The Greatest of These

by archonix

Rating: teen
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, Main 6, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Spike, Rarity, Romance, Adventure, Zecora, Alternate Universe
Length: 31256

Rarity has gone missing and there's a new dragon lurking in the mountains near Ponyville.

Rarity has disappeared. Not just stepped out or gone away on short notice, but completely disappeared, leaving her work unfinished, her friends mystified and, for some reason, her hair all over the ground outside the Carousel Boutique. Without a clue to her whereabouts, faced with rumours of a dragon stalking the town and troubled by a mysterious work of magic, Rarity's friends face up to the possibility that they may never see her again.

And then they find her...

NOTE: On hiatus until I can find a way out of a huge plot hole I just noticed. Sorry folks.

Published 2012-07-13 13:04:01 UTC
Last updated 2012-10-26 13:50:49 UTC

Hidden Things

It was the hair that finally tore Rarity from her work.

Losing the occasional hair was nothing new, it happened to the strongest mane, but five at once? Rarity glared at the deep purple strands laced across her latest piece of work, marvelling for a moment at just how they improved the look of the piece - but no no no, to start using her own hair in her work? That would never do! - and then let out an annoyed huff. It was stress. It had to be stress, she’d been overdoing it for weeks thanks to a series of profitably huge orders from Canterlot, orders resting on the back of her performance for Cadence’s wedding, for a dress that had survived an invasion of bodysnatchers or chrysalids, or whatever they were. A work of art from Carousel Boutique had once again become the thing in Canterlot high society.

Too good, that was her problem. Too good for her own good. Rarity gently lifted the hair from the dresser’s dummy before her and scooted it over to a table, ignoring the twinge at her shoulders as she turned her head. Too much work, not enough fresh air. She’d probably pulled a muscle carrying all four bolts of cloth back from the station but it would be worth it. Orders from Canterlot were always so very profitable. She’d take a long, relaxing holiday afterwards, forget about work for a while and just rest on her laurels a little bit. Surely she deserved that?

Rarity cantered to the door and stepped outside, shivering as the cool night air caressed her body, its chill fingers sparkling her mind awake. She looked up at the stars, ignoring another tweak of pain in her back. The sky was so wide, so deep. It almost felt like she could fall in. Yes, an escape was what she needed. A few weeks away, to herself, where there were no more rush jobs and last minute orders to fulfil. Maybe she should take a little time and visit her cousin in Coltchester. Maybe she could go somewhere else entirely. Somewhere across the sky...

She closed her eyes, uncaring, as the cooling breeze gently unwound another long lock from her mane.

Hidden Things

The sun crept over the horizon to find a town already filled with activity; market stalls setting up, shops opening, farm workers snatching a short breakfast after an already long, laborious morning. Twilight was banished by the bright light, sent to far distant corners and the shade of tall trees.

Which was an amusing thought, Twilight decided, as she set about preparing for the day’s work. The sun promised a bright, hot summer’s day and she would have given anything to be able to laze under some shady arbour or by a quiet pool and, just for once, not have to plan out the necessary detail of every moment of her waking life. Ah but, she thought with a wry shake of her head, that would require a detailed plan of how to deal with everything she hadn’t done that day.

It never ended.

“Though I suppose I could fit in five minutes of quiet shady contemplation after my lunch date with Rarity,” Twilight mused, lifting a small stack of books from her writing stand and examining the chart for today. It was colourful, as if a rainbow had been very neatly spilled on the page in tidy rows. Yes, that would do, as long as Rarity wasn’t late – which she never was.

Satisfied with the amendment, Twilight rolled up the chart into a scroll and hid it away just as Spike wandered into the room. He stared at her and rubbed his eyes.

“Good morning Spike, nice to see you up and about at such a reasonable time for once!”

“Hey Twilight.” Spike rubbed his face, yawned, and gave Twilight a bleary once-over. “Where did that scroll just disappear to?”

Twilight frowned. Could he have forgotten so quickly? “It’s an Ossary’s Pocket, Spike, I explained it to you last night.” She paused for a response, but the little dragon seemed oblivious. “A magical spell that lets me store items in a hidden space that follows me around at any time and is completely self-sustaining for potentially thousands of years? Pre-dates Starswirl himself?”

“Oh yeah, that thing, I guess I forgot.”

“I showed you that thing yesterday afternoon, twice, and again last night so you wouldn’t forget, Spike.” Twilight had honestly tried not to raise her voice, but it seemed that sometimes she couldn’t help it around her put-upon assistant. Spike’s shoulders seemed to sag just a little. “Spike, please don’t think I’m mad at you...”

“It’s okay, I’m just the dumb baby dragon, what do I know?”

“Spike!”

The little dragon’s face suddenly split in a huge grin. He laughed, then laughed again at Twilight’s obvious confusion.

“Spike, what’s so funny?”

“You, thinking I didn’t pay attention,” Spike said, wiping a tear from his eye. He let out a few final chuckles and grinned again. “Sometimes you’re so easy to bait, Twilight.”

“I think maybe you spent a little too much time with those other dragons,” Twilight muttered, though she couldn’t help smiling in return. This was better than the Spike who’d spent days looking for his sense of identity but, still, sometimes she worried a little about his moods; he seemed to be quieter these days, slipping into the background more and more as if he was starting to see himself as some sort of outsider. “If you’re done playing pranks, there’s plenty of real work to do around here and since I’ve got a lot to do today, you’ve got plenty of time to do it without me getting in your mane. Er, scales.” She paused to consider this idea, then shook her head again and turned to the door. “Sounds about right anyway. See you later, Spike!”

Spike, by this time holding a large mop and bucket, gave something like a mock salute and turned to face the shelving. He waited for the door to slam, then a moment longer before tossing the mop to one side. “Like she ever checks...”

“I’m still here, and I do check,” Twilight said next to his ear. He didn’t jump, but only because he was too surprised to move. Twilight ruffled Spike’s spines and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “You might have learned a few pranks from dragons but I, Spike, I learned from the best. Make sure you get behind the sink this time and maybe I’ll bring you a little treat from Rarity.”

This time she left Spike with possibly the widest grin she’d ever seen him carry. Unfortunately, now she was late. Lamenting the injustice of the world, Twilight retrieved her schedule and carefully erased her five minutes of relaxing shade. She’d just have to do it tomorrow.

* * *

Fluttershy alighted before the door to the Carousel and waited for a moment to see if the door would open by itself, before knocking as gently as she could. “Rarity? Are you there?”

There wasn’t an answer but that was okay, probably. She tried again, a little louder. “Rarity? You missed our spa date and I know you’re busy, and I’m probably not being fair for expecting you to come along to it, but you seemed like you needed a rest and I was wondering, um, if that’s okay...”

Her voice trailed off, as did her more persistent knock. The door swing slightly on its hinges, silently, revealing a completely deserted interior. Fluttershy blinked, nervous eyes darting back and forth as she took in the scene.

“Oh she’s probably just stepped out for a moment, I’ll come back,” she said, her voice so quiet she could barely hear herself talk.

As she stepped back from the door a movement on the ground caught her eye. She knelt down for a closer look. A lock of dark hair trailed across the path. As Fluttershy raised her head she saw more of the hair, great snaking clumps of it in a long trail that ended a little way past the edge of the Carousel’s neat garden in a scattered flower of long purple tresses, sprinkled with short tufts of white and grey. She carefully stepped around the trail, eyes wide, taking in every detail.

“Oh my...”

“Fluttershy!”

Fluttershy looked up. A streak of colour crossed the bright summer sky, spun around a cloud and plummeted toward her to halt mere inches from her face. Rainbow Dash grinned at her, wings flapping. She was upside down.

“Hiya Fluttershy, is that cat around?”

“Rainbow, I’m so glad you’re here, Rarity’s missing!”

“Missing?” Rainbow Dash righted herself and dropped to the ground with a resounding thump, completely failing to notice the dust and hair that rose in a cloud around her legs. “She’s supposed to be helping me pick out new curtains for my... I mean she’s supposed to, er, we were going to the... gym?” Rainbow seemed to consider what she’d just said and then shrugged. “Anyway she can’t be missing. Where would she go?”

“She’s not at home and I found this,” Fluttershy said, pointing at the circle of hair. Rainbow stared down at it for a moment and then looked around.

“Ponies don’t just explode... do they?”

“I don’t really know, it’s not-”

Fluttershy was cut off by the sound of Rainbow’s hooves clopping together. She looked triumphant. “Zecora knows about these things! To the forest!”

Raimbow Dash zoomed into the air, wings ablur, Fluttershy trailing in her wake.

“Actually I think Twilight-”

“Twilight?”

“There are some really strange things about this, I think we need a unicorn’s magical skill-”

“To the book depository!”

“But she’s not at the-” Rainbow dashed past Fluttershy, leaving her spinning in the air and completely confused. Even for Rainbow this was manic, but Fluttershy tried to catch up with her anyway. “Rainbow, I really think we should slow down and think about this a little more.”

“Are you kidding me? There’s a mystery to solve!”

“That’s what I mean...”

Rainbow slowed a little and looked over her shoulder at her friend. “Fluttershy, the worst thing we could do right now is think. We need to find out what happened! What if she’s hurt somewhere? Or trapped in a big room with a bunch of fashion nerds drooling all over her... her... they could do anything!”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s the problem. Didn’t you see the-”

“She could be the victim of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street!” Rainbow redoubled her speed, leaving Fluttershy in her wake yet again.

“You just made that up!”

The two ponies continued to bicker as they arced across Ponyville’s sky – or, at least, Rainbow bickered. It seemed to Fluttershy that her friend could bicker all by herself if she so desired, but at least that meant she had someone to listen to and it left Fluttershy with time to think of what to say to Twilight when they found her. Ponies didn’t just explode for no reason, Fluttershy was fairly certain on this point. She was also certain that they didn’t suddenly shed copious amounts of hair, nor leave giant dragon tracks all over the place. The conclusions settling in her mind were, in a word, unsettling.

* * *

“A dragon?”

Twilight fought the urge to look around the sky for ravenous beasties descending. Instead she gave her two friends an extra-close look and a frown that she hoped added a little gravitas. The effet was somewhat spoiled when a short breeze lifted up the umbrella in her drink and dropped it on the table between them. “Are you sure?”

There was silence for a moment. The other patrons had either not noticed her outburst or were carefully ignoring the word ‘dragon’ and getting on with their meals.

“Quite sure,” Fluttershy replied, though now she was looking at the ground again, a sure sign that she knew she was right and didn’t want to make a fuss about it. “I mean, it’s possible that Rarity just happened to dig several holes that look like claw marks, then shaved off all her hair and ran away...”

“Yeah,” Rainbow added, more for the show of things. It was obvious that she was a little embarrassed by something; her wings were raised defensively

“So lets get this straight.” Twilight began pacing as she tried to order her thoughts. “Rarity has disappeared, her garden has a few holes that might be dragon tracks and for some reason all her hair has...”

“Fallen out,” Fluttershy finished. She looked up. “That’s not normal.”

“There’s a lot about this town that isn’t normal,” Twilight said, recalling just a few of her recent adventures. There were times when she wondered how anyone in Ponyville slept at night. “Dragons rarely have anything to do with ponies at the best of times. Not counting Spike, the last time a dragon took a pony anywhere around here was decades ago, and even then it was an accident. And why would a dragon cut her hair? They’re not exactly known for their skill with scissors. No, there has to be another explanation.”

She turned to face her friends again; their eyes were downcast, already starting to accept something that had seemed unthinkable even a few moments earlier. “Snap out of it you two!”

Fluttershy squeaked in surprise, but seemed to come to her senses. Rainbow Dash just looked miserable.

“Sorry Twilight...”

“Better. Now, what if she just had to leave suddenly?”

The pegasid pair perked up at the suggestion; all three would have believed even the most preposterous idea if it meant they might see Rarity again soon and Twilight wasn’t yet ready to even consider the possibility that her friend had been... had...

“Rainbow, you go and check the station to see if Rarity took an early-” Twilight’s sentence was lost in a cloud of dust as Rainbow shot into the air, her face set in determination. So eager. “Train. Fluttershy, I’d like you to go and check in on Spike. He’s been a little out of sorts this week.”

“Oh certainly, Twilight, whatever you say!” She turned, then paused. “Um, what are you going to do?”

“After I’ve checked out the Carousel I’m going to see Zecora. For some reason, Every time somepony in this town does anything even slightly odd it involves the Everfree Forest.”

“Oh...” Fluttershy pawed the ground and seemed to be trying to come to a decision. Her head dropped just a little. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

“It’s perfectly safe... well, it’s not as dangerous as... no. But if anypony has been in there, Zecora will know.”

“But going alone? I don’t think that’s a good idea, Twilight. You might meet... someone.”

“I promise, I’ll go straight to Zecora and come straight back. Easy.” She waited for the sceptical look on Fluttershy’s face to subside before going on. “Anyway, I thought you were in and out of Everfree all the time these days.”

They started down the road to the centre of town, Fluttershy falling a little behind Twilight as they went. “I’m sorry, Twilight, but you know how I feel about that forest. It scares me.”

“There is nothing in that forest that can’t be explained by simple scientific observation.”

“Yes, that’s what scares me. I know exactly what’s in there these days.” Fluttershy’s eyes squeezed together as she thought about everything she’d met in the Everfree Forest; the worst of her imagination had conjured nothing that could compare to some of the things that haunted the dark crevices and lurked in the shadows of the deep woods. “It was better when I wasn’t sure, at least then I could pretend I was wrong.”

I really hope we’re wrong now, Twilight thought. She looked up at the sky away, unconsciously searching for any sign of dragons, knowing that she’d not be able to do much if she saw one. Either it wasn’t paying attention, in which case it would be best left alone, or it was paying attention, in which case you ran for the nearest cover and hoped it got bored before it remembered it could breath fire.

* * *

There was a small crowd outside the Carousel Boutique by the time Twilight arrived. Ponies milled around uncertainly, chattering, but keeping their distance from the building and the worrying pile of hair. The conversation slowed as Twilight approached and ponies turned to look at her with various levels of worry and concern.

It was a reminder of how many people came through the boutique for one thing or another; how generous Rarity was with her time, for so many to be here now for appointments and help that she now might never be able to give. Was that it? Had she finally run away from all the clamour and demands others brought to her door? But that wasn’t like her...

Twilight stepped through the small crowd and stopped at the trail of hair. She lifted a lock close to her face and peered at it, then tucked it away in her Ossary’s Pocket. Under the silent gaze of the crowd she stepped carefully across the garden, making a note of an impression that did seem to look a lot like a dragon print, but odd and misshapen, as if the foot that had made it had melted first.

Inconclusive, she thought. There might be more information inside. It was just fortunate that this crowd apparently hadn’t dared enter without Rarity there. Speaking of which...

Twilight turned to the crowd. Already they were looking at her, expectant, as if by merely doing something she was in charge of everything. She cleared her throat.

“Everypony, I’m afraid that Rarity won’t be able to see any of you today. She’s, uh... not well. I mean not here.”

The crowd looked at her in silence. All of them. Did they want more?

“So, you can just... go home, I guess.”

“What about the dragon?” This from a young colt near the front. He pushed forward, flipped his mane out of his eyes and looked around. “Everypony says she was taken by a dragon.”

“Dragon? Who said anything about a dragon, there’s no dragon!”

An older mare pushed up next to the colt and glared at Twilight. “I saw a dragon flying over the town last night! It was black as sin and ugly as... as sin!”

“I really don’t-”

“It kept telling me to burn things!”

The crowd seemed to relax. Just some old crazy woman, was he collective thought, of course there’s no dragon. One by one, then in pairs and threes they began to disperse, leaving Twilight along with the old mare and the colt. They looked at each other and then at her.

“Well I’m convinced,” the elder said with a sudden, worrying grin. She nudged the colt, turned and stamped her hoof on the floor, right next to one of the odd imprints. “Come along sonny, lets go find your grandfather.”

Twilight watched until they were out of sight and then turned her attention to the Boutique. The door was still ajar and the dust of numerous hoofprints rested on the threshold but, strangely, nobody had dared venture inside. It was almost...

She felt the magical field as soon as she entered. A grinding, bitter sort of feeling that set her teeth on edge accompanied by a tang of metal on the air. A remnant of a powerful spell lingered here, and old, far older than anything Twilight had experienced before, older than anything she knew even existed before. She closed her eyes, summoning a sell of allsight, and slowly moved to the centre of the room as she let the magic flow into her mind. Here was the core of it, there a filigree of purple-white light tracing out as the spell had spread throughout the building, wrapping around columns. In her mind’s eye Twilight could trace every path it had taken until it had found Rarity, but what it had done...

Twilight moved as if her eyes were open, trotting around the circumference of the room until she reached the spot where Rarity had been when the spell found her. Tendrils of light mapped out her shape in almost painful detail as the spell had wound its way around her, imprinting a shadow of her form on itself as she and it had worked. Here and there faint trails followed Rarity’s movements around the workroom, leading to faint impressions of her as she had paused to pick up a different tool or some piece of work. A slow-burner, something designed to operate at an extremely low level and in a most profound way.

There was a knock at the door. Twilight dropped her allsight spell so fast she gave herself a small headache. With a wince she turned to the door.

“Applejack? What are you doing here?”

“Soon as I heard I dropped everythin’ and came right over to help. If I can help, that is...” She lingered at the door, seemingly reluctant to enter. “I’ve got Sweetie Belle stayin’ over but I haven’t told her yet. So what’s goin’ on? There’s hair and hoofprints and a whole mess all over the place out there. It’s sorta like that time Granny an’ me went to the county fair and she got herself into too much of the ol’ apple scumble.”

Twilight grunted and turned back to now invisible magic woven throughout the room. She looked over her shoulder at Applejack. “Someone cast a spell on Rarity, one I’ve never even seen before. It’s... strange.”

“Strange how?” Applejack stepped into the room, shuddered and stepped back. “That is the weirdest thing I have ever felt in my life. Twilight, what’s going on?”

“It’s some sort of slow-acting curse,” Twilight answered. She eased open her mind again, letting a Machini’s Externalis Opticum layer itself over the magical field, revealing the minute detail, before stepping back to look at Rarity’s shade. The lines of the spell continued to flow past her, through Applejack and the door where they seemed to peter out in the sunlight. Something wasn’t quite right, but Twilight couldn’t put her hoof on it. She peered deeper into the shade. It was as if something had begun to change shape.

Applejack swore quietly under her breath.

“I ain’t never seen anythin’ like this before. What is goin’ on around here?”

“I don’t know,” Twilight said, banishing her spell. The older magical field remained, grating against her nerves like a horrific screech. She’d have to do something about that later otherwise nobody would be able to use the Carousel again. As she moved to the door she spotted a few strands of hair tied in a neat coil on the table. Twilight lifted the hair and tucked them into her Ossary’s Pocket. As the holding spell opened the magical field in the room suddenly seemed to... to tense, was the only way Twilight could describe it, like a band pulling tight, accompanied by a sudden spike of pain directly beneath her horn. She quickly retreated to the door.

“You okay, Twi?”

“I’ve been better,” Twilight replied, panting just a little as the pain eased away. Despite, or perhaps because of her aching head, Twilight carefully shut and locked the door of the Carousel. “We’re going to need help.”

* * *

Far from the town, farther still from the Everfree Forest, a trader tugged his cart slowly along a dirt track, grumbling and muttering to himself, apparently as a way to pass the time. The forest was deep here, and dark and the track, overgrown with grass and weeds, showed little sign of use, something the trader seemed to lament every few yards.

His cart bucked and shuddered through ruts collapsed by rain and blocked with stones, followed by a huge slam as the backboard, which had shaken loose one of its hooks, swung out and back against the body of the cart. A grunt of frustration usually followed but the trader refused to slow, lest his cargo be late.

Of course he could have taken the train. He could have thrown money down the river as well, for all the use it did. Trains might be fast but they were crowded and noisy, and got soot in his cargo which would completely ruin it and then where would be be?

At this the trader finally halted, stretched his aching back and unhitched from the cart.

“Inspection time,” he muttered gruffly, with a voice that spoke of too many years hawking his wares at full volume. “Probably find it’s all fallen out fifty miles back too, I shouldn’t wonder.”

The old colt tramped to the rear of the cart and nosed the damaged backboard open to peer inside. Neatly stacked bolts of cloth greeted him with their finery, almost every one a unique treasure. With something that wasn’t quite a smile the trader turned away and looked around for something to secure the backboard more securely. He blinked.

Then, after a moment of staring at a rock that would certainly not help, he realised that he hadn’t blinked at all. The trader looked up; a shadow was coasting gently down the track towards him. Some sort of fast-moving cloud? He looked higher. A white dragon soared along the road, eyes fixed on him. The trader tried to say something but all he could manage was a quiet yelp.

The dragon bore down on him with an almighty roar that was almost matched by the trader’s own terrified scream. He ducked, waiting for the inevitable, and felt... nothing. A rush of air, the flap of powerful wings, a sensation of something moving and then the dragon was gone.

Along with his cart.

The trader glared at the retreating shape of the dragon and spat. Now what would he do when he reached town? He stared at the empty sky for some time, deep in thought, then slowly turned and continued on his trek. He’d had made almost half a mile before the shock reached his legs and turned them to jelly.

It was turning out to be a very bad day.

Silent Fire

The door of the Golden Oaks (never knowingly locked before seven in the evening, please come and read something!) clattered against the wall just as Spike was returning from the kitchen. He wiped the last of the grime from his hands and, without looking up, gave the door a wave.

“Hi Twilight, didn’t expect you back so...”

No purple unicorn stood in the door. Instead a pegasus, wings raised, was framed by the bright sunlight. Spike’s eyes widened as he recognised the visitor, someone who normally only came when she was sure Twilight would be around.

“Fluttershy?”

“Spike, you’re okay? Tell me you’re okay! Um... I mean, if that’s okay...”

“Sure,” Spike said. He tossed the cloth to one side and gave Fluttershy a quick grin. “I just finished cleaning under the sink. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

Fluttershy’s face fell, and the sky seemed to fall with it. “Spike... oh... I don’t know how to say it. Rarity...”

She walked closer to him, putting on a brave face that Spike tried to match with his own but the sinking feeling in his heart was hard to disguise. “What’s happened?”

“She’s missing, Spike. She might have been... she...” Fluttershy shook her pale pink mane and let out an uncharacteristic, frustrated growl. “We don’t know where she’s gone!”

“Maybe she just went out for a walk?” Spike looked into Fluttershy’s big, shimmering eyes for a sign that it might be true. Nothing. Instead she closed them and looked away.

“Rainbow has gone to the station to see if she took a train somewhere but, it seems like she’s just... gone.”

Spike sat down. There really wasn’t much else to do except maybe curl up in his basket and cry his eyes out, but that didn’t seem like a good idea just yet because she might-

A window crashed open, fortunately without shattering, admitting a streak of rainbow fury that bounced off the far wall and tumbled to a halt between Fluttershy and Spike. Rainbow Dash stood up, shook her mane and pawed the ground with an angry glint in her eye.

“She didn’t take the train! Not that those idiots at the station would tell me anything, I had to- oh... hey Spike, I didn’t see you there.”

Rainbow shuffled awkwardly out from between the pair and tucked her wings away. She gently rubbed her muzzle against Spike’s head. “Don’t worry, kid, we’ll find her.”

Spike wasn’t worried. He knew he should be at some level, but he wasn’t, and that scared him a little. He looked up at his two friends and tried to muster some sort of response, but anything he thought to say died in his throat. He swallowed, as if that would somehow get rid of the lump his aborted thoughts were forming there.

“Hey, well, it’s only like that time Applejack disappeared,” he found himself saying. The words had come unbidden. Misplaced hope? The door, open all this time, clicked shut after admitting another pony. It was Applejack. She looked at Spike with blank eyes and shook her head.

“Ah gotta admit the thought crossed my mind, Spike, but this ain’t no simple run-away, not aless y’all think cuttin’ off your hair first is normal for this sorta thing.” Applejack scuffed at the floor and hung her head. “Twilight said there were some weird old curse floatin’ around Rarity’s place. That might have done somethin’.”

“Oh.”

That was all there was to be said. A curse. Magic. Sometimes he wished the stuff never existed – though it would mean he wouldn’t exist either. If magic was involved then of course she hadn’t just run away, she’d been forced out or turned invisible, or teleported not even Celestia could know where. Besides, Spike couldn’t quite think of any normal circumstances where Rarity would just leave without telling anypony where she was going, which meant his vague hopes had been vain to the last. Wasn’t vanity a dragonish trait? Or was it just that they didn’t think things through?

Spike glanced up at Rainbow Dash, who had wandered over to the shelves and was pulling books to the floor, muttering about a temple and a crystal skull. Perhaps that last one is universal, he thought.

“So I guess...” he sniffed. “I guess you’ve got a plan to find her?”

Applejack half nodded. “Twilight said she’d meet us here to talk about it. I gotta tell ya, that curse thingamajig was weird. It felt like mah head wuz turnin’ inside out an’ tyin knots in my ears just standin’ near it.”

“Oh... so that’s what I felt when I went to visit?” Fluttershy’s relief was almost palpable. “I knew I couldn’t just be afraid of disturbing her, it must have been the magic.”

“I difn’t feef anyfinf,” Rainbow said, or tried to say around a mouthful of reference book. She spat the book out.

“You didn’t go to the door. I actually looked inside.”

Rainbow seemed to consider this for a moment, then shrugged and turned to the pile of books at her feet. She stared at it with bewildered eyes before cantering off to the other side of the library.

Spike sighed and levered himself to his feet to resume the never-ending task of re-shelving. He paused with the first book half way to its home. “Hey where is Twilight anyway?”

“She was meant to be here,” Applejack replied. She looked at the others. “Well she said she was going to meet us here.”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened with sudden realisation. “Oh no, oh no no no! Twilight said, after she was done at the boutique, she was going to the Everfree Forest! I thought she’d take one of us with her...”

“You mean she... she went alone? Is she crazy? Rainbow,” Applejack yelled, turning to the pegasus, already fluttering half way up another stack as she sought a book only she knew. “You stay here and make sure Spike doesn’t get in trouble, me an’ Fluttershy will go find Twilight before she gets in trouble.”

“But-”

“But me no buts, either of you!” Applejack butted her head against Fluttershy’s rump, forcing her out the door to great protest. “We ain’t got time to argue girl, now git!”

The door slammed. Spike glared at the pile of books before him, then at Rainbow Dash and finally at the ceiling. “Ponies.”

He tossed the book down on the floor and stomped off upstairs to his and Twilight’s room. He’d always thought it a little odd that he shared a room with Twilight until the idea that he might want to share a room with somepony had suddenly popped into his head, coincidentally around the same time Rarity had given him a new blanket for his basket. He liked to think it still smelled of her, though that was a lie; it smelled of soap and fabric conditioner and the late-night snack he’d taken to bed a few days ago.

But it was comfort. The only place he’d find it for a little while, unless Rainbow suddenly grew purple hair, a horn and the ability to smother him with love, which was unlikely. Spike curled up on the basket and lay his head down, not to sleep, because then he’d have to wake up. He focussed his eyes on some distant point and just stopped thinking for a while.

* * *

Despite Fluttershy’s earlier worries the Everfree Forest seemed unusually quiescent as Twilight travelled through it. She walked slowly, taking in the little patches of meadowgrass that grew beneath occasional breaks in the forest’s otherwise grim, unending canopy and enjoying the free time as much as she could, given the circumstances.

The sun was already lowering itself towards the horizon yet the forest was unusually quiet. Any other day this would have worried Twilight. Such quiet usually meant that some dread creature was about to attack but, today, it felt as if they were keeping their distance, leaving her to herself and the peaceful absence of sound. Twilight walked on in silence, thinking hard on the spell she had found, letting her mind roam in the silent woods.

It seemed as if she was still missing something, some huge part of the puzzle. The curse she had found – it could be nothing else – was intimately linked to Rarity’s disappearance, but she couldn’t understand why, or what it had done. She could feel the shape of it, the solution tantalisingly out of reach, but whenever she tried to focus, she lost sight of it in the murk of her own troubled thoughts. It was as if there was a hole in the centre, an idea she couldn’t seem to bring to mind.

Her contemplation was interrupted by the sound of hoofbeats thrashing through the undergrowth. Twilight turned just as Applejack and Fluttershy rounded a corner on the path at a brisk canter. She waited for them to catch up.

“What’s the rush?”

Applejack panted as she drew to a halt beside Twilight. “You never said you were goin’ to the Everfree forest! I thought you were just goin’ back to the library!”

“Spike is really worried about you,” Fluttershy added. “You should have told them.”

Twilight bridled at the rebuke, as if she had to worry about the feelings of everypony all the time! She pawed at the ground and grit her teeth; the ugly feeling from the Boutique was back, tickling at the edge of her mind and giving her another headache. With great care, Twilight lowered her head and tried to banish the tension she felt. “I wasn’t going to be very long.”

“Well it-”

Applejack’s retort died in her mouth and her eyes widened in shock. Twilight’s gaze was drawn to the far side of the path. A pair of eyes, seeming to glow in reflected light, watched them from within the shade of a particularly large tree.

“Zecora?”

The strange zebra stepped out into the light, peering carefully at the three. “Twilight, you have come to me? I thought I travelled you to see.”

“Ah... yes,” Twilight responded. She was never sure how to reply to Zecora’s constant rhyming and always had to fight the urge to try and match it. Zecora gave her an odd smile and beckoned for the trio to follow. She began walking towards the town.

“Twi, are you sure about this?”

Twilight glanced over at Applejack and shook her mane. “I was until a moment ago. Zecora, why were you coming to see me?”

Zecora walked a few steps ahead of them, humming a tune they hadn’t heard before, and then suddenly whirled to face them, eyes still seeming to glow in the never-ending twilight of the forest. She swayed slightly. “You form a link to that I sought, it was near you, or so I thought.”

The zebra turned and kept walking, looking neither left nor right as she continued along the path with the others in tow. She seemed deep in thought.

“Your friend is gone, so much is clear,” the still-strange zebra said after a long silence. Twilight opened her mouth to speak but quailed under a powerful glare from Zecora. “This you must know, or why seek me here?”

“I... I’d hoped she had come through here.” Twilight looked about, at the ground, at the trees, at her friends, as if that would suddenly reveal Rarity’s snow-white form. “There’s a remnant of a curse in her home. I thought maybe she had been driven into the forest.”

Again Zecora laughed and again her eyes seemed to glow in the darkness. She shook her short, shaggy mane. “Your Rarity has not been here at all, or I would have heard her plaintive call. But let me come along with you,” she continued, before Twilight could get out an answer. “Three heads are better than two.”

“Well, I guess we can’t stop you anyway...”

They continued in silence until they reached the edge of the forest, near Fluttershy’s cottage. Fluttershy looked longingly at her home but refused to leave the others when Applejack suggested she go home and rest.

The sun was low, the evening star already visible above it when they reached the boutique. The shop stood empty and forlorn, apart from the prostrate form of Opalescence in one of the upstairs windows, where she had apparently dragged a sizeable scrap of cloth and was contently snoozing the evening away. Zecora halted in the road. “Here is where we find the door that hides the thing we’re looking for.”

“Oh, um, I don’t see any door other than the one to Rarity’s home,” Fluttershy offered. She made an effort of looking around again just to be certain. “Is that what you’re after? Of course, it’s okay if you’re not...”

“It’s a metaphor, Fluttershy,” Twilight said. She frowned at Zecora. “What do you want? What is it you’re trying to tell us?”

Zecora closed her eyes. “Curse speaks to curse dear child. To speak plainly of it...” she gasped and her back legs seemed ready to gave way. Her voice suddenly seemed to come from a great distance. “Hurts.”

“You’recursed too?”

“A curse I have, but not so bad compared to those others have had.” The return to rhyming seemed to relieve whatever pain Zecora was feeling. Her body, for a moment so frail and fallen, seemed to grow in stature. “I can speak in great detail of many things in song and verse, but great pain awaits me should I fail to make the rhyme, so goes my curse.”

“That’s horrible! Zecora, can’t we do something to-”

“I wish not to speak of it this night! Please, let it go my dear Twilight.” Zecora sat down with a certain finality and fixed her eyes on the door of the Boutique. “This curse is strong and old, I sense. I must stay a while, and ponder whence your friend Rarity did stray, and whether it drove her away. And think...” Her eyelids drifted down until she looked as if she were asleep. “And think.”

“Zecora?”

Silence. Zecora’s only response was a deep breath and a muttered string of syllables in some tongue Twilight had never heard before. The unicorn glanced at her friends, standing in the long shade cast by nearby buildings. Applejack’s shrug seemed to say it all.

Twilight backed away as quietly as she could, motioning her friends to join her a short distance from the Boutique.

“That was very odd,” Fluttershy said, her voice low.

“I’ll say. Rhyming think with think is hardly even a rhyme at all.”

“No, Twilight, I meant-”

“If only I could understand what she’s doing. I think she wanted to tell me something but now she’s just...” Twilight motioned vaguely in Zecora’s direction. “I suppose... I suppose she told me what I had asked about. I need to get back to the library and see what I can find about this curse. If it’s as old as she was implying...” Twilight’s eyes narrowed as she tried to follow the thought to its logical conclusion, but it faded away. She shook her head. “We’re all tired. You two should probably rest a while.”

“Ah might do that if it’s all the same, Twilight. Apple Bloom and those two fillyfriends of hers are probably runnin’ Big Mac and Granny Smith rabid by now. An’ they just don’t know when to lay down a firm hoof, if you see mah meanin’. G’night.”

Applejack tipped her hat, turned and cantered off into the burgeoning gloom, one flank shining bright in the evening light and casting a faint orange glow on the road. Twilight looked past her friend to the dark forests that surrounded Ponyville and wondered...

“Um, Twilight? Is it okay if I come back with you? I’d like to say goodnight to Spike.”

Twilight tore her eyes away from the dark horizon, whatever thought she’d been entertaining lost to the empty sky. She glanced over her shoulder at Zecora’s silent form.

“Sure. She’ll be all right here by herself, I guess.”

The pair set off at a slow walk towards the Golden Oaks, each lost in their own thoughts. There was little to say, except to commiserate over their possible loss, and what could they add to that which had been said before? All Twilight wanted to do was crawl into bed and never get up again, yet her eyes kept dragging to the horizon, with a sense of urgency that faded as soon as it had arrived.

Had she thought about it, Twilight would have recognised the magical influence at work, but her mind was clouded, her thoughts were trapped in a grief that couldn’t allow itself to be expressed.

* * *

Zecora watched the three ponies go their separate ways, not with her eyes, which were still closed, but with what Twilight called allsight. Zebra magic was little known in these green, wet, cold lands that Zecora had come to call home, which sometimes gave her little advantages in dealing with the magic users here. Their skill in the manipulation of the hidden realms was learned; Zecora’s was innate which was both a blessing and... she laughed inside at the word “curse”, but it was true. To see the weft and weave of magic in everything, to be intimately aware of the power flowing though all creation, through every rock and tree, every living creature, was inspirational, yet it let her see more, far more than she would ever want. She saw the souls of those around her, saw their loves and aspirations, their anguish and fear as nebulous clouds of light and colour and lurid darkness roiling around the magical force meshed into the very fabric of their bodies.

Minds were something else, of course. Glowing bright as a flare, bright as the core of the brightest forge and yet still dulled in comparison to the minds of old as they must have been. To read one would be like trying to read the sun.

Her friends were gone. Now little more than distant fireflies glowing in the dark-but-never-dark shadows of the town, yet tethered to the form before her by a link so tenuous that even Zecora had trouble perceiving it. Zecora turned her full attention to the curse that had called to her, called to the very bones of her body, and spoke.

Magic was alive. Everypony knew the mantra, every conscious user of magic understood that magic lived, and flowed, and even acted on ineffable wishes of its own from time to time. Some magic, though, was more than merely alive. Some magic remembered.

So she spoke, and listened, and waited.

* * *

The road to Sweet Apple Acres seemed longer in the twilight than at any other time of day, with twists and turns that, for most town-dwelling ponies, might be enough to hide any number of marauding monsters and crouching dragons. Applejack had no such illusions. At worst she’d stumble across a grumpy rattler or an annoyed spider, the former being easy enough to avoid and the latter a useful recruit for keeping blackfly off her apple crop.

At least, any other night, that would be the case. Tonight Applejack couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched, maybe even followed. The urge to look over her shoulder was enormous but she refused, knowing that there was nobody out there. Certain. Mostly certain anyway.

Quite sure.

Applejack realised she’d stopped walking and found herself giving a death glare to a small shrub at the side of the road. She snorted, flicked her tail and forced a hoof forward to continue her journey. A twig snapped. Applejack bolted across the road and into a bush without even thinking, so fast that her hat was left twirling around the tip of a protruding branch.

Seconds passed like hours as Applejack waited, holding her breath, until she finally realised that there was no terrible monster lurking in the fading light. She let out a sigh of relief and stepped back onto the road.

“Well that-”

A horrendous screech echoed across the darkened fields and orchards, rolling across the sky like living thunder. Applejack ducked back into the bush before she’d even taken the breath to yell in fright and had to stuff her hoof in her mouth to keep from making a noise, lest whatever it was hear her.

Except... the sound was wrong. Loud, yes, and terrifying, but it was obviously a long distance away. Applejack carefully peeped out of the bush again and looked around, then up at the sky; no firey flying lizards looked back at her, just the early evening stars. With great care, Applejack eased out of her hiding place and looked around the horizon, failing to see any sign of a dragon. Another plaintive, fainter roar told her it was still there, way off to the north-east in the deep forest.

“So there is a dragon,” she whispered. “Oh, Rarity...”

She retrieved her hat and tucked it firmly on her head as she set off at a gallop back to Ponyville. Big Mac and the girls would have to wait.

* * *

Twilight and Fluttershy cantered into the library just as the first stars were beginning to peek through the deep evening sky. The bright warmth of the main reading room was almost luxurious compared to the outdoors, the air having taken on an unseasonal chill as the sun fell below the horizon.

With a brief smile and a nod from Twilight, Fluttershy made her way through the reading room and up to where Spike was presumably sleeping, though Twilight would have been surprised if even the little dragon could sleep tonight. She knew she probably wouldn’t. Of course that didn’t apply to everypony; Twilight had spied Rainbow Dash curled up on a little pile of books the moment she’d entered, a copy of Daring Do and the Legendary Crystal Magnet propped open before her outstretched forelegs. It hadn’t been Daring Do’s most creative adventure.

Twilight envied Dash her rest, but didn’t think to shake her out of it. Instead she turned to the shelves, pulled several volumes of Starswirl’s Historia Magicae from the reference section and set them on a reading desk. She settled herself in front of the desk, took out a fresh quill and parchment and flipped open the first book.

The book was heavy going, even by Twilight’s standards, and within moments her eyes were watering with the effort to read and stay awake. Twilight shook her head and threw the quill down in frustration, to clatter noisily against the ground. And then she looked up.

“Something isn’t right,” she said. “I read one of these volumes last week, cover to cover! I shouldn’t be falling apart trying to read the...” she glanced at the open volume. “The contents page?”

“Maybe you’re just tired,” Rainbow Dash groused. She sat up with a loud yawn, stretched, and stared at the book before her. “Huh. Fridges don’t work that way.”

Twilight turned back to her books and tried to concentrate. The words swam under her gaze, and in moments she was slumped over the table, head nodding until her horn bounced against the parchment. The surprise woke her suddenly, causing her to momentarily lose control of her magic. A gasp tore from Twilight’s lips when the tiny magical bead suddenly split and buzzed off in several directions.

“Did you...” She turned to Rainbow Dash but the pegasus was already settled down and reading again.

Twilight’s eyes blazed with purple fire as she sought out the hidden paths her magic had taken. To her surprise she dimly perceived a clutch of tenuous magical links stretching out into the world, one in the direction of the boutique, one upstairs, two more out of town. She drove her mind along the shortest of the threads and found something, glowing bright as a storm lantern, flitting about like a butterfly. A mind and one she recognised somehow. Fluttershy.

Marvelling, she pushed herself along another thread. This one showed her a mind as solid as a hammer, aflame with determination. Applejack, she suddenly knew. It was Applejack. Twilight sent herself along a third path and then withdrew to herself, doubt suddenly pervading her mind. She should be searching for a solution, not playing with these magical toys. They were a distraction, she was losing time, she should-

Twilight crushed the thoughts in her mind, recognising the influence of another’s magic on her. She extended her mind out along the final path and found another mind, glowing like a dull fire, wrapped in a web of the same magic that had taken her there. Twilight probed clumsily, seeking some way to understand what she perceived, feeling the edges and shapes of ideas she had never conceived possible. The mind before her seemed to glow with recognition, but dulled by something and, without conscious thought, Twilight’s essence reached out-

“Rarity!”

The other unicorn faded from her perception, lost as Twilight’s mind hurtled back, back to herself, back again to the one place that had tried to block her passage. Back to the curse, she now knew, wound around everything like poison ivy. She saw it, saw the malevolent mind it had formed, perceived its intelligence if not its origin and the power within her suddenly leapt forth, knowing, understanding. Cut there...

Crack! It was a sound not unlike that made by the spine of a new book opened too fast by an eager reader. The vision receded, the links and minds lost to her. Twilight’s perception returned to her body such that her head recoiled, thudding against the floor she hadn’t even realised she was lying on.

A shadow crossed her vision, quickly resolving into the concerned, yet amused face of Rainbow Dash. “Dash? What...”

“That was some trick, Twilight! I never thought I’d see a unicorn pull a double backflip and a reverse meteor but, eheh, your landing could use a little work.”

Twilight’s groan was lost in the tramp of hooves and feet on the stairs and, moments later, Fluttershy’s and Spike’s faces hovered over her as well.

“Twilight, what happened? I heard you shout Rarity’s name, then it sounded like you snapped something, and then you were stomping all over the place!”

“Apparently I was somersaulting,” Twilight shot back, more viciously than she’d intended. She tried to push herself upright but quickly gave in; everything hurt. Even parts she didn’t know she had were telling her how much pain they could make her feel. She flopped back on the ground and looked up at the three standing over her. “Did you say I snapped something?”

“It... it sounded like... I mean, it’s possible it was just my imagination...”

“No, I heard a sound too,” Twilight said. The pain was beginning to ebb a little. With a little help she was able to pull herself to a half-squat. “There was some link between us, something to do with that curse. I saw it... I think I did something to break it, but...”

“I heard a dragon call,” Spike suddenly chimed. He looked between Fluttershy and Twilight. “It’s true! It woke me up!”

“Oh poor little Spike, did you have a scary dream?” Fluttershy rubbed Spike’s scales with her snout, apparently in just the right place to set his leg twitching. “Don’t you worry, no big scary dragon is going to come and get you as long as your aunty Fluttershy is here...”

“No, I heard one, it was a long way- cut it out!” Spike swiped at Fluttershy, sending her leaping for the air with a terrified squeak. He folded his arms. “My hearing is better than yours. I know what I heard.”

Fluttershy fluttered over to the far side of the room, where she cowered behind Rainbow Dash. The blue pegasus crouched down, wings raised protectively in front of Fluttershy. “Spike, that was mean!”

Spike glared at the two but spoke to Twilight. “I heard you shout Rarity’s name as well. I thought maybe she’d come back.”

“That’s right! I...” The memories were already fading. She’d performed a feat of magic she’d never even heard of before and... some link between her and her friends had... but then... it was all disappearing like mist in the sunlight. “I saw her, somewhere. She was trapped and hurt. Angry, but... it’s all so distant now, I can barely remember.”

“She’s alive?” Spike practically crawled up Twilight’s leg, big eyes searching eagerly for some hope. “She’s alive, right?”

“I... Spike, I honestly don’t know. I’ve never seen magic like that before.”

“But... but you said...”

“I said I don’t know!”

Twilight turned to shake Spike from her legs. The motion caught the reading table and knocked it over, flinging its contents across the room. Books fluttered through the air, landing with a series of loud slaps on the floor, each causing Twilight almost tangible pain as she imagined the damage done to their bindings.

She turned to glare at Spike only to see his tail disappearing up the stairs.

“Dragons,” Twilight growled as she knelt down to examine her poor, battered collection but, apart from a little superficial damage, the books were unhurt. As she went to pick up the last, which had fallen on its back and flipped open, Twilight glanced at the chapter title.

“On Hidden Things,” she read. It seemed to be about spells like the Ossory’s Pocket. Not important. Possibly interesting. She made a mental note to read it after the day’s crisis was dealt with.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had settled down in the comfy chairs Twilight kept in one corner of the reading room and were quietly discussing some minor plot-point of the Daring-Do books. Probably the crazy physics of Crystal Magnet, a topic on which Twilight could hold forth for hours. Any thought she’d had of joining the conversation, however, was blown away by a sudden pounding at the door and Applejack’s desperate cry to be let in. Twilight huffed in annoyance and unlatched the door.

“Applejack, I thought you were going home to rest,” she said, barely heard over Applejack’s clattering bolt to the far side of the room. The normally unflappable earth pony peered out of a window before crouching down on the floor.

“Ah was,” the forlorn farmer yelled, pulling her hat down with both forelegs in strange, muted panic. Her flanks were lathered with the sweat of exertion. Or fear. “Ah was nearly home when I heard this sound like somepony wuz followin’ me, next thing ah know this great big dragon is roarin’ across the hills and raisin’ a ruckus like I ain’t never heard!”

“There really is a dragon?” Twilight felt her legs buckle and give way; she flopped onto her rear, barely able to stay upright. “It must have taken Rarity! I spent so much time convincing myself that a dragon couldn’t have taken Rarity, I- she seemed to be in so much... it’s my fault!”

“T’ain’t nobody’s fault,” Applejack said, placing a comforting hoof on Twilight’s back. “It definitely ain’t yours! Blamin’ yourself would be like blamin’ Pinkie Pie for- say where’d that little party animal git to anyway?”

“Probably hiding away in a locked kitchen if she’s any sense,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Oh no, that wouldn’t be like her at all.” Fluttershy’s quiet voice seemed to carry well from her seat in the corner. “Though if she were to bake some sort of special treat, it might be a good way to try and help the dragon understand that we don’t want it to hurt our friend. If it sees that we’re trying to be kind it might... well...”

In the silence that followed, Twilight felt herself returning to some semblance of normality, the presence of her friends reminding her of all the problems they had overcome together. They’d find a way through this, somehow. She stood up, carefully, trying to avoid too many twinges, looked at each of her friends and tried to put on a brave face.

“I think we should all get some rest. If Rarity truly has been coltnapped by a dragon, there’s nothing we can do about it tonight.”

“Um, maybe I should pass by Zecora just to be sure she’s okay, if that’s all right...”

“I’ll go with you,” Rainbow Dash said, thumping her chest. “Gotta look after my friends right?”

“Well... I mean, if you don’t mind...”

Applejack glanced at the door and then at Twilight. “Ah’d better get back to the farm and batten down the hatches fer real this time, an’ ah could use a shower too ah reckon.” Applejack touched a hoof to her hat brim and nodded at Twilight. “Ah’ll see you tomorrow Twilight, bright an’ early, an’ we can kick this dragon’s beehind all the way to the mountains oursel’s!”

“Of course! How... graphic.” Twilight smiled at the thought, though she knew it wouldn’t be anything like that easy if the dragon were fully awake. “And I’d enjoy it as much as the next pony but, first, we should visit the Mayor to let her know what’s going on and then I’ll write a letter to the Princess to ask for any help she can spare.”

There were general sounds of agreement and the others shuffled out of the door and into the brisk night air.

Twilight stood in the now-deserted library, suddenly feeling very alone as she looked at the books stacked high around her. She’d never find anything to do with the curse here and, anyway, hadn’t she broken it now? But no, a tiny thought at the back of her mind said. All she’d done was break its hold over Rarity, and she was still presumably in the clutches of a dragon.

“Spike, could you bring me those new dragon references we had shipped from Canterlot?” Twilight hefted a few volumes of the Historia and started re-shelving them. It was a few moments before she realised Spike hadn’t responded.

“Spike?”

No answer. Twilight climbed the stairs to her room, strange worries floating through her head. Spike had a habit of retreating to some lonely place when he was annoyed or sad. She hoped he hadn’t done it tonight.

Twilight nosed open the door to her and Spike’s room and sighed with relief. Spike was curled up in his basket, chest rising and falling slowly as he slept, probably exhausted by a grief he had managed to hide all too well.

“Oh Spike...” Twilight cantered over to him and put a gentle hoof on his head. “You’ve been so brave tonight, anypony else would have fallen apart at the news. I...”

Twilight swallowed, unable to voice her thoughts now that she was finally facing them. She closed her eyes and wrinkled her snout; sometimes it helped to stop the tears when she did that. Twilight knelt down beside the basket and put her head close to Spike’s face. The little dragon twisted around, stretched and let out a contented sigh.

His eyes opened just a crack. “Twilight?”

“Spike...” Twilight closed her eyes again and let out a long, slow breath. She nuzzled a little closer to the dragon’s all-too-warm face. “I should let you rest. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m the one who should be sorry,” Spike responded with a theatrical sigh. He put his head up on one elbow and stared past Twilight, looking at nothing in particular. Once or twice he took a breath as if to speak but then let it flow out again between barely parted lips. On the third time, a wisp of smoke followed. Twilight felt an unusual heat against her flesh that persisted a little longer than Spike’s normal flame, Perhaps a dragonish hint of anguish or anger.

His eye’s suddenly swivelled toward her. “Twilight, I’m scared that I’ll never see her again.”

“We’re all scared, Spike, but Rarity’s strong and brave, she’ll be able to take care of herself.” Twilight felt like she was lying, though she knew Rarity was somewhere, but plunged on regardless. “We’ll probably find she’s knocked this dragon into shape and got him trying out a new hat before we even get there.”

Spike seemed to accept this, probably because he was so tired. In truth so was Twilight, but she knew she wouldn’t get any sleep tonight, not while she as still plagued by the nagging worry that she might have delayed her friend’s rescue even by a few hours. Rarity deserves a better friend, she thought. On the other hand, I’m the only me around, so I’d better get to work.

The little dragon was asleep again, arm wrapped around his head like a shield which, in truth, it might have been. Twilight eased herself from the basket and crept out of the room, pausing only to cast dim the candles with a wave of her hoof. She returned to the reading room and her stack of books, those covering the earliest records of Starswirl’s life and research, laid out neatly on the table. Twilight moved the books to one side and laid down a fresh sheet of parchment, before returning to the shelves for anything that might help defeat a dragon. It was going to be a long night.

Unveiled, Unknown

Pinkie Pie woke with a snort and stared up at the ceiling of her room, then at the early morning sun streaming through her window. Another day. She smiled and leaped from her bed, ready for the fun to begin anew.

Contrary to Rainbow Dash’s assumption, Pinkie hadn’t been hiding in a locked kitchen, although she had been working on a huge, huge order of cupcakes for the local Young Stallion’s Celestian Association annual Grand Brotherhood Convention, which meant spending the whole day working in said kitchen and not getting to go outside at all. Not once. She hadn’t even got to see Rainbow Dash and she always tried to see Rainbow at least once. Her hair was like the most incredible frosting. Pinkie just knew she’d be able to copy it one day soon.

Not that she’d enjoyed herself any less, just thinking about all the different kinds of treats she could make for all those wonderful hunky young stallions who always seemed so happy to see her cakes, but then they always started talking about Rarity and how she was so special, and that’s usually when Pinkie had to leave because the room started getting really warm. But they really liked her cupcakes.

She tripped and trapped down the stairs to the kitchen. “Morning Mr and Mrs Cake!”

“Oh! Oh my, Pinkie!”

Mrs Cake seemed strangely out of breath and warm and Mr Cake, he was leaning over the sink, breathing very heavily too and crossing his back legs, like he needed to go. They both stared at her with an odd, pleading expression.

“I got the order done!”

“That’s great, Pinkie Pie, why don’t you take the day off as a reward starting right now?”

“Wow, really? Great! Thanks!”

She scampered into the café, humming the happy tune that had spent most of the night flitting around her head. She paused by the Cakes’ new coffee machine just in time to hear a curious giggle from the kitchen. So, they wanted to have fun without her huh? Well she’d see about that!

Pinkie stalked from the shop with a vicious glare that lasted for nearly three seconds until the sun fell on her back, and Pinkie realised that there was nothing wrong with other people having fun if they wanted. The revelation gave her another spurt of joy that sent her bouncing down the street and through the market, bustling with so many of her friends, until she reached Rarity’s home.

And that’s when it all started to go pear shaped, which was a bad thing, Applejack had told her once. A very bad thing, but pears were kind of yummy so she didn’t know why anyone would think pears were a bad shape, not that she’d ever try and contradict Applejack about is. When it came to apples and pears, Applejack could be a really silly pony.

She saw the crowd first, a band of ponies milling uncertainly around the front of the Boutique with somepony sitting in the middle of their strange little group. Pinkie Pie skipped over to the crowd and pressed her way through with a grin and a giggle until she found Zecora, seated on the dirt, eyes closed and yet somehow staring at the door to the Carousel. She was shivering.

“Zecora? You look terrible! I mean you look great, but you look like you’ve frozen your butt off all night!”

The zebra didn’t answer, which wasn’t all that unusual. Pinkie had always suspected that the rhyming thing wasn’t entirely an act and that Zecora sometimes preferred to stay silent instead of trying to rhyme words like orange and purple, and sasquatch, only sasquatch rhymed with watch and thatch, so maybe it was something else? But the point... the point...

Pinkie Pie waved a hoof in front of Zecora’s face. She was really out of it. In fact she seemed to be swaying slightly, muttering something under her breath. Pinkie started to lean closer but then thought maybe Zecora didn’t want her to hear it, which is why she wasn’t saying it very loud, so she turned to one of the crowding ponies and poked his side to get his attention.

“Hey, what’s going on? Did I miss something fun?”

The stallion, a very junior member of the YCSA if she recalled correctly, smiled uncertainly at Pinkie Pie and then shrugged. “Beats me. She’s been here all night as far as everyone knows. It might be something to do with miss Rarity disappearing.”

“Rarity’s disappeared? Why did nobody tell me?!”

“Well, I—”

Pinkie turned before he could finish his reply, all set to gallop straight to the library. Instead she found herself face to face with the very target of her ire. Any thought of confrontation evaporated. “Twilight! Hi!”

“Pinkie? I was just looking for you, I don’t know if you heard—”

“Rarity disappeared, got it, did you check in all her closets because I heard someone say she was totally in one the other week and then he said so was Applejack and I thought maybe they were playing some sort of hide and seek, but when I went to try and join in I couldn’t find them anywhere so I figured—”

“Pinkie...”

“Ah ain’t in no closet,” Applejack declared from behind another group of ponies.

“Well duh, you’re in the street!” Pinkie Pie sat down with her back to Zecora and tilted her head as she examined Twilight. “Why didn’t you tell me Rarity had disappeared?”

Applejack finally managed to push her way through the growing crowd. “Ah think you was busy an’ ah know how cranky you get when somepony interrupts you bakin’ an’ stuff.”

“But... but it’s Rarity, Applejack! She’s like one of my best friends ever!”

“Ah know, sugarcube, but it was a weird day.”

“The point,” said Twilight, with a pointed expression, “is that we’re telling you now, when you’re in the best state to help us.”

“I don’t know about helping you but somepony should help Zecora. She looks terrible! I mean, she looks great, but... wait, didn’t I say this before?”

Pinkie flopped on her haunches, one hoof rubbing her chin as she tried to work out whether repeating herself was déjà vu or just silly. Twilight’s exasperated sigh had her leaning towards the latter pretty fast but when she looked up, the unicorn was gone.

Pinkie soon found her next to Zecora, now with added Fluttershy and a dash of Rainbow. They seemed to be staring at the poor shivering zebra as if she’d never seen one before.

“She seemed to be okay last night.” Rainbow Dash had that frown on her face, the one that made her nose wrinkle. It almost looked cute. “I mean, Fluttershy said she looked fine too, right?”

“I, well, it... she didn’t... I guess I did. She wasn’t shivering at all, and she was even singing just a little.”

“She doesn’t look fine now,” Twilight replied, moving this way and that as she examined Zecora. Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t even know what she’s doing. Zecora?”

Zecora shuddered but otherwise remained unmoving. If she had heard them she made no obvious sign of it, nor did she interrupt her chant. Pinkie had never heard anything like it before. When this was over she’d ask Zecora what it meant.

“Twilight, is Zecora sick? Maybe I should get her some hot tomato soup!”

“I don’t think... actually that’s a very good idea, Pinkie.” Twilight smiled, and that was good, because Pinkie almost never saw Twilight smiling when she was really stuck for a way forward. Pinkie scooted back to the Sugarcube Corner and ducked behind the counter to find a bowl, so very glad that the Cakes had started offering a soup of the day as a way of selling more bread.

That’d been her idea, come to think of it. Everyone liked soup, right? Right! Pinkie shuffled over to the soup tureen in the corner and lifted a big steaming ladle of soup from it.

Her leg twitched.

“Not now!”

She tried to glare at her leg without overturning the ladle but she couldn’t quite manage it. Her leg, defying Pinkie’s command, twitched again, followed closely by her tail. Then her head shot back, flinging soup all over the ceiling.

The empty ladle dropped to the floor with a resounding bong that Pinkie Pie, had she been listening, would have thought sounded super cool. The reason she wasn’t listening was because she was galloping at full tilt from the shop, her eyes set on Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight’s horn was glowing. She was doing something to Zecora, something that was going to bring about something so horrible that Pinkie could already feel another tingle in her legs. “Not now, I said!”

Twilight had her eyes closed and didn’t notice her. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were a little distance back and did notice, but they also didn’t seem to know what to do about Pinkie Pie’s sudden mad dash across the town.

As Pinkie zig-zagged around a pair of passing ponies she saw Zecora’s eyes open. A purple light flared in them and the zebra turned, slowly, and looked straight toward her. Pinkie had just enough time to register something other behind those eyes before she leaped...

She hit Zecora with a loud thud and, for some reason, an explosion of party ribbons. Pony and zebra bowled past Twilight and into the middle of the street where they ground to a halt, Zecora on her back, Pinkie lying on her front with all her legs splayed out behind her. Ignoring a pain in her shoulder, Pinkie flopped over onto her side and prodded Zecora with a free hoof.

Something like a spark of light zapped her. Pinkie jerked back her leg, wondering if Zecora had pranked her, but the zebra was out cold. She stood up, a little unsteady, and turned to her friends as they cantered up to her, varying expressions of amazement and frustration on their faces.

It was Twilight who spoke first.

“What in Celestia’s name— Pinkie, why?”

“I felt a real doozie! It was...”

Strangely the memory was fading already. She’d known, known what it was, not just the sort of thing it might be but precisely what would happen. Only, now it was gone. Pinkie shook her head. “I... I guess something was going to happen when you used your magic on her?”

Pinkie rubbed her face and stretched her eyelids as wide as they’d go — which was pretty far, she knew — mostly to clear the cobwebs. Must have landed harder than I thought.

“Well I was about to try and ascertain if Zecora was under the influence of the curse,” Twilight Sparkle said with a surprisingly haughty voice. She took a step toward Pinkie, then seemed to think better of it and turned aside to look at Zecora. “But you’ve put an end to that. Now I have no—”

Zecora stirred and coughed weakly. Her head rolled to one side. She took a deep breath, held it and then let it go again, before opening her eyes.

“Twilight, do not berate your friend, it was only help she wished to lend. I am fine,” she added, rolling onto her stomach. “And in good cheer, thanks to miss Pinkie Pie here.”

Pinkie grinned. “See? I helped! How did I help?”

“The curse, to me it tried to move, but difficult my mind did prove and so the night I fought its hold, lest I suffer more than cold.”

Zecora gave Pinkie Pie a long, appraising look. She laid her head down on the floor and seemed to smile just a little. “Finally I have overcome its power, so now I think I’ll have a shower.”

Without another word Zecora got up and trotted in the direction of the spa and baths, leaving the bemused group with only each others confusion. Twilight called after Zecora but the zebra either couldn’t hear, or chose not to listen.

“Well that’s just great,” she grumbled, turning back to her friends.

Pinkie edged a little closer to Twilight and reached out to comfort her, but the unicorn moved away before she got the chance. “Twilight, why don’t you all come back to Sugarcube Corner and relax for a little while? My treat!”

“Any other day you know I’d say yes...”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess. Well hey, that just means more for later, right? When Rarity’s back I’ll throw a great big Welcome Back Rarity party. She’ll love it!”

“Yeah, she will.”

Twilight’s voice seemed distant. She was staring back down the road Zecora had left along, with her ears perked right up as if she might be able to tell where the funny zebra had gone. Without warning she huffed a sigh and turned away.

“We have to go and see the mayor, but... Pinkie, could you go and check on Spike? I don’t want him getting more lonely.”

“Sure!”

Pinkie Pie smiled and bounced away, happy to have a new errand and a chance to entertain someone. She might even set up a few decorations. Maybe Spike would like a party too! Wasn’t it his birthday soon? Well maybe not, but that didn’t matter, he could have a half-birthday instead.

An awkward feeling that she should go back to Twilight pulled Pinkie Pie to a stop. She needed to... to... but the feeling was gone before. Pinkie checked her legs and tail, then waited to see if anything might start twitching. Nope! With happiness and balance restored she bounced away, singing snatches of a song she’d never heard before.

* * *

Twilight had liked Ponyville’s town hall from the first moment she’d set hoof in it. Such an ostentatious little tower in such a rural setting, it almost appeared to have been dropped into the town square from the outskirts of Canterlot in one piece. Of course, after the enormous, endless halls and soaring spires of Canterlot it was almost nothing, but it had been a tiny piece of home away from home for as long as Twilight had lived in the town.

Not that she’d trade her wonderful library and Ponyville for any cold stone mansion on a mountainside, though there were times when she wished she could be closer to her old haunts. The Solar of the great royal Library, the many parks and all those little bookshops that housed so many treats and rarities for her to peruse. Quieter times.

Twilight forced the thoughts away. She was here on business, not to indulge nostalgic fantasies. She mounted the steps of the town hall at the head of her band of sisters and pushed through the main doors.

The main hall was empty and still, save for the quiet tapping of hooves on wood as a minor functionary made his way around the mezzanine. Unusually, for it was rare that a day went by without some mayorally-appointed holiday or celebration, there were no decorations on the walls and no sign of anyone attempting to put them up.

“Not even a ribbon,” Twilight muttered.

“Ah reckon They’re savin’ em all for the risin’ of the creek.” Applejack made to spit but then caught herself with an embarrassed hiccup.

“You’ll have to explain that to me one day.”

They took the stairs — or, at least, Twilight and Applejack took the stairs. When they reached the mezzanine they found Rainbow Dash fluttering about near the ceiling like a moth trapped in a bowl. Fluttershy was pressed hard against the wall, shivering, her eyes firmly locked on the floor at her hooves. She exhaled and seemed to finally calm down when Applejack stood between her and the edge.

Rainbow settled to the balcony a short distance away and indicated that she’d found the mayor’s office. She was pounding on the door as the others drew near. A dour stallion in a plain grey suit answered and glared at the quartet.

“Ah. Miss Twilight Sparkle. You don’t have an appointment.”

“I’m afraid not, but this is rather important.”

“Miss Sparkle, the mayor is very busy today, you’ll have to come back some—”

A crumpled piece of paper bounced off the stallion’s head at the same time as the mayor’s voice ordered him quiet. The stallion lowered his ears and snorted, then retreated into the office. A moment later the mayor herself peeked her head around the door and smiled.

“Please excuse Jobsworthy,” she said, beckoning the group to enter. Mayor Mare shot her deputy a broad smile as she lead Twilight through to her rather cramped private office. “I had him specially imported from Canterlot, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Perhaps cramped wasn’t quite the word. The room was not overly small but neither was it ostentatiously large. Where walls weren’t taken up with filing cabinets, they were filled with shelves that held ream after ream of carefully organised box files, interspersed with the occasional official trinket or gift from a neighbouring town. Homely might have been a better word. It fit the trio of clay pegasi crawling up the wall behind the mayor’s desk. Whoever had painted those had managed to screw up the eyes on at least one.

The mayor seated herself behind her desk and frowned at the stacks of paperwork. She shovelled the papers to one side and leaned forward, ears perked forward and smiling the smile of a mare who had just found an excuse to ignore her work for a few minutes.

“Now. What can I do for you?”

There’s a dragon on the loose and it took Rarity! No, that wouldn’t do. Twilight tried to think of a better response, something that expressed the urgency of the situation without causing panic. A decent opening, perhaps a reference to her status as the element of Magic, then—

“There’s a dragon on the loose and it took Rarity!”

Twilight blinked. She looked over her shoulder at Fluttershy, who backed up into a corner and squeezed her eyes tight.

“Um... I mean... that is, it might be a dragon...”

The mayor tilted her head and gave Fluttershy a thoughtful look, before reaching into her pile of papers and withdrawing a folder. And that was odd because, in Twilight’s experience, mayor Mare was not a particularly thoughtful pony. Intelligent, yes, driven certainly, but she usually just went ahead with whatever scheme she’d dreamed up today without any plan at all. At least that’s how she appeared...

Underestimating again, Twilight, she chided herself. Twilight pushed the thought aside and tried to pay attention to the mayor.

“Ah! Yes, here we go, a report of a dragon harassing a travelling tradespony and... stealing his cart? How odd.” The mayor pushed the folder across her desk to Twilight. The thoughtful look was back. “Didn’t you insist there was no chance a dragon had been involved in yesterdays, ah, shenanigans?”

“Now you just wait an apple buckin’ minute!,” Applejack cut in, to both Twilight and the mayor’s great surprise. “Y’all wouldn’t want to think your friend had been eaten by a dragon either. If y’all are gonna make hay outta that... why ah’m surprised at you for even thinkin’ it!”

“Applejack, I assure you, that was not my intent.”

Applejack suddenly seemed to realise she’d spoken out loud. She blushed and turned aside, though the way she pawed the floor was anything but apologetic.

“Just ain’t polite to go throwin’ accusations around like that, is all ah’m sayin’.”

“I suppose so. In any event, Twilight Sparkle, if you do believe a dragon has taken miss Rarity then you may wish to start on the Fillydelphia road. This tradespony claims his cart was taken about forty miles from Ponyville, late yesterday afternoon.”

Twilight took the proffered documents, raising them over her back with a simple levitation spell. For some reason she felt reluctant to use the Ossory’s Pocket she’d conjured, so kept the papers hovering a little theatrically in the air whilst the group exchanged departing pleasantries with the mayor. She drew Twilight to one side as the others left.

“Miss Sparkle, you understand that a dragon is not something that would be conducive to our town’s continued prosperity. I’m not asking you to act in any official capacity, but...” She leaned closer. Uncomfortably close, Twilight thought. “The Crown rarely seems to respond to requests for any sort of aid even when there are obvious dangers. If you could put in a personal word?”

Twilight raised her eyebrows. She tried to force them down again but only managed to pull her ears down with them. “I’m... flattered that you think I have so much influence.”

“Please, you’re her personal student and even somepony like me can see she dotes on you.” Mayor Mare opened the door again to escort Twilight to the atrium. “I can fully appreciate if you don’t wish to bring politics into a personal relationship.”

“Well, I’ll... I’ll certainly see what I can do, madam mayor,” Twilight replied. The mayor smiled and nodded, then closed her door. Twilight let out a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding and turned to her friends, escape Rainbow Dash, who had already plunged over the rail and was gliding a circle down to the floor.

“What was that about, sugarcube?”

Twilight shook her head and sighed. “The price of fame. Sometimes I wish I could just disappear into my library and never have to deal with all these problems...”

“Well Ah ain’t one for savin’ the world either, but it’s—”

A crash from below interrupted Applejack before she could conclude whatever piece of rural profundity she had begun. They raced to the rail, except Fluttershy, who craned her neck to peer over as best she could from the safety of the wall.

“Oh, Rainbow Dash!”

“My fault!” Rainbow Dash struggled to untangle herself from a wall hanging that she had brought down on herself and some other pony.

“Dash, you gotta watch where y’all are goin’!”

“That banner totally tried to grab me,” Rainbow Dash shouted. Applejack rolled her eyes. “Hey Twilight?”

“What?”

“I think Zecora’s waiting for you outside.”

Twilight leaned over the railing and stared down at Rainbow Dash, as if this would somehow divine the truth of her statement. Rainbow had paused in untangling herself from a fallen tap3stry to stare out of the open door, though Twilight couldn’t see what she was staring at, which was a little frustrating.

By the time they reached the ground floor, Rainbow had managed to extricate herself from the folds of what had, up to that point, been a fairly large and presumably quite expensive tapestry depicting the founding of Ponyville. Dash trampled across it to the door and looked out.

“How do you know she wants me?”

“Just a hunch.”

Rainbow stepped back from the door to let Twilight pass. The young unicorn paused mid-step when she saw Zecora, seated in the centre of the square and staring straight at her. Not at the building, but at her. Twilight had the feeling she’d been watching her the entire time she was in the building.

The others followed at a short distance as Twilight walked towards the zebra mystic. Almost as an afterthought, Twilight opened her Ossory’s Pocket to hide away the papers still floating behind her head. Zexora’s gaze immediately shifted to the invisible spell. Maybe it was a coincidence though, if the last few days were any guide, coincidence as a concept didn’t exist any more.

The square seemed to darken as they approached Zecora. Twilight slowed and looked around, noticing for the first time a misty aura of magic surrounding them, barely visible in the bright sun, but potent enough to leave Twilight with an annoying itch at the base of her horn. She’d known Zecora had some magical talent but this was way, way beyond anything she’d expected from a zebra.

When Twilight looked back she found, to little surprise, that Zecora’s eyes were glowing. She had turned them back on Twilight herself once more, but occasionally they would flicker to the same spot by Twilight’s side. It took all of Twilight’s willpower to keep herself from looking to see if the spell had somehow become visible.

“That’s a neat trick,” she said. Zecora tilted her head as Twilight spoke but didn’t answer. “How can you see it?”

“It’s shape is plain as day and night to those who share our second sight.”

Okay, so maybe she can see magic. Twilight added the thought to her list of surprises about Zecora and filed it away for later study. The zebra smiled. Twilight froze.

“Did you just...”

“Minds are things I cannot read but for some ideas I do not need to see the thought to understand just what it is that you have planned.”

And the rhyming is annoying, Twilight mentally added. That one seemed to get a reaction too, but not the one she had expected. Zecora stepped back from Twilight, still smiling. She sat on her haunches and looked at the four of them.

“Twilight, ah think she’s tryin’ to read my mind too.”

“Lucky for you there’s nothing in there,” Rainbow Dash retorted. A worried pegasus is always more aggressive, Twilight thought. Even Fluttershy seemed... edgy. And Applejack had let the insult from a friend just slide away as if it meant nothing, whilst all around them the misty magic swirled and shimmered.

“What do you want, Zecora?”

The zebra stared impassively, her attention focussed entirely on Twilight’s face. She could see Zecora’s pupils behind the glow, shrunken with effort, night-black diadems, barely visible. Whatever Zecora was doing it was taking a lot of concentration.

Twilight glanced at her friends. Their confusion and curiosity was a mirror of her own, but they were also scared, lacking Twilight’s intimate knowledge of magic. Even after all their adventures, or perhaps because of them, magic on such an overt level had become a symbol of danger in some indefinable way, yet Twilight could see there was no danger here. It was a show. A very impressive show, but no more dangerous than the illusions Zecora had created on Nightmare Night.

Except...

Twilight closed her eyes, summoning a spell of allsight. When she opened them again a gasp escaped her lips. She was surrounded by magic, great skeins and coils swirling around Zecora like snakes and spreading out in all directions from where she sat. The vaporous fields she had seen before were shimmering walls of energy, glowing a bright, strangely alluring green. Beyond them the tendrils of magic faded into the distance. Twilight blinked and dismissed the spell.

Zecora was smiling at her again.

“Now you see my potency,” she said, as if it were nothing. “But not I fear the reason that I show it here. Touched by a curse you were, though finally it moved to her, your friend, you know of whom I speak, for you were strong and it was weak.”

“If you know so much...”

Zecora shook her head. “I know but what the curse has told me, as well as ancient tale and story, told by my people ever year. I’ll tell you too, if you want to hear.”

She looked at each of the four in turn, as if daring them to refuse. One by one the ponies gave their assent, though it was clear they had no idea what they were agreeing to, until only Twilight was left. She looked at her friends, saw the longing in their eyes that she felt. Anything, anything that brought them closer to Rarity... Twilight nodded, mute and Zecora tilted her head back, accepting the answer with another faint smile.

The zebra closed her eyes and began to hum tunelessly. Soon, though, Twilight could detect an obvious regularity in the hum, a near-chant, wordless, almost hidden but growing with each moment. She could feel the magic around her now, an itching under her horn, a greasy static sensation across her fur that moved in time with Zecora’s voice.

Faint images danced before her eyes. Mountain peaks cast in snow, a great plain filled from one horizon to the other with a vast, undifferentiated herd. Armies at war, great beasts in the sky larger than any dragon. A great aerie filled with winged, tailed creatures unlike anything she had seen, that looked somehow familiar...

“Okeanos...” The voice was Rainbow Dash.

“A myth,” Fluttershy whispered. “Um... I mean, we were taught...”

“No myth I show,” Zecora said. She had her eyes closed. “The truth, you shall know.”

Zecora’s pose had changed a little, as if she were thinking back to some other time and place; when she spoke, her voice had a quality they hadn’t heard before. Her bearing was almost regal. She began to speak, her words tumbling forth in time to the ebb and flow of the magic surrounding them.

“Hear now, tales of ages past

Of heroes, hunters, prey and last

Of times when light and dark were one

When moon serene and ancient sun

On earth did cast both day and night

As never ending, whole twilight

On world alive, and whole, and free

That knew only of harmony.

And hear of creatures hidden for

Millennia, from times before

The dragon roamed on azure skies

Before a fall to whispered lies

Of wise ones, true, noble and fair

Who peace took with them everywhere

they journeyed and, between high peaks

that now not even griffon seeks,

Ruled justly and with love for all

Until great pride began their fall

Until amongst their number came

Division, strife, and hate and blame

Then sundered were this noble folk

As lightning breaks the mighty oak

And scattered by a mighty power

Sent abroad from their great tower

Where that one people, filled with might

On wings of starlight once took flight

With ivory horns and hooves of iron

Claws of dragon, teeth of lion

Voices fair and minds of fire

Driven forth from mighty spire

Broken, now, and split in twain

Where stood one race, thousands remain

Pony, griffon, minotaur

Dragon, changer, and zebor

And others henceforth, fallen seed

Shaping selves for every need

Yet ‘fore all these, and first apart

And first of all to practice art

Came, deadly, powerful, impure

The demon lords, the foul centaur

Who forged the tools that split our kin

Who broke apart all from within

And dug down wells where terror lurks

Yet tumbled, fell as their own works

Were locked away by magics cast

By one who stood apart, the last

Of once great race that dwindled first

To one, then none, for they were cursed

Their posterity to leave

Unfinished work, incomplete weave

And broken ways, and holes aside

Where ancient curses, sleeping, bide

And still remain forever more

A deadly trap, forgotten spore

To split and break and tear apart

All harmony, and bind the heart

To slavery, to evil ways

Forever cursed to end of days

Revealed at night, their power rings

In sympathy with hidden things.”

A gust of wind crossed the square, tearing away the images that floated around Twilight and seeming to steal the very light of the sun itself. With the wind shaking her short mane, Zecora stood, her voice a keening cry raised to the heavens.

Twilight felt the magic withdraw and cried out as a foal suddenly ripped from the loving hold of her dam. She felt her own power instinctively reaching out, sucking the life from her as it sought what it had lost, sought the revelation she had been so long denied, until she was breathing deep, ragged breaths that left her lungs aching.

When she opened her eyes, Zecora was gone. They were alone. Twilight could feel tears rolling down her cheeks and let out a quiet sob as the full realisation of what she had lost crashed down on her. For a moment she had known everything, seen everything, but the revelation was gone and with it the knowledge of how to save her friend.

“Rarity,” she whispered. Twilight felt a gentle hoof touch her cheek and looked up into Fluttershy’s eyes, mirrors of her own pain, yet somehow the sight of them gave her strength.

“We’ll find her,” Fluttershy said, with just the hint of a smile. “She’s safe. I know it.”

Twilight nodded, unable to form a reply. She tried to remember the images Zecora had conjured along with her tale. A broad vista of endless forest beneath a glowing amethyst sky, great herds of creatures she had never seen before. Paradise set aflame by the first twinklings of chaos and the great weapons of a war so ancient that she was sure not even Celestia knew of it. It was too much. Whatever she had known was buried again, hidden in the deep pit burrowing through her heart. Rarity.

She stood up — when had she sat down? — and turned to her friends, and together they set out to the library.

Shadows of Beauty

Shadows of Beauty

On any other day Spike would have enjoyed a long walk in the woods. Or ride, in this case, though Twilight would never allow herself to be ridden. She carried him, which was completely different, apparently.

Of course, on any other day, he wouldn’t have been so down in the dumps. From his perspective, leaning back against Twilight’s neck, he seemed to be stuck in the bottom of a huge bowl. Trees hemmed him in on all sides, their canopy crowding against the sky like the bowl’s rim Or the edge of a pit. Something deep anyway.

Life was a metaphor for suffering... or was it an allegory? “Twilight, what’s it called when you think your life is just an endless repetition of pointless anguish interspersed with moments of painful introspection that leads ultimately to the conclusion that there is no purpose to existence?”

“That’s called ‘somepony’s been reading Nihilism for Dummies again’,” Twilight replied.

“Oh.” Spike made a mental note to look up that book when they got back to the library.

They cantered along the Fillydelphia road, miles out in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by the deep, but open forest that covered so much of Equestria. Even Spike’s melancholy couldn’t remain unaffected by it for long.

“Couldn’t we have taken a balloon? I’m worn out.”

“Spike, I’ve carried you for the last ten miles.” Twilight tossed her head, flipping Spike upright. She looked over her shoulder at him with a glare. “I even let you sit on my back while we teleported out here.”

“Yeah, well... I’m tired anyway,” Spike replied. He hunched over and rested his chin in his hands, watching a tree pass slowly by on the far side of the road.

“You’ve had a tough couple of days.”

“Maybe.”

They continued in silence, Twilight humming snatches of some odd tune and Spike observing the slow passage of time in the trees until a tiny shadow passed over the road ahead of them. Twilight looked up and spotted Rainbow Dash circling and peering theatrically left and right before descending to the road some distance ahead. A short, speedy trot brought them to the stump Rainbow had seated herself on. She flapped her wings in greeting.

“Before you ask, Fluttershy is about half a mile back.” Rainbow ran a hoof through her mane and rolled her eyes. “Talking to a tree.”

“Really?”

“Well... okay maybe it was something in a tree.”

“She’s always good with animals, perhaps she’s asking if they’ve seen an enormous dragon around here,” Twilight said. She looked up and down the road, a slight frown tugging at her features. After a moment she trotted a short distance down the road and leaned forward to peer at something. Spike slid from her back, raising a small cloud of dust as he landed on the floor.

Rainbow Dash sprang from her seat and glided the short distance to Twilight. “Something wrong?”

Twilight straightened up and stared into the distance, one hoof raised as she craned up to look at the sky.

“I’m not sure.”

She could feel something, a sort of prickling sensation in her back and tail... was this how Pinkie felt when she senses a ‘doozie’? A spell flared in Twilight’s horn, casting a faint light on the nearest trees as she sought to isolate some possible source for her feelings. There were times when Twilight wished she had the ability to identify individual lifeforms at will. Nobody, not even Starswirl, had ever found a way to reliably identify and track a creature in the morass of energy and motion that was the world, not without some small part of it to work with. It was like looking for the proverbial needle in an exploding haystack when your eyes were on fire. Hayinbarn’s Indignity Principle, they called it. Twilight just called it a pain in the—

“Twilight, Rainbow, I found something!”

It was rare for Fluttershy to raise her voice enough to be heard across a small room, never mind the constant rustling, crackling sound of a living forest. Twilight extinguished the spell just as Fluttershy settled on the ground. She demurely folded her wings away and then broke out in a broad grin. “A family of squirrels said they saw a dragon flying north-east yesterday morning.”

“Squirrels can’t talk,” Rainbow Dash countered. Fluttershy threw her an angry glare and then turned up her nose at such obvious ignorance.

“They can talk Squirrel,” she said, as if that explained everything.

Rainbow Dash snorted and leapt into the air, wings buzzing until she was level with the canopy. She made a show of flying back and forth to find a way through, then grinned down at the two ponies and Spike.

“Twilight, it looks pretty dense, how are you getting through?”

“Oh I assumed you’d want to carry us,” Twilight replied with a haughty expression, before suddenly teleporting herself onto Rainbow’s back. The normally boisterous Rainbow let out a loud “ooof!” and a yelp as Twilight’s weight settled on her. “Or I could just find my own way, if you prefer.”

“Own way! Own way!”

Rainbow sighed with relief as Twilight teleported back to the ground. She buzzed back and forth like an angry bee and then dropped down to glare at her friend. “You should have brought a balloon.”

“Told you,” Spike muttered.

Twilight shot him a look but shook her head and motioned for Spike to climb on her back again. Together they walked to the edge of the road and stared into the abrupt boundary between civilisation, such as it was, and the wilderness.

Rainbow shot off east in a bright blur of effort whilst Fluttershy stepped into the woods without, unusually for her, any apparent fear. But then, Twilight reasoned, their trips into the forest normally meant Everfree, and that was a whole different kettle of oats. What was there to fear in a perfectly natural forest like this, except for the giant dragon that had taken their friend?

Of course, when she put it that way...

Something caught Twilight’s attention again, the same nagging feeling from a moment earlier. She paused, one hoof raised to the forest, and looked over her shoulder at the far side of the road but nothing presented itself as any sort of threat. Perhaps the stress of the last few days was finally beginning to tell. With a sigh she stepped between the trees and was soon immersed in the peaceful shade of the deep woods.

* * *

Eyes peered out of a crack, a tear in the world that seemed to open into the fire of chaos itself. They watched, burning with unfulfilled need, as Twilight paused at the forest edge before plunging into darkness beyond.

Something seemed to change. For a moment, peace returned to the forest, until there was a loud snap of a tree branch.

Then a rustle. The undergrowth parted.

Pinkie Pie stepped out on the road with a slightly confused expression and looked around. She knew she’d come here for a reason but she had absolutely no idea what... she spotted Twilight’s tail across the road as the other pony stepped behind a tree, and squealed with joy. Of course!

“Twilight, wait for me!” She bounced after her friend, humming joyfully at the start of another adventure.

* * *

Twilight Sparkle,

Celestia has asked us to write to you as she is currently in negotiations with the Griffin Kingdoms over a border dispute and will not be free for many hours, yet feels a response should be immediate.

We regret the disappearance of your friend and colleague, whose company we have enjoyed on several occasions, and we understand the pain that you must feel. However, we must urge you to begin immediately considering contingencies for the use of the Elements of Harmony. The elements will naturally seek to replace a lost bearer, however you must be prepared to find them immediately this change takes place.

With equal regret we must also inform you that the Crown has no available means to aid your quest against this dragon. We know you will find a solution, Twilight Sparkle, for you are a most intelligent and wise pony. Celestia and I have the greatest trust in your instincts and abilities.

Our speed to you.

Luna

Twilight rolled the letter into a tight scroll and passed it back to Spike who, after his sudden expulsion of flame across her now somewhat singed mane, was walking beside her with a sullen expression. So, no help from that quarter, though a treacherous part of her mind reminded her that she’d never really expected any help from the Princesses this time. The first time they’d dealt with a dragon, Twilight had assumed it was meant to be another lesson in friendship and a means of crafting a closer bond between the bearers of the Elements of Harmony. Mostly it had been a lesson in pain.

Then, the entire fate of Equestria had been at stake. This time it was merely personal, and yet somehow that didn’t make her feel better about not receiving help. Besides, wasn’t it just a matter of time before a feral dragon became a danger to the entire country? Shouldn’t they deal with it now?

Which is, she thought bitterly, where Twilight Sparkle comes in.

At least the walk was reasonably pleasant. After about an hour in the false dusk of the dense canopy the forest had begun to thin out. The occasional narrow clearing that had allowed Rainbow Dash to keep up with their progress had been replaced with larger clearings and even the occasional rocky watermeadow. They were in one now, a broad expanse of wild grass punctuated with the occasional shallow pool, fresh-filled with rain the night before. She’d even found time to enjoy a fresh-picked snack of cress and horseradish.

“When this is all over,” she said to nobody in particular, “I’m going to spend more time out here.”

Twilight paused to look over her shoulder and gasped. The forest fell away behind them down the side of a long, shallow slope. “Wow... we’ve climbed a long way.”

“Nearly eight-hundred metres.” Fluttershy daintily stepped around a small pile of rocks and stood next to Twilight to admire the view. Pinkie Pie just bounced over them.

“How can—”

“The barikon aden means I always know exactly how high I am,” Fluttershy replied, tapping her head just behind her ear. She glanced up at the clouds and shivered. “Exactly how high."

“Oh.”

I should have known that, Twilight thought. She turned away from the view and continued along the shallow incline. To their left the slope began to steepen until they were walking at the ridge of a quite impressive, tree-filled valley. Through the summer haze Twilight could just make out a steep hill, almost a mountain, with a suggestive dark patch on one side.

She heard the flutter of wings above and stopped to wait for Rainbow Dash’s landing. The pegasus was breathing hard from exertion and seemed almost ready to fall to her haunches. Twilight levitated some water from a nearby pool and offered it up to Rainbow, who began greedily sucking it down.

“I found it,” she gasped between gulps. “A cave at the head of the valley. There’s... bones and things.”

“Did you see Rarity?”

Rainbow shook her head. She dipped her head under the last of the water and splashed it through her mane.

“Didn’t stick around to look.” Her voice was subdued and her whole stance tense. “Didn’t see a dragon in there, though.”

“It’s probably out hunting.” Fluttershy’s voice was unusually shaky and she kept glancing up at the sky. The others followed her gaze without thinking and quickly found themselves searching for that familiar black shape. Even Pinkie Pie’s normally chipper demeanour had turned. Somehow she had cuddled up beneath Fluttershy’s wing, which had instinctively reached out to cover Pinkie’s back.

The thought that a dragon might come plunging out of the sky at any moment spurred Twilight. She concentrated, rifling through a catalogue of her mental library until the spell she wanted came to view. A quick burst of magic fanned out, leaving a faint metallic tang in the air. Twilight opened her eyes again and grunted in satisfaction at the sight of a faint, shimmering patch of air directly over the four.

“It’s a camouflage spell,” she said, responding to the quizzical look the others gave her. “From the air we’ll look completely invisible, though if we meet anything up close it’ll be able to see us, so—”

“So lets just not get too close to anything,” Rainbow Dash completed.

“Right.”

Twilight lead them on under the gently humming spell. The ground was drier now as they entered the valley proper and they were soon skirting the edge of another deep wood. By universal consent they stayed out of it, preferring to rely on Twilight’s camouflage rather than risk getting turned around and trapped in the dense primal forest, where the trees and underbrush were so thick and closely packed that it was almost impossible to see past the first few trunks.

Not for the first time, Twilight wondered how so much of Equestria could be so completely untouched despite thousands of years of pony habitation of the land. Thousands of miles of untouched forests, plains, entire valleys that probably hadn’t even been explored. In some of her idle fantasies Twilight had dreamed of exploring such places, maybe wearing a hat like Daring Do’s — though that might be a bit much — and finding lost towns of Ponies that pre-dated the Unification. Idle fantasy. She knew there would be no such thing, but a filly could dream...

“Where are all the birds?”

“Pinkie, don’t be—”

Twilight cocked her ears and stopped in her tracks. She was right. The valley was virtually silent. A light breeze rustled the branches of nearby trees yet, that aside, there was nothing; no birdsong, no distant animals. Not even insects. A quiet noise from Fluttershy distracted Twilight from the thought. “Did you say something?”

“It probably... probably scared them away,” Fluttershy whispered. She seemed about ready to try and disappear behind the next blade of grass until Pinkie Pie began tickling the back of her ear. Under Pinkie’s gentle teasing the tension visibly drained from Fluttershy’s body. She straightened up a little and ducked her head. “Thank you...”

“No problem!”

“Fluttershy, it’s okay for you to go back to town if you need to,” Twilight said, trying to smile. “I’m sure Applejack would love some help taking care of Sweetie Belle.”

Fluttershy’s wings twitched and her ears lowered, but she shook her head. After a deep breath, she set her face in a determined scowl that lasted almost half a minute, by which time the others had started to move on. Fluttershy skipped across the rough ground to be sure she was still under the camouflage spell and settled into a quick trot beside Rainbow Dash.

The silence became oppressive as they moved closer to the cave. The entire valley radiated emptiness and the four ponies and dragon all felt the same clawing, unnatural fear clutch at their hearts. It was like a silent, drier version of the Everfree Forest now.

The spell above them abruptly cut out with a shrill screech, earthing its magic into the ground at Fluttershy’s hooves. She jumped back in shock and landed against Pinkie Pie.

“Ow!”

“What was that!?”

“I don’t...” Twilight couldn’t focus. She shook her head, trying to clear a sudden ache beneath her horn, but it refused to budge. “I can’t seem to maintain the field.”

An aura flared around Twilight’s horn as she tried to recreate the spell. With a worrying damp sound it died as quickly as it had begun. Twilight closed her eyes and concentrated; the magic flared again, unstable, throwing out sparks that trailed thin streamers of black, oily smoke. After a few moments the aura faded again. Twilight let out a pained gasp and sank to her haunches.

“As if this day couldn’t get any worse,” she muttered. Twilight looked around at her friends, noting their questioning looks. “There’s some sort of anti-thaumic ward. It could stretch for miles.”

“But.. b-b-but that means...” Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash both suddenly thrust their wings forward as they scanned the sky, suddenly incredibly alert. Twilight often forgot how vulnerable a Pegasus must feel on the ground when danger threatened from above.

“We’ll keep going,” Twilight said. Pinkie Pie’s responding cheer was welcome, though the two pegasi looked fretful. Without waiting for more of an answer she began walking towards the cave.

The last leg of their journey was a peculiar sort of torture for Twilight. In her youth, after admittance to Celestia’s school, Twilight had been plagued by a recurring nightmare that saw her lose all her magic right when she was supposed to perform some sort of test for the Princess. The Princess would smile ather with that way she always had, but Twilight would see the sadness in her eyes, the disappointment that her most faithful student had inevitably failed her.

The nightmare had faded over the years as Twilight had grown in her confidence and abilities, but the fear had remained at some level. Twilight’s abilities almost completely defined her; to lose them was almost like losing herself.

She knew her magic was still there, dormant, suppressed but still there. If she could just bring it to the fore... she tried again, a simple light spell this time, but only managed another faint shower of sparks. Twilight’s frustrated growl was cut short by a leg suddenly slamming across her chest.

“Pinkie!”

“Shhh! We’re here,” Pinkie Pie whispered.

They had found their way under the trees again and now stood at the edge of a large clearing around the mouth of a deep cave. Something shimmered within the cave, possibly gemstones, but it was too hard to tell from this distance. Besides, they didn’t need to see gems to know the cave was inhabited. Cracked bones littered the clearing. Trees had been uprooted and burned to ash. The stone around the cave entrance was scorched and blackened by fire.

Twilight edged around the clearing, staying behind the trees, as if that would somehow make her safe. The silence here was absolute, the forest unmoving as even the wind had departed. No sound but the swish of bracken and undergrowth around their hooves. Close to the cave, Twilight felt something soft and sticky beneath her hoof. She stopped to look down.. terror gripped her heart and Twilight suddenly stumbled back, falling on her haunches, trying and failing to throw a defensive barrier between her and the thing on the floor.

“Twilight, what—”

Fluttershy froze when she saw the messy remnants on the floor. A skull, a few bones, wrapped in hair and anything else a dragon couldn’t digest. She swallowed and stepped back, then turned away and vomited in the grass.

Rainbow Dash, torn between curiosity and horror, leaned as close as she dared to the giant pellet. “Is... is that...”

“No.” Twilight shook her head, more for her own benefit than anything. Ignoring the now obvious smell she leaned a little closer to the pellet. “It’s probably a deer or something similar. I doubt it was... sentient...”

She turned to look at her friends. Fluttershy wasn’t retching now, but her muzzle was almost touching the floor and she was shivering like a leaf. Pinkie Pie looked up from rubbing the yellow pegasus’ back and tried to smile, though it seemed to be a losing game in the current atmosphere, and Rainbow Dash... her wings were thrust forward again, but uncertainty rode her every action and she was rocking from one foreleg to the other, muttering something under her breath. Twilight thought she caught Rarity’s name at least once.

A snuffle caught Twilight’s attention. She turned to Spike; the little dragon had his back pressed against a tree, his eyes closed and both hands over his mouth. As Twilight moved toward him she saw tears running freely down his face.

“Spike...”

“She’s gone!” Spike scrubbed at his eyes as if that would stop the tears. He stared at his hands, claws stretching and relaxing, then at the bone-strewn clearing.

“Spike, we don’t know—”

“Oh yeah? So where is she? Tell me that, Twilight!”

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know! I can’t use my magic...”

Spikes eyes had already left her and were focussed on the cave. They widened and Spike gasped, whether in fear or something else Twilight couldn’t say. The little dragon suddenly took off at a sprint toward the cave.

“Spike!”

Twilight ran after him, ignoring her the outcry of her friends. She burst into the open sunlight, just as Spike’s tail disappeared into the shadow of the cave, and galloped past the scattered bones and debris of the clearing.

The light spell came unbidden as she passed beneath the dark overhang and it was only once she had slowed to a walk that Twilight realised it was working. The wards didn’t extend within the cave. Another mystery to be worked out later, for now she had an assistant to catch.

She found Spike a short distance inside the cave, kneeling down with something grasped in his claws. Despite his earlier behaviour he was completely silent. She looked around as she walked up to him and spotted a few grubby bolts of cloth piled up at the back of the cave. One had been unrolled, another was shredded. One piece was laid out on the floor and held a small pile of gems.

Rocks clinked as Spike stood up, holding something tightly in his claws. He turned to Twilight with a grim expression, yet there seemed to be some relief there too. Twilight tilted her head and looked at his hands.

He was holding a lock of mane. Rarity’s mane. Spike trailed the hair between his claws... and then he smiled.

“She’s not here,” he said. His eyes traced the lock of hair sliding between his fingers with loving care. “She can’t be here.”

“Spike, are you... are you okay?”

Spike shook his head, never taking his eyes from the hair. He wrapped it around his claws again and again then held it up to his face.

“I don’t suppose you’re going to explain...?”

“We can’t digest hair,” he said, his voice almost absent. “I remember you shouting at me for gnawing your tail when I was really little and then half a day later I brought up that big hairball.”

“On the rug,” Twilight replied. “I don’t see what—”

“It was all full of bile and slime, it didn’t even really look like your hair any more.” Spike stroked the lock of purple over the back of his hand and smiled. “So she can’t be here, because this hasn’t been inside a dragon.”

A strange shudder ran down Spike’s back and he became more alert, as if waking from a dream. Spike looked up at Twilight. “Hey your magic’s back!”

“Yeah. The wards don’t extend in...” Twilight stamped her hoof and flared her nostrils. “Spike, it doesn’t make any sense!”

Spike’s eyes shifted to the cave entrance. He dropped the hair and suddenly crouched defensively. “It’s coming back.”

“What? Oh no...” Twilight looked around the cave in a panic until something caught her eye. She glared at it and then shifted her attention back to Spike. “Get the others, get under cover. I’ll see you back in Ponyville.”

“But Twilight—”

“I said go!”

Twilight’s eyes flared bright with magic that rippled along her mane, sending a momentary flash of fire down her back, the command spell throwing Spike towards the cave entrance before he even knew what had hit him. She’d regret that later, but there was no time to argue and no time to wait for Spike’s sense of duty to overcome his stubbornness.

The object of her attention was on the far side of the cave, buried in darkness. Twilight upped the power on her light spell and moved out into the cave, carefully stepping around an arrangement of gemstones on the floor until she was before a shimmering sheet of cloth, suspended from a crudely constructed frame. She looked up at it, then around the interior of the cave, a dreadful feeling of familiarity growing in her. Twilight returned to the hair Spike had been playing with and levitated it close to her face. Clean hair. She looked over her shoulder and opened the Ossory’s Pocket without a thought.

Without warning a magical clamour invaded Twilight’s mind, almost a scream of anguish and horror that seemed to emanate from just outside the cave, punching a white-hot knife of pain beneath her horn that drove Twilight to her knees. Twilight slammed a binding spell on the pocket and the silent cacophony ceased.

Blinking, shaking her head to clear the stars floating before her eyes, Twilight struggled upright. She glanced at the hair and tossed it to the floor, then looked over her shoulder at the spot where the Ossory’s Pocket usually came to rest. After a final look around the cave, in the hope that her imagination was playing tricks on her, she turned to the exit.

A dragon stood in silhouette, wings extended against the bright sky. Its hot breath was already filling the cave. Twilight stepped back, readying a defensive spell, then realised the futility of it. Her horn glowed bright.

The dragon roared and lunged, and Twilight winked out of existence.

* * *

Spike and the three ponies ran for their lives, ducking between trees without any care if they were heading toward the road or the town, as long as they were heading away from the dragon. He knew he would probably be safe in the short term, as a dragon rarely ate young of its own species, but the other three?

Fluttershy was already flagging, alternating between a run and a hop aided by a flutter of her wings. Pinkie was in the lead, skipping without any apparent effort, whilst Rainbow Dash was in the rear. She kept glancing over her shoulder and up at the canopy, surely wishing she were anywhere but the ground. Yet she stayed, urging them on with shouts of encouragement and once even nipping at Fluttershy’s rump to keep her moving.

They heard the roar of a dragon. Rainbow Dash skidded to a halt and turned, as if to run back. She would have done it too if Fluttershy hadn’t suddenly grabbed her tail and tugged her to the ground.

“Let me go!”

“No, Dash! She wanted us to — how could any of us fight a dragon?”

“How could she?”

"Duh! Magic!"

“We promised to meet her in town, we can’t go back on that.”

Rainbow Dash sagged and let her wings flop at her side. She dropped her head. “I guess...”

“We’re probably safe now,” Fluttershy said, probably more to reassure herself than anything else. “We can walk the rest of the way.”

* * *

Twilight appeared with a loud pop in the centre of the library’s main room and immediately ran towards the reading table with its stack of research materials she’d set aside just a day earlier. She rifled through the books, carelessly tossing them to one side as she looked for the title that had come to mind.

“Legendarium, Anticlimax of the Shallow Mind, Secrets and Lies: an Earthy Pony’s Tale... what is that even doing here?”

Twilight tossed the errant volume towards the shelves, not caring that Spike wasn’t there to catch it, as she continued through the pile. Book after book flew to one side until she reached the last, lying open on the table. She flipped it over and read the title.

“Historia Magicae volume seven. Huh.” Twilight laid the book down gently and looked at the mess she’d created. “I was so sure I saw something...”

With the book still embraced in her levitation spell Twilight turned to pace the room, not noticing a pile of books immediately by her hooves. She tripped. The Historia flew from her grip and landed on its spine.

An image twitched at Twilight’s mind, a falling book and a flutter of pages. She stepped around the tormenting pile and focussed on the book, which had opened quite randomly at an essay on the consideration of small trifles. Twilight lifted the book back to the reading table and began to leaf through it, carefully examining the pages, then turned to the index. She ran a hoof down the finely printed list.

“On Hidden Things,” she read. That was familiar. With a sense of growing trepidation Twilight opened the chapter and scanned the first few sentences. “A treatise on the distribution, disposition and dissipation of the spatial fissures, commonly named in Magna Astralomagica Regesta as Ossory’s Pocket or Saint Ossory’s Pouch, and the methods by which said fissures shall be discovered, cleansed or sealed.”

She continued to read, eyes darting back and forth on the page from text, to diagrams and back again as she tried to absorb what the book was telling her. At first she took notes. Soon, though, the quill fell aside, untouched as Twilight thundered through the essay, a mix of fear and anger clouding her features.

The book snapped shut. Twilight lifted it into the air, her eyes fixed on some distant point in space and time.

“Sweet Celestia,” she whispered as a teleport spell consumed her. “What have I done?”

* * *

“... indeed what have any done, in the grand scheme, except deny the inevitable encroachment of time upon their body and mind, even as the signs grow stronger. All we can do is leave our mark upon the world, and hope we are remembered well once we pass on to the great meadow.”

Starswirl the Bearded, many years of that name, gently placed his quill on his writing desk and closed his eyes. He leaned forward to stretch his aching back and withers and tried not to think about the coming day, when he would complete the binding spells that should, in theory, prevent his race from forgetting the Historia Magicae, possibly his last and greatest work. Future generations would depend on those words for their peace of mind and safety but such a spell required power. Perhaps more power than he had.

Fortunately he had some help. Starswirl reached over his desk to a speaking tube and tapped it twice with his hoof.

“Sunset Aura, if you’re still in the library could you please bring me the second Ossory codex and another of your mother’s fine pastries?”

“Can do!”

Starswirl let the tube slip back into place and smiled. Yes, it certainly paid to be the most gifted mage in the Unicorn kingdoms, far better than anything a mere king could achieve. Nevertheless, there was work to be done. He levitated his quill back to the page.

“And yet, no greater indictment of the behaviour of a mage might be found than that he sought knowledge, not for the sake of itself, nor for the betterment of ponykind, but for something so fleeting as fame.”

“You know, you might write faster if you didn’t talk at the same time.”

Sunset Aura trotted through the outer door, a small tray suspended before her. She bore the tray and its contents – a pastry, two scrolls rolled tight, a pot of masala chai and two cups – to a larger table in the corner of the room and set it down with a quiet tinkle. Starswirl smiled and shook his head as the younger unicorn poured them both a steaming cup.

“Young lady, you are, as ever, a fount of profound yet impractical advice,” Starswirl said, smiling. He took the proffered cup and pastry, and waited as Sunset unfurled first one scroll and then the other. “Have you considered my offer?”

“I have,” Sunset said. Her examination of the second scroll seemed to falter. “It is a tempting one but I’m not sure I’m ready to leave my archive just yet.”

As if the archive was your true calling, Starswirl thought, eyeing the spangle of bright red stars on Sunset’s pale blue flank. Potentially the most powerful mage he had seen and yet she hid away amongst her artefacts and trinkets like some sort of librarian. He set aside the chai and tried to give Sunset his most penetrating look. The outcome was not exactly as he expected. She giggled.

“Miss Aura, what is so amusing?”

“Nothing! Nothing... it’s just that you seem to be paying a lot of attention to me these days.” Sunset rather coyly raised the scroll up to her face and peered at Starswirl over the handle. “I’m just a simple archival researcher and you’re the most powerful mage our race has ever seen. Why you would want to spend even a moment with me when you could do anything in the world... why, you could be ruling Unicornia right now if you wanted it.”

“Tempt me not!” Starswirl chuckled as he snatched the scroll from Sunset’s levitation spell and set it on the writing desk next to his work. “The kingdom needs wisdom and guidance, not mere brute power. As for you... Sunset Aura, you are no archivist and you are no mere strip of a filly who knows not her strength. I would have you as...”

His voice trailed off. Sunset’s expression had gone from coquettish to almost horrified as he spoke and Starswirl wondered if perhaps he’d gone too far. But then she smiled, just a little.

“Go on,” she said, lowering her eyes just a fraction. Was she blushing?

“Oh... forgive an old stallion his fantasies, dear child.” She smiled again and Starswirl found himself smiling back as he briefly considered the youth spell he had perfected just a few weeks ago. But no... ultimately such a spell would lead to places he would rather not consider. “One as powerful as I cannot help but see another of equal or greater capacity. I see you as a great and powerful mage and... I hope, a progenitor of such mages.” That one drew a gasp. Starswirl stepped back and turned to get a better view of the young mare. “I also fear you.”

“Fear me?”

“A mage fears power as great as his own. Rivalry amongst such as we can lead only to greed and chaos and, ultimately, death. Come, see,” he said, motioning to the scrolls and his own half-finished writing. “This character, Ossory, for instance sought to prove himself better than his fellows rather than working with them, and in so doing may have released something that consumed him utterly.”

“I read a little of Ossory when you requested information on his work,” Sunset said. Her voice seemed a little faint and it was obvious she was still reeling from the minor revelations Starswirl had dropped on her. If only she knew. “He seemed keen.”

“Young Clover is 'keen', and far too enamoured with politics for my liking,” Starswirl said. He smiled and shook his head when he remembered that his young Clover had ceased to be either young or his student nearly fifteen years ago and was, these days, well entrenched in the highest levels of the court. A fine mage, though perhaps not as clever as the name suggested. “Ossory was arrogant and knew little of anything save promoting himself— and what is so amusing now?”

“Oh, nothing...” Sunset Aura managed to suppress her grin and gave Starswirl the most serious of looks that he almost burst out laughing himself.

“Yes, well, he and those like him are the reason I started writing the Historia in the first place. Future mages need to understand that magic is not something to be trifled with. Those with the most power must be given the greatest guidance.”

She was gazing at him now, fascinated, or infatuated; Starswirl was unsure which, and equally unsure which he’d prefer. He stroked his beard as he tried to recall what he had been saying.

“Yes, anyway, Ossory’s infamy was the spell he named his ‘pocket’.”

“I’ve heard you speak of these before, master Starswirl.”

Sunset’s voice was suddenly very formal, as she so often became when those students were about. But they were alone, which meant she must be playing with him on some level that Starswirl didn’t understand.

“The rants I have had about those infernal cysts,” he said, retrieving his writing tools. He dropped the quill into an ink pot and then stopped, unsure of what to do. “They were to have been his crowning achievement, by his own account. And mine, when I resurrected them and brought them back to the world.”

“What happened?”

“Oh I found out that Ossory’s magic was merely a concoction of half truths and fancywork and that his vanity was matched only by my own.” Starswirl held up the scroll and peered at it though, in truth, he was only pretending to read while he ordered his thoughts. “Ossory claimed invention of a type of spatial rift that would be immediately accessible through a spell of his own devising. Unfortunately he neglected to mention that the rifts were extant prior to his alleged creation and that his ‘magic’ was little more than a location fixer and a sorting spell with a basic predictive function built it.”

“So in essence, a Dewdrop’s Purse of Concealment.”

“That could be the inspiration,” Starswirl murmured, laying the scroll down on the desk.

“But a spatial rift... a spell located within a set of self-enclosed non-euclidian dimensions... tied to a specific set of orgonal markers and accessible from any point in real space? That’s incredible.”

It had taken Starswirl a week to work out the general shape of the spell and Sunset had figured it out in moments. You are wasted in that archive, he thought once again.

“Incredible? Only if he’d found a way to create the self-enclosed geometries himself but, alas, even I have yet to crack that one. You might, given time,” he added with a glance to the young mare. Sunset blushed again. “As I said, he merely found them, and then he poked holes in them to create his masterwork. Foalish young upstart probably ended up stuck in one of his own ‘creations’. As for what he potentially let out... huh.”

“Let... let out? Master, you never mentioned anything being let out before.”

“Oh... I suppose I didn’t.”

Starswirl went to take a sip of his tea and realised the cup was empty. His pleading look elicited a sigh from Sunset who, nevertheless, retrieved his cup and poured a fresh drink while Starswirl returned to his writings.

“When I first discovered the Pockets I thought I had stumbled across a hidden masterpiece, a work of such genius that nothing but good could come of it. Even when I found that Ossory had only co-opted an existing geometric artefact I reasoned that it still had almost limitless potential. I was invested, Sunset, in the fame it would have brought me and came extremely close to achieving that fame in a most painful and bitter way. You see the stonework at the far end of this laboratory?”

Sunset followed Starswirl’s outstretched hoof to a fresco built into the far wall. It was a fairly simple affair, marble inlaid with silver and gold, a stallion descending from a great tower that seemed to be crumbling into a pit.

“A rather plain depiction of the Fall of Adara and the descent of Fleethoof Starshine,” Sunset said after a moment’s examination. “What of it?”

“How old do you think it is?”

“I have trouble with anything younger than a century... oh, stop it.” Sunset Aura playfully slapped at Starswirl’s side at the sight of his enormous grin. “You’re far too young for me.”

“Alas, I was thinking the same thing,” Starswirl replied. His seriousness returned as he faced the mural and for a moment he was back amongst the reasons for its existence. “Forty-five years, give or take a month. I had it installed about two months after finding my first Pocket and about a week after opening the last. You see, Sunset, those pockets were created for a reason. They held... secrets. In this case a magical bomb that transformed one of my previous assistants into...”

He shuddered as the memories returned to his mind. The first pocket had contained nothing more than a small, if rather well-preserved vase that was probably secured somewhere in Sunset Aura’s enormous archive. The second had held some groceries, rather less well-preserved, and a shopping list clearly marked as belonging to Ossory himself, which had encouraged Starswirl to continue seeking the pockets.

“Ossory had invented a means to locate and retrieve his pockets from a very wide area, and I quickly found several more. It was the first of those that my assistant opened, under my instruction. Something... whatever was in there... it was already powerful when it escaped. It devoured his mind in moments, he barely had enough time to realise what... I...”

Starswirl took a deep breath as he tried to order his thoughts. Time heals all wounds? Whoever had said that hadn’t had to look one of their closest friends in the face and see only malevolent hatred staring back through dead eyes, and hadn’t had to suffer the nightmares years later.

“It was a curse. Something from before any recorded history, something so evil that it must have been created only for war, though any war that would require the use of such weapons, I cannot even begin to comprehend.”

He looked into Sunset’s eyes, bright with life and curiosity, and tried to smile. She was seeing a new part of his life now, something she’d never have encountered if it weren’t for her particular talent. Starswirl wondered if it would drive her back to her archive permanently.

“I suppose you must learn of things like this if you are to fully consider my request. To be a mage means occasionally facing situations that are... impossible. Rising above the impossible is what magic is all about, in the end.”

“Master, you...” She took a breath. “Your friend?”

“Ah... Sunset, I don’t think—”

“I have to know. Please.”

The old mage turned to face the mural. He hadn’t looked at it for years, not really looked at it. Casual glances, the sight of it behind other things yes, but not the actual mural, not for many years. He’d thought it quite fitting as a memorial to... to his loss. Had it even been to his friend? He wasn’t sure any more. Of so many things, he wasn’t sure.

“ ‘Oh thou of great and noble race, thy home Adara burns in dead of night. Mourn thee now thy fate and place, to walk this earth forever lost to harmony’s great light.’” He didn’t need to read the stone; the words were etched in his memory far deeper than any chisel could cut granite. “It was meant to remind me that even the greatest can fall. Ossory fell to greed. I almost fell to mindless enthusiasm. Perhaps I still shall fall to pride... my friend? He fell to loyalty. Pure, simple loyalty. He loved me and did everything I asked for that love.”

Starswirl closed his eyes as he pictured the face of his friend, the day before the accident. They had spent the morning walking, planning how they would live out their lives after their great new discovery. He would have been a great noble living in a grand mountainside villa. He’d already found a nice valley with a huge reflecting lake. Starswirl would be the Archmage of Unicornia. Together... together, what great things they could have done.

“I had no choice, in the end. The curse took him, completely and utterly. He’d been powerful, but he’d never fully appreciated his own strength. This curse... this monster that stole him, it knew what he could do. It knew that with a mere thought it could turn this entire city to dust. It knew what he meant to me, and it tried to bargain, to use that love, that loyalty against me. My friend’s life for my even greater power.” Starswirl blinked way the tears as he spoke. “I could see the monster already growing in power. It would have taken me anyway, so I destroyed it the only way I knew; I burned his body to ashes, spread his power to the winds before the creature that had taken him could comprehend what I had done. Twice then, I had destroyed my most loyal friend. My only true friend.

“So now you see, Sunset Aura, what it is to be a mage, to risk all for the understanding of this arcane art. I asked this of you not lightly but with the greatest of sorrow, because I see your power, and I would have you understand just what that power means. I would guide you, teach you to avoid my mistakes, and to surpass me in my success. I would not have you become another Ossory, nor have you suffer the fate of my friend simply because you were too eager for fame and fortune or too enamoured with the thrill of power to see death and destruction coming before it was too late. To follow me would set you on a path to endless toil, hardship, loneliness and pain.”

“When you put it like that...” Sunset Aura looked at her hooves. She took a sharp breath and looked up into Starswirl’s face with a strange, distant smile. “But I get to keep the archive, yes?”

Despite himself, Starswirl laughed, the first decent laugh he’d had in the gods knew how long. Perhaps the impetuousness of youth had some positive aspects, after all. He returned to his desk and lifted pen to paper. “I don’t see why not. For now, hand me that other Ossory scroll. I want to get this on parchment, then we’ll talk about your future.”

Suffice to say, he wrote, pen scratching rapidly across the page. Ossory was a hack.

* * *

Applejack and Zecora were waiting at the Boutique when Twilight arrived. They barely showed any surprise at the bright flash of light that accompanied her, though Zecora seemed unusually interested in the book that flopped to the floor as Twilight appeared. Twilight’s teleportation had become common enough that it was almost normal, at least for Ponyville.

“Hey there sparky,” Applejack called out. Twilight ignored her and began to pace back and forth, her eyes fixed on the Boutique’s door. She seemed to be muttering something. “Ah said... aw nuts to that.”

With a sigh and a toss of her mane Applejack made her way over to the rapidly forming rut that marked Twilight’s anxious pacing. She watched her friend for a few turns.

“Twilight, what in tarnation is wrong with you?”

Twilight’s pacing slowed and she sagged, almost as if she were sinking into some invisible pit. She eventually came to a halt, breathing heavily, and closed her eyes.

“I did it.”

“You what?”

“The curse,” Twilight said, lifting her face to the sky. Tears twinkled on her cheeks and pooled in her eyes. “I was the one who cursed Rarity. Somehow I... I released something.”

“What...” Applejack looked askance at Zecora, who had sidled up to the pair in the meantime. “Twilight, that’s plumb loco!”

“No...” Twilight opened her eyes and motioned at the by now slightly damp book lying on the grass. “It’s not. This is what happens when I don’t do enough research. I was so excited about the idea, I never looked for what had become of it.”

She walked — stumbled — to the book and laid it open, then pointed a hoof at the page. “There.”

Applejack and Zecora both moved closer. The zebra showed vague interest, but that soon faded and she turned away with a quiet snort. Applejack read a little longer, brow furrowed, but eventually gave up and turned a pleading face to Twilight.

“You’re gonna have to explain this in words that ain’t got more syllables than Ah have legs, Twilight.”

A light breeze set the pages of the book rustling and flipping but Twilight didn’t seem to notice, or care. She turned and seated herself, facing the Boutique but not quite looking directly at it. After a short silence Applejack moved up beside her and gently nuzzled Twilight’s ear.

“You ain’t blamin’ yourself for this, y’hear? Now tell me what’s goin’ on.”

“Twilight has found a hidden wrong will seldom stay that way for long.”

Applejack’s angry glare was enough to put even Zecora off her stride for a moment, but she continued walking back to the pair, and even managed a slight smile. The zebra didn’t sit, but looked at Twilight. “Your farmer friend, however, is right. Do not blame yourself, Twilight.”

Twilight snorted and put her ears back and looked as if she were about to physically attack Zecora. Instead she looked up at Applejack with wide, bloodshot eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. Then, as if answering a call, Twilight slowly moved towards the Boutique. Her horn began to glow gently as she spoke.

“I don’t blame myself. I simply know I am partly responsible for whatever happened to Rarity,” she said, before releasing the spell she had built up. The Visio Externalis reasserted itself over the building, again revealing the curse in all its malevolence and extent. Its tendrils snaked faintly around the entire exterior, bunching tightly at the door, whilst a few threads seemed to have begun a slow trail across the ground. Others, higher up the building, waved in an ethereal breeze. They quickly faded to invisibility as they stretched away into the bright sunlight.

“You see?”

“Ah see the same thing Ah saw before, sugarcube, this don’t prove... holy Celestia’s shiny hiney that thing just moved!”

Applejack stepped back, eyes wide. The magic of the curse crawled and whipped as it seemed to tighten its grip on the building. Tendrils hanging in the air withdrew and the whole shape began to glow a dull red, tinted purple by the presence of Twilight’s magic. Suddenly it relaxed, like a sea anemone easing back out to the water.

“It reacted to a spell I cast.”

“So you can sceer that critter? Good for you, Twilight! Ah told you we’d—”

“No!” Twilight looked away. “It only reacts to the spell because it came from it and doesn’t want to go back! I unleashed this, Applejack!”

“Now Ah know you’re a bale short of a haystack, Twilight... what are you doin’?”

Applejack backed away a step as Twilight’s horn began to glow, and then her eyes. The unicorn stood, her whole body tensed as if she were about to spring into a leap.

“There’s more to it. More here that I can’t see.” Twilight’s voice was almost a whisper. She turned blank, tearing eyes to look straight at Zecora. “You knew, Zecora. You knew!”

Twilight grunted with effort. Magic began to stream out of her hooves, a flat, baleful fire that hugged close to the ground. By now a small crowd had gathered, drawn by the sight of the curse now visible around the Boutique, and Applejack could hear their nervous muttering as Twilight ramped up her power. None except a very few had ever seen her in full form. The grass beneath her feet wilted as a crackling purple aura enveloped her form.

“Uh, Twilight, Ah appreciate a good lightshow as much as the next pony, but...”

“In sympathy with hidden things,” Twilight shouted, as if trying to make herself heard about the silent maelstrom. “That’s what she said!”

“Say what?”

Twilight was floating now, legs hanging limp as the power flowing through her body lifted her into the air. She closed her eyes and then opened them again, revealing sights Applejack would later refuse to even discuss. Twilight’s mouth hung open in a wordless scream as the magic curled and twisted around her form, spiralling to a point just above her horn.

“Revealed at night,” she gasped. “Their power sings!”

Where Applejack had expected light, she saw a stream of darkness, spiralling ribbons of something that seemed to be the very essence of night compressed, distilled and shot into the sky. The sunlight began to fade, the sky turning from blue to burnished orange, then to blackness that chilled the very air.

There was a scream, but Applejack ignored it to watch Twilight. A low rumble of thunder rolled across the sky as the power left her all at once and Twilight fell back to earth, unconscious, her body twisting limply. Applejack threw herself beneath her friend and grunted as Twilight’s full weight loaded on her back.

“Twilight...” She laid Twilight down on the ground as gently as she could and shook the unconscious form of her friend. “Twilight, why can Ah see stars?”

Twilight coughed and shuddered, then opened her eyes. “Applejack?”

“There y’are sugarcube,” Applejack replied softly. “Ah won’t ask what you just done...”

“Revealed at night,” Twilight repeated. She struggled against Applejack’s hold until she could twist a foreleg free, then pointed at the Boutique . “Not even magic can reveal it all in daylight.”

“Well Ah guess it...” Applejack’s words died in her throat as she looked toward the Boutique. The shouting around them had faded too, as the by now rampaging crowd had either left or realised that the world wasn’t ending today. A few of the more curious had even ventured closer but not too close once they saw what Twilight had revealed. A shape stood outside the Boutique, barely visible even in the pseudonight Twilight’s magic had created. Its head was tilted back, its mane lifted as if caught in a breeze. Eyes closed. A lock of hair floated separate from its mane, twisting away in the frozen moment.

Any pain forgotten, Twilight and Applejack stepped forward to flank the ghostly form, eyes wide, unable to fully comprehend what they were seeing. Twilight’s hoof stumbled against a hole in the ground; the same hole she had seen the day before, misshapen, shallow.

“Is that...”Applejack swallowed. “Are those...”

Twilight nodded.

Between them, from behind the shoulders of Rarity’s shade, a pair of dragon wings rose high against the starry sky.

Clarity of Purpose

Clarity of Purpose

The night persisted. For the first hour Twilight assumed it would eventually begin to fade. Over the next two or three hours she had begun to suspect that she’d put more power into the spell than she’d realised and it was clear that the magic, cast in anger and fear, had established itself as a fairly permanent fixture over the town, which left Twilight with something of a problem.

The others had returned a few hours after Twilight and found Ponyville in absolute panic, with more than a few ponies already packing their belongings as they sought to flee ‘Twilight’s night’, the curse, the dragon and, according to the wildest rumour, the fact that Twilight had become the new Nightmare Moon. She later wondered if she should be impressed at how much power they ascribed to her, or annoyed at how gullible they could be.

As for a possible solution, Twilight opted for the safest option: Curl up in a corner and wait for everything to be happy again, which was exactly how Spike finally found her, in the back of the library, surrounded by a protective wall of books.

“She’s adorable,” Fluttershy said as she peered over the wall of Twilight’s impromptu palisade.

Pinkie Pie circled the little book fort Twilight had hidden in, poking her nose here and there as she examined the sleeping librarian. Twilight had finally succumbed to fearful exhaustion and was flat on her back, all her legs in the air, and half-buried beneath the collapsed east wing of her fort. It was a very impressive fort; a central keep constructed from hardback fiction, surrounded by a curtain wall constructed entirely from the Equestrian Tax Code, all on a foundation of philosophy references.

“You think we should wake her?”

“Oh, I don’t know, she must be so sleepy.” Fluttershy leaned forward and nosed at Twilight’s ear. It twitched. “All that running to and fro and being chased by dragons... it’s a wonder she stayed awake so long.”

“She might be plum-tuckered, Fluttershy, but she can’t hide from what she did. That stuff ain’t right.”

“Applejack, be fair--”

“Fair? Have y’all looked out a window?” Applejack pointed a hoof at the dark scene outside. “It’s three in the afternoon an’ it’s dark as midnight! My apples ain’t happy!”

With a loud snort, Rainbow Dash jumped in front of Fluttershy, raising her wings protectively around the cowering pegasus. She pawed the floor and glared at Applejack, but any argument she was going to make was interrupted by a terrified squeak from within Fort Grimoire.

The group gathered round Twilight to find her staring at the ceiling. More accurately, at some point a few miles above the ceiling. The unicorn’s ears fell flat against her head as she noticed their concerned faces peering down. Her eye twitched.

“Luna is going to kill me...”

“Twilight, Ah don’t think--”

“She’s going to banish me to the moon, and then Celestia is going to banish the moon to the sun, and then they’ll banish the sun to... to somewhere else even worse!” She rolled onto her side and curled up into a little ball. “And then they’ll... they’ll...”

Twilight wrapped a foreleg around her shoulder and began to rock back and forth, humming tunelessly while the others watched. None of her friends could recall seeing her quite so out of it before, even on her worst days.

“Sugarcube, it ain’t that bad...”

Unfortunately for Applejack’s sentiment, at that very moment the door of the library crashed open, admitting a gust of wind so powerful that it knocked a few books from their secure shelving and demolishing another wall of Twilight’s abused fortress. The ponies stepped back in fear as, from the darkness without, none other than the Princess of the Moon herself stepped into the library, accompanied by a cloying curl of dark mist and chill air. She surveyed the quiet gathering with an imperious gaze that paused at each pony in turn until it settled on Twilight.

“Twilight Sparkle.” The princess took a step toward Twilight’s prone form. Luna’s voice was menacingly quiet. “Explain thyself.”

“Bwaaa... Princess Luna!” Twilight leapt from her book fort and stumbled backward across the curtain wall. “What a nice surprise that you would turn up in my library right now when nothing remotely important has happened at all!”

Luna narrowed her eyes at Twilight and took another step forward. The young unicorn tried to chuckle and even made an effort of gathering up some of her books but the princess merely tilted her head. “Twilight, thou art--”

“You just came at a bad time, the library isn’t in the best state right now...”

“Twilight--”

“I have to clean up these books! I have to clean up everything! I didn’t want to make a mess but I did it and now I have to clean it up or I’ll never be able to--”

“Twilight Sparkle!”

The books Twilight had gathered with her magic fell to the floor, pages fluttering like so many distressed songbirds, collapsing the remnant of her temporary refuge. Twilight lowered her head and Luna, eyes widening just a fraction, stepped back and lowered the wings she had instinctively raised. She lowered her voice along with them.

“Prithee explain thou whence came night over this place, Twilight Sparkle.”

“Oh, well, you see...” Twilight sat on her haunches, forehooves tapping together. She stared at the floor. “It’s... complicated.”

Luna shifted her wings. “We are not in any mood for--”

“No, no I can explain, just please promise you won’t banish me!”

Luna glanced at Applejack, who had sidled up beside her at this point. The apple farmer shrugged.

“Twilight, we shall banish thee not, it is not our way. Yet, thou hast dared wrest control of a portion of our night.” Luna lowered her head to Twilight and looked her in the eye. The unicorn’s heart leapt into her throat. Twilight squeezed her eyes shut as she felt Luna’s cool breath on her fur. “Such acts require an accounting.”

Twilight kept her head low as she walked to the door, refusing to look at any of her friends. She was followed into the night by Luna a moment later. The alicorn princess paused for a moment to look at the other ponies, finally resting her eyes on Applejack.

“Follow if you wish, our little ponies. We may require corroboration of certain events.”

The streets were deserted as the group made their way through town and silent, except for the quiet sound of Twilight as she explained the events of the past few days to Princess Luna. The princess listened, her impassive face giving not a hint of reaction to the story until they reached the place where it had all begun.

The Boutique was silent when they arrived. Deserted. None dared go near the place now the magic infesting it was so obvious. The grassy gardens around the building were a mess of torn up divots and hoofprints, the only remnant of the stampede that had followed Twilight’s magical excursion earlier in the day. The curse itself still glowed faintly in the starlight, twisting toward the night sky as if reaching out for the stars themselves.

“This is unlike anything we have seen...” Luna moved toward the shade of Rarity, pausing to examine the wings. Her eyes narrowed as she examined the form and she backed away from the apparition once again. “Twilight, though shouldst have fully informed us of this as soon as it was discovered.”

“I know, I’m sorry, I just--” A glare from Luna silenced Twilight before she could exercise her reasoning. Celestia might have listened before correcting her, but this wasn’t her mentor, and Twilight still wasn’t sure how to handle the younger princess in all her moods.

Luna circled the shade, taking care not to come between it and the rest of the curse. She looked up at the building and then down at the floor, still frowning, before stepping away once again.

“It is ancient, this magic, yet it feels familiar... Twilight,” she said, turning from the building to face the group. Twilight’s ears drooped again. “Thou shalt keep us appraised of this. We wish to hear the very moment anything changes.”

“Yes, Princess, o-of course.”

Luna crouched to nuzzle Twilight’s face. She smiled, just a little. “Be at peace, Twilight Sparkle. We wish thee no anguish.”

“Not... not even for...”

The moon princess looked up at the night sky and smiled again. “Not even for the stars. We are not entirely averse to their appearance at this hour, Twilight, and thou hast shown remarkable aptitude and creativity in their use. Nevertheless...”

Luna closed her eyes as her horn began to glow. She took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly; with her breath the night sky began to slough away like mist in the wind, peeling toward the horizon in great, curling streamers that faded into the bright blue evening sky. Warmth and sunlight returned to the town, hiding away the curse and restoring some slender skin of normality to the Carousel Boutique.

The small group of friends blinked in the bright afternoon sun, sharing relieved looks, their mood brightening. Somewhere in the distance cheer was raised and ponies began to emerge from their homes, blinking in wonder at the sudden return of the sun. With her wings raised high, Luna turned to face Twilight and her friends once again.

“We shall return to Canterlot, Twilight. Celestia must hear of this.”

“Yes...”

“Twilight, attend.” Luna knelt down before the unicorn and raised Twilight’s head with her hoof until she was looking straight into her eyes. “We have forgiven thee. Do not presume to hold thyself responsible for that which we have dismissed.”

“But this isn’t a stupid attraction spell or a tardy report, Princess.” Twilight swallowed and looked away from Luna’s face, her eyes welling with tears. “I really screwed up this time, I didn’t s-stop and think about what was happening, and now Rarity-- Rarity might be--”

“You were not capable of fully rational thought, Twilight Sparkle. Thy fear overwhelmed thee. Be at peace, young one, thou hast acted with good intent and cannot be held at fault. We shall speak of this another day. I would like to hear more of this magic you cast, also.” Luna smiled as she stood again. She took a final look down at Celestia’s student, curiosity and an odd sense of pride dancing behind her eyes. “Fare thee well, young mage.”

The alicorn leapt into the air and sped high and away on a few powerful beats of her wings. The others watched her glide away toward the horizon but Twilight refused to join them. Her eyes were fixed on Rarity’s shade, still just barely visible by the door. For just a moment it seemed that the ghost might start to move, its pose was so dynamic.

Twilight moved toward the curse, releasing a gentle magical probe that wrapped up and around the building in a translucent bubble of swirling light. The bubble began to contract, inching toward the centre of the Boutique, until Twilight noticed the nearest tendrils of the manifest curse starting to twitch and writhe, as if reaching out toward her power. She let the probe dissipate; the writhing spectre stretched out toward the fading energy, before slowly retreating back to its original stance.

The movement was puzzling. Magic, even so-called curses, didn’t usually act with any sort of intent. They were tools. She’d heard the oft-repeated mage’s koan, that magic was alive, but Twilight had tended to dismiss it as some sort of metaphor for the unpredictable nature of extremely powerful magic or the creativity involved in casting more complex and energetic spells. The idea that magic actually lived...

Only one pony seemed to have any idea of what was going on. Not even the Princesses knew, and they were normally the first ponies Twilight would turn to with something as severe as this. Zecora had spent a whole night with the curse and spun her yarn of ancient riddles. She’d known what was going on, but she’d hidden it from them. Twilight knew she’d have to deal with that problem soon, if she was to have any chance of resolving the curse but for now, though, there was a more immediate problem.

The others were still talking a short distance away. Twilight turned to walk toward them but was drawn up short by the sound of gentle hoofbeats on the grass behind her. She turned back to find Zecora walking slowly toward her, the Historia Magicae volume clenched in her teeth. The zebra stopped and the book fell at Twilight’s hooves. They stared at one another, neither willing to look away. Eventually, Twilight gave in and raised her eyes to the Boutique.

“You knew, didn’t you?”

Zecora shook her head. She nudged the book with her hoof, but refused to take her eyes from Twilight. “This curse spoke until I woke, but I did not learn much, except that it is old, and dangerous to touch.”

“But you touched it anyway.”

“To save a friend I would go to any end. To end my own curse, perhaps I would do worse...”

Twilight’s breath caught in her throat as she considered what Zecora meant, but she carefully pushed the thought to one side. Despite her curiosity, there were bigger issues at hand. “Show me how to talk to it. I need to understand what it knows.

“Twilight, your power is greater than mine, but please take heed of this warning sign. The curse will take all it can from you. It will eat you up whole and take no time to chew. Heed the warnings of your Star Swirl, do not let it touch you, girl!”

“But... but you touched... I need to study--”

“I barely with my life escaped by bleeding edge of knife,” Zecora replied with a petulant frown. She tapped the book again, firmer this time, causing Twilight to wince in sympathy with the bindings. “It is old and weak, not near its peak. Listen to the book, my friend. I would not see your life so end.”

The book. Twilight was still intimately aware of the warnings it contained; the brief outline of the story of Starswirl’s assistant haunted her more than she could express. How close had she come to experiencing the same fate? How close had Rarity? A shudder ran down her spine as she thought about the possibilities of some monster with her abilities set lose on the world. It made any decision she might have chosen almost entirely moot.

“It has to be destroyed,” she muttered. Twilight gathered the elements of the most powerful Dispel she could recall from her studies, focussing on their assembly like a piece of clockwork. She didn’t notice the sudden tension in Zecora’s stance as the spell began to manifest.

“Wait, Twilight, that is not right.”

“You said it yourself, Zecora, it’s dangerous.”

“But all the lessons it could teach--”

Zecora’s words were cut off by a loud snap as Twilight released her spell. The air itself seemed to tense, now thick with the cloying, greasy feel of potent magic. The infestation writhed toward the power, wriggling as if in joy at so much magic suddenly appearing to it, only to suddenly recoil as the spell wound up to its finale. Another snap accompanied a thrust of Twilight’s horn. The curse seemed to wind up around itself and began to withdraw from the building, its boughs and vines shrivelling and shredding away to nothing.

As Twilight watched, the ghostly image of Rarity moved, fully visible now, and finally animating through the last few moments of her life as a pony. Her hair sloughed away in huge clumps, exploding out in a bright white cloud around her body. The great wings flapped against the ground and the pony turned its naked, distorted head toward Twilight, baring its incongruous teeth at her. Twilight looked away, not wishing to see any more, until the curse dissipated with a final, silent scream.

The power of her magic rebounded against Twilight with enough force to knock her to her knees. She gasped and struggled to her hooves, and carefully turned to look at the Boutique.

It was gone. Everything was gone.

Twilight found herself on a featureless plain, flat as a tabletop and empty as far as she could see in every direction. She looked about the plain, then scuffed at it with her hoof to find, beneath a thin layer of sand, a perfectly smooth surface that rang with a single, almost inaudible note as her hoof touched it. It looked almost like...

“A jewel? If only Rarity could see this,” Twilight said, smiling just a little. “She’d have a fit.”

And then there was the sky. Twilight hadn’t noticed it at first, but when she paid attention to it she realised what was wrong. It seemed to be an evening sky, faintly purple, cloudless. But motionless, empty, unchanging. And she hadn’t felt a single breeze or seen any movement since her arrival in this place.

Hoofbeats sounded behind her, dead and flat in the lifeless air. “Who’s that? Zecora?”

“I am here,” the zebra said behind her, despite Twilight having just looked that way. “My dear.”

“What is this place?”

“The endless infinity of boundless harmony,” Zecora replied. Her voice sounded a little hollow, but that was probably a result of the complete lack of anything solid to give it depth. “This curse now seeks to find the best way to control your mind, and surely it has brought you here to spark a certain sense of fear.”

“Here being...”

“Harmony,” Zecora repeated. “Without end.”

Twilight looked around the painfully empty landscape, her eyes watering as they tried to focus on something, anything to give it a sense of scale and purpose. “Doesn’t look very harmonious to me...”

The zebra’s stance didn’t change. Twilight suddenly looked at Zecora and frowned. “This is how the curse will take my mind?”

“Your mind, your flesh, your everything, the end of harmony to bring.”

“Uh-huh... and it’s showing me this because it thinks I’ll be scared into giving myself up to it?”

A faint smile lit Zecora’s lips. “Harmony, is all for naught. It shows you this to bring that thought, so that in despair you give your mind and grant it power over your kind.”

“This isn’t harmony. This is a dead nothing.” Twilight stepped away from Zecora and shook her head. “And you missed a rhyme.”

Zecora’s smile froze in place. The endless plain dimmed and seemed to withdraw, or perhaps it was Twilight flying away from it, but the end result was the same, as she found herself in an equally featureless void. Before Twilight could take a breath she was roughly deposited in the centre of the Boutique, surrounded by the glowing threadwork of the curse.

“Well that was anticlimactic,” she muttered.

“You think so?”

Twilight froze in, her heart pounding. That voice... A harsh laugh filled the room, as if the voice could read her mind. Twilight turned, fighting the urge that demanded she flee the room without looking back, until she was face to face with... “Nightmare Moon? But--”

“Surprised to see me? Did you really think your pathetic attempt to destroy me would work? Dear me, Celestia’s brightest student...” The demonic alicorn shook her head in mock surprise as she began to slowly circle the room. “Your Elements of Harmony were amusing, colourful certainly, but ineffective. I mere pretended defeat! And now I come to claim my revenge on your little clique. Your Rarity I turned, and you’re next! Yes...” Nightmare Moon’s face filled with devilish glee. “Yes, you see now don’t you? I, the Nightmare, the true empress of Equestria, the eternal night, I am the curse you feared, the curse that drove your friend Rarity away! I am the true night that will fall over this whole land and you are just a pathetic little filly who didn’t know when to stop meddling.”

The Night Mare’s flowing mane whipped about the room as she stalked towards Twilight. Her laugh echoed, louder, deeper, until it seemed to fill the entire world and Twilight found herself backed up against the wall. In desperation she summoned the most powerful blast of magic she could conceive, a spell without finesse or refinement. Raw magic, untempered, uncontrolled, flashed from her horn.

The blast knocked them apart. Twilight recovered first, took stock. She was uninjured which... which was impossible. Ignore it, she thought. Move on. Twilight cautiously approached the prone form of Nightmare Moon until she stood over her unmoving head. The alicorn’s lizard-like eyes turned toward her and she laughed once again.

“Insolent whelp,” she screamed, her form already dissolving. “You cannot stop me retaking what is rightfully mine! Not you, Celestia or anypony can ever defeat Nightmare Moon!”

Twilight shook her head and mustered another blast of magic, a simple cutting spell. She merged it with a light spell and put as much power into it as she could muster. In the glow of her horn, Nightmare Moon’s face suddenly fell, eyes widening as she recognised the potency of Twilight’s desperate magic.

“No...”

“I already beat you,” Twilight growled, readying the spell to strike. She reared back.

“No please! I’ll—”

The magic cut. There was no blastwave, no fancy lightshow, merely the sound of silk on a sharp blade. Nightmare Moon’s scream of enraged terror ceased half-formed as she disappeared, as if a door had been closed on her, sealing her away.

Twilight choked a sob, suddenly aware of what she had done. I killed her. “I killed Luna...”

She felt a warmth at her side, the presence of another pony and an extremely powerful magic user. Twilight looked up into the kind, sad eyes of Princess Celestia. The Princess bowed her head and closed her eyes in acknowledgement..

“Dear Twilight, I understand your pain.”

“But... but you knew?”

“Of course. I forgave my dear sister, as she forgave me. I found it was an interesting challenge, to maintain harmony with such as her, but for harmony’s sake I tolerated her indiscretions.”

Celestia stepped back, her face suddenly stern. When she looked down at Twilight again any hint of kindness was gone, replaced with anger. Anger? “Princess?”

“And we thought we had taught you better than this, Twilight Sparkle.”

“But—”

“Do not attempt to hide from your acts. You have murdered our sister, in cold blood, when she was willing to yield.”

“No!”

Celestia closed her eyes, summoning a faint white light to her horn. When she opened her eyes again they glowed a bright, pearly white, filling the whole room with stark shadows. When she spoke, it was as the sound of a thousand blazing fires.

“Twilight Sparkle, we have found you guilty of this most heinous of crimes and cast judgement. For the sake of the harmony of our ponies and our land, you are hereby banished from Equestria for all time, and we can think of no place more fitting for your banishment than the moon so beloved of our dear sister, Luna.”

Twilight cowered at the feet of the one she had trusted for so long. She heard Celestia laugh, and... that was wrong. It was all wrong. Twilight closed her eyes, refusing to accept the possibility that her mentor could be so capricious. She saw the glow of Celestia’s power, heard her chanting ancient, arcane words...

And like that, it was gone. Twlight hung in darkness, suddenly alone, suddenly lost, unable to see or hear or feel anything, unable to feel even herself. But, in place of feeling, there was memory. She knew now where she was, what was happening. The curse had tried to take her, to turn her to whatever purpose it was designed to achieve. Had she beaten it? No, if that were the case she’d be in the real world again, but she had thwarted it. For now.

Twilight felt a surface form beneath her hooves and drew courage from the sudden foundation — then realised what she felt wasn’t the floor, not was it her hooves that felt it. It was certainty. Abstract, immaterial, a thing her mind had to translate into forms she understood, but a foundation nonetheless. And then there was light, which slowly resolved into a glow from her horn, revealing a patch of black sand that faded into the shadow of an endless night. For a brief, panicked moment she believed she really had been banished to the moon, until memory quickly asserted itself.

“Now to find a way out,” she said to the world around her. It seemed pointless to talk, yet she did so anyway. It felt right. Twilight pawed at the dark sand, finding it rough and sharp, untouched by the elements or time. “Walking would be a waste of time, I might just be standing still and not even know it. Perhaps... a thought?”

Another voice, or perhaps merely the idea of a voice, infiltrated her consciousness. «So strong, so brave, such determination to persevere oh great mage, mage of mages, greatest of all unicorns.»

“Who are you? No... I know who you are. Why are you?”

«Great mage, great one, you know, you understand, you seek truth. I am truth. I am reality. I am the maker, the unmaker, the changer. Why? Why do you come within, knowing what you know, what I am, suspecting what you suspect?»

“You tell me.”

«To learn. To seek. To understand.»

“To destroy you and save my friend,” Twilight shot back.

«The Dragon.»

Twilight pawed at the ground, ears folding back. Metaphorically. “She is no dragon! She’s a pony, a unicorn like me!”

«I beg to differ, young unicorn, great unicorn, greatest of all magicians. She is a dragon.» Laughter, or something that might have been like it. «Oh your thoughts, so precious! To believe that I would be interested solely in such petty things as turning one of your friends into a beast. She was to be a slave, a rebirth of slaves, merely one of many. Her magic was to be a catalyst of change in your peaceful, mundane, boring little world, a bringer of growth and new life, better life, free of the tyranny of unchanging harmony. Surely one of science such as yourself must appreciate that life unchanging is no different from death. The precious harmony you seek, oh mage of mages, is the same endless, eternal unchanging nothingness I was created to end.»

The lifeless crystal plain was back, the same endless sky casting its lurid glow on featureless sand that stretched from here to eternity. Twilight felt herself more solidly now, more completely. She turned and looked about; here and there she saw hoofprints, her hoofprints for all she knew, for there could be nobody else there, in her own mind.

«So harmonious, so unified, so unchanging, so complete,» the voice spoke into her mind. Twilight frowned.

“This isn’t harmony.”

The silence was total, the landscape eating up Twilight’s voice as soon as it left her mouth, assuming it was her mouth that spoke. Her interlocutor’s silence was becoming worrisome. And then she heard something, like a hoofstep, but... was it someone sitting down? Sand crunched.

“Seems quite harmonious to me, my dear.”

Twilight turned and found herself face to face with the mismatched body of Chaos himself.

“Discord? Oh, I see. Another attempt to trick me into giving up my soul.”

“Oh mon capitaine, no trick.” The creature leaned its not inconsiderable head down close to Twilight and, taking her chin in one hand, looked her in the face. It smiled. “What do you think of my little world?”

“I think Discord is a statue in Celestia’s gardens.”

“Oh this?” A flash of light obscured the creature for a second. When it cleared the statue of Discord stood on the sand, its anguished eyes staring down at her just as she remembered. The creature wrapped around its granite double and leered down at Twilight. “Well yes, I suppose that would be true. Ah, mon petit filet! You see through me again, great mage!” The pseudodiscord stood up as the statue disappeared, and examined his body, turning back and forth. “Interesting form. Chaotic, but it seems a little showy if you ask me. Oh don’t look like that, I plucked this shape from your mind as something you would both fear and be familiar with. Evidently your contempt is rather greater than your fear.”

The creature sat and stared straight at Twilight, an annoying faint grin gracing its mismatched features. “You ponies are so interesting. You remind me of my creators, though they were more...”

It waved its hand in the air, searching for a word that Twilight was only too happy to supply.

“Evil?”

“Alive. Like this Discord, they sought change, though,” it chuckled, “they were more orderly about it. Chocolate rain? Please... what does that achieve? He broke things for the sheer joy of breaking them. I, on the other hand, break things to let out the yummy goodness of change and life inside of them.”

The creature paused and frowned. Then it smiled. “Ah, form shapes thought! How interesting.”

“You aren’t having my mind or my power, whatever you are.”

“Oh but I already have them both, great mage,” the image of Discord answered. It swirled around Twilight, alighting with it s head close to hers; strange how it didn’t seem to be breathing. Twilight rolled her eyes and stepped away from the creature.

“If you already had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’d be gone.” She pawed at the ground, digging away the sand beneath her hoof until she found the crystal again. A faint scent of loam and grass filled her nostrils. Twilight smiled. “You’re desperate.”

“I don’t feel particularly desperate, ma cheville, but I suppose you’re correct. Oh how distressing. Yes, I am old. Ancient. Far older than anything you marvelous little ponies could conceive, even your oh so benevolent rulers, and I am weak...” He looked around, his face weary and lost. “It hurts you know, to have failed in my task. Even your Rarity would have been enough, had I not been so slowed by age that she was cut from me before I could complete the work. Even the zebra was too strong. I could have taken them, and then I could have taken you. Alas, it was not to be, my dear.”

It smiled at her and leaned back into a couch that hadn’t been there a moment earlier. A pipe appeared in its claw and it took a deep draw before bowing a few smoke rings. Twilight ignored the smoke and glared at her interlocutor.

“What work?”

“Why the joy of the new, of course! To spread, seed, spore, grow,” it said, punctuating each statement with a jab of the pipe. “Transform, destroy, create, change, break. To create the division and strife from which new life grows. In my own small way, that was my task.” The creature waved at the endless, trackless plain. “Ending this never-changing sameness you call harmony.”

“This isn’t harmony. Night and day are different from each other as they can be, but they’re in harmony. Separate, equal, each within the other,” Twilight declared, not knowing quite where the words came from. “You would have them in conflict, fighting one against the other.”

“Night and day in conflict? They are merely different levels of light! My creators sought a thousand suns, a thousand nights, each different, each fighting, each alive! Your cycle of night and day never does anything new. It just sits there, spinning in circles like that overstuffed politician your dear Celestia has become. My creators wanted permanent change and I was meant to be part of that change.”

The creature rested his chin on one hand and stared off into the distance. Twilight followed his gaze and realised the world around them had begun to contract, the horizon drawing toward them like a scroll rolling up on itself. For just a second her heart went out to the creature before her, until she remembered just what she was dealing with and what it wanted to do; she quickly stomped on the feeling. The pseudodiscord turned a knowing look toward her and grinned.

“Sympathy for Mohini. The last trick,” he said, sadly. “Farewell, great mage. You have bested me, this time.” The creature stood and raised his hand, ready to click his fingers, but then paused. He leaned down to Twilight, curling his tail around her in a very distressing way as he spoke. “Before I go, I really should warn you to watch out for the zebra. She and I had quite the conversation before she left. You might want to ask her just when she got that curse of hers.”

He snapped his fingers and disappeared with a pop. A moment later the empty world followed, depositing Twilight in the same black void she’d started in. Before she could fully comprehend the change, a riot of sound and vision exploded in Twilight’s mind. Birdsong and the sound of wind in the trees filled her ears, the light burned a mash of glorious technicolour sight and, beneath her hooves, the green grass pressed ever upward, tickling at her skin.

“-- you’ll send them all beyond our reach,” Zecora finished.

Twilight blinked. She was staring at the Boutique. The weariness she felt seemed more than could be accounted for by the few moments of expended magic, but no time appeared to have passed at all. Twilight lifted her face to the warm sky and smiled in the eddy of a calming breeze that carried the scent of distant flowers, each scent remarkably unique and fresh to her nose. She returned her gaze to the Boutique. The magic infesting Rarity’s home was gone.

Zecora cleared her throat. She turned to Twilight, something like anger burning in her eyes, and tried to speak, yet seemed unable to form the words. With a frustrated snort, the zebra turned and stomped away across the grassy avenue.

Twilight was more than willing to let her go. There would be plenty of time to extract an explanation from her about her ‘curse’ another day. She turned once again to her friends, only to find they were now all moving toward her, their faces the picture of concern and worry. Rainbow Dash trotted forward to give Twilight an uncharacteristic nuzzle.

“The hay was all that about?”

“Nothing,” Twilight grumbled. “Just...”

She turned to look at the Boutique again, frowning as she recollected the timeless moments spent with the curse. Why would it warn her about Zecora? Did it stand to gain anything, or was it just a last parting shot to spread its ‘chaos’? It seemed almost a shame to have destroyed the curse now; such powerful magic could have provided any number of new avenues of research. But...

Twilight shook her head. That was a dangerous path to even speculate about.

“The curse is gone,” she said. Twilight’s tongue felt sluggish and thick as she spoke. She licked her lips. “We don’t have to worry about it now.”

“See? Didn’t Ah say ya’d lick that critter?” Applejack flopped a foreleg around Twilight’s neck and pulled her into a hug. “Y’all just needed some incentive is all.”

“So, what now?” This from Rainbow Dash, as she snuggled up protectively againt Twilight’s open side. The pair were joined by Pinkie and Fluttershy in a sort of impromptu group-hug, though it felt a little empty without Rarity. Twilight let herself be swallowed up in the warmth of their friendship for a while. Soon, though, the others pulled away from her, the same thought shared silently between them.

“We have to find her,” Twilight said, her voice low. The others remained quiet for a few moments. Strangely, it was Fluttershy who broke the silence.

“Do you think she changed back?”

“I don’t know,” Twilight replied.