Compatī

Dad and I took the evening train back to Ponyville.

It was all so surreal. I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him in seven years, and now all of a sudden we were on a train ride together, like we were taking a day trip out to see the countryside. Just me and Dad.

Not a moment passed where I wasn’t leaning into his side. It’s how I spent my time getting him up to speed on the dream spell, how I fell asleep watching the hills roll by, how I woke up as the train pulled into the station. The only thing that could have made it any more like the Good Old Days was if he had picked me up—still sleeping—put me on his back, and carried me home to bed.

Now was anything but the Good Old Days, but I could dream.

Spike welcomed us into the castle with the biggest of smiles. He was a nice little dragon. Not that I really had anything to compare him to except the summer migrations, and those didn’t paint all that nice a picture. But I knew where we were going, so I thanked him, and he left to do whatever it was dragons did around castles.

Dad marveled at the castle’s interior as we headed to the portal room. It was weird seeing him get so giddy over it, since he basically lived in the Canterlot Research Labs. The only real difference was the crystal shelving in the portal room versus the sleek chrome they used down in the labs.

Twilight was quick to bound over when we stepped in. She threw the biggest hug around me before I knew what was happening.

My first instinct was to stiffen up. I had, for the most part, accepted who I was, but being hugged by another mare in front of Dad, I… I was being paranoid. I was being paranoid. I was being paranoid.

And I knew I was being paranoid the moment Twilight wilted at my reaction. Her eyes flicked to Dad, then back to me. She cleared her throat into her fetlock and turned fully toward Dad, all smiles.

“Hello!” she said in that chipper voice of hers and extended her hoof. “I’m Twilight Sparkle. And you are?”

“String Theory,” Dad said, taking her hoof. “Call me String. Pleasure to meet you, Princess. Copper says you need my help with something?”

Princess Twilight fluffed up her wings, and that smile of hers grew ear to ear. Sweet Celestia, she was so unbearably dorky sometimes. In a good way, that is.

“Yes!” she said. “We’re currently working on some groundbreaking new magic. Dream Diving, as we like to call it.”

His eyes landed on Sunset and Princess Luna in the middle of the room, and his casual smile flattened into an appraising frown, like his brain had switched gears into Professional Mode. Dad then gave the room a quick once-over.

“This your setup?” he said. His voice had a critical weight to it, like all his years in the lab told him he should hate everything about it.

“I… yes?” Twilight lifted a hoof, as if ready to take a defensive step back.

“There’s no outer shielding. There’s no inner shielding. Your glyph doesn’t count. I’d wager my career that your grounding shards aren’t big enough for what you’re trying to do, and they should be routing this energy somewhere. You have to have somewhere for all this shit to go if it overloads. You know how much energy gets released when one of these fails?” His eyes followed a giant crack that ran across the room and practically turned the wall into a mosaic. I was honestly surprised he hadn’t been staring at it since we walked in. “When it actually fails?” he added.

In what little time I’d known her, Princess Twilight had ever been the optimist, but that “ever” flagged with each and every little thing that Dad pointed out. She may as well have been a puddle on the floor by the time he finished.

“I… we’re aware of that now,” she said. “It’s just… i-it started out simple, just a few lines on the floor to help channel a spell. And then we just kind of kept adding on as necessary until it became this, and I really didn’t think about it but it’s clearly too late to change now, so um…”

He gave the chalk glyph a closer inspection. “Well, you’re right about it being too late now, and it’s a good thing you’re using the right kind of chalk. But there’s a reason we do our lab work beneath a hundred feet of bedrock. There’s a few things we can retrofit, but if the glyph fails completely, this’ll all still become a whole lot of somepony else’s problem.”

Twilight’s frown became a wince. I had half a mind to guess she wanted to become a puddle on the floor at that point.

I knew Dad was just offering the expertise she explicitly asked for, but it hurt to hear. It hurt seeing her hear it. She was doing her best with what she had. I believed that with all my heart. I wanted to give her a hug, even with Dad watching, but as I stepped forward, I heard voices from the hallway behind us.

“Believe me, my dear Starlight,” came a grandfatherly voice. “Were that an option, I would have already…”

Starlight strolled in beside some old stallion with a long, flowing beard and a hat with a bunch of bells on it. They both paused at the sight of us, especially Dad.

“Ah, we have guests,” Grandpa said. Eyes on Dad, he added: “And who might we have the pleasure of meeting?”

Dad stuck out a hoof. “String Theory, Co-Head of Research and Development at Canterlot Castle. Call me String. And you must be Star Swirl. I heard you came back, but I’ve been too up to my eyes in work to have had the honor.”

Star Swirl? So this was the dude Sunset used to gush about back at CSGU? Other than the getup, it was hard seeing him as a living legend. He looked like a batty old coot in a big jingly hat. But if Dad gave him this much respect, then he had to be the real deal.

“Ah, a fellow pioneer of the sciences,” Star Swirl said. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.” He shook Dad’s hoof before turning to me. “And you, my dear, wouldn’t happen to be Coppertone, would you? Starlight here has made mention of your assistance while I was”—he cleared his throat—“recovering.”

I… really? She actually thought I was helping? I had to look to Dad to make sure I heard him right, and the spark of pride in his eyes was all the confirmation I needed.

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “That’s me, but I wouldn’t say I’ve been that big of a help.”

“Nonsense!” Star Swirl said. “You have drawn up the glyph better than any of us have yet. I daresay you’re the only reason this place isn’t a giant crater after last time. Not to mention you brought aboard another professional. Nopony else here could have done so well or as timely.”

Normally, I would have brushed off what he said. Compliments were a dime a dozen, as I’d learned most ponies liked throwing them my way for ulterior motives. But the look in his eyes… He meant it. He really did.

Damn it, I blushed, and I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t deserve it, but I… maybe I could make an exception, just this once.

“Thanks,” I said and shied away.

Dad patted me on the back and pulled me into a gentle squeeze. When he let go, he took a step toward Starlight.

“And you must be Starlight, then, yes?” Dad said.

She met him halfway with a smile and an extended hoof. “Student of Friendship and resident spell botcher. Nice to meet you.”

Dad chuckled and shook her hoof. “A sense of humor, I like that. These your guys’ notes?” he added, turning to the chalkboard wheeled up against the nearby bookshelf.

That got Princess Twilight’s attention. She zipped over to the board, and I was pretty sure there were equal parts pride and nervousness in that smile of hers. It reminded me of Sunset whenever she talked about presenting something to Princess Celestia.

She launched into her spiel on all the sciencey stuff I could never hope to understand other than a few cherry-picked words like “water walking” and “discrete intervals.”

I let my mind wander while listening to the rhythm of her voice. She had such a melodic cadence despite the excitement giving it an up-beat edge. Meanwhile, I couldn’t help overhearing Starlight and Star Swirl still going at each other with their own fair share of shit talk.

“I like him better than you already,” Starlight said under her breath to Star Swirl, the friendly intonation in her voice impossible to miss.

Star Swirl laughed and whispered back, “One could say the same of you.”

“You’re right,” Starlight said. “One. And only one.” She ribbed him, earning a playful laugh I wouldn’t have expected from old Grandpa. Batty old coot or not, I could respect his sense of humor.

Eventually, Princess Twilight finished her long-winded explanation and trotted up to me. “Thanks again for your help. You really don’t know how much it means to us.”

I looked away and rubbed a hoof up and down my foreleg. “I mean, I just did what you asked.”

She put a hoof on mine to stop my nervous tick. “Which means a lot to us.”

I looked back and forth between her eyes and the genuine appreciation I found there. That smile of hers never wavered.

She really meant it, didn’t she?

“I… Okay.” It was all I could get out, and I hoped it rang as true for her as it did me.

“I know you just arrived,” she said. ”But we were going to take a quick break for dinner. You’re welcome to join us, unless you’d rather show your dad where he’ll be sleeping? That is, only if he’s planning on staying, of course. He can have the spare room next to yours if so.”

“Oh. Um, sure, I guess… A-and by that I mean yeah, I’ll show him his room. I’m… not really hungry right now.”

She smiled. “Great. Meet back here in twenty minutes?”

I nodded, and that was that. I took Dad upstairs and the hallway greeted us with a healthy dose of silence.

“Quite the gaggle you’ve fallen into,” Dad said after a long minute.

“They’re, uh… Yeah, I guess.”

We made it to the room beside mine, and I swung open the door to show him in. “Here’s your room,” I said, then nodded to the next door over. “That’s mine if you need anything.”

He gave the room a quick once-over before tossing his saddlebags on the bed and turning to me in a hushed whisper:

“Copper, listen. About this whole Dream Diving Spell they’re working on. I don’t want to get your hopes up. They’re dealing with magic I’ve never worked with before, let alone thought about in my wildest daydreams. I research and design magical objects: substances, artifacts, you name it. But spells? That’s not my department. Her asking for my help is like asking an ophthalmologist for help with a splenectomy. I’ll do my best, but I really don’t know how much help I’ll really be.”

That got a twisty nervousness going in my stomach. “She’s grasping at straws, Dad… We all are.”

“I know. I can tell she’s scared and that this is spiraling out of her control. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt, either.”

He pulled me into a hug, and I let myself be surrounded by that warm, happy feeling I’d been so starved of. The silence made for an impressive and necessary period to our little sentiment, and we started back toward the portal room.

“She’s cute, by the way,” Dad said, switching gears like a runway model switches outfits. “You talk to her?”

The “She” and “cute” side by side got all sorts of alarm bells going in my head. “Who?”

“The princess.”

My heart shot up to my throat like one of those carnival hammer-bell games, and I skidded to a halt. “W-wait what? Are you seriously trying to hook me up with Princess Twilight?”

He shrugged. “You were smiling at her quite a bit. I didn’t know if there was something between you two or not.”

“No, I… well, I don’t think so. Maybe, I don’t know.” I brushed my mane out of my eyes, wishing I could brush the heat from my cheeks, too.

“You ‘don’t know’? The way you’re blushing tells me a thing or two. That, and she seemed awfully friendly toward you.”

I laughed. “She’s the Princess of Friendship, Dad. Of course she’s friendly. And really, why are you pushing it so hard?”

“Is an old stallion not allowed to wish the best for his daughter? Or to wish for the next step toward grandfoals?” He raised an eyebrow at me.

“You’re not even back in my life for a day and you’re already getting on me about grandfoals? And you know that’s not how biology works.”

“Of course I know that. Doesn’t mean there aren’t options, and I have to make up for lost time pestering you about it. It’s an important Dad Job that I take very seriously.” He wore the most shit-eating grin I’d ever seen on him. It got me sporting my own.

“Since when were you such a shit-talker?” I had to ask. “You were always so… straight-laced.”

He shrugged. “I was a bit of an instigator like you when I was your age, but I had to do some growing up when you and your sisters came into the picture.”

“And deprive me of somepony who might actually keep up with my bullshit? How could you ever consider that good parenting?” I ribbed him for good measure.

He ribbed me back. “Maybe I just wanted you to turn out better than I did.”

“I never would have thought you the type.”

“Did you think you got it from your mother?”

Touché. With how uptight Mom was, I was surprised she didn’t pop me out in a full habit. But… but Mom…

I felt Dad’s eyes searching me. He knew where my brain went with that, and his voice took a turn for the somber.

“You liked her, didn’t you?” Dad said. “Your friend Sunset.”

I sighed. “That’s not really a question at this point, is it?”

“Not anymore, I guess. I kinda figured you did after all was said and done. I just wanted to hear it from you.”

That was… fair. After seven years of silence, he deserved that much. But that silence wasn’t to be outdone so easily, and it crept back in as quickly as we had broken it.

“You could have told us,” he said. “You could have told me, at least.”

“And have Mom know?”

“I can keep a secret,” he said. “Celestia knows how many I kept from you all about work.”

I stared at my hooves. No matter what he said, or how much he believed, Mom would have gotten it out of him. Celestia knew there were enough times she should have figured it out from me.

It’s just… Mom…

The thought of her got my heart twisting itself into a knot. For the longest time, I didn’t think about it. I couldn’t think about it. I kept myself busy with work or Star Chaser or any of my useless hobbies. But I always ended up circling back on that one memory, that one image I could never get out of my head—that frown of… indifference. I could have slit my own throat right there on the kitchen floor, and all she would have done was complain about the blood.

“So what happened after I left?” I asked. I had to get my mind out of that spiral, even if it meant chancing another deeper, darker spiral. “Whistle said she and Lily moved out.”

He perked up when I said their names. “You saw them?”

So that was a yes. There went my heart knotting up tighter and tighter.

“Yeah. I bumped into Whistle on my way to see you. They’re… doing good.” I didn’t know what else to say, so I added, “Lily wants to go for an art degree when she’s older.”

That got a smile on Dad’s face. “You two always loved coloring together.”

My throat cinched up, and my eyes misted over. I could still see Lily lying on the living room floor, idly kicking her hind legs up and down, crayon in her mouth.

“Well, anyways,” Dad said, “you asked what happened…” He stared into the distance for a while. “Truthfully, not much. Not to say what did happen wasn’t monumental, but the way you read about it in the papers makes it sound so much more… Sensational? I don’t know. Monumental sums it up better, I guess.

“One day I come home, and you’re not there. Whistle’s locked herself in her room, your mother has a black eye, and she’s holding Lily so tight I thought she’d pop. Whistle left a few days later. Took Lily with her, and I haven’t heard from them since.” He let that hang for an unbearable moment, just staring into the distance. “Your mother, she… She didn’t handle any of it very well. And I couldn’t handle how she… Well, that’s all to say I left, too, about a year later.”

My heart writhed in my chest as he spoke. I remembered the full-bodied happiness his voice always carried, but the softness of his voice, the hollowness of his voice… It was like his soul had died years ago but left his wasting body to carry on, and I barely had the strength to find my words.

“Whistle didn’t even say goodbye?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Didn’t even leave a note. Not that I would have stopped her either way. Didn’t feel like I had the right to. Which might have just been another wrong choice. I still don’t know.

“Life doesn’t prepare you for that. You just have to go and hope you make the right choices. My brain says I did, but my heart says I’d already done all of you enough wrongs by not getting on your Mother’s case that it wasn’t my place to choose anymore, and that you’d come find me when you needed me. All I could do was be ready when you did.”

I was trembling just trying to keep it together, but by the end, I couldn’t hold in the tears anymore. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything I’ve put you guys through.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“But it’s all my fault. This wouldn’t have happened if I—”

Dad put a hoof to my lips to silence me, then took me by the shoulders with that strong grip of a father—equal parts firm and gentle. He looked me in the eyes, and I could hear the truth in his voice before he even spoke.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he said. “You’re you, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

There’s nothing wrong with being yourself.

A lump formed in my throat as those words rang in my head as clear as the day Princess Celestia said them to me. The words I needed to hear, the words I wished I believed, both then and now.

“There hasn’t been a single day since that I haven’t thought about you three,” he said.

Tighter and tighter wrung my heart. “Dad, I—”

“I’m not done,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to give you something.” He reached into his chest pocket and pulled something out. “I’ve been holding on to this.”

My heart skipped a beat when I recognized the bit of plastic in his hoof. It was my little red hairclip. The one Sunset liked.

“You forgot this,” he said. “You always said it made you feel pretty.”

The lump in my throat doubled down on me, and the tears in my eyes followed suit. It was stupid. It was just a damn hairclip. I had no reason to get emotional over something so stupid.

But… he held onto it. He kept it for me, just in case.

I gingerly took it from him and put my bangs up the way he always liked.

His eyes were misty, and he put a hoof up to my cheek. “That’s my girl.”

Hearing him say that snapped something inside me like a fine wire. The stupidest smile overtook me, and damn it if I didn’t feel like daddy’s little girl for the first time in nearly a decade.

I giggled. The giggles became laughter, the laughter became tears, and I collapsed into his chest to let the last seven years of my life pour out.

He rubbed a hoof up and down my back. It was warm and heavy and everything I wanted it to be.

“We’ll all be a family again,” he whispered in my ear. “I promise.”

I hugged him tighter, and it was like I was five again, hiding from the monster under the bed or the bullies on the playground. I was safe here, and no matter how terrible the world seemed, every word he spoke was gospel truth. We stayed like that for I didn’t know how long. Honestly, it didn’t matter.

But no matter how happy I was to see him and just be with him again, I couldn’t help taking in everything about him that had changed. His beard had a lot more grey to it, and his horn looked like petrified wood. He was… old.

It was weird. Dads were supposed to be on in years. That was just life. But there was a certain permanence specific to Dad, because he was my dad. He was always there, and so time or age were never part of the equation. But the lines in his face and the weariness behind the indomitable smile exposed that lie for what it was and struck me in a way I couldn’t properly put into words.

How much time we’d lost, how many memories I’d missed out on that I would never get back and all I had once taken for granted.

Never again.

Fuck royal business. I needed him, and I wanted to think he actually needed me. Past, present, or future, I caused him enough heartache. He didn’t deserve any more bullshit from me.

I had no more words, and like before, I still didn’t think I needed them. He accepted me for who I was with open hooves, and for the first time in a long while, I didn’t smile for the world.

I smiled for myself.

When I was good and ready, he said, “Come on, let’s head back.”

I nodded, wiped my eyes, and followed after him. Neither of us were hungry, so we headed for the portal room to wait for the others. All the while, I wore a little smile on my face, cherishing the thought that there just might be some happiness reserved for me in this world after all.

We made it back to the portal room, but before I could turn for my notes on the table, Dad threw a hoof up in front of me.

My heart leapt into my throat as the worst possible scenario sprang to mind, and my eyes snapped toward the glyph. I pushed his hoof out of my way and stepped forward, but my heart stopped at the sight of Sunset sitting up from her heap of pillows, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

• • •

“Sunset!” Copper yelled.

She came bounding toward me but stopped short of the glyph surrounding me. Her eyes were misty, but she wore the biggest damn smile I’d ever seen.

“Hey,” I said. I rubbed my forehead right where a pounding headache had set up shop, but I worked up a smile for her sake. So not only had she met Twilight, she was apparently part of the gang now. “I’m glad to see you, too.”

Pink magic materialized around her hoof when she reached out toward me, like the static electricity of a plasma globe. She held her hoof there above the chalk threshold as if pressing against a pane of glass.

I pressed mine against the opposite side of what I now realized was a barrier, and it felt like nothing stood between us, if only for the briefest moment.

The spell of our silent exchange broke, and she pulled away like the magic had shocked her. Her gaze fell to the floor. Likewise, I receded into myself.

“So I was initially going to just talk to Twilight in her dream like I did earlier,” I said. “But I was waiting for ages. When the hell does she sleep?”

“She… really hasn’t much.” Copper wore a look of concern, like that fact had plagued her recently.

I caught myself staring and shook my head. “Yeah, so anyway, I don’t know how long I was waiting for in real life, but eventually I went and found my own dream thing to see if I could wake up from it, or whatever you wanna call it. Luna would know. But yeah, I’m here, and I’ve got some news if you can round everyone up.”

She gave a slow nod and made to stand, but String put a hoof on her shoulder.

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it,” he said. He offered her a quick smile, then me, before heading out. The door shut behind him, and we were alone.

I waited for Copper to say something, but after a good ten seconds of silence, I figured it was my ice to break.

“Talk about a fancy warding spell,” I said, eyeing the chalk lines weaving around me like a Celtic cross. “Twilight really outdid herself on this one.”

“Actually, I drew it up,” Copper said. She tossed an embarrassed smile across the room and idly ran her hoof along the braid she’d draped over her shoulder. “I mean, they’re from Twilight’s notes, but I did the actual drawing.”

I let my eyes continue along the curves and whorls that chained together at least a dozen incantations and enchantments I’d never seen before, along with an arrangement of surge crystals and grounding shards I couldn’t make heads or tails of. I got the gist, though. I was under lock and key until we got this wrapped up.

“Really?” I said. “You did an amazing job.”

“Thanks…”

Her voice rang hollow, and the beginnings of a wince played around the edges of her face. She may have appreciated the compliment, but the implications behind the glyph itself spoiled any notion of pride she should feel entitled to.

You did a great job locking me up in here, I may as well have said. I’m proud of how well you fucked me over.

“So, uh… how’re you feeling?” I said, wanting to distract her from those thoughts.

She took a deep breath and let it out. “I’m here,” she said noncommittally.

Another hollow statement that had me questioning an ulterior meaning. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it were it not for our conversation the other day: I’m physically here. I haven’t offed myself yet.

Honestly, it probably wouldn’t have been an issue if I hadn’t shouldered my way back into her life. As unhealthy as it was, she’d at least still be happy in her own way.

That struck a chord in my head, and I thought of Luna. It was… frighteningly similar, and I didn’t want my brain going any farther down that road.

“You?” Copper asked.

“Same, I guess.” I didn’t know what else to say. My predicament kind of explained itself, just looking around the room. Hell, if Copper were here helping, she already knew the shit I was neck deep in. But social platitudes begot social platitudes, and it looked like I had to be the one to break the cycle.

I sighed. “Well, no. That’s actually a lie. Look, there’s no point in me acting like I’m fine. It’s obvious enough that I’m not, and me acting like you don’t realize that would be an insult to your intelligence.”

A tiny smile traced her lips. “Not like that would be much of an insult. I was never the smart one of the two of us.”

“Yeah, well, neither was I,” I said weakly. When that didn’t get a response, I took a deep breath and decided now was the time to address the elephant in the room.

“So yeah,” I said. “I know you’re here because of me. And I appreciate that. I really do. But as much as I appreciate it, I hate seeing yet another person I care for suffering because of my bullshit. You’re still my best friend, Copper, and that’ll never change. As…”

I realized then what I said, and I swore her heart broke all over again. “I, I didn’t mean—”

“I know what you meant,” she said. “You never loved me that way. And that’s fine.” She took a deep, shaking breath. “I’m moving past it. Really.”

Fuck me. Why the hell was I so garbage at talking to her? I just couldn’t stop being a bull in a china shop with her emotions for one goddamn second.

“I just don’t want to see you get hurt,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt you any more than I already have.”

“Sunset, stop.” There was a weariness in her voice, like she was trying to hold back tears. “Please.”

“Stop wha—”

“Just stop. Don’t make it about you.” There was a sense of pained conviction in her eyes, highlighted by the tears beading in the corners. She still loved me. We both knew that. But I could see plain as day she was trying her hardest to not let it tear her apart. “I’m trying my hardest to not make it about you.

“I’m here because I want to be,” she added with finality, despite the cracks around the edges of her façade. “I’m here because I want to help. No more, no less.”

I stared at her, my mouth hanging open. I wanted to say something. I wanted her to know just how much I cared, how much she really did mean to me, and how much it hurt seeing her like this. But anything I could possibly scrounge up would just be me swan-diving through the china shop display window all over again.

“Good,” I half whispered. It was the most neutral response I could think of. “That’s… that’s good.”

We let the gentle hum of the glyph fill in the ever-growing silence. I idly lifted my hooftip to the barrier to watch the energy gather around it, my thoughts soured by the reality that we could never go back—we could never just be us again.

But the “us” I thought we used to be wasn’t real, either. It was an illusion that masked—no, that smothered—the “us” she yearned for.

Did I love her back? I let that question plummet down into the distant depths of my mind like a coin dropped into a well and its answer the distant splash echoing back up.

I thought of those nights we used to fall asleep together. The way she played with my mane, the glint of starlight in her eyes, the immeasurably happy smile that she reserved for me and me alone.

Did I love her back?

Yes. Yes I did. So very, indescribably much. But again the bitter realities that strung my life together reared their ugly heads—all that I had lost, all that I had ruined, all that I had let drift away. They would eternally stain the us she forever wanted, the us she forever deserved, the us I would forever strive for yet find myself wanting.

Even at my most selfish, I couldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t chain her down like that, siphon the good will and happiness from someone as pure and wonderful as her.

“So what really is this thing you’re fighting?” Copper asked. “Everypony keeps calling it ‘The Nightmare,’ but nopony’s been saying, like, what it is.”

I blinked away the reveries and should-have-beens lost among the glow of magic surrounding my hoof. “It’s… I mean, physically when you look at it, it shapeshifts. Sometimes it’s a giant leopard thing, sometimes it’s Nocturne or a rhino or whatever. Mostly the leopard. But what it is is… I’m pretty sure it’s my Tantabus, or, like, my version of one.”

“A Tantabus? Isn’t that the thing Luna had a few years back? I heard some ponies talking about it once. That all happened before I moved here.”

“Yeah, she had one. Er, has one. They, uh… mine and hers, like, merged or something. And now mine’s feeding off hers, and that’s what’s making it so bad.”

“Hers was going to destroy Ponyville, right?”

“Something like that. I don’t know much about it, either.”

Silence. I watched the magic’s faint pink glow highlight the gentle curves of her face while she dug for another question.

“How’d they stop it?” she asked.

Celestia’s voice rang in my head: she forgave herself, which by Luna’s assertion was incorrect. But it made me think of something else Celestia touched on, and I gave that little kernel of wisdom a voice.

“She… she came to terms with it,” I said. “At least, that’s what it seems like.”

“How the fuck could anypony come to terms with doing what she did…?”

My mind flashed back to her lying beside the fire, the light dancing in her eyes as she gazed into whatever abyss captivated her so. It got the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end thinking about it. That look of utter haunted regret, and… yeah. Maybe immortal minds weren’t meant for this sort of thing, either.

“I don’t know.” I let my gaze unfocus somewhere in the depths of the magic surrounding my hooftip. “But I believe it. If it makes you feel better, she… she doesn’t forgive herself.”

Copper stared at Luna for a long bout of silence. The look in her eye had me questioning whether or not I should ask Twilight to hide away all the sharp and-or heavy objects they had lying about.

“Good,” she said. “She better fucking not.”

Yeah… good. No, what was I saying? Good. That… that was good. Wholly and truly. The fact she held herself accountable to the fullest extent meant something. Maybe not much in the grand scheme of things—maybe not at all—but even the possibility of that “not much” was enough to have me sitting here mulling it over, same as the last time Copper and I talked about it. I again pictured myself pacing around that metaphorical art display, hand to my chin, elbow cradled in my other.

And now you’re helping her… Except that wasn’t true. She was helping me. That much I also believed.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess so.”

Copper wondered on that longer than I felt comfortable watching. When she spoke, I decided I preferred the silence.

“You think that’s what you have to do, then?”

“What, come to terms with it? I… I mean, I assume that’s how this works. But…” I shrugged. “How the fuck does that even work? What does it even mean to come to terms with it? To something like this?”

“I don’t know.” Copper mirrored my shrug. “Usually, bad things happening just boils down to friendship and forgiveness and stuff, but…”

The thought got the hair on the back of my neck standing up. “What, like I’m supposed to just up and forgive her and it all magically goes away?”

It sounded so impossibly simple. Like, it’s just this one little thing, yet that one little thing was simultaneously so unfathomably monumental. How could I forgive her for what she did? Setting aside our differences for the greater good I could do. But telling her “all’s well that ends well” and truly mean it? Fuck every last bit of that.

At the same time, was that all this was? Could it really be that simple? Was I allowed to even consider that?

“No.” The look on Copper’s face twisted in disgust, and I got the feeling she didn’t mean to imply that. That request of Twilight felt all the more necessary, though. “Hell no. Never in a million fucking years.”

After a beat, a semblance of conflict warred across her face and had her flicking her ears back and forth in some sort of internal mental exchange I could only guess at. It got her bunching her hooves up underneath her, and her gaze fell to the chalk lines between us.

“If… If you think that’s what’s really necessary,” she said, “then… I’ll support you, no matter what. But…” She shook her head, and around came that earlier look of disgust to have her pinning her ears back. “I just… I can’t. Because you just… you don’t forgive something like that. I don’t know how you could, even if you wanted to.”

She shrugged. “I mean, I forgave you. Because we were both young and stupid. Because you did something that’s actually forgivable, something that’s actually, like, understandable, because…”

A healthy silence crept in as the ghost of some memory strangled the courage from her. I knew exactly what ran through her head, though. Like the many little silences we shared the other day. All the words we couldn’t say, all the feelings we let wither and die…

She blamed herself for this, didn’t she? Somehow, someway, she found a way to twist the simple truth of my failings into her own and bear them on her shoulders, just like Twilight. And the more I watched it writhe inside her, the more I hated myself for not being able to see from day one.

“Copper, it’s…” I sighed. I almost said it wasn’t her fault, but that would be parroting so much of the shit I’d already slogged through myself. How could I loathe the porcelain doll everyone made me out to be only to then turn around and cast her as one?

“I know you want to blame yourself for everything because you’re… because you liked me,” I said. “But no matter how much of it’s true, the fact is that that’s the way you are. You’re you, and you have to ask yourself: who really hates you for that? Who’s actually telling you not to be or stopping you from being your realest self?”

She winced but said nothing, and she still couldn’t meet my eyes. With little to go on, I took that thought one step further:

“Is… is it worth letting that control you?”

In the following silence, I let that sink into my own head. Is it worth letting that control you?

For the longest time, I’d raged against the very thought of Luna and what she represented. Even when she came back offering peace and had proven herself changed, I didn’t let up. She needed to know how much I hated her. I needed her to know how much I hated her. And in a way, no matter how in control of myself I was, that hatred was still me giving up my own power to what she represented.

I wasn’t stupid enough to believe I could have simply snapped my fingers and been done with it, but I needed more than wishful thinking to see me through this mess. And in the face of that truth rose another, more precarious truth that threatened to drag me down the face of the mountain the more I let myself wonder on it: I needed Luna’s help to finish this.

Because I did. I did need her help. I swallowed no small amount of pride admitting that to her face, and even now, separated from the moment when I first made that claim, it felt no less true.

There was no doing this alone, no tagging out for Twilight, and the certainty of those truths felt like some unholy amalgamation of self-perpetuated victim blaming only my stupid fucking brain could warp into existence, as if to punish me for that hatred.

I wasn’t wrong for hating her, though. How could I be?

But was she wrong? Still, that is. The past was immutable, and the jury had long since rendered its verdict.

But was there some distinction, some line in the sand that dictated a separation between her then and her now? Did time’s passage and her attempts at redemption create some moral inflection point, and if so, was I wrong to not forgive her—her, as opposed to her actions?

What did it even mean to forgive someone for something like this, and where did I fit into the greater realm of forgiveness and morals surrounding such a concept? What sort of precedent was there for me to follow, if one even existed? Was I even allowed to follow a precedent?

The very notion struck me as... I didn’t know what word to use. Impersonal? Like I was denying myself some aspect of humanity by grasping for a script or user manual to give me direction, and by extent, Luna as well. But by virtue of that extension, the grasping felt counterintuitive by way of predestination, and I just... I felt lost. I felt so unimaginably lost in the everything that formed this mess.

Again, that sense of spitting in the face of some cosmic truth reared up at the thought. Ethics and Justice folded their arms, and I could feel their disdainful scowls on the back of my head the longer I let the thought meander the broken cobblestone of my morality.

“It’s not that easy.” Copper’s voice broke the silence—quiet as a mouse, yet so loud I flattened back my ears. “Is it?”

Her eyes searched me, reached into me. She could see plain as day that I thought the very same things in her head, questioning myself and my own shortcomings. Bigger and bigger grew the mountain.

“No,” I said. It was all I could say. Even if the right words came to me, they wouldn’t suffice.

Instead, a realization struck me, and the absurdity of my brain’s one-eighty got me giggling.

“What’s so funny?” Copper asked.

I waved her away. “Nothing, really. It’s just, I’ve been having a lot of these heart-to-hearts recently. They’ve… it’s been a lot.”

The strangeness of my non-sequitur got a snicker out of her. “You, too?”

I shrugged. “I’m nothing if not a basket case.”

“Well, welcome aboard then, captain,” Copper said with a can-do swing of her hoof. “I’ll be your admiral for the rest of this venture.”

I laughed, and she soon followed. A good twenty seconds passed of us letting off all the steam built up between us, and boy was there more than I realized. It may not truly be the best medicine, but laughter helped in ways no other medicine could.

“Life’s been throwing a lot at me lately,” I said. “These sorts of talks have really been helping me sift through it all.”

“No kidding.” A pause. She had a far-off look in her eye. Not happy, not sad. Simply content.

“I really am glad you joined them,” I said. “Twilight and the others.”

“Well, I have to put all that A-chem bullshit to use somehow, right?”

I giggled. “I mean, you’re not wrong. But even if you didn’t, that’d still be alright. Just… be the realest you you can. That’s the you I like the most.”

That got the tiniest smile out of her. “I’ll try.”

I decided to push that envelope a bit, to both ride out the good vibes and change the subject in one go. I leaned toward her conspiratorially, with a little grin on my face.

“You know, if my hunch from earlier is right, Twilight kinda has a thing for you.”

Her smile got a bit bigger, and she traced a crack in the floor with her hoof.

I waited for her to say something, but when nothing followed I tugged that conversational thread a smidge harder. “Youuu like her back?”

And there was the smile I wanted to see. A real smile, the kind I only ever saw in our most intimate moments: the times we fell asleep side by side, the train rides to and from wherever, all the quiet times when there was nothing to say worth more than simply being near each other.

How many times she had looked my way with that smile… Another bout of shame got my heart knotting itself up. Fuck me and my younger stupidity. She didn’t deserve the heartache I put her through, and I didn’t deserve her patience.

“She’s nice,” Copper said. “She’s… complicated.”

“Complicated? Of all the words I’d use to describe her, complicated is, like, at least third on my list.”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “What are your first two?”

“Quirky. Neurotic.” I snorted. “Neophilic. Make it the fourth word.”

We shared another laugh that left the room feeling a little less lonely. But as the following silence trailed on, I found myself thanking the universe for the barrier between us. Whether or not we both desperately wanted that closeness, I couldn’t afford to let her fall back into that self-destructive habit, nor did I deserve the comfort it brought me at her expense.

In her own words, she needed to get past me, and as much as I hated the thought of losing her in any capacity, I had to let her do just that. I had to let her keep me at arm’s length, I had to let her smile at the thought of Twilight, and I myself had to smile—here, in this moment—to tell her everything was okay in the only way that I could.

The others made good time walking in. I didn’t think I could take another minute of that conversation.

As they entered one by one, their eyes gravitated toward me, which I was thankful for. It gave Copper the moment she needed to compose herself. They each wore a smile that did wonders in pulling me out of my slump.

Twilight’s was the most relieved of the group, and she made good on that sentiment by coming abreast of Copper to put a hoof on the barrier.

“I’m glad to see you’re safe,” she said to me.

I gave a non-committal shrug. “For now, anyway.”

Twilight’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second. I didn’t think I would have noticed had I not already attuned myself to that emotional wavelength thanks to Copper.

“So what all happened since you… since the last time we talked?” she asked.

“Well, I went back and got Luna. We figured out how to escape the Eversleep, but that whole deal messed her up pretty good. We were heading back for your dream to touch base when we realized the Nightmare was dream hopping in the same direction. I was actually worried it was coming after you for some reason. But either way, Dipshit got the brilliant idea to go fisticuffs with it when we caught up.

“It was… a bit of a scrap,” I continued. “But we got our fair share of shots in. I think we bought ourselves some time.”

“A bit of a scrap?” Starlight asked. “I know you well enough to know you’re downplaying that. What exactly does that mean?”

“Well, it ripped my leg off and turned Luna into hamburger meat. But she made confetti out of its stomach, and I punched a hole clean through its chest before it fucked off into the Dreamscape.” I shrugged again. “So, you know, gotta crack a few eggs to make an omelette, right?”

Everyone’s face ran the gamut from dismay to horror. Copper in particular looked mortified.

“We’ve got this, though,” I added. “For real.”

“You say that,” Starlight said, taking a step forward. “But you also say that you pretty much almost died. That doesn’t sound like you’ve got this. What exactly is the plan?”

The plan was there wasn’t one. I had no fucking idea what I was or should be doing, and Luna’s earlier bullheadedness practically screamed that she had nothing left in the ideas department, either. Honestly, I was hoping they’d have more of a plan than just keep doing what we’re doing and hope for the best. I couldn’t put this on them, but goddamn it, I needed at least a nudge.

Letting others in is not weakness, sounded Luna’s voice in the back of my head, and I really didn’t need that right now. The way Starlight echoed that sentiment the other day didn’t help, either.

They were right, though. Letting everyone in wasn’t weakness, but right now, I needed them to let me keep my end of the bargain. I refused to let Twilight almost kill herself again for my sake.

“For now, we’ll try and track it,” I said, if only to fill the silence. “See where it’s going and what it does. I still need to make sure Luna’s back in one piece before I make any promises.”

“You mean like saying you’ve got this?” Starlight wore a less-than-convinced frown, one that quickly spread to Star Swirl and String. Twilight and Copper shared a look of concern more than anything.

Let them in, that little goddamn voice said. I sighed.

“Look,” I said. “I get it. You guys were hoping I’d have this all wrapped up after fucking off to La La Land for however long I’ve been gone. But the truth is, I don’t, and I really don’t know how to. Luna and I have been running in what feels like circles trying to catch this thing, and all we have to show for it is all the bumps and bruises we got along the way.

“But we’ve got this,” I said, giving Starlight an adamant glare. “I won’t let this thing win. We… she and I have put too much into this to give up.”

That didn’t seem to convince Starlight, but Twilight found a smile worth sharing. “From the sound of it,” Twilight said, “you’ve done a lot more than run in circles. We’ll keep working on a solution out here. I know you can do it.”

My eyes wandered the chalk lines, then the tectonic upheaval all around me.

Right. A solution.

“Yeah,” I said, putting enough pep behind it that I hoped it passed for agreement. “Let’s stop wasting time, then.”

I found a comfy spot among the pillows and laid myself down.

I noticed Copper staring at me. I didn’t need to ask what was on her mind. The look in her eyes said it all.

She would have given anything in the world to hug me for what could very well be a final farewell, and once again I was thankful for the barrier between us. Once again, she needed to get past me. Once again, I myself had to smile.

I closed my eyes to let the familiar sensation of magic take me, but a realization struck me: Luna’s dream had fallen apart. She had no dream for me to return to via the Dream Dive Spell.

Or worse. The last thing I wanted was to get dumped back into that black hole of a non-dream that was the Eversleep.

Instead, before the others could set up, I turned my focus inward, toward Luna and the many thoughts and feelings her name evoked—that strange mixture of uncertainty yet safety, frustration yet contentment. I felt… confident, strangely enough. Confident in her, in us. No matter what lay ahead, we really did have this.

I cast Nocturne’s Sleep Spell, let the sensation cradle me in its arms like a mother holding her child, and soon enough I felt myself touch down on soft fabric.

I opened my eyes and… Goddamn it, I was in that same damn dream of Twilight’s guest bedroom. It still bore the marks of our duel. And by marks I meant carnage. At least all the fires had burnt out.

“Greetings, Sunset Shimmer,” came Luna’s voice behind me. Her mouth formed a stoic line across her face, and she held her wings at half-mast. She was in one piece, though, which was a good sign. “Shall we be off?”

“Ready when you are,” I said.

Luna gave me a nod and spread her wings. A silver thread spiraled up her horn to glow bright like the northern star, and gravity heeded her command.

She lifted us into the Dreamscape, and we were on the hunt.