Sweet Music

by fic Write Off

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 91916

Round 5 of the Ponychan Write-off

Writefriends from all over Ponychan gathered in a war of words on the weekend of August 4th. But who is the greatest a/fic/ionado? The decision is yours. Vote, rate, and choose your favourites!

The stories listed above VOTING are the finalists.

Authors are anonymous, so you won't know who wrote what until the voting stage is over.

Unlike previous events, the final decision is entirely up to the public. Yes, that means you. So take a gander, enjoy the show, mull it over, then head down to the survey to cast your vote.

This round also introduces a new addition the event: /art/. Instead of worded prompts, the prompts were drawn by our drawfriends in /art/ (See: Sweet Music - Art<->Fic Relations for which story was written to what prompt).

Published 2012-08-13 11:14:01 UTC
Last updated 2012-08-20 09:11:30 UTC

A Deck with No Hearts

I like cards.

“Pick a card, any card, but just one card.”

I like magic.

“Now take a look at it—memorise it—but don’t show me your card.”

Not that unicorn magic, of course.

“Show it to the audience. Make sure everyone gets a good look.”

I’m talking real magic, magic that mystifies.

“All right, now put the card back in the deck. That’s it, nice and—right, that’ll do.”

Magic that makes you wonder.

“Now, you’ve selected a card and put it back in the deck.”

Magic that entertains.

“I’m going to shuffle the deck now, and you tell me when to stop.”

“Stop.”

“Are you sure?”

I love that question. I love that illusion of giving them control.

“Yes.”

“All right then. You told me your first name was Sunshine, correct?”

“Yes.”

Fascinating how much we can accomplish with a single deck of cards.

“Sunshine. Eight letters. Now, I never asked for your surname. What would that be?”

“Helix.”

A universal game. Thirteen hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades.

“Helix. Right. Five letters. Now I’m going to deal the cards out—remembering that you told me when to stop shuffling, and I didn’t know your surname while I was shuffling—one card per letter.”

Go anywhere in Equestria, and the decks will be the same.

“S, U, N, S, H, I, N, E. Sunshine. That’s eight cards. None of them are your card. We’ve still got five left. H, E, L, I, aaand—is this your card?”

A three of clubs. Always a three of clubs.

“No.”

I’m surprised, baffled, flabbergasted.

“Really? Are you sure? Can you show it to the audience please. Yes. Is that not her card?”

The crowd erupts. It isn’t her card. They think I’m bested. I throw it behind myself.

“Well of course it isn’t your card, because Sunshine Helix isn’t your full name, is it?”

“N-no. It isn’t.”

Right away, they see I’m still in control.

“Could you please tell the audience your full name.”

“Sunshine Rosemary Helix.”

Eight letters. So perfect.

“R, O, S, E, M, A, R, aaand—the lovely queen of hearts. Is that your card, Miss Helix?”

The audience erupts again, only now with applause. Sunshine holds her hoof to her mouth in astonishment.

“Yes.”

I shake her hoof like a proper stallion.

“Thank you very much for your assistance. Could everyone please give this lovely mare a round of applause?”

It’s a stomping ovation. They love it. Everyone loves it. The biggest stage in the theatre, and everyone loves my act.

Everyone except him.

He lingers over the lonely stage of an amateur harpist with longing eyes. No one else is watching the harpist play—everyone else is watching me—but everyone else doesn’t matter. Bloody musicians. I become lost in the scene, even amongst the roaring crowd before me. I only notice I’m still on stage once the roar dies down. The silence gets at me.

I regain my composure and close my act by thanking the audience for coming and being such a wonderful audience. Some of them stick around for the next act, but most shuffle away and head back to their own lives.

I pack my things and head backstage. The theatre owner congratulates me on such a well-received performance, and he offers me a booking for the rest of the week. I ask him who the harpist on stage four is, and he says he doesn’t know, some street musician who felt like upgrading from busking, a nobody. He says he barely had to pay him ten bits for the entire night.

I accept the booking and leave the backstage. I head to the box stand and watch the still performing. I can only faintly hear the music. It’s not even good. He’s just arpeggiating the same chord over and over. I could do that! A daft mule could.

But why then does Blue sit there gazing so longingly at it?

It drives me mad to watch.

The performance goes on for an eternity, as if the harpist has a magic of his own.

Then it finally ends. The harpist stands by his harp and takes a bow, then leaves the stage. Blue tries to lurch up and ask for his name, but the performer is gone before he can reach up to speak.

It’s my time to enter. I come down from the box stand and make to approach him.

What do I say? I’m trained in all ways of psychology and suggestion and misdirection; I’m always in control of an audience. But what do I say to this stallion I love? I haven’t a clue.

I finally muster the courage to walk up to him.

“Blue,” I say.

He looks up at me with this dopey smile. It’s so painfully handsome.

“Hey, how are you?”

I look at him sombrely.

“What’s the matter?”

“Why do you never look at me like that when I perform?”

He’s blushes a little.

“You know how I feel, Blue.”

“I-I, well, I mean, your performances are wonderful, really, but it’s... it’s—”

“It’s what?”

“It’s not romantic.”

Not romantic! Wonderful, amazing, exciting, dazzling, mystifying—but not... romantic?

He rubs the back of his neck, as if my face had given away my thoughts.

“It’s just... it’s not... I can’t watch your performance and be taken away. Card tricks can’t do that. Music can.”

“My, my, my, Blue. There is a card trick for everything! You want romantic? I’ll give you romantic. I have a booking for tomorrow night. Come, and I’ll show you the romance of magic.”

I tell him that I need to stay behind and clean a few things up before leaving. Only once he’s left do I show any sign of panic.

The rest of the night is a complete cacophony. My brain yells forty tricks I might perform, and forty ways to do each. I have wit, style, sleight, skill—magic. I need... I need... Aha! Of course.

Rule number one of magic: Never let a unicorn on stage.

Rule number two of magic: Never let the audience see your initial preparation.

Rule number three of magic: Never perform the same trick twice.

Rule number four of magic: Never tell the audience your secret.

They’re very simple rules. Only with the first could I ever disagree. Unicorns are never impressed. They’re far too haughty for their own good. They think their ‘magic’ is more real than mine. Hah! What they do isn’t magic. It doesn’t defy reality. We all know their tricks. Why they even bother to call it magic is beyond me.

That’s why it’s all the more brilliant to fool them.

“I’m going to need a unicorn from the audience.”

The idea causes a bit of a stir in the audience. I ignore the murmurs and scan the audience for a good candidate. I see Blue in the audience; he’s hopeful, but seemingly disconnected. Then I spot a unicorn who looks to have plenty of aptitude.

“Ah, yes, you’ll do. What would your name be?”

“Twilight Sparkle.”

“Could everyone please welcome Twilight Sparkle as she joins me on stage.”

She comes on stage with a slight blush. The audience’s doubt is drowned out by the applause. Always keep control of the audience. That should be the fifth rule.

“Twilight, how would say your magical abilities fare, then? Are you quite the stellar unicorn?”

She kicks her hoof and tries to hide part of her face with one ear. A modest unicorn? My, that’d be a first.

“Well, I once tamed a rampaging Ursa Minor back to sleep, and I once managed to give another unicorn pegasus wings, and I once made an entire swarm of parasprites start eating buildings instead of food. Oh, and, I guess I’m the personal student of Princess Celestia.”

Forget I said anything about modesty.

“That certainly is an impressive resume. I assume you’re capable of teleportation, then?”

“Yes.”

“Wonderful. This won’t be new you to you, then, but it’ll be fun for everyone else. I want to assure everypony present that I have never met this mare before in my life. We’ve never been so much as acquaintances. What you’re about to see is completely unscripted. Is that correct, Twilight?”

“Yes.”

“All right. We’re going to start off with something basic. Pick a card, any card, but just one card. Take a look at it—memorise it—but don’t show me your card.”

I turn away to face the back of the stage.

“Show it to the audience. Make sure everyone gets a good look.”

I indicate to a quill on my table.

“Could you please sign your name over the card.”

I give her some time before turning back to face her and the audience.

“Here’s the case. Could please take the deck and place it and your card back in the case. Wonderful.”

I put the case to the side, then pull out another.

“Here’s a new brand new deck. Can you please confirm for the audience that it’s sealed?”

She analyses it thoroughly, then confirms.

“I’m going to place this new, sealed deck on the table over here. It’s just going to sit there. Twilight, can you please close on your eyes and just focus on the deck. Focus only on the deck. There’s no one else here but you, and the deck. I might tap your horn a few times during this, but don’t panic; just focus. Think about the cards, the aces, the twos, the threes, fours, fives, sixes, sevens, eights, nines, tens, jacks, queens, kings. Think about the hearts, the diamonds, the spades, the clubs. Now think about your card. Think very carefully on it. Imagine that card in your hooves as you held it earlier.”

I tap her horn twice, then clop my hooves together.

“Now open your eyes. Unwrap the sealed deck for me please. Very good. Now flip through the deck face down. All of the cards except yours should be face down. When you come across your card please show it to the audience.”

She flips through them, soon coming across a face-up nine of spades. She holds a hoof to her mouth and I swipe it from the deck.

“Fillies and gentlecolts, the nine of spades, with Twilight Sparkle’s lovely signature on the face.”

Another roaring applause, hooves stomping like wild. I take a bow, and look through the audience. Blue isn’t there. He’s listening by the harpist again. My act collapses. The audience disappears from me as I stare. It’s a wicked blast of de ja vu. Then I’m back on stage again, and Twilight has made her way off the stage.

“No, no, Twilight. Stay here, please. We’re only getting started. That was just the warm up.”

Shocked whispers spread across the audience. Twilight makes her way back on stage, and I reach inside my bag to retrieve a few props. I pass Twilight another fifty-two card deck.

“Please confirm for the audience that this is another ordinary deck of cards.”

She takes her time, but eventually confirms. I take the deck and shuffle it, then fan the deck out for her.

“Pick a card, any card, but just one card—only, don’t take it from the deck. All you have to do is think about the card you wish to pick. Visualise the card in your mind. Got it? Good.”

I refold the deck and hold it out to forelegs.

“Now take the deck. Hold it between your forelegs. Keep the grip nice and tight. Close your eyes and again and think intently on your chosen card. I’m going to place a tin-foil bag beneath you, so you’ll just have to lift up your legs a little. All right. Now keep focusing on the deck. Picture the card in your mind.”

Everything is in position. I look over to Blue and the harpist again. The scene is locked in its permanence, with the same shared, sickening gaze between them. Then I look back to Twilight. She’s focused on the deck.

“Picture music. Visualise the tones in your head. Give each sound a colour, an image—the high notes thin and warm, the low notes strong and cool. Paint them together. Are you still with us Twilight?”

She nods dazedly.

“Keep that image in your mind. When I count to three, I want you to rear, holding the deck up high in the air. Rear so high and far that you would fall on your back should I not intervene. I want you to do this as soon as I say ‘Three.’ Understood?”

She nods again. I tap her horn.

“One.”

Twilight grips the deck a little tighter. I tap her horn again.

“Two.”

The audience is silent, breath bated. I make a third tap.

“Three!”

Twilight throws herself back on her hind legs, and her forelegs lift up with the deck held high in the air. I wait until she’s about to fall before I finally act. My movements are swift, almost unnoticeable to the naked eye. I lift the tin-foil bag over her head in an instant, then throw it away. It flutters away and distracts the audience for the critical seconds. I reach down and place my hooves below to catch the falling pony, but the falling pony is no longer Twilight.

I catch Blue right as he is about to hit the floor. In his forelegs is the ace of hearts, and in my forelegs, him.

“Though these tricks may not woo you, you are the ace of my heart, Blue.”

He looks up at me in a mixture of awe and bewilderment.

The crowd begins an uproar, but the act is yet to finish.

I let Blue up and then indicate to the harpist’s stage. The audience turns in unison. They all stare and see the same scene I had always seen before. Only now, instead of Blue, it was Twilight who gazed into the harpist. Applause rumbles through the theatre.

Then the scene breaks. Twilight shakes her head in a daze, and the harpist stops his playing. The harpist shoots a glare right at me. The glare stares into my soul, and I feel a sharp pain in chest. The eyes are like a basilisk’s; I’m petrified.

He rises from his seat and marches towards me. The audience splinters to give him a path through. All the while he never releases that stinging glare. Finally he gets up on stage and brings his nose up against mine. He keeps that stare for just a short while, then at last speaks:

“You think you are clever stallion. You think you understand ponies. You think you can manipulate them. You think you can make another love you. But you can only trick the mind. You cannot trick the heart.”

He holds a hoof out to Blue.

“Come back to our stage, dear.”

I stand with mouth agape as Blue leaves with him. The audience is silent. Then the scene replays again, with their loving eyes locked.

I’m left alone on my stage, and the audience bursts into laughter.

The WestFillya Waltz

"Daybreak is my time of day," decided Applejack, "I know on account it's the same color as my backside."

The pony chuckled to herself as she cantered up the trail from the back forty to the farmhouse. "Suppose that means Pinkie Pie gets sunsets...Shucks, Twilight already has her name all over hers." The morning sun lit her path in hues of orange while she mused what a yellow sky entailed for poor Fluttershy. A hot day, like today was expected to be, would mean the sapling apple trees would need water; better to haul all that weight up the hills in the relative cool of the morning. A third of the day's work done, and it was just now time for breakfast.

"Definitely time for breakfast," she thought as she picked up the scent of alfalfa from a nearby field. Alfalfa sounded good. Maybe Granny would be making pancakes...

Applejack trotted briskly up the hill to the house and through the front door. "Go fetch yer sister, Applejack! Breakfast is on the table!" called Granny Smith from the kitchen, who--despite being deaf as a post--somehow always knew when someone was walking in the front door. (Or trying to sneak out, AJ had learned in her younger days...)

"Must be nice to sleep in 'til sunrise," AJ smiled with a mockingly haughty toss of her golden hair. She bounded up the stairs, wheeled around the corner and burst through the door to Apple Bloom's room. "Up and at'em, Squirt! Granny's got breakfast a-waitin'!"

Applejack ducked in anticipation of a pillow thrown her direction, one that never came. The pillow was instead neatly perched at the head of a carefully made bed (more carefully made than her own, AJ hated to admit), but Apple Bloom was nowhere to be found.

"Apple Bloom? Where'd you run off to?" Applejack thought for a moment, and then started down the hallway toward the bathroom. "Hey, sis! Didja fall in?"

As she passed the open door to her own bedroom, Applejack found her sister balancing precariously on a chair. Apple Bloom's eyes flashed wide open as if she'd been bitten by a rattlesnake, realizing she'd been caught in the act of reaching and straining to push an object back up on a shelf. An object that was up on a shelf out of the reach of little fillies for good reason.

"Just what in the sugar-dusted sassafrass do you think you're doin' in here," snapped the older pony. "And who said you could touch that?"

"Ah just wanted to see it!" replied her sister. "It's no big deal...whoah!" Apple Bloom fell backwards off the chair, the slamming of her backside against the oaken floorboards muffled slightly by her bushy red tail but still audible as a WHUMP. "Ow, look what you made me do!"

Applejack was not paying attention to her sister, as she could only watch the object up on the shelf. It was a small cylindrical box with a domed lid, made of white porcelain with a molded flower on the front delicately trimmed in blue paint. Both the box and the lid sported molded beading details, painted to look like brass or gold. On the bottom next to a faded stamp that read "Guanzhong Import Company, Chinatown, Manehattan", there was real brass in the form of a key, a winding mechanism for a music box. The music box was unmistakably older than anything else in the room. It was also unmistakably wobbling as two of the three short cabriole legs that held it up were slipping over the edge of the shelf. Applejack started diving forward in anticipation of disaster.

Both ponies gasped as it fell, watching in horror as it bounced off Apple Bloom's hooves and then Applejack's before tumbling to the floor.

"You had better hope you didn't break it!" Applejack hissed at her sister as she carefully picked her keepsake up off of the floor and started turning it around in her hooves and peering at it as if she were examining a gem for flaws.

Apple Bloom stammered nervously at the floor, "Ah didn't mean to do nuthin' to it! You just won't ever let me see it!"

Applejack stared intently at a small white chip in the lid for a few seconds before closing her eyes and breathing deeply, shuddering a bit in righteous fury. "That's because I knew you would break it! You had no right to be in here, and you had no right to mess with my things!"

The tendons in Applejack's powerful back legs quivered a bit as she willed herself back to a relative state of calm. She opened her eyes to glare at her sister, somewhat shocked to see Apple Bloom seemingly just as angry and glaring right back. She wondered what she could have said to provoke that look.

"Get. Out." growled Applejack.

"Fine!" shouted her sister, tears starting to well in her eyes as she galloped out into the hallway and stomped down the stairs.

Applejack placed the item back on its shelf, far from the edge and away from the hooves of hooligan little fillies. She frowned at the the chip; maybe she could still glue it together. The orange pony was kneeling on the floor searching for a porcelain fragment when she heard a voice from the doorway. "I'm pert near certain that chink in the lid was already there when you got it, young'un..."

Applejack wheeled her head around to see an elderly green pony with brittle white hair and brittler bones watching her with concern. That must have been quite a commotion she and Apple Bloom made for Granny Smith to hear it. Even more so for her to make the rather arduous journey up the stairs with her hip in the shape it was in. Applejack stared at the floor. "You're probably right," she managed to say. Then she felt her ears pin back despite herself, and spouted, "But she still had no right to touch that music box without permission. You know who gave me that!"

Granny Smith sighed, with a knowing weariness. "She knows, too. Why do you think she's so curious about it? You even make a point of keeping it out of her reach..."

Applejack felt the hair in her mane stand up from ears to withers. "Well, it sure as the consarned cinnamon swirl doesn't help that *you* won't ever talk about 'em either! Ya smooth mouthed..."

Applejack's jaw snapped shut and she bolted upright as if she'd been slapped, shocked at the recognition of the horrible thing she had just said.

Granny Smith's expression mercifully never changed, and she merely stepped aside quietly as Applejack walked slowly out of the room and down the stairs. Applejack groaned slightly as she trotted out the door. There was no way she could sit at that breakfast table right now, even for all the alfalfa pancakes in the world.

The sun was almost at the top of the sky as Applejack hauled the last bucket of spoiled apples to the trough for the hogs. This was Apple Bloom's job, but of course she was nowhere to be found. Applejack muttered something about lazy irresponsible fillies as she dumped the bucket over the side of the fence, the sound of her muttering drowned out by the growling of her stomach. Six hours of chores and no breakfast was making even the hog slop look decent.

With a clang, a fresh bucket of oats fell to the ground in front of her. It was only then that Applejack had taken notice of her brother, who she noted could walk up beside someone awful quietly for someone so dadburned *big*.

"Granny thought you might not want to come to the house for lunch, so she sent this out." Big Macintosh said flatly. This was probably the longest sentence he'd spoken this week.

Applejack gratefully wolfed down a bite before hesitantly asking her brother, "Is...is she mad?"

"Nope."

She breathed a sigh of relief, taking another bite and mumbling through stuffed cheeks, "Thank goodneth. I hope thee knowth I didn't mean it."

"Yeeup."

Applejacks polished off the last of the oats--and polished the bottom of the bucket--before continuing, "But she has to understand why I was mad. Can you believe she was *defending* what Apple Bloom did?"

This time there was no reply from the large red pony. His shoulder shuddered a little under his horse collar to chase off a landing fly. He flicked one ear off to the side to deprive it of its next landing place. But otherwise he was motionless, watching her calmly through not-quite half-lidded eyes, waiting for her to continue.

"I mean, you know who gave that to me. If it was broken, I'd have nothing left of her. That's why I keep it up there where that clumsy filly can't ruin it!"

Still no reply.

"C'mon, you gotta at least admit I was in the right!"

The same calm, almost half-lidded expression continued to watch her from beneath a shaggy but short-cropped mane. A familiar expression for more reasons than one.

"Criminy, I'm tryin' to talk to you and you stand there for all the world like you have a dagblasted snaffle bit in your mouth! Sometimes you're so much like him it's ridiculous; you know that, right?"

Suddenly, a grin, if not a full-on smile, crept across the large red pony's face. With a glint of pride in his eye, he replied:

"Yeeup."

Applejack couldn't help but smile back, but betrayed a little sadness in her eyes when she said, "Y'know, it's been so long, and he spoke so little, I don't even know if I really remember his voice, or just confuse it with yours..."

Her brother nodded, the gleam in his eye fading a little and reflecting the same sadness. "Long time," he said. "So how much do you figger Apple Bloom can remember?"

Apple Bloom lay on the deck of the treehouse that served as Cutie Mark Crusaders headquarters, thankful that the sun had finally peaked and was sinking to the other side of the tree, affording her a little shade as she stared out at the fields and orchards.

Even though she was in the shade now, she could still feel the heat radiating from the boards of the deck where they had baked all morning. She had spent that morning stewing in the sweltering heat of the treehouse, and now she was just exhausted from the work of being angry. She was glad for the intermittent breeze, closing her eyes for a moment to savor it along with the sounds of the cicaidas. The chirps built up just a little faster, then a little faster, then finally trailed off...into the tinkling bell tones of a waltz?

Apple Bloom's eyes flew open to see her sister standing at the top of the landing looking a little sheepish as she nodded toward the music box playing there at her hooves.

The domed lid of the cylindrical box was open, revealing a tiny pegasus pony figurine with a blue flower cutie mark--like the one on the outside--whirling to the music. The pegaus was dressed like a Buffalo princess, feather in her mane and all--the kind of old-fashioned, culturally insensitive depiction that would have made Applejack's friend Twilight roll her eyes. But it was considered perfectly fine at the time it was made, and for all its historical inaccuracy it was still beautiful as it pirouetted with a mechanical grace to the strains of a spring-powered symphony.

Apple Bloom glared out at the field for a moment, still feeling this morning's heat from the boards beneath her. "Told you ah didn't break it."

Applejack's expression didn't change. "Y'know, Daddy gave this to Mama back before they were married. It was when he first met her in Manehattan."

Apple Bloom spun around, her ears swiveled to aim straight at her sister. "Really?"

"Granny said he had some crazy notion to try and sell some seeds to some company in the city and raise money to fix things up back here. Instead, he met some posh city pony at a dance, and sold every seed he had at discount to free up enough cash to buy her a music box that played the first song they danced to."

"...And they got married in Manehattan?"

"No, no no. He knew he was just an orchard pony from Ponyville, and didn't have anything to offer a mare of her standing. Daddy was a lot of things but he wasn't a smooth talker. Or much of a talker at all, I reckon... So he just left the music box at her door and came back home. The way Granny tells it, she just showed up at the Ponyville train station a week later, asking folks where he lived. And she wasn't carrying nothing but a few dresses and that music box. Big to-do with her family, and a lot of bad blood betwixt for awhile, but Granny don't never want to talk about that part..."

The "buffalo princess" pegasus ballerina slowly came to a stop along with the music. Applejack nudged the music box toward her sister, and the filly smiled as she wound up the brass key on the bottom--maybe a little too tightly, as Applejack did her best to supress a flinch--to play it again.

Applejack continued, "I try to think about that: dropping everything you ever knew and travelling halfway acrost Equestria just to start a whole 'nother way of life. I actually tried going the other direction for a bit; stayed with Aunt and Uncle Orange in Manehattan. Thought I could be more like her if I lived where she started out. But I couldn't stand to be away from the farm. Couldn't change that much about who I thought I was; I guess I'm just not adventurous enough. Not like you and your little Crusader friends, flittin' about from one new thing to another without so much as blinkin' an eye. You're more like her than I am in that way, I suppose..."

Apple Bloom beamed at the thought of that. The sisters sat in silence for a while and were lost in the the music again, watching the feather sway in the pegasus' mane sway as she twirled around and around. Finally, Apple Bloom asked, "What else was Mama like?"

Applejack stared off into the distance at the orchard, but Apple Bloom could tell she wasn't seeing the apple trees. Applejack smiled, "She was a lady."

"You mean like Rarity?"

Applejack snorted a bit at the comparison, "Yeah, I suppose a little like Rarity. She liked to wear a dress now and then, anyway. But Mama wasn't afraid to get things done. It's like...it's like the dirt on her hooves made her look *more* dignified-like, somehow... Anypony can be a lady in the city. Mama was a lady even out here, and that takes some doin'."

The cicaidas started up again in the heat, their monotonous chirps mixing with three-quarter time. The music from Manehattan became even more sublime as it blended with the untamed noise of the fields.

Applejack put one hoof around Apple Bloom as they both sat on the decking and watched the horizon as they leaned against the railpost and idly kicked the legs they dangled over the edge. "So I just try to be a lady out here like Mama. But it's awful hard. Especially when it's so hard to remember, and Granny doesn't like to talk about her or Daddy or even want the pictures out where folks can see them. But at least Granny lets me keep this music box, so I can still hear the same tune I remember Mama used to hum when she was bakin' pies, or hangin' the warsh, or...or tuckin' you in your crib..."

The sky was the color of Pinkie Pie's backside when two young ladies made the slow walk back to the farmhouse. At the supper table that night, if Granny Smith minded that the afternoon's chores hadn't been done that day, she didn't say anything. She seemed to know that the day's time was better spent watching the field sway in the occasional breeze, with the cry of locusts broken by the tinkling of The WestFillya Waltz.

Memories of Chaos

A wayward spell. A burst of magic. I could almost taste the chaos as the unicorn sent itself flying back, the spell flying every direction possible. I grinned and reached out my paw in hopes that this would be the one.

My paw closed on nothing and the grin vanished. Chuckling, I sat down and shook my head. “So close, yet so far. Sometimes, I think I can almost touch the chaos you work so hard to stifle. Sometimes I think you made the barrier between me and it as thin as possible to taunt me.”

I looked around my prison, an endless void of a misty darkness. If I swished my tail, the almost cloud-like substance at my hoof would swirl around wildly, rising to my chest before disappearing. Each time this happened, another swath of the stuff appeared. In all honesty, it reminded me of the cotton candy clouds I used to make for fun. Perhaps it was another taunt by the princesses, but I shook my head, banishing the thought. She may have been cruel, but she was had cared enough for me to avoid dirty blows.

I looked up again, staring straight ahead. The games I had played a million times over with the fog no longer sufficient enough to appease my desire for chaotic fun. For a few minutes, an eerie silence prevailed. Finally, I could stand it no longer.

“Did you know, if I didn’t talk, shout, scream out loud, I would have gone crazy ages ago?” I yelled. “Huh? Did you know that, Luna? Is this what you wanted? It’s certainly not what I wanted!”

I fell to my knees and slammed my talon into whatever surface I stood on. I couldn’t see it, nor did I care at the moment. All that mattered is that it was solid and I could vent some of my frustration on it.

With each strike, another memory of my time spent on Equestria came to the forefront of my mind as they did every day, if you could call them days. That was another thing about this realm. For all I knew, I could have been here for a minute, a day, a hundred thousand years. For all I knew the seal set by the princesses could have been complete and I would be trapped here forever.

“The Princesses... Princess Luna.” I gritted my teeth and hit the ground yet again. “I knew the relationship was one-sided, but I would have never guessed. Even I didn’t foresee your betrayal.”

Her eyes, or rather the memory of her eyes seemed to float in front of me. They were filled with anger, determination, and a touch of confusion. I couldn’t help and sigh with a small, but sad smile. “You still have the cutest eyes of any pony I’ve seen.”

The rest of the memory formed slowly, but surely. Her eyes were followed by a face, a head, a neck, her body. Finally, she stood in front of me in her entirety. She trotted around me, her lips moving, but no sound coming out. Though, I had watched this scene so often that I no longer needed her to speak. I knew the words by heart and I would never forget her voice.

“We do not know what to think of thine proposal,” my mind supplied. “We are an alicorn. The ruling body of Equestria. And thou art a—”

“Abomination to some,” I whispered, finishing the line spoken who knows how long ago. “But that’s what I like about you. You see past that. You’re willing to see me more than just a patchwork quilt of creatures.”

Luna stopped and rested a hoof on my paw. My resolve nearly broke as it did every time I lived this memory. Reaching out, I put my talon on her leg, but as usual, it fell through, meeting the soft fur on my own paw.

“That may be true, but thou know as well as we do that our task as bearer of the Elements of Harmony and thine position as god of chaos puts us on opposite sides.” She patted my paw and continued her walk around me.

I could have said anything there. I could have let it drop. But I didn’t. I tried to push the issue. I used a bad example. Maybe if I hadn’t used that example, she would have remained more neutral and refused to help her sister lock me away when the time came.

I waved my talon at her and sighed, the example was bad, but I felt compelled to finish the memory to the latter. Thought, she would speak the same lines no matter what words came out of my mouth. “Couldn’t we be like Poneo and Muliet?” I said. “Look at that story, it’s a prime example. A pony and a mule getting together in true love.”

Snorting, Luna stopped and glared at me. “May we remind you that both Poneo and Muliet ended up dead.” She brought her face close to mine and growled, “Doest thou wish we kill ourselves for the sake of thine fantasy?”

Fully immersed in the memory now, I waved my talon and paw frantically, backing up. “Of course not! I would never imply such a thing!”

If the memory had been real life, I would have backed into the magical shield containing me. I had been foolish that night. Thinking I was in the company of absolute friends, I had snuck into Luna’s bedchambers in hopes that she would hear out my proposal.

The change in scenery had been drastic. Outside, one could see my work, chaos at its finest. Buildings floating upside down, candy clouds, a checkered lawn at the base of the mountain. Birds half flew half drifted through the air. The sky was a weird part blue, part green. All in all, it showed the struggle between chaos and harmony quite well, with me winning of course.

However, inside, everything was neat, clean, and harmonic. Not a single wrinkle had marred the bed against the center of the back wall. The desk in the corner looked like it had been organized recently. Well, as recently as a million years ago, for all I know. Papers lay neatly stacked on it with the quills sitting in their holders on the corner.

Along the wall opposite the window ledge I would sit on, there were two bookshelves, their books all nice and orderly, alphabetically arranged. On the wall, maps and posters were tacked up one after another. Oh, how I would have loved to introduce chaos to the room. But Luna, who stood in the center, had been smart that night and trapped me in a temporary bubble in which I couldn’t use my magic.

For a few moments, we just stood there. She glared at me and I stared back, a forlorn look on my face. Though, at the time, I had grinned, confident the containment bubble would break or Luna and her sister would fail to banish me. Finally, I looked over her shoulder and from the misty darkness, Princess Celestia emerged. Her usual flowing mane hanging limp at her side due to being just woken up. I could see the hazy grogginess in her eyes and she stifled a yawn just before she walked into hearing range.

“Luna! I came as soon as the guards came to me!” She stopped in the doorway, her eyes filled with concern, searching for anything that may be wrong with her sister. “They told me that you trapped...” Her gaze fell on me and her eyes narrowed. “Discord. Why are you here?”

I couldn’t help but smirk, even now that I was trapped in stone. “Oh, you know. Trying to get with your beautiful sister. Though—”

“And you know very well that she’s not interested!” Princess Celestia cried. “You’ve only hurt her! Your attempts at destroying harmony, everything she’s worked so hard to build! It... it—” She stomped her hoof, leaving deep indents in royal red carpet that covered part of the evenly spaced stone floor.

Before Celestia could finish, though, Luna interrupted her. “We can speak for ourselves, sister.” She turned to me and said, “However, she is right. We are displeased with thine attempts to disrupt our harmony. We are duty bound to the land and thou make the job more stressful than needs be.”

My face fell, I had to swallow back tears. The painful part was coming. The rejection. It was never easier to bear than the first time it happened. The way she had looked at me, there had been confusion there, but beside her sister, that look had been overshadowed by an anger that wasn’t quite anger. It’s hard to explain, even to myself, but that’s the impression I got. It was almost an anger tinged with regret that neither of us could be swayed.

For what seemed like an eternity, though probably only a minute, we stood there, examining each other. With each passing second, I could sense the bubble around me dissipating. Soon, I could make my escape and try again later. However, I wasn’t sure I would have run if the bubble had disappeared in time anyways.

Perhaps it was my obsession with Luna that was my downfall. I really did want to be with her, but I was too wrapped up in my fantasies to see that it wasn’t the time for an attempted relationship. Or maybe I just underestimated their magical skill. Whatever the case, what happened next sealed my fate.

I had never bothered to memorize the words to what happened next. I only knew that they had hurt me more than a knife or blade ever could. What they said had something to the effect of Celestia asking Luna to help her use the Elements of Harmony to lock me away and Luna agreeing.

They stood together, charging the spell. Even now, I still hit my paw against the shield. Though in this stone prison, I found myself on my knees yet again, smashing my fist against the floor. The magic reached its peak strength just as my magical prison melted away. I reached my talon as far as it would go through the hole slowly widening in the shield, my mind pushing the two princesses closer than it had happened in reality. A vain attempt to touch my beloved one last time before taking my forced leave from Equestria.

My talon barely touched the crown Princess Luna always wore just as I shut it down, the entire memory. I had been sealed away once, and I wouldn’t be sealed away again. Even if it were only a memory.

Just before it faded completely, something strange happened. Something that never happened happened. A small object of medium weight dragged my talons down, its cool surface alien on my skin. Blinking in surprise, I pulled my arm back and examined the item.

It was a small circlet meant to be worn around a horn. White points of light seemed to emanate from the black, shiny surface. Realization hit me like a bolt of lightning. By some unknown force, I now held the crown of Princess Luna.

Focusing ever so slightly, I could feel her presence. Enough magic connected my realm to Equestria that I could also feel her surroundings. Upon experimentation, I found I couldn’t widen the hole, but I could worm my magic through. A drop of chaos here, a splash of wayward magic there. Nothing noticeable or traceable to me. While there was harmony, there did have to be some chaos to balance it out and I would use that to my advantage.

A familiar anger, one brought on by a sense of betrayal clouded my judgement. In a single instance, I decided on a plan. My ultimate plan. Corruption, her own banishment. Even the playing fields a bit and maybe someday I could get together with her. That is, if I could escape my own punishment. I knew better than to expect her to be banished to the same realm as me.

The crown fell from my grasp, hitting the ground with a soft, song-like ping.

“The sweet, sweet music of chaos.” A grin spread across my face as I rubbed my talon and paw together.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and extended my magic. I must have prodded too hard because she jumped in surprise. I’m sure that with my slip up in using too much power, she recognized my stylistic magic. I could almost see her looking around the room frantically, worried that I had escaped and was messing with her.

For the first time since ever, I grew fearful. The last thing I wanted her to do was freak out and get her sister to plug the hole I had inadvertently created. However, after a few moments, she settled down, able to recognize my magic, but unable to trace it.

I chuckled to myself and shuddered in excitement. I now had a sense of time. It wasn’t much, and I couldn’t tell how many years had passed since my imprisonment. But, I could now feel the seconds wash over me. They quickly turned to minutes and hours, but I didn’t care. I had all the time I could possibly want.

Over the next few days, oh it felt so good to recognize the days, I worked on controlling my magic. Time lost its meaning and I focused on nothing more than training, unaware of my surroundings. I would nudge a pony over a few steps so that their spells would misfire. A levitation spell broken so something smashed against the ground. A illumination spell snuffed so some small unicorn foal would start crying, afraid that a monster hid in the darkness of their room.

Soon, I extended my magic beyond unicorns. I would force a pegasus to fall off a cloud and giggle at their anger as they blamed faulty clouds. Or I could move a stone to trip an earth pony and burst out laughing as they kicked it angrily.

However, that was the extension of my powers. I never could use more than fit through the hole and I couldn’t make the connection wider. No matter how much I tried, the only pony I could use actual spells on was Luna. I chalked it up to the connection being through her, but after two or three weeks, I didn’t care.

As I learned just how much magic I could push through before Luna noticed, I focused more and more on just her. I would cause the things around her to crash to the ground. I would interrupt a spell of hers. I would amplify her voice slightly to make her seem more mean than she really was.

Finally, I worked up the nerve to enact my plan. I was confident. I could never get her to free me. Her sister would see through that plan too quickly, but I could get Luna banished. Maybe after a thousand years, she would see things my way. We could finally be together. So, with a little push I clouded her mind for a mere three seconds.

In those three seconds, she saw a world much different from what actually existed. I grinned wickedly as she suddenly saw an Equestria where ponies only saw the moon and by extension, her, as a convenience. A time to rest before returning to their worship of the sun.

Over the next few months, I would make a game of it. During a meeting, I would impair her judgement and suddenly, a noble’s request would seem to be directed at Princess Celestia rather than both princesses. I might strike during a meal and suddenly, a passing comment by her sister would remind Luna that the food she ate had been grown during the day, not the night. I did this once, maybe twice a day.

Slowly, I didn’t even need to prod her. She would see these flaws in Equestrian society on her own. She grew paranoid. I only had to watch as her sanity collapsed on its own. Thus, Nightmare Moon came to be, replacing the once kind, noble princess.

“Soon, my darling. Soon you will see things my way, and then perhaps we can be together for an eternity.” I smiled and laughed deeply. Everything was going according to plan.

The Good You Might Do

A cheerful warbling gradually wormed its way into Twilight Sparkle’s consciousness, piercing the utter stillness of her mind. As her thoughts gradually became coherent, she focused on the sound, the fluid trills dancing around her ears. A small smile curled the corners of her mouth as one eye finally popped open.

She found herself lying on her back in the precise center of a rather unremarkable iron bed, the sheet tucked tightly under her. A white sheet. White bed. White cinder-block walls, linoleum floor. A small ledge that barely qualified as a desk, with a chair nearby. An even smaller shelf over the bed. All white. Sheer curtains billowed in the breeze swirling through the open window, the birdsong outside continuing its lilt.

Twilight pulled the edge of the sheet from under her and swung out of bed, rising to see what was outside, but she turned back toward the bed as she heard a crackle of static behind her. First fixing on a small radio on the shelf above her bed, her eyes then traversed to the only source of color in the room: a music box which sat beside it. The box hung open, an elegant unicorn rearing up as if to dance across the purple-enameled surface beneath the lid. After staring at the figure for a moment, she tried to wind the key on the back, but it wouldn’t budge. Returning her attention to the soft hissing emanating from the radio, Twilight reached out with a hoof and nudged the dial.

“Twilight!”

Her head whipping around, she walked over to the window. On a well-manicured lawn outside stood Pinkie Pie, amid a cluster of showy pink flowers.

“Hi, Twi! Hee hee! Can I come in?” Pinkie asked, her tail swishing through the blooms.

Struck speechless for a moment, Twilight finally gave a small nod and blinked, only to see an empty, featureless yard surrounded by a black cast-iron fence.

“Here, silly!”

Twilight turned away from the window and looked to where Pinkie sat in the plushly upholstered desk chair, its pink fabric dotted with a peppermint candy motif. She walked away from the frilly pink curtains and plopped back onto the fluffy pink comforter on her bed, next to the pink wall covered with pink balloon wallpaper. Finally fading away, the radio’s static turned into a jaunty polka tune.

“How are you doing today, Twilight? I’m glad you don’t mind having a visitor!” Pinkie leaned forward in her chair and closed her eyes, an immense grin stretched across her face.

“I... I don’t know, Pinkie. Where is this?” Creasing her brow, Twilight scanned the room once more.

“It’s just your room. You don’t recognize it?” Pinkie asked, scratching a hoof at her cocked head. Twilight shook her head and wrapped the corner of the comforter around herself. “That’s okie dokie lokie. I just wanted to check up on one of my bestest friends. You’re having a good day?”

Huddling a bit further against the wall, Twilight’s ears drooped as she gave an unconvincing nod.
“Where is everypony? Where’s Spike?”

“Oh, you worrywart!” Pinkie said, waving a dismissive hoof as she giggled. “Everypony’s fine. “Don’t you fret your little purple head over us. I’m the one visiting you. I want to know how you’re doing!”

“I... don’t know. It’s hard to think, but... now that you’re here, it seems to be a little better.” She readjusted her position and flashed a faint smile, her movements slow and lethargic.

“Hee hee! I’ve been accused of worse.” Pinkie bounced her head along with the music. “Of course it’s better with friends, Twilight! That’s why we need to have you back.”

Confusion played across Twilight’s face. “Back?”

Pinkie rose from her chair and walked to the bed’s side, placing a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. The joy draining from her smile, she blinked a few times and took a deep breath. “Twilight, I want you to know that you’ve always made me laugh. You’ve been a fun friend.”

“Made you laugh?” Twilight snorted as her shoulders relaxed. “What did I do that was so awkward this time?”

“No, silly. I laugh because I like being friends with you. Do you remember that book of knock-knock jokes you found in the library last month?” Her head bobbed in a silent chuckle. “You were laughing so hard! I couldn’t help myself! It was so contagious, and the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Laughter’s not always about funny. Sometimes it’s about happiness.”

Unable to help but giggle a bit herself, Twilight closed her eyes and reached out to hug Pinkie’s neck.

“We miss you, Twilight. The laughter hasn’t been the same without you. Never forget to laugh.”

The voice and the music echoed in Twilight’s ears as she opened her eyes and saw her hoof extended into the empty space in front of her. It fell to the white sheet below as her smile faded. Climbing out of bed once again, she walked over to the metal door and looked out the small wire-reinforced window to the hallway beyond. She craned her neck to see as far as she could in either direction. Seeing nopony, she ran to the window to find it blocked with iron bars. Her breathing quickened and her heart raced as she returned to the door and tried the knob, but to her surprise, it opened easily.

Stepping into the corridor, Twilight ran a hoof over the white-and-red-checkered wallpaper and looked at the faded photographs hanging there as the worn floorboards creaked under her. She followed the hall until it opened onto a rustic porch with a pair of rocking chairs and a number of wooden posts supporting a tin roof. A short distance away, acres of golden wheat stalks rippled in the breeze, the low morning sun enhancing their color.

“Mornin’”

Twilight slowly turned her head to the farther chair, where Applejack was rocking and sipping a glass of lemonade.

“Sleep well, sugarcube?” Applejack waved a hoof toward the empty seat as her ears perked up.

Nodding, Twilight slid into the chair and looked past Applejack to the next building, where a pair of farm workers leaned against the bunkhouse’s wall. One picked away at a slide guitar while the other played an out-of-tune fiddle. Further past them, a small steel windmill tower squeaked away as the blades spun, seemingly in time with the twangy melody.

“I got a glass for you too, Twi. It’s fresh,” Applejack said, nudging a drink across the small table between them. She grinned as Twilight sampled it and finally relaxed back into her chair. They sat in silence for a few moments until Applejack swept a hoof past the fields in front of them. “Y’know, I’d have none o’ this if not for good, honest hard work. But you’d know somethin’ ’bout that, too. You’re not one to shy away from effort.”

“No, I—I guess not.” Twilight took a longer drink, not realizing how thirsty she actually was. “I’ve... always tried to do my best.” Grinning sheepishly, she set her glass back on the table. “But it’s not quite the same as what you do.”

“Shucks, sure it is, sugarcube. Would I lie?” Applejack laughed as she tipped the brim of her hat a little further upward.

Shaking her head, Twilight gazed out at the windblown grain.

“You see, you never use your fancy logic or philosophy to dance around the truth. That what I like about you.” Applejack took a long drink, then jabbed a hoof toward Twilight. “No avoidin’ it, no hidin’ from it, no disguisin’ it. You work as hard as any Apple, and all of Ponyville’s the better for it.”

“Well... I messed up when I tried using magic during Winter Wrap-Up.” Hanging her head, Twilight let out a sigh.

“But you owned up to it. Dontcha see? And in the end, you weren’t afraid to tell it like it is, and worked your flank off to make it all happen. First winter ever wrapped up on time. That was you,” added Applejack, giving Twilight a sharp nod. “All ’cause you weren’t afraid o’ the truth.”

Twilight blushed a bit at the compliment, reaching for her glass again. “I’m just lucky it all turned out well.”

Humming along with the musicians for a moment, she chuckled. “I don’t know why it’s so fun to sing about losin’ everythin’. But that’s country music for you.” She leaned toward Twilight and patted her shoulder. “We can’t lose you, though. You mean too much to us, sugarcube. You keep your mind fixed on the truth. And truth is—we miss you. Be honest with yourself first. Know when you’re hurtin’ yourself.” She shook her head as the music waned, the sun’s glare forcing Twilight to shield her eyes with a foreleg. “You shouldn’t be here. Come home to us.”

“Miss Sparkle?”

Spinning about, Twilight saw a stallion in a white smock. She looked forward once more, her mind slowing to a crawl, but no farmland greeted her—just a small concrete patio and a narrow strip of grass.

“Miss Sparkle, are you ready for some breakfast?” the orderly asked as he pointed toward the doorway.

Twilight cast a wistful gaze at the empty chair beside her before nodding and following the stallion to a common room, filled with long tables. She sat at a secluded one in the corner and stared off at the wall, barely noticing when a unicorn mare in a doctor’s coat took the chair opposite her.

“Good morning, Twilight. I’m Doctor Canter. Do you remember me? Are you having a good day so far?” She craned her neck to try imposing herself within Twilight’s field of view.

Twilight shrugged. “I saw Pinkie Pie and Applejack. They came to visit.”

“Oh, good,” the doctor said. “And how did it go?”

Directing her stare down at the tabletop, Twilight frowned, letting her ears fold back. “Good. I think. I’m just... confused.”

“That’s fine. We can work with ‘confused.’ Are you at least feeling well?” Getting a halfhearted nod in response, she continued, “Well, I’ll check in with you this afternoon.”

Her ears pricking toward a faint noise, Twilight blinked and turned her head to see an old phonograph in the far corner, its turntable spinning away. She sat in a darkened room filled with art deco furnishings, chrome accents, vinyl-covered banquettes, and dim frosted-glass lamps. Smells of fresh bread and herbs wafted through the air, and she felt the light coolness from a ceiling fan turning lazily overhead. From outside, the neon lights lining the streets flashed an interplay of colors on the glossy granite tabletop.

“I just love this bistro,” Rarity said while fixing an out-of-place strand of mane. “I’ve taken the liberty of ordering for us. I know the chef.” She beamed at Twilight as the waiter delivered their food: a pair of cucumber and endive sandwiches, a small crock of Dijon mustard, and two dishes of green tea sorbet.

“Mm, this looks delicious, Rarity!” Twilight levitated the pepper shaker and mustard over, adding a bit of each to her sandwich as she licked her lips. She perked her ears up and smiled. “How do you find all these places?”

Rarity tossed her mane and flicked a hoof at Twilight. “Oh, tools of the trade. You know, I do so prefer one-on-one time like this, dear. It really gives me a chance to get to know my friends,” she added, holding a hoof to her chest. “I’m afraid I don’t make time for it like I should.”

“But Rarity—we do lots of things together.” Twilight knit her brow as she cocked her head.

“Oh, pish posh. A bit of fun here, a bit there. Twilight, I would do anything for my friends. I love making my little creations for you,” Rarity said, waving a hoof at the exquisite amethyst-studded gown that Twilight wore, “but where is the line? I pour so much of myself into each one of them, but at the expense of what? Not having the time to give my friends the real article? Giving them a labor of love but not the love itself, because it’s stuck toiling away at the boutique?” Exhaling sharply, she shook her head.

Rarity’s ears perked momentarily to the song playing on the record. “Oh my, Les Mareserables! One of my favorite shows.” Humming along with the melody, she joined in at the beginning of the chorus. “On my own...” Stopping just as quickly as she’d begun, she sighed. “But that’s just it isn’t it? I’m not on my own. ‘Give until it hurts,’ as they say, and it does hurt at times. That’s not what your friends want, though.” She averted her eyes downward, avoiding Twilight’s gaze.

“Rarity, we do appreciate what you do for us. You’re so creative, and we’re proud to show it off.” Twilight took Rarity’s hooves in her own, leaning forward onto the cool stone of the table, and waited for her to make eye contact. “But you don’t have to prove it over and over again.”

“That’s exactly the dilemma, Twilight. Generosity taken to such an extreme that it deprives you of your friend is no generosity. ‘Get your own house in order.’ Oh, listen to me,” she said with a wry chuckle. “I sound like one of those familiar quotation books.” Though her eyes were brimming with tears, Rarity gave a polite little laugh. “My point is that you have to be generous to yourself sometimes. Merely indulging yourself in your friends’ company is often the best gift you can give them as well.”

Rising from her seat, Rarity walked around to Twilight’s side of the table and sat next to her, wrapping a foreleg around her neck. “Don’t take yourself away, Twilight. More than what you do for us, we need you. You don’t belong in this place,” she said, sweeping a hoof about the room.

Leaning toward her, Twilight hugged Rarity back and buried her muzzle in the curls of her friend’s mane. She put her hooves on Rarity’s shoulders and backed away to look into her eyes again, but nopony was there. Just silence and a small plate of vegetables on a rather industrial table.

She looked back across the table, where Canter was staring intently at her. “Are you back with us?” Twilight’s mouth hung open for a moment while she surveyed the room as if seeing it for the first time. “Who came to visit you?”

“R-Rarity.” Her breath catching in her throat, Twilight shoved herself back from the table, sending her chair clattering to the floor. “She—she told me I didn’t belong here. I have to go! I need to go!” She searched quickly for an exit as her heart raced.

“Twilight,” the doctor said in her gentlest tone. “You can leave whenever you want. You’re not confined here. In fact, you checked yourself in of your own accord.”

“No! I-I can’t stay here!” Twilight bolted for the door, Canter making no move to stop her. She galloped down what appeared to be the widest hallway until she reached a pair of large glass doors, shoving them open and rushing outside.

She skidded to a stop in deep sand next to a pair of swaying palm trees. A steady sea breeze was blowing in off the ocean, carrying its salty scent and countering the sun’s relentless warmth. Behind her stood a small, straw-roofed bar shack at one end of a stage, where a jazz trio played. Above it all, a few wispy clouds skidded across the sky.

“Oh, hey, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash said, looking up from her beach chair. She gave a goofy grin and wrinkled her zinc-dabbed nose. “Glad you could join me! I saved you a seat,” she added, patting the empty one next to her. Nodding after a moment’s hesitation, Twilight plopped down into the chair.

Rainbow took a sip through the straw protruding from the coconut she held and nodded toward another one that lay in the sand between them. “Help yourself, Twi. Never tried one of these before, but it’s pretty awesome.”

Levitating the drink up in front of her, Twilight took a tentative pull and smiled at the unexpectedly cool sensation. She smacked her lips. “Mm. That is good!” Squinting, she directed a quizzical glance at Dash. “Why are you relaxing at this time of day? I figured you’d be practicing stunts.”

“Yeah. I guess so. But sometimes you just have to chill. Go, go, go all the time will just burn you out, you know? You gotta—oh, hang on. I love this part!” She mimed along with the trumpet player’s solo, puckering her lips and holding her hooves up in front of her as a wingtip worked the imaginary valves. After gyrating along with the blazing tempo for a little while, she brushed a bit of sweat off her forehead and picked up her drink again. “Heh. See? You can still get a workout even while you’re relaxing.”

A loud slurping noise denoted the end of her beverage. “Oh well. Where was I?” Dash rubbed a hoof on her chin and rolled her eyes upward. “Oh yeah... Y’know, if I just did all weather all the time, that’d be great for Ponyville, right? Sunny days, rain only in the exact spots it was needed. We could put tiny little clouds over every one of Applejack’s trees and leave the rest of town nice and clear, but it’s not worth it. Things don’t have to be perfect.” She reached over and tousled Twilight’s mane.

“Well, no, but it doesn’t hurt to try,” Twilight said through her frown. “You have to put forth your best effort.”

“Ponies can put up with a bit of rain, a few downed branches, a dry spell. I’d keel over if I had to do it all. I love Ponyville and Cloudsdale, and want to do the best I can for them. And sometimes that means taking care of myself so I can do my part. Sometimes you can be most loyal to everypony else by being loyal to yourself, y’know?” Dash closed her eyes and smiled brightly, giving Twilight’s shoulder a little jostle with her hoof.

“But so many ponies depend on you. How do you handle it?” Twilight asked, her ears pricking as she turned her full attention on her friend.

“Heh. This isn’t about me, Twi. What you do for Ponyville is important, too. But being you is more important. We want that back. You shouldn’t be here, Twilight. Don’t stay.” Dash hopped out of her chair and leaned down to give Twilight a hug. “Be right back,” she said, licking her lips. “I’m gonna get a refill. You want another?”

“No, thank you,” Twilight replied. She took another draw from her drink, scrunching up her face and closing her eyes as Dash gave her a pat on the shoulder. When she opened them again, she was sitting on the curb of a busy Canterlot street, sucking on a hoof. The only music left was a teasing remnant in her head.

“Miss Sparkle?”

Twilight looked over her shoulder to see the same stallion as before.

“You’ve got us worried, Miss Sparkle. Would you please come back inside?” he asked in a soothing tone. She tensed at his sudden appearance, but soon relaxed, as he kept his distance. “Maybe you’d enjoy a hot shower?” Straining to think for a moment, she nodded and trudged back into the building.

She made her way to the washroom, flicked the knobs on, and waited for the water to heat up. Gazing around at the white-tiled room, she looked up at the small patches of sky showing through the pair of windows set high on the wall, the glass covered by metal gratings. In a rare moment of lucidity, a phrase flashed through her mind: “...nor iron bars a cage.” She sighed, her thoughts becoming mired once more.

Water washed over Twilight’s face as she stepped under the spray, the gentle drops smoothing her disheveled mane as they ran down her neck. Rubbing the liquid out of her eyes, she looked up into the soft rain falling among the rich, green forest canopy overhead. She stood at the edge of a rough path and watched the vividly colored birds flitting between the branches, elegant butterflies floating from one orchid to another, and playful monkeys skittering up and down the dangling vines. A damp, earthy smell filled her nostrils as the misty droplets cascading down the foliage cast a rainbow across the thin ribbon of sky showing through the trees.

Fluttershy flapped her way to a landing beside Twilight and unstrapped her saddlebag full of medical instruments. Three parrots landed on a limb just above her, and when Fluttershy nodded to them, they began croaking a reggae beat. Giggling, Fluttershy hunched up her shoulders as she turned to Twilight. “Um... Hello, Twilight. I hope you don’t mind. The music calms the animals down while I’m treating them. If that’s okay...”

“It’s fine, Fluttershy,” Twilight replied. “I find it relaxing, too.”

Hiding her faint smile behind her mane, Fluttershy flew up to the higher branches to examine a hummingbird’s wing. “Looks like that healed up nicely,” she remarked. She then returned to the forest floor, where a monkey sat, patiently waiting its turn. After studying an ugly purple bruise on its arm, she retrieved a splint from her saddlebag and tied it in place. Finally, she approached a sloth hanging from a low vine and cleaned a wound on its leg with a sterile cloth. “Twilight, could you—if you don’t mind, that is—get me a bandage?” asked Fluttershy as she pressed the cloth in place.

“Sure,” Twilight said as she pulled one from the stash of supplies. “Will it be okay?”

“Oh, yes. No problems.” Fluttershy looked it in the eye. “Now, you take it easy on that leg for a few days.” She gave it a pat on top of its head and shooed it away.

“Thank you very much, Twilight. It’s so kind of you to help!” Fluttershy giggled and ducked behind her mane again.

“Not at all, Fluttershy! You’re always so kind to everypony else. The least I can do is give you a little help,” Twilight answered, giving her a one-hoofed hug.

“Oh, but I always worry about that! What if something happened to me? Who would take care of all the adorable critters?” She looked away and knit her brow at the mere possibility. “It takes more than just me, Twilight. If I can’t accept kindness from others, then who am I to give it?” She closed her eyes and smiled, but jerked her gaze toward the rustling branch beside her, where the sloth had already moved a good five hooves.

“Whoa! Slow down, little one! You have to take it easy, or you won’t heal right.” It forced a toothy grin and continued on at a more normal pace.

“Oh... as I was saying, Twilight—Kindness starts with yourself. If you’re worthy of giving it, you’re worthy of getting it, too, and accepting it from your friends makes them feel good. I love it when my friends show me kindness.” She walked to Twilight’s side and wrapped a wing around her. “Speaking of which—you look like you could use some right now. You’ve got a nasty... Well, I don’t know what that is. Is something wrong with your head?”

Twilight shook her head, her thoughts once again turned to molasses. “I—I don’t... know...”

“It’s okay. This won’t hurt a bit.” Fluttershy took out a fresh cloth and pressed it to Twilight’s forehead, covering her eyes. The parrots’ singing died away as Fluttershy’s voice echoed in the dark. “Don’t stay here too long. It’s not right.”

Opening her eyes, Twilight sighed as she turned off the shower. She toweled off and plodded back to her room, closing the door behind her and climbing back into bed. Just as her eyelids drooped shut for good, Twilight barely heard some rock music coming through her radio’s static.

She jerked her eyes back open upon hearing a loud crunching noise. Smooth cavern walls surrounded her, and the floor was warm to the touch. A faint smell of sulfur lingered in the air, and gems lay piled all about. Upon hearing another crunch, she turned around to face Spike, leaning back against the mound of opals he was eating. He held out a clawful of them. “Want some lunch, Twilight?”

“Oh, thank you, Spike, but no. It’s still a little early for that,” she said, waving a hoof.

“Things don’t always have to be perfectly on schedule, you know.” Spike winced at the glare he got in return. “See, that’s what I’m talking about.”

“Spike, what possible trouble could ever come from being organized?” she asked, holding her head up high. “It just makes your life run so much more smoothly.”

“But then you become a slave to it. You can’t handle the unexpected,” he argued. “Look—there’s nothing wrong with paying attention to detail. But you have to know when to bend the rules.” He scratched a foot at the ground and shrank away beneath her scowl before taking a deep breath and pushing on. “Twilight, I look up to you. Sometimes like a teacher, sometimes like a big sister, sometimes like a mother. You’ve always been a great role model. But there are some things I’ve learned not to do from you, like with that whole Miss Smarty Pants incident.”

“Spike, I...” she said, trying to deepen her scowl, but a smile won out. “Point taken, number one assistant.”

“I need you to teach me how to be an adult.” He looked up from the ground to meet her eyes, absentmindedly clasping his claws behind his back. “I need you to teach me how to be responsible. And that includes not driving yourself nuts.” After hesitating briefly, Spike rushed up to Twilight and latched on to a foreleg. “Please come home, Twilight. This isn’t the place for you.” Her expression softening, she lowered her head to nuzzle his cheek. “Get some rest, Twilight. That’s the best thing you can teach me right now: taking good care of yourself.” She felt a sudden rush of drowsiness and sank to the ground, her eyes closing, as the music turned back into static.

Twilight gradually became aware of a soft light through her eyelids. She blinked a few times and looked around her room, noticing that somepony—the orderly, no doubt—had swung her door around to keep out the hallway’s illumination. Rolling an eye upward, she saw the corner of the radio, now silent, peeking over the edge of the shelf. It gradually went out of focus as she yawned, drifting back to sleep.

The sharp sound of metal on metal jerked her awake in the darkness, and she sat bolt upright. Looking toward the window, she saw that somepony had drawn the drapes shut. In the gloom, she could make out rich furnishings of mahogany and velvet, intricately woven rugs, and highly polished brass fixtures in the stone block room.

“Twilight Sparkle, I must thank you for teaching me what you have. You have been an admirable instructor,” Luna said as she rose from her divan and stepped out of the deeper shadows. Somewhere in the distance, the carillon of a bell tower clanged away. “Without your help, the ability to have a normal conversation like this one might have continued to elude me.”

Raising her head unsteadily, Twilight peered at Luna’s indistinct form through bleary eyes. “Luna? What...?”

Luna sat down beside the bed and gave a polite smile. “Like me, you appreciate facts and brevity. I will get to the point immediately, then. Your tutelage in friendship has proven valuable, but my experience in certain other matters is vast. Let me offer a lesson of my own in exchange for your help: do not let a single-minded obsession distract you from what is truly important. You must weigh everything you do critically so that you do not sacrifice yourself for short-sighted gains.”

“Princess... are you talking about Nightm—”

“Twilight, please. The point is that a fixation warps your thought processes. You really do think you are doing the right thing until it is far too late.” Luna exhaled sharply and averted her eyes. “Take my words to heart, Twilight Sparkle. Do not languish here. ’Tis folly to dwell in such a place.”

Meeting those imploring eyes, Twilight took a deep breath and nodded, closing her eyes as she heard the final bell peal.

She blinked at the bright sunlight in her sterile room, with one thought on her mind: lunch. She walked back to the common area, waited her turn on line, and levitated a tray of celery and daisies to her usual spot away from everypony else. Soon after, the doctor entered and sat across from her once again.

“It’s about time for today’s therapy session, Twilight. We can talk here, if you don’t mind,” she said, taking a relaxed posture.

Twilight shrugged, her mind still sluggish. “I... I should go. I don’t belong here.”

“Twilight, remember that you are here because you wanted to be. You are free to leave any time you like.” She pulled out a notepad and set it on the table. “There must have been a reason why you thought you needed to come here. Do you remember what that is?”

“No,” Twilight answered, her breathing quickening as the muscles tensed in her cheeks. If nothing else, her agitation brought some clarity of thought that she’d been lacking. “I don’t even know what good it’d do. It’s not like psychology is a real science anyway. I was naive to think I should be here. Nothing good will come of it.” She glared at her half-eaten meal.

“Twilight, I’m not here to debate the merits of psychological therapy with you. What’s important is that we do get results.” She sighed at Twilight’s snort and waited a moment for her patient to calm down. “Tell me about your friends. Did any more of them visit?”

Twilight looked up from the table enough to subject the wall to her sullen expression. “After breakfast, I saw Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. Then Spike, but... I might have gone to see him. I don’t know if he was here. Then I saw Princess Luna, but I think that was at the palace, or... No, I woke up here, but... it was...” Her eyes flicked around the room wildly as she sought something familiar to which she could anchor her thoughts.

“Did you learn anything from them?”

“They said... to go, but... Something about losing myself. Or them. I don’t...” Tears welled up in Twilight’s eyes as she felt the unpleasant jitteriness of impending bad news sweep over her. “Were... were they not really here? Did I make the whole thing up?”

“Oh, they do come to visit, Twilight,” replied the doctor, giving her patient’s hoof a reassuring pat. “Pinkie Pie came on Thursday as usual, and I saw Applejack just yesterday. Rarity should be here tomorrow.”

“B-but nopony was here today?” Twilight asked as her ears drooped. “It wasn’t real?”

“It’s as real as you think it is. They may be afterimages you perceive of their prior visits.” Cocking her head sideways, she tried to intercept Twilight’s gaze. “If you’re getting some sort of benefit from that interaction, there’s no harm in it for now.”

“The more I talk to them, the closer I feel I’m getting to... to... I can’t think! Only when I’m with them! I can’t think!” Her heart racing again, she buried her face in her hooves. She felt a soft nuzzle against her neck and uncovered her eyes.

Celestia stood next to her in the palace’s banquet hall. The long table in front of her was laden with a sumptuous feast of rare delicacies: exotic flowers, tropical fruit, every conceivable vegetable, all emanating tempting aromas. A steady stream of staff went by, tidying the room, polishing the silver, and setting out the food. In front of the picture window on the other side of the room, a string quartet bowed their way through a sprightly caprice.

“Princess Celestia!” Twilight said, holding a hoof to her chest. “I don’t remember being summoned here. What’s the occasion?”

“As you can see, we are preparing a feast, my faithful student.” A glint ran through Celestia’s eyes as she smiled warmly. “It is a feast for you, Twilight Sparkle.”

“For... me? Why?”

Celestia laughed and swept a hoof around the room. “For your homecoming, of course. It is not far off now. And when you are ready, all of your friends will be here to welcome your return.” Draping a wing across Twilight’s back, she beamed at her pupil. “I am very proud of you.”

“Homecoming?” Twilight creased her brow and folded her ears back. “Where have I been?”

Celestia sighed and sat in the chair next to Twilight. “You are one of the finest students I have ever taught. You have limitless potential. But you cannot realize that potential in one big step. Allow yourself to grow. You do not have to learn every single spell in existence as if your survival were at stake. I understand that you want to reap the benefits that your magic can bring to your friends, Ponyville, and all of Equestria, but a good student must also know her limits.”

Shrinking back, Twilight looked like a foal caught red-hooved in her mother’s chocolate stash. “I-I’m sorry, Princess.” She hung her head and let her shoulders slump. “I failed.”

“Not at all, Twilight,” Celestia said, raising her student’s chin back up with a hoof. “You just have more yet to learn. As you should. You are a student, after all.” She chuckled and levitated a linen napkin over for Twilight to dry her cheeks. “You push yourself too hard sometimes. When you do, you risk depriving your friends of that which makes all of those benefits worthwhile: you. Allow your friends to carry you at times. The responsibility is not yours alone. I wished for you to discover this lesson on your own, but I fear that if I do not intervene now, the damage could be irreparable.”

Sniffling, Twilight gave a small nod. “I-I think I understand.”

“Twilight, your friends are a source of strength. Accepting their help is not a sign of weakness. As I recall, you learned that from your friend Applejack quite some time ago.” Celestia flashed her warmest smile.

Nodding, Twilight sniffled again and took the napkin. She rubbed the tears from her eyes as the music died away.

“Come home soon, Twilight. We will all be waiting for you.”

Twilight put her napkin down and looked up at the doctor.

“Did... you just have another visit?” Canter asked. Twilight hesitated a moment, then nodded. “With whom?”

“Princess Celestia.”

“Did she help you?” She sat poised to jot some notes down on her pad.

“I don’t... I don’t know. I think I... I can’t quite remember...” Breathing rapidly, Twilight scanned the room in a fervor, unable to find anything to unscramble her thoughts.

“Twilight,” said Canter in a honey-laden tone. “Please calm down. I think the most important thing would be to think back to when all this first started. What spell were you researching that affected you so drastically?” She leaned forward attentively.

“I-I don’t know.”

“Think,” the doctor urged. “It’s important.”

“I... can’t remember...”

“You have to tell me. What spell was it? Tell me!”

Shooting to her hooves, Twilight backed away as shadows crept in from the room’s corners, shrouding the entire space in darkness. She looked to Canter, whose coat had turned a dark midnight blue. A piercing gaze shot back at Twilight through slitted pupils. Her ragged breath catching in her throat, Twilight backed into the wall.

Pinkie Pie appeared behind Nightmare Moon, then Applejack on the other side. One by one, they all took their places: Rarity, then Rainbow Dash, then Fluttershy, Spike, Luna. At last Celestia, looming over all of them. Something in Twilight’s mind shattered, and all of her thoughts rushed out at once in a disorganized heap. The music blared, all of it, mixing together into one giant cacophony.

“Run, Twilight!”

“Yeah, we can handle her, sugarcube!”

“Get outta here!”

“Twilight Sparkle, you must leave now!”

Pressing her hooves to her ears, Twilight screamed. Her body trembling, she squeezed her eyes shut and shouted, “No! It’s not real!”

Dead silence.

After what felt like an hour, she opened one eye. She was still in her seat, and the doctor sat there, scribbling away as she asked her question, seemingly for a second time.

“Did she help you?”

Her chest heaving, Twilight collapsed forward onto the table.

“Twilight, what isn’t real?” The doctor pursed her lips, reaching a hoof across the table.

“I don’t know which spell it was,” Twilight said, breathless.

“What spell?” The doctor knit her brow and frowned.

Looking up at Canter, Twilight stared at her for several minutes. Finally, the fear drained from her eyes as her face broke into a grimace and the tears flowed down her cheeks. “What is my music?”

“Music?” Canter was nonplussed.

“All of my friends have music. Whenever they appear to me, I can hear it. When I’m alone, there’s just silence. Why don’t I have music?” She crossed her forelegs on the table, laying her chin on them as she continued to cry.

Canter took a deep breath and watched her patient thoughtfully for a moment. “Twilight, do you remember that music box in your room?” She scrawled a few lines in her notes.

Twilight nodded. “It doesn’t work. I’ve already tried it.”

The doctor’s eyes glistened as she cocked her head and allowed herself a faint smile. “It was like that when you got here. In fact, it was the only thing you brought with you. It must have carried some meaning. What do you think that is?”

Her sorrow finally abating, Twilight shrugged. “Just another useless thing. It won’t play any music.”

“I disagree. It still has music in it. It’s just not working quite right at the moment.” Canter patted Twilight’s hoof. “I bet you can get it playing again. And your music? It can be whatever you want it to be. We’ll find it together.”

Fresh tears welled up in Twilight’s eyes as schematics of music box mechanisms flashed through her mind. She forced herself to stop, laying her head fully down on its side and sniffling. “Doctor, I... I need help. I... I can’t do this on my own.”

The doctor closed her notepad and laid her pencil next to it, folding her hooves. “Twilight... do you realize that’s the first time you’ve said that since you’ve been here?”

Twilight shook her head, her tears trickling down her cheeks and over her hooves.

Canter smiled and leaned in close to her. “I think we can finally begin. It’s nice to meet you, Twilight Sparkle. I’m Doctor Canter. Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

Bittersweet Music

The gilded carriage's door opened to a barrage of blinding flashes and a cacophony of shouts and cheers. A crowd of onlookers pushed against the red velvet rope by the roadside as a handsome white unicorn stepped out: he wore a distinguished black tuxedo and his blue mane was long and windswept. He set a monocle against his eye and waggled his tiny mustache. The crowd's cries grew even louder as a beautiful white mare emerged: a slender, graceful unicorn with a long, light-pink mane

Fancypants knelt by the carriage door and offered a hoof. "My dearest?" he said with a smile.

Fleur de Lis smiled as she took his hoof and delicately descended the carriage's short stepladder. She leaned close and placed a light kiss on his cheek. "It's the valet's duty to help us both step out," she whispered in his ear.

"Why should I not reserve such a privilege for myself?" he said.

"Because it's not the sort of think a knighted noble would do," she said as they walked down the dirt path. "We hired a valet for a reason."

The rickety, aging theater house ahead of them was surrounded by weedy gardens and clumsily hoof-painted banners. Fleur de Lis had taken special care to send the velvet ropes and red carpet ahead of time. "Not that I suppose it matters, here."

"Not that it matters?" Fancypants turned to her, his smile fading. They'd long ago mastered the art of whispering to each other while surrounded by cheering crowds. "This was your idea. Surely there must be something of value here, waiting to be discovered."

"Was that supposed to be sweet or sarcastic? I can never tell."

"Why can't it be both?"

She turned to him with a frown, but it only darkened her face for an instant. His warm smile was tinted with a mischievous streak that only a wife could recognize.

Fleur de Lis pouted at him. "Just promise not to embarrass us too much."

"I shall do my very best." He took a monocle out of his coat pocket and set it in place. "May I still embarrass myself as much as I please?"

"You will do no such thing. You've come along to show your support for this event—"

"And for the apple tarts," he said.

"—And it deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. It's an opportunity to bring culture to the masses."

"Oh really?" said Fancypants as he waved at the crowd, "And here I thought we were importing culture from Ponyville. You do keep referring to this as a talent show rather than a competition."

"The competitive aspect is nothing more than a motivator," she said. "It encourages ponies to do their very best and pursue the achievement they deserve. Ponies perform better under preassure."

They continued walking for a moment, nodding to the crowd on either side of the dirt road.

Fleur de Lis turned to her husband. "What?"

"What what?" asked Fancypants.

"You were going to say something," she said. "I'm sure of it."

Fancypants rolled his eyes and chuckled softly. "Oh nothing at all, my sweet. Nothing worth fussing over, certainly."

Fleur de Lis pursed her lips. "Oh, fine then. Be that way."

"Oh, thank goodness!" he said and adjusted his bow tie. "I know of no other way to be, after all. I'm so glad you approve."

They reached the end of the red carpet and came to the doors of the theater, sealed off by a flimsy length of ribbon. The mayor of the town passed a large pair of novelty scissors to Fleur de Lis, and there was a moment of silence as she used them to snip the ribbon in half. The crowd cheered again and the married couple bowed to them before following the mayor inside. The mass of spectators and reporters rushed in after them, bright eyed and energetic.

Fancypants gazed up at the interior decorations with a smile. "Ahh... is it everything you hoped it would be?"

"It's... not exactly Canterlot," Fleur de Lis sighed.

"You know, very few places are exactly Canterlot. I can only think of one off the top of my head." He gestured grandly to the ruffled tapestries hanging from the balconies. "I did a bit of research before we came here and discovered that this building was hoof-made by traditional methods. No magic, no machinery... it gives it so much character! I, personally, I find it charmingly—"

"Charmingly rustic, yes I know," she said and looked at the crumbling plaster walls and unfinished wooded benches. "I just wish they'd put a little more effort into it. Don't they realize how important this is?"

Fancypants gave a little gasp and the monocle popped away from his face. "Effort, my dear? "It's obvious—

"I've had quite enough of that," Fleur de Lis said. She picked up the monocle and passed it back to him. "You promised not to embarrass us."

"Terribly sorry. It shan't happen again." Fancypants polished his monocle and set it back in place. "But it's obvious to me that a great deal of thought went into the interior decorating. It's deliberately understated so as to accentuate the building's natural charm and character."

"I'm sure it seems grand to the locals," she said, "and it certainly is charming. But the upper class of Canterlot won't think so. How are they supposed to recognize Ponyville's talent when there's so little effort backing it up?"

Fancypants quirked an eyebrow. "Is this a talent show or an effort show?"

"We're not having this conversation again, dear. Talent is a priceless treasure, yes, but every pony in Equestria has a cutie mark. What truly separates them is dedication and perseverance."

Fancypants' response was cut off as Ponyville's elderly, grey-maned mayor approached them. "Ah, Madame! It is an honor to have you visit our humble little village. And you too, Sir Fancypants."

"The pleasure is entirely ours, Your Worship," said Fleur de Lis. "I do apologize for giving you such short notice about the event."

"Oh, not at all," said the Mayor. "We've been trying to cultivate an artistic community for years. We've never had much interest before now, but the first prize for your talent show has everypony in a tizzy: the chance to perform for the Princess herself!"

"You hear that, dear?" said Fleur de Lis sweetly, "The citizens of Ponyville have plenty of talent. They just needed a bit of motivation."

"Hm? Oh yes, certainly. Effort. Very important." He glanced back at the theater's main entrance. "Say, do you think I could have a quick tour of the village's main street? I've heard there's a few historical buildings hereabouts. There's even a place where they still weave cloth by hoof, with spinning wheels and everything!"

Fleur de Lis shook her head. "Don't be silly. The mayor and I need to finalize the event, which means you'll need to socialize on my behalf."

"Ah! Yes, of course!"

"Not the locals," Fleur de Lis said sternly. "I need you to speak with the patrons who invested in the show and the contestants who wish to perform. Don't let me catch you chatting with whoever wanders by."

"Ah yes," he said. "Of course."

He watched the two mares walk off towards the backstage rooms, talking quickly about art and culture and brochures and other weighty topics.

Well, I suppose I'd better make the best of the situation. He flexed his shoulders and lifted his nose. Stiff upper lip, old boy! This isn't royal court, after all. Surely the local patrons can't be nearly as snooty as you're accustomed to.

"Why hello there, Sir!"

Fancypants' mane bristled at the newcomer's tone of voice. He suppressed a wince and covered it with with a smile as he turned around. "Why, hello indeed! I don't believe we've been properly introduced."

"Filthy Rich," the man said, and held up his hoof. "My family is the chief benefactor for this humble little show. Perhaps you've heard of me?"

"Ah yes, Filthy!" Fancypants gave it a firm shake. "I hear your name in court all the time, I dare say. Filthy, Filthy Filthy! That's all they talk about."

The stallion cleared his throat softly. "Mister Rich, if you please."

"Ah yes of course!" said Fancypants. He placed a hoof on his own chest. "In which case, you may refer to me as Mister Pants."

There was an abrupt snort. Fancypants glanced down at the bejewelled young filly standing next to the wealthy stallion. Her father shot her a glance as she struggled to keep quiet.

"And who is this lovely filly?" said Fancypants.

"This is my daughter, Diamond Tiara. She's going to perform a piano recital."

Fancypants gave her a gentle bow. "Tis an honor, miss."

"Oh, I know!" Diamond Tiara bent her front knee and lowered her head, performing a flawless curtsy.

"She's been practicing all week for this event," said Mister Rich. "Of course she practices every week, but she's been especially excited ever since she heard about the competition. Why just imagine: my own daughter performing for the Princess herself! She'll be simply charmed, I'm sure. Don't you agree?"

Fancypants nodded. "Oh yes, I imagine so. Meeting the princess is a very powerful experience even for a little child. Life-changing really, what with her being the princess and all."

"The--?" Filthy Rich tilted his head. "I mean the Princess will be charmed."

Fancypants gently bit the tip of his tongue. "Well, I suppose the princess does love children."

Diamond Tiara raised her head and puffed her chest. "Just wait till she gets a load of me, then!"

"Yes, I'm sure. Thank you for the, ah... thank you for... thank you." Fancypants took a step forward and lowered his voice. "Mister Rich. Am I to understand that you've agreed to help finance this little event?"

"Indeed I have," he said.

"And that you have entered your daughter into this very same event?"

"Yes, yes. Why?"

"Well, I just thought you might be worried about a conflict of interests. Not that I would go so far as to think you possible of such a thing, of course, but if your daughter were to win I'm sure some unscrupulous ponies—not me, of course, wouldn't dream of it for an instant—might suggest that... well..."

Mister Rich frowned at him. "Suggest what, exactly?"

"That perhaps the judges were biased in their decision. They won't be, of course, but ponies might think that. I would hate for your daughter's well-earned victory to be sullied by such unwarranted mud-slinging."

"I'm not going to win because I'm rich and famous," Diamond Tiara said. "I'm going to win because I'm the best. Everypony knows that already."

Fancypants managed to nod and smile. Oh my stars, but this is much worse than I expected. I think I'm in actual, physical pain right now. He glanced at the surrounding patrons and caught sight of a shimmering, purple mane making it's way through the crowd like the prow of an ice-breaker.

"Ah, I'd know that mane anywhere." He took two steps and caught the pony's attention as she passed by. "Rarity! I haven't seen you in ages."

Rarity offered a brilliant smile as she caught sight of him. "Why, Fancypants! I'm so glad you could accompany your wife after all. I was worried you'd be busy elsewhere."

"Nonsense!" Fancypants said, "I do so enjoy these little cultural gatherings. But enough about me: What about this interior decorating, eh? It's brilliantly understated, don't you think?"

"That's exactly what I was aiming for, actually. I was just telling Hoity Toity here about how difficult it is to decorate a building without obscuring it's natural charm."

"Hoity...?" Fancypants blinked when he realized who was standing next to Rarity. "I didn't realize you were on the judging panel."

"I'm actually not," he said, "but I simply couldn't pass up the chance to attend as a spectator. Rarity's shows are simply smashing, as you're no doubt already aware!"

"Indeed they are," said Fancypants. "Literally and figuratively, on occasion. In fact I was thinking she and I might have a moment to discuss that very thing! We haven't spoken in ages, and I'm sure you and Mister Rich would—

"I appreciate the offer," Rarity said, "but I'm afraid I really must get back to the preparations. I am here as a professional, after all. I'm sure Hoity Toity would love to talk about it, though."

Fancypants took a half-step back and quickly scanned the available exits. "That's not exactly—"

"Oh, but we simply must!" Hoity Toity said, taking a step closer. "I find marvelous what she's accomplished here with such a minimum of material. Simple and elegant at the same time!"

Fancypants watched Rarity as she went off through the crowd, leaving him alone with Hoity Toity and Filthy Rich. So that's what it feels like to be on the recieving end of... whatever that was.

Fancypants stared off into space as a middle-aged mare bedecked with jewelry chatted in his general direction. It had been three hours since he and his wife had disembarked the carriage and he'd spent every moment of it surrounded by energetic patrons. He took a moment to scan the rest of the room: the crowd was thicker now and the patrons much more upstanding and respectable. Several long tables had been arranged by the far wall, but there weren't any refreshments on display.

The jewel-bedecked mare nodded to him. "...But really now. Don't you think so?"

"Hm? Oh, quite so. Absolutely!" Fancypants saw the slightest hint of a frown on the mare's face and immediately shook his head. "Not! Absolutely not, of course. I mean really now."

The mare let out a cultivated laugh. "Oh I know! I said the same exact thing, but did she listen?"

She's been talking for twenty minutes straight now. Whenever does she find the time to breathe? Maybe she's discovered a way to breath in through her nose while talking out of her mouth? Fancypants managed to get halfway through an affirmative nod when the sound of a squeaky trolley caught his ear. He glanced at the tables and saw a freckled, orange mare setting out platters.

"Excuse me, mi'lady," he said with a nod towards the table. "Perhaps we might continue our conversation after we've refreshed ourselves with some comestibles?"

"Oh, certainly. Marvelous idea."

The lady chattered on as they walked through the crowd. They came to the tables, each laden with a feast of apple-related deserts and pastries, and Fancypants eyed each of the individual platters in turn.

"Ooh... apple-cinnamon tarts!" he reached out, but flinched back as a hoof gently slapped his.

"That's fer later, big guy."

"Applejack?" Fancypants looked up at her with a smile. "Well I dare say, this is quite a coincidence. It's a pleasure, truly."

"Well thank'ee, sir." Applejack squinted at him as she pushed the dessert trolley along. "Pardon, but do I know you?"

He gave her a quick bow. "Fancypants, at your humble service. We met briefly in Canterlot when your friend's impromptu birthday celebration spilled over into my garden party. Much to my delight, I assure you."

Applejack's face broke into a broad smile. "Well howdy there! We don't see a lot of important folks out this way, but I knew you seemed familiar. Why're you here, anyhow?"

"My lovely wife is hosting the event and I just thought I'd show my support for the local arts. That, and to distract all those noise-some, blathering patrons from distracting my wife while she takes care all the important things." Fancypants let out a good natured laugh, which the bejeweled mare immediately joined in on. "So then, Applejack. What might you be doing here, if I may be so bold as to ask?"

Applejack nodded to the cart. "Sweet Apple Acres threw a couple of bits into the hat to pay for this thing, but we also volunteered to do the catering for free."

Fancypants uttered a sigh of relief. "You're a patron? Oh thank goodness, that means I can talk to you."

"Appreciated," she said, "but it also means I'm workin' here. We can talk after I get the tables set up, maybe."

Fancypants nodded to her. "You're right of course. I wouldn't want to impose."

"And please don't dig in until the party officially starts," she said as she pushed the trolley away. "We don't want everypony getting the same idea."

"True, true." Fancypants gazed at the display of confectionery. "I suppose standing in their immediate vicinity is a refreshing experience in it's own right."

The jeweled mare ignored Applejack entirely as she left. "Say! Did you know how challenging it is to groom cats for show pageants? I'm quite a cat fancier myself."

"I never knew," Fancypants said with a smile. "And did you know that whales can dissolve enormous amounts of oxygen in their bloodstream? They find it frightfully useful, I'm sure, given their habit of staying underwater for long periods at a time."

The mare opened her mouth but hesitated halfway through a word. "What?"

"I thought we were talking about favorite animals," he said. "You see, I'm something of a whale fancier. Do you know how challenging it is to groom whales for—

Fancypants tensed as a young filly rushed through the crowd and crashed into him headfirst. he tilted back under the unexpected impact and jostled the table, but steadied the punch bowl and caught three slender glasses before they could fall to the floor. He looked down at the filly just as she looked up at him: she was dressed as a princess.

She scrambled upright and offered him a quick bow. "I didn't mean to bump into you, sir! I'm really, really sorry!"

"I'm not," he said with smile. "Are you Sweetie Belle, by any chance?"

She let out a tiny gasp. "How'd you know?"

"I can see it runs in the family, then. My name is Fancypants, and I—"

"You're Fancypants? Really!?"

"Yes indeed. You may call me 'Mister Pants,' since this is such a formal event." He looked back and tapped a hind hoof against the floor. "I even went so far as to actually wear pants today."

Sweetie Belle snickered, but managed to keep it quiet.

"As for how I know you, I consider your sister—the incomparable Miss Rarity—a good friend of mine. She spoke highly of you, I must say."

"She did?" Sweetie Belle tilted her head. "Are you sure it was my sister?"

"Quite," he said and adjusted his monocle. "If I may be so bold as to ask, is there any particular reason you've dressed yourself in attire not unbecoming of a princess?"

Sweetie Belle looked down. "It's silly."

"Oh really?" said Fancypants, "By all means then, do please go on!"

"My friends and I were just practicing for the show. We were thinking of putting on a play."

"Oh? Which play did you have in mind?"

Sweetie Belle scratched at the floor. "We mostly just make it up as we go along. We tried memorizing stuff for real, but it was—"

"Aha! There you are, you nasty monster!" A second young filly burst out of the crowd, dressed in a cardboard facsimile of a knight's plated armor. She flipped up the cumbersome visor and pointed a cardboard lance at them. "Let the Princess free, or I'll oh-my-goodness you're not Applebloom! I'm so sorry sir!"

The crowd fell silent and turned to look at them, instinctively drawn to the mention of 'the princess.' The two fillies shrank under the attention.

Fancypants picked up Sweetie Belle, snatched a ladle from the side of the punch bowl and held it menacingly against her neck. "Or you'll what!?" he sneered.

Scootaloo stared at him in shock. "What are you doing? You're not—

"That's right!" Fancypants said in a sinister voice. "I'm not the princess' magistrate at all! Did you really think the Beige Knight was working alone when he kidnapped her? It was I who gave him the key to her bedroom window!"

Scootaloo stared at him. "The magistrate? What are you talking about?"

Sweetie Belle waved at her frantically. "Remember? The magistrate! He was... hypnotized! By a giant snake! With three heads!"

"You gullible fools!" Fancypants said. "You have it all backwards: it was I who hypnotized the giant snake into becoming my servant! Each of it's heads knows a different sort of magical spell: Secret and forbidden magics long forgotten by pony-kind!"

"But how?" said Sweetie Belle. "You couldn't do that unless you had the... the Mystical orb of secret... secrets!"

"Ah, but I do! I had my cleverest wizards carve the Mystical Orb of Secret Secrets into the form of a monocle! I've had it with me from the very beginning and nopony suspected it for a moment!" Fancypants pointed at his monocle and let out a long, cackling laugh.

"Oh yeah?" shouted Scootaloo. "Well, I've got the mystical lance of... truth and stuff! And that's the opposite of secrets!"

"Tuth and stuff?" Fancypants cowered behind his hostage. "Thrice be cursed, you meddling knight! You've melted down the Key of ultimate freedom and mixed it into the legendary silver meteor to forge a noble weapon of power! Ah, but it will do you no good unless you can wield it with the courage of the royal lineage!"

"That's true, but there's something you don't know!" Scootaloo removed her cardboard helmet and tossed her mane. "I'm a princess too! And I'm not left-hooved!"

Fancypants gasped in shock and his monocle popped away from his face. "Two Princesses? Impossible! How can this be!?"

"I'll show you what's impossible! Chaaarge!"

The crowd watched as Scootaloo stampeded ahead and rapidly poked Fancypants with her cardboard lance. He cried out in agony as he fell to the floor, and Sweetie Belle took the opportunity to break free of his grasp and kick at his hindquarters.

"Kidnap me, will you? Well this Princess doesn't need rescuing! I'm actually a princess knight myself! We both are!"

"Yeah! And we're sisters too, with magic that only works when we're together!"

"Sisters?" Fancypants propped himself up on his knee and spoke in his usual tone. "But how can you be sisters when your coats are different colors?"

"Hey yeah," Sweetie Belle said. "What's up with that?"

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. "Well obviously a wizard used a spell to make us look different, so one of us could go into hiding."

"Ah yes," Fancypants said. "There must have been an omen or something: Something about me being defeated by two princess knight sisters."

"That's enough out of you!" Scootaloo said. "Have at thee!"

Fancypants struggled to stand as the two fillies climbed over him, putting him in various headlocks and wrestling holds. "Oh, cruel fate!" he wailed. "All my plotting and planning, for naught! I shall have my revenge!"

"What's going on here!?"

All three of them froze in place and the crowd parted to make way for a particularly stern Fleur de Lis.

"Honey bunches!" said Fancypants as he stood up, easily carrying the weight of the two fillies on his back. "Do forgive us. We were just—"

Fleur de Lis cut him off with a withering glare. The two fillies hid behind his mane.

"Well you see, dear, these delightful little youngsters were going to put on a play for the talent show. You did instruct me to converse with both patrons and contestants."

Sweetie Belle peeked from behind his mane. "I said we were thinking of joining."

"Well, why not?" he said. "I think it's a simply marvelous idea."

"We tried to do a real play," said Scootaloo, "but we couldn't remember any lines."

"Not even one," said Sweetie Belle. "We always have to make it up as we go along. That's not a real play."

Fancypants looked back at them with a glowing smile. "Not so, my dears! Improvisational theater is one of the most challenging and rewarding activities one can engage in. Some of the most famous stage actors in history started their careers by—"

Fleur de Lis stamped a hoof on the floor. "Dear!"

"You know perfectly well that it's a perfectly legitimate kind of theater, and these young fillies seem to have quite a talent for it. Surely they—"

"Stop!" she said. "Just... stop."

Fancypants cast his gaze down.

Fleur de Lis tromped over and pointed a hoof at him. "You knew this was important to me—to all of us—and yet here you are, parading about like fool! Are you going to do this every time we travel abroad?"

"They wanted to participate. We shouldn't keep them out of the competition simply because they're children."

"Do not cast me as the villain here!" she snapped. "We're keeping them out of the competition because the registration sign-ups were two weeks ago, and rules are rules no matter who you are. They are perfectly welcome to sign up for next year's competition, or for the children's festival next season, or to join the youth's branch of the actor's association."

Fancypants nodded to her. "You're quite right, dear. I'm very sorry."

"Yet again," she said and turned away. "You may as well go and tour the village now. You've certainly helped enough here."

Fleur de Lis walked away, leaving the crowd to mumble amongst itself. Fancypants carefully set the fillies on the floor.

Scootaloo set her crumpled lance on her back. "Sorry, Mister Pants."

"Oh no," he said, "Don't you dare be sorry. This was entirely my fault."

"Did you really mean all that stuff you said?" asked Sweetie Belle. "You weren't just trying to be nice to us, were you?"

"I meant every word of it," he said. "Improvisational theater really is quite challenging, and it's one of my favorite pastimes. Used to be, that is, before I was knighted."

Sweetie Belle's eyebrows shot up. "You were an actor?"

"Not professionally, no. Only for fun. It's how I met my wife, in fact." He picked up Scootaloo's discarded helmet and set it on her back. "I do hope you continue your passion for the performing arts. I was looking forward to seeing your play."

"But you don't even know what it's about," said Scootaloo. "Actually, I don't even think we know what it's about until it gets started."

"Potential, my dear. Why put on a play about something, when it could be about anything? Talent is more than just hard work and effort. It's a special sort of... inspiration." He turned to the empty stage with a faint smile. "I sometimes wonder if she's forgotten."

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle glanced at each other. "Who?"

"I'd best be on my way," he said. "Sorry to have troubled you."

The fillies watched quietly as he walked through the crowd and out the exit.

Fancypants strolled down Ponyville's main street, pausing to look at the occasional garden or building. There were only a few ponies out at such a late hour and none of them gave any sign of having recognized him.

Maybe she has she forgotten.

He looked up at Ponyville's modest city-line and caught sight of an enormous tree that had somehow been refurbished with balconies and glowing windows. He trotted further down the road and gazed up at the structure in awe.

Well that explains why I've been bumping into so many of her friends.They must all live here in town!

He went to the door, stamped his hooves on the welcome mat, and stepped inside. "Hello? Pardon, but is anypony home?"

"It's a public library," a gruff voice called out. "You can just walk on in."

"Ah, but this is no ordinary library!" Fancypants stepped in and marveled at the interior. "The royal libraries are—and shall forever be—a home to the many and varied scholars of the world. No matter what their creed or culture, race or gender, the Princess welcomes all bright-minded thinkers to her archives with the same warm and loving respect as she would a dignitary to her tea-room."

After a quiet moment, a small purple dragon stepped out from between a set of shelves.

"Wha?"

"The royal libraries of Equestria are indeed a home to many. By royal law, any passing scholar may seek refuge for the night."

The baby dragon stared at him for a moment, blandly. He walked back to the shelves and came back with an enormous, dust covered tome. He set it on the table and flipped through the pages for several minutes.

"Well whaddya know," he said and shut the book with a cloud of dust. "Whoever you are, you certainly know your obscure royal laws."

"It was my major, actually." He offered a respectful bow. "My name is Fancypants. Pleased to meet you."

"Never heard of ya."

"Oh thank goodness," he said. "And may I assume that you, young sir, are Spike?"

"How'd you know?"

"I know Twilight Sparkle. Well, perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that I know of her." He looked at the doors to the library's various back rooms. "Might there be a bunkroom available? I have my own toothbrush, of course."

"Beanbags are in the corner," Spike said, "and try to keep it down. I've got work to do."

"As you say, lad. I could do with a bit of quiet contemplation."

"Whatever."

Fancypants watched as the dragon sorted through stacks of books. "Pardon, but might there be anything to eat? I have yet to enjoy my evening repast."

The dragon pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "Kitchen's over there. Help yourself."

"My, but it has been some time since I've cooked or myself." He stood up and rolled up the cuffs on his pants. "I suppose we'll see how much I can remember."

"What's up with you, anyways?" Spike said. "Having problems with your mare?"

"Beg... pardon?"

"You wandered in at nine-thirty with no place to sleep, you're all poetic and moody, and you haven't had any dinner. I'm guessing you're havin' problems with your mare."

"Oh no, not at all," he said with a sigh. "I'm having issues with my mare."

Spike rolled his eyes. "So what's the difference?"

"Problems have solutions." Fancypants made his way to the kitchen. "I won't bother you with the details. You're too young to be worrying about such things just yet."

"You don't know the half of it," Spike muttered.

Fancypants immediately poked his head out of the kitchen and peered at him.

Spike sighed and said "What is it now?"

Fancypants gave him a sympathetic half-smile. "You're wise beyond your years, Spike."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You've known love. If you've known love, you've already experienced half of what life has to offer."

Spike hesitated as he reached for the next book in the stack. "Really? What's the other half?"

"Never you mind," Fancypants said. "I wouldn't want to spoil it for you."

He went back into the kitchen, opened the fridge and browsed the racks of fresh fruits and vegetables. He made a few quick selections and set them on the counter, then rummaged around for pots and pans.

"What's it like?"

Fancypants turned to see Spike standing in the archway, half hidden by the door.

"What's what like?"

"Well, you know..." Spike scratched a talon against the door frame, producing a few curly wood shavings. "Having a certain special somepony."

"I honestly couldn't describe it," he said, "because there's nothing else to compare it to. That's why poets and singers always compare other things to it."

Spike hopped in and climbed up onto the counter, watching as Fancypants sliced up a row of vegetables. "Isn't there anything you can say about it?"

"If you insist," he said and picked up an onion. "A mare is like... an onion. They look simple on the outside, but they've got layers and layers that you just can't see at first. And even though they taste terrible all by themselves they make everything else especially delicious! And if you cut them, no matter how justified you think you are, you'll most certainly cry about it later."

"Whoa," said Spike. "That's pretty deep."

"They've also got these little bits on the ends you need to cut off first, and you have to add a bit of butter when you saute them. And they have to go in before the mushrooms or they'll be too crispy."

Spike's brow furrowed. "Huh?"

"Hm. Actually no, that's not right at all." Fancypants pondered the remaining vegetables and picked up a cabbage. "Actually, a mare is more like... a cabbage."

Spike rolled his eyes. "You don't really know anything about mares, do you?"

"It does seem doubtful." He juggled the knife, then quickly chopped the cabbage. "But I do know one mare in particular. Believe me, one is all you'll ever need."

Spike swung his legs over the edge of the counter. "Did she really kick you out?"

"Not explicitly, but I figured I ought to proactively kick myself out for the night. I did act the fool in front of a lot of awfully important ponies, during an awfully important event."

Spike crossed his arms. "Aw, who cares what she thinks? A guy ought to do whatever he wants, am I right?"

"Ah, me," Fancypants said with a smile. "I remember when I could afford to be a fool all the time. So many fond memories... but you give up a lot of things when you marry."

"Why don't you stand up for yourself? She can't be worth all that trouble."

Fancypants took out his wallet and passed Spike a photograph. Spike stared at it for a moment, slack jawed.

"Whoa."

"Mmm-hmm."

"Shes' a real looker and all, but why don't you just drop the mare and keep the picture? It'd probably nag you a lot less."

"I don't need the picture anymore," he said softly. "I just close my eyes... and there she is."

"That must be... yeah." Spike set the photograph down and looked away.

Fancypants set a series of pans on the oven range and divided the chopped vegetables into each. "That's enough about me, though. What's got you down in the doldrums?"

"Nuthin'."

"If you say so," he said as he juggled two of the pans. "If you ever feel the need to talk, though—"

"Argh! It's this stupid talent show thing!" Spike stood up and paced back and forth on the counter top. "All of Twilight's friends are in a rush to do something special and it's turned into this great big thing, and then I went and signed up for no good reason."

"Oh? Then why'd you really sign up?"

Spike clenched his tiny fists. "It's all their fault. I said I felt left out, and then they kept pressuring me to join up. I couldn't say no, could I? And they're all like, 'oh it'd be so adorable watching a little baby dance around or play the harmonica or whatever.' Rarity kept trying to put me in a little suit, like she was dressing up a pet or something. It's humiliating and now I can't back out without looking like an idiot!"

Fancypants watched him for a moment. "Why'd you really sign up?"

Spike's shoulders slumped. "Cause Rarity said I ought to," he muttered.

"Ooh. May I assume—"

"Yes you may," Spike growled. "And yes, I know she's way out of my league. Way, way... way out of my league."

Fancypants shook his head. "There are no leagues, Spike. Love is neither a sport nor a battle."

"Can we please talk about something else?"

Fancypants busied himself with the sizzling vegetables, leaving Spike to brood in silence.

"I fear I've made more than I can eat in one sitting," said Fancypants. "Would you like something yourself?"

"Pshh," Spike said with a toss of his head. "Buddy, I'm a dragon. We don't eat lawn clippings."

"Have any gold then? Some jewels, perhaps? I know I saw a crucible in at least one of these cupboards."

Spike stared at Fancypants as he took some metallurgical equipment out of a drawer and set them on the counter. "Are you for real?"

Spike sat at the table in the main hall of the library, tapping his claws against the table. He glanced at the kitchen every now and then, and a variety of odd smells and noises drifted back. Fancypants finally emerged, dressed in a heavy blacksmith's apron and a heavy iron welder's mask, and used a pair of long iron tongs to bring over a large clay brick.

"What," Spike said and pointed at the clay brick, "is that?"

Fancypants held the brick over Spike's plate and gave it a shake. A heavy gold brick slid out of the mold and shattered he plate as it landed. The brick was a deep orange-yellow and there were gemstones stuck inside it like bits of fruit in a cake.

"An omelet!" Fancypants lifted up the welder's mask and smiled at him. "In a manner of speaking. Go on, then: Drive that into yourself."

Spike stared at the brick for a moment before picking it up. He took a tiny bite out of the corner and his eyes widened at once. He took a larger bite and chewed eagerly, pausing only to give Fancypants a thumbs up.

"Good to know I haven't lost my touch," he said as he sat across from him.

"Are you kidding?" Spike said, mouth full. "This is the best anything ever! I didn't even know you could cook gold."

"Oh, there's all sorts of tasty alloys just waiting to be served up. You have to get the mixture of metals just right, and you have to boil it at a temperature that won't damage the gemstones." Fancy pants grinned. "It just smelts in your mouth, doesn't it?"

"Heh. Good one." Spike quickly crunched halfway through his meal. "How do you know all this, anyways?"

"Long ago, the princess sent me on a quest to evict a pesky dragon. This was years ago, mind you." Fancypants leaned back in his chair. "I was in line to be knighted by the princess and I insisted on proving my valor, like the knights of old. It was just one pesky dragon, after all. How bad could it be?"

"Valor, huh?" Spike swallowed and wiped the back of his hand against his mouth. "How'd that turn out for ya?"

"Oh, it was the most terrifying thing I'd ever seen," he said. "Or seen since, for that matter. Absolutely petriying."

"Really?" Spike glanced about. "Did you... wet'ums?"

"Oh, yes. As soon as I heard that dragon roar, I wet'ums pretty bad. I suppose the dragon took pity on me, and chose to keep me as a prisoner. Fortunately I'd worked as both a chef and a blacksmith in my past, and the sight of the dragon's hoard started giving me ideas. I eventually cooked something tasty enough to impress her, and she gave me my freedom in exchange for the recipe. She even agreed to move her lair elsewhere, so I still got to be a full knight. That was nice of her."

"Great," said Spike. "That's just great. Even ponies know more about girl dragons than I do."

Fancypants uttered an exasperated sigh. "For goodness sake, my boy! You'll never get anywhere moping and moaning like this."

"Oh yeah?" Spike scowled and thumped his fist against the table. "Well if somepony would just tell me what I need to do, maybe I could get it done. But no!"

"You want help, then?" Fancypants leaned against the table and fixed him with a serious look. "You really think you're ready for the advice you need? Because once you hear it you probably won't like it."

"Lay it on me, man! I can take it!"

"You need to forget about her."

"What!?" Spike's eyes snapped open. "Is this a joke? That'll only make things worse!"

He leaned back again with a sigh. "I knew you weren't ready."

"No no no, wait! I'm ready! You just caught me off guard, that's all." Spike sat back down and clasped his hands. "Really, I mean it. Just tell me what I gotta do."

"You need to forget about her. You've already done everything you can to be her friend. You need to worry about yourself now."

"Myself?" Spike set his hands on his tummy. "Isn't that kind of selfish?"

"Not if you worry about improving yourself," he said. "You need to chase your dreams and be successful. Go out and see the world and make your fortune, whether you're searching for gold and jewels, or wondrous sights and stories. Make a real stallion out of yourself! Well... a real dragon."

"Whoa... I never thought about that."

"You deserve to make a life for yourself, don't you?" Fancypants leaned over and nudged his shoulder. "You need to know yourself before she'll even consider sharing her life with you. And even if you do, it might take a very long time for her to come around."

"But what do I do right now? There must be something!"

"But of course there is," he said. "The talent show!"

"That's going to be a disaster!" Spike hissed through clenched teeth. "The performances are tomorrow afternoon and I haven't even practiced any songs. I'll be a laughing stock!"

"You're still a bachelor, aren't you? You're permitted to look like a fool, so you should learn to appreciate it while you can!"

"I do enough of that every single day, thank you very much."

"Don't you see?" Fancypants leaned over and held his shoulders. "Whether you succeed or fail at this, it's yours. Nopony can take that away from you. Now tell me: what kind of performance were you going to give?"

"A piano recital. I'm pretty good at playing the piano."

"Now is not the time for 'pretty good,' Spike. You're not doing this to impress Rarity, or the crowd, or even the princess. You're not even doing this to impress yourself. Tell me, Spike... do you love to play the piano?"

"Well, yeah. All my friends like it, and I like to make them happy."

He reached over and poked Spike's chest. "But does it make Spike happy?"

Spike stared back at him, unable to look away. "Well... maybe... not really."

"Then what does? Name something you really, truly love. Something that brings you joy."

"I kinda like... singing." Spike wrung his hands together, and his eyes darted to each side. "Is that dumb? It's dumb, isn't it?"

"And so what if it is?" Fancypants said with a smirk.

"But everypony's gonna laugh at me! They always laugh when I sing."

Fancypants' smirk didn't falter. "And so what if they do? If you love to sing—really, truly love it—nothing else matters."

Spike bit his lip and stared at the table. "But I don't really know any songs. And I haven't practiced singing in forever. Actually, I've never practiced it at all."

"There, young sir, I can help you." Fancypants stood up from the table and nodded to the shelves. "I spent a year as a voice coach for young colts and fillies. If we can find a book of songs, I can get you started."

"A voice coach?" said Spike. "And you've been a chef, a blacksmith, and a knight? Is there anything you haven't been?"

"A few things, yes, but I'm working on it. I try something new every year." Fancypants' horn glowed and several books flew off the shelves and danced in a ring around his head. "Ah, perfect. We'll need to know what kind of tonal range you have. After that, we can pick a song that matches your particular qualities."

"I was just gonna sing 'Old MacDonald had a farm.' That usually goes over pretty well."

"You may if you wish, but when tomorrow comes you will not be singing to entertain. You will sing for the love of song itself. Because of this, your choice of song is irrelevant." He set a book on the table before him and opened it to a particular page. "So we may as well choose your song just as a jouster chooses their lance... by how well it balances against his shoulder. Not by how pretty or impressive it looks when you hang it over your fireplace."

Spike squinted at the page. "Classical Opera music? Are you sure about this?"

"No, Spike," Fancypants said with a solemn nod. "It is you who must be sure."

"Why hello, Rarity!" Twilight Sparkle said as she stepped out of the library. "Is everything going well? I hope the event wasn't too much work for you."

Rarity sighed, but her tone was pleasant. "It was a pleasure, but I'm glad it's finally over and done with. I'm looking forward to just sitting back and being a part of the audience for a change."

"Audience?" Twilight pursed her lips and looked away. "Does that mean you're not competing?"

"Oh my goodness no! I had to back out at the last second. I hated to do it, but there was simply too much work to be done and I didn't want the entire show to suffer for it."

"Well, actually..." Twilight managed a shy grin. "I had to back out too."

"Really? But why?"

"All the magic tricks I had planned were just way too complicated. Whenever I came close to finishing one, I'd get an idea for two more and, well..."

"That's always the way, isn't it?" Rarity said with a smile. "The last ten percent of the work always seems to take ninety percent of the time."

"Oh, I know. I've done magical research before, but this was completely different."

Rainbow Dash glided over a nearby rooftop and landed next to them "Hey, girls! How's it hanging? You all ready for the big show?"

"Oh, yes!" said Twilight Sparkle. "I can't wait to see what everypony has planned."

Rainbow Dash frowned at her. "You're just gonna sit back and watch?"

"Well... yeah."

"So after all that talk about awesome magic tricks, you're gonna bow out?" Rainbow Dash shook her head. "Well it serves you right. Just because you're good at magic tricks doesn't mean your good at performance. It's a whole different bag, isn't it Rarity? You've put on shows before, right? You know what I'm talking about."

"Well yes, but... you see... the thing is..."

Rainbow Dash straightened up. "Don't tell me you're both quitting!"

"Sorry Dash," said Twilight, "but that's exactly what we're saying. Sorry to let you down, but—"

"—we simply bit off more than we could chew this time," finished Rarity.

"Doesn't surprise me one bit," Dash said, shaking her head. "Don't feel bad about it, though. Not everypony is cut out for the spotlight."

"What about you?" Twilight Sparkle said. "Are you still in the show?"

"Me? Me!? Am I still in the... pfshh! What sort of question is... am I still in the... Heh. Am I!" Rainbow Dash lowered her head and both of her ears drooped. "None of my best tricks work indoors, and I couldn't bring myself to think of new ones that were less-than-my-best. My routine isn't even close to being finished."

"There there, Dash," Rarity said. "Not everypony is cut out for the spotlight."

Rainbow Dash glared at her, but gave her a playful shove.

"Hey there, girls!" Applejack called out as she ran up beside them. Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were right behind her.

"Good morning!" Twilight said. "How are you doing today? No stage-fright, I hope."

Applejack scraped at the dirt road with a hoof. "Well, y'see..."

"About the show..." Fluttershy looked away, hiding her face behind a lock of her hair.

"I'm totally pumped!" Pinkie Pie shouted, hopping in place. "I just know this is gonna be my most intense performance ever. I'm going to knock all their socks off! They'll have to give out free socks at the front door just so the audience can put them on and get them knocked off again!"

Twilight stared at Pinkie Pie in bewilderment. "Are you telling me you're the only one who's actually going to perform tonight?"

"Whaddya mean, only?" Pinkie Pie stopped bouncing in place. "What about all of your acts?"

All five of them looked away and shuffled their hooves. A moment later the awkward gloom gave way to nervous, sympathetic smiles.

"Looks like we go a little carried away," Applejack said. "I guess we shoulda spent more time preparing—"

"—And less time trying to out-do each other," said Rainbow Dash.

Rarity smiled at each of her friends as she spoke. "And perhaps we should have worried less about winning—"

Fluttershy brushed her hair away from her face. "—And more about doing our very best."

Pinkie Pie set a hoof on her hip. "Well gee, guys. Didn't I say that from the very beginning? You should only do something like this—"

"—Because you love it!" her friends all joined in. They all broke into laughter and giggles as the stress from the last two weeks melted away.

"I think we learned a lot from this. Why don't we all write a—" Twilight Sparkle stopped to looked around. "Actually, where is Spike? Has anypony seen him since yesterday?"

"What do you mean?" said Rarity. "Is he missing?"

"He left me a note last night saying he needed some time to think. He didn't say where he was going or what he was thinking about, but he said he'd be back tomorrow."

Rarity gasped and put a hoof to her mouth. "The show! You don't think he's still going to enter that silly thing, do you?"

"He seemed awful excited about it," said Applejack. "He was practically beggin' us to let him join in the fun."

"Well we've simply got to talk him out of it, then. He hasn't a chance of winning!"

Pinkie Pie gave her a critical look. "It's not about winning, you know."

"He only joined in because he felt left out!" Rarity said, rapidly stepping in place. "We can't let him go through with this. You know how competitive he is!"

Twilight nodded to her. "I'll have a talk with him before the show. I hate to think abut all the peer pressure we've put him through by now."

Fluttershy looked past her and pointed at something. "You, um, might not have to wait for the show."

They turned to look down the road and saw Spike coming down the road with a thin binder tucked under his arm. He waved at them as he walked past. "Hey. 'Sup."

Twilight walked alongside him. "Spike? How are you feeling today?"

"Can't complain."

"There's something you need to know," said Rarity. "We've all decided—well, except for Pinkie Pie—not to enter the show."

"S'cool." Spike continued walking and the others fell in beside him.

"We were bein' awfully competitive last week," Applejack said, "and we just wanted to apologize to you."

"Apologize?" Spike arched a casual, mildly interested eyebrow. "For what?"

"For making you feel left out," Fluttershy said, "and for making you feel like you had to join in, even though you might not have really wanted to."

"Oh, that?" Spike waved a hand. "Don't worry about it. It's no biggie."

Fluttershy shot Rarity a worried glance.

Rarity caught up with him. "We're saying you don't have to compete if you don't want to."

"Well duh. What are you gonna do? March me on stage and make me dance?"

"He's going to do it," Pinkie Pie whispered. "He's really going to do it!"

"What!?" Twilight Sparkle walked in front of him, trying to make eye contact. "Spike, no! You don't have to do this!"

He shrugged. "What if I want to?"

"Then this isn't the place to do it!" she said. "These are some of the most critical, nit-picky judges in all of Equestria! They'll scrutinize every little mistake you make, no matter how insignificant! There's no way you'll ever be able to please them!"

"Well then it's a good thing I'm not trying to," he said and pointed a thumb at his chest. "I'm doin' this one for Spike."

Twilight walked in front of him and stood in his path with a stern glare. "This is ridiculous, Spike. You go back to the library and get some sleep, and we'll talk about this when I—

Spike gave her a look that was equal parts bored and disappointed. "I'll walk right through you if I have to."

Twilight stared down at him. After a moment, she stepped sideways. Spike resumed his walk, and the six friends watched him go.

"I got a chill," said Pinkie Pie. "Just for a second there."

Rarity ran to catch up with him. "What about that outfit I made you? Aren't you going to wear it?"

"Nope."

"Oh, but it looks so adorable! As soon as they see it, the crowd will just—"

"I'm not doing this for the crowd," Spike grumbled. "And I'm not doing this for the judges, either."

"Won't you wear it... for me?" she said with a flutter of her eyelashes.

Spike clenched his jaw. "I'm doin' this for Spike." They watched as he walked down the road and went into the theater's side entrance.

Rarity grabbed Twilight by the shoulders and gave her a vigorous shake. "Do something! Anything! There must be some kind of magical spell you can use to improve his odds!"

Applejack pushed her back, leaving Twilight to wobble back and forth with both eyes spinning. "We ain't gonna fix anything by cheatin'! We'll talk to the lady whose running this shindig and ask her to pull Spike's act from the list."

Rarity's lower lip trembled. "But how would he feel about that? It would crush his gentle spirit!"

"That's kind of his fault, isn't it?" said Rainbow Dash. "We tried to talk him out of it, but he just doesn't know when to quit. Maybe this'll teach him to—"

Rarity stamped a hoof. "Oh, how could you be so callous? This is poor little Spikey-wikey we're talking about, and you want to leave him out to dry?"

"I'm saying he might learn a lot today," Dash said with a shrug. "He can't learn from his mistakes if we don't let him make any."

"Didn't you hear him?" They turned to look at Pinkie Pie. She looked faintly awestruck, and a strange, glowing smile was creeping over her face. "I think he's really gonna do it!"

Twilight frowned at her. "Do what?"

Pinkie Pie hopped past them with a little more bounce than usual. "Oh boy are you girls in for a treat tonight!"

Fancypants stepped into one of the theater's private box seats, barely spacious enough for a pair of comfortable chairs. This particular balcony was quite close to the front, providing a skewed side-view of the stage. The two near-most seats were traditionally reserved for composers and playwrights, perhaps because they afforded a view of the crew-area on the far end of the stage itself. Even now, he could see crew-ponies rushing back and forth with props, costumes and gaffer's tape.

Fleur de Lis didn't look up as he sat down beside her, but smiled when he kissed her on the cheek. "I was wondering if you'd even show up at all."

"So was I, for a minute there." He settled into his chair and took out a box of apple juice. "I had to give a few last words of encouragement before the show started."

"Words?" Fleur de Lis sat upright. "Encouragement? What have you been up to?"

"Up to? My dear, you cut me to the quick!"

"If you've done anything to sabotage this show—"

"Absolutely not." His eyes hardened, but only for a moment. "I suspect this has been a long time coming."

She pursed her lips. "What has?"

"No idea. But we'll find out soon enough." He paused to sip at his juice box. "Delicious! We need to buy an apple farm someday."

Fleur de Lis waved at him as the house lights dimmed. "Would you stop that slurping? You'll drive everypony crazy."

"Terribly sorry." He took out a leaflet and idly scanned the schedule. "Say, did you know how many vocal chords the average dragon has? Six times more than a pony does. Six! That's quite a lot, isn't it?"

Fleur de Lis turned, very slowly, to peer at him. "Dragons?"

"Dragons tend to have very long, serpentine necks so their vocal cords need to cover a much larger surface area." He held his hooves out as if to describe great length. "It also means they can produce a much greater range and volume of—

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Remember the story of how I became a knight? Well you see, I'm something of a dragon fancier. Do you know how challenging it is to groom dragons for—"

"That's enough silly stories out of you. I won't hear another word of it until the show is over. Do I make myself absolutely clear?"

"Yes, dear. Utterly transparent. I'll be quiet as a mouse."

Spike sat in the waiting room and scanned the pages in his thin binder. There were only a few sheets and there was no point in memorizing them since they'd be sitting on a stand in front of him the whole time. He flipped through them, over and over, staring at the perfectly measured rows of notes and words. Fancypants had reccomended this song himself and assured him it would do full and proper justice to his 'unique auditory capabilities.'

Whatever that means. He looked at the rest of the chairs in the waiting room, all empty. Why'd I have to go last, anyway? Do they think I'm just gonna lose no matter what I do?

One of the stage workers opened the door, dressed in a black bodysuit. "Five minute notice, Spike. You good to go?"

"As I'll ever be," he said and hopped off the chair. "Let's just hope the audience is ready."

"That's the spirit!" the stageworker said. "Right this way. Pinkemina should be finishing up soon enough."

I gotta follow Pinkie Pie's act? Spike clenched his fists and set his jaw. Keep it together, Spike. It doesn't matter who you follow. Remember what Fancypants said: keep your nose clean and do your best. And something about keeping my upper lip as stiff as possible.

Spike followed the stageworker down the narrow hall, weaving and ducking through a steady stream of ponies. He managed to reach the stage-left wing without getting stepped on, but only just barely. He tensed up as he heard the roaring crowd beyond.

"Are they booing?" Spike asked the stage worker. "What's going on out there? I thought it was Pinkie's turn!"

"It is. You can take a peek if you like, as long as you don't step over the yellow line."

Spike went over to the edge of the giant curtain and looked onto the stage. Pinkie Pie was dressed as a clown—complete with giant shoes and a rainbow wig—and was marching back and forth on the stage in a fully automated one-mare-band apparatus comprised entirely of cymbals, tubas, and trumpets. Every single instrument was poorly tuned and every step she took produced up a low-pitched 'blaaat' or a squealing whistle. The crowd was roaring it's vehement disapproval, and a constant stream of vegetables cascaded onto the stage.

Spike's eye twitched. "What."

"She does the same thing every year, in some form or another... no idea why. Oop! Looks like she's finishing up." He hoisted up a giant candy-cane hook. "I'd better get ready to help her with her 'big finish.' You'd better go talk with the sound crew to sort out any final details."

"Yeah... sure." Spike walked a little further backstage, thumbing through his binder. I dunno if this makes things easier or harder for me.

"Hey, Spike!"

He looked up as Sweetie Belle walked over with a microphone stand. "Oh, hey. What are you doing back here?"

She nodded to her black bodysuit. "They wouldn't let us join the talent show, so they let us work backstage! They said volunteer work is a great way to get into theater."

"Oh... my." Spike wrung his claws together. "So you've got everything under control? Totally?"

"You can count on us for sure!" she said, smiling brightly. "But I'd stay away from stage far right just to be on the safe side. Scootaloo's doing the lights, and she doesn't always use enough gaffer's tape. But really, though, I'm sure everything will be fine. Nothing's gone wrong yet, right?"

"Yeah. Sure," he said. Or it means we're due.

"Spike! One minute call!"

Spike pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "That's me. I better—"

"I'll go with you to set up the microphone!" she said.

Spike went back to the curtain just as Pinkie Pie was coming off stage. She was covered in bits and pieces of shredded cabbage and there was an apple stuck in one of her tubas. "Whoo! I think that was my most intnse show ever!"

"But they were booing you."

"Sure they were, but they were laughing at the same time. Sometimes people just love to boo!" She waited as the stage worker unhooked the giant candy cane from around her neck. "I actually got more boos than the beardless goat lady!"

"That you did, ma'am," the stage worker said. "Congratulations."

"So I'm confused now," Spike said. "Did she somehow win by losing?"

"Oh, Spike! Winning isn't everything. Now if you'll excuse me, I have just one teensy little prank to pull..." Pinkie Pie took out a funny-looking mask and put it on. She gave him a firm pat on the back as she walked away. "Break a leg!"

Spike swallowed hard and stepped out onto the stage. "Just put one foot in front of the other," he whispered to himself.

Sweetie Belle hefted the microphone stand and followed after. "Are you scared? It's okay to be scared, you know."

"I'm not scared," he said. "I'm petrified."

Sweetie Belle set the stand in front of him, tangling her leg on the cable. She lowered the microphone as far as it would go but it was still several inches above his head. A low ripple of laughter echoed from the faceless, nameless crowd. It was nothing at all like being laughed at by a single pony.

"Sorry, Spike. You've got fingers, right? Let me just unscrew the mic so you can hold it."

Spike waved her away. "Just take it off stage."

"No microphone? But—"

"I'll be fine," he hissed. "Just go."

Sweetie Belle flinched back, but dutifully carried the microphone off stage. Spike ignored the murmurs from the crowd.

Remember what he said. No matter what you do, don't look at the whole crowd. Just look at his face. He looked up at the box seat nearest to his right and caught sight of Fancypants' familiar blue mane. As long as I focus on just one pony at a time, I'll be...

A lump caught in his throat as he caught sight of Applejack in the front row, looking particularly displeased. She was right in the front row, seated between Big Mac and Fluttershy. All the rest of his friends—save for Pinkie Pie—were in the box seats to his left. There, seated all by herself, was Rarity. She was glancing between him and the crowd, constantly fidgeting.

Just one face... Spike locked eyes with her for just a moment, but clenched his jaw and looked at the entire crowd at once. No. I know exactly who I'm doing this for.

Applejack crossed her arms and grunted. "Well I wouldn't have agreed to sell apples in the first place if I'd know they were just going to throw them."

"Aw come on, sis!" Big Macintosh said as he nudged her shoulder. "It was all in good fun, that's all. I'm sure they didn't mean nuthin' by it."

"And what about you, huh? I brought a whole bag for us to much on and there's nuthin' left because you wanted to test yer aim."

"I'm certain I got one into that tuba," he said with a low chuckle. "If you're really that hungry, we could buy something. I'm pretty sure I saw some carrots for sale back there."

Applejack grabbed the bow-tie on his and yanked him close. "I came here to sell food, not buy it!"

Fluttershy leaned over and waved at them both. "Hush, you two! It's starting!"

"Already?" Applejack looked to the stage and saw Spike walking to the center, with Sweetie Belle following after with a microphone stand. Applejack winced as she tripped over the cable, and again when she adjusted the stand.

Big Mac quietly guffawed. "Heh. He's short!"

"That wasn't part of the show, ya galoot!" She slumped in her seat and sighed. "Just look at the poor thing. This is going to end in tears, I just know it."

The crowd fell silent as Spike looked about the hall. His eyes settled on something briefly but she couldn't tell exactly what. He took a deep breath, and managed a steely frown.

Spike sang. The tone was potent and powerful, with a raspy grain that no pony could hope to reproduce. Even without the microphone, his voice echoed to every corner of the hall and resonated over the crowd. There were no instruments to accompany the melody. He needed none: the notes flowed like water and stung the audience's hearts like fire.

Applejack leaned back in her seat, eyes wide, as Spike's volume raised further still. He reached one hand forward and grasped at the air, gazing at something above and beyond the audience itself. Applejack knew nothing of opera, and yet the melody called to her. It brought to mind valor and struggle and, at the heart of it all, victory and celebration. It was an anthem from a bygone era of swords and sorcery, of lances and spears. He sang of terrible claws and searing fire, and of the valorous hearts that dared to face such monstrous horror... but despite the power and volume, every note was tainted by a slight, precise warble: A vein of sorrow and regret that shot through the message of joy and celebration. A mournful dirge for what this great victory had cost the world.

And on it went. Spike sang without pause, seeming not even to breath. After thirty seconds of eternity the theater hall fell deathly silent. There was no applause. Neither exultation nor discontent. Applejack could scarcely bring herself to breathe above a whisper. Spike finally broke the silence by stomping off stage with his eyes scrunched shut.

Applejack's neck trembled as she turned to Big Mac. "What just happened?"

Fancypants sat in one of the backstage side rooms, patting Spike on the back as he sobbed uncontrollably. "There there, lad. Stiff upper lip and all that."

Spike lifted his head and rubbed his fists against his eyes. "That was the worst anything ever! They didn't clap at all... they didn't even boo! They didn't do anything at all! The whole room was totally silent!"

"Really? Well, I still thought it was a rousing good show. 'A' for effort."

"Effort!?" Spike snarled up at him. "I put everything I had into that song and this is what I get!? I've never felt so awful!"

"That's proof enough that you love it."

They looked up as Fleur de Lis stepped through the door way.

"Wha?"

She walked over to them, slow and graceful. "You poured everything you had into that song, and you bared your soul to the world. You never would have felt so hurt if you didn't care about it so deeply."

Spike sniffled, wetly. "Really? You mean it?"

"I don't know if Dragons ever get cutie marks," she said with a warm smile, "but if they did I think you'd have earned one just now."

"Wow. That's really... just... wow." Spike rubbed his nose and managed a frail little smile. "Thanks, lady. I guess it's just a shame everypony else hated it."

"Hated it?" she said. "The crowd wasn't silent because they hated it. They were—"

Fancypants glanced down the hall behind her and shot up from his seat. "Ah! Well, then! I suppose that's the end of that, then. So what do you think, eh sweetums? 'A' for effort!"

Fleure de Lis straighted up. "Effort!? You went through all this trouble and manipulated this poor, innocent child just to prove that talent is more important than effort? You did all this to win an argument with me!?"

"Perhaps just a little, my dove. I thought an object lesson would—"

Fleur de Lis stamped a hoof. "Of all the atrocious things I've ever heard! This was the vilest, most awful thing I've ever had to endure in my entire life, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

Fancypants watched, patiently, as Rarity ran down the hall and rushed into the room with them. Her face twisted with righteous anger when she heard Fleur de Lis' scathing words.

"Why hello there," Fancypants said pleasantly.

"Who—" Fleur de Lis turned to look, just in time for Rarity to slap her smartly across the cheek. She recoiled with a gasp.

"Atrocious!?" Rarity snarled. "It's obvious you don't know the slightest thing about music and I dare say you don't even deserve to have heard such a moving performance!"

"But I—" Fleur de Lis hurried to back up as Rarity advanced on her.

"His tone: Perfect! His pitch: Perfect! His rhythm: Absolutely flawless! And that's to say nothing of his volume! This was the greatest performance of your miserable life and if you even think of giving him anything less that a five star review when you slink back to your salon in Canterlot, I shall personally see to it that nopony in court ever speaks to you again about anything more urgent than the weather!"

There was a quiet moment as Fleur de Lis remained pressed up against the wall. "I believe we have reached an understanding, Miss Rarity."

"Hrmph!" Rarity rushed to Spike and gently stroked his quills back. "Oh you poor thing! What did she say about you?"

"Actually, she thought I was—"

"Well don't you dare believe a single word of it. You were magnificent back there!"

"But the crowd didn't cheer! They didn't even boo!"

"They were stunned," Rarity said. She held his face and locked eyes with him. "They were in awe, Spike. I swear to you, it's an even greater accolade than a standing ovation."

"Really? Wow... I thought for sure I messed up the words." He scratched the back of his head and looked away. "I forgot to set up the binder, so I kind of just winged it."

Rarity held up a bouquet of red roses and set it in his lap. "Truly, Spike. It was the performance of a lifetime."

"Thanks!" Spike took the roses and inhaled deeply. He then held them out to Rarity. "You hungry? They look pretty tasty."

"You just hold onto those a while longer. You still have an adoring crowd to meet with, after all!" She nudged his cheek. "And don't even think of letting anyone else stay by your side."

Spike rubbed the back of his neck. "That sound real great and all, but do we have to deal with the crowd right now? I think I need to relax."

"You've got a whole crowd of adoring fans out there!" she said. "This is your moment, Spike! Where else in all of Equestria would you rather be right now?"

"It's less of a 'where' and more of a 'who,' really." He hopped down from the chair and nodded out the door. "Ya wanna go for a picnic or something? I know a great spot by the river."

Rarity stared down at the little dragon and wiped a tear from her face. "I'd like that very much, actually."

Rarity and Spike turned and left through the door together. Spike looked back only briefly, to give Fancypants a thumbs up.

"But the contest!" Fleur de Lis said. "You still have to sign for the—"

Fancypants set a hoof on her shoulder and shook his head, silently mouthing the word 'no.' They watched as Spike and Rarity walked to the end of the hall and turned the corner.

"He does know that he won, doesn't he?"

Fancypants arched his eyebrows suggestively. "Oh, I imagine he's quite aware of that."

"The contest. He won the contest."

"Well, you know what they say: Winning isn't everything." He tossed his head to one side with a grin. "Six times as many vocal cords, they say. Six times! There's a reason dragons are renowned for their mighty roars. The fire and claws are dangerous, mind you, but the roar? There's a special kind of magic to it that'll put the fear into anypony."

"You know what you are?" she hissed through her teeth. "You're a sneaky... conniving... childish... impish little scalawag! You don't have a single dignified bone in your body, do you?"

"So I'm a scalawag, am I?" He puffed his chest. "Well then! You know what you are? Do you? Oh just ask me what I think of you!"

She glared at him, but her face softened as soon as she looked into his eyes.

"The sweet little filly I married."

She leaned close and kissed his cheek. He rubbed his neck against hers and lifted her up, making his way out the door. She sang a few quiet notes from a particularly romantic sonnet, interspersed with a few play giggles.

"Ah yes," he whispered in her ear. "Now there's the sweetest music of all! It's neither the effort nor the talent that matters at all. No, it's something else entirely."

She smiled back at him. "You haven't forgotten, have you?"

"Forget, my sweet little swan? I couldn't if I tried. But perhaps a little reminder is in order, just to be on the safe side..."

He carried his wife down the hall and out to the waiting carriage, singing along with his own resonant tenor.

Joie de Vivre

A silver Civic whirrs past the sign at the front of the road which reads, "Rocky Hill Farm."

"You'll love it, Mary," Abe says stopping and turning at the first street. "It's a positively charming little farmhouse. In fact, it's the original farmhouse. They left it standing back when they developed the place. Dead end street. The yard's enormous. Great price; I don't know what the last owners were thinking. Maybe they got into money trouble. Two storeys, three bedrooms, lovely parlor—"

"Running water?" Mary teases.

"Hot water, if you can believe it. The last owners put in electric for the car, but I think they should have left the gas lights as they were."

"You're joking."

Abe turns into a driveway, past a pair of huge maple trees, and lets the house speak for itself. It sits at the top of a hill, crowned with a gray slate roof. The siding is baby blue and the shutters are white, both freshly painted. Second-storey dormers look out over the front yard.

"Oh," Mary says. "Well that's quite nice."

"Hey, Pound. What are you up to today?" Pinkie Pie asks. It's a Saturday and everypony seems to love Saturdays in Ponyville. They bustle about downtown like a swarm of mulitcolored ants, talking, laughing, buying, and selling. Little tents line the street, a striped blue-and-yellow awning over a lemonade stand next to a cart where two rough-cut stallions from out of town are selling rare gems.

Pound Cake, a tan pegasus colt, is sitting just across the street from his parents' bakery-and-cafe, staring up at a tree with a scowl on his face. "It's my kite. Look."

He points a forehoof and Pinkie raises her blue eyes to the top of the tree. Sure enough, a yellow tail flutters in the wind from the top branches.

Pinkie sits down next to him, a thoughtful frown pulling at her pink face. "Well, why don't we fly up and get it?"

"Pinkie, you know I can't fly." Pound buzzes his tiny wings, blowing up two little clouds of dust, but he doesn't even begin to lift himself from the ground. "And you don't even have wings."

"I wouldn't be so sure there, mister," Pinkie says. "I'm pretty sure I left them in the garage."

"What? Really?" Pound suddenly looks over at Pinkie, eyes wide.

Pinkie gets up and trots across the street, around into the shade behind the bakery. Pound follows. Technically, Pinkie is his family's apprentice, but in his world she occupies a position somewhere between "older sister" and "crazy but cool aunt," and for a moment he can almost belive that she somehow does have a pair of bright pink wings neatly folded up and hanging on the wall. He tries to imagine how that would work.

Pinkie hauls on a pull ring, sliding the door of the garage open. The rough green-painted wood slips through the little spots of sunlight that pass between the leaves of the tree.

A cart sits in the garage, ready to go. Next to it, a compact clutter of wooden crates are stacked from floor to ceiling, labeled in Pinkie's energetic mouth-writing: "Streamers," "Poof-Going Things," "Instant Tea Party Kit Mk. 4," "Old-Fashioned Novelties," and many, many more.

"Oh no," she says. "I left my wings behind the balloon."

This is a security announcement. Only ticketed passengers and authorized personel are allowed beyond the security checkpoint. Keep control of your baggage and belongings at all time. Do not accept bags from anyone you do not know. Report unattended baggage or suspicious behavior to uniformed employees or security personel. If you see something, say something.

The voice reverberates off the waxed faux-marble floor, the polished counters, the glass, and steel of the terminal. A farmer and his grown daughter walk away from the check-in desk slowly, as if spellbound at the size.

It looks big enough to hold an entire county fair inside. Here and there people skitter about, little dark spots each no more significant on the sea of beige stone than waterskaters on the surface of a pond. Wheeled suitcases whir and clack behind the travellers.

The farmer comes to stop at what he judges to be a respectful distance from the security folk with their starched white shirts, shiny badges, and machines encased in clinical off-white plastic.

"Well, I guess this is it, sweetie pie." He's dressed in his best gray suit and he carves what he hopes is an encouraging smile into his sun-lined face.

The daughter, perhaps in her late teens, isn't dressed as out of place. Her work boots and jeans are worn-in, but the light-gray UST sweatshirt she wears could be new. Springy blond hair cascades over her shoulders and a bubblegum pink messenger bag hangs at her side. "Well gosh, Papa, it's just school. You make it sound like I'm going away forever."

The farmer's smile falls just a bit. "I'm going to miss you."

His daughter throws herself on his shoulders, half hug, half wrestling move. The farmer takes half a step back, but she squeezes his chest tight and holds him up. "I'll miss you too, but I promise I'll call every week and send postcards and cookies and things, and you'll see, it'll be like I never left."

The farmer pats her back and doesn't say anything for a long moment. Then he coughs. "You'd best not miss your flight, then. Make sure you have your ticket and your license..."

"Uh-huh. I love you, Papa." She lets him go, sets him balanced upright. "And I'll see you in a few short, short months."

Like that, she's gone, skipping towards the security officers. She looks back once, smiles and waves. The farmer turns, a little unsteady, towards the long, lonely ride home.

But he's so very, very proud.

Pinkie Pie takes a look at the stack of party miscelanea now piled outside the garage, and realises she'll have a lot of organizing to do later, hopefully before Mr. Cake notices, because he'll probably complain and she'll have to pick everything up and he'll be in a bad mood until she does—which won't be a very nice thing to do to him.

On the other hoof, she and Pound Cake have found her wings.

Pound's imagination was completely wrong. Pinkie's "wings" have a candy-cane frame, four pedals, a couple of spinny-things on top, and for some reason a giant daisy on the front. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to him, but to be fair it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to most ponies.

"Help me pull it out front," Pinkie says. "I need open air and maybe a little headwind. It's been a while, but I think I remember how to fly this bad boy."

Pound takes a spot behind the flying machine, sets his shoulder against the frame, and pushes as hard as he can. It doesn't move of course, not until Pinkie stands next to the seat and wrangles it out of the garage. The runner along the bottom scrapes against the ground. They have to take several breaks but they finally get it in front of the bakery.

Pinkie wipes the sweat off her brow with a knee and looks across the street. "Um, Pound, wasn't your kite in that tree?"

Pound looks, then runs across the street. Pinkie takes a moment to fold out the kickstand of her flying machine, and by the time she catches up with him, he's almost made himself cry. "It's gone. Pinkie, it's g—gone..."

Pinkie lies down on her belly, brings her nose level with him. "Hey. The wind probably just blew it out of the tree. I'll search from the air and you search from the ground and there's no way we can possibly miss it."

Pound sniffs and tries to smile. "Okay. L—let's try."

He climbs to his feet, but at that very moment, another colt's voice interrupts. "Excuse me, Miss Pie?" He's a skinny pegasus with a white coat and brown mane, standing in the middle of the street. "Can I ask you a question or two?"

Pinkie looks at him and shakes her head, but walks over to him anyway. "You already asked me a question, and you didn't even ask first. You should know better, Featherweight."

"Sorry," Featherweight says, and then realization crosses his face. "But if I have to ask before I can ask then how am I supposed to—"

Pinkie flashes him a smile. "It's okay, kiddo. What's your question?"

"What is the most important thing to you?" He looks down at the ground and adds, "Miss Cheerilee told us to. I'm supposed to interview some pony and write about what we talked about. If you don't mind."

"Oh," Pinkie says. "How about I show you what's important to me? C'mon, Pound. We have a kite to find."

Abe stops the car at the top of the driveway, gets out and opens Mary's door for her. "Isn't this charming?" she says. Abe nodds once in agreement.

"I'll just take a little walk around."

"Please do," Abe says. "After all, we bought the place. Take all the time you want. I'll start unloading."

Mary wanders around to the back yard, staring up at the house and out over the property. There's a park in the middle of the development not too far away. It has a tennis court and a basketball court with some kind of red paved surface, and a small playground too. The rest of the ground is green as far as she can see: grass, trees in full leaf, a small vegetable garden.

As far as she can tell, it's a nice neighborhood.

Abe is carrying the last box in from the car when Mary steps inside to show herself around the house. He sits down with a bottle of water. The moving company will come tomorrow, and there'll be plenty of work then, but he'll savor the moment he has now. The empty rooms echo strangely as Mary creaks around upstairs and finally comes back down.

"Abe," she says. "Can you look at this?"

Abe hoists himself back to his feet, follows his wife up the stairs. She leads him into the master bedroom, and puts her hands on her hips. "How many windows are there that face the back?"

"Hey, don't ask me. I haven't exactly counted them."

Mary drops her arms and looks out into the yard. "I think we're missing one."

"Missing?" Abe steps close and hugs her waist gently. "What do you mean, 'missing?' "

"There's one on the outside that we don't have in here."

Abe considers this, looking around the empty room. The ugly wallpaper will have to go, he decides. He points to the windows one by one. "Well, let's see then. One. Two."

"Don't take it personally, Miss Pie, but I don't think that looks like a very good idea," Featherweight says.

Pinkie perches atop her flying machine and snaps a pair of flight goggles over her eyes. "Featherweight, how much fun do you think I'd have if I only had good ideas? And 'Miss Pie' is my sister. Could you call me Pinkie?"

Pound Cake stands by a shrub, eyebrows furrowed. "Pinkie, maybe we should listen to the flying pony."

"Nonsense! This thing is perfectly one-hundred-percent Pinkie-approved super safe. Now be a good little colt and take cover. A-one, a-two, a-goin'-through!" Pinkie stands on the pedals and pumps all four. The twin rotors at the top of her craft begin to spin in opposite directions, slowly builing speed.

"You know one of them is a little crooked, right, Miss Pinkie?" Featherweight says. Pound peeks from behind a yew bush.

Pinkie grits her teeth and spins the pedals faster. There's something a little gritty or sticky in the chain and it's not turning as well as she remebers. The faintest touch of frustration creeps into her voice. "Don't get any ideas, Featherweight. Just because you've got wings of your own doesn't mean you know the first thing about building gadgets." The blades whir faster and faster, the flying machine stands up straight, and then ever so softly it leaves the ground.

"Hah!" Pinkie says. She rises half a pony's height off the ground, then a full pony. A little tic begins to twitch, twitch at her tail, but she ignores it. "Now that is how it's—"

Snap!

Something very breakable breaks and flies away from the machine buzzing like a whole nest full of bees. The machine, and Pinkie, drop to the ground as if they'd been held up by a string that somepony came along and cut with an enormous pair of invisible scissors.

Down the street, somepony is screaming.

Featherweight finds his voice but it's all sqeaky and choked. "Pinkie? Are you all right?"

Pound hides his face under his hooves, shaking.

Pinkie untangles herself from the wreck and staggers down the street.

She hasn't called this week. Not yet, and it's late Saturday night. The farmer never got around to making himself dinner; he just sits at the kitchen table under the florescent lights with the box of cookies his daughter sent him. Only a few crumbs are left, even though he barely remembers eating any.

The phone next to him shatters the silence. He picks it up, brings it to his ear, calls his daughter's name.

"No, I'm sorry. I was expecting someone else. Yes, this is him speaking."

The color drains from his face. "I see. No. I'll be there as soon as I can."

He scrambles to his feet, leaves the phone hanging, stumbles to his desk, searching for pen and paper. Jake will be there tomorrow to help with the chores. The farmer scratches him a note, then runs to his bedroom, scrounges some petty cash, and leaves both on the kitchen table. Jake will find it and take care of everything.

Something far, far more important matters to him now. He must move himself or move the earth.

A blade from Pinkie's flying machine is halfway embedded into the second storey of a charming pony house next to a window. The window is open, and the mare glaring through it is anything but charmed. "What were you thinking? Can you imagine what would have happened if that, that thing landed just a little lower?"

Pinkie's ears droop down either side of her face, her mouth twisted into a tiny, horror-struck frown. "I'm so sorry, Lily. I'm just..."

"I sleep in this room. Ponies like you are a menace, do you hear me? A Tartarus-damned menace!" She slams the window shut.

Featherweight and Pound find Pinkie sitting frozen in eactly the same pose. "Miss Pinkie?" Featherweight says, prodding her shoulder lightly. "Are you hurt?"

"No," Pinkie says. "I'm not the one who's hurt." Her voice is very small. "But I almost... not again."

"If we don't find my kite, Pinkie, that's okay," Pound says. "Just please don't cry."

Pinkie climbs to her feet. "We can still look. We're not beaten yet. Featherweight, what did I say was the most important thing right now?"

"Are you serious? Wow, Miss Pinkie, you sure take your kites seriously. Just, leave the flying to me, okay?"

"Sure thing." Pinkie's voice drops to a grim monotone. "And this isn't serious. This is silly. No flying unless we have some safe, gentle, no-fast-spinny-parts way of doing it."

"Actually," Pound says, "what about the balloon?"

Folk music plays from a radio in one corner of the sparsely furnished kitchen and a pot of water boils on the stove. Mary paces around with a notebook and pencil drawing up a shopping list when she's not singing along. Plain pasta and sauce out of a bottle will have to do for tonight, but there's no way she or Abe will put up for it at long.

An awful sound a whirring, groaning, squeaking growl sounds from somewhere upstairs throughout the whole house. Mary sighs. This was supposed to be Abe's night to cook. She turns up the stairs, finding her husband wearing a dust mask and holding a reciprocating saw in his hands.

"Honey, don't you think we should let the ink dry on the mortgage before we start cutting holes in the wall?"

"Hey, sorry." Abe pulls the mask from his face so he can speak clearly. "I'm sure there's an extra room in here. Who knows what it is? Maybe we'll turn it into another bedroom, or you can have the biggest walk-in closet in the neighborhood."

"Maybe it's haunted by ghosts and you'll let them out." Mary shakes her head. "But remember. I'm cooking tonight so that makes it your turn to do the dishes."

Pinkie's hot air baloon rests on its cart outside the bakery. She releases the straps that hold the envelope in a bundle on top, letting purple fabric cascade to the ground. "I can't believe I didn't think of this before, guys. A hot-air balloon is so much safer than wirling blades of death! Now stretch it out neat and flat."

Pinkie, Featherweight, and Pound take three points around the envelope, stretching it into a circle—or at least Pound tries to help. Pinkie finishes her side and helps him with his.

"Yes folks, perfectly safe, and we'll have that kite found in no time." Pinkie trots up to the basket and starts rummaging around inside. She looks up with a sheepish smile. "Well, in no time once we find my gas. Featherweight, do you remember seeing a metal barrel about this big with a big sticker on the side?"

"What kind of sticker?"

"Well, it's red, and there's a drawing of a fire on it, and I think it says 'DANGER: FLAMMABLE' in big block letters. Something like that."

Featherweight looks around the scene his eyes growing wider and wider: the bakery, the trees, the baloon not too far away from the trees, the buildings packed close together here in the center of Ponyville, Pound Cake still pulling the last wrinkles out of the envelope, and Pinkie Pie and her huge smile. He can imagine far, far too many ways for this to go wrong.

Under any other circumstances, the hospital campus would be beautiful. Someone spends a lot of time caring for the beds of flowers, the perfect green lawns, the cherry trees now covered in white blossoms that make them look a little like lollipops made of clouds.

Under any other circumstances, the farmer would take time to admire the landscape, one man who makes things grow admiring the work of another.

He sits in the sterile indoors under florescent lights, over waxed white tile, crushed between walls papered in a soothing shade of cool gray.

He knows it's unfair, but he can't help hating the doctor from the moment he steps into the man's office. Bound dead trees line the walls, dead animals cover the chairs. Desert plants march across the base of the window, thick glass that keeps the birdsong outside and the hum of the air conditioning in. The doctor sits behind his desk, a little bald man with a thick grey moustache wearing the white coat of the grim reaper.

The farmer sinks into a chair. "How is she?"

"Stable," the doctor says. "She's still on a ventilator, but not in any immediate danger. However..." The doctor takes a deep breath and sets his hands on the desk, one on top of the other. "Her prognosis isn't good."

"Not good," the farmer echoes. "But there is still hope, isn't there?"

The doctor smiles thinly. "There is always hope. But in situations like this, I believe it is wisest to hope in proportion to actual probablilities..."

The balloon stands inflated and upright on the ground. Pound and Pinkie stand in the basket, Pound holding himself up with his forehooves hooked over the edge. "This is really going to fly? I'm really going to fly?"

"Yepperooni," Pinkie says. "Just a little more heat and we'll be off the ground." She pulls on the burner's handle and it roars like a dragon, sending a tongue of light and heat into the balloon. "Featherweight, are you coming?"

"Yeah, I guess so..." On one hoof, Featherweight knows he's crazy to board any vehicle with Pinkie, especially after seening the last one self-destruct, but on the other one, he has a very important job to take care of. Grudgingly, he beats his wings and settles into the basket. If the worst happens, he figures he can fly out.

"Now do you know what's the best part about flying in a balloon?" Pinkie's voice squeks with excitement. "You go with the wind. You never know where you'll end up!"

Featherweight glances up, quickly, looking around the curve of the ballon at the highest tree branches, hoping it's blowing anywhere but northwest. No such luck, he finds himself having to think on his hooves. "Pinkie, aren't we looking for Pound's kite?"

"Mmm-hmm," Pinkie says. "And that's why a balloon is so perfect. The wind blew it out of the tree, the baloon follows the wind, everything is hunkey-dorey."

"But the wind shifts," Featherweight says. "When did this happen?"

Pound frowns. "Just before you showed up, Featherweight."

"Oh," Featherweight says. "I remember, the wind was blowing due south then. I guess that just means I'll have to push." He laughs nervously.

Pinkie fires another long burst of flame into the balloon and it slowly begins to rise from the ground.

"Woah," Pound says as the ground and buildings slip down and away.

"Is this your first time flying?" Featherweight asks. "Well, check this out." He hops out of the basket, puts his hooves on the rail and begins to push.

Abe sits in the hallway covered with dust. Really, how long was it supposed to take to cut a hole in a wall? But then he had encountered stud after stud and one day's project became two.

He sets down his hole saw, picks up a flashlight, and angles its beam into the last in a line of holes. He smiles. The mystery room has a door after all; it's covered over by wall board but his sawzall will make short work of that. Half an hour later, he stands in front of a dusty, cobweb-covered door recessed into the wall. Amazingly, it even still has a door handle, an ancient pewter thing that looks like some kind of flower.

He wonders for a moment if he should call his wife, if he and Mary should open this forgotten room together, but then he laughs at himself for being sentimental and superstitious and, with a sudden surge of courage, twists the knob.

He doesn't know why he expected the room to be empty, but nothing could have prepared him for the quantity of pink he encounters behind that door: pink carnations on the wallpaper, pale rose paint on the ceiling, a four-poster bed neatly made decades ago—it's covers are a rich wine red. A dresser sits next to it, a neon shade of bubblegum pink that makes his eyes hurt.

If it weren't for the dust on everything and the wall that had cut the room off from the rest of the house, Abe could imagine the owner of this room had just left for the day and would be back any minute. He doesn't take a single step inside, just stands there frozen for a long moment. Then gently he closes the door, backs into the hallway, sets his back against the far wall, and tries to calm his pounding heart.

"I don't get it," Pinkie says, scanning the ground below through a pair of binoculars. "It was a perfect plan. Why haven't we found that kite yet? Featherweight, push harder."

Featherweight's wings are burning, the tiny white pegasus pushing against the basket of an enormous purple balloon. They've only gone a few blocks to the south, thanks to flying against the wind. He redoubles his efforts; he can't let Pinkie go north, not yet. "I'm trying, Pinkie," he gasps.

Pound Cake peers over the edge. "I don't see anything. Maybe we're not going to find it."

"No!" Pinkie says. "We're not giving up until we find that kite. Oh! Featherweight, I have an idea."

"What, Pinkie?"

"You said the wind shifted. Maybe it shifted and instead of blowing the kite south, it blew it north." Pinkie rushs to the north side of the balloon's basket and tries to scan the city through her binoculars.

Featherweight moves over to block her. Pinkie goes to the opposite side. He reaches out with a wing.

Pinkie sets her binoculars down and sticks her nose in his face. He blinks. Pinkie's voice is low and sweet. "I win the staring contest, Featherweight. You're acting very suspicious. Very suspicious indeed. So how about you tell Auntie Pinkie what's really going on?"

"I just want to make sure I don't misunderstand you," the farmer says, his voice controlled and level. "You're saying I should give up."

"What I am saying is..." The doctor takes a deep breath and chooses his words carefully. "This isn't like a broken arm or laceration or infection. There isn't a normal timeline for healing or a simple series of steps telling us what we should do. All I can say is her chances are less than one percent of ever being able to survive outside of a hospital setting, and those of her living any kind of full life are too small to even estimate.

"You don't know," the farmer says, rising from his chair, pointing a finger at the doctor behind his desk. His voice rises to a scream. "You don't even know! What hope is. Or joy. You don't know my Diane!"

He pauses and drops his arm to his side. His face softens. He collapses back into his chair. "Please forgive me."

"There is nothing to forgive. I am very sorry."

The farmer raises his face to look at the doctor. "Is she suffering?"

"No. Until the swelling in her brainstem subsides, she won't experience anything at all. If that happens, she may remain comatose. If we're very lucky, she might regain some degree of consciousness. She might be able to dream. She might not."

"So," the farmer says, "we wait."

"It will be expensive."

The farmers voice stays thin though there is steel in his grey eyes. "Damn the expense. Without her it doesn't matter if I lose everything."

Pinkie and Featherweight sit at either side of a table at Sugarcube Corner. Most days the cafe would be busy, but for some reason today business is slow. Mrs. Cake is puttering around the kitchen, washing trays and singing to herself softly.

Pound has just gone to the park, where there's a big open field with no trees waiting to snag his kite.

"I don't understand," Pinkie says. "If you knew where it was all along, why didn't you say something? And how did you know it was inside here? I still don't understand how that happened."

"I brought it down, when I got here, Pinkie," Featherweight admitted. "I was looking for you and saw the kite in the tree. I saw you were taking things out of the shed, so I decided to bring it down. That's all."

"And you let poor little Pound Cake worry all that time? I told you it was the most important thing and you betrayed us, you betrayer-er!"

Featherweight looks away. "I'm sorry. I promise there was a good reason, but I can't tell you now."

"A good reason? A good reason?! Do you really think I'm going to fall for that. Do you really think I won't get you to spill the beans? Hold on, mister. You don't know beans about beans yet!" Pinkie gets up. "Can I get you something to drink? 'Cuz we're gonna be here for a while!"

Before Featherweight can answer, the bell over the door rings and Rainbow Dash walks in to the Corner. Pinkie and Featherweight turn to see her.

"Hey, Pinkie, what's happening?"

"Oh, nothing much, Dashie. I'm just interrogating a secret agent here."

"I don't know, Mary, why don't you take a look at it?"

Mary sighs, sets her iced tea down on the counter, and looks at her husband. He's pale but maybe it's the gypsum dust.

"I don't see what you're so worked up about," she says. "It's just a room. A creepy abandoned room that makes you wonder what happened, but just a room nevertheless."

"Why don't you see for yourself?" Abe says. "I'll just—I've got to shower up."

And so Mary climbs the creaky stares of the old farm house to the upper floor, turns down the hall, and faces the forgotten door. She turns the knob and steps into the pink room.

Mary can't understand what's gotten into her husband, they'll just clean it out and have another bedroom—one more than they thought they had paid for, even. The more she thinks about it, the more she thinks it might be a good idea to leave it mostly the same. There's a wonderful little reading nook built into the dormer looking over the back yard, little pillows and white lace drapes.

And there are books, too, a whole case full of them: cookbooks, comics, a complete Foxfire set, and trade textbooks from electricity to soil science. Mary can barely hold in her laughter over one title—not a little girl's room, then, and she wonders who was the friend who bought her a cookbook like that and how much they laughed over it all those years ago.

A round box sits on the bookcase, too, short and squat on three stubby scroll legs. A simple pattern of beads wanders over its brown surface, punctuated by a big yellow daisy. Mary picks it up and carries it to the reading nook; its weight and the absence of any rattling sound suggests that it might be a music box, not one for jewelry.

Mary brushes aside the curtains and ducks into the nook, curling up by the window and cradling the box in her lap. She looks out the window, across the lawn at the trees waving softly in the wind, but only for a minute or two before she lifts the lid of the box.

It is indeed a music box, and somehow the mechanism has survived the decades. There isn't a ballerina inside—or rather, there is a ballerina revolving upon the clockwork base, but not a human one. She is some kind of small horse or pony standing on a hind leg, sculpted in pale yellow porceline, with two feathered wings spread from her back. She points one foreleg outstretched and holds the other close to her chest. Her eyes are closed, a look of blissful concentration written across her face and a single white feather is tucked into her gray mane behind one ear.

A pair of daisies mark either of her quarters. She is graceful, somber even, but the music is light and full of the joy of living.

"Pinkie Pie," Dash says, "you can call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure that's Featherweight, not a secret agent."

"Hah! That's exactly what he wants you to think. But I'm not going to let up until he confesses."

"Confesses what?" Dash asks.

"That he's part of a secret plot to undermind harmony in Ponyville by taking ponies' things and letting them spend the whole day trying to find them, that's what! The only thing I haven't figured out is whether he's working for zebra nationalists or griffon sympathizers."

Dash raises an eyebrow at Featherweight. "Seriously?"

"I have no regrets," the colt answers, raising a forehoof in salute.

"Yeah, okay," Dash says. "Pinkie, look at me and take a deep breath. We have a little situation. Kind of a 'party problem' you could say. Twilight wanted to throw a party, but she's forgotten the most important part, you see—"

Pinkie interrupts Dash with a hoof to her mouth. "Oh no. I bet she's so embarrassed and too proud to ask for help. Don't worry. Pinkie Pie is on this like glue on something that needs to be sticky."

"Great," Dash says. "Daisydancer square. You know where that is, right? Pretty much you go—"

But before she can finish speaking, Pinkie is gone. The bell jingles over the door.

Dash turns to Featherweight. "Seriously? That's what you and Pound came up with? Well, at least it worked, right?"

Featherweight nods.

"Well, come on then. We don't want to miss this."

Beep. Beep. Whoosh-click. Beep.

The lights are low in Diane's room and her friends have all gone home. Her father knows before too long he'll have to go too, but he'll wait until they make him, just like he has day after day.

He sits by her side, his hand gently resting on hers.

Three baloons float tied at the foot of her bed, two blue and one gold, the colors of the school she worked so hard to get into.

Pinkie Pie rounds the last corner cantering towards the square. To her surprise, there's already a party there, what she estimates to be eighty-three percent of Ponyville's population turned. That's not bad at all, especially considering that this is the first time adorkable little Twilight has tried to put together anything more than a little get-together for the six of them.

She scans her eyes around, wondering what's missing. There's the punch, the snacks, the live music, the streamers—you can't ever forget the streamers. Most of all it looks like ponies are having a good time, and what more could she ask for?

Twilight's voice calls out over the crowd. "Okay, here she is, everypony."

A roar erupts from the crowd. "Surprise, Pinkie Pie!"

Pinkie doesn't know where to look. Everypony is cheering and stomping their hooves for her and at one end of the square a cloth glows with Twilight's magic and slips to the ground. Behind it an archway reads: "The Ponyville Pinkie Pie Appreciation Party."

In that moment everything is as perfect and magical as a dream. The party goes on long into the night.

In the center of the square, in the middle of the party stands a fountain. A pegasus dancer stands on one hind leg, her wings outstretched, water pouring from her outstretched hoof. There is a look of blissful concentration on her face.

Her cutie mark is a daisy, and life in Ponyville is a full life indeed.

The End of the Season

When the winding key had been lost, she couldn't remember, but there was an awful lot she couldn't remember these days, so it didn't bother her. Not remembering the music did bother her, though. The haze of time had rounded off the edges of her memory, and recalling more than snatches of the melody was impossible. It didn't help that she hadn't listened to it since marrying Rusty Coat.

That memory refocused her thoughts and she returned to the crank. "Musta been between then and when he died," she murmured, nosing at the tiny porcelain ballerina.

The pony figure was soft pink with a feather in her mane. One forehoof, clad in mauve spats, stretched forward, with the opposing hind placed slightly back for balance. The little mare was meant to rotate on the single hoof which came into contact with the surface of the mechanism, but had remained still for years. Only the jewel-encrusted top, which gave the box an egg shape when closed, had protected the figurine from dust.

She gave a short but violent sneeze. If only the rest of the music box had such a covering.

From the doorway came the sound of a throat clearing.

"What 'n the sam hay did I tell ya 'bout invadin' my privacy?" she screeched, and shut the lid. Turning as quickly as her creaky body would allow, she faced the culprit and stared her down. Her older granddaughter flushed, eyes focusing on the floor.

"Uh, sorry, Granny. 'S just that ya have a visitor."

Well, that was unusual. Granny's mood lightened. "Who is it?"

Applejack shook her head slightly. "Nopony I know. Didn't mention a name, only that she wanted to talk to ya."

Granny Smith let out a breath, neither sigh nor snort, and glanced back at her room. In the noonday sun, all was traced shadows and hazy edges, warm and comforting.

"All right, all right. You tell 'er I'm comin'."

"Will do, Granny!" Applejack scurried off down the hall as Granny began the wearying process of moving herself down the stairs to the first floor.

"It's been a while, hasn't it?"

A breeze picked up, ruffling their manes. Smiles passed between their lips.

"And you ain't changed one bit. Yer lovely as ever, like mountains at sunrise." Granny enjoyed the blush that crept over her visitor's white cheeks.

Applejack had set them on the back porch, with a pitcher of sweet cider and an extra wicker rocking chair for their guest. They hadn't started talking until they were both sure she was out of earshot, and then had settled into a long moment of saying nothing that didn't need to be said.

"Sorry I ain't the way ya most likely remember me," Granny said at length.

She moved her head forward, chin up, and spoke softly. "You've nothing to apologize for. That's life for a pony."

"Anypony 'sides you, that is." Granny sniffed haughtily and took a long sip of her cider. It was cool and familiar, a taste that let her know she was where she belonged.

"Will you write to me, at least?"

"I can't. I got obligations. I'm sorry, but this is the way it's gotta be. Best you just forget about me."

Tears. She actually had emotions. It was a shame they hadn't come out sooner.

"Why ain't you visited sooner?"

She averted her eyes. "Engagements. Obligations. Time slips away. That's life for a pony like me." Her wings rustled and her head dipped down, a long pink lock slipping free and dangling over her face. "Ever since my sister came back, I'd hoped I'd have more time to see you, but... things happened."

"Y'ain't gotta 'pologize, but I 'ppreciate it all the same." Granny gazed into the distance, trying and failing to focus on the trees in the far back of the orchard. "Truth be told, I'd hoped ya'd stay away. Never wanted yer last memory of me t'be seein' me like this."

She got a gentle smile in return. "Oh come now, you talk as though you're at the end of your season."

"Mayhap I am." Granny twitched her nose, sending a gadfly on its way. "Ain't fer me t'say."

A hoof lay softly upon hers.

"You're so lovely. How am I so lucky to have a pony like you to spend time with like this? I just don't want to leave your side."

Laughter. "You flatterer! Ya know full well we ain't gonna be together forever."

"Oh, but don't speak so sadly! You've got years left in you! Let's enjoy them, you and I!"

"You still have a lot of life left in you."

Granny smiled, patting the hoof. "Thank ya fer sayin' so, dear." She took a deep breath. "It's nice, seein' ya again. Feels right, almost."

They stayed like that for a while, the birds chirping in the distance, until the white pegasus leaned in towards her cheek.

"Don't." Granny pulled away. "I'm too old t' be doin' anythin' like that now."

The visitor frowned. "You're only as old as you feel."

"That so? I must be at least two hundred by now, then!" She gave a raspy laugh. Though her companion smiled, she did not join in.

The laugh caught in her throat and she spent a few long moments hacking, while the pegasus watched, not interfering though her brows were knitted in consternation. Granny caught her breath at long last and wiped a line of spittle off her lips, soothing herself with more cider.

"What was it you ever saw in me, anyway? As I remembers it, it was my daddy who caught yer eye first."

The other mare laughed. "True, though perhaps that was more the other way around. Your mother never did forgive me."

Granny chuckled. "You know how us Smith mares can be."

"I most certainly do..." She rubbed at an imaginary bruise on her cheek, and they both shared in a giggle. "But you were different. Lovely, yes, but I always admired your tenacity, your cool head. You were always a rock to lean on when I needed it, and in my life, those have been hard to find."

"You're gonna say I wouldn't understand again, right?"

"It's not that I don't think you'd understand, it's just... I've tried sharing my affairs with ponies before. The scope of what I go through is so outside that which an average pony is familiar with..."

"Hush, lovey. No more words. Your saddle's in a twist, it don't matter why. You just sit a spell with me and everything'll be fine, you'll see."

Her voice grew quiet. "I've missed you, and I'm sorry I never came to visit sooner."

Granny peered back out at the birds. "You had your affairs and I had mine."

"Yes, well..." She coughed. "I am glad to see those same qualities in your granddaughter. It's something else that runs in the Smith line. You should be proud."

"I am proud o' AJ." Granny closed her eyes, smiling to herself. "But don't tell me she's the next to catch yer attentions now."

"No, no!" The pegasus laughed, waving her hooves. "From what I've heard, she has eyes for one of her friends."

Granny snorted. "She'll end up like me, y'know. We're tied to tradition. Gonna do her duty one day, that'n, and I pity the mare whose heart she breaks."

"As do I." A great heaving sigh followed. "Applejack has wonderful taste in mares..."

"I see."

Granny nodded, and rocked purposefully. The hard konk of trees being bucked came from elsewhere on the farm, punctuating the murmur of unintelligible conversation. Cider was sipped, and mumbles about the weather exchanged.

"I want you to have this."

"Really? It's so perty! I can't possibly accept, it must be worth a fortune!"

"Please, I insist. It's one of a kind, actually. I had it commissioned, just so I could give it to you. There's not another like it, nor will there ever be."

"Oh my goodness, you shouldn't have..."

"Listen to the music! When I can't be with you, let this play and think of me. I'll be with you in spirit."

"Did I ever mention that I still have it?" Granny said at last.

A modest smile blossomed. "You do? I never would have guessed, after all these years..."

Granny beamed. "It's still perty as the day y'gave me it. Ain't heard the music fer years though, on account the windin' key's lost."

"That's such a shame."

Granny's eyes narrowed. "Hold on now, I'm seein' that same old mischievious smirk on yer face. Yer up to somethin', you are!"

The pegasus let out a gasp of mock offense. "Me? Up to something? Missy Smith, I'm shocked that you would ever make such an accusation!"

Granny let out a guffaw, which turned into another coughing fit, which turned into another attempt at catching her breath. It took a few more breaths and a long swallow of cider before she could continue speaking.

"Ain't heard nopony call me anythin' but Granny in years, neither."

Her friend raised an eyebrow, angling her head coyly. "Forgetting your own name, now?"

"Nah, just..." Granny let out a breath.

"Missy Smith? I'm very pleased to meet your acquaintance."

"The pleasure's all mine, I assure you."

"Though I seem to recall have run afoul of your mother some years back. I'm not certain she would approve of your being here."

She laughed. "I'm sorry you had to remember that. But it don't matter what she thinks, I'm here all on my lonesome, lookin' to make what I can outta life!"

"I ain't had a use fer it, nor the old me neither."

The pink-maned head tilted down. "I'm sorry to hear that."

Granny waved a hoof. "Times change. Ponies change. 'Cept you, you stay the same. Sometimes I wonder if'n ya understand what that means at all."

The pink mane bobbed. "I do. Believe me, I understand change all too well."

There was another long moment, to take in the afternoon air's scent and listen to the sounds of foals playing in the orchard.

"Sunset's comin' soon, ain't it?"

"Mm."

"They'll be missin' ya back home afore long."

"Let them."

Hooves descended to the wooden porch floor. Granny turned her head to look over the toned white flanks sporting a sun-and-clouds cutie mark. That was new.

"I wouldn't be averse to rekindling our past together, you know."

Granny snorted. "With me in this wrinkled old body? That's a hoot."

"You know I liked you for more than your body."

"That's mighty kind of ya to say." Granny took a sip of her cider. "What's done 'n gone is done 'n gone, though. I'd just be breakin' yer heart again soon, at any rate."

"I told you, there is more life left in you than you think." Eyes of thistle, wide and blazing with expectation, turned toward her. "I could always give you more..."

"No!" Granny nearly fell forward out of her chair. "Don't you dare even mention it!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Hooves backed away, and the head hung in shame. "I shouldn't have even thought it."

Granny snorted and reclined. "Mama was right 'bout you bein' a temptress."

When she looked up, the pegasus was smiling, though her cheeks were wet.

"You know, nopony has ever taken me up on that offer."

Granny snorted. "It just goes t' show how much y'don't understand us regular ponies."

"It's always about the future with you! Why can't ya live in the present like us regular ponies?"

"I do live in the present! I live in everypony's present, all at once! Why can't you take your family pride and think about something greater than yourself?"

"Family's all that matters to me! It's all I got!"

"Don't I matter?"

"Yes, and that's why I gotta call it off!"

"That's why I weren't too shook up when I called it off."

The mare winced. "Pride runs in the Smith family, too, you know."

"Darn tootin'."

The tension sat in the air until it was borne away on the wind with the last of the apple blossoms.

"If..." Her companion's eyes searched left and right. "If I haven't offended you too much... Before I go, might I see it again? It's been so long."

Granny was quiet for a moment, trying to see if she could unnerve the other mare, but gave up shortly after she began. "Don't see why not. Just you mind the stairs, they're jibbly things these days."

Standing in close quarters with the mare recalled the way she used to smell, of sunlight, daisies and the cold isolation that accompanied with one of lofty position. Now, the coldness overwhelmed, with just a hint of a light spring day outdoors.

"The one thing I've always appreciated about farmers," she said, gazing around the interior of the room, "is that you know how to decorate. You can fill a room with memories and still leave enough space to walk around and enjoy them in."

"Thank ya kindly." Granny smiled, then opened the lid of the music box. Her friend stared at it, nose close enough to touch it, should she wish to. She remained that way, perfectly still, for a solid minute. Then, with a soft sigh, she rose, and nosed Granny's mane before she could protest.

"It's getting close to sundown," she said quietly. "I should be going. Many thanks for your hospitality."

"Yer always welcome in my home," Granny said, closing her eyes. She took a deep breath.

"Yaknow, my only regret is that I did have t'leave ya like that in the end. Them words I said... It weren't proper none. Weren't fair to ya."

The visitor paused. "Life has been less than fair to me before."

"I know that." Granny thrust a hoof at her accusatorily. "But that don't mean I abide havin' t'be the one makin' it harder for ya. You nor I can't go back to fix the past, so fer what it's worth, I'm sorry."

Her companion gave a demure smile. "For what it's worth, I accept. And thank you."

They embraced, though Granny's shoulders complained, and her friend nodded.

"It was good seeing you again, Granny."

"Likewise."

"I'll show myself out."

Granny smiled. "You take care now, hear?"

With a return smile, she was gone.

Granny lowered her hindquarters down onto her bedspread, and groaned along with the mattress. It was not an exclamation of relief so much as it was removing heavy clothing after a long journey, simply the signal that excess weight had been shed. She wiped her brow.

Something glinted off her dresser as the sun began to set outside her window. She squinted, but could make out nothing. With a humph, she lifted herself from the bed and shuffled over to it.

"Well I'll be a donkey's mother..."

Sitting next to the music box was a small winding key. She lifted it gingerly with her mouth, holding it beside the box and sizing up the fit. A quick thrust into the housing proved it to be an exact match. She cranked it twice, then opened the lid. Soft strains of music, familiar enough that she heard them in her marrow, tinkled out into the room.

Granny scrubbed at her cheeks.

"Once again, I weren't fair to ya none. I'm sorry."

"So who was it, Granny?"

Granny jumped, hollered, and slammed the lid shut, the key falling out onto the dresser with a soft plink. She fixed a gaze fit to bore through rock on the three faces peeking around the doorframe.

"What'n the sam hay I done told y'all 'bout stayin' outta my room?"

"We're not in yer room, Granny, honest!" proclaimed the youngest.

Granny scowled. "Y'all weren't listenin' in on my conversatin' now, were ya?"

"We weren't listening, Granny," said Applejack, "just gossipin'."

"Ain't never seen 'er before, 'sall."

"Big Mac, not you too!" Granny snorted. "Sakes alive, if I ain't raised three gossipy old mares in my house! My business is my own! Now all y'all, git out afore I get my broom!"

The three faces, their laughter barely suppressed, slunk away from the doorframe to their various pursuits. Apple Bloom lingered a moment longer, despite her granny's withering glare.

"Really, though, Granny Smith... Who was she?"

Laughter and long legs flashing in the sunlight.

The soft caress of wings that smelled of daisies and hay.

A warm embrace in a field, under a tree, in a bedroom or an empty stall.

The sun sank below the horizon.

"Apple Bloom... Ya wouldn't believe me if'n I told you."

My Sunshine

You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When skies are grey
You'll never know dear
How much I love you
Please don't take
My sunshine away

I can only ever hear her voice when that box plays, and I watch her twirling in place like the perfect porcelain performer she is. Petal, the light of my life, and the song she always sang with me are together in that box; they’re like two notes in perfect harmony, but they seem empty without each other. She had— has the most beautiful voice, like silk and velvet for the ears. I miss it every time I close the box, and come back to this nightmare.

I run without direction in the twisted, suffocating darkness that keeps everything from me except the next step ahead, and the only thing my mind can seem to conjure: the music box I carry with me. It’s my only key back to reality, out of this prison. The light from my horn is barely enough to spot a doorway ahead, and I duck inside without a second thought, closing the door behind me in an attempt to stay hidden. My heart is pounding in my chest as I hear the hoofsteps down the hallway, trying to find me again. At least, I hope they’re hoofsteps. Something is out there, maybe everywhere with how often I hear them shuffling about.

Taking deep, jagged breaths, I sit down and try to calm myself. The sounds are getting closer, but I keep my eyes focused on the music box. I trace a hoof across the gem-encrusted surface before turning it upside down and winding it tight. The hoofsteps are almost there, and I can feel the fear trying to overcome and ensnare me. I push it aside, and open the box once again.

With the first clear note, and the sight of her again, I’m home.

It’s morning, just when classes are supposed to be starting at the academy. Fillies and colts are scurrying about in the courtyard, trying to make their way to classes, but I’m more content with where I am, beside her. The view of Fillydelphia was always amazing from the music academy, perched on a hill overlooking the city. It gave more than enough inspiration for the some of the student’s pieces, I’m sure, but mine always came from Petal.

She’s looking out over the city, taking bites of her breakfast. She seems younger in the morning light, almost as if I’ve seen the exact same thing years before. Then again, our routines aren’t very spontaneous. I take a moment to look down in front of me, at the music box still playing. I can’t hear her voice as she tugs me away from my seat, but I must have lost track of the time, because when I look up we’re in the practice room, with the sun going down out the window.

My hooves trace across the grand piano’s keys, mimicking the notes of the music box without a second thought. Her voice is even more perfect in— than my memory can recall. She’s dressed up, just like in the box, with an eagle’s feather pinned in her hair. It’s the smallest change, but she seems so different with it. She twirls, spins, and floats around the room, making the sunlight seem like her shadow’s partner across the floor. Before I even notice, she’s finished, and my hooves stop when she’s beside me.

But the music box isn’t playing. I only see her smile for a moment and say “Thank you, Sonata” before the box shuts tight.

I gasp for air as I wake up. It’s odd, because I know I’m in a dream, a nightmare, instead of reality. It’s not the same place I was before, I think, but the music box is still with me, and that’s all I care about. I hear a door click, just across from me, and the heavy breath of something. I try to scurry backwards, but I’m already pinned against the wall. I can hear it creeping closer with heavy steps.

It utters my name, with heavy, emotionless groans. I slide across the wall, hoping it keeps walking towards where I was. After making to another wall, I feel a door knob press against my back. I can feels eyes watching me, and I hear something muffled coming from the darkness, coupled with my name, a threat maybe. I don’t waste any time getting through the door, careful to take the box with me.

I start running again, searching for a way out, despite that the only way is clutched next to my side with magic. I hear the door slam open, and the pounding of hoofsteps getting louder and more hurried behind me. I take a corner and find another door, quickly shutting myself inside. I wait, lump caught in my throat as the hoofsteps pound against the floor. I can barely breathe as a clutch the music box to my chest, and hope that it’ll miraculously end.

The steps fade away after what seems like hours. I take slow breaths to stay calm, careful to make sure it’s really gone before I wind up the box again.

I was in my room at the academy, looking through notes I had been making about a personal project. It was cold, even though the sun was shining brightly through the window, but I paid no mind to it. A knock came from the door, and I quickly stuffed the notes away before answering it. It was Petal, and I couldn’t have been happier to see her.

“Sonata, do you mind if I come in?” she asks, and I’m more than willing to oblige. I shut the door behind her, and sit down with her, trying to focus as I hear the music box still playing.

“Do you need something? I’m still practicing for the concert, if you’re worried.” I’m speaking, but it feels like I’m just hearing them. The music box gets quieter as I try to push the thought away.

“No, of course not. I just wanted to see how you were doing. You spend a lot of time locked up in here.” She sounds sincere, and she probably is, knowing her. I do spend a lot of time alone, working or thinking about her. It’s only natural though, that I spend all my time honing my talents, or thinking about someone so perfect.

“I’m fine, really. You know how I usually am.” I can feel the chuckle forced through my throat, and the fake smile on my face. The box gets even softer, like a whimper now. Something is caught in my throat, I think words that I’ve wanted to speak, but can never find the strength.

“Of course, but you should see more sunlight than what peeks through the window.” Her smile is more sincere than her words, that does more justice than them too.

“I’ll... try to find the time. Maybe after practice, sometime?”

“It sounds fine,” she says, and with that it seemed sealed. We say a short goodbye, and she’s gone. The room was warmer now, like a season had passed during that conversation: winter giving way to spring. The music is louder, but it’s slowing down, just about finished. I try to grab it and wind it again, but then it slams shut in my face, defiantly.

There’s a crash, like a boom of thunder in the distance. I can’t tell if that’s what it is, because I couldn’t see any spark of lightning. Maybe there was, but the darkness was just strong enough to keep it hidden. I’m sprawled out on the floor, and there’s pain shooting through my body. I assume I fell, but when I see the box in front of me, still intact, I feel relief that I was injured instead of it. I get to my hooves and walk forward, bumping into something a few steps ahead.

I light my horn, and see a dust-covered piano. It seems pristine, otherwise, but I wonder what it’s doing in such a prison as this place surely is. I reach out to touch it, but I’m stopped when I hear her, for the first time without the music box. It’s Petal, singing in the distance, but it’s not our song. It’s the one she san— that she’s supposed to sing at the concert. Why... why am I so confused about it?

The melody echoes through the halls, and I’m drawn towards it. I can almost hear the notes that support it, holding her higher than she can fly alone. They get louder as I get closer, but... they grow sour. The notes are low and long, blaring and cutting into my ears, drowning out her dulcet tones. Despite that, I’m still drawn to it, hoping she’s there to take me away, but then her voice changes too.

It’s deep and harsh, like the nothing in the dark that called my name before. I try to turn away, but it keeps drawing me, like there’s something there I have to see. Just when I think it’s around the corner, when it’s growing louder and louder by the inch as I approach a door, it vanishes. The room it led me to is empty, except for a candle. I feel cold, seeing light here for the first time, and I crawl over to it in hopes to stay warm, but it barely seems to do anything.

I sit there, and wonder why this keeps happening, and why I can’t seem to think straight. If everything keeps skipping at home, but not here, is it real? Are they both dreams? I don’t remember anything that happens there, but it doesn’t seem new when it happens. It’s like watching a film, but it can’t be that.

I pull out the music box again. There are a few gems missing from it, but I never saw them fall off. It’s chipped and dirty too, but I always clean it. I wind it up, carefully, but it creaks from wear and tear. I flip it open, and try to hold it there, hoping it will never close.

It’s the concert. I’m on the stage, hooves gliding across the keys as I play my part. It’s halfway through the performance, but I know what’s coming soon: Petal’s solo. We’d practiced it for months, at least, if not more. She’d written it all, and I pretended to do something more than just help her along. It was hers to own, and I knew everyone was going to love it, and they did.

The music stopped for a moment and the lights went down. When they came back, they were all on her as she sat perched on a cloud just above the stage. I started playing, but I never took my eyes off of her. Her voice was even better in the concert hall than a practice room, or my head, or that asylum that twisted and broke her beauteous notes into cacophonous noise.

She floated around like a feather in the wind, caught on the own melodious breeze of her voice. The lights followed her around, but she was alone up there. The lights were so bright and glaring, and so there was no shadow of her on the stage and no partner to dance with her. Nothing except my notes, and they started to soften and quiet, along with her voice. I could hear something else, the words I longed to say, but never could.

“I... love you, Petal. I always have!” I sounded so sad, like I’d been rejected, but I hadn’t done that ye—

“Sonata. This... this isn’t the time to talk about this.” I could hear her talking, with that same sincerity she always had, but she was still dancing above me. My body felt cold, like the bitter night air was whipping across my back, and my cheek felt damp and frigid, but my hooves kept playing. I couldn’t hear her song anymore, I only heard mine, from the music box.

“W-why can’t we?! We’ve known each other so long! I-I know you have to feel this way too!” My throat was on fire, and I felt like I was choking on the words as I spat them out. My hooves had stopped playing, and everyone was bowing. Petal looked down and smiled at me. I smiled back.

“We’re friends, Sonata. We’ve been friends since we were foals. I just don’t feel that way about you.” My eyes were getting watery. I couldn’t see her anymore, at least for a moment. When I could again, we were on the roof, with the moon hanging behind her over the city. She looked wonderful in the moonlight, and I hated it.

“That’s not true! You’re lying!” My hooves reached out, trying to grab her. She backed away, with fear on her face.

“Sonata, stop this!” I had gotten a hold of her, and I could feel the heat in my body, battling the cold outside. The cold from her.

“I know you feel the same. W-we can be happy, Petal.” That... music was still playing! Why wouldn’t it shut up?! And that’s when I pushed her, just as she pulled away.

I was still in front of the candle, and the music box was playing sour notes that dared to try and pretend to be her voice. It was cracked and dirty, like some ancient trinket that had been tossed in the attic for an eternity. That figurine barely looked like her anymore, the one I’d spent hours making to match her perfectly. It was all broken and lost, just like her. I shut it and opened it, shut it and opened it, shut it and opened it, but she never came back. Home never came back. The sunshine never came back, because it was all gone now.

The music was starting to slow down, and I could see the candle flickering and fading. I kept trying to make it work, but it was no use. I could feel the tears coming back, because I’d sent myself here to this prison. It was a penance for my fall. I held the box close to my chest, listening to the music, and I started to sing.

“You are my sunshine
My only sunshine”

The hoofsteps were coming back. They were louder than ever. I could hear my name called in that deep, groaning roar.

“You make me happy
When skies are grey”

Each step was like the heavy beat of a drum, played with anger instead of care. I just wanted it to end.

“You'll never know dear
How much I love you”

It was so hard to sing those words, but it was the only thing that made it bearable. Maybe I thought it could bring her back. That was stupid to think.

“Please don't take
My sunshine...”

The candle went dark. The hoofsteps stopped. The last thing I heard was that roar, finishing my song.

The lights flickered on as two colts walked into the room, coming to a stop in front of a two-way mirror that peered out into the adjacent room. Inside was a colt, sitting calmly on the floor, with his eyes focused on a tattered music box in front of him. One of them, wearing a white coat, spoke up. “Thank you so much for bringing him back safely, officer.”

“It’s not a problem, doctor. We’re just glad he didn’t do any damage.”

“Oh, I doubt he would have done any harm. Silver Sonata’s been rather... docile since the incident that brought him here.” The doctor looked out at the colt attentively, taking a few notes on a clipboard.

“That’s why he went back to the school, I assume?”

The doctor nodded, putting the clipboard back down. “He suffered a lot of trauma there, after accidentally pushing a classmate off the roof. Luckily, she wasn’t hurt too bad, just a few sprains, but when they found him, he was just... shut down. About the only thing he does is play that music box. We can barely get him to do anything except that and eat.”

“Well, I’m glad we could help. Is there anything else you need?”

“No, no. That will be all for today. Let me show you out.” The two left the observation room, leaving Sonata alone in the dark.

He stared blankly at the music box, cranking it up slowly, and watched the .

“You were my sunshine
My only sunshine
You made me happy
When skies were grey
Then I told you
How much I loved you
But you made me throw
My sunshine away...”

Consonance

The sun beat down on the town of Ponyville, and the sky was a pristine canopy of the brightest blue, with but a single cloud maring the otherwise immaculate expanse. That single, puffy cloud was there for a reason, of course; Rainbow Dash stood upon the fluffy cumulonimbus, her scarlet eyes locked on the horizon. She’d been napping—as she always did after clearing the sky of any errant weather patterns—but now, she was awake, and there was but a single thought at the forefront of her awesome brain.

Today was the perfect day for some flying.

Rainbow spread her wings, stretching out her primary feathers and feeling the updraft of hot air coming off the rooftops below her vaporous napping spot. She kicked off the cloud with her back legs, dropping into a brief dive, before her wings caught the thermal currents and she lifted into the air, not even needing to flap her wings to remain aloft. Rainbow closed her eyes rapturously, enjoying the effortless feeling of riding the wave of heat, before lazily banking east towards the edge of Ponyville.

Dash occasionally flapped her wings, maintaining an economy of movement and expending the minimum energy she needed to stay aloft. Speed was great—speed was her life—but there were some days when she liked to simply cruise in the air and watch the world turn. This was one such day.

A bright glint, far below, caught Rainbow Dash’s eye, and she adjusted her flight, pulling into loose holding pattern above the road that led into the Everfree Forest, spiraling downward and searching for whatever object had caught the sun. Dash’s wings flared outward and she landed on her back hooves, touching down gracefully at the edge of the Everfree Forest. She eyed the treeline warily for a moment before turning, squinting into the bright daylight for a moment before spotting a small, decorated box at the edge of the road, seemingly discarded.

Approaching, Dash knelt down to examine the exquisitely ornamented container. It was rounded, almost egg-shaped, and set with a rolling line of opals that shone with a milky-white radiance. The box sat on three decorative legs that appeared to be hand-carved out of dark wood that had been lacquered to a high polish. Most interestingly, at the top was a lid on a hinge, marked by a ring of golden studs and a carved flower. Dash whistled at the beautiful object appreciatively. “Well, hello there. Who lost you out here? You sure look... expensive.”

Dash reached out a hoof and, glancing around briefly to be certain nopony was watching, opened the box. If the box was this awesome, whatever was inside had to be cool! Dash was not disappointed. The lid of the box swung open with ease, and a gentle, tinkling tune spilled out of the insides of the box. Hidden by the lid, a tiny porcelain pegasus with a painted-on flower cutie mark twirled around, “dancing” to the music. Dash giggled. “Okay, that’s pretty cool. Girly, but cool.”

Dash moved to close the box but paused, listening to the simple tune; it almost sounded familiar to her, and a shiver ran down her spine as she considered the little music box. She couldn’t place it, but she felt like she’d heard the song before, when she was little. She closed her scarlet eyes, focusing on the tune and found that she was able to hum along to the melody. Rainbow Dash smiled to herself, and carefully picked up the music box. Maybe... maybe she’d take it home, just for a minute. She just wanted to listen to that tune again, figure out why it sounded so... nice.

Fluttershy scrambled around her house frantically, counting critters as they came inside to avoid the sudden downpour. “Oh my, let’s see, three... four... five mice, and two ferrets, a stoat, and a squirrel. Come in and get yourselves dry, little ones!”

The group of rodents squeaked and chattered appreciatively as they filed past the timid pegasus. The pegasus continued to count off her animals. “Two hummingbirds, a bluejay, a bat... oh, and one wet bunny. Hello Angel, I hope you didn’t get soaked!”

As the four flying creatures flitted to indoor perches, one sopping wet white rabbit staggered inside and dramatically collapsed on the doorstep of Fluttershy’s cottage. Fluttershy fussed over Angel. “Oh, you poor thing! I’m sorry, I didn’t think we were due for rain today. Rainbow Dash is always so good about telling me, too.”

Angel rolled his eyes and stood up, hopping over to the fireplace to warm up as Fluttershy draped a rabbit-sized towel over his shoulders. “There we go, all better. Momma will make you some soup. How’s that sound?”

Angel considered for a moment before waving her away with an imperious paw. Fluttershy moved into the kitchen, pulling out a pot and filling it with water before setting it on the stove to heat up. The yellow pegasus hummed to herself as she worked on preparing a meal for her favorite fussy rabbit. Her melodic humming faltered as somepony knocked on the front door, causing Fluttershy to squeak with fright and cower briefly, before calling out, “W-who... who is it?”

“Fluttershy, it’s Twilight!”

Fluttershy stood up a little straighter as she recognized her friend’s voice, and she trotted to the door, opening it. “Oh, Twilight! What are you doing out in the rain?”

Twilight Sparkle stood outside, frowning slightly as her mane and tail dripped with precipitation. “Wondering why it’s raining in the first place. Can I come inside?”

Fluttershy stepped demurely aside, “Oh, of course! Where are my manners? Please, come in. I was just making some soup,” Angel bunny shot Fluttershy an annoyed look, and Fluttershy stammered, “I...um... I mean, I was making... two pots of soup!”

Twilight smiled gratefully as she entered Fluttershy’s cozy cottage, her horn lighting up briefly as she used a spell to dry her wet coat. “I’m sorry to bother you, Fluttershy, but I need you to do me a favor.”

Smiling at Twilight as she walked back into the kitchen, Fluttershy added the carrots and celery to the bubbling pot of water. “Of course, Twilight, I’m always happy to help.”

Twilight followed her timid friend, looking around at all the small animals that huddled appreciatively in tiny beds and perched around the interior of the cottage. “I need to you go up to Rainbow Dash’s house and see what that lazy pegasus is up to. We aren’t due for rain for another two days. She didn’t clear the sky yesterday, and today we have rainstorms!”

Biting her lower lip, Fluttershy’s soft gaze grew concerned, “Oh dear, I hope everything is okay. Maybe she’s sick?” The pegasus smiled as an idea struck her, “Oh, I know, I’ll bring her some soup!”

Twilight chuckled. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary. Rainbow Dash probably got her hooves on the newest Daring Do book and lost track of time.”

Fluttershy gave Twilight a skeptical look and asked, “Lost track of time for two days?”

Twilight gave the pegasus an uncertain smile. “Hey, its happened to me before! Anyway, if you could just fly up there and remind her that she has responsibilities, maybe give her the stare, everything should be fine.”

Fluttershy giggled and replied softly, “Oh, I don’t think I’ll have to use the stare on her. Rainbow Dash usually takes her job very seriously.”

Twilight smirked. “Yeah. ‘Seriously’. Anyway, do you mind if I stay here while you go check on Rainbow Dash? I’ll...uh...stir the soup?”

Fluttershy smiled at Twilight, spreading out her wings as she trotted to the front door and put on a yellow rain hat. “Oh, would you? Thank you, Twilight, I’ll be right back.”

Opening the door, the yellow pegasus spread her wings and flew into the rain, leaving Twilight behind in the kitchen.

Fluttershy touched down daintily on the colorful floating cloud-tower that made up Rainbow Dash’s home, her coat and feathers dripping wet. She winced as a gust of wind blew into her face, threatening to tear the little rain hat off her head, and cantered quickly over to the open foyer of Rainbow Dash’s house, stopping in the dry interior. She stepped over a few discarded pizza boxes and other articles of trash that cluttered the floor of the bachelorette pad, and called quietly, “Rainbow Dash? Are you here?”

There was no reply. Fluttershy cleared her throat nervously and trotted a little farther into her friend’s house, stopping outside the closed door of Rainbow Dash’s room. “Dash, are you in there? It’s Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy reached up and, oh-so-gently, tapped her hoof against the door. The bedroom door slid open a bit, and Fluttershy flinched away from Dash’s room. “Oh, um, I’m sorry, your door was open. I... hope I’m not intruding?”

She received no response, and the yellow pegasus stood for a minute, waiting politely for an answer before curiosity overcame her timid nature and she pushed open the door. Dash’s bedroom was a bit of a mess, a few dishes sitting on the floor and a stack of books piled on a nightstand. Rainbow Dash’s bed was unmade and empty, the blankets wrapped around a pegasus-sized hollow. Fluttershy frowned, peering into the room’s corners. “Rainbow Dash, are you here? I’m sorry I came into your room without asking, I’m just worried about you. You didn’t clear the sky yesterday, and today an unplanned rain storm blew in, and...”

Fluttershy trailed off, her eyes focused on an ornate box sitting at the foot of Rainbow Dash’s bed. She approached the box, peering at the beautiful opals and intricate design. She glanced around quickly, a sudden shot of daring that she didn’t know she possessed thrilling through her. She reached out and touched the lid of the box, tapping it open gently. Music tinkled out from the inside of the box, and a little porcelain pegasus danced around the interior of the music box. Fluttershy listened to the enchanting melody, a blissful smile spreading across her face. The tune was so nice. It reminded Fluttershy of something, perhaps a song her mother would sing to her when she was a little filly. Without thinking, Fluttershy scooped up the music box and cradled it under one arm, flittering out of Rainbow Dash’s room. She’d decided to take the music box home, where she could listen to it in peace.

Twilight heaved a relieved sigh as she heard Fluttershy return to the cottage, and turned to greet her friend, “Thank goodness you’re back, Fluttershy. I realized after you left... Spike does all the cooking! I don’t have the slightest clue how to make soup! I mean, I know the theory, I’ve read a few cookbooks, but theory doesn’t equal practice! I might have...”

Trotting through her living room, Fluttershy ignored Twilight completely, and was heading for the stairs. Twilight sighed and stepped away from the boiling-over soup, pausing only long enough to turn off the heat. She’d let Fluttershy sort out the cooking later. “Fluttershy, wait!”

Fluttershy froze on the stair leading up to her bedroom, staring over at Twilight as the unicorn approached her. “Fluttershy, did you find Rainbow Dash?”

Fluttershy shook her head, her quiet voice sounding distracted. “Oh, um... no.”

Frowning, Twilight glanced out towards the rainstorm. “Well, that’s strange. Did she have to go somewhere?”

“No,” Fluttershy was quick to respond as she shifted awkwardly, tucking something behind her wing.

Shaking her head, Twilight turned back to her friend. “Where could she be? It’s not like Dash to just up and leave suddenly... I hope she’s okay.”

Fluttershy didn’t respond, and Twilight sighed. “Well, I’ll come back tomorrow, and maybe you can check again? Maybe she’ll be back, and we can get an explanation for what she’s been up to.”

“Okay,” replied Fluttershy, and she trotted up the stairs to her bedroom, humming a tune quietly as she left a confused Twilight Sparkle behind in the living room.

Twilight squinted up towards the second floor, her expression puzzled. “Uh... okay, bye Fluttershy.”

Stepping away from the stairs and trotting to the front door, Twilight let herself out, closing the door behind her as she braved the storm, heading back to the Library.

Twilight knocked on the door to Fluttershy’s cottage for the third time, calling out to her friend, “Fluttershy? Are you there? It’s just me, Twilight!”

The lower half of the divided door suddenly swung inward, and Twilight was greeted by the worried looking face of a white rabbit. She bent down to the rabbit’s level, smiling awkwardly. “Oh, hello Angel bunny. Is Fluttershy home?”

The rabbit shook his head and initiated a complex series of gestures, obviously trying to tell Twilight something. She watched the little bunny for a few moments, before nodding slowly, “Um, I think I follow. Fluttershy isn’t here...” Angel tapped a paw to his nose and nodded, “...because she was listening to music...” Angel tapped a paw to his nose again, growing excited, “...and disappeared?”

Angel bunny leapt up and down, obviously pleased with Twilight’s success, and then ran indoors. Twilight waited outside for a moment before realizing that the rabbit couldn’t possibly open the upper door for her, and crouched down, crawling inside Fluttershy’s house. She checked all the rooms of the cottage briefly, confirming that Fluttershy was gone, while an anxious Angel bunny followed her closely. Twilight frowned, her worry evident. “Okay, Twilight, don’t panic. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for why Fluttershy disappeared! And why Rainbow Dash disappeared too!”

Angel bunny gestured frantically, and Twilight watched the rabbit for a moment before replying, “I know Fluttershy disappeared! She isn’t here, obviously. And you don’t know where she went?”

Angel bunny gestured even more emphatically, and Twilight sighed, “You’re not making any sense, bunny, I know that she...” Twilight halted suddenly, scowling.

“I’m talking to a rabbit. I should be alerting somepony that ponies are disappearing!”

The rabbit rolled its eyes and threw up its paws in defeat, and hopped away, going upstairs. Twilight left Fluttershy’s cottage, determined to get to the bottom of things. Two of her friends were missing! It was time to take action!

Mayor Mare called out to the assembled ponies of Ponyville, speaking from her podium at city hall, “Everypony quiet down, please!”

The crowd of equines shifted their attention to the mare on the podium, and she smiled encouragingly. “Thank you. I’ve called you all here today because -”

Twilight Sparkle shouldered aside Mayor Mare, waving her forelimbs in the air frantically as she addressed the crowd. “Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash have gone missing! They could be anywhere at all! They could be hurt, or stuck, we don’t know, but we have to find them!”

Mayor Mare glared at Twilight levelly for a moment, and Twilight finally caught the hint, sidling away from the podium sheepishly. “Er, sorry Mayor Mare.”

The Mayor of Ponyville cleared her throat and smiled at the crowd. “You’ll have to excuse Miss Sparkle, she’s understandably worried. I want everypony to search the town, carefully and thoroughly. Pegasus ponies, you should fly above and help the searchers on the ground coordinate. Everypony else will be divided into groups. Miss Applejack will be leading a search of the orchards, and Miss Zecora will be searching the edge of the Everfree Forest.”

Twilight stood off to the side, joined by Rarity and Applejack. Applejack smiled at Twilight, speaking with confidence, “Don’t you worry, sugarcube. We’ll find Rainbow Dash an’ Fluttershy faster than two shakes of a cat whisker!”

Rarity frowned at Applejack. “Pardon me, but what does that even mean?”

The farm pony chuckled, replying to the inquiry, “It means pretty darn fast! If you girls will excuse me, I’ve got a search party to lead through the orchards.”

As Applejack trotted away at the head of a group of ponies towards Sweet Apple Acres, Pinkie Pie popped up from behind Twilight’s flank, smiling and looking around, blue eyes wide. “Hey everypony! What’s going on?”

Twilight was unphased by Pinkie Pie’s sudden appearance, though Rarity still jumped slightly before shaking her head, scowling. Twilight smiled at the nebulous pink pony. “Glad you made it, Pinkie Pie. We’re organizing a search party for Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy.”

Pinkie squinted at Twilight, looking confused. “You’re doing what?”

Twilight rolled her eyes and repeated, slightly louder, “We’re organizing a search party for Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy!”

Pinkie’s eyes widened and she sat back on her haunches, placing her hooves on her hips and looking serious. “You’re organizing a search party without me? But I’m the best at parties, Twilight, you know that!”

Rarity scoffed, flipping her hair, “Pinkie, dear, this isn’t that kind of party. This is serious!”

Pinkie Pie blinked at Rarity for a moment before replying, “I know that, silly filly! Search parties are the most serious kind of parties there are! Except fancy parties, of course... but never mind that!”

From seemingly out of nowhere, Pinkie Pie produced a headlamp, megaphone, and orange reflective vest that bore the title “Search And Rescue” on the back. She raised the megaphone and hollered into it, “Fluttershy! Rainbow Dash! We’ll find you! Auntie Pinkie Pie is on the case!”

Twilight winced and put her hoof over the Megaphone, lowering it from Pinkie’s mouth before she could yell some more. “I appreciate the effort, Pinkie Pie. I was thinking you, Rarity, and I should search Fluttershy’s house. Maybe she left a note and I missed it earlier. It’d certainly help to have some context as to why she and Rainbow Dash would disappear so suddenly!”

Rarity smiled, “Lead on, Twilight! I’ll do whatever I can to help. I can’t bare to think of poor, sweet Fluttershy missing.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow at Rarity. “What about Rainbow Dash?”

“Rainbow Dash is more capable of handling being lost than Fluttershy, don’t you think?”

Twilight chuckled. “Good point, I guess. Regardless, I have a feeling that if we find one of them, we’ll find both of them! Come on, girls!”

Twilight and Rarity cantered off in the direction of Fluttershy’s house. Pinkie Pie lagged behind for a moment, distracted by the groups of ponies searching the town, before noticing that her two friends had already left. She scowled and lifted the megaphone to her lips, shouting after them, “Hey, wait, where are you going? I’m coming too!”

Pinkie Pie hopped off after the two unicorns.

Twilight, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie arrived at Fluttershy’s house, only to be greeted by an irate Angel bunny. The rabbit scurried up to Twilight, grabbed her by the tail, and practically tugged her inside the cottage, depositing her in the living room in front of a small, ornate box. Twilight scowled at the little rabbit. “Angel, we don’t have time for this, we’re trying to find Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy!”

Angel thumped his hind foot on the ground and gesticulated wildly at Twilight, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie. Pinkie smiled, “Oh, oh! I’m good at this game!”

The pink party pony squatted down, watching Angel as he pantomimed out a series of events. Twilight and Rarity shared a confused look, but let Pinkie Pie do her thing, knowing that if anypony could understand Angel clearly, it’d be Pinkie.

Pinkie gasped suddenly, sitting up and whirling to address her friends. “Angel says that Fluttershy opened up the box and disappeared! And that he also wants some soup.”

Twilight looked skeptically at the little box on the floor of the cottage. “Well, that’s strange.”

“Not really. He says that Fluttershy forgot to feed him yesterday,” replied Pinkie, her expression perfectly deadpan.

Rolling her eyes, Twilight approached the box and opened the lid. “I don’t see what’s so special about...”

Twilight stopped talking as music played from within the box, silencing her. Twilight stared into the music box, watching as the little porcelain pegasus inside spun around and around, the movement hypnotic. Rarity also approached the music box, staring down at the ornate device with equal interest, and after a moment both unicorns were sitting, smiling blissfully and listening to the gentle music. Pinkie Pie stared at the two girls, then down at the music box and smiled. “Ooh, pretty! A little dancing pegasus pony!”

Pinkie joined Twilight and Rarity, glancing between her friends as they watched the porcelain pony spin. The two unicorns didn’t respond. After a moment of complete silence, she began to fidget uncomfortably. “Yep. Sure is neat-o...”

Pinkie yawned exaggeratedly, and poked Twilight. “So, uh, we should get back to looking for Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, right?”

Twilight didn’t move, totally entranced by the music box. Pinkie leaned over to Rarity, giggling awkwardly. “Wow, get a load of Twilight. She sure is interested in that little box!”

When Rarity didn’t respond, Pinkie scowled. “Am I missing something here? This is booooriiing! We should be out looking for our friends! That’s way more exciting and important than some dancy-pony-boxie-thingie!”

Neither pony responded to Pinkie Pie, completely ignoring her as they leaned a little closer to the music box. Pinkie frowned and reached over, tousling Rarity’s mane, messing up her perfectly coiffed hair. When this failed to illicit a response, Pinkie gaped at the prissy pony, her eyes growing frightened. She turned to Twilight. “Twilight! Twilight! Pi is exactly three! Pi is exactly three!”

Twilight didn’t move, and her eyes never left the music box. Pinkie gasped, standing up, “Something’s wrong! Don’t worry girls, I’ll get Mayor Mare! She’ll know what to do!”

Pinkie Pie dashed out of the cottage, galloping towards the center of town.

Ponyville bustled with activity as groups of ponies searched high and low, looking for the two missing pegasai. Pinkie Pie rushed through several search parties, nearly knocing ponies over in her frantic race to town hall. As she’d suspected, Mayor Mare was still on the front step of town hall, coordinating the search effort. Pinkie Pie skidded to a stop in front of Mayor Mare, shouting and gesturing spastically. “Mayor Mare! Mayor Mare! Twilight and Rarity need help! Something’s wrong with them!”

“Woah there, Pinkie. Did you say Twilight and Rarity need help?” Applejack’s voice responded from behind Pinkie Pie.

Pinkie Pie twirled in place, her worried expression replaced with a relieved grin. “Applejack! I knew I smelled cowpony! We were at Fluttershy’s house and Angel bunny did charades and he needed soup but Twilight didn’t care and then she opened a box and Rarity and Twilight didn’t listen to me and I messed up Rarity’s mane and told Twilight about how pi is exactly three and they didn’t care!”

Applejack went crosseyed as Pinkie spouted information at her in her usual rapid-fire manner, and finally held up a hoof. “Woah nelly! You were at Fluttershy’s house?”

Pinkie Pie stared at Applejack with a moon-eyed expression. “What?”

Applejack rolled her eyes and looked to Mayor Mare, “We’d better go check it out. I’m not sure what Pinkie’s on about... but that’s Pinkie Pie for ya. Come on Mayor Mare!”

Mayor Mare and Applejack took off back towards Fluttershy’s cottage, Pinkie trailing behind them.

When Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Mayor Mare arrived, Twilight and Rarity were gone, their places in front of the music box empty. Pinkie gestured to the empty room with a dramatic gasp. “They’re gone!”

Applejack frowned. “Yer certain they were in trouble, Pinkie Pie?”

Mayor Mare stepped into Fluttershy’s cottage and approached the music box, tilting her head down at the ornate device to peer at it over the rims of her glasses. “Oh my, this is pretty, isn’t it?”

Applejack stared at Mayor Mare. “Uh, sure. Shouldn’t we be tryin’ t’ figure out where Rarity an’ Twilight have gone off to?”

Pinkie gestured to the box, her expression growing frightened. “That’s the box! They opened it up, and then they just were sitting there, watching it! They didn’t talk or anything!”

Scowling, Applejack turned, glancing between Pinkie and the music box on the floor. She noticed Mayor Mare reaching for the lid to the box and yelped, “Wait, Mayor Mare! Don’t!”

Her warning came too late. Mayor Mare opened the lid to the box, and music tinkled out, halting Applejack and Mayor Mare in their tracks as the tune and whirling unicorn pony within entranced them. Pinkie sighed, “See? It’s just a boring dancing unicorn pony. But it did something to them!”

Pinkie suddenly gasped, her eyes locking on the twirling porcelain unicorn that danced within the box. “Wait a minute! That was a pegasus last time! What’s going on?!”

When Applejack and Mayor Mare didn’t respond, Pinkie gasped. “Oh no! Not you guys too!”

Mayor Mare suddenly smiled, reaching out and picking up the music box. “Applejack... be a dear, and help me call in all the searching ponies. I... I think we’ve found what we’re looking for.”

Applejack nodded dumbly, her eyes locked on the music box, and together the two of them left, Mayor Mare carrying the ornate box with her. Pinkie Pie waved her hooves in front of their eyes, trying to draw their attention, and when that failed she produced her megaphone, hollering at them. “Wait! Where are you going? There’s something wrong with that box! It’s evil!”

The two mares cantered away, returning to Ponyville, and Pinkie threw her hooves in the air in frusturation. “Oh come on!”

Fuming, Pinkie Pie galloped off after Applejack and Mayor Mare.

Applejack and Mayor Mare reached Ponyville first, calling in search parties as they headed for the town hall once more. Dozens of ponies followed them, spreading the word that the search had been called off, and soon the whole of Ponyville was gathered once more before the podium in front of town hall. Ponies called questions as they gathered.

“Why are we calling off the search?”

“Did they find Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy?”

“What’s going on?”

Mayor Mare held up a hoof, quieting the crowd, and simply set the music box on top of her podium. “Everyone... listen.”

Pinkie Pie arrived at the back of the crowd just in time to witness as Mayor Mare opened the lid of the music box. The murmuring and shifting crowd suddenly grew silent and still as the sweet music of the box flowed over them. Pinkie nudged her way through the crowd, trying to get to the podium to close the box. As she made for the podium, the crowd of ponies began to shimmer and glow, and the music box responded in turn, the opals on the box emitting a iridescent light as the tinkling tune grew louder, more powerful.

Suddenly, with bright flashes of light, ponies in the crowd began disappearing. Pinkie Pie froze, gasping as she watched pony after pony disappear. Each time it happened, the porcelain pony figure in the box changed, becoming an earth pony, unicorn, or pegasus to match each disappearing pony’s form in turn.

Pinkie broke into a renewed gallop, reaching the podium and slapping the lid to the music box shut with a grin, and turned to address the crowd. “Don’t worry, everypony! Auntie Pinkie Pie’s got this all... under... control?”

Nopony was left. Pinkie stared around in horror, crouching down slightly as fear made her legs weak. “... Applejack?” she called, plaintively.

When her friend didn’t respond, Pinkie shivered. “Oh no. I’m the only pony left!”

Whirling, Pinkie Pie approached the box, glaring at it. “This is all your fault, you dumb, evil, dancy-pony-boxie-thingie!”

The box didn’t respond to the tongue-lashing, and Pinkie grabbed it, opening the lid and yelled at the twirling pony inside, “You let my friends go right this instant, mister! I’m warning you!”

When that didn’t work, Pinkie closed the lid to the box, and then brightened up as an idea came to her. “Oh, I know!”

With all the strength she could muster, Pinkie Pie threw the box on the ground. The box, for all its apparent fragility, bounced, rolled, and came to a halt, unmarred. Pinkie growled and stomped on the box, jumping up and down several times, to no avail. The box took the punishment without any apparent damage, leaving Pinkie Pie panting for breath. Scowling, Pinkie Pie produced a massive hammer from thin air, pounding on the box several times. Each strike rebounded off the box, and when Pinkie Pie examined the head of the hammer, she found that it had dented. Pinkie threw the hammer aside and disappeared for a brief moment, returning quickly with a jackhammer. She lined up the head of the jackhammer with the lid of the music box and turned it on. The pneumatic tool attacked the lid of the box, the vibration sending Pinkie Pie jittering, and finally the head of the jackhammer shattered. Pinkie stared at the broken tool and then dropped it to the ground, slumping down to the ground alongside it and sitting back on her haunches, feeling tears well up in her eyes. “This is terrible! Everypony’s stuck, and I don’t know what to do.”

Before she could work herself up to a good cry, she felt a vibration run up her hooves, transmitted through the ground. Pinkie blinked, staring at the ground, and then placed her ear to the ground, feeling a vibration. She stood up, walking slowly and trying to feel where the vibration was coming from. After a few moments, she scooped up the music box and dashed away, towards the edge of town. She navigated the empty streets of Ponyville, stopping every so often to reorient herself to the vibration. As she approached the edge of town, she could physically feel the deep vibration thudding through her chest, and she approached the source of the sensation, a house at the edge of town. She could see the window panes of the house thudding in time to a heavy bass beat, the entire house emitting the vibration she’d felt earlier. Pinkie knocked on the door and called, “Hello? Anypony home? I need help.”

There was no reply, and Pinkie knocked again, harder. “Please, I need help! Anypony!”

Pinkie leaned against the door, feeling hopeless, and nearly fell on her face as the door was flung open. Pinkie staggered upright, catching her balance, and was greeted by a smiling white unicorn mare with an electric blue mane and violet glasses. “Woah! Sorry, I was workin’ on a sick beat! What’s up, girl?”

Pinkie spontaneously gave the unicorn a hug, “Oh thank you thank you thank you! I thought I was the only pony left in Ponyville!”

The unicorn chuckled, “Um, that’s cool, I guess? Hey, are you okay?”

Pinkie Pie held up the music box. “I need some help! This thingie is some kind of evil magic box! It sucked up every pony in ponyville, and now nopony is left but you and me!”

The unicorn stared at Pinkie Pie with a deadpan expression, before lifting up her violet shades and squinting skeptically at Pinkie. Pinkie sighed, “I know, I sound like a crazy pony. But it’s true! Every time somepony opened the box, they’d get all quiet, like they were in a trance! And then Mayor Mare brought it into town and it got everypony at once! It glowed all like pyow! And then everypony started glowing too, like shoom! And then it sucked them all up, zoom! And then I was the only pony left!”

The unicorn frowned, glancing around at the deserted streets of ponyville pensively for a moment and then slowly nodding. “Yeah... yeah, I believe you. I can’t feel anypony anymore. This town is usually... livelier. It’s got a beat, you know? Well, come in.”

The unicorn motioned to Pinkie Pie to follow her, and the pink pony gratefully followed her inside. Pinkie Pie froze in her tracks the moment she entered the house, her jaw dropping open as she stared at the main room. A massive set of speakers and turntables dominated the far wall of the room, and a device full of small blue crystals sat in the center of the room. The unicorn turned around, smirking at Pinkie Pie’s awed expression. “Like what you see? This is my DJ stuff and recording studio.”

Pinkie Pie smiled, “I remember you now! You’re DJ PON-3!”

Smiling, the unicorn did a small bow. “DJ PON-3 is my stage name. My friends call me Vinyl Scratch.”

Bouncing on her hooves, Pinke beamed around the room, taking everything in for a moment. Vinyl gestured to the box after a moment. “So, how’s that evil magic box of yours work?”

Pinkie returned to reality, putting a hoof over the top of the box. “Don’t open it. That’s how it gets you!”

Vinyl frowned at the box, brushing a hoof through her mane. “Huh. What does it do?”

Pinkie squinted at Vinyl Scratch. “What?”

Vinyl scowled, and repeated, “What does it do?”

Pinkie pondered for a moment before replying, “Um, I don’t know?”

“Okay, well... what does it look like inside the box? Have you seen it?” asked Vinyl.

Pinke frowned, eyes trained on Vinyl Scratch’s mouth. “What?”

Vinyl stared evenly at Pinkie Pie for a moment, and then reached over to the turntable and retrieved a small chalkboard and piece of chalk. She scribbled on it ‘Are You Deaf?’, and then held it up to Pinkie.

Pinkie Pie read the chalkboard and giggled. “Nopey-dopey!”

Vinyl scowled and asked, “Then why can’t you hear me?”

Pinkie giggled. “I can’t hear you, sorry, I’ve got cake frosting in my ears.”

Vinyl Scratch stared at Pinkie Pie and then sighed and wrote on the chalkboard, ‘Okay, I’ll ask. Why do you have cake frosting in your ears?’.

Smiling cluelessly, Pinkie replied, “There was a little frosting accident at the bakery this morning! I get carried away sometimes. Anyway, I was going to clean it out of my ears, but then I found out my friend Fluttershy had gone missing, and I went to help the search party, because I’m the best at parties!”

Vinyl shook her head, and her horn lit up. Two doughy globs of cake frosting extracted themselves from Pinkie’s ears, which wiggled appreciatively. Pinkie giggled. “Oh! Thanks. What were you saying?”

Vinyl chuckled. “I’m Vinyl Scratch. What’s your name?”

“I’m Pinkie Pie!” Pinkie beamed at Vinyl Scratch, who returned the smile.

“Okay Pinkie Pie, what does the inside of your evil box look like?”

Frowning, Pinkie considered for a moment and then said, “Well, it’s got a little dancing pony inside, that spins around and around.”

Vinyl recognized the description. “Oh! So, it’s like a music box?”

Pinkie stared at Vinyl Scratch, expression deadpan. “Well, I didn’t hear any music!”

Vinyl gave Pinkie a knowing look. Pinkie blinked, a lightbulb going on in her head, and grinned sheepishly. “Oh.”

Shaking her head, Vinyl took the music box from Pinkie Pie, and levitated over a pair of earplugs for the pink pony. “Here, put these in your ears, I’ll check this out.”

Pinkie held up a hoof, looking worried, “Wait, what if it’s the music that’s dangerous?”

Vinyl winked at Pinkie, “No worries! I’m deaf.”

“You’re what? But, you... you make awesome music! How can you be deaf?” Pinkie asked, completely shocked.

Smiling, Vinyl explained. “There’s more to music than just hearing it. It’s almost like magic. Imagine being in a lake, and somebody throws a rock in the water behind you, making waves. You don’t have to see the rock to know that something made waves, because you can feel them.”

Setting the music box down on her turntables, Vinyl stared at it with a calm expression. “That’s what I do. I don’t need to hear the music, because I can feel it. My body can feel each note and beat, and I can attune my horn to the waves of sound. It’s not hearing... it’s better. It’s feeling.”

Vinyl shook her head and laughed, “Wow, listen to me! Goin’ on and philosophizin’, when I should be jammin’! Put in those ear plugs, girl, we’ve got a beat to meet!”

Giggling, Pinkie put in the ear plugs, and without further discussion, Vinyl Scratch opened the music box. She smiled as she felt the first tinkling notes, but her smile fell away almost immediately as the tune progressed, and Vinyl scowled. “Yuck.”

Pinkie Pie caught the unicorn’s disgusted expression. “What? What do you feel?”

“The melody is messed up... totally gnarly. And not in a good way! It’s like a lullaby that Nightmare Moon would sing to her worst enemy!”

Pinkie squinted at Vinyl Scratch. “What?”

Vinyl rolled her eyes and her horn began to glow, her eyes screwing up in concentration as she levitated one of the blue crystals out of the device behind her. The blue crystal began to light up, and Vinyl levitated it close to the music box, waiting for a while and then setting the crystal aside. Finally, she closed the music box and gestured to Pinkie Pie to remove her ear plugs.

Once Pinkie could hear again, Vinyl smiled at her. “Good news. I was able to record the nasty melody in a sound crystal. Check it, it should be totally safe.”

Vinyl held up the crystal and her horn began to glow, and Pinkie finally heard the melody of the music box for the first time. She smiled for a moment, but her expression slowly fell to a frown as shivers cascaded down her spine. “Ew. It sounds... evil!”

Vinyl nodded, “Exactly. This tune is bad mojo, but without the music box it’s just a creepy song!”

Pinkie bounced up and down, “Oh goodie! So, how do we beat it?”

Frowning, Vinyl picked up the music box, considering it carefully. “Well, I’ve kinda got an idea.”

“I’m all ears!” Pinkie leaned close to the unicorn, smiling excitedly.

“Well... okay, so, remember what I said about being in a lake and feeling waves?” Pinkie gave Vinyl a nod, and Vinyl continued, “Well, there’s such a thing as inverse waves. They are like... anti-sound. You play a sound wave with the same amplitude, but an inverted phase, on top of a regular sound wave, and they cancel each other out. It’s like it soaks up the other wave and you’re left with no sound.”

Pinkie Pie giggled, “I have no idea what you just said, but it sounded like something Twilight would say!”

Sighing, Vinyl Scratch picked up the sound crystal. “All right, ear plugs in. I’m going to try it.”

Once Pinkie Pie was safe, Vinyl opened up the music box, shivering as the tune began to play again. Vinyl focused her magic on the sound crystal and it began to play, the two tunes complementing each other. Vinyl grit her teeth and closed her eyes, focusing on the sound waves and getting them to match each other perfectly. Finally, once that was achieved, she inverted the wave of music coming from the sound crystal. It took several minutes of concentration and magical strain, but Vinyl finally achieved the desired effect. The two sound waves canceled each other out, and Vinyl Scratch waited patiently for some kind of effect. Nothing happened, and Vinyl sighed, closing the music box and stopping the sound crystal.

Pulling out the ear plugs, Pinkie looked around expectantly. “Did it work? Because I was expecting something more... flashy.”

Vinyl Scratch shook her head, running a hoof through her mane. “No joy, Pinkie, sorry. I thought that would do it!”

Smiling, Pinkie Pie trotted over to Vinyl Scratch and poked her nose with the tip of her hoof. “No worries, Scratchie! You’ll figure out something.”

Vinyl blinked and went cross-eyed as Pinkie poked her nose, causing Pinkie to giggle, turning away and prancing around the room, looking at all the equipment. “So, you know a lot about music?”

“Music is my life! I love it. It’s the best thing in the world, if you ask me.”

Pinkie Pie scrunched up her nose, smiling. “Well, I think parties are the best, but who doesn’t like a good party? Anyway, what’s your favorite kind of music?”

Pondering the question, Vinyl waved a hoof across the massive stand full of sound crystals. “I’m not picky, actually. I personally produce stuff with a heavy beat and a tune that makes ponies want to party! But I like all kinds of music.”

Looking thoughtful, Pinkie gestured to the music box. “Why does that sound so creepy to you?”

Vinyl Scratch considered the ornate music box. “Well, it’s kind of complex. I guess it’s the dissonance in the melody. Most music has consonance... ‘harmony’, I guess. I mean, dissonance can be good, too, but this isn’t just using dissonance to good effect. It’s like somebody made that song entirely with the objective of dissonance in mind.”

Pinkie Pie giggled, “That’s funny. What makes something sound dissonant?”

Vinyl explained, in familiar music theory territory now, “Well, it’s like... unfinished. If I play a chord of notes for you, and it’s a harmony, you get something that sounds... good. It’s pleasing to the ear. When you play something dissonant, it sounds unresolved. Like you need something else to make it actually work...”

Vinyl trailed off, staring at Pinkie Pie. Pinkie stared back and then nervously giggled. “Do I have something on my nose?”

Laughing, Vinyl suddenly gave Pinkie Pie a hug. “Pinkie Pie, you’re a genious! You’ve just given me an idea!”

Pinkie giggled, returning the hug happily. “Oh good! Tell me why I’m so smart, because I have no idea how I helped you at all.”

Releasing Pinkie Pie, Vinyl dashed over to a drawer, pulling out blank sheet music and pencils and tossing them on a table. She levitated the sound crystal over and powered it with her magic, and it began to play the dissonant song. Vinyl listened intently to the tune, and then began furiously scribbling down musical notes on the sheet music, filling it quickly. “Well, it’s like I said. Dissonance is similar to something sounding unfinished. Dissonant chords and intervals usually have some kind of complimentary notation that ‘completes’ them. So... I’m figuring out the complimentary notes. Pinkie, can you play any instruments?”

Pinkie brightened up and darted away in a pink blur, returning within a few minutes carrying a load of musical instruments on her back, which she dropped in a pile in the middle of Vinyl Scratch’s studio room. Vinyl stared at the pile of instruments with open-mouthed shock. “You play all of those?!”

“Sometimes all at once! I’ve kept in practice ever since the parasprite incident,” replied Pinkie with a wink.

Vinyl recovered from her shock and smiled. “All right, then tune up, girl! We’re gonna make you a star!”

A few hours later, Vinyl sat back, setting aside yet another sound crystal and smiling at Pinkie Pie, who set down the last musical instrument at her disposal. “That’s it. You’re all done, Pinkie, “ said Vinyl, smiling at the exhausted pink pony.

Pinkie Pie shook out her hooves, wincing. “Owies. My hoovsies are sore.”

Smiling, Vinyl levitated a dozen sound stones into the air, orbiting them around her head. “All right, now... time for a little razzmatazz!”

The magical aura of Vinyl’s horn amplified, growing exponentially brighter until it was almost difficult for Pinkie Pie to look at. The sound stones spun above Vinyl’s head, and their orbit changed, moving away from the unicorn’s head and around her horn. With a flash of power, the stones suddenly melded together into a solid mass that rapidly flattened out into a black, rotating disc. The tip of Vinyl’s horn pierced the absolute center of the disc, and the magic transferred rapidly. Grooves spiraled into the disc, and within moments a brand-new vinyl record floated in the air. Vinyl Scratch set the record on her turntable and exhaled slowly, pulling off her violet shades and rubbing at her eyes. Pinkie stared at Vinyl Scratch before exclaiming, “That was amazing!”

Vinyl Scratch laughed, “Heck yeah it was! All right, let’s give this baby a test run. I did a little ‘mixing’ to the recordings. Added a little bit of my own somethin’-somethin’.”

“Cool!” Pinkie cooed, staring at the newly minted vinyl record.

Vinyl dropped the record onto the turntable and powered on her system, and slowly dropped the needle into the edge of the record. It was silent for a brief moment, then the speakers rumbled, building up a heavy bass beat. Slowly, the various instruments joined the recording, until a harmonious song was playing full force, making Pinkie Pie’s mane bounce with every beat. Pinkie giggled, “This might be my new jam!”

Vinyl laughed, decreasing the volume. “All right, let’s do this. Pinkie, ear plugs in!”

Giving Vinyl a sharp salute, Pinkie dutifully put in the ear plugs. Vinyl flipped open the music box and pulled the needle back to the start of the record at the same time. The music box began to play it’s dissonant tune, and simultaneously a complimentary tune began to play out of Vinyl’s sound system. She carefully modulated the speed the record was spinning, and within moments it was matched up, the two sounds syncing together. The music box began to play louder, and Vinyl smiled. “Oh, so that’s how it’s gonna be, huh? Let’s see how you like this.”

Vinyl’s hoof stabbed onto the equalizer, increasing the master volume. The music box went louder, and Vinyl matched it, exceeded it, overpowered it until all she could feel was sweet, sweet music.

The music box began to glow, and one by one the opals around the side of the box began to crack and smoke as the consonant melody defeated it’s dissonant sound, and with a high-pitched hum the pony on top shattered. Almost instantaneously, Vinyl’s house and the surrounding area was filled with the entire population of Ponyville as they reappeared in a flash of light.

Vinyl didn’t care. Her head bobbed to the beat and she laughed rapturously, madly, turning up the volume louder, until every pony could feel the music like she could.

As the crowd of ponies dispersed from the house, Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie all reunited in Vinyl Scratch’s studio in a massive group hug. Pinkie cheered happily, “Oh girls! I was so worried when you all disappeared, but then I found Vinyl Scratch, and she helped me get you back!”

The girls all laughed, stepping away from each other and turning to the unicorn DJ, who was busily picking up the mess left behind after a large portion of the ponies of ponyville had been unceremoniously dumped in her studio by the evil artifact, almost as a last act of ill-will towards the musician that had destroyed it. Twilight Sparkle and Rarity immediately lent a hoof, using their magic to help straighten up the room. Vinyl Scratch smiled at them and extended a hoof, “Thanks.”

Twilight and Vinyl bumped hooves and laughed. Applejack smiled at Vinyl Scratch, “Well, beggin’ your pardon, but it sounds to us like you’re the hero of the day.”

Vinyl flushed, unused to the attention, and waved a hoof in the air dismissively. “Nah, it was all Pinkie Pie. Without her, I’d have never figured out what to do. So if you’re going to thank anyone, let it be—mmph!”

Pinkie unceremoniously shoved a hoof in Vinyl Scratch’s mouth, silencing her. “Vinyl Scratch was totally the hero! She made all the sound crystals into a vinyl record, and it was like boom!, And then the evil box was like, nuh uh! And Vinyl was like, oh no you didn’t! And the bass was like Wub wub wub wub! And then things exploded!”

Rainbow Dash laughed, “Sounds awesome to me!”

Vinyl rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. “Y-yeah, I guess it was pretty rad.”

Twilight smiled. “Well, that settles it then! You saved Ponyville, and we owe you our thanks. Is there anything we can do to repay you?”

As Vinyl Scratch started to shake her head, Pinkie Pie slid alongside the DJ and whispered in her ear. A smile spread across Vinyl’s face and she replied, “Uh, actually... there is one thing.”

Vinyl stood before town hall, facing down at the assembled ponies of Ponyville. Her sound system and turntables had been moved out of her house and set up in front of the podium at town hall, and Mayor Mare had gladly gotten a crew of pegasai to rig lights up around the town square once she learned that she was doing it for the savior of Ponyville.

Now, hundreds of eyes were on Vinyl Scratch, and she wiped her forehead, flicking away the sweat that was accumulating. She reached over and tapped a button on the lighting board that she had been provided with, and the town square was blanketed in darkness. At the front of her impromptu stage, the reunited Elements of Harmony cheered, stomping their hooves, and the crowd joined in, hollering and shouting happily. After all, this was an occasion for celebration. It wasn’t every day that they were all saved from evil music boxes by a DJ. Vinyl couldn’t hear their cheers, but she could feel them, a happy wave of sound that crashed over her and left her breathless.

Vinyl Scratch reached over and picked up the brand new record, the very same record that had freed ponyville, and set it on the turntable. Vinyl punched a button on the light board, and dropped the needle onto the record. Above the crowd, the lights began to dance, powering on and off in time with the beat of the music, and the crowd cheered again. Vinyl increased the volume slowly, bringing it up in stages as the music began to build, and she smiled as she watched as hooves began to tap and heads began to bob. Finally, as the music reached its full swell, Vinyl slapped a second record down onto the other deck of the turntable, cross-fading the new song into the current one with the ease of an experienced mixer. The music came together, and Vinyl closed her eyes, feeling the waves course over her, over the crowd, like an ocean breaking on a beach, and she smiled, lifting a hoof into the air, slapped the volume to nil, and crowed into a microphone, “Who’s ready to party!?”

As Ponyville cheered at her, Vinyl smiled. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

Vinyl Scratch slapped the volume back up, the ponies began to dance, and as the waves of sound crashed over Ponyville, they all felt the music together.

Melody of Solace

You know, music's a real drag sometimes, let me tell you. Ponies go on and on and on about how great this composer is or how magnificent that musician is. It's all a bunch of hooey, I tell you. I'm serious--nothing but a bunch of fake smiling ponies showing off like a bunch of high-class wannabes.

Let me tell you something about music: I used to hear music all the time. I guess it started with my grandmother. My grandmother, you see, she was a pianist. Well, I don't know if she actually played for money, but boy, she should've. Anyway, so my grandmother, every dang time I went to her house she was playing the dang piano. It wasn't a big one or anything--one of those upright ones you can tuck in a corner and forget about, you see--but she sure did make that old thing come to life. I'm not lying. It was like when she sat at that piano, you could sit on the floor next to her and completely lose yourself--I mean completely.

My grandmother--her name was Dandelion, by the way--she'd sit for hours just playing and playing away. Of course, she didn't use her hooves or anything--not like me. No, she would just sit there with her forelimbs hanging at her side and her horn aglow, the keys depressing and filling the room with intangible beauty. It was magic, obviously, but that was her special talent. Well, not her special talent. Her cutie mark was a large flower and she'd been a florist by trade. But boy, could she play the piano.

Anyway, so whenever I went to my grandmother's place, it was like time would move in fast forward. I'm not kidding. My sister Willow and I, the first thing we'd always do after bursting through the front door was whine and whine at Grandma Dandelion to play that piano. Oh, of course she'd put up a big fuss and all at first, but eventually she'd concede. She'd drag her creaking old body draped in this tacky flowered dress she always wore over to the bench, all the while moaning about some chore that had to be done or cookies that were burning in the oven. She was that kind of pony, you know-—the kind that pretend not to want to do something just to get on your nerves. She was a nice old mare, though. I think she had just been teasing us. Secretly, I think, she loved that piano more than anything in all Equestria, even more than flowers.

Willow and I would just sit there and listen, our ears perked as an aura of green magic tickled the black and white keys. It was kind of relaxing, you know? Like that feeling you get when you come home from a long a day of baking or sewing or moving clouds around or whatever, and all you want to do is pick up a good book and lose yourself. And then you look up at the clock and it's five hours past midnight, or something. That was what it was like when Grandma Dandelion played. Pure bliss.

So, as you can imagine, one day I up and decided to give that old piano a go. Grandma Dandelion was in the kitchen or asleep or something, and I snuck into the parlor and scurried over to that dusty old piano. You should have seen me. I swear, I was like a regular old creeper. Anyway, I snuck up to that piano and sat down, my hooves just barely reaching the pedals. But that's when I had to get creative, not having a horn and all. You see, they always said I was creative pony. And I was, I really was. You see, I took my hooves and sort of tilted them sideways so that only the edges would touch the keys. Then I just started pounding around like I knew what I was doing or something.

Wouldn't you know, though, I eventually picked up on these patterns--the way the notes progress in a scale and whatnot. I'll never forget the look on Grandma Dandelion's face when she came through that door to the parlor. Boy, was she angry! Her face was as red as the apples she used to bake her pie. But then, when she saw it was me playing the piano, her body sort of relaxed a little bit. I swore she was going to faint and break a hip. I mean, you could just see the anger melt away. Then, she dashed over to me and scooped me up in a big hug. I never saw an old pony move that fast in my life. I guess it had been those scales I was playing. I'll never forget her words that day.

“Melody,” she said, looking down into my wide eyes, “I had no idea you could play.” Her voice was really soft, like she was telling me some kind of secret.

“Uh, I can't!” I squeaked. “I just sorta fiddled around and pressed the keys. You're not mad at me, grandma, are you?”

“Mad? Oh, dear, of course I'm not mad!” She released me and started in the direction of a large bookcase that was kitty corner to the piano. “In fact, you have made me more happy than I've been in a long, long time.”

When she reached the bookcase, her horn started to glow. Something small and sort of roundish floated down from a high shelf and settled in front of her face. Grandma Dandelion stared at intently, squinting her eyes ever so slightly, as if trying to remember something that had long been forgotten.

After a while, she spoke. “There's something I want you to have, dear,” she said. She trotted over to me. “This here belonged to my mother, and I think it's time I pass it on.” As she floated the small object to me, I was able to make out its features. It was a little round box, with three ornate legs jutting out from the bottom. The surface of it was adorned with intricate designs and floral patterns that were painted in vivid blues, greens, and reds. It almost looked like one of those make-up containers my mother kept in her room. I had no idea.

“What is it?” I said.

“It's a music box. Here, let me show you something.” She outstretched a shaking hoof and released a latch on the side of the music box. The lid popped open revealing a small pegasus with a feather in her mane and a flower on her flank. Her eyes were closed and she was posed elegantly, reaching out for an invisible partner.

Then, it started to play music. It was really quiet at first, just a whisper, but it slowly got louder. The pegasus rotated around the box in a lonely dance, spewing forth her somber tune. Grandma Dandelion got real slouched all of the sudden. I mean, she'd been so happy when I pounded on the piano, but now her posture betrayed her feelings. She closed the lid of the music box and looked at me. Even though she was kinda smiling, I could see that there was something more behind her eyes.

The green cloud of magic surrounding the box faded as she set it down in front of me. “You will bring great joy to the world, Melody.”

Anyway, that's basically what sparked my love of music. My previous love, that is. Oh, sure, I used to love music, back before they kicked me out of this place. I mean, it's not like I wanted to get kicked out of the Canterlot School of Music--they do say it's the greatest music school in Equestria, and all--it's just, well, I guess I sort of deserved it.

It all started on induction day in my first year. You see, none of my friends from school were attending the Canterlot School of Music. Heck, none of them were even going to school in Canterlot! It'd been really jarring, just sort of moving cities like that, and I was super nervous as I walked through the front gates.

There were ponies everywhere. I never saw so many ponies in one place in my entire life. They were all first year students too, making their way to their assigned dormitories. Now, you're probably wondering why I was nervous and all. Well, you might not know this, but music is traditionally a field of study reserved only for unicorns. It's not like they don't allow earth ponies and pegasi to enroll, it's just that playing instruments with magic is so much easier with magic than with hooves. As I looked around that day at all the ponies eager to meet their roommates and begin their studies, I couldn't help but notice the fact that almost everypony was a unicorn.

I wondered why in the world there weren't at least more pegasi. They could at least use their wings or something. I looked more closely at the scurrying crowd. There wasn't a single earth pony there besides me, so far as I could tell. I was so bewildered that I didn't realize I stopped dead in my tracks. I felt somepony bump into me from behind.

“Hey! Watch where you're going!” somepony said.

I whipped around and came face to face with a scowling, blue unicorn. He had some friends with him, each one with a small, black instrument case floating beside them.

“Yeah, no-horn!” one of them said. “Whadaya doing here, anyway?”

I backed up, trying to lose them in the thinning crowd. “I, uh--”

The one who had spoke to me first turned to his friends. “Hey, guys. I wonder what she plays!” He looked back at me. “You do know the plow isn't an instrument, no-horn?”

I could feel tears forming in my eyes. “L-listen here! You can't just--”

“Can't just what? You gonna stop us?”

I was about ready to sprint back out the front gates when a mint green pony pushed her way through the crowd and ran in front of me. She had a small case with her, too.

“Hey, jerks!” she said. “Leave her alone!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said one of the unicorns. “Somepony comes to save the day for a scummy little earth pony! Now nice.”

She spread her limbs in a defensive stance, letting her instrument case fall to the ground. “Yeah! And if you don't leave her alone, I'll kick all of your flanks!”

Their eyes opened wide at this. “Well... whatever,” one of them said. “See you losers later.”

“Yeah, see you later, no-horn!”

The group of unicorns laughed and trotted off, leaving the two of us standing in the courtyard.

My nose was still running, and I wiped a tear from my eyes. “Wow, uh, thanks.”

“Not a problem! Name's Lyra, by the way!”

She extended her hoof, and I shook it. “Melody,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”

“You shouldn't let those guys get to you. They're just jealous,” she said, levitating her case back to her side.

“Jealous?”

“Well, yeah! You managed to get into the best music school in Equestria without the benefit of magic! If you ask me, that's pretty spectacular. Come on, let's go find our rooms.” I followed her as she started in the direction of the main entrance. Most everpony had already gone inside.

I looked at her case floating steadily beside her. It was this odd shape, not anything like any instrument I'd seen before.

“What's in your case?” I said.

“Oh!” she said, look to her side. “That's my lyre! I know, I know. You probably haven't heard of that before.” She laughed.

“It has a beautiful name.”

Lyra chuckled, looking down. “Oh, you know... it's all right.”

We walked through the halls of school following the signs that lead to the room postings. The halls were lined with classrooms that seemed to stretch on forever. I peeked into one of the rooms as we passed it. It was dark inside, but I was able to make the forms of several pianos in neat rows, just waiting to be played. This place was really a dream come true.

We reached the end of a long corridor where a large poster was hanging on the wall. Several other ponies were standing in front of it, searching for their names amid the massive wall of text.

Lyra trotted over to one side of the of the board and looked up. “Hey, here we are!” she said. “Building six... I think we're on the same floor!”

I didn't hear at first, though. Something else had grabbed my attention. Posted beside the room assignments was another bulletin hanging at eye level. “Lyra, look at this!”

She came over to me and read the notice, cocking her head. “A competition?”

“Yeah!” I said. Boy, was I excited. A million things came rushing into my head at once. “It looks like they do this at the beginning of every year!”

Lyra looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “But, why?”

“This is the perfect opportunity for me to show everypony that I'm not some wannabe! That can I actually play music!” I was jumping all over the place at this point.

“You don't need a competition to do that! Just do well in your studies.”

I wasn't listening to her. “With this though, nopony will ever dare to say that a earth pony can't play music!”

“But, there already are tons of successful earth pony musicians!” Lyra said.

That got me thinking. It really did. I knew I didn't stand a chance against those other unicorns. They'd been using magic their entire lives and probably had taken formal lessons. I played in my free time mostly. I remember when I convinced my parents to buy my first piano. They wouldn't budge at first, but after we went to Grandma Dandelion's house and they heard me play, well... let's just say they were more than thrilled. We stopped at a music store and picked up a piano that very day. They had spent a lot of money on that piano. Thinking back, that's probably why they never bought me lessons. That's okay, though, because I was basically a natural. It was one of the only things I was ever truly good at. You know, I'm really going to miss it.

That's when I told Lyra about my plan to win that competition, the plan that landed me here. She was really reluctant, but she said she'd think about it. I kind of wish she had slapped me.

The competition wasn't scheduled until after the winter holiday, which I suppose they did in order to allow the contestants a break from school to practice. I spent the holiday at home with my parents. A few days before I went back to Canterlot, we paid a visit to Grandma Dandelion. It'd been at least a year since I'd seen her last. I remember it like it was yesterday.

When we got there, I was fully expecting to be greeted with a sweet tune coming from the parlor, but the house was silent. Oh, the piano was still there in the corner. But it was all dusty, and the bench was tucked neatly under it.

Grandma Dandelion was in her bedroom. She was very sick, lying in a crumpled heap on her bed. When I got to her bedside, she reached out to me out and placed her hoof on my shoulder. She wanted to speak with me alone.

When she spoke, she opened her mouth only just enough to allow the words to escape past her lips.

“How are your studies, dear?” she said. Her voice trembled ever so slightly. It was hard for me to see her like this.

“Good,” I replied. I didn't want to ask her how she was feeling. I decided to discuss a more lighthearted topic. “I entered a music competition!”

“That's wonderful, dear.”

I sighed. “But I don't think I'll win. Pretty much every other student there is a unicorn. How do I even stand a chance?”

At this, she smiled that same comforting smile she had given me so many years ago in the front of her piano. "Melody," she said, "we go through life like sailboats on a windless day. Every once in a while, though, a strong breeze comes and fills our sails. But we mustn't settle there, no. For if we do not man the rudder, the wind will surely blow us astray."

I didn't know what to say to this. I just kept staring into those deep brown eyes. I kinda hate it when ponies get real philosophical, and all. It really kills a good mood.

She had to take a few breaths before continuing. "You have found your direction, and you must never lose it."

“Grandma,” I said, “I promise you, I'll make you proud. I couldn't bring myself to tell her my plan.

She closed her eyes and smiled. “I have no doubt, Melody. Now, leave your old granny be. I'm so very tired.”

My parents and I left her house then. I haven't seen her since.

Anyway, when I got back to school, the first thing I did was find Lyra. I found her at dinner, sitting at the table we always ate at. Her eyes lit up when she saw me.

She hustled out of her seat and gave me a big embrace before she said, “Melody! How was your break?”

“It was good,” I said, joining her at the table. “I did a lot of thinking. Yours?”

“It was excellent! You wouldn't believe the pieces I wrote! I'm really proud of them.” She raised the sandwich on her plate to take a bite, but stopped halfway through the act and looked at me, frowning. “Wait... are you still planning to compete in that competition?”

“Of course! Why wouldn't I?”

She put her food down. “It's just, well... remember that thing you wanted me to do? I'm not so sure I'm comfortable with helping you like that. I mean, it is cheating.”

“How is it cheating?” I said. “The unicorns get to use magic, so why shouldn't I? It makes perfect sense.”

“But it's against the rules! If we get caught, we'll both be expelled. Plus, using magic like that is dangerous. All I really use it for is playing my lyre. I've never actually used it on another pony before...” her voice trailed off.

“Listen, Lyra,” I said, “it'll be fine. Just do what I told you, and I'll have this thing in the bag.”

On the day of the competition, Lyra and I walked into the large auditorium together. It was a multipurpose room, I think, because the stage was sort of set up right in the center. All around the room, there were ponies preparing for their moment in the spotlight. Some were tuning their instruments, while others were pacing around and sweating all over the place.

Looking around, I felt my heart sink into my stomach. Every contestant was a unicorn. I mean, every single one. That didn't faze me though, not at all. I had skill and magic on my side.

I turned to Lyra, who was distracted by a pony playing a cello. I put my forelimb around her and brought her close.

“Okay...” she said, looking back to me. “So, how are we going to do this?”

I thought for a moment. You know, I never think things through long enough. That's probably why everything went wrong. They may say I'm creative, but I don't think that makes up for a lack of judgement or anything. Definitely not now. Maybe if I had thought longer, I would have realized what I was doing. But anyway, I thought for maybe five seconds before I spoke again.

“You see the doors over there?” I said, pointing my hoof in the direction of the grand entrance.

“Yeah?”

“Well, you're gonna stand outside, and when they announce my name, you're gonna cast the spell on me. Okay? Nopony will be able to see your horn glowing behind the doors. It's perfect!”

“Right...” Lyra said. Her tail sort of flicked back and forth. “What--er--what exactly do you want me to do again?”

“Just do what you do when you play your lyre, but focus on me instead!” I smiled. This plan was definitely going to work. It had to work.

The lights dimmed, and Lyra and I split up. She went off to her position, and I hurried backstage where the other contestants were already waiting.

I waited until my name was called. I was shaking as I trotted out from behind the curtain and made my way to the piano that was at the center of the stage. That walk seemed to last forever. The lights were bright in my eyes, and I couldn't see any of the ponies in the audience, but I could hear their murmurs. Really faint whispers, kind of like when something bad is happening but nopony wants to acknowledge it. I knew what they were whispering about, too. That was the worst part.

I finally reached the bench, pulled it out, and took a seat. I looked over the black and white ivory keys in front of me. They looked so familiar, yet sort of distant. I mean, I knew them pretty much all of my life. They were my friends, as well as my enemies. They were what at times told me to slam my hooves and give up, and at others urged me to keep holding on. I loved them, and I despised them. Sort of like family, you know?

But that's ridiculous. A piano isn't family. Music isn't family. Music doesn't hug you when you take something ordinary and create something beautiful. It doesn't hold your hoof and tell you that everything's gonna be okay, even when everything seems hopeless. And music certainly doesn't play favorites, picking one pony over the other for selfish or petty reasons. I kind of fell into that hole, though, where you get too comfortable.You get too cocky, and you reach for the unreachable, and then everything falls apart.

I reached out my hooves and placed them on the keys. I felt their balanced weight and their cold finish. I took a deep breath, and let it out real slowly. That feeling in my stomach wouldn't go away.

And then I started to play. It was normal at first, like how I always play. My hooves danced over the keys in their awkward sideways position. I must've looked pretty foolish up there.

Suddenly, I felt really cold. My brow broke out in a cold sweat, and my body started to shake uncontrollably. Around me, the world faded. My forelimbs took on a life of their own, authors of a melody I had never heard before. They moved faster and faster and caused the piano to recoil violently at the increased pace of the playing. I begged them to slow down, but they wouldn't stop. I tried to look in the direction in the door, my head whipping about violently, but the lights were still so bright.

Then, my mind went blank. I couldn't see anything anymore. I couldn't hear anything anymore. Well, except for the music. I still heard that. It went on for a while.

That's the last thing I remember, actually. I hope Lyra is okay.

The music box is over there, on the windowsill. I don't know who put it there, but it definitely wasn't Grandma Dandelion. I mean, she can hardly get out of bed anymore, I don't think. It was there when I woke up, though. I want to hear that familiar song again and see the dancing pegasus, but I can't really reach it.

They have a piano here, you know, in the waiting room. I tried to play it the other day, but it's just not the same, you know what I mean? It felt like that first time I had played Grandma Dandelion's piano, when I just pounded away at the keys. Except this time it wasn't any kind of music that came out. I had to stop because other patients had started to look at me funny. I tell you, it's just not the same. The music goes on, though. Maybe not with me at the bench, but it will go on.

Like all things timeless, it doesn't really matter who's waving the baton; the opus remains a constant. Life has a way of doing that, really. It sort of forgets about you and moves on if you're not careful, or if you do something stupid and end up like me.

That kind of depresses me, you know? In a good way, though, if that's even possible.

I dunno. It's okay, I suppose.

After all, I still have my memories.

Made of Dreams

“Mommy! Look at this! Look at this!” squeaked a filly, jumping up and down in exuberance. The jingling of metal resonated with every bounce she took, as did the curls of her mane. Buttercup, actively pouring some recently melted chocolate into their molds, could only spare a glance over her shoulder to her daughter.

“Just a minute, Bon Bon. Mommy’s busy right now,” she calmly stated. Lifting the bowl in her magical aura, she continued to tend to the chocolate mixture while Bon Bon impatiently trotted in place. Smiling to herself at her handiwork, Buttercup continued to go about filling each mold with their necessary amounts. After some minutes of the delicate process, she lifted the tray of fresh candies with a feeling of satisfaction and moved over to the freezer, storing them away to harden.

She removed her apron and draped it over a hook to hang from, took a damp washcloth to remove some chocolate from her orange coat before it could stain, and finally diverted her attention to her daughter. “Alright Bon Bon, what is it you wanted to show me?”

The filly stopped bouncing and fell backwards on her haunches. “Watch this!” she announced, removing the dangling tambourine from her jaw. Balancing it delicately in her lap between her legs, Bon Bon began tapping away on the drumhead with her hooves. The embedded cymbals clanged with every motion as she produced a very upbeat and well managed rhythm, keeping the pattern going for several lasting seconds.

Bon Bon was lost to herself as a smile grew across her face. The tempo of her juvenile song suddenly paused, and after a moment’s hesitation she whacked against the drum at a surprisingly fast pace, ending the note with a single and triumphant pound. Her hooves danced against its surface, returning to the smooth and upbeat pattern she had been maintaining moments prior. The little cymbals chimed and they clinked, bouncing along to the song Bon Bon was so absorbed in.

“Stop that!” her mother suddenly barked, slapping the tambourine out of her daughter’s grasp. Bon Bon squeaked in surprise, reeling backwards onto the tile floor of the kitchen. Buttercup furiously lifted the instrument with her magic and sent it hurdling across the room, impacting a wall and landing on the ground with a dull thud. “Your father and I have made it very clear that you are not allowed to play drums!”

Bon Bon sat back up, one of her hooves trembling and other trying to calm it. “B-But… this isn’t a drum,” she sniffled. “It’s a tambourine…”

“I don’t care what it’s called,” her mother snorted, turning back towards the countertop and grabbing several bowls and ingredients. “We are a family of confectioners, not musicians, Bon Bon. I don’t know how many times we have to tell you that.”

“S-Sorry Mommy…” Bon Bon quickly apologized. She grasped her trembling hoof tight against her chest and stood back up. “But what will my special talent me if I don’t try everything?”

A whisk and a bowl of taffy floated out towards her. “Try this,” Buttercup insisted.

“But I already tried to get my cutie mark in baking…”

“Then you will try again,” her mother insisted, almost thrusting the objects into her but instead let them clatter to the floor. Bon Bon sighed, gripping the whisk by the handle with her teeth and began to stir.

“Hey Bon Bon!” a friendly voice called from across the playground. Sitting on her haunches, Bon Bon looked up from her mundane task and glanced around with an expressionless face, her ears flicking in the wind. Ponyville’s schoolhouse stood tall and proud in the background, where a dozen or so fillies and colts frolicked underneath the spring sun.

A burgundy pegasus fluttered her wings, flying rather haphazardly mere inches off the ground, a determined smile plastered across her face. The filly’s black mane was striped with an occasional silver highlight, and the gusts of wind threw it down over her eyes. Sticking her tongue out, she touched down unsteadily on all fours in front of Bon Bon, almost tripping over herself in the landing.

“Darn wings,” she muttered to herself, rustling the stubby appendages before clasping them against her side.

Bon Bon forced a smile, tugging at the base of her light gray sweatjacket and making sure it covered her flank. “Hey Cinder Flare,” she said casually. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, it is recess,” her friend giggled, trying to blow her mane out of her eyes. “Besides, you’re all over here by yourself. Wanna go play on the swings with me?”

“Thanks but no thanks,” Bon Bon dismissed, returning to the stick she had been playing with. “But I kinda want to be a long right now.”

Cinder Flare’s ears drooped and she curiously tilted her head. “Something wrong?” she asked.

“I said I wanted to be alone,” Bon Bon was quick to retort, an obvious ache in her voice. Holding the wooden twig firmly in her hoof, she went back to unenthusiastically tapping it against the ground, getting a dull thud with every swing. Fidgeting slightly, Cinder Flare continued to stand beside her, watching the sad spectacle.

She gently shook her friend on the withers. “Come on Bons, you can tell me. What’s bothering you?”

Bon Bon hesitated, holding the stick and looking at it forlornly before dropping it on the ground. Slowly, she turned to her friend with an almost pleading look in her eyes. “Promise to keep it a secret?”

“Of course!” Cinder Flare beamed gave an exuberant grin and struck a pose, flashing Bon Bon her cutie mark: a sealed scroll with an arrow piercing straight through it. “Keeping promises is my special talent, after all.”

Sniffling, Bon Bon brought a hoof over her eyes and wiped them briskly against a sleeve. “Right… Special talent,” she mumbled.

“Bon Bon?”

The filly stood up, her sweatjacket dangling at her side, obviously many sizes too big for her frame as it stretched all the way to her tail and the open flaps almost touched the ground. With a shudder, she pulled up its base, revealing her cotton candy colors of her tail to her friend, as well as what lay beyond that. Cinder Flare’s azure eyes went wide at seeing the three wrapped pieces of candy embedded on Bon Bon’s flank.

“Hey, you finally got your cutie mark!” she cheered. “That’s awesome!”

Bon Bon quickly threw the fabric back over herself, hiding her flank as she shot her friend an annoyed, watery-eyed glare. “Quiet!” she hissed. “Don’t tell anypony.”

Cinder Flare reeled back, noticing the tears forming in the pits of her eyes. “Wait, what?” she asked dumbfounded. “That’s your secret?”

Bon Bon nodded, sitting back down on the ground in self-pity, picking up the stick she had been playing with moments prior and hurled it across the playground. The twig harmlessly bounced off a slide and plopped onto the ground.

“You cannot just keep your cutie mark hidden for the rest of your life,” Cinder Flare told her in a matter-of-fact tone. “And what’s so bad about it? You get to have a cute-ceanera and get a bunch of presents!”

Her attempt at cheering her up appeared to have backfired. “I don’t want a cute-ceanera!” Bon Bon squeaked, pulling her oversized sweatjacket in tighter and zipped it up. Taking in a deep breath, she leapt from her position at her friend, wrapping her in a tight hug. Cinder Flare staggered backwards as Bon Bon cried into her withers.

“I don’t want this cutie mark!”

“So, any idea what you’ll do when school gets out?”

Bon Bon stared down at her lunch for a moment. The Daffodilly Café always makes the best sandwiches, but today of all days her appetite escaped her. Looking up, Cinder Flare’s azure eyes met her own and she found herself on the receiving end of a friendly smile.

After a pause, Bon Bon merely shrugged. “Don’t know yet,” she said with a hint of anger in her tone, tapping her hoof rhythmically on the outdoor table. “How about yourself?”

“Thinking of becoming a mailmare,” Cinder Flare replied flatly, stealing a quick sip from her smoothie. “I’ve been told I’m one of the most maneuverable pegasi in Ponyville, and weather duty just doesn’t appeal to me. Gotta put my wings to work somehow, you know?”

Bon Bon didn’t respond, rather she found herself staring at her hoof bounce against the surface of the table. The beat seemed so foreign and offensive, yet she couldn’t help herself. Before she knew it her other hoof joined the first, and together the two limbs were happily tapping away in song.

The sound of rumbling wheels drew her attention, and she glanced up at the town of Ponyville just in time to see Golden Harvest walk past. With a happy grin and a swing to her trot, the perky mare dragged a large wooden cart behind her, filled to the brim with bright orange carrots. Bon Bon followed her with her eyes until she was out of view, and her vision wandered back towards the center of town. Mayor Mare was the first pony to catch her attention, and she watched inattentively as she trotted up to a kiosk.

Applejack popped up from behind the cart, a fresh bag of apples hanging in her mouth, and dropped it onto the countertop in between them. The Mayor smiled, reaching into her saddlebags and pulling out a tiny bag of bits, dangling it in front of the farmer like a bone to a dog. Applejack smiled back, tossing the bag of apples her way and the two ponies briskly exchanged items.

Glancing down the other side of the road, Daisy and Lily were busy having an idle chat with each other when Roseluck appeared from around a corner, a bouquet of immaculate flowers held tightly in her mouth. The two ponies turned to their friend with a gasp and rushed up to her, feverishly complimenting the gardener on her beautiful work. Roseluck blushed, and together the three of them retreated further into the town.

Bon Bon couldn’t help but frown.

“You’re doing it again,” Cinder Flare suddenly spoke up, and Bon Bon suddenly twisted back towards her childhood friend.

“Doing what?”

“That beat,” Cinder Flare motioned at her with her snout. Bon Bon glanced down and saw only one hoof tapping away where there was once two, and at a very slow and monotonous pace. “You do that every time something’s bothering you,” she added.

“I do not!” Bon Bon was quick to defend, pulling her hoof in against her chest.

“And you get upset very easily…”

“Do not!”

Cinder Flare raised an eyebrow. “Care to get it off your chest?”

Finishing off a scowl, Bon Bon sighed in defeat. “Fine,” she answered sharply. “My mom wants me to take over the family business.”

“What so bad about that?” her friend asked, moving to take another sip from her drink. “I know what kind of business that place gets, and you’re a great cook. You can really rake in the bits.”

“I hate cooking and I don’t care about the money; she’s literally dumping it on me!” Bon Bon grumbled, pushing aside her uneaten lunch.

“Ouch. Some mother…”

“Don’t even get me started…”

“Then I won’t,” Cinder Flare deadpanned with a shrug. “So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t think I have much of a choice,” Bon Bon said reluctantly, slouching backwards into her seat. “Yes, I admit it’s a good source of income, but I don’t like spending my time making chocolate truffles and taffy.”

With a grunt, Bon Bon slammed her face down onto the table. “I hate my mom. I hate my cutie mark…”

A second passed and then a hoof suddenly slapped her across the side of the face, jolting Bon Bon into momentary shock. She shot upright on, eyes completely wide in disbelief, and her cheek glowing red with pain. Cinder Flare stared intently at her, wings spread and hovering right above her.

“Do not talk about yourself like that!” she barked, raising a hoof and pointing it accusingly. “You know I hate it when you do this to yourself.”

“What’s it matter?” Bon Bon jeered, rubbing her now sore muzzle. “You know I hate the confectionary business, you know my mother made me do it, and now I got this darn curse of a cutie mark. What choice do I have?”

Cinder Flare slowly lowered back down in her seat. “Really? You’re letting your stupid cutie mark lead your life?”

With furrowed brows, the two of them frowned at each other. Cinder Flare, still maintaining her angry glare, stole a quick sip of her smoothie before continuing. “Look: when it comes to cutie marks, there’s gotta be a dozen ways to interpret the things. Heck, for all I know my special talent isn’t keeping promises. Maybe it’s shooting arrows through pieces of paper, but I won’t know if I’m good at it until I try. I mean, Cheerilee’s got the cutie mark of a gardener and she’s training to become a teacher for crying out loud. Can’t get much more outlandish than that.”

Bon Bon rolled her eyes. “Isn’t that a dream?” she said sarcastically.

“Life is made of dreams,” Cinder Flare was quick to say. “I mean, what’s stopping you? We’ve had this conversation before, and it’s always ‘your mother won’t let you,’ but now she’s going to be gone! What’s stopping you from playing the drums now?”

Bon Bon bit her lip; she couldn’t really fathom an argument against that logic. Heaving a sigh, she slumped backwards in her seat, cheeks flushed with red more out of embarrassment then pain.

“Did you really have to hit me so hard?”

“You really needed it.”

“I guess I did,” she chuckled. Looking back down at the table, Bon Bon quietly lifted up her untouched sandwich and took a small bite of it. The flavor was a long missing sweetness to her tongue, forming a tiny smile across her face.

Bon Bon sighed, taking another bite out of her sandwich. Hesitantly, she stole a brief glance at her cutie mark. The three wrapped up pieces of candy innocently looked back, and she frowned at them. What if her cutie mark didn’t mean she was supposed to be a confectioner? But what else could it mean? As far as vague symbols go, hers wasn’t even on the list.

Bon Bon stood out in front of her home, trying her best to stand on her two rear legs. It was an awkward thing to do, but after some trial and error she was able to maintain balance. Smiling cheerfully at her dull accomplishment, she reached out with one hoof and delicately held a wooden sign in place. With the other’s assistance, she positioned it rightly on the ground, before pounding away at it. But even having the characteristic strength of an earth pony, each of her mighty swings only drove the sign into the earth centimeters at a time. Determined, Bon Bon continued to beat at the top, driving the sign deeper with every attempt, until she was finally confident it wouldn’t topple over.

“Room for Rent,” Cinder Flare read, trotting up to her with her saddlebags filled to the brim. “About time, ain’t it?”

Bon Bon grinned, dropping back onto all fours. “She’s going back to Stalliongrad, finally. One of two issues solved.”

“The other being the business, I assume.”

“Yeah…” she sighed. Turning back around towards her townhouse, the front window proudly displayed a colorful amount of tasty candies and other treats. Her smile slowly faded into a frown and she released a built up sigh. “I’ve been at this for about a year now. It’s manageable, but it takes up all the free time I once had.”

Cinder Flare raised an eyebrow and looked curiously at the sign, smiling. “Well, that’s one way to say goodbye.”

“Don’t start with me,” Bon Bon deadpanned. “You’ve been my best friend for years, Cinders. Don’t think I’m trying to find somepony to replace you!”

“I’m just joking,” she snickered, tugging at her overflowing saddlebags. “If my job permits, I’ll stop by whenever I can and say hi. Sure am going to miss you, though.”

“I will too,” Bon Bon added. “Want a farewell hug?”

“Hmmm… I don’t kn—okay!” Cinder Flare squealed and jumped, wrapping around Bon Bon with her hooves and a lively smile. In return she giggled, returning the favor for several lasting seconds.

“Geez, you two. Get a room,” a voice suddenly quipped at them. Together they looked up, straight into the amber eyes of an aquamarine unicorn. “But not this one,” she pointed at them with a determined glare and then to the newly erected sign. “This one’s mine!”

Cinder Flare snorted, withholding the urge to laugh uncontrollably. “Good luck,” she whispered to Bon Bon before breaking their embrace. Outstretching her wings, she flapped them methodically until she was in the air. Giving a knowing nod to her friend, Cinder Flare took off down the streets, waving goodbye until she was out of sight.

Bon Bon again sighed, turning to face the unicorn who stood protectively in front of the sign. “So... I hear you want a place to stay?”

“So that’s why you got the sudden interest in picking up the drums?” Lyra asked with a tilted head. The scent of fresh waffles filled the kitchen as Bon Bon lowered their breakfast onto the table.

“I’ve had it for a while,” Bon Bon admitted, taking her respective seat at one end. Lyra smiled, grabbing a pitcher of syrup with her telekinesis and slowly poured across her food. She motioned with it towards Bon Bon, she nodded, and then Lyra began dousing her breakfast as well. “I guess I’ve just been too stubborn for my own good,” she continued. “But with the business now, there’s just not enough time even if I wanted too.”

“But you do want to,” Lyra stated, picking up some utensils in her hooves and began sawing away at her waffles. “So that pegasus I first saw was Cinder Flare?”

Bon Bon nodded, and a mischievous grin slowly crossed Lyra’s face. “Huh. I always assumed that she was your fillyfriend,” she teased.

“Lyra! You know I’m not like that.”

“Oh, I know. I’ve tried.”

“Lyra!”

“Heeheehee!” the unicorn giggled. “Oh, Bon Bon... If you want to find time to play, I’d be more than willing to cover for you at the shop.”

Bon Bon blinked. “You’d do that for me?”

“Of course! You’re my best friend,” Lyra stated with a friendly smile, before it disappeared when she shoved a large mass of syrup and pastry into her mouth.

“Hey, you told me how you got your cutie mark. Wanna know how I got mine?”

“Uh… by playing the lyre?”

“Nope!” Lyra giggled. “Well, kinda, but not really.”

“Excuse me?”

“Weeeell…” she began, twiddling a fork between her hooves. “When I was filly back at the School for Gifted Unicorns, they have this really big music room. I had no interest in playing the lyre at all. Rather, I was completely devoting myself into the grand piano that was laying around. I really wanted to get my cutie mark playing the piano, but it just wouldn’t show up.”

Lyra paused to take another piece out of her breakfast. “Thensth onth day,” she spoke, swallowed, and continued. “I lied to some of my friends. Not proud of it, but I did, and they thought I had learned how to play the lyre. As I’m sure I’ve told you before, that instrument is no easy one to master. Anyhow, they called my bluff and I was forced to play a quick tune for them. I did, failed miserably, when suddenly, bam! Cutie mark acquired.”

Bon Bon tilted her head and Lyra began laughing to herself. “Funny thing is; I never picked the lyre back up again for several years. I hated the thing, and instead I kept pressing my luck on the piano. I got really good at it too, like really good. Then one day, for some reason or another, I picked the lyre back up and got good at that too.”

Lyra confidently kicked back in her seat, levitating bits of her breakfast up to her mouth. Completely dumbfounded, Bon Bon simply stared at her. “So, you got your cutie mark by lying?”

“No,” Lyra said flatly, staring unamused across the table for a moment before it was broken by another fit of giggles. “Tartarus if I know the truth, really. There’s gotta be a dozen ways to interpret the things.”

Bon Bon stared down at herself, contemplating. After much hesitation she looked back up to Lyra, who was busy devouring the last of her breakfast. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure thing, oh buddy oh friend oh landlord of mine.”

“Besides being a confectioner, what do you think my cutie mark could represent?”

Lyra looked thoughtful. “Maybe there’s something inside you, wrapped up in colorful plastic, just waiting to be revealed? I don’t know… I’m terrible at the whole philosophy jargon.”

Bon Bon again went silent, staring at her breakfast that merely idled in front of her. Before she could even begin to muse she was interrupted by a large, belligerent belch.

Lyra giggled, getting up and pushing her chair in. Her horn glowed a bright gold and her lyre floated out of its hiding spot and over to her. “Well, I’m going out to the park and make some sweet music, maybe make some bits as well. Want anything while I’m out?”

“No thanks,” Bon Bon dismissed with a smile. “And take your sweatjacket with you! It’s been really cold this morning.”

Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon

"You can be happy!" Lyra chirped, smiling jubilantly as she stood on her hind quarters and strummed her lyre. "You can make sweet music!"

Bon Bon smiled back at her. It was a bright, sunny day. The two were situated under a spreading oak tree atop a bright green hill of grass. As Lyra played her instrument of choice, Bon Bon was practicing something new, and making a very awkward show of it. Squatting atop a wooden bench, she gripped two sticks in the crook of her cream-colored hooves. There was a drumset in front of her, complete with cymbals and snares. As Lyra continued her gentle melody, Bon Bon supplied a steady backbeat with the percussion instruments, or at least she tried to.

Lyra smiled at her significant other's foalish ineptitude. "I can't do this without you, honey," she said with a slight giggle and slowed her stringed melody just slightly.

With a return nod, Bon Bon bit her lip and focused on the task at hoof. She struck each drum in succession, maintaining a rhythmic bom bom bom bom sound that resonated through the afternoon breeze.

"I can hear you!" Lyra said, though the goofy expression on her face suggested that it was merely a playful jab.

Sure enough, a few seconds later, a flustered Bon Bon missed one of the drums with her wooden sticks, striking the metal frame instead. The beat broke, and the lyre's melody limped forward on its own, like a wailing cat with no pretense.

Lyra giggled, winked, and said "You always told me you wanted an encore."

Bon Bon's cheeks turned red as she gripped the sticks tighter, determined to keep a perfect pace.

"Stay with me now!" Lyra said, and suddenly broke into a far more complex melody.

Bon Bon gasped, surprised that her marefriend would increase her tempo without waiting for the drummer. Egged on by the challenge, she tilted forward on the bench and punished the drums ardently, bulleting the air with furious bom bom bom boms that positively shook the blades of grass and fluttering leaves of the oak tree overhead.

Lyra smiled. Her hooves danced over the strings of her instrument while Bon Bon fumbled to match her finesse. The poise and elegance Lyra exhibited was positively surreal, as was the fine balance she maintained on her hind legs. A brief wind blew at the hilltop, and just as it seemed like Lyre would fall back on her flank, she teetered forward with a crooked grin.

"They're not going to wait much longer," she said.

Bon Bon gazed at her awkwardly. It was just the sort of strange thing to finally break her rhythm. She swung blindly at a drum, and struck a cymbal instead. Her whole body shook from the crashing metal—from her ears to her tail—and it made her more than a little dizzy. Her bright blue eyes rolled from the echoing sensation in her skull.

Lyra gave a whole-hearted laugh. She lowered her lyre, leaned in, and gave Bon Bon a sweet peck on the cheek. "I love you so much," she said. Reaching a green hoof over to caress the mare's blue-and-pink bangs, she smiled delicately and breathed, "It's time that you wake up, sweetie."

Bon Bon squinted at Lyra quizzically, wondering what she might mean by that. Suddenly, her eyes felt heavy.

So she opened them. Bon Bon was seated on the bench, alone, surrounded by green grass and the cool shade of the oak tree.

After a lapse of silence, she produced a flighty giggle of embarrassment. "Heehee... Oh, where's your head at, Bon Bon?" she murmured to the air as her body stretched and her lungs produced a much-needed yawn. "You're letting yourself fall asleep in public now? What's next, showing up to work without washing your mane?"

A green shape materialized before her.

Bon Bon gazed up from underneath a sudden shadow. She smiled. "Oh, hey, Lyra! Heheh... I fell asleep out here. Can you believe it?"

Lyra merely grinned back at her. She tilted upwards like a reverse domino until she was standing on her hind quarters. "Darling," the unicorn said, stretching a hoof out towards her sleepy-eyed companion. "Listen to me..."

"Huh...?" Bon Bon squinted in confusion. Nevertheless, she reached her forelimb out and accepted Lyra's gesture. She was yanked off the bench. "Whoah!" Scrambling on the rest of her legs, she found herself being tugged by Lyra up the hill and towards where a drumset was situated in the glistening sunlight. "Lyra, what are you—?"

"You can be happy!" Lyra said. She looked back at Bon Bon and winked before positioning her in the middle of the drums and cymbals. "You can make sweet music!"

Bon Bon gawked at the drums. When she blinked, she saw a dreamy memory along her eyelids that looked a lot like the percussion instruments in front of her just now. "Lyra, I..."

A drumstick was hoofed over to Bon Bon. The mare awkwardly clutched them as Lyra lifted her golden instrument and sing-songed, "I can't do this without you, honey."

In return, Bon Bon groaned. "Fine..." She squatted before the set. She clapped the drumsticks together, flexed her forelimbs, and began smacking away at the various drums with a persistent bom bom bom bom sound. All the while, she stifled a giggle and glared in the unicorn’s direction. "Did you plan this, Lyra...?"

Lyra only giggled. She winked and played a sweet melody around the steady beat Bon Bon was giving. "I can hear you."

"Me? Or my drumming?" Bon Bon sweated slightly as Lyra's increasing melody forced her to accelerate her tempo at an uncomfortable degree. "Hey, Lyra, aren't you the one who's supposed to be keeping up with me?"

"You always told me you wanted an encore!"

"Yeah, but at this rate, I doubt we'd even earn ourselves a pre-show—"

"Stay with me now!" Lyra sped her hoof over the strings of her lyre, producing a melody that was too rapid to hear, much less keep up with.

"Whoah!" Bon Bon gasped. She slammed madly at the drumset as if she was swatting flies. The resulting cacophony would be an insult to call "music," and she realized right there and then just what sort of a ridiculous game this whole thing had been from the get-go. "Heehee... Okay, Lyra..." She stopped drumming altogether, giving the cymbals a defeated thwack before limply wiping the sweat from her cream-colored brow. "Joke's over. What is this?"

Lyra smiled, mangling her strings, her hoof blurring and blurring and blurring and—"They're not going to wait much longer," she hummed above the ringing noise of the cymbal.

This time, Bon Bon's brow furrowed. "Who?"

"I love you so much," Lyra's voice said from behind her.

Bon Bon turned around and opened her eyes. She was squatting on the bench under the shade of an oak tree surrounded by grass.

"It's time that you wake up, sweetie," Lyra said, standing above her.

"But..." Bon Bon tiredly murmured, her ears flicking confusedly. "I am... awake?"

Weighted by her grin, Lyra leaned forward at a forty-five degree angle from her hind quarters. "Darling, listen to me." She hoofed over a drumstick. "You can be happy. You can make sweet music."

"Music?" Bon Bon limply took the drumstick. "But I just woke up—" Her forelimb drifted down and instantly struck a round object. She blinked to see a heavy drumset sitting in front of her and the bench. "Uhm..."

"I can't do this without you, honey," Lyra said, tilting back up and reaching her front limbs out to catch a lyre dropping from the overcast sky.

"Lyra," Bon Bon said, frowning slightly. "I don't want to practice the drums right now. What I want..." She turned her head and glanced behind the bench, eyeing the dark clouds hovering high above the oak tree's swaying branches. "I just want to know why I was sleeping out on this bench."

"I can hear you."

"Good, then maybe you can tell me why..." Bon Bon's voice trailed off. She wasn't hitting the drums. She wasn't even gripping the drumsticks anymore; they had fallen beneath the cracks in the bench's wooden panels seconds ago. Still, she could have sworn she heard a resonating beat through the air, like thunder rolling off the bowers of the black clouds gathering overhead. As she tried to ascertain the source of the bom bom bom bom noise, she saw the leaves of the oak tree shaking with each successive thump. "Funny... is there something behind the tree making that noise?"

"You always told me you wanted an encore!"

"Lyra," Bon Bon sighed and turned around. "Will you stop and pay attention—?" Her eyes twitched and she gasped. "Lyra?!"

She was now standing several dozen meters away. Her lyre glistened in the sunlight as a thick shadow closed in from the far west side of the grassy field. Angry thunderclouds were just seconds away from overtaking the lone unicorn.

"Stay with me now!" Lyra shouted from afar, her bright instrument sounding like a lonesome signal beyond a harbor's fog.

"Lyra!" Bon Bon shouted. She sprang forward, bumbling through the drumset. As the instruments collapsed all around her, the cymbals struck the ground hard, filling the air with a vibration that shook the very enamel of the mare's teeth as she galloped desperately towards her loved one. "Lyra, get away from the thunderstorm! You silly filly! Don't you see how dark they are?!"

Yet, as swiftly as Bon Bon ran towards her, Lyra appeared to slide away, receding into the dead thick of black shadows. "They're not going to wait much longer!"

"What do you mean?!" Bon Bon shouted, panting and sweating from her sprint. The grass was bending, flattening, decaying under her hooves. "Lyra?! Lyra, where are you?" She skidded to a stop, hyperventilating, teetering on the verge of a hopeless sob. "L-Lyra...?!"

A green muzzle slithered through the inky darkness and kissed her cheek. "I love you so much."

Bon Bon spun around, nearly falling off the edge of the wooden bench.

Lyra leaned over her with a grin that glistened in the fading sunset. "It's time that you wake up, sweetie."

Bon Bon gasped. "Lyra!" Her eyes watered and her face broke into a painful grin. "Oh darling!" She swung her hooves forward and hugged the unicorn dearly. "Oh, what a nightmare! I'm so glad that you're..."

"Darling, listen to me." The weight of Lyra's body dissolved into hundreds of tiny slivers.

Bon Bon's brow furrowed. "Huh?" Her eyes opened. She found herself hugging two forelimbs full of rattling drumsticks.

Lyra was cavorting around the bench on two rear legs with the lyre in her grasp. "You can be happy! You can make sweet music!"

"Blast it, Lyra!" Bon Bon snarled and tossed the drumsticks to the grass. She stepped off the bench. "I don't want to practice the drums! I need to—Gah!" She shrieked as she tripped over several drums that rattled and rolled downhill. She grabbed a sea of green blades, tugging herself up as a distant thunder played with her ears, resonating from somewhere behind the oak tree.

Lyra giggled and winked down at Bon Bon's collapsed figure. "I can't do this without you, honey."

"Lyra, I..." Bon Bon struggled up to her hooves. She was drawn hypnotically to the bom bom bom boms coming from the oak tree uphill. "Just what is that...?"

"I can hear you," Lyra said.

"It's not me. I'm not the one who’s drumming. I..." Bon Bon took a deep breath and crawled uphill, practically pulling herself with each heavy-hoofed grip of the grass. She couldn't remember when the park in Ponyville had become this steep. The sun was burning in the horizon. The overcast sky cast a gray shadow over everything, and it only became darker the closer she pierced the shade of the tree.

"You always told me you wanted an encore!" Lyra said from far below. "Stay with me now!"

"I... I can't..." Bon Bon murmured as she approached the tree, clutching the side of it and shuddering from the thunderous bom bom boms ricocheting through her skeleton. "What in Celestia's name?" She finally peered around the wooden trunk. On the far side of the hill, she saw a cream-colored mare and a green unicorn squatting around a bench in the distance. One was playing the drums. The drummer turned, looked up, and waved a hoof from afar.

"They're not going to wait much longer."

"But who are they—?" Bon Bon backtrotted, then tripped over something. "Aack!" She fell over the back of the bench and landed awkwardly on the seat.

Lyra stood upside down behind a sea of drums. "I love you so much. It's time that you wake up, sweetie."

Bon Bon grunted and repositioned herself until she sat upright. "I am awake, Lyra. And—" When she raised her hooves, they were full of drumsticks. With an angry growl, she tossed them to the grass, only for them to hit several cymbals instead. The air filled with a nauseating ring that ushered the fall of night. "No more drums, okay?"

"Darling, listen to me—"

"No, you listen to me!" Bon Bon jumped off the bench and shoved the nearest drum away. It knocked into another drum that collided with another drum that smacked into a full line of several identical duplicates, all domino-sliding downhill with a bom bom bom bom bom sound. "I need to know what's going on! Am I dreaming all this? Is this some sort of crazy telepathic unicorn test? You and I agreed not to play head games with each other, honey—"

"You can be happy," Lyra said with a slightly hurt expression on her face. She waved her lyre for emphasis. "You can make sweet music..."

"Lyra, my love, making sweet music is your gig!" Bon Bon clutched Lyra's shoulders and stared at her deeply. "Not mine! I love you because you're sweet and intelligent and giving! But you have your talents, and I have mine—" When she brought her hooves back, she was clutching drumsticks again. Frowning, she tossed the things away again with gnashing teeth, only for them to strike a ring of drums suddenly surrounding her.

"I can't do this without you, honey."

"Nnngh—Yes you can! You—What's going on here?!" Bon Bon winced and planted two hooves against her throbbing ears as the bom bom bom resonated from the tree atop the hill. "That noise! It's so loud..."

"I can hear you."

"But I can barely hear you!" Bon Bon shrieked and swiftly shoved Lyra out of the way, panting. "I gotta get away from the noise! I gotta get away..." She broke into a furious gallop, burning a panicked path into the darkness lingering beyond the sunset.

"You always told me you wanted an encore!" Lyra shouted from behind her, cupping her hooves around her mouth. "Stay with me now!"

"I can't, Lyra!" Bon Bon shrieked, containing her sobs as she pierced the darkness. The blades of grass became indistinguishable blurs in the blackness all around her. "I'm sorry, but I have to find out what's going on! I..." She saw a tall shape up ahead. Her gallop slowed to a numb crawl as her mouth fell agape.

"They're not going to wait much longer..."

Bon Bon gazed at the shape up ahead as it came into focus. A lone oak tree rested atop a hill, illuminated by a halo of twilight. Breathless, Bon Bon turned around and saw the mirror image that she had just galloped from.

"Blessed Celestia, what...?"

Shivering, she pivoted about at ninety degrees and ran in a perpendicular direction. She ran through the inky curtain of night, until a light shone on a rising crest of grass before her.

"Oh please..."

An oak tree rested on the hill ahead. The bom bom boms thundered everywhere now. The mare almost fainted, her creamy coat turning even more pale. There was a pause in the beat, through which Lyra's voice melodiously teased her with, "I love you so much."

Bon Bon spun about.

A green face smiled at her. "It's time that you wake up, sweetie." She tapped Bon Bon on the chest.

Bon Bon fell back and landed on the seat of the bench. She blinked at a starry sky, blocked briefly by the black shape of a tall oak tree above.

"Darling, listen to me," Lyra gently said from several meters away. Bon Bon's bench glided down a series of pale drums and golden cymbals lined up like a metal canal. "You can be happy. You can make sweet music."

"I..." Bon Bon's eyes nervously darted left and right at the percussive instruments drifting past her. "I only want to make sense right now..."

"I can't do this without you, honey," Lyra said over her lyre, giving Bon Bon a loving smile. "I can hear you. You always told me you wanted an encore."

Bon Bon jolted as the bench came to a stop in front of a drumset just before Lyra. She lifted her hooves, shook the drumsticks loose from her grip, and gazed up into the stars as she thought aloud, "An encore follows the end of an act," she muttered. "The only way for the act to end is if the dream does. I have to wake myself up. But how?"

Lyra started plucking her strings. "Stay with me now!"

Bon Bon shook her head. "No..." She stood up from the bench and climbed over the drums. "To return to you, I have to get away from you... or at least this 'you.'" She scampered up the hill and towards the wooden trunk of the oak tree. "I have to get to the other side!"

Lyra's voice was barely discernible from the beat growing louder and louder as Bon Bon ascended the hill towards the tree. "They're not going to wait much longer!"

"It's alright!" Bon Bon shouted above the aching thunder. "I'm not going to let them wait! I’m not going to let us wait!" She finally tugged her way up the grass to the crest of the hill and clutched the vibrating body of the trunk. Wincing, she gazed down the other side of the hill where a green unicorn and a cream colored earth pony were playing a drum-and-lyre duet together. "I just gotta get to—"

The shadow of night poured down the side of the tree, making the grass slick with ink. Almost immediately, Bon Bon slipped, and the percussion from the trunk pushed her off the hilltop.

"Whoah!" she shrieked, she slid, she plummeted down the other side of the hill. The thunder grew distant. The two ponies loomed closer. They turned and waved at her. Their faces were indistinguishable, blurry masks. "Aaaugh!" Bon Bon winced, for she was flying straight into the wooden bench beneath herself.

With a smash, she flew through a sea of shrapnel. The shredded pieces of wood each turned into a duplicate bench. Bon Bon rolled over, lying precariously on three benches at once. She tried sitting up, only for a pair of drums to roll into her, knocking the breath out of her lungs.

Lyra was gliding through a mess of cymbals, riding a raft formed by several golden lyres tied together. "I love you so much," she said with a delighted sigh. She glanced over Bon Bon's way and rolled her eyes with a giggle. "It's time that you wake up, sweetie!"

"Nnngh... I'm trying!" Bon Bon shouted. With a snarl, she pulled herself upright atop the bobbing seat. Holding her breath, she leapt forward, playing hopscotch from one bench to another, until she was standing on her mare-friend's lyre raft and gripping the unicorn's shoulders. "Help me! Help me wake up if you're so blasted insistent!"

Lyra cackled, her barren head glistening in the twilight piercing through the branches of the oak tree above. "Darling, listen to me—"

"Why?!" Bon Bon barked. "There's nothing to listen to! You only repeat yourself! You—" She squinted. "Wait, what happened to your mane?" She twirled Lyra around.

The Back of Lyra's face smiled at her, her eye sockets brimming with green grass blades. "You can be happy!" The sockets spat out a pair of drumsticks that smacked Bon Bon in the face.

"Ooof!" Bon Bon fell back onto a flat plane of drum skin, stretching as far and wide as she could see.

"You can make sweet music!" Lyra’s voice echoed.

Bon Bon groaned, her head throbbing with the heavy vibrations bom bom bomming their way through the icy sheet of drumskin. She crawled towards a dome of grass several meters away as cymbals and drums rolled down past her.

"I can't do this without you, honey."

"Lyra, please..." Bon Bon whimpered as she clutched her first hoof-full of grass and began pulling herself towards the nebulous shadows of the vibrating tree branches above. "Something's wrong. The dream won't end. I keep trying to wake, but..."

"I can hear you."

"I don't think you can! I don't think anyone can! Something's wrong, I..." She winced as waves of sound blew down the hill and formed vaporous rivulets across the sea of drum skin surrounding the island of grass. "I have... I have to get away from the beat. I have to get away from the substance, and when it all dissolves, maybe then I'll wake up..."

"You always told me you wanted an encore!"

"But I was wrong, okay?!" Bon Bon shouted. She saw Lyra dangling from a swing made of lyre strings beneath a vibrating wooden branch above. "I can't have an encore without you! I have to get out of here! It's already so dark!" She stared straight up as the stars began to devour themselves in black little burps, one by one. "What happens when all the light is gone?"

"Stay with me now," Lyra's voice wavered as she swung overhead.

"You..." Bon Bon pulled herself up and galloped towards the unicorn. "You're my way out! You must be!" She yanked Lyra down from the swing and held her tightly, gazing into the unicorn's amber eyes. "How else can I return to you?"

Lyra gave Bon Bon a bittersweet smile, her horn glistening in the twilight. "They're not going to wait much longer."

"No, I imagine not..." Bon Bon said. She looked up at the horn; she grabbed it and pulled.

Lyra opened up, and through the doorframe the mare saw dozens upon hundreds upon thousands of Bon Bons pausing in the middle of playing a million drumsets. They waved their hooves with an infinite row of smiles and twirled their drumsticks while a mirrored stream of faceless Lyras walked into view and strummed their countless strings all at once.

The sheer noise blew Bon Bon back on her flank. She crashed through drums and cymbals that rolled downhill, only to settle against an identical wall of grass. Gasping for breath, Bon Bon looked up, down, left, right. The twilight was growing dimmer, but there couldn't possibly have been a source for it, for the entire universe had become a hollow cube with a swaying oak tree on every wall, floor, and ceiling. The bom bom bom bom boms were deafening now. The earthen walls were closing in, spilling grass blades and leaves everywhere so that she nearly choked on them every time she inhaled. Soon, a splash of wooden splinters joined the soupy mix as the oak trees collided with their vibrating doppelgangers, forming a grand crescendo of crunching horror. With no option beside screaming, Bon Bon held her breath and dove straight through the Lyra door.

She fell past multiplicitous onion layers of benches, drums, Lyras, Bon Bons, and hilltops. Soon the mosaic blur solidified into one stream of dim light, then several, until Bon Bon found herself plunging through a porous web of geometric lines. Fearful that she'd reach terminal velocity and not be able to save herself, she reached a suicidal hoof out and grabbed one of the silver streams. Her forelimbs hooked around an infinitely long, bowing string of metal. She dangled briefly, wincing as her muscles pulled to the breaking point. She yanked herself up until she was balanced like a ballet dancer on the vibrating cable. Gazing into the blackness, she could make out a golden horizon, like the polished surface of an impossibly enormous lyre.

"What...?" she gasped.

"I love you so much."

Bon Bon spun around and positively shrieked.

Lyra's grinning face was gliding towards her, and it was just her face alone. On eight drumstick legs with eight drumstick feet, the mint green unicorn skull clawed her way across the web of lyre strings, all the while winking and cooing, "It's time that you wake up, sweetie."

Whimpering, Bon Bon leapt off one silver cable and landed on another. She bounced and skipped and leapt her way across the vibrating grid of strings as it grew denser and denser beneath her fleeing body.

"Darling, listen to me," Lyra's voice bom bom bommed like a resonating tree trunk as her limbs scurried after the earth pony. "You can be happy."

"Stay away!" Bon Bon screamed. She bounded off the enormous lyre and landed on a gigantic plateau of splintery wooden bench beams. "You're not the Lyra I love—!" The wood split to her left as a giant green horn pierced up from the blackness below. Bon Bon shrieked and ran faster, dashing left and right to avoid the bursting emerald stalagmites.

"You can make sweet music!" Lyra's voice laughed over the heavens.

Bon Bon jumped off the seat and landed on a pontoon of cymbals. She dashed over the floating platforms as they bobbed in a river of leaves. Oaken clouds boiled overhead, raining down sheets of drumsticks as Bon Bon made swiftly for the distant hilltop, accompanied by the ear-splitting ring of metal cymbals sounding off beneath her clamoring hooves.

"I can't do this without you, honey—"

"Just stop talking!" Bon Bon leapt off the last cluster of cymbals and flew towards the floating hill in utter darkness. She clutched to the roots of dry grass and dangled briefly over the abyss. Wincing, she pulled herself up just as a swarm of bench-winged drums flew overhead with drumstick propellers, circling closer and closer to the vibrating tree. "I just need to think!" she rolled over onto dry land, soaked with cold sweat as she stared up at the last disappearing stars. "I need time to concentrate!"

But Bon Bon didn't have time. The darkness was closing in. She gasped as the very grass underneath her fell away into the abyss. The hilly island was shrinking. She crawled like a frightened infant towards the bom bom bom bomming tree, crying in fear and desperation.

"I can hear you," Lyra said in a sympathetic tone, lying on the opposite side of the tree and hugging her lyre. "You always told me you wanted an encore..."

Bon Bon looked her way. She crawled around the tree and briefly hugged Lyra, gulping. "And I believe you. But that's not gonna happen unless I get out of here."

Lyra looked at her sweetly. She said, "Stay with me now."

Bon Bon's nostrils flared. "I think I can do the next best thing..." She glanced all around. She saw a cymbal lying on the grass. With a jerk, she swiped it up before it could fall off the edge of the disappearing island. She pulled herself and Lyra up to their hooves so that they were standing as close to the vibrating tree as possible. Bending around, Bon Bon stretched her tail out and planted the blue-and-pink hairs up against the tree. Flexing her muscles, she gave the hairs several thwacks with the cymbal. The sharp edge of the round, golden instrument eventually sliced the pastel fibers off at the tail's base.

Once Bon Bon had successfully finished lopping the hairs loose, she flung the length of them over one forelimb and reached her other hoof towards Lyra's horn.

"Stay still."

She tugged, and the Lyra-door opened once more to the infinite corridor of faceless, waving marefriends.

"Stand aside!" Bon Bon shouted their way.

As the grass disappeared all around her, she tossed the length of tail hairs through the frame and into the black hall of mirrors. Gripping her end of the hairs, she tugged back. When the hair was pulled back all the way, the black and pink fibers had doubled in length. She tossed the coil of follicles again—twice as hard this time. She pulled the slack, and the natural rope was three times as long. Bon Bon repeated this process, using the infinity corridor to lengthen her colorful cord, until she had enough to make a loop with. She did so under much sweat and pressure, for the grass was starting to give way beneath her and the Lyra door.

"Almost... Almost..."

She formed a blue-and-pink lasso, looked up, and aimed for one of the drum-planes flying around.

"They're not going to wait much longer," Lyra's voice said from beyond infinity's hinges.

"Tell me about it!" Bon Bon shouted and flung the lasso up high. She barely avoided the drumstick propellers, but managed to loop the hairs around one of the bench wings. "There! Got it!"

"I love you so much..." Lyra's voice was fading, for the door was falling. The hill had disappeared, and the tree itself plummeted into the abyss beneath Bon Bon.

"Aaaaah!" Bon Bon shrieked in fright, gripping tightly to the tail hairs as the bom bom boms dwindled into pure blackness below. She swung from her floating anchor, trying to pull herself up to the drum plane.

Suddenly, the far end of the lasso slid towards the far end of the bench-wing, and the entire vehicle lurched. Bon Bon found herself jerking downwards with a gasp. The drum-plane veered at an awkward angle, gliding straight towards one of its many musical siblings.

"No. Oh please no..."

It was too late. The two vehicles collided, exploding into cymbals and drums and sticks and benches. Bon Bon fell, still clutching to the hairs that was lassoed around the bench wing. She climbed the final length of it in mid-air, ultimately grabbing onto the plummeting bench and clinging to it for dear life. Gravity shifted, and she realized that she was no longer falling, but instead drifting. Several drumsticks were forming all around her like a steep waterfall, until that very waterfall became raging rapids of wood with the occasional fish made of grass leaping through the twilight to shriek at her.

She batted the monstrosities away and stared ahead as several spiraling tributaries of drumsticks carried similar bench-rafts to a single, cohesive center, in the middle of which emerged the tallest oak tree of all, resonating with a booming bom bom bom across the inky depths of the universe.

"It's time that you wake up, sweetie," Lyra's sweet, angelic voice wafted over the starless cosmos.

"How?!" Bon Bon shouted. She grabbed a lyre bobbing in the river and used it as an oar, steering her bench raft sideways through the raging river of drumsticks. "How do I do it?! Please! I need to know!"

"Darling, listen to me."

"Listen to you?! I don't even know what to listen to—" Bon Bon stopped in mid sentence. She realized—aside from the enormous thunder of the tree towards which she was surging—that there was nothing else to listen to, nothing to even feel.

She then did something she hadn't done since she could remember. She held her breath, then brought a shivering hoof up to her left chest. She presses through her cream-colored coat, but felt absolutely nothing.

"My heart..." She muttered. "It's... It's not beating..."

She was right, only she wasn't. With a gawking expression, she tilted her head towards the tree, her ears pricking to a suddenly familiar bom bom... bom bom... bom bom...

"This..." she whispered. "...this isn't a dream. This is something else." She gulped hard and glared at the wooden trunk of the oak tree ahead. "I shouldn't be trying to run away from it; I should be searching for an answer within!"

With a determined breath, Bon Bon glanced around. She found a sharp, golden cymbal floating in the drumstick rapids. She snatched it up and clutched it to her chest along with her lyre. Pivoting, Bon Bon lowered her muzzle to the backrest of the bench and bit down onto a wooden board with her teeth. Tugging, she managed to snap a beam loose.

The rivers were converging. The tree was looming closer and closer. The bom bom bom boms increased in their cacophonous furor.

In the meantime, Bon Bon was getting to work. She smashed the lyre over her knee and pulled the metal strings loose. She then tied the cymbal tightly to the end of the loose wooden beam.

"You can be happy!" Lyra said, hanging upside down from a branch looming just overhead as the bench glided towards a murderous end. "You can make sweet music!"

"One thing at a time!" Bon Bon shouted, stood up, and leapt off the bench with the makeshift tool in full swing. "Raaaaaaugh!"

The bench slammed into the trunk of the giant tree and exploded beneath her. Bon Bon embedded the cymbal into the wooden body and hung off the handle like an axe. She dangled loosely, panting, her lower legs flailing twenty feet above furiously churning drumsticks.

"I can't do this without you, honey."

"Neither can I!" Bon Bon held her breath, swung her lower body, and pivoted so that she was straddling the body of the tree trunk with her hind quarters. Once she had a firm grip, she ripped the cymbal out from the wooden surface, flexed her hooves, and hacked repeatedly at the trunk.

Chips flew. The vibrating tree appeared to groan and undulate painfully beneath her. All was thunder and leaves and ringing.

"Come on!" Bon Bon shouted, sweat, chopped into the wooden flesh of the thundering structure. "Come on! Open up, curse you!"

"I can hear you!"

"Good!" Bon Bon shrieked, hissed, and slammed the cymbal-axe harder and harder. "Give it a few minutes, and you will get to kiss me too! Now break, you dang tree! Raaugh!"

Finally, the bark gave way. A hollow opened up to the churning darkness, expelling vaporous mists of compressed air as the thunder found a vent through with to channel its fury. Bon Bon dutifully chipped at the slit, forming a hole large enough to crawl through to the cylindrical space within.

"You always told me you wanted an encore."

"Hold that thought!" Bon Bon tossed the axe aside, held her breath, and dove straight into the hollow of the enormous tree. She found herself in a cold tunnel, stretching towards black infinity. She could hardly tell which way to go, until her ears told her from which direction the bom bom boms were sounding. Like a mole, Bon Bon squirmed until she was facing the noise, and blindly climbed her way up through the oaken corridor.

She began to shiver. The world was becoming colder. It smelled sterile, sapped of all warmth and texture. Still, the frigid realm beyond was calling to her, beckoning her. The bom bom bom boms became the backbeat to a gentle lullaby, and Lyra's sad voice was forming a solemn melody to it.

"Stay with me now. They're not going to wait much longer."

"It's okay..." Bon Bon panted. The walls were closing in. The corridor was becoming tighter and tighter the further she climbed. Soon she was inching her way through the hair-thin tree hollow like a worm. "I'm coming. You don't have to wait. You don't have..."

"I love you so much."

Bon Bon sniffled, her face scrunching up against solid wood that undulated like flesh around her. The smell became sour, and moisture was starting to seep in. "I love you too, Lyra. Oh darling, I love you—" She punched a hoof straight forward, and it pierced straight through the membrane.

A bright light exploded above.

The walls gave way, and Bon Bon plummeted backwards with a scream. She landed in a cold, bottomless pool. Bobbing back up to the surface, she treaded desperately in the waters, gazing up as a gigantic, curved ceiling opened like the roof to an astronomical observatory. As a pale glow illuminated her surroundings, she gasped to see herself surrounded by a giant ring of bright blue color, beyond which was a porcelain horizon of eggshell white.

"It's time that you wake up, sweetie," a sad voice boomed above, gentle and enormous at the same time.

Breathless, Bon Bon looked straight up.

Lyra's gigantic face was staring down at her as the eyelid opened halfway. Tears covered her mint-green face while several shadows shifted in the distances. The rigid lines of a room came into focus, with walls the size of mountains, all lined with x-rays and IVs. Just beyond Lyra's trembling shoulder, Bon Bon could make out the shimmering line of a heart monitor, with its emerald pulse bleeping at a regular bom bom... bom bom... bom bom..

"Darling, listen to me," Lyra's thunderous voice said between shuddering sobs. "You can be happy! You can make sweet music!" Her monumental face grimaced briefly as another tear trickled down her cheek. "I can't do this without you, honey."

"Lyra?!" Bon Bon shouted, treading water and sputtering for breath in the center of her own iris. "Lyra! Look! Listen! It's me! I'm here! I'm alive!"

"I can hear you," Lyra said, but her ear was tilted towards the heart monitor. "You always told me you wanted an encore," she said, then patted an enormous cream-colored hoof in her grip. Several wires of pumping fluid were attached to the limp forelimb as Lyra nuzzled it and said, "Stay with me now. They're not going to wait much longer."

"Who...?!" Bon Bon bobbed up and down in the currents, gazing all across the impossibly huge hospital room. "Who's not going to wait?" And then she saw the shadows once again, or more to the point: she saw their nervous proximity to a life support machine. "No—NO! Lyra, tell them I'm still here! Tell them I'm not dead yet!"

The lights dimmed as the enormous eyelid began to close, obscuring Lyra's crying face and bathing Bon Bon in shadow. "I love you so much..."

"No! Blast it! I'm here! I want to make music with you! I want—Nnngh!" Bon Bon punched the waters with a splash as the dome closed above her. The twilight returned, and a shower of loose leaves and grass blades fell down to litter the pool all around her. "In Celestia's name, listen to me! Don't pull the plug! I love you! I don't want to leave you! I don't..."

She hissed through gnashing teeth, spinning around in the waters and hyperventilating.

"Okay, think... think... think..." She murmured in a low breath, gazing as oak trees and wooden benches bobbed up to the surface with bright, pale-lit splashes all around her. "I'm in a coma, but I'm lucid. I can still get out of this somehow. This isn't a dream. My thoughts count. My thoughts count and I can get out of here... get out of this... But how?"

"You can be happy..."

Bon Bon gasped and spun around.

Lyra sat on a bench, floating lazily towards her. She twirled a cymbal in her grasp, smiling wickedly. "You can make sweet music!"

Bon Bon blinked. Suddenly, her eyes widened like saucers. "No!" she shrieked. "No, the music has to stop! It's a false melody! The real sound is at the surface, and..." She craned her neck. She heard the bom bom bom boms from far below and felt the waters rippling with each thunderous burst. "As soon as I end the beat, the real show starts! Then we can have our encore!"

"I can't do this without you, honey," Lyra said.

"Quiet, you!" Bon Bon grabbed the cymbal from Lyra's hooves, growled, and swung the metal instrument like a blade.

With a sickly pop, Lyra's skull flew clean off.

Bon Bon hopped onto the bench, grabbed Lyra's decapitated head, and heaved it over her skull like a helmet. She opened Lyra's jaw wide, revealing a translucent panel of airtight drumskin.

"We're doing this!" She then took a deep breath, dove off the bench, and swam straight down into the abysmal currents. On the way down, she surged past floating oak trees and drums and lyres. Tensing her face beneath the lyra helmet, she concentrated on the encompassing dreamscape.

Soon enough, currents of drumsticks swarmed up around her like serpentine double-helixes. They converged, coalesced, and turned into thick vessels through which Bon Bon plunged. Eventually, she didn't have to kick her hooves at all. A strong current had taken over and she was being funneled through the veins as the drums clustered up in droves, taking on concave shapes with grass blades morphing into enlarged hemoglobin.

"I can hear you," a voice said from behind Bon Bon in the surging currents. A loop of lyre strings coiled around the mare's rear hoof.

Bon Bon lurched and spun to look behind her.

A giant white blood cell made up of congealed cymbals frowned at her with Lyra's face. "You always told me you wanted an encore!"

"And I'm getting us one!" Bon Bon shouted. She kicked and struggled and fought the metal tendrils looping around her as more Lyra-cells joined with tree trunk platelets. "Now let go!"

"Stay with me now!"

"With the real you, sure! The rest of you can bite my flank! Nnnngh-GAAH!" Bon Bon finally tore loose from the blood cells. The current overtook her once again, and she was surging left and right, cascading down capillaries and looping veins. The bom bom bom bom boms were everywhere, screaming into every orifice, cracking the viewshield of the Lyra-helmet. Bon Bon panted for breath and spiraled madly through the currents. Several drums surged ahead of her, gaining color. She saw fleshy tones. A mystical glow of light blossomed just ahead. She tilted her head up and gasped.

The enormous pulsating door of the heart valve was undulating before her. In rhythmic surges—like drumstrokes—she was being yanked towards it, and towards freedom.

"Must shoot myself in there..." She hissed, her breath fogging up the helmet as she swam murderously towards her goal. "Must startle myself awake! It's the only way out! It's—"

Another length of lyre strings wrapped around her, this time at her waist.

"Gaaah!" Bon Bon shrieked, being yanked away from the heart. "No!"

"They're not going to wait much longer," the Lyra-cells said in unison, crowding around her as the bom bom boms grew distant once more. Everything was mint green madness and smiles. "I love you so much."

"You do...?" Bon Bon sneered, struggling for breath as the strings wrapped tighter and tighter. "Then maybe you'll forgive me for this!" She clamped her mouth shut, gripped the Lyra-helmet, and lifted it off her face. Submerged completely in plasma, she twirled the helmet around and stabbed its green horn straight into the fleshy face of the nearest cell.

The emerald doppelgangers shrieked and fell back in unison, dissolving into a cloud of rusted cymbals with a perpetual ringing sound.

Holding her breath, Bon Bon twirled from the noise, kicked her hooves, and swam desperately towards the heart. The light was blinding. The sound of life was everywhere and deliciously violent. Bon Bon's oxygen ran out, and she drifted with the blood, coasting limply towards the pumping valve as the bom bom boms embraced her like a long lost lover and—

"Aaaaah!" she shot up in bed, tied to a bleeping machine by half-a-dozen cables, her upper body clad in a sweat-stained, green gown. She blinked, gawking at the shadowed walls of the hospital room, reveling in the warm bom bom... bom bom... coming from directly beneath her chest, where it belonged.

She was alive, and she wasn't alone.

Instead of the shadowed forms of pony doctors in labcoats, Bon Bon saw a lone figure sitting in a chair across the way from the hospital bed. What was more, she was sitting in that one awkward manner that Bon Bon adored her for.

A sweet smile graced the exhausted patient's cheek. She sniffled, not bothering to fight back the tears. Swinging her numb limbs, she pulled herself out of bed. There was a painful tug, and several machines scraped across the cold tile floor along with her. Bon Bon reached down and pulled the wires and sensors from here forelimbs. In a limping gait, she trotted slowly across the room and shook her beloved's shoulder with a single hoof.

"Hey... Hey there, adorable..."

Lyra stirred. She shifted in her seat, her amber eyes fluttering open. When she saw Bon Bon, she gasped wide and shot up.

"Shhh..." Bon Bon stroked her cheek, smiling painfully. "It's okay. I'm back, my love. We can have that encore together."

Lyra was speechless. Her lips quivered, and sweet tears formed along the rims of her bloodshot eyes. She practically fell forward, and the two mares hugged each other tightly in the center of the cold, sterile room.

"You're the beat of my soul," Bon Bon said, nuzzling Lyra's cheek and whispering into her ear. "I'd make sweet music with you forever if I could."

To that, Lyra merely sniffled and murmured, "Oh darling, I wish that you could."

Bon Bon blinked curiously. She glanced at her marefriend's sobbing form, then at the bed. There was a clipboard resting at the foot of it, and there was something peculiar about the name. It didn't read Bon Bon, instead it read...

"Lyra, it's time that you wake up, sweetie."

Lyra's jaw hung open. She turned and looked up in confusion.

Bon Bon was gazing down at her in bed, clutching her arm and nuzzling it. "Darling, listen to me," she said in between sniffles, her voice a gentle, caressing thing as the lights around the hospital room began to dim. "You can be happy. You can make sweet music." Bon Bon's voice cracked, as did her face, leaking tears that ran down and collected upon Lyra's numb hoof. "I can't do this without you, honey."

Lyra tried to speak, but her breath was gone. She was too busy treading water inside an amber halo of color to even bother whispering.

Behind Bon Bon, shadows in labcoats gathered around the life support machine. The monitor was bleeping, albeit faintly.

"I can hear you," Bon Bon said. "You always told me you wanted an encore; stay with me now!" She sobbed and kissed the green hoof again. She was now a mile away, and the gigantic dome was closing above like a planetarium on the edge of the universe. "They're not going to wait much longer..."

Lyra struggled to speak. To do so, she had to give up treading, and she plunged into the waters.

"I love you so much..." Bon Bon said and was gone. The eyelid closed; all was darkness.

As Lyra drowned, there was no noise, not even a heartbeat: just her voice sounding off to an endless rhythm, as it had perpetually done so for countless lucid months in the mirrored hallways of madness, only now growing fainter and fainter as the black depths swallowed her up.

"Bon Bon... Bon Bon... Bon Bon..."

There was no encore.

Can I keep it? Please, oh PLEASE?

While a multitude of ponies that lived in the quaint and oft forgotten town of Ponyville would tell you that not a soul would dare venture into the curiously unknown horrors of the Everfree forest, most of them would be lying due to the sheer ignorance of speaking for themselves. In fact, a nice bit of the population ventures into the Everfree regularly and laugh all the while about it. However, that group doesn’t know any better; their minds are underdeveloped and had no concern in terms of fear of the unknown.

The little fillies and foals of the town would sneak out at night, supposedly fast asleep, to explore the dark forest. They hoped this would bring glory or significance to their lives, as if they would find a special calling there and not be turned to stone by evil monsters who have no desire but to watch their pitiful world turn to darkness as they shed pitiful tears. But I digress, children are stupid.

Despite the previous paragraph, this is a happy story that has a happy ending depending on whether or not you are a robot and devoid of emotion. I’d highly recommend you not be, as the robot police are always listening. It was one such night, when the fillies and foals of the town snuck out, that a sweet unicorn filly by the name of Sweetie Belle ventured into the forest alone on a dare by her equally kind and dull classmates. She ventured into the unknown, fearless, because fear was unknown to her.

Sweetie Belle felt tired. She squealed to herself in the silent forest. “I’ve been walking through this stupid forest all night, and I haven’t found a single poison joke! I can’t see a thing. Ugh, the girls will never let me hear the end of this if I don’t come back with one! Next time, I’ll, why I’ll just push them into a lake!”

She threw her head back and let out a small roar, stomping her hooves as her frustration grew. Like most children, her tantrum lasted for quite a while before she slammed herself into a tree and fell. Unfortunately, this had attracted a bit of unwanted attention to her. She looked up, to see several of the tree’s inhabitants glowering back down at her. With all her powers of child stupidity, she started running in a random direction. Only when she realized that they hadn’t followed her in the first place did she realize that she was horribly lost.

She didn't feel safe, or happy. In fact, she was already distinctly unhappy, so it couldn't get much worse in terms of general joyousness. She nervously started humming a tune to herself, as all stereotypically do when they get scared and lost. She eventually started to trot in the general direction she thought she had come from. Her humming turned into la-la-la-ing which turned into singing. Despite not learning from her previous bout of being loud and generally child-like, she found that singing put her in a better mood. Or possibly it brought her hallucinations, as she thought she could make out a poison joke growing in front of a tree. Trying to use a little bit of magic to provide some light, she discovered that it was indeed the elusive flower that she had been searching for throughout the night. She began to dig it out, being extra careful to not touch the flower itself, and began to put it in her bag. However, it was then that she realized she had lost her saddlebag. A frown crept over her face. She tossed the poison joke into the darkness and started to hum again as she cantered towards what she thought was an exit. A sleeping pair of eyes opened in the darkness, disturbed by being hit in the face with a clod of dirt and a rather ugly flower. It began to follow her.

Scootaloo woke up before Applebloom did. They had fallen asleep near an entrance to the Everfree, waiting for Sweetie Belle to get back. Scootaloo shook Applebloom to wake her up.

“Applebloom, hey! Wake up!”
“No sir, I didn’t take yer chicken, this here chicken’s MINE.” Applebloom mumbled back in her sleep.

Naturally, the only solution to this problem required Scootaloo to fetch a bucket of water. Politely permanently borrowing the first one she could find, she placed it in front of Applebloom's face, and began to pour it. Conveniently, Applebloom woke up just in time.
"Mmhm, G'morni-ARGLEBLARGLEGURGLEGURGLEBLEHEUGH."
"G'morning Applebloom! Did you see Sweetie Belle come back before I fell asleep, did you?"
Applebloom replied with a series of coughs and hacks.
"I didn't either. Should we be worried? Maybe she came back while we were asleep. Let's go talk to Rarity."
Cough. Cough. Hack. Cough, hack.

"Sweetie Belle, whatever has gotten into you? You're almost always up before I am, burn-I mean cooking us food." Rarity called into her little sister's bedroom. Not even receiving a general groan as a reply, Rarity walked into her sister's room. Her bed was still made, and the nearby window was open. "Mom and Dad are gonna kill me."

She rushed out the front door and found herself mowing down Applebloom and a chicken. She stopped, bewildered, and turned around to realize that the chicken was in fact one of Sweetie Belle's friends. Scooterpony, or something like that.

"You! Oh, you! You're one of Sweetie Belle's friends. Thank goodness. Where is she?"
"I don't know, and Applebloom didn't know either, and so we were going to ask you if she had come home, but we fell asleep before she got out of the forest and I-"
"You let her go into the forest? The EVERFREE FOREST? BY HERSELF? Oh dear, this is the WORST. POSSIBLE. THING. I even made a list this time of bad things that could happen while she stayed with me but my parents didn't want to read it and THIS was on the TOP OF THE LIST. Come on, Sweetie Belle's friend, we need to go find Twilight."

The two fillies shrugged and trotted after her, all the way to Twilight's Library. There was a note on the door, that Rarity snatched off. It read "Gone to EPG meeting."

"Oh, this is just wonderful." Rarity started off, running in a new direction.
"What's an EPG?" Applebloom asked Scootaloo.
"I think it has something to do with books."
"Hah! Books. Nopony reads books but Twilight! I'll bet she's just having a meeting with herself."

They giggled all the way to their next destination, which was Fluttershy's house. There was also a note on her door. It read: "Gone to Earth Pegasus Guild meeting with Twilight Sparkle. I'm terribly sorry if you have a sick pet, I can't help you today. I will try my best to be back as soon as possible.

P.s. Do any pegasi want to come to the next meeting with me? I get the feeling that Twilight doesn't like it."

Rarity was past the point of sanity by now. She considered turning around, and that maybe living life without waking up to the smell of your kitchen burning down may be better than not doing so, but decided that she liked her sister enough to go into the Everfree anyway.

Applebloom didn’t understand why Rarity was so stressed out. It’s not like anyone had gotten hurt in the Everfree yet. The only thing to worry about was the Timberwolves, really, and it wasn’t even Zap Apple season. She tried to communicate this to Rarity, but she seemed to not hear her in the manic state she was in. Scootaloo had no comments on the situation as they followed the crazy lady into the dark forest.

Luckily, their search ended rather quickly, if not horrifically. A manticore was crushing Sweetie Belle in its arms. Rarity ran forward, feeling a strong sense of déjà vu as she hopelessly kicked the manticore in the face. It wrinkled its nose a little and planted its face into the ground. In fact, now that Rarity was taking time to assess the situation and not kicking things in the face, she realized that it was sleeping, and Sweetie Belle was as well.

Scootaloo and Applebloom were confused as to whether or not to giggle at Rarity, or to be scared for Sweetie Belle. In conclusion, they decided to scream and laugh at the same time as they ran out of the forest.

Responding to the girls’ screams, Sweetie Belle forced an eye open to see her quite stunned, almost angry sister. She squeezed her eye shut, knowing that she was in trouble now. Waiting a few moments, she opened her eye again to unfortunately see that Rarity had not gone away. She squirmed out of the manticore’s arms, and kept her head down as she walked towards Rarity.

“SWEETIE BELLE! OH MY DEAR SISTER! I THOUGHT I HAD LOST YOU FOREVER AND DON’T YOU DARE EVER DO THAT AGAIN AND oh dear that’s a manticore we need to RUN!” Thusly, Rarity took off like a speeding bullet into the surrounding tree-line. Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes, turned around, and began to pet the manticore’s head. Rarity, realizing that Sweetie Belle was not following her, came back and began to fiercely whisper.

“Sweetie Belle. That. Is. A. Manticore. You’ll get hurt! Get over here!”
“Raaaaarityyyyyy,” Sweetie Belle replied normally, “his name is Sweetie, and he’s nice!”
“You have got to be joking kidding me. Manticores are in NO WAY nice! Get over here, now!”
“Oh Rarity, can I keep it! He’s so sweet? Can I keep it? Please, oh PLEASE? He already likes you!”

The manticore did not, in fact, already like Rarity, but decided to not mention this for Sweetie Belle’s sake. Rarity could not help but stutter now.

“I-I don’t even… I just don’t know how…”
Sweetie Belle put on her best sadface.
“Just, come on! I don’t care what you do with it!”

Sweetie Belle jumped for joy, and crawled onto the manticore’s back.
“Okay, Sweetie! Let’s go back to the boutique!”
“Wait a moment! Oh dear, I don’t know how I can…ooh! Sweetie Belle, put some leaves on his head. It’ll be perfect.”

Disliking his new hat, Sweetie the manticore was tempted to eat the larger pony that kicked him, but decided that the little one wouldn’t like that. He followed the larger pony out of his home and into the wild and untamed wonders of Ponyville.

Fluttershy just happened to come back from her EPG meeting in just enough time to see Rarity and Sweetie Belle flaunting their new tree about town. She didn’t even know that Rarity was good enough with her magic that she could lift anything more than a couch, much less a giant tree like that one.

“Oh, are you going to plant that tree outside the Carousel Boutique?” She asked as she walked up to them. “It looks lovely! I’d like to have a tree like that.”

“His name is Sweetie!” Sweetie Belle replied.

“Oh, you’re just like Applejack with trees!” Fluttershy called as she walked back to her house, “How cute. You girls have fun today. I’ll see you Saturday at the spa, Rarity!”

Sweetie Belle giggled all the way to the boutique. Unfortunately, there Rarity met the dilemma of Sweetie the manticore not being able to fit through the front door. Sweetie the manticore met the dilemma of hurting his claws after he tore a large chunk of the wall down to get inside. Sweetie Belle the pony met the dilemma of Rarity wanting to kill her.
“Oh, Sweetie Belle…” Rarity ran her hooves through her no-longer perfectly styled mane as she looked at what she had gotten herself into in utter bewilderment. “How did you even get this thing to like you?”

“Oh, that was easy!” Sweetie Belle hopped off Sweetie the manticore’s back. “I was just singing, and then I saw it, and I thought he was angry, so I stopped singing, and then he DID get angry, so I started singing again and then he was all like ‘I like you.’ and he started purring and he was just like Opal but less mean!”

Sweetie the manticore performed a series of grunts that must have been the equivalent of laughing for manticores, or he had just gotten done eating the remains of Rarity’s golden fabric.

Rarity didn’t want to question it further, exasperated as she was. “Sweetie Belle, just… just stay put. I’m going to get Twilight to come help me with this mess your new friend has made.”

Sweetie Belle, being a child of small intelligence, did the exact opposite of Rarity’s command by grabbing a toy ball and taking Sweetie the manticore outside to play fetch near the marketplace.

Crafty Crate was an impatient pony. He worked all day for the Equestrian Mail, and worked a second job on the weekends selling his cousin’s fruit. He wouldn’t mind if he was selling anything but cherries. Cherries were the worst. They smelled like, well, cherries. Simply, he didn’t like them. He deserved to drop a virtue, and patience was one he couldn’t tolerate. He also couldn’t tolerate loiterers hanging about his stand, so when he saw a unicorn filly calling out for a lost friend, the only thing that ran through his mind mostly consisted of ‘Get LOST.’

“Sweetie! Oh, Sweetie! Come out!” Sweetie Belle called through the sides of her mouth, as she held a toy ball in her teeth. “We’ve got lots more to do!”
“Hey, hey kid. Why don’t you find your friend and get out of here. This is no place to play, unless you’re gonna buy some cherries. Seriously. Buy some cherries. I don’t want ‘em.”

Sweetie Belle spit out the ball to talk. “I’m trying to, mister Cherrypony, but I can’t find him anywhere!” The ball rolled underneath Crafty Crate’s table. “Have you seen him, mister?”

“Well kid, I don’t like kids. Kids don’t like me. I haven’t seen any others besides you kid. In fact, I haven’t seen anypony today. Looks like something’s gone and scared everypony off, in fact.”

A deep growl emanated from a nearby rooftop. Crafty crate looked up to see a large tree looming over his stand. He briefly considered if this was a rare growler-tree, commonly found in the far reaches of the Equestrian seaborder, but dismissed it because he knew that they didn’t live on rooftops. He was less curious about the toothy grin that soon accompanied the growler-tree and was horrified to see it pounce on his lovely cherry table.

“MY CHERRIES! NOT MY CHERRIES! I was gonna buy a new hat with today’s money! Why you, little girl…” Crafty Crate stopped his ranting to consider why the tree just pounced on his cherry table, and ponder why the tree stopped looking like a tree, and that if he closed his right eye, then turned his head seventy degrees to the right, and then closed his left eye, that it almost looked like a manticore.

“Why, that’s a manticore!” he shouted as a fresh epiphany struck him in a bout of intellectual strain. “HELP! MANTICORE! OH PLEASE WILL SOMEONE HELP US?” he screamed as he ran around the corner and towards the nearest robot equestrian animal control station.

Before Sweetie Belle could respond to this situation, the robot animal police were upon her and Sweetie, and had already put a net around Sweetie. Rarity and Twilight were soon upon the seen as well. Seeing a potential opportunity to get out of writing a letter, Twilight stepped into the shadows and let Rarity work things out with her sister.

“Oh Rarity, tell them that he’s not bad! He’s just Sweetie! They can’t take him away! Oh PLEASE, RARITY!” Rarity was not surprised that it had already come to this. The robot animal police had already done this to two of Sweetie Belle’s pet fish and a watermelon. Even if Rarity had decided to speak up, the robot police were already trying to drag Sweetie the manticore away. In a stereotypical heart-touching moment, Sweetie the manticore nuzzled Sweetie Belle’s muzzle, and allowed himself to be taken away. Sweetie Belle began to produce a stream of gushing tears, that didn’t seem to be stopping for a while. Rarity went back to the boutique, brought a towel to lie down on the dirty marketplace floor next to Sweetie Belle, and waited for her to dry herself out. Luckily, no one disturbed them, if the unnerving fact that Twilight was still watching them didn’t disturb her.

“Sweetie Belle, it’s okay. They’re just taking Sweetie back to the Everfree where he belongs, with more Sweeties. I know how much you liked him Sweetie, but you could never be Sweetie enough to be a Sweetie like Sweetie. Do you understand, Sweetie?”

Sweetie Belle sniffled. “It’s just not fair…”

“Oh Sweetie, I know it’s not fair, but it will be okay. Come on now, Sweetie Belle. I’ll make you a hat.”

Together, one elegantly dragged behind the other, they walked off to the boutique. Twilight felt the need to baww a little, but then remembered that she didn’t manage to get a friendship report out of this experience and resolved to write to Celestia about the time she went with Fluttershy to a stupid feather-brain meeting because Fluttershy didn’t want to go alone.

On Loyalty

“Quick, come here!” My father called me. It was a bright, sunny day, if a bit cold. I could hear the wind blowing, the chickadees singing, the grasshoppers chirping. I followed the unmistakable voice of Chief Thunderhooves to where he was with two other buffalo.

Across from them, I spotted three ponies, obviously worn out from their journey. They were thirsty, hungry, and of generally downtrodden spirit. I welcomed them into our camp and fetched them some water and food. They revealed that they were explorers looking to map the area of the West of Equestria, which we thought mighty fine and noble. As a token of thanks, they left an ornament, of wood and clay and flint glass, which produced a sweet, high melody. On top of it was what seemed to be a pegasus singing to the wind. She had a six-petalled flower as her cutie mark, and stuck behind her ear was a feather, probably from an eagle. They called the contraption a “music box”, if I remember correctly. Then, they were on their way.

I don’t know why, but I felt a special affinity to one of the ponies, an olive pegasus stallion. He was somewhat older than the other ponies, and seemed somewhat sad throughout our encounter.

We didn’t meet ponies very often. The ones we did were travellers and explorers, mostly lost and in need of direction. We would gladly assist them, and they would be on their way, with a word of thanks. However, rumour had it that the pony society was a calloused, unfeeling one. There was much crime, much hatred, and much jealousy, all of which was fine and dandy, but just a few months ago, a neighbouring buffalo tribe had come to us, asking to join us. When questioned why, they said that a small group of ponies had went to their tribe, purportedly to trade goods such as copper, silver, and metal tools against shed furs and turquoise. But when they came again to trade, they brought with them more ponies. With alarming speed, they had set up houses, shops, crops - the beginnings of a town. No longer able to stampede or roam in their land, the chief went to talk to the pony in charge, but the ever belligerent ponies threated to declare war if so much as a single leaf of their corn plants was touched.

It was clear that we should have nothing to do with ponies. Half of our tribe had been grievously affected by them, and you only needed to talk to one of those members to have them described with all manners of vulgarities. But the pegasus and the music box nagged at me until I resolved to get to the bottom of the mystery of their origins.

It a while after that, around a few months later, when we saw, in the distance, a number of ponies striking what sounded like metal to metal. They laid wood bases and metal tracks. Some more knowledgeable buffalo in our herd recognized this as a railway, a form of locomotion that the ponies had invented. Within days, it had encroached upon our traditional feeding grounds, but we thought that it would be benign; however, some of the more mistrusting members of the group that had been personally affected by settler ponies grumbled about the decision.

Several weeks later, the first train came along. We could see that it was packed full of apple trees. The Chief and elders worried that a community would be established somewhere on these plains, driving us from our land.

I could have cared less about that. As soon as the train stopped, in the midst of our feeding ground, I asked the each pony that emerged if they’d seen or known an olive green pegasus stallion. Apparently, that combination of colour, race, and gender was pretty rare, as none of them recalled ever having met one before. Dejected, I returned to our camp.

The elders were having a meeting to decide what action to take. Most were in favour of ignoring the settlers, but some buffalo warned that their settlement might expand and encroach upon the traditional stampeding ground. That notion was quickly dismissed, though, as we thought that the town couldn’t possibly grow so much.

A few days, later, I was making my way into the small town, alert as usual for signs of a green pegasus stallion. As I strolled north, however, taking the route of the traditional stampeding grounds, I encountered some ponies planting apple trees, right in the path of our stampede. I turned to alert my father — but I thought better of it. This orchard was vital to the town’s growth, and maybe, just maybe, the green pegasus, along with the story of the music box, would show up if the the town got big enough. So, after doing a tour, I headed back and reported nothing unusual. The herd didn’t notice the orchard until it was almost completely planted, and, by that time, there was almost zero chance that the ponies would be willing to move their orchard. Their leader argued with ours hotly, but no consensus was reached, and no action was taken.

I felt a little guilty, but brushed it off easily. On the way back to my tent, I saw my mother with the music box given to us in her hooves. Quickly, I intercepted her and asked, “What are you doing with the music box?”

“Well, I’m going to dispose of it,” she responded. “It brings nothing but bad memories”.

“May I please have it?” I begged. “It’s awfully pretty and I wouldn’t want it to be disposed of like any old piece of trash”

“All right,” she conceded. She hooved it to me, and was on her way. I set it beside my bed and listened to the sweet, haunting melody until I was called to the main conference area.

At that meeting, the committee of elders decided to go into passive war against the settlers - we would stop them from growing new apple trees and ask them to move the trees, every day. I had no problem with that, but had a question as to how we would stop them from growing apple trees. We generally agreed that the more proactively we could act, the better.

It was a few months, in fact, before a train, bearing an apple tree, came. I was expected to take the lead in making sure the apple tree would not arrive in town, as I was the most lithe and svelte of the buffalo, so I ran alongside my companions and made my way up the train. But as I made ran to the back so as to unhitch the last car, the one with the apple tree, a cyan pegasus blocked me.

“Hey there,” she greeted. “Where’re you heading in such a hurry?”

I felt a pang of guilt, but just continued on my way. She followed, adding, “Wow, you’re pretty quick for someone so… bulky. No offence,” she amended. “I just want to know — Hey!” she exclaimed as I continued to ignore her. “I’m talking to you!”

I judged myself capable of knocking her out of the way, if necessary — but couldn’t bring myself to do so. Instead, I jumped, risked a flip, and barely landed safely. I unhitched the train, then called for everyone to derail it and take it to our camp, as a hostage of sorts.

We soon noticed another creature stuck inside, though. I could tell it wasn’t a pony, but couldn’t see what it actually was. As soon as we got to camp and opened the door to the car, an elder recognized the creature as a dragon, one so rare that in these parts they were but a legend. We heard from him that he had six ponies as his friends who were visiting Appleloosa.

So we welcomed him, but bade him stay until the next morning, as it could be hard to navigate the lands at night, and sunset would be rapidly approaching. He agreed, and we asked him to tell some stories over our fire. After he shared with us some of his life, he asked us why we unhitched the car, so we introduced him to Chief Thunderhooves, who explained our predicament, with the stampede normally set to begin in a couple of days. It was obvious that we’d won him over to our side.

Just then, a scout told of ponies in our territory acting quite suspiciously. When we got there, Spike told us that the two ponies were of his friends and meant no harm, in addition to being “cool”, so we invited them over to our camp. One of them, a pink earth pony, graciously accepted our victuals, but the other, the one who had tried to stop me from unhitching the car, was unreceptive and downright rude. She even suggested leaving with the earth pony. It was obvious that she was angry with us, and desired not our hospitality…

… But I just couldn’t bring myself to hate her. She was defending her friends, and I admired that. So I tried to reason with her and explained the situation, and, on Spike’s suggestion, had her meet chief Thunderhooves. It seemed like she was getting more angry by the minute, but in the end, she was fighting for our cause too, and quite fervently at that. I didn’t know why or how she turned sides so quickly, but I was grateful that she had. She wanted to go talk to the Appleloosans right away, but I told her that we’d just be provoking their ire by going in the middle of the night. She reluctantly went to sleep, and I retired to my tent. I wound up the music box and listened to the melody one more time before falling asleep.

The next morning, I went with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie to Appleloosa. They were immediately and warmly greeted by their friends, and one Appleloosian I hadn’t met before. Unsurely, the Appleloosian started, but was over-spoken by an orange mare, confrontational in demeanour, who was quite obviously insistent on keeping the apple orchard as it was. That didn’t go well with Rainbow Dash, who defended our cause with good-intentioned, but overly aggressive fervour. It soon disintegrated into a shouting match and then into an impromptu (and might I add, god-damn horrible) musical theatre held by Pinkie Pie which did nothing to help Chief Thunderhooves’ mood. In an unusually impulsive decision, he declared that the buffalo would flatten the town come high noon the next day should the orchard remain. I guess I couldn’t blame him for it, after that awful performance, but it was still unusual for him to act so rashly.

After the confrontation, I placated Chief Thunderhooves, and he promised me that he would reconsider his threat. It was evident, though, that he was still furious, and running out of options.

I went to Appleloosa, and saw that they were erecting wooden palisades around their town. I judged that we would be able to easily break through the initial barriers should we charge. I saw Rainbow Dash’s and Pinkie Pie’s friends trying, unsuccessfully, to convince the settler ponies to come and make peace with us. Going back to camp, I saw buffalo readying themselves for combat.

Sighing, I sat down on a log and looked into the fire. Rainbow Dash fluttered beside me and took a seat. “What’s wrong, Strongheart?”

“Well, I really wish the parties involved would be reasonable,” I replied. “There needn’t be any bloodshed…”

“Hey, I get you,” Rainbow Dash said. “My mom Monocot was a singer before she was killed as a bystander during the Griffon civil war a few years ago. It tore my father apart with grief…”

“I’m so sorry.” I put a hoof on her shoulder. “How is he now?”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” she said. I left her alone.

The next day at noon, we were on the cliff overlooking Appleloosa. Ten seconds before we were set to charge, I silently pleaded my father to spare the bloodshed. He was going to turn away — until Pinkie Pie started singing that annoyingly horrible song of hers.

That was enough to push Chief Thunderhooves over the edge. We charged into the town, come what may.

It was amazing that nobody got hurt, actually, and even more amazing that we were able to broker a deal in the middle of the battle. To finish it off, Rainbow Dash led our stampede, and I must admit that she was quite the runner. She ran freely, as the wind, as her slender body tore across the plain at great speed.

The next day, a train rolled into Appleloosa, bringing in some new settlers. One of them, a yellow unicorn mare, looked familiar, and it took me a moment to recognize her. She was one of the three cartographers that had come here the year prior. I asked her where her companion in exploration, the olive green pegasus, was. She looked confused for a moment, then bowed her head and closed her eyes before telling me, “He abandoned his filly to come with us, although we didn’t know at that time. But that kept gnawing at him, so that in the end, he turned to a life of alcohol.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “How is his wife taking it?”

“She’s dead,” she said bluntly.

“Oh,” I stammered. “That’s too bad. Do you know what became of the filly?”

She shook her head.

Next, I went to Twilight Sparkle, the lavender unicorn, to thank her for her diplomacy. She assured me that it was no problem. Curious, and having heard that she was quite well-learned and well-travelled, I took out the music box from my satchel and asked her if she could tell me about the music box. She looked at it briefly and scratched her head. “Balsa wood, flint glass, polymer clay. The feather seems to resemble that of a griffon, and the flower is of order monocotyledonae, family —”

“Sorry, what?” I asked

“I said, the feather is modelled after that of a griffon, and the flower is a monocot,” she said, smiling.

I felt weak in the knees. “Thanks…” I said shakily. I took the box back and trotted off.

The six friends, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy were to leave that night. I met them on the train platform and thanked and bade them each farewell. Hesitating, I reached into my satchel and brought out the music box. Flipping the lid open, I presented it to Rainbow Dash. “So that you may have a memory of your mother,” I said.

The rest of the ponies gasped. “Oh, Rainbow, we never knew…” Rarity said. Dash ignored her and looked straight into the box.

“Thanks,” she whispered. She took it and put it into her saddlebag without another word.

The Sound of Raindrops on Slate

The sound of raindrops fills the forest. Each clear crystal drops from heaven, soaks into the soil. A calm stretches out in all directions. A light breeze stirs the fabric of my clothes. The world around me seems to empty into nothingness.

In these years short after war, we wallow in our apparent frailty. Blood-stained hooves traced trails of burgundy, fleeing wraiths’ intangible wrath. And we asked: How long must we be subject to every hour’s cascade of arrogance? How long must we enact the same violence over the same violet path?

I look over the white grasses and gray trees. Black pine cones smolder on the branches. The blues of the sky have peeled back, revealing a jet backdrop. Silver wisps snake across it. A stench clings in the air, sulfur and smoke.

I walk to a bleached trunk, stiff grass crackling beneath my feet. Reaching out to touch the papery bark, I stop myself. With a quick glance left and right, I turn my back on the tree and walk away. Not yet.

The trample of our enemies made ample jovial commotion, yet the thunder of their forces, the immanent destruction of the moon’s hope, clouded every morning horizon. To what deep burrow, to what new land of spring clover and honeycomb could we run? Now to deepen the Styx’s crimson rivulets is the only reason we wish to raise the sun.

The strap of my banjo's carrying case bites into my shoulder. My hand reaches out to adjust it. An ache runs down my spine.

I find myself walking. The images of the forest pulse and fade. I don't know why I walk. The leaves flicker. I never know. Shards of light cut through the air, illuminating chalky dust stirred in the air by my breath.

Roads, rivers of dust and gravel, wind and intertwine. Memories shimmer in the haze of heat. Lifeless trees give way to ashen buildings, gutted; faint traces of habitation all but wiped clean away.

With a lick of the lips, I press on.

A lack of harmony between ponies will aid their escape.

"So cold..."

Cadance looked at the tombstone. Even under the shade of an oak tree, the sun beating down on the green grasses, something cold grew in her. A cruel smile twisted her lips.

The Order of the Day is its opposition; Disorder shall have its place in the halls of Sovereign. Each force that withholds the great bodies of the skies, pillars of ancient origin, remove from this world all our fleshly pain. Invocation of ruin will lead only to ruin.

"Cadance?"

She glanced over her shoulder. Celestia frowned behind her. She took a step forward.

"Yes?" Cadance turned back to face the grave.

"It isn't healthy to brood over this all the time. There was nothing you could have done."

"Don't you think I know that? If I can't save those I love, what's the point of being its personification?" She began to walk away.

"It wasn't a matter of 'saving' him, Cadance." Celestia bit her lip. She hardened her glare. "You knew from the beginning. He knew too. Stop blaming yourself for what you have no control over. Such a guilt complex is unbecoming of a queen."

"A queen?" Cadance sneered. "Don't think you can throw on me all the responsibilities you and your sister didn't want to deal with." She narrowed her eyes.

"You know better than any pony why we couldn't. Don't you understand that you're the hope of Equestria?"

"Equestria needs to pray for a new hope, then." She trotted off before Celestia could reply.

"She's not herself." The window curtains of their private meeting room swayed in a faint draft.

"But what can we do, Sister?" Luna furrowed her brow in thought. "This thing is eating her, weakening her—" She paused. "Killing her."

"We can't." Celestia put a hoof to her sister's shoulder. "This is a fight Cadance must fight alone."

"What kind of attitude is that to have towards your own protégé?" Her tone harshened. “Are we not the Sun and the Moon?" She lowered her voice. "There is something we can do. Surely?"

Celestia looked over her sister.

"Possibly."

"Princess Cadance?" The gray guard knocked again on the door to Cadance's personal living quarters. "There's a summons for you from Princesses Celestia and Luna. Can you open up? Please?" His armor clung more heavily. "Cadance?"

The door opened a crack. "Yes?"

"Follow me."

Our temples lie in bloody ruin by the hands of Evil’s jealously. The priests of Soleil cowered behind their brother’s impiety. No god nor demon nor beast of burden can escape this reality, save through death, the only remedy.

Echoes of small talk bounded down the halls from the congregation of ponies in the throne room.

Death. War. Famine. Suffering. There was something to be said of those who live with death breathing down their necks. There was no greater terror than pain. Or fear. Or love. Maybe it said something about their endurance—our endurance. No matter, whatever truisms came our way, we will rise.

Malignitas has sent his hordes of Nástrond, against whom all Sovereign’s hosts have no power. Bonds, runes and benedicts of unearthly origin they’ve gone beyond. Reveries of peace wilt, the last pedals of the Dragon Heart’s flower.

"How dare you!" She was screaming now. The court of ponies looked on with rapped attention. "You say I'm a corrupting influence. You make a mockery of me." Her eyes hardened. Tears welled. "Betrayal?" Cadance stomped a hoof. "No. No more. I won't allow this." Light, tinged pink, emanated from her horn. "I'm taking it back."

"Cadance!"

The keystones of our mortality, our sentience, are held in hands, puppets of a Heart whose intentions can we ever know? Oceans of widowed tears stretch across our lands. Know this Heart our woe?

Weariness takes hold of me. The road leads nowhere. Pain shoots across my forehead. Sitting down, I press my temples until the dizziness calms. The road—

None dare approach to offer aid, fear chills every spine. Every gain is now a loss, vaporous knowledge dissipates. Each life seeks its fire and each divines his allotted sign; all pray to turn the cruel twine of our fates.

No. I'm in the palace garden. Trees and flowerbeds spread out around me. Specks of green and brown drip from the trees. Warm and cool starbursts of color radiate from the brittle flowers.

I stand. The colors drain from the scenery. White noise surrounds an umber moon. A buzzing cuts through me. The entire area is alive with a cacophony of noise. The world throbs white once before fading to semi-darkness. The darkness shifts red, shifts blue, shifts back to monochromatic contrasts.

Feeling my way round the garden, I stumble upon a small fountain and bird bath. The water within is completely clear. Flat yellow sandstone makes up the base of the fountain. Water visible only by the lines of refracted white light upon it jets from crystal fountainheads.

After a moment of hesitation at the sight, I continue on my way. The garden gives way to the large, inky doors of the main hall. Laying my hand on one, I feel warmth flowing beneath the sizzling wood. An odor of decay and must surrounds it, causing me to sneeze.

I give it a tentative push. The door groans. The seared wood turns into rivulets of ash and dust. Clouds of dust billow around me. Squinting, I peer into the hallway beyond. Tiles of quartz and sandstone line the spacious interior. Broken pieces of furniture and torn fabric lie strewn on the ground, forgotten by life and time.

The overturning of epochs immemorial shattered the shields and reinforced garrisons designated for the safekeeping of history’s many follies. Each memory too dire or irreconcilable to our comfortable thinking died an undeserved and unobserved death in the falling archive’s throes.

With a weary cough, I step through the makeshift entrance, dusting off the debris from my wrinkled clothes. It's a slight jog down the overly-long corridor. The remnants of chandeliers idle on patinaed chains, twinkling wryly. The sound of my steps echoes across the walls and ceiling.

An onyx griffon roars in silence. It's poised in purple regalia, gems and scarves. It sits, a sentinel of the ages, guarding the doors to the throne room. After a quick glance in its direction, I step up to the faded golden doors.

I loose the band around my torso and shrug it off. Holding the case of my instrument in my hands, I open wide the doors to the throne room.

Shards of color overlay white tile and carpet. A ghastly mockery of a sun beams outside, shining brightly into the stained glass windows. Two tall alabaster seats stand cast in shadow and pale light.

Is there point to our prolonged stoicism? Is Lunacy worth the requisite toll of soul? How long till Anoia’s Pantheon hears the sounds of our reverence? Spirit our nightmares to your castle hidden in shadow and sky.

I stride to the two monoliths. Ancient power surges around them. I stare in awe. A terrible knowledge broods beneath the surface. After a deep breath, I remove my instrument from its case. Holding it by its teak neck, I bring it to my chest with a sigh. Warmth fills my gut. A coy smile parts my lips.

A quick strum, the ground beats and moves. Three quick notes, a speckling of color lights the thrones. I try a sonorous cord, then a melancholy one. Light and shadow move with quickening pace. The strings become prisms; tendrils of color radiate away, wrapping around columns, furniture, and crawling over the walls and floor.

The alters of our forerunners have fallen to disrepair, disuse. Life no coin or god-like effigy can proliferate nor produce floods our inner sanctuaries, crawls into our citadels. Its souls induce our desecrated priests to their power’s misuse.

Another smattering of notes summons blue and yellow ribbons of ether. Two great unicorns take form, opening wide their eyes and stretching out their wings. More ribbons of vibrant color swirl down to the ground. Winds kick dust into the air. Dusts coalesce into ponies of every color, shape, and size.

The blue and red-violet eyes of the winged unicorns stare down at me. There is trace of recognition in that stare. It accuses. It questions. It wishes for a moment to accept this stranger.

The fingers plucking the strings unwind in golden light. I spare a single tear as a power rises from my heart, glowing, unfurling, reviving. Steel and gold sparks mark my passing. My instrument dissipates into curling rings of smoky mist. The golden glow expands from me at incredulous speeds. I imagine it wrapping around the world, a flaxen aurora. Bright, bright white light consumes my vision.

Crowns are cast away to usher our autonomy, O Death of Monarchs! We’ve etched our motivations into every banner and banter imaginable. Wind’s tide and ocean of sky, with your favor the weary traveler embarks. Shall our quest’s success your fickle cast of lots enable?

A fire catches in my soul. It burns outward, unwinding my chest, my arms, my fingers as they pluck the strings of my banjo.

The apparition disappears just as quickly as it had come. Luna and Celestia exchange glances of anxiousness and excitement. The court ponies fidget and whisper at the sudden silence.

The princess on trial stands still for a long moment before looking down. Locks of yellow, magenta, and purple hair fall around her eyes.

"You're right," she manages to say through gritted teeth, tears, and tightly closed eyes. A trembling travels up her forelegs. "I'm sorry."

Celestia looks down at her niece. Her uneasy frown fades into a smile. "You're forgiven." She reached out a hoof and placed it on Cadance's shoulder.

Magi, ether of Mind and Magic, nexus of elements, guides the noble unicorn, horn fused in alicorn. Tapestries of monsters mythical vast Magi rents. Magi grants us a mind’s use, under her we the quick are born.

Ribbons of purple and red light and dust swirl within the hollow tree. Pages shuffle around and rebind themselves. Shattered window panes mend in their frames. The library is restored.

Twilight looks around, slightly dazed. Spike dozes in a corner. A bird or two tweets outside.

"Only the most fabulous, the most dazzling, the most exotic will do! I know. I know!" Rarity stands in her boutique, consulting with a client. The older mare regards Rarity's clothing line with a skeptical raise of the eyebrows.

"Hm, indeed. Now, what are your finer garments made of?" The mare adjusted her spectacles.

"Oh." Rarity gave a nervous laugh. "Everything from silk to cotton, and only the best of the best. Each piece is chic and unique."

Terr, ether of Earth, toil and strength of Heart, guides those with potent will, honorable ponies. Their fates within Terr earth ponies do chart. Terr must their offerings appease.

A broken gramophone pieces itself back together again. Red, yellow, and blue balloons regain their colors. Wisps of pink dust float for a moment. Peppy music plays. Cake and presents and explosions of confetti follow. The murmur of guests overlays the music.

"Party!" Pinkie Pie dances across the room, awkward stares following her.

"Thanks again for doing this for me, Pinkie," says a pegasus pony by the name of Cloudchaser. "I appreciate it."

"What? It was no problem!" She tilts her head to the side. "Parties are always my pleasure."

Leaves rustle in the wind. Emeralds and beiges and browns drip back into their spots. Apples regain their succulent redness.

"Ha!" At a stern buck from Applejack, a pelting of apples fall into its bin. She takes a breath and wipes the sweat from her brow. The green of her eyes flash. It's been a long day. She sighs and continues bucking.

Pelagia, ether of Wind, Soul and the freedom of flight, guides ponies paced by the beat of storms brewing. Under constellation Pelagia will Pegasi find their plight. Durst you tempt to your side this sign darkening?

The sun shines. Clouds billow. Colors and radiance explode into existence. With a flap of her wings, Rainbow Dash rockets across the skies. Their cerulean returns to them. Shards of light strike around Dash, breaking into more colors.

"If you don't eat, how do expect to get big and strong?" Fluttershy's voice settles back into her house. Angel stares up at her. The other animals are happily enjoying their own meals, save Angel, who refuses to eat. "Please?" The wind whistles through the trees outside.

Igni, who wrought the Dragon Heart, is ether of Fire and wealth beyond that on the Plutonian shore. Igni holds clout akin to Death’s deepest desire. Never align your path against this mark’s war.

Princess Cadance sits in her bed, contemplating the yellow and pink rug in the center of her room.

Unwanted Song

Fluttershy was running late. The turtles in the nearby lake had gone a whole week without being fed, and Fluttershy felt terrible about it. She had left instructions with her friend Derpy to take care of the daily feeding while she had been away at the royal wedding, but poor Derpy had forgotten to visit the small lake that bordered the Everfree Forest. Normally Fluttershy would make a trip out to the lake three times a week, and she was horrified that the creatures had gone so long without ponykind visiting them. They might even have gone feral, she thought. Shuddering, she hoisted a saddlebag full of tiny fish and greens onto her flank and turned towards the door. At that moment, somepony knocked on it, causing Fluttershy to squeak in surprise.

Getting control over herself and opening the door a crack, she said, “Hello?”

“Hi Fluttershy.” It was only Sweetie Belle. Her eyes looked a little red, as though she had been crying a few moments ago, but she had a smile on her face.

“Oh, good morning Sweetie Belle. What brings you out here today?”

“I just wanted to see if you needed my help with anything. Rarity—” she coughed “—Rarity said she didn’t need me for anything today, Applebloom is busy doing farm chores, and Scootaloo is visiting Cloudsdale with her parents.”

“Oh… I was just about to go to the lake to feed the—”

“Perfect!” Sweetie said, “I’ll come with you!”

Fluttershy mentally sighed, but smiled. “Cutie Mark Crusader turtle feeder? Alright then, let’s get going.”

It was getting close to noon as they approached the tiny lake. They had walked in complete silence, but Fluttershy could tell something was on Sweetie Belle’s mind. The filly was normally quite talkative, yet she hadn’t even tried to say anything since they had left the cottage. A few birds were singing in a nearby tree and Fluttershy couldn’t help but join in on their melody. She began quietly humming, and, slowly, Sweetie Belle joined her with a soft harmony. Attracted to the accompaniment, the birds flew closer and continued singing. As more and more birds joined in the chorus, Sweetie Belle’s hum grew into actual singing. There were no words to the song, just vowel sounds that melded with the fluid rhythm the birds were creating. Fluttershy fell silent as Sweetie Belle grew bolder. Instead of harmonizing with the birds, she began to control the song. She would sing a series of notes, and allow the birds to copy the tune, only to add an additional bar once they had done so.

The piece of music lasted a few minutes, and in that time the two ponies had ceased all progress towards the nearby lake. Fluttershy had momentarily forgotten the urgency of her chore and was entirely absorbed by the combination of Sweetie Belle’s voice and the way her face had lit up once she had started singing. She was beaming: in a world of her own and loving it. As the song wound to a close, the birds flew away again, back to their nests and homes. Fluttershy said, “You have a beautiful voice, Sweetie Belle.”

Sweetie Belle turned to face her; her face contorted into a frown for the briefest of moments. “Everypony says that.”

“That’s only because it’s true. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if singing played a part in your special talent.”

Sweetie Belle sighed. “I don’t know Fluttershy. I don’t even know if I want singing to be my special talent…” She started walking toward the lake again and mumbled, “I don’t think Rarity would like it if it were.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing…”

The two reached the shore of the lake, and Fluttershy called out to all the animals for feeding. A bale of turtles poked their heads out of the clear water and smiled up at the two ponies. Flutterhsy smiled back and took off her saddlebags. “Oh good, it doesn’t look like anything’s gone too terribly wrong.”

Sweetie Belle made a face. “What could have possibly gone—”

“No! Don’t say it!” Fluttershy shoved a hoof over Sweetie Belle’s mouth. “Every time somepony says that phrase, something is bound to go wrong.” She withdrew the hoof. “Well, that is… Better safe than sorry, Swwetie. Just try not to say it; you never know what horrible things might happen.”

“Horrible things like what, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy blanched, but as she started tossing the bits of food to the gathered turtles she answered. “Oh, well any number of things might have happened. A dragon could have come and enslaved the turtles. Or another hydra could have slunk down from the bog. Or maybe even an evil pony mastermind could have made a secret lair for his League of Evil right at the bottom of the lake!”

Sweetie Belle laughed. “You can’t really think any of those things have happened, can you?”

“Well, I don’t think any of them are likely, but they might have happened, and we just might not know about them yet.” She gave a half-smile. “Of course, the most likely thing that would have gone wrong would be that the turtles had gone hungry for a little longer than usual, but that certainly wouldn’t be a good thing.”

By this time Fluttershy had emptied the first bag of turtle food and had started walking toward the opposite bank to feed the second group of them. Sweetie Belle examined the various reptiles, trying to spot anything peculiar about them. “They don’t look at all underfed.”

Fluttershy paused for a moment. “Well no, turtles are naturally omnivorous and they have a remarkable ability to fend for themselves.”

“Omnivorous”—Sweetie Belle scrunched up her face, then paled—“Wait, do you mean you just fed them—”

“Meat? Well, dead fish in any case. In fact, a lot of the creatures I take care of have diets that don’t entirely consist of plants”—Fluttershy started feeding the next group of turtles—“Sometimes I feel a little sad when I have to feed snakes or other carnivores, but every creature needs to be shown kindness. And the fastest way to an animal’s heart is through its stomach.”

“Yeah, Fluttershy, because carnivores might eat you as much as whatever you’re feeding them.” She reached a hoof towards one of the turtles to demonstrate. The turtle snapped at her, then turned back to the floating morsels Fluttershy had tossed into the water. “See?”

Fluttershy emptied the remainder of the turtle food bag and turned to face Sweetie Belle directly. “Now, Sweetie Belle, one day you’ll learn that just because someone is a carnivore doesn’t make them evil, or dangerous. Why, if they were all bad, they wouldn’t let Griffons live in Cloudsdale. Even Spike is omnivorous, though he could live off gems alone if he had to, and as far as I know he mostly eats the same as we do.”

Sweetie Belle groaned. “But that’s not what I mean! What about the non-intelligent animals? What about hydras, and manticores, and ursae? I don’t think I’ve even heard of any that were nice or safe.”

Fluttershy beamed. This was a point she knew she could refute. The debate was interesting, and at the very least it was taking Sweetie Belle’s mind off of whatever had been bothering her all day. She lay down on the grass to continue the conversation more comfortably. “Actually, I do know of a manticore that was nice. I met him not too far from here, just inside the Everfree Forest…”

Fluttershy told the story of Nightmare Moon’s return. She brushed over most of the details up to the point where the manticore showed up; it wasn’t a story Sweetie Belle hadn’t heard before, if from Rarity’s perspective. “…Just after we had fallen down that cliff we reached a small ravine with only one exit. Right in the way was the manticore. Now, as everypony thinks that manticores are evil, Rarity ran up to the poor thing and kicked it in the face.”

Sweetie Belle mumbled in response to this latest, “Sounds like Rarity alright.”

“Oh. Well, he did roar at us before she kicked him, but that’s just because was in pain, not that anyone knew that at the time. Well, being kicked naturally made him mad at us, so he started to fight back. I tried to get everypony to wait for a moment, but nopony heard me. Applejack jumped in after Rarity, and then Rainbow Dash tried to fight him. After she got knocked away from it, the girls were all ready to charge at him when I jumped between them. I got everypony to pause for a moment so I could see what was making the manticore so angry. I asked him what was wrong and he showed me his paw.

“You see, manticores and other creatures may not be as… communicative as ponies, but they still have minds. And almost every creature can understand at least some part of what any other creature tries to say. And every living needs to be shown kindness. Anyway, I saw the thorn and knew I couldn’t just leave it in there. I pulled the thorn out, and he was so grateful that he let us go past, even though it had been us who attacked him first.”

Sweetie Belle interrupted the story at this point. “Wait a minute Fluttershy, just because he let you all go doesn’t make him ‘nice.’ It just means that he was grateful that you pulled out the thorn. If you met the manticore today, how do you know he wouldn’t just eat you?”

“You see, I could tell; there was something in his eyes that showed a quiet kindness.”

“’A quiet kindness?’” Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow. “What does that even mean?”

“Oh. Umm, I don’t know for sure, it just seemed like the right way to describe the feeling I had.” Fluttershy looked up. The sun had started to drop towards the horizon. “Oh no, we’ve taken too long out here. Rarity and I were going to go to the spa today. I hope I’m not too late. Come on Sweetie, let’s go.”

“I’m not going back! At least, not right now.” Sweetie Belle stood up. She looked suddenly bitter and sad. “Rarity doesn’t want me around anyway.”

Fluttershy rose to her hooves as well. “Now Sweetie Belle, what could possibly make you think that? Rarity loves you very much, your whole family does. I’m sure—”

“No! Rarity said to go away, so I’m going to stay away. She said she couldn’t have me singing while she was working, and—you know her—she’s always working on something, even when she’s not.”

Fluttershy winced. “But you can’t just stay out here, Sweetie Belle. We’re only just outside the Everfree Forest. I can’t leave you alone out here. It’s not safe.” She looked around, suddenly afraid for herself as well as Sweetie Belle.

“Well, I’d rather run into the forest right now than go home. At least I can sing out here without bothering anypony. In fact, the animals even seem to like it when I sing. Maybe I’ll just stay out here forever!” With that, Sweetie Belle ran into the treeline and out of sight.

Fluttershy was on the brink of following when she realized there was no way she would be able to catch the smaller, more nimble youth in the thick of the forest. Oh no, what am I going to do? she thought. Then, What am I going to tell Rarity?

Sweetie Belle was deep in the forest now. She knew it had been stupid to go running off like she had, but if Rarity—and anypony else—didn’t want her singing around them, she’d take her singing somewhere where it wouldn’t bother anyone. It wasn’t quite night yet, but the trees combination of the trees and the sinking sun made the space around her hard to navigate through. She had only run for a few minutes, when she had slowed to a walk to make sure she didn’t trip on the thickening undergrowth. She hadn’t crossed anything that looked like a trail yet, but she was looking for one now. Despite what she had said to Fluttershy, she really didn’t want to spend the night alone in the Everfree Forest if she could help it, but she was starting to get tired.

Right as the light was fading to the point where she couldn’t make out anything but the shape of objects on the ground anymore, she reached a clear patch of earth. She could tell that it wasn’t very wide, but as she turned to see how just how small it was, she could tell that it stretched in two directions: a trail! Picking a direction at random—she was thoroughly lost—she did her best to follow the winding path. She couldn’t see clearly in the failing light, but she could feel the difference between the packed earth under her hooves when she was on the trail and the softer soil and plants whenever she slipped off it. She decided to follow the trail in the hope that it would either lead her home, or to somewhere she could at least spend the night in relative safety.

The sun had long ago vanished, and to Sweetie Belle’s distress there was a new moon tonight, meaning she had nothing but the dimmest starlight and feeling to guide her way. After following the trail for about half an hour she heard a soft noise in the distance: she had found a river. As she approached its banks, she could hear how fast it was flowing—far too fast for her to even think about crossing in the dark. She fell to the earth. She didn’t know what else to do. There was no bridge, and even if she could have gotten across at some other part, there was next to no chance she would be able to find the trail again. Then, she heard the water heave: Something was moving, something big.

A massive shape rose from the water just in front of Sweetie Belle. She could tell that it stretched high above her, and shivered in fear. She was about to try to run away from it when she heard it speak. “Why hello there little pony, what are you doing out here in the forest this time of night?” That’s when it hit her just what, or who this was.

“I’m lost and I can’t even really see you, let alone my way back home. Your name’s Steven right?”

Steven Magnet laughed. “Well, it seems my reputation precedes me, and you have me at a disadvantage. Is there anything I could do to help you miss…?”

“Sweetie Belle. Is there a trail on the other side of the river right here?”

“Naturally. This particular part of the river is a natural ford where it’s safe for you land creatures to cross and you’re standing on one side of it right now”—he paused for a moment—“Do you need any help crossing little lady? As far as I know the trail over there leads to the nearby village.”

Sweetie’s expression brightened considerably. “Oh, would you? I’d be ever so grateful.” Thinking of her sister, she tried to bat her eyelashes at where she assumed the serpent’s head was.

“Certainly. Think nothing of it. Hold still and I’ll have you over in a moment”—he reached over to her—“Up we go, and there you are. Are you sure you want to go now though? The forest isn’t exactly safe at this time of night and you could spend the night here.”

Sweetie Belle shook her head. “Thanks for helping me so much, but I think I can make it home before I get too tired if I go now.” She reached a hoof out to find Steven’s face and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before turning back toward the path.

She had wandered for what felt like another hour when she ran face-first into a wall. Stumbling backward she raised a hoof to her face to comfort her nose. The path must take a sharp turn in one direction or the other along the cliff face, so Sweetie Belle probed first in one then the other. In horror, she realized that she couldn’t tell by feel which direction to go. There was no way for her to guess which way she needed to go, and she was too exhausted for trial and error now. Curling up against the rock to help her feel more secure, she looked out into the blackness around her. The immediate area was clear of trees, but still the starlight wasn’t enough to be useful. Even though she was exhausted, she didn’t know if she would be able to sleep. She didn’t hear anything threatening: just the wind blowing through the trees and the music of crickets. Music! Maybe she could sing herself to sleep. She just had to relax a bit and music always helped her relax.

She began humming the melody of a lullaby when she heard something move across the dirt. She could feel the ground shake the tiniest bit at each step. Whatever it was, it was big. Too afraid to do anything else, she froze, going silent. She felt a paw the size of her head brush her side.

For a moment, nothing happened; then the paw nudged her. She stayed frozen, not daring to move or make a sound. The paw nudged her again, and then she heard a deep rumble. The sound wasn’t loud, but it was a particular note: the same she had stopped humming a moment ago. Praying for the best, Sweetie Belle quietly started humming the lullaby again. Whatever it was standing over her sighed in appreciation. Its huge form settled down next to her and she heard a new sound. It was purring. The big thing was purring.

Not knowing what else to do, Sweetie Belle kept humming. As she kept going—surprisingly—she realized she felt safe. Whatever it was snuggling around her didn’t feel dangerous. It was warm, and it was soft, whatever it was. Slowly, Sweetie Belle relaxed. She continued humming, making up her own music to fill the void the end of the lullaby would have made, and eventually drifted into a deep sleep.

War is Hay

Rainbow Dash awoke to the sound of a knock on her door. “Ugh...” She stood and trotted over to it. Scratching her mane, she opened the door, and saw Derpy floating in front of her.

“Package for you, Rainbow Dash.” Derpy passed a small box to her.

Dash’s eyes widened. “It’s here!” She took it. “Thanks, Derpy.”

“You’re welcome. Bye, Rainbow Dash.”

“Yeah, bye!” Dash shut the door behind her.

With a wild grin on her face, Rainbow Dash flew back into her bedroom. She ripped open the package and inside was a new pair of headphones. “Finally!”

A week ago, Scootaloo had borrowed her old pair. “We’re gonna be Cutie Mark Crusaders DJs!” she had said. When she returned with the headphones, they were snapped in half, the cord was burnt, and the ear cushions were missing. Dash didn’t mind paying for a new pair, her old ones weren’t perfect. What really bothered her, was that she could only listen to music on her CD player at home, and not on her portable player.

Rainbow Dash opened her drawer and took out her player. She slammed the plug into the headphone jack and pressed play. “Aww, yeah!” she said as The Wonderbolts theme song started playing. Dash leapt into the air and made a flip.

Below her, she heard the sound of a cannon going off. “Huh?” A cannon ball shot up through the cloud floor and through the ceiling, missing her head by mere inches. She looked through the hole; on the ground was Pinkie Pie in a tank, waving up at her.

Dash dropped down to the ground, the hole closing behind her. “Pinkie, what are you doing?” she said, landing on the tank.

Pinkie Grinned. “Hi, Dashie! We’re playing war games. Wanna join us?”

“War games? What’s that?”

“It’s where we fight each other, like a real battle.” Pinkie tossed a rifle at Dash, who caught it with a hoof. “Cept we use blanks, so no pony gets seriously hurt.”

Rainbow looked at her blankly.

“C’mon, Dashie, to arms!” Pinkie raised a hoof in the air.

“Okay, Pinkie...” Dash lept off the tank and Pinkie drove off.

Rainbow scoured the battlefield. To the right, she saw movement. She ducked behind a crate and peered in its direction. Huh? Where is it? Around her, nothing could be heard but the sound of the wind, blowing across the plain.

“Headshot.”

Dash turned just in time to get shot in the forehead by a blank. They still hurt. The world
around her went dark.

“Ugh...” Rainbow Dash sat up. She glanced around to see the inside walls of the tent; a map of Ponyville was hanging on one. Noises of the gun and tank fire from outside could be heard.

“Ah, good. You’re awake.” Dash turned to see Twilight trotting towards her. She was wearing the hat and badge of a general.

“Twilight, what’s happening?” Dash took her by the haunches.

“Get your hooves off me, Private!” Twilight slapped away Dash’s hooves. She giggled and whispered, “Sorry, Rainbow, I’m trying to stay in character.”

Rainbow stood on her hooves. “What happening out there, Twi—” Twilight glared at her. “I-I mean, General.”

General Sparkle smiled. ”We’re The Solar Empire. And we’re fighting against the Lunar Republic.”

“Wait, how do I tell who’s on what side?”

Twilight tapped her hat. “Our soldiers are wearing red helmets, and theirs are wearing blue ones.” She took Dash’s rifle and passed it to her. “Are you ready, Private Rainbow?” She raised a hoof in salute.

Dash returned the gesture. “Ready, General Sparkle!”

“Good, now go out there and show them what you’re made of!” Twilight released the salute.

Dash did the same and galloped out of the tent taking a red helmet on the way.

Rainbow Dash put her helmet on, over her headphones and pressed the play button. A blank whizzed by, grazing her on the cheek. She dove behind a rock and lay against it. That was a close one.

“Howdy, Rainbow Dash!” Dash looked up to see Applejack, holding a rocket launcher. She lowered it to eye level and fired. A missile shot out and flew across the battlefield. It exploded a fair distance away, sending a number of Lunar Republic soldiers flying.

“C’mon!” Applejack pulled her to her hooves. “Lets go!”

“R-right!” They trotted off. Turning a corner, Dash saw a large Lunar Republic soldier, carrying a large automatic rifle. The stallion spotted them and his gun started to whirl. Rainbow dashed out of the way, just in time for a barrage of blanks to fly past her.

She peered around the corner, and saw the heavy weapons pony stomping his way towards them. Sweat started to trickle down the back of Dash’s neck. Just as the stallion came to the corner, Fluttershy glided over and bashed him over the head with a medkit.

“Sorry, it’s just a game. Please don’t hate me.” She landed.

The stallion’s face turned green. He fell to his knees and a fountain of rainbows vomited out of him mouth.

“Fluttershy? What are you doing?” Dash asked, raising an eyebrow.

Fluttershy smiled. “I’m a medic.”

“Ugh...” Rainbow Dash turned to see the stallion getting up. He aimed his rifle at Fluttershy and the barrel started to spin. With Applejack too close to fire her rockets, and Fluttershy with only a medkit, Rainbow Dash knew what she had to do. She raised her rifle, aimed, and fired. The blank flew out of the gun chamber and struck the heavy weapons pony in the side of the head. He fell to the ground with a thud, the weight of his gun making a small depression in the dirt.

“Let’s go, before he can wake up,” said Applejack. And they galloped away.

They came to a tunnel, inside were a couple of Lunar Republic scouts. Applejack fired a rocket at them. It blew up in their faces, causing them to go flying... along with Applejack and Rainbow Dash.

Fluttershy hovered over to them and touched them with her medkit. Instantly, they arose, feeling healthier than they did before the blast struck them.

“Well, hello there!” They looked up to see Mr. Cake, standing in the opening of the tunnel and wearing a red helmet.

Fluttershy narrowed her eyes and she dove at him, smashing him across the face with her medkit.

Dash’s eyes widened. “Fluttershy, what are you doing?!”

“The Cake is a spy!” said Applejack, pointing a hoof at his direction. The stallion formerly known as Mr. Cake was vomiting rainbows onto the paper plate he had used as his disguise. “C’mon!” They dashed down the tunnel, leaving the spy in the dust.

“Sorry,” said Fluttershy, before following behind them.

As they came to the end of the tunnel, a blank struck the ground near Applejack’s hoof. She tumbled back into the tunnel and peered out. A good distance away, she could see a group of snipers standing on the Lunar Republic base.

Applejack motioned for the two pegasi to come closer. “Fluttershy, I need ya’ to hold yer medkit next to yer head an’ fly outta’ here as quick as ya’ can.”

Fluttershy nodded and did as Applejack had ordered. As she soared through the air, the snipers took aim and fired upon her. But instead of hitting her in the head and knocking her out cold, the blanks struck her medkit.

With the sniper’s focusing on Fluttershy, Applejack and Rainbow Dash galloped out of the tunnel.

“Meep!”

Applejack looked to the sky, and saw Fluttershy’s face cringing as she made a nosedive. Leaping into the air, Applejack held out her hooves and caught Fluttershy as she landed. Tears welling in her eyes, Fluttershy held her back hoof. On it was a mark where one of the blanks had hit her.

Rainbow Dash glared back at the snipers. She lowered her rifle at them and let fly a barrage of blanks. The snipers dived out of the way, but not before Dash struck a couple of them in the chest.

Dash turned back to her friends. “Can you walk, Fluttershy?”

“I-I think so...” Fluttershy glanced down at her medkit.

“Then lets go!” And they cantered off.

The three Solar Empire soldiers found themselves in the Lunar Republic base. They had snuck in through a side entrance, knocking out the few earth ponies who were guarding it. They came to a open room with a staircase going up to the second story.

Applejack stepped forward. Here eyes widened as she heard the familiar whirling noise. “Look out!” she said, tackling her comrades and pushing them away from the line of fire. They looked back to see a barrage of blanks strike the floor where Applejack was standing.

“I got an idea.” Dash motioned for Applejack to come closer and she whispered in her ear. Fluttershy raised an eyebrow. When she finished talking, they both nodded to each other and they dashed back into the room.

Rainbow Dash glided to the far corner of the room. “Hey, meat-head!” She let loose a number of shots in the direction of the heavy weapons pony. She turned and started up her automatic rifle again.

“Taste ma’ rocket lawnchair!” Applejack fired a missile at the Lunar Republic soldier. She turned, just in time for it to hit her right in the face. The blast flung her across the room, knocking the wind out of her. “Let’s go!”

Applejack cantered up the stairs. Reaching the top, the floor below her crumbled under her hooves and she fell through. Dash and Fluttershy leapt to the air and caught her before she could hit the floor. “The enemy flag’s in there!” Applejack pointed to a tunnel, leading down into the basement. They let her down a good distance from where the rocket had struck and galloped inside.

From inside the tunnel, Rainbow glanced around at the rock walls of the Lunar Republic basement. She could hear the sounds of weapon fire, coming from above. As she planted a hoof outside, she heard a cranky noise from off to the side.

Applejack’s ears twitched. She scooped Dash up under her shoulders and pulled her back into the tunnel. Falling on their flanks, they watched as a hail of blanks shot past the opening.

Aiming her rocket launcher out of the tunnel, Applejack shot a missile at the source of the attack. She listened for the noise of the explosion, and once she had heard it, she stepped out of the tunnel. At the far corner of the room, Applejack saw the Lunar Republic flag.

A moment later, they heard a clang from where Applejack had just fired. Applejack turned to it, and saw a unicorn mare bashing a turret with a wrench. Realizing she was spotted, the engineer gasped and ran away. The turret that Applejack thought she had destroyed clicked. Applejack ducked back into the tunnel as it fired upon her again.

“Fluttershy, see ifn’ you can take care of that unicorn out there,” Applejack said, panting.

“Right!” Fluttershy saluted and took off, out of the tunnel. Dash soon heard a smack and then a retching sound as Fluttershy returned.

Applejack tumbled out and launched a rocket at the turret. It exploded in a fiery blast, sending shards of metal everywhere. Applejack cantered over to the flag and pulled it out of the floor in her teeth. As she returned to her comrades, she mumbled, “Les ‘o!” and they left.

When they got back to the second story, Rainbow Dash glanced in the direction that they had come, and saw a couple of heavy weapons ponies. Knowing that they couldn’t handle two at once, Applejack dashed the other way, her friends following behind. Ahead, Applejack saw an opening in the wall. They leapt through it and landed on the ground below.

Rainbow Dash lifted her head to see a large group of Lunar Republic soldiers in front of them. The enemies raised their rifles to fire. Dash swallowed her spit. Fluttershy made a squeak.

Suddenly, they heard a kaboom from off to the side as a brick wall exploded. “Aww, yeah! The hero of justice if here!” Pinkie shouted. The Lunar Republic soldiers ran for cover as she drove towards them, repeatedly shooting off her canon as she went.

“Thanks, Pinkie!” Dash said, waving at her.

“Any time, Dashie!” And Pinkie drove off.

Dash’s face lit up as she saw the entrance to the tunnel from before. She started to run towards it, before Applejack grabbed her by the tail. “Hold on there, Dash!” She pointed to the opening. Rainbow Dash stopped as she saw a Lunar Republic sniper hiding in the shadow.

Applejack motioned for Fluttershy to come closer and she whispered in her ear. They nodded to each other and Applejack dashed towards the tunnel. “Yee Haw!” Applejack ran along, launching a few rockets into the air. The sniper stepped out of the tunnel and aimed his gun at Applejack.

“Sorry...” Fluttershy struck the Lunar Republic sniper in the back of the head with her medkit, just before he could pull the trigger. He dropped to his knees and let loose a stream of rainbows.

Rainbow darted into the tunnel. On the way through, she caught up with Fluttershy and Applejack.

As Applejack stepped outside, a Lunar Republic soldier shot her in the leg. She cringed and held her hoof close. While the blank hadn’t broken the skin, it had still left a bruise. Seeing that she was in pain, Dash leapt out and fired a blank at the Lunar Republic soldier, hitting her in the chest. Gripping the spot where the blank hit her, she knelt onto the ground and glared at Dash.

Dash aimed her rifle at her. They both took a shot at the same time, the blanks passing each other in the air. Dash’s blank struck the Lunar Republic soldier in the forehead and she collapsed onto the ground. The enemy’s blank still traveling towards her, Dash raised the back of her weapon and the blank brushed against it, bouncing off and grazing her face.

Dash looked back at her friends. Applejack was still rubbing her hoof. Fluttershy was holding Applejack’s head to her chest.

“Rainbow, I need ya to take the flag to our base.” Applejack let the flag fall to her lap. Dash reached down and took it in her mouth. She raised a hoof in salute and took to the sky.

“Go with Dash, Fluttershy,” said Applejack. “I’ll be okay.”

Fluttershy frowned at her. “A good soldier never leaves a mare behind.”

“But I—”

Fluttershy lowered her head and planted a kiss on Applejack’s lips. “Now, lets get you home.” She lifted Applejack by the shoulders and carried her on her back, like a camel.

Rainbow Dash soared through the air. In a last ditch effort to win the war game, she had sacrificed holding her rifle for the speed of flight. Dodging back and forth, Dash kept a steady speed, avoiding blanks from the snipers below. Behind her, she heard the sound of canonfire. She dived down a little, and the cannonball passed over her head.

Dash’s eyes lit up as she saw the Solar Empire base up ahead and she made a nosedive for it. As she glided down, an enemy sniper took aim and fired, striking her on the wing. She cringed and collapsed, crashing down onto the sniper deck.

Rainbow opened her eyes to see the capture zone. If she could reach it, the Solar Empire would win the war game. The flag still between her teeth, Dash crawled across the floor towards the capture zone.

In front of her an enemy soldier appeared. “She’s got the flag! Get her!” He aimed his rocket launcher at Dash and fired.

“Too late!” Dash planted her front hooves on the capture point and dropped the flag. As it hit the floor, a buzzer sounded. Rainbow Dash collapsed in exhaustion as the rocket flew over her head.

Dash open her eyes to see Twilight, standing in the Solar Empire base camp and smiling at her. “Did we win?” she asked, still half asleep. “Are Applejack and Fluttershy okay?”

Twilight nodded. “They just fine. Applejack says her hoof doesn’t hurt anymore.” Rainbow sat up in bed. “And, yes, we did win.”

A faint smile appeared on Dash’s face.

“In fact, you made the winning capture.”

“Good...” Rainbow Dash fell back to the pillow.

Twilight trotted to the door. “Goodnight, Rainbow Dash.” As she flicked the light switch, she saw that Dash was already fast asleep.

You'll Never Know Until You Try It

Surrounded by her friends and the warmth of Sugarcube Corner in party decorum, Rainbow Dash's jaw slowly dropped as she finished opening her final birthday gift. "From Rarity and Twilight Sparkle," the purple and silver card on the wrapping had said.

"An...An M-Cloud?" Rainbow took the neat gray-white box in her hooves and studied it with equal parts incredulity and eagerness.

"Yes, of course it's yours, Darling! Twilight and I just knew you would love to have a touch of music while you're in the air practicing for the next Young Flier's Competition. So, I insited, and while I acquired the device, she ordered the music subscription."

"They're based on an amazing new technology," Twilight commented with detached fascination. "All the music propagates silently from the DJ cloud in Cumulustino in the form of metaphantasm irregularities! The crystalline substructure of the leyline mainboard in each unit only resonates with patterns passing through it if they match the patterns embedded in the superstructure!"

"Best birthday ever!" Rainbow Dash clenched her eyes shut and pumped a hoof in the air, oblivious to the technical fluff Twilight had thought fitting to add.

"Ahem. What Twilight means is that it only receives music on the, er, channels that it has a subscription to," Rarity explained.

"I've been hearing good talk about one channel in particular from regulars at the library," Twilight said, slightly more bashful. Truthfully, she hadn't a clue as to Rainbow Dash's taste in music, and the cost for a yearly channel contract was prohibitively high. Twilight had made the choice of channel subscription out of a desire to avoid spoiling the surprise by asking. She only wished that she had inquired of Rarity first. ”The music she selected for her last performance!” Rarity had later chided her.

"But it's still music though, right? That's way cooler than a boring rush of air the whole time!"

"Why yes, dear. Twilight means, however, that it's the type of music enjoyed by those strange ponies who loiter in her home."

"Actually, it's Ponyville's library. Anyone can come in and read any book any time that they want," Twilight replied. Why am I defending them other than to change the topic, she thought. They seldom read anything, though they seem to enjoy giving others the impression that they read more.

“No matter, dear. We can always transfer the subscription, correct?” Rarity asked.

Twilight recalled the voluminous terms of service and the lengthy contract that she had hurriedly skimmed through in the process of acquiring the service for the device, and gave herself a silent reprimand for her lack of scrutiny. “I really don’t know. There was a lot of fine print. I’ll have to look into it.”

"Um...If you like, I could pitch in for another channel," Fluttershy said meekly.

"Ah could too," Applejack added.

"Me three!" Pinkie squeaked.

"You've already given really great gifts," Twilight said, "but I know a faster, easier way."

"Um, Twilight? It's my birthday. If they want to—"

"There are a few local experts who have reconfigured M-Clouds to receive other channels. In fact, I'm pretty sure I understand the workings enough to do it myself. You could get any channel you wanted!"

"Now Twilight, I don't believe that's a very good idea. You might damage it and void the warranty," Rarity said. "We should take it to a certified Peachy technician and have them add a channel in the proper manner!"

"Also, that don't sound like no honest way o' doin' it," Applejack said. "Those high-falutin’ tech-wizards who work in the cloud need to earn an honest livin', as do the musicians who need that royalty for their songs gettin' tossed over the air."

"I'll listen to it." Rainbow Dash's voice carried the resoluteness and amiable air of the loyalty she embodied. "Music is music, right? It’s worth a try."

"Well shucks, ain't that nice?" Applejack said. "You may even grow to enjoy it, the way Applebloom's favorite singers grew on me, even though them demons used to annoy me to my wits' end."

"Sure, why not?" Rainbow said. She would appreciate this gift and try to enjoy the music Twilight had chosen blindly for her. Anything less would be totally lame and not something a friend would do.

Rainbow Dash woke before the light of dawn reached Ponyville, by which time it had already flooded through the windows of her lofty abode. The prospect of outperforming herself this year in Cloudsdale had overcome her desire to sleep in, to such an extent that she had labored to re-orient her house with its bedroom windows facing East. Each morning before weather duty began was her time alone, when she arose to compete with herself. The newest component of her dawn routine lay waiting on her nightstand, secured in its leg holster and prepared for use. She studied it groggily as though it were a dream, and she hadn't really awoken. The the glare of the sun in her room of white cloudstone burned into her half-open eyes and set the clean metallic thing aglow.

"Horseapples. I shouldn't have stayed up so late," she moaned. "Well, birthdays only come once a year."

She staggered into the precipitation chamber and gave its North wall a sullen kick. A brief downpour of icy rain splashed over her warm, tired body. She shivered it off in a routine manner, and gave the South wall a slightly more vigorous kick. The floor vanished, replaced by a blast of warm air that held her aloft and wicked the moisture away from her every surface. Her rainbow mane returned to its wild waking state as fast as it had gone from bed-head to sopping wet. A moment later, the gale stopped and the floor re-coalesced.

"Much better. Now, what was I going to do this morning? Oh yeah, start practice with my awesome new M-Cloud! Thank you Twi and Rarity!" She cantered back to her nightstand and donned the leg holster to save herself a trip back to her bedroom, promptly made a small breakfast for herself, and after she had eaten and stretched her wings and legs, stole out over Ponyville as dawn had finally touched down. She alighted on a mountain overlooking Whitetail Wood, her favorite training airspace on the outskirts of town. There, the depth of the canopy swallowed the noise of her shouts and grunts, giving her the privacy and Ponyville the chance to sleep longer.

Sitting on her haunches, she pulled a pair of sliver earplugs from a pocket on the side of the M-Cloud's leg holster and placed them in her ears, feigning stylish finesse in the motion as if she had spectators. She lifted the M-Cloud before her and tapped the center of its shiny front cover with her other hoof. Jet-black lines ran across its surface and traced out the plain round logo of Peachy Inc., the manufacturer.

"Cool!" Rainbow Dash cooed. A sonorous chime in her ears took her off-guard, but she immediately then recognized it as the signature start-up sound of a genuine Peachy product. She had put off its maiden usage for her morning routine. "And now," she said as she lifted off, "let's have some tunes!"

The device responded to her vocal command and initialized the audio signal connection to the faraway cloud that supplied music to thousands. Seconds later, in the middle of her preliminary climb, the music hit her, and she winced from its impact. It was unlike anything she had heard before: ragged and exaggerated percussion tumbled and crashed about beneath a curtain of discordant buzzing produced from string instruments that sounded as though their musicians wished to damage them. Perky boop-beeps from an unfamiliar modern instrument tagged alongside the grinding of these sounds like a young filly trying to get her her parents' attention in the midst of their grown-up talk. Above that still was the coarse, persistent wailing of a "singer." From the cries of the singer, Rainbow Dash could scarcely make out sequences of words that might have actually meant something if they were written on pieces of confetti, shot from Pinkie Pie's party cannon, and strung together by sucking them off the floor through a straw one-by-one. She gritted her teeth and continued putting distance beneath her in preparation for her routine.

"Ugh, what is this," she grunted. She briefly contemplated how anyone could possibly enjoy such a din, and thought for a moment how her vocal expressions of physical exertion might sound more melodious than the vocalization in the "music" she was listening to. She afforded herself an inward chuckle at that. This isn't so bad, she thought to herself. You just have to avoid taking it seriously, and survive it.

An idea then occurred to her: "I think I'll compete with this music. If I can fly straight with this stuff playing, nothing can stop me in Cloudsdale. Twilight did me more good than she knows." She spotted a thin, gauzy sheet of ice crystals above her, and slowed her ascent. "Top of the troposphere. Okay now, time for action!"

As she dove into her first series of exercises in agility and speed control, the "song" ended abruptly, and the music changed. She evened her breathing, straining her power of concentration to articulate and pronounce her movements with practiced clarity. The music, however, did not agree. It was instrumental, but the sounds from the stringed instruments were warped, by some device Rainbow Dash could not name, into a loopy groan reminiscent of her own stomach just before lunchtime. She felt as though it were mocking the deftness of her turns, rolls and flips, daring to lurch into another pained chord perfectly in step with each curve in the path that she carved through the morning sky. However, beneath the frazzled and bent tones, she could distinguish clean notes from acoustical instruments she had heard in the orchestra that Rarity had taken her to months ago. She even discerned a few airy chord progressions that vaguely resembled such higher-minded music. “Mother of Luna, these clowns are pretending to be classy?”

In the middle of the slow lead-in to the typhoon torque roll, a delicate maneuver that required careful control of the wing muscles, Rainbow Dash heard a roar. The hair on her back stood defiantly against the air currents. The audio clarity of the earplugs she had donned hadn’t been clear to her until then, when it seemed that a manticore had taken flight and was within claw’s reach. She calmed herself with a few practiced breaths, noting the source of the feral sound, and continued. At the end of the roll, she heard two more roars, and gave the device on her foreleg a glance. “Manticore Surprise Party”, the screen of the device indicated to her was the song’s title. “Great, I love surprises,” she deadpanned.

The music changed again. She descended into the canopy of Whitetail Wood to begin her freestyle agility exercises. This time, there was singing again and softer playing of a stringed instrument that wasn’t at all discordant, but the lyrics were clear and pained. While Rainbow darted between the trees at speeds approaching limits of her reflexes, the singer breathily sang of “rotten apple Manehattan pie” and other proverbial objects whose meaning Dash could but guess. Only when the singer had pronounced the words “peeing in the mainstream” did Rainbow fully lose her concentration. She flew headlong into a treetop. Its boughs ensnared her and it absorbed her momentum, yielding and bending over until it snapped, and then she found herself on the forest floor entangled in the felled tree.

“Oh, I don’t know if I like bouncy music. Can we maybe listen to something else during the workout?” Fluttershy asked politely. She gave the record an uncertain look.

“Come on, it’s supposed to be that way!” Pinkie Pie said. “We’re exercising! This stuff will get your rump moving like nothin’ else will! Do you want to lose those few little pounds or not?”

Fluttershy contemplated that for a moment, and came to ponder a curiosity that she had previously thought rude to even think of. Why isn’t Pinkie Pie a monstrous fattie? She’s eaten way more pastries than I ever have at the modest tea parties we’ve had, and hasn’t gained even the small amount of weight that I have.

“Well, how ‘bout it? Come on, you’ll never know until you try it!”

It has to be her exercise routine, and a large part of that is her music. “Oh, come to think of it, you’re absolutely right.” She knew that she should have used her wings more often, flown laps around the perimeter of Ponyville, just to spare herself having to go through with this. As much as she loved Pinkie Pie, she was still a pegasus, and a small vestige of skyborne pride made her ashamed at having fallen short of the innate athleticism of the pegasus tribe.

“Alright!” Pinkie dropped the needle into the spinning record’s lead-in and hopped to the center of the room. “Now, follow my lead!”

The room exploded to the pulse of the record’s contents, and Fluttershy winced. In rhythm with the pumping of low-frequency sinusoids and strident, ear-raking staccato of sugary high-frequency square wave harmonies, Pinkie Pie began to bounce, and Fluttershy began her attempts to emulate Pinkie’s motions.

“And, left, and right! Come on, Fluttershy! You can do it!”

Fluttershy tried. It was all she could do to avoid distraction by the music, which seemed to make a farce of her motions rather than provide a template for them. With each step and stomp, she felt the accumulated fat of minor indulgences bounce and ripple. It was in those moments that the sharpness of the squat bass and synthesized buzz-bopping seemed to poke mockingly at her soft flesh like a dozen popsicle sticks. It sounds almost like flatulence, if flatulence were engineered and industrialized and produced en masse by a fine-tuned flatulence production machine. She blushed as much as she frowned.

“Okie dokie, rearrange that frown, ‘cuz comes the super fun part!”

The music changed pitch and tempo, yet retained the same bounciness and fartyness that Fluttershy had already learned to loathe. She then watched, sweating and panting, as Pinkie began to move in ways she had never imagined possible for a pony. She strained herself through those motions, hopping and contorting herself to imitate the alacritous gymnastics of her pink friend as best she could. Further into the exercise, sweat rolled down her sides and she panted, slowing. The mechanical thumping of the music, however, continued at the same pace, as did Pinkie’s elaborate workout dance.

“Almost done... Can you feel that burn? Do you feel like a real pony? I feel like a real pony! Don’t you just feel like a pony when you sweat?” Pinkie Pie was indeed perspiring, but from more exertion than Fluttershy had mustered. Suddenly then, the music stopped. Only then in its absence could Fluttershy hear the pounding of blood in her ears and temple.

“You did great! We should do this more often,” Pinkie said.

“Agreed,” Fluttershy panted, “but maybe we could try different music next time.”

“So, you don’t like my workout music?”

“Um... I just think I like certain other types of music better.” After that, I could enjoy anything, she thought.

It was afternoon when Rainbow Dash ran into Twilight Sparkle again, and Rainbow was exhausted from the combination of work and her ordeal earlier that day.

“Hi Rainbow! Uh, you okay? You look kinda... Messed up, like you’ve been through a few crashes.”

Twilight, your socially-awkward and tactless honesty is more refreshing than you know, Rainbow thought. None of my coworkers said a thing. Now if only I can return the favor in regard to your gift. “Meh, I took a spill practicing for Best Young Fliers. That music you gave me is pretty wild!”

“Oh.” Twilight’s expression changed from concerned to concerned and quizzical. Now she has actually listened to it. “Really? I haven’t heard that word used to describe it before. Maybe I could introduce you to the ponies who visit the library; they often have some very involved discussions about it, and seem to know lots about it.”

“Sounds cool. Maybe I’ll come by later today when I get off work,” Rainbow replied. She wanted to scream, to implore her to find her a different channel, and to ask her who had told her they could re-jigger M-Clouds. It was her display of boldness the night before and the irony of her enjoyment of the “eggheaded” practice of reading that robbed her of her boldness at that moment. She was not about to show that she had forgotten her lesson. I will show her I mean to be open-minded and can stomach anything, she thought. I’m not backing out of this.

“They’re usually in the library later in the afternoon, and then they go out to socialize. Maybe you could make friends with them.” Twilight offered her a sheepish grin.

“Me? Haven’t you tried making friends with them?”

“I don’t know about them. I’ve tried striking up a conversation, but they seem less interested in what I have to say about music. They used a few words for my favorite kind of music, but I have no idea what all their slang terms mean. Maybe since you’ve listened to their music, you could relate to them in a way that I can’t.”

Yes, misery loves company. And yet, I’d love find out exactly why anyone would listen to that music. “Sounds great. Anyhoof, catch ya later!” Rainbow Dash flew away to rejoin weather patrol before her lunch break ended.

“So, is this music you can dance to?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Not exactly, no. I just wanted to share it, with you, because it’s the kind of music that I really enjoy.”

“Okie dokie!” Pinkie Pie piped, plopping herself on the loveseat by the window in Fluttershy’s cottage.

Fluttershy stepped back from her phonograph, sat, and closed her eyes. From the speaker, a distant female voice began to echo. The echoing seemed to draw nearer when a melodious yet flat drone entered, along with piano serenades and a sickly-sweet female choral accompaniment, all of them washed out and dulled into a soft, broad blanket of sound by excess reverberation.

“Uh, what is this kind of music for?” Pinkie asked.

“Shhh, listen, it gets better.”

Pinkie Pie listened. She tried to stay hushed and to sit still out of respect, but her leg was twitching, and not because her soothsaying reflexes were in effect. The music somehow ran contrary to everything she was, in that it didn’t need Fluttershy to tell her to sit still and be quiet. It did that all on its own, and that made her all the more restless. The lullaby of the female vocals appealed to the foal in her soul with its maternal cooing, yet seemed to drown out and firmly deny that foal its giggles and bed-jumping and mischief, beckoning her to a quiet slumber instead.

“So, uh, when’s the better part?”

“Shhhh!”

The voices, drones and melodies grew into a crescendo of meaningless sound that continued to echo ever deeper, as if it deigned to make itself sound bigger than the great spirit the one and only Pinkie Pie. Fluttershy was still sitting on the floor with her eyes closed, her head bobbing slowly, and a peaceful smile was on her face. She was daydreaming of flying gracefully over green valleys with eagles soaring beside her. Pinkie Pie only fidgeted more intensely, and was having a day-nightmare: one of dusty old cathedrals and boring soul-searches and learning to be patient.

“Uh... I’m sorry Fluttershy, but I don’t really like this music.”

“Oh, it’s okay. I understand.” Fluttershy reached to disengaged the needle from the record, but in her relaxed state she nudged it into a sickeningly-loud scratch that cut through the soft music like a chainsaw through glass. Both of them winced. With the cottage quiet again except for a few small animal noises, Pinkie Pie sighed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing. I just feel kinda like a monk now. I’m feeling a little... Monk-y. Monkey!” She giggled and began jumping around, hooting.

Fluttershy coerced a giggle in response from herself. It was very seldom that she would put her musical tastes on display for anyone else, including her friends, but she humbly accepted that not everyone would share them.

Rainbow stood outside the library, deciding what to make of the three characters before her. They all wore expressions that made them seem aloof in their own individual ways.

“Hi, I’m Rainbow Dash!”

“Pleasure. I’m Joy Cup. Coffee symbol on my butt and all,” she quipped.

Rainbow Dash couldn’t tell; the young mare’s hindquarters and tail were covered by a faded denim skirt. She was the only one of the three who was standing.

“This is my colt friend Will Play; he works at the record store,” Joy said.

“Hey,” the lanky stallion managed to say between drags at his cigarette. He wore a tight long-sleeve shirt and had his mane combed forward over his face.

“And this is over here is Heart Mend, but we call her Ringy.”

“Hi,” the other young mare said. She gave a small wave and mild smile before returning quickly to her expressionless state. The long, loose sleeve of her blouse flapped around when she waved, and Rainbow noticed the way the jewelry on her lower lip had moved when it stretched into that brief smile.

“She never liked the name she was given,” Joy remarked. “She’s brave, stepping outside her role instead of conforming to it and all, and doing what she loves.”

“You flatter me, Joy.”

“I also think what we call her fits her vocation way better.”

“Naming ponies after what they do just compels them to do it, like, it’s society’s whip,” Will added. He spoke in a croaky monotone.

“Closest thing to mind control,” Heart said softly.

“So, uh... what is your talent?”

“I was destined to become a psychiatrist, because I talked to this filly in school who was having problems and made her feel better, and flash, there’s my mark. But I’m more the artistic type, and my grades weren’t good enough, so I found my way making jewelry. I do love my work.”

“Heh, yeah! That’s all that matters — you have a job and you like it,” Rainbow Dash said. “I thought I’d go into professional racing after I got my cutie mark in a race, but here I am on weather patrol.”

The three twisted their mouths in mental shugs and nodded quietly.

“Anyways, I heard you were into this type of music I started listening to recently.”

“Come to join the cult?” Will said with a miniscule hint of derision.

“I dunno. I listened to it while flying and it just really got to me, and it made me crash. I was wondering if you might help me understand it better.”

Joy Cup laughed. “So you’ve been hit by it? Don’t be afraid to admit it, it got on your nerves. It was meant to.”

“Huh?”

“If it didn’t bother you so, it wouldn’t be what it is,” Joy explained.

“Which is?”

“Like nothing else. It’s different.”

“What I don’t get is what makes it so great.”

“Listen,” Will started, putting his cig out with a hoof, “every great idea or style, when it starts out small, is hated. Some ponies start getting used to it and liking it, and other ponies listen to stuff that’s already popular and been played a million times. It’s the first group that always influences culture.”

“Oh, I get it.” Rainbow Dash then understood. She recalled how her grandmother had chided her for putting a popular modern record she loved on the turntable and “polluting” the house with its noise. She saw the events of that morning with new understanding: she was stepping outside of her musical comfort zone, exposing herself to something she wasn’t used to. No, that’s crazy talk, she thought. No way that roadapple pie of noise could ever get popular. But then, who am I to say it won’t?

“Well anyways,” Joy interrupted, “wanna come over to my place? Hang out?”

“Sure thing.” I am going to get to the bottom of this, she thought.

“Alright. Mind if we stop by the store on our way home to pick up some GMG?”

“GMG?” Rainbow Dash repeated.

“Gold Medal Gelding. Simple quaff, decent stuff. Good to have a few conversations over.”

“Oh, okay. Personally I don’t drink, but I wouldn’t mind if you did.”

Will and Heart stood up with Joy, and they slowly cantered off. The four of them attracted a few wayward, awkward glances from other Ponyvilleans, and Rainbow wondered how many of them were for her and how many were for her three companions. These ponies seem cool enough, Rainbow thought. Maybe Twilight was on to something.

Twilight finished reading the letter and rolled her eyes, breathing a sigh of relief. Before her on her desk lay the multitude of pages in an uncollated pile that made up the M-Cloud subscription terms of service and contractual agreements. “So it’s really no big deal, this sales rep from Peachy tells me. They handle requests like this all the time.”

“I thought so,” Spike said. “It doesn’t seem like good business to not give customers some flexibility.”

“And the funny thing,” Twilight continued, ignoring him, “is that there are so many of them, so often, either switching to or from this channel I had the ‘Peachy genius’ back at the Peachy dealership align Rainbow’s M-Cloud with! It’s as if this is the single most polarizing channel in the cloud!”

“Actually, that honor goes to the channel with the squealing lovercolt.”

Twilight giggled briefly. “Yes, I know the artist you’re talking about, the one you either love or hate.”

“Actually, I can’t see why anyone would love that guy, except fillies still in school. I mean, come on! I know he’s talented with a few instruments, but his lyrics are drivel, his voice sounds all high, and annoying, and...nyeh!” Spike gesticulated madly, confounded.

“Exactly, Spike. He’s meant for a particular group of ponies, who happen to like him.”

“Who like him,” Spike corrected.

“What I don’t understand,” Twilight continued musing, “is what could be the deal with this music I ordered Rainbow Dash.”

“No matter. You can change it to whatever she wants, right?”

“Right, and we can get this awkward false gratitude thing over with. Honestly, Spike, did you see the look on her face yesterday? She clearly hates that music! I think it’s all because of that time we judged Rarity’s hard work. Now none of my friends can so much as tell the truth when they don’t care for what’s offered to them!”

Rainbow Dash took a deep breath and looked out at Whitetail Wood. She pushed the light metallic earplugs into her ears and tapped the M-Cloud to power it on, and once the music had begun playing — through the air from cloud to device and device to earplugs — she lifted off.

“It couldn’t be nearly as bad as yesterday morning.”

She closed her eyes during her ascent and beat her wings to the abrasive drumming and scratchy strumming of the song she was listening to, but today, rather than distract her, the harshness gave her a queer sort of strength. She adjusted her wingbeats to match the music. I’m beating my wings to climb, and my climb epitomizes the mundane struggle of everypony. Life is just a climbing game — for some a social one, for others one of career, others a climb to fame.

How she had learned. Joy Cup and Will Play had introduced her to the origins of the genre the previous evening at their apartment. They had explained the motivation behind each avant-garde layer of noise, and had even demonstrated how it wasn’t so different from the types of music she already enjoyed. It was the tense edge of modernity that transmogrified those familiar musical hoofprints into a new creature, if an unruly one. She had gone to sleep listening to the music.

“And, now, I descend,” she said impassionately.

Her motions were sullen but alive; she was an amalgam of blasé ataraxy and cool fury. Each of the riffs of the stringed instruments sounded like a hacksaw being drawn across a cable made of porcelain fibers, and yet as she careened into her series of tumbles, rolls and tight turns, this gave her mind a certain fuel. It was fuel for putting tension to her wings and legs that seemed almost angry, and yet fully under control. Her final act of setting muscle to music took her through the treetops again at high velocity, yet she did not lose her cool. She almost yawned.

Her workday rolled by very much like the previous, but instead of strange glances for her appearance, she received strange glances for her different tone of voice and her perpetual earplugged aloofness. On her lunch break, she once more met Twilight Sparkle in the middle of town. As Twilight approached her, Rainbow was bobbing her head slowly.

“Hey Rainbow! I’ve been meaning to talk with you. It turns out it should be really easy to change your subscription.”

“Nah, I’m fine. I’ve acquired a taste for this music.”

Twilight gave her an incredulous stare, wondering when she had started talking like the lanky stallion in the troupe of library regulars she’d introduced her to. “You sure?”

“Yeah. It takes a certain amount of thought to appreciate this genre, and I’m sure you can understand that.”

“I do enjoy intellectually stimulating music,” Twilight reflected.

“Besides, I’m not going back to that bland cultural waste that’s only a paltry reflection of ponydom’s yesteryear, though I used to think was so great.” As Rainbow spoke, she peppered her words with extra disdain.

“Wait, what? I thought you loved—”

“Seriously, Twilight! I’ve evolved. You gave me some great tunes and I just didn’t know that at first. Thank you for the birthday gift. No, I’m serious.”

“You’re very welcome. I’m just very glad you’re pleased, but since the music grew on you so fast, I’m curious as to what it sounds like.”

“You’ve never listened to Trit-A-Trot? Explosive Seapony? Purple Menagerie?” Rainbow asked. She listed off a smattering of other titles, many of which were words Twilight had never heard together in the same sentence.

“Never heard of them,” Twilight interrupted, punctuating the obscure roster.

“It’s fresher fare,” Rainbow said plainly, “so I couldn’t expect you to know about them. But here’s your chance. Couldn’t hurt to try.”

Rainbow tilted her head to each side and wiggled the downward facing ear, and the shiny plugs fell out into her hooves one by one. Twilight cleansed them of Rainbow Dash’s ear grease with a wave of violet magic from her alacorn and telekinesed them into her ears. Rainbow Dash turned up the volume on her M-Cloud.

Twilight’s face immediately contorted into an expression that seemed fitting for one caught in an avalanche of slugs. It then twisted into a stony grimace. Her hair stood on end, her muscles tensed, and light burst from her horn. She let out a loud, angry growl, and the earplugs flew out of her ears, pursued by jets of steam. She tried vainly to regain composure as she retrieved the earplugs and feigned a demure giggle of embarrassment.

“Just as I expected, Twi. Maybe you’re not ready for it yet.”

“Listen, Rainbow. I know how appreciation for music can be considered a subjective—”

“Save your breath. I can’t ask you to understand or have similar tastes as I do, and I accept that.”

Twilight cleaned off the silvery earplugs and passed them back to Rainbow, who promptly returned them to her ears.

“Catch ya later!” Rainbow Dash called out blithely as she flew back to work.

“I’m telling you, she has some sort of mental affliction. There’s no way she could go from revulsion to enjoyment in just one day!”

Twilight Sparkle had brought her friends, excluding Rainbow Dash, to the library, which was closed for the day. She had hung her “research in progress; unsafe for general public” sign outside the door.

“Oh, it couldn’t really be that bad if she learned to love it so quickly,” Fluttershy spoke up.

“Couldn’t...bad?...” Twilight took a deep breath, and calmed herself. “Right, I suppose a demonstration is in order.” She produced a dark metal diaphragm the size of a dinner plate rimmed in copper and gilded with arcane symbols from a nearby shelf. She illuminated it with magic. “I think I can remember exactly what it sounded like.”

The round thing vibrated with signals from Twilight’s mind and assaulted the ordinarily-quiet library with an infernal cacophony that knocked everypony off her hooves and into a cringing state of desperate ear-covering.

“MAKE IT STOP!” Pinkie Pie screamed.

“...Absolutely horrifying!...” Rarity could be heard amongst her other incoherent cries.

Twilight released the thin disk and restored it to its place on the shelf. The other ponies looked at it fearfully as it floated through the air, wondering when and if it would cause them such pain again.

“That,” Twilight said proudly, “is an early predecessor to the technology that the M-Cloud is based on.”

“Well ah sure hope the infernal gadgetry sees better use than the likes o’ that noise,” Applejack drawled.

“So, everyone see the problem?”

“Yes, quite clearly,” Rarity said. “Our friend is going around mesmerized by that dreadful noise. Who knows what damage it’s doing to her ears!”

“Or her brain!” Pinkie said.

“Exactly. So, back to my original point, I’ve gathered you here together to discuss ways we might be able to help her.”

“Well, despite our dislike for the noise, I don’t suppose enjoyment of that is something we can cure,” Rarity said.

“Um, maybe we could do the same thing in reverse to her?”

“Care to explain, Fluttershy?” Twilight asked.

“Well, you mentioned how she seemed to hate the music at first?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And how now, after ‘surviving’ it, she not only loves it but doesn’t like any other kind of music?”

“Yes?”

“Well, I have an idea. It hasn’t worked on me, but if Rainbow Dash can switch her preference for music that easily, it just work on her and get her back to normal again.”

“Do tell,” Rarity said. “Taste in music is a fickle and unpredictable thing. Why, I thought I knew our Rainbow.”

Rainbow Dash looked to and fro, but Joy, Will and Ringy were nowhere to be found. “Figures. I didn’t think they’d be here if Twilight had decided to go all mad scientist and annex the library proper again.”

She turned to start off towards Joy Cup’s apartment, but then a heavy pink and cream-yellow blur collided with her. Fluttershy hugged her to the ground as four other ponies tied ropes to each of her legs.

“Fluttershy!” Rainbow gasped. “What’re you doing?”

“Just hold still and be quiet. We’re your friends, so we wouldn’t hurt you, trust us.”

They pulled at Rainbow’s legs and held her mostly immobile as they brought her, into the library. She struggled at first, but ultimately surrendered to the deadpan passivity that was her newfound shield and substitute composure.

In the middle of the library sat a sturdy, leather-strap-laden reclining chair, a tall boxy machine with fat electrode-containing glass bulbs sticking out of the top, a magical amplifier and resonance boxes, and a turntable. They brought her to the chair and securely fastened her. Twilight attached half a dozen cold metal probes to her body: one to her side of forehead, and one at each of her fetlocks.

“Now,” Twilight said, “all I want to do is run a simple experiment. It seems we all have a lot to learn about how music affects us. Rarity?”

Rarity presented to Rainbow Dash a record. Its cover was dark and showed what looked like an oversized, ornate saddlebag strap buckle, cold and metallic. “Fluttershy says she spotted this this under your icebox last time she visited you for a slumber party.”

“I was a bit hungry, and I went to your kitchen late at night to have an extra nibble,” Fluttershy said, blushing. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“You can’t be serious,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Oh, but I am!” Rarity replied. She removed the record from its jacket. It was contained in a thin, transparent sheet. “Tsk tsk, never even opened this thing after I gave it to you last year. Why the wait to try it? I found it in the exact same section as the style of music you selected for your performance at Best Young Fliers’. Why, I had to put up with smug looks and half-stifled laughter from that haughty record store clerk to bring you your gift last year, only to have you ignore it!”

“And that explains why she had me pick out the music for your gift this year,” Twilight said.

“Indeed. I thought that Twilight would hit closer to home, as it were, regarding your favorite style of music. I suppose she was both right and wrong, in an odd sort of way.”

Rainbow Dash barely heard them. She was eyeing the record cover fearfully. “No, please...” she whimpered. “Please. Anything but Coppermane. I’m begging you.”

“Couldn’t hurt now, could it? Big Macintosh listens to it,” Applejack said. “Ya’ll never know ‘till ya try it, sugarcube.”

Rarity placed the record on the turntable and dropped the needle into its lead-in. The needle slid spiraled down its one-way trajectory into the ominously clean grooves of vinyl like a coin falling into a black hole. Thence erupted a dirty, offensively self-indulgent symphony of auditory sludge. Stringed instruments buzzed low and incessant like a ravenous swarm of oversized blowflies while percussion hammered dully like an industrial manufacturing facility. The exaggerated and throaty yowls of the lead vocalist made it sound as though he were perpetually preparing in the back of his throat a colossal wad of spittle and phlegm to inflict upon the listener.

“WHY, CELESTIA, WHY?” Rainbow Dash was screaming, struggling against her restraints in agony.

The five unrestrained ponies held their tongues and stood their ground, lest their collective attempt to change Rainbow’s mind about music fail and their dignity be compromised. They gritted their teeth, eyelids twitching as they weathered the ruction that sloughed off the phonograph in grungy waves like a legion of possessed swine coated in sandpaper. Finally, before the “song” was concluded, the shrill cry of “MAKE IT STOP!” once more escaped Pinkie Pie. Rarity swiftly plucked the needle from the record as she might an oversized ball of lint from one of her favorite garments. They all stood quietly in place for a moment, glancing at each other, reeling and wide-eyed with disdain for all they had just heard.

“Heh... No wonder Macky called that stuff his guilty pleasure,” Applejack said. Everyone looked at her. She grinned defensively.

The next day, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy met Rainbow Dash on her lunch break. The asked her if they could borrow her M-Cloud. She gladly handed it to them. “You sure you want to try this stuff?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Come on! It’s not like we’re going to throw your M-Cloud in the river if we don’t like the music,” Pinkie Pie said.

“I’ll take it back to your house when we’re done with it,” Fluttershy promised.

“In all honesty, even though I like the style...It really is is kinda bad in some ways.”

“Now, don’t be modest or ashamed about what you love,” Fluttershy said.

“No, that’s not what I mean. I mean, music is great, but do I really want it following me around everywhere I go? And that kind of music? No thanks, I’ll enjoy it here and there, but not all the time. Oh, and by the way, thanks for helping get me another channel.”

“Don’t forget to thank Applejack too. We all hope it suits you well.”

“Anything but Coppermane would. And besides, I need to train with the music I’ll actually perform with. Who’d want to listen to avant-garde stuff anyway when a familiar series of awesome riffs would go my flying way better?”

“Absolutely. You rock, Rainbow Dash!”

“Thanks, Flutters. Well gals, see you later!” She flew away to an untouched cumulus above the north end of town and began sculpting it eagerly.

“So, you think some other music from this genre won’t be as bad as the one Twilight made us listen to?” Pinkie asked.

“Of course not. After all, you listened to a few more tracks from my favorite album and found a few you liked, and I eventually found a beat on your record that I liked.”

“That’s true. By the way, something else that’s true is you’re looking a lot more fit now.”

Fluttershy embraced her.

“So, this music Rainbow likes.”

“Yes, let’s find out.”

They each took a plug, rubbed them on their coats and inserted them. As they began listening, they twisted their mouths and looked up at the sky pensively, then at each other, and then off into space. They started bobbing their heads.

RESULTS

In a mad rush on the last day, we almost quadrupled the number of voters. That's pretty sweet.

The continued efforts of all those involved to make this event work is much appreciated. You guys are awesome.

Anyway, the results.

Top 5

Gold Medal
Bittersweet Music by Duncan R. (8.61)

Silver Medal
The Good You Might Do by Pascoite (7.94)

Bronze Medal
Joie de Vivre by Eustatian Wings (6.47)

Copper Medallions
A Deck with No Hearts by RogerDodger (6.44)
His Heart Too Full For Words by I_Post_Ponies (6.28)

Top 10

Murky Medallions
Consonance by Props (6.25)
The WestFillya Waltz by Hayseed Turniptruck (6.17)
The End of the Season by Present Perfect (6.06)
Every Night Is a Swan Song by Dark Horse (5.78)
Made of Dreams by RazgrizS57 (5.38)

Top 20

Participation Certificate
My Sunshine by Flashgen (4.94)
Melody of Solace by Seidio (4.93)
Memories of Chaos by LunarShadow (4.21)
Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon Bon by shortskirtsandexplosions
Can I keep it? Please, oh PLEASE? by Dumb Fabric
On Loyalty by Bulbasaur
The Sound of Raindrops on Slate by Dolfeus Doseux
Unwanted Song by
War is Hay by AzuNyan
You'll Never Know Until You Try It by Demetrius

I extend again a congratulations to everyone who participated, no matter how well you performed!

Giant spreadsheet full o' numbers and graphs and stuff
Total number of voters: 19

Global Results
Previous event statistics

Now for the esoteric awards:

Artist's Choice
Every Night Is a Swan Song for Sweet Melody

Most Controversial
The End of the Season (2.44)
Joie de Vivre (2.17)
Consonance (2.17)

Least Controversial
Bittersweet Music (1.38)
His Heart Too Full For Words (1.48)
Memories of Chaos (1.64)

Most Consistent Reponses
Memories of Chaos with 9 (4)s

Least Consistent Reponses
Consonance with 3 (6)s, (7)s, and (8)s

Graphs
They're all in the spreadsheet. Screenshots are for newponies.

Questionnaire
– What did you think of the /art/ prompting? Would you like the next event to run similarly?
– What did you think of the preliminary round?
– What did you think of the web-form submission?
– Do you think the event ran smoother without a private judging round?
– Any suggestions for improvements?

As always, any and all feedback is appreciated.

Closing Notes
By request I've set up a mailing list to have you notified by e-mail when a new event is announced. If you'd like to be added to this list, send me an e-mail saying so, or drop your e-mail and a request in this thread (or otherwise find some way to let me know).

Again, thank you all—voters, volunteers, submitters, spectators, etc.—for your participation in making this a great success!

His Heart Too Full For Words

﻿The walls were familiar now.

He hated that. White barriers, emotionless barriers, closed him in. They stood indifferent of the razor-sharp glare directed at them. The lights were dimmed, for now, but he always regarded them same as the walls. It didn’t matter how bright or dark the lights were. The air sickened him; a perverse conjoining of something so vital and something so insipid. He wanted to gag.

Color Bound fidgeted under the covers. It was possible to turn away, he knew, but he’d just be greeted with more walls. The window on the far end of the room meant little; it was covered up most of the time. Even when it was clear, all it did was remind him of where he wasn’t. In this bed, in this room, and everywhere, Bound was disgusted with himself.

His mother, of course, was of a different mind. “Up, up, up, Color! You’re all better, remember? No more treatments, no more hospital. I’m so glad to be taking you home for good,” she said, giving him the best smile she could muster.

Bound did not have one in return. He just scowled at the wheelchair she held in front of her. What a pathetic pony he was, being unable to walk on his own power. Throwing the covers off of himself, Bound took a look at his body. His legs were withered, worn down by over a year of atrophy. Running a hoof across his belly, he felt bones beneath his white coat; his malnourishment made him look as if he was starving. Bound sat up straight to get a better look at what was left of his tail. Where before was a brilliant, bushy tangle of hair, now lay a horribly short and frazzled mess. The once-vibrant blue looked more like black. He could only guess his mane was in a similar state. Reaching up to his horn, he tapped it lightly. He hardly felt it any more. The empty space on his flanks almost mocked him. Here he was, wasting away in a hospital while other ponies his age had already found themselves.

Even though Bound hated these now-familiar walls, he didn’t know if he wanted to go back home. Heck, he didn’t even know if he’d recognize the place. What would he even do when he got back? Lay in bed some more? And how would other ponies see him? Would he be just some sick little foal, incapable of taking care of himself? There was no guarantee leaving would make his life any better, if such a thing was possible. All he saw were smiles nowadays, masks other ponies had put on around him in some misguided effort to make him feel better. His mom wore her mask best.

Bound swung his back legs off of the bed with a grunt. “Bring it over here,” he said, gesturing to the wheelchair.

It glowed green with his mother’s magic as she brought it over to the side of the bed. “Do you want some help, hun?”

For a moment, Bound considered declining the offer, but the hopeful look in his mom’s eyes changed his mind. “A-actually, yeah.”

The house he used to live in was the same as he remembered, and different. Though the single-story, compact structure was limited to just the essentials—kitchen, a couple of bedrooms, bathroom, living room—it didn’t feel cramped. The walls were still familiar, but at least he didn’t hate them.

Entering his room, he noticed all surfaces were shiny and dust-free. He sighed. His mother had worked hard to keep the place clean in his absence. A small cedar bookshelf, filled with mostly textbooks, stood next to his desk in the corner. His bed was prim and neat, sheets—the same color as his tail and mane used to be—stared back at him. On spotting them, a small frown made its way onto his face. He didn’t need any more reminders of his state.

“Do you need help with anything, Color? I’m fixing dinner. It’s Southern Salad, your favorite!” his mom called from the kitchen.

“No, mom, I’m fine. Just settling in.”

Bound made his way over to the bed. He readied his magic to pull the sheets back, but hesitated. He’d spent enough time in bed, hadn’t he? If he pulled those covers back, was he just admitting defeat? Lying around certainly wouldn’t help his legs. After a moment’s thought, he gave in, throwing the covers off. There wasn’t any point in resisting it, really. The world had taken everything away from him with that stupid disease, and it wasn’t likely to give anything back. To Fate, he was just some object of amusement.

With several grunts and no short amount of effort, Bound made it into his bed. The springs creaked under his meager weight, and he let out a heavy sigh in relaxation. His eyes went to the ceiling, and his thoughts once again focused on familiar walls. His mother must have heard him moving around, as she appeared in his bedroom doorway a moment later.

“Hey, hun, dinner is just about ready. Do you want to eat in the kitchen or should I bring it to you?”

Still gazing at the ceiling, Bound replied, “Just... just bring it here.”

She nodded. “After dinner, do you want to try to walk around some? I’ve got some supports you could use in the living room and the doctor said it would be best to get those legs working as soon as possible.”

Bound closed his eyes. He could see her wearing that hopeful face again in his mind. “Maybe tomorrow, mom. I’m really tired.”

There was a short pause. “Oh, okay. If you’re not up to it, that’s fine. I’ll bring dinner soon.” With that, she walked away. Bound heard the clinking of bowls and cooking utensils shortly after.

Really, the setting hadn’t changed much from the hospital. One insignificant window, four familiar walls, glaring white light and stale air. Bound shifted to turn to the window. “Huh,” he said, realizing something odd.

The mattress was unfamiliar.

One month. What a waste of time it had been, coming home. Nothing had changed. He was still stuck in bed, his body had hardly improved. His belly had fattened a bit; the disease was no longer sapping the nutrition from him. His tail and mane had grown out a little, but they still looked pathetic. In fact, the only change Bound really noticed was his mother constantly bugging him about exercise. Why couldn’t she just leave it be? It was pointless to work on his muscles; fate would just throw something worse at him once he got over this. Bound wished his mother could see it, wished she could understand. He could get around well enough in his wheelchair. He would manage.

Every day, though, early morning, she would bring him breakfast and a question: “Do you want to try to exercise today?”

“Maybe tomorrow,” was always his reply. She’d nod and say, “I’ll ask you tomorrow, then,” and walk out.

For one month, that was their routine. But at one month and one day, Bound didn’t see his mother at the same time she usually came in. What he heard, instead, was the front door opening followed shortly by a curious trio of voices coming from the living room.

“I still don’t see why you had to drag us out here, Apple Bloom.”

“‘Cause he’s a blank flank, just like us!”

“Yeah, Scootaloo, we gotta stick together!”

“But... isn’t he, like, way older than us?”

“All th’ more reason, Scoots. Can yah imagine what it’s like for him?”

“Besides, it’s just a few years. Not way older.”

Bound’s mother spoke up. “Girls, this house carries sound very well. I imagine he can hear you.”

Silence. Before long, three heads popped into the bedroom doorway. Bound didn’t recognize any of them. It was just three fillies: one orange and purple, looking at Bound nervously; one white with a pink and purple mane, wearing a look of curiosity; and the last had a giant red ribbon in her mane. She had a far-too-large smile on her face.

“Uh, hello?” said Bound.

The one wearing a ribbon bounded into the room, followed closely by her compatriots. “Hiya, there, mister! I’m Apple Bloom, and these are my friends Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo!”

“And we’re the Cutie Mark Crusaders!” chirped Sweetie Belle.

“Who are you?” asked Scootaloo, still unsure of Bound.

“Scootaloo!” the other two hollered.

Bound was completely surprised. The last month had been one of sordid routine, not too much unlike his life at the hospital, and he had no idea how to react to three balls of energy suddenly being introduced to his morning. He decided to go with polite. “It-It’s fine. I’m Color Bound, but everyone calls me Bound.”

Scootaloo squinted at him and frowned. “So... what are you doing in bed? Apple Bloom told me you were better already.”

“Scootaloo!” they yelled yet again.

“I was sick for a long time, and I’m still recovering. It will take a while for my body to be ready to move about normally.”

“What did—” Scootaloo started, but a white hoof was quickly stuffed in her mouth before she could finish her question.

Apple Bloom stepped forward. “We heard you were sick an’ we wanted ta visit ya!” she said, still wearing that ridiculously big smile.

“So,” Bound asked, raising an eyebrow, “this has nothing to do with me being a blank flank?”

All three of the fillies’ faces fell. “You heard that, did ya?” asked Apple Bloom.

Bound nodded. He felt a little bad, bursting their bubble like that, but really, what business did they have here?

“Well, as you can see,” Sweetie Belle said, turning her flank toward Bound, “none of us have found our cutie marks yet. We’ve been searching for them really hard.”

“And when I heard ‘bout ya from my sister, I thought we should come visit! Maybe we could help each other find our cutie marks!” said Apple Bloom emphatically, her eyes lighting up at the possibility.

This day keeps getting stranger and stranger. Bound considered the offer a moment, but quickly shook his head. “I’m too weak to be doing any—what was it you called it? Crusading? I wouldn’t be any help.” Besides, Bound figured, it’d be a little weird for him to be hanging out with fillies two or three years younger than himself. There was plenty of teasing awaiting him when he did eventually get back to school.

The thought darkened his mood further. Returning to school hadn’t gone through his mind, yet. His mother would certainly be wanting him to go back when the next semester started. There really wasn’t much to be done about it, thought, maybe he could get his mom to homeschool him a bit longer. She’d been teaching in Ponyville for years; there was no reason why she couldn’t be an adequate teacher at home.

“You think we care about a stupid thing like that?”

Two gasps rang out in the room as Bound’s attention snapped to Scootaloo.

“Scoot—”

“No! Crusaders stick together, no matter what! You two would do everything to help me get out of bed if I was stuck there, wouldn’t you? So why should we treat him any different?”

“Scootaloo, really, I appreciate it, but I don’t think—” Bound started.

“Ugh! Is everyone dense today? You know, Rainbow Dash wouldn’t let some silly disease get the best of her. She’d be out of bed every second she could be!”

Bound looked at Scootaloo in total confusion. “Who the heck is Rainbow Dash?”

She rolled her eyes at Bound. “Only the greatest flyer in all of Equestria! The only pegasus to do not one, not two, but three Sonic Rainbooms! The Element of Loyalty and The Element of Awesome! You can’t seriously tell me you’ve never heard of her!”

Rubbing a hoof against his forehead, Bound tried to think if he’d ever heard this pegasus’ name before. “I think I do remember reading something about her in the paper, I guess the name just didn’t register.” He paused for a second, trying to remember how the subject even got to Rainbow Dash. Frustration heated his face red and he threw up his forelegs. “What does Rainbow Dash even have to do with me? Yes, I imagine she wouldn’t let ‘some silly disease’ get the better of her, but I’m not her. I can never be her!”

Scootaloo huffed in defeat. “You’re the only one saying that.”

Bound was just about ready to unleash a righteous fury upon the poor, purple-maned pegasus when his mom spoke up from the doorway. “Okay, you three, I think we should give Color some time to rest. Come along now.” She gestured for the fillies to leave the room.

Throwing her chin up, Scootaloo pranced out first. Sweetie Belle gave a soft farewell before trudging out behind her pegasus friend. The last to leave was Apple Bloom.

“Sorry we couldn’ cheer ya up. You know, ya can still crusade with us if ya want. I’m sure Scoots will come around.” She was almost whimpering at him. Bound could sympathize; she probably had everything planned so well, and could have walked out of there with a new crusader. But fate had different plans.

Before speaking, Bound let out a sigh to calm down. “It’s okay, Apple Bloom. Your heart was in the right place.” He ruffled her mane a bit. “You’re okay in my book.”

A remnant of the smile she first had crept its way back on to her face. “See ya, Bound!” she said, and walked out of the room. He watched her as she left, pity written clearly all over his face.

Once she was gone, Bound fell back onto the bed, mentally both frustrated and exhausted by the encounter. Scootaloo didn’t have an ounce of tact, but wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. Sweetie Belle seemed nice enough, if not a little shy. Apple Bloom was really smart for her age and had a kind heart from what he could tell, but he truly pitied her. One day she would be set up against Fate, see what the world was to thrust upon her, and it would break her down. There was, in fact, a little of Bound’s younger self in her. Of course, there are the rare few ponies that either get lucky or somehow fall outside of the shackles of fate (that ‘Rainbow Dash’ Scootaloo mentioned came to mind), but it was a bit too late for Bound.

A rustling brought him out of his thoughts. Turning his head to the noise, he saw his mom was moving his wheelchair up to the bed. “Um, what is it, mom?” he asked.

“Since you started the day out a little differently, I was hoping you’d try some exercise today! Might help you get some frustration out. You know you’ll need the energy when you get back to school.” The same hopeful smile she knew so well once again adorned her face.

“C’mon, mom, just being around those fillies wore me out. I really just need to lie down for a while, sort my thoughts. Please?”

The smile weakened, though it did not disappear. “Oh! Well, if that’s how you feel, I guess I can’t really make you exercise. Did... did you still want breakfast? I actually left it out in the living room, but I can bring it in here.”

“Yes, please.”

She just nodded, pity in her eyes. Bound was so sick of that pity. He almost screamed at her back as she walked away. I don’t want pity! Don’t do that to me! How could somepony even look at another like that? It was cruel, condescending and ignorant. When he had nothing, he could lose nothing. In this bed, he was safe. There was no reason to get up, not today. So keep your pity to yourself. Don’t look at me with those eyes, and I—

Those eyes... the same ones with which he’d looked down at Apple Bloom.

“Mom! Help me into this wheelchair!”

Breathing became harder and heavier for Bound and he worked his way down the support rail. Sweat fell down his face and damped his coat.

“C’mon, hun, you’re almost there!”

He really wished his mom wouldn’t cheer him on like that. It made him feel like some performer on stage, like he needed the approval of a crowd. She seemed to enjoy it well enough, though, so he let his mom have her cheers. Right now, his focus was centered purely on the rail and his wheelchair at the end of it.

Just a few... more... steps...

Bound’s concentration broke for a split second and one of his hooves slipped off of the support rail. With his legs completely incapable of holding his weight, Bound fell to the floor with a loud thud. He arched his back in pain as his face twisted in agony. Almost instantly, his mother was next to him, asking if he was okay, if anything was broken, and what hurt the most.

“Dangit, mom, let me do this on my own!” he snapped.

She jumped back in shock, he eyes reflecting her surprise. “I suppose if that’s what you want to do, I won’t get in the way. I’ll be right here, though, just ask if you need any help.”

The only response she got was a growl. Bound rolled over onto his stomach and started using his forelegs, the only legs with any sort of strength at the moment, to crawl toward the chair. Anger, not inspiration, was his motivator now. Briefly, he considered getting himself back on the support rail with magic, but he dismissed the idea. His legs would not get stronger if he used magic for everything.

In reaching for the rail, he realized his forelegs were not long enough to grasp it. He’d have to crawl into the wheelchair directly from the floor. The prospect of facing humiliation like this in front of anypony filled him with frustration, and his face flushed red. Bound reached out with a hoof and pulled the chair close. His hooves now both on the seat, he started to pull his body up. As soon as most of his weight was on the chair, however, it shot out from underneath him and rolled away. His jaw rattled as his chin slammed onto the floor.

His vision went white with rage. Rage at himself, for his helplessness, and at the stupid disease that refused to let him go. Had he not spent enough time railing against his fate? The ground shook as he slammed a hoof against it. It’s no use. I’ve given it everything I’ve got for weeks now, and I still can’t walk. Rubbing the tears of anger from his eyes, Bound looked at the wheelchair, what he was sure would be his prison for the rest of his days.

“Mom,” he asked, “could you help me get back into my wheelchair? I really need to lie down.”

She hopped up and rushed over to the wheelchair, bringing it to Bound’s side. “You’ve gotten really far today, Color. Don’t you want to try again? You were so close! I bet—”

“Mom. Please,” he asserted.

“Alright,” she said, her face turning solemn, “you know what’s best for your body.”

Bound was able to get back into his bed after a few minutes of struggling with the wheelchair. He could feel his sweat seep into the sheets, a perfect symbolism of the pains he could not escape from. No matter how many times his mom cleaned them, the sweat and the agony would always return, always remind him of what he had become. Bound hated that he had come to accept his lot in life, but really, what was there to do? With the tiny spark of hope he had left, he tried to think of a way past this dilemma.

What got me out of this bed in the first place?

His thoughts went back to the day Apple Bloom and her friends visited. Something happened that day. Something opened his eyes. He needed that again, more than strong legs, more than clean sheets.

And right now, there was only one way he knew how to get it.

A cool breeze wafted across Bound’s face as he wheeled down the path to Sweet Apple Acres. It carried the scent of apples with it, filling his nose and putting him at ease. He’d certainly picked a nice time for the trip; the sky was scheduled to be clear in the evening and the sun was just beginning to touch the horizon. Though Bound typically had plenty of time alone, it was different out here. It felt almost as if the world was here, watching him, listening to his thoughts. For what reasons, he had no idea, but it was good to just enjoy the outside sometimes. If he listened hard enough, he could hear wind carry something akin to music. He stopped for a moment and opened his ears to it.

Wait a second, that is music!

Bound turned toward the source of the tune. Leaning forward and squinting, he scanned the nearby line of apple trees. He couldn’t see anything, but the sound was definitely coming from there. It sounded so sweet, so soft. When those notes hit his ears, it didn’t feel like he was stuck in a wheelchair anymore. It felt more like he was just sitting in an audience, witnessing a spectacular performance. The thing that bugged him, though, was that he had no idea what instrument it was. He had to find the source of that sound.

Though Bound was woe to stray from the trail in his wheelchair, he was determined. Getting over the fence surrounding the apple grove was difficult, but Bound had just enough strength to levitate his wheelchair and himself over. Giving his horn a rest, Bound chose to use his forelegs to wheel onward. He weaved through the trees, moving slowly closer to the source of the music. It only made sense for the pony playing to be one of the Apples, but he didn’t know any of them to be musicians—just farmers. Maybe one of them was secretly talented. And that instrument! The tone it created, the emotion, it drove him mad with curiosity! There was something else, too. Something more to that music than sound. It was almost like he could see the music as well.

No more than a couple minutes into his voyage, he found the culprit: an orange-coated mare wearing a stetson. She was leaning up against an apple tree, her hat nearly completely covering her face. The instrument in her lap was unfamiliar to Bound.

“Uh, hello?” he called out, wincing. A second after speaking, he realized what he’d look like to the mare: a cripple, all alone, on her property. He sincerely hoped she wasn’t the mocking type.

The strumming stopped and the mare turned to Bound. A broad smile appeared on her face and she stood up quickly. “Howdy, welcome to Sweet Apple Acres! I’m Applejack. What can I do ya for?” She subtly moved the instrument behind her and added, “Sorry about the racket.”

Yup, definitely an Apple. Not the mocking type, either. Must be my lucky day.

“Hi. I’m Color Bound. I came here looking for Apple Bloom. And b-by the way, your playing was really good. Th-that’s sorta how I ended up here,” he stammered. Kinda cute, too.

“Aw, shucks, I can’t play worth anything on that. Now, I woulda taken ya fer one of Apple Bloom’s classmates, but yer lookin’ a mite old for that.”

“Well,” said Bound, scratching his head nervously, “she visited because she heard I didn’t have a cutie mark.”

“Ah! You musta been that new crusader she got all excited ‘bout a while back. I’ll tell ya, she was determined to convince you to join, more than I’d seen her in a while. I expected her ta’ be more let down when she first came back empty-hoofed, but she didn’t seem so bothered. I guess you bein’ here is sayin’ she done it right in the end?”

“Eh, I dunno if I want to be going crusading any time soon, but h-her and her friends’ visit really helped out. Wanted to say thank you.” Bound’s lower lip began to quiver and he bit down on it. He couldn’t believe he was falling apart in front of this cute mare. First it was just stammering, but now he was shaking and perspirating, too! It was all he could do to hope she didn’t notice.

“Aw, that’s real sweet of ya. Right now, I’m afraid Apple Bloom’s out with the Crusaders at Rarity’s place. Don’t imagine she’ll be back ‘till tomorrow. I could pass along your thanks, if ya like.”

She’s nice, can play that instrument, got a level head—what doesn’t Applejack have?

“Heh, thanks for the offer, but I’d really like to tell her in-pony.” Bound’s gaze shot around, searching for anything to look at besides Applejack’s face. It was quite impossible for him to hold eye contact any longer. What he found was the instrument she’d been playing. “Say, that instrument sounded really interesting. What is it?”

Confusion showed on Applejack’s face for just a moment before it lit up and she reached down to pick up the object in question. “This thing? It’s a banjo.”

“Wow, a banjo? That’s cool. I’ve never heard one before. Where did you get it?”

Applejack took another look at the banjo, this time fondly. “Belonged to my pa. He’d take it out a few nights a week and jus’ strum it in front of the fireplace for a while. Dunno if he knew any real songs, but it was relaxin’ ta listen to all the same. Passed it on to me and mah brother, but he don’t play it at all, so I keep it tuned up and play it every now and then.”

Bound’s eyes were fixed on the banjo the entire time she talked, almost in a trance. When she finished, he broke out of it and looked at her for a moment before his shyness caused him to quickly look away again. “Tell me, Applejack, d-does it feel as good to play it as it does to hear it?”

She smirked at him and said, “Why don’t you find out?”

His jaw dropped and eyes widened as Bound beheld Applejack holding the banjo out to him. “Y-you’re serious? I can play it?”

“Sure as sugar, hun. Just show it some care.”

After wheeling himself closer, Bound slowly reached out with both forelegs and grasped the banjo (blushing when his hoof touched Applejack’s). It felt light yet significant in his hooves. For a moment, he had no idea what to do with it. Posture was completely lost on him and he merely held it out awkwardly.

Applejack smiled and guided the banjo into the proper posture in his lap (Bound’s cheeks were now clearly on fire with bashfulness). “Now you put one hoof up here, on the neck—” she moved one of his hooves to the correct position, “—and one down here to strum it. Though, I s’pose as a unicorn you got more options. That’s jus’ how I play it.”

The sudden realization made Bound jump a little. “Oh! Unicorn.” Of course! He could have just picked it up with his magic!

Timidly, he moved his left hoof up and down the neck. It felt too weird; he was never able to keep the banjo steady and hold the strings down at the same time. Eventually, he decided to hold the back of the neck with his hoof and the strings with his magic. Picking a couple strings to hold, he said, “So, I just...” and gently strummed with his right hoof.

It was perfect. There was no other word to describe it. Sure, the tone came out unrefined, and Bound wasn’t really holding down any chord in particular, but his ears heard nothing other than perfection. What all exactly came out of that banjo, he couldn’t say. Another listener might hear only sound, but Bound experienced something else... and that something told him to play more.

He looked at Applejack, his eyes asking permission to strum it again. After a nod from her, he looked back to the banjo, adjusted his magic a bit, and once again ran his hoof across the strings. The flawed yet immaculate sound reverberated through the air one more time. A ridiculous grin appeared on Bound’s face and for just that speck in time, he was able to forget about fate and play.

Once he was finished, he laid the banjo flat across his lap and looked at Applejack. He had to give her something in return for this, but he had nothing to offer except words. I hope that’s good enough.

“Can I be honest with you, Applejack?”

Her smile widened. “Of course, sugarcube. I’m all about honesty.”

Offering a weak smile that quickly faded away, Bound’s eyes fell to the banjo in his lap. “I didn’t just come here to thank Apple Bloom. I came looking for something. I’m not sure what it is; maybe it’s inspiration, maybe motivation or passion. Something to get me past this ordeal. Whatever it is, Apple Bloom gave it to me when she visited, and I was hoping she’d help me find it again. Silly, right? That a colt like me, nigh-short of becoming an adult, can’t find his way out of a bind on his own.”

Applejack set a hoof on his shoulder. “Now I don’t think that at all. You’ve been dealt a rough life, and there ain’t nopony who could come out of it unscathed, much less on their own. Dependin’ on others ain’t a weakness, it’s a strength. It shows you know your shortcomings and how to get past ‘em. Ya think a pony like Apple Bloom got past her problems on her own? ‘Course not. That’s why she’s got a big sis and the Crusaders.”

“I... I guess that makes sense.” Bound turn to look Applejack directly in the eyes. He could feel his own starting to fill with tears. “But what am I missing? What if Apple Bloom can’t help? What if nopony can?”

“Bound, I reckon that don’t matter. You’ve already beaten whatever it is that’s got you down.” She paused for a moment as Bound rubbed his eyes. “Ya know how I can tell? Yer out here. You’re searching for it. Only a matter of time before you find it.”

“T-thanks, Applejack.” He gently tapped her hoof on his shoulder. “I should go before I take up any more of your time. Thank you so much for letting me play your banjo.” Gripping it with his magic, he held the banjo out to her.

She raised an eyebrow and looked at him in confusion. “My banjo? I can’t recall ever ownin’ one. This here is your banjo.”

The insinuation was not lost on Bound. “No. No no no. I am not taking your father’s banjo. Thank you, but no.” He pushed the banjo further toward Applejack.

“I do remember pa playin’ a banjo,” she said, putting a hoof to her chin in thought, “but we lost that old thing a long time ago. This here can’t be his.”

Bound just gaped at her, almost losing his magic grip on the banjo. “But, why? I could just get one somewhere else. You don’t have to give this up for me!”

The smirk reappeared on her face. “Pa would get mighty angry if he knew I kept his ol’ banjo from somepony that needed it a lot more than me. Now you take care of it, alright? I’d hate to have to mess up somepony I jus’ met.” Giving a wink and a tip of her hat, Applejack started walking back toward the barn. “Been a pleasure!” she called over her shoulder.

“Thank you! I won’t forget this! Thank you so much!” Bound yelled back at her, tears finally starting to stream down his face.

“What you thankin’ me for? I ain’t done nothin’, jus’ listened to you play your banjo a little.” With that, she was gone.

Bound waited a short while, letting his tears dry up before turning to the banjo. It felt so right in its place on his lap. All he could do was stare at it, his heart too full for words. His hooves were shaking as he repositioned the banjo. His horn pulsed with anticipation. Clenching his teeth, he closed his eyes and began to play.

The music was nothing less than the first time he heard it. Bound could not only hear, but feel the echoes resound throughout the orchard. The trees heard it, the ground felt it, the air carried it. He had no idea what it was, but he needed it, just like everything else around him. Guided only by emotion, he continued to strum the banjo, adjusting his magic with each swipe. His technique rushed at times, slowed at others, and the music ebbed and flowed in return. He played in notes, in colors, in feelings, in tales. So caught up, he was, that he failed to notice the flash come from his flank. Even had he noticed, Bound would not have cared; he was playing to the world, and the world sang back.

He played for No One, and No One listened.

Every Night Is a Swan Song

Bluebell would never have spent a warm summer’s night inside a seedy bar like Salt Lick Lounge. Loudness and violence were two things Bluebell liked to avoid, particularly the latter. But she was here with her harp, and that was enough for him. Thank Celestia for Starshine, he’d have never have found the harpist if not for her. The harpist set out onto the rickety bar stage without a sound, dim spotlights cast down upon her, reflecting her slightly matured face and beautiful harp to all. Whoops and hollers filled the room. He scoffed. Charlatans. Placing the golden harp between her hooves, she began playing.

The delicate strumming of her harp ensnared his ears, captivating Bluebell as he sat at his own shoddy table, away from the others. Such a sweet melody, the kind that carries in the ears for weeks. As each chord was struck, the irate patrons calmed, all eyes on her. The usual bar sounds were drowned out, nothing but the harp’s song remained.

But she, with carnation hair and rose coat, never returned the crowd's gaze, focusing solely on the harp. Time seemed to slow in the bar, and everything but the harpist seemed to fade from Bluebell’s mind. He had to meet her. Breaking his trance on the music for a brief second, he could tell the others were thinking of doing the same. However, the music was on the forefront of everypony's mind. Nothing could hope to match the lovely chorus of strings that the harpist played—it was food for the ears, and particularly good food at that.

Before he knew it, though, the performance was over. Cheers and shouts of encore followed, but the harpist did not play. Instead, she returned the crowd’s lustful gaze, and beckoned a manly-looking unicorn onto the stage with a wave of the hoof. Bluebell sighed, how he wished that stallion was him. Today was not his lucky day, but each day there was a chance of victory. Tomorrow, she’d ask for another, like she always did.

“You wouldn’t leave a little lady to carry this harp all by herself, would you?” she asked in a candied voice.

The unicorn was quick to respond. “No ma’am!”

And that was that. As quickly as she came, she was gone, gone with that stallion. Disappointment swelled within Bluebell, a malignant void of which he had scarcely felt: heartache, a particularly severe case. He would try again, tomorrow perhaps. No sense in giving up now.

He went home, briefly glanced at and left the many letters in his neglected mailbox—probably taxes anyways—watered his plants, and went to sleep, dreams consumed with thoughts of the harpist and her beautiful music. What he would give for a private performance. If only he were a bit older. Perhaps then she would see him as he saw her. In the depths of his sleep, he hummed a few bars from her song.

A persistent knocking at Bluebell’s door woke him. He stumbled out of bed, noticing with dismay the time on his clock as it tumbled to the floor, batted away with a stray hoof. He had missed his breakfast appointment with Starshine.

“Hello Bluebell,” Starshine said when he opened the door. “You seem to have forgotten something besides combing your mane today. What, so busy with your plants you don’t have time for your friends anymore?”

“I’m sorry, I was up late watching the harpist play. You—”

“Again? What’s so special about this harpist? I mean, I’ve heard her, she’s good, but not worth seeing every night for three days!”

“She’s just amazing, you know? You should see her,” he said, hoping to defuse the situation. He hadn’t noticed how wistfully he said “see” until it was far too late to change the inflection. He immediately regretted his choice of phrase.

Starshine stared back at him, her frown deepening. “What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing, nothing. Just that she’s very talented.”

“Whatever.” That wouldn’t be the end of it. Starshine had very creative ways of holding grudges. Particularly when she figured out Bluebell was eyeballing mares.

“Here, I’ll make it up to you. How about we go for lunch? Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“I suppose.”

Bluebell only tripped twice on their way to the Horte Cuisine. He considered himself lucky.

After a lunch full of kicks under the table, magically created spaghetti explosions, and multiple expensive purchases around the time Bluebell tried pinning down the equally desperate-to-escape waiter for a check, Bluebell was almost so exhausted that he didn’t even feel like going to Salt Lick Lounge to see the harpist. The keyword being almost.

He ordered a cheap grain of salt, and sat himself down at his usual spot, still empty despite the crowd. The Lounge was packed full of stallions waiting to get a glance at the mystical harp-playing mare. In turn to the recent influx, the Lounge had upgraded that stage, spotlights replaced with ultra-bright new bulbs, stage repainted with the glorious red of a zinnia, and orchid curtains. Bluebell wasn’t completely sure he was sitting in the same bar anymore.

The harpist seemed more beautiful than ever. Creative application of make-up and hair dye, Bluebell was sure, but that didn’t detract from the allure one iota. Bluebell fancied for a moment, that the harpist glanced over to his lone table on the way to center stage. Maybe today was the day. Whoops and hollers were things of the past, now the lesser stallions were openly salivating, some of the more restrained whistled to themselves. Though, like before, all was silent when she caressed the opening arpeggio.

The music’s presence dominated the bar, even stronger than before. Twin melodies of a fugue entwined into one single harmony, almost calling out to Bluebell. It was as if every time she struck a chord, it hit a string in his heart. He loved every second of it. He wanted to be forever hers and nothing more.

When the music ended, the harpist locked eyes with Bluebell, out of chance, maybe out of fate. At this point, it didn’t matter. He almost flinched back; her gaze inspected him, disassembled him, and rebuilt him all at once. His eyes met hers, and he knew she had made her selection for the night. Bluebell blessed his lucky stars. All the days of hopeful waiting would not be for naught.

The harpist beckoned him as she did with the unicorn before him, and the pegasus before him, and the red earth pony before him. He knew what to do on instinct, no explanation was needed. Bluebell immediately stood from his seat, knocking the chair he sat on over. He paid no head, nor did the others.
Scampering up the stage, he stood before her, openmouthed and awestruck. She was even more beautiful up close and personal.

“Would you like to help me with my harp today, young man?” she said in a honeysuckle voice, emerald eyes shining like freshly polished gems.

“Of course!” he responded.

“Then you may do the honors.”

He lifted the harp with his front hooves, being careful to balance it. The harp was deceptively light-weight. The crowd cheered as the harpist and Bluebell exited stage right. Leading him down a short hallway to her dressing room, the harpist instructed him to place the harp on a round table.

“I’d love to see a private show,” Bluebell said. “I have bits if you want.”

The harpist’s eyes narrowed.

Bluebell began to understand why. “Oh no, I mean I love your music. Play a song, just for me.”

“I don’t need your money, sweetie.”

She had called him sweetie. Was it a sign? Bluebell was almost giddy with excitement, but kept himself restrained on the outside.

“I’m sorry. Please, I just want to hear you play.”

“Very well, I will give you the performance of a lifetime.”

She hoisted herself up on the round table and began to play. This time, however, she didn’t focus on the harp, her eyes solely on Bluebell. Smitten, Bluebell could not help but keep his eyes firmly focused on the harpist. She seemed to get even more beautiful as the song progressed, full of life and energy.

The song, a sonata in C major, rang triumph in Bluebell's ears. Euphoria rushed through his veins, happiness absolute within him. He could spend the rest of his life, sitting here with the harpist, listening to her godly songs. He reached out to touch her, but drew back at the last moment. Patience. A gentlepony would wait until after the song was over, and Bluebell was a gentlepony, after all.

She blushed at him, knowing full well what he intended. He returned the blush with one of his own, flattening his ears against his temples in embarrassment. Lost in the music, Bluebell sat back watching in awe.

She seemed different from the harpist that had started playing a song on the bar stage a forgotten time ago. Bluebell couldn’t exactly pinpoint what it was for the longest time, until something caught his eye. Her mane and coat. They seemed even more glossy and bright than before. Had she managed to sneak some special dyes while he wasn’t looking?

His focus was taken back by the music, which had moved into the development phase. The tone of triumph transformed into a theme of love, a slow melody that warmed the crevices of Bluebell’s heart. He had never felt like this before. Feel-good music was one thing, but this was another ballpark entirely. The rest of the room faded into the background, his eyes were only for the harpist.

Lust overtook him, almost causing him to reach out and grab the impeccable harpist. He managed to contain his urges, however, and sat himself back down. The harpist took almost no notice this time, intent on finishing the song.

On a whim, Bluebell decided to take a look at his fetlocks to make sure they were in prime condition for what was to follow. Unclean hooves would risk imminent failure for him. Upon looking down, however, he was met with an even greater shock than dirty hooves. The limb he saw was not his. It was dull blue, not the lovely cyan coat he sported. He tried moving it and it moved as if it were one of his own. He looked at his other hoof, dull blue as well. He realized, with horror, that these were actually his hooves, aged.

“Stop,” he managed to croak out his suddenly dry mouth. “Please.”

The harpist did not hear him, or if she did, ignored him. The movement had progressed downward into a A minor recapitulation of pity. Bluebell tried to run, but found he couldn’t abandon the music, not for even his own life. He struggled regardless.

“Calm, sweet child. It will all be over soon,” the harpist said in her honeysuckle voice. “You will have no more concern than dust in the wind.”

She had stopped looking like a near-middle aged mare. She couldn’t have been older than adolescence, and by Celestia, was she even more beautiful. He couldn’t even look away. He couldn’t scream. He couldn’t but see his own reflection in her primrose harp, which seemed to gleam with its own life. Even in the poor reflection, he could see his jet-black mane had balded, little was left of his coat’s sheen, and his face had an innumerable number of wrinkles.

He tried to groan, but it was too painful to go through with. He was vaguely aware that his hooves could no longer support him, and he collapsed onto the floor.

The music deafened him, the sounds of his collapse muted. The song was beginning to resolve back into its C major routes. Bluebell dragged himself forward, trying to grasp the harp. His aged mind still tried to race, still tried to save him, and the only way was to take that harp away. Even in his weakened state, he was sure he could grab it and end that lovely song. His survival instincts overrode the hypnotic state he had been placed into, and he began to notice the objects in his peripheral vision: bones, lots of them. Stallion skulls holding scented candles, mirror frames formed from bones.

He managed to squawk out a brief yelp of surprise.

“Hush, sweet child. You were strong to resist, but you’re too weak to stop me now. Just stop and listen, it’ll all be over soon.”

“Screw you!” Bluebell yelled with one of the few ounces of determination he had left.

He stuck out a hoof, a mangled mess of balding hair and nearly putrid flesh. Pieces of bone bled through his arm. Aging was not an issue now. He was rotting. His heart pumped a beat that filled his ears with determination, an arrhythmic tempo that created dissonance with the progression of the harp. He staggered another step forward, looking for all the world to be a walking corpse. His feet could carry he no longer, the bones beneath him liquidified, and he tumbled forward. With a final attempt, he managed to tap the harp with one hoof, which was more bone than flesh, swatting the harp out of the harpist’s arms.

The harp clattered to the floor, bending the frame. Several of the strings broke as it collided with a side table. Success. Bluebell looked at the remains of his arm, still dissolving despite the stopped music. Bone turned to dust along his forearm, painless, but Bluebell knew it was over for him. He hadn’t expected anything better; if he lived through this, he’d just be a freak.

“You! You’ve ruined everything for me!” the harpist shrieked, the honeyed voiced changing to a bird-like squawk of rage, bringing a hoof down on Bluebell’s fragile skull.

Bluebell died with a smile on his face and someone special in mind.

Starshine finally took her letter out of Bluebell’s mailbox. It was something she couldn’t bear to do for the longest time, because that would finally lay the rumors to rest: Bluebell was dead. And he’d never know about the letter. The letter revealing the truth that she had hidden for years. She didn’t know what happened to him, but it had happened as soon as that harpist disappeared. She would find that mare, no matter how far she ran, no matter where she hid.

There was one thing left to take care of. Starshine moved to the backyard, where the garden was. Bluebell had always loved his plants. She took out a hose and watered them appropriately. These plants would live full lives, just like Bluebell wanted.

“I’m sorry,” she said to the plants. “I should have never told him about that wench. I thought it’d be good for him, what I fool I was, huh? I hope you can accept my apology.”

The plants said nothing.

“Well, I don’t mind it if you hold it against me.”

The plants said nothing.

“I’ll get her back, I swear it.”

Somewhere, in the corner of Bluebell’s garden, a Blue Orchid wilted.

VOTING

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The stories listed above this chapter are the finalists, and they are:
– His Heart Too Full For Words
– A Deck with No Hearts
– The WestFillya Waltz
– Memories of Chaos
– The Good You Might Do
– Bittersweet Music
– Joie de Vivre
– Every Night Is a Swan Song
– The End of the Season
– My Sunshine
– Consonance
– Melody of Solace
– Made of Dreams

The finalists were decided by putting the stories through an internal preliminary voting round between the authors (See: The /fic/ Ponychan thread for how it went down).

Don't forget to check back to see who the winners are!