Compatī

That was the last time I let Twilight convince me to take a break.

What started as a mental relaxation exercise became “just a few minutes’ rest,” which became rolling out of bed to a dark room feeling like death warmed over. Oh well. All that meant was I’d get the portal room to myself for a healthy dose of graveyard shift, which I didn’t mind. Coffee was definitely on the menu at some point, though.

I strolled into the portal room to the immediate sound of shifting papers. Twilight sat hunched over the table in that way I had told her a million times was bad for her back. She’d have the posture of an old spinster by the age of thirty.

“Twilight? You’re still up?”

“Uh-huh.” She leafed to a new page of notes, not bothering to look up at me.

“Why? It’s…” I rubbed my eyes. It was almost midnight, wasn’t it? I didn’t fever-dream what my alarm clock said, did I? I trotted up beside her. “It’s late.”

“I know,” she said, and turned the page over.

I listened to the flutter of the page, oddly loud now that the persistent hum of the portal was elsewhere. After the whole almost-exploded-all-of-Ponyville incident, we figured moving it to the basement to avoid mixing magic was the least we could do. The room felt strangely empty without it lording over everything.

“My math was right,” she said after a moment’s silence.

“I believe you,” I said. “Really, I do. It’s just… We don’t know what happened.”

“Sunset woke up. She tried pulling herself from the dream, and something happened that changed the way her spell works, something that wasn’t her.”

The Nightmare. I didn’t need to say it aloud. The answer was written all over Twilight’s face.

“Sunset’s Wake-Up Spell works by attenuating the Waterwalking portion of the Dream Dive Spell until it can’t maintain its cyclical nature,” she said. “Like a satellite falling out of orbit. Whatever magic was piggybacking on her spell caused it to amplify instead.”

I glanced at the notes spread across the table, all the equations and graphs and even the little stick-figure caricatures Pinkie Pie had snuck in and drawn before Twilight chased her out.

Had we been manually powering the spell, would this have still happened? Worse yet, would compensating for the disruption have allowed Sunset to properly wake up? Would it have come out with her?

I stared at Sunset and Luna huddled together. Luna had draped a wing over Sunset sometime overnight. The sight would have brought a smile to my face if Sunset hadn’t twitched. I took a slow breath to keep a frown from showing on my face.

“What do you think they’re dreaming about?” Twilight asked in a hushed whisper. Her wings were plastered tight against her sides.

She’s fine until she isn’t, and you see that coming from a mile away.

I had so many words on the tip of my tongue, but I bit them back. They were the very same words spinning endless circles in Twilight’s head, but if I said them, she might actually try putting them into action, and we didn’t need a repeat of the other day.

“I don’t know,” I said.

We had spent the entire day redrawing and redoubling the battery glyph, or “séance circle,” as Twilight originally named it. I took to calling it that for her sake. It got a little smile out of her, and Celestia knew she needed that right now.

“They’ll be okay,” I said. “We just have to do our part, so they… so they can do theirs.”

I felt Twilight’s pained look as I stared into that circle, and a knot formed in my throat. It took all my willpower to not cry.

Twilight knew as well as I did what it really was. She wasn’t stupid.

After the spell fell apart, Sunset and Luna remained in Luna’s dream, just like we expected. But Twilight’s Sleep Spell had long since worn off. We didn’t actually need the glyph to power anything anymore.

The thickened chalk lines, the extra curves and interwoven segments… It wasn’t a battery anymore. It was a prison cell.

“We can’t just sit out here and do nothing, though,” she said.

“We aren’t doing nothing. We… we have to keep the circle working properly.”

Was that it? Was that why we stayed behind while they risked their lives? Was I really that afraid to admit what this was—a doomsday contingency, in case the impossible happened again?

That lightning storm that nearly took out Ponyville… The magic needed to pump out that kind of energy was beyond anything any of us had seen, Star Swirl included. If the Nightmare escaped wielding that kind of power, let’s just say there’d be a few sizable craters on the map before all was said and done.

But that was why we were doing what we were doing. So nothing else bad could happen—would happen—if there was a silver lining to all this. Which was good. I didn’t think Twilight could take any more bad things happening.

I saw the magic, I saw Twilight’s face after she cast the spell. After she… after she saved us. It was the face of a mare who had just driven a knife through her best friend’s heart.

The question she asked me a minute ago was the first thing out of her mouth since the incident. Honestly, I was just glad she showed up this morning. I’d welcomed many desperate ponies back in Our Town. Those that didn’t mesh found… alternative solutions to their problems that even Past Me couldn’t stomach stumbling upon the morning after.

I shook my head. Twilight didn’t deserve me thinking those thoughts right now.

“They’ve got this,” I said. “They’re both strong ponies. Stronger than we or they think.”

Those were Twilight’s words. She’d said them countless times during dream dives. Said them for our sakes, me and Star Swirl. If anypony needed to hear them now, though, she did.

“And if they don’t?” Twilight shook like a leaf in the wind. “If they aren’t?”

I put a hoof around her, and she leaned into me like a filly to her mother’s breast. “They’ll make it out.”

“They have to…” she said into my chest. Her tears stained through my coat as I brushed her mane.

I stared at the two of them lying huddled together. I put every ounce of courage I could gather into my voice.

“They will.”

We stayed like that for a good minute. I let Twilight hold me ’til she was ready, and she repaid me with a smile as she wiped away the tears.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I, I shouldn’t doubt them. Or us.”

“It’s okay. You’ve been working hard enough. You should get some rest.”

It took a moment, but Twilight nodded. She gave me a forlorn look, like she was about to say something to the contrary, but I cut her off.

“It’ll be okay. They’ll be fine, but you need sleep. I’ll finish up the last of today’s work, and we’ll get back to it in the morning.”

I held her gaze with what I hoped was an encouraging smile, and I eventually got another nod out of her.

“Okay,” she whispered. “You sure you’ll—”

I put a hoof up. “Twilight…”

That got a giggle out of her. “Okay. For real.”

We shared a hug, and Twilight headed out for an early night’s rest. Well okay, maybe not early, but rest all the same. It was a long minute I spent staring at the double doors before I found my train of thought.

Right. Now to re-up the outer lines of the battery glyph, tidy up all these notes Twilight had been poring over, and then go faceplant back into my pillow. With Star Swirl out of commission, organizing and making good on our work took a bit longer than she and I were used to.

That blast did a number on him. Thankfully, he was still in one piece, but a few days’ bedrest was what the doctor ordered, and I’d be damned if he didn’t keep his ass firmly planted in that bed until hale and hearty. Unfortunately, that meant more work for Twilight and me, but I’d gladly shoulder that burden over the alternative. I set to work in the quiet of the empty room.

To be honest, though, I preferred working alone. As much as I enjoyed the company of others, the years after Sunburst got his cutie mark taught me to cherish solitude. There was something about being alone with my thoughts that let me experience a level of freedom I couldn’t find anywhere else or with anypony else.

My friends were just that, friends, and I couldn’t live without them. But ponies were ponies. Judgement happened, whether we meant it to or not. I felt like I had to constantly keep my thoughts in check around others. But when I was alone, I could do and think what I wanted without feeling that pressure.

That wasn’t to say I thought or wanted to do horrible things. Just… the past never leaves us. Ponies change, yeah, but what we’ve done is etched in stone, and the shadows those stones cast stretch farther than most ever realize.

When I was alone, I could pretend my shadows didn’t exist. Sometimes, I’d even forget. But in a friendly place like Ponyville, solitude was short-lived, and there again that forever-lingering judgement reared its ugly head.

“Hey, Twilight?” Spike called from the hallway. The pitter patter of flat, scaly feet heralded his entrance through the double doors.

I took a slow breath through my nose. Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. I turned to greet Spike with a smile.

He steepled his claws in that cute way he did when unsure of himself. In line with that, he had his wings clamped against his sides.

“Oh, hey Starlight. Is, uh, Twilight here?” He glanced around for her.

“No, sorry. She went to bed a few minutes ago. Is it something I can help with?”

“I… yeah,” he said. “I mean, maybe. We have a visitor. She wants to speak with Twilight.”

I hadn’t heard it initially, because of Spike’s footsteps, but when he stepped aside, the sound of hooves echoed in behind him.

A cream-colored unicorn mare stepped through the door. She looked like a pin-up model I’d have expected in one of Rarity’s magazines, one of those leggy blondes that gave all the stallions rubberneck syndrome. But even though she had the looks and the posture, she had a strange aura about her, like a perpetual raincloud hung over her head.

Her eyes briefly landed on Sunset and Luna, and I swore she broke a little inside. She cleared her throat behind a hoof, and up went a smile that could have fooled Celestia herself.

“Um, hi,” I said. I stepped forward to shake her hoof. “I’m Starlight Glimmer. Twilight went to bed not too long ago, but I can still help. It’s nice to meet you. Uh, what’s your name?”

“Hi,” the mare said. She brushed a lock of her mane out of her eyes. “I-I’m Coppertone, Sunset’s friend. She told me about what’s going on. I want to help.”