The Archetypist

by Cold in Gardez

Rating: teen
Tags: Discord, Twilight Sparkle, Main 6, Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Starlight Glimmer
Length: 52278

I knew there would be trouble when Discord started asking about dreams. He just wanted to make them better, he said. More interesting. In a way he was right – in a very terrible way that we must stop, before it is too late.

Why do ponies dream? Why do we all seem to dream the same dreams?

What if we started to dream new things?

Discord said he wanted to make our dreams more interesting. Add some spice to our boring nocturnal lives. Nothing dangerous – just a bit of excitement to talk about in the mornings.

"Stop worrying so much, Twilight Sparkle," he said. "After all, dreams never hurt anypony."

How I wish he’d been right.

Gold Medalist in the Under the Sun Writeoff Event.

Now with Russian translation, courtesy of Cloud Ring! https://darkpony.space/the-archetypist-1/

Published 2019-03-29 15:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-04-21 22:02:18 UTC

Chapter 1

“Do you know what archetypes are?” Discord asked me one morning.

Nine times out of ten I ignored the draconequus when he appeared in my castle library. It wasn’t out of disrespect for him or a lack of courtesy. As much as my personal feelings for Discord may be conflicted, nopony has ever accused Twilight Sparkle of being a deficient host.

No, I usually just didn’t notice him. Reading books does that to me. Also, it’s amazing what you learn to ignore when you live in Ponyville.

But this? A thoughtful question? About archetypes? I set my book down on the crystal table and looked up at the ceiling, where Discord was sitting upside-down in contempt of gravity. He was smaller than usual, not much larger than a pony, and not wearing any of his silly outfits or masks or what have you. Just looking at me, waiting for an answer.

Huh.

“Archetypes?” I said. “Like, literary archetypes? The lean warrior pegasus, or wise unicorn mage?”

“Hm, no.” His head tilted in thought, and kept tilting, and his snakelike body twisted and twisted on itself. He curled into a ball, then kept winding further and further, tightening with each rotation until his coiled frame squeezed into a solid knot of fur and scales and claws, and his skin grew so taut it ruptured like a burst sausage, and he fell as rain onto the table in front of me, splattering me with drops of chaos. I recoiled – they smelled of liquorice and starlight.

As quickly as he’d come apart, he came back together. The fluid drew in on itself, unwetting my poor book (to my mild relief – drying spells are a pain) and growing into a new draconequus on the table. He reclined on it, his head resting on an upturned claw, a thoughtful look on his face.

“The other type,” he continued. “The ones in dreams.”

“Dreams are more Luna’s thing than mine,” I said. I brushed my chest to make sure there was nothing left of him on me. “But I’m familiar with the idea. Innate images, concepts or ponies that seem to appear in stories across cultures and times. And, like you said, in dreams. Allegedly, anyway.”

“Allegedly?”

I shrugged. “They’re just a theory, not something with an objective reality. They can’t be measured or tested or written about in articles for scientific journals. They’re a curiosity, certainly, but so what if maybe we all dream about shadows sometimes, or weird trickster spirits?” I finished with a pointed glance in his direction.

He raised his misshapen arms in mock surrender. “Hey, don’t blame me for that. Like you said, dreams are Luna’s thing… for now, anyway.”

I sighed. Subtle. “For now? Thinking of branching out?”

“Oh, it’s crossed my mind,” he said. “Dreams have always fascinated me, you know. So chaotic. Everything’s up for grabs in dreams, and nopony ever realizes what’s going on. They just take the chaos in stride and run with it, sometimes in fun, sometimes screaming in terror. It’s exhilarating!”

I pulled my book back toward me and opened it again. We’d been speaking for nearly a minute, which meant Discord was due to get distracted by something new and vanish. “I’d leave dreams alone if I were you, Discord. Luna doesn’t like it when outsiders trespass in her realm.”

His expression soured, and the taste of lemons flooded my mouth. “That’s rather exclusionary, isn’t it?” he grumped. “Don’t dreams belong to all ponies?”

I pointed a wing at him. “Your dreams belong to you. Mine belong to me. But dreams as a whole? The dreamscape?” I spread my wings wide, encompassing all of creation. “That belongs to her.”

He grinned. His expressions were always icky things, filled with snaggleteeth and serpents’ tongues, often more than one at a time, but this was an especially disquieting smile, a leering, knowing smirk flowing not with humor but joy. It shoved me back on my cushion like a physical blow.

“Your dreams?” he said. “Do you dream of books, Eggplant? Or slide rules, maybe? First place in spelling bees? All the major nerd archetypes?”

“My dreams are my business,” I said. “And books aren’t just for nerds, thank you.”

“Of course, of course. Books are for everypony, like the sign says.” He waved absently at one of the motivational posters plastered to the crystal wall, part of the Equestrian Library Association’s annual membership drive and which did, in fact, note in balloon-shaped letters that books were for everypony. “Anyway, thanks for the time, Sparky. I’ll be on my way now.”

“Right.” I stood, because it was the polite thing to do. “And you’re not going to mess with ponies’ dreams?”

“Mess with? No, no, scout’s honor.” He covered his heart with his right paw, saluted with his left, and held his right up as though taking an oath. Yes, I’m aware that’s three paws. “I just want to play around a bit. See if I can make dreams a bit more exciting than they already are. An experiment. You like experiments, don’t you?”

“Don’t bring science into this. And don’t make me call Fluttershy on you.”

That blow landed. Discord flinched, and his eyes grew wide. But just as fast he was back to his usual mocking smile.

“Oh, no need to get her involved,” he said. A flash of light filled the library, and when it cleared only his shadow remained, slinking across the crystal floor toward the exit. His disembodied voice rang from the library walls. “Ta-ta.”

“Wait!” I called out, and to my surprise he did. The shadow froze, looking like a puddle of spilled ink. I hadn’t expected him to obey, and now we both waited in silence while I gawped like a fool.

Finally, “Yes, Sparky?”

“Uh.” I cleared my throat. “What… what do you dream of, Discord?”

He laughed. He spoke, and as he spoke the shadow bubbled, lifting into the air and evaporating into nothing. “Who’s to say I’m not dreaming now? Perhaps you are my dream.”

Silence followed. I waited, because sometimes Discord liked to pretend to leave only to walk back in the door a moment later, but it seemed I was truly alone. I heard the faint sound of running water from somewhere in the castle as Spike or Starlight Glimmer went about their day.

I picked up my book, set it on a reshelving cart, and went to look up everything the library had on dreams.

* * *

I’ve never felt pain in my dreams. It’s like the sensation just doesn’t exist. Which is probably fortunate when you consider all the terrible things that happen in our sleep.

The first few weeks after I became an alicorn, I was plagued with dreams of falling. There I would be, up in the sky, soaring alongside Celestia and Luna and my friends and my brother and Spike and my parents, giddy as a filly with a new book, and then my wings would just come off between flaps. Like they weren’t glued on well enough or the new bones needed more time to harden.

Fun fact. After they come off, your wings actually manage to fly by themselves for a few seconds. Separately, obviously, going in wildly different directions, but the lift-generating surfaces still have air flowing over them and until they begin to tumble they actually become more efficient because, after all, they’re no longer having to hold the rest of you up. This is interesting from an aerodynamic perspective but quite terrifying from a falling perspective.

You don’t quite realize you’re falling yet, either. You feel that hollow in your gut, like your intestines are trying to move into your lungs, but you’re not sure why. After all, when the ground is ten-thousand feet away, it takes quite a bit of falling before anything looks different. To the falling mare, the only change is that her wings are no longer a part of her and they’re suddenly way up there, getting further away, and the wind is now coming from the direction of the ground rather than the direction of flight, and after a few confused, horrified seconds, you come to the realization that this is because the ground now is your direction of flight. And because time flows weirdly in dreams, the ten-thousand foot fall is over in seconds, and you have only a brief moment to contemplate your imminent reunion with the earth and to wonder what happens after you die.

Death doesn’t hurt in dreams, though. One of Luna’s less appreciated gifts: there is never any pain in her realm.

But I have caused pain.

Sometimes, in my dreams, I am not a good pony. Not the pony I want to be. I have destroyed precious things and wounded my friends with my carelessness. For years after being accepted as Celestia’s student I had nightmares about turning my parents into objects from a still life – cups and trays of fruit and candles and skulls. Nopony punished me for it, because I was just a filly out of control, but neither was there a kindly god to undo my work. So I lived the rest of my life in a quiet house tending to rotting fruit and dusty skulls and unlit candles.

In dreams I have sated my selfish desires through lies or theft or violence or worse. And because dreams always feel real, for that moment in the dream I am the thief, the liar, the rapist, the murderer, the cannibal.

In every dream, in the red moment after each of my crimes, I am filled with horror. Guilt wells out of my throat like acid, burning me. I loathe myself so endlessly and deeply that I think, just for that moment, like death might be the most suitable release.

So which is the real me? The monster, or the penitent mare who follows? If dreams are a mirror, what are they reflecting?

I woke sweating that night after Discord came to my library, chilled despite the hot summer air, my heart hammering and my blood singing from some dream that slipped away from me even as I tried to grasp at its shreds. I remembered, briefly, the faces of those I have vanquished or destroyed – Sombra and Tirek and Nightmare Moon and even Discord’s shocked visage frozen in stone. My soul ached, and then the sensation was gone, replaced with relief. It was just a dream.

I am still a good pony. I repeated that to myself as I lay back onto the pillow. It was cold and soaked with sweat. Outside my window night still reigned, and the stars had yet to fade from the east horizon. Dawn was hours away. I closed my eyes and waited for sleep to return.

Dreams are where the dungeons in our minds overflow.

Reading books does that to me. Also, it’s amazing what you learn to ignore when you live in Ponyville.

Chapter 2

“Unusual dreams?” Rarity asked. She tilted her head at my question. “No, can’t say that I have.”

“You’re sure?” I asked. It was a week after Discord’s unusual visit to my library, and Rarity and I were having overpriced drinks on the patio of the new Ponyville Starbucks. I wasn’t a big fan, but Rarity had insisted, and apparently it was a popular spot because approximately half the population of Ponyville was standing in a long line that extended out the door, around the patio and down the block. At least the weather was nice.

My dreams hadn’t changed, or at least not that I’d noticed. But my dreams were always fragments, confused images and scenarios that resisted my attempts to remember. I wasn’t sure Discord could do much to make them any more chaotic.

But Rarity? I knew Rarity. Sophisticated, worldly, driven Rarity. Her dreams must be as exquisite as her fashion designs, as florid as her imagination. I could see her dreaming of a prince still, of white castles and smartly dressed servants out of a storybook tale that began with the first sight of her lover, proceeded through a whirlwind courtship and ended with them together in bed. A fine, rich clay for Discord to spoil.

“I’m certainly sure,” she said. “Except for the other night.”

My ears perked up. “Oh?”

“Well, I don’t normally dream about work. I think I must just get too much of it during the day. But that night, Twilight? I dreamed of a butterfly. The most beautiful butterfly you’ve ever seen, as large as I was and flowing with feathers and colors and lace. It felt so real I could touch it, and then I did touch it, Twilight! And when I touched it it wrapped its wings around me in the softest embrace you can imagine, and it transformed into the most beautiful dress, a sleek chiffon drape with little iridescent scales all down the back. Why, it was so beautiful I had to leap out of bed and write it all down before I could forget!”

“Not a bad dream, then.”

“Oh no. Quite the opposite. As soon as I woke I started drawing out the fabric patterns, and once we finish with our coffee I’ll go back to my boutique and put patterns to cloth.”

“Okay.” I rotated my paper teacup so the seapony logo on the side was facing the same direction as the logo on Rarity’s cup. “Does that happen often?”

“What, dreaming?”

“Dreaming about a new design with enough clarity to translate it into a real dress.”

“Oh.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “I suppose not. This might be the first time, actually.”

“So, it was unusual.”

“Posh.” Rarity waved a hoof. “All dreams are unusual, Twilight. That’s like picking a single pony out of a crowd and declaring ‘How unusual! Of all the ponies in this crowd, here is the only stallion with a chestnut coat and cinnamon mane!’” She gestured with her hoof as she spoke, and I turned to see an earth pony stallion matching that description sitting across the room, fiddling with a steaming paper cup while the mare beside him rested her head on his shoulder.

When I turned back, she continued. “You would say that about any pony you picked, wouldn’t you? We’re all identically unique.”

I frowned. “So you’ve had an unusual dream, but that’s not unusual?”

“Precisely. Now, what has you asking about such an odd topic? On a sunny summer afternoon, no less?”

“Discord visited me the other day. Said he was thinking of getting involved in ponies’ dreams.” I took a sip of my latte. The chai’s cinnamon and cloves overwhelmed the more subtle tea flavors in the drink, to the point I could barely tell it was tea at all, rather than just hot spiced milk. “I wrote Luna a letter, but she didn’t seem too concerned. She wrote back that dreams were an ancient magic that not even Discord could defile.”

“Well, she would know, wouldn’t she?”

“She knows dreams, yes, but she doesn’t know Discord as well as we do.” It occurred to me as I spoke that I could be wrong about that too – Luna may have been gone for a thousand years, but before that she had helped lock the trickster spirit in stone. You didn’t petrify people without getting to know them at least a little bit.

“I think you’re concerned about nothing,” Rarity said. She finished her espresso and set it on the table, dabbed at her lips with her napkin, then folded it into a ball and stuffed it into the empty cup. Around us, a few of the standing patrons edged closer to our table, sensing that we were preparing to abandon it. “My dreams are fine, nopony appears to be driven mad by chaotic nighttime visions. Look around, darling. Do these ponies seem like they’ve been having trouble sleeping?”

I didn’t answer. She was right enough – the crowd was filled with smiles and easy conversations. If anything, ponies looked more animated than usual. Buzzing with life. Hardly the stuff of horrors. But then, we were in a coffee shop. Perhaps it was all the caffeine.

“I just worry, you know?”

Rarity sighed. “Mares are allowed to worry, but don’t worry too much. It causes wrinkles.”

“Right, right.” I looked around. The patio was slowly filling with standing ponies, lounging by the short wrought iron fence separating the establishment from the sidewalk or by the napkin dispenser. Hawk-like eyes scanned from table to table, searching for any sign of an opening. “Ready?”

“Yes.” Rarity clasped her saddlebags and straightened her sunhat. She picked up both our cups with her magic. Around us, ponies drifted closer. “On three.”

I nodded and began a mental count. At three, we both stood and bolted for the trash bins. Behind us, the scrum of seatless patrons collapsed on our little table, dozens of ponies vying for two spots in the world’s most heartless version of musical chairs.

* * *

The woods outside town sang as I walked through them. Sparrows and larks and chickadees harmonized with buzzing cicadas and clicking ashborer beetles, filling the trees with a chorus that grew louder with each step down the dirt path away from Ponyville. Only when the wind picked up and nature’s tiny musicians huddled against their perches to resist it and the rush of the leaves rose to a crescendo did the song fade for a few heartbeats.

Everything about the day seemed brighter. Happy, the way early summer ought to be. For a moment my fears felt so groundless that I half-resolved to abandon these silly questions and just return to the castle and take a book out on the balcony to read while I pony-watched in the sun. But then I remembered Discord’s leering smile, and that was enough to push me forward.

The elms that bordered the path opened as I entered a meadow. Young, green, swaying sawgrass replaced the trees, tickling my sides and belly. I cast a quick anti-tick spell just to be safe.

Finally, over hills and a small stream, I reached my destination. Fluttershy’s cottage was a living thing itself, a mound of earthen walls all thatched with growing grass. A dozen painted birdhouses and batboxes jutted from the eaves, and a swarm of jewels buzzed around a bright red feeder filled with sugar water. Hummingbirds, claiming an easy meal. They darted around me as I approached, a few of the braver males daring to alight on the tips of my ears before zipping away.

I sat and knocked on her door. After a minute with no answer, I knocked again.

Still nothing. Huh. I stood and walked around the corner to one of the windows. I didn’t think of myself as a nosy pony, but it wasn’t like Fluttershy not to answer her door, and I hadn’t seen her in town. The window was open, and the insides were dark. I heard the faint rustling of tiny clawed feet scuttering about.

I was about to call for her when something cheeped beside me. I jumped and maybe let out a little eek of surprise, but when I turned it was just a black-capped oriole, perched on the fence rail. It cheeped again, pointed at the sky with its beak, then took off in a flutter, vanishing up past the roof. I stepped away from the window and peered after it.

Ah, and there she was. Fluttershy lay on the highest point of the cottage, half-sunk into the soft grass roof. Her wings splayed out on either side to catch the sun, and a dozen birds lounged with her, perched in her mane or preening her feathers with their tiny beaks. She saw me, gave a little wave, then held her hoof up to her lips in the universal gesture for silence.

Okay, I could do that. I beat my wings gently, slowly rising up the side of the cottage, using my hooves to help haul me up as quietly as possible. The birds made way for me as I reached the top, and I settled in beside her, careful not to tread on her wings.

She leaned over to nuzzle my cheek. Her mane smelled of fresh sweat and wildflowers. “Hello Twilight,” she whispered.

“Hi,” I whispered back. I settled down beside her. The grass was cool and pleasantly scratchy on my belly. “Why are we whispering?”

“I don’t want to scare my new friend.” She motioned with her muzzle toward the woods just beyond the meadow encircling her cottage. Past them lay the Everfree Forest, a dark green shadow on the world. “She’s a little nervous around ponies.”

Ah. Some new animal, then. I peered into the woods. “What is it?”

“I’m not sure yet. She’s not ready to show herself. Or himself. But I think it’s a her and she’s lonely.”

“Is it safe?”

Fluttershy nodded slowly, so as not to unbalance the family of goldfinches perched in her mane. “Of course. Animals aren’t allowed near my cottage if they’re going to cause trouble. It’s one of my rules.”

“Rules?” I glanced back and forth between her, the woods, and the birds preening her mane. “I don’t think animals follow rules, Fluttershy.”

“They follow mine.” She gave me a little smile, and as though that settled the matter, we fell back into silence.

The wind teased my feathers, a nice cool counterpoint to the warming sun. A bold blue jay bounded closer to me, and after a bit of encouragement from Fluttershy, he hopped up onto my hoof. I held still, barely breathing, afraid that any movement would startle him into flight. As large as he was, he barely felt like anything, as insubstantial as air. I could have lifted a thousand of him.

Something touched my shoulder. I turned my head as slowly as possible and saw a tiny gray tufted titmouse making its way to the root of my wing. It poked at the fluffy covert feathers, then began walking out toward the longer primaries.

Another something landed on the tip of my horn. I peered up, cross-eyed, and a dark-eyed junco peered back. I gave my head a little shake to dislodge it, and it flap-jumped into my mane.

Fluttershy giggled. “I think they like you.”

“Heh, really? That’s great.” I felt a silly smile stretching out my face. It was more than great – it was elating. A pure, simple happiness grew inside me as more and more birds grew braver and joined their friends on my wings and back. So many little lives, trusting me. But... “They’re not going to poop on me, will they?”

Fluttershy shrugged. “They’re birds, Twilight. It washes out.”

Oh. Well, we’d faced worse. I settled into a comfortable position, wings splayed out like Fluttershy’s, and resolved to enjoy myself. Neither of us spoke for a while, but our friendship was old and deep enough that we had no need to fill the silence. We were comfortable doing nothing with each other. Like resting in the spa’s hot tub with Rarity, letting the heat seep into our bones and melt away the stress. So it was with the sun and the wind and the birdsong. All the while Fluttershy gazed into the forest, into the verdant shadows between the trees. Her eyes tracked something I could not see.

Comfortable. Too comfortable, maybe. At some point I drifted off, lulling in that between state where daydreams become a bit more like actual dreams, and the anchor with the present unmoors itself from the world, and my cartwheeling thoughts contested with reality. On the roof, still, with Fluttershy, still, but lost in the margins of sleep.

A cold drop of rain between my shoulderblades shocked me back to life. My whole body jerked, and dozens of wings flapped as birds evacuated their perch. Fluttershy glanced over at me, smiled a little smile, then turned her attention back to the woods.

It took a minute to get my muzzy thoughts back in order. Pieces slowly fell back into place. I pulled my wings back to cover my barrel from the stray droplets falling from a low cloud being pushed across the sky by a phalanx of pegasi. A few waved down at us as they passed.

“Welcome back,” Fluttershy whispered.

“Thanks.” I blushed. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Sometimes I like to nap up here. Better than a cloud, I think.”

“Yeah.” I could see that. Even after years with wings, I still felt a little nervous on clouds. They were so wispy and insubstantial, and the drop beneath them so long. Better a nice, solid perch like this.

My little nap did something else – it reminded me of why I came. “Hey, Fluttershy?”

“Hm?”

“Have you had any unusual dreams, lately? Like, did they feel different?”

She tilted her head. “I don’t think so. Why?”

“Just… something Discord said to me. I don’t know if he’s trying to cause trouble or just being himself, but he mentioned dreams, and, well, you know.”

“Mhm.” Fluttershy’s eyes shifted from the woods off to the side, as though she were searching for something new. “Would you like me to have a chat with him?”

“Not yet. Whatever he’s doing, it doesn’t seem to have bothered anypony. Or maybe he just forgot.”

“I doubt it. He’s not as scatterbrained as ponies think. They see how he acts and assume that he must be addled, because only an addled pony would act like that. But he’s not a pony. He’s something very different from us.”

“But at least he’s reformed now.”

She shook her head. “He has friends now. That’s more important. What does ‘being reformed’ even mean?”

“Well, you know… he’s like Starlight and Trixie.”

“Don’t they both have friends now?”

Er. Huh. I didn’t have an answer. From the smile she gave me, Fluttershy wasn’t expecting one.

She stretched and carefully rose to her hooves. She kept her wings extended, a platform for the dozens of songbirds still roosting in her feathers. They slowly roused themselves and took to the air, and when the last was gone she folded her wings back to her side.

“I think it’s going to rain soon. We should go inside.”

“Yeah.” I looked up at the sky. Hundreds more clouds had moved in, each pushed by a lone pegasus. Together they began to crowd out the sun. “Supposed to drizzle today.”

“The farmers will appreciate that. And I’ll let you know if I have any odd dreams. But I wouldn’t expect anything from me, Twilight. My dreams are always boring. I barely even remember them.”

We hopped off the roof together and floated to the ground. Far off, the air rumbled with thunder. I was going to have to race back to my castle, it seemed. The pitter-patter of fat drops hitting the dry dirt joined the rush of the wind.

“Really?” I asked. “They’re never weird? My dreams always are.”

She propped the cottage door open and stood in the entrance. Dozens of critters crawled or walked or flew through the windows, seeking shelter from the coming storm. “Only when I’m sleeping with somepony.”

I forgot how to walk for a moment and almost tripped. “What? I mean, uh…” My face burned. “You mean, like, sleeping with somepony, or sleeping with somepony?”

“We’re talking about dreams, Twilight. What do you think?”

“Oh, right. Haha, of course.” My blush deepened. There was a bit of grass from the roof twined with the coat over my chest, and I picked at it rather than meet her eyes. “Sorry, sorry. Just a little, uh, unexpected—”

She cut my rambling off with a chaste nuzzle and giggled. “You should hurry if you want to get home before it starts showering, Twilight. Unless you want to spend a few more hours here.”

That was tempting, but I had more errands to run, and things to do that couldn’t be done from Fluttershy’s cottage. “Right. Right. Hey, uh, thank you for the afternoon! It was really nice.”

“It was for me too.” Fluttershy bent down and picked up a plump pheasant that was having trouble getting up the stairs to her cottage. “You’re always welcome to join me here.”

I turned and started to walk away. After a few steps I stopped. “Wait. What about that new animal you were looking for? Will it be okay out here?”

Fluttershy paused. She’d almost closed the door, and she leaned out of it to peer at the woods. After a moment she nodded.

“She’ll be fine. Animals don’t mind getting a bit wet.”

Right. I gave her a final nod and turned back to the path. After a few steps I stretched my wings and began to fly the rest of the way.

Animals might not mind the rain, but I did.

"Animals aren’t allowed near my cottage if they’re going to cause trouble. It’s one of my rules."

Chapter 3

I straightened my notes into distinct piles, sorted by subject, and sat back with a frown. The papers frowned back, if papers could be said to frown – at least, they weren’t being helpful. That stung. I’d never been betrayed by paper before.

“So, inconclusive, then?” Starlight Glimmer asked. She settled on a cushion near the bookshelves, a steaming mug of early morning coffee floating beside her. The rich, brown scent of another cup teased my nostrils, and I turned to see my “World’s Best Librarian and Top Four Princess” mug settle onto the table beside the papers.

Starlight Glimmer was a great student. I lifted the mug and took a careful sip.

“It’s too subjective,” I said. “Some ponies I’ve talked to report unusual dreams, others say they’re not sure. Then there’s ponies like you and me, who don’t remember much about our dreams anyway. Who knows?”

“Best guess, then?”

“Best guess is that nothing happened.” I walked away from the table to the cushions by the bookshelf and slumped next to Starlight, who scooched over to make room. She took her showers in the evening rather than the morning, and the scent of bed linens and sweat and candle wicks clung to her. “Whatever Discord is trying to do, he failed. Or the results are so subtle there’s no way to tell if it’s doing anything.”

“Maybe dreams really are out of his league,” she said. “Luna always struck me as a jealous master.”

“She’s not bad. She’s just… very intense, sometimes. Very dedicated. And if that’s keeping ponies’ dreams safe from Discord’s meddling, then it’s not a bad thing at all, is it?”

Starlight opened her mouth to respond, but it was another voice that filled the library. Deep, masculine and oily. And more annoyed than I’d ever heard it before.

“Meddling, you call it,” Discord said. His voice oozed out from between the covers of the books on the shelves, and he followed, dripping out scale by claw by horn until the whole of him flowed down the shelf in a thin film of draconequus. He puddled on the floor behind the cushion, then reared up, complete, and wrapped an arm around each of our shoulders. “More like… improving!”

I snapped away with a teleport over to the table by my notes and glared at him. Starlight just rolled her eyes at his antics and leaned against his bulk.

“Hello, Discord,” she said. “Were your ears burning? We were just talking about you.”

“I assume that a great number of ponies are talking about me at any given time,” he said. “After all, what else is there to talk about? The weather? So boring. Nothing interesting ever falls out of the skies these days.”

“We were talking about how you’ve failed to modify the dreamscape in any appreciable fashion,” I said. I fluffed the notes with my magic, more as a prop than to demonstrate anything with them. “I’ve interviewed dozens of ponies since we spoke, and there’s no evidence you’ve managed to change a single thing.”

“Oh, we’re relying on evidence, now?” He waved a paw. “This is why nothing invites you to parties, Sparky.”

Starlight jabbed him with an elbow. “Be nice.”

“I am nice. Also, hello again, Glimmy. How’s Tricks?”

“Good.” Starlight’s face relaxed into a smile. “She’s bringing her wagon back around to Ponyville in a few days. You should come by and visit.”

“I’m sure I can do that. Now, what’s this about doubting my abilities?”

“Not doubting, it’s just… we…“ She shrugged. “Well, maybe a little doubting.”

“You shouldn’t doubt your friends,” he said. “Soon you’ll be as suspicious as old Applejack, never trusting a word I say.”

That just proved how sensible Applejack was. I wondered, for a moment, what sort of dreams she had. Probably wholesome, family-filled things. “So, you’re giving up this foolishness with dreams?”

“Oh, on the contrary.” He snapped his fingers and reappeared across the table from me, wearing pyjamas and one of those floppy conical hats with a puffy ball at the tip. “I realized, I think, what the problem was. You can’t just change archetypes, not even Luna can do that. After all, what are archetypes? They are simply stories ponies all agree to dream about, because ponies all live the same boring, similar lives. You’re all afraid of the dark, so you all dream about it too. And death, and sex, and all those other little animal things.”

“Everypony is unique in her own special way,” I shot back. “Part of growing up is learning to appreciate what makes us different.”

“Oh, to you, I’m sure.” He waved his lion’s paw. Its claws were ratty and burred. “I’ll bet crows can tell each other apart, but they’re all the same to me. This pony, that pony, only the colors are different. There’s only a few of you who are really interesting.” He ended with a grin in Starlight’s direction, which she did not return.

“Is that how you feel about Fluttershy?” she asked.

His leering expression softened, and something like a real smile replaced it. “Fluttershy is one of the special ones, even if her dreams are a little… ordinary. But I can help her with that! I can help all of you!”

“You tried that already,” I said. “You failed. We went over this.”

“No, I failed because I tried the wrong thing. I tried changing your archetypes, but that’s pointless. Archetypes are the the sea in which our dreams swim, and trying to change everypony’s dreams by altering the archetypes? That’s like changing the ocean and expecting new fish to appear.”

“Should I be concerned that you’re comparing ponies to fish, now?”

He snorted. “Fish are a promotion, Sparky. Ponies are like ants to me.” He reached out, quicker than I could react, and plucked a tiny covert feather from my wing. “Soon enough they will be to you, too. You should start taking notes from Celestia.”

“Discord…” Starlight growled. Even I could hear the warning in her voice. “We talked about this.”

“Fine, fine. Shoot the messenger, why don’t you?” A crossbow appeared out of thin air in front of Starlight, then clattered onto the floor and fired with a loud twang. The bolt vanished off into the distant library stacks with the muffled thud of something heavy striking a book. He leaned over me, close enough that I could smell him. Like licorice and starlight, still. “Back to the topic at hand, dreams! I had the most wonderful idea, you two. A way to spice them up for real, this time. Give ponies something to really look forward to when they go to sleep.”

I leaned back. “And how’s that? Change the fish?”

“Not quite. Let the fish change themselves.” He giggled that unhinged giggle of his, then raised his eagle-claw and snapped his talons.

Time froze. Colors washed away from the world, leaving a silhouette-scape of black and white. For a long moment the only sound was the thud-thud-thud of my heart hammering in my chest. The stale air choked me, filling my lungs like cotton, and just as my chest began to catch fire, time returned in a rush.

I gasped for breath and slumped on the table. A few feet away, Starlight shook herself, a puzzled expression on her face.

“What… what just happened?” she asked.

“Something wonderful, Glimmy!” Discord threw his arms wide in celebration. “I cut your dreams loose! No more archetypes anymore, you can dream whatever you want! Anything your beautiful little ant brains invent, you can dream it now! Oh, I can’t wait to see how tonight goes!”

He threw his head back to laugh. His whole body rose into the air, like steam over a boiling pot, and vanished. Only his laughter remained, echoing for long seconds after his departure.

I coughed. A tiny lavender covert feather, little more than a ball of fluff, expelled itself from my throat and fluttered down onto the table. I scowled at it.

“Starlight,” I said with a rough voice. “Make some more coffee. We have research to do.”

* * *

Several hours later and the same table was filled with propped-open books and reams of notes. In the center of the table we’d cleared a wide space and laid out a dozen note cards, with room for more.

With nothing else to go on, we’d started with archetypes. There was no comprehensive list of them, and the very concept wasn’t even universally accepted by philosophers or psychologists, much less real scientists. They were just a catchy theory with the benefit of being impossible to disprove. Heck, dream research had been dormant for nearly a thousand years before Luna’s return, and even today there were only a hoofful of researchers investigating the subject with her assistance. All this? All these notes and books and suppositions floating in my head? They were just conjecture.

Conjecture was great when it lead to new discoveries. But conjectures about dreams? Good luck researching that. There was nothing to measure! I scowled at the array of notecards for not the first time that afternoon.

Starlight was the more enthusiastic of us. Of course, she’d always been an expert on how ponies’ minds worked, even if her use of that expertise hadn’t always been for the best purposes. But she understood how ponies thought in ways that I didn’t. She was comfortable swimming in that murky zone between hard science and art. She could work with the flesh.

“So, this is what we’ve got so far,” Starlight said. She was floating over the table, wrapped in a field of her own magic. “A dozen or so archetypes. Concepts that appear in literature and art across pony civilizations, from thousands of years ago until today, regardless of language or geographical distance. The self, the shadow, the animus, the wise old stallion, the innocent child, the hero, the virgin and the trickster. Oh, and they keep appearing in dreams.”

She tapped each card as she spoke. On them we’d scribbled a few notes and doodles gleaned from the academic journals scattered all over the library.

“So, theory one,” I said. “Archetypes never existed or they have no special significance. Nothing Discord is doing will matter, in that case, and we can stop worrying and go get some lunch.”

That was my favorite theory. Especially the lunch part. Hayburgers were calling my name.

“Theory two,” Starlight said. “Archetypes do exist, and they play some important role in pony cultures. But to undo the archetypes, Discord would have to change how we dream, or the things we dream about. We should skip lunch and keep researching.”

Did I say Starlight was a great student? I didn’t mean it. My stomach growled.

Still… “If we embrace theory two and we’re wrong, we lose nothing but lunch,” I said. “If we embrace theory one and we’re wrong, all pony civilization may collapse. Risk analysis suggests we should go with theory two.”

Starlight grinned at me. “Exactly what I was thinking.”

I leaned on the table to peer down at the notecards. The ‘trickster’ card happened to be closest, and I scowled at it. Little question in my mind about why ponies throughout the ages had dreamed of such a spirit.

“What was it Discord said?” I asked. “No more archetypes; he was cutting our dreams loose? What does that actually mean?”

Starlight floated back down beside me. “If archetypes exist, and if they somehow bind ponies dreams, then we’re now… unbound, I suppose. Free to dream of anything.”

That didn’t sound so bad. And anyway, dreams were just dreams. Chaotic reflections of our thoughts, nothing more. They never hurt anypony. I stared at the cards in silence for a while, until finally Starlight cleared her throat.

“So, what now?”

I sighed. “I think we go visit an expert.”

* * *

“Greetings, Twilight Sparkle!” Luna said as Starlight Glimmer and I walked into the princess’s quarters in Canterlot. It was late afternoon now, following an hour-long train ride from Ponyville, and I’d had to exert my executive privilege to convince the guards outside that letting me see Luna was a national emergency worth waking her for.

“Hello, Luna. Thank you for seeing us so—”

“Of course!” She swooped forward, wrapping the two of us in her huge wings and bullying us over to a nice little table by the fire, where a tea set and cups were already laid out. “I was delighted when the guards woke me up hours early and told me that I had visitors! Why, I’m not even awake yet, and already my day has started well!”

You know how some ponies can be sarcastic, but their delivery is so dry it’s impossible to tell if they’re being sarcastic? Luna was like that. Starlight glanced at me, her eyes wide. I just shrugged.

“We wouldn’t have come if it weren’t important,” I said. “Remember that thing I asked about the other week? With Discord?”

“Ah, yes.” She settled us down at the cozy little table and poured out three cups of jasmine tea. Sitting there, she loomed over Starlight and me like a filly at a tea party for her dolls. “Did he fail, as I had predicted?”

I’d prepared an entire dossier of research for Luna, filled with notes and charts and page upon page of reference material. In that moment, I made the decision to skip it. “Basically, yes. But apparently that just encouraged him to try something new. Have you ever heard of archetypes?”

Luna was silent for a moment, and I could see the thoughts spinning behind her eyes. “Archetypes? I know the word, yes. It refers to common literary figures?”

“Yes, but that’s not all,” I said. I opened my saddlebags and pulled out one of the best texts Starlight and I had found in our research, an academic journal in the budding field of onieromancy. I figured Luna could relate to that. I opened it to a bookmarked page and passed it across the table.

Luna lifted the journal and began flipping through it. She paused, occasionally, turning back a page, only to resume after a few moments of silent consideration. Finally, as our tea was growing cold and Starlight was starting to fidget, she put the journal down.

“I see. Archetypes in dreams. An interesting concept. It’s amazing what theories ponies developed to explain the night while I was gone.”

“Discord said he cut us loose from them,” Starlight said. “He thinks it will make us dream more interesting things. Or novel things, at least.”

“He just wants to cause chaos,” I said. “Anything that scares ponies, makes them panic, that’s all he wants.”

“Well, he’s going to have to keep trying, then.” Luna set her hooves on the table and leaned forward, looming over us. “There are no mystical, invisible chains binding ponies’ dreams together. These… archetypes are an interesting theory, but they possess no objective reality. There is no mould from which your dreams are cast. Every pony creates their own.”

“Then why do they feel like they exist?” I asked. “Why do so many ponies dream about the same things?”

Luna lifted her tea and took a sip. Apparently she didn’t mind it cold. “Why do so many unicorns dream that their horns are missing, you mean? Why do earth ponies dream of falling? Because those are subconscious fears they all share. Ponies dream of similar things because ponies share certain traits, desires and anxieties. It’s the same reason the dreams of stallions and mares differ.”

I blinked. “What do stallions dream of?”

Luna grinned at me. Her teeth seemed a bit sharper than usual – the full moon must’ve been due. “You should ask them yourself, Twilight Sparkle. If they trust you, they’ll tell you. Who knows, you might even gain something more in the process.”

Subtle, Luna wasn’t. Starlight giggled behind her hoof. I coughed and took a sip of the cool tea to hide my blush. “Right. So, what can Discord actually accomplish? Can he just—” I mimed snapping my claws, though with a hoof the gesture was somewhat lacking, “—and change our dreams?”

She shook her head. “Dreams are reborn with every night. He can’t change them because they don’t exist until we call them into existence with our slumbering minds. He thinks he has cut you loose from these ‘archetypes,’ but they are nothing more than shadows. I fear Discord is due for another disappointment.”

“Oh.” Starlight sniffed at her tea, then pushed it and its saucer away. “So we’re worried about nothing?”

“It’s always appropriate to worry about Discord and his antics,” Luna said. She glanced down at Starlight’s teacup, then reached out with the tip of her wing to scoop a tiny flame out of the fireplace. It danced along the edge of her feathers, and she dropped it into Starlight’s cup, where it vanished with a hiss and rush of steam. “I recall you have some personal experience with him?”

Starlight eyed the teacup, then lifted it and took a sip. “Yes, he’s a friend. I’m sure, whatever he thinks he’s doing, he means well. He just sees things different from us sometimes.”

“Well, you can relax, then.” Luna said. “Ponies’ dreams are beyond his power to change. He’ll realize this, I’m sure, and something else will come along to catch his interest. So it goes with Discord. Now, if you’ll forgive me, the night beckons. I trust you can find your way out.”

So saying, Luna stood. Her wings stretched wide, wider than the room, encompassing all of my vision with her beautiful indigo darkness. She smiled again, and this time there was no mistaking the sharp points of her fangs. Shadows welled out from her, flooding the room, embracing us, and then all my vision was lost.

When I opened my eyes, Starlight and I sat at Luna’s cozy little tea table by the fire in her quarters. Of the dark princess, there was no sign. We might have dreamed of meeting her.

Chapter 4

That night I dreamed of the desert.

It was dark, so dark I could barely see the dunes around me. Not that there was much to see – by the sound and the scent, I could tell the sands extended away from me in all directions. The heat baked into my coat and flesh after just a few seconds, and my hooves stung from the scorching touch of the sand. Dry air licked the moisture from my lips, cracking them, and I squinted my eyes shut against the wind.

Why do we walk where we do, in dreams? What drives us forward? I lowered my head into the wind, set a course by the shadows of tall rocky spires around me, and pressed onward. The loose sands shifted beneath my hooves, stealing my steps, forcing me to trudge as through deep snow toward my unknown goal.

There were colors in the darkness. A shifting, bruise-colored rainbow, melting like the afterimage of the sun on my retina. I blinked around at the shadows as I walked, desperate for something solid to latch onto, but my blindness was near complete. There was only the moon – no, I realized, it was the sun – high overhead, and darkness everywhere else.

I stopped upon a plateau and gazed out at a dark wasteland. Sightless, I stared up at the sun. The sun stared back, piercing me, and I realized it was not darkness that blinded me but the light. Tears flowed down my cheeks. I used them to paint my shadow larger and larger, sweeping out with a brush made from my tail, until all the sands around me were colored with them. If I could keep doing that, I could build a shadow large enough to hide from the sun, and then I could see again, and I could find my way out of the darkness into the—

I woke into the faint illumination of my castle. Its crystal walls were never fully dark – even in the complete absence of external light they offered a faint purple glow, the same color as my magic. Useful when using the bathroom at midnight, though Spike complained that it was a bit creepy.

There was something in my eye. Dust, or an eyelash. I blinked, trying to clear it away, and eventually gave up. Exhaustion won out over irritation.

I closed my eyes and set my head back on the pillow to sleep.

* * *

Starlight had coffee waiting in the kitchen when I woke. I trudged toward the scent like the living dead, grappled with the cup, and managed to take a swig without spilling too much on my chest.

Things got better after that.

“Morning, sleepy head!” Glimmer said. She set a pancake-heaped plate in front of me. “Dream anything weird last night?”

“Maybe? I can’t remember. I think…” I took a bite as I tried to peel back the fog of memory. As always, the fragments of my dream seemed to drift further away the harder I tried to remember them. “Something about not being able to see.”

“Hm.” Starlight peered at me. “Your eyes look a little irritated. Maybe that’s it?”

“Allergies or Discord. Two great choices.” I sighed and took another bite of my pancakes. “How about you?”

She shrugged. “Same. I… I might have dreamed about my old town, but… well, maybe not. It never sticks, you know?”

“All too well.” I pushed the empty plate away and stood. “Okay, I’m going to do some more interviews. Want to come?”

She shook her head. “I thought of a few other leads, actually. I’ll be in the library, tracking them down. And Trixie should be arriving tomorrow morning, so I want to get a few things ready for her.”

Part of me, a small selfish part of me, wanted to drag Starlight along as I went about town. I could use her help talking with ponies – dreams are highly personal things, and Starlight was a master at getting ponies to open up with themselves. Important trait for leading a cult, I supposed. And part of me wanted to steal her efforts away from anything to do with Trixie. But I also knew how immature that was, and how much it meant to Starlight to see her friend again, so I put on a smile.

“Take as much time as you need,” I said. “I don’t think weird dreams are going to end the world overnight.”

Ponyville was already bustling when I made it out of the castle. The usual hub and bub of the crowd filled my ears, and I found myself smiling despite the lingering itchiness in my eyes. If there was a better town in Equestria to live in than Ponyville, I hadn’t found it yet.

It was an hour shy of noon when I finally reached the Boutique. Rarity was one of those rare ponies who would gladly talk my ear off despite any lack of interpersonal skills on my part, and she’d mentioned having unusual dreams before. An easy source of data, I hoped. I checked to make sure her “Open (and fabulous)!” sign was hanging in the window, then pushed through the door.

It wasn’t Rarity who greeted me. Instead a smaller, squeakier version of the fashionista was in the lobby.

“Princess Twilight!” Sweetie Belle said. She put down her book and bounced over to me for a hug. “Hi! How are you? Are you here for Rarity?”

I returned the hug with a nuzzle. “I am, actually. Is she around?”

Sweetie shook her head. “Nope! She left me in charge while she went to buy more supplies for that!”

“For—” I turned to follow her hoof, and my question faded into silence. I stared, mouth still open.

By the mirrored alcove stage, draped upon a ponyquin, was the single most beautiful dress I had ever seen. It was orange and yellow and red and black, done in a thousand shimmering scales stitched together with exquisite precision. A pattern, subtle and nearly random at first, slowly resolved as I walked closer into the plumage of a monarch butterfly. It flowed over the ponyquin’s shoulders and flanks, with ruffled frills that called to mind wings rising from the withers.

It wasn’t merely a dress. It redefined everything I thought a dress could be. I could barely imagine a pony – a fleshy, flawed, clumsy animal – daring to wear such a creation.

“She…” I forced myself to blink. “She made this?”

“Uh huh!” Sweetie bounced around me over to the ponyquin, and for a horrifying moment I thought she would dare to touch it. But she stopped at the second-highest tier on the stage. “She’s been working on it all morning! Then she ran out of gold thread and had to go out.”

“Ah, unfortunate.” I managed to tear my gaze away from the dress. “If you see her, would you tell her I dropped by to chat? She can come by the castle anytime she likes. Or I’ll just come back later.”

* * *

A pair of red admiral butterflies kept me company for lunch. As I was not a flower I didn’t have any nectar for them, but I remembered reading somewhere that butterflies desperately needed sodium, so I spilled out a little salt onto the table by the placemat and dotted it with condensation from my lemonade glass. Sure enough, they alighted beside it, sipping at it with their long needle tongues. They were polite guests and didn’t interrupt as I watched ponies go by the streetside cafe.

The waitress let out a little coo of surprise when she saw the butterflies. She set my daisy sandwich down and asked if they were bothering me. I reassured her they weren’t, and we all went back to our respective meals.

My eyes were itching still. The sunlight seemed to be irritating them. I rubbed them with my hoof and tried to remember if I owned a sunhat or shades. Maybe I could borrow some from Spike.

“Do compound eyes get allergies?” I asked the trio of butterflies. They didn’t answer.

Wait. I squinted. Sure enough, one of these things was not like the other.

“Discord,” I growled.

“What?” the miniature draconequus asked. His sinuous body, barely an inch long and sporting a pair of butterfly wings, fluttered over and perched on the edge of my plate. Despite speaking with a mouth smaller than the head of a pin, his voice was quite audible. “Can’t I join a friend for lunch?”

“You’ve been abusing our friendship the past few days,” I whispered. It wouldn’t do for the other patrons to see their princess arguing with a butterfly. It might start rumors. “And what’s with the get-up?”

“I like butterflies. They’re my favorite spider. Something about metamorphosis appeals to me.” He fanned his wings gently, showing off their spots. “I do wish they had more teeth, though.”

There was an image I didn’t need. “We spoke with Princess Luna yesterday. She said your little plot with dreams is a waste of time. Ponies make up their dreams out of whole cloth every night. There’s no such things as archetypes.”

“I’ll accept that Luna knows a thing or two about dreams,” he said. He fluttered into the air, bobbing and weaving before me. A few of the other cafe-goers noticed my unusual guest and started to point in our direction. “But I’m optimistic! The early results are promising. How did you sleep last night?”

“Fine. Just fine. No dreams to speak of.”

He didn’t answer, but I swore I saw the world’s smallest smirk twisting his face. After a few more flaps he came apart, each wing fluttering off like the petal of a flower caught by the wind. His body vanished into smoke. I heard a low laugh that might’ve just been the blood flowing through my ears.

“Not friendly at all,” I mumbled. I glanced down at the two remaining butterflies to make sure they weren’t imposters. Everything seemed in order. I took a few breaths and focused on my heartbeat. Slower. Slower was better.

“What was that?” The sudden, brash exclamation startled me back into the now. The cafe patrons had gone back to their business, but a new pony stood at my shoulder, peering down at my plate. The pleasant scent of hay and sweat and a sun-baked coat flooded my muzzle.

“Hi Applejack.” I smoothed my ruffled feathers down with a hoof. “Sorry, was a little spaced out there.”

“S’fine.” She slid into the seat opposite. The table shook, and my two butterfly friends took to the air. We watched them beat their wings in silence until they settled back down. “Not disturbing you, am I?”

“No, of course not. Would you like to order something? I was almost done but I can stick around.”

“Naw, I’ll grab something back at the farm. Thanks though.”

All that was left of my sandwich was the crust. I hadn’t planned on eating it, but it felt silly to be doing nothing with my food. I picked it up and nibbled at it. “How’s everypony back home?”

Applejack smiled. If ever there was something guaranteed to put her in a good mode, it was talking about her family. Well, that and apples. She could go on for hours about apple trees.

“Good. Mac’s out for the week, visiting Sugar Belle. Meeting her folks for the first time, too.”

A big milestone, that. “How do you think he’ll do?”

“Fine, s’long as he doesn’t get tongue-tied. You know how he is. But I think he and Sugar Belle have their hearts set on each other, so what her parents think prolly ain’t gonna matter much. If they’re anything like her, though, they’re sensible, down ta earth folks, and they’ll like Mac for who he is.”

I nodded along, though only half listening. Is there a word for the sadness you feel when you realize your friends are growing up, and things can’t go back to the way they were before? I patted my feathers down again. “Sounds like they’re getting serious.”

“Yup. I expect a wedding soon. Or a foal.”

A little frisson of surprise shot through me at that – not because we didn’t all know Big Macintosh was sleeping with Sugar Belle, but that Applejack was so casual about its eventual outcome. She could be a fierce defender of her family’s honor.

“You have a preference?” I ventured.

“I’d like to see them married, obviously. Granny just wants some more foals running around. Apple Bloom could go either way. She wants to be a flower filly at the wedding, but she wants to be an aunt too. Got her all excited.”

“You know, I never got to be a flower filly? I am an aunt, though. It’s nice. I recommend it.”

“Yup. ‘Specially nice when you don’t have to look after the little critters yourself.”

The conversation lulled at that. I ran out of crust to nibble on, and my lemonade was nothing but melted icecubes. I took a sip anyway to have something to do with my hooves. “Hey, uh, I do have a question for you. Kind of a personal topic. If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.”

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

“Have you had any odd dreams lately?”

She tilted her head. “Ain’t all dreams odd?”

“More than usual, I mean. Something new.”

“Hm.” She scraped at the edge of the table with her hoof, grinding off a few loose splinters. “Maybe? Hard to remember dreams. They…”

I raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Sorry, just… thinking something stupid. No, I ain’t had any weird dreams. Why?”

“It’s probably nothing. More nonsense from Discord. But if you do dream anything weird, let me know, okay?”

“I can do that, I guess.” She stared at me for a few long seconds, intense in her silence in the way that only earth ponies can be. “What about you? Everything alright?”

“Sure. I mean, yeah. Everything’s fine.”

“Mhm.” Applejack stole my glass and popped one of the half-melted icecubes into her mouth and crunched it down. “Yer eyes look a mite irritated. Allergies?”

“I think so.” The sudden urge to rub at my eyes nearly set me to shivering. I barely mastered it. “It’s that time of year, right? I think the cedar trees are flowering.”

“Might be. Don’t much care for cedars. They’re uppity. If cedars was ponies they’d all be unicorns.”

That… I blinked a few times, pondered a rebuttal, and gave up when nothing came to mind. I did know some pretty ‘uppity’ unicorns myself. So I went in a different direction. “You haven’t seen Rarity, have you? I stopped by the Boutique earlier, but only Sweetie was home. And is there anywhere you can buy gold thread in Ponyville?”

“Gold thread? Never had to buy any myself. Might be a Canterlot thing.”

Well, it would be a few hours before Rarity came back, then. But there were other ponies I could talk to. I set a few bits on the table, and our conversation turned to more mundane things than dreams. Around us the cafe ebbed and flowed with ponies, and eventually my two butterfly friends ascended to ride the wind away.

I could barely imagine a pony – a fleshy, flawed, clumsy animal – daring to wear such a creation.

Chapter 5

The woods were thick with the scent of summer on the path to Fluttershy’s cottage. Wild garlic added a spice to the loamy odor of wet earth. Somewhere off to the south I could hear the river’s faint babble. I kept to the shade where I could, darting around the patches of sunlight poking through the elms’ sweeping canopy. A bit of woodsorrel caught my eye, creeping onto the path, and I nipped it from the stem. It was sharp, citrusy and delicious.

I stopped at the edge of the meadow. Some new scent caught in my nose, and I froze. Iron and salt. Blood. I frowned and looked around. Ahead, in the grass, a scattering of gray down and feathers stirred in the wind.

Huh. Not all the animals were following Fluttershy’s rules. I skirted the messy patch and approached her cottage. Now that I knew to look, I could see her bright yellow form resting atop the grass roof. Her long mane and tail fluttered like a banner in the gentle wind. I took off with a hop and glided toward her, riding the meadow’s rising thermals up to the level of the roof. A pair of red-breasted swallows rode at the tips of my wings and darted into the shadows hanging beneath a gable.

Fluttershy’s ears pivoted as I landed, and she turned her head just enough to give me a small smile. There was no flock of birds attending to her this time, only a single enormous black raven that stood a yard away. Its beak looked nearly the size of my hoof. I paused, uncertain.

She must’ve noticed. “It’s okay, Twilight. Mister Raven is my friend.”

“Sorry.” I trotted over, careful not to crush the grass stalks with my hooves, and settled down beside her. On the opposite side of the raven. “He, uh, startled me a bit.”

Fluttershy turned back to the woods. “Ravens are misunderstood. They’re very intelligent and friendly.”

“True,” I said. “They also eat the dead.”

“It’s their nature, Twilight.” Fluttershy’s voice held a hint of reproach, as though I were a toddler who’d said something rude. She held a hoof out for the raven, and he tilted his head, inspecting it this way and that. He tapped it with his beak, then hopped up with a flap of his huge wings. Her leg dipped under his weight. “He didn’t choose to be this way, any more than you or I did.”

Right. My feathers stood on end, and I had to force them back down flat. “I passed a dead bird on the way. Our near the edge of the meadow.”

A tiny frown marred her lips. “I know. I saw it this morning. I’ll give whoever did it a stern talking-to when I find them.”

“You think it might be that new animal?” I turned to gaze into the forest. As always, its thick shadows stole all sight beyond a few yards. They looked cool and comforting. “The one you were looking for earlier?”

“I’m not sure. But if she felt comfortable enough coming near my cottage to take a bird, I wish she had taken the time to say hello, too. Then I could have explained my rules to her.”

“And hoped she listened?”

“Most do. The ones that don’t aren’t welcome here.” She leaned down to brush the raven’s head with her muzzle, and the sudden proximity of her eyes to that huge chisel beak sent a shock of panic through me. But the bird merely nuzzled her back, and she whispered something to it beneath the range of my hearing. With a flap and a flutter and scattering of loose black feathers it jumped from her hoof and soared down into the forest, quickly merging with the shadows.

I watched it vanish, then sighed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be so morbid. How are you?”

“I’m good. Very good.” She stood, stretched her wings out wide, then settled down again beside me, so close our barrels and feathers rubbed warm against each other. She leaned over and brushed her cheek against mine. “And you?”

“Good.” I smiled for the first time since reaching the cottage. The raven’s absence seemed to lighten the mood. “Allergies are acting up a bit, though. I might need to get some eyedrops.”

“The cedars are blooming. Do you think that might be it?”

“Maybe, I—” A memory of last night flashed through my mind, of a dark dream and deserts and blowing sand and a blinding sun. I blinked my scratchy eyes to chase it away. “It probably is. Anyway, uh, do you remember that thing I asked about last week?”

It was a moment before she nodded. “Dreams, right?” When I nodded, she continued: “Oh, I did dream something last night, Twilight! And it was so unusual that I knew you’d want to hear. I was…” She trailed off, her eyes losing their focus, as though gazing at something distant.

I leaned forward. “Yes?”

“Um. This is silly.” She ducked her head and covered her muzzle with her hooves. “I forget.”

I had to snort at that. “It happens to me too. I’ll have a dream so vivid it feels like I was really there, terrified, burning, whatever. But even when it’s so bad it wakes me up, I can’t remember it more than a few seconds later.”

“It still feels silly. All I remember is that I wasn’t afraid anymore. I was around ponies, lots of ponies, but no matter how many ponies were watching me, I wasn’t afraid.”

I set a hoof on her shoulder. “Do you still feel that way around ponies? You know you don’t need to around us, right?”

“I know. And it’s not like it used to be. I remember before you came here… Well, those days are gone. But I still don’t like it when I have to meet new ponies. Or talk in front of a crowd. Or talk to new ponies in front of a crowd. Especially that. Oh, and parties.”

“Well.” I crossed my forelegs and set my chin down on them, so our heads were more level. “If you can dream that you’re not afraid around ponies anymore, maybe it’s a sign that you don’t need to be.”

“Or it’s just a dream.”

“Or it’s just a dream,” I agreed. When she had no further reply, we went back to watching the woods beyond her cottage, interrogating the shadows for any sign of the animal Fluttershy was so certain lurked within.

* * *

Starlight was still researching when I returned that evening. Dozens of books lay open on the library’s tables and cushions and floor, and a small galaxy of paper notes floated in the air, suspended by her magic. I ducked beneath them, careful of my horn, and made my way to the center of the maelstrom.

“Hey,” she said, barely looking up. “Any luck?”

“Eh.” I settled down on an empty piece of floor beside her. “Maybe? A few ponies dreamed different dreams. More said they couldn’t remember. Almost like they didn’t want to answer. Am I asking the wrong questions?”

“Dreams are sensitive,” Starlight said. “They’re us at our most exposed. It takes a certain amount of charisma to convince ponies to share them.”

“Maybe we should switch roles, then.”

“Ha. Once upon a time, maybe.” Starlight made a little note and closed her book. “That was part of getting ponies to join Our Town, you know? Getting them to share. To open up. Find out what makes them tick. But most of all, to find out all the ways they’re broken. It’s amazing how much ponies will tell you if they think you care.” She lowered her head as she spoke, her horn flickering, and the countless pages hovering in the air began to sink.

“Uh…” I hadn’t meant to bring up Starlight’s past, but now that I had, I didn’t know how to stop it. I took a hesitant step toward the table.

She continued. “And once ponies have shared that much of themselves with you, it’s too late to stop. Their trust is like a hook in their flesh, just waiting for you to reel it in. They can’t escape. You own them.” She finished with a grimace, and her words were filled with so much self-loathing I could almost taste it.

I was supposed to say something here. Something reassuring, something humorous to break the sudden tension. Then we could laugh and compare notes and pretend this conversation never happened. But I didn’t. I didn’t know what to say to my student and my best friend.

So she kept talking. “Ponies are easy to manipulate if you know what demons are haunting them. Given that, I hope you understand why I shouldn’t be the one of us who goes around asking ponies about their dreams.”

I nodded. That was easy enough to respond to. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine.” She let out a huff. Her horn sparked back to life, and all the dismal papers leaped back into the air, swirled around her, then coalesced into a neatly stacked sheaf on the table. “Sorry. I don’t know why I said all that.”

“It’s… You’re allowed to feel bad about what happened.” I scooted close enough to drape a wing over her shoulders. It was all afluff with nervous energy, but in my brief experience with having wings, non-pegasi couldn’t read the emotional state of feathers. There was probably a journal article waiting to be written on the topic. “As long as you also remember that it’s in the past. That you’ve changed, and we’ve all forgiven you. Even the ponies in your… er, Our Town have forgiven you.”

“I know.” She let out a sigh and leaned her head on my shoulder. “Thank you. For saying all that. It’s just been on my mind all day for some reason and I had to let it out.”

“That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” She held still for a moment, long enough that I started to wonder if I was supposed to do something in response, but then she straightened and leaned away. My shoulder felt cold where she had been. “Sorry. Again, I mean. But, uh, all that is to say I think I’d rather stay here for now.”

What an odd reversal. Once, I’d felt safest in the library. Now, Starlight retreated here. I shook my head to banish the melancholy thought and grasped for something to cheer her up. “Say, Trixie’s still arriving tomorrow, right?”

Starlight’s face brightened. “She is! Do you mind if I skip the research tomorrow? I was hoping to, uh, spend some time with her.”

Right. Spend some time with her. To borrow a phrase from Rainbow Dash, even my virgin tail knew what that meant. For a split second I fell prey to that most terrible of emotions – envy, not for Trixie, whom I felt no connection or attraction to, but rather the fact that even a pony who had been so overtly villainous as Starlight could find a lover so easily while I plodded through life with my books. I had more luck with centuries-old ink than living stallions.

Just as fast, I banished the thought. It was beneath me. I had friends that I cared about and cared about me in return. And one of them needed me right now.

“Of course.” I waved a wing. “Take all the time you need. I know she’ll be glad to see you again.”

“Yeah.” Starlight smiled a silly little smile. Clearly her mind was elsewhere in that moment. “Hey, maybe she can help us with our research?”

“Uh.” How to be diplomatic? “Maybe?”

A moment passed. Then Starlight snickered. “Okay, maybe not. But I’m still taking some time off for her.”

“I think we’ll be fine with that.” I tugged her notes out of her magical grasp and began leafing through them. “After all, we’re in no real rush. We have an endless number of nights’ worth of dreams to study.”

* * *

I dreamed again of the desert that night. I dreamed of my shadow, of painting it larger with my tears. I dreamed of the impossibly bright sun. I dreamed of blindness.

And I slept in, because why not? Starlight was taking a day off – I could too. And it wasn’t like being the Princess of Friendship carried any real duties with it. As long as the world wasn’t ending or monsters weren’t rampaging across Equestria, my time was basically my own. I didn’t even cook breakfast for the castle. Spike or Starlight did that.

By the time I dragged myself out of bed, the sun was well over the horizon. The town outside my balcony was already murmuring with life as ponies went about their day. It was bright outside, with just a few clouds drifting in thrall to the wind. Another fine day. I squinted at the scene, then shuffled off to the bathroom.

The castle came with showers already installed. I’m not honestly sure how that worked – like, did the Essence of Harmony or whatever intuit that I wanted an in-suite bath with an enormous sink, a linen closet the size of my foalhood bedroom and a glass-enclosed shower large enough for an entire hoofball team to use at once? Because that’s what I got. I felt lonely just using it.

Whoever had designed the bathroom clearly meant it for an alicorn much larger than I. For a moment an old memory flashed before me, of my mother giving me a sweater for my birthday that was several sizes too large. We all laughed, and my father said, “She’ll grow into it.”

Memories. For not the first time, I wished ponies weren’t so deeply enslaved by them.

But at least the castle had an endless supply of hot water. We weren’t even sure where it came from. There was no cistern on the roof or anything resembling traditional plumbing. Just a set of stylish brass nozzles wrought in the shape of roosters’ heads that poured out limitless water like it was rain. And we had yet to receive a bill.

I stepped into the cavernous shower and turned the dials to start the water flowing. Soon steam clouded the glass, and I let my wings relax, drooping along with my head down almost to the crystal floor. The water sluiced over me, washing away yesterday’s grime and my memories of the dream. Already the day seemed brighter.

My eyes itched, though. I resisted the urge to rub them and tilted my head back. Warm water sprayed my face.

Somepony knocked on the bathroom door, and a moment later it cracked open. Cloud of steam billowed out, and the glass walls of the shower stall began to clear. I shook myself and stepped out of the stream of water. “Yes?” I called.

“Sorry.” It was Starlight’s voice. Hooves clip-clopped closer, and she slid the glass door open enough to poke her head in. “I just heard you get up. Do you want any breakfast? We’ve already eaten.”

I shrugged. “Whatever’s leftover.”

“Fruit, then.” She paused. “Are you okay? You look a little tired.”

“Just got up.” Obviously. I managed not to say that part out loud. “Didn’t sleep too well.”

“I’ll make some coffee. It’ll be waiting at the table!” She slipped out as fast as she came. The steam swirled around her like mist, and then she was gone.

“Tease!” I shouted after her. But I had to smile. Coffee was good, but far better was a friend willing to make it for you.

Chapter 6

Starlight was waiting in the kitchen when I finally emerged, still slightly damp, from my bedroom. As promised, there was coffee. There was also a powder blue unicorn wearing nothing but a pleased smirk that she turned in my direction as soon as I dismounted the stairs.

“Trixie!” I forced myself to smile. “So good to see you! How was your trip?”

“Adequate,” she announced. “As usual my adoring fans turned out in droves to see me perform, but you know how it is being on the road, every night swarmed with crowds all chanting your name, begging you to perform feats of fantastic magical prowess. Well, you probably don’t know what that’s like, but it’s nice. Exhausting but nice. Being so amazing just drains all the energy right out of me! Why, by the last few nights only the thought of getting back to Ponyville kept me going. There are some things one just can’t do out on the road. I have to come here to do them.” She finished with a grin in Starlight’s direction.

Starlight tittered. She blushed. She did her best impression of a sixteen-year-old filly. I rolled my eyes.

“Yes, well, it’s wonderful to have you back.” I stole over to my coffee and stuck my muzzle above the mug, inhaling deeply of its beautiful scent. The last few sludgy neurons in my brain burned to life, and I took a deep swallow that stung my lips and tongue and throat and I didn’t care. Everything suddenly seemed better. Even having Trixie in my castle. A real smile replaced the fake one. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like, of course. We have guest rooms.”

“Mm, thank you, but Trixie doubts she’ll need them.” Trixie popped a strawberry from her bowl into her mouth and chomped it loudly. “I’ll probably sleep in my wagon. Or elsewhere.”

“We’re going to go out first, though,” Starlight said. She plopped down beside Trixie and snatched a strawberry. “Visit some friends, shopping, that sort of thing. Maybe hit the spa.”

Every part of that sounded nice. Especially the spa. It had been a while since I’d been there with Rarity, long enough that I shouldn’t have felt any guilt about the idea of tagging along. But that would mean hours away from research, from my books or asking more ponies about their dreams. More hours of awkward pauses and fruitless conversations.

“That all sounds wonderful and we will be doing those things,” Trixie said. She upended the bowl and dumped the rest of the strawberries in her mouth, chewing them quickly down. “But first there’s something Trixie needs to show Starlight in her wagon. Come!”

“Oh?” Starlight stood. “What… oh. Oh! Haha, yes, we need to, uh, go look at the thing. In your wagon. We’ll be back in a bit. But if we’re not don’t, uh, don’t come looking for us.”

There it was again. That little green flame sparking to life in my chest. Before I could tamp it down, beat it back, it forced me to call out: “Trixie, have you had any odd dreams lately?”

Trixie stopped. Her hooves skidded on the crystal, and she turned back to me so quickly her mane spun around, slapping against her cheek. She stared, mouth open. Beside her, Starlight froze.

“I…” Trixie blinked. “No. No, of course not. What makes you ask such a… such a silly question?”

“Just doing some research,” I said, ignoring the frown Starlight was shooting me. “If you do notice anything odd, please let Starlight or me know.”

“Trixie will.” She stood still for a moment, still looking at me, and I waited for some follow-up. But eventually Trixie shook her head and turned. She flicked her tail at Starlight as she passed.

Starlight waited until Trixie was down the hall. “Way to set the mood,” she grumbled.

“Sorry, I didn’t know she’d respond like that. Do you think—”

“Yeah.” Starlight blew out a huff. “I’ll ask her later. She’ll be more open with me.”

Euphemism? My ears flicked. “And did you dream anything last night?”

“I… Yeah. I was back in—”

“Starlight!” Trixie’s voice rang down the hall against the crystal. “Trixie is patiently waiting for you!”

“We can talk later,” I said. “No rush, right?”

“Yeah. No rush.” Starlight’s horn lit, and she vanished in a flash, leaving me alone in the kitchen.

Well, not alone. I still had my coffee. I topped it off from the turene and headed to the library.

* * *

It was roundabout lunchtime when my day got weird.

I’d given up researching the clinical side of dreams. My library had the latest findings of the onieromantic community’s research, but the modern study of dreams focused on the magic of how they occurred. With Luna’s return scholars had rediscovered the ancient art of dream reading. It was a promising field for divination and prophecy.

I ignored those books. I put them all back on the reshelving cart for later and went to the Psychology section. It was the psychologists who’d first proposed the archetypes, who wrote about them, and who seemed most convinced that they must be real things. I selected a book from the pile at random, Archetypes: The Language of Dreams, and began to read. As always, I lost myself within it.

Something tickled my ear. I flicked it away. A few seconds later the sensation returned, and I set the book down.

It was snowing in my library. A faint dusting drifted across the crystal floor and piled against the edges of the bookcases. It melted where it touched my coat and left little beads of water to soak into the fine hairs. The subtle scent of primrose teased my nose.

Ah. “Luna?”

“That must be an engrossing book, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said. She stepped into my library out of the thin air, as though passing through a doorway in the corner of my eye. One moment I was alone, and the next she was stalking like a panther between the tall shelves, blending with the shadows. There and gone. Only the steady ring of her silver shoes on crystal gave away her presence. “We have been here for several minutes.”

I stood, because it was the polite thing to do for a fellow princess. “I’m sorry, books have that effect on me. Can I get you anything? Coffee or tea?”

She swept out of the bookshelves like a storm, a rush of shadows and wind that forced me to turn away. When I looked again, she sat beside me on a pillow of her own, a silver-embroidered satin cushion that I was certain I did not own. “Thank you, but no. It would only keep me awake, and I hope to retire soon from this atrocious hour. You are well, I presume?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” My eyes chose that moment to itch again, and I had to resist the urge to clench them shut. I settled with blinking a lot instead. “And yourself?”

“We are perfect.” It didn’t sound arrogant coming from Luna – to her it was a simple statement of fact. “But we are concerned with Discord.”

I swallowed. “He really did something, didn’t he? To our dreams? You’ve seen it?”

“He did. I don’t know what, but something has changed. I must find him.”

“Good luck with that.” I closed my book before the light snow could damage its pages. I looked up, but there were no clouds in my library; the flakes seemed to materialize out of nothing. They fell heaviest around Luna and did not melt when they touched her coat. “I saw him the other day, but he won’t be found unless he wants to be.”

“Oh, he always wants to be found, Twilight Sparkle. Everything he does is in pursuit of our attention, and what good is that if he’s not around to receive it? I think if ponies ever learned to ignore him he would diminish into nothingness.”

“He said he wouldn’t do this.” The thought of his duplicity twisted my muzzle into a frown. “When we set him loose he promised he wouldn’t hurt ponies! He was supposed to be reformed!”

“He may not think he is hurting anypony,” Luna said. “His sense of reality is twisted beyond your or my ability to fully comprehend. But already I’ve felt the landscape of the dreamworld changing. Whatever he did has twisted ponies’ dreams into something new. Whether it will be to their benefit or harm, I cannot yet say.”

“We can tell him to stop. Order him to stop.”

“It may well come to that. I doubt he will show himself while I am around, Twilight Sparkle, but when next you see him…” Luna trailed off, her head tilting to the side. Her ears flicked about, and she stood and sniffed at the air.

“Er…” I stood. “Is everything alright?”

“Can’t you smell him? The stink of his magic is here.” There was a dark flash that stole my vision away, and then Luna was gone. A blast of chill air and the ring of silver horseshoes on crystal came from the shelves deeper in the library.

I trotted toward the sound. “Luna?”

“Here.” Her voice came from a few rows away. I ran as quickly as I could, and found her standing between the shelves, a book floating in her magic.

She passed it to me. “His work?”

I accepted it carefully. It was a thick volume, wood paneled with an etched cover leafed with gold in the image of a stylized sun. But most odd was the crossbow bolt protruding from the spine. The shaft sank into the volume halfway to its fletchings. I gave it an experimental tug. It barely budged.

“A joke of his,” I said. “Something he said to Starlight a few days ago.” I mentally added abusing books to the list of crimes he would have to answer for.

“Hm.” She stared at the cover, the snorted quietly. “Let me guess. Don’t shoot the messenger?”

“Yes, how did you—” I looked down as I spoke. The book’s title was in a variant of Old Equus, and it took me a moment to translate it in my head. “Ah. Of course.”

The Celestial Messengers: A History. I looked back up to ask Luna if she had read it before, but I was alone again. The last lonely flakes of snow fell out of the warming air and began to melt.

* * *

Trixie’s wagon was parked beneath one of the castle’s overhangs when I finally emerged after lunch. It had a fresh coat of paint and new gilt all along the edges, so she must still be doing well. I thought I heard whispers from inside, but in my experience Trixie wasn’t the sort of pony who whispered, so I might have just been imagining that.

The Boutique was open when I arrived. Rarity was inside, humming some quiet tune that tickled my memory. She gave me a little wave as I entered, then turned her attention back to the butterfly dress.

It had grown overnight. A new frill of scales descended down from the hips, concealing the ponyquin’s flanks and thighs. I watched, silently, as she spent a minute sewing another orange scale into place with machine-like precision. There were thousands of scales like it. My mind rebelled when I tried to calculate how much time the whole thing could have taken.

“It’s beautiful,” I whispered.

She shook her head. “Not yet. If you could see the design in my mind, Twilight, ah… Well, maybe you will, if I finish this.”

“What will you do with it?”

“Oh, sell it, of course.” Her sudden, easy answer shocked me, and it must’ve shown on my face. “My passion is for creating dresses, darling, not hoarding them. If I kept every design that I thought was beautiful I’d need a separate warehouse. Once an artist creates something, it must be turned loose. And if that’s how you make your living, well, then you have to sell it.”

“Sorry. You’re right of course.” I stepped closer to the dress and reached out a hoof. When she nodded, I carefully brushed the top of my fetlock against its scaled breast. The entire design shimmered as the scales shook. “It’s just… taking something so beautiful and selling for bits? I don’t know if I could do that.”

“It’s a common sentiment, Twilight. But, unless they have a desire to starve, most artists accept the fact that they must assign monetary value to the things they love and then part with them. It hurts, but we call the artists who cannot do that amateurs.”

“Oh.” I stepped around the dress, both to view it from all angles and also to buy some time to think. “Does it ever get easier?”

“Yes. We call those artists whores.”

“Rarity!”

She smiled. “I’m joking, of course. Or am I? Isn’t there something unseemly about an artist too willing to sell themselves? Maybe I just think of them as prostitutes so I won’t be tempted to go down that route myself. So that I’ll never forget that it should hurt to give away something like this, even if it’s for all the bits in the world.”

“Well.” I floundered for a response. “I don’t think you’re a prostitute.”

“Aw.” She flicked me with her tail as she walked over to the divan and sat. “You sweet talker, you. So, what brings you to the Boutique? Aside from my company, of course?”

I took a seat beside her. Rather than tea, she had made up a pitcher of lemonade, and she poured us each a glass. It was sharp and sour and cold and perfect for a hot summer morning. I drained half my cup in a single swallow. “Dreams.”

“Again?”

“Still. Discord did something to the way ponies are dreaming, and it…” I paused. My mouth suddenly felt dry despite all the lemonade. “Have you noticed anything odd, the past few nights? Any odd dreams?”

“All dreams are odd. We’ve been over this.”

“Yes, but… come on, Rarity. You know what I mean. You said you dreamt that design, didn’t you? What else have you dreamed?”

“Well, I don’t normally talk about such things.” She took a sip of her lemonade, then leaned back to look at me. More deeply than usual – her eyes pierced me, reading me quickly and thoroughly in that manner social ponies have that I could never master. “You’re serious, aren’t you? This has you worried.”

“It’s Discord. We should always be worried about him. Even Luna is getting involved now.”

“I doubt we have much to worry about, then. Princess Luna always struck me as a very capable mare. If Discord is meddling with her realm, she’ll set him straight.”

“That’s the hope.” I fidgeted with my lemonade. The condensation was making the soles of my hooves slippery, so I held it in my magic. “But I want to help her solve this, and that means figuring out what it is he did.”

“Fine.” She let out a sigh so quiet I might have imagined it, and she stared at the dress across the room. “Last I dreamed I was weaving something. Something huge and fantastic and complex. It lasted for hours, but you know how dreams are, darling. It never evolved into anything. I was just stuck in that state of always weaving something. And I kept finding butterflies tangled up in my thread. Everything else was vague and shifting and impossible, like dreams always are, but the butterflies were so clear they seemed real. As real as that dress over there. And I remember being enthralled by their beauty, so entranced that I kept wanting to capture more and more. What do you think it means?”

“Um.” I mentally reviewed my notes from Archetypes: The Language of Dreams, and came up short. “You like butterflies?”

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

“I’m not trying to interpret dreams. I’m just trying to figure out if they’re changing, and what might happen to ponies as a result. It’s… it’s very frustrating working with something so vague, Rarity.”

She scooted closer and placed a hoof on mine. “I know, darling. I’m sorry. I know how you are with science and stuff. Try not to let this bother you, alright? I’m fine, Sweetie Belle is fine, dreams are always a bit odd, and…” She trailed off. Her muzzle was just feet from mine now, and she stared into my eyes so deeply I started to grow uncomfortable. “Is everything alright, darling? You look like you’ve been crying.”

“Oh, that.” I forced myself to smile. My lungs tightened. “No, my eyes have been acting up the past few days. Just allergies.”

“Hm.” She squinted, then nodded. “You should try some butterbur leaves. That can help. I bet Fluttershy would have some.”

I nodded. The tension in my chest eased. “I’ll do that. I was going to see her again today.”

At least, that was the plan. When I arrived at Fluttershy’s cottage she was nowhere to be found.

Chapter 7

There were a million perfectly good reasons Fluttershy wasn’t home. She could be out running errands or visiting somepony’s sick pet or just grabbing lunch or a session at the spa or chatting with our friends. And I had to remind myself that it was good that Fluttershy felt so comfortable going out by herself nowadays. It was progress.

But still, I couldn’t help the tickle of unease, like a worm writing in my belly.

I hopped up to the roof, thinking she might be there. The grass thatching was matted down, pressed into the shape a pegasus might make laying on her belly, but the pegasus herself was gone. There were no birds, nor insects, or any woodland critters I could see. Just a lonely alicorn squinting in the too-bright sun.

The wind shifted, blowing from the forest at the edge of her meadow. New scents rode atop it – leaves and moss and something like blood. I frowned at the shadowed spaces between the trees.

“Fluttershy?” I called as loud as I could. “Are you out there?”

Only the wind answered. It teased my feathers, whispering of flight. My wings extended, catching the breeze, and I floated up a few dozen yards. From this higher vantage I could see the forest extending for miles to the south, an endless carpet of trees and crags and the distant suggestion of mountains veiled by the summer haze.

Too bright. I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled my wings in. The sensation of falling opened a hole in my gut for a moment, but I landed easily on the cottage roof. A few hops later and I was in the blessedly dark shade of its walls.

The door was closed and the windows dark. I knocked, and when nopony answered, I pushed the door open. “Fluttershy?”

Nothing. Only darkness. Not even the sound of Fluttershy’s animal friends responding to an intruder. I took a cautious step inside. The stairs were a few paces from the door, and I called up them, “Fluttershy?”

Something stirred in the rafters. My heart jumped, and I looked up to see dozens of little eyes that glinted like jewels looking down. There was a scrape and a stir of air, and the same massive raven that had shared the roof with us on my last visit dropped down, landing with a clatter on Fluttershy’s kitchen table. The teacups jumped and the silverware rattled.

Just a harmless bird. I chided myself for my silly fears and walked over to it, though I kept a bit of distance. Far enough that his huge beak couldn’t quite reach my eyes in a flash. “Hey there, Mister Raven. Where’s your master?”

It trilled lowly in response. Ravens had a wide vocal range, and some could even imitate pony speech. It hopped across the table, clumsy on two legs, and peered up at me. Even I, a pony who knew next to nothing about animals, could see the spark of intelligence in its eyes. I held out my hoof like Fluttershy had.

The raven tilted its head, inspecting my offer. It trilled again, and mumbled something, and stretched its neck forward to tap my hoof with its beak. It felt like knocking on a door. When I didn’t retreat, the raven hopped forward again and rubbed its head and beak against my fetlock affectionately, like a cat might.

It left a smear of blood behind on my coat. I grimaced at the sight and pulled my hoof back. The raven watched with curious eyes.

“Fluttershy?” I asked. “Is she around?”

“I am.”

I’m proud to say I didn’t scream. But I might have yelped a bit, spinning around to face the sudden voice behind me. The raven jumped into the air, startled, and lumbered with great flaps of its wings back into the rafters. A few lost black feathers drifted down on me.

“Fluttershy!” I let out a little laugh that was too high for humor. “Sorry. You startled me a bit.”

Fluttershy smiled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect my door to be open or anypony to be in my kitchen.”

Oh, right. The trespassing thing. “Uh, sorry. I tried knocking but nopony answered and then I checked the roof but you weren’t there, so I thought I’d just come inside and see if maybe you were doing something that involved loud noises so maybe you couldn’t hear me, but the cottage was dark and it looked like nopony was home and I was a bit worried so I—” I cut myself off to catch my breath. I was rambling. I was a princess – princesses shouldn’t ramble. I took another breath, and then another.

Before I could work myself into a lather, Fluttershy reached me. She pressed her cheek against mine and whispered. “It’s fine, Twilight. You are always welcome in my home, whether I am here or not. All of my friends are.”

And just like that, all my foolish fears melted. I felt a silly smile stretch out my face, and I returned her nuzzle. Her mane smelled of wildflowers and fresh sweat and loam.

“You’ve been in the forest,” I said.

“I was.” She stepped around me and straightened out the silverware knocked askew by Mister Raven. She brushed the shed feathers away to join the rest on the floor. “It’s a beautiful day outside, and the forest is so peaceful.”

“Looking for your new animal friend?”

She nodded. “She’s still out there. I can see signs of her sometimes, broken branches and the like. Sometimes the remains of her meals.”

“What do you mean?”

“Predators rarely eat their entire kills. Certain parts are inedible.”

Oh. I swallowed. Up above, I imagined I heard the raven hopping along the rafters. “Do you know what it is, yet?”

She shook her head. For the first time, a sign of frustration appeared – a little furrow between her eyebrows; a slight downturn of the corners of her lips. “No. She’s very clever, I think, but she’s very shy as well. Animals can be like that if they’re not used to ponies.”

“Well, you’ll find her soon, I’m sure,” I rushed to reassure her. Anything to bring back that smile. “Say, uh, you wouldn’t happen to have butterbur, would you?”

Fluttershy blinked at the sudden turn of subject, then let out a little ‘aaah’ of understanding. “For your eyes? I think I do! Just one moment.” She vanished in a yellow and pink flash, darting out the door and around the side of the cabin faster than I could follow. Outside, I heard the cellar door open and fall with a clatter.

A minute later, the sequence reversed itself, and Fluttershy set a tiny wax-stoppered glass jar on the table. Inside the cloudy walls I could see thick, succulent coin-shaped leaves with tiny spines, like a cross between a jade plant and holly. I raised my eyebrow.

“Zecora gave me some a few months ago for my hay fever,” Fluttershy said. “You burn the leaves, and add a bit of the black resin that forms to any drink you like. Hot drinks like tea work best. It should help your eyes, and if you ever get poison ivy it works on that as well.”

I lifted the jar and put it gently in my saddlebags. “Thank you.” The words seemed woefully inadequate for her help, so I leaned forward to nuzzle her again.

She returned the gesture with a radiant smile. “Of course. Did you need anything else?”

In fact, I did. “You haven’t seen Discord around, have you?”

“Not since this problem began.” From her tone, she wasn’t certain there was much of a problem at all. But she hadn’t seen him like I had, or heard Luna’s warnings. “But if I do see him, I’ll let him know you want to talk to him.”

“He already knows that. Tell him he has to talk to us. Or better yet, knock off tampering with ponies’ dreams. It’s more dangerous than he realizes. Luna is getting involved.”

Her ears shot up at that, and her eyes widened. “Oh no! Is he in trouble?”

“He…” Yes, he was. Or, anypony else would be in his situation. But was there really much we could threaten the spirit of chaos with? “He’s not. But he will be if he doesn’t knock it off.”

Fluttershy stomped a hoof with a quiet little thud. “Then I will tell him! I’ll tell him, no more tea time until he starts acting nice again!”

Well, there was something we could threaten him with. It all went back, as Luna said, to Discord’s need for attention. Perhaps I was going about this all wrong, and I should just give up my fruitless investigations and go back to the library to read books in peace, and before I would know it things would be back to normal. That’s what I should do.

As if. “Thank you, Fluttershy. That’s very brave of you.” I smiled, and Celestia help me if it didn’t feel real. “You’re, ah, you’re not dreaming anything unusual, are you?”

She shook her head. “You know my dreams are boring, Twilight. I can never remember them. They’re just… images. Odd ideas that make no sense and then they’re gone.”

“Right. Unless you’re sleeping with—next! Next to somepony! Ha ha. Ah…” I froze as the germ of an idea sprouted in my brain. Just a test. For science! An offer between friends. We girls had all shared beds in the past. There was nothing untoward about it. Fillies did it all the time. And probably stallions did too. Maybe. There were none I could imagine asking so brazen a question, so that bit of knowledge would forever evade me. But Fluttershy – I could ask her, and of course she would say yes. I could already imagine the weight of her on the mattress beside me, the soft scent of her, of wildflowers and fresh sweat. What would she dream in my company? What would I dream?

She giggled. The sound snapped me back to the present. “You make it sound so scandalous, Twilight. But I know how important this dream thing is to you, so if I do have any odd dreams, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

Oh. Well, that could work too. I swallowed. “Great! That’s great!”

“It’s the least I can do.” She stretched her wings. “If you don’t mind, though, I’m going to head back out. The sun will set in a few hours, and I want to try and find my new friend before then.”

We exchanged a few more words, but I had no desire to keep her from her tasks. So I nuzzled her again, and followed outside as she closed the cottage door. She waved and soared off into the forest.

I squinted. Had the sun gotten brighter while I was in the cottage? It felt that way. I held a hoof over my eyes until I made it to the elm-shaded path leading back to Ponyville.

* * *

I cut a square of tin foil about the width of my hoof and set one of the plump butterbur leaves on it. The leaf jiggled like gelatin, fat almost to bursting with oils, and my nose wrinkled at the bitter scent rising from it. Nothing like butter at all.

Fortunately my laboratory had a fume hood. I suspended the leaf and foil above a bunsen burner with a clamp, turned the flame up to maximum, and let the fire do its work. The leaf popped and hissed and the green boiled out of it until only a black sludgy stain remained on the foil. I pulled it away from the burner to let it cool.

I don’t know how most ponies prepared traditional folk remedies, but I used science.

I heard faint feminine voices drifting from the study beside the kitchen when I emerged from the library. Starlight and Trixie, no doubt, presumably after a long day of shopping and spa-going and intimacies I definitely wasn’t thinking about. For a few minutes the flame beneath the teapot and then its quiet whistle drowned out their voices. I poured a simple mug of jasmine tea, suitable for the early evening hour, and scraped a bit of black resin from the butterbur into the hot water. It melted instantly, leaving nothing behind but a faintly bitter scent almost lost in the floral fragrance of the tea itself.

“Hello!” I called before entering the study. It wouldn’t do for me to walk in while they were enjoying each other’s company too much. But if they wanted real privacy they ought not to be in the castle’s public areas, so I only paused a few seconds before joining them.

My concerns were groundless. They sat beside each other on the couch, engaged in nothing more scandalous than sharing a magazine. Faintly steaming cups and a lone plate bearing a few pieces of sliced apple completed the scene.

“Hey Twilight.” Starlight smiled and waved me over. “Want to join us? Trixie was showing me some of her new tricks.”

“Oh? Safe for indoors, I hope.” I could only imagine the damage one of Trixie’s fireworks shows could cause in a small room like this.

Trixie smirked. “Entirely safe, princess. Prepare to be amazed by the most dextrous demonstration of sorcerous skills you have ever seen!” Her voice took on a showmare’s cadence, powerful enough to fill the room and reverberate in my chest. She held out her hooves and turned them around to show they were empty.

Except they weren’t. Suddenly there was a deck of cards in them. No flash of magic, no hidden pocket, just cards where none had been before. I blinked and was about to ask how in Tartarus she managed that without any obvious use of her horn, but she was already shuffling the deck. The cards blurred together as she split them and spun them back together.

“And now, would my lovely assistant care to cut the deck?” She balanced the deck atop her hoof and held it out to Starlight, who giggled and divided it with her magic. “So suspicious ponies know that Trixie is not cheating.”

She took the deck and spread it out on the table in a fan-like arc. Every card was perfectly spaced – I could’ve spent an hour placing each one and not been so precise as she was with a simple sweep of her hoof. “Choose one, please. Look at it, memorize it, and then replace it. Do not tell Trixie what it is.”

Oh, audience participation? Fine. I eyed the cards, looking for any subtle variances in the patterns on their backs. Some clue for her to know what I was about to choose.

She noticed and rolled her eyes. “So mistrustful. Is this better?” She turned her head fully around and covered her eyes with her hooves.

I chose a card near the middle at random and carefully slid it out far enough to lift and barely peek at the underside. The Four of Chains. I slid it back, and for good measure shook the table, disordering the rest of the array. Good luck now, Trixie.

“Done? Good.” Trixie turned back and swept up the cards. She stacked them and tapped them and shuffled them with the same blinding speed as before. She spoke as she shuffled. “You remember your card, right? It would be terribly embarrassing if you forgot! Why, that would ruin the performance before it began!”

“I’m sure I’ll remember it,” I said. I couldn’t take my eyes off her hooves, though. Forget the rest of the trick – how she shuffled the cards with her hooves like that was magical enough.

She stacked the deck a final time and centered it on the table between us. She tapped the top with her hoof three times, waved her legs above it, and declared: “Prepare to be amazed! For this is NOT your card!”

She flipped over the top card. The Nine of Secrets.

I clapped slowly. “Incredible.”

Trixie’s grin grew. “Oh, just wait, princess. For this is not your card either!” Then she flipped over the next card on the deck: the Angel of Stars.

I shrugged. “The odds that either of those would be my card is less than four percent.”

“Ah, you are correct, my mathematically inclined friend. But Trixie also predicts that this is not your card! Nor this, nor this, nor this…”

With each intonation, Trixie flipped over another card. The Eight of Secrets. The Two of Moths. The Queen of Chains. And she kept going. Finally, there was only one card left. She paused with her hoof above it. “Well, that’s the deck. Trixie suppose this must be your card, then?”

I sighed. “Fine, you got me. How did you do that, though? I never saw—?”

She flipped the last card as I spoke. The Prince of Moths.

Um. I blinked at it dumbly. “Where’d it go?”

“What, this?” She leaned forward, reaching behind me. Her hoof brushed my ear, and I swear to Celestia I felt her really pull something out of my mane. Not a sleight of hoof – there was something in my mane I hadn’t noticed and she pulled it out.

She set the card on the table, face down. I flipped it over. The Four of Chains.

“How’d you do that?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Magic, of course.”

“No.” I shook my head. “I was watching your horn the whole time. You never used any magic at all.” I picked up the other cards in my magic, spreading them out in the air. There had to be some trick to it, some clever catch I wasn’t seeing. “Show me how you did that.”

Trixie laughed. “Oh, Twilight. You’re the perfect mark. Why can’t you be in the audience for all of my shows?”

I tried another tack. “That’s not real magic. That’s just… misdirection. Illusion. You distracted me somehow.”

“Mhm. That must be it.” Trixie grabbed the cards out of the air and shuffled them again. I glanced at Starlight for a moment, and when I looked back the cards were gone. She noticed that I noticed, and she smirked.

“She’s been practicing,” Starlight said. Her voice had lost any hint of its previous humor. “Tell Twilight what you told me earlier, Trixie.”

“What?” Trixie grabbed a slice of apple from the plate and popped it in her mouth, chew it down loudly. “About the dream?”

That got my attention. I set aside the silly thoughts of cards and focused all my attention on Trixie. “What about dreams?”

She let out a sigh, loud and dripping with theater. “I’m not sure why it matters, but I’ve had exceptionally clear dreams the past few nights. Dreams that make sense for once, and you know what they tell me?” She leaned forward, propping her hooves on the table. “I dreamed of the greatest show ever performed. An audience of thousands. An entire city, turning out to be amazed by the impossible. Not petty sorceries or spells like any unicorn can learn, but magic!”

She raised her hoof and twisted it, and there was a card balanced edgewise upon it. She set it down onto the table slowly, carefully, somehow suspending it upright like a marionette. “Watch closely,” she said, and she leaned forward to exhale on the card.

It teetered. After a moment it tipped over and fell.

Huh. “That’s it? What was supposed—” I looked up from the card and stopped. I heard a quiet gasp from Starlight.

Trixie was gone.

“Hey there, Mister Raven. Where’s your master?”

Chapter 8

Trixie didn’t stay gone, of course. I wasn’t that lucky. It turned out she’d just gone to the kitchen to get more apples, as well as to steal a bit of my precious caramel for dipping. She had nothing more to say about her dreams after that, and she certainly wasn’t spilling any of her trade secrets. I gave up trying to interrogate her and went to do something far more productive with my time: read.

I had the latest journals on dream research, on oneiromancy, on that great waste of time psychology. I surveyed the pile of them on my desk, despaired, and flopped on my bed.

“Celestia, give me strength,” I mumbled.

There was one book on the pile that had nothing to do with dreams, though. It wasn’t even supposed to be out of the library: The Celestial Messengers, still impaled with that bolt from Discord’s crossbow. After some effort I managed to twist it free. As soon as I set the bolt aside it dissolved into mist.

I peered at the book, hoping the damage would dissolve as well. It didn’t.

“Poor thing,” I said. Some damaged books could be repaired – being shot by a crossbow, however, was about as fatal to a book as it was to a pony. This tome would have to be replaced. I tried to be unsentimental when it came to damaged books, but some maudlin mood overcame me, and I flipped it open. I might not be able to save this book, but I could give it one last read before consigning it to destruction.

I’m not sure what I was expecting. The cover was in Old Equus, and I expected the text to be as well, but it was in regular Standard Equish. A little old-fashioned, perhaps, but perfectly legible; written by somepony who lived within the past two-hundred years or so. My translation skills weren’t going to be tested.

Half history, half fable, the book told the story of a short-lived religious order (‘cult’ was probably more accurate, though the author avoided that term) dedicated to Celestia the Solar Goddess in the centuries prior to the Unification. It told in a dry, matter-of-fact tone of events that couldn’t have happened and ponies who must not have existed. It was fiction masquerading as history, and after a few chapters I gave up trying to reconcile what it told me with what I knew of actual events. I wondered if Discord had somehow created it as part of an elaborate (and by his standards, extremely subtle) prank. But some things were beyond even Discord.

There were never any cults to Celestia. Cults only formed around false authority figures; a real goddess had no need for them. By the time I got halfway through the book, the crossbow’s ruin had rendered much of each page illegible, and I set it aside.

One benefit of reading dry historical novels: sleep was fast in coming.

* * *

It is the summer of my ninth year, and my parents have given me over to the custody of the High Ones.

The plains about Marethon burn with the heat of the high season. Seared grass waves in endless fields, punctuated here and there by dusty cedar-lined roads leading to the capital. We are at odds with the pagan pegasus clans again, and for months they have withheld the rain. The mountains to the west lie hidden beneath a blanket of clouds so dark they are nearly black, swollen to bursting with a season’s worth of water. And there it will remain until we pay the pegasi’s ransom, or they begin to starve and abandon this foolish quarrel.

But I do not mind the heat or the cloudless skies or the dying plains, for those are worldly concerns and I have been chosen to serve something unworldly, a vision of beautiful perfection sent from the heavens themselves to grace our filthy bodies and purify them. To burn away all that is evil. My parents have given me over to the custody of the High Ones, and I will go with them to learn the ways and joys of Celestia.

We have a long walk, the seven of us. The shining marble tower of the mountain temple is a bright smudge on the horizon; on clear winter days we can make out the balustrades and pennants that outline its balconies from Marethon, but on this day the air is too thick and hazy. Sweat runs into my eyes, and I look down at my hooves.

There is Dandelion, walking beside me. His light coat is stained dun by the dusty road. Only in the trails of his sweat does its true green color show through. He smiles at me, hikes his pack higher on his withers, and trots to the head of the line. After me he is the most excited of us to make this journey.

Behind me trudges Tangerine. She pants for breath. Spittle drips from her lips into the dust. She comes from the richest family in Marethon and is not made for exertion such as this. She will not last.

I know the others less well. Fillies and colts my age, chosen by their families for this great honor. There is quiet Elegy, and nervous Rhizome, and bold Woodwind, and Asterisk, his family’s seventh son. We all walk in the Servant’s shadow, the soles of our hooves burning, our lips cracking, our eyes watering. But through it all I smile, for with each step my destiny draws closer.

I can see the tower now in the distance. Tall, elegant, proud as a unicorn’s horn. Marble outbuildings surround it, noble in their own low way, for they support the greatness that burns within.

We cross a small wood footbridge over a bone-dry stream. It is a landmark – only ten leagues remain until we reach the tower. As if aware of our presence, the mirror-lanterns along the tower’s observation level swing toward us. Our path is lit by the light of a dozen suns.

Around me, the other colts and fillies try to shield their eyes. I smile and lift my head higher, drinking in the light.

I woke from the dream in a fever. Sweat soaked through the sheets and blankets, turning them clammy and chilly. I tossed them off with a huff and stumbled out of bed toward the bathroom. The castle’s dim night lights were brighter than usual, strong enough to cast shadows in my wake.

I filled the enormous sink with cool water and dunked my face in it. It soothed the sting in my eyes and brought clarity to my thoughts.

I lifted my head. Water streamed down my muzzle and dripped off my horn into the basin. When I looked up, a haggard face and irritated eyes stared back.

“What have you done to us, Discord?” I asked my reflection.

She had no answers. In time, I stumbled back to my bed and found a kind of fitful sleep. There were no more dreams.

* * *

Things were looking better right around breakfast.

I don’t know if Starlight somehow intuited my rough night, but there was an extra-huge stack of pancakes with whipped cream and chocolate chips waiting for me in the kitchen beside a steaming mug of Zebrican coffee. Something about sleep deprivation always made me hungry, and I tore into them with gusto.

My eyes weren’t even hurting. The castle seemed too bright, though. If I didn’t get some shades, going outside would be painful.

“Morning,” Starlight said behind me. She snuck up and took the seat next to me, cradling a cup of coffee in her hooves. “How are you?”

I swallowed a mouthful of pancake and washed it down with coffee, exactly the way my parents taught me not to. “Worried. Whatever Discord did is getting worse, I think.”

“Worse is one word for it.”

I glanced at her. “What’s that mean?”

“Nothing. Sorry, just thinking out loud.”

“Thinking what?” I pressed. “Starlight, you know you don’t need to hold back with me.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” She drummed her hooves on the table, almost like she was nervous. “Look, something happened. I don’t want you to panic.”

A cold sweat broke out under my coat. My heart beat faster. “What happened? Is everypony alright?”

“Oh! Oh, of course. Nopony’s hurt.” She smiled, which did nothing to set me at ease. “Just, you know, I didn’t want to startle you. Or, she didn’t. She’s fine, by the way, and—”

“She, who?” I couldn’t but snap. It wasn’t like Starlight to ramble. I stood. “What happened?”

“Okay, see, you’re getting a bit worked up. And you don’t have to! Because everything is fine and—”

A new voice intruded, and Trixie entered the stage. She snatched the plate of pancakes out from under me and slid them across the table over opposite Starlight, where she took a seat. “Who’s getting worked up? Is Twilight panicking again?”

“I’m not panicking!” Except I was, a bit. But now I had witnesses so I had to calm down. “I just want Starlight to explain what happened.”

“Well, uh.” Starlight glanced between me and Trixie. “I mean… you see?”

I blinked at her. “See what?”

“See…” She trailed off and made a sort of gesture with her muzzle toward Trixie, who was tearing through her—my pancakes like she hadn’t had a decent meal in days. “You know. That.”

“That what?” I asked again. The rough night and weird dreams and disordered morning and my damn stolen pancakes were starting to seriously get on my nerves and I was about to raise my voice against my best friend in a way that would probably lead to hurt feelings when I finally saw it.

Trixie was eating the pancakes straight off the plate, bite by bite. The way a pegasus or earth pony might, which made sense because her horn was gone.

I stared at her forehead, too stunned to speak. Obviously there was a trick of the light, or it was hidden by her bangs, but the longer I stood there staring and Starlight sat there watching me, biting her lip, the more clear it became that there was nothing there to see. Literally.

“It’s… it’s a trick,” I said. “You’re doing another trick, like last night.”

“Hm?” Trixie looked up from her plate. A dollop of whipped cream decorated the tip of her muzzle, and she went cross-eyed at it. Her tongue flicked out and it was gone. “What’s a trick?”

“Your horn.” You know that feeling when you say something that you know is stupid, but you just can’t help it? I hate that feeling. “It’s gone.”

“Oh, yeah.” She tilted her head up, as though that would somehow make something attached to her forehead easier to see, then shrugged. “It’s fine. Didn’t need it.”

“But…” I trailed off and realized I was out of breath. Somewhere in there I’d forgotten how to breathe. An invisible snake was wrapped around my chest, crushing me. My heart complained and tried to punch itself out of my ribs in protest. Little blobs of color danced around the edges of the room.

“Hey, breathe.” It was Starlight. She’d made it to my side and wrapped a leg around my shoulders, which was both comforting and kept me from falling over like I really wanted to. “It’s fine. It’s fine.”

“Fine? Fine!” It came out as a squeak. “How can you say it’s fine? She’s…” Deformed. Mutilated. My throat choked on the words. I gagged.

“Trixie is fine,” Trixie said. “Honestly, sometimes you’re more dramatic than I am, Sparkle. And I’m an actor.”

“How can you say that?” To Starlight: “How can she say that?”

“Because it’s true.” Trixie snapped up the last bite of pancake and gave the plate a lick for good measure. “It was a crutch. Without it I can be dazzling. Amazing! Unicorns can have their silly magic, but I am a magician!”

I set my hooves on the table and rested my head on them. The cool crystal helped calm me down. I took a deep breath. “That’s what you dreamed of, wasn’t it?”

“Hm?” Trixie tilted her head. “There you go again with your dream talk. Maybe I did. Why does it matter?”

“Why does it matter?” I probably shouted that a little louder than necessary. “Why does it matter? Trixie, your horn is gone!”

“And nothing of value was lost.” She stood and took her plate over to the sink, an uncharacteristic act of responsibility that I would’ve appreciated more if she hadn’t stolen them from me in the first place.

But my stomach was so cramped I couldn’t imagine eating anything. I felt sick. I turned to Starlight, who was watching me intently with a little frown and wide, worried eyes. “How can you just sit there? She’s your marefriend!”

“Yeah.” Starlight glanced between us. “But it’s not bothering her. If it were, I’d be upset, but… Well, it’s not.”

Right. Starlight was too close to Trixie to see how terrible this was. She couldn’t detach herself from the problem like I could. I took a few more deep breaths. “Okay. Okay. That’s fine. No, I mean, it’s not fine, but we’ll figure it out later. This is clearly Discord’s doing.”

“Clearly. So… what now?” Starlight said.

“We find him and we get him to fix Trixie.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Trixie said. “I never left. And I don’t need fixing, thank you.”

“Uh huh.” Obviously she hadn’t come to grips with the loss of her horn yet. Probably still in the denial phase of grief. Not that I could blame her – if I’d woken up without a horn I’d probably just start screaming. “Okay. Fluttershy usually knows how to find him. I’ll go get her. Can you stay with Trixie?”

“Trixie actually has plans for today that don’t revolve around whatever crisis you’re experiencing,” Trixie said. “So, thank you for the breakfast. Starlight, I’ll see you later. Assuming you can untangle yourself from that.” She gave Starlight a loaded grin, then trotted out with a bounce in her step.

I waited until she was out of range of my voice. “When did that happen?”

Starlight shrugged. “Overnight, sometime. It was gone when we woke up.”

Her cavalier tone snagged on something ugly in my heart. I let it speak its mind. “So it was there when you were sleeping with her?”

“As far as I know.” She responded evenly, but the look she gave me said I’d overstepped. “What do you want to do?”

Put everything back the way it was,of course.Not just this damn dream fiasco with Discord, but everything. Trixie gone. My tree back, while we’re at it. My friends all the way they were. I let out a slow breath and hunted for the words I needed right now.

“This is becoming a crisis. I’m going to find Fluttershy, track down Discord, and get him to undo everything.”

“Everything? What else is there?”

“I…” I needed more coffee. Celestia. Why couldn’t we just fight changelings again? “I don’t know. But lots of ponies seem to be having odd dreams, and if dreams are what made Trixie’s horn vanish we should be very worried. What have you been dreaming of?”

“Uh…” Starlight glanced to the side. “Nothing special.”

“Come on, Starlight. You know you can trust me with anything. We’re friends.”

“Sorry.” She cleared her throat. “I dreamed of my old town. But things were actually going well for us. The experiment was a success. Ponies were coming from all over to join. And I was finding new ways to… to make things better. To erase the differences that keep ponies apart.”

Well, that didn’t sound so bad. At least she wasn’t dreaming about losing her horn. I’d crack if something like that happened to her. Even the thought of it turned my stomach.

“What about you?” she asked.

“Um.” The glare shining in the windows seemed brighter all of a sudden. One drawback of living in a crystal castle: everything was reflective. I blinked away the dazzling light. “Nothing special. Just books.”

“Books.” She stared at me until I looked away, then huffed quietly. “Fine. Since Trixie is off doing her own thing, what would you like me to do?”

Come with me. The words almost escape before I could clamp down on my tongue. I wrestled with my throat for a moment before finally speaking. “Check the town. Find out if anything else crazy is happening. I’ll find Fluttershy, then come back and get you before confronting Discord. We might even need Luna or Celestia’s help for that.”

“And what if he doesn’t want to be found?”

“Fluttershy has her ways. We’ll drag him out of whatever hole he’s hiding in. Then we’ll set all of this right.”

It sounded so easy when I said it like that. But if hope was the thing with feathers, I guess it made sense for me to be the most hopeful of us all.

Chapter 10

I didn’t dream that night. Sleep was a blessed reprieve from my worries.

Starlight brought me breakfast in bed. I heard her talking with Trixie in the hall outside my quarters. After downing the waffles and toast and grapefruit, I pulled the drapes open. Even with my shades on it was too bright; I discovered that the thin silk scarves Rarity gave me as a coronation gift blocked out just enough light to make the morning sun bearable while not rendering me blind.

I went out onto the east balcony to watch the town wake. The sun was well over the horizon by then, this being in mid-summer, and I closed my eyes. Even behind my lids and the silk blindfold and the sunglasses I could see it. It was warm and huge and filled with love and life. I let its glow seep into me, penetrating through my coat and flesh all the way to my bones. The memory of yesterday’s freezing shower faded like a bad dream.

The pegasi were all aflutter this morning. I watched their shadows through my closed eyes. One of their cavorting forms was slow, clumsy, uncoordinated. She flapped her wings too hard and too fast and skidded through the air like a pony on ice. But even from my balcony I could hear Applejack laughing. She sounded happier than I’d ever heard her.

Time to pay her a visit.

Starlight came with me. I didn’t ask for her company, but I was glad for it anyway. I waited by the entrance while she fetched her saddlebags from her room.

“Okay, ready!” She was a bit out of breath from the stairs. “You know, we could probably magically shade your eyes. Then you wouldn’t need all those.”

“That’s… actually a pretty good idea,” I admitted. I should’ve thought of it myself, but my own issues were frankly at the bottom of my list of concerns. I could tackle my problems after I’d solved everypony else’s.

We started down the road through town toward Sweet Apple Acres. Starlight stuck close to my side, so close that our shoulders brushed and I could keep the scent of her in my muzzle, even as we passed through the fragrant summer market with its endless ripening produce -- cabbages and apples and carrots and ginger and mustard and sunflower oil and cinnamon and everything else a pony’s kitchen might need. It was like she thought she was some kind of seeing-eye dog, and I a blind master in need of guidance. Her devotion was so touching I didn’t try to push her away.

I could see fine, though. Everything might be too bright to my eyes, but the sun was perfect in its illumination. I could count the strands of hair in her mane.

There was a small crowd around one of the last booths at the edge of the market. I veered toward it, curious. Starlight made a little sound of surprise and hurried to catch up with me.

It was Roseluck’s flower stand. Ponies crowded three and four bodies deep before it, all straining to see what she had on display. I squeezed through without much difficulty – I was taller these day than all but a few stallions, and ponies tended to be deferential around me, even going so far as to bow despite all my attempts to get them to stop.

It was useful when trying to get through a crowd, though. Couldn’t deny that.

Roseluck was alone behind the counter. The other Flower sisters must be off doing their own thing. She had her usual stock in trade out for display, dozens of roses of every variety and scent and hue. But what had everypony’s attention was the single enormous potted pink rose in the center of the counter. Its bloom was nearly the size of my head, sitting on a stalk as thick as a sunflower’s. Each of its dozens of petals was larger than my hoof and vivid as the dawn sky. Tiny beads of water sparkled like diamonds.

Starlight managed to squeeze up beside me. “Whoa! Where did you get that, Roseluck? Did you grow it?”

“I think so?” She sounded unsure. “It bloomed overnight. I mean, it must’ve. It was in a patch of Sunset Beauties when I woke up, but I’ve never seen this cultivar. I’ve never even seen a Grandiflora get this big, much less grow from a bud in a single day.”

“Magic?” I asked. We’d all seen magical flowers grow that fast. The town was attacked by magical plants that grew that fast not too long ago.

“It is, princess.” She ducked her head toward me. “And that’s not all. Watch.” She leaned forward and touched the tip of her nose against the nearest petal.

The bloom shuddered. It twitched. The petals all waved frantically like the legs of a centipede pinned by a needle. And then they changed. As quick as thought, they turned the same pale yellow as her coat. The crowd oooh’d in appreciation.

“It grew overnight?” I asked. I reached out and touched the flower’s edge with the tip of my hoof. It shuddered again, flexed, wriggled, and a new color flowed over it, the same lavender as my coat.

“Yes, your highness.” Roseluck ducked beneath the counter and emerged with a spray bottle. She spritzed the rose a few times. “I think I’ll call it a Chameleon.”

“Appropriate,” Starlight said. She started to reach for the rose, then froze when she noticed the eyes of everypony on her, waiting to see it change again. She coughed and set her hoof down. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Roseluck’s eyes shifted toward me. “Would you like it, princess? A magical gift for a magical pony.”

“Ah.” Celestia had warned me about this. Be careful what you show appreciation or desire toward – ponies would make gifts of such things simply to see us smile. “Thank you, Roseluck. But it will never change if I am the only pony who ever touches it, and that is what makes it so magical. Better it stays here on display, where you can demonstrate its beauty to everyone who loves flowers.”

A quiet, positive murmur swept through the small crowd. For once I’d said the right things. Maybe Celestia was right – I was growing into these wings.

Certainly, Roseluck seemed to appreciate my words. And she got to keep her flower. She smiled and bowed again, and was still bowing as I extricated myself. Starlight caught up a few steps later.

“Dreams?” she asked.

“Must be,” I said. “Harmless, at least.”

“They’re all harmless so far.”

“And that’s where I have to disagree.” I let a bit of heat into my voice. We were far enough from the market and other ponies that I could cut loose. “Even if – if – you don’t think Trixie’s… change is harmful, it’s just the start. Less than a week and already ponies are transforming into other tribes. What will things be like next week? Next month?”

“I don’t know. What if we wait to see what happens next week?”

“It might be too late by then.”

We were quiet the rest of the way to Sweet Apple Acres. The sounds of the town never quite faded away, lingering with us as we walked the path. By the time we reached the Apple Family orchards, though, I was ready to hear the sound of another pony’s voice again.

So, as fate would have it, the first Apple we came across was the laconic Big Macintosh. I saw him from a quarter-mile away, a strong red figure doing something with the split-rail fence that bordered the Apple property. Mending it, probably. I don’t know how fences work. But he saw us coming and put down the tool in his mouth and trotted toward the path to meet us.

“Morning, ladies.” His voice shook the hollow spaces in my chest. He spent an extra few moments staring at the layers concealing my eyes. “Come to see AJ, I bet.”

“Is she around?” Starlight asked.

He motioned with his muzzle at the sky. “Up there, somewhere. Was with Miss Dash earlier. Might wanna check in the orchards.”

We thanked him and turned down the path away from the barn and toward the orchard’s neat rows. His scent, so similar to his sister’s – sweat and hay and a sun-baked coat, with just a hint of musk to let you know it was a stallion – dredged through my mind and snagged on a memory. I stopped and turned back.

“Have you had any odd dreams lately, Big Mac?”

He seemed to consider that for a while. Long enough that I thought I might not get an answer at all, but finally he nodded. “Eyup. Don’t everypony?”

I nodded. Starlight nodded. We both waited for him to go on.

He didn’t. Finally we got the message and went on our way.

“What I don’t get,” Rainbow Dash said to me, “is why you’re still down there, when you could be up here.”

Up here was in the boughs of an apple tree, a dozen-or-so feet above my head. She lounged like a cat along one of the sturdier-seeming branches, her legs and tail dangling beneath her, and wore the smug look of one who’s figured out the perfect place to nap and escape all their responsibilities.

I’ll be honest. For a moment I was tempted. Then I saw Applejack on the branch beside her, equally smug.

“We just came to make sure you’re alright,” I said. “Applejack, I mean. Not you. Though I do care about you as well.”

“I…” Applejack drew the word out, stretching her wings and legs as well. “Am better than ever, sugar. Very kind of you to come all the way out here and ask, by the way. Yer eyes alright?”

“They’re fine. Just a little sensitive.”

“Mhm.” She stared at me for a little longer than was strictly necessary, then shifted her gaze to Starlight. “What about you? How’re you changing?”

My heart jumped. I spoke before Starlight could say anything. “She’s fine. She’s not.”

Silence followed. Starlight chewed on her lip. Applejack raised an eyebrow. Rainbow Dash looked confused, which – to be honest – was a familiar expression on her.

Finally, “Yeah,” Starlight said. “I’m fine.”

“Mhm,” Applejack said again. That little sound carried a lot more meaning this time.

“We just wanted to make sure you’re okay,” I said. “It’s… I mean, ponies aren’t supposed to just grow wings overnight.”

I realized, as I said it, how utterly stupid that was. I pulled my wings tight against my side and continued gamely on. “I mean… How’s your family taking it?”

“Fine, I guess. Didn’t know they needed to take it one way or another.”

“Wait.” Rainbow Dash finally caught up with us. “You think this is a bad thing? She has wings. Wings! That’s awesome!”

“Sure, it’s great,” I said. “But it’s not supposed to happen. The world has certain rules and if ponies can just randomly sprout wings or lose their horns or who knows what else is happening out there, then nothing is safe! Everything we know could be voided in an instant! Is that a world you want to live in?”

“Uh, if you mean a world where awesome things just happen overnight for no reason, then yeah, sign me up.”

“Stop saying it’s awesome!” I stamped my hoof. “Haven’t you ever dreamed that your wings came off while you were flying, Dash? I have! Do you want that to come true?”

Dash jerked like I’d shoved a live wire under her tail. Her eyes went wide, so wide I could see the whites all around the vivid mulberry. It only lasted for a moment, and just as quickly she scowled down at me. “That’s a nightmare, not a dream. And… No! I’ve never had that!”

“How much difference is there between a dream and a nightmare?” Starlight asked. “Everypony acts like they’re two separate choices… like when you go to sleep you might experience one or the other. But that’s not really true, is it? Every nightmare is a dream.”

“Woo wee.” Applejack smirked down at her and waved a hoof through the air. “Somethin’ about these orchards must bring out the deep thoughts in ya’ll.”

“She’s right though,” I said. A hint of anger, a tiny ember, began to smoulder in my breast. It didn’t matter if Applejack was my friend or not, nopony disparaged my students! “Physiologically, there’s no difference between a dream and a—”

“Nope. I know what you’re gonna say already, and it’s wrong.” Applejack shifted on the branch. She wasn’t as graceful at is as Rainbow, and the whole canopy shook over our heads, raining down bits of leaves and insects on us. “Here’s a simple idea: I’m sad when I wake from dreams; I can’t wait to wake from nightmares.”

“Yeah, that,” Rainbow said. She somehow rolled completely over on the branch, coming to rest on her back, without disturbing a single leaf. “Talk all you want. My best friend has wings now and that’s awe—great. It’s great.”

“I’m not saying that… this particular change is bad.” I had to carefully weigh each word before letting it escape. There were too many emotions charging around inside me to speak freely. “What happened to Applejack is… special, but it’s not natural. It’s unnatural! Applejack, of all ponies, you should know how bad unnatural things can be!”

“Well shucks, I didn’t realize that was so bad.” She turned her head back to nip at the root of her wing, scratching some itch in the feathers. “You want to magic these things off me so I can go back to bucking apples? That make you happy?”

“I... No. I mean, it doesn’t look like they’re hurting you. They won’t stop you from working. From, uh, being yourself. Your old self.” I glanced behind us. In the distance, through the trees, I could hear the steady knock-knock of Big Macintosh working on the fence. “But, uh, shouldn’t you be working now? What about all these apples?”

“They’ll be fine on the trees.” She snagged one off a nearby branch and bit it clean in half. Juice dribbled down her chin and dappled her chest. “Want one?”

“Maybe later.” I huffed quietly and glanced at Starlight. She just shrugged. “Have you been dreaming of this all your life, Applejack? Being able to fly?”

She snorted and chomped down the rest of the apple. “Maybe once or twice. Who hasn’t, right? But I told ya, that wasn’t what I dreamed of before I woke up with these puppies.” She stood on the branch, balancing easily with her wings outstretched. For a moment she looked like a natural-born pegasus.

“Being free, right?” Starlight tilted her head. “That’s what you said.”

“Yup. Being free. And you know what? It’s nice. I recommend it.” Applejack flapped her wings, stirring the branches into a frenzy. After a few laborious seconds, she rose above the canopy. Stray apples pelted the ground around us. “C’mon Dash. Race ya!”

“Oh, you’re on!” Dash left her branch with much less effort, leaping into the air like the branch was a springboard. She circled Applejack for good measure, then took off to the west in a blur. Applejack spared the time for a final wave in our direction before following.

A few final apples hit the ground around us with quiet, deep thuds that shook in my bones. The sound continued far longer than it should, and only then did I realize it was my heart hammering in my chest. Anger, anger like I’d rarely ever felt, beat at my heart like a drum. It stirred my blood and burned through my veins and for a moment it gave birth to terrible ideas – I could catch Applejack, and bring her back here. I could ensorcell her hooves to weigh dozens of stones each, grounding her. I could tear the feathers off those wings and—

I stopped with a gasp. I hadn’t been breathing, and air flooded back into my lungs, sweeping away those vile urges. I closed my eyes and reminded myself that this wasn’t her, that Applejack was one of the bravest, kindest and most noble ponies in the world, that I was lucky to call her a friend. I imagined all those negative feelings, the anger and hurt and betrayal I felt, and I shoved them into an invincible crystal bottle and cast it into the deepest dungeons in my mind.

There. I took another breath, held it, and exhaled. All better.

A cold nose against the side of my neck brought me back to reality. “You okay? You looked, uh, a little out of it there.”

I returned Starlight’s nuzzle. The scent of bed linens and sweat and candle wicks was like a balm. “Yeah, sorry. Just… frustrated.”

“Reasonably so.” Starlight peered up at the sky. The faint, flitting shapes of pegasi darted between the clouds. “Let’s head back.”

Best idea of the day. I picked up two apples with my magic for later and passed one to Starlight. So at least our trip wasn’t a total waste. Just mostly one.

Chapter 11

Days passed.

I started wearing the shades and sunhat and blindfold constantly, even indoors. It felt like the sun was everywhere, warming me and filling me with its brilliance. A wonderful sensation, to be sure, but the glare could be a bit much.

It was better when I looked straight at the sun. Even in my castle, beneath a dozen floors of crystal, through the smoked lenses and the blindfold and even my closed eyelids, I could see it perfectly. When I focused on it, the rest of the world went away, and all my cares vanished for a few minutes. I could forget the chaos that had invaded our lives, upending the small, weird, perfect town I’d grown to love.

I probably could’ve fixed my eyes with a bit of effort, but I had more pressing issues to take care of. One was sitting across from me.

Starlight was orange today. Not her best color, in my opinion, but I had several orange friends so it seemed kind of heartless to say I didn’t like it. Though her new coat color matched the light amber of her mane and her deep chocolate eyes, it all felt wrong. I just lacked the will to tell her so.

She had pancakes. Trixie also had pancakes. Starlight slid the tureen of syrup over to her marefriend, and their hooves lingered together for seconds longer than necessary. Their eyes met, and Starlight blushed. Trixie leered.

It wasn’t so long ago that I took my breakfasts alone. Before I came to Ponyville – before I had friends worth sharing my life with. And I didn’t miss those days. But at that moment I really could have done without Trixie in my life.

“You look good today,” Trixie purred. “I love that color on you.”

Starlight beamed at her. That’s the only way I can describe it; a smile of such transcendent joy that her whole face glowed. For a moment it seemed to me as bright as the sun. This was a mare hopelessly in love. A deep sadness washed over me like a wave at the realization; that Starlight had someone more important in her life now.

We’re supposed to be happy when our friends find love, aren’t we? Maybe I was just a bad pony.

“Think you’ll keep it?” I asked.

Starlight jumped, startled from her lovestruck reverie. Her hooves pawed at the table for a moment, nearly knocking her pancakes askew, and she finally smiled at me.

“Probably not,” she said. “There’s too many colors in the world, you know? Why settle for just one?”

“The rest of us do.”

She shrugged. “For now.”

For now. If the past week had a motto, that would be it. Everything felt ephemeral, teetering on the edge of some precipitous change. Discord’s curse had upended everything I thought I knew.

Fluttershy. Applejack. Rarity. Trixie. Starlight. Something was happening to each of them. For some it was obvious – for others, more subtle. And that, perhaps, was the most frightening change of all.

I could only rely on myself. Even Starlight was drifting away from me.

Trixie and Starlight were chattering about something. I tuned back in just in time to see Trixie perform another of her tricks: she peeled her face away like a mask, revealing Fluttershy’s shocked face beneath. Again she pulled the mask away, and she became a startled changeling. Again: Princess Celestia. Again: my own face. Finally: nothing at all. A blank space stared out from beneath her stage magician’s hat. It floated in air above her hollow cape.

Starlight clapped. I clapped, because it was polite, and frankly impressive for anypony who wasn’t a unicorn. Not that I knew any unicorns who could perform magic like that. I guess it was just impressive, period.

I wondered where her dreams would end. I finished my pancakes and set off to survey Ponyville.

I flew lazy circles around the town. From the air it didn’t seem like much had changed. Emptier, maybe. Not as many ponies in the market. Or maybe ponies were just sleeping in because it was the weekend. Or it was just random – not everything had to be the work of Discord. Seeing his hidden hand behind everything was a shortcut to the rubber room in Ponyville General Hospital’s psychiatric ward.

The sun baked through my coat and my feathers, pleasantly burning me. I made a game of pretending the sunshine was rain, and the clouds giant umbrellas, and I swooped through their shadows to dry myself of the light. Soon my muscles hummed with energy, aching from the unusual exertion of constant flight for flight’s sake. It was a silly, ephemeral joy that accomplished nothing, and I let myself revel in it. Let future Twilight worry about all the problems that awaited upon landing.

Did any pegasi dream of flying forever? Of trading their hawk or eagle wings for those of an albatross and slipstreaming along the thermals, rising higher and higher until the world became nothing but a patchwork mosaic of farms and forest and other dreams?

That didn’t sound so bad. I closed my eyes behind my shades and let the sunlight wash away my cares.

I didn’t bother to land at Fluttershy’s cottage. It was clear from the air that nopony was home.

The windows were open. Thin cotton drapes blew out and tangled in the branches that grew along the walls. The thick grass growing atop her roof had a ramshackle, wild look to it, as though in their master’s absence the plants were making a break for freedom. A flock of songbirds burst from the weeping boughs of the willow beside the stream. They circled around me, riding the eddies of my huge wings, then turned as one toward the Everfree, quickly vanishing into the mists that always concealed it. I wondered, briefly, if they could find Fluttershy for me.

I heard a rude squawk and glanced over to see Fluttershy’s raven shadowing me. He was large enough that I could feel his eddies teasing the tips of my primary feathers. I banked to see if he would follow, and he did.

“Where’s your master hiding, Mister Raven?” I mumbled under my breath.

He didn’t answer. We flew a few more laps around the meadow together, and then went our separate ways.

* * *

“We could go back to Princess Luna,” Starlight said. “She might be able to find Fluttershy more easily than we can.”

She walked beside me down the street. Lunch was just a memory and a greasy, happy lump in my gut. They’d made the mistake of asking where I wanted to go, and of course the answer was the Hayburger. Really, they should’ve known by now.

“Normally one goes to the police for missing ponies,” Trixie said. Oh, yes, Trixie was with us. Because Starlight now came as part of a set. Honestly, I wouldn’t have minded Trixie so much if not for the fact that she was now tainting all of my Starlight time.

For once, Trixie wasn’t wearing her silly cape and hat. I’d gotten used to seeing her without them in my castle, but for her to venture out in public without them was unusual. Leaving them behind hadn’t dimmed her grating overconfidence, though – she was as comfortable with her nakedness as any pony we passed in the street.

“They’ll keep an eye out for her if I ask, but they won’t go searching for her unless there’s some sign that something happened,” I said. “Luna can search for her dreams.”

We ambled through Ponyville, taking our time, walking nowhere in particular. Everywhere I looked, I saw things that were off. The Inkpot and Tea Sets store, closed years ago when its owner died, was open again. A sign in the window advertised for a grand re-opening ceremony. Across the street, vendors were setting out the last of the day’s produce for the afternoon crowd. There were fresh greens and pungent garlic and razor-spined cacti and an absolute lack of apples.

“Or you could just ask Luna to fix everything,” Trixie said. “Isn’t that what princesses are for?”

“We do other things occasionally,” I said.

I hadn’t meant to sound annoyed, but they must’ve caught my clipped tones. We were silent the rest of the way to Rarity’s boutique.

The little bell above Rarity’s door rang as we entered. A moment later her voice echoed out from the dressing room: “Good afternoon! Welcome to Carousel Boutique, where everything is—” the mare herself emerged into the lobby, and her demeanor instantly switched from business owner to friend at the sight of us. “Oh, darlings! Please, come in, come in. Get out of that dreadful heat. Sit down, won’t you? I’ll get some tea started.”

Starlight tried to help, but Rarity had none of it. She shoved Starlight and Trixie together on the chaise lounge and set me on a cushion beside them. The tea, when it arrived, was a jasmine blend. Trixie held it with her hooves, of course, while the rest of us used our magic. If Rarity seemed surprised by her lack of a horn, she hid it well.

Rarity hadn’t stopped creating, by the look of the display room. The original dress was gone, but in its place were dozens of smaller accent pieces – saddles and bridles and hats and bows and vests, all done in the same mosaic style reminiscent of a butterfly. Even behind my blindfold and shades I could see them sparkling in the afternoon light. Any one of them, by itself, would instantly become the highlight of my own wardrobe, if I cared enough about fashion to buy one.

“You’ve been busy,” I noted.

“Is it being busy when you’re having fun?” Rarity asked. “Because I’ve had the time of my life making all these little pieces. I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to go back to making items on commission. Just the thought of sewing something else hurts.”

“They’re all so beautiful,” Starlight said. “It’s almost hard to believe a pony made them, you know? They’re just so… perfect.”

We all spent a moment admiring the collection, then turned as one toward Trixie. She caught onto our attention and shrugged. “They’re pretty good.”

A smirk pulled up one corner of Rarity’s lips. “High praise from the Great and Powerful Trixie, I’m sure.” She took a sip of her tea and turned toward me, and for the first time I noticed how the light reflected in her eyes. They had taken on a faceted appearance, like those of a crystal pony. Or a dragonfly. “I assume, since it’s the three of you, this is not just a social call?”

I shook my head. “This curse, or whatever it is Discord has done, it’s getting worse. Ponies’ dreams are leaking into the real world somehow. I think you’ve started to see it yourself.”

“Mm.” Rarity made a quiet, noncommittal noise. “I saw Applejack the other day. She seemed quite happy.”

“Did you try buying apples from her? I don’t think she cares much about that anymore.”

Rarity shrugged. “That’s her prerogative, isn’t it? We shouldn’t expect ponies to always continue along the same path in life, simply because it makes us comfortable. If we never changed, where would you be, Twilight?”

My wings fluffed a bit. I tried to keep them down, but they always seemed to know when ponies were talking about them. “I’d still be a unicorn, and that would be fine. I had a meaningful life and wonderful friends and—”

“No,” Starlight interrupted. She swallowed heavily. “She means before. If you never changed, you’d still be that recluse in your tower in Canterlot. And I’d still be a tyrant slowly killing all of the ponies who trusted me. And Trixie would be alone, always running from town to town, amazing ponies and making them hate her at the same time.”

I glanced at Trixie. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth half-open as if she wanted to respond. But she kept her silence, and in a motion so small I almost missed it, her lightly shaking hoof crept across the cushion to Starlight, who grabbed it firmly with hers.

In a tiny, deep, hidden part of my soul, the place where I tossed all the feelings and thoughts that ashamed me, a little flame of that old hatred smoldered and burned. My heart beat harder, shaking my hollow bones, and a dream – a wish – passed through me, to reach up and tear their hooves apart and take back—

“Well said.” Rarity’s refined tones yanked me back to the present. I tore my gaze away from Starlight and Trixie’s twined hooves just in time to see Rarity watching me with a smile. A hot, heavy shame flushed my face. Of course she knew. “Change can be good or bad, can’t it, Twilight? It’s what we make of it.”

My throat was dry, and I took a sip of the tea. “We should strive to make the best of it, then.”

No one had a response to that, and we lapsed into silence. Rarity and I were such good friends that silence was comfortable between us, and of course Starlight and I spent entire hours together, reading or studying, with only a few words ever spoken. But to have all of us here together, and Trixie in the mix besides, turned the silence into a tense, living thing, slowly growing, swelling up from the floor and tapping at us with thousands of little legs like centipedes, demanding that one of us finally devour it. I licked my lips and searched for something banal to say, if only to break the tension that slowly squeezed my chest and—

Starlight broke first. “You haven’t seen Fluttershy, have you?”

“I have, in fact. Just yesterday.”

“How was she?” I asked. “Was Discord with her?”

“Oh, she was wonderful, darling. Normally she’s such a quiet mare, but she looked so energized, almost wild. Beautiful, too. You know, I thought for a moment she might be pregnant, because they say pregnant mares have that glow? But I asked her and she just laughed and said I was being silly. Fluttershy said that! Where does a mare like that suddenly find such confidence?”

In dreams. I didn’t say it aloud, but we were all thinking it. “And Discord?”

Rarity shook her head. “Sorry, no sign of him. I didn’t think to ask her, either. If she comes back I will.”

No progress, then. But a little weight lifted from my shoulders nevertheless. Fluttershy was fine. I’ve never lost a friend, and I can’t imagine what I would do if Discord’s foolish pranks hurt her.

“Thank you. Let her know we need to find him as soon as possible,” Starlight said.

“Of course.” Rarity set her tea down. “I don’t suppose the three of you would like to stay for lunch? I can make us sandwiches, or we can go out—”

“We already ate," Trixie said. She spoke quietly, almost like she was apologizing. "But actually, Trixie has one more thing to ask. She… I was hoping you could make something for me.”

“Oh?” Rarity leaned forward. “A bespoke item? Well, normally I have strict limits on commissions, but for a friend of a friend I suppose I could make an exception. What were you thinking of?”

Trixie reached into her saddlebags, lifting out a small box secured with twine. She set it down on the table and pulled off the lid. Inside, neatly folded, were her star-speckled cape and pointed hat.

“These have served me well for years,” she said. She brushed the fabric with her hoof. “But they are worn and patched and tired, now. It’s time for them to rest. Can you make me new ones?”

“Oh! Trixie…” Rarity pulled the box closer and felt the cloth within. “Well, this is quite something. You really want me to—”

“Of course. You’re the best, aren’t you?”

“Well.” Rarity made a show of looking away. “I wouldn’t say that, necessarily. But, well, I know a thing or two about sewing…”

“They say clothes make the mare, don’t they?” Trixie asked. “If that’s true, and if you are as good as Starlight tells me, then I’d rather have you making me than anypony else.” And then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she stood, walked over to Rarity, and placed a kiss full on her lips.

I gawked at her. I waited for the slap, or Starlight’s protest. Anything to happen.

Instead Rarity just smiled. She touched her hoof to her lips, then looked down at the box. “I’ll get started right away.”

I looked at Starlight, expecting an explosion. Instead she just watched them both with a small smile on her lips.

Celestia, what was wrong with this town? I shook my head. “Are you still dreaming of butterflies, Rarity?”

Focus returned to Rarity’s eyes, and she nodded. “I am. They’re still hard to remember, of course, but I have quite the dream collection of them now. I think, I mean. Hundreds, maybe thousands. You know, silk comes from butterflies? They spin a cocoon in their larval stage. How odd to think that the most valuable thread in the world comes from a simple insect?”

Could a pony turn into a butterfly? What would that look like? I found myself staring at Rarity’s sharp, penetrating, faceted eyes.

If we didn’t find a way to stop this curse, I got the feeling we’d find out.

Chapter 12

Starlight found me that evening before she retired to bed. She was back to her old colors, but something about her seemed different. I spent a moment studying her mane and eyes, wondering what she’d changed, when it finally hit me.

Her cutie mark was gone. She looked naked without it, and years younger besides. Amazing how much maturity that little icon on our coat can confer.

She climbed up beside me on the couch. “How are your eyes?”

“Fine.” With only candles to light the room, I could take off the blindfold and shades. Even so, the quiet study was as luminous as my balcony at noon. “They don’t hurt. It’s just very bright.”

“Mm.” She glanced down at my book. “Research, or enjoyment?”

“A bit of both.” I lowered the battered copy of The Celestial Messengers. Much of the middle half of the book had been destroyed by Discord’s crossbow bolt, but the last chapters were mostly intact. I might never know how the cult lived, but I could find out how they died. “What are we going to do, Starlight?”

“Whatever we think is right. Hard to go wrong with that.”

“What if I’m wrong, though? What if ponies really are happy with what Discord is doing?” The memory of Applejack’s lazy, contented smile as she flew away flashed through my mind.

“Then, let’s be careful before we do anything rash.” She peered at my eyes again. “What are you dreaming of, Twilight?”

“A sun so bright that it turns everything else dark, and I can’t see,” I said. It was all I could remember from my dreams. Struggling through the darkness, only to realize it was light all along.

“Sounds bad.”

“It’s not. It’s so beautiful. I just wish I understood it.” I set my book on the table beside the couch, where it could wait until morning. “We’ll go to Canterlot tomorrow and talk to Luna. She’ll tell us what to do.”

“Do we really need her to tell us what to do?”

“Well.” I frowned down at my hooves. “Nothing says we have to follow her advice.”

“Fair enough.” Starlight leaned forward to brush my cheek with hers. Her scent – bed linens and sweat and candle wicks – filled my nose with comfortable familiarity. Tangled with it was the sharper scent of cordite and sparks. Trixie’s pollution. I tried to ignore it. “Sleep tight.”

“I’ll try.” It was the most I could promise.

* * *

It is the summer of my ninth year. Our party has crossed the plains of Marethon and reached the Celestial Tower. The Hierophant greets us at the observation level.

The balcony here has no rails. There is nothing to stop anypony from tumbling off the edge to their deaths except their own common sense. I have heard in whispers that it happens sometimes to sun-blind vessels. They are given worthy funerals and entombed with the martyrs.

We lower our heads in respect, but the Hierophant rebukes us. It is our first lesson. Raise your head to show respect. The greatest honor is to gaze upward.

They have not given us water in hours. Tangerine no longer sweats, for her body has run out. She pants rapidly. I can almost taste the sunstroke stalking her. The marble around us is perfect, unblemished and white, and it reflects the sun with absolute fidelity. Standing on this balcony, exposed to the sun and the marble and the naked drop just feet away, one experiences a certain vertigo. I can feel my spirit leaving my body to hover above this furnace. I watch us like a ghost.

Tangerine sways. Her forelegs buckle, and she sags to the hot marble like shorn grass. She twitches and crawls and manages to drag herself into the shade of one of the mirror-lanterns. We can all hear her rasping, frantic breaths.

“Failure,” the Hierophant says. “Insufficient piety.”

White-robed servants sweep forward. They drag Tangerine into the tower, her time with us complete. I spare only a passing thought to whether she will survive.

When no more of us collapse, the Hierophant steps to the edge of the balcony and turns. It is time for our second lesson. He reaches up and undoes the filigreed silk blindfold bandaging his eyes. They are welded shut with scars that are bubbled and red. Infections and burns have transfigured his face. Only faintly could one guess how handsome he was before.

Now, he is beautiful. I realize I am weeping.

“Do you love Celestia?” he asks.

“Yes!” I shout the answer. The others respond with less enthusiasm, except for Dandelion. He is almost as loud as I.

“Can you look upon her glory without flinching?” he asks.

“Yes!” I can! I have practiced! I can do this! I force my gaze skyward toward the sun. My eyes squint almost shut, but I bend every ounce of my will toward forcing them apart. Nothing, nothing matters more than this. Her light stabs into my retinae, and after a few seconds I lower my head, panting. Spots swim in my vision. The balcony seems to be swaying. Around me, the other initiates groan. A few cry.

“Again,” the Hierophant says. “Longer.”

I find the sun again and stare. After a few seconds the pain overwhelms me.

Two initiates don’t try. Servants drag them off. The Hierophant tracks them with his sightless eyes.

“Failures. Insufficient piety. Again!”

I look up again. The stabbing pain is gone now, replaced by a dull ache that pulses in time with my heart. My vision dims, and though my eyes remain open I lose the sun for a moment in throbbing black spots. I shift my eyes to catch it again.

I don’t know how long we continue. One by one the other initiates fall, collapsing or shielding their eyes with their legs. They cannot bear her radiance like I can. They are dragged away to return to their ignominious lives. Only Dandelion and I remain.

I can’t hear him breathing anymore. I can’t hear anything – not the wind or the Hierophant’s voice or the soft swish of the servant’s cotton robes. I can only hear the sun whispering to me. I gasp in amazement and reach up toward it—

I am lying on my side on the burning marble. I can see nothing but darkness, afterimages and dancing shadows. I flail with my legs and strike something.

“Failure,” I hear the Hierophant say. “Insufficient piety.”

Strong legs grab me, lifting me half-upright. I begin to slide across the marble toward the tower and its shadows.

“No!” It is louder than I have ever screamed in my life. Something in my throat tears. “No! I can do this!”

I beat away their restraining grip and stumble back toward the center of the balcony, but I cannot see the way. I stop when my foreleg encounters the drop at the edge, and for a moment I hang suspended over the abyss. I teeter there, then tilt my head up again.

“Celestia!” I cry. I cannot find the sun, but I can feel her warmth on my face. I force my sightless eyes to open. Dimly, darkly, I see a spark. “Celestia! Choose me! I am worthy! I can see you, CHOOSE ME!”

I woke to a frantic clatter. Ponies ran in the hall outside my room. A moment later came the staccato knock of hooves against my door. I rose from the covers, blinking dumbly, just as the door burst open and Starlight pelted through.

“What’s wrong?” I blinked at her blearily. Even with no lights or lanterns or candles, I could see her perfectly.

“Applejack.” She panted. “Something’s happening. At the farm.”

A wave of cold dread washed over me. It woke me in an instant. I pushed the clinging bedsheets away and stumbled toward her. Then I remembered I didn’t need to use doors anymore. I turned, tossed the windows open with a thought, and jumped out into the night.

Chapter 13

The farmhouse was easy to see, even at night. And not because of my newly gifted eyesight. It was just on fire.

It’s amazing how much smoke a burning structure can produce. Academically this made sense to me – in the burning process a home or a family is converted into an equivalent mass of hot gasses mixed with microscopic particles of soot. All that material has to go somewhere, after all. My old library had filled the sky with smoke when it burned, and it had rained down enough ash to stain the rest of the town gray for days.

A charnel, billowing tower rose from Sweet Apple Acres, lit from beneath by a sickly, inconsistent orange glow. Embers drifted from the conflagration in waving streams, joining the stars and outshining them for brief moments before going dark.

I wasn’t a fast flyer back then. Not really, not compared with Rainbow Dash or any other natural-born pegasus. But when I saw the smoke rising from Sweet Apple Acres, and the bright burning light at its base, and when I smelled the sickly sweet acrid scent of applewood ash, I flew faster than I’ve ever flown in my life. I think I might have given Rainbow a run for her money; my heart would have exploded if I’d had to fly more than the bare mile between my castle and the edge of the orchard. But even at that insane speed it took too long; an eternity passed while I flew, and in every one of those moments my mind was fixed horribly on the image of my friend and her family trapped in the burning house, entombed beneath fallen timbers, screaming, dying inch-by-inch as the flames travelled up their coats and into their—

The whipping leaves and branches of the orchard broke through my fears. I crashed through the trees and skidded to a stop at the patio. Even a dozen feet away the raging fire shriveled the hairs of my coat, and I stumbled away, my wings up to shelter my face. My lips cracked. I took in a deep breath to call for my friend and choked on the searing air. I doubled over, hacking, and would have collapsed if a pair of strong hooves hadn’t grabbed me and dragged me back. I fought weakly, but I had no strength left.

“Stop!” a deep voice shouted right in my ear. I felt the shape of the word on his lips more than I heard it over the roaring fire. “There’s nopony in there! There’s nopony to save!”

I stumbled out of his grip. Big Mac stood behind me, his red coat streaked with sweat. He wasn’t hurt that I could see – no burns or missing hair or streaks of soot in mane. He was probably in better shape than I was, and that realization knocked my senses for a loop.

“What… Are you okay?” I asked. “Is everypony okay? Where is Apple Bloom! Is she okay?!”

“She’s fine! She and Granny are fine!” He gestured at the fence behind him, and I followed to see the Apple matriarch leaning against the rails, her knees shaking and her white mane down from its normal bun for sleep. Her lips were set in a grim line, and she held a struggling Apple Bloom against her chest.

The panic in my heart eased a bit, but then it burst back into the fore. Applejack! Where was Applejack? I spun back toward the fire. The heat pouring out of it struck my face like a hammer. I didn’t know any spells to put out fires but I could tear the ruins apart better than anypony. My horn flushed with light and power, and I reached out to the flames with my magic to—

Big Mac’s teeth closed on my tail and yanked me back before I could do anything stupid. “Stop! She ain’t in there either! Nopony’s in there. Just… just let it burn.”

I fell on my haunches. My dock stung from the tug, and I’d probably lost a few tail hairs, but I barely felt it. “We can save it! We can get the fire brigade, or, or I can get some water!” There was a cow pond on the Apple property. Lifting water was tough – it tried to drip through the magic field – but surely there was enough there to put this blaze out. I tried to orient myself to the rest of the orchard, but so much was wrong: the fire, the darkness, the tower of smoke overhead concealing the stars. I barely knew which direction the town was in.

A new feeling began to creep into my heart, replacing the shock and the fear and the adrenaline. Helplessness. I was one of the most powerful ponies in Equestria, but I could not unburn a house. My eyes, already watering from the searing air and fumes, blinded by the brilliance of the fire, began to run with a stream of tears.

Granny said something. Even just a few feet away, she was drowned out by the roaring blaze. But Apple Bloom stopped struggling and slumped against the fence with her. Big Mac gave me another look, then walked over to them and draped a hoof over his little sister’s withers.

For all the terrible heat of the fire washing over us, I felt cold. Nopony to hold the Princess of Friendship, a voice sneered in the back of my head.

I sat there, trembling, wishing Starlight Glimmer or anypony else would come.

Starlight arrived with the fire brigade. By the time they reached us it was clear the house was a lost cause. Rather than turn their hoses on it, they aimed them at the nearby trees and barn, to keep them from catching fire as well. Starlight followed them around at first, but soon she realized she was just getting in the way, and she trotted over toward us. Big Mac had a few quiet words with her, then pointed at me.

She sat beside me. The dry, seared grass crunched beneath her rump. She pawed at it with her hooves for a moment, then pulled me into a half-embrace with her leg.

“You okay? You’re not hurt, are you?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m fine. Everypony’s fine.”

“Well, that’s what matters. Things can be replaced, but ponies can’t. That’s, uh, that’s how the saying goes, right?”

“Yeah.” I swallowed. My throat burned from an hour of breathing the hot air and harsh fumes. “It’s wrong, though. Things can’t all be replaced. Sometimes when there’s a fire...” I waved my hoof in a nonsense gesture. “Things are gone forever.”

I hadn’t cried over the memory of my tree and all the things I lost in it for years. Sometimes entire weeks went by and I wouldn’t even think of it. And lately, when I did remember the warm, living wood and the enormous canopy that rustled in the breeze at all hours, I just smiled. But for an instant, sitting there with Starlight and watching the Apple family home vanish, a pang of loss so fresh I could taste it like blood stabbed through my heart. In that moment I would have given back everything – the wings, the castle, even the Elements themselves – just to have my tree again.

I must’ve made some sound, because Starlight squeezed me tighter. I buried my face in her mane and took a breath, desperate to smell something other than smoke, but her scent of bed linens and sweat and candle wicks was obliterated by the fire.

I guess she didn’t know what to say, because she just held me. I tuned out everything else – the crackle of breaking wood, the fire brigade, the clamor as more ponies from the town arrived to help in any way they could. I focused on the beat of Starlight’s heart and tried to forget my old home all over again.

She didn’t mind the snotty mess I was making of her mane, which just showed how much better of a friend she was than I deserved. But after a minute she jerked and pulled away. I looked up and wiped my eyes with my fetlock.

“What?” I had to cough out the word.

Starlight didn’t respond. She just motioned with her muzzle off toward the orchard.

Huh. I squinted at the shadows. My eyes were irritated from the fumes, but even so I could see an orange shape sitting among the trees. An orange shape with a stetson hat and wings.

Starlight didn’t object as I stood. I started at a walk, but by the time I reached Applejack I was galloping, panting all over again.

She watched me approach and gave me a little nod. “Princess.”

“Applejack!” I gasped and spent a few second catching my breath. “Oh, it’s good to see you. You’re not hurt, are you? Big Mac said everypony was okay but I didn’t see you and the fire was just so big and—”

“I’m fine.” She rolled her shoulders. The tips of her new pinions dragged on the grass. Mine had done that at first as well, until Rainbow Dash showed me the proper way to hold them when sitting. “Everything’s fine. No need to get all worked up.”

“But…” I swallowed and started over. “Look, I know how hard this is. I know exactly what you’re feeling. And the important thing to remember is that we’re all here for you. We’ll find a place… no, with me! You can all stay in the castle! And we’ll build a new house out here, just as good as the old! I bet we could have it done by the Running of the Leaves if we start tomorrow!”

“Eh.” She shrugged again. “I’ll pass.”

I stared at her. It took several seconds to process that. “What?”

“I’ll pass. The others might take you up on it, though. ‘Specially Apple Bloom.”

“What…” I fumbled for words. “What about you?”

“I’ll be fine.” She looked up at the sky. The tower of smoke had flattened, forming a pall that drifted slowly east. The faint light of the sun, still below the horizon, painted its edges rose. “I’m feeling great, in fact.”

“You’re in shock,” I said. It made sense. I should’ve seen it right away. For a pony like Applejack, losing her family home must’ve been an even more terrible blow than the loss of my old library. “Look, don’t… just remember that we’re here for you, okay? I know how you feel.”

“Yeah?” She cocked her head. “How do I feel, Twilight?”

“Lost.” I closed my eyes, and for a moment I was back in Ponyville, the memory as fresh in my mind as the day it happened. The charred bark turned to dust as I walked on it. Millions of pages covered the square, some still smoldering, others little more than ash. The great hollow walls still stood, but blasted and lifeless. “Lost. Adrift. Like the only anchor you had is suddenly gone, and there’s nothing to stop you from just floating away.”

Applejack nodded slowly as I spoke. “Yeah. That’s about right.” She took a long breath, then smiled. “It’s wonderful.”

The world seemed to recede from me. Like I was watching it through a window. Sounds were muffled. My heart faltered. It took me a minute to speak.

“No.” I shook my head. “No. Applejack, tell me you didn’t…”

“I had to, sugar. It’s just like you said. Like the anchor is suddenly gone.” She took a deep breath, let it out, and smiled. “Amazing what a little kerosene can do, huh? Best choice I ever made.”

My heart returned, pounding now. My breath shuddered in my chest. I started to judge the distance between us and how fast I could cross it. “You could’ve hurt somepony. Your own family! You could have killed them!”

“Naw.” She flicked her hoof. “I got them out first. Told ‘em all I loved them, all that sappy stuff. Then I started it.”

“I could have you arrested. I-I should have you arrested!”

“I reckon you could.” Applejack looked me up and down. “Well?”

My horn glowed again. It would be so easy – as strong as Applejack might be, she was still just an earth pony. I could hold her down. I could carry her to the jail myself. And if she struggled, I could hurt her. It would be as easy as tearing the wings off a fly.

I squeezed my eyes shut. My horn flickered and died. This wasn’t her fault – this was all Discord’s doing. He was the one we had to punish. Applejack was a victim just as much as anypony else.

“Hm.” Applejack grunted, and I heard a quiet rustle on the grass in front of me. I opened my eyes to see her stetson lying there. “Give that to Apple Bloom for me, ‘kay?”

I didn’t answer. Perhaps Applejack didn’t expect one, because she didn’t wait. She turned, flapped her still-clumsy wings, and rose into the night.

Applejack nodded slowly as I spoke. “Yeah. That’s about right.” She took a long breath, then smiled. “It’s wonderful.”

Chapter 14

I sat before the enormous sink in my cavernous bathroom. Even with the door closed and the lights out, I could see perfectly. The amethyst crystal walls let in just enough sunlight to fill the room with an easy purple glow. I sat there, staring into the mirror, and thought about Applejack.

I’d never been as close to her as I was with Rarity or Starlight. Our temperaments, our backgrounds, were just too different. She disdained book-learning, while it was my life. Family was everything to her, but I barely ever saw mine.

Family. If there was one word to describe Applejack, that was it. She was a mare who would do everything for her family. It was the first thing I’d learned about her, all those years ago, on that day I came to Ponyville.

And now, this. Being free, she’d said. How long had she dreamed of it? Of being free of all the ties that bind our mortal clay together. Did she imagine her family tree, a lineage extending back generations into the clouded past, and cut her own branch loose?

I was crying, I realized. Quietly, unconsciously. The tears ran down my face, wetting the thin coat over my cheeks. I leaned over the huge sink, struggling to reach the faucets. Finally I just turned them on with my magic, and when enough water had filled the basin, I splashed it on my face with my hooves.

We could still fix this. We could still fix this. I repeated it, mantra like. But slowly the enormity of what had happened to Applejack’s family began to sank in. I breathed faster and faster. I tried to stop, to slow down, but my lungs were seized by their own energy. I started to gasp.

Everything was falling apart. Applejack, Fluttershy. Starlight, Trixie. The world was changing too fast and for once I knew whose fault it was. Discord was out there somewhere, laughing at all this chaos. He finally got one over on us. This was probably the greatest damn day of his immortal life. I let out a great, wracking sob, and leaned over the sink. Something like a panicked, frantic laugh bubbled out of my chest.

The sink was full. Water began to flow out onto the crystal and down the floor. I flailed for the faucet handles but they were still out of reach. Here I was, princess of the realm, one of the greatest magic users of the past thousand years, many-time savior of the world, and I couldn’t reach the damn faucet of my own Celestia-damned sink because it was too large. My hooves splashed in the basin and sent water everywhere.

Something snapped inside me. I screamed loud enough that the crystal walls rang, louder than any mortal pony could have screamed. A blind rage bubbled up out of my heart, flowing through my veins like fire and setting my mind aflame. I screamed again and brought my hooves down on the crystal sink. They smashed through the diamond-hard matter and kept going all the way to the floor. Great chunks of it shot away to crash against the walls. The mirror shattered. The floor beneath me cracked. I stomped on it again and again until nothing remained but broken shards and water spurting from the twisted plumbing like blood from a wound.

I stood among the wreckage, panting. I was soaked, dripping. Little cuts from flying bits of crystal turned my coat pink. I could feel them already closing up, healing in the space of seconds.

The door crashed open. Light spilled in, blinding me. I raised a wing to shield my eyes. Dimly, I could make out Starlight’s silhouette. Her horn blazed, and the look of fear on her face finally brought me back to my senses.

She stared at me for long seconds, taking in the scene. I huddled under my wings. Finally, she spoke.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” I licked my lips. “Didn’t like the sink.”

“Uh huh.” She kicked away a chunk of crystal that had ended up by the door. “We can get a new one, I guess.”

“That’d be nice.”

Her horn glowed. I squeezed my eyes shut against the light. After a few seconds I heard a metal squeal as she twisted the pipes shut. “So, um… What do we do now?”

“We find Luna.”

* * *

Canterlot was… changed. The stars were out in the middle of the day. The summer heat that so tormented us in Ponyville was gone, replaced by the pleasing, crisp and slightly chilly mountain air. I thought it was a little much, but as long as the sun was still shining its light was enough for me.

Ponies walked about as if in a daze. Dreamers who dreamed of being awake. The castle foyer had been taken over by an enormous laurel tree whose boughs chimed with the hours. We ducked beneath the branches and wound our way through the labyrinthian passages toward Luna’s quarters. An usher found us lost in one particular spiral and led us the rest of the way. I tried to thank him, but he vanished into mist.

“At a certain point,” Starlight said as we watched the page colt’s remains dissipate in the wind, “the fear that dreams are leaking into the real world is replaced by the fear that we simply haven’t yet woken up.”

“I don’t feel asleep,” I said.

“Neither do I.” She sighed. “But I never do when I’m dreaming. Come on.” So saying, she knocked twice on Luna’s door and pushed it open without waiting for an invitation.

The fire was out in Luna’s hearth, and winter had moved in. Drifts of snow piled up against the far wall. I fluffed my wings for extra insulation against the cold. Beside me, Starlight shivered.

“Luna!” I called. The room appeared empty, but with Luna that meant nothing. “We need to talk!”

The floor shook gently beneath our hooves. It was a faint sensation, as though somepony had dropped a heavy object on another level and the vibrations travelled through the stone pillars and the tile floors and into our hooves and then our bones. Again, and a faint drifting of dust fell from the rafters, staining the piles of snow around us a dingy gray.

What did the alicorn of night dream of? The room shook again. The porcelain tea set laid out on the little table by Luna’s hearth rattled in sympathy.

The far wall seemed to deform. It stretched and blackened, and after a moment nothing remained but an inky bubble slowly expanding toward us. Indentations appeared, tightening around an emerging form, and with a suddenness that kicked my heart Luna was there.

She was huge. Almost too large for the room. The mantle of her wings brushed the ceiling, while the trailing edges of her feathers traced lacy patterns in the snowbound floor. Her horn, a meter-long obsidian spiral, tangled in the crystal chandelier and tore it away with a musical clatter that rang in our ears. She snorted in amusement, then leaned down to peer at us.

“So talk.” Her voice shook my chest.

Right. Talk. I was shivering, and not because of the cold. I swallowed the fear – this was Luna, my friend – and plunged forward.

“Discord’s curse is growing,” I said. “He’s changing us all. Soon there may not be anything left of us—”

“This is not Discord’s doing,” Luna interrupted. She tucked her tree-like legs beneath her barrel and lay before us; still her head towered over me. “I have been searching these past nights for his influence, and it is not to be found in our dreams. He is not responsible for the changes you see.”

“It’s gotten out of his control?”

Luna shrugged. The sound of her feathers rubbing against each other filled the room. “Or it was never in his control. He is not the kind of being that controls things.”

“Could he still stop this?” Starlight asked. “Put things back the way they were? If, uh, ponies wanted?”

“Possibly. He is very powerful, there can be no doubt about that. But if this was never his doing, then it may not be something he can fix. You will have to keep searching for him, I’m afraid.”

“We’re trying. Fluttershy might be able to help us, but she’s been… elusive. Ponies have seen her, but she’s never around her cottage. I think she’s in the Everfree looking for some animal.”

Luna nodded. “I cannot say where she spends her days, Twilight Sparkle, but I have seen her dreams. Have you tried visiting her cottage at night?”

“I… no.” My face flushed at such a simple failure. “You think she’ll be there?”

“Predicting the future is not one of my skills. But I think there’s a good chance. Only be careful that you do not disturb her dreams too greatly.”

“Aren’t you upset by all this?” Starlight said. “Dreams are your realm, and Discord is disturbing them.”

Luna was silent. She stared down at Starlight long enough that I grew uncomfortable, and Starlight herself began to fidget. Just when I started making plans for a quick escape, though, Luna spoke.

“No, I am not. Discord has no power over dreams. As I said, the changes you see in your friends are not his doing.”

I frowned. “Then… whose is it? Yours?”

Luna laughed. “No, Twilight Sparkle. I am merely a witness to this great spectacle. But, if you find out, let me know. Such greatness should be appreciated.”

With that she stood and crouched, her legs coiled beneath her like springs, and she jumped straight up. I yelped and ducked and covered my head with my forelegs, expecting the ceiling to come crashing down on us. But I felt nothing except the gentle touch of snow, and when I looked, Luna was gone.

“We came all the way to Canterlot for that?” Starlight said. She was shivering gently. Snow started to build up on her withers, and I brushed it away with my wings.

“It’s more than we knew before.” Not much, though. And not the easy answer I’d been hoping for. But now we had an idea for finding Fluttershy. And if we could find her, we could find Discord, and then… well, I wasn’t really sure what came next. Convincing him to undo all this, if he even could.

That was a problem for future Twilight, though. One step at a time. We trudged through the deepening snow out of Luna’s quarters and back into the hall. The guards didn’t seem too surprised by the sight of two soaked, shivering mares, trailing the breath of winter in their wake.

Maybe they were just used to it by now.

Chapter 15

Fluttershy was one of those ponies who lived by the sun. She rose when it rose, and when it set she went to bed. As a life-long admirer of Celestia I could certainly understand the appeal of this lifestyle, but I could never stand to wake any earlier in the day than absolutely necessary. And reading by lantern-light was one of my greatest joys.

We got back from Canterlot just as the sun was starting to sink below the horizon. Even through my blindfold and shades I could see the brilliant reds and oranges of the twilight-stained sky, and I spent the last minutes of the train ride staring in unabashed awe at the sunset. Starlight had to nudge me back to the present when we stopped.

“Want me to come with you?” Starlight asked. We’d made a quick dinner of honey-toasted oats with sorrel garnish. Neither of us felt like getting out real plates and setting them up in the dining room, so we huddled together around one of the kitchen counters. “Fluttershy’s cottage is right next to the Everfree. Kind of… maybe a little dangerous, especially with everything going on?”

Yes. Which was exactly the reason I didn’t want Starlight coming with me. She was a powerful sorceress in her own right, of course, and she could handle herself in almost any situation. But these were unusual times, and the Everfree forest was full of monsters. I’d feel less anxiety with only my own hide to worry about.

I wondered, for a moment, what monsters dreamed of.

“There’s no telling how late I’ll be out there,” I said. “And I’d rather have one of us staying on a normal sleep cycle. The next few days might be a bit crazy. Don’t want us both sleep deprived.”

She frowned, and I don’t think she bought it. But she didn’t argue. “Alright. But be careful. If Discord’s there, don’t do anything rash.”

“When have I ever been rash?”

“Remember the time your bathroom had an intact sink?”

“That…” I cleared my throat. “That won’t happen again.”

She set a hoof atop my fetlock. “Just be cautious, okay? Nothing that’s happened so far is worth getting hurt over.”

I nodded. It was hard to argue with that sentiment. We finished the last of our plates in silence.

Flying at night was a pleasant experience. The stars shone with enough light to illuminate the town below. The houses with their glowing windows were too bright to look at directly without my blindfold, but they were few and far between. I took a few lazy laps around the castle, circling wider each time, just enjoying the feel of the cool night air on my uncovered face.

Fluttershy’s cottage was dark when I arrived. The windows were still open, though the front door was closed. I knocked, waited, knocked again, then pushed it open.

Nature had started to reclaim the inside. Tendrils and feelers from the grass roof crawled in through the windows, exploring the soft earth walls and sending down their roots. A carpet of soft, decaying leaves muffled my hoofsteps. The whole house smelled of the forest, and if I closed my eyes I could almost pretend I was standing in some silent grove deep within the Everfree itself. I walked into the kitchen and saw the sink was stoppered full of water; a lilypad floated on the surface.

The same clutter of unused dishes still crowded together on her kitchen table. I spent a few moments stacking them and putting them back in the cupboards. Little eyes sparkled at me from inside the dark places.

Something fluttered overhead. I spoke without turning around. “You can come out.”

A quiet croak answered. A moment later Mister Raven fell from the rafters, his wings extended, and he landed heavily on the wood table. I walked over and held out my hoof for him to tap with his beak.

“Does she leave you here to guard her home?” I asked. Of course he had no answer. But his eyes glittered with intelligence. I set my foreleg on the table, and after a moment of consideration he hopped up on it. He was heavier than I expected, and I carefully transferred him to my withers.

We walked through the dark cottage to the stairs. They curved up toward the second level, and somepony had put out little flowerpots filled with heather on every third step. They added a sweet note to the air, and I paused to check the soil in them. It was still moist.

Not abandoned at all, then. I walked up the steps, knocked on Fluttershy’s bedroom door and pushed it open without waiting for a response.

It was empty. The far window was open, the curtains billowing out into the night. I pulled them in with my magic and secured them with the curtain cord on each side. A few adventurous tendrils from the roof’s grasses tried to come in with them, and I gently pulled them free and tossed them back out.

The raven jumped from my back and flapped over to the bed, perching on the headboard. From the array of scratches in the wood beneath his claws, I guessed he spent a lot of time there. Guarding his master’s dreams, perhaps.

I hopped up on the bed with him. The sheets were rumpled but fresh. I stuck my muzzle in them and inhaled Fluttershy’s scent, of sweat and wildflowers. For a moment it was like my lost friend was there beside me.

“Hope you don’t mind if I crash here,” I said to the raven.

An enormous yawn stretched my jaws. I’d been awake since the fire at Sweet Apple Acres early in the morning, and the day was catching up to me. I needed to find Fluttershy, but I needed sleep too.

Hopefully she wouldn’t mind discovering me like this. I curled up in the sheets, in the scent of her, and closed my eyes.

It is autumn, and I am an old mare.

I feel the decades grinding like sand in my joints with every step. The climb to the highest level of the tower once only took a few minutes; now it takes the better part of an hour, and I pause halfway up the spiraling stairs to let my heart slow to a less frantic pace. My lungs wheeze with each breath, as though my throat were clogged with cotton. In the moments when I stop to consider myself, I recognize the signs of a mare with not many years left to live.

The idea of my death no longer troubles me. I know my place, my insignificance. I have served my purpose, and I think I have done so well. But when a shoe has worn out its tread it must be replaced, and so must I.

I emerge onto the roof in time to witness the sunrise. I can feel the night’s cold give way to the sun’s warming rays. They wash across me, melting the frost in my coat. I turn unerringly toward the rising sun and bask in it. For a time, sitting there atop the tower’s highest level, all my worries flee, and I am as filled with joy as the foal who proved her devotion here all those years ago. The sun sings its song to me, and my only regret is that I cannot sing back.

The tower has become a lonely place. More ghosts share its levels with me than ponies, and every year more of us are given to the fire. It is years since I have become the hierophant, the master of this holy place. And when I die our worship will come to an end.

I hear a shuffle from the stairs. Dandelion, arriving for his own morning worship. He settles by my side, close enough for our shoulders to rub together, and we spend the hour in silence, gazing at the sun as it begins its climb up from the east.

If I listen hard enough, if I tilt my ears in the proper direction and ignore the wheeze of my lungs and the stutter of my heart and Dandelion’s heart, and if the wind dies for a few minutes, I can hear the rest of the world moving without us. The town where I was born, whose name I no longer precisely recall, has grown larger. Almost a city now. I can smell the smoke from its countless hearths and hear wagon wheels grinding on the distant cobbles. Once they visited us every month, to bring a tithe and donations in return for Celestia’s favor. Now they come only rarely, selling us food and taking our gold. It is well that only Dandelion and I remain; we could not afford to feed many more.

My hour in the sun is complete, but all that lies ahead for the day is returning to the tower’s shadows and tending to the banal, animal concerns of this dying body. It must feed and defecate and sleep. I consider the march of days ahead of me, of brief, joyous hours in the sun, and countless more trudging through the dark halls below.

How much easier, I realize, to just stay here. I lift my face high again. I can feel Celestia’s warmth on my cheeks, and as unerringly as a sunflower tracks the sun’s progress I find her. Through fused eyelids and marbled scars, I imagine I can see the faintest spark of her light.

It has been years since I have seen my own reflection. But sometimes, when I am alone, I run the sensitive soles of my hooves over my face. I can feel the ruin left there by the sun. I remember the old Hierophant, the one who tested me when I first came to the tower, and how awestruck he left me. The memory strikes me now, and for a moment I can even smell the sweat and the terror of the foals who failed the test.

I reach out and find Dandelion’s shoulder. He turns toward me, a bit surprised, but makes no objection as my hooves find his cheek, and then the broad swell of his muzzle. I trace up along his eyes, feeling the pebbled, hairless skin where his eyes once were.

“You’re beautiful,” I whisper.

I lean against Dandelion, and he leans back into me. Though all is dark around us, I am not lost. Instead I am filled with a euphoric joy as I realize what I have decided. I feel Dandelion’s body shake as his heart beats faster. He has made the same choice.

How wonderful it is to die in the sun.

The mattress shook as something heavy landed on it. For a disorienting moment I was trapped between the dream and the waking world. I flailed with my hooves and tried to rise, but a soft and warm weight pressed me back down.

“Easy,” Fluttershy whispered. Her lips teased my neck just below my ear. She dragged her muzzle up my cheek, brushing it against my horn like a cat. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Fluttershy.” I stopped trying to free myself, realizing who it was. I sank back into the soft mattress. “Oh, thank Celestia. I’ve been looking for you for days.”

“I heard. My animal friends said you’ve been coming around.” She lifted her head, and I followed her gaze to see Mister Raven preening himself on the headboard. He must’ve been watching me as I slept.

I tried to squirm free, but Fluttershy straddled me and sank down, pinning me against the sheets. After some clumsy gyrations I managed to roll onto my back despite her weight, which freed my legs but left us pressed belly-to-belly. It was a more intimate position than I’d ever been in my entire life, and the groggy vestiges of sleep finally vanished.

I swallowed. “Uh…”

She crossed her forelegs over my chest and set her chin on them. Despite the darkness I could see her easily, as though the room were filled with lanterns. Her mane was wild and askew, a halo of loose strands and stray pleats. It gave her an untamed look, like she was as much an animal as her animal friends. I doubted her eyes could see in the dark as well as mine, but she seemed to have no trouble focusing on me. Focusing intently on me.

“What a lovely present to come back to,” she purred. The sound buzzed in our chests. “Sneaking into mare’s beds now, Twilight? Very forward.”

“Well, you know, I didn’t want to miss you. Again. We need to talk.” I carefully lifted her and rolled to the side, sending her for a little tumble onto the mattress. She shook her wings and stretched and gave me a pout.

“Tease.” She flicked my hip with her tail. It was long and sinuous, covered with tawny down and tufted at the tip like a lion’s. She licked her paws with a too-broad tongue and used them to shape her mane back into a bit of order, then reached out to draw her claws through the fuzz of unruly coat running down my chest. Their sharp tips tickled my hide. “So…” Her hot breath washed over my neck. “What brings you here?”

Oookay. Okay. This was just Fluttershy. I could control this situation. I sat up and scooched away to the edge of the bed, leaving a channel of rumbled sheets between us. “I need to find Discord. He has to put a stop to this prank before the world falls apart. Soon we won’t even be ponies anymore. We’ll be…” I licked my lips. “We’ll be monsters.”

“Hm.” She sat up with a fluid grace I could never hope to emulate. Muscles rolled beneath her coat. A liquid in the shape of a pony. “I don’t feel like a monster.”

Monsters never did. I kept that observation to myself. “He’s turning the world upside-down. Part of his parole was agreeing not to change ponies, but he’s doing it to every one of us now. He needs to undo this madness or… Or we’ll stop him. Like we did before.”

She fixed me with her eyes. They were still the same beautiful green as always, luminous like emeralds, but her pupils were wide slits dilated for the night. “Petrify him.”

I nodded. “I don’t want to, but… yes. If he doesn’t fix this, then that’s the only way this ends. If you’re really his friend, Fluttershy, you need to make him stop.”

“What if I don’t want him to stop?” Fluttershy beat her wings, kicking up a gale that tossed the blankets off the bed and shook the curtains loose from their ties. Mister Raven squawked and jumped from one end of the headboard to the other. “What if I like what he’s doing to us, Twilight? I’m not afraid of ponies, now! Before I was always so scared, so weak and helpless, always relying on you or Rarity or Rainbow Dash to stand up for me. Do you think I want to go back to being that sniveling weakling? Having so many hopes and desires in my heart but too terrified to act on them? To do the things I want?”

She stalked closer as she spoke, closing the distance between us. I tried to back off the bed but I was far too slow; before I could take a step she had me wrapped up in her long forelegs and wings, pinned to the sheets again. Her whiskers tickled my cheek. I inhaled and drowned in the scent of wildflowers and sweat and blood.

“Am I a bad pony for wanting that? For wanting this?” she whispered. The heat of her belly was like a coal pressed against my flank. She held me another moment, her fangs just inches from my throat, and then she slowly untangled herself. She flopped beside me on the bed, all her energy seemingly spent, and stared at me in silence as I tried to calm my heart.

It was a minute before I could speak. The gentle sounds of nature intruded from outside, breaking the silence. Cicadas buzzing and trees rustling. I let their rhythms ease my mind.

“You’re not a bad pony, Fluttershy. You’re one of the best ponies I know. But there are ways to become the pony you want to be without this. Without these changes. After… after we get Discord to put things back the way they were, we can talk. We can help you be as confident as Rainbow Dash and as strong as Applejack. We’re your friends.”

She smiled, and for a moment she looked like the Fluttershy I remembered. I could ignore all the changes and just focus on that beautiful face. We could help her do all those things! We would! We could help her be the brave, forthright mare she wanted to be without Discord’s meddling.

“Thank you,” she said. She sat up but kept her distance this time. “I’ll tell Discord to find you tomorrow. He may not want to help, though.”

I sighed. “I know. I may… we may have to threaten him. But he has to put things back the way they were before they fall apart any more. In another few weeks there may be nothing left to fix.”

“Or left to break.” Her eyes travelled down my frame, from horn to tail, lingered there, then slowly retraced their journey. “Soo… if we’re done talking, you want to stay? This bed is so big. Too big for one pony all by herself, don’t think you?”

“Ah. Haha. I, uh… I would, but I told Starlight I’d be right back. You know how she worries, right? And Trixie’s in town, and I need to get ready for Discord tomorrow, and, uh, there’s other stuff too! Things I need to go do now.”

“Mm.” She stared at me, then shrugged. “Okay. I’m going to grab a snack and go to bed, I think. But if you ever change your mind, just sneak back in. You’re getting pretty good at it.”

Right. Sneaking into ponies beds at night. Something to add to my curriculum vitae. I hopped off the bed and walked over to the window, planning to just fly out. I stepped up on the windowsill and spread my wings for flight when a sudden harsh sound grabbed my ears. A flutter of wings, a loud caw cut off abruptly, and a muffled crunch of tiny, hollow bones.

I turned slowly. Shock flowed through my veins like ice water. There, on the bed, Fluttershy was reared up, her paws resting on the headboard. Her jaws worked with another crunch. A dark, feathered fan, all that remained of Mister Raven’s wing, toppled from her jaws to land on the pillow. She tilted her head back and swallowed the rest.

I’m going to grab a snack. I stared at the wing, expecting it to fly off by itself. It was all a mistake. I hadn’t just seen that.

The world started to go dark around the edges of my vision. My head felt fuzzy and distant, like it was floating away from the rest of my body. A hot rush of bile climbed up my throat, and I spat it out the window. I nearly toppled out after it, and only barely managed to cling to the sill.

After a minute, when I no longer felt about to faint, I looked back at Fluttershy. The wing was gone now, and except for a few stray black feathers, nothing remained of Mister Raven. She licked her paws and used them to brush away the blood on her muzzle.

I found my voice, but it was just a croak. “Did you ever find that animal friend, Fluttershy? The one you were looking for?”

She took her time before answering. Maybe there were feathers in her mouth, still. But finally she nodded. “I did. She was always there, Twilight, crouching at the door of my heart. All I had to do was let her in.”

I waited for more, but she was done. She curled up on the sheets, gave me a final long look with half-lowered eyes, then yawned and tucked her head beneath her wing. Her chest rose and fell in the easy rhythm of sleep.

We could still stop this. This didn’t have to be how things ended.

I jumped out into the night.

Chapter 16

Discord would find me wherever I was. It wasn’t like we had an assigned meeting place, and I didn’t really feel like waiting around my castle for him to show up. So after waking the next morning and doing my normal washing rituals and filling Starlight in on my encounter with Fluttershy (minus a few details), I put on my blindfold and shades and hat and went to the Ponyville Starbucks.

It was still crowded, despite everything going on in Ponyville. The barista, a fuschia earth pony with a trendy, daring mane style that I could only dream of wearing, seemed as at-home behind the counter as she ever was. Perhaps she dreamed of serving ponies coffee while looking cool? An oddity to ponder.

Who was I to judge, though. Everypony’s dreams were weird.

I took a seat out on the patio. Each of the little tables had a large sunshade overhead; I lowered mine to let Celestia’s rays wash over me like rain. The light seeped through all the layers covering my eyes, blinding me with its glare, but I didn’t care. I didn’t need to see at the moment.

I was almost done with my first latte, and weighing the benefits of getting another, when the air across from me imploded with a quiet pomph. I heard ponies gasp and start to chatter.

“Discord.” I set my cup down and rotated it so the seapony logo was perpendicular to us. “You’re in trouble.”

“Do you have to say it like that?” He crossed his arms and scowled at me. “Are you sure you weren’t supposed to be a school marm, instead of a librarian? You have the perfect disposition for it.”

“I’m not that good with foals.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. Foals are good with everything, especially if you add a bit of cinnamon.” Discord picked something out of his teeth with a claw and flicked it away. “Anyway, Fluttershy said it was oh so important that I find you. Well, here I am.”

I considered the draconequus. I couldn’t see him in the traditional sense, not with the blindfold and smoked lenses, but I could still sense everything about him. His form was as clear to me as ever, every twisted scale and matted hair. I breathed in through my nose and caught his scent, of starlight and liquorice. And sweat.

And fear. The realization shocked me cold. He was afraid of something, and it wasn’t me.

“Well?” he asked. I’d been gawping long enough to make even him uncomfortable, apparently. “Cat got your tongue? That’s not just an expression with me, by the way, so you better say something quick.”

I swallowed. Tongue was still there, for now. “You’re afraid.”

He flinched. I felt it through the table. I tasted it. Lemons flooded my mouth, enough to make me gag. We each recoiled from the table.

He recovered first. “Me? Afraid? You—you’re not as smart as ponies think, are you, Sparky? Imagining something silly like that.”

“It’s true, though, isn’t it?” My hooves shook as I picked up my latte and took a sip, washing away the taste of his shock. “What did you do, Discord? What did you do to us?”

His lips peeled back, revealing row after row of dragons teeth. More seemed to sprout with every passing second, until his mouth grew so full of them that they dribbled out like drool, landing with an ivory windchime clatter on the table. He snapped his jaws shut and the extraneous teeth vanished, leaving only scratches on the wood. He leaned forward to loom over me, swallowing me with his shadow.

“I,” he hissed, “am a god, little pony. I am not afraid of you or Celestia or Luna or those silly little jewels you and your friends run around with. Long after you are all dust and harmony is a bad memory the universe will still be chock full of chaos because chaos is its natural state. What could I possibly be afraid of?”

Not our punishments. We could petrify him, sure, but he’d broken free once and could do so again. We could not harm him in any other way – I’d seen him cut in half, melted, pureed, eaten and crushed, and he always popped right back into existence with a laugh. Unlike every other sentient being I could hold a conversation with, he was not his body but a concept, and concepts were invincible. What could such a being fear?

I wracked my mind, sitting in his shadow. The other tables had retreated, leaving an empty space in the Starbucks for the first time since the store opened. It seemed nopony wanted to be front-row witnesses to a fight between an alicorn and a god. He was so close I could hear him breathing, hear the blood (or whatever ichor draconequuses had) flowing through his veins. How odd, it struck me out of nowhere, that a being with no need for a mortal form had bothered to imitate one so precisely.

Perhaps he was not as different from us as I thought.

Perhaps he feared the same things I did.

“You’re afraid of losing us.” I didn’t think – I just let the words spill out as they came. “You finally have a friend, and now you’re losing her. She’s changing into something you don’t know anymore, and that terrifies you, doesn’t it?”

Silence, except for his breath and the faint song of the sun. I could see it even through his looming body, shining through his skull. I let it distract me while he grappled for an answer.

Finally: “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I just wanted to make your dreams more interesting. That’s all. Was that so wrong?”

“What did you do, though?” I leaned forward. “You failed that first day. What did you do the second time?”

“The archetypes, Sparky. Those boring stories you ponies keep dreaming about. You just needed a little nudge to dream about something new, so I cut them loose. That’s all! You were supposed to dream of new and wonderful and terrifying things and wake up the next day and be oh-so exhilarated that I had made your dreary lives just a little bit more interesting! You weren’t supposed to… to do this.” He flicked my shades with the tip of his claw.

I recoiled. It hadn’t hurt, but it let in enough glare to sear my eyes for a moment, even through the blindfold. It felt wonderful.

“Can you change us back? Put everything back the way it was?” I asked.

He grimaced. The stench of brimstone filled my muzzle. “My power doesn’t work that way, Sparky. I’m not meant to… to re-order things. I might dissipate entirely if I tried! I’ll need help.”

Help. “The Elements of Harmony?”

The very name seemed to hurt him. He shrank back into his seat, away from me. “I never thought I would say it, but yes. Their power is to bring order, to harmonize things. If any power can undo this mess, it’s them.”

That wasn’t exactly what I’d wanted. I wanted him to snap his fingers, like he had in my library, and suddenly make everything right again. Just a poof of smoke, maybe a flash of light, and all my friends they way they were before. Applejack selling apples everyday with a smile, Fluttershy timid and quiet and kind, Starlight contrite and helpful. I’d even settle for the old Trixie if that was part of the deal. Sometimes you had to take the bad with the good.

But if he couldn’t do all that himself, then I could help him. We could help him. And if my friends disagreed, well, sometimes it took a bit of effort to achieve harmony. We would all have to surrender something. I stared up at the sun.

“Come by my castle this evening,” I said. “We will put this right.”

He slumped in his chair, softening like pudding left out in the sun. His relief tasted sweet and tart on my tongue.

Progress. One piece of the puzzle. And the others were nearly in my grasp. I reached out to the sun with my magic. Already blinding in intensity, it grew and grew. It burned me, flayed me, tore me apart, and beautiful darkness took me elsewhere.

* * *

My thoughts took me to Rarity’s boutique. I appeared with a flash in her showroom and spent a moment orienting myself. The curtains were all drawn, cosseting the room with shadows that smelled of cotton and jasmine. Despite the summer heat Rarity’s home never seemed to reek of sweat; some secret she’d kept through all the years I’d lived in Ponyville. Maybe she just took frequent cold showers.

Dozens of new projects surrounded me, extraordinary scaled creations that hung from wires and spun in mobiles. Tunics and hats and saddles and dresses, stitched so seamlessly together that they seemed to be grown more than crafted. Prismatic tiles adorned them, filled the room with scattered reflections. I stared, awed all over again. Amazed that a clumsy, fleshy mortal pony could create such beautiful things.

“Hello? Is somepony there?” Rarity’s voice came from the deeper within the boutique. A simple curtain divider separated divided it from the showroom. Flickers of light danced around its margins.

“Just me,” I called. I nudged the curtain aside and walked through. It was her workroom, where the actual sewing was done, and far brighter as a result. I had to shield my bandaged eyes with my wing. “Sorry to barge in. I spoke with Discord, and...” I trailed off as I finally saw her.

Rarity hung suspended over one of her tables. Below her on the workspace lay bolts of fabric and shears and tape measures and pincushions and a dozen different pencils and a hundred other tools of the seamstress’s trade that I couldn’t hope to identify. But I ignored them, my gaze drawn upward to behold my friend.

An enormous web stretched across the room, centered above the table. Cables of silk thinner than the hairs of my tail came together in twined, gossamer lines that reflected sparkles of light like diamonds. They anchored in every surface of the room. And in the middle, lording over it all, Rarity perched in the air, her eight long, spindly legs ending in curved claws that hooked the web’s strands effortlessly. She turned to me as I entered. Her beautiful amethyst mane hung like a curtain across half her face, concealing half her multitude of segmented eyes.

“Hello darling.” She smiled. Her mouth hadn’t changed, at least – no fangs or, I guess, chelicerae. “Sorry you had to catch me like this. I’m almost done with Trixie’s order.”

I stared up at her. I think I started to cry. The blindfold wicked away the tears as soon as they formed.

“Not a butterfly,” I mumbled.

“Sorry?” Her legs stretched out, snagging new strands and pulling her a bit closer to me.

“Nothing.” I swallowed. “How, uh, how are you? How do you feel?”

“Oh, just wonderful!” She smiled, and a flash of unalloyed joy radiated from her. “I know I must look a fright, but that’s how fashion goes sometimes. And I think it won’t be long before ponies come to appreciate such daring choices! Oh, but how are you? Are your eyes still bothering you?”

“No. They’re just a little sensitive.” I stepped around the room as best I could, ducking beneath the silk cables and dangling sheets of webs. My horn caught on one strand and snapped it, setting the whole room vibrating. Rarity adjusted her legs easily. Her body remained motionless in space.

“You said you saw Discord?” Rarity asked. One of her long legs reached down, plucking up a set of fabric shears from her table, and she began cutting from a bolt of midnight blue silk. Her horn glowed as she levitated away little strips of the cloth and stacked them for later use. “Did you get what you needed from him?”

“I did. He’s going to help us fix everything. We’re going to put everything back the way it was.”

She froze. “Fix? Nothing is broken, darling.”

“No, everything is broken!” My wings extended, agitated, and the tips of my primary feathers caught in the web. I tried to pull them back, but the motion simply tangled them more, and before I knew it half my wing was caught. The image of a fly enwreathed in a spider’s web flashed through my mind, and panic burst in my heart. It chased away reason and friendship and for a moment only fear remained as I struggled to free myself. A hard, chitinous claw touched my shoulder, and I screamed.

“Shhh, shhhh.” Rarity’s muzzle pressed against my mane. Her scent, unchanged, of cotton and jasmine, filled my head, calming me. I closed my eyes and just tried to breathe. I felt her legs picking at my wing, cleaning off the webs and stroking the feathers gently back into order. “There, all better. You’re a little jumpy today, aren’t you?”

My body still shook with each heartbeat. I only had breath for a few words. “Everything is broken, Rarity. I’m the only pony who sees it. Discord does too, but he can’t fix it alone.”

“Ponies change.” Rarity stroked my mane with a fibrous limb, then retreated back up to her web. She reached down with a pair of legs to her lower stomach, and I saw that her teats were gone, replaced with a pair of pointed spinnerets. She carefully drew out a length of silk from them, spun the gauzy strands into a thread, and began winding it onto a spool. It sparkled like a chain of gems.

“Ponies change,” she said again. “We grow, we learn, and eventually we become who we are. Is it so wrong that Discord helped us? To change a bit more, and become a bit more of who we want to be?”

“There’s change and there’s chaos. You heard what Applejack did?”

“The whole town heard what Applejack did.” Rarity’s claws never slowed, working the silk into thread for her spool. “Planning to arrest her?”

“Well… maybe I should! Is arson still a crime or not?”

“And how many homes have you destroyed, hm? Didn’t you used to live in a tree?”

“That…” I had to stop. A hot flush of anger worked up my neck to my cheeks. “That was Tirek, not me! I was trying to save the world! To save all of you! He destroyed my tree!”

“An inapt comparison, perhaps. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.” Rarity reached out to stroke my cheek with a claw. “But consider how Applejack felt? Perhaps she thought she was burning down her prison.”

“Well, her family was still using it.” I stepped back, out of her reach. Of course, the whole room was her lair now. I was only safe for as long as she allowed—

I almost finished the thought. For a moment I almost believed that one of my best friends, one of the only ponies in the world who I felt close enough to bare the deepest part of my soul to, might harm me. Might do to me what Fluttershy did to her raven friend. For the second time that day I was nearly sick. I covered my head with my wings and just breathed.

The web hummed as Rarity moved across it – the strands were large enough to resonate like violin strings, filling the room with a quiet harmony. A spider’s concerto. I would have called it beautiful if I didn’t know what it was.

Rarity’s claws clicked on the wood floor as she descended from her web. Her forelegs, still like a pony’s, still with hooves, wrapped around me in a hug. We sat there, unmoving, while I cried.

When my tears finally ran dry, and the hiccups stopped, I spoke. “I’m sorry. It’s… things have been rough the past few days. Weeks.”

“Change is always rough.” She smoothed out my disheveled mane. “You know I’ll always be here for you, right? No matter what else changes, we’ll always be friends.”

“Yeah?” I swallowed. “Will you do something for a friend? Something you don’t want to do?”

“Of course.” She answered instantly. Like it never occurred to her to say no. “What do you need?”

“Come to my castle tonight. Help me use the Elements to undo all of this. Even Discord thinks it’s gone too far. Afterward, we can… we can talk about some changes, maybe. Help ponies realize their dreams in a healthy way. But still stay ponies.”

She stared at me. I realized she couldn’t blink anymore. “I…”

“Please, Rarity… If our friendship means anything, help me.”

“Well.” She looked away. “You don’t ask for small things, do you?”

“If there were another way, I’d take it.”

She stepped back and hauled herself up into the web again, retreating to the center of the room and her table. “Perhaps all this was our dream. How sad it will be to wake.”

Sad, maybe. But ponies could not live in dreams. “You’ll do it?”

“For you, yes.” She sighed, and the web hummed in sympathy. She reached down and plucked a garment box from beneath the table. “Would you mind delivering this to Trixie?”

I took it with my magic. It was heavier than it looked, far heavier than cloth should’ve been. I resisted the urge to open it and see why. Gemstones and gold thread, probably. “You said it wasn’t done yet?”

Rarity waved a leg. “It doesn’t matter now. Give it to her before we do this, though. She’ll want to have it.”

Alright. I could do that. I set the package on my back. “Thank you, Rarity. For everything. When this is over, I promise I’ll be a better friend.”

She smiled down at me. “You sell yourself short, darling. Now, go home and get some sleep, hm? You look exhausted.”

Fair enough. I felt more than exhausted – actually drained, as though there were less of me to go around. “Long story. If you… if you see the others, can you tell them to come by tonight too? I think we’ll need as many Elements as we can gather, and I doubt Applejack will be there.”

“I’ll do what I can.” She picked up a set of shears and a spool of her own thread and a tape measure and a bolt of fabric all at once with her legs. “And don’t discount Applejack just yet. She’s still your friend too.”

I wasn’t sure about that. But who was I to judge? Just the Princess of Friendship.

I wondered, as I walked back out into the blinding sun, how much that was worth anymore.

Chapter 17

Starlight was waiting for me in the library. She was a changeling today, one of the new kind, with a pastel candy shell reminiscent of her old coat and an impressive set of stag beetle antlers. Her wings clicked and buzzed when she saw me enter.

“Did you find him?” she asked.

“I did. We talked.” I moved a few stray books from our common table onto a reshelving cart and set Trixie’s package in their place. For all that it was only cloth, it felt like a heavy weight leaving my back. “He’s just as scared as we are. He’s going to help us put things back.”

“Help? Why not just…” She waved a hoof around. “Do like he normally does? Snap his claws and poof, fixed?”

“That’s how he causes chaos, but that’s not what we’re asking him to do. We’re asking him to undo chaos, and that’s a job for the Elements of Harmony.”

“Ah.” She seemed to deflate a bit. “Well, I’ll just… cheer you girls on, then.”

“Starlight…” I trotted over and wrapped my legs around her. For all that she had changed, for all that her hide was now a hard shell and her mane a frill of diaphanous nacre, her scent remained the same. Bed linens and sweat and candle wicks, with a hint of cordite lingering from her nights with Trixie. “You’ve done more than anypony else. I’d be lost without you. I’d still be freezing to death in my shower without you. When this is all over, you’ll be the hero, not me.”

“I don’t feel like a hero.” She sighed, but after a moment she returned my embrace, and we sat there in silence, just holding each other.

Eventually she turned to the box on the table. “What’s that?”

“It’s from Rarity. Trixie’s new hat and cape. Is she here? She’ll probably want it now.”

“Ah, she’s around somewhere. Invisible again.” Starlight disentangled herself from my legs and approached the table. The box glowed as she pulled it closer, and the twine holding it shut parted with a quiet snick. Suction bowed the sides of the box inward as she lifted the lid.

“Oh.” Starlight put the lid down. I waited for more, but she just stared at the box and its contents. I walked over to join her, and the trance snared me as well.

The cape drew my gaze like a whirlpool. It was a thousand different colors of blue, vivid as sapphire and deep as the ocean. The silver stars embroidered on it seemed to float in space, so depthless was the cloth. I could fall into it and sink forever.

I split the box with my magic and lifted the cape. It fell open to its full length, and it was as if a section of my library was gone, replaced by the cold blue predawn sky. Thousands of stars glowed like embers on its field. They seemed to shift and sparkle in time with my heart.

“How…” Starlight lifted the hat with her hooves and pressed it against her cheek. “How did she make this? How could anypony make something like this?”

The memory of Rarity drawing the silk out of her body rose up in my mind, and I shook it away. “She has some new tools. Can you make sure Trixie gets it?”

“Of course. Celestia... I can’t wait to see the look on her face when she sees it.” Starlight took the cape and folded it back into a neat rectangle. For all that it was unworldly, it behaved like normal cloth. “What else? What do we need to do?”

“Find the other Elements. Get them here tonight to help.”

“What if they don’t want to?”

What about Applejack? she meant. I didn’t have a good answer for that. “Just talk to them. If they still embody their elements, they’ll come. That… that should be good enough. We’ll work with what we have.”

She nodded and bundled the hat up with the cape, holding both against her breast. She opened her mouth, as though she wanted to add something more, but instead she quickly hurried out, vanishing up toward the castle’s private quarters.

I stared up at the ceiling and the sun beyond it. I could see it effortlessly, through meters of solid crystal and my shades and the blindfold and my closed eyelids. It could never hide from me again. As I gathered my courage to go back out, to find what remained of my friends, that thought comforted me. No matter whether we succeeded or failed tonight, the sun would always remain, and as long as it remained, I would never be truly alone.

But I wanted my friends back. I would do anything for that. I tightened my blindfold and stepped back out into the dream Ponyville had become.

* * *

I didn’t find all my friends that day. Fluttershy was gone when I got back to her cottage, and of course Applejack was off to the four winds. But I found Rainbow Dash, soaring like an eagle high above the plains west of Ponyville. She was barely a dot in the sky, and it took me most of an hour to approach her altitude. The thin air drained my lungs and stamina, and frost built on the tips of my wings. It was only when she noticed me and descended to my level that we could talk. I could only gasp a few words at a time before running out of breath.

She listened as I explained. I think. She didn’t say anything, and I’m honestly not sure if she could talk with a beak like that. How did gryphons do it? Maybe their beaks were more flexible than they seemed. But Dash’s apparently wasn’t, so she just soared alongside me while I talked, and when my lungs finally gave out and my wings folded like wet paper, she caught me in her talons and lowered me back to the ground. The shadow of her wingspan stretched across half the town.

Pinkie was in Sugarcube Corner, looking exactly like I remembered. Almost suspiciously so. But we got to talking about dreams over cups of hot cocoa, and she told me she dreamed about owning a bakery and making ponies smile. And now that Mister and Missus Cake were gone, her dream had come true.

I told her I’d buy her a bakery if we managed to put things back the way they were. I was pretty sure princesses could do things like that. I doubted anypony would stop me. So by the time the sun set and the night came alive with giddy, howling stars, I was secure in the aid of three of my friends.

Four Elements of Harmony should be able to do a lot. Or, perhaps, nothing – part of harmony’s definition was working as a seamless whole, and we had a lot of holes still.

But it was what I had to work with. I gathered the jeweled necklaces from the Tree of Harmony and clutched them like foals to my breast. Even through the blindfold and smoked lenses I could see the magic sparkling in them. Touching them was like touching hope itself.

The sun was well below the horizon by then. I levitated the crown onto my head, lets its magic flow through me, and teleported back home.

* * *

Starlight was waiting for me in the library, staring out the window at the darkening town. Beside her, Trixie’s cape and hat floated in the air like puppets on invisible strings. They leapt and flowed and pirouetted, and for a moment I could imagine I saw the invisible mare herself, dancing for our enjoyment. The edges of the cape snapped in the air like a whip, and the stars stitched on the cloth shone as bright as diamonds, dazzling me. With a final flutter the cape swooshed toward me, tickling my chin with the wash of its passage, and then it flitted over to Starlight and draped itself over her shoulders with a silent cottony sigh. The hat followed a moment late, landing gently on her horned brow. It looked comfortable there, like it wanted her to bear it.

I trotted over to Starlight. She wore her changeling skin still. She rubbed her cheek against the embroidered rim of the cape, then gave me a smile.

“Hey.” I nuzzled her politely. She smelled of bed linens and sweat and candle wicks and cordite. “Where’d Trixie go?”

“I’m wearing her. Did you find everypony?”

Ah. A pang of something like regret shot through me, stealing a beat from my heart. I touched a hoof to Starlight’s cape. It was warm. “Almost. Everypony but Fluttershy and Applejack.”

“They’ll come.” Starlight rubbed my back with her hoof in that tight spot between my wings I could never seem to reach. “They’re still your friends. If you have faith in them, they’ll come.”

“Are they still my friends?” Just giving life to the question hurt. But it had to be said. After weeks of madness, it finally had to be said. “Everypony’s changed so much. Are we still friends?”

“Well.” Starlight shifted her weight. Her wings buzzed and clicked. “I am. I mean, we are. I think? I still… ponies can love their friends, right? Like, not romantically or sexually, but just have a bond so deep that it touches their souls? Because that… I mean, that’s kind of how I feel about you. As a friend.” Her wings buzzed again. “Do you… how do you feel about me?”

I felt a warmth grow in me as she spoke. It welled out of my heart, up my throat, and set my face on fire. I squeezed my eyes shut against tears.

“Yeah.” It came out as little more than a wheeze. “That’s how I feel about you, Starlight. Thank you.”

“Then maybe not as much as you think has changed.”

I shook my head. “That’s wrong, Starlight. We… when I came to Ponyville I was the loneliest mare in the world. I had no real friends. I loved my family and Celestia, but I only ever showed love to my books. Even Spike… I just treated him like a servant.” I swallowed, hard. The blindfold was growing damp over my eyes. “Like I owned him. But then I met these wonderful ponies, and they showed me how beautiful it is to have friends. Even if I didn’t always like them or agree with them or want to spend every hour with them, I knew they were there for me. For the first time in years my life had meaning, because I was sharing it with others. And now… now we’re all falling apart. Everypony’s dreams are pulling them away from me. It’s like… It’s like I had ten of the greatest years of my life, and now it’s all ending.”

Starlight squeezed me closer. She was a bit smaller as a changeling, and I a bit larger as an alicorn, but somehow I felt like a filly, a little sister in her embrace.

“We’re still here,” she whispered.

“I know. Thank you.” The words caught in my throat, like I’d swallowed a pin. I coughed weakly. “What should I do?”

“Whatever you think is right.”

Great. Let’s just leave the fate of the world in the hooves of an emotionally compromised mare. I pulled myself free of her embrace and moved over to the library table, where rested all our research on dreams and onieromancy. I pushed the journals and books aside until I found the one I wanted, The Celestial Messengers: A History, and opened it to the ruined middle, the pages destroyed by Discord’s errant crossbow. Only portions of each page remained legible, and they would never be able to complete the story.

But they were enough for now. Starlight retreated to her own books while I lost myself in fragments of those ancient times, reading easily through my blindfold about the last days of ponies who loved the sun too much.

Chapter 18

My friends arrived over the next few hours. They stole in through the windows and the cracks, as each befitted their new nature. Rarity descended from the high ceiling on a cable of silk. She reached down with an endless leg to snag her necklace from the pile, and she stroked the amethyst set within the silver clasp like the face of a long-lost lover. Then she hauled herself back up into the shadows and resumed her endless spinning.

A dark shape blocked the light of the stars out the open window. For a moment it looked like Dash wouldn’t be able to fit in, but she managed to squeeze her wings through. They stirred a gale across the library, tossing books open and scattering pages like snow. She picked up her element in her beak and jumped to perch upon the highest bookshelf.

Fluttershy arrived like a dark, warm breeze. A sphynx with coral hair, she slid across the floor to rub against my side, marking me with her scent. She did the same with the others, even Starlight, and she jumped up to place a kiss on Rainbow’s beak. She flew up into the dark heights where Rarity dwelled, and I heard what sounded like laughter.

Pinkie Pie just walked in the door. She looked the same as I remembered, maybe a bit bubblier, if such a thing were possible. She snatched up her balloon-cut necklace, found a book of jokes from the children’s section, and settled in at my side. The scent of powdered sugar and caramel filled my muzzle when I leaned down to nuzzle her mane.

But most surprising was Applejack. She paused when we all turned to stare, and she shrugged.

“Rainbow said ya’ll needed me. Don’t say I never did nuthin’ for you.” She picked up her necklace, twirled it around her hoof, and sat in the center of the room.

I wanted to run over and hug her. To tell her never to leave us again. And also kick her for all the hurt she’d caused. I wanted to break that smug look on her face, and maybe break her wings, too. And I could – all the old rules were gone now. If she could burn down her home, I could… I could do anything I wanted.

The thought chilled me. I closed the book, closed my eyes, and tried to remember how life had been. When it was the six of us in the sunny light of a Ponyville summer, fresh from some adventure, without a care in the world except what joys tomorrow might bring. I held that image in my mind. I seized it like a precious jewel and clutched it against my breast, all but swallowing it. We would have that feeling again. We would have that feeling again. Soon we would have that feeling again.

The silence broke with a crack and a flash of light that left me seeing stars. I blinked them away and looked up to see Discord standing in the center of the room. A pained snarl twisted his misshapen lips.

“Look at you. How much you’ve changed.” He shook his head. “I never meant for this.”

I closed my book for the last time. If it still remained after we were done, it would go in the fire. “Do you know what you did wrong? I think I figured it out.”

“It was the archetypes. They were necessary, somehow. They bound ponies together into the idea of a pony, didn’t they? Without them you’re like balloons cut free from your strings, tossed hither and thither by the wind. Well, we’re going to fix that right now, Sparky! For once we’re going to put all those books in your head to good use and rebuild—”

“You’re wrong.” I had to raise my voice to break through his tirade. “We were all wrong. This whole time we were wrong.”

He squinted. The world seemed to squish in response, talls becoming short and narrows becoming wider. “What do you mean?”

I felt dizzy. The world leaned left and I tried to lean right, but that was wrong and I started to fall. Before the crystal floors could catch me, Starlight did. I gasped for breath against her shoulder.

“I’ve got you,” she whispered.

“Thank you.” I mouthed it back, unable to draw the breath to speak. She must’ve felt the way my lips moved against her coat, because she smiled and held me up. I lifted my head again to behold Discord.

“Let me ask another question,” I said. “Do shadows exist?”

“Of course they do.” He waved a paw. “This room is choking with them.”

“You’re wrong. There are no such things as shadows.”

He stared at me. A thick, heavy silence filled the room. It clogged my lungs like wet cotton.

“Yes there are,” he said. “Shadows exist. I can see them. I’m cold when I stand in them.”

“And yet, what are they? Only an idea in our mind. An interaction between a light source and an object. They have no objective reality, Discord. The reality is the sun everywhere else. Light exists, and where light ends, shadows begin. That is all they are.”

“Semantics. What does that have to do with archetypes?”

“Archetypes are like shadows,” I said. “We thought they were a real thing that tied ponies together, but the opposite is true – archetypes appear to exist because all ponies, at some level, are the same. But now… well, you cut us loose. The archetypes are gone not because you severed us from them, but from each other.”

“Luna was right all along,” Starlight said. Her wings buzzed as she looked around the library at my gathered friends. “We’re not ponies anymore, are we? We’re becoming something new.”

“Yes, well, that ends now,” Discord said. He stood to his full height and seemed to grow larger. As if he willed more of his being into existence. “We’re going to go back to the way things were. I’ll be the chaos, the interesting spark in your lives, and you’ll go back to being your plain little vanilla sacks of meat, deliriously grateful for the gift of my presence. Now, Sparky, if you don’t mind helping with those little jewels of yours.”

He raised his arms, and like the world was a puppet bound to him by strings, I felt the universe begin to shift. Something distant called to me. Called back to me, imploring us to return. We could go home again. I focused on the sensation, and the jewel in my crown began to glow with the light of harmony. All around me, the library filled with the light of my friend’s elements. I grasped the magic flowing out of us and directed it toward that beautiful calling.

It was there, floating in my mind’s eye. A beacon, a lighthouse guiding the way home. The path back stretched before me; I could even be rid of these wings if I wanted. Put everything back the way it was. A great, foalish smile broke out on my face. Giddy joy flowed through me like I was drunk.

We were doing it. We were going back. I turned to Starlight to tell her things would be alright.

Tears flowed down her cheeks. Her eyes were red. She looked at me and tried to smile back.

Odd. “Why are you crying?”

She shook her head and brushed her cheek with her fetlocks. It didn’t matter; new tears replaced the old just as fast. “I’m sorry. I’m just sad.”

Her words wounded me like a knife. I stared at her, bewildered. “But… things are going back to the way they were. You’ll… Trixie will be back, the same as before. You won’t need to be a changeling. We can be student and mentor again. Forever.”

“I know.”

I tried to push away from her, but I was too weak to stand on my own. Instead I turned, casting about for some other anchor. Rarity – Rarity had to be happy to undo this. She was twisted, deformed, a beast. I craned my head back to see her in her web, and saw her crying as well. It seemed her new eyes could still weep.

“Rarity!” I shouted up to her. “Look at me! You were beautiful once, and you can be again! You don’t have to be a monster!”

“A monster?” The light shining from her amethyst element dimmed for a moment. “You think I’m a monster?”

“Yes!” It hurt to say, but it was true. She was hideous to behold. No rational pony could disagree. “But you won’t be for long! We’re fixing you! You’ll be a pony again soon!”

Her legs twitched. One long, clawed limb extended itself before her face. “You’re right. I promised you I would help, didn’t I? But do you know what I dreamed of, at the very end, Twilight? I dreamed of being the best seamstress in the world. An artist. A weaver without parallel. And now I am. I’ve become what I’ve always wanted to be. Is that so terrible? So monstrous?”

I shook my head. Rarity was lost in her dream. But maybe the others weren’t. I searched for the glow of Fluttershy’s element in the shadows. She clung to the edge of Rarity’s web, hunched over. The curtain of her mane concealed her face, but I could read her mood in the cast of her shoulders. Her wings curled around her. She trembled.

“Fluttershy!” I tried to flap my wings to join her, but they were too weak to do more than stir a breeze around us. “You can’t want to stay like this!”

Her wings opened, and she stared down at me. Her eyes were red-rimmed and shining with tears. “I’m not afraid anymore, Twilight. For once in my life I don’t have to be afraid.”

“But that’s who you are! It’s what makes you special!” My voice rattled in my throat. I tasted blood in the back of my mouth. “You’re Fluttershy, the timid one, good with animals, shy around ponies! That’s why we love you! It’s why Discord loves you!”

“Maybe so.” Her eyes drifted to Discord for a moment, and I saw the indecision roiling inside her. “But I need to love myself, too.”

I reeled. Of all the setbacks I had anticipated, betrayal wasn’t one. But now even my friends turned against me. I stumbled and fell back against Starlight’s side. “It’s better this way. We can go back! We can be like we were before! Please! We can still go back!”

“Good for you, huh?” Applejack said. She wasn’t crying, at least. But I wasn’t sure Apples could ever cry. Her mouth stretched out in a flat line, neither a smile nor a frown, but conveying all her distaste nevertheless.

“You won’t get in trouble for the fire, I promise!” I would pardon her the moment we were done. I would rebuild her farmhouse plank by plank with my own hooves if I had to. “We can make it all again! You can go back to the orchard and your family! They’ll take you back!”

“Back to my cage, you mean.”

“It’s okay,” Pinkie Pie said. She smiled at me, but I could see the tears building in her eyes. “We’ll be fine.”

“Please…” I couldn’t be the only pony who felt this way. I couldn’t be the only sane one. The room spun, and I clung hard against Starlight. “Rainbow! Rainbow, tell them this is for the best! We can… we can watch you race again! We can help you be the best young… the best young flyer! Don’t you, don’t you, don’t you want to do that again?”

I stared up at her. With all my soul I begged her to agree. But she just turned away.

“Come on, Sparky,” Discord said. His sudden, harsh, masculine notes dragged me back to the spell we were casting. The magic still flowed through me, guiding us back home. All I had to do was follow it, and we would be done. “We haven’t got all day.”

I could see it. Like a sailor seeing a port rising from the horizon, I saw our past. It waited for us. All I had to do was follow the spell to completion. The elements would do the rest.

I held the magic in my heart. And then I let it go. A long wail clawed its way out of my throat. The glowing strands sputtered, faded, and died.

“What are you doing?” Discord demanded. His anger shook the room. “Help me, dammit! We can do this!”

“I’m sorry.” I wanted to cry. Part of me wanted to die. But that was the weak part of me, and it quickly fell back into the morass of unwanted thoughts in the dungeon of my mind. “I can’t. We can’t.”

“No. No.” Discord stood upright, looming above us. His voice shook the room. “This is not what I intended! If you will not help me fix it, then I will do it myself.”

He held up his hands, and I felt the world begin to tremble. It resisted him – Discord’s power was to bring chaos, not order. He could not merely snap his fingers and undo all this terrible work. But he was one of the most powerful beings in the universe. He might have been able to do it by himself at ruinous cost.

I could have let him. I could have sat there, crying, and let him fix the world. And afterword, I could have told my friends it was for the best. And when they eventually agreed, we could resume our old lives, like nothing had ever changed.

All I had to do was wait. My dream would come true. And everypony else would… would learn to be happy without theirs.

No.

My crown flared with light again. All the elements did, and for a moment the library was lit as brightly as the town square at noon. It blinded me, but even blind I was able to grasp the magic that flowed from our hearts and direct it. I aimed all its power at Discord and let Harmony do its awful work.

A roar filled the library. The world quaked beneath us. A loud ring deafened me as the crystal walls cracked.

And then, silence. I pulled away the dark glasses and the blindfold covering my eyes. The few candles we had laid out were all the light that remained, but they blinded me. It was like staring into the sun. I squinted, waited, and let my eyes adjust as well as they could anymore.

A stone statue stood before me. Discord’s eyes were wide in disbelief. He stretched out a stone claw, as if to ward away our magic. You’d think he’d have learned by now that didn’t work.

“Welp, guess that’s that,” Applejack said. She stretched, pulled off her element and tossed it on the floor. “See y’all around. Or not. Later Dash.” Without any further ado she flew away, and we were one reduced.

Rainbow Dash left next. She squeezed out the window and joined the night. Fluttershy followed.

“Glad that’s over!” Pinkie Pie said. She trotted over and hugged me, then marched to the door. “Come by for some snacks, okay? I have special deals for princesses!”

And then there were three. Or four. I wasn’t sure if Trixie counted anymore. I looked up at the ceiling, where Rarity clung to her web.

She smiled down at us. “You know where to find me, dear. I’m not going anywhere.” Her legs worked, and she gathered the shadows around her like silk, cocooned herself within them, and she was gone.

I closed my eyes. It didn’t help. Even the shadow-cloying room was too bright. Only by staring down through the earth at the distant sun could I find any relief. It called to me still, soothing me. Even if I were blind I could see it. It was all I needed to see, I realized.

It was all I had ever needed to see.

“Fetch me thread?” I asked.

We spent hours together, Starlight and Trixie and I, reminiscing about our friends. We dared to guess what they might become, and we imagined the great things that awaited us all, while I sewed my eyelids shut.

The Archetypist

Coda: Many Moons Later

Author's Note

This is not how The Archetypist ends. That was in the last chapter. If you were happy with that, there's no reason to read any further.

But if you want to know a bit more, here's something that might have happened. In one interpretation.

Coda: Many Moons Later

I was on the castle balcony, basking in the late morning sun with my wings stretched out to dry from the shower, when second breakfast arrived.

Let’s be clear – I’m not the kind of pony who normally takes two breakfasts. Sometimes I barely remember to eat breakfast at all, or I just grab a muffin from Sugarcube Corner as I go about my day. On the days fate chooses to keep me in the castle longer than normal and I’m feeling peckish, my usual answer is a bowl of oatmeal, maybe with some brown sugar or a sliced banana. Simple things. The kind of food even a mare with absolutely zero culinary knowledge can produce without creating a fire hazard.

I’d had one such breakfast already, a bowl of toasted cornflakes with milk. And now, it seemed, I had another breakfast. A much better one, by the smell of it. The warm, heady scent of caramelized sugar and butter and cream invaded my muzzle and set up camp.

I turned my head, careful to keep my wings oriented toward the sun. They were still damp and needed its rays. Behind me, sweeping through the crystal doors out onto the balcony, bearing a platter stacked high with pancakes and whipped cream and maple syrup and blueberries, came Trixie like the wind. She darted forward, brushed against my left wing, spun behind me to my right, and slid the pancakes onto the crystal rail. They teetered there, balanced above the high drop to Ponyville far below, and it was only just in time that I caught them with my magic. A single blueberry, unbalanced from the pile, rolled away from its brothers, slid through the cream, and escaped off the edge of the plate to begin the long fall to the ground.

A tiny bright blue fruitbat launched out from its nook beneath the balcony. It caught the berry, somersaulted through the air, then retreated with its prize. I heard him chittering with his mate through the crystal below me.

“For me?” I asked. Silly question – there was nopony else out here. But I’d feel pretty foolish if I started to eat and it turned out the pancakes were for somepony else.

Trixie didn’t answer. Unencumbered by the plate she danced like a flag in the wind, catching the sun in her brilliant fluttering folds. A wavering portal into night. She ran her tasseled edge against my chest, flicked my chin lightly, then vanished back inside. A few moments later her hat followed, bobbing along like a duckling chasing its mother.

Huh. I stared after her, then turned back to the pancakes. They smelled delicious.

No sense in letting them go to waste, even if I wasn’t hungry. I took a bite, then another, and another, and soon the memory of those poor toasted cornflakes was gone. It could never have competed with this.

Only later, with my wings dry and the pancakes a warm lump in my gut, did I wonder about the source of the gift. In all her years here, I could never recall Trixie bringing anypony breakfast, and certainly not me. We were barely any warmer toward each other than in the days when she took Starlight from me, and she was more the type to steal somepony’s breakfast than make it for them.

Huh.

There were a few blueberries left on the plate. I tossed them over the balcony edge to the circling fruitbats, watched their shadows play, then went back inside.

* * *

Starlight was downstairs in the library foyer, apparently waiting for me. She wore her old form, minus her cutie mark, and smiled as I floated down the stairs.

“Hey.” I gave her a polite nuzzle, just a brush of cheek against cheek. “The weirdest thing just happened.”

She fell into step beside me as we walked through the library. “Was it Trixie giving you a big stack of pancakes, by any chance? I just saw her in the kitchen with them.”

“It was.” We stopped by the check-in desk, and I pulled out the bin of returned books. None of them appeared to be late, and I floated them over to one of the reshelving carts. “Did you put her up to that? They were delicious, by the way.”

“Maybe.” A flash of green fire washed over Starlight’s form, and in her place stood the old Trixie, complete with her horn. “Or maybe she just felt like being nice. She’s allowed to do that.”

“Trixie’s only nice to me when she wants something,” I said. Then I stopped and sighed, because suddenly everything made sense. “So, what does she want?”

Starlight snorted. The fire consumed her again, and she became the changeling whose form she normally wore. Her wings clicked at her sides. “I don’t know. She won’t tell me.”

“Really.” I looked around for the magician. Trixie wasn’t in the room, but her shadow could never hide from me. It was several levels above us, in the personal quarters she shared with Starlight, draped over a writing desk. Even through several meters of crystal I could see the glint of the sun on her silver threads.

What’s your game, Trixie? I watched for a few more moments, to see if she would give herself away, but soon enough I had to return my attention to Starlight and the library.

A mare could only stare at the ceiling for so long before ponies started to wonder about her, after all.

* * *

“Sounds to me like Trixie’s trying to turn over a new leaf,” Rarity said.

We were on the patio of the new Starbucks, mulling over our drinks. Rarity preferred the shade, and she made a point of bringing it with her wherever she went. She caught the shadows in her web and strung them along like balloons bobbing from strings, and she reclined beneath them like they were a parasol. She blew on her macchiato to help it cool.

I sat as close to her shade as I could bear. The mid-afternoon sun pounded on my back like hail. I felt it in my bones. It was wonderful.

“She’s had years to do that,” I said. I took a sip from my chai latte, not minding the hot sting on my tongue. One advantage of being an alicorn – we could drink anything without waiting for it to cool. “Why start now?”

“Who says she’s starting just now?” Rarity countered. “You remember when she first came to Ponyville, don’t you? That was hardly the same mare Starlight fell in love with. Maybe it just takes her a while to warm up to ponies.”

“Rarity’s right,” Fluttershy said. She lounged in the light beside me, patiently grooming herself with her tongue. I could feel the heat of her body competing with the sun against my coat. “Maybe she just wants to show a little kindness for all you’ve done. Letting her live in the castle is very nice of you.”

“Precisely.” Rarity smiled. “If Trixie were not a good mare, then Starlight could never have fallen for her. If you won’t trust our judgement, at least trust hers.”

“Of course I trust your judgement,” I said. “And I trust Starlight’s. Though, in Starlight’s case, her judgement may be a bit, uh...”

Fluttershy smiled a tiger’s smile. She sat up, muscles rolling beneath her coat as though her skin were merely a cloak draped over her body, and she leaned against my side. Her legs snaked around to pull me into a loose hug, and she set her chin on my shoulder. The burning heat of her belly felt very different from the clean, sterile light of the sun.

Okay, yeah, I’ll admit it. I started to breathe a bit faster.

“Would you say,” Fluttershy stage-whispered in my ear, clearly loud enough for Rarity to hear as well, “that her judgement is clouded? Maybe even blinded by her love?”

A field of blue magic surrounded Fluttershy and tugged her away. She gave Rarity a little pout and settled back down on her belly, a puddle of languid and grace that drew the eye of every stallion (and several mares) sharing the patio with us. Next to her, I felt like a plum-colored crow.

“Darling, don’t tease her like that,” Rarity said. After a short pause, “Or, at least, not in public. I encourage you to tease her in private.”

“Thanks, Rarity.” I tried to flatten my feathers with a hoof, but they insisted on standing on end. “Anyway, what should I do?”

“Anyway, about what?” Fluttershy asked.

“About Trixie!”

“Well, unless you have some objection to demonstrations of generosity and friendship from a mare who lives in your castle, I suggest you keep enjoying the pancakes.”

I did enjoy pancakes, so that course of action had one thing going for it. But a stubborn pebble in my heart resisted. “Why, though? Why now, of all times?”

“You’re her lover’s best friend,” Fluttershy said. “Isn’t that a good enough reason?”

It should have been. More than any other pony, I should’ve known that an offer of friendship, no matter its reason, should be accepted. That friendship was the most valuable treasure ponies could accumulate, beyond gold or power or even knowledge. And in the end I felt that stubborn little pebble in my heart erode, its layers washed away by the ceaseless flow of blood. But even as it vanished and I came to to the realization that a good mare in my position would accept Trixie’s offer, a shadow on my thoughts remained. It was an ugly thing, unworthy of me; I felt it blocking the sun like greasy smoke.

Trixie was still the mare who’d taken Starlight from me. And that wound still hurt.

* * *

Starlight found me while I was reading. She hopped up on the couch beside me and settled in with her own book. We exchanged wordless smiles and went back to our respective pages.

Equestrian literature had undergone something of a renaissance over the past few years. Not as many ponies wrote, but those who did imbued their stories with an almost tangible effervescence, as though they had discovered how to pour their very beings into their work. Perhaps they had discovered how to dream of writing.

My own book was one such tale, published the summer before by a Canterlot unicorn who was either a mare or a stallion, depending on the day of the week. Lost Nights was half-diary, half-fantasy, and engrossing in a way that few novels managed with me. At heart I still preferred histories and biographies, but these new works were forcing me to reassess what I liked. Perhaps one day I would relent and permit that display of monthly bestsellers in the library foyer that Starlight kept insisting we make.

I don’t know how long we read. Long enough for the sun to sink below the horizon. Starlight got up to light the lanterns I no longer needed. When she came back, Trixie was with her.

The marvelous hat and cape floated before us, then settled down, as though draping themselves on an invisible mare. I could see the outlines of a pony’s shoulders, back and rump beneath the cloth. The formless mare bowed to us both, reared up as though upon her hind legs, and began to dance.

Even just laying on a table, the cape Rarity had crafted for Trixie was beautiful beyond words. I’ve tried to describe it to ponies who haven’t met her, and I always fail. It was like a piece of the night sky, trimmed out of the heavens by a seamstress’s shears and sewn with silver stars. In its depths dwelled the shadows of beryls and opals and sapphires and every other nocturnal gem. Even I, who could no longer see the night sky, was entranced.

Laying still on a table, Trixie was beautiful. Dancing, flowing, living, she transcended that. She spun around the room, pirouetting as though clasped around an invisible neck. Unseen hooves grabbed her hat and swung it about in time with her hips. For minutes she flew; she hopped above the furniture, over our heads, and snapped across the high vaulted ceiling. From the heights she fell, her folds flowing with waves like water over stones. She came to a rest atop Starlight’s back, and she tied herself in place around Starlight’s neck. The cloth seemed to vibrate, as though still breathing heavily.

The hat followed a moment later, landing with far less ceremony atop my rump. Starlight snickered.

I had to swallow the lump in my throat. “That was beautiful.”

The cape fluttered. One edge lifted away from Starlight, gave a little flick, and suddenly it held a piece of paper. It fell, and I barely caught it before it hit the floor.

Huh. I pulled it closer. Starlight peered over my shoulder.

It was a flyer. The Third Annual Canterlot Performance Art Show. A list of performers followed the title. The only name I recognized was Trixie’s, third from the top. It was in three days.

I smiled. “Would you like me to come, Trixie?”

She couldn’t answer, of course. But a ripple ran across her, and Starlight giggled at the sensation.

“We would both love it if you came,” she said.

Grudges were comforting things, in the same way picking at a scab is comforting. They did nothing but draw out pain. I knew that in my heart. It weighed on me as I stared at the flyer.

Still… if any of the performances were even half as good as what Trixie could give, it would be worth it. But more important, my best friend… friends, perhaps… wanted me to. And that was all the reason I needed.

“I guess It would be nice to visit Canterlot again,” I said.

* * *

The capital had settled down a bit after the Dawning. It was no longer perpetually night, though there were enough unicorns (or former unicorns) in the city that the stars always shone, no matter the time of day. The moon and sun kept a cordial distance from each other in the sky. I frowned a bit at the sight of the former – there had been two natural eclipses over the past four years, and they were the only times I could not see the sun. Those were cold minutes that left me shaking for hours afterward.

A few foals noticed us disembark the train, and they galloped over to pelt us with questions. Yes, I was a princess. Yes, those were real wings. No, I hadn’t dreamed of them. Yes, Celestia really did like cake that much. I was about to launch into an inspirational speech about the importance of libraries when their parents arrived, apologized for the bother, and pulled them away.

Starlight smiled after them. “I guess foals still want to grow up to be princesses.”

“Well, maybe they will.” The wind picked up, ruffling my feathers, and I wished for a moment I’d brought a scarf. Every time I came back to Canterlot, the mountain surprised me with its cool air.

Trixie must’ve noticed me shiver. She lifted off of Starlight’s shoulders and settled onto mine. I raised an eyebrow at Starlight (the only reason I still had eyebrows), but she just shrugged and smiled.

Hm. Maybe she didn’t mind the chill. I suppose living for years in the cold desert that was Our Town might have inured her to it in the way living in Ponyville had inured me to random acts of chaos.

So, warmer at least, we we walked into the throng of ponies and once-ponies, finding our way to the garden at the city’s heart.

* * *

A sizable crowd had assembled for the performances. Most were ponies, though a few gryphons and sphinxes and odder forms filled out the audience. A shadow that looked like a lamia’s haunted the edge of the garden. A few mares glowered at her and shuffled the nearest stallions to the far side of the courtyard, where she couldn’t tempt them.

Some ponies had more dangerous dreams than others.

We were early, still. As time passed the crowd became more of a festival, as merchants relocated their stalls from Canterlot’s normal markets to the edges of the garden. A bevy of scents flooded my muzzle – beer and fruit juices and seared vegetables and sugary confections and fried everythings. School groups showed up with herds of foals that turned the garden into a constant shouting match. At one point a daring amber filly snatched Trixie’s hat away, and it became the object of some game or other that involved running and tripping and squabbling and frustrated teachers trying to corral chaos itself. I wondered, briefly, how near Discord’s statue had to be for the ambient chaos to break him free. Then I wondered how Trixie was tolerating all this.

She didn’t seem to mind. Or, at least, the cape half of her didn’t. It fluttered calmly on my shoulders.

By the time the performances began, the crowd was in a good mood. Ponies still enjoyed any excuse for a festival; or, perhaps, the ponies who remained in cities did. The more reclusive ones had gone off to find their own meanings in solitude.

Trixie unclasped herself from my shoulders and floated over to Starlight. Her hat reappeared from wherever it had vanished to. I gave them both a curious look.

“We’re going to go get set up.” Starlight stretched up to nuzzle my cheek. “Enjoy the performances.”

“I’m sure I will.” It would be colder without them, but not unbearably so. The sun’s rays, though dimmed and reddened by their steep angle, were still enough to fill me. I caught them with my magic and fashioned a necklace with them. A few nearby ponies ooh’d in appreciation and crowded closer for their warmth.

The first performance was a drum ensemble, inspired by some zebra myth. They even had a real zebra on stage with them, leading the pack. I wondered if he knew Zecora, then chided myself for the question. Not ever zebra was bound to know every other. I let the beat of the drums roll over my silly thoughts, and in time the audience began stomping their hooves with the drums. It shook the hollow spaces in my chest and vibrated my feathers.

Not bad for an opening act. I realized, as they left the stage, that I was smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. Not bad at all.

The second act was a dramatic reading from a popular collection of poems. Interesting, if one was into poetry. I wasn’t. I clapped politely while waiting for Trixie’s performance.

Finally, Starlight walked out onto the stage, wearing Trixie as usual. She bowed to the crowd, then reared up onto her hind legs and threw off the cape and hat. But rather than fly away on an arc, both pieces of cloth froze in mid air, just inches from her hooves. They hung there, unmoving as flies trapped in amber, while Starlight returned to all four hooves and walked off into the wings.

The silence that followed as absolute. The crowd leaned forward as once, barely breathing. Still the hat and cape hung in space, still as a picture. Ponies around me began to mumble to their neighbors.

Finally, when the tension was thick enough to chew, Trixie began. A violinist began to string behind the stage, and Trixie flowed in time with it. Her dance flowed across the stage like water, and though I had seen it before, it still took away my breath. When she finished, the crowd cheered. The cape and hat dipped low in a bow, then zipped off the stage.

The performances continued. At some point Starlight and Trixie reappeared beside me. The cape fluttered with exhaustion, and I noticed several tears along her edges. Starlight noticed my concern.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “Little rips heal in a few days. Rarity can fix anything bigger.”

Ah. Convenient, having a seamstress for a doctor. I wondered if Rarity had ever tried mending real ponies with her new silk.

The next several acts were impressive, in their own ways. A pyromancer set the stage on fire with her dances. A pair of pegasi brought down a cloud and sculpted it before our eyes into a willow tree so lifelike that each hanging frond of leaves swayed in an unfelt breeze. A unicorn mare somehow sang both parts of a duet – only at the end of did I notice the glow of her horn, and realize she was using time magic to burn her life twice as fast.

They were all spectacular, though I thought Trixie’s was still the best. I clapped along with the crowd.

By the time the maintenance teams were cleaning the stage for the final performance, the sun had sunk below the horizon. I could see it still, shining through the earth below the city’s roots. For everypony else, lanterns were strung across wires over our heads. The wind grew cooler, and I squeezed up beside Starlight to share our warmth. Trixie adjusted herself to drape across both our backs.

“This is the big one,” Starlight said. “The headline.”

Hm? I pulled the flyer out of my saddlebags. The finale was a duet of some sort, to judge by the name. The Lovers. I glanced around at the crowd, which still contained a fair number of foals.

“It’s not… nothing inappropriate, is it?”

“Oh, no.” Starlight shook her head. “Just watch. You’ll see.”

Up on the stage, the lights dimmed. A spotlight popped on, and a lone earth pony stallion walked out. He bowed to the crowd, sat on his haunches, and began to sing.

It was… nice, I guess. An a capella rendition of Celestia, the Dawn Breaks for Thee, a popular romantic ballad a bit over a century old. I was wondering who his partner was for the female voice when she landed on the stage.

She was huge, in the way of adult gryphon hens. The wood planks beneath her buckled as she landed. The feathers on her chest were stained purple in the pattern of the Griffonstone exiles. Her beak looked big enough to crack a pony’s skull. But I noticed none of these things because, like most of the crowd, I was staring at her wings.

They were nothing but bone. Twin skeletal fans extended from her shoulders. Enormous, ivory beams bound at the joints with dry ligatures. Little holes dotted their lengths, as though the bones belonged to a centuries-dead corpse rather than a living gryphon. It was so shocking I barely heard when she began to sing.

Her voice was like the wind in the mountains. Haunting, echoing, filled with loss. It transformed the joyous verses of the song into a mournful cry for what might have been. She sang the song in the minor key for which it had never been intended. In her words, the old song became new.

She knelt on the stage as she sang. The stallion walked up beside her, took in a deep breath, lowered his mouth to one of the holes in the wing bone near her shoulder, and the performance truly began.

Pegasus bones were hollow. So too were gryphon bones. My bones were hollow now, or at least some of them were. And at some point over the years I should’ve remembered that the bones of large birds were used to make the earliest flutes.

Funny how little facts like that never matter until they hit you in the face.

She sang, while he played. His hooves danced over the holes in her wing, changing the flow of air. A sound began to build from the edge of hearing, rising like the dawn and bursting into life. She sang and he played with notes that resonated through the thin walls of her bones. A dreamlike, melancholic swell of music drawn from a still-living instrument.

The crowd fell silent. And when the lovers finished, it was as though we woke from a dream. Scattered applause dotted the field, but in the main only whispers reigned. The two on the stage seemed to expect this; they bowed and retreated without waiting for us to recover.

“Not bad, huh?” Starlight asked. The lights came back on, and the crowd finally began to applaud. It built and built and lasted for minutes.

In time, I was able to reply. “I can see why they were the final act. I’m sorry, Trixie, but I think you’ve got some…” I trailed off. Trixie was missing.

“Where—” I started.

“She just went off to get something.” Starlight stepped around me and began to walk across the garden. The crowd turned into a slow flow of ponies beginning to disperse. “C’mon.”

I could still see Trixie’s shadow, of course. She was across the garden, in the direction Starlight was walking. Probably basking in the crowd’s appreciation. For a moment a shadow of that old disdain colored my thoughts – the disregard I felt for her boasting and pride. But only for a moment, and then it subsided into a grudging and perhaps even welcome realization, that Trixie deserved this attention. That I ought to be admiring her too.

So it was that I smiled as we made our way through the crowd. My happiness for her built and built, and I was ready to put away all the resentment and ill-will I’d harboured in my heart all these years. I was finally ready to be her friend.

Then we broke through the last line of ponies, and I saw Trixie draped around the shoulders of an orange pegasus mare. The cape turned, pulling the mare with it, and for the first time in years I looked into Applejack’s surprised face.

I froze. Applejack blinked, as though not recognizing me. Finally, her gaze traced its way from my sealed eyes to my horn, then my wings, and she nodded.

“Well, howdy princess. Fancy meeting you here.” She shrugged Trixie’s cape off her.

I turned to Starlight. She wore a strained smile, made of equal parts hope and anxiety. I could smell the sweat breaking out in her coat.

Trixie floated over to me. She fell onto my shoulders, and her folds billowed up to my cheek. She gently turned my head back to Applejack, who watched us with bemusement.

“Looks like you three are doin’ alright,” she said. “How’s things in Ponyville these days?”

Good, I wanted to say. Better than good. But I could not force my jaws to open, or my lips to form the words. All I could remember was that night in Ponyville when things weren’t good. One of the worst nights of my life. The night Applejack had cut herself loose and flown away.

“Your family’s fine,” I said. Then, because I wished words were knives, I twisted them. “If you care.”

Applejack shrugged. “As much as I care about anypony, I suppose. Wasn’t trying to hurt them or anything.”

“You burned down their home. Your home!” A bit of fire entered my voice. Ponies began to mumble around us. “You think that didn’t hurt them?”

“I know it did.” Applejack looked around at the crowd, barely acknowledging their stares. As if we weren’t the center of the night’s final performance. “But I had to do it. Can’t fly if you’re too weighed down.”

I swallowed. “They’ve forgiven you, you know.”

Applejack nodded. “No surprise. They’re good ponies.”

“Do you even care?”

Applejack stared at me. Her eyes fixed on my face, where my eyes had been, and I realized this was the first time she’d seen me like this. I wondered what she thought.

Finally, “Will you forgive me?”

Trixie squeezed tighter around my shoulders. I heard Starlight stop breathing. I imagined what might come next, if only I said yes.

“Ponies change,” I said. “Maybe someday I'll be a pony who can forgive you. And you'll be a pony who wants forgiveness. But... but neither of those ponies exist today.”

Applejack grunted. She looked like she wanted to say more, but she just shrugged. Her wings beat, and with much more grace than I remembered, she lifted into the night. In a few seconds even her scent was gone, and I could breathe again.

Starlight sagged. Trixie floated to her and bundled tight around her shoulders. I waited for them to reproach me.

She didn’t, though. She was too good for that. Better than I deserved. She just stared up into the sky after our departed friend. Former friend. Whatever.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I couldn’t.”

“Yeah.” She dabbed at her eyes with her fetlocks. “It’s fine.”

It wasn’t fine. But it was what we had chosen. And even in this new world of mirages and dreams and impossible things, our choices were still what defined us.

I pondered that all the way home.

Chapter 9

I took one step outside, turned around and went back in. Even just an hour over the horizon, the sun was too bright. My eyes watered and danced with spots as I found my way upstairs to the bedroom.

There was a sunhat somewhere. Rarity gave it to me for my birthday a few years back, and I promptly put it in my closet and forgot it. If I saw her again today I would kiss her.

Next, sunglasses. I didn’t own any, because they were an accessory for the cool ponies, which I assuredly was not. But Spike had delusions along those lines, and like the good big sister I was I played along, and got him a nice purple set that matched his scales for his birthday. So it was that I walked back outside with not just one but two birthday presents protecting my eyes.

The shades even matched my coat. It almost looked deliberate.

Ponyville felt different. Just walking around I could sense it. The ground was like a live wire, vibrating beneath my hooves. Ponies moved through the streets with a furtive energy, talking too loud, laughing too often. They waved to me and seemed happy.

I waved back each time. None of the ones I recognized seemed to be missing any parts. But a vague sense of dread plagued me as I hurried through the market, past the stalls and down the cobbled streets toward the forest and Fluttershy’s cottage. I’d have flown, but Rarity hadn’t made this hat with a winged pony in mind. I should get her to add a chin strap.

I made it to Fluttershy’s in what had to be record time on hoof. My breath rattled in my chest, and I stopped at the shaded edge of the woods to rest. My lungs wheezed.

Fluttershy wasn’t on top of her cottage. I could see that from here, so I trotted straight up to the door and knocked. No answer. I knocked again and pushed the door open. “Fluttershy? It’s me! We need to find Discord!”

No answer again. It occured to me that the cottage was dark. I slipped the sunglasses off, let my eyes adjust, and looked around for her.

A clutter of dishes crowded on the table. The sink was stoppered full of stagnant water. Bits of down and fur from her woodland friends drifted on the floor, but none of the little animals themselves were seen. I couldn’t even hear them – the usual constant stir of tiny needle claws that filled her home was gone.

“Come on,” I whispered. “Fluttershy!”

It wasn’t polite to enter somepony’s home uninvited. It was even less polite to enter their bedroom. But there I was, walking up the stairs, pushing open the door, and coming to a stop.

It was empty. The faint musky scent of wild animals stained the air. The bedspread was wildly disheveled. But of the cottage’s master there was no sign. It appeared to be empty. Not even Mister Raven to unnerve me.

“Dammit.” I gave the room a final look, turned, and left.

The market was more crowded on my second pass through. An hour closer to lunch would do that. Dozens of ponies met me with friendly smiles or greetings as I passed. I smiled queasily back at them.

“Twi! Hey, Twilight!” I turned and saw Applejack waving from her little apple stand. She had a good spot as usual, stacked out near the intersection in the center of town. I trotted to the counter and leaned over to exchange a nuzzle with her. My sunhat collided with her stetson and my glasses bumped against her cheek.

“Sorry,” I said. “Eyes are bothering me today.”

“S’alright. Allergies still?”

A bright tower on a mountain. I blinked away the image. “Yeah, a bit. Hey, sorry, have you seen Fluttershy? It’s extremely important that I find her.”

She sat up straight behind the counter. “I haven’t. Is something wrong?”

I wrestled with how much to tell her, then realized how stupid that was. Discord was turning the world upside-down and I wasn’t being open with the very friends whose help I needed to fix this disaster. “Yes. Discord’s up to something and it’s gotten out of hoof. He’s starting to hurt ponies, and I need Fluttershy so we can find him and put a stop to it.”

“Ah.” Applejack looked past me, out at the market. “This about those dreams?”

I swallowed. “Yeah. Have you, uh…”

She nodded slowly. “The other day, when you asked me if I’d been having any weird dreams, and I said I hadn’t? I might’ve been a mite untruthful there.”

I blinked. “You lied?”

She winced. “Don’t have to put it so harsh. It’s just… dreams are personal things, ain’t they?”

“They’re supposed to be.” And that was the heart of the problem: dreams were nice and safe, locked inside our heads. But whatever Discord had done was letting them loose. “You haven’t noticed anything… wrong, I guess?”

“Naw, not wrong.” She was being evasive. With Applejack you could always tell. “But enough about me, what’s got you all worked up?”

“Trixie. Her horn vanished overnight. It’s like she’s just an earth pony now.” Too late I realized who I was speaking with, and wished for some way to reel those words back in. But the moment was past – I had to watch them bounce through Applejack’s head, and her eyes widen. “Er, I mean, she’s become an—”

“I heard what you said,” Applejack cut me off. She didn’t look angry, at least. “And I get it. She okay?”

“Of course she’s not okay, her horn is missing!” Honestly, how hard was it for ponies to understand this?

“I meant, how is she taking it?”

Oh. “She’s… fine, for now. I think she’s in shock still. She acted like it was no big deal. Said it was just like in her dream.”

“Well, maybe it ain’t a big deal, then.”

“But it is!” I leaned over the stall’s counter. Applejack leaned back. “She’s supposed to be a unicorn! There’s nothing wrong with being an earth pony, but that’s not what she is! And somehow Discord has figured out a way to… to twist that! To pervert it. Who knows what could be next?”

“Mm.” Applejack eyed my sides. “Ponies might be sprouting wings.”

“That’s different.” I sat back and pulled my wings tight against my barrel, as if that could somehow hide them. “I didn’t lose anything. It’s just ah, uh, personification of the magic of all the tribes, united by friendship.”

“Uh huh.” Applejack sounded unimpressed. “That’s great and all, sugar, but I hope you can understand why I might not think a missing horn is such a terrible thing.”

Because you don’t know what you’re missing. Those words, at least, I knew better than to speak. I just nodded.

Her features relaxed into a half-smile. “Good. Anyway, I assume you’ll want to go on looking for Fluttershy. I’ll keep an eye out for her. Hey, want an apple?” She ducked down behind the counter and emerged with one held lightly in her teeth.

I was about to turn her down when my stomach growled. Damn Trixie and those stolen pancakes. I blushed and took the apple with my magic. “Thanks. What do I owe you?”

“It’s on the house. I was about to head back to the Acres anyway.”

“Already?” It wasn’t even noon. That wasn’t like Applejack.

“Yeah. Guess I don’t just feel like sittin’ here today, you know?”

Fair enough. The thought of selling apples in the market didn’t appeal much to me either. I turned and started to walk away when a final thought hit me, and I turned back. “You said you were having weird dreams?”

Now it was her turn to blush. She nodded.

“About what?”

Applejack looked away. She gazed up at the sky, as if the answer were floating up there. Her silence lasted so long I started to think she wasn’t going to answer, and simply wanted me to leave. I was ready to offer an awkward goodbye when she finally spoke.

“About being free.”

Something about that answer set me back on my hooves. A hollow feeling settled into my stomach. I took a hesitant step back toward her, and stopped when she fixed me with her gaze.

“But…” I licked my lips. “You’re free now. Aren’t you?”

She laughed. But it was a dry laugh, empty of humor, with no heart. “You think? Twilight, you’re the smartest pony I know. But sometimes you ain’t too bright.”

“Hey!” Even harried as I was, that riled me up. It wasn’t like Applejack to lob even such a light insult at any of her friends. Part of me wanted to be outraged; the rest couldn’t figure out what she meant by it.

Applejack didn’t give me time to figure it out. “Anyway, I’m going back to the farm. Later, ‘gator.”

She stepped out from behind the stall, and that’s when I noticed them. I must’ve seen them earlier – how could I not – but my brain skipped over them, ignored them as so impossible that they didn’t just deserve but demanded not to be seen. But now, standing, stretching, smiling at me, waving as she prepared to leave, I had to notice – to believe. The illusion was broken. The ponies around us saw it as well and began to chatter.

Applejack spread her wings and took off. She lumbered into the air in the manner of a pony still learning to fly and vanished over the rooftops toward the west.

* * *

If I closed my eyes, and if I stood in the center of the cavernously large shower stall in the airy bathroom attached to my private quarters in the castle, and if I turned the water down as cold as it could go, until my whole body shook convulsively and my teeth rattled and my hooves clicked on the crystal tiles, I could almost forget where I was. I might be somewhere else, standing in a December rain. The water washed away my cares; my overheated nerves froze in their channels. My thoughts slowed until nothing remained in the span of my awareness but the cold and the water and the dancing afterimages locked in battle behind my closed eyes.

In time the water shut off. I heard hooves on the tile, and then felt the scratchy warmth of a towel flung over my quaking shoulders. Another followed, covering my head and soaked mane. I opened my eyes and was still nearly blinded by the slivers of light peeking in beneath the smothering cloth.

I inhaled deeply through my nose. Linens and sweat and candle wicks. “Starlight,” I croaked.

“Come on, you’re freezing.” Her hoof snagged my foreleg and dragged me out of the stall. I stood there like a foal while she rubbed the towels into my coat, mane and tail, until they were all as dry as could be reasonably expected. I winced and covered my face with my wings when she finally pulled the towel away.

“Too bright,” I said.

“Sorry.” There was a shuffle, and another towel returned. Warm and dry, this time. I clumsily wrapped it around my face and let myself be led over to the bed. I settled onto it and sank into the soft comforter.

Starlight climbed up beside me. She hugged me close, and the warmth of her body slowly began to seep into mine. When she spoke again, her voice carried a hint of anger.

“Are you trying to get sick? I don’t know if alicorns can freeze to death, but what if I hadn’t found you in there?”

“I’d be fine,” I said. I was so tired. The events of the day, all the crises and panic and running around and the stabbing lights in my eyes, they all conspired to drag me under. “It’s all falling apart, Starlight.”

She huffed. Her hot breath stirred the hair of my mane, tossing it all askew. “It’s not that bad yet. Trixie is fine. I’m fine. You… are you fine? What’s wrong with your eyes?”

“They’re fine.” I tried to figure out how to say what needed to come next, and the sheer ridiculousness of it set me giggling. “Do you think Applejack is fine too, Starlight? She’s a pegasus now.”

“A… she’s a pegasus?”

I rolled over in her grasp. The towel still covered my face, but I imagined I could see her features anyway. Puzzled, unsure, worried. The fact that I was responsible for some of that worry twisted my guts. “Sorry. About all this, I mean. I’m sorry. Thank you for getting me out of the shower. And yes, she’s a pegasus. Like, with wings.”

“Oh.” There was a long pause. “What did she dream of?”

“Being free, she said. Being free.”

“Ah.” Another pause. “That’s not so bad, is it?”

“It’s…” It’s not bad. It was a terrible and troubling and incorrect thought, but there it was. A unicorn losing her horn? Terrible. An earth pony getting wings? That was something amazing. That was straight out of a fairy tale. But how could I put that in words without insulting an entire tribe? “It’s wrong. She’s an earth pony. She wasn’t meant to have wings.”

Yet another pause. I could feel Starlight’s eyes fix on my wings.

“That’s different,” I said.

“Right.” I heard her swallow. “Did you find Fluttershy?”

“No. Her cottage looks like she’s been gone for days. She’s probably in the woods looking for her new animal friend.”

“Do you think she’s okay?”

“Yeah.” Fluttershy was tougher than she let on. She might be scared of ponies, but the dangers of the forest had nothing on her. She’d come back when she wanted, and not before. “Discord won’t let anything happen to her. She’s the one pony I’m not worried about right now.”

“Nopony…” Starlight trailed off. It took her a moment to find the words to continue. “I spent the day in town. Nopony’s hurt, but… Some things are happening.”

I tried to brace myself, as best as one could while lying on a soft bed in the warm embrace of their best friend. “Happening how?”

“Just… changes.” Starlight shifted, pulling away a bit. The sudden cool air between us chilled me. “Mrs. Cake is pregnant.”

“Oh. Uh… good for her?”

“No, I mean, she’s several months pregnant. She looks like she’s about to give birth. She and Carrot are ecstatic.”

“Okay.” She hadn’t been pregnant when I bought pastries from Sugarcube Corner the other day. I spent a moment considering all the implications there, then spent another several minutes trying to forget them. “What else?”

“Mayor Mare quit. She bought her entire staff lunch, then got on a train to Canterlot. I don’t think she’s coming back.”

I nodded. “And you?”

Silence. After a few moments, she sighed. “Nothing yet. Still the same old Starlight Glimmer.”

“That’s not so bad.”

“Isn’t it?” She snorted. “The old me was terrible. I stole everything from ponies, their very selves. Shouldn’t I want to change?”

“You already have, though.” I sat up as best I could while still wrapped in her legs. The towel shifted, and a bit too much light seeped in, blinding me. I pulled it tighter around my face. “You’ve changed enough already. You’re fine just the way you are. Everypony… everypony was fine before Discord did this.”

“Nopony’s hurt. Even Trixie is happy with what happened.”

“She doesn’t understand yet, then. Soon she’ll get it, and she’ll want her horn back. We need to make that happen, Starlight. We need to find Discord and stop this.”

“Yeah.” Starlight sighed, and she pulled me back down. “You need some rest first, though. I’m worried about you, Twilight.”

“I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

“All the same, try to get some sleep.” She pulled away from me, and replaced her warm embrace with that of the blankets. They were cozy enough, and I felt the tides of sleep washing over me. The last thing I remembered was the scent of linens and sweat and candle wicks.

"Still the same old Starlight Glimmer."