Resurgence

A hooful of ponies canter about merrily in a scene one might mistake as Ponyville. Colorful banners hang between the row of buildings, and cheerful voices permeate the warm air. Only, the town wasn’t always like this; in fact, its peaceful and lighthearted energy was quite a recent development—and nopony knows this better than Starlight Glimmer.

Starlight swings a door open into one of the buildings, then steps aside when she realizes there were ponies headed out. She smiles sheepishly at them and they smile back, passing through while Starlight holds the door, and wait to get out of earshot before whispering to one another. Starlight tries to ignore this, and keeps her head up as she enters the busy little shop.

The atmosphere inside is quite vibrant. Ponies shuffle about the two story interior, the main entrance floor rising up to meet the ceiling (which is crowded with balloons), and flanked by a surrounding balcony where more shoppers converse. There’s lively music playing on a phonograph, just audible over the ponies’ conversations and the winding and whistling of various noise makers.

Starlight Glimmer begins to navigate to the checkout counter, politely excusing herself as she has to wade through a few groups of shoppers, and their occasional staring and double takes. She stops at where a small line had formed, waiting patiently for the ponies ahead to finish their commerce—and making a few side glances at the stallion with a blue coat and mane behind the counter.

Her wandering gaze gets her distracted, and she rushes to scoop up a thin lollipop with her magic before being summoned up to the counter.

“Starlight?” The stallion running the register says. Starlight grins awkwardly, nodding as she gently places the candy down on the counter.

“Hi, Party Favor...” She responds without much conviction in her voice.

“Well, what’re—I mean—” Party Favor pauses briefly to lick his lips and get his syntax in order. “...are you... in town for a visit?”

Starlight leans in a little further as the noise around her grows in volume. “Uh, I might be staying, actually—for a little while, I mean.”

Party Favor’s eyes grow wide with genuine shock. “Oh!” His eyes move around in a quick, shifty manner before they settle on the lollipop between the two of them. “Well it’s… good to see you again, Starlight.” He trails off, and drags the candy back slowly before ringing it up on the register. Lost in a string of uncomfortable nods and silence, Starlight eventually remembers how shopping works, and pulls out a coin purse.

“Right, sorry.” She scrambles to apologize. “Here you go:”

Party gives a puzzled look as Starlight maneuvers a small pile of four gold coins onto the table. He swipes one away with his hoof, then smiles as he relocates it to the register. “It’s just one bit.” He says.

“Right, of course.” Starlight mocks herself with a hoof pointed to her head and an exaggerated eye roll. She starts to collect the excess change before suddenly getting more to the point of her appearance. “Uh… Party Favor,” The stallion stands at attention. “do you actually… have any open positions or anything, that I could—maybe fill?”

“Oh, gosh Starlight, I’m not sure…” He scratches his head in an effort to recall the details, though whether or not it’s a genuine display could be debated. “...But, just off the top of my head, I think that we’re all—you know, pretty much covered around here!” He finishes with a smile. “But…”

Starlight Glimmer nods in understanding before he can go on any longer. “Got it. Well, thanks anyway.”

“Of course.” He replies, his tone a little more rushed now.

“Well, I know that I was, uh,” She leans in again before murmuring her next words through lips half sealed. “pretty terrible to you guys, back in the day… A-and I was just looking for any way to try and make it right… So…”

Party Favor interrupts during the lull in Starlight’s explanation. “Yeah, I’m sorry Starlight, but...” He raises a forehoof and she follows it with a glance over her shoulder, noticing the mare with her two children and a leg wrapped around a full bag of accessories standing in line behind her.

“Oh! Right, I’m sorry.” Starlight stammers, finally backing off of the counter. “Guess I’ll see you around, then…” She says, before smiling and briefly waving goodbye.

Starlight’s painfully forced smile starts to falter almost immediately after turning to leave. She makes it only halfway from the counter to the door, before the blue stallion canters after her, and regains her attention with a hoof up on her shoulder. Surprised, Starlight spins around to find the lollipop she’d forgotten suspended in mid-air before her, and the stallion who’d cast the spell looking onward with a look of genuine compassion.

“I’m sorry.” Party Favor says, before Starlight can stumble over another apology of her own. “You know, I really do think you’re pretty courageous for coming back. I know that couldn’t have been an easy decision to make.” The tension in Starlight’s shoulders dissipates a bit, and she collects the candy with her own magic before letting him finish. “Just wanted to let you know that I appreciate that.”

Starlight’s head tilts a little as her smile stretches itself back out. “Thank you.”

Party Favor starts to return to the counter where a particularly impatient looking mother waits, but not before waving and communicating one last thought. “And I’ll ask around for any opportunities for you. I mean it!”

Starlight waves back, chuckling quietly to herself. “That’d mean a lot, thanks!”

Before leaving entirely, Starlight turns back toward the door again, and stares down at the rainbow striped candy in her levitation. She snickers softly once more, playfully scolding herself with a head shake.

* * *

A middle-aged mare with a pale violet coat and her crimson mane dangling over her glasses sits alone at a cluttered desk. Her magic wraps around a flimsy fork that prods at the salad before her, the small bite guided to her mouth while her eyes are distracted by an open document. Her ears, however, instead become distracted by a soft knock at her office door.

The mare glances up to see a tired looking Rainbow Dash standing in the doorway. “Oh, Ms. Dash—” she purses her lips while recalling a detail. “—er, Captain Rainbow Dash now, correct?”

Dash nods dutifully. “That’s right, Your Honor.”

The judge behind her desk places her fork down and beckons Rainbow in. “Please, have a seat.”

The pegasus silently obliges, stepping into the cramped office and finding her spot on a stool across from the other mare. She glances down at the desk briefly, noting the mess of notes and files, and the black and gold nameplate up front adorned with the title of ‘Justice Raine’.

“I’m sorry about the...” Justice waves a hoof out over the salad dish. “Not much time left in my day to have chats like this. Of course, this is nothing compared to the business you’ve kept up with. I remember a time when I could hardly read a newspaper without you and your friends in the headline… stopping a disaster, or defeating some—monster hell-bent on destroying the town!” She says with the light of excitement in her eye, and a smile on her muzzle.

Rainbow Dash merely nods with a lazy smirk. “...Yeah, time was simpler when the monsters had claws and fangs...” She continues to bob her head slowly and without cause, her unfocused eyes staring out into the void while her smirk diminishes. “...I’ve got somepony coming through here. I was hoping you could give me a rundown on how their case is looking to you.”

Justice tilts her head and creases her eyes in confusion. “You want me to share case details with you? Before the trial?” She asks, bemused.

Dash shakes her head. “I just want your professional opinion on how things might… pan out in court. I mean, I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of similar cases—enough to give you an idea?”

The light violet mare sighs and pushes her lunch aside, wheeling back to a cabinet behind her desk. “Guess I can’t turn down an offer from the pony who’s poster is hung up in my kid’s room.” She says as she opens one of the drawers. “Who’s the unlucky mare?”

“Stallion, actually.” Dash quickly points out. “Goes by the name ‘Aegis’.” She says, articulating his name with slow and pronounced detail.

The judge only briefly looks over the rim of her glasses in thought, before sliding the drawer close and pushing back toward her desk. “Oh, yeah. Equestrians guy, right?” Rainbow Dash nods in affirmation. “Yeah, not sure you’re gonna get a jury to bite on that one.”

“On the murder charges?” Dash asks with a brow raised.

Justice shakes her head and picks the fork back up with her magic. “On any of it.” The revelation is hardly satisfactory for Captain Rainbow Dash, who scoffs as the judge goes for a quick bite of her salad. After holding a hoof to her lips and hurrying her chewing along, she provides the cyan pegasus with more of an explanation—whether Dash is interested in hearing it or not. “The city has no real evidence. If you were lucky, your guy would do the talking for you; rap sheet and tattoos or whatever. But you don’t have that either.”

Rainbow Dash leans in to counter her point as Justice goes for another quick bite. “We have him clearly tied to the creation of The Equestrians—his name is all over their own pamphlets!”

“Right, but not that he ordered all of that awful stuff they did. In fact, during that time frame, we have him placed on the other side of the country. I mean, as far as anypony knows, he created a simple peaceful protest then got usurped by somepony more radical in middle management.”

Frustrated, Dash tosses a hoof into the air before her. “Oh, come on! They have phones in western Equestria!”

Justice smirks, leaving the fork to stand upright in her container. “...Be that as it may, you can’t throw him in jail on a hunch. Especially when this stallion has no prior arrests in his entire life, and is well liked in his community. Celestia’s sake, he was helping build bird houses for some animal sanctuary a couple years back...”

The words fall on deaf ears. Rainbow Dash rubs her tired eyes with the tip of her forehoof, letting her rainbow locks messily fall over both.

“You want this guy to go away? You’re gonna need some indisputable evidence—shipment logs, or forensic DNA analysis on those illegal imports. Past that? ...I can’t see the city of Canterlot sticking him with much more than disturbance of the peace.”

A heavy sigh fills the room. Rainbow Dash idly looks around the modest sized office, then slides out of her seat and regards the other mare without actually looking at her. “Thanks for the tip...”

In an unseen gesture, Justice flails both of her hooves out over her desk, watching Rainbow’s bright tail drift slowly toward the door. “I’m sorry, Captain.” She calls out. “My hooves are tied!”

Rainbow Dash steps back out into the castle hall, nudging the office door behind her closed. A pair of guards march past in front of her, and once out of the way, they reveal another figure waiting against the opposite wall for Dash. A tall, scaled figure.

Dominus Temporis nods in Rainbow’s direction. “You find what you were looking for?” He asks.

Dash looks off to the side, chewing her lip in frustration. “What the hell is a… ‘forensic—DNAanalysis’?”

The amber dragon on the opposite side of the hall pushes off from the castle stone. “Er, last vestiges of Senator Peach’s work. Uses man-made technology to match suspects who’ve held onto or gone near criminal evidence.” Another in a long string of disappointing answers, Dash shakes her head and forces a sigh through her nostrils. “Why? Is that what she’s saying the case’ll need?”

Rainbow Dash tosses her tangled mane. “In like, a thousand more words than she needed to.” She turns to the side and props her forelegs up over a stone balcony railing, prompting Dominus to come join her. “Could’ve saved us both the time, and just told me to go fuck myself when I walked in...” She mumbles under her breath as the dragon settles next to her.

The warm sun casts down upon the two creatures, their eyes dancing between the ornate fountain and elaborately trimmed shrubbery in the courtyard below. A wide spectrum of birds flies about this space, chirping their tune merrily, and weaving through the occasional passerby that looks like they too were on the verge of singing.

Sunshine and smiles. For Rainbow Dash at least, the sight didn’t stir a single muscle in her body; least of all, on her muzzle.

“...I hate them.” She murmurs quietly. Dominus leans a little further over the railing, then turns to look at the mare next to him.

“Who, bureaucrats?” He asks.

Dash simply shrugs her shoulders. “Sure, I hate them. I hate every single roadblock they’ve gotta throw in our way. I hate the bastards like Aegis that make them even necessary. I hate Celestia and her stupid little tower she built to look down at us from...” Her lip begins to quiver, but she forces them to keep working for her. “...I hate those stupid fucking apes, how they had the only thing that ever made sense in this world—hunger, survival—and they decided to light a fire, and… pick up a club, an-and throw all of that away! What good has it really done for us? What difference would it’ve made, if at the end of the universe we were still running through the tall grass, or-or-or, sitting in our castles behind thirty stone walls?” The young mare’s eyes are well and misty now, as she takes a moment to wipe her nose with an elbow, and steady the croak in her voice.

“...And I hate that my best friend has been missing for days now, and all I can think about is this—stupid, meaningless shit!” The tears begin to flow freely. Rainbow strains her voice to finish her rant, unable to fix her swollen eyes on anything but the walls across the yard from her. “I let Twilight down, and all I care about is getting somepony sent to prison!”

“You never let Twilight down.” Dominus adds in a soft voice.

Rainbow Dash scoffs through her tear-stricken expression, and shakes her head at the sickeningly upbeat scene before her. “Well, I wasn’t there to stop her kidnapping, and no idea who did it, so what would you call it?” She stops briefly to sniff and glance further away from Dominus, but picks back up before he has a chance to respond. “And now I have no idea where she is, and if she’s hurt—or-or even if she’s still alive out there…”

“Twilight is going to be okay.” Temporis comments, once again softly yet firm.

Still quite worked up, Dash merely shakes her head and lifts a hoof into the air. “You don’t know that.” She croaks, still facing the other direction. Dominus Temporis gently places a claw on the mare’s shoulder, eliciting a small jolt from her. She finally turns back around and stares with red eyes at the dragon.

“Rainbow Dash. I’m telling you,” His scar-like pupils are unmoving as he speaks with slow confidence. “Twilight is going to be okay.”

Dash’s own eyes dark back and forth, hopelessly unmatched to the other creature’s confidence. And staring straight at that confidence, she’s able to realize—this is something Dominus couldn’t possibly be more sure of.

The pegasus collapses into her friend’s arms. “Thank you.” She cries, head nestled against his hardened chest. Despite being nearly twice her size, Dominus’s embrace of Rainbow Dash is gentle and loving, his claws kept outward as the pads of his fingers pet her back slowly. “Thank you...” She quietly says once more. Even with tears still glistening against her fur, the frame of a relieved smile begins to show. One the mare had been deprived of for months.

* * *

Not far from Rainbow and Dominus’s meeting over the courtyard, a trio of guard ponies salute to their superior. They’re relieved with a nod from the tall ivory princess, and she follows them to the exit of her room as they march out. “If you find anything at all, please report to me about it.” She says in her usual regal yet commanding voice. The guards walk robotically toward the stairwell, but have their journey interrupted before they can reach it.

Princess Luna stands at the top of the stairs, acknowledging the guards’ salutes with a simple nod, before quickly snapping her eyes back to her elder sister.

Celestia sighs. She turns and walks back into her room without a word, but leaves the door wide open for Luna to follow. Once she does, the Princess of the Night stops confidently at the edge of Celestia’s red carpet, watching the other mare with attentive eyes and a neutral frown. The eldest stands away from Luna, peering out of her open balcony, past the vines and flowers that dangle in the wind, and over the great rolling sea of clouds beyond.

“Is there something you wish to tell me, dear sister?” The princess words float to the wind. There isn’t a hint of love in her tone, nor venom. Like it was a simple observation, more so than a question.

“Only one thing.” Luna replies. “And I need you to hear me out on it.”

This draws a large inhale from Celestia, who finally turns around to face the other mare, and leave the vivid blue sky to her back. It fills the room with a soft, natural glow, that bounces and reflects off of the ornate furnishings inside. “Do tell.”

Princess Luna nods slightly before beginning. “...I know you’re disappointed in me. I know that you feel I haven’t been ruling quite the way you’ve expected me to. The way you would rule.” Celestia’s gaze stays steady and her mouth still. “But the truth is—we rule, together. And I haven’t found some of your methods particularly agreeable either.”

Celestia tilts her head and raises an antagonizing brow. “‘My methods’?”

But Luna stops her with a raised hoof. “I’m not here to argue with you. We’re not arguing anymore.” The alicorn standing opposite of her raises her chin but doesn’t interrupt. “We have a nation depending on us. And now more than ever, we need to put our differences behind us, and work together.”

A cool breeze rolls in through the balcony behind Celestia, rousing her already majestically flowing mane. She stares at her sister with an attentive expression, then humors her with a simple nod.

Princess Luna lets out a sigh through her nostrils. She begins to inspect the circular room around her, eyes softening as she glances over the mundane details. Her sister’s bed curtains blowing gently in the wind, the large fireplace that sits unlit to their side; yet that could still nearly be heard crackling in the back of Luna’s mind. It drudged up nostalgia that was both pleasant and painful to bear.

“...You’re important to me, Celestia. And we share a bond few creatures could ever possibly know.” For a moment, the well-practiced shrewdness in Celestia’s glance is gone, and her eyes glisten with genuine emotion. “So let’s honor that. When burdened with strife, I will come to you. I will speak plainly of it.” Not aware of how long she’d held her own eyes open, Luna blinks a few times before finishing. “And I expect the same from you.”

It was true, the relationship between immortal beasts was a complicated one, and who knows what part of it Celestia became lost in when she stares down at the carpet under their hooves. Looking back up, the brief vulnerability is lost—and the stern, horizon-bound look of a leader reclaims her visage.

“Agreed.”

* * *

A large stack of crumpled up gum wrappers are shoveled into a small bin next to the hospital bed. The mare atop it, scowling at her notes and already chewing another stick, tosses a manila folder to the side and flaps bitterly through the pages of her ledger. It’s not until the room’s sole door comes open that her eyes are pried from the work.

“Hey,” The mare in the doorway says, a mint-green unicorn with golden eyes. “looks like I’m getting out of here today. You need anything before I go?” The pegasus in the bed simply shakes her head.

There’s a large hovering around behind Lyra, who she turns to introduce to fill the awkward silence. “...Hey, look! This is the guy you almost fought to the death with, remember that?” She pats the stallion on the back of the neck as he shuffles forward.

“Hey, uh—name’s Crane. And just so we’re clear, I woulda won that fight.” Crane says with a smirk. Moon Dust only briefly looks up at the other two, not willing to put the effort into a response, and returning to her work without one.

Crane’s smirk fades as slowly as his head turns back to Lyra. “...Didn’t tell me she oozes this much charisma…” He mutters under his breath.

Dr. Heartstrings rolls her eyes. “Just—give us a moment…” She responds, stepping into the room and slowly swinging the door shut behind her. The door’s latch clicking into the frame once again disturbs Moon Dust from her documents. She puts the files down with a sigh and nods at the unicorn beyond her bed.

“What?” She asks, in a somewhat annoyed tone.

Despite this, Lyra opts to keep her own manner of speaking polite. “I know you’re just doing this because it’s your job, but...” She walks around to the bedside, getting herself close enough to glance at the open notes. “...that mare means a lot to me. If there’s anything I can do to help—”

“I know.” Moon Dust interjects. The gum in her mouth had long since lost its color, but she chews it relentlessly regardless, rubbing her chin with her healthy forehoof. “...Look, I’m doing all that I can. These things are never cut and dry, but my gut tells me we’re gonna find her—alive.”

Lyra begins to drift off in thought. She nods as her social instinct leads her to, while letting her curious eyes fall over the documents in front of Moon Dust. One photo in particular holds her attention.

“Who’s that?” She asks, pointing to the mugshot of a diamond dog.

Moon Dust hesitates to respond, no doubt considering if Lyra really needed to be privy to that information. “...A criminal. Works out of White Tail.”

“And you think he’s connected to what happened with Twilight?” Lyra inquires, leaning a little further forward. This causes Moon Dust to swipe some of her documents under a folder, hiding notes and photos from the nosy unicorn.

“I don’t know.” She snips. “He might be helping The Equestrians, who might be involved with Twilight’s disappearance. Alright?”

Lyra scoffs. “I told you, they weren’t at my restaurant for—”

“I know,” The pegasus bites, shooting a sharp glance. “but I doubt Twilight’s policies have made her particularly good friends with The Equestrians, either. They’ve attacked several spots in Canterlot, and killed nearly a dozen ponies—kidnapping a princess certainly doesn’t seem—”

A sudden third mare makes her way into the hospital room, quickly drawing all eyes on her. “Excuse me, Ms. Dust?” She says in a soft tone. “There’s somepony on the phone for you.”

Dr. Heartstrings quickly twists her head from the healthcare worker to the pegasus still in bed. The thinning piece of gum in her mouth can be heard squishing as she works it particularly hard, then grunts as she lifts herself up and leans toward the trash bin. Moon Dust fires the white glob into the bin with immaculate accuracy, before looking up at Lyra and commanding something of her. “Don’t touch my notes.” She says firmly.

Moon Dust is lead out to a telephone at the reception desk, the soft-eyed mare who lead her there offering the phone with a wave. Though she also makes a comment as soon as Moon picks it up. “Try to make it quick—you really should be resting right now.”

The comment is returned with an unamused scowl. Moon Dust holds the hoofset inches from her face, motionless, and shoots daggers at the other mare until her concerned expression is wiped clean, and she’s forced to simply return to her desk.

Moon Dust turns back around, hunching near a tall fake plant as she brings the hoofset up. “Yeah?” She asks on the line. “Yeah. Did you get the sample I sent over?”

The ramblings of an elderly mare being wheeled down the hall briefly draw Moon’s eyes up, the cord behind her being tested as she leans a little further away. “Okay…” She responds to the pony on the phone, catching the glance of her room at the other end of the hall. In it, she can see Lyra lifting some of her photos and notes up for inspection, an action that elicits an annoyed hoof toss and eye roll from Moon Dust.

“Okay, ju—hold on a second. Pretend for a moment that I don’t care about the ‘dry bulk density vs. the high particle density’, and just tell me anything that might help the case—like, where the dirt might’ve come from, or who might’ve tracked it in.”

The voice on the phone continues, as Moon Dust nods along impatiently. At least, until something the other mare says gives her pause. “Wait, wait, wait—what was that you said about it being ‘subterranean’?”

The pegasus stares back up at her room, and Lyra who’s still inside of it. Moon Dust’s eyes gradually grow wider as she focuses on the photo held in the unicorn’s levitation—the same one she had overseen earlier.

After it had slipped a little ways away, Moon Dust raises the phone back to her lips and interrupts the other voice. “Thanks, that’ll be all.”

She drops the hoofset face down on the desk behind her, then begins to hobble back to her room. She rushes past Crane and eventually through Lyra, scooping up some the documents on the desk and frantically sliding them into the crook of her wing.

Dr. Heartstrings looks onward, dumbfounded as the photo is snatched from her levitation. “What’s going on? Did you find something?” She asks.

With her rummaging finished, Moon Dust nods frantically and turns to the door. “It’s a hunch.” She growls.

Lyra shakes her head in confusion. She watches the wounded mare shamble back out of the room, then turns to inspect the bed. A good portion of the case work had been left behind. “Hey!” Lyra calls out, collecting it all with her magic. “You forgot all of this stuff!”

Moon Dust only takes a quick glance behind her. “I’ve got what I need.” She replies, continuing her journey down the hall. “You make sure that gets where it needs to be.”

This serves only to confuse Lyra. She mouths the word ‘what’ without her voice actually carrying a sound, then looks down to properly inspect the contents in her levitation. The most notable item is a ledger, which as Lyra flips through the pages of, brings her the realization that it’s filled with notes and annotations. There are what appear to be lists of names scribbled on loose paper, equations, and enough decoding work to fill a second book.

Lyra flips the pile over, and inspects the large envelope at the bottom. It’s addressed—written hastily in the middle:

Canterlot, Equestrian Special Forces,
Captain Rainbow Dash

The objects drift out of view for Lyra just in time for her to see Moon Dust almost turn a corner. “Hold on a sec!”

As Moon Dust stops, and turns around with an annoyed expression on her face, Lyra realizes this is the first time in a while she’s actually been able to see all of the pegasus—including the mysterious symbol on her flank. “What’s your cutie mark supposed to be?”

Moon Dust glances at the mark in question: a gorgeous, waning crescent moon with a cloud of fine, sparkling lights over its dark side. To Lyra’s complete shock, Moon Dust looks back up at her, and offers no more than a dull expression and a shrug of her shoulders. “My mother was an astronomer.” She responds. After that, she simply takes her leave.

Dr. Heartstrings is left frozen in the hall, still watching the spot where Moon Dust stood while her mouth hangs ajar. Eventually she can’t help but snicker quietly to herself, looking at the evidence held with her magic, and shaking her head in bewilderment.

* * *

The chilled night sky hangs over a small village, distant bright stars visible in unfettered detail as they loom over the sleepy houses below.

A brown cat scatters into the dark alleys as a nearby door creaks open. Starlight Glimmer steps out from the two-story stone building behind her. She uses her magic to gently close the door again, and then walk out into the small yard before her. There’s a square of grass in the center, with blades that reach up and barely fall short of Starlight’s knees. Exterior building walls make three sides to the enclosed area, with an arched alleyway cutting through one of them, and a tall iron fence making the fourth wall opposite of it. A thin tree grows in the corner near Starlight, branching out over her and spreading its pink flowers over the patio area and yard.

Starlight Glimmer sighs as she sits down on her haunches. The scene is quite tranquil—amidst the glow of the lanterns strung around her, and the soft flickering of candlelight in a few of the windows. It was nothing like she had remembered it… nothing like how she had left it.

Just as the mare begins to shake her head in bemusement of her situation, and stand back up to head inside, a soft noise from the darkness distracts her. Her ears perk and she squints her eyes at the flat land beyond the iron gate, a blurry figure emerging from the horizon.

“Starlight?” The figure hisses. The confused unicorn is drawn out into the yard and to have her muzzle pressed against the tall fence, head tilting in disbelief once her eyes can make the creature out.

“Trixie?” She replies back to the visitor. “What are you doing here?”

The all too familiar sound of Trixie’s scoff floats on the breeze. “Well I am a travelling magician. You can’t expect me to stay in one town forever!”

Starlight wraps a forehoof around one of the bars, and lifts herself up on her hindlegs to glance around her friend. She had indeed come alone. “But… How did you find me?”

Even in the dark, the smug face Trixie makes in response is unmistakable. “Starlight. You’re my best friend.” The comment elicits a warm smile from Starlight. “And best friends know that it’s okay to go through each other’s luggage without saying, and look at their train ticket.” The smile deflates into an amused smirk.

“Now, help The Great and Powerful Trixie over this thing!” The blue unicorn says, grappling helplessly at the bars. “Trixie doesn’t remember there being so many… agh—fences in this town.”

Starlight’s magic suddenly envelopes Trixie, and she’s lifted cautiously up and over the fence between the two ponies. She writhes around a bit at the sensation, being lifted by magic apparently a sensation that’s difficult to get used to. But eventually, the pony is dropped safely on the other side, right next to Starlight.

“Well.” Trixie begins, dusting herself off with her hooves. “...It’s certainly quite… quaint here, isn’t it?” She says, eyeing the buildings around them. Without regarding Starlight, she begins to march toward the center of the yard to get a better inspection. “Yes, I suppose I could see ‘The G and P T’ setting up in a place like this.”

Starlight Glimmer sets one hoof down in front of her, and calls out to her friend. “Trixie. I really appreciate you coming to see me, I really do… But—”

“Yupupup!” Trixie interjects, turning and raising a forehoof to better visualize her cutting off of Starlight. “I know you really appreciate me coming to see you. I’d really appreciate me coming to see me too, after the way you treated me.” The confusing sentiment only serves to drive Starlight’s eyes up in thought, and her lips pursed to give a response, once she’d worked through it.

Trixie doesn’t give her the chance. “But I’m here now. And I’m here because no matter how hard you might try, we’re in this together.”

Lost somewhere between further confusion and suspicion, Starlight replies. “You know, it probably would’ve helped for you to have said this back in Ponyville instead of...”

“What I said back in Ponyville is neither here nor there, and I only said it—” Having already spun off almost instantly, Trixie shakes her head and makes a conscious effort to better verbalize her feelings. “—I only said it, because… you had—hurt… me.” The usual prideful vibrato lost, her voice wavers off into the night as she ends up staring down at the grass.

Starlight nods solemnly. “...I know.” She admits. “I certainly could have handled things better.” The ambient noises of a cat fight can be heard in the far distance as Starlight steps forward, and lays a hoof on Trixie’s shoulder. “But you’re right. You’re here now…” Trixie’s eyes shimmer as she lifts her gaze to meet Starlight’s. “...and I couldn’t be happier to have you.”

The two stare at one another while Trixie’s smile slowly builds up to meet the length of Starlight’s. Before it reaches that point, the magician nods and shies away from the intimacy.

Starlight Glimmer slides her hoof back down to the grass. “So,” She says cheerfully. “you bring your wagon?”

“Wouldn’t leave without it.” Trixie confidently replies.

“Good.” Says Starlight, nodding enthusiastically. “Because, uh… this place has been a little quiet. I betcha these ponies would probably be into the idea of a great and powerful magic show…”

The tried and true ‘Trixie smirk’ wraps itself around her muzzle. “Oh, I know they would. And that reminds me! The disappearing mare act? I’ve found a way to totally revolutionize it… forget about old trunks and trap doors—just wait until you see it!”

Starlight smiles a little wider at how quickly her friend can turn around, and almost instantly let her excitement run wild on something. “Okay Trix’, I’m all ears.” She makes a sweeping gesture with her foreleg toward the alley. “You lead me to where you’ve got the wagon setup, and we’ll see this latest masterpiece.”

Trixie shuts her eyes and points her nose to the air. “It would be my pleasure.” She says with a devilish smirk.

* * *

A massive storm front looms over the Ponyville horizon, the dark clouds occasionally being lit from inside or behind with bright flashes of lighting. The thunder rolls off a couple seconds later, and vibrates the windows around Twilight’s crystalline castle.

Moon Dust hobbles up to the front steps while her bandaged foreleg is kept against her chest. She takes one angry look at the pair of guards standing at the front door, and they step aside without protest. She pushes through the massive golden doors just as a light drizzle starts to fall.

The ghostly halls inside paint a somber picture. Moonlight seeps in through the tall stained glass windows, coloring the pegasus’s journey forward in all manner of shades and hues. But Moon Dust isn’t interested in the halls…

Instead, she finds her way into the castle’s basement. The first room at the bottom of the stairs is rather modest in size, packed tightly with dark wood furniture, a stone fireplace, and a long couch with gorgeous ornate trim. Moon Dust’s presence in the room had awoken some system of magic, soft yellow lights slowly spreading their light out from behind some of the cabinets and bookshelves. She rubs a hoof along the couch’s wooden trim, turning it over once done to inspect the thin layer of dust she’d just acquainted herself with.

Moon Dust grunts as she lowers herself to the burgundy carpet. Leaving the care of the hospital before fully healed had taken its toll on her health, and even small actions like this drain a little more color out of her face. Even still, she searches diligently along the fibers of the carpet, brushing through them with the tip of her forehoof. Every now and then small particles of dirt are found in the carpet—particularly, in one section behind the couch.

A small trickle of sweat rolls down the mare’s head as she scampers closer to the wall, keeping her head near the ground and sticking her ear to the bottom of the furniture. She scans over a storage chest, and past a lamp, before stopping at the base of a tightly packed bookshelf. Moon Dust finds a sound down there that holds her attention, her ears turning at the faint, fleeting noise.

The pegasus grunts as she stands back to her hooves. It’s a blessing that Twilight Sparkle isn’t home, for her eyes are spared the horror of watching Moon Dust deshelve her books. She tears out enough of them to get a hoof stretched to the back, then indiscriminately starts digging them off the shelves in large numbers, only to be mercilessly sent flying into a pile on the floor. Years and years of tales dumped from their homes and laid out around her hindlegs, until the dark wooden shelves are completely bare.

Distant thunder rolls in the distance—not that it deters Moon Dust for even a second. After emptying the bookcase, she knocks the lamp to its side out of the way and braces her shoulder against the large piece of furniture. From her face down to her legs, the muscles in Moon Dust’s body strain and tremble as she pushes against the shelving unity, pivoting it along the carpet slowly. Even moving it just inches from the wall suddenly brings out a draft of cold air, stinging the pegasus’s sweaty coat as she continues.

Finally, with one last grunt and shove, Moon Dust backs the bookcase a satisfying distance from the wall, and turns to witness the fruits of her labor. A dark and cold tunnel through the earth spans before her, just big enough for an average stallion to walk through it. Moon Dust looks at the back of the bookcase while she catches her breath, noticing a section of the backboard that had been torn through, and claw marks along the shelf it once guarded. She turns toward the dark tunnel shaft again, having just recovered enough breath to utter only two words:

“Fuck me…”

* * *

Princess Celestia is watching the crackling fire when there’s a knock on her door. She turns away from the heat, just enough to witness her visitor once they come through the door. “Come in.” She orders.

The door creaks as it swings open slowly, and a pale pegasus hobbles in. She stumbles and leans against the doorframe before even making it through, drawing a mild look of concern from Celestia. “Moon Dust—” She says. “—what happened to you?”

The pony in question holds her bandaged hoof close to the chest, and peers across the room at Celestia while excess rain trickles down her pale face. Rain or sweat—it’s impossible to tell. “Got in a fight with The Equestrians...” She groans. “...they got a few good hits in on me…”

Concerned and more than a little curious, Celestia looks over the sickly mare and her sad condition. The trail ends at the pegasus’s mane, wet and messy, and dangling against her shoulders. “Your blade?” Moon Dust begins nodding before Celestia even finishes. “Have you lost it?”

“In the fight, yeah.” With the strength to finally do so, Moon Dust pushes off of the doorframe to fully enter the bedroom. “Celestia.” She says, voice faltering a bit. “I went back to Twilight’s castle.”

The expression in Celestia’s face almost immediately turns sharp. “Have you found something?”

Moon Dust nods. “She was captured by a diamond dog… there’s a tunnel dug straight into her basement.”

The striking red fire crackles behind Celestia as she steps forward. “A diamond dog?” There’s an instability in her voice that’s uncommon for the princess. “Did you follow it? Where did the tunnel lead?”

“South.” A short cough creates a pause in Moon Dust’s explanation, to an impatient feeling Celestia’s dismay. “There were tracks on the other end of the tunnel, and they went south. There were tracks in the dirt, but… they were wider than any wheel I’ve ever seen.”

The puzzling explanation obviously means something to Princess Celestia, who’s eyes slowly expand as she considers it. “‘Wide tracks headed south’... you’re sure of this?”

Moon Dust stares at the towering figure before her. With the fire behind the alicorn, it paints her silhouette in a vibrant red outline, and leaves her front-facing features to be draped in shadow. “Absolutely.” Moon Dust growls. “Do you want me to follow them?”

“That won’t be necessary.” Celestia responds, confusing the younger pegasus. “I believe I already have an idea of where they could be headed.”

With a renewed sense of control, Celestia motions to the door behind Moon Dust, and eradicates any uncertainty in her tone that may have been left. “Go get yourself some rest. I will handle the situation from here.” She starts to turn around before even listening to a response, facing the dancing fire as she teleports a quill pen and parchment before her.

“Of course.” Simple words from a mare who preferred simplicity. She sighs over the dull pain in her body, hobbling forward on three hooves while a few more of her simple words brew. “Actually—I’ve been thinking about that… About resting, I mean.”

The scratching of pen tip along paper suddenly comes to a stop, and Celestia turns her profile to listen further. Moon Dust grimaces before carrying on. “I think that… after this whole thing is over, and Princess Twilight is returned—I think that it might be time for me to lay low awhile. Think some things over.”

The fire crackles warmly in the quiet lull of conversation. “Is that so?” Celestia casually replies.

There are a few twitches of discomfort in the pegasus’s face, as she stares onward at her confident leader, and the dance of the flames behind her. “...Celestia.” She swallows a particularly uncomfortable knot in her throat. “I can’t do this forever.”

Moon Dust then waits patiently for an answer. An answer from the mare whom she’d worked under for countless years, the mare who had only ever brought dirty work to be done. An answer she hadn’t dared asked for—until now.

“...As you said. Princess Twilight is returned safely, and then perhaps we can have that discussion.”

Moon Dust’s tired eyes sink slowly to the carpet. Her wet mane dangles as she nods her head obediently, and before her mouth opens to play its part.

“Of course.” She says with faux conviction.

* * *

The vehicle’s heavy chassis moans as Cave brings it to a stop, in a spot where the ground has rare reprise from the rocky terrain surrounding it. There are trees dotted around the car as well, a fairly new sight for their southern odyssey. Nonetheless, both creatures inside the vehicle suffer from flakey, reddened skin, and lips that had been chapped something fierce.

Cave turns the engine off, and straightens his posture to see a little more past the dirty glass in front of him. “This is the place.” He grumbles through a dried throat.

Twilight Sparkle lifts her head up from her side of the car. Out in the craggy wilderness before her, the only landmark that stands out is a tall—and seemingly endless—iron fence. It stretches infinitely out into the distance beyond her door window, and is swallowed by the early rising sun on the opposite side.

“I know you’re not interested in hearing me talk,” Cave says while opening his door. “So I’ll make this quick.” He reaches under the seat, and pulls out the silver gun he’d threatened Copper Mills with. With urgency, he begins to open the cylinder and blow debris out of the chambers, while Twilight stares blankly from her side of the car. “...I spent a lot of time down here as a kid—on account of my father being mostly out of my life, then.” He blows straight down the barrel of the gun, and a puff of dirt fires out of the other end. “My cousin and I would get lost out here, scrounging around for gems, or—you know, bones or whatever. Eventually, we run so far from the house that we end outside of that fence out there—” He points forward with a dirty claw. “—and like you might expect kids to, we find a way inside. Despite the warnings posted everywhere along the perimeter, of course.”

The diamond dog pauses for a moment, neither working on his revolver, nor telling his tale. His eyes shift back and forth as if perhaps lost in thought; or, perhaps he had deluded himself into thinking that Twilight might join the conversation. She does not.

“What we found inside had—no meaning to a couple of kids out to break bottles like we were.” Cave carries on. While holding the gun to the side, he reaches behind the seats for a glass jar of dark liquid—though, this one is much smaller than the rest. He gently places it on the floor between him and the alicorn, and unscrews the lid so that he can access the substance with a rag. “But even if it had… by the time we went back home, we’d already gotten sick with something those signs out there warned us about. The ones we ignored.” As he continues, he begins to rub the metal components of his weapon with the damp rag. “...I spent six weeks in the hospital that summer, vomiting and excreting in the bed I was bound to. Doctors didn’t even think I was going to live. My cousin didn’t...” A brief twitch in Twilight’s brow is all the indication she gives of a response. Before long, Cave reaches below him once more, and continues his story while retrieving a clawful of cartridges. “Like I said, I was too stupid at the time to understand what was going on here, and all I ever heard about this place was that it was containment for some, arcane anomaly.” The first round is loaded into the gun. “But I know now. A spell like that doesn’t come about accidentally.” Another round. “It was written. A desperate cover-up.” Third and fourth shells. “...And I’m just the lucky son of a bitch who it failed to eradicate.”

The car grows quiet after his long rant, save the sound of the last two cartridges being put into their chambers. Still with a dull, unamused expression on her face, Twilight watches them go in, then looks up at the gun’s owner. “Cave.” She croaks, her vocal chords quite a bit rusty. “There is no reason left for me to believe anything you say.” The creature in question pauses his work, and simply stares at the mare next to him. “...And I have nothing left to say to you.”

Cave’s jaw tightens. He nods silently, and gives a blank look to the loaded weapon in his lap. “Be that as it may… we’re going in there.” He murmurs back to Twilight. “Then you won’t have to believe me—and the ruins will do the talking.”

The words settle on Twilight’s ears with head-turning curiosity. She watches as Cave snaps the cylinder closed on his revolver, then quickly navigates outside of the vehicle, leaving the open jar on the floor behind. He puts the gun down on the corner of the hood, just above one of the headlamps, before approaching the iron fence and dropping onto all-fours.

Twilight lets her morbid curiosity get the better of her, and soon enough follows the diamond dog outside of the car after he starts to dig. He claws through the dirt with unbelievable speed, a small pile of rocks and debris growing around his hind legs.

The vibrant morning sun projects a glint off of the weapon atop the car. Twilight’s eyes are dragged there for a moment, and the near distance she has with the gun doesn’t go unnoticed. Even with Cave distracted, however, grabbing the revolver would do little good for the mare with her horn and wings bound.

Cave works tirelessly until a small, crooked opening is dug underneath the fence. He stands up and wipes his brow, returning to the car while Twilight stands frozen in a trance. Her head starts to sag a little, staring down at the hole with soft eyes, and a million thoughts racing behind them.

A dark object suddenly occludes the princesses’s vision. She instinctively throws a hoof up to block it, preventing the mask from being applied to her head.

“Easy—” Cave says, voice muffled behind his gas mask. “—It’s for your own protection.” Twilight’s hoof stays over her muzzle, but her lips remain sealed without protest. “I don’t care if you believe my story or not, you’re not going in there without protection.”

The two remained still for a moment. Cave has one of his arms around Twilight’s neck, and his other claw holding the mask against her as she recoils like a house cat. Eventually however, her muscles relax, and she lowers her forehoof off of her muzzle so that Cave can continue. He sweeps her mane back with his dark claws, and firmly pushes the mask over her face. Twilight winces as he tightens the straps on the back of her head, but remains obedient all the same.

“Here,” Cave mentions, pressing his paw over the filter on the mask. “breath in for me.”

The mare eyes Cave from behind the thick glass lenses, before inhaling as she’d been instructed to. As the diamond dog nods and pulls his paw away, he quickly transfers it to his chest amidst stifling a cough, stepping back toward the car. Suddenly more conscious of her heavy breathing, Twilight watches Cave pick up the gun once more and motion at the fresh hole in the ground.

“You first.” He says.

The hot desert sun begins to make its ascent as the two creatures head inward, passing under the gate littered with warnings, and trudging across the sparse dried grass and rocky hills before them. It was clear now that they had passed through the harshest stretch of Equestria, with the occasional shade of a gnarled tree or a cool breeze reminding the princess. And throughout this final leg of the journey, she doesn’t bother sparing a single word with her captor.

Eventually, this silent trek is halted, as Cave extends an arm out to stop the alicorn. He nods at the plain hill before them, where a modest sized boulder rests under a wide tree canopy. “That’s the spot…” He says, eyes fixated on the zenith of the hill. One of his dirty arms reaches behind his head to test the tension on the mask’s straps, before he lumbers forward with Twilight trailing behind.

A hawk flies overhead as the two clamor to the top of the hill, cawing loud enough for it to echo around the valley. Cave is the first to the top, and he pauses there until Twilight can catch up. And when she does, the valley’s secret begins to reveal itself.

The land before Twilight is littered with the remains of an ancient city. Rows of stone pyramids guide Twilight’s eyes to what appears to have been a large town square, which itself rests at the foot of the largest structure: a towering, multi-tiered pyramid that overlooks the forgotten city.

Even if her lips remain sealed, the wonder in Twilight’s eyes simply cannot be hidden. She was staring at a human settlement.

“You probably know more about this place more than I do, but,” Cave says next to the alicorn, suddenly pointing to the top of the massive stone pyramid. “up there is where we’re headed. Where something’s being kept.”

Twilight focuses on the top of the distant temple, at the head of an uncountable flight of stairs. There’s a strange glint up there, shining like a luring beacon as the sun’s light reflects off of it. Even so, the two creatures on the hill are much too far to make out what the actual object is.

“Come on.” Cave directs. “We shouldn’t spend too long out here.”

Princess Twilight is no longer hesitant to follow directions. She hurries alongside Cave as they head toward the central buildings, under the call of that bright glint almost every step of the way. An unshakable, foreboding presence falls over Twilight as they pass by homes that have long since outlasted their owners, now housing nothing more than dust and bones. The city could’ve once easily rivaled Canterlot’s population, given the sheer size.

At the start of their journey, the sun was merely peaking over the distant horizon. After nearly completing their ascent up the side of the temple, however, the sun looms large just over the hills, and its warm rays are free to flood the valley below.

Twilight shuffles up one of the last flights of stairs with a sickly look on her face. Sweat pours down her pale coat, and the breathing through her nostrils is heavy and agitated. The sweet reprise of a resting spot on her right draws her attention away, where a tree had grown through the cracks of the pyramid, and provides a small but enticing amount of shade. It’s the last spot like that before the top.

Neither creature stops—and even in her exhausted state, Twilight knows it’s better that way. The end of their journey was simply too close.

Cave is the first one over the final step, and stands to the side to catch his breath as Twilight follows. The princess wanders close to the shining object with wide eyes, and her heart racing. It’s almost immediately familiar to her.

She turns around to look at Cave, begging for an explanation with a startled gaze, yet still refusing to break her vow of silence.

Cave offers a simple nod. “It’s exactly what you think it is…”

The radiant glow of the crystal calls Twilight’s attention back, and she stares upon its dark, jagged form in wonder. Mist pours around its pedestal just as the one in her memory had—the one deep within the archives below Canterlot. The only difference was that while the one at home had shined with a reflectant azure blue, the crystal before her now is stained with a powerful, deep violet. Like a piece of the cosmos had been frozen and dragged down to Earth.

“When I saw that you were heading the human history decoding project, I couldn’t shake the image of this thing from my head…” Cave steps over the cracks and tufts of grass growing through them, letting the silver gun in his paw sag with his limp arm. He watches the slow pouring of chilled mist surround the crystal, before lowering his attention to a small marker beneath it. A cloud of dust is brushed into the air as he wipes his hindpaw over it, revealing the short message left embedded there.

‘We will be better.’ it simply reads.

The diamond dog scoffs. “...I knew Celestia would never let the whole truth out. Not her style.” Crouching down squeezes a sigh out of Cave, before he nods and looks solemnly down at the plaque before him. The fine golden letters have a dull shine to them, even now. “Looks like she didn’t have it in her to destroy the truth either.” He glances up at the floating crystal that now towers over him. “Guess she didn’t expect us to find it, huh Princess?”

No voice answers Cave. He glances back over his shoulder, back to where the alicorn once stood in awe of the crystal. But now, she had simply disappeared.

“Twilight?” Cave calls out, placing a paw on the temple stone to help himself up. His head swivels around in search of the mare, but to no avail. “Twilight?” He shouts again.

Cave’s voice drifts out into the wind, distracting Twilight’s attention for just a moment. She hugs the temple wall behind her closely, using the sole tree she had discovered earlier as visual cover while her heart rate increases. The straps on the back of her mask are pushed about as she digs the tip of a forehoof under them, until eventually they’re loose enough for her to remove the gas mask entirely. She holds it facedown in her forehooves, holding one of two cup-like indents for the eyes close under her chin. With her eyes squinted, and her cheeks puffed, she then finally opens her lips to spew forth the dark liquid she had been carrying around in her mouth: oil.

It fills one of the mask’s eyes generously, almost spilling over. Twilight spits a few times to clear as much of it out of her mouth as possible, not hesitating as she dips a forehoof into the viscous substance. She stirs it around in there, then pulls her painted hoof back out and begins to rub it vigorously along her horn. It doesn’t take long for it to start shining with a black coat, enveloping both the bone and the thick pink straps wrapped over it.

After a couple splashes of oil with her hoof, and a few failed attempts to yank one of the straps off, Twilight arches her back against the slanted trunk of the tree and pours the rest of the liquid over her head. Her breathing accelerates as she drops the mask and starts frantically scraping at the base of the strap, mane a mess and eyes squinted close to avoid the oil getting into them. Eventually, she can feel the strap budge, and she plants both forehooves on her horn to desperately chase that breakthrough.

Her efforts pay off—and the first strap is removed with a wet tug. Thankfully, her celebration is kept short, and Twilight uses a strong pulse of magic to help tear off the second.

The alicorn’s knees buckle as she falls to the ground beneath her and endures a fierce coughing fit. Most of the residue that comes up out of her throat is a blackened sludge, dripping from her mouth slowly in long, wavering strands.

“Twilight?” Cave’s voice calls out once more, this time with more urgency and sounding much closer. Princess Twilight whips her head toward the stairs, and spits another glob before stumbling to her hooves. The leaves of the low-hanging tree rattle as she bursts from underneath it, cutting Cave’s path off, and immediately yanking the gun from his grasp with violet magic.

The two face one another a mere six feet apart, standing along the ruined steps of their creators.

“What did you do?” Cave rambles, fearful eyes glued to Twilight. “Put your mask back on, please—”

The diamond dog begins to descend down the steps, but is halted by the steel barrel of his gun being raised against him. “STAY BACK!” Princess Twilight shouts. A dark splatter still stains the coat on her face, and a long strand of saliva is only severed when she lifts an elbow to wipe at it. “Don’t come any closer!”

Cave freezes, lifting his paws just far enough up for the mare to see the pads underneath. “...Twilight, please—I didn’t come all this way just to watch you die from some spell.”

“Shut up.” The alicorn barks in return. She motions toward the top of the temple with a nod, and flexes her newly freed magic to shake the revolver. “Turn around.”

At this point, Cave’s options are few; and with his breath shaky and his pupils dilated, he simply nods and does as he’s told. A shrill cry pierces the sky above as he does so, perhaps from the same hawk who’d circled the sacred grounds earlier. Outside of the pair’s rugged breathing, it’s the only noise in the valley.

“...Now walk back up. Slowly.” Twilight demands. Once more, Cave remains obedient.

The pair reaches the top once again, Cave trudging back to the crystal with a distraught, and shaken Princess Twilight behind him. “That’s enough.” She says, standing behind Cave who himself faces the monument. The gun is kept upright, pointed straight at Cave’s back and hovering gently in a field of glistening magic.

Princess Twilight’s lips tremble. “I can’t believe I—” She inhales a shaky breath, desperate to maintain control. “—that I started to trust you.”

Cave quietly waits.

Her eyes begin to grow a little red, but with another steady breath and a confident nod, Twilight wrangles her strength back. She’d need it. “...How many creatures have you killed, Cave?” She asks softly.

The dust and roots stuck in the cracks below hold onto Cave’s solemn gaze like it’s the only thing to exist. He wavers gently in the breeze there, until Twilight’s voice once again strikes out from behind.

“Answer me!” She says. Her growing impatience is marked by a bright flare up of her magic.

“...Fourteen.” Cave murmurs, thankful to be facing away from the princess.

Twilight’s next breath isn’t as controlled as the others. With her focus disrupted, the barrel of the floating gun is dragged down a few inches; but only until her eyes go sharp and an unfamiliar snarl begins to reveal itself.

“...Give me one reason why I shouldn’t stop you from ever hurting somepony again…”

Despite the circumstances, Twilight’s threat is delivered in the lawful and concise tone of a powerful ruler. It instills a cocktail of shame and fearful feelings in Cave. “I don’t—” He stammers, swallowing the knot in his throat before turning a sliver of his profile. “I don’t have one…”

Angered, but patient nonetheless, Twilight stands firm with her weapon raised, and waits for Cave’s further explanation.

“All this was ever about was getting you here... I never planned for anything past that.” He says, his profile still tilted toward the mare behind him. “Now that my part is done, all I ask of you is that you see this through...”

Twilight’s eyes follow Cave’s arm as he gestures weakly to the crystal before them. “We don’t know anything about what’s in there...” She comments. The gentle swaying of the pearlescent onyx mineral calls out to her with a chilling, otherworldly summons. “...Did you ever consider that it might have been banished for a good reason?”

Bolder than before, Cave pivots so that more of his face is revealed to Twilight, and answers her on heavy breath. “...That’s not her decision to make.” He says.

The comment stirs hesitation in the young princess, who’s brow scrunches tighter. Her dry throat swallows, and her eyes dance between the prisoner and the crystal before she settles on a decision. “Listen to me closely, Cave. We’re—”

The gentlest sound of a hoof clopping against the stone behind Twilight suddenly interrupts her, and she spins herself and the gun around impulsively. There, at the top of the steps approaches Princess Celestia, who grimaces and covers herself with an extended wing.

“Twilight—don’t!” She shouts. The barrel is dropped away from Celestia as Twilight’s own magic lowers the gun, and her senses start to return. Even so, her heart pounds as a scurrying sound now resonates from the other side of the temple.

Twilight whips her head back around and squints as she lifts the gun up to defend herself. The trigger is pulled, and the world is torn asunder with a sharp, deafening crack. A cloud of smoke initially blocks the mare’s view, until it rolls gently along with the breeze, and it reveals a scene impossible for Twilight’s brain to even comprehend.

There’s a fur-lined leg that protrudes out of the crystal’s mist. Twilight walks toward it slowly, keeping a close eye on the dirty paw pads underneath, but not detecting any movement. At least not until she stands right over it, and the ethereal fog begins to clear.

Cave lies out on the temple stone, face down, and writhing slowly. His arms and legs shift awkwardly, as Twilight’s wide eyes move toward the creature’s back. There in the upper right side is a small hole, where the fur surrounding it has turned red, and the dark pit pushes out more blood with each of Cave’s pained shifts.

Twilight simply stands over the harrowing scene—still shaking, and deafened from the shot. It isn’t until her mentor slowly raises a hoof to Twilight’s shoulder, that she’s torn out of her paralyzation.

“Twilight…”

With labored breathing, Cave chokes quietly inside of his mask. His face remains out of view.

“Twilight.” Princess Celestia says once more, edging closer to her star pupil. She pulls her neck away from the scene, gently, but with enough persuasion to yank Twilight from her stupor. “Twilight—” Celestia nods toward the wounded diamond dog on the ground. “—there’s no reason for him to suffer like this.”

Princess Twilight barely understands the words on her mentor’s lips. She remains frozen in place as Celestia cautiously steps forward, and uses a golden field of magic to remove Cave’s gas mask. His panicked and shallow breathing is left to pierce the open air, as the blood beneath him finally begins to pool through the surrounding stone cracks.

Calm. Princess Celestia always looked so calm. Just as the first day she had brought Twilight to her School for Gifted Unicorns—just as now, as she turns back toward her and asks the impossible. With no more than a look.

The gun, which had nearly sank to the ground in Twilight’s frazzled levitation, once again rises. This time it’s enveloped in a predominantly golden aura, until its barrel is once again pointed at Cave, and Celestia steps out of the way. Still shocked and bleary-eyed, Twilight simply stands in the wind while holding Cave’s life in her hooves.

“You’re ending a creature’s misery.” Princess Celestia says softly, her wing wrapped around the younger alicorn. “That is all this is.”

Not a muscle in Twilight’s body moves. She looks onward, at the fleeting life before her, as his head turns against the weathered stone. He looks back, and his eyes dart with fear and confusion the likes of which Twilight had never seen. He doesn’t even notice the thin rope of blood that’s coughed up, and left to pour slowly into the pool beneath him. Like a husk with nothing left but impulse.

For Twilight, the weight of the trigger feels immense this time. It takes a dreadfully long time to pull, and a heart-stopping instant to watch the flash. When the smoke clears, no movement remains.

Before Twilight’s eyes can settle too long on the aftermath, Princess Celestia steps in once more and easily takes the gun. She puts herself between Cave and Twilight, covering the view of the body, and speaking face-to-face with her student—Calmly.

“Twilight, listen to me. It’s done.” She punctuates this with a hoof resting gently on the other mare’s shoulder. “Now you need to get away from this place. I will teleport you to safety, and when I do—” She pauses to reveal a strange glass vial. “—you need to drink this. You need to drink all of it, do you understand me?”

A few rapid shutters of Twilight’s eye lids clear her brain enough to register the request. She stares up at Celestia while her oil-stained mouth hangs agape, nodding slowly and absentmindedly.

“Twilight, please. I need to hear you say it.” Celestia remarks firmly. “You must drink everything in this vial; do you understand?”

Twilight’s weak nodding becomes more animated, and her chapped lips purse to form a response. “Y-yes. I understand.”

A soft wet tickle on Celestia’s hind leg briefly draws her attention to the creek of blood behind her, but not for more than an instant. She turns back to her student unphased, and nods in affirmation. “Good.” She says, before passing the vial over. “I’m only going to be gone for a moment. Do not go anywhere until I arrive.”

The thick azure liquid glows against Twilight’s chest as it’s pushed there by Celestia, Twilight instinctively clutching it with a hoof. She brings her head back up to stare in confusion and even begin to stutter another question—but not before Celestia’s magic consumes her. In an instant, the young alicorn is gone, and Princess Celestia is left alone with the lifeless body behind her. She doesn’t hesitate to lift it with shimmering magic.

With the sun crawling to its apex behind her, Celestia soon finds herself standing over a large pit dug out of the ancient grounds. She looks down at the dusty revolver held in her levitation, breaking the cylinder off effortlessly, and tossing the harmless parts into the dirt. Then she turns to the vehicle on her right—and the diamond dog slumped over in it.

A powerful push of magic rolls the car into its shallow grave, shared only by Cave in its front seat. The metal creaks and moans as it’s swallowed by the pit, crashing into the bottom where it would remain forever. No words are spared. No prayer said. Cave’s head hangs despondently over his lifeless body, slouched behind the steering wheel and helpless to stop the slow shower of dirt. The vehicle and its sole passenger are eventually given to the earth entirely.

Twilight turns the empty vial over in her magic slowly, as Celestia finally reappears behind her. She turns to face her elder, and finds herself either still too shaken or simply too tired to ask a single question. Not that she can imagine it would make much of a difference.

Princess Celestia stands tall over Twilight, as her iridescent mane blows freely in the hot desert air. “We’re going home.” She says.

* * *

The theatrical voice of a middle-aged mare reverberates around the bustling streets of Canterlot. She shuffles around the (mostly disinterested) ponies who pass along beside her, spreading her ramblings to them, and periodically pointing to the thin wooden sign hoisted around her neck.

Next to the commotion are sales stands of all kinds—newspapers, beverages and flowers. Ponies engage in commerce on the corners while others eat in fenced dining areas, catch up with their friends, and occasionally shoot a concerned glance at the rather loud sign touting mare. And she isn’t the only reason to glance; A large wagon is parked on the street there, and packing up items from the once popular tourist attraction behind it.

Lyra Heartstrings walks casually down the street toward her restaurant. She makes a passing glance at the mare heckling a young couple, ‘THEY NEVER LEFT’ visible in bright red letters on her sign. She ignores this scene, and instead gets as close as she can to the ruined building there on the corner.

Caution tape and a band of workers prevent her from actually stepping inside, but from the appearance of shattered glass and splintered wood, it looks as if she has no reason to venture in anyway. Tables and chairs toppled. Kitchen appliances strewn about. Even the backlit menu over the bar had been smashed to pieces, the combos and drinks once familiar to Lyra now left completely illegible.

“Watch it!” A dark orange stallion groans to his coworker, as the two of them hoist a large, battered object into the back of the wagon. Lyra instantly recognizes the dangling tonearm and shattered disc carousel… the machine that her and a friend once stood before, comforted by its warm, vibrant lights.

Dr. Heartstrings drops her head toward the sidewalk and sighs. She doesn’t bother watching more of the wrecked furniture being tossed into the pile, and instead turns to walk down along the street. She passes by the chatty street vendors with a few weak smiles and nods, but leaves her old restaurant to only be watched over by the crew cleaning it—and the eccentric mare who still patrols the sidewalks around it.

“THE HUMANS SIMPLY MUST STILL BE OUT THERE! AND WE CAN FIND THEM!” She cries out, as Lyra slowly vanishes into the distance crowds.

* * *

The rolling clouds and singing birds drift over the green hills below, where the peak of Twilight’s castle is only just visible on the distant southern horizon. A group of construction ponies work around a large wooden frame on the crest of a hill, calling to one another over the sounds of hammers and the occasional saw.

A pair of familiar ponies catch Apple Bloom’s eye. She turns away from her work, and holds a hoof up to her hard hat to correct the way it had been sagging. One of the familiar faces, a freckled earth pony, gestures for her to come over with a wave in the air. Apple Bloom briefly wipes her brow before stepping aside.

“Hey, kiddo!” Mint Julep says first, still far from Applejack’s bond with her sister—but as sincere and well meaning as ever. “You must be the mare in charge of things around here, huh?”

Apple Bloom playfully scoffs. “Yeah. Something like that.” She replies with a sarcastic tone. Even as Mint Julep chuckles politely, Apple Bloom can’t help but look over at the mare next to him. Applejack is standing there amidst the wildflowers and rays of sun, and smiling just as warmly—even if her eyes crease with a certain unspoken sadness.

“How’re you doing, Apple Bloom?”

The younger sibling nods gently, forced to correct the crooked hat once again anyway. “Pretty good, Sis’.”

A quiet lull takes hold of the conversation, the nearby sounds of construction filling the gap. Not unnoticed by him, Mint Julep chips at the ground awkwardly with a forehoof. “...Sooo, I couldn’t help but notice that you guys have an ice cream stand setup over there,” He motions to the hill over yonder. “what do you say, huh?” He lifts a hoof to A.J. first. “Vanilla with chocolate syrup and nuts, and…” Then to Apple Bloom. “...mint chocolate chip, right?”

Apple Bloom titters and leans her head. “Uh… I don’t know if I should be taking too much time…” She looks over her shoulder, noticing the frizzy-maned pink silhouette carelessly doing cartwheels along the frame of the roof. “...but, uh—yeah, mint chocolate chip.”

Another smile and laugh from Mint Julep, while he nods in affirmation. “Three cones, coming right up.”

The stallion turns in the grass to take his leave, and head for the hill beyond. The two mares, then, are left to catch up and discuss with one another privately.

After a deep breath, Applejack is first to begin. “So, does this feel like somethin’ you might be interested in? Building houses, and whatnot, I mean?” She asks.

“Not sure yet.” Apple Bloom is quick to reply. “I mean, I like working with Pinkie. She pretty much lets us do whatever we want, and she always has snacks for us.”

While worth a laugh, the comment is hardly surprising to A.J. “I bet she does, yeah.”

The younger mare has more to say, but this time it takes a little while to find the words. Her eyes flitter about as she watches the waving grass and flowing petals around the two of them. “...And I guess… I guess it feels good to be a part of the beginning of something, you know? Something you know will be around for a while.”

Applejack smiles warmly at her sister. “Yeah. ...I think I do.”

Silence returns to the hillside, as A.J. looks compassionately at her kin, studying the bright and familiar eyes of a foal—even if the rest of her body had grown nearly beyond recognition. “Apple Bloom…” She coos, just barely loud enough for the wind to carry her voice. “...You know you can go see Blue, if you like. I can talk to his mother, if need be.”

“Oh,” The young mare replies. “I, uh…”

Applejack stumbles back into the conversation to further explain herself. “It’s just—I don’t want you thinkin' that I don’t trust you, is all.”

“Sis’.” Apple Bloom states plainly. “It’s alright. ...We’re good.” She gently slides a forehoof up to nudge A.J.’s. There’s a band strapped down there, holstering a pouch full of nails. “Right?”

A floral-tinged breeze blows through the farm pony’s mane as she looks up to match Apple Bloom’s optimism. She nods slowly. “Yeah—” She clears her throat after enduring a small croak. “We’re good.”

Apple Bloom steps back again, giving her sister some space and glancing skyward. As beautiful as the meadow is, the scene is far from complete without the canvas above them. “So,” Apple Bloom begins, giving them something else to talk about. “I know it’s not home, but—you have to admit…” She waves a hoof toward the sky. “...It’s a heckuva sight, isn’t it?”

Applejack takes a deep sigh to shake off the residual emotions, and turns to stare at the heavens above. “You’re right.” It’s a simple moment, but one that brings a genuine smile to her lips all the same. “It is.”

While mostly a cloudless sky, one rather large expanse of clouds looms overhead, casting a massive shadow on the hills in the distance. The silhouettes of grand architecture—pillars, arches, homes, and even of a colossal stadium sit nestled in the floating bastion. Pegasai can just barely be seen flying around the architecture, weaving in and out of the airborne marvel. A city to have claimed the skies.

* * *

Moon Dust bites into her lip as she peels her bandaging off in front of the mirror, the cloth run through with dried blood. Underneath is a dispiriting scene—one of the stitches had torn itself loose, and the deep cut into her hoof had begun to split open once more at the end. The pegasus winces as she inspects the pink flesh exposed to the open air.

The mirror over the bathroom sink creaks as Moon Dust swings it open, rifling through the cabinet’s contents carelessly. She passes over the extra bandages, scissors, several pill bottles and ointments, until she comes across what’s sought after: a surgical sutures kit.

A couple of fallen pill bottles rattle down in the sink basin as Moon Dust pulls her equipment out, and begins removing the metal instruments. She grunts as she cranes her neck to place her needle holder aside, next beginning to remove a line of sutures thread. Her process is interrupted shortly thereafter, by a loud knock on her door.

Moon Dust releases a strained sigh as she pushes herself to the bathroom door, passing through and hobbling down the hall. There are no picture frames along the walls—no hanging plants, nor paintings. Her apartment is small, and dimly lit. A few old and rundown pieces of furniture in the living room, and an unmanaged stack of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. The depressing state of things isn’t helped by the blinds being drawn over the living room’s sole window, leaving only a dull, dusty orange light left to bleed through.

A second knock, and Moon Dust finds herself peering through the small door viewer to the outside. After that, she shambles back and strains to release the sliding bolt up top, the deadbolt on the handle, and finally disarm a line of rope that’s rigged to a hanging cluster of glass bottles. The door opening brings with it a torrent of sunlight, forcing her to squint at the newcomer.

It’s a royal guard—a thick envelope held in his telekinesis. “From Princess Celestia…” He recites in a commanding voice.

Moon Dust nods silently and reaches forward to grasp it in her teeth. Once she turns around, she doesn’t bother sparing another moment for the guard, and kicks the door closed behind her.

The kitchen light comes on as Moon Dust shoulders the switch, providing enough light for her to lay out the package and inspect its contents. The royal seal is unmistakable; this was prepared by the princess herself. The only other identification on the outside is Moon Dust’s name, penned gorgeously with spiraling characters in the center, the perfection of which was uncommon even among unicorns.

Moon Dust rips the top of the envelope off with her teeth, carelessly tossing the scraps, and dumping the contents onto the kitchen table. Curiously, this envelope doesn’t include a letter at all. The only thing that falls out is a bundle of thick paper, neatly folded over something inside. The pegasus unfurls this paper, so that the object it once housed lays plainly out in view, and glistens under the hanging kitchen light.

It’s a new hair stick. Expertly crafted, and wickedly sharp. The metal reflects a square of light over Moon Dust’s eye, who looks down at the weapon like it barely exists, and her empty glance pierces straight through.

A powerful message from Celestia, despite her never having written a word of it.

* * *

“Aegis Coldweather—” Justice Raine commands attention from the stallion standing below her, and the scattered group of ponies sitting in the pews behind him. This includes his wife, who watches the scene unfold with wide eyes and a lacy white handkerchief held in her levitation, as well as a much younger looking unicorn stallion who sits next to her.

The mare at the head of the courtroom drops the folded corner of a document back down onto her podium, adjusts her glasses, and then once more calls out to the stallion on trial. “Aegis, I have gone over the evidence provided by Captain Rainbow Dash and the Equestrian Special Forces, as has the team of experts assembled for this trial to help do so.” Rainbow watches quietly from her spot on the benches, curious, if not a bit tired. “As per Equestrian law, that evidence, and the events that transpired around it, of which were re-accounted to the best abilities of the aforementioned team, was finally presented to a panel of jurors. I have the results of their sessions here with me.” As she says this, a dark crimson field of her magic lifts up the top most document to be read. “Their verdict will determine your fate.”

Before Justice even begins to read the resolution, Aegis’s wife can be heard stifling a cry from the back of the large room. “To the charge of illegal importation of goods,” The judge begins. “Aegis Coldweather, you have been found guilty.” The crying in the back grows louder. “To the charge of possession of illegal and dangerous weaponry, you have been found guilty. You will serve your time in a Canterlot prison of no less than twelve months. After your time has been served, you may return to civilian life with the explicit endorsement of authorities deeming you safe to do so. ‘Sol et luna’. Praise Equestria.”

With a somber nod of understanding, the bearded stallion who’s life had just been judged takes one final look at his family. His wife had already broken into tears, and the young unicorn next to her is focused only on consoling the middle-aged mare. Aegis forces a broken smile, and turns to walk from the courtroom where his fate awaits him.

For Rainbow Dash, none of it manages to stir a single reaction from her.

Dash leaves the courtroom shortly after Aegis, and meanders her way through the ivory marble halls until she reaches the nearby courtyard; the same one she recently peered over with Dominus, in fact. She shuffles over to a wrought iron bench, and lays upon its seat with the hearty sigh of an exhausted, aimless mare. In her defeat of The Equestrians’ leader, she had expected to find resolution. But the reality was much more mundane—and instead, the young pegasus could only think about the tiresome months of work she had sacrificed for her cause. All to feel… anything.

Rainbow Dash lays back into the bench. Her tired eyes rest on a pair of pegasai above—a mare and stallion. The mare clumsily guides a white cloud along the open skies, as the stallion’s stifled snickering turns into a gleeful laugh shared with her. He comes in close as their laughter tapers off, and helps push the misplaced cloud onward to its proper destination, opening the atmosphere to embrace only the vivid rays of sunlight, and the painterly streaks of cyan.

Blinking slowly, Dash watches the scene as if it were a lullaby.

* * *

The small room is lit spectacularly by a gentle cold light, and the dance of a dozen miniature stars. Dr. Heartstrings absentmindedly peruses the map of these digital stars, guiding the machine that projects them with the coaxing of her magic. Even as mostly meaningless clusters of light, she could never quite tear herself from the lure of its mystery.

The sole door in the room suddenly opens slowly. In walks Princess Twilight, who is lit in trim linings by the machine’s glow. She notices the unicorn on the opposite side of the room, and can’t help but casually snort at the discovery.

“I figured I could find you here.” Twilight says.

Lyra glances over, but only briefly before continuing to idly swipe through the illegible data. “Yep.” She replies plainly.

Lyra’s indifference doesn’t go unnoticed by the princess. After all, she hadn’t left things on the best note last they had talked. “Lyra, I… I’m sorry I didn’t come see you as soon as I returned.” She drifts a little closer to the projection of light. “...I thought about this moment a lot. About what I could say to you. The truth is… I’m not sure I ever found the right words to say.” She stops just before the astral-like projection can paint her muzzle. “...But I should have come to you sooner.”

Lyra rolls her head over in her hoof, which is propped against the machine, so that she can inspect the sincerity in the other mare’s eyes. She hesitates—letting the moment draw out while Twilight no doubt prepares for whatever she had coming to her.

“...Are you pretty familiar with human proverbs?” Lyra finally asks.

Confused, Twilight can’t help but smirk at the question. “Of course.” She replies.

“Alright, good. I have a little story to tell, then.” Still just as lost, but intrigued all the same, Princess Twilight settles in while takes a deep breath in through her nostrils. “So there are these two human guys, right? And one of them is a scientist, and the other is a farmer. And despite the massive difference in their careers, the two of them are great friends, and spend a good chunk of their free time together. Particularly, they like to sit by a lake on the farmer’s property, eating sandwiches and drinking beer or whatever it is humans did. They’d joke, and tell stories, or maybe complain about their jobs to one another. And every day when this happened, the farmer would make sure to let his horses out with them, and they’d drink alongside the two men at the lake.”

Lyra pauses, but only long enough to glance at the confused expression on her colleague, and to swipe to a new cluster of lights in the crystal’s projection. “Now,” She continues. “one day, the scientist comes with some exciting news for the two to discuss. ‘We’ve cracked it!’ He says. ‘The secret to designing intelligent life! And with equine test subjects, no less!’ ...But the farmer isn’t having any of it. He shakes his head, and throws his hands into the air in frustration. ‘Bah!’ He says. ‘It’ll never happen!’ The scientist persists. He talks about the test results, and the documents, and the manpower behind the project. But it doesn’t matter—the farmer doesn’t budge on the issue. ‘I’ve been around horses my entire life.’ The farmer says, as he peers out to his herd by the lake. ‘And if there’s one thing I know about them, it’s that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t get them to think!’’”

A ridiculous smile is left on Lyra’s muzzle, but the otherworldly hum of the machine is the only voice in her audience. Slowly, the crooked and confused smirk of Twilight’s grows larger, until she shakes her head and tapers a scoff into a laugh. It wasn’t the first thing she had expected to hear from Lyra, to say the least.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…” Twilight finally says, while Lyra busts into laughter of her own. “How long did it take for you to think of that?”

“Hey, there wasn’t exactly a whole lot to do in the hospital...” The unicorn responds, slowing down her juvenile chuckle.

Twilight rolls her eyes. “Well… I guess the scientist got the last laugh on that one.” She stares across the hazy blue light at her friend. “Or he would have, had you not found it so funny.”

Lyra breaks into a light chortle once again. “Ah, come on! It was funny!”

A contagious smile can’t be helped as Twilight nods in weak approval. “Sure it was.” She returns softly.

As their laughter dies off, the small space again begins to fall near silent, and the two ponies start to figure it’s time to confront the elephant in the room. Before Twilight can conjure the strength to so, Lyra volunteers.

“I know that you’re worried about things.” She says. “I mean, obviously neither of us appear to be safe. But, I… I don’t think hiding from it is much of an answer. For me at least, you mean too much to me for us to hide.” She breathes in, and stares with soft eyes from across the machine’s projection. “...I’d like to do this for real, Princess.”

Twilight chews her bottom lip anxiously. She nods softly as her eyes glaze over a bit, and she steps close enough that she can put a hoof atop the machine. “...I’d like that too.” She murmurs softly.

Dr. Heartstrings smirks the way she had so long ago in her restaurant, when the pair had just recently met one another. Content on what had already been said, she simply slides her own forehoof along the device, curling it around Twilight’s in a gentle embrace. Their hooves are surrounded by light, but their shadows cut a long shaft of darkness to the ceiling all the same.

* * *

The hustling of assistant ponies muffled on the other side of the wall is something quite familiar to Princess Celestia—but not yet for her newest coruler.

“Five minutes, princesses.” A thin looking stallion announces from the doorway. Twilight looks back at him, then pivots her tired expression back around to the mirror in front of her. The look is surely noticed by Celestia, but when the elder alicorn speaks, she speaks formally and without a hint of concern.

“It hardly even feels like a year has passed, hmm Twilight?”

Princess Twilight remains silent, and her heavy gaze lays toward the floor.

“Trust me,” Celestia continues. “the second millennia of celebrations goes much smoother.” She jests.

The cloud of apathy around Twilight Sparkle fails to recede, and her nostrils flare around the sigh that preludes her thoughts from spilling over.

Celestia finally acknowledges this with a tilted head and a simple question. “Are you alright?” She asks.

Twilight’s lip trembles as she struggles to form her words—even if her response was immediately obvious.

“No.” She gasps.

“Celestia, I don’t sleep. I can’t look at myself, I can barely face my friends… And every night in my dreams, I only ever see him. Bloodied, but still breathing—and his eyes… just…” She pauses to catch her shaky breath, and consider what was important to say in front of Celestia. “...What was he talking about? Was he right about the crystal? What can be so bad about humankind that we can’t even look at it? Did you banish it there?” Her pupils dash back and forth while staring up at the ivory mare. “...Celestia?” She begs for an answer.

Frozen, Princess Celestia stares back with a steely gaze and an unwavering, professional, and iconic smile. “I’m sorry to hear that you haven’t been getting much sleep lately.” The last of the light in Twilight’s eyes vanishes. “I would recommend reading a fair bit right before bed. That usually helps me.”

The princess turns to exit into the hallway, but not before Twilight forces her hanging mouth closed and summons a tone firm enough to surprise herself. “Celestia.” The mare in question stops, and turns to listen. This time however, the smile slips away. “I’m not going to sit in the dark on things anymore. I deserve answers.”

Celestia raises her chin ever so slightly, a needless final measure in dwarfing the violet alicorn before her. “Oh, how you’ve grown, Twilight.”

Her words are quietly vicious—a threat pirouetting as a compliment would.

“Let me remind you of something you clearly seem to have forgotten. We’re still here; the humans are not. This is true for one simple reason: we decided that there are limits to creation. That sometimes the pursuit of knowledge is simply not worth the cost.”

“You decided.” Twilight corrects, drawing a twitch in Celestia’s upper lip. “I didn’t decide to remove the freedom to choose. They certainly didn’t.” The mare fans a hoof over the wall behind them, gesturing to the unseen masses.

“I never took away anypony’s ability to choose.” Princess Celestia bites back. “I took away the wrong choices.”

Twilight heaves an anxious breath, as the intense exchange goes still. Neither mare is willing to say another word. Not until Celestia has had enough of the standoff.

“Now I’m going to go out onto that balcony.” She says, eyes briefly flicking up toward the back wall. “And if you don’t want to stand alongside me today, that is fine. I will have some excuse for your absence. But if you intend to be a leader for them—regardless if you’re with me, or wish to rule alone—you had best learn to play the part. So keep your chin up, your eyes forward, put the past behind you where it belongs and fucking smile.”

Desperate to appear in control, but hopeless against the unsettling circumstances of their conversation, Twilight’s feigned assertion begins to show cracks. The shaken foal underneath would rather be anywhere else on Earth.

“As I said,” Celestia continues with a low, brooding tone. “I am going out there. And if you do not follow within thirty seconds—I will assume that I have simply asked too much of you.”

The room again falls silent for a moment, but only a moment. After it ends, and Twilight is left with her voice caught in her throat, Princess Celestia makes good on her word, and turns to exit through the hall. The numerous voices outside briefly fill the void as she opens the door, only to be muted once more as Twilight is finally left alone.

The room starts to spin around her. Her knees tremble, and her breathing grows rugged as a million thoughts race through her mind. Celestia wasn’t bluffing. She knows this. But as Twilight listens to the muffled sound of applause and looks up to see the exit, she questions whether her legs can even carry her there.

As the applause slowly tapers off, the young princess stumbles to the doorway. She braces herself with a hoof against the wooden frame, and hangs her head while being mindful of the crown she wears. Her eyes swell, and her heart beats wildly against her heaving chest. She wants to release—to break down in tears, or teleport far away from this place. Maybe she could start a new life outside the boundaries of Equestria, and away from the responsibilities of a ruler. Especially away from the responsibilities of one now feeling so unwelcomed.

Twilight takes one last stabilizing breath, and pulls her hoof back so that she can wipe it along her puffy eyes. She stares forward at the door in front of her, straightens her pose and settles her wings, giving the air around a few good flaps. The last piece of her transformation happens on her muzzle, where the wavering corners of her lips tighten and lift, leaving a confident smile to wrap over her cheeks, and crease her attentive, newly-welcoming eyes.

Princess Twilight pushes through the door and travels down the hall, until she steps beyond the curtains, and is lost to a wave of thunderous hoofstomps.