Compatī

I felt myself come to naturally enough. That slow, gentle onset of wakefulness I used to cherish in the warm, happy summer days of my fillyhood when punctuality wasn’t mandatory. My brain continued booting up, and the hazy, love-drunk memories percolated in my mind.

I curled in on myself, let my hooves trace up and down my sides the way hers had last night. I wanted to feel her again, huddle close, soak up that precious body heat, touch and be touched in a way that my most intimate fantasies couldn’t put into words until her.

I reached over and found her half of the bed empty. Still warm, but empty all the same.

She probably got up to get an early start on the day.

The responsible half of my brain knew I should, too, but maybe, just today, I could lie here a few more minutes and savor her smell on the pillow. I pulled it to my chest, took a deep breath, and committed her scent to memory. My heart started pounding as if I was holding her against me. I could have lain there forever.

Truth be told, I wanted to. I wanted to lay there and imagine last night and how right it felt. Just she and I. But my imagination was merely that, so I gave the pillow one last squeeze before sitting up and rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

A yawn got the better of me, and I took the opportunity to stretch out my back and feel the oh so wonderful popping sensation, then took a deep breath. I felt refreshed, like I’d actually gotten some sleep for the first time in a month.

Speaking of time, what time was it? Did I sleep in? Well, no. That was a silly question. Of course I did. What I should be asking was how much did I sleep in.

I got up to peek out the curtains and oh crap it was like noon. The sun was almost too high up to see from this angle.

Crap crap crap crap crap. I dashed out the door but skidded to a halt upon realizing I had dashed out of Copper’s door. Luckily, nopony was around to witness this awkward moment, but more importantly, had they gone looking for me? When they found out I wasn’t in my room, where might they have looked instead?

Did they ask Copper? Would she tell them?

I hadn’t even been up for five minutes and already I had more questions whirling in my head than I could deal with. I sighed before scurrying downstairs, hoping nopony thought about it too hard. I wouldn’t be much help to the others without that first coffee, though, so I stopped in the kitchen for a quick mug.

Starlight sat at the little table we had set up to turn the kitchen into a little break room of sorts. She welcomed me with an amused smile over the newspaper she was reading.

“Good afternoon,” she said.

“Is it?” I said as if I hadn’t noticed. I pulled a mug from the cabinet.

She laughed. “It’s almost one, Twilight. You’ve been sawing logs while the rest of us were up and at it. To be fair, though, if any of us needed the extra sleep, it was you.”

“Well, I have to admit,” I said, pouring myself some coffee from the burner, “that was probably the best sleep I’ve had in weeks.”

Starlight’s smile went rogue, and she leaned forward just enough that I noticed. “I bet it was.”

Oh no. She knew. She knew she knew she knew oh crap she knew she totally knew.

“I mean, that’s what I said.” I angled myself away from her and stared into my mug as casually as I could manage. If I looked anywhere else, she might see right through me. I blew on my coffee to maintain that air of causality before taking a sip. “And like you said, I really needed it.”

I could see her still grinning out of the corner of my eye—up went the eyebrow, impatient for whatever reaction she wanted out of me.

“I saw Copper earlier,” Starlight said, and dang it I froze up.

That was all the response she needed. She casually leaned forward on her elbows, resting her chin in the crook of her hooves in a very conniving, Old-Starlight manner.

“She was in a good mood, too. She also looked like she got the best sleep in weeks.” Her grin sharpened just a hair. “Wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“I, uh… maybe?” I could feel myself sweating. I took another sip of coffee to hide my face, even though it burned going down.

“‘Maybe,’ huh? So you maybe saw her this morning?”

“No, I haven’t seen her since last night.” Which wasn’t a lie. The whole, uh… she-and-I thing did happen at like two in the morning, but I could still technically count it as “yesterday” since I hadn’t fallen asleep yet.

“Okay, so you saw her last night. And youuu—”

“We talked,” I said quickly, catching her before she could line up any loaded questions.

“You talked?”

“We talked,” I said. “A lot.”

She lowered the bridge of her nose a smidge to show off that damned grin of hers. “And then had sex.”

I let that silence linger for an uncomfortable span, but I eventually sighed. Some things were simply easier to own up to than let her drag out of me one painfully awkward implication at a time.

“…Yes.”

Starlight gave a satisfied nod, leaned back in her chair, and went back to her newspaper. “Nice.”

I scowled at her. “What do you mean ‘nice’? Is… that all you care about?”

She raised an eyebrow at me over her newspaper. “Twilight, I don’t care that you got laid. I mean, I do, don’t get me wrong. Celestia knows, you of all ponies needed it.”

I scowled harder. “What the hay’s that suppos—”

“Buuut, I care more about what it means.” She flopped the newspaper down and came around the table toward me.

And harder. I leaned away from her as she came close.

“Oookay…? And what does that mean, exactly?”

She laughed, throwing a hoof over my shoulder. “Twilight, everypony already knew you were gay. We were waiting for you to figure it out yourself. Or at least admit it to yourself, whichever it was. And you did. So I’m proud of you. For real.”

And there went all the anger like bathwater down a drain. Into its place crept that sucking, uncomfortable embarrassment that only reared its ugly head when I was being too thick or stubborn about something.

So Copper wasn’t wrong. Oh dear, was I really that transparent?

Starlight let out a bout of laughter and punctuated it with a sigh. “Oh, I wish I had a camera for that face you just made. But on a serious note, just… be careful.”

That was a strange thing to say. “Of?”

Starlight grimaced at nothing in particular. “Just… Relationships are difficult at the best of times, and she just got out of one. Rebounding’s a thing, and it doesn’t usually end well.”

“I… okay, but why is that?”

Starlight hem-hawed back and forth. “Because rebound relationships tend to be about chasing the high of being in a relationship and all the immediate benefits that come with it rather than about the ponies themselves.”

Okay. I couldn’t argue from an experience standpoint, but hearing it from the mare who couldn’t even work up the guts to ask out Sunburst had me sporting a frown.

“And when did you become such a relationship guru?”

She put her hooves up defensively. “Whoa now, I’m the furthest thing from a relationship guru. It’s just I’ve seen others go through something similar back in Our Town. Like, ninety percent of all my social know-how comes from all the bad stuff to come out of that place. You know, before you all came and made it a good place.”

I gave her the Applejack eyebrow.

“What? I’m serious. Besides, you’re the one that always goes on about ‘making the best of bad situations’ and ‘mistakes are only mistakes if you don’t learn from them.’ So by your own words, I’ve made plenty of great not-mistakes in my life.”

In any other conversation, that last line would have had me doubling down on the Applejack eyebrow, but I let it drop. This wasn’t what I would have considered a normal conversation, and what she said earlier got an uncomfortable thought-worm wriggling in my head:

“Do you think she and I won’t work?” I asked.

“Whoa whoa whoa, no.” Starlight held up her hooves again. “That’s not what I’m saying. I mean heck, you’re the Princess of Friendship. I’d bet a stack of bits as high as the castle that if anypony can make it work, it’d be you. I… I just don’t want to see either of you get hurt. Just… just know what you’re getting into and try to remember where she’s coming from is all. Communication and all that.”

Fair advice, and just as comforting given the fact it was in no uncertain terms about Copper and I both being mares and that Starlight was cool with that and I was totally overthinking this and I should just smile and accept her acceptance because this was totally a normal thing. Right?

“But anyway,” Starlight said, that roguish smile of hers making a grand re-entry, “while you two were busy booty boppin’, String, Star Swirl, and I were planning out some retrofitting for the portal room.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Booty… boppin’?”

“Yeah, now come on.” While I was still trying to parse that strangest of phrases, Starlight magicked a tug at my wing, bidding I follow her to the portal room. “By the way, Copper had quite the goose egg on the back of her head. I don’t judge, but you might wanna scale it back some.”

I bristled at the implication. “That was from—” I clamped my mouth shut before I dug that hole any deeper. Instead, I cleared my throat. “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said calmly, and left it at that.

We didn’t share another word the rest of the way, and while I welcomed the quiet after that little… misinterpretation, the idyllic morning silence of the castle quickly became anything but. As we approached the portal room, it felt as if I had stepped out of my castle and into one prepping for war.

Along the outer wall, a large stack of scaffolding planks and metalwork sat unpackaged and ready for setup, the plastic casing on some of the newer-looking sets torn open for inventory purposes. A rhythmic hammering welcomed us into the portal room proper, where a set of scaffolding ran along the left wall. Thankfully, Starlight and the others had the presence of mind to empty the bookshelves before setting up shop.

String Theory was up in the scaffolding, about two stories high, hammering what looked like a piton into the wall. Beside him sat a large metal box of a dozen or so more, and what looked like a series of those already driven into the walls had been strung with some sort of thick cabling. It reminded me of those precipitous mountain paths that had nothing but a board for walking on and a chain to hold onto.

“That should catch any wild magic that happens to leak through the glyph,” Starlight said, nodding at the cabling that circled the room. “The plan is to have it go around and around the room like Hearth’s Warming lights. According to String, it’ll at least keep the castle standing if everything that can possibly go wrong does. Of course, anything with that kind of power will still release an initial shockwave that’ll turn anypony in the castle to jelly, but at least Ponyville won’t become a crater the moment it happens.”

As if that wasn’t the most comforting thought I’d have all day. Either let the masses keep their blissful ignorance and die an instantaneous death, or leave them with a few seconds of unimaginable terror but also the tiniest sliver of a fighting chance? Those weren’t the kinds of moral extremes I liked thinking about, let alone making an actual decision on. I still hadn’t even had my coffee, which I was dumb enough to forget back in the kitchen thanks to Starlight and her “talk.”

“I figured you’d want to take a look at all this,” Starlight said, “but String said most of what he’s doing he won’t need our help with, and Star Swirl took the midnight train out to Canterlot to fill in Celestia face-to-face. I figured you could help me with some of the reorganization, instead?”

The upward inflection in her voice implied less of a question and more of a suggestion. I got the feeling she could read at least some of the thoughts whirling through my brain, but I didn’t really have the heart to follow through on her good will. A sense of melancholic helplessness had my stomach in knots and my heart fluttering like a pegasus ready to leap into the sky at the first sign of danger.

It had settled in when we made it to the portal room, but I knew myself well enough to know it started sometime between waking up and making it to the kitchen. The quiet thoughts we don’t quite think, the subtle feelings we don’t quite feel—the stuff of the subconscious we don’t like admitting exists.

“Just stack everything in the sitting area of the library,” I said. “Organizing that right now would just be a waste of time.”

That sounded uncharacteristically un-Twilight, even to myself. But as much as I loved and respected all things literature, books were just books when compared to living, breathing ponies. And I had not only two lying comatose in the middle of the room but an entire nation to worry about before any words on any page.

“Oookay then,” Starlight said. “I’ll go get on that, then.” She snagged a stack of books from the nearby table and headed out the way we came, leaving me with my thoughts and the incessant hammering of steel on crystal.

“Thought I heard somepony talking,” came String Theory’s voice after a moment. It wasn’t until I shook my head that I realized the hammering had stopped. He sat looking down at me with his weight leaning against the scaffolding’s railing, his foreleg hooked over it the way one did the back of a chair. A quick flick of magic lifted a pair of safety glasses up over his horn, and he wiped the sweat from his brow. “You good down there?”

“Yes,” I said. “Just… thinking.”

“There’ll be plenty of time for that later. You wanna help me with this, or do you have something else you were gonna do?” He slanted his mouth. “Orrr do you have something you need to get off your chest? You’ve got that look about you.”

I laid my ears back and scrounged for the words among the cracks along the floor. Eventually, my eyes gravitated toward Sunset and Luna.

“I just… I know I was all smiles last night about keeping things going out here, but they’re the ones actually fighting. Honestly, I don’t really know what else there is to do at this point. I feel like all we have left is to pray, and it makes me feel so helpless.”

It hurt letting those words fall out. It felt like a confession, but I figured he of all ponies was level-headed enough that I could speak my mind. Communication and all that, like Starlight said.

He watched me for a moment, scanned me much the same as any research paper or magical artifact back in the Canterlot labs. He got up and trundled down the scaffolding stairs. There was a careful rumination in his eyes when he came up to me, like he wasn’t sure how best to phrase what he needed to say.

“Well,” he said. “That’s the sobering truth of where we’re at. Sunset and Princess Luna are in there doing whatever it is they’re doing to stop this. Not much we can do other than prepare for the worst, short of jumping in there ourselves, which I don’t think we can do, can we?”

No, we couldn’t. Sunset and Luna were in the Dreamscape, not any individual dream. Sunset never taught me her spell, and frankly we didn’t have time to design one, if that were even possible. We could set up a new Dream Dive circle and possibly alter the spell in order to dive into one another’s dreams, but that wouldn’t help unless Sunset and Luna came looking for that specific pony to bring them along. Besides, that could potentially open up another route for the Nightmare to escape.

No. We made our choices. I chose to safeguard Equestria, and they chose to fight.

I had to trust. I had to trust. I had to trust.

I felt the weight of a hoof on my shoulder. It was String’s, and it carried the surety of both a father and a friend.

“Maybe a few swings of the mallet will take your mind off it?” he asked.

I looked at the rubber mallet in his magic, then at him, then at the pitons along the wall and the cabling dangling between them.

“You’re just building a bigger faraday cage,” I said. “Like the séance circle.”

He chuckled much like my dad did whenever I asked him about one of his household projects. “Well, yes and no. Mostly no. These cables are a lot like the chalk you used to make that glyph, yeah. But where you were using the chalk formed from the horn’s outer shell, this is inlaid with ground horn from the inner core.

“Rather than insulating against the magic,” he said, “it conducts it away from your main shielding, which in our case is the castle itself. And, if you build it right, it gives it a direction to flow, the way copper wiring would electricity.” He pointed at a pair of pitons already driven into the floor, nearest the centermost wall that butted up against what I knew to be the map room on the other side. “Which can be the difference between this castle staying a castle or becoming a thousand two-ton meteors raining down all over Equestria.”

He stared at the mallet held aloft in his magic—crestfallen, if nothing else. “That said, we call it ‘shoestring’ for a reason, because it’s a shoestring safety measure on a shoestring budget. It isn’t meant for something this big, but it’s cheap, easy, and anything else would take too long to set up before we need it.”

And that got the same uncomfortable, squirmy sensation wriggling in the pit of my stomach. This was just one more contingency plan for the pile, another nail in the coffin of our assumption that Sunset and Luna would fail. Because what else was planning for the worst if not the assumption the best wouldn’t happen?

I trusted them. With life, limb, and everything in between, I trusted they’d pull through. But this… all of this. I couldn’t shake the sense of innate distrust that came with it. It made me feel dirty, like I was failing them somehow or lying to them behind their backs.

I took a deep breath and let it out. I was being negative, and the worst part was, I knew exactly why: I had no agency in the matter. It all circled back to that simple fact.

I couldn’t dive in and help; I couldn’t grit my teeth and dig and dig and dig until I came out the other side. They were stuck, I was stuck, and like I already told myself too many times today, all I could do was trust.

String hefted the mallet toward me. “Going once, going twice,” he said with a smile that again reminded me of my dad. When I didn’t take it in my magic, he added, “No? Well then if nothing else, take the day off. Like you said, there really isn’t anything else to be done except wait, and Celestia knows you’ve been the one working hardest on this. You need to give your brain a chance to rest.”

I laughed and rubbed the back of my neck. “You say that like, even if I did take a break, that I wouldn’t spend the entire time worrying about it.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged, and his smile got a bit bigger. “But I do know that Copper was taking a stack of books to the library. Maybe she could help you take your mind off things?”

There was a hopeful glint in his eye, and I felt the heat rise to my cheeks as the implication dawned on me. Oh, Celestia, he really had picked up on it, hadn’t he? I must have been easy to read, because not even a moment later he laughed and put a hoof on my shoulder, gently pushing me toward the door.

“Go on,” he said. “If I need anything I’ll come get you.”

“Oh, uh… okay. I guess I’ll just, uh, go look for Copper! Uh, eh heh… Yes, that.” I couldn’t trot out of there fast enough.

The silence of the hallway welcomed me with a pat on the back for a job well done making things super awkward. I could only imagine what sort of thoughts were running through his head after that. I’d had my fair share of “settling down” conversations with my parents to last a dozen lifetimes, but being actively matched up? That was an exceedingly new level of embarrassment I hadn’t felt before.

And to add a cherry to the top of the awkward cake, of course Copper had gone to the library, after I had just dismissed the idea of heading there to Starlight. I could already see the sly grin she’d throw my way as I walked in.

Whatever. That was just friendly prodding, and she did have my best interests at heart. If I really had nothing meaningful left to contribute, then I could at least get some answers to the questions whirling around in my head.

Of course, life was a series of awkward moments and tests of character, and what kind of day would it be if it didn’t try throwing me another curve ball? I made it halfway to the library before I heard the pitter patter of dragon claws down the intersecting hallway that led to the main entrance.

“Hey, Twilight?” came Spike’s voice from around the bend. Out poked his little head, and he perked up at the sight of me. “Oh, good. I was hoping that was you. You have a visitor. Or, visitors.”

Visitors? Now?

“Uh, could you tell them to come back later? I’m… now’s not really the best time for visitors.”

He tapped the tips of his index claws together in that adorably nervous way he all too often did, and his eyes flicked over his shoulder before returning to me. “Youuu might want to actually take this one. One of them is Coppertone. Or isn’t? I, I can’t tell. And the grumpy one is, uh… intimidating.”

Wait. Wasn’t Copper down in the library? Curiosity got the better of me, so I headed for the foyer.

Just inside the main doorway stood two unicorn mares. The first one had a grey coat and wore a purple slouchie over her snow-white mess of a mane, and the other… was the spitting image of Copper. Except she looked different—younger somehow, and she had her mane pulled back in a braid. No, it most certainly wasn’t Copper. Did she have a sister?

“Good afternoon,” I said. “Can I help you?”

The moment I stepped up, the grey unicorn fixed me with an intense stare. Spike wasn’t kidding about the intimidating bit. It felt like I was being interviewed for my CSGU entrance exam all over again.

“Where’s Copper?” she asked. “She said she was staying here.”

“I…” I started, but wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence. My few years as a princess got me used to a certain level of formality from strangers, and her intense straightforwardness was… disarming to say the least.

The mare who looked like Copper stepped between us, offering me a smile. “Princess Twilight? I-I’m sorry. She, uh… She means ‘hi.’ I’m Lily Rose, and this is Whistle Wind.” She gestured to herself, then the other mare. “We’re looking for Coppertone. She’s our sister, and we were told she was staying here in Ponyville?”

A look of intense hopefulness shone in her eyes. Anything other than a “yes” would absolutely crush her. Luckily, that was exactly the word I had in mind, if only I could get my brain to form the right words.

“Um, yeah. I think she’s in the librar—”

And Whistle was already halfway down the hall. “Sorry,” Lily added before skating off after her.

“—ry?” Did she really just—I shook my head and followed. “It’s on your left!”

Not that they couldn’t follow the signs, nor had we even barred access to the public areas of the castle throughout this ordeal—minus the portal room, naturally—but I wanted some say in this strange encounter.

Whistle led the charge, shouldering open the door hard enough that the handle slammed against the inside wall. Thankfully, nopony was directly on the other side. Normally I would have scolded somepony for being so careless, but the moment I filed in to see Copper in the library foyer, I had no room to speak.

She stared at them as if they were ghosts. For all I knew about her family life, they might have been to her. The books in her magic fell to the floor, and for a long, silent moment, nopony moved.

“Sissy!” Lily said, rushing forward.

Copper snapped out of her trance and met her halfway. She pulled Lily to her breast like a mother holding her foal.

“I missed you,” Lily whispered into Copper’s chest.

“I missed you, too,” Copper whispered back. She wore the most radiant smile that shone through the tears streaming down her face.

Whistle stepped up a moment later to join the hug, and I looked on, an observer of this hallowed moment I didn’t understand.

“Well that was quite the hello,” Starlight said. “What’s the occasion, if I’m not prying?”

Except she most definitely was, and she should know better. They’d tell us in their own time, if they wanted to at all. I tried saying that with a frown, but it glanced right off her.

“What?” she said to me, obtuse as ever.

Copper laughed, still wearing that radiant smile. She wiped her face, but the happy tears just kept coming.

“Starlight, Twilight. This is Whistle and Lily, my little sisters. It’s… it’s been a while,” she added, resting her head on Lily’s.

“Too many whiles,” Whistle added before her expression went sour. “Is Dad still here?”

Lily scrambled out of Copper’s hooves and fixed Whistle, then Copper with that same hopeful gaze she gave me back in the foyer. “Is he really?”

Copper’s face ran the gamut from startled, to concerned, and ultimately back to that gentle radiance. “Yeah.”

She got up and led them to the portal room with me in tow, Starlight deciding to continue her work in the library. The rhythmic hammering welcomed our little troupe in, and the moment Whistle and Lily stepped inside, they came to a standstill, eyes on Sunset and Luna.

“The fuck?” Whistle said.

Copper sighed and turned to give them a sobering look. “Yeah, this is the complicated bit I told you about. So basically, some evil monster-thing called the Nightmare is trying to escape the dream world so that it can enslave Equestria or something and we’re trying to stop it.

“Here in Ponyville, that’s just Tuesday.” She tried smiling, but anypony worth their salt could see right through it.

“Are… are they okay?” Lily asked.

“As okay as anypony can be while stuck in the Dreamscape,” Copper said uneasily. “But that can wait for a moment. Right now, the reason you’re here…”

Copper threw on the smile of a showmare ready to present her latest magical feat before turning toward the scaffolding. “Hey, Dad. You’ve got visitors.”

The creak of wood signaled String sitting back from his work, and I could just see the tip of his horn from our angle. The mallet thudded on the wood beside him, and he came to our end of the scaffolding, pulling his safety glasses over his horn and wiping his forehead with the back of his hoof. The casual smile on his face disappeared the moment he laid eyes on us, and I half expected him to keel over from shock.

“Whistle? Lily?” He rushed down the scaffolding stairs but in his haste tripped and tumbled into a heap at the bottom.

“Dad!” Copper and Lily both shouted, running to his side.

Whistle didn’t follow, I noticed. She had taken that instinctive first step, but she caught herself and scowled at some memory hiding in the cracks along the floor.

“Ah, fuck,” String grumbled under his breath and let out a very dad-like groan as they helped him to his haunches. But any trace of pain or anger was gone by the time he looked Lily in the eye.

“It’s really you,” he said. He looked at Whistle, then back to Lily. He threw his hooves around Lily and Copper and pulled them in tight, tears running down his face. “I missed you so much.”

I had to admit, seeing a normally stalwart pony like him get emotional had me tearing up, too. I turned to check on Whistle only to see that she still hadn’t budged, so I stepped up beside her discreetly.

“Is everything okay?” I whispered.

That startled her out of whatever mired her thoughts. She shot me a look of surprise before gathering herself as if I didn’t just witness her having a moment.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said curtly before joining the group.

String pulled her in without a moment’s hesitation, but she didn’t hug him back—at least, not at first. It took a glance Lily’s way before she begrudgingly returned the gesture.

And I looked on with a weight in my heart no scale could rightly measure. What happened to this family? So estranged, yet so full of love.

When they all finally unwound in a fit of teary smiles and sniffles, Whistle was the first to speak.

“So that’s it? Seven years, and that’s it. Just kiss and make up?” She glared at Lily, and some unspoken communication crossed between them. She didn’t seem to find the answer she wanted and so turned to Copper. The bridging silence failed her again, and she resigned with a sigh and a shake of her head.

“Fine. Whatever. Just give me the fucking hammer and tell me what to do.” She stormed past String and up the scaffolding.

Strung stared at Whistle, the gears in his head struggling to process what just happened, before leaping into Dad Mode as I called it and following her up.

I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but it made me think of the many times when I was little that my dad used to teach me some household skill, like fixing a cabinet door or a leaky faucet.

“Wow,” Copper said. “That’s not something I expected to see.”

Lily raised an eyebrow at her. “What is?”

“Whistle listening to Dad.”

Lily laughed. “And why’s that? Getting to see you and Dad again is why we came. You know she’s too straightforward to do anything else.”

A pause. The crack of metal on crystal resounded off the walls and ceiling. String gestured at the piton held against the wall by Whistle’s ice-blue magic, not quite having sunk in. His mouth moved to form words I couldn’t hear over Copper and Lily.

“She knows how to hate,” Copper said. Her eyes had a distant look about them—perhaps a painful memory, or a regret. Maybe both. “Because of me.”

“Hold a grudge,” Lily corrected. “And… she doesn’t hate Dad, and it’s not because of you, either. She just… She cares about both of us. Sometimes, I think she cares too much. She’s put up with a lot because of it, because of me. And… life hasn’t really paid her back for it.”

She turned to Copper, and seeing them look each other in the eye highlighted how uncannily similar they looked. The same in all but age and a smattering of life experiences.

How many words passed between them in that silent exchange I would never know, but the simple surety of that connection was unparalleled. It made me long for Shining Armor.

Whistle took another swing at the piton, and the crisp ching drew our attention back to the tippy top of the scaffolding. Whistle sat along the nearby edge with the mallet held aloft in her icy-blue aura. Over her shoulder, String smiled like a parent watching his foal take her first step—which she was, in a way. The first step toward healing, the first step toward letting him back into their lives.

“No good deed goes unpunished, does it?” Copper said. She watched Whistle take a few more swings before she pivoted for the door. “Let’s let them have their quality time.”

Lily and I followed her out, but not before I stole one last glance over my shoulder. Maybe it was the optimistic part of my brain finally putting in some work, but I swore I saw the tiniest smile on Whistle’s face on that very next hammer strike.

Time. That’s what they needed. Time and willingness.

We made it about halfway back to the library in silence before Copper decided I wasn’t allowed to stay locked up in my head where I felt most comfortable right now.

“You know, Twilight,” she said. She shot me a casual over-the-shoulder glance that hopelessly outmatched any platonic assumptions. “You’re allowed to talk.”

I fidgeted with my wings while I tried wrestling the sudden heat at my withers under control. “I, I know, I just, uh… this is a special moment for you and your family, and I don’t want to get in the way of that.”

None of which was a lie, but the way she maintained that look said more than words could. She knew I had questions, and although I had scolded Starlight for prodding earlier, now that I had been given the spotlight, it might be better to have an understanding of her family situation rather than stumble blindly through that minefield.

Maybe Copper wanted me to ask so she had an excuse to get it off her chest. Or she wanted to sate whatever hesitant curiosities I might be entertain—

“You’re overthinking it,” she said, laughing. “Whatever’s going on in that head of yours. You haven’t said anything in a while, and I know that brain doesn’t go any slower than a hundred miles an hour.”

I cleared my throat, and my nerves with it hopefully. “Well, if it isn’t too much to ask, what exactly happened? With you and your family.”

“The short version?” Copper said. “Mom kicked me out when she found out I was gay, Whistle hates her guts for it and blames Dad for not doing enough to work that mindset out of her, and Lily…” She looked at Lily, whose smile had deflated to that same melancholy when I first met her. “Lily got caught in the middle of all our family bullshit.”

“Oh.” I… I really didn’t know how to feel about that. That was… a lot, not to mention it mirrored many of my own fears. “I-I’m—”

“Sorry?” Copper fired a grin my way. “Please, Twilight. You weren’t a princess when that all happened. Not much you could have done, and you weren’t even a part of it. You don’t have anything to be sorry about for the shit my stupid ass has dealt with.”

Which was true, but it didn’t lessen my need to express my condolences. Trauma in any form required facing, and a shoulder to lean on if available. I wanted to be that shoulder. And if I were honest with myself, it hurt to hear her be so callous. Casual self-deprecation was an all-too-common coping mechanism, and I hated seeing it in action. So did Lily, it seemed, judging by the distant look on her face.

“Princess Twilight?” Lily said. She came to a stop, her ears back and head lowered. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, what is it?”

Her eyes briefly passed to Copper before returning to me. “Um. Alone… Please.”

Copper looked between us with a confused but amused smile. “Alright? I’ll see you back at the library.”

Copper continued down the hallway until the last of her slipped around the bend. It took a moment for her hoofsteps to fade, and it seemed that was the cue Lily wanted.

She swallowed a lump in her throat, and her eyes roved every nook and cranny of the hallway, her nerves getting the best of her.

I offered her a comforting smile. “What is it you needed?”

She kept her eyes on the ground, embarrassed, maybe even ashamed. “First off, thank you. For helping Copper. I was too young to understand what Mom was doing to her back then, but I do now. Looking back on it, I never realized how badly she was hurting. It was just some big-sister drama thing.”

She laughed to herself, and a smile poked through like a ray of sunshine. “And the way she always gushed about Sunset just… made all the bad parts she worried about seem so, I don’t know, silly? But then Mom found out, and Copper ran away without even saying goodbye.”

The tears started at the corners of her eyes, and she wiped them away. “And Mom didn’t even care. She just went about life like nothing happened. I remember her telling me that Copper had done something bad and was going away for a while. And she kept telling me how pretty I was and how precious I was to her, and she would preen my mane whenever she could. And I remember it just feeling so wrong, because that’s what she used to do to Copper.

“That’s when Whistle took me away. I just, I remember not understanding why everypony was so angry and how come they couldn’t just talk it out like Mom always said, and Whistle insisting we couldn’t be with her and Dad anymore.” She took a deep, shaky breath and let it out. “But I’m old enough now to realize they already did the talking. Mom had been doing the talking for the last twenty years at that point. I was just lucky enough to only be around for a few of them.

“So thank you,” she said, looking me in the eye. A tear ran down her cheek, but the tiniest smile shone through the heartache. “I don’t know how you two met, but she seems… comfortable here, and not just because we showed up. Thank you for looking after her. Thank you for giving us a chance to find her.” She pressed herself into me.

I hugged her on instinct, and her head fit perfectly into the crook of my neck, like the little sister I never got to have.

“Thank you so much,” she whispered.

I held her there and let a gentle squeeze be my reply.

“That’s not all, though,” she said, pulling back. Tears brimmed in her eyes, and she struggled to look at me. “I have a question that’s been bothering me for a long time, and I don’t know who else to ask. So… I’m gay, too, same as Copper. At least, I think I am. I’m still figuring that out, honestly. But like, Mom was Mom, and if she never found out about Copper, then Copper wouldn’t have run away, and none of this would have happened.

“Mom would have kept being Mom, and I would have had to grow up with that, too.” She searched the floor in a last-ditch effort to avoid asking whatever had her tongue tied. “I, I hate admitting it, but… Part of me is relieved that… that Copper went through that before Mom could poison me, too. I-is that wrong? It makes me feel disgusting just thinking about it.”

Luckily, this question was actually within my area of expertise, unlike today’s previous curve balls. I wiped the tear from her cheek, and I felt her lean into it, so I held my hoof there.

“Life is complicated, even at the best of times. It’s a series of both good things and bad things, sometimes at the same time or one after the other. Sometimes one thing can be varying degrees of both good and bad, but it’s important to remember that bad things will always happen at one point or another. Being able to see any good there might be in a bad situation is part of that, as is understanding when a good thing has bad side effects. What happened to Copper… it certainly was bad. I can’t even begin to imagine how bad. That kind of hardship is something I would never feel comfortable quantifying.

“I understand disliking how it happened,” I continued, “but it’s natural to feel relieved that you didn’t have to go through it yourself. And it’s good that you didn’t have to go through it yourself. Being able to learn and grow from others’ hardships isn’t selfishness… It’s wisdom. And being given that opportunity is something you should never look down on. Like I said, bad things will happen, but it’s up to us to make sense of it and find some good among the bad, even if it’s simply learning a hard lesson. The more good that can come from any bad situation, the better. And being able to share that goodness with others is paramount to being a good pony.” I brushed her bangs out of her eyes, hoping to coax her gaze back up to mine.

She searched my eyes for proof that yes everything I said was the honest, indisputable truth, so I gave her another:

“And I can tell just by looking at you that you’re a good pony. You and Copper both. Always remember that. Okay?”

She drew in a slow breath before nodding, and the tiniest smile made it all worth it. “Okay.”

I pulled her into another hug, cherished the way she fit so perfectly.

She let me have that moment, and I liked to think she found some comfort in it as well. Eventually, she pulled away, but any number of worries had her searching the floor again for the courage to say her piece.

“Princess Twilight,” she said. “One more thing, i-if you don’t mind.”

“If it’s something I can help with, of course.”

She found what she needed to muster that courage and brought her eyes up to mine. “Can we stay here tonight? Please? Just for tonight.”

“Here? In the—”

“Please,” she added before I could say yes. There was desperation in her eyes. “And it’s not just because I want to see Copper. I…”

“What’s wrong?”

She threw her ears back. “Whistle won’t say it, but… Just, please. I, I don’t want to go back there.”

The way she wilted while saying “back there” set off all sorts of alarm bells in my head. Ponies shouldn’t be afraid of where they live, especially one as young as her.

“Of course you two can stay. We’d love to have you.”

The look of relief on her face was worth that promise a thousand times over, and she threw her hooves around me. “Thank you so much.”

“Of course. We have plenty of rooms. Copper can show you where she sleeps.”

She nodded into my chest. “Just… Please don’t tell Whistle I asked.”

My smile that followed came naturally. “It was my idea, and I wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

That got a genuine if reserved giggle out of her. She gave me another hug before heading off to join the others.

I made a mental note to follow up on what exactly that was all about and headed after her. Paired with her earlier statement about Whistle, I feared the possibilities my mind normally wouldn’t wander.

Copper was waiting outside the library when we arrived. The grin she carelessly tossed my way had me subtly unfurling my wings so that I wouldn’t start sweating.

“All good?” She swung around to fall in line as I cast open the door.

Inside, Starlight was taking a feather duster to an empty bookshelf awaiting a nearby stack of books. She regarded us casually, but the tiny upturn at the corner of her mouth said otherwise.

“You two lovebirds done giving the family tour?” she said. “I could use some help.”

“I’ll have you know,” Copper countered, “she’s the only bird in this gaggle of ours.” She unfolded one of my wings with a flick of magic, but I snapped it back in place before she could do anything weird.

“Lovebirds?” Lily said. She glanced between Copper and me with disbelief, but a glowing smile crept onto her face.

“You do that to the wrong pegasus and they’ll teach you to fly with their hind legs,” Starlight said.

Copper sauntered up to her, cheeky grin at the ready. “I don’t have a thing for hooves, but thanks for the personal wisdom.”

Starlight shot a frown back at her. “Remind me why we brought you on board again?”

“Because this stuffy crowd Twilight keeps around here desperately needed some comic relief.”

Beside me, Lily giggled and checked that I was enjoying this charade as much as her. She missed this sort of banter. That smile said it all.

“Comic relief?” Starlight said. “So you like being the butt of a good joke, huh?”

“Never said I wasn’t an ass girl.” She fired a sly wink my way, and I, uh…

Uh…

I coughed into my hoof and tried flitting my wings on the sly to deal with a sudden flash sweat that really needed to go away.

Starlight stared at Copper a moment longer, then at me, snorted, and shook her head. “Aaanyway, before Twilight catches fire, I’m almost finished dusting and was about to figure out how to arrange all the books we just brought in. There was enough space on the shelves for most of it, but all those over there, I was thinking of just kind of shoving into the back nook if that’s okay with you, Twilight.”

“Or,” Copper stepped up to the stack of books. She took one idly in her magic and twirled it around, studying it. “Better idea. Why not stack ‘em all on the table out here so they aren’t in our way. Then we could have a little reading pow-wow in the back?”

Lily lit up like a Hearth’s Warming tree. “You mean like a sleepover?”

The excitement between them was immediate and intense, and they both turned that energy my way. “What do you think, Twilight?” Copper said.

That was a good question. What did I think?

In truth, I thought a lot of things. Star Swirl was in Canterlot organizing things with Celestia, String and Whistle were finishing the “shoestring,” and String had insisted there wasn’t anything else we could do in a timely fashion. We were ready to jump into action at a moment’s notice, and thinking myself into a tizzy would only make things worse.

Plus, this gave me a legitimate excuse to insist Whistle and Lily stay the night without needing to weasel out a white lie and have that on my conscience.

More importantly, though, this hit home a realization I hadn’t quite let myself accept. I told myself there was nothing left to do but wait. Except there was.

These ponies here were my friends, sure—they saw me at my highs, my lows, and everything in between—but I was still their princess, and they needed me to be their princess, to be their leader and a source of comfort in their time of need.

I still had to be myself. I still had to be a friend.

Before my brain could leave Twilighting Station, I threw on a smile. “I think that’s a great idea.”

We finished dusting off the newly moved books and stacked them on the foyer table, making room in the back nook to accommodate half a dozen ponies and whatever sleeping arrangements they might come up with. From there, I took the opportunity to do one last run down my mental checklist of responsibilities.

I checked in on String and Whistle to see that they had made quite a bit of progress on the shoestring. Whistle even smiled at one point! I left them to their work and went to fetch Spike for a letter to Celestia. Not that I didn’t trust Star Swirl to be exhaustive with his in-person report, but a letter signed by yours truly would surely add that extra layer of comfort to what I could only imagine was an already stressful time for her.

I kept it informal.

I told her about Copper and the help she provided, both in maintaining and reconfiguring the séance circle and bringing String on board. I told her about Copper’s family reunion, and how adorable Lily was. I told her String was hard at work certifying all of our precautions and adding a few more. And I may or may not have circled back and harped on how invaluable Copper had been, because how could I not?

I signed my name, and with the final stroke, I resigned myself to the fact that yes, the rest was wholly and truly out of my hooves.

It was terrifying, yet relieving. The sensation of having nothing left to do but wait.

I had to trust.

And so, stepping back into the library, I did just that.

Copper was in the middle of arranging some blankets and pillows in a semicircle fashion about the back nook with Lily’s help. They probably anticipated story time or the like. It’d be just like Copper to put me on the spot. She gave me a smile, and after it lingered a moment longer than one normally would, I figured now was as great a time as any to get the morning’s concerns off my chest.

“Hey, Copper?” I said. “Can I… talk to you for a moment?”

She sauntered up to me with a disarming grin. “You can talk to me for a whole bunch of moments.”

“Just uh… out here.” I led her just outside the library and closed the door behind us.

“Hey, you,” she said. “So what’d you wanna talk about?”

She was all giddy smiles as she stepped up to me, close enough that the fur on her chest brushed against mine and her muzzle that much closer. She was warm, and the smell of her coat filled my nostrils, subtly sweet like the faintest perfume.

I knew the science. I could picture my olfactory gland drowning in pheromones as I breathed in her scent, firing off the signal to my pituitary to dump every last hormone into my bloodstream. My head swam with a wildly stupid, giddy sensation that had my heart doing backflips and my legs quivering like jello. I giggled as the heat rushed to my cheeks, and I got all tingly just thinking about her, feeling her press against me, breathing in her warm breath, and somewhere in the back of my mind remember every last intoxicating moment.

The same tingles were getting to her, too, and the seductive look in her eyes said she was ready and willing to do all sorts of things too inappropriate for a library. Or maybe exactly appropriate, if I were to let some of my more intimate fantasies take center stage. She giggled, and I could have melted into a puddle on the floor right then and there.

But as much as I let those thoughts run rampant through my head, the no-good, no-fun-allowed, logical part of my brain finally tapped my love-drunk heart on the shoulder and asserted the question I meant to ask:

“What even was last night?”

I mean, I knew what it was. It was wild and amazing and refreshingly exhausting in all the right ways, and my heart screamed that I should take the hint her eyes were giving me and blink us both back up there right now, what are you waiting for, stupid? But I also had that inkling of doubt, the dark and ominous stepping stones that paved the way to unwanted conclusions.

The grin on her face sharpened a hair, and she tilted her head slightly, ready to make good on all the promises dancing in her eyes. “Fun?”

I snorted, and my heart wanted to lean into that snark with my own quip, but I had to force that giddiness back down where it needed to stay. This wasn’t the time for that.

She quickly picked up on my seriousness, and away went that smile the longer we stood there. I hated seeing it go, but I needed answers.

“It was fun,” I said. “I can’t lie and say it wasn’t. It was fun and wild and everything I wanted my first time to be. We, uh… we got there faster than I expected. And there has to be more nuance that led to last night and within last night itself that more than justifies it, because clearly if there wasn’t it wouldn’t have happened and I’m overthinking that part and I need to stop rambling, but…” I laughed at how stupid I sounded and could only hope she saw some humor in it, too.

She humored me with a laugh, but it was a hollow laugh, the kind meant to stifle the silence between the bitter realities I strung together.

“I know what it was for me,” I said, “but I’m not one-hundred-percent certain it was the same for you. And I hate confronting the unknown, but not knowing isn’t something I can live with, even if it means the chance of losing out on… on us.” I shook my head, at a loss for how best to say what came next. “I just want to make sure that this feels right because it is right, not because I’m filling a gap or that we got caught up in the moment.”

I studied her face as my words sank in, watched the pain seep out between the cracks of the mask she tried to sell, and I could only assume her mind went back to Sunset and, by extent, Star Chaser. I didn’t mean to salt that wound, but it was too late for me to change what I said and too important of a truth to let her ignore.

She dropped her gaze to her hooves. Up went the mask of a pony calm and collected, but try as she might, she couldn’t hide the trembling.

“Is it possible,” she said, quiet, fragile, “to fall in love for all the right reasons, but watch it fall apart for all the wrong ones?”

“I… I-I’m not the best one to answer that,” I said. “That’s more of a Cadance question. I don’t know much about love, and it wouldn’t feel right to act like I do. But I do know that it’s possible for any relationship to fall apart without open, honest communication.

“So I have to ask again,” I said, staring her dead in the eyes. “What was last night? What was it for you?”

She couldn’t pretend to hide the trembling anymore. Still, she kept it together for my sake, or maybe she thought that breaking down would prove some point she couldn’t afford.

“No matter how I phrase it,” she said, eyes misted over, “it’ll still come out wrong.”

Any reasonable pony had every right to draw a dangerous conclusion from that statement.

For once in my life, I wished I wasn’t a reasonable pony. But I was a princess, and I had the experience to know that what somepony said wasn’t always what they meant and that they should be given the chance to properly explain.

“The first step to doing anything right is trying,” I said. “You need to at least try and tell me. You can’t keep whatever it is you feel bottled up inside, good or bad. Even if you’re terrified of what I might think or say. Like I said, communication is key in any relationship.” I cupped her hooves in mine and took a deep breath in through my nose, same as last time.

She followed suit, her eyes locked with mine. A deep breath in, then out. Just the two of us. In, then out. In, out, and the weight of the world seemed to leave her shoulders—or, more accurately, she gained the strength to bear it.

“I’ve done a lot of running from my problems,” she said. “And I need to stop. I want to stop.” She laughed, but the smile that came with it faded just as quick. She took to tracing nervous circles in the cups of my hooves.

“Do I still love Sunset?” she continued. “Yeah, of course I do. That won’t change, because like you said, we don’t just turn off our feelings. And maybe I’ll never get over her, but one way or another I need to get past her. And you’ve helped with that. You’ve been helping with that. And it has nothing to do with the sex. I mean, it was the best I’ve ever had by a long shot”—she let out an exasperated laugh, and the tips of my ears started burning—“but, but that’s not the point. I…”

She sighed and aimed a tiny embarrassed smile at my hooves. Her eyes danced back and forth, and I liked to think there was a shred of happiness in there, pushing through the heartache.

“Yesterday was… a lot,” she said. “Not gonna lie, in that wigged-out state I was in after I teleported back to my room, and you popped in after me. That look in your eyes… I, I thought you were going to kill me. But then you took my hooves in yours, just like this, and you told me to breathe. Just… breathe.” She had a far-off look in her eye, and that tiny smile gathered strength. “You had this… this presence. It was powerful and beautiful and… In that moment, you were the entire world.

“And that’s when I knew. That… that even though I love Sunset, I can love somepony else more. Somepony who can and will and wants to… to…” She waved her hooves in tiny frantic circles, trying to dredge up a word. “Reciprocate. That I can be in love with somepony, not just at them. I might not be there just yet, but… I’m capable of it. You’re the reason I can say that, and I want you to stay the reason I can say that. The way you make me feel…”

She shrugged and shook her head, searching for the right words. “You’re the only pony I’ve opened up to about Star Chaser and… a-and Sunset. You’re the only pony who’s made me feel comfortable enough to, and the only one who’s made me feel comfortable being myself.

“Like, actually being myself, even around others—especially around others. And I get that there hasn’t been some dramatic or climactic moment where I’ve needed to prove that loud and proud to the world, but just… being around you, it makes me feel like I have. I know it sounds stupid, but that’s something I’ve never had before, and now that I do, I’m suddenly terrified of losing it. Of losing you.

“And yeah, I know that’s clingy as fuck,” she added, taking my hooves in hers. “Because I’ve only known you for like a week. But I can’t help that it just feels right. This potential to just… be happy, I, I…” She let out a breathless laugh and shook her head. “I honestly don’t remember how that feels.

“You have your head on straight,” she continued, eyes on me. “And I know I need to find my own happiness in order to get mine on straight, too. I get that that’s how that works, but having some help along the way never hurts. And like I said, you have helped, more than anypony ever has in my life, and that’s why it feels right, even if it’s sudden, and…” She laughed again and wiped at the tears forming in her eyes. “And now I’m the one rambling like an idiot.”

I shared that laugh with her, as short-lived as it was. Her words didn’t come across as wrong as she seemed to expect, but I could understand her hesitation. It was… a lot, and she had the history to prove it.

“I think,” I said. “I think your heart is in the right place, and I understand the whats and whys that you think make it right.” And as I said that last word, I saw the wince, the ready-to-shatter look in her eye waiting for the other shoe to drop.

So I let it.

“But as right as it feels, suddenness is still sudden, and intense emotions like these are hard to process, even when we have all the time in the world to sift through them. I think it’s right, too. It’s something worth fighting for—this, us. I really do. I wouldn’t even consider saying so if I didn’t believe it from the bottom of my heart. I just… I know I’m technically the one who initiated last night, but I think we should figure us out after.” I gestured behind me, toward the portal room. “After all of this, when there isn’t any sort of desperation or urgency warping our emotions.

“You and me?” I took her hooves in mine. “We’re important, which means it’s important enough to take the time making sure us is right.”

I gave her hooves a gentle squeeze, prompting her to look me in the eye, but she retreated to her thoughts and any number of internal mantras to hold back the floodgates. I threw on a hopeful smile and lowered my head to catch her gaze. This time, I managed to coax out the first hesitant glance back up at me.

A slew of emotions churned in her eyes as they danced back and forth between mine. Her ears fell back, and before I knew it, she leaned in and kissed me.

It was as wonderful this time as every time before, but after what we just talked about, it also felt invasive and advantageous. I pushed her away and stepped backward.

“Copp—”

She put a hoof to my lips, and a sudden flutter in my heart silenced me, had me on pins and needles for what she might say. That same desperate slew of emotions still churned in her eyes, but out from that mire rose a sense of understanding and, ultimately, conviction.

“After,” she said.

I pulled her hoof down to my heart and held it there. My mind was just as much a mess as hers, staring into those eyes. But my brain, ever the frustratingly logical organ, knew patience and reason were the better voices to heed here and now.

I smiled. “After.”

We shared a hug, one my heart wished would never end. But it did, as all good things do, and so I took one final breath of her coat before pulling away.

“Gaaaay,” came a voice behind me, and I swore my ghost left my body for a second. Copper similarly jumped out of her skin, and we both turned to see Whistle standing there with a grin on her face.

“Fuckin’ hell, Whistle,” Copper said.

“Yeah,” Whistle said, “I don’t mean to get between you two slappin’ curtains and all, but, uh… Dad wants you.” As she spoke, the casual indifference that normally laced her voice threaded away. Her eyes were on me, and I didn’t like the disquietude I saw in them. “It’s… I-it’s urgent.”

That got the hairs standing up on the back of my neck and my brain barreling full steam toward the worst possible conclusion. I dashed for the portal room, Whistle and Copper hot on my heels.

It couldn’t be. She couldn’t mean that. Please don’t let it be that.

I shouldered open the doors, and not even two steps inside I ground to a halt. The others came up short behind me, and we all stood huddled together, gazing upon the one thing in the entire world I wished I would never see.

Princess Luna lay retching in the middle of the glyph, eyes as black as death.