Strange Currencies

Chapters

1
2
3
4
5
6
Epilogue

1

Strange Mirror’s apartment was full of mirrors. They helped her to keep track of things.

Morning was the time when her condition was most difficult to manage, so she liked to rise early. Her assistant, a lavender crow named Matthew, would fly through the window before dawn. He'd light the gas lamps in her tiny one-room apartment and make her coffee. Then he would rouse her with gentle cawing. If she needed extra encouragement, he would hop on her face. His ice-cold claws always did the trick.

Once she had risen, he would help her tie red strings around her fetlocks so that she could see where her hooves were.

She would sit at her desk and drink her coffee while Matthew did her hair. He flickered back and forth in the mirror, dive bombing with the brush until he was satisfied with the overall effect. Then he walked on her head, giving her a nice scalp massage while he arranged strands like he was building a nest. Then he would twine one of his feathers into her hair so that she could have a better idea where the top of her head was.

While Matthew did this, Strange Mirror would go over her schedule for the day. Her condition would do most of the work for her, but it paid to be careful — it would not do to be discovered.

So.

By seven fifteen she was dressed and ready to go. Today she wore a striped shirt and dark purple skirt that looked lovely together. She could only guess if they matched her fur color. She walked down three flights of stairs to the walled courtyard of her apartment. A narrow cobblestone pathway wound through a grassy lawn scattered with yellow roses, escapees from the riot of greenery the landlord called a garden.

Matthew had flown down from her half-open window and was sitting in the basket of her bicycle. Counter-intuitively, riding was safer than walking — at least she could see where the bike was. She unchained the bike from the rusty old bike rack, pulled off the flowering vines that had grown onto it during the night, and rode it out into the cobblestone streets of Canterlot.

The first stop was at Crusty Biscuits’ street cart. Mirror parked her bike, and Matthew flapped off to scavenge crumbs.

“Good morning, Missus Biscuits,” she said, making her voice higher and more child-like than it already was. This wasn't strictly necessary, but it helped the illusion.

“Good morning!” said Crusty Biscuits, a smile on her wrinkly face. “How’s my favorite little filly?”

“I’d like my donuts, please,” said Mirror cheerily.

“Oh yes, yes, let me get those. You children are so impatient.”

Mirror smiled as sweetly as she could. Tricking a nice old mare out of a sack of day-olds stung her normally stony conscience. But whatever Crusty saw when she looked at Strange Mirror made it worthwhile to her.

Mirror ate one of the day-olds straddling her unmoving bike. Even stale, Crusty’s donuts were sublime — buttery, soft, covered in gooey glaze. Matthew hopped back into her basket, clutching a scrap of muffin in his beak. She rolled downhill towards the Saddle Buckle District, taking care to obey traffic signals. It was near the end of the month, and traffic guards would be looking for naughty ponies so that they could fill their ticket quotas. The attention would light her condition up like a festival bonfire if she wasn’t careful.

At work, she pushed her (fake) glasses down over her eyes and became Mildred Do, scribe. Mil Do had been hired to assist with transferring centuries worth of Principality financial records from the old, outdated, system to a new one devised by HRH Twilight Sparkle. The new system allowed three times as much data to be stored per ledger.

She left her donuts in the break room, got her list of ledgers to be copied from her office, and went to the massive, vaulted halls of the Principality Central Archives. She would bring three ledgers at a time back to her office and get to work.

Mildred Do was seen by her supervisor and fellow scribes as a diligent worker. More importantly, she was seen as the kind of pony who always brought treats for the break room. If she made an additional copy of her ledgers on loose-leaf paper, well, she was just being very thorough.

At the end of the day, she bound up the loose leaf paper into a parcel with twine and put it into her bicycle bag. She took the old ledgers to the furnace room for destruction, and the new one to Records Processing for filing. Then she would mount her bicycle and head for home.

On the way, Mirror would stop at a small bookseller to purchase romance novels. Matthew — lately returned from doing bird things all day while she worked — would watch her bike while she shopped. That bird did not hesitate to use his beak in defense of Strange Mirror or her property. He would go for blood, and this was well known to the petty thieves, pickpockets and bottom gropers of Canterlot. His mere presence was all the deterrent they needed.

Strange Mirror would spend some time here. She read at least one novel a day, and she needed to be sure she had not already read the book she chose. While browsing, she would casually leave the parcel on the middle shelf of the cooking section. The employees and owner knew as a regular customer who made regular purchases, so they assumed this was a regular thing for her to do.

Mirror could see the cooking section quite well from where she browsed. Between five forty-five and six o'clock, the Unremarkable Brown Pony would collect the parcel. It bothered her that he was clearly a changeling, but she didn’t see what harm he could do with such mundane information. As an illusion herself, she could easily see through the illusions of others.

She wondered if he knew she was watching him. He never seemed to notice her. Perhaps he was, in fact, fooled by her condition — he did not wish to be observed while he collected the parcel, so, to his mind, he was not.

After the Unremarkable Brown Pony was gone, she would pay for her new books and meet Matthew at her bicycle. He would give her the small bag of bits he had collected from the dead drop under the trash bin in the park. She would give Matthew one bit as payment for his services. Harmony only knew what he did with the money, but it was all he asked, and he was worth ten times as much or more.

On the way home, she would stop at Crusty’s cart again.

“Good evening, little filly!” said Crusty.

“Good evening, Missus Biscuit!”

“And what would you like today?”

“One loaf of bread, please,” she said, pushing a bit across the top of the cart. “Mommy says to keep the change.” That change wouldn’t cover the price of a bag of day old donuts, but it made Strange Mirror feel a little better.

Crusty would hand her the bread in a brown paper bag. Its hard crust would yield enticingly under her hooves, hinting at the tender, succulent fluffiness underneath. The smell would keep her company the rest of the way back to her apartment.

Once there, she would lock up her remaining bits in the safe under her bed, undress, eat the bread with butter and fruit, and give the scraps to Matthew. Then she would review her schedule for the next day, get ready for bed, untie the strings from around her fetlocks, and read romance novels until she got sleepy.

After she turned off the last gas lamp, she'd dream of the time when her contract with the Unremarkable Brown Pony was completed. She would take her bits to the bank, convert them to Dapplemarks, get on a boat, and spend the rest of her life touring the Old World in luxuriant style.

Nopony would ever see her as anything but a wealthy tourist ever again.

2

One day Strange Mirror came home from work to find the courtyard of her apartment building full of workponies in orange vests. They had torn up a large patch of the garden. They were standing around looking very seriously at something under the ground.

“Gas leak, ma’am. Very dangerous,” said a thick-bodied earth pony eating a sandwich. “Can’t let you in.”

“But I live in there,” said Strange Mirror, standing next to her bicycle, trembling. Matthew spread his wings and squawked.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. But it’s against the law to let you in — it’s too dangerous!” said the workpony, eyeing the angry crow with concern. “And we’re going to be very loud. Do you have any friends you can stay with?”

“No,” said Strange Mirror. Her condition made any kind of real connection with another pony impossible. That fact had hurt like an open wound when she had first developed her condition. Nowadays the pain was the raw background ache of a scab under a fuzzy sock.

At least she had Matthew.

“Well, you’ll have to find a hotel room, I guess,” said the workpony, before stuffing the rest of his sandwich in his mouth and rushing off to find something to do as far from Matthew as possible.

Strange Mirror tried to remain calm. She walked her bicycle to a bench in a small park on a hill, sat, and ate her bread without tasting it. She looked down over the lower rings of Canterlot. The city was built on stone platforms anchored to the side of the mountain like mushrooms growing on the side of a tree. Basal district was the lowest, where working-class ponies lived. The Palace Ring, where the rich and powerful lived, was the highest, held up by four colossal buttresses. Its vastness brought premature evening to the city below. In between was the Saddle Buckle, home of artists, professionals, government officials, and Strange Mirror.

Street lights were beginning to come on, glittering as night closed in. It was a Friday evening in the summertime. All around the city, ponies would be looking for somepony. A new friend. A new lover. A fight. It was a very dangerous time for Mirror to be outside. Anything could happen. Strange Mirror looked up at the palace ring above and wished that it would fall on her.

“What am I going to do?” she said, clutching her new romance novel unread in her lap.

“Caw!” said Matthew.

“I’m sorry,” said Strange Mirror, stroking his head, “You’ll have to sleep on somepony’s roof tonight with the other birds.”

“Caaaw,” said Matthew, rubbing his head against her cheek as if to say that this was not his greatest concern.

“You’d better go,” she said, scratching Matthew under the chin with one hoof. “It’ll be too dark to fly soon. I’ll be fine. I promise,” She lied.

She sat pretending to read until it was too dark. Then she rose from the park bench, unlocked her bike, and walked downhill with slow, quiet deliberation.

Could she find a hotel? She only had the money in her little bag of bits right now — excellent pay for a day’s work, but not enough for a night in a fancy Canterlot Hotel. She couldn’t get to the safe in her room, and this wasn’t enough of an emergency to go into one of her secret stashes. She could get some money out of Mildred Do’s bank account if the bank was still open. But her bank was in Easy Glider Square, one of the biggest hubs of Canterlot nightlife.

She was doomed.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Easy Glider Square thronged with happy ponies. They filled the streets, blocking thoroughfares and sidewalks alike. Getting through walking a bike was like swimming upstream during spawning season.

Many ponies watched Strange Mirror as she passed. She was the target of double takes, surprised glances, and longing looks by the dozen. She hunched down, hoping for the best, hoping no one would come after her. Three more blocks to the bank.

“Hey, lady!” shouted a filly’s voice from behind her. She hurried deeper into the crowd, ignoring the voice.

“Edelweiss! Edelweiss, is that you?” A gray pegasus stallion grabbed her by the shoulders, looking into her eyes with hope and excitement.

“No. No, it’s not,” said Strange Mirror, pushing him away.

A line of ponies in with piercings and spiky hair were standing in line outside of a club. The music inside was so loud that it vibrated the handle of Strange Mirror’s bike. She made the mistake of looking too long at a very tall white unicorn mare in a bridle and blinders.

“You like what you see, pretty?” she sneered, waving her hooves at her intimidatingly muscled body.

“No. I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” Mirror turned away at a right angle, forcing her way across the street. She saw that she was in front of a crowded bar, nearly as loud as the club across the street. A glowing magic sign proclaimed that it was called “Buckowski’s”. It smelled like sawdust, spilled beer, sweat, and companionship. Strange Mirror realized that she was very thirsty.

An earth pony mare in a slinky black dress strutted over to her. Strange Mirror’s heart began to pound. She sighed with relief when all the mare did was press a menu into her hooves. “You look like you could use a drink, friend,” she said.

“I could, actually,” said Strange Mirror.

“We’ve got the best beer list in the lower rings,” said the hostess.

The bank, the hotel, it could wait. She needed someplace to hide. Strange Mirror tried to lock up her bike on the railings by the door, but her hooves were shaking too hard, so she just left it there. She pushed her way inside. It was so hot and loud and packed with ponies that she felt like she’d crawled inside of a live animal. Miraculously, she was able to find an unoccupied booth at the back of the bar. She slid as deeply into it as she could, closed her eyes, and laid her head back on the cushion. She lost herself in the ambient roar of the place. Deep breaths. She’d made it this far. Maybe when things cleared out after midnight she could find a youth hostel or something.

“Get you something to drink?” said the waitress.

Strange Mirror’s eyes fluttered open. “Oh. Yes.” She looked at the drink list and immediately became lost. She didn’t drink much anymore. “Just some kind of wheat beer, I guess?”

“Hefeweizen?”

“That sounds nice.”

The beer the waitress brought was lovely — cloudy and golden, with a thin white head. She tasted it. It was cool and dry and tart. Before she knew it she’d finished half the glass. Well. It wasn’t like she didn’t have money for a few drinks, even at Canterlot prices. She finished off the beer and ordered another.

She took this one more slowly, savoring its flavor and its coldness. She let her mind wander — this was a beer that brought back memories. There was a menu in the center of the table. All the excitement had made her a bit peckish. She flipped it open and had a look.

“Excuse me. Do you mind if I sit?”

Oh no.

Strange Mirror looked up. It was that pegasus stallion from earlier! He was wearing a brown suit jacket with elbow patches. It clashed with his fur. He looked nervous. He looked like he was willing to go away if she told him to.

He was cute, though, and in fairly good shape. Maybe sitting with someone would be enough to deter the interest caused by her condition? She didn't get into much trouble on the rare occasions her co-workers talked her into going out with them.

And if he got to be trouble she knew more self-defense magic than the average unicorn. Strange Mirror took a deep breath. “All right.”

He sat down across from her, setting his beer neatly on a coaster. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry about earlier. You look like somepony I used to know. Or I thought you did. Now that I look at you again, you don’t look like her at all. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“So who was she?” asked Strange Mirror. Was she trying to scare him off by asking painful questions? Maybe.

He shook his head. “We were friends when we were foals. And more than that for a little while. But she wanted to see the world, and I wanted to stay in Canterlot. I’m not sad I stayed, but… well, I miss her.”

“You’re a Canterlingian, then?”

He nodded. “Born half a mile from here. Lived here my whole life. Where are you from?”

Strange Mirror took a sip of her beer. “A small town. Long ago and far away. It doesn’t matter. They had a brewery there, though. It made a lot of things, but the wheat beers were my favorites. Like this one.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “You were old enough to drink, long ago and far away?”

“You should know better than to ask a lady about her age. Anyway. I got an early start. I overdid it. Then I stopped.” She wrinkled up her nose. “I probably stunted my growth.” Her condition had made it easy to get whatever she’d wanted when she was young — it was more power than a teenage filly could handle responsibly.

“But you’re drinking now,” said the pegasus.

“Its been a rough day.” She glanced at his glass. It was half full of dark amber liquid. “What are you drinking?”

“Hop Punishment IPA.”

Strange Mirror stuck out her tongue. “Ugh, how can you drink that stuff? It’s like choking on a sweat sock.”

He shrugged. “I just like it.”

Strange Mirror clucked. “You Canterlingians. Such jaded palates. What’s your name, anyway?”

“Exchange Rate. My friends just call me X.”

“I bet I can guess what your cutie mark is,” she said, eyes flicking down as if she could look at his hips through the table. “Coins and arrows, and I right?”

He laughed. “Yes, actually. Even the universe knows I’m a nerd.”

Strange Mirror laughed. Was she flirting with this stallion? She guessed she was. So what? He was handsome in an old-fashioned way, with his messy brown forelock, square, masculine muzzle, and serious golden eyes. And he had that deep, powerful chest a lot of pegasus males had. Nice strong flight muscles. It had been a long time since she’d been with stallion. So, so long. “Are you a banker, then?”

“An accountant. I work in currency markets,” he said.

Strange Mirror pursed her lips. “How’s the Dapplemark doing against the Bit?”

“Pretty well. Why, are you thinking of traveling?”

“Maybe,” said Strange Mirror, afraid she was giving away too much. She took a sip of her beer and tried to change the subject. “This is very good beer.”

"What’s your name?” said X, not distracted.

“Mildred. Mildred Do,” she said without hesitation. No need to make up a new lie when she already had one ready to use, and it would do Mildred good to have a little backstory.

“Mildred. That’s a beautiful name.”

Mirror giggled. “No, it’s not, you shameless flatterer!”

“No, it is! Have you ever said it out loud? Mildred. Mildred. Mill dread.”

Strange Mirror rolled her eyes and polished off her beer. “You’re beyond help. And I need to see a horse about a dog.”

“Can I buy you another drink?” said X.

“You can,” said Strange Mirror. “When I get back.”

She sat in the bathroom stall longer than she needed to, thinking. It wasn’t too late to escape out the bathroom window — it was small, but Mirror was skinny. It looked like she’d fit. But she was actually having a good time! A better time than she’d had in ages. She liked to think of herself as a pony who loved to be alone, but it did get old. This was like something in one of her romances novels. A mistaken identity. A meet cute. It could go places. Wonderful, exciting, dangerous places.

Oh, Harmony this was such a bad idea.

A hoof banged on the stall door. “Are you almost done in there?”

“I’ll be out in a minute!” Strange Mirror sighed. She was going to do it anyway, wasn’t she? She was. She was probably going to do him if he wanted it. Which, being a stallion, he probably did.

Her glass was still empty when she came back. She smiled. A gentlepony. “So. More of the Hefeweizen, please.”

And they talked. He asked her questions. Which was thoughtful, but inconvenient. She deflected his questions by asking him some of her own. It was good to ask ponies questions — it distracted them and makes them like you. The two of them talked for what seemed like no time at all, but suddenly Strange Mirror looked away from his golden eyes and realized the staff were putting chairs on tables and giving them dirty looks.

“Oh my gosh,” she said.

“We shut the place down,” said X, smiling and taking at the bill.

Strange Mirror took a deep breath. “So. This is going to sound… very forward. But there’s a gas leak at my place, and I don’t have a place to sleep tonight.”

“You can sleep on my couch,” he offered.

“I can sleep anywhere, really.” Mirror batted her eyelashes, trying to make her point clear.

“Oh.” He said, blushing and making himself absolutely beautiful. “Oh.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

They walked, side by side, through the warm summer night. He had stammered and blushed when she took him into a drugstore to get over-the-counter birth control spells — it had been so long that Strange Mirror had forgotten the ones they’d taught her in magic high school — but he insisted on paying even when she had explained that money wasn’t an issue for her.

They stopped to kiss at the door of his apartment building, and then on the stairs, and then in his living room.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” X said between kisses. “We just met a few hours ago.”

Strange Mirror ran her tongue over his lips, then slid it inside when he opened it up. She caressed his tongue with hers, exploring him gently. He had good teeth.

“I want to. I’m lonely,” she said a few minutes later. “And horny. And you seem good. You seem like a good pony. But not too good.”

“I’m not too good,” he agreed with a wry half-smile. “I should be strong.”

Mirror sighed, and began taking off her clothes. “I, an adult mare, of my own free and extremely enthusiastic will, more-or-less sober and of sound mind, offer you my body with no strings attached. You want me, and have no other commitments.” She balled up her clothes and tossed them into his face. “The choice is yours. I’ll be in your bed if you need me.”

She went into his closet-like bedroom, wriggled under his sheets. He came in and closed the door behind him. The light from the room’s widows lit only the edges of his body. She closed her eyes as he climbed into bed and lay against his back. He kissed his way along her spine. He lost his way as he reached her croup, nipping and licking. She brushed her tail against his face, then lifted it aside. He pulled her cheeks aside with his hooves. She heard him inhale.

“Do you like the way I smell?”

“Yes. You smell like summer.”

Mirror spread her hind legs. He was quite skilled with his mouth. And an intolerable tease — she was begging by the time she came, sweating and twitching and melting across the sheets. He didn’t want to stop after the first time. He was obsessed with her little nub. He sucked on it and ground in circles with his tongue until a second orgasm burst through her body, so intense it was almost painful.

He seemed to want to go for a third. She kicked him in the head. “Stop it and fuck me already,” she moaned.

X climbed up on top of her just as she was, on her side with her leg in the air. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, but feeling his belly rubbing against her cutie mark was an odd thrill. He slid inside of her all at once, rough and insistent — his manner in life was polite, but in taking his pleasure he was thoroughly demanding. Mirror didn’t mind at all. She pushed the edge of her forehoof down on her clit, jilling off as he fucked her. Pleasure started to build in her lower belly again.

“Don’t come yet,” she moaned.

“What?” said X.

“Oh! Don’t come yet!”

X shouted with pleasure. His wings spread wide, gray feathers floating down around them. She felt him spray inside of her, a very pent-up load filling every available bit of her insides. Oh well. She kept fiddling with herself until she came a third time — a violent spike of joy right up her spine. She clamped down on him, making him groan and thrust again. Then he pulled out, flopped down against her back, panting like a black dog on a hot day.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

He wanted to cuddle. He wanted to cuddle for a long time. She needed to clean up! Every time she tried to wriggle away from him, he pulled her closer, like she was some kind of giant soft toy.
He was a mare. She’d hooked up with a mare in a stallion’s body.
Anyway, she was very sleepy. She could wash up in the morning. She lay small spoon against him, feeling that wonderful broad pegasus chest rising and falling against her back.

“I thought you said you were a scribe,” mumbled X.

“What?” said Strange Mirror, her eyes fluttering closed.

“Your cutie mark. It’s a hand mirror. What does that have to do with being a scribe?”

Her cutie mark. Crap. That was the one thing her condition didn’t effect, which was why she wore a skirt all the time. She’d made up a lie for this. What was it? Oh yes.

“I have such good penmanship that I can write backward as easily as forwards. It's a long story. I’ll tell you some other time.”

“Oh. Okay,” said X.

“X?”

“Yes, Mildred?”

“What do you see when you look at me?”

X sat up a little. “What do you mean?”

“Everything. The way I look, but intangible stuff is okay too. I know its strange, but humor me. Am I really that much like Edelweiss?” Strange Mirror had no idea what she looked like. Or what other ponies saw when they looked at her. It was rare to get a chance to ask.

“You really aren’t anything like her. She was an earth pony, and you’re a unicorn. She was sturdy and you’re slim. She was yellow with a short white curly mane and you’re purple with a long straight red mane. Her eyes were green and yours are amber. She was shy, and you’re confident.”

“I have my shy side,” said Strange Mirror dreamily.

“Well, I don’t know you that well. She was a little prim, and you’re… earthy, I guess.”

“Ironic.”

“What?”

“That of the two of us the earth pony was less earthy,” said Mirror. “Sorry. It seemed funny when I said it.”

X kissed her ear. She flicked it against his nose. He lay down against her again. They were silent for a while.

“I know what it is,” he said as she was beginning to fall asleep.

“Brave. You’re both very brave. Not at all afraid to ask for want you want. Not afraid to just… go.” He was starting to sound sad.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked,” she mumbled. “It got weird.”

“No, it’s all right. I started things weird, and it’s hard to move past that,” said X.

Strange Mirror yawned. “Wanna go to sleep?”

X rested his head on her neck. “Sounds good to me.”

3

The sun was already up when Strange Mirror woke. She slid out of bed, careful not to wake X.

His apartment was nice — tiny, as most Canterlot apartments were, cluttered but clean, with tasteful but unmatched furniture. Books were everywhere, mostly non-fiction. History, mathematics, money things. Not her thing, but at least he read. She found her clothes and looked for his bathroom.

Something felt wrong. She felt like there was something at the edge of her vision that was both totally normal and yet shouldn't be there. Something as plain as the snout on her face.

Maybe it was just waking up in a strange place. Yes, that was it. A disruption in routine could be very unnerving to a pony with a condition. Oh well. She’d get things sorted out soon enough. The first door she tried was a closet; the second a kitchen not much bigger than the closet. The third — and only remaining —interior door was the bathroom. Not a lot of room to maneuver in here, either. She started the shower and turned to sit on the toilet.

Then she froze. Something moved in the of the corner of her eye. She could see something in the mirror over the sink. There was another pony in the room with her! She whipped around towards the shower, instinctively raising a shield spell and… There was nopony there.

What the fuck?

She slowly turned around to face the mirror. There was the other pony. A skinny purple unicorn with a long, straight red mane and amber eyes. She had a dark skirt and a striped blouse wadded up in her forelegs.

“Oh no,” she whispered, dropping her clothes and rushing to the mirror. It was her! She turned her head from side to side and waved her hoof in front of the mirror. Even though she knew that was how it worked, it was so odd that everything in the mirror was backward from real life.

Also, she was beautiful. Gorgeous, really. So that was nice. But what did this mean for her condition? Was it gone? Joy thrilled in her heart. That was wonderful!

Except no. It wasn’t. It was terrible. What was she going to do? She could have taken care of her condition in so many positive ways. Instead, she had chosen to use it to live a life of crime, and now it was gone and everything was going to come crashing down around her. She was going to go to jail!

No. Wait. The crime she had chosen, out of every crime in the world, was treason. They didn’t put you in jail for treason. The executed you. After a humiliating show trial. Or worse. Shadowbolts. She’d be disappeared. Extraordinary rendition. “Intense interrogation” in a hotel somewhere in Mexicolt.

Oh, Harmony she was doomed.

She paced back and forth, hooves clicking on the tile floor. Her head hurt. Her frogs were tingling. Her pulse was racing. Maybe things weren’t that bad. Maybe her condition was only partially gone. Maybe she could see herself, but everypony else still saw what they wanted. That would be good, right?

All right. Change of plans. Wash up quickly in the sink. Take a piss — mother of *fuck* she had to piss. Get dressed. Get down to Crusty’s stall and see if her condition still worked.

“Mildred!” said X, sitting up in bed as she stormed out of the bathroom. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” said Strange Mirror. “Everything was wonderful, it's not you there’s been an emergency I have to go but I’m fine!”

“Mildred, no, wait, I…”

And she was out the door. She pelted down the stairs and out into the street. She raced five blocks through the height of the morning commute to the bar, where, miraculously her bike was still waiting. The miracle might have had something to do with Matthew being asleep in the front basket. That bird was a terror when he got his dander up.

She pumped her bike uphill as fast as she could, thighs burning with effort. She tore through a stop sign right in front of a traffic guard, who didn’t look up from his donut. The ponies going to work all around her didn’t spare her a second glance — no surprised gasps, no longing looks. This was bad. This was very bad. She skidded to a stop in front of Crusty’s stall.

Matthew, finally awake, hopped out of the basket and started scavenging scraps. Strange Mirror leaned her bike against a lamp post, took a deep breath, smoothed her wrinkled blouse, and walked over to Crusty Biscuits. “I’d like my donut please,” she said in a falsetto, voice trembling.

“What kind?” Hissed Crusty. “And why are you talking in that stupid voice?”

“Don’t you remember me?” said Strange Mirror, in her normal voice.

“No,” growled Crusty.

“Sack of day-olds, please,” said Strange mirror, putting a few small coins in front of Crusty.

“Here you go, cheapo,” scowled Crusty, shoving a sack at her.

Strange Mirror sat on her bike and stuffed a whole donut in her mouth. It was gone. Her condition was totally, suddenly gone. This was all that stallion’s fault! He’d somehow made her into his fantasy, permanently! No, that couldn’t be right. He’d said she looked nothing like his old girlfriend. Was this what she’d always really looked like? Had he seen through her illusion to the real her, and broken her curse with his kiss — or his cock, or whatever — like a prince in a fairy tale? And if so, was there a way to get re-cursed?

She kicked off downhill, swearing around a mouthful of half-chewed donut. Stupid magic. If you wanted it to do something with it, you had to get everything right — envision the spell with perfect clarity, maybe say some words, and Harmony help you if you got the accents wrong. But it could just fuck up your life, at random, at any moment, for no apparent reason. And then when you finally got used to being fucked up, it could fuck you up again, just as randomly, even worse than before.

She whizzed downhill towards work, wheels a blur, Matthew cawing furiously at her as flapped behind her, struggling to keep up.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

The security guard at the front desk of Principality Central Archives looked her over with knitted brows. “Mildred? Is that you?”

Good. Apparently she looked enough like Mildred to pass, even without her condition. “Broke my glasses. I’m wearing my contacts today,” she said, seamlessly incorporating into her web of lies the fact that she had no idea where she’d left Mildred’s glasses. Were they at X’s apartment? They were probably at X’s apartment.

The guard grunted and looked at her ID. “Okay. Are you doing something different with your mane?”

“I’m so glad you noticed,” she said and hurried inside. If she could make it through today… well, if she could make it through today, she’d have to make it through tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. Her condition might come back, but she couldn’t count on that. She’d have to adapt.

Still. Stay optimistic, right? She got some funny looks as she took down the next set of ledgers on her schedule, but she made it to her office. She got her quill and a clean ledger and some loose leaf from her drawer. There. Had she forgotten anything? Yes, she’d forgotten the donuts outside. Well, that was too bad, she couldn’t risk security again. She’d just have to remember tomorrow. She sat down and set to work.

“Mildred?” said her supervisor Staples, poking her head through the door. Staples was a typical tall white Canterlot unicorn, who wore her indigo mane in a tight bun on the back of her head.

“Yes?” said Strange Mirror, looking up from her work and trying to sound nonchalant.

“You were late this morning. Are you all right?” She looked concerned.

“I had… um… bike trouble. Everything trouble, really. You know how it is.” She laughed in a way she hoped didn’t sound forced and artificial.

“I was surprised. You’re never late.” She glanced at the pile of loose leaf, seeing as if for the first time the neat rows of figures she was copying onto it. Her eyes narrowed. “Mildred, what are you doing?”

Strange Mirror gulped. “Just… taking notes.”

Staples frowned. “Well, be sure to destroy them before you leave for the day. The information here may seem harmless, but much of it is classified. All right?”

“Y-yes, Ma’am.”

Strange Mirror worked through lunch, copying as much as she could. She’d catch Unremarkable Brown Pony at the bookstore tonight, to try and explain to him what was going on. She was sure he’d be more understanding if she brought a larger than usual pile of data with her. But it was hard to concentrate when she was so afraid. Fear had settled at the bottom of her stomach like an undigested donut, weighing her down and making her hooves clumsy.

When it was time to pack up, she looked up from tying off her pile of loose leaf to see Staples lurking outside her office door. Bugger it with a pitchfork! Staples was standing there, chatting with Mirror's neighbor across the hall, glancing every so often over her shoulder into Strange Mirror’s office.

No subtlety at all. Staples was on to her. The heavy feeling in Mirror's belly got worse.

Strange Mirror puttered around her office as long as she could, but soon she felt like the puttering itself was starting to look suspicious. She put the loose leaf into the pile with the old ledgers and headed for the furnace room, hoping to slip it into her bag once Staples was out of sight. But Staples never got out of sight. Every time Strange Mirror looked over her shoulder, she was there. Looking at a plant. Getting a cup of coffee. Coming out of the restroom. It was like being haunted.

At last, Mirror got to the furnace room. She was alone for a moment. She pulled the loose leaf out of the pile, set it on the floor, and opened the furnace door.

“Oh, hi, Mildred,” said Staples, pushing a cart full of old ledgers into the furnace room. “The custodian had to go home early; I thought I’d just take care of these myself.”

Strange Mirror ground her teeth, picked up the loose leaf, and tossed it into the flames.

4

She should just run. Take the money she had and leave town before her mistakes caught up with her. But she hoped — cruel, foolish hope — she hoped that the Unremarkable Brown Pony would understand. She felt like she should give an explanation. And maybe, if he did understand, she would only have to worry about the government, and not the changelings as well. Maybe they could help her.

It was a foolish hope, but it was all she had. So after work, she found herself at the bookseller, browsing romance novels and watching the cooking section.

The Unremarkable Brown Pony went to the cooking section as usual, and then froze when he didn’t find the twined up bundle of loose leaf. He turned and hurried for the door. Strange Mirror grabbed a hoofull of random novels and set an intercept course.

“Oh! Excuse me!” she said after she plowed into him, dropping her novels. He didn’t stop to help her pick them up, but she was able to whisper “Meet me in the park at the top of the hill.” He didn’t say anything, but he met her gaze and she was pretty sure he’d understood.

Well. That was done. She bought the books, met Matthew at her bicycle, bought some bread from Crusty and some cheese from another shop, and headed for the park.

For the first time in almost a full day, Strange Mirror felt at peace. She ate her bread and cheese and watched the sun going down over the city. She browsed her new novels a bit. They mostly looked pretty good, but she wasn’t in the mood to read, so she watched Matthew hopping around scavenging for bugs and tasty trash instead.

The Unremarkable Brown Pony sat down next to her and unfolded his newspaper. “You’d better have an explanation for this,” he said without looking at her.

“I’ve had a change in circumstances,” said Strange Mirror, opening one of her books and pretending to read.

“What happened to the spell you were using to disguise yourself? And why isn’t there a drop for today?” said the Unremarkable Brown Pony.

“It wasn’t a spell. It was… well. More like a medical condition. And it got better rather suddenly. I’m trying to adjust but it's going to take me a few days to adapt.”

The Unremarkable Brown Pony sneered and turned the page of his newspaper. “That’s all right. We’ve found what we were looking for. Your services are no longer required.”

“Oh,” said Strange Mirror. Time to get out of town then. “Well then.”

The Unremarkable Brown Pony folded his newspaper, stood up, and left without saying anything else. Strange Mirror called to Matthew, packed her things in the bike’s basket, and headed for her apartment.

She was making plans as she locked up her bike and headed upstairs, leaving Matthew to hop around the yard looking for dessert. She’d better leave tonight. She had the money in her room, her money from work in her bank, and a couple of emergency stashes elsewhere in the city. Would clearing out her bank account arouse too much suspicion? She’d have to go by there anyway, there were some things she’d need in her safe deposit box.

She unlocked her apartment door and opened it to find herself waiting for her. Something hard hit her in the back of the head, and everything went dark.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“So now what do we do with her?”

Strange Mirror blinked. Her head hurt. She was tied to a chair by the window. There was a magic suppressor over her horn. Two undisguised changelings were standing on the other side of the room, bickering about her fate.

Being in a romance novel was fine when she was at the meet-cute and sex parts, but she could have lived without this.

“Just kill her,” said the blue-eyed changeling. “Commander Mandible said that we should ‘take care of her’. That means ‘kill her’. It’s whadda’ ya’ call it, a euphemism.”

“Listen, I’m fine with killing her. But what are we going to do with the body?” said the green-eyed changeling.

“Just leave it here. They’re never going to figure out who did it,” said the Blue Eyes. “It’ll be fine.”

Green Eyes sighed. “It won’t be fine if we need to get into Central Archives again.”

“Why not? We can just look like her."

“Dead people don’t usually come into work!" said Green Eyes, waving his forelegs in the air. "That’s going to look just a little bit suspicious.”

“So what are you suggesting?” said Blue Eyes.

“Get rid of her. Toss her in the river or something.”

“We’re twenty blocks from the river! How would we even get her down there?”

“I don’t know," said Green Eyes with a shrug. "Disguise ourselves as morticians?”

Strange Mirror tuned out of their conversation, and looked around the room. She was facing away from the windows, but the mirrors on the walls gave her a decent view of them. She always kept one a little way open in nice weather so that Matthew could come and go as he pleased. Just now he fluttered up to see what was taking her so long. He tilted his head from side to side, trying to process what he was seeing.

Strange Mirror jerked her head at him twice and twisted the forelegs tied behind her chair. Matthew got the idea. He flapped in through the window and began to pluck at the knot holding her fetlocks together.

The changelings were too distracted by their argument to notice what was going on. “Well maybe we could chop her up and put her in a sack?” said the Green Eyes.

“Oh, you’re going to chop her up and put her in a sack. You get a little crack in your carapace and you go into a swoon,” said Blue Eyes.

The ropes came away. Matthew was a very good bird.

Strange Mirror took a deep breath, and slowly, slowly raised her hooves to her forehead. She slid the magic suppressor off her horn. There.

“Well, I don’t see you coming up with any bright ideas,” said Green Eyes.

“I have one. Just off the top of my head,” said Strange Mirror.

The two changelings turned to look at her, and she blasted them both in the face with a double-barreled bolt of telekinetic energy. They tumbled back against the far wall of the room but started to get up again almost immediately.

Matthew dove at them, pecking at their eyes.

The changelings were distracted, but they were still blocking the door. There nothing for it but to go out the window. Strange mirror looked out at the three-story drop, and her stomach lurched. She could do this — true self-levitation was Twilight Sparkle-grade stuff, but every filly in magic middle school learned how to break a fall with magic. Matthew flew past her, lavender feathers fluttering in his wake. Something grabbed at her skirt.

She leaped. Her stomach felt like it was following five feet behind her. The knot on the back of her head pulsed with pain as she cast the safety spell.

The courtyard was full of churned up dirt from the work ponies yesterday. She aimed a magic blast at her bike lock. The lock was the best money could buy and was unharmed, but the rusty cast iron bike rack it was tied to flew to pieces. Good enough. She took off, bike chains rattling, banking towards the nearest downhill road to work up some momentum.

“Get out of the way!” she shouted, pedaling like mad down a busy nighttime Canterlot street. She risked a look over her shoulder — two angry-looking pegasai were flapping after her in hot pursuit. One had blue eyes, one had green, and they both had red beak marks all over their faces.

She swore and turned off to the right. The colossal bulk of the third buttress rose ahead from where it was anchored in the hills at the top of the Saddle Buckle tier. Three roads passed through its base — the largest at Whippoorwill Street, with two raised pedestrian walkways at either side. Strange Mirror popped a wheelie, hopped her bike up onto the curb, and onto the sidewalk. Ponies flattened themselves against shopfronts as she and her pursuers tore by.

The pedestrian archway through the buttress was low, only a couple of feet above the head of an average pony. Strange mirror peddled hard, lowering her head down over the handlebars. She passed into the tunnel. The rough rock tugged at strands of her mane. Seconds later heard a single, sickening crunch behind her.

But only one. She looked back — a blue-eyes pegasus was still flying behind her, gaining on her, his face red with rage and bird bites. He reached out and grabbed a hoofull of her mane, nearly tugging her off her bike. He began to laugh.

He kept laughing right until he smacked into one of the ceiling lamps that illuminated the tunnel. Then he turned back into a changeling and plummet to the pavement.

Strange Mirror didn’t slacken her speed as she headed out of the tunnel. Forget leaving the city for now — the Unremarkable Brown Pony was probably watching the train station and the airship dock anyway. She was doomed. She was going to die.

If that was the case, there was only one thing left to do — it was time to find X and give him a piece of her mind.

5

Strange Mirror had rehearsed the upcoming scene with X in her mind with great clarity on the way over. She would first let him know exactly how much trouble, pain, and inconvenience he had caused her — deliberately or not. Then she would compel him to help her devise a way to arrange the return of her condition and with it the way of life she’d become accustomed to.

But he didn’t answer his buzzer when she got there. Bereft of any plan beyond yelling at X, and utterly exhausted by the day’s events, Mirror found herself unable to think of anything to do but sit on his apartment building’s front steps and brood.

Matthew caught up with her quickly enough. He confirmed that she was physically intact, and then scolded her for allowing herself to get into such danger. That done, he commenced patrolling the tiny front garden for anything to eat.

The changelings had been going to kill her. They had! It was difficult to take it in. Strange Mirror was not a pony with an inordinate fear of death, but it wasn’t something she looked forward to, either. She understood that the process of dying could be quite painful. The memory replayed itself again and again in her mind. Her head hurt, especially where they'd hit her, and where Green Eyes had pulled her hair. She felt a sort of jangly, floating sensation in her body.

As she waited, Strange Mirror began to realize that these were not nice changelings. Some changelings were nice, these days, which is why she had agreed to work for Unremarkable Brown Pony. It had been easy enough to persuade herself that he’d been after business information or blackmail material or something else relatively harmless. But the longer she sat the more and more she began to fear that she’d given them the means to do something very, very bad.

The weather worsened as the evening wore on. Mountain winds blew a cold, soaking rain across the city, pounding into Strange Mirror and making her clothes cling to her sodden coat. She was shivering and sobbing when X finally came home, carrying an umbrella in his mouth.

“Mildred?” he said, dropping his umbrella into his hoof. “Are you all right?”

“I lied to you!” wailed Strange Mirror, wrapping her forelegs around her chest and rocking back and forth.

“Oh… okay? But are you all right?” said X, stepping closer so that he could cover them both with his umbrella.

“I’m a liar and I’m a traitor and something horrible is going to happen and it’s all my fault!” said Strange Mirror.

X gasped. “Mildred, are you married?”

Mirror laughed bitterly, and then started coughing, and then started crying again. She threw her forelegs around X’s withers and bawled into his suit coat. Matthew cawed piteously from underneath a juniper bush.

“Whatever it is, maybe we could discuss it inside?” said X.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

X paced back and forth across the tiny open floor space of his apartment, a storm of emotions flickering across his face in sequence. Rage. Pity. Confusion. Fear. More rage. Strange Mirror sat on his bed, a blanket over her shoulders, holding a cup of coffee, watching X and feeling even more miserable than she had outside. Torturing yourself with guilt and shame was one thing. Having another pony confirm that you have, in fact, done something horrible was quite another.

X stopped pacing to look at her. “What…?” He started pacing again. “How…? Why did you…?” He stood on his hind legs and threw his forehooves in the air. “How could you ever have even considered that what you did was an appropriate thing to do? Under any circumstances?”

“I don’t know,” whimpered Strange Mirror.

“You don’t know? Please tell me you put at least a little thought into it before you decided to betray Equestria!”

Strange Mirror winced. “Well, I did, but…”

“But what?” X pointed at the rain pelting on the window. “I’ve half a mind to throw you right back out there and let you fend for yourself!”

Matthew stuck his head out from under the blanket. “Caw,” he begged. “Caaaaw.”

“Don’t you start,” snapped X.

“It wasn’t something I decided all at once,” said Strange Mirror, as calmly as she could. “I was just trying to live with my condition. And that was hard. But it was also all I had. And then you took that away from me, and then everything fell apart.”

X took a deep breath. “Okay. Why don’t you explain the condition thing to me? We’ll start with that.”

Strange Mirror sipped her coffee. “I’ve always been invisible to myself. But things really changed when I got my cutie mark. Our town got a new teacher when I was eleven. She was very strict, and she and I did not get along. Every time she cracked down on our class, it just made me angrier. I found myself looking for new ways to provoke her.”

“My Harmony,” said X. “You are just like Edelweiss.”

“It got to the point where she was trying to have me expelled. My parents talked her into giving me one more chance. They told me that I all I needed to do was be who Mrs. Martinet wanted me to be.” Strange Mirror took a deep breath. “So I tried it. I tried just… thinking obedient thoughts. And it worked. She didn't care if I talked out of turn, or drew on my desk, or flew paper airplanes. If I raised my hoof, she took whatever answer I gave her as correct. I told her the capital of Yakyakistan was forty-two, a triangle had eight sides, and the definition of “participle” was “Mrs. Martinet is a stupid cunt-faced sow”. Even my classmates didn’t seem to notice. When I got home, and my parents told me what a wonderful, obedient little girl I was, and how proud they were that I’d gotten my cutie mark.” She laughed bitterly. “Everypony talks about what a big deal it is to get your cutie mark, but I didn’t even notice when I got mine.”

X turned pale. “That’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard.”

Strange Mirror made a wry expression. “It’s not an excuse for anything. But the temptation to misuse it was overwhelming. And it's not like I could lead a normal life like that, was it? I stowed away on a train to Canterlot and started learning to be a con mare. I’m self-taught. so I made some mistakes. Like trying to scam a changeling. But they saw potential in my condition and they hired me. And the rest was history. Until you.”

“Until me?” said X, looking bewildered. “What did I do?”

Strange Mirror spread out her forelegs and waved her coffee cup at him. “I don’t know. Something! This is all your fault! You came in me and my life has been a disaster ever since!”

“Well maybe its because you’re so much like Edelweiss,” suggested X.

“I'm really getting sick of that comparison,” said Strange Mirror.

“I’m sorry. I’ll try not to say anything about it, ever again. But when I looked at you the first time, I saw Edelweiss, because that’s who I wanted to see, right? But then I started talking to you, and you started… coming into focus for me. It’s kind of odd, looking back on it. Like I was looking at Edelweiss, and there’s Mildred gradually bleeding through that image. But It didn’t bother me at the time, for some reason.”

“Because magic,” said Strange Mirror.

“Exactly!” said X. “Like… maybe I used my memories of Edelweiss as kind of an anchor to help me see through the illusion, to the real you! And then we made love, and I fixed you! With my love!”’

Strange Mirror sneered. “Don’t pat yourself on the back too hard, you’ll pull a muscle. And you’re not in love with me. We just met.”

“Love at first sight is a thing. It totally is.”

“Anyway, that's not what happened. What happened is that you’re obsessed with me because I remind you of your ex-marefriend. The emotional energy from that fucked up whatever magical effect I’ve had on me for most of my adult life. Which… honestly, that would be wonderful. Except its likely to get me killed before I have a chance to enjoy it.”

X tapped his hooves together. “So yeah. I feel like we’re getting away from the treason thing.”

Strange Mirror nodded. “Right. I’ve had a think, while we’ve been talking. I’ve decided I’m going to fix that.”

“Fix it how?”

She shrugged. “Any bright ideas? I’m still not sure how what I gave them could be dangerous.”

“You were converting old financial records into Twilight Sparkle’s new ledger system, right? We use that at work, now. It’s really good!”

“So you said last night. Several times, actually. Without prompting,” said Strange Mirror.

“Well,” said X, “what records were you working in?”

“I was assigned to Accounts Payable: Infrastructure Maintenance and Repair. I started with year 950, and the last one I sent to the changelings was 993, I think.”

X’s jaw fell open. “Infrastructure! And you didn’t think they could do anything bad with that?”

Strange Mirror winced. “Well, I tried not to linger on it too much.”

“A lot happened in that date range,” said X. “Is there…” He frowned as gears turned in his head. “Is there any way I could look at those ledgers? I might be able to figure out what the changelings are after. Maybe we could warn somepony.”

Strange Mirror raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know. We’d have to sneak you into Central Archives. That would be illegal. Are you up for that?”

X grimaced, and leaned away from her. “Oh, it would be illegal wouldn’t it?”

Strange Mirror smiled and set down her coffee. “Let’s do this. It’ll broaden your horizons.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

Strange Mirror stepped up to the security pony at the front desk and flashed her badge. “We’ve found an irregularity in the records, and Staples asked me to bring in an outside consultant to have a look at it.”

“At nine o’clock at night?” said the guard, plucking the ID out of Strange Mirror’s hoof before she could tuck it away.

“It’s very urgent,” said Strange Mirror. “This is Numbers Numbers from the accounting firm of Dewie, Cheetham, and Howe. He’ll be assisting me tonight.”

X — who was wearing dark glasses, a fake mustache, and a different colored suit coat than usual — nodded seriously and handed the guard a business card, still warm from the press at the late night printer’s shop.

“I don’t know about this,” said the guard, tilting back her cap to scratch her head. “You said Staples told you to do this?”

“Yes. Yes she did,” said Strange Mirror.

The guard blew out through her nose. “Well, fine, I guess.” She tossed her ID card back to Strange Mirror, and pulled out a clipboard. “He has to sign in, though.”

Strange Mirror lead X down the long, wide main towards the stacks. There is a certain majesty and mystery to a large building at night. Spaces meant to be filled with the voices and bustle of dozens of ponies were filled only with the echo of one’s own hoof-steps. The stacks were vast. Bookshelves so tall they needed a ladder tall enough to be useful to the fire department were laid out like spokes on a wheel around a central reading area. Three more stories rose above them, each packed with more bookshelves, up to a domed rotunda painted with a gilded mural depicting the pontifications of the virtues of Organization, Wisdom, and Punctuality.

“Whoa,” said X.

“This way,” said Strange Mirror.

She led him to an alcove and up a spiral staircase to the second floor, rolled a ladder over, and began pulling out ledgers.

“There are kind of a lot of them,” she said. “Is there any way to narrow it down?”

“Actually I was thinking about that,” said X. “Get me… let's start with 952, 959, 967 and 68, and… the second half of 970.”

“All right,” said Strange Mirror, handing down the books one or two at a time. “We’ve got an intellectual, here.”

“That’s right,” said X, laying the books on the floor in front of him. “If you want to help, the kind of things we’re looking for would be expenditures above one million bits.”

So she settled in next to X and started leafing through ledgers. They were at it for some time. It was pleasant, sitting next to a pony she liked and reading — granted, the material wasn’t inherently engaging, but the mystery gave it a savor it wouldn’t ordinarily have had. And she hadn’t gotten to enjoy real companionship in some time. She especially liked when she found something she could share with him; they would discuss it and set it aside for later consideration.

That thought gave her pause. Was she really that shallow? Ponies’ lives could be at risk, and she was enjoying the thrill of it? She blew out through her nostrils in frustration. It was bad to be more interested in thrills than in the consequences of her actions. Was she a bad pony?

“Did you find something?” said X, lifting his head.

“No, my mind was wandering.” She looked down at her hoof, which was resting over an entry for ten point two million bits. “Wait, what’s this?”

X craned his neck over towards her book. “‘Repairs: Third Buttress, Palace Tier’. What year is this? 970? This is it! This is the one.”

Strange Mirror squinted at him. “How do you know that?”

“First, it’s near the end of the range you worked on. I doubt your Unremarkable Brown Pony just happened to be ready to fire you at the same moment you became an unreliable resource. He probably went back to the most recent useful thing you’d found and decided to move ahead with that.”

“Okay,” said Strange Mirror, “But I still don’t get what the big deal is with this particular repair?”

“There was an earthquake in the Canter River Valley in the second month of 970. Those are rare in this region, and usually not very powerful, but this one caused major damage to the third buttress of Palace Tier. But the Equestrian economy was still recovering from the parasprite infestation of ’67 and ’68. The royal budget was tight due to reduced tax income, and they’d switched policy from going to the most qualified contractor, to hiring the lowest bidder.”

Light dawned behind Strange Mirror’s eyes. “Which means sub-standard repairs to an important piece of municipal architecture.”

“Exactly!” said X, jumping up. “They’ll be targeting that, I’ll guarantee it.”

“We’ve got to stop them!” said Strange Mirror.

“No, we’ve got to tell the guard,” said X. “We can’t just…”

Then Strange Mirror heard something. She held up a hoof, silencing X. There were voices approaching from the entrance.

“And they went back this way?” Staples’ voice echoed around the rotunda.

“Yes. I’m sorry I let them in,” came the security guard’s voice.

“Don’t be. There’s something going on with that Mildred Do. I used to think she was a model employee, but I’m suddenly seeing my memories of her very differently. I suspect magic.”

“Mother fucker,” hissed Strange Mirror. “Quick, this way.”

She guided him around the rotunda to a back stair, and out the fire exit. A magic alarm started wailing the second the pushed the handle, making them both jump.

Strange Mirror had had the forethought to park her bike in the alley behind Central Archives; she hurried into the bike seat, scooted forward, and patted the seat behind her. X climbed up behind her, fumbling with panic. She started pedaling, and X spread his wings to either side for balance.

“Stop squirming!” shouted Strange Mirror as they rolled away.

“You’re taking up the whole seat!” said X.

Strange Mirror grunted, and rose up off the seat, using the position to get extra power. She darted down the alley and around a corner into the street. Glancing leftward, up the street that was the straightest route back to Central Archives, she saw a royal guard on the corner, talking to the security guard.

“Mother of whores!” hissed Strange Mirror, and twisted the handlebars to the right.

“You! You there! Halt!" shouted the guard.

Another alley was coming up her left. Strange Mirror turned sharply, whipping around a street lamp, the corner of a newspaper box missing her and X’s left thighs by inches.

“What are you doing?” yelped X.

Strange Mirror didn’t respond. The streets and alleys of Canterlot were a tangled place, and alleys could wind around the backs of whole neighborhoods. Local ponies used them as hoof paths, avoiding the heavier traffic of main thoroughfares. Strange Mirror used this to her advantage, zipping between buildings in a snakelike pattern. Some of the alleys were so narrow that X had to fold his wings as bricks zipped by inches from their shoulders.

Soon the sounds of pursuit were far behind them and finally lost. Strange Mirror relaxed, sinking back into her seat against X’s body.

“Enjoying the ride?” said Strange Mirror, the corner of her mouth quirking up into a smirk. He'd gotten hard as a fence post the moment her body had touched his.

“Mildred, look out!” he said, wrapping his forelegs around her.

The alley in front of them ended in empty air. A staircase, crooked and narrow, loomed below them. There were treetops beneath Mirror's eye level. She squinted her eyes closed and braced herself for the crash. The ground fell away with a sickening lurch.

And she didn’t fall. Strange Mirror opened her eyes. Wind whipped past her face. X’s wings were spread, letting them glide down over the stairs to the small park below them.

“We’re flying!” squealed Strange Mirror, giggling with glee. “Flying!”

“Hold on tight!” shouted X.

They crashed through some tree branches, leaves scattering around them. The bike’s wheels hit the ground and bent. Its frame gave way with a resigned, metallic groan. Strange Mirror and X tumbled away from the wreck, rolling through grass and wet leaves. Finally, they came to a stop in a tangled heap of legs and wings.

“Are you all right?” said Strange Mirror, breathing hard, still wanting to giggle.

“I think I skinned my everything. But nothing’s broken. Are we safe?”

“I think the guards are gone.” Strange Mirror wriggled out from under X, and walked a few paces, then bounced on her hooves, making sure nothing important was damaged. She felt free. Alive. Horny.

Mirror flipped her tail up over her back. “Hey, you wanna?”

She half expected him to complain that they were in public, or that ‘on the run from the law’ wasn’t the best time for a quickie. But instead, he walked up behind her and took a deep whiff. She looked back at him as he curled up his lip to savor her scent. He was still wearing the fake mustache and glasses. She laughed. He nipped her on her rump. She whacked his face with her tail.

“Skip the foreplay and get inside me, Romeo,” she said. He hopped up on her back, wings spread wide. His forelegs gripped her belly, and after a couple of missed stabs he found the right spot and surged inside of her.

Strange Mirror gasped with pleasure and reached back with a forehoof to touch herself.

“Why are you on three legs?” he groaned as the two of them wobbled under his weight. “We’re going to fall down!”

“So I can cum! I’m not going to be able to get off with you hammering away at me like that! No, no, no, don’t get off! I like the hammering! I just need more… directed stimulation.”

“Wait, I know a trick,” said X. He slid halfway out of her and began making little, sharp jabs into her. The position and the angle allowed him to hit her little nub with the ring around the middle of his shaft, sending jolts of pleasure through her body.

“Oh. Oh, that’s nice. Who taught you that?” said Strange Mirror.

“Edelweiss,” said X.

“I shouldn’t have asked,” she moaned. “Faster. Faster! Oh, Harmony!”

Joy mounted rapidly in Strange Mirror’s body. The electric jolts soon became burning waves, slamming through her, making the hairs of her coat stand on end. She came in a rush. Light flashed behind her closed eyelids. Her ears rang.

“Now! All the way! harder!” she gasped.

X understood. He shoved himself all the way into her, hitting her deepest depth. Her whole body shook under his strength, making her soft flesh jiggle, and her bones ache. She reached down with a hoof again, rubbing at her sex frantically, not caring if they fell down. She felt X’s body jerk, heard him bite back a scream, and he was squirting inside of her, filling her so full it hurt. She ground her hoof against herself and came again, blinding white light flashing behind her eyes.

“Oh wow,” purred Strange Mirror, opening her eyes. She had double vision. She realized she was drooling. “That was amazing. You fucked me so hard I can’t even see straight.”

“Felt… felt so good,” said X. His glasses had slid down his snout and his mustache was askew.

“It sure did,” said Strange Mirror, flicking him with her tail. “Now let's get out of her before the guards find us.”

They left the wreck of the bike in the park, threw their clothes in a trash can they passed on the way, and staggered back to X’s apartment. Matthew was asleep in the middle of the bed. They collapsed onto it around him, touching at the head and hind hooves.

They kissed until they both fell asleep.

6

When Strange Mirror woke, up, everything that had happened yesterday came crashing down on her at once. She groaned and pulled a pillow over her face. She could not deal with this.

Okay. Time to assess.

There were no guards battering down the door. That was a good start.

Matthew and X were not in bed, but she could hear X cooking in the kitchen. Matthew was probably in there with him begging for scraps.

There was no screaming and crying from outside, so things were probably okay, but she had to be sure. She shouldn’t have gone to sleep. She found the sunglasses and mustache X had worn last night. His suit coats were big enough on her to cover her cutie mark. She rushed for the door.

“Oh, not again!” said X, rushing out of the kitchen, his voice muffled by the spatula in his mouth. Matthew was sitting on his back with a whole pancake clutched in his beak.

“I just need to check and make sure everything’s okay!” said Strange Mirror.

“Well get some buttermilk while you’re out!” said X, shouting after her as she hurried out the door.

The Palace Ring was still standing, for the time being.

Pedestrians bustled past her on the street. Strange Mirror flinched away from them, worried that any one of them could be a Changeling. She didn’t know if she’d lost her ability to sense them along with her condition. Naturally, she recognized the Unremarkable Brown Pony on sight, and the two buffoons who had ambushed her in her room had been pretty obvious.

Were there more Changelings out there? Watching her? Waiting to catch her alone? She suppressed a gasp as a red and gold changeling walked past. No. That one was brightly colored so probably good? There was something a little disturbing to her about the good ones being a different color from the bad ones but she couldn’t put her hoof on it. But if a changeling wanted to hide, why not disguise themselves as a changeling? No one would ever guess. Best to steer clear either way.

She hit the corner store — buttermilk, blue fur die, cutie mark makeup. And the newspaper. Couldn’t forget that.

“Nice mustache,” said the shop pony.

“Thank you,” said Mirror, hurriedly throwing bits at him.

She rushed back to X’s apartment building and flipped through the paper in the relative safety of the stairwell. No lurid front page articles on terrorist attacks, that was good. Nothing in the crime section about their little adventure at Central Archives, which could be good, bad, or neutral. Good — nobody thought it was a big deal. Neutral — the report hadn’t made the papers. Bad — the Principality was taking it very seriously and suppressing the report.

Strange Mirror closed her eyes and wished to Harmony that she wasn’t being secretly hunted by the Shadowbolts.

Well. If she was, there was nothing she could do about it. She was basically already tortured to death in Mexicolt. So no point in worrying. Time for pancakes.

“I was about to go out looking for you,” said X as she came through the door. “Your pancakes are probably cold.”

Strange Mirror tossed the shopping bag to X and fell on her plate of pancakes like a wolf on a lamb.

X rustled through the bag. “What’s all this disguise stuff for?”

“We gotta go incognito,” said Strange Mirror around a mouthful of pancakes. “These are really good!”

X set the bag down. “Oh. I was going to turn myself in after breakfast.”

Strange Mirror almost spat out her pancakes in shock. But that would have been a waste. She choked down her mouthful with a suddenly dry mouth. “What?”

X stood stiffly and held his head held high. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“Horse apples it is! We’re gonna stop this thing ourselves!” said Strange Mirror, slamming down her plate on the coffee table.

“How?” said X, aghast. “Also why? We have two heroic princesses in this city. They’re supposed to handle stuff like this.”

“If they believe you. Anyway, there are layers of bureaucracy between you and the princesses. By the time the news filters through to them, it could already be too late. Fur dye please?”

X eyed her skeptically as she went into the bathroom with the shopping bag. It took her half an hour to dye herself dark blue and paint over her cutie mark with a simple bubble design. She considered asking X in to help her, but she worried that might get sexual. She was stupidly attracted to him, and she didn’t trust herself not to just fuck the hours away while the city burned. She pulled her mane into a quick bun and looked in the mirror. it was still amazing to be able to see herself.

Damn, she was pretty.

Anyway, hopefully this would be enough to throw off the guards and the changelings. She didn’t have time for much else. She stepped out of the bathroom and found herself snout-to-slightly-higher snout with X.

“I don’t suppose I can change your mind,” said both of them at once.

They paused, stared at each other, and spoke again.

“No, this is the right thing to do.” They said.

Each narrowed their eyes at the other. Strange Mirror snorted. This was getting annoying.

“Well, listen,” they both said, “I don’t have time to try and change your mind, so…”

“Aurgh!” screamed Strange Mirror, and she bolted out the door.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

The wind at the edge of Palace Ring whipped over Strange Mirror, plucking at her bun, ripping tendrils of red hair free to float around her head. She’d decided to go naked as part of her disguise because she usually wore clothes. But she wished she hadn’t — it was cold up here.

The edge of the Ring was a wide open plaza-slash-park, with a railed observation deck at the very edge. Pay telescopes and small, politely worded signs warning dire consequences for ponies who attempted to fly, climb, or levitate over the rail were spaced evenly along the rail. From here, Strange Mirror could see only the clear blue summer sky out over the edge. She stopped at a park map to confirm that she was, in fact, over the third buttress. It had been a long trip — she’d had to walk to the funicular trolley, and ride that up to the palace tier. She’d sat looking at her hooves the whole way, paranoid that somepony would recognize here and alert the authorities. She wasn’t wanted, as far as she knew, but there was no reason not to be cautious.

Once at the funicular station, she could have taken a streetcar to the edge plaza, but she didn’t want to go through what she’d gone through on the funicular again, so she opted to walk.

Now, here she was. Her heart was in her throat. She could just look out over the edge, and see if there was anypony there, working on a terrorist attack. Yep. Just go check.

Strange Mirror wanted to puke.

Feeling like she was walking to the gallows, Strange Mirror dragged her hooves across the cobblestones to the railing. She hooked her hooves over it, and, ignoring the posted warnings, leaned out into space.

Seeing Canterlot like this took her breath away. In the nine years she’d lived here, she’d almost gotten used to it. With her condition, she hadn’t had the liberty to do a lot of sightseeing. Now both of the lower tiers stretched away beneath her. The Saddle Buckle tier looked like a model from up here. There was Central Archives. There was Easy Glider Square. She imagined she could make out the sign of Buckowski’s, the bar where she’d met X. Further below, so small that she could cover whole blocks with her hoof, was the Basal District. Through it all wound the Canter river, gleaming in the morning sun.

How much of that would be destroyed if the Palace Tier collapsed?

She forced herself to look down.

Nothing on the third buttress.

No. Wait. There were some workponies down there, at least a half dozen pegasi in orange vests and hardhats. They were flapping on and off of a small platform near the top of the buttress. Several of them were brown.

As she watched, two more pegasi flapped up towards the buttress, carrying some sort of large fetish between them — an arrangement of branches and chains, with a large chunk of glowing green stone in the middle. She didn’t know what that was, but whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

Strange Mirror wasn’t normally afraid of heights, but she suddenly felt vertiginous. She pulled her head back from the edge and slumped to the cobblestones, hot, silent tears squirting down her cheeks. it was happening. It was really happening. She had to get down there and try to stop them. But how?

There might be service entrances, but she didn’t know where they were and they’d be locked. It was too far jump down, and she didn’t know how to teleport. What could she do? Find a guard and accept punishment for her crimes? Nope, she was still too proud and too scared to try that, and at this point it would take too long. She could start throwing magic bolts at them but she doubted she could hit anything at this range. What could she do?

Then she had an idea. It was an amazingly stupid one, but it was the only thing she could think of that might be able to get her down there in one piece.

She stood up, leaned over the railing again, and waved both forehooves in the air. “Hello! Helloooo! Commander Mandible! That is your name, right? I know you’re down there and I need to talk to you!”

The workponies on the platform froze and stared at her. For a flicker, Strange Mirror wondered if she was wrong and they really were just ordinary workponies. Then there was a brief conversation below, and two pegasi flapped up to her. One had blue eyes, one had green eyes, and both had bandages on their faces.

They picked her up and carried her down to the platform. Once there they waited by her sides, holding her in place. From here she could see that there were three of the strange fetishes. The workponies (workchangelings?) were attaching them to the stone of the buttress by strands of some sort of organic changeling goo. The Unremarkable Brown Pony was there. He turned from supervising the workers to smile at her.

“Strange Mirror,” he said.

“Commander Mandible. I like the hat. It’s a good look for you,” said Strange Mirror.

“You look good as a blue,” said the Unremarkable Brown Pony.

“Why are you doing this?” said Strange Mirror. “You feed on love. Dead ponies can’t love anything.” Her eyes darted between the fetishes. She had a clear shot at one of the two fetishes that were hanging from stone. A telekinetic blast should knock it off into the city below — hopefully it wasn’t something that would explode on impact. The third was still lying on the platform. She had an idea for that one. A really stupid idea. But what about the third one?

“Love is a tainted food source,” said the Unremarkable Brown Pony wryly. “It has been linked to excessive sentimentality and reduced cognitive ability. Our researchers have discovered that suffering and fear are far more nutritious.”

“That’s amazing. Scientists really are making the most unbelievable discoveries these days,” said Strange Mirror. Green Eyes and Blue Eyes were keeping a tight grip on her forelegs. She needed a distraction, and she didn’t know where it was going to come from.

“I’ve reconsidered firing you, you know. You’re clearly very resourceful, even without whatever disguise magic you’ve allegedly forgotten,” said the Unremarkable Brown Pony.

“I’ll never join you,” said Strange Mirror.

The Unremarkable Brown Pony smiled coldly. “There are ways of overcoming that.”

“Great,” said Strange Mirror. “That’s just great.” She didn’t want to be brainwashed. That would not be fun at all.

Overhead, Strange Mirror caught a glimpse of lavender feathers. She looked up as casually as she could. Matthew. He was a good bird. He tilted his head questioningly. She gave the slightest of nods.

Seconds later, the blue-eyed changeling was laying on the platform holding his bandaged face and squealing in pain. Green Eyes stared up at Matthew, confused. Then he raised his forelegs over his face as Matthew dove in for a second attack, aiming right for the eyes.

The next few seconds seemed to move both very fast and really slowly at the same time. Strange Mirror, all four legs free, dove straight for the Commander Mandible. She knocked him down with a double kick to the chest. Mirror trampled over him and charged through confused changelings towards the closer of the two attached fetishes. She pulled together the strongest telekinetic blast she could, took aim and fired. Changeling goo and stone shards flew from the impact. The fetish hung for a precarious moment from a strand of webbing, then plummeted out of sight.

Strange Mirror whipped around. The element of surprise had faded, and Matthew was flapping away, leaving loose feathers in his wake. Six angry changelings surrounded her, disguises discarded, closing in.

Something bumped the back of Strange Mirror’s hoof. She looked down. The third fetish was just lying there.

Time for that stupid plan. She picked up the fetish with her forelegs.

“Put. That. Down,” said Commander Mandible, baring his fangs.

“Listen, I gotta go,” said Strange Mirror. “You guys are great, though. Never change.” And she launched herself back over the railing.

Everything inside of Strange Mirror was floating. The platform, studded with gaping changeling faces, was moving away from her at an incredible rate.

It was over. There was no getting out of this. She was going to die. She was going to hit the ground at terminal velocity. Her bones would turn to powder on impact. The rest of her would be reduced to pony pudding. If she was lucky, she’d die of shock on the way down and wouldn’t feel it. She began to scream.

Something slammed into her back. It seemed too early. She couldn’t even see any rooftops.

“Ouch,” said X, from beneath her.

“Caw!” said Matthew, from off to one side.

Strange Mirror rolled over on X’s back and wrapped a foreleg around his neck. The Canter river was beneath them. She kicked the fetish away and watched it tumble down and splash in the water below. “I thought you went to the guard?”

“I chickened out!” shouted X. “I don’t want to go to jail! So I came to help! Matthew found me just in time, I guess? He’s a hell of a bird.”

“Caaaaw,” said Matthew modestly.

“They’re coming after us!” shouted Strange Mirror, watching a wave of tiny black dots fly off the platform atop the Third Buttress.

“But you stopped them! You saved the day!” said X.

“I didn’t!” said Strange Mirror, wrapping all four legs around him. “I got two of those things, but there’s still one left!”

There was a flash of green light, followed by a shattering noise from behind them, like the biggest wineglass in the world breaking. Strange Mirror looked back. Tendrils of green mist enveloped the top of the buttress, dissolving everything they touched.

“It’s eating the stone!” she shouted.

Cracks were starting to form in the stone around the buttress. Rubble — rocks that must be as large as a pony — started to fall from the underside of Palace Tier. Strange Mirror’s insides turned to ice. It was happening. It was happening, and she’d caused it.

Then there were two smaller flashes. Two tiny dots, one indigo, one white, appeared next to the Third Buttress. Magical light enveloped the stone. Rubble began to fall upward.

“Holy mother of Harmony,” said Strange Mirror. “Princesses! Luna and Celestia! They’re fixing it!”

“I told you!” said X. “I bet they sensed the magic from the attack and came to help!”

“Also changelings! Getting close!” said Strange Mirror. They were faster than X. Much faster. Soon one was so close X’s tail was whipping him in the face. He opened his maw, showing razor-sharp teeth. Strange Mirror pulled back a hind leg and lashed out, kicking him right in the nose. He tumbled away with a yelp.

X banked and dove closer to the rooftops. X used the features of the Canterlot skyline to his advantage, navigating them with the familiarity of a native. He dove between double chimneys and around onion domes. Soon he had lost all but the most astute of their pursuers. Commander Mandible — now a quite remarkable gunmetal changeling instead of an unremarkable brown pony — lead a pair of followers through every trick X tried to throw at them.

Strange Mirror tore lightening rods and weather vanes off of buildings with her magic. She hurled them back at their pursuers. Most of them missed, and when they hit, they did little more than annoy the changelings.

“I have something to tell you!” said X.

“Now’s not the time!” said Strange Mirror, marshaling all of her magic to tear a gargoyle off a carved stone drain spout and hurl it backwards at Commander Mandible. He dodged, but it hit one of his followers right in the face. The changeling spiraled to the pavement below in a barely controlled tumble. “I got one! I got one!”

“I love you!” said X.

“I still think its a little early for that!” said Strange Mirror.

“I just want you to know how I feel before we die!” said X.

“That’s the spirit!” said Mirror, chucking a loose brick from a chimney at Commander Mandible. “Stay optimistic!”

X was getting tired. He was slowing and his flight path was sloping down towards the street. This was concerning, but it provided Strange Mirror with a better array of projectiles. She started chucking flower pots and decorative planters. They were heavier, but easier to throw because they weren’t anchored in concrete. Commander Mandible dodged them easily enough, but his remaining wingbug soon went down, plummeting to the sidewalk. By this time their little flying circus had gotten the attention of the guard, and he was in manacles as soon as he hit the ground.

Commander Mandible pulled up alongside them, snapping at X’s wings with his fang-filled maw. He tore a chunk away — all feathers, no blood. But the sight filled Strange Mirror with rage. She leaped off of X’s back, steering herself with her magic. She landed on Commander Mandible.

“Mildred! No!” screamed X.

Strange Mirror wrapped her forelegs and her magic around Commander Mandible’s neck and began to squeeze. He tried to snap at her but he couldn’t reach her. His trajectory began to waver, then dive. He was heading towards the river — intent on taking her with him? She freed up a foreleg and began bashing him on the head with her hoof. It took a few tries, but finally, his wings went still, and he half fell, half glided to a stop inches from the river railing.

Strange Mirror groaned in pain. She had scrapes and cuts all along her right side from the rough landing, and her head hurt from doing so much magic. She felt like she’d been doing griffon vodka shots all night long. She dragged herself away from Commander Mandible, stuck her head over the railing and puked into the river. The rapid current whisked her vomit away so fast she barely saw it. Green Eyes had been right — if they’d tossed her body in there, nopony would ever have seen it again.

X landed next to her and grabbed her in a hug.

“Sir. Ma’am? We have a few questions for you.”

Strange Mirror sighed and looked for the guards that hand no doubt gathered around her. But they weren’t guards. They were thestrals, in sunglasses and plain black suit coats. Shadowbolts.

“Oh no,” said Strange Mirror. “Oh no.”

The shadowbolts were leading Commander Mandible away. X was looking at them with relief. The fool. She pushed him away.

“X? I lied to you again. By omission, this time.”

“What?” he said, blinking with confusion.

“I love you too.” She kissed him, then pulled herself up over the railing and jumped into the river below.

Epilogue

The Dead Mare put a small stack of bits onto the counter of Crusty Biscuits’ stall.

“I owe you these,” said the Dead Mare. Crusty didn’t hear her, but she’d notice the money soon enough.

She turned and walked downhill. It would be a long walk to the airship dock in Basal Tier, but that was all right. She needed time to say goodbye to the city, and she had another stop to make before she left. Nopony looked at her as she walked — crowds parted around her as the icy waters of the Canter River had parted around her while she swam. It was that way because she wanted it that way — her condition was back, but she had some control over it this time.

Her condition was probably back because X thought she was dead. She shouldn’t think about that. Dead mares don’t cry.

The money in her apartment was probably already confiscated, and of course her assets in the bank would be frozen. So she didn’t bother with those. She already reached behind a loose board in an alley off Easy Glider Square to get out a saddlebag with some bits, some personal items, and a passport for a mare named High Horse. Now she dug up a locked box from under a tree in Silver Shade Park. It contained a small fortune in Dapplemarks. Not enough to live on forever. She’d have to find work when she got to Germaneigh, but this should get her there in comfort.

She hesitated before putting the empty box back in the ground. In the park with her, two foals, a unicorn and an earth pony, were talking to an elderly griffon lady. She kept giving them little candies. Their parents — a couple of male pegasai — cuddled together on a blanket in the sunlight watching their children.

Canterlot was a remarkable place.

She began to walk again. Past the expensive condos and apartments of the Saddle Buckle, into the rich food smells and bright colors of Kirintown, down the long stairs to the working class homes of the Basal Tier. She’d never been down here. These ponies had less money to scam away, and she wouldn't touch what they had. The Dead Mare had a respect for her own family’s blue horse-collar roots. She listened to the ponies on the street talking as she passed. The accents in this neighborhood suggested the poorer parts of Trottingham; lots of dropped ‘h’s and glottal ’t’s.

There were so many things she hadn’t seen in this city. Museums miles long. Decommissioned fortresses where you could look down the side of the mountain while you had a picnic. Twenty-story department stores that sold everything in the world.

Well, that was over, now. Burrolin and Horseburg had their wonders as well.

She heard a crow calling as she approached the airship dock. The Dead Mare looked around for Matthew. She would have liked to say goodbye. But he had his own things going on here. He wasn’t just her pet.

She dodged through the carriage drop-off lane and headed for the largest balloons — the international flights. She wouldn’t even need a ticket. She could just stroll through security and onto the first flight for Germaneigh.

“Strange Mirror,” said a stallion’s voice. She turned her head to see X sitting on a stone bench beside the station steps.

“They told you my real name,” said the Dead Mare.

“It’s very beautiful,” he said

“You’re not wrong, this time.”

“They thought you’d probably come this way,” X said. “They thought I was the only one who’d be able to see you.”

The wind here was intense. It whipped her mane into her eyes. She pushed it back with a hoof. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You can sit for a while,” said X. “You’re safe. Luna herself issued us full pardons. You could even have your old job at Central Archives back.”

The Dead Mare folded her legs beneath her on the bench next to X. “That hardly seems just. Well, I mean, for you. You were only an accomplice. But I nearly doomed the city.”

“You foiled a terror plot. If all three of those fetishes had exploded even the Princesses couldn’t have saved us. And now that Commander Mandible and his followers are in custody, they can interrogate them and track down agents and sympathizers all through Equestria. You’re a hero.”

The Dead Mare scowled. “I’m a villain who got cold feet. I can’t… I can’t be in Canterlot anymore. Everything here reminds me of what I did. What I almost ruined forever. Luna can forgive me, but I can’t forgive myself.”

X looked away. He opened his mouth as if he had something to say, but closed it again without speaking.

“Come with me,” said the Dead Mare.

X turned to her and raised his eyebrow. “Really? Leave everything I have here and just go? I still think I might love you, but that’s a lot to ask.”

“Well we did just meet,” she said. “But think about it. You loved Edelweiss, and you say you love me. What do we have in common? We’re brave. We just go. Maybe it’s not really us you love. Maybe we're somepony that you won’t let yourself be.” The Dead Mare smiled and put a forehoof on his. “Please come with me. You carry your own weight, and you’re good to have around in a pinch. We could have fun together.”

X shrugged, keeping his hoof against hers. “I do need to get out more. But what’s going to happen if you go away? You’re going to go back to your old ways. Your condition will get worse again. You’ll get in trouble again. And Matthew and I won’t be there to help you.”

The Dead Mare’s throat felt tight. It was true. What’s more, the changelings might find her. They definitely wouldn’t be too happy with her.

“I don’t want to go,” said the Dead Mare. “But I’m afraid. What will happen if everypony can see who I really am? What if they find out what I did?”

“What you really are is wonderful. Think of it this way — Strange Mirror drowned in the Canter River yesterday. What you were, what you did, it’s gone. It’s in the past, swept away where nopony can ever see it again. You can be Mildred Do. You can be whoever you want to be.”

The Dead Mare closed her eyes. She remembered the water closing over her, cold and swift. She had thought she might die, and she wouldn’t have minded if she did. But her instinct to live had taken over and she’d kicked her way to the surface. She had found a place to hang on until she could catch her breath.

“We might not work out,” she said, opening her eyes to look at him. So earnest. So innocent. His ragged forelock fluttered back and forth in the heavy wind.

“That’s okay,” said X. “That’s a risk we'll take. But I’ll show you everything in this city. And we can travel. I have so much back vacation saved up it's not funny.” He stood up. “Please. Stay with me.”

The Dead mare laughed through the tears running down her face. “Fine. Fine. I’ll stay. But you have to take me nice places.”

“I already promised!” he huffed. “Matthew! She’d staying!”

Matthew flapped down from the eaves of the station and landed on the Dead Mare’s back. She turned her head to rub her muzzle against his beak. “Matthew!” she said.

“Caw!” said Matthew.

“He hid,” said X. We didn’t want to unduly bias you. Come on, let's go someplace warm. It's freezing up here.”