Luna smiled as she reached out and touched the dreams of Ponyville, the sky in her dreamscape a mix of colors, each slightly different as each pony had their own loves and wants and fears, the emotions mixing into a unique tapestry. She looked at the town from on high as little vignettes of life populated the dreamscape, her nightly watch over Equestria for any odd dreameating creatures or umbral shades that still existed. Her pruning of Equestria's garden was still in it's early stages- her slight detour into fixing Celestia's mistake now dropped as she just didn't want to touch the wall of lies that her sister had built around her subjects.

Luna knew that facade would have to be broken at some point- Equestria had barely survived the Changelings and Discord. Not to mention the Crystal Empire and its own issues readjusting to the present. She chuckled at the thought of an entire nation dealing with future shock. She could relate, these modern woes and troubles so very quaint to the death and torment that plagued her memories. Luna banked to the Crystal Empire's slice of her world, the architecture all grand columns and arches, soaring towers of crystal twinkling in the dim moonlight of night, the whole castle shimmering a pale pink light as she passed its flower garden. Roses of every color dotted the garden and as Luna set her hooves down onto the ground, she lit up her horn and picked one singular rose, staring at Cadance's rather singular focus write large- a field of love dreams all encircling the center of her slice of dream.

Luna sighed and walked into the twisted center and stayed vigilant as she dodged the brambles and thorns of the intertwined flowers.

"Cadance, where art thou?" Luna slipped into her more fanciful speaking pattern, cautious due to how unstable she viewed the pink one.

Cadance stepped out of the bushes with a flourish, her glowing mane similar to the hints of power that Twilight had now but refined and focused a few hundred years. Her ethereal mane, while not visible to most, glowed in flashes of reds and pinks, her odd aroma something Luna couldn't place.

"Sorry, sorry, had to deal with some midnight snacking." Cadance stretched her wings and made a large couch appear as she lay down upon it, patting the empty space as a hint to the midnight blue alicorn to sit down.

Luna complied and tried to get comfortable.

Cadance giggled at her aunt. She could see the slight worry all over Luna's face. "So I heard from my Captain of the Guard that Twilight just loved the library."

Luna nodded.

Cadance raised an eyebrow. "Auntie, you know you can say actual words when I speak. Unlike some ponies we both know, I won't be spilling your deepest darkest secrets to anypony. Well except for maybe Shiny, but if it's a Twilight thing, I won't be spilling it to him. Though limit your adult thoughts here, I still have moments where I think Twilight's five." Cadance winked.

Luna sighed. "It's just that it's odd. I'm still trying to get past the whole idea that our relationship is truly real."

Cadance smiled. "Well I can pinch you to check. But Luna, it's perfectly fine. I mean I still have those moments, though I think Celly called that the honeymoon phase."

Luna sat down and stared up at the dreamscape, the slight tinge of Twilight's dream ever present in her view. A bright purple glow on the highest point of the castle told her all that she needed to know- Twilight was asleep and thinking of romantic dreams. Luna pushed her mane out of her face and looked at Cadance. "I know, but I worry about the future."

Cadance rolled her eyes. "Of course you do." Cadance stretched her wings and got up from the couch, her slight annoyance with the midnight blue alicorn giving her wings a slight hitch as she walked towards Luna. At that moment, the midnight blue alicorn reminded Cadance of Twilight- slightly unsure and nerdy about odd topics, clumsy, and weirdly hung up about her own future. In effect, Luna was perfect for Twilight cause she could understand the new alicorn."You know what I do when I worry about the future?"

Luna's ears perked up. "What, pray tell?"

"I just focus on what I feel like at the moment and see what that brings me. Worrying about the future is completely meaningless- not that it's useless. Far from it. But every moment is slightly closer to the future, so just worry about the now and it will fall right into place. And Twilight won't care anyway, Auntie. She'd have already planned for any eventuality. Even the one you have right on your mind right now."

Luna hesitated. "I didn't think you'd have noticed my hesitation on the Pony of Shadows. Was my slight apprehension writ that large that even you could have seen it?"

Cadance awkwardly laughed. "Uhm, I was meaning that you were hungry, what's that about Shadow Ponies?"

Luna shook her head. "Nothing, just something in the past."

Cadance didn't push the outright lie. "Okay." She didn't want to push it, since she had tried once to learn more about Luna from Celestia before she had come back from the moon and that had devolved into a political gaffe that almost ruined their trip to Yakyakistan. "Don't be too stuck in the past."

Luna tried to smile. "Yeah." A part of her worried about if Stygian would ever get out of Limbo. She had this fear that maybe he would. Not because Starswirl hadn't been the best mage of his time, far from it. But she'd gotten back from the moon and that had to have used a similar kind of banishing spell. Spells always seemed to have their weaknesses. Even the most learned of ponies couldn't plan for every single eventuality.

Maybe she was just being paranoid. Twilight often joked that even she overreacted more than the purple alicorn thought was necessary on things.

Maybe Twilight was right.

***

Twilight stretched as she felt the light stream into the room. She felt her wings pop back into place as she pulled back the covers and turned to see an odd sight. Luna fully asleep in bed, her hair splayed out in all directions, the constellations swirling around in her hair as she dreamed, her wings at full attention as she slept and her hooves slightly kicking the same spot over and over as Twilight watched.

It was kind of cute.

She awkwardly crept out of bed, her horn lightly firing as she pulled the sheets back around Luna's sleeping form. She didn't want to wake her due to Luna's last few days of not sleeping right and just running on pots of coffee. Even the most focused alicorns had to have some beauty sleep.

Twilight walked out of the guest room, barely cognizant of where exactly to go in the foreign castle. The last time she had truly been here was months back with the girls- and even then she had only spent a few hours with Cadance and Shining before running back to Ponyville to explain to Celestia what had truly happened. In effect, she had no clue where she was. Her hoofsteps echoed on the crystal floors, slabs of marble inlaid within the stone as a slight aesthetic choice some pony a thousand years ago thought would work well.

It did in practice, but it felt oddly cold. She sighed as she tried to focus to hear any noise to center herself towards.

She could barely hear the sounds of clanking metal on the wind, she guessed it was the guard training some recruits or some similar sound due to how the clanging metal echoed. She rubbed her head as she tried to focus and felt it slip out of her grasp, the noise fading away as her hearing went back to normal.

She groaned, a new slight headache building near her temple as she moved outside.

She held a hoof to her face as she left the shade of the castle. She tested the air with a few furtive flaps of her wings and craned her head towards the training grounds of the Empire, the guard companies laid out in large battalions, their bodies moving as one as she watched.

"Admiring our new Guard Captain's hoofwork I see."

Twilight turned to see Shining standing behind her. "I wasn't. I was just trying to get to somewhere I recognized and followed the only sounds I could hear."

Shining nodded. "I see. Though I'd expect something a little more than 'I got lost' from the pony who could tell me, with pinpoint accuracy, how to get from the nearest bookstore to home. Where did that Twilight go?"

Twilight rolled her eyes. "I can still do that. I just don't have a sense for castles."

Shining raised an eyebrow. "I'd think Celestia would have words with you if she heard you say something like that."

Twilight blushed. "I didn't mean- I get Canterlot Castle just fine. I mean-" Twilight swept out a hoof to show the size of Cadance's castle. "I can't figure out how to get from here to over there in this case."

Shining chuckled. "I know, Twi. And honestly, I get it. I mean I've been here six months or so and all I get is ponies bowing to me for breathing. Honestly, I can't leave the palace without a guide." Shining tousled Twilight's mane with a hoof. "So I just ask the first pony you see if you're lost." Shining stared down at the soldiers training under the new Captain of the Guard and looked back at Twilight. She reminded him of the sister he had so long ago- even if she had a new set of wings. "You know sometimes I wonder what mom and dad do sometimes."

Twilight raised an eyebrow, her brother's non sequitur catching her off guard. "I don't follow."

Shining grinned. "I mean look at us. Do you think that they ever expected having two kids that somehow became royalty or was that a thing that happened naturally?"

Twilight wondered what her brother meant. "I could do a theoretical experiment on the chances of that happening."

Shining shook his head. There was the Twilight he knew. "No, I'm good. Just been thinking is all. Hard to do much else right now. I mean it's been kind of a shock to my system is all. I was Canterlot's Captain of the Guard and now I am up here looking down on ponies and it's a bit weird."

Twilight laughed.

Shining stared at Twilight. "What's so funny?"

Twilight wiped a tear from her eye. "It's just that you sound like me. You know minus the wings. I mean I thought you'd at least have it more figured out than me."

"I don't. You think I know what to do in a crisis? Sure I know how to evacuate castles in a flash and I know at least seven different ways to fight enemies and make shields. I don't know how to deal with bureaucrats. Or whatever Cadance is doing half the time."

Twilight giggled. "Same. I mean I don't have a castle. I'm an alicorn and I don't have one of those. Though Luna doesn't seem to mind. At least it's fun having her around."

Shining looked at his sister. "Luna doesn't mind what?

Twilight stopped and realized what she said. "Uhm, nothing." Twilight stared at Shining as one thought came across her mind. Run. With a quick flash, she was ready to run as far away as possible.

But her brother was slightly faster as his spell weaved through her own and countered her teleport. He had once needed to corral his own sister while babysitting when she was small enough and thought popping through walls and objects was a totally safe and awesome idea. He sighed as he looked at his little sister. "I'm going to owe Cadance like twenty denarii for this."

Twilight stared at Shining. "I was just going to teleport away to see what was going on down there."

Shining stared at his sister, his natural bullshit detector going off as she spoke. Well he didn't need his ten years of interrogation skills and Changeling detection to know when Twily was lying cause she was terrible at it. "That's a lie. And Twilight, I'm married to Cadance. You might hide whatever you and Luna are doing, but Cadance has the worst habit of acting like a manic mess when love stuff happens. It made our honeymoon completely insane." Shining winked.

Twilight felt her ears lay back on her head as she tried to look away from what Shining was trying to say next. And her mind wasn't helping with the horrible image of her brother and Cadance on their honeymoon.

Shining bent down and smiled at his sister. "It's time for a talk. It won't be that long, but between brother and sister I have to give you some pointers. Can't be having my curious little sister playing with magic and destroying the world cause of you getting too creative in the bedroom."

Twilight blushed. "That doesn't happen."

Shining laughed and let down his anti-teleportation spell. "I was joking. But if you want to talk about it, the new archmage talked about some new place and how it reminded him of home. Supposedly, its a little hole in the wall. It'd be my treat. I mean sure with how Cadey's been acting, I'm guessing this was recent. But who else would know what it's like to have what you two have." Shining puffed out his chest. "It'd be me."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Okay, Shiny."

Shining bent down and whispered in his sister's ear. "But if Luna somehow does something oddly reckless, you know where to find me and I know exactly how to get into her chambers no problem."

Twilight tried to defuse the awkward situation. "That's not going to be a problem."

Shining smiled. "I was just joking Twilight. Now how's about the lunch?" Shining bent down and whispered. "And no, Cadey and I didn't consummate our marriage until weeks after our honeymoon. Though we did have a weird time in Manehattan. Love potions are not a great idea on a couple relaxation cruise."

Twilight blushed harder. "I don't doubt that."

***

Luna felt her sister pounding on her mental link with her as she opened her eyes. She hadn't answered the connection at all since she had let her feelings out in a manner that was, in the aristocratic way, most unbecoming of a Princess. She didn't mind the slight headache she had due to Celestia being there. It wasn't like her own sister caused her own problems.

Luna pushed back and broke the connection. She looked down and stared at a thing she didn't expect to find even in the Crystal Empire.

She traced a hoof over the faded leather. She knew of this book rather well since she had glimpsed it in Starswirl's own saddlebags when they had trekked all the way to the final battle with Stygian. It was a rather ugly tome, squat and tiny for what weight it might hold within its pages.

She carefully opened the silver clasp with her magic and slowly untwined the multiple spells Starswirl had enchanted the journal with, carefully folding each encryption spell and flame sigils into inert rocks. She marveled at the book. Unassuming and taciturn, like its own writer. Matter of fact spells dotted throughout to keep the most prying of eyes off it.

She opened to the first page and began reading exactly what Starswirl planned to do to fix the mess.

Starswirl breathed in and out as he finished his final quill dip into his inks and stared at the page. He wove a final spell into it's very own pages to give his two students something to look at if their current spell didn't work. He wove the memento mori spell right into its pages, just in case all six of them failed in their mission.

Celestia trotted up and bowed to him as he finished up the final preparations for the trek to Stygian's very own stone monument. "Keep this journal safe." Celestia nodded. She knew exactly what that meant.

"I promise you on the aether connecting us all that I will."

Starswirl touched Celestia's bowed head and tousled the far older alicorn's hair. "I know you will."

Luna flipped through the next few pages. carfully skimming through any mention of Celestia, who unfortunately popped up far too much for her liking. She remembered these memories far differently than what was in Starswirl's own journals. She noted all the times Starswirl mentioned her. The difference in tone was rather enlightening at points.

Not that it truly mattered anyway. Starswirl was dead and gone and the only thing he left were two alicorns, these notes and a dream for a unified Equestria. And he got his wish. So wherever he was now, he was looking in full approval and probably gloating over the fact that everything went according to plan.

She sighed and read to the beginning of his last entry.

Starswirl and the others slunk through the deer section, careful to not make a sound as they had seen the few scouts out and about, their war paint streaked in their fur, and beads dangling from their horns. Flash Magnus stayed silent as they passed, his eyes glaring daggers into the back of their heads as they disappeared deeper into the Everfree Tangle.

Flash turned to the others and said little as they passed piles of bones, his joking demeanor washed away as he focused on the mission and guided the five other ponies through the absolute confusion of the Everfree. "I told you all to stay on the path for good damn reason and we only saw those mule deer guards. Be glad you didn't see the shamans or the king. But, let's see, it should be right around here." Flash pulled out his sword and slashed away some of the vines and popped his head through for a brief moment and pulled back. "Yeah it's here. Starswirl."

Starswirl breathed and channeled his mana to his horn, warping its natural inert state towards heat and said the spell's name to focus his mind. "Ignis." As he felt the heat radiate from his horn he lobbed the fireball at the hedges and brambles nearby and watched them crackle and spark into burning embers.

Rockhoof rolled his eyes. "I'd say that was a good show, but I cannae help but wonder if Stygian knows we are here already"

Starswirl stared at the burned opening to the castle. "He knows."

---

The six ponies stared at the large reception hall that they found themselves in, the decor sparse and all black. Starswirl stared at the long line of bookshelves filled with incomprehensible titles and runes that didn't correlate with any language he knew as the six walked. He glanced at Mistmane and she shook her head, their silent language between each other honed by years of focusing on each other's body language. She didn't pick up on any terms either and her eastern unicorn heritage gave her ins with many of the rarer and more remote creatures. If she didn't know the languages, they weren't any creatures on this patch of earth.

Somnambula picked up a book and tossed it aside. "I don't like this."

Meadowbrook chuckled. "And you think I like this? This is a right mess we're in and I don't believe we're going to have a picnic."

Nopony answered as they all had the same idea.

They knew it was a trap and yet they were still there because if they failed, then the whole land would be covered in darkness.

Quietly, they heard something getting closer, the clacking of hooves on stone making it a little clearer as to who was approaching. They quietly stared at one another as a high warbling hum echoed through the halls. It was like Stygian was right there and laughing at them. Which they all quickly figured out that he was as he walked ever so briskly out of the shadows and waved.

"Why hello there, my ever so amazing friends? What brings you here to my ever so humble abode." Stygian smiled, his blue mane and gray coat nondescript, his Northern Equestrian accent crisp and clear. He looked positively normal.

And he was now the most dangerous creature in Equestria.

Starswirl stepped forward and took charge, as the leader of the group, and the closest to Stygian's equal in terms of raw magical power, he decided to take the lead and just protect the others, silently casting a protection spell over the other five. "You know why we're here, Stygian. We've decided to put you away somewhere for the sake of the future of Equestria."

Stygian laughed. "By what authority? Look around you and within yourselves." Stygian teleported to Somnambula's side in a flash. "I mean look at yourselves. Namby here is missing a few feathers. Nice healing by the way, gives you a right kind of austerity or whatever burned husk of courage you want to call it." As Starswirl reading a spell, Stygian teleported out of range and bowed. "I would applaud your efforts, but I wasn't done talking. You know what? I'll do you one better. You all try and kill me and I'll only use my wits and spells to stop you all. No eldritch god, though I bet you'd just cream yourselves to see it. I mean who wouldn't? It's kind of a bloodrush to see yourself as what you all made me. You know. The bad stallion with a who cadre of friends to set him right."

Starswirl rolled his eyes. "I doubt we made you steal our things."

Stygian walked down the obsidian stairs that he had teleported to and stared daggers into the six there. "You doubt? You were everyone's heroes, everyone's saviors from all manner of foul beasts. You are on your way to any number of bardic tales and legends with how the idiots speak of you ilk. Mistmane the Beautiful, Rockhoof the Giant, Meadowbrook the Healer, Flash Magnus the Brave, Starswirl the Teacher, Somnambula the Wise. The peasants love you."

Flash piped up. "Well at least we are memorable."

Starswirl stared at him.

"What? I mean he's trying to cover the world in darkness and kill everything. If he wants to be remembered, I think he's going about it all wrong." Flash shrugged.

Stygian stared at Flash Magnus. "I remember exactly why I didn't like you."

"Well the feeling's mutual."

Starswirl blinked. He felt the teleportation before he saw it, waves of rage coming off of Stygian as he moved in a flash towards Flash faster than anypony expected, as they tried moving towards the pegasus, Flash tried to roll out of the way, his battle instincts honed by years in Canterlot, and a decade of helping Equestria in any way possible, helped him dodge Stygian's first strike. A gout of flame barely singed his wing and Stygian turned to face Flash.

"I was expecting to roast you alive like a chicken, but I guess clipping your wings is preferable."

Flash stared at his wing, nerve endings firing in pain as he tried to focus on the moment. "You never shut up." He readied his sword and charged forward, his stance changing as he accounted for his burnt wing.

Stygian yawned and parried his sword strike with an obsidian staff. "Predictable." The gray unicorn turned away from Flash and whispered a spell, his body splitting off into copies of itself. Starswirl stared as he saw hooves exit from Stygian's eyes, the unicorn's body convulsing as he cast forbidden magic. Stygian fractaled as heads were built on heads as he copied himself in what Starswirl termed as grotesque, as the unicorn opened his mouth, rows of teeth and multiple tongues lolled out of it. Stygian exploded into chunks as his skin itself tore from the pressure of containing too many organs within itself, bloated and misshapen as each fought for space. The blood rained down and everypony stood stock still as they wiped the gore off of themselves. Meadowbrook separated from the group for a brief moment as she vomited her breakfast all over the floor, gagging as she tried to stay calm.

Somnambula raised an eyebrow as she wiped blood off of her. "That was both unexpected and disgusting." She stared at the blood that was pooling at her hooves. "Did we win?"

They figured out quickly that they hadn't as they stared at the husk of Stygian, his body mangled and twisted into quickly hardening rigor mortis, the black magic speeding up the rotting process. As they wondered if they won, they saw something that they couldn't completely explain- his corpse moved and jerked around like it was still vaguely alive. The bloated corpse of Stygian wriggled around and as they watched, Stygians walked out of it, six of them echoed each other in a morbid dance of jerking movement.

"Sorry, guys, I guess I just couldn't contain my excitement." The Stygians all laughed at their joke, their cold voices echoing on the obsidian walls. "Now where were we?"

Flash grimaced as he readied himself. He tried to think back to every training exercise that the Royal Canterlot Legion ever had.

He blinked and six Stygians came at him, six poles of obsidian razor sharp and always too close for comfort. Flash contorted his body in ways that he hadn't since Ironhead commanded the Legion to perform one on ten drills. It had been Tartarus bound and completely insane, but as he dipped through the forest of spear points, he thanked the stars that he had a fighting chance.

He forgot that Stygian played dirty.

"You bore me." Stygian's horn lit up and he whispered a spell "Funiculos in tenebris." His mana oozed out of his horn in long ropes and wrapped Flash in pure darkness. Stygian stretched his hooves and walked away from the rather dangerous pegasus, quickly tossing him aside like an old scrap of parchment as the gathered ponies all heard the darkness constrict around their friend like a snake, his bones snapping like twigs as they imagined the pain. "One."

Stygian teleported next to Meadowbrook and tousled her hair. "Sorry, love, this'll hurt. Though you probably have a salve for it." He rammed the obsidian spear through her heart and she stared at him, her eyes wide with surprise as she slid down the spear, her legs slowly giving out as blood wet the stone beneath her. Stygian winced. "Two. Though honestly I did like you."

Rockhoof charged at Stygian, his hefty axe swinging around him, his earth pony magic shaping his strikes with obsidian bite as he rushed towards the unicorn who had done the unthinkable. "Laddie, you dinnae know what you have done."

Stygian bowed. "Well, besides taking down two of the supposedly best in this land and-" An axe swing stopped his speech as it almost connected with his face. "I seem to have hit a rather painful nerve. Interesting."

Mistmane and Starswirl looked at each other and nodded. It was time to do the last ditch plan. While the valor of Rockhoof and pure anger he felt at this moment was a good thing to focus on- the reality was that Stygian would leave the castle if they didn't do anything. Somnambula would be next and then the rest of the land if they didn't seal him here. He was toying with them and from how the unicorns saw his aura, he was cheating.

Mistmane and Starswirl mixed their knowledge of Eastern and Western Unicorn magic, the mana and chi of each intermixing into the ground as they watched Rockhoof pound Stygian into dust, the unicorn giggling as Rockhoof broke his spine over and over.

"I hope we know what we're doing." Mistmane whispered.

Starswirl just prayed as he poured every last bit into a sealing spell. Hoping that the use of multiple magics could confound even a nondescript prodigy like Stygian. "I hope so."

Stygian grew tired of letting Rockhoof let his anger out. While he did like the massage the beating was giving him, he'd see the earth pony break his own legs before Stygian actually was hurt by his little show. As he stared up at the massive earth pony he saw the chink in his armor and grinned. "Boring." He only let out a small burst of magic right near the large pony's knee, twisting the natural mana that held each pony together and expande it outwards to a rather more gruesome fate.

Rockhoof's entire leg exploded in a fountain of blood.

Stygian would have gloated. He would have. Except her forgot that Rockhoof was an earth pony who knew more about rocks and how to shape them than most would learn in their lives due to some latent magical skill and training. Rockhoof groaned in pain as smoothed obsidian, still sharp enough to prick him ever so slightly, was fused to his bloody stump.

"Round two."

Stygian raised an eyebrow. "Touche."

He readied his weapons, his clones, echoing him, as he mentally decided to ramp up the pain since little Rocky here was being ever so much more interesting than any of the remaining threats. He wished to see the limits of earth pony magic and see what happens if you surgically removed each leg from a rather interesting specimen.

He smiled as he was completely blindsided by the intertwined spells of Mistmane and Starswirl.

Starswirl and the others stared at the large void that opened up in the middle of the castle for a brief moment as they watched Stygian convulse in pain, his true form apparent. Eyes covered his head, blinking furiously as he was slowly being ripped in half by the competing magic- the chi rotating his body in knots as the mana that Starswirl used pulled his other half in reverse. His organs kept rupturing as the pressure overtook them, then rehealing imperfectly, copying the body part again and again on top of one another like a tumor. Starswirl stared at the husk that was his old friend and realized from what he looked like, tendrils of darkness covering him as a coat of limbs and wings fractaled off of his back in long sheets of black feathers. Heads screamed in wordless pain as they tried separating from the main mass. Starswirl knew that whatever Stygian had summoned to best them had taken over his body and killed him.

Even if Stygian was there in that mass, still alive and conscious, he didn't know how to fix this.

He looked at the creature and as he watched, he saw Stygian's branching horn try and flash a counterspell.

The unholy abomination screamed in pain as he aimed and fired.

"Get down-"

Luna stared at the journal and breathed heavily, her eyes brimming with tears as she realized why exactly the six of her heroes never came back. Why Somnambula never came back.

And she had wanted to break that thing out just to see her first love again.

She flipped furiously back and forth in the journal, pouring over each and every page to see exactly what Starswirl's plan had been. Any knowledge of what to do would be more preferable than the apocalyptic idea that festered in her mind. What if he came back. Even if Starswirl and Mistmane's final gambit had paid off, Luna knew full well how common it was for ancient evils to come back from the brink of defeat or death. She glanced around and could almost feel the shade of Sombra gloat in the distance. She just had to look in a mirror and feel her own failure.

It wasn't a question of if Stygian, or whatever eldritch creature he was now, would ever climb out of whatever hole he was stuffed into, but when.

She carefully stashed the book in a nearby saddlebag of Cadance's and got up. She had to tell Twilight.

***

"So how's Ponyville?"

Twilight looked at her brother. "It's fine."

"That's great. I mean from how Cadey talks about your journal, it sounds like a real mess."

Twilight did a quick double take. "I thought that was supposed to be classified information."

Shining shrugged as he took a bite of his daisy burger. "Guess not. Really should get on who leaked it then cause that's the book I hear about all the time. The "Journal of Friendship" by Anonymous. Really terrible title if you ask me."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "I guess I know what I'm going to talk about with Celestia when I get home."

Shining laughed. "It can't be that bad."

Twilight her eyes. "I put everything that ever happened to me in that journal. Every single thing. It's not something I really want to have out in public. Cause it gets explicit."

Shining scratched his head. "Huh, okay. Didn't need to have that image of what my sister's been doing in my head." Shining shook his head. "But I don't think Cadance has mentioned anything like that. I'd have known. She'd probably have a panic attack if that happened."

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Celestia damnit, Shiny, I said explicit not full on pornography. I meant like I shared way too much about my friends and thoughts to have that out there."

Shining stretched his hooves. "Twilight, you know how prevalent using explicit for stuff like that is. From what I get from my wife , it's all changed around to hide the important info. Why else would you think Canterlot released a document that's so damning of their issues with you and your friends?"

Twilight sulked. "Cool, still doesn't make-"

Luna popped out of nowhere as Twilight almost finished her sentence.

"Twilight, I've been looking for you everywhere."

Twilight blushed. "Sorry, I got lost and then my brother wanted to go out for brunch."

Shining awkwardly waved as he took a bite of his food.

Luna stared at him. "Of course. I should have known."

Twilight coughed to break the tension. "Well what do you want to talk about? I mean we already talked about most things on our way here." Twilight looked away as she remembered the long nightly sessions.

Luna fished out Starswirl's journal and placed it gently on the table. "This."

Twilight carefully opened the book, feeling the vague remnants of mana entwined within its pages, read the frontispiece and glanced up at Luna, eyebrows slightly raised as she tried to process what this meant. "Luna, this is a priceless artifact. I know ponies that would pay multiple lifetimes worth of bits just to read what this contains."

Luna grimaced at the thought. "After reading that, I would say they are complete fools."

Shining glanced over and noticed what book the pair were talking about. With a speed that rivaled Pinkie Pie in her deepest sugar binges, he zipped underneath the table and poked his head over the side. "Nopony touch that book."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Shiny, I already opened it and Luna brought it here. If it was some eldritch evil, I feel like maybe it would have done something by now."

Shining shook his head. "Tell that to the fourteen assistants of Sunburst who all are still being treated for various things. From the weekly briefs I get from the Unicorn Legion, it really isn't pretty."

Luna glanced down at the book and sighed. The black magic that had been vaguely infused within it was gone now- a totally inert and safe book stared up at her. She had felt the tangle of something possibly being there, out of sight, maybe. It was rather hard to pin down dark magic, especially when it was so old. It could have been cast in the last thousand years or the last five, dark magic had a stain on it that was hard to wash away. "From what I could parse from the writing, it seems like being in the same room as pure evil caused some blowback thanks to one rather foolhardy unicorn."

Twilight sighed.

"No, it's not you, Twilight. You're at least somewhat cautious when it comes to magical spells. Even if I still find hints of you tampering with temporal magic and your ascension itself being a culmination of grossly misusing magic, at least you don't summon otherworldly entities and bargain with them."

Shining coughed and put a few denarii on the counter. "I'll just take my food to go. Nice seeing you, Twilight, I'd just rather not have nightmares of anything worse than Changelings on my mind for a few months."

Twilight almost responded before a white flash of light showed her an empty space where her brother used to be. She grumbled and felt her feathers stand up in annoyance as she realized he did the exact thing she wanted to do. Escape the conversation by teleporting away in time. How lucky. She turned and looked at Luna. "So disregarding my brother running off, what exactly do you want us to do about unknowable evil coming back? Or not coming back? Or whatever."

Luna ran a hoof through her mane as she saw the rain pour down, unsure of what to do next. Starswirl's Journal was only so helpful at figuring out how to beat Stygian when he escaped. Because she knew firsthoof that banishing spells were temporary. The string of ancient evils that Twilight had to face on a seemingly weekly basis was truth to that. He was coming and she didn't know what to do.

Luna carefully entwined her hoof with Twilight's and stared into her eyes. "Be prepared for when Stygian appears."

Twilight stayed quiet for a moment, remembering full well the name and what it meant. Though she was slightly annoyed that Luna wasn't being totally open about this, she was getting more used to it by the day. Sometimes Luna could be rather obtuse with her meanings. Stygian possibly coming back would freak her out, so she discounted Luna's terseness and pushed onward with the barest hint of a question."And what does that mean exactly?"

Luna stared out the window, drops of rain streaking their way down the glass. "Training. Lots of it."

The cold, unfeeling rain poured down, covering the Empire in a dark cloud of rain.

***

Trixie breathed the cold air of Rockville, her hat and cape tattered from months on the road, her body sore and in dire need of both a good meal and a shower as she crested the hill. She felt a headache come on as she felt her magic reserves run on fumes as her work as Equestria's greatest entertainer was both a usually thankless job, the few fans she had gained from her performances were rare and always getting rarer.

She glumly noted that her last show had been months ago and rather sparse in attendance, the ponies that had shown up talking about how odd she was and how hokey her magic was. Trixie gritted her teeth as she cursed her rotten luck, the whole Alicorn Amulet debacle still following her. "All I heard in all those silly little towns- Appleloosa, Dusty Hollow, Ironhoof- everypony just heard the news about Twilight's magic duel and just yakked it up about how grand it must have been to fight the-" Trixie facehoofed. "the newest princess. How quaint."

Trixie wrapped her cloak around her as she felt the wind pick up, the deafening silence of the surrounding area just leaving her to her own depressing thoughts. If only her father could see her now. Defeated, in the middle of nowhere, hooves cracked and worn from hundreds of miles of walking in roads less traveled. She'd say it was her scenic route to success, but she'd lost her cart. And besides her cloak and hat, she only had a few coins in her pocket. The last of a rather respectable haul dwindled down to nothing as she had just stumbled through life.

She trudged on, using the last bits of magic she had to warm her body enough just so she wouldn't freeze to death even in this oddly warm weather in the plot end of Western Equestria. Beautiful craggy rocks and who knew what monsters lay in wait for the blue unicorn. Trixie cracked a smile at that. "The Great and Powerful Trixie amazes you rubes with death defying stunts and magic." Trixie felt tired as she went around the bend and saw Rockville, the sleepy little town that was barely eking out a living from the hard soil.

She brushed her mane out of her eyes and tried to look presentable as she felt weeks of hoof pains abate for a moment as she thought of sleeping on something better than the cold hard ground.

She's lost the right to boast about her skills when Equestria viewed her as a sideshow attraction and a laughingstock.

The blue unicorn felt the winter chill hit her and she thanked Celestia that she had remembered that Rockville and the surrounding areas didn't need rain or snow- they focused on rocks and the only thing they needed were some weird mumbo jumbo earth magic and some time to grow rocks. Or at least that's what she had heard from some Saddle Arabian merchant a few years back. She wasn't picky with her information sources and if they were actually true, the more fantastical the better. She didn't hear anything on the wind as she entered the town, the normal sounds of everyday life absent and mute as her hooves stumbled over the uneven road. She glanced around and felt uneasy as she felt watched from something just outside her vision as she tried to relax.

Trixie tried to think of anything as she walked towards the inn, her hoofsteps echoing as she approached the counter and tentatively rang the bell for service, hoping that something wouldn't jump out and terrify her.

A door creaked open and a head popped out to check the front. A normal pony.

Trixie breathed a sigh of relief as she mentally chided herself. The last few weeks had made her doubt herself and highly paranoid about small towns, each a weirder and wilder version of the last. "Hello."

The quiet mare stared at her.

Trixie stared back. "Hello?" Trixie sighed, carefully fishing out her bits and letting them fall onto the wooden desk. "That's all I have right now, so can you manage something with that?"

The quiet gray mare stared down and scooped up the coins, quickly counting them and checking for their real quality by biting down gently on each, the action slightly bending the golden coins.

"I mean if you have to. But I'd sleep in a closet as long as I'm warm."

The gray pony walked over to the black wall and started writing.

I heard you the first time. Name's Marble. You should probably go back where you came from. Got a bad feeling is all.

Trixie groaned. "Yeah, I'm going to walk in the middle of winter all the way back home. I'm in the middle of nowhere and you're telling me to walk back. You realize that I had to walk through ten different towns that hated my guts one way or another." Trixie sat down. "Hate me or not, this is the first place in weeks that's anywhere close to warm. I'm not going."

Marble sighed and wrote some more. Your choice. Don't come crying to me when the nights get all weird.

Trixie crossed her hooves. "Not budging. Show me a room to sleep in or I'll sleep right here. Don't test me. I totally slept outside for a week, anything's more comfortable than that. I still find leaves in weird places."

Marble rolled her eyes and beckoned Trixie to the stairs. The pony walked up the stairs in a flash leaving Trixie in the dust. Trixie thought she had to be imagining things, but the gray pony reminded her eerily of one of Twilight's friends. The pink one. Whatever her name was. She felt odd about that, it brought up bad memories of the Alicorn Amulet, or the lack thereof. She tried to come up with those memories on certain occasions just to say something to the mobs of interested ponies and all she could come up with that she just didn't remember.

She trudged upstairs, her head aching as she tried to relax. As she walked, she noticed Marble's odd scrawl, almost anticipating questions as she thought them.

We don't get a lot of ponies here, so take the first left and I'll be there. Food's at seven, since you want to stay.

Trixie sighed and walked up the rest of the way, her journey to a bed nearly at an end. She followed the directions to the letter and saw Marble walk briskly out of the room, hooves full of what she guessed were old linens. "Thanks. And don't wake me up for anything, unless really necessary."

Marble nodded and left.

Trixie shrugged. She hadn't ever heard of mute ponies before, but there were always outliers. Still would have been nice to have somepony to actually talk to instead of a sort of unsettling innkeeper. She laughed and looked around. The room wasn't much to look at- a chest of drawers in the corner, a bed that felt like it was badly packed with straw, a mirror on the wall. The absolute bare minimum to call this place a room instead of a makeshift hovel. She stared at her reflection, unfamiliar lines on her face drew her attention as she absentmindedly traced her sunken cheeks with a hoof. She looked awful, dark bags under her eyes from weeks of sleeping out in the wilds of Equestria. She took off her hat and noticed a few holes in its brim that she hadn't before,

She sighed and shut the door with the last of her magic reserves and lay her head on the pillow, staring up at the ceiling. Trixie kept counting the wood panels as she drifted off to sleep.

***

Trixie woke up in an unfamiliar place. She felt the grass beneath her as she vaguely remembered not being here before, especially when she vaguely remembered a bed and a sparse room as her last memory before bed. She tried her horn as she tried to test for any illusions or trickery. She felt none touch her mental checks as she swept around her surroundings. Her father told her of the problems that such spells were- ponies lost themselves in lies and dreams easier than most when they were at their lowest points.

The trek to Rockville had been hers.

"Hopefully this is a dream." She decided to walk in the only direction she could think of- south. Mainly cause if it was a dream, she'd get wherever her mind was sending her, or if it wasn't, it'd just be better than just sitting here waiting. "Still if this is a joke from the only pony I've seen in two weeks, this isn't funny."

She could see wisps of smoke come from her left and she decided to follow the one hint that mattered now. She turned down a well worn path, trampled into ruts and valleys by overuse, the ground bumpy and odd, her hooves following the ponies that might have come before as she walked, on and on. Her hooves hurt for some reason and the red clay dirt on the path contrasted heavily with the green grass, it was her only way forward and she put one hoof in front of another. She quickly worried about her decision as she heard a rumbling noise and screams of terror. Trixie breathed in and out as she tried to think of things that were marginally better than whatever was now past that hill- food came to mind, beating Twilight Sparkle at her own game was a nice fantasy, and her family. All these things were slightly better than whatever could be on the hill. As she crested the hill, her worry started to dissipate.

There was nopony there save for one rather nondescript unicorn. His blue mane and grey coat just being different enough to her eyes that he seemed almost a pony in greyscale. She laughed at herself. This was a dream. This had to be. He was no pony that she'd ever seen- maybe that lanky colt from Ponyville sort of looked like him-. What was his name? Escargot? Whatever, she guessed this new pony was probably some odd mix between old memories and false ones.

Her father told her enough about dreams for that to make sense.

The unicorn stallion sat with his back towards her, focusing on the fire that was roaring next to him. As Trixie approached, she saw him lazily toss bundles of sticks into the fire. As he did so, the fire burst and crackled with life. Trixie sighed. Stallions and their fires. She used to know a few circus performers that could do tricks with roaring blazes.

The unicorn turned and stared at Trixie. "Look at you, absolutely marvelous." He had a bit of an accent, Trixie guessed, some sort of Trottingham sounding accent making his words slightly more proper than she was used to.

Trixie awkwardly kicked a hoof and looked around, the world nondescript green hills all over the place. Like each hill was repeating ad infinitum as far as the eye could see. Just staring at the whole picture for a moment made her feel queasy. She stared down at her hooves and breathed for a moment to focus.

"Oh do sit down, I mean I haven't talked to a pony in what feels like forever. Oh, and very sorry for the surroundings. Very hard to get my few memories to work exactly right."

Trixie shuffled over, not looking up. "Totally a dream, this has to be a dream."

The stallion laughed. "Undoubtedly. I mean think about it in your perspective. There's just you and me out in a fractal field always repeating the same motions. You come up and talk to me. I answer. You leave. Another you meets me. I answer. I sometimes throw sticks onto the fire. It's rather boring, this whole cat and mouse game I have been playing just to have something to look forward to."

Trixie cocked her head. "Multiple times? I've only met you once."

The lanky stallion sighed and stoked the fire. "That's what they all say." Stygian got up and stretched, his view of the world so much more exciting that this blue strumpet's. He had to laugh, the pony mind being so very malleable and exciting. But unfocused if they just didn't want to look at reality. He stretched his limbs. He was exhausted. He still knew that the six bastards had to be somewhere in Limbo, he felt their presence on the back of his mind, a phantom pain as he moved. "But after five thousand iterations of the same exact dialogue you give me, I just pray that there's some sort of change."

Trixie backed away slowly, feeling the air shift around the stallion. She wasn't an idiot per se, possibly a boaster too sure of her own skills at times, but she knew when to run.

Stygian cocked his head. "You didn't do that before." He stared down at her hooves, the road worn thin by Trixies that had repeated the exact motions, repeated the exact words, and were thrown into some unused part of Limbo, a mountain of failures that had grown ever so high. He looked at the valleys and saw that Trixie's hoof was touching the grass. Stygian realized what Starswirl had inadvertently set him in.

A trap so devious and fun that Stygian almost wished Starswirl could see the irony.

Starswirl never thought Stygian would move in the array. Like he didn't expect the team leader and strategist to devise a plan outside of the norm. He also hadn't expected another pony moving on, near, or in the spell. The spell worked in a completely closed system. Reliant entirely on Starswirl forgetting that a thousand years of imprisonment was rather boring.

"Starswirl, you absolute idiot." He stared up into the nonexistent sun and chuckled for a brief moment and set his eyes fully upon his savior, sure she was an absolute dolt as he had mined her corpses for any hint of the world outside Limbo. He had found a delightfully inane world helmed by Runt One and Runt Two. He felt the powers of his umbral forces deep within this vessel, a hint of darkness in her soul as he felt her memories. Trapping a town within a glass jar. Being annoyed with a new alicorn, how odd. He'd take any hint of darkness in a pony's soul. Bit weak and kind of a let down for his bored manner of darkness, but he had only a few options and this was the best. It was this or wait until some idiot accidentally freed him. This Plan Z was so much better. "Sorry, sorry, I've been such a forgetful host, my name's Stygian and Bellatrix, I feel like we are going to have so much in common. I dislike some alicorns and other unmentionable creatures, and you dislike one Twilight Sparkle."

Trixie's voice piped up. "I don't dislike her."

Stygian placed a hoof on the blue dolt. "You do. I can feel the lines of doubt and worry, the sad little filly that tried so very hard in getting accepted and flunking out of Celestia's school. You tried so very hard to eke out a living as an entertainer, tried to get a hoofhold within society as something ponies cared about, even just a little bit, the traveling shows ever so similar to the sky circus you remember from your fillyhood. You loved the spotlight."

Trixie bowed her head. "How'd you know?"

Stygian didn't say his trade secret of torturing out the answers from every single repeated version of herself. A literal mountain of bodies just to get some handle on this weak unicorn who would have been tossed off the side of a mountain a thousand years ago for not having enough mana. He fibbed a lie, built from a past memory of what he wasn't now. "Because I could see it in your eyes, the longing for love and attention as you dealt with a father who only loved his own magic tricks." Stygian wrapped a few tendrils of darkness around Trixie's hooves, imperceptibly hypnotizing her as she listened to his rolling cadences, lulling her into the slightest hint of trust, of weakness. Celestia be damned, he loved the feeling of twisting her own ponies into some fun. He missed it so much. "You remind me of me so very long ago, a colt in the cold as he watched all his friends get the credit he wanted. The admiration, the love, the medals." He pushed down the vague memories of before. Those were not important now.

Trixie swayed back and forth. "So what do you want me to do?"

"I just want to be out of this infernal blank slate. I want to go home."

Trixie hesitated for a moment. "This doesn't sound too good. I mean there's like a lot of ponies there."

Stygian facehoofed and cursed under his breath. Hypnosis always brought out the idiocy from his targets. "Altruism, a heinous crime." Stygian breathed in and out, his breath black clouds of miasma. "You know what? I know. That's really, really bad. But if you let me out, I'll give you the barest hint of power. You know you want something. I mean how exactly will you compete with Twilight Sparkle again or show your face in Manehattan? The laughingstock of Equestria, a failure, I mean if I were you I'd be a real tosser, the braggart of the century. Except I'd actually have something to show for it."

Stygian held out a hoof.

Trixie ran.

"Bloody hell. Just a mite more and I would have had her." Stygian sighed. If he was going to leave Limbo, this was his one shot. He had been here for a thousand years in unblinking repetition. Whatever let him reel in a dreamer, he silently thanked them. He groaned as he stretched out the magic he'd been mostly separated from for a thousand years, a thousand years of mentally changing his little slice of Limbo into a grassland or a house or something. Illusions were so hard to maintain. Being affable when dealing with ponies far below his mental capacities- or being alone for a thousand years stewing in his hatred for the six ponies trapped here with him.

He knew they were alive and well. But dealing with those six were for another time.

He put out his hoof and with a thought, he set his slice of Limbo ablaze, his eyes oozing with darkness as he walked, the mental fire stripping all of his illusions that he set around himself. A mental image of a long forgotten pony that had asked for power and was given it without realizing the cost.

He let his umbral form out and spread his dark wings as he floated above his old prison. As he flew he cast a whole litany of spells, his magic flowing in greater streams as he thought and looked down from on high, imagining the world that had forgotten him.

"Bellatrix Lulamoon, I wish you hadn't done that. Check one off for sympathetic connections I guess. Now for the second and far more painful choice."

***

Marble hummed to herself as she watched the rain fall on Rockville, the inky black clouds rolling in like conquering armies. She felt a tinge of worry as she felt the air shift and broil with magic that she had never felt before. Old magic. Magic her family had only talked about in hushed tones as they whispered about the far past. She twitched as she felt it, the electric signals sending her blips of information on what could be happening.

She tried to speak, her words mute and unformed as she felt waves of ill intent emanate from the room with the traveler.

She had warned her. She had seen shapes in the darkness and dreams portending ruin. Some evil was coming and even if her father told her explicitly to never leave the inn when a pony was here, she took one look at the ceiling and decided that maybe disobeying her family for the first time in her life might be a good idea.

She stared up and could see ichor dripping from in between the floorboards, the black ooze pooling right beside her desk. She shivered as she looked at it, feeling something deep within the watery mass almost look at her and whisper things she didn't want to hear.

She ran as the rain started its switch from a persistent drizzle into the beginnings of a downpour, her resolve broken and, with a final note she scrawled in haste, she ran home to tell her family. Maybe they hadn't taken one look at the inclement weather and the feelings of unease their Senses were giving off and had put two and two together. She hoped that was the case cause she had left her chalk in the inn.

She would have to rely on charades to get her family to understand. She thanked Celestia that she was really good at holding a conversation.

Room is free.

She didn't look back.

She didn't want to.

***

Trixie sat on the floor, dry heaving as she stared at what had come out of her, the black oil like substance had pooled around her and as she watched it drip towards the other floors, she couldn't just pass off the dream she had as a bad nightmare. She shivered as she touched the stuff just to feel it cling to her and coat her hoof in dark. Her mind didn't come up with wet or cold or anything. Just dark.

She blinked as she could hear somepony talk to her.

Opening her eyes, she looked at the stallion sitting ever so neatly on her bed. Glumly staring at her with his head in his hooves.

She stared back, her throat dry and pained. She tried to talk but nothing came out.

Stygian lay down on the bed and looked up at the ceiling. "Equestria sure is nice today."

Trixie blinked.

The lanky stallion stretched and got up. "Now, would you think I'd be in some aetherdamned room just because I felt like it? I mean I thought we had some kind of a back and forth dialogue while I forced myself out ever so slightly to freedom. If I was actually here in full force and power, I'd just go to this Canterlot place I've heard so much about from you and introduce myself. But since I'm not technically here, and you survived my torture session-" Stygian sighed. "Which I hate doing. The whole torture thing. Never was one for the whole stick method of things, though after a thousand years in there you get rather loose with things. But since you survived, I guess I'm here."

Trixie groaned.

Stygian facehoofed. "By Aether, I didn't cut out your tongue. Don't tell me you little modern ponies can't take some beatings. Some rather soft beatings at that. I mean back in my day, to get to the level of a master magister of some renown you had to bust a few dozen heads. Have you seen ponies heads pop like ripe fruit? I have, it's rather messy. Just ask Starswirl and the others when we get them out of Limbo, they got all the blasted credit. And I did everything for them, I set up the team, I spread their names in the towns, I got them their blasted whores when they needed one. And who do they still talk about in your history classes? Not me, that's for sure."

Trixie chuckled, her voice quiet. "Great, I have a pony that boasts harder than I do in my head. And loves the sound of his own voice. Great combination there."

Stygian rubbed his face. "Laugh all you want, but I am at least talked about in old mares' tales. Though they tend to be brief mentions, if your memory is anything to go by. You would barely get a mention in a common play. Unlike you, I actually tend to back up my promises."

Trixie rose carefully to her feet, her body swayed from side to side as she stood there staring at the gray unicorn. "And what if I just don't listen to you? I mean you dug around in my memories and all that crap. You know how headstrong I am. I mean it's probably easy to block you out. Who else would get stuck in a field for a thousand years."

Stygian's eye twitched. "That was a complex series of seals and rituals designed to seal me away and trap me there for eternity. If you had seen the actual mess I had been untangling, you would have contracted a form of early onset insanity. It was actually a brainteaser for me. Not some ruddy, garbage field you twit."

"Still it took you a thousand years. I know ponies who'd get out of that kind of trap in a day."

Stygian closed his eyes. "You are a gross exaggerator of truth. And I'll show you how I was actually planning on getting out of this humble establishment." Stygian chanted a small spell as he stared at Trixie and slowly raised his hoof. Trixie saw that it glowed black as he drew it slowly across his neck "Also I would rather speed up my comeback tour and not have you talk my ear off..

Trixie would have laughed if she wasn't also doing the same motion.

"Don't worry, Bellatrix, this won't hurt. . .much. I have enough magic to heal us both up when this is over. Not much more than that now, but give me a bit to recharge and we'll be on top. Real spotlight hogs, as some of these dreary Manhattanites you dread might say. Just give me a few weeks with your body to iron out some of the kinks and you'll be right back on top. I can see it now."

Trixie fainted as she heard Stygian's short laugh.

***

Stygian walked down the stairs, the blue body he'd so graciously borrowed feeling off as he tried to figure out how walking worked in the real world. He twirled the tattered hat of Trixie's as he walked down, feeling his center of gravity shift as he swayed his blue hips back and forth, feeling the motion as he walked down the stairs.

He noticed the empty feeling as he realized the rather humiliating part about hijacking a mare's body. Grimacing, he looked down at the rather empty lower half of his pony self and sighed. If beggars could be choosers, he'd had picked somepony far more of a stallion than his current self implied. He ran his blue hooves down the stair rail, feeling each and every slight imperfection in the wood, stopping and pricking his hooves on each splinter, relishing in the feel of blood well up slightly on his hooves- a hint that he was truly outside of Limbo. That place's pure perfection, the cold and lifeless interior, its boring existence for a thousand years. The inability to feel pain of any kind. What excitement lay in reality. Inert Limbo hills couldn't hold a candle to the sheer joy he was feeling just walking down stairs. Actual movement felt like pure magic to him.

Even the pain that he felt as his throat mended- it's gout of blood having poured down his blue coat, making a large purple splotch of color drying in the cool air- that exquisite pain brought him clarity, his black tendrils of darkness piercing the skin, stitching the wound back to health. Those pains told him he wasn't dreaming.

He turned to look at the large blackboard wall and sighed, feeling the pure mana surrounding him. Somepony rather powerful had been here, a slight chaotic mass of possibilities ran through his head. It wasn't Discord, too much like a pony, not enough pure chaos. A pity. Whoever had been here, even if they lacked the male self confidence he so desperately wanted, would have been a better choice than the aqua mare he had now.

He dragged his hoof across the bar and sighed. If he worried about every single failure in his life, he'd be here all day. And this place was not ideal for an existential reflection. He glanced in a nearby mirror and groaned as he noticed that the magic he'd used to stitch up this Trixie had left a rather odd discolored scar.

Shaking his head and gathering his new coat and hat around him, he stepped off into the beautiful day. The rain accentuating the feelings swirling in his head. Maybe now he'd show off his magical talents. He looked at Trixie's memories and rolled his eyes.

"Dear Bellatrix, whysoever did you think speaking in the third person was becoming of a budding sorceror?"

He felt no answer from her. He guessed she was asleep. Good for him. It'd be hard to consolidate power with a sobbing mare echoing in his head, whining about the pain.

Sometimes pain and discomfort was necessary for growth.

He carefully picked through her memories and found the image of this Manehattan in her head and saw it as a rather nice refuge to regain strength, the large towers blotting out the sun just enough to have a shade of darkness in midday, the size of the town large enough to slip away.

A completely perfect location for a down on her luck magician to appear again. He whistled to himself as he walked towards Manehattan- due east.

He didn't care that he was soaked. He would later, vaguely remembering that food, water, and shelter were a thing, but for now he felt content just walking down the road in pain.

He felt alive and he loved every pained second of it.

Author's Note

Didn't feel right to end it on chapter 3, felt somewhat incomplete. Brain says that this chapter is done and with how long it took to get out, I agree. Sequel's coming some time in the future.