was watching unfolded before her eyes.

It was a very old, if popular Equestrian folk song she heard, that just about anypony would know, but it was a song that the other verse didn’t have any evidence of ever having heard before the as-yet-unexplained arrival of Rosy Pink. The humans had some form of particle accelerator, but it was highly experimental, and not nearly the energy density needed to unravel superstrings. How had they heard the song from Equestria then, if they couldn’t leave their own world? Their verse was stitched together tighter than one of Rarity’s garter belts!

Twilight’s research was at a dead end here, as she saw herself, a unicorn, arriving in Ponyville. She was on Cherry’s balloon, for some reason, along with her dragon assistant Spike.The song then took an odd turn, with percussion, and some kind of poorly tuned piano as accompaniment.

Twilight Sparkle heard herself singing words she’d never sang, of what she learned, then each of her friends contributing to this mysterious song. A letter sent to Princess Celestia, with a photograph that had never been taken. Yet it was Princess Celestia who received it, and Twilight and her friends gathering together for that photograph, just as Twilight would have done if it had actually happened. Though Twilight was fairly sure Fluttershy would never agree to be front and center in a group photograph.

The purple princess turned off the projector, and shook her head. The film that they’d decoded from the humans, it couldn’t have been a film of actual events, yet it was uncanny how vividly it portrayed their world, and themselves. How had the other verse known of Twilight and her friends at all? None of the research indicated any human technology that could do more than your basic, ordinary quark manipulation. Nothing that could rip a hole through other dimensions, whether deliberately or otherwise. Had Rosy’s arrival just been some one-time freak accident? But then how did they know about Equestria, and the Elements of Harmony?

And how did they create this footage? The human verse didn’t even have the same... color that Equestria did! It was all muted browns and greens. Though the sky was the same color, everything below it was just... greyer. It was as if you turned the saturation down on everything, just like when... no, that’s completely impossible. The fact of the matter is, Twilight Sparkle did not fly Cherry’s balloon out of Canterlot, and she certainly would remember a photograph like that. Yet she had been researching the Elements of Harmony on that fateful day, just like it showed. Was the extra footage at the opening being played by actors? It made no sense! And Twilight hadn’t even watched ten minutes of it!

The only thing Twilight was sure of was that her friends absolutely had to see this.

...as soon as she could figure out how to get them to speak to her again.

“Heeey Rosy, watcha dooin?”

“Ugh, Pinkie—please, Pinkie Pie. Can’t you find some... other friends?”

Rosy had just dropped the sack of groceries she was carrying, because she wasn’t too good at carrying things with her butt yet, and so she tried to talk while carrying the bag in her mouth. Pinkie bumped the canvas sack up onto her own butt with a bright smile at Rosy, saying, “Don’t be such a silly grumpy pants. I’ll help you carry your groceries, so you don’t have to worry about it at all!”

“I’m not—ugh,” Rosy groaned, her head dropping forward as she gave in, striding slowly as Pinkie Pie hopped beside her fellow earth pony, who was not strange in any way, or party to any scary stories that Pinkie would really rather keep secret. No, this pony was certainly not the same pony as that sorrowful, terrified, crying mare that Pinkie Pie had forced to do something she hated, and never even thought about Rosy’s feelings once, except how much Rosy would love it.

“And here we are!” Pinkie said brightly, standing beside the door and waiting for Rosy to open it. “How you feeling? Happier today? Or kind of sad? Anything I can—”

“I really would rather if you didn’t come in this time,” Rosy said in pained exasperation. “Just... let me have my groceries, and let’s call it even. Please?”

“Oh, I don’t have to do anything, silly, I’m doing this because I just love you to pieces!” Pinkie said happily to Rosy, bumping up her groceries into the air, to cascade down on Rosy’s rump in an orderly manner that seemed to surprise Rosy again for some reason. “I just want to make you smile, see?”

Rosy kind of clenched her teeth and spread her lips with a desperate look, saying, “Shee? Shmilig!”

“That’s pretty good for a first try,” Pinkie said, squinting at Rosy comically. “But maybe you should try it one more time, and this time try to get your eyes to smile too. Those are really important to smiling.”

“Pinkie, it’s... I’m hungry Pinkie Pie,” the mare whined impatiently, “I need to eat dinner and... and I have some—”

“Hey, why don’t you eat at Sugarcube Corner?” Pinkie asked excitedly, “I’ll be happy to treat you! Whatever you want, it’s yours!”

“I want you to leave me alone. Please,” Rosy said flatly.

Pinkie smiled nervously at that saying, “Oh, you kidder. Getting tired of little old me? Don’t be silly.” Rosy was already backing into her door though, and Pinkie added a little desperately, “And next time we meet, I’ll be much better! You’ll never get tired of me then!”

“I’m not... okay, maybe I am tired of you, but just... sorry,” Rosy griped, ducking the rest of the way into her house and shutting the door. The sound of a clicking lock shot through Pinkie’s chest, making her heart hurt for some reason.

“Okay, Rosy Posie!” Pinkie shouted through the door, “You have a good dinner! And maybe we can have some fun after dinner? I could show you more Ponyville movies! I know you like those!”

Silence.

Pinkie hopped away from the house, a happy smile on her face, even though the twisted serpent that coiled around her heart seemed even meaner than the actual draconequus that they’d fought once. This new one wasn’t as easy to fight as Discord though, because Rosy just didn’t seem to like Pinkie Pie anymore. Well, that’s okay, Rosy could hate Pinkie Pie worse than any other pony. As long as Rosy was happy, Pinkie was happy.

Rainbow Dash wasn’t a monster. She was a pony, a real pony. She soared through the open sky just like everypony else. So she was faster, and tougher, and smarter than everypony else. So what? That was just because she worked hard, and practiced every day. And she wasn’t that smart. Twilight Sparkle was way smarter than her. Rainbow Dash was pretty much 100% sure of that.

Okay maybe 23.2% sure.

Rainbow was taking some time out to herself to fly out to the coast, for... reasons. The forests that rushed past below her seemed endless; she knew they were not. But it was comforting to think the rolling hills of solid green were endless, bigger than her, that she was just a tiny piece in the part of a greater whole. Up here in the sky, it was easy to think about... stuff like that. There were no obstacles, no distractions. Unfortunately it was also easy to think of other thoughts. Thoughts she didn’t want to think.

Rainbow Dash dropped her altitude until she was just barely avoiding clipping the topmost branches. Her surroundings were now more stimulating and distracting, as she had to account for the ups and downs of the land below her. She wasn’t a monster. Lots of ponies flew like that, and sure it was dangerous, but it wasn’t anywhere near as crazy as her own stunts, which... other ponies couldn’t do.

Rainbow Dash tried to ignore the other foals at school back in Cloudsdale, the ones who called her that thing she didn’t want to be called. The ones who told her that she wasn’t even a real pony, just because she didn’t have parents. The parents who stood by their foals and called her... that. Well, they were wrong. She wasn’t a monster. She was a hero!

Rainbow Dash had saved the world more times than ponies even knew. And it wasn’t because she was better than everypony. It was because she had such amazing friends, that she had to rely on or she’d totally fail just like everypony else. Sure they were all exceptional ponies too, but it meant that Rainbow Dash wasn’t the unstoppable force ponies thought she was. It meant that there were ponies who could match her, keep her honest. There were things she couldn’t do, that they could do, and that meant she had flaws, just like anypony else.

The trees thinned out and grew scraggly as she approached the coast. Soon, she could see the sparkling ocean spread out before her. The beaches were small and rocky around here, but that’s okay. Rainbow Dash wanted to just perch on a rock and let the soft sounds of the steady ocean waves calm her mind, alone. Her azure wings folded, as the polychromatic pegasus stayed there atop a stately pile of granite, and stared out into the horizon across the ocean, lost in thought.

That mare had called her a monster. Why had Rosy called her a monster? Why was it bothering Rainbow Dash so much? It was just a lie, wasn’t it? The mare was just an evil bully, and was trying to get under Rainbow Dash’s skin, to try to get Dash to back down, wasn’t she? But then, why did Rainbow Dash feel like a monster? Even way out here in total solitude, with nothing but the sounds of the waves to distract her, Rainbow Dash had no idea how what she thought were innocent, helpful actions had gone so wrong. Her attempt to retrieve Rosy had brought Dash face-to-face with such a stare of fear, and hate and ruin. A stare Rainbow Dash should never have gotten anymore, because everypony knew she wasn’t a monster. She was just a pony, like everypony else.

Rainbow Dash wasn’t a monster... right?

Then why did she feel like one?

Rarity was... concerned for Rainbow Dash. Though her friend was right here at the moment, it had only been a few days ago that Rainbow Dash had gone off alone on another one of her excursions to the coast again, and that meant that something was bothering this adorable barbarian of a windblown pegasus. Probably something to do with Rosy Pink. Everything seemed to be that way these days.

Rarity couldn’t believe Twilight went and did that to the oneun of them, put them in between a rock and a hard place regarding Rosy. Rarity could understand if Twilight was having trouble dealing with that terrible... thing, but did she have to put her friends on the spot? Rarity wouldn’t mind at all if Twilight just took care of the problem cleanly, and quietly on her own, but when she had gotten them involved, it meant Rarity had to interact with this Rosy, and listen to her, and see in Rosy’s eyes that desperate hope that the snowy dressmaker knew was ultimately foalish.

It was a child’s desire Rosy felt, a petty greed for what she had right now, with no concern for her own future, or the well-being of others. That was the only reason Rosy could possibly have been so resistant to returning to her own life, and her own responsibilities. Rarity quickly cooled to any idea of that overgrown filly having any sophistication whatsoever, when Rosy simply couldn’t appreciate sensible, mature things like garden parties, high society, and large hats. She just wasn’t capable of seeing the big picture!

Rarity could have dealt with Rosy’s reticence. She was certainly of the opinion that the filly’s tantrum shouldn’t be tolerated. If they didn’t throw Rosy through the portal kicking and screaming, she would continue to test her boundaries, and push their limits worse and worse. First it was a delay, then an excuse, then outright denial of her own responsibility. Rosy was simply not a pony who Rarity wanted to have to deal with. And yet here we are.

“Lift your leg please, Rainbow Dash,” she said politely, adjusting a buckle on the latest ensemble she’d made for her speed loving friend.

“Ugh, I’m fine, Rarity,” Rainbow Dash replied, lifting a leg so that Rarity’s magic could pull another ribbon around there, and... perfect! “I just go down to the beach to chill sometimes. I’m a pegasus! I need to fly!”

“I have to say, this ensemble really compliments your mane,” Rarity said, tweaking the any dye to be just the color she envisioned. Perhaps something crimson red, no, something spicy, something roguishly rouge!

“Was it just because I have a weird colored mane?” Rainbow asked in reply. “But I thought she knew something about our pasts? Did she know about the Institute? I don’t want her to tell everypony.”

“Hang on now, a few pockets might work beneath your wing slots,” Rarity said, levitating over some pocket patches and pins. “Yes, that looks marvelous, and functional too!”

Lifting her wing, Rainbow Dash said, “I know ponies aren’t going to just... turn on me if they found out. It’s just a little weird, and everypony already knows I’m a big hero. So why is it bothering me so much?”

“And, a buttercup and cornflower bow, to rein in that rowdy tail of yours,” Rarity stated, attaching the last bits of fabric. “And... done! Voila, you are a new mare, Rainbow Dash!”

Rainbow looked in the mirror, and a surprised smile danced across her face. Not surprised at what she saw, as much as surprised that it made her smile. Rarity sighed. This was not something a beautiful new outfit for the upcoming bloom festival would fix.

“Well, I thank you for putting up with me, Rainbow Dash,” Rarity said, “Having a friend such as you has done wonders for my ability to conceive of designs that fit a so-called ‘ideal’ pegasus frame. Now, I’ll have your dress ready within the week, but before we clean up here, I would like to ask. Are you worried about hurting other ponies?”

Dash’s smile grew greviously tainted with nervousness as she said, “I’d never hurt anypony, so no I’m not worried about that, even if maybe by accident I might have almost hurt Rosy it—” she hung her head and mumbled, “fluff bunnies.”

Rarity nuzzled under Rainbow Dash’s chin, lifting her head and saying to the smaller, but certainly much more powerful pony on the podium, “You had the chance to hurt Rosy, and yet you didn’t. Because you are a wonderful mare, as you can see in the mirror here. You listened to Rosy, and even though she said terrible things about you, and even though you resented her terribly, you have done no harm to her. Why, I might even suggest that she was the one doing harm. Because who hurt whom in this affair, and has she apologized since then?”

“Well—I haven’t exactly... asked her to apologize,” Rainbow Dash said glumly.

Rarity frowned, saying, “I wish it were that easy, to simply be forgiven by asking for it. But remember that Rosy is not really a pony. She doesn’t think in the same ways we do, and you might find yourself disappointed again, if you try and make her act like a pony. When we ponypomorphize inequine creatures, we have to understand that sometimes they will act in ways that no pony would expect.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Rainbow Dash said with a bit more of a confident smile. “She really was just reacting because I... backed her into a corner like that. It’s not like she really thinks I’m a mo–monster or anything.”

“Oh... Rainbow Dash,” Rarity sighed, her face falling, “Is that what she called you? How could she? That she knows of your life’s history makes it all the worse. Knowing what happened, and what that word means to you? It’s just unforgivable! You are not a... a monster, Rainbow Dash, and never let anypony, or anyone convince you differently.”

Rarity stood before her friend and smiled saying, “So when Rosy referred to your... past in a way that made it seem like she hated you, in fact you were seeing nothing more than a cornered wolf backed up to a corner, lashing out like the animal that it is. You should feel sorry for her, really. If she’s incapable of seeing that what she called you is wrong, it shows how much of a monster you are not. It was just an instinctual reaction of hers, not anything wrong with you at all.”

“That... sounds kind of weird,” Rainbow Dash admitted uneasily, “But if you insist. You’re not wrong, I guess. She probably didn’t even mean it when she said it.”

Rarity sidled up alongside her well dressed friend saying, “You are my friend, and the greatest flyer Equestria has ever seen. You are a pony who deserves every bit of love and kindness any other pony should get. That’s the difference between you and her. She lacks that essential kindness, honesty, generosity and... qualities that a pony has within them, while you are as much of a pony as I am. Would you ever call her a monster?”

“What? No! Never!” Rainbow Dash said in surprise, “Even though she’s kind of weird and scary sometimes, because uh... no. I would not.”

“Then worry not about it,” Rarity offered with a comforting hug. “For all we know, perhaps Rosy will suddenly gain an intrinsic equinity. But you never have to worry about losing yours. You have a story mark, Rainbow Dash. That’s something that nopony can ever take away.”

“Yeah, except...” Rainbow Dash shivered. Rarity had to join her in that sentiment.

“And we... got them back!” Rarity said in artificial cheer. “No harm done! So it’s an entirely different situation than with Rosy, who lacks the compassion needed to get one in the first place. He may have stolen your mark away from you, but you were the one who created it, because you are an amazing pony, Rainbow Dash. No monster could ever hope to match the beautiful deeds that you have done.”

Rainbow Dash flew off feeling much better about herself, and Rarity watched her go. Then the dressmaker’s thoughts drifted to little Sweetie Belle, and her own mark troubles. With Rosy around, it had taken Rarity quite some time to calm Sweetie Belle down when she and her friends saw an adult pony walking around town in plain sight without a mark. Rarity did not want to dredge up old worries like that. So Rarity took a deep breath, and pushed all those troublesome thoughts about monsters and ponyhood out of her head, and prepared herself receive her sister’s attention for the duration of the afternoon, in peace and happiness.

“Rarity!! Guess what??”

...best case scenario.

“Why don’t Rosy like you?” came the axe blade of a question, swinging at the sturdy tree trunk of the convictions of a pony who didn’t want to hear it.

“Aw it ain’t like that, Apple Bloom,” Applejack said over a dinner of apple dumplings, peas and corn cakes. “She’s just a lil’ slow to warm, you know? We had a... a misunderstandin’ that’s still wearing on her awful hard.”

“But cain’t you make it better?” Apple Bloom insisted worriedly. “You always told me to apologize when ah hurt somepony, even if I don’t wanna.”

“That ain’t... precisely the case, Apple Bloom, but this is... different,” Applejack said. “Ah did apologize to her, and she just... wasn’t ready to hear it. So she’s got her life, and ah got mine, and... she ain’t comin’ back to the farm because... she just don’t like me much no more.”

“But why doesn’t she?” Apple Bloom whined. “She was comin’ round here all the time, before! And now she’s just ignorin’ us? What if she was gonna get her story mark in—”

Apple Bloom quieted down, staring at her plate.

Granny Smith looked at the filly, saying with compassion, “Apple Bloom, some ponies just ain’t... ah mean lots of critters don’t get story marks. Rabbits an’ pigs, and deers an’ possums...”

“She looked so much like a pony, ah thought she was one,” Apple Bloom replied unsatisified. “She acts like a pony, and she feels like a pony, so what if we—”

“She ain’t a pony, Apple Bloom, she just looked that way on a temporary basis,” Applejack said confidently... mostly confidently. “There is no way no how that you ain’t gonna get your story mark. You’re a pony and an Apple through-and-through. She seemed like it, but... she just ain’t one of us.”

“But ah don’t have my story mark,” Apple Bloom said resentfully. “How is she different besides me, besides older? Just because she used to not be a pony, don’t mean she cain’t—”

“She cain’t get a story mark, Apple Bloom,” Applejack said firmly. “She was supposed to go home to her family, where she don’t need a mark. But she didn’t, because... because ah don’t know, she was just bein’ ornery about it. So she’s just gonna be here a little longer, until we cain convince her she don’t belong here.”

“Applejack’s right,” Granny said sagely. “Ah don’t wanna here none of you fillies tryin’ to go get that Rosy mare no story mark. It ain’t a thing that cain happen, and it ain’t for you to try to be makin’ her feel welcome, when she’s just bein’ stubborn about goin’ home.”

“Right,” Applejack said as she ate her hearty meal, “Stubborn.”

“Ah guess so,” Apple Bloom sighed. She didn’t press the issue though, instead leaning forward and eating her own food, quietly and without protesting any further.

Applejack kind of wanted her to, though.

Fluttershy watched her cute little birds and squirrels eating the nuts and seeds they’d stored in her cottage with a disaffected air. She just couldn’t concentrate on her task at hand these days. The quiet, slender yellow pony was seriously disturbed by the actions of her and her friends as of late.

Fluttershy found that Applejack seemed to treat Rosy like she was some kind of a circus oddity now. Rainbow Dash pretended to be angry, but kept Rosy at a fearful distance, a behavior that Fluttershy was familiar with, but had never expected to see coming from her old friend. Pinkie Pie went out of her way to befriend Rosy now, but her actions were more from a fear that Fluttershy didn’t fully understand, not out of compassion for the pony.

Rarity had so little to do with Rosy that she didn’t even seem to realize Rosy somehow still had her scarf. Rarity seemed to think of Rosy as more of an object than a pony, or a nuisance that didn’t have any feelings. Twilight Sparkle was simply not dealing with the unusual situation and character that was Rosy Pink. While it was understandable if Twilight wanted to return to her comfort zone, it was still wrong of her to try to force the world to conform to her expectations, however reasonable they may be.

And worst of all of them, Fluttershy was not saying a word of any of these concerns to her friends. Fluttershy just didn’t know how to tell them that they needed to change their behavior for the better, and she wasn’t sure herself what about Rosy was provoking her friends in such unfortunate ways. For Rainbow Dash, it was obvious, but for the rest of them... it was far more likely that Fluttershy was just seeing monsters in the shadows again. Who did Fluttershy think she was, deciding whether her friends were right or wrong? Fluttershy was the one who was wrong, and she just wasn’t a good enough pony to see how her friends were the ones who were right.

The worst thing is, Fluttershy had been talking with Rosy until recently, and helping her, and enjoying her company, and Fluttershy was just too afraid to even tell her friends about it. She was willing to face her fear, and knew she should tell them her feelings despite her concern, but then Fluttershy just froze up whenever she tried. She wasn’t afraid of losing them—she couldn’t be afraid of losing them! Fluttershy knew they would be her friends forever, even if they didn’t really talk with her all that much. But just the thought of hurting them, of having them look at her judgementally, and know that she knew what she did was hurtful, Fluttershy just couldn’t work up the nerve.

She’d been working with Rosy off and on in the time where Rosy had been working at the homeless shelter, where Fluttershy had met this unassuming pony one day last winter. Fluttershy’s animal duties were few and far between in the winter, and she usually spent her time helping out ponies as best as she could, generally from very far back in the soup kitchen. There, Fluttershy met a pony struggling to find her place, struggling to even walk, a pony who had no real idea of what to call herself, who suffered from a profound loss of identity; Rosy just didn’t know who she was.

And yet, she was so happy, just to be. Just to wake up in the mornings, and come join the ponies in their efforts to help each other. Rosy seemed to thrive on her strange identity crisis, only becoming more motivated to make a name for herself, more motivated to find herself, and show them all who she really was inside. She truly was like a filly in that respect, approaching every day with wonder and trepidation. It was strangely heartwarming to see this, and to hear of Rosy’s struggles to fit in.

At first Rosy didn’t even know how to make friends. She faltered at acts of bravery that even a foal should have already overcome... that even Fluttershy had overcome. Once Rosy had some friends, she seemed at a loss to keep them, how to tend to her friendship. Fluttershy showed Rosy as best as she could, but Fluttershy had to admit she was the last pony one wanted to approach when it came to attending to your friends. Fluttershy always felt tempted to just let her friends stay out in the big scary world, while she hid inside where it was safe, and it was usually they who attended to her, taking Fluttershy out of her comfort zone, and showing Fluttershy how she could become a better pony.

But in a strange perversion of reality, the situation seemed to be reversed. Fluttershy found it easy to help dear, sweet Rosy out of her shell, to grow and blossom as the pony she wanted to be, and to grow closer to her. Fluttershy never found Rosy disturbing to talk with at all, and in fact it was heartwarming that Rosy had heard the story Fluttershy loved to tell other ponies, about how she became a friend to the animals and gained her story mark. Fluttershy felt safe with her secrets in Rosy’s wings, because Rosy understood Fluttershy so well. It was so lovely to talk with her, and spend time with her, Fluttershy dared to think that just maybe they had been becoming friends.

Then Fluttershy just had to go and ruin everything.

Perhaps Fluttershy didn’t have any underlying issues anywhere near as troublesome as the ones her friends had to struggle with, but she did have some troubles. Fluttershy didn’t know what was wrong with her, to only feel this way about... Rosy and... her friends, and... also some other mares she’d known. Fluttershy’s issues were frustratingly nebulous, and she couldn’t point to the Perfect Pegasus Project to blame. She could only blame herself, for never learning her lesson, for being afraid of confrontation, again and again. For being unable to tell her friends what she thought they were doing wrong. For being unable to help Rosy, despite the poor mare’s fear and desperation. For taking that fear and desperation, and doing something unforgivable to Rosy Pink. Fluttershy wanted to ease that pony’s tormented heart so bad, it made her want to kick something!

But she just—couldn’t—!

Fluttershy knew, on some level, that her friends couldn’t possibly understand what Rosy was going through. Fluttershy didn’t understand it herself. She’d only briefly been anything other than a pony, and she hadn’t found it unpleasant, but she wouldn’t want to live that way. What happened to Rosy was so much more extreme, and the thought that she would actually enjoy it was just... terrifying!

When Rosy confessed her darkest secret to Fluttershy in the heat of the moment, Fluttershy couldn’t deal with what Rosy had to face, with what she really was, or with what Fluttershy herself had done. Fluttershy wanted to tell her friends, but she feared they might hate her, or come to believe Rosy had been lying to them. Because in a sense, Rosy had. But in the same sense, Fluttershy had been lying to them too. Lies of omission and cowardice, but still lies. There was something seriously wrong with Rosy Pink, that terrified the soft yellow pegasus even to look at her, and Fluttershy may have been the only pony in Equestria to know.

Fluttershy could only hope that she would find some way to express to her friends just how terrified Rosy was of becoming what she had been before.

Fine! Don’t Listen to Me, I’m Just a Title!

Applejack was selling at the market one day, when Twilight Sparkle came up to her again.

“What can ah do you for, Twi?” she asked all friendly-like, but it was clear her friend wasn’t doing so well.

Twilight’s mane was all jiggery from lack of combing and sleep, and her eyes had bags under them. Applejack cursed herself inwardly for letting it get this bad. Twilight needed her, so Applejack was supposed to step up to the plate. Simple as that. But she didn’t want to... betray Rosy like that again. She didn’t want to do what Twilight made them do. Applejack had earned Rosy’s trust, had befriended her and accepted help from her on the farm, and how did Applejack repay that kindness?

But... Twilight needed Applejack’s help.

So, there were reasons Applejack hadn’t come forward to help her friend so eagerly this time, but she still felt awful about standing idly by. What Twilight was doing was the right thing, but it felt so wrong, and Applejack didn’t really know how to deal with that.

“Applejack,” Twilight said pleadingly, “I know you don’t want to talk about Rosy, or about her world, but this research is very important, and...”

“It’s all right, Twilight,” Applejack said with a resigned sigh. “Ah might not want to talk about her, but you do, an’ ah want you to know I’m always here to listen, if’n you need somepony to turn an ear.”

Twilight peered at Applejack disbelievingly. “Really?” she asked in surprise.

“I been puttin’ it off, but yeah, it’s high time we caught up again, maybe the one’n’two of us cain get together some time...” Applejack said unsurely.

“Oh, if you would, I would really, really appreciate it!” Twilight said with a pained whimper. “I don’t know how to tell them, and nopony is talking to me any more, and I just don’t know what went wrong.”

“If ah would what? What?” Applejack said in surprise, taking a step back from the beseeching princess. “Nopony is talking to you?”

“Well, Spike is, but I meant the 12 of us,” Twilight said wistfully. “I don’t know how to—”

“Even Pinkie Pie?” Applejack said incredulously.

“She’s even more obsessed about Rosy than I am!” Twilight protested in return. “I can’t get through to her, after we... after Rosy hurt Pinkie so badly back at that rift.”

“...Rarity?” Applejack tried desperately.

“Oh we talked the other day,” Twilight stated blandly. “I asked how she was doing, and she said she was quite busy.”

Applejack stared at Twilight. “...and?” she asked.

“And that’s it, she didn’t speak to me then,” Twilight replied, ears down. “And Fluttershy keeps shutting down whenever I try to talk to her—”

“Naw, she’s doing that to me too,” Applejack said comfortingly. “Ah don’t know why Fluttershy’s so pee—miffed at all of us. She may be shy, but she ain’t that shy!”

“I-if you could help me, I’d really appreciate it,” Twilight said hopefully. “I know you can get the others together.”

“Well ah could ask Rarity, an’ she’s good with Fluttershy, and—yeah, basically,” Applejack said. “But why are we getting together for?”

“Do we need a reason? ” Twilight whimpered.

“No we don’t,” Applejack said disapprovingly, “But something’s botherin’ you mighty fierce, and ah get the feeling it ain’t just a hankering for a group of friends chattering about various and sundry.”

Twilight relaxed with an apologetic smile, saying, “Oh, right. Yes. I have something very important to show you in the research I’ve been reviewing. I’d really like all the girls here for it, as it concerns every one of you. And it’s really eating me up inside because I don’t want to research further until you’ve all had a chance to look at it.”

“It’s fine really Twi, but you should’ve come forward sooner,” Applejack said sadly, “Ah may be stubborn, but you don’t need to lose sleep over it. I always felt like there was something the research ponies were missing about all this, with all their bluff and bluster. If’n you have a clue what that is...”

“Oh, I have better than a clue,” Twilight said smugly, “I have Rosy’s show.”

Applejack was mighty embarassed by matters that had fallen into her hooves. She didn’t know they all had been avoiding each other, and she really should have expected it. But once Twilight got it through Applejack’s thick skull, it was a simple matter for Applejack to arrange things. For Rainbow Dash, all Applejack had to do was suggest that Twilight was gonna show them the truth behind Rosy’s predictions. Rarity was as concerned as Applejack about mending their friendship. Fluttershy came along with some gentle encouragement from Rarity. Pinkie came when Rainbow Dash beat it into Pinkie Pie that she was letting her guilt consume her. Real dramatic moment, that. Sort of story you’d tell your foals years later. And Twilight was the one running this thing, so she didn’t need convincing.

The Element Bearers were joined together in Twilight’s projector room, where Twilight had, through some form of arcane wizardry, managed to translate the human recordings into a film projection. So along with Twilight, her friends all learned why the librarian princess had been so reluctant to watch the films alone.

“Was that me? ” Rainbow Dash cut in abruptly, before quieting down as she saw all of them were represented, each with a catch phrase.

“Oh, I’m glad Angel Bunny isn’t here to see this,” Fluttershy said nervously. “He already eats far too many apple slices to be healthy.”

“Okay, calm down everypony,” Twilight told the two of them. “This is just some sort of scripted introduction.”

“How do they do that?” Rarity asked incredulously. “She looks just like me!”

“We’re still trying to figure that out,” Twilight said to Rarity, who peered back questioningly for a moment, then her face dawned in recognition.

“Oh, by ‘we’ you mean that Trottingdale crew, of course,” she said.

“Under much stricter supervision, of course,” Twilight stated righteously. “Anyway, we have no answer yet, other than pure, blind coincidence. But somehow... the humans knew of... well, just watch.”

They watched.

“...why would we send Princess Celestia a photograph of us?” somepony asked.

Twilight could only shake her head and answer “I don’t know...”

The show commenced, and almost immediately, Rainbow Dash drawled, “Real smooth, Twilight.”

“I was under a lot of pressure at the time!” the princess protested. “It was just bad timing. What are the chances that everypony would be throwing little celebrations and get-togethers right around the time of—”

“The Summer Sun Celebration?” Rarity asked dryly.

“...fine, I was a wet blanket,” Twilight grumbled.

Applejack found her own introduction at the beginning downright hilarious. “You were packed fuller than a hog fulla plums!” she said to Twilight with a laugh. “Guess the old Apple hospitality got the best of you.”

“That, and certain little fillies who are very good at making it hard to say no,” Twilight said disaffectedly.

They watched and—

And everypony’s mouth dropped open in shock.

“That never happened!” Rainbow Dash shouted in outrage as Pinkie Pie outright collapsed in laughter. “How was I supposed to know you—that was just a mud puddle! It wasn’t... that! ”

Twilight managed to get the projector paused, and said nervously to the others, “Ha ha, these humans and their weird sense of humor. They are supposedly related to apes, so I suppose that kind of humor would just be... normal to them!”

Pinkie Pie was about dying of laughter over this entire explanation of course.

“Could somepony calm Pinkie Pie down before she pulls a muscle?” Twilight said through gritted teeth.

Once they were all... calm again, Twilight stood before the projector and admitted, “I haven’t actually... watched these in advance. I didn’t feel it was right to do so by myself, after I saw that you all were in it. So, there might be some objectionable content, maybe even really upsetting.”

“Oh how bad could it possibly be,” Rarity tittered, the second most amused by this particular frozen moment on film. “I can handle a little bathroom humor, now and again.”

“Maybe Twilight’s too...” Pinkie Pie said weakly from the floor, “Pooped to continue!”

Aaaand cue everypony else except Twilight Sparkle to start laughing.

Still, Twilight was in good spirits when she restarted the projector. She’d worried that this would be much more serious, or invasive than it was, but so far it was basically depicting events that anypony could have seen in plain sight. It all seemed pretty innocuous actually, and honestly a bit sugar-coated. It glossed over Rainbow Dash’s weather performance for instance. There were no vulgar insults from the Canterlot students, over Twilight’s insistence on studying above celebrating. And on that note, in the show, all Pinkie Pie did on meeting Twilight was wordlessly gasp!

The show went on, and the rest of her friends were in good spirits too. Almost immediately after resuming, Pinkie Pie laughed again saying, “Hahaha, now you are a wet blanket!”

“Keep watching, Pinkie, you’re gonna love the next part,” Rainbow Dash said with an eager grin.

Twilight just groaned, and gave a sympathetic look towards Rarity, who watched the scenario unfold with dawning horror. “Rainbow Dash!” Rarity snapped, glaring at the unrepentant looking pegasus lazily hovering there above her seat. “It was you who—”

“Yeah, yeah, I messed up Twilight’s hair,” Dash said, shrugging, “Big deal.”

“Big deal?!” Rarity retorted with a stomp, “A mare’s mane is her most important form of self expression!”

“But you fixed it,” Rainbow Dash protested, “So what’s the problem?”

As Rarity’s scene unfolded, Rarity had very little reason to contest that, since Twilight’s mane disaster had been a good opportunity to break the ice with the fashion designer. There was also the fact that everypony’s ears were down for most of Rarity’s scene, and Rainbow Dash was blushing and looking aside, because of the little bombshell of Spike’s open affection for Rarity. Had he really caught it that bad the very first time he saw her? Twilight felt guilty for not bringing Spike in to watch this too.

But that moment passed quickly, as the show-Twilight escaped Rarity’s obsession with fashion, and then it was on to Fluttershy. Fluttershy continued watching with her usual trepidation, and then with surprise.

“Oh, um... I don’t recall being that quick to warm to Spike,” she replied uncertainly.

“This ‘show’ as Rosy called it seems to be something of a summary, or an exaggeration of the actual events that occurred,” Twilight informed them. “It looks like us, uncannily so, but some things have to be an approximation. I am pretty confident that a few things depicted here never happened at all. Rarity did nothing more than give my mane a good brushing on that day, for instance, and I only met you the next morning, remember? When the birds wake up?”

“Yes Fluttershy dear,” Rarity said with a calming nuzzle, “Do recall my little preoccupation with Twilight’s Canterlot chic breezed by here in seconds rather than days. This is clearly a vast dramatization.”

“Ah dunno, the food spread seemed about accurate,” Applejack said thoughtfully, “Once ah managed to drag you out of this here library that is, long enough to enjoy a home cooked meal with the entire Apple family. I grant you it didn’t happen all in one day. ”

“Pff, yeah and you don’t clear the entire sky with just one pony,” Rainbow Dash quipped, “I may be awesome but I’m not that awesome.”

“Hold on we’re almost to the best part,” Pinkie said excitedly, eyes glued to the wall. Figuratively glued. One had to specify with that pony.

“Oh, you know what’s going to happen next?” Rarity asked in surprise.

Pinkie nodded eagerly saying, “Yup! A party! ”

That was impressive enough, even more so that she timed it perfectly when her projected double said the same words, despite never having possibly watched this film before.

And then her giggles abruptly died.

“Oh no!” Pinkie Pie whimpered in alarm. “You didn’t—that’s why Spike asked about the hot sauce?”

“It’s okay, Pinkie,” Twilight said soothingly, “I was looking for an excuse to leave anyway. I poured my own punch, and it’s my responsibility. I was there for the end anyway, right?”

Thumping tunes, some odd wasplike resonance, and the voice of an aggrivated unicorn continued to emit from the shimmering crystal wired to the thingy on the projector. As the ponies watched, the mare vanished from the face of the moon.

“Oh... I don’t know if I want to finish this...” Fluttershy said, shrinking to her belly.

“Indeed, perhaps we could skip the part about...” Rarity said distastefully, “You know, her. ”

“I highly doubt it’ll be as bad as all that,” Twilight said practically. “This ‘show’ really pulls its punches, it seems. Besides, we already know it works out okay, in the end, right?”

“We... we should watch it,” Fluttershy said in cautious agreement. “We might learn something about how the princess... felt under her power.”

The scene began to unfold and the ponies watching were quickly drawn in, the memories rising up in them from that terrible, incredible, never-ending night.

After it was over, the ponies remained silent, looking at each other warily, hopefully.

Rarity was the first to break the silence, asking, “How... long was that?”

“The er, episode is minutes BS long,” Twilight Sparkle said, looking at the quiescent projector.

“That felt a lot longer than BS,” Fluttershy said distantly.

“It’s only one of many...” Twilight said cautiously. “There are four seasons, and supposedly a fifth planned. You can thank a pegasus by the name of Resonance for deciphering the signals they’d been sending through electrical wires, but all episodes are available to us, if we want to watch them.”

“This explains how Rosy knew us...” Applejack said in wonderment.

“I don’t know if I want to watch much more of this,” Fluttershy said worriedly.

“We gotta at least watch until that big final battle!” Rainbow Dash declared emphatically. “I wanna see if we kick Nightmare Moon’s butt!”

“You were there, Rainbow Dash,” Rarity replied flatly.

“Yeah, but I wanna see if the humans get it right,” Dash replied in a sarcastic drawl. She added in a squeaky voice, “Maybe they’ll be like, oh hey Nightmare Moon wow, zoom, poof, now let’s have a tea party!”

Rarity rolled her eyes.

“She sure sounded right,” Fluttershy said in a haunted tone. “And looked right. With that dark, black fur, and those dragon like eyes, and that deep scary voice...”

“Indeed,” said Rarity in a haunted tone.

“I wonder what the next episode’s gonna be about,” Pinkie wondered. “Is it gonna be about me messing up her nightmares by teaching ponies when to laugh? Or maybe it’ll be about when Rainbow Dash joined her, and got right up under her black snootie, so she could find out where the Elements were hidden. Or maybe—”

“Whatever it is, ah think I’ve seen enough for now,” Applejack said tensely. “Ah need some time to think about all this... not sure ah wanna see my whole life flash before mah eyes.”

“I have to agree,” Rarity said. “To think that poor Spikie Wikey’s deepest secrets may be known to a whole world... I’m not sure we have the right to watch these, even if we are the main subject of them.”

“M...maybe we could watch later... (preferably much later)” Fluttershy squeaked.

“You’re seriously going to pass up a chance like this?” Rainbow Dash exclaimed to her, “What if something happened that we don’t even know about? It might not be exact, but there could be clues to stuff we missed!”

“Plus you want to see us kick Nightmare Moon’s butt,” Pinkie clarified.

Dash nodded smugly.

“Well, I wanna see it too,” Pinkie Pie agreed. “It sounds like it’d be really exciting, and a lot of fun! And it’s been really funny so far! We can always stop if it gets not fun. Plus we’ll be better ponies if we know more about ourselves!”

“That’s... surprisingly insightful,” Twilight said, making Pinkie beam happily. “And I do want to watch these, not just for our sake, but to better understand the rift, and the creature who came through it. If we see the same ‘episodes’, then the traveller won’t have an unfair advantage when we try to reason with it!”

“Her,” Fluttershy said audibly.

“Hm?” Twilight asked, looking to Fluttershy uncertainly.

“She is a ‘her’ not an ‘it’,” Fluttershy stated. “I’m pretty sure, at least, you know if you don’t want to treat her poorly, I mean, um...”

“I suppose you’re right,” Twilight sighed. “I shouldn’t resent her just for making bad decisions. I just wish she would listen to reason. The longer that rift stays open, the greater danger all of Equestria is in.”

Fluttershy nodded slightly from behind her hair.

“Sounds like we’re tied, then,” Applejack said, giving a jaunty tilt to her hat as she added, “But ah’m leanin’ towards watchin’ ‘em. Just gotta check with mah family, and let y’all do the same.”

“If we do watch it, I think we can solemnly swear not to reveal other ponies’ secrets,” Twilight offered. “I can even have it legally formalized if you like.”

“Eh, Pinkily formalized is good enough for me,” Rainbow Dash said, with a hoof bump and a wink to Pinkie Pie.

Their weekly picnic was a lively one, that first week. The Bearers were out on the green hilly fields beneath the partial shade of Rainbow Dash’s house, sharing snacks and sandwiches, and listening to Rainbow Dash recall with irritation, fluttering up into the air,

“Disappointing? That episode was a total ripoff! I thought they’d spend all the episodes on our epic battle with the Nightmare, and they just zoomed on through it!”

“Too fast for you?” Rarity asked coyly, to which Rainbow Dash blushed, and said,

“N-n-no I was just surprised. What about the time I... and you... you know, all that stuff!”

“This show seems to take snapshots of our lives,” Twilight speculated, “What puzzles me is how they stitch them together with things that didn’t happen. Like how would they get footage of Rainbow Dash crashing into me with a full belly from all that pie? Perhaps they altered it somehow?”

“Or maybe they just drew on it,” Rainbow Dash said, “But I did like what was there. Rarity bucked that manticore like a pro!”

“Yes, the manticore who was only attacking because of the Nightmare,” Rarity said dryly, “I feel so proud of roughing up innocent beasts.”

“Um, I’m excited about the show as well,” Fluttershy said tentatively, “But I wonder if we could talk about something... else.”

“That’s probably a good idea. I don’t know if I could take one more jibe about the Element of Loyalty,” Twilight said with a glare at Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash just snickered in response. Looking at Fluttershy kindly, Twilight asked, “Was there anything you wanted to talk about?”

“Um... yes I wanted to talk about... us,” Fluttershy replied. Rainbow Dash landed, and Twilight settled back, looking at Fluttershy self consciously, as the butter yellow pegasus said, “Twilight, I don’t know if... we’ve been... the best ponies lately.”

“Rosy seems to bring out the worst in us, yes,” Rarity said staring at the back a hoof, “But you can’t blame yourself for that.”

“Look, I’m... doing it the right way this time, Fluttershy,” Twilight said, “I’m learning about Rosy’s world, and her life. Once I find out who’s scared her so much that she doesn’t want to return home, then Rosy will want to return home!”

“That sounds...” Fluttershy said uncertainly.

“All ah wanna know,” Applejack cut in irritably, “Is why she’s refusin’ to have nothin’ to do with me!”

“Oh my,” Fluttershy said, her eyes widening in surprise at Applejack, “You haven’t been the one avoiding her?”

“Not in the slightest!” Applejack said, “She won’t even give me the time of day no more.”

“Oh good,” Fluttershy said with a relieved smile, “I was worried you weren’t being... nice to her.”

“We’re being nothing to her,” Rarity said reluctantly, “And she’s being nothing to us, and all things considered I cannot imagine anything improving further than that.”

“Some ponies just don’t like each other, Flutters,” Rainbow Dash said, “You gotta know when to let ‘em go live their own lives.”

“Well it’s just I...” Fluttershy didn’t want anypony letting her go, but how could she find the words for it, and who was she to think that she knew what Rosy was going through? “I really... think these sandwiches are delicious,” she said to Rarity, with a lame smile.

“Thank you darling. I do love a good cheddar and cucumber on rye, and I’m most happy to share it with you all,” Rarity said with a grateful smile. It was a great picnic, and Fluttershy dodged any further questions regarding her feelings towards them.

The 12 left to each go their own ways after that. And for a period of time, Rosy lived her life almost entirely uncontested. There were occasional loud noises coming from the projector room of the library after hours, but for the most part, life continued on just as usual in Ponyville.

“Diamond Tiara?”

Diamond didn’t let it show that she was startled as all heck, turning to face the other filly, then just turning her nose up and saying, “What is it, hayseed? ”

“Ah’m Apple Bloom, actually,” the filly said uncertainly, “Hayseed’s mah cousin.”

“I—that’s not—ugh!”

Diamond was standing outside of school waiting for Silver to talk with the teacher, because that insufferable filly got caught like a little foal, again. And to make matters worse, now an Apple was trying to bother Diamond Tiara, worse still the Apple known as Apple Bloom. She was about the last pony Diamond Tiara wanted to see right now. Diamond didn’t even have any insults prepared! She’d have to think them up on the spot!

Apple Bloom scraped the ground, telling the irascible pink pony, “Ah know we don’t... get along too well, and our families don’t get along too well, so ah’ll be quick. I just wanted to apologize.”

“Well, it’s good you’re willing to finally own up to it,” Diamond Tiara said with a sly smile to Apple Bloom.

The clueless filly’s mouth dropped in surprise and she said, “How did y’ know?”

“Anypony would have to apologize for having a face like yours,” Diamond snickered. It didn’t have the same effect as when Silver was around though. Dammit why couldn’t Apple Bloom approach her when she was ready for it?

“Oh yeah well your—” Apple Bloom snorted herself to angry silence, trying again, saying, “Ah’m talkin’ about your cuteciñera, not mah face!”

“What about my cuteciñera?” Diamond asked snidely. “Which you like, totally ruined by the way.”

“I know, that’s what ah’m apologizin’ for,” Apple Bloom said softly. “Ah saw somethin’ that... got me to thinking, an’ it was your special celebration that was real important to you. We didn’t mean ta steal the spotlight, but we sorta did. Ah didn’t even mean to attend though; knew you didn’t want me there. So, when we um got everypony talkin’ about how cool it was to be a blank flank, ah don’t know if you knew that was an accident, and I wanted to say ah’m sorry. So... sorry.”

Squeezing her eyes shut, Apple Bloom turned and galloped away as fast as her blank butt could carry her.

After a while, a silver pony with a spoon on her butt walked up to Diamond saying, “Was that like, Apple Bloom?”

Snapping out of her trance, Diamond said smoothly, “Oh you know, just reminding her of her place in the pecking order. I wouldn’t be surprised if she cries herself to sleep tonight!” The two friends shared a good laugh at that. Diamond Tiara stopped laughing first, though.

Yup, just as usual.

The ponies almost made it through season 1 before everything went to hell.

It all came crashing to an end, thanks to the Story Mark Seekers. Of course.

“It’s not your fault!” Rainbow Dash flying at speed shouted to Scootaloo.

The filly continued to scoot away shouting tearfully, “It always is! We always ruin everything! ”

“There was no way you could’ve known!” Dash hollered back, “It was that stupid show!”

“I’m gonna get my story mark in failure!”

“Scootaloo, calm down!”

“Never!”

Those were what ponies heard around east Ponyville, and then around west Ponyville, and then east Ponyville again. While Scootaloo dealt with it her way, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were trying not to cry, and generally whimpering and dragging the mood down while Applejack and Rarity respectively tried to comfort them. And the one crying the most loudly and bitterly was a little pink filly in a big mare’s body by the name of Pinkie Pie.

Earlier that afternoon, Pinkie Pie bounced into the library along with the rest of them, in a super chipper mood because of the last episode they saw. Pinkie hadn’t seen anything funnier than Twilight and Fluttershy’s antics last week, not since 22 whole episodes ago, which was a really long time because Twilight was only showing 1 episode a week! Now that Pinkie thought of it, just like last week’s episode, Winter Wrapup had also been about Twilight’s silly antics, and Pinkie had also missed the entire thing. Who would have thought that Twilight Sparkle could be so funny only when Pinkie Pie wasn’t watching?

Certainly not Pinkie Pie!

So Pinkie was really excited about this episode. And she got even more excited after Twilight stood in front of them and said, “Attention everypony, I would like to tell you all that this is a very special episode. It reveals a lot about our past, each of us 12, but I have carefully reviewed the episode, and I can guarantee that there are no dirty secrets being exposed, only tales that warmed my heart to hear them. I’m almost disappointed I have to watch these beforehoof, to make sure they’re safe to show to everypony. But I don’t want a repeat of the Sleepover incident, where we learned more about Applejack and Rarity than they were comfortable with sharing with us.”

“I can’t believe we missed that one,” Sweetie Belle pouted.

“It was nothing you would have been impressed with, dear,” Rarity told her. “Just some embarassing moments, really.”

“You saw our embarassing moments,” Sweetie protested petulantly. “So why can’t we see yours?”

“Sweetie Belle,” Rarity said, regarding the candy white filly resting on her belly with her legs folded compactly alongside her, sitting right against her older sister, who was resting the same. The filly was watching with them today, along with her two friends who’d had a surprisingly large role in the show. Rarity wasn’t sure how to put this tactfully, so she said, “Every pony in Ponyville saw your embarassing moments, when you performed them before a live audience.”

“Yeah, but... still...” Sweetie mumbled, quieting down. She didn’t protest further, though no doubt she was cooking up a scheme to conspire with Apple Bloom to review the offensive episode regarding marshallows and topiary. Rarity would have to distract her with ice cream or something of the sort. Her and Apple Bloom, who was sitting together with her sister, and perhaps Scootaloo, who was standing proudly beside Rainbow Dash, who was hovering excitedly in mid-air, as one does.

“Well I’m ready,” Rainbow Dash said fiercely. “Are they gonna talk about the Institute? Old news! Been there, done that! Are they gonna talk about how I ran away? Quit school and had to earn my GED while working? That’s just how I roll. Around you gals, I’m an open book! No secrets for me!”

“You quit school, Rainbow Dash?” Scootaloo said in sudden worry, looking up at Rainbow Dash with big, limpid eyes.

“Oh... right, you three uh... you’re here too heh heh...” Rainbow Dash said nervously, glancing at Scootaloo and fluttering to the earth with a blush, “Yeah, I didn’t want to, but you can’t stay in school and keep a job. I didn’t quit quit. I still studied on my own and passed um... all the tests, on my own. It was kind of lame actually. It really isn’t something you have to worry about, kid. Your orphanage is way better than my um... thing.”

“Oh, well that’s not as bad,” Scootaloo said, sounding relieved.

“Yeah I probably could have been even more awesome if I’d stayed in Cloudsdale Academy,” Rainbow Dash pondered, “But I still turned out pretty awesome, I think.”

“Super rad!” Scootaloo agreed.

“You quit school, Rainbow Dash?! ” came Twilight’s belated but strident surprised utteration, as the former unicorn finally snapped out of her utter, dumbfounded paralysis.

“Yeah, didn’t I... tell you?” Rainbow Dash said hesitantly to the fish-mouthing Twilight. “I might’ve glossed over that part a little, because I did technically graduate, so um... yeah.”

“I have so many questions,” Twilight said, shaking her head, “But no, this episode does not expose your involvement with the Institute, the PPP, nor any academic... troubles. Nothing bad about any of you at all, and in fact some very good things, which is why I don’t want to spoil the surprise just yet. I will say that the SMS will recognize these stories, so it’s mostly a treat for us grown mares, but it’ll be nice for all of us to see these stories as if we were really there.”

“Well, what’re we waitin’ for?” Applejack said heartily. “Get ‘er done!”

When the episode started, Rainbow Dash immediately exclaimed,

“Pony ziplining?! That is awesome!”

“Not that awesome,” Scootaloo grumbled, as their ill-fated attempt to teach an earth pony, a unicorn, and a pegasus what it feels like to fly ended up snapping, dropping, flopping, and getting them all completely covered in tree sap.

“Okay, so your design could use a little work,” Dash admitted leerily.

Fluttershy immediately perked up when she heard the subject matter. “Oh, I remember this!” she said. “It was quite a while ago, wasn’t it?”

“You never forget the day you get your story mark,” Applejack said in satisfaction, not noticing the envious look Apple Bloom gave her.

“Oh, I meant I remember the day we told the story,” Fluttershy clarified. “These fillies were so —”

“Sssh!” Pinkie Pie said, munching idly on the bag of popcorn she brought with her. “It’s about to start on Applejack.”

One heartwarming tale later, and Applejack had her hat held on her breast, saying warmly, “Now wasn’t that somethin’”

“You were so adorable as a filly!” Sweetie Belle squeaked.

“Well, ah was smaller, at any rate,” Applejack replied, reapplying her hat.

“And you had so many freckles!” Sweetie persisted, undaunted.

Applejack had to laugh at that, if a little nervously. “I ain’t exactly dappled, but ah did have some faun freckles.”

One half of a tale of a pegasus foal later, and Rainbow Dash absolutely panicked, shouting,

“Fluttershy! No!”

“It’s...” Fluttershy mumbled.

“Oh Celestia no, Fluttershy’s gonna hit the ground! Spread your wings, Fluttershy! Pull up, pull up!”

“It’s okay Rainbow Dash...” Fluttershy reassured her friend, putting a hoof on Rainbow Dash’s shoulder as the other mare continued pressing herself against the projector screen on the wall.

“I think this’s gone far enough,” Twilight said firmly, her magic hooking Rainbow Dash’s tail and gently pulling the pegasus back to her seat. Dash didn’t struggle however, because of something happening on the projection. As if suddenly paralyzed, Rainbow Dash stopped fighting and just stared as she was returned to her seat. The others looked at her, alarmed by what they saw on the show, but not quite that alarmed.

“She’s right here, Rainbow Dash,” Applejack said reassuringly. “She cain’t have gotten hurt if she’s right here with you.”

“Oh Fluttershy, did you get hurt?” Rarity asked the butter yellow pony in concern. “Oh I don’t know if I could bear the thought that your friend in protecting your honor...”

“No, um, it...” Fluttershy mumbled.

Pinkie Pie continued to pass the popcorn to the other three fillies.

“Butterflies...?” was all that could be heard coming faintly from Rainbow Dash.

One pegasus’s tale later, and everypony was smiling again. Even Fluttershy. “Do I really sound like that?” she asked, in a glow of appreciation and fond memories.

“Oh no, darling, you don’t sound like that at all,” Rarity said cooly, and before Fluttershy could even droop her ears, the unicorn added, “Your voice is much more mature, and full now. I’m so glad that you’ve finally warmed to us enough that we have the pleasure to hear you sing now and then.”

“Oh that’s...” Fluttershy ducked under her hair, blushing madly “...” but smiling.

“I think we can all be glad to hear that the rest aren’t as hair raising as falling from cloud level,” Twilight stated to everypony’s relief. “Rarity’s might seem relatively uneventful, but I really like the big reveal at the end. Oops don’t mind me.”

“We already know she—” Scootaloo started, before Pinkie Pie heavily shushed her. “You seriously never told each other your mark stories before?” Scoots grumbled, eyeing the attentive pink pony.

“We have, to a degree, except...” Twilight eyed Fluttershy, who looked down self consciously.

“Yes,” Fluttershy admitted quietly. “I didn’t tell Rainbow Dash, because I worried she would blame herself for my clumsiness.”

“I am just so glad you didn’t get hurt,” Rainbow Dash said in relief. “Did butterflies really save you?”

“They didn’t save me persay, but they were migrating at the time,” Fluttershy stated. “I probably wouldn’t have gotten hurt too badly, because I at least managed to reduce my weight to the point that I wouldn’t hurt any of them upon falling. Really, a flock of migrating butterflies is not unlike a cloud in structure.”

“I’ll stick with clouds of water, I think,” Rainbow Dash said frankly. “Way high above the ground.”

“Aw shucks, but you gotta come down and visit sometime,” Applejack said to the pegasus with a teasing eye flutter. Dash just rolled her eyes. And so with a twinkle of magenta magic, the projector resumed, and the show commenced.

“Oh, that was such a delightful play!” Rarity declared after having seen her own mark story. “They only showed a few seconds of the concluding song, but those costumes were just dazzling!”

“Yeah, shiniest food groups in Equestria,” Rainbow Dash grumbled under her breath.

“I heard that,” Rarity said with a disapproving sniff.

“So, I was curious though, your special talent is finding gems?” Sweetie Belle asked uncertainly, “But you’re a fashion designer!”

“And I design my fashion with the gems I find myself,” Rarity gently corrected the filly. “But my special talent isn’t finding gems.”

“It’s not?” the filly replied, confused.

Rarity smiled down at Sweetie Belle and said, “Let me ask you, why had nopony already harvested those gems I found, there?”

“Because they were hidden inside a rock?” Sweetie attempted.

Rarity nodded. “Precisely, darling. My special talent, my modus operandi so to speak, is finding the hidden beauty in things. My story mark symbolizes the gems inside a rock, but what it means is that I wish to devote my life to taking a plain, unassuming pony, and making her beautiful, by helping her express her inner beauty. That, I believe, is the essence of fashion, not clothing persay, nor gems.”

“Wow,” Sweetie said with big, starry eyes. Rarity had to cover up a nervous titter with a hoof at that.

“Alright, admittedly my story mark is a little more mundane than that,” Twilight said with a sheepish look at her oneun starred star, “I wanted to be good at magic, I’m good at magic. What’s interesting is how my horn surge is... well I’ll let you see the story.”

Twilight was fighting mightily to keep from imitating her double on film; the story of her being chosen to be the personal protegè of the princess never failed to warm her heart. “So, you see Dash, and I think this might actually be accurate, but your Sonic Rainboom may have actually supercharged my horn!” Twilight said in amazement, pausing the projection in the middle of her double’s leaping about, “It does have that effect on certain magical antennas, and it’s my theory that there was more going on than just a nervous filly getting startled by a loud noise.”

“Should I... not do those anymore?” Rainbow Dash asked uneasily. “I don’t want to uh... do that to any other unicorns or fillies or whatever. It looked kinda... scary.”

“Considering that you’ve only done a Sonic Rainboom twice in your life, I think we can weather its effects,” Twilight said with a wry grin.

“Eh, what can I say. I’m not a one trick pony!” Rainbow said, waving her hoof lazily. “It’s still the top of my impossible moves list. Can’t believe I managed to do it as a filly!”

“And defending me from bullies too,” Fluttershy said gratefully. “I really do appreciate your kindness in stepping in like that.”

“Huh,” Twilight said thoughtfully.

“Huh?” Rarity asked her warily.

“Come on, come on, do me next! Do me! Do me!” Pinkie Pie started cheering gleefully, “I wanna see this!”

For no explicable reason, the three Seekers rolled their little filly eyes at Pinkie Pie’s enthusiasm.

“Alright,” Twilight said, skillfully preparing to resume the projection. “Now this next one is particularly interesting, because I don’t recall you talking much about your foalhood, Pinkie Pie.”

“That’s because I didn’t~ ” Pinkie said with a sly smile.

“She’s tellin’ th’ truth,” Apple Bloom mumbled around a mouthful of popcorn.

“Yup,” Sweetie Belle agreed passively.

“Pinkie...” Rainbow Dash said worriedly, “Are you sure about this?”

“Pfff, don’t you worry Dashie,” Pinkie Pie said smugly, “I remember exactly how this turns out, and there’s nothing upsetting about it whatsoever.”

“Right, then I agree but... right then, rolling,” Twilight said with a slightly confused grimace.

The scene with a smiling Pinkie Pie in the wagon faded, as the speakers cheerfully broadcast out, “My sisters and I were raised on a rock farm, outside of Ponyville,” before Pinkie Pie started screaming, ”Shut it off! Shut it off!”

The pink pony physically threw herself at the projection, much like Rainbow Dash, but she seemed to be trying to block it from view with her body. “We spent our days working the fields,” the speakers continued to broadcast, “There was no talking. There was no smiling. (sigh) There was only rocks,” as the projection continued to play across Pinkie’s spreadeagled form.

“For the love of Celestia, shut it off! ” Pinkie Pie moaned.

That seemed to snap Twilight Sparkle out of her shock, and her magic fumbled with the projector, the speakers hissing static before going silent, and the multi-hued sonic rainboom playing across Pinkie Pie’s back fading to nothing, as the projector light dimmed and darkened.

There was a silence in the room broken only by the pink pony’s breathing. Only hers, because everypony else was afraid to.

Everypony except none other than Rainbow Dash that is, who shouted, “Pinkie Pie, what gives?! You said there was nothing upsetting about it!”

Pinkie turned over her shoulder, with the most haunted look anypony had ever seen in anypony, saying in a shaking voice, “Y-you weren’t supposed to see that. That wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to I never meant to that’s not how it—”

“Calm down, Pinkie,” Twilight said, abandoning the projector and walking towards her friend, with a look of concern.

“No!” Pinkie shrieked in panic, bucking hard enough in Twilight’s direction that the princess stopped in her tracks “Don’t touch me!” the pink pony said, cringing away from all of them still backed up against the wall as she was.

Fluttershy put a hoof on Twilight’s withers, giving a gentle headshake at the former unicorn. With an anxious relief, Twilight backed up a step while Fluttershy said to Pinkie Pie, “I’m sorry if that upset you, but could you please tell us what was so upsetting? We’ve met your family before, and they seem like lovely ponies.”

A corner of Pinkie Pie’s mouth turned upward as she said disbelievingly, “M-my family. You think you’ve met my... my family.”

“I’m sorry,” Fluttershy wilted, “If we didn’t, that’s okay. I only want to know what upset you about this.”

“I... I never told anypony before,” Pinkie said in a narrow pupiled daze. “I don’t have to tell anypony, because the princess said so. The princess said I never had to tell anypony, and I don’t want to tell you!”

“So don’t tell us!” Rainbow Dash declared anxiously. “That’s what I said the last time anypony found you like this!”

“Like this?” Pinkie asked in confusion, “What do...” her hoof came up to touch her mane, whose strands lay across it unfrizzed straight and limp. She looked at the others again. All looking at her. All seeing it.

“I h-have to tell you,” she whimpered, “You’ve seen it. You’ve seen them I—I can’t go on like this. You saw them. They were right here. They were,” Pinkie turned again, and touched the wall where the projection had appeared as if she could pass through it onto the other side. “They were right here...” she whispered.

“What’s going on? ” Scootaloo whined. “This isn’t the story you told us at all! You never told us the story about how you got your story mark!”

While everypony except Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle looked at Scootaloo incredulously, Pinkie Pie turned to look behind her, with a nerve wracked smile made worse by her decidedly flat mane. “I didn’t,” she replied evenly. “I never told anypony my mark story before. I-it was supposed to be the story of Hearth’s Warming Eve. I couldn’t tell you because it b-because it hurt too much.”

“You don’t have to tell us, Pinkie,” Fluttershy urged, “You are hurt, we can see that. You can wait to tell us why, after you calm down, and take care of yourself.”

“Hurt,” Pinkie vaguely acknowledged, putting a hoof to her own chest. “I’m hurt.” She laughed nervously, looking around the room saying, “You wanna know why I’m hurt? F-funny story really. You wanna know why I’m hurt? Because I hurt them.”

Her voice grew louder, and angrier as she faced off against the rest of the terrified room, saying, “Because I hurt them so bad that they left me forever and I can never see them again. Every one of them! Every pony you saw! They left me! They gave me my story mark and left me! My whole family. They’re gone forever and they hate me and it’s all my fault!!”

“That’s a load of bull!” Applejack shouted, interrupting Pinkie Pie’s increasingly panicked words. With Pinkie staring at Applejack, the farm pony said angrily, “What sorta game are you playin’, Pinkie Pie? You think we’d all just forget about Maud? We met your—”

Applejack found herself subject to the mouth zipper spell, as Twilight stated distantly, “There was no filly there with purple hair.”

When Pinkie didn’t answer, Twilight continued, saying, “There was no filly there with purple hair. I’ve already seen the episode, the entire episode. I don’t miss these things. Pinkie, who were those ponies?”

“My family,” Pinkie Pie said, having trouble saying it for some reason. Her voice was just all over the place and her cheek fur was wet. “My first...” she said, crumpling to the ground, and barely managing to whisper out “family...” before dissolving into shaking sobs.

Dear Princess Celestia,

I cannot express how grateful I am that you would consider me your friend. Though you may wish us to be equals, I have barely begun my life in Equestria, and I still feel like a mere foal next to you. You’ve always been a source of inspiration to me, and as I’ve gotten to know you better, a source of great counsel.

I’m buttering you up for a reason, of course. Attached to this letter are the film reels which remain the only recordings (I desperately hope) of the show from beyond the rift. What came through the rift this time was not a shadow or a monster, but the worst of things: an idea. Somehow the realm on the other side has an uncanny insight into our lives, specifically that of me and many of my close friends. Seemingly by chance, these creatures have replicated to picture perfection films that star... us. Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia, these are the characters of this film, ponies that these creatures have never seen or heard from before. They draw with sophisticated doodle machines, that seemingly just happen to produce chillingly accurate representations of our lives.

I didn’t take the danger of this magic seriously enough, and at least one of my friends has already been hurt terribly by it. I’m sending you these reels because I feel there is no safe way to view them. Even the most innocuous scenes have provoked... severe reactions, and dug up old demons in our pasts that many of us would rather stayed buried. Even so, the temptation to view them is terribly strong. So many of them give such incredible insight into my personal life, and that of my friends.

Thus, I’m sending them to you, with the formal request to have them sealed away, and only unsealed posthumously. As long as the rift remains open, there is a chance that somepony else will decipher the human’s communication network, and risk exposing my friends to a sorrow that I can only pretend to understand. But by sealing away these recordings, at least I can say that I didn’t help.

I’m sorry to be bearer of bad news, princess. If you do view these to try and find their involvement with your own life, thankfully you’ll mostly be disappointed. You could try episodes P, V, Z, or episode BQ, but you and Luna seem to have a satellite role in the entertainment of these apes. If you view episode BD, keep in mind that my friend Pinkie Pie is more troubled than I had known. She says you comforted her in her dreams, so I’m fairly sure you’ll understand the significance when I say that particular episode depicts Pinkie Pie’s first family.

I wish I’d known about it before I showed it to her. She’s doing alright, as well as somepony can in such circumstances, I suppose. She has her friends together with her, and we’ll do whatever we can to bring laughter back into her heart. Except for zombies. Spike wants me to mention that there will be no zombies involved.

Your Faithful and Apologetic ~~student~~ friend,

Twilight Sparkle

Author's Note

Yeah, I went there.

Right, right, so... Projecting

Pinkie Pie had messed up really bad. No, really, really, really bad. She wasn’t sure how, or where she’d gone wrong, but she had seriously messed up. She wasn’t even supposed to talk about that bad thing that happened to her. It was a terrible accident, a once in a generation catastrophe! Other ponies didn’t need to worry about that. Even Princess Celestia visited Pinkie Pie because Pinkie was so upset that she needed the princess to help her sleep. Pinkie’d only ever accidentally started to talk about it with the other orphans, but they couldn’t understand. Even Lost Star who both her parents had died, it hadn’t been like... this.

Pinkie only had to tell the princess, and Nurse Sweetheart who Pinkie Pie could talk to any time she needed, but she hadn’t talked to her in a long time because Pinkie felt better about it, and she’d gotten better, but now Pinkie was talking with her again because... you know... yeah.

“I just don’t get it,” Pinkie said in frustration, “Aren’t I better? I’m the funniest pony in all of Equestria now or something! Did my element pick wrong? I thought I was better, but then I saw them and...”

She covered her eyes with a forearm, shouting, “And I’m done crying! I’ve cried a lot already! I just don’t know what—” her voice started quavering then and she had to lay there whimpering into the couch cushions just... getting ahold of herself for a while.

Pinkie Pie was back in Sweetheart’s office, the nurse pony who helped Pinkie sometimes once she moved here. It was a pretty office, with wood panelling and beige walls, though it wasn’t a very exciting office. Pinkie Pie had sat on this velvet couch before, that now pressed its soft surface up against her belly and legs.

Nurse Sweetheart was a pleasant pink earth pony, with purple and white striped hair and dark blue eyes. She usually wore her nurse’s hat, but when she was talking with Pinkie, her head was bare, her mane merely tied up in a bun. She still had her story mark of course, that granted her the status of nurse, but with Pinkie she was as informal as possible. Plumper than Pinkie Pie, but not quite on the level of Mrs. Cake. She stood beside the couch Pinkie lay upon, a clipboard laid nearby in case she had something to write on, but now the nurse only had kind words for the poofy haired party pony.

“You are better,” Sweetheart assured her. “You’re one of the... happiest, sweetest ponies I know.”

“Because all the ponies you know have problems,” Pinkie replied with a bitterness that surprised even her, turning onto her side to look at the nurse pony.

Sweetheart took it in stride though, saying, “You are a good pony, even among the ponies I know who don’t have problems. I know it’s hard to believe, but hear me out. Even ponies who are better can get sad again. If they go a long time without remembering, and then something reminds them, it can all come rushing back too fast for them to deal with. That’s what happened to you, Pinkie Pie. It doesn’t mean you are getting worse, or that you don’t deserve to live as a happy pony. It’s just something you will always have with you. Sometimes things will bother you, it will pass, and then you can still be the happy pony you’ve always wanted to be.”

“But what about my friends?” Pinkie asked, “I just lost it! They probably all think I’m crazy now. More than usual, I mean.”

“Maybe you should talk to them about it?” the nurse suggested.

“I don’t want to talk to them about it! I don’t want to talk about it at all!”

Closing her eyes, the nurse gave a calming sigh, then said, “If you don’t talk about it now and again, then the next time something reminds you, you’ll freak out just as badly. I think you’ve come a long way from the filly who couldn’t talk about it. Maybe it’s good for you to think about the ones you have lost, just for a little bit, every day. It should help keep you from freaking out again, so you can deal with it on your own terms.”

Pinkie Pie looked down at the upholstery, her hair drooping as she said quietly, “I just want to forget about it...”

“Do you really want to forget about your sisters?” Sweetheart persisted, “Your mother and father?”

“No...”

It wasn’t fun to know that a little alien could show up one day, and you’d just fall to pieces on the spot. Pinkie Pie wanted it to not hurt as much. She wanted to be happy again. The nurse was right. Pinkie was going to have to talk with her friends about it. And she knew just who to start with.

“Perhaps you’re going about it the wrong way, darling,” Rarity stated, staring evenly at her Canterlot friend’s obsession with the human world. The other world, or “verse” as Twilight liked to put it, was a fascinating place to be sure, but Rarity was more fond of their cultural innovation. What Twilight was doing here was more along the lines of smashing atoms together, in an attempt to recreate the environment of human particle accelerator projects.

“I just don’t get it,” Twilight said as she pored over the splatter diagrams. “How do the humans know of us? How could they have crossed over into this dimension? We’re not even remotely parallel to them! It may seem like it, but their Manehattan came about through an entirely different process from our own. I’m thinking that this rift had to have been a freak accident, but if so, how did they gain insight into our lives?”

“What I mean to say is,” Rarity replied, not really looking at the notes Twilight was proferring for her, “Perhaps you should be focusing on what the researchers have learned about Rosy. You’ve been focusing on the human verse’s interaction with ourselves, but the crux of the matter here is Rosy. I think you should investigate her life, to find out if there is any reason she might not want to return.”

Twilight’s face dropped to the surface of her desk, and she mumbled around the books and papers, “I know, I know. It’s just...” she sighed, and lifted her head. Smiling at Rarity, Twilight said, “You know what? You’re right. I have been stalling.”

“Well I wasn’t going to say anything,” Rarity said somewhat discomfited.

“Thank you, Rarity,” Twilight said much more brightly than she had a moment ago. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I know just who to talk to!”

Twilight left a warm feeling in Rarity’s breast as her friend trotted back out into the world. Rarity lingered in the library a moment longer. She was vaguely eyeing the shelves, but her thoughts drifted more towards a certain gentledrake. Perhaps if he was available, they could spend some time together today.

Twilight trotted onto the rift site, or the rift facility rather, now that there were fewer tents and more buildings. The permits alone for this project were a miracle, but there were good, professional ponies working on it, and the deer seemed agreed that ponies should deal with pony problems, as long as they stuck to the paths, and kept their construction within zoning regulations. She looked around until she spotted the pony she was looking for. “There you are!” Twilight said happily, trotting up to the mare, a greyish blue unicorn with a lustrous purple mane and tail, who was obviously the pony Twilight needed to talk to.

“Princess!” the mare said joyfully, sticking her head out of whatever mountain of paper she’d been working through. Her horn lit up with a strong magenta and all the paper cleared itself out of the way for her to step out of the pile and run up to Twilight, “They say you came to see me, personally?”

“Yes, Whatnot,” Twilight told her, glancing at the mare’s helpfully informative story mark of a question mark followed by an exclamation point, “I need to find out what you’ve learned about the Traveller. You were cataloguing that information, I’m told?”

“C’mon, let’s... I mean, right this way, your highness,” Whatnot said, clumsily bowing and trotting off to her current living/studying quarters. Twilight followed right along, a little uncomfortable with Whatnot’s open adulation, but it was useful for getting answers, and Twilight was glad for any opportunity to get answers quickly and easily for once.

“Alright, Princess Twilight,” said the delightfully excitable graduate student known as Whatnot, poring over her materials. This blue unicorn mare was something of a genius at memetic physics, and more importantly a huge fan of Twilight Sparkle. Of the graduate students working on studying the rift, she seemed the least upset with the actions their princess had to take. She was a bright, young unicorn, just bursting with eagerness to have the chance to assist a real princess. Which Twilight totally was.

“I’ve gathered all known info on the Traveller,” Whatnot gushed, “And I think you’ll find I’ve dug up some pretty juicy stuff.” The mare levitated several charts and bookmarked journals for her presentation in such a way that made Twilight want to hop around like a little filly. This was going to be so fascinating!

Twilight took in and let out a breath though. It wasn’t her place to have such reactions anymore. She was a princess now, and there were certain expectations she had to live up to. Twilight knew full well how disturbing it was when a pony didn’t act as expected, and the last thing she wanted to do was make this bubbly bluish mare feel that kind of tooth grinding frustration. No, Whatnot expected a princess, and a hero, and Twilight was not going to disappoint her by squealing like a schoolfilly.

“Firstly,” Whatnot stated, holding up a deed of some sort, “We were able to scry out the rental agreement for the apartment. And from there we were able to get a true name, and from there, a picture!”

“A picture?” Twillght asked curiously, “One she drew?”

“No, a photograph!” Whatnot said cheerily, rooting through a very thick binder to pull out a rather... grainy photograph. In it was depicted a very unamused ape.

What little of a mane this creature had was just a swatch of dog brown fur. The color of her coat wasn’t really apparent. Her expression was uncannily like that of a pony, though her figure was entirely alien. It was fascinating. How did she express that level of disdain, when she had no muzzle to speak of? And why was she so disdainful of the photographer?

Twilight couldn’t fathom it. Rosy’s face as a human was flat... ridiculously so. It was kind of adorable even. There was something... off about her appearance, but with that short muzzle, combined with her beady little foal eyes, she looked like an unamused and very distorted toddler.

“Yes, apparently she is missed, because this photo is from something that roughly translates to ‘missing pony report,’” the student went on. “We hardly had to translate at all of course because the portal intersects at an oblique angle with the linguistic plane. Their writing system came over scrambled, but it’s actually a very clever alphabet of about BC characters, with only a few redundancies.”

“This is all terribly fascinating,” Twilight interrupted, “But back to the Traveller. Was there any reason she might not want to return to her home world? Some sort of abuse, criminal intent, or suffering?”

“We haven’t found much yet,” the student admitted. “It’s a very slow process, since we can only send magical probes through with the iris of the portal closed. There doesn’t seem to be much wrong, outside of the fact that people seem to miss her. We haven’t managed to track down her family, to see if she has an evil stepmother, or a scheming younger sibling, or anything like that.”

“If we could at least eliminate possibilities,” Twillght pondered, “I’d like you to focus on that, if possible.”

“Oh, we did get her name!” the greyish blue pony declared, her eyes lighting up. “Bruce Connell,” Whatnot said proudly.

Twilight raised an eyebrow at that. “What on earth is a Bruce?” she asked.

“It might be a scrambled translation,” Whatnot said sheepishly, “It’s pretty common for names to skip the refraction.”

“Well, for an untranslated name, it sounds vaguely draconic,” Twilight speculated, squinting at the unreadable scrawl in these mysterious documents they were working on translating. “But really there’s nothing to say these creatures will follow any naming convention that exists on our world.”

“They’re from a different world entirely, so their culture could be completely uninfluenced by our own!” Whatnot declared excitedly.

“Except for the phenomenon by which they can peer into other verses,” Twilight replied. “That may explain why they’re so similar to us, without any causal connection.”

“Oh! I have a theory that they were harboring a realm of time burrowers,” Whatnot cut in, “And the rift formed during a retroactive cultural migration down their abandoned tunnels.”

“No way!” Twilight said, having never even considered such a possibility. “Have you written anything up on that?”

“Would you like to see my thesis?” Whatnot asked, with wide pink eyes. “It’s still in the revision stage, but I’d be honored to show it to you!”

Twilight couldn’t believe how lucky she was to see such a thing, as she squealed in excitement and danced in place.

“Twilight, we need to talk,” Pinkie Pie’s voice cut in.

“Ah’m Applejack, not Twilight,” Applejack said, looking sideways at her perturbed pink friend.

“That’s what I meant. Applejack,” Pinkie Pie replied, rubbing the bridge of her nose with a pastern. “Sorry, I’m still a little out of it from... last week.”

Twilight couldn’t hear Pinkie Pie speak, because Pinkie Pie wasn’t anywhere near her at the moment. Why would Pinkie Pie be over by Twilight, when it was Applejack she wanted to talk to? Anypony would have to be pretty silly to think that she was. A bunch of miles away from Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie had tracked down Applejack relaxing in her very own apple orchard, as Applejack sometimes did on nice days, as Pinkie Pie sometimes did on nice days.

“Ah can understand if’n you’re a little out of sorts,” Applejack said, her eyes softening a tad. “Ah’d understand a lot more if you would just talk to us about it, though.”

“That’s... what I’m here for,” Pinkie said in an unnervingly defeated tone.

Applejack just had to reach a hoof forward and pull her friend’s chin up. “You wanna come inside?” she asked with a smile. “We can fix up some vittles for ya, get you a warm drink, and... talk.”

Pinkie smiled back, if weakly, and said, “Thanks Applejack. That would be terrific!” a bit too quietly for comfort. Applejack had chores this afternoon. Plenty of crops still to be planted, and the early apples needed awakening, but she put them aside for this. It was clear Pinkie had something heavy to get off her chest, and Applejack had a good idea what it was. But not as good an idea as what Pinkie needed.

So Applejack fixed up some vittles, and bribed Apple Bloom to go out and do the planting, way out of earshot. Then over some cider and crumb cake, she got to hear Pinkie Pie’s story.

Several minutes later, Pinkie Pie got to stand there awkwardly patting her friend on the back while Applejack lost the cider and crumb cake she’d eaten, right into the bushes outside.

“How are you sane?! ” Applejack asked, once she could talk again, staring at Pinkie like—well, like doctors sometimes did, but not since Pinkie Pie moved to Ponyville and met Nurse Sweetheart.

“I dunno,” Pinkie said unsurely, “I’m not crazy? I thought I was kinda crazy. Don’t ponies say that I am?” She didn’t really think that, but it was kind of true.

“You’re not—” Applejack flustered to speechless, crouching low on her hooves. “Ah thought you lost your folks, but not like that! ”

“I’m sorry, Applejack,” Pinkie said, her ears going down of their own volition. “I just thought maybe since you lost your family too, you wouldn’t get too upset...”

“Ah didn’t lose mah family!” Applejack protested stridently. “Ah lost mah ma, and ah lost mah pah, but mah family was with me there, supportin’ me the whole way! Ah didn’t lose mah—oh, Pinkie.” Her ears dropped down. “Ah’m makin’ a fool of myself. You ain’t... that sorta stuff don’t happen in Equestria. They stopped those minin’ practices a generation ago, on account of what it was doin’ to the land! You... really went through that?”

Pinkie Pie couldn’t answer, but despite still having some puke on her, Applejack’s fierce hug did a lot more for Pinkie Pie than a hug had done for her in a long time.

“...ah think you need to water it down a bit.” Applejack said seriously, all cleaned up of vomit, and cautiously munching on a fritter.

“What do you mean?” Pinkie queried, stuffing another apple fritter in her mouth. “Water them down? These fings are good!”

“Just sayin’ that you can tell ‘em the gist of your story without getting into the specifics of it,” Applejack went on. The two were seated at the sturdy oaken dining room table inside the farm house. A resentful Apple Bloom had come to tell Applejack to get out here already, but one look at the atmosphere between these two ponies, and the filly quieted down. Applejack wasn’t gonna shoo her off again though, because hopefully the two of them could avoid any sort of conversation that would give a lil’ filly nightmares for the rest of her life.

If only Applejack could be so lucky.

“The specifics,” Applejack said to Pinkie, “Like how she... uoh Nelly ah cain’t get that outta mah head, ” she said, clutching it as imagined visions plagued her.

Pinkie Pie leaned forward worriedly, asking, “Sorry, what do I do? What do I tell them?”

Applejack released her head, looking up. “Take Twilight for instance,” she said, “You tell her there was a tragedy, and you were just scared you would lose her trust if she knew it unhinged you a little bit. She wants to know why you were keepin’ it from her, and what she did that put you in a bad spot. Mostly she just wants to hear you accept her apology. She don’t wanna hear about how your mom... eugh... smelled.”

Pinkie frowned, saying skeptically, “But isn’t that like... lying?”

“Sure as sugar,” Applejack said with a half smile, “It’s what she needs that you oughta worry about, not just throwing the truth at her like it don’t matter who she is. But that brings me to your biggest problem... Rainbow Dash.”

“Oh, she knows already,” Pinkie said, glancing aside with a blush.

“W—really?” Applejack blinked.

“It’s really hard to keep a secret from her,” Pinkie made sure to emphasize.

“Yeah, ah... noticed,” Applejack said leerily, “But what... how’d she react?”

Pinkie shrugged. “She yelled at Rocky, beat him up, then dragged me to the party.”

“...what?”

“He’s a rock.”

“Uh...”

“Three rocks, actually.”

Applejack tilted her head in bemusement, asking, “But she didn’t get all... uh... horrifiedlike?”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly telling her the story, but I did sorta imply that I sorta was all alone forever because I sorta killed my own family,” Pinkie speculated, “But she just told me to stop lying to myself and enjoy my birthday party.”

“Tha—hm.” Applejack pondered, then chuckled, “Heh heh. Rainbow Dash sure don’t mince words.”

“But I wasn’t lying,” Pinkie whined, leaning forward, “She just couldn’t believe that it was possibly true!”

Applejack raised an eyebrow as she regarded the pink pony dappled with the shadows of the house from the sunlight streaming in through the south window. “You were, an’ you are lyin’ to yourself, Pinkie Pie,” she said with confidence. “You didn’t kill none of them, and you know it.”

“But it was my idea to—”

Applejack cut Pinkie off before she could even get started, saying, “It don’t matter whose idea it was. You were just a filly. Hay, a grown mare wouldn’t have been able to predict it’d go that far south.”

Pinkie didn’t seem convinced though, and stared down at her hooves, mumbling, “I guess.”

“Was your ma a full grown mare?” Applejack asked slyly.

“...yes?” Pinkie said, looking up in curiosity.

“And if she could predict it, would any of this have happened?” Applejack continued.

Pinkie’s baby blue eyes grew hard, as she said, “No, but she didn’t even know about—”

“And neither did you!” Applejack cut in, feeling like a right heel in stomping all over this pony’s personal problems, but Pinkie needed this. Pinkie needed her. “You knew it was against the rules, and it was wrong of you to disobey them,” Applejack told Pinkie Pie soberly, “But what happened because of that was not your fault. It’d be like... if ah was lazy and didn’t milk a cow, then the whole barn burned down ‘cause she kicked over a lantern. See what ah mean?”

Pinkie kind of broke down at that point and started blubbering something about how “Abbleag” was the “behehehest” friend ever. Applejack wasn’t worried about whether she was a good friend or not, but as she held her friend close while Pinkie let it out, Applejack felt with relief that she maybe finally got through to her. Pinkie Pie had been downright absent in her own body these days, and Applejack was glad that she might be coming out of her shell. It was hard to help somepony when they didn’t want to help themselves, but Pinkie it seemed, was finally past that.

Once she’d calmed down, Pinkie asked into Applejack’s shoulder, “...what about Rarity?”

Took Applejack a blinking moment to change gears there. “Tell her...” Applejack tapped her chin, “Tell her you worked things out with Twilight, and you do have some issues, but it was a long time ago and you’re gettin’ past ‘em. Don’t tell her what happened.”

“But—”

“Alright,” Applejack admitted, pulling the pink pony to arm’s length. “Tell her you’ll tell her what happened if she really wants to know, but there’s no danger anymore, and it was so awful that your friend Applejack lost her lunch over it. Then let her tell you she doesn’t want to know.”

Pinkie squirmed uneasily, saying, “Okay that seems... fair enough. Oh, but what about Fluttershy?”

“Tell her everything,” Applejack said in a deadpan.

Pinkie’s eyes widened in fear, “But what if she gets scared, or hates me or—”

“Just trust me on this,” Applejack said, releasing her friend and turning her face down in grim resignation. “She don’t look like it, but Fluttershy’s got the strongest will of all of us. She’s as fierce as a momma bear. Why else do you think she puts on that whole ‘shy’ act all the time?”

“It’s not an act!” Pinkie gasped in surprise and outrage, “She gets really scared of things!”

Applejack thinned her lips, glancing Pinkie’s way and saying, “Pinkie, please don’t tell her ah told ya, but there’s only one thing Fluttershy’s afraid of.”

“What’s that?”

“Herself.”

She was just getting ready to follow Pinkie quietly out the door, when she stiffened, hearing her sister say behind her, “Apple Bloom. Y’mind if I talk with ya a minute?”

Trying to ignore the cold pit in her stomach, Apple Bloom said, “Okay sis,” crept over to the dining table, and reared her forehooves on it since she wasn’t quite big enough to be comfortable just sitting at it.

“Ah bet you wanna know what happened to Pinkie’s folks,” Applejack said evenly.

“Ah was curious but well, you know,” Apple Bloom said nervously, “Ah swear I won’t spread no rumors about her! We made a promise, you know?”

“Ah know,” Applejack answered, “And you’re a good filly for bein’ true to that promise. I just want you to know that she wasn’t actin’ that way for no reason, but the precise details don’t matter so much. She’s still the same Pinkie Pie she always was, and nothing bad that happened to her can change that.”

“I cain’t even imagine what could’ve happened,” Apple Bloom said sadly, “I didn’t even know anypony could get that upset.”

“Well, it was...” Applejack frowned, her gaze distant a moment before she said, “You remember the time y’all went lookin’ for your story marks out in the Everfree Forest?”

Apple Bloom blushed with shame at that. It had definitely not been a good idea, in hindsight. Especially after seeing it on Twilight’s magic movie thing. How could they have been so stupid? “Yeah, why?” she asked testily.

“It was pretty dangerous, wasn’t it,” Applejack said, “An’ things were mighty tight for a while, before Fluttershy saved the day.”

“Yeah,” Apple Bloom said resentfully, looking away from her sister. “Y’all saw what happened,” she grumbled.

“What happened to Pinkie was like that,” Applejack said seriously, “Except everything went wrong that could’ve gone wrong, and nopony saved the day.”

Apple Bloom looked at her sister again.

“Not sayin’ they were cockatrice chow or nothin’” Applejack clarified, before adopting a puzzled look and adding, “Not all of them at least. But it was that sort of thing. So if Sweetie or Scootaloo are havin’ a hard time understanding, tell ‘em it was like that, but it didn’t go well.”

Applejack looked at the door, probably after her friend, repeating, “Not well at all...”

Ponyville was peaceful and calm after the Pinkie Pie incident, which gave Twilight Sparkle plenty of time to obsess over the Traveller. There were a lot of things to study from this human world it seemed. For instance Twilight had once been going on about using lightning to move magnets, which seemed like a silly idea to Applejack, but apparently the humans could pack those little magnets so tight that they could store a whole library of information in the crook of your hoof, just by arranging the magnets like the letters.

Twilight also said they had these tiny little cameras that also used lightning, and Applejack didn’t really see what was wrong with your traditional stand camera, but being able to study it really helped give Twilight something to do. Twilight Sparkle had been kind of set adrift by her princesshood. Without her studies for Celestia, the poor filly had nothing to do with her life, and this rift helped fill that gap.

But enough about those ponies. Let’s focus on Rainbow Dash now. Yeah! Rainbow Dash! Equestria’s fastest pegasus was blazing off to her next destination, after an uneventful afternoon of herding clouds. The winter storms liked to act up sometimes right after wrapup, and it was her team’s job to make sure that everything kept melting, and the sun kept shining. They did an awesome job though, because she did an awesome job. Dash was just awesome like that. She was a hero to everypony, and an enemy to one. She had friends who loved her and a town that adored her and she really wanted to see the rest of those episodes.

They were awesome is the thing! Rainbow Dash loved seeing herself swooping and soaring, doing things that surpassed her limits and even all the stupid stuff she got up to. It was just so much fun seeing things from a new perspective. She’d never even thought about how wing biased the latter half of the Iron Pony competition had been. And the way Applejack said “I’m just better” and she’d just been joking about that? Rainbow Dash thought that Applejack really meant what she said!

Rainbow Dash would never say she was better unless she really thought she was better. It was something she hadn’t learned from those competitions, that watching them as a show had taught her. Rainbow Dash could say “I think I’m the top athlete in Equestria” and Applejack could say, “I think I’m the top athlete in Equestria,” and it’d mean two different things. Knowing that just changed the whole... feel of that memory, and made Rainbow Dash respect Applejack even more than she had before.

Rainbow felt kind of bad about when she did stuff like that. It was easy to see what was going on, when you were the one watching it, but when you’re the one whose friend just flicked her tail in your face, it was too easy for Rainbow Dash to take stuff too seriously, until they were both taking it too seriously. She felt like a better pony for knowing those things, even if it was a hard lesson to learn. And that’s why Rainbow Dash wanted to see the episodes.

That, and all the cool stuff she didn’t get to see because she wasn’t there. She had never even got to see Winter Wrapup from the ground before. And Fluttershy beating that cockatrice was exactly the kind of story Rainbow Dash would have loved to hear, that Fluttershy would never ever tell.

So the guard schedule in Canterlot was pretty predictable. It’d been a while since the last attack on the city, so guards were falling into their old patterns. At least that would remain the case until Luna brought back those weird bat ponies as guards, but Dash was pretty sure that it was still a bit unacceptable for the princess of the night to begin building up an army in Equestria’s capital. So that meant there were a lot of holes in the patrol schedule at night, and while Rainbow Dash was technically a day pony, she really wanted to see those shows.

In the cool blue of night, she flew low on her approach to the castle, staying close to the rocky cliffs to help conceal her from any searching eyes. It was hard to dampen the rattle of film reels in her left saddle bag, but at least the pigeon had stopped giving her trouble. Rainbow Dash was allowed in Canterlot, totally allowed, but she wasn’t scheduled to be here, so it’d be suspicious if she was seen. Far as anypony knew, Dash was sound asleep in her cloud bed, and if she had her way, it would stay that way.

Rainbow Dash had been to Canterlot like, three times, so she had a pretty good mental map of the castle’s layout. There were high security areas toward the mountain deep within, and on her way there, she mentally went over where each one would be, and possible ways to get in unseen. She perched on a roof light as a feather, looking around with owlish eyes, until she saw the guards change shifts. She saw the one hesitate before waving the two others on by, and their gait seemed to be listing slightly to the left, so they were probably going to patrol the north wing first.

Slipping in a window in the south wing, Dash prepared herself for any security she might run into. Hoof dial combo locks were a piece of cake, but magic wards would be pretty hard to get by undetected. She was most worried about running into patrols though, because she really didn’t want to do the thing if possible. It wasn’t reliable against groups, and it really wasn’t a lot of fun, so she avoided the presence of other ponies, stalking through the shadows.

There was one close call, but as Dash’s sensitized ears picked up hoofsteps, she zipped up to the ceiling. Pegasi would stand a chance of spotting her, but they didn’t work this part of the palace at this shift. The unicorns that did pass under her never thought to look up right at that moment, and didn’t see Dash flattened against the ceiling up there.

There was a magical barrier between Rainbow Dash and the high security halls, and teleportation was out of the question in the strongest defended building in Equestria. But if you avoid detection, it doesn’t matter what a hornet’s nest you’re walking into. To circumvent the barrier, Rainbow noticed that there was a vase beyond it that matched with one on this side. A bit of sympathetic charm later, and Dash was at the location of the far vase, without having passed in between.

That was pretty easy though, and the vault itself had a guard standing in front of it, and a hoof lock. Dash had a plan, but it was risky. The best kind. She was headed down the hallway when two guards spotted her. They wouldn’t recognize Rainbow Dash in her black sneaking suit hopefully, especially with her wings folded. It was hard to balance with effectively no tail, but she was up to the task, and well trained in such practices. So she let them spot her, just a shadow moving in the shadows.

“Hey!” one of the guards shouted, “Who goes there?”

Silently, Dash darted away with them in hot pursuit. She lost them by taking a left at a T-intersection, and waving her wings to blow the sounds of her hoofsteps into the right passageway. The guards ran down there, and she trotted after, matching her hoofbeats to theirs. They came upon the vault Dash wanted to check, and were talking with the guard there, asking him if he saw anypony pass by. Perfect.

Rainbow Dash tossed a rock down the far corridor, and at its noisy scraping clack, the guards spun around, saying, “There, down that way! It’s a dead end!” They all charged down the corridor, while Rainbow Dash glided in to fiddle with the hoof dial. She had it down to about a dozen possibilities when she heard them start to come back, and hurriedly cycled through them all with a mechanical accuracy, until the door clicked open. Sticking her head in the vault—she... saw nothing other than scroll shelves and some wicked swords up on stands. Darn!

Rainbow Dash crept away while the guards returned, and opened up the vault themselves to make sure nopony was in there. Nopony, and noshow was in there. The second vault she tried wasn’t as high security, but the lock could be overridden by a simple sliding puzzle that dumped you in the dungeon if you got it wrong too many times. Dash got it right on the first try and... nope, still nothing.

She had a good feeling about the third vault, and crept up to it. Of course there was another guard in front of it, but the mare didn’t look like she was even half awake. Dash was awake of course, every sense honed to a crystal clear precision. She’d be able to crash once she had secured the film back home. This time, Dash let her hoof tap the stone just loud enough to catch the guard’s attention.

“Wha?” she said, eyes snapping forward. “Who are you?!” she exclaimed, levelling her spear at Dash’s throat. It was still hard to see anything but the gleaming metal tip, and you wouldn’t be able to make a pony out who was wearing a sneaking suit. Only that something was standing there, just out of the light. Dash backed up and the guard advanced, saying, “You are not allowed to be here. This is a restricted area! I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to—”

Before the guard could light the hallway torches, Rainbow Dash pulled out her trump card. Opening her right saddle bag, a very flustered pigeon burst out of it, fluttering noisily forward while Dash threw herself away from the spear into the shadows. Quickly scurrying up the wall, she took notice of the beleagured guard turning on the hall torches, but not looking up. The guard was laughing to herself as they slowly lit up to reveal an empty hallway, “A pigeon?”

Behind the guard, Rainbow Dash had already glided into the vault entrance, and was busily jimmying the door open. In it, she spotted—aha! There was a golden stand, on which a set of film reels had been laid. Fluttering into the vault and avoiding the ground, with an eye out for the bright red dot of any tripwire beams, Rainbow Dash reached the stand, on which was attached a note. “Not for use by the Elements of Harmony. This means you, Pinkie Pie.”

“Heh,” Dash murmured to herself, “Guess that doesn’t mean me.”

In swift wing movements, Dash swapped every film reel for a blank one she carried in her other saddle bag. It was smooth enough, it didn’t even trigger any pressure plates. Then she very slightly cracked open the door behind the guard who had returned from her pigeon chasing, and Rainbow Dash settled down to wait. The shift change came, and the mare guard trotted forward, meeting her replacement who said, “Anything to report?”

Dash was already outside the vault and hidden behind a curtain.

“Just a pigeon,” the first said with a laugh, “Scared the hay out of me!”

The first guard left, and as soon as the second had her back turned, Rainbow Dash dashed for the hall. From there, it was a simple straight shot out to—the first guard had turned around and come back for something, and was staring at Dash, and the hall torches were still lit.

Dammit!

Dash darted up to the mare and whispered “Psst! You didn’t see me! You don’t know why you stopped in the hallway. You aren’t gonna r—remember I was here at all.” Every sentence was like a punch in the gut. She was gonna feel that in the morning, but it was worth it. Dash breezed past that very confused looking guard, and vanished into the shadows again. Her head was throbbing, but she was pretty sure she could make it out without any further incidents. Rainbow Dash hated when she had to do the thing.

Before she could collapse in bed, Rainbow Dash made sure to stash the tapes in a chest she had tied up in a tree just out of town. Just a regular tree, not one of AJ’s apple trees, of course, because that orange earth pony just couldn’t understand when you really, really, really had to know something, even when your friends don’t want to let you in on it. In a way, Dash’s retrieval of the tapes helped lessen her nausea in the morning, and that pounding headache she got when misusing her talents. Because it just didn’t feel right to her, to hide from such an important truth they contained.

Now all she had to do was find a projector.

Twilight Sparkle was not having a good day. First, her projector went missing. Then, Rainbow Dash was nowhere to be found. The whole weather team was in a tizzy over that itinerant mare in fact, and that meant Twilight got caught in an unexpected spring shower. That meant her scrolls got wet, and that meant she had to set them drying, instead of being able to write on them right away. To top it all off, she discovered Whatnot had been reassigned to a different project entirely, seemingly coincidentally, but it was a strange coincidence that the student who was most sympathetic to Twilight’s cause would be the one reassigned.

Fortunately, Twilight already had most of the data she needed to get a working plan. What she needed was information on exactly who her Jane Doe was, on the other side. Having the name Bruce Connell wasn’t sufficient. Any mare in the human world could have had that name. Twilight needed more specific information, so she could formulate a plan to defeat the villains that made Rosy, aka Bruce, not want to return to her home. She needed a birth certificate.

Unfortunately, the limited far seeing they could perform through the pinhole sized portal was not able to reach wherever the humans stored those records. Yet, the humans had ways to request those records, that had many parallels with Equestrian society. The principal difference was the transmission of complex signals down copper wires. Ponies used induction for the most part, but that didn’t work very well in the other verse, so physical wires were needed to get power from point A to point B. The humans exploited that to its fullest extent, delivering not only power and telephony, but data, documents, encoded books and records, even films of cats doing silly things.

The system was very well secured, however. Humans seemed to depend on the lack of any clairvoyance spells, basing a great deal of social infrastructure on total secrecy. Without the right credentials, nopony would be able to request an electron codifed form of Rosy’s birth certificate. It would have been nice if there was any information at all in the missing persons report about the family of this “Bruce Connell,” but with no names for any of the family members, and the apartment quite thoroughly cleaned out by the human investigators, Twilight was at a loss for how to locate them.

If she could get certain documents including the birth certificate, she could find out Bruce’s familial relations, if she had any step parents, or was spending time in an orphanage. Twilight also needed employment history, to see if anypony was cruelly overworking Rosy, and making her want to flee. Twilight didn’t have any way to access these documents herself, but she had a good idea how to appeal to those who did. Employers, in the human world, had more legal rights than employees, if Twilight understood it correctly. They could request private, personal information about the employees, on the arguement that it prevented those employees from getting away with laziness. The vast amount of privacy protection did not therefore apply to employers.

It struck Twilight as an unflatteringly cruel way to invade someone’s privacy, but that in itself clued Twilight in to what she had to help Rosy defeat in order for her to return home triumphant. By adopting the enemy’s guise, Twilight could slip right past their security like a changeling in the night, and she would be able to solve this mystery once and for all. They couldn’t exactly squeeze bits through the rift, but it was foal’s play to scan certain circuitry for credit cards within the detection zone, and with the money skimmed off of those pooled in an offshore account, Twilight Sparkle was about to establish a web startup.

Sharing a sapphire smoothie with Spike, Rarity carried herself with the utmost tact and poise, watching it covertly from a nearby cafe table. Not a pony, she told herself, she had to tell herself lest she start feeling for it again. If it hadn’t insinuated this rift between her friends, Rarity would never have suspected it wasn’t a pony. It looked like a pony, moved like a pony, and laughed like a pony with a member of its new friend circle, a grey/blonde mare known for her rather gullible nature. Its next victim, no doubt!

They sure did seem like they were enjoying themselves...

Rarity just wanted to know what went wrong, not just with the ill fated attempt to return the creature to the place from whence it came, but with how her friends had all been so... distant lately. Somehow the thing’s mere presence seemed to drive a wedge between the lot of them. If Rarity hadn’t been taking a moment here and there to observe the creature’s activity, she probably would have been trying to patch things up with Fluttershy again, if nopony else.

As much as Rarity loved all her friends, Fluttershy was most dear to Rarity. They shared so much in common, and even if Fluttershy was an animal caretaker, she still lived surprisingly close by. Applejack’s farm work was so different from Rarity’s occupation that they rarely got to even see each other on the clock. Rainbow Dash was exciting, and thrilling, and brave, and bold, and frankly at times somewhat overwhelming. She hadn’t been seen for a while, anyway. For all of Pinkie Pie’s fascinating and boundless creativity, she was something of a slob, and it was difficult to keep a pristine environment whenever she was around. Twilight Sparkle had some wonderful ideas regarding fabric, design, gem harvesting, just about any subject really, but she was so busy these days with obsessing over this... human.

To anypony else, the human would have appeared as an ordinary young mare, with fur of eggshell white, with a light hot pink mane. Her strangest characteristic was the lack of a story mark at so late an age. It was not unheard of for a pony to get their mark late in the growing period, but it was very rare. Rarity only knew of two ponies who went through that: a homely, eccentric stallion who took a long time in learning about some form of odd self moving golem, and of course that whole fantastic scandal with the famous Sapphire Shores. But those were both ponies, and successful ones at that. This mare, this... thing couldn’t possibly be a real pony.

Rosy was one of those strange, icky looking creatures Twilight had shown Rarity, who may have had a wonderful fashion sense, but they looked like some sort of ape-headed scaleless dragons. It claimed it didn’t want to return to its natural form, but Rarity had other suspicions. Something that looked like... that couldn’t possibly appreciate being a pony. Perhaps it was trying to damage the fabric of space and time. Perhaps it was a forward scout for some sort of invasion force!

Still, Rarity couldn’t overlook what Rosy was wearing... what she was still wearing. Rosy had just looked so cold, and hurt, that Rarity couldn’t... just for a moment of weakness Rarity couldn’t deny she was a pony. And now Rosy wore it almost like a trophy of conquest. It made Rarity feel warm and cold inside, unsure of whether to be gratified or disgusted. It was infuriating and intriguing that Rosy had looked at it, and not thrown it in Rarity’s face as expected. Instead, she wrapped it around her neck, and thanked Rarity for thinking of her. As if that were a good thing!

These were strange days, and Rarity wasn’t sure she liked the change of pace. She should have been designing dresses for her friends, not spending time on this adventure that simply would not come to an end! It was truly a devilish rogue, this creature that could appear totally benign while refusing to complete her quest. Rarity was sure her friend Twilight could find a solution, but frankly she thought that Twilight couldn’t find a solution soon enough!

At least Rarity had that retreat to look forward to. Fluttershy had found a wonderfully relaxing place to spend some time away from the hustle and bustle, and Rarity was the first pony she thought of who might be interested in such a thing. It sounded a bit... rustic, but everything Fluttershy involved herself with was a bit rustic. She was not what you would call a high society pony. Nevertheless, Fluttershy had no end of praise for it, so Rarity was quite willing to give it a go. She just hoped it wasn’t a week spent lost in the wilderness without even the most basic amenities again.

“We gazed into each others eyes the whole time. It was the most magical smoothie ever. And it had sapphires!”

“That’s nice, Spike.”

Meanwhile, during the cool night just before dawn, in an undisclosed location somewhere in Ponyville, a polychromatic pegasus was exclaiming by the light of a projector, “Noooo, don’t give up now! Don’t give up Fluttershy, you improved so much! They need your wingpower!”

Author's Note

I’ve had a talk with my title. She should be behaving now.

Rifts

The projector still ran long after the reels had spooled out, casting a dim glow on the wall of Rainbow Dash’s highly secret base, which was also the basement of the local schoolhouse. Being as school was out during the night, that gave Rainbow Dash enough time to watch at least one episode a night, and still have plenty of time leftover during the day to sleep.

Of course, that’s assuming she wasn’t watching the episode multiple times, to try and catch everything in it. She may have had a few incidents with barely enough time afterward to scramble out before the foals started to arrive, but the school cellar was the only place Dash could reach that would have a projector screen (aside from the library), and it was technically a public building so she had every right to be here, right?

Rainbow Dash finished today’s episode in time, flying home with a warm feeling in her heart and a smile on her face. She hadn’t even thought that particular event would be a Fluttershy-centric episode. Water crisis, intense athletic training, and spinning up a literal water spout, it had a lot of stuff Fluttershy had little involvement in at all. But the episode instead went into Fluttershy’s compassion for her friends, and her determination to overcome her fear in order to help, largely in part because she cared so much about Rainbow Dash. That, Rainbow Dash found, was pretty brilliant for a bunch of humans.

Back at her cloud house, Rainbow Dash found herself reflecting on Fluttershy’s experience. Rainbow’d felt just awful, when Fluttershy was shocked to have such a low wingpower. It was something Rainbow Dash never even had to deal with: being a weak flier. It had seemed like an amazing improvement to Rainbow Dash at the time, but Fluttershy thought it was no big deal, since it was still pretty weak. Dash wondered if Fluttershy really felt that way, or if it was more of a dramatization, but wasn’t sure how to ask her about it, without blowing the top off the whole “secret show watching” thing Rainbow Dash had going on.

Dash had to smile though, as she paused at the refrigerator for a late night—er, early morning snack, because no matter how weak a flyer Fluttershy was, she still made the difference in the end. Without her, Ponyville would have failed, and Cloudsdale would have had no water. Even Spitfire had said that she... wait a minute.

Rainbow Dash burst from her house in a brief eruption of rainbow in the pre-dawn morning. She skidded to a halt outside the Ponyville schoolhouse, looking around warily at how close it was to sunrise, and then used a wingtip to jimmy the cellar door open. Sneaking down there, Rainbow Dash uncovered the hidden projector and her cache of purloined reels, and hastily fiddled with the latest one, getting it set up in the projector again. Unspooling the tape to nearly its end, she turned on the projector, watching the image of the water spout ascending upwards, to the cheers of the ponies of Ponyville. And then—and then landing, and then greeting Fluttershy, and then Spitfire...

Her brow knotting, Dash exclaimed furiously, “Spitfire, you jerk!!”

Diplomatic negotiations with Yakyakistan went worse than expected in the fall of that year, though to be fair negotiations went really well. It’s just that everypony had some seriously high expectations, that weren’t quite in line with what the prince had been like. It could have been much, much worse, though admittedly in hindsight Yakyakistan went to war so often, it was hard to take seriously. But war averted, friendships formed, and princessly duties dealt with, Twilight had some time to herself, to relax inside her warm library, crack open a good book, and plot to defeat the evil humans stopping Rosy Pink from returning home.

Twilight had a simple plan. Set up a business in the human world under false pretenses, and use it to gain information about the mare known as Bruce Connell. She took a look at the remote networking services the humans had established, and saw that as ideal: the perfect business where you never had to show your face, and nobody had to know you were a pony.

Except for tax purposes, of course.

Now... Twilight was most certainly not planning on announcing to the human governments who she was, where she was, nor approximately how much money she made in a year. She wasn’t planning on opening up negotiations at all. She wanted to close the rift, and be done with it! So a certain subtle touch was needed to keep from stepping on any human toes, especially the tax collecting humans. What they didn’t know couldn’t hurt them, but Twilight was not the best candidate for keeping ponies—or humans—from knowing things.

“You want me to what, darling?”

“Start a business with me,” Twilight entreated earnestly to her industrious fellow unicorn friend, “In the human world.”

“Why in all things under sun and stars would I ever do anything like that?” Rarity said in exasperation.

“So that I can fool the humans into thinking I represent a legitimate business,” Twilight said, looking around and then whispering, “To get information on the real identity of Rosy Pink.”

Rarity tilted her head. “Oh, so you mean to...”

“Well,” Twilight said with the least innocent expression in her innocent, bright-eyed smile, “If she just happens to apply for employment, then we’ll have to ask for her references, and humans are really big on references. That’ll give us access to her history, her former identity, and whatever’s wrong with her life that is keeping her from going home.”

“Twilight, that is positively devlish, ” the alabaster unicorn said, peering at her friend through slitted eyes. A small smile made its way onto Rarity’s muzzle, and a guiltily indulgent laugh escaped her as she said, “I like it.”

With Rarity’s invaluable experience with running a business, among... other things, Twilight avoided many gotchas or rookie mistakes. It was Rarity’s idea to bring other humans into the fold, in order to have them deal with the in-person aspects of business ownership, all without being aware that Twilight and Rarity were not entirely there. Rarity had the idea to emphasize the secrecy, in order to cultivate a sense of mysterious allure. And that left it up to Twilight to figure out exactly what to sell.

She eventually decided to do something about the humans’ shambles of a society itself. They didn’t even have a way for friends to help each other, only governance and employers, so she decided to fix their economy, envisioning one like the modern Equestrian system, but taking advantage of the lightning based circuitry humans had developed. They could calculate logarithms at speeds you wouldn’t believe!

It would take a while to even get the business started, because first Twilight had to have a working system that was human machine compatible, and then she and Rarity had to communicate with the right people, all through a microscopic portal in somehuman’s apartment. A worrisome development were the humans themselves, their forensics teams investigating the missing pony—er—person. But nothing in their world needed to return to Equestria, so the portal was quite invisible on their end, and they seemed to lack thaumic detection equipment entirely, so ponies could project their conjurations through it right under the humans’ curiously flat noses.

It proved helpful even, when Twilight used that verse’s bizarre resonance between light and magnetism on the portable computers the human scientists had, to use them as Internet communication devices. Rarity had the thought that it would be bad for all Twilight’s communication to be traced specifically to that location, so they started working through relays, and using things called credit cards to gain more distant remote resources. Twilight expanded their farseeing as far as possible, and with a decent city block to work with, they had all the resources they needed to get access to the world wide web.

So it was in that context that Twilight with Rarity by her side finally experienced a chat channel.

Economancer: That is a terrible idea. Anyone could deconstruct the sum to expose the original payees.

Darjeeling: But how could they, if it was all added as an opaque sum?

Economancer: Why don’t you go take a college course in basic economics? You might learn something.

Fanpop1: fiat currency is literally cancer. We need the gold standard and we need it today

Darjeeling: Couldn’t you at least explain how it might not work?

Economancer: It’s so obvious I can’t help if you’re too stupid to figure it out.

Niceguy: WEAPONS FIRED OVER THE GAZA STRIP the Jews are at it again

Whatmeno: How can the USA continue to support the Israeli they are literally nazis

Economancer: Can we not talk about Israel for ten minutes, please?

Darjeeling: well FUKC YOU then sorry I even tried

SYSTEM: Darjeeling has been banned by Economancer (Language, motherfucker.)

...it wasn’t a tremendously good confidence boosting exercise.

Libraria: Does anyhuman know how I might learn of influential scholars in economic theory?

Economancer: Are you seriously trying to roleplay on #economics?

Libraria: No, just looking for resources to learn from. No roleplay going on here!

Fanpop1: try wikipedia :p

Economancer: We’re not going to do your homework for you, kid.

Libraria: I assure you darling, I’m merely looking for information.

SYSTEM: You have been banned from #economics by Economancer (back talk)

Okay, it was a very poor confidence boosting exercise.

“There is... at least... the suggestion to try wiki...pedia,” Rarity said uncertainly. She was uncertain about more than the conversation though, looking with worry at the back of her friend’s head. “Darling... what are you doing?”

“I’m trying to find the head administrator,” Twilight said, staring intently forward, shifting her horn field skillfully to utilize the human’s computer to search for one, “I need to submit a formal complaint. We were not back talking!”

“I don’t think you were going to get very far anyway, Twilight,” Rarity said dryly, “That bunch seemed rather very unfriendly.” Laying a soothing forehoof on Twilight’s withers, Rarity gently pulled Twilight away from the rift interface, saying, “Why don’t we just take a little break for tea, and then perhaps we can find what that one human said about wikipedia.”

Twilight sighed, and delighted her horn. Rarity was right, as always.

And in fact, Rarity was extremely right, because once the two did find Wikipedia, the article immediately hyper-linked to many citations, and many of the citations had an author. By contacting the authors of promising articles, Twilight was able to find one willing to hear out her proposal, and they were most definitely interested, if she could provide something that worked.

Apparently humans were very keen on ways to invest that didn’t rely on a central currency, which was what Twilight referred to as “friendship,” but humans seemed strangely leery of applying that word to economics. That was the missing piece that would give Twilight an “in.” So what she wanted was a working system by which people could invest in each other privately and electronically, not unlike friendship bennies, and then Twilight would have her business started.

Now all she had to do was learn how to program.

“Please Rosy, just hear me out—”

“No, Applejack,” Rosy said angrily, having been cornered in the market again by the earnest apple pony. “I don’t want anything to do with you, or your five friends. I’m done playing the game, and I’m just trying to live my life. Is that so wrong?”

“We were wrong!” Applejack pleaded, “Ah don’t unnerstand it, but you had your reasons an’ if we knew them, we’d have not even thought about doin’ that to you! Ah just wanna know why you keep ignorin’ us, especially Pinkie. You think she’s doin’ all that for her health?”

“Applejack, I—really want to believe you,” Rosy winced, “But it’s really not anything you should worry about. It’s just not safe for...for me to hang out with the six of you.”

“The what of us? Why ain’t it safe?” Applejack asked in confusion.

“Because,” Rosy said, then looked around suspiciously as if they were being watched. Leaning towards Applejack, she said in a tight whisper, “You and your friends are special. You are the—the focus of the story. You have to act in certain ways, and things go... wrong when you try to deviate. I don’t fit in your story and—and things aren’t going to work out if I’m with you. You just... be yourself, live your own life, and just let me fade into the background. That’s the only way I’ll be safe!”

“Ah just wanna be friends with you,” Applejack said pleadingly, “You’re a good worker an’ a fine pony, an’—ah just do, okay?”

“Even if Twilight hates you for it?” Rosy asked coldly.

“I—no, ah... Twilight ain’t gonna... hate me for it,” Applejack said weakly, but she knew full well that Twilight had some serious beef with Rosy. “Land sakes, ah don’t wanna have to choose between you and her!”

“You don’t have to choose,” Rosy said, turning her tail to Applejack, “Because I’m choosing for you. Goodbye, Applejack.”

“But—but...” Applejack said in vague horror and desperation, “Cain’t ya at least tell me... why you cain’t go back home?”

Rosy looked back at Applejack with such sadness. “I’m sorry,” she said, trotting a few steps away. “Ask—” she paused and looked back, worried. “Ask Fluttershy,” she said tensely. “And don’t... don’t hate me for it, please.”

Then Rosy galloped off into the crowd again.

Applejack didn’t sell many apples that day. She was too flustered about what Rosy said to her, about what it meant. How many other ponies were avoiding Applejack, just because of who she was friends with? Just because of who she was?

Weird things happened around Applejack and her friends, it was true, but she still thought of herself as a nice normal, average, approachable earth pony. Wasn’t she? Applejack felt like she was trapped, like the thing that made her ‘her’ had singled her out somehow, and made her act in certain ways, like some kinda puppet on strings. Applejack couldn’t stand that thought. She just wanted to be free, but what was even holding her? There were no bars, there was no trap, just Applejack and her ordinary not-so-ordinary life.

She wasn’t even sure she wanted to ask Fluttershy, at this point, if she could even track that pony down. For Fluttershy was getting frustratingly hard to find...

“Oh Fluttershy, I honestly don’t know what to do about Twilight Sparkle!” Rarity said as the two of them relaxed calmly in a warm bath surrounded by wooden walls. The two of them were in a most rustic location, but it was clear the ponies who kept this place did not skimp on the simple comforts of heated water and the beauty of nature. At any other time, Rarity might have objected to the dull decor and the simplistic architecture, but right now she found she couldn’t give a damn. She was here with her friend, and everything was just fine.

“You don’t know what to do about anything right now,” Fluttershy said in a gently teasing tone.

Rarity laughed and said, “Too true. I must say I had my doubts about this retreat of yours, but it’s just as they said. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so relaxed, so... unencumbered by my obligations.”

“It is such a wonderful place,” Fluttershy agreed, “I’m not sure why, but they said that’s to be expected. The ponies who run it seem to know what they’re doing.”

“It’s so wonderful what they’re doing here!” Rarity replied with a serene smile, “I would never have thought it possible, and yet here we are. Free as two sparrows!”

“I’m so glad you gave it a try,” Fluttershy smiled, “It is a very um... unusual thing to do. I was worried you would be upset. They said it was very important you give it a try, otherwise you might start judging me, or even fearing me!”

“I’m glad you did then,” Rarity remarked gratefully, “I would never want to be judging you, or fearing you. I confess I was afraid at the time, but you were my good friend and I knew I could trust you.”

Fluttershy giggled at that, and said, “Could trust me.”

“Oh don’t be silly,” Rarity said, splashing at her, “I can trust you even more now, by our shared experience! What a wonderful experience it is too, to finally be free. And so healthy for our complexion!”

“They say so many wonderful things about it,” Fluttershy agreed, dripping, “I’m so glad they’re willing to share it with us.”

“Shame it only is for one week at a time,” Rarity said with a sigh, “But it is nice to be able to get away from it all again, even for just a little while.”

“You said it,” Fluttershy replied with a smile.

The two lay there a few more minutes, before Fluttershy asked, “Were you saying something about Twilight?”

“Oh, yes!” Rarity remembered. “Do recall I was helping her with my particular area of... expertise. Dreadfully stressful, I assure you.”

“Not like here,” Fluttershy said cheekily.

“Not at all like here,” Rarity agreed. “Anyway, Twilight has become even more obsessed with those humans than ever. I think she’s forgotten that this was merely a... mission for sneaking things, whatever you call that. She’s been talking with smart humans, and having the most fun she could have. I respect that, truly I do.”

Sighing, Rarity went on, “But it gets so tedious to deal with her sometimes. I want nothing to do with the human world, and yet my talents... are needed. That’s why I like this place even more, because I can finally stand up for myself, instead of only doing what I am supposed to do.”

A third party came walking into the bathhouse, leading the two mares to look up at him. “Hello ladies,” the white stallion said calmly, “Are you enjoying yourselves?”

Fluttershy was reluctant to speak, so Rarity said, “Why yes we are... em... you. Just worrying about the outside world, as one does.”

“There’s so much to worry about out there!” he replied with concern in his cool blue eyes, “Not here though. It’s always a relief to come back to our little community, where you can finally be yourself.”

Fluttershy and Rarity both nodded, Rarity saying, “Oh yes indeed,” while the butter yellow pegasus murmured something inconsequential.

“Will you be signing on for another week of relaxation and new friends?” he asked.

“Well, I don’t see why not,” Rarity replied, “I’m sure I’ve something terribly important regarding dresses and... hats I suppose, but I’m sure it can wait just a little bit longer.” Looking at Fluttershy, she asked, “What about you? Are your animal friends being cared for?”

“Oh, I suppose so,” Fluttershy said hesitantly, “But another week would be wonderful. How much trouble could they possibly be in?”

“The problems out there aren’t really problems. The only problem is our attitude towards them,” the stallion pointed out. “If you do try to return, and find yourself overwhelmed, just remember you can always come back to us.”

“Thank you very much,” Fluttershy said with a small smile, “We surely will.”

“I do hope you stay, because if you stay on another week, we can introduce you to the next level in friendship,” he said practically.

“Next level?” Rarity asked in confusion.

“Oh yes,” he said, “You’ve shown yourselves as excellent members of our community, and there’s so much more that we could be doing for each other! Normal members don’t see our most important locations, because well... there are ponies who aren’t ready for the truth we share. But you two are clearly ready to learn. All you have to do is sign on for another week.”

“That’s wonderful!” Rarity said in excitement, “It sounds positively um... bad but in a good way. Where do we sign up?”

“Enjoy your bath,” he replied kindly, heading for the door. “I can show you everything you need to know when you’re finished.”

“Thank you so much, mister—em...” Rarity wanted to thank him properly, but had to trail off to silence, before asking, “Sorry, what was your name again?”

“Double Diamond,” he replied with a smile. “I look forward to seeing you later, misses Rarity and Fluttershy.”

So Rarity had gone off to do her own thing, but that was fine. Everything was fine. It wasn’t anything Twilight Sparkle couldn’t account for. Just more variables to take into account, all very accountable variables. Plenty of the humans Twilight contacted were equally capable in business as her good friend, and they had a brilliant scheme for introducing this into the economy, once she had worked all the bugs out of her prototype design.

She had a lot of work ahead of her, but once Twilight applied a find-the-way charm to the tangential eigenvalues, all the pieces seemed to fall into place. Humans had terrifying incendiary technologies on a scale that could blanket whole cities, but they didn’t even have a quick way to factor large numbers! Twilight Sparkle was going to totally wreck that world.

Applejack stuck her nose in the picnic basket and pulled out the graham crackers, and then the mugs. She placed each item with her mouth onto the flat stone next to a roaring fire pit, courtesy of hers truly. Into the mugs, she poured a pot full of piping hot water, mixing smoothly with the chocolate they contained.

Her friend provided that, along with the chocolate bars, and the marshmallows. Applejack speared two of the large marshmallows on metal skewers she’d brought along. Then she looked up from them, meeting the eyes of the only other pony who’d shown up for their weekly campfire... again.

With the baby blue eyes of Pinkie Pie looking back at Applejack evenly, the party mare asked without hesitation, “Time to go save our friends?”

Applejack smiled grimly, and stood facing her, agreeing, “Time to go save our friends.”

With an incredibly fuzzy sweater to keep her warm from the cold, Pinkie Pie bounced out of Sugarcube Corner with a mission in mind. Three of her best friends had gone missing, and Twilight was being Twilight again, so it was up to Pinkie Pie to find and rescue Rainbow Dash, while Applejack went looking for Fluttershy.

Applejack needed to find Fluttershy, because where she went, Rarity was often known to follow, and also because her critters had been bothering Applejack’s farm lately to an unusual degree. All their friends were important to find, but Pinkie was searching herself for Rainbow Dash, because Rainbow Dash had a way with words for getting Twilight Sparkle out of a funk and listening to reason again.

Whenever Pinkie Pie tried to do that herself, it just ended up with a lot of screaming, panic and attacking hydras.

Unfortunately, the great majority of places to find Rainbow Dash were in the sky, and both Pinkie Pie and Applejack were earth ponies. Fortunately, Pinkie Pie was Pinkie Pie, and Pinkie Pie happened to be friends with another earth pony who loved the sky. Granted, Pinkie was friends with almost every pony in Ponyville, but this one shared Pinkie’s love of getting high, and pursued it with a passion.

“Thanks again, Cherry!” Pinkie said happily, waving behind her as she pumped her hindlegs on the pedals. The pedal-copter was the finest in Equestrian aeronautical technology, which actually wasn’t all that great since most earth ponies liked staying on the ground, and pegasi already could fly. But for eccentric mechanists like Cherry Berry, the sky wasn’t the limit!

“Have fun, Pinkie!” Cherry waved back as Pinkie ascended. Then Pinkie was in the sky. Which was actually really empty! That’s the funny thing about skies, is that there’s so much more room up here, because you can put things higher or lower, whereas on the ground everything has to be at ground height.

Checking Dashie’s normal hideouts revealed little to nothing. Her napping clouds around town had dissipated, and her lake dive cloud was unoccupied. It was definitely time for Pinkie Pie to step up her game, if she wanted to find her friend, and in doing so probably save the world again, somehow.

Pinkie arrived at the Ponyville Weather Bureau, standing up from the copter long enough to recite a little ditty that Twilight had helped her with, when the mistress of magic had realized the implications of an earth pony and a pegasus being friends. “My little hoofsies are allowed to walk a proud cloudy cloud,” Pinkie said, dancing on the hoofsies in question. These ditties were so much fun, because they made it easy to remember how to move the magic in her spellwork, and they sounded so cute to say! All Pinkie had to do was say it just to herself, then pretend to kick the cloud, and then the cloud... allowed, hee hee!

She walked into the bureau, slammed a hoof on the cloud desk, and cloud shouted, “I demand to speak with the manager!”

The secretary looked kind of shocked, so Pinkie had to cover her own mouth and giggle, “Sorry, I always wanted to say that. Do you know where I can find a pony called Rainbow Dash?”

“How are you—here?!” the mare said incredulously, wings half-spread.

“I dunno,” Pinkie replied noncommitally, “But if you tell me where Dashie is today, then I won’t be here anymore. I’ll be there!”

“I—um...” the purple mare looked away shyly, and fiddled with some paper on her desk. Cloud-paper? No probably just regular paper. Making paper out of clouds sounded like a really terrible idea. “Is she on the—”

“Oh, yeah,” Pinkie interrupted, “She’s on the alpha one weather squad, and she should be working today!”

“Oh, well, t-that’ll mean she’s at the cloud collection, in sector 3B um...” the pegasus pointed to an overhead map of Ponyville on the wall, helpfully divided into sectors.

“Thank you so much!” Pinkie said giving the mare a delighted hug, then bouncing away on the surprisingly bouncy cloud material. That mare sure had been surprised to see an earth pony way up here! They probably didn’t get many who visited. Pinkie filed that in the back of her head under “Potential cloud party,” and hopped back into the pedal-copter.

A swift pedalling later, and the cloud collector ponies came into view, collecting clouds and compacting them into cloud containers for later use. Pinkie pulled a megaphone out of her party space and shouted, “Hey! Has anypony seen Rainbow Dash!”

One of the pegasi, a pretty pink and yellow one flew up to Pinkie’s copter saying, “No! Did something happen to her? She’s been falling asleep at work, and sometimes not even showing up at all, and she won’t tell us why!”

Pinkie’s smile froze at that last bit, and she repeated uneasily, “She won’t tell you why?”

“She says it’s... important for the safety of all Equestria or something,” the mare replied uncertainly, “She hasn’t really been herself, lately.”

“Hmm... is it possession, or obsession?” Pinkie pondered.

“I don’t know!” the green pegasus yelped, answering the rhetorical, “You think she might be possessed?!”

Pinkie Pie wasn’t really the sort of pony who pondered silently.

“Don’t you worry your head over it,” Pinkie said, reaching forward and patting the mare on the head, “With Detective Pinkie on the case, we’ll have this all cleared up in no time!”

“Thanks, Pinkie Pie,” the mare said with a smile, “It’s so much easier on us when she’s around to help with the weather.”

“No problem, Lavender,” Pinkie said, “You have any idea where she might be?”

“She’s at her house before work sometimes,” the mare replied, “But not usually this late in the day.”

Pinkie was pretty sure Lavender was right, when Pinkie went and checked Rainbow’s house. “Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie Pie called from every window, but it looked like the rainbow pegasus simply was not home. Pinkie thought Dash might have been home with a cold, or home sleeping off a big party, or home scared about something she didn’t want to admit, but nope! The house was empty! Knocking on the door did no good, and it was locked up tight!

Walking through the wall next to the door, Pinkie Pie looked around inside Dashie’s house with concern. It didn’t look like there was a struggle, or very much of anything going on in here. The bed was unmade, there were soda cans on the cloud floor, and it was pretty much exactly as messy as Rainbow Dash ever kept her house. The refrigerator had been stocked recently, so that was a good sign, but Rainbow Dash’s mail was piled up on her cloud desk entirely unread and unopened!

Pinkie looked through the letters on a sudden hunch, and crowed, “A-ha!” with great triumphance! One of the letters was a party invitation. A party invitation that Pinkie Pie had written and delivered herself! Dash never did explain why she didn’t show up to that one, and that was all Pinkie needed to find her.

To an ordinary pony, the letter laid before Pinkie Pie in Rainbow Dash’s house might have seemed like just a letter. But to Pinkie Pie, it was a smoking gun, whatever a gun was. Her friend was in trouble, and Dash hadn’t even read the invitation. Sure it was expected, because Dashie forgot to read her invitations sometimes, but Pinkie was a mare of particular skills, and those skills did not discriminate.

Planting a hoof to either side of the letter, and framing the invitation letter in a thought form, Pinkie Pie chanted,

The invitation lies forgotten,
The pony isn’t here.
The missing pony we all sought and
Wish that they were drawing near.

Rainbow Dash, I’d like to see
Come to celebrate, and how!
This invitation needs to be
Wherever she is right now.

A breeze blew away the letter then, sending it fluttering out the window. “Yes!” Pinkie cheered, zipping outside to board her pedal copter again. Unmooring it from the clouds, she flew around to the window, and spotted the invitation still fluttering away. Descending after it, Pinkie Pie was mildly surprised to see that it was falling to the ground. She was genuinely surprised at just what ground it fluttered to.

“Ah’m tellin’ ya girls, our schoolhouse is haunted!” a little apple filly told her two best friends.

“Ghosts aren’t real,” a small pumpkin colored one replied. “...are they?”

“Maybe we should just go home,” the scared looking pudgy white filly said, “I think something’s under there, and I don’t want to know what it is.”

“Hiya!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, at the three fillies hovering worriedly over the door to the schoolhouse’s cellar. The three fillies screamed and ran, their bright peals making Pinkie’s ears fold back as the three panicked.

“It’s just me!” Pinkie exclaimed nervously, climbing the rest of the way out of the snowbank, running from filly to filly, trying to calm them down, “It’s just Pinkie Pie don’t worry!”

“Oh, thank goodness, ” Sweetie Belle was the first one to realize.

“What’re you doin’ at the school?” Apple Bloom asked with big, adorable orange eyes.

“I’m looking for—” Pinkie said, as Scootaloo cut in eagerly with,

“Are you looking for the ghost?!”

“Yupperoonie!” Pinkie said with a wide smile, giving Scootaloo a pat on the head.

As Scootaloo backed away, rubbing at her mane and unflattening her ears, the little Sweetie Belle asked seriously, “Are you going to scare away the ghost?”

Pinkie shook her head at that statement, saying, “No no no. Don’t be silly. You don’t scare away ghosts.”

“Then what do you do?” Apple Bloom asked curiously, as a familiar ditty started up.

“When I was a little filly, and the sun was going down,” Pinkie sang to the three of them confidentially. The song went as one would expect, and with the fillies laughing and calm, Pinkie asked them,

“So did you hear a big, spooky ghost? Or did you see a big spooky ghost? What’s been going on?”

“It’s real weird!” Apple Bloom whined uneasily. “There’s been noises in the cellar downstairs, and whenever Miss Cheerilee comes in they get all quiet-like.”

“And Truffle got here really early in the morning once,” Sweetie Belle said, “And he saw a shadowy figure going into the cellar!”

“We think it might be the Pony of Shadows!” Scootaloo said worriedly, “And we don’t know how to make it leave our school alone!”

“Welll I have an idea, but I need your help,” Pinkie said, eyeing the cellar entrance for any signs of movement. “I need you three to go open that cellar, and scare out the ghost. I can take care of it then, to make sure it finds its f i n a l resting place~”

“You can do that??” Apple Bloom asked, starry eyed.

“If your cellar isn’t ghost free by tomorrow, I’ll eat my shorts!” Pinkie replied cheerfully.

“But you’re not wearing shorts,” Scootaloo said suspiciously, squinting at Pinkie Pie’s snow dusted but unclothed rump.

“I have shorts at home, silly!” Pinkie said, waving a dismissive hoof. Squinting increased.

“Alright, they’re made out of chocolate,” Pinkie admitted guiltily, “But I’ll still eat them!”

“And... all we have to do is open the cellar?” Sweetie Belle asked.

Pinkie nodded, saying loudly, “Yup! I bet the ghost will come flying right out, all covered in a spooky ghost sheet!”

Pinkie stood back while the fillies cautiously approached the cellar. Crouching down and stretching to reach it, the little hoof of Scootaloo had barely pushed open the cellar when the doors flew open, and a strange specter entirely covered in a sheet came flying out of the cellar! The foals all shrieked, but the ghost was gone, vanished over the rooftops of Ponyville. The three fillies then went back to look inside the cellar entrance, now quiet and unghostified. Most fillies would have run away, but the SMS had a nose for adventure!

“Well, I have to go,” Pinkie told them, “I’ll go teach that silly ghost to leave you cute little fillies alone.”

“Cute?” Scootaloo asked in a hurt tone. Sweetie Belle just giggled shyly at the compliment.

“Cute, and brave, ” Pinkie clarified with a wink. Then she was off, aimlessly bouncing through Ponyville.

It wasn’t long before Rainbow Dash landed right in front of Pinkie Pie. “Hey, thanks for the save,” Rainbow Dash said in relief, tossing her brightly colored mane, as well as a sheet over her shoulder, “Those fillies really had me cornered there!”

“Why were you playing in the school cellar?” Pinkie asked curiously.

“Because they’ve got a projector screen?” Rainbow Dash replied. “U-uh, n-not that I’m saying I took Twilight’s projector or anything. That’d be silly, ha ha ha ha!

“...ha.”

“But if you did,” Pinkie said slyly, “Then what’d you be projecting?”

“Oh, n-not much. Just you know... anything I wanted to... watch,” Rainbow Dash replied carefully. “But you didn’t um...” she yawned heavily, and Rainbow Dash actually looked pretty terrible. Bags under her eyes, droopy tail, slumped withers, she hadn’t been getting enough sleep, lately. “Maybe I was just in the mood for an underground... nap?” she tried.

“Makes sense to me!” Pinkie replied confidently. “Well, next time you underground nap, try to do it when the foals aren’t at the schoolhouse.”

“I know, just...” Rainbow Dash yawned again, “Be sure to do ...that,” she said sleepily.

“So, you didn’t come to the campfire this week and me and Applejack were worried,” Pinkie said a little seriously.

“You and Applejack? ” Rainbow Dash asked vaguely with an unfocused look, “You went on a road trip?”

“What? Um... not really, we just... trotted out to the hills north of town,” Pinkie said, a little confused, “For our weekly campfire, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, that,” Dash said. Then her bloodshot eyes widened and she said, “Oh! Yeah! That!”

“It’s okay Dashie,” Pinkie Pie told her calmly. “I know you’ve been busy. But we’re starting to worry about you, and we need your help to get Twilight out of—”

“What about Twilight’s projector?” Rainbow Dash asked, tensing up, “I don’t know what you’re talking about! It’s not like I was... the one who um...” Pinkie winced, but it looked like Dashie wasn’t going to try to make that True. It was just a slip of the tongue.

“Don’t worry about it, Dashie,” Pinkie said, nuzzling her chin over Rainbow Dash’s ears. The petite pegasus was too tired to even protest that, her body relaxing at Pinkie’s touch. “Just don’t miss the next campfire, okay?”

“Yeah I can... totally won’t miss the next...” and then Rainbow Dash started to lightly snore.

Pinkie Pie would have gently carried Dashie to bed, but you couldn’t carry a pony on your back and use the pedal-copter, and Rainbow Dash’s house remained, as always, in the sky. Plus it was actually time for Rainbow Dash to be at work, so Pinkie just gently woke her and reminded her, and Rainbow Dash went rocketing off on her own, to attend to her weather duties.

Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie set up an ambush.

The sun had gone down, the pedal-copter had been returned, and Pinkie Pie was almost beginning to run out of cupcakes, when across the basement, she heard the whispery clicks of somepony jimmying the lock to the schoolhouse cellar door. Pinkie was hiding behind an unused printing press that was in here for some reason, and she switched to her night vision goggles, watching a green image of Rainbow Dash sneaking around the cellar. The pegasus gathered some things in her wings from a hiding spot underneath a tarp (very clever!) and fiddled with getting something on a podium. Rainbow Dash was adjusting something on it...

Then Pinkie Pie’s vision went white.

Then she took off her night vision goggles.

Pinkie Pie saw that Rainbow Dash had started up a projector! Twilight’s missing projector, no doubt! Ooh that thievey pegasus was in so much trouble once Twilight found out. She’d probably lecture Rainbow Dash all day! Pinkie was more concerned with her friend’s well-being than any miscarriage of justice, so what she did was listen to the sound crystal, not quite able to see the picture from her hiding spot back here.

It was pleasant song playing, that reminded Pinkie Pie of dust bunnies for some reason, and then a bunch of ponies were talking, but it sounded kind of muffled. Pinkie picked up on the distinctive voice of Twilight, saying, “Cupcake and Carrot Cake must be so proud!” which made very little sense as baked treats were not known for having a very big ego. Then Rarity was mumbling something like “fill your colt,” and then someone with a really squeaky voice was talking excitedly, who sounded oddly familiar.

Froghoofing silently over to right behind Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie reared up, took in a breath, then jumped forward saying, “Hi Rainbow Dash! Whatcha watch—”

Rainbow Dash jumped so high she landed on the basement ceiling, which was the underside of the ground floor, but Pinkie hardly noticed. Instead she was staring at the maternity ward in Ponyville General, being projected up on the projector screen. It wasn’t just any day at the maternity ward though. It was a day that happened... years ago, yet Pinkie Pie remembered it well. Mr. Cake was there, revealing a tiny infant pegasus, saying,

“Meet our son, Pound Cake.”

“I...is this a... a home movie?” Pinkie Pie asked uneasily, as it continued to reveal baby foals. And then Mr. Cake said something that struck her as very odd.

“My great, great, great, great, grandfather was a unicorn, and Cup Cake’s great aunt second cousin twice removed was a pegasus. That makes sense, right?”

“D–d–did Mr. Cake just say that—I mean he thought that the twins weren’t... his?” Pinkie asked in serious worry. They were his foals... weren’t they?

“I know!” Rainbow Dash whispered excitedly from up there on the ceiling, “It was like he thought they were the mailpony’s foals!”

“But... but...” and Pinkie remembered, seeing herself go face first into the 0 days old birthday cake, but after that...

“This is the show! ” Pinkie Pie whispered anxiously, as the theme song started playing. “How did you get this?”

“S–shoot, sorry Pinkie, I...” Rainbow Dash swooped down and covered up the projector lens. “I’ll shut it off. You weren’t supposed to see this!”

“Wait—” Pinkie started, but the song cut out, and the picture froze. “Wait I want to—” This time Pinkie froze.

“You... want to watch?” Rainbow Dash asked, eyeing Pinkie Pie warily. “You remember what happened the last time, right?”

“Do you have that?” Pinkie Pie asked hopefully. “That... one? About our mark stories?”

“Yeah, but I haven’t watched it,” Rainbow Dash said. “You were really upset when we saw that stuff. I don’t really understand why, but... that’s what happened.”

“C-c-can we watch it?” Pinkie squeaked out.

“Why do you want to?” Rainbow Dash asked with a strained grimace. “It made you cry!”

“I know...” Pinkie fidgeted, “But I was just... I’ve never been able to... I just want to... see them again,” she mumbled.

“What?” Rainbow Dash asked, crooking an ear.

“I thought I’d never see them again,” Pinkie Pie explained more audibly. “They... you know. I only have pictures left. Pictures that don’t ...move and talk.”

“Pinkie, are you sure?”

“I promise I won’t cry. I won’t... cry as much. It just caught me by surprise then, and I hadn’t thought about them in so long,” Pinkie said, giving a soft smile as she assured Rainbow Dash, “I’m not like I used to be. I’m better now.”

“I don’t really know how you used to be,” Rainbow Dash said, sidling up to Pinkie Pie with worry etched in the tilt of her ears. “Remember when you were talking to rocks? That scared me, Pinkie Pie.”

“I used to be—” Pinkie’s hoof shot up to her shoulders, and she gulped, “I used to be in a... a hospital.”

“So you... were really injured?” Dash tried. “I don’t get why you’d be worried about that.”

“No, not a—yes,” Pinkie sighed. “Yes I was injured,” she said, rubbing at her shoulders. “But not in my body. In my... heart.”

“Ohh,” Rainbow said in realization. Then she flapped up nervously into the air, saying, “...oh.”

Pinkie turned to face her saying, “I’m not like that anymore, and I got better except for a few hiccups here and there. The Ponyville psychiatric hospital helped me, until I was better enough to help myself. So um... I can watch it. I just got caught by surprise.”

“Well...” Rainbow Dash said warily, “Okay, but not that episode, not right away. You haven’t even seen most of these, and some of them are incredible! That’ll help you uh... warm up to it.”

Pinkie smiled from ear to ear saying, “Ohhh thank you, Rainbow Dash! Thank you for thinking about me. I promise I won’t disappoint you, and I’m sooo curious about the other episodes too, if you liked them. What about the one you were watching just now?”

Rainbow Dash glanced at the projector and blanched saying, “Uh... probably not that one either.”

“Why not?” Pinkie asked, tilting her head with such innocent blue eyes.

“It was uuh... we all have bad days,” Rainbow Dash said diplomatically, “And this one was about you mostly, on a really bad day.”

“Which bad day?” Pinkie asked skeptically.

“Remember when the Cakes asked you to babysit the twins?” Rainbow Dash replied.

Pinkie’s eyes got really big.

“Oooh, we have to watch that one!” she said, zipping up to the projector, and poring over it excitedly. “How do you get the audio crystal to sync with the playback?” she asked. “This is gonna be so amazing!”

“Wait, so you do want to watch that episode?” Dash said, hovering over her shoulder. “Why would you want to? It makes nothing but fun at you!”

“It sounds absolutely hilarious,” Pinkie Pie said with a giggle snort. “If the humans saw even half of what I did there...”

“Well okay, Pinkie,” Rainbow Dash said, “But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Oh you have to align it with the multiplexer there, see?”

“Makes perfect sense,” Pinkie Pie replied agreeably.

Rainbow Dash felt like laughing aloud in relief. It was even better watching the episode with Pinkie Pie there. Pinkie took all the jabs at her character like a champ, and laughed her head off even when they showed the scene where she only managed to get the diaper on herself. Also she glamoured up some popcorn, which was tasty, if not very filling.

“I guess you were right, Pinkie,” Rainbow Dash said after the credits rolled, dipping her head in apology, “Still, I can’t believe you actually liked it.”

“Well, it was a lot of fun watching it with you~” Pinkie Pie said with a friendly nuzzle. “I remember how that day went, so I wasn’t worried. Back then, when I was so bad with the foals, that I managed to trigger a magic surge in a pegasus, and with Pumpkin Cake I just... wow. It made me feel like you, for once.”

“Like me?” Rainbow repiled in surprise.

“Yeah, you’re special. Like a super special pegasus from that special institute, researching how to make a better pony,” Pinkie said, which made Rainbow Dash look away, and her ears go straight back. They relaxed back up though, as Pinkie Pie continues, “You are the best pony, and that makes you different from others, and that makes you upset, even though it is really cool. I know you really want to be accepted, even if you can’t quite be normal. I felt like that when I tried foalsitting, so it helped me understand you.”

“How did foalsitting make you feel like... that?” Rainbow Dash said.

She almost said “me.”

“See, I always had more ‘spooky earth powers’ than even most earth ponies,” Pinkie replied blithely, “But I wasn’t a special experiment or anything, just an accident. That night really showed me that I was special, and it showed me how being special can be a problem.”

“I just wanted to see the look on Mr. Cake’s face when both of his foals started flying around his head,” Rainbow Dash snickered.

“I dunno, I was too busy dodging plush animals and being levitated to really pay attention,” Pinkie said sheepishly, “Also Mrs. Cake was kinda in my face and saying WHAT DID YOU DOOO”

Rainbow Dash blinked. “Wow,” she said, “You do a really good angry Mrs. Cake impression.”

“I know, right?” Pinkie giggled, “But that’s why I stick to nurturing pastries and not children. The experience really gave me a taste of something you deal with every day.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes saying, “I don’t deal with it every day, just when somepony needs a hero, and I’m the only pony who can do it. That hardly even happens anymore, because you girls really are special. We do stuff! Here, lemme show you.”

One season 2 episode later, and Pinkie was left staring open mouthed at the screen.

“Can they... can they do that to you?” she asked Rainbow Dash, aghast.

“Ha!” Dash laughed at her wide eyed friend’s astonishment, “You should see the ones about Spike. They totally ruin his character!”

“And you’re not upset?” Pinkie said, still astonished, “But... but you were mowing the lawn! And—and plugging dams with your hoof!”

“Well, to be fair I did knock down the dam...” Rainbow Dash said sheepishly, “But it doesn’t matter whether this was perfectly accurate. It was hilarious!”

“Show a Spike one!” Pinkie said, “I wanna see what you mean!”

One episode later and they were both flat on their backs with laughter, Rainbow Dash more sympathetically than anything.

“The Spike...” Pinkie Pie gasped, “The Dragon... Code ...” and that triggered another wave of laughter.

“Did he just scribble that on the spot?” Rainbow Dash crowed.

“I wonder what really happened,” Pinkie said, staring at the frozen credits, as if their strange language would divulge their secrets.

“Not failing to make a pie, that’s for sure,” Rainbow Dash chuckled, “You’d have to ask one of those two for details, but I do remember Spike telling the story, and he said he didn’t just run away from the timber wolves. He set them on fire!”

“Ooh, because they’re made out of wood!” Pinkie Pie said, wide-eyed, “That’s really smart!”

“Eh, not really,” Rainbow Dash said with a shrug. “Because then he was being chased by timber wolves, on fire.”

“Show me another one!” Pinkie said hopping excitedly.

“Maybe we should do all of season 2,” Rainbow Dash said speculatively, “The show gets less accurate, in the later seasons, but season 1 is practically ancient history. Besides... we were gonna hold off on watching that one episode in season 1.”

The light from the projector continued to emit dimly from the basement window underneath the schoolhouse, all through the night.

Author's Note

I think things are going well. :pinkiesmile:

The Cracks Widen

“It’s okay now, Applejack,” she whimpered, from where she sat rocking on the floor in the corner of her nice, safe, secure bedroom. Winona was ascratchin’ at the door but she didn’t know nothing about what was going on. “It’s okay now, Applejack,” Applejack kept on telling herself.

“Sure your friends are disappearin’ one bah one, but it’s okay. First Fluttershah then Rarity, then Rainbow Dash, and now Pinkie Pie, and sure Twilight is so busy you’d never even know if she had done gone and vanished. But that don’t mean you’re next, Applejack. Everything is fine and dandy. You just remain nice and calm and—”

“Sis! ” Apple Bloom exclaimed in distress, tumbling into Applejack’s room along with a worried brown lil’ doggie. With a frightened yell, Applejack wound up, but then threw out her own forelegs mid-buck, going down in a heap rather than giving anypony or anydog a world of pain.

“Apple Bloom!” Applejack said angrily, pushing back the overly attentive Winona and climbing to her hooves again, “What did ah tell yeh about surprisin’ me like that!”

Apple Bloom blinked her pretty orange eyes innocently at Applejack, saying with uncertainty, “That y’like surprises? This’s an emergency!”

“Well—usually ah do, but with mah friends gon—aw, ah never told you about...” Applejack sighed in defeat, turning the brim of her hat down to cover the blush. “Go ahead, Apple Bloom,” she said evenly. “What’s the big emergency?”

“Our school is haunted!” Apple Bloom said, beside herself with worry. “It ain’t just a ghost, it’s a downright malevolent specter!”

“A specter is a... okay, what’s this really about?” Applejack asked. “Ah know you ain’t been seein’ ghosts in that there schoolhouse.”

“No,” Apple Bloom replied urgently, “Hearin’ them!”

“Apple Bloom, there ain’t no such thing as ghosts,” Applejack said patiently, while the two of them curled together on the floor of Applejack’s spartan bedroom around their dog. “The dearly departed go on to th’ Fields and don’t leave no trace of themselves for the most part, an’ certainly not any trace that floats around makin’ spooky noises. You sure it weren’t just your imagination?”

“Ah knew you’d say that,” Apple Bloom said in frustration, with a stomp. “That’s why ah didn’t tell you at first! But now it’s a serious emergency, and ah gotta tell you, because Sweetie Belle’s beside herself and Scootaloo’s freaking out, an’ we don’t know what to do!”

“Calm down, Apple Bloom,” Applejack said, “You won’t get anywhere from fussing about it.”

Hugging a foreleg around Apple Bloom, the little yellow filly seemed somewhat mollified as Apple Bloom recalled, “It was makin’ the strangest noises when foals got to school early in th’ morning. Ah heard them more than once. Strange laughter, an’ music coming from underneath the school.”

Apple Bloom gave a worried huff in her chest, saying, “It was in the cellar! Down in that spooky dark place with the lights off. Ah don’t know what it wants, but I do know it got Pinkie Pie! ”

Well, now Apple Bloom had Applejack’s full and undivided attention.

Two minutes later, Apple Bloom had lost Applejack’s full and undivided attention.

“So let me get this straight, Pinkie Pie was lookin’ for the ghost?” Applejack said trying mightily not to roll her eyes.

“She was!” Apple Bloom said earnestly, “Ah don’t know why though.”

“And when she opened the cellar, a pony in a sheet went flying out of it?”

“No!” Apple Bloom said with a hurt look in her liquid orange eyes, “It was a ghost! ”

“Sure sounds like a pony in a sheet to me,” Applejack replied, unconvinced, “What makes you think it wasn’t a pony?”

“It could fly!” Apple Bloom declared, little yellow forehooves flung over her head in shock.

A few seconds passed. Apple Bloom lowered her forehooves to the ground, looking at them and mumbling, “...oh yeah.”

“Pinkie Pie was lookin’ fer Rainbow Dash,” Applejack said, “And it sounds like she found ‘er. You have any idea where they went?”

“Well the ghost... somethin’ was in the cellar under the school house,” Apple Bloom said cautiously. “Ah ain’t seen them since, but we could try lookin’ there? Ah just... don’t want you to disappear too...”

Applejack put a hoof on Apple Bloom’s shoulder. Catching the filly in her gentle but steady green gaze, Applejack told her, “Apple Bloom, I want you to know there are times when ah’m gonna be gone far away, but as Celestia is mah witness, I will move heaven and earth to make sure I always return home to you, safe and sound.”

Breaking her gaze and tossing that hoof in the air, Applejack then declared angrily, “Pinkie Pie, on the other side, could go poof one day an’ we’d never hear she was back until the party hit! On account of...” Applejack’s gaze softened as she stared out into the dimming evening over Ponyville, “On account of she ain’t really got no family to return to.”

Applejack looked at a troubled, yet sympathetic Apple Bloom, saying to the lil’ yellow filly, “Honestly ah’m surprised Pinkie didn’t disappear before Dash did. They’re probably off doin’ something stupid, and Rainbow Dash roped Pinkie into it. Let’s go check that cellar out and find out what they been do done.”

Apple Bloom understood perfectly.

Applejack crept into the eerie shadowy darkness of the schoolhouse cellar, and turned on the light. There was an old printing press off to the side looking a bit scuffed around, a projector screen pulled open in front of the chalkboard, and a few bits of popcorn scattered here and there. Applejack stepped on a kernel of popcorn, and it popped like a soap bubble.

“At least ah know Pinkie’s been here,” Applejack grumbled, “She’s the only pony ah know who uses this cheap propcorn.”

“N-no ghosts, huh?” Apple Bloom said, poking her head into the cellar.

The filly’s other two friends came in after her, the orange one saying loudly, “Man, and I was hoping we could fight some ghosts!”

“Well, at least we know it really was Rainbow Dash,” the white one offered in consolation.

“Yeah, is Rainbow Dash here?” the orange one asked, her wings buzzing as she zipped around the room eagerly.

“Not that ah can see,” Applejack said, “But somepony’s been eating popcorn, and this here projector screen’s rolled down, an’ if ah’ll be a monkey’s uncle if Twilight’s projector just walked its way off on out of her library. So mah guess is they been watchin’ some sorta movies. What don’t make sense is why they’d both be all secretivelike about it. They never even tried to ask me if’n ah wanted to watch!”

“But ah thought you didn’t like those movin’ picture things,” Apple Bloom said curiously.

“It would still behoove them to ask,” Applejack replied, right miffed. “An’ now Pinkie’s in on it too? Well, ain’t worth speculatin’ on until ah find them. But where could they have gone off to?”

The three foals didn’t have answers, so Applejack sent them off to play away from the schoolhouse cellar. “Thanks for openin’ the cellar,” Applejack told a very practical cerise mare, who was waiting outside with the keyring in her mouth when Applejack herself emerged. “I cleaned up some propcorn, and rolled up the projector screen.”

“Ish no probrem,” Cheerilee said, locking the cellar behind Applejack and stashing the keyring away in her space. “I am worried about Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie though,” Cheerilee said more clearly. “Sneaking around the school, using the cellar: it’s not like those two, not even at their worst!”

“I think it’s ‘cause they’re hidin’ something,” Applejack speculated, “But ah ain’t gonna know until I find them.”

“I haven’t seen either of them in days, Applejack,” Cheerilee said with a concerned look.

“Ah’m just gonna hafta go see if Twilight’s...” Applejack gulped, “Not disappeared too. If ah cain find her, she’ll be able to figure out this conundrum.”

“You might try talking to the local constable?” Cheerilee suggested, “There are a lot of pretty clever ponies around here, who’d know how to track those two ponies down.”

“Nopony’s clever as Twilight,” Applejack said confidently, “An’ she’s the pony ah know best, so I gotta at least ask her. Never hear the end of it if’n ah didn’t give her a chance to solve this here friendship problem. She needs something else to occupy her mind anyhow.”

“I’m sure you’re the best judge of that,” Cheerilee said with a gentle smile.

Regarding the conflict in Montana, I think we should divert more assets towards Senator DeLancie. Since our front men have been dealt with, nobody will be able to discover we’ve been playing both sides, thus there should be no consequences for the company’s future. Our support of the opposition is key to synergizing our image in the public eye. If we continue our gradual campaign of attrition, the greater economy will be in enough upheaval that our Benecoin™ will have a strong foothold before the authorities even realize what a game changer it poses to be.

I have prepared a list of contacts who are unlikely to be outside informants, along with the leverage that can be used to win them over. Please review to see which of these key players might become favorable assets for our litigation against Fannie Mae. Additionally, I have determined the most likely investments to succeed in the near future, so please shift our stocks away from

Twilight snapped her head up as she heard the clinking sound of one of her flasks somehow slipping out of alignment! “What the—!” she said, turning to face oh, it’s just Applejack who must have bumped one of them.

“Now that ah have your attention,” Applejack said humorlessly, “This here human business has got to stop.”

The Rift site was still a bustling place, and now that the princess herself was involved, academics of all sorts were expressing an interest in the phenomenon. It was getting to be an outright scholastic circus! Applejack walked past tents and even buildings, before finding Twilight’s personal research lab, walking in, and knocking one of her beakers out of line.

“This here human business has got to stop,” AJ said seriously once she had her friend’s attention, turning down the brow of her hat. She was not miles away from Twilight Sparkle when she said this, and she was not in a mood to take no for an answer.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Twilight stammered, taking a step away from the podium where she had some magic thingy she was working on. “Everything is going perfectly well, amazingly even!”

Applejack shook her head, saying, “Ah know you’re kickin’ tail over there or whatnot, but look around you! Rarity and Fluttershy have disappeared! Rainbow Dash is off doin’ something foolish, an’ she dragged Pinkie Pie into it, too! You want me to be the next pony to disappear under suspicious circumstances? Because ah’m the only friend you have left!”

“No, you don’t understand,” Twilight said, turning back to her thingy, “There are still a million things to do. My company has gone multinational! Its success is skyrocketing! I still need to address the Asiatic subcontinent if we’re going to gain any sort of a foothold in the world—”

“Twilight, no,” Applejack said with a dour frown. “You’re gettin’ caught up in this even more than chess, and that’s all it is: a game. Weren’t you just makin’ this company so you could get the lowdown on Rosy?”

Twilight fidgeted on her hooves, saying, “Well... yes, but opportunities came up to...”

“Then it don’t matter how well it does!” Applejack hollered, “You’re actin’ like you care about those humans even more than your own friends!”

“What? No!” Twilight protested self consciously, “I’m not!”

“Fluttershy and Rarity do done disappeared, ” Applejack emphasized very carefully.

“I’m sure they’re fine...” Twilight prevaricated, unconsciously scraping a hoof on the ground.

“Rarity’s been gone a week!” Applejack retorted, “Ponies stopped even coming to her boutique, since it ain’t open no more. She didn’t even leave a note! Fluttershy’s animal friends are beside themselves with worry because she’s been gone even longer!”

“Wh—really?” Twilight said, violet eyes widening as she tilted her head in befuddlement, “But I just saw Rarity the other... oh, that was a month ago. What about Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash?”

“They’re gone too!” Applejack said, “But them, at least ah have half a clue. They been watchin’ films or some such, and ah think they’re hidin’ away to do it. Rainbow Dash was watchin’ whatever it was in the school house cellar, but when Pinkie found her, they both disappeared to somewhere else! The Cakes begged me just this morning to get their favorite baker back before the Sunday rush.”

“The school house cellar?” Twilight pondered, “But they only keep a projector screen down there. Not a...” With a groan, she tossed her head back and exclaimed angrily, “Rainbow Dash!!”

“That’s what ah said,” Applejack said a little unsurely. “They ain’t got a Rainbow Dash down there no more, since she and Pinkie—”

Twilight shook her head, saying, “No, no, I mean that I think I know who stole my projector.” She looked over at her unfinished extraworldly missive, known as an ‘e-mail,’ and then back to Applejack. Then the princess hung her head saying, “I was doing it again, wasn’t I.”

“It’s fine to get worked up at times,” Applejack said all diplomatic-like, “But yeah, you been really stuck on this, and your friends need your help. Ah think it’s time to call it quits.”

“Fair enough,” Twilight said, somewhere between cross and blushing. She genuinely smiled when she laid a hoof on Applejack’s withers though, saying, “Thank you, Applejack. I don’t know what I would do without you sometimes.”

“Weren’t nothin’” Applejack remarked, wrapping a foreleg over Twilight’s own. “Now let’s go save our friends.”

“Right,” Twilight said, separating and walking out of the tent alongside her apple themed friend, “Now, Pinkie and Rainbow Dash are the easiest,” she said, “So we should definitely start with them. Plus if anypony knows where Rarity and Fluttershy are, it’ll be Pinkie Pie.”

“Actually, she didn’t know,” Applejack said uncertainly. “She hadn’t seen ‘em since last week, and they didn’t say anything to her when she did.”

“Oh... well...” Twilight glanced back at the tent she was leaving guiltily, “I hope they’re alright. It was very good of you to bring this to my attention. That does not sound like Rarity at all. Nevertheless, we can take care of Pinkie and Rainbow Dash right away, and their aid surely will come in handy.”

“How can we take care of them right away?” Applejack asked. “You know where they are?”

“Pinkie Pie just took Rainbow Dash down to her basement,” Twilight said with a shrug, “She’s got a projector screen down there. Now c’mon, let’s go get them!”

The princess galloped off, with Applejack soon hot on her heels, rushing through meadow and wood, down the deer trail leading to Ponyville.

“Don’t you get it? Twilight becoming a princess totally jumped the shark!”

“No no no. The shark was jumped long before that.”

“Gimme a break. That’s when the show went straight into left field! How is that not a shark jumping moment?”

“Because Twilight should have been a princess already, silly!”

“That’s what I said! The show stopped making any sense after that! She became a princess because of that story mark swapping spell? That’s just crazy! She should’ve been a princess way before that.”

“Well think about before that. Which pony saved the Crystal Empire, instead of Twilight?”

“...you mean Spike?”

“We need to watch it again.”

When Twilight Sparkle opened the trap door into the basement stairwell, illuminating the dark confines within, the pink pony leapt backward, a set of film reels clattering as she tried to protect them with her body, shrieking, “The jig is up!”

The blue pony staggered forward and pulled at the projector screen, rolling it up even as the film continued to play back on the wall behind it. Twilight followed by Applejack somewhat obscured the sunlight above, while the two haggard ponies downstairs fumbled with the equipment and the projector, one very familiar scratchy voice whispering loudly, “C’mon, turn off, turn off!”

The projector shut off and the sound playing back scraped to a halt, and as Twilight and Applejack reached the bottom of that dark basement, they turned on the light. There, cringing in the glare of the overhead light was a rainbow haired, sky blue pegasus standing before them, with a nervous smile on her face, one wing spread to obscure the stolen projector that lay behind it.

“What were you watching...?” Twilight asked suspiciously.

“Oh, you know... just... stuff,” Rainbow Dash replied, looking every which way but forward. The pegasus seemed twitchy and had dark circles under her eyes. What’s worse, it looked like she was developing a bit of a pudge in her cheeks. Not to say she was even close to the level of Pinkie Pie, but she wasn’t looking so good. Those cheeks were flushed, and the wing she used for obscuring the projector was ragged and unpreened.

“Stuff, huh?” Twilight said, levitating one of the discarded reels over Rainbow Dash’s head, while Pinkie Pie leapt for it like a shark shouting, “No!”

Twilight looked at it, and it was... her own hornwriting, inscribing the text “Season V Episode D.”

“These are the show reels!” Twilight exclaimed in horror, looking again at the other two: Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie who were standing side by side, looking a little shaky, but very much abashed.

“Yeah, we—I mean I kinda went and uh, borrowed them,” Rainbow Dash said, ears going down.

Twilight Sparkle just stared back at her, the only sound being the faint twinkle of Twilight’s magic levitating the film reel.

“You borrowed them,” Twilight said in a total deadpan, “From the high security wing in Canterlot palace.”

“Yeaah...” Rainbow Dash admitted, rubbing one forehoof over the other, “I kinda stole them. Sorry.”

“You stole them?” Pinkie Pie whispered into Dash’s ear, a look of shock on her own face.

“I can’t believe you, Rainbow Dash!” Twilight said in something between rage and exasperation. “Don’t you know how dangerous these are?”

“They’re not, though!” Rainbow Dash protested, “They’re awesome! That one time was just a fluke!”

“Yeah!” Pinkie Pie said vehemently, making both Twilight and Applejack’s eyes widen as they looked to her. Stepping protectively in front of Rainbow Dash, the pink horse continued to say righteously, “I watched that episode, and it was fine! I watched every single second of it and I didn’t cry not even once! Okay maybe a little, but it was a good crying!”

Dash poked her head up around from behind Pinkie saying, “She’s right. Watched every single second, and she loved it.”

“Why would you—what do you mean you loved it?” Twilight said to Pinkie in utter confusion, “It—it reminded you of something terrible that happened to you!”

“Yeah, it did, the first time,” Pinkie sniffed, “But the second time, I saw that it was my mark story! My really real mark story! It wasn’t anything bad or terrible. It was something really fun and good.”

“You’re not making any sense,” Twilight said, levitating the rest of the reel tapes, “Your mark story was terrible, and traumatic. I saw it traumatize you! I have to get these back before—”

“NO!” Pinkie shrieked again, and this time she had her whole body stubbornly wrapped around one of the reels despite Twilight’s attempts to extricate it from the earth pony. “You can’t take it away!” she cried, tears in her eyes, “It’s all I have left! ”

“I watched every single one, ” Rainbow Dash shouted at Twilight, wings spread quivering in what certainly was not fear, “Twice! And some of them three times! And they didn’t hurt me at all. I’m perfectly fine!”

“You are not fine, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight told her, giving up for now on the bizarre war with saving Pinkie Pie from her own traumatic film reel. “You don’t look like you’ve been flying in a week! Don’t you see what these are doing to you?”

“Okay, first off I was flying a couple days ago, a little,” Rainbow Dash said, her confidence dropping at the thought of how little it was, “Okay, so... yes, maybe I’ve been... hiding in the dark and watching them too much. But they’re not hurting me. That’s me hurting myself!”

She gave Twilight such a conflicted look, and a light dawned in her eyes, as Rainbow Dash said, “You know why I’m doing this? Because—because you told me not to! I had to know what was on these tapes, Twilight! I had to break into Canterlot, and—and hide from you. That’s what I’ve been doing. Hiding from you!”

The pegasus stomped a slim hoof in utter frustration, telling Twilight bitterly, “That’s why I’m not doing so good, because I knew you’d overreact, and so I had to hide what I was doing. And I am terrible at hiding things! I had no problem when we were all just watching them... together. Why couldn’t we keep doing that?” She gave Twilight a pleading look, and there were actual tears glimmering in Rainbow Dash’s eyes while she frantically assured the princess, “It’s safe now. I swear I watched every one, and even SB EBD isn’t something that hurts Pinkie Pie anymore. It showed—she saw her family again, and you want to take that away from her?”

“No!” Twilight said, desperate to keep Rainbow Dash from breaking out in tears, as well as herself, as well as Pinkie Pie. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Twilight said fretfully, “I don’t understand anything about this. That’s why it’s dangerous, because I don’t know what’s going on!”

“When I was a little filly, I lost my family,” Pinkie Pie spoke up abruptly. Both Twilight and Rainbow Dash turned at that, and paled at the sight: a deflated, overtired, trembling filly with such a look of determination in her fearful blue eyes. Her voice was firm as she said, “When I got my story mark I was so happy. I was just a filly acting out, and I thought me and my sisters would have an adventure if we went exporing in a place dad told us never to play in... so um, things got really bad and... they’re gone now.”

“What happened to them, Pinkie?” asked a worried Twilight. “Did something happen? They didn’t get hurt, did they?”

A surprised laugh escaped Pinkie Pie, and she adopted a nervous wince, saying, “Sorry, it’s... really hard to talk about.”

“Have you looked for them?” Twilight asked with concern. “We could—”

“No, Twilight,” Pinkie interrupted, “Don’t you remember? That’s why they don’t want me telling ponies. Why I didn’t want to tell you, because you’d try to fix it, but it’s not something that needs to be fixed.”

“So... they’re... estranged?” Twilight pondered. Pinkie spun on her hooves, giving an exasperated scream. Then with her hefty, curly tailed rear facing them, Pinkie stared forward at the basement wall thoughtfully. Twilight was about to say something, when Pinkie Pie whirled again to face them with her face.

And just blurted it all out.

Twilight Sparkle was at a loss for words.

Pinkie attempted a smile, but the corners of her mouth wouldn’t turn up for some reason, while Twilight and Rainbow Dash both stared at her, dumbstruck. “So... yeah,” the pink party pony concluded, kicking out a hoof sideways.

That snapped Twilight out of it enough to smirk, saying, “Oh, ha ha, Pinkie Pie. You really had me going there for a minute.”

“What?” Pinkie squeaked in astonishment.

“This is Equestria,” Twilight replied chidingly. “We don’t have collapsing mines, and we haven’t used cyanide for extraction in over a hundred years, since growing gold is cheaper than mining it.”

“They stopped mining for gold, when my dad was a colt,” Pinkie said, “He spent his whole life growing gold actually... my mom was a geologist who researched petriculture, before um... retiring.”

“They—they would have deconstructed the mine!” Twilight argued desperately, because that’s what had to have happened!

“I guess they just... didn’t?” Pinkie said with an unsure little hoof lift. “They wouldn’t have had any gold left to pay for that~” she tried to joke.

“They had to—” Twilight held a hoof to her head, saying, “This doesn’t make any sense! It can’t be true, or you...!”

Twilight took a step back from Pinkie Pie, her heart sounding loud in her ears. Pinkie hung her head saying in tired resignation, “Yes it made me sad, and—broken, for a while, but—”

“No, it’s not true!” Twilight said, unable to look away from Pinkie, unable to stop seeing it in her mind’s eye. “This is Equestria!” Twilight protested, “That doesn’t happen here! It doesn’t—there must be a—a mistake, or...”

“Twilight...” Pinkie said with such a helpless look in her eyes, that didn’t belong there!

“Why are you lying to me?!” Twilight shrieked. The strong warm figure of Applejack stiffened beside her. Twilight sucked in a breath then, at the sight of both Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie staring back at her in fear.

When had she—? When had Twilight lit up her horn?

“I–I’m sorry, I—” Twilight stammered, banishing the glow, and taking another step back as she had absolutely no idea what to say. “I— if that was true, you...”

Twilight turned and fled, not stopping until she had left Pinkie’s basement, Sugarcube Corner, and the town square. Panting, with her back to the wall in an alley between two houses, Twilight whimpered, then a tight whine escaped her as she sank to her haunches, burying her head in her forearms. “Why does everything the human touches go so wrong?” she sobbed, “That wasn’t Equestria. It can’t be! Not her, not Pinkie...”

As Twilight had fled everyone who could have given her one, there was no answer for the crying princess there alone in the alleyway.

...

“You okay, sugarcube?”

“So that’s why you got all... weird when you had that party of one?” Rainbow Dash chose to interject, after Applejack ran off after their wayward princess.

Alone in her basement with Rainbow Dash, Pinkie nodded and said, “Yeah, when I got snowed in, I kinda made some friends who aren’t... there. Mister Toolbelt found me after the winter had passed, because he noticed none of us came into town to resupply in the spring. I was alone for a... while, and I was still only a little filly, so it kinda... I didn’t know how to deal with it, and thought everything was my fault. At the time I mean.”

“Jeez, I can’t even imagine,” Rainbow Dash said with low ears. “What can you even do about tha—”

“Nothing!” Pinkie Pie interrupted. “You don’t have to do anything. It was a long time ago, and Equestria can be a dangerous place. Sometimes ponies... die.”

“Yeah, but ponies don’t die and leave a filly all by—I mean...” Dash scraped the floor. She didn’t want it to be true, but why would Pinkie ever lie about something like this? And Pinkie did admit that she was adopted, after the first time they all watched the oddly named “Cutie Mark Chronicles.” You don’t get adopted without something wrong with your family.

“I’m an unusual case,” Pinkie said, trying to smile, “Story of my life, really. This was just the bad kinda unusual.”

“You said it,” Dash said glumly. “I hate the bad kind of unusual.” She walked up to Pinkie, and thought to nuzzle her, but then just sat heavily beside her. The petite pegasus leaned the side of her head against her pink friend, and that did make Pinkie Pie feel better.

“They had good lives. They just... got interrupted a little early,” Pinkie said, trying to smile, “Mom chose to do what she did... we even tried to force her to eat, and she just wouldn’t—” Pinkie choked on her words, wiping tears away. “Really the only problem left,” she forced out, “Is me.”

“You’re not a problem—” Dash said, cutting off as Pinkie grabbed her and held her against her chest.

Crying, Pinkie said, “Yes I am! I was. I was not okay for a long time, and I’m still not really, but... now you know that the problem was me, not the show. It’s never been the show!”

Dash hugged back as best as she could, curling her forehooves around Pinkie Pie’s forearms, saying, “Hey, Pinkie, it’s okay. You’re not a problem. And that’s coming from me. ”

“Y-yeah,” Pinkie said with a shaky laugh, “You don’t joke around about stuff like that.”

In the meantime, Applejack was having borderline results with Twilight Sparkle, who said to the stolid orange mare, “I know, Applejack. I just... need some time to think about this. I know Pinkie wouldn’t lie about something like that, but I just... want to look into this a little bit, and reevaluate some... things.”

“You might not have a lotta time,” Applejack said, “Ah still haven’t got a clue where Rarity and Fluttershy got off to, and if it’s even worse than Rainbow Dash’s trouble...”

“I know, I know, it’s just... everything just loves to hit all at once, doesn’t it?” Twilight said, lashing her tail in frustration, “Just once I’d like to be able to prepare for a disaster, and study it in depth before I have to jump into it.”

“We cain study for disasters,” AJ pondered, “But if we could predict ‘em, then they wouldn’t be disasters. So you never know exactly what t’ study beforehand. You cain’t blame yourself for that.”

“I know, and I don’t blame myself, but it’s just...” Twilight pressed a hoof into her own temple. “Frustrating sometimes.”

“You wanna join with the others?” Applejack asked.

“With all due respect, I think I’m just going to go to the library for a while,” Twilight said. “Rainbow Dash isn’t going to watch anything she hasn’t seen already, and I’m just not sure I want to... face Pinkie right now.”

“I understand,” Applejack said evenly, “And ah promise I won’t get wrapped up in no human show, like those two did. Ah’m just gonna go kick some sense into ‘em, maybe get ‘em out and about, get something to eat.”

“Oh, something to eat sounds great right about now,” Twilight said with a growling stomach. She glanced at Applejack and said “B-but I think I’ll just... fix something for myself at home.”

“You take care, sugarcube,” Applejack said. Twilight nodded, and turned to trot off to her safe place. Anxiety filled her as she just felt like the whole world was spinning crazily around her. Everything was just so weird and nothing she expected ever seemed to come true. She knew it wasn’t normal to stand there in the library staring at a bookshelf without reading it, but Twilight really needed some stability and calm right now.

Meanwhile in an undisclosed location, Rarity and Fluttershy were both struggling to lift stones, crudely cut into flat bricks. “Oh my I’m... not used to this level of labor,” Rarity said, struggling to even levitate one of them. “It’s a good thing we’re all together in this, or this building would never be created. It looks...” She compared the half finished wall to the other dozen or so dumpy looking identical cottages that’d been built thus far. “Fine...” Rarity concluded uncertainly, finally shrugging, and going to struggle with another brick.

Fluttershy slightly nodded in response to that, busy dragging a brick in her teeth to drag it up onto the wall. She certainly wasn’t the best choice for somepony to build a wall, but neither was anypony else here, and that was a good thing. Both of them were very certain that this was supposed to be the case.

ATTN Nils Schneider,

A very interesting individual contacted me, looking for employment within our security auditing division. They ostensibly went “dark” a few years ago, but want to come forward to support our organization. I need you to find out what you can about a woman named “Bruce Connell.” I don’t know much about her, but I’ve managed to dig up her last known address. It’s an apartment in Chicago, Illinois, that she was renting before she staged her own disappearance. Possibly as part of a witness protection program.

I feel her inside knowledge about certain nefarious organizations that threaten our own is worth the risk of alerting the police, but I would recommend you use the services of a private investigator to somewhat draw any attention away from our organization. What Bruce has done since her disappearance is not my concern, but I am concerned about before she vanished. I want to make sure she is a reliable employee with a prestigious work history. For all I know, she might just be a very good liar, who hasn’t any experience in security outside of working at her parent’s fruit stand. The fact that she is competent enough to go completely off the grid makes me greatly optimistic, but I need a few things like her work history, her family, her date of birth, her credit report, any romantic relationships, before I can be sure of whether to bring her on board or not.

Sorry to ask another favor of you. I can assure you that if you can get her information, then you might find a tidy sum gifted to your account. I’m counting on you to help me out, so please find out whatever you can about a woman named “Bruce Connell.” Her last known address is 2550 W North Ave, Chicago, IL 60647, apt 319, and she should be listed as a missing person in public police reports. I don’t even know her family though, and I really need this information!

Sara Trong

Twilight sent the private message, encrypted with a simple but ingenious algorithm based on the difficulty of determining critical points on a complex polygon. It was one even she hadn’t quite figured out how to brute force, the way other encryption schemes fell apart with a simple factorization, but thankfully most of the human world’s infrastructure was still dependent on RSA, so Twilight’s ability to secure-shell login to just about anywhere was assured.

Human cleverness aside, Twilight heaved a sigh of relief on sending it. She really had been getting too sucked into the excitement of operating her own company, completely outside the realm of Equestrian law. She had to take a break from it, and focus on her own life, and her friendships. With any luck, once this background check was done, she’d learn what was keeping Bruce, aka Rosy from returning home, and Twilight could then help Rosy work through her problems, and make everything return to the way it was supposed to be.

Her replacement for money just took off so strongly, it was thrilling. It was making the humans in power so hopping mad, and Twilight had even learned that it led to armed conflict, in one of the human states that was destabilized as a consequence. A bunch of people were going to walk away sore from that one, Twilight was pretty sure. Especially if it escalated into an all out brawl, before the humans determined their new herd order. She just hoped that they didn’t have to resort to using pies. That sort of fighting got really messy.

But now Twilight was done with it. She looked around at the buildings, tents and instruments filling this clearing. There were going to be a lot of unhappy ponies when this Rift closed. But there were a lot more happy ponies by virtue of the fact that it had remained opened as long as it did. The mess with Rosy was going to get cleaned up, and everypony was going to come out of it better for the experience. All-in-all, Twilight was pretty happy with how things were going to turn out. All she had to do now was get Bruce back home, and also find wherever Rarity and Fluttershy had gotten off to.

One month later, Twilight was absolutely freaking out about the situation. She hadn’t been able to even visit the Rift in a week, because her friends Fluttershy and Rarity had vanished off the face of the earth. They weren’t in Cloudsdale, or Ponyville. She had missing ponies posters put up in every major city. Even the military was getting involved!

Twilight consulted her corkboard that she’d actually had to move bookshelves to mount up on the wall. Sure they were bookshelves in her own private bedroom, but still marked this as a significant undertaking. She paced back and forth, looking intermittently at the pinned evidence she’d managed to collect, connected by strings to indicate possible relations.

The only real lead she had was that there were missing ponies reports the past few months who had all been frequent spa-goers, but Twilight had cased out the Ponyville day spa and found neither hide nor hair of any funny business. Twilight moved a pin next to where Pinkie Pie was up on the corkboard, wondering if maybe she could corellate that with the rising value of cotton in wake of the Hayshire debacle. But that would mean that a criminal element had infiltrated the looming industry.

“I think I found something!” Pinkie Pie shouted up on the corkboard, scaring Twilight out of her wits. Picking herself up from frantically scrambling back, Twilight was so spooked she had to use a hoof to fold back her frightened wings.

“Don’t scare me like that, Pinkie!” Twilight chided the pink pony hopping down from the corkboard.

“Pff, please,” Pinkie said, rolling her eyes, “I’ve seen you scared Twilight, and that was just a little startlish.”

“Nevertheless it—wait, you found something?” Twilight asked, suddenly hopeful.

“Yeah, I found out that somepony got a letter recently, from Sugar Belle!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“Rarity’s cousin?” Twilight asked curiously. “How’s she been?”

“Disappeared!” Pinkie replied, “She went missing a year ago!”

“Yet somepony got a letter from her?” Twilight asked, wide-eyed. “Do you think she’s with Rarity?”

“I think... hold on, let me finish,” Pinkie said, screwing up her brow and saying rapid-fire, “Night Glider got a letter from Sugar Belle saying she was fine and everything was wonderful here, but she didn’t say where here is, but the letter was delivered by a pony who saw a pony in Dodge City, who got it from a hooded pony who found it on the—”

“Pinkie! Hold on,” Twilight interrupted, plugging her friend’s yop with a hoof. “What does this have to do with Rarity? You say Sugar Belle sent a letter, saying she wasn’t in distress?”

“Mmm-mmm,” Pinkie said, with pleading eyes. Oh, right. Twilight took her hoof out of Pinkie’s mouth.

“She is definitely in distress,” Pinkie said, “It just didn’t say she was. But Night Glider told Sugar’s mom about it, who told Cookie Belle, who told me, since Rarity is missing too, and she sorta hoped they were both missing the same way. So... that’s what I got. And a good feeling about it. And the letter.”

Pinkie brandished the letter, which Twilight snatched in her magic and read intently. It was poorly mouth-written, apparently on the back of a napkin, with some kind of flaky brownish ink.

Dear Nigty,

I know you’re not worry about me, because they are too wraped up in their special talents to let go of yur misery and hatred, but I still wanted to let you know I was okay except I forgot my resipes no don’t I dont need them sory. Sory for being selfish and talking to ponies who don’t understand our cause. It’s so wondurful here that I wish you could let go of your misery and haterd, but I know your too wraped up in your special talent to do it, but maybe you could give it up and then I could see you again?

Suger Bell

“Okay... okay. O...kay so something is seriously wrong here,” Twilight said in a trembling voice, “Have you contacted the police about this?”

“Not yet,” Pinkie said, “I didn’t want to do that without making sure I wasn’t just reading it wrong. I don’t wanna repeat the Cranky Doodle incident. So, it is really terrible, even though she says it’s wonderful, right?”

“Yes, yes this is definitely a very distressed pony,” Twilight replied, “Who seems to blame Night Glider’s special talent for something. Did you get Night Glider’s occupation?”

“Demolition,” Pinkie replied, “I think she might also do some trick flying as a hobby.”

“That... isn’t exactly the most all consuming career,” Twilight replied thoughtfully. “Well, I will definitely forward this to the police, especially since it mentions ‘us’ so other ponies may be involved. I don’t know if that would include Rarity herself, but for now I’ll pin it up next to—”

“Wait!” Pinkie shouted strangely urgently. Twilight halted in the process of levitating the letter up to her corkboard, and looked back at her with worry.

“Smell it first,” the pink pony said with an uncharacteristically serious expression.

Twilight regarded Pinkie thoughtfully, then held the letter up to her snout and took a whiff.

Twilight’s wings snapped out again as all the fur on her back stood on end. “I am contacting the princesses about this, immediately, ” she declared, staring at the floating letter as if it was going to bite her nose off.

“Yeah, I thought you’d say something like that,” Pinkie said frankly. “Should I go get the rest of our friends?”

Sweating bullets, Twilight said, “But without Rarity and Fluttershy, I don’t see how much we can—”

“Just for moral support,” Pinkie assured hastily, “We can all help as just ponies, too.”

“Right...” Twilight said uneasily, “ Go ahead and assemble the... girls. In the meantime, I need to write a letter.”

“Spike!!” Twilight called out upstairs while Pinkie zipped off.

“I’m never going to see my beautiful sweet diamond again!” he called out sorrowfully in reply.

“This is important!” Twilight shouted back.

“Leave me to my misery!”

Twilight Sparkle sighed, and went to retrieve a scroll and quill. She winced at the ink, the moment before she dipped the quill in it, before composing her missive. Spike would definitely send it, but her little dragon assistant needed some more comforting again, it seemed. It would have to come after the letter. This was important.

To The Princesses Luna and Celestia,

I feel it is important to inform you of this right away. My attention has come to a dark plot by which ponies may have been foalnapped and subjected to traumatic conditioning. A letter has surfaced recently, from a pony known as Sugar Belle. She went missing approximately one year ago, and in my search for the other bearers, my friend found that Sugar Belle had sent a letter to her friend very recently, a letter whose contents alone are disturbing enough to guess that she is under severe mental duress and coercion, possibly by or with other ponies.

The letter was crudely written, with what seem like repetitive, prescripted phrases, and her spelling was absolutely atrocious. The reason I need to bring this to your attention is that in her letter, Sugar Belle did not say she was in trouble, or under duress, and referred to her situation as “wondrful,” yet she felt her letter was urgent enough to write it in what appears to be her own blood. This is a pony crying for help, who has been made unable to cry for help.

I realize I’m a princess now, and can act without your authority or prior approval, but this seems dangerous enough to Equestria at large that I felt you should be immediately informed. Any advice is welcome. I’m going to try and use a forensics spell to recover what I can from the events of this blood’s spilling. My friends and I will do what we can, but we must exercise extreme caution. If this is related to the disappearance of Fluttershy and Rarity, then we may be trotting into a trap. If it isn’t, then we’re no closer to finding Fluttershy and Rarity, and having to deal with this at a severe disadvantage with only four of the Elements together. Either way, extreme caution and awareness shall be our strategy.

Yours truly,

Princess Twilight Sparkle

Spike was at his Rarity shrine when Twilight found him. Levitating the rolled up scroll next to her, she told the little drake, “Hey, it’s okay. Rarity’s sure to turn up pretty soon. She’s a very capable mare, you remember from the last time she was ponynapped? She’s probably got her captors kissing her hooves right now.”

“But you don’t know that!” he replied in worry and sorrow, “She might be anywhere, we don’t even know where she is!”

“And we’ll find her,” Twilight insisted, “Just like we used her gem finding spell the last time. I haven’t figured out what to use this time, but I’m getting closer. Listen, I need you to send a letter to Princess Celestia. There’s another mare who went missing a year ago, and we might have some clues as to her current location.”

“You think... Rarity will be there?” he asked, hoping beyond hope.

Twilight gave him a thin lipped smile and said, “To be perfectly honest, I hope she’s lost somewhere else entirely. But if Rarity is involved with Sugar Belle’s disappearance, I assure you we’ll have both of them saved before you know it. A-assuming nothing happened to Rarity, that is.”

“Happened to her?” Spike asked in horror.

“Nothing, never mind, I’m just being a worry wort,” Twilight said hastily, brandishing the scroll before her like a shield. “Now please send this, and we can go about finding Sugar Belle, and anypony else who is being held captive with her.”

Author's Note

The first mistake we make is trusting what we feel in our heart to be true. Hearts have terrible judgement!

Side Story

Completing the line, Twilight’s magic lifted a rod of white chalk off the library’s basement floor. The stony grey floor had been cleared out and inscribed in white, in an elaborate circle several ponylengths wide, with whorls for crystal placement, and a suspended sphere of water. It was clearly overkill, but Twilight was not taking any chances here. Twilight started up two redundant recording crystals. Under the focal rune of the circle on the floor, she placed the letter from Sugar Belle, then turned to the other occupants of the room, saying, “Alright, let’s get started.”

Finding a pony was no simple task, magically. Thanks to natural selection, during proto-pony evolution with the prescient terror birds, most scrying would only work on an object that pony carried, and even then it was short range, with sketchy results. What Twilight mapped out on her basement floor in activated chalk was not a spell of foresight though, but one of aftsight.

Rarity’s parents agreed to help, as they were close by, and it was definitely a Belle family matter, even if Rarity was uninvolved. Sweetie Belle was there as well, for she hadn’t been inclined or allowed to go far from her parents since Rarity went missing, but she was left standing quietly by the wall, only revealing her distress by the haggard look in her eyes. She’d been taking it pretty hard, and it didn’t help that what they were doing today had no guarantee it would even lead to Rarity’s whereabouts.

The spell went perfectly. Twilight’s horn glowed of its own accord as she sang the ancient incantation:

Let our lost pasts become revealed.
Show us where this blood was spilled.
Alive within the heart, now killed,
Show us the one who was so willed.

The magic flowed smoothly through the carefully crafted channels, making the horns of Twilight, Hondo, and Cookie light up as the magic spread to the limits of its geometry. Above the letter, a semi-transparent scene appeared. An additional burst from Twilight, and it strengthened, growing almost opaque, and sound emerged.

It was a dusty dirt floor, surrounded by some shoddy looking walls constructed from shale that Twilight saw. A grey unicorn was there with her dull black hair tied in a conservative bun. Aside from the ragged, dirty apron wrapped around her barrel, she didn’t seem to be imprisoned or even particularly upset. Her expression looked a little worried, but otherwise positively bland. Next to her was a smiling blue unicorn stallion, who looked with approval, at what the other unicorn was holding in her mouth: a shard of what looked like a broken ceramic plate.

“Should I ask her for recipes?” the mare asked him, calmly cutting open her own foreleg with little more than a suppressed whimper and letting the bloody shard fall to the earth. This dull colored unicorn mare was probably Sugar Belle, since it’s her blood that was found on the napkin, but it was possibly too early to make that conclusion.

“You can’t do that, because it’s your special talent,” he said matter-of-factly. “Just tell her you are sorry and that she can let go of her misery and hatred if she comes to join us.”

“I want to see her again, but she has to join us first, but why would she want to?” Sugar Belle replied, holding what looked like a discarded pegasus pinion to her forearm, filling its spongy tissue up with her blood.

“Your food is just as good as anypony else’s,” he replied soothingly, “I’m sure she would love our food.”

“I know, but... maybe with... recipes I could make... better food,” she said, tilting her nose down to start on the letter. Though they were both unicorns, Sugar Belle held the quill in her mouth to write it, and braced the napkin with her uncut hoof to steady it, like a clumsy looking earth pony.

“It’s too dangerous,” he said, glancing around in concern. “Starlight would think you’re trying to leave us. She wouldn’t understand.”

“Should I ask her for recipes?” Sugar Belle asked around the quill, continuing to slowly scratch out sentences.

“You can’t do that, because it’s your special talent,” he said matter-of-factly. “If you get wrapped up in your special talent, you won’t be able to let go of your misery and hatred.”

Sugar Belle paused, looking dully down at the napkin. “I don’t think that’s how wonderful is spelled,” she remarked. “I wish we were all good at spelling. It’s embarassing.”

“Well, work hard, and help us spell better,” the stallion replied. “But more importantly, you need to find your friend.”

“Yes it’s been... a while since we’ve seen her,” Sugar Belle said distractedly. “How do you spell sugar?”

“I’m no good at that stuff,” he replied dismissively, “When do you think she’s coming? She seems like a really fun pony!”

“She won’t be for long,” Sugar Belle said dryly, finishing writing, and pressing her other hoof over her cut. “How are we going to mail this without Starlight knowing?”

“I’ll drop it when we’re getting supplies,” he said. “Maybe somepony will find it and deliver it.”

“Yes, that is a good plan,” Sugar Belle said uncertainly. The image started to waver and fade then, and her voice became ghostly as she said, “Rarity thinks I...”

Twilight’s horn flared with brightness, making the other two unicorns cry out in shock as the thaumatic wave blew them back. The picture cut out, but without a picture, the sound hissed with static before coming through clearly again, “...a real good chance of reuniting with her if I bring her into the fold.”

“I’ll take the letter and make myself scarce,” the stallion’s voice replied. “Showtime for you.”

The sound faded out completely then, with Sugar Belle crying out dramatically, “Ah! Ow! Oh no I’ve broken another plate, clumsy me! Does anypony...” before they could hear no more.

“Rrrgh!” Twilight shouted in frustration, as her horn flared up, but no more sound emerged. She powered down then, and paused to console the other three unicorns who had backed up against the wall to huddle in fear as Twilight worked her magic.

“Sorry about that,” Twilight said bashfully, “The spell only lasts as long as the blood is still alive, so we won’t be getting any more out of it.”

“She said Rarity! ” Sweetie Belle squealed, pushing aside the hugs of her quivering parents to climb on top of them. “That’s where Rarity is!” the little unicorn asserted imperiously at Twilight.

“It certainly seems that way,” Twilight said, looking to the letter again. “But where were they writing it...”

“Can’t you make a magical compass or something?” Sweetie Belle asked in frustration.

“To a previous place in time, yes,” Twilight said, “But translating that to present time spatial coordinates is actually a very complex mathematical problem, that requires perfect knowledge of all astronomical—er, I mean, no I can’t make a magical compass.”

Twilight’s eyes widened as she said, “But the napkin, that I could perform a like-seeking avocation. It would only lead to napkins from the same bunch, but they mentioned getting supplies, so they probably buy napkins by the bunch, so they’d all be at their location, or wherever their trash is being disposed!”

She picked up the confused filly, telling her joyfully, “Sweetie Belle, you’re a genius! ”

“So...” Sweetie Belle said cautiously, dangling in Twilight’s forearms, “You can find her?”

Twilight wanted to just say unequivocably yes, but she... didn’t really feel that way about the world anymore. Instead she winced and said, “Barring unforseen circumstances, yes. The information we gathered here will certainly probably lead to the ponies we’re looking for.”

Twilight placed Sweetie down, returning to stand on four legs, telling her and her parents, “The important thing is that we now know Rarity is alive and unharmed. Wherever she is, I promise I’ll bring her back to you.”

Sweetie gave a small smile, and her mother stood up and said, “Oh, that is good news. I just hope she can hold on till you get there. You sure are good at that detective work!”

“Well, I don’t mean to brag,” Twilight said a little smugly, “But I read a lot of books.”

Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie joined with Twilight Sparkle in a very serious meeting. Serious enough that the library’s conference room had been reserved. Trotting before a checklist pinned up on the wall, Twilight said, “Okay, listen up. Fluttershy and Rarity are likely being held captive by strange means, that might render them unable to defend themselves.

“The only thing known about their captor is her name, a traditionally female pony name, Starlight. They are being held in an unknown location, with little to no contact with the outside world. Other ponies are being held captive along with them, whose cry for help has been the only evidence we have found for their existence at all. Our only direct contact with the missing ponies has herself gone missing, and more ponies are sure to follow.

“That’s the bad news,” Twilight concluded. “You all are no doubt familiar with most of it. Now here’s the good news, and what we intend to do about it.”

Pulling down a map of Equestria, she stated, “I analyzed the recording of the seeing spell of the scene with Sugar Belle and an unknown stallion, and noticed that a doorway had been visible in one of the shots, with a mountainous region displayed beyond it. The window only revealed another of their shale constructed buildings, but by analyzing the size and shape of the mountain range and taking into account their building materials, I suspect the location of these ponies is somewhere here, east of Appleoosa, somewhere among the mesas south of Dodge City. There should be an abundant supply of shale there for building construction, and the letter left by Sugar Belle was discovered on a table in Dodge City, also where the napkins are being discarded, so that must be where this organization is going to resupply.”

Twilight then pulled down a still from the seeing spell that she’d recorded, saying, “Additionally, I have noted that Sugar Belle and this unknown stallion both have almost the same story mark. It is relatively rare that ponies get the same mark, so even if they disguise their faces, ponies will remember seeing them.”

“What kind of a mark is that anyway?” Rainbow Dash cut in, squinting at it, “Two black lines?”

“It... might be some sort of building materials?” Twilight speculated, “Sugar Belle’s friend did say she was in the demolition business. Oh, that brings me to my next piece of good news.”

She pulled down a blown up photo of Night Glider, saying, “This is Night Glider. She went missing shortly after contacting the Belles last week regarding Sugar Belle’s letter to her. What she did not do however, was go missing without a note.”

Twilight pulled up the note that Night Glider left behind.

When I heard from Sugar Belle after all this time, it was just incredible. I can’t believe she’s okay! Well, not okay, but at least alive. While searching for her, I went to that spa in Dodge that Sugar used to love so much, and there was a pony there saying I qualified for a stress free retreat, and get this, she said I was too “wrapped up in my special talent,” and that she wanted to show me something different from “the misery and hatred” of everyday life. That was the exact words Sugar Belle wrote! So they told me to meet them at the southern crossroads, and said they’d tell me where to go from there. Said her name was New Leaf.

This has got to be how Sugar Belle disappeared. I don’t know what I’ll find there, but Luna willing, I’m going to go save my friend. If you don’t hear from me in a week, send this to the princesses. Otherwise we’ll all be laughing about this over a fresh batch of her delicious muffins, after I buck the nags who did this so hard that they land in the Crystal Empire!

Wish me luck.

N.G.

“Ugh, she waited a week before telling the princesses?” Pinkie Pie groaned, “Why couldn’t she tell them right away!”

“Some ponies aren’t as forward thinking as the rest of us,” Twilight Sparkle replied dismissively, “Anyway, it gives us some possible leads in Dodge City, and it offers even more evidence that Rarity and Fluttershy are being held there!”

“How’s that?” Applejack asked curiously.

“When was the last time any of you ladies went to the spa?” Twilight asked wryly. Applejack didn’t protest it, shutting her mouth and turning her hat down over a blush.

Going back to the map, Twilight said, “We can start our search in Dodge City, where the napkins were purchased, and once we have as much information as we can get without rousing their suspicions, we can head south to here,” she moved her pointer to a mesa, “Where we should be able to start searching the area for any retreats or other outposts composed of shale walled buildings.

“I don’t know what we’re going to find there,” Twilight said, rolling her presentation posters back up, “But once we reunite with Rarity and Fluttershy, I think we can deal with whatever they have to throw at us. I want you to prepare what you need for the trip, and meet me at the train station tomorrow at noon, and then we can go about saving Sugar Belle, Rarity, Fluttershy, and any number of other ponies in captivity. Is everypony ready to go kick some tail?”

As one, the three each gave an enthusiastic “Yeah!”

Rearing up excitedly, Twilight Sparkle declared, “Then let’s go kick some tail!”

Some time later, in a tiny shack, the soothing voice of Starlight Glimmer broadcast over the speakers on the ceiling, “Free yourself from your story marks. Choose equality over your special talents...”

Ears sunk, surrounded by her friends, or some analog thereof, Twilight grudgingly admitted, “Okay, so mistakes were made.”

In the tiny stone shack, there was hay to eat and water to drink, but nothing else other than to listen to the loudspeakers. Cruelty Twilight had never before even contemplated: every book to read had nothing in them but pages and pages of that mark. She opened three, and then just... kicked the rest all over the floor in sheer frustration. Her! Twilight Sparkle left the awful useless books lying all over the dirty floor, and she couldn’t even find it in herself to care.

“There, there,” Fluttershy said, patting Twilight on the withers.

Smacking Fluttershy’s hoof away, Twilight turned to face her sideways, as she said angrily, “You! Why didn’t you warn us?”

“Starlight said you didn’t need any warning,” Fluttershy replied simply. And that made sense to Twilight, but... wait, what was she thinking?!

“Starlight Glimmer lied to you, Fluttershy. Rarity, how did you fall for this?” Twilight declared to her friends sorrowfully.

“I haven’t fallen for anything,” Rarity said wearily, “Please, just accept that this is the only way to be free of misery and hatred.”

“I suppose it isn’t so bad, if it’s the only way to be free of misery and hatred,” Twilight admitted, “But still, this is wrong!”

“I know I’m miserable,” Rainbow Dash said, from where she lay on her back, fidgeting restlessly over by the window. “And I hate this, so how does it free us of misery and hatred?”

“You’re right, Rainbow,” Twilight said, “But that means... wait, of course it doesn’t free us of misery and hatred!” She glared at Rarity, saying, “Stop saying that it’s the only way to free us of misery and hatred!”

“But Starlight told me to say that,” Rarity replied, looking worried and unsure.

“Well I’m telling you not to say it, so don’t!” Twilight replied with a snort.

“Okay, I won’t,” Rarity replied. And just sat there, staring at her forehoof.

“Why don’t you try being the best, by never being the best?” Pinkie suggested.

“That’s it!” Twilight realized, wide eyed. “I’ll try being the best, by never being the best! Being the best is what... got us into this mess?”

Her ear flicked to the loudspeaker. “No, no, no!” Twilight groaned, covering her ears. “I can’t stop agreeing with her, and she’s completely insane!”

“You got that right,” Rainbow Dash said, looking out the window again. “I can’t even tell what’s true anymore, because it’s all true!”

“I’m sorry you’re suffering so,” Fluttershy said tenderly to Twilight, “Why don’t you just—”

“No!” Twilight protested. “Stop it. Stop preaching to me.”

“Okay,” Fluttershy replied uncertainly, “But what should I say to you?”

“Tell me...” Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me that this is wrong, and we need to get our story marks back.”

“This is wrong, ” Fluttershy said sadly, “And we need to get our story marks back.”

“Yes! Yes tell me again.”

“I don’t know if it helps at all,” Fluttershy said, “I still know it’s a lie to say that, and the truth is that we’re better without—”

“No, don’t say the truth, lie to me,” Twilight repeated frantically. “Tell me we need our story marks, and it was wrong for her to take them away.”

“We need our story marks, and it was wrong for her to take them away,” Fluttershy repeated. “But I don’t understand why you’re having me lie to you.”

“Fluttershy,” Twilight said, looking her pale friend in the face, “We need our story marks, and it was wrong of Starlight to take them away.”

“Yes, you’re right. You’re... but Starlight said...” Fluttershy looked puzzled. She glanced away, mumbling, “Difference is frustration.”

Twilight deliberately lied to help her friend, saying, “Difference is not frustration. We need our story marks, and it was wrong of Starlight to take them away. We are in huge trouble right now.”

Her dull eyes meeting Twilight’s gaze, Fluttershy’s wings lifted as she said, “You... you’re right! Difference isn’t frustration! Then why did I think it is? Oh no, she took our story marks! What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Twilight said, “But I’m pretty sure that to excel is to fail, and I’m pretty sure that everything I’m pretty sure of is a lie. Now, tell me that to excel is to succeed. To excel is to succeed. I know it’s... a—a lie, but tell me.”

“Oh,” Rainbow Dash’s sudden realization washed over her so hard, Twilight could practically feel the waves of realization splashing into her from behind. “To excel is to succeed,” Rainbow Dash said without confidence.

Twilight turned to the rainbow haired pony, saying, “To excel is to succeed,”

Nodding more confidently, Rainbow Dash told Twilight, “To excel is to succeed!”

Twilight was absolutely sure of herself, saying, “Succeed by excelling. Everypony, you have to succeed by excelling. Can you feel it? It’s working!”

“What’re you makin’ a racket about,” Applejack said, tilting up her hat as she awoke.

“Succeed, by excelling,” Twilight told a confused Applejack earnestly. “We need to get our marks back. That’s true, isn’t it?”

“Well yeah, as obvious as a rum... drink,” Applejack replied, in puzzlement, “But why’d you even have to say it out loud?”

“Because we’ll agree with anything with these on our hips!” Twilight declared, pointing at the dull black equality sign that had taken the place of her story mark. “We have to tell each other what to think, to stop her from telling us what to think!”

“Ah... what?” Applejack said in honest confusion. “Ah don’t rightly follow.”

“Applejack,” Rainbow Dash said in a chiding tone, “Go get some hay!”

Applejack stood, and returned with an armful of hay. “Okay, now eat the hay,” Rainbow Dash instructed. When Applejack had a good mouthful of straw, Dash said, “Applejack, you hate the taste of hay.”

A look of surprise crossed Applejack’s face before she spluttered, spitting out the hay. “Then why’d you tell me to eat it?”

“Now you love the taste of hay,” Rainbow Dash replied. “Eat some more of it.”

Applejack put the hay back in her mouth, and another look of pleased surprise crossed her face.

“Now hay tastes terrible to you, Applejack,” Rainbow Dash said, then before Applejack could spit it out she said, “Now hay tastes awesome. ”

“Now hay tastes terrible,” Dash repeated, “Now hay tastes awesome. Now hay tastes like cherries.”

Applejack actually made another few rotations of her jaw, before spitting it out and declaring in shock, “Land shoot, it does taste like cherries! Ah will believe anything you say!”

“Let’s all do it!” Pinkie Pie said excitedly, “Because conformity will set you free! Now hay tastes like frosting! ”

She dove into the hay trough then, a look of confusion crossing the pink pony’s face as she masticated the dry straws. “It tasthes like sherries, not froshting,” she whined in disappointment.

“Pinkie Pie, hay tastes like frosting,” Twilight Sparkle told her friend. Pinkie’s smile brightened then, and she started enthusiastically chewing.

“Sorry, why are we arguing over the taste of hay?” Rarity asked. “I’m perfectly happy with it because I accept my limit—”

“Accepting your limitations is not the key to happiness,” Twilight replied. “Now say it to me. Because I’m feeling really happy right now, and I don’t want to!”

“Say...” Rarity said warily.

“Accepting your limits is not the key to happiness,” Rainbow Dash said to Twilight’s face.

“Thank you,” Twilight said in relief. “Now I think I know how we can beat this. Ask me how, Fluttershy.”

“How can we beat um, this?” Fluttershy replied.

“Her... mark makes us highly suggestible,” Twilight told Fluttershy, “But it doesn’t stop us from suggesting things to each other. Our own ability to judge has been compromised, but we can still tell each other what to do. Whenever you hear something on the loudspeaker, two of us have to say the exact opposite. That way we can prove that we’re no better than our friends, and defeat Starlight Glimmer’s evil cult of personality!”

“You’re way better than your friends,” Pinkie Pie said helpfully.

“What?” Twilight said of the annoying pink simpleton.

“The loudspeaker said you weren’t, so I said you were better than your friends,” Pinkie repeated.

“Pinkie, please,” Twilight groaned irately, “Can’t you do anything right? The opposite to that is your friends ‘may’ be better than you. Now can you handle saying that, or do I have to move your mouth for you?”

Pinkie looked like she was going to cry. Great. “Say it!” Twilight commanded.

“Y-y-your friends may be better than you,” Pinkie whimpered.

Twilight stared at her, wide eyed. “Pinkie...” she said faintly, “I–I’m sorry, oh Pinkie I’m so sorry I said that, it just seemed... like I was better than you.”

Pinkie hugged her and Twilight shuddered into the hug saying, “This... might be harder than I thought.”

“Is this true?” Starlight asked cautiously.

“I... I think so,” the purple one said, “But if we leave our story marks in the vault, we’ll really be happier?”

“Just look around!” Starlight said smugly, as her new friends all looked around thoughtfully, “Our Equality has given us more happiness than you’ve ever known.”

“That would be wonderful,” Twilight said with a relieved smile. “I hardly even miss my old story mark anymore.”

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Starlight said, “Our philosophy of sameness is exemplified in the magic of our identical marks!”

“You might be right Starlight,” the orange one said, “Ah ain’t been happier than a corn’s... thing, until before today! And all because I got this here... equality on mah rear.”

“I knew you could understand our philosophy, and all so quickly too!” Starlight Glimmer said in delight, as emerging from the friendship lessons were not just new friends, but the one pony who would legitimize her whole effort. Her very hopes and dreams were being realized before her eyes!

“Yeah, Rarity was really convincing,” said the one and only Rainbow Dash, with an oddly strained look in her face, “We were trying to excel, so of course we failed.” Wonderbolt, star, celebrity, arrogant braggart, she was everything Starlight stood against. And now thanks to the magic of friendship, she would stand with Starlight Glimmer, and support her as a true friend!

“That’s right!” Starlight said, “Did you learn anything else from my inspirational pep talk, Rainbow Dash?”

“Uh, yeah, a lot, but I don’t remember it all,” Rainbow Dash said, a little puzzled that Starlight walked over to the side of their group to address her in particular, instead of Twilight. “I don’t wanna be my best after all, ‘cause then I wouldn’t be my best.”

The white unicorn known as Rarity began to cry then saying, “Oh thank you Rainbow Dash. With how different we are, I never... I never thought you would be my friend again! But you’ve learned from Starlight so well, and now we never have to suffer in misery and hatred again!”

“We all were making a huge mistake,” that new purple princess said, dipping her muzzle guiltily, “We got all wrapped up in our special talents, only thinking about how different we were from each other. I can’t believe I thought our differences made our friendship stronger! It doesn’t, right?”

“It certainly doesn’t, my little pony,” Starlight said beneficiently to her newest converts. “You can set that kind of backwards thinking behind you, now that you are with us. On behalf of our little village here, we welcome you with open hooves!”

The purple pony smiled at that, beaming with the approval that Starlight happily gave.

“There’s just one little thing,” Starlight said reluctantly. “You see when you came here, we weren’t exactly expecting you. How did you ponies come to learn about our little village here?”

The purple one’s smile faltered. “I... don’t want to say,” she said uneasily.

“Oh come on, you can tell me,” Starlight purred at her. “You’re among friends here!”

“Well, we were following the... trail left by... Sugar Belle’s letter,” the alicorn answered with a wince. “B-but don’t hurt her, she was just—” her words were drowned out by a collective gasp as everypony turned to stare at a dingey mud grey mare with her hair in a simple bun.

“Is this true, Sugar Belle?” Starlight asked, with a justifiable look of betrayal on his face.

“I–I was just trying to help!” Sugar Belle protested, looking away from Starlight with eyes full of fear. “I wanted my friend to come here and learn your philosophy! And she did! See? She’s right here!”

Starlight held up a hoof before Sugar Belle could push the dark grey newpony forward, even as both of them looked terrified of rejection. Well they would just have to learn that Starlight would never reject them over such a little thing.

“Don’t worry, Sugar Belle,” Starlight said kindly, “Your heart was in the right place. Do you know where you made your first mistake?”

With the dark grey pegasus scrambling behind the mud colored unicorn, Sugar Belle shook her head in confusion. Starlight was happy to provide an answer for her though.

“Your mistake was when you wanted,” Starlight replied wisely. “You wanted more than everypony else. You were trying to help, but you were also putting us in danger, just so you could selfishly bring your special friend here. Can you see how you almost hurt us all? Can you see how close we were to total disaster?”

“I... yes I... I’m so sorry everypony,” Sugar Belle said, her eyes filling with tears. “I never wanted total disaster! I had no idea these... these others would come here.”

“You have to learn that your actions have consequences,” Starlight chided the wayward filly, “And you’ll have a lot of time to think about that, in the re-education center. You and your friend need to spend some time together in there, learning more about our ways.”

“I’m sorry everypony,” Sugar Belle said sadly, and the dark grey one led her by a wing toward the small shack, “I never wanted to hurt any of you!”

“Wait!” a stallion shouted, stepping forward. It was... Party Favor? “It wasn’t her fault. I was the one who told her to write it! I thought her friend would help our cause. I—I should be in the re-education center too.”

“Well, that’s very noble of you,” Starlight said snidely, “Telling us the truth about your selfish behavior, and how you misled ponies in our community. Why don’t you join Sugar Belle and her new friend, and talk with them about how important it is for us to only make decisions as a group, and never act on our own, individually?”

“I can’t believe you,” Fluttershy said angrily as the stallion Party Favor passed her by, “Going against everything you told me to do?”

“I’m sorry Fluttershy,” he said, shuffling into the re-education center, ears down. “I’m sorry everypony! Next time I’ll—” somepony shut the door on him.

With that mischevious bunch out of the way, Starlight turned to the rest of her village, who were all looking to her for guidance. It was so beautiful, to feel loved by everypony here, attentive to her every word.

“Come on everypony, let’s celebrate!” Starlight declared, turning on her hooves as the rest of her little village cheered for her. “Our newest members, our future as a community, and the success of our new re-education program!” A louder cheer went up.

“Wait!” one of her oldest members stepped forward, a stallion named Double Diamond. An icy core of fear tore through Starlight’s heart, because if he was part of this conspiracy, then nopony in her village could be considered safe. “With Sugar Belle being re-educated,” he said, “How are we going to get food for the party?”

“That’s the beauty of equality,” Starlight said, sagging in relief. “Sugar Belle isn’t special. Her baked goods are no better than anypony else’s. Any of you may take her job, and your muffins will be just as good as hers! Plus she probably has a lot of them in reserve. Those things never go bad.”

Half of a bran... asparagus... ketchup muffin later, Starlight was kind of bummed. She had all her friends around her, and they truly loved her for who she was, not for how special she was. She didn’t know what she was bummed about. She just... really, really missed good food sometimes. At least Double Diamond was more... creative with his ingredents than Sugar Belle.

Things were looking up for Starlight Glimmer though, so she had nothing to be bummed about. With even the illustrious Rainbow Dash joining her cause, it would be only a matter of time before Starlight saved all of Equestria from the curse of individuality. It was such a simple equation. The more ponies Starlight relieved of the burden of their special talents, the more friends she had. Real friends, not friends who would leave her, or get tired of her, throwing her heartlessly to the wolves.

Sure the unmarking made ponies a little dull and boring. Their bland happiness grated on her nerves every time she had to put up with those vapid smiles. But that was the fault of Starlight’s story mark. She couldn’t unmark herself, for only she knew the unmarking spell, and she had to live with that mark’s tainted thoughts every day, judging her friends in a way that they were no longer able to do. Starlight could endure its treachery though, because she knew the truth that so many other ponies denied. Her new friends did everything she said. They were dependent on her for everything. And that meant they couldn’t leave. It meant they wouldn’t leave. That was what the world had to realize was true friendship.

Sure her re-education plan hit a few... snarls. Some ponies just needed more... convincing before they joined her side. Starlight didn’t like the new re-education center any more than anypony else, but not everypony could be slowly and carefully reasoned with. Sometimes you had to take a few shortcuts. Sure it looked like Starlight was locking them in a room until they agreed with her, but she would only have to do this for a little while, until she got accepted by pony society as a whole.

Starlight knew she would be accepted. Not only had Rainbow Dash accepted her philosophy, apparently one of Rainbow Dash’s friends was a princess, and not just any princess, a princess of Friendship! It was all falling together. Ponies would learn that the unmarking is a beautiful transformation, from a divisive, conflicted pony, to one who has found true friendship. It was only a matter of time before story marks were nothing but an unhappy memory. The future was looking brighter every day, and Starlight was ready to accept her place as the savior of Ponykind.

Sometime later, lost in a labyrinth of caves, more alone than she’d ever been in her life, Starlight Glimmer curled up in a ball and cried. The air was fetid and chill, the darkness deep. She didn’t even know the way out anymore. She tried to figure out how everything had gone bad so quickly, but it all just seemed to happen at once. Dear Fluttershy exposed her, and her whole town betrayed her, after all she’d done for them! Starlight raged, and she cried, and nothing helped, because they forced her down here, away, alone.

She had been on top of the world, and now she was who knows how far beneath it. And all because of those ponies, and their story marks, and their stories. Their stories were sweet words that even Starlight wished were true, but lying here alone in a dark cave, Starlight Glimmer couldn’t feel like they applied to her at all. Everypony else could celebrate, and live, but once again, and perhaps forevermore, Starlight Glimmer was cursed to be alone.

“I just don’t know what went wrong,” she whispered, her tears running unheeded down the sides of her cheeks.

Four and two weary ponies disembarked from the train station. Some were frazzled, others guilty, others worried for the frazzled ones and the guilty ones. One of the worried ones, Pinkie Pie looked to Rainbow Dash and Twilight, both of whom had gone through the most hardship to get out of that situation. Rarity and Fluttershy were maybe kind of rightfully guilty about dragging everypony into this, but Rainbow Dash had had to lie... a lot. Dash had learned once from Discord, that honesty is always better than denial, so it hit her really hard. Even temporarily deceiving all those ponies was hard for her, and so soon after the whole secrecy mess with the human’s show.

“That was a stroke of brilliance on your part,” Rarity said with guilty attendance to Twilight Sparkle, “Telling each other that everything she says is a lie, but to act like you believe them in front of her?”

“I know Rarity, you don’t have to thank me a 13th time,” Twilight grumbled, “We needed a suggestion which undermined all her other suggestions, simple as that. A crude judgement framework to replace the one taken from us.”

“I’m just glad we don’t have to think that way anymore,” Fluttershy said, with a worried look up at Rainbow Dash, “I know it was a terrible experience for me, to have to pretend that what you know are lies are true.”

Rainbow Dash just groaned, and rolled her eyes. “I don’t know about you fillies, but I’m gonna go take a long cloud nap,” Rainbow Dash declared. Before she could fly off, Pinkie Pie called up,

“Wait, Rainbow Dash! You wanna have lunch with me? We could get some real muffins.”

When Rainbow Dash’s brow darkened, Pinkie Pie added hastily, “Before or after you take a cloud nap, which you are still going to do?”

Rainbow took a sec, but she smiled at that, saying, “Yeah I think I could catch a bite to eat before I go take my nap. Feels good to be home.”

Pinkie smiled too, and worried a lot less.

“I don’t get Honesty,” Rainbow Dash told Pinkie over the sweet, tart taste of a lemon blueberry muffin. “It gets me in so much trouble. Why would anypony think I was the one who deserved my Element?”

“Well, between you and me,” Pinkie said, leaning forward conspiratorially. She whispered, “I’m not very funny. ”

“You?” Rainbow Dash laughed. “You’re the funniest pony I know!”

“Coming from you, that means a lot,” Pinkie Pie said with a blush that probably didn’t show underneath her fur coat. “But I actually work really hard at it, and sometimes I really blow it. Remember Appleoosa?”

“Were you trying to be funny then?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I thought you were trying to be um... inspiring or something.”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny, yes,” Pinkie admitted, “But I wasn’t very funny, either.”

“It was kind of funny when all the buffalo charged at you,” Rainbow remarked with a smirk. “Just in hindsight.”

“What I’m saying is, I’m not very... good at being funny,” Pinkie replied abashedly, “I do parties, make ponies smile, and brighten up their day, but laughter? It’s really hard to get ponies to laugh. Even for me! Or I should say especially for me.”

“Why especially?” Rainbow Dash asked skeptically.

“Because I don’t think the Element of Laughter picked me because I was really good at making ponies laugh,” Pinkie stated. “If I was already good at laughter, then I wouldn’t need the Element.”

“So you’re saying...” Rainbow Dash responded, drifting into thought.

“That my Element picked me, because I needed it.”

Rainbow Dash turned and seriously looked at Pinkie Pie.

Pinkie was sitting on her haunches, at the table beside Rainbow Dash, and she laid a hoof across her own chest, saying, “I can make ponies laugh now. Not just haha funny laugh, but a real genuine warm tummies laugh. That’s so huge I can’t even... I’m really... grateful that I can be part of this, and friends with you girls. It’s sort of a perk, but a life changing perk.”

She moved hoof to reach forward, pressing against Rainbow Dash’s chest, and said, “And you. You’re some kinda master thief because of growing up escaping the Institute. You can fool ponies into believing crazy things. You are like the queen of pranks. You know all about bending the truth, and keeping secrets, and you... aren’t really all that good at being honest.”

“That’s a little unfair,” Rainbow Dash protested, “I was under a lot of stress back at the Institute. How do you know if it’s in my nature, or something I learned?”

“I dunno,” Pinkie replied. “But either way, that’s how you turned out. I think with all the secrets you have, some really big secrets that you’re good at keeping, you might have a problem with getting the... straight story sometimes. The thing is, the Element of Honesty didn’t choose you because you were good at honesty. It picked you, because you need it.”

“So I’m like... the least honest pony in Equestria?” Rainbow Dash said angrily, her wings half spreading.

“No no, you’re the one who needs honesty the most, I mean,” Pinkie assured her, ears drooping as she hadn’t wanted to upset her best friend, “I was thinking about it a lot since I saw that show about us. It really made me think about myself, and about you and the others. Sure season F is totally crazy, but it still says a lot about who we are as ponies.”

She touched a hoof to Rainbow Dash’s front, saying, “For you, Honesty is like a precious gem. For ponies who don’t struggle with it, to them honesty’s like a... a sedimentary rock, just the same as every other rock they pass by. I think that you’re the best bearer of Honesty, because it doesn’t come easy for you, so you take better care of it.”

“So all that lying I did was like... rocks?” Rainbow Dash offered cautiously.

“Exactly!” Pinkie said in delight, “We told each other that we were gonna lie our tails off and that we were gonna obey everything Starlight says, but only when she’s watching us. That cleared out all the gravel and sediment, so that you could dig up that emerald of honesty, and force Starlight to be honest about her own feelings, and what she was doing to everypony. That’s what you’re best at, and you really saved the day, so don’t ever feel guilty about it, please. You knew exactly when to tell the truth, and if Honesty was a pony, she’d be so proud of you.”

Rainbow smiled a touch wistfully at her friend. “You sure have been talking about rocks a lot lately,” she teased lightly.

“Yeah...” Pinkie blushed, turning her nose aside, “I’ve just been feeling kinda like getting back to my roots. Remember my second family are rock farmers, too.”

“Hey, you can talk about rocks any day, Pinkie,” Rainbow Dash said, knocking her friend in the shoulder, “You have to get way worse than that before you start weirding me out like Maud does.” Blushing, Dash hastily added, “Uh, I mean...”

“The lies are like rocks,” Pinkie droned in a dead monotone, “You clear away the gravel and sediment to find the gems, which are rocks, and that is like telling the truth, which is also rocks.”

The moment those two shared was one of great amusement... and laughter.

Ponyville’s storm situation calmed down with Rainbow Dash back at the helm. It was heading that way anyway though, with the end of winter rolling around. Rarity was once again designing and selling dresses, and her sister was almost at the point of speaking with her again. Fluttershy had calmed and gathered her animal friends, who didn’t blame her in the slightest for what she’d been through, and were just overjoyed that she had returned to take care of them, and just to spend time with them. Even the smallest mouse enjoyed an evening with the lovely Fluttershy, and Rarity could understand why. Fluttershy was just there for you, a quiet supporter, a good listener.

What was worrying Rarity though, was not what Fluttershy listened to, but what she needed to say. It was a pleasant, slightly cloudy day when the soft white unicorn known as Rarity went over to visit her friend Fluttershy at her cottage. Just a casual meeting between friends, to chat about their ordinary affairs over tea and cakes.

“Oh darling, you should have seen it,” Rarity had been regaling the shy yellow pegasus, “The lace was stitched perfectly, with not a single seam showing. The mare loved it, and promised to tell all her friends about my establishment, or my brand as it were.”

Fluttershy stared through her luscious pink tresses into her tea, replying, “I hate being the weak one.”

“I’m sorry...?” Rarity asked, worried. Surely she couldn’t think—

“I t-tricked you into joining,” Fluttershy said in a bitter anxiety. “I let them take my story mark away, just because they asked nicely. I should have stood up to them, or... or warned you, or something. I just wish I’d been more assertive. I’m always the weak one, leading the rest of you into danger, just to save me.”

“Fluttershy, darling, I am the weak one in our little group,” Rarity repiled confidently, much to Fluttershy’s sudden look of surprise and disbelief. “And I am fine with that. You have so much strength in you, it frightens me!” Rarity said, taking a delicate sip of warm tea. “I do think it frightens you, too.”

“M-me?” Fluttershy said, caught off guard.

“Yes, I’m afraid it’s rather obvious at times,” Rarity said remorsefully. “I think much of your anxiety doesn’t come from others, but from your fear about how you are going to deal with them. Weak? You might be the strongest pony I know!”

Fluttershy thought about that for a silent moment, before the resentful murmur left her soft lips, “I hate being the strong one.”

Rarity worried about that filly.

“Am I a bad pony, Applejack?” Twilight Sparkle asked, once the farmer had followed the princess into the tree library she called home.

“Well ain’t that a question to ask,” Applejack responded, not shying back even one inch, “On account of what you did to that Starlight mare? She had some awful spiteful words for you.”

“Her, Rosy, the Crystal Empire, and everything,” Twilight said in a shaken tone. “I don’t know if the decisions I’m making are the right ones. Sometimes I feel like a little filly deciding the fate of Equestria. I have... I have these! ” Twilight stuck out her wings to either side of her, spreading them like a gliding hawk. “What does it even mean? What am I? We already have a night and day, so am I just... a spare? Everything just feels so out of control. I’m not a princess. I’m just a... bookworm.”

She folded her wings and looked to her beloved shelves carved into the wooden walls.

“Have you talked with anypony about this before?” Applejack asked, worried that she already knew the answer.

“Yes,” Twilight said, to Applejack’s surprise, “I sang with the princesses about it. They said... my time was coming soon.”

“Not exactly an answer,” Applejack said frankly, “I’m sure there was more to it than just that, but...”

“But there were no answers,” Twilight agreed with a sigh. “I thought they may have been talking about Tirek, but when the pegasi destroyed him, I wasn’t... they didn’t even need us at all.” She looked away, saying, “I just don’t know what I’m doing with all this... power. I’m just a bookworm.”

“You’re a good friend,” Applejack said tactically, “And you’re a hard working, brilliant mare, who earned every feather she’s got. You are so much more than a bookworm, if you’d only have a lil’ faith in yourself—”

“Applejack, I want to be just a bookworm,” Twilight said, looking at her miserably, “I miss living amongst the shelves in Canterlot, being some no-name unicorn who doesn’t have to worry about anything more than what courses she’s going to take. I’m the Princess of Friendship, and I miss being alone! How could I miss being alone? I miss...” Her chin dropped as she stared at the ground, “...being alone.”

Applejack sighed and lay her head along over Twilight’s neck, saying, “You’re right, sugarcube. Ah don’t know what to tell you, because there are a lot of bookworms out there, but nopony stepping up to the plate of the role you’re in. Ah know you didn’t choose to be a princess and all, but you’re doing it, and you’re doin’ stuff that nopony else would do. I don’t think it matters whether you want it or not. It’s your duty! You’re too special to waste on some lonely studying, even if you enjoy it. You got more important things to do.”

“I do have some important things to do,” Twilight admitted, “And more importantly, I have good friends now, who care for me. I used to wonder what friendship could be, but—”

“Y’all shared its magic with me?” Applejack asked teasingly.

“No,” Twilight said with a disapproving frown, “Now that I know how amazing friendship is, I want to be a part of all your lives. Studying used to be the only joy in my life, and it never stopped being a joy, but now I have other things to be joyful about. It’s just...”

Twilight Sparkle’s ears wilted, and she turned her head aside, saying, “It’s just hard to change, sometimes. When I’m not used to something, I just... it’s hard to accept. But I am coming to terms with it. I may question myself now and again, but ultimately I wouldn’t trade our friendship for all the stars in the sky.”

“But you still aren’t sure’a yourself,” Applejack prompted.

“But I’m still not sure of myself,” Twilight admitted.

“Maybe what you need to do is let some of the stress off,” Applejack suggested, putting a forehoof over Twilight’s back. “Take some time to yourself, to do the things you wanna do. Take care o’ some of your own problems. If y’have less to worry about, you’ll be less worried, right?”

“I suppose you’re right, Applejack,” Twilight sighed.

Applejack smiled and gave her friend a pat in consolation.

Twilight lifted her head then, and said confidently, “And the first stressor I’m going to get rid of is Rosy Pink!”

“Beg pardon?” Applejack asked, blinking dully.

“That’s what’s been bothering me, this whole time, is leaving the matter of the alien Traveller unresolved,” Twilight explained, stepping forward. “Once I’ve dealt with Rosy, then my stress levels should be back to normal!”

“Sugarcube, that ain’t exactly what I—” Applejack started, but Twilight continued on.

“I was just on the cusp of discovering the reason why she wouldn’t return home, and adding Starlight on top of that was just too much stress for me. Yes that explains everything. Just more of this strange Traveller, corrupting everything she touches, and leaving chaos in her wake!” Twilight snorted vehemently.

“Twilight, you just got done with the Starlight business!” Applejack whined. “Don’t you think it’s about time you took a break?”

“Oh yes, and the matter with Starlight is far from resolved,” Twilight said, levitating several scrolls to prepare for her trip. “I’d better take advantage of what chance I have, before Starlight comes back with a new scheme, or worse, teams up with Rosy!”

Applejack backed up a step from the storm of scrolls, stammering, “T-that’d be bad alright, but ah don’t think she’ll be showin’ her head for some—”

“Time is of the essence, Applejack!” Twilight Sparkle proclaimed boldly, prepping her saddlebags and gathering what documents or references that might be useful at the rift site. Rearing up, she charged out of the library, saying, “It’s time to end this once and for all!”

Some time later, Twilight Sparkle buried her head in her hooves and cried bitter tears, moaning, “What have I done?” But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

Author's Note

Spoilers: It’s not time to end this once and for all.

All Her Fault

One late spring day, actually moments after Twilight Sparkle charged out of library to do away with the Rosy Pink issue, Applejack stood in an empty library. She looked after her fleeing friend, who had just left seconds ago, for the Rift site no doubt.

“Ah got a bad feelin’ about this,” the orange pony said, with something less than approval, turning down the brim of her hat and heading out of the library, but in a different direction from the purple princess’s destination. AJ was worried about Twilight and all, but first she had to complete her sworn duty.

Trotting past her apple stand, where Bubblegum was ponying the helm, Applejack continued on down the road, trotting her fuzzy orange butt right up to town hall. The cylindrical building was full of ponies and papers, and ponies pushing papers. Records of everypony’s business, as much as everypony needed to record them. Spotting the mayor, Applejack headed up to her saying, “Excuse me mayor, moment of your time?”

“Certainly, Applejack!” the mayor said gladly, the grey haired mare looking up from the scrolls she was reading through. “What can I do for you?”

“Well now, ah want you to know this is probably just a pre-cautionry measure,” Applejack said, “But ah said I’d say it, and I’m gonna say it.” She lowered her voice then, and said, “Ah wanna report a Purple Alert.”

The mayor’s smile faded, and Applejack lifted a hoof saying, “N-now ah ain’t sure of nothin’ going wrong just yet, but the princess’s been under a lot of stress lately, and ah just think she might be doin’ it again.”

“Thank you for bringing this to my attention,” the mayor said seriously. “I’ll notify the proper parties to move to Purple Alert on an advisory basis. Rest assured the last thing I want to do is panic the populace. That’s what these alerts are for, to help us assess the situation, and prepare for action.”

“Thank you kindly, Ms. Mare,” Applejack said with a grateful smile. “Me and the gang should be able to keep her in the clear. Just thought I’d warn you. This whole Starlight thing spooked her pretty bad.”

“I haven’t heard the details,” the mayor said curiously.

“Not really mah tale to tell,” Applejack said with a blush at her own lack of tact. “Suffice to say, Twilight saw a lot of herself in that mare. There but for the grace of Harmony go ah, an’ the like.”

“Well, I won’t press you for those details,” the mayor replied sounding dissatisfied. But she urged Applejack, “But do go take care of your friend. I’ll handle Ponyville.”

Applejack didn’t waste any time. She went and got the two ponies who could give Twilight Sparkle, if not what she wanted, what she needed. Rainbow Dash, Applejack found out practicing above a beautifully green, grassy field. Applejack looked up at the pegasus packing and busting clouds, and shouted out, “Rainbow Dash! Take ten y’hear?”

Rainbow Dash descended to the earth, hovering before her apple loving friend, saying, “Hey there Applejack. What’s up?”

“Twilight’s doin’ it again,” Applejack replied shortly, “Need you and Pinkie to go talk sense into her.”

“Is it that time of year already?” Rainbow replied derisively.

“Eyup,” Applejack said. “You’ll probably find her at that riftamagig out in the woods.”

“Huh, wonder what she’s doing with that lately,” Rainbow said curiously.

“Ah don’t exactly know,” Applejack said gravely, “But if’n we don’t want her to do something she regrets regarding a certain Rosy Pink, best to nip this in the bud. Find Pinkie, head to the Rift, talk some sense into Twilight.”

“Got it,” Rainbow Dash said, shooting off into the sky, and that was all Applejack could really do about that.

Applejack helped pony her apple cart for a mite afterwards, but kept an eye out for any sign of the purple princess, for good or ill. Thankfully it wasn’t long before Twilight Sparkle came trotting along down through town, together with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. They were talking amongst themselves and—to everypony’s relief—laughing. Applejack gave a sigh of relief at that, at least. She left the cart to Bubblegum again, apologizing for the trouble. Bubblegum just shrugged. She was on the clock, so she was there. Then, Applejack went trotting on towards the library.

“And then Miracle Max said ‘Go through his clothes, and look for loose change!’” Applejack could hear Twilight saying to Pinkie Pie’s delighted laughter, as the farm pony entered this giant room full of books. Hearing Applejack’s hooves thunk on the wood, the lilac winged unicorn turned to face Applejack, with a smile. Rainbow Dash was perched atop a bookcase looking amused, and Pinkie Pie loafing around looking just amused in general.

“Oh, hello, Applejack!” Twilight said pleasantly. “Sorry about earlier. I guess I was getting a little carried away with the whole ‘human’ thing.”

“Yeah, we can leave Rosy be for now. I’m sure she can wait a little longer to go home,” Pinkie Pie added hopefully. “No reason to stress out so soon after what happened to us out there!”

“I’m sure Rosy has a really good reason for staying in Equestria,” Rainbow Dash added. “We’ll all be laughing about it when you find out what her problem is, but she’s safe now, so it’s no biggie.”

“Yeah, no... biggie,” Twilight said with a shaky laugh. “Don’t know what I was so worried about before.”

“That’s good to hear,” Applejack said, laying a forehoof on Twilight’s shoulder, “We all went through a lot, you an’ Rainbow especially. I think you can give it a week’s rest before tryin’ to tackle another problem?”

“No problem, Applejack. I am absolutely fine with taking a week’s rest,” Twilight said wearily, “Matter of fact all this joking around has me a bit worn out. I don’t suppose you could...”

“Don’t worry Twilight, we’re on top of it!” Pinkie said, hopping over to Applejack. “Me and Dashie will go with AJ and you can get some sleep, and maybe catch up with Spike?”

“Oh, right, Spike will want to hear all about this,” Twilight said wide eyed. “Yes I should go talk to him. Sorry for worrying everypony.”

“Ain’t no thang, Twi,” Applejack said, turning to head out. “Thanks for listenin’ to your friends, and taking us seriously.”

“Thank you for being such good friends,” Twilight said gratefully, with just a tinge of unease, “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Tell Spike you’re okay, duh!” Pinkie said, grinning, “Then go get some sleep!”

Twilight laughed at that and said, “Okay, I admit that’s literally what I’m going to do without you. I’ll just get to it then. See you later, you three!”

“Bye, Twi!” the three of them chorused, heading out.

Applejack settled down to sleep in her own bed that night, surrounded by the sounds of her old house, and her family settling down. She felt pretty good about herself, and hopeful that Twilight could maybe just... get over this whole Rosy thing. And maybe even one day, Rosy’d feel safe enough to befriend Applejack again. Applejack just hoped Rosy’d be okay on her own until then.

As the evening dimmed, the lights turned out in the library, and in the dusky twilight, a princess poked her head out the front door. Scanning the skies, and the area around her devoid of ponies except the occasional carouser, a cloaked Twilight Sparkle stepped furtively out the library. The lights in Sugarcube Corner were off, and it was going to be a clear, uneventful night. She hurried through town, not even lighting up her horn until she was over by the wheat fields on the west side of town. Trotting past them, Twilight vanished into the forest, heading without fanfare back down the deer trail into White Tail Wood.

Several days later, Fluttershy was feeling especially nervous, not just because of her status as a single mare, as one does, but because not only did Twilight call them all to assemble at her library, the princess wouldn’t explain what they were being called together for. Not until they’d all gotten together, with Rarity standing next to Applejack, who was next to Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie and then Fluttershy, did Twilight tell them what was going on.

“Now, I’ve brought you here today about a very important subject,” Twilight said as she stood before them with an easel pad mounted beside her, betraying a nervousness in her ears. “The issue of Rosy Pink.”

“Nuts, Twilight!” Applejack immediately swore, with a betrayed look in her green eyes, “Ah thought you were gonna give that a rest for a while!”

“I was, and I...” Twilight glanced at an also glaring Rainbow Dash, “...apologize for the deception. But I really did stop ‘doing it again’ as you like to put it. I had a very good reason to continue this time, and I think when you’ve heard what I found, you’ll agree with me on what we need to do about the Traveller.”

“Well? What did you find?” Rarity asked testily. “And I do hope it involves ending this silly infatuation with the human world.”

“Completely and totally,” Twilight assured her. “What I found is solid proof that Rosy has no right to be here, and cannot be expected to be of sound mind and body to make her own decisions in that regard.”

Fluttershy trembled in fear at the implications that were rushing through her head. Surely Twilight couldn’t be talking about... that. There’s no way Rosy would have ever told her!

“With Rarity’s help, I founded a perfunctory corporation known as Benecoin™” Twilight continued, flipping the pad open to show a drawing of a factory with the sign for bennies over it, and a number of stick figures around it. “The purpose of this was to gain access to employee profiling and background checks,” she explained. “I had the Traveler’s real name, which was found by the researchers studying the rift, and Rosy of course has been making herself busy in Equestria, so there was no problem in faking her employment application.”

Twilight flipped a page, and there was a lot of information there, including the photograph of one of the human creatures, a dull looking heavily clothed ape with squared shoulders and short, brown hair. “Or should I say,” she continued dramatically, “His employment application!”

“Uh, but Rosy’s a girl, ” Pinkie Pie said critically.

“Bruce is 100% male,” Twilight insisted. “Rosy’s legal name in the human world is Bruce Connell. When I asked for his background information, I was shocked to see a mocking reply, because in the human world, Bruce is a name only given to their males! Bruce Connell, born in a land called Indiana in a kingdom known as the U.S.A., he had a perfectly normal upbringing. He has two loving parents, who consistently oversaw and participated in his education. After doing relatively well in a school known as a community college, he became a certified accountant.”

She turned a page, showing a drawing of a sad looking Bruce, pulling his pockets inside out. Fluttershy didn’t know humans sewed pockets into the sides of their shirts. She listened with worry, then alarm, as Twilight said, “Then Bruce allowed the certification to expire, and began ignoring his family, for no reason other than being unsatisfied with his lack of a mate at the current time. Rather than getting one, or finding healthy ways to deal with his issues, Bruce came under a very dangerous delusion.”

Twilight paused before turning the next page, and looked at them saying, “Now, what I’m about to tell you may shock you. Bruce is a very disturbed human, and he cannot be allowed to continue his unhealthy habits.” She turned the page, and it was...

...

Fluttershy found herself looking at a grainy enlargement of Rarity and Rainbow Dash, holding each other close and k-k-kissing...

“This is an example of the sheer debauchery among this group of human beings,” Twilight explained, “They have no qualms about unnatural affections, pairing us together whether or not we are a stallion or a mare, and trust me sometimes one of us is not a mare! Without permission, they put their lewd drawings of all of us out in public, for stallions, and even young foals to see!”

Fluttershy dared a look at Rainbow Dash, and there was a blush in her cheeks, as she looked skeptically at the p-p-picture that Fluttershy really wished she could... she didn’t dare even think about it. Then Rainbow Dash looked at Fluttershy, and... and smirked at her! Rainbow Dash then rolled her eyes, the smirk slipping into a sympathetic smile, because to her this was all a big joke, not anything s-serious. Fluttershy looked away.

“Bruce began watching the show that some of us are familiar with,” Twilight related hotly, “And the reason the show is so inoffensive and simplified is because in the human world, it is intended only for very young girls!” She turned another page, and it showed some... well... adorable looking human children, with long curly hair, who must have been girls from the dresses they wore. “He became obsessed with young girls, envying them jealously, and watching their show in secret, until he and his ilk twisted it to terrible ends.”

She turned another page, and it showed... oh my... Pinkie Pie was... was threatening Rainbow Dash with a carrot cleaver?! And what was that patchwork outfit she wore?

Rarity fainted at the sight of it.

“I wish I could tell you the horrors I’ve seen in my research...” Twilight said in a haunted tone, “This is only the barest edge to their murderous debauchery. I didn’t want to expose you to these things, but now I feel it’s important for you to know. I found the portable computer Bruce once owned, since repurposed by a family member. In it there was a file folder with no less than hundreds of images: of us and other ponies. Dozens of them were racy, even obscene, and he even had a few of the less... disturbing murderous ones. He wasn’t the worst of these demented individuals, but he was one who found a way into our world. The humans recorded very little about the process by which he did that, but I believe he has been using his transformation into a mare, to take advantage of us!”

She turned a page, which showed um... a drawing Twilight herself had made of Rosy walking behind the onetwo of them, staring at their rears while everypony was lifting their... tails. Twilight continued to explain, “Bruce was taking advantage of his marehood to become close to other mares. Mares would never suspect his intentions were that of a stallion that way. He could catch them off guard when they were most vulnerable. His whole reason for coming here and deceiving us with a female form was to take advantage of us.”

“That cain’t be true!” Applejack exclaimed miserably, “He was such a nice pony... m-mare. You seriously think she was a—a stallion before?”

“Oh, it is true,” Twilight replied seethingly, while Rarity climbed unsteadily to her hooves, “No females in the alien world have the name Bruce, and the male Bruce Connell I found was the very one who owned the apartment that his portal was created in. He’s just a creep, taking the guise of a mare and lying to everypony about it so he can take advantage of us when our guard was down. He has no family issues, no abusive employers, or evil influences. The only reason he has to stay here is so he can continue living out his twisted fantasies.”

“He never... but he... he really had that picture... of me and... Dashie? ” Pinkie Pie said, looking utterly crushed from what she’d seen.

“Hey, hey don’t take any of that stuff seriously,” Rainbow Dash said, rounding on Pinkie. “Those humans are just a bunch of jerks, who are trying to mess with you. I know you would never, ever, ever do anything like that.”

“But... but Rosy...” Pinkie murmured.

“Rosy is a danger to herself and others, as long as she is allowed to remain a pony,” Twilight Sparkle reiterated. “Her presence here puts all of Equestria at risk, by exposing our realm to the Rift, and all the Void dangers that come with it. She has no reason to be here, just a nefarious desire to corner ponies and do terrible things to them. She concealed it well. She had us all fooled. But the fact remains that Rosy is not supposed to be a mare. ”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Rarity said, with a disgusted sneer, having since recovered from fainting quite admirably. “Why should we let this... monster enjoy one more second of his ill gotten marehood?”

“A–ah just... ah didn’t think Rosy was all that bad...” Applejack said, shaking her head and staring at the picture of the evil Rosy sneaking around and looking under everypony’s tail. “S-she weren’t trying to get close to me, more like push me away...”

“That’s because you were at risk of learning the truth,” Twilight contested, “Rosy—Bruce wants helpless victims, who don’t know what they’re up against. Like any coward, a bully will always act nicely to ponies in positions of authority. It’s ponies like Blueberry and... and whoever Bruce is friends with who are in danger, if he hasn’t already tried something with them!”

“How do you know Rosy isn’t just a girl who Bruce tricked?” Pinkie Pie asked desperately. “He threw her through the portal instead, so she could... do... something!”

“Surely you noticed Rosy was a little different from all the other mares?” Twilight replied in a calculated tone, “She didn’t know how to deal with feminine emotions at first, always saying how different it was? Afraid to tell us the truth, that we might figure out her scheme?”

“I just can’t believe that Rosy was a...” Pinkie Pie gulped, “A stallion? How do you know she isn’t just some girl he tricked, and the reason she’s weird is because... because she’s Rosy!”

In the unsettled murmur of the ponies present, Fluttershy finally spoke up. “Twilight is right,” she said sorrowfully. Everypony turned to look at her. Shrinking back, Fluttershy said, “I-it was when Rosy... Bruce was still volunteering at the shelter. He let it... slip once.”

Back before all this happened, Fluttershy was starting to like this mare known as Rosy Pink. Other ponies, even the ones helping at the shelter, were gruff to Fluttershy, or rude, or just ignoring her because she didn’t speak much. But Rosy was... different. Rosy didn’t push herself on Fluttershy, but she didn’t ignore her either. When Rosy seemed to be ignoring her, and they were both working to fold towels that had come out of the laundry, Rosy said out of the blue,

“It’s really amazing what you’re doing here.”

Fluttershy was afraid to ask what was so special about folding towels, but Rosy added, “You don’t even have to be here, but you come here every week, helping ponies even when they’re scary. It’s a real inspiration to me.” Then Rosy just went back to folding the towels, barely able to fold them right with how clumsy and uncertain her grip was, but she was determined to get it right. She didn’t say anything more, but Fluttershy had a warm feeling in her heart for hours after that.

Rosy was having trouble with the plates after that, and a curse escaped her as the one she had been scrubbing fell into the dishwater... again. “You can curl your hoof under them,” Fluttershy suggested. Rosy looked at her worriedly, but Fluttershy said, “Like this,” and demonstrated. Soon, Rosy Pink had the plate gripped in her hoof and laid against her forelock, while the brush strapped to the other hoof scraped off the soap.

“Oh, thank you Fluttershy!” Rosy said looking at the soapy plate in surprise, before putting it into the rinse bucket.

“Don’t mention it,” Fluttershy mumbled with a blush, and Rosy turned to look at her, clearly not having heard her.

Then the pink haired pony just smiled gladly, and said, “No really, thank you,” and went back to the dishes. She didn’t ask Fluttershy to repeat herself, or get upset at Fluttershy not speaking loudly enough. Either Rosy’s sense of hearing was very keen, or she was a genuinely nice pony.

Some time later, the homeless volunteers were getting their soup, and Rosy unfortunately couldn’t balance the tray on her rump, so she carried it in her mouth, over to where Fluttershy was sitting. Another pony, Fluttershy would have shied away from, but Rosy, Fluttershy merely looked at her in confusion.

Putting the tray down on the stone fence Fluttershy was resting on, Rosy said, “Hey Fluttershy, mind if I sit here?”

Fluttershy didn’t have to answer, just smile, before Rosy settled her smooth, firm looking rump right next to Fluttershy’s. Rosy went about eating her soup, first biting on the bread loaf and soaking it in the broth, then lifting the bowl and slightly tilting her head back so the warm soup slid into her mouth. One thing she was getting pretty good at is eating soup.

Rosy just sat there quietly eating for a while, until Fluttershy started getting curious. “So what, um...” Fluttershy said, not sure what she should say, or what she even wanted to know.

“What are my plans for the future?” Rosy suggested. Fluttershy nodded. That was a good a question as anything she could have thought up. “I want to get a house for myself,” Rosy said thoughtfully, “Real estate in your world is just amazing. If I can help the right ponies... that’s my plan, I guess. Can’t stay at this shelter forever, after all. What about you?”

“Me?” Fluttershy asked in surprise.

“Yes, do you have any plans for the future?” Rosy said.

Fluttershy wasn’t sure she had an answer to that question!

“Well, um...” she fumbled with her words, “The summer months are coming, and my animal friends will need to begin gathering their food stores for the winter. As for me... try to be more assertive I suppose, and visit my parents more often, perhaps. Thank you for asking.”

Fluttershy knew Rosy was valuable then, and she steeled her resolve to form a friendship with the pink-haired mare.

Rosy said glumly to Fluttershy one day, with lowered ears around her captivatingly adorable blue eyes, “There’s so much to do here in Ponyville, I don’t know how much time I can spend at the shelter, after I’m out of here.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” Fluttershy replied. “Ponies here are in trouble, and don’t have much to offer others. Many aren’t the kind you would make friends with. I don’t think anypony could blame you for spending time with your friends, even if you yourself didn’t have any extra time for ponies here. The friends you help may have that extra time, or they may surprise you by helping you so much, that you have plenty of time here for ponies in need.”

“That’s really insightful, Fluttershy,” Rosy said in honest admiration. “You aren’t exactly what I expected. I didn’t think you’d be so... thoughtful.”

“I have a lot of time to myself, to think,” Fluttershy said, in a noncommital murmur, blushing heavily at this mare’s heartfelt praise. “Would you...” No Fluttershy! Keep talking, steel your resolve! “Like to come over for... tea sometime?” she asked, a blush tinting her cheeks.

“That would be wonderful!” Rosy said gladly. “I know what I said, but I’m really not all that busy just yet. When do you usually have tea time?”

“Early evening,” Fluttershy said in blessed relief, “It’s a wonderful time to relax, and chat over a hot drink. I have a lovely chamomile blend...” a tea that she had yet to have an opportunity to share with anypony besides Rarity, but Fluttershy didn’t want Rosy to think she was lonely.

“Chamomile is actually one of my favorite teas,” Rosy replied, “Along with ginger, mint, and lemongrass. I actually haven’t had tea since I became a...” she blushed and hesitated before looking at herself and saying, “...pony, so my tastes may have changed.”

Tea led to... more tea, which led to evenings of talking about their lives. Fluttershy’s seemed relatively exciting compared to Rosy’s own, but Rosy had her own set of odd tales. “My family never understood me,” she confessed quietly, “They loved me, and tried to be supportive, but they were supporting me in something I just didn’t want to have.”

“What was it?” Fluttershy asked.

Rosy blushed, and said demurely, “I’d r-rather not say. Suffice to say, it’s hard when people give you gifts that you can’t accept without pain.”

“Oh, I know what you mean,” Fluttershy said sadly, “When my parents got me accepted into a prestigious flight camp, I... I just couldn’t disappoint them. They were just trying to help me. Is that something like what you went through?”

“Something like that, yeah,” Rosy mumbled into her tea.

When they kissed, it was... frightening and spontaneous. “I’m sorry,” Rosy blushed, having pulled away from Fluttershy, turning aside and almost hiding under her raised hoof. “That wasn’t... I didn’t mean to g-go that far.”

Fluttershy tried to tell Rosy that she had been the one longing for that kiss, that Rosy hadn’t herself initiated, but Fluttershy just didn’t have the nerve to tell her. She figured Rosy understood that already, because Rosy was there, wasn’t she? She had to have noticed a devilishly yearning Fluttershy leaning towards Rosy’s soft lips. Rosy was just being... nice about it.

“It’s okay,” Fluttershy said, putting a hoof on Rosy’s poll. “I... kind of liked it.”

“...really?” Rosy asked nervously, blushing up a storm. “I don’t... I mean... I liked it too.”

Fluttershy leaned forward, and they kissed again, more confidently this time. Rosy settled back after their soft lips had met, stuttering, “Y-you should know that was my first k-kiss. T-technically my second, but y-you just had the first one too.”

“You know, you remind me a lot of Twilight,” Fluttershy said with a smile, settling back to herself for now. “So technical, it’s... kind of adorable.”

“W-well I was an accountant and...” the mare trailed off, then squeaked in amazement, “Really? You like Twilight? ”

Fluttershy immediately blushed. “T-that came out wrong,” she mumbled, “Twilight would never... I’m not that close to her. We’re... friends.” What surprised Fluttershy was the undertone of resentment that invaded her voice upon saying that.

“So... you want me to be more than friends?” Rosy asked with a wary look that Fluttershy knew well from adopting herself, from time to time.

“I’m not sure,” Fluttershy said, despite her heart saying differently, “I do get v-very lonely sometimes, having no special somepony, and I think you’re... very nice. But I still haven’t heard much about your old life, and I really don’t know much about you.”

“I just want my old life to go away,” Rosy said with a snort of frustration. “It’s just bad memories for me. Can’t I just start over? I’m a mare now I’m not even... can’t I just start over?”

“I know you want to... escape your past,” Fluttershy said, “But the solution isn’t to hide from it. You’ll have to face up to it someday, if you really want to heal.”

“I can face up to it, I’m just...” Rosy looked at Fluttershy with worry, “I’m just worried you will think differently about me if you know.”

“Well, I’m not comfortable with getting in a relationship with somepony who has a secret that could change the way I think of them,” Fluttershy replied somewhat resentfully.

They sat at a stalemate there for a while, before Rosy said, “Sorry, I just... can’t,” staring down into her tea.

“We can still be... friends, just...” Fluttershy said, feeling like she wasn’t the pony who should be saying this, “I’m just not ready for that kind of emotional committment.”

“I understand,” Rosy said evenly, making Fluttershy’s ears tip up as the pink haired mare gave a shaky laugh. “We don’t have to be that close, just to have tea.” She looked at Fluttershy with warm, blue eyes, saying, “I really do enjoy talking with you. It’s fine if anything... racy is off the table. Honestly I’m relieved we got that out of the way. I’m the last pony who should be doing those things.”

“Will you still come visit on Thursday?” Fluttershy asked with a small smile.

“You can count on it,” Rosy replied confidently.

Rosy was very secretive, it’s true. She knew things that, self admitted, could make Fluttershy think less of her. That combined with the seductively soft beauty of her creamy furred curves made her a bad influence, with consequences for befriending her that Fluttershy might never know until it was too late. So it was a good idea to keep their relationship platonic, saving both of them a lot of heartache overall. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before they were kissing again.

Fluttershy just found Rosy’s situation so fascinating. Every pony Fluttershy had interacted with had always been a pony, but this pony had once been a creature. Fluttershy always identified with all the creatures in the world, more than other ponies did. And now there was a creature who identified with her, an alien mistress, but also a familiar pony. It was impossible not to think of her that way. Especially as springtime wore on...

Fluttershy broke free from the kiss, gasping in the quiet of her cottage. “We should stop,” Fluttershy said breathlessly, refusing to look Rosy in the eyes. When Fluttershy’s lips locked with Rosy’s again, Fluttershy felt a dizzy thrill as she pressed against the other mare, like she was falling forever into Rosy. Now free from the other pony, Fluttershy’s body ached for attention. She felt hungry and confused, and regretful that she was making Rosy feel all of that desire too.

“F-Fluttershy, I want this,” Rosy whined urgently, in an admonishing terror, a hair’s breadth from outright presenting to the other mare. “I don’t see why we can’t—we’re so close now!”

“That’s just your season talking,” Fluttershy shakily explained to the quivering mare. “You see how it can... um...”

“I-it’s not!” Rosy replied unconfidently. “I feel... I didn’t think it would ache this much.”

“You have never even been through this before,” Fluttershy replied to the flustered mare, her own femininity crying out in sympathy for Rosy. “It must be so different as a human female. N-no estrus...”

“More like constant estrus, but—but I mean...” Rosy closed her eyes and shuddered. “How do you deal with this?”

“It isn’t as bad if unprovoked,” Fluttershy said. “We simply must stop... kissing, and give each other some space. Then you’ll calm down.”

“I don’t want to calm down though,” Rosy said hotly, “I want...” She trailed off, looking in anxious sorrow at Fluttershy. “You really don’t want to do this...” she said in a defeated tone.

“N-not if you keep hurtful secrets,” Fluttershy said, feeling a serious lack of conviction in her words. If she were to kiss Rosy again... Fluttershy wouldn’t want to stop.

Rosy took a step towards Fluttershy, and then took a step back. Then she sat down on her haunches with a huff and scrunched her eyes shut saying, “Fine. I was a... I used to be a ...man. Like, a stallion. I turned into a mare when I entered Equestria. But my whole life, I wanted to be a girl. I don’t know why, it just... I was just like that. And then my little pony happened, and I—I wanted to be like you. Like ponies, like a... girl pony.”

Fluttershy’s pupils continued to shrink, as Rosy said flush faced, “When I turned into a mare I was so happy. I didn’t have to—I didn’t have to be a man anymore! I never wanted to be one. I—I was so happy. I am so happy.” Rosy’s eyes were glimmering with tears when she said, “T-that’s why I’m afraid to go back. I never want to be that again. Fluttershy, I’m a mare I have a—a marehood, and a womb. I feel good about myself now. I feel right. I’d have to give that all up if I went back, f-for a... just for a stupid penis!”

They stared at each other silently for a while, before Rosy wiped at her eyes with a fetlock, saying shakily, “S-sorry for unloading on you. I-it’s not something I talk about a lot. It’s really embarassing... you know, for ponies to think I had a... a dick at one point.”

“You used to be a... stallion?” Fluttershy squeaked.

Rosy nodded, adding sadly, “I’m trying to be the best mare that I can, but—I don’t care if it’s hard. It’s just wonderful feeling like myself, even if...” she whimpered, and forced her tail down.

“I-is that why you’re attracted to me?” Fluttershy asked, feeling faint from how much she was blushing, “Because you’re—because you were a stallion?”

“Yes! No! I don’t know!” Rosy said, stomping in confoundment. “I just... I like you, Fluttershy. You’re kind, and smart and beautiful and—and just fun to be around. I shouldn’t like you because... I’m trying not to be a typical stallion, just going all lesbian as if nothing changed about him. I s-shouldn’t be doing any of this stuff. But I just can’t stop wanting you and... I don’t know if it’s because I was a stallion, or if it’s because of you. I just... do.”

Fluttershy swallowed dryly, and said in a quiet voice, “I think you need to leave.”

“What?!” Rosy squeaked in terrified surprise.

“I’m just...” Fluttershy backed away from... from him, “I just need some time to think about this. I thought... I thought you were a mare!”

“I am a mare!” Rosy protested, stepping forward. Fluttershy’s rump hit the wall, and she turned her head, afraid to look at Rosy, at just how feminine Rosy appeared to be. Was it all just an act? It was just a disguise, to pretend to not be a stallion?

“Please leave,” Fluttershy squeaked, but there was no way Rosy could have heard her.

“Fluttershy, I’m sorry,” Rosy said, a hoof outstretched, but then pulled back, “I’ll just... give you some space. That’s what a... what a mare would do, isn’t it?”

Fluttershy couldn’t answer. She just cowered in the corner like the little filly who couldn’t stand up for herself or stop it from happening to her, until he walked out the door, quietly closed it behind him, and left Fluttershy alone forever, surrounded by her frightened animal friends. They were not frightened by Rosy, but frightened by Fluttershy’s behavior.

It was all her fault.

“Rosy may have become close to me, because of her marehood, just a teensy bit...” Fluttershy said. She couldn’t tell them the exact truth. They would hate her, if she admitted it! If they knew how much she wanted... some ponies....

Fluttershy was the one who had kissed Rosy, but Fluttershy merely said, “She only told me her secret after we... we kissed. I told her I wasn’t comfortable g-going further while she kept secrets from me. T-then she told me, that she used to be a s-stallion. She acted like it didn’t even matter, and... I told her to leave. She didn’t want to leave, but she did. She hasn’t spoken with me since.”

Fluttershy choked back a sob. It was her fault, not Rosy. It wasn’t because Rosy didn’t try, but because Fluttershy couldn’t overcome her fear, couldn’t stop seeing a stallion looking out from those deep blue eyes. Couldn’t stop running away. Rosy asked and asked, and no matter what Fluttershy always had to have her tea alone. Eventually, she just stopped asking. Fluttershy wished she could tell her friends that, but she was already at her wit’s end. Fluttershy just couldn’t... she didn’t want her friends to hate her!

“Twilight,” Applejack said evenly, though with Fluttershy hiding behind her own mane, she couldn’t see her face, “Y’all need to get Rosy to walk through that there portal right away, or ah’m gonna make it so she cain’t.”

“What?” Fluttershy asked in confusion. Couldn’t they see it was she who—

“I’ll throw her through that portal myself!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “Nopony does that to Fluttershy!”

“No, I...” Fluttershy didn’t want to say it! She couldn’t! They were her only friends!

“I knew that mare was trouble,” Rarity seethed. “Thank you so much for doing that tireless research, Twilight. She—no, he will think twice about abusing our good nature.”

Fluttershy whimpered.

“Yes, I think it’s past time to take care of Bruce Connell,” Twilight agreed, “Putting his bad behavior back in the alien world, where it belongs.”

“So what’re we gonna do?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Just grab her?”

“Can I beat her up?” Rainbow Dash asked eagerly.

“We’re going to confront him, and tell him what we all learned,” Twilight said, shaking her head at Rainbow Dash. “If and when he cannot defend himself, I have full authority to send him straight to the dungeon, pending a full investigation that will get him sent home anyway. Even without me involved, we all have authority to save Equestria by avoiding all that, and closing the Rift in a timely manner. It should be a simple matter of escorting Bruce to the Rift, and if he resists, we’ll have the option to take more severe measures into our hooves.”

“Then can I beat her up?” Rainbow Dash asked eagerly.

Twilight shook her head, “No, just restrain her—him, if need be. I still think a peaceful solution can be achieved, but we can’t let this monster lurk among us any longer. I need you all to meet me at Rosy—Bruce’s house this afternoon, when he returns from shopping. I need to arrange things at the Rift site to expediate matters, but otherwise we should have everything back as it should be as early as tomorrow morning!”

So that’s what they did. The end. No wait.

Rosy Pink stopped short on seeing the Bearers all assembled right outside her front door. She backed up a step, and her bag of groceries slid right off her rump, landing forgotten on the earth.

“Well hello there, ‘Rosy Pink,’” Twilight told her in cold politeness. “Why don’t you come inside? I think you’ll be very interested in what we have to say.”

It looked like Rosy was going to run, but Rosy then stomped angrily and said, “Fine! Let’s get this over with!” she turned to bite on her bag handles, picking up most of her dropped groceries, then trotted boldly forward, pushing past the onetwo of them, walking into the conservative little cottage she’d worked out for herself.

She barely got the groceries put down on a table, when she spun and shouted at the Bearers walking in after her, “Why can’t you just leave me alone? I don’t care what you have to say, or anything! I’m not going back, and that’s that!”

“You seem to think you have a choice in the matter, darling,” Rarity said in a disgusted tone.

Rosy’s ears went back, guiltily no doubt, and she raised a hoof, saying, “What? What do you mean?”

“You sure are an ornery critter, if’n you don’t remember what you did to Fluttershy,” Applejack said, glaring at the pink haired mare.

“F...what?” Rosy said, still lost as she looked at Fluttershy fearfully. “I didn’t do anything to her! It had to have been somepony else! What’d they do to her?”

“Don’t try to lie!” Rainbow Dash said, getting in Rosy’s face from up in the air there. “Fluttershy told us everything, already, and that’s not even the half of it!”

“Rosy,” Twilight said diplomatically, pulling Rainbow Dash back a ways. “I’m sorry, but it’s time for you to return home. You’ve overstayed your welcome, and you’re hurting other ponies and yourself by pursuing these unhealthy fixations.”

“Fixations?” Rosy said, perturbed. “Fluttershy and I just—” she glanced at Fluttershy, then blurted out, “We just kissed! That’s it!”

“Well tell me then, Rosy,” Twilight replied, “Are you familiar with the name Bruce Connell?”

Rosy’s irises shrank to pinpricks. That was the only movement she made. It didn’t even look like she was breathing. It looked like she had to force herself to, in order to say, in a haunted tone, “How do you know that? I never told anypony that name, not ever.”

Something broke in Pinkie’s fierceness at that, but Twilight easily replied, “You didn’t think we would go looking around in the human world? We found all about you, Bruce. About your show. About the pictures you had of us.”

“Oh, no no... that was because you weren’t real I didn’t know I don’t have anything now...” Rosy whimpered miserably, in insincere and deceitful apology.

Rarity took a step forward, saying testily, “Imagine our surprise, when we find that the mare who has been walking among us was once... a stallion!”

“Um... yes?” Rosy attempted, looking from face to face with a desperate grin, “That’s not so bad, is it?”

“Not so bad?!” Twilight squawked, “It’s sick! How many mares have you deceived, thinking they could trust you?”

Rosy stared, speechless.

“I can’t believe you said yes!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “Are you for real? You’ve been a stallion all this time? We trusted you!”

“Ah let mah little sister around you!” Applejack spat in horrified rage. “Alone!”

“I wouldn’t let you spend one minute around Sweetie Belle!” Rarity asserted righteously, “To think what you might have done with her!”

“I...” Rosy’s tail sank between her shaking legs. “Fluttershy, tell them what I told you!” she said with a desperate look at the butter yellow pegasus, crocodile tears running down her cheeks, “I really want to be a mare!”

“Um... what they are saying is true,” Fluttershy said regretfully, “You have a problem.”

“I really do want to be a mare!” Rosy demanded to them all, “I’m not just doing it to... to molest ponies!”

Twilight’s hackles went up at that word. That awful, awful word that filled her head with images she could never erase. “It doesn’t matter what you want!” she shouted at Rosy, “You abused our trust, and the trust of everypony, lying just to get your way, to hide your corruption and sickness. Well we’re sick of it! We want you, and your stupid obsession with mares, to go home already!”

“Don’t you realize how horrible you all sound?” Rosy begged, “Whatever happened to love and tolerance?”

“Love and what now?” Applejack asked blankly.

Rosy spluttered, and had backed up so far she was butting against the wall.

“Rosy... Bruce,” Twilight said in a sympathetic tone, “You don’t have to fight this. You have a family who loves you, and misses you. You have a career, and a special talent in accounting. You have a friend who shared a drink with you every Friday after work. Remember Andy? I’m sure he would love to see you again.”

In a darker tone, Twilight added, “The Rift won’t close until you leave. You’re upsetting the balance, the harmony of our land. You have no reason to be here, and your decisions are clouded by your perversion and delusions. I’m afraid you have run out of time to choose. You can either go through the portal now, or go to the dungeon and then go through the portal. Please, try to overcome your mental instability, and see reason. We’re trying to help you, Bruce!”

“Oh fuck this,” Rosy murmured.

“What?” Twilight asked, cocking her ears. “Strike what now?”

“I said you have no right to talk, because you’re basically the worst friend ever,” Rosy told Twilight with a steady glare in her bloodshot, blue eyes.

“What?!” Twilight squawked, fluttering back, “No I’m not!”

“How did you trick them into siding with you this time?” Rosy asked Twilight, stalking towards the princess. “Some lecture that convinced them I’m the devil incarnate? Choosing the facts you want them to hear, and hiding the rest? It’s not like it would be hard to fool any of these idiots, right princess? ”

“Hey!” Rainbow Dash shouted, getting in Rosy’s way, “Don’t talk about us—yeah, her and us like that!”

“Everypony knows you’re not a normal pegasus!” Rosy said angrily to Rainbow Dash, who jerked back in the air, “It’s obvious! But you just keep lying about it and lying about it. Nopony knows what you really are, but they know you think they’re idiots. You think we’ll believe anything!”

She glared at Rarity, saying, “And you want me out of here so bad, you pretend I’m a monster, just so you can take everything away from me, and feel good about it. You want this beautiful land all to yourself, and all you’ll let me have is shit, you greedy—!”

She tore her gaze away from Rarity, instead glaring at—of all ponies—Applejack. “You’re so true to your friends and family, you can’t even admit when they’re full of shit!” she shouted at Applejack. “They’ll do terrible things, and you’ll just blindly help them because oh, they couldn’t possibly be total jerks!”

“You think I’m joking,” she accused Pinkie Pie, “Because you’re so much of a traumatized psychotic mess that you can’t even face your friends missing a single party, because you think they don’t like you. Well they don’t. Nopony likes you! You’re fucking insane!”

“And you!” she shrieked at Fluttershy, who couldn’t look away. “I never did anything to you! I don’t even care that you took my first kiss, but I bet it’s a big deal for you total prudes.” She looked around saying, “Yeah, that’s right. She tried to have sex with me, and—and I was in season! I didn’t know how to deal with that! And the only thing that saved me is she was scared that I was a stallion, when I’m not! You are a total...” she said, glaring at Fluttershy, seeming to struggle for the word, “Witch!”

Then Rosy ran for the kitchen.

Everypony just stood there, or hovered there in shock, until Rosy ran out clumsily with her forearm wrapped around an open can of baking soda. “This is too easy,” she grumbled in disgust, then swung her arm, hurling the entire contents of the can into Twilight Sparkle’s face.

Rosy bounded for the door, while everypony rushed to Twilight’s aid. Twilight cried out in surprise, then pain, flapping her wings and of course that blasted the baking soda away from her, flooding the entire living room with a cloud of biting, stinging dust. Except the dust which got in her eyes, which were weeping, and burning and she had to find a sink, but she couldn’t open her eyes to see anything!

“Go! Stop him!” Twilight shouted, fumbling blindly for the kitchen. The sound of rushing wings, sobbing, and galloping hooves was all around her. She felt somepony wrap their arm around her back, leading Twilight stumbling forward, until at last the sound of a faucet turning on could be heard. Twilight then found her head shoved into the kitchen sink, water pouring onto her face and snout, washing away the stinging dust in her eyes.

Three very painful minutes of rinsing later, Twilight pulled her head out of the sink. Pinkie Pie was here with Twilight, helping wipe off her face. Rarity was trying to help, but didn’t look very confident in her ability to do much of anything at this point, other than whimper and cry. Rainbow Dash had blasted out to go get Rosy again, followed by Applejack, sorta. And Fluttershy was still laying in the living room, covered in a fine coating of baking soda. The only indication she hadn’t fainted were the slight quivers in her chest as she sobbed too quietly to be heard.

Author's Note

Well, at least things can’t get any worse.

Things Get Worse

Author's Note

Me and my big mouth...

Things Get Worse

Rainbow Dash swooped back into Rosy’s house shouting, “I can’t find her anywh—oh. Uh.”

Rainbow Dash found everypony gathered around the fallen Fluttershy. Rarity looked like she was crying, Pinkie Pie looked like she had been crying, and Twilight looked like she’d been crying baking soda, but Fluttershy just looked... desolate.

“You have to understand that what Rosy said were all lies,” Twilight pleaded with Fluttershy, as Rainbow Dash softly hovered, listening in, feeling wrong. “She was just saying whatever she could to throw us off balance so she could get away.”

“Were they lies?” Fluttershy asked, loud enough to bring Rainbow Dash to land and walk forward in worry. “Twilight, I... I kissed her. I did kiss her. What’s wrong with me?”

“You only kissed her because she manipulated you into kissing her,” Twilight replied. “She was just trying to use you to get to us. You may have been completely unaware of it.”

“Twilight, I don’t know...” Fluttershy said, trying to hide her face from the princess, in Rarity’s chest as the white unicorn held Fluttershy to her murmuring nothing more than a heartfelt concerned,

“You poor dear...”

“He just told you the things you wanted to hear, and when you fell for it, he made you want to kiss him,” Twilight continued with earnest conviction, “It wasn’t your fault, and there is nothing wrong with you.”

“Oh, I’m glad you care about me so much,” Fluttershy said sadly, “But I just feel so guilty over it!”

“You shouldn’t feel guilty,” Twilight assured her, “Because it’s not true. None of what she said is in any way the truth! You are a—”

“Just shut up, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash snapped in a haggard tone, as everypony turned to look at her. Her mane limp around her laid back ears, Rainbow couldn’t stand this, any of this. The princess looked up at Rainbow Dash, looking all lost and stuff, so Dash said, “Just shut up already, everypony. Let’s just find Rosy, throw her through the portal, and never speak of this again.”

Twilight Sparkle’s luminous violet eyes looked back at Rainbow Dash, hauntingly worried, worryingly haunted. Then Twilight’s eyes popped wide, staring at the polychromatic pegasus, and the princess squealed in shock, “You lost her again?!”

“She disappeared!” Rainbow Dash shouted, swinging her forehooves wide. “She’s not anywhere on the street! I’ve been looking for her for a bunch of minutes! What’ve you been doing?”

A beat, and Dash’s rage cooling, she added apologetically, “Okay yeah, comforting Fluttershy that’s fine. But I still can’t find Rosy. It’s like she just vanished!”

“She probably is just hiding somewhere out of sight,” Twilight grumbled, “We need to check all the public places in town, like restaurants and hotels, and government buildings.”

“On it,” Dash said, zooming off again.

“What about ponies’ houses?” Pinkie Pie asked, hugging the opposite side of Fluttershy from Rarity.

“If she broke into somepony’s house, we’ll know about it soon enough,” Twilight said with a practical smile, “We need to ask ponies if they’ve seen her. Put out wanted posters, if need be.”

“And if she leaves town?” Rarity asked.

“We’ll get the whole Ponyville P.D. to block off the roads if necessary!” Twilight shouted in frustration, “We are not letting this mare—this stallion get out of his responsibilities!”

“What about her friends?” Pinkie asked, in the singlemost biggest mistake she’d ever made, “They might be hiding her in their houses!”

“You’re... right, Pinkie,” Twilight said in worried realization, her puffy reddened eyes widening, “We have to find every pony that Bruce may have deceived. They could be sheltering him, not knowing what a twisted creature he is!”

Rarity went to go warn the police. That left Twilight, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie to canvas Rosy’s house for clues to her location. Twilight found a very ordinary living room, with a small shelf that had foal level reading material in it... it seemed Bruce’s perversion regarding young human fillies even extended to Equestrian foals! Fluttershy found a rather dirty kitchen, that had unwashed dishes piled up in the sink, washed ones in the dish drainer, all cheap stiff polymer of course. There was a hay cupboard full of hay, a regular cupboard full of dried goods, some odd items like granite dust and bone meal, and a refrigerator that was keeping several fruits and vegetables cool, none of them an apple.

“Twilight, what’s this...?” Pinkie Pie said warily, backing slowly out of Bruce’s bedroom.

“You found something?” Twilight said in elation, and then in dread, “Oh no, be careful Pinkie! There could be no end to the debauchery you might find in his bedroom!”

“It’s not debauchery. It’s a... critter?” Pinkie reported in puzzlement, “But it’s hard to see because it’s really bright, and also hissing at me.”

Twilight poked her head in around Pinkie’s patootie and saw... some sort of creature? It was glowing brightly, like a miniature sun. What she could see of it looked like fur made out of solid light, puffed out each and every way. And it appeared to be standing in the entrance to an elaborate cage with a bunch of extensions on the wall, with tubes connecting them, hissing at them in a steady quiet rasp.

“Um... Fluttershy?” Twilight said over her shoulder, “Could you come take a look at this?”

Bruce’s bedroom was in fact rather spartan. Besides the cage, there was a soft looking bed, several pictures on the wall of various ponies, possibly Bruce’s next targets, and a small dresser, on which was a history book for foals, left open to what looked like a story from the century B, which would be the tail end of the reunification.

Which meant... Bruce was... studying their history for weaknesses?

Fluttershy crept in, and both ponies looked at her with anticipation. Her ears were down, her tail was low, and she remained relatively unresponsive as usual. She took an uneasy look at the room, then the cage, and then Fluttershy’s ears perked right up, her eyes widened, and she exclaimed in surprise,

“Is that a flarret?”

Fluttershy got the poor thing calmed down and would ultimately take her, and her litter, into Fluttershy’s critter care. It was a rare beast apparently, a remnant of the herd of shadows who had been prominent throughout the early part of the current era. Said to be able to banish even the darkest shadows with its pure light, the creature seemed to feed on darkness, and could keep a room very pleasantly lit. The only question Twilight had was what was Rosy Pink doing with a noctavore? It was certainly more expensive and troublesome to care for than glowflies!

Meanwhile, out on the streets of Ponyville, Applejack was trotting through town, seriously wondering about herself, and her friends. She saw Rarity running by with several strapping police officers, no doubt to do something about Rosy’s escape. Applejack couldn’t find Rosy, and in fact she couldn’t even find it in herself to try. There was something... wrong about this. Was it that such a nice mare could be some perverted stallion? Applejack couldn’t have lived with herself, if he’d done anything to Apple Bloom. But he didn’t, so... what was wrong? Was Twilight wrong? She sure seemed wrong, but Twilight’d never claim a mare was a stallion in disguise, without being pretty darn sure of it. Was it Fluttershy? Why had she been so hurt by Rosy’s lies?

“Any luck?” came the hopeful voice of Twilight Sparkle, the purple princess trotting up to Applejack as the farm pony uncertainly stalked the streets.

“Eeehnope,” Applejack replied without enthusiasm, “Rainbow Dash cain’t find her?”

“We think that she—he may have tricked one of the ponies in Ponyville into sheltering him,” Twilight said. “Do you know of any friends, Bruce might have had?”

“Me,” Applejack wanted to say. Instead, she admitted, leerily, “He... worked with a pony named Vanilla Sweets last year. Ah dunno if’n they were friends, but they seemed to get along together.”

“It’s a start, at least,” Twilight grumbled. “Maybe we can find more information from the ponies who supposedly befriended him.”

Vanilla Sweets was a dud, it turns out. She wasn’t even home, probably out on vacation this time of year, possibly even stallon seeking. The leaves were green and so was the fruit, so Vanilla wouldn’t be around Ponyville until cider season. Bubblegum Blossom was home, but she wasn’t out stallion seeking for a very good reason. Twilight didn’t seem too intent on searching her house, especially seeing as Bubblegum stank of—well, suffice to say she was out of breath and flush faced, from whatever she’d been doing in her house, and Applejack doubted it was spring cleaning.

The Bearers were together again in their search. With their regalia on all official-like, they must have cut a pretty intimidating jib. “Bubblegum’s obviously not harboring anypony,” Twilight grumbled, “I think I know who we should have started with though.”

“Who?” Pinkie Pie asked curiously.

“When Rosy erm... vanished the first time,” Twilight postulated, holding up one hoof to say, “I seem to recall one pony was pretty upset about that. I think it’s time we paid a visit to the pony known as Bluebell.”

They arrived at the small cottage in the western outskirts, and the first sign of trouble was that the foal upon seeing them rushed inside the house. That wasn’t unexpected, as they were all together as a herd and they were all pretty fluffing peeved right now, but it was definitely a warning flag.

Knocking on the door, it was answered by a straw-haired, blueberry furred pegasus, whom Twilight had seen once before. “Bluebell?” Twilight asked politely.

“Yes?” Bluebell said, looking at them with nervously narrowed irises of a surprisingly deep hazel green, not moving out of the doorway, “Can I help you?”

“We’re here because of Rosy Pink,” Twilight said with an anxiously polite tone, “You may have noticed she didn’t return home when she should have, and you thought she was going to be your friend. Well she’s in a lot of trouble now, and we’re looking for anypony who Rosy may have tricked into trusting.”

“I haven’t seen her,” Bluebell said with a sideways look at the princess, not inviting her in, or anything. Not that she had to. Twilight wasn’t her friend or anything, and Twilight was grateful for ponies who didn’t give her special princess privileges in that regard. Nothing suspicious so far.

“Well, I’m sorry but I have some bad news,” Twilight said sadly, trying to think of what other friend Rosy might have had, “You have to let us know where Rosy is as soon as you see her. You may think she’s your friend, but she’s been lying to you this whole time, and using her status as a mare to get you to trust her. Rosy’s is actually a male—”

“I’m here!” Rosy shouted desperately.

“Rosy, no!” Bluebell said in horror, looking back as the pink haired, cream colored pony walked out from around the corner, then scowled at the Bearers.

“Come and get me!” Rosy shouted with a challenging glare, turning tail and running back into the other room, as a half dozen ponies fought to get through a single doorway all at the same time. Twilight lit up her horn and winked, blindly knocking over a chair and a table as she reappeared in the other room, where Rosy was already climbing out the window.

“Gotcha!” Twilight said triumphantly, her magic snagging Rosy’s tail. Suddenly she got a faceful of lemon yellow feathers as a foal flew at her face, blocking her vision and attempting to beat up her eyes. Ow! Twilight’s magic swept the blue haired filly off of her face, but Rosy had already escaped without a trace. Twilight glared at the foal, who glared back with unrepentant eyes that matched her hair.

“Got ‘er!” Applejack called from outside the window.

“No!” the filly squeaked, wide eyed and twisting around. She fell harmlessly to the floor as Twilight released her magic on the filly, in order to directly wink outside. There, Twilight found Rosy bound with some sturdy rope, and the orange cowpony standing over her with a forehoof on Rosy’s side.

“I’ll go with you,” Rosy said tensely to Twilight, “Willingly, no tricks, just please don’t tell Bluebell.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Twilight said, levitating Rosy up by her restraints, and trotting off with Rosy floating behind her.

Her other friends joined her, and they would have left Bluebell well enough alone, but her foal that... green and yellow filly, she came running after Twilight and her friends shouting, “Give her back!”

Bluebell swooped in and grabbed her foal, pulling the filly away from them, but the filly then started screaming and crying at the top of her lungs. Twilight turned in exasperation and shouted, “This isn’t what it looks like! Rosy’s been using you!” but the foal was too busy throwing a fit to even listen. “Ugh!” Twilight declared, turning and trotting hastily away from the mother and child. Foals were so hard to deal with, because they just couldn’t listen to reason!

“Okay, seriously,” Rainbow Dash said, fluttering down to Twilight’s level, “Now we’re making foals cry?”

With an unhappy whimper, Twilight said, “I’ll talk to her about it later. She’ll understand. For now, we have to get Bruce through the portal, before he pulls some other trick on us.”

“This doesn’t feel good,” Pinkie Pie complained, her mane drooping in her somber mood.

“Best we be quick about it then,” Rarity said, “And then as Rainbow Dash so eloquently put it, ‘never speak of this again.’”

“Why’d you do it, Rosy?” Applejack asked the floating pony, “Why’d ya lead us all along so much, thinkin’ you weren’t a stallion?”

“If I tell you, then will you let me go?” Rosy asked in frustration, double bound with magic and sturdy rope that Applejack had tied herself. It’d be so easy for Applejack to just... undo that knot.

Applejack sighed, and looked away. “Fuck you then,” Rosy said quietly, “Fuck you, and fuck off.”

If Rosy’s words were a manner of speaking, it was an awfully odd one, because Applejack had no idea what she was saying.

“Okay, clear the way, open the containment chamber, Traveller coming through, show’s over everypony!” Twilight shouted as they trotted into the research complex that’d sprung up again around the crater. The Trotwood ponies groaned, and some even resorted to catcalls, but the Bearers reached the containment chamber without anypony getting in their way. Applejack and Rarity managed to remove the chamber with little issue. (It was much easier to remove than it was to put in place.)

Twilight’s magic flickered dangerously in the uncertain environment at the epicenter, but she wasn’t your average unicorn, and she accounted for the fluctuations, continuing to levitate Rosy Pink in the air. It would be Bad with a capital B if Twilight tried to use the levitation on something contacting the portal’s hypersurface though, so she and her oneun friends formed a tight horseshoe with the rift on one side, and Twilight gently levitated Rosy down in front of it.

Rosy lay there in front of the rift as it bloomed and portalified in response to her presence, looking up at Twilight with a dumbly confused expression on her snout.

“...you need to remove the ropes, Applejack,” Twilight said uneasily. “We can’t have Equestrian matter travelling with her.”

“W–wh—I’m Equestrian matter!” Rosy spouted out in her soft soprano, “I’ve eaten my weight in food since then, so every atom in me is from Equestria!”

“It’s about returning to your world what came from it,” Twilight told Rosy frankly, “The portal only cares that the balance is restored. A mare for a mare, so to speak.”

“Can’t some other mare go over then?” Rosy said bitterly.

“That you would even suggest that makes us justified in sending you through,” Twilight replied cooly. “Anyway it’d just bind things up even more. It’s not some sort of sacrificial altar. The portal calls to you, the stallion masquerading as a mare.”

Rosy didn’t answer that, and remained silently thoughtful, staring at the portal as Applejack undid her bonds, and allowed Rosy to stand again.

“There’s nowhere to go,” Twilight reminded the mare, “There’s nothing left for you here, so you might as well just go through. The next chapter in your life is through that portal,”

Rosy responded to that by turning away from the portal, and facing Twilight Sparkle, who stood at the center of the horseshoe. Behind Rosy, the portal to the apartment remained wavering serenely in the air. There was no more police tape around the area, and the couch had been removed for some sort of machine instead. Rosy herself had an icy look in her deep blue eyes, and she said, “What if I refuse? You just gonna stand there forever?” She snorted and lashed her tail saying, “What are you gonna do, push me through?”

“You know what?” Twilight said, blushing angrily at Rosy’s annoyingly recalcitrant tail flip. A tail that should have been in the portal! “I think I just might do that!”

She strode up nose to nose with Rosy, telling her seethingly, “You have been nothing but a bad influence on Equestria ever since you came here. You are in the wrong world, and you are messing up the balance and harmony of our own. Everything you’ve done, even if...”

Her eyes softened a bit at the fear in Rosy’s eyes, and Twilight settled back, saying, “Even if you had the best of intentions, you are not like us. What you thought was an innocent act could have traumatized, distorted, or changed things away from the way they’re supposed to be. Ponies could die, because you wouldn’t leave. Equestria could be permanently scarred, if this rift ever goes wild.”

Rosy looked at Twilight with scared eyes reddened with tears, and said sadly, “I... I just wanted to stay here. Your world is a paradise compared to my own!”

“I think that’s the next lesson you have to learn,” Twilight said with a wry grin, “Your world may be a better place than you think, if you’ll just give it a chance.”

“You’re...” Rosy glanced back at the portal, then hung her head. “You’re right, Twilight...” she said softly, “I don’t know why I never listened to you. This is just something I have to face. A new chapter in my life.

“I acted so horribly to you, to all of you,” Rosy said sorrowfully to the ponies around her, “All this time, I needed to stop being so selfish, and trust in your judgement. I think I’ve finally learned an important lesson about trusting in others.” Rosy actually learned a lesson from this? That could make it worth all the trouble! Twilight felt hope rise in her as she finally knew she was doing the right thing.

“The truth is, I deeply respect every one of you,” Rosy said, looking from pony to pony, “And I wish I could have been a better friend. It’s gonna be hard saying goodbye but...” she lifted a hoof, reaching so tentatively, so hesitantly for Twilight’s shoulder.

Twilight swept Rosy up into a gentle hug. Rosy’s own forelimbs uncertainly, fearfully, then tightly joined in Twilight’s embrace, wrapping earnestly around the princess’s back. “I’m gonna miss you...” Rosy whispered hoarsely into Twilight’s shoulder, falling into their warm hug. Twilight hugged Rosy back for a timeless moment, but at last Twilight relaxed her hold, and let the other pony free, because it was finally time for Rosy to return home.

Then Rosy suplexed the princess into the portal.

Somewhere in Canterlot, in a room full of scribbled upon paintings, dismantled clocks, dissheveled, torn-up clothing, and pony chess pieces glued together in creative ways, a crack appeared in a very familiar statue. There were no doors in or out of this room, only a tiny window to the west. It was far too small for a pony to squeeze through, and also had an anti-chipmunk ward, just in case.

A thousand years is a very long time, in which you could forgive and forget just about anything. It’s a period of time in which you might conclude that your foe has been defeated, and will never awaken. A thousand years is a long time to keep your guard up, and even the staunchest defender’s resolve will waver and flicker out like a dying candle.

In this case, the period of time was more like a bunch of years, so the moment the statue cracked, the Day Princess immediately vanished from her courtly duties in a flare of solar light, appearing again in this room as EVERY SINGLE WARDED ALARM went off. With severe concern, Princess Celestia levitated all the left socks off of Discord’s stone prison, to look at it more clearly. “Oh no,” she whispered, staring balefully at the crack, then casting her gaze to the western window.

“Twilight, what did you do?”

Chaos. Utter chaos. The portal looked like a doorway into another world, but it was a far more complex affair, a spell of primal magnitude and inconceivable intricacy. Upon striking its surface, it distorted like a soap bubble as Twilight fell splay winged into the other world. Then it removed everything that made her a pony, slowly and painfully. Her head cracked on the machine they’d seen on the other side of the portal, her vision swimming even as the distorted portal interface latched onto her and invaded every fiber of her being. Twilight screamed, and everypony in the clearing panicked at once.

Completely ignoring this, Rosy broke through the line in the gap Twilight made, galloping swiftly away from the portal, so unstable now it was resounding with a deep bass rumble shaking the ground and the trees. The lilac princess started screaming in pain and fear, and the Bearers remained helpless to chase Rosy, because their friend was in trouble! All the science ponies were galloping around calling out in alarm, but no one else in the clearing moved to stop her, so once again, Rosy vanished into the forest.

The princess was looking around wild-eyed in utter panic as the portal was suddenly surrounded by tall, lanky creatures in simple but very skillfully sewn clothing. They were all very closely resembling ponies at the moment, for how wide their eyes were getting. Twilight couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t tell which way was up. It was like ants were crawling in her bones as everything twisted and distorted beyond all recognition, and the humans weren’t helping her at all!

And then, the humans could do nothing to help Twilight, because on the other side, powerful waves of spatial distortion were silently straining molecular bonds outside the portal, pushing everything away from the entry site violently and absolutely, which sort of made the walls and ceiling collapse around her. As Twilight’s hoof extruded agonizingly slowly through the interface, slim, brown digits began to emerge. A falling ceiling beam then glanced off the head of the already incoherent Twilight, without bursting the bubble, making her screams die off to a worrying silence.

That’s when Rainbow Dash jumped in the portal.

“Oh no nonoAAAA” was her immediate response as her wings cracked at unfamiliar angles and she landed on Twilight, grabbing her tightly, spasmodically, giving strained cries of distress as something messed with her like stabbing her with a long, sharp concept, and turning all her cells inside out. Rainbow Dash felt herself start to unfold.

That’s when Applejack pulled them both back through the portal, into Equestria. There was an audible thunderclap as it slammed closed this time. “You did it, Rainbow!” Applejack cheered gladly, “We saved her! Thank heaven an’ earth for a good strong length of woah nellie!” the farm pony stopped talking and stared, as the Rift wavered, wobbled and then started to move.

Applejack bit her rope, and yanked the pony harnessed to it—Rainbow Dash—up into the air. Rainbow Dash went sailing away from the shuddering meandering hole in reality, and with her death grip on the princess, Twilight was also spared any further contact with the thing, as the limp body of something resembling Twilight Sparkle flew along with the gasping pegasus.

“You okay, Rainbow?” Applejack asked, anxiously dancing on her hooves at the fallen pile of ponies that was her two friends, “We gotta move!”

“Ugh... my wrong are wings,” Rainbow Dash groaned half consciously.

Rarity’s horn was lit up as she tried to do something about this ghastly wrongness all around, but she could hardly even keep her horn lit with the blasted wild magic fluctuations everywhere. Fortunately, the Bearers did not dismiss the Trotwood team this time, so there were a dozen more unicorns instantly by Rarity’s side. Few were stronger or more effective than her, but many were smarter and more well studied. Methodically, they began unwinding and smoothing the floating distortions in space.

“It’s not going after us now!” Applejack said in alarm, looking at the reddish pulsating dot the portal had become, that was still carving a swath of distortion through the ground and equipment as it edged forward, moving steadily away from the three of them, towards the edge of the clearing.

“The Traveller!” one of the science ponies shouted in alarm, “It’s going after her!”

“Stand back!” another one shouted, with a silvery shell on her back, “We’re gonna try something stupid!”

With a clang, the one—no, two earth ponies leaped in perfect harmony, joining both sides of the containment unit around the still moving rift. Two more bucked, slamming their hooves into it to seal it shut, and some hovering pegasi started jamming peculiar looking shiny metal rods against it, hard enough to smash the tips of the rods blunt against the silver surface.

The unicorns surrounded it then, and all that nasty unnatural stretching-yet-not-stretching in the surrounding area started to fade away. The rods were shifted into structural supports, like the sort of podium that thing was supposed to be resting on, but a lot more slapdash and improvised. It wasn’t moving anymore at least, and it looked like the crisis passed.

Applejack looked down at Twilight, who was unmoving, and Rainbow Dash, who was at least able to climb to her hooves.

“D-doesn’t murt as such in reverse,” Rainbow said, standing on four shaky hooves as her wings flailed, and her body sort of cracked into something that looked like it ought to be standing on four hooves. Twilight was still unconscious, but her body was moving too. Those fleshy... things receded back into her slim purple hoof, and her legs were in the process of pulling themselves around into a natural, less broken looking configuration.

“We need a doctor!” exclaimed a horrified Pinkie Pie, unable to look away as Twilight’s bones shifted under her own flesh, “Is there a doctor anywhere?!”

Before any of the professors could get smart, Applejack stood by Pinkie and shouted, “An’ she means a physician!”

Several ponies closed their mouths and looked rather embrarassed. There was a white coated nurse pony on site it turns out, and she rushed up to the princess, before stopping short and asking, “What’s wrong with her?”

“How are we supposed to know?” Pinkie whined, “She just started turning into a human, I guess?”

“A wild polymorph? Oh dear,” the nurse said fretfully, lifting open Twilight’s eyelid, and putting an ear up to listen to her heartbeat. She jerked back as Twilight’s body shifted about weirdly again, saying, “I–I can’t treat this here! She needs a hospital!”

“Help is on the way,” a certain blurple haired white unicorn said, stumbling unsteadily up to the nurse. “A friend of mine went to contact the hospital. She will fly with utmost speed.”

“Okay just...help me get her on her... side,” the nurse replied, unsure of exactly what would count as this “pony’s” side. She wasn’t unreasonable for thinking so.

Some time later, everypony’s condition was stable. Twilight Sparkle had three magic shunts to try and correct her imbalanced flow. Laying in a hospital bed, with three tubes extending from beneath her blankets, Twilight at least looked like a pony now, like herself again. She awoke surrounded by her friends, and a few nurses, all looking at her with tremendous relief.

“Oh, Twilight you’re okay!” Pinkie exclaimed, firmly held back by said nurses from glomping her friend in a full body hug.

“Twi, that Rosy ain’t no darn good,” Applejack said, stomping in angry frustration, “She messed you up pretty fierce, an’ escaped in the chaos! To think that she’d hurt you like that, after sayin’ all those sweet words...”

“We just need to calm down, and think about the situation,” Fluttershy suggested. “I know we’ll be able to get through this.”

“But how are you feeling, dear?” Rarity asked Twilight, “Do you recall any of what occurred?”

Twilight looked around at her friends in total bewilderment and said, “Sparl also divisiparent powler simple the enlarge modo tailor checktact?” in a quick, but kind of worryingly slurred voice.

“I told you it sessed up my meech!” Rainbow Dash shouted in aggravation at the rest of them.

(thwack)

“Ow!”

“Princess Twilight Sparkle? Can you understand me?”

“Oh thank goodness it worked,” Twilight said, sagging in relief in her hospital bed as the nonsense everypony was babbling finally started to make sense, “What on earth did that portal do to me?”

The pale coated doctor also smiled in relief. She was the only other pony in the room now. “Your language centers have been heavily disrupted, your highness,” she explained, “It must have been in the process of enabling you to speak with the humans, when Rainbow Dash er... pulled you out of it. Or it out of you, rather. I’m not an expert in the field of Linguistics, but I’m told it was like a very delicate surgery, and during its first incision, your friend smacked the scalpel out of the metaphorical doctor’s grip, and absconded with the surgery cart.”

Twilight stared in horrified disbelief as the doctor shook her raspberry maned head, saying, “Personally, I think they were seriously exaggerating, but the fact remains that your language got a bit... scrambled. Pulling you out of it actually complicated matters, especially when Equestria’s ambient magic field started restoring you—crudely—back into shape. I imagine that bump on the head didn’t help either.”

“So... what?” Twilight asked in horror, “Am I going to need a translation spell for my entire life?”

“Goodness, no!” the doctor laughed, “I only meant that matters of the mind are more delicate and difficult to treat than physical injury, so it’ll be a while before you’re back in tip-top shape again. You can think of the translation spell as your crutch, so to speak. You’ll be receiving regular language therapy from a specialist, and if you stick with that I can assure you you’ll be speaking normally once more.”

“How long?” Twilight asked testily.

“...weeks?” the doctor said weakly, “Months, perhaps? Your injury is somewhat unprecedented, but I can’t imagine it taking more than a year, if you stick with your therapy regime.”

“Okay, I can... I can deal with that,” Twilight said calmly, “How often do I have to cast the spell?”

The doctor frowned at that, losing eye contact and saying, “I’m afraid... somepony else needs to refresh the spell. It draws from their own language centers, you see, to correct yours. But your er... language therapist has agreed to live with you, if that isn’t a problem, so she should be able to oversee your treatment 24/7.”

“Really?” Twilight said in surprise, “A dedicated therapist? Is it... is it because I’m a princess?”

“In a sense...” the doctor said noncommitally, “It might be best if I just introduced her. She’s waiting outside.”

The doctor walked off without another word, and returned with a familiar blue unicorn with wavey purple hair, who Twilight immediately recognized.

“Whatnot?!” Twilight exclaimed in surprise.

“Oh, you remember my name!” the blue unicorn said in her sweet alto, with a beaming smile, “You even—”

She cut off, turning to the doctor and asking worriedly, “Wait, did you cast the spell yet?”

“Yes I remember your name,” Twilight said deliberately to Whatnot, “You were instrumental in helping me learn more about Bruce’s home.”

“It’s... it’s an honor, really,” Whatnot said with a blush, “I never thought I’d be able to... I’m so so sorry for what happened to you.”

“You’re sorry?” Twilight asked curiously.

“Yes I know I didn’t... push you through the portal or anything, but I left the project and then this happens, and I can’t help but feel that this is in some way my fault,” the blue unicorn said regretfully, lowering her ears, “I know it’s not, but I just wish I could have been there, and now that I do have the chance to help out,” she perked up again, ears high, exclaiming, “I’d be more than honored to help the greatest and most powerful hero Equestria has ever seen!”

Twilight was starting to remember why she didn’t like Whatnot very much. Beggars cannot be choosers however, and Twilight was pretty sure the mare would mellow out if she actually had some time to get to know Twilight... and to see Twilight screw up, as Twilight generally did... multiple times... in rapid succession.

“I would be honored to have such a kind and caring mare help me out,” Twilight said politely, “Because it looks like I sure do need it.”

Whatnot declared with a squee, “Oh thank you, Princess! I won’t let you down! Now I’m still in an apartment in Canterlot, but I think I can just send word that I’m going to be busy because I already brought all my luggage just in case not that I expected you to say yes but I thought just in case I would...” continuing on like that nonstop, until her speech regressed into literal babble.

“Wait, wait, hold on!” Twilight shouted, making Whatnot jerk back in surprise. “I think you need to recast the spell,” Twilight replied unhappily, knowing they wouldn’t understand her, but figuring that her point would get across.

“Final cause!” Whatnot declared, facehooving, “Ricottage vegium recommend tation goodswallop.”

The shiny purple haired unicorn’s horn lit up then in a bold magenta, and she peered at Twilight Sparkle for a long silent moment before casting the spell.

“...any time now,” Twilight said uneasily.

“Bobby bars,” Whatnot replied offhoovedly, tweaking her horn field very slowly and deliberately, going through all the basic patterns as though she were demonstrating for a foal. Her eyes brightened finally, and her horn flared, sending a deep pink mote directly to Twilight’s forehead. It toudzjerrr ched her horn, and she again felt that odd disorientation, much more subtly this time.

“...did that work?” Whatnot asked hopefully.

A smile broke on Twilight’s face as she nodded happily.

“Oh good,” Whatnot sighed emphatically, “I didn’t want to mess anything up so I made sure to double check the parameter setup when I prepared the geometric schema, and I restabilized at every single stage.”

“Yes, I could see that,” Twilight said cautiously.

“So now your translation spell is extra stable, and should last a day or more!” Whatnot said joyfully.

“That’s not... wait, would that...?” Twilight paused thoughtfully, “You know, I think you might be right? Still you had several missed opportunities to streamline, and redundant inefficiencies. It’s one way to do it, I suppose. If you want a more accurate spellcraft though, I could offer some tips maybe?”

Whatnot’s pupils got very very big at that.

“If—” the doctor said, poking her head in the room, then looking at the blubbering mare senselessly hugging, clinging to Twilight Sparkle in her hospital bed. “Sorry, is this a bad time?” the doctor asked.

Twilight just shrugged helplessly. What had she said to this filly?

“No I’m—” Whatnot pulled herself away, stumbling on her hooves as she stepped back, wiping at tears, “I’m fine I just... the princess is going to teach me!” And she was dancing on her hooves, squealing with glee.

A serious look then crossed her face, as Whatnot said in shock, “I have to get ready!” and ran full tilt out of the room.

The doctor watched her go with utmost puzzlement, then looked to Twilight, saying, “Sorry about that. I’m really not familiar with the translation spell, and it doesn’t fit to my magic very easily at all.”

“I have to admit, I prefer a linguist’s delicate, er,” Twilight rubbed the hoofprint in her forehead, “...touch.”

Clearing her throat, the doctor said, “Sorry again, right so, Princess Celestia is here to see you,” making Twilight tense up in bed, “You have your translation issues taken care of?”

“For now, I hope,” Twilight replied warily. She couldn’t imagine how terrible it would be if she started babbling at the princess!

The doctor nodded, and bowed out. As she left the room, then entered: the sun.

“Hello, Twilight,” Princess Celestia said, ducking under the doorway as the serene white sun princess entered the room, “I’m so sorry to hear what has happened to you. The doctor says you are well enough to speak?”

“You’re sorry?” Twilight repeated in even more bug eyed surprise than before.

“In the sense that I sympathize with your plight,” Celestia replied, settling down to her belly beside Twilight’s hospital bed, “In the sense that you risk yourself for Equestria far too often, and we are all so grateful to have you with us.”

“It really wasn’t that bad,” Twilight said blushingly, “There was just a little mishap with a rift you see and—”

“A mare known as Rosy Pink threw you into the Rift,” Celestia stated quietly, “Because she feared the consequences of doing so herself, yet did not hesitate to inflict it upon you. She has lied to and misled ponies for years, disregarding the safety of Equestria above her own convenience, and used her knowledge of your pasts to hurt each of you in the most cruel of ways.”

Celestia looked aside, saying with a heavy heart, “Even Pinkie Pie.”

Twilight was afraid to say yes. Yes it was all technically true, but it sounded so... awful! Was Rosy—Bruce really so evil beyond compare? Twilight felt like things were spiraling out of proportion, so she said, “We had the—we thought we had the situation under control. She hadn’t attacked anypony, yet. She was just a little... recalcitrant.”

“You are such a wonderful pony, Twilight,” Celestia said sadly, leaning down to nuzzle at the ears of her former student, “You’ll help anypony in need, and you always try your hardest to do the right thing. That makes this so much more painful, to think that she’d do this to somepony with so much good in her heart.”

Twilight felt tears rising to her eyes as all the hatred, and the doubt, and the awful words that Rosy said washed away before the loving touch of her princess. “Princess Celestia,” she said joyfully and miserably, “You may not know this, but Rosy is actually not a mare at all. She was a human stallion named Bruce Connell, who... tried to make everypony think she was a mare.”

The princess was silent at that, standing up straight. “There has been word sent to every city in Equestria,” she said soberly, “My sister and I will do everything we can to help you find Rosy Pink. She may have been able to defeat one loving mare who was only trying to help her, but she may not fare so well against the full might of the Equestrian military. As of today, they are at your beck and call, Princess Twilight.”

Princess Celestia smiled at Twilight, and lay a shining white wing over her prone figure laying there in that hospital bed. “I know you will do the right thing, my most faithful student. Take whatever measures you think you need, but please don’t neglect yourself in this. You don’t always have to put Equestria before your own needs.

“Thank you, princess,” Twilight whispered, pulling Celestia’s wing tight against herself, whispering because she couldn’t speak aloud without crying, “I will, princess.”

They stayed like that for a while, until Twilight had ahold of herself, and finally Celestia took her wing back. She stood beside Twilight, and gave her an apologetic wince saying, “There was one other matter I need to discuss with you. Discord’s seal cracked just the other day. I assume that’s related to...”

Twilight twitched. “What, us? No, we’ve all been fine why do you ask?” she said nervously, “Oh you mean—yes, I did get s-sent through the Rift. He must have tried to escape while my... Element was absent!”

“I need you to bring your friends to Canterlot and reseal his statue,” Princess Celestia said seriously, “That should solve the issue, but he has admittedly escaped once before, and I fear Discord may be a problem we have to deal with sooner than later.” She shook her head regretfully, saying, “You’ve been living a life of Harmony all this time, and not doing anything that might embrace Chaos, yet he still breaks free the moment you fall out of this world? It’s most worrisome.”

Twilight smiled widely saying, “Ha ha ha, yeah no ponies dealing in Chaos here, nothing but pure Harmony from this pony.”

“For the time being, I need you and your friends to restore his seal,” Celestia said, “And then focus on your recovery. Let the guards and police deal with the issue of Rosy Pink for now, and I promise we’ll contact you the moment she’s found.”

“Can do, princess!” Twilight said with a smile.

The moment Celestia was gone, Twilight held her head in her hooves and stared forward, saying in a haunted tone, “She’s going to kill us herself. She’s gonna turn us all into statues. Were we really that bad that it would break him out of his prison? Oh, how did things get so messed up? Bruce is somewhere out there, Starlight is somewhere out there, both completely unopposed. I’m completely helpless, and if my friends hate me any more, Discord will reign supreme over all the land!”

Pinkie Pie was poking her nose in the room then, so Twilight forced herself to take in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Hello Pinkie,” she said in measured pleasance, “As you can see, I’m talking again.”

“Yes!!” Pinkie cheered, hoof pumping then bouncing into the room, “Now we can plan your I learned to talk again party!”

Twilight rolled her eyes, but a small smile danced on the corners of her mouth.

The next week was tumultuous and stressful, and Twilight could swear she heard him laughing when they sealed Discord again using the magic of Harmony. The train ride home from Canterlot was not a pleasant or a friendly one, either.

Applejack kept looking at the others sideways whenever they would talk about something. Rarity never seemed to stop talking, about whatever she could to get anypony engaging with her. She even got in a discussion with Rainbow Dash about the top candidates for the Equestrian wrestling league, and Rarity didn’t even like wrestling, Twilight was pretty sure! Pinkie Pie on the other hand seemed scared to speak at all, barely more responsive than Fluttershy, who kept looking nervously out the window as if there was something terrible that was going to catch up with her. And Rainbow Dash was er... too...

“And then the Masked Crusader did a full nelson on the Dirty Dervish! She couldn’t escape, but she kicked hard enough to flip them both over! It wasn’t a suplex, even though I was just thinking about that, not that I want anypony to think about what happened to Twilight, because that was pretty lame I think. I wouldn’t ever pretend it wasn’t lame, because I only sometimes think about doing stuff that might be kind of mean, at most a 3.5 on the meanness scale. Like that one time when I cut in line once, which was a thing I did I’ll admit it. I wanted to get to recess first, but I pretended I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to cut in line and I’ve never told anypony that, but you know. I just tell ponies about those things, because it’s not like they aren’t true! I was also thinking about these train seats which are kind of uncomfortable, but you don’t have to do anything. I just wanted everypony to know.”

Too... comprehensive.

Twilight ended up exhausted just trying to get everypony over their issues, and not worrying about everything they’d been doing wrong. Everypony went their separate ways upon arriving in Ponyville, because frankly they were ready to take a break from each other as much as Twilight was this time. So Twilight returned to her library alone, where she floated in some luggage she’d brought from the capital city at the behest of her new therapist and language instructor Whatnot, who had kind of dropped everything and come to Ponyville on a moment’s notice.

Spike was looking at Twilight’s therapist suspiciously, and needed a lot of reassurance and love, to let him know he wasn’t being sidelined or replaced. He was quite an armful at times, that dragon, but he did have a good heart in him, even if he sometimes had trouble finding it. Twilight and her friends were all that way really, where the slightest unexpected thing could throw their carefully constructed paradigm into disarray. Twilight didn’t know what to do about it honestly. If you could anticipate what was going to go wrong, then nothing would ever go wrong! So what to do about what you can’t anticipate?

Fortunately, she’d already learned several years ago that stopping time was not the answer.

Twilight ended up going out for dinner, just as an excuse to have some time to herself to think. While Spike and her new instructor enjoyed an evening meal at home together, Twilight wandered aimlessly through town, feeling... things about herself, things she really didn’t want to feel. Just a profound sense of discomfort and anxiety. Why were her friends acting so strange? Why wasn’t she being the friend they needed her to be?

Twilight Sparkle came back to her library home with no good answers, but hopes that Rosy would be found. There was a meal left out for her, and Twilight took a... bite maybe, but she had bigger things to worry about, and it was too late in the evening to be snacking anyway. She planned on eating something in the morning, and then just went over to the reading table.

It was after hours, so Twilight had the whole library to herself, and she savored these evening hours. It was one of the small pleasures in life, to curl up with a good book, catch up on your favorite reading in the cool of a late spring night, to the sound of nothing but the crickets outside, calling each other and greeting the coming night.

Twilight Sparkle levitated the book she’d been reading before she left to apprehend Rosy: Cultivating Relationships by Friendly Harbor. Laying it out on the reading table, flipping it open to her bookmark, Twilight finally relaxed, sighing happily. Her tail swished idly as she leaned forward to read.

Her tail stopped swishing. She leaned closer.

“Whatnot?!” Twilight asked in a rising tone of panic, rising to her hooves and looking around wildly for where the other unicorn might have gotten off to, “Whatnot are... are you up there? Something’s wrong you need to get down here right away!”

“Wha—what’s wrong, princess?” the blue unicorn asked, running out from the back with her toothbrush floating behind her, and flecks of toothpaste foam still on her mouth.

“You need to check your spell!” Twilight told her with an unavoidable tremble in her legs and her voice, “You—you need to cast it again! I can’t tell if it’s working right. You have to cast it!”

“I can understand you perfectly fine,” Whatnot said, full of worry as she trotted up to the princess, “Are you having trouble understanding me? Can you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes I can understand what you’re saying!” Twilight said in Whatnot’s face, “That’s not the problem! Your spell is working fine but it’s not working!”

“Please, calm down, princess!” Whatnot whimpered, backing up from the enraged and terrified winged unicorn, “Just... tell me what I need to do. I need you to tell me what’s wrong.”

“I can’t read!!”

Finding Rosy

One late evening in Ponyville, lights awakened in the windows of neighboring houses to the library, as ponies lifted their heads and rose from bed at a cry of such agony, that they held their foals closer, and worried for the future of Equestria. Inside the town library, a certain blue pony with a purple mane was cringing back from a certain purple pony with a blue mane.

Her ears flat back, Whatnot mumbled, “I was afraid this might happen.”

“You knew?” Twilight exclaimed shrilly, eyes bugging out, “I can’t—the words don’t make any sense!” She hurled her hoof to point viciously at the innocent book still lying there open and unread, “I know that book makes sense. I’ve read it twice, already! Why can’t I read? Why isn’t the spell working?”

“I don’t know, princess,” Whatnot fussed, “I didn’t think the portal would do anything to reading. My spell only works for speaking! It’s orders of magnitude more complex to... I just—I can adjust it, I think? Oh Twilight no, oh what have I done?”

“I can’t be illiterate!” Twilight squealed back in panic, “How is this happening? I was only on the other side for two minutes, at most!”

“I forgot how our writing systems are completely incompatible!” the other mare cried, forelimbs wrapped over her head, “That’ll take even more calibrations. There has to be a way! You have to read you’re Twilight Sparkle! You’re like the princess of books!”

A baby dragon watched with worry, from the door to Twilight’s bedroom where he’d been awoken by all of this. He came down the stairs and walked up to the two wailing mares hanging onto each other, and he really didn’t know how to deal with this. Cry? Make a joke? Tell her it’s not so bad? It was so bad though, because Twilight cared about her books so much, and she was such a good reader! He didn’t know what to do. He just... he just hugged Twilight from behind, wishing with all his heart that they could quiet down so that he could get some sleep.

Maybe he could stay the night at Rarity’s tomorrow.

Some mornings hence, a very worn out, saggy eyed, frizzy maned Twilight Sparkle found Spike with Rarity as usual. The little drake had been sticking to the dressmaker like glue, ever since the Starlight incident, no doubt because he missed Rarity so much. Twilight groaned inwardly at the hearty smell of toasted barley upon entering the boutique. Twilight hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, or... dinner. With all the important things she had to do, it was just so much trouble to remember to keep up with eating. She made a mental note to eat an extra large lunch, and ambled her way into the circular building.

“Hello, Twilight!” Rarity said a little too delightedly. “What a pleasant surprise! Spike is here, and he’s been such a darling all morning. I dare say I’ll run out of gems to bedazzle my dresses with, considering how helpful and kind he’s been. Would you like any of this tossed barley he made?”

“Maybe later,” Twilight said without much enthusiasm. “Right now I just need him to... help me write a letter to the princess.”

Dear Princesses Celestia and Luna,

Regarding the creature from another verse, I’ve examined ~~Rosy~~ Bruce’s belongings in detail, and I’m prepared to provide a manifest of her purported activity from what evidence we could find there. As she was mostly unable to write, she did not leave any journals of her travels, but several items such as the map of Dodge City, the bottled cloudtree, and of course the flarret might help us understand where she’s been in Equestria, in order to try and figure out where she may now be.

I’m also trying to find out just who she was friends with, without much success. After I went and flubbed things with Bluebell, well... let’s just say word gets around in a small town. I’ve been very much “the princess” lately in the eyes of Ponyville, and not their friend. I’m afraid they may still be hiding her, but until evidence of her activity presents itself, I really can’t do more than keep my eyes peeled. It isn't likely they helped smuggle her out of the city somehow, as the blockade on Ponyville travel was quite successful, setting up checkpoints along every known thoroughfare, so she shouldn’t have been able to get away on her own.

Starlight Glimmer hasn’t shown her tail again either. I honestly fear what she could do to a town like Ponyville if we’re caught unprepared. I am deeply troubled for the future of Equestria, both because mares like her are running loose, and because of what she represents. Her sorcery was... brilliant in its own diabolical way, and I can’t believe she received no formal schooling. Just what has this mare gone through, and where is she headed next?

Yes I know I’m supposed to be resting and recovering, but as you can see, Whatnot has been working very hard at restoring my ability to... read and...write. I feel like a foal again, having to figure out this strange system by which put our thoughts on paper. My friends and I are getting along passably well, and I’m resting a lot more than usual. All part of the recovery process, right? Well, wish me luck. I know I do!

Your former student and friend,

Twilight Sparkle

Rainbow Dash wasn’t sulking. She was just sitting by herself alone on a cloud, and skipping out on weather duty, and sulking. She didn’t think other ponies were stupid, did she? Sure they were pretty easily fooled, but that didn’t mean they were easily fooled, right? Dash just... hatched scheme after scheme, and it sort of was insulting to ponies, because it was so darned easy. Even Scootaloo—even Scootaloo loved her. Did Rainbow Dash only make Scootaloo love her, by being confident and awesome, when the real Rainbow Dash was somepony nopony ever knew? But she was the real Rainbow Dash! She was confident, and she was awesome! That’s why it was so easy to make ponies believe—to make ponies believe she wasn’t a total loser.

Well, it was no fun sulking alone—which she wasn’t —so Rainbow Dash went to go bother Applejack. Her sleek azure wings spread easily from her sides. Rainbow Dash leaped off the cloud she wasn't sulking on, sluicing through the air like greased lightning. The straw roofs of Ponyville grew sparse as the land speeding beneath Rainbow Dash transitioned to the thick orchards south of town. Rainbow Dash knew the way, but Applejack could be all over these orchards this time of day. Rainbow briefly considered that maybe Applejack was blowing off her work too to go sulk somewhere. She snickered at that ridiculous notion, then flew down through a break in the trees, landing lightly and trotting among the apple trees in search of her friend.

Applejack didn’t take too long to find. The orange mare could be heard from quite a ways away when her hooves struck trunk. Especially when she was mad, and Applejack was most certainly mad. About what, Rainbow Dash wasn’t entirely certain, but Rosy said some pretty mean things, and even after what she did to Twilight at the Rift, Rainbow Dash was still having a hard time denying that the things she said were true.

The sweating orange pony was out filling buckets of apples, as one does. Rainbow Dash came trotting up to Applejack saying, “Hey Applejack!” in a friendly greeting.

Applejack paused in her bucking, and turned to face Rainbow Dash, an unreadable expression in her luscious green eyes as she said, uneasily, “Hi?”

“What’s up?” Rainbow Dash asked hopefully, “You doing okay since that whole Rosy thing?”

“Whaddya want, Rainbow Dash?” Applejack asked tiredly, turning down the brim of her hat. “Ah’m a mite busy at the moment.”

“What? I don’t want anything,” Rainbow said defensively. “Why do you think I want something?”

“Because you came out here all this way, and now you’re gettin’ all defensive,” Applejack replied.

“I’m not getting defensive,” Rainbow Dash argued, “I’m being your friend.”

“Are you really now?” Applejack replied critically, “What’ve you ever done to help me?”

“Watered your crops last week?” Rainbow Dash suggested, though technically that was her job, not a favor. “I mean...”

“Matter of fact, ain’t you got some weather to take care of or something?” Applejack replied crossly.

“Well—yeah,” Rainbow admitted, “But I’m just taking some ‘me’ time today, because Rosy said stuff about me, and I’m not dealing with it! I don’t want ponies to think I’m—”

“Alright alright, I don’t need your life story!” Applejack cut in hastily, “So do you want something, or do you not?”

“I just... want to say... ‘hi,’” Dash said, narrowing her eyes.

“Well... ‘hi,’” Applejack said back equally cooly, “Now if you don’t got no more business with me, I think ah’d like to get back to mah chores here. Alone.”

“Fine, I just...” Rainbow Dash couldn’t think of what to say. “Fine!” she said assertively, and not angrily, then shot off into the sky.

Rainbow Dash would have been madder, but Applejack kind of had a reason for her actions. Rosy had said the farm pony was being played for a rube by them all, and Rainbow Dash would never do that to Applejack, but... when was the last time they hadn't led Applejack into doing something? When was the last time anypony did what Applejack thought would be a good idea? Oh right, Hayshire.

The next time Rainbow Dash tried to talk to Applejack, she would definitely have to mention Hayshire.

“Hey, um... Fluttershy?” Pinkie Pie asked hesitantly. She knocked on Fluttershy’s cottage again saying, “So is it... okay if I come in?”

There was no answer. “I’m sorry!” Pinkie Pie shouted to the silence. “I’ll just... go.”

She felt despondent walking away from Fluttershy’s cottage. Fluttershy was coming out of there so little lately. Pinkie knew that Fluttershy needed her, maybe more than ever. But how could she help somepony who didn’t want to be helped? Pinkie didn’t want to seem rude, or pushy, or... or unlikable. But what was she supposed to do?

In the first good news all week, Spike obediently burped up a letter bearing the royal seal. Twilight was of mixed feelings having lunch with Rarity again. It was convenient that Rarity and Spike were fairly well obsessed with each other at this point, because even though Twilight needed to go across town just to receive her mail, she had somepony tactful enough to read it for her without making a spectacle of it.

But at the same time, Rarity kept trying to claim that Twilight didn’t look well, or that she needed to stuff her face full of food. Twilight didn’t want to think less of Rarity for being so bizarrely obstinate about urging Twilight take care of herself, but it was really hard not to see her friend as some kind of mentally retarded puppy jumping at shadows.

Twilight didn’t want to be that way, but she couldn’t stop internally criticising ponies, and picking them apart. Rarity was hystrionic, Applejack had trust issues, Rainbow Dash had a disconnect between reality and the truth, Fluttershy was absolutely inscrutable, and Pinkie Pie, well... she wasn’t in anypony’s face anymore, but somehow that was worse than when she was. Twilight couldn’t criticize Pinkie Pie, because now Pinkie was too afraid of criticism to risk doing... anything!

Twilight wanted to burrow beneath the table and die, because Rarity was the one who rolled open the scroll and read its contents. Twilight just had to squat there on her haunches and listen like a kindergardener. Of all things that could have happened to Twilight, this was the worst possible thing.

“Oh dear,” Rarity murmured, looking up to meet Twilight’s useless eyes, “Rosy has been spotted in Las Pegasus.”

Elation and dread, Twilight found, were not emotions that should ever happen simultaneously. “What?!” Twilight exclaimed, “How did she get past the blockade?”

“All it says here is that Rosy has been sighted,” Rarity remarked, as if to a friend who just had decided that reading was not worth her time today, “But the princesses don’t want to raise alarm, so they’re hoping the Bearers can take care of things quickly and cleanly.”

“We have to get the girls together,” Twilight agreed in a detached sort of manner.

“That seems inevitable at this point,” Rarity said, giving Twilight a worried look rather than turning back to her beloved dragon, “But do finish your muffin. You did say you missed breakfast.”

“There’s no time for—okay, fine,” Twilight said grumpily. Rarity did at least... order these muffins specially, so it was the least Twilight could do. Whoever prepared them must have done something wrong though, because they were pretty tasteless, about as fun as eating wet sand. Twilight managed to choke one down, but she was definitely going to have to look into this. Had Starlight resurfaced in Ponyville, and was stealing the story marks away from the bakers here?

Whatever the case, Twilight was full-ish, whatever that was worth. So she stood back from the table, saying tiredly, “Now can we gather the girls?”

“I’ll go speak with Applejack,” Rarity said tactfully. “You go find either Pinkie Pie or Rainbow Dash. One should be able to find the other. Then we’ll all have to go get Fluttershy, and probably... give her more assurances.”

“What’re friends for, right? Assurances,” Twilight quipped. Rarity wasn’t laughing though.

No, Rarity was cooing at Spike now, saying, “Of course, Spikey Wikey~ is coming too.”

“Whatever you say, Rarity,” he replied in a lovestruck tone.

Twilight wanted to say it was too dangerous, but it didn’t... seem... it was just one pony! He may have just been a baby dragon, but he was a dragon! How dangerous could it possibly be? Spike would be fine... probably better off than all onetwo of the rest of them.

Plus if Starlight ever showed up again... Spike wasn’t a pony. He didn’t have a mark. He could escape and warn everypony, even though Twilight and the others were just... helpless. Twilight Sparkle paused to look at the magical star gleaming on her lilac hindquarters, and felt vulnerable. She didn’t like that feeling.

“Oh Applejack~♪” Rarity cooed, coming up to the farm pony right at the moment AJ had taken a break, of all the nerve!

Of course it’d have been worse if she came when Applejack wasn’t taking a break, so Applejack sighed and said, “Okay Rarity, what do y’all want now?”

“I wanted to give you this,” Rarity said, opening a box off of her back, and levitating out its contents. “I noticed your raincoat had sprung a seam. Polymers are so difficult to keep stitched together. The spring rains are almost over, but it’s never too late to prepare for next year!”

“Well that’s...” Applejack said as Rarity draped the new raincoat over her, cutting off the drizzle that’d been coming down for most of the day. “That’s right neighborly of ya, atchally.”

Her face hardened then, and she looked at Rarity saying, “So what d’ya want?”

“Can’t I just help a friend, without asking her for anything?” Rarity replied coyly.

“Nope,” Applejack said, not laughing. “Cain’t you just spit it out? Ah’d like to actually enjoy mah break rather than spendin’ it wait’n on your needs.”

“Oh fine, you caught me out,” Rarity grumbled. “I’ll be brief. Rosy has been located, and Twilight wants us together in order to bring her to the portal.”

“Because that worked out so well last time,” Applejack said sarcastically.

“None of us could have anticipated she would resort to violence,” Rarity replied huffily, “We won’t get caught off guard this time, and there are mouth zipper spells should she try and hurt us with words again.”

“Ah don’t like it,” Applejack said flatly, turning away, “And ah don’t want any part in it. Y’all can take your bribes with you, and call me when Twilight’s done playin’ princess.”

“It’s not a bribe, it truly is a gift,” Rarity insisted offendedly. “I think you might be waiting a while if you think this problem is going to solve itself without your help, but that’s your decision. You can have the raincoat, whether you come help us or not! In fact, I’m sorry I brought it up! Because I just want you to be...” her cool gaze turned pleading, “...happy!”

Applejack didn’t know what to say to that.

Shaking her head, Rarity trotted away, saying over her shoulder, “We’re meeting at the library at dawn tomorrow. If you’re not there, we won’t wait for you.”

Applejack watched her go for a while, noticing the mud stains creeping up the pure white fur of Rarity’s legs for walking out here. Then AJ touched the rather poorly situated raincoat on her back. She groaned in frustration, turning away from the diminishing figure of Rarity and stomping her hoof, saying, “Ah hate bein’ manipulated! Consarnit...” She headed for the big farm house grumbling, “Better make arrangements for tomorrow...”

“Twilight!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed in delight, rushing over to her friend. “You really wanna see me?! You—” then she saw the alarm in her friend’s stiff poise, and backed up, saying, “I mean—hello Twilight. How you... doin’?”

Twilight blinked at the uncharacteristically restrained Pinkie, before smiling and saying, “I’m doing fine, thank you. But I really do need your help. You know how to find ponies in ways I can barely understand. We have Rosy’s rough location, but... if you would help me pinpoint the traveller from another dimension, I would be ever so grateful.”

Pinkie’s eyes got big and liquid at that, and she swept Twilight up in a hug, exclaiming, “Oh yes! I’ll help you find her! What has she—I mean...” she released Twilight, putting the princess at arm’s length. “Yes, I’ll be happy to,” Pinkie Pie said carefully. “Um... you know where she is?”

“Las Pegasus, is where an eyewitness spotted a mare,” Twilight said, “An earth pony, young adult mare with no story mark, curly pink hair, and a cream colored coat. A heck of a coincidence if it’s not her, and it’s the best lead we have.”

“Las Pegasus, huh?” Pinkie said thoughtfully, “That’s a ways away. Did she walk that whole way?”

“Well it has been over a week,” Twilight admitted, “Who knows what she’s been up to? She may have even snuck a ride on some unsuspecting pony’s hay cart. Which reminds me. I need you to come to the library tomorrow morning at dawn. Rainbow Dash and I will be able to get us all to Las Pegasus swiftly, by pegasus drawn carriage. Rainbow Dash is... confident that she can get Fluttershy to join us, and Rarity is working with Applejack. So you’re the only pony I really worried about. Thank you so much, Pinkie Pie. You have no idea what a relief it is that you don’t... think that I think you’re stupid or crazy or anything.”

“No, I... don’t,” Pinkie said warily, “So, meeting tomorrow at dawn, at the library?”

“Yup,” Twilight chirped, “It should only take a day if we play our cards right, so pack a lunch, but other than that, just bring yourself and your smile!”

Pinkie smiled a little at that, saying, “Okie dokie lo—okie dokie, I can do that.”

Twilight left the bakery happy, and Pinkie Pie stayed in the bakery happy, feeling happy inside that at least one of her friends liked her, and didn’t think she was crazy. All Pinkie needed was one friend who thought that way. Twilight could help Pinkie Pie with the others, and then they’d all be best of friends again!

It was in snuggling down into her warm little bed that night, that Pinkie Pie thought to herself about Twilight, staring up at the rounded ceiling overhead, wondering when was the last time Twilight actually bought something from Sugarcube Corner? Twilight’d been so busy lately, learning to read again, trying to study without being able to read, trying to research without being able to read, trying to work on her alchemical theories without being able to take notes, searching for clues on the whereabouts of Rosy Pink without being able to read the clues... it’d certainly been a... a while. Pinkie would have to remember to pack extra specially tasty treats for their trip tomorrow. That would make everything just perfect.

Pinkie Pie was feeling a little more herself in the morning, as much as she could feel herself with a fruity patootie. Twilight had really picked the worst time to go after Rosy Pink. Plus Twilight’s speech was still broken, so they had to drag her speech therapist on an all expenses paid trip to Las Pegasus. Whatnot had a funny way of complaining about that, prancing around and squealing excitedly about an adventure and how it was the perfect season and she was the luckiest mare in the entire world.

“I am the luckiest mare in the entire eeeheehee!” she said specifically, bouncing even more than Pinkie Pie. Not that Pinkie Pie went all silly and crazy like that, when she didn’t want to. She could be a fun party pony, and still have herself under control, and be lucid about the world around her. Whatnot didn’t seem to care about control though, taking care of Pinkie’s smiling for now.

Pinkie wasn’t sure she was feeling okay about any of this. She was still pretty hurt from what Rosy said to her just last week. Emotions were high all around! Still, at least all her friends were together again, even if Applejack looked rather cross with them all, and Fluttershy was even quieter than usual. Rainbow Dash was boisterous and helpful, and Rarity was extra doting, not just on her little Spikie Wikie, but also in the tasteful beret she somehow managed to coax Pinkie Pie’s unruly mane around. And Twilight was... she seemed fine, confident even. But...

“Cupcake?” Pinkie asked pleasantly as Twilight was getting hitched up to their transportation.

“Not now, Pinkie,” Twilight replied flatly, looking back at her barrel as she magically tightened the cart strap to meticulous precision. Twilight had to tighten the strap an awful lot to get it to snug tightly around her. “I just want to get there, and get this over with,” Twilight said, glaring in disgust at Pinkie’s cupcake, “And every second I spend eating... cupcakes is one too many. Now come on, let’s go!”

Pinkie blushed, and put the cupcake away. It was a bad time, of course, even if Pinkie Pie hadn’t realized it was inappropriate... again. But Twilight wasn’t angry, so their friendship was safe, and when they got to the hotel, Pinkie was definitely going to have an appropriate time to share her cupcakes with them all.

“Oh, thank you so much for letting me accompany you,” Whatnot gushed for the 37th time as she danced around the cart, examining it curiously as though she’d never ridden in a cart before.

“Keep a level head,” Twilight reminded her, “You have to be there this evening to refresh the you-know-what spell.”

“I won’t let you down, princess!” Whatnot declared with enthusiasm, “And this time I think I’ve got a handle on the writing thing. The trick is we are assuming there’s only one written language and three alphabets, when actually that is not exactly a one-to-one—”

“Okay! Thank you,” Twilight said hastily to the eager blue unicorn. “It’s just really important that we get going.”

“Alrighty!” Whatnot said, poking her nose curiously into the cart that they were riding in. “Is there enough room for everypony?” she asked worriedly.

“Rainbow Dash and I will be flying the cart,” Twilight replied, spreading her wings demonstratively, “So there should be plenty of room for the oneun ponies, plus a baby dragon.”

Whatnot’s eyes couldn’t have gotten bigger as she squeaked, “We’re going to be flying there...?!”

“The brochure says Las Pegasus is full of carnivals and games!” Spike cut in excitedly, as Whatnot's squeals left the audible spectrum, “Can we ride on them? It says there’s the Tongue Twister which is the longest—”

“I’m sure we can have a little fun,” Twilight said in appeasement to the little dragon, “But the girls and I have to keep our eyes out for Rosy Pink. Maybe you can show Whatnot around the city?”

“It would be my pleasure!” Spike announced, proud puffing out his chest.

Whatnot calmed at that, and glanced at Twilight with worried purple eyes, asking, “I’m not coming with you, princess?”

“I really do need your help, Whatnot,” Twilight replied with an appeasing smile, “We’re just going to be taking a look around, anyway. Probably nothing too interesting.”

“Well, I can’t complain about a free vacation to Las Pegasus,” Whatnot said in a more subdued tone, then brightened and said, “But tell me as soon as you start hearing ponies babble again, so that I can be of help too!”

“I will be sure to do so,” Twilight said firmly. Whatnot squeed, and jumped up into the cart.

“Everypony ready?” Twilight asked, once they were all in the cart, except for her and Rainbow Dash.

“Let me just...” Rarity said, expanding a parasol in her magic. “Ready darling!” she declared.

“Ah’m ready as a spring hare!” Applejack said enthusiastically.

“Absotutely-lootly!” their blue extra said, while Spike just winked and gave Twilight the thumbs up.

Fluttershy might have mumbled something, but Pinkie Pie shouted in excitement, “Road trip!”

“Pinkie!” Twilight shouted admonishingly, making Pinkie Pie’s gut sink, until her purple friend added calmly, “This is not a road trip. We aren’t using any roads. There are no roads in the sky.”

“Ohhh,” Pinkie said in realization. “Okay then... sky trip!!”

With barely an eyeroll betwixt them, Rainbow Dash and Twilight picked up into the air, taking with them the other ponies, and whatever bags they wanted to pack for the day piled in the middle. Whatnot brought a coinpurse for some quick credit establishment, and several reference books about helping Twilight. Pinkie and Applejack brought stuff for a sort of picnic if the opportunity presented itself. Rarity had some rope, and a sneaking suit should any of them have to do something inconspicuous. Fluttershy had with her a pet carrier that wasn’t glowing so much now that the sun was high in the sky, but contained a friend of Rosy’s that she earnestly wanted to reunite with her.

It was actually a good thing that they didn’t take the train, considering what time of year it was. Pinkie was completely unashamed to say that she wouldn’t want to be in an enclosed train car with herself in the middle of May, and she was fairly sure the rest of them fared no better. In fact, an open flying cart was pretty much ideal; they could make a beeline for the city this way, with no need to detour around the White Tail Woods.

Ponyville fell away from them far in the distance as Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle took them over the Ghastly Gorge. Twilight kept smacking her rump against the base of the cart though, and not in a way that looked like she was enjoying it. Then she had to flap harder to catch up with Rainbow Dash.

It wasn’t long at all that Twilight looked exhausted, enough that Rainbow Dash shouted out, “Okay, hold up!” dragging herself and Twilight to a halt in the air.

“What gives, Twilight?” the rainbow pegasus asked in frustration, “I’m already going as slow as I can. You look like you’re falling over your wings! Haven’t you been practicing flying lately?”

“Sorry, I...” Twilight said breathlessly, “I’m not sure I’m just... feeling really tired for some reason... could we just—” she fell out of the sky for a moment with a yelp, and the cart jerked enough for Rarity to shriek before Twilight pulled herself back up to level. “Sorry I suppose I haven’t been flying enough,” she said, redfaced, “Could we just... take a rest break really quick?”

They touched down by the river, and Twilight didn’t hesitate to unstrap herself. She leaned against a tree, just looking... drained. So Pinkie Pie trotted up to her and once again offered a, “Cupcake?”

Twilight looked at the proferred treat queasily saying, “I’m really not in the mood right now.”

“Well, something else then?” Pinkie suggested, pulling out an “Apple? Sandwich? Hay? Chips? Hay chips?”

“Pinkie! I’m fine!” Twilight said irritably. “I’ll eat something when we get there, okay?”

“What’s the problem? You keep forgetting to eat!” Pinkie Pie whined, “That’s probably why you’re so tired and cranky lately.”

“I am not cranky,” Twilight said crankily, “And I’m not forgetting to eat. I’m just a little under the weather. Pinkie, don’t worry. I weighed myself just this morning, and I’m still over three pounds heavier than I’ve ever been as a unicorn. Princesses just don’t have to eat as much. That’s why everything has... it’s perfectly normal.”

“Okay, but... you just get better okay?” Pinkie asked worriedly.

Twilight smiled, saying, “I just need to rest a bit. I’ll be fine.”

Fluttershy ended up taking up the harness in Twilight’s place as reluctantly, but resignedly the princess sat herself in Fluttershy’s spot in the carriage. Even with Fluttershy setting the pace, they were making better time than before. Fluttershy wasn’t as fast a flyer as Rainbow Dash, but she sure was faster than Twilight when she wasn’t feeling well! Plus Twilight and Whatnot actually had a lot to talk about, both being unapologetic smarty pantses, so the princess ended up enjoying the journey a lot more than if she’d spent it pulling the cart.

Rarity took the time on their way to speak about their strategy regarding Rosy. “Now I want everypony to remember,” the elegant white unicorn said with a pointed look at the slumped Twilight, “That we are here to help Rosy, not harm her. We must act with grace and temperance, and even if she resists again, we need to be the better ponies here. Remember she has a mind not unlike a young foal, and must be corrected gently, but firmly. I know she has said terrible, terrible things about us all in the past, but we must accept that she can’t be expected to empathize like a normal pony. It’s just in her nature!”

“It’s true, humans of the other verse do appear to be very combatative by nature,” Twilight remarked, “The Zebrican human tribes have been known to war upon one another, but the ones through the Rift have made a whole culture of it, glorifying battle and duty to one’s commander.”

“See, so this isn’t Rosy’s fault, and we have no reason to feel hurt by her words,” Rarity said with a smile, “We only need to correct her behavior, and send a firm signal that she has a responsibility to return home and get out of our tail.”

“Plus if she resists, we can totally lock her in the dungeon!” Rainbow Dash called back over her shoulder.

“Yes... well... it probably won’t come to that,” Rarity said with a narrow look at her lovable ruffian of a friend, “We only need do what is necessary even if we may have the urge to be spiteful or cruel about it.”

When she wasn’t talking with Twilight about languages and dimensional math, Whatnot just looked around outside the cart with wide eyes, absorbing everything she was seeing and hearing. Spike was in a similar situation, except without wide eyes, or absorption, and with his head stuck in a comic book.

“Ah still don’t like it,” Applejack said suspiciously, “Why can’t we convince her to do it? Sure maybe she ain’t a pony thinkin’ critter, but what does that say about us, if’n we cain’t even get some lost lil’ filly to return home?”

“It’s not some lost little filly,” Twilight grouched, “It’s a full grown male stallion with mental issues, even by the standards of his own alien species. We cannot forget that Rosy Pink’s real name is Bruce Connell, because Bruce will take every advantage of that. We’re not the bad guys here. He is.”

“Uh, nopony said we were the bad guys,” Pinkie offered uncertainly, “But it does kinda look that way, if you look at it without knowing we’re the good guys. We should just be nice to him, even if we have to... tell him that no, he can’t stay.”

“I suppose,” Twilight admitted reluctantly. “It just gets me so mad, thinking of how he abused all our trust. He might be taking advantage of some mare right this moment, and I can’t even get us to Las Pegasus fast enough.” She looked at Fluttershy, whose sides were heaving, but her speed was steady, then back to Pinkie Pie, the princess saying gratefully, “I’m glad I have all of you as my friends. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Prooobably go home, because you’re too tired to fly this cart all the way there yourself,” Pinkie suggested.

“That was a rhetorical question,” Twilight grumbled.

“But it wasn’t a question?” Pinkie Pie replied, confused.

It was an interesting flight.

Las Pegasus is an amazing city. Pinkie Pie had heard legend of it, with its beautiful gleaming beaches and its bright, shining amusement parks and playgrounds. It was said to be a city that never sleeps, and Pinkie Pie could see why. There were lights everywhere, and so much to do that not even Pinkie Pie could have done it all. She only managed to ride the ferris wheel, and play with the dolphins, and dance up on stage, and win like a million tickets of the ball toss before the rest of them caught up with her about 10 minutes later, and dragged Pinkie to the hotel.

It was... hard to sleep, actually, with the lights and the constant activity. Pinkie Pie just wanted to play and play, and she could understand why they had her leashed to the radiator, but she was really having a hard time calming down here! Everypony was kind of in a bad mood, especially with Whatnot’s latest attempt falling flat, leaving Twilight unable to so much as read the Equestrian Travel Guide in the bureau drawer.

Things were kind of tense for the night, and emotions were high. The next morning they were all business though. Almost all business. Whatnot and Spike agreed to hold down the fort, which was secret code for leaving the fort and enjoying the city for the day. Also going without sleep all night had made Pinkie Pie too groggy to handle most of this fun stuff, so she was pretty businesslikeish.

It was surprisingly easy to track down Rosy Pink. Asking around led to a sort of cheap hotel, and watching it surreptitiously, they saw a familiar looking mare with bright pink hair and creamy white fur leave its confines. They were going to confront her, but Twilight wanted to watch her movements first, to see if Rosy had any more tricks up her metaphorical sleeves.

Pinkie didn’t see how a salt bar would be any of those tricks, but it was kind of uneasy how strongly Twilight insisted that they not enter such an establishment. Pinkie Pie knew that salt made you loopy and loosey goosey, and wasn’t something a good mare should partake of, but at the same time it meant they lost sight of Rosy.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t go in there?” Pinkie hissed to Twilight.

“I do not want any of us even smelling the salt dust in those places,” Twilight whispered back, from her hiding spot behind a flashy billboard, “Especially not you, Pinkie Pie. We can go open loop later. Now we have to stay alert and vigilant for Bruce’s emergence. He hasn’t seen us, so there’s no reason to think he’s trying to lose us.”

“Okay Twilight,” Pinkie whispered back, “You know what’s best.”

“Besides, you remember the last time you got your nose into some salt?” Rainbow Dash whispered on Pinkie’s other side.

“Actually no,” Pinkie replied, “It’s all a big blur to me. But I remember repairing those buildings afterwards!”

“I would never even set hoof in a—a salt bar,” Rarity said in honest disgust. “Especially with the state it puts you in, I’ll wager any number of ornery stallions would seek to ravish us, utterly devoid of any sensibility or inhibitions. Why that would be just viciously scandalous and to even think of such a thing is positively—”

“Please don’t make me summon another leash, Rarity,” Twilight whispered. Where Rarity had started to crawl out from behind the billboard, she blushed self consciously, and scooted back into their collective hiding spot.

Rosy didn’t even glance at their hiding spot as the evening wore on, probably because soap ads weren’t really all that eye catching. But Rainbow Dash saw her leave, and woke up everypony else in time to see a bright pink tail diminishing down the street. The Bearers wove their way through the crowd in pursuit, but it was pretty easy to follow Rosy. She was clearly salted up and walking dizzily enough to hang onto ponies she was next to.

She separated from the milling crowd of playponies to head to the hotel again, this time with somepony accompanying her. “Who is that?” Fluttershy asked fearfully, as the two entered the hotel’s dirty double doors. Pinkie didn’t get a good look at her, but the pony had a pale coat with a blue mane, which could have been just about anypony.

“It can’t be helped,” Twilight replied, “Bruce might not allow us to talk with him alone, but this is the closest chance we’re likely to get. If we come upon him when he’s readying for sleep, his guard will be down, and we’ll be able to reason with anypony he’s thus far deceived.”

“That mare he was with, could she be his next victim?” Rarity said in horror, “We have to hurry, or he might do something to her that she’ll never be able to forget!”

“I’ll deal with the staff,” Twilight stated, “The rest of you do your best to find what room he’s in.”

And with that, the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony trotted on to destiny.

“Good evening mares,” Twilight said of the ponies at the front desk. “We’re here on official royal business. Somepony may be committing a crime at your very hotel. Please, don’t be alarmed. We’ve been tracking this criminal for a long time, and he’s quite sneaky, so just act natural, pretend I don’t have wings, and let me know if you’ve seen a mare with pink curly hair, cream colored fur, and no story mark.”

The staff just looked at her, as a fawn looks at an approaching pack of wolves.

“Rosy Pink. She didn’t even change her name!” Rainbow Dash said triumphantly behind them, hovering over by the hotel’s key board, lifting off the spare key to room 317.

“Um, excuse—” one of the employees started to say, but Twilight immediately cut in with,

“Good job, Rainbow Dash! Now let’s hurry, while time is of the essence!”

Pinkie Pie never understood what it meant for time to be of an essence, but she knew it was essential for them to get to Rosy in time, before Rosy said mean, awful, nasty things to that mare, like she did with Pinkie, and with all the others, in rapid succession. That poor mare with Rosy could accidentally get her feelings hurt, or worse!

So while everypony else crowded up the stairs as quietly as they could go, Pinkie Pie saw a way to get into the room a bit early. She snuck behind a flower pot, which she could connect to a suitcase in room 316, that itself led to a closet in room 317.

“Surprise!” Pinkie Pie shouted, bursting out of the closet, “Rosy! We’ve been looking all—”

Several things became clear at this point. It was clear that Rosy’s soft blue irises, a shade darker than Pinkie Pie’s, narrowed in shock at Pinkie’s arrival, but it wasn’t clear what Rosy meant by saying the words, “Oh god no.” It was clear that Pinkie Pie was not, not, not, not supposed to be here, but it wasn’t clear what she was supposed to do about that.

It was unquestionably clear that the pony accompanying Rosy had been a stallion, not a mare, but it wasn’t clear how the two ponies Pinkie Pie burst in on could possibly be doing what they were doing right now, right this moment, right in the middle of the room, even though Pinkie Pie was standing right here, but she shouldn’t be here. But... but why?! How?!

“But you’re both stallions!” Pinkie Pie blurted out, in total and utter confusion.

Rosy looked like she wanted to curl up into a ball and die, but with bearing his weight and with... things, she was pretty much stuck just standing there. And the blue haired stallion that was in...on her... he... started to laugh. He didn’t even stop what he was doing to Rosy! He just laughed and said to Pinkie in a rough voice, “How high do y’ have to be to think I’ll fall for that, when I am literally inside Rosy’s p—” and then Twilight and the others burst in through the door.

It went about as well as expected.

Oh what, you want details? Well!

“Waitnodon’tcomein!” Pinkie Pie squeaked ineffectively when the door to the hall crashed open. She was helpless to watch Twilight gallop in, skid to a halt, and sort of stare, everypony else barrelling in right around her. As a whole crowd of ponies burst in, the blue haired stallion completely panicked, shoving off of... out of... off of Rosy and—and oh Celestia was he not a mare. Rosy’s friend was definitely, incredibly, hugely not a mare. Rosy sank to her belly and covered her head in her forehooves. Fluttershy screamed, Rarity fainted on the spot, Rainbow Dash burst into gut shaking laughter for reasons not even she could explain afterward, and Applejack ran up to Pinkie Pie.

“You okay there?!” Applejack exclaimed to Pinkie anxiously, “Rosy didn’t hurt ya none, did he?”

“R-r-r-r-rosy isn’t a he!” Pinkie replied still utterly confused, pointing a hoof again over behind Applejack, where Rosy Pink was sobbing on the floor, repeating slurred words like,

“...never escape no matter what I do they won’t let me live I don’t wanna go I don’t...”

“What’re you talkin’ about?” Applejack said to Pinkie Pie in confusion, looking at Rosy, just as the stallion bellowed defensively backing to the wall,

“I didn’t do nothing I swear! She wanted it you got no right to lock me up!”

That led Applejack to look at the stallion, who was still... out and about, in his whole stallion-ness down there. Applejack kind of blanked then, going, “Whu” looking from Rosy to the stallion, to Rosy to...

“But y’all are both stallions!” Applejack blurted out in shock.

“I’m not!!” Rosy shrieked, curling up in a ball and chanting, “I’m not! I’m not. I’m not...”

“Filly... fooler!” Rainbow Dash managed to gasp out, before rolling with laughter again.

Fluttershy was currently hiding behind the crumpled form of Rarity and hyperventilating, with her eyes fixed on the one thing that was not like the others in this room. Considering the season, Pinkie Pie could understand why Fluttershy’s eyes might be fixed on that particular body part, but the terror in Fluttershy’s eyes... that wasn’t... right.

“Why’re youse accusing me of cuddlin’ colts?!” the stallion shouted at Applejack et al, in a Manehattan manner of speaking, stepping up angrily to the orange farm pony, who backed up a step despite herself, “You just tryin’ to hurt Rosy even more or something?”

“Ah ain’t accusin’ you of nothin’ you lowdown—” Applejack retorted angrily and fearfully, just as Twilight shouted,

“Stop!!”

She enforced that request with a magenta wave of princessly magic that froze everypony in their tracks.

“You,” Twilight said to Rainbow Dash there in mid-chortle, “Stop laughing! This is a very serious ...situation! And you,” she stared at Applejack, “Stop arguing with the stallion and help. Can’t you see that she—he—she—” Twilight spared a confused look at Rosy and the stallion, “That Rosy—Bruce—can’t you see that the creature was hurting her—him? And—”

She staggered over to Fluttershy, looking at what Fluttershy was looking at, then saying, “Stop staring at it, and help drag Rarity to safety, and you, “ she zipped over to Pinkie Pie. “You... warn us the next time you’re going to do that, but... good job interrupting this before he came in—before something unfortunate happened. Now you and Applejack help me with B-Bruce. Fluttershy will get Rarity. And you, “

Twilight zipped over to the stallion, still standing there stiff as a board, “You can just count your lucky stars that nothing happened to...” Twilight’s words trailed off and she stared in confusion at the stallion again. “That nothing happened to... you,” she concluded to him with a nod, “Because this mare—this stallion—man is not your friend. He is dangerous. Come on everypony, let’s go.”

Twilight canceled the stop then, with a winkling twinkle, and Applejack moved forward hefting Rosy up to her hooves. “Please, no...” Rosy moaned, trying to fall down again, but Twilight gave her the mouth zipper then, and Applejack and Pinkie stopped her from running away, and Pinkie Pie wasn’t sure how it happened exactly, but Twilight managed to get Pinkie Pie’s leash onto Rosy Pink.

Twilight’s magic was mostly what got Rosy out of the hotel that day. Nopony else really... wanted to touch her. Rosy was a mess, and stank of more than just salt. There was nothing to be done about it though. Blushing red in their faces, the 12 took their unwanted extra with them out of that hotel, and never looked back.

Pinkie Pie still didn’t understand how Rosy could be a stallion, because how could a stallion have possibly wanted to do that with another stallion? It’d be like if Pinkie Pie went and... with another filly and... ew! Would Pinkie Pie feel that way about fillies if she was a stallion? Did stallions feel that way because they were stallions, or did they just happen to be the ponies who liked mares?

Pinkie Pie was feeling worser and worser as they moved through the city, with everypony staring at them, and ponies scrambling to get out of the way before the sight of the Elements, and Twilight’s wings spread wide. This was wrong. This was bad. Pinkie Pie didn’t know why but she couldn’t feel good about this at all. It was like the worst fake smile that ever smiled. Rosy was... Pinkie Pie didn’t understand! Was Rosy evil? Then why was she acting like they were evil?

Was that just a special ability that Rosy could do? It had to be, because Pinkie Pie wasn’t evil, and she wasn’t a monster, not even if Rosy made her along with everypony else feel that way. Nevertheless, the Las Pegasus prison had a visit that day from a half dozen monsters, and one not-pony. A not-pony, whose greatest hope for the future was that now she had but one more day to live in Equestria, because the monsters were too exhausted to send her home right away. But tomorrow... the end would come.

Pinkie Pie couldn’t sleep that night, either.

With a creak and a metallic clash, the harried mare with the curly pink hair was pushed into a cell in the Las Pegasus penitentiary. She didn’t offer up any resistance, and collapsed in a heap once the door closed behind her, curling away and refusing to look at any of them until they left her alone.

The prison hadn’t seen much use in the last few centuries, what with the amount of fun ponies had in this city. It was a friendly place, far removed from stodgy Vanhoover, or the tumultuous Manehattan that seemed to thrive on conflict. Las Pegasus thrived, for some definition of thrived, on fun, and this cultural renaissance meant that the more nefarious interests would be looking elsewhere. It may have been different if any of these places were charging admission, but to earn the keys to the city, you only had to be connected, well known and beloved by all.

So the holding area up front was full of tipsies and revelers, but the jail in the back was only about a third full. The back was the area for dangerous ponies who risked hurting others or themselves, and unless Las Pegasus became home to some ancient artifact of power, most ponies like that made no trouble in that city, instead preferring to spend their days hunting in the jungles and ruins all the way across the continent. That left Rosy with no company other than an armful of unfriendly prisoners to talk with, and anypony else who was willing to try.

“...ah’m gonna go talk to her,” Applejack said, as the friends convened in the prison’s lobby.

“We all should go talk to him,” Fluttershy replied, “To try and convince him of the good in... whatever lesson it is he’s supposed to be learning.”

“I don’t care about lessons. I just wanna cheer her up!” Pinkie Pie protested. “Did you see her? She wasn’t crying!”

“...that’s not a good thing?” Twilight asked in puzzlement.

“Not for her, it isn’t,” Pinkie mumbled, disconsolate.

“Well I don’t know if I want to talk to her!” Rainbow Dash declared, snapping her tail. “She’s too good at... at saying things that get to us!”

"Rainbow Dash is right," Rarity said testily, "Rosy has said such horrible things to us, that it is not healthy to talk with him. We'd only allow him to hurt us worse if we did."

“I just want this to be over with...” Fluttershy said softly, a hair away from turning back her ears. “I had no idea he was so troubled. Did my... our kiss cause this? I wish there was something I could do for him.”

“Do you think his female body might be affecting him?” Rarity asked, aghast. “I know we’ve all been feeling the season, but to go to such lengths to satisfy it?”

“What if we hadn’t got there in time?” Twilight worried, “Could he have gotten pregnant? What kind of stallion would do that to himself?”

“The kinda stallion who became a mare, apparently,” Applejack said, shaking her head.

“Not even the Alicorn Amulet could do such a thing,” Twilight remarked in uneasy astonishment, “It’s one thing to transform into a pony, change in size or shape, or even age, but to reverse the polarities on his gender? It’s unheard of!”

“We can’t forget that he was not originally a pony at all,” Rarity said distastefully, then blushed and added, “Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it means he... shared certain differences from us, from the get-go.”

“How is he even the same person at all?” Twilight asked despondently. “If his body changed, and his self image changed, what’s left? His memories?”

“We should get him back through the Rift right away,” Fluttershy said with a nod of agreement, “Before this gets any worse. We might not have anything left of Rosy to save!”

“...ah don’t know about memories or whatnot, but ah’m gonna go talk to... him,” Applejack said grudgingly. “He’s all alone in there, an’ it just ain’t right to leave him... her like that.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Applejack,” Twilight said solemnly, “If he tries to hurt you, just know that we’ll be here if you need us.”

Applejack nodded solemnly, and headed once more back into the breach.

Meanwhile, a blue unicorn and a baby dragon staggered laughing out of the teacup rides, many strands of prize tickets clutched in their claws and horn field respectively. Then they headed straight for the giant beanbag maze. It was a good day.

Author's Note

Things aren’t looking too good for Rosy right now... but what will she say to Applejack?

The End

Author's Note

I don’t want to spoil anything, but I don’t want to lead anyone on with false hopes, so I’ll tell you now. This is the end for Rosy Pink. She had a good run, but the Bearers leave nothing up to chance this time, so this time, they will successfully force Rosy Pink to leave Equestria forever. So long Rosy Pink, we barely knew ye!

The End

Applejack wasn’t ready, but this was something that needed to be done. Rosy couldn’t just be left like that, crumpled over in that cell like a broken doll. The orange farm pony had her stetson on her head, and her Element of Harmony clasped around her neck, both a symbol of her authority and a representation of her power. The power to do right to others, to stay true to them and rally them by your side.

It was a power that had saved her farm time and time again, before she even knew what it was. It lay within her, always reminding her that she needed the ponies in her life, sometimes so much that Applejack wished she could do it all on her own, alone. Well, she was alone here, and anypony would agree she was doing right to others, but as she approached Rosy’s cell, Applejack just couldn’t feel good about it.

“Sorry for lockin’ you up,” Applejack said to the cream furred lump on the floor in the corner with the pink tail sticking out of it, “We wanna see if a night’s rest don’t get Twilight feeling better, before we try to fly you back to the Rift.”

From Rosy, there was no acknowledgement that Applejack even spoke. Applejack spoke anyway, saying, “Ya really don’t wanna go home, do ya?”

Rosy lifted her head at that, and turned to look at Applejack, her eyes still red with tears that hadn’t fallen since they left the hotel. “I... am home,” she said dully, still a little out of it from the salt, even an hour later.

“Ah meant your home back in the other world,” Applejack replied crossly.

“That’s not my home,” Rosy insisted bitterly, “Not anymore.” She added softly, almost as an afterthought, “It never was.”

“What about your friends an’ family?” Applejack asked, “You gonna just leave them all behind?”

“Why do you care?” Rosy moaned, flopping flatter, “You’re just going to force me back anyway!”

“Look, sugarcube, sometimes things don’t work out the way you wanted them to an’—”

“Will you just shut up!” Rosy snapped, rolling on her back and flailing her hooves overhead dramatically, “Shut up with your stupid moralizing and your stupid lessons, and stop trying to say you’re so superior and I’m just deluded. Why can’t you just leave me alone?!”

“You know we cain’t do that,” Applejack said with an unhappy grimace, “Y’gotta listen to reason. The fate of Equestria depends on you!”

“Fuck Equestria,” Rosy replied darkly, curling up.

“What about your family?” Applejack pleaded.

“Fuck my family.”

“What in tarnation’s that supposed to mean?” Applejack asked angrily.

“I never wanted them to be my family,” Rosy replied resentfully, looking distantly forward, “They were just people who forced me to live with them, growing up.”

“Family ain’t that. Family’s...” Applejack shook her head, trying to find the words, “There’s a deep bond that goes beyond anything you can make by friendship. They’re your kin, by blood!”

“Maybe not every... everypony is lucky enough to feel that way, Applejack,” Rosy replied with a look that almost seemed like pity. She managed to roll onto her belly, mumbling, “Anyway I have pony blood now, so we’re not even related by blood anymore.”

“Th’ Rift’ll fix that...” Applejack said desperately.

Rosy looked at her again with those deep blue eyes, and said in a haunted voice, “Why d’you think I don’t want to go through it?”

“Ah don’t...but...” Applejack didn’t know what to ask, or what she even wanted to ask even.

Then oddly enough, Rosy helped.

“You were really uh... worried for Apple Bloom, weren’t you?” asked the pink-haired mare behind bars, still laying there staring at Applejack on the floor, looking salty as all getout.

“Well y–yuh. On account of you was just bein’ a mare so Apple Bloom’d think you were a mare, so you c-could...” Applejack stammered, trying to say it, but too afraid of what could’ve happened.

“Y’know ponies like me...” Rosy said with an uncharacteristically silly grin, “Like... me are safer, statistically speaking ’course, with young childr—foals. All the stallions’ll be all over her one day, but not me ‘cause I’m... I’m not that... way, I think.”

“So you wouldn’t?” Applejack asked, her heart in her throat, “D-d-do anythin’ to her?”

“If I would, then why didn’t I?,” Rosy said with a dramatic roll of her eyes, “I had plenty of chances, so why... didn’t I? Because I wanna be a mare not some kinna freakish pervert.”

Applejack was trying to understand and just... not seeing it. Stallions followed mares, not other stallions, so Rosy couldn’t have been a stallion, yet she wasn’t denying it! How was disguising yourself as a mare in order to get a stallion to mount another stallion not some kinda dangerous, sick perversion?

“Did ya really just... raise your tail for a stallion?” Applejack asked, staring at the strange not-stallion stallion in confused horror.

Any warmth in Rosy’s eyes died at that stare. Turning away from Applejack, her head sank to lay on her hooves, and her tail scrunched up against her rear as she said, “...I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“You see how wrong that is?” Applejack persisted, “Even you feel ashamed of... of havin’ that freakish perversion.”

“Fuck you,” Rosy mumbled into her hooves.

Applejack didn’t really want to talk about it either. She didn’t want it to be true at all, it was just terrible to think that Rosy’d be a stallion who thought he was a mare. She wanted Rosy to be an ordinary mare, just... like Rosy wanted. Just like deep down in her gut, Applejack secretly wanted Rosy Pink to stay in Equestria.

Applejack wanted it to be true, and yet she didn’t want to have to choose between Rosy and her friends. There was nothing doing though. Rosy had been right all along. Applejack could try to get Twilight to grudgingly listen to reason, but as long as that Rift was hanging over their friendship, Twilight Sparkle and Rosy Pink could never be friends.

Some time later, Fluttershy crept into the cell block, a hoof against her Element for strength, the shadows large and dangerous around her as she risked approaching Rosy’s cell. Rosy was just lying there on the floor, so Fluttershy forced herself to say as loudly as she could muster, “Rosy, I’m... sorry.”

Rosy stirred and looked her way, but Fluttershy had time to continue, so she said, “I’m sorry I may have... hurt you so badly, so many years ago. I didn’t realize it... it turned you away from mares.”

A laugh escaped Rosy at that, one that seemed to surprise them both. With an incredulous look, Rosy replied, “You think that bothered me? I mean it did, but it wasn’t gonna work between us. I got over it. What really hurts me is that you told them that I... have a problem. Is it really so hard to think of me as just another mare?”

“How many years were you a stallion?” Fluttershy asked, “A-and lusting after mares? You can’t change that. It’s not right for you to be a mare. It’s not natural.”

Rosy looked at Fluttershy with a sorrowful sort of pity, saying softly, “You could save me, you know.”

“What?” Fluttershy asked, backing up a step.

“Tell them that I’m a normal mare, that you... did stuff to me, and it didn’t work out,” Rosy pleaded, “Just... tell your friends that I belong here, and there’s nothing unnatural about me. You could convince them, I know you could. You’re not the smartest, or the most clever, but you have the most heart out of all of your friends. I wish I could show you how strong you are. I don’t care if ponies think you’re weak, you are not—”

“Maybe I want to be weak,” Fluttershy said hastily, resentfully, unable to make eye contact.

“Fluttershy, wait—” Rosy said, but Fluttershy had already turned tail and fled. “Shit...”

A certain somepony’s cream colored rear hooves clanged loudly on the bars and she again shouted, “Shit!”

“Sorry, I can’t do that on command!” a different mare shouted from a distant cell.

“Rosie?” Pinkie Pie asked, creeping up to Rosy’s cell. It looked like Rosy had kicked over the little table in there, and was standing silently over by the sleeping cot, with her back turned to the bars, “How you doing in there? You gonna be okay?”

“How can you even say that,” Rosy spat out abruptly, turning to glare angrily at Pinkie, “You’re throwing me to the wolves, and you think I’m going to be okay? Maybe what you’re asking is if you’ll be okay. Well I hope not. I hope you stay up late every night thinking about what you did to me!”

“Rosy, this is... wrong! Something is wrong,” Pinkie replied with difficulty around the tears fighting to escape her eyes. “We’re not gonna do anything bad. You’re just going home!”

“I am home,” Rosy grumbled in reply, as if she’d said that already, stalking up to the door of her cell, and up to Pinkie Pie, “You want me to go home. How about you let me go home? Stop attacking me in my own house, and let me live with you in Equestria!”

“I wish you could...” Pinkie said weakly. She didn’t want to do anything bad to Rosy, not this, not the Rift, not anything. But who would ever listen to her? Shrinking back to her belly before the prison cell, Pinkie Pie was too crazy to be trusted with making decisions, and that was a good thing! She wasn’t okay, and so Pinkie’s friends could take care of her. Pinkie Pie would try to repay them as best as she could, but she couldn’t be the one to make decisions, or she’d decide wrong. She just whimpered, and said... “I really wish you could.”

Rosy was at the bars of the cell then, reaching through them and touching Pinkie Pie on the shoulder, lifting Pinkie’s spirits enough for the pink pony to stand again. “Pinkie, I... I’m sorry I called you crazy,” Rosy said in a shaky voice, “Sometimes I think you’re more sane than anypony in this crazy world. You understand how things work if you’d just let yourself...” she huffed in frustration, looking desperately into Pinkie’s eyes, “I don’t want to hurt you either. I just want to live here. That’s all I want. I want to live here, and never go back.”

Pinkie Pie shrunk back from Rosy’s pleading gaze. She didn’t understand, yet she did. Pinkie wanted to go back, to find her family again alive and well, but... she had a pretty good life where she was. There was nothing to return to but memories, and while she treasured the memories, she didn’t want to... go back there. Her home was in Ponyville now, just... just like Rosy.

“Were you trying to be a real mare?” Pinkie Pie asked anxiously, “To... to prove you weren’t a stallion, when you... presented for him?”

That made Rosy glare at Pinkie. Pinkie Pie didn’t like being glared at. She liked it even less than being glared at! “You didn’t give me much of a choice,” Rosy said bitterly. “What else was I supposed to do?”

“But you didn’t have to do this! Nopony really cares if you were a stallion,” Pinkie said in an appeasing tone she hoped, “They just want you to go home, and stop being... weird,”

Just like Pinkie Pie.…

“You think I don’t know that?” Rosy countered, “You’re obviously gonna force me to go back. It’s just what happens in these things. But if I...”

Through the bars, they stared at one another for a silent second, Rosy looking less and less at what was in front of her, until the imprisoned mare said distantly, “I thought maybe you couldn’t send me back, if I was... with foal. If I was pregnant, you couldn’t...”

Any remaining humor in Pinkie’s expression shattered and sank as Rosy continued to speak, telling her, “What would you do, send an innocent foal through the Rift? If I had a foal in me, I’d at least have another year to live here. And even if you forced me to give up the foal, and they had to live in an orphanage, at least... some part of me would get to stay in Equestria. It was a... it was a stupid idea, and I should have known you’d show up right in the middle of it.”

“I hadn’t... I didn’t even think...” Pinkie said in horror. “We can’t... you’re not even a mare in your world! What would happen? How could you do that to yourself? To a little... your little foal...”

“I guess you’ll have to let me stay here then,” Rosy replied crossly, “Because I could be p-pregnant, with a foal.” Her shoulders sank.

“But... but he never finished!” Pinkie contested desperately. “We found you in time, we saved you from... from your foal!”

Rosy blinked at Pinkie, then glanced down and mumbled, “That wasn’t... the first time.”

“What?” Pinkie squeaked.

Rosy glared at her again, saying, “We did it every day. That was the seventh time.”

“The what time?” Pinkie asked in horrified confusion.

“The—” Rosy grimaced, “We did it ...onetwo times, all the way. You can’t stop it now because he’s... it’s inside me now and it’s been a week. So tell that to your friends, and then leave me alone for the next... 23 months.”

Rosy turned around then and flopped onto the sleeping cot ungently, shifting her hind legs against each other as if she wasn’t comfortable about what was between them.

To her back, Pinkie Pie said, “I’ll—I’ll tell the others, and it’ll be okay and we’ll f-figure something out. I’m sorry Rosy I... you... I’m sorry!”

Pinkie kind of felt like Rosy then, having trouble choking out those words around her knot of dread and sympathy that made her really really not want Rosy to return home. Pinkie left begging apologies, without any idea of how to make things right again. Twilight would know what to do. When Pinkie was too silly and... and crazy to understand, Twilight always knew what to do.

“So... you really wanna be a mare,” Rainbow Dash just casually suggested, after having snuck up to Rosy’s cell that afternoon, some time after Pinkie Pie’s rather tumultuous confession to them all.

“...I dunno,” was Rosy’s unenthusiastic reply.

“You sure seemed to know back at the hotel!” Dash retorted, still trying to get her head around how a stallion could want... that.

“Maybe that was a mistake,” Rosy sighed, standing and looking at her hindquarters because uh—yeah. “It was just so... weird. I tried to be ready for it, but... have you ever... been with a stallion?”

Well, that was... not the question Rainbow Dash expected to receive. It was kind of obvious in hindsight though. Rosy was just a lost little filly who didn’t know anything about how to be a mare. And also a stallion, somehow.

“You remember the hundredth episode of season 1, where I finally managed to do a Sonic Rainboom?” Rainbow Dash asked hopefully.

It didn’t look like Rosy’s eyes could go any wider when she openly stared at Rainbow Dash and asked, “You saw the show?!”

“Yeah, Twilight got her hooves on it from the research team, and I kinda acquired it from her,” Rainbow Dash said sheepishly. “She put a lid on it after season four, after Pinkie freaked out over a... thing. But I watched that much at least.”

“Did you... like it?” Rosy asked cautiously.

“Hay, yeah!” Rainbow Dash declared with a hoof pump, “The show is awesome!”

“So, what did you think about the Sonic Rainboom?” Rosy asked hopefully, “You saw what I meant about generosity, right?”

“Oh sure,” Rainbow Dash said with a smile of rememberance, “But I brought it up because the show kinda sugar coats stuff. You remember how the episode ended, right?”

“Yes? Where you won the contest and—” Rosy blinked, then sunk her head, groaning, “Oh no...”

“Yeah, that was the first time I ever did it,” Rainbow Dash said abashedly, “With... two stallions.”

Rosy lifted her head.

“I’m a good looking mare with a lot of confidence and not a lot of family obligations,” Rainbow Dash explained with a shrug, “Stallions just... dig me. You know?”

“Well, I didn’t know,” Rosy said in a small voice.

“Seriously, don’t spread it around,” Rainbow Dash said, while a smirk crept onto her face, “I don’t want ponies to start thinking I’m easy, because I’m not. I’m just that good.”

“I guess you wouldn’t understand then,” Rosy replied glumly, “When I felt... him going in there, it was really scary, and I couldn’t stop it, and I couldn’t want to stop it. I just had to stand there until it was done, and I felt him... you know... impregnating me.”

“I guess you’re right, I don’t understand,” Rainbow Dash said testily, asserting, “That’s the best part! But not in season! What were you thinking? You can’t go having a foal, even less than I can! What are you going to—how can you even name them when you don’t even have a... a mother, or a father anymore?”

“I don’t... I can’t even imagine what it’d...” Rosy said, holding an arm around her belly. “I don’t even know if it worked. I probably have s-somepony in there but...”

“Oh hey, yeah,” Rainbow Dash realized, fumbling with something in her pocket, “I might be able to help with that. I stopped at a local clinic today... you know what these are?” Rainbow flipped a long, flat, sticklike object off her wingtip, to land lightly in front of Rosy.

“Of course you have these,” Rosy groaned, staring down at it.

“Hey you’re the pony who wants to stay in Equestria,” Dash protested, “You get that done, and we’ll be so plucked. Our hooves’ll be tied for the next whole year!”

It looked like Rosy had a million things to tell Rainbow Dash, but what Rosy ended up doing was staring at it and just saying, “I wish these were better circumstances...”

Rainbow Dash’s ears went down at that, and she was acutely aware of the bars in-between her and Rosy. “Yeah, I wish there was another way,” she said glumly, “I just don’t want anypony skipping out on checking if you have a foal. But Twilight knows what she’s talking about. The Rift really does endanger Equestria.”

“That’s the truth,” Rosy said plainly, “But it doesn’t seem very honest.”

“So what would be honest?” Rainbow Dash asked defensively, “Lying? If you think you can lie to be honest, then you’re just lying to yourself.”

“Your element is Honesty, right?” Rosy asked cagily.

“The show never showed the time where Twilight freaked out when she found out she got it wrong,” Rainbow Dash said with a smirk, “Woulda made a good episode.”

“Well... honesty isn’t about telling the truth,” Rosy said. “It’s about understanding each other. Communication. Like, I’m going to tell you three lies right now. The sun is made of cheese, your name is Prumpy Fundlepants, and Scootaloo doesn’t love you more than anything in the world. Do you believe any of that for a second? I’m lying to you, I know I’m lying, and you know I’m lying, but you still thought about Scootaloo and how much she loves you. That’s what honesty is.”

“That’s... huh,” Rainbow Dash said distantly, “I guess that makes sense... in a complicated sort of way.” She smirked at Rosy and added, “You’re pretty cool for one of those eggheads, y’know. I just can’t see why you and Twilight have so much trouble getting along.”

“It’s because... okay, here’s one more lie I’m going to tell you. Something that’s not true at all,” Rosy replied mysteriously, then said, “I am not a real mare.”

She was... lying.

“If you do tell Twilight,” Rosy added, laying down on her cot again, and pulling the blanket over herself, “Please don’t lie to her. She needs to hear the truth.”

“Bruce.”

Rosy didn’t even lift an ear.

“Bruce, we need to talk,” Twilight Sparkle said, shifting uneasily on her hooves, glancing at a scroll floating in her magic beside her, “About something important.”

Rosy wouldn’t reply. It was well into the evening that Twilight came to her, but she couldn’t have been asleep yet.

“Bruce, you are not a real mare,” Twilight Sparkle said tiredly to the pony in the cell lying on her small cot.

When Rosy continued to ignore her, Twilight said, “I know you think that you’re going to get away with it, but look what you’re doing to yourself! Do you think pregnancy is going to be a pleasant experience? Do you even care what happens to the foal?”

Nothing.

“I told Bluebell,” Twilight lied, and that made Rosy stiffen up! “And she’s very upset with you for deceiving her all these years,” Twilight continued, “She knows you’re supposed to be a stallion, even if she wishes for you to stay. You may have fooled her into protecting you, but the only way she and her foal are going to heal from this is if you stop manipulating them, and just let them live their lives with everything as it should be, you in your world, in your true form, and they in theirs.”

Rosy sighed, but not much else.

Twilight was getting frustrated now, saying angrily, “You think you’re so clever for indulging in such... unimaginable debauchery. With the disgusting pornography you had on your personal laptop computer, I honestly should have expected this!”

Placing a hoof on her chest, Twilight took a calming breath, then said through clenched teeth, “We’re going to wait until we can verify you have conceived, but you have nothing more to look forward to. If you are with foal, you’ll be spending your pregnancy in prison, with no freedom to do anything in Equestria other than bear it to term.

As Twilight was speaking, Rosy at last showed a reaction. The pink haired pony sat up on her cot and turned to silently face Twilight. As though fueled by Twilight’s words, Rosy climbed down from the cot and squatted on the stone floor in her cell, settling her creamy furred haunches to the ground, while Twilight told Rosy Pink the harsh truth.

“You already know you won’t be able to keep the foal. Once you return to your world, it’ll all be for nothing. All those years you spent fighting to stay here will be nothing more than a bad dream. We’re going to save the world from you. We’ll be heroes, and you’ll just be some kind of sick, twisted failure.”

In her soft soprano, Rosy replied furiously, “When I came here, Equestria took away all of my fingers, except for one. But I only need one finger to do this.” Then she pointed one forehoof at the ceiling, rotated so that the back of her arm was facing Twilight, bracing her other arm on its elbow, crossways. Rosy glared defiantly at Twilight as she did it, as if that was supposed to send her a message, or... something? Twilight couldn’t help but feel terribly insulted by the crude gesture.

“Why do you even want to stay in Equestria so bad?” Twilight asked the angry mare in exasperation, “You think Equestria is some sort of paradise? Ponies die here! There are monsters, and old mines, and— there are places that suffer harsh winters and terrible summers, where what few pegasi who are willing to work with such terrible conditions can do little for the ponies on the ground without making things even worse. Ponies get eaten! How could you want to live in a place with so much... suffering?”

Rosy’s anger broke at that. Settling her forehooves back to the ground and looking at Twilight sadly, Rosy replied, “Has anypony ever had to spend their entire life as the wrong pony, with no way to ever feel like they are who they should be?”

“Well... yes, probably?” Twilight said insecurely, “That’s too specific; maybe Equestria has different forms of suffering that are even worse!”

Rosy sighed, looking at the floor and saying, “I really shouldn’t blame you for all this. I knew as soon as you started talking about returning home that you were the part of my delusion that let me know I was waking up.”

“Delusion?” Twilight asked warily.

“There’s no way this is real!” Rosy protested with glimmering eyes of blue to the purple princess, “It’s too beautiful! But you know what? I don’t care if it’s real. Feeling this and seeing this, and being this is all I want, and I don’t care if I never wake up.”

“What’s so beautiful about a prison cell?” Twilight asked in bewilderment.

“There are hearts on the walls!” Rosy shot back, waving a hoof at the wall decorations.

“So?” Twilight asked in confusion.

A moment passed, yet Rosy’s answer was just, “Never mind. You’re not going to listen. You can’t listen.” Then she climbed back on her cot, and started to lay down, as Twilight shouted,

“Wait! This wasn’t—the reason I came to talk to you.”

Rosy’s ears perked, and she turned to face the princess again. In Twilight’s magic, a scroll eased in through the bars and floated over to Rosy, unrolling in front of her.

“Can you read this?” the princess asked testily.

“...no?” the pink haired pony replied, squinting at the scroll, “What alphabet is that?”

“Yours,” Twilight replied darkly, “The Rift destroyed your ability to read your own language.”

Rosy’s eyes widened as she took another look at the human writing that had been photo-copied therein. “...wow,” she concluded.

“Wow?” Twilight said fussily, dropping the scroll carelessly to the floor, “All you can say is wow? You threw me through the Rift!”

“Yeah, but you’re still here,” Rosy said with an appeasing smile, “I figured you’d just come back—”

“I can’t read!” Twilight shouted accusingly.

In the silence, the words, “That’s what I told the judge!” floated over from one of the other cells.

A dawning horror growing across Rosy’s face, she stood from the cot staring at Twilight and said, “Oh applesauce I didn’t—oh no, I did. I was just trying to get away! I just wanted to distract you—oh no, you can’t read? But you’re like the princess of books!”

“Well, not anymore!” Twilight shouted in reply, even more enraged by the fact that Rosy was acting horrified about all this, as if she actually cared about Twilight. “All because you wouldn’t do the one thing that you are supposed to do. Thank you so much, ‘Rosy Pink’” Twilight seethed, “Now you have something to think about every night. I hope you’re happy with yourself.”

“No, no, no,” Rosy said, strutting up to the bars, “I’m so sorry I just didn’t know what else to—”

“Liar!” Twilight shouted at her angrily.

Rosy froze, deep blue eyes meeting glaring violet for a moment, before Twilight turned her back to the mare and trotted off, grumbling, “I don’t know why I even bothered to come here.”

“I’m sorry!” Rosy shouted after the princess. Twilight didn’t look back. She just sped up into a run, before any tears could start to fall.

From the darkness of the cool night, Rarity strutted up to Rosy’s cell and said acidly, “Well? Go ahead, give me your best shot. You have everypony else under your spell, and there’s no reason I should be an exception.”

Rosy didn’t answer, and Rarity whispered more heatedly, “Do you think I don’t care about you? That I’m just some heartless nag who’s too stupid to realize that you are a person? You think I’m so cloistered that I cannot bear even the slightest deviation from what normal ponies do? Well? What do you think? Going to tell me how greedy I am, just because I want you and your verse to stop ruining Equestria?”

Rosy didn’t answer. After some time, the sound of a quiet snore emitted from inside her cell. Rarity screamed inwardly, and slightly outwardly, then just stormed off. She should have come earlier. Rarity couldn’t be letting herself put it off all day, if she was ever going to... apologize. There was nothing to be done about it. She would simply have to wait until morning. Because waking Rosy would be... selfish.

Now if only Rarity could get any sleep herself, without staring up at the ceiling and dreading the coming day.

Twilight Sparkle awoke bright and early. The sun was shining through the window of the hotel room that she and her friends had reserved. The sounds of ponies playing and laughing drifted in through the window. Twilight looked out at the morning parade with a smile. Twilight was a good pony.

She stretched out, and stumbled as another wing muscle threatened to cramp. But that was alright. Her unicorn magic rubbed and soothed the misbehaving muscle, and Fluttershy could fly them back, just as well as Twilight could. Twilight did make a mental note to practice flying more often. Honestly these wings sometimes were more trouble than they were worth.

Twilight was a good pony. She was doing the right thing, she told herself as she shuffled out of the room. Everything was fine, and it’d all make sense again once they got Bruce into the Rift. Twilight told her friends the plan as they ate breakfast that morning, saying, “Alright everypony, I know you’ve been through a lot, but here’s how things are going to work.”

Looking at Applejack, Twilight said, “I’m sure you understand now that this is about Bruce’s family, not just himself. He might be ungrateful about the gift of family, but they’ve been devastated by the loss no doubt, and we’re helping them return him home, not just helping him. We’re doing it to help his family, and saving Equestria, to boot, so I’m afraid if he’s feeling alienated, he should get psychological counseling for that, not turn himself into a pony all higglety pigglety and come cause chaos in Equestria.”

“Fine, fine,” Applejack groaned skeptically, her muzzle messy with going through her bowl of grits while Twilight went on.

To Fluttershy, Twilight said, “I’m sorry Bruce has hurt you so much, but you have to realize he’s not a normal pony, or even a normal human. He’s a very disturbed individual, who doesn’t belong here. So... I hope you don’t hold it against him, acting out of his mental illness. What happened to you was tragic, but the problem was with him, not yourself. If you need somepony to talk to after all this... I’m here to listen.”

“Thank you, Twilight,” Fluttershy said disconsolately, nibbling at the scone held in her wingtips.

“I know you think Rosy... Bruce is on your side,” Twilight told Rainbow Dash, “He’ll continue trying to twist his words to make you sympathize with him. He’s a pathological liar, who will say anything to get what he wants, and it can sound and feel very convincing. But he can’t change the fact that he is a stallion, and Equestria is in danger as long as he stays here.”

“Whatever,” Rainbow Dash said grouchily, sipping at the cup of coffee held in her wingtips, “I know I’m outvoted. We can’t even do anything about her yet, for the next year, and after that I bet she’ll figure out another way to stay in Equestria.”

“By my calculations, she only has a 23.3% chance of impregnation,” Twilight replied. “We’ll put her on watch, and if she isn’t pregnant, then there’s nothing to worry about. If she is with foal, she’s going to be spending a long time in prison, because we aren’t going to let her get away this time.

“So much for that idea,” Rainbow Dash grumbled under her breath.

“Now Pinkie, what Bruce told you is very serious,” Twilight said to her magenta maned friend, who paused on her third cherry danish to look at Twilight with baby blue eyes, “But I’m not sure you should have talked to him. He would have told us anyway about what he’d... done, whenever he thought it would hurt us the most. I think Rarity had the right idea by not approaching Bruce at all.”

Rarity hesitated on her toast and blushed, but did not otherwise comment.

“We have to be objective about all this,” Twilight Sparkle urged the worried party pony, “We can’t let him manipulate our feelings to try and stretch this ridiculous quest out any longer.”

Pinkie Pie looked back at Twilight and asked, “Why aren’t you eating anything?”

Twilight groaned inwardly at that, and her friends just could not stop bugging her about food lately. “I already ate,” she said cleverly, smiling with relief that she’d finally thought up an ironclad alibi to stop ponies from worrying over nothing.

Twilight would bother with breakfast once they’d picked up Bruce and transported him into a secure location in Ponyville, and actually Twilight would probably have to do some retrofitting of the facility, as the Ponyville jail saw even less use than the one here in Las Pegasus. Berryshine liked to refer to it as her spare apartment, but otherwise there was a lot of work to do if they were going to prepare to care for a criminal over the long course of her pregnancy.

“Okay,” Pinkie said without smiling. She didn’t say anything further, just went back to eating her danish while pondering what she was eating at the same time, like it was going to reveal to her some great and profound mystery of life. It was kind of hypnotizing to watch... but Twilight didn’t have time for that right now.

“Alright if everypony’s ready, let’s do what we came here to do,” Twilight said in relief once all that distracting food had vanished down everypony’s gullet. She headed with the others down the streets of singers and revelers, with a destination in mind that very few ponies sang about or reveled in.

The prison guard looked up from his newspaper as the Bearers walked in. “Oh, hello princess,” he said with some unease, “Ready to pick up the prisoner?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll take him off your hooves now,” Twilight said accomodatingly, “And thank you for watching the creature while my friends rested and recuperated.”

“It’s no problem, princess,” the grey policepony said with a lazy glance to the back area beyond the drunk tank. “You gonna go back there now?” he asked a little hopefully.

“Y...es?” Twilight replied, “We’ll just be going, thanks.”

“You’re gonna want the keys!” he called after her as she and her friends trotted off, mouthing a thick ring with several bulky metal keys on it.

“Oh, right!” Twilight said, blushing and catching the keyring in her magic as he tossed it at her.

“The cell key is the big silver one,” he replied, then went back to reading his newspaper.

Heading into the cell block, Twilight felt a little tired and achy still, and kind of... tired, and achy, but it was a bright new day outside, and Twilight was eager to get out into it, finish the business with Rosy Pink, and prepare for whatever their next adventure was going to be. She walked with her friends up to Rosy’s cell, saying loudly, “Bruce? It’s time to go.”

The creature didn’t respond, and just lay there on the cot ignoring her. Stalling to his last breath, it seemed. “Bruce,” Twilight said in a strained voice, and as Twilight reached towards him, her hoof came to rest on the bars of the cell, which swung open freely as she leaned on them. “You have to understand that—” Wide-eyed, Twilight just smoothly pulled open the door to Rosy’s cell which wasn’t even locked. What was... no!

Twilight’s head snapped up, and her magic enveloped the blanket on the cot, pulling it away to reveal the pillows piled underneath in as bulky a manner as possible.

“She’s gone!” came Rarity’s shocked squeal.

“No no no no no,” Twilight chanted frantically, spinning around and bounding in a rush away from the cell, past her friends and back out into the front area.

“What. Is the meaning of this?!” she demanded, waving the keys in the policepony’s face.

He looked at the floating keyring uncertainly, saying, “Meaning of what? I told you which key to use.”

“There is no key, because the door is unlocked!” Twilight shouted.

“What?!” the portly officer shouted in reply, struggling off his chair. With him in tow, both he and Twilight galloped back to the cells, where Rarity and Pinkie were inside looking around, while Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash questioned the other few prisoners back here.

“I haven’t seen nothing, lady!” the one prison mare crudely protested in wide-eyed terror, “Lay off me already you’re freaking me out!”

“You have to have seen something!” Fluttershy demanded, desperately reaching through the bars to pull the mare’s face to her, “We can’t let her escape! “

Twilight was a good pony.

“Yeah, I saw something,” a rough looking orange mare told Rainbow Dash, as the prisoner lounged on her cot with a smirk, “Sittin’ in the dark in the middle of the night, I heard the door open, and she just walked right outta there!”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Rainbow Dash demanded angrily.

“Why don’t you kiss my ass?” she replied crankily. Then she called out, “No offense!”

“None taken!” shouted the donkey in the cell on the end of the hall.

“There’s no sign of her!” Pinkie reported anxiously, “Nothing under the bed or on the bed, and she’s not clinging to the ceiling; that’s the first place I checked!”

“Oh. Oh dear,” Rarity suddenly said, in utmost dread.

Twilight rushed over to where her friend was inspecting the cell door, saying, “What? Did you find something?”

Rarity didn’t answer in words, so much. Her magic illuminated something in the lock (not the lock itself, of course) and in a sparkling blue aura, out of it floated a bent and twisted hairpin.

“She picked the lock,” Twilight said, staring at it dumbly.

“It would seem so, dear.”

“She picked the lock?!” Twilight exclaimed in aggravation. “How are these locks even pickable? They’re magic shielded, and heavy!”

“My guess is she folded the hairpin in half to strengthen it, then aligned the tumblers one at a time until she got the right ones,” Rarity suggested dazedly, peering at the twisted metal in her magic.

“This can’t be happening,” Twilight said, crumpling to the cell floor and just covering her head in her hooves. Shaking her head helplessly at the princess, Rarity placed the hairpin neatly on the little table, and went to pore over the dissheveled bedding for clues.

“You!” Rainbow Dash shouted, zipping up to the police officer looking at the scene in horror, “Did you see anything? Did you see her leave? How did you miss her?!”

“I–I–I didn’t see anypony leave,” he said, backing up from the irate pegasus, “I have to sleep too, you know! She musta got out when I was... resting my eyes!”

Glaring at him suspiciously, Rainbow Dash said, “I don’t think you’re being very honest with me!”

“I’m telling the truth!” he said desperately, “She couldn’ta just walked outta here. I swear I was watching her!”

“With your eyes closed?” Rainbow Dash replied skeptically.

“I... what do you want from me, mare?!” he demanded, “There hasn’t been a breakout in weeks! Who even gave that pony a hairpin?”

Twilight was still lying in a heap while Rainbow Dash flew away from the prison guard in disgust, and went stalking into Rosy’s cell to join the others in looking for clues. Well, almost all the others. With utmost concern, and not just a little fear, a butter yellow pegasus sought no clues, and instead fluttered over to Twilight, laying a hoof on Twilight’s withers.

“Twilight, are you okay?” Fluttershy asked the miserably crumpled pile of princess.

“No, I’m not okay,” Twilight wept, “I’m never going to be okay, because Rosy—Bruce is still out there!” She struggled to her hooves, saying, “We have to find him! We have to warn everypony. We have to...” then she just kind of... faded out a moment, staring blankly forward before saying dizzily, “We have to find him.”

That was when Rainbow Dash burst into laughter. Again.

“Bahahaha, she actually did it!” the pegasus declared enthusiastically, swiping with her wing something that was sitting on the sink next to the toilet. “Twilight, check it out!”

The sticklike object went flipping end over end as it hurtled at the princess, and Twilight snatched it in her magic, looking at it curiously. “A pregnancy test?” she asked, “Where’d Rosy get one?”

“Does it matter?” Rainbow Dash asked teasingly, “Now she busted outta jail, and we can’t send her through the Rift for the next year!”

“That... changes nothing,” Twilight seethed, glaring jealously at the stupid thing that no doubt Rosy peed on, “We’ll simply track her down again, and—”

That was when Rarity burst into helpless, sobbing tears.

Alarmed, everypony looked again to the white unicorn, who had sunk to her belly facing Rosy’s cot. It was a blue scarf she found, levitating it out from where it had been left discarded between the pillows. A keening wail forced its way out of the pale unicorn’s throat as she clutched the scarf to her cheek, utterly inconsolable.

Surrounded by her worried friends, Rarity’s tears ended as mercurially as they began, and once composed, Rarity would not speak a single word of what happened. Instead, she put the scarf away, took a deep shuddering breath and said, “We need to check the last places we’ve seen Rosy Pink,” then trotted on out of that cell with barely a toss of her carefully groomed mane.

Rosy’s hotel room was abandoned. The stallion had apparently reserved it for today, but he packed his bags and left town the moment Rosy was arrested. Twilight had his name though, Golden Grape, and Pinkie Pie knew him as a Ponyville pony. If he hadn’t managed to vanish off the face of the earth too, Twilight would certainly be questioning him.

He was probably just... a... victim somehow, despite not having the capacity to bear a foal, or any other direct consequences Twilight could think of. He was... emotionally hurt, she concluded, and she was sure that with a little coaxing, she could get him to tell her everything he knew about Rosy Pink. Knowledge which obviously didn’t include Rosy’s true identity as the human male, Bruce Connell, because what stallion would do that with... another stallion?

Las Pegasus wasn’t quite as happy a place with the Elements of Harmony tearing the whole place apart looking for Rosy Pink. It was not a city that usually entertained adventures and danger, so ponies took notice when the entire police squad was summoned to search the streets and interrogate ponies. All thought of tact and subtlety was lost, as the need to find this mare took priority over all else.

Once again, impossibly, Rosy Pink seemed to have slipped their grasp. It was as if the mare had simply vanished off of the face of the earth. Twilight was so tired halfway through the day that she was falling over her own hooves, and she tried to eat something just to pacify her friends, but the food here was just terrible! She ended up having to covertly scrape off the egg salad into a nearby potted plant, because it just tasted like sand.

On the bright side, if ponies kept serving food like that, Twilight would be back to her old unicorn weight in no time!

This whole business was making Twilight sick to the stomach, anyway. Chasing Bruce, and hunting him down like a pack of wolves. All the unfriendly looks she got from ponies around her as she just tried to do the right thing. Her friends probably hated her by now, and they were right, because if Twilight wasn’t making a horrible mistake, then why did it feel that way? She had to be in the right, because if she wasn’t, then all this time, everything she did to Rosy...

Twilight was a good pony.

The trip back to Ponyville was a solemn one, though amazingly less solemn than if they’d actually gotten Rosy and took her with them. Twilight was curled up in the corner of the cart, trying to conserve her energy for... something, and she got to watch Rarity saying loudly to nopony in particular,

“Well that was an utter blunder. I don’t think I’ll be able to show my face in that city ever again!”

“At least we’re headed home, now,” Applejack said in relief. “When Rosy rears her head again we’ll deal with it when it comes, but for now we can just get back to our normal lives.”

“I still can’t believe she picked the lock!” Rainbow Dash said exuberantly as always, “I didn’t know she was such a badflank! It’s just like when Daring Do got captured by the Empire of Evil!”

“Is everything they do so ethically questionable?” Whatnot whispered to Spike, who looked up from his comic long enough to whisper back,

“You learn to stop questioning it.”

“We’re not the Empire of Evil though, Dashie,” Pinkie Pie said chidingly, “They were just a few cities on an island, anyway, and they weren’t called the Empire of Evil either.”

“That’s just the title of the book, Pinkie,” Dash replied drolly, “And they thought they were an empire, because their king didn’t let them know about the other lands!”

“Pinkie, could you please stop riding on Rainbow Dash?” Rarity asked with a raised eyebrow, “You’re liable to fall and get yourself hurt!”

“But I wanna talk with her about the Jamarecan empire!” Pinkie whined. Nevertheless, she leaped across the dizzying drop with the ground far below them, hopping off of Rainbow Dash’s back... then landing solidly on Fluttershy’s.

“I don’t know much about that empire,” Fluttershy said appeasingly to Pinkie, “But I do know that island is famous for its hummingbirds. There’s one that has a tail just like a swallow!”

“Really?” Pinkie asked in terminal curiosity, “What’s it called?”

“The swallow tailed hummingbird,” Fluttershy replied. “Jamareca is home to many winged creatures, in fact, including bats and butterflies!”

“Pinkie, please,” Rarity snapped, and with a bashful squeak, Pinkie jumped off of Fluttershy’s back, landing with a clatter of hooves in the wooden cart that carried the half dozen non-pegasi high above the ground.

“Can’t Twilight take a turn pulling the cart?” Rainbow Dash shouted behind herself, as she flew along, “I wanna talk about stuff too, you know!”

“Twilight is... resting,” Rarity replied, looking solemnly Twilight’s way.

Twilight just groaned tiredly where she was laying, and muttered, “Whatever.”

Pinkie smiled at Twilight with a terrible sadness in her bright blue eyes, and said, “Aww, don’t worry Twilight. You’re gonna be okay.”

Twilight groaned, struggling into a sitting position, saying, “I’m not... whatever.”

Pinkie left her alone then, and went to bother Rarity, who had an uncomfortable amount of knowledge of foreign societies. Pinkie didn’t bother Applejack, who was hanging on the side of the cart, looking wordlessly back in the direction of the city they’d left behind, Las Pegasus. The farmer wasn’t the only one feeling let down by all this. As they flew away from there back to Ponyville, it was pretty clear that nopony was looking forward to nothin’.

Somewhere just across town, and then out of Las Pegasus, then past the surrounding farmland, and then beyond the forest ranges to the distant city of Tall Tale, a mare was coming around the mountain. With the Smokey Mountains to her right, a bustling borough came into view, nestled in a cradle of farmland below her. It was a sprawl of pine wood cottages, and a small but dense urban center mostly built of skyscrapers. The air was cool up here, warmer down on the floor of the coastal valley that the town lay in, but certainly no Appleoosa.

The mare had a warm, cerulean coat of fur, with a rough cut magenta mane that covered her forehead in thick, slightly wavy locks, along with her straight combed but lush tail. The mane did not obscure her intensely violet eyes. She plodded along in a mile-eating gait, on sturdy earth pony hooves. On each of her hips, there were three simple pink berries that somewhat matched her mane. She looked weary and relieved to see the town she was approaching, after her long walk from the south. She was wearing a cheap set of simple saddlebags, but had little else to her name.

She took a long, circituous route, avoiding the town until she’d reached the northern road. Heading down that road into town, if anypony had been walking past her, they might have heard her quietly chanting, “Blue Raspberry. Blue Raspberry. You are Blue Raspberry. Gotta remember Blue Raspberry.” She quieted down when ponies did pass though, so for now, her name remained a mystery to all.

Blue Raspberry headed first to town hall, to remedy that. Her next destination: the local pony shelter.

I Said The End

“How well do you think you knew Rosy Pink?”

“Sorry, what’s this about?” the tawny, blue haired stallion asked, blinking in the sudden spotlight, trying and failing to back out of the library’s brand new interrogation room. “I thought this was the bathroom?”

“I’ll ask the questions, Mister Golden Grape,” the mysterious voice replied, “What did you know about Rosy Pink?”

“She was my friend?” he said uncertainly, blinking in the glare of a blinding spotlight, looking around in confusion, “What’s this about, Princess? I didn’t knew she was in any kind of trouble. There ain’t anything illegal about having foals!”

“Were you aware she was a traveller from a fourth dimension?” the mysterious voice continued.

“Not really?” he replied, testing the door again, the poor fool, “Seriously lady, am I in trouble? I chose Rosy for the season, so sorry if I disappointed you. I didn’t even know you wanted in!”

“I said I’ll ask the questions!” the mysterious voice answered shrilly, “Do you know what she was doing in Equestria?”

“She was workin’ the fields, I think?” he said in confusion, “Though she’s real good with mathemagical stuff so the Ponyville Interior Designer League was—”

“Was she plotting to humiliate me?” the voice demanded, “Ruin my reputation? Turn my friends against me? Did she ever tell you any of her secret agenda?”

“Please Princess, Rosy was just a friend!” he said, thoroughly intimidated by the bright spotlight illuminating the lone pony in the darkness, “I was gonna take her in, honest! I don’t leave a mare to foal alone! Please you gotta tell her I’m sorry. She can come back any time she wants!”

He was confused it seemed as to exactly what the mysterious voice’s problem was. Well. The mysterious voice would have to fix that! “It so happens,” it said, “That Rosy Pink cannot be allowed to foal as she is not a real filly, and her—”

There was a disembodied crashing sound.

“Pinkie, what are you doing here?” the mysterious voice intoned, “I’m kinda busy at the moment.”

Then in a different mysterious voice that was higher and more strident, it said, “Don’t act like I don’t know. I’m not stupid. I’m not letting you do this!”

“W-why are you bringing in medical personnel?” the original mysterious voice continued, around sounds of hoofsteps, while the blue haired stallion stared upward, looking around in confusion.

“Twilight, this is an intervention,” the squeaky mysterious voice said, “You’re hurting yourself and it hurts me to see you like this.”

“What are you talking about?” the princess’s mysterious voice echoed around in confusion, “I’m perfectly fine! Now let me get back to—”

“Twilight,” the pink voice interrupted, “When was the last time you ate something?”

There was a long pause of silence.

“This morning,” the mysterious voice insisted, “I had a bagel and... coffee.”

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” the second disembodied voice replied, “I need you to just go with the nice doctors, and—”

“No!” the mysterious voice squealed in outrage, “I do not have an eating problem. Why are you—”

“You have a problem,” the pink one replied, “And I don’t know what it is, but you’re not eating, and it’s making you really sick.”

“You have the problem,” came furious reply, “You’re delusional if you think that I have a problem!” The whine of powerful magic started charging in the background as the mysterious voice said imperiously, “I think I have heard enough of—” Then the whine abruptly cut off, and there was a burst of static from overhead.

The mysterious voice cut in and out to static, saying, “Pinkie stop—” then “—tting my horn you—” then “—uining everything!—” There was a clatter of the movement of several ponies as the mysterious voice continued to say in a disjointed fashion things like, “—get—way—need anesthese—this is—stupid stop—” The last thing Golden Grape managed to pick out was the curiously clear and lucid sound of the mysterious voice saying, “Look at the pretty lights....” Then any mysterious voice or other sound faded out, and the spotlight flickered and died, leaving him in darkness.

Sound suddenly started broadcasting from outside, as there was a clunk of a hoof on the door, a mare’s voice drifting through saying, “Are ya gonna be in there foreva or what?”

Golden Grape worried for the future of Equestria.

Some time later, too much time later, many frustrating days and nights later, a certain troubled unicorn whom nopony would have heard of plodded into the local soda fountain. She was blue-furred with dark, shiny purple hair, and at her wit’s end. She checked and re-checked her figures at the bar, but her grammar was impeccable. She couldn’t see a solution to this, at least not an easy one, or a fast one.

The Rift had become a much greater hazard in the suplex disaster of the past year that had lead to the princess seeking Whatnot’s aid. The Rift’s aperture was vastly wider in its poorly collapsed state, so more information could in theory be gleaned from it than before, but ponies were still trying to safely interact with it, without disrupting the containment vessel, or further endangering Equestria. Worse still, Whatnot was kind of out of the loop there, so she had no way to tell what human language they’d discovered since then.

Whatnot already had an almost comprehensive list of the human terminology, but there was no convenient pony-human dictionary, and a lot of the semantics were missing in context, semantics that the spoken word would have provided implicitly in its carrier wave. The fact is, Whatnot could write a human alphabet, but lacked the knowhow to write a human book, and without that knowledge, her ability to undo the mixed-up half-translated literacy in Twilight Sparkle’s head was limited at best.

Whatnot was poring over some cladograms, making a lot of memetic connections, but struggling to translate them into the pony knowledge space. And also sipping at the dregs of a soda. She was outside of the library right now, trying to study in a change of venue. The soda fountain in Ponyville was great: you could get it straight from the tap here, and of course Ponyville was the home of the famous Applejack cider. That just made Whatnot think of the real problem at stake, though.

Lighting up her horn, the blue unicorn angrily swept her diagrams out of the way, resting her overworked head on the edge of the bar.

“Hitting the books really hard, huh?” the proprieter of the soda fountain asked, a pretty tan pegasus mare with pink hair by the name of Creamsicle.

“It’s... personal,” Whatnot mumbled, laying her cheek next to her mostly empty soda glass, “Have you ever met somepony who was your hero, and the one time they needed your help, everything you did was... almost enough, and then they just...” Whatnot sighed and sat up, uttering glumly, “She needed my help, not just wanted it, and I couldn’t help her, and then she... something bad happened to her. I keep feeling like this is all my fault, that if I could have found a solution, she’d have been less stressed out, and wouldn’t... have something bad happen?”

Creamsicle probably didn’t really need to listen to that whole rambling wandering question, but she did anyway, saying, “The princess sure is in a bad way. I’ve never seen her this troubled before.”

“What do I do though?” Whatnot groaned, “Even if I could restore the rest of her reading ability, she’s already...”

“All I know is she’s seeing doctors,” Creamsicle said, “I hope she’s on the way to recovery?”

Whatnot scrunched her muzzle and she said, “She’s ...stable. it’s just hard seeing her like this. I don’t know if the princess has ever really just totally... failed before.”

“Everypony’s failed at one time or another,” Creamsicle said, putting a glass down beside Whatnot’s, full of a pink cherry cream soda, and taking the empty one up on a wing.

“It’s so hard to get through to her,” Whatnot said, lifting up her head, “Princess Celestia told her to take care of herself, but Princess Twilight just keeps thinking how she can’t find a solution to other problems, and neglecting herself. I can keep her talking but... if she won’t focus on getting better, I don’t think I’m good enough to do anything more without her help.”

“Focus on what you can do, I guess,” Creamsicle said uncertainly, “The princess will come through in the end. She always does.”

“And what about the time when she doesn’t? What do we do then?”

“I... don’t know.”

Twilight Sparkle was jolted awake by the unwelcome sting of bright illumination, her dreams burned away by harsh, nuclear light.

“Somepony turn off the sun,” she groaned, trying to roll over and cover her head with a pillow, but the sheets had betrayed her, immobilizing her in a tight cocoon. Relief was impossible, and also she found that she really had to go pee. Surrendering to the relatively inconvenient, she cracked open one eye, then scrunched them closed again, blinking back tears. Trying to shut the blinds, her horn wasn’t working for some reason, and that left the sleepy librarian with only one option.

“Spiiii ke,” she croaked, ignoring her stiff neck to lift her head. Trying to rub her eyes, she found herself unable to move more than a fraction of an inch. Had she really tossed and turned so much last night, that she was this tangled up in her sheets? Their tight embrace pinned her legs to her side. Too annoyed to feel foolish, she grumbled, “Spike, shut the blinds already. I’m in no mood for your games right now!”

Silence mocked her. Twilight vowed to have a talk with Spike about opening the blinds when somepony is trying to sleep. Grumbling about baby dragons, she squinted through narrowed eyelids, and tried to spot him in the room. Almost reluctantly the library began to fade into view, rising out of the shadow of dreams to resolve into clear, sharp reality.

Twilight blinked again, this time in surprise. She found herself in her bedroom in the library, because where else would she be? But what was surprising was both Spike, and Pinkie Pie standing there with chiding expressions on their faces. Letting her head fall back to the pillow, Twilight groaned, “What time is it?”

“Adventure time! ” Pinkie Pie declared imperiously, stepping up to Twilight’s very ordinary looking bed surrounded by the warm, wooden walls of the second story of her familiar tree library.

“What?” Twilight replied in confusion, struggling in the bedclothes that were wrapped around her.

“Duty you mean ‘What’ shopper inner?” Pinkie asked, and Twilight’s brain took a moment to catch up. Struggling a hoof out of her blanket cocoon, Twilight waved it weakly, giving Pinkie Pie a pleading expression, hoping she’d realize what was going on.

“Your adventure person noticed downstairs, ” Spike said in childish worry, “So don’t accessory so long! ”

Twilight tried to recall what words she hadn’t managed to learn reflexively yet. Adventure meant breakfast, “help” was “history,” and corereview meant either blankets or bedding (Twilight wasn’t sure) so she said, as near as she could figure, “Help blankets then breakfast.” To Twilight, it sounded like “History corereview then adventure” but Twilight had to tell herself that it meant something different, if she was ever going to get over this.

Spike and Pinkie Pie understood Twilight well enough to get the blankets unwrapped from around her, and the princess stood groggily, stretching out her wings, and said the one word she was absolutely sure of,

“Ballad.”

That roughly translated to “Whatnot,” of course.

Applejack was smiling pleasantly to ponies passing by, building up a day’s worth of bits by hoofing off the apples and apple related products in her apple cart. In the advent of autumn, apples were ripening like gangbusters, necessitating the help of two or three more worker ponies: Bubblegum, Vanilla Sweet, and... Strawberry Sunrise, a groundling pegasus who wanted some extra bits for travelling during the winter. Smiling pleasantly, Applejack greeted everypony who came to her stand in a friendly and downright neighborly manner.

“Applejack, I...” came the dulcet tones of Fluttershy’s voice.

“No,” Applejack snapped, “Don’t say anything, don’t even talk to me. Ah’m gonna say this once that you’re mah friend, and you’re always gonna be mah friend, just like the other four of us, but y’all are completely crazy about Rosy Pink!”

She was angry and glaring and breathing hard, staring down at the startled pegasus, “One word,” Applejack told her, “One word bout Rosy Pink an’ ah’m out.”

The standoff between them was as intense as it was long. Applejack knew Fluttershy was struggling, and she didn’t care. Maybe let Fluttershy be the patient, understanding pony this time, because Applejack was done with it, and done with them. The longer they remained trapped in that silent distance, eyes embracing each other in anger and worry even though they stood separate and alone, the more Applejack fumed. Was it so hard to come up with something to say that wasn’t about tossing Rosy to the sharks?

“I would like,” Fluttershy said evenly and quietly, “To buy some apples.”

It took Applejack a few seconds further to change gears. “Well okay then,” she said warily, “How much cain ah do you for?”

“Just a bunch,” Fluttershy replied, glancing away as she added self consciously, “For the extra bunnies this year.”

Applejack couldn’t help but recall when Fluttershy’s critters started getting ornery last year. It was because Fluttershy’d been trapped, foalnapped even by that Starlight Glimmer. It took Fluttershy a while to calm the animals down and clean up the mess they made, and it looked like she was still dealing with... stuff in that regard.

“Sure thing,” Applejack said, counting out a bunch of apples on the counter. Fluttershy was never particular of the kind, long as they weren’t cooking apples. “It’s on th’ house,” Applejack added with as gentle and un-strained a smile as she could manage.

Fluttershy gave Applejack a long one-eyed look from behind her bangs and said, “I don’t like this.”

“Ah said—”

“No, I was just leaving,” Fluttershy said, sweeping the apples off the counter with her wing, into her saddlebags. She trotted away without a word, just like a certain librarian Applejack knew, just like all her friends lately.

“Cain’t talk about nothin’ without her, cain’t not talk about her, what’s that Rosy Pink doing to us?” Applejack said, looking after Fluttershy in a lost sort of confusion.

Then she jumped over her cart and ran off after her, shouting, “Fluttershy, wait! Maybe we should talk about this!”

Hello? Can anyone hear me?

Hello?

Um...

Pinkie Pie wasn’t sure but there was something odd about the wall she stared at, different from the other three. Was it the picture frame? She might never know, but she still smiled in recognition at that picture, because Pinkie Pie saw a very pleased-looking and familiar pink pony staring back at her, surrounded by all her best friends who she hugged so tightly that she never wanted to let them go.

Pinkie Pie blinked, and then stumbled back as this weird shifting feeling came upon her. “Gummy, how did you get out of your cage?” she asked the little alligator chidingly as Gummy continued to shift against her hind legs, staring off into infinity with his weird, slitty eyes. Pinkie blinked again, and looked back at the picture frame, which continued to show a very content-looking Pinkie Pie, along with a very skinny looking Twilight Sparkle...

...

...and of course all of Pinkie Pie’s friends looked skinny in that shot, because she was squeezing them so tight, and it was one of those optical illusion thingies that the camera sometimes picks up. It wasn’t because any of her friends were that way. They were all happy! They all had relieved expressions, and full cheeks; no sunken faces among that group of ponies! Pinkie Pie looked at that picture and she remembered what it wasn’t a picture of: off-camera was the tastiest most delicious cake in the whole world, because her friends got it for her and Pinkie Pie loved them. The cake they all shared, because they loved... her.

She blinked tears out of her eyes, and it started sinking in that this was real. But it couldn’t be real. Her mom was just... Twilight had no reason to do that! But it was real. But it just couldn’t be...

“Gah!” Pinkie shouted as some weird green thing snapped its snappy jaws around her hoof. Lifting her hind leg, she squinted back at Gummy again with an accusing expression. He just hung onto her hoof sideways as she lifted it, eyelids slowly sliding over his eyes, roughly, but not quite at the same time. Pinkie couldn’t help herself, she giggled.

“Gah,” she repeated to Gummy in an affectionate tone. He immediately let go of her hoof and dropped to land on his back, reptilian feet waving slowly in the air, and that made Pinkie giggle some more. “Gah!” Pinkie repeated to him teasingly, “Gah gah gah. Gaaaah!” She couldn’t stop laughing though at the sheer absurdity of yelling at her alligator for fun. “Gaaaahahahaha,” she giggled at Gummy’s expense (he had a very large bank account when it came to personal slights) just as a voice asked suddenly,

“Everything okay, dearie?”

“GAH!” Pinkie squealed, jumping back stiffly from her alligator, and looking wide-eyed at the frosting-maned giver-of-hairpins herself, the one definitely, for sure, absolutely certain mother of Pound and Carrot, Mrs. Cup Cake. The blue cake matron was looking back at Pinkie with something between concern and amusement.

“I was just... practicing making noises!” Pinkie said sheepishly, “For Gummy, you know. Pretty magnificent, huh?”

“It’s pretty something at any rate,” Mrs. Cake replied wryly, no doubt thinking Pinkie Pie was 100% crazy, maybe even more.

“I’ll be right down,” Pinkie told Mrs. Cake all calmly and normally, “To make sure everything is ready for today.”

“That’ll be great, Pinkie,” Mrs. Cake says with a relieved smile, “Don’t know what I’d do without ya.”

Pinkie Pie knew somepony else who didn’t know that, besides just Mrs. Cake. A lilac furred somepony who had told her that many times, even when Pinkie Pie couldn’t see exactly why. But how to help that pony? How to be the friend she needs?

Well, the brownies were starting to smell wonderful, and the cinnamon rolls were preglazed and ready to bake, along with the eclairs and the danishes. So Pinkie Pie had a little time, and she snuck out—wait no she tried to sneak out, but suddenly found herself nose-to-nose with Mrs. Cake.

The big blue mare had a weary, but sympathetic look on her face when she blocked Pinkie Pie’s stealthy exit and said, “Worried about your friend, Pinkie?”

“I wasn’t leaving early, I’m just... okay maybe I was,” Pinkie said, ears a-twitching down, “I just wanna make sure she eats her breakfast.”

“You know the doctor ponies are taking care of her,” Mrs. Cake urged kindly, “You don’t have to do this every morning, just because she...”

Pinkie may have whimpered a bit, looking at Mrs. Cake with big, pleading, baby blue eyes.

“...oh go ahead, you know you can,” the older mare said, rolling her eyes and stepping aside for Pinkie to pass, “Honeybun and I can manage the morning crowd. Just hurry back, and remember that the rest of us are counting on you too. Now get on going. It’s high time you went to find your friend.”

Deciding to listen to that one voice outside of her head, Pinkie Pie thanked Mrs. Cake for being so understanding, and hurried for the tree library, where her friend lived, the super-brainy, nerdalicious magical prodigy who... who...

Who hated herself.

Several minutes and an encounter with a zucchini cart later, and Pinkie Pie was making her way into the part of the library that was Twilight’s house, bringing Twilight a nice nutritious zucchini smoothie. It wasn’t the best tasting thing in the world, but Twilight was less likely to throw up if it wasn’t solid food, and she didn’t seem to care about how it tasted anymore. All Twilight cared about these days was...

Pinky lashed her tail.

Rosy Pink.

“Great, you brought her breakfast! Can we wake her up now?” the young Spike asked Pinkie Pie minutes later. Her hair was still worryingly droopy, but she forced her ears up from where they were flat against her skull, and smiled at him brightly saying,

“You betcha! And I bet this time Twilight’s gonna really feel betterrific.”

With the curtains pulled back and golden sunlight shining on the beautiful princess’s face, it wasn’t long before she muttered something, cracked open her eyes and groaned, “Tuuuuu mmmy...”

Huh?

The pony and the dragon shared a confused glance, silently. The poor princess was snug as a bug in a rug as Twilight said, “Tummy worst the evandevelop steady. Be sheet finesheet worst games right need.”

Oh no, Whatnot’s spell must have worn off again. Pinkie tried to remember where in the library Whatnot was sleeping, but couldn’t recall. Twilight had finally focused on them anyway, asking, “Lymph time is it?”

“Breakfast time!” Pinkie announced in great cheer. Twilight wasn’t laughing though.

“Lymph?” Twilight asked in confusion.

“What do you mean ‘Lymph’ Twilight?” Pinkie wondered mostly to herself, watching the princess weakly wiggle her hoof out of the blanket cocoon.

“Your breakfast is ready downstairs,” Spike told her, “So don’t sleep in too long!”

Twilight gave both of them a long, calculating look, before responding, “Help blankets, then breakfast.” Help...?

“Oh!” Pinkie and Spike both realized at once, helping the princess out of her prison of sheets, because she couldn’t exactly get herself out of that. Not with that rather heavy white clothlike sheathe buckled onto her horn. Pinkie was honestly more worried how Twilight didn’t seem to care about that thing, not how upset she was about it. Twilight just passively let them unwrap her, and allowed Pinkie to lead her to breakfast, while Spike ran to find out what Whatnot was up to.

Once Twilight had regained the ability to speak again, had taken her medication for the morning, and had drunk every single drop of the smoothie under Pinkie’s watchful eye, Pinkie Pie leaned forward on the table and said, “So... whatcha gonna do now?”

Twilight sighed, and pressed her hoof against her forehead. Then she glared at Pinkie balefully, saying in a dull tone of voice, “I’m not doing anything, Pinkie, doctor’s orders. Focus on my recovery. Let the guards and the police deal with the issue of Rosy Pink, for now.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can recover though,” Pinkie Pie said warmly, “You made it through the hard part and you’re going to be okay now.”

“Yes I can recover,” Twilight replied in irritation.

“Yes, you can recover?” Pinkie Pie said in confusion to Twilight, “I think? It feels like we’re disagreeing even though we’re agreeing.”

"Pinkie Pie, that's ridiculous," Twilight said with obviously strained patience, striding away from Pinkie Pie, out of the kitchenette towards the library, "Now, I have a lot of work to do, so I don't have time for wordplay right now."

“But you aren’t going to search for Rosy Pink, are you?” Pinkie Pie said, trotting out of the kitchen after her.

“Pinkie, I—” Twilight stopped again with a barely concealed hoof stomp. “I need to work on learning to speak again, without this spell, and fix my ability to read, too,” she said, staring at a spot on the wooden floor, “That’s all I’m going to be working on, nothing involving Rosy Pink.”

“Can you promise?” Pinkie asked, contorting her neck down to get in the path of Twilight’s downturned gaze. “Pinkie Promise?” she pleaded with liquid eyes.

“Pinkie I can... I...” some sort of fear flashed in the back of Twilight’s eyes as she said, “I... can’t.”

“Twilight, please?” Pinkie asked desperately.

“I’m not going to search for any solutions regarding Rosy Pink,” Twilight said assertively, looking Pinkie straight in the eye, “I just can’t... promise that.”

They stood facing each other in silence, the princess unable to say anything that would have made Pinkie feel better, because... Twilight couldn’t stop thinking about Rosy Pink. “That’s... okay, Twilight,” Pinkie finally just said, turning away to give the princess her much desired space, “You just take care of yourself, and I’ll be back with some nice lunch for you!”

“Pinkie... I’m sorry,” Twilight said, looking after the pink pony with so much pain in her eyes, it was like looking into a mirror.

“Me too, Twilight,” Pinkie said somberly. Then she trotted off to go save the Cakes from being cooked and eaten in the morning rush again.

Saddlebags filled with possibilities, with a fetching scarf subtly enshrouding her neck, Rarity truly was standing in front of a very well known library. There was the entrance, a bright red door into the hollow of a tree library once blessed with the magic of harmony, a Tree of Harmony if you will. The pale furred seamstress swung the door open, resting it against the tree, looking down the newly opened path. The library foyer was as would be expected: a room full of books, with flat wooden boards forming the floor from the pith carved out from the center of the old oak tree many, many years ago. Rarity lit up her horn to close the door behind her, as she stepped out into the well lit room.

The scent of ink and fresh paper was in the air, probably indicating Twilight’s continued correspondence with her former mentor and dearest friend, albeit with the assistance of some... other ponies. There were a couple of desks in the library, some with a pony reading at them, some with several books lying on them, open or closed. Neither the librarian herself, nor her newest (non-draconic) assistant were anywhere to be found though. “Yoo hoo, Princess Twilight~!” Rarity called out, wandering through the narrow shelves that spidered out from that main reading area, poking her head around bookcases and looking down aisles. “Twilight?” No luck.

With a toss of her mane, Rarity decided to skip the game of cat and mouse. She noticed a small stack of books nearby and raised one dainty hoof, delicately pushing the first book off of the pile, as Twilight shouted from behind her,

“Hold your horses, Rarity! I’m coming already!”

Rarity turned and smiled as her friend trotted up to her, an annoyed scowl on her face. “You don’t have to mess up the order of my books to get my attention every time you come here,” the princess griped, “I was getting to you!”

“I am sorry, Twilight, it won’t happen again,” Rarity politely lied, then switched to the happy note of, “It is so good to see you! I was wondering if you might help me find a book, and we could perhaps spend some time catching up with each other? I also have a few books to return, if you’ll show me where they go.”

“That’s great, Rarity,” Twilight said with a mechanical smile, “It’s always nice to see you come by. What sort of book were you interested in picking up?”

“Well, as you know, winter wear is in,” Rarity replied, trotting along with her friend, “And I was looking for some gemstone related inspiration. Diamonds can only get you so far with all that glittering snow, after all.”

“So, The Complete Encyclopedia of Precious Rocks?” Twilight suggested.

Half nodding, Rarity said, “I was thinking of looking through volume S-through-T and possibly A for Amethyst. It is so wonderful that encyclopedia includes pictures taken with a photographic camera! Too often one’s fashion decisions must come from abstract drawings, rather than true to life images.”

Princess Twilight didn’t seem nearly as excited as Rarity wanted her to feel. “Alrighty,” Twilight said pleasantly, stopping at the reference section for minerals and gemstones, the location of which Rarity had long since memorized, “Looks like you’ll find what you want here.”

Twilight began the time consuming and laborious process of removing the books one by one, by climbing up the ladder and gripping them in her mouth, but after the third, Rarity just levitated the rest of them out in a sparkling blue aura of control. Her magic strained a little at the weight of the volumes, but she said pleasantly, “I’m sure to find just what I need in here. Thank you, Twilight! There’s a wonderful chiffon that I was hoping to adorn with something spectacular. The Harvest Festival is coming up and well, Trottingdale ponies have a very formal affair around that holiday, which means they need to look fabulous! This year it seems I may be the mare to help them do that. But... enough about me. How have you been?”

“...fine,” Twilight said noncommitally, “Seems like you’re keeping yourself pretty busy.”

“Oh yes, I’ve just been busy, busy, busy!” Rarity replied, laying her books on a reading table, “There was the photo shoot for the Harvest Festival, and several local ponies needed some last minute adjustments on their vegetable related costumes, but don’t you worry I’ll have them all spic and span by the time of the parade. Then there was the nursery up in Canterlot, which Fluttershy had fallen in love with since the gala, and I just had to accompany her. The city is as beautiful as ever, and as luck would have it I may have run into a rather dashing guardspony, who...”

Rarity trailed off, looking at Twilight’s increasingly dull expression. “Well, it’s not important,” Rarity said, waving a hoof, “But enough about me. How have you been?”

To Rarity’s friendly inquiry, Twilight just stared at her flatly, then walked past Rarity, saying hastily, “Alright, that should do it. Enjoy your books, Rarity. Good luck, and if you need help finding anything else, feel free to ask a staff member for help.”

“You mean... Spike?” Rarity said uncertainly.

“Whatnot is also helping with reshelving,” Twilight replied casually, “You can address your concerns with her, Spike or any other staff member. Now if you’ll excuse me, I really must be going.”

“But you’re the only staff member, besides...” Rarity started to say, but Twilight was already trotting away, hurrying around the corner and gone.

“Ohh!” Rarity groaned, stomping a hind leg sharply on the floor.

“Fine job indeed, Rarity,” she whispered to herself harsly, as she was stalking out of the library, “You always know just what to say. No matter the situation, you can always find a way to stick your hoof in your mouth!”

Rarity took a long look back to the library, saying wistfully, “If only I knew how to reach you holed up there in that library of yours, in that mind of yours. I just know there is a wonderful mare trapped in that terrible shell, desperately reaching out for help, and if somepony could just coax you out... but if I cannot do it, then...”

The pale unicorn sighed, looking down at the earth, asking, “...who can?”

With the sun at its highest, Applejack entered a small library. It was an old wood building, with used tomes lying on the shelves, along with new ones, and bright sunlight filtering in through the windows and sundry. Like it always was.

“Do you have maps?” she asked, taking care to pronounce every word.

“Applejack, I can understand you just fine,” an irritated Twilight Sparkle said, tail lashing, “The translation spell is in place. I’m doing just fine. Thank you for asking.”

“Right, sorry about that Twi,” Applejack said, rubbing the back of her head, “Just havin’ a hard time wrappin’ mah head around this whole head injury of yours.”

“It’s temporary,” the purple princess quietly seethed.

“Ah need some maps of Germane, Bitaly, and such,” Applejack said uneasily, “Cain you do the gettin’ and findin’ of things still or—”

“I can, indeed!” Twilight said happily, turning and trotting off down into the belly of the beast.

Applejack followed along, as Twilight asked, “So, why are you looking for maps of the lands east of the gryphon kingdoms?”

“It’s fer a geography assignment,” Applejack replied, “Apple Bloom’s been lookin’ for idears, and ah wanted to try her for somethin’ exotic.”

Twilight reached some shelves of maps, and scanned them with scrutiny, muttering, “It’s fascinating, really. I’ve been able to quickly relearn my cataloguing system, even if the particular idiosyncracies of the written language are a bit elusive. So I can tell that this is the international section, but I would have told you it was the pudding section just from reading the sign, and here we’ve got eastern kingdoms... and by process of elimination, this particular set of glyphs must be Germane.”

The princess’s wings spread slightly in what looked like an unconscious reflex, as forgetting them she climbed her forelegs up onto the shelf. Twlight bit down on a rolled up map, pulling it out of the cubby hole and presenting it to Applejack, much like Winona had been known to present a chewed up rubber ball.

Applejack really hadn’t realized how much she’d come to expect Twilight to use magic, until Twilight didn’t exactly have that option, doctor’s orders. The thing wrapped around her horn was quite conspicuous to the both of them, say nothing of Twilight’s hornless behavior. It was strangely unsettling, yet oddly adorable, like seeing a pony who lost all their legs trying to dance.

Applejack took the map balanced on her upraised forehoof, and Twilight asked with bright eyes, “Did I get it right? I got it right, right?”

Took Applejack a moment, but she glanced at the map and nodded with a smile. She laid a hoof on a particular word, saying, “Yep, says Reitlande right here.” Twilight stared at the word Applejack pointed out intently, committing it to memory... again.

“Great,” Twilight said curtly, maybe a little bit too curtly, hurrying back to the shelves. Returning with another map in her mouth to deposit before Applejack, Twilight said, “Now I’m pretty sure Bitaly is this one here.”

“Right again, Twilight,” Applejack said upon checking the map.

“Is there anywhere else you’d like to look into?” Twilight asked, “Yakyakistan, perhaps? Or Surane?”

“Half the class is doin’ Yakyakistan on account of the whole shindig in Ponyville a couple years back,” Applejack said grimly, smiling and shaking her head, “An’ ah’m pretty sure there ain’t, there never has been, nor ever shall be a kingdom of Surane. What kinda name even is that?”

“M-might want to go find Whatnot, and have her look over my speech assistance spell,” Twilight mumbled, her eyes dimming with shame.

“Aw, Twi it’s okay,” Applejack said, trying to lay an arm across her withers, but Twilight brushed it off, looking at Applejack and saying,

“No it’s not okay. Rosy’s actions were totally unforgivable, and I’m going to be paying for them for a long time, now that we failed to... send her home.” There was a fire in Twilight’s eyes that quickly died as the weight of recent events weighed heavily on them both.

“Well ah’d better be gettin’ these back to Apple Bloom,” Applejack said reluctantly, “You take care of yourself, okay Twi?”

Twilight Sparkle just turned around and walked back into the depths of the library. Applejack watched a while, then tossed her hat down in frustration. She could reach that beautiful librarian, but Applejack didn’t know what to do, or what to say that would make any of this better! And if she couldn’t help her, then who could?

Rainbow Dash took a deep breath. A pair of shaded goggles refracted an emerald world as she tilted her gaze earthward. Wings cutting through the high currents, Rainbow Dash glided effortlessly over bright green plains crisscrossed with well beaten roads and ponies carting along those roads.

She glided some more.

Jeez, how long was it going to take to get to Windtoss?

Wow, was that a lot of grass.

Rainbow Dash’s expression hardened as she saw the town coming over the horizon. A sleepy farming hamlet nestled in between two rivers, it was the perfect place to hide out. Anypony here barely got out of town, and news would be slow to travel out here in the boonies, pegasi speed notwithstanding. It was frustrating to try all these towns, but Dash had to follow any lead she could at this point.

The rainbow pegasus landed smoothly, and trotted into town, feeling its packed dust firm beneath her azure hooves. It was a well tended town, not a lot of stray weeds choking the path, but it certainly wasn’t the fanciest place in Equestria. She looked around idly at the slowly turning water wheel, milling hay into flour and sugar into granulated sugar. The straw roofed houses each had chimneys in them. This far north, it’d get cold in the winter, but for now the summer sun beat down overhead, and the chimneys were free of smoke.

There was a pony out front sweeping dust off the porch of a shop with a bread sign out front. She was a platinum blonde with pink fur, an earth pony judging by the fact that she held the broom in the crook of her hoof instead of how pegasi were always winging it.

“‘Scuze me,” Rainbow Dash said, as the earth pony mare looked on warily at her approach, “You happen to see a new pony around here, with curly pink hair and whitish fur? She’s gonna be pretty pregnant by now.”

“Well ain’t that a howdy’do,” the mare said in an unimpressed tone, leaning on her broom, “Haven’t seen you here round these parts.”

“Yeah I’m from Ponyville,” Rainbow Dash replied, lifting a wing and pointing in its vague direction, “It’s central Equestria, but I’m trying to find somepony named Rosy Pink, so I’ve been flying around places ponies might’ve seen her.”

Nodding slowly, the mare continued, “Ah don’t know no Rosy Pink, but there’s a new mare like that who showed up a few weeks ago outta nowhere. She ain’t in trouble, is she?”

“Kinda, yeah,” Rainbow Dash said with a wince, “I just really need to find her, so we can stop this Rift from blowing up Ponyville or something.”

“You ain’t making a loada sense,” the mare replied with a suspicious eyebrow lift, “But talk to Thresher, if’n you need a place to stay. She’s runnin’ the local B&B, not that it sees much use. Hope you don’t mind sleepin’ in a hayloft,”

“Oh I wasn’t gonna stay, just wanted to check if Rosy’s here,” Rainbow Dash said, “I’ve got a ton of—”

“Now hold on there filly,” the mare said, putting down her broom and strutting up to Rainbow Dash, “You cain’t expect ponies to bend over backwards for you when y’just got here. Stay awhile and help with the waterin’ a bit, and then ah’m sure anypony’d be happy to talk to you about your friend or... whatever she is.”

“Right... of course,” Rainbow Dash said, her head sagging at the mare’s admission, “I’ll help out for a while to make sure ponies know me. You ever heard of Rainbow Dash?”

“Rings a bell. Mighta been one of them tale tellers travelin’ through here,” the mare said, relaxing as Rainbow Dash stopped demanding stuff on the spot, “You some kinda somepony then?”

“Yep,” Rainbow Dash said, slightly puffing out her chest, “I’m pretty big news where I’m from. And you’re not gonna regret having me around. Say, I didn’t catch your name?”

“Cookie,” the pink mare replied simply, holding out a hoof, “Put ‘er here, pardner!”

Rainbow Dash hooked a hoof in Cookie’s hoof, and got a fierce hoofshake in reply. “Thanks for letting me know what’s what,” Rainbow Dash said, “I didn’t get nearly as warm a welcome in Muddy Creek.”

“Ain’t no thing,” Cookie replied happily, “And there’s a loaf of travel bread for ya if’n you help mah friends with their waterin’ duties.”

“Weather work? No problem!” Dash said smugly, “Who do I talk to about that?”

“Windy,” Cookie replied happily, “She’s our pegasus.”

“Your... pegasus?”

“Eyup!”

Small towns were weird.

Fluttershy was running through Ponyville, her heart beating against her chest with every stride as she tried to escape the butterflies. Every building around her was engulfed in shivering clouds of pastel pink, yellow and blue. She rounded a corner to Sugarcube Corner, which was a Corner on the corner, but she only found the blank stares from yet more butterflies. What horrified her more were three dead bodies outside the shop, but then she realized it was just the Flower Trio, fainted again. Then the butterflies carried them away, leaving Fluttershy fleeing from the scary swarm in fright, heading for the library to try and check out a book on butterfly migration. She passed more bodies, some laying on the ground, some floating through the air. One pony was still asleep in her bed, and the butterflies had stolen it along with her. Just like Fluttershy had... but enough of that. Fluttershy was in the library.

“Help me,” a quiet whisper came to Fluttershy. She turned her head and saw a unicorn walking towards her. It took her a moment to realize it was Twilight Sparkle, because wasn’t Twilight supposed to have wings now? “Help me,” the pony croaked sorrowfully. Her horn alight in magenta magic, it levitated out from amid the choking clouds of butterflies... a foal’s first reader book.

“Twilight!” Fluttershy shrieked, staring at the book in horror.

Twilight took another agonized step and collapsed to the ground, the book landing open over her face as she mumbled, “I before E except after what? After what?!” Tears streamed from Fluttershy’s eyes; she wanted to help her friend, but Twilight couldn’t even tell that she was reading Script, not Symbol. The butterflies were closing in on Fluttershy as if they were chasing her. With tears running down her face, that had very recently streamed from her eyes, Fluttershy ran. She already let her friend lose what she loved most dearly. Fluttershy hoped she wouldn’t be losing any more today.

Fluttershy ran past Rainbow Dash, who looked worried for her, and Rarity, who was laughing at a pillar of gumballs for some reason. The yellow pegasus felt a gust of wind from behind her, and turned to face what was chasing her. Fluttershy’s pupils shrank to points at what she saw. An eye peered back at her, emerging from the butterflies, with a single black pupil in the center, as one would expect in an eye, and a turquoise iris ringing it. The eye sharpened at the sight of her, and the whole mass of butterflies flew away, as what they were covering soared forth and loomed over Fluttershy.

Facing the cowering mare was a giant floating head of Fluttershy. It smiled sweetly, and puckered up its lips.

“No, please, no,” Fluttershy said, and she didn’t sound like herself! Her fur was too pale, and she couldn’t feel her wings anymore. Her story mark was gone, flown off with the rest of the butterflies, leaving Fluttershy looking just like Rosy Pink! She backed up in terror as the kissing face floated towards her, like it was going to envelop her in Fluttershy’s soft, pliable lips. “No, I don’t want this!” Rosy shouted tearfully, trying to push the head away, trying to stop Fluttershy from hurting her.

“What’s wrong?” Fluttershy’s giant head said with a cruel smile, “You’re not even a mare. I can do whatever I want to you, and just throw you out like a piece of garbage, when you needed me the most!”

“Enough!” an imperious voice shouted, two dark blue hooves slamming into the giant head, sending it flying over the horizon to vanish with a ding. The majestic night princess was there in regal blue, standing before the shivering pony, looking down at her judgementally.

“I could hear your nightmare from Canterlot,” Princess Luna declared, helping her to her hooves.

“I’m sorry, Princess,” Rosy replied guiltily.

“I said enough,” Luna countered, and Rosy’s colors blew away from her like a shell, leaving Fluttershy feeling like herself again. Fluttershy did not want to feel like herself again, not in front of the princess, not knowing what Fluttershy had done, or, wanted to do.

“It seems you have some explaining to do,” Luna told Fluttershy, with an unsympathetic frown.

“Åh jävlar ,” Fluttershy swore under her breath.

After hours at the library was a peaceful time of evening, disturbed by a curly haired pink baker kicking open the door and singing sweetly, “Oh Twiliiiiiight! I brought lasaaaaagna~” Pinkie Pie didn’t expect an answer really, but she didn’t want to spook her friend or anything. It wouldn’t help to upset Twilight just when it was time for her to eat again. The important thing was to keep Twilight eating, and the key to that was making her food too irresistable to put down. Lacing your baked treats with salt was kinda super illegal though, so Pinkie Pie instead resorted to the next best thing: making it super extra tasty!

Inside the old oak tree, the lights were dim, and the shadows long, until Pinkie Pie woke up the overhead lights making everything look bright and cheery. Pinkie bounded around just enough not to disturb the casserole on her rump. The delicious smell was already pervading the air, and no doubt this time Twilight would really truly honestly enjoy it, instead of just eating it because Pinkie Pie bothered her to. “Twilight?” Pinkie asked, poking her head into the back of the library, but nopony was around back there.

Stopping to drop off the casserole, Pinkie still saw nor heard any sign of the librarian lurking around after-hours. “Twilight?” she called out, checking the reading rooms, the conference room, Twilight’s bedroom. It looked like Spike was having a sleepover with Rarity... again. “Come out, come out wherever you are~” Pinkie said cheerfully, scanning the ceiling, checking under the bed, nosing around in the closet... still nothing.

“Did she leave her house?” Pinkie Pie pondered, “I didn’t see her leave. The markets are all closed, too! So where is she, then?”

“Pinkie Pie?” the wrong unicorn said, standing at the base of the stairwell.

“Oh, Whatnot!” Pinkie said joyfully, hopping down the stairs to stand shoulder to shoulder with the adorably cheery purple haired unicorn, “Have you seen Twilight? It’s time for her to eat her dindin!”

The blue unicorn winced at Pinkie’s choice of words for some reason, saying, “Yeah... she’s here. I just saw her sorting books down in the basement.”

“Thank you sooo much!” Pinkie Pie cheered.

“Anytime, Pinkie,” Whatnot said with an easy smile.

Roots and earth embraced Pinkie Pie as she headed down the stairs to the library’s basement. The basement laboratory hadn’t seen much use lately. With Twilight all unhornified and her teeny little reading problem, she wasn’t really doing any magic experiments. Or much of anything, now that Pinkie thought about it. Did learning how to read again count as something? Continuing on, Pinkie reached book storage, where boxes of unsorted incoming and outgoing books were stored. Outside of the boxes, there were piles of books lying around everywhere. It was a bit of a mess down here, not nearly as well organized as the library above, but there was a certain logic to it. Twilight had her own formula to sorting everything, and it all started making sense once it reached the shelves in the stories overhead.

“Twilight?” Pinkie said, zipping to and fro, but no horse was to be found among the books. “I have lasaaaaaaagnaaa!” she cheered, checking under rugs and glancing up at the ceiling, “Come out, come out wherever you are!”

The library answered with all the silence of a tomb.

Pinkie scrunched in thought. She was absotively sure that she didn’t see Twilight. And she wasn’t hearing any sign of her. So what did that leave? Then she had a lightbulb moment, whatever a lightbulb is. Pinkie Pie sniffed. She still smelled delicious lasagna faintly drifting down from overhead. She smelled the musty scent of books and cardboard, and the smells of the earth walls and ceiling overhead. She smelled the sweet pink scent of Pinkie Pie, but Pinkie knew where Pinkie Pie was, so instead she focused on the other smell in the room. Twilight always smelled like tarragon, Pinkie found. Pinkie’s friend didn’t use any perfumes like Rarity did, so it was pretty easy to identify wafting around.

Pinkie Pie sniffed the air, until her nose took her to a stack of sorted books, and from there down along the ground across the room. The smell of Twilight was everywhere of course, but it was strongest where she had last been, so Pinkie could follow along with Twilight’s recent movements, to get an idea of where Twilight was around here.

The scent led to the mountainous pile of unsorted books and boxes of books against the wall. Pinkie crouched down, and squeezed her way into a little space between those boxes. There were more unsorted books back here, but they’d been stacked in a way that you could get through them without disturbing them.

After squeezing in deeper, Pinkie found she could stand without trouble. She paused, worried, and looked back the other way at the light shining in through the piles of books she was behind. She should have reached the wall by now. Turning forward, it was like Pinkie Pie was standing in a tunnel. A tunnel of books. She had a really bad feeling about this.

Nonono, you don’t understand. Pinkie Pie had a really bad feeling about this. She started to run.

The tunnel opened up into a relatively small chamber, which lit up as Pinkie ran in, disturbing the jars of glowflies placed in strategic locations. The walls of this chamber were covered with paper, papers plastered all over it at odd angles like some kind of demented wallpaper. The papers were covered in strange symbols, weird looking diagrams in harsh black scratches over multiple pages, and some sort of incomprehensible language, written in an alphabet Pinkie Pie had never seen before. It looked like Twilight had invented her own language... again.

The only comprehensible part of it was the center of all this giant mess, where all the diagrams pointed, and where all the arrows led to. Letters were written there in rough, but legible Script, carved in harsh, long, repeated strokes from a pony with a ragged quill in her mouth, the letters “ROSY PINK.”

Something on the ground struck Pinkie Pie’s hindfoot as she backed away from those menacing diagrams, and she looked down to find a thick, heavy sheathe in the form of a cone, what should have been the horn suppressor, now blackened and burnt, and faintly smelling of soot.

Author's Note

Well, that should wrap everything up.

This was the hardest chapter to write.

“If Princess Luna has proved anything, its that no matter how beaten down the ponies wrapped up in this nonsense get, they aren't allowed to die.” - zxzxzxzxzx24

That’s It. I Give Up. I’m Leaving.

Pinkie Pie ran screaming out of the library, charging through the streets shouting, “Everypony panic! Run for your lives! Abandon ship abandon ship! Evacuate the city! Evaaaacuuuuaaaaate!”

Her headlong gallop was abruptly stopped when she came face to face with a uniformed member of the town police. The mare glared Pinkie Pie to a halt, and Pinkie shrunk back, smiling abashedly, saying, “Whoops, sorry!”

Then Pinkie Pie ran past her, charging through the streets whispering respectfully and quietly, “Everypony panic! Run for your lives! Abandon—” something snagged her tail.

Pinkie Pie looked back, and it was the policepony again, biting her tail. Greenish fur with bright blue hair under her cap, she was an eveningpony Pinkie didn’t see around often. Nutmeg was her name, if Pinkie recalled. (Pinkie recalled, by the way.) While Pinkie Pie stood there staring innocently at Officer Nutmeg, the mare looked back at her in puzzlement. Nutmeg asked in a somewhat nasal manner of speaking, “Is there a problem?”

Pinkie’s eyes widened, and she nodded frantically, saying, “Yes, there’s a huge, superrifically scary and not good problem!”

She made to run off then but the officer grabbed Pinkie Pie’s shoulder and pulled her back to face her again, saying, “Wait!”

Pinkie waited, and the officer gave her another appraising look, saying in a less than impressed voice, “It sure would be nice if there were somepony whose job is to deal with problems, who you might want to talk to instead of running screaming—or whispering—through the streets in a panic.”

“Boy would it!” Pinkie declared hopefully, “You wouldn’t happen to know anypony—” Pinkie Pie blinked, staring at the officer. “Ohh,” she realized, fidgeting nervously, “Right.”

Taking the officer’s cheeks in her hooves, Pinkie said, “You have to help me find my friend you know the princess Twilight who has been having trouble lately and isn’t doing so well and she may have gone a wee bit cuckoo when we weren’t looking again and I need to find Rainbow Dash or we’ll end up fighting giant hydras again or worse so if you could just go and tell the other police ponies that there is a purple alert I would really appreciate it because then I wouldn’t have to run through the streets panicking and waking everypony up even though they probably should be awake in case she tries to cure ponies from laughing at something in a context she doesn’t understand... again!”

Taking her face back to herself, Nutmeg squinted at Pinkie Pie, saying, “Come again now?”

“Tell the police there is a purple alert,” Pinkie Pie repeated, “I need to go find my friends.”

“A...” Nutmeg’s warm amber irises shrunk as she said, “By purple alert you mean... the princess?”

Pinkie Pie nodded, saying, “It is a super big time doozy of a purple alert. You might want to run.” Then she took off for the highlands as fast as her hoofsies could carry her.

Rainbow Dash was over by the lake when Pinkie got there, which is to say Rainbow Dash’s house had drifted over by the lake. Pinkie saw the darkening cloud in the dimming evening light, and scooted to a halt, pulling out a megaphone.

“Rainbow Dash are you asleep???” she asked projecting her voice as loudly as she possibly could. There was a scream and a small explosion of cloudstuff right around where Rainbow Dash’s bedroom would be. Pinkie Pie couldn’t suppress a giggle.

“Pinkie Pie, what is your problem?!” Rainbow Dash shouted, suddenly in Pinkie’s face. “Are you trying to wake up half of Ponyville?”

“Nope,” Pinkie said curtly to her rainbow friend, “I’m trying to wake up all of Ponyville. Twilight is doing it again.”

“What’s she doing?” the pegasus asked, flapping back a little less antagonistically to listen to Pinkie.

“Twilightsecretlydugoutaholeinthe—” Pinkie babbled, before Rainbow Dash stuffed a hoof in her mouth and said,

“No wait. Slowly.”

“Twilight secretly dug out a hole in the wall of the library’s basement,” Pinkie explained slowlyer, but still pretty quickly, “Deep inside it, she’s been plotting a scheme so crazy, even I can’t understand it! Except that Twilight blames Rosy Pink for everything. Twilight snuck away while nopony was looking just now, and we don’t know where she is, or what she’s doing.” Pinkie pulled the burnt horn suppressor out of her space and presented it to Rainbow Dash on an upturned hoof, “Also this.”

“W-what?” Rainbow Dash said stunned, staring at the suppressor, “But she was... she was getting better!”

“Tell that to her plot hole,” Pinkie replied glumly, “Now we gotta get the others, and... I already told the police to raise a purple alert. And then we figure out what to do.”

The rising sound of distant sirens drifting through the air from Ponyville added veracity to Pinkie Pie’s claim, not that Rainbow Dash ever doubted her. “Great,” Dash groaned, “I’ll go get AJ, and you get Rarity and Fluttershy. Do you have any idea where Twilight might be?”

Pinkie gestured with the burned out horn suppressor.

“Right, forget I asked,” Rainbow Dash said, facehoofing. She blasted off without another word, and Pinkie Pie went heading in a different direction, not a measurable amount slower than her friend. Fluttershy was already heading to meet with Rarity when Pinkie Pie intercepted her. See the order they decided on was Fluttershy finds Rarity, then she and Rarity find Pinkie Pie, so Pinkie just shortcutted the process.

“Fluttershy!” she shouted, making the butter yellow pegasus squeal and leap into the bushes. Wincing, Pinkie Pie approached the bushes, whispering, “Fluttershy! It’s me, Pinkie Pie!”

“Oh Pinkie,” the bushes said tearfully, “I heard sirens, and ponies running, and I was trying to find Rarity, but I don’t know what’s happening!”

Pinkie inhaled, taking in a big, deep breath.

“Twilight is doing it again,” Pinkie said, holding a hoof out to the bushes, “C’mon, let’s go find Rarity!”

Fluttershy crept out of the bushes, and Pinkie smiled brightly, glad to see her friend was okay. Fluttershy may have smiled (a little bit), and gesturing broadly, Pinkie Pie hurried them both on their way. The streets were mostly empty when they got into Ponyville. Doors were barred and shutters shut. Dressed in a very fetching violet evening cloak, with a sparkling diamond brooch, Rarity was already talking with the town watch when Pinkie and Fluttershy arrived.

“Oh thank heavens,” Rarity said in relief, pulling back her hood upon seeing those two approach. What was under it wasn’t nearly so well thought out, as Rarity herself looked extremely stressed and positively disarrayed. “Have you seen Twilight anywhere?” she asked them hopefully.

Pinkie gestured with the burned out horn suppressor.

“What did she do to that thing?” Rarity exclaimed in horror, “I didn’t even know you could burn out horn blockers!”

“Maybe she held it up to a candle?” Pinkie Pie shrugged.

“Oh dear,” Rarity continued heedlessly, not even entertaining that idea, “This means she could be anywhere!” Why, she could be in Canterlot by now! Or Las—well, Las Pegasus is a bit of a way, but she could be well on her way to Las Pegasus, to enact some dire revenge against the innocent inhabitants of the city who wronged her! That noble prison guard could be in trouble this very minute!”

“Let’s get to the library,” Pinkie said nervously, “Maybe Rainbow Dash has seen her, when she was going to get Applejack.”

“But Applejack isn’t in Las Pegasus, is she?” Rarity asked in confusion.

Pinkie groaned, and just dragged her two friends along with, until they were all running side by side.

“What took you three?” Rainbow Dash asked as they ran up, “We can’t find Twilight anywhere!”

Rarity continued to babble frantically, “What if she’s gone to awaken the dreaded Ursa Minor, to enact some dire revenge against the innocent cows who—”

Then Applejack trotted up and plugged her mouth, saying, “We cain’t assume the worst just yet, Rares. This is Twilight we’re talking about. Even crazy, she’s gonna stay sensible.” She released Rarity, who stepped back somewhat mollified. “Now what’s goin’ on with Twilight now?” AJ asked around.

“Everypony, follow me!” Pinkie announced anxiously, running into the library. Down in the basement, she showed them the piles of books and boxes. Checking inside a box, Applejack asked in confusion, “Why are all these boxes filled up with dirt?”

“Back here,” Pinkie said, crawling into the book hole, “Come on, it’s the only clue I’ve got!”

It was a little tight, but they all managed to fit in Twilight’s secret hole. The princess hadn’t dug it out very large before covering the walls with diagrams and mysterious equations. Rarity took one look at the frighteningly frenetic black scratches all over and fainted, but nopony really noticed asides Applejack moving her rump to catch her friend from falling.

“Land sakes,” Applejack said as Rarity leaned heavily against her, the cowpony taking off her hat at the sight of it, “What is goin’ on with that mare?”

“It’s hard to say,” Pinkie replied, pointing at the part that said, “ROSY PINK,” “There’s only one part of it that’s legible!”

“She’s probably created another language again,” Rainbow Dash said, squinting at the diagrams, “It’s kinda mixed up, but it’s definitely some sort of contingency plan.”

“What do you mean?” Pinkie asked worriedly.

“Well Twilight has really terrible mouthwriting,” Rainbow Dash said, “But this part here looks kinda flowcharty, and this over here’s a checklist, with everything checked off except uhh... circle twiddle square ex twiddle tee brace, whatever that means. So she’s probably trying to figure out what to do about Rosy Pi—”

“This horrible penmanship!” Rarity cried out in distress, reviving from where she draped across Applejack’s back, “You cannot tell an ‘R’ from a ‘P’! How did we let her go for so long in such distress? We simply must get her a decent mouthwriting instructor!”

“I think we got bigger worries than mouthwritin’” Applejack said disgustedly.

“Oh, yes of course,” Rarity said, blushing.

“Didn’t she destroy her horn protector?” Fluttershy said worriedly, from where she was hiding behind Applejack’s tail, “Why would she use mouthwriting if her horn was working again?”

“Yeah, how long has she been working on this?” Rainbow Dash asked, her wings spreading worriedly, “She had to have dug this out by hoof!”

“Let’s—uh,” Applejack said, lifting a hoof to push Rainbow Dash’s wing out of her face, a bit hindered with Rarity still draped across her back, “Let’s reconnoiter outside an’ try to figgur out what to do. Kinda crowded in here.”

The oneun friends shuffled out of the library, into the long shadows outside the tree. As orange as a sunset, a farm pony named Applejack shook her head cluelessly, getting an understanding look from the others. “Where would she go?” Rarity spoke at last, “There’s been no news of Rosy Pink, no new sightings, no evidence of anything!”

“Maybe we should just... throw out idears of where she’d have gone,” Applejack said, “It cain’t hurt to share ‘em. Maybe one pony’s stupid idea’s a smart one in’n’nother.”

“She can’t be in the library,” Pinkie Pie asserted, “I searched high and low, and I even found her secret passage, but Twilight was nowhere to be seen. She has to be somewhere else. Otherwise, why did she break her horn thingy?”

“As much as I want to avoid unhelpful hysteria,” Rarity said, pausing and glancing around at the others. “...what? I do! And I think Las Pegasus is starting to sound like a distinct possibility. It’s the last place we saw Rosy Pink, and it may be that Twilight is desperate enough to look again.”

“Maybe she’s in Canterlot,” Fluttershy suggested, “And she left because she had something really important to tell the princesses!”

“Wouldn’t she at least leave us a note, then?” Pinkie Pie asked. The others muttered vague assent to that.

“Oh, I know!” Rainbow Dash shot up, saying, “Maybe she’s at—”

“The Rift!”

Smiling, Dash turned and said, “Yeah that’s what I was gonna—woah, mare. What happened to you?”

The coal blue mare in question was dressed in what was left of a white labcoat, shredded with black smoky holes, along with her flaxen mane and tail. She looked like there was something heavy weighing her down, despite carrying nothing on her back, and her fur glistened with the sheen of sweat. “She’s at the Rift!” the mare squealed shrilly, fear in her violet eyes, “The princess did something to everypony! Nopony could move a muscle! My friend is still back there—you have to stop her!”

“That’s Twilight’s Stop spell,” Rainbow Dash said to the panicking mare, “Don’t worry it wears off as soon as she gets tired.”

“What happened, dear?” Rarity asked the mare with deepest concern, “And how did you escape that spell?”

“M-my friend, she teleported me as far as she could,” the mare said miserably, “I think I’m the only one who got out. You have to help—what if the princess is coming after me?!”

“Then your friends are free,” Rarity replied easily, “It’s no sort of dark magic. It’s just a spell, and as powerful as she is, Twilight can’t cover a whole town in it.”

“But she can cover us in it,” Rainbow Dash retorted, “How are we even supposed to get close to her without her slapping it on us instead?”

“What if you go so fast, you can hit her before she even sees you!” Pinkie Pie suggested.

Rainbow Dash shook her head saying, “Twilight could get hurt. I’m not gonna do that.” Then a lightbulb went off and she looked at Pinkie again saying, “You could sneak up on her though!”

“I could?” Pinkie replied a trifle uneasily.

“You did before!” Rainbow Dash crowed, “So now you just do your... sneaky thing, and get Twilight’s horn disabled, and the rest of us can swoop in and save her. Stop her. Whatever.”

“How did things get so frightful with Twilight?” Rarity asked with a frustrated sigh.

“Well I dunno,” Rainbow Dash grumbled, “But I don’t care what she says. There is no way that it has anything to do with Rosy Pink.”

The Rift site was completely silent, save for the pleasant humming of one mare. The waning sun cast warmly over the tents and buildings, none of them even ruffling in the wind. A sparkling magenta glow covered everything and everypony, who were all mostly staring in horror in the direction of the Rift, frozen in place save for the soft puffs of breath in the air, eye movement in some, and head movement in a few. Those few had a mouth zipper spell to keep them from disturbing the princess’s progress.

Pinkie Pie had a really really bad feeling about this. Everypony thought Pinkie Pie was some kind of superpony, but Pinkie didn’t even know if she was a pony, or if she was some kind of ponylike alien who’d fallen from the sky in a rocket ship from her doomed planet, only to be lovingly raised by her family despite her weird powers manifesting. She was pretty sure that wasn’t true, but it’s not like her family was around anymore to ask them.

They thought she was some kind of superpony, but Pinkie Pie frankly felt like she was just faking it all the time, barely scraping by when everypony thought she’d cleared it by a mile. She could sneak up on the purple princess, maybe more than anypony else, but it wasn’t that simple, or sure, even for Pinkie Pie.

The wind caressed her round, pink curves as she shifted herself left and right to adjust the trajectory of the kite she was strapped to. Pinkie Pie didn’t think that was anything special, but apparently not many ponies had ever gone on an adventure where they had to learn to descend silently from the sky strapped to a giant kite. Really it wasn’t anything Rainbow Dash couldn’t do, and Dashie didn’t even need a kite!

Ponies didn’t understand just how scared Pinkie Pie got, and it was her own fault really. Her heart was in her chest when she tried to soothe the leaves of the trees rushing beneath her hooves, begging them to stay silent while Pinkie Pie slipped past them to land delicately on a tree branch, leaving the kite to soar away on its own to a safe distance.

If anypony had asked her if she was okay, Pinkie would have just smiled, laughed, cracked a joke, anything to keep them from seeing her in distress. She knew that was wrong, but it was something that just happened to her every time, like a weird sort of reflex, like how Fluttershy still had to deal with her fear of crowds, even after having overcome them. With nopony around though, only her target in sight, Pinkie Pie was free to feel fear.

She wrapped her arms around the branch, keeping the stiff pink hooves from clonking on the wood, and keeping the rough bark pressed firmly against her round tummy. Pinkie whispered not so much a formal spell, but just a hope that she wouldn’t be noticed. “If I fall into your eyes, forget before you realize.” Then she let herself slip off the branch and descended swiftly to the ground.

Pinkie Pie stopped a little bit above the ground, before slowly descending the last few inches through the air. That was actually a trick Applejack taught her, though Applejack used it to keep the apples falling into their baskets, and it was Pinkie’s idea to use it to soften her landing. Something about the spacey stuff and folding it, really Pinkie was just mimicking what Applejack did.

It let her land silently though, even in the extreme quiet of the Stop spell. Twilight hadn’t seen her yet, Pinkie Pie knew for sure. If Twilight ever saw Pinkie Pie, she could immediately cast that spell on her, or bind her in magic rope, or any number of things. The first rule of combat with unicorns is that once their horn is lit, you lose. Pinkie Pie couldn’t afford to lose though, and Twilight was a princess now, not a unicorn, so it totally was going to work.

Plus Twilight was kinda bad at combat.

Sneaking up on the princess when Pinkie had reached the earth was easy peasy. Twilight was paying attention to the containment vessel surrounding the Rift and mumbling to herself. Her horn was shining brightly with the accumulated spells she was maintaining. Even with a completely fresh magic reserve, even Twilight couldn’t keep up a casting like this for long. Five, ten minutes, and her horn would flicker and darken, unable to channel any more magic, kinda like when you tried to swim and your leg got a charlie horse, except in a horn and totally different, according to unicorns.

The containment vessel cracked open. Pinkie Pie couldn’t wait. Silent as a wraith, she was seen by some frozen ponies on her approach behind the princess, but they couldn’t, or didn’t speak. This was the moment of truth. It was all up to Pinkie Pie. Twilight was pouring her magical light directly into the Rift which was growing angry red again, and the princess had to be stopped. Pinkie Pie had to get the princess down so that her friends could rush in and assist, and the day could be saved. One slip and she’d fail, but Pinkie Pie knew she wasn’t going to slip up. Her knee wasn’t even pinchy.

Of course... there was no Pinkie Sense for when your Pinkie Sense failed.

Pinkie Pie’s swift, decisive kick to the back of Twilight’s head hit a sparkling magenta shield that suddenly appeared as Pinkie Pie’s hoof struck it. “Aha!” Twilight declared, starting to turn around, “I thought you might—” Pinkie jumped on her from behind, desperately grappling for Twilight’s horn. It was like licking a rainbow, except with your hoof. “Let... go!” Twilight shouted, and then Pinkie Pie wasn’t. She kicked out and she was again, only a few meters distant from where Twilight had started to teleport her. Pinkie Pie would hate to have popped out miles away in Ponyville, that’s for sure!

Rainbow Dash took the opportunity to dive bomb Twilight, while Pinkie Pie looked frantically around for a stick in this bare, meticulously cleaned science crater. Her—her party space! She had a megaphone, a ball, a cannon, a party blower, a burnt horn suppressor, a plate of lasagna, three quarters of a raspberry chocolate cake, a bucket of confetti why oh why hadn’t Pinkie Pie thought to bring a stick?

With a magenta flash, it was over. Pinkie Pie couldn’t move a muscle except the ones she could, and Rainbow Dash was similarly suspended there in a magenta moment in space. “Anypony else?” Twilight shouted out. Nopony else came running from the shadowy forest around them. “I know you’re out there, girls!” she shouted in a chiding tone, “Not gonna bother me? Good. I’m almost finished here.”

Twilight once again began pouring her magic into the Rift. This was not good. Not good! Why did she have so much magic?! It was like she had been saving it up, or something! “Yes...” Twilight murmured, heedless of her frozen friends around her, “That’s right girl, you know where she is. Go get her.”

In that moment, Rarity came charging out of the forest screaming like a little pony, running up to Twilight with her cloak magically expanded and held beside her like a billowing net. Pinkie didn’t really understand, because how was catching Twilight in a net going to even slow her down, assuming you could do so?

Rarity couldn’t, because with an extra pulse from Twilight’s horn, Rarity and her cloak froze in mid-air, magenta magic warring with crystal blue crawling over its surface. Rarity didn’t exactly scream internally, but her frustrated squeal couldn’t move the cloak one inch closer to the princess. Then Applejack smashed through the stiff cloth, with a tree branch in her mouth.

“No—!” Twilight started to say as Applejack brought the branch slapping sideways against Twilight’s horn. It flickered wildly and Twilight took a step back, wings spreading in panic as she said, “Stop—” another thwack, and everypony except Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie went tumbling down from where they’d been frozen in motion. Two more thwacks and everypony was free, though Twilight had already been swarmed by the science ponies. Rainbow Dash dropped like a stone, and Pinkie Pie ran forward like a... stone.

The shouts of “Hold her still!” and “Sleep spell!” soon could no longer be heard, as everypony turned with horror to the sound of that now familiar bass rumble. The Rift was moving again. It dragged through your bones to even hear it move.

“Yes!” Twilight could be heard shrieking above the noise, “Take that Rosy Pink! Take that and eat it!”

Several ponies scrambled to contain it again, but it was pulsing now, and the ponies levitating the two halves of the silver shell collapsed in pain. Two runners took up the halves, but as they neared, bolts of glowing red wrongness from it struck them down with cries of pain and fear. Then two more tried, but they were running out of ponies!

At last a group of four, two unicorn/earth pony pairs got the shell closed around it. The pegasi started to hammer in support struts when the whole thing exploded, peppering everypony around it with molten shrapnel. “Fall back!” a rough mare’s voice shouted out, “Get away from that thing!”

“Oh Celestia!” a squirrel voiced mare swore, as from the flickering red point of pulsing light, a billowing darkness seemed to erupt, like a flame made out of shadows, and it started carving forward at frightening speeds. “Everypony run!”

Panicked and scrambling, ponies fled from the crater, running every which way as long as it meant getting away from that thing. Twilight was peacefully sleeping thanks to like a million sedation spells, and/or knocks to the head, but Applejack heaved the unconscious princess onto her back shouting, “This’s more’n you deserve!” before running for her life.

Pinkie and Rarity flanked Applejack as they tore out of there. Where they were going, Pinkie Pie didn’t know. She wasn’t sure anypony knew. They were running for Ponyville, but that was the way the Rift was headed! Pinkie Pie just wished somepony’d had the foresight to send a message to Princess Celestia before all this went down, because her help would really be appreciated at this moment!

They broke out of the treeline just as the sun vanished below the horizon and with a burst of blinding light overhead, the princesses gated in.

Everypony came to a surprised halt at an advancing scattered line of police ponies, oh and also the rulers of Equestria. Princess Celesta and Princess Luna descended from a blinding light in the sky, the solar diarch looking worn out and weary, and the lunar diarch repeatedly blinking her eyes and squinting as though she was seeing spots for some reason.

“Twilight Spark—” Princess Celestia started to say, then noticing Twilight slumped over Applejack’s back. “Oh my, what happened? Is she alright?”

Applejack said in a frightened voice, “She’ll be okay, but th’ Rift’s headed this way! We gotta do something!”

“What?” Celestia said, her eyes widening as she looked up beyond Twilight to the frightened screams still drifting out of White Tail Woods.

“Princess Celestia, Princess Luna!” Rarity declared breathlessly, running out of the woods up to stand beside Applejack, “To run into you here is... what luck... you wouldn’t... know how to stop a runaway Rift, would you?”

“It’s moving?!” Princess Luna shouted, staring among the ponies fleeing the woods as Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy descended from the sky to unite with the four friends there on the ground.

“It’s more than moving,” Rainbow Dash shouted, “It’s tearing a path through the forest! Trees just explode when they hit it!”

“Oh this is terrible,” Fluttershy moaned, “It could be here any minute. Why is it headed straight for Ponyville?”

“Minutes Z and seconds PS, to be specific,” Rainbow Dash said, looking beseechingly to the princesses, “Do either of you know how to stop this thing? Princess Luna?”

“Return to it what was taken from it,” Luna stated automatically.

“Not exactly an option right now!” Rainbow Dash replied unhappily, “Princess Celestia?”

“I’m afraid I know little about spatial rifts, save that they are very dangerous,” Princess Celestia said, shaking her head, “And very rare.”

“But can you stop it?” Dash asked desperately.

“I will do what I can, my little ponies,” Princess Celestia said soberly, “But if Twilight couldn’t stop it...”

“Stop it?!” Dash squawked in outrage, “She started it!”

Princess Celestia stared at Rainbow Dash.

“We will discuss this later,” the princess said darkly, facing the screams coming from the woods and lighting up her horn, “Now please give me some space. I’m going to try something.”

“Princess Celestia!” a Trotwood pony shouted, running up: a hot pink haired mare whose white coat covered much of her yellow fur, “The containment vessel ruptured! You have to help us!”

“Containment vessel?” Celestia asked, delighting her horn. Alas, whatever Celestia was going to try would remain a question for the ages.

The pony continued to babble, “Please it’s a class 3 thaumospatial isolation chamber composed of a multidimensional silver alloy with—”

“Are you capable of creating such a vessel?” Celestia interrupted the chattering mare.

“Oh no, Professor Flask’s team assembled the rift containment vessel,” she replied.

“Find them all, and bring them to me,” Celestia replied urgently, “Hurry!”

The mare ran off, and Princess Celestia actually looked worried. “I’ll have to take them to the Canterlot laboratories for proper equipment and materials. Luna, I don’t suppose you can try to slow this thing down?”

“Can and will, sister,” the dark alicorn said confidently, “Go get your containment vessel, for it is my power that waxes in the midnight hour.” Celestia paused uneasily, but Luna shouted, “Go!” And just like that, the princess of the sun meekly trotted off after the mare from before who was darting frantically about gathering science ponies together.

“Unicorns, lend me your horns!” Princess Luna commanded, “There is a terrible evil coming this way and only your magic can stop it without harm. Pegasi, assemble before me!”

Well, it’s a good thing that it wasn’t nightmare night, because instead of pretending to cower in fear, a host of flustered winged ponies gathered in front of the princess. “Something is coming which may put ponies in danger,” she told them, “You need to find anypony caught in its path, and carry them out of harm’s way. Go! Wait by the edge of town until you can see where to evacuate.”

They went flapping off towards town, and Luna said, to a bunch of unicorns cantering up to her, “If you know how to raise a barrier, do so at the edge of the woods. I have only encountered a Rift once before, but it is a fearsome foe that can wreak havoc with your light field despite being of hopefully tiny size. Worry not if all you are capable of is lending your strength...” Her horn lit up then in brilliant blue, and a shimmering field appeared to block the entire boundary of the forest, “For I need you to lend me your strength, and reinforce the barrier you see before you! Hurry, put your hearts into it!”

Hearts and horns began to glow, figuratively and literally respectively, while other unicorns’ magic colors started to diffuse into the barrier. At last Luna turned toward such ponies as Pinkie Pie and Applejack gathering towards her, saying, “You who remain are the only ones who can save your village, should it break free from our spellcraft. Any ponies of earth, I need you to watch for a rift in space, and move any important buildings out of its path.

A ragged cheer of affirmation was all Luna got before settling down to wait.

The waiting game was tense, and noisy in its stillness. There were still cries of fear and even injury coming from the forest. Had ponies been caught in its path? Surely many were damaged by the splinters from the exploding trees. At last, the pegasi overhead shouted, “Here it comes!”

A pulsating reddened hole burst through their combined shield like tissue paper, but Luna expected that. “Surround it in a close cylinder!” she shouted over the deep bass thrum, drawing her magic in a complex chamber that closed around the hole, while somepony next to her shouted,

“Not a cylinder! That won’t wo—”

Luna cried out, falling to her knees as her shield was abruptly crushed into an hourglass shape, then shattered outward faster than it could dissolve into motes of light. She blinked back tears of pain from the monstrous backlash, and to her horror, she saw the Rift swell like a boil, some shapeless, keening horror erupting from its depths.

“Void monster!” she shrieked, struggling to her forelegs and surrounding the blurry monster in a cage of light. It looked something like a minotaur crossed with a lion, and was struggling within a second, slippery magical membrane that warred with Luna’s magic like a thing possessed. Luna winced as within the short time she’d stopped to contain this creature, the thunder of exploding plaster suddenly resounded in her ears. She looked up to see the Rift travelling merrily along while the building it went through started to fall.

“It has reached the buildings! Evacuate everypony now!” Luna ordered, probably needlessly as there were already ponies clearing a path for the Rift, and several shrieking ponies were dangling in pegasus arms, so they certainly were evacuating everypony now. Luna turned to the Void creature which while still in severe distress, was not even testing the strength of Luna’s wards. Luna’s magic couldn’t penetrate that membrane around it though, and it had at least a somewhat recognizable anatomy, so instead of bringing it to an enchanted sleep, she levitated a fallen 2x4 and beaned it firmly on the head.

At least the shrieking stopped.

“My little ponies, contain the monster!” Princess Luna declared, turning away from it to aim her horn at the spatial anomaly that was leaving a disintegrated gash through some poor pony’s flower garden.

“Wait!” a mare shouted before Luna could fire off her spell, and it was the same pony’s voice from before, a bright red unicorn with striking green hair.

“The shield needs to be ovoid, your highness!” the hot pink mare who had first spoke shouted, “To ideally distribute the forces! Like an egg!”

“Hurry then, what are its curvature coefficients?” Luna commanded, climbing back to her forelegs while ponies scattered out of the way as the infernal ember in the sky trailed along blithely across the field towards the town.

“I don’t know!” the mare shouted in anguish back over the deep bass thrum filling their bones, “Everypony who knows went with Princess Celestia to craft a new vessel! I’m just a grad student!!”

“We’re going to have to experiment then,” Luna said, whipping her magic at the Rift, only to find it rebuffed. Her second attempt surrounded it with an egg shaped shield, that ...kept moving along with the Rift.

“Blast!” she shouted, running after the Rift now, and her shield.

“Try grounding it to a world line,” another mare in a white coat suggested alongside her, a green unicorn with auburn orange hair, “The containment has to be geolocked somehow!”

Before Luna could figure out what that second unicorn mare meant by world line, the unicorn fired a green blast of magic at Luna’s shield around the Rift, and attempted to enact what she had stated magically. This Luna could understand, and Luna let her magic cradle the unicorn’s desperate struggle, steadying her and aligning her with the thaumatic frequencies this mare sought.

“Anthracite, I need a world line!” the mare shrieked, struggling to keep her green horn layered in a second level aura.

A less excitable voice quickly announced, “Meters south VV, north BD down FW,” but Luna didn’t get a good look at the pony who said that before the orange and green mare was on the move.

“Get these buildings out of the way!” that mare shouted, galloping crazily between them as she attempted to wrestle the Rift’s course in the direction so indicated. Luna followed in what one would have called curiosity, were the situation far too dire to be wasting time on curiosity. The princess had to dodge a falling building as the Rift took out a hefty support beam, but it was mere moments before the mare she was following had reached what she called a—

“Oh, a leyline!” Luna realized, hooking with her own magic what the mare was struggling to pull to the surface. A stream of the mare’s arcane force lashed from it to convolve the ovoid shield in a way Princess Luna had never seen before. It looked vaguely like an excavation charm, but with many of the sworls mirrored. As fascinating as that was, the important thing was that the Rift gave a creaking groan, then shuddered to a stop.

Then its pulses strengthened dramatically. The rumbling hum was deafening, and yet everything started getting blown away from it in complete, eerie silence, as if the buildings were constructed from wet tissue paper, in gale force winds. Clinging to a support beam as ponies and other things were blown past her, Princess Luna tried to concentrate on inverting the spatial distortion, using a trick she learned from the Borean war along with her own hefty magic reserve. The space calmed enough for the other unicorns to rush in, and they wove a tight egg around the Rift in glowing lines of light, immediately tethering it to the leyline. Luna helped where she could, turning crude scribbles into runes inscribed with pinpoint precision, when she recognized the runes at least.

At last they had a... temporary solution. Several unicorns along with Princess Luna were keeping the arcanic construct intact. The glowing lines and curves in the air shimmered from blue to green and back. Ponyville had... lost a neighborhood at worst, so the first thing she asked when the Rift was wrestled to a halt is, “Was anypony hurt?”

The pony Princess Luna asked had no horn, but had a physic’s story mark. She was directing ponies here and there, and immediately stopped to bow once the princess addressed her. “Spare me your supplications!” Luna demanded, “Your ponies need you standing!” With a frightened squeak, the mare scrambled to her hooves. Supposedly this “fear” was the sort of thing ponies enjoyed nowadays, curiously enough. Nevertheless, Luna quieted her voice and her temper, saying, “Please, aid the wounded. You can inform me once the crisis has passed.”

“Yes, your highness!” the mare said, doing what looked like it was trying to be a salute. “I mean, yes Princess Luna!” She galloped off then, while Luna watched with amusement. The magical cage around the Rift shattered behind her.

“Blast it all thou spawn of Tartarus!” Luna swore, spinning around and trying to recover the weave, but the Rift just powered through it, the last wisps of magic shredding before its distortion as it accelerated further into town. To Luna’s absolute horror, another Voidspawn was ejected from it. How many of these things were lurking about?! Such a Rift had to be attracting unwanted attention. Fortunately this Voidspawn also had a physical form, and a recognizable head, so a swift strike knocked them unconscious before they could so much as scream like a banshee. But as Luna was dealing with the writhing long-legged menace, the Rift continued blithely on, until somepony shouted,

“It’s headed for Town Hall!”

Of course it was headed for Town Hall.

“To me, unicorn scholars!” she shouted, “Trap it again! It must not reach the Hall!” She wasn’t sure of the leyout of Ponyville, so there was little she could do to geolock another temporary containment. Fortunately, Luna was not operating alone, and soon the ponies who could do so had located and emerged another leyline, a large one it looked like, travelling underneath the Town Hall. At least the Hall looked like it would survive intact. Luna’s attempts to correct the course of the Rift were slowly perturbing its path away from the tall, permanent building with terribly vulnerable strong foundations.

When Luna once again drained the area around the rift of its formidable spatial inertia, the same ponies from before rushed in and formed an ovoid cage of magic, and once it was complete, lashed it to the leyline. This time, Luna did not take her eyes off it for a second. Her horn was burning with overuse, and she couldn’t imagine what some of the unicorns here were going through. Nevertheless, every attempt the Rift made to break free, Luna whipped back into smoothness. It was a tedious and exerting process, and it looked like only she had the arcane mastery to do so on the spot. So for the time being, she was stuck babying this thing.

“Where art thou, sister?” she grumbled under her breath.

Princess Celestia was, of course, down in the undermountain forges of Canterlot, using a giant hammer to beat glowing hot silver sheets into multidimensional folds.

Pinkie looked behind herself. Beyond the fourth wall of the hospital room Pinkie Pie stood in, ponies were doing battle downtown with the meanest pinhole in all of Equestria. You could even see a little bit of the disaster through the window. Pinkie Pie wasn’t out there, because... they already had a dowser, and Pinkie’s friend was in trouble too. A trouble Pinkie didn’t know what to do with, but trouble nonetheless.

Turning to look forward, Pinkie Pie regarded her fallen friend. The Princess Twilight looked so serene in her forced sleep. It almost seemed a shame to wake her. They needed her to wake up though, because only she knew what she had done to the Rift.

“Don’t worry, doctor,” Rarity told the blue unicorn mare with the stethescope standing by, “She may be fearsome at times, but her friends are here, and I’m confident there’s nothing friendship cannot solve.” She winced, and added, “...eventually.”

“I’ve also added a sedative to her IV,” the doctor said humorlessly, “Just enough to keep her relaxed when she awakens. Please, let me know if you need assistance, and...” a touch of emotion entered the doctor’s voice as she said, “Please, help her. Twilight is our Princess, and we can’t... right, she should awaken momentarily.”

Twilight awoke surrounded by her friends. She murmured something softly, sliding open her violet eyes.

“Twilight, don’t worry, you’re okay,” Pinkie Pie said hastily, “Everything’s all taken care of.”

“Yeah, the princesses will probably have that Rift taken care of before you know it,” Rainbow Dash said. There was a thunderous boom in the distance, followed by the sound of screaming ponies. “...or not.”

Twilight jerked up in bed, only to sway dizzily and almost collapse again. “Twilight, you mustn’t move too quickly!” Rarity said urgently, “You were em... injured, and need your rest!”

“Please Twilight,” Pinkie pleaded, “We just need a liiiiittle information on how to dispel the... rifty thing you did, and you can go back to your nice little nap.”

Twilight looked from Rainbow Dash, to Rarity, to Pinkie Pie, and her answer was, “Whatnot.”

“Oh, Whatnot can help?” Pinkie asked hopefully.

Twilight grimaced at that, and said, “No, Whatnot can... help speak spell. Still not speak... vocabulation incomplete without spell.”

Everypony facehooved.

“On it,” Rainbow Dash shouted, blasting her way straight out the window. Fluttershy made sure it was open first. It wasn’t long before the distant screams around the town were dominated by one long, continuous scream that seemed to be growing louder and louder. Rainbow Dash dove back in through the window, with a purple haired, blue unicorn in her arms. Whatnot stopped screaming as Dash set her to the hospital floor, and just looked around in bewilderment.

“You need to do your magic thing, so Twilight can talk again,” Rainbow Dash clarified for her.

“O-oh. Oh! It wore off, sorry. Let’s...” Whatnot only stammered a moment, panting breathlessly, before lighting her horn and looking at Princess Twilight. And looking at her. And looking.

“We’re kind of in a hurry!” Rainbow Dash declared, “Saving Ponyville and all, you know?”

“Oh, gosh sorry I was just...” Whatnot blushed and fired a bolt of rune inscribed magic straight down Twilight’s horn. Twilight put up little to no resistence at this, instead giving a relieved smile. “I’ve been calibrating it to slowly adjust as she learns more of her correct vocabulary,” Whatnot explained nervously, “She’s getting her language back, really she is! Even—”

“Thank you, Whatnot,” Twilight Sparkle interrupted, “But I think Rainbow Dash said something about being in a hurry?”

“Oh it’s nothing the princesses cannot handle,” Rarity assured her with an uneasy smile, “But we could use some information on just what you did to the Rift.”

Twilight stared at Rarity, before a blush came to her face, and she shrank down in her bed, mumbling, “Oh, right, that.

“Sorry, I just... I knew you girls wouldn’t approve of my actions, but I’m sure it will work this time,” Twilight said with a hopeful nicker, “See, Rosy Pink couldn’t be found via conventional means, but she’s inextricably entangled with the Rift itself. When I noticed a wild Rift could move, a plan formulated in my head. What I did was inflame the intra-universal border, until it destabilized enough to no longer be geolocked. Then it would just drift along the landscape, right over to wherever Rosy Pink is.”

With a wolfish grin, Twilight declared, “If Rosy won’t go to the Rift, then I’m going to bring the Rift to her!”

She looked from horrified face to horrified face, and her grin faltered as she said uncertainly, “What? Was it something I said?”

“With all due respect, darling,” Rarity said in a calm, collected voice, “Are you insane?!” she shouted in a less than calm, not so collected voice.

“That there Rift’s been carving its way through the landscape for hours!” Applejack said angrily.

“It’s totally wrecking the town!” Rainbow Dash shouted accusingly.

“Trees are exploding!” Applejack added angrily.

“Even both princesses can’t stop it!” Rainbow Dash added equally angrily.

“What?!” Twilight said, trying to stand up, having little luck of it. Twilight lifted a hoof under the drip line for the IV going into her arm. “I’m... intubated? What’s going on out there?”

“The Rift has entered Ponyville,” Rarity said with little enthusiasm.

“What?!” Twilight shouted, “Why would it come this way? Rosy isn’t here!”

“How do you know she isn’t here?” Rainbow Dash asked, “Maybe she’s hiding right under our noses!”

“Hang on, sugarcube, we’ll get you over by the window,” Applejack said, offering her broad, strong, orange side for Twilight to hang onto. Rarity’s magic untangled Twilight from any stray tubes or sheets that might have hung her up, and Fluttershy carried along the IV stand. So Twilight forced herself forward to the window, staring out at the smoke rising from the destruction. It looked like a fire was spreading, because pegasi were driving rain clouds over there in droves.

Opening the window, Twilight stared at the destruction, at the... screaming things the portal was dumping out. Even from the hospital, you could hear them. “That’s... no. No no no no are those Void creatures?!”

“Spawning out of the portal yes,” Rarity confirmed dryly, “It seems much more active now that you’ve destabilized it.”

“We have to get out there!” Twilight said, looking frantically back at the oneun of them.

Applejack frowned, while Pinkie Pie fidgeted uneasily, Fluttershy said nary a word, and Rainbow Dash bit her lip then said, “You kinda caused it, Twilight, so the princesses don’t want you to make it worse.”

“Make it worse?” Twilight protested, “I didn’t cause... well I suppose I technically did cause it.”

“You attacked the research ponies, almost beat up your own friends, then used your freaky magic to make the portal even worse!” Rainbow Dash shouted intensely.

“Destroyed your horn suppressor, deceived your friends, violated building codes by excavating without notice, vandalized crown property,” Rarity said as if reading off of a list.

“And skipped dinner!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, staring at Twilight with an expression somewhere between worry and open fear. “Your lasagna is cold, but I saved you a plate on the way here, but the rest is in your refrigerator because I made too much, so... here,” she held out a plate with some sad looking lasagna composed of noodles, cheese, marinara sauce, eggs and some chopped veggies, all baked together with love. Now completely lukewarm.

Twilight looked at them all guiltily, leaned forward, and took a long, slow bite of the lasagna. “Mmmm!” she said as she chewed. She... swallowed.

“Twilight, there’s far more—” Rarity managed to say before Twilight threw up all over the floor. “Twilight!!” she shrieked along with a gasp from the others.

“Oh no...” Twilight moaned, staring at the... unswallowed lasagna. “Pinkie I’m so sorry,” she said, looking up at Pinkie with honest distress in her eyes, “I tried to eat it I really did, I just feel so...”

Twilight held a hoof to her head, while Fluttershy hurried in with the doctor who took one look at Pinkie Pie and shouted, “Are you trying to feed her lasagna?! Okay that’s it, everypony out! Leave me to the patient alone, out out out!” she furiously herded the onetwo out of the room, and closed the door.

Putting her head against the door for a moment, the doctor turned to Twilight and said, “Sorry, I’ll have somepony clean this up. You... shouldn’t be eating anything right now.”

Twilight gave a surprised laugh at that, saying, “That’s the first time anypony’s said that to me in quite a while.”

“Let me get you off that IV,” the doctor replied, walking up to her, “I think you’re calm enough that you don’t need any more of that stuff.”

Twilight looked at her IV with new eyes, looking back to the doctor and saying too calmly, “Some sort of... drug?”

“It’s just something to help you relax,” the blue mare replied, taking Twilight’s arm in her hooves.

“Silophine?” Twilight asked curiously, as the doctor cautiously removed the IV in her arm.

“Um, yes,” the doctor said distractedly, “You’ve heard of it?”

“I used to read a lot,” Twilight replied with an apologetic shrug.

“Hmm,” the doctor vaguely acknowledged, pressing a cotton ball over the wound left behind. “Anyway, it should wear off in an hour. Try to stick with easily digestible foods like sugar and hay until it’s out of your system. Your friends are waiting for you out in the hall . And your... your highness?”

Twilight blinked a moment at the worried doctor, then gave her a testy look, before saying, “Uh, yes, my loyal subject?”

“Okay yeah that does sound kind of silly,” the doctor admitted with a soft giggle and a blush, backing up from the princess. “I just want to ask you if you can please never do anything like that again?”

Twilight looked questioningly at the doctor, who hastily continued, “That is to say, I mean... you’re a... princess. I mean no offense, but...”

“But...?” Twilight prompted, a little irritated, but mostly concerned.

“You are very powerful,” the doctor told her gravely, “If somepony else is a danger to themselves and others, they can be restrained, medicated even. If that happens to you... there’s not much we can do about it. If you don’t take care of yourself, it puts us all in danger. So please, princess, take care of yourself.”

“I will,” was what Twilight should have said. She should have said it easily and automatically, but with her experiences as of late, all Twilight Sparkle could tell the worried doctor was,

“I’ll try.”

Author's Note

No, come back mister title...

Pretend There is Door! I Just Slammed It.

Three days had passed, three days of healing for Twilight Sparkle. Her appetite was a little better at least, and she was sleeping regularly. She even helped de-excavate the plot hole she’d created, blushing the whole way as they returned the dirt to its tunnel, and the books to their boxes. Things were definitely different in the wake of Twilight’s overthrow, and the Bearers were mostly agreed that Twilight was at least less... fragile this way.

In theory, Harmonizing would send the Travellers through the Rift, but with most of the Travellers willing to return, they could just walk through the thing, once it expanded into a Portal in their proximity. Plus ponies were worried whether there might be further consequences to a powerful magic shoving ponies through an interdimensional portal at high velocities. The role of the Elements it was decided would be to attempt to surround the area in a Harmonic field, allowing for the containment shell to be safely removed, preventing the naked Rift from moving, and preventing any further spatial anomalies, or Void incursions.

What had been thought a massive influx of Void monsters turned out to be nothing more than a bunch of very confused and recently transformed human beings. They universally chose to be sedated for the return trip, with a spell to knock them out for a brief period of time. Twilight Sparkle could certainly understand why. Her and Rainbow Dash’s brief experience with the... process had been excruciating, to say the least.

She hadn’t told any of the humans about the linguistic difficulties they may face as a consequence of this. Hopefully with the process completed smoothly in reverse, they wouldn’t even notice any drop in reading ability. Twilight herself was... recovering, definitely recovering, but it was a long and frustrating process. Her attempts to study alternatives to returning Rosy home were infuriatingly difficult for her to pursue, with Twilight constantly having to cross reference books on language that she should already have known.

The only hitch with this plan was the Elements of Harmony themselves. They were invariably very... overwhelming to use, so Twilight and the others would be unable to concentrate on or perceive much else while maintaining Harmony around the Rift. Twilight was fairly sure she could count down from 12 minutes though, which should be sufficient to get the bunch of pedestrians and researchers sedated and gently returned back through the portal to the world where they belonged.

But Twilight wouldn’t be able to see it happen. She had to stick to her role, and trust the princesses, the real princesses, could handle getting the human ponies through the portal. It felt... right to do so. She stood with her friends, in a hexagon around the new Rift site in the center of Ponyville. Some ponies looked on fearfully from windows, but the streets were empty. Science ponies surrounded the silvery egg, ready to try a controlled release. The guards stood alongside the human ponies, ready to put each of them to sleep and gently ease them through the portal.

Closing her eyes, Twilight sought out her friends. She felt Laughter, Kindness, Honesty, Loyalty, and Generosity touch her heart one by one, as the power lifted them from the bonds of the earth, and she felt her hooves leave the floor. The power of Friendship called to her like an old companion now. It seemed like they’d barely met. Had it really been almost two decades?

Together, they released the magic of Friendship, and Twilight opened her eyes to brilliant white. She began quietly counting down. “BTQ, BDW, BDX...”

After about a minute of this, Magic felt the spirit of Laughter dancing around her own. “We’ve never used the Elements this long before, huh Twilight?” it sang.

“Can’t talk much Pinkie, BFB, BFQ... gotta keep counting down, BVW...” she replied distractedly.

“Roger dodger,” the spirit told her cheerfully. “I’m gonna go bug Fluttershy!”

Magic had to smile inwardly. She knew Laughter would never let Kindness feel used or neglected. Everything was gonna be okay.

“This is so weird,” Honesty told Magic coming to her in a disoriented fashion, “It’s like I’m flying but not flying. Where even is this place?”

10 minutes to go. “BQQ, WW, it’s not a place I think,” Magic replied, “But our hearts as one. WK, WG, sorry I’m busy counting, WJ...”

“Thanks Twi,” Honesty replied, “I know you won’t let us down.”

“Give her some space now,” Loyalty said cautioningly to the mercurial Honesty, “We don’t have no other way to know how long we been this way.”

Magic tuned them out then, happily counting down, trusting in her friends to take care of each other. It was as Honesty said, a strange experience stretching the use of the Elements out so long. Magic didn’t even feel like herself, like this. She felt... simpler. Her worries were limited to a simple count that was nearing its end.

“200 seconds, girls!” she declared, “BX, BY...” It wasn’t long before Magic had finished her countdown. “Alright, that should be it!” she sang to them.

“Oh good, so I can talk to you now?” Laughter chirrupped delightedly.

“About what?” Magic asked, admittedly curious.

“I dunno,” Laughter replied, “But I think Fluttershy has something she wanted to say.”

“I’m sorry,” Kindness told Magic serenely. “What I said to you wasn’t very nice at all. I felt like I had no choice, but I think we both get that wrong sometimes.”

“It needed to be said,” Magic replied gravely, “I need to ask myself those hard questions, and I might not be ready just yet, but I’m so glad to have a friend who can help me face them.”

“We all could have helped you more,” Generosity said with a ringing note of regret, “But what’s done is done. All we can do now is move forward, and be the better pony in the future.”

“I still say it weren’t all your fault, Twi,” Loyalty told Magic, “I ain’t denying you did wrong, but we all gotta own up to our part in this.”

“Please don’t deny where you were at fault,” Generosity pleaded, “But please don’t deny where you weren’t at fault.”

“We have to deal with what we get,” Honesty agreed, “You couldn’t have been any nicer to Rosy because you’re you, and you did exactly what Twilight Sparkle would do. And now you’ll do the right thing, because that’s who you are too.”

Loyalty smiled, and there wasn’t much that needed to be said that hadn’t already been said. She was calm about the situation, and it finally felt like they were coming together again as friends.

“C’mon, I wanna see everypony cheering already!” Laughter whined, “Are we ready to wake up or not?”

“It can’t hurt to give a few extra minutes, Pinkie,” Magic told her patiently, “And we’re not asleep right now, I don’t think. But yes, I do think it’s about time we ended this and took stock of the situation.”

“See you on the flip side!” Honesty said, pulling back to herself. The others pulled back smoothly in tune with each other, impossible not to really, because the imbalance would only pull you faster to correct it. Everypony had to be in agreement together to keep this Harmony alive. Together they started it, so together they finished it, and once again Twilight Sparkle felt her hooves come gently to rest on the earth. Also, she felt she had hooves again.

The light faded from her vision, as the sounds of ponies all around her arguing as one greeted her ears. She smiled and—wait, what? Arguing?

Twilight blinked the magic out of her eyes, as ponies were scrambling to and fro, shouting at each other in alarm. Her eyes snapped to the Rift which was... sealed up neatly in a silver egg, with ponies all around it carefully layering its surface in protection spells. Huh, that wasn’t a problem...

“You need us to go longer?” Rainbow Dash asked, worriedly hovering up from where she’d stood with the others.

“No need, the crisis has passed,” Princess Celestia told her, much to Twilight’s relief.

“Unfortunately, we could not get the Rift to open,” Princess Luna said gravely, much to Twilight’s stark horror. Half the ponies yelling she realized, were all ponies who did not yet know how to walk. Some were even crying, and not just the young ones.

“Why not?!” Twilight squawked in flustered alarm, “They’re all Travellers! As of literally three days ago! It should recognize them!”

“We’re not sure,” Luna replied cautiously, “The Trottingdale researchers have some hypotheses, but it seems yet a quite vexing situation.”

“What sort of hypotheses?” Twilight asked, frowning skeptically.

“We suspect,” a familiar dusky blue stallion said, stepping forward, “That their timelines may be crosslinked.”

“Dr. Harness,” Twilight said, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Dr. Sparkle,” he replied with a raised eyebrow on his ruggedly handsome expression.

“Dr. Sparkle?” Twilight said, taken aback a step at that.

“A bit unconventionally, but I did read your dissertation on Harmonic Elements,” he replied casually, “The princesses did just say that you were no longer a princess, right?”

“Well I, it’s just,” Twilight replied, flustered enough that her nervous wings spread beside her. “I suppose technically I am a... what did you... think of it?”

“Think of what?”

“My dissertation?” Twilight said meekly.

“Brilliant, if unimaginative,” he replied, unimpressed, “But I think there’s something more important going on right now.”

“Unimagi—!” Twilight clenched her teeth, “Fine. You said the timelines were... crosslinked? What exactly do you mean by that?”

“You don’t know?” he asked, his confidence slipping in honest confusion.

“I’m kind of rusty on some of my...” Twilight winced, “...terminology. I’m sure I’m familiar with the concept.”

“A crosslinking is like a tethering, or binding of fates,” he explained, and Twilight now knew exactly what he was talking about, but she remained silent out of politeness. “Think of it like a net, pulled through the Rift, and these poor ponies are caught in it. We could return them by feeding the net back through the hole, but... suffice to say there’s a rather stubborn fish who won’t approach the portal under any circumstances, keeping the net pulled tight.”

Veritably glowering at Twilight, he said, “And until Rosy Pink is found, nopony is going to be able to pass through the Rift, at least... not in the direction you want them to go. It’s been destabilized and inflamed, broken its tether on our earth, and hooked ever more irrevocably to that mare you can’t find.”

“Well maybe we shouldn’t... find her?” Twilight said trying to smile despite her dread, “There may be other ways to close the Rift.”

“I’m afraid that ship has sailed!” he exclaimed, strutting away in aggravation, “I don’t see how you could seal this Rift at this point unless you can find her, bring her here, return her home, then return everypony else, in the order that they arrived.”

“But she doesn’t want—”

Twilight’s words caught in her throat. She knew what she was going to say, but he looked at her judgementally, and... and it tasted bad. It tasted bad and she felt bad, and she was desperate to find some other way to get away. Twilight just stepped one hoof before another, backing away from the other... the o-other doctor. “Let me check my notes,” she said tightly. Without another word, Twilight Sparkle galloped away as fast as she could go.

“Twi? Wait!” called a distant farmpony’s voice behind her. This time however, they all followed her.

In her warm, wooden library, Twilight Sparkle levitated book after book, flipping through one and discarding it before flipping through another. “Something, something, there’s gotta be something, she muttered fretfully, while her poor dragon assistant tried to navigate the storm of books to pick up the ones that had fallen. “What’s going on, Twilight?” he asked at her sudden hurry. Even Whatnot was poking her purple maned head in curiously at Twilight’s sudden urgency.

The other 11 ran into the library then, headed by Applejack who charged into Twilight’s reading room, exclaiming, “Hold on now, Twi!”

Twilight stopped, staring through the array of books floating frozen in the air at her friends clustering in through the doorway.

“Please, let us help you,” Rarity said, “This is not your burden to bear, alone.”

“Yeah, can you even read those?” Rainbow Dash asked critically, “We’re not as smart as you, but we can.”

“Ah ain’t so much of a book learner,” Applejack said, “But ah’ll be bucked if’n I don’t try. You’re doin’ the right thing in tryin’ to save Rosy, Twi. And this time ah mean it.”

“I don’t know how much help I can be,” Fluttershy said fussily, “But I won’t just stand by while you hurt yourself to save us all. I won’t!” she stomped.

“There’s gotta be something we can do,” Pinkie declared, “What kinda books do you need?”

Laying her book swarm in neat stacks on the floor, Twilight felt an almost unfamiliar warmth rise in her heart, as a small smile graced her face. “Thank you so much, all of you,” the lilac not-princess said, “I couldn’t have asked for better friends.”

She glanced between her friends, quickly summing up the situation. “I could use your help,” Twilight concluded with a nod, “Three of you could help me directly. Rainbow Dash, I need you to search my library for any otherworldly tales, preferably old, preferably journals.”

“Anything specific?” Dash asked.

“No, just whatever catches your eye,” Twilight said frankly, “Anything at all that could possibly help.” She looked at Pinkie Pie then, saying, “That’s where I need your help. I need you to look at the books Rainbow Dash collects, and pick out the right ones.”

“The right ones?” Pinkie asked, cocking her head.

“Yes, the ones that have what we’re looking for,” Twilight replied.

“What are we looking for?” Pinkie asked curiously.

“I have no idea!” Twilight replied cheerfully.

“Oh, okay then!” Pinkie said equally cheerfully.

A pause, and Twilight trotted up to a confused Rarity saying, “And you are going to help me read them. You and Whatnot, that is. Assist her however you can, to try and help me understand any words I may still have mixed up. And to... try to keep me down to earth in case I get stuck on some... crazy idea again.”

“An’ what about me and Fluttershah?” Applejack asked, “We ain’t exactly the best with books when it comes down to it. You need some refreshments, maybe?”

“Spike can handle snacks,” Twilight said hopefully, “Right, Spike?”

“R-right!” the little drake declared in surprise, saluting. “When you chose everypony else, I thought there for a minute that I was not chose.”

“Ooh yes, those would be perfect,” Twilight told the subsequently confused dragon, “Make them with extra salsa.” Then she smiled at Applejack saying, “You and Fluttershy have to help me, by helping ponies for me.”

Twilight’s smile tinged with sadness as she said, “I made a... mistake, that inadvertently got a lot of ponies hurt, and a lot of humans stranded far from home. I need you to help those ponies with... what happened to them, and what they... are now.” Twilight continued to face the orange furred farmer, saying, “Applejack, you knew Rosy Pink better than any of us. I think you have the best chance out of all of us to understand what the humans are going through.”

When Applejack nodded, Twilight turned to Fluttershy, saying, “I know you don’t like strangers, but I know you can push past that and help the poni—humans that need it. You saw through... everything that had shrouded Rosy Pink in a veil of fear and distrust. I need you to be there, to make sure they’re treated with as much... kindness as we can give.”

Twilight shook her head, sighing shakily. “It’s still hard looking at them and knowing what they... what they are, underneath that pony veneer. They seem so much like us, yet... well, it’s not my place any longer, to judge what risk they pose to the future of Equestria. I’m just glad you two can... save me from having to interact with them. If they mentioned fanart I don’t think I could... right, sorry. What I mean to say is, even if you’re not physically here, I’m truly grateful that you’re here to help me.”

“Ah understand, Twi,” Applejack said looking at Fluttershy and getting a subtle nod, “An’ Flutters does too. We’ll be with you in spirit, so good luck studying, but you leave the humans to us, y’hear?”

“Okay I found a bunch of books!” said a giant pile of books as it flew through the air into the reading room. “Where do you want ‘em?”

“Looks like that’s our cue,” Twilight said, casting a sorting spell that tugged the books out of Rainbow Dash’s arms and into neat piles arranged alphabetically, “Good luck to you two as well. Maybe we can finally end this here and n—” Twilight fell silent, then glanced around nervously. She shifted on her forehooves, before saying shakily, “I mean, m-maybe we can wait and see what we find, whether we end this here and now, or... sometime later.”

“Yee-haw!” Applejack cried triumphantly, rearing up and charging out of the library.

Sometime later, a few minutes perhaps, Fluttershy crept out from the library as well and went fluttering over the rooftops in a beeline for the medical tent. It was really more of a refugee tent at this point. The medical equipment had been removed and the cots and stretchers were taken away. Everypony present seemed unharmed, physically at least.

“The Tartarus is wrong with me...” a tear stricken foal was saying as Fluttershy poked on in. Applejack had already arrived, and was surrounded by a crowd. It looked like she had her hooves full with the questions they were firing her way, but this foal it seemed was more concerned with her own crying than asking questions. Fluttershy could deal with this little adorable foal at least. Foals were really not very intimidating, no matter how cutely they spoke of the darkest, deepest dungeon beyond the gates of life and death.

“Um, excuse me,” Fluttershy said, walking up to the foal, “Are you okay?”

It was a brick red filly with soft purple hair, a unicorn it looked like. “Of course I’m okay,” she said bitterly, “Why wouldn’t I be? I’m a cute little pony just like you, a cute little girl at that, and we can’t go back because the portal is broken, and I never even asked for this. I was just a technician! I just work on equipment, and I don’t even know the show and—” she choked back a sob, saying, “A-and I’m not just a pony but a little girl pony, and I can’t stop crying for no good reason!”

Fluttershy reached out a hoof, but the filly shied away from it, and Fluttershy could certainly understand the feeling. “I’m sorry if you’re feeling hurt right now,” she told the filly, keeping her hoof to herself. “I’m not sure what I have to offer you though. I can’t open the portal any more than you can. What you saw was the best me or my friends can do.”

The filly sniffled, but at least wasn’t crying anymore. “You’re one of the special ponies,” she said in vague realization, “They told us to watch the show but I didn’t believe it. I was just there to keep the equipment running. I don’t even know who you are, just that that rainbow shield you made was just... amazing.”

“Well, I’m Fluttershy,” Fluttershy said with a smile, “And it’s true, most ponies recognize me. I really do have some amazing friends. But it is nice to be able to introduce myself once in a while. May I ask what your name is?”

“M-martin,” the filly replied, “Martin Shomaker. T-the nurse said my first name translated, whatever that means.

“I don’t know precisely how it works,” Fluttershy admitted, “But a martin is a small, furbearing mammal, a relative of the otter or weasel. I don’t know what a sh—shemecker is.”

“It’s supposed to mean a shoe... maker,” Martin replied, “But now that I think of it, it doesn’t sound anything like the words shoe and maker. Most people’s names didn’t translate, they said. I guess that means...” She crossed her eyes looking at her own snout as she said, “You really do speak a different language? What am I speaking, then?”

“Equish, as far as I know,” Fluttershy replied, “It’s a very common language throughout Equestria, though there are a few provinces who still speak a second language from another land.”

“To me it just sounds like Equish, but...” the filly trailed off in sudden shock. “Equish E-quish. I can’t even...” and then she started tearing up again! She whined in distress, “I can’t even say the word Equish anymore. I d-don’t remember it! What happened to us? Th-this is...”

“It’s okay, come here just...” Fluttershy started, aiming to hug the filly, but the filly planted her hooves and shouted,

“No, it’s not! Shut up! I’m not a–a kid I’m a g-grown man!”

“Well, you know, I’m not a little kid-pony,” Fluttershy suggested, “But even so. I really do appreciate hugs when I’m feeling sad. You’re right that it’s not okay what happened to you, but it’s okay to be a foal if you are one, and it’s okay if you need to cry about it, even if you’re a...”

While Fluttershy found herself smothered in the tight death grip of a desperate hug, Applejack in the meantime was having one heck of a mean time fielding all these questions.

A mite before Flutters had shown up, Applejack had barely ducked in the tent, before somepony shouted,

“There she is!” and another one called out,

“It’s the Element of Honesty, everyone!”

“That ain’t precisely—” Applejack managed to get out before she was surrounded by very clumsy ponies, all looking to her and asking Applejack all sorts of questions, like, “How did you reach our universe?” and “How do the Elements of Harmony work?” and “Are you able to lie like in the show?” and “Will we ever be able to get home?” and “Is this real?”

Applejack sure was glad the Element of Honesty wasn’t here, because she’d give them the brutal truth. Applejack could see it now: Rainbow Dash would rush in in just like this, turn one ear at all these questions and say, “Buck this, I’m out,” before swooping out as fast as she came inside. And that’d be the honest truth.

Applejack, however, settled in, tipped her hat and said, “Okay everypony, one question at a time.” Her next few minutes were... bemusing to say the least.

“Th’ Rift appeared on its own one day, lettin’ loose a mare called Rosy Pink, who has since gone incommunicando. We thought you humans created it at first.”

“You keep true to yourself, an’ the Elements answer you, if’n they choose you as their Bearer. No they don’t talk, they just kinda... feel.”

“‘course ah cain lie! Anypony can lie. The hard part is when you gotta tell the truth.”

“You betcha you’ll get home, sure as sugar, but you might be here for awhile. Just take a look around an’ enjoy yourself for now. Equestria has a lot goin’ for it, if you let yourself take a moment to enjoy it.”

“Yes.”

Of course that lead to more questions, and questions on questions, and pretty much could’ve continued forever. Applejack mostly wanted to ease everypony, or, everyhuman’s concerns in a way Pinkie Pie would’ve been better at, but Pinkie’s freaky talent for finding the exact right book was much more important than this, probably, maybe. So everypony, or everyhuman as it were, got second banana once again to Twilight’s latest scheme. Applejack wasn’t upset with having to play Pinkie Pie though. It felt more on the level this time. She was still determined to do the right thing, and right now the right thing was giving these ponies what peace of mind they could get, in the wake of a calamity like that Rift.

“How much do you know about humans?” asked a teal-haired lavender unicorn, a good deal calmer than the first time Applejack saw her.

“Not much t’be honest,” Applejack said with an apologetic smile, “Twi says ah know a lot, but she’s the one who’s been studying ‘em.”

“Why would she say that, then?” a sandy orange mare asked curiously.

“On account of ah worked with a human pony for... a year or so,” Applejack replied with a shrug, “Far as ah cain tell, y’all got a few quirks like bein’ open minded about some things, closed-minded about others. You’re naive in surprisin’ ways, though we must seem like that to you as well. But you’re all just ponies like the rest of us, an’ ah don’t see where to draw the line from one to the other when it comes to humans and ponies.”

“Oh, that’s um... okay, that makes...sense,” the mare replied warily, as if she were surprised it made sense. Applejack sure hoped these humans wouldn’t start getting all persnickety about stuff like her manner of speaking the way Rosy did.

Applejack started to feel a little calmer when she saw Fluttershy making the rounds, moving around behind everypony to help with the stragglers, and the strugglers. The human ponies definitely felt some manner of respect for Applejack, but she knew her greatest strength was in a team effort, with help from her friends, family and townsfolk. Fluttershy intercepted anypony trying to storm off, and... helped them in her own little way. And Applejack learned more about humanity than she ever wanted to know.

“So is everyhuman into ponies?” Applejack asked one in confusion, “Seems a strange thing for a world a’ humans to care about the affairs of ponykind.”

“We’re not, actually,” a purple filly said in an adorable voice that belied the words she said in it, “There’s only a small amount of fans, though they can be surprisingly dedicated, but for the most part none of us were particularly interested in it. Your world is a cartoon for selling toys to little girls, on our side of things.”

“Seems awfully coincidental y’all’d know about the carton then,” Applejack replied, squinting at the filly, “If’n there’s such a small amount of fans.”

The filly shrugged at that, or... tried to shrug and stumbled on her short little hooves. “The Marvel Comics fandom is way bigger as far as fantasies are concerned, but Dr. Strange didn’t bore a hole into our world and start communicating to us through it. Ponies did.”

“The show is pretty standard fare for diplomats on the project,” a dusky indigo colt offered, “It’s the best window we have into your culture.”

“Or your literal world, apparently,” a sandy orange mare put in, “We were pretty convinced that you weren’t ponies at all, but just aliens who were reeeeally big fans of my little pony.”

“Just aliens,” the purple filly snickered under her breath.

“I’d say this is impossible,” the mare continued, undaunted, “It’s uncanny how you are the ponies who we didn’t think could possibly exist. But I suppose standing here on...” she lifted a hoof, “...four hooves, talking to Applejack face-to-face actually is much more likely than meeting aliens from another planet. 100% likely, in fact, because you’re here, and SETI is still coming up dry.”

“SETI?” Applejack said, the word sounding peculiarly not-quite-foreign as it rolled off her tongue.

“The search for extra-terrestrial intelligence,” the mare clarified, “It’s a group that look for aliens on other planets up in the stars.”

“Up in the stars?” Applejack replied, confused, “But th’ planet’s right down here, way down below the stars!”

Blinking at her, the mare said carefully, “Our planet orbits the sun. Our sun is about a hundred times as wide as our planet, and our stars are just other suns, so impossibly distant that they just look like a tiny twinkle.”

“What is your sun?” the purple filly cut in, asking Applejack eagerly, “Can you grow crops without it? How big is it? How does it stay bright all the time? What—”

“One question at a time please,” Applejack said wearily. When the filly shut her trap, the farm pony smiled saying, “Thank ya kindly. Now ah’m just a farmer, so I cain’t give you the straight answer for a lotta things. But ah do know that while crops grow on account of sunlight, the light cain come from the ground on some occasions. Ah don’t wanna speculate, but without the sun, it might be possible to grow say, apples. You may-a heard of zap apples?”

“I... yeah,” the purple filly said, staring off at the wall of the tent in bemusement, “Can’t believe those things actually exist.”

“It’s just an example ah’m somewhat familiar with,” Applejack said, somewhat perturbed at the filly’s disbelieving stare at apples she couldn’t even see. “You’d have to get a book on night plants to find more. If ah recall... breadfruit cain grow in the dark? Oh and glow bulbs. But yeah, zap apples draw their light slowly from the earth, which is why they cain grow below the canopy in th’ Everfree. That’s also why you get a nasty shock if’n you try to buck ‘em.”

“Because they’re... electric?” the filly replied cautiously.

“They’re what?” Applejack asked looking back at the filly cluelessly, “No they’re just all fulla light. So much that it can discharge if you’re not careful. That’s why they have such funny growin’ habits. Ah’m not at liberty to divulge any more of the family secrets though. But light discharge is pretty basically what it’s all about.”

The filly bore a skeptical face that would’ve competed with Apple Bloom’s, back in the day she thought she could harvest zap apples early. This filly asked, “What do you get when light... discharges?”

“Uh, lightning?” Applejack said in confusion, “Do you not have lightnin’ in your world?”

The filly’s mouth dropped open, and now she just had a stunned expression on her face, staring at nothing while her brain went at a million miles a minute.

A different human pony was kind enough to clarify, a rough mare’s voice behind Applejack telling her in a haunted tone, “No, we have lightning. But I don’t think it’s the same lightning.”

Another pile of books with the lower torso of an azure pegasus flew into the back area. “Here’s some more,” Rainbow Dash announced, putting them in the rest of the pile with all the others.

“Okay, I think we’ve got enough books for now,” Twilight called out from ...somewhere in there. “Time to start sorting them!”

Twilight asked Rainbow Dash to go hover against the wall, while Pinkie went rifling through the source material looking for what they were looking for. “Ooh, this is, huh that is, wait, oh, bleh, wow, ewww, neat, huh? aha—wait no, hmm, yes! no! uhh” Pinkie continued to exclaim as she failed to comprehend exactly what she was reading at the speed it took her to get through all the books. Twilight and Rarity played point, making sure the books were undamaged as the eager pink horse flung them over her shoulder one by one.

Finally Pinkie had reached the last of the disorganized books. “Aww, there’s no more!” she whined, “And I thought I would find something!”

“It’s okay, this is a team effort, Pinkie,” Twilight told her, “Actually, Rainbow Dash is going to find the books we need.”

“I am?” Rainbow Dash asked, confused.

“Yes, just grab all the books that Pinkie liked the most,” Twilight said, “Top twelve, let’s say.”

“Alrighty then?” Rainbow said, swooping down and zipping among the stacks of books, winging out one or another to accumulate them on her rump. “These good?” she asked, standing before Twilight.

“These are perfect,” Twilight said confidently, levitating the books off of Rainbow Dash’s back. “While Rarity and I look through these, you and Pinkie can help return the books where you found them.”

“All the books?” Rainbow asked, looking around at the mountainous stacks in dismay, “What if we need something from them?”

“Trust me, if there’s any answers to be found, they’ll be in these books right here,” Twilight stated, bobbing the small stack of books still held in her magic. “You and Pinkie Pie are both absolutely brilliant when you don’t pay attention to it.”

“Thanks... I guess?” Rainbow asked, raising a hoof while Pinkie jumped forward and said,

“Thanks so much, Twilight! That was fun! But how do we know where to return the books?”

“I already sorted them by dewy decimal here on the floor,” Twilight replied, “So books that go in the same place should already be together. Check the tags for which shelf they go to. Ask Spike if you’re not sure where something goes. Now if you’ll excuse me...” She dramatically flipped open one of the books held in the air before her, scanning its contents, saying “I have a lot of...” Twilight trailed off then with a blush, and passed the book to Rarity, “We have a lot of reading to do.”

If you asked a young unicorn mare living alone in a Canterlot tower if this was the way she was going to conduct her research, you would have heard a rare laugh escape her at the utter impossibility of that scenario. Indeed, as a young unicorn mare from Trottingdale stared in confusion at the unfolding events, she could only worry that the princess had gone even further insane. When Spike pushed past her to help Rainbow Dash and Pinkie with the reshelving, it snapped Whatnot out of her paralysis, and she hesitantly trotted forward.

“Ah, Whatnot!” Rarity exclaimed in delight upon seeing her, “Just the mare we were thinking of. I don’t suppose you could remind Twilight how conjugations behave in reference to alliterations?”

“Oh, well you can think of it like a relationship between verbs, such that the tenses have to match in order to...” Whatnot continued, finding herself drawn in between the two ponies, excited more than anything else by the simple act of teaching Twilight Sparkle to perceive the world again, in its written form. When Twilight wanted to learn it was just pure joy to be able to teach her.

So the three read, quickly joined by Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. Between the oneun of them, there were still plenty of books around. But book by book, they started going through them searching for answers, munching contentedly on chips and salsa.

The creature must be stopped, before all is lost. Only the skystone at the peak of the Dauntless Ridge stands any chance of stopping its cruel games and freeing the ponies it has stolen away and wracked with unthinkable terrors. The way is perilous and jealously guarded by that which seeks to destroy us, but we have no other choice. The further it reaches its influence into our lands, the wider the wound grows. Those who near it feel themselves torn asunder, as if their very essence is being sliced away.

Ponies think I have no fear, but I’ve never been more afraid. Please let these not be my last words, for what we are facing is beyond anything Equestria has ever suffered, and to save us all I must venture into the belly of the beast. If I do not return, I’d like Windy to know that I’m sorry I ever turned your words against you, and hurt you with my resentment and scorn. I’ve asked you for so much, and yet you never asked for me to bear you. It was my decision alone, possibly my greatest mistake, but you have made up for my foolishness a thousand times over, in your own fashion.

You are a very different pony than me, and I try to accept this, even though my mouth marches ahead of my intents. But for all the times I’ve resented you for hindering me and holding me back, I’ve never forgotten the day you came out of me and entered this world. It was one of the greatest moments of my life, second only to the time that I was victorious over the grulls of Agnarak.

Firewing, second captain, third division

I don’t know if I can put the bravery of Firewing into words. When I say that I’m glad she perished in the assault on the nedelfir from beyond the bounds of the world, it is not in contempt, but rather a sort of respect. She lived hard and fast, and never looked back, and I can think of no fate she would have preferred other than to go down in a blaze of glory. I was told she perished with a smile on her face.

It is purely for selfish reasons that I still yearn for her company. She saved us all, and I wish I could have been there to say goodbye. I wish I could tell her that all is forgiven, that I never truly hated her. I will never live up to her name, and I’m at peace with that, but I wish I could tell her that her blood still runs in my veins. Not me, but my foals, and their foals will meet and surpass her exacting standards.

She may have perished hurling that thing back into the Rift from whence it came, but I know she will be dancing in the Fields over her success. Thanks to her deeds, Equestria is safe for simple scribes like myself to bring children into the world, and raise those children to realize their fullest potential. Perhaps my foals, or my grandfoals will find friendship in a strange new filly with a fiery personality, because I don’t think anything could keep that pony’s spirit down for long.

I thank you Firewing. My wives thank you, Firewing. Now rest in peace already, before your headlong charge into danger gets the lot of us all killed.

Windy Quill an Stormwind of Firewing

“Oh these eulogies are such poetry,” Rarity said, wiping tears from her eyes, “Pure heartfelt remembrances of such noble ponies gone past.”

“Firewing died though!” Rainbow Dash declared with an angry stomp, “Right when she won! And she didn’t even get to tell Windy all that stuff! What kind of story has the hero go and die like that?”

Rarity looked at Rainbow Dash, choosing her words carefully when she said, “The last story, Rainbow Dash. Everypony has something that they don’t walk away from, and all too often they leave behind regrets, and words that they wish they had said.”

“Well, not me,” Rainbow Dash declared intently, “I’d just go up to my foals if I could and say hey! You go be an egghead all you want and I’ll still love uh... giving birth to you or something...”

“This is the only final words and eulogy that mentions a Rift though,” Twilight said glumly, “And all it tells us is to throw Rosy through it to solve the problem. Literally!”

“Perhaps this book on the interdimensional gateway to san...guana...?” a certain blue unicorn suggested shyly, “It um, it’d talk about how they kept it from going wild, at least.”

The Sanguana ruins are truly an incredible and mysterious place. We are still so far from understanding the civilization from which they emerged, or what ended their realm. What were the stone markers intended for? What was in the divided tower? Why were the mystical keys in the shape of horseshoes, if the inhabitants had lion paws? Alas, while the rift remains stable and sound, the fragment beyond it has begun to disintegrate. Failures in causality, doors both open and closed, solid stone crumbling and hollow. The size of explorable area grows smaller every day, and we’re not finding any more puzzles, secrets, or keys that reveal anything not already beyond reach.

As explained in the chapter on stabilization, the Rift was stabilized by physically bonding it to a mirror crafted from the artifact that came through the rift in the first place. Using the properties of the reflective realm, we created a permanent gateway to another space! Hopefully ponies hence will find solace in this guide, if for no other reason than to stablize any Rifts that appear, before they go wild. The natural decay of any fragments found on the other side should impose a finite limit on how much damage it can do, but that damage could still be significant, and grave. I shudder to think of the possibility of one of these appearing in a populated area.

“This is it!” Twilight exclaimed excitedly, as Whatnot finished reading, “All we have to do is find Rosy Pink and craft her into a mirror, then travel back in time to before I did anything at all, since this technique is completely useless against an inflamed Rift!”

“No. Time travel,” Rainbow Dash said without humor.

“Yes I know, just... it’s the best lead we have so far,” Twilight said, with a sympathetic look at the dejected Whatnot, “If we can figure out how to... de-inflame the Rift... then maybe we can stabilize it on a more permanent basis. As long as somepony doesn’t keep coming along and breaking the containment vessel.”

“Twilight...” Rarity said, putting her hoof across the princess’s withers.

“No, Rarity,” Twilight said, levitating her hoof away, “I messed up. I messed up really badly. We need to keep looking. I need to make this right again.”

“You and me both, sister,” Rarity grumbled, as Rainbow Dash shot forward saying,

“Here’s one where the Traveller stayed!” She held forth a tome of police reports, that Rarity then read.

I am privileged to record (to my knowledge) the first account of a Rift closing, while its Traveller remained in our fair land. Admittedly more cases are strongly suspected to exist. Even this case is left unclear. The truth remains wrapped in mystery and hearsay, for without a Rift to close, there is no way to tell if a Rift has closed.

On Showers 110, VSK A.D., Dreamy Drizzle went missing while foraging for mushrooms in the Luftvale. The following diary entries were written during this time in a nature diary she had been carrying, un-dated, but they have been roughly grouped by week.

Week 1

Everything is right, yet still the crack is there. My family tells me not to mind it. My friends don’t see it. I have a wonderful life. My teacher thinks I am her best student she told me once. I want to be an architect and build big buildings that have no cracks in them.

Mama takes us out on picnics where we get to walk beyond the farms, through the most beautiful woods. It has been beautiful in the spring this year, with tasty flowers blooming everywhere. When I become a big, important pony who always has things to do, I will always make time to take my daughter on these walks.

My sister came through the crack. She’s always been here. She tells me not to worry about it. We were playing outside and then she wasn’t, but then she came back through the crack and tells me this happens from time to time.

My father has strange faces sometimes. It’s okay though. He loves me, and I love him, and he says I’m such a good filly who always pays attention in school and doesn’t mind the crack. My mother doesn’t have faces, but I wish she would remember my name right.

Week 2

My teacher came through the crack. She told me that the whole schoolhouse is everything I’ve ever dreamed of, and I told her it’d be silly to dream about school. The other students thought this was funny, and Silver May shared her juice with me, so it’s okay. She said it was made from my water, but I don’t make any water.

I wish I still had dreams. I’m so tired, but there’s always something to do. The other students came through the crack.

Why is there always a crack? I want it to not be there. Everything in my life is right, but I want the crack to go away. Silver May tells me not to mind the crack, but I’m so tired, maybe I could sleep through there. Maybe I could find juice that doesn’t make my tummy hurt. Maybe I could find water that stops making me thirsty.

Week 3

Yesterday I slept. It just happened, that I was in school and then everypony was shouting in my face to wake up. I didn’t want to wake up but they were so scared. They didn’t want me to ever close my eyes again. I asked my teacher if I could blink, and she said okay, but I don’t think she’s happy with me.

I can’t stay any longer. Mama came through the crack and cried, because she loved me and wanted me to stay with her always. She said she was so lonely. I tried giving her my teddy, but she just tore it to pieces and said it wasn’t right, that it wasn’t somepony, like I am.

The doctor came through the crack and said I can no longer drink because the water is making me sick. She said that I hadn’t long to live, so I’d be leaving them anyway. I guess I have to

Week 4

Silver May came through the crack and cried. She said she wanted to go with me. She said she wanted to be, that she didn’t want to be alone. I told her to come with me, but she was afraid of the water. The water came through the crack but it was no good, and she was no good, she told me. I told her I didn’t want to go if she had to be lonely. Mama came through the crack so she could give me a big, warm hug.

I wish I could stay. I wish they all didn’t have to be alone. Papa is stern with me, telling me that I am sick, and the only place I can get well is through the crack. He hates the crack, and he loves the crack, because it brought him to me.

I want to bring Papa with me. He says I cannot, but I can bring this diary with me. But I always had this diary, and my teddy, when I came through the crack. I have to put my teddy in a box because she’s sick too, and torn to pieces because Mama doesn’t want to be alone.

I cannot push Mama, but perhaps Silver May will come through the crack. She’s smaller than me, so even if I am really tired, and sick from the dry water, perhaps I can push her through the crack. They all are afraid of the crack, but they say the crack is the only place that can help me, and I’m afraid of the crack. So maybe it is the only place that can help them, too.

Search parties found no sign of Dreamy Drizzle, until four weeks later, when she was found severly malnourished at the base of a ravine, along with a shredded plush toy and her nature diary, thanks to the filly now known as Silver May.

The Traveller appears to be of early school age, the same age as Dreamy Drizzle. She is a healthy earth pony, with no problems drinking or eating, though apparently it is a novel experience to her. Any abilities she claimed seem to no longer be available in her current state, but she will remain on observation for the time being.

While tempting to write her off as an imaginative little filly, the fact remains that the real Silver May has been living alive and well three houses down from Dreamy Drizzle’s residence. There is no evidence of her twin’s existence before this day, nor of how she knew where to lead ponies to Dreamy Drizzle. Though possessing a knowledge far beyond a filly of her age, this second Silver displays a striking ignorance of the world, claiming she could only zar-al-ne-ma (sic) which possibly corresponds to a magical probe of the surrounding area. All signs point to her being a Traveller, yet no Rift has been found.

Silver May’s hypothesis may be the most likely to be true. As near as anypony can get out of her, she claimed to be a survivor of some world ending calamity that involved weaponized algebra. The reason she gave for the Rift closing without her return was that there was nothing left on the other side. A similar phenomenon to the Sanguana portal, which closed once the ruins had fully decayed into the Void, leaving the mirror inert but intact.

“Great... just great!” Twilight said in a very pleasant voice, “All we have to do is destroy the entire world, until the humans all get cast into the Void! The Rift will close, and everything will be just hunky dory.”

“That rift never got inflamed, though,” Pinkie Pie pointed out quietly.

“I’m joking, Pinkie,” Twilight groaned at the quiet party pony, “There is no way anything is going to be hunky dory at this rate. Even if we could to it, destroying the human world is not even a thinkable option! We can’t count on an inflamed rift to remain stabilized, and the human world sure isn’t going to disintegrate back into the Void on its own. Could this possibly get any worse?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Pinkie snapped angrily, “I meant that I found a book about the last time there was a Rift in Equestria, that got inflamed. I don’t think any of the others were you know, moving and bellowing and...”

They stared at each other for a moment.

Scrunching her eyes shut, the pink pony stuck out the book she had been reading in Twilight’s face saying, “Just read it.”

Twilight sighed, and pushed the book out of her face, shifting it instead to Whatnot’s face. Pinkie didn’t seem particular about who read it though, so Whatnot began to read.

The great burst of heat and light was both felt and seen across all of Equestria, but in the aftermath, no sign could be seen of the Invader nor the Calamitous Rift, whose deadly realm has been forever sealed away. Would that we had known of the terrible consequence of destroying that infernal source of pain and woe. No sign of the noble four could be found in the ashes of the once beautiful Greatwood, but let nopony forget their sacrifice.

These 10 ponies gave their lives to smite the inflamed Rift leading to its terrible realm that threatened our own. By the blessings of the Celestial Princess, they sent the realm screaming into the Void, shattering the Rift inflamed, and destroying the Invader’s power. No longer would that fiery font of shadows wreak havoc as it carved through our lands, bellowing like an enraged beast. For bringing a swift end to his threat on our homes and our people, the Noble Four will always be remembered as heroes. Celestia Invictus Dei!

“I don’t recall any place in Equestria called the Greatwood,” Rarity said speculatively.

“Of course you don’t. They just said it got destroyed,” Rainbow Dash replied with a roll of her eyes.

“Or the ...noble four,” Rarity murmured.

“It said there was no sign of them...” Rainbow Dash replied in a more subdued manner.

It was at that point that Twilight’s murmuring became audible, though the only thing she said was the word “no” over and over again. She galloped heedlessly out of the room, and still chanting frantically, returned with a ponderous tome floating behind her marked “Celestial Decrees years YQ-XQ”

Slapping it down with a thud and lifting open its thick cover, Twilight began flipping through the dates. Every pony slowly clustered around the ‘no’ing princess, until Twilight settled on a date, fell silent, looked and... lifted her head.

Looking at Rarity, Twilight pointed at the entry with her hoof with a trembling smile saying, “Could you please read this entry? It’s a little... archaic.”

Harmony 13, YF

Pronounced thusly for all to witness, may it be known that pursuant to the fact that the Greatwood is no longer a wood, and pursuant to the sentiment that the Greatwood is no longer great, it shall be decreed that the lands formerly known as the Greatwood will heretoforth be called the Badlands until cometh the day that they are once again capable of sustaining life.

“The Badlands,” Rainbow Dash said unbelievingly, as everypony else didn’t seem to be able to speak.

“It would seem so, darling,” Rarity said, rather wishing she had read the words “White Tail Woods” instead.

“The Badlands,” Rainbow Dash continued flatly, hovering there above the quiet crowd.

“Mmhmm,” Rarity said in a distant tone.

Swinging her hoof to point beyond the library walls, Rainbow Dash hollered,

“That thing is three blocks away!!”

Seeing tears striking the pages of Celestial Decrees years YQ-XQ, Pinkie Pie didn’t say anything, but just settled to sit beside and give a gentle hug to the former princess, who hunched forward, shoulders shaking. Despite not getting any response, Pinkie asked, “You okay, Twilight?”

Twilight Sparkle buried her head in her hooves and cried bitter tears, moaning, “What have I done?”

Author's Note

Nothing. You’ve done nothing. It’s all my fault. All my fault...

Where’s the Title? Oh No! This is the Worst Possible Thing!

“Can we move the Rift?” Princess Luna asked the council of assembled scholars. They stood in a conference room in Ponyville’s quaint town hall. Sounds of activity in the office area and the surrounding town seemed somehow slowed and muted, as ponies moved quietly and carefully in this fragile situation.

“I think the question is not whether we can, but whether we should,” the blue stallion doctor told Luna, with a grim expression.

“It would ruin everything in its path, from here to the Badlands,” a pink, red haired scholar known as Cooperate said, “It’s just a bad idea.”

Adjusting her rather racy black tie, the green doctor Ownharp said, “Even if we could clear a path from here all the way to the Badlands, it would destabilize long before that.”

“Could we at least get it a sufficient distance from pony settlements?” Princess Celestia asked tensely.

“With all due respect, your highness,” Dr. Ownharp replied in the smooth Trottingham manner many of these scholars shared, “We don’t get to decide where the Rift goes. It will only follow the Traveller gone through it. If you can convince Rosy Pink to come out of hiding, she could move to where you need the Rift to go.”

“At that point, we simply toss her through the Rift, and the problem is solved,” Princess Luna said impatiently, “We are looking for solutions, not mere idle speculation.”

“At the speed it was going, it couldn’t have made another 20 miles before exploding,” Cooperate pointed out, “It’s going to take out Ponyville one way or another if we turn it loose.”

“Regarding containment,” Princess Celestia said evenly, “The potential for a more secure vessel...”

“Impossible, in the time we’ve got,” the dashing stallion known as Dr. Harness said, shaking his head, “If it’s possible at all, that is. The current vessel is corroding at an accelerated rate; the subdimensional folds seem to be being temporally bent. Even if we replace it every few weeks, the Rift is just going to get less stable from here. I’m afraid that without Rosy Pink, an explosion is... going to happen.”

“What about a controlled explosion?” Cooperate suggested, “Some way to limit the damage to a city block, or...”

“Sure, if you could construct a silverion egg the size of a city block,” Dr. Ownharp replied testily, “And then we’d have a city block sized egg ready to explode on us.”

“Cease with thy objections and present a solution already!” Luna declared tempermentally, “Has anypony an idea what we should do about this?”

Dr. Harness was the one to speak after a time, looking cooly at the night princess and saying, “There is no solution any of us can give you, except that ponies need to get away from this Rift. Our shadow traps are working for now, but if anything more substantial comes through that... isn’t a human, ponies might get badly injured, or worse.”

“You vastly understate the danger, good doctor,” Princess Celestia said frankly, drawing all eyes to the deadly serious princess. “An unstable rift like this could scar Equestria for centuries,” she said, “There may be nothing we can do to stop it. It does seem there is only one feasible course of action. One that gives our little ponies the best chance at minimizing losses and at the very least, surviving.”

The evacuation of Ponyville went about as well as expected. There was a foal screaming in protest as the little colt was taken away from the only home he knew, and at the next house, a mare screaming in protest, as her friends dragged her away from a century of memories and hard work that she had to just leave behind, what she couldn’t carry with her that is.

Ponyville was a dreary, frightening place these days. Pegasi had mostly flown the coop, leaving nopony to manage the twisted, swirling clouds that shaded the sky, silently stirred as if by a great hand around the new Rift site right in the middle of town. Thunder rumbled frequently, with irregular flashes of lightning, but no rain fell.

The Rift had started spewing forth those horrible shadows, or some analog thereof, overwhelming the shadow traps, and its spatial distortions had made at least three anomalous locations in town, where travelling left was the same direction as travelling right. Its effects had none of the guided whimsy Discord brought to town, only a mindless angry intent, like a beast enraged, trapped in a poorly fitting cage.

At least Fluttershy’s flarrets were well fed.

The Bearers had been informally, formally helping where they could. Applejack had hung behind after seeing Granny, Big Mac and Apple Bloom on their way to a little vacation in Appleoosa. She helped Strawberry and her folks, and Bubblegum pack up their affairs, what they could carry in a cart, that is. Strawberry’s family had been living in Ponyville for quite a few generations, and there were a lot of things of value that you couldn’t take with you. Cultivated gardens with some trees and bushes that only bore fruit after ten years of growing. Antique cookware made from rare, high quality, and heavy iron. Top quality stone blocks from the walls of the cellar. Home.

Bubblegum was easier to deal with, having family in Baltimare she could go home to. She was a recent transplant, who followed her friend Sea Swirl to Ponyville, to try and make her own way in life, and didn’t really appreciate having to go run back to momma. Nopony appreciated this. The foals were worse off, because foals have a sixth sense for this sort of thing. They look at the grim expression on your snout, and they know you aren’t planning on having a home to come back to, but they’re too young to understand why.

Well, Applejack didn’t exactly understand why herself, but she understood enough. Of all the ponies in town, there was one pony Applejack wasn’t helping at all anymore, and she wondered if she would ever find it in herself to speak to Twilight Sparkle again. Applejack hadn’t bucked an apple tree in three days, running around and helping the ponies in town. All those apples needed harvesting, but she couldn’t even bring herself to look at them again. She didn’t want to say goodbye.

Fluttershy had been dealing with animals, which were both worse and better than foals. The woods outside of Ponyville were a very quiet place these days, with everything that growls or squeaks absconding for better pastures. Most of what Fluttershy found herself doing was involved in keeping animals from running away. Beloved pets that couldn’t wait for their owners to get ready, Fluttershy had to teach the pets that some things are worth risking one’s safety, and she had to teach the ponies that the pets were right. Ponyville was not a good place to be right now.

Those wonderful creatures that Rosy had discovered, and apparently bred somehow, were invaluable in stopping the shadows from making Ponyville an even less friendly place. Antivores were so rare, possibly because there wasn’t much to eat that didn’t exist. Flarrets, glowflies, dryads, phoenixes, twittermites, healworms, dust vines, and of course the Tantabus. Fluttershy had even once heard a theory that windigoes fed not on hatred, but the absence of friendship. Aside from that, she couldn’t think of any creature who consumed the absence of something.

She wished she knew of a creature who could consume holes in space.

There was no real time table for how long they could keep the Rift stable, but Fluttershy was okay with staying around. She did kind of deserve it, for leaving unsaid what needed to be said, and letting things get worse and worse. She couldn’t believe Twilight simply hadn’t thought to look into the consequences of destabilizing the Rift, vastly shortening their time window to find Rosy Pink, and return her home. Fluttershy hated the thought, that all Rosy had worked for could be for nothing, thanks to the blunders of ponies like her. If Fluttershy herself had to go live her life as a stallion... she didn’t think she would.

Rainbow Dash was never going to lift another cart full of top quality stone blocks if it was the last thing she ever did!

The weather in Vanhoover was snowy this late in the Fall, but much more pleasant than the darkening skies of Ponyville. Unlike some ponies, Rarity was sensible enough to get away from that place. Boutiques could be rebuilt, and dresses resewn, but not if there was nopony to do it. Rarity had no boutique in Vanhoover, at least not yet, but that’s not what she was here for. Rarity’s satellite locations had already each received a pigeon with instructions on who to expect coming from Ponyville, and that they might need to be a place to stay for a while. But in Vanhoover, she was here on a different business.

“With all due respect miss,” the gruff stallion said, only for Rarity to poke the silken puff in his collar, saying,

“With all due respect to you buddy, I’m not exaggerating. I ain’t playing you for a fool. The heart of Equestria is being evacuated, every gosh darn pony within miles SF of Ponyville. You needta get your shelters ready, because there’s gonna be a ton of ponies coming in! You needta open those new buildings, and you need more beds and bedclothes. That’s what I’m here for. All I want is to make sure nopony sleeps in the cold tonight. That’s what’ll go down if you aren’t ready for it.”

“The construction—”

“Put it on hold!” Rarity shouted angrily, “Ponies need what we got right now, not some thing that’ll be ready in a month!”

Rarity sighed, releasing some of the hot anger hidden in her, and sidled up to the stallion, adding, “You’ve been a real pal about all this. I’m sorry I hafta chew your ear off. But I want you to know what we’re looking at, when you make your decision. You don’t want ponies losing their trust in you any more than I do, so be prepared because disaster’s gonna strike. Worst that could happen, either you’ll only need shelter for a BeV of ponies for the next few days or so, and we’ll all go home happy, or you’ll be able ta see with your own eyes why they can’t go back home again. They say not to look directly at it y’know, should the worst possible thing happen.”

“I... hear what you’re saying, miss Rarity,” he said grudgingly, “And I really am grateful you’re helpin’ setting up all of this. All I can promise ya is I’ll see what I can do. I ain’t gonna risk ponies by trying to shelter them in places that are going to fall down don’t y’know.”

“I couldn’t ask for better, mister Mayor,” Rarity said with a practiced smile of relief, “You don’t have to promise me nothing. I just wanted you t’know what’s going on, in case anypony tries to give you a different story.”

“It sure is a relief to get the straight story from a trusted tail,” he said with a matching smile, “I should be thanking you, really. With how much you helped the city way back when, you’ve never shown anything other than good heart. You can bet the council’ll be hearing about this. I don’t suppose we could stop for a coffee after this is over?”

“Sure, I could go for a cup of Joe,” Rarity said, sighing inwardly. She really needed to think about perhaps occasionally going out with stallions who weren’t already married. But she did have him over a barrel, and the least she could do was give the mayor of Vanhoover a pleasant afternoon. “I’ll let you know when I’m free.”

Rarity traipsed down the stairs with a rough grace to her stride, heading out of city hall. She swaggered down the street, and ducked around the corner, where she leaned up against the wall. Once she’d gotten a moment to herself, Rarity grimaced and gagged, wiping at her tongue with her hooves.

“This is why I don’t come here anymore,” she groaned, sinking down against the wall.

Mr. and Mrs. Cake were already gone. They left a week ago, taking their foals to safer pastures. Sugarcube Corner was closed and quiet, and eerie underneath the swirling stormclouds. Most ponies were smart enough to get the hay outta Ponyville, perhaps into Dodge, or wherever else they chose to flee. Pinkie Pie remained though, because of all the ponies foolish enough to stay, Pinkie Pie was one of the few who deserved it.

Pinkie Pie watched from afar as the stragglers packed up their things and readied to leave. She saw Berryshine packing a cart, while her little Ruby fussed at her tearfully, and after some debate, a kind of expensive looking jug was tossed out and a large plush bear was put in its place. She just watched Berry breaking down in tears, looking at her house, and Pinkie couldn’t help her at all.

Pinkie wanted to approach her. She wanted to help, but Berryshine knew Rosy Pink. Pinkie had seen them together many times, talking and laughing, and being friends with each other. Pinkie Pie would have been surprised if Berryshine ever spoke with her again! Golden Grape came to help Berry pack up her stuff, and herself, and Pinkie was curious when they’d become friends, but that had to do with Rosy too.

She saw Vanilla Sweet trotting along with some visitor who’d come all the way up from Andalusia to help get her to safety, and Pinkie Pie couldn’t ask about him, because no way Vanilla would talk with her either. Not after what Twilight did to her friend, thanks to Pinkie Pie. Pinkie saw Seaswirl, and Goldenrod, and everywhere she looked she saw ponies touched by Rosy Pink, and hurt by Pinkie and her friends.

Then Pinkie saw somepony else who was foolish enough to stay, except she didn’t deserve it at all. She just noticed Bluebell peeking out the closed curtains on the window of her house, not packing her things, not leaving Ponyville or anything. She had a foal! Pinkie Pie couldn’t let either of them risk their lives needlessly, but what could she say to them?

Bluebell was the pony who would have hated Pinkie Pie most of all. Bluebell saw Pinkie and her friends at their worst, and she knew that this was all Pinkie’s fault. What could Pinkie say to her that didn’t end in more shouting and tears? What could Pinkie say to anypony?

“Bluebell, you have to leave.”

“Why should we leave?” the blue pegasus replied obstinantly to Pinkie Pie, standing in the doorway of her house, standing stiff legged around Pinkie ever since the... day that everything went really wrong.

“Ponyville’s too dangerous!” Pinkie Pie protested, looking in vain for the filly who still hid from her. “You have to leave, before something goes really, really wrong! Just look outside at all this... dark, empty, swirly bad weather not-goodness!”

“I didn’t leave when you brought Discord down on our heads,” Bluebell insisted, “You fought Tirek in the middle of town! How is this any different?”

“The difference is that this time, we have a warning!” Pinkie replied urgently, “We stopped the... we held off the bad stuff, and now you have a chance to escape! Tirek didn’t give you a chance. He was already here. And with D-Discord, there was nowhere to escape. But now if you... if you leave now, you could get outside the area of destruction in just a few hours! And when it... if it goes bad, you’ll be safe.”

“I suppose you’re right, it was kind of hard to flee without any warning,” Bluebell said suspiciously, “But you’re still here! Why do I have to run, if you think it’s safe enough to come yell at me even more?”

“I’m not—!” Pinkie stopped and took a breath. “I’m not yelling, I’m just trying to help you. And I don’t think it’s safe to stay here, not even for me. But I don’t care about me! You and Rainy didn’t do anything to deserve this!”

“And you did?” Bluebell asked crossly.

“Yes!” Pinkie insisted, “I did a lot of bad things, and I was a downright meanie pants to you, and Rosy I just... I walked in on her, and I get in everypony’s way, and I’m sorry but...”

This wasn’t working. Pinkie Pie was supposed to be inspiring her to leave, not cowering before her! “I’m sorry I... listened to Twilight, and didn’t even try to stop her like you did,” Pinkie admitted shakily, “You hid Rosy and... and your filly was so brave that it made us all so hopping mad, and all I ever did was help Twilight get worse.”

“Pinkie, is it really so bad?” Bluebell asked, tail low in worry. “We’ll just weather this like we weathered everything... else.”

“I’m sorry Bluebell, but it really is so bad,” Pinkie replied, a little deflated herself, “If anything else goes wrong, the whole town, and country, and everypony in it could be just... gone. You need to leave.”

“I almost paid off the house!” Bluebell protested tearfully, “It was my first real... it was going so well! And now we’re going to lose it... all? This is my home now!”

She toed at the the ground mournfully, while Pinkie said in what she hoped was a soothing tone, “It’s just for a few days, until me and my friends try... whatever. Then you can come back and maybe everything will be fine, and your home won’t be vaporized or anything. But if it’s not... at least you’ll be alive. Maybe you can... rebuild. Sorta?”

“But what about Rosy Pink?” Bluebell asked in alarm, “I have to stay here, because what if she comes back, and we’re not here? She could stop by any day now, and I bet she would know how to save the... town.”

“Well, maybe you should leave a note,” Pinkie Pie said tiredly, “Telling Rosy that she shouldn’t be here right now because it’s dangerous, and telling her where you’re staying outside of Ponyville, so she can find you.”

Pinkie thought that was some clever advice, but when Bluebell didn’t respond, just standing there in her doorway, staring at the ground with her ears low, Pinkie had to ask, “Do you have any place you can stay, outside of Ponyville?”

“S-some relatives in Cloudsdale,” Bluebell said mutedly, “But I don’t know about Rainy. They don’t... know about her yet. It’s... complicated.”

Pinkie Pie silently wavered a moment, before hesitantly asking, “You’re a... really strong pony, right?”

“Well, I mean, um...” Bluebell replied, edging back into her house, “Kind of, yeah?”

“Don’t worry I’m glad you are,” Pinkie said quickly, “I just have seen you on construction crews, but never doing weather work.”

“Well I sure don’t know a cloud from a fog bank,” she said with a blush, “When ponies are constructing things, I guess I haul stuff and... these days I’ve been digging out roads. I’m hardly in the shelter anymore at all, since we... got this house and all.”

“I’m just asking, because I might know somewhere you could go,” Pinkie told her, “It’s not the... happiest place, but there’ll be plenty for you to do.”

“Really?” Bluebell asked, surprised, and her foal was even peeking out from behind her legs, “You’d share something like that with me? But I’ve been a jerk to you!” Blushing, she stammered, “T-t-that’s not what I meant, I mean...”

“You haven’t done anything I wasn’t really asking for,” Pinkie Pie assured her, “I don’t think you’re a jerk at all. You’re just in a ...tricky situation sometimes. I’m the one who was a jerk to you! We even broke into your house!”

Bluebell smiled incredulously at that, saying, “Gosh, and I thought you were mad with me. Is that why you haven’t been talking with me?”

Pinkie nodded glumly.

“Well, it was upsetting, sure, but I mean...”

Bluebell seemed to have a hard time putting it to words, so her blue haired, yellow filly squeezed between her blue furred legs and squeaked up at Pinkie assertively, “Rosy got away, so it’s okay!”

“Y-yeah I guess she did...” Pinkie said with a blush, looking down at little Rainy Feather. She was getting so big these days, it wouldn’t be long before she was her own pony, assuming nothing happened to her in the meantime. She almost came up to Pinkie Pie’s chin!

“So, no hard feelings,” Bluebell replied, drawing Pinkie’s attention again, “I just want to put this all behind us and just have everything be okay in Ponyville again.”

Pinkie wanted to assure them both that it would be okay, that Pinkie and her friends would figure something out and save the day, but she just... didn’t know anymore. She didn’t know if she and her friends could fix their own problems before the Rift went kablooey.

“South of the Ghastly Gorge, there’s a little... rock farming community,” Pinkie replied shiftily, “They’re always looking for ponies who can lift and um...” she slightly leaned to glance at Bluebell’s folded wing, “...cut rocks. If you go there, tell them you’re friends with Pinkie Pie, and I’m sure they’ll give you and...your foal a place to stay.”

“Pinkie... thank you,” Bluebell said with an uncertain smile, “I guess that’s the best we could ask for. And I want you to know I don’t blame you for what the princess did.”

“Do you blame Twilight?” Pinkie Pie asked quietly.

“Well... yeah?” Bluebell said curiously, “She’s the one who put us all in danger.”

“She would never have done it if I hadn’t hurt her,” Pinkie Pie said seriously, “I made Twilight upset, and... sick, and I didn’t even know it, until... this happened.”

“You didn’t mean to though,” Bluebell insisted, “You didn’t want to hurt me or Rainy or... Rosy, like the princess did.”

“I don’t know if you’ll ever believe me, Bluebell,” Pinkie Pie said sadly, “But Twilight never wanted to hurt anypony either.”

Twilight Sparkle wandered the abandoned streets alone. This was an odd thought for Pinkie Pie to have as she stared at Bluebell’s house, now cold and empty for two days. Bluebell was one of the stragglers, so not many ponies were left anywhere near Ponyville anymore. Pinkie had managed to save a lot of them, even Fluttershy, she hoped. There were a few scientist ponies in the vicinity of the Rift. Just a skeleton crew of the Trotwood team brave, or stupid enough to stick around to try and keep things stable. All the new human ponies had been spirited away to safety, since without Rosy they couldn’t stop the Rift from destabilizing, not any more than anypony else.

Looking around for Twilight, Pinkie noticed there were a disturbing number of ponies, who couldn’t be convinced to leave. She saw Junebug who just waved at Pinkie like it was another ordinary day. She saw Bonbon, who had sent Lyra packing, but was still here standing around for... reasons? Derpy was still fluttering around seemingly without a care, and that eccentric inventor by the name of Time Turner was sneaking around behind buildings as if he didn’t think anypony knew he was there. Ponies had so much trust in the Bearers, it was scary, because they were still here, the egg thingy around the Rift was getting all rusty and yucky, and Pinkie still didn’t know if she could do anything about it.

Thunderlane and Rainbow Dash were swooping around overhead, pretty much alone in trying to deal with this gloomy weather, just trying to keep things from getting worse. There were some ponies from town hall, the mayor and the purple organizer known as Amethyst Star. They were seen talking quietly with the princesses... the two princesses, and their retainer of guards. There were a few police ponies poking around for stragglers they could hustle out of town, like that pony Pinkie had never seen before, or Press Pass, who was trying to avoid them in order to report the last moments of Ponyville, Orange Swirl who—wait a minute.

Pinkie Pie took a second look at the mare creeping about the city streets. She was just an earth pony of colors blue and raspberry red. There was nothing unusual about her, save for the fact that Pinkie couldn’t recall ever seeing her before. Pinkie had heard about her once before... from a pony who visited from Tall Tale, who said she was really nice and helpful. But it wasn’t the same knowiness that Pinkie Pie usually had for ponies. It was an unknowiness, like somepony who didn’t quite fit in the grand scheme of things.

Was it one of the human ponies who were still wandering around for some reason? But that was impossible! The humans had gotten pulled through just a little over a week ago, but it was three months ago that Pinkie Pie heard from Lavender Skies about this pony. Blue... something. Pinkie Pie didn’t know her name.

Pinkie Pie didn’t know her name.

With dark clouds swirling overhead in the quiet, cold, mostly empty streets, Pinkie Pie saw what could have been their salvation, or their doom. The... the pony who had to be Rosy Pink, she didn’t even know that Pinkie knew. How could Pinkie Pie possibly know, if Rosy had changed her colors? Was that a thing you could even do? Rosy’s mane was no longer pink, but more along the lines of Roseluck’s magenta mane, and her fur was no longer cream colored, but a striking, cerulean blue.

Pinkie stared, frozen with terrible indecision. What she had to do was obvious. If Rosy returned home, all this could be avoided. All Pinkie Pie had to do was sound the alarm, and chase Rosy down, and throw her through the... throw her through the Rift. And make Rosy be something she didn’t want to be, and banish her from Equestria forever.

It could save pony lives, even if the ponies here all knew what they were getting into. It could save... Ponyville. It could bring everypony back, hale and whole. It wouldn’t force ponies to choose between which of their most precious possessions to leave behind. It could put a smile on Bluebell’s face, when the house trust that she finally earned was safe and sound. It would be absolutely, horribly, terrible if her house got blown up and Bluebell couldn’t live here anymore. And it would be terrible for Rosy if she had to... had to be a human, and a stallion, and go through that, but so many other ponies were depending on that happening. Pinkie had to raise the alarm! It was the only way!

Pinkie Pie stood there, and did nothing.

A curiously giddy relief warred with the guilt looming up inside her as Pinkie Pie just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t choose between Rosy and... and everypony else. Ponyville was just going to be destroyed, and that was that. Ponies just had t-to get interrupted a little early, because Pinkie Pie wasn’t going to do it. She couldn’t hurt Rosy, not again, not even if it... saved everything.

Then Pinkie Pie finally spotted Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight Sparkle wandered the streets alone. Mumbling to herself with a book floating in her face, always trying to find a solution to this mess. To Pinkie’s horror, Twilight was wandering straight for a collision course with the magenta blue mare. Neither pony seemed to notice the other. Rosy was looking the other way as if worried about something coming from over there, and Twilight was... well... learning how to read again. Not much would disturb her from that.

Pinkie didn’t want Rosy to go! She just couldn’t stand it! She ran forward, but stopped, but how could she interfere without warning Twilight, and the princesses and the guards, and why was Rosy Pink even here if she wasn’t going to return home? It was the moment of truth. Rosy’s blue-furred rump was going to smack into the side of Twilight’s head if neither of them moved out of the way. So Pinkie dashed forward and hipchecked Rosy—or whatever she was called now, sending her sprawling sideways while announcing to Twilight,

“Hey! Twilight! Long time no see!”

Pinkie smiled.

“Did you just... knock somepony over?” Twilight said, looking up from her book in surprise.

“No!” Pinkie said, “I mean, yes! I mean, nevermind her! Why don’t we go talk about your... Introductory Equestrian Grammar textbook? Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“Pinkie, what’s going on?” Twilight asked, looking suspiciously at the mare. No!

“Yeah, what’s going... on?” the mare said in a worryingly familiar voice, climbing to her hooves. Nonono, couldn’t she have changed her voice? This was terrible! “I was busy uh, walking here!”

“I–I just thought you m-maybe might just accidentally bump into the princess,” Pinkie babbled frantically, “And she might change you into a toad or whatever Princesses are supposed to do to ponies.”

“That sounds more like a witch than a princess,” the mare said with a raised eyebrow. That got a chuckle out of Twilight, who admonished Pinkie,

“I am not considered a princess anymore, you know that...” she looked at the mare again, suspiciously, “Wait, did you just call me a witch?”

“Not if you are going to change me into a toad, uh, princess,” the mare replied, irises narrowing.

“You know, a lot of ponies call me a witch behind my back, but there’s only one pony who ever said it to my face,” Twilight said, peering thoughtfully into the mare’s strikingly violet eyes, the same shade as Twilight’s own. “What’s your name, if I might ask?”

“B-blue Raspberry,” the mare stammered, taking an involuntary step back, “I’m really sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to upset you, I just...”

“And were you always called this, Blue Raspberry?” Twilight asked.

“Sure were!” Blue Raspberry said with a nervous twitchy smile, “That’s what my mother named me.”

“And what was her name?” Twilight asked cooly.

“Blue uh—Rasp...melon...um—” the mare stammered.

“Stop scaring this nice innocent normal pony, Twilight!” Pinkie exclaimed, trying to step in between them. “She’s not a human pony, and she’s not Rosy Pink because... because... because look, she has a story mark!”

Pinkie almost collapsed in relief herself at that revelation. The mare they were facing had three very distinct magenta raspberries on her blue hips. “Oh thank goodness,” Pinkie told herself, and also out loud to Twilight, “I thought for a minute she had to secretly be Rosy Pink, and all this time she just changed her colors somehow. But even you said that humans can’t get story marks.”

“I think we all have Rosy on the mind,” Twilight said a little nervously to Pinkie, then turning to the mare, “Sorry miss, I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“N-no it’s fine, um...” the mare said, in a voice that was still hauntingly familiar, even after not having heard it in so long. “Sorry, days of walking were not —” was as far as she got, before somepony emptied out their bathwater from the second story, soaking Blue Raspberry from withers to tail.

Silence descended.

Pinkie wondered what was—Blue Raspberry bolted, right as Twilight Sparkle squealed roughly, “Help! Guards!” She lit up her horn and snagged the fleeing Raspberry by the tail, shouting, “It’s the Traveller!”

The mare’s flight had turned to a panicked flailing in mid-air as Twilight grunted with effort, resisting the mare’s efforts to break free, and now Pinkie could see it. The mare’s story marks had melted and run right off the sides of her hips, leaving her hindquarters blue, but bare.

“Guards! Please!” Twilight begged in a choked voice, and Pinkie’s head spun to face her friend, who sinking to the ground, eyes flowing with tears, her horn flickering as she cried, “I can’t do this! I can’t do this!”

While the guards trotted away from the princesses to surround Blue Raspberry, Pinkie rushed to her sobbing friend, hugging her desperately while Twilight wept over and over again, “I’m sorry... I’m so sorry... I’m so sorry...”

Twilight Sparkle just wanted to make things better. She just wanted to be better. She didn’t want to be standing here, here in the beautiful kingdom of Equestria, watching Rosy Pink forced to leave it forever. Everything would be wonderful after this. Applejack would speak to her again, because her farm would be saved. Twilight’s friends would return and comfort her as well as they could. Her library would still be standing, her precious books untouched. She wouldn’t be a princess in title, but that was perhaps a better outcome than when she had started.

There would be no humans to trouble their world anymore. None of their fascinating and twisted culture, no strange movies of herself that shouldn’t be, no strange technologies such as the Internet or ICBMs, and no strange coupling between light and magnetism. It would, like every story, end, and everypony could go home shaken, but still sound, with their homes still intact, everypony except for one single pony whose fondest dreams were going to die.

Twilight tried to understand it, just why Rosy, now named Blue Raspberry in trying to escape their wrath, why she didn’t want to be a stallion again, or to return to her old world. Fluttershy had spoke quietly with her about it, and it was painfully obvious, once Twilight was no longer... doing it again. Rosy would suffer simply because she loved being a mare, and she loved Equestria, even more than most Equestrians. The most Rosy could wish for now was not to forget her fond memories of something that she loved, that was lost to her forever.

It would be just like if Twilight had to leave Ponyville forever, only knowing it as a fond memory, never to see her friends again. Twilight hadn’t been born in Ponyville any more than Rosy Pink had been born in Equestria. Twilight would have to make new friends in an alien world that just doesn’t make sense, with no hope of ever reuniting with her old ones, and... somehow Raspberry was the same way. Somehow Equestria had become her home, long before she even came here, and now to save them all, they had to send her away.

The Royal Guard dealt with Blue Raspberry in the end. The Bearers were only allowed to stand helplessly by, with whatever other ponies who wanted to come witness this event. This... betrayal of everything good and just in the world. It was impossible, inconceivable, yet there they were, just standing on the sidelines, while Blue Raspberry got escorted to her doom.

Well, some of them at least. It was so rushed, a lot of Twilight’s friends never even knew what was going on. Rarity was still off fielding refugees in Vanhoover, and Pinkie had convinced Fluttershy to go east to help with the other coast’s communities. Applejack was nowhere to be found, probably somewhere lost out in the orchard, among the trees she loved. That left Pinkie Pie to the left of Twilight Sparkle, and Rainbow Dash above her, with nothing to do but watch.

The swirling clouds overhead cast an ominous atmosphere as Blue Raspberry was escorted along with her entourage. She was at the lead, but there were more ponies accompanying her. Ponies who had trouble walking: human ponies. Most were silent and stoic, many relieved they would soon be human again, but staying quiet about it for the sake of those who were crying for the lost opportunity, wishing that their story didn’t have to end this way.

There were ponies in the crowd of spectators who were crying too. Ponies who knew Rosy, who hadn’t fled too far away to return to Ponyville to see her sentence carried out. Bluebell was here, and nopony bothered her or her crying foal. A foal who never should have to face something like this. Nopony should ever face something like this. Nopony should ever face their entire family dying before their eyes, but this... this was something else. Pinkie Pie grew up into a wonderful pony with lots of friends and a real second family. She... endured and prospered, and was a better pony for having experienced her loss.

This? Nopony was learning any lesson from this. There would be nopony who could comfort that foal, or tell her that Rosy was in a better place now, because whether Rosy or Blue Raspberry, the place she was returning to was not her home anymore. The person Raspberry was becoming was not herself.

Twilight knew that the needs of the many should come before the needs of the few, but... what were they even saving? A neurotic baker, a friendly farmer, a sophisticated dressmaker, a reclusive animal caretaker, a daredevil weather pony, and a librarian. That was Twilight’s small window into the many that they would be saving. Many ponies who all had... good lives, and deserved to live them, but now their lives would all depend on sending a wonderful young mare who had been a friend to all... into suffering without end. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, but what does it say about the many, when the few have to suffer for them? Were they even worth saving, if the only way the many could be saved was for one pony to be so terribly... lost?

Twilight didn’t know, and as the guards formed a closed half-ring around the Rift, and pushed Rosy forward, a desperate need to do something rose in the beleagured librarian. The princesses weren’t even looking at Rosy. Princess Luna was presiding behind the guards in case of emergency, but she was looking away and closing her eyes wearily. Princess Celestia was presiding on the other side, not looking at Rosy, but instead giving Twilight a sympathetic, pleading and sorrowful look. A look of... familiarity. No. No!

The guards were ready for Twilight’s blind rush forward; she knew they would be, but she couldn’t just stand there. She had no plan in mind, just an overpowering need to do something, to fix her mistake, to find another way. What could she do? All the magic in the world couldn’t make this better. “It should be me!” she screamed, her eyes flooding with tears as they pulled her back, “It should be me!”

The strange, yet familiar raspberry-haired blue pony turned then, and gave a surprised look, briefly meeting Twilight’s eyes. On seeing Twilight, Blue Raspberry’s features softened, and she gave her a gentle, soothing smile. Then Blue Raspberry turned to face the Rift again—its silvery containment now a mess of corrosion and soldering—and walked forward. This was the pony they were going to have to sacrifice. This was the pony who—

Tears still streaming down her burning eyes, Twilight sunk to her haunches, unable to look away, but not wanting this to happen. This was wrong. Something was wrong. It shouldn’t be Rosy. It should’ve been Twilight. She was the one who deserved this, and it wouldn’t work because the Rift only cared about the thrice doomed Rosy Pink.

Even with its shell in place, the heat from the Rift could be felt from 200 feet away. The technicians removed the shell, and it pretty much crumbled apart on its own as they touched it, scrambling away to relative safety. The Rift emerged, an angry red, pulsing tear in space sending ripples outward that disturbed the crumbled dust and debris around it and shook through their very bones.

The throbbing seemed to ease and the oppressive heat died away, as Rosy approached the Rift, her hooves making little puffs of dust as she waded through the disintegrated rubble at the epicenter. Behind her came a line of ponies, one pony and one guard for each human that had fallen through the rift.

Once again before Rosy’s eyes, the hole in space blossomed and grew, opening like a sphincter, or a wound, the edges ragged and crackling with dull red lightning. Within was... what looked like an abandoned city, like the streets of Manehattan, except that there was rubble everywhere, and everypony, or everyhuman, was completely absent. There was one odd looking metallic cart near the portal, but it looked like it had long since been abandoned. No carts were pulled on the strange black roads, no creatures travelled the sidewalks, or sold trinkets from carts on the street corner. This was where the Rift had... ended up. Right in the middle of a road. No wonder they abandoned the city.

Twilight stared through it with a burning curiosity that she no longer tried to hold down. Anything to avoid thinking about the mare approaching the portal. How big were their cities? Twilight hadn’t thought to check. Did they hitch themselves differently to their carts, with only two feet to pull with? The edges of her vision were darkening, but she stared even more desperately. Did they really explore the entire globe? Did it happen recently, or were there any abandoned, forgotten ruins that nopony had explored for centuries? How do telephones really work? How could something be both a particle and a wave?

Rosy hesitated at the last minute, freezing in front of the portal. Reluctant to the end, it seemed. But what could she do to escape? The guards were taking no chances, ready to intercept any attempt to run away or disable them, and the hungry Rift felt like it was reaching out, to snatch Rosy and take her away from them forever. The blue and maroon pony stared into the face of certain doom as the Rift began to crawl towards her, then on the other side of it, some humans ran into view dressed in strange looking armor with thick face masks. Rosy stomped hard on the ground, kicking up what looked like a ball on a string, or a dark grey balloon that popped up in the air. Another swift kick with her foreleg sent the thing flying through the portal straight at the humans, as she turned to look up behind herself, and shouted, “Now!!”

The Rift slammed closed in an instant, the searing heat blasting outward with an angry rumbling. Rosy lifted a hoof as though to shield her face, but then brought it slamming down again. The guards barely had time to step forward when the blue maroon pony stomped the ground one more time, and a second... grey... balloon popped up, but this one she kicked hard. Its cord trailed down behind it as her kick sent it soaring up into the air. An orange pegasus was diving out of nowhere then, with flight goggles pushing back his bright red hair, swooping down and snatching it in his hooves. Then he took off vertically into the sky in an explosion of power. The cord grew taut as its slack ran out, right up to the aperture of the Rift.

And the angry, pulsing hole in space began to follow.

It chased after the fleeing pegasus, and his... tethered ball whose cord was going through the Rift to its matching twin that... was a sympathetic charm; this was brilliant, no this was insane!! Relief and horror flooded into her as Twilight stared straight up along with everypony else while around her the rumbling died down and the heat faded. Twilight couldn’t even—she—she couldn’t even....

Around where the Rift had risen into the sky, the debris settled, and a cool breeze started to blow through the area. Pegasus guards made to pursue the fleeing orange pegasus and his rift, but Princess Celestia shouted, “Hold!” and they stopped in mid-air, joining everypony else in just... watching.

Far overhead, a green pegasus was flying up to meet the orange one, who then swooped into a slow diving glide as the green one continued upward, finally penetrating the swirling clouds covering the skies of Ponyville. An instant later, the Rift followed, and blew the clouds outward into a giant ring, a silent explosion as it passed through them, that sent sunlight streaming down from overhead. Ponies winced, shading their sensitive eyes, and the green pegasus could no longer be seen in the bright blue sky.

“Blue Raspberry,” the golden princess said, looking steadily at the nervous looking pony at the center of it all, with no less than a dozen spears trained on her.

“Yes, your highness?” the raspberry haired earth mare asked politely, backing up a step still ankle deep in suspiciously well placed dust, freezing as her blue furred rump met spear points.

“What is this?” Celestia said, gesturing overhead with a hoof without looking away from the mare.

“We’re uh... taking the Rift to a safe distance,” Raspberry said with a blush in her cheeks, “Straight up, about SF miles... it should take her about C.F minutes.”

“...and how much time until the Rift cascades under these conditions?” the princess asked.

“I don’t know, your highness,” Raspberry replied with lowering ears. “Hopefully enough.”

Celestia didn’t mince words. “Everypony run!” she shouted, rearing back away from Blue Raspberry to project at the crowd, “Get as far away from this place as you can! Go!”

The ponies were galvanized like lightning by the actual fear in the princess’s voice, and maybe a healthy dose of magic. Technicians, bystanders, guards, the Bearers, with a rumbling of hooves everypony scattered, running full tilt away from the epicenter. Even the human ponies tried to run, starting to panic as they fell over their own hooves. Rosy herself dashed away like the legions of Tartarus were on her heels, but in her own blind panic it was easy to pluck her off of the earth, until she found herself floating in the golden light of Princess Celestia.

“Luna!” Princess Celestia shouted to the one who was not so moved by the power of her voice, “Help them!” she declared in a desperate pleading tone, waving her hoof at the ponies who had fallen and couldn’t get up.

“Understood, sister,” Luna said seriously, trotting up and collecting the various ponies in her magic, whispering to them soothing half-truths, that they needed to calm down, and everything was going to be okay.

“We are going to have a long conversation, you and I,” Princess Celestia said, staring the purple eyed Blue Raspberry muzzle to muzzle.

Perhaps wisely, and definitely terrified, Blue Raspberry didn’t choose the current moment to speak.

Celestia waited long enough to see Luna had gathered the ponies who couldn’t run, and successfully gated them out of the area. Then she and Raspberry went on a little teleportation themselves, straight to the Canterlot dungeons. They didn’t see much use, these dungeons, nor would they, because as soon as Raspberry saw she had entered those damp stone cells, she outright begged the princess, saying, “Please, Princess! I need to see it! I promise I won’t run away, and I promise I’ll explain. Just can you... can you come watch with me? I won’t run away I just need to know if it... if it worked.”

“I have serious doubts to your veracity,” Princess Celestia said flatly, “But such an event has not happened in over years VeP. There may be no pony left alive who has seen it, other than myself. ...very well then, Blue Raspberry. We shall see the extent of your folly.”

In the tallest tower of Canterlot, a massive telescope was mounted, for gazing at the stars. They would need no such thing for a pony and her princess, who came walking out onto the balcony, with only a dizzying drop for what looked like miles below to the valley floor. Not what one would normally think of as a prison cell, it was still adamantly clear that Raspberry had nowhere else to go.

Elsewhere in Canterlot, Princess Luna took a head count, and every human pony was accounted for, Blue Raspberry excepted. They huddled around her like foals, some literally foals, while she spread her wings over them and looked westward, facing her own shadow as the afternoon sun burned down overhead.

In an undisclosed location, a certain team of quite possibly soon to be banished science ponies were training their telescopes and measuring instruments at the sky, shouting at each other rapidfire commands.

Pinkie Pie was neck and neck with Rainbow Dash as they tore away from that epicenter as fast as their hooves and wings respectively could take them.

Everypony else, for the most part, had no warning.

Amid the dust in the zone of destruction in the center of Ponyville, a purple wing flapped up. With a wingbeat, the dust blew away from a lilac pony laying on the ground.

“Huh?” Twilight Sparkle said groggily, struggling to her hooves. She brushed herself off, then folded her wings, rubbing her eyes sleepily.

“I must have passed out,” Twilight remarked, looking around at the empty square, “Where is everypony? Did I miss something?”

Then there was a second sun in the sky.

Out of Nowhere

Author's Note

In this story, ponies do not have five hooves.

Out of Nowhere

Twilight Sparkle was a very literary pony. She knew well the tales of great ponies long passed. A mare gets stranded on a distant shore. She forms heartwarming friendships with the local ponies or other creatures. Working together, they help her return home and reunite with her family, a better mare for the experience. That's how it works. That's how it always works. But soon Twilight and her friends would encounter a mare for whom nothing seems to work at all.

It all started innocently enough. Fluttershy was tending to her animals, making sure the ones who were sleeping were sleeping well, and the ones who were cold found places to be warm. Applejack was tending to her apples, or lack thereof, pruning branches and turning compost. Rainbow Dash was doing tricks, a brilliant dot of blue in the cool grey Ponyville skies. Twilight Sparkle was seated in her tree library, with her dragon Spike at her side, a cup of hot cocoa, and a book braced against her hooves. Very frequently, a page would turn. And Rarity was in her inspiration room, searching her mind for the next new, big, greatest fad to sweep across Equestria when spring came around. Would it be socks? Braids? Necklaces? Hats?

So of course it would have to be Pinkie Pie who found her. Because Pinkie Pie didn’t have anything special to do, so she was taking a nice walk outside and greeting everypony she saw, and also because Pinkie Pie is never the one who finds her.

With a nice warm scarf wrapped around her neck and draped over her flank (hoof knitted by Sew’n’so), Pinkie Pie was just hopping along without a care in the world. Her bountiful curls put a spring in her step as her hooves crunched along the frozen ground, and she reveled in the simple, sweet joy of movement. Her whole life was a dance from one party to the next, and she loved it that way.

“Oh Rose, you’re looking lovely today!” she said to somepony. “Gardenia, those dried flowers smell amazing!” she said to somepony else. “Hello Fidget, I see you got your wheely thingamabobber working!” she said to somepony else. Pony talking was one of Pinkie Pie’s most favoritest things to do, since each and everypony had an amazing story to tell, just from their day-to-day experiences.

“Hey Cranky, how’s the wife?” Pinkie Pie said talking to everypony she passed by, “Good afternoon Miss Skillet. Sassaflash, that carrot cake isn’t for your special somepony, is it? Caramel just loves carrots! Oh hey, you don’t look so good, whoever you are. Lemon Daze, hi! You got back from your trip early? Why yes Sally Forth, I have your chocolate bunnies all ready for wrapup.”

Pinkie Pie stopped cold.

She skittered backwards, passing Sally, and Lemon, and Sassaflash, oops too far. Pinkie Pie skittered forward past Sassaflash, and really saw her for the first time. The mare didn’t seem to have noticed Pinkie yet, which was fine and dandy. Nothing unexpected there. A bright pink pony like Pinkie Pie was pretty easy to miss in a crowd.

The pony Pinkie Pie saw was a young mare, just about the same age Pinkie had been, when she moved to Ponyville. Boy was that a crazy time in her life. In appearance, she was an unremarkable pony with a creamy coat of fur, and a dissheveled looking mane of cotton candy pink that might once have been pleasantly curly. She looked quite a bit down on her luck now, though. She had abruptly sat down over by one of the buildings, with her hooves clumsily folded under her, leaning her head wearily against its wall. Sitting like that, it was obvious she had no story mark on her hindquarters, which was pretty strange in of itself, but that wasn’t the strangest thing about this mare.

The mare didn’t look distressed or anything, though she did look a dirty, sallow, and maybe dehydrated. It was certainly weird how she just stared around vaguely, like somepony with some serious shell shock. That made sense for a farm pony who’d just been dropped in the middle of Manehattan, but it shouldn’t have applied to a pony being dropped into a smalltime farming village like Ponyville.

But no, that still wasn’t the weirdest thing about this mare. What really drew Pinkie Pie’s attention was that she did not know this pony.

No, that really doesn’t describe the situation here. Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, Pinkie Pie saw a golden chariot descend on her village, pulled by the very hunky personal guards of the Princess Celestia herself. On it was the attachè to the princess: her personal student! Pinkie Pie never expected such an important pony like that would just walk up and say hello to her, but Twilight did, and that made Twilight doubly special: special on special. Pinkie Pie made up some excuse about Twilight being new, but really she just wanted to give an amazing pony like that an amazing welcome to Ponyville.

But even with Twilight, Pinkie Pie had known about her as an important student princess pony, albeit only from reading it once in the Canterlot Quarterly.

There was that donkey whose name she didn’t know at first, but when Cranky Doodle came to town, Pinkie Pie knew who he was. She’d heard tell of his coming long before he stepped into Ponyville. A strange donkey with strange stuff on a strange cart. Even though he didn’t like it, she made sure to have a song and dance routine well rehearsed. She went through a lot of trouble to get that confetti cannon cake oven spectacular greetomatic party cart together, even if she got the confetti and the cake batter mixed up.

The fact of the matter is, and she wouldn’t deny it if you asked, but Pinkie Pie knew everypony in Ponyville. The last pony to really surprise her was Rainbow Dash, and when Rainbow Dash moved to Ponyville, she didn’t give any notice beforehoof, and she did it by flying straight at Ponyville, faster than the speed of sound. Pinkie Pie was not an inattentive pony, and she usually if not always knew what she was looking at when a new pony came to town.

This pony, Pinkie Pie had no idea what she was looking at.

“Hey Daisy,” Pinkie said cautiously, picking out a green and pink pony she recognized as one of Twilight’s neighbors. “Do you know who that pony is over there?”

Daisy outright laughed at Pinkie Pie’s question, caught seriously off guard by it. “Don’t you know who that pony is?” the watermelon colored pony said with another chuckle.

“But... that’s what I asked you, silly,” Pinkie Pie said with a calculated smile, poking Daisy in the chest.

Daisy looked puzzled at Pinkie’s pokie hoof. “Okay, is this a test?” she asked in that sort of quivery hoarse voice of hers, “Um... no I don’t think I ever saw that pony before. Who is she?”

“I don’t know...” Pinkie remarked thoughtfully, looking over at the new mare again and rubbing her chin.

“You... you don’t know who that pony is?” Daisy squawked, her pupils narrowing and her breath coming quicker as she stared at Pinkie fearfully.

“No, no, no, of course, I know who she is,” Pinkie Pie said, turning and ear and waving a hoof dismissively. “It’s um... Paisy Flower from... Whinnipeg.”

“Oh,” Daisy said with a relieved sigh. “You had me really worried there for a minute, Pinkie!”

Daisy wandered off, and Pinkie continued to surreptitiously observe this down-on-her-luck mare. The mare didn’t seem to have anything to do, or anywhere to go in her plans. Pinkie wasn’t sure why she was sitting there leaning against that building at all.

Daisy’s reaction bothered Pinkie Pie, even if it was just Daisy being Daisy, because Pinkie didn’t like scaring ponies. No, really. She had kind of a hard time with that sometimes, and as Pinkie licked the last of the maple syrup off of her hoof, she found herself bordering on obsessed with the source of this mysterious pony. Pinkie wondered if maybe she shouldn’t be known as the pony who knows everypony. Maybe it wasn’t a big deal, and occasionally a pony could come out of nowhere, and it’d be no problem.

...or it could be changelings!!

Pinkie moved from concealed location to concealed location, in the bushes and behind corners. The mare struggled up at one point, and walked around town, but her course was lost and purposeless. She seemed very shy about talking to ponies; she seemed afraid about even approaching them. The mare didn’t seem very cranky, or ill tempered, just... lost. And Pinkie had never seen her in Ponyville, or in anywhere, ever. This was possibly the pony most in need of a welcome to Ponyville, in the history of all Pinkie Pie welcome to Ponyville parties!

“Oh hi, Pinkie,” Twilight Sparkle said to Pinkie, whose head shot straight up out of the bushes with a surprised squeak!

“What are you doing in the bushes?” Twilight asked casually, not even seeing that the strange mare was about to see her and blow Pinkie’s cover!

Pinkie dragged the princess into the bushes, whispering harshly, “Ssssh! See? That pony over there. The one standing by the water trough.”

“Uh huh?” Twilight said, giving Pinkie more of a worried look than the mare. “What about her?”

“I don’t know who she is.”

“Oh. Ohh,” Twilight said, taking a more serious look at the cream colored mare. “Is she new here?” Twilight asked hopefully.

“I don’t know!” Pinkie whispered in response, “That’s why it’s so weird! She just came out of nowhere!”

“Well, I’ve certainly never seen her before,” Twilight said, “What did she say when you asked her?”

“I haven’t asked her, yet,” Pinkie whispered, going for a nearby pair of binoculars to see the mare better with.

“Oh, well. That’s an easy one, Pinkie,” Twilight chuckled. “I’ll go ask her and—”

“No, don’t!” Pinkie hissed urgently, holding Twilight with a hoof, “I want to throw her a party! She needs it more than anypony and it’s better if the party is a surprise!”

Twilight’s slowly raising eyebrow seemed to indicate she didn’t see eye to eye with Pinkie on this. “Right. Going to ask her,” Twilight said curtly, jumping out of the bushes and flutterpoofing the leaves off her wings.

“Wait!” Pinkie whispered in vain, but today her outstretched hoof was unable to reach the retreating princess without leaving the protection of the bushes.

“Hello there!” Twilight Sparkle said brightly, as she trotted up to the confused looking mare. Twilight gave a friendly smile as the mare looked her way, but a friendly smile didn’t seem to calm this mare whatsoever. The mare’s breathing quickened slightly and her eyes widened, as if she had seen a ghost. As if she was seeing a ghost. Twilight really wasn’t sure what to think about that, but it was obvious this mare was not ready to be surprised.

“Sorry to bother you,” Twilight said amiably, “But you seem to be new to town, is that correct?”

The mare just stared at her silently, her mouth vaguely moving in some semblance of words. “Are... you alright?” Twilight asked her, tilting her head.

“It’s really you,” the mare said at last with a soft, sweet soprano. Her voice was hoarse from exhaustion, yet she spoke in the most reverent tone Twilight had ever heard herself addressed. “Twilight Sparkle...”

“Oh...” Twilight said, putting a hoof to her chest modestly and trying not to blush too much. “You’ve heard of me, huh? I am pretty well known it’s true, but don’t let that fool you. I’m just a pony like you.” Twilight coyly swayed on her hooves, giving her wings a little fluff as she added, “Maybe with a few extra additions, heh heh.”

The starstruck mare didn’t answer, and Twilight hadn’t seen a mare so taken with her since that filly back at Rainbow Falls... the filly who Pinkie Pie scared away. Twilight glanced back worriedly at the bushes, but Pinkie still hadn’t made her move.

“I’m not here for any particular reason,” Twilight said quickly to the mare, “Just doing some shopping, you know. But I thought you should know that it’s something of a Ponyville tradition that ponies who move here get a pretty big welcome celebration. So if you’re moving here, you should know it’ll get pretty crazy for a while, because there’s a pony by the name of—”

“Pinkie Pie,” the mare answered distantly.

“Yes... I suppose you’ve heard of my friends, too,” Twilight said a little off kilter by this mare’s reactions. Was she just a fan, or was that genuine fear in her eyes? Fear of what? Fear of why? “It’s just when I first moved here,” Twilight continued carefully, “I found Pinkie a little overwhelming, and you looked like you could use some advance warning.”

“I... yeah,” the mare said, looking away and touching her chin, and knotting her brow, classic signs of a pony thinking furiously.

“That’s all I wanted to say,” Twilight said appeasingly to the frustratingly fluttershish mare. “I guess I’ll... leave you alone now?”

“But...” the mare started to say, then just attempted a smile, saying, “That would be fine. And um... thank you.”

Twilight was now thoroughly confused. The mare at least seemed to realize this, and clarified herself nicely, saying, “For... being such a nice princess! P-pony. I mean. T-thanks.”

“My pleasure,” Twilight said with a smile, “Now I really do have to be going, so you take care, miss...?”

“Um,” the pony said, with another one of those looks like she’d seen a ghost.

“Miss Um?” Twilight asked hopefully.

The mare shook her head though, saying, “No, um, it’s... I’m sorry I...”

“Quite alright,” Twilight said sketchily, squinting at the mare. No answer. “Aaanyway, ta ta.”

Twilight was happily trotting past the bushes, when within them her hot pink friend hissed out, “Did you ask her where she came from??”

Too busy blushing to answer, Twilight Sparkle reversed directions, and trotted right back in the direction that unnamed mare had wandered in.

“Excuse me miss,” Twilight said, while the mare startled to a halt again, then turned her head to look at Twilight as the purple princess said, “Sorry to bother you again, but can I ask where you moved from? My friend wants to—see, er, Pinkie Pie wants to plan a party for you, and she wants to know more about you. So, um... where are you from?”

And cue the mare staring speechlessly at her again. Seriously, there was something weird about this mare. Even Fluttershy didn’t seem at this much of a loss to answer somepony’s question.

“I don’t know if I should say...” the mare said in a worried tone, quite suspiciously, shaking her head and sinking bashfully on her hooves as she looked anywhere but Twilight. “I guess it’s... I mean I don’t really have any other choice. I... I’m so hungry. Um, sorry, I mean...”

Then she looked at Twilight Sparkle with deep blue eyes and said very urgently, “I’m from a place called Earth.”

“Um...” Twilight replied, feeling more like navigating a minefield than a conversation at this point, “Yes, you are? Most ponies call it Equestria. But I meant what township are you from?”

“No, I mean, I’m from a different universe,” the mare said a bit more clearly.

Twilight was still confused though, and said, “You know there’s only one universe, right?”

“Right, but-but if there was a portal into another one—” the mare started.

Twilight handily finished the mare’s thought experiment with a helpful smile, saying, “Then they would both be part of the same universe, just not connected with each other by way of conventional spacetime.”

The mare was once again back to dumbfounded staring, and this time her mouth was hanging open. It would have been so adorable if she didn’t look so... well... hungry. She actually did look kind of... pale, for an off-white mare, and it wasn’t clear how she was avoiding shivering without any sort of coat, hat, scarf or boots. And her coat was a ratty mess of twigs and sadness, that looked like it hadn’t gotten brushed in a week.

Twilight tried to explain to the mare about the importance of using the term “verse” as opposed to “universe” or the inaccurate “world,” but the mare just seemed to get more frustrated at her! The mare pulled her jaw shut, and said to Twilight once she was done, now with a somewhat peeved expression,

“Fine. I’m from a different verse.”

Actual emotion! Good, we’re really making progress here! Wait, what?!

“No you’re not,” Twilight chided the mare in good humor, “Nopony’s ever come from another verse before. Is this... some kind of joke?”

“No, I...” the mare semi-consciously wavered in place, saying, “I came out of the portal in the middle of the woods, and I was like... this,” she looked down at her smooth pastel hooves, before beseeching Twilight Sparkle again. “There was nothing but woods around me. I didn’t know where to go, or if there was anything at all—” the mare said, having to pause to give an unsettling cough, “S-so I went in circles, until I found a river,” she said persistently, desperately even. “And... well, I sort of couldn’t find any, and I was getting hungry I just... I made it to Ponyville, but it took d... days, and I’m really not sure who I ask, to g-get something to eat and I’m... really tired...”

When Twilight had to catch her as she fell against Twilight’s side, the mare’s body felt cold as ice.

Rarity was having no ideas whatsoever. Socks. They had been done a dozen times! Braids weren’t last decade. They were last century! What was she going to do? Was she going to go out of business? Was she going to lose her house and home? Was she going to have to move in with her parents again?!

Rarity’s tummy gave a rather uncouth grumble. The alabaster unicorn’s glare at the offending organ softened as she realized she had forgotten to eat dinner today... again. That was surely her problem, feeling faint from lack of proper nutrition. A terrible habit to get into, but a small sacrifice to cultivate that creative fire that thrilled her.

“Then it’s settled!” Rarity told herself, levitating her reading glasses off of her snout and placing them aside. “Inspiration can wait, but food waits for nopony!”

With no one to observe her theatrics, Rarity just gave a slight sniff and no other noise other than hooffalls on her way out of her inspiration room, and her boutique. Making her way quickly down the stairs, and through the staging area, she paused long enough to touch up her face, comb her sleepy curlicue mane, toss on her winter scarf and beret, and leave an “OUT TO LUNCH” sign on her doorknob, before heading down the road at a brisk trot. Her day was long overdue for a nice, hearty meal.

Sugarcube Corner was quiet when she arrived. It probably meant Pinkie Pie was wandering around town again, doing... whatever it is that Pinkie Pie does. There was something of a line this time of day for ponies out to lunch, but it didn’t take Rarity long to wait before she was at the front counter.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Cake!” Rarity told the bakery owner in good cheer.

“Well hello there, Rarity,” the portly mare answered with a polite smile. Understandable as she wanted to move things along. “What can I get you?”

“I’ll take two of your red velvets,” Rarity said without a great deal of thought in the matter. It was her usual order, and one of her favorites. “Perhaps a croissant, and a tall glass of holly juice if you would be so kind.”

Rarity did have bits with her this time, but it wouldn’t be polite to pay right away. No, these bits were to pay for Rarity’s orders from last week, not that Mrs. Cake was sad to see them in the slightest. With her tab mostly clear, a tray with delicious pastries and a deep red glass of juice on them, Rarity went to sit herself at one of the little tables outside. It was a bit chilly, but doing so would leave the tables inside open for other ponies to use.

From her seat there, Rarity observed a light colored mare approach Sugarcube Corner, without so much as a scrap of cloth to keep her warm, walking on rather unsteady hooves. She was accompanied on either side by Rarity’s good friends: Pinkie Pie, and Princess Twilight Sparkle. PTS was looking rather harried, but not so much as the mare who looked positively dreadful. The two were walking close to her sides, so she had somepony to lean on, it seemed. What was most odd about this, is that this new mare had clearly finished her growth spurt, but hadn’t any symbol on her rump.

After Twilight, Pinkie, and whomever had vanished inside the restaurant, Twilight zipped back out the door, coming up entirely too close to Rarity, and saying her name urgently, “Rarity!”

Rarity really should have expected something along these lines.

“I don’t know how to deal with this,” Twilight said frantically to the surprised unicorn, caught halfway through a burnished red cupcake, “You know what to do, right? I’ve never assisted a panhandler before. Is that a normal thing for ponies to do? Is it legal for me to do so? She was falling over on her hooves I’m sorry I didn’t—am I being swindled Rarity? Am I being ‘played for a rube?’”

Rarity stared evenly at Twilight until the princess fell silent, then Rarity levitated the uneaten of her two cakes, saying, “Care for a cupcake, darling?”

Twilight took it in her... hooves, oh dear. She must have been seriously bothered by this. “Twilight,” Rarity said deliberately, “I don’t think this is over some two-bit pan-handler. You seem really upset. What’s got you so worried?”

“Well I didn’t... I don’t usually fall prey to panhandlers,” Twilight said sensibly enough, staring at her cupcake, “I learned my lesson with the whole changeling harvest thing. But um... she seemed really sincere. She wasn’t even trying to get bits from me, really. It was like she was trying not to ask me for help.”

“Perhaps she was playing hard to get?” Rarity offered with a wry smile. “Twilight, don’t worry so much over it. So she’s lying, and got a free meal out of you and... Pinkie Pie, so what? Worse things have happened. Most panhandlers are not mind sucking creatures, after all.”

“But that’s not what’s bothering me!” Twilight protested, taking a nibble of her cupcake. Of course that’s not what’s bothering her, she finally admits it. “What I’m worried about is... um... what if she’s telling the truth?”

Well... ...what? That was... Rarity had no idea what Twilight was getting at here.

“Let me get this straight,” Rarity prompted carefully, “That pony in there claims to be destitute,”

“Uh huh,” Twilight said licking at the last of the icing on her hooves.

“And she entreated you for assistance,” Rarity continued.

“Yup,” Twilight said curtly.

“And you’re worried that she really needs your help?”

Twilight blinked.

“Oh,” Twilight blurted, looking up at Rarity in realization, “Oh! No, it’s not that at all. That mare said she was from an entirely different verse than ours, which is patently ridiculous of course, so I figure she’s just trying to weasel a free meal out of me. But... she seemed really sincere. I dunno, I’m just seeing worldwide crises in everything these days.”

Now it was Rarity’s turn to blink.

“So this... verse is... some kind of combat... poetry?” Rarity ventured uneasily.

“Ugh,” Twilight facehooved. “No, not verse like poetry. Verse like universe.”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever heard the universe referred to as just a... verse before,” Rarity said cautiously.

“No, you haven’t,” Twilight said sadly, then with a bit more fire in her eyes, asserted, “But it should be!”

“I c-c-can’t believe I didn’t n-notice this place,” the cream mare said in amazement, shivering there as she sat on her haunches in Sugarcube Corner, wrapped in a blanket there in front of an indoor dining table. “I m-m-must have walked p-p-past it a dozen times. It looks s-so different from below!”

“I’m just surprised you didn’t notice the smell!” Pinkie Pie said, gesturing around the bakery at the amazing smells in here, feeling a sort of weirdly pitying sympathy for this warming mare. Pinkie was getting the distinct impression that this mare was not what you’d call a normal mare, in a normal situation. And that’s coming from Pinkie Pie.

The mare seemed normal, but there was just something so off about everything she said. Like for instance, when Pinkie continued, “Sugarcube Corner makes the best gingerbread this time of year,” trying to get some understandable response out of this mare. “You can smell it all the way across town!”

The mare turned to Pinkie Pie, eyes filled with gratitude and asked her, “How good is a pony’s sense of smell?”

Pinkie blinked.

“Um... good?” she answered uneasily.

The mare laughed lightly at that, which was good... right? “Sorry, you wouldn’t be the one to ask,” she said enigmatically. Pinkie Pie wasn’t sure whether to feel insulted, or gratified. But there was one thing she was coming to understand. This mare was completely unreadable!

A soft chnk turned Pinkie’s ear behind her, and she said a bit nervously, “Oh hey that sounds like the toaster. Be right back, cutie!”

Then she went bouncing off, while the young mare stared wide-eyed and blushing after her. Instead of scrunchy faced and blushing, like a mare her age should have reacted having been called cutie. Pinkie returned shortly, with a tray that had a nice tall glass of grape juice, and one and a half sizzly hot bagels on it. Pinkie’s was a sesame bagel, with lots of strawberry cream cheese. (Pinkie loved that flavor because it was pink, like her!)

And for the mare... one half of a plain bagel. No cream cheese.

“I know it doesn’t look like a lot,” Pinkie said apologetically, “But pleeeeease take little bites, and eat it really slowly. If you really haven’t eaten in days, you might not be able to eat very much at first, but I promise it gets better.”

“I–I’ll be fine I think,” the mare said uncertainly, “It’s only been a few days, but it was getting really cold out there...”

The mare stared at the bagel like a fox stares at a chicken. Like, a fox who’s reeeally hungry, but really doesn’t want to get his eyes pecked out. Then she went and lifted her hoof, and touched it to the bagel for... some reason? Was she trying to... pick it up?

Pinkie put her own hoof to the mare’s hoof, gently pushing it back down to the floor and saying, “No silly, use your tongue!”

The mare looked up Pinkie’s hoof to regard the pony incredulously, saying, “R-really?”

“Yeah, see?” Pinkie said, picking up her bagel and expertly tossing it in the air, just in time to catch it in her mouth as it descended. “Fee?” she said around the puffy egg dough, “Ish gool!”

The rest of her bagel minus one hearty bite landed neatly on Pinkie’s little plate. Pinkie chewed for a while, but the mare was just staring at her. Why wasn’t she eating too?

“What?” Pinkie said self consciously, looking down at her fluffy pink chest. “I have any cream cheese on me? (Not that you could tell! (giggle-snort))”

The mare just shook her head, as though coming out of a daze and said, “N-nothing. I’ll just... I’ll just um...” and she craned her head down and started picking up the bagel like she was a very young foal, wrapping her lips around its curved edge and taking a clumsy bite.

“Oh! I get it!” Pinkie exclaimed with a light bulb, right when Twilight trotted in the bakery, accompanied by Rarity. “Twilight c’mere! I figured it out!” Pinkie squealed over to her friend.

While Rarity observed the mysterious mare with open curiosity from a bit of a distance, Twilight hurried up. Twilight didn’t address the mare at all, but that’s okay, because addressing the mare was pointless, because the mare was completely focused on the strangely difficult process of keeping the bagel from skipping across the plate, while she tried to take bites out of it. Instead, Twilight addressed Pinkie Pie, saying,

“Oh? Really? What did you figure out, Pinkie?”

“Well I’m telling her, not you,” Pinkie waffled at Twilight, pointing at the uneasy looking pink haired mare, “But you’re free to listen to what good old auntie Pinkie Pie has to say!”

“So... tell her, then?” Twilight asked in a bemused tone, not getting the joke at all. Darn.

“You’re just a little foal, aren’t you?” Pinkie said, stretching her head towards the mare, who of course stiffened when she said that. “You must have found a potion,” Pinkie went on confidently, “Or gotten into some bad magic that made you grow up really fast!”

“That’s... what?” Twilight said, tilting her head at the mare. “Why would you think she’s a—”

“Look at her eat!” Pinkie exclaimed, waving a hoof at the mare who seemed to have gotten a bit of bagel down the wrong pipe with how she was spluttering. “I see ponies eat every day, and she’s eating just like a little foal! And walking like one too, did you see her walking? I thought it was because she was cold, but really it was because she met a secret gypsy fortune telling machine that told her she was gonna be big from now on and we gotta find it so we can switch her back!”

And now the filly in a sort of adult’s body was desperately trying to drink from the glass of juice without much luck, but auntie Pinkie Pie knew just what to do. She cradled the glass in the crook of her hoof, tilting it just enough that the filly/mare could get her nose in there.

She became aware of Twilight’s eyes staring intensely at the mare.

“Of course...” Twilight murmured behind Pinkie Pie. “Of course. That’s it! I didn’t even think about that. It’s... it’s okay little filly, you don’t have to make up stories. You’re not in trouble. I need to go research aging spells, so you hold tight and we’ll have you fixed up in a jiffy!”

“No, wait!” the “mare” gasped out, having finally cleared her mouth with the juice, able to speak again now that her mouth wasn’t full of dry bagel. Because ponies can breathe through their mouths, incidentally. That’s totally a thing. Twilight turned to face that mare again, and Pinkie turned to face Twilight, so she could see Twilight turn to face her. So just to make things clear, Twilight -> mystery mare, Pinkie -> Twilight, mystery mare -> no idea because Pinkie wasn’t looking at her.

“I’m not a...” and now the mare was hesitating to speak, after sounding so urgent about it just a second ago! Pinkie had to break her cool to glance over her back at the mare. Seriously, what is this mare’s deal?

“I’m not a filly...” she said finally. Then, “I’m not supposed to be a p-pony. I... I’m acting like a foal because I’m not used to this... this body. I wasn’t a pony, in the other... verse. Yeah, that’s it.”

“Verse?” Rarity said skeptically, glancing at Twilight. Then she added dryly, “Oh, now you’ve got her saying it, do you?”

“It’s a more accurate terminology!” Twilight protested, much to Rarity’s amusement.

“This is so clichéd...” the mare mumbled into her tilted glass of juice.

“Woo hoo!” Rainbow Dash cheered as she shot through the skies. She really got a lot of momentum out of that trick! ...too much momentum.

Dash began to bank around, but it was really putting a strain on her wings. She needed a cross current or something to... there! She caught her wings on the sharp wind and beat them carefully but firmly, managing to slow down to cruising speed.

“Gotta work on the followup to that one,” she said to herself, as the buildings of Ponyville zipped by below her. Rainbow Dash actually talked to herself a lot, up here. Ponies on the ground would think she was weird for it; you really have to experience it to understand just how big and empty the sky is. Considering the close call just now, maybe it really was time she found somepony to cheer her on today.

Alighting on a low hanging cloud, Rainbow gazed around at the grey expanse above her. Boring. She turned her gaze down to the more interesting movements and activities of the ponies below her. Sitting up here on the cloud, it made Rainbow Dash feel like she was queen of the world. You could see everything from up here. From her best friend’s sleeping apple farm, to the forbidding dark foliage of the Everfree, it was all laid out for Dash, like a cloud city below her, except this city was cold, solid and dangerous.

Just the way she liked it.

Her best friend’s tree library was decked out for the season still. Seemed like Twilight finally caved to Rarity’s insistence that they keep the lights up until after wrapup is over. Dash took a trip down to the library, but it didn’t look like Twilight was in. Rainbow Dash alighted on the balcony and looked around.

Dash didn’t know half a thing about the books in it, but this library sure was a pretty building, especially after the tree got that huge makeover once again courtesy of the awesome power of Friendship. It wasn’t exactly the Crystal Empire, but the broad green foliage had never looked healthier, even peeking out from the snow as it was. The ugly gaping wound that had been left after the thing got blown to kingdom come wasn’t entirely gone, but a beautiful faceted crystal had filled the gap, some sort of carbon crystal Twilight brainy thing that made the tree stronger than ever.

Rainbow poked her nose in the second story balcony door and walked further in, looking around to see if that cute little baby dragon was around. Rainbow Dash found Spike busily reshelving books, not in the crazy over the top way Twilight did it, but actually reshelving the books ponies pulled out to read. “Yo, Spike,” Rainbow Dash said, earning a quizzical look from him. “You seen Twilight around?” she asked. “I wanna show somepony my latest trick, and I kind of could use a spotter.”

“A spotter?” he asked in that high, bright voice of his.

“Yeah, a spotter,” Dash responded, “Like when you’re doing a routine and you know... vvvrroooom,” she swept a hoof through the air dramatically.

Spike didn’t seem to pick up on it, and he just said in a practical tone, “Twilight went out to get some writing supplies. She wants me to stay here, and put all the books away, and keep the library neat and tidy.”

“Well, you’re doing a great job!” Rainbow Dash said, despite how unqualified as she was to say it. “I’m sure you’re gonna make her real proud with what you’re doing.” Spike puffed his chest up proudly at that, and if it were any other pony Rainbow Dash would have had a hard time saying that with a straight face, but Twilight? She really would love it. That pony loved books like Pinkie loved cupcakes.

“Anyway, I’m gonna jet, see if I can catch her at the quillery,” Dash said lazily, then hovered up into the air, leaving Spike to his thing, and swooping right out the balcony window she came in.

Well, Twilight wasn’t at the quillery, but Rainbow Dash got a few more bits off her tab, passing on some of her loose pinions. Rainbow was starting to get puzzled now, because she wasn’t sure where any of her regular friends were. Well, Applejack she had a good idea, but the farm was pretty far from here, and it was an awfully big orchard to canvas. But Rainbow hadn’t seen Rarity, Twilight or Pinkie Pie in the last couple of hours or so. She didn’t want to go bother Fluttershy again.

And in fact, she ended up not running into them until the evening, when Rainbow Dash got done with her afternoon cloud packing and saw Rarity and Twilight down there, walking together, alone.

“Hey!” Rainbow said swooping down to her two favorite unicorn friends. Except one wasn’t a unicorn anymore. “Haven’t seen you ponies all day!”

“We had a bit of a holdup with Pinkie Pie,” Rarity said diplomatically. “But good to see you, Rainbow! I trust we’ll have that snow as planned by morning?”

“It’s all set,” Rainbow said agreeably, landing to trot along with her friends. “So you better get somewhere warm before it gets dark. Anyway, what was the holdup?”

“A very odd mare,” Twilight Sparkle said in a bemused tone. “She seems to think she was teleportaled here from an alternate verse.”

“Like a poem?” Rainbow Dash asked curiously.

“She means universe, dear,” Rarity said patiently.

“It’s not a universe, though!” Twilight protested grumpily. “There’s nothing uni- about it. Why did that terminology ever catch on?”

“It is like a poem if you think on it, Twilight,” Rarity said softly, “If you think of our time on this earth as a poem, if her version was different it would be like a different well, ‘verse’.”

“Universe, verse,” Dash said hastily, “Whatever you call it, are you saying she’s an alien?!”

“We’re not sure,” Twilight said frankly. “The mare only has her word, and her rather troubling state of health to vouch for it. She could be just lying to try and get a warm bed to sleep in.”

“But why would she?” Rarity asked, nonplussed by Twilight’s irritation. “She could get a warm bed simply by asking nicely. Nopony would just leave her out in the cold!”

Rarity paused, looked down at her hoof, and added in a somewhat disgruntled manner, “Almost nopony would leave her out in the cold.”

“Well, I haven’t ruled out time travel,” Twilight admitted, “But it’s pretty clear of one thing. This mare isn’t from around here at all.”

“She knows about the shelter, right?” Rainbow Dash asked, her curiosity piqued. “If she was an alien pony, then maybe she wouldn’t know what a shelter is!”

“She writes with an alphabet I’ve never even seen before,” Twilight told Rainbow passionately. “I wish she could tell me more—I mean, she was exhausted, the poor thing.”

“The poor dear couldn’t put up with Twilight’s questioning, and fell asleep on her own hooves,” Rarity said with a teasing tail flick in Twilight’s direction.

“So, just like any other pony in Equestria?” Rainbow quipped back.

“My lectures are not boring!” Twilight insisted. She didn’t have her heart in being outraged though. She knew they didn’t mean it. “Seriously though,” Twilight said, “I’m a little miffed, but the mare needed sleep almost as much as she needed food. Pinkie’s watching over her for now, but all the rest of us can do is get some sleep ourselves, and ask her more about it when she’s feeling better.”

“Sounds like she was in big trouble,” Rainbow said a little worried. “Was she stuck out in the wilderness or something?”

“Why yes,” Rarity said, “She said that she erm... came out in the middle of the wilderness, unaware of what had happened to her, unaware of how to so much as even walk! Yet somehow she persevered, and pined away for days seeking civilization, before she emerged from the White Tail, with Ponyville in sight! She must have come from hundreds of miles away!”

“Actually, she said she searched for a creek in a spiral pattern, then walked downstream,” Twilight said like she thought she was being helpful. “So if she walked in a spiral path at a good trot for two days straight—”

“I thought she couldn’t walk?” Rainbow Dash interrupted. “How does that work?”

“Oh um, heh...” Twilight blushed, “Well then, at a two day um... vaguely spiral shaped plod, assuming she stayed about QTQ feet away from where she last walked, she could have covered perhaps... um...

“Three miles,” Dash said impatiently, “But there’s plenty of places in the White Tail woods that are that far away from a creek! How are we gonna find where she teleportaled in from?”

“That’s... correct,” Twilight said, giving Dash a curious look, “But that’s assuming she didn’t take any breaks while walking.”

“Two miles then,” Dash grumbled, “That’s even harder to find though!”

“She can’t have been going very fast... and her tracks are probably still good,” Twilight mused worriedly.

“Not with this snow coming up!” Dash protested, pointing at the ominous grey cloud layer.

“Okay, how long do we have before her tracks are covered?” Twilight asked Dash hopefully.

“About an hour, maybe?” Rainbow answered uncertainly. “Look, I can just zip over there and see what’s up.”

“I’ll come with you,” Twilight said with determination. “There might be important magical traces still left behind, and at the very least I can leave a beacon on site.”

“Okay, if you think you can keep up,” Rainbow said, lifting up off the ground. “First one to the woods wins!” She zoomed off then, with the princess in hot pursuit, but Twilight had a long way to go before she thought she could compete with the best. Rainbow wasn’t going to lose but she kept a steady, respectable lead on Twilight. They got to the border of the woods, and Twilight caught up, breathing hard.

“You didn’t hafta push it,” Rainbow winked at her, “I know I’m awesome.”

“I just... don’t want to push my luck... with this snow...” Twilight panted, hovering unsteadily in the air with her still unfamiliar wings. “Let’s find her tracks and get moving.”

Neither Rainbow Dash nor Twilight were expert trackers like Fluttershy, but the tracks of a pony clumsily stumbling through the snow were pretty distinctive. The trail made a beeline for Ponyville upon leaving the woods, and sure enough it left the woods right alongside a partially frozen creek bed. Looking up at the grey sky warily, the two ponies landed, and followed the mare’s trail into the woods. Barely a mile in, the tracks diverted to the left away from the creek bed.

“C’mon!” Dash said, darting down the direction of the tracks. Twilight gallopped after, but they didn’t get so much as a quarter mile before Twilight shouted,

“Stop!”

Dash halted, flapping up into the air to face Twilight saying, “What’s up? You see something?”

“I’ve been observing which way the trail curved,” Twilight stated, “And judging by the curvature, we can just cut across to find where she started from.”

“Okay, cool,” Rainbow said, “Which way, princess?”

“That way,” Twilight pointed a hoof to her right, “Follow me, I know the exact orientation. And don’t call me princess.”

“You got it princess,” Rainbow said, sweeping her hoof out for the princess to pass. Twilight glared at her, but a white flake landed on her nose then, and then she just fluttered up into the air, going above the tree line. Rainbow followed, and she and Twilight soared off across the snow covered tree tops.

Not a few minutes later, Twilight backwinged to a halt saying, “Okay, we need to go on hoof from here.”

“Right,” Dash said, descending down after her friend through a gap in the trees to land in the snow between some sleeping bushes. “Where to now?”

“Should be this way still,” Twilight said, “But I want to catch her trail directly now, since I can only estimate the exact epicenter.”

“Great, so we look around for somepony crashing through the bushes?” Dash said, eyeing the foliage around her. The light was still good, but too much longer and this snow would really start to pick up, and they’d be at a loss for any way to find it.

“Over here!” Twilight shouted, getting Dash’s attention. Zipping over there, the pegasus landed beside Twilight before a trail crunched in the snow. It had a noticeable curvature this time, clearly the mare was canvassing the region trying to find out what’s where. Trotting along through the forest, the two seasoned ponies navigated the bushes, fallen trees, and rocks a lot easier than the one who came here before. The mare had been avoiding difficult terrain anyway, in her search, so it was pretty easy to retrace her hoofsteps.

They reached a spot where there was a thick depression with the snow spread around in all directions to make a sort of hollow. “We’re close,” Twilight said intensely, “This must have been one of the times she rested. Hopefully the first one. If we hurry, we should be able to cover her first day’s walk in an hour.”

Twilight wasn’t exaggerating. It was a little risky maybe, but the two ponies made good time as they dashed through the woods at a fast clip. Jumping over logs, and banking on hills, the flakes of snow dusted off their coats even as they worked themselves up enough that not even the scarves and earmuffs were needed. As Rainbow was more intent on Twilight, and Twilight was more intent on the tracks, Rainbow Dash took the rear, so when Twilight came to a sudden halt, Rainbow almost ploughed headfirst into princess posterior!

“What gives, princess?” Rainbow Dash said irritably. “We gotta move. This snow is getting...”

Then she saw what had made Twilight stop in her tracks.

The silent snow fell down all around them, as together the two ponies walked out into a clearing in the woods. It wasn’t a natural clearing, though. All around it were fallen trees, torn up roots and all. It was like a crater from some giant explosion.

“...woah,” Rainbow Dash said in astonishment, gazing around with wide eyes.

The center of the cleared area had the lightest dusting of snow, but only recently fallen snow, not any accumulated over days before. All that old snow, and much of the soil had been blown away, leaving a smooth, circular depression of blackened earth that the two of them walked into. The smell of soot and ozone was heavy in the air. Twilight spread her wings and stopped again, saying, “Hst! Hold on.”

While Dash clustered beside her, Twilight kicked a stone in front of them. It sparked and hissed as it tumbled in front of them, shrouded in eerie blue bolts of lightning, moving in an erratic path as though it was being knocked around by an invisible hoof.

“I think we found where our mare came into this verse,” Twilight said soberly.

I Said The Journey Ends, Dammit

The Trottingdale Interdimensional Studies Team, colloquially known as Trotwood, were all too happy to provide Twilight Sparkle with copies of the data they had collected, so she really had some numbers to crunch. As far as spatial anomalies go, that one had been quite a doozy. Rosy—er, the traveller had no doubt come from a world far different from their own, possibly with entirely different physical principles!

They weren’t quite as happy to agree to pack up their research equipment and ship out, but there was little they could study without any rift left, and there was little Twilight could do to help with that. The situation had certainly called for the Elements of Harmony, and despite any problems they might have caused, the Elements had been a necessary ev—a necessary act.

So Twilight enjoyed what she had, and wished the Trottingdale students well, and that was that. Finally, for her and her friends, life returned to normal. Rarity had a fabulous reopening sale. Pinkie got to planning more parties than ever. Twilight finally managed to get some sleep. Every critter was almost as happy to see Fluttershy as her poor critter sitter pony was. Rainbow Dash had to work double time to make a lot of rain, to make up for the abnormal days of sun that had been needed over Ponyville to minimize the shadow’s influence and spread. But the season evened out, and the summer was pleasant and warm, heralding a fine crop for the fall season, and a cold winter.

Winter Wrapup came and went with no signs of strangeness, danger or other forms of adventure. The animals awoke, the birds returned, the flowers bloomed and the snow melted. There were still a few of those university students around, but that was hardly unusual. They probably just saw Ponyville as a wonderful place to live and stayed, much like Twilight had done in the past.

Twilight took part in ensuring Wrapup went swimmingly well without an ounce of unicorn magic, with some help from her friends. She kept herself busy keeping Rainbow Dash and Applejack in friendly competition without biting each other’s heads off, helping Rarity and the landscape beatification team focus on quality without fixating on perfection, and demonstrating to Pinkie Pie how Twilight was still a meager ice skater at best, but very good at deciding where to score the lakes, what thin ice to avoid, and how to coordinate everypony moving at once. She... observed Fluttershy and the animal team awakening the hibernating critters, though Twilight still stayed a bit leery of that activity, as not all forest critters were cute, cuddly and adorable.

Spring came, and delicious flowers bloomed all over town, in planters and public and private gardens. Spring was truly a bountiful time for everypony in Equestria, though many of the other animals who could not subsist on grasses and flowers still struggled to feed themselves until the fruit swelled up for harvest. There was no huge crisis though. Fluttershy had even worked out a deal with the fruit bats similar to her rapport with Ponyville’s bunny population, to keep their numbers of little baby bats down to a dull roar, in exchange for help in surviving the fruitless spring.

It was all too soon that the fruit began to ripen and mature, and before you know it, it was a hot summer day, hot enough you could really feel the sunlight on your rear the moment you backed your butt half out of the shade. Even under the thick greenery of the apple trees, Applejack felt the dappled sunlight playing across her back like some kind of a summer symphony of heat and light. The tawny, stetson bearing farm pony was out in her beloved orchards bucking the early apples of the season, when a very familiar mare came trotting down the road from town.

Applejack’s orchard was a big’n these days. Every apple tree was planted with care, because it was a big investment of time and space. 12 years, 13 years, some of the most prized variants took a whole bunch of years to mature, and in all that time, little baby trees weren’t gonna be producing apples. Yet the family always managed to plant more trees than they lost, and the orchard was growing, slowly but surely, into a thing of beauty.

With hundreds of trees in their orchard, there was no way AJ could remember all their names, but there were a few who stood out, either from being ornery like Clyde, or from being sweet as a button, like Susie here. Applejack was pretty sure Susanna Crisp apples were going to be a fresh new strain in a decade or two of quality care. It’d make up for losing Golden Supremes to age and happenstance.

Applejack hopped up and kicked her two strong, orange hooves into the side of the sturdy apple tree, where they slammed with a solid, satisfying thunk. The force travelled up the trunk in an instant, spreading to each of the golden fruits hanging from its branches, and testing the strength of each stem that held them. She made sure to funnel the space above each bucket beforehoof, so the apples cascaded down from all over, but safely poured into her buckets each in a single large heap. Then it was a simple matter to get her buckets up on her back and out to the farm, where they could be used for juice pressing, baked treats, sugar production, and a whole lot of other things.

Lots of effort and knowhow went into the process behind that single buck, Applejack had to admit. She figured it would be at least a bunch of years before she had mastered apple bucking as well as her ma used to do. And little Apple Bloom was just getting started, but she was so smart Applejack figured she’d be bucking with the best of them in a score years at most. It was still a while, but that was okay. They all had plenty of time to learn.

AJ was working quickly to get through the Golden Pie varieties, wanting to get her done before yet another afternoon shower started. Towards the end of Applejack’s tree rows though, she looked down the packed dirt road that led from her farmhouse all the way to Ponyville, and noticed a mare walking along it, headed her way. Before the mare could pass by, Applejack trotted over to the low picket fence that demarcated the road here, leaning on it and saying, “Howdy pardner! Looking to buy some apples?”

The mare who approached had pretty pink hair in a curly swirl that didn’t look like it concealed a horn. Her cream colored coat was a little dirty, but Applejack saw that as a sign of somepony who might be willing to get their flank dirty. The mare had this anxiety in her deep blue eyes that was so familiar! Applejack couldn’t quite place where she’d seen it before, though.

“Oh, hello Applej... Applejack!” the mare said in a sweet voice that made Applejack feel guilty for forgetting where she’d seen her before. “I’m actually not here to buy apples,” the mare said, “I wanted to ask about the um—” Ceasing to speak, the mare then turned to her saddlebags, lipping open the flap on one side and sticking her nose in there. She bit down within and pulled out what looked like a leaflet, one of the leaflets Big Mac had gotten printed lately. It said along the lines of:

HELP WANTED: sorters, truckers, bakers, buckers

SPECIAL: Cider season’s here! Also looking for runners, bottlers, brewers, pressers
(Tasters can get in line just like everypony else.)

•
• How d’ya like them apples?
•
• Ponyville’s finest, here at Sweet Apple Acres!
•
• They don’t just grow on trees though.
•
• Help make the magic happen, and bring about the tastiest darn apples in all the land!
•

If you want to help out, talk to Applejack, Big Macintosh, or Granny Smith

Credit negotiable

“Well how about that,” Applejack said, looking happily at the mouth proferred flyer, “We sure are lookin’ for some help with this year’s cider pressing. It’s not very exciting, but it is good, hard work, if’n you’re interested.”

“Oh yes,” the mare said eagerly, dropping the leaflet, “I’m a big fan of your cider, and um... your farm. So I thought I’d finally just get over myself and come help out!”

“Get over yourself?” Applejack asked uncertainly.

“Oh, um... over my hesitation with helping out,” the mare said, blushing shyly. “Sorry Ap— lady Apple—Applejack, it’s just a little intimidating trying to ask to... work with you.”

Well, Applejack knew what this mare was about, being intimidated by Applejack’s reputation. Lady Apple? Whooee! Poor thing. But AJ still couldn’t put her hoof on it. It was downright uncanny. Where had she seen this mare before?

“So I decided,” the mare continued, regardless of Applejacks inner puzzlement, “With some help from my friends, to try and come help out. It’s been a big dream of mine, for a—a while.”

“Cain’t say no to enthusiasm like that, sugarcube,” Applejack told the mare, giving her a friendly nudge. “Just be here at dawn sharp, we’ll be sure to have something ready for you to do. Cider season starts next Mondee.”

Applejack’s smile became tinged with concern, as she lay a hoof on the mare’s cream colored back, and said, “And sugarcube, I know you might’ve heard I was all famouslike, but ah’m a pony, just like you. We’re both just little ponies like everypony else, and you don’t have to think ah’m anything greater than that. Just Applejack is fine, an’ don’t let anypony tell you differently.”

Applejack backed up then, and said to the mare, “Now, you know mah name clearly enough, so let’s have yours?”

“R-Rosy,” the mare said shyly, daring a worried look at Applejack, “Rosy Pink.”

“Rosy Pink!” Applejack declared in surprise, “That’s why you seemed so familiar! Put her here, pardner!”

As Applejack gave Rosy’s creamy hoof a good shake, the orange farm pony continued, “Ah haven’t seen you in a dragon’s age, not since that shadow beast back in the early spring. Didn’t you get sent back with ‘em?”

“Oh, n-no,” Rosy stated with a light of fear in the back of her eyes. “I w-w-was out of to-o-o-own,”

“Turribly sorry about that,” Applejack said, continuing to shake the mare’s hoof. “We meant to send you back home’re something.”

“T-t-t-tha-a-a-at’s oka-a-ay,” Rosy said, around the—oh... right.

Applejack let Rosy’s hoof loose.

“The Elements must’ve closed off the only way you had to go home,” Applejack said with concern to the pony who was trying to wrangle her hoof to stillness now, “Ah could go ask Twilight if you need help gettin’ back?”

“That’s okay, Applejack,” Rosy said, calming her hoof and standing on it firmly. “I was hoping to spend some more time here, anyway.”

“Well, if’n you do Rosy Pink, ah’d be mighty grateful if you helped with the cider making,” Applejack said amiably.

“Thanks, Applejack,” the mare said with a look of blessed relief. “It really means a lot to me.”

“So... you’re game?” Applejack asked.

Rosy nodded with a beaming smile, “I’m game!”

“Just show up at dawn when cider season starts,” Applejack said, “If we get her done early, ah might even be able to show you a few apple buckin’ tricks!”

The squee was audible as Rosy’s smile spread to her cheeks. “Oh that would be—!” she said in excitement, catching herself and blushing before calmly continuing, “I mean, yes, I’ll be there. Three days, right?”

“Until Mondee, yup,” Applejack replied.

Rosy giggled, saying in an indulgent voice, “Mondee, hee hee. I love your accent, Applejack.”

“What accent?” Applejack asked in confusion.

Rosy blinked at her.

“When you say eee in Mondee,” Rosy said very uneasily, “And I say ayyy in Monday?”

“Oh, mah manner of speakin’!” Applejack realized. She kicked out a hoof, crooking it confidently in front of the other, saying, “Yeap, the Apple family goes way back. We been cultivatin’ our manner of speech for generations. They say ah sound just like mah old great grand aunt Apple Top.”

“How did you learn to speak that way?” Rosy asked curiously.

“Learn it?” Applejack replied at the very unusual question. “You don’t learn a manner of speakin’,” she chided the mare. “Ah inherited it, just like everypony else. Mine is from good ol’ granny Apple Top. Not sure bout before that. But mah sister’s is from an Apple known as Applebud, who hailed from way back before Ponyville’s founding!”

The mare seemed extremely nonplussed at this terribly ordinary thing. Not like she was impressed that Apple Bloom’d be lucky to have such a rich heritage, but like she wasn’t sure that anything she saw in front of her snout made any sense anymore. Hoof lifting and everything!

“...you can inherit an accent,” Rosy said cautiously.

“That’s right,” Applejack responded equally cautiously.

“You were born with it,” she continued.

“Once you start speakin’, yup.”

The mare put her hoof down and stared forward at nothing, saying, “I... I have to think about that. Thanks for...” she focused on Applejack and gave a genuine smile, saying, “Thanks so much for the job, and for telling me that.”

“No problem Rosy, at least ah don’t think there is,” Applejack said giving her a sideways glance.

“No! No problem at all,” Rosy said with a happy little kick of her legs. “I really do thank you very much! Oh I’m so happy I could just burst! I can’t wait to go tell Goldenrod about this!”

Thinking a moment, Applejack said, “That’s Golden Harvest’s cousin, ain’t it?”

“Yup,” the mare said in good cheer. “She was the one who told me it’d be o-okay to talk to you, and nothing bad would happen. Thank you so much Applejack. I’ll be back... on... Mondee! Hee hee!” Rosy about bounced away back up the road then, singing to herself a wordless song that Applejack’d never heard before.

Applejack was starting to remember why Rosy wasn’t so much fun to be around.

Well, fun or no fun, Rosy started working on Applejack’s farm, and doing a pretty good job at it too. She’d been building her strength all year it turns out, doing delivery jobs and hauling things, and that gave her a good start. She was still pretty scrawny at first, for an earth pony at least, but she filled out quickly, and there was just nothing that could get that girl down. Chores she treated more like sightseeing tours, or something, and she had to rest a lot, but she always went back into it with an admirable enthusiasm. Rosy was just so much in love with the simple sensation of feeling herself alive and moving, that she kept doing better and better.

Their second hired hoof, Bubblegum Blossom, was more of a straightforward pony. Easy enough to understand, if a little aggravating at times. She was more interested in eating the apples than bucking them, which was fine when you needed ponies to eat your apples, but she certainly wasn’t living up to her potential with bucking them. Applejack could tell Bubblegum had an eye for detail though. She only worked in the spring, and during harvest season really. She seemed like a lazy sort of pony who spent a lot of time ditzing around town and goofing off, but she never went under quota. She did the exact minimum amount of work needed and then popped off to enjoy her life. Certainly not Applejack’s style; living on the edge like that made Bubblegum weak to schedule changes and unexpected happenings, but Applejack wouldn’t call her a lazy pony.

Their other regular Ponyville farm worker went by the name of Vanilla Sweets. Her family hailed from way down south, right underneath the course of the sun’s path. The pale green pony came up north to beat the heat, just one of those ponies who didn’t thrive in it. She came out to help in the fields around Fall and Winter, spending most of the summer living it up and partying. Applejack honestly wasn’t a real fan of her, Vanilla’s idea of a good time was a colt and a show, neither of which Applejack had time for in her life right now. Vanilla did have the cutest little manner of speaking though, from an old Andalusian lost in the mists of time. Or an “accent” if you went by how Rosy called it.

Really Vanilla was what Applejack would expect Rosy to be, what with Rosy’s time spent with that mysterious otherworldly theater production, the one that somehow duplicated the lives of Applejack and all her friends up till now. But for Vanilla, some light frippery like a club and a movie was an escape, while for Rosy it seemed more like a prison to escape from. Rosy wanted to be in the here and now, which Applejack found herself able to respect... a lot.

There was a third pony working with Granny in the kitchen now, an Apple by the name of Apple Fritter, who was a real whiz at that stuff, but Applejack didn’t know her as well, since Applejack spent most of her time out in the fields. Applejack could still bake with the best of them, but her home within her home was out among the verdancy of her orchard, kicking trees and knocking down their apples, while deep in the earth, her tastiest brews took care of themselves. Thus, most of the interaction Applejack had was with Rosy and Vanilla then, and Bubblegum to a degree.

Applejack sure appreciated the help that the ponies of Ponyville gave her, a lot more than she had in past years. That disastrous Applebucking season so many moons ago had shown Applejack the error of her ways, and now she had Rosy and Bubblegum, and Vanilla Sweets helping clear out the trees. That meant plenty of apples for all the sugar Pinkie Pie could possibly want, all the cider Rainbow Dash could drink, and time left over to tend to the grain crops like wheat and alfalfa. Applejack didn’t deal in root vegetables, but mostly because that was Goldie’s thing, and it did both of them a favor to specialize in what they’re best at, and share the extra wealth they made.

Applejack kind of started to get what was going on with Rosy after a while. She was a lot like Pinkie Pie, with a hair trigger on her emotions, and a surprising amount of intuition that made her prone to crazy leaps in logic. In comparison with Pinkie Pie, Applejack could sort of understand where Rosy was coming from. Applejack got the feeling that Rosy truly, genuinely loved helping other ponies out; she treated it more like a gift than an obligation to do so. Lots of ponies didn’t understand that they weren’t just helping others with the expectation of help in return, but also because it made life a better place to live. If Rosy understood that, Applejack had to respect her. Even if she did have some freakily accurate stories about Applejack’s childhood.

“Sorry about calling you Apple Fritter,” Rosy said once, as she and Applejack both lay on their backs, relaxing on a grassy hill, faces flushed and muscles burning from a whole lot of apple bucking and hauling, respectively. (Applejack did all the bucking. Rosy was certainly not going to learn to buck the fruit off a tree in just half a year.) “I didn’t get you mixed up with the real one. It was just a really bad joke. Y-you told Apple Bloom the story, so I thought it would be okay to tell you um... sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Applejack said perhaps not merely flushed with exertion, “That story ain’t such a big secret, just we usually keep it in the family. It’s just one of those embarassin’ things your granny likes to bring up at awkward times.”

“I wonder how Apple Fritter got her name,” Rosy pondered, “She was born eating apple fritters too?”

“What’re you talking about?” Applejack asked, slightly offended. “Apple Fritter was born just like anypony else, from her ma!”

“O-oh, right” Rosy said, lowering her ears, “Right, we... mares actually do that. I guess they just name their um... foals then, when they come... out of them.”

“Eyup?” Applejack said, her tail scrunching close at Rosy’s choice of words. Corn gravy but did that filly have some anxiety about foaling. Applejack could sympathize, to a degree. She sure couldn’t imagine herself going through something like that. Well... not outside of a pleasant fantasy at least. It just wasn’t practical now, if ever.

“Mommas name their foals,” Applejack said cautiously. “Not sure what you’re getting at exactly.”

“Well, if I were your mom,” Rosy said with a nervous laugh, “I wouldn’t want you to be called Apple Fritter. It’d be too confusing to have two of you with the same name!”

“Ah reckon it would be,” Applejack said frankly, kind of desperate to change the subject at this point. “Don’t you worry though, Rosy Pink,” she said with a hearty back slam, “Ah’m stickin’ with Applejack through and through, and if you wanna know why, you just wait until cider season. Ah can make a brew that’ll flip your tail!”

Applejack internally facehooved at the terrible choice of words that kept spilling out of her mouth now that Rosy got her all flustered about foals and stuff.

Rosy herself was kinda quiet and wide eyed at Applejack’s words, before asking in a small voice,

“Equestria has whiskey?”

Applejack said defensively, “Ah didn’t mean t’imply—” then what Rosy said actually registered on her. “...whiskey?” Applejack asked in a cautious tone.

“I-it’s a kind of fermented drink, that’s been distilled—” Rosy started to explain, looking oddly ill as she did so.

“Ah know what whiskey is,” Applejack said, rolling her eyes. “And yes, we do make whiskey here.”

Rosy just looked stunned at that. What’s her holdup about whiskey now? Applejack was glad for the change of subject away from one’s marely duties though.

“Brandy to be specific,” Applejack said smartly to the shocked farmhand, “It’s real popular in the cold months for warmin’ the extremities. Good for the digestion too, and land sakes if’n it don’t make a pony silly now and again. Ain’t nothin’ like that sissy wine stuff.”

“Sissy wine stuff?” Rosy asked weakly.

“Yeah, wine tastes different, but it really ain’t no different than juice,” Applejack replied, “Keeps forever, and someponies like the aged stuff, but it’s only got trace amounts of alcohol. If’n you want to actually feel anything, you gotta distill th’ spirits outta it.”

“So... wine can’t make you drunk?” Rosy asked in peculiar hesitancy.

“Sure cain’t,” Applejack replied curiously, “Why? Is wine differn’t in your world?”

“I’m not sure,” Rosy said uneasily, staring at the forehooves she had curled above her from where she lay.

Rosy did amazing at cider season actually. Rosy sure did have some good earth pony heritage in her, even if Applejack didn’t exactly understand how that translated to becoming a pony out of the blue. So the cider press went swimmingly, and that gave Big Macintosh a chance to buck some apples, which freed up Applejack to fill the barrels, which freed up Apple Bloom to learn the ins and outs of the scent of a good cider apple.

Applejack could’ve used some tutelage there herself, but it made her feel good to know that Apple Bloom would learn how you put the sour apples that aren’t the best for eating through the cider press, and that’s what gave the juice its signature bite, and helped it keep longer. But not too sour or you get green tasting stuff.

Cider season came and went, and once again this year, Applejack wished that those salesponies that one time had been selling something more than horn oil, but even making cider the old fashioned way, the family managed to satisfy most of the population of Ponyville, thanks to the helper ponies from around town like Rosy and Vanilla.

Rosy wanted to stay on after that, build up her reputation as a farm worker, and for good reason. She seemed to love the simple acts that most ponies took for granted. Just running was a joy to this mare, and she was beyond fascinated with the kinetics of apple bucking, even if she couldn’t direct her force to get more than one or two apples at a time. Plus she was extremely curious about Applejack’s special brew, and Applejack didn’t start selling that until later in the autumn seasons. So Rosy stuck around, and they all grew closer together.

“Welp, bottoms up!”

It was to be expected, but Rosy lost her first shot, gasping and spluttering at the touch of the fiery liquid. Applejack made sure to catch the glass before she dropped it. Rosy was still clumsy as a foal with her hooves it seemed.

Vanilla snickered, while Applejack said, “Good try, Rosy.”

“Didn’t expect it would—glah—burn so much,” Rosy replied, teary eyes squinted and tongue out.

“You need to sip it slowly,” Vanilla Sweet specified.

The three of them were down in the cellar, where the products of Applejack’s distillery were busily aging. There was a little tasting area set up, and to start off sales, AJ decided to break open a 2 year bottle and share it with the workers, especially Rosy who said she’d never even touched alcohol before. Pouring a touch of brandy in Rosy’s glass again, Applejack let the bottle out of her mouth and hoofed Rosy the glass, saying, “Go on, let’s see you try sipping it slowly. Don’t be afraid to sniff it neither. It ain’t just the smell of alcohol.

“Oh, it smells... woody?” Rosy said curiously. She was more careful with the second glass, delicately tipping its contents into her mouth.

“It is good for smelling and swallowing,” Vanilla said, looking into her own glass thoughtfully, “But perhaps not for tasting.”

“Ah dunno, you kinda get used to the taste after a while,” Applejack said, swigging the last of hers. “It’s th’ sour apples meeting with the alcohol what gives it that strong taste.”

They made conversation while they finished off the bottle. About Vanilla’s homeland, which like just about everything, Rosy was fascinated in. They had enough for roughly a dozen shots for each of them, so they were all definitely beginning to relax and warm up after the bottle was empty.

Applejack was feeling a pleasant buzz certainly, relaxed on a hay bale next to Rosy Pink. “Pretty satisfyin’ huh?” she asked the brandy neophyte.

“Ha ha yeah, I’d be so blitzed if I wasn’t a pony,” Rosy said cheerfully, with cheeks as rosy as her name. “So this’s A-Applejack, huh?”

“It sure ain’t marsh water,” Applejack replied smugly.

Rosy gave her a slow look, and asked, “So, you chose the name Applejack?”

Applejack nodded and replied, “Yup. This distillin’s kinda mah thing, so ah think the name fits. It’s a better name than Applebuck, at any rate.”

Rosy laughed saying, “Oh yeah, totally. I love your name, it’s so clever!”

“Suppose so,” Applejack said modestly. “You thought on a different name, yet?”

“Nah, Rosy is actually really good,” Rosy said nonchalantly, “Though I can’t use Rosy Stripes since I don’t gotta stripe in my hair. Maybe Rosy... Cheeks?”

Vanilla found that one terribly amusing.

“Think on it long as you want,” Applejack said. “Long as you’re here, I’ll stick with whatever name you wanna change it to.”

“What was your name, before you were Applejack?” Rosy asked curiously.

Applejack bit her lip at that, resisting the urge to turn her hat down. “Well it was just th’ name mah folks gave me, on account of mah color and all,” she said noncommitally.

“So I’m curious,” Rosy said, rolling limply onto one side to regard the tawny orange pony. “I can’t even imagine you as anything but Applejack. What was it, if it’s not too much trouble?”

Applejack blushed, looking the other way as she said in a subdued tone, “Uh... Pippin. Orange Pippin.”

After a mite, Applejack risked a look at Rosy, whose blue eyes were wide and glimmering as she exclaimed, “That. Is so. Adorable!”

Before Applejack could respond, she was double teamed by Vanilla Sweets, saying on her other side, “Oh, Applejack! You used to be a little pequeño Pippin? That is so sweet!”

“I can’t believe they didn’t use that!” Rosy agreed with a bright smile at Vanilla, “Orange Pippin’d be a perfect name for such a cute little foal!”

“Ah knewd there was a reason ah never told anypony about this,” Applejack groaned, burying her face under her hat.

It was only later that Applejack realized that—in fact—she had never told anypony about that. No reason other than it was embarassing and not really relevant, but it was still true. Applejack really wondered about Rosy. Beyond her “show knowledge” that she let slip at times, she just had a way for bringing out a pony’s secrets, and uncovering what they might have rather left behind.

Rosy was a good pony though, and a hard worker, so Applejack really had no complaints, and Apple Bloom loved Rosy to pieces, what with sharing a common unquenchable curiosity for the strangest things. Granny warmed up to her too after a while, and Rosy never took advantage of that trust.

Yep, everything was fine and dandy, until Applejack made the harebrained mistake of actually talking to her crazy librarian friend.

“And Ponyville’s never been in better hooves,” Applejack said while she had a cup of maple mocha with Twilight at the local Hayburger. “All our applebuckin’ is done, and there’s gonna be a bumper crop of hay for all sorts of delectables over the winter. And let me tell you, the maple leaves were looking mighty green. That means more sweet, sweet syrup now that they’re goin’ to sleep for the long night.”

“I am so enjoying the autumn weather,” Twilight Sparkle said fondly over her own hot, sugary drink, “This’s my favorite season really. Maple syrup, the Running of the Leaves, all the trees turning beautiful colors. Everything getting nice and quiet and restful. Nothing like a brisk autumn wind, to make you appreciate a warm fire and a good book.”

“I do have you to thank though,” Applejack replied to Twilight’s blushingly adoring description of the season. “Without you, ah’d still be bucking all those trees with just Big Macintosh, and we’d be hard pressed to even get the tree taps in the maples by the turning of the leaves. The help this year’s been more than worth it, even if they aren’t all Apples. Especially Rosy, heh.”

“Why especially?” Twilight asked with an amused smile. “Who’s Rosy?”

“Well, most ponies who help on the farm come from Ponyville,” Applejack said, “An’ last year when Vanilla came from so far south, I thought that was a pretty wild thing to do. But Rosy comes from so far away, it don’t even show up on the map!”

Twilight almost choked on her milkshake.

“What?” Twilight said, in the confusion of a pony who knows what she heard, but her thoughts are spinning so fast she can’t make any concrete observations yet.

“Yep, you know that mare of yours?” Applejack said smugly, “The one from the other verse place? She weren’t even in town when we let the Elements loose, so she got to stay in Equestria! Now she’s livin’ here and helpin’ on the farm even. Why ah don’t—”

“Where is she?!” Twilight blurted out anxiously.

Applejack blinked. “...Rosy, you mean? Ah think she’s been livin’ in town?”

“She’s been... what?” Twilight said, bug eyed.

“Look, she didn’t want me to trouble you with it, on account of she’s gonna be stayin’ here for a while after all,” Applejack said crossly. “There’s no need to be gettin’ all upset over it. What’s the problem here?”

“We need to go to the Rift site,” Twilight stated, jumping up from her unfinished milkshake. “Right. Now.”

From behind the canvas tape demarcating the impact crater, a metallic boom arm swung with a delicate apparatus fixed to it. From it, a beep sounded out at irregular intervals, as part of it bloomed and shrank in size as if passing behind a distorted lens. On the ground, the base of the instrument was adorned with dozens of very important colored lights, and a continuous ticker spat out line after line of readings fed from within by a thick roll of gossamer tempaper. A grey pony with blue hair stood by the readout, watching it carefully and occasionally scratching out a note on the clipboard floating in her blue magic.

The whole crater had been stocked liberally with research equipment and trailers. Next to hers, a pony with a hard hat and a test tube story mark was busily carrying a quartz harmonator on his back, placing it at 22 degrees north by northwest of the central anomaly, flipping a switch to recalibrate it. Another young green stallion strutted past the center of the crater, where an opaque, silvery egg shape was suspended, thin legs on all sides bracing it against the grassy soil underneath and holding it up. The antennae on top of the structure continuously transmitted readings to the nearby receiving station outside the spatial distortion zone, where in a small building, ponies busily adjusted knobs and dials and joked with each other:

“I wonder what the humans are up to today.”
“Let’s hope it’s not a hurricane, ha!”
“Let’s check their weather report. Can you get a visual on the local paper?”
“Sunny skies, it says, but you know how clueless they are about that sort of thing.”
“I can’t believe they still use barometers!”

A purple pony princess charged into the clearing, skidding to a halt at the sight of the equipment, and the ponies, and the tents, and the buildings, and the closely grazed fields, and the persistent spatial anomalies, and the friendly chatter, and the irregular beeping noise coming from somewhere, and shouted at the top of her voice, “What the hay is going on here?”

Silence descended on the clearing. Everypony stopped what they were doing, and turned to look at the princess. Ears went low, tails drooped. The only sound that could be heard was an irregular but persistent beeping.

“Busted...” somepony finally said.

“I can’t believe you would do this!” Twilight stated angrily at the closest she could find to a leading researcher of this mess. “How could you not inform any of the princesses that the Rift was still open?”

“We didn’t think there’d be a need for formal inquiry,” said the stallion known as Dr. Harness. While the brown haired, blue furred professor spoke with Twilight, everypony around them was busy scrambling to dismantle and cart away all this fascinating scientific... frippery! “We had the situation under control,” he said, “And a perfectly good research grant.”

“Which I wouldn’t have granted if I’d have thought you were going to hide this from me!” Twilight countered with a hoof stomp. “What were you even thinking, trying to sneak this by me. Do you even realize how terrible this is?”

The glum researchers and students were now under strict supervision from Canterlot, soldiers watching them carefully as they cleaned up their research equipment, shipping it off in pegasus carriers. How the ponies here were going to dismantle the semi-perminent facilities they’d constructed around this clearing, Twilight had no idea, but frankly she didn’t care. Of all the callous things to do!

“What were we supposed to do?” the professor exclaimed, glaring at her with cold blue eyes. “You couldn’t stop going on about how great it was that you closed the Rift. You wanted us to tell you huh? Well now you know, and look what good it’s done! The first thing you do when you find out about us, is shut us down!”

Twilight couldn’t believe what he was forcing her to admit to. Was she really doing this? Telling other ponies not to study and learn? But it was wrong to study this and learn that! This wasn’t a sensible, rational, predictable state of affairs at all! It caught Twilight Sparkle completely on her haunches, and it had been going on behind her back for how long?!

“How can you act like this is a good idea? Don’t you know what’s at stake here?” Twilight asked in anguish.

“Another world!” he roared in return. “Another completely different universe, with mysterious ties to our own! Don’t tell me you weren’t curious about it? And now you’re just going to cut us off from a literal entire world of opportunity?”

“No, that’s... not it,” Twilight said, chewing on a strand of mane fussily. “What is at stake,” she said tensely, “Is a traveller who has come to our world, and you stranded her here! You’re keeping her from reuniting with her family!”

“She’s hardly complaining about it,” he said in a very unconvinced tone, curling his brown tail noncomittally over his dumb blue hiney.

“Just because she’s not complaining doesn’t mean she’s not suffering,” Twilight said angrily. “You don’t understand what it’s like to lose your home, and your family!”

“Do you?” he asked with raised eyebrows.

“Well... no,” Twilight had to admit, “But it’s really bad! This is objective fact!” she said with a definitive stomp.

“You’re making a mistake closing us down,” he replied darkly. “There’s so much we could do for this world, one mare just doesn’t—”

“She’s a traveller,” Twilight repeated patiently. “From a strange land, distant from our own. She has to return to where she came! You’ve seen legends like that come to pass. Haven’t you heard the tale of Tornadorthy?”

“Not everypony has the good luck to have their life full of adventure like you, Princess,” he said. “Some of these students have hardly been out of the house, and this is their first chance at something really exciting!”

“Well, I’ll tell you what’s exciting: all of Equestria in peril because we forced a traveller to never finish her story,” Twilight replied acidly. “How long before something else came through that rift? Do you know how dangerous the Void can be?”

“We had it under control, Princess,” he said wearily. “The containment chamber is specifically enchanted against incursions, and after the shadow incident, we installed measuring instruments that could detect any sign of Outsiders.”

“Well, it’s good you did that,” Twilight said, “And that’s probably why we haven’t had a total disaster... yet. But I’m afraid the party’s over. You have plenty of data collected from this... other world, and it’s time to reunite Rosy with her family again. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of other opportunities for dimensional incursions in the future.”

“From the Void yes, but this is a coherent world!” he protested. “Somepony came through to us. This isn’t just the story of a mare stranded in a strange land—well I suppose it is, but it’s still a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence!”

“It’s not something that’s supposed to happen,” Twilight insisted sensibly. “You’re not supposed to study things that aren’t supposed to happen. This doesn’t belong in our world at all. Yes I do agree it’s something I’ve never seen before, and I don’t like it!”

Twilight paused, and brushed at her coat with a hoof saying more calmly, “And what I like isn’t a concern here. What is a concern is getting Rosy reunited with her family, and returning the world to its proper balance, where everything is as it should be. Yes we will lose the Rift, but no amount of weird, different world stuff is worth risking all of Equestria over. You know what’s in the Void?”

“Frankly... no,” he said. “This is my first chance to study it. But I can assure you that—”

“Well, I’ve read extensively on the subject, especially once the traveller came over, and you should have done so yourself,” Twilight said. “One of you should have realized. As it states in Deranged Dweomer’s Dimensional Diatribe, everywhere that is a world is not the Void, and the Void is everywhere that is not a world. Consider that there might be a reason the Void is not a world. There are things which cannot exist in our world, that by existing would destroy it utterly. They don’t exist obviously, because our world is still intact, and has been so for uncountable ages.”

She mentally flipped a page and continued. “These world ending catastrophes don’t exist in any other world, either. Because if they did, then there would be no world to exist. But the Void is everywhere that is not a world. Literally anything can be in there. Something that could unravel our world into complete nothingness could be found in the Void. That is why it is absolutely forbidden to travel in it, and why things that come from it are so violent and dangerous. Refer to page bee—” she coughed.

“I think my point is fairly clear,” Twilight said, recovering her original mental checklist. “The Void is dangerous. We need the traveller to return to her world, just as if she’d been washed up on a distant shore. She had her adventure, she learned her lesson, and you all prevented her speedy return to the life she knows. I can provide you with grants for any number of subjects you can study that don’t involve world shattering danger. Have you considered studying paleopony history? Or how about a good biography? Clearmark the Fearless is a particularly good—”

“Yes, I’ll be sure to check it out from the library,” he interrupted in an acerbic tone, “I think we’re done here. I told you what’s what, and you just have to draw your own conclusions from that. But for your sake, I hope you’re right princess. I don’t know how I’d live with myself if I let an opportunity like this pass me by because I was afraid of it.”

“I’m not afraid of it,” Twilight insisted firmly.

He didn’t even dignify that with a response.

Twilight left that conversation flustered, and somewhat troubled. She knew she was in the right, right? She could objectively prove that all her salient points had been fully valid and in accordance with ethical research, and Equestrian Harmony. These research students just didn’t know how the world worked. They hadn’t seen an adventure, so they didn’t know that the proper resolution was to return home, and be safe from peril. Twilight was in the right here.

Still, she hated seeing all the disappointed, and even disgusted looks on the ponies’ faces. Like they resented what she was doing, and somehow as if they pitied her.

Well, Twilight didn’t need any pitying. She was just fine the way she is. She was a successful princess and graduate from Equestria’s highest institution, and she knew what she was talking about. Rosy’s quest resolution was somewhat delayed, but with swift, decisive action, once again everything would be back to normal, and everything would make sense again.

“Ah dunno about you, but I’ll be glad to have this behind me,” Applejack said, as part of a four and three ponies, who could be found trotting along through the White Tail Woods. “Ah had no idea you were pining for home so badly, Rosy.”

“Well, I wasn’t really all that much,” said a pink-haired cream colored mare who’d taken the name of Rosy Pink. “But I know how you feel, and... Equestria hangs in the balance, right?”

“Equestria hangs in the balance way too much, in my opinion,” Twilight Sparkle groaned. “But yes, a nice side effect of you passing through the Rift will be ensuring the safety of Equestria from otherworldly invaders, like the thing that was going after pony’s shadows.”

“R-right... that,” Rosy said, staring closely at the ground as she plodded along reluctantly.

“Aww, cheer up miss grumpy-pants,” Pinkie Pie said ineffectually, bouncing beside the worried mare. “I’m sure your family will love to see you again, even though you’ve been gone for so long that the snow is on the ground again again, and we’re all dressing really warmly. You won’t be able to keep the scarf, by the way.”

“Yes, I...” the mare smiled despite herself, tugging at the thick wool scarf around her neck. Personally horn knitted, of course. “I know,” she laughed. “It’ll be fine I’ll just... it’ll be fine.”

“You sure didn’t seem like you would be fine earlier,” Rainbow Dash said suspiciously, fluttering beside the mare and squinting at her. “You’ve been trying to dodge us bringing you here for weeks! If I hadn’t found you just now, I think you would have forgotten to show up today!”

“Oh, I just... you know, I just wanted to stay a little bit longer,” Rosy said, blushing with embarassment. “I’m not trying to hurt you um... ponies or anything. I just wanted to... just enjoy it a little. Live it up, you know?”

“You know you just spent th’ past week hauling away old, dead crops, right sugarcube?” Applejack asked uncertainly. Rosy just shrugged at that.

Fluttershy said nothing.

“Now now Applejack, one mustn’t judge another pony’s pastimes,” Rarity said coyly to her orange friend. “You can’t possibly understand my amount of enjoyment from an afternoon at the spa, after all.”

“Ah could have enjoyed it just fine,” Applejack replied grumpily. “I just liked fixin’ things better.”

“And... if Rosy enjoys, um...” Rarity paused, looking to Rosy for affirmation. “What was it you enjoyed again?”

Rosy looked at Rarity with a confused expression, but then her eyes cleared and she said, “Ponies. I think I like ponies in general. E-even pulling out the... the dead melon vines, it didn’t hurt to pull them out, and I was hardly even breaking a sweat pulling the cart. The pile was taller than my head! I just like being a... being a pony, I guess.”

“Well, as much as you appreciate the better qualities of ponyhood, such as... pulling out old melon vines,” Rarity said touchily, “I’m sure you’ll be happy to finally return home, reunite with your friends and family, and save our world on top of it!”

Rarity seemed troubled, as Rosy muttered something noncommital and looked away from them again. It was clearly because the dressmaker simply didn’t know how to deal with a mare who acted so strangely. Rarity didn’t have to worry though. Twilight had this all under control.

“I’m truly grateful for your help, Rosy,” Twilight said cheerfully, the princess strutting at the front of the group looking purposefully forward. “Equestria will be forever grateful that you returned home and saved us all from destruction.”

“Is it really going to—to destroy Equestria?” Rosy said in a very conflicted tone of voice.

Pondering, but not looking back, Twilight Sparkle said, “Well, it’s not like Equestria has been destroyed before, so it’s hard to have a good estimate for what would destroy it. But I am one hundred percent sure that the solution to all our problems is as simple as you stepping through the Rift, and returning to your home world.”

“Of course it is,” Rosy grumbled under her breath. “I just wish there was some other way,” she said a little louder, a little more troubled. “I wish that rift would just...”

Fluttershy’s hoof trembled, as she held herself away from laying it on Rosy’s back.

Rosy noticed Fluttershy’s involuntary approach though, and smiled sadly at the butter colored pegasus. “Guess I won’t be coming over for tea after all,” she said to her.

Fluttershy shrank back at that, tears coming to her eyes even at the thought of responding. Who said Fluttershy even had any right to speak to Rosy? Why was Rosy such a nice, pleasant, friendly mare? And Fluttershy was just a... a somepony who didn’t deserve anything good. Fluttershy wanted... Fluttershy was afraid to speak.

“It’s no problem,” Rosy said with a nervous smile. “I mean, I... get to go home, right? See my parents maybe. And my brother. And I guess f-find a place to work again and...” she kind of trailed off into a squeak in a manner Fluttershy rarely got to observe from an outside perspective. Looking away from Fluttershy and just staring forward apprehensively as she trotted forward, Rosy was not doing a good job of making it seem like it was no problem.

Applejack ran right into Rosy’s pink tailed rear end when the pink haired mare stopped frozen at the crater’s edge. “Whoops, sorry about that,” Applejack said, taking off her hat and backing up from Rosy’s behind. Rosy didn’t answer, just stepped forward stiff legged into the snowy bowl that was the remains of the strange crater she’d emerged from one day so long ago. Applejack wasn’t sure what that meant, but she went along with it anyway.

The silver containment chamber had been unlocked, and moved off to the side for the purposes of this event. There were a few worker ponies there, to keep the facilities prepped for Rosy’s arrival today. As a whole, they still seemed pretty disgusted with Twilight, yet also a little relieved that she actually showed up this time, without Rosy being absent again. Twilight found that punctuality did wonders for difficult pony-pony relations!

The workers trotted off as soon as Twilight and her friends arrived, leaving the Bearers to manage things. The half dozen stood by, three on each side of the Rift, while Rosy faced it alone. True to its nature, the central anomaly glowed and swelled upon her approach. It was only a tiny wormhole at the start, but once it came to her to restore the balance, it would become a full fledged portal, through which Rosy would return to her home, and the world’s balance would be restored.

Rosy approached it, while the Element bearers stood alongside it and faced her encouragingly. The Rift blossomed and spread. It distorted space as if you were looking into a crystal clear mirror, but there was no reflection of a pony in that mirror. Instead, there was another world.

There was an apartment, that looked straight out of Manehattan, except that it had broad yellow caution tape wrapped around everything, and all the furniture appeared to be covered by sheets of some sort. There was no one to be seen within, though the university ponies had gotten a good look at these strange, bipedal creatures from their surveying spells that could fit through the collapsed rift. It looked kind of like what you’d expect from a crime scene, perhaps understandable considering the nature of Rosy’s departure from that land. Rosy didn’t look at it so much with recognition though. Nor did she look at it with shock and worry, at seeing the consequences of her ill fated dimensional dislocation.

Rosy stared at it like it was a death sentence.

“Well, anything you want to say before you go?” Twilight asked with an pleased smile. She was unnerved as all heck by this thing right beside her, and possibly by this thing in front of her calling itself Rosy, too. But at last, Rosy’s story was about to be concluded, and everypony got a happy ending. It truly warmed Twilight’s heart to see everything coming together like this. Even if this darn portal felt like sandpaper on a blackboard to stand next to.

“Just um...” Rosy said, pulling her gaze away from the gleaming, eerily silent portal, to look at the others. Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie. Not necessarily in that order.

“Um...” Rosy said, tugging the scarf off her neck and holding her hoof out to Rarity. “Here’s your scarf.”

“Oh, why thank you dear. It would have been a pickle if we ended up with that across this terribly complicated manner of transportation,” Rarity said gratefully, taking it in the aura of her cool blue magic.

Rosy was completely naked now, though it’d be a while until she started to get cold. She was stronger, and more lithe than when she’d first appeared here. In better shape, and well fed. Her off-white coat, still lacking in its story mark, was well groomed and gleaming, except for where the scarf had mussed up her neck fur. Her pink mane just a little paler than Fluttershy’s was roughly combed, not attended to too terribly, but allowed to remain in its natural curly state. Her curly pink tail was clean of any brambles, easily held above her rear with a level of control that would have made you think she was born that way.

Rosy turned to Rainbow Dash and said, “Uh, we didn’t hang out a lot, but... I always thought you were really cool.”

Dash puffed her chest out proudly at that and said, “Yeah, you aren’t the only one!”

Rosy just laughed gladly, and turned to Fluttershy. “Um... I’m not trying to imitate you, honest. I just get so flustered when I’m... like this,” Rosy said to her. “I can understand why you’d want to be so shy and quiet, sometimes. But I’m really grateful for your support and understanding. I wish this could have gone... differently.”

Fluttershy couldn’t answer.

Rosy pointedly avoided meeting eyes with Twilight Sparkle, instead looking at Applejack, and there were genuine tears brimming in Rosy’s eyes as she said, “I’ve never seen anything quite as beautiful as Sweet Apple Acres. Farms aren’t like that in my world. Nothing is. Yours is just... it’s something else.”

And she turned to Pinkie Pie, and said, “Thank—thank you for the welcome—party—” Rosy couldn’t seem to stop crying. What was wrong? Twilight peered worriedly at the shaking traveller, whose eyes were streaming with tears. Was Rosy too happy to be going home?

Rosy looked at Twilight Sparkle, too choked up to speak. Rosy tried, shuddering there, trying to get the words out, while she looked—no, she looked at Twilight Sparkle. Struggling to speak, the creamy furred pony fixed Twilight Sparkle in an urgent, seeking stare that captivated Twilight in those deep blue irises, so full of regret, and longing... and terror.

“I’m sorry,” Rosy choked out. She turned and stumbled away—she moved one hoof after another, while the open-mouthed group of friends stared after Rosy Pink, until the little pony was galloping as hard as she’d learned how to do, away from the portal, up the bowl of the crater, and crashing into the underbrush, fleeing through the forest.

The portal closed with a snap.

No Don’t Try to Stop Me, I’ve Made Up My Mind

“Alright, I’m a little shaky,” Twilight said, accompanied by her friends as she ambled out of the hospital, “But Equestria is counting on me. I hadn’t... anticipated all the possible complications of inflaming the Rift. We’ll just have to shut it down and find another way of tracking down Rosy Pink.”

“I think you may be missing the point, Twilight,” Fluttershy managed to say.

“You make it sound so easy,” Rarity whined, “Just shut down the Rift. What can we do that the powers of the sun and moon cannot?”

Applejack spun to walk backwards in front of Rarity and stared at Rarity meaninfully, while reaching into her hat, pulling out her cozy orange Apple necklace, and affixing it around her neck.

“Oh,” Rarity said, in a blushing huff, “Mmm, yes, quite.” Her horn lit up and her wardrobe chest flew up alongside her, out of which she retrieved a blue diamond set in gold. While the wardrobe zipped back into its normal spatial location, Pinkie Pie pulled her blue balloon necklace out of her hair.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had their red lightning bolt and pink butterfly tucked away in a pocket, and Twilight Sparkle being as much a pegasus as they were, could keep her magenta star necklace in the same place, as unsettling as it was to realize that you’ve grown pockets. (At least Spike made Twilight feel a little better about it, since he managed to rig up a seatbelt with them that helped with riding her safely in the air.)

Rarity was really the outlier of their little group here, as far as storing the Elements were concerned. She had a variety of ways to secret hers away such that it could be easily retrieved. Having a wardrobe enchanted to always be close at hoof was one of many tricks up her currently nonexistent sleeve.

They slowly increased their speed as Twilight felt more steady on her hooves, until they were beating along in the direction of the Rift at a good clip. “Just a warning, we should wait to focus our powers until after I’ve canceled my come-to-life spell!” Twilight stated, as they charged along through Ponyville streets.

“You used one a’those on the Rift?” Applejack blurted out in exasperation, her hooves beating the earth ...slowly, to keep back with the ambling princess.

“Not exactly!” Twilight admitted uneasily, “But the same principal applies.”

“What Applejack is trying to say is that your track record with such spells hasn’t been favorable,” Rarity spoke pointedly, bobbing along, too focused on their forced trot to shake her head in disapproval, “As a self-feeding spell it is not something many ponies would normally employ!”

“It is not dark magic,” Twilight insisted as another bass rumble crawled up their hooves, and down their ears, spurring them on even faster, “It’s... based on sound luminal principles. It’s just... somewhat dim magic!”

“Well that Rift sure is dark magic,” Rainbow Dash said in frustration, cruising along beside her gallopping friends, “So let’s blast it already!”

“I um... agree with that, at least,” Fluttershy remarked, in the air to Twilight’s other side, a lot more focused on flying than speaking.

“We’re comin’ on it!” Applejack declared, as galloping hard, they rounded the corner, “Everypony prepare to fire!”

The glow of—”No!!”

A grey pony in a lab coat tackled Applejack and threw her to the ground, “We have just got it stabilized!” the mare shouted, looking around at the Bearers, wild-eyed.

As the rest of them rounded the corner, they saw Princess Celestia and Princess Luna on either side of a silvery egg, their magic blazing serenely as ponies scrambled around their hooves, putting up barricades, reinforcements, and shoring up the silvery spheroid being suspended in the center of it all.

Despite her horn’s engagement, Princess Celestia turned slightly to the Bearers and asked cooly, “Twilight Sparkle, would you like to explain what just happened here?”

“Princess!” Twilight said with a stiff fear in her voice, “I can explain! I deliberately aggravated the Rift to an inflamed state, because all other methods of scrying had failed, and I just... I didn’t think it would go straight through Ponyville!”

“And where did you think it would go?” Princess Luna asked equally cooly, her attention on them now.

“The... hiding place of Rosy Pink?” Twilight ventured weakly.

“And any other towns in the way of it?” Princess Celestia suggested.

“Oh no... I didn’t...” Twilight shook her head, “I’ve just... it’s been a really stressful week... month... and... I had to do something! Nopony can find Rosy Pink, and as long as she hasn’t returned home, this Rift will remain a threat to us all! It was only a matter of time before it metastasized. I just helped it along a little! I didn’t mean to do...” she looked around at the ruined town, the screaming horrors writhing in the streets. “...this.”

“Twilight, I am so sorry,” Princess Celestia said in a tone that conveyed not just disappointment, but great sadness, “I hadn’t realized just how impaired that Rosy had made you. I kept you involved in affairs that only hurt you, when you should have been focusing on healing, and easing your mind.”

She gave a meaningful glance to Luna, who said, “We are agreed that you, Twilight Sparkle, have shown yourself unable to make decisions for the good of Equestria. Do not think this is a punishment, because it is a burden we relieve from you, that we should never have put on your shoulders alone.”

“Let it be known that you are hereby relieved of your duties as a Princess of Equestria,” Princess Celestia said, “This includes the authority to command Equestria’s armed forces, the discretionary access to the royal treasury, and the right to adjudicate, certify, or make other judicial actions that you have not shown yourself eminently qualified to do.”

“You retain your status as the Element of Friendship,” Luna added, “And the privileges that come with that, but you may not act of your own accord with any royal authority, without the consensus of the other Bearers.”

Celestia smiled for the emotionally shattered former unicorn, saying, “You have well earned your wings, through your amazing acts of Friendship that saved the Crystal Empire from its cursed doom.” Her smile faltered though, as she added, “But I was too hasty in appointing you as a princess so immediately. You still have much to learn about your role in Equestria, and it is not my place, nor anypony’s place, to demand that you act with the knowledge and maturity you do not yet have.”

“Understand that this is a very new experience for the two of us,” Princess Luna said, shaking her head in bemusement, “Never since my sister and I has a pony been gifted with aspects of all three tribes, reborn as the avatar of a new fundamental force of which we had never seen. So long ago when my sister and I did the impossible and took reign over the sky, our leadership duties were thrust upon us without any preparation, and we too made mistakes we’d...” she looked away, “Rather not have made, before we knew enough to be the rulers that Equestria needed.”

“You have your whole life ahead of you,” Princess Celestia said warmly, “Your throne will be waiting for you, when you are ready for it. Until then, you are a little pony, nothing more than any other little pony, and the fate of Equestria is no longer your burden to bear alone.”

“Can she do that?” Rainbow Dash whispered not quietly enough into Rarity’s ear, “Can you get fired from being a princess?”

Twilight in the meantime had fallen to her haunches. Horse tranquilizers bedamned, there were tears running down her cheeks. “I...” she said at a loss for words to express the emotions rushing through her at the moment. “I... thank you p-princess, I’m so sorry I—” she wiped her eyes with a hoof, croaking out, “Thank—you I... I’ll be in the... the library if anypony,” her voice dropped to a whisper, “Needs me.”

Then she ran for her library as though the hoards of Tartarus were pursuing her.

As she ran, Twilight tried to understand how she was feeling by making a mental checklist of the emotions roiling in her:

• fear

• gratitude

• relief

• shame

• anger

• disappointment

• love

• spite

• hope

She ran out of emotions to list by the time she had reached the library, and leaned against its warm, wooden oak door, painted a familiar red that she’d gotten used to walking in and out of every day for years. And as she listed each emotion, they seemed to lose their momentum, feeling more like a manageable force than an unstoppable hurricane. It was, after all, a finite list, and that was nothing she couldn’t deal with.

• hatred

Nothing. She couldn’t deal with. Twilight Sparkle went into the library.

Meanwhile, her friends were kind of seriously out of their element.

“So, we don’t need the Elements of Harmony?” Applejack asked the princesses uncertainly.

“Because they worked so well the last time we used them on this rift,” Rarity remarked dryly.

“We’ll handle the Rift for now, my little ponies,” Princess Celestia replied calmly, “Twilight needs you more than ever, I’m afraid.”

Celestia’s eyes widened very slightly, as the oneun didn’t immediately go galloping off, but stood there fidgeting uncertainly.

Applejack spoke first, saying, “She does princess, an’ it’s our duty to take care of her and all, but...”

“We’re not exactly sure what to do,” Rainbow Dash filled in, “She’s been majorly messed up by that Rosy chick.”

“The one who won’t go through this Rift,” Celestia said with a cool gaze.

“There’s no time to hesitate. We have to hurry to Twilight, the poor dear. She was just rejected!” Rarity exclaimed, “Ruined! Chastened! She could be doing something drastic at this very moment! And we are to stand by and let this happen?”

“Oh no!” Pinkie Pie shouted, aghast, “We’ve gotta go save Twilight from becoming a crazy cat lady! Sorry princess, gotta run.”

Pinkie zipped off then, and the other four hesitated, but followed soon after. Rainbow Dash and Applejack were the last to head out, and Applejack said to Princess Celestia, “You did good in tellin’ that to Twilight. The whole princess business been weighing on her so hard, ah think she wasn’t sure whether to thank ya or apologize!”

“Yeah, until she learns how to read again, I dunno that she’s much up to taking on anything,” Rainbow Dash added, hovering beside Applejack as they headed off.

“I sincerely hope that a time shall not soon come when Twilight Sparkle has no choice in that regard,” the princess Luna said solemnly. She was only speaking to herself, though. She waited to speak until Applejack and Rainbow Dash were hurrying to catch up with the group, and the moon princess was left with her thoughts her own.

“Okay,” Twilight muttered out loud, pacing in her library foyer. “All I need to do is reinvent the fundamentals of magic and make a ground breaking discovery regarding pony finding. Easy peasy. The Rift is a bust, but it was sort of working. Perhaps I can rig some sort of extender to it that would...”

“Twilight!” Pinkie Pie shouted, bursting into the library, “Stay away from the cats!”

“Cats? There are no cats, Pinkie,” Twilight said in flat confusion.

“Oh, OK then!” Pinkie said with a happy smile. She didn’t bounce out the room though, because when she tried, the rest of the Bearers were pushing their way in, sliding the pink earth pony right back through the door. The other library goers from around Ponyville all looked on at the group warily, most beginning to edge for the exit, or the window, or any way out of this.

“Girls, I’m so sorry,” Twilight said earnestly as they approached. “I’ve just been so stressed lately, and I can’t believe I didn’t even think about the danger a moving Rift could pose to the surrounding community.”

“Twilight, you have nothing to apologize for,” Rarity said with a friendly nuzzle.

“Yes she does...” Fluttershy mumbled softly.

Glaring at Fluttershy, Rarity gave Twilight a broad smile, saying, “You’ve been trying your hardest to do the right thing. So you had a little slip-up. So what?”

“Not exactly a little slip-up,” Rainbow Dash drawled caustically.

“A really really really—” Fluttershy started to say.

“Okay, a big slip-up,” Rarity reluctantly corrected, “But you’ve been here before, Twilight. You won’t repeat this mistake, will you?”

“Oh no,” Twilight agreed passionately, “I would never do this again. The unintended consequences were far too severe.”

“Don’t you go on beatin’ yourself up over this neither,” Applejack said warmly to Twilight. “You were gettin’ worried over nothing. It happens. You got a good heart, Twilight, an’ you need to listen to what it’s tellin’ you.”

“It’s telling me that Rosy Pink needs to go home,” Twilight groaned miserably, “But I can’t find her. Nopony can!”

“I know you’ll find a way to fix things,” Pinkie Pie said confidently, “Because you’re Twilight Sparkle! You’re my friend, and you always know what to do... eventually.”

“Yeah, you’re... great, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said grouchily, crossing her arms and looking the other way from where she hovered in the room. She tried to figure out what to say that wouldn’t totally annihilate this conversation and make Twilight hate her forever, but she was just coming up blank here. There were no good things to say about this.

“Twilight, you’re the most superrific pony I know!” Pinkie Pie persisted desperately, leaning to the former princess and holding up a hoof, “Cupcake?”

Twilight took Pinkie Pie’s offered cream-cheese filled strawberry cupcake, because that sort of thing wasn’t really negotiable these days. Twilight didn’t want to eat it, because she didn’t want to eat... anything. But she did anyway. It tasted too good; she felt bad for enjoying it.

“Twi, hold on now,” Applejack said to Twilight, with sad, yearning eyes as she searched for her friend in that purple princess’s face, “Ah want you to know that your friends are here for you. Nopony blames you for what happened. You’re tryin’ your hardest, and you ain’t never done nothing wrong. It’s just your circumstances that’re gumming up the works.”

“No that’s...” Fluttershy mumbled unhappily, but nopony heard her.

“I know, Applejack. I just... I wish I could figure out what is the right thing to do,” Twilight fretted, ears low, looking for a place to hide the rest of this cupcake, “I’ve almost got it. I just need to stop messing up so much. I feel like I’ve done so many things that were wrong...”

“Aw Twilight,” Applejack said sympathetically, “It was an accident, what happened today! Everything you done has been to help ponies, even if’n it didn’t always work out that way. You ain’t done nothing wrong, and you know it.”

“No no no no!” Fluttershy fussed, a sudden flurry of flustered yellow feathers in between Applejack and the former princess. “Applejack, please,” Fluttershy begged with tears in her eyes, “Just... stop!”

“Finally somepony’s speaking my language,” Rainbow Dash grumbled, folding her forehooves up there.

“Stop whut?” Applejack asked in shock, backing up a step.

“Stop saying she did nothing wrong!”

Everypony stared at Fluttershy’s sudden frustrated shriek. The butter yellow pegasus seemed to realize how loud she’d been, and started to hide under her wings, but shuddering, she forced herself to stand straight, to turn around, and face Twilight Sparkle.

It took a few false starts, but Fluttershy wasn’t shivering with fear, so much as another barely repressed emotion. “Twilight, you...” she said to Twilight who looked at Fluttershy like a cute little baby bunny looks at a diving hawk. “You did something very bad, Twilight,” Fluttershy said quietly.

“What?” Twilight asked in a confusion teetering on disaster.

“Twilight, you hurt Rosy Pink,” Fluttershy told the former princess, “You hurt her, and it’s... it’s not okay. What you are doing is wrong. It’s always been wrong. And you’re just hurting yourself everytime somepony tells you it’s...” Fluttershy had to choke back a sob, “Every time somepony tells you it’s okay, because it’s not! And it never was!”

The poor pegasus had to take a moment to collect herself after that, and everypony else was afraid to speak, afraid to even move for fear of scaring her off. Fluttershy never got like this, except when it was really, really important.

“Twilight, I... hurt Rosy,” Fluttershy said, shoulders sinking. “There was nothing wrong with her. She was a perfectly sweet, caring, loving mare. I was the one who kissed her. Who made her kiss me. I was the one who pushed her away. It wasn’t part of her plan; she didn’t even know what was happening, and I just... hurt her. Because I wanted to be w-with her, even more than kissing because... because I like... mares.”

Fluttershy’s voice had died to a whimper, but in the stillness of the library everypony could hear what she had to say. Her passion recovered then, and her voice rose, as she said, “And then I tried to tell myself that it was her fault, that she m-made me feel this way. You did too,” she looked around at her friends like she was watching the tiny distant twinkle of a lighthouse, from the deck of a sinking ship. “You all told me that she did this, that she was p-perverted. You were just trying to make me feel better, but what you said was wrong, and it was so annoying hearing you say such good things about me. I just wanted you to... to tell me that I’m a bad pony, t-that I did a bad job. I still l-like mares, and I’m sorry but yes even s-some of you girls sometimes I wanted to be... with. The problem is still here, because I’m the problem, not her. And the more I tried to tell myself that wasn’t true...”

Fluttershy stared at Twilight with painful sadness in her teal eyes, saying, “... the more it hurt! I did something bad, and it doesn’t mean I’m a bad pony, but it did happen, and I can’t change that. The more I tried to tell myself I did nothing wrong, the more it hurt, Twilight. I can’t stand it! I can’t let you hurt yourself anymore!”

Wiping away tears, the yellow pegasus fought to breathe deeply, not in shallow gasps. “Rosy Pink belongs here now,” Fluttershy said as evenly as she could, “Trying to send her back was wrong of you, and you shouldn’t have done it. You hurt Rosy Pink, and other ponies, and you didn’t even care, because you told yourself that she’s the problem. That she’s not even a pony. Twilight, you’re the problem. You shouldn’t have tried to send her home. You shouldn’t have broken into her house, hurt her friends, hunted her like an animal, but you did, and that’s not okay.”

Fluttershy seemed beyond tears at this point, and just said softly, “Every time you or somepony told you it was okay, you’ve gotten worse, and done things that hurt ponies more and more. Not just Rosy, you’re hurting us now. You’re hurting your friends, Ponyville. Princess Celestia... is so disappointed in you. Not because you did something wrong, but because you won’t admit it, and e-even she can’t help somepony who won’t admit it. P-please Twilight,” her aqua eyes were full and liquid as she pleaded, “Please stop trying to send Rosy Pink home. It was wrong of you, it has always been wrong, and you need to stop.”

“I had no other choice!” Twilight begged of Fluttershy and herself, “Rosy has to return home. There’s no other way!”

“Did you even try to find another way?” Fluttershy replied coldly.

Blushing, Twilight said, “Y-yes! I... not exactly, but how else would you... okay maybe I haven’t tried to find another way, but there’s already an easy solution! Just send her home, and the problem is solved!”

Twilight became aware that the other four were looking at her now, not at Fluttershy.

“It ain’t no easy solution,” Applejack said to Twilight frankly, “Fluttershy’s right. You’d be hurting her, and all her friends who knew she had nothin’ but sadness to look forward to. Twilight, ah’m her friend, and I don’t want Rosy to go home if’n she don’t want to. Is hurtin’ me an easy solution? Is hurtin’ anypony an easy solution?”

“I can’t believe Fluttershy said this first,” Rainbow Dash said dejectedly, sinking to the floor and refusing to meet anypony’s gaze, “I should’ve told you it was wrong. I felt it, just... not in words. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. It was just like the show. You were wrong about locking it up, and until I told you, things just got worse between us.”

“You seriously never even considered any alternate methods to close the Rift?” Rarity asked absolutely incredulously of Twilight Sparkle, “Rosy was never my friend, but... she never did anything to hurt me. I just thought she was so... I hurt her, without provocation. I was wrong,” Rarity’s eyes widened in realization, as she repeated, “I was wrong. I should never have thought of Rosy as anything but a real pony. Oh, that does feel good to say.”

“Fine,” Twilight said tensely, “I was w—” her voice caught in her throat as a terrible fear welled up inside her. Why couldn’t she say it? It couldn’t be true! “I was not wrong,” Twilight said desperately, “I was doing the right thing. I—I had to break into her house! I interrogated her friends! She asked me to let her go and I h-hunted her down. I had to, though! It can’t be wrong! If it was, then I—I’ve done nothing but try to do the right thing!”

“Twi, if Fluttershy’s right, an’ she feels right to me,” Applejack said, frowning, “Then the longer you go without admittin’ it... ah mean just look outside! Th’ town’s a wreck! You done wrong, Twilight, and we done you wrong by not letting you admit it. Ah just don’t want...”

She took off her hat, holding it on a hoof.

“Ah don’t want nothin’ to happen to you, Twilight,” Applejack said in a trembling voice, “You ain’t gettin’ better, and somethin’ needs changing. Ah don’t wanna say you’re doin’ wrong, or you got the wrong idea in your heart, but if’n you are wrong then maybe y’need to just... suck it up and admit that you done ruined everypony’s day.”

“Could you at least try to find another way to close the Rift?” Rarity pleaded with a wince, “I feel just awful knowing that all this might have been prevented if we had just thought a little... outside the box.”

“Of course!” Twilight said, standing sideways to Rarity, “I mean, yes I’ll look for alternatives. Not like I have anything else to do, right?” She laughed uneasily, “No... Princess duties and all.”

“Excuse me, are the Element Bearers in here?” a new voice called out. It was a pink haired, white coated earth pony with a nurse’s hat on her head, poking in through the doorway to the front of the library.

“That’s us,” Applejack said, turning to regard the mare trotting in, “What can we do you for?”

“We’re just... having some difficulty with some...” the nurse glanced between them uneasily, “...ponies who got hurt by the rift, and they’re requesting your presence.”

“Why, to yell at us?” Pinkie whined, “Because I’m tired of yelling at us!”

“No, it’s not that,” the nurse fidgeted, “It’s hard to explain. They need your... moral support? Perhaps I can tell you on the way?”

Everypony looked to Fluttershy, who sighed, wings sinking to her sides. “Yes... we’re done here,” she said, “As done as we can be. Please Twilight, just...” she looked at Twilight again, “Just think on it, okay?”

“Okay, Fluttershy,” Twilight said with a half smile.

“Great,” the nurse said, turning her rear to them, “C’mon, the medical tent is just out of town!”

She trotted off, followed by the rest of the Bearers, all 12 of them together for once in quite a while. Not since the humiliating failure in Las Pegasus had they all come together as a team. Had it really been that long?

The winter snows had not yet come, but it was a chilly night outside. Everypony was sagging weary from exhaustion, but it didn’t look like they were going to be able to rest just yet. The 12 walked gingerly through the exploded buildings and plants, and glasslike ruts melted in the ground, left by the rift’s passage. Every... Void thing they encountered was lying quiescent on the ground, with some ponies watching over it. No idea what was going on there, the nurse didn’t let them stop to look but instead kept leading them on. Towards the outside of town, things finally started to make a little sense.

“The ponies seem confused, out of touch with reality,” the nurse explained anxiously to the weary Bearers, “They keep telling us to drop the act, as if they thought we weren’t who we are! They won’t trust us, or do anything we say, until we stop lying to them, they said, because they say it’s ridiculous that ponies like you might even exist! It’s made these patients completely impossible to deal with!”

“Exposure to the Void can have unexpected effects... not many of them good,” Twilight said uneasily, “What I really want to make sure is that it’s not another Void monster taking hold of these ponies. Does everypony still have their Elements on?” Oneun voices called out a yes.

“I don’t know the exact details,” the nurse said, “They’ve been bringing in ponies with these... strange injuries that just seem to correct themselves.”

“Like what?” Pinkie Pie asked concernedly.

“Like dislocations, or poorly set bones,” the nurse replied, “It almost seems as if Equestria itself is healing them. I’m honestly mystified. I’ve never seen anything like that come from the ambient magic field.”

“And they want to see us, why?” Rarity asked uneasily.

“I don’t know,” the nurse sighed, “But they keep claiming you can’t possibly exist, so it’s the best anypony can think to do. Hold on, we’re almost there.”

There was a large medical tent hastily erected in the fields approaching the White Tail Wood. Ponies carrying a stretcher would trot in from the woods now and again, to vanish into the tent to deposit injured ponies.

“Oh thank goodness you’re here,” a grape colored pony with a teal mane said, trotting up face to face with Pinkie Pie. She had a stethoscope around her neck, and a heart divided by the asclopian as a story mark, definitely a doctor. “Things are getting pretty bad in there, and somepony needs to help set those ponies straight before things get any worse!”

“What can we do?” Pinkie Pie asked, backing up a step in surprise.

“Lift their spirits?” the doctor pleaded desperately, “Help them understand what’s happening? With luck they’ll recognize you and the others.”

“Why would that matter?” Applejack asked suspiciously.

“Just...” the doctor rubbed a hoof on her forehead, “Follow me into the tent. It should be fairly obvious from there.” Lifting the flap, they entered the medical tent.

“What?!” somepony shrieked as they entered, a lavender unicorn mare with teal hair. It was quite well lit in this tent, with genuine glowstone filling the area with a bright clarity, but the mare didn’t even see them come in. The Bearers were met with the sight of a blue nurse pony trying to hold the struggling lavender mare still, while she twisted in confusion on the cot, senseless of the world around her. “What?!” she repeated in utter confusion, staring at her own outstretched arm as she flailed around, “What?!”

Besides her there were several unconscious ponies lying on cots, and many ponies that looked scared, lost, angry, puzzled. One dusky red pony was laughing uncontrollably, curled up in the fetal position on her cot.

“I don’t know any of these ponies,” Pinkie Pie whimpered fearfully, looking from pony to distressed pony, “Where did they all come from?”

“Ah still don’t get what’s goin’ on!” Applejack said with a stomp that attracted notice from several ponies. A murmur of “Applejack...?” came up among those who were conscious. A white-coated doctor who looked like she was all official-like walked up to address Applejack: in the lead for now, with her friends assembled behind her.

“We’re still trying to understand it ourselves,” the doctor told them, “But all these ponies... are not...um...ponies.”

“Well what are they then, doc?” Applejack griped, “Spit it out already!”

“Humans,” she replied in a quiet voice. The room seemed to shrink around the Bearers, as the doctor explained almost in a whisper, “They’ve been... falling through, ever since the Rift started moving. It purportedly caused quite a mess over there on their end. But everypony who falls through...” the doctor gestured at the perfectly ordinary ponies who didn’t seem coordinated enough to get off the beds they were lying on.

“Are you saying these ponies are all like Rosy Pink?” Rarity shouted in the doctor’s face in horror, “All of them? Every single one?!”

“Yes?” the doctor said desperately, backing up. She didn’t have to retreat far though, because Rarity was already falling to the ground in a dead faint.

“They’re not all like Rosy Pink,” Rainbow Dash said, looking at the ponies on cots with a critical eye, “Look, those four are pegasi!”

Belatedly, Twilight Sparkle fell to the ground in a dead faint.

“Well, that was the best possible outcome,” Pinkie Pie remarked, looking unappreciatively back at her fallen friends.

While Pinkie Pie dragged the unconscious Twilight Sparkle out of the medical tent, and Fluttershy cradled the insensate Rarity, fanning her face with a wing, Applejack tried to make sense of things. “These ponies are supposed to be human like Rosy?” she asked the doctor, “And we’re like celebrities to ‘em or some such, on account of the show?”

“You know about the show?” a recently awakened purple pegasus filly exclaimed in a squeaky voice with wide pink eyes of surprise.

“You know about the show?” Applejack countered, squinting at the filly, “Don’t tell me y’all wanna stay in Equestria!”

“What?” the filly squeaked, “No! This was a disas—is this my voice?” Totally distracted and ignoring them, she lifted a hoof to her throat, eyes crossed as if she could look at her own voice box.

“How did we survive...?” said one sandy coated mare with familiar looking curly orange hair, “It was a... it was a naked singularity!”

“No way,” the purple filly shouted at the mare in correction, forgetting about her high pitched voice for now, “If it was a singularity, the gravitational forces would have torn the entire planet asunder in seconds!”

“That’s not the... I can’t believe I’m arguing with a my little pony about gravitational physics,” the mare said with a harsh laugh, trying and failing to get up from sitting on her side.

“This is crazy,” the filly insisted, “This is impossible. This’s gotta be some kind of freaky dream or living daydream or ...stuff.”

“I... I can’t believe...” a blue haired grape colored unicorn said, reaching vaguely for the Bearers, “I can’t believe the show is real...”

“What’d you expect, aliens?” a green colt said, rolling his eyes.

“Yes, frankly!” the unicorn replied, looking away from the Bearers to glare at him, “Aliens using the show as a way to try and translate their advanced thoughts into terms we can comprehend would have been way more sensible than...” she swung a hoof around at the room, “...this!”

“Do you at least believe we’re ponies now?” one of the nurse ponies said with a pained grimace.

“Uh...” the orange haired mare said, looking from the nurse to the Element Bearers and back. “Yeah...” she said, blushing from where she lay.

“Well I don’t!” the purple filly squeaked, managing to climb to her hooves on the bed, standing there and staring at the Bearers suspiciously. “This proves nothing!” she shouted in increased agitation, “It could all be a trick! They’re just dressed up as ponies from the show! How do we know any of this is even real?”

“Yes, but please settle down, little filly,” one of the other nurses said, trying to approach her, but the filly snapped her wings out and squealed,

“I am not a little filly! ”

“Okay buck this,” Rainbow Dash grumbled, then blasted off from where she stood beside Applejack, zooming right up to the filly’s face, shouting, “Hey, kid!”

When the filly stared at her dumbstruck, Dash didn’t seem to know how to continue, backing off and saying, “Hey, uh, I can’t tell you what’s real or not, but uh, here.”

Rainbow Dash twisted around then and pulled one of her secondaries right out of her own wing. When the filly didn’t take it from Dash’s mouth, Rainbow Dash dropped the sky blue pinion right next to her.

“That’s for you,” she said to the filly, “Whenever you don’t know what’s real, try to find something that you didn’t make up. That feather didn’t come from you. It came from me. So, you know at least that’s real.”

The filly lay a tiny hoof on the feather, then looked up at Rainbow Dash with a defiant glare, saying unrepentantly, “I could be making you up too, and your feather.”

“Yeah, but solipsism is a bankrupt philosophy,” Rainbow Dash said, with a shrug.

“What?” the filly asked in confusion.

“What?” Dash replied, equally confused.

Without answers, Rainbow Dash broke the uncomfortable silence, saying, “Anyway I just thought it might help ya. So can you be good for the nurse ponies?”

“I... yeah?” the filly asked, eye twitching.

Applejack stomped for attention, speaking up, “Anypony else think that we’re not the Elements of Harmony?”

Outside in the dark night, Twilight Sparkle was opening her eyes saying, “Woo... wha? Why am I outside? Pinkie Pie?”

“Twilight, I need you to promise me you won’t panic,” Pinkie told her immediately.

“Panic?” Twilight said, struggling up to sit, “What happened? Why should I be panicking?”

“No, you shouldn’t be panicking,” Pinkie corrected. “I just want you to remember to take things slowly. The last time you didn’t take things slowly, you blew up Ponyville. Everypony can wait, there’s no danger in waiting. There’s plenty of time to decide carefully what to do with them, and it may be a disaster in the future but right now there is nothing wrong, and everything is okay. So can you pleeeease not panic?”

“I uh... if what you say is true, then technically yes, I can avoid panicking,” Twilight allowed, staring at her worried pink friend, “But ponies say stuff like that when there really is a reason to panic, and they just want ponies to—”

“I Pinkie Promise there is no reason to panic!” Pinkie shouted. Then she recited automatically, “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!”

“I trust you, Pinkie,” Twilight frowned, as Pinkie went through the motions of her peculiar oath, “But what am I supposed to be not panicking about?”

“Well see... you... sorta let loose the Rift and it sorta went through Ponyville,” Pinkie Pie said cagily.

“Yes, I remember, Pinkie,” Twilight said tiredly, “And I’m sorry about that. I... it wasn’t my best idea.”

“Well, um, so... abunchofhumansfelloutofitandnowthey’reponies,” Pinkie blurted out.

“What?” Twilight asked, flicking an ear.

“Maybe a few more humans came out of the rift, and maybe they’re sort of a little bit ponies right now,” Pinkie said, wincing as Twilight’s face fell in alarm.

“There’s no reason to panic!” Pinkie reasserted shrilly.

“How is this not every reason to panic?” Twilight asked, hyperventilating.

“Because they’re just ponies!” Pinkie Pie replied, “They’re just some very scared and weirded out ponies, and they’re not doing anything dangerous. They’re just lying there all confused and stuff. It’s going to take them a long time to get dangerous, so you can just relax and decide what to do later. Even Rosy isn’t all that dangerous. It’s you who’s...”

Pinkie Pie didn’t finish that sentence, so Twilight finished it for her: “Dangerous.”

“Yeah kinda,” Pinkie said with a wince. “You can do things other ponies can’t... things that could hurt ponies. I don’t mean you are dangerous, just that you have to be extra more careful than a n-normal pony.”

“With great power comes great responsibility,” Twilight murmured.

“I didn’t know you read Spider Stallion,” Pinkie said, her eyes widening a little.

“I might have read a few,” Twilight said uncertainly, “But that’s from the Prench revolution. ‘grande responsabilité est la suite inséparable d’un grand pouvoir.’”

“You know Fancy?” Pinkie Pie asked in surprise.

“A little, yeah?” Twilight said bemusedly, “I minored in it in my magic studies. Why do you ask?”

Pinkie wondered, “Does Whatnot know you know Fancy?”

Twilight’s eyes also widened at that. “I should check, if my Prench Fancy is scrambled,” she said hopefully, “If not, that could... that could be a real breakthrough! Thank you Pinkie!”

“Well, don’t thank me yet...” Pinkie Pie said, blushing crimson.

“For now, maybe we should... take a look at these... humans,” Twilight said reluctantly.

For Twilight, this was an experiment in self-torture. She stared at the ponies as she entered the tent, the ponies who seemed like just normal, average ponies, but within their skin were crawling these otherworldly humans. She saw it in their eyes, their stares judging her, mounting her, reducing her to nothing more than a toy for their debaucherous passions, to be used and discarded once she was worn out and broken. Just like she learned from the Internet.

Twilight didn’t want to talk to them, but a little voice in her head... okay, a big voice who sounded like Fluttershy, was basically telling her, “You’re wrong. You did wrong. You’re doing wrong, and you know it.” So Twilight just... didn’t trust herself very much right now. Twilight felt wrong, so she tried to feel right. She tried to put on a pleasant face, and give everypony, and everyhuman, the benefit of the doubt. Twilight was definitely out of her element though, and for her that spelled trouble.

“Well, my name is Dr. Andrew Jameson, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,” the little purple filly continued to state as fact, “I doubt you’ve heard of it, but it’s a pretty prestigious institution. Most of my um... colleagues managed to escape, but I got pushed into the anomaly in the scramble. I’m a... really young pony, aren’t I?”

“It would be generous to call you 100,” Twilight said frankly, “A scholar such as yourself would normally be around years SQ—er—1200.”

“It’s so strange that you have two different numerologies,” the filly mentioned curiously, “And one of them composed of... letters of your alphabet?”

“Well, your world has Roman numerals,” Twilight countered, “It’s just not common practice for you. Ponies use the Clever numerals in common practice. They’re very useful for representing large numbers, where hoofcant starts getting too long to remember.”

“Oh it makes sense, just it’s weird to see that sort of thing from an outside perspective,” the filly replied in a puzzled tone.

“How would you and your colleagues feel,” Twilight said uneasily, “If I were to stabilize the portal enough to let you all return home?”

“You can do that?” she asked delightedly, “I thought we were stuck here!”

Startling in surprise, Twilight asked hopefully, “So, you do want to go home? You want to return to being human?”

“Of course I do!” the filly declared grumpily, “As novel as it is to em...” she looked down at her purple furred belly, “...this, I’d like to have my hands back, thank you very much.”

“I dunno,” another pony protested, a red pegasus mare, “This is such a scientific opportunity. We have a whole world to explore!”

“Yes, but your world is vast too,” Twilight added hastily, “Surely you could explore there, instead?”

“You think our world is unexplored?” the mare replied incredulously, “People have explored the bottom of the ocean! The tops of the tallest mountains!”

“And have you been everywhere in your world?” Twilight countered smoothly.

“Well I—no, but,” the mare stuttered, taken aback. “I suppose I could explore my world. But I mean... why not explore your world?”

“Because you’re not supposed to be here!” Twilight exclaimed anxiously, “You have families, and homes, and lives that you can’t just put on hold to wander around here all willy-nilly.”

“Okay, okay! Calm down!” the mare exclaimed back, “I don’t want to start a diplomatic thing again. We’re scientists and engineers, not lawyers!”

“I’m a lawyer actually,” a tannish stallion called over, “I was just passing the building. That thing went right through my car!”

“We’re already planning on returning as soon as we can,” a brick red filly stated somewhat dispassionately to Twilight, “So why are you getting so much on our case about it? I don’t want to be this stupid little girl pony any more than you want me to.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” Twilight grumbled.

“So you’re studying the rift,” came Rainbow Dash’s voice to Twilight’s animate left ear. Rainbow was talking with another of the ponies, it seemed. “Isn’t it sorta invisible on your side?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Not quite,” a yellow furred mare with white hair said, “We’re really not at liberty to discuss it though. You should be talking to an ambassador. I wouldn’t know where to start in terms of classified information.”

Everyhumanpony murmured approval at her, and Twilight trusted them even less now. Of course their empires would all have dark secrets that they couldn’t share with the world.

“Twilight Sparkle,” a familiar voice declared, as the Princess Celestia herself came ducking into the medical tent. “Did I not just say Equestria’s burdens were not yours to bear alone?” the princess said in a disappointment that wilted Twilight’s tail like a sad willow tree.

“Hey, they specifically asked for us!” Rainbow Dash protested, hovering defensively in front of Twilight, “Twilight didn’t do anything you didn’t say that she shouldn’t’a did.”

“Cool it Charlie,” Applejack said, after biting Rainbow’s tail and pulling her to the ground. “Awful sorry, Princess,” the farm pony said to the regal two, “We’re here as the Elements o’ Harmony, an’ Twi’s with us. She ain’t oversteppin’ no boundaries. We’re not here to do anything crazy. We’re just here as friends.”

“Thank you, you two,” Princess Celestia said, looking from them to Twilight, “If she meant no harm, then no harm was done. There’s no harm in simple curiosity.”

“I was curious about these new human ponies,” Twilight said sheepishly. “I–I still need time to think about what you’ve told me, but I would never do anything you specifically told me not to do.”

“I know you’re worried about these ponies, and whether they’re returning home,” Princess Celestia told Twilight Sparkle, “But you need worry not, because my decision has been made.”

Princess Celestia turned to face the ponies in the tent and announced, “Everypony here from the other world must return immediately.”

A few protests rang out at Princess Celestia’s pronouncement. At least two were stridently protesting her rash actions in the face of scientific discovery, though most of the ponies on cots were staying noncommittal, and a few were only grumbling.

“I realize you wish to study our world, for your own benefit,” the princess continued, “But I in turn wish to protect my little ponies. It doesn’t matter how very much you want to stay here and live with us. They are not ready for your presence in this world, and you are needed back in your homes. This was never meant to happen, and I’m afraid you cannot stay.”

A brick red filly among them shouted in exasperation, “We don’t want to stay, you crazy horse!”

A few Equestrian ponies loudly and stridently protested that, and all the ponies got to bickering among each other then. Princess Celestia merely nodded cooly and turned to walk out of the tent, careful not to hit the top of the door on her way out. The others stayed to try to calm the situation down, but Twilight trotted out after the princess. There, Celestia was meeting with Princess Luna, and conversing in soft tones.

“Princess, I... I’m sorry,” Twilight told them.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about, Twilight Sparkle,” Princess Celestia said in her most loving voice. “What happened to you was—”

“No, I—” Twilight interrupted, “I think I may have done something really bad to Rosy Pink. I did what I had to do, but I... I hurt her in the process, and I don’t think you should punish her for... for what happened to me.”

“You are a wonderful mare, Twilight,” Princess Celestia replied with a smile, “You always think the best of other ponies, even when they have wronged you. That’s why what Rosy did is such a terrible—”

“Fluttershy’s right, that really is annoying!” Twilight realized in surprise. She blushed beet red then, and stammered with a low head to Princess Celestia, “I-I-I-I didn’t m-mean that you were annoying I-I just m-meant—”

“Cease with thine obsequeties, Twilight!” Princess Luna said disapprovingly, making Twilight shy back, ears going flat. “It is not you who should be bowing to us, you who have saved us from our own folly!”

“Luna...” Celestia said, giving her dark sister a torn look. Looking back at Twilight, Celestia smiled and said, “Twilight can bow if she likes. She isn’t a princess, after all, now is she?”

Luna took in a slow breath, and said, “I have yet reservations at your decision sister, but very well.”

Twilight looked between them, unsure of whether to feel scared, ashamed, guilty, or sad. She never expected the feeling of gratitude to well up in her heart. It wasn’t a proper feeling, nor an acceptable feeling, yet... it was her feeling. “Thank you, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna,” she said bowing in relief.

“Rest assured, we will take your advice into consideration regarding Rosy Pink. Best of luck to you, Twilight Sparkle,” Princess Celestia said in her warm tones. When Twilight looked up to acknowledge them, the princesses were gone.

Turning, Twilight trotted back into the medical tent to help her friends.

Twilight Sparkle felt a strange sense of serenity after the events of that day as she trotted alone down the familiar Ponyville streets, once again back to her library. She was starting to realize that the reason she was no longer a princess wasn’t because she’d done anything wrong. Twilight had done something... wrong, and now her power was taken from her, not to protect Rosy from her, but to protect Twilight from herself. It was a burden she hadn’t even realized she was bearing, being Princess Celestia’s peer, and now, Twilight could focus on other things, such as making amends with poor Fluttershy.

Fluttershy had a very good point, in fact. Twilight hadn’t looked into alternate solutions to the Rift besides finding new and more creative ways to reunite it with Rosy Pink. Twilight owed it to Fluttershy, owed it to all of them really, to at least make an attempt to find some other way. She was fairly sure that there was no other way, but Twilight had been fairly sure before, and she was quite suspicious of her own tendancy for sureity.

So, Twilight retrieved various books on hyperversal theory that she had ordered for the benefit of herself and any of the university ponies who wished to learn more about past ponies’ experiences there. She lay them out around her on the floor of a reading room, then sighed and stood from where she’d sat down on the pillow. Trotting off, Twilight returned to the room with a hefty Equestrian dictionary floating behind her, as well as a foal’s guide to parts of speech.

She then began to study, very... slowly.

Author's Note

The action here is so intense! You’re probably at the edge of your seat!

...

(Twilight turns a page.)

OH man it’s really picking up now!!

The Beginning

The swirling storm over Ponyville had already begun dissipating, and in the fierce light, the clouds melted away. Ponyville ponies stopped their panicked flight, stunned by what was happening above them. Down and up the road from Ponyville, refugees stopped pulling their carts to look overhead. Las Pegasus was silent and still for a moment as everypony stopped what they were doing to look in the sky to the east. The true sun crept downward, hiding behind the horizon, yet it was still bright as day in most of Equestria.

Rarity left one of her old haunts in Vanhoover, to join the other ponies on the street, wondering at what was happening overhead. Fluttershy fluttered out from a forest in Baltimare, with chipmunks resting on her arms, shoulders, and rump, and didn’t understand, but was terribly afraid for her friends.

A troubled pink unicorn with purple hair ran out of the cave they’d been hiding in. She wasn’t looking so well, her legs a bit too thin to be healthy, and her hair poorly combed. “This better be important,” she grumbled, “Party Favor had just agreed to join us again, and now... this?”

She stopped, and stared.

Somewhere in a hidden tower in Canterlot, emerging from a pile of mismatched socks, knicknacks and sundry, a solid stone eagle’s claw was illuminated in the sunlit twilight shining in from the room’s one lone, tiny window. The claw’s fingers were curled towards its palm, and its thumb was extended upward, as if it had always been that way.

A princess of midnight blue who really should have been asleep the past day sought out her dear sister. She found the resplendent white mare in an observatory tower, out on the balcony, with a most unusual guest at her side. Both Celestia and the raspberry blue mare were quietly watching that glowing fireball high above.

“Just how long is this going to last?!” Princess Luna declared angrily, stomping up to the two of them, waving a hoof in the direction of the fireball in the sky, “Is anypony to see my stars with that in the way?”

“Not much longer, Luna,” Princess Celestia said, not pausing in gazing up at it wistfully, “You should enjoy it while it’s here. I’ve only seen this happen once before in my life, and circumstances were not nearly as good as they are now.”

“I just hope Green Dream got away,” Blue Raspberry murmured, seemingly not even acknowledging Luna’s presence as she stared at the phenomenon with distant violet eyes, “I wasn’t counting the time it took. I should have been counting the time.”

“And why is this mare not in the dungeon right now?” Luna asked crossly, “Is there something you haven’t been telling me about this sister? Did you plan this?”

“Plan?” Celestia said, at last looking from that distracting fireball to meet Luna’s eyes, “No, I’m as surprised as you were, honestly. I don’t know why Blue Raspberry didn’t discuss this with us beforehand.”

Luna opened her mouth, and closed it again. Celestia’s gaze betrayed no humor or deceit.

Luna rubbed at her temple with a forehoof and Celestia picked up on that, blushing and saying, “Alright, it’s not exactly out of the question that Raspberry might not be totally open with us. But what of the others? What was that... artifice that she threw through the portal? How did she know the Rift even worked that way?”

Raspberry stiffened, staring silently as she faced fixedly forward. “We’re not the only ponies Blue Raspberry owes an explanation to,” Princess Celestia said, eyeing the little pony, “I can think of a half dozen ponies in particular that she might want to apologize to, if they’re not too busy apologizing to her.”

“Bluebell, too,” Raspberry said quietly. The princesses both looked to her. “Bluebell and Berryshine, and even Grape. They deserve an explanation, too. Not just the Bearers, but my... my old friends too.”

“I think we can accomodate that,” Celestia said in a contemplative tone, “For your crimes against Equestria... may have been greatly exaggerated.”

“Did you truly suplex Twilight into another world?” Luna declared curiously.

Raspberry covered her blush with a hoof at that, saying, “Yeah... not my finest moment.”

“Then you’ve had finer moments than that one?” Luna persisted skeptically.

“It took away Twilight’s ability to read,” Raspberry said plainly, blinking up at the moon princess, “I can’t imagine what that must have done to her. It was pretty awesome, but it wasn’t worth...” she gestured at the burning fireball in the sky. “...that.”

“We’re going to have to ask you some questions,” Celestia said seriously to Raspberry, “What you have done is concerning in many ways.”

“I should have—we should have asked you,” Raspberry said tensely. “I’m sorry, we just... it was my fault, really. I don’t think I can... answer your questions. No I mean I don’t know if I can answer them, because I was pretty much just... doing what they told me to. I guess if you ask, I could tell you who to get answers from.”

“That seems reasonable,” the sun princess replied, “What say you, sister?”

“If she answers honestly, I have no objection,” Luna said simply.

“These are matters of safety to Equestria,” Celestia told the little pony, “It shouldn’t be anything too terribly technical. We just want to understand what you were doing, and why. I think we can put off the full explanation until the rest of Equestria hears it, and you talk to your... friends about what you intend to say.”

As each broke their stoic silence, the one, then two, then three ponies talked at length in the light of the alien sun. Blue Raspberry’s ears seemed disinclined to rise at first, but there were times she was so excited at what she was saying that they perked up as high as a foal’s on hearth’s warming. Princess Celestia revealed very little in her reaction to Raspberry’s heartfelt and very informative explanation, though Princess Luna hadn’t the luxury of remaining silent, protesting most stridently, at first for Rosy’s impudence, and then for the injustice done upon her. Rosy didn’t seem angry though. She seemed excited yet relieved, both calmer and more animate than she had yet been in the presence of the princesses.

“So that’s what happened, as far as I know,” Raspberry said in a now calm, unsupposing manner. “I’m terribly sorry for all the trials I put everypony through, in asking for... this,” she gestured at the fireball in the sky. “I just want to stay here and live freely, but I can understand if you need me to be... detained for a while. Just please don’t send me back, that’s all I ask. I know it’s a lot to ask, after what I’ve done, but if you let me stay, I’ll do everything I can to make up for the hardship I’ve caused.”

The sun princess looked off to the distant phenomenon, saying thoughtfully, “This is an opportunity for us really, one that may be long overdue. I’m not entirely sure about this, but I think Pinkie Pie may wish to throw a party.”

“This is yet another colloquialism I am not familiar with, sister,” Princess Luna cut in bluntly, “Unless you feel that there is a group of ponies that Pinkie Pie truly wishes to throw.”

Celestia stared blankly at her sister for a moment, then a surprised laugh bubbled out of her. “I hadn’t even noticed that one becoming colloquial,” she said in eternal amusement, “It makes very little sense when you think about it! No, I mean that Pinkie Pie may wish to call for a celebration.”

“A celebration?” Luna asked in shocked astonishment, “In honor of what? The Rift exploded and we are still alive?”

“That’s a great idea!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, “We should go find Applejack!” Together with Twilight Sparkle, she and Dashie were poking around the empty streets of Ponyville, now that the danger had passed. Maybe passed. Probably passed. As the light started to fade, the darkness of an unscheduled night crept in from the horizon.

“Is it?” Twilight asked anxiously, “Applejack has every right never to speak to me again. I could have stopped this if I hadn’t had the wrong idea about Rosy Pink to start out with. Her farm is everything to her, and she was going to lose it because of me.”

“She’s not going to lose it now though,” Pinkie pointed out, “And we need to tell her right away that everything is safe again with the Rift good and... um... exploded up there.” Pinkie winced a little, looking over her shoulder at the fading orange of the detonation’s glow.

Twilight looked to Pinkie, as the three headed down the empty streets, saying, “I don’t know if everything is safe again, but... whoever did this seemed to think so. I hate being out of the loop.” Twilight sighed, her tail switching in frustration.

“So get back in the loop,” Rainbow Dash offered from closely above, “And start with Applejack. She didn’t even see all this go down, so as far as she knows that Rift is still in Ponyville! And you should be the one to tell her!”

“If you insist,” Twilight Sparkle said with a roll of her eyes. Her heart felt warmer as they walked along after that though. The three friends flew, bounced and trotted to Sweet Apple Acres, soon finding themselves surrounded by apples in the cooling evening light, as they looked for their apple loving friend.

The Rift overhead continued slowly fading out, until they were surrounded by trees and starlight. No longer a glowing fire, now cloudy swirls of light drifting about up there in shades of purple, green, pink and blue. It was beginning to look like something between an aurora and a pinwheel.

“I wonder why it’s not falling down,” Pinkie wondered, staring up at it without running into anything, somehow.

“My guess would be starmetal,” Twilight mused, “It’s what I would have done, at any rate. Meteorites that fall to the earth still have traces of stellar material in them. If you refined that, you’d get a substance that falls, well... up!”

“So it’ll keep going up forever?” Rainbow Dash said, looking overhead.

Twilight shook her head, saying, “No, it would rise to the star level at most, slowing down as it got further away from the earth.”

“So that’s gonna be a... star?” Pinkie Pie asked.

Twilight shook her head again, but said less certainly, “I don’t know anything at this point Pinkie Pie. We’ll have to hear about it the way normal ponies do, by the news I suppose, since I’m not a princess anymore.”

Instead of pushing Twilight further down that line of thought, Pinkie gazed up at it some more, saying, “It’s starting to get really pretty.”

Twilight paused to look up herself at the glowing phenomenon, and was drawn in by its strange serenity, as the stars started to come out around it.

“Hokay, you two look at it while I go find Applejack before it gets any darker,” Rainbow Dash said grumpily.

“R-right, we’re coming,” Twilight replied, and tugged on Pinkie’s arm. Pinkie blinked her big blue eyes, and they all trotted off together among the darkening trees.

They couldn’t find Applejack until night had fallen, and weariness started to seep into the ponies’ bones. What finally tipped them off was a faint lantern glow emanating from the root cellar. Their eyes widening in varying amounts of understanding, they headed down the stairs, though Rainbow Dash only trailed nervously behind.

They found the farm pony down in that cellar, passed out next to an oak barrel, with an empty mug cradled in her forehooves. “Mnunm,” Applejack said as Pinkie gently tried to wake her, and then less gently tried to wake her, with increasing alarm to the unresponsive pony. “Whazza?” Applejack said at last, jerking up in shock about a second or two after Pinkie swung her into the wall.

“Pinkie, are you trying to kill her?!” Twilight squeaked as both she and Rainbow Dash jumped back when the apple pony suddenly went flying across the room.

Applejack laughed at that, then... laughed a little more. “Y’all think a lil’ cellar’s gonna besht me?” she said, staggering to her hooves, or just staggering. It was hard to tell. “Aaain’t never met no... cellar that I couldn’t... sell heh heh.”

“What the hay is wrong with you?” Rainbow Dash said, darting up to her in alarm, “You’re talking all funny and—” Applejack belched loudly, “And that!”

“You’re not on salt are you?” Twilight asked with a worried hoof lift.

“Ah c’n see why you’d... think that,” Applejack said lurching over and pulling Twilight into a one-armed hug, “But ishssha side effect of...” She kind of stared off into space again, her hat barely holding askew on her ears.

“Appl—” Twilight started uncomfortably, before Applejack bellowed in her ear,

“OF ENOUGH BRAN—bran-dee! Askts like shalt, if’n you... you have enough t’drink.”

“How much have you had to drink?” Pinkie Pie asked, eyeing Applejack with confusion. She had never heard of a pony getting this wasted on just alcohol.

“Halla it!” Applejack declared, stomping stubbornly, “Ah gotta drink every...vry lasht drop don’t want not one drop ain’t that... that Rift ain’t gettin’ one drop o’ mah shider.”

“This um...” Rainbow Dash turned the tap on the barrel Applejack had been lying next to. “This one’s empty.”

“Zere’s more where that came from!” Applejack replied, staggering past Dash, her belly noticeably wobbling with its sloshing contents, “Now you’ll schuze me ah gotta... gotta drink th’ resht’th barrelsh before it all goesh into the Rif’ like a toilet kablooey”

She might have attempted to drink that much brandy, but Applejack just fell flat on her face then, and started snoring.

“...well you heard the mare,” Rainbow Dash said, trotting over to the second barrel, of what looked to be several dozens, “Let’s get—”

“The Rift blew up, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight asserted. “We’re not going to waste any more of Applejack’s special aged cider, while she’s unconscious at our hooves!”

“When you put it like that, it does sound kinda bad,” Rainbow Dash admitted with a guilty wince, stepping away from the barrel. “So, what do we do about her?”

“She’s all alone out here, and I don’t think that’s such a good thing right now,” Twilight replied, looking thoughtfully down at the unconscious orange earth pony, “No idea how that much cider might affect her. We’ll just have to take her with us...”

“Well I’m not taking her to my house, that’s for sure,” Rainbow Dash said bluntly.

“And my house is a public library, so it doesn’t really have many places for her to um...” Twilight said, hesitant to describe Applejack’s disorganized tangle of limbs and snoring as “rest.”

“Well my house is a private restaurant,” Pinkie Pie reasoned, “And there is a family with two young foals living there. So let’s take her there!”

Both looked at Pinkie who smiled and clarified, “Because the Cakes left last week, so there’re extra beds there, and we haven’t had any customers for a week since the bakery closed, and as a restaurant we have plenty of food to help her with, like water and hay, and... just water and hay is all she should eat really.”

Both of Pinkie’s conscious friends smiled and nodded.

“Sounds good Pinkie,” Rainbow Dash said in relief.

“Let’s get her over there then,” Twilight said, levitating up the limp body of Applejack.

Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie got out of that cellar, walking through the oddly silent apple orchard, with the birds and critters all having all fled a week ago. With Rainbow Dash watching over her, Pinkie carried Applejack gently draped over her back. The farm pony’s breath smelled really strong, from all that silly juice she drank. She didn’t even stir as Pinkie’s body flexed beneath her, carrying Applejack smoothly down the road into town.

Down the hill to the town the four ponies went, one limp atop the pink one, while the cerulean and lilac ones stayed to either side of her. Walking the mostly empty streets, they approaching a dismal looking, boarded up bakery, with a giant cupcake on the top of it. With Applejack sleeping in the bed for Mr. and Mrs. Cake, Applejack’s three friends sat around a table in the other room over hay and tea, and tried to wrap their heads around what had happened.

“Okay, I think... I think everything worked out okay, somehow,” Twilight said, chewing on too small an amount of hay for Pinkie’s liking. “The Rift isn’t going to hurt anypony up there, and... nopony got hurt or injured. We have a few houses to rebuild, but... things worked out for the better somehow. There was another way, and Rosy—I mean—Raspberry found it.”

“That other way put ponies in danger, though!” Rainbow Dash protested, “You heard what she told the princesses. She didn’t even know if it would get high enough before it went off!”

“Yes, well, it’s not any worse than what I did!” Twilight replied hotly. Then she glanced away from Dash and said, “...which was wrong, but it was only wrong because I didn’t think of the consequences. Rosy knew what she was risking, and found the benefit greater than the cost.”

“So she doesn’t get to be a mare, big deal,” Rainbow Dash said, rolling her eyes, “Seriously why is it such a big deal? It would’ve been safer if she went through the portal to just be a human again.”

Twilight looked at Rainbow Dash again.

“What?” Rainbow Dash asked self-consciously.

“You were the one protesting my actions regarding Rosy Pink, almost from the start,” Twilight said cautiously.

“Your actions, yeah, because you were trying to force her to go home,” Dash replied, “That doesn’t make it a bad idea, just it’s bad to try and force her so hard. I don’t understand why she had to risk so many ponies for it. That doesn’t mean I’ll throw her through the Rift! It just means I don’t understand.”

“Well I don’t... fully understand either,” Twilight admitted, “But it really was that important to her. I’d hate to force her to do that just for my safety, and I think anypony who understood what she was going through would agree.”

“What about all the other human ponies?” Pinkie Pie asked, fiddling with the teacup between her hooves. “They weren’t all like Rosy. Most of them wanted to get home, and were even cr–crying when they couldn’t go back.”

“I don’t know, Pinkie,” Twilight said despondently, “The Rift may no longer be an option, so, all we can do at this point is try to show them how it’s not so bad staying in Equestria, and keep them under close watch before they do anything like Rosy Pink. It’s ultimately up to them if they want to... mope about or not.”

“I just wish the humans could see how great and wonderful Equestria really is,” Pinkie sighed wistfully.

She inhaled.

Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle glanced at each other in concern before the inhaling pony. Then their eyes flashed with recognition, and as one, they facehooved, saying together:

“Oh.”

“I just had the best. Party idea. Ever,” Pinkie declared ecstatically. “Again!

“I have to get ready!”

And just like that, she was gone, nothing more than a Pinkie Pie shaped dust cloud left behind. And Pinkie Pie colored, oddly enough.

“Pinkie and her crazy leaps of logic,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes, as sounds began to emanate from beneath the floorboards of Sugarcube Corner, of an excited party planner with some serious party planning to do. “She’s right though,” Twilight added respectfully, “This is a strikingly similar situation to the Yaks. Except instead of sheep, we have a...”

Twilight glanced out the window from Sugarcube Corner, but only saw darkness. “...exploded Rift.”

Rainbow Dash shook her head bemusedly at that. “Never question it, Pinkie Pie’s gonna have everypony smiling before the end of the day.” She yawned then, saying, “Speaking of the end of the day, I’ve been putting out fires and pushing lightning bolts away from houses all day. I dunno what time it is, but I think I’m overdue for a cloud nap.

“Enjoy yourself, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said pleasantly, “I probably should turn in, myself. And maybe try to get word to Spike, that he doesn’t have to live with my parents anymore. Oh, and Whatnot... she’s probably worried sick. Oh, I’ve got to check on her and then—”

She cut off, looking at Rainbow Dash evenly. “And then, I will get some sleep,” Twilight said, as seriously as if it were a binding oath.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Rainbow Dash suggested, “How about I go fill in Whatnot on my way home, and you go sleep in that bed right back there, with Applejack.”

“You really think she’d be okay with sleeping with me?” Twilight asked with an anxious wing flutter, “I don’t want to upset her.”

“Well, she needs somepony to watch over her while she sleeps off all that cider,” Rainbow Dash said, “So, that’ll make her even more glad to be your friend. It’s win/win!”

Twilight smiled at that, saying, “I guess you’re right, Rainbow Dash. I know it can’t possibly be that simple, but... thank you.”

“Catch you later, egghead!”

Twilight watched her blue friend soar sleepily away from the bakery, and even though she was alone, the former princess still had a soft smile on her face.

Sometime later, Twilight wasn’t smiling as she sat in the shower, scrubbing the vomit out of her lilac fur coat, trying to think of what to tell the Cakes about what happened to their bed. It could have been a lot worse though. The next sunlit morning, Applejack opened her eyes, and winced, sat up on the couch, groaning and holding a hoof to her head. Then, the farm pony noticed Twilight standing there asleep on her hooves, next to the couch she lay on.

“Uh, Twi?” Applejack said, wincing at even the low volume of her voice. “Twilight?”

She gave her friend a nudge and Twilight startled awake. “Oh, Applejack you’re—!” Twilight started to say, and as Applejack’s face contorted in pain and her ears went flat, Twilight said very quietly, “You’re awake.”

“Ah feel like buffalo went an’ stampeded on mah head last night,” Applejack rasped, while Twilight worked out her legs one after another, “What the hay was ah doin’?”

“You had... a lot of brandy,” Twilight replied a little too emphatically for Applejack’s liking, “And Pinkie can confirm what I vaguely remember reading about it, but that stuff can have some serious psychoactive properties in large doses.”

“How large a dose?” Applejack said, wincing again.

“Well, um...” Twilight toed the floor.

“How. Much.”

“Just one... barrel,” Twilight said, with a wince.

“What?!” Applejack shouted, jerking up, then she clutched her head and hissed in pain.

“Here, drink this,” Twilight added hurriedly, levitating a glass over to Applejack. Applejack took it gratefully and downed its contents all at once.

“Ah swear,” Applejack groaned, “Ah am gonna formally change mah name to Tepid Water after this.”

In honor of Applejack’s tragic loss, Ponyville’s “Welcome to Equestria” party was strictly non-alcoholic, but otherwise they went all out. Streamers and ribbons covered everything that wasn’t totally destroyed. (Destroyed sections were fenced off. (The fences were covered in streamers and ribbons.)) There were booths set up with all sorts of wonders you could find from all over Equestria, from pinwheels to birdhouses.

The birdhouses attracted a number of ponies who were curious how ponies built things by hoof or wing. There were some tail jugglers that drew a number of awed looks from foals and adults alike, who looked at their own tails in worried wonder, as the ponies skillfully flipped crazy objects about using only their hair. There were weather engineers from Cloudsdale, explaining how their city functioned as an important source of and moderator of weather everywhere, while also being the greatest cloud creation known to ponykind. They demonstrated cloudcrete, and rainbow manipulation, and of course the ever popular bottled lightning.

Several ponies gathered around the musical entertainment, asking about the quartz speakers, and how Equestrian record players worked.

Princess Celestia stood majestic in the sunlight as ponies came up on stage to greet her. In this party, fewer ponies did so out of admiration, and more out of wide-eyed curiosity. Curiosity that grew to unimaginable levels, when Princess Celestia lowered the sun that day. She was quick to quiet these human ponies though, for her dark sister had awakened, coming to fly down to the stage with Princess Celestia. The two shared a warm, friendly nuzzle, and then Princess Luna announced,

“Greetings, stallions and gentlemares! Rejoice, for the day is won, and the true festivities have just begun. You see above you in the sky, the product of the hard work and effort of many ponies to save Equestria, and Ponyville from ruin.”

Everypony turned to look at her, and then to regard what was above them all. What was above them as the night sky came into view defied description. A glowing violet, pink and blue swirl that turned lazily in the sky above them. A strange sphere of glimmering yesness. An answer to a question you never knew you were asking.

“To speak of the status of this Rift will be a great scholar that many ponies around Equestria have come to know and love,” Luna continued, “Just what is that swirling disc of colored light? What will it mean for us, or for our foals? To answer these questions and more, I present to you Dr. Jack Harness!”

“Greetings, everypony,” the stallion said, stepping into an amplification spell. As stoic as ever, his white coat cut a sharp contrast with his deep blue fur. The light blue of his eyes pierced the crowd as he regarded them in an intimidating, yet somehow welcoming stance. “I’m going to get the important part out of the way,” he said with a flick of his short brown tail, “As near as we can tell, the Rift is no longer an imminent danger to anypony.

“When I joined the Trotwood Institute of Multidimensional Examination, I had heard of a rift in space in legends and fairy tales, in ancient history, but never expected to actually see such a thing before my eyes. The opportunity to study the Ponyville Rift has been a life changing experience for me, many of my colleagues, and many ponies here who have had their lives touched by it for one reason or another. I can’t express how grateful I am to have seen this through to the end, and I can’t express how sorry I am that you had to risk your homes and your life for this thing.

“What my team has done is ended the Rift’s threat by taking it far above the land, to remain in the sky,” he continued, gazing up at it, “By deliberately provoking it into a bidirectional instability, we managed to stabilize it permanently. It was a ...relatively controlled explosion, and according to our measurements, it should remain open indefinitely, a safe distance away from ponykind. Caught in the weave of our ionosphere, its egress in the other world should be nearing what they call low earth orbit, even as we speak.”

The doctor addressed the crowd again, saying seriously, “On the other side of that portal is a sphere covered in life, that bears host to a civilization of creatures you may know as humans. In a world without ponies, they spread from their native lands in Zebrica to dominate the globe. Despite this, they are terribly vulnerable, without any magic in their lives, and suffering from only primitive, rudimentary concepts of friendship and harmony.

“These humans present for Equestria a unique opportunity, no a duty,” Dr. Harness said with a stomp, “Because they need our help. Some live their entire lives without friends, or even lovers. They have terrible conflicts that could be avoided simply by learning about each other and finding common ground. This new world is what I would call an opportunity to help, and to be invaluable to those across the divide.”

He glanced down, and then said soberly to the crowd, “But they’re not the only ones who need help. Equestria lives in harmony, but that harmony has led us to social stagnation. We have become masters of our special talents, but unprepared to do anything else, to adapt and change as new situations, or worlds come around. What I think Equestria needs is a shaking up, a new sense of wonder. The humans of the other world thrive on change, and they can teach us to be better prepared when things go wrong.”

He paused, adjusting his spectacles he wore for the occasion, to look at the notes on the podium, “Instead of (ahem) screaming and running in panic at the first sign of trouble,” he recited.

While Dr. Harness resolved to never let his students write his speeches again, and revealed many important truths about the Rift that are positively vital to understanding what just happened, a certain mare was standing off to the side, away from the majority of the crowd. Once a cream colored, soft-pink-haired pony, now she was bright blue, with a mane and tail of deep maroon. She had acquired a cup of sparkling punch at one point, but had left it on a table, to speak in quiet tones with some of her close friends.

Pinkie Pie wasn’t sure how to approach the situation, but she reeeeeeally kind of wanted to, because she was so curious about what Rosy had gotten up to. Pinkie’s curiosity felt like a timber wolf crossed with a manticore, pretty much. And also Pinkie could think of nopony other than Rosy to whom Pinkie had more to apologize. Not even her sister.

Pinkie Pie had a lot to apologize to her sister, if she was still alive somehow, but none of that had been Pinkie’s fault. What happened to Rosy... to Raspberry Blue had been, if not avoidable, certainly made worse by Pinkie’s blundering. Her failure to stand up to Twilight. Her failure to keep quiet on matters ponies really didn’t need to hear. Her failure to decide, when it was so easy to let others decide for you.

In the end, Pinkie went with what she knew. “So, Raspberry, how’re you liking your party?” Pinkie Pie said in a hopefully jovial and not scared tone, trotting up to them.

“It’s everyone’s party,” Raspberry Blue said evenly, unconsciously stepping between Pinkie and Bluebell, “I was just the one who had to be in the middle of it all.”

Pinkie saw Sea Swirl, the blue-haired pink unicorn who had gone home to Baltimare when Ponyville was no longer a place to be. She was standing together behind Raspberry with a pony Pinkie was pretty sure went by the name Dustbunny, but Pinkie couldn’t recall seeing her anywhere but in the background in Baltimare. They were both talking with Raspberry and Bluebell when Pinkie so literally interrupted, and Raspberry stepped in the way.

“I’m not gonna be all weird or anything,” Pinkie Pie said defensively, maybe a little defensively at Raspberry’s protective stance, “I’m just glad you’re having fun.”

“Pinkie, it’s okay,” Raspberry said, though her erect ears didn’t make her seem very sincere, “The Rift can’t hurt me anymore, and it can’t hurt you either.”

“Well, I hope so,” Pinkie replied noncommitally, “Sure it could all come crashing to the ground and start making everything explode again, but I mean what are the chances of that happening?”

Two of the four ponies, Sea Swirl and Bluebell both looked nervous at that, and glanced up at the Rift. Some seconds later, Dustbunny broke the tension, stepping past Raspberry towards Pinkie and saying in a throaty alto, “So you’re the famous Pinkie Pie, huh?”

“Yeah, I kinda am,” Pinkie said, blushing pinker, “But ponies are gonna like who they’re gonna like, so I just try not to disappoint them too much.”

“Planning parties all day must be nice,” Dustbunny replied in amusement, “Sure is better than ditch diggin!”

Raspberry snorted a laugh at that.

“Yeah, sorry, nothin’s better than ditch diggin,” Dustbunny replied apologetically. She stuck out a rather well used and somewhat dirty hoof, saying, “Name’s Dustbunny. Seen you around Baltimare sometimes, but never got to meet the big shot Pinkie Pie up snout ta snout.”

“I saw you too,” Pinkie replied, taking her hoof warmly to shake, “Just in the background.” For some reason Raspberry snorted another laugh at that. “I’m so sorry I made you think I was a big shot. Because really I’m more of a little shot!” Pinkie said to the hoofshaker. There were a few chuckles at that and Pinkie grinned, saying jovially, “Anyway, sorry to bother you, but there’s something I wanted to say to Raspberry Blue.”

“What’s that?” Raspberry asked, tilting her head. She really did have pretty violet eyes.

“Raspberry,” Pinkie said, facing her solidly, “I just want you to know that I’m really really really really really really...”

Pinkie Pie started choking up then, but she still kept on saying, “Really really really,” while Raspberry trotted the short distance between them exclaiming,

“Pinkie what’s wrong? Are you crying?”

Pinkie Pie didn’t know how to say it, or what to say, so she just broke down, sobbing out, “Really really really,” until Raspberry said, crouching before her anxiously,

“Stop! What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry!” Pinkie cried, pulling Raspberry into a tight embrace, “I’m so sorry. It was all my fault. It was all my fault I’m so sorry Rosy please...” She kind of couldn’t make words then, and Pinkie Pie was ruining her own party, because that’s what she did, right? So she just kept doing it, until she had calmed down enough that Raspberry could pull her to arm’s length.

“Guess I lied, when I said I wasn’t gonna get all weird,” Pinkie said in a muted tone, twisting sideways and blushing self-consciously.

“Are you okay now, Pinkie Pie?” Raspberry asked, and Pinkie couldn’t help but notice that all of Rosy’s friends except Bluebell had left them alone... had left Raspberry alone because of Pinkie Pie.

“I don’t know!” Pinkie whimpered in confusion, “I might never be okay, and I don’t ever want to hurt anypony like that again!”

“Pinkie Pie?” Raspberry said in confusion, “You? When did you ever hurt anypony?”

Pinkie sniffled, and replied in a little confusion herself, “When Twilight tried to force you to go home, and we did all those awful things just because she said it was the right thing.”

“Pinkie, you can’t blame yourself for what Twilight—” Raspberry started to say.

“Yes I can!” Pinkie squealed.

The blue pony cuddled with her was shocked to silence.

“I told Twilight a story,” Pinkie confessed more quietly, with less squealing. “It was a really really rea—” at Raspberry’s flat stare, Pinkie blushed, continuing, “sad story about m-me and something that happened to me a long time ago. I’ve never seen Twilight so upset before. It hurt her so bad, and she didn’t say anything but it was so obvious. First she started lashing out at you, because without you, I’d never have told her the story. Then she d-did just what my mom did, and she didn’t even know she was doing it. I s-stopped her then and tried to help, but she was just so... she would look at me, and the story would still be in her eyes. All because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, or have something ponies call tact.”

Pinkie shaded her eyes, saying, “You can’t blame Twilight for what she did, because she didn’t even know what she was doing. I knew though. I knew and I couldn’t stop her! It’s all my fault! You should—” Raspberry kicked her in the head.

Which is to say, Raspberry smacked the side of her foreleg against Pinkie Pie’s cheek, stopping Pinkie’s speech in a surprised squeak. “Can you listen to me now?” Raspberry said, staring at Pinkie Pie. “Can you just hear me out?”

Pinkie nodded. The two of them stood separate again, unsureity meeting unsureity.

“You can’t blame yourself for what Twilight did,” Raspberry said with a frightening amount of ardor. “You can control what you say to her, but once you said it, she’s out of your control. You didn’t make her try to push me through the portal. I did. I was trying to—never mind. My point is that if your... story was as terrible as all that, and nothing else was going on that could have bothered Twilight besides your story, then Twilight still chose to... react the way she did. You can’t expect yourself to make her decisions for her. You can blame yourself for everything you actually control, and beyond that it’s just...”

Raspberry looked up behind Pinkie Pie, then looked back at Pinkie Pie, saying a little less confidently, “Twilight still isn’t talking to me.” Pinkie looked over behind herself, and Twilight was standing there at a distance over by the punch bowl, looking the other way.

“She always looks away when I notice her staring,” Raspberry said unhappily. “And I’d like to apologize for... for taking away her ability to read, but I can’t make her talk to me again, and I can’t make her stop hating me. So it’s not my fault, even if I wish it was. When I can do something about it, then it is my fault. And you shouldn’t blame yourself, either. Ponies were saying that you were the one who... kept Twilight alive. Was she really...?”

Pinkie was starting to tear up again, which was enough answer for Raspberry. “Wow,” the blue pony said, taking another more discerning look at the princess, “That is dark. ”

“You haven’t heard anything yet!” Rainbow Dash shouted, swooping down from the skies. “Wait’ll you hear what Starlight Glimmer did last year!”

“Who’s Starlight Glimmer?” Raspberry asked worriedly.

“Oh she’s a piece of work,” Rainbow Dash said, rolling her eyes, “I shouldn’t have brought it up though, because this party’s supposed to be about you human ponies, not her.”

“It’s fine,” Raspberry said with an earshrug, “Pinkie and I were just—” She looked around for Pinkie Pie, seeing the pink party pony making a beeline for Twilight Sparkle, who was herself strutting stiffly away. “Huh.”

“Yeah, Twilight’s been kind of... standoffy today,” Rainbow Dash said, kicking back and relaxing in the air, “Try her on a day when we’re not throwing a party about the Rift, and how terrible she got over it.”

“She got pretty bad, huh?” Raspberry asked, looking sentimentally at Rainbow Dash, “I heard rumors from Sea Swirl mostly, but I’ve been a little out of the loop.”

“Boy have you been!” Rainbow announced, landing before the earth pony, “We’ve been tearing apart Equestria looking for you! Did you really change your colors? Is that a thing you can do?”

“Well it’s kind of... not really something ponies talk about, but yeah basically,” Raspberry said, “I also took a potion that changed my hair, made it a little more... Rainbowdashy.”

“Hey I’m not complaining,” Rainbow Dash said, with a little swell of pride that somepony might like her hairstyle that much. Let Rarity sit on that one for a while! “Long as you don’t make it rainbow colored like mine. Trust me you do not want ponies thinking of you that way.”

“I haven’t seen anypony else with a rainbow mane,” Raspberry said, “No more than three colors at most. I was starting to think that you’d have to dye it that way or something.”

“My hair is completely natural," Rainbow Dash said unhappily, “Way too late now, but if I’d have known you could, I’d have changed my colors a long time ago.”

“But your colors are...but...” Raspberry stared at Rainbow Dash, supremely confused. “Do rainbow manes look ugly to ponies or something?” she asked tentatively.

Rainbow Dash laughed at that, “Nah, just the opposite. Ponies would be all over you, trying to figure out where another Rainbow came from.”

“Another Rainbow?” Raspberry said uneasily.

“Yeah there were three of us and—well it’s not a secret or anything, technically, but it’s kind of a sensitive subject with me,” Rainbow Dash said, rubbing her neck with a hoof, “You uh... you might be able to relate actually. Some ponies don’t really think I’m a real uh... pony.”

Raspberry’s glimmering, violet eyes widened, and she declared, “Of course! That makes so much sense! And I always thought I was the first human to come over.”

“You... huh?” Rainbow replied in confusion.

“It explains how you knew about tanks,” Raspberry explained eagerly, “And bullets. I’d heard the theories, but I didn’t think it was true!”

“What was true?” Rainbow Dash asked, wings spreading nervously.

“Oh don’t worry, your secret is safe with me,” Raspberry said coyly, strutting alongside Rainbow Dash with a distinctly swishy tail.

“Thanks, I guess,” Rainbow said, forcing her wings shut at the touch of that pony’s tail tip, “But it really isn’t a secret...”

“Well, Twilight doesn’t know at least,” Raspberry said a little less confidently, looking back over at Rainbow Dash.

“No, she knows,” Rainbow Dash said mildly.

Raspberry whipped around, staring at Rainbow Dash in shock. “Then why did she—?!”

Raspberry cut off, glowering angrily, saying, “You know what, never mind. I don’t even want to know.”

“Oookay then,” said Rainbow Dash, trying not to back up a step, “You know you’re still pretty weird, even for a pony.”

“I—I know,” Raspberry said, looking down and lowering her ears, “I am pretty messed up in general, but I think everypony’s weird in their own way.”

“Boy, you said it,” Rainbow said, rolling her eyes.

A ways away from the partygoing, and out of sight of Blue Raspberry, “I can’t do this,” Twilight Sparkle said to the wall of the alleyway.

Pinkie Pie answered her instead, asking from behind her, “What’s wrong, Twilight?”

“I—I don’t know,” Twilight said, twisting around and cowering further into the dark shadows, “She’s here, Pinkie. I look at her, and I see her, and I know her. How could I ever even think about talking to her? After what I did to her, I can’t even enjoy your amazing party because she’s there reminding me of what I’ve done.”

“You talked to Applejack,” Pinkie said critically, “And she’s your friend again!”

“I know, I know but... this is different,” the lilac librarian said tightly, “With Applejack, I wasn’t... when it comes to Raspberry, I’m just... afraid. I just don’t know what to do.”

The haunted mare who wasn’t even a unicorn anymore had no answers, but Pinkie Pie tried to have some.
Settling down with Twilight against the wall in the shadows, Pinkie just said quietly, “It’s hard when you have to think about this stuff.”

Twilight didn’t offer much argument.

“It’s all scary and hurts inside,” Pinkie Pie continued, hugging her hooves to her chest, “And it doesn’t matter if it’s your fault or not. You still remember doing it, and it still hurts.”

“Pinkie, what do I do? ” Twilight asked, looking at her with distress, “How do I make this better again?”

“Well you know I’m the Element of Laughter, not the Element of making this better again,” Pinkie said thoughtfully, “But isn’t it better already? The Rift isn’t gonna hurt us, Ponyville is safe, and we were having a fun party. So, what’s the problem?”

“Me. I’m the problem,” Twilight said bitterly, “I’m always the problem. Why should I even be here? Why am I not in the dungeon? Or banished? Or—”

“An’ what exactly would that accomplish?”

Applejack addressed Twilight Sparkle, strutting up to the two ponies in shadow, illuminated by the cool moon’s light. “We shoulda thrown you in the dungeon a long time ago, when all this started,” Applejack said seriously, “But now? How’re you a danger to anypony around? You ain’t hurtin’ nopony, and you ain’t gonna hurt nopony.”

“But I never meant to hurt anypony in the first place, and look what happened!” Twilight said miserably, “What’s to stop it from happening again?”

“Twilight, seriously, you never meant to hurt anypony?” Applejack said skeptically, “Not even in the heat of the moment? Not even when Rosy lied about you bein’ a bad friend?”

Twilight didn’t answer.

“You’re a lil pony, Twilight, just like the rest of us,” Applejack said in a more soothing tone, “You’re gonna get angry sometimes, and sometimes you’re gonna wanna hurt somepony. But you know what’s different?”

She gestured over her head at the sky, saying, “You been through this. You learned your lesson, just like those storybook things. Next time something happens that you... don’t think oughta happen, you’ll remember how well that went the last time you tried t’ force it. If’n you focus on gettin’ better, and back to where you cain read again, ah don’t think this sorta thing’s gonna ever happen again. At least, not with us around to stop it.”

“Applejack... your orchards,” Twilight said fearfully, “Your trees. You love those trees, and I almost... I just recklessly endangered them, and you, and... why are you even talking to me anymore?”

“Look, Twi, ah...” Applejack took off her hat, holding it to her shoulders, “Ah don’t think ah could recover from somethin’ like that. It’d just... kill me to watch mah orchards burned down t’ashes. But ah would recover some, an’ rebuild, and heal, and maybe it’d open up some new doors for me. Ah ain’t been far from the Acres since back in Hayshire. So what ah’m sayin’ is ah’d be real mad about it, but not at you, when all y’did was forget to study something. Ah know that’s a big deal for you, but for me, all that matters is your heart was in the right place. Ah just want you to know Twilight, that I’d burn down every tree ah ever grew, if’n ah had to choose between them and you.”

Both Twilight and Pinkie stared speechlessly.

“There’ll be more apple trees,” Applejack tried to explain, “But there’s only one you. You gotta special kinda crazy, and a special kinda way of seein’ things, an’ ah wouldn’t trade it for the world. So how about you stop feelin’ sorry for yourself, and go apologize to Blue Raspberry?”

“Wait, her name’s Raspberry Blue, isn’t it?” Pinkie asked uncertainly.

“I don’t care what her name is,” Twilight said, crawling to her hooves, “I can’t even look at her forward. How am I supposed to talk to her?”

“Aw, ah think you’re lookin’ at her sideways on account of you needta apologize,” Applejack suggested, nuzzling at Twilight’s mane. “Just don’t hold back, an’ you’ll feel better about it in a jiffy.”

“You might want to hold a little back,” Pinkie Pie suggested, “I think she’s had enough ponies break down crying in front of her.”

Applejack told Twilight, “Sugarcube, we both talked to Rosy—”

“We did?” Pinkie interrupted in confusion.

“Eyup, and she told us both ah reckon,” Applejack continued with a nod of her hat to Pinkie, “That Rosy wants t’make amends. Twilight, she wants t’apologize to you.”

Twilight laughed bitterly at that. Applejack didn’t laugh back though. “What could Rosy possibly have to apologize for?” Twilight said with an incredulous look to her apple loving friend.

“Maybe you should ask her,” Applejack said with a teasing smile, “Ah reckon she’ll tell ya.”

Twilight Sparkle looked from Pinkie to Applejack, before sinking her head and saying, “Fine. I’ll... talk to her. But the moment one of us starts crying, I’m leaving.”

“Thanks Twilight,” Pinkie Pie added herself, “I really want you to feel better and I really think this’ll help.”

She turned to Applejack, adding with a bright smile in the shadowy alley, “And thanks so much Applejack. You always know just what to say!”

Applejack snorted at that, saying self-consciously, “You know what to say more often than ah do, Pinkie, but I do have mah moments.”

The three of them sauntered off then, back towards light and laughter of the sounds of celebration.

“Well, that is indeed an adventure,” Rarity concluded, as Pinkie Pie, Applejack and Twilight Sparkle approached. Blue Raspberry, Rarity and somepony Twilight seemed to remember was Applejack’s... neighbor’s... cousin were there, talking together about various and sundry. “And Cannon Beach sounds like a positively charming village,” Rarity went on, “I shall have to visit sometime. Oh, hello, um...” she looked at the three approaching in varying degrees of enthusiasm. “You...?”

“Hi Rarity! Hi Goldenrod!” Pinkie Pie declared, while the orange-haired mare (named ‘Goldenrod’ apparently) looked at Twilight apprehensively, just like everypony did. Just like everypony should.

“Sorry to bother y’all,” Applejack said, putting a hoof around behind Twilight’s neck, so Twilight couldn’t just run away. “Twilight here’s got somethin’ to say to Rosy—er—Razzy here.”

“Y-you’re not forcing her, or anything, are you?” said the soft-voiced Blue Raspberry, giving Applejack’s arm a worried look.

“No, they’re not forcing me,” Twilight said, deliberately pushing Applejack’s arm off the only way she could think of: with one of those accursed wings. “But it’s been... really hard to talk to you. I–I don’t even know if I should. Just tell me if I’m... going over the line again. H-how have you been, Goldenrrod?” She tried smiling, even though she’d have rather screamed, and instead of Goldenrod acknowledging the former princess, Raspberry said,

“Twilight, I’m so sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” Goldenrod blurted out in a kind of dopey voice, staring incredulously at Raspberry. Then she looked at Twilight fearfully, and clammed up.

“Yes, and you should be too,” Raspberry said, pulling Goldenrod to look at her again. “You really think Twilight’s gonna hurt you? You think you could say anything that she’d get mad at? Hey Twilight,”

Rasperry caught Twilight’s gaze in... hauntingly familiar violet, saying, “You were a total idiot. Your bumbling almost hurt a lot of ponies, and if you weren’t so pig-headed, then the Rift might never have become a problem. Now... are you gonna throw me in the dungeon?”

“What? No! How could I—I can’t throw you in the dungeon anymore,” Twilight declared in confusion, “I’m not a guard, or even a real princess!”

“Are you angry at me?” Raspberry persisted, “Gonna use a spell to shut me up for making fun of a derpy egghead like you?”

“Why are you saying this?” Twilight exclaimed, crestfallen, “Why would you even think I would ever do that?”

“Because you can,” Raspberry said, “But you won’t.” She actually pushed Goldenrod forward then, saying, “Go ahead, call Twilight a derpy egghead, see if she even gets upset.”

“Well it won’t work now,” Goldenrod vacillated, shoving her rump back against Raspberry.

Raspberry continued to shove forward with determination, saying, “She doesn’t... want... you to...” but then Goldenrod spooked, breaking free and trotting hastily off in the other direction. The magenta and blue pony watched her go with a frustrated sigh.

“She’s not being unreasonable,” Twilight said seriously to Raspberry, “I did just almost blow up the town and its surrounding countryside... again.”

“Again?” Raspberry asked, turning back to look at her.

“Remember Tirek?” Twilight said. Then she blinked, and said, “Oh I guess that was before your time.”

“Twilight, I’m sorry,” Raspberry repeated, as Twilight fell to jumbled silence. Facing her squarely in a way that Twilight couldn’t really comfortably do, the mare said, “When I came here, I was just awful to you. I never did anything bad, but I didn’t even think you were a real pony. You were just a stereotype to me.”

Her ears sank as Raspberry admitted, “I pushed you away, just because you were the main character. I thought you couldn’t understand why I needed to stay, and then I avoided you. I left you blind in the dark. You hurt me and other ponies and yourself, swinging blindly, but you were trying! It was just... too hard for me to tell you.”

Twilight looked at Raspberry silently for a long moment, before she managed to reply, “I—I don’t know if I would have had a good reaction, even if you told me about the... stallion issue on your own. I assume that’s what you’re talking about. It’s just so different from what I’m... used to. It’s hard to accept.”

“It’s kind of hard for me to accept, myself,” was Raspberry’s shy answer, “It might be that. I dunno what I’m talking about. I just thought you couldn’t understand, that maybe I was wrong to feel like this. And you didn’t understand, because I never tried to help you understand. I thought I could just... avoid it, but the more I pulled away, the more you pushed, until um...” she gestured a hoof up at the glowing thing in the sky.

Twilight didn’t know what to say. “Rosy—Raspberry,” Applejack cut in, her friend stepping forward just a bit between Twilight and Raspberry. “We all did things we regret, not just you. All you did was what anypony would do when faced with...”

Applejack glanced back nervously at Twilight, and Raspberry took a step forward herself, saying urgently, “That’s exactly why what I did was wrong. I was just like everypony else in town, thinking Twilight was some kind of superpony, avoiding her, too afraid to talk to her. So I’m sorry about that. I should’ve at least tried to help you understand, instead of just leaving you trying to understand something you’ve never seen before. Is it any wonder things got so bad?”

“Raspberry,” Twilight said, pushing past Applejack with a hoof, “You don’t need to apologize. I’m the one who needs to apologize!”

“Well, I didn’t say you couldn’t apologize too,” Raspberry admitted a bit sullently, lifting a hoof uncertainly, “Though Pinkie pretty much apologized for you already I think.”

“I’d like to apologize,” Twilight said, scraping the ground, “I just don’t know where to start. I’m sorry I... said all those hurtful things to you, and didn’t listen to you, when you said you didn’t want to go home. I just wish there was some way I could make it up to you.”

“Well, you could start by enjoying the party, I guess?” Raspberry said, sounding a little flummoxed, “Quite honestly, I don’t really see what you could do, but I don’t really think there’s anything you need to do.”

Raspberry turned aside, not in fear, but almost in demonstration of herself. “I’m fine,” she said. “Better than fine, even! Everything worked out, and nopony got hurt. I don’t know what’s gonna happen in the future, but I’m pretty happy with my life right now. What you did in the past doesn’t change that. No matter how close things came to disaster, they didn’t and outside of time travel, nothing is going to change that.”

“No. Time travel.” Rainbow Dash said firmly.

Everypony looked up to see the rainbow pegasus had descended from the sky just then. The night skies were dark, so it was hard to see a pegasus approaching from above, but Rainbow Dash’s brilliantly chromatic mane stood out in the even light of the hanging lamps that were illuminating the party.

“O...kay,” Raspberry said, giving the hovering pegasus a thoughtful look. “No time travel, fine. Is there really anything Twilight needs to do, then?”

Rainbow Dash shrugged, suggesting, “Listen to her friends more, stop making assumptions how things work, and don’t break into ponies’ houses, foalnap them, and try to toss them through strange portals.”

“Okay, yeah, that... would be good,” Raspberry admitted, but she looked back at Twilight earnestly, stepping up to her, saying, “But I think you’re already doing all that. Whatever went... wrong, you’re trying to get better from it, and that’s all anypony could ask. You might do weird... even terrible stuff in the future, but now there’s a lot fewer ways for that to happen.”

Twilight trembled as the red and blue pony came almost nose to nose, and Raspberry put a hoof on her shoulder, saying, “You seem like a really sweet pony, under the fear and... and ostracization. If you want something to do, I’d say you should make some friends. Not just your half dozen, but find out about other ponies, and what you need to do to make them feel safe around you.” Raspberry took her hoof back, saying, “That’s just an idea though, not any sort of obligation.”

“Yeah, I can... I can look into it,” Twilight said, with a sheepish smile. “Seems obvious when you put it that way.”

“I don’t think I could ask for more,” Raspberry said gladly, “Have a good life, Twilight Sparkle.”

Then she trotted of into—”Wait!” Twilight shouted.

Blue Raspberry trotted curiously back to the group, of Rainbow Dash, Pinkie, Rarity, Applejack, and Twilight Sparkle. “Something wrong?” Raspberry asked.

“Sorry,” Twilight said, “It’s no big deal or anything, and I don’t want to impose, but I was wondering if maybe you would be okay if we could maybe ask you a few questions?”

“Sure I guess,” Raspberry said, waiting with a casual swish of her tail. Then waiting a bit more. She waited, looking worried, while Twilight tried to think of what on earth to ask this pony. “Are you okay?” Raspberry asked worriedly.

“Yes I just—I don’t know where to start!” Twilight exclaimed.

“Really?” Raspberry replied, eyes widening in surprise. “I mean, Dr. Harness pretty much already explained everything I could have said, about what happened with the Rift, the other day. What else do you want to know?”

“The—the other day?!” Twilight squawked, “The other day? I’ve had questions for you since you arrived! How did you ever think that would be a good idea? How did you get to Equestria? How did you get so... good at being a pony? You had friends willing to lie to a princess to protect you! How did a pony like you go from just... friendless and alone, not even a pony, and lost in the woods, to... to...”

Twilight waved a hoof overhead at the glowing thing in the sky, shouting, “This!!”

Raspberry looked pensively at Twilight Sparkle, and sighed. Slightly shaking her head in resignation, she replied,

“It’s a long story...”

Author's Note

Tell me this isn’t the longest chapter I’ve ever written, I dare you!