— Spike —

"So, wait," Spike said, holding his claw up to stop Slag. "You mean Carnelia has the Ring of Ashmund?" he said. "Not Torch or anyone who's actually... dangerous or anything?"

The little black dragon shifted in the hospital bed, scratching at the wad of bandages around her stubby little tail that had now been bitten twice by dragons of the same lineage. "I mean, things were still going on when this big yellow dragon that was apparently one of your pony demigoddesses pulled me out of there, but last I saw she had it, yeah."

"That's... good?" Spike said rather uncertainly, then decided, "Yeah. Yeah, that's good. I mean, it's definitely better than someone like Torch getting ahold of it, obviously, but also..."

"Also better than Ember having it," Kindle said, not afraid to say what they were all thinking. "For now, anyway."

"'Better' is a stretch," Slag argued. "Given she can't control it and what it did to her—might still be doing to her."

Spike didn't want to argue, but... "I get what you're saying, but you might be underestimating the damage that Ember could do if she really went off the rails and had that ring, and that's what worries me. I really thought you and Carnelia had a chance of talking her down. You were closer to her."

Slag waffled visibly as she tried to think of what to say about that. "I mean, kinda, but only because we all grew up in the dragonlands. Anyway, we never really had a chance; the only thing that happened after you left is she had fewer dragons to point her claws at. Once she decided we were against her, that was it, and everything went downhill from there."

"I'm not going to say I didn't want to take a swipe at her," Kindle said, "But where does that leave all of us? Ember doesn't have the ring, great. Like I said, I can get behind that—but Carnelia can't use the thing and can't get it off, so we're stuck practically as babies until we can do something about that, and let me tell you, I just got done with this garbage and I'm not looking forward to having to go through the molt again or crawling around on the ground until it happens."

Slag snorted at that. "You think that's bad? I was still getting used to being smaller since the first time Ember changed all of us. I mean, yeah, it had its benefits, but it wasn't easy, and now this?" She gestured at herself and her practically infant body. "I'm already sick of being carried everywhere."

"Mmh." Drift, as the only dragon in the room who had retained her Ember-given form, had a different point of view. "Am I the only one who's worried that the ring that Ember's been wearing has some sort of connection to Tartarus, then? Coming at it from the pony-raised side of things, that sounds like a bad thing."

Spike and Kindle naturally had similar preconceptions, and they all looked to see if Slag had another opinion.

"No, you're right," Slag said. "I mean, things are vague, but dragons do talk and Tartarus wasn't popular. It's ancient history, though."

"The ring can't be too bad, right?" Kindle said, looking for someone to agree with her. "Since they apparently used it just fine for however many years the dragon empires lasted, and it seems to me that given there's dragons involved, it was probably a pretty long time."

"I guess," Spike agreed. Kindle had a point, he thought, but there was a lot of wiggle room to it. "I kinda want to talk to Ember to see if she noticed anything like that, though. She never mentioned it, but she wouldn't have."

Kindle crossed her stubby little orange arms and gave him a dubious look. "Oh yeah? How well do you think that'll go over now*? 'Hey, Ems—I know you're still pissed off and paranoid about this book you think we stole from you... and this super important ring we did steal from you... but we just wanted to ask you a few questions about that second one. For reasons. You up for some Q&A?'"

Spike considered that for a moment. "Eh, it couldn't hurt, right? It can't make things worse, anyway. She doesn't have the ring anymore."

The rest of the dragons all shared a round of looks at that. "Spike," Kindle said, speaking directly. "Even small dragons have teeth and claws—a fact of which Slag has been very recently reminded of. If you're going to walk up to her bloodied-face and start asking questions like that... I want to watch."

Spike reconsidered. He really did. The thing was, in all the time that he'd been living with Ember, he thought that he'd gotten a pretty good handle on her moods. That was why he'd left so suddenly; experience had told him that nothing he could say or do at that point would have helped, so he'd removed himself from the situation.

"...I'm sure it'll be fine," he reassured them. "The Celestias went to check on her, and she'll probably be glad to get a break from them."

No one present looked entirely convinced, and out of the blue, Slag threw the hospital bedsheet off of her and started wiggling herself to the side of the bed.

"Wha—?" Spike said, rushing over to her bedside. "Slag, what are you doing?"

"I'm coming with you," Slag declared. "Because I've gotta see this."

— Star Glister —

The half-finished tower that was being used as a temporary government building was not to Star Glister's liking, but then, neither had he particularly liked the palace that it was meant to stand in for, which had been destroyed in Twilight Sparkle's tantrum. Nevertheless, he had business with the tower's mistress, so he schooled himself into an air of neutrality and strode into the door.

Actually getting a meeting with the so-called 'demigoddess' was, of course, trivial. Star Glister's standing in the astronomer's guild had taken a hit since his confrontation with Twilight Sparkle and the guild itself was on shaky ground, but he was still a pony of means and one whose name held weight.

He wasn't waiting long before a young pink dragoness led him into an office stuffed with an odd mixture of maps, papers and filing cabinets alongside ponyquins, bolts of fabric and a drafting table that was squeezed into the corner, and in the center of it all was a heavy, oak desk with a stuffed doll sitting in a velvet-backed chair.

The stuffed doll, or the dress it was wearing, at least, was the pony that he was here to see.

If she could still be called a pony.

He had his opinions on that, which he knew better than to mention in polite company.

"Star Glister," the dress that walked as a mare greeted him, though he could detect some suspicion in her voice. "To what do I owe the pleasure? I hope you realize that, while I may be generously providing my tower to the princess' use and may have my hooves in a number of business projects, I do not actually have any sort of position here. If by seeing me you are hoping to avoid having to meet with the princess, I'm afraid that there isn't much that I can do for you and the astronomers' guild."

"Nothing of the sort," Star Glister assured her. "My business is with you... Or, actually, my business is with your sister, and I was hoping that you could aid me by directing me as to where I might find her."

The Rarity doll narrowed its eyes, the previous suspicion growing to near hostility. "Is that so?" she asked. "And why, may I ask, is an older stallion such as yourself asking after a young filly? Your cold relationship with Twilight is fairly well known, so while I've never had any problem with you personally, I'm really going to need a bit more of an explanation, or that may change."

Star Glister shook his head. "Why, it's as I told you—business. Your sister and her friends have recently come into quite the unique set of cutie marks, have they not? After recent events, I find myself no longer quite as attached to mine as I once was, you understand. I merely wish to arrange for their services—to make a donation, if you will."

The Rarity doll frowned, leaning forward on her desk to look him in the eye, though for a moment she glanced up at his horn. Was there a point in that, or was it all theatre? "You are aware that it's not just your cutie mark, but all of your magic?"

Star Glister rolled his eyes at her concern. "Quite aware," he dryly responded. "I have, after all, experienced it already."

The Rarity doll sat back into her chair and let out a little huff of air, giving off the impression of being slightly bemused. "Well, that is true, I suppose," she admitted. "If anyone would know what it entails, it would be you. Still, this seems... rather extreme. Is whatever disagreement you have with Twilight really worth all this?"

"I don't think that's any of your business," he told her.

The Rarity doll made a show of sighing and shaking her head. "Well, I suppose that they'll still be there if you do regret it. I didn't think they would have much in the way of repeat customers, but there's a first for everything."

Star Glister did his best to mask his eagerness when he prompted her, "So...?"

The Rarity doll gave him another look, then, and said, "It isn't as if they are hard to find—or I should hope not, at least. If they are, then I may have to talk to them about it considering they're trying to run a business. Specifically, though, I believe they were planning to set up a wooden stand on Feather Street near the old weather office. Honestly, those fillies... You'd think they could do better than that. If they'd just talk to Twilight, she'd probably set them up with something more respectable—a real office, at least—but they get these ideas in their heads and won't listen to anypony else." The Rarity doll shrugged. "What can you do?"

Star Glister grinned, finally having the information he came for. "Yes, well... children never understand what they have until they've lost it."

— Ember —

This, Ember decided much too late for it to do her any good, was worse. Getting out of talking about her personal relationships with yet another princess was not worth being marehandled by magic and presented like a pet that did a trick.

"Fluttershy did mention Spike's cohort doing magic," Luna reminded Twilight.

"Yes," Twilight acknowledged, then confidently declared, "But we got interrupted and I forgot. Do you think it's more like unicorn magic or earth pony magic? Is it—"

"Twilight," Luna interrupted, then gestured up at Ember. "She is right there. Why don't you ask her?"

Twilight, blinked, looked up at Ember, then flipped her around in her magic and set her on the ground, grinning.

Ember gulped, and then the questions started. What was the first thing she learned? Sending. Does it make her tired? Not any more. How does it feel? Not that different from breathing regular fire. They went on and on, and Ember tried to answer, but only really had one or two words to say about anything, which was about as many words as she could get out before the princess moved on to the next subject.

"So, I assume it was Spike that taught you the sending, but what about all these other things?" Twilight asked, scanning over a list that she'd magicked up. "Rubies and emeralds and gold? Oh, Rarity is going to have something to say about that. How did you come up with—"

"It was you, alright?" Ember shouted, interrupting the princess, who stopped and looked back at Ember, blinking.

"What?" she said, not quite getting the message.

Ember looked away, slightly ashamed. "I learned it from you."

Twilight blinked again, then the bit dropped for her and she looked back down at her list, going over the items in it again. "Huh, yeah, that tracks," she said, then thought of something and brightened up. "Oh, that makes sense, actually! The way that unicorn magic works comes down to, well, me, so of course dragons wouldn't cast spells like that. It's really just raw magic."

It took Ember a moment more of Twilight's happy rambling before she realized that the expected explosion hadn't happened. "Wait, aren't you angry?" she asked.

Twilight cocked her head to the side in question. "Angry? Why would I be angry? This is great! I mean, we're going to have to deal with the whole gold thing, but I've been thinking about that and I already have some ideas."

"Because I stole it from you?" Ember said, not understanding why this wasn't a big deal. Admittedly, Spike had said it wouldn't be and that Twilight would do... exactly what she was doing... but powerful people didn't just brush it off when you learned their secrets... right? "I even wasted your time asking you to do things over and over so I could figure them out."

That didn't seem to have occurred to Twilight. "...Huh, now that you mention it, why is it only things that you've seen me do?"

"What?" Now Ember was the one that was lost. "That's how it works. I feel how you do it and I do the same thing. How else would it work?"

"Well, it's not like I learned it from anypony," Twilight informed her. "I just think of something and..." she clopped her hoof on the ground where she'd previously made her parchment, and another one appeared. "It just works."

"What do you mean, 'it just works'?" Ember said, growing annoyed. "That's not an answer! How can you just make something without even knowing anything about it?"

"Well, of course I know about it," Twilight self-assuredly declared. "It's parchment. Well, it's what we ponies call parchment, anyway—it's mostly plant fibers, really."

Ember growled in frustration. "Not that—how it feels," she insisted. "How do you know the feeling you need to make it."

Twilight stared at her and shrugged. "It just works," she repeated. "So long as there's a logic to it, I don't really have a problem with that. Puns work, unfortunately, but you saw proof of that this morning."

Ember was about ready to strangle the princess when the other one stepped in. "Perhaps you should come back to this another time," Luna said, playing the mediator. "I believe you had something else on your mind before you got distracted anyway?"

Twilight looked blankly at her co-princess. "What—oh! Right! Talking to her about Spike and the others," she said, then looked awkwardly over to Ember, who was unamused.

"Look," Ember said, ever truculent and not at all interested in revisiting that subject. "Can we just not? I've already been told several times today that I'm a lousy friend or whatever, so skip it."

The princess looked lost at Ember's rejection. "Um, but... you see... we have so much in common. When I first came to Ponyville I didn't want to make friends and..."

Luna set her hoof on Twilight's shoulder and shook her head.

"...Ugh, fine," she sourly conceded, and said, "Do better, Ember. You're supposed to be showing the rest of them how it's done."

"...I know," Ember begrudgingly said, and turned to go back to her room.

The princess didn't respond, but there was a complex sense of magic that Ember hadn't felt before and she spun around, expecting an attack. What actually hit her was several rolls of bandages, and a bottle of something or other that smelled like chemicals.

"You should really clean out those cuts on your face," she said. "You don't want them to scar."

— Twilight —

Twilight was still a little despondent when they got back to Luna's temporary throne room in Rarity's unfinished Tower. "Do you think I should have tried harder to connect to Ember?" she asked. "I probably shouldn't have gotten testy with her, at least."

Luna walked up the dais that Twilight had previously improved and turned to sit on her throne. "When it comes down to it, in matters like these, you can usually only help someone who wants the help."

"That sounds more like something Celestia would have said," Twilight pointed out.

Luna nodded in confirmation. "Yes, thank you, it was always a favorite of hers. If you want something more bespoke, then I'll just reassure you that getting testy with a dragon seems to be the minimum that it takes to get a message across."

"Is it, though?" Twilight asked. "The Celestias seemed to have gotten Ember to sit down and talk before we got there. Do you think we just got in the way?"

Luna shook her head. "No; we may not have helped the young empress with her personal matters, but we did get our answers and help settle things. Proving that the stolen property is almost certainly a starbook is useful, and providing her with a new one should at least keep her from stewing in doubt and paranoia overmuch."

"I suppose." Twilight sighed and made her way up to sit next to Luna in her own dark and jagged mock-throne. "But I still think I could have done more. She really does remind me of myself when I first came to Ponyville, you know. You never saw it, but I was tetchy, rude and standoffish, certain that the fate of Equestria did not rely on my making friends."

"I might like to hear about that some time," Luna said, "And it's possible that Ember will too... eventually. I think it was clear that that was not the time, however. Perhaps she will be more receptive once she has had the chance to calm down and accept that she is no longer missing her guidebook to making an empire."

"Maybe..." Twilight allowed, then jolted as she thought of something.

"Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing, it's just... I guess that would make it a guiding star, then, wouldn't it?"

Apparently, once she had opened herself to the puns, they were not so easily ignored.

— Star Glister —

Star Glister had to admit that Rarity had been right; the fillies really could do better. In fact, watching them from down the street, it was hard to imagine them doing worse.

What the three infamous fillies previously known as the Cutie-Mark Crusaders had cobbled together was no different from a lemonade stand—a fact most obviously communicated through the fact that it had been a lemonade stand at one point, and only a coat of paint had turned the large wooden lemon up top into an oddly oblong shooting star.

A coat of paint that was still tacky if the plethora of smears and smudges on the fillies was any sign.

Actually, it was tacky regardless of whether the paint had dried or not, but that wasn't relevant.

Either way, they were doing the appropriate amount of business for such a shoddy stand—which was none—so there was nothing stopping Star Glister from striding forwards and introducing himself and his intentions.

"My name is Star Glister and I would like to arrange your services," he announced.

Scootaloo gave her friends a look. "Uhh, that's cool, mister, but we aren't really doing much business here, so we really can't hire anyone just to schedule things."

Apple Bloom reached over and clopped her friend on the back of the head. "No, you goof. Even ah know that means he wants to hire us."

Scootaloo scowled at Apple Bloom as she rubbed the back of her head. "Well, then he should have just said that," she grumbled.

Sweetie Bell cleared her throat to get his attention. "If you have a young colt or a filly that needs our help, you'll need to bring them with you," she informed him, then gave her friends a side-eyed look. "Though since my associates have already admitted that we aren't doing much here, you might be able to convince us to make a house call."

"Actually," Star Glister said. "The one who needs your services is me."

That got all of the fillies' attention, and Apple Bloom gave him a considering look. "You seem like you've got a strong enough star," she said. "As much as ah'd hate to turn away our first customer, ah think we're going to have to say no. Just about the last thing we want is to upset the apple cart and get the princess mad at us for passing out extra stars to ponies that don't need them."

"I don't want another star," Star Glister snapped, though he quickly regained his composure.

Scootaloo crossed her forelegs in front of herself, trying to figure him out. "Well, then, what do you want?" she asked, blatantly suspicious of him.

"I don't want another star," he repeated, more calmly this time. "What I want is to be rid of one."

"Whaaaaaaaaaaat?!" the fillies all shouted, horrified. Scootaloo fell off of her stool and Sweetie Bell was clutching her chest as if she had heart problems.

Star Glister rolled his eyes.

"Wait," Sweetie Bell said, instantly recovering from her non-existent cardiac issues. She leaned closer, eyeing him up, then pointed and shouted, "You're that stallion!"

"You don't mean... him?" Scootaloo said, leaning in conspiratorially. This earned her another whap from Apple Bloom.

"Quit it," Apple Bloom said, then addressed Sweetie Bell and asked, "He's who, now?"

"Hey!" Scootaloo said, whapping Apple Bloom back. "I was being serious! I actually know who Sweetie Bell is talking about!"

"Really?" Apple Bloom dryly asked, unconvinced.

"Yes!" Scootaloo insisted. "I can know things too!"

Apple Bloom narrowed her eyes at her friend. "Oh yeah?" she said. "Prove it. Who is he?"

"He's... He's..." Scootaloo stammered, trying to get her words together while Apple Bloom just looked smug. "He's that guy that Princess Twilight did her demonstration on!"

"Huh?" Apple Bloom said, baffled, then looked at Star Glister with new eyes. "Princess Twilight did a report on him?"

Sweetie Bell facehoofed. "No, you dolt! He's the astronomer guy who got Twilight so mad at him that she took his star!"

Apple Bloom's eyebrows rose in surprise, but only for a second before they immediately dropped and transformed into a squint. "Now ah know you're pulling my leg," she said. Gesturing at Star Glister, she said, "He's clearly still got his."

"Maybe he stole it?" Scootaloo said, not sure.

Apple Bloom shook her head. "You would know if you two hadn't made the whole thing up—and you really ain't got the room to throw stones, miss star-stealing-cutie-mark."

"Oh for—" Scootaloo gave Apple Bloom a nastier look than she'd given Star Glister up till then. "First off, I got the story from Rainbow Dash, so maybe she glossed over a thing or two—and second, that's low, Apple Bloom. We're the Cutie-Mark Crusaders; we don't make fun of people's cutie marks."

Star Glister cleared his throat to get the fillies' attention. As amusing as this was, he really wanted to get on with it. "I got better," he stated. "And I would like to have that corrected."

That didn't seem to quite mollify Apple Bloom, so Sweetie Bell spoke up. "Look, Bloom, Twilight obviously gave him his star back after she was done showing all the ponies at court why you shouldn't cross her. You know she's not actually going to just take somepony's star out of the blue like that, right? That'd be monstrous."

"Ah guess..." Apple Bloom said, though it then brought her attention back to Star Glister. "Not having a star would mean not having a cutie mark—but if that's so then why is he asking for it? You'd think he'd know better after the first time."

All three of the fillies looked to him for an answer, and he let out a huff of air before stating, "Miss Sparkle and I have... personal differences that we've agreed to disagree on, and if it's all the same, I'd really rather not have the power dynamics of a star looming over me. If I have to choose between not having magic and a cutie mark or having those things and owing her for them, then I would rather be free of them."

What he didn't say, of course, was that he very much intended to replace his star, and the very act of missing it was nearly all he'd need to do so.

The three fillies still looked uncertain, so he belatedly added, "...And allow the star to go to someone who needs it, of course."

Apple Bloom gave Star Glister a long, considering look before she finally nodded and said, "Alright. We'll do it."

Scootaloo's head whipped around to look at her friend. "You sure, Apple Bloom?"

"Yeah," Apple Bloom said, showing no doubt now that she'd made her decision. "Ah mean, it's just taking his star, right? What's the worst that could happen?"

"He could die," Scootaloo instantly deadpanned back.

Apple Bloom balked at that. "...Well, err..."

Sweetie Bell pulled a parchment, inkwell and quill out from underneath the counter of the stand. "I'll write up a waiver."

Apple Bloom's eyes widened in surprise. "You were prepared for this?!"

Sweetie Bell looked from her work on the up at Apple Bloom from where she was crouched over the waiver. "What?" she said, confused, then looked back down at the parchment. "Oh, this? No."

Apple Bloom let out a breath. "Oh, okay."

"This is from when we were running the lemonade stand," Sweetie Bell explained. "I don't know why, but Rarity suggested it after I explained our plan to put scoops of caffeine powder in the mix."

Apple Bloom thought about that, then shook her head. "Huh, weird."

Sweetie Bell took her time with the waiver and Star Glister took just as long reading it over, but he had to admit he was impressed with the thoroughness... at least for a filly. In the end, though, what else was he going to do but sign? It wasn't as if he was going to go to Twilight Sparkle and have that insufferable filly of a goddess remove his star. If nothing else, she would no doubt ask a lot more questions.

Star Glister had barely lifted the quill from the parchment when, "Yoink!" Sweetie Bell cheerfully announced as she pulled his star from his chest.

It was just as much a kick to the gut as the first time.

Taking a few breaths, he recovered himself and nodded appreciatively at the fillies. Whoever else their family and friends were, they had done as he had asked, and that was worth a little acknowledgement. He was about to leave, when Scootaloo stopped him with a hoof on his shoulder from on top of the counter.

"That'll be fifteen bits."

Author's Note

Merry Christmas everyone!