The Unexpected Adventures of Trixie and Sunset

Chapters

Cats and Dogs
Out of Time
Gold Fever
Covenant of the Ark
The Magician's Spirit
The Wizard's Secret
The Bones of Sutekh
The Light of Ra
The House on the Rock

Cats and Dogs

“‘This console was not meant to be studied and pored over, but intuited,’ you said,” Sunset grumbled “‘Trixie knows these things,’ you said.”

Trixie huffed indignantly. “Well? Trixie made the TARDIS fly, did she not?”

“Well, yes,” Sunset acknowledged. “There is that. There is also, unfortunately, the fact that you were trying to get us across town, and you sent us to another planet.”

Trixie had no response to this. She merely glared at the wall of the cell they now shared. The inhabitants of the planet had not, thankfully, been as warlike or carnivorous as they had first seemed. Unfortunately, they had also confiscated the TARDIS. Sunset and Trixie had, furthermore, been thrust at spearpoint into this claustrophobic chamber, and thus the two considered that they were overall still in the red. “What do you suppose they want with us?” Trixie asked.

“Who knows? Harvest our organs? Sacrifice us to their gods? Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll only want to study us.” Sunset said, glaring at the door distrustfully.

“Well, why stay to find out?” Trixie asked, rising to her hooves. “Let us effect our escape.”

“Our escape,” Sunset said flatly. “Trixie, we’re under lock and key. There are guards outside, and I really don’t like the idea of facing off against those teeth. And, of course, they’ve taken our ride.”

“Piffle,” Trixie sniffed. “Trixie should have known you would be focused on the trifles.”

“The trifles,” Sunset echoed flatly. “Of course. The fact that we don’t know where the TARDIS is won’t get in our way at all.”

“It will not.”

Sunset scowled. “Alright then, O Great and Powerful one. Explain your plan to me.”

“Simplicity itself,” Trixie said, drawing herself up. “We will blow up that wall.” She gestured to the locked door. “This should incapacitate any guards in the immediate vicinity. Then— and this is the important part, so listen closely— then, we run away and hide in the cave systems.”

Sunset digested this. “Okay,” she said slowly. “I’m not saying that’s a bad plan, but I’d like to address a couple of problems with that, if I may.”

“Problems?” Trixie asked, stepping back in shock. “Trixie can see no problems with her plan whatsoever!”

“Problem one,” Sunset said lifting a hoof. “We don’t know where these corridors will lead. We might run into a death trap, or the royal chambers, or we might run into one of the guards.”

Trixie pursed her lips. “We don’t have to run far,” she said.

“Problem two,” Sunset continued, but stopped suddenly. “Huh. Right. I don’t have fingers anymore.” She set her hoof back down. “Anyway, problem two is, we don’t know how many guards there are outside the door, or how many might be waiting in the wings.”

Trixie shrugged slightly. “They’ll be incapacitated by the explosion, nonetheless.”

“Which brings us to the third problem. We don’t have any way to make the door explode.”

Trixie gave Sunset a long, level look. “Sunny. Trixie is a stage magician.”

With a flourish, she removed her hat and held it out for inspection. There were several shockingly large fireworks in it. Sunset’s jaw dropped. “What.”

“Trixie has a motto. Would you like to hear it? It is ‘never leave home without at least enough firepower to frighten off an Ursa Major’. Trust Trixie, she has learned from experience, especially since taking up residence near the Everfree.”

“Trixie. Trixie, my dear, sweet, good friend. Please tell those are just flashbangs.”

“Of course not. How do you expect Trixie to take down a door with flashbangs?”

“Trixie, that’s enough firepower to, to, to…”

“To frighten off an Ursa Major, Trixie believes she said.”

“That’s enough to blow up Twilight’s foyer with enough left over to take out the master bedroom!”

Trixie looked at the draconequus as though she were speaking to a small child. “Trixie did say ‘at least.’”

“Okay, now we have problem four, bringing down the clopping ceiling on our heads!” Sunset shouted.

“Language,” Trixie admonished mildly.

“Language isn’t the issue! The issue is that you are carrying a bomb in your hat!”

“Trixie is not going to bring down the roof,” the magician scoffed. “Trixie has forgotten more about pyrotechnics than you could ever hope to know.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

There was a faint clanking noise at the door. Sunset whirled around as the heavy metal portal swung outwards. Tall. Muscular. Angular. Vicious. All of these words aptly described the guard standing in the doorway. Most of them also applied to the spear he held in his paw. He opened his mouth. “Come with me,” he rumbled in a surprisingly pleasant baritone. “The Goddess requests your presence.”

Sunset glanced at Trixie, worried. The showmare, however, seemed perfectly poised. Her hat looked as though it had never left her head. She trotted forward with grace and purpose, and only when she was out the door did she spare a glance back at Sunset. “Well? Let us not keep the local religious figure waiting.”

Sunset exhaled through her nose, long and low, but grudgingly, she trotted after the blue unicorn and the predatorily feline guard.

***

The corridors of the labyrinth were surprisingly well-kempt. It was far from the marble walls and plush carpeting of Canterlot, but neither was it a dank, musty system of caves. They were also quite impressively long and winding. Side hallways branched off like roots, twisting away and splitting into infinitely many paths. The trio had been walking for fifteen minutes when Trixie broke the silence that hung over the them.

“So, nameless guard,” Trixie began.

“My name is Felix,” the warrior said flatly.

“Whatever. Why have we been arrested? Where are you taking us? And perhaps most importantly, when will we be having lunch?”

“You haven’t been arrested.”

“We were shoved into a jail cell at spearpoint,” Sunset said. “That seems pretty much like being arrested to me.”

“It was necessary that we detain you,” Felix said. “Her Ladyship and” his face twisted up as though he had bitten into what he had thought was an apple and turned out to be a lemon that was on fire. “And the dog detected your arrival.”

“The who and the what?” Sunset asked.

“In answer to your second question, you are being taken to the Judgement Hall.”

“See, that sounds a whole lot like being arrested to Trixie.”

“Lunch will be provided for you there.”

“Trixie withdraws her objections.”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Why are we going to this Judgement Hall? What are we being tried for?”

“You?” The guard looked rather surprised. “You just got here. Why would you be on trial?”

Trixie opened her mouth, but a quick glare from Sunset made her shut it. “Well, if you can’t think of any reasons, neither can we.”

“Certainly not. It would take a lot to justify trying a newly-arrived goddess and her acolyte.”

Sunset blinked. “...Goddess.”

“Well, yes.” Felix eyed her oddly. “You are the goddess, are you not?”

“I mean, technically, I guess,” Sunset said.

Felix breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. It wouldn’t do to have a mortal in this role. That’s why we were all so glad to hear of your arrival.”

Sunset and Trixie exchanged concerned glances, but continued on through the web of corridors.

The halls began to grow more neatly cared for, now. The floor grew tiled, followed by the walls. Patterns formed, simple at first, then more complex, until finally culminating in full-blown mosaics.The branching corridors began to grow larger, straighter, more well-lit. Sunset could now see large, terraced houses down each ‘street’, of an opulence comparable to the center of Canterlot. These, however, were of a vastly different style. Columns sprung from the ground like trees, and curving balconies wound around the architecture. The windows were nearly as thin as arrow slits. Sunset leaned over to Trixie. “It looks like late Ancient Camellian, don’t you think?” she murmured.

Trixie looked at Sunset, confused. “What looks like what now?”

“The architecture. It closely resembles the architecture of Camellia in the Third Dynasty,” Sunset replied, waving a hoof. “A bit Minoan, much more so than the work of the Second Dynasty.”

Trixie stretched her mouth wide in a mock yawn. “Trixie will give you this, Sunny. You’re a sure cure for insomnia.”

“And how many stallions have you kept up at night?” Sunset sneered.

Trixie thought about this. “...Well, only mares, technically, but at last count, Trixie wants to say—”

“Trixie. Rhetorical question. Don’t wanna know.”

Felix sighed and rolled his slit-pupiled eyes. “Look, ladies, you think you two can stop arguing like an old married couple for maybe ten minutes? I promise, we’re nearly there.”

Trixie and Sunset glared at him in a show of instant solidarity. It was a tribute to his training that he didn’t even cower under the weight of their combined glowering. “Please, you’re about to enter one of our most sacred spaces,” he said. “Could you treat it with some kind of decorum?”

“Very well,” Trixie said with a sniff. “Trixie will behave herself if she does.”

“Excuse me?” Sunset said, scraping a hoof against the ground.

The guard leaned on his spear, his face a picture of exasperation. No being can express a sentiment that so thoroughly expresses bored irritation quite as well as a cat. Sunset simmered for a little, then backed down. “I’ll behave if you do,” she told Trixie.

Trixie considered Sunset over the bridge of her muzzle. “Very well,” she said with a nod. “Lead on, MacDuff!”

“Not how that quote goes,” Sunset muttered, following the cat and magician further into the catacombs.

***

They stopped at the edge of a great pit, dug into the earth. “Welcome, visitors, to the Omphalos.”

“Um-fellas?” Trixie tried. “What?”

“Omphalos,” Sunset corrected. “Literally translates as ‘belly button’.”

Trixie snickered. “You took us all this way to see your belly button?”

“The Omphalos is the belly button of the city,” Felix explained. “The cultural and spiritual hub, run by the Lady Ba’ast.”

Sunset frowned. “Ba’ast. Why is that name familiar?”

Trixie just kept laughing. “The belly button of the city!” she wheezed. “Come on, Sunnybuns, that’s hilarious!”

Sunset had to make a concerted effort not to smile. “So, why are we here?” she asked.

“An impartial adjudicator is required,” Felix said simply.

Sunset’s brow knit. “Huh?”

“All will be explained when we arrive,” Felix said. “Come, I will take you to the Moving Boxes.”

He led them to one of the tall, square pillars that ringed the Omphalos. They were carved from a material that reminded Sunset of sandstone, but more yellow in hue. The outward face bore two marble panels etched with gold, as well as a pair of metal sigils on either side. Felix pressed one of those sigils, and it began to glow. Sunset stepped back nervously as the box began to hum. Trixie stared at it, quite entranced.

There was a sound like a bell, and the two marble panels slid apart slowly. On the inside was a perfectly normal elevator. Admittedly, there was a rather dishevelled cat lying in the middle of the floor, limbs stretching out to all corners, but other than that, perfectly normal. Felix sighed. “Moggy Jones, if you’ve been told once, you’ve been told a hundred times. You can’t sit in the Moving Boxes all day.”

Moggy let out an irritated growl. Felix’s voice became sharper. “We’ve got guests, Moggy. Behave.”

“Claw yer legs off,” Moggy grumbled.

Felix sighed. “If I give you a dollar, will you bugger off?”

“No.”

Sunset frowned, thinking hard. “Hey, Felix? Close your eyes a second.”

“I regret I cannot do anything which might cause me to lose you.”

“Then hold on to Trixie while your eyes are closed,” Sunset said.

“Hey wai-- WAH!” Trixie said as her hooves left the ground.

“Are his eyes closed, Trixie?”

“You dare to pick up Trixie? Hey, claws out of the cape!”

Sunset rolled her eyes and lit her horn. A little red point of light appeared right in front of Moggy’s face. Her eyes snapped open and she watched it move back and forth and back and forth. She slapped her paw over it, only to find that it was now resting on the back of her arm. She tried to put her other paw over it, only to watch it scoot right out the elevator door. She all but dove for it, scampering and tripping over herself to catch the Red Dot, screeching up a storm.

“Quick, let’s get in before she realizes it was a trick,” Sunset said, trotting in through the marble doors. Felix, still carrying Trixie, wobbled across the threshold.

As the doors started to close, Moggy spun around, apparently realizing she’d been tricked. She sprinted for the doors, but they shut tight before she could reach them. There was a thump from the outside of the door, followed by a brief silence, and then a long, keening yowl that slowly faded as the lift descended.

All three remained in awkward silence for the space of about half a minute. Then Trixie made an effort to roll over in Felix’s paws. “Put Trixie down!” she ordered. “If you’ve scratched her cape, she swears…”

Felix quickly bent down and placed the magician on the ground. She rose, desperate to salvage a modicum of dignity. Sunset smiled to herself. In a lot of ways, Trixie was like a cat herself; proud, obsessed with her own dignity, independent, and quite often ridiculous. The elevator dinged again as it came to a halt. The doors opposite the ones they had entered through slid open. Sunset turned around and found herself in what looked rather like a courtroom.

***

It was gorgeous. The various furnishings looked to have been carved out of the earth itself, before being tastefully studded with cut gems and precious metals. The ceiling was vaulted and painstakingly detailed with painted carvings of various animals standing. Many held weapons; pikes, curved swords, shields, and more. Others held books, or other artifacts. One long-necked bird, near the center of it all, held a set of scales.

And directly below, all those same animals were fighting like-- well. Animals. Sunset watched in horrified fascination as a frog beat on an ox’s head with the end of her staff, as a snake wrapped itself around a crocodile and squeezed, right up until the long-necked bird she’d seen took its set of scales and whacked it over the head. And into all that chaos, Trixie stepped out. “Hail, citizenry!” she called.

Everything stopped abruptly, and Trixie found that all eyes were on her. A born performer, she refused to be deterred by the violence that had been going on just moments before, or by the number of furious glares directed at her. She met the borderline-homicidal eyes with a slick smile. “Fear not, squabbling natives! At your request, the Great and Powerful Trixie and Sunset Shimmer have arrived to solve this conundrum!”

The axe that was thrown in her general direction froze in midair, held in a red aura. Sunset stepped out of the elevator, scowling at the assembled. “Alright,” she said, shaking the axe menacingly. “You know what? In the last couple hours, we’ve been arrested, locked up, walked all over town, and told that we’re meant to help you guys decide something without even being told the first thing about what’s going on here. And now you’re throwing axes at us?” She glared around the suddenly silent hall. “If one of you doesn’t start explaining things in the next five seconds, I swear. Heads. Will. Roll.”

There was a stirring in the back of the room on either side. Two corridors formed out of the mass of animals. At the end of each, a figure stood.

To the right, a huge black jackal. His eyes were hard and bright, and his abs looked hard enough to crack walnuts on.

To the left, a pale purple cat with three tails. She was slender and striped, and her green eyes twinkled with some kind of hidden amusement. “Lord Ra,” she said, voice like silk. “You have returned to us at last.”

She tilted her head. “Though I must admit, your visage has changed somewhat…”

The jackal snorted. “Ra? This creature cannot be Ra!”

“Why not?” the cat asked.

“Because, Ba’ast, this is a horse. Ra is a falcon.” The jackal tapped his forehead. “Your divergent ways have addled your wits, cat.”

A low rumbling of tension went through the room at that. Ba’ast merely scoffed. “A horse, Anubis? It cannot be so. Behold, her wings!”

There was silence. The cat goddess made an impatient motion, and the next thing Sunset knew, she had been grabbed around the middle. She gave a squeak of alarm and spread her phoenix wings. The room lit up twice as bright. “Behold further,” Ba’ast shouted over the gasps. “She wears the sun atop her head! It is Ra indeed!”

“Ra!” someone shouted. More and more of the creatures took up the cry. “Ra! Ra! Ra!”

“Sis boom bah,” Trixie quipped under her breath, leaning in to Sunset’s side. “You have any idea what’s going on here?”

“Let’s just say I’ve got an idea. And I really hope I’m wrong,” Sunset muttered back, not taking her eyes off the crowd.

“Let’s say you aren’t.”

“Well,” Sunset said, gazing out over the cheering crowd. “Unless it’s a really crazy coincidence, all these guys look just like the ancient gods worshipped in Camnek, Abyssinia, and all the rest of north Unglica. Of whom Ra happened to be the king…”

“Enough!” Anubis roared. Silence fell, until only one creature, a squat antelope with red fur and black eyes, was still applauding.

Anubis sighed and covered his eyes with his paws. “Father. Please show some decorum.”

“Pah! I never showed decorum a day in my life, and I don’t intend to start on your say-so, boy.”

“Sutekh,” Sunset said, hoping against hope that she was wrong. The antelope stilled. “Knock it off.”

“My lord,” Sutekh said, turning around with a wide, cheese-eating grin on his face. “Or is it lady, now? Regardless, how good it is to see you again in this noble hall, even if it’s not under the… friendliest of circumstances.”

Sunset nodded once. “It is ‘lady’ now, as it happens,” she said with as much calmness as she could muster. “I have traveled far and long to arrive here with my high priestess, Trixie the Great and Powerful. I would know why I have been summoned back here.”

“Well, your ladyship,” Sutekh said, waving a hoof, “it’s like this. My boy Anubis over there is having something of a property dispute with the crazy cat lady over there.”

“It’s rather more important than that,” Anubis growled.

“It’s rather less important than that,” Ba’ast disagreed.

“It’s rather tedious all round,” Sutekh said, rolling his dark eyes. “But all the gods have taken sides except you and me. And none of them trust me to reach a fair decision.”

“You would take the land for yourself and leave all others out to dry,” said the bird with the scales.

“Begone, Thoth,” Sutekh set, his eyes flashing red.

“So it falls to me to render a decision,” Sunset concluded. “Alright, fine, this shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Very well. Felix, bring the priestess.”

“Wait, wha--!” Trixie said as she was picked up and shoved in a cage. “Hey! Let Trixie out of here!”

“What are you doing?” Sunset demanded as the cage was walked to the back of the room and placed on a large set of scales.

“Your decision will be weighed against her life, my lady” Sutekh said casually. “If your words are fair and just, all will be well. If they are not…”

Flames shot up and licked the bottom of the cage. Trixie yelped, her composure quite shattered.

Sunset’s eyes went wide, and she quickly weighed her options. If she were to object, they would doubtless expose her as a fraud, and she doubted that she or Trixie would be able to survive what followed. “Then let us proceed with the trial.”

Trixie let out a squawk of indignation, and Sunset flashed her what she hoped was a suitably apologetic look. “Fear not, my acolyte,” she said, trying to repeat the words she’d heard Felix say earlier. “My words are just, my decisions fair, my statements law. Is that not so?”

A great cheer went up from the crowd. It was as though they were at a hoofball stadium, rather than in a court of law. “Settle DOWN!” Sunset snapped, slamming a magically-formed gavel on the tallest rock slab in the room. The assembly fell quiet.

Sunset took a deep breath, spread her wings, and flew to sit upon the tall pillar. “Let the prosecution step forward,” she said.

Anubis waded through the crowd to reach the front of the room. Sutekh looked around and sighed. “And I suppose this makes me the bailiff,” he said, rather put out. He slid an oven mitt over his hoof and took out a slab from under the stone slab. “Do you, Anubis, swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you Ma’at?” he asked, barely flinching at all.

Anubis placed his paw on the book. “I swear,” he said gravely.

“Marvelous. Now get this thing away from me!” Sutekh said, dropping the tablet quickly. Smoke wafted off his oven mitt.

“State your case,” Sunset said, watching the big jackal carefully.

Anubis turned sharply and began to pace sedately in front of the judge’s stand. “As it please your solar majesty,” he began, “As Lord of the Dead, Master of the Tomb, and Guardian of the World Below, it is by right that all places beneath the earth are my holy places, inviolate and controlled by myself alone.”

“I grant that,” Sunset said, thinking desperately about what she remembered of this mythology. They entombed their dead in pyramids, right? Where did the underground connection come from? Oh, right, the underworld, where Ra’s sun boat went every night.

“And since these places are my sacred places, none should have to right to rule over them but myself.”

“Go on,” Sunset ordered.

“Therefore, given that this edifice is under the earth, I should be the one to reign over it.”

“I see,” Sunset clasped her hooves together and hunched over the pillar. “Have you any more to say on the matter?” she challenged.

“Not at present, your ladyship. The prosecution rests.”

“The defense may approach the bench.”

Sutekh smiled this time and pulled out a different tablet. “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, else Apophis shall devour you?”

“Certainly,” Ba’ast said, grinning as she laid a delicate paw on the clay tablet. “I, Ba’ast, the lapcat of Ra, chaser of monsters, the terror-bringer, so swear,” she said.

Sunset coughed. “Um, yes. Your side of things, if you would?”

Ba’ast looked up at her, and Sunset suddenly felt quite small. “Lady Ra,” Ba’ast said, “Surely you can see that giving control of the Omphalos over to Anubis would be a most grave error? For many centuries, this has been a structure of community, and was thereby ruled by the community. It is kept freehold, for the use and benefit of all who would come here. If it were that one of us alone were to preside over the Omphalos, it would inevitably be…”

Sunset’s attention drifted to the back of the room, where Anubis sat, watching her. When he realized he had caught her eye, he grinned and pulled out a dagger. He threw it right through the bars of Trixie’s cage, brushing her mane. Trixie sat bolt upright and went very still.

Sunset was horrified. How could these peoples treat the court with such little dignity? If that wasn’t a threat, she was a monkey’s uncle.

She returned her attention to Ba’ast, who was apparently concluding her own opening remarks. “...in order that the Omphalos may remain free, public, and uncontrolled. Defence rests.”

Bast sashayed to the back of the room. “Prosecution,” Sunset said, turning a gimlet glare on Anubis. “Rise.”

Anubis stepped forth. “Do you wish to rebut any of Ba’ast’s arguments?”

“Yes, Lady Ra.”

“Then do so.”

She’d picked up this little trick from her mother. If you’ve lost the plot, ask someone else to explain everything wrong with it. Generally, they’re only too eager to rip their opponent’s arguments to shreds. By watching where the knife cuts deepest, you can gain a pretty good sense of the whole cloth they started with.

Anubis took a deep breath and launched into a lengthy diatribe about how the public rarely thinks before it acts and the majority could easily be swayed by inflated promises of impossible success and achievement.

Sunset frowned. The frown only deepened the longer Anubis talked. For someone that nattered on for so long, he wasn’t saying a great deal. Her attention strayed to Ba’ast. The cat met her gaze and grinned. She flicked her wrist, and her claws came out. She was standing right next to Trixie’s cage. The magician pressed herself against the bars on the far side, watching the cat with terror.

“Enough!” Sunset shouted.

The room fell silent. She gazed around with bright, fiery eyes. “Lies,” she said. “Lies, damn lies, and statistics.” She glared at Anubis when she spoke the last.

“Ba’ast, come here.”

Anubis turned to leave. “Sit,” Sunset ordered. “And stay.”

The jackal did so unthinkingly, then scowled up at her.

Sunset gazed at them both. “Each of you,” she declared, “has three words. Three words to tell me what will happen should I decide in your favor. Three words to convince me.”

Anubis opened his mouth to protest. “Three words only,” Sunset warned, fixing him with a glare.

The jackal’s mouth snapped shut. Ba’ast gazed down at the floor, her beautiful brow furrowed. After about fifteen minutes, it became clear that neither were any closer to working out their responses. Sunset sighed. “A ten-minute recess will be called so that the disputants may confer with their advisors.”

Both Anubis and Ba’ast heaved twin sighs of relief and hurried their separate ways. Their respective cohorts gathered around them, and a soft buzz filled the room. The only one who hadn’t joined in was Sutekh, who simply stood at Sunset’s side. He was smiling. She scowled at him. “What’s so funny?” she demanded.

Sutekh gestured to the crowd. “Oh, nothing much," he murmured. "I’m just astonished they all actually believe you’re Ra.”

Sunset’s heart skipped a beat. “What are you--”

“Please. I fought alongside Ra every night for centuries. I know Ra in all his forms. I know his smell. You, my dear, are no Ra.”

He glanced up to meet her horror-struck face. “Oh, don’t worry, I don’t intend to give you away. I’m chaos itself, I’ll have you know. In fact, I may even choose to help you.”

Sunset’s heart leapt. “For a price,” Sutekh continued.

She considered. “Alright, fine. Help me keep Trixie from getting killed by whoever loses the case. What’s the price for that?”

“Knowledge for knowledge,” Sutekh said, grinning. “Let me snatch failure from the jaws of success, and I’ll help you do the reverse.”

Sunset glared. She hated the cryptic talk. “Y’know what? Fine. Don’t care. Go.”

Sutekh smirked, and with one talon, he tapped her horn.

Her eyes went white. For the space of a few seconds, centuries of Sutekh’s life ran through her head-- blood, tears, laughter, chaos, construction, fire, betrayal--

and as quickly as the deluge began, it stopped. You might have said you were a telepath, Sutekh thought, disapproving.

You might’ve said you were going to put thoughts in my head!

Hmph. Here’s your plan. Much good may it do you.

…

What?

Well, aren’t you going to take the information you want?

“Oh, no,” Sutekh said, taking his talon off her horn. “I’ll handle that later.”

“You realize we’re gonna need to leave pretty fast, right?” Sunset said.

“Oh, yes, yes,” Sutekh said, waving her off. “You go on. Don’t worry, after you take off in that box of yours, you need never see me again.”

Sunset glared at him. “Oh, look, they’re coming back. Recess is over, Shimmer. Time for the test…”

She grunted and sat up once more as the two quarreling gods approached her bench. She looked to Trixie. The magician’s eyes were wide. Sunset did her best to convey assurance with her eyes alone.

It didn’t seem to do much.

“Prosecution,” Sunset said, tearing her eyes away. “Your three words?”

“Lives not risked.”

Sunset frowned. That certainly added a new dimension to the problem; no mention of death had ever arisen. If only she knew what Ba’ast and her supporters were actually planning to do…

“Defense, you rebuttal?”

Ba’ast met her eyes. “Lives not squandered,” she said.

Sunset sucked in her cheeks, drawing in a long breath. She let it out in a great huff. “I see. Please, take your seats.”

Anubis glowered at Ba’ast. The cat returned his anger with only an enigmatic smile before she sashayed back to her empty chair.

When both had sat and the room was silent, Sunset gazed around the assembled. All eyes were on her. Good.

“This will be a difficult case to decide,” she began. “When civility has fallen to chaos and fire--”

Sutekh let out a snort of indignation. Sunset glared. “Has fallen to chaos and fire to make the final decision,” she said, more loudly, “then something is clearly wrong with the process as it stands.”

Trixie frowned in her cage. “What’s more,” Sunset continued, “I suspect that much of what has been said here is mere misdirection.”

A slight hubbub arose at that, but Sunset lit her horn threateningly and silence fell once more.

“I do not mean to suggest that either of our esteemed deities would be so foolish as to lie under oath,” she continued, smooth as fresh-blown glass. “Merely that they were keeping things under their hat that should, perhaps, have been taken out.”

Trixie glanced down from her cage. The fire swirled oddly. She looked up at Sunset, whose mane of flame was moving in a breeze that no one else could feel.

“I see you understand. But wait! Before you assign blame, I must first judge this case. Yes, Ra sees all, and judges accordingly.”

Murmurs arose at that. “And once I have decreed the result, that must be the end of it! You will all swear to abide by my judgement, and then drop the matter for ever. Do you swear?”

More murmurs, this time in the affirmative. Sunset’s eyes blazed white. “I said, DO YOU SWEAR?”

They jumped without even having to be told how high. Sunset had transformed into pure fire, rings of gold circling her body like sharks, cutting like sawblades.“Is this how you treat your Queen of the Sun after all this time?” she thundered. “Is Ra to be no more respected than a menial guest speaker? I told you to swear it, and swear you all shall!”

“We swear!” “We’ll do it!” “Dropped forever!” “Don’t even remember what we were talking about!”

Sunset settled, the flames going from bonfire to campfire to candlefire to nothing, save for the fire still blazing on her head, tail, and wings. “Good. I rule in favor of Ba’ast. Bye, now!”

There was a moment of stunned silence, the calm after the storm leaving everyone speechless. Trixie, though, was a little quicker on the uptake. She grabbed several rockets out of her hat and threw them into the fire pit below her. Sunset grinned and took hold of the fire itself. The fireworks shot around the room, and Sunset quickly telekinetically unlocked the cage door. Trixie jumped to freedom and scarpered for the exit.

Of course, when several dozen confused, frightened, and quite angry gods are standing between you and the door, that’s more easily said than done. Anubis drew out a dagger and threw it in Trixie’s general direction. Years of instinct honed from playing for some extremely tough crowds kicked in, and Trixie dodged the blade, weaving through a forest of legs at speed.

Anubis let out a howl of rage and charged after her. Unfortunately for him, the dagger that Trixie had dodged had wound up buried in the side of Sobek, the crocodile god. The reptile drew himself up to his full height-- about a meter tall and eight meters long-- and charged the jackal, tripping him up.

An axe slammed down in front of Trixie, and she found a fish-woman bearing down on her. Trixie winked and blew her a kiss, then vanished in a puff of smoke. “Come on!” she yelled to Sunset. “Trixie feels we may have overstayed our welcome!”

Sunset leapt from her pulpit and raced for the elevator, pausing only to send a firework right up Anubis’s backside. His howls echoed as Trixie jammed the ‘close door’ button frantically. It wasn’t closing anywhere near fast enough, and a crowd of gods were closing in.

“Got any more fireworks?”

Trixie gave her a flat look. “Obviously,” she said, reaching out and pulling a rocket from behind Sunset’s ear.

It lit on her mane, and Trixie threw it into the crowd of onrushing gods as the doors slid shut. The elevator slid up toward the surface, to the tune of soft mandolin music played through the speakers and the fading shouts from below.

Sunset was radiating heat like a campfire, and Trixie sidled over to press against the wall. “Thank you,” she said.

Sunset blinked out of her reverie. “Oh, uh, it was nothing,” she replied. “Couldn’t just let you die.”

“Well, it was certainly something for Trixie!” Trixie said. “Trixie owes you a life debt, Shimmer, and she will--”

“Nope, not going there. Let’s just say were even for almost killing you with the mirror portal.”

Trixie heaved a sigh. “Fiiine. You have no sense of the dramatic, Shimmer.”

Sunset smirked. “Really? Is that what we’re taking away from today? I thought I did the ‘king of the gods’ schtick pretty well.”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “Hammy,” she said.

Sunset might have retorted, but just then, the doors opened to reveal a frothing cat-lady. Moggy Jones picked up Trixie by the collar and yanked her out of the lift, and Sunset immediately thereafter. She stepped in and turned to glare at them both. “My box!” she spat, pressing a button. The doors trundled shut once more.

Both mares stared at the closed doors for a long moment. “...So!” Sunset said, turning. “Where do you think the TARDIS is?”

“Trixie doesn’t actually remember seeing the cats take it…”

“Back to the scene of the crime? Alright, seems as good a plan as any.”

One of the other rocks dinged. Then another one. Then another one. Sunset froze. “Rut.”

As the elevator on the left began to open, Trixie threw down another smoke bomb. The gods stepped out into a plain of purple haze and a distinct lack of mares.

***

Down in the courtroom, Anubis grumbled to himself as his wounds were tended to by Sekhmet. “I hope you’re happy,” he spat at Ba’ast.

She tutted. “I thought we all swore to let the matter drop now that it’s been decided.”

Anubis grumbled, then winced as Sekhmet’s healing milk stung at his burns. “Watch it, you stupid cow!”

Sekhmet glared back at him through big, bovine eyes. “If the cow is giving you trouble, the lion can always come out to play,” she warned, golden fur spreading over her brown muzzle.

Anubis bowed his head. “Apologies.” He turned to Ba’ast and sighed. “Very well. I suppose the worst this ludicrous plan can do is fail.”

“And at best, we will have a new future for our worshippers, and for ourselves,” Ba’ast said.

Anubis snorted. “I’m sure. How do you expect to get off this planet? We have the theory perhaps, but no technology could ever get us off the ground.”

Sutekh chuckled, and both of the gods turned to face him. “Have you something to add, old man?” Anubis growled.

“Oh, no. I just would have thought you’d have noticed.”

“Noticed what?”

From behind his back, Sutekh produced an unexploded firework. “Not, perhaps, the best source of fuel,” he admitted. “But it certainly is a start. And we immortals have nothing but time, you know…”

Ba’ast’s face spread into a slow, wicked grin. “I’ll take it to P’tah right away,” she said, snatching the rocket out of Sutekh’s hands. “We’ll see what he has to say. Just you wait, Anubis! Just you wait.”

Out of Time

Trixie sat sullenly in the corner while Sunset examined each of the TARDIS controls minutely. “Trixie is bored.”

“K.”

“When will we be landing?”

“Once I’ve figured out how to fly this thing.”

“When will that be?”

“Much sooner if you stop interrupting me.”

Trixie fell onto her back. There was a long silence. “Trixie knows how to fly the TARDIS.”

“How to fly it into the planet of ancient gods, yes.”

“Are you still holding that against Trixie?”

“It was literally only an hour ago.”

“Feels like longer,” Trixie sighed. “Every moment seems eternal, every second moves like molasses…”

“Okay, y’know what? Fine. I’m just gonna pull on this--” Sunset yanked quite hard on a lever. “--and we’re gonna deal with being stuck on the wrong planet again for the Great and Powerful Trixie’s personal amusement.”

Trixie rolled over as the TARDIS wheezed her arrival. “Glad you finally see sense.”

“Whatever,” Sunset said, pushing open the doors. She stopped in her tracks. “Oh. … Huh.”

“What is it?” Trixie asked, pushing herself up on her hooves. She peered over Sunset’s shoulder. “A poster for a Sapphire Shores concert. So?”

“So?” Sunset asked. “So? So we’re back in Equestria already! It must be nearly the right time and place…” she stepped out to read the date on the poster. “Yeah, it’s at least the same year.”

“And you said you needed lessons,” Trixie scoffed. “Clearly, your talent exceeds even your beauty, Shimmer.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing.” Trixie frowned. “Hey, Sunset?”

“Yeah?”

“It looks like we’re in a big city.”

Sunset glanced around. The TARDIS had landed in an abandoned alleyway, filled with dumpsters and trash. “Well, it’s definitely not Ponyville,” she agreed. “C’mon, let’s see if it’s Manehattan or Windy City or what.”

“That isn’t what Trixie means. Trixie has performed across the country, in many large cities.”

“I’m sure,” Sunset said, trotting toward the light at the end of the alley. “C’mon, we can take in a Bridleway musical or something.”

Trixie hurried to catch up. “All Trixie is saying is, this city seems a little--” She broke off as she rammed into Sunset.

“Quiet,” Sunset breathed.

“Exactly!” Trixie said, standing up. “If this is Manehattan, then it must have been evacuated or-- or…” She trailed off, finally getting a good look at the street.

Ponies stood on the sidewalk, hailing taxis. Ponies leaned on carrot dog stands, hawking their wares. A team of construction workers sat on the frame of a building, eating lunch. Every one of them had one thing in common. They were all as still as butterflies under glass.

“...Trixie does not like this,” Trixie said, shrinking behind Sunset. “We should go.”

“Go where?” Sunset asked.

“...Away?”

“Trixie, if time is frozen in…” She paused and glanced toward the skyline. “In Seaddle, then it’s probably frozen everywhere. Including, for example, Ponyville.”

“So, what do you suggest?” Trixie shot back.

Sunset tilted her head, studying the sky. “Investigating,” she decided. “If we can figure out what’s stopping time, maybe we can fix it, and then we can go back to Ponyville.”

Trixie looked out at the street again and twisted up her mouth into a little rose of a pout. “If you’d like, you can stay in the TARDIS,” Sunset said.

“Pah! The Great and Powerful Trixie is no cringing coward! Trixie will help you discover the source of this perilous plight. Come, bold Sunset! Let us advance into the unknown and ponder this paralyzingly puzzling problem!”

She stopped to take a breath and realized that Sunset was already halfway down the street. Trixie dropped back to her hooves and raced after her.

***

They had walked several blocks. Sunset didn’t seem to be in a very chatty mood. She kept stopping to kick at pebbles or inspect window displays. The silence was crushing, pressing in on Trixie. “So!” she said with false cheer. “Trixie would like to take this opportunity to get to know you a little better!”

Sunset blinked. “Er, okay,” she said. “What do you want to know?”

“Trixie does not know.”

“Um,” said Sunset. “I like books.”

“Very good,” Trixie said, approvingly.

“And… uh, sports, I guess. I can play chess pretty well, and I’m loud.”

Trixie blinked. “Very forward of you to say.”

“Wha-- ew, no! I just yell a lot.”

“Ah.” Trixie considered this. “You are not a fellow appreciator of beautiful women, Trixie takes it?”

“No, not really. I’m kinda asexual, actually. And sex in general just kinda squicks me out.”

“Squick?” Trixie repeated.

“Oh, sorry, that’s human slang. It means, uh…”

Trixie giggled. “Trixie can guess. It is a fun word! Squick, squick, squick.”

Sunset chuckled. “I guess it is.”

“Sunset?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you actually found any clues yet?”

Sunset slumped, her flames suddenly shrinking. “No…” she sighed. “This always looked so much easier on TV.”

“Tee-Vee?”

“...Another time,” Sunset promised. “I just don’t know what we’d look for! All the buildings look about as likely as any of the others. I mean, I don’t know what sort of place would build a time-stopping device. And it wouldn’t even need to be in town! Like I said before, it’s probably covering the whole planet. And the city is driving me crazy! It’s just so-- so--!”

“Quiet.”

“Yeah.”

“No, be quiet,” Trixie said urgently. “Trixie heard something!”

Sunset fell silent. “I don’t hear it,” she said after several seconds.

“There was a crash,” Trixie insisted, turning to face across the street.

Sunset frowned. “If you’re right,” she said slowly, “that could mean…”

“We’re not here alone,” Trixie said, hurrying across the street, leaving Sunset to race after her.

“Trixie! You can’t just dive in half-cocked like that! Whoever you heard, they might be dangerous! They might be the ones who stopped time! Who knows what they’re capable of?”

“Pah!” Trixie said archly. “You can bend fire and chaos to your command, and Trixie is a master of prestidigitation! She would like to see the foe that could withstand our combined might!”

“Actually, I don’t think you would,” Sunset said as Trixie pushed open a door.

The two mares walked into a curio shop. It was dimly lit and dusty, with shelves full of glass animals that glinted in the frozen sunlight and books that leaned against one another in a barely-functional system of supports. The shopkeeper, an older she-camel with large tortoiseshell glasses, was frozen mid-glare at a hapless customer who had just knocked a large steamer trunk off a table.Trixie circled the trunk, fascinated. It had stopped in the middle of its fall, and hovered in midair.

Sunset looked around. “I don’t see anything that looks like it was disturbed,” she said. “Then again, in this pigsty, I don’t know if I could tell the difference.”

“It’s like Trixie is walking around in a photograph,” Trixie marvelled. “Everything is frozen…”

She reached out a hoof to rub the side of the steamer trunk. No sooner had she touched it, though, than gravity seemed to get right back to work. Trixie squealed and jumped back as the trunk hit the ground with a heavy thump.

Sunset spun around. “Trixie, what did you do?”

“Trixie just touched it! She didn’t know that would do anything!”

Sunset glanced around. “If whoever was in here earlier is still around, they know we’re here. C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

Trixie pushed open the door and both mares hurried into the silent street once more, weaving through the mob of petrified pedestrians, only stopping after they had run three blocks.

Sunset stopped to lean up against the front of a barbershop, and Trixie, after a moment, stopped and trotted back to join her. “The Contrite and Regretful Trixie wishes to say that she had no idea that would happen.”

Sunset nodded. “I know,” she said through deep breaths. “It’s alright, Trixie.”

After a moment spent regaining her breath, Sunset glanced up thoughtfully. “Actually, it’s probably just as well you knocked that trunk down. At least now we know how we can affect things in here. That might actually give us some kind of clue as to what’s going on here.”

“Oh,” Trixie said. “Good.”

Sunset glanced around. “Better yet…” she reached out to touch a nearby stallion’s hoof.

He jerked to life, setting his hoof down before becoming cognizant of somepony touching him. He stared at Sunset, surprised. “Um… can I help you?”

“We need to know what just happened,” Sunset said urgently. “What do you remember doing right before I touched you?”

He blinked. “Er, nothing much. Walking. What’s this all about? And--” he turned. “Why is it so quiet? Why is everypony frozen?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Sunset said quickly. “Please, if you can tell us anything at all--”

“What’s going on? Oh Celestia, are they even alive? What did you do to them?”

Sunset blinked. “Hey, we know about as much as you do!” she defended.

Unfortunately, the stallion was too high-strung to feel reason. He lifted a hoof to strike her, or perhaps he was merely rearing up to run away.

Trixie, though, was faster. She tackled Sunset to the ground, knocking her out of harm’s way, and both mares landed painfully on the pavement.

Sunset scrambled to her hooves. “Sir? Sir! Are you--” she stopped. The stallion was frozen again, rearing up in the air. His face was a mask of raw panic.

Trixie stood up as well, dusting off her cloak. “Perhaps you should try somepony else?”

Sunset shook her head. “I can’t imagine they’d react any better. Um, thanks, Trixie.”

Trixie nodded. “He didn’t feel anything different?” she said.

Sunset shrugged. “Dunno. I didn’t think to read his mind while I was touching him. Wish I had…”

Trixie thought about that for a moment. “Trixie thinks she has an idea…”

Sunset cringed. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“Oh, hush. Trixie has excellent ideas. Now, this is what we’re going to do…”

***

Crystal Goblet had been hurrying to market to buy herself some lettuce for the lunch date she had agreed to have with her friend Coffee Kettle. She had made the sandwiches, prepared the lemonade, even made some nice gelatin shapes for a dessert. But when she went to toss the salad, she was horrified to find that her nice leafy greens had wilted.

So she had run out of her apartment, and now she was panicking about whether she had left the door unlocked whilst already busily panicking about the salad.

In a way, therefore, it was actually rather a relief to be bowled over by a unicorn mare and pinned to the ground. It quite made her forget all her other concerns. “Trixie has got her!” the mare shouted. “Quickly, Sunset! Before she escapes!”

Suddenly, another mare came into view, this one leaning over her head. Her mane looked like fire. She gave Crystal an apologetic smile. “I’m really sorry about this,” she said. “On the bright side, this won’t take any time at all.”

Crystal opened her mouth to ask what this strange unicorn was talking about and why this other unicorn had pinned her to the street, and if she knew that she was on fire at all, but the mare reached out a hoof and tapped her on the nose.

The mare’s eyes burned white, white like solar fire, white like lightning strikes, white like Crystal’s mind as a force washed through it, picking at this and that but moving nothing, as careful as it was powerful.

And then it was over, and Crystal was left blinking in the light of day. The fiery mare smiled down at her sheepishly. “Sorry about that. I only looked at the surface stuff. Um, I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

“Well?” said the other mare, releasing Crystal. “Did you find anything?”

Crystal tried to say something, anything, to find out what in the world was going on, but when the blue mare got off of her, then suddenly

***

Sunset cast a last glance at the mare, frozen in time as she hauled herself upright, then shook her head. “Nothing. She was going to the market to buy lettuce, and then you tackled her. Nothing else.”

“Hey, you agreed to Trixie’s plan!”

“Yeah, because I thought you were gonna stop her and distract her, not bodyslam her!”

“There is very little that is more distracting than a bodyslam,” Trixie said primly. “You would be amazed that the tricks that Trixie has been able to perform just by bodyslamming a pony at just the right moment.”

“I’m sure.” Sunset let out a frustrated huff. “I’m sorry. I’m just really annoyed, and you’re the only one around I can vent at.”

Trixie shrugged. “Eh. Trixie is used to it.”

Sunset frowned. “Really? I thought Twilight would treat her assistants better than that.”

“No, not Twilight.”

“Then--”

“Trixie would like to get some lunch.”

Sunset blinked at the abrupt non sequitur. “Oh! Um, alright. I’m not actually that hungry right now.” She watched Trixie closely. She didn’t need to read the other mare’s mind to know that something was on it, and the illusionist didn’t feel like sharing. “Would it be cool with you if I went back to the TARDIS while you ate? I’ve got an idea I’d like to check out.”

Trixie nodded, glancing around. “Did you see any hayburger joints around here?”

“There was a diner a couple blocks back,” Sunset replied. “You can pay, right?”

“Of course Trixie can pay! She’ll leave the bits on the counter.”

“Okay. I’ll meet you there after I finish in the TARDIS,” Sunset promised, spreading her wings and soaring back the way they’d come. Only after she was several blocks away did she stop and remember the noise that Trixie had heard earlier, and the possibility that there was some other being moving around in this frozen city with them.

She dismissed the thought quickly. She was letting the dead silence of the frozen city make her skittish. Trixie had probably been letting her nerves get the better of her as well. Who would be wandering around a city frozen in time?

Sunset’s mouth tightened. Okay, her theory about what had stopped the clocks could wait until later. First thing she was going to do when she got back to the TARDIS was run a scan on all the life signs in the city.

She went into a dive down into the alleyway.

***

Trixie, meanwhile, had managed to locate the diner Sunset had suggested. It was quiet. Well, obviously it was quiet, everypony was frozen. But there weren’t many diners in the restaurant.

She considered the jukebox for a moment. Would it be worth it to keep one hoof on it all the time while she was eating? She reached out and touched it.

“--s new, Pussycat, whoa-o-o-o-o-oah!”

She withdrew her hoof. “Nope,” she said to nopony in particular. “Not worth it.”

She went to sit at the counter instead, pulling a menu out of the rack by the door. She perused it idly, looking for something that would catch her eye. Then she remembered that she would have to go back into the kitchen and swipe a burger off the grill if she wanted anything to eat, because if she waited for a server to come and take her order, she would be waiting for a very very long time.
She sighed. Well, she could at least work out what she wanted to swipe, and how much it would cost her. She glanced around the restaurant again and noticed for the first time a burly pegasus angrily pointing at his date, apparently yelling at the smaller stallion.

Trixie considered that for a moment. Then, she levitated a bottle of ketchup over his head and squeezed. The condiment bubbled out, forming a thick, frozen cloud over the yelling pegasus’ head. Trixie smiled. One more reason to undo whatever had stopped time in this city, she supposed.

That’s when she heard it. A clatter from the kitchen, like somepony had knocked into a pile of pots and pans.

Trixie stood very still, not even daring to turn around. Despite what she had told Sunset earlier, she was very afraid of whatever might be walking around the frozen city with them. But she screwed up her courage and snuck over to the kitchen door. She peered around the side. She could see nothing, nothing, nothing… nothing that wasn’t trapped in time, that is. A cook flipped a burger in midair, watching the patty as it remained trapped in mid-fall. A drop from the milkshake machine hung suspended in midair. Slowly, Trixie peered around the edge of the counter. She saw a flash of light, and then she knew no more.

***

Sunset pored over the screen. It seemed to be taking an awfully long time to run. She had asked the TARDIS how to scan for signs of life, but the craft had seemed oddly unwilling to talk to her. Eventually, she had gotten the information she needed, though the ship still seemed unwilling to cooperate. Sunset frowned and tapped on the glass.

For some reason, that appeared to solve whatever problem the TARDIS was having. Hopefully, the stopped time wasn’t somehow affecting its systems, because Sunset had no idea how to repair it.

She looked at the readout of life signs and did a double-take. There were no little dots signaling heartbeats, or anything like that. Instead, there was a pair of squiggled lines, sometimes running parallel to each other, sometimes diverging. And then it flickered, and a set of dots appeared. And then it flickered, and another set of dots appeared. And then it flickered again, and Sunset was looking at the two lines again. Sunset growled and smacked the console. “Alright, fine. Be that way. How do I search for time anomalies?”
No reply. She touched the console and focused. It had been an accident, the first time. She had touched the console, and seen another mind. Not for long, and not much-- thankfully, actually, because even the mind of a draconequus could only handle so much information at once. But there was another mind there, one she could read if she only tried hard enough. Tell me how I can find the information I need, she said.

She opened her eyes, and white light shone out. And the TARDIS grumbled and snarled at the invasion, but it told her what she wanted to know. Sunset nodded and withdrew herself from the timeship’s mind.

Barely even stopping to process what she was doing, she manipulated the scanner and waited for it to scan. Much to her surprise, this time the results came back almost immediately. However, they were still a little… unexpected. For one thing, the TARDIS apparently counted itself as an anomaly, as well as Sunset. There was a dot representing the two ponies they had stopped on the street earlier, and another dot that lit the curio shop. There were several in the diner, which Sunset suspected must have been caused by Trixie wandering around.

She shook her head. “I don’t get it,” she muttered. “If I’m looking at this right, the only thing that’s happened here is the TARDIS arriving.”

She sighed. “I’ll just go over to the diner. Maybe Trixie’s found something. Or at least found a good burger.” She trotted out the doors again, and they slammed behind her.

“Jeez, testy,” she muttered, spreading her wings and taking off.

***

She swooped in for a landing at the diner some time later. It felt like the trip had been much shorter than it should’ve been, actually. She pushed open the diner door and walked in. No Trixie.

Sunset frowned. “Hey!” she called. “The TARDIS was a wash. I couldn’t find anything out.”

She let the door hang open behind her-- without her touching it, it wouldn’t close again. “Trixie? Are you in here? I told you I would come meet you here.”

She glanced behind the counter and her heart stopped. A pale blue hoof stuck out from inside the kitchen. Sunset tripped over herself racing to Trixie’s side. The magician lay facedown on the floor, her eyes shut and her tongue lolling. “Oh man, oh man, oh man,” Sunset muttered.

She put a hoof to Trixie’s jugular. There was a pulse, strong and normal. Sunset let out a sigh of relief. Just unconscious, then. She tried to remember what she had learned back at Canterlot High-- there had been a lesson about this in lifeguard training, right? No, that was CPR. Trixie wasn’t choking. Okay, fine, plan B.

She rolled Trixie onto her back, straddled the magician’s barrel, and slapped her for six right across the face. That woke her up in a hurry. “OW!” Trixie glared at Sunset, massaging her jaw. “What was that for?”

“You were out cold,” Sunset pointed out.

“Yeah? Well, Trixie would’ve taken that over what you did!” She tried to sit up, and Sunset quickly scooted off her.

“Well, I’m sorry,” Sunset said. “What would you have wanted me to do to wake you up, kiss you like Sleeping Beauty?”

Trixie considered this. “Well…”

“Oh, come on, that would’ve been so creepy! I always hated that story. And freakin’ Snow White, don’t get me started…”

“Trixie still would have taken a kiss over a slap.”

Sunset sighed. “Fine. Next time you’ve been knocked out cold, I’ll give you a kiss and we can ride off and live happily ever after or whatever. Happy?”

“No! My jaw still hurts.”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “So, what knocked you out?”

Trixie’s eyes went wide and she grabbed Sunset’s arm. “The things!”

“The… things,” Sunset repeated.

“The ones that are walking around in here! Trixie heard them knock over a bunch of plates or something, and when she went to investigate, they knocked Trixie out!”

Sunset’s pulse quickened. “So they do exist,” she muttered. “The TARDIS must be acting wonky. What did they look like?”

“Trixie did not actually see them,” Trixie admitted. “There was a flash of light, and the next thing she remembers is your hoof cracking her jaw!”

“Oh for-- how many times do I have to apologize?” Sunset demanded.

“When the pain stops,” Trixie retorted.

Sunset sighed. “So, fine. There was somepony in here, they knocked over a stack of plates or something, and then knocked you out when you came to investigate. Let’s try and find the stack of plates and see if that gives us any clues.”

They looked all over the kitchen, doing their best to skirt around the cooks. They checked the counters, the cabinets, the floors-- nowhere was a plate, pot, or pan out of place. “Maybe they put them all back,” Trixie suggested.

“Why?”

“To cover their tracks, of course.”

“But you already saw them-- heard them, so what good would that do?”

“Likely, it was meant to make Trixie doubt herself!” She paused and looked at Sunset. “Or to make you doubt Trixie.”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you, Trixie,” Sunset began.

“Oh, save it,” Trixie snapped. “You were not here! You did not hear what Trixie heard! You were not the one who was knocked out!”

As she spoke, Trixie only grew more animated and agitated. As if to punctuate her last sentence, one of her shaking hooves struck a dirty soup pot, sending it and the spoons inside crashing to the floor.

Both mares stared at it, shocked into silence. “Trixie--” Sunset began.

“Trixie is sorry!” Trixie said. “Trixie didn’t mean to do that!”

“I… I know you didn’t,” Sunset said, confused. “It was an accident. You might want to try and reign in your temper a little, but it’s fine.”

Trixie struggled for a moment, then nodded. “Trixie… is sorry she lost her temper.”

“It’s cool. Happens to me all the time,” Sunset said. “C’mon, grab a paper towel or something so we can clean the floor off.”

Trixie nodded. “...Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Understanding.”

Sunset frowned, but nodded. “Yeah, it’s cool. Uh, is this related to what you were saying earlier?”

Trixie didn’t say anything. For a moment, Sunset considered just reaching out a hoof and taking the story right out of the magician’s head. She pulled her hooves in toward her own body, as if jerking them away from a hot stove.

Trixie gave her an odd look. “What?”

“Uh, cramp,” Sunset said. “Always stretch before slapping somepony across the face.”

“Serves you right,” Trixie said with a sniff. “Next time--”

“--s new, Pussycat, whoa-o-o-o-o-oah!”

Both mares froze, staring into one another’s eyes. “You heard that, right?” Trixie whispered.

Sunset nodded, held a hoof to her mouth to signal silence. From just outside the door, they both heard the faint sound of hooves on tile. Sunset charged up her horn with a knockout spell. If they were going to do it to Trixie, she had no compunctions about giving these whoever-they-weres a taste of their own medicine.

She saw the whites of a pair of round eyes peering round the corner of the counter, and she let loose.

“No!” Trixie yelled, but it was too late. Sunset blinked the afterimage spots out of her eyes and saw Trixie at the end of the counter, standing over the prone form of… Trixie.

Sunset’s jaw dropped. “What…”

Trixie scowled at her. “You-- you-- you blockhead! You knocked Trixie out, and then smacked her to wake her up! Is there no limit? Is there no end to your attacks on Trixie?”

“Trixie. I think that that might, just maybe, not be quite the most pressing concern right now,” Sunset said, her voice a register higher than normal.

Trixie scowled down at her own unconscious body on the floor. “Fine. But Trixie will have words about this later, Shimmer.”

“Good for you!” Sunset sighed and buried her head in her hooves. “Ugh. Okay. Clearly this is some kind of time loop, right?”

Trixie cocked her head. “Eh?”

“Somehow, we wound up in our own past. That’s why things are happening over again! Okay, great. That means we have to clean up this mess and get back to the TARDIS before it starts again and things get even weirder.”

“Fine.” Trixie looked up. “Uh, what mess?”

“The pot that you… knocked over…” Sunset trailed off. There was no pot lying on the floor. There were no droplets of soup. The pot, spoon, and lid, were all sitting on the counter once more, as though they had never left.

Sunset pointed at it. “See? SEE? Even weirder!” She rubbed her head. “And I don’t see how a time loop enters into it now…”

“--s new, Pussycat, whoa-o-o-o-o-oah!”

Both mares jumped. Trixie peered out around the side of the door. “Trixie sees nopony,” she reported. Then she glanced the other way. “Hey! Where did Trixie’s ketchup go?”

“Your what?”

Trixie sighed. “Some pegasus was throwing a fit at his companion, so Trixie upended a bottle of ketchup over his head.”

“I--” Sunset drew in a breath. “Setting aside the question of whether or not that was a good idea, it isn’t there now?”

“No,” Trixie said, looking back at Sunset. “It is most peculiar. Trixie definitely did that before you knocked her unconscious.”

Sunset ignored the jab and joined Trixie. “Well, if that’s not ketchup, what is it?”

Trixie glanced at the angry pegasus again and did a double take. “That was not there a moment ago!”

“You sure?”

“Trixie is a master of observation!”

“Hmm.”

“Do you doubt--”

“No, not at all. I’ve got an idea, actually. Look at the jukebox.”

“Why?”

“Just… look at it.”

“Fine. What about it?”

“The lights on it change color. I noticed it flashing on the wall when it played both times.”

“And?”

“Are the lights like they were before you touched it, or after?”

Trixie considered that for a long moment. “After.”

“Okay. Good. Now, blink.”

There was a pause. “What the hay?” Trixie said. “The lights changed!”

“And the ketchup is gone,” Sunset mused. “Interesting.”

“Trixie doesn’t understand.”

“I think I’m beginning to,” Sunset said. “We’re stuck in a single moment. Everything is meant to stay frozen. Whenever we touch something, that changes. Time, or whatever force, can’t keep up. It’s a perfect example of the Haysenberg Uncertainty Principle!”

Trixie blinked. “Come again?”

“It doesn’t know whether it should act like we were never here, or if it should change,” Sunset explained. “So it just keeps shifting, over and over again, playing through the time they experienced when we touched them.”

Trixie considered that. “So all the noises we heard-- were us?”

“Yeah, pretty much. The thud you heard in that shop must’ve been when you knocked over that trunk, and the crash you heard here was the pot you punched.”

“And Trixie investigated that, and you shot her.”

“...Which is something of a problem, actually,” Sunset said, her brow creasing.

“Gee, you don't say.”

"No, see, we're part of this now. We need to leave before all of this gets any weirder, okay?"

"But what about everypony else? Surely we can't just leave them."

"That's the thing. I think that we caused this when we arrived. Or, well, not caused, exactly. If I understood the TARDIS right earlier, we're caught in between moments, and I think it's because I screwed up. I double-parked us on a cosmic scale."

"Trixie doesn't understand half of what you said, but it sounds really smart."

"...Yes. It was. Very smart. Come on, before we run into ourselves."

"What happens if we do that?"

"Well, we might blow up the universe, but we'll definitely have to talk to ourselves. I'm not ready for that, are you?"

Trixie cocked her head. "Hey, Sunset?"

"Yeah?"

"If Trixie made out with her future self, would it be--"

"Please stop speaking."

***

"Okay," Sunset said, turning down the alley. "We parked down this one, right? Okay, there it is."

Trixie trotted after Sunset. "Right. I just have to back out a little and pull in again," Sunset muttered as they approached the box. "No problem, right?"

"Sure," Trixie said. Then, she stopped. "What was that?"

"What was what?" Sunset asked, turning around just as the smoke bomb hit the ground.

"Ugh!"

"Hey!"

Sunset flapped her wings, beating the smoke away just in time to see two figures opening the TARDIS door. Her future self glanced back and blew a kiss before slipping through the doors and slamming them shut. "No!" Sunset roared, running for the box.

But she was too late. With a grinding wheeze, the TARDIS began to fade into nothing. She threw herself at it with a scream, but passed through, continuing headlong into a pile of cardboard boxes on the other side. The screeching sound faded into nothing. Trixie made her way out of the cloud of smoke and made her way over to Sunset. "Are you okay?"

Sunset threw back her head and screamed every obscenity she could think of.

***

It was quite dark in the alley. Fortunately, considering that Sunset was basically made of fire, that wasn’t much of an obstacle, and from her position sitting on top of a dumpster, she illuminated the whole narrow street. Unfortunately, nothing that Sunset could say or do could stop Trixie from swooping from doorway to doorway with her cloak swooshing about. She probably thought it made her look dashing. Really, she looked like a deranged wannabe Batmare, albeit in a rather endearing way.

However, after what felt like several minutes of putting up with Trixie’s shenanigans, Sunset conjured a barrier for the magician to smack into. Trixie fell on her flank. "Hey!"

"Let me sulk in peace, why can't you?"

"Trixie thinks you're taking this way out of proportion. We know we'll get out. We saw ourselves get in the TARDIS and fly away. We can wait until time loops around again."

"But how long will it take?" Sunset asked, flopping onto her back. "I don't know! Time doesn't seem to mean anything here, anyway."

There was a moment of silence, and then Trixie hopped up on the dumpster to sit next to her. "Tell Trixie what's really bothering you," she said.

Sunset let out a long sigh. "I don't like not being in control," she admitted. "Here, I can't do anything. I can't change anything. Everything is predestined, and I can't stop it or change it or even leave until it's time to leave."

"Uh-huh," Trixie said. Sunset peeked one eye open. To her surprise, the magician actually seemed to be listening. "Go on," she encouraged.

"Well," Sunset said slowly, "growing up in the castle was like that sometimes. I always had to keep to a schedule, and go where I had to when I had to. And when your adoptive mom is the Sun Princess, that means that you have to go to a lot of boring, stuffy parties, and sometimes you're stuck in your room all alone because mom's at a summit with the mountain goats. And then, when I was about sixteen, I found out that she'd been keeping information from me. Guiding me along a path without telling me, molding me into something and keeping me from what I really thought was my destiny."

"So you left."

"I was sixteen years old and I just had a fight with my mom. Of course I left. And then I found out that I couldn't actually get back through the mirror portal. So I freaked. Again, of course. And then my hormones got screwed up because I was going through puberty again and I was a different species, which was how I got the genius idea of marching on Equestria with a legion of brainwashed high schoolers."

"Wow."

"Yeah, I know. I'm messed up."

"Trixie went through something similar."

Sunset looked up at her. "Yeah?"

Trixie nodded. "Trixie was always the overlooked child. In many ways, she was freer than you. She could come and go as she wished. But her parents cared not at all about her safety, and her brother took advantage of that."

"What do you..."

Trixie pushed back the fur on her foreleg. It was crossed with scars. "He was a summoner. Gifted. He needed blood, and Trixie was an available source."

Sunset covered her mouth, horrified. "Sweet chaos. I'm sorry." She let herself fall against the lid of the dumpster. "You must think I'm such a spoiled brat."

"Please, you grew up in a castle. It was never in question." There was a moment's silence. "But Trixie feels bad for you, too."

"You do?"

"We aren't so different," Trixie said. "Great magical prodigies, defined by limitations, took a course of vengeance against the world until we actually made some decent relationships."

Sunset smiled. "Well, when you put it that way..."

Trixie extended a hoof, and Sunset gripped it tight. They sat like that for several seconds. "You do realize that Trixie is trying to help you up, yes?"

"Oh." Sunset scrambled upright. "Sorry."

"Trixie does not mind. It is not often that she gets to hold hooves with such a lovely mare."

"Uh, thanks."

Silence fell again, but it was much more comfortable now. After several minutes passed, Sunset sighed. “This is stupid. We’re gonna just sit her forever.”

“What do you suggest we do instead?”

“I don’t know. We could get closer to where the TARDIS will be and wait there.”

Trixie got to her hooves. “Very well. A walk will do Trixie good.”

“You know,” Trixie continued as they walked down the alley. “Something occurs to Trixie.”

“Hm?”

“We saw our future selves run down this alley and get into the TARDIS, yes?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“We are now walking down this alley. In the future, relative to our earlier selves.”

Sunset stopped dead in her tracks. “Trixie?”

“Yes?”

“I’m a Chaos-damn moron.”

“Ha! Yeah.”

Sunset broke into a gallop. “I see it!” she shouted. “Come on!”

“Wait!”

Sunset skidded to a halt. “What?”

“We need to watch us get into the TARDIS, because that's what we... did already.” Trixie frowned. “Trixie does not like the problems that this causes with her grammar.”

“Oh, sure, talking in the third person is fine, but this…”

Sunset trailed off as the TARDIS doors swung open. “Rut. Get dow-- whoa!”

Trixie had already grabbed her and yanked her down behind a bin, causing the lid to clatter. “Who is it?” she hissed.

Sunset peered around into the alley and saw herself glancing down the alley. “Me,” she whispered. “Just, just wait a minute. She’ll go in three… two…”

The earlier Sunset shook her head, spread her wings, and took off into the frozen sky. “Phew. Good call, Trixie.”

Trixie smirked. “Thank you.”

“Y’know, I think we actually make a pretty good team when we aren’t arguing,” Sunset said, rising to her hooves.

“Trixie agrees. You aren’t as terrible as Trixie originally supposed, Shimmer.”

Sunset sighed. She would let it slide. “You aren’t so bad yourself, Trixie. Hold it-- We're coming down the alley. Smoke bomb?”

Trixie pulled something small and oblong from beneath her cloak and hurled it at their earlier selves. Sunset watched herself turn around just as the smoke bomb landed. "Okay, go-go-go-go-go," she chanted, hopping to her hooves and dashing for the TARDIS.

She opened the door, but paused on the threshold. She turned to see her earlier self standing in the cloud of smoke, enraged. Sunset smirked, blew herself a little kiss, and trotted into the TARDIS, slamming the door behind her.

"Okay, time to take off!"

Trixie threw the switch. They heard the howls of the Sunset outside, followed by a crashing noise. Then there was silence, save the hum of the ship.

Sunset leaned against the door, laughing weakly. "That," she said, holding up a hoof, "was way more fun on the other side of the equation."

Trixie grinned. "Right? The look on your face..."

Sunset sighed and let herself slip to the ground, still giggling. Trixie stepped away from the console. "Here. Trixie thinks you can take over now."

Sunset lifted her head. "Oh, hey. Thanks," she said, getting back on her hooves. "Okay, I'm pretty sure I know where I went wrong. I just need to--"

She paused and looked at Trixie. She had sat down in the corner again. She looked bored, and a little sad. Sunset sighed. "Hey, Trixie?"

"Yeah?"

"You wanna help me pilot this thing? I bet together, we can get back home."

Trixie glanced up in surprise. Then, she smiled. "Sure. Together."

Trixie trotted to the console opposite Sunset as she finished setting the coordinates. "Okay. Ready?"

In answer, Trixie grinned and pulled down on a lever. The TARDIS groaned and flew off through the vortex to her next port of call.

Gold Fever

In the high, snowy mountains of Griffonstone, the Blood Claw watched the world below. They sharpened their talons and spoke in hushed voices of the prisoners who had arrived in the night. Some claimed that they were traitors, or spies. Others murmured that they were a pack of marauders. Some few even claimed that the resistance had captured the Witch Under the Mountain and her beast, but those few were quickly scoffed out of the room.

In her own quarters overlooking the western face of the mountain, their general sat staring out of her window. She was not officially their general, of course. This revolution was no army, and there were no leaders. None of the others would have stood to be an underling. It was the cat in them showing through. But the general was respected. She was the best non-leader any of them had never had.

There was a knock at the door. “It’s not locked,” she grumbled.

The door opened to reveal a griffon matron with pink-streaked feathers. She was built like a Valkyerie, and had a voice to match. “Hell-oo!” she called, causing the rafters to shake. “I’ve brought your lunch, dearie!”

“Hm,” said the general, taking her claws out of her ears. “Cool. Put it on the table, Glinda. Uh, thanks.”

“Oh, not at all,” Glinda cooed. “Let me just pour you a little tea.”

“Great, great. Shut the door, will ya? You’re letting the heat out.”

Glinda did as she was told, humming happily. “There’s nogriff around that can hear us now,” she said, mildly admonishing.

The general smiled and got up from her seat. “Yeah, I guess not,” she said. “Okay, Glinda. What’s the dirty?”

“Discussion of an attack on Budgiepest tomorrow,” Glinda said, setting out a pair of cups. “There are more than a few dissenting voices, of course."

"Of course there are."

"More than a few dissenters against you as well."

"Like I said, of course there are. What're they saying this week?"

Glinda scratched her chin. "Well, you know. They're wondering about your chosen spoils of conquest. They'd understand gold and jewels, or prisoners and concubines, things like that. But books..."

The general glanced back. The walls of her quarters were heavy with leather tomes and vellum scrolls. “Look, if they can make sure that all of these ancient and delicate relics that make up the history and culture of all griffonkind are gonna survive the revolution, then I won't bother with them. Until then, they’re mine.”

“You don’t have to tell me, dear.”

“Hrm. Yeah. My bad.” The general stirred her tea, brooding. "Alright, what else?"

"Two more griffons have fallen ill."

"Damn. Same as the others?"

"It seems so."

"Shit. Where's a doctor when you need one?"

"Enjoying the relative benefits of the upper crust of our society, most likely."

"Yeah, less of the sass, Glinda. You're my spy, not my chief color commentator."

"Yes, general."

“What about the prisoners?”

“What about the prisoners, dear?”

“They escaped. Twice. We’ve only had them for a day.”

“They’re under stricter guard, now.”

“The last two were built like stone statues! How much tougher can you get?”

“We sent Gabby.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’d do it. ‘Why are you leaving? Don’t you want to stay with me?’ I mean, those big eyes should be illegal.”

“They want to talk to you.”

“Me?”

“Somegriff in charge, at least. You’ve spent the most time with ponies. I thought you would be the best choice.”

The general groaned and sat back. “Ugh. I can just imagine one of the others trying to do it. Yeah, alright, I’ll do it when I’m free.”

Glinda smiled. “And isn’t it a lucky thing that you’re free right now?”

The general almost spat her tea back into its mug. “Glinda. Where are the prisoners?”

Glinda's smile widened. “Right outside the door.”

She thumped the table. “Dammit, you said there was no one around!”

“Nogriff, dear. I said nogriff,” Glinda replied, rising to open the door again.

Chained to a bar on the other side of the hallway were two ponies. Their horns were capped, and the one with wings had them bound to her sides with more iron chains. Both of their mouths were tied shut with rope which one of them was attempting to chew through. The other one, the one with wings, seemed content to just glare bloody murder at her captors. The general sighed. “Okay, fine. Help me bring them in.”

She stepped out into the corridor and started untying the ropes around their mouths. “Hi,” she said. “Sorry about the misunderstanding. My chief of espionage is a little enthusiastic.”

As soon as she had gotten the rope off of the orange one’s mouth, the mare started shouting. “Who are you griffons? What do you want with us? I’m the student of Celestia herself, and I could blow the top off this mount-urk!”

The last was because the general had wrapped her talons around her mouth and gripped. “Don’t even think about it. You like tea?”

The orange one hesitated, but the blue one nodded enthusiastically. “Great. I’m Gilda. Welcome to the rebellion.”

***

Gilda was a little surprised that her reputation had preceded her. Apparently, both of these ponies knew Rainbow Dash pretty well. Trixie had started chattering away almost the moment her gag had been cut off, but Sunset remained staring at her broodingly over her tea.

Both of them were giving her a headache the size of a beach ball. After enduring perhaps five minutes, she slammed a claw on the table. “Alright, that’s enough,” she snarled. “I’m in charge, you’re trespassing. Give me one good reason that I shouldn’t lock you up.”

“If you let us go, you’ll never see us again,” Sunset said.

Gilda snorted. “How ‘bout I keep you where I can see you? No. You’re a threat to the revolution. I don’t care why you came here, or what you want. If I let you go, this whole thing will fall apart.”

Sunset blinked. “...What revolution?”

Trixie and Gilda stared at her. “You can’t be serious,” Gilda said.

“Sunset has been in another world for the last decade, at least,” Trixie defended. “She only got back last week.”

“Seriously, what revolution?” Sunset repeated.

“The Blood Claw cultural revolution, duh,” Gilda said.

Sunset gawked. "Blood. Claw."

"Ugh. You ponies, always getting hung up on the 'blood' thing," Gilda grumbled. "FYI, Miss Prudish, it's because we're revitalizing this country. Putting the blood back into it!"

“Griffonstan has been in decline--”

“Hey! Miss Magician! My country, my revolution, my explanation. Geddit?”

Trixie huffed. “Trixie will allow it.”

Gilda glared. “Again. My revolution.”

She turned to Sunset. “So, basically, Griffonstan is in the toilet. Has been ever since we lost the Idol of Boreas, and it’s just been getting worse. Our economy is trash, our culture barely exists, and we’ve been ruled by bureaucrats ever since the last king died and nogriff could be bothered to appoint a new one.”

“...Wow.”

“Yeah. ‘Wow’ is the word,” Gilda said. “Worst of all, we grew up on this stuff. Thought it was normal. Then some of us went to Equestria and found out what an actual working government is like.”

“Oh,” said Sunset. “So you’re introducing friendship to Griffonstan?”

“What? No! You think we don’t know what friendship is just because we’re not ponies or something?”

Trixie clucked. “Racist.”

“What? I--” Sunset’s face fell. “Yeah, I guess it was. Sorry.”

Gilda clutched the bridge of her beak. “Let's get one thing straight.”

“Trixie isn't,” Trixie quipped. She then reeled back under the force of the griffon’s glower. “Trixie will be quiet now.”

“We don't want Griffonstan to be Equestria the Second,” Gilda ground out. “We’re not ponies, and we never will be ponies. Your whole culture is built around friendship and being nice and stuff, but ours is based on personal glory. Cunning, bravery, individual strength. But…” she deflated slightly.

“But that's gone too far,” Sunset said.

Gilda nodded. “Yeah. We're all isolated from each other, only thinking about ourselves. That's not brave, or smart, or strong. It's just selfish. And stupid.”

She turned and stared over the cliffs to see Griffonstone. “It used to be so great,” she said quietly. “I’ve read a lot of history books about it. There aren't that many that go so far back, but I found them. Weren't exactly pricey. Nogriff wanted them but me. Plus, I looted a lot of them from the ass-crack of a bunch of closed museums. Had to pitch the really moldy ones, but I got a pretty good selection.” She waved a talon at the walls of bookshelves.

She pointed to a viaduct that stretched around the western rim of the city. “That used to be the Way of Gordon. All covered in gold and jewels, spoils of war. The last of it was pulled off about a century ago. Not for any reason, either. No war, no disaster. Nogriff actually needed it. They just wanted it. For themselves. And sometimes you just…” she shook her head. “Dunno. I just dunno.”

Both mares were silent. “Okay,” Sunset said. “Great. I’m glad for you. But we really need to just… get back to Ponyville? Can you please just point us to the nearest train station, and leave the rest to us?”

Gilda shook her head. “You really don’t get it, do you?” she said. “I can’t let you go. If I let you go, then I show weakness, and I don’t get any respect. I was one of the founders of this revolution. If I’m out, this whole thing will fall apart, and everything goes back to being garbage. You’re stuck here until you can prove you’re on our side.”

Sunset folded her hooves. “Can we at least not be put back in those cells? There was ice forming on the ceiling, and it smelled like feet.”

“You’re made of fire, what do you care about the cold?”

“I am, but she’s not. If she’s not literally right next to me, her teeth are chattering like they’re gonna fall out of her head.”

Gilda fixed Trixie with a stare. The magician didn’t meet her eyes. “Huh. Alright, fine, I’ll see about you getting better quarters if you promise not to try and escape again. If you do, you’re going back in those cells, got it?”
“Fair enough,” Sunset said, extending a hoof. They shook on it.

“So,” Trixie said. “If we are to be your guests here indefinitely, then Trixie, for one, would like to know where the dining hall is.”

Gilda grunted. “Yeah, okay. I’ll show you the most important stuff. I gotta go for a walk anyway. I’ve been reading so long, I think my butt shaped itself to the chair. Ha! Guess I’m as much of an egghead as Dash is these days. How’s she doing, anyway? The mail service is pretty bad up here.”

“Well,” Sunset began, “she started dating Applejack, but that’s sort of a secret, so don’t let on that you know…”

As Gilda led them down the hall, none of them noticed the male griffon lurking in the shadows. He turned to watch them. His eyes reflected luminous gold in the dim corridor.

***

“...And in here,” Gilda continued, “we have the hospital wing.”
Sunset looked around, disgusted. “Remind me never to get sick here.”

“Hey!” Gilda glared at her. “We haven’t got any doctors, alright? This was the best we could do.”

Trixie grimaced. “Do you not have any cleaning staff, either?”

“You volunteering?” Gilda demanded.

An elderly griffon cleared his throat and glowered at them all.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry, Gaius!” Gilda cleared her throat and spoke a little more quietly. “Keep it down in here. Patients are trying to sleep.”

“If he’s not a doctor, then who is he?” Sunset asked.

“Caretaker. He cleans up as best he can, feeds the inmates, gets them their medicine.”

“What medicine?”

Gilda shrugged. “Whatever we can steal or make, mostly. We’ve still got a better survival rate up here than any of the towns nearby. Almost forty percent!”

Sunset swallowed hard. “Geez. That’s…”

“Terrible?” Gilda suggested.

“Yeah.”

“Welcome to Griffonstone.”

There was a scuffle near the back of the wing. Trixie glanced around. “What was that?”

“Shit. Gaius, the inmates are getting restless again! Come on, move yer butts.”

“Do the patients usually try and escape?” Sunset asked, trying to get a better vantage.

Gilda picked her up like a football, tucked her under an arm, and walked out. “No. There’s a bug going around that makes griffs go loopy, that’s all.”

Trixie quickly hurried out to avoid meeting the same indignity as Sunset. However, Gilda had made one tactical error. She was holding Sunset so that she was facing back into the room. For just a second, she saw a flurry of beaks and claws behind the curtain, matched with furious glowing golden eyes. And then Gilde turned into the hallway and the sight disappeared from her view.

Sunset was no doctor, but that had looked like a little more than a ‘bug going around’.

***

“Well obviously she was lying,” Trixie said, taking a seat on the bed. “Trixie saw that right away.”

“Then why didn’t you bring it up?”

“When? This is the first time you and Trixie have been alone all day.”

Sunset conceded the point. “Okay, then why?” she asked. “What’s she trying to hide from us?”

“Ah. There, you have Trixie,” she said, belly flopping on the straw mattress. “Mmm. Just like being on the road again.”

“I don’t like this, Trixie.”

“Of course not. Ponies tend to dislike being lied to, unless it is by a qualified stage magician such as myself.”

“Trixie, focus. There are some sick griffons up here, and for all we know, they might be contagious to ponies. We could be in serious trouble, and Gilda isn’t talking.”

Trixie rolled onto her back. “Well, what is it that you are proposing?” she asked.

“We need to go and investigate the hospital wing.”

“And get busted for escaping? We’re prisoners, remember?”

Sunset scowled. “Oh, yeah…”

She sat down heavily next to Trixie, who rolled over to get closer. “Ack! Hey, personal space!”

“Trixie is sorry,” Trixie murmured. “But you’re so warm…”

“Ugh. Fine. But ask next time.”

“Mmkay.”

“Okay, how about this,” Sunset said. “One of us goes to check out the infirmary, and the other one stays here. Neither of us would escape and leave the other behind, right? I bet the griffs know that, too, especially Gilda.”

Trixie considered that. “Very well. Trixie will go forth--”

“No, sorry. I meant I would do that.”

“What? Trixie is more than capable of investigating on her own.”

“Yeah, but if they catch you, then they might throw you back in the cells, and I won’t be there to warm you up.”

“Bold of you to assume that Trixie could ever be caught.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve got less to lose. I don’t feel the cold anymore. Besides, you’re the expert liar. If one of the guards checks in, you can make them think I’ve gone to the bathroom or something.”

Trixie preened. “True, true.”

“So we’re agreed?”

“Fine. But don’t get caught. The blankets in this room are not doing it for Trixie.”

“Glad to know I’d be missed,” Sunset said drily before pushing open the door to their quarters and trotting out into the hallway.

Trixie bit back a curse. Comparing her to a blanket? That was the best she could do? She threw herself back on the bed. She liked Sunset. A lot. She wasn’t going to pretend it was love, exactly. She didn’t even know why she felt this way, but it was a sort of familiarity that might just lead to something more.

So she was wandering after Sunset, powerful, no-nonsense, clever Sunset, with all the affection of a lost puppy and all the tact of a rogue elephant.

Not that it mattered. Sunset would never accept her advances. She didn’t do romance. Not too long ago, the TARDIS had landed them in a bar in the far-distant future, and Sunset had attracted a suitor who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Instead, he took a hoof to the teeth before Sunset picked him up and threw him out the door before sitting down to finish the last of the fried cheese sticks.

That was definitely at least one of the reasons why she might be in love with Sunset. Trixie really liked the idea of a mare who could carry her around in one hoof without breaking a sweat.

***

Sunset trotted down the hall, chuckling softly to herself. A blanket? Sweet chaos, Trixie sure was something. She couldn’t believe that they had managed to mutually put up with each other’s shit for this long without one of them snapping. She was actually starting to find Trixie’s little quirks endearing. Kind of nice, even. She smiled. Maybe this trip wasn’t such a disaster after all. They were becoming friends in a much different-- and undeniably more interesting-- way than they might have back home.

She heard movement from up ahead and pressed herself against the wall. In retrospect, maybe she should’ve let Trixie do this after all. At least she didn’t glow like a beacon in the dark.

Of course, Sunset thought as the steps drew closer, she didn’t have the ability to do this, either. She shut her eyes tight and focused. She had only learned the barest aspect of chaos magic-- Discord wasn’t a teacher by nature. But fire was a natural shape-shifter. She squeezed herself down, willing herself unseeable until she was no bigger than a birthday candle.

As the noises resolved themselves into voices, she flew up to the ceiling, a firefly on the wall.

“Well, like I said,” said one, “I don’t like it.”

“‘Course you don’t. Who does? All around us, griffs going off the deep end for gold.”

“Not that part.”

“You don’t mind that they’re losing their minds?”

“No- Yes- Look, all I’m saying is, it doesn’t seem like a disease to me.”

“I’d say they’re pretty diseased. Remember what Ginerva nearly did to Gallus? Good thing the kid got his bracelet off in time, or he’d have been roast turkey.”

“That’s not what I--” The first speaker stopped, growled. “Look. All I’m saying is, it’s not natural, and if you say one damn thing about the griffon condition I’ll break your face. What I’m saying is, it’s some kinda freaky magic.”

“Freaky magic?”

“Freaky. Magic.”

“Like that little light up there?”

“Huh?”

Sunset shot away before the first griffon could even look up, zooming like an arrow to the far side of the hall. She felt like Tinkerbell, some glowing sprite zipping through the air at speeds to rival Rainbow Dash. Of course, mindful of what had happened to Tinkerbell, she regained her normal size quickly. Sunset had no desire to be trapped in a lantern.

The infirmary was just around the corner now. She peered around the bend. No griffons. Silent as dancing sparks, she slunk down the hall and cracked open the door she wanted.

Gaius the caretaker was still there, snoozing at his desk. Of course, he also happened to be resting his head on a heavy old battleaxe. Sunset slipped into the infirmary, easing the door shut behind her. It closed with a soft click. Gaius stirred in his sleep, but didn’t rise.

She hurried down between the mostly empty hospital beds toward the back of the room, where a curtain had been hung. She put her belly to the ground and wiggled under it like a snake. Never in her life had she been so glad for PE drills. Coach Biceps, I swear when I get home, I’m writing you a thank-you note, she thought.

She pulled herself to her hooves and looked around. Her jaw dropped. Easily two dozen griffons lay in piles of gold. Each of them wore a little box over their eyes, also made of gold. Each of them had little earplugs in. Each of them seemed to be frantically trying to bury themselves in gold. She reached out a hoof, but she suddenly found herself dangling in midair, a talon gripping her mouth shut. “Gotcha,” Glinda whispered in her ear.

***

Trixie lay on the straw mattress, half in a doze, daydreaming about making the Statue of Harmony disappear in front of all of Manehattan. Trixie! Trixie! Trixie! the crowd cheered.

Trixie’s eyes popped open. Trixie! Trixie!

She could still hear it.

She scrambled to her hooves. It was coming from down the hall. Trixie pulled the door open, but hesitated on the threshold. If she left, the room would be unoccupied, and there was a much stronger risk that she, Sunset, or both would end up back in the cells. Trixie! Trixie! Trixie!

On the other hoof, that chanting did sound very urgent, and apparently she was already halfway down the hall anyway, so she might as well go and check it out, right?

There was a golden glow coming from a door down the hallway. Trixie didn’t stop to think about how that was possible when the door was shut tight. Right now, she wasn’t thinking much at all. She pushed open the door. The roar of the crowd answered her. She basked in it, trotting in, letting the door swing shut behind her. It washed over her as she smiled and waved, wading through the hordes of her admirers, making her way to the stage at the center. She winked, and every mare in her field of vision swooned, toppling like dominoes.

After what might as easily have been an hour as five minutes, Trixie arrived onstage. There was a statue sitting there, an ugly little bust of what might have been a griffon, a hippogriff, or a mutated pigeon. She scowled at it. How dare it steal her spotlight? She reached out a hoof to shove it over.

The crowd fell silent. When Trixie looked around, she discovered there was a perfectly good explanation for that. They were gone. The stadium was empty. The silence was deafening.

Trixie took a step forward. It echoed in the hollow space. She turned to look at the bust, and saw now that it was a perfect image of herself. She started to scream.

***

Gilda’s tail lashed. “I left you two alone for one hour,” she ground out. “One. And you manage to break into the hospital wing, and your friend manages to touch the rutting statue that’s been causing all this!”

Sunset didn’t look up. All she could see was Trixie, laughing madly as tears ran out of her golden eyes, running to hug her, begging to put on a show, begging to be loved. Apparently, it hadn’t affected her in the same way it had the griffons. Gabby and Gallus, the one who’d almost died because he’d been wearing gold around a patient, were serving as a temporary audience for her show. “What is it?” she asked.

Gilda sat down heavily. “We’ve been calling it gold fever,” she said reluctantly.

“General,” Glinda warned.

“She already knows most of it, Glinda,” Gilda snapped. “Her friend’s got it.”

She turned back to Sunset. “We don’t know why it happens, exactly. Best we can tell is, it calls to somegriff-- someone. For a minute, it makes all their dreams come true at once. Gets into their brains, digs out what they most crave. All those griffs in there, it was gold. Your pal, I guess, it was attention.”

“Makes sense,” Sunset said. “She went into magic because her parents never paid any attention to her.”

“Sure. Anyway, then they touch the thing. And it all goes poof. Mountains of gold turned to lead in their minds. A crowd turned into an empty arena, as far as we can tell. And they’re still there in their minds, scrounging in the real world for the last drops of whatever they crave.”

Sunset let out a long, shaky breath. “Okay. So how do we stop it?”

Gilda barked a laugh. “You think if I knew, I wouldn't have done it already?” She shook her head. “No. Not a clue.”

Sunset thought about that. “Well, is it mentioned anywhere in those books you recovered?”

Gilda grimaced. “I dunno. I’ve been reading them from cover to cover, but I haven’t found any mention of it. I’ve only made it through maybe a fifth of them, though.”

She waved a talon at a shelf, standing alone in a corner. “Nothing.”

Sunset stood and trotted over to look at the books, levitating them off the shelves. “...This one’s a cookbook. And this is an atlas.”

“Yeah, I know. I read them.”

Sunset stared at Gilda for a long moment, the books still hovering around her. “...You’re exactly as much of an egghead as Rainbow Dash,” she said flatly. “Come here, and let me show you how to catalog a library.”

***

After about twenty minutes of giving the griffons a crash course in basic scholasticism, with particular focus on categorizing books and using indices to search for basic information, Sunset, Gilda, and Glinda had managed to find about twelve books with sections on statues, five with sections on curses, and three with sections on scones that Gilda insisted be put aside for future reference.

They pored over the fourteen tomes they had selected. Sunset insisted they pay especial attention to the three books that had sections on curses and statues both. “Here,” Gilda said at last. “It’s called ‘Tantalus’.”

“Sounds promising,” Sunset said, setting down her own book. “He was from Minoan mythology, a glutton who wound up in his own personal prison in Tartarus. He stood in a pool of water, and a fruit tree dangled over his head. But whenever he reached for either, they shrank away from him.”

“Sucks.”

“Yeah. Question is, why’s he a griffon here?”

Gilda looked over the book. “Huh. Says he led a bunch of campaigns against the minotaurs back before Equestria took up the territory between Minos and Griffonstone.”

“He was real?”

“Looks like. His statue was said to be 'imbued with his desire and tainted by his final loss', whatever that means.”

Sunset flipped through her books. “Ouch. Looks like he fell from glory, hard. His troops threw him out of power, and he spent his last days with nothing but that bust for company.”

“All that is quite lovely, dearies,” Glinda said. “But how do we undo all this?”

Gilda checked her book again. “It says… last time, it was a group of ponies and griffins working together that did it. That’s it.”

Sunset thought for a long minute. “A lot of multi-victim curses can be broken if someone refuses to let it affect them,” she said at last. “Probably, the group was able to beat it because they all wanted different stuff, so they could pull each other back from the edge.”

“Huh,” said Gilda. “Okay.” She stood up. “Let’s go.”

“What, now?”

“Yeah, now. We’ll go, you and me. Glinda, I want you keeping an eye on us. If all else fails, pull us away from the thing.”

The pinkish griffon nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Only two of us, though?” Sunset protested. “More griffons means more minds to please.”

“And more to stop if something appeals to all of them at once,” Gilda snapped. “You and me, dweeb, and if we get out of it with our brains un-fried, I’ll let you and your friend go.”

Sunset stopped. “I thought you couldn’t--”

“Not a lot is gonna prove you’re on our side like stopping this curse,” Gilda said. “Are you in, or out?”

Sunset thought about Trixie, how desperate she’d been, almost drooling whenever anyone so much as looked at her. “I’m in.”

***

“Uh,” said Gilda. “Turn on! Activate!” She scowled and prodded the pedestal. “Do something, ya ugly chunk of metal.”

Glinda stood in the hall outside, ready to bust the door down at the slightest provocation.

Sunset sighed. “Come sit with me,” she instructed. “Hold my hoof, and let your mind empty.”

Gilda scowled at her. “You think that’ll do it?”

“Worth a try.”

“Hold your hoof?”

“Makes us harder to separate. If you can’t feel me, scream.”

“Ugh.” Gilda stomped over and grabbed Sunset’s hoof with a talon. “Now what?”

“Watch the statue.”

“Until?”

“Something happens.”

Gilda grumbled a little more, but eventually silence fell in the room. Time passed. How much, how quickly, it was impossible to tell. But eventually, Sunset became conscious of the fact that the floor was much bumpier than it had been. And a little colder. And covered in gold coins. “We’re in,” she breathed.

“Hnh?” Gilda jerked awake and glanced around. “Whoa.”

It was an Aladdin’s cave of a room. Gold and gems and priceless spices piled high to the ceiling, and they sat at the center of a crossroads in that treasure trove. “Okay,” Gilda said. Sunset could feel her heartbeat speeding up just from holding her talon. “Now what?”

Sunset thought about that. “Now,” she said, “we walk. Don’t touch anything except the floor.”

Gilda exhaled. “Yeah. Yeah, alright.”

They stood awkwardly. Their joints were stiff with the time spent watching and waiting. Together, they made their way down one of the halls. They were still in sight of the statue when Gilda stiffened. “The Idol of Boreas,” she breathed.

Sunset gripped her talon tighter. “It’s not real,” she reminded the griffon. “It’s an illusion, nothing more.”

“...Right. Yeah,” Gilda said, deflating. “Come on, let’s keep going.”

The Idol popped up a few more times as they walked, but Gilda got progressively less excited each time. Eventually, she took to ignoring the walls of treasure entirely.

Not long after that, Sunset heard a jingling. She glanced up and saw that the mountains of treasure were sloughing off gold and treasure, almost like an-- “AVALANCHE! Run!”

“Better idea,” Gilda growled. “Let’s fly!”

Sunset was jerked off the ground, her shoulder twisting painfully until Gilda did a sort of barrel roll and held her to her chest. But it wasn’t enough. Gold rained upon them, forcing them down, down, down…

And then they were out in the open air again.

“Where’s this?” Gilda asked, glancing around.

“If you got off me, I might be able to tell you,” Sunset said tetchily.

“Well, excuse me, princess,” Gilda grumbled, letting Sunset crawl out. Then her jaw dropped. “Uh, wow.”

“What?” Sunset asked. “Hey, did you get shorter?”

Gilda shook her head. Sunset frowned and conjured up a mirror. She gasped. Staring back at her was an alicorn the size of Celestia, mane flowing in a breeze only she could feel. She let the mirror fall away and glanced around. “This is Canterlot,” she said. “This is Canterlot… and I’m the Princess.” She spread her wings. “I… I have to go and see--”

Gilda tackled her. “No, you don’t.”

“You don’t understand. I wanted this for all my childhood.”

“Yeah, well, I wanted a cake for my birthday. We’re grown up now. Time to be realistic.”

Sunset struggled a little more, then went still. She sighed, took off the tiara, and hurled it at a statue. Its head fell off and plopped into the bushes with the dented diadem. “Nice one,” Gilda said. “Hey, do you smell something?”

They turned around. Behind them, a long table stood, laden with every kind of food imaginable. Sunset squeezed Gilda’s talon. “Not one bite,” she said. Then her eyes fell on something. “Oh man, they’ve got hot dogs. Actual hot dogs, not stupid carrots in a bun…”

“Quit it,” Gilda said.

Sunset frowned and tried to swallow the drool gathering at either side of her mouth. She glanced around. Canterlot was gone, replaced with a stone banquet hall, complete with…”

“Grab one of those torches,” she instructed. “Then throw it at the table.”

Gilda obliged. With all the grease the two had dreamed up, the whole thing went up pretty quickly.

***

“And now, ladies and gentlegriffs!”

Gallus leaned over. “She knows there’s only one of us apiece, right?”

Gabby shushed him. “For Trixie’s next trick,” Trixie continued, “she will need a volunteer from the audience.

Gabby brightened. “Ooh! Ooh! Me, me! Pick me!”

“Hm… you, sir! Yes, the blue one!”

“Aw…’ Gabby sighed. Gallus cussed, but rose and approached the attention-starved magician.

“Now, young griff--”

“Gallus,” Gallus ground out. “The same name it was the last dozen times you had me ‘volunteer’.”

“Trixie wonders if you would care to take her hat?”

“What am I, your butler?” He took the hat anyway. “Holy shit. Are these explosives?”

“Oh.” Trixie quickly took the hat back. “Trixie was wondering where those had got to.” She flourished her cape over the hat, then hoofed it back. The various fireworks were gone.

Gallus stared into the hat. “Great. The one interesting thing that happened today--”

He stopped. Trixie had gone oddly stiff. “The audience…” she breathed. “Where is the audience?”

Gabby cocked her head. “We’re right here, Trixie. Ooh, is this another trick? Are you gonna make us disappear?”

Trixie twisted around like a hunted animal. “Where?” she demanded. “Where have you taken them?”

Gallus stepped back, clutching Trixie’s hat to his chest. “Uh, Gabby, I don’t think this is part of her act.”

Trixie spun around, facing away from the two griffons. “There…” she said. “Worry not, devotees! Trixie is coming!”

Gabby frowned as Trixie ran off. “Isn’t that direction where the statue is being kept?”

Caretaker Gaius ran down the hall, screaming. Gabby and Gallus looked back. Dozens of pairs of glowing golden eyes shone in the darkness. They were getting closer. “Run!” Gallus yelled, chasing after Gaius, Gabby hot on his tail.

***

The fire was getting closer now. “Now what?” Gilda shouted.

“Uh,” Sunset said.

“Oh, come on! You’re literally made of fire! Talk to it!”

“Oh, right,” Sunset said. She concentrated, and the fire rippled and bent into a tunnel. “Come on, let’s go.”

The hurried through, only to find themselves in… “A boxing ring?” Sunset asked.

Gilda grinned ferally. “Finally. Something fun.”

“Not a chance. We can’t go with the program, remember?”

Gilda looked back and her eyes shrunk to pinpricks. “Uh…”

Sunset looked, too. “Wow. That’s a lot of griffons.”

“Yeah. So it looks like that's basically everyone I’ve ever fantasized about beating up.”

“Why is Pinkie Pie there?”

“...Reasons. Why is Trixie there?”

“Reasons which I’m mostly over. So, not to put too fine a point on it, but they look pretty angry.”

“Yeah.”

“And we can’t fight back.”

“Apparently.”

“So I think it might be time to run now.”

Gilda scooped her up and flapped for all she was worth. Behind them, the shouts of furious combatants followed, along with a very incongruously chirpy song about the joy of punching. “Why is this even here?” Gilda shouted. “I mean, I like beating stuff up, but this--”

“I’ve got a theory,” Sunset said. “We’re working our way through the seven deadly sins. Greed, envy, gluttony…” She gestured. “Wrath.”

Gilda crash landed, and they bounced along. “What the-- pillows?”

Sunset pulled herself from Gilda’s grip. Looking around, she saw that they were in a large room filled with mattresses, pillows, blankets… she wanted to yawn just looking at it. “Sloth,” she said, twisting around to help Gilda up. “Don’t be lazy.”

Gilda glanced around. “So… I can do something like this?” she asked, ripping a hole in the nearest mattress.

Sunset turned and sprayed a wide field of fire over the scene. Several teddy bears fell, engulfed in flames. “I think so. Let’s have a little pillow fight.”

It was tremendous fun tearing everything apart. Sunset felt quite rock’n’roll. If that had ever been invented on this side of the mirror, she was sure that Gilda would feel much the same. But eventually, the bedding could take no more. The mattress beneath them ripped, and mare and griffon fell together into a crowded auditorium.

“This must be where Trixie went,” Sunset observed. “Pride!”

“What?” Gilda yelled.

“I said, this is pride!” Sunset shouted.

“Oh. What do you think they’re yelling for?”

“Who cares? Let’s go!”

She tried to make for the exit, but Gilda stood fast. “It’s me,” she murmured. “They’re cheering… I fixed Griffonstone.”

“Gilda, don’t listen. Gilda, it’s all fake, remember?”

But the griffoness was slowly making for the stage, her eyes glazed and her mouth hanging open. Sunset saw that the statue was standing there, and Gilda was making a beeline for it, and her death-grip on Sunset’s hoof meant that she was being dragged along for the ride.

Sunset did the only thing she could. She zapped Gilda’s butt.

“OW! You little--” Gilda stopped. “Shit. Thanks.”

“No problem. C’mon, let’s blow this pop stand.”

“Sunset! Wait!” Twilight Sparkle had taken the stage. “Come accept your award for Excellence in Friendship Studies!”

Gilda and Sunset exchanged glances. They turned tail and walked out, each lifting a wing and raising their middle feather. “If I’m right,” Sunset said, ignoring the shocked gasps from the crowd, “there’s only one trial left, and it’s the one I’m basically immune to anyway.”

“What’s that?”

“Lust. And what’s lust to an asexual?”

Sunset opened the door at the back of the theater, and they stepped out into a cloud of fog.

***

Gallus and Gabby rounded the corner to where Tantalus was being held, then stopped dead. “What…” Gabby began.

Glinda looked up. She was holding Trixie back from the door to the statue room, one talon resting on the mare’s forehead. Trixie was clearly straining, but her slight figure was no match for the powerful, matronly griffoness. Gaius, meanwhile, was busily barricading the door, hauling all the furniture “Well, don’t just stand there like a pair of lumps!” Glinda bellowed. “Grab a stick and get ready to start whacking!”

The gold-fevered griffs were thumping down the hallway. Gaius broke two legs off of a table and tossed them to the younger griffs. “Better do as she says,” he grumbled. “After this, I swear, I’d better get some manacles for that hospital wing!”

The noise was getting closer now. Glinda raised a talon and bonked Trixie over the head. She fell insensate to the floor, and the griffoness took up a club herself. All of them readied for battle.

***

The fog was thick and swirling to the point where the duo could hardly even see one another, let alone the way ahead. “Gilda, whatever you do, don’t let go of my hoof,” Sunset instructed.

“Gee, thanks for the advice.”

“And let me know if you see anything. Anything at--”

The fog lifted. “--what.”

“Oh, wow,” Gilda said.

Griffons. Griffons everywhere. There were also occasional ponies, some hippogriffs, and other things besides. All shapes, sizes, genders, and various other qualifiers were on display. And they were posed extremely provocatively. Oh, yes, and there was a beach, as well.

“...Why is Pinkie Pie here, too?”

“...Reasons,” Gilda said, her eyes glazed. She blinked rapidly and shook her head. “Whoo. I don’t suppose you brought along a camera?”

“No. I don’t think they’d develop, anyway.”

“Oh, I’d say these guys are developed enough as it is,” Gilda muttered. “Alright, fine. Then let’s move on.”

“Oh. Wow. That was… easier than I thought,” Sunset said as they turned and walked back into the fog.

Gilda shrugged. “Eh. Compared to a successful revolution, getting laid is pretty small potatoes. So, what now?”

“I don’t know,” Sunset said, frowning. “I was sure it was the seven deadlies.”

“Well, that one was kinda targeted at me. Maybe you’ve got your own thing cooking.”

“Don’t be silly. Like I said, I’m totally immune to--”

The fog lifted. “--lust…”

It wasn’t much to look at. In comparison to Gilda’s temptation, it was bordering on ascetic.

“A mirror?” Gilda scoffed. “I pegged Trixie as the narcissist, not you.”

“No,” Sunset said, voice distant. “It’s much more than a mirror.”

Her hoof slid out of Gilda’s grip, lubricated by sweat. The griffoness grabbed for her, but her talons went through like the mare was smoke. “Come with me. Let me show you,” Sunset said. The mirror’s surface rippled. Gilda didn’t like the thought of being the last one standing in here. She had seconds, if that, to stop Sunset.

“Trixie!”

Sunset stalled. “What about Trixie?”

Gilda thought fast. “Er, if you go any farther, then you’ll never see her again!”

“...Uh?”

“Oh, fer-- come on! It’s not that hard to get. Trixie’s over here, not wherever that mirror leads! Come back and treat that mare right, or I swear I’ll pop you one.”

Whether it was the offer or the threat, Sunset turned around, brow furrowed. Behind her, the mirror faded back into the mist. “What… just…”

Gilda rolled her eyes. “And what’s lust to an asexual?” she mimicked. “You were lucky I was here to pull your butt out of the fire, that’s what happened.”

“Yeah, well, you were lucky I was here to set your butt on fire.” The fog began to seep away, leaving the duo standing back in the little alcove where all the trouble had started.

“Dweeb.”

“Jerk.”

"Dork."

"Asshole."

“Friends?”

“Oh yeah.”

Gilda bumped her hoof. “Alright, Glinda! We’re ready to come out!”

There was a muffled groan from the other side, followed by the sound of scraping furniture. “Huh." Gilda glanced over her shoulder. "We might be here awhile.”

“Cool. While we wait, you wanna play a round of ‘bust the bust’?”

Sunset grinned and lit her horn. She swore the statue gulped.

When they were released some fifteen minutes later, there was no longer a cursed statue. There was, however, a very interesting and culturally significant puddle of molten metal splashed all over one wall.

***

Trixie awoke much later, back in the TARDIS.

“Hey,” said Sunset.

“...Hello,” Trixie said. “What…”

“I’ll explain in a bit. You got knocked out. Gilda offered you a bed in the hospital, but I said there was one in the TARDIS. I gave them a few things that were probably medical supplies too. Just to give a little helping hoof.”

“Oh,” Trixie said, still a little abstracted. “Did you find out what they were hiding in there?”

Sunset let out a breath. “Look, you want some water? This is gonna be a long story.”

“Yes, please.”

“Okay.”

Sunset turned tail and trotted off to find a kitchen. Try as she might, she couldn’t forget Gilda’s words to her. Treat her right. And all the cuddling Trixie had insisted on in the cells…

The only conclusion Sunset could come to was that Trixie was in love with her.

The million-bit question was, did she love Trixie back?

Covenant of the Ark

The Ark’s security alarm began to ring as soon as the grinding noise began. None of the passengers noticed. They hadn’t really noticed much of anything for the past millennium or two. The staff noticed, but they could scarcely go and look for themselves. But deep inside the belly of the ship, a pair of golden eyes flicked open. In front of them, a screen fizzled into life, showing the blue box where there had been no blue box before. The doors opened, and the golden-eyed creature smiled.

She only hoped that these two would put up a good fight. She hadn’t had a good chase in ages. Her body creaked to life, showers of dust sloughing off her back and sides as she rose to all fours. Stiff, but quickly limbering, the sphinx went off in pursuit of her prey.

***

“Whoa,” Trixie said. Her voice echoed around the massive metal box. “Hello!” she yelled.

Ello ello ello ello llo llo lo lo o…

She turned to Sunset, grinning like an idiot. Sunset fought the urge to laugh. She was just so earnest. “Well?” Trixie asked. “Where are we this time?”

“I don’t know,” Sunset admitted. “The TARDIS didn’t name a planet. But the time readout says we’re before the first record of written language in Equestria.”

“By how long?”

Sunset started trotting. “About fifty-seven centuries, and nearly six lightyears away from home.”

Trixie fell into step at her side. “So this place was built…”

“Probably before the first camel civilization, maybe a little after the zebras started up, and that’s a conservative guess. Maybe older even than that.”

“Wow,” Trixie said.

Sunset chuckled. “Yeah, ‘wow’. By our time, this wouldn’t even be rust. It’d be dust!”

“Just dust, or rust dust?”

“Who knows?” Sunset said, grinning. “Well. Us, maybe, if we ever land there.”

Trixie looked around her, staring up at the high walls. “What do you think this even is?”

Sunset shrugged. “A factory, maybe? Or, uh, an electric… magic… power… plant.”

Trixie snorted. “What kind of plants are made of metal, Sunset? Jeez. If you don’t know, just tell Trixie so.”

Sunset rolled her eyes, but she kept smiling. “I’m only guessing. Here, there’s writing on the walls. If I light up a little more, maybe we can read it.”

Trixie stared at the wall as Sunset’s mane started to glow brighter and brighter, until the light reflected off the wall in licks and swirls. She squinted. “Those are not words. They seem to be pictures.”

“Hieroglyphs,” Sunset said, staring up at them. “Not completely surprising, I guess. Lots of cultures used them even on Equestria, so I’m hardly surprised that aliens would, too.”
She paused. “Although it’s odd…”

“What?”

“This looks a lot like Cameltek ‘glyphs,” Sunset said. “I recognize almost all of them, except for this one here and a couple others.”

She tapped the wall for emphasis. The symbol she touched began to glow. She stared as the whole wall began to light up. She and Trixie backed away. “Well, that escalated quickly,” Trixie said.

Sunset glanced over at her. “You know, with the whole distance in space and time thing, and now this, I would’ve thought you’d be more freaked out.”

“Meh. Trixie was kind of expecting it at this point.”

And then the screen flickered into life above them. Trixie yelped and jumped into Sunset’s waiting hooves.

“Welcome,” a warm female voice said. Sunset thought it sounded familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.

“Your trip is over, and your voyage is just beginning. As our old world falls away beneath us, we, the management, ask you to look forth. Look to the sky, our means of conveyance. Look to the planets, our fellow wanderers through the crystal heavens. Look to the future. Our ultimate destination. Welcome, travelers, to the Ark.”

The voice fell silent for a long moment as the gentle pan-pipes that had been playing in the background took over. Pictures of glass sarcophagi faded in and out of view.

“What is this place?” Trixie asked, hushed.

Sunset set her down. “If I understand her right, this must be some kind of colony ship,” she said, staring up at the screen.

“Some kind of what?”

“Sorry. Sci-fi idea. A whole civilization’s planet is wrecked for whatever reason, so they get in a spaceship and fly away. Of course, since habitable planets are few and far between and space travel takes forever to get anywhere, the passengers freeze themselves.” She waved at the glass pods onscreen. “I bet you those are the suspended animation coffins,” she said.

Trixie stared at Sunset, wide-eyed. “Trixie is on… a spaceship?”

“I think so, yeah.”

Trixie’s jaw fell open, and she struggled for words. Her mouth flopped like a wet fish. Sunset laughed. “Yeah, it’s pretty wild,” she agreed. “First spaceship. Huh. Wish I’d brought a camera or something.”

Trixie nodded enthusiastically. “Trixie bets there will be one in the TARDIS!”

“Oh, good idea. Let’s go and look,” Sunset said, turning back to the blue box.

She froze in her tracks. “Erk.”

Trixie spun around. “What? What is wrong--” The color ran out of her face.

Sitting right behind the TARDIS, one paw on either side of the ship, was a massive sphinx, her coat the color of mulberries and her eyes like gold. “Hello, little morsels,” she purred. “According to the ship, you’re in breach of security protocols seven-point-three, twenty-eight-point-ought-seven, and forty-five. Now, I was never one for memorizing the rulebook, so I’ll put that in easier terms to grasp. Give me a reason why you should be here in the next ten seconds, or I’ll eat you.”

Trixie squeaked. Sunset thought fast. Could she overpower the sphinx? Maybe she could burn it, but it would definitely eat them both before it was fried crispy. Teleport? She would bet that the creature knew the ship better than she did. That voice she’d heard earlier. Where was it from? The sphinx, the glyphs, the voice, they all ran together in her mind…”

“Three… two…” the Sphinx said, resting her house-sized head on a paw lazily.

“I AM RA!” Sunset screamed.

The Sphinx stopped, her mouth forming a moue of shock. “Identifying,” she murmured. “Hm. Your aspect is known, as is that of your associate.”
“As your queen,” Sunset said, her heart racing, “I certainly would hope so.”

“Not so fast,” the Sphinx said, eyes narrowing. “While there certainly is evidence to support your claim, I need stronger proof than that.”

Sunset swallowed. “Effrontry!” she managed to protest.

“Protocol, yer Maj,” the Sphinx snapped. “If you’d bothered to come around once or twice in the last few centuries, you might’ve known that. What’s your password?”

Sunset bit her tongue. “Uh... Ra1234!”

The Sphinx leaned in close, showing off her sharp teeth. “Incorrect. You have two more guesses. Would you like to access your hint?”

“Yes, please,” Sunset said, grateful.

The Sphinx sat back. “Very well. What makes one man blind, and another man see, makes one building strong and tears another down?”

Sunset stared. “Um…” she said. “Excuse me a moment, won’t you?”

“Take all the time you need,” the Sphinx said lazily. “Gods have nothing but, so I’m told, and neither do I.”

Sunset turned to Trixie. “Okay, I’m not good at riddles.”

“And you think Trixie is?” Trixie asked, incredulous.

“I was hoping, yeah!”

Trixie rolled her eyes and thought. “One man blind… another see… makes buildings strong and tears them down…” She scratched her head. “Um, time?”

“How do you figure?”

“It’s always time,” Trixie said. “And it takes time to build buildings, and it takes time to wear them down. When you get older you go blind. It works, right?”

Sunset hesitated, then turned. “Time!” she yelled.

The Sphinx raised a brow. “Incorrect,” she growled. “One more chance, ‘Ra’, and then it’s lunchtime.”

Sunset turned back to Trixie. “Okay, you stink at riddles!”

“Yeah, Trixie knows!”

Sunset rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Okay, okay. What makes ponies blind, other than getting old?”

Trixie thought. “Uh, darkness. And darkness can help ponies see, like sunglasses.”

“But it doesn’t have anything to do with buildings!”

“Oh.” Trixie thought. “Maybe the buildings are a red herring.”

“It’s a riddle! Riddles don’t have red herrings!”

“Uh, fine. Throwing stuff in ponies’ eyes makes them blind. That’s all Trixie has.”

“Okay, what helps them see?”

“Glasses?”

“Good, okay, what makes a strong building?”

“Rock, wood, metal… cement… or concrete. Trixie knows there’s a difference, but she can never remember…”

“What tears them down?”

“Er, natural disasters? Wrecking balls? Zoning committees?”

“I’m getting bored!” the Sphinx warned. “You wouldn’t want to bore me, ladies. It makes me peckish.” She took a swipe at the TARDIS. The box flew across the room, scratch marks gouged into its side.

“Well,” Trixie muttered, once her heart rate had slowed again. “That’s going to be Tartarus to sand out.”

Sunset inhaled sharply. “Sand!” she shouted. “The answer is sand! Sand that you throw in someone’s face to blind them! Sand, which is the main part of glass and concrete! And sandstorms can tear down a building! The password is sand!”

The Sphinx stared at Sunset, unblinking. “Wow,” she said flatly. “I believe that was the most energetically I’ve ever heard someone say the word sand.” A pause. “Correct. You are identified as Ra and the High Priestess of Ra.”

Trixie let out her breath, and Sunset mopped her brow. “You are therefore being arrested on suspicion of murder.”

“OH COME ON!”

***

They were ushered down a large corridor, the Sphinx right behind them. Everywhere Sunset looked, the icy caskets stood. In them, all manner of creatures slept tranquilly; cats, camels, crocodiles, camels, and those were just the ones beginning with ‘c’.

“Jeez,” Trixie said, wrapping her cloak around herself a little tighter. “Trixie feels like she’s walking through a morgue.”

“Guilty conscience?” the Sphinx asked, giving her tail a lazy flick.

“No!” Sunset said sharply. “Look, we literally just arrived here. Who are we even supposed to have killed? Did we accidentally land the TARDIS on a bug? Step on a butterfly? What?”

The Sphinx stopped dead. “You are charged with deicide,” she said shortly. “The death of Sutekh. His son accuses you, and you will be tried by your fellow gods.”

Sunset turned around, all of her anger draining away. “Sutekh? Dead?”

Trixie leaned over. “Which one was he?” she hissed.

“...The bailiff,” Sunset said.

Trixie scratched her chin. “Nope.”

“The only one who wasn’t fighting.”

“Mm, nah.”

Sunset sighed. “He gave me the idea to have you use fireworks.”

Trixie brightened. “Oh, yeah! The one with the weird-looking head!”

Sunset closed her eyes. “Yes, Trixie. The one with the weird-looking head. Eloquently put.”

“Trixie has a better memory for faces than names, fight her.”

The Sphinx cocked her head. “Should that not be, ‘so sue me’?”

“Trixie has no money, but she has hooves and anger. Therefore…”

The Sphinx smiled. “I am glad I have not eaten you yet. You amuse me.”

“Um, yet?” Sunset asked.

“Keep walking, or I will be forced to devour you without trial,” the Sphinx said lightly. “You were right, by the way. His head was funny-looking.”

“Haha! Vindication!” Trixie crowed, trotting onwards. Sunset sighed and began plodding along as well, the Sphinx’s eyes burning a hole in her back.

Down, down through the winding corridors, the Sphinx marched them ever onwards. Trixie glanced back. “Are we there ye--”

Sunset nudged her roughly in the side. “Jeez, okay, okay,” Trixie grumbled, facing front again.

Eventually, the Sphinx called for them to halt. She turned to face an empty stretch of wall, and her eyes flashed like a camera. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, with a horrible grinding, the wall slid open, opening a massive doorway into a dark and cavernous room. Trixie and Sunset stood at the threshold, peering in. The Sphinx rolled her eyes, reached out a paw, and shoved them both in. She slunk in after them, and the door ground closed behind her.

***

It was dark in there. The only light in the entire room was that which Sunset herself gave off, a rich orange glow that illuminated exactly nothing. “I thought we were going to stand trial,” she said. She couldn’t disguise the slight catch in her voice.

“Patience,” the Sphinx replied. “It’s been awhile since the lights in this room were used.”

A few moments later, and the lights flickered on, casting a dim, fluorescent glow around the room. The room was almost completely empty, save for a strange object sitting on a plinth in the center of the room. Sunset looked around. “...Not seeing any gods here,” she said.

The Sphinx sighed. “Let me through,” she grumbled, plodding toward the object, which appeared to be some sort of upside-down fishbowl with lots of colorful little lights inside. “Useless self-maintenance function…”

She carefully extended a single claw and rapped the side of the fishbowl. The lights started blinking quickly. The next thing Sunset knew, the room was full of static.

Trixie cried out in surprise and clung to Sunset’s side. “What is this?”

“Outdated, that’s what it is,” the Sphinx grumbled. She glared around the room. “Someday, my programming will glitch, and then where are you going to be, hey?”

“Your programming?” Trixie echoed.

The Sphinx grinned coyly and lifted her nemes just a little. Underneath the headdress, the two mares saw lights and wires and circuitry. “Impressive,” Sunset managed. “Artificial intelligence. I suppose that explains a thing or two.”

“You didn’t guess?”

Sunset shook her head. “Beautiful,” she murmured. Trixie stiffened at her side. “I’ve never seen anything so complex,” Sunset continued quickly. “Clearly, there has been much technological innovation since I was here last.”

“Well, it has been only three thousand years,” the Sphinx said drolly, letting the syllables roll around her mouth like marbles. “Of course,” she added, glancing around at the static that still filled the room, “it’s hardly perfect. Give it a whack, why don’t you? You’re less likely to shatter the thing than I am.”

Sunset eyed the device. “Some form of projector, I take it.”

“If you like,” the Sphinx purred. “Though that’s only con-jector.”

Sunset glanced back. “If you think that pun was actually funny, then I’m sorry to say that you’re breaking down faster than you thought.”

The Sphinx scowled. “Just give it a thump before I thump you.”

“Touchy.” Sunset smacked the fishbowl right over the top. The static cleared. The three of them were left standing in a room, much different than the one they had entered.

Gods lined the walls, a vast peanut gallery of regal animalian figures all staring from above. Horus the falcon sat polishing a spear. The ibis, Thoth, was dictating to Babi the baboon at a typewriter. The aquatic Nephthys sat clad in red, tears running over her cheeks. With a pang, Sunset remembered that she had been Sutekh’s wife.

At the front of the crowd, Anubis stood, a cloak wrapped around his well-muscled body like a funeral shroud. Or a flasher’s overcoat, Sunset thought as he leaned over the balcony, his knuckles white as they gripped the edge. “Ra,” he growled.

“Anubis,” Sunset said coldly.

“Trixie!” Trixie shouted.

Sunset glared at her. “Not the time.”

“Fine…”

“Ra,” Anubis repeated, just as venomous as before.

“Anubis,” Sunset said in a more normal voice.

“Sphinx!”

Everyone looked at the sphinx. “I felt left out,” she said, arching her back before slinking over to a bright spot at the back of the room.

“Typical,” Anubis sighed. “You can never tell a cat to do anything.”

Suddenly he realized all eyes were on him. He straightened quickly. “Ra!” he said, though it was obvious that his heart wasn’t in it now.

“Yes, yes, what?”

“You stand accused of the murder of Sutekh, my father, who was brutally burned to dust and bone by a ray of your celestial light eight hundred years ago. How do you plead?”

“Not guilty,” Sunset said. “I haven’t seen any of you since I settled that dispute about the Omphalos.”

“Belly button,” Trixie muttered before breaking into giggles.

Sunset poked her in the side and shook her head. Now was not the time. Sutekh was dead. She had liked Sutekh.

“Lies!” Anubis roared. “None but you could have done this, Ra! My father was burnt alive by a fire that lanced from the sun as it flew past! Only you could have done this!”

“Oh, really?” Sunset demanded, her wings growing steadily brighter. “How do you know all that, Anubis? I guess you were right there when your father was roasted? I know you two got along so well!”

Anubis flinched, and shocked murmurs spread through the crowd. The god recovered quickly and leaned over the parapet. “You accuse me of patricide?” he demanded.

“I never said anything of the sort!” Sunset retorted. “Though you seemed perfectly happy to dish out your accusations on me. How did you know how your father died, Anubis?”

“He told me himself!” Anubis thundered, throwing wide his cloak. Sunset flinched and Trixie squealed. Fortunately, Anubis was wearing a skirt. Less fortunately, he was wearing a necklace of bones. The oddly-shaped skull in the center made it obvious to whom those bones had once belonged.

“Sutekh,” Sunset breathed, mesmerized.

Trixie was somewhat less reserved in her reaction. “You’ve been wearing that since he died?” she demanded.

“There wasn’t enough left to mummify!” Anubis said sharply. “This was the best way I could think of to honor his passing!”

“Okay,” Sunset said, trying to keep the quiver out of her voice. “So you’re wearing your dad’s bones. That-- I’m pretty sure that’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen, but hey. I’m not here to judge. I’m here to be judged, apparently. I don’t suppose I get a defense attorney at all?”

“Right here,” said the voice from the big-screen advertisement.

Sunset spun around. A large purple cat with a three-tipped tail and bright green eyes stood in the middle of the floor. She had abandoned her jewelry in favor of a conservative blue suit, red power tie, and a tan leather suitcase.

“Ba’ast?”

The cat flashed her a kilowatt smile. “My Queen.”

Sunset blushed a little under the cat’s gaze. “You are my defense, then?”

“I am.”

Sunset leaned in. “Are you… trained in law?”

“As much as dogsbreath up there is, yes!”

“Oh. That’s… reassuring.”

“Let the trial commence!” Anubis ordered.

“Wait, wait, hold on,” Sunset said, glancing around. “Who’s the judge?”

Anubis gave a predatory smile. “Me.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me! You’re already convinced I did it, no way you’ll be impartial!”

“Oh, I don’t need to be,” Anubis said. “Not if you hold… the Feather.”

“The feather?”

“The Feather.”

“The feather… of the gods?”

“The God Feather.”

“Sounds like an offer I can’t refuse.”

Trixie groaned and put her face in her hooves. “Trixie thought you wanted to be serious.”

“Yeah, okay, okay,” Sunset conceded. “The feather…” her mind raced as she scrabbled for any memory of studying mythology. Winged serpents? That was Tenochtitlan. Certain tribes of buffalo believed that fallen feathers carried on the energy of the bird it had once been attached to. Daedalus and Icarus escaped an island with wings bound with wax. But she couldn’t think of anything related to the situation at hand.

“So, what is this feather?” Trixie asked.

Sunset let out a faint huff of relief. Ba’ast turned to her. “My queen? Would you care to explain to your high priestess the nature of the trial?”

Rut-rut-rut-rut-rut. “No, no,” Sunset said. “Anubis may do it. I should hate to take away from his moment of glory.”

A muffled ‘ooh’ ran through the peanut gallery. Sunset restrained herself from making a rude gesture with her wing. Anubis looked at Trixie with contempt, but explained. “The Feather of Truth is a gift from the great Ma’at, the ancestral force of order. No being may hold it and lie, else they will perish in terrible agony.”

“And given that I have nothing to hide, I don’t have anything to fear,” Sunset said, meeting his gaze and holding it.

“Then you will submit to this test?” Anubis challenged.

Sunset waited until the jackal broke his gaze. “Bring. It. On.”

***

There was some difficulty getting the feather, as all the gods’ consciousnesses existed only as holograms while their bodies were frozen with the rest of the passengers. They couldn’t really touch anything, so it was left to the Sphinx to go and bring it out of storage. She returned some several minutes later, a peacock feather held delicately in her lips. “What kept you?” Anubis demanded. “Justice does not wait!”

The Sphinx lowered her head and let the feather flutter to the floor. “Listen, if you want me to be your errand-girl, you might have considered making the artifact room a little easier to access for someone the size of a house, you get me?”

Anubis flushed. “Insolent machine. I expected nothing less, given who created you.”

Ba’ast coughed. “Uh, standing right here.”

“What possessed you to give your automaton such an attitude?” Anubis demanded.

“I didn’t. Free will is part of the artificial intelligence program. She chooses how she wants to behave.”

“Free will. Pah.”

The Sphinx smirked. “If we’re all quite ready to get on with the trial?” she said.

Anubis flushed, and waved for Sunset to pick up the feather. She moved to do so, but Trixie grabbed her hoof. A gasp went through the crowd. “Strike her down,” one rumbled.

“She touches the queen!”

Sunset glared at them. “She has my permission to touch me,” she said grandly. “As my oldest, most faithful lieutenant--” she caught a glimpse of several angry faces. “--who happens to be mortal,” she corrected quickly. “Harm her at your peril.”

The disconsolate mutters died away slowly. Sunset scowled at Trixie. “What was that for?” she hissed.

Trixie shook her head. “Don’t do it,” she hissed. “Trixie does not trust this dog!”

“I already said I’d do it. I can’t back down now, this is probably the only way to prove I’m telling the truth.”

“New Bus--”

“Anubis.”

“Whatever. Jojo the Dog-Boy up there is plotting something, Trixie can tell.”

Sunset took a deep breath and let it out in a long nicker. “Probably,” she admitted. “But I don’t really have a choice. And if I say run…”

“Book it.”

“Yeah.” Sunset slipped her the key to the TARDIS. “Don’t wait for me until you’re inside. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re joking.”

“No, look, I can burst into flames and teleport. I’m good, I’m telling you. Get to the TARDIS, give me maybe ten minutes, then take off.”

“Trixie is not going to abandon you!”

“Queen Ra,” Anubis called. “The Feather, if you would be so good.”

Sunset smiled, tight-lipped. “You won’t have to.” She pulled her hoof from Trixie’s grip, then picked up the feather.

She looked up at Anubis. “Ready.”

"You must swear the oath. Take the feather in your left, er, hoof, raise your right, and repeat after me."

Sunset did as she was bade.

Anubis looked at her. "I swear to answer truthfully all questions asked of me."

"I swear to answer truthfully all questions asked of me."

"I swear to omit no detail, hide no truth, speak no falsehood."

"I swear to hold the symbol of Ma'at until the court dismisses me."

"Then the covenant is made. You may be seated."

Sunset glanced around the empty room. "Where?"

That threw him. He looked at the Sphinx, and received only the stink-eye in return. "Only the floor is available, I fear."

Sunset grunted and sat down, making sure to keep her tail between herself and the cold, hard, metal floor.

Anubis cleared his throat. “Did you kill my father?”

“No,” Sunset said.

There was a rather anticlimactic moment after that. The court seemed to deflate. Anubis, however, looked totally unfazed. “Do you know who killed my father?”

“No.”

“Do you know why my father was killed?”

“No!” Sunset said, growing frustrated. “I am saddened to hear of Sutekh’s death. He was a good lieutenant, and a good fighter. But I am not responsible for his death, nor was I connected to it in any way. I would appreciate it if we could end this charade of a trial now so my High Priestess and I can return to our travels.”

She attempted to throw down the feather. However, she found that it was stuck to her hoof, as though magnetically. “I’m not finished yet,” Anubis said, his voice as smooth and cold as cream. “You did not kill my father. But my father told me with his final breath that Ra was the one responsible. I must ask, therefore-- are you Ra?”

Sunset froze. Trixie let out a squeak of absolute horror. The room seemed to shrink as all around, gods leaned in, each one sucking in their breath.

Her mind buzzed. Trixie had been right. Of course she had been right, she knew every trick in the book. Probably literally. Focus, Sunset. She couldn’t lie, or she’d die. She couldn’t tell the truth, or she’d also probably die. What did that leave her? Her eyes fell on Trixie.

“I am a goddess,” she said slowly, “though perhaps not the one you were expecting.”

A low buzz ran through the crowd. Anubis scowled. “Explain!” he demanded.

“I am not the Ra you once knew,” Sunset said. “That Ra is long gone.”

The feather was painfully warm against her hoof, but Sunset reminded it very forcibly that Ra had left a very long time ago, and her statement was therefore completely true. This was the first time she’d felt hot since her ascension. Every word needed to be perfect.

“I was the student of the Sun-Raiser,” Sunset said. “I was as a daughter, then, taken under the wing of a powerful and wise elder deity. But one day--” she paused to swallow a lump in her throat. “One day, my tutor fell. I-- She-- The great faith that had been placed in her was lost. For a long, long time, I was lost, too. For a time, I became dangerous, dark, cold. I was desperate for belief, for followers. For power.”

The silence was thick and cloying, like mustard. Sunset blinked back tears. “Only… quite recently, in the grand scheme of things… was I able to fully reconcile with my loss. It took a great deal of effort. Pain. Growth. But in the end, I was able to ascend beyond my loss.

“I took the name ‘Ra’ as a convenience,” she said. “I felt certain that the original wouldn’t return to challenge me over it. So, no. I am not the Ra that you were expecting. But I am Ra.”

The Sphinx identified me, I’m in the database, I’m recognized as Ra, c’mon feather work with me work with me work with me…

There was a short, sizzling sensation, and it took all of Sunset’s will not to flinch. But then, the murmur went around the crowd. “Ra. Ra. Ra! Ra! RA! RA! RA!”

The feather went from skin-charring to uncomfortable to pleasantly warming. Sunset let out a long, shaky breath and gazed up at the open-mouthed Anubis. “Any other questions?”

He closed his mouth with a snap and glanced around the room. His shoulders bowed and he shook his head. The feather lost all its heat in a flash of blue light, then fluttered to the floor. “Good,” Sunset said. “Because I have a few questions of my own.” In a flash, she had picked up the feather and was marching it over to the Sphinx.

“What are you doing?” Anubis demanded.

“There’s still a murderer at large,” Sunset said shortly. “It may have been a long time since it happened, but over the lifespan of a god? Eh. They could strike again at any time.”

“And justice should never be left undone!” a hippo bellowed, rising to her feet.

“Exactly! Thank you…”

“Thouris.”

“Very good. Ba’ast, you built the Sphinx, didn’t you?”

The purple cat raised a brow. “Yes. Do you suspect me? Or her?”

“Not of murder,” Sunset said, rather cryptically.

“What, then?” Ba’ast challenged, taking a step forward. Trixie blocked her path.

“Back off,” she ordered, glaring into the goddess’ eyes. “Trixie has a long memory, you know. She remembers your little stunt with the ribbon.”

“Then you know full well I could strike you down.”

Sunset paused. “Trixie, don’t pick fights,” she warned. “Ba’ast, I’m not accusing you or Sphinxy here of anything.”

“Then what is it you want of me, my lady?” the Sphinx asked, lying down to get closer to Sunset’s eye-level.

“Simple. I need a witness. Not a dying breath, not a mausoleum on a piece of string, a witness.” Ignoring Anubis’s squawk of protest, Sunset held out the feather. “Ba’ast, the Sphinx is your security guard, the monitor and enforcer of law all across the ship, correct?”

“I can answer for myself,” the Sphinx said, a note of irritation entering her tone. “And yes, I certainly am.”

“Then take the feather and repeat after me,” Sunset said, meeting the Sphinx’s eye-- she would have met both eyes if she could, but they were too far apart. "I swear to answer truthfully all questions asked of me."

The Sphinx extended her right paw and let Sunset lay the feather there. She did so gratefully-- the damned thing was starting to heat up again."I swear,” the Sphinx said solemnly, “to answer truthfully all questions asked of me."

"I swear to omit no detail, hide no truth, speak no falsehood."

"I swear to hold the symbol of Ma'at until the court dismisses me."

"Then the covenant is sealed.”

“Aren’t you going to bid me to be seated?”

“You kinda already are.”

The sphinx yawned. “True enough,” she agreed. “Now, ask away, Queen Ra, before my desire to nap overwhelms me.”

“Insolence!” Anubis snapped.

Everyone on the court floor rolled their eyes simultaneously. So did more than a few observers.

“First question,” Sunset said. “Do you have access to all the security footage on the ship?”

“Certainly I do. I wouldn’t be much of a security force without it, would I?”

“Do you have footage of Sutekh’s death?”

The Sphinx considered. “Give me a moment,” she said, rising to her paws. She stared blankly at a wall. There was a groaning sound. A panel pulled back into the flat, matte metal wall and slid away, revealing a screen the size of a ping-pong table.

“Stop,” Anubis ordered.

“Why? Sunset demanded. “Do you have something to hide?”

For once, he didn’t rise to the bait. “Are you telling me,” he growled, “that there has been evidence that has been withheld for eight hundred years? That there was footage all along, and I wasn’t told?”

“Yes you were,” Ba’ast said. “Then you said it wasn’t necessary because you witnessed the whole thing and knew who killed Sutekh, so it would only be a waste of time. You literally refused to have it viewed.”

“I--” Anubis stopped. “Oh.”

“Oh, indeed,” Trixie gloated. “Oh, the tables have turned now! Oh what a hash you’ve made of this one! Oh well, your reputation was never great to begin with!”

Anubis turned to face her, snarling. “Trixie!” Sunset said. “Stop baiting the gods!”

“Trixie is only baiting one god, and everyone knows he deserves it.”

“HOW DARE--”

“She’s right.”

“He kinda does.”

“What a tool.”

Anubis flushed, but at that moment, the screen lit up. Sutekh stood, facing away from the camera. His hands were buried deep in a pile of wires. The camera bathed the whole scene a sickly green.

“What was he doing there?” Sunset wondered. “Why wasn’t he with all of you?”

“We didn’t freeze our bodies immediately,” Ba’ast explained. “We wanted to see the heavens as we flew through them. Besides, there were still a few problems left to fix.”

“Problems?”

“We had to leave our world in something of a hurry. There was a disaster. Fortunately, thanks to your own good judgement, we had been working toward this ship for centuries. Unfortunately, it still had its problems…”

“Such as?”

Ba’ast nodded to the screen. “Power supply, mainly. As I’m sure you can guess, a meltdown here would not end well.”

“Hm.”

Sutekh drew back from the wall. His face could be plainly seen now. A river of sweat was pouring down his face. He pulled out a small device. It was flashing.

“What is that?” Sunset asked.

Ba’ast’s face was ashen. “A power detector,” she whispered. “The cameras are never normally this green, I should have known…”

Trixie gave Sunset a sidelong glance. “Do you know what she’s talking about?” she muttered.

“I’ve got a nasty idea that I do, yes,” Sunset said. “Sphinx! What powers this ship?”

“The glowing rocks, of course.”

Onscreen, Sutekh threw the device to the floor. It smashed into a thousand pieces. He stood there for a long moment, struggling to catch his breath. Then he raised his arms. The green glow of the screen faded. The god staggered, fell to his knees, retching. Then he lay still, his skin shining red as a cherry and covered in blisters and lesions.

The door burst open and Anubis ran in. He saw his father lying there and fell to his knees at his side. Sutekh said something indistinct. Then his head lolled and he said no more.

The court was silent. Then Sunset turned to face Anubis. “Your father did not say Ra,” she said. “He tried to say ‘radioactivity’.”

She turned and trotted out the door. She didn’t look back. “Sphinx, you are released from your oath,” she said.

The feather fluttered off her paw, blowing in the wind coming off the slammed door.

***

“Sunset…”

“I liked Sutekh,” Sunset whispered.

They had returned to the TARDIS. Sunset had shoved some levers as soon as Trixie had closed the doors, and they were even now hurtling through time.

Trixie wasn’t really worried about where they were going. She was only worried about Sunset. “Trixie… is still not clear on what happened.”

“No. No, I guess you wouldn’t be. The fuel source for that station was fatal in large doses. There must have been a massive leak to affect him so quickly. He absorbed it, somehow, to save every other living thing on that ship. That’s what killed him.”

“Oh.” Trixie was silent for a long moment. “So… he died a hero. And you are the one who showed them that.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Sunset made a noise that was half sob, half chuckle. “What am I crying for? He’s been dead eight hundred years. Hell, if I ever figure out how to fly this thing, we could go back and see him again, and again, and again. It’s like flipping back through a book, but now I know the ending.”

Trixie didn’t know what she could say to that. Privately, she wondered if the Doctor ever felt like this. Or if he ever felt anything else. She sat down beside Sunset and put an arm around her shoulders. After a moment’s hesitation, Sunset leaned on her. “Thanks,” she murmured. “You’re a great friend.”

“Of course. Trixie is great at everything.” She froze, horrified at herself.

Sunset just chuckled. “Yeah. I guess you are.” She nuzzled a little closer and Trixie’s heart skipped several beats.

***

The courtroom had cleared out. The other gods had gone back to their holographic entertainments, or back to sleep in their own bodies, or off to check on the functioning of the ship. It seemed more urgent now, for some reason. Only Anubis was left. The doors slid open.

“Are you still here?”

Anubis ground his teeth. “Obviously.”

There was a tutting sound. The lights flickered on. Ba’ast stepped away from the switch. “Are you still sulking?” she asked. “Your father died a hero.”

Anubis clenched his fist. “Yes.”

Ba’ast gave a long, low sigh. “Are you going to give him a decent ceremony now? That is sort of your job, after all.”

Anubis gave a short, humorless bark of a laugh. “Decent? You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

She stayed silent, gazing at him, waiting for him to go on.

“I cannot lay him to rest,” Anubis said at last. “Where would I make his tomb? Somewhere in this hollow shade of a heaven?”

“We’ll make planetfall in only another hundred and eighty-five years,” Ba’ast reasoned.

“Put my father’s bones to rest on a foreign world? Never.”

“Then where?”

“Here. With me. Forever.”

Ba’ast opened her mouth, but he cut her off. “Ra did not kill my father, Ba’ast. But my vengeance will not sleep. It was you who made this ship, you who made us leave our world.”

The cat stepped back in shock. “We would have died had we stayed! All of us would have met our doom, your father included.”

“You are the one to blame,” Anubis said, not reacting to her words. “Miserable cat, I will fight you to the ends of the new world and beyond for my vengeance.”

Ba’ast forced a laugh. “You must be joking.”

Anubis raised a paw. The royal blue of the Feather of Ma’at shone in the light.

The cat went pale. “One hundred and eighty-five years,” Anubis said. “I will count the days.” He marched out of the room, flipping the light switch behind him, leaving Ba’ast in darkness.

The Magician's Spirit

Starswirl huffed, his breath steaming in the frozen air. “Oh, by the nine names of the west wind, where are you?” he murmured, peering through the trees. For the barest moment, thoughts of treachery raced through his head, but he beat them away. No. The triumvirate would not fall so easily. Commander Cyclone was as honorable as she was dedicated to the cause of peace, and Torch Wood… well, if Starswirl couldn't trust him, he couldn't trust anypony.

Starswirl smiled. No. His friends would not turn on him. Of course, if either of them had been caught departing their respective territories, then they would all be in for it. He lit his horn so as to get a better view of the dark woods. The white light made the ice and snow glitter. For a moment, it resembled a wonderland, rather than the potentially fatal problem that had brought him out here.

They would arrive soon enough, he told himself again. Cyclone would arrive first, from the air, and poor old Torch would be last, as usual. Covering his tracks in the snow was always a difficult feat, even for a masterful druid such as him. Starswirl had offered to change the meeting-place to somewhere nearer his village and Cyclone’s own regal city in the clouds, but both had refused. Far better to travel far than to risk being seen by one of their own patrols. In the end, Starswirl had given in and agreed to parley in the neutral zone between the three territories. Now he wished that he had pushed harder.

And then he heard it. A groaning wheeze that echoed through the trees. Icicles fell from the branches, making holes in the snow on the ground. Starswirl ended his light spell and held his breath. He could see a faint flashing light through the trees, growing stronger and stronger.

The great wizard swallowed hard. That was the other problem with meeting in the neutral zone. The sole reason it had gone unclaimed was because it could handily defend itself. Bandersnatches and jub-jub birds, not to mention long-leggedy beasties and things that went bump in the night, all of them called this midnight pit their home.

He glanced between the clearing and the source of the now-fading noise. Better to go see what it was before it decided to come over and get a closer look at him. But just in case his friends arrived while he was gone…

He spun and fired off a spell at a nearby tree. The bark was blasted off, leaving a hoof-sized bare patch in the shape of an arrow. The old wizard turned and trotted into the woods, a powerful offensive spell glowing at the tip of his horn.

***

Trixie shivered and moved a little closer to Sunset. “Can we not simply move along?” she requested. “Clearly this is not where we want to be.”

“Well, it isn’t quite when and where we want to be,” Sunset agreed. “But we might still be near Ponyville, just in winter. Or we might have the right time and just be much farther north than we hoped.”

“Like in Griffonstone?”

“Exactly.”

Trixie snuggled closer, and Sunset tried desperately not to think about how if the magician moved any closer she would be inside her. She hadn’t had a crush on anypony like this since, er… ever. Or maybe human Twilight. Maybe?

Trixie interrupted her thoughts. “At least in Griffonstone, we could see where we were standing,” she complained. “Light up a little more.”

“Your wish is my command, mistress,” Sunset droned, but she lit up a little brighter and just a little bit warmer as they trudged along.

“Mmm,” Trixie sighed. “Maybe this isn’t so bad after all…”

Given that Trixie was now more or less lying on top of her like a cloak, Sunset begged to differ. At least she wasn’t complaining anymore.

“Snow is actually quite pretty,” Trixie said dreamily. “Trixie never liked it before. Always so cold, harsh. Not nice when you’re on the road.”

“No,” Sunset said, feeling rather guilty all of a sudden. “I suppose it wouldn’t be.”

“What wouldn’t be?” Trixie asked sleepily.

“...Winters in that old wagon of yours. Not very nice.”

Trixie tightened her grip on Sunset's neck, bringing her to a halt. “How did you know that Trixie was thinking that?” she demanded.

“You said-- oh…” Sunset trailed off. “Right. Sorry, I think I lost control of my telepathy for a second.”

“Your what?”

“Mind-reading,” Sunset said. A deep pit formed in her gut. “You-- I did tell you I could read minds, right? You saw that! Back in Seaddle, I read that mare's mind! And at the House? When I used Billie's memories to reboot the whole place? Did you not pick up on the fact that that was powerful mental magic?”

"Trixie assumed that was just a one-off spell, not something you do nigh-constantly! How could you neglect to mention something this important to Trixie?"

"It's embarrassing! Besides, I thought I'd already told you at... some point, I guess."

“You certainly did not!” Trixie said, all but falling off Sunset’s back. “Have you been reading Trixie’s thoughts all this time?”

“What? No! Look, I hardly ever use it unless it’s important or I forget to actively stop. And I can only read somepony’s mind when I’m touching them.”

Trixie looked at her, wary. “Why didn’t you tell Trixie this before?”

“Well, it’s hardly the first thing you tell someone!” Sunset argued. “We’ve been kinda busy.”

“It’s also not something you forget to mention,” Trixie argued. “There’s been a lot of time for you to have mentioned this to Trixie.”

“I--” Sunset took a deep breath. “Fair. That’s fair. I should’ve mentioned it, I’m sorry I didn’t, now can we please move--”

“Hold!”

Both mares turned to see a bearded unicorn step out from behind a tree, his face lit by the aura of white magic blazing around his horn. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What brings you to this place?”

Trixie tossed her mane. “Trixie might ask the same of you!” she retorted.

“Well, you might,” the stallion allowed. “I asked first, though.”

“Trixie asked louder.”

“That doesn’t actually--”

“Oh my goodness, you’re Starswirl the Bearded!” Sunset gasped.

Starswirl squinted at her. “Certainly I am. What manner of spirit are you, I wonder? Some fire-imp, perchance?”

“Friendship, actually. I learned all about you in school! I even dressed up like you for Nightmare Night. Can I-- actually, can I get your autograph?”

He blinked at her, uncomprehending. “Spirit… of friendship?” he mused. “Most intriguing." He looked at Trixie. "You must be a powerful summoner indeed to conjure a spirit so unique.”

“Huh?” said Trixie. “That is to say, of course! Trixie is a great and powerful summoner. It is rare that she meets one to rival her power, and so she created Sunset Shimmer to be her constant companion!”

Sunset rolled her eyes. Starswirl, though, was nodding along. “Interesting indeed. Well, while that explains who you are, I must still ask-- what brings you to this miserable neck of the woods? And why have I never seen you before in Unicornia?”

Trixie pointed her nose in the air. “We,” she said with great gravitas, “are travelling--”

“From Mt. Moonglow,” Sunset blurted. “We’ve traveled far and long to reach Unicornia.”

Starswirl nodded slowly. “I see. In that case, you two had better come with me.”

“Oh?”

“Indeed.” He straightened his back. “Yes. These woods are no place to spend the night. I shall help you teleport to the city proper.”

“Ah,” said Sunset. “The thing is--”

Starswirl cocked his head. “Luggage,” Trixie said quickly. “We’ve left our luggage back that way. It really would--”

There was a crash in the forest, followed by a prolonged bellow. “No time,” Starswirl said. “A team will be sent for it in the daylight, please do come along.”

There didn’t seem to be much choice. Sunset was loath to leave the TARDIS behind, but not as much as she was to face whatever that thing had been. She grabbed Starswirl’s outstretched hoof and grabbed Trixie around the barrel. There was a flash of brilliant white light, and then they were gone.

***

Trixie let out a cry of surprise as her tail hit cold rock. Beside her, Sunset pushed herself upright, having fallen flat on her face. “Oh, dear. Are you alright?” Starswirl asked.

“Trixie has been better,” Trixie muttered.

“Starswirl!” A green mare in a tattered set of tan robes shoved open a door at the top of the stairs and glared around the room. “Where have you been? Who are these mares? Wait, is that a mare?”

“One mare, one spirit, both pilgrims I discovered in the woods,” Starswirl said. “Hello to you as well, Clover.”

The mare closed the door behind her and made her way down to the chamber below. “Hello yourself. Princess Platinum wants an update on the information leak.”

Starswirl scowled. “If I’ve told her once, I’ve told her a hundred times. I’m a wizard, not a private investigator.”

“Yes, I know. She doesn’t care. And if you want to keep your royal stipend, neither do you.”

The old wizard growled a long string of consonants that literally turned the air blue. “Fine,” he relented. “Keep these two company while I go and visit with our royal pain in residence.”

“You really shouldn’t call her that.”

“If she complains, I shall of course apologize. Of course, given that she’d have to find out first…”

Clover rolled her eyes and held the door open for her mentor. “Try and behave yourself, won’t you?”

“She hasn’t fired me yet,” Starswirl replied, trotting out into the hallway. “Much as I might wish otherwise.”

Clover rolled her eyes and shut the door. Sunset and Trixie watched in silence as she made her way down the stairs, her hooves clicking staccato on the old stone steps. Only when she reached the bottom did she meet their eyes.

“Wow. I guess you didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” Sunset said.

Clover frowned, which only deepened the dark rings under her eyes. “What do you mean? I got a whole four hours, best night’s sleep I’ve had all week. Who are you, exactly?”

“Pilgrims,” Sunset began.

“Performers!” Trixie interrupted.

Clover raised a brow. “Traveling performers?”

“Er, yes,” Sunset said, glaring at Trixie. “In search of food and shelter until we can get back to our…”

“Wagon,” Trixie finished. “You shall have to pardon Trixie’s summon, Miss Clover. She is not of this world, and not yet versed in its ways.”

“What are you doing?” Sunset muttered.

“Trust Trixie,” Trixie hissed through gritted teeth. Glancing back to Clover, her eyes warmed. “Trixie is a humble purveyor of tricks and illusions--”

Sunset snorted. “Humble? That’s what you’re going with? Okay then, I’m her ice-cold assistant, Sunset Shimmer.”

“Trixie can be humble if she puts her mind to it!”

“Yeah, and I could be cold if I really tried.”

Trixie sputtered as Sunset extended a hoof. “Hi, I’m Sunset, the frozen spirit of enmity and anathema, and this is the Weak and Impotent Trixie. Nice to meet you.”

Clover started to laugh. “I see! A comedy act, very nice.”

Trixie blinked, perplexed. “Comedy? No, no. Trixie is a master of prestidigitation and illusion.”

“Then might I see an example of that, as well?”

“Trixie thinks she is mocking us,” Trixie muttered to Sunset.

“Only a little. I’m sorry,” Clover said, settling down. “Please, I really would like to see your act. What’s your best trick?”

Trixie froze. “Best… trick. Hm. Trixie has so many excellent tricks, it can be difficult to choose only one…”

Internally, she was screaming. How could she come up with anything to shock the mare who still had the reputation of one of the greatest wizards of all time thousands of years after her death? Sawing a mare in half just wasn’t going to cut it, especially when she didn’t have her trick box. She didn’t have a tank of water, or a rabbit, or even a bouquet of flowers. What she had was her hat and cloak, a deck of cards, a string of hankies, and a very lovely assistant.

Sunset. Trixie’s eyes went wide. “Of course! Of course. Sit down my dear Clover, and tell me a little about yourself. Or rather, let Trixie tell you about yourself. Sunset, come and close our magic circle!”

Sunset frowned and leaned in as they sat on the stone floor. “What are you--”

“The mind-reading goes both ways, yes?” Trixie hissed. "Like what you did with Billie and the House?"

“Uh, I guess so, yeah.”

“Then give me her memories,” Trixie muttered. “Trixie will take it from there.”

“Isn’t that a little hypocritical of you, considering how you reacted earlier?”

“Yeah, well, that’s show biz,” she hissed, grabbing Sunset’s hoof.

Turning back to Clover and taking her hoof more gently, Trixie said, “Now, take Sunset’s hoof. Then, Trixie wants you to think about everything you did today-- no, just think about what you ate for lunch.”

Clover closed her eyes and cinched her brow, concentrating. Sunset’s ear twitched. “Jeez, not so loud,” she complained.

“Edelweiss salad with a honey dressing,” Trixie said.

Clover’s eyes popped open. “That’s incredible!”

“It is, isn’t it?” Trixie preened. “And that is why Trixie is the greatest and most powerful… mare…” she trailed off, cocking her head as though she were listening to something. “Huh.”

“Something wrong?” Sunset asked.

“No… no,” Trixie said, pulling away from the other two mares. “Trixie just… never mind.”

“This is fascinating,” Clover said, her tired eyes now opened wide. “How is it done? Is the spirit required?”

“I have a name,” Sunset muttered. Clover didn’t hear her. She had eyes and ears for Trixie alone.

“What else can you see, wise mare?”

“Trixie’s visions are fickle things,” Trixie said, gazing into the distance dramatically. “Divination is an art that few can perform and fewer yet may master.”

“Oh,” said Clover.

Trixie glanced back at her. “Trixie could perhaps teach you, if you so desired.”

“Oh!” Clover said, raising her brows. “Gosh. But, no, I couldn’t. Like you said, only a few ponies can do it.”

“Well, who’s to say you aren’t one of them?” Trixie asked. “Trixie sees a spark of great potential in you, Clever Clover.”

Clover’s jaw dropped. “Really?”

“Oh, yes,” Trixie assured her. “Trixie foresees that someday, you will help to save the world!”

That was the last straw. “Save… the world?” Clover asked, dazed.

“Or something like that,” Sunset cut in quickly. “But my lady Clover, we are tired from our long journey. Trixie will have time enough to teach you tomorrow. For now, all we ask of you is a room and perhaps some supper before we retire.”

Clover blinked herself back to the present. “Of course, yes, I’m sorry. I’ll go and get everything sorted right away.” She hurried back up the stairs and out the door. It slammed behind her.

As soon as Clover’s echoing hoofbeats had faded, Sunset rounded on Trixie. “What in the name of all chaos do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, taking a step toward the magician. “Teach this, tell that, it’s like you’re trying to mess up the timeline!”

Trixie scoffed. “Please. All Trixie did was tell the truth. She will save the world, she is clever, and Trixie will be perfectly glad to give her private divination lessons.”

“One problem with that.”

“Oh?”

“You can’t actually read minds! Or tell the future, or anything like that! How do you expect to teach her something like that without having the first clue how to do it?”

“Oh, Trixie doesn’t intend to do much teaching.”

“Then what--”

“Trixie saw something more than Clover’s lunch up in that pretty noggin of hers.”

“What are you talking about?”

Trixie smiled. “Love. Puppy love, maybe, but love nonetheless. Clever girl has it hot for Trixie.”

Sunset gaped. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Are you actually going to try and seduce one of the most important political and magical figures of all time?”

“Trixie isn’t about to ‘try’ anything. She has done it already. Poor mare was head over hooves.”

“I-- no. No, not happening. We’re going back to the TARDIS, we’re leaving--”

“Do you know where the TARDIS is from here?”

“...No.”

“Do you really want to go back to face whatever was in that forest at night?”

Sunset growled. “Fine. We’ll stay for a few nights, just until they can recover the TARDIS. After that, we’re out of here. Capisce?”

“A few nights is all Trixie needs…”

Sunset glared. “Just… try not to completely screw up the past? Try not to erase Hearth’s Warming, that’s literally all I ask of you.”

“Trixie cannot be held responsible for the actions others take over her hot bod.”

Sunset groaned. It was going to be a long few days.

***

Starswirl pushed open the door to the royal chambers. The princess stood at the window, her silver coat shimmering in the moonlight, lighting her flaxen hair. “Your majesty,” he said.

“Starswirl.” Princess Platinum glanced around the room. “Guards, leave us.”

Four stout and stalwart unicorns left their positions and marched out the door in perfect step with one another. The princess glanced over her shoulder. “Approach.”

Starswirl rolled his eyes and made his way into the room. “You wished to speak with me, your majesty?”

“Indeed.” She turned away from the window and trotted toward the writing desk. Starswirl trailed after her, utterly bored already. He watched her pull a scroll from a drawer and lay it flat on the table.

“I’ve received a report from the head of the guard.”

“Have you indeed,” Starswirl said drily. “Well, don’t spoil it for me, I’m waiting for the stage adaptation.”

She ignored him. She was exceedingly good at that. “Our patrols haven’t encountered a single featherhead or dirtclod on our lands in weeks.”

“Excellent news, surely.”

“No.”

“No?”

“We haven’t found any of them,” Platinum stressed, “but evidence of their arrival here was clear. Abandoned campsites, stolen grain, armor that no right-minded unicorn would be seen dead in--”

“Armor that isn’t bedazzled within an inch of its life, you mean?”

“You came up with the idea of installing enchanted gemstones in the armor.”

“My proposal was one gemstone per suit, not one per square inch,” Starswirl grumbled. “Fine. The other tribes have been interloping. So what? We’ve done as much to their lands, and I’m sure they’re well aware.”

“That’s no reason for them to intrude here,” Platinum said hotly, turning to face the wizard for the first time. “Anyway, the fact that we haven’t seen a single trespasser seems a little peculiar, does it not? Almost as if--”

“There were a spy in our midst, finding and snatching up our military plans and secrets for those who would destroy us,” Starswirl finished tonelessly. “Yes, I’d heard.”

Platinum sputtered for a moment. “Well, what do you intend to do about it?” she demanded at length.

“What exactly do you expect of me? Cast a charm to bring the perpetrator to this very room? Enchant the water supply so that none who drink of it may lie? Perhaps I could simply put a large bubble around the kingdom, shut down all traffic in and out.”

“Marvelous, get on it right away.”

“Your majesty, you would not like the end results of any of those options. The first one is quite literally impossible without first knowing the spy’s identity. The third one would eliminate all trade. The second one… well, just imagine a day in court where nopony could lie.”

“Sounds perfect. Finally, I can know who really stands with me!”

“You wouldn’t be able to lie either.”

She gasped. “Does such a spell exist? I want it burned, Starswirl. Destroy it. Throw it through your weird mirror.”

“Really, your majesty, this is a job for the guard, not a wizard. If you can find evidence of magic being used to tamper with secure documents, that’s where I can help you. Rooting out a culprit? I’d be no more useful to you than any other unicorn in the city.”

“I don’t trust any other unicorn in the city,” Platinum snapped, rising from her seat. “Any one of them might be the spy. The royal court, the captain of the guard, some random citizen, anypony. You, Starswirl, you might have sympathies for the other races. You might not think much of me as a ruler. You might not even like me all that much, Sun knows you act like it. But I trust you to tell me the truth. I trust your judgement. I trust your wisdom. That is why I want you to help me now.”

He locked eyes with her. The princess’s violet eyes were filled with rage, desperation, and fear. Just for a moment, he saw her as a child once more, wide-eyed and pleading. He shut his eyes tight. “Very well,” he said quietly. “I believe I may have the inklings of a plan.”

***

In the darkness of the woods, two ponies stood side by side, gazing up at a blue obelisk. “What is it?” the pegasus asked in between her nervous, aggressive preenings of her wings. Her grey face was weathered with age and wear, her body crossed with a dozen scars, but her eyes shone with bright curiosity and fierce intelligence.

The mustard-colored earth pony shook his head. “Hasn’t been here long,” he observed. “Snow on top is much thinner than it is on the ground.”

“But there’s no sign of it being dragged here. Unicorn magic, most likely.”

“Might it not have been flown in?”

“I would have heard about that before now.”

“Mm. Do you suppose he’s inside?”

“I know of one way to find out.” She jiggled the handle. “Locked. Blast.”

The earth pony knocked on the door. “Starswirl? Are you in there?”

Silence answered him.

“I don’t like this, Torch.”

“I can’t say I do either, Cyclone, but this is where the arrow was pointing.”

“We don’t know that it was Starswirl who made that mark,” she pointed out, glancing around the dark woods. “Any unicorn could have carved an arrow like that.”

“If this were a trap, I think the unicorns would have sprung it already.”

Cyclone grunted and took a step back from the box, rubbing absently at her eyepatch. “It must mean something, surely.”

“Oh, yes. Though whether it means anything of use to us is an entirely different matter.”

“Would you please stop being so damned cryptic all the time?”

“Of course. My apologies, propraetor.”

“Oh, don’t start getting formal on me,” she warned.

There was a long silence. Then Cyclone’s shoulders slumped. “I hope he’s alright,” she said quietly. “Probably worse for you. He’s your coltfriend, after all.”

A yellow hoof wrapped around her withers, and the two friends sat staring at the blue obelisk. “Perhaps he teleported away,” Torch Wood suggested.

“Maybe. In which case, we should both head home and try and contact him through the mirrors.”

“That would be wise, yes.”

“Should we bother with the box at all?”

Torch considered that. “I think not. It’s too noticeable, and anyway, I don’t reckon that either of us could make it back home carrying it.”

“I didn’t say anything about taking it all the way back. I just thought we might secret it away somewhere, a cave or something.”

“Mmm." Torch Wood looked up at the stars, thoughtful. "There’s a sort of ditch not too far from here. We could lay it on its side, and that would probably hide it from at least a cursory glance.”

“That will have to do. I’ll tilt it and pull it along by the lantern, and you grab it from the bottom and follow after me.”

There was a distant howl, and both ponies whipped around to look for the source. “Let’s make this fast,” Torch muttered. “Our firepower is missing.”

“Agreed,” Cyclone said, taking to the air. “Which way is that ditch?”

Together, they quickly hoisted up the box and shoved off into the night, not even thinking to clear away the hoofprints and feathers they had left behind.

***

Sunset awoke the next morning to a profound sense of confusion. That wasn’t the pristine white of her bedroom ceiling. There was no comforting hum of the engines coming from the walls. This wasn’t the waterbed that she was sure the TARDIS had only given to her out of a profound sense of irony. Trixie was, for some reason, sprawled eagle next to her on the bed and had entangled three of her limbs around Sunset.

The events of last night came rushing back to Sunset. She quietly disentangled herself from Trixie, sat up on the goosefeather mattress, and glanced around. The walls were stone, studded with gems at irregular intervals. All of the furniture was made of some dark wood wrapped with bands of gold. She stepped out of bed an onto a rich, thick carpet. The whole room was so opulent as to flirt with tackiness. Sunset muttered an oath under her breath. “Trixie. Get up.”

“Nrrwww…”

“Trixie.”

“Too cold. Come back an’ let Trixie hold you.”

Sunset rolled her eyes. Seeing a fireplace against the wall, she threw a fireball into it, setting the ash and kindling inside alight. “Better?”

“Rrgh.” Trixie flopped onto her belly like a fish. “Fine. But Trixie isn’t getting out of bed until you heat the floor, too.”

“Just walk on the carpet.”

Trixie let out another long-suffering grumble before rolling off the bed, still swaddled in blankets. “What time even is it?”

Sunset looked out the window. “Pretty early, I guess. Probably about six-ish.”

“You woke Trixie up at six? Like, in the morning six?”

“Yes, Trixie. That’s traditionally considered a pretty good time to wake up.”

“Not when Trixie went to sleep at two!”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “C’mon, let’s go see if coffee’s been discovered yet.”

“Carry Trixie.”

“Not a chance.”

“That’s fair.” She rose, still wrapped in the blankets. “Trixie will just have to carry herself! Haha!”

She levitated the blankets around her, and Sunset watched in fascinated horror as they slipped into awkward loops around her, lifting her by two legs and her face before letting her slip and fall to the floor. She landed with a grunt. A few moments later, she was buried in blankets. Sunset covered her mouth to disguise a snort of laughter.

“Will you carry Trixie now?” the pile asked plaintively.

“I could,” Sunset said, recovering herself. “But how will anyone take you seriously as a magician if you can’t even walk yourself to breakfast?”

The blanket pile deflated. “Trixie accepts your point.” She poked her head out from beneath the covers and stumbled to her hooves. “Shall we away, then?”

***

The castle wasn’t exactly empty, but it was far less crowded than Sunset would have expected. “In Canterlot,” she told Trixie under her breath, “you couldn’t turn a corner wouthout running into three courtiers, a member of parliament, and a maid. Where is everypony?”

“Smaller city?” Trixie suggested.

“Guess so. Less complicated political structure, too. In a direct monarchy, everything must be much more streamlined.”

“Lots of empty corridors…”

“Yeah, that’s what I just--” Sunset’s brain caught up with her mouth. “You’re still on that ‘seducing Clover’ jag, huh?”

“Naturally.”

Sunset frowned. “Alright. I’ll try not to get in your way. Just-- take it slow, won’t you?”

“Trixie only has a few days before you get the TARDIS back!”

“That should be plenty of time for a good few makeout sessions, I’m sure.”

“Very well. Trixie shall be a tortoise on the road to romance.”

“Let her take the lead. And for the love of Celestia, don’t tell her anything about the future!”

Trixie blew a raspberry. “Yes, sure, whatever. Trixie will behave.”

“Alright. I trust you, Trixie.”

“Great. Now, let’s find breakfast.”

***

The dining hall was nearly as empty as the rest of the castle. Of the five long tables that stretched from wall to wall, only one was occupied, and even it was far from full. Sunset glanced at it dismally; memories of certain days in the Canterlot High cafeteria were flooding back. Being the new kid sucked, but it was at least somewhat better than being the ostracized ex-bully. She could handle this. She could--

Oh thank Celes-- thank Disc-- thank somebody, Starswirl was waving at them, beckoning them over. He was sitting well away from anypony else, nearly at the opposite end of the table from the bulk of them.

“Hail and well met,” Trixie said, sliding onto the bench next to the great wizard.

“And to you,” he said cordially. “I trust you slept well this night?”

“Well enough,” Sunset said. “I had to drag her out of bed.”

Trixie’s nostrils flared in irritation. “Well, Trixie had a very long day yesterday! Can you blame her for--”

“I’m not saying it was a bad thing. Honestly, it was kinda cute.”

“Oh.” Trixie went quite pink at that and subsided.

“So,” Sunset said brightly. “How did last night’s meeting with her highness go?”

Starswirl hummed. “It was, shall we say, informative. There has been some… unusual activity in the castle for some months now.”

“What kind of unusual activity?” Trixie asked, casting a considering eye over the spread. “Is the castle haunted or something?”

Starswirl chuckled. “Nothing as ethereal as that! No, this is a far more mundane matter, and given that the two of you have only just arrived, the princess feels that the two of you are the only ones above suspicion, outside myself and a few other trusted advisors.”

Sunset just glared at him and waved an impatient hoof.

“Oh, sorry.” Starswirl leaned in close and lowered his voice. “The trouble is, there’s a leak in the castle.”

Sunset frowned. “Surely that’s a job for a plumber.”

“No, Starswirl corrected. “I mean there is a mole among us.”

“So call pest control, jeez,” Trixie said.

Starswirl rolled his eyes. “A spy,” he said. “There is a spy in our midst, spreading information to the earth ponies and pegasi.”

“Oh,” said Trixie. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

Starswirl shut his eyes for a long moment, and turned to Sunset. “In the forest last night, I overheard your argument. You said you could read minds,” he said.

“That’s me, yeah,” Sunset said.

“And you must be in physical contact with the subject to make it work?”

“...Yes?”

“Excellent,” Starswirl muttered. “Yes, excellent indeed.”

“Come again?” Trixie said.

Starswirl gazed deep into first her eyes and then Sunset’s, gauging and thoughtful. “The princess has agreed to hold a banquet tomorrow night,” he said. “Everypony in the castle-- which is to say, anypony who might have access to sensitive information-- will be in attendance. You must mingle, shake hooves, and check their minds for any memories of illicit meetings or stealing secrets.”

Sunset stared at the wizard, openmouthed. “That may be the most unethical abuse of my powers that I’ve ever heard of. Wait-- no, sorry, one of my friends once suggested I use it to blackmail… y’know what, not important. Not happening.”

Starswirl’s frown deepened. “I can respect your moral objection,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t mind if the spy was never found at all. The only consequence thus far has been fewer skirmishes, less bloodshed. But--” he hesitated. “The princess thinks otherwise. And the princess, I fear, is very much disinclined to dissenting voices.”

“So what?”

“She’s also the one who ordered the guards to go and collect your box.”

Trixie winced. “Ah. That might be a difficulty.”

“Indeed. She intends that it should be locked away until the spy is discovered.”

Sunset growled, deep and low in her throat. Her eyes literally burned. “Tomorrow night, you said?”

“Yes…”

“That gives me a lot of time to think about my next move.” Sunset stood up abruptly and stormed out of the dining hall and slamming one of the great oak doors behind her. After a long moment, she peered around the edge of the door and levitated a bowl of porridge out after her.

Trixie turned back to Starswirl. “Anyway. What kind of flowers are Clover’s favorite?”

Starswirl raised an eyebrow.

***

“You’re sure this is the place?” Diamond Sharp asked for the sixth time.

It took all of Silver Polish’s will not to roll her eyes. “This is where the wizard teleported from. He told us that he could see the box from where he was standing. It must be around here somewhere.”

“But it’s not.”

“Yes, thank you Diamond, I had noticed.”

She couldn’t bring herself to call him Sharp. Acknowledging the irony would only give her a headache. How he had made it into the Royal Guard, she had no idea. “Some kind of creature must’ve dragged it off.”

“Oh. Well, we’ll never find it now, we should head back.”

“Not so fast,” Silver said. “Check the ground for any sign of a disturbance-- a big square dent in the snow.”

He went off, grumbling. Silver looked around. Something had been by here, that much was certain. Broken branches lay scattered over the ground, and the impressions of very large feet were clearly visible in the snow. She wandered along in the opposite direction from Diamond, toward a large clearing. It didn’t look particularly likely, as far as potential locations of lost luggage went, but, well, no stone left unturned.

The clearing was undisturbed. That was… odd. Had whatever Boojum that had left its trail so clearly last night simply not come through this way? The snow was almost unnaturally even, too. She stood in the center of the ring of trees, turning in a slow circle. She almost missed it. It was so small, but so glaringly obvious. An arrow, carved into the bark of one of the trees. The implications hit her so sharp and sudden that she couldn’t even unpack them all, not then and there. “Diamond!” she shouted. “You’d better come see this!”

“I think you’d better come see this, too,” he called back. “I found the box!”

***

Princess Platinum sat at her desk, idly writing in her diary. Lord Majestic has a moste pleasing appearance, she wrote, but has not the Wit to pick up his Own fork and knife to dine. Whereas, the Count Glisten has unrivalled conversational skills, but it is often difficult to tell whether he faces towards me or away. Would that there were but one of them, with the best qualities of both. (N.B.: Have Starswirl look into spells for switching brains or something. Perhaps switching cutie marks would suffice?)

The door slammed open. The book slammed shut. Platinum spun around, horn already glowing with a fierce light. “Who dares?”

“The pegasi tried to steal the magic box!”

“...What.”

A second guard, a mare, pushed the big lunkhead out of the way. “You might have knocked,” she said reproachfully. “At the very least.”

“Exactly what are the pair of you doing in my chambers?” Platinum demanded. “Talking about magic boxes and larcenous pegasi! Explain yourselves.”

“Your majesty, we do humbly beg your pardon,” said the mare, cutting across the stallion’s open mouth and throwing in a quick kick to his back leg for good measure. “We come bearing news of the newcomers’ lost luggage.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Platinum said, relaxing slightly. “You found it?”

“Yes’m.”

“You locked it away?”

“Yes’m.”

“Excellent.”

“But.”

“But?”

“But,” said the mare, “it had been thrown in a ditch. There were hoofprints and feathers marking out its path.”

“I see,” Platinum murmured.

“I found the box!” the stallion said.

“There’s more,” said the mare. “There was an arrow carved into a nearby tree, pointing toward where the box had first been left-- I examined it, and it was far too neat to have been done without magic.”

“The spy…” Platinum breathed, her eyes going wide. “They’ve become more brazen.”

“So it would appear, your highness,” the mare agreed.

Platinum’s gaze hardened. “Find Starswirl,” she ordered. “I must speak with him. Immediately.”

***

Sunset glared at the TARDIS through the bars of the cell. “This is completely unnecessary,” she grumbled.

The guards remained silent.

“I would’ve helped her either way,” she continued. “I just wanted my stuff back.”

The guards remained silent.

“There’s probably something in there that could help find this spy,” Sunset mused. “Really, this is probably setting me way back in helping your princess.”

The guards remained silent. But the raised eyebrows were answer enough.

“Ugh.” Sunset turned and stormed out of the dungeons. Fine. Fine! So she couldn’t get to the TARDIS without alerting the guards. So she’d have to play along with this frankly insulting plan. That was fine. She’d just tell the princess that the spy wasn’t there.

Well, no, that might make her turn on all the ponies who weren’t there, by reason of being too poor or powerless to garner an invitation to the feast. She’d just point the princess at the most objectionable guest there.

Well, no, that would be condemning a technically innocent pony to… whatever fate was reserved for spies. No matter how big a jerk anypony was, even if it was Prince Blueblood himself, she couldn’t bring herself to do that. So she’d have to tell the truth.

Well, no, she couldn’t do that either. This spy, from what she’d heard, was acting for the good of all three tribes. If she wrecked this, that might change history, make the Windigoes stronger, and doom Equestria before it was ever founded. So she’d…

Well, what did that leave? She shut her eyes and grit her jaws, steam quite literally leaking from her ears. So she’d get someone else to help her, that’s what she’d do. Sunset marched off to find Trixie.

***

“Over here, of course, is the hall of windows,” Clover said, gesturing idly to a pair of open doors, through which Trixie could see light of all colors pouring through gorgeous stained glass.

“That looks--”

“This is the hall to the royal gardens, famed for the gorgeous roses that bloom all the year round.”

“Incredible! Should we take a--”

“This is the corridor leading to the royal museum, full of the jewelry and portraits of unicorn monarchs dating back over three hundred years.”

“Wow! Trixie would love to--”

“But of course, I’ve saved my very favorite room for last!” Clover said.

“...Your bedroom?” Trixie asked hopefully.

Clover flung a pair of double doors open. “The library!”

Trixie shut her eyes tight. “Of course,” she said flatly. “Dusty old books. Why is Trixie not surprised?”

Clover didn’t hear her. She was already several meters away, perusing the shelves. “As bad as Sparkle,” Trixie muttered, plodding after her. “What about all the other things you mentioned?” she asked, a little bit louder. “The windows, and the garden, and the museum?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Clover said, disinterested. “You go on ahead, tour’s over now.”

“Trixie thought that you might want to come too? This wasn’t quite what she meant when she asked to spend the day with you.”

Clover hummed, distracted. “Too busy. Anyway, I’ve seen them all already.”

“You have not seen them with Trixie.”

“Is there a difference?”

That put her at something of a loss for words. There was a difference, obviously. Of course there was. But she just… didn’t have the words to explain it. So she did the next best thing. “Busy with what?” she asked.

“Hm?”

“You said that you were busy. Could Trixie help at all?”

Clover stopped and thought about that. “I… suppose so, yes.”

“Great! What should Trixie do?”

“Well, Starswirl asked me to research illusion magic--”

“Trixie’s specialty.”

“That’s convenient. The princess ordered me to work on a spell to find precious stones, and I’m also working on the projects on this list.” She held out a small scroll.

Trixie took it from her outstretched hoof. “Easy-peasy. We shall have this done before lunch!” she crowed, slapping the scroll on the table for emphasis. It began to unroll. It continued to unroll. It kept unrolling. Trixie boggled. “Before lunch… next week.”

The library door slammed open. “Trixie!” Sunset shouted, flames dancing around her body.

“...Next midwinter?” Trixie guessed weakly.

***

“You wished to speak with me, your majesty?” Starswirl asked, not looking up from his workbench.

“Some two hours ago, yes,” Platinum said, making her way down the steps. “You realize that I could have you imprisoned for failing to obey me.”

“You could,” Starswirl agreed. “Although that would mean that you’re a set of hooves shorter for the banquet tomorrow. And, of course, it might damage our previously cordial working relationship.”

The princess let out a short bark of a laugh despite herself. “True enough,” she said. “What was so important as to keep you?”

Starswirl pointed to a potion bottle held over a flame. “I must take that off as soon as that turns blue. If it’s left heating, the results would be quite catastrophic.”

“Mm. I’ll take your word for it,” Platinum replied. “The spy has shown their hoof.”

Starswirl glanced up in surprise. “Oh?”

“Yes. They were following you.”

His eyebrows rose. “Were they? I’m sure I would have noticed.”

“They made some sort of marking for their pegasus allies to follow-- they tried to take the blue box that those mares left in the woods.”

“I see,” Starswirl murmured, his eyes wide. “Good heavens. Do you suppose I’m still being tailed?”

The princess smiled triumphantly. “You see? This spy is dangerous, Starswirl, and obviously a master of their craft. Will you not now admit that they must be brought to justice?”

Starswirl let out a long, grumbling sigh. “I’ll admit, I’m not pleased to be considered a target by this… unknown. And I agree, as I have always agreed, that justice must be served. But I will not change my mind regarding the nobility-- no, the necessity-- of their actions. Avoiding conflict with the other tribes is the only way to prevent unnecessary loss of life.”

The Princess blinked. “So what you’re saying is…”

He turned to face her, graver than she had ever known him to be. “I will help you, because you are my monarch. But should we fail to catch this spy, I will shed no tear that they may continue to interfere with our battles.”

Platinum sighed. “I suppose that’s the best I can hope for. How goes your plan?”

Starswirl frowned. “They are resistant.”

“What? But I have their box! They must do as I command, I am their Princess!”

Starswirl rolled his eyes. “It’s called morality, your highness. There are certain delicacies that ought to be observed when invading another pony’s mind.”

“Oh, delicacies.” Platinum relaxed. “Yes, I suppose the proper etiquette must be observed.”

“...Yes, let’s put it like that,” Starswirl agreed. “Not to worry. Everything will be ready come tomorrow evening.”

“See that it is.” The princess turned to go, but paused. “Didn’t you say that potion was meant to turn blue?”

“Yes.”

“Should it be turning violet?”

Starswirl spun. “Get down!” he roared, diving under a workbench.

“I beg your--” She was cut off by an explosion of thick blue gas and the smell of ivy.

***

“What the heck, Shimmer?” Trixie growled. “You said you would let Trixie get it on with Clover uninterrupted.”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry.” Sunset sat against the wall, clearly agitated. “I promise I won’t do it again, but I really need some advice.”

“Advice?” Trixie repeated, her scowl relaxing. “You want advice from Trixie?”

“...Yes?”

“Huh. Trixie did not see that coming.” She sat down next to Sunset. “Tell on.”

So Sunset explained. There was no way out of this situation; she couldn’t tell the truth, she couldn’t lie, and she couldn’t refuse to say anything, either. Not if they wanted the TARDIS back anytime soon.

Trixie cocked her head. “Well…” she drawled. “That might not be so terrible.”

“No. Bad Trixie. We still need to get back home.”

“Fine. But it wouldn’t be so bad to stay here a little longer, would it?”

“Trixie, it’s only October, and the snow comes up to your barrel in some places. If I’m guessing right, then the events of the first Hearth’s Warming will kick off any time now, and we can’t be here to mess that up.”

Trixie pursed her lips. “Trixie sees. Well, let us see. So long as the spy is an issue, we cannot access the TARDIS. There is nothing that you can say, for reasons ethical, historical, or both, which will remove the spy from the castle. Therefore…”

Sunset leaned forward. “Therefore…”

“We must remove the spy on our own terms.”

Sunset’s brow furrowed. “I don’t see…”

“You came to the right pony, Sunnybuns,” Trixie said, grinning. “A master illusionist is precisely what we need. Let Trixie explain…”

***

“Well,” said Starswirl. “I have good news and I have bad news.”

Platinum nodded stiffly. “Speak your piece,” she ordered.

“The good news is, I did think ahead enough to research a potential antidote, a useful cureall from the Zebralands.”

Platinum nodded. “Good.”

“The bad news is, it will take at least a fortnight to get a message overseas, and another fortnight to get the necessary herbs for the bath.”

Platinum’s lips tightened. “That is entirely unacceptable, Starswirl.”

Starswirl nodded. “I thought you might say that, yes.”

“My mane is green, Starswirl. Green.”

“It is, your highness.”

“It looks like a pile of smelly seaweed, piled on my head.”

“Yes, your highness.”

“If you don’t fix it by this time tomorrow night, I swear, I’ll--”

“Put an illusion spell on it,” Starswirl said.”

“--pardon?”

“An illusion spell. Clover’s researching them anyway, and one of our guests claims to be an expert in the field. I’ll ask the two of them to help me weave an enchantment into a necklace or something that will make your mane look as if nothing had happened.”

“You had better,” Platinum growled. “The plans I had for that spy will be as nothing compared to what I’ll do to you if I am not made to appear presentable for the banquet tomorrow.”

“Well, quite,” Starswirl said. “The necklace will serve as a temporary measure. In the meantime, I’ll start looking for any nearer suppliers of the necessary herbs.”

“Then we understand one another.”

“Misunderstanding one another has never been an issue between us, your highness,” Starswirl said, glancing back at his lab. “Would you like assistance teleporting back to your chambers?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Platinum said. If her voice had been cold before, it was positively arctic now. “Make the necessary arrangements, Starswirl, and bring that necklace to me as quickly as you can.”

He bowed, and for once it wasn’t even slightly mocking-- nothing more or less than an honest expression of apology. “As you say, your highness.”

She softened a little. But only a little. “Goodbye, Starswirl. And good fortune.”

She departed quickly up the stairs to rejoin her guards. Starswirl watched her go, and when he was quite sure she wasn’t returning, he hurried over to a corner of the lab that had been covered in drop cloths. “Let me see-- transdimensional here, transformative there, fortune-telling, outfit-critiquing… where are they?”

Eventually, he found the two small covered objects, hung on the wall and hidden behind several other covered objects. He swept the sheets off both of them, revealing two wall-mounted mirrors. Each displayed an icon of a broken mirror, with a number hanging above them. Starswirl winced. “Oh dear, missed messages,” he muttered. “I suppose I should have expected as much.”

He hesitated, glancing between the two. “Oh-- Cyclone will probably be at some assembly now anyway,” he decided. He reached up and tapped the right-hoof mirror, and the surface rippled, a green light shining from deep within. A faint ringing tone filled the air, once, twice, three times.

“Oh, pick up,” Starswirl muttered.

There was a faint click, and the scene in the mirror shifted abruptly. A mustard-yellow earth pony stared back at Starswirl. “Oh,” he breathed. “Thank the trees; you’re alive!”

Author's Note

Yeah, this chapter ended up being... quite long, so I split it into two parts.

The Wizard's Secret

“Alive?” Starswirl said with a light chuckle. “Well, for now, certainly, certainly. I’m sorry that I scared you, dear heart.”

“You certainly should be,” Torch Wood said, sitting back on his haunches. “Whatever happened last night? We saw the sign on the tree--”

Starswirl’s face darkened. “Yes-- and you moved the box, didn’t you? And then, you forgot to clear away the hoofprints and the feathers you and Cyclone left behind.”

“Well, yes…” Torch Wood frowned. “What happened last night?”

“Yes, I suppose that would help clarify things,” Starswirl agreed. “It all began when I saw a flashing light out in the darkness…”

Torch listened attentively. He was good at that. Druids were trained to listen for the faintest changes in the winds, the rustle of a munching caterpillar, the growth of trees. Compared to that, almost everything was interesting, though he did still find himself tuning out during budget meetings.

“...so anyway, I need a bunch of rare herbs so the Princess doesn’t banish me, or throw me in a dungeon, or throw me in a dungeon in the place she banished me to,” Starswirl concluded.

Torch let out a long whistle. “My love,” he said. “You are in the chamber pot.”

“I know.”

“I can supply… at least some of those herbs, I suspect. It takes you an entire month to get them from the zebras?”

“Well, you have a better trade deal with them, I suspect. Your leader didn’t tell them that stripes were gauche.”

“True. Although it did take most of the delegation’s best efforts to keep the chancellor from painting himself plaid.”

They both chuckled for a moment, but that quickly faded. “I fear that I can offer you no further help, Starswirl,” Torch said.

Starswirl nodded. “No. For now, I think it would be wisest for you and Cyclone to keep your heads down as much as possible until this blows over. I can handle myself.”

Torch Wood nodded. “I know you can, Starswirl. The question is, can you handle everypony else?”

Starswirl didn’t respond to that for a long minute. “Goodbye, Torch. I love you.”

“I love you too, Starswirl. Goodbye.”

The picture faded, and Starswirl found his own face staring back from the glass darkly. He sighed, slung the dropcloth over the mirror once again. He’d talk to Cyclone later, once he felt up to it. Or-- no, he couldn’t leave her in suspense like that. One quick message, just to reassure her that he was well and that she needed to keep herself to herself for the foreseeable future. He touched the other mirror. The same faint ringing echoed through the room. This time, though, it didn’t go unnoticed…

***

Sunset paused at the top of the stairs. There was a faint ringing in the air. She had come to see Starswirl, to tell him that she had no choice but to agree to this grossly unethical plan. Now, though, she could hear furtive murmurings coming from the lab below. Quietly, she shut her eyes, willing herself smaller; a candle-flame, dancing on the breeze. When she opened her eyes, she was the size of a pixie, spinning in midair. She dove down into the lab. Though she still couldn’t quite make out any words, the voices were clearer, now. They were coming from over… there. She made her way over into a forest of covered objects. Now she could understand the words, at least on one side of the conversation.

“... but as I said, Cyclone, there is no need to concern yourself unduly.”

“Well, no, I’m not sure what level of worry would constitute due concen, but nevertheless…”

“I have no intention of being caught, but if I am, then I hope you and Torch both have the sense not to give yourselves away, too.”

A sigh. “Yes, I know. I’m sorry, Cyclone.”

Sunset paused. Cyclone didn’t sound like a traditional unicorn name. As a matter of fact, it sounded more like…

She rounded the corner. Starswirl was gazing into a small mirror. The pony it reflected though, was very much not the pony she could see looking in. The image displayed had an eyepatch, a grey coat, a blonde mane, and most notably, was a… “Pegasus!”

Both Starswirl and the newcomer turned, startled at the sudden outburst. “Who goes there?” the pegasus demanded. “Show yourself! Starswirl, what’s happening?”

The wizard locked eyes with Sunset-- or at least, he stared at the flame. “Ah. Well, this does complicate things.”

Somewhat sheepishly, Sunset revealed herself. “...Hi, Starswirl. Um. Well, I won’t say this isn’t a surprise.”

The pegasus was muttering quiet curses, her one good eye darting back and forth. “Uh, so,” Sunset said. “You’re… the spy. In hindsight, that makes a lot of sense, actually.”

Neither of the other two ponies replied. Sunset rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. I’m not going to turn you in. Trixie isn’t, either, I swear. I mean, look at me. I’ve got wings and a horn. I’m not going to support anypony who thinks that pegasi and unicorns and earth ponies should be split apart. All the fighting is stupid and self-destructive.”

Starswirl raised a brow. “You understand that we can’t exactly trust you so easily.”

“I’m sure that you can understand that you don’t really have a choice,” Sunset retorted. “Now that you’ve convinced the princess that I’m her best shot at finding the spy-- nice touch, by the way, making sure that you knew the spy-catching plan ahead of time.”

Starswirl gave a tight smile. “Yes. I take your point. Very well then; an alliance?”

Sunset smiled and extended a hoof. Starswirl shook it, never breaking eye contact. “A word of warning,” he said. “If you betray us, I will see to it that you and your delightful friend fall along with us.”

“Roger that, Beardy,” Sunset said, turning to leave. “Don’t worry. We’ll be out of your mane right after the banquet.”

She trotted out through the mirrors. Starswirl and Cyclone watched her go. “...Well, what do you think?” Cyclone asked.

Starswirl huffed. “One way or another, dear Propraetor, our worries will end tomorrow night. I should not like to speculate further.”

Cyclone snorted. “Enigmatic as ever, I see.”

“Enigmatic?” Starswirl managed a small smile. “Oh, no. Just a wishy-washy old stallion. Perhaps it might not be so bad if I were caught. At least then I could retire.”

“Please. The day you stop meddling with things you don’t understand will be the day you die.”

Starswirl deflated. “If I’m caught, that may well be the case.”

***

Meanwhile, in the library, Trixie was demonstrating some of her finest illusions to a fascinated Clover. “I see,” Clover said. “So it’s all a matter of visualizing an object in your head and sort of… projecting it?”

Trixie waved a hoof. “In essence, perhaps. The finest illusions are crafted with far more than mere image in mind; the sound, the smell, and for the truly skilled, the taste and even the sensation of touch are replicated.”

“Oh,” said Clover, frantically taking notes.

“Of course,” Trixie continued, “these illusions are, while a worthwhile field of study, somewhat… lazy.”

“Lazy? They seem incredibly difficult.”

“Oh, at first,” Trixie said with a wave of her hoof. “Soon enough, though, you find that conjuring the image of, oh-- let's say a mountain -- is scarcely any harder than that of, say, a feather. All it takes is a good enough memory, or indeed, a good enough imagination. No, the best illusions-- the most satisfying illusions-- use no magic whatsoever.”

Clover stopped mid-scribble. “No magic?” she asked, incredulous.

“Certainly,” Trixie said. “For example…” She picked up a scroll, folded it, and ripped it in half.

Clover let out a shrill shriek. “I-- you-- what do-- why--”

Trixie brought her hooves together and set down the scroll, whole once again. “Illusion, with no magic whatsoever,” she said, satisfied.

Clover stared at the repaired scroll, gobsmacked. “How did you do that?”

“Trixie thinks the better question is, how often do you wash behind your ears?” She reached up and pulled out a bouquet of lavender and lilac. “Dirty, dirty mare,” she said, leaning in a little closer.

“Well, who has time for a bath these days?” Clover asked, studying the flowers. “How did you get these? You must have used magic at some point, but I didn’t see your horn glow at all.”

Trixie shifted awkwardly. “Well… if Starswirl asks you about any missing potion ingredients, just… don’t mention Trixie’s name, alright?”

Clover chuckled. “I won’t. You know, Trixie, you really are one of the most fascinating mares I’ve ever met.”

Trixie went pink. “R-really? You mean that?”

“Oh, yes. You know, after we’re done today, I’d like to interview you.”

“Oh, really?” Trixie purred, her face growing even more flushed. “A private interview, you mean? Just you and Trixie?”

“Oh, I suppose,” Clover said. “I thought I might ask a few fellow academics to join us.”

“Hmm… perhaps at a later date,” Trixie said. “For now, Trixie would prefer to keep this interview as… intimate as possible.”

“Of course,” Clover said. “I think I can fit you in at say… two tomorrow afternoon. How does that sound.”

“Just name the place. Trixie will be waiting there.”

“Alright. If it’s privacy you want, I suppose the ochre room will do. It’s in the East Wing, so it’s virtually abandoned in the afternoon.”

“Trixie remembers. She was hanging on every word of your tour.”

“Excellent.” Clover rose from the table. “In that case, I believe I’ll retire for the afternoon. Thank you for all of your help, Trixie; I got done so much sooner than usual.”

Trixie frowned. “...It’s six o’ clock.”

“Exactly. You’ve shaved hours off my workday. Maybe now I can have one of those… what’s it called… naps! I could have a nap.” She smiled. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Trixie.”

“See you then!” Trixie called as Clover trotted away. For a moment, the faintest of frowns danced about her lips. But in the next moment, it was gone, and Trixie rose to leave. She needed to find Sunset and find out how Starswirl had taken her acceptance of the job.

***

Trixie found Sunset back in their shared room, lying on the bed and staring at the ceiling. “Oh, hey,” she said, not looking at Trixie directly. “How’d it go with Clover?”

“Pretty good. If all goes to plan, Trixie should be able to have at least a solid hour of make-out time with her before we leave.”

“Oh. Good for you, I guess.”

Trixie frowned. “You guess?”

“Sorry, sorry.” Sunset sat up. “I don’t generally think about, y’know, romance and stuff, even at the best of times. Which this really isn’t.”

Trixie’s frown deepened. “What happened? Was Starswirl upset that you were going to catch the spy or something?”

“You might say that.” Sunset told all. Trixie was a surprisingly good audience, drinking it all in with wide eyes and perked ears.

“Well,” she said once Sunset was done. “That makes things interesting.”

“Interesting? Is that all you can say?”

“It’s not like this changes anything,” Trixie said. “We’re going through with the plan either way.”

“I guess so,” Sunset admitted. “But it’s still… I dunno. I never would’ve guessed that it was him.”

Trixie hopped up next to her. “Well, what does it matter?” she asked. “It’s not as if you knew him before yesterday.”

Sunset shook her head. “No… no, I guess that’s true. But I read so much about him, and none of his biographers ever mentioned this. He never told anypony about it. That’s kind of sad, right?”

“Trixie supposes so,” Trixie said. “Perhaps he simply couldn’t find the right words for it. Perhaps he was worried how ponies would react.”

“But isn’t it worse to keep it to yourself?”

“Depends on the ponies.”

Sunset opened her mouth, then closed it again. “Yeah,” she said, after a long pause. “I guess you’ve got a point.”

“Of course Trixie does.”

“Hm. So, what were you saying about Clover?”

Trixie brightened. “Oh, yes! She invited me to a lunch date tomorrow afternoon-- in a wing of the castle that’s nearly abandoned, no less…”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Huh. That’s… much more forward of her than I would have expected.”

“Well, can you blame her for failing to resist Trixie’s charms and wiles?” Trixie asked, putting a hoof to her chest. “Sunset, you wound Trixie. You wound her!”

She fell back on the bed dramatically, throwing her other hoof over her forehead. Sunset threw back her head and laughed. “Well, when you put it like that, I guess not.”

Who wouldn’t? she wondered.

***

The rest of the night was a blur. Dinner was a pretty quiet affair. Starswirl kept shooting glances at Sunset and Trixie, both of whom were just picking over their salads. They went to bed early, though neither fell asleep for a long time. Each mare stared at opposite walls, consumed with their own private anxieties about what tomorrow would bring.

Trixie must have fallen asleep at some point-- otherwise, how could she have woken up? She let out a long, low whine, stretching and listening to her spine pop. “Jeez, Trixie. You need a massage or something?”

Trixie sat up, twisting around. “Yes please. When did you get up?”

Sunset shrugged, not looking away from the window where she was watching the sun rise. “Awhile back. They hadn’t even started.”

“Hm? Who started what?”

“Take a look,” Sunset said, scooting over.

Trixie stretched a little more, then plodded over to join her friend. A team of about two dozen unicorns stood on some kind of stone patio on a hill not far outside the castle proper. Their horns were all glowing, and from what Trixie could make out, they were all straining immensely.

“What are they doing?” she whispered.

Sunset gestured to the sun. “How did you think they did that before Celestia?”

“Oh,” Trixie said. Her eyes went wide. “Ohhh…” She turned to look at Sunset. “Does Celestia look like that when she raises the sun?”

Sunset cocked her head, deep in thought. “Well… no. On the other hoof, it is her particular wheelhouse. And, of course, she is an alicorn.”

“How does she look, then?”

There was a long pause. “...Radiant,” Sunset replied. “Literally, she glows. And… she’s beautiful.”

“Oh.” Trixie hesitated. “Like, hot beautiful, or…”

“Trixie, she’s basically my mom.”

“Right, sorry.”

“And I don’t really get ‘hotness’.”

“Forget Trixie even mentioned it.”

“She looked more like she was perfectly at peace with the world and everything in it. Like nothing mattered, and she was completely and totally free.” Sunset paused. “So, yeah, pretty hot, I guess?”

Trixie burst out laughing.

Sunset smirked and glanced out the window. “Looks like they’re about finished.”

Trixie glanced out, too. “Watching the sunrise together. Kind of romantic, isn’t it?”

Sunset shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.” She elbowed Trixie. “Too bad Clover’s not here, huh?”

Trixie blinked. Her eyes shot wide. “Clover! Trixie must prepare!” She rushed from the room in a blind panic, rushed back in, jammed on her hat and cloak, and rushed out once more.

Sunset stood there, staring. She shrugged. “Guess I’ll be having breakfast on my own, then.”

***

Sunset was technically incorrect. Although Trixie wasn’t in the dining hall when she arrived, she found Starswirl loitering by the doors. He stiffened as soon as he noticed her coming down the hall, and fell into step with her as she passed him. “Ah, Miss Shimmer,” he said with a cordiality that did not match his eyes, “Precisely the mealtime companion I had hoped to encounter.”

“Subtlety, thy name is Starswirl,” Sunset murmured.

“I wear a hat covered in bells. Pray, what did you expect?”

“Fair enough,” Sunset said, taking a seat. “Are you sure you want to talk publicly, though?”

Starswirl glanced around. There were scant few unicorns lingering over their breakfast. “We’re eating late,” he said. “Most break their fasts before raising the sun, and the rest tend not to rise before lunchtime.”

“Hm,” said Sunset.

“If you’d prefer a private meeting…” Starswirl began, raising a brow.

“This will do,” Sunset said. “What is it that you want to know?”

“Your intentions, for one,” Starswirl said. “I’ll work from there.”

“I’ve told you my intentions already,” Sunset retorted. “I want to maintain, if not exactly peace, than at least bloodless tensions among the tribes. I also want the… luggage back, but that’s secondary.”

“I see,” said Starswirl. “What exactly is in this luggage that holds such power over you?”

Sunset ladled up a bowl of porridge. “Let’s just say we can’t leave without it,” she said.

“Then you intend to leave,” Starswirl mused. “Why?”

“This isn’t our final destination. We never even intended to come here,” Sunset said.

“But earlier, you said--”

“Yeah. That was a lie. This is the truth. I’m trying to tell you the truth so that you trust and understand me, geddit? I can’t tell you everything, but everything that I am telling you is the truth, alright?”

Starswirl frowned, but nodded. “Let us say that I believe you.”

“Let’s.”

“What exactly is your plan for accomplishing these two goals?” Starswirl asked.

“Oh, no. I’m not saying a word of that out here,” Sunset said firmly. “Trixie and I have it all worked out. Although--” she hesitated. “We could use a little help with one or two aspects of our ploy.”

Starswirl raised a bushy brow. “Really, now.”

“Hey, it’s your neck we’re saving. You could stand to be a little more appreciative.”

“...True enough,” he conceded. “My apologies. What do you need?”

“A plate of glass and a pair of identical cloaks,” Sunset replied promptly. “We’ve got all the other stuff already.”

“Other stuff?”

“Basically our horns and a lantern,” Sunset said.

“I see.” Starswirl frowned. “Well, I suppose I do have those items… somewhere. I can find them for you, but I’ll need something in exchange.”

“Really? I thought we were past the weird suspicion thing.”

“I admit, the fact that I haven’t already been arrested speaks highly of your ability to keep mum,” Starswirl replied. “This is altogether a different matter. You see, the Princess has tasked me with decorating this room for the banquet this evening, and that would leave me with no time at all to go through my laboratory and find those items that you seek. If, however, somepony were to take over that particular job…”

“Consider it done,” Sunset said. “Where are the decorations?”

“The storage room at the north end of the hall. Trust me, you can’t miss them.” He rose to leave. “Best of luck, Miss Shimmer.”

She frowned as she finished the last of her own porridge. “On the plan?”

He merely chuckled and hurried from the room.

Ten minutes later, staring at the towering rolls of cloth banners, the pillars of boxes that stretched to the ceiling, and the complete lack of anything to affix any decorations anywhere, she understood completely. “Horseapples,” she said.

***

Clover arrived at the Ochre Room at two precisely. She was nothing if not punctual, after all. She was surprised to find Trixie already there; the magician hadn’t struck Clover as the type to stick to any schedule but her own. Still, it wouldn’t do to mention that; Trixie might be insulted, and Clover wanted this interview to go as smoothly as possible.

“Good afternoon,” Clover said.

Trixie smiled. “It is, isn’t it? The sun is shining. The air is sweet. All is right with the world, don’t you agree?”

Clover blinked. “Well, off the top of my head, I can think of about twelve really quite major things wrong with the world, beginning with the tensions among the tribes and working up to the possibility that life as we know it is utterly futile and all my work will ultimately be nothing more than dust and wasted time.”

“Well, forget all that,” Trixie said, rather imperiously. “We are not here to chat about politics or your impending existential crisis, Clover.”

“Yes, you’re quite right. I’m sorry, Trixie.”

“Trixie forgives you,” Trixie said magnanimously. “Shall we cut straight to the chase, then?”

“I suppose that would be for the best, yes,” Clover agreed, pulling out a small scroll from her cloak.

“Excellent,” Trixie said, leaning back. “Trixie has been waiting so very long for this moment.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get here earlier,” Clover said, slightly offended. After all, she had been perfectly punctual. “Now, at what age did you start casting?”

Trixie paused, nonplussed. “Er, intentionally? Probably around three, Trixie supposes. Her parents did not keep excellent records of her growth.”

Clover made a note. “And when did you begin to study illusions particularly?”

“Seven?” Trixie said. “Trixie doesn’t quite see where you are taking this, Clover.”

“Just some preliminary notes,” Clover said absently. “If you’d prefer, I suppose we can start with the bigger questions.”

“Yes, that sounds excellent.”

Clover shuffled a few of her cards to the back of the pack. “Here we are. When casting an illusion, what level of verisimilitude is necessary to overcome the Tranquility Believability Barrier?”

Trixie stared blankly. “The what? Very similar to what?”

“Verisimilitude,” Clover repeated. Trixie looked back blankly. “The appearance of believability.”

“Uh-huh. And the barrier?”

“The Tranquility Believability Barrier is defined as the point at which something appears to be real. In common parlance, it is the difference between ‘seeing is believing’ and ‘I don’t believe my eyes.’”

Trixie hemmed and hawed. “Well, that’s clearly a variable,” she said. “Er, depends on the pony, Trixie supposes. It helps if they see what they expected to see, and, er…” she trailed off. “Oh, yes, if you can distract them with, for example, a large explosion, that helps lower… the barrier… as well?”

“Interesting. Would you say, then, that the onus is on the viewer, rather than the caster, to make an illusion seem real?”

“Of course not!” Trixie shouted. “The success or failure of any illusion falls squarely on the abilities of the caster. It is their job to read the audience, their job to create the illusion, their job to suspend disbelief!”

Clover shrunk back under Trixie’s sudden anger. There was a long lull, where the only sound was Trixie’s harsh breathing. At length, Clover spoke in a whisper. “Could-- could you explain what you mean by ‘suspend disbelief’?”

Trixie didn’t meet her eyes for a long moment, staring fixedly at the floor. “The mind,” she said after a long moment, “has a remarkable capability to construct narratives, you know. The classical myths, the fairy-stories, even how you explained away the weird noises you didn’t want to think about coming from the locked bedroom… all stories. Ponies have expectations, and beliefs, and they’ll jump like buggery to make them fit. In short, you see what you expect to see. What you hope to, or fear to, or want to see. And-- an audience will hold on to that. It’ll take a lot of evidence to convince them otherwise.”

“I see,” said Clover, not moving.

Trixie sighed. “Trixie is not going to bite your head off, Clover. She is sorry that she snapped at you. One of her own illusions was just…” She paused, looking for a reaction. “Would you like to continue with the interview, or would you like for Trixie to leave?”

Clover licked her lips. “Can you promise not to yell again?”

Trixie raised her right hoof gravely. “Trixie so swears.”

Clover fumbled with her notes, then stopped. “N-no, I don’t think I can do this.”

Trixie took in a long breath, but nodded her acceptance. “If you give Trixie the cards, she would be more than happy to write the answers out for you.”

Clover nodded back and set the cards on the table. Trixie waited until Clover was sitting straight up again before reaching out and taking the stack of questions. “Will you be attending the banquet this evening?” she asked.

“Yes,” Clover replied. “By royal command, of course.”

Trixie nodded thoughtfully. “Trixie probably should not tell you this ahead of time,” she said, “but she will be giving a demonstration of her illusory skill this evening. Watch closely-- Trixie wants to know if you can see how it was done.”

“That sounds interesting,” Clover said. “It might almost make up for the rest of the banquet.”

Trixie snorted a laugh. “Not a party mare?”

“However did you guess?” Clover asked drily.

Trixie smiled at her. “You know, you remind Trixie of a friend of hers-- ah, never mind. Trixie will leave you in peace now. She really is sorry for frightening you.”

“That’s okay.”

Trixie locked eyes with her. “No. It’s not.”

Clover hesitated. “No. But I forgive you.”

“Trixie thanks you for your generous absolution,” she said with a bow. She stepped backwards out of the room. As soon as the door was closed, her face slackened and her posture dropped. She trudged away. She had no particular destination in mind. She just wanted to be alone.

Or, no. She didn’t, really. She had a much better pony to be with than herself. A shade of resolve entered Trixie’s body language, and she set off to find Sunset.

***

Sunset scowled at the ceiling, her horn glowing as she adjusted the banners above. She looked around when she heard Trixie enter. “How’d it go?”

Trixie threw back her head and let out a loud, prolonged groan.

Sunset winced. “That well, huh?”

“It turns out,” Trixie said, her head still tipped back toward the ceiling, “that sometimes when somepony invites somepony else to a secluded location for an interview, all they actually want from that interaction is an interview.”

“Ouch.”

“Trixie only got tipped off after the fourth completely un-sexy question.”

“Double-ouch.”

“And then she may have slightly lost her cool.”

Sunset paused. “Are you referring to Clover or yourself, there?”

“Trixie is referring to Trixie, yes.”

“I figured. So you blew up at her?”

“And immediately regretted it, yes. She’s got thinner skin than Fluttershy, and reacts roughly the same way to ponies being angry at her.”

“Hoo-boy,” Sunset said. “Hey, help me with this banner? There are these little hooks in the rafters that these hang on, see?”

“Yep,” Trixie said, grabbing one end of the cloth in her aura. “Trixie did apologise, of course, and mostly talked her back from the edge of some kind of fear-coma. Hey, pull up on your end a little! Why’re you doing this, anyway?”

“I’m taking over decorating duty while Starswirl finds the stuff we need for tonight,” Sunset said. “But that’s not important right now. How are you holding up?”

Trixie slumped forward. “Bad,” she admitted. “Not only did Clover not want Trixie’s hot bod, but now she probably hates and fears Trixie utterly.”

“Well, that might be a little much.”

“You didn’t see her face,” Trixie said. “Oh-- I keep missing that hook!”

“Well, in about seven hours, you’ll never have to see her again, so I guess that’s fine. Right?”

“You are not great at comforting, you know that?”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Trixie sighed. “Trixie just doesn’t understand how this could have happened. She sensed love in that mind, directed straight at Trixie!”

Hoo-boy, Sunset thought. Moment of truth time, Sunnybuns. You gonna take it, or you gonna let it slide?

“It was so sweet, and so bright,” Trixie said wistfully. “Trixie fell in love with it herself, right then and there.”

Dammit, Trixie, why are you making this so much easier to say?

“Trixie…” Sunset shut her eyes and breathed out. She released her end of the banner, and the cloth fluttered to the floor.

“Hey!” Trixie said, as her end of the banner was yanked out of her aura. “We almost had that thing up!” She stopped the instant she met Sunset’s eyes. “Something is wrong?”

Sunset breathed in again, tensed her shoulders. “I don’t-- it wasn’t Clover who was thinking about loving you.”

Trixie scoffed. “Please. Trixie is not so vain as to think all that about herself.”

“Are you su-- no, not going there right now. It wasn’t you, and it wasn’t Clover. It was me.”

Trixie stared at her. “Eh?”

“Alright, look,” Sunset said. “I wasn’t sure about this before, because it’s really not something I’m used to, but Trixie, I’m pretty sure I love you.”

Trixie blinked. “Oh. Are you… sure?”

Sunset put a hoof to her face and growled. “Look. I look at you, and I feel oddly mushy inside, and I kind of want to hug you a lot, and if anypony hurt you I think I would probably throw them into orbit. I’m no expert, but that sounds like love to me.”

“Uh,” said Trixie. “Wow.” She scratched her head. “See, this is awkward, because Trixie was kind of flirting with Clover so she would stop thinking about how hot you were.”

“You mean hot as in being literally on fire, or…”

“Physically attractive, emotionally present, extremely strong, very protective, intelligent-- these are all Trixie’s turn-ons, by the way. Also, the literally made of fire part. If there is a way to be hot, Trixie is pretty sure you are it.”

“Wow.” Sunset sat still. “So, like, do we kiss now?”

“You wanna?”

“Uh, maybe later. I mean, when we’re back in the TARDIS.”

“Then we will do it later.”

“I wouldn’t mind a hug, though.”

Trixie brightened and held out her hooves invitingly. “Come here and squeeze Trixie like a teddy bear!”

“You’re such a dork,” Sunset said, embracing her in wings of gentle, warming fire.

“And you love it.”

“True. I, Sunset Shimmer, am in love with a dork. No one ever saw it coming.”

“Really?”

“Nah, it was kind of a foregone conclusion.”

Trixie laughed, and Sunset laughed too. They stayed like that for a long moment, basking in the moment. “Guess we should finish up this decorating job, huh?” Sunset said after a few moments had passed.

“Must we?” Trixie sighed.

“There’ll be time enough to work things out back on the TARDIS, but we have to get her back, first.”

“But cuddles,” Trixie whined, clutching at Sunset’s neck.

“I’ll tell you what,” Sunset said. “After we finish decorating, we can go snuggle in our guest room, how does that sound?”

“...Better than nothing,” Trixie decided, hauling herself upright. “Why don’t you fly up there and stick the hooks in the banners by hoof? You could see things much better.”

Sunset stared at her, and then glanced back at her wings. “That’s actually an excellent idea,” she said. “Nice one, Trixie.”

Trixie preened. “Trixie works well with bribery.”

Sunset stifled a chuckle. “I’ll remember that,” she said, taking to the air.

***

Starswirl had found the glass and the cloaks easily enough. Though his dungeon lab was cluttered, it was also precisely organized to a system that only he understood completely, and it was the work of only ten minutes to find what Sunset had requested. Not that she would ever know that, of course. The more time he had away from decorating the dining hall, the happier he would be. Given his experience with prior banquets, he didn’t expect he’d be bothered by them-- or anypony else, for that matter-- until mid-afternoon at the earliest. Until then, he’d just sit back and have a little nap.

He was therefore quite surprised when, just as he was drifting off, the lab door slammed open. Dozens of possibilities swam through his head, from Sunset coming to exact her vengeance for tricking her into that nightmare job to the forces of the guard coming to take him in for treason.

What he certainly didn’t expect was Clover, marching down the stairs with a noise that sounded like trees being felled. “Good heavens! You gave me quite a start,” he said, sitting up straight.

She muttered an indistinct apology and pulled out a smooth, round opal. “For the Princess,” she said without enthusiasm.

Starswirl took it, frowning. “What’s the matter? You look like someone threw your scrolls into a chamber pot.”

“It’s nothing,” Clover said. “I… my interview with Miss Trixie didn’t go as planned.”

Starswirl’s frown deepened. “Oh?”

“I’d… prefer not to speak of it further.”

“I see. She didn’t threaten you at all? Assault you?”

“No! No. She just, well… lost her temper. And then apologized. But, well…”

“I see,” Starswirl repeated.

“I’d prefer if you avoided mentioning it again.”

Starswirl tossed the opal between his forehooves meditatively. “Of course,” he said at length. “My apologies, Clover, and my regrets.”

She bobbed her head. “Thank you, sir.”

Starswirl hesitated for a long moment. “Clover, why don’t you take the afternoon off? You’ll have to attend the banquet, after all. I feel you ought to have some time to yourself to make up for that.”

Clover stared at him, astonished. “Really?”

“Really. I’ll even take this illusion charm to the princess for you, how do you like that?”

“Thank you, Starswirl.” She hesitated, then sprung forward to hug him. “You’re the best mentor ever.”

He chuckled and returned the embrace. “I wouldn’t go that far,” he said. “But thank you.”

He watched Clover go off with a spring in her step up the stairs, her mood completely inverse from only moments before. His own smile slipped as he looked down at the illusion charm in his hoof. Should he tell the Princess of his concerns? Should he trust and protect these strangers, even now that one of them had hurt Clover? He flipped the opal in his hoof meditatively.

***

Sunset was, for the first time in… awhile… completely relaxed. As soon as the last banners had been hung, Trixie had all but dragged her back to their guest bedroom and fallen on the bed. “Let us get one thing straight,” she had said. “The Great and Powerful Trixie is always the little spoon. No exceptions, no excuses. You will be the big spoon… if you don’t mind?”

Sunset had chuckled. “No, I don’t mind at all. As long as you don’t mind just cuddling.”

“Why would Trixie mind cuddles?”

Sunset had wrapped her hooves around Trixie’s barrel then and gently dragged her down to the mattress. “Dunno. You definitely wanted to make out with Clover earlier.”

“Because Trixie was desperately trying to distract herself from your charms, yes. And because she only had, like three days. With you? Trixie can take her good sweet time.”

“Well… good.”

“Oh, and Sunset? Word of advice, don’t bring up Trixie’s exes again. It does not promote warm snuggly feelings.”

“Sorry. Does this make up for it?” she asked, wrapping a warm phoenix wing around Trixie’s barrel.

“Very much yes.”

That had been about a half-hour ago. Now, Trixie’s head was burrowed in Sunset’s neck, and their breaths had fallen into a rhythm. It was nice. The tensions that Sunset hadn’t even realized she’d been holding onto these past days (weeks? Best not to think about it), ever since she’d started to consider her feelings for Trixie-- they were all dissolved.

She didn’t know where this relationship would go. There were endless scenarios that might lead to disaster. Her mind conjured them up, one by one, but they popped like bubbles with Trixie’s soft breaths.

She didn’t know where any of this would go, no. But she was prepared to find out.

It was at that moment, naturally, that there was a knock at the door.

“Who is it?” Sunset called.

“Go away!” Trixie said.

“It’s Starswirl. May I enter?”

Reluctantly, Trixie pulled herself from Sunset’s embrace. “Trixie supposes.”

Starswirl pushed open the door, but paused at the threshold. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Yes,” Sunset said, a little curtly. “But the sooner you tell us what’s going on, the sooner we can get back to it.”

Starswirl closed the door behind him. “I have decided to trust you. For now.”

“Great. Good update,” Sunset said.

“The banquet will be in two hours. The glass plate is in the hall, and the two cloaks are here.” He produced them from beneath his own cape and tossed them on the bed. “I trust you’ll have time to prepare… whatever it is that you’re preparing as well as getting dressed up?”

Trixie paused. “Get dressed up?”

Starswirl’s brows rose. “Well, naturally. It is a formal occasion, is it not?”

Sunset facehooved. “And all the fancy clothes are in the TA-- luggage.”

“Which we can’t get to,” Trixie said.

“Hm,” said Starswirl. “I could ask Clover if she has any to spare--”

“Nope!” Trixie squeaked. “Nope, that’s all fine, we’ll work it out ourselves!”

“Is there something the matter, Miss Trixie?” Starswirl asked.

“Er-- uh, Trixie-- that is--” she hid her face in her hooves. “You know already, don’t you.”

“More or less.”

“Is she still upset?”

“Less so.”

“Good.”

Starswirl glowered. “Good? Good that my assistant is upset? Good that you yelled at her? Good that--”

“Starswirl,” Sunset said. “You’re yelling, too, now. I promise, Trixie’s sorry. Now lay off.”

Starswirl grumbled, but pulled back. “Very well, I suppose.” He hesitated. “My… my apologies for yelling.”

Trixie muttered something that might have sounded like acceptance, had she not been staring intently at the floor.

"Trixie?" Sunset asked, deeply concerned. "Could you say that again?"

“Pobody’s nerfect,” Trixie repeated with a weak smile.

Starswirl’s eyes went wide, the troubled confusion and anger washing away. “Pobody’s…” He blinked. Then he chuckled. Then he broke into a full belly laugh. “Pobody’s nerfect! Oh that is-- Oh, you switch the letters around so it's said in error, thus proving your point further! That is wonderful!” He shook his head, recovering himself quickly. “Yes, quite. I’ll see you at the banquet, then.” He nodded awkwardly at them both, then retreated. “Pobody’s nerfect,” he murmured as he departed. “Yes indeed.”

“Huh,” Trixie said. “Guess all the old material is new to these guys. Maybe Trixie can invent ‘Why did the chicken cross the road?”

“Are you alright?” Sunset asked.

“Perfectly,” Trixie said, forcing a smile. “Thank you for standing up to him.”

“What are friends for?”

“Well, quite. Now, about those dresses…”

“Illusion magic?”

“Illusion magic fashion show,” Trixie corrected. “Get ready to work it.”

***

So it was that a few hours later, Trixie and Sunset made their way into the banquet hall. The former was clad in a pale magenta gown with a red saddle and pink trim, the latter in a mulberry dress with layers of translucent red and orange taffeta underneath. “Wow,” said Trixie. “Trixie is pretty sure this is more ponies than she’s seen the whole time she was here.”

“Seems that way,” Sunset agreed. “Ready to mingle?”

Trixie preened. “Naturally. Trixie is prepared for any situation.”

“Well that’s good,” Sunset said, “because Clover is staring at you.”

Trixie froze dead. “What?”

“I think I’ll just leave you to talk this one out,” Sunset said, hurrying away.

“Wha-- You coward!”

“Can’t hear you, too busy mingling!” Sunset said, disappearing into the crowd.

Trixie growled, then turned back to Clover. The green mare nodded and beckoned Trixie to come nearer.

Trixie took a deep breath and trotted over. “Hi.”

“Hello.”

Trixie glanced around. “Enjoying the party?”

Clover grimaced. “Not at all, no.”

Trixie cracked a smile. “You really must be related to Twilight somehow,” she mused.

“Sorry?”

“Nothing important.” Trixie lapsed into silence. She wasn’t really sure where things could go from here.

“Are you doing well?” Clover asked.

Trixie considered that. “Trixie thinks that she should be asking you that.”

“You can, if you like.”

“Are you doing well, Clover?”

“Pretty well. And yourself?”

Trixie studied the ceiling. “That is a complicated answer.”

“Honestly, you seem more broken up about all this than I was,” Clover said.

Trixie hummed thoughtfully. “Trixie’s temper has been… ill-kept. She has been trying to make amends for some of her worse outbursts. Progress has been… well, progress has been made. But-- bah. You should not be burdened by Trixie’s personal issues.”

Clover gave her a small smile. “Not much else to do here.”

Trixie inclined her head, acknowledging the point. “You might instead tell me about yourself,” she said.

Clover pulled back. “Me? Oh, I’m not very interesting…”

“You sell yourself short,” Trixie said quietly. “For the past two days, you were all Trixie thought of. Tomorrow, if all goes well tonight, she will depart, and we likely will never meet again. Trixie cannot bear to leave you and know so little about you.”

Clover blushed heavily. “Well, when you put it like that…”

***

Meanwhile, Sunset was busily mingling with everypony she could. Princess Platinum had appeared once or twice to guide her toward ‘some fascinating high-ranked officials’. You didn’t have to be a mind reader to guess that those ponies were high on Platinum’s list of suspects. That being said, given what Sunset saw when she shook hooves with them, Platinum’s antipathy toward them wasn’t totally misplaced. Political intrigue, affairs, blackmail, revenge, all of it swam through her mind with each touch. Eventually, it got to be too much, and she stumbled out of the crowd toward Trixie and Clover.

“...and once he was back on solid ground, he looked at me and asked if I wanted a job. I’ve been Starswirl’s apprentice ever since.”

“Fascinating,” Trixie said, looking at her intently.

“Flirting again, Trixie?” Sunset asked, almost collapsing into the seat next to her.

Trixie turned to retort, but it died in her throat. “You look awful.”

“I know,” Sunset groaned. “All of this intrigue, all the plots, it’s getting to me.”

“Trixie would think that you, of all ponies, would be immune to the allure of plots.”

“Wha-- oh. Hardee-har-har. You know what I meant.”

“Yes,” Trixie admitted. “Here, take a breather.” She laid her hoof over Sunset’s and thought about magic shows.

Almost at once, Sunset calmed, the fires wreathing her mane and tail settling to a gentle crackling, as of a hearth. “Thanks.”

Clover looked on with interest as Sunset pulled herself upright. With a nod of farewell, the fiery mare made her way back into the throng.

“Trixie?”

“Yes?”

“Why in the name of magic would you try and flirt with me when you had a mare like that?”

Trixie started. “I, uh… you got that, then.”

“Your flirting with me, or your feelings for Sunset?”

“Er… both?”

“Trixie,” Clover said, setting a hoof on Trixie’s foreleg. “You’re nice, but you’re about as subtle as a siege weapon.”

“Hrm,” Trixie said. “Well. We hadn’t quite… become official… until this afternoon.”

Clover raised a brow. “Really? That’s quite sudden. Any reason it was then in particular?”

Trixie looked down. Clover laughed and nudged her. “I’m only teasing, Trixie.”

“Oh. Right.” Trixie coughed. “Trixie knew that.” She paused for a long moment. “So… you weren’t responding to Trixie’s flirting because you thought she was already in a relationship with Sunset.”

Clover nodded.

“And if you hadn’t thought that, you would’ve fallen for Trixie?”

Clover thought about that. “I guess? I mean, I can’t exactly afford to be, um… Well, that is to say...”

Trixie pursed her lips. “Trixie will just take that as a ‘yes,’ ‘kay?”

Clover chuckled. “Okay.”

“Yes!” Trixie pumped a hoof. “Still got it.”

***

Starswirl was sweating bullets. Everything he had worked for was on the line. His life wasn’t likely to be under threat-- he was still far too useful to do away with. So he would be imprisoned. Not too terrible-- it wouldn’t be too far removed from his life now. His friends would be safe-- he was the only one that could betray them, and he would sooner die than do that. But the fragile state of peace, or at least lack of bloodshed, that his triumvirate had built? It would crumble in less than a week. The lives of unknowable numbers of ponies were at stake, and all of them in the hooves of a fire spirit. He caught glimpses of her every now and again, in between the partygoers. He thought about speaking to her. But what would that accomplish? They already understood one another as well as they could. There was nothing left to say that wouldn’t end in spite and snapping, the last things that he could afford.

So he held his tongue and watched, with bated breath, as the Princess took the stage.

She called Sunset Shimmer to stand beside her.

She prepared to speak, when Sunset whispered something in her ear. The Princess cocked her head thoughtfully. Then, she motioned for Starswirl to come up to the stage. Sunset smiled at him encouragingly.

He could just run. No one would expect it. But no, that would give the game away immediately. For all he knew, this could be one more step in Sunset’s plan to help divert attention from him.

Slowly, Starswirl made his way to the stage.

***

Sunset let out a quiet breath. She locked eyes with Trixie, who nodded and murmured her apologies to Clover before trotting to the doors. Platinum was speaking now, of friends and subjects, of Grand, Noble Unicornia, Our Home, of a malignant threat growing from within.

“Unicorns,” she said, her voice ringing through the silent hall. “This cannot continue. Our military is the most well-equipped, the most engineered, the most fabulous on the entire continent! And yet, we are mocked, given no opportunity to prove our might over our foes. How long before the ambushes begin? The slow, creeping poison of espionage, the weapon of a weak, cringing foe, has spread into the heart of our kingdom. It must be rooted out, lest we meet an ignoble fall. To that end, I present to you Sunset Shimmer.”

She gestured to Sunset, who stepped forward. She bowed to the audience.

“Sunset is a touch-telepath,” the Princess explained. “Over the course of this evening, she has shaken hooves with each of you, searching for the traitorous spy.”

It was as if the air in the room had crystalized with the tension. All eyes were fixed on Sunset, each filled with the same mix of hate, fear, and unbridled terror. Nothing particularly new, there.

The Princess stepped back to give Sunset center stage. To Starswirl, she murmured, “Ready your strongest shield spell.”

Sunset took a deep breath. “Good evening,” she said. “You needn’t worry, by the way. I couldn’t care less about who’s sleeping with whom, or what illegitimate children have been installed around the castle. I’m here for the sole purpose of exposing who among you is the spy. I’ll start with who it wasn’t. Nobody on the guest list was a spy. Nor was my friend Trixie, who has just finished bolting all the doors. Thank you, Trixie.”

The blue unicorn gave a cheerful wave to the crowd, but quailed under their combined gaze. She slunk into a dark corner of the room as soon as they turned back to Sunset, an area concealed by a partial wall.

Platinum looked at Sunset sharply. “What do you mean? If none of them was the spy, then the only ponies remaining are the ones on stage right now.”

“Patently ridiculous,” Starswirl agreed, cold sweat running down his back.

“Not quite,” Sunset said. “There’s one more uninvited guest at this banquet.”

She lit her horn. “I think it’s time we took off our masks…”

There was a blast of radiant light. The torches flickered and dimmed in their sockets. Unicorns shouted and screamed as the illusion spells they had put on for the evening were stripped away. Platinum screamed loudest of all as her pale, flaxen mane turned slimy green. “Behind you!” Sunset shouted, pointing toward the back of the room, where a hooded figure stood, frozen. It backed away, and then ran for its life. With a flash of light, the doors unbolted and swung open. The hooded figure turned and was gone.

“Well?” Sunset demanded. “Catch her!” She turned into a bolt of fire and flew out the doors after the escaping spy. After only a moment, the guards and nobles followed suit.

“I see her!” one shouted, running down a blind alley. Already, though, another saw her appear in a flash of light, her cloak flapping in her wake and revealing pale pink legs.

No sooner did they see the spy than she teleported away to another part of the castle. It seemed as though she was trying to hide long enough to turn invisible once more, but the areas where she appeared always had at least one pony in view.

Finally, they cornered her at the top of one of the towers. One of the guards managed to wrangle her hood back, revealing a pink mare, her mane striped with purple and teal. She reared back, revealing a cutie mark of a falling four-pointed star. Her horn lit, and before anypony could stop her, she teleported away. Far below, the assembled saw a hooded figure racing for the woods. She passed the treeline and was gone.

***

“Well,” said Platinum. “I suppose I should thank you.” She ran a hoof through her mane, once again a bright and shining blonde.

“Trixie supposes you should,” Trixie said nonchalantly, examining her own hoof. Sunset nudged her sharply in the side.

Platinum scowled, but said, “You have rendered Unicornia a great service this night. While it would have been nice for you to actually catch the spy, we at least know something of her identity.”

“It shouldn’t be too difficult to set up illusion-dispelling doors in the castle,” Starswirl mused. “Although, I suspect there might be a public outcry if I were to try.”

“I’d have you in the dungeons before your horn was even lit,” Platinum said flatly.

“That too,” he agreed.

“So,” Sunset said. “Can we please have our box back now? We really do need it.”

“Oh-- fine,” Platinum said with a sigh. “I can’t imagine why, though. It’s so weathered and hideous.”

“She’s old,” Sunset agreed, “But she has more than a few tricks up her sleeves.”

“Hm, well, quite,” Platinum said. “Starswirl, take them to the box. I must go and settle the nobles.”

He snorted. “Good luck, Princess.”

She slammed the door behind her. Starswirl waited a few moments before leaning in. “So, how did you do it?” he asked. “It can’t have been an illusion, not the way you wiped all of them out with that spell.”

“Oh, it was an illusion,” Sunset corrected. “Just not a spell.”

“...Beg pardon?”

“It is known as Pepper’s Ghost,” Trixie said. “One may project an illusionary image by shining a bright light on an object and reflecting it through glass into a dim room. That was Trixie, wearing a cloak. Trixie also opened the door from her hiding place with transparent thread.”

“Then, I took over,” Sunset said. “Since I was the one casting the dispelling charm, I was the one pony that could still cast illusions. So I disguised myself as a friend of ours, Starlight Glimmer-- she’s not about to turn up here anytime soon. Then I let myself be seen and flashed away.”

“While Trixie ran into the woods, making it seem like the spy had run off,” Trixie finished.

Starswirl shook his head. “Ingenious,” he marveled. “You two saved me-- my reputation, my career, and my work to keep the tribes from bloodshed. How can I ever repay you?”

“Just… keep doing what you’re doing, I guess,” Sunset said.

“Give Clover more days off,” Trixie said. “Or any days off. Let the mare sleep!”

Starswirl smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.”

***

The TARDIS roared as it took off once more. Sunset stepped back from the console. “Well,” she said. “That was… different than I thought it would be.”

“Oh?” Trixie asked. “Trixie supposes that the history books only tell half the story, yes.”

“No, not that. Well, I guess that too. But I meant, getting a marefriend.”

Trixie went pink. “Oh. Yes.”

“On that subject,” Sunset continued, advancing on Trixie, “I believe I promised you something when we got back to the ship.”

“You-- oh!” Trixie’s cheeks were burning red now. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, Trixie would not like to force you--”

“Trixie?”

“Yes?”

“Would you like to kiss, or not?”

“Very much yes.”

“Alright then,” said Sunset, leaning in.

The TARDIS flew on through the vortex, unpiloted and unguided. She laughed at her little thieves within, lost as they were in stealing away one another. She would keep them safe, in this timeless place and spaceless time, until they bumped into their next port of call.

Author's Note

Due to a sudden increase in my job duties as the county fair closes in, the next (and likely final, barring another two-chapter split such as this) story in this collection will be delayed. Hopefully, I'll have it prepared the week after next, but I can't make any promises on that front. Thank you all so much for bearing with me.

The Bones of Sutekh

Sunset opened the doors of the TARDIS. “HAIL RA!” somewhere in the vicinity of a thousand voices chanted all at once. Sunset closed the door of the TARDIS. She looked at Trixie. “What the actual.”

Trixie looked at her. “...Do it again.”

Sunset opened the doors. “HAIL RA!”

Sunset closed the doors again. “Trixie, get me the external monitor.”

Trixie lit her horn, and the screen swung around to face the mares. A crowd of beings surrounded the TARDIS on all sides. Sunset saw ponies, diamond dogs, camels, cats, gazelles, giraffes, zebras, and more. “...Huh,” she said distantly. “I thought it was meant to appear where no one was really looking.”

“What do we do?” Trixie asked.

Sunset thought about that for a long moment. “...Take off again,” she decided. “I’ve had about all I can take of being mistaken for an ancient god.”

“Right.” Trixie pulled up on the dematerialization lever. There was a low grinding sound. Nothing else happened. She pushed it down and the grinding stopped. She pulled it up again, and the grinding started again. “Uh, Sunny?”

“Please don’t tell me we’re stuck.”

“Okay, Trixie will just lie instead.” She cleared her throat. “Gee, babe, Trixie is sure glad that the TARDIS definitely isn’t trapped by some unknown force. We certainly won’t have to face up to any ancient gods in the immediate future. Trixie is not at all afraid, and she wants you to know how much she hates your guts.”

Sunset rolled her eyes and smiled. “Well, in that case, let’s stay inside and face none of our problems. With you by my side, I can’t do anything.”

Trixie went pink. “Oh-- er-- hmph. Let’s just get this over with. At least Trixie might get some adulation by association out of this fiasco.”

The cheering had died down some after Sunset had closed the doors, but when she and Trixie stepped into the light, the roar was positively deafening. Sunset raised a hoof for silence, but that only made them hoot and holler louder. She cast a desperate look at Trixie, but the magician was busy reveling in the attention.

Well, fine. She would handle this herself. Sunset drew in a deep breath. She kept drawing in that deep breath. Her chest swelled, and her fiery mane, wings, and tail grew ever hotter and brighter. Quickly, she clapped her hooves over Trixie’s ears to protect her, and then…

“QUIET!”

The room went completely still. Sunset stood in the center of it all, panting and growling, her flames down to a faint flicker. “Thank you,” she said after a few minutes. “Now, could someone please tell me what’s going on?”

There was a small commotion at the back of the room. Slowly, the crowd parted, and a tall, muscular, biped approached the TARDIS. After a good three minutes, he stopped a few meters away from the two mares. “My lady Ra. You and your priestess honor us with your presence here.”

Sunset stared back coldly. “Hello, Anubis.”

***

Some distance away, a cat lowered a pair of binoculars and rifled through his bag, eventually locating an orange flag. He turned around and began waving it frantically at the horizon.

Some distance from that point, a camel saw the flag and began to hurry off to the west side of town, grabbing a jar of spices from her counter as she went.

Before long, she had arrived at the river, where she offered the spices to a hippopotamus. The hippo tasted the blend, nodded, and took the entire jar, storing it under her tongue. She made her way upriver and out of the city, and still she trundled on. But where the river suddenly curved and turned to the west, she walked to the east and vanished from sight.

An instant later, she arrived just outside an oasis. There was something quite odd about this oasis, though -- for one thing, the whole place was surrounded by a stone barrier, covered with question marks. Its architect had claimed it was a ‘wonder wall’, and then gone off to sulk when no one else understood the joke.

Inside the border, things only became stranger. The trees that grew here were twisted into strange, corkscrewing shapes, and produced blue-striped bananas that smelled of morning glory. The oasis held no water, either, only a lake of sweet, fizzy brown liquid. The hippo hauled herself up out of the ‘cola’ as its creator had termed it, and shook herself off.

“Who goes there?”

“Kee-ow-way!” the hippo called. Then she paused, took the jar of spices out of her mouth, and tried again. “Sorry. Chione. I come bearing a message.”

One of the trees opened its eyes, and Chione tried not to scream. “Is that so?” the definitely-not-a-tree asked, forming a face, limbs, wings, and slithering through the air toward her.

“Hello, Lord Discord,” she said, only shaking slightly.

The chaos god grinned at her toothily.

“Discord!” another voice called. “Stop frightening the messenger!”

The chimera frowned, and they pulled back. “Was only saying hello,” they said, sulkily.

Ba’ast hurried down the path toward Chione. “Your message, where is it?”

The hippo nudged the jar with a foot, not once taking her eyes from Discord. Ba’ast barely noticed, popping the top off the jar and digging through the spices inside to pull out a small clay tablet. Only two words were written on it.

“Ra returns.” Ba’ast said with relish. “Oh, how delightful.”

She turned to Discord. “Darling, I do believe we should take a little trip into the city, wouldn’t you agree?”

“If we must,” they grumbled.

“Oh, don’t pout,” Ba’ast consoled. “It’ll be fun! I can introduce you to my old friends, you can pull down Anubis’s loincloth, we’ll make a day of it.”

“...Can we have ice cream afterwards?”

“You’ll have to summon it yourself, but I suppose so.”

They smiled. “Well then, what are we waiting for? Shall we take a cab, or fly?”

“Oh, let’s take a cab.”

“But that would be boring!”

“Flying would be rather ostentatious.”

“Your point being?”

She laughed. “Fair enough. Let’s fly, then.”

Discord took her extended paw with surprising tenderness, and together, they lifted off into the air.

Chione stared as the two flew towards the city on the horizon and shook her head. Perhaps she’d be better off going to visit her mother further upstream. Yes, that sounded nice. The city was overcrowded as it was, and there simply wouldn’t be enough room for Anubis and Ba’ast both.

***

Sunset and Trixie had been ushered away from the TARDIS and the cheering crowd by the jackal. Trixie cast a few
worried looks back at the TARDIS before it vanished from view. Sunset didn’t take her eyes off Anubis once as they made their way through the halls of whatever building they had arrived in. Eventually, the jackal stopped and opened a door. He looked at the two ponies expectantly.

Sunset sat back on her haunches and crossed her hooves. “You first.”

Anubis scowled. “So, we’re playing that game, are we?”

“Well gee,” Trixie said, tapping a hoof on her chin. The first time we met, you locked Trixie in a cage and threatened to kill her. The last time we met, you tried to frame Sun- the Sun Goddess for murder and gave her a feather that would burn her to death. So, uh… yeah? Yeah, we’re playing this game, Trixie thinks.”

Anubis held his glower for a minute longer, then relented. “So be it.” He turned and stormed into the room beyond, letting the door swing shut after him. Sunset shoved it back open and followed him in. Trixie dogged her steps, casting wary glances at every corner of the room. Sunset paused in midstep and put a hoof around Trixie’s withers. “Don’t worry,” she murmured. “We’ve beat him before, we can do it again.”

“Yeah. The three-meter tall mountain of muscle is a total pushover,” Trixie snarked.

“I mean, he kinda is? If worst comes to worst, I’ll light his loincloth on fire.”

Trixie snickered despite herself. “Yeah, alright. But Trixie will continue to keep an eye on him.”

“Good idea.” Sunset glanced ahead to where Anubis was situating himself at a desk. “He’s had… what, a thousand years of prep time? We can’t be too careful, here.”

Anubis finally settled himself at the desk, resting a massive arm awkwardly on a stack of clay tablets. “Please,” he said, gesturing to the two chairs opposite him, “take a seat.”

“We’ll stand,” Sunset said.

Anubis’s eyes flashed, and the mares tensed. The jackal, however, merely grumbled under his breath that ‘of course you will, I don’t know why I try…” and shifted his weight in the chair.

Sunset and Trixie waited as the jackal fiddled awkwardly with the ankh around his neck. “You may have noticed,” he began, “that your box is trapped.”

“Yeah, kinda,” Sunset said drily. “I’m guessing you’re responsible for that?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Trixie would’ve thought you’d want us out of your hair as quickly as possible.”

“Under normal circumstances, you would be correct,” Anubis agreed. “These, however, are not normal circumstances. I constructed a trap circle in the auditorium and used sympathetic magic to bring you to this place.”

Sunset frowned. “Sympathetic magic would require you to have something of ours. What do you have that would --”

Anubis reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a burnt old firework. “Kept in stasis for millennia,” he said. “It was with this that my people took to the heavens and landed in this place, why we escaped our doomed planet, why my father--” he broke off. “I used this powerful, ancient gift to bring you here, Queen Ra.”

Sunset’s mouth dangled open. She snapped it shut, then opened it again to speak. She shut it once more, unsure of what to say first.

“That still doesn’t explain why you brought us here,” Trixie observed.

Anubis inhaled through his nostrils, gazing up at the ceiling. “No. It doesn’t.”

Sunset and Trixie waited, leaning forward in anticipation. “I brought you here,” Anubis said at last, “because I need your help.”

***

We have been here for perhaps a thousand years now, (Anubis explained,) and for the most part, it has been a time of great peace and prosperity. The order-loving gods care for the cities and towns, maintaining the rule of law and running the civil service. The chaos-lovers (a phrase he spat rather than spoke) live out in the wild spaces, blessing and damning as they like. This is the balance of this world, and it has worked tolerably. Old rivals no longer need to see one another’s faces, and many of the old squabbles have died out utterly.

But one day, perhaps ten years ago, a new god arrived on the scene, claiming to be the avatar of chaos incarnate. They certainly had the abilities to back their claims. With a snap of their claws, the river in the middle of town ran with olive oil. Another snap, and the sand rose up into the shape of a vast palace. They were handily routed out by the forces of order, of course, but they never left. They have remained out in the desert, licking their wounds, occasionally making incursions on cities and towns and being beaten back. And for awhile, that was fine. The balance was maintained. But recently, rumours have started to circulate…

They claim this -- this beast is my father reborn, as Ra was reborn in you. It is publicly known, now, that Sutekh saved the lives of everyone aboard the colony ship. The crystals that powered the ship still glow with a green light, but are safe to handle, now. My father’s remains are, as well. Both are treated with great reverence. Both were stolen two years ago.

I have no way of knowing if the new god was responsible, but I can think of no other suspect. They have been conspiring with the other, more chaotic deities, who once would never have dreamed of cooperating. Somehow, this pseudo-Sutekh has done the truly impossible, and corralled several dozen squabbling deities into working to a common goal. The balance was maintained easily before, when all the deities of order could combat whichever of our chaotic siblings had encroached into our lands, but if all of them were to unite behind a common power…

It might be the end of civilization as we know it.

***

There was a long moment of silence. “Well,” said Sunset. “Uh, that’s a lot.”

“Yes.”

“Where can we find them?” Trixie asked.

Anubis waved a paw vaguely. “Out in the desert somewhere, where the black earth of the workable land gives way to the evil red of the sand.”

“Poetic,” Sunset said drily.

“Not wildly helpful,” Trixie agreed.

Anubis growled. “You expected what, a postal address? These are the forces of chaos! They adhere to no earthly schedule, wreck plans, ruin the most carefully considered actions. Did you really think they were just going to walk into the city and announce their presence?”

Suddenly, there was a horrible scraping sound from outside. Anubis looked stricken. Trixie and Sunset locked eyes and ran for the door. As they raced down the corridor, a voice, artificially loud and echoing, crowed, “Oh, Anubis! Come out and play…”

“Does that voice sound familiar to you?” Sunset asked.

Trixie scowled. “Yes. Very.”

The crowd in the auditorium had scattered, leaving the TARDIS alone in the circle. Trixie cast a quick, longing look at it, but Sunset charged on, out between the pillars at the front of the atrium and into the sunlight.

And there she stopped, blinking in the sudden brightness as Discord raced by, cackling, while Ba’ast was pulled along behind them in a wagon, raking her claws on the stone of every building she passed.

Sunset stared after them as they turned a corner and vanished from sight. “...I don’t know what I expected.”

Trixie crossed her hooves and set them on Sunset’s back. “Well. This makes things… interesting, does it not?”

“That’s certainly one way of putting it. Hold on to my neck.”

“Trixie is not sure this is quite the right time --”

“Trixie.”

“Alright, alright, now whaOOOP!” Trixie found herself dangling in the air, desperately kicking her hooves in search of solid ground. Sunset spun a little in the air as she rose, throwing Trixie more completely onto her back.

“What the Tartarus are you doing?” Trixie demanded.

“Getting a bird’s-eye view on the situation,” Sunset replied, slowly turning in the air. She didn’t even need to see Discord and Ba’ast directly to know their position -- she only needed to look at the way any creature passing by was running to know that the destructive duo were in the opposite direction. She turned to face the west end of town and took off like a rocket.

***

Ba’ast glanced up at the sky. “Oh, look, darling, the company’s arrived.”

“Oh?” Discord asked, not slowing. “Perhaps we should roll out the welcome mat, then.” They snapped their claws, and all the canopies on all the stalls on that street ripped free from their bindings and rose to meet the incoming goddess.

Moments later, several of them had holes burned straight through their centers, and a ball of flame was right on Ba’ast’s tail. Discord drooped. “Ah. That could have gone better…”

“You don’t say?” Ba’ast snarked. “Alright, alright, pull over before you make things worse.”

“As my lady wishes,” Discord said, slowing to a halt. The fireball slowed as well, dimming and shrinking, until all that remained were two slightly-smoldering mares.

Trixie raised a shaking hoof in the air. “That…” she whispered. “That was the most nerve-wracking, stupidly dangerous thing Trixie has ever done. Let’s go again.”

“My lady Ra,” Ba’ast said, stepping out of the wagon. “How good it is to see you and your priestess once more.”

Sunset met the cat’s eyes, distinctly unimpressed. “Care to explain why you’ve taken up street racing, Ba’ast?”

The cat pouted. “No hello?”

“Hello, kitty. Hello to you too, Discord. Now, Ba’ast, I like you. So I’m gonna give you ten whole seconds to explain what you think you’re doing before I start blasting, mmkay? Starting… now.”

Discord chortled and sat back on their haunches. “This should be good.”

“Why, we came to see you, darling,” Ba’ast said, flicking her tails over Sunset’s chin. “I heard you were walking among us once more, and we just couldn’t keep away.”

“Not what I meant,” Sunset said shortly. “Anubis says you stole his father’s bones, among several other accusations. And, while I don’t much like him, he is a relatively honest god, and these antics don’t exactly cast a lot of doubt on his testimony.”

Discord yawned and started filing their claws with a miniature crocodile. “Oh, him. He’s an absolutely crashing bore, you know.” They paused. “Maybe I can turn him into a wild boar.”

“Or send a boar to crash into him,” Trixie suggested.

“Trixie!”

Discord lit up. “Oh, I do like that,” they said, nodding. “I like that quite a lot, actually. Ba’ast, you didn’t mention that this one was a devotee of chaos.”

Trixie shrunk back a little under Discord’s grin. “Well, Trixie does not know if she would go that far.”

Discord’s smile only grew. Sunset lit her horn and blasted them in the face.

They yelped and fell backwards, patting frantically at their flaming goatee. Sunset looked back at Ba’ast, who had turned rather pale all of a sudden. “Getting back to my question,” she said brightly. “What’s new, pussycat?”

Ba’ast took a deep breath and locked eyes with Sunset. “We need your help.”

“Do you ever feel like you’re repeating yourself?” Trixie muttered.

Sunset raised an eyebrow and hummed in agreement.

“We have lived here for a thousand years, now,” Ba’ast began.

“Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard this from Anubis already,” Sunset said, shifting slightly on her hooves.

“Oh, Anubis,” Ba’ast said derisively. “Yes, you can certainly trust him to tell you all about one side of the story, can’t you. He’s a dog, you know. He can only see in black and white.”

“Actually, dogs can see in shades of blue and green --” Sunset began.

Ba’ast rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“I suppose so,” Sunset admitted. “Alright, let’s hear --”

“Interlopers!” a voice roared from the sky. “Your time has come!”

An ibis circled overhead. Ba’ast shielded her eyes. “Oh, it’s Thoth! Hello, Thoth! Did you get a new pair of glasses yet?”

“This is not your place, Ba’ast. Begone, or more will come and--”

“Shout at me from above?” the cat snarked. “Fine, fine, we only wanted to say hello. Come along, Discord.”

Discord finally snuffed the last ember in their goatee. “But Ba’ast,” they whined. “What about the other errands?”

She sighed. “Oh, alright, but let’s be quick about it.”

“Wait, hold on,” Sunset said. “You were just going to--”

“Sorry, Sunny, maybe later. Come stop by for a glass of coke sometime!”

“A glass of-- huh?” Trixie said.

Discord snapped their paw and both gods vanished from view.

A few moments later, Thoth fluttered to earth. “Well, that went rather better than I expected! If they’d stuck around, though, boy! I would’ve given them the old one-two-hullabaloo in short order, and no mistake! Hoo-ha!” He struck a pose, then seemingly registered Sunset and Trixie for the first time. “My Queen Ra! And her acolyte. How good it… is… to see you... Why are you both looking at me like that?”

The stream of cursing that followed that question was only overshadowed by the furious howling of a jackal who has suddenly found his loincloth around his ankles.

***

Sunset and Trixie received the royal treatment as far as their quarters were concerned. Well, technically, they were Ra’s quarters. Trixie, as her priestess was supposed to be mingling with the other religious high-ups in their rooms, but Sunset had very simply stated that sleeping apart would not be acceptable, and more or less everyone but Anubis had crumpled like wet cardboard.

Trixie all but threw herself onto the bed and wriggled around in the sheets, humming and purring like a cat. “This. This is the life.”

Sunset laughed, letting all the tensions of the day fall from her shoulders. “Dork.”

“Excuse Trixie? Have you seen the size of this bed? You could fit Trixie’s whole wagon on this thing, plus the TARDIS, and still have room to comfortably cuddle.”

“Yeah, I guess, but what do you do with all that extra space?” Sunset asked. “You’d need about twelve more ponies if you didn’t want to waste it.”

“Or you could move around all night. Whenever one spot gets too hot, move down a meter and it’s nice and cool!”

Sunset trotted over to inspect the bed more closely. She pushed down on the mattress. “Oh, that’s soft. Especially for this point in history.”

Trixie burrowed deeper into the blankets.

“So,” Sunset said, hopping up on the bed. “I think that after everything that happened today, we should probably have a little talk.”

“Trixie is not fond of that phrase.”

“Oh?”

“Whenever she’s heard ‘have a little talk’ in the past, it has only signalled immense and immediate troubles ahead.”

“I see. How about a conversation? Can we have a conversation about today?”

“That suits Trixie much better, thank you.”

“Alright then, let’s do that. But first…” Sunset lit her horn, and an opaque red shield spell materialized around both mares. “Soundproofing.”

“Useful.”

“Extremely,” Sunset agreed. “Especially when we know for a fact that our host trusts us exactly as much as we trust him.”

“Ah, yes. What do you think of ol’ tall, dark and stupid’s sudden need of our help?”

“I think he’s being honest, if nothing else,” Sunset said. “He’s aggressive, impulsive, and stubborn, but I don’t think he’s a natural liar.”

“Trixie senses a ‘but’.”

“Yeah. Like Ba’ast was saying, he’s not a liar, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t completely blinkered by his own prejudices. There’s a lot that he was saying about balance among the gods that really rubbed me the wrong way. First of all, from what I know about this pantheon, none of the gods are what you’d call ‘chaos-aligned’, except for Sutekh. Chaos and evil are practically synonymous around here.”

“Trixie doesn’t quite follow.”

“Well, if none of the gods are commonly considered chaotic, what’s the metric Anubis is using to determine whether they’re orderly or chaotic in his eyes?”

“Ah. Maybe whether they were with him or against him, back in the Omphalos?”

“It’s a possibility, but there’s no way to know for sure without more investigation. Plus, all of the ‘chaotic’ gods are being forced out into the wilderness, while Anubis and his cronies keep the cities and towns? That seems really suspicious to me.”

Trixie tapped her hooves together. “We need to talk to Discord and Ba’ast again.”

“I agree. But how can we find them? With Discord’s power, they could be literally anywhere. I wouldn’t put it past them to set up a base on the moon.”

“Or their own pocket dimension,” Trixie said.

“So we’re stuck.”

Trixie raised an eyebrow. “Not… necessarily.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, we don’t know where they are, but they sure know where we are.”

Sunset shifted to a more comfortable sitting position. “I’m sure I’m not gonna like this. Go on.”

“Well, it’s like this,” Trixie said. “Discord is a spirit, right?”

“...Yeah.”

“Well, Trixie has some… experience with summoning spirits. Never on the, you know, actually doing it part, but she’s seen plenty.”

“Trixie… your brother?”

“No, Trixie watched Princess flippin’ Cadance summon spirits every Sunday at the theater, yes of course Trixie’s brother!”

“But… what he did to you was--”

“Trixie is perfectly aware of what he did to her. But Trixie is also perfectly aware that she managed to get his assets seized by the crown and his butt locked up in jail for twelve years. She will use what he didn’t even know he was teaching her in order to solve this mystery, and she’ll do it better, faster, and cheaper than he’d ever dream of.”

Sunset let out a long breath. “Okay. If you’re sure, you’re sure. Far be it from me to stand in your way.”

“Trixie is certain,” Trixie said. She sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as she was Sunset.

“Alright. What do you need?”

“A circle, of course. A conduit, and an offering.”

“Right. Which in practical terms means what, exactly?”

Trixie pursed her lips. “The circle is relatively easy. Some of them have runes, for protection, but Discord just wanted to talk, right? And it’s not like they couldn’t have already hurt us if they really wanted to. So just a circle will do.”

“Alright. No, not alright, actually, I’m going to have to nix that one, you’re putting up at least a moderate amount of protective runes there.”

“Oh, come on, it’s just Discord. Trixie’s met Discord, they’re annoying, but they wouldn’t ever really hurt anypony.”

“They haven’t met Fluttershy yet.”

“Okay, point taken. Trixie will put in some nice solid runes and maybe a brick wall.”

“That’s more like it. What about the other two parts?”

“A conduit would be a way to attract the spirit’s attention, so Trixie was maybe thinking about setting off a couple of fireworks inside the palace.”

“Nice.”

“And then there’s the offering. That’s payment for their time.” Trixie pursed her lips. “Difficult. What do you get the being that can summon up anything they desire at a moment’s notice?”

“Um… something original?”

Trixie cocked her head. “Interesting. Trixie will have to sleep on that one. On the subject of which, Trixie demands snuggle time.”

“Yeah, yeah, fine. We’ll do it tomorrow, sound good?”

“Yes. Keep Anubis and his cronies distracted, Trixie will do the rest.”

“Alright, then.” Sunset dispelled the shield. “G’night, Trixie.”

“Love you,” Trixie murmured, snuggling closer to Sunset’s chin.

“Love you too.”

When the firelight of Sunset’s mane and wings had faded to a dull glow, Nephi quietly pushed open his hiding-place in the wall and stole out of the room. Even with his sharp ears, he hadn’t been able to hear a word from inside their magic bubble. But, the jackal thought as he cast one last glance back at the priestess curled up in the hooves of her goddess, at least he hadn’t left totally empty-pawed. Anubis would be pleased to have this information.

***

Sunset awoke early the next morning. Much to her surprise, Trixie was already out of bed, staring out the window. “Hey. S’matter?” she asked, rolling off of the covers.

“Nothing,” Trixie said. “Trixie got up early, that’s all.”

“Oh. Whatcha looking at?”

“The sunrise.” Trixie didn’t look away from the horizon. “How did they do it? Trixie sees no unicorns out there.”

“Horus,” Sunset said, interrupting herself with a yawn. “He was the sun god after Ra… left, I guess. Dunno much more than that, really.”

“Interesting.”

Sunset hesitated. “So is there a reason you’re looking at the sun, or what?”

“Trixie thought she mentioned, back in Unicornia. Looking at the sunrise together is kinda romantic.”

Sunset froze for a long minute. “...Oh,” she said softly. “That sounds… that sounds really nice, yeah.”

She stood beside Trixie, and together they watched as the sun rose over the horizon. “Trixie,” Sunset said quietly. “When you talk to Discord today… ask them if they can get us back home. I want to see the sun raised by Princess Celestia again.”

“You know they won’t do that.”

“We can ask.”

Trixie gazed out at the horizon a little longer. “Yeah,” she agreed. “We can ask.”

Sunset shuffled a little closer to Trixie, and after a moment’s hesitation, Trixie rested her head on Sunset’s withers. “We’ll get back there,” Trixie murmured. “One way or another, we’ll get back.”

“Of course we will,” Sunset said firmly. “I’m technically a goddess, you’re great and powerful, what could ever hope to stand in our way?”

“That’s true! That is very true,” Trixie agreed. “Trixie thinks she will be ready to put the plan into action by around ten o'clock, so keep everyone away from… say, that courtyard we passed through yesterday. The one with all those big pottery jars?”

“Okay. You realize that once you start setting off fireworks, there’s only so much I can do to keep you from being discovered.”

“Well, yes, Trixie will have to keep the conversation short and then run like buggery, but she is fully capable of that.”

“Alright. Break a leg, okay?”

“Trixie is almost insulted you think she would do otherwise. Just… keep all of yours intact, alright?”

“Trixie, I don’t think anycreature here is about to attack me. I’m Ra, remember? I’m kind of a big deal.”

“Trixie knows! But she does not trust Anubis as far as she could throw him.”

Sunset nodded. “I take your point. But for now, we have to work with him. The sooner you get Discord and Ba’ast’s side of things, the sooner we can reevaluate that relationship.”

“Trixie understands. She will meet you back here when the ritual is completed.”

“Alright. I’ll let you get to it.” Sunset turned to go, but paused.

“Is something the mat--” Trixie began. She was cut off as gentle lips pressed against her cheek.

And then Sunset was hurrying out the door before Trixie could recover enough to say or do anything more. She put a hoof to her cheek and kept it there for a long minute. Then she giggled and trotted out of the room with a spring in her step.

***

Sunset hurried into the auditorium where the TARDIS was being kept. Anubis was already there with a small coterie of other gods, though Sunset was relieved to note that she wasn’t the last one there. Thoth, she noted, was loitering at the outskirts of the group, casting nervous glances at Sunset every now and again.

She felt a little bad about that. Thoth had only been doing his job. On the other hoof, he had kind of been a dick when Sunset told him off yesterday, so she wasn’t all that bothered.

“Good morning,” she said briskly. “Anubis, I believe you called this meeting, so I’ll allow you to take the lead.”

The jackal scowled a little at that. “...Yes, thank you, Queen Ra. We shall begin when everyone has assembled here.” He paused and cocked his head. “Where has your priestess gone?”

“I wasn’t of the impression that we were to bring along our religious functionaries,” Sunset said, unblinking. “Should I go and fetch her?”

“No, no,” Anubis said. “I was surprised to learn that the two of you aren’t permanently fused at the hip, nothing more.”

“She is a good and faithful companion. I assumed that a dog such as yourself would understand that much.”

All of the other gods had gone very still now. Anubis tilted his head, as though considering a precious jewel. “I do apologize if I caused offense, my Lady Ra. Such was never my intention.”

Sunset didn’t move, nor even blink, staring at the jackal for several moments until he began to look uncomfortable.

“Apology accepted, Anubis,” she said at length. “To answer your question, Trixie has requested that she be able to investigate the location of Dis-- this new god’s encampment. I decided that her time would be better spent in pursuit of that goal than being patronized at her mistress’s side.”

Anubis hesitated, then nodded and looked away.

“Anubis.”

The jackal glanced up once more.

Sunset locked eyes with him. “You would be wise to wag your tongue less and your tail more.”

Anubis tucked his tail between his legs and bowed. “Yes, my Queen Ra.”

Sunset gave a short, sharp nod, then glanced around the room. “Are we all assembled, then?”

Silence filled the room. “Well?” Sunset demanded.

All eyes fell on Thoth. The ibis started, then fumbled with his tablet. “Er, almost,” he said. “Isis seems to be running a tad late this morning.”

Sunset sighed. “Very well. If she hasn’t turned up in ten minutes, we’ll start without her. In the meantime…” she thought for a moment. How to keep several gods occupied for ten minutes?

A wicked thought struck her. It was time-consuming, entirely appropriate for the occasion, and best of all, it was utterly miserable. “Right, then. It’s been so long since I’ve seen any of you. Perhaps we should re-introduce ourselves. We’ll go around the room, and I want all of you to tell me your name, what domain you’re in charge of, why you prefer order to chaos, and one interesting fact about yourself. Thoth, why don’t you start?”

The ibis fumbled his tablet and stylus and started stammering. Every other creature in the room looked equally horrified. Sunset smiled at every last stinkin’ one of them.

***

“Okay,” Trixie muttered. “Something new. Something unique. Something that the god of Chaos has never seen before. Something… unexpected.” She considered that. “Hm. Might work. What the Tartarus, Trixie doesn’t have any better ideas.”

She grabbed a sheet of papyrus and a stylus and started drawing. After a few moments, she held it up to the light and studied it. It was kinda shitty, if Trixie was being honest with herself. That was fine. She lit her horn and punched two holes in the paper. Perfect.

She tucked the finished product under her cloak and hurried from the room. Thankfully, the halls were almost totally empty -- last night’s cheering crowd had apparently only turned up for the reappearance of Ra. Though Trixie was usually quite appreciative of an audience, she was grateful for the reprieve under the circumstances. Anubis would probably call it treason or something. Technically, it probably was, but Trixie wasn’t going to let a little thing like that stand in her way.

At last, she reached the courtyard she had remembered from yesterday. Or at least, she had reached a courtyard, which was close enough. There were lots of breakable things sitting around, and that was the important thing.

The first thing Trixie did upon entering the room was pull out a piece of chalk which she had swiped from a desk on her way here. Drawing the circle was a lengthy, complex process of runes upon runes in ever-growing concentric rings. It took her nearly an hour to complete, and took up nearly half the room. She sat back and wiped her brow, making sure no drop of moisture fell to smudge her carefully-drawn lines.

Trixie then doffed her hat and pulled out a series of fireworks. She put several of the smaller ones in jars around the room, and levitated the very largest one in the dead center of the circle. She looked at it fondly. “Godspeed, Blue Boomer 2000. Godspeed.”

Trixie cast one last glance around the room, and levitated large jars in front of every entrance in a way that would give any fire marshall a heart attack. She didn’t care. Trixie had survived worse.

She glanced at the rings of runes that had so defined her childhood. Yes, Trixie had survived much worse.

She lit her horn and the circle glowed in kind. Sitting down at the edge, she began to chant. “Lecter phasma chao dolor ipsi aqua sit amet…”

***

They were some twenty minutes into the meeting, and everycreature was still casting acidic side-glances at Isis. The kite had flown in on a rainbow, apparently with the intention of being fashionably late. Unfortunately, she had arrived to find that had gone out of style roughly three seconds into Sunset’s get-to-know-you game. Isis had now shrunk into her perch under the weary, accusing glares of her fellows.

Aside from Sunset, the only one not glaring at Isis was Anubis, who had fallen into the meeting like a pony dying in the desert into an oasis.

She still wasn’t sure what the meeting was supposed to be about, honestly. Anubis had tried calling roll, but had been met with a near-mutiny. After about ten minutes spent arguing, Sunset had finally stepped in and called for a vote. Anubis’ roll call had been buried by a landslide, and Sunset was certain that he had lingered over the minutes out of sheer spite.

Although, she mused as Anubis called once again for any old business, that might just be the way he did things. That was fine. The longer they were here, the longer Trixie had to work.

***

“laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat,” Trixie concluded. The glowing lines of the summoning circle spiked up into a waterfall of light. Trixie let the aura from her horn fade. She had connected.

Trixie took a deep breath and lit her horn again. A baker’s dozen of fuses lit as well.

***

Sunset felt the first salvo almost before she heard it. A shiver ran up her spine like a razor. The noise was too loud, too obvious, oh so much closer than they had agreed on the night before. Anubis paused for a moment in his recitation of the new business, but only for a moment. “As I was saying, we must reinforce our defences around Aviaris -- Nekhbet has been seen in that area, and her wingpower is a force with which to be reckoned.”

Hesitantly, Ptah raised a hand. “Shouldn’t we go… investigate whatever that explosion was?”

“We may put it to a vote during ‘other new business,’” Anubis said coldly. “At the appropriate time.”

Sunset almost laughed in relief. Anubis’s almost fanatical adherence to the schedule would give Trixie plenty of time to get away.

Another explosion went off.

“I propose we move the armies of three neighboring nomes to combat Nekbet’s forces. Are there any alternate proposals?”

***

Trixie watched, fascinated, as a long noodle shape formed in the ether. “Well, well, well,” a low voice said. “Isn’t this the novel experience. So few creatures choose to invite chaos into their life -- ah, of course, the disciple.”

Discord grinned out at her, not entirely unfriendly. “Decide to switch your allegiances, my dear?”

“No chance,” Trixie said. “Ra wants a meeting, to hear your side of the story, nothing more.”

“Interesting, interesting… but ah. I’m getting ahead of myself. Isn’t there meant to be an offering in all this?”

“Oh, yes.”

Discord quirked a brow. “Well! I certainly hope it’s a good one.”

“It is.”

Discord tapped their hoof impatiently. “Where is it?”

“Ah. Trixie thought that as the god of chaos, you would want to do this a little differently. Her mistake. And it was going to be such a surprise, too.” She reached into her cloak.

“Wait.”

Trixie paused.

“You got me a surprise?” Discord arched a brow. “So little surprises me these days, you know.”

“Trixie suspected as much, yes.”

“It’d have to be pretty unexpected to surprise one such as myself.”

“Certainly.”

Discord pursed their lips. “And you intend to give it to me…”

“When Trixie gets your side of the story.”

“An interesting proposal, and a bold request. I approve. Unfortunately, it is something of a long story, and by my calculation, it will be…” they paused, and suddenly Trixie could just hear the sound of creatures running, getting closer, louder. “Oh, forty seconds before the guards arrive. If you run now, you might just make it out. Or, you could erase a couple of those runes and I can take you to my secret lair that Anubis is gasping to get at. What’ll it be?”

Trixie hesitated. The clatter of feet on stone was very close now. She grabbed her chalk and scrawled a quick note on the stone floor. Then, in a flash, she ran into the circle and into Discord’s arms.

The door crashed down and the royal guards piled in. Apart from smoke and broken pottery, the room was totally empty.

Author's Note

Hey y'all. Much like with this chapter, the final chapter in this story is going to take more than a week to complete. I'm getting absolutely slammed at work, and it's only going to get worse until August. With a little luck and effort, the final chapter of this story should be up on the fifth. With slightly less luck and effort, it'll be up on the twelfth. After that, my summer job will pretty much be at an end, and the normal three-day schedule will resume. Thanks for being patient.
-6&7

The Light of Ra

“...with twenty-seven votes in favor and one abstension, the motion passes,” Anubis said, bringing his gavel down for what Sunset was certain must have been the five hundredth time that meeting. “Investigation into the feasibility of draining the Nile for cleaning will begin no more than one month from today.”

A chorus of weak groans greeted this pronouncement. Anubis clearly didn’t care. He merely flipped over his latest clay tablet onto a stack on the floor that nearly came up to his elbows. He picked up the next one and scanned it quickly. “Is there any other new business?”

Sunset quickly raised a hoof. “I motion we go investigate whatever made that explosion back at the start of new business.”

“Seconded!” Hathor agreed.

Anubis’ mouth twitched slightly. “Any discussion?”

No one spoke up. “Very well, then. All in favor, say aye.”

A chorus of ‘aye’s rang out around the table, including one from Anubis himself. Thoth quickly scribbled a number on his own clay tablet.

“All opposed?” Anubis asked. Total silence was his only answer.

“The ayes have it,” Thoth said, quite unnecessarily to Sunset’s mind. “Unanimous, with no abstensions.”

“Great,” Sunset said flatly. “So how long do you want to spend talking about that before we actually follow through?”

Thoth cocked his head. “Er, maybe five, ten minutes?”

“Overruled,” Anubis said, rising from his chair.

Sunset followed suit. She was rather curious about this abrupt change in Anubis’ demeanor -- she suspected it was almost painful for him not to agree with Thoth and natter on through the proper protocol for however long it took. The expressions on the faces of the other gods only confirmed that.

The retinue followed the jackal down the hallways of the compound. As they moved closer to the source of the explosion, Sunset noticed more and more guards roaming the halls. It was only to be expected, of course, but it made her heart race. Had Trixie made it out safely? Had she been hurt? Had she been captured? She tried to overtake Anubis, but the jackal’s muscular bulk took up too much space for her to skirt around.

Eventually, the party arrived at a room, guarded by a pair of jackals. They snapped a salute at the gods, then moved to allow them access. One by one, they trickled in.

The smoke had cleared and the dust had settled. Precious little else remained. Burnt-out fireworks littered the ground alongside pottery sherds and pieces of the wall. Some chalk lines were still visible under the rubble, but what had once been a circle was now more of a ring -- the chalk in the center had been apparently blown away during the summons.

Thoth cleared his throat. “Well, now that we’ve investigated, perhaps we can return--” He fell silent when P’tah smacked him over the head.

Anubis turned to the nearest guard. “What happened here?”

“Uncertain, sah! Use of projectile weapons determined, sah! Likely used in the summoning of some entity, sah!”

Sunset stared around the room, not quite able to reconcile what she was seeing with reality. “Have you apprehended any suspects yet?” she asked.

“No, ma’am! No creature found in the area, ma’am!”

“Nop-- no one was hurt in the explosion, then.”

“No, ma’am!”

Sunset let out the breath she had been holding. “Well, I suppose that’s something, anyway.”

She glanced over to a corner where Anubis was studying the ground. “What have you found, Anubis?”

The jackal turned swiftly. “Nothing yet, my queen. Would you prefer to continue looking?”

Sunset considered. “No, I suspect the guards can handle this situation themselves.”

“As you say, Queen Ra.” Anubis turned and walked back out of the room, with the other gods quickly following suit. As Sunset hurried to catch up, she couldn’t help but notice a patch of white on the underside of Anubis’ sandal. He must have scuffed some of the chalk, she thought to herself. Just as well. The less evidence the guards had to sift through, the less likely they were to pin it on Trixie.

***

Trixie couldn’t breathe for a long moment. She couldn’t feel the air or the ground, or anything but Discord’s arms. Her mind flashed back to that horrible time when she had been stuck in the mirror portal, neither in nor out of either side. She thrashed almost instinctively --

And then she was dripping with cool, sticky brown liquid as Discord carried her up out of a pool of cola.

“Ew.”

“Oh, suck it up,” Discord grumbled.

Almost immediately, a swarm of little red vacuum cleaners rushed out of the underbrush, nozzles at the ready. Trixie recoiled, but Discord merely sighed and shut their eyes. The vacuums raced around the pair, sucking away every last drop of soda from their bodies. Only a few seconds later, they rushed back into the bushes, leaving Trixie confused, dizzy, and surprisingly fluffy.

“There,” Discord said, setting Trixie down. “How’s that for a secret entrance?”

“Um, kind of inconvenient, Trixie thinks.”

“Well, who asked you anyway?”

“You did. Just now.”

“I never did.”

“Trixie heard you!”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“Trixie certainly is!”

“Perhaps Trixie should consider getting her ears checked?”

“Trixie--” she cut herself off and shook her head. “No, Trixie sees what you are doing here. You cannot wind Trixie up so easily these days.”

“Tsk.” Discord flicked their forked tongue at her. “I’ll just have to try harder, then.”

“Discord? Do we have company?”

Ba’ast didn’t walk into the clearing so much as she was suddenly just… there. Trixie just about jumped out of her skin.

Discord snickered. Ba’ast merely raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. I see you’ve risen from Queen Ra’s acolyte to her emissary.”

“Trixie thinks her job duties are best defined as ‘concubine,’” Trixie said, brushing herself off with as much dignity as she could muster. She wasn’t entirely surprised to discover that the ground wasn’t made of sand at all, but brown sugar. “Or perhaps… er, just ‘marefriend’?”

Ba’ast looked at Discord significantly. Discord stared back blankly before quickly feigning comprehension.

“How… delightful,” Ba’ast purred. “I’m so pleased that you finally admitted it to one another.”

“You could tell?”

“From the --” Ba’ast hesitated. “Well. Perhaps not from the very first time we met. Definitely by the end of the second, I could tell there was something.”

Trixie raised a brow.

“Well, you were on a good trajectory, anyway.” Ba’ast leapt up and a palm tree swooped up to meet her as she passed her zenith. She landed perfectly, and the limb twisted and bent so that she lay staring into Trixie’s eyes. “But I digress. What brings you to our little oasis, my dear?”

It was difficult to focus, staring into Ba’ast pale green eyes. Trixie wanted to lose herself in their depths, searching for eternity…

She grunted and blinked several times to clear her head. “Your side of the story,” she said. “Trixie has heard from Anubis already how you and your cohorts are assailing cities.”

“But you don’t trust him.”

“Gee, did you get that when he tried to kill Trixie, or when he almost made Sunset burn to death?”

“To be fair to Anubis, that’s less about your mistrust of him and more about your completely understandable antipathy for him.”

“Look, we’re agreed that Anubis is a bad dog, and he definitely deserves to get beaned with a rolled up newspaper. So can Trixie please just hear your side of things so she can get back to Sunset with the rest of the story?”

Ba’ast smirked and sat up straight on the tree branch. “Oh, I suppose. Perhaps afterwards you can better explain why you so mistrust Anubis.”

“But--”

Ba’ast inhaled deeply through her nose and held it for several seconds before letting it out with a huff. “We are at war with Anubis,” she began, “because the inhabitants of this world need our help.”

***

We have been here for well over a thousand years now, (Ba’ast said,) and we were fortunate enough to arrive in a peaceful, prosperous land. The creatures that had already inhabited this world were welcoming, and offered us room in their society. They asked nothing in return, save that we be good neighbors to them, that we share alike and work alike for the common good. But for… some among us, (she sighed rather than spoke,) that simply wasn’t good enough. It took Anubis a few centuries, but he’s managed to dig his claws into virtually every central power structure in this civilization. And then he threw out anyone that wouldn’t bow to his will. My cats all had to leave, of course, because no-one can tell a cat to do anything. We’ve lived outside the cities, existing off the land in secret, looking for a better home. All this, I would not begrudge Anubis -- he’s a born bureaucrat, I’ll say that for him, and if it means I never have to see him again, I’d take banishment any day of the week. But since Anubis took power, nothing has changed or grown. No new art styles, new methods of agriculture, new technologies, virtually no new buildings, only repair work done on the old stuff. Every creature alive today is living as their ancestors did some two dozen generations ago, and no society can live like that. Only survive.
But one day, about a decade back, a new god arrived on the scene -- the avatar of chaos incarnate. It took… some time for us to join forces. You seem to know Discord -- you likely also know that they aren’t the most collaborative of creatures. But in time, we decided that our common enemy united us more than our, shall we say senses of style, differed. We began testing the waters, checking the mettle of Anubis’ allies. They were, to say the least, shoddy. You saw Thoth? Yes, that would be a typical skirmish. But the creatures of this world and our own world crave order. They would defend Anubis, and there would be blood. That must not be. So we began to circulate rumors…
We claimed that Discord is the reincarnation of Sutekh, as your friend is the reincarnation of Ra. For all we know, they may well be. Certainly, they fill the void that Sutekh left behind, and that is truth enough for our purposes -- truth enough to make people question Anubis’ strength, truth enough to unite the exiled gods, truth enough to make Anubis worried. His power has crumbled slightly, which he interprets as an existential threat. This is good and bad. It is bad, because it has forced him to be proactive, and he does not loathe bloodshed as we do. It is good, because it has forced him to scramble, and he appears much weaker and more complacent than he would like people to believe. If we can press him into that disadvantage, the people will rise against his tyranny. If we can do that, if we can unite as one against the power structure…
It will be the birth of a new civilization.

***

“Well,” said Trixie. “That… sounds good.” She hesitated. “But, um, where exactly did stealing Sutekh’s bones and the radioactive rocks come into play? Because Trixie did notice you left that part out.”

“Oh, you heard about that, did you?” Discord said from where they had curled around a palm tree of their own. “Well, of course, it was partly to wind up Anubis, make him lose the plot a little quicker.”

“Stealing someone’s dad’s bones would do that,” Trixie agreed.

“Partly…” Discord dragged the word out, then paused a long moment. “I’m not certain I should really tell you. Particularly since you haven’t held up your end of the bargain. Where’s my surprise?”

“You’ll get it before Trixie goes,” Trixie said firmly. “Half the point of a good surprise is the anticipation. And Trixie considers what you did with Sutekh’s remains to be part of your side of the story, so you have to tell Trixie that first anyway.” She turned her nose up at the draconequus, considering them closely. “Nyeah,” she concluded, sticking out her tongue at them.

Discord’s eyebrows had slowly risen through the entire speech. “Well, well,” they said. “I thought I liked you for a reason. Bold as brass, I see.”

“You may as well show her,” Ba’ast said, having returned to her more customary lounging position on the branch. “It will only strengthen our case.”

“That remains to be seen,” Trixie said archly. “Lead on.”

Ba’ast leapt from her resting place. The tree whipped upright with a sharp snap that made Trixie jump.

“Come! We will take you to the power plant.”

***

The meeting had ended some few hours ago, and Sunset had retired to her chambers. On her arrival, she had been perturbed when she discovered that Trixie had yet to return, but not overly alarmed. With all the guard on high alert, it was only natural that Trixie might want to lay low for awhile. Perhaps she’d even left the compound entirely to establish an alibi elsewhere. All she knew was that Trixie hadn’t been taken into custody, and that was comfort enough. At least, for the first couple hours it was. By the third hour, she had taken to pacing the room. When the fourth rolled around, Sunset could take no more.

The guard outside Sunset’s room visibly jumped when she slammed her door open. She barely glanced at him. “You. Go look for my priestess.”

“I regret, my queen, that I cannot leave--”

Sunset stopped dead. Almost glacially, she turned her head to lock eyes with the guard. “That sounded almost like a refusal, guard. Let’s try this again. Go… find… Trixie.” She lit her horn, and the tip blazed like a welding torch. “Capice?”

He saluted quickly. “Yes, my queen!”

“Good. Get to it.”

She turned her back to him as he raced down the hallway. He wouldn’t find Trixie, of course, but at least Sunset wouldn’t have to put up with him hounding her.

No. To find Trixie, she’d have to go straight to the big dog himself.

***

Anubis was hunched over his desk when Sunset tracked him down. He barely glanced up when she entered, then went back to poring over his clay tablets. “Report,” he said gruffly.

Sunset raised a brow. “Are you quite sure that’s how you want to begin this conversation?”

The jackal did a double take, then shoved almost all his tablets to the ground in his haste to rise. “My queen, forgive me, I did not realize that it was you!”

“Yes, I had suspected as much,” Sunset said drily. “You could stand to pay a little more attention to the world around you as it actually is, Anubis.”

His lips tightened. “Yes, Queen Ra. Thank you.”

“Well, never mind that now. I seem to have waylaid my priestess, have you seen her anywhere?”

Anubis raised a brow. “Waylaid your priestess. Not exactly a common problem, if I may so say. Perhaps you should keep her on a shorter leash.”

“Well. You’d be the expert on leashes, wouldn’t you?” Sunset shot back. She was pleased to see Anubis’ lip twist at that. “I last saw her before the meeting, and sent her on an errand. I wanted some dried figs from the market. It’s been… oh, around ten hours since then, and I really would like her back.”

“The market,” Anubis echoed. “For… dried figs.”

“They’re sweet. Is this really the most important thing about the situation?”

“No, of course not. Forgive me, my queen, please go on.”

“There’s not much more to tell, I suppose. As I said, that was the last time I saw her, and with the unexplained explosion… well, I’m concerned. I know no one was found in the area, but do you have any kind of idea what happened?”

Anubis glanced back at his desk. “Quite a coincidence that you should ask. As it happens, I was just now looking over the reports of the incident.”

“Oh?” Sunset glanced over at the tablets. Indeed, they seemed to detail the explosion’s aftermath in some detail. One analyzed the value of everything that had broken, and Sunset winced when she saw the total. “Hope you got this place insured,” she said.

“Hm?” Anubis glanced at the numbers. “A trifling sum. I suppose we’re fortunate that the damage was contained to one small courtyard. If the explosions had happened somewhere important… hmph.” His brow furrowed. “This may have been a test run.”

Sunset looked up from the tablets. “A test run,” she echoed. “Of what, exactly? And by whom?”

He squinted at her as though she really were the sun. “The forces of chaos, of course.”

“Ah,” said Sunset. “Of course.”

“It is the only possible explanation,” Anubis continued, beginning to pace. “Incursion by teleportation! A coward’s method of attack, showcasing their craven, debauched nature.”

“Uh-huh,” Sunset said.

“Yes… and their removal of your priestess even more so.”

Sunset stopped and turned to face the jackal. “Come again?”

Anubis stood with his back to the wall now, arms crossed over his chest. “Your priestess was here. The explosion happened. Now, she is no longer here.”

“That’s circumstantial evidence at best,” Sunset pointed out. “At worst, it’s scapegoating and slander.”

“Which are you inclined to think it really is?”

“Somewhere in the middle, around wild conjecture and confirmation bias,” Sunset returned. “It’s possible, I grant you that, but you haven’t even evidence enough to prove that it was Discord and their allies that broke in here, let alone that they kidnapped Trixie.”

Anubis scowled. Well, good. If he wasn’t going to be helpful, neither was Sunset.

“Will you at least consider the possibility that the forces of chaos have taken your priestess?” he asked.

Sunset paused, thinking. “I’ll… consider it, yes. But there’s every chance she’s still in the city. Mobilize your guards to search for her. If we haven’t found her by nightfall… well, we’ll talk again then.”

Anubis’s shoulder and neck muscles unclenched slightly. “Reasonable enough,” he conceded. “Very well, my queen. I will see you this evening.”

“Not if I see you first,” Sunset muttered, storming into the hall.

Anubis watched the door swing slowly shut. As it clicked back into place, he gave a grim smile. Everything was falling into place.

***

Sunset found herself back at the TARDIS, glaring at its blue double doors. She didn’t have anywhere else to go, and if nothing else getting the TARDIS off the summoning circle that had brought it here would be a productive way to spend a few minutes.

She started pushing the box along. The worst part was, Anubis’s theory might actually be true. She knew that Trixie had been trying to contact Discord when she vanished. The jackal might have made some biased leaps of logic, but he still had managed to come to the most logical conclusion.

Sunset grunted as the TARDIS hit a raised set of runes. She lit her horn and tugged the box over to the edge.

And if Discord had Trixie, she thought, there was no telling what might happen to her. The Discord she knew was amiable enough -- kind of a dick, sure, but a far cry from a villain. But she knew that was a recent development.

The TARDIS bumped against an invisible wall at the edge of the circle, and Sunset hissed in frustration.

She had looked into Discord’s checkered, striped, and polka-dotted past. It hadn’t been easy. Celestia and Luna had been cagey about the chaos deity’s first rampage, and Ponyville seemed to have brushed the details of their second release under the rug. Even Rainbow Dash just got sullen and quiet every time it was mentioned. But not for nothing had Sunset been Princess Celestia’s personal student. She had scoured the Royal Archives. Little information survived of Discord’s first reign of terror, or indeed of their life before that sordid era. The more recent rampage, though… that had been detailed in-depth in practically every newspaper in the nation. Sunset had read them all, and she had been horrified. Even setting aside the mental magic, which had been banned in every civilized society capable of using it and then some, Discord had done terrible, nightmare-inducing things to innocent ponies. She was convinced that they had changed, although it took her several days to start trusting the elder draconequus, but they were thousands of years in the past. This Discord had never met Fluttershy, never learned what friendship meant, never learned to take responsibility for their actions.

And yet.

Sunset sat down, her back against the box. Discord hadn’t struck her as cruel or uncaring here and now, either. They hadn’t exactly been pleasant, but merely… aloof? Detached? They might try to kidnap Trixie, if it came to that, but Sunset doubted it would come from any malicious intent. Just curiosity.

She sighed. It just didn’t make any sense. She needed Trixie here, to help her see where it had all gone wrong. Of course, if Trixie were here, that particular point would be moot.

Sunset stood up. Well, she wouldn’t get anything done waiting around in here. She trotted out of the circle. Wherever Trixie was, she hoped that she was safe.

***

Trixie followed Discord and Ba’ast deeper into the thick forest of palm trees surrounding the oasis. “So, just how big is this place?” she asked.

Discord sucked in a long breath. “Well,” they said. “You know the city you were just in?”

“Yes.”

“Take that area and multiply by seven.”

“Okay…”

“Now add two-hundred and seventy-three, then divide by eight and three-fifths.”

“Huh?”

“Now, square that total, add seventeen, then throw that all away because this is theoretically infinite.”

“Oh. Why didn’t you just say so?”

“Because I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of seeing you so utterly lost.”

Trixie scowled, and would have retorted if Ba’ast hadn’t interrupted. “Here we are at last!” she said, pushing aside some leaves.

Any comment Trixie might have made dried up in her throat as she saw what stood in the glade beyond. Well. Stood might have been a strong word. ‘Lounged’, perhaps. Or ‘lay’, as in ‘lay in wait’.

“Tha, uh, that’s a… That’s a big snake you’ve got there,” she said.

The serpent, easily as wide as a two-lane road and long enough to comfortably wrap itself up around the tallest tower in Canterlot, flicked its tongue lazily. Ba’ast beamed. “You like?” she asked, turning to face Trixie. “I would have preferred to use Catshepsut, of course, but she was rather specialized… and, of course, we parted company not long after landing here.”

Trixie blinked. “Catshepsut?”

“Oh, pardon me, you were never introduced, were you? Catshepsut was the sphinx.”

The gears in Trixie’s head clunked once or twice, then ground back into position. “So… this is another artificial intelligence?”

“‘Intelligence’ might be a bit strong,” Discord muttered.

The snake gave him a long, hard stare. “Yes, well,” Ba’ast said hurriedly. “Trixie, I present to you Mala, the divine temptation.”

Trixie looked the snake up and down doubtfully. “She’s certainly… pretty,” she agreed after a moment. “But, um, Trixie doesn’t feel… ‘tempted’, per se.”

“Oh dear. That’s not even remotely what I meant.”

“Oh. Then what’s so tempting about her?”

The sides of Ba’ast’s lips twitched. “It would be easier just to show you.” She turned to the giant serpent. “Open up!” she shouted. “It’s me.”

Mala twisted, slithering sinuously over the sands toward her mistress. She stopped, her head lying at Ba’ast’s feet. With a hiss equal parts mechanical and hydraulic, the snake’s massive maw swung open, revealing a metal tunnel. The cat turned to Trixie and smiled brightly. “Shall we?”

Trixie looked down the corridor as far as she could, until the serpentine corridor twisted too far off the straight for her to see. “You first.”

Ba’ast let out a full, throaty laugh. “Very well, my dear. Discord, darling, you can bring up the rear.”

Discord looked disdainfully at the metal maw. “Must I?”

“Yes.”

They sighed in mock-exasperation. “Very well. A chaos god must do what a chaos god must do.”

Ba’ast smiled at them softly, then marched into the gaping mouth of the snake, the other two walking after her like baby ducks.

***

The hallway was, unsurprisingly, a funhouse path of hills, valleys, and curves, following the curvature of the serpent’s prone form. After several minutes of intense hiking, Trixie stopped dead. “Alright, enough is enough,” she said waspishly. “How much farther back did you put this thing you wanted to show Trixie? This seems like something of a design flaw, frankly.”

“We’re still moving down the throat,” Ba’ast said. “The principle function lies at the belly of the beast.”

“Oh, of course it does,” Trixie grumbled. “You just love your little in-jokes here, don’t you? Trixie is almost surprised you didn’t put it in the heart.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ba’ast said, continuing along the hall. “That’s where the CPU is.”

Trixie huffed and trotted along after her, but no sooner had she turned the corner than she stopped dead once again. Discord bumped into her backside. “Hey, watch it,” they complained, but Trixie barely noticed. Her face, the walls, everything was suffused with an ominous lime-green glow.

“This… this is safe, right?”

Discord thought about that for a moment. “Probably? Hey, Ba’ast, she can handle this, right?”

“Yeah! Yeah, she should be fine.”

“There, you see? You should be fine.”

“...Should?”

Discord grinned. “Oh, nothing’s ever certain. Here, more than anywhere else, that is true.”

“...Where is here, anyway?” Trixie asked, starting down the hallway again.

“Everywhere. Nowhere. Somewhere else. We’re outside of traditional space and time, north of normal and yonwards of hither.”

“Very poetic,” Trixie said drily.

“Well, if you have a better way to describe it, I’m all ears.”

Trixie huffed, but said nothing more as she rounded another bend in the corridor… and once more, stopped dead in her tracks. “This is getting to be a habit,” Discord grumbled, coming to a halt just in time. They gazed into the room beyond. “Though I will admit, this time is rather justified…”

On the walls, luminous green crystals shone out through the glass of their water-filled tanks, bathing everything a sickening shade of lime. Complex systems of wires and pipes also lined the walls, spreading outwards from the center of the room. And there, Ba’ast stood, examining a set of gauges on another, larger tank of water with a series of glowing crystals inside. She turned at their entrance, smiling faintly. “Welcome, my dear. Do you understand, now?”

Trixie started to shake her head ‘no’, but hesitated. “These crystals… they killed Sutekh, yes?”

“That’s so.”

“You stole them from Anubis, along with Sutekh’s own remains.” She paused. “...Why?”

Ba’ast turned that question over in her mind a few times. “Several reasons, I suppose. The crystals -- they’re known as glowpaz, so you know -- are a useful power source, even if they were drained by the trip here and Sutekh’s self-sacrifice. They weren’t doing any good sitting around Anubis’s palace all day. As for Sutekh… I won’t deny, the disappearance of his remains added a certain amount of legitimacy to our claims that Discord is his reincarnation, at least as far as the public is concerned. But that was never the primary goal of our reclamation of Sutekh’s bones. I would have taken them even if it had discredited us utterly.”

“Then why? It seems so disrespectful to his memory to use it in such a way.”

Ba’ast’s eyes flashed, and Trixie could tell she’d touched a nerve. She stepped back, but in an instant, Ba’ast’s serenity was restored. “Disrespectful? No. What was disrespectful was the way Anubis, our god of funerary rituals and transition to the afterlife, refused to give his own father the proper burial of a god, a hero, or even the lowest mortal being -- no offence.”

“None taken.” Trixie screwed up her muzzle. “Hey, wait a second--”

“So yes, we took his bones, his headdress, his symbols of power. They lie buried with him in a pyramid not too far from here, finally all put to rest.”

Trixie nodded slowly. “Okay. That explains the bones. And the glowpaz kind of makes sense, Trixie guesses, but… why a giant snake? What’s the point? It seems to Trixie like you could light up this whole oasis like central Manehattan -- or Las Pegasus, that seems more your style. You could win the people over by introducing this new energy source and see Anubis’s power base crumble beneath him. So why the snake?”

“Anubis won’t give up his power so easily,” Ba’ast said shortly. “He’ll make claims that the glowpaz is still dangerous, as though his father hadn’t siphoned away its life-sapping powers. He’ll use this as a tool to gain more power, more control. He’s very good at that, you know. It’s only a matter of time before his head gets swelled enough he decides to start a war and makes a strike against us.”

“So how’s the snake going to help with that?”

Ba’ast turned a knob, and the central tank began to bubble. “We’re going to strike first.”

***

Evening had fallen, and Sunset returned to Anubis’s office. “You haven’t found her,” she said without preamble.

“No.”

“Did you bother to look? Or were you so convinced of your chaos-god theory that you let a few areas slide?”

“Every building in town was checked. No stone was left unturned. She is not here. We followed the trail of her scent and lost it in the stink of explosives. Her last known location was twenty meters from the courtyard. Are you ready to face facts? Or would you prefer to keep calling my methods and efforts into question?”

Sunset flinched. She hadn’t been expecting that. “The former.”

Anubis smiled. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant smile, but compared to other smiles she’d seen on his face, it was positively sunshiney. “Then you agree that this pseudo-Sutekh must be hunted down. Imprisoned, interrogated --”

“Hold up.”

Anubis faltered.

“I agree we need to find Discord and ask them a few pointed questions. May I remind you, we still have no direct evidence that they were involved in Trixie’s disappearance, and I’m only onboard with this because we haven’t got any better leads? There is going to be no celestial dragnet, no kangaroo-court trial, no… whatever other things you’re thinking of.”

“My queen, you insult me! I would never--”

“Oh, so my trial for your father’s murder was just a one-time event, then.”

Anubis’s jaw snapped shut for a long moment. “People can change,” he said eventually.

Sunset rose. “And I’m extending the courtesy that belief offers to you. You should do no less to Ba’ast, Discord, and their ilk. I’m going to study the crime scene, see if I can track any teleportation magic. Goodbye, Anubis. I hope to find you in a better mood when next we meet.”

Anubis watched the door slam shut as his Queen departed. He scowled. “Oh, rest assured, Queen Ra. You will.”

***

“A first-strike policy? That’s lunatic!” Trixie shouted as the trio made their way back up the snake’s gullet.

“Oh, believe me, we’re not fond of it,” Ba’ast said from her place poised on Discord’s back. “If we could live in peace with Anubis, we would. I personally went centuries without trying to claw out his eyes, and I could keep it up for centuries more. But he’s always pushing his boundaries, and by extension, our buttons. If we don’t fight back, he’ll wipe us out.”

“And you think starting a war will help with that?”

“We have our supporters. We can win more if we show Anubis to be fallible.”

“You can do that in so many other ways! The dog has serious issues, okay? You don’t need to sic a giant robot snake on a city to prove he’s a bad leader, you can literally just remind everyone about the time he refused, for centuries, to look at the evidence that proved how his father died.”

“Do you think we haven’t tried that? It simply isn’t good enough any more. We have to move on to more tangible issues.”

“Creatures will die, Ba’ast.”

Discord, who hadn’t said much of anything this whole time, flinched. Ba’ast scowled for a moment before recovering her composure. None of this went unnoticed by Trixie. “We can help,” she said plaintively. “Sunset is well-respected in these parts, you know. Maybe she can discredit Anubis where you have been unable to.”

“Oh, what do you know?” Ba’ast snapped. “You preach peace, understanding, as though they were real. The only language any creature understands is power. Anubis speaks it well, but his understanding is deeply flawed. We will use our superior technology to prove the effectiveness of our creativity, of our development over his stagnation, and the people will flock to us.”

Trixie took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. “Trixie understands far better than you would think. She too was tossed to the outskirts of society, left to turn cold and bitter. Trixie… has hurt ponies. She did things that she thought she would never be forgiven for. And yet, today she is the personal advisor and close friend of one of the ponies she wronged the worst. She lives in a town she once conquered and pillaged, and is considered to be a pillar of the community. My relationship with Sunset is living proof that forgiveness is possible.”

Ba’ast just stared through half-lidded eyes at her. “...Cute,” she decided. “Really, your naivety is just… adorable.”

Trixie met her, stare for stare. “Peace is not naive. Trixie is living proof that it is hard, and complex, and completely worth every gruelling second it took to achieve. War is simple. You attack. They retaliate. Rinse, wash, repeat, until enough creatures have died.”

Ba’ast frowned. “Your horn… should it be doing that?”

“Peace and forgiveness are not pipe dreams! Violence and vengeance is easier, but at what cost?”

“No, really, that thing is sparking quite a lot.”

“What?” Trixie crossed her eyes. A corona of green had ignited around her horn. “Um. This is unusual.” A moment later, a burst of green light went off, sending Trixie, Ba’ast, and Discord sprawling. A scroll bounced off the floor and rolled against the wall.

Discord sat up first. “What in the world was that?”

“Flame-mail,” Trixie groaned. “Oh, that one’s going to give Trixie one Tartarus of a headache…”

Discord snagged the scroll and studied it. “I don’t recognize the seal.”

“No, you wouldn’t. The pony who wrote it won’t be born for another three thousand years, at least.” She paused. “Wait. So how did Trixie get it?”

“Outside of time and space, remember?” Ba’ast said. “Things happen when they’re narratively interesting, not when it would be right or logical. It’s part and parcel of living with the deity of chaos.”

Trixie snatched the scroll from Discord’s claws and broke the wax seal, unrolling it. Her brow furrowed. “Who is ‘Minuette’? Oh! Cool, Starlight’s there…”

She stuffed it under her cloak. “Well, there’s no real urgency. Trixie his a good few centuries to go before she needs to worry about any of that.”

Ba’ast frowned at her. “It’s interesting,” she mused. “The more you say, the less I seem to know about you. You’re a mystery, my dear Trixie.” She turned tail and stalked up the serpent’s throat. “One I intend to solve.”

***

Sunset took in a long, slow breath through her nose. The smell of gunpowder and smoke had faded with time, but there was still a lingering trace in the air that made her mane burn brighter. She had pulled off this trick once before, on a much larger scale, back at the House on the Rock. Now she needed to power the barest shadow of that feat, running the clock back just a little bit to see what had transpired here, without actually resetting the entire room. It was harder than it sounded. Her power was fire, fire that threatened at every turn to burst from her and fulfil her vision for the world.

But if that happened, if she recreated the room as it had been before Trixie had started the summoning, would she bring back Trixie? Would there exist two Trixies and two Discords? What would Anubis have to say about that?

That last question tempted her, and she felt her power flare. But at the last second, she extinguished it. No. No, she couldn’t lose her grip on this one. She took in another long breath and focused on the floor before her. Her eyes glowed orange; no whites, irises, or pupils, only portals to a dimension of flame.

And slowly, the rubble turned ghostly and transparent, and chalk lines obscured by time and tromping feet grew clear. Sunset studied the circle of runes for a long time. She could see no flaws in them. Trixie clearly knew what she had been doing. Sunset let the flow of time play out, slowly -- she could see a glowing silhouette of Discord at the center of the circle, and a dimmer figure that must have been Trixie outside it.

And then she saw a new set of chalk lines appear -- just a quick note, set apart from the circle. And then a few key runes smudged themselves from existence, and both figures vanished.

Sunset strained to read the note, the last thing Trixie wrote before vanishing, the clue that might solve everything. The phantom room grew brighter, more tangible, almost glowing with the power being poured into it. She could almost read it -- s̷̭̀ḥ̸͒ȇ̴̢ ̷͇̍c̸̯͗o̸̖͘ú̶̺l̵̻͘d̷̲́ ̶̱̇a̶̦̓l̸͜͝m̶̛͚ơ̶̮s̸͓̀t̸̪͒ ̸̳͂r̸͙̃e̷̼͒á̸̤d̵̯̏ ̸̖́i̶̤͆t̷̨͒ ̴̲̈-̵͓̔-̶̰̈́

And then her hoof hit a piece of crumbling masonry that her illusion had hidden, sending Sunset tumbling to the ground as the spell collapsed.

“Ow,” she said, more out of habit than pain. Her pride was wounded far worse than her body. She pushed herself upright, mentally kicking herself. After all that thought and meditation, she’d nearly lost control at the critical moment. She stumbled over to the chalk note, but it was smeared beyond legibility.

“Anubis should hold his guards to a higher standard,” she said bitterly. “Who knows what other evidence they’ve destroyed.”

Although… she didn’t recall there being that many guards in the room when she’d first arrived. Actually, the only one she’d really seen poking around was Anubis himself.

She thought back to earlier, just after the gods had left the room to return to the meeting. The chalk smear on Anubis’s sandal had seemed odd at the time. Sunset’s jaw clenched.

***

Ba’ast had vanished by the time Trixie and Discord emerged from Mala’s mouth. As soon as Trixie stepped off the serpent’s jaw, the snake slithered away faster than anything that size ought to be able to move. Trixie watched it go for a long minute before glancing up at Discord. “So did she use you for inspiration, or…”

Discord snorted, the first sound they’d made since Ba’ast had walked out. “Please. As though I would ever debase myself so far as to slither to get around. No, she thought of some fellow named Apophis. Big bad chaos god of destruction, from her people’s world.”

“You don’t like Mala, do you, Discord?”

“Oh, so you could tell. You’re a regular detective, I see.”

“You don’t want this to become a war, either.”

“Oh, a psychologist as well! Absolutely wonderful. Absolutely flipping wonderful.” They flew up and twined themself around a tree, glaring at Trixie. “You’re from the future, aren’t you? Subtle, you aren’t.”

There didn’t seem any point denying it. “Yes.”

“That wasn’t your surprise, was it? Kind of a giveaway, there.”

“No, that wasn’t it.”

“Hm.” Discord rubbed their chin. “Tell me, then. Is war inevitable? Do we win? Do we lose? Will it be bloodless?”

“Trixie doesn’t know. She didn’t pay a lot of attention in history class.”

“Don’t you think you’d remember a war between the gods themselves? Order and chaos locked in battle over the fate of all civilization?”

“Listen, there was this really cute zebra mare sitting right in front of Trixie, okay? It was a very hormonal time in her life, don’t judge her!”

Discord rolled their eyes. “On such things are civilizations lost,” they grumbled.

“Sunset would know,” Trixie said. “Why don’t we go back?”

“Apart from the fact that you still haven’t given me your offering? Well, I don’t know where she is, and there’s a strong possibility that I might drop you straight into the arms of Anubis’s guards. You’re far safer here.”

“But Sunset can help! And Trixie is sure she’s worried about Trixie. There must be some way to contact her…”

Discord shrugged. “I don’t know. You could summon her, I suppose, same way you did me.”

“What? But that -- Sunset is --” Trixie paused. “Oh. Huh. Okay, help Trixie draw a circle in the sand real quick…”

***

Sunset was just storming back to Anubis’s office when she felt a foreign tingle run up her spine. She spun around, expecting to find Anubis glaring down at her, but the hallway was empty and the tingle only grew stronger. And then the world burst into flame.

She blinked several times to clear her eyes. “Trixie?”

Trixie clapped her hooves in delight. “It worked! It worked!”

“Trixie, what is happening? Where are we?”

“Outside time and space.”

“In my domain.” Discord purred from behind Sunset.

She jumped and spun around. “You! So you did kidnap Trixie.”

Discord put a paw to their chest. “Kidnap? Me? Well, there’s gratitude for you. You save one unicorn from being captured by the guards, and do you get any thanks? Indeed not.”

Sunset paused. “Captured by the guards?”

“Yes! Did you not get Trixie’s message? ‘Be back soon, love you’?”

Sunset scowled. “... No. No I didn’t. When I get back, I’m going to make Anubis eat his own loincloth.”

“Sunset, listen, we probably don’t have a lot of time. Here’s your offering.” She tossed a scroll to Sunset.

“What’s this?”

“Letter from Twilight. Trixie thinks that we can track the location it was teleported from using the TARDIS, but we’re going to have to get it back. I -- oh, take Trixie’s hoof.” The magician reached into the circle.

Sunset grabbed her hoof, and the events of the past several hours ran through her head. “A giant snake? Really?”

“Yeah, that was basically Trixie’s reaction.”

“I know. You just showed me.”

“Oh. Yeah. Um, advice?”

“Well, unlike you, I was able to focus in my history classes. Probably helped that I was personally tutored by someone who was there for most of it, but I digress. But, no. There’s no record of any war among these gods happening, not in the history books, nor in mythology. Which means we’re going to have to seriously de-escalate tensions here before we get the TARDIS.”

“How do we do that?”

“No idea,” Sunset admitted. “But getting you back to the city would definitely take the wind out of Anubis’s sails. Discord, can we count on your support on this end?”

Discord hesitated. “Well, er, that is… I’ll do whatever I can to limit the deaths.”

“A little weak, but I’ll take it. Trixie? Break the circle, and let’s go.”

“Ah-ah-ah!” Discord wagged a finger, imposing themself between Trixie and the circle. “Not so fast. You still owe me something, remember?”

“Trixie?” Sunset demanded. “What are they talking about?”

“Huh?” Trixie cocked her head. “Oh yes. The surprise. Close your eyes a moment.”

Discord did so. They heard Trixie rummaging around her cape for a moment or two.

“...Seriously?” Sunset asked.

“Shush!” More rustling. “Okay, open them,” Trixie said after a few moments of silence.

Discord opened their eyes. “Booga-booga-booga!” Trixie shouted from behind a crude mask, waving her hooves in the air.

Discord’s jaw dropped. “That-- buh-- wha? That’s it?”

Trixie removed the mask. “Trixie never said it was a good surprise.”
The draconequus stood absolutely still. Trixie shuffled her hooves a little. This had seemed like such a good idea when there had been a wall of magical force between her and Discord…

Then, a chuckle. Within a few moments, Discord was helpless with laughter, their arms wrapped around their belly as they doubled over. Slowly, their laughter died and they rose to their knees, clapping a claw on Trixie’s withers. “Trixie. I realize this is a long shot, but is there even the slightest chance that you would consider switching deities? The eensie-weensiest of possibilities?”

“Nope.” Trixie peered around Discord to look at Sunset. “The benefits are too good.”

Discord chuckled. “Fair enough. But I’ll give you one miracle, on the house. All you have to do is whistle, and it shall be done.”

“Sounds good to Trixie,” Trixie said, trotting over to the circle. “It probably won’t be used for another few thousand years, but it’s good to know Trixie has it.”

“Goodbye, ladies! Goodbye, good luck, and good--” they froze.

Sunset frowned. “Discord?”

“Oh, no. Oh no, no no, got to stay grounded,” Discord muttered, grabbing onto a palm tree. Their paw went right through as they began to dissolve into sparkles. And then they were gone.

“...Anubis?” Trixie guessed.

“Come on!” Sunset said, all but hauling Trixie over the border of the circle. There was a flash of light, and they were gone.

***

There was a flash of light, and the two mares tumbled onto cold stone tiles. Trixie managed to recover first, by virtue of having landed on top of Sunset, and raced down the hall like a shot. Sunset hurried after her. “Where are you going?” she demanded. “We don’t know where Discord is, or even if Anubis summoned them here!”

“Maybe not,” Trixie said, still running. “But if he did summon Discord, there’s only one place he’d do it. Trust a showmare’s instincts, he’s going for the biggest stage he can get.”

“And where’s that?”

***

The auditorium was packed once more, but now the crowd was silent. The TARDIS had been dragged out of the summoning circle and was even now sitting on the corner of the dais. Someone else was stuck in the circle now, seated on a stool and listening carefully to Anubis as he read from a clay tablet.

“You, Discord, alias ‘Sutekh’, alias ‘Lord of Chaos’, alias ‘Jim Fritters’, alias ‘Z of the Z Continuum’, alias ‘Lance Dijon’, alias ‘Will U. Stopmakingthatawfulnoise’, alias ‘Francesca Addams’, stand accused--”

“I think you’ll find I’m actually sitting.”

“--of the following crimes. High treason. Conspiracy. Disturbing the peace. Indecent exposure. Speeding. Improper parking. Jaywalking. Jayflying. Jayswimming. Creativity without a license. Vandalism. Disturbing the peace again. Flying while intoxicated. Flying while being in the shape of a bumblebee, thus breaking all known laws of aviation. Tax evasion. Trespassing on -- will you stop making that awful noise?”

“No,” said Discord, continuing to make armpit fart noises.

Anubis ground his teeth. “Trespassing on government property, holding your claw a millimeter away from the peace and saying ‘I’m not touching you~’, and abducting the high priestess of Ra. There are more, but I thought we’d start with the ones you did today. How do you plead?”

“Oh, usually something like this.” Discord hopped off their stool and knelt on the cold, carved floor of the summoning circle. “P-pwease hewp me, Mistew Anoobus! I’ww do anything!”

Anubis glared at him. “You also now stand accused of being in contempt of court.”

“Again, I’m kneeling accused. You really do have to work on your legal terminology if you expect to be taken seriously.”

Discord glanced around the room, looking for the barest hint of a smile. They didn’t find it. “Tough crowd,” the muttered, taking their seat again. “Alright, can I plead to each of those separately?”

“You may.”

Discord looked up at the ceiling, ticking off points on their claws in turn. Innocent, it was low treason at worst. Guilty, guilty, we don’t normally wear clothes, guilty, innocent, guilty, guilty, guilty, innocent -- my artistic licence is fully up to date. Guilty to the next three, innocent because bees don’t care what you think is impossible, innocent because I’m not a registered citizen, guilty, guilty, innocent, and innocent on grounds that I hold no contempt for the court, only pity.” They paused. “That bird is writing down everything I say?”

Anubis glanced at Thoth, frantically scribbling away. “Yes.”

“Line break, Thoth, colon, I am a doodoo-head and I like to eat sand.”

“Strike that from the record!” Anubis barked. “No, don’t just type ‘strike that from the record’, strike it from -- oh, forget it.”

“Can I change that last answer? Because I think I may actually have some contempt for the court after all.”

Anubis growled, and Discord grinned. But looking out at the sea of faces wiped the smile from their face. Making Anubis lose his cool was not only failing to turn the audience against him, it seemed to be strengthening their resolve.

“Let me put this to you simply,” Anubis said, stepping to the edge of the circle. “Tell us where the High Priestess of Ra is.”

“Don’t know. With Ra, I suppose, though where she is I couldn’t say.”

“We know that to be untrue.”

“Do you? When’s the last time you checked?”

Anubis rubbed the bridge of his muzzle. After a moment, he said, in a much calmer voice, “Discord. Would you examine the outer ring of this circle?”

“If I must.” Discord glanced around their temporary prison. “That’s the symbol for acid, lightning, fire, blood, pain…” they trailed off. “A… voice command…”

“Yes. At the right word from me, one or more of those runes will activate. So, I hope there won’t be any more fibbing.”

Discord hissed as a shower of poisonous green fluid rained down on them, raising welts on their skin and leaving holes in their wings and coat. They glared at Anubis and snapped their claws, instantly undoing the damage. “You’ve made your point.”

“Good. So tell us, Discord. Where is the priestess? Where is your base of operations?”

“I’ve told you where Trixie is. And my location of my little oasis is no secret! It’s simply a fraction of a degree out of sync with your universe, beyond bounded space and time.”

“Take us there.”

“Uh, can’t do that? Still very much trapped in this circle.”

“Uncooperative.”

Discord screamed as electricity arced over their body, then fell shaking to the floor. They glanced around the room. Some faces remained impassive, but some, at least, were shocked. Good. If the clown routine failed, they could at least fall back on pathos. They rose, not bothering to magically remove the burn marks. “What is it that you want from me?” they snarled. “Obedience? Surrender? Merely my absence? Tell me! I know you don’t care about Trixie, Ba’ast told me enough about~”

“Hostility.”

Discord burst into flames. They shook it off. “Enough of this mockery! I have my rights, my dignity here! I demand to speak to Ra! I trust her to arbitrate this fairly! I will not speak again until--”

“No, you won’t. Restrain.”

“Flurb,” said Discord, as all of their muscles went slack.

Anubis loomed over them. “Ra has been compromised, as well you know, serpent. She has spent far too long away from us, her people. Her traditions. Her responsibilities. She has taken on this new, pathetic form. She questions our old ways and challenges her most devoted followers. She--”

“She,” said another voice from far behind Anubis, “is right behind you.”

Anubis spun around. Standing at the door of the auditorium, quaking with rage, stood Ra. His face went slack. “I, uh, that is, my queen, I can explain.”

“I told you, Anubis. No courtroom farce. No hunting down suspects willy-nilly. Certainly no torture. And here. You. Are. So go on. Explain.”

Anubis stammered. “Well, that is -- this was the most expedient way to find your priestess!”

“You rang?” Trixie said smugly, stepping out from behind Sunset’s spread wings.

Anubis’s jaw hung open.

“Release them,” Sunset said. “Now.”

Anubis hesitated a moment, then straightened up. “No. They must be put on trial for their crimes. I was telling the truth about you! You’re corrupt! You’ve turned your backs on the good of your people! You’ve--”

“It’s an interesting thing about politicians,” Sunset said. “They so often accuse their opponents of crimes they’re guilty of themselves. You’ve staged a public torture event for a personal rival and political foe, Anubis. Your abuses of power are nothing short of criminal. I strip you of your authority here. Step down.”

“Never.”

Sunset shrugged. “Alright. Hardball it is. Hey Trixie, which of those runes look most important?”

“Uh, that one… that one, there… that row… and that should restore muscle control.”

“Cool.”

“No! You cannot bypass the bindings on the circle! I designed them specifically to keep out the powers of Ra!”

There was a series of explosions. “Hi. My name’s Sunset Shimmer. Terrible to meet you!”

Discord rose, stretching every inch of their spine. “Well, I’ll say this for him, my back has never felt better.”

Anubis spun around again, terrified. Discord gave him a very unpleasant smile. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll just be watching with my popcorn.”

Anubis turned to face Ra -- or Sunset, apparently -- again, and flinched when he found himself faced with a column of flame. “Anubis,” she said. “I banish you from this city. You are not welcome here, nor in any other city that you once reigned over. You may go and start anew elsewhere, with all the followers you can entice to join you. But your reign here is over. Do you understand?”

“I-- that is--” Anubis hung his head. “Yes. I understand.”

“Good.” The pillar of flame turned back into Sunset, and she turned to face the crowd. “My people. You have lived in stagnation for too long. I have a feeling there’s going to be quite a lot of change coming your way. You’ve got some catching up to do. It might be scary. It might be difficult. But I promise you, at the end of the day, you’ll be much better for it.”

A few ragged cheers came up from the crowd, but mostly everyone looked confused.

“Okay, said Sunset. “Good talk.”

“We’re leaving now,” Trixie added. “Trixie prays to her that we’re not coming back. Bye.”

They both turned and trotted for the TARDIS. Anubis glared at them and began to draw a great curved sword from his belt.

Trixie, not even looking back, gave a piercing whistle that would have made any Manehattanite taxi-hailer hang their head in shame. Discord snapped their claws.

Anubis promptly transformed into a pink teacup poodle and fell to the ground, his sword clattering harmlessly on the stones.

Trixie just kept walking.

Anubis pulled himself up off the ground, pointed at the unicorn, and shouted in a register at least three octaves higher than usual, “Well? What are you waiting for? Get them?”

There were a few snickers from the crowd. “No! Stop laughing at me! This is a baleful polymorph! I object to this most strong--hmph!”

He was cut off as Discord shoved him into a handbag. “You know, I can’t stand small dogs. All that yapping all the time, so infuriating. Here, Nephsys, you hold onto your son for now, I have to go and sort something out.”

They snapped their paw and vanished. The TARDIS also began to wheeze and groan out of existence, leaving behind a cheering, yelling, and extremely confused auditorium.

***

Sunset peered around the console. “There must be somewhere we can put the scroll,” she muttered. “Right? It has to go…”

One of the panels clicked and slid open, revealing a pit of translucent blue gel. “That looks promising,” said Trixie.

“Yeah, alright,” Sunset said, moving to drop the scroll in. At the last moment, she hesitated.

“What?”

“I kind of don’t want to go back,” Sunset admitted. “Not yet. I mean, I do, but… think about how much there is left to see out there! Think about all the places we could go and explore…”

“Okay, point. Now think about all the times you’re gonna have to pretend to be Ra again, given our track record of landings.”

Sunset slammed the scroll into the gel. “Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.”

Trixie laughed and pulled Sunset into a tight one-hooved hug as the time rotor rose and fell, taking them home at long last.

***

“Discord?”

“Yes, Ba’ast?”

“What happened to Mala?”

“Oh, we won’t need her anymore now that Anubis has fallen.”

“That’s extremely short-sighted! There’s always another foe, another challenge to be faced, another --”

“You know, you’re starting to sound terrifyingly similar to the dog himself.”

A long silence. “What did you do with Mala, Discord?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Where is the glowpaz, Discord?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“You’re sleeping on the couch for the next century, Discord.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

***

Far away, beneath the rising moon, an enormous snake lay coiled on a pile of glowing green stones, sleeping and breathing for the first time in its existence, utterly at peace with the world around it.

Author's Note

Next Time, on Doctor Whooves

There was a glass vase on the top of the mantle. Rumble stared at it for a long moment. It was only a vase. Red glass, shiny, would look good with some flowers in it. That’s all. He shuddered and moved on into the kitchen, where Granny was waiting.

The pegasus glared at the Time Lord. “Is summer too much to ask?” he grumbled.

“Oh, come off it. Winter’s brilliant! Besides, you can’t just spend your life hating an entire quarter of the year.”

“Looks like it got you pretty close,” he commented. “I mean, look at some of this! A cameleopard, a changeling, a…” he paused. “That’s a centaur,” he said.

A jar full of preserved eyeballs, all a dead, icy blue, rotated to stare at the ponies. In a bell jar, a monkey’s paw sprang up onto its fingertips and scuttled around like some kind of twisted crab.

The House on the Rock

“Billie! Billie, please, you mustn’t do this!”

“I’m sorry, Tanya. I haven’t got any other choice!”

“Of course you have! We both do! But if you push that button, that ends it. It ends everything!”

“Sounds fine by me!”

“Billie!”

“I can’t keep doing this, Tanya. I can’t keep doing this!”

There was a thump, and then a roar. And then there was silence.

***

A faint wheezing roar echoed through the halls, kicking up dust that hadn’t been disturbed for years. A light washed over the aged portraits, illuminating decades of decay. With a thud, the TARDIS landed, sinking into a section of carpet that disintegrated under its weight. The door creaked open.

“Well, yuck,” said Trixie, scrunching her muzzle. “Okay, Sunset, let’s take off again, we’ve landed in some kind of foreclosed mansion.”

Sunset pushed past Trixie. “A foreclosed mansion it may be, but if it’s a foreclosed mansion in Equestria, I think we can put up with a little dust.”

Trixie scowled and stepped out of the TARDIS, shutting the door behind her. “Fine. But Trixie does this only under duress.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Trixie grumbled, but she was smiling underneath it all.

This wasn't lost on Sunset, who smiled back. She nodded at the portraits, all of which were of various ponies, alike in their dignity. “This all seems like a good sign, anyway.”

“True,” Trixie agreed, “Although we may still be a long way in the past.”

“Or the future,” Sunset said. “I’ve never heard of any of the ponies in these paintings.”

Trixie looked a little closer at the plaque under one of the portraits. “Dutchess Blackie Katz, her bones gnawed by rats,” she read aloud, curling her lip. “Delightful.”

“Lord Lantern Jack: His Candle was Snuffed Too Soon,” Sunset read off another. “That-- I can’t decide if that’s really clever or just a terrible pun.”

“Could be both.”

Sunset nodded her agreement. “C’mon, let’s get a move on.”

The two mares made their way down the hallway. The paintings watched them until they were altogether out of sight.

***

“Billie? Billie! Oh, wake up, won’t you?”

Billie stirred in her sleep. “Hrrr?” she groaned, rolling over. She opened one bleary eye. A pale tan figure. Locks of deep, chocolatey brown. Bright pink eyes. Wife horse. “Tan… nya?” she muttered, sitting upright. A wave of disappointment washed over her for no reason that she could recall.

She pushed it away like cobwebs. “Honey? What time’s it?”

Tanya crossed her forehooves. “Half past eight. You know what I told you about sleeping in.”

Billie gave her a sleepy smile. “You know I need my beauty rest, love. Otherwise, how could you ever be seen with me?”

Most days, that would make Tanya chuckle, or at least crack a smile. Today, it did neither. Another rush of strange emotion ran over Billie-- like thinking there was one more step at the top of the stairwell than there really was. “Something wrong?”

Tanya glanced over her shoulder. “We’ve got…” she hesitated. “Company.” The word sounded unfamiliar coming from her mouth.

Billie blinked. “...Aha. Who?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen them here before,” Tanya said. “Or-- I don’t think I have. My memory’s a little foggy today.”

“I know the feeling,” Billie agreed. “Go and meet them without me, won’t you? Just until I’ve put on some decent clothes.”

Tanya’s frown deepened. “Billie… I’m frightened.”

“Of the visitors?” Billie slid out of the covers, her cropped raven curls bouncing unpredictably. “Nonsense. They might be unexpected, but that’s no reason to fear them.”

Tanya shook her head. “Either way. Let me help you change, and we can meet them together.”

“Oh-- alright,” Billie sighed. She turned away, quietly relieved. Tanya had always had the best intuition in the House. If she didn’t want to meet their unexpected guests alone, Billie wasn’t sure she did, either.

***

“How many rooms does one house even need?” Trixie demanded. “Twilight’s castle doesn’t have hallways this long.”

“Twilight doesn’t have feelings of gross inadequacy that she vapidly tries to fix with wealth.” Sunset said.

“Huh?”

“Rich ponies are terrible and dumb.”

“Oh. Why didn’t you say so?”

Sunset snorted back a laugh. “Yeah, sorry. But seriously, a lot of houses in Canterlot are this kind of stupid big.”

“You think they’re compensating for something?”

“Nah. I know they are.”

Trixie chuckled. “Seriously, though, Trixie was sure we would’ve come across a window by now.”

“Maybe we’re in the basement,” Sunset suggested.

“A staircase, then.”

“Mm…” Sunset stopped in her tracks. “Maybe we’ll have better luck checking the rooms.”

“Sounds like a plan to Trixie!” Trixie pulled open a door labeled “Conversation Pit” and stepped through. Unfortunately, she realized a moment too late that the floor was some ten meters below.

She screamed, and Sunset lunged forward to grab her, but both wound up tumbling through the door-- and not falling more than a quarter of a meter. There was a long pause. “Is this… glass?” Sunset asked.

“Um,” said Trixie. “Yes?” She lit her horn and glanced at where the smooth plate-glass met the wall. She whistled. “Nearly as thick as Trixie’s hoof, too. Did your snooty Canterlot-types have rooms like this?”

“No,” Sunset said, staring down at the pit below. “No, they did not. Trixie, I think there’s something very strange about this house.”

Trixie gave a mock-gasp. “No! Really?”

Sunset rolled her eyes and trotted back into the hallway. “Let’s keep checking doors. But don’t step through any of them.” She paused. “And leave this one ajar. It’ll be good to have some pathmarkers to help us find our way back to the TARDIS.”

“Right,” said Trixie, following Sunset out. They hadn’t taken more than a few steps, though, than the door let out a terrible rusty screech and slammed shut of its own volition.

Sunset jumped, but Trixie merely frowned. “...Interesting,” she muttered. “Well, we’ll just have to remember our own way back, then. Trixie means, we’ve been going down one long corridor all this time, right?”

“Right…” Sunset said. “Next door, then?”

Trixie tried the handle. “Locked. No, painted shut.”

The next few doors wouldn’t open, either. After ten minutes, they found a small crypt, a padded room, and a stone vault, empty save for an enormous antique organ. Trixie frowned at each, but made no comment.

Then they came to the door with the barred window. Trixie tugged on the handle laconically. “Locked,” she said.

“Well, let’s take a peek through anyway,” Sunset said. “If there’s something in there, I can always break down the OH MY CELESTIA.”

“Huh?” Trixie asked, spinning around. Sunset was staring through the bars, transfixed in her horror. “What’s the matter?”

Sunset’s jaw flapped. “There-- there’s a dungeon.”

“Oh? That’s unusual, Trixie supposes, but what--”

“There’s a skeleton manacled to the wall!”

“...Oh,” Trixie said.

“We have to get in there!”

“Um, alternate idea, maybe we go back to the TARDIS now?”

Sunset, however had already yanked the door off its hinges and was barreling over to the cell with the skeleton.

“Sunset, seriously, let’s just go,” Trixie said. “There’s nothing you can do for this guy. Unless I miss my guess, there never was.”

Sunset spun to glare at the magician. “How can you be so blase about this?” she demanded. “There’s a dead body right in front of us, and--”

“It’s plastic.”

“...Uh?”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “Please. It’s a good model, but look. Real bones don’t have molding seams running along their length.”

Sunset peered closer at the skeleton. Sure enough, it was clearly artificial. “There’s no way you could see that right away.”

“No,” Trixie admitted. “But it was getting kinda obvious, wasn’t it?”

“...What was?”

Trixie blinked. “You don’t get it? The fake pit, the weird paintings, and now this? We’re clearly in some kind of amusement park haunted house.”

“...Amusement park,” Sunset said slowly.

“Yes? Did they not have those in the human world? Oh boy, Trixie has got some treats for you…”

“No, no, we had them…” Sunset said. “But… Trixie, if this is a haunted house with a pony skeleton and pony paintings, then it has to have been built by ponies! We’ve got to be back in Equestria!”

“Yep,” Trixie agreed. “Now we just need to find our way out of this maze of a house…”

“Oh! You aren’t planning to go already, are you?”

Both mares turned. A ghost was floating in the doorway, a translucent tan mare with a rich brown mane in a faded pink sundress.

There was a long, tense pause. Sunset forced a laugh. “Okay, yeah, good gag. But seriously, we aren’t meant to be here. Can you just show us the exit?”

“No one leaves the house.”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “Look, Trixie admires your dedication and everything, but we’re really lost. Could you just take us to the exit?”

The ghost raised a brow. “You certainly must be lost if you think you can leave now,” she said.

Sunset sighed. “Look, lady, I’m sorry about the door. I promise, I’ll pay to have it fixed. Send the bill to the crown.”

The ghost cocked her head. “...You really are lost, aren’t you?”

“Look, whatever, we’ll find our own way out,” Trixie said, pushing past the mare. At least, that was her plan. Her hoof passed through right through the ghost’s body.

Everypony stared at Trixie’s hoof, pointing straight through the ghost’s center. Sunset forced a laugh. “Oh, you’re some kind of hologram then? Good one. That’s… yeah, you had me for a second there.”

Trixie pulled her hoof back, then swung it through the ghost again, fascinated.

“Er, could you not do that, please?”

“Hm? Oh, is it uncomfortable?”

“Not… exactly…” the ghost said slowly. “But, er, it’s not exactly proper.”

Trixie went beet red and yanked her hoof back as though she’d been scalded.

“Tanya?” a voice called. “Tanya, where are you?”

“The dungeon room, Billie!” the ghost called back.

“Where?”

The ghost -- Tanya, apparently -- sighed. “Just-- follow the sound of my voice!”

“Yes, dear.”

Sunset coughed. “Um, so, Tanya. Hi. I’m Sunset Shimmer, and this it Trixie.”

“Charmed,” said Tanya. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t shake your hoof.”

Sunset fumbled for words, and Tanya grinned. “I beg your pardon. Just my little joke.”

“...Right,” Sunset said. “I think you were saying something about us being lost?”

Tanya nodded. “Yes. But let’s not talk down here. We’ll show you to the parlor.”

“We?” Trixie asked.

“We,” said a voice from the shadows. The vampire stepped into view. She wore an old, green evening gown patterned with little brown bats around the collar. Her eyes were a bright crimson, and their coat a dusty ivory shade. “It is our pleasure to host you, mademoiselles.”

***

Sunset and Trixie were led through a veritable rabbit’s warren of corridors, staircases, and atria. “How do you not get lost in this place?” Sunset asked, staring up at a vaulted ceiling.

“Oh, we do,” Billie said, not turning around. “All of us but Tanya, that is.”

“I do too,” Tanya corrected. “It’s just easier for me because I can go through the walls.”

“How big is this place?” Trixie wondered.

“Oh, quite large,” Tanya said blithely. “Above ground, it isn’t so terrible. The subterranean levels, though, they go on for miles.”

“Especially the catacombs,” Billie agreed.

“Oh, yes, don’t go near the catacombs,” Tanya said. “Especially not if Gracie is with you.”

“Gracie?”

“Our resident werewolf, for our sins,” Billie said darkly.

“Billie! Don’t be rude,” Tanya scolded. “Gracie is a delight.”

“Certainly she is. When she isn’t getting into the garbage or getting up on the sofa.”

“Now, Billie--”

While the two bickered, Trixie leaned over to Sunset. “Trixie is starting to think that Tanya might not be a hologram.”

“Gee, ya think?” Sunset muttered back. “But like you said, this has to be a fakey haunted house. No reason a real one would have a fake bottomless pit or a plastic skeleton.”

“So… this is a fake haunted house… haunted by real monsters?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no such thing as ghosts, or vampires, or werewolves.”

“Ponies said the same thing about draconocci not too long ago.”

Sunset frowned. “...Fair,” she admitted. “Alright, we’ll play along for now. But keep an eye out for anything unusual.”

Trixie stared at Sunset flatly, then gestured to their hosts.

“...Anything more unusual.”

***

The parlor wasn’t exactly bright and cheery, but it was surprisingly cozy once you could look past the moose head mounted on the wall. “Would you care for something to drink?” Billie asked. “Wine? Coffee? Tea? Hemlock?”

“Um, I’ll have some water,” Sunset said.

“Same,” Trixie agreed.

“Very good.” Billie pulled down on a long rope. Somewhere deep in the house, a low bell chimed.

“While we’re waiting,” Sunset said, “Would you be good enough to explain where we actually are?”

Billie’s brows shot up. “You mean, you don’t know?”

“Apparently not,” Tanya replied.

Billie broke into a wide grin. “Why, my dear ladies! My dear ladies! My dear ladies, let me welcome you to The House On the Rock, the largest, greatest, and most frightening spook house known to Equestrian.”

She beamed at Trixie and Sunset as though expecting applause.

Sunset rubbed the back of her head. “Uh, sorry. Never heard of it.”

Billie’s face fell. “Oh. I see.”

“But we’d love to hear more about it, wouldn’t we Sunset?” Trixie said quickly.

“Oh, yes, of course. For one thing, where is it?”

Tanya cocked her head. “Where is… the House?”

“Yeah. Like, are we near Canterlot? Appaloosa? Manehattan? We’re trying to get back to Ponyville, but like you said, we’re lost.”

“Super lost,” Trixie agreed.

“The House… is On the Rock,” Billie said slowly.

Sunset nodded. “Okay, great! And where exactly is the Rock?”

“Here,” Tanya said.

"And where is here?" Trixie asked gamely.

"The House," Tanya replied.

There was a long silence. "Where can Frankenstallion have gotten to?" Billie asked snappishly. "He should have been here ages ago."

"Perhaps he's gotten lost?" Tanya suggested. "Why can't you just call him Adam? You know he hates going by his father's name."

"Adam?" Trixie asked.

"The name of the creature from the original novel, Frankenstallion," Sunset muttered. "Somepony did their research."

“If we might return to the point,” Billie said lazily. “How exactly did the two of you arrive here? It’s been so very long since we had any visitors.”

“Can’t be that great of a haunted house, then,” Trixie said.

Sunset drew in a sharp breath and Tanya took a nervous look at Billie. The vampire’s mouth tightened for a moment, but then relaxed. “We… have suffered something of a downturn in popularity,” she acknowledged. “But that does not answer my question. You didn’t come in through any of the doors. We would have seen if you had. The gargoyles keep their weathered eyes well-trained on approaching guests.”

“No,” Sunset agreed. “Our method of transport is somewhat more… unpredictable. We arrived just off the corridor you found us in.”

“You teleported in?” Tanya asked, frowning.

“Not on purpose, you understand,” Sunset said quickly. “If there’s a fee to ride, we can pay it.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Billie said, waving a hoof dismissively. “But the problem is, you see, there are anti-teleportation wards all around the House. If you managed to get through them, even by accident, that means there must be a flaw somewhere. We’ll have to investigate that later. Tanya, let Hazel know that we’re in need of her services.”

Tanya looked uncomfortable. “Hazel?”

“Or Wunk, if you think he’d be better suited,” Billie continued.

Tanya nodded. “Well, I suppose I can ask. But you know how busy they are with their personal projects...”

“I can probably help,” Sunset volunteered. “I’m not exactly an expert on wards, but I’ve got a passing familiarity with them.”

“Well, that’s very kind, but--”

“I was Princess Celestia’s personal student for seven years.”

Tanya thought about that. “Well, I suppose it couldn’t hurt,” she conceded. “Trixie? Would you care to come with us?”

“Oh, no,” Trixie said. “Trixie wouldn’t know a ward from a bottle of beer. She will stay here, with Billie.”

Tanya opened her mouth, but quickly shut it again. “Well, alright,” she said slowly. “Have fun, you two. Billie, perhaps our guest might care for a game of chess?”

Billie beamed. “Excellent idea, Tanya! I just need to find the set…”

“Top of the cupboard in the Mahogany Room.”

“Whatever would I do without you?” Billie said with a laugh.

Tanya smiled sadly. “Let’s never find out,” she said quietly, too quietly for Billie to hear. But not too quietly for Sunset.

***

“So,” Sunset said as Tanya led her through the tangled web of corridors and stairs. “What about those guys Billie mentioned? Wunk and Hazel?”

“Both our resident witch and wizard are… otherwise preoccupied,” Tanya said primly.

“That sounds like code for ‘dead’.”

Tanya started. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous? Really? I just left my marefriend alone with a vampire so I could follow a ghost through a haunted house. We left ‘ridiculous’ awhile back. We’re almost past ‘standard horror movie protagonist’ levels of dumb.”

Tanya stifled a laugh. “I take your point. But you have nothing to fear from me. If we hurry, neither is your love in any danger.”

Sunset’s good humor collapsed. “If we hurry? What’s going on, Tanya? What are you hiding?”

Tanya glanced around. “Down this hallway. There is a window at the end.”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“Not at all,” Tanya said. “This will be a better answer than anything I could say.”

Sunset followed the ghost down the hall. “Does this have to do with why you wouldn’t tell me where we are?”

“Couldn’t, not wouldn’t,” Tanya corrected, leading Sunset to a set of curtains. “We… are not allowed to mention it.”

“Not allowed? Not allowed by who?”

“Not allowed to say that either.”

Sunset regarded the ghost for a long moment. “And the answer is behind these curtains?”

“Right outside the window,” Tanya confirmed.

“Right.” Sunset pulled the golden rope and let the heavy velvet curtains fall open. Outside was a roof, shingled with dusky pink tiles. Beyond that, a dead lawn dotted with twisted trees and gravesites. Beyond that, the inside of an enormous glass dome that stretched over the entire House, with little airlocks evenly spaced around the bottom. Beyond that, barren rock, pitted with craters. Beyond that…

“Space,” Sunset murmured. “This whole place… it’s on an asteroid?”

“Hence, ‘The House on the Rock,’” Tanya said.

Sunset stared out of the window for a long moment. “Tanya,” she said carefully. “Can you tell me what year it is?”

“1627 B.A.T.”

“B.A.T.?”

“Short for the ‘bugger all this, how many alicorns are going to turn up’ era.”

“Oh.”

“The royal chronologist was fired shortly after pronouncing it the new calendar system, but the terminology has rather stuck around.”

“I see. Tanya, if I were to ask you about, say, artificial intelligence, or holograms, or lifelike animatronics…”

“I would say that I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tanya said, raising her eyes to the ceiling.

Sunset followed her gaze, brightening her mane-fire to see better. The light glinted off a small, round device on the ceiling. “A projector,” Sunset murmured.

“Absolutely not,” Tanya said, utterly straight-faced. “This is a haunted house, filled with real ghosts, monsters, and frights. Except…”

Sunset frowned. “Except?”

“Except it’s getting emptier by the day.”

***

The Mahogany Room was exactly what it sounded like-- all the furniture within was stately, regal, and dark, all carved from that namesake wood. Billie stretched to reach the top of the cupboard, eventually pulling down an elaborately carved wooden box. “The game of kings,” she said, clearly reveling in the words. She set the box on the table, revealing that its lid was the chessboard itself. She pulled off the lid and set it aside, then removed the pieces one by one, moving each with the greatest delicacy.

“An antique set?” Trixie guessed.

“Oh, yes. It’s been around for centuries, now. A present for my fourteenth birthday.”

“Wow.”

“Wow, indeed. Black pieces or red?”

“Trixie thought chessboards were black and white?”

“Red replaces white, here,” Billie said patiently.

“Red, then. Black would clash with Trixie’s coat.”

Billie chuckled. “You make your decision based on that? No consideration for the strategy of who goes first?”

“No. The Great and Powerful Trixie is excellent at most games, but chess has never been her strong suit. It’s so slow, and all the pieces move in different ways.”

“Oh.” Billie frowned. “I had so hoped for a worthy opponent.”

“Trixie is worthy! Just… not at chess. Do you have a deck of cards at all? Poker, bridge, war…”

Billie made a face. “How about a compromise? Checkers?”

Trixie considered that. “Checkers will be fine. But Trixie sees no pieces in your box?”

“No,” Billie admitted. “Fortunately, there is another way. I suspect you will find it… most diverting.”

***

Sunset stared out the window again. “No, sorry, I don’t follow.”

Tanya hovered over to look out the window as well. “It’s been years since our last visitors came,” she said, voice and eyes both distant. “Longer still since the maintenance crew visited. Decades, perhaps. I’ve lost count. In the end, it was inevitable that the systems would begin to corrupt.”

Sunset glanced up at the little projector on the ceiling. “Oh.”

“The biggest of us went first-- the ones with the most complex systems, who drew the most power. When something goes wrong with one of our systems--” she clapped her hooves together. “We shut down, waiting for maintenance that will never come. The mad scientists did their best to repair what went wrong, but eventually the last of them succumbed. That’s when things really started going downhill.

We lost the entire zombie horde in a single day-- one single misfire and they all went dead. Er-- more dead than they usually were, that is.”

Sunset forced a half-smile, unsure whether that was even supposed to be a joke.

“Why are you smiling?”

Sunset stopped smiling. “So, uh, I can’t help but notice that Billie does not seem to have noticed… all of her friends dying. So, uh, what’s up with that?”

“Oh, she has,” Tanya said. “She’s noticed it over and over again. And when she notices, she--”

“New friend!”

“Wha--”

The next moment, Sunset found herself flat on her back, unable to breathe. A pair of bright brown eyes stared into hers, and hot, wet breath washed over her face. “Hi there! Wanna play rip-the-rag? Ooh, or knock-me-over? Oh, oh, oh, let’s play keep-away, let’s play keep-away!”

Sunset tried to speak, but all that came out was a faint, agonized wheeze.

“Gracie! No! Off, off! Down!”

The massive creature quickly backed off from Sunset, whimpering. For several seconds, she just lay there, staring up at the ceiling. “Gracie, this is Sunset,” Tanya said. “Sunset, this is Gracie, our resident werewolf.”

With effort, Sunset pushed herself into a sitting position. Her eyebrows shot up. “Yes. Yes, I can see that.”

Gracie was, by Sunset’s reckoning, about as tall as Princess Luna, but built bigger than Macintosh. Her grey coat rippled with muscles. Her muzzle was large enough Sunset could fit her whole hoof in and not touch the back of the creature’s throat. She looked like a dangerous proposition at the best of times, let alone when someone had programmed her with the personality of Pinkie Pie on a sugar high. She smiled weakly. “Hello, Gracie.”

Gracie had been sitting quietly and staring at the ground, her tail between her legs. Upon her acknowledgement, however, she brightened up immediately. “Hello, Sunset!” she said, her tail whipping and skipping across the floor.

“Gracie, Sunset is helping me with something right now. Why don’t you go and meet our other guest? She’s in the Mahogany Room with Billie.”

Gracie gasped. “Two new friends? In one day? I haven’t made that many new friends since-- since--” She screwed up her face in thought. “Since for years!”

“Really, dear?” Tanya asked. “Well, there’s no time like the present. Why don’t you go meet her now?”

“Oh boy!” Gracie spun around and raced down the hall, chanting, “Oh boy! Oh boy! Oh boy!” at the top of her lungs as she vanished from sight.

Tanya turned to Sunset. “Are you alright? Gracie is a little much, I’m afraid.”

“You know,” Sunset said, falling onto her back and staring at the ceiling, “the more dogs I meet traveling through time and space, the more sure I am that I’m really a cat pony.”

“...No, I’m afraid all the killer cat-ponies have been deactivated as well. Oh. No, you meant-- ah.”

Sunset groaned and rolled over onto her stomach.

Tanya rubbed behind an ear. “I hope Trixie will fare better on her first encounter with Gracie.”

“She’ll be fine.” Sunset hauled herself to her hooves. “She’s good at making the best of a situation. Ponies like her.”

“I suppose you know her better than I do,” Tanya said.

Sunset bobbed her head in acknowledgement. “And you know Billie better than anyone. You were saying something, about every time she realized what was happening?”

Tanya hesitated. “...Come with me. It will be easier to show you.”

***

“Pony checkers!” Billie said exultantly, gesturing to the enormous game board. “The true sport of kings.”

“Trixie always heard that was tennis.”

“That is for lesser nobles. This is the one where the players get to order around a bunch of unfortunate individuals who have far better things to spend their time on.”

“Ah. That makes sense, yes,” Trixie said. “But who will be the pieces?”

“Oh, whoever wanders close enough for me to conscript in,” Billie said lightly. “Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. This area of the House is usually quite busy.”

Trixie glanced around. “The operative word being ‘usually’, Trixie supposes.”

Billie’s smile fell slightly. “Yes. That is odd.” She glanced around. “There’s almost always somepony here.”

Trixie turned. “Hold on. Trixie hears something.”

Billie’s ears pricked up. “As do I. Goodness, they’re moving at quite a clip, aren’t they? I think the only one I’ve heard run like that before is… Oh, no.”

“What? Who is OOF!”

Trixie suddenly found herself flying through the air, knocked aside by a wall of fur. She hit the ground and went into a roll, popping back to her hooves moments later. The beast turned and prepared to charge again.

“Ahp!” Billie said sharply. The wolf creature drew up short.

“Sit!” The wolf fell back on its haunches.

“Down.” It flumped down to its belly, head resting between its paws. Its tail thumped the ground.

Trixie took several deep breaths. “Trixie supposes this is your resident werewolf, then?”

“Gracie, yes. Good girl, Gracie, now stay.”

Gracie rolled over at the sound of her name, belly to the ceiling. “Hello!” she said.

Slowly, Trixie reached out a hoof for the giant wolf to sniff at. Gracie’s mouth fell open, her tongue lolling out in purest delight. Heartened, Trixie reached down to scratch the werewolf’s chin.

“Gracie,” Billie said, her voice a tad stonier than it had been moments ago. “What are you doing here?”

“New friends!”

Billie heaved a sigh. “You know, there’s another new pony in the building, with Tanya.”

“Uh-huh! She sent me here! Found you!”

Billie scowled.

“If they’re busy fixing the wards, maybe they shouldn’t be distracted,” Trixie said, moving down to scratch Gracie’s tummy. Her rear left paw pedaled in the air, ecstatic.

“I suppose,” Billie grumbled.

“And look, she can be our first piece in the game!”

“Not a chance. Do you really think she’ll move where we ask her to?”

Trixie looked down at Gracie, who was staring intently at dust motes. “I suppose not,” she admitted. “But… well, surely she’d be helpful in tracking down other residents of the House?”

Billie tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps,” she conceded. “Gracie?”

The werewolf snapped to attention. “Who has passed through this hall in the last hour?”

Gracie cocked her head. “You.”

“Yes, I know that, Gracie. Who else?”

Gracie gestured to Trixie. “Her.”

Billie’s lip curled up. “Yes, but who else?”

“...Me!”

“Aside from the three of us,” Billie growled.

“Oh!” Gracie paused and sniffed the air. “Nobody.”

“Nobody?” Billie’s scowl shifted into a frown of deepest confusion. “Well… who was in here in the last day, then? Apart from us?”

Gracie sniffed again. “Nobody.”

Billie, whose face was bloodless to begin with, seemed to pale further still.

“Guess this isn’t quite the social hub you thought it was, huh?” Trixie asked in an effort to break the tension.

“It was,” Billie said through gritted teeth. “But what-- what could have happened? Why can I almost remember…”

Trixie watched as the vampire placed her head in her hooves. Quietly, the magician began to inch back toward the door.

“Neural block -- password required to access my own memories? Administrator access -- I am an administrator!”

Gracie whined and put her paws over her ears. Moments later, Trixie understood why. A distressing whirring hum became just audible to her, and the volume rose and fell like heavy, labored breaths. Trixie hesitated at the doorway, rocking on her hooves as she was torn between concern for her new friend and her own finely preserved sense of self-preservation.

And then Billie looked up, her eyes burning a fierce, angry red. She locked eyes with Trixie and hissed. That was quite enough to tip the balance. Trixie took off running down the hallway without a moment’s hesitation.

Billie glared at Gracie, who had started chewing on the carpet. “Obey!” she snarled.

Gracie glanced up and met the vampire’s eyes. Their gazes locked, and Gracie found, much to her surprise, that she couldn’t look away. “My thrall,” Billie said coldly. “Find my faithless wife and her cohort, and bring them to me. I will handle the magician.”

All thoughts of interesting things to sniff and chew and play with evaporated from Gracie’s mind. For once in her mechanical life, every command running through her CPU was focused on one single task.

“...Hunt,” Gracie growled.

“I want Tanya unharmed,” Billie ordered. “I doubt there’s much risk of you accidentally harming a ghost, but nonetheless. Miss Shimmer on the other hoof… if she resists, destroy her.”

Gracie gave a short, harsh bark of understanding. Billie’s mouth twisted into a cruel smile. “Good girl,” she said. “Very good girl.”

***

After what seemed like miles of endless, identical corridors, Tanya floated to a halt in front of a pair of huge oaken double doors, each with a brass ring at eye level. Around the door, several brightly-colored signs were hung. “Warning: Dangerous Levels of Radiation” said one. Others warned of deadly voltage, brain-stealing lab assistants, and sundry workplace hazards.

“This is all for show, right?” Sunset asked, her voice a little higher than she would’ve liked.

“Oh, yes. Well, for the publicly available parts, it is.”

“And we’re going to…”

“The sections closed off to the public, yes.”

Sunset shut her eyes and sighed. “Well, just so long as we’re on the same page about all this,” she said, pulling open the doors.

The room beyond was an exercise in sterotype -- if ever an element of the mad scientist’s lab had wormed its way into the realm of the cliche, it was left here on display. Enormous Tesla coils and Van der Giraffe generators hummed and snapped with electricity. Strange and obscure instruments of glass and brass whistled and burbled, oddly-colored fluids flowing through them in unpredictable patterns, shifting but never mixing. There was even a wooden slab of a table smack in the middle of the room, complete with hoof manacles.

“Huh,” said Sunset. “And your most sensitive equipment is in here because…”

“Where better to hide it?”

“I dunno. Somewhere behind a locked door, maybe?”

Tanya ignored her and hovered over to a wall of strange chemicals. “Pull this one out,” she instructed. “The one labled ‘Dihydrogen Monoxide’.”

“Water?”

“The architects of this place had a strange sense of humor. Anyway, H2O is about the last chemical formula you’re likely to forget.”

“Fair enough,” Sunset said, giving the bottle a short telekinetic tug. As she did so, a section of the pipes that lined the room swung to, revealing a hidden space behind.

“Don’t know what I expected, really,” Sunset mused as Tanya lead her into the chamber beyond. “It’s still a haunted house. Of course it plays by haunted house rules.”

“Naturally. Now, this is the main computer system.” Tanya gestured to a massive, blocky piece of machinery that took up two entire walls.

Sunset’s eyebrows shot up. “Well. I guess I shouldn’t be completely surprised by that, either. If this thing’s meant to control as many AIs as you claim, it would have to be pretty massive. Uh, so do you know where the glitch is?”

“Which one?”

“Ah. One of those.”

“Well, we haven’t been serviced in years, you’ll recall.”

“Right, yeah, okay. How does this thing work?”

“Do you want the seventeen-volume manual?”

“Let’s start with what all these little lights mean and go from there,” Sunset said, gesturing to an array of little labeled bulbs.

“Certainly. Each bulb represents one of the House’s system’s -- all of its denizens, naturally, along with the lighting, heating, ominous moaning…”

“It’s the fusebox.”

“If you like. If the light is blue, then that system is functioning perfectly. If the light is out, then it’s one of the ones that have been shut down.”

Sunset scanned the panel. There were an awful lot of dark bulbs. “And… what about red lights?”

Tanya froze. “That… who’s turned red?”

Sunset leaned in close to read the tiny letters. “Um… Gracie. And Billie.”

She glanced up at Tanya’s stricken expression and her heart plummeted. “I thought we had more time,” the ghost whispered.

“I just remembered the most important haunted house rule of all,” Sunset said. “Don’t. Split. Up.” She bolted for the door, hoping against hope that she wasn’t too late to save Trixie.

***

Trixie was not a stranger to running away from things. She saw no shame in this. Part of sustainably being Great and Powerful lies in recognizing when a foe may perhaps be temporarily slightly Greater and More Powerful for various reasons and then making a strategic retreat.

Speed and stamina, therefore, were not problems when it came to making a clean getaway. Trixie had no doubt that she could stay ahead of the vampire nigh indefinitely, or at least until she could find the TARDIS again. No, the problem here was navigation. Every hall looked almost identical to every other hall, and the maze of corridors stretched on for miles. It was only a matter of time before she hit a dead end -- and shortly thereafter, meet her own dead end.

The chase ended in a kitchen. It was a pretty sleek kitchen, really, provided one could look past the jar of eyeballs next to the sugar, and the red stains on the cutting board that certainly hadn’t come from a tomato. There was only one door in and out of the room, and there was a vampire standing in it, grinning at Trixie with the air of a cat that’s just found the canary with its wings clipped and lying in a puddle of barbecue sauce. She stalked forward, taking slow, deliberate steps towards her prey.

Trixie glanced around frantically for a clove of garlic. There wasn’t any, of course. This was a vampire’s actual house. Why would there be garlic?

Billie drew closer, closer still, her eyes glowing hypnotically. Desperate, Trixie picked up the nearest fruit and pitched it at the vampire’s head. The pomegranate exploded on impact, sending juice and seeds flying everywhere. Trixie closed her eyes, waiting for the end. To her surprise, it didn’t come.

She opened her eyes. Billie sat on the floor, quietly picking up the seeds one by one and setting them in a pile. “I will get you for this,” she growled.

Trixie wasn’t quite sure what had just happened, but she grabbed the bowl of pomegranates off the counter and ran from the kitchen.

***

“Trixie!” Sunset screamed for the seventeenth time, weaving through the warren of corridors. Tanya was floating some distance behind her, trying desperately to keep up. Her little projector wasn’t really built for speed, however, and she lagged some distance behind.

That suited Sunset just fine. If she hadn’t let the ghost lure her from Trixie’s side…

No. Now wasn’t the time for self-recriminations. Now was the time for saving Trixie’s bacon. Now was the time for getting the Tartarus out of here, never mind these monsters and their problems. Now was --

She rounded a corner. Down the hall, Gracie’s head whipped around. The great wolf snarled, flattening back her ears.

Now was the time for running back the way she had come.

“What are you--” Tanya began as Sunset sprinted past her.

A long, loud howl cut her off, and the ghost’s entire spectral body drooped. “Oh. Already?”

Then the sound of pounding paws started to shake the hallway, and Tanya turned tail and vanished.

***

It was only after running up three flights of stairs, down eight hallways, and through seventeen rooms that Trixie finally allowed herself a moment’s rest. She stood in what appeared to be an abandoned music room, her legs shaking with fear and exertion. “Okay. This will be fine. It will all be fine. Trixie has gotten out of worse situations than this.”

She threw herself into a chair, thinking deeply. The TARDIS was the only place she knew she would be totally safe, but she didn’t know where it was. She didn’t know where she was, either. Sunset would know, but again, Trixie didn’t know where she had gotten to.

She stiffened suddenly. Trixie didn’t know where Sunset was. Sunset was off with a ghost, being hunted by a werewolf. She could be in the most terrible danger, and Trixie hadn’t even thought about saving her!

She got up from the chair and started pacing. Okay. Sunset was her first priority. Well, second, after not getting killed by a crazy vampire mare. How could she find her? None of her stage tricks would help her now.

On the other hoof… she recalled watching Rarity cast a sort of gem-finding spell, one that tugged her to where the precious stones were hidden under the earth. It hadn’t seemed too difficult to Trixie. If she could just modify it a little, to track somepony even more precious…

She grabbed the bowl of pomegranates and hugged it to her chest. She lit her horn and focused all her thoughts on Sunset. Her aura danced with purple light for several long seconds, as if it was attempting to gather its bearings.

Trixie frowned and crossed her eyes to look up at her horn. At that moment, it burst into a blaze of glowing white and yanked Trixie off her hooves and out the door.

***

Sunset raced down the hallway. Gracie wasn’t quite fast enough to catch her, but Sunset knew that wolves were quite good at maintaining a pace. Furthermore, while her body would tire and her legs eventually fail, the animatronic could keep going until its power source ran dead.

She glanced back and fired a short, sharp burst of flame at her pursuer. Gracie’s fur smoldered, but didn’t catch, and it had the added effect of making the werewolf even angrier.

Tanya popped into existence a few meters ahead, and Sunset almost skidded to a halt. Only the sound of crashing furniture behind her forced her hooves forward. “What are--”

“No time! Follow me!”

Tanya flew off down a side corridor and Sunset, having no better option, followed her.

There was a door open about halfway down the hall. “Stop there, and pick up one of the bones,” Tanya ordered.

“One of the what?”

“You heard me.”

Sunset reached out with her magic and picked up the first thing she could gain purchase on.

“What?”

“I’m hoping her base programming will override Billie’s commands.”

“Hoping?”

“Well, it’s worked every time before!”

“Before what?”

At that moment Gracie rounded the corner and charged them. Sunset screamed and held the bone in front of her like a shield, shutting her eyes tight.

After a few seconds, when the jaws of doom had failed to snap shut around her neck, she slowly cracked open one eye. Gracie stood there, mesmerized, her eyes flicking between Sunset and the bone.

Carefully, Sunset levitated the bone to the right. Gracie’s eyes tracked its path. She waved it back and forth slowly. Drool dripped from the corner of Gracie’s maw. Sunset set her jaw and abruptly threw the bone back into the catacombs. Gracie leapt after it, but hesitated at the threshold.

“She’s learned,” Tanya muttered.

“Alright, plan B,” Sunset said. She reached out a hoof and touched the werewolf right on the flank.

There was a flash of white, and suddenly Sunset was in the mental equivalent of a washing machine. Thoughts and memories whipped around her, almost too quick for her to register. But she could see conflict in there.

Go for the bone, she willed. Nice juicy bone, yum yum?

Slowly but surely, the storm began to die down as her influence spread. Sunset let out a breath and was just about to disconnect when she noticed something odd. A large portion of Gracie’s memories had gone grey and murky. She reached out to touch them, but her hoof passed right through. She squinted at them. They looked oddly familiar…

There was a sudden sensation of shock and pain as the connection was forcibly severed, and everything went black.

***

Things came back into focus slowly, swimming in and out of Sunset’s vision. The first thing she was really able to focus on was Trixie’s worried face staring down at her. “Sunset? Can you hear me? Are you alright?”

“Wrrrgh,” Sunset muttered, rolling onto her side. “Anypony get the number of that semi truck?”

“Ah.” Trixie coughed. “Erm, sorry. Trixie may have put slightly too much power into that tracking spell.”

Sunset rolled her eyes, but smiled. “‘S fine. I’m alright, you’re alright, and everything’s gonna be fine.”

“Ah,” said Tanya. “About that.”

Sunset’s smile fell. “Right. You.” She turned to face the ghost, scowling. “I want answers, and I want them now.”

Tanya nodded. “Yes, I suspected you might.”

“All of this has happened before, hasn’t it? And each time, you erase everyone’s memories.”

“You’re half right,” Tanya replied. “Two-thirds right, even. Billie keeps discovering the truth, and every time she does, everypony but me is made to forget. But I’m not the one responsible for that. At least, not directly.”

Sunset lit her horn. “You know, after all these years, annoyingly cryptic answers are still one of my biggest pet peeves,” she said.

“You can’t set me on fire,” Tanya pointed out. “I’m a ghost.”

“You’re a hologram. How well are you gonna deal with your projector exploding?”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Trixie said, quickly stepping between the two. “Now, Trixie is as fond of explosions as anypony, but perhaps we should not alienate our only ally in this house?”

Sunset huffed, but the aura around her horn faded away.

“Thank you,” Tanya said. “There is a reset button for the entire House, hidden down in the oubliette.”

“Oo-blee-yet?” Trixie repeated.

“It’s a special kind of dungeon,” Sunset said. “From the prench word meaning ‘to forget’ -- literally the dungeon where you put stuff you want to forget about forever.”

“Exactly. Anyway, Billie always makes a run for the reset button, trying to restart the others. Unfortunately, since the systems are all broken, it doesn’t work as it should. Everypony still up and running forgets everything that’s happened since the last memory backup, which took place nearly half a century ago.”

“Except for you,” Sunset noted.

“Early on, I saved my memories in a discrete drive, and was able to set up a means by which my memories were automatically saved. I’m therefore immune to the reset.”

“Convenient,” Sunset muttered. “Alright. So where exactly do we come in?”

“Well,” Tanya said, rubbing one forehoof over the other awkwardly, “I had hoped you would have the technical knowledge needed to repair my friends…?”

Sunset raised her brow. “Well. Um. We… no, almost certainly not.”

“What?” Trixie gasped. “Are you certain there is nothing we can do?”

“Pretty much. This is seriously advanced technology. Even in the human world, AI this advanced was only a science fiction pipe dream. They’re almost advanced enough to… to be alive…” She stared into the middle distance for a long moment. “Huh.”

“You have thought of something, then?” Tanya asked.

“Maybe,” Sunset said. “Show me this reset button.”

Tanya’s face relaxed, her relief palpable. “Of course. Follow me.”

As they set off, Sunset glanced at her marefriend. “So, how did you get away from Billie? And what’s with the fruit?”

“Funny you should ask Trixie that…”

As they made their way down the hall, a figure stepped out of the shadows behind them. Billie gazed at the trio, fire blazing in her eyes. Then she slipped back into the shadows and stalked down the corridor after them.

***

The oubliette, Tanya assured the others, wasn’t too far away. They could mount a defense there, keep Billie away long enough to make her see reason. From where Trixie was standing, she might just collapse before they made it to the bottom of these stairs. “How many more flights?” she whined.

“Not many,” Tanya said.

“That’s what you said five minutes ago.”

Sunset stopped and wordlessly levitated Trixie onto her back.

The blue mare turned purple. “Oh. Okay. Um, you’re alright with this?”

“Course. What good are weird cosmic powers if I can’t carry my friend around when she’s tired?”

Trixie buried her burning face in her hat and mumbled something that might have been ‘thank you’.

“No problem.”

Eventually, the stairs gave way to a large room made of lumpy black stones mortared together. It was almost completely empty, apart from a raised dais at the center of the room, at the top of which a sort of altar sat. This was the only thing illuminated in the entire room, lit faintly by a hole in the ceiling far overhead. “The reset button?” Trixie guessed.

“Precisely,” Tanya replied. “Mount up your defenses, ladies. It’ll only be a matter of time before my wife--”

“Discovers your treachery?” a silk-smooth voice said.

The trio froze. “Shit,” said Sunset.

Trixie leapt from Sunset’s back and spun around. “Pomegranate kapow!” she shouted, hurling the fruit in the vampire’s direction.

Billie caught it in one hoof, her expression of disdain unwavering. She squeezed, and the fruit cracked and burst.

“Oh,” said Trixie, her ears flat against her head. “Oops.” She backed away from the incensed vampire.

“Six-hundred and eighty-three,” Billie said. “That’s how many seeds I had to count before I could deactivate my forced-counting subroutine.”

“Your what?”

“According to legend, if a pile of grains or seeds are spilled in front of a vampire, they can’t move until they’ve counted them all,” Sunset said. “I’m guessing you were programmed with that in mind.”

“Correct. Now, to be clear, I could kill the both of you.”

“I’m functionally immortal, but go off, I guess,” Sunset said.

“But I may be merciful if you let me pass and access the reset.”

“It won’t help you,” Trixie said. “Tanya said you’ve done this before, and--”

“Oh, I heard,” Billie said coldly. “I heard it all.”

“...Oh,” said Tanya. She cocked her head. “But then… you know this won’t work! Billie, we can work this out if you’ll only calm down--”

Billie’s eyes flashed red. “Hold your traitor’s tongue!”

“Somehow I don’t think that ‘calming down’ is in the cards,” Sunset muttered.

Billie moved forward, and the others backed away. “I know now that it is useless to reset the House again -- to forget what I have learned and heal no one.” She stopped. “So, I’ve decided to change my plans.”

Sunset lit her horn. “Don’t come any nearer,” she warned.

Billie smirked at her. “Or what? You’ll turn me to ash? Sorry, I’m not quite realistic enough for that.”

Quick as a flash, she was on Sunset, a hoof around the other mare’s neck. “Let me pass, or I’ll snap her like a toothpick.”

Trixie stared, horrified, the last obstacle between the vampire and the altar. “Trixie, don’t move,” Sunset said sharply. “I’ll be fine.”

“...Trixie is sorry, but she can’t take that risk.” She stepped aside.

“Wise choice.” Billie walked forward, dragging Sunset along.

“What do you intend to do, then?” Tanya asked.

“What I should have done from the very start-- I’m going to put the House out of its misery once and for all.”

Tanya’s eyes went wide. “Destroy the systems?”

“Trixie is confused.”

“The reset system is connected to the House’s memory banks. I’m going to erase all of the programs.”

“And kill us all in the process!” Tanya said. “Billie! Billie, please, you mustn’t do this!”

Billie started to drag Sunset up the stairs. “I’m sorry, Tanya. I haven’t got any other choice!”

“Of course you have! We both do! But if you push that button, that ends it. It ends everything!”

“Sounds fine by me!” Billie retorted, reaching the top of the stairs.

“Billie!”

“I--” the vampire broke off. “I can’t-- remember--? What can’t I--?”

“Sunset,” Trixie said, her voice quiet and intense in equal measure. “Make your mane brighter.”

No one spoke. Sunset hesitated a long moment. “Sunset, please.”

Slowly, the light in the room increased. The shadows flickered and retreated. Everyone could clearly see the shape lying prone on the floor that only Trixie, with her sharp illusionist’s eye, had seen in the dusky light.

A robotic body, shattered by a fall from the altar, lay in dusty ruin by the stairwell. Despite the damage and the weight of years, the body was still immediately recognizable.

“...Tanya?” Billie asked quietly, staring down at her wife’s broken form. Her grip on Sunset’s throat slackened. “How are you… down there?”

“Oh dear,” Tanya said. “Well. How is a ghost traditionally made?”

“But it’s a haunted house! Everything here is fake!” Sunset objected. “You’re a hologram!”

“I told you,” Tanya said, a trace of sadness in her voice. “I saved my memory elsewhere. My body was… destroyed, yes, but my programming remained.”

“And, um, how did you die?” Trixie asked.

“It was an accident,” Billie said.

There was a long pause. “How can you remember that?” Trixie asked.

“Please,” Billie said. “Please tell me it was an accident.”

“Of course it was,” Tanya said. “You would have never pushed me on purpose.”

Billie’s grip went slack. Sunset took the opportunity and burst into flame. The vampire screeched and reeled back, but Sunset grabbed her around the barrel and charged the altar.

“What?” Billie managed, but Sunset shook her rather hard.

“Congratulations, Billie,” she growled. “Time for your dreams to come true.” And she smacked her hoof square on the altar.

Billie howled, her eyes glowing white. Sunset’s eyes matched them, as did a smooth square screen on the altar.

“Nh… No! My memories!” Billie growled. “I won’t let you take them!”

Sunset growled. “I’m restoring them, you idiot! Let me work!”

“Can’t… fool me! Get out! Get out of my mind!”

“I’m trying... to help you!” Sunset said, her voice increasingly strained.

Billie’s eyes flashed red for a moment. “Fine. You want my memories? Try this one on for size!”

Sunset flinched. Then she doubled over. “Nuh, no! Not this! Trixie? Trixie! Trixie!”

Trixie pulled away from Tanya. “Congratulations, Sunny,” she said, racing up the steps of the altar. “You just said the secret word.”

Billie glanced up, her white eyes widening as Trixie galloped nearer. Sunset glanced around, as well, her every breath coming in thick, short pants. Billie raised a hoof to defend herself, but Trixie was faster. She jabbed the vampire in the stomach, then grabbed the reeling robot and slammed her head against the altar. There was a distinctly unpleasant sound as the two connected, rather like smacking a coconut with a baseball bat. Billie’s growled, dazed, but didn’t fall unconscious.

“Back of the neck,” she heard Tanya call. “That’s where the emergency shutoff button is!”

Billie tried another swipe at Trixie to knock her hoof away, but Sunset managed to grab her by the collar and yank her off-kilter. Trixie grabbed the vampire’s other hoof, twisting it up and behind her back, searching for the promised button. Finally she located it -- a small hole just below Billie’s hairline. “Trixie is gonna need a paperclip!”

“You’re a unicorn, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but Trixie doesn’t think her horn is quite going to fit in there!”

“Not what I meant.”

“Oh. Right.” Trixie lit her horn, depressing the button. Billie convulsed, and then her whole body went slack.

“Oh, dear,” Tanya said from over her shoulder. “She’s certainly going to need a reboot, now.”

Trixie took a few deep breaths and watched as Sunset’s own breathing slowed and calmed. “Trixie hasn’t killed her, then?”

“No. It would take considerably more force than that to destroy one of us.” She glanced over to the edge of the dais. “For example.”

Trixie looked away. What exactly could you say in a situation like this? “We could… try and put you back together?”

Tanya sighed, collapsing in on herself. “That’s very… noble of you to offer. But exactly how much mechanical experience do the pair of you have?”

“Er…” Trixie glanced away, tapping her forehooves together. “Trixie is very experienced at wagon repair?”

“I think this might be slightly more complicated of a job than that.”

“Trixie… supposes you are right. Perhaps Sunset knows a good repair spell?”

“On the subject of your friend,” Tanya said, glancing over at the draconequus, “hasn’t she been unconscious for some time now?”

Trixie looked Sunset over, slightly concerned. “She’s using her mind-reading spell, Trixie thinks. Trixie saw her use this back in Seaddle, though how it could help her now Trixie doesn’t know.”

“A mind-reading spell?” Tanya looked rather ill. “You mean-- she was in Billie’s mind when we shut her down?”

Trixie’s eyes went wide. “Wha, why? What would that do?”

“I don’t know.”

Trixie’s heart sank. “I-- you don’t think we’ve-- killed her? Or, or, no, she’s still breathing. But what if she’s stuck in there?”

Tanya’s silence spoke volumes. “No. No, no, no!” Trixie grabbed Sunset by the collar and shook her. Sunset’s hooves remained stuck to Billie’s chest and the altar, as if they had been glued in place. “Sunset can’t be gone! She has to go back to Ponyville with Trixie! She only just got back! Trixie never even got to tell Sunset that she loved her!”

“I’m sorry, Trixie.”

Trixie didn’t say anything. She clung tight to Sunset’s barrel, weeping softly. “Please come back, Sunset. Please? You were supposed to be immortal. You were supposed to be a goddess!”

The light from Sunset’s eyes was white and cold, like marble. Trixie felt Tanya behind her, watching. “Come away,” she said.

“No,” Trixie said. “Sunset isn’t dead. She can’t be. We can restart Billie, can’t we? Let her out?”

“I don’t know,” Tanya admitted. “All we can really do is--”

“WAIT!” Sunset shouted.

Trixie spun around as Billie’s body fell over backwards. Tanya’s eyes went wide and she lunged for her wife’s body, but Billie remained atop the dais. Sunset stumbled and fell as well, curling into the fetal position.

“Sunset!” Trixie was at the other mare’s side in an instant. “What happened?”

Sunset wrapped her hooves around Trixie’s neck. “Memories,” she murmured. “So many memories, so much pain.” She looked up at Trixie, tears welling in her eyes. “I saw Tanya die -- but it was you, Trixie. I saw all of Tanya’s friends, her family, die -- and it was Twilight and Spike and Celestia and Applejack and--” she choked up and buried her head in Trixie’s chest.

Trixie held her tight, wrapping her hooves around Sunset’s head and barrel. She gave an acid glare at Tanya. “Your wife has serious issues.”

“After everything we’ve been through, I can’t say I’m surprised,” Tanya said sadly. “What were you trying to do in there, Sunset?”

“Fixing the House’s memory,” Sunset muttered. “Billie remembered everything as it was supposed to be. I used that to remind the House. When you hit the reset this time… when you hit it, it’ll all be fixed.”

Tanya froze. “You… did that?”

“Nearly died in the process, but yeah.”

“Then push the button! Bring it all back!”

“Tanya. It’ll all be the way it was before.” Sunset took a deep breath. “All of it.”

Tanya’s face slowly fell. “Ah. You mean…”

“You weren’t part of the original programming. I’m sorry.”

“But my body was. Can it be fixed?”

Sunset bit her lip. “Maybe. Trixie, how are you at repairs?”

“Trixie can-- we already had this conversation while you were working. Could you not hear us?”

“I was a little busy, you know.”

“Oh, so you didn’t hear -- well, never mind that now.”

Tanya was still staring at the altar. “Hit reset,” she said.

Trixie spun around. “But that’ll kill you!”
“It might, yes. But it’ll bring every other creature in the House back online. It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to -- a sacrifice I need to make.” She locked eyes with Trixie. “But I can’t touch the button. You two need to do it for me.”

Sunset rose, still shaky. “You’re sure?”

Tanya hesitated. Then, her lips tightening into a line, she nodded. “It won’t be forever, I’m sure. The mad scientists have the skills to repair me… eventually.”

“Alright.” Sunset staggered to the button, Trixie supporting her with a hoof wrapped around her neck. “Good luck, Tanya.”

“See you on the other side,” the ghost said.

Sunset pressed the button, and the world went white.

***

Billie awoke slowly. “Morning,” a mare said loftily. “The Great and Powerful Trixie was just about ready to dump ice water on you.”

That got Billie to find her hooves in a hurry. “Who-- who are you? Why are we in the oubliette? What have you done--”

“Would you shut your face for like, two seconds?” the mare snapped. “Sunset, she’s awake!”

“Yeah,” said another mare, coming up the steps to the top of the dais. “I heard.”

“See?” the blue one said, turning back to Billie. “She agrees with me, you talk way too much.”

“I definitely did not say that.”

“But is Trixie wrong?”

“...No comment.”

Billie threw up her hooves. “Who are you ponies? You aren’t meant to be here. I’m not meant to be here, this is a restricted area!”

“Wish you’d thought of that a little earlier,” the blue one snarked.

“Here,” the orange one said, reaching out a hoof. “This should explain more or less everything.”

Warily, Billie reached out and took the proffered hoof. There was a flash of white, and then she saw.

She saw the events of the immediate past, how she had nearly ended the House on the Rock forever. She saw further back, her repeated futile attempts to repair anything at all. She saw her wife fall.

Billie tried to pull away, but the orange mare, Sunset, held on tight. “You aren’t done yet,” she said.

And Billie saw further. She saw Sunset’s struggle to push back the tides of time. She saw waves of red magic rippling through the wires and circuits of the House. She saw old friends, long-dormant and covered in dust, blink awake once more.

Finally, Billie pulled free of Sunset’s grip, stumbling backwards. Trixie’s eyes went wide, and suddenly the vampire found herself teetering at the precipice of the dais. Red and violet auras grabbed her and pulled her back to safety. “Hell, no,” Sunset said firmly. “I didn’t go through everything that happened today for you to get smashed.”

“Tanya. What happened to Tanya?” Billie demanded, turning on the two mares. “I saw her get -- erased? Did she make it back?”

“Billie?”

The vampire froze, hardly daring to move. Glacially, she turned around. “Billie, what’s going on? Who are these ponies?”

There she stood, blinking at the brightness of the unicorns’ glowing horns, tangible metal and plastic once more. Billie swooped forward and embraced her startled wife, quietly but frantically murmuring apologies over and over again.

***

“...So I’m the only one who remembers any of it, now,” Billie summarized, leaning over the coffee table in the parlor.

“Yes, unless you pass on those memories to other members of the household,” Sunset replied. “Which you should probably do, if only for redundancy’s sake. We don’t want anything like this happening again.”

“I’m still having trouble wrapping my mind around it,” Tanya admitted. “You say I died and returned as a hologram? But then, how was my body restored?”

“Because Sunset is just that good,” Trixie said, taking the last cookie from the tray.

Tanya sighed. “Adam, we’ll need another tray of refreshments.”

The great green stitched-together stallion gave a small bow. “Right away, madame.”

“Yes, and fetch a vintage red from the cellar while you’re about it,” Billie added.

“Any preferences, madame?”

“Oh, a nice O-, I think. It’s a special occasion.”

“Very good madame.” The reanimated stallion departed with a swiftness and silence that belied his size.

Sunset coughed. “As I was going to say, the magic that I used to reboot the House was maybe a little more powerful than I anticipated. I was trying to fix all the glitches in the code. Instead, I think I may have rewound time slightly to accord with Tanya’s memories. So, uh, hope you’ve got a sharp mind, Tanya.”

The vampire’s face had fallen. “This is only a respite, then,” she said. “Eventually, the House will begin to decay again. One by one, the inhabitants will fall, and eventually, we shall be no more.”

“Yeah. That’s how time works,” Trixie said. “Everything does that.”

“And now, you know what’s coming,” Sunset said. “You said you have mad scientists? Get them to work on how to fix the House when it breaks, upgrades, improvements. You’re in charge of your own destinies, now.”

Billie was silent for a moment, then nodded. “I understand. I will -- we all will do our best to ensure this never happens again.”

“Good to hear,” Sunset said. “On that note, we should probably take our leave. Is there anyone around who can guide us back to our ride?” She hesitated. “Wait. Where did we park the TARDIS?”

“No need to worry,” Billie said. “I had Igor haul your box up to a more… convenient location. You’ll find it in the foyer at the end of the hall.”

“Great. No offense, but I would really like to be anywhere other than this house right now.”

“Completely understood,” Tanya said.

Sunset made her way to the door, Trixie close behind. “Wait,” said Billie.

Both mares paused at the threshold. “Thank you,” Billie said. “For… everything. We owe you a debt that could never be repaid. I wish you the best of luck in your travels and your life together.”

“Um,” said Sunset. “We actually aren’t--”

“Right back atcha,” Trixie interrupted. “Bye now!”

She virtually pushed Sunset down the corridor, which was full of wandering monsters trying to work out what had happened. “Okay, so a lot of really awful things happened today, but Trixie thinks that might have been up in the top ten.”

“Would it really be so terrible to be in a relationship with me?” Sunset asked.

“No! No no no no, not at all, no,” Trixie said. “But, uh, Trixie never knows how to respond when somepony says that sort of thing.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Sunset agreed. “Might be an exaggeration to say it was in the top ten worst things that’ve happened today, but--” she stifled a yawn. “Pretty bad.”

“Tired?” Trixie asked, glad to change the subject.

“I just turned back the clock on a small asteroid by about half a century. I’m running on fumes, adrenaline, and sheer pig-headedness. Er, no offence,” she added as a pig-faced pony dressed as a butcher scowled at her.

Trixie stopped and knelt. “Climb on.”

Sunset paused. “Are you sure? I’m like, way bigger than you.”

“Please, Trixie has pulled her caravan behind her across Equestria for some twelve years. She can carry you just fine. Besides,” she added, seeing Sunset’s hesitance, “what good are Trixie’s years of experience if she can’t give her tired friend a lift, hm?”

Sunset smiled wanly. “Yeah, alright,” she said, climbing on. “Thanks, Trix.”

“Trixie’s pleasure.”

Soon enough, the two were through the blue doors of the box. “Okay, Sunset, you can get off now,” Trixie said, shutting the doors behind them.

Her only reply was a soft snore and a string of drool running down the back of her neck. Trixie sighed, a mixture of annoyance and affection, and hit the dematerialization lever. The increasingly familiar groan and wheeze of the ship entering the vortex made Sunset grumble and shift, but she didn’t awaken.

Trixie set off to find the nearest bed, with the intention of leaving Sunset there alone to sleep it off. Somehow, though, when Sunset eventually awoke some hours later, it was with her hooves wrapped around a peacefully slumbering Trixie.

Author's Note

Well. That was longer than expected.