Cadence padded softly into the chamber of the Kumbi Mzee where Trixie was sat at one end of the room, watching Twilight at the other. She didn't want to disturb them, least of all Twilight, but time wasn't waiting for anything, let alone the shattered emotions of a distraught alicorn.

"Moondancer's away through the portal," she said in a low voice to Trixie, "and Daring is escorting Mayfly to Equestria with the rest of the crystals."

"Who'd have thought you couldn't take those magically inert crystals through the portal?" Trixie said back, her words sounding a little flat.

"Quite." Cadence sat next to Trixie, taking Flurry into her hooves. The infant could sense that something was wrong, but luckily she couldn't work out what it was beyond it made everypony sad. She didn't know Sunset was gone. Maybe she never really would.

"She's still staring at that book," Trixie said to fill the silence. "It's been hours now. She doesn't eat, she barely drinks, and I think she's too scared to sleep because of what her dreams might be. She's hardly even said a word since it happened."

Cadence nodded limply. Her own attempts at comforting Twilight had been rebuffed, so she'd taken the time to offer what comfort she could to Moondancer and Mayfly, whom Sunset had also been close to. Trixie too lay in that category, but the unicorn seemed to be coping well enough with the loss to at least function, unlike others.

"I don't know what to do," Trixie whispered.

"I would say to give her time, but that is something we don't possess a great amount of. But we'll give her what little we have."

-0-0-0-

If Twilight didn't think too hard, it was almost like Sunset wasn't dead. The words on pages like these had been Twilight's main contact with Sunset for quite some time, and as she read over the messages here it was like Sunset was still alive. If only that were true though.

None of the messages in this particular book were actually to her, as it mostly consisted of messages between Sunset and her friends back on the other world. Casual little exchanges that confirmed that despite the vast, trans-dimensional distances between them, Sunset and those girls were still very much friends. It broke Twilight's heart to think that she had to end all that and tell them what had happened. Her heart was already broken enough.

She'd been trying to do it for a while now, but had found it incredibly hard to do. Whatever she put in these pages, there was no taking it back. It would go straight to its counterpart, and once that was done...

Twilight sighed softly, frustration at herself growing within her. She should've died with Sunset, to save herself from feeling like this. Even better would be if she'd died instead of Sunset, because her ticket had a return. Sunset's was just one way.

Twilight turned the page to what was supposed to be a blank, empty piece of paper. It wasn't though, as written in the middle was three words that were torturously familiar. She is ours, Twilight read, chills running down her spine hard enough to make her shiver. She blinked, her stomach doing a flip, but when Twilight opened her eyes again the words were gone, leaving nothing but a terrible sense of foreboding behind.

Twilight flipped the pages back and forth, trying to find some proof that what she'd seen was real, that it wasn't just the result of her tired, fragile psyche. Maybe what she wanted most was the hope it gave her, because if those things that haunted Trixie had Sunset, maybe she wasn't really gone. Maybe she could come back. Maybe-

Twilight stopped cold. She knew what she was doing, and what she was doing was denying what had happened. Denial was one of the main stages of grief after all, and this line of thought she was throwing herself down couldn't have been less of a case of denial if she tried. Perhaps that was why it'd been so hard to write to Sunset's friends about her demise. As soon as she did that, it became the irrefutable truth.

Twilight rubbed her eyes as tears snaked down her cheeks. The last thing she needed to do was send Sunset's friends some tearstains, because that would definitely alert them to something going on. She needed to pull herself together and tell them what happened.

Twilight looked back down at the page and shrieked, tossing the book away at what she saw. Trixie and Cadence were there in an instant, holding her and comforting her as she cried and gibbered wordlessly, asking her what had happened, but getting nothing back as she continued to cry and wail, the thought of what she'd seen in the book stuck in her mind. That single word written in Sunset's writing, HELP.

-0-0-0-

"This will help to soothe ya nerves," the zebra said, passing Twilight a cup of something that steamed. It smelled like tea, but the addition of some other scents informed her it was something more. She sipped at it, appreciating its subtle flavours of various spices.

Twilight sighed, feeling the knot in her chest unravel just a little. Whatever was in the tea was working, or at least the motion of drinking it helped if nothing else, so she gave the zebra a small nod and a shaky smile until the zebra had gone.
Cadence and Trixie were still nearby, watching her like they were scared she was going to have another breakdown. Seeing Twilight acting like that had rattled them both, and even now neither of them had knew what had caused it.

"I'm sorry," Twilight said after a while.

"It's alright, Twilight, really," Cadence said comfortingly. "You just scared us. Do you think you can tell us why you did that?"

The book was still where Twilight had thrown it, the pages to the ground. She turned it over, and just as she predicted, the page was empty once again. She wasn't sure if it was a relief or not that the word was gone. Getting freaked out over something tangible was a lot easier than telling ponies you were losing your mind.

"I don't know," she lied. "I think my mind's playing tricks on me."

"So you're not going to tell us then?" Trixie said, the edge to her words telling Twilight she was annoyed. Twilight was about to shake her head, but stopped herself before she did. If there was one pony that she could tell, it was Trixie.

"I saw messages in the book, two of them. The first one said 'she is ours.'" Twilight glanced at Trixie to see the reaction it got from her. The slightly vacant stare told Twilight everything.

"What was the second?" Cadence asked.

Tears welled up in Twilight's eyes as her throat constricted, fighting against her saying the word. "Help," she said at last, her voice breaking. "It said help, in Sunset's own writing." Twilight lowered her head and squeezed her eyes shut tight, "I'm losing my mind."

"And you're sure it wasn't real?" Trixie asked shakily.

"There's nothing there now!" Twilight yelled. She looked down, ashamed of her outburst, but didn't apologise.

"I can see there's nothing there now," Trixie said patiently, rubbing a hoof up and down Twilight's back, "but both of us know there's possibly more to this. Why would your own mind put Sunset in a position where she'd suffer like that?"

"Because it would mean she isn't gone."

"Oh." Trixie stopped rubbing Twilight's back and sighed. "I get it. You want to put her in a place you can get her back from."

"I don't want to do anything! I mean, yes I want her back, but I'm not going to trick myself into thinking that she could either. Sunset's dead, and- and-"

"She's not coming back," Trixie finished for her. "Why do I get the feeling that if Sunset had died in a fight you'd be coping with this better?"

"It shouldn't have happened. She shouldn't have died in a stupid accident like that."

"I get that, but-" Trixie waved a hoof vaguely, "I don't know. You saw how I dealt with finding out about my parents. I'm probably the last pony to be giving advice on losing ponies."

"I wish I could help more as well," said Cadence. "I've never really lost anypony though, and I was too young to remember my real parents. I don't even know their names, or what they look like, let alone what happened to them."

"You're an orphan?" Trixie asked, surprised by the revelation. In her mind, Cadence was too perfect to have come from anywhere but a perfect family.

"Found by my adoptive parents in a forest," Cadence said with a half smile. "At the very least I'm proof enough that anypony from any background can achieve anything. Sunset was the same, from my understanding."

"She wasn't an orphan," Twilight said flatly. "I'm pretty sure she abandoned her parents when Celestia took her as her student."

"Her parents were wastrels in a loveless marriage, and had a child neither particularly bothered with. I'm not surprised she cut them out of her life when she could." Cadence shrugged at Twilight's questioning look, "We mightn't have been friends back then, but that didn't mean I knew nothing about her."

"Do you think her parents would care if they found out she's gone?"

"I honestly don't know, Twilight. I'd like to think they would, but I'm pretty sure I'd only be kidding myself."

"Oh." Twilight picked the journal up in her magic, and placed it back in her hooves, only to snap it shut after a moment. "I don't know how I'm supposed to tell them. Sunset's friends, I mean. Telling them like this seems horribly impersonal. Maybe I'll tell them in person when I can."

"That does sound best," Cadence agreed, "but it might not be something you can do soon. I'm not sure her friends would appreciate you not telling them for so long after it happened."

"I know, but I can't even begin to think of the words I need to say it, and I want to do it right." Twilight stroked a hoof down the cover of the journal and sighed, "I'll do it soon, when I've had time to think about it."

"I'm going to hold you to that."

"How's Moondancer?"

Cadence blew her cheeks out, not entirely certain of how to reply to that. "Devastated, to say the least. I did want her to stay longer, but she was determined to go."

"To get away from me?"

Cadence answered with a small nod.

"I don't blame her."

"Sunset's death wasn't your fault, Twilight," Cadence scolded. "You can't keep blaming yourself for an accident."

"I can when it's my fault Sunset was there in the first place." Twilight stopped Cadence before she could say anything else, "I'm not in the mood to have it repeated to me how it wasn't my fault. You could tell me a million times, and I'd still think the same." Twilight quickly glanced out of the wooden slats that made up a window, seeing it was getting dark outside. "It's late, and I'm exhausted. I'll see you all in the morning."

-0-0-0-

Sleep would not come easy, and if Twilight weren't so drained from all that had happened, she might not have gone looking for it at all. Hours must've passed as Twilight stared up at the wooden ceiling of the small room the zebras had provided her, hours she spent thinking about Sunset.

Was Sunset frightened as she faced her end? It was silly to think she wouldn't have been, but Twilight knew Sunset to not be the kind of pony to take death lying down. It must've been lonely though, sitting there on her own, waiting for the end to come. When Twilight had died, Trixie had been with her, and that had been bad enough. She couldn't think of many things worse than dying alone, even though that was exactly what Sunset been forced to do.

Twilight rolled over as a chill hit her. A chill in a room that wasn't cold. She tensed up as a sickening sense of dread bubbled around her stomach, and she found herself rolling back over to look at the journal. A subtle purple glow suffused the area around it as it projected an aura that seemed to drain the warmth out of everything.

Twilight could feel unseen eyes on her as she crept out of bed towards the journal, and she had to fight herself to get closer, because a large part of her wanted to run and not stop until she was in the next country over. Her skin tingled from the cold as the walls became alive with shadows, and with great reluctance she reached out a hoof to open the journal, and...

Twilight gasped as the cold vanished along with the purple glow and shadows. The page was of course empty, as she'd suspected it would be the entire time. The entire thing was just another trick of her mind.

"What is wrong with me?" Twilight whimpered to her herself as she let the journal fall back shut. She sat staring at it for several seconds, then hiccupped as fresh tears slipped down her cheeks. Was the guilt so much that she had to invent this fantasy so she felt better about herself? To give her an unobtainable goal of getting Sunset back from somewhere just so she could live with letting her friend die?

"This is ridiculous," Twilight muttered, wiping her tears away. She turned and went to go back to bed, wanting nothing more than to be left alone until morning. Even if she had to hide under the covers from the soft red glow that returned the moment she got back into bed.

-0-0-0-

Through the inexorable progress of time, morning came around, even though it felt like an age since Twilight had gone to bed. Trixie was the only one around as she returned to the chamber they had occupied the previous night, two trays of food with her. There was no sign of Cadence, so Twilight asked where she was.

"Meeting with some of the elders, as far as I know. She's trying to push for at least an informal alliance, but the zebras don't seem interested in anything while the Mareitanians are here."

"Okay. Anything from Luna?"

"Nothing yet, so I'm hoping no news is good news." Trixie looked at Twilight with concern, "Did you get any sleep at all last night?"

Twilight shook her head, not even bothering to say it. She looked at the tray of oats and fruit that had been provided for her, but the thought of eating turned her stomach. Even so, she forced herself to eat at least some of it.

"Did you see more messages?"

"Not quite." Twilight tried to explain what she had experienced, but the words faltered in her mouth. It all seemed too real to be a product of her mind, and yet there was no explanation she could give beyond it being that. Saying it to somepony else only reinforced how ridiculous it was.

"Twilight?"

"Forget it, Trixie, I was just playing more tricks on myself."

"If you say so," Trixie said uncertainly. "I know it seems a bit soon, but when are we heading out to Luna? I mean we don't have to rush if you're not up to it, but-"

"We'll head out today. I could use the distraction." Twilight forced herself to eat another mouthful of food, "We can't slow down now, not when we're so close to really turning this whole thing around, to start taking the fight back to Faust."

"Twilight, don't do what I did."

"Do what?"

Trixie put her food down to look Twilight in the eye with her full attention. "Throw yourself into the fight to distract yourself from the pain of your loss."

"That's different, and you know it. You wanted revenge, and had somepony to get revenge on. Me? I have a mountain to get revenge on, and Sunset already did most of the work on that herself."

"And what about revenge on yourself? Making yourself suffer as some kind of punishment for Sunset's death."

"And how could I possibly make myself feel worse than I already do?" Twilight asked angrily.

"I'm sure you'd find a way."

Twilight fell silent, unsure if she was angry at Trixie for thinking she'd do that, or angry at herself for it maybe being true. After a moment she pushed her breakfast away, "Fuck you, Trixie."

"Hey, now we're talking!"

Twilight snorted with half-hearted mirth, "I'm going to find Cadence and tell her we're leaving soon."

"Uh-huh, I guess I'll go get my stuff ready." Trixie wolfed down the rest of her breakfast and jogged out past Twilight towards their rooms, skipping straight past her own to enter Twilights'. Frankly, she found it odd that what Twilight was seeing was somehow confined to a book, and wanted to investigate for herself while Twilight was occupied. The book in question was on a small chest of drawers, not appearing to be sinister in the slightest.

"Alright book, tell me your secrets." To the five senses, the book was about as ordinary as a book could get. A cover, pages, glue... totally normal. Her magic sense told an additional story as the book blazed with power, but Trixie knew that much already due to it being a magical book. There was nothing here she could find out that she didn't already know.

Trixie opened the book to the last used page, then turned it to the next blank one, where Twilight claimed to have seen those messages. It was still empty, like Trixie knew it would be, but that wasn't what she was looking for. Too much of what Twilight described felt like dark magic, and while Twilight wanted to dismiss it as her mind playing tricks, Trixie wasn't so certain.

Dark magic rippled along the length of Trixie's horn, and although she had no wish to use it for something like this, Twilight Sparkle was worth the cost. She willed the magic to find any traces of dark magic within the journal, but after several seconds of having a headache build up behind her horn, the magic did nothing, and turned up even less. Apart from being a bridge between worlds, the journal was more or less normal.

"Damn it," Trixie cursed, irritably drumming her hoof on the floor as she tried to think of something else. "If you're there, Sunset Shimmer, feel free to give me a sign. Something. Anything!"

Trixie shook her head as nothing happened, "I thought not." Trixie turned to leave, absentmindedly flipping the journal shut with her magic. She froze as the moment it slammed shut she heard a short, cut-off scream, but heard from over a vast distance. She swivelled her ears, listening hard for anything more, but all she heard was silence. Dismissing it, Trixie went to pack her things.

"Maybe Twilight isn't the only one going nuts."

-0-0-0-

"What is that?" Twilight asked, entirely rhetorically since Trixie couldn't exactly see much from inside her usual spot of Twilight's saddlebag.

"What's what?" Trixie asked back, sticking her head out of the bag to see what Twilight was talking about. She quickly discovered that Twilight was referring to the large plume of smoke rising from the remains of the Mareitanians' camp. "Huh. Looks like things are going well here."

"Maybe," was all Twilight was going to say on it before starting the descent to the ground. She was intercepted halfway down by a jubilant looking Rainbow.

"Hey! Glad you could make it!" Rainbow slowed as she saw the way Twilight looked, "Is something wrong? Did the mission not go well?"

"No, we got everything we needed," Twilight said, looking away.

"Then... I don't get it, why are you looking like that?" Rainbow frowned as Twilight refused to look her in the eye. "Seriously, you're starting to weird me out now."

"We lost Sunset," Trixie explained, making Twilight cringe.

"Lost? As in..?" Rainbow felt her heart sink as Twilight sniffed, "Oh damn, I am so sorry Twilight. That's-" Rainbow shook her head. She'd lost ponies before, but to say that she knew how much it sucked seemed like the wrong thing to say. The problem was that she didn't know what else to say either.

"Where's Luna?"

"She's down at our camp. Come on, I'll take you to her."

Twilight nodded her thanks and followed silently as she prepared for what was about to come. That being a bunch of people giving her sympathy, and saying how sorry they were for her loss. She'd always wondered where the phrase 'I'm sorry for your loss' came from, and what it actually meant, because firstly, what have they got to apologise for? And secondly, the one that died lost the most in this situation, so why give the sympathy to the living? It was also going to be hard to avoid sarcasm when asked 'how did it happen?' Sunset went through a transitional period where she went from being alive, to being very dead. How else did it happen? Getting atomised probably helped.

Twilight almost crashed into the ground she was so caught up in her thinking, and narrowly staggered to a halt before she could trip over. Rainbow gave her a sympathetic look that only annoyed her more. She didn't want sympathy. She wanted someone to yell at her.

Twilight spent the time getting Trixie back to her proper size as Rainbow whispered a quick conversation with Luna. By the time they were done, Twilight had nothing to do but stand where she was and wait for Luna to come over to her.

"My sympathies, Twilight. How did it happen?"

Twilight clenched, all over, but managed to refrain from screaming 'she died!' in Luna's face. "The crystal pillar containing the ley line cracked, and she held it together to stop it killing us all. Unfortunately there was no way for her to get out because of the deadzone around the place."

"I see. Truly a noble sacrifice for her friends then."

Twilight nodded slowly, at least not hating the way that sounded. "It was. If it wasn't for this stupid war I could've stayed there. I could've come back, and she could've lived."

"I know, Twilight, I know. That is what makes it a noble sacrifice. Equestria, the world, and all of us owe her much for making it."

Twilight breathed out hard, fighting the impulse to tell Luna to fuck off. She knew it was silly to get angry over what was just Luna's way of talking, but Equestria and the world aren't what Sunset made the sacrifice for. It just worked in Equestria and the world's favour.

"What's the situation here?" she asked instead.

"Interesting to say the least."

"That seems cryptic," said Trixie. "From that, I'm going to assume you didn't set fire to their camp?"

"You assume correctly. Autumn Blaze's attempts to get the kirin away from Faust resulted in that marvellous piece of destruction, and also had the unexpected benefit of actually succeeding. The kirin haven't joined us, or gone home, but are no longer welcome to fight with the Mareitanians. Good enough for me, frankly. They're currently scattered around the savannah."

"And Autumn?"

"Here," came Autumn's miserable voice from the shade of a hut. "I'm probably not welcome in kirin lands after what happened, so I'm just going to keep hiding with you guys until it's safe for me to be seen in public. I'm sorry for your loss by the way. Sunset seemed like a nice pony."

"Thanks," said Twilight. Somehow it didn't sound so bad coming from a near stranger like Autumn. "So what's happening now?"

"We're setting up for an attack in the only bottleneck between here and Zanzebra. Reinforcements are starting to arrive, so we're hoping that we can hold them there. Ember also has something planned that might help. Hopefully she isn't wrong, because even without the kirin, this battle could go either way."

"And you're still here because..?"

"Because Ember and the other Wonderbolts have it all well in hoof while we remain here to observe the Mareitanians."

"Wouldn't you be better off at the bottleneck, planning the attack?"

"In a manner of speaking, I am."

Twilight quickly looked about for the one pony that wasn't there, which told her as much as she needed to know. "You're putting Nightmare in charge? Really?"

"Only for the planning aspect, since she and I do think alike at times. Besides, she's been good to her word so far, so I think she deserves a little trust."

"That's..." Twilight pursed her lips as she sought the best word to use, "brave of you."

"Are you saying you don't trust her?"

"Not at all. I do trust, but I hadn't expected that much from you yet."

Luna shrugged, not sure of what else to say on it. "All we need to do now is wait until the Mareitanians are moving."

"And when do you think that might be?"

"That... is hard to tell."

-0-0-0-

Luna had at least been right about that. Rainbow had been for several scouting missions at high altitude over the Mareitanians ruined camp, and each time she came back with nothing new to say beyond the Mareitanians were still salvaging what they could in preparation to eventually make a move. She couldn't even tell that much once it got dark.

Unfortunately this gave Twilight plenty of time alone in the company of her thoughts. Thoughts that ever so easily drifted back to Sunset without something to distract her. There was no particular aim to her thoughts, other than to just feel bad, so all she was really doing was going over memories she had of the unicorn, and the smaller details in them like her laugh, her smile, that smirk she got when she knew something you didn't. All the things that Twilight would never get to see again.

A presence grew in Twilight's mind, almost as if summoned by her thoughts, and she felt herself once more drawn to Sunset's journal. She didn't even know why this time because it wasn't actually doing anything. There was no glow, no sense of dread... nothing, save herself being drawn back to it because she, what? Expected it to do something just because she was currently thinking of Sunset?

"Sunset's dead," Twilight scolded herself, hiding her face behind her legs. "Stop pretending otherwise. Stop pretending that failing to tell her friends somehow makes it less true."

Twilight plucked the journal from her bags, and dropped it into her hooves. A moment later a pot of ink and a quill followed it, settling down beside her as she opened the journal to the first blank page. Thankfully there was still nothing to see.

"How do I even write this?" Twilight asked herself. "Dear Sunset's friends, I have some bad news? I regret to inform you?" Twilight sighed at herself, "Guess what? You'll never believe what happened to Sunset the other day!" Twilight somehow managed to hate herself a little more for even thinking of that one, let alone say it out loud. "Urgh! This is so hard!"

"Then why don't you write out a few practice letters first?"

Twilight jumped at Rainbow's voice, then stilled as she considered it. Then she got suspicious at the source of such wisdom, but kept that thought to herself. "That's not a bad idea," Twilight said to the silhouette of Rainbow framed by the doorway.

Rainbow walked closer until she was illuminated by Twilight's magic. "Anything I can do to help?"

Twilight smiled faintly. Rainbow had remembered what not to ask her, unless it was a genuine question. Either way she appreciated the gesture, even if she couldn't accept it. "No thanks. This is something I need to do myself, if I can."

"If you insist. Just don't forget that we are all here if you need us. You aren't alone."

"I know." Twilight wanted to say something more, but hesitated as she worked out how to say it. "D- Do the Wonderbolts get taught on how to cope with losing friends?"

"What? Uh, no, not really." Rainbow rubbed a hoof through her mane, "I don't know, actually. We were all so busy during the war that there wasn't a lot of time to think about it. It's only when we lost Sky Stinger that it all really hit home, y'know? Even then, he and Vapor were best friends, and she had feelings for him, so its easy to say she lost the most out of all of us."

"How did she cope?"

"Not great, at first. She still misses him like crazy now. I think that our mission keeps her focussed enough to not dwell on it too much, but once that's over..." Rainbow rubbed one leg up and down the other, "I'm worried it'll hit her. Hard."

"I know that feeling. You saw what I was like after I came back from Mareitania. Without something to keep me occupied, to keep pushing for, I fell apart."

"And we didn't help," Rainbow said guiltily. "I promise that won't happen again though."

"I know, but I won't be the only one though. We're all going to need each other after this."

"Yeah." Rainbow stood quietly for a moment, remembering things and ponies she hadn't thought of for a while. "Why are you asking me anyway? You've lost ponies before, haven't you?"

"Yeah, but nopony I've really been close to, like you guys, or Trixie, Fleur, or any of them. Sunset was the first, and I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about it. Sometimes it hurts so bad I can't breathe, yet at other times its just a bit of background noise while I'm dealing with other stuff. Is that normal?"

"Heck if I know. I freaked out enough over the thought of losing Pinkie, even though that didn't happen. I don't know what I'd do if I lost any of you. How does Celestia feel about Sunset being gone? They were like you and Celestia were, once."

Twilight looked Rainbow in the eyes until the pegasus remembered something important. After a few seconds Rainbow cursed.

"Sorry, I just find it hard thinking of Celestia as a bad guy, even if it isn't her fault. I guess Celestia doesn't know about Sunset."

"I doubt she does."

"Yeah, I'm just talking shit now." Rainbow sighed and rubbed her face with a hoof, "I should probably go and hit the hay. G'night, Twilight."

"Goodnight, Rainbow."

Twilight sat unmoving for a while after Rainbow had gone, her quill poised and ready to go, but her mind was no longer on that. Of course Celestia didn't know about Sunset. How could she? But that still begged the question of if she would even care that Sunset had died. They'd once been as close as Celestia had been to Twilight, Rainbow had said, so did Celestia at least deserve to be told?

"What are you thinking, Twilight?" Twilight said to herself as the dangerous idea stuck in her mind. She couldn't possibly go to Celestia just to tell her about Sunset. She couldn't go there to tell her anything really. After their last meeting, that bridge was more than likely burnt to a crisp. Even so, it still felt like Celestia deserved to know.

"For fuck sake," Twilight cursed to herself as her mind became made up. "What the hell do I think I'm doing?"

Twilight quickly cast her eyes about as she tried to see if there was anything she would need to take, but there was nothing she could possibly need, so she stole out into the night.

The camp was quiet, save for those few zebras still awake as they stood guard, but none of them paid her any notice as she walked past them. Clearly they weren't interested with interfering in alicorn business, which Twilight was more than grateful for as she spread her wings and flew away towards the Mareitanian's camp.

Unlike the small, quiet, zebra camp, the huge Mareitanian camp was still quite busy. By Twilight's reckoning it couldn't have been much longer before they were ready to make their move towards Zanzebra. Whatever Luna and Nightmare were cooking up had better be good to stop this force, because by Twilight's estimation, there was maybe around twelve thousand soldiers here now. Maybe a few less. At any rate it was clear that they'd at least received a set back after the kirin debacle.

Twilight landed a short distance from the camp, and walked as nonthreateningly as she could towards it. Apparently that made little difference to the ponies standing guard as they fired on her immediately, forcing her to defend herself with a shield.

"I'm here to talk!" Twilight shouted over the sound of magic and arrows striking her shield, which was being hit hard enough to cause her concern. "I'm not here to fight!"

She had to shout it several times, as well as maintain her stance of not fighting back as she stood in the open, before the barrage ceased. After that it was several long seconds before anything was said to her.

"We don't want to talk to you!"

"Well I'm not here to talk to you! I'm here to talk with Princess Celestia! I have news for her. News she needs to hear."

"We don't believe you!"

"I don't care if you believe me! I came here alone, and I couldn't possibly fight all of you to be a threat, so either go get Celestia, or I'll find a different way to get to her!"

There was a short moment of discussion among the guards, not that Twilight could see it very well as lights were shone on her, blinding her, but one of the guards did run off after a moment. It was while he was gone that Twilight gave a short laugh at herself. How many times had she stormed in somewhere dangerous, demanding to talk to somepony? It probably wasn't that many, but it felt like a lot.

After a few minutes one of the lights grew brighter, and it took Twilight too long to realise that it wasn't a light at all, but a bolt of golden magic that was hurtling towards her. Twilight had barely leapt out of the way when it went through where she'd been standing, and the power of the blast sent her flying head over hooves through the air. At least until gravity brought her into a violent landing a couple of seconds later.

She was barely given time to recover before Celestia attacked again, channelling her magic through Solaris, which itself was a burning white line in the night. Clearly Celestia wasn't best pleased to have Twilight here. The blasts came thick and fast, and Twilight scrambled to either dodge or deflect all of them.

"I'm here to talk, Celestia!" Twilight shouted as she tried to fend off the onslaught. "Stop attacking me!"

"There is nothing you could possibly have to say that I want to listen to!" Celestia retorted, landing on the field with a snap of her wings. "Unless you're here to surrender, that is?"

"No, that's not why I'm here!"

"Then be gone or die!"

Twilight yelped as a particularly powerful blast of magic hurtled towards her, and she wrapped a shield around herself as there was no way to dodge in time. Unbearable heat took her breath away as the spell hit, and she could smell her hair burning as her skin prickled. She screamed, and collapsed onto one knee.

"I guess you've chosen death," Celestia said as Twilight's shield dissipated. She pointed Solaris as Twilight's head as she neared the prone alicorn, and was about to finish her off when Twilight looked her in the eyes and yelled as loud as she could.

"Sunset's dead!"

Celestia held, her brow furrowing slightly at Twilight's words. "What did you say?"

"I said, Sunset's dead. I came here to tell you because I thought you'd want to know."

"That another traitor is dead? That is good news." Celestia readied a spell on the tip of Solaris, "Soon it'll be two."

"Don't you even care?" Twilight asked in astonishment. "Sunset Shimmer was your student once! You loved her! Doesn't it bother you that she's dead?"

"Why should I care? She betrayed me when she joined you in your hopeless crusade against my mother, and as far as I'm concerned she died the moment she did that, so no, I don't care."

"You're lying."

"Is that so? And what makes you say that?"

"Because you're crying."

Celestia paused, then slowly raised a hoof to her cheek, finding tears there. She stared at the dampness on her hoof for a moment, even as more tears fell from eyes that held only anger. She wiped them away, but they kept coming.

"W-what is this? What did you do to me?"

"I didn't do anything! This is you, Celestia, the real you. The you that Faust did her best to destroy and hide away."

Twilight watched eagerly as Celestia's expression slipped back and forth between anger and grief. It was only for a moment though as the fake Celestia, Faust's Celestia, grunted in pain and squeezed one eye shut under a hoof. "What did you do to me!?"

"This is you, Celestia! You can fight her! You can-"

"Silence!" Celestia swung Solaris wildly, unleashing a wave of magic that Twilight only just fended off with a shield. "Kill her!"

Twilight struggled to stand, her raw, burnt skin feeling too small for her. She wouldn't give up without a fight if it came to it, and had every intention of teleporting away before it did. Something beat her to it though as a silvery orb enveloped her, and in the blink of an eye she was back in the zebra camp, where she collapsed to the ground in pain and relief.

"What you did was incredibly foolish."

Twilight looked back around to find Luna standing over her. The dark alicorn seemed angry, yet also thoughtful enough that the yelling that Twilight felt she deserved was held back.

"How did you know I was there?"

"I followed you the moment you left here. I was curious to see what you were doing, and decided to not interfere until I had to." Luna's expression softened, "Did you really do all that to inform Celestia of Sunset?"

"She deserved to know."

"I shall not disagree with you on that, but you had to realise there were very few ways that would end well."

"I don't care. I needed to tell her." Twilight gasped as cooling magic soothed her burns, and she felt her pain lessen. "If you were there, you saw what happened to Celestia. You saw her fighting herself. The real Celestia is still in there, Luna!"

"We can't say that for certain. Yes she had a strong reaction to news that would've upset the true Celestia, but don't delude yourself into thinking we can save her like that."

"What are you saying? Don't you want your sister back?"

"More than anything," Luna said, stomping a hoof lightly, "but that is not something I hope to get while Faust has such a tight grip on her mind. If I start thinking Celestia can come back before Faust is stopped, I'll start making plans based on that happening, out of hope that Celestia could help us. Obviously I can't allow that to happen, for all our sakes."

Twilight conceded the point, weak as it sounded to her. If she was honest though, she suspected Luna was really just doing her best to not think about her sister at all. She couldn't really blame her if that was the case.

"That said," Luna continued, "if such strong emotions can pierce through the veil Faust has placed over Celestia's mind, perhaps there might be a way to bring her back after all."

"You have an idea?"

"I might, but it may require us to be in the right place at the right time to make sure it works. I shall have to think upon it further."

-0-0-0-

Celestia staggered into the command tent, a dozen ponies fussing around her that were quickly and loudly ordered to leave her alone. Tears were still falling from her eyes, even the one she was covering, and she didn't know why. Sunset betrayed her and turned against her, so why was part of her in pieces over her death?

And why did her left eye feel so weird, like she wasn't in control of it?

"Princess Celestia?"

"What!?" Celestia snarled, turning to face the newcomer. She forced herself to calm down as she saw it was General Snowbright. "What do you want?"

"I'm just checking you're okay." Snowbright cocked his head at the tearful yet livid Celestia, "Are you okay?"

Celestia wiped her tears away from her right eye and tried with limited success to compose herself. "I'm fine."

"Of course you are," Snowbright said hesitantly. "Did Twilight do something to your eye?"

"I'm not sure." Celestia reluctantly uncovered her left eye, "How does it look?"

"It seems perfectly fine to me."

Celestia sighed at herself. Of course her eye was fine. Why would she think it wasn't? That still didn't explain her tears though. Did the death of Sunset Shimmer really bother her that much? She wouldn't think so, but even now part of her still wanted to cry. Most of her wanted to think of other things though.

"How much longer until we're ready to go?"

"Without further reinforcements or fresh supplies?" Snowbright shrugged at Celestia, "If I could I'd recommend staying right where we are, but if Luna's dragon burns more ships, we'd only be wasting what supplies we have by staying. I think our greatest hope is to take Zanzebra and the Council of Elders quickly, before we can't do it at all."

"That won't be as easy as you make it sound if Luna is leading the fight."

Snowbright nodded, "I know, but I'm not being given a lot of choices here. We can't retreat, we can't really wait, so all we can do is advance and hope our numbers mean something."

"Very well." Celestia rubbed her left eye as her tears finally stopped. "We march as soon as we are able. Faust willing it will be to victory."

Author's Note

Started writing this back over Halloween, which might've influenced me towards a more spooky theme. Chances are I'll fail to maintain it. That said, this chapter does feel like one of the better written ones I've done. Not for the content, but for the way it was written. Guess I can't really be the judge of that though.