Mythic Dawn

by MagnetBolt

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Original Character, Luster Dawn, Mystery, Bat Pony, Comedy, Adventure
Length: 61660

Luster Dawn has never gone on an adventure before. She's never had real friends before. Unfortunately she's going to get both.

Luster Dawn is Princess Twilight Sparkle's personal student, but she really needs to get away from those dusty old books and do some field work! Clearly the best thing to do is to send her to manage the Summer Sun Celebration and... wait, this is starting to seem familiar.

Written for National Novel Writing Month

Content Warning: Thestralian Slang, Black and Red OCs, Bad Doggos, Bullying, Solipsism, Conspiracy Theories.

Published 2019-12-19 19:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-12-19 19:10:01 UTC

Chapter 1

Luster Dawn was the personal student of Princess Twilight Sparkle, and she was sure of exactly three things. First, that her mentor was the greatest hero who had ever lived. Second, that Prench was just Neightalian with extra vowels sprinkled onto it to make it fancy. Third, that today was the day she was going to go on her own adventure.

“Today’s the day!” she said, to nopony in particular.

“The day you finally learn your place?” asked the most worst pony in the whole world, or at least that’s how Dawn would describe the pony who had snuck up behind her. Luster groaned and turned to look at her.

Azure Fire smirked down at Dawn. She had the same white coat and blonde mane as her father, and used his title as a way to bludgeon other ponies into submission.

“I didn’t see you there,” Dawn said. “I didn’t know you ate lunch in the garden.”

Actually, Dawn knew the opposite. Azure Fire liked to take her lunch in the palace, where important ponies could see her and unimportant ones could envy her. It was why Dawn ate in the garden. Alone. Where she didn’t have to deal with her.

“Why would I do that?” Azure Fire scoffed. She trotted over, with two of her lackeys trailing her. They were barely even ponies, somewhere between attendants trying to ride her coattails to fame and accessories for her outfit. “Let me guess, you’re eating weird Saddle Arabian food again.”

She yanked Dawn’s lunch away from her, unwrapping the parcel and rolling her eyes.

“Really? I don't know how you can stomach garbage like this.”

“Please give me back my sandwich,” Luster Dawn groaned.

“It’s hardly a real meal. I suppose if you grew up with unrefined taste like a peasant, you’d just eat anything.” Azure dropped it without warning, and Dawn couldn’t save it. The sandwich split open on the ground, mango chutney spilling like blood over the grass, tomato and onion rolling into the dirt, dandelion greens lost among the lawn.

“My lunch!” Dawn yelled.

Azure laughed, making sure to step on the fallen sandwich as she trotted away. Her lackeys copied her in leaving hoofprints and snobby looks as they left.

“And Princess Twilight wonders why I have trouble making friends with ponies like her around,” Dawn groaned. She picked up what was left of her meal and tossed it in the garbage. “I mean I get that friends are important to have! We did a whole song and there were some very nice creatures in Ponyville, but I just don’t think it’s possible to make friends with ponies like Azure and now I’m talking to myself again!”

Dawn took a deep breath. If she ran back to the deli, maybe there was time to get something before lunch was over.

The belltower tolled before she’d even finished the thought, and she lowered her head and started toward the palace and her afternoon lesson with an empty stomach.

“I mean, you agree she’s the best, right?” Luster Dawn asked Lieutenant Gallus as they walked through the corridor. “There’s a reason practically every single one of these windows shows her saving Equestria!”

Gallus glanced up at the stained glass.

“The main reason is that when they rebuilt the palace they wanted it to fit the pony who would use it,” he said. When Dawn faltered, he grinned and continued. “But she is pretty great. I don’t really know the other Princesses very well, but I did get to see Princess Twilight in action.”

“And she inspired you to become a guard and protect other ponies?” Dawn guessed.

Gallus laughed. “No, three square meals a day and not having to go back to Griffonstone inspired me to be a guard.”

That made Dawn’s stomach growl. “I can see why that would be motivating.”

“She should be inside,” Gallus said, leading Dawn to the door. “Do you need anything else?”

“No, thank you,” Dawn said. She knocked.

“Come in!”

Dawn pulled the door open and stopped. Princess Twilight was inside, and not alone. She was sitting with Rarity, chatting over tea in hushed voices.

“Oh, um, am I early?” Dawn asked. “I’m so sorry for intruding!”

“Don’t be silly, darling,” Rarity said. “I was just filling Twilight in on the latest gossip. If anything, I’m sorry for keeping her so late.”

“Rarity, you know you don’t have to be sorry about that,” Twilight said. “I love spending time with you!”

Rarity smiled. “Yes, and I’m just greedy enough to steal every second I can, but I wouldn’t want to take them from your student.” She stood up and walked over to Luster Dawn. “You know, we never did get a chance to speak alone. One of these days you should come to the boutique. I know all sorts of stories about your teacher that she wouldn’t teach you…”

“Rarity!” Princess Twilight’s cheeks turned pink. “Don’t you dare! I don’t want her thinking I’m some kind of… of…”

“Hm?” Rarity raised her eyebrows. “I’m curious what word you’d use there, darling. Because no matter what you say it’s going to imply to your student that you’re exactly that.”

“That’s the problem!” Twilight groaned. “If I concede that you win this round, will you have mercy?”

“I suppose a concession will do for now,” Rarity said. She smiled. There were teeth in that smile. “Tickets to this year’s Gala, and a promise that you’ll actually spend time with me there instead of trying to make everything perfect for everypony?”

“You could have just asked for that,” Princess Twilight said.

“Yes, but winning the tickets is better than just asking for them,” Rarity said. “Now, I’ll leave you alone with your student while I start planning dresses.” She strutted out with the kind of real poise and dignity that Azure Fire would never manage.

“She’s kidding,” Twilight said, once she’d left. “She’s probably had the dresses sketched out for weeks now and just wanted an excuse to make them.”

“Are your friends coming by more often?” Luster Dawn asked.

“I think when I told them about my student thinking we’d grown apart, they got determined to prove me wrong.” Twilight smiled. “It’s made things a little more lively around here, so I’m not going to complain.”

Luster smiled. “You seem happier than usual, Princess.”

“Of course I am,” Twilight said. “Rarity always brightens my day. So, shall we begin your lesson? I was thinking we could go over some of the recent discoveries about the history of Yakyakistan during the time of the Crystal Empire. Now that they’ve started allowing our archaeologists and historians to visit their sacred sites, we’re getting a more complete picture of their ancient history!”

She held up a folder full of pictures and field reports.

“Actually, Princess, there was something I was wondering about,” Luster said. She reached into her saddlebags and pulled out a slim book. “Have you seen this?”

Twilight glanced at the title and sighed. “The Ninth Stable.” She took the book from Luster and flipped through it. “I’m surprised to see this here.”

“Is it true it’s a banned book?” Luster Dawn asked, excited. “The pony who sold it to me said that you’d ordered it to be destroyed, and I was thinking, why would Princess Twilight do that, unless of course there really was something to it!”

“He’s half right,” Twilight said. “It’s not really banned, but when this came out a few years ago I made a rather public statement about how much I disliked it. Do you know what this book is about?”

“It’s sort of a manifesto or a call to action,” Luster said. “There’s a bunch of stuff about you overthrowing Celestia, implications that she was exiled, that kind of thing.”

“It’s a book written by ponies afraid of change,” Twilight said. “One of the first things ponies do when things change is they look for others to blame. They’re just scared, and when ponies are afraid they can sometimes lash out at others. I’m just a convenient pony for them to attack.”

“But shouldn’t you do something?” Luster asked. “It sounds like they’re some kind of cult!”

“Like what?” Princess Twilight asked. “Order them not to be afraid? No, the best thing I can do is just keep being the best leader I can be, just like you need to be the best student you can be.” She smiled. “Speaking of which, have you made any friends lately?”

“Well, I was looking into the cult, and it’s been really hard to actually connect with anypony…” Luster trailed off. She didn’t want to tell Twilight that she spent most of her days at school either alone or wishing Azure Fire would leave her alone. She had a feeling she’d be told she needed to try harder to be the unicorn’s friend. Or worse, Twilight would send a politely worded letter and things would get worse.

“It can be hard,” Princess Twilight agreed. “I always had trouble making friends. I had a long road to really understanding the magic of friendship. Princess Celestia had to really shove me onto the right path.”

“I’ll just try… extra hard,” Luster Dawn said. “So how about Yakyakistan? I bet they’ve got all sorts of interesting legends!”

“They do,” Princess Twilight hesitated. She looked at her Yakyakistan folder. “You know what? History isn’t going anywhere. Maybe this is a sign…” She cleared her throat. “You simply must stop reading those dusty old books!” she said, trying to sound like Princess Celestia.

“This book isn’t dusty or old,” Dawn said, confused.

“It’s an expression,” Twilight said. “You know, I’ve had a feeling for a while now that what you really want is to go on an adventure. The kind I used to go on with my friends. It can really help to get out there in the real world and deal with practical problems instead of academic ones, and the change of scenery helps a lot too.”

Luster perked up. “Does that mean you’re going to send me on a monster-hunting trip? Or tomb raiding? Oh! I get it! You probably found some forbidden frozen tomb in Yakyakistan with puzzle doors and undead guardians and you need to send your best pony out to deal with the problem before any of the locals can get hurt!”

“I was thinking of something a little more local, but I’ll keep you in mind if we do find a forbidden tomb anywhere,” Princess Twilight joked. “I’m sure you’re aware of what’s going to happen a month from now?”

“A month from today?” Dawn thought for a moment. “That would be… the Summer Sun Celebration?”

“Exactly!” Twilight said. “Or one of several other holidays depending on who your favorite Princess is. I was going to have my personal visitation be to Ponyville this year. After that little trip we took I’m feeling a little homesick for it.”

“I’m sure that’ll be nice,” Luster Dawn said. “What can I do to help?”

“I’m glad you asked!” Twilight said. She grabbed a scroll and parchment and started writing. “I want you to go to Ponyville and take charge of the preparations. I’ll write ahead to Starlight to let her know you’re coming.”

“Sure,” Dawn said. “I’ll spend some time after classes researching what I’ll need, and when I go there--”

“You’ll leave later today,” Twilight said.

“Today?! But I’ve got…” Dawn paused. “A test coming up?”

“The good thing is, the curriculum at the School of Friendship is excellent!” Princess Twilight grinned. “I’ll talk to your teachers. They’ll send along any homework they need you to do, and you can take classes there in the meantime.”

“But I can’t just go into it without doing the proper research!”

“Luster Dawn, you’re a smart pony. I know you can handle it. More than that, I want you to get experience dealing with problems without spending a week in the library working your way up to it.” She smiled and lowered her voice. “And it’s probably better to start you off with a nice, friendly party than throwing you right into an evil tomb.”

Dawn looked around the dorm room one last time. She’d grabbed only the essentials, but she’d realized pretty quickly that all she really owned were essentials. No pictures on the walls, only a few outfits since she’d never really been invited to anything, and her most prized possession - the most comfortable pillow in the world.

“What’s this? Has the favorite finally failed and been kicked out?” Azure Fire asked.

Dawn groaned and looked down the hallway. Her accessories today were stallions. It was obvious exactly why they were following her around since they spent more time looking at her flank than listening to what she was saying.

“I’m not being kicked out,” Dawn said, growing just enough of a spine to say something.

“That’s not what it looks like to me. You know what I see?” Azure asked. “I see a commoner who’s finally going where they belong. Even Princess Twilight didn’t stick around in Ponyville once she became important. She’s just shipping you off to make room for somepony with real talent.”

She smirked and held a hoof to her chest.

“I mean me, in case you needed help figuring out what I was implying,” Azure continued.

“Thanks, I wouldn’t have gotten that on my own,” Luster muttered.

“I know. That’s why you’re getting shoved off to Nowheretown.”

“It’s one of the most important places in Equestria!”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Azure Dawn said, laughing and walking past Luster, bumping into her and shoving her into a wall as she passed.

“If there’s one thing I won’t miss it’s her,” Luster muttered, trying not to admit that somewhere deep inside, she felt like she was being abandoned, too.

“And I had to leave so quickly I didn’t even get a chance to get lunch, can you believe it?” Dawn asked. “It really felt like I was getting shoved out of there. Do you think she was right? Princess Twilight wouldn’t just kick me out without saying anything, right?”

“Ma’am, this is a Hayburger Princess,” the pony behind the counter said. She sounded like she’d spent a thousand years in purgatory. Or about eight hours in retail, which amounted to roughly the same quantity of suffering.

“Okay, yeah, but do you think this is because I was talking about a that cult? Maybe Princess Twilight is really sensitive about it and she got mad because I brought it up and she thinks I’m a member and she’s kicking me out because she thinks I’m going to try and subvert her rule and put Celestia back on the throne but I wouldn’t do that because I really like Princess Twilight!” Luster said, quickly. “But not in like, a weird way.”

“If you’re not going to order, I’m going to have to ask you to step out of line for the next pony,” the worker said.

Luster glanced back at the line. It went all the way to the door and the pony right behind her looked pretty annoyed.

“Oh, um…” Luster looked at the menu. “Can I get a number six with extra dip?”

The tray was slid into her waiting hooves and she started looking for somewhere to sit. The Ponyville Hayburger Princess was in the middle of the lunch rush, and more or less every table was occupied.

Luster’s stomach growled. There had to be somewhere open, right? The world wouldn’t be so unfair that it would keep her from eating lunch twice in a row. Then she spotted it - a table in the corner, hidden by shadows.

She put her tray down on the table before anypony else could take it. And before getting a better look at it.

The shape she’d thought was just a shadow flinched and looked up at the sound.

“Oh! I’m so sorry, I didn’t know anypony else was sitting here!” Dawn said. “I didn’t see you there and--” her stomach growled as if on cue.

The shadow moved and resolved itself as a mare, a slim, tall unicorn whose black mane hung down like a shroud over their face. She brushed it aside to look at Dawn and smiled.

“It’s okay,” they said. “I don’t mind sharing.” She sounded more hopeful than annoyed. “You can sit here if you want.”

“Really?” Luster smiled and sat across from her. “Thank you! You’re a real life saver.”

“Usually I just eat alone,” the mare said. She brushed her mane back more, trying to keep it from falling across her slim features. “I haven’t seen you before. Are you new in town?”

“More or less,” Dawn said. A few hours spent in Ponyville hardly counted as really understanding the place.

“That’s great!” The pony smiled. “I’m Phantasma Gloom. I’m a student at the school of friendship, but, um, I’m actually not very good at making friends. It’s why I end up eating alone…”

“I know what that’s like,” Dawn sighed. “Let me guess, the ponies at school are mostly jerks.”

“No, no, they’re really great!” Phantasma assured her. “Actually I’m pretty new at the school, and it’s just hard figuring out how to talk to ponies. This is the most I’ve talked to a pony in… in… practically forever!” She laughed nervously. “Sorry. I’m probably being weird or creepy…”

Dawn swallowed a big bite of her Prench Dip. “Huh? You’re not weird.”

“I guess I just worry about it,” Phantasma said. “I haven’t been sleeping very well. It’s why I came out here to get a midday snack.” She prodded her stack of hayfries and sauce. “I think I ordered too much. Do you want some?”

“Sure!” Dawn said, taking a few. “I haven’t eaten all day. There was this jerk and-- well, it’s not important.” She wasn’t quite up to telling a random pony that she got bullied regularly. The last thing she wanted to do was make herself seem like a loser.

“Are you going to the school too?” Phantasma asked.

“Sort of. I’ll be attending for a couple of weeks, but I’m just auditing classes while I help out with a project. I’m actually Princess Twilight Sparkle’s personal student!”

Phantasma gasped. “Does that mean I need to bow? Do you have a special title?”

“Unfortunately I’m about as much nobility as you are,” Dawn joked.

Phantasma’s expression soured.

“What’s wrong?” Dawn asked.

“It’s… complicated,” Phantasma sighed. She took a deep breath and smiled. “If you want, um, I could show you the way to the school!”

Dawn looked out the window. The school was one of the largest buildings in town and was visible even from here. The only way a pony wouldn’t be able to find their way to it would be if they were deliberately going the other direction.

“Um…” she was about to refuse, but something in Phantasma’s smile was strangely sad and longing, like somepony who’d been told ‘no’ so many times they didn’t really expect a yes but really, really needed to hear it just once in their life. “Sure,” Dawn said. “Why not?”

After all, Twilight had sent her here to learn about friendship. She wasn’t going to prove Azure Fire right by messing up the first chance she got.

Luster Dawn walked next to Phantasma, but she seemed like the only pony willing to do it. Other ponies avoided looking at her, and once or twice she was sure a pony crossed the street or closed a door just to avoid them.

“I thought this was supposed to be the friendliest town in Equestria,” Dawn muttered. “Why are they acting like this?”

“Oh, they’re not bad, really,” Phantasma Gloom said. Now that they were walking together, the dark unicorn was a full head taller than Dawn, and moved almost completely silently, like her hooves barely touched the cobblestones. “It was much worse in the Empire.”

“You’re from the Crystal Empire?” Dawn asked.

“Yes but… I didn’t really fit in there,” Phantasma said. “This is much better.”

Dawn watched another pony cross the street to avoid them.

“Trust me, this still counts as better,” Phantasma sighed.

“Is there something I should know?” Luster asked, looking at Phantasma out of the corner of her eye. “You’re not like, haunted or anything are you?”

“...Can a pony even be haunted?” Phantasma asked, confused. “I thought ghosts had to stay in haunted houses. Or graveyards. Actually, how do they even know where to haunt? If it’s where ponies died, wouldn’t that mostly be in hospitals? Shouldn’t hospitals be extremely haunted?”

“I did a term paper on spooks, spectres, and ghosts,” Luster said. “There are actually a lot of different kinds! Residual hauntings are the ones in haunted houses. They’re kind of like the ghost replaying the events of its life. According to Toblerone’s Spirit Guide, it’s very rare for a pony to actually be haunted, and it would have to be by someone important to them trying to finish some kind of important business.”

“I must not be haunted then,” Phantasma said, a little sadly. “I’m not important to anypony.”

“Well, your family--”

“I’m an orphan, actually,” Phantasma corrected.

“Oh! Well, if your parents are deceased--”

“Abandoned me. They’re probably alive.”

Luster swallowed. “Um…”

Phantasma smiled. “It’s okay. It’s why I’m here in Ponyville. I’m really very lucky! I got a scholarship, I came to a new place, and now I’m learning all about friendship. The important thing is to always believe that tomorrow will be a better day. Even if today is the worst day of your life, it means things can only improve!”

“That’s a pretty good attitude,” Luster said.

The town started to thin out around them, And the road changed from the well-worn cobblestones of the town streets to newer slab pavement.

“Here we are!” Phantasma said. She stopped halfway across the bridge to the front door and looked down into the water.

“What are you doing?” Luster asked.

“One second. I just have to… there they are.” She waved to a clump of weeds floating in the moat. “Remember not to be late for class!” Phantasma yelled to the plants. “Just because it’s summer doesn’t mean you can sleep through our first period!”

Luster looked at the inanimate kelp, then at Phantasma.

“Okay… you know what, I’m gonna go check in with Principal Starlight,” Dawn said. “I’ll see you later and uh, good luck yelling at the plants!”

“Thank you!” Phantasma said, with a smile.

Luster got inside before she shook her head and let out the breath she was holding. “Maybe she gets all those looks in town because she’s crazy,” Dawn whispered to herself. “I don’t even think earth ponies yell at plants to wake up.”

“You’d be surprised,” Starlight said. “Sorry, but I couldn’t help but overhear.”

“Hello again Principal,” Luster said, shaking her offered hoof. She cleared her throat. “I apologize for the inconvenience. As the personal student of Princess Twilight Sparkle, it is my honor to attend your school.”

“I still think of it as Twilight’s school,” Starlight said. “I’m just taking care of it for her. And now I’ll be taking care of you for a little while.”

“Did my luggage get here?” Dawn asked. “I had to make a stop in town before I came here, and it didn’t make sense to carry my bag the whole way.”

“All taken care of,” Starlight assured her. “But, um, there was one thing I wanted to discuss. The school year already started, so there really weren’t a lot of openings on the schedule.” She held up a hoof to forestall the coming comment. “Not a lot isn’t zero, but between that and a dorm assignment, I had to make a little bit of an arrangement.”

“I’m not kicking a student out of their place, am I?” Luster asked, worried. “I’m just here for a month. I don’t want to put somepony out just because Princess Twilight asked you to fit me in!”

“Nah, nothing like that,” Starlight said. “Besides, with your grades and prior education, you’d be able to earn a spot here or anywhere else even without Princess Twilight’s name on the forms.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Well, we’ve got a lot of students, and there are all sorts of creatures with different needs. We have flying classes for griffons and pegasus ponies, magic classes for unicorns, shapechanging for changelings, that kind of thing. The most important thing has been making sure students have a good, healthy environment.”

“Okay?” Luster still couldn’t quite follow the reasoning.

“I didn’t even think of it as a problem until Fluttershy pointed out that some of her students were falling asleep in the middle of class and gave me the answer,” Starlight continued. “Some creatures are naturally nocturnal, and we’d only been offering classes during the day, which meant it was as tough on them as asking a pony to stay up past midnight so they could take an algebra test.”

“So you started offering night classes,” Dawn surmised.

“Exactly!” Starlight said. “It actually solved a bunch of problems. More classes offered means more students can take them. It let us admit more students, the creatures in the night classes were happier and more alert, and everypony wins. The only problem is…”

Dawn groaned. “That the only opening you have right now is for those classes. Is that it?”

“I know it’s asking a lot, and if it was for a full semester I’d never do it, but we’ve got an opening in the class, there’s plenty of space in that dorm…”

“It’s fine,” Dawn sighed. “I’ve pulled plenty of all-nighters. One month isn’t so bad.”

“Great! Because I already had your luggage put down there.”

“Down there?”

“Well they don’t like sunlight, and you wouldn’t believe how many caverns there are under the school.” Starlight saw the look on Dawn’s face. “Really nice caverns,” she assured her. “Just as good as the dorms on any other floor! Except for the lack of windows.”

“Great,” Dawn sighed.

“I’ll just have somepony show you down there. There aren’t really signs and--” Starlight looked past Dawn. “Phantasma! Could you show this student down to the undercroft? This is Luster Dawn, she’s--”

“It’s okay, we met already,” Dawn said.

“Does this mean she’s staying in the undercroft with us?” Phantasma gasped. She practically danced in place when Starlight nodded. “That’s amazing! Us meeting must have been fate!”

“Yeah, fate,” Dawn said, a little weakly. “You are a very easy pony to excite.”

“You’re going to love it! Come on and I’ll show you around!”

Phantasma grabbed Dawn’s hoof and pulled.

Starlight waved and watched them go.

“She’s doomed,” Starlight said.

Maybe it was traditional for schools to have secret passages and hints of vast, mysterious areas. Luster Dawn had never quite known what some of the buildings at the School for Gifted Unicorns had been for, though there had been rumors of strange lights, back-room high-energy spell-colliders, and that somepony had set up a still in an unused stairwell.

This had those rumors beaten by a landslide.

“They had all this space under the school?” Luster asked quietly. She could still see the rough edges where the smoothed-out stone met the natural cave surfaces. She caught glimpses of huge spaces through doorways, underground pools and crystals bigger than she was.

“It’s really lucky,” Phantasma said. “Some of the creatures down here don’t do well in sunlight.”

Luster hesitated, trying to figure out how to ask an awkward question. “Yeah. I can imagine. So, um, I couldn’t help but notice that you seem like a normal pony. But you’re taking night classes?”

“Mmhmm.” Phantasma nodded.

“Don’t take this the wrong way but are you… hypothetically, just asking and not judging, you know… a vampony?” Luster Dawn asked.

“I walked here with you in the sunlight,” Phantasma noted. “After having a snack at Hayburger Princess.”

“Well it’s just… why would you take night classes if you’re a normal pony? And you’re definitely not a zombie or anything, so I thought…”

Phantasma sighed. “I’m not a vampony.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s not the worst thing I’ve been accused of,” Phantasma said. Her head dipped, and she looked at her hooves while they walked.

Luster hesitated and put a hoof on her shoulder.

“Hey, wait,” Luster said. She pulled Phantasma into a quick hug. “I meant it when I said sorry. You’ve been nothing but nice to me.”

Phantasma smiled. “Thanks. But if it helps, none of the creatures here will try to eat you.” She paused for half a second. “Probably.”

“That’s good-- wait, probably?”

“I’m joking! Except about Larrikin. And maybe Ibis. You’re good at riddles, right?”

“Yes. Why?”

“You’ll see,” Phantasma said. “Anyway, here we are!”

She opened the door set into the wall, and revealed an irregular kidney-shaped space, the natural shape of the cave used to guide the shape of the common room. A few tables and chairs were spread across the open area, along with several ornate carpets. A boulder had been left in place right in the center like the king of some massive rock garden. Glowing crystals set into the walls and ceiling provided enough light to read by.

“This is nicer than I expected,” Luster said.

The shadows moved in the corner of her vision. When she looked, there was nothing there.

“Huh. Guess it was just my imagination…” Luster said.

“What was?” Asked a voice right next to her.

Dawn almost jumped out of her skin, stumbling and tripping over her hooves.

“Woah, have a shockin’ crack at care there, hot stuff!” A hoof grabbed hers, steadying her. Dawn looked at the pony it was attached to. She shouldn’t have been surprised, not after hearing that the creatures here were nocturnal, but she was still shocked to see it.

“You’re a thestral!” She gasped.

The mare holding her hoof wiggled her eyebrows. “Glad to see the surprise hasn’t quite rendered you senseless, though for a beauty like yerself I’d be glad to help wean you back to health.”

“I’ve never met a thestral before!” Dawn said. “This is amazing!” She paused. “Why are you wearing sunglasses? Oh no, I’m being insensitive or something, aren’t I?” She looked at Phantasma for help .”Is she blind?” Dawn whispered.

“You know mate, blind ponies can still hear,” the thestral noted. “But I’m not that either.” She smirked. “I just wear sunglasses at night because I can. They always look cool. I’m Arteria. Arteria Carpals. Shockin’ great to meet you! I was hopin’ we’d get a stallion to boss around, get some real ear-candy, right enough, but another mare’s grand too.”

“...I understood some of those words,” Luster said, shaking her hoof before letting go. “Where are you from? Are there a lot of thestrals in Ponyville?”

“Nah, mate, I’m from Thestralia, the land down under! Literally down under, about two miles gravy-ward.”

“...gravy-ward?” Luster looked at Phantasma for help.

“She means down,” Phantasma supplied. “Let’s find your room!” She led Luster away, glancing back at Arteria.

“I barely understood what she was saying,” Luster whispered.

“I’m pretty sure she just makes up some of the words,” Phantasma said, keeping her voice low. “She says it’s normal in Thestralia, but how would we know?”

They stepped around the boulder and almost ran right into a tall, dark form. More than almost in Luster Dawn’s case, who smacked her snout right into someone. She started apologizing and looked up, and then up more because they were standing on two legs instead of four and it made them a lot taller than the average pony.

“Mm,” they said. The they in question was a diamond dog, albeit one that was oddly well-groomed and clean.

“Good evening, Berlioz!” Phantasma said, brightly.

“New pony?” the diamond dog asked.

“She’ll be staying with us for a few weeks,” Phantasma said. “Do you know where they put her luggage?”

Berlioz turned and pointed. “Room three. I carried it.”

“Thank you! It should be just this way,” Phantasma said.

“I’ll, uh, see you later,” Dawn said. The diamond dog nodded and walked away. Phantasma led her to a door and opened it.

“This should be the right one… oh! I’m sorry!”

Inside, a winged cat twice as tall as Dawn was flipping through a book. They looked up in surprise.

“...Ah,” the sphinx said. “I seem to have lost track of time. Berlioz moved some things in here and I was investigating and found this book.” She held up The Ninth Stable. “Some of the illustrations are very interesting.”

“Wait, that’s my book!” Dawn said. “And those are my things!”

“And you must be a new student,” the sphinx said. “From Canterlot, I presume. Given what you brought with you, you don’t intend to be here long, so you aren’t a permanent transfer. However, doing it several weeks into the school year means it isn’t something planned far in advance. While it’s possible that your family moved to town at an inopportune time, you would then be more likely to live at home rather than the dorm, especially as a pillow is one of the few things you packed, indicating that you value small comforts and touches of the familiar.”

“Ibis, please give her back her book,” Phantasma said, sighing. She muttered something under her breath. “Maybe without playing a game this time.”

“Of course I’ll give it back but I wonder if our new arrival can solve a small puzzle, a riddle if it were,” Ibis said, putting the book down and looking pleased with herself, like a cat watching a particularly juicy mouse. “A red house is made of red bricks. A yellow house is made of yellow bricks. What is a green house made of?”

“Glass,” Luster said, without hesitation. “All greenhouses are made of glass.”

“Oh! A clever pony!” Ibis grinned, showing fangs. “I like you. Here is your book back. I promise I have not damaged it. I hope we can become good friends. I do like getting to know ponies in high places, especially when they know the Princess.”

“Wait, how did you know I know--”

“It was easy enough to deduce,” Ibis said, interrupting her as she stepped past them, the ponies moving aside to let the larger creature pass by. “You’re from Canterlot, but not nobility, you were attending school there, and you were important enough to somepony there that they were able to secure a place for you here even with classes nearly full. Ergo you must know Princess Sparkle in some capacity.”

“I’m her personal student,” Dawn confirmed.

“Excellent. You’ll be a welcome challenge.”

Dawn watched her leave and took a deep breath before checking her luggage.”At least she didn’t break anything…” She pulled out her pillow and carefully put it on the bed.

“I think she likes you,” Phantasma said. “Which, um, well, she’d just ignore you if she didn’t like you. You seem good at riddles, though. I’m sure you’ll get along. I’m terrible at them so she doesn’t even like looking at me.”

“Phantaaaasmaaaaa...” somepony groaned outside. A dappled pony was standing in the doorway, their coat tan and dusky brown like they’d walked through mud and then decided to roll around in it before trotting inside. A puddle formed under them from the water dripping off their coat, and weeds were so tangled in their mane that Dawn couldn’t tell where the plants ended and the mane began.

“Oh! You’re finally up!” Phantasma smiled. “Dawn, this is Larrikin. They’re also staying here, but they sleep outside during the summer.”

“Thanks for waking me up,” they groaned. “With all that sunlight I just…” they yawned. Surprisingly, no fangs. “...I feel like I could nap all daaaay…” Larrikin stumbled in and collapsed on the bed, immediately soaking it through.

“My bed!” Dawn yelled.

“This is a really good pillow,” the dripping pony noted.

“Out!” Dawn snapped, picking the pony up and tossing them outside with slightly more force than was needed. “Ugh. It’s a good thing I know some drying charms… Maybe I should use them on him. Or her?” She looked at Phantasma for help.

“You’d have to ask Larrikin how they’re feeling today,” Phantasma shrugged, helping Dawn straighten things out while they talked and adjusting the now-wrinkled blanket. “After a while you start to get a feel for it.”

“No offense but it’s no wonder you were glad to see me,” Dawn said. “Half the creatures in this dorm are crazy!”

“They’re just excited,” Phantasma assured her. “I’ve only known them for a little while, but I really hope we can be friends. It’s just taking longer than I expected.”

“If you say so,” Dawn said. She threw a quick drying charm at the bed. It wasn’t her first rodeo with having to dry out a mattress with magic, though in the past it had usually been because somepony had decided to dump a bucket of ice water on her at midnight. She checked the rest of her things, which didn’t take long, and after a moment of consideration just shoved the suitcase in the corner.

“You’re not going to unpack?” Phantasma asked.

“I’m only gonna be here for a few weeks. I don’t want to spend the whole time taking things in and out of drawers. If I leave it packed up I won’t forget anything when I leave.”

“The first thing I did when I got here was unpack. I wanted to make it feel like it was my own space.”

“My own space is back in Canterlot. This is just a long hotel stay. Probably nicer than some of the places out in Las Pegasus,” Luster Dawn said. She walked out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind her.

“Are you going to go to classes with us today?” Phantasma asked.

“Well, I’m not sure. I was thinking…”

“She’s probably going to run off to the Castle of the Twin Sisters,” Ibis said, from above. She was perched on the boulder, stretching on the rock in a very dignified, catlike way. Larrikin was collapsed against the rock’s base in a very undignified pile of garbage way. They waved.

“The Castle of the Twin Sisters?” Dawn asked.

“Oy! It’s only the most amazin’ly ‘aunted place this side of the other side!” Arteria squeaked from the ceiling. “In the middle of th’ dreaded Everfree forest, where there ain’t any walls and the roof is all made of them bits of trees that stick out the side!”

“...branches?” Dawn guessed.

“Yeah! Them! Deep inside it, the most sinister, shockin’ blammoed castle is overrun by spirits of the dead and what else.” Arteria shook her head. “I swear on me ears that the place is supposed to even have a portal right t’ Tartarus!”

“No, the portal to Tartarus is in a completely different place,” Dawn said. “I’ve been there a few times. Princess Twilight likes to check on the prisoners.”

“To see if they’ve reformed?” Phantasma guessed.

“To make sure they haven’t escaped,” Dawn corrected. “She’s had too many close calls to not at least check.”

“Smart,” Berlioz growled in passing. “You all. Don’t be late for class. Especially the wet one.”

“It is getting to that time again,” Ibis sighed, standing up and picking up Larrikin with one paw. “I hope Professor Scootaloo does a little better with my questions in class today…”

“Wait, why did you think I’d go to the Castle?” Dawn asked, running after her. “Is there something there?”

“Hm? You had that book. Didn’t you notice the cipher hidden in the wood cuttings about the secret door in the Castle of the Twin Sisters?”

“...What?!”

Ibis smirked and leaned down to look at Dawn. “Maybe you’re not as clever as I thought.” She flicked Dawn’s nose lightly with a paw and padded off. Larrikin waved while they were carried away like a mouse being dragged by a cat.

“Are you okay?” Phantasma asked.

“She’s bazinga,” Arteria said.

“That-- that’s not even a word, Arteria.”

“It’s about the feelin’ the word makes you get down in your knackers,” Arteria said. “This mare here? She just got bazinga’d. I can tell on account of my keen senses and bat-like reflexes.”

“If you see Principal Starlight, tell her I’m just taking a little trip,” Dawn said.

“Are you going out to the castle?” Phantasma asked, worried.

“I just want to check something out. It’ll be perfectly safe.”

Dawn trotted along the path quietly, shooting glances at the trees around her. She was sure the sun had still been hanging in the sky when she walked into the forest, but it had vanished without a trace at about the same time the treeline had surrounded her on all sides. Sure, the sun did tend to set at night, but being alone in the dark made it all more real.

The Everfree was so much more quiet than the city, so much darker. She’d be able to see twice as many stars if she could see the sky at all.

“This isn’t so bad,” she whispered to herself, afraid to make too much noise. “It’s not like ponies don’t do this all the time. And almost none of them get dragged off by monsters!”

From somewhere far away, but not far enough, a timberwolf howled.

“Almost isn’t zero!” Dawn squeaked, having instinctively realized the truth about conditional probability. Not a lot of ponies got dragged off by monsters because they didn’t go alone at night without any real preparations. The ones that did get eaten tended to be a lot like Luster Dawn - in a hurry and not thinking clearly.

She bolted down the path, staying on it almost purely by blind luck. Thankfully for her, it wasn’t entirely blind, because she spotted the edge of the ravine with enough time to skid to a halt.

“When I get back, I’m going to send a letter to Princess Twilight about building a real road here,” she said to herself. “With how many stories she has about coming out to the Castle of the Twin Sisters I thought this would just be a light walk in the woods!”

Dawn trotted along the edge of the ravine until she spotted the bridge hanging over it, as delicate as a cobweb and just as well maintained.

She spotted somepony standing there. From the distance, she couldn’t make out much more than a blue light and a red robe.

“Oh thank Celestia,” Dawn groaned. “Excuse me! Sir! Or Ma’am! I’m sorry if I got it wrong, but I’m freaking out a little and I’m really glad to see anypony at all!”

Dawn waved to them, then lost sight of the figure as she had to duck around some particularly thick brush.

“Do you maintain the castle?” Dawn asked. “Because I didn’t even know… anypony… was…” she trailed off. The pony, whoever it was, was gone without a trace. They weren’t on the bridge, which creaked and groaned in the wind like a particularly elderly living thing.

Dawn swallowed and tried not to think about everything she’d read in Toblerone’s Spirit Guide.

“Maybe I was just seeing things,” she lied to herself, trying to feel better about it. “Yeah. Just seeing a perfectly formed pony, with a light, right here where I’m standing.”

She looked across the span of the bridge just to make sure she hadn’t somehow missed them along the only path forward. There wasn’t even a hoofprint to show they’d been standing there.

“I’ll solve that mystery later,” Dawn decided. “Or as the old ponies say, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it! Because I’m at this bridge, which I have to cross now, and I am not delaying and stretching out this phrase because it looks like it’s not even in good enough condition to collapse properly!”

She tried to take a step onto it, and couldn’t quite manage. It was impossible to tell where rot ended and wood began, and Dawn started to suspect that the rot was stronger than whatever was actually left of the planks.

“Second note to self, try to actually learn teleportation again. It would be really useful even if the math parts look boring.”

The wolf howl was closer now. Much closer. Dawn bolted again, her fear of what might be behind her eclipsing the fear of what she could see right in front of her. All those missed lunches did her some good for once, because she didn’t immediately fall through the rotten bridge and to her death.

Actually, though she didn’t really appreciate it at the time, it was surprisingly sturdy, the boards looking much worse than they actually were, and the ropes holding strong despite seeming frayed.

She was chased by her own fears all the way to the Castle, where the ruined walls and cracked tiles comforted her with something very close to home, if centuries out of style. The stone made the forest seem further way, and howls weren’t as threatening with doors to close.

Dawn sat down to catch her breath, and pulled out The Ninth Stable.

“A code hidden in the pictures,” Dawn muttered. She flipped to the first woodcutting and found herself looking at Canterlot, seen from a great distance, but with the castle missing from the skyline. Then a pony standing before a closed door, dignified but locked out. The third showed a bridge with guards, though all of them were blindfolded.

Dawn rubbed her chin, trying to get into the head of the pony who’d made the engravings. They were full of symbolism, and if she’d taken even one class on poetry instead of competitive speed archaeology she might have been able to suss out a little more than the obvious meanings. The fourth engraving, for example, showed a pony walking into a maze. There was plenty of meaning that one could extract from that, from ancient minotaur legends to the simple idea that the path ahead would be difficult and twisted.

Dawn looked at the entrance to the maze, noticed it had the same symbol carved into the keystone as an archway in the castle’s foyer, and decided it was a map, though not one to scale. She followed it through the decaying castle, which was very well preserved for something that nopony lived in.

She looked up at the maze’s end, and found herself looking right where she should have expected she’d end up.

“The library,” she said. “Well of course it’s the library. Somepony wrote a whole book about this! They probably spend tons of time in libraries!”

She flipped to the next engraving. A pony was counting bits, but as they left his hooves they turned to dust. In the background, the sun was setting.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she wondered. The next one was almost as mysterious. It showed a pony with wings and a horn, not quite matching any of the Princesses, hanging upside-down, bound but looking calm and even happy.

She tapped the page and stepped into the library, looking around.

“Okay. I think I’m starting to get it. The first one is about the Princesses losing their place in Canterlot. Then it shows ponies cut off from something. The third one has a bridge, and I had to cross a bridge to get here. Then a maze of corridors, so that fits. Maybe the fifth one means not to get distracted by all the treasure?” She glanced around. Technically books were treasure. Princess Twilight said so. “Right. So this library is full of answers, but not to the questions you have! Like your money isn’t any good here!”

Dawn nodded, satisfied that she was very clever.

“Then the alicorn hung upside-down represents the fact that all ponies are in danger regardless of their tribe, and they don’t even know it. This riddle stuff is easy!”

She turned the page.

“Engraving seven…” Two ponies playing chess, an older pony and a foal. The foal had a tiny crown, and the elder was motioning for him to take his turn. Dawn narrowed her eyes, then looked down at the floor. Most of it was plain tile, but in an open section she spotted alternating white and black.

She ran over, then glanced between the tiles and the engraving.

“The foal barely has any pieces left, but he can checkmate in one move,” she muttered. “And to do it, he’d need to move the piece on… this square.”

Dawn tapped the square on the floor. Nothing happened. She frowned and tapped harder.

“Come on, you stupid thing, all you have to do is…” Dawn stepped back to get another look at it, and a completely different tile sank a fraction of an inch with a soft click. A bookcase slid aside, revealing a doorway.

She hesitated, looked at it, then at the engraving.

“Okay, so maybe we were supposed to get mate as the other side. Whatever.” She shrugged. “As long as it works the details don’t matter!”

Dawn stopped at the doorway and looked at the next engraving. It showed a pony on their knees, with death looming over them in the form of a faceless monster holding an axe. Dawn considered her options. She didn’t want to fight a faceless monster. Really, who did? Faceless monsters were universally awful.

“What does it mean? Being on my knees will get me killed?”

She frowned.

“Maybe the last one will have a better clue…”

The last engraving showed Canterlot again, but this time it was whole, with the castle standing proud and framed inside the sun. On the road below it, a crowd of ponies in robes walked towards the city, led by a single masked unicorn.

“They seem big on following,” Dawn said to herself. “This book wasn’t written for leaders. It was written to get ponies following them.”

She got down on her knees and scooted through the door. Once she was on the other side, she looked back. A thin wire was stretched across the door at her eye level, the dark line almost invisible from the library but standing out against the light from this angle.

“Princess Twilight is going to feel really silly when I tell her the cult is definitely real.” Dawn shook her head and walked down the hidden corridor, keeping an eye out for more traps. The corridor stretched behind the wall of the library, with pinpoints of light shining into the gloom like tiny spotlights.

Dawn looked into the light and realized she was looking out into the library through the eyes of one of the paintings.

“Oh wow. This has to be original to the castle, right?” she whispered. “How did anypony ever find this?”

She stopped at the next set of eyes, glanced through, spotted a pony in a red robe, and recoiled away in shock. When she looked again, there was nothing there.

“You know what? It’s okay,” Dawn said. “This castle can be haunted! That’s fine! Ghosts are more afraid of you than you are of them.”

That was probably true, as long as they were the ghosts of bears. Dawn wasn’t going to stick around to find out and walked with what she would have called dignified haste and other ponies would have called fleeing in terror.

She spotted the outline of a door in the darkness with light spilling out around the edges. Dawn yanked it open and ran inside, slamming it shut behind her.

“So far, so good,” she lied to herself, and part of her really did think it was a lie until she turned around. “Oh wow. It really is good.”

There were diagrams all over the walls, blueprints and paper and twine strung between points on the map. Books, some of them clearly ancient and from the castle library, some of them new enough they still had the price stickers from the bookstore, were piled up like a half-dozen college students had been pulling all-nighters. Candles and torches provided flickering light just barely enough to read by.

Dawn picked one of the tomes up and opened it to where a receipt was being used as a bookmark.

“That’s a Canterlot bookstore,” she muttered. “Why would they want a book by Starswirl and Stygian?” The page they’d saved had been about the Pony of Shadows, with theories about what the creature had actually been.

Dawn looked up and walked over to the wall.

“And this is even stranger. This is teleportation magic! What does that have to do with all the cult stuff about putting Celestia back on the throne?” She huffed. “This is why I need Princess Twilight to teach me about teleportation! I don’t know what this is supposed to do, if it’s even finished!”

The candles flared up around her, the flames turning from orange to a spooky blue.

The masked pony was standing in the doorway.

“You!” Dawn gasped. “...Actually I don’t know who you are. But I saw you on the bridge, and in the library! What is all this? Are you in charge?”

The masked unicorn looked to the side, and their horn lit up with sky-blue magic. The papers and books along the wall burst into flame like oil had been poured over them.

“What are you doing?!” Dawn screamed, running over and trying to put out the flames. “This is all-- you’re destroying the evidence?!”

The pony silently set the rest of the parchment on fire. Dawn ran for her, but a wall of fire cut her off from the door. The masked pony looked at her for a few moments, then just stepped back and slammed the door closed.

“Hey!” Dawn grabbed the door with her magic and pulled, trying to get it open. It managed half an inch and stopped, slamming into something pushed against it. “You’re kidding me! Let me out!”

The room was already like an oven. Dawn was sweating, looking for any way out. There was only one door, and the masked pony had shoved something in front of it and everything else was burning. Dawn yelped as an ember landed on her flank.

“I’ll admit this was a bad idea if somepony saves me!” Dawn squeaked. “I shouldn’t have come here alone! Friends are important because the buddy system is critical if you get into trouble!”

There was a sharp bang on the other side of the door.

“Pony?” growled a newly-familiar voice.

“I told you, I heard her wailin’ like a hookbird all th’ way from the front door!” yelled a second voice.

A third joined them. “You were the one wailing. How can you be afraid of the sky?”

“It’s so shockin’ far away! You spinners are shockin’ mad for not bein’ worried you’ll fall up an’ never stop fallin!”

“You can’t fall up. The whole point of falling is that it is down,” weighed in a fourth voice.

“Berlioz? Ibis? Um, Bat-pony?” Luster yelled. “I’m sorry, I’m really bad with names! If that’s you, get me out of here! The place is on fire!”

“Fire?!” Phantasma gasped. “Berlioz, help me with this. You lift, and I’ll use magic to steady it so you can get the door!”

The air started to get thick with smoke. Luster coughed, her eyes watering. Something crashed on the other side of the door, and it opened a crack, fresh air rushing in and making the flames flare up.

Luster cried out, and red magic grabbed her hooves, pulling her towards the doorway.

“I got you!” Phantasma yelled.

“I’m burning up!” Luster cried out. “I’m--”

About twenty gallons of water splashed over her face. She sputtered and gasped.

“Is that better?” Larrikin asked.

“Thank you,” Luster said, feeling weak. Phantasma helped her up, and she looked back into the room. Everything was on fire. “All the clues! The evidence!”

“Your life is more important,” Phantasma said. “Nothing in that room matters more than you do.”

“But I could have used it to prove everything to the Princess!” she groaned and stepped back, tripping over something on the floor. “And now I’m falling all over myself!”

“You caught a fair call of bad wind there, mate,” Arteria said. She adjusted her sunglasses. “You should be right after some rest.”

Ibis leaned down to look at Luster, grabbing her face and looking at each eye. “I agree. I concede that you were right to worry about her, Phantasma. I expected she would find nothing, not that she would somehow set a hidden room on fire. Berlioz, could you carry her back? She may be in shock.”

“I’m not in shock, and I wasn’t alone,” Luster said. The diamond dog gently picked her up, carrying her like a foal. “Somepony locked me in there and set fire to the evidence I found! The cult is real!”

“Who was it?” Larrikin asked. “I bet it was one of the ponies that works in Sugarcube Corner. I’ve never trusted the way they wouldn’t let me get free cupcakes.”

“They asked you to stop eating out of the dumpster,” Ibis corrected.

“I don’t know who it was,” Dawn said. “They were wearing a mask.”

“Like this one?” Arteria asked, picking something off the ground and holding it up. “You tripped over it.”

Dawn took it from her. It was the blank, golden visage she’d seen. Whoever it had been, they’d made one fatal mistake. They left proof they really existed.

“Who were you?” Dawn asked.

Dear Princess Twilight,

I wanted to send you a letter to let you know that things are going well. I haven’t found anything conclusive about The Ninth Stable, or at least nothing I am prepared to present as hard evidence. I can tell you there is something behind it, but the tracks left behind have been covered.

Preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration are coming along. I’ve been advised by Principal Starlight not to tell you everything we have planned, so expect a few surprises.

In more personal news, I have been getting along well with my new dormmates. At first I was worried about them and how different they are to the other creatures I’ve met, but maybe those differences are good things. You were right that friends are important. Maybe the most important thing we can have is the connections between us.

I will send another report when I’ve learned more.

Your faithful student,
Luster Dawn

Chapter 2

Phantasma Gloom didn’t like Tuesdays. It wasn’t the strangest day of the week to hate, but most ponies would wonder why she didn’t hate Mondays more, or even Wednesdays. Mondays were the first day of the school week, Wednesdays left you stuck in the middle. Tuesdays were just there. They weren’t notable enough to be hated.

The thing was, the Night Class had different teachers every day of the week. It gave the teachers a break since they were covering two shifts, but also meant that Phantasma faced a different subject and a different style of teaching every day.

Tuesdays were left to the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

“So today we’re going to talk about everyone’s special talents!” Sweetie Belle said. Phantasma sighed. It was basically the same lesson every time, just with different flavors. “Last week we discussed some of the ways anycreature can use to explore what they’re good at. For your homework, we asked you to tell us something that you’re good at or just really enjoy. Who wants to go first?”

Phantasma tried to stay perfectly still. If she didn’t look at Sweetie, if she didn’t move or even blink, she’d pick somepony else. Luster Dawn was already waving her hoof in the air trying to get the teacher’s attention. They’d definitely call on her and--

“Phantasma Gloom, why don’t you go first?”

She groaned and stood up at her desk. “Well, um, I really don’t like to talk about myself, and I’m not all that special,” the red and black unicorn said. “I’m just trying to learn how to fit in.”

“Everypony is special,” Sweetie said. “Even if you haven’t found it yet, sometimes talents run in a family. What do your parents do?”

“I don’t have parents,” Phantasma said quietly.

“Aaaawkward,” Larrikin crowed from their desk.

“I’m so sorry,” Sweetie said quickly. “I didn’t know. One of my best friends lost her parents, too.”

“My parents abandoned me,” Phantasma continued.

“I walked into this same conversation,” Luster Dawn said. “Ma’am I advise changing the subject and calling on somepony else. The only winning move is not to play.”

Sweetie shook her head. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders never give up! Not even when we’re covered in tree sap and bee stings! We can figure something out! What if we start with your cutie mark? If we figure out what you were doing when you got it…”

Phantasma turned slightly so Sweetie could see her blank black flank.

“Oh come on!” Sweetie groaned.

“You know what, I’m just going to take my turn,” Luster said, standing up.

Phantasma breathed deeply and gave Luster a big smile, mouthing the words ‘thank you’.

“So,” Luster said. “My special talent is magic, naturally, since that’s what everypony in the School for Gifted Unicorns has. Of course, it’s not just magic in general. Actually, it has to do with uncovering things that nopony else has noticed.”

Dawn got up to the board and took the chalk from Sweetie.

“For example, if we draw a map of Ponyville, and this isn’t exactly to scale…”

Phantasma’s attention drifted away as Luster started talking about strange lights seen in the sky and unusual smells and an unexplained fire and how she was sure they were connected.

As much as Sweetie Belle’s questions had hurt, in a way it felt good that they’d been asked at all. Back in the Crystal Empire, it had hurt worse that nopony had to ask. They’d look at her and they’d just know - this wasn’t a pony that came from a loving household. This wasn’t a filly that was part of a family. They looked at her and they saw him and they just wanted to run away.

“...and that’s why I want one of you to come with me to hunt it down,” Luster Dawn finished. “It could mean life or death!”

“Luster Dawn, you can’t use my classroom to recruit monster hunters,” Sweetie Belle said.

“I’m just explaining how my special talent helped me put things together faster than anypony else,” Dawn explained. “And also asking if anyone else wants to help. It’s sort of, um, a friendship building exercise!”

“I think your reasoning is flawed,” Ibis said. “I’ll leave it to you to think on why it is. I won’t participate.”

“MMmm…” Larrikin flopped on their desk. “I’m out, too. Sorry. It sounds like a ton of fun but I have to wash my mane,” they said with weeds tangled through their mane and dripping water all over the floor.

“...No.” Berlioz grumbled, looking away.

“You know I’d be right scraggled t’ help ya, but the truth is I just really don’t wanna,” Arteria added. “Tell you what, stick a stalagmite through this one and I’ll help ya double with th’ next one that ain’t so, you know, shockin’ awful.”

Luster looked at Phantasma hopefully.

“Miss Dawn,” Sweetie warned. “Please go back to your seat. Now, I have a wonderful idea! Since Phantasma doesn’t have her cutie mark, maybe we can help her find it, and you can all see a practical demonstration of how to discover your special talents!”

“I, um,” Phantasma coughed. “I promised Luster that I’d help her with, her, um, her thing.”

“You did?” Luster whispered.

“I definitely did,” Phantasma said. “And maybe I’ll find out what my special talent is with whatever she’s doing!”

“I sure hope not,” Larrikin said. “That’d stink.” They started laughing like they’d told a joke.

“Don’t listen to her,” Dawn said. “We’re gonna have a great time after class.”

Phantasma was not having a great time. She was struggling to get hip-length rubber boots on all four hooves with the determination of somepony who was absolutely sure that it was going to be necessary to be as covered up as possible.

“So how much do you know about Otyughs?” Luster asked. “And make sure you tie up your mane and tail. You really don’t want them dragging in anything.” She already had both in tight buns, and started helping Phantasma with hers, stopping when she came to the mare’s horn, curved and sharp and untwisted so it looked more like a thorn tipped with blood than the usual unicorn spire. “Huh. You should show that off more. It looks good.”

“Please don’t talk about my horn when I’m right here,” Phantasma said, her cheeks turning as red as the streak in her mane. “And I’ve never heard of an otyugh. It sounds like the kind of word Arteria would use and never explain.”

“Close, but actually completely wrong. They’re a type of scavenger that normally live in swamps and garbage dumps and stuff. They absolutely love sewers, though, and when I heard about all the weird stuff going on, I put it together in a flash.”

“...What weird stuff?”

“All the stuff I explained in class!” Luster sighed. “The strange sights. The lights floating above town. Pets going missing! Ponies losing time! All that stuff!”

Phantasma hesitated. She hadn’t actually been listening in class so this was all new to her and it was starting to sound like she might be about to go on a trip with a crazy pony. “...Are you saying it’s aliens?”

“What?” Luster blinked. “Aliens?”

“Lights in the sky, missing time…”

“No! It’s swamp gas.” Luster rolled her eyes. “I swear, that’s the same reaction I got from Starlight. Why do ponies go right to aliens? Aliens don’t exist.”

“But why would there be swamp gas in town?” Phantasma asked, trying to mentally stay on track. “Shouldn’t it be in a swamp?”

“I really should have brought slides to class instead of using the chalkboard,” Luster mumbled. “Okay, so, good question! Why swamp gas? The answer is that there’s something wrong with the sewer system. And before you ask, no, that normally wouldn’t be a job for me, that would be a job for… for whoever actually manages the sewers. Plumbers or something.”

“Okay…”

“And I wouldn’t have bothered looking into it, but as I’m in charge of preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration in a few weeks, it’s important this town isn’t in the middle of a tidal wave of backed-up black water!”

“Dawn, this really still sounds like a problem for plumbers.”

“Plumbers can’t deal with monsters! Specifically with an otyugh. They’re a type of abomination. They live in swamps and sewers and other places with a lot of rotting vegetation and… detritus. Rare creatures, but I found tracks when I was investigating the reports of lights and smells.”

“And you want to hunt it down?” Phantasma asked. “Just for being a monster?”

“Actually, I’d like to capture it and put it back where it belongs,” Dawn said. “They’re harmless. Mostly harmless. They don’t even eat living prey, and they’re about as smart as dogs.”

“And we have to go into the sewer to do it,” Phantasma muttered.

“You go where the job takes you,” Dawn shrugged. “Besides, I got you rubber boots, didn’t I? Honestly, you’re probably the best pony for this anyway. When you’re working in a sewer, being able to use magic so you don’t have to touch anything is pretty much a necessity.”

Dawn grabbed a crowbar with her magic and slammed it into the sewer grate.

“You’re ready to go, right?” She asked, not even slowing down as she popped the grate off. “Watch your head when you go in.”

“Are all of your adventures like this?” Phantasma asked, following her into the dark. Dawn cast a quick light spell so they weren’t stumbling in the shadows and that almost made it worse. Things that were better left unseen were cast in buzzing magical light, and every step was accompanied by a squelch and slurping sound.

“Usually my adventures are more about library work and research,” Dawn said. “My special talent is sort of like solving mysteries but it’s more like I can dig up leads that other ponies miss. A lot of ponies just dismiss it as luck, but…”

“It’s not luck,” Phantasma said. “I’ve only known you for a few days but I can already tell. You find leads because you keep digging. How many ponies would willingly come down here just to see if they’re right about a harmless monster in the sewers?”

“You came with me even though you didn’t know what we were doing, and you didn’t run away,” Dawn said, looking back with a smile. “Maybe your special talent is going to turn out to be helping other ponies.”

“It… probably isn’t that,” Phantasma said. “It’s always so awkward when ponies find out I don’t have a cutie mark. I mean, the foals at the orphanage made sure I couldn’t forget, but that’s just foals teasing each other.”

“You’re just a late bloomer,” Dawn shrugged. “I got my cutie mark pretty late too. Besides, look at all the creatures that can’t get cutie marks at all - Ibis and Berlioz sure won’t get marks on their flanks. I’m not sure about Larrikin.”

“I’m not sure kelpies can get cutie marks,” Phantasma said.

“Kelpie! That’s what she is!”

“Sometimes he,” Phantasma corrected. “Technically Larrikin is a plant, and very sensitive to changes in the water. That’s probably the real reason they didn’t want to come down here.”

“Well whatever they are, they’ll thank me later when I’m the one making sure monsters don’t get sewage backed up into the bathtubs when the Princess is coming to town! They’ll thank you too, since you’re helping.”

“And that will make it all worth it in the end,” Phantasma said. And then the smell hit her, and the good thing was that when she threw up she was already in a sewer so it didn’t matter that she made a mess. “Oh stars I hope it’s worth it,” she mumbled.

“We’re lucky there isn’t a storm scheduled until tomorrow,” Dawn said.

“Wouldn’t a storm… clean all of this out?” Phantasma asked, doing her best not to breathe through her snout. “Wouldn’t that make it better.”

“Normally, it would, yeah, but there are two problems.” Dawn pointed at a slick trail of slime lying on top of… on top of the rest. “First, if this got washed away it would be a lot harder to find the monster’s tracks. And second, the whole reason I even noticed this in the first place is that it was getting backed up enough that methane was being trapped. It’s likely a storm would just flood this neck-deep and get stuck there. You’d have this stuff in basements all over town and somepony would still have to go in and deal with it.”

“Somepony other than us,” Phantasma sighed.

Dawn sighed. “Yeah. Look, I know this isn’t exactly glamorous work, but I just… you know all the stories about Twilight Sparkle, right? All the adventures she went on and the monsters she fought even before she became an alicorn?”

“I think everypony has heard stories. There’s even that book series!”

“Ugh, don’t trust anything in that,” Dawn groaned. “It turns out those take a lot of liberties with the truth. It turns out she never had a romantic fling with Queen Chrysalis at all! And the entire subplot where Eventide Flare is revealed as the seventh secret element of harmony? Completely made up. Whoever Bixie Bulamoon is, she made a lot of money off of Princess Twilight’s name and didn’t do any research.”

“Really?” Phantasma asked. “That’s too bad. I should have known that it was unrealistic when they did a time travel arc, I guess.”

“Oh no, the time travel part happened,” Luster Dawn said. “Hey, do you think we can ask Principal Starlight to send us back in time? Oh! Maybe the stories are all true, but from another universe where things played out differently! And somepony has to go back and be Eventide Flare and get Twilight to marry Queen Chrysalis in place of her brother!”

“I, um…” Phantasma hesitated. “I’m pretty sure time travel is illegal now.”

“Is it? Darn.” Dawn sighed. “Well, that’s probably for the best. I’d just end up erasing myself from the timeline or causing a loop or something.”

Phantasma was briefly glad they were hunting a monster in the sewers after that brief glimpse into what else Dawn might be doing with her time.

“You said the otyugh is harmless, right?” Phantasma asked.

“Absolutely,” Dawn assured her. “They’re usually really friendly. Which isn’t always super great since they live in slime and muck. It’s kind of like, um… have you ever met an animal from a place where they don’t really have natural predators? Like, penguins don’t have land predators, so they’ve got absolutely no fear of ponies. They’ll just walk right up to you to see what you are and what you’re doing. Otyughs are like that. Nothing eats them, and they don’t hunt prey, so they’re just sort of curious and friendly.”

“That’s good,” Phantasma sighed.

“If it wasn’t for the smell they’d be great pets!” Dawn continued. “But, um, the smell is really bad. Like really, really bad. Even carrion-eating animals won’t touch them. And they like to hug and nuzzle.”

“Oh. Oh, that’s not good at all.”

“You have to use a special shampoo or about a gallon of tomato juice to get the smell out,” Dawn said.

“You sure know a lot about them.”

“I always do my research,” Dawn said. “Princess Twilight taught me that. There’s no reason not to read up on them when I’m going to go looking, right? I know practically every fact about the sewage-eating abominations.”

“Sewage-eating?” Phantasma asked, hesitating.

“Well, yeah. When I spotted the tracks, I compared them to ones in a field guide to confirm what they are, then I read up on their ecology and habitats in the Monstrous Manual. They eat sewage. Gross, but they’re hardly the only monster to do it. Most of them are just more… ooze-like.”

“Do you remember what Ibis said?” Phantasma said, starting to get a bad feeling.

“Yeah, she said that there was some big obvious flaw in my reasoning,” Dawn scoffed. “Which is stupid. These are clearly otyugh tracks! And from the looks of it, there’s just one of them. I don’t know what she was talking about. Maybe she thought she wouldn’t fit down here? It would be sort of a tight squeeze.”

“It’s just… if they eat sewage, why would there be a blockage?” Phantasma asked. “Wouldn’t they actually help keep the sewer running smoothly?”

“Well, obviously, they… they…” Dawn slowed to a halt. “...buck. I didn’t put that together until now.”

“What should we do? Maybe we should go back?” Phantasma suggested, hoping that if she said it maybe Dawn would pounce on it. “We could go… do research. Out of the sewers. And get a hot shower.”

Dawn thought for a minute, very nearly rubbed her chin, and avoided disaster at the last moment.

“No, we’ll keep looking,” she decided. “There’s that storm coming, and that’ll just make things worse. Besides, we’re already this deep. I’d hate to let it go when the answer could be right around the corner.”

She walked to the next intersection and looked around.

“Well, not this corner, but still. It’s a good metaphor.” She sighed. “So, I’m aware of how awful and gross this is. If you want to go back, you can and I won’t hold it against you. You didn’t even have to come this far.”

“I’m not just going to leave you,” Phantasma said. “Your special talent is getting to the bottom of things, right? So if you think there’s more to find out we should keep looking.”

Dawn grinned. “Yeah! I can almost feel it, like we’re really close to--”

A terrible howl rattled through the tunnels, making the water around their hooves ripple.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting that, but I think it proves we’re onto something.”

“And now we’re going to run towards the danger?” Phantasma asked.

“No, we’re going to walk carefully,” Dawn corrected. “We’ll make sure we’re not endangering ourselves, and, um, also move slowly enough to avoid splashing any of… this… all over ourselves.”

“That is a better idea.”

They tried to be quiet while they slowly padded towards the terrible roar, though it was, of course, all but impossible to be silent given the water halfway up their legs and the occasional scare of something more solid bumping into them.

The unseen monster roared again, closer this time.

“There’s a cistern up ahead,” Dawn whispered.

“How do you know your way around?” Phantasma asked, keeping her voice low.

“Did the research. I grabbed a map from town hall and memorized it. They wouldn’t let me take it with me down here, for some reason.”

“For some reason,” Phantasma repeated.

“I wouldn’t want it back after it had spent a few hours down here either,” Dawn giggled. “Come on. I bet it’s got a nest in there!”

The cistern was only the size of a fairly large room, but it was still a welcome change from the tight sewer tunnels.

“We’re on the edge of town, near the reservoir,” Dawn said. “From the plans I read, there should be a huge valve that they can use to flush the whole system.”

“While we’re in it?”

“No, no, the only thing down here is an emergency cutoff. And unless I miss my guess, that right there is what we’re looking for.” She pointed to the far wall, where something very much like paper mache was plastered thickly against the bricks.

“A nest? It looks like a wasp’s nest except a thousand times bigger.”

“They build their nests out of the things they won’t eat. I’m probably making that sound a lot grosser than it is. It’s like, small stones and shells and stuff all glued together.”

“Is it inside?”

“From the noise we heard before it has to be around here,” Dawn said. She carefully poked at the mass until part of it moved, like a curtain made of mucus and old newspaper. Something inside made a keening, scared sound.

“I think you’re frightening it,” Phantasma said.

“If you want to try, be my guest,” Dawn said.

Phantasma nodded. “Miss Fluttershy has given us lessons on how to handle creatures when they’re scared. The most important thing is to make them feel safe.”

“It’s strange, though. Usually an otyugh doesn’t get scared, and down here the biggest thing should be rats, which are, um, usually a snack for them instead of a danger.” She made soft sounds, trying to put the monster at ease. “Um, let’s see… who’s a good little otyugh? We just want to make sure you’re safe. Why don’t you come out and let us see you?”

The sounds from inside became slightly less distressed.

“You must be scared to be in a new place. We just want to take you back… home.” Phantasma looked at the nest. “Dawn, how long would it take to make a nest this size?”

“I donno. Months, at least. Maybe years. And that’s not even counting if it got flushed away or damaged.”

“And the lights and sounds are recent?”

“...Too recent,” Dawn muttered. “Phantasma, what if I’ve been wrong this whole time? It has to have been down here a long time, and I bet it’s been helping keep the sewer clean. There were practically no reports on sewer maintenance or blockages, and both of us know that the town is three times the size it was before Princess Twilight ascended.”

Phantasma coaxed the otyugh into the light. It was a horribly ugly creature. It was shaped like a half-deflated ball standing on three stubby, elephantine legs and topped with three tentacles. One was studded with large, pony-like eyes and the other two were like an octopus’ limbs. If it hadn’t been the size of a dog, it would have been terrifying, but even with the eyestalk extended it had to look up at the two ponies.

“I think it’s hurt,” Phantasma said. “Look. It’s dragging one of its tentacles like its broken.”

“I don’t really know how to do first aid for a creature like this,” Dawn said, quietly. She didn’t want to scare it. The thing’s front end was all mouth, ringed with jagged teeth. Even if it didn’t want to hurt her, it could still do a lot of harm just being frightened.

“I think those are burns. What would do that to a creature like this? It looks so helpless…”

“Maybe it can tell us?” Dawn asked.

“Can you?” Phantasma looked at the creature. I blinked up at her with those strange, big eyes and made a burbling sound somewhere between birdsong and a flushing toilet. “We just want to help you, I promise.”

“They’re supposed to be pretty smart,” Dawn said. “I hope it understands what we’re doing…”

The otyugh waded through the sewage, in the deepest spots only visible by its eyestalk above the surface. It wasn’t very fast on its three legs, but it wasn’t slowed down by anything. It took Phantasma and Dawn down a tunnel they hadn’t explored, and the water flowing around their hooves slowed and stopped.

“We must be near the blockage,” Dawn said. “Check it out. There’s rubble in the tunnel up ahead.”

“I wonder if he got caught in the cave-in?” Phantasma said.

“It wouldn’t explain a burn, unless… maybe there was a fire and that caused the ceiling to collapse?” Dawn hesitated. “Look. There are some burn marks, but not like any fire pattern I’ve ever seen. If it was a sewer gas fire, they should be in big sheets, right? But these are tight, concentrated lines.”

“Look, he’s scared,” Phantasma said. “He doesn’t want to get any closer.”

“Let’s find out what spooked him so badly,” Dawn said.

“Well, there’s your problem,” Dawn said, shaking her head in awe.

It had taken a while to move the rubble, but it was pretty clear what had caused the cave-in. A huge hole had been blasted in the wall, revealing a dark cavern beyond.

“Do you think this is connected to the caves at the school?” Phantasma asked.

“No, it couldn’t be. We’d be able to smell it,” Dawn said. “I just wonder what did this. It definitely wasn’t the otyugh.” She looked up at the edge. “Look at this.”

The bricks were burned, the edges fused.

“This wasn’t storm damage,” Dawn said.

“What would cause it?” Phantasma asked. “A dragon?”

“There are plenty of dragons in town, but what would they be doing down here?” Dawn asked. “Besides, this is too focused. This was a tight, collimated beam of heat. There’s not a lot of damage across the brick. Like if you grab a potato and roast it over a campfire, the whole thing gets warm all over, and if the fire was hot enough to burn it, you’d burn the whole outside way before you burned holes in it. But if you took a blowtorch to it, you could burn the middle away and leave the ends raw.”

“So this was done by a blowtorch?”

“Well… not literally, but it’s probably the same thing that caused the lines of fire damage in the tunnel. It has to be some kind of spell. Unicorn magic can definitely make a beam hot enough for this, especially if they’ve got a cutie mark for pyromancy or something.”

“Maybe somepony’s toilet got clogged and they really got frustrated.”

Dawn snorted. “I doubt it. All the rubble is in here, so I think this was an accident. They must have broken through from the other side.” She shone her light through the hole. “Look at this. All the walls look like the rock was melted away.”

“It’s not a volcano, is it?”

“Pretty sure this isn’t a magma tube,” Dawn said. She tapped her hoof. “I think somepony or something was carving out a lair. This could even be related to the cult! What if they got scared off and decided they had to go underground? Literally. They might be building a headquarters right under Ponyville!”

Phantasma wasn’t entirely sure there was a cult, but she was entirely sure about one thing - the other tunnel was clean, the floor was bare rock without layers of anything gross, and it would be literally impossible for it to smell worse than the sewer.

“Let’s take a look,” she suggested, willing to even investigate a cult if it meant a break from the sewer. “Maybe you can find some tracks or something, then we can go back to the school and figure out what did this.”

“Good idea,” Dawn said, nodding. She started walking down the slightly curving tunnel. “These are more than big enough for a pony, but it would take an awful lot of magical power to do this.”

“What kind of monsters would make a tunnel like this?”

“Well, maybe a thoqqua. They’re a type of worm made out of superheated rock. Really mean, too, but I’ve never heard of one this close to the surface.” Dawn looked around. “And I don’t think this is the right kind of rock. I’d have to check the library, but I think they mostly like volcanic rock.”

“What about a tatzelwurm?” Phantasma suggested.

“I actually saw one of those once!” Dawn said. “The tunnel is definitely big enough, but they hunt on the surface. We’d have ponies getting grabbed and eaten in town if it was one of those. Good thought, but it doesn’t explain the fire beams.”

The tunnel opened up into a natural cavern, though some of it had obviously been carved out and expanded.

“This is so weird,” Dawn said. “Nopony would build like this. The floor is uneven, but they’ve carved out plenty of space everywhere else. Who would care more about making sure the ceiling is clear than being able to walk around?”

“I don’t see any tracks,” Phantasma said.

“Maybe they abandoned this whole section because it was too close to the sewers…” Dawn mumbled. She started looking for some kind of clue in the dust and debris on the floor, and because she was keeping her head down, Phantasma was the one who spotted it.

Above them, floating silently, was an orb with a diameter larger than Phantasma was tall, made of something like rock combined with leather.

“Dawn?” Phantasma whispered. “What is that?”

Dawn looked up, and Phantasma saw her eyes widen in terror. She backed up, terrified, and knocked over a pile of pebbles.

The clattering of stone on stone echoed through the cave.

A huge eye opened up on the orb’s surface and swiveled down to look at them. Ten long eyestalks uncurled like a wiggling crown around the creature’s top, the nearest few turning to look at the two ponies.

“Oh no,” Dawn whispered.

“What is it?” Phantasma asked.

“Well, um, unless I’m mistaken, that’s one of the most dangerous and deadly monsters in the world,” Dawn said. “And we should be backing away, Phantasma, we should not be standing here.”

“D-deadly?” Phantasma hissed. “Can we talk to it? Maybe if we apologize it’ll let us go back into the sewer and run away!”

“Most ponies who have seen one and lived call them beholders, but most of the time they just get called ‘oh no what’s that’ and then there’s a lot of--”

The creature’s gaze narrowed with obvious malevolence.

“--screaming,” Dawn squeaked. The monster closed its huge central eye and the eyestalks swiveled to focus on the ponies. “Run!”

Phantasma screamed and bolted. Beams of fire and magic streaked from the monster’s eyes, hitting all around them, hot enough to burn into the rock and leave glowing trails.

Dawn’s horn lit up with hard light, and a shield sprang up between them and the monster, two of the heat rays deflecting away from it.

“Get out of here!” Dawn yelled. “Maybe I can hold it off!”

“I’m not going to leave you!” Phantasma shouted. She raised her own shield, the magic flickering into place and reinforcing Dawn’s. “Look! We’re doing it!”

The floating eyeball’s barrage stopped, and its huge central eye opened up again, the iris glowing with shifting light. Phantasma felt her shield dissolve, the magic being scattered like dust in a strong wind.

“What-- what’s it doing?!”

“They can dispel magic!” Dawn shouted. “Run!”

Phantasma squeaked in alarm and they ran for the tunnel back to the sewer, hooves slipping on the rough gravel of the cave floor. The creature snapped its central eye shut and beams of heat scythed through the air, a wall of fire cutting them off from their escape.

“There’s another tunnel in the other direction!” Dawn yelled. “Come on!”

She grabbed Phantasma’s hoof and they bolted the other way.

“But the sewer is the other direction!” Phantasma screamed.

“There has to be another exit!” Dawn said. “It didn’t come from the sewers, it went into them! We just have to go out the front door!”

“Dawn, I really hate this adventure! Next time can we go on an adventure to pet bunnies or something?!”

“If we get out of this alive, I’ll buy you a pet bunny! Don’t stop running!”

Turning the corner gave them a moment of reprieve, but only a moment. The last room had been some kind of unfinished space, but the monster had clearly been at work here for a while.

“The walls are all like mirrors,” Phantasma whispered.

“It’s obsidian. Volcanic glass. It must melt the rock with its rays and then polish it somehow.” She looked around. “This is like a funhouse maze…”

“Why would it make mirrors?” Phantasma asked.

“It’s a floating eyeball that shoots death rays, Phanty! Who knows what it’s thinking?! Maybe it just likes to stare at itself all day and think about how pretty it is!”

“I don’t think that’s what they mean when they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

Dawn goaned. “Let’s just get out of here!” She ran for what she thought was the door and slammed snout-first into a mirror. “Buck!”

Phantasma caught her when she fell down.

Dawn touched her nose, making sure she wasn’t bleeding. “Not this way.”

Phantasma felt along the wall, and found a gap. “Here!” She helped Dawn up and they kept moving, slightly more cautiously this time, feeling ahead of them. There was movement in the mirrors that wasn’t theirs. Dawn looked back, even though she could have seen it in the mirror ahead.

The thing with its terrible gaze was looking right at them, from every direction.

“Which way is out?!” Phantasma whispered, quivering in her hooves.

“Um…” Dawn looked around for a clue. The floating eyeball fired a beam of heat, even though it had to be around several corners. The ray struck the mirrored wall and rebounded, bouncing at angles along the walls and going right through the maze.

“Duck!” Phantasma shoved Dawn out of the way, and the beam went past them, shooting around the next corner.

“That way!” Dawn said, pointing in the direction the beam had gone. “Also, I think I figured out why it turned all the walls into mirrors!”

“I think I know too, thank you!” Phantasma yelled. Another beam followed the first, the crazy angles making it almost impossible to predict where it was going, the fiery ray going right between them. Dawn cried out, the death beam grazing her leg. She collapsed to the ground, sucking in air between her teeth.

“That hurts…” she groaned. There was a discolored line of burned fur along her flank from the near-miss.

Phantasma tried to help her stand again. “You need to stop falling over when we’re trying to run!”

“You’ve got a few weeks more experience than I do in living in caves,” Dawn joked. She got up and almost collapsed again, wincing. “I can’t put weight on that. You need to go.”

“I won’t,” Phantasma said, pulling Dawn to her side and helping her limp along.

“We’re too slow like this!” Dawn said.

“I said I’m not leaving! I’m not going to abandon one of the first friends I ever made!” Phantasma snapped. She fired a bolt of dark energy, the spell bouncing off the mirrors like a ball towards the beholder. The heat beams cut off, and it snapped its big central eye open, trying to dispel the magic. The ball of black smoke smacked into the monster, one of its eyestalks going limp.

“What was that?” Dawn asked.

“I… you never really asked a lot of details about why I was taking night classes,” Phantasma said, quietly. “They’re not for normal ponies.”

“Are you going to reveal you’re the reincarnated form of a being from the far realm beyond sanity and space?” Dawn gasped.

“What? No.” Phantasma gave her a look. “What even is that?”

“I’ve seen a lot of tentacles so far today so I thought it would be on-theme,” Dawn shrugged. “Whatever it is, I already know who you are. You’re Phantasma Gloom. That’s the only important thing.”

Phantasma smiled weakly. “Close your eyes. I don’t want to scare you.”

“I don’t see how you could possibly-- oh wow.”

Phantasma’s mane and tail started moving, trailing off into wisps of smoke. She let Dawn go and stepped toward the beholder as it came around the corner, her hoofsteps kicking up smoke and becoming silent. Her whole body disappeared into a growing cloud of smoke and mist, and the monster looked confused.

“I won’t let you hurt my friend!” Phantasma roared. She reared up, a massive shape three times the size of a normal pony, the smoke forming into her face and mane, the rest of the smog like a shroud over a shapeless form..

The beholder fired several beams of heat, and they lanced right through her with no more effect than if it had been truly punching smoke.

The floating eye floated back, the barrage slowing and stopping as it failed to find purchase. It opened its central eye, and the cone of disruption shone like a spotlight on Phantasma.

“It’s not a spell?” Dawn asked, mesmerized by the swirling black smoke.

Phantasma’s curved horn didn’t light up, not exactly. Shadows gathered around it like black light, casting rays of darkness across the cavern. The beholder looked around in alarm, and so did Dawn. She saw her own shadow stretch towards Phantasma, twisting up into the storm.

A bolt of black lightning struck the beholder’s exposed central eye, and the creature flew back, howling, the iris of its eye turning black like its tears had turned to ink. The monster’s eyestalks flailed in blind alarm, the eyeballs on the tips of the tendrils becoming that same opaque black.

“I can’t do much,” Phantasma said, her voice an octave deeper. “But I can blind you and keep you from hurting Dawn again.”
The beholder charged at her voice, flying through her face and slamming into the wall behind Phantasma with the exact same sound of a rubber ball hitting a concrete wall. It fell down, stunned, and wrapped its eyestalks around its body protectively.

Phantasma sighed.

“And now you know I’m just a monster too,” Phantasma said, not looking at Dawn. “You should get out of here. You can go and get Principal Starlight and tell her about this, and I’ll stay down here where I belong…”

“This is amazing!” Dawn gasped, running over to look at Phantasma and completely ignoring her pity party, not even listening to what she was saying. “Are you a gas, or is this some kind of magical matrix? Oh! I bet it’s sort of like the in-between state of a teleportation effect before the pony or item has reformed! Like matter that’s been turned into magical energy, but keeping the same strongly-interacting nature of normal matter!”

“Are you even listening?” Phantasma asked. She was having a hard time feeling sorry for herself with Dawn so excited, especially when the unicorn hopped inside her. “W-wait! Don’t! I’m ticklish!”

She started giggling uncontrollably at the feeling of the pony poking around at her insides. Dawn hopped out after a few moments, still grinning.

“This is so cool! Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Dawn pranced in place.

“Isn’t your leg hurt?” Phantasma asked.

“Yes, but this is much more important! I can be hurt later! You have to tell me what happened! Some kind of transformation spell?”

“No, this is… this is the real me,” she said. “I’m not even really a unicorn. I’m a monster, a terrible thing that-- what are you doing?”

“Huh?” Dawn looked up. “I was seeing if you had a flavor.”

“You’re trying to lick me?!” Phantasma asked, recoiling like a snake in alarm. “Why?!”

“Well, geologists lick rocks,” Dawn said. “So it’s a recognized scientific method. Probably not in biology. Well, sometimes you get licked in biology. Will you please just tell me what this is? What you are?”

Phantasma sighed. “I’m an umbra pony.”

“An umbra pony. Okay. And that is…?”

“Like King Sombra,” she said. “That’s… why it was really hard for me. He was probably my grandfather, and when I was born and I looked like him, my mother got scared and abandoned me at an orphanage. Even the ponies there were terrified of me. They thought I might turn evil at any moment and try to enslave them. And that’s not even the worst thing…”

“What was the worst thing?”

“Every year, they celebrate the Crystal Faire, everypony in the Empire coming together in love and harmony. It empowers the Crystal Heart and protects the Crystal Empire and every single year I spent the Faire in bed with a fever so high they thought I might die. And you know why? Because the Crystal Heart repels evil, and somewhere deep inside, that means me!”

She sniffled, the cloud of smoke and shadow that formed her body slowly lowering to the ground until her massive chin was on the floor.

“I don’t think you’re evil,” Dawn said. “I do think your shadow magic is really cool, though.”

“I’m not very good at it,” Phantasma mumbled.

“You defeated one of the most dangerous monsters I know!” Dawn said. “And you did it because you wanted to save me, even when you thought it meant I might stop being your friend.” She tried to rub Phantasma’s back, but her hoof went right through it.

“You really mean it?” Phantasma asked.

“I do. And if you change back, I’ll hug you. I can’t really do it when you’re incorporeal.” She waved a hoof through Phantasma to demonstrate.

Phantasma’s face dissolved into black mist, and the mass swirled inwards and became darker and more solid until it finally coalesced back into her normal form, the last thing to appear the red streak through her black mane.

“I’m not sure where my boots went,” Phantasma said. Her voice had gone back to normal. “Sorry about--” Her apology was cut off by a big hug, Luster nuzzling into her neck and pulling her close.

“Thank you for saving me,” Dawn said. “I think that officially makes you my best friend.”

“I’d love to be your best friend,” Phantasma said, her smile restored.

“Now, let’s find the exit,” Dawn said, letting go and stepping back. “We can’t go back through the sewer when you don’t have boots, but I bet we can still find the exit at the other end of the mirror maze.”

“It might take a while,” Phantasma said.

“I have an idea on how to speed it up a little,” Dawn said. She limped over to the fallen, unconscious beholder and charged up her horn.

“What are you doing?”

“All those beams bouncing off the walls gave me an idea,” Dawn explained.

“Oh! You’re going to fire a magic beam of your own to--”

Dawn used a burst of force to launch the beholder like a pinball, letting it careen off the walls. “Follow that monster!”

Dear Princess Twilight Sparkle,

Attached is a detailed report of what we found under the town. In summary, the beholder seems to be an escapee from Tartarus, though no escapes have been reported and so it remains unknown how it managed to leave its prison. As you know, the beholder itself has been remanded to the Royal Guard, who have safely placed it back in Tartarus under doubled guard to ensure it doesn't escape again.

The lights seen in the sky have been confirmed as swamp gas escaping from blocked sections of the sewer system, and have already stopped now that the damage has been repaired. The strange smells were almost certainly from a very earthly source, and any strange sounds can be attributed to the beholder carving out its lair.

As for the reports of missing time, an investigation after returning to the surface revealed that the town’s clock tower runs slightly slow, and that maintenance workers simply adjust it manually from time to time, setting it several minutes ahead. Ponies didn’t even notice until they began looking for supernatural explanations to the events going on around them.

As part of my report I have included an article from a former classmate of yours that you might find amusing. Miss Lyra Heartstrings seems sure that everything was a result of aliens called ‘humans’ from some alternate universe.

On a more personal note, I have made a real friend. Phantasma Gloom is an amazing pony who has had to deal with terrible prejudice in her life that I’ve never experienced myself. Despite this, she still believes in the importance of friendship. I hope that I’ve never judged a pony on their appearance, and Phantasma is a perfect example of why.

I am doing well, and starting to enjoy my time here. Fieldwork is very exciting compared to pure research, and even facing dangers like the beholder or smelly, dirty work like the sewer can be fun as long as you have the right ponies to share the experience with.

Your Faithful Student,
Luster Dawn

Phantasma carefully splashed through the sewer, alone this time. The flow of filthy water was lower now, only up to the ankles of her boots instead of the knee. It was less stagnant, and even the smell wasn’t as bad as it had been.

“Or maybe my nose just burned out after last time,” Phantasma said to herself. She stopped to look at the new wall that had been put in to cover the hole the beholder had made. All the rubble was long gone, and the blockages were cleared away.

She wasn’t just down here to do plumbing, though.

“It was this way,” she said to herself, trying to keep the map in mind. She hadn’t memorized it the way Dawn was able to effortlessly absorb documents, but she had gone over it a half dozen times in her head. Phantasma had already made one wrong turn and realized her mistake before it was too late, and if there was any greater sign of mastery than knowing when you were wrong, she wasn’t sure what was.

The tight sewer tunnel opened up to the cistern, with that same nest that they’d found before. They’d begged the maintenance ponies to leave it untouched.

“Hello?” Phantasma called out. “Are you here?”

She stood in the doorway feeling like she was standing on somepony’s front porch.

An eyestalk peeked around the corner of the nest’s hidden entrance, then the otyugh stumbled out, making excited toilet-flushing sounds and waving both of its tentacles happily.

“You seem to be healing up very nicely,” Phantasma said.

The otyugh burbled up at her and run towards her for a hug, going right through her as she turned incorporeal at the last moment.

“You know its rude to hug without permission,” Phantasma scolded. “Now, do you want a treat?”

The otyugh wiggled its eye-studded tendril with what was probably a nod and approached more slowly, holding out its tentacles.

“I asked Dawn what kind of treats would be appropriate for a growing little guy like you, and she said what you’d like more than anything else would be kitchen scraps.” She lifted up the bag she’d brought. “It’s not exactly fresh, but she said you’d have stomach problems if we fed you fresh food. Something about a short digestive system.”

Phantasma gave the otyugh the paper bag, and it opened its jagged-toothed maw and tore into it.

Phantasma cleared her throat.

The otyugh paused, then started nibbling more slowly.

“There’s also a cupcake in there from the bakery,” Phantasma said. “That’s for being a good little monster and being brave enough to show us where that mean beholder was. If it wasn’t for you, we never would have known and a lot of ponies could have gotten hurt.”

It hopped a little, turning in a circle.

Phantasma smiled. “I’m going to try and visit you every week, okay?” she said. “But that means you’ve got to work hard and help ponies by keeping the sewer clean. Dawn offered to get me a pet, but I think something that can take care of themselves is even better.”

She carefully patted the little creature on its top side, since it didn’t exactly have a head.

“Now, you enjoy your treat. I’m going to go get a shower before lunch. Dawn wanted me to help her with her next adventure! She says it’s some kind of conspiracy involving bees, but I think she just wants to get lunch and look at some flowers.” Phantasma grinned. “Either way, It’s going to be a lot of fun spending time with my best friend!”

Chapter 3

Ibis’s mother had three children. The first was named Morning. The second was named Noon. What was the third named?

Power does not flow from the point of a sword, but from the nub of a pen. The sphinx are ancient and wise, hoarding hidden knowledge like a dragon hoards wealth and doling out only riddles and challenges.

Ibis liked facts, because they were simply true or false. They weren’t ambiguous and they could be verified. Friendship was much more difficult. There were books on friendship, and they stated what they claimed were facts, but they were confusing at best and more often contradictory. A sphinx, in its natural environment as a caretaker of some site of interest[1], did not have many chances to make friends. They would either repel intruders[2], teach fellow scholars[3], or lock themselves in a room for as long as it took them to work out the answer to the latest puzzle that they’d caught as prey[4].

[1] Ibis was, before she had come to the School of Friendship, the third sphinx in her family to study a large obelisk in the middle of the desert. She’d left after determining that not only was there nothing more to learn, but that she really hated staring at the same four sides of the same stone block day after day.

[2] Defined as anyone without a college degree or wearing a pith helmet.

[3] Purely in the form of riddles and half-answers because if they weren’t smart enough to figure it out, were they really scholars to begin with?

[4] This is literal. A sphinx could feed on a mystery for years without food or water, which made them excellent archaeologists in the far corners of the world away from civilization, but it also meant a bored sphinx was a hungry sphinx, and you didn’t want to be an intruder on the wrong end of one of those.

Ibis was studying friendship. It was proving a very difficult mystery to crack. Her current theory was that every friendship was somewhat different, but she had yet to determine if there was a common core. If she was to develop a complete universal theory of friendship, did it mean an extensive table of prime friendship varieties, or was there something behind, basic elements that combined to form every type of bond between people?[5]

[5] She was of course already aware of the elements of harmony, but had determined after extensive testing that it wasn’t what she was looking for.

Right now, for example, Ibis was studying Phantasma Gloom. She was a fairly normal pony, as far as these things went. She was considering switching her study to Luster Dawn, because it seemed as though Phantasma had even more difficulties making friends than the average student at the school. It wasn’t entirely surprising that the ponies at the school were less than ideal test subjects -- they were students studying friendship, not teachers who had already mastered it -- but what surprised Ibis was that many of them didn’t seem to take the task seriously.

“The Night Class gets the quizzes in advance so they can do them through the week,” said the mare currently speaking to Phantasma. Ibis checked her notes. The mare was named Silver Lining, and she was one of the few ponies from the day classes that interacted with Phantasma regularly.

“We’re not allowed to give out the papers,” Phantasma said, quietly.

“So?” Silver asked. “You want to be my friend, don’t you? No other pony will put up with a creep like you.”

Ibis made a note when Phantasma’s ears lowered.

“I have a real friend, and it’s not you,” Phantasma said. “I won’t help you cheat.”

“Oh, you won’t?” Silver Lining asked. “What are you going to do, tell on me to the teachers? Maybe I should go to them first and say it was all your idea, how you kept giving me the answers to quizzes because you were trying to bribe me into being your friend!”

“T-that’s stupid! The teachers would never believe you!” Phantasma gasped.

“Are you sure about that? I hear Principal Starlight has a zero-tolerance policy. If you’re involved in cheating, you’ll be expelled, and then you’ll get to go all the way back to the Crystal Empire. I’ll just be in town until my mother and father make enough donations to the school for them to decide to let me back in, but you? You’re here on a scholarship. You’ll never get to come back. So much for having a ‘real friend’.”

Phantasma gasped. “B-but…”

“I’ll expect the papers in my locker by tomorrow morning,” Silver said. “No rush. If they’re not there, Principal Starlight just might have an early-morning visit by a student who just feels so bad about cheating that she has to confess everything.”

Silver trotted off.

“See you later, friend~” Silver laughed.

Ibis made a few more notes, then stepped out of her blind. They were essential to studying a subject in the wild, and this was no exception, though in the environment of the school it was more about hiding behind furniture than anything else.

“Excuse me,” Ibis said.

“You-- you heard all that?” Phantasma asked, backing up a step.

“Yes, and I had a few follow-up questions,” Ibis said. “In most of my studies I’m not able to get interviews from the subjects involved[6] and I wanted to clear up a few details. How would you describe your friendship with Silver Lining?”

[6] There were exceptions, but the undead didn’t like being awoken after thousands of years and asked to fill out a survey on the quality of their preservation and burial ritual.

“Friendship?” Phantasma asked, confused. “We’re not friends!”

“But she called you her friend,” Ibis said. “And according to what I’ve read, it isn’t uncommon for friends to study with each other or share notes.”

“She’s trying to hold me hostage!” Phantasma said. “Please, don’t tell Principal Starlight! I can’t go back to the Empire! I’ve finally started making friends here and if I get sent back I’ll never see them again!”

“As you wish,” Ibis shrugged. “But friends do ask each other favors, yes? Like the favor you just asked from me?”

“I-- blackmail isn’t the same as a favor!” Phantasma looked back at where Silver Lining had gone. “You don’t understand, she’s always calling me creepy, or making fun of me, or blaming me for not giving her the right answers on tests…”

“You are only a mediocre student,” Ibis said. “I’ve seen your test scores.”

Phantasma groaned.

“Additionally, in my observations, there are a number of students that avoid you. It’s been difficult to ascertain why. Most of them are unable to articulate their reasons, and I suspect herd mentality as one part of the cause.”

“I’m not creepy!” Phantasma yelled.

“I don’t find you particularly distressing,” Ibis agreed. “But I appear to be in the minority.”

“How could you-- why would you even say that?!”

“I’m simply stating a fact,” Ibis said.

“I thought we were friends…” Phantasma mumbled, before stumbling off.

Ibis watched her go and frowned.

“Friends?” She asked, checking over her notes.

A sphinx with an unanswered riddle was like a manticore with a thorn in its paw, restless and annoyed at the world in general.

“I’m still trying to discover what friendship is,” Ibis said to herself, pacing around her room. “How can we be friends if I don’t even know how to properly define it? It isn’t a word game like a riddle. It’s also not simple proximity. Some creatures grow to hate each other in the same conditions others become friends.”

Compared to Luster Dawn’s chaotic mess of notes, clues, and papers[7], Ibis kept her room exceptionally clean. Everything was in its proper place[8] and as perfectly organized as her mind. It was the perfect place to solve a mystery, if she could just figure out where to even start.

[7] Also twine. Dawn had tried to construct a collage of clues and names like she’d seen in detective comics and found out that it was much harder than it looked and wasn’t all that great at actually organizing things. She still wasn’t entirely sure what the string was for, and now she had a hundred yards of colored yarn and no idea what to do with it. Ibis had suggested taking up knitting.

[8] Ibis wasn’t the type to use a ruler to line up her pencils only because she was organized purely for the utility of finding things rather than out of an obsessive-compulsive need. She saved her obsessions for solving riddles, which were much more worthwhile.

“Yeah, like how Phantasma probably hates you now,” Larrikin said. The kelpie was leaning in the doorway. They never looked quite the same way twice, but since there was only one kelpie at the school it was fairly obvious as to their identity.

“Why would she hate me?” Ibis asked. “I didn’t do anything to harm her.”

“Her feelings, kitty,” Larrikin snorted. “You hurt her feelings. She was really upset. I think Dawn is mad at you now too.” The kelpie yawned. “You could apologize, but I’m not really an expert.”

“Because you never hurt anyone?” Ibis asked.

“Nah, I just don’t usually apologize,” Larrikin said. They shrugged, and water sprayed off of their soaked coat. “Can I get a nap in here?”

“Didn’t you just wake up?” Ibis asked. “This is the usual time you leave the reflecting pool.”

“I really like napping,” Larrikin explained. “Miss Dash says it’s good to conserve energy, and she’s the captain of the Wonderbolts, so she’d know, right?”

“I suppose it is expert testimony,” Ibis admitted. “Go nap in your own room. I have to study for the test this evening.”

“Suit yourself. There’s such a thing as overstudying, you know,” Larrikin said, turning to leave.

“Does she really hate me?” Ibis asked, suddenly worried.

“Ask her yourself,” Larrikin said.

The tests at the school were notoriously difficult for most students. In other school, classes were expected to get a perfect score on the exams and anything less was seen as a failure on their part. The staff at the school of friendship used tests not to force students to recite memorized facts but to find their strengths and weaknesses to refine their curriculum.

Today’s exam was on math, and Ibis had no idea why it was even tested. It was simply impossible to be bad at math - there were clear, empirical rules that never varied and always gave the right answer as long as they were followed.

The only possible trouble were with word problems. Just like real life, the rules there were encoded and buried and often not communicated correctly. Calculating the height of a spire from the angle of the sun as a function of the distance to its base? That was simple.

But why would a pony buy sixty watermelons[9]? How would they even transport them? And why would their friend want to borrow twenty of them? Were they going to return them? If it was only borrowing, had they actually given up ownership to begin with?

[9] Pinkie Pie was the only pony who knew the real answer to that question, and it had a little something to do with her attempts to celebrate Hearth’s Warming in July complete with improvised tropical snowponies.

Ibis carefully wrote down an answer. She wasn’t sure it was actually the right answer in an empirical sense but she knew it would be what the teachers would mark as correct. She’d tried correcting a few tests herself and had been informed that while feedback was appreciated arguing about it in the middle of an exam and answering the problem on the blackboard was going slightly too far and was throwing off the grade curve.

Two seats over, Phantasma was struggling. Ibis tried not to watch, but it was hard not to notice. She was muttering to herself, erasing her answers over and over again, asking for more scratch paper. All the signs of someone who couldn’t actually focus on what they were doing. Ponies had an unfortunate tendency to get distracted like that, letting things outside the bounds of a problem affect their thinking.

“Pencils down,” Cranky said. “Hey! I see you back there, you wet annoyance! I said pencils down!”

“Sorry~” Larrikin giggled. They ate their pencil.

“Why would you do that?” Dawn asked.

“It’s basically mulch if you think about it,” Larrikin said. “Is anyone else hungry?”

“Not anymore,” Dawn said.

Cranky collected the tests and started checking off the answers.

“So how did everypony else do?” Dawn asked.

“Gonna be honest, don’t think I sparked it,” Arteria said. “That went upwise right around problem three. You couldn’t spy my shockin’ distress on account of my sunglasses, but I promise you I must’ve gotten th’ other seven so far from the mark that the only thing to save my wings is gonna be my hoof writing being so poor they give up and mark it aces.”

Ibis frowned. “Arteria, there were ten problems on the front of the paper and ten more on the back.”

“The back?!” Arteria groaned. “Oh isn’t that just shockin’ bazinga.”[10]

[10] Ibis didn’t really understand Arteria’s slang either. She’d once tried to compile a small dictionary but had given up when the definitions and even part of speech of various words would change from sentence to sentence. This was especially true of ‘shock’, which could be used in place of absolutely any word or on its own as an intensifier.

“Alright you kids, stop jabberin!” Cranky yelled. “I’ve got good news and bad news. First, two of you got perfect or near-perfect scores. That’s the good news and the bad news, because the rest of you should have been hoping there was a curve to grade on!”

He passed the graded papers back. Ibis’ was, of course, perfect. She glanced over at Dawn, and saw her smiling down at her own sheet. It wasn’t at all a surprise that Luster Dawn had exceptional academic basics. She was, after all, Princess Twilight Sparkle’s personal student.

Phantasma groaned when she got hers back. “I failed?”

“You should have tried to focus more,” Ibis said, quietly. “You were distracted. Usually your scores are better than average.”

“I had a lot on my mind!” Phantasma snapped, shoving the graded test into her math book and slamming it shut.

“Do you want assistance studying later?” Ibis asked. One instructional guide she’d consulted had suggested that shared experiences and burdens were one of the fastest ways to build up a friendship.

“I’ll ask Dawn,” Phantasma said, standing up the moment the bell rang. “She’s my friend.”

“I want to be your friend,” Ibis said. “I thought we were friends.”

“If you really want to by friends, then at least try to understand how I feel,” Phantasma said. “You just-- you--” she huffed. “I’ve got to go.”

Ibis frowned and watched her leave, trying to piece together what she’d done wrong.

“Somepony’s awful cranky about their test score,” Arteria said. “Study group sounds like a right shocker of an idea. Hey, Berl! You wanna hit up th’ market an’ get us some blinker fluid t’ keep our eyes open while we stare at math?”

Berlioz frowned and looked at Ibis. “What?”

“I think Miss Carpals is asking for tea or coffee, though I’m not sure which,” Ibis said.

“Half white half black, as much sugar as I can legally get,” Arteria said. She slapped Berlioz’s butt with her wing on the way out. “Thanks doll.”

“...Why pony do that?” Berlioz asked.

Ibis considered for a moment. “I don’t know much about thestral culture. There are not a great deal of works on the subject and Arteria is an unreliable source. However, I have studied many creatures in general, and I believe what she is doing is attempting to establish dominance over you.”

Berlioz grunted. Ibis took this as a desire for her to continue explaining.

“It’s likely her failure on the test, a very public failure thanks to her outing herself as having missed half of the questions entirely, made her feel vulnerable. As she knows she cannot best me or Dawn in intellectual fields, Phantasma had already left, and Larrikin is as inscrutable as a bonsai tree, she decided to, as the phrase goes, ‘throw her weight around’ with you as the target. As you tend to be easy-going and non-aggressive, you were a relatively safe target.”

“Mmm.” Berlioz grumbled. “You want coffee too?”

“I’ll go with you,” Ibis said. “Actually, I wanted to pick your brain on a few things. You seem to have a good head on your shoulders, and you’re sufficiently far from the situation that you might be able to offer a good objective opinion.”

“I don’t understand what I did wrong,” Ibis said, after she’d explained the whole situation. Berlioz hadn’t asked a lot of questions yet. He was a good listener. She liked that about him. “Phantasma seems to think we aren’t friends, and that it’s somehow my fault.”

“Mm.” Berlioz nodded. “Pony is upset.”

“That’s obvious. I’m just not sure what to do about it. I can’t identify any single thing I did wrong. All I did was state objective facts and ask questions for clarification. Why would that be cause for distress?”

Berlioz rubbed his chin. “When Berlioz first came to pony town, it was hard to fit in. Not just because of size or shape. Ponies care about feelings. When a pony does something, what matters is feeling of the thing. Songs are about feelings. Food is about how it makes pony feel. And they feel a lot, about things that make no sense.”

Ibis nodded.

“Even if it is silly, to think like pony, you must think about feelings. Sometimes that means things are difficult. Like coffee. Arteria pony wants specific thing, but other things on menu are cheaper and are just as good for staying awake.” Berlioz motioned to their half complete order. “Still, got her what she wanted, because it will make her happy.”

“But she was trying to establish dominance over you,” Ibis said. “You could have refused.”

“Berlioz could have said no. Or said yes and not done the thing. Or done the thing wrong. All of these are choices Berlioz could make. But that is not what is good. Berlioz cares about something too. Honor. Pony can play pony games, but Berlioz will do a good job because any job should be done as good as Berlioz can do it.”

It was the most Ibis had heard Berlioz speak at once since they’d been assigned to the same dorm.

“She probably won’t even pay you back for buying the coffee,” Ibis pointed out.

Berlioz nodded glumly. “Yes. But it is doing the job well. Sometimes that means sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice…” Ibis considered. “I see. Yes. That makes sense.”

“Mm. Just make sure you sacrifice the right thing, yes?” Berlioz said. “Berlioz sacrifices time and a few bits and buys honor with it, because the honor is more important.”

Ibis nodded. “Let’s get the coffee back before it gets cold.”[11]

[11] For reference, Ibis hadn’t ordered coffee at all. She always ordered a vanilla chai soy latte. She also often had to be reminded not to get behind the counter to instruct the baristas in how to make her drink to her exact specifications.

“You’re the big dumb cat that lives with Phantasma,” Silver Lining said. “Why are you bothering me?”

“I wanted to ask you a few questions,” Ibis said. “I believe I was approaching things from the wrong angle in only getting one perspective on the situation, and I was only getting an incomplete picture of your relationship with Phantasma.”

“Relationship?” Silver Lining frowned. “What are you talking about? I’d never date her! I don’t even like mares that way!”

“That isn’t the kind of relationship I meant but I’ll make a note of it,” Ibis said, scribbling something down[12]. “I meant your friendship with her.”

“We’re not friends,” Silver Lining said. “Why would anypony want to be friends with her? She’s like a red and black doormat. I’d call her edgy but she doesn’t even have the spine to manage a corner, much less an edge.”

[12] She’d learned shorthand was a necessity when one’s first language used hieroglyphics. There wasn’t time to draw various types of birds, dragons, and symbols when trying to transcribe a conversation.

“But I heard you call her friend,” Ibis said.

“I was being sarcastic, obviously,” Silver snorted. “Let me guess, they don’t have that where you come from?”

“This is a school of friendship. Shouldn’t you be trying to befriend her? She seems to care what you think.”

“Everypony should care what I think. My family is one of the richest in town.”

“Her academic performance is suffering because of this,” Ibis said. “I have to ask you to please either leave her alone or apologize to her. I also have some serious concerns about academic fraud. Have you considered that the most important part about going to school is the education you gain from the experience?”

“The most important thing you get are connections,” Silver Lining corrected. “Besides, what are you going to do about it?”

“I was going to do this,” Ibis said. “Asking you to stop. It’s the most sensible thing. I’ve read many times that the best way to handle a disagreement is with open and honest discussion.”

Silver Lining laughed. “Oh yeah, I’ll definitely stop.”

“Really?” Ibis asked. “Good. Then this was a productive discussion. I’ll--”

“You’ll get me a copy of next week’s homework,” Silver Lining said. “With all the correct answers. You’re right -- her grades really have sucked lately. I’ve had to check all her answers myself because she keeps getting stupid stuff wrong. You’ll get me the correct answers.”

“I’m not going to help you cheat,” Ibis said.

“No?” Silver Lining said. “You know what’s going to happen if you don’t? I’ll have to tell Principal Starlight all about this.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. You can’t hold yourself hostage.”

“Can’t I?” Silver Lining smirked. “The difference is that consequences? They don’t stick to ponies like me.”

“Unfortunately, she’s not wrong,” Luster Dawn said. “I’m glad you came to me in private. I’m sure Phanty wouldn’t want this getting out in public.”

“She said you were her best friend,” Ibis said. “I thought you would have a vested interest in helping.”

“Let’s go over it from the top,” Luster said, holding up her own notes.[13] “You’ve been studying Phantasma to try and understand friendship in an objective sense. It turns out that she’s being bullied. She’s mad because you won’t help her, and then when you tried to help her, you weren’t able to accomplish anything.”

“Unfortunately true,” Ibis said.

[13] Ibis couldn’t help but admire the way that Luster Dawn took her own notes on everything, even if they were more like a loosely connected scatter plot than a carefully ordered list. Something about the way she would scribble down random facts made Ibis feel a little breathless and warm.

“I’ve met a lot of ponies like that in Canterlot,” Luster said. “There are always going to be some ponies who use social standings to get what they want, even if it means hurting other ponies. There really aren’t any good ways to deal with it.”

“There has to be something we can do,” Ibis said.

“Okay, let’s break out the options. First, there’s going to an adult and just telling them everything that’s going on. If we went to Starlight or Trixie, they’d definitely look into it, but without proof, it’s just her word against Silver Lining’s. At that point it’s all a matter of… ifs.”

“Ifs?”

“If Silver Lining’s parents don’t pressure Starlight into letting their daughter off scot-free. If Starlight decides not to use the school’s zero-tolerance policy on academic honesty. If they don’t decide to just slap both of them on the wrist and do nothing serious.”

“Why would the last one be bad? If Phantasma doesn’t get punished, that would seem to be an accomplished task.”

“Because that’s just going to make Silver Lining double down. Right now she’s blackmailing her, and you, because you have something she wants. If she just wants to hurt you, things will get a lot worse.”

“Woah, woah, hear me out!” Arteria said, flapping her wings wildly to stay ahead of Ibis as she walked away. “I know I’m far from the sharpest fang in the maw, but I’m shockin’ doubledown at this one thing!”

“Arteria, this is a private matter,” Ibis said.

“Yeah, private like havin’ a blinkin’ shoutin’ match at half sleeptime when everypony else is tryin’ to rest. I hear things, Ibis. I got the best ears of anypony in this whole school and I ain’t just sayin’ that trying to get into yer nest. And if I did do that it wouldn’t be to steal test answers if you catch my flow.”

Ibis sighed. She sat down heavily. “Fine. I’ll listen.”

Arteria grinned. “Bazinga! Alrighty, so the thing is you’re smarter’n me, right? I can’t exactly get out of that net. You’ve got plenty of booksmart I don’t and that’s okay because everypony learns different.[14] You study books, but me, I study ponies. It was part of what I had to do back home. Ain’t supposed to gab much on it, but you know how it is, some lessons don’t leave you.”

[14] Arteria actually was smarter than she seemed. She had two serious disadvantages in her education - Ponish was essentially her second language, and she struggled to read and write quickly. She’d grown up learning to read by touch, and having to decypher ink on a page was more difficult than it seemed.

“I assume what you’re trying to say is that you believe you can navigate a social situation better than I can.”

Arteria landed and nodded. “That’s it in a clamshell. If this was a test in a book you’d have a perfect score because you could just go and get the right answer and you’d just have to sing on key when the band was playin’. That don’t work with ponies.”

“I’m aware that context and situation can change things, but there are some rules that are universally true. Being polite is always appreciated.”

“Yes and no. That’s actually a shockin’ good thing to talk about first. Bein’ polite. See, some ponies like Phantasma, they think wouldn’t it be nice if everyone was nice, right? But if someone’s a shockin’ hook-bird and you say please and thank you, they’re just gonna think you’re an easy mark.”

“There’s never a reason to be rude, though.[15]”

[15] Retail workers, like the ones at the local coffee shop, would argue that Ibis had invented all new ways of being rude while sounding polite. Having her drinks remade a dozen times because tea should be heated to a precise temperature, for example.

“There’s plenty of reason! Like look at Berlioz, right? He’s such a sweet boy, but shock me if that’s gonna get him far. Same problem a lot of males have, innit? All nice and sweet and emotional. Need a good strong mare to lead them.” Arteria shook her head sadly.

“I’m… fairly sure he’s considerably stronger than you are.”

“Only physically! Anyway, that ain’t the point. The point is, that Silvie Liner or whatever her name was, she’s being rude, right? If you’re polite to her, she isn’t ever gonna return that. She won’t start playin’ nice and by the rules just because you’re some kind of example.”

“So you think I should be rude,” Ibis asked, unamused. “She can simply go through with her threat, in that case.”

“Will she?” Arteria asked. “You could spend a little time on yer own and get enough leverage to shove her right off into the abyss, but back home I knew ponies like her. Always hangin’ around me and mum in court, beggin for favors, every single one of ‘em with a pile of blackmail so thick they could use it for wallpaper.”

“That sounds difficult,” Ibis said. “What did you say your mother did?”

“I didn’t say.[16] And listen to the important bits, not the blinkin details! See, all those old bitties, they’d hang onto that stuff for ages, and none of it ever got used. Blackmail’s a terrible weak thing because it only ever works once.”

[16] It would be nice to say that when Ibis found out, everything suddenly made sense. It did not. Actually it just raised further questions about how Arteria had ended up being so… Arteria.

“What do you mean, it only works once?”

“Even if the other person doesn’t have the goods on you to take you down with ‘em, the moment you reveal what you have, you ain’t got no hold on them. Like let’s say she goes and tattles on Phantasma to the teachers. The second she does that, Phantasma is free. Sure, she’ll have to live with whatever comes of it, but now Phantasma has no reason not to do whatever she wants, and somepony just tried to hurt her. Wouldn’t be surprising if the very first thing that canary does now that it’s out of its cage is to fly right over and start peckin’ at the eyes.”

“But what if it does destroy Phantasma? What if she’s going to be expelled?” Ibis asked. Saying it like that hurt. Physically hurt. It was that strange kind of pain that seemed to come without a source, like the body knew it had been injured but couldn’t figure out where.

“You think that’s gonna make her less dangerous?” Arteria asked. “If the worst comes to pass, that dumb shocker is going to have to figure out right quick how to handle Phantasma when she ain’t got anything to lose.”

Ibis tried to smooth down her coat. It kept getting disheveled and making her look as stressed as she felt.

“Are you sick?” Larrikin asked. Before Ibis could stop them, the kelpie’s hoof slapped against her forehead, water dripping down her face from the creature’s soaked coat. “I think you might have a fever.”

“I’m not physically ill,” Ibis said. “I’m simply… worried.”

Larrikin nodded and sat down, thankfully removing their hoof. “I get you.”

“It seems as though I’ve asked almost every creature I know how to handle a problem, and the problem should not even be mine to begin with. Have you ever been so caught up in the issues of another that it becomes yours as well?”

“Sure,” Larrikin said. “Well, no, but I get the feeling. I’ve never really been super close to anyone. It’s tough for someone like me.” They sounded oddly sad when they said that. “Anyway, what’s up?”

“I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole of conflicting advice. One pony wants me to do nothing. Another thinks I should act regardless of the consequences. A third party suggested simply doing the best job I could with what was in front of me. And so on. Every riddle should have an answer.”

“That’s true,” Larrikin agreed. “Hey, I know what’ll make you feel better! Ask me a riddle. You love riddles.”

Ibis did love riddles.

“There is a house. One enters it blind and comes out seeing. What is it?” she asked.

Larrikin hemmed and hawed, thinking. “That’s a pretty good one, but I think I know the answer - it’s an optometrist! You go in not being able to see, and they make glasses for you, and then you can even read the tiny little letters in the footnotes.[17]”

[17] Not these footnotes, the ones on the optometrist's contract[18], the footnotes that explained the various fees and taxes you were now expected to pay and weren’t informed about before. Since you could read them with your fancy new glasses, you were obviously liable for them now.

[18] Though if your glasses were good enough you could read these notes too.

“That’s… not the answer I was thinking of,” Ibis said. “I suppose technically it’s a valid answer, but I meant a school. You go in blind, metaphorically, and come out being able to see. It’s a metaphor for the wisdom you gain.”

“It’s not really a great metaphor,” Larrikin said. “I think my answer was better.”

Ibis groaned. “Fine. Okay. I will concede that your answer is acceptable.”

“Try another one. I’ll definitely get it.”

Ibis cleared her throat for the appropriate dramatic riddle reading voice. “There are three apples and you take two away. How many apples do you have?”

“Ugh, no, that’s a math problem, not a riddle. I want a riddle.”

“No, it’s a riddle because it has a trick answer! You are supposed to think that you have one left because you took two away, but the apples never belonged to you, so the two you took away are the ones you have!”

“Oh. Then the answer is two. Two apples!”

“It doesn’t count if I explained the answer before you give it.”

“You didn’t explain the rules very clearly. Give me a good one, come on. I know you’ve got plenty of good riddles.”

Ibis rolled her eyes. “Fine. One last riddle, because this is getting more frustrating than entertaining.”

“I’m good at that,” Larrikin agreed.

“I'm left behind yet never taken, set down in a row.
Seldom seen in isolation, captured by the snow.
Set apart by haste, though immobile all the same.
When left un-defaced, a betrayal of the game.”

“Oh wow, that is a good one,” Larrikin said. “It’s got rhymes and meter and everything.”

“And a single correct answer,” Ibis noted. She waited.

Larrikin made a few thinking sounds. A minute passed. Then another.

“An answer that I am waiting for.”

“It’s a really good riddle,” Larrikin said. “I don’t want to use it up all at once.”

“...Use it up all at once?”

“Yeah! Like the second I figure it out, bam, all the mystery is gone. Ruins it, if you think about it. The best part of a riddle is that whole time thinking about what the answer could be. Is it a river? Nope. Not a river. But you’d be surprised how often ‘river’ is the answer to a riddle.”

“Yes, but not the answer to this riddle.”

“You know what, I’m going to sleep on it,” Larrikin said. “I bet once I’ve had a nap I’ll be able to really nail the answer.”

“What?”

“I’ll be back!” Larrikin said, trotting off. “I just have to find a good nap spot first.”

Ibis sighed.

The School of Friendship had one very important trait, something that had made it so attractive to a scholar like Ibis that she was more than happy to move in as a student instead of simply prowling the halls as a wandering monster.

Princess Twilight Sparkle had made sure that it had the largest and best-appointed library in all of Equestria. True, Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns had many unique texts on magic and history, but the subject matter of that school’s library was far more limited than the School of Friendship. There was nowhere else in Equestria where one could find texts on changeling hive lore[19], rubbings of stone tablets from the dragon lands[20], books from Olde Griffonstone[21], and the complete set of Daring Do books along with advance copies of the newest adventures[22].

[19] Changelings actually had very little written history. As it turned out, having a paper trail of any kind was a terrible decision for a species that had spent the vast majority of its history hiding from every other creature in the world. They did, however, have wonderful oral histories passed down from generation to generation.

[20] Almost universally boasting about the size of one’s hoard, a threat made against intruders, or accounting forms, which the dragons had invented while ponies were still working out the mysteries of iron.

[21] Salvaged from the Olde Griffonstone Librarie, which had been built before the standardization of spelling.

[22] The latest book was being universally panned by reviewers, who criticized its central plot device that involved aliens from another world called ‘humans’ along with the increasingly improbable age of the protagonist. A.K. Yearling had offered to step into the boxing ring if anypony was brave enough to say Daring Do couldn’t still swash and buckle with the best of them.

Ibis was most at home in the library. She could and had sat there for days at a time simply reading anything that caught her attention. Her routine was to pick a remote corner and turn it into her little temporary lair, only venturing out to find the most interesting prey. Ponies who disturbed her were given riddles if they wanted to borrow any of the books in the realm she’d claimed as her own.

Those that succeeded were given their prize, sometimes along with a recommendation on further reading if they were particularly polite company. The failures were also given their books because while Ibis was a monster she wasn’t the kind of monster who would keep a pony from the pursuit of learning. That would simply be needlessly evil.

The library was supposed to be her safe place. She wasn’t supposed to feel cornered in it by her own inability to solve a riddle.

“How is a raven like a writing desk?” she mumbled to herself, pacing back and forth in frustration. “Every riddle has a solution.”

“If that’s really what’s got you looking like you haven’t slept in three days, I hate to have to tell you it’s sort of a joke,” Principal Starlight said. She looked around the little nook of the library. “You’re scaring away some of the younger students. Apparently they think they might get eaten.”

Ibis frowned. “Eaten? By what?”

Starlight raised an eyebrow.

“Oh.” Ibis sat down and tried to smooth her matted fur. “My apologies.”

“You know, I might not have a glowing cutie mark right now but I have a feeling there’s a friendship problem going on,” Starlight said. “Do you want to know one big secret to solving friendship problems?”

Ibis nodded eagerly.

“You can’t do it alone,” Starlight said. “Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

Ibis froze up. “Normally, I would be happy to, but… I can’t.”

“Why’s that?” Starlight asked. “Is it a Pinkie Promise? Because I know more than enough not to mess with those.”

“I did give my word, but even if I hadn’t…” she paused. “There is another student having difficulties, and I am at a loss for how to help them. I stumbled into the situation myself and hurt their feelings and…”

“And you think fixing it is the only way to make up for finding out whatever secret you uncovered?” Starlight asked. She waited for Ibis to nod before continuing. “I’ve run into a few problems like that before. The worst part is when it’s something embarrassing and you don’t even know it’s a problem for the other creature until it’s too late.”

“In this case it might be significantly worse than that,” Ibis admitted. “They believe that their whole life relies on a particular secret being kept.”

“Are they getting hurt because of that secret?” Starlight asked. She saw the hesitation all over Ibis’ face. “If this is something hurting them, a friend wouldn’t let them keep getting hurt.”

“You are… aware of Phantasma’s difficulties back in the Crystal Empire?” Ibis asked. “She is worried that if certain secrets get out, she will be forced to leave the school, and she won’t get to see her friends again.”

“You’re worried you won’t get to see her again, too,” Starlight added.

“I don’t know if we’re friends or not,” Ibis said. “I thought we were, but I hurt her in not being sensitive to her situation.”

“Friends sometimes fight or misunderstand each other,” Starlight said. “You’ll find a way to make it up to her. It doesn’t need to be some huge, dramatic gesture. Sometimes the answer to a riddle is more simple than you think. Just tell her how you feel, and ask her how you can make it up to her. She probably needs to feel like she has some control.”

“That could work but… it doesn’t address the core issue.”

“And that would be whatever you found out?”

Ibis nodded.

Starlight rubbed her chin. “And you don’t feel comfortable telling me about it.”

“No,” Ibis admitted. “Part of the concern is that a third party is threatening to tell you about… this issue.”

“And this third party -- are they using that knowledge to bully Phantasma?”

Ibis closed her eyes and nodded glumly. “I’ve tried asking all of my classmates for advice. Berlioz said that everything was a matter of what I was willing to sacrifice. Arteria suggested my usual polite and straightforward approach was wrong. Luster Dawn cemented the actual consequences of the choices available to me. And Larrikin…” Ibis snoted. “All they did was answer riddles wrongly, throwing answers at me that weren’t even part of the parameters of the question.”

“Sounds like they had a lot of advice,” Starlight said. “Everypony has a different way of dealing with a problem. It’s one of the real strengths of the school, that we get to learn about them all.”

“Yes, but what kind of solution is it to give the wrong answer to a… problem…” Ibis frowned, her train of thought going in a different direction.

“It sounds like you just thought of something,” Starlight said.

“Yes. Yes, I think I did,” Ibis said. She straightened up. “Principal Starlight, I would like to confess to academic fraud.”

“It was the best solution I could come up with,” Ibis said, a few hours later. “If I hadn’t spoken to everypony, I never would have been able to come up with a viable solution, and that is why I wanted to gather all of you here.”

“You told Starlight everything?!” Phantasma asked, in alarm.

“No. I don’t know everything,” Ibis said. “What I did was… I confessed to giving Silver Lining the answers to some of her assignments.”

“But you didn’t do that,” Phantasma said. “That’s what she was forcing me to do!”

“She cornered me when I approached her and tried to blackmail me the same way,” Ibis said. “I thought I could talk her down politely, but it was impossible like Arteria later told me.”

“On account of me always being right,” Arteria said.

“What I told Principal Starlight was the truth. I gave Silver Lining the answers to some of her assignments. I did not specify how many times I had done it, though at the time it was exactly one assignment. I further warned her that I believed Silver Lining would attempt to frame Phantasma for the crime simply to hurt me.”

“So if she does say anything about Phantasma, you’ve offered an alternate answer to her accusations,” Luster said. “I guess that goes outside the bounds of what we talked about.”

“It does, but Larrikin was the one to give me that idea. Riddles normally only have one right answer, yes? A single, clever answer that neatly puts all the clues in a row. Larrikin showed me that even simple word games don’t always work out so cleanly, and if that’s true of such pure puzzles, naturally it’s even more applicable to real-life problems.”

Larrikin nodded. “Yep. Usually there’s like, tons of answers. Oh! That reminds me! I totally solved the riddle you gave me!”

“Did you?” Ibis asked.

“Yeah! It’s a river!”

“Larrikin, when I gave it to you we discussed how the answer was very specifically not ‘a river’.”

“Oh, right. I think I might have gotten it confused with where I was going to nap later. Oh well. I’ll come up with the right answer soon. You just wait!”

“But what about you?” Phantasma asked. “The punishment for academic fraud like that, it must be… are you being expelled?”

“No,” Ibis said. “Thankfully not. There are consequences to my actions, but I don’t have to leave. Even if I did, it would have been worth it. I couldn’t let you take on such an unfair burden. I’m sorry that I tried to treat your problem as something to study instead of asking to help.”

“I didn’t want anypony else to get hurt because of me,” Phantasma whispered.

“And I didn’t want you to have to go back to a place you don’t want to be,” Ibis told her. “All of my grades will be reduced by a letter grade, and Silver Lining is being forced to retake every exam she’s already taken this school year, and I am told the new versions of the exams will be much more difficult.”

“If she spent as much time studying as she did trying to blackmail me for the answers she would be able to pass,” Phantasma said. “I’m so sorry about your grades…”

“Why?” Ibis asked. “I was more than willing to sacrifice them.” She glanced at Berlioz. “It was my own kind of honor. A payment I was happy to make to be your friend and help you when you needed it.”

“You know, it sounds to me like you learned a lot about friendship,” Luster Dawn said. “I’ve been writing letters to Princess Twilight. Maybe you’d like to put something together and I can send it along?”

“After all the work I went through to keep things in the dark?” Ibis asked, laughing. “Every riddle has a solution, but we can let the true answer to this one remain as a secret between us. Someday, perhaps, I will write on it when I publish my own meditations on friendship and what it means.”

“I guess Princess Twilight will just have to settle for an update on the Summer Sun Celebration decor,” Luster Dawn said. “She’s going to find out about the balloon race anyway when the permits start going through the Equestrian Civil Services.”

“Wait!” Larrikin gasped. “I finally got it! I know the real answer to the riddle!”

All eyes turned to the kelpie.

“It’s the tail in a ‘pin the tail on the princess’ game!” Larrikin said, triumphantly. “They’re left behind, more than one pony plays at a time, they don’t move around on their own, and, um…” she hesitated. “There was something about a game?”

“Sure,” Ibis said, giggling. “We’ll call that close enough.”

“Yes! I knew I’d get it eventually!”

Chapter 4

Diamond dogs were not well-known for their… and you could insert almost anything at the end of that statement. They just generally weren’t well-known, and that was at least as much on purpose as it was an accident. Just like the deep ocean, very little was actually known about the vast array of tunnels and caverns underhoof at any moment in Equestria. Even the extent of the caverns wasn’t known -- were all the isolated pockets dug deep into the earth connected? Was there some huge truth waiting if one dug down enough into the rock? What kinds of societies and monsters lived and grew in those places that never saw the sun and moon?

Berlioz had been born not far from Ponyville. His parents had been considered dangerously deviant in that they occasionally traded with the nearby town, going so far as to actually travel openly in broad daylight. Most diamond dogs never saw a pony, and certainly never spoke to one. He’d been so young the first time he’d gone into town that he couldn’t even remember it. It had always just been a place he’d been aware of.

The local clan -- or tribe, or pack, or whatever one wanted to call it -- mostly lived a half-day’s journey down tunnels just outside of town, hemmed in on one side by quarrey eels and on the other by annoying crystalline growths and changes to the local terrain. It had been years before the dogs knew the cause, that pony magic had created a castle and warped the underground, making maps under the town useless and cutting off an old trade route.

“It’s terrible, isn’t it?” Luster groaned.

Berlioz considered his words carefully. “Yes,” he said, finally. “Cake should not be burned around the edge and raw in the middle.”

“I guess you really can’t just turn up the heat to reduce the cooking time,” she sighed. “It was stupid.”

“Not stupid,” Berlioz corrected. He squatted a little so he didn’t loom over the little pony quite so much. “Pony was trying to save time. Pony did not know it would burn. Not trying new ideas, that is stupid. If idea doesn’t work, still wasn’t stupid to try. Stupider not to try and never improve, yes?”

“Yeah,” Luster said, smiling a little. “Thanks, Berlioz.”

“Mm.” He nodded. “And now we know what happens. Pony and Berlioz not make same mistake twice. Making mistake once is how wisdom is gained.”

“We’ll do it the way the instructions say,” Luster Dawn agreed. “If you do the mixing, I’ll get a fresh batch of ingredients from the teachers.”

Berlioz nodded, and Dawn ran off to the Cake twins, telling them what she needed.

“Are you gonna eat that?” Larrikin whispered.

“...It is ruined cake,” Berlioz said. “Not good for eating.”

“It still looks good to me,” Larrikin said. “Think about it -- cake batter is pretty tasty, and regular cake is tasty, and burned cake is basically extra-brown cookies!”

Berlioz rolled his eyes and gave Larrikin the pan. The kelpie happily took it back to the station it was sharing with Arteria, already sticking their maw into it before they even sat down again.

“You shouldn’t encourage them,” Ibis said, from the other side of the room. She and Phantasma had already constructed most of their cake to exacting specifications and were working on minute details in the icing design. “If you let them eat your mistakes, they’ll start thinking the garbage can is another pantry.”

“Berlioz is fairly sure the kelpie already does that,” Berlioz said. “Berlioz has also never seen any creature as hungry as that one.”

“Maybe they’re just always hungry,” Ibis shrugged. “She can’t photosynthesize like this, so perhaps it’s like constant low blood sugar. I’d study it, but…” Ibis hesitated. “I would need more subjects for a control group.”

“That is polite way to say it,” Berlioz said, with a grin.

“And there is perhaps one other problem you hadn’t anticipated,” Ibis said.

Berlioz frowned. “What problem?”

“Oy!” snapped Arteria. “What’s this with you givin’ out snacks t’ my lab partner?” She fluttered over, keeping her eye level above Berlioz’s. “Ain’t cricket to go an’ give th’ wet bandit a free lunch an’ not give me nothin.”

Berlioz sighed. “If pony want ruined cake, pony can make own ruined cake. Berlioz promises it is even easier than making cake the right way.”

“That ain’t the bullseye,” Arteria said. “The shockin yell is on that I’m th’ leader an’ so I should get right of first refusal, you ears my drog?”

Berlioz did not ears her drog, but only because he didn’t know she meant to ask if he understood what she was saying. He nodded anyway.

“Crackin,” Arteria nodded firmly. She adjusted her sunglasses, which were entirely unneeded in the soft indoor lighting of the school. At night. “Just as long as you remember--”

“You’re the big bat that makes all the rules,” Berlioz recited, like he’d heard it a million times. It hadn’t actually been quite so many orders of magnitude but it felt like it.

“That’s th’ right key. Perfect pitch.” She landed next to him and slapped his butt with her wing before strutting back to her station to admonish Larrikin for eating garbage and being even more offended by the kelpie offering to share with her.

“You okay?” Dawn asked.

“Berlioz is fine,” Berlioz said. He rubbed his butt where the thestral had swatted him. “Berlioz sometimes feels like other creatures in school are not fine, and this makes him worry.”

“Yeah,” Dawn giggled. “It must be hard being the stable and dependable one.”

Berlioz nodded. “Pony has no idea.”

“It’s weird, with how nice you are all the time, I thought there would be more diamond dogs at the school.”

“Berlioz isn’t like other diamond dogs,” he said.

“No?” Luster asked.

Berlioz nodded. She’d meant for him to continue. He knew that. He just didn’t want to. “What is first step of making new cake?” he asked instead.

“Well, um, I guess first we mix the wet ingredients…” Luster started, picking up the list.

Berlioz was slowly, deliberately taking notes. When Luster Dawn opened his door without knocking, he didn’t make a mess or misstroke of the pen. He finished the letter he was working on, then turned his attention to the pony who had walked into his room without asking.

“Yes?” he grumbled.

“Hey! I was just wondering if I could get your help for a minute,” Luster said. She walked in like his question had been an invitation. It was something Berlioz had noticed ponies just did, even polite ones. Back home, that kind of intrusion would have been considered aggressive and demanded he defend his honor.

Berlioz knew that wasn’t the way Luster meant it. Ponies weren’t as sensitive about their own spaces as the dogs were. She’d walked in because she assumed she’d be welcome.

“What does pony need help with?” Berlioz asked.

Luster craned her neck to look at what he’d been writing. “There’s a rumor that two ponies went missing from the school, and according to what I heard they were working on spelunking cutie marks, and-- wow, you’ve got really good handwriting.”

Berlioz held up his hands and wiggled his fingers.

“I guess that does help,” Dawn admitted. “But this is like, professional calligraphy, and it’s just notes you’re making for class.”

“If something is worth writing, it is worth writing well,” Berlioz said.

“You sort of say that about everything.”

“Mm.” Berlioz nodded.

“Anyway, can you help me look for the missing ponies?”

“Has pony been asked to help look by Principal Starlight?” Berlioz asked. He was, after all, a cunning and intelligent dog.

“...Not exactly,” Dawn admitted, after a moment. “She might have sort of said the opposite.”

“Principal Starlight told you not to get involved,” Berlioz translated. “Did she say pony would only get lost? That she would have to find three ponies instead of two?”

“That is sort of exactly what she said, yes, but that’s why I want to bring you! You know tunnels, and you can help keep me from getting lost. And I know you’re trustworthy. I kind of worry if I bring Arteria she’ll, you know.”

Berlioz stood up. “Where did ponies go missing?” He could imagine what would happen if she brought Arteria, too.

“Come on. We don’t have to go far.”

“Pony was not joking,” Berlioz said. “Ponies went missing under the school?”

“Nobody knows how deep all the tunnels go,” Luster Dawn said. “There are some spots that teachers and students have reported that we just can’t find anymore. Mister Sunburst swears he lost his favorite cape when he ran into a monster in some kind of glowing magical lake.”

“Mm. Had classes with that pony. Pony also said that he walked uphill both ways to get to class.”

“That’s probably true,” Luster Dawn said. “He went to the School for Gifted Unicorns. Somepony tried to make the campus larger with some weird spells, and now it’s bigger on the inside, but… not everything is connected correctly.”

“Maybe ponies are just bad at making maps.”

“Well, the good news is that I’m amazing at making maps!” Luster held up grid paper, several sharpened pencils, and a book.
“I’m going to map things out as we go using the standard notation developed by experts in the field of exploratory indoor cartography.”

“Pony, book is for a game.”

“Ogres and Oubliettes teaches a large variety of important life skills,” Dawn said. “For example, it has a whole section on diamond dogs, so I’ve been able to learn a lot about your culture.”

Berlioz raised an eyebrow.

“For example, I know that diamond dogs have such a keen sense of smell they can determine which rocks contain gemstones just by sniffing them!” Dawn said.

“Berlioz did not know that,” he said. “Berlioz always thought rocks smelled like rocks.”

“...Really?”

“If tunnel has strange smell it does not mean gems. It means monster. Or poison gas. Usually gas. Do not go into tunnel with strange smell.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. So, um, which way should we go?” Dawn looked around.

“Berlioz thinks this way.” He pointed.

“Are there hoofprints? Some kind of special tunnel sense?”

“Mm. No. Ponies left chalk marks.” He pointed to an arrow scribbled on the rock.

“Are you sure it was them?”

“Yes. It is at pony eye level. Dogs would put it on floor or higher up in wet tunnel. Pony did it wrong, though.”

“What do you mean?” Dawn asked. She made a note on her map.

“Pony has arrow pointing down tunnel the way they went,” he explained. “Dogs use arrows too. Good in strange caverns, smart. Ponies were not entirely stupid. But arrows should point back to entrance.”

“Why? What’s the difference?”

“Mm… come here.” Berlioz motioned her forward to an intersection of four tunnels. “Look. Arrow shows they went down that tunnel, yes? Imagine you are leaving, and do not have map. You come here, and then where does pony go? Arrow only shows way you went, not way you need to go.”

“So they could have gotten lost on the way back,” Dawn realized. “They could have walked out of that tunnel, even this close to the exit, and been totally confused where to go.”

“Yes. That is why dogs mark way back, not way forward. There is always more forward, but only ever one way to return.”

“I’ll remember that,” Dawn said. She paused, then make a quick chalk mark on the floor. “Like this?” She had the arrow pointing, correctly, back towards the entrance.

Berlioz nodded. “Good. Mark is on floor because it is easy to find. Always watching footing in caves, yes? So you see marks on floor. Marks on wall, they can be missed.”

“I’m really glad I brought you,” Dawn sighed. “Okay. So we’ll follow their arrows and see how far they go, then work our way back to the entrance, checking the side passages they might have gone down by mistake. Does that sound good?”

“Good plan, pony.” Berlioz smiled.

They’d walked for a long time before Berlioz suddenly stopped Luster, grabbing her and pulling her to the side and covering her mouth.

“Quiet. Turn off light,” Berlioz whispered. She nodded and the light at the tip of her horn winked out. Berlioz let her go. She was smart enough to stay still and not ask what was going on.

A few moments later, she heard the footsteps too. A diamond dog padded along the tunnel, stopping near where they were hidden in the shadows. The only light in the corridor was the dim glow of some of the gems along the wall. The dog sniffed for a moment before moving on, grumbling to himself with a voice like gravel sliding down a hill.

Berlioz waited for a few long moments before letting Luster move.

“That was a diamond dog,” she whispered.

Berlioz nodded.

“Why did we hide? You could have asked him if he saw where the missing ponies went!”

“That was a deep-down dog. Derggo.” Berlioz frowned. “Very bad.”

Luster looked the way the dog had gone, and there was a clear uncomfortable silence where she was pointedly not asking a question.

“Pony is forgiven for not knowing the difference,” Berlioz said. “There are many tribes of diamond dog. Berlioz’s tribe, they are from near the surface. We can go out in the sunlight. The derggo cannot. They have the deep magic.”

“I’m really starting to think we need to learn more about you,” Luster said. “And they’re… bad?”

“Very bad dogs,” Berlioz confirmed.

“Great. Very bad dogs, and this close to the surface. Why are they even here?”

“Mm. When castle appeared, it changed the land. If the changes went deep, could be wells straight down to deep underdark where the derggo live. Berlioz’s tribe used to protect this territory from them, but we no longer have claim here.”

“Wonderful. So we might have to rescue two foals from them…”

“Yes. And we have to hurry.”

“Yeah. They’re probably terrified.”

“Berlioz is more worried they might already have been eaten.”

“What?!”

“Derggo are meat-eaters. All of them. Even cannibals, in bad times, but for them all times are bad. You understand? Very bad dogs.” He motioned for her to follow. “Hurry. Do not stray. Keep light low.”

“This looks like it was built,” Luster whispered. “There are tool marks.”

“Mm. Yes. These tunnels are old.” Berlioz stopped and touched the wall. “Look.”

“Runes?” Dawn asked, leaning in to bring her light closer.

“They are a record. Tell the story of the mine.” Berlioz tapped the symbols. “Very old. Too old. Should not be dogs wandering dead tunnels like this.”

“Dead?”

“Nothing left to mine,” he explained. “Mm. Maybe explains things, though. Derggo are this close to the surface because derggo mined out all the veins of the earth. No metal, no gems, just dry rock left.”

“Why not just pack up and leave?” Luster Dawn asked.

“Would pony leave home just because times are tough?” Berlioz asked. “No. Leaving would be like… whole city deciding to leave and rebuild. Like Ponyville being abandoned.”

“So it’s like… if nothing would grow around Ponyville. No vegetables or fruits or anything, and these tunnels would be like ponies going someplace they didn’t want to? Like foraging in the Everfree?”

Berlioz nodded. “Yes. Pony understands. The surface is a terror to them. To be this close, the derggo must be…” he shook his head. “Not good. And patrols. So they found the dead tunnels are open now.”

“What do we do?”

Berlioz hesitated. The smart thing, for him and Luster, would be to turn back. Return to the school, report what they found, come back in force. Even among his tribe, it would have been foolish to go against the derggo alone. They had old and terrible magic and he didn’t know enough about it to begin to estimate the real danger.

But on the other hand, there were two ponies that had almost certainly been captured by the bad dogs.

“We go on,” Berlioz said. “We are close.”

Close to what, he wasn’t sure.

The tunnel was dusty, but there was a clear path through it. Berlioz stopped at one point and touched a mark made to the side of the main path. A hoofstep was clear against the dusty stone. They were on the right track, at least until the tunnel opened up to a yawning, dark pit.

“Mm…” he frowned.

“What’s this?” Dawn asked.

“A hole,” Berlioz grumbled, feeling annoyed. “We have to find way down, but…”

“But what?”

Berlioz pointed. A stone platform stuck out from the rock, set into a track dug into the side of the well. “Derggo earth magics move these. Berlioz does not know how to make them work. Guard left this one here, but pony and Berlioz cannot ask him for ride to bottom.”

“Maybe we can figure it out,” Dawn suggested. She carefully stepped onto the platform, as if afraid a slab of solid stone wouldn’t be able to take her weight. Berlioz walked on after her.

Dawn paced around the edge.

“There are runes carved into the rock. Is that part of the magic?”

“Yes,” Berlioz said. “Derggo magic is like, mm. Slave magic. Makes things into servants to do work. This serves by going up and down.”

“The rock is… enslaved?”

“Yes. Difficult to explain. Earth pony might know better words for it. Berlioz and other dogs, we can sense spirits of the earth sometimes. My tribe, only small feelings from powerful spirits. They are like friends or rulers, yes? Dogs appease spirits with offerings, and spirits do things for dogs, but tribe cannot command spirits. Maybe like unicorn with weather -- unicorn cannot make rain come, but can hope for rain, and knows how to build umbrella for rainy season.”

Luster nodded. “And the derggo can bind the spirits somehow.”

“That is why they have bad times,” Berlioz explained. “Mm. Imagine if pegasus ponies decided one day -- no more rain. Days are all sunny and happy for ponies. But without rain, plants stop growing. Everything dies. The earth is not tended. Derggo are like that. They take everything from the earth and do not let it heal. Only care about what they can take. What derggo can own and rule.”

“That’s pretty bad,” Luster muttered. “I’m going to guess your tribe isn’t like that.”

“No. But, some of my tribe are still bad dogs,” Berlioz said. “Once in a while, try to take slaves or steal. Just like some ponies are bad and steal or hurt.”

“Yeah, but if your tribe had taken them we probably wouldn’t have to worry about being eaten,” Luster mumbled.

“True,” Berlioz agreed. He took a knee to run his paw over the runes. “Must be some way to do this but… forcing will hurt spirit of the stone.”

“It’s not like any spell I know,” Dawn shrugged. “Can you try asking it nicely?”

Berlioz was about to say no, then shrugged. It wouldn’t hurt to try. He put his hand flat on the rock.

“...Is it working?” Luster whispered.

Berlioz had spent a lot of time above ground. Maybe close to half of his life had been spent without rock over his head. He’d only rarely felt anything like the dogs in his tribe described, the deep spirits in dark places, sealed caverns where power echoed and no dog would enter.

But he had met earth ponies.

“What is pony doing?” Berlioz asked, more than a year ago now.

“Ah’m fixin’ up the castle garden,” Apple Bloom said.

Berlioz frowned. He spent a moment looking over what she was doing while he tried to gather the right words. She had plants in tiny pots, barely sprouted in loamy soil, and she was digging little holes in the garden to match.

“Plants grow on their own,” he said, eventually.

“Ah suppose that’s mostly true,” Apple Bloom agreed. “Ah could let this whole bed go wild. Mostly it’d grow weeds, though. Sort of like teachin’ all of you! If we just let all y’all grow on your own, there’d be a lot of weeds in sort of a metaphorical way.”

Berlioz folded his arms.

“What ah mean is, uh…” Apple Bloom thought about it. “Well, some plants are real strong, right? Like these trees here.” She reached over to pat a slim trunk with her hoof. “They’ll outlive you and me unless somethin’ mighty strange happens.”

Berlioz nodded. “Yes.”

“These little guys here, though,” she motioned to the tiny pots. “They’re a type of plant called an annual. They only last one growin’ season. They live, grow, and then die. If we want ‘em in the garden, we gotta replant them every year.”

“Why are flowers so weak?” he asked.

“Not everything has t’ be strong,” Apple Bloom said. “Probably wouldn’t survive in the wild, but it don’t have to. I’m here to tend it.”

“If pony had stronger flower, pony would have to work less.”

“Yep, definitely. But these flowers, they’re beautiful. If you only care about strong plants, you end up with the Everfree Forest. The whole place takes care of itself, but it ain’t a place for ponies to enjoy. It ain’t even a useful place like an orchard. The plants that help us are the ones that need our help too.”

Berlioz nodded.

“C’mere and help me,” Apple Bloom said. “Let me show you.”

He knelt down at her side so he could reach the ground, and she gave him a trowel. At her instruction he carefully dug out a hole, not so deep it would bury the plant, not so shallow that the roots wouldn’t have firm purchase. Berlioz carefully freed the plant from the pot and transplanted it with Apple Bloom cautioning him about how delicates the roots were.

Eventually, after much longer than it would have taken Apple Bloom to do it herself, he patted down the dirt around the seedling he’d planted.

“Perfect!” Apple Bloom said, patting him on the back. “Now there’s just one more step. Y’all gotta name it and ask it nicely to grow.”

“...Why?” Berlioz asked.

“Plants are very sensitive. They can tell if you care about ‘em. A pony who don’t care about a plant an’ wouldn’t give it a name, that’s the same kinda pony that wouldn’t care about a pet or any other creature.”

“Pony names every plant?”

Apple Bloom nodded. “Every single one. If y’all come on down to the orchard ah can tell you the name of all the trees.”

“Berlioz couldn’t remember all those names,” Berlioz mumbled.

“That’s okay! Y’all just gotta remember this one name.” Apple Bloom grinned. “So what’s it gonna be?”

Berlioz looked at the tiny green thing.

“May,” Berlioz mumbled, with his paw still pressed against the cold stone.

“Huh?” Luster asked.

Berlioz shook his head. “Spirit is a slave. Does not have name. First thing, give spirit a name. Maybe not a good name for stone but… good name,” he said, quietly. “Shows that you care, because a thing does not have a name. A person has a name. A slave is not a person, and maybe if spirit remembers it is a person, and not a thing, it will help.”

Luster looked skeptical, but she was a unicorn. Unicorns were naturally skeptical of anything that didn’t have numbers attached to it.

“Please, May, Berlioz asks you to move so he can find other ponies,” he whispered. “Berlioz promises when this is done, he will try to free you. He doesn’t know how to do it yet, but he will find a way. All creatures should be free.”

Nothing happened for a long moment.

Then the whole platform shivered. There was a crack like something in the wall was snapping. Luster almost jumped back into the tunnel, but Berlioz held her back until the slab started sliding down smoothly.

“Pony was right,” he said. “Asking nicely was the right thing to do.”

“I just didn’t expect it to actually work,” Dawn admitted.

It was impossible to tell how deep they went, but the pressure difference made Berlioz’s ears pop, something that usually meant flooding in a mine and made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

“Oh wow…” Luster Dawn whispered. The far side of the well opened up, and the platform was descending in the open, the well extending down through a ceiling and the platform’s track following a stalactite towards the cavern floor far below. “Is that a lake?”

“There are many sunless seas,” Berlioz said. “Berlioz has never seen one with his own eyes.”

“It must be miles across,” Luster said. “How can a cavern this large even support itself? It should need huge support columns!”

“In other places, the spirits of the earth would keep the rock strong,” Berlioz said. “But here…” He reached out to touch the wall sliding past them as they descended. The rock flaked off like stale pastry. A chunk fell, and he caught it, showing it to Luster before crushing it with his bare paw, tossing the dust aside.

“That makes me really feel good about being down here,” Dawn mumbled. “Are we going to be able to get back up?”

“Yes,” Berlioz assured her. “May will hold on until pony and Berlioz are ready to leave.” He touched the platform.

“Sounds good,” Luster said. The lights around the rim of the sea slowly resolved themselves as windows and lights around streets, some of them bobbing and moving as unseen dogs carried them from place to place. “What are they using for light? It can’t be fire, right?”

“No. Down this deep.” Berlioz narrowed his eyes. “Berlioz used fireflies and glowcrystal. Color isn’t right for those.”

The platform slowed as they approached the cavern flow, coming to a shuddering jerking halt not quite flush to the ground.

“Stay close, pony,” Berlioz said. Luster nodded, and they walked out onto what looked almost like a city street, if someone took all the life and color out of a city and replaced it with cold rock. Everything was the same color, a flat grey, all the windows yawning empty gaps in the stone. Half the buildings were ruined, huge stone slabs crushed under cave-ins and piles of rubble.

“Is this whole place falling apart?” Luster asked.

“Yes,” Berlioz muttered. “Pony asked why cavern is so large, now Berlioz is asking it too.” He looked up. “Whole roof is half collapsed. Not natural.”

“And these streetlights…” Luster stopped at the base of one of them. It was a thin pillar of steel and stone topped with a silver cage. Inside, a spark floated like a trapped star. “That’s magic. It’s not a lot of magic power, but…”

“Mm.” Berlioz nodded.

“Hey!” a voice barked in the darkness. “You!”

A diamond dog stepped out of an alleyway between two half-broken buildings. They were wearing armor made of strange grey leather and what looked like the shell of some huge beetle or lobster.

“What dog doing here?” the derggo growled. It spotted Luster and drew an axe, a crude length of bone and sharpened chitin. “You have pony?”

Berlioz stepped protectively between the armed dog and Luster. “Not for you!” he snapped.

The derggo bared its teeth, looking at him for a few long moments before lowering its axe. “If dog comes to trade, go to trade quarter! Rest of city off limits to visitors!”

“Which way is trade quarter?” Berlioz asked.

“Stupid high-land dog, go that way!” the derggo pointed with its axe. “And get collar for slave or else! City has rules!”

“Slave?” Luster asked. Berlioz hushed her.

“We go to trade quarter,” Berlioz said. “Not here for trouble.”

The derggo nodded, apparently appeased, and stalked away.

“Come,” Berlioz said, just loud enough for the retreating dog to hear.

“What’s that all about?” Luster whispered. “Slave? Why would he call me a slave?”

“Because you are pony, and he is bad dog who thinks all ponies with a diamond dog are slaves,” Berlioz said. “If pony saw cat with other pony, would think pet. Cat alone, maybe a stray or lost. Bad dog cannot think of pony as person.”

“That’s… convenient,” Dawn muttered.

“Mm. But we have to make sure pony not mistaken for stray,” Berlioz said. He stopped at a ruined house and looked around before stepping inside, grabbing a length of half-rotten rope.

“What’s that for?” Luster asked.

“Disguise,” Berlioz said. “Sorry.”

Berlioz looked at his friend. The older dog, Tanzen, was leading a pony down the tunnel. Actually, leading was generous. He was mostly dragging the young stallion, who had a rope securely around his muzzle and neck.

“What is dog doing?” Berlioz asked, confused.

“Tanzen found pony digging in old mine,” Tanzen said. “Now pony can dig for us.”

Berlioz frowned and stepped in front of Tanzen. He was a full head shorter than Tanzen and maybe half his weight.

“No,” Berlioz said.

“Pony can dig faster and harder then dogs,” Tanzen said. “Need pony for mine. No more trade with stupid pony castle in the way.”

“Trade with ponies,” Berlioz said.

“Like parents of stupid tiny dog who spends too much time in the sun?” Tanzen laughed. “Ponies are not friends. They do not care about dogs!”

“True,” Berlioz agreed. “Ponies do not care about dogs.”

Tanzen nodded with approval. “So dogs keep pony as slave.”

He tried to step past Berlioz, and the smaller dog got in front of him again. “No.”

“Stop saying no!” Tanzen yelled.

“Ponies do not care about dogs because dogs do things like this.” He pointed at the bound colt. “Ponies care about friends. Dogs must work to be friends of ponies, and then whole tribe will be happy and rich like ponies!”

“Ponies are weak,” Tanzen growled.

“Yes. But ponies are also strong, because weak pony will have many other weak ponies come looking.” Berlioz held out a paw. “Give Berlioz the rope. Pony must go free. Unless dog wants whole pony army coming for this stallion?

“Ponies would not send whole army for one pony!”

“Yes they would,” Berlioz said. “That is why ponies are weak and not weak. You keep pony as slave, ponies will come to make sure no pony can ever be slave again. Give Berlioz rope before pony hangs you with it.”

Tanzen grumbled and gave Berlioz the lead.

“This is humiliating,” Dawn grumbled. Berlioz had tied the rope into a collar and lead, walking her along like she was some kind of reluctant pet.

“Berlioz did apologize,” he pointed out. “But only way to make sure you are not taken. Other dogs think you belong to me. Will leave you alone. Safer.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Dawn muttered.

The market was busy. Berlioz had never seen so many dogs in one place. The fact that every single one was a derggo set him on edge. They smelled wrong, like rot and disease. Even Dawn was able to pick up on it. Berlioz saw her scrunch her nose as they passed close to a group of derggo arguing over something.

Berlioz had to walk like he knew where he was going. Instinct told him the best thing to do was seem confident. He glanced around, trying not to look like a tourist even more than his bright clothing and less ragged appearance did.

One stall, stinking of vinegar, had dogs pulling wet mats of grey fungus out of vats and stretching them on racks, making the strange leathery material that many of the dogs were wearing.

“Careful,” Berlioz muttered, tugging the leash when Dawn wandered too close to another stall, keeping her out of reach of something with dozens of spider-like legs ending in claws.

“How long are we going to walk around?” Dawn hissed.

“Ponies have to be here somewhere,” Berlioz mumbled. “Too many smells, but ponies are valuable. Some dog must be buying or selling them.”

“What are you going to do when we find them?”

“Berlioz will figure that out when he has to.”

It was a very good question. He wasn’t even sure where to begin. He couldn’t fight his way out even if he wanted to. Running would be difficult. The thought of trying to negotiate with the derggo wasn’t particularly attractive either -- it was unlikely they’d be willing to listen to anything close to reason.

And then he spotted something that gave him hope.

“Tanzen?” he asked, surprised. The bigger dog turned to look, just as surprised as Berlioz.

“What is Berlioz doing here?” Tanzen rumbled.

“Berlioz asks same thing.” It could be taken as questioning why Tanzen was there, though if one was slightly better with Ponish they might catch the sarcasm. “Dogs from tribe should not be here.”

“New rules,” Tanzen said. “No trade, and new tunnels mean shared border with derggo. We must have either peace or war.”

“Mm.” Berlioz nodded.

“The derggo are strong,” Tanzen said. “Their ways are different, but dogs can be strong again with them. Look at city. Much bigger than tribe. Derggo have magic and weapons.”

“Derggo are--” Berlioz forced himself not to snap at Tanzen. This wasn’t the time or place for it. “Derggo ways are different. Berlioz is surprised chief of tribe would allow trade.”

“Chief is weak,” Tanzen shrugged. “Berlioz is here now too, with pony slave. Berlioz is smart enough to know where strength is, yes?” Tanzen grinned, showing sharp teeth. “Ponies are weak.”

“Yes,” Berlioz agreed. “Does Tanzen know where slave market is?”

“Here to sell?” Tanzen asked.

“Maybe,” Berlioz said. “Berlioz wants to see first. Berlioz heard some ponies here already.”

“Want to wait for them to run out of ponies to sell at high price?” Tanzen cackled. “Berlioz is smart dog! Yes, Tanzen will show you. Might take time. Some ponies just went to market.”

“Mm. That is unfortunate.” Berlioz said, following the bigger dog through the crowded street.

Luster shot him a look. He shrugged.

“Please introduce yourself to the class,” Miss Sweetie Belle said.

“Berlioz,” he said.

Sweetie Belle waited a few moments for him to continue, or say anything at all, really. He just stood at the front of the class silently.

“Why don’t you tell us about yourself?” Sweetie Belle said.

“Berlioz is diamond dog,” he said. “Tribe lives outside of town. Under quarry. Berlioz’s parents trade with ponies.”

“Your parents sell gems to Rarity, don’t you?” Sweetie asked. “I think I’ve seen you around town.”

“Mm.” Berlioz nodded. “Rarity pony is known to all dogs in tribe.”

“I thought she did all her own mining,” said a strangely damp pony in the back corner of the room. “Doesn’t she have diamonds as her, um, what’s it called… booty call.”

“Cutie mark,” Sweetie corrected. “Not that you’re entirely wrong.”

“That’s what she said!” the damp pony said, crowing with laughter. Sweetie Belle’s cheeks turned red.

“Berlioz does not get joke.”

“Good,” Sweetie said. “So can you tell us why you decided to come to the school? You’re the first diamond dog we’ve had here. I bet we can learn a lot from each other!”

“That is why Berlioz is here,” he said. “Dogs do not know ponies, but ponies do not know dogs either. If dogs and ponies are going to live close to each other, there must be understanding. If friends, then even help each other when things are bad.”

Sweetie smiled. “That sounds like a pretty big burden on your shoulders.”

“No. Bigger burden would be doing nothing,” Berlioz said. “This is better. Berlioz is here because he might be able to do something.”

A very large winged cat sitting in the geometric center of the room spoke up without looking away from the book she was paging through. “The poet Lord Teddybear once said ‘Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering ‘it will be happier.’”

“That is what Berlioz hopes,” he said. “Things were bad for ponies too before they were friends. If dogs and ponies are friends, both will be happier.”

“This is more than two ponies,” Berlioz mumbled.

The slave market had over a dozen ponies in twisted, too-small cages with cold iron bars, most of them shivering, dirty, and thin.

“Ponies are very valuable to derggo,” Tanzen explained. “Ponies are full of magic. Derggo take magic from ponies and use it to fuel city. Since derggo can’t go to surface, rest of dogs can make big profit!”

“Dogs from tribe captured ponies?” Berlioz asked, stopping in his tracks.

“No,” Tanzen scoffed. “Dogs all stupid. Tanzen go to tribe say we can finally get what we want, can finally have the respect and fear we deserve but no! Chief say Tanzen wrong! He knows nothing! He not smart like you and Tanzen.”

“Pony philosopher once said that wisest pony in all of Pegasopolis was pony who knew only that he knew nothing,” Berlioz mumbled. He was trying to come up with a plan that would get them out of this without a fight and coming up with nothing.

“Hah! Yes. Sounds like something ponies would say,” Tanzen laughed. “Not all ponies are stupid. One even smart enough to sell other ponies to derggo!”

“What?” Berlioz blinked. “Pony selling other ponies? Who?”

Tanzen shrugged. “Tanzen does not know.” He paused and looked troubled. “Pony was very strange. Wore all red with gold mask--”

“A gold mask?!” Dawn gasped. “Was there a sun embossed on it? Did you get their name?”

Berlioz groaned. “Dawn.”

“What?” Dawn asked. She looked down at what she was doing. She’d run ahead and grabbed Tanzen. Dogs were watching them from all around, because she’d torn the lead right from Berlioz’s paw. “Oh. I, uh. I might have blown our cover, huh?”

“Sound alarm!” Tanzen snapped. “There is--”

Berlioz punched Tanzen in the snout. “Dawn! Free other ponies! Berlioz will keep him busy!”

“But what about--”

Tanzen threw Berlioz back, slamming him into a cage.

“Just do it, pony!” Berlioz snapped. He grabbed a rock from the ground and hit Tanzen with it. It was a dirty move, the kind of thing that could kill. Except, of course, that the rock was about as solid as a clump of mud and dust. It crumbled into a cloud of loose gravel when it hit Tanzen’s head. That was almost as good as a real blow, the sand getting into the bigger dog’s eyes and blinding him.

Berlioz looked around for anything else he could use as a weapon.

“How are we getting out of here?” Dawn asked. She was yanking at a cage, tugging at the lock with her magic until the crude mechanism popped open.

“Can pony do any magic that will help?” Berlioz asked.

Tanzen swept his leg in his moment of distraction, and Berlioz landed hard on his back, and the big dog pounced on him, jaw snapping shut only a paw-width from his face.

“You are weak dog!” Tanzen yelled.

“Yes,” Berlioz agreed. “But Berlioz explained this to you long ago. Weak things are strong when they work together!”

Hooves slammed into Tanzen’s tail, and the big dog yelped in pain. Berlioz head-butted him, and Tanzen’s eyes rolled back. The bigger dog went limp, and Berlioz grunted as the dog’s full weight fell on him. More hooves grabbed his shoulders and helped pull him free.

“Thank you,” Berlioz said, as three of the ponies that had been in cages helped him up. “Dawn, does pony have idea on how to escape?”

Before he even finished the sentence, the ground shook under them, and rocks fell from overhead, everything from dust and sand to boulders the size of houses landing around them. The lights flared up and changed colors before plunging the cavern into darkness.

Dawn’s horn lit up, and two more of the ponies did the same with their own magic, creating dim, flickering light.

“What did pony do?” Berlioz asked.

“They were using pony magic captured in crystals,” Dawn explained. “I’ve seen it before in a class I took with a professor from the Crystal Empire. If you use the right resonant frequency you can disrupt its ability to actually hold onto the magic and force it to just dissipate it into the air--”

“Pony, Berlioz feels this is time for short, simple explanation.” As an emphasis, a rock as big as Dawn’s head slammed down between them, cracking in half on the ground.

“I broke all their magic stuff!” Dawn said. “And, uh, that’s as far as I got with my plan!”

“Pony…” Berlioz sighed.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time!”

“Does pony remember way back to tunnels?” Berlioz asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Dawn said. “But some of these ponies are too weak to walk.”

Berlioz sighed.

“Oh thank the stars, it’s still here,” Dawn said, as they got back to the platform. They’d somehow managed to get back despite the chaos and confusion, mostly because the derggo were too busy fighting and stealing from each other and fleeing downwards to actually do anything about it.

Berlioz grunted and put a pony down on the stone, then two more. Then the two hanging onto his shoulders got off and managed to walk the rest of the way on their own.

“May is good spirit. She trusted we would come back.” He patted the platform.

“If it gets all the way back up, I’ll admit she’s the best rock I’ve ever met,” Dawn said. “Can it handle all of us.”

“Yes,” Berlioz said. “I think so.” He got onto the platform. “All ponies are here?”

Dawn looked around, counting under her breath, then nodded to him.

“Okay.” Berlioz knelt down to press his hands against the runes. “May, please, Berlioz asks you to make one last trip. These ponies were going to be slaves, just like May, and Berlioz begs you to help him set them free.”

There was a long, tense moment, and then the platform lurched into motion. There was a distinct sense that it was overloaded, struggling to move up.

“Thank you,” Berlioz whispered.

“Since we made those arrows showing the way out, we’ll be able to lead everypony right to the school,” Dawn sighed. “I can’t believe we got out of there!”

A fist-sized rock hit Berlioz’s shoulder, and he fell to one knee, cradling his injured arm.

“From below?” He asked, peering over the edge.

Armored derggo were riding a second platform up on a parallel track. One of them had a bag of stones and a sling made of the fungus leather.

“Ponies stay down!” Berlioz yelled. “Back from edge!”

A second stone zipped through the air, missing him.

“They’re catching up to us,” Dawn said. Berlioz glanced over at her, then pushed her back. A rock went right through where she’d been standing.

“Pony has bright light on head!” He chastised. “Derggo aim for light! Berlioz told you to stay back!”

“It won’t matter if they’re going to be level with us in a minute!” Dawn countered. “We need to come up with a plan!”

Berlioz grumbled, because she was right and he, unfortunately didn’t actually have anything even approaching a plan.

“We could reduce the weight,” one of the other ponies said, quietly. “That would make us go faster, wouldn’t it? I’m in no condition to go on anyway…”

Berlioz shushed the pony. “No. That is the kind of plan bad dogs would come up with. No pony is left behind. And Berlioz isn’t going to jump either, so no dog left behind except all the bad ones. We need different plan. Pony know any spells?”

“Their magic is too weak for anything,” Dawn said. “I could make a shield, but that won’t stop them from just getting ahead of us and catching us in the tunnels.”

Berlioz nodded. “Shove them with magic? Push them off the platform?”

“I can try, but if they fall down that far…”

Berlioz hesitated. “Dogs are tough. They will live.” He was actually pretty sure of that. The fall from here was enough to break a few bones, but it wouldn’t be fatal. He just didn’t want to think about what the derggo would do to dogs that were too weak to defend themselves. They had to get meat somewhere after all.

“Okay. Tell me when.”

Berlioz cautiously looked over the edge. A rock caught him in the chest, where it would have been the head on a pony.

“Now!” Berlioz barked.

Dawn ducked out over the edge and fired a blast of magic. Unlike the dogs with their crude sling and rough ammunition, she was perfectly on target.

Also unlike the rocks, her magic vanished in midair, slamming into a field of energy. One of the dogs on the other platform raised an iron rod tipped with a ruby as big as a hen’s egg, the energy of Dawn’s spell tearing apart and being sucked into it like a lightning rod.

“Okay, that’s not good,” Dawn said. “They can do that?”

“Berlioz has never seen that before,” Berlioz admitted. “Does not look like dog magic. More like pony magic.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of a few things like that. Null rods, metamagic staves, but they have to be made by unicorns.”

“When pony and dog get back to dorm, pony can talk to big cat about mystery,” Berlioz said. “Can pony do anything?”

“No. I’m not sure what spells would work, and it could be dangerous to start casting at random because some items like that can be used to--”

The dog holding the ruby rod pointed it like a conductor waving their baton, and the force spell Dawn had used fire out of it, the magic’s color tinged unnaturally red. It struck the edge of the platform and the whole slab of stone shook, cracks appearing in the surface.

“That,” Dawn said. “They can be used to do that.”

“We’re going to die!” one of the other ponies wailed.

“Not today,” Berlioz muttered, narrowing his eyes. Maybe if he picked the right moment, he could get to the other platform and… and distract them, at least. Do something. It was always better to do something instead of nothing, because action was hope and inaction was slow death.

The shuddering slab under them vibrated faster, and there was a sound of straining metal and rock as it began accelerating.

“What’s going on?” Dawn asked.

“...May is trying to save us,” Berlioz said. He could almost feel it. Like a desperate sprint on an injured leg. Like ignoring pain because other dogs were counting on you. Like hearing the landslide at your heels and staying barely ahead of it.

“I can see the edge!” One of the other ponies shouted.

“We’re going to get there first,” Dawn said. “Okay, as soon as we stop, everypony run for the tunnel! If you can’t run, have somepony help you. I’ll go last because I can block the way with a shield.”

“Berlioz won’t let pony sacrifice herself.”

“I’ll be right behind you,” Dawn said. “Besides, you need to carry some of these ponies or they won’t get out at all.”

Berlioz frowned and nodded tersely.

The platform they were on skidded to a halt with the lurch of an exhausted runner collapsing after the finish line.

“Go!” Berlioz yelled.

Ponies ran off, and he grabbed the ones that couldn’t do it on their own. The whole stone slab tilted before he was even off, listing to one side, and he had to jump, nearly dropping the ponies and barely getting them to safety.

He watched in mixed horror and amazement as the elevator broke free of its track and fell, as precisely as any professional diver, onto the second platform.

“May…” he whispered.

The impact broke the other elevator free as well, and both of them fell into darkness along with the derggo riding them.

Berlioz put the ponies he was carrying down and walked over to the edge. There was a lump of stone there, no bigger than his eye. A single rune was carved into the one flat surface.

He picked it up after a moment of silence, then stood up.

“Let’s get ponies home.”

Much later, after happy reunions, a quick trip to the hospital, and being chewed out by Principal Starlight for doing something so dangerous, Berlioz was outside, and mostly alone.

He took the rock out of his pocket.

He looked at it for a while, then put it down where it could see the stars and sat with it in silence for a long time.

Berlioz wasn’t a stone shaman. He wasn’t a fighter. Neither of those were what his tribe needed. His tribe needed someone who could make friends.

“The lights in the sky are called stars,” he said, to the stone, and whatever lingering spirit might still be there. “Berlioz was a very young dog the first time he saw them. Berlioz’s parents once told him a story about how the stars were made. ow Berlioz will tell May…”

Chapter 5

Larrikin wasn’t lazy. Most creatures at the school thought they were just a sleepy, soggy mess, but they were looking at it entirely from the wrong perspective. The average houseplant, even one that was exceptionally well-fed and happy, couldn’t be bothered to come to class on time unless somepony actually carried it with them. In comparison, Larrikin only needed to be dragged to class once or twice a week at most. This was a vast improvement, and by plant standards they were practically a top athlete.

“Don’t you have your own room?” Dawn asked.

“Well… technically,” Larrikin admitted. “I don’t like using it unless it’s winter.”

“Why? Don’t you like having your own space? I mean, I’d go crazy if I never had alone time.” Dawn was looking over a book while she spoke. Larrikin wasn’t sure how the pony could read one thing and talk about something else.

“Eh.” Larrikin shrugged. “What are you reading?” They walked over to Dawn, getting close enough to look over her shoulder. The kelpie was careful not to drip on the book, brushing their mane back so they could see more clearly.

“It’s a book on magical mirrors,” Dawn said. “Ever since we found that beholder down under the school I’ve been trying to figure out how it was able to bounce spells off of mirrors.”

“That’s neat,” Larrikin said. “I wish I could have gone with you, but all that garbage in the sewer…” they shuddered. “If I soaked up all that I don’t think the smell would ever come out.”

“Wouldn’t it be like… fertilizer?” Dawn asked.

“Nah,” Larrikin said. “Kelpies don’t really work that way.”

“Well, how do you work?” Dawn looked at Larrikin, tilting her head.

“The teachers say I don’t work very much at all,” Larrikin said, before laughing at their own joke. “But um… I mostly stay in the moat during the day so I can photosynthesize. Then I pull myself together and come to class.”

“What’s it like?” Dawn asked.

“What’s what like?”

“You know. Being a plant. Just floating there in the sunlight. What’s it like?”

“Oh.” Larrikin frowned. They looked uncomfortable. “Hm. That’s a hard question. What’s it like being a mare?”

“What do you mean? You’re a mare.” Dawn paused. “You are a mare, aren’t you?”

Larrikin shook their head.

Dawn’s cheeks slowly colored. “W-what?! You’re a stallion?! Oh stars, I let a stallion sleep in my bed! There are all sorts of rules about this thing! Don’t you know mares and stallions aren’t even supposed to stay in the same room? I could get in so much trouble!”

“What about Berlioz? Haven’t you been in the same room as him like, a bunch of times?” Larrikin asked.

“Berlioz is a good, honorable dog,” Dawn said. She suddenly realized how close Larrikin was and scooted away a little. “I don’t know if you are! You might try to use some kind of weird kelpie seduction on me!”

Larrikin giggled. “I thought it was changelings that had that kind of magic. And pervert unicorns.”

“I only looked at those books once!” Dawn snapped. Then she covered her mouth.

Larrikin laughed louder, needing a moment to compose themselves.

Dawn backed up until her flank hit the wall.

Larrikin smirked and strutted up, slapping their big, wet hoof into the wall next to Dawn’s head and leaning in close. “You know, there’s something I’ve wanted to tell you…”

Dawn swallowed. “W-what?”

“I’m not a stallion,” Larrikin said, with an exaggerated seductive tone.

“...You just said you weren’t a mare!” Dawn protested.

Larrikin snorted and pulled away, stepping back from where they’d cornered Dawn. “You ponies making other creatures choose. Most plants are male and female at the same time, you know.”

“They are?” Dawn asked, starting to cool down.

“Yeah.” Larrikin shrugged. “Honestly I’ve never seen the appeal of either.”

“So you’re just kind of… neither,” Dawn said.

“Yep! And it’s more fun that way anyway. You ponies have weird rules about how creatures should behave. I’m not sure they even make sense. I swear half the rules Arteria tells me are the opposite of what other ponies tell me, but she’s like, one of my best friends, right? So I don’t want to think she’s wrong. She feeds me a lot, too.”

Larrikin’s stomach rumbled. Well, that’s not an accurate statement. They didn’t have a digestive tract that was quite the same as a normal pony’s. It was more like a pitcher plant. The rumble was entirely conscious and for drama’s sake, exactly like a puppy making sad hungry sounds when its owner was eating and they also wanted to be eating.

“You know, you eat a lot for something that does photosynthesis all day,” Dawn said.

“I really like eating,” Larrikin admitted. “And it helps me stay awake. I don’t know how you mammals run around all night!”

“The school cafeteria is still open,” Dawn said.

Larrikin made another sad sound. “But I don’t want to go there alone…”

Dawn sighed.

“It’s not that there aren’t classes on friendship, it’s just not the focus of the school,” Luster Dawn explained. “It’s sort of a combination between a trade school and a research academy.”

“Is it true some ponies spend their whole lives in classes?” Larrikin asked. They grabbed another vegetable fritter and dunked it in way too much ranch dressing. “I heard there are students older than the teachers.”

“That’s half right. A lot of the students taking really advanced subjects end up taking teaching positions at the school. One or two of the older school buildings actually used to be houses owned by the teachers at the time. They’d have ponies over after regular classes to talk about the latest discoveries, then it turned to lectures, and their friends would bring other students, and eventually they were teaching classes out of their living rooms. A few generations later and ponies think of Lulamoon Hall as the Applied Astrology department instead of somepony’s house.”

Larrikin nodded and reached for another fritter. “Are you going to teach there?”

“I… never thought about it,” Dawn said. “I don’t know. I mean, I’m Princess Twilight’s personal student. The last time she had a personal student, they saved all of Equestria and, well, you know all the adventures Starlight Glimmer has been on.”

“I heard she once ate a dragon.”

“I don’t know where you heard that and also I’m pretty sure it’s both not true and completely impossible.”

“It might be possible. I bet I could eat a dragon.”

Dawn sat back in her seat and looked across the cafeteria. “Okay, then go eat that dragon.” She pointed.

Larrikin considered the relative size of the dragon and themselves. The dragon was twice as tall as they were, and that was probably the least problematic part of the whole thing. Still, a bet was a bet.

“Be right back,” Larrikin said. They got up and trotted over, grabbing the dragon’s wing with their mouth and tugging.

“...Yeah?” The dragon rumbled, his breath so hot that it made Larrikin’s mane wilt a little.

“Probably really spicy,” Larrikin mumbled.

“Spicy?”

“Oh, sorry. Can I see your tail for a second?”

“My tail?” The dragon looked back, then moved his tail so Larrikin could see it. “What about it? I didn’t trip anyone, did I?”

“Huh? Nah, I just need to…” Larrikin leaned in and bit down.

“Why would you do that?” Dawn snapped.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Larrikin shrugged.

Dawn gave them a look. “In what world did that seem like a good idea? I can’t even begin to list all the ways it was a bad idea!”

“Maybe I can help?” Counselor Trixie suggested. “I was going to try telling you that you were both being stupid, but it seems like at least one of you gets it already.”

“I didn’t tell them to do it!” Dawn protested.

Trixie rolled her eyes. “So? Why did it happen? Trixie needs to have something to put on the paperwork. The Ponyville Fire Department will be very curious about why they had to come out here at this hour. It’s not like Celestia’s School where there are strange fires all the time.”

“I felt like it,” Larrikin shrugged.

Trixie sighed. “Dawn, you can go. I need to talk to… this.”

Dawn nodded and walked to the door, looking back at Larrikin with obvious worry. The kelpie nodded and blew her a kiss. Dawn’s cheeks burned red and she ran the rest of the way, slamming the door behind her.

“So you just like getting attention,” Trixie said, flatly.

“Huh?” Larrikin asked.

“I’m not stupid,” Trixie sighed. “I’m not that different. I like being noticed. When I was younger I didn’t care if it was good or bad attention as long as ponies knew my name.”

“Miss Trixie,” Larrikin said, smiling. “I thought we were the same age.”

“Flattery will usually get you everywhere,” Trixie said, trying not to smile. “I know how hard it can be, but it’s better to be remembered for the right reasons. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. If you make a bad first impression, that’s all that will be remembered, and you might spend years trying to make up for it.”

“I do have my whole life,” Larrikin agreed. “That’s why I couldn’t wait.”

“...Trixie thinks you might not be listening.”

“Even if I’m not there, that dragon will remember me for the rest of his life!” Larrikin grinned. “Tomorrow, and the day after, and however long dragons live.”

“He’s going to remember that kelpies are cannibals, is what he’s going to remember,” Trixie sighed.

“I probably should have made sure he knew my name,” Larrikin said, suddenly worried. “Oh well. It’s too late to do anything about it now. Anyway, I also found out that dragons aren’t actually spicy! I kind of thought they would be, with the spikes and fire and stuff.”

“I’m absolutely sure there were ways you could find that out without actually biting another student.”

“Maybe. But I had more fun this way, and everyone involved has stories to tell.”

Trixie sighed. “You had fun, and now you’re going to be punished. I hate this part of the job.” Trixie sat back and spun around in her chair. “What do you even want to do with your life, Larrikin?”

“Well, I’ve done lunch. Maybe dinner later. Oh, and I want to tease Dawn more. She gets really flustered now because she thought I was a mare!”

“I meant in the long term,” Trixie specified.

“That is the long term,” Larrikin shrugged. “Why would I bother with anything past that?”

Trixie rubbed her snout. “Right. Okay! I know just what kind of punishment you’re getting!” She stood up proudly. “You’re going to have in-school suspension tomorrow. You’re not going to classes and you won’t get to hang out with your friends. Instead you’re going to spend the class time writing an essay on what you want to do in the future.”

“What?” Larrikin asked, with growing horror.

“It’s not complicated. Empty room. You. Paper. Pencil. Write an essay. You’ll have plenty of time to think about the future. Then when you’re done, I’ll read it with you and we’ll go over your future plans. I’m sure you want more out of life than just… biting dragons and causing trouble, right?”

“Yeah but… I don’t like being alone,” Larrikin said. “Even if it’s tomorrow, that’s still really…” they bit their lip. “Can’t I do something else? Like help out in the kitchen?”

“I don’t think the kitchen will be open tomorrow. They’re going to have to air out all the smoke from tonight’s minor incident. It’s not a punishment because it’s something you like. It’s a punishment because you don’t want to do it.”

Larrikin swallowed, their throat feeling dry. “Please? Something else?”

Trixie frowned. “It’s just an essay. I know you know how to read and write. Look, just show up at the math classroom tomorrow at class time. I’ll help you get started.”

Larrikin looked down. “Yes, Ma’am…”

They slowly marched out of their room, looking for all the world like a prisoner walking to the gallows.

Trixie watched them go.

“What a weird pony,” Trixie muttered. “What was that all about?”

Larrikin shuffled into the classroom, and Trixie did a double-take.

“You’re… tiny,” she said, eventually. Larrikin was a full head shorter than usual, and looked a little pale.

“I’m not feeling very good today,” Larrikin burbled. They stumbled over to a desk and sat down heavily. “This is just… the worst.”

Trixie had a lot of flaws, but she wasn’t blind. “Okay, what’s wrong? This isn’t even a really weird punishment. Trixie had to spend lots of days writing things on the blackboard a hundred times because she caused minor lab accidents.”

“If I spend all day in here I’ll never get to meet my friends,” Larrikin mumbled.

“You’ll see them tomorrow,” Trixie said.

“That’s not-- it’s not the same!” Larrikin moaned. “That won’t be me. That’ll just be… some other me.”

“Some other you,” Trixie repeated. “You’re going to have to walk Trixie through this.”

Larrikin looked up at Trixie, brushing her mane out of her face and revealing watery, tear-filled eyes. “Because it’ll be tomorrow! Don’t you know anything about kelpies?!”

“Clearly not,” Trixie mumbled.

“In the morning I’ll go back to the moat and turn back into a plant and I’ll be gone,” Larrikin mumbled. “And I won’t even get to spend time with anyone.”

“You’ll be… gone?” Trixie asked. “But you’re the same creature you were yesterday.”

“How do you know?” Larrikin asked.

“Well you remember being you, so that’s obviously proof. I mean, you remember your friends enough to be sad you won’t see them today.”

“Just because I remember it doesn’t mean anything,” Larrikin said. “I can’t prove that I’m the same person that was in those memories. What if a new me just gets born every night? I could just be- just be a bad copy! Maybe that’s why I don’t remember everything perfectly!”

Trixie sighed. “Where did you get these weird ideas?”

“Well…” Larrikin hesitated. “I’m not good at shapechanging.”

“You really aren’t,” Trixie agreed. “You’re a different shape and size every time I see you, but you still look like you.”

“I asked Ibis for help and she gave me a book about kelpies. It was the only one she knew about. It had a lot of stuff about kelpies, but the most important thing is that it explained everything about shapechanging and me and… and everything.” Larrikin sounded defeated.

“Trixie hasn’t read this book, so you’ll have to explain it to her.”

“Kelpies are just like… fruits. Or seeds. We get made every night a-and then when we sprout we just…” Larrikin sniffled. “And I never even knew! I-it means the me from yesterday spent the whole last part of their life worried about this!”

“Great. So somepony just learned about the continuity of consciousness,” Trixie sighed. "Trixie is not qualified to discuss ego death."

“So it’s true?” Larrikin asked, their voice just a whisper.

“It’s stupid is what it is. Ponies invented how to be stupid in this particular way a long time ago. It’s mostly just a way to try and sound smart when you don’t know what you’re talking about. How spooky to think that Trixie might not even be able to count on her memories! Oh nooo what if every time Trixie goes to sleep a new pony wakes up the next day and just thinks it’s Trixie? What if every time Trixie teleports it makes a copy of Trixie?”

Larrikin gasped. “You mean the same thing happens to ponies?”

“That’s the opposite of what I’m saying. It doesn’t happen at all. Ponies… and kelpies, I guess… grow and change and learn and stuff, but you never stop being you.”

“The book said there was proof.”

“Books aren’t always right. If they were, they wouldn’t need to come up with an expensive new bunch of textbooks every year to strain our budget to the breaking point. Do you know Trixie hasn’t had a raise in three years? It’s practically criminal!”

“There aren’t any other books on kelpies, so they must have gotten it right the first time,” Larrikin sighed.

Trixie groaned and rubbed her face. “Do you remember the name of the author?”

“I thought I was supposed to be punished. Why are we going on a field trip?” Larrikin asked, as Trixie trotted with them across the bog.

“Because Trixie doesn’t believe in cruel and unusual punishments,” Trixie sighed. “You’re supposed to learn from mistakes, not get traumatized by them. If something hurts you too much and nopony is there to catch you, you can end up in a bad place. Trixie had that happen once, and it was one of the biggest mistakes of her life.”

“And you’re sure this is the right pony?” Larrikin asked.

“Absolutely,” Trixie groaned. “We’re lucky he lives in town. Or as close as anyone will let him. I’d say you should just trust me that he’s not a reliable source but meeting him will prove it better than anything Trixie can say with her own words.”

Trixie led Larrikin all the way to the front door of a small, somewhat ramshackle cottage. It looked unfinished, like it had been a perfectly good shed, and someone had decided to turn it into a house, then left one expansion unfinished, turned another into a sunroom, started to paint the whole thing and gave up halfway through, and had never managed to find time to actually maintain any of it.

Trixie had to visibly brace herself before she finally worked up the courage to knock.

“Just… whatever he does, don’t let him talk you into anything stupid,” Trixie said. “Or anything stupider. Ask Trixie first.”

Before Larrikin could ask why, the door opened up and a disheveled, frumpy-looking pegasus stallion looked out with total shock at his visitors before slamming the door.

“Just a minute!” he lied. “I’m in the shower!”

“...But we just saw he was at the door,” Larrikin whispered.

“Yes,” Trixie sighed. She tapped her hoof on the ground, not offering any more explanation.

A few moments later, the door opened again,and the stallion had apparently found a comb somewhere to run through his mane.

“Well hello there,” he said. “I’m Zephyr Breeze. What can I do for you lovely ladies?”

“I’m not a lady,” Larrikin said.

Zephyr thought about that for a few moments. “Well, nopony’s perfect. You’re still cute. Seven out of ten, and I’ve got very low standards so I’d be happy with anything above a three.”

“I feel a little insulted,” Larrikin mumbled.

“He has that effect on mares.”

“And you’re like a… five?” Zephyr said, rubbing his chin. “Yeah, about a five. I’d still date you, but we’d split the bill. Actually you’d have to pay the whole tab. Ol’ Zepphy is having a few money flow issues.”

“A five?!” Trixie shrieked. “How is Trixie a five?!”

“Eh,” Zephyr shrugged. “You’re just not really my type. You’ve got those… you know. Wrinkles at the corners of your eyes? There’s a word for that…”

“Crow’s feet,” Larrikin supplied.

“Yeah! That’s it!” Zephyr nodded. “I’m really into mares closer to my own age was back when I was twenty years younger than I am now.”

“Is that illegal?” Larrikin whispered to Trixie.

“It should be,” Trixie muttered. “Nopony should be allowed to imply Trixie looks a day older than when she was in the prime of her life which is, by the way, right now because Trixie is always at her best and in the prime of her life!”

“So which of you two ladies is here for Zephyr?” he winked. “Not to say I can’t handle both of you at once.”

“You wrote a book about kelpies,” Trixie said.

Zephyr looked confused for a moment. “Oh! Yeah! I’ve written a bunch of books on monsters based on my own personal adventures. See, my sister had this great publishing deal because she was recognized as an expert on magical creatures, so naturally the rival publishing houses were happy to snap up a few expertly penned volumes by yours truly.”

“Great, so we’re in the right place,” Trixie looked at Larrikin. “Do you know who this is?”

Zephyr leaned down to look at them, examining their expression closely. Then his expression twisted to horror. “She’s not mine, is she?! I swear, I have no income! Please don’t report me to foal services! I promise I’ll pay the foal support when I get some money in, I just need to find the treasure in the money pit and then I’ll be good to go for the rest of my life!”

“Oh! Treasure pit?” Larrikin asked, perking up.

“Yeah! It’ll definitely pay off,” Zephyr said. “Here, I’ll show you, and then you won’t have to report me to the royal guard!”

Zephyr stepped out of what was very loosely called his house and motioned for them to follow. He walked around to the other side, leading them to a fenced-in area and a lot of broken tools, including a crude log crane that had snapped in several places.

“There’s treasure buried right there!” he said, pointing to a hole.

“What kind of treasure?” Larrikin asked.

“I have no idea!” Zephyr said. “Actually ponies have been digging here practically since Ponyville was founded. They call it the money pit because ponies are sure it’s full of money!”

“Are you sure that’s not because they throw money at it and never find anything?” Trixie asked.

“Nope, definitely because of the treasure. See, the first ponies to dig here found these log platforms every ten feet along with layers of waterproof fibers and blankets and even more!”

“What was at the bottom?” Larrikin asked.

“Well, nopony knows. It sort of filled up with water and all their equipment sank into the swamp.” Zephyr said. “But a few decades later, it was rediscovered! The second expedition drained the pit, dug all the mud out, and then it filled with water again and all their equipment sank into the swamp.”

“I’m sensing a theme,” Trixie said.

“The third expedition built a whole town out here, and made sure that it wouldn’t sink! But they got caught in a dragon attack and the town burned down, fell over, and sank into the swamp. And now I’m here, and I’m going to be the one to actually get the treasure! Think of how much it must be worth if ponies were willing to spend all that time and effort trying to get it!”

Trixie sighed. “Larrikin, do you see why I said you can’t trust--”

“This is amazing!” Larrikin gasped. “I wanna find treasure too!”

“It’s perfect for a pony like me,” Zephyr said. “See, some ponies spend their whole lives working from paycheck to paycheck. And for what?”

“It sounds boring,” Larrikin agreed.

“Instead, I’m gonna get rich all at once!” Zephyr declared. “I’ll be as rich as… who was that really famous rich pony? The one who was so rich he couldn’t spend all his money no matter what?”

“Filthy Rich?” Larrikin suggested.

“He’s not really a legend,” Trixie said. “He owns Barnyard Bargains.”

“Close enough for me!” Zephyr said. “I’ll be so rich I’ll be able to buy Barnyard Bargains! And then instead of having to work, I’ll retire to a life of luxury and ease.”

“Have you actually found any treasure?”

“I wouldn’t be so completely and foolishly confident in my own success if I hadn’t! I found rocks!”

“Amazing. You found rocks in a hole in the ground,” Trixie said.

“Not just any old rocks! I found rocks that have engravings on them! You wanna see them?”

“No,” Trixie said.

“Yes!” Larrikin yelled, excited.

Trixie sighed. “Fine. We’ll look at the rocks.”

“Feast your eyes on the amazing mysteries of the past!” Zephyr whispered.

Larrikin leaned in to look at the rocks.

“You can see the marks on them are some kind of writing,” Zephyr said. “I haven’t figured out what kind. It’s definitely not Ponish.”

“Are you sure those are letters and not just shovel marks and scratches?” Trixie asked. “Trixie is pretty sure it’s not writing.”

“Well that shows what you know,” Zephyr snorted. “I happen to be an expert, and those marks? They’re a message. A message about treasure!”

“You just said you don’t know what the language is,” Trixie said. “How can you tell the writing is about treasure?”

Zephyr scoffed. “It’s in a treasure hole. Of course it’s about treasure!”

“It makes sense to me,” Larrikin agreed.

“I’ll let you two in on a secret,” Zephyr said. “I’m close to getting the treasure for myself. See, before the third expedition burned down and fell into the swamp, they found a ring of stone pieces like these and a log platform, deeper than anypony else has ever gone.”

Trixie looked into the hole. It was filled almost to the top with murky water. “Uh huh.”

“Well, there is the minor flooding problem,” Zephyr admitted. “But! I have a solution!”

Trixie raised an eyebrow. “It doesn’t look like it’s helped.”

“Is it a bucket?” Larrikin asked. “Or two buckets?! No, wait! I know. It’s a really big bucket!”

“I tried all those ideas already,” Zephyr said. “Let me tell you after a few minutes it really starts to feel like work instead of getting rich quick. No, I have something even better! Check out this puppy!”

He slapped his hoof against a squat box with a number of hoses coming out of it.

“This bad boy can pump so much water that it’s illegal in Seaquestria! And also in Griffonstone. And some parts of Equestria and the Crystal Empire. The important thing is, it’s not technically illegal here yet and it’s a very powerful pump. With one tiny little hitch in that it needs unicorn magic and I’m not a unicorn and I couldn’t get a refund on it and I haven’t eaten in two days because I spent all my money on the pump.”

“You bought a pump you could even use?” Larrikin asked.

“He prides himself on not knowing anything,” Trixie said. “That’s why you shouldn’t trust anything he wrote.”

“Hey, I resemble that remark! I’ll have you know I’m one of the only authors you’ll ever meet that’s written more books than he’s read. You see, I’ve made so many amazing discoveries that I still struggle to share with the world, this treasure hole among them. I plan on writing a memoir about this whole experience, you know.”

“I’m sure,” Trixie sighed.

“And I might even be willing to include you two in my tale of mystery and woe and also woah!” He wiggled his eyebrows. “That sounds like woe but it’s an expression of excitement. Can either of you guess why you might cry out in happy surprise?”

“Because we find treasure?” Larrikin guessed.

“Exactly! Treasure!” Zephyr grinned. “But of course that can only happen if a unicorn was willing to help power my unicorn magic powered pump. Without it, why, I’ll be stuck moving buckets of water around for the rest of my life.”

“That sounds like it might be a good learning experience for you,” Trixie said.

Larrikin gave her a look like a kicked puppy.

“What?” Trixie asked.

“Please, Miss Trixie?” Larrikin asked. “This could be my one chance to see something really cool! It’s something none of the other mes would ever get a chance to do, and this is the only night I can do it! If you make the pump work, we can find the treasure, and it’ll be so exciting, and… he’ll write about me. Ponies will know about me forever. I won’t just disappear.”

“You won’t just…” Trixie sighed. “Stop giving me that look. I just can’t believe you aren’t getting this yet… fine. I’ll turn on his stupid pump. But as your guidance counselor, I want you to think really hard about what he’s saying and doing. I hope by the time this is over you’ll understand.”

“Thank you,” Larrikin said, smiling softly.

“Your mom seems really protective,” Zephyr said. They’d stepped away from the treasure hole while it drained. Trixie was standing over the pump, feeding it magic and wishing she had ear protection. In addition to being the most powerful miniature pump in the world it was also apparently the loudest.

“She’s not my mom,” Larrikin said. “I didn’t really have a mom.”

“Oh.” Zephyr said. “Well I sure trotted right into that one. I was a lot like you when I was growing up. A colt without a direction.”

“I’m not a colt.”

“...She said you weren’t a filly.”

“I’m not a filly, either.”

Zephyr was silent for a moment while he processed that. Then he nodded. “I like that. Not letting other ponies label you! That’s good. You foals are always coming up with hip ideas. Makes old Zephyr feel out of touch.”

“So… you wrote a lot of books,” Larrikin said.

“Yep! On all sorts of mystical creatures, cryptids, and beasties of the world. There are even a few in this very bog, but I try and stay away from them. One story at a time, if you dig what I’m putting down.” He winked. “No need to learn about twittermites and swamp apes when I’ve got treasure under my snout!”

“What about kelpies?” Larrikin pressed.

“I already covered them,” Zephyr said. “Why? Did you have a question? You should probably be careful if you see one. They eat ponies, you know. Their skin is adhesive and they hug you and drag you down into the water. That’s a true kelpie fact.”

“It is?” Larrikin asked, who had never eaten a pony before. Though they were in trouble for trying to take a bite out of a dragon, so maybe it wasn’t that far-fetched. The sticky skin part was a surprise. Maybe that was why every creature got weird when they tried to hug them.

“Absolutely. It’s okay, though. Kelpies have a few tell-tale traits and weaknesses. For example, they can’t refuse a gift of wine.”

“I’ve never even had wine…”

“Well of course not. You’re too young! That’s probably not going to be a help if you run into one.”

“If I run into one?” Larrikin was wondering why he wasn’t able to tell what they were. It wasn’t like they were really hiding it, and their shapeshifting wasn’t even all that good.

“The real trick is to bow politely. They’ll do the same thing, and their mane will fall off and they’ll be totally powerless.” Zephyr smirked. “No, wait. Is that right? Maybe that was the Nemian Lion. It’s been a while since I wrote those books and I can’t remember what I put down. I know there was some creature that lost all its strength when its mane got cut…”

“What about the part where kelpies are just like, big fruits that go rotten and fall apart at the end of the night?” Larrikin asked, trying not to sound afraid.

“Oh yeah!” Zephyr nods. “That sounds right. I mean, that’s basically how plants work, right? I spent a lot of time in a certain apple orchard, um, doing research, and I can tell you if you just let an apple fall off the tree it goes bad and you can’t eat it at all.”

“But kelpies aren’t like apple trees--”

“Trixie has finished pumping all the water out of your stupid hole!” Trixie yelled. “Can we please finish at some point tonight? Trixie might not have had plans tonight but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t prefer to spend it inside and not in a bog!”

“Treasure here I come!” Zephyr crowed, flying over to the pit and looking down. Larrikin followed on their currently-tiny legs, having to lean over the yawning pit to look down into it.

They were quiet for a moment.

“It’s really dark,” Larrikin said, eventually.

Trixie sighed and created a mote of light with her magic, letting it float down into the shadows.

“I got most of the mud and gunk out, but I just couldn’t keep the water from coming in,” Zephyr said. “Let me tell you, a pegasus should never dig in the mud if they can help it. It takes forever to get swamp slime out of your feathers and you run out of money for spa trips really quickly.”

“What you mean is, Fluttershy stopped paying for daily visits,” Trixie corrected.

“Let’s not get too caught up in who did what and what money paid for who!” Zephyr laughed. “I’ll totally pay her back as soon as I’m rich! Now let’s get that treasure!”

He jumped into the pit, flapping like a chicken to slow his descent.

“Um…” Larrikin hesitated, until Trixie pulled a ladder with only a few broken rungs out of the pile of misused and decrepit equipment. “Oh! Thanks!”

“I’ll have to stay up here,” Trixie said. “I doubt the pit is actually going to stay drained for long.”

“Because it was designed to flood!” Zephyr yelled from the bottom of the hole. “A cunning and deadly trap!”

“No, because this is a deep, unlined hole in the middle of a swamp!” Trixie snapped.

“...I’m starting to think he doesn’t really know much about this treasure hole,” Larrikin mumbled.

“Good, then you’re starting to understand the basics of the lesson,” Trixie said. “If you want, we can go back right now. You don’t have to go down there at all.”

“If I don’t, I’ll never have a chance to do it at all,” Larrikin shrugged.

“Be careful,” Trixie warned.

Larrikin nodded and started down the ladder, loose and broken rungs slowing their descent. Once they were actually in the pit, the sheer depth and scale of it really started to hit them. It went down more than a hundred feet, a dozen across, and the walls were layered with muck, roots, and tool marks.

“Help me with this,” Zephyr said. “I think this is it!”

He was prying loose stones out of the floor of the pit. They were smooth, surrounded and locked in place by something like clay. Larrikin looked around, the fetid smell of rotting vegetation and mud somehow comforting.

Zephyr grunted with effort, yanking a slab the size of a tombstone free and setting it aside. Larrikin did what they could to help, digging at the rocks until they felt something else.

“There really is something here!” they whispered.

“Move! I have to be the one to discover it!” Zephyr pushed them out of the way, tearing at the stones. “Yes… yes! This is it! This is…”

He freed the treasure from the muck, holding it over his head.

“...A broken plate?” Zephyr frowned and tossed it aside, then dug deeper, pulling out a cracked cup, then a chipped vase. Bent spoons and forks encrusted with rust. An axe with the handle rotted into mush. “There has to be something here!” Zephyr yelled.

“Is this treasure?” Larrikin asked, poking the broken plate.

“I’m sure there’s treasure here!” Zephyr snapped. “Help me with this! This has to be it…”

He grunted and yanked, trying to pull the largest thing yet from the mud. Larrikin helped, grabbing the other end with their teeth. The thick swamp loam didn’t want to give it up, and it took all of their strength to shift it, something the size of a treasure chest coming out of the clay and revealing…

“It’s a plow,” Larrikin said, spitting out the peat on their tongue.

“Why would they bury a plow?!” Zephyr screamed.

“Because it’s garbage,” Trixie said. “It’s not a treasure pit. It’s a garbage pit. A landfill.”

“But what about all those other expeditions?! What about the stories about treasure?! What about all the bits I spent?!”

“Just because a lot of ponies say the wrong thing it doesn’t make them right,” Trixie said. “Besides, it should have been a red flag that you thought there was actually treasure here. That was my first clue there was absolutely nothing.”

“So… he was wrong,” Larrikin mumbled. They picked up the cracked up, wiping away some of the muck.

“Ask him where he learned so much about kelpies,” Trixie said. “He might actually tell you the truth now.”

Larrikin looked at Zephyr.

“I made it up!” Zephyr snorted. “So what? My sister makes things up all the time. Does anypony really think there are goats that faint for no reason? I mean she made up a whole animal! Who would believe that there was a… a beaver with a duck bill and venom spikes? Nopony! So I made up a few little details!”

“You made it up?” Larrikin asked quietly. “You mean… you didn’t even check?”

“Look, kid, it’s just not important!” Zephyr said. “The treasure is what’s important, and it’s all gone! Do you know how many loans I have? The bank is going to skin me and sell my cutie marks to the griffins!”

“It’s not… but it is important! It’s going to make ponies think I’ll eat them, or I’ll stick to them if I hug them, or that they can get me drunk on wine and cut my hair to turn me into a frog or something!” Larrikin groaned, and their stomach growled.

“That you’ll…” Zephyr gasped and stepped back. “You’re a kelpie?! Oh feathers, don’t eat me! I’m too young to die!”

“I’m not going to eat you! I just get hungry when I’m stressed out,” Larrikin mumbled. “Like after tests, or finding out that I was wrong about you. But… but does that mean…?”

They looked up to the top of the shaft. Trixie nodded.

“I don’t really die every time I go to sleep?” Larrikin asked.

“Of course not,” Trixie said. “And just because you change shape doesn’t mean you’re a different person. Trixie is the same pony she was as a foal, and she was much shorter then. It’s why Zephyr has managed to go his whole life without growing up.”

“I was just so worried that creatures would never know I existed that I was willing to do anything to get their attention,” Larrikin said, quietly.

“Trixie used to live her whole life like that. It’s okay to want attention and to want to be noticed. Now are you ready to come out of that garbage pit and go back to the school? Trixie needs a cup of coffee.”

“Can I take some of this stuff with me?” Larrikin asked, holding up the chipped cup and broken plate.

“Take whatever broken junk you want,” Zephyr huffed. “I’m going to keep digging. Maybe it’s like one of those ancient tombs where they buried a lot of everyday junk alongside the king and all the treasure! I just have to keep looking!”

Larrikin shook their head and started up the ladder, Trixie helping them past the broken rungs with a few small magical tugs.

“Coffee sounds pretty good,” Larrikin said, when they got to the top. “I could really go a few donuts, too.”

“Don’t push it. You’re supposed to be being punished.” Trixie looked down at Zephyr, then kicked the pump as they walked away, turning off the siphon.

“I’m just so hungry since I wasn’t able to eat after I woke up,” Larrikin groaned.

“We’re not getting you a snack,” Trixie said, firmly. Larrikin looked up at her with big, sad eyes. “We’re not!”

Zephyr shrieked like a little filly when the swamp water started to flood in around him.

Larrikin bit into a donut happily. “Mm. Jelly!”

Trixie sighed. “I’m getting too soft in my old age.”

“I don’t think you’re soft,” Larrikin said. “Luster is kind of soft though. She doesn’t really do a lot of exercise.”

“Well, Trixie does work to stay in shape. A stage performer trades on the value of their appearance and the ability to sell themselves.”

Larrikin finished the last donut and licked their lips. “Thank you for… all of this,” they said. “Most creatures just sort of tolerate me. I try not to let it bother me.”

“Trixie considers it a small price to pay for keeping you from falling down the well of existential philosophy. It’s an even bigger and stupider pit than the literal one you were in tonight, and there’s only garbage at the bottom. It’s sort of like a metaphor, but in a very literal way.”

“I can’t believe I trusted him about… about something that big.” Larrikin sighed and put her head down on the cafeteria table.

“There are always big questions that ponies won’t have answers to,” Trixie said. “Trixie can’t prove she doesn’t stop existing every time she takes a nap, or that she isn’t dreaming all of this. Things you can’t prove or disprove aren’t worth worrying about. Instead, you should worry about the things you can change.”

“Like what” Larrikin asked.

“For one thing, you can write an angry letter to Zephyr Breeze’s publisher and threaten to sue them,” Trixie snorted. “But ponies really don’t know much about kelpies. Why don’t you start writing a book of your own?”

“That sounds a lot like work,” Larrikin mumbled. “Who would write a book just for fun?”

“You take classes with a sphinx and Princess Twilight’s personal student. I think you know at least two creatures that would do it. They could give you a few tips. They might even be able to help you learn how to control your shape, short stack.”

Larrikin sat back and smiled. “That’s a good idea. I bet if I work at it I can make myself really tall and graceful.”

“I didn’t know you had a preference,” Trixie said, amused.

“I don’t, but I’m pretty sure that’s what Dawn likes. I think I was really enjoying teasing her.”

“You shouldn’t tease your friends too much,” Trixie said. “But Trixie is glad you learned something.”

“I learned a lot,” Larrikin agreed. “Jelly donuts are really good, I don’t just stop existing when I go to bed to photosynthesize, and I might have a crush on Luster Dawn.”

Trixie spat out her coffee.

“Plastic sheets?” Larrikin asked, watching Dawn tug them into place.

“No, it’s a tarp,” Dawn corrected. “I already know you’re going to want to take a nap, and I wanted to be proactive about it today and avoid the drying spells. They can make my blankets all frizzy.”

“Neat,” Larrikin said, flopping onto the tarp.

“While you’re here, I was thinking we could go over what you missed since you weren’t in class today,” Dawn said. “Unless there’s something you’d rather do?”

“Well, I do have some weird pottery I wanted you to help me identify but… we’ve got time for that later,” Larrikin said, yawning. “I’ll be happy as long as I can spend some time with my friends.”

Dawn flipped over a page in her book. “You know what? You’re right.”

“I am?” Larrikin looked up.

“Yeah!” She closed her book. “I just spent all night in class. I don’t need to spend another three hours memorizing the interior angles of polygons. Why don’t you show me what you found?”

Larrikin smiled and sat up, rummaging around in their mane and extracting the broken plate and cup from their mane, carefully putting it down on the bed. “I think they’re really old,” they explained. “We found them in the swamp.”

“What were you doing in the swamp?” Dawn asked. She picked up the cup with her magic.

“Miss Trixie was giving me a lesson. I think it was a pretty important one.”

“Sounds like you had a better time than we did,” Dawn said. “I think if I use the right spells I can clean this off without damaging it…” she narrowed her gaze and slowly ramped up the power of her spell, the muck and dirt deeply encrusting it flaking off. Mold and lichen had grown into the cracks, leaving dark stains, and another spell cleaned them away. After a few minutes, she had a cup that looked brand-new. Well, brand-new and broken, but much cleaner if nothing else.

“Nice,” Larrikin nodded.

“You weren’t kidding. These really are old.” Dawn picked up the plate and repeated the process. “Where did you find these? You said the swamp?”

“Yeah, there’s a big treasure hole! Or at least that’s what it was supposed to be. Actually it seems like it was a garbage dump.”

“Probably an old well,” Dawn muttered. “You’d be surprised at how many midden heaps end up at the bottom of wells. Ponies drop things in all the time because they use the well, and it’s basically impossible to get anything back out.”

“Makes sense,” Larrikin agreed. “It kept filling up with water.”

“Now the thing about ceramics like this is that they last basically forever,” Dawn said. “In the castle they have some that are more than a thousand years old and they’re exactly the same as the day they were made. The only hard part is getting replacements when something cracks, but Princess Twilight told me there’s a whole branch of art historians that specialize in exactly that. And selling replicas to collectors.”

“Neat,” Larrikin nodded, listening to her and smiling. They were just enjoying listen to Dawn speak at length. The way she went on tangents was like a river splitting off into streams and coming back together, all flowing the same way eventually.

“I’m not really an expert, but I can tell you a few things. First, this is really old. Like, really, really old.” She put the cup down. “They’re part of a matched set.”

“How can you tell?”

“It’s the design. Look at this.” She grabbed a piece of paper and put the plate down on it to keep it from scuffing. “Do you see this symbol in the middle like an eight-pointed star? It’s a symbol representing a circle of sorcerers that predates Princess Celestia’s rule. It took eight of them to make the sun rise or set, and the points of the star represent their horns. The cup has the same symbol inside it.”

“I’ve never heard of them,” Larrikin shrugged.

“Not a lot of ponies know about them. They ruled Equestria in the pre-Discordian era after Hearth’s Warming, but then Discord overthrew them and when peace returned, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna became the rulers of Equestria. They weren’t needed because the alicorn sisters were strong enough to cycle night and day on their own, so they faded into obscurity and just sort of vanished from history.”

“That’s pretty cool,” Larrikin smiled. “So are they the ones on the other side of the plate, too?”

“On the other side?” Dawn asked. She carefully flipped the plate over.

The pattern was damaged by time and wear and spending a thousand years in a well, but it was still clear that the design around the underside of the plate depicted ponies in red robes and golden masks guiding the sun across the sky from one dawn to the next.

“That’s just like the pony I saw,” Dawn mumbled.

“Does that mean this is really treasure?” Larrikin asked.

Dawn coughed and recovered her composure. “It’s treasure to a historian. It’s not really all that valuable. Especially since we don’t know anything about where they came from.” She paused. “...where did they come from exactly?”

“A treasure hole!” Larrikin said. They waited just long enough for Dawn to twitch. “It was just the edge of Foggy Bottom Bog. Mister Breeze said there were a bunch of expeditions there looking for treasure before.”

“Why would they look there?” Dawn wondered.

“I donno!” Larrikin shrugged. “Probably because they knew other ponies had been digging.”

“I’ll have to check the records later. Maybe we can find out something interesting about this plate.”

Larrikin sighed. “Does that mean we’d have to give it to somepony else?”

“It might not be a bad idea to let an archaeologist look at it, but it’s your plate,” Dawn said. “Like I said, the really valuable thing is the history behind it. What we can learn about the ponies who made it and used it.”

“So if we find out about who made it… they’ll be remembered even a thousand years after they died,” Larrikin mumbled.

“Yep. Here, look at this.” Dawn pointed to the center of the plate. “You see that mark there pressed into the clay? That’s the cutie mark of the pony who made it. As long as we try to learn about them, it’s not just Princesses and sorcerers and heroes who are remembered. Even normal ponies like you or me can leave a mark on the world that can last as long as there are creatures to find it.”

Larrikin leaned over and touched the mark gently. “I hope ponies remember me like that.”

“Like any of us are ever going to forget about you,” Dawn snorted. “Hey, do you want to ask Ibis if she can help us find the pony’s name? I bet if they were making plates for famous ponies there’s a record somewhere.”

“That sounds fun!” Larrikin grinned. “And maybe we can stop by the cafeteria and check out their plates. For reference.”

“You just want another snack.” Dawn offered her a hoof, and helped them stand up.

“Yeah, but I wanna eat it with you,” Larrikin said, holding onto Dawn’s hoof for a moment longer. “If you want.”

Dawn smiled. “Sure. But I’m picking out the snack.”

“Sure!”

“And it’s gonna be something healthy!” Dawn warned, leading the kelpie out. Larrikin just smiled and nodded. For once, they were looking forward to what came next.

Chapter 6

“What kinda shockin’ blink do you mean that you ain’t heard of Cranberry Day?” Arteria huffed. “It’s one of th’ most crackin holidays in all Thestralia!”

Everypony in the room looked from Arteria to Ibis. She shrugged.

“I have no idea what she’s talking about,” Ibis said. “I don’t know why you all expect me to be a walking library of random trivia. Though I suppose my vast and cyclopean intellect is to blame.”

“And all you hook-birds put me on flamegas duty for thinkin’ I make up my jabs and here she is breakin’ out words that don’t even make a wink of sense,” Arteria scoffed. “Cranberry Day is the celebration of the founding of the capital of Thestralia, Cranberry Canyon!”

“You realize none of us know anything about Thestralia, right?” Larrikin asked. They rolled over onto their back, stretching and reaching up. “You all live on the ceiling, right?”

“Yes, but it’s rude as a derggo t’ point it out,” Arteria mumbled. “Anyhow one of you shockers must have a hair on it since I got this ‘ere Cranberry Day gift!”

She held up a parcel carefully wrapped in black silk.

“It wasn’t me,” Dawn said.

Berlioz shrugged.

“I never heard of it either,” Phantasma agreed.

Larrikin shrugged. “Did you get food? I got food last time we had a holiday.”

Arteria paused. “I donno. I didn’t open it.”

“Berlioz thinks pony should open it.”

Arteria shrugged and tugged at the silk with the tips of her wings. “Did a proper tiedown on this treat,” she mumbled. “I’d near swear this silk was from…”

She managed to get the hidden knot, finding an edge to the fine black silk and unveiling her gift. Inside was a wooden cage, and looking out through the bars were six tiny glowing eyes.

“No shockin’ way,” Arteria whispered. “This bloke is a six-eyed star spider! They’re th’ friendliest little wall-crawlers in all of Thestralia! Barely even poisonous enough t’ knock you out!”

Berlioz scratched his head. “Spider is present?”

“Is it food?” Larrikin asked. “I honestly have no idea what bat ponies eat.”

“I believe from her reaction it’s a pet,” Ibis said.

Arteria opened up the cage and the spider crawled out, up her hoof and onto her shoulder, making cute spider noises.

“Aw, she’s already a cuddler,” Arteria said, tilting her head to rub her cheek against the star spider.

“Its got something on its back,” Dawn said.

Arteria looked. “Huh. It’s a Cranberry Day card.” She pulled it free with her mouth and unfolded it like a flower. She mumbled to herself, reading whatever was written in it, and froze up. “Oh no…”

“What’s wrong?” Phantasma asked.

“This is awful,” Arteria whispered. “This is the shockin… shockin shockest shockin shock!”

“Is it just me or has her use of slang degraded to the point where her syntax has become totally encrypted semantic garbage?” Ibis asked.

“Maybe it’s a separate dialect where the intonation and emphasis on syllables changes the meaning of the words,” Dawn suggested. “I think there are some old Unicornian languages like that, from the third dynasty.”

“Dynasty nothin!” Arteria snapped. “This is blinkin awful!”

“You got a present. How bad can it be?” Larrikin asked.

“Me shockin mum is coming to the school for the holiday!” Arteria shrieked. “Now if you ladies an’ gents don’t mind, I’m
thinkin I’m gonna flip flap an’ yell until I’ve screamed out all my terror an’ pass out.”

“That sounds fun,” Larrikin said. “Can I join in?”

Arteria nodded. “Sure.”

Larrikin got up and started running around and screaming.

Phantasma sighed. “I hate Cranberry Day.”

“Okay, I’m going to need an explanation,” Dawn said, closing the door behind her. “First, it turns out whatever you said to Principal Starlight convinced her to start decorating the school for a holiday I’m still not sure is actually real. Second, why are you so scared about your mom showing up?”

“My mom…” Arteria sighed. She gave the spider a few more pets, stroking along its abdomen. “Alright, so that’s one hefty loop-de-loop of a tale. I ain’t spied any of you about even one shard of that broken mirror.”

“Would it be too much to beg you to use normal Ponish?” Dawn groaned.

Arteria thought carefully for a long moment. “Yes.”

“I think I’m going to get you a thesaurus for Cranberry Day,” Dawn said.

“I don’t gloam on what a thesaurus is but if it’s anything like a hook-bird, I’ve already got a pet, and she’s a sweet little girl.”

Dawn sighed. “Arteria, come on. I just want to help. Tell me what’s going on.”

“I guess if you wanted to know why I’ve got th’ wing shivers about my mom, I gotta go all the way back to the story that my mom told me when I was ear-high to a stalagmite.” She cleared her throat and started speaking in a more formal tone, obviously reciting from memory.

“After the Day of the Nightmare, our ancestors were labeled enemies of Equestria. They had supported Nightmare Moon, and when she was banished they had no leader, no cause, and no allies. They had been honorable and clever ponies in their own way, but now all the crimes of their master landed on their heads.

“Celestia could have shown us mercy, forgiven us our crimes, but she turned her gaze away and allowed us to be put on trial. For the crimes our ancestors committed, our bloodlines were banished for all time from any place where the sun might shine upon us. As we had supported endless night we were no longer to see the day.

“Hundreds of us were driven into the deep caverns of the earth, the endless black miles of tunnels and darkness. The way back to the light was sealed behind us, and we were supposed to die forgotten and blind in the bowels of the earth. Instead, we thrived and forged a new land of our own.”

Arteria coughed, dropping back into her usual tone.

“Thestals are all descendants of those criminals,” Arteria explained. “Mostly pegasus ponies but you prolly got the echo of that one just from me havin’ flip flaps even if they ain’t all fluffed. Also got earth pony an’ unicorn in there distant somewhere. Prolly how we can walk on the roof.”

“Interesting,” Dawn muttered. “So that’s why there’s so little known! It really isn’t on any map, and it’s part of the history Celestia wanted forgotten.”

“Yeah. Princess Luna found out about us right after she came back an’ even took a few of us into her personal guard,” Arteria said.

“Honestly I’m almost more surprised you can speak for that long without saying something using made-up slang.”

“It ain’t made up!” Arteria protested. “There’s plenty of topsider lingo I don’t got a bite on. Can’t blame a bat for not crawling when they can fly, you grok me?”

“I grok like half of what you’re saying,” Dawn said. “Let me see if I understand - with Luna back, presumably Equestria has started trying to open up dialogue with Thestralia, and we’re celebrating one of your fake holidays--”

“It’s a real holiday! I even got a present. That proves it’s on the deep down.”

“--One of your obscure holidays,” Dawn corrected. “Because they want to… make you feel included?”

“More like they want me mum to feel included,” Arteria mumbled, rubbing her mane. “I don’t like to wag my wingspan like a filly with the biggest lake-bug in her craw but she’s sort of a big bat down there. It’s like, uh, well, you know how th’ mares in Canterlot that hang the tightest are from important families?”

“Sure. Most of the nobility is war heroes or old money or had really famous and powerful sorcerers in their lineage.”

“Right on. Our greatest heroes are the ponies who helped us tame the wilds. The rockrangers an’ hookbird wranglers who kept us alive through them early times. My family is descended from Black Bread Nelly, a mare who went an’ fought off a whole derggo raiding army on her own. She lured ‘em into a tight canyon an’ held the ground wearin’ armor bodged together from a box of scraps.”

“Oh. I get it. Your family is nobility, huh?” Dawn frowned. “Why is that such a big deal? I knew a lot of nobles and you’re… well, you’re in the upper half.”

“Is that good or bad?” Arteria asked.

“Good! You’re like, a million times better than some ponies. Like Azure.” Dawn groaned. “At least I don’t have to worry about her showing up.”

“No, instead you gotta keep your ears open for my mum pouncing on us. You don’t get how bad it can be. See, when I say she’s a big bat, I mean she’s the biggest bat. And, uh, I might have gone topside without askin’ her for leave. Or writin’.”

“You ran away from home?!”

“Keep your voice down!” Arteria hissed. “Last thing I need is gossip spillin’ everywhere! I don’t even know how she found out I was here! I ain’t even gabbed my real title an’ I wear a disguise everywhere!”

“A disguise-- wait, you mean the sunglasses are supposed to be a disguise?”

“Well, duh,” Arteria scoffed. “Can’t tell at all what I really look like. You can barely even see me on account of how shady they make things!”

Dawn rubbed her snout. “That’s not how sunglasses work… But I bet either Princess Luna tipped her off about you or Princess Twilight got curious enough to ask about it herself. You’re the only batpony in school, so your mom probably put two and two together and figured out the only batpony outside of Thestralia is the only batpony missing from Thestralia.”

“Oath, when you lay it out like that it makes me feel like a bogan wonderin why there ain’t no tunnels going across a canyon,” Arteria groaned.

“You don’t think she’ll try to pull you out of school, will she?” Dawn asked.

“Fair right question,” Arteria sighed. “She won’t like that I ain’t gone an’ made the Principal treat me like royalty. Good thing Starlight ain’t a stallion, neither. Mum don’t like the notion of stallions workin’ instead of staying home an’ takin’ care of the nest. She’s a bit old-fashioned about that.”

“Old fashioned.” Dawn raised an eyebrow.

“Well, you know how it is,” Arteria scoffed. “Stallions are emotional, delicate, not really suited to be leaders. That sort of dinkum. If she thought a stallion was in charge of things she’d prolly flip a u-ey and do somethin’ dumb.”

“...How bad is ‘flippin a u-ey’?” Dawn asked, suddenly worried.

“Why?” Arteria asked, slowly.

“Oh honeycrust,” Arteria groaned.

“What’s wrong?” Sunburst asked. “Are the banners okay? I just sort of took an educated guess and went for dark red. I mean, Cranberry Day, right? So probably we should do something with cranberries.”

“That’s not the bogan in the well,” Arteria sighed. “What do you mean Principal Starlight is out for the week?!”

“Apparently something happened in the Crystal Empire and Princess Twilight asked her to take care of it personally,” Sunburst said. “I didn’t really get the details, but don’t worry! I’m on top of this. You kids don’t have anything to worry about.” He paused. “Um, and I apologize on behalf of the school for not using your title before, Duchess.”

Dawn turned slowly. “Duchess?!”

Arteria coughed, her cheeks red. “Can we put a fang in that an’ pretend it ain’t the aboleth in th’ room?”

“Isn’t Duchess like, one step down from Princess?” Dawn asked.

Arteria groaned. “That’s why I don’t gob none an try to drop th’ title like a drop-cloak spottin’ prey down below.”

“What’s a drop-cloak?” Sunburst whispered. Dawn shrugged.

“You uplanders ain’t got proper wildlife. They lurk on th’ ceilin’ and wait for somethin’ to walk under ‘em. Sorta like a trapper but on the reverse. Very dangerous critters. They bite onta you and wrap ya all up like a ponyrito until yer just bones.”

Dawn glanced up, just in case.

“Looks like I’m gonna have to mare down and take charge,” Arteria sighed. “So first stab in the dark we need is the giblets. Can’t have a Cranberry Day festival without somethin’ to gob on so the whole roost can shove their mouths full of sugar instead of their own hooves.”

“Well, I’ve already placed an order, so there should be cupcakes here by tomorrow,” Sunburst said. “You kids don’t have to worry. I’ve got everything perfectly under--”

“Oy! Don’t you even dare!” Arteria snapped, her wings raising up to make her look bigger, like she was trying to scare off a predator. “You know what kind of pookum that brings when a feckless stallion goes an’ says things can’t get worse or everything’s under control or some shockin’ deaf thing like that?”

“This isn’t a war. This is just a little party.”

“A little…?” Arteria huffed. “You aint even got an echo of what me mum is like. If things aren’t exactly perfect…” she shuddered.

“Well, how about we go down to the bakery to check on the order?” Dawn suggested. “It’s probably Sugarcube Corner, right?”

Sunburst nodded. “I gave the order to Pound Cake myself. It’s a little tight with the Summer Sun Celebration right around the corner, but he was able to fit us in.”

“Speaking of that, we can probably use my checklist for the Celebration to make sure everything important is done for your mother’s arrival.”

“Grand idea, Dawn!” Arteria said. “We’ll just pop in to make sure it’s all on the down low.”

“After we check on food, we can try to arrange some music. I doubt that’ll be hard,” Dawn said, looking over a piece of scrap paper she’d jotted some notes onto. “Most musicians have plenty of time on their hooves in the lead up to the Celebration, and the local ones aren’t going to go on tour when they could be playing here for Princess Twilight.”

Dawn looked up and realized she was speaking to thin air.

“Arteria?” She looked around and up and it wasn’t until she looked back that she saw Arteria was standing in the school’s doorway, shuffling her hooves pensively.

Dawn walked back over, putting the paper away.

“Are you okay?” Dawn asked. “This isn’t some kind of weird reverse vampire thing where I have to formally invite you outside, is it? Because if it is, I have some serious questions about how you got to the Castle of the Twin Sisters a few weeks ago.”

“...Can you keep a secret?” Arteria whispered.

“Better than most ponies,” Dawn said.

“I don’t like going out of doors,” Arteria hissed. She looked up. “It ain’t cracker. Look at that!”

“It’s the sky.”

“Exactly! No ceiling at all! Don’t matter how hard you listen, there ain’t no echo at all. It’s just a ‘orrible void of shockin’ nothin lurking way up on top. Last time I went out here Berlioz didn’t half had to carry me until we got to the forest where the trees were at least some kind of cover. It’s like any second I might just get sucked right up an’ never land anywhere at all!”

“You’re afraid of the outside?” Dawn blinked.

“I can’t even get one ear on why you ain’t shiverin’ in yer breeches about all this! You uplanders are so crazy you can’t begin to grok why it’s so shockin’ awful! Can’t even get a return on half the things I can see, like that rock over there.” Arteria pointed.

“...That’s Canterlot. It’s like twenty miles away.” Dawn could have been more exact, but this wasn’t the kind of conversation where she needed to be more accurate to more than an order of magnitude.

“Twenty miles?!”

“I know that sounds pretty far, but the mountain is so tall that we can see it way further than the normal distance to the horizon. If you wanted to calculate it, you can use the square root of the object’s height in feet and multiply by about one and a quarter--”

“Shock, Dawn! This ain’t about the shockin’ mathemagic you unicorns do! That’s even further than the whole length of Cranberry Canyon!”

“Is that good or bad?”

“It’s like bein’ blind,” Arteria whispered. “Can’t hear a shockin’ thing, and the things you do hear are from so blinkin’ long on that you ain’t sure about th’ direction. No proper tunnels or caverns to shape th’ sound at all, and things can sneak up on ya from anywhere.”

“I guess it’s like the opposite of claustrophobia,” Dawn muttered. “What can I do to help?”

“I just gotta mare down an’ do it,” Arteria said. “Can’t let me mum catch an earful of skinty gabs about her little spiderbite bein’ afraid of a big nothing. It’d be a stain on th’ noble bloodline of Black Bread Nelly.”

“Maybe…” Dawn thought. “How about I keep talking, and you focus on that instead of the quiet?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that might work,” Arteria nodded. “And we’ll just… walk close like, so I don’t get lost if I have to close my eyes to rest ‘em a bit. It’s too shockin’ bright out here.”

“Sure,” Dawn said, taking her hoof. “Don’t worry. We’ll get there.”

“So what was that about music?” Arteria asked.

“Well depending on what kind of music your mother and you like we’ve got a lot of options in town. I already interviewed a few of them to think about options. The town’s got everything from classically trained ponies to the latest in thaumosynthwavecore. That’s a new music genre that was invented when two local bands had a terrible cart accident and the band members that weren’t injured had to put together an act using a theremin, electric bass, two vocalists, and a drum set that was half acoustic and half electronic…”

Arteria nodded along, squeezing Dawn’s hoof for support and listening to every word she said to help drown out that terrible emptiness above.

“You’re shockin’ dreggin me keckmines!” Arteria spat, trying to get the taste off her tongue. “What the shockin shock did you do to these poor things?”

“It’s a normal recipe,” Pound Cake said, confused. He leaned in to sniff. “Yeah, it’s not even one of Aunt Pinkie’s weird one-offs. That’s just a normal carob and carrot cupcake.”

“Carob is normal?” Dawn asked.

“It’s hypoallergenic,” Pound shrugged. “When we have an order at the school we have to think about accommodating a lot of different creatures.”

“I ain’t servin’ this to me mum,” Arteria said. “She’d take me home just on principle if she thought I was eatin’ junk like this. Guess I’ll have t’ show you how it’s done.”

She hopped over the counter into the kitchen.

“Does she know how to cook?” Pound asked.

“Well, she’s been taking the basic classes with everypony at the school, but, um, maybe it would be a good idea if we supervise?”

“Oy! Where’re the onions?!” Arteria shouted from the back.

“A very good idea,” Pound agreed, letting Dawn back behind the counter so neither of them would be facing whatever was in the kitchen alone.

Arteria had, in a shockingly short time, found ingredients that Pound would have sworn weren’t in the kitchen before she started looking for them, which either meant she’d brought them with her or else she’d found one of Pinkie’s stashes.

“Don’t even got proper red mushie paste,” Arteria mumbled. “Think I can whip somethin’ up with all this.” She dumped mushrooms into a bubbling saucepot. “Ain’t had to make vegactite from scratch before.”

“Do I even want to know what that is?”

“Ah well it’s th’ ultimate health food is what it is!” Arteria said, dumping a whole bag of something into the pot.

“That was yeast,” Pound said. “You have absolutely no idea what you’re doing.”

“I jes said I’m makin’ vegactite! It’s a shockin’ essential in th’ kitchen.” She stirred the boiling pot. “It’s, uh, it’s sort of made of leftovers from makin’ mushroom ale an’ all sorts of healthy things fer vitamins. Like, uh…”

She held up a turnip.

“This… carrot?” she guessed.

Pound shook his head.

“Well, it’s still healthy,” Arteria said, tossing it in. “We just gotta boil this slop down to jam, and oingo boingo, bat’s yer uncle!”

“How long is that going to take?” Dawn asked, looking into the pot. It looked like mud, if she was being generous. She wondered if the otyugh in the sewers would be willing to eat it.

“About eight or twelve hours,” Arteria said.

“I can’t have that in the kitchen all day!” Pound groaned. “I’ve got to bake! And that smell is…” he shivered.

“No worries. I ain’t aiming to shoot right through. I’m gonna sit ‘ere and baby it like m’ own foal until it’s good and ready.” Arteria paused. “I just winked there in case you couldn’t tell with me sunnies.”

Pound gave Dawn a pleading look.

“We’ve got a lot of other things we need to take care of,” Dawn said. “I don’t think you can spend the time here, and Pound doesn’t know how to make it, um, properly, so we might just want to dump this out--”

“Far away from the store, please,” Pound said.

“--Dump it out into the river and figure out something else,” Dawn finished.

Arteria sighed. “Fair digs. Can’t spend all night on this when there’s hard yakka to flap on to. We’ll just have to speed things up, since me mum would dangle me by me ears if I didn’t have vegactite.”

“You can’t just speed up cooking something. Trust me. I learned that lesson the hard way in baking class-- why are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re gonna try to pass me on the right and claim you ain’t gone and found a spell that’d do exactly that?” Arteria asked.

“It’s not the kind of thing you can just…” Dawn sighed. “Okay. We might be able to speed it up a little if we can increase the boiling rate, but if you just turn up the heat, it’s going to burn, and a pressure cooker won’t release the steam.”

Pound sat down and extended his wings. “I could create a low-pressure zone over the pot. It would let it boil harder at a low temperature. But that air’s going to get saturated with steam pretty quickly. It’s sort of gradient thing. If we could make the air really dry, it’d come out even faster.”

“Maybe a drying spell?” Dawn suggested. “I have a lot of practice with how often Larrikin hangs out in my room without asking.”

“Alright. Let’s give it a go,” Arteria said, stepping back.

Pound started flapping slowly, and the steam rising out of the pot swirled in a vortex, drawn out faster and faster while the bubbling reached a fever pitch. Dawn cast her spell, pulling the steam out of the air as fast as she could.

The pot bubbled and actually jumped a little, the suction pulling it up. Dawn grabbed the handles, holding it down.

“Is it working?” Arteria asked.

“It’s doing something!” Dawn yelled.

“Just hold it for another minute,” Pound Cake said. “It shouldn’t take long to boil it down at this rate.” And then, he hoped, they could throw the whole pot into the Everfree. He’d never be able to cook caramels in it again.

The bubbling and steaming came to a slow stop, and the pot jumped a few more times like a thrashing animal caught in a trap before finally going still.

“It’s done,” Pound sighed, folding his wings.

Dawn was the first to look inside, and she looked mortified. “I’m sorry, Arteria. I think we messed something up really badly.”

Inside the pot was a layer of almost jet-black muck two inches deep and as thick as marmalade. All the vegetables and assorted things Arteria had thrown in had broken down into it, and there was absolutely nothing identifiable left.

“Hmmm…” Arteria rubbed her chin. Then she grabbed a few slices of bread from the counter.

“What are you doing?” Pound asked.

“Well we gotta test it, don’t we?” Arteria asked. “Here, toast these, would you? We’ll need a slab of butter too. Can’t do up a proper vegactite sammie without it!”

“You can’t be serious,” Pound said.

Dawn dutifully toasted the bread, and Arteria buttered each slice, then added a thin layer of the black mush from the pot.

“I’m not sure this is food,” Dawn said.

“Look, we’re all in this together,” Arteria said. “We’ll try it on three. One. Two… Three!”

Like three ponies going to the gallows, they raised the bread up and bit into it. Pound immediately spat it out, gagging.

Dawn managed to swallow and put the rest of her toast down, pushing it far away.

Arteria took a second bite, then a third, then finished her toast.

“Oh shockin’ oath that is blinkin’ amazing! It’s even better’n the real thing!”

“It’s supposed to taste like that?!” Pound gagged.

“Well a delicate little stallion like you prolly can’t handle it, but Dawn kept it down, eh?” She patted the unicorn on the back. “Good stuff. You should be able t’ make some swirly bread an’ filled steam buns like that, right?”

“I technically can,” Pound said. “I’m not sure it would be ethical.”

“Look, it’s for me mum. She’ll love it. Please?”

“Fine,” Pound sighed. “I’ll… figure something out.”

“Cracker! What’s next on the list, Dawn?”

“Music, I think? Let me just, um, give him my notes. Why don’t you wait out front and I’ll catch up?”

“Sure. You gonna eat that?” She pointed to Dawn’s toast.

“It’s all yours,” Dawn said, passing it over. Arteria happily bit into it and walked out of the kitchen.

Pound watched her go, then looked at Dawn. “I can’t serve that to ponies!” he hissed.

“Look, just make a few things with it, then put the rest in a jar or something else for her,” Dawn whispered. “Make the rest of the cupcakes the regular way.”

Pound nodded glumly.

“I’ll get her out of here before she thinks of other ways to help,” Dawn promised.

“Okay, let’s hear what you got,” Arteria said.

“I think you’ll like this,” Neon Lights said. “Okay everypony, from the top! One, two…”

The band lurched into action. Regardless of what genre they claimed to play -- which varied depending on the day and which member of the band one decided to ask -- they were essentially a jazz band operating on the very edge of the esoteric edge. They were clearly very professional about the whole operation, too. Every time one of them hit a sour note, they glared at somepony else as if it was their fault.

“You were deffo not tellin a furphy on this,” Arteria sighed. “It’s like somepony found the loose bits of two bands in th’ trash and bodged them into an act.”

The two vocalists were nice enough to take turns, which was good because one was trying to growl like they were summoning electric demons with the assistance of the theremin and the other was belting out lyrics about being in love.

“They’re very popular,” Dawn said.

“With who?” Arteria asked.

Dawn tried to come up with an answer to that while the bassist did his level best to play well, though he sped through the easiest parts and had to slow down for the more difficult passages, meaning he was never quite on beat with the drums, which the theremin player was trying to manage with a forehoof and bass pedal while also waving his other forehoof in the air to produce droning tones from the rest of his equipment.

“I mean they’re not bad,” Dawn said.

Arteria was about to say something, so Dawn quickly revised her statement.

“Individually,” Dawn corrected.

Arteria scrunched up her nose, her ears twitching. She nodded. “Bit iffy havin’ em all in the same place. You sure they’re all playin’ the same song?”

It was a good question, because they didn’t all quite manage to finish at the same time, the bass player trailing off into an awkward solo before just stopping.

“So what do you think?” Neon Lights asked.

“What’d you say th’ name of this…” Arteria gestured at the four ponies. “Band? Is band deffo the word we’re using? Okay. What’s the name of this band, then?”

“Captain Neon and His Magic Band!” Neon Lights said.

“I thought we were going with Pecan Sandies?” asked the stallion on drums and theremin.

“No, we’re not using that, Riff. I told you, we need to really play on the fact we’re like nothing else,” Neon retorted. “Also we need to tell people we’re a band.”

Arteria nodded. “I get the echo on why you’d have a header on that. Jes one minute, no worries.” She pulled Dawn aside, then a little more aside when the band started tuning their instruments. Or playing another song. It was hard to tell.

“I admit they’re not the best,” Dawn whispered.

“You’re gonna have to speak up a bit on account of how my ears are ringin’. What’s the polite way t’ tell them to flap off?”

“Well, before you do that, you should know one very important thing,” Dawn said.

“What’s that?”

“They’re the only ones who showed up when we offered the job.”

“...What?”

“It turns out quite a few local bands have decided to take the summer to go on tour and only come back for the Summer Sun Celebration, which means just about every pony who knows how to hold an instrument correctly isn’t here. They’ll be here in a few days, sure, but not tomorrow.”

“You mean to tell me in this town, where you promised there were dozens of musicians…”

“This is all we have right now because of the short notice,” Dawn sighed.

“Well buck me dead,” Arteria groaned.

“It’s better than nothing, right?” Dawn smiled bravely. “I mean, no matter how picky your mother might be about music or anything, they’re a local band and they’re enthusiastic. Let’s just try to be polite and nice because otherwise we’re going to have hope Ibis and Phantasma have hidden musical talents that they’ll discover in the next day.”

Arteria sighed and swept back her white mane. She turned to the band. “How many songs do you blokes know?”

Neon Lights looked at the other band members. “We’ve never really managed to play the same once twice.”

“Well it’ll be original, then. Welcome aboard.”

“So that’s food and entertainment,” Arteria said. “What’s left?”

“Cider,” Dawn said.

“Cider?” Arteria repeated. “What’s that?”

“You’ve never had cider?” Dawn smiled. “It’s unfiltered apple juice. The Apple family has a secret recipe and the best apples in Equestria, according to Princess Twilight.”

“Yeah but… aren’t we gone pretty far bush? I can barely see th’ town from here!” She squeezed Dawn’s hoof tighter and looked firmly down at the ground so she wouldn’t see the sky.

“I’m not an expert but I’m pretty sure you need a lot of space for an apple orchard,” Dawn said. “We’re almost there. You’ll be okay.”

“I know. I’m almost used to it,” Arteria said. “Thank you for gettin’ me through this mess. I couldn’t have even flapped my way free of the doorway without you.”

“Hey, you’re my friend.” Dawn squeezed Arteria’s hoof back. “I know this whole thing with your mother is really hard for you. Family can be tough, and this got dropped on you out of nowhere.”

“I knew she’d catch up to me at some point,” Arteria muttered. “I thought it would take longer.”

“Why did you leave?” Dawn asked. “It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me! I just, you know. I’m curious. It’s a mystery hanging right over the head of one of my friends and it’s been nagging at me for hours to try and get answers.”

“Hah, yeah, Phantasma says you’re like a black spiderwolf. Once you got your fangs in something you never let go of it until it stops strugglin’ and gives up.” Arteria laughed. “I can’t really keep things a secret none with me mum on the way so I guess it won’t be too dezzo to flap above the trouble and put in me own shout.”

Dawn relaxed. “Thank you. I just want to know what we’re dealing with.”

“Yeah,” Arteria agreed, leading her over to a tree so she could sit with something overhead. “So you’ve lived in Canterlot, yeah? You must have a solid bite on what th’ nobility is like, yeah?”

Dawn sat next to her. “It’s a mixed bag. Most of them are just like any other pony, but… there are the rules.”

“Yeah. Crack on. The rules. I had to act like somethin’ I wasn’t. Like playin’ a part in a drama yer whole life. No real breaks, just constantly memorizin’ scripts an’ sayin the right words to everypony.” She shook her head. “Ain’t no way to live. I saw how it drained at me mum.”

“It’s sort of true everywhere, isn’t it?” Dawn asked. “Like when you’re a student you have to act like a good student.”

“Tell that dinkum to Larrikin an’ see if that web can catch a moth.”

“You know what I mean. I’m not nobility. But when I was in Canterlot I still had to play by the same rules, but it was even worse for me because I wasn’t their equal.”

“What are you gabbin about? You’re Princess Twilight’s personal student!”

“And I’m not part of some lineage of heroes or business ponies or even civil servants,” Dawn said. “I can’t trace my line back ten generations to somepony who once had the grand honor of doing Princess Celestia’s laundry.” She smirked. “Or for that matter, to a pony who bravely held back a horde of evil derggo.”

“But that stuff isn’t important! I want ponies to like me for bein’ me, not fer something some blinkin hero did centuries ago! That’s askin’ me t’ be a shockin’ museum exhibit fer them to gawk at.”

“I was always sort of jealous,” Dawn admitted. “They’re born having all these connections and opportunities.”

“You’ve got ‘em too, though. And you did it with your own hooves. It’s easier for them, but I think when you do somethin’ for yourself, that makes it better. Makes it yours.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Dawn agreed. “There’s a lot of luck involved too. If Princess Twilight hadn’t noticed me I’d probably still be waiting for permission to look into the Canterlot archives.”

“Luck’s how I got here, too.” Arteria glanced up and shuddered. “So, you caught on that Thestralia ain’t exactly a short hop from th’ ground floor, yeah? It ain’t easy to get there or leave. See, between Cranberry Canyon an’ the surface is about a blinkin bazillion miles of tunnels. Worse’n that, it’s basically a shockin’ desert. There ain’t a lot of water or food.”

“But I saw a whole lake when I went down with Berlioz,” Dawn said.

“Yeah. Always too much or too little, huh? It’s hard findin’ a cave what isn’t totally under th’ sea or dry as a bone. Anyplace a bat can find land and water? That’s a place worth callin’ home. It’s why we spend so shockin’ much time on the up-side of a room, yeah? It’s th’ only place a bat can stand sometimes.”

“That… makes a lot of sense.”

Arteria sighed. “After Princess Luna came back, we started hearin’ about it. In dreams first, then she did us the real solid. She opened up the way back t’ the surface and ended the long walk in the dark.”

“That’s when she got some batpony guards, right?”

“Yeah. They’re a bit of a legend now themselves.” Arteria grinned. “Shouts came back they braved th’ wild and untamed surface, met strange ponies, all sorts of tales, yeah? I heard all about that sittin’ in the palace an’ all the other bats would natter about was how they were great. Not their ancestors or mum, them.”

“So you left?”

“Well they proved th’ way was safe enough, right? Ain’t too much bookum to think I could do it too. Bit of a rough outing, nearly died a few times, but me mum was tryin’ to open the way anyhow. Clear signs an’ wide tunnels and all that.”

“You almost died?”

“Eh, it’s not th’ excitin’ kind of way of kickin’ the bucket. Weren’t even no hook-birds. Just a fair amount of goin’ hungry an’ eatin’ strange things. Gonna give you a good survival tip, yeah? Don’t ever eat nothin’ that glows an sings to you.”

“You know, I bet that cider is going to be a lot tastier than glowing singing… stuff.”

“If it’s somethin’ you like, I know I will too,” Arteria said. She put a hoof on Dawn’s shoulder.

Dawn smiled and looked up at her, suddenly very excited. “Oh! Does that mean you’re open to some book recommendations?”

“Don’t push it.”

“What’s taking her so long?” Larrikin groaned.

“She has to get ready,” Phantasma said. “It takes a while for a mare to get ready for a big event.”

“You didn’t take long,” Larrikin pointed out.

“I’m not a Duchess trying to impress her mother,” Phantasma said. “I don’t know if I could manage that kind of pressure. What do you think she’s going to be like? We don’t even know her name!”

“Huh. Maybe it’s secretly going to be Princess Luna!”

Phantasma sighed. “Larrikin, how could she be Princess Luna’s daughter? Princess Luna was imprisoned on the moon for a thousand years--”

“And came back before you were born,” Larrikin pointed out. “Do you know for sure that she didn’t decide to retire to live with the batponies?”

“Me mum ain’t Princess Luna,” Arteria said, before she’d even finished opening the door. “I could hear you two gabbin from th’ other room an if me mum were here she’d be able to hang an ear on you from two streets away.”

“Oh wow,” Phantasma breathed. “You look…”

“Beautiful!” Larrikin supplied.

Arteria’s sunglasses were nowhere to be seen, and there must have been a mixed martial arts tournament in town because somepony had wrestled her into a dress and made her tap out on trying to escape it. The affair was complicated, multilayered, with loose black lace like ornate fishnets as an underlayer, a corset and gorget made of stiff latex fitted around her chest and neck like ebony armor given shape and texture by seams outlined in crimson thread. Puffy sleeves and a skirt that didn’t quite reach the floor, both in wine-red, left her shoulders and wings exposed.

Maybe even more surprising than the fact that she was wearing it at all was that Arteria looked completely at ease in the outfit. Even the touches of ruby and obsidian didn’t seem out of place, and her mane was actually styled and held in place by an ornate silver maneclip.

“Ain’t been stuffed into one of these in a while,” Arteria sighed. “Think I remembered where all the hooks an’ buttons go.”

“You look good enough to eat,” Larrikin assured her. This would be more reassuring if it had come from somepony with a more discerning diet, since Larrikin was known to eat anything vaguely organic put in front of her.

“Arteria!” Dawn yelled down the stairs to the dorm. “Your mom is about to get here! At least, I assume it’s your mom. There’s sort of a minor stampede in town. Apparently nopony thought about telling us how she’d actually arrive!”

Arteria groaned and flew up the stairs after Dawn. Most of the students in the school had come to watch, lining the hallways in exactly the kind of public display Arteria didn’t ever want to deal with.

“How devo is it?” Arteria asked.

“Well, uh. There aren’t any major structure fires, so call it a five out of ten.” Dawn replied, leading Arteria to the front doors. “Are you sure you can handle this?”

The gawking students had mostly been kept back by velvet ropes that would, in theory, lead guests to the decorated ballroom. Sunburst waved to Arteria and pointed to where she should stand, like she didn’t already have it burned into her memory.

Arteria took a deep breath. “As long as everypony else can remember their lines for the next five minutes,” she said.

“It’ll be okay. Ibis is on the job, and she never forgets anything.”

“Blinkin well makes me want to throw the opposite an’ forget this whole thing,” Arteria muttered.

Berlioz opened the doors, and the thing which had been causing so much chaos in Ponyville approached in much the way a siege engine does, driving ponies before it while protecting its contents. It also, more specifically, moved like a carriage drawn by the largest spider Dawn had ever seen, easily the size of Princess Twilight.

Arteria’s pet spider crawled over her shoulder from where it had been hiding among the folds of her dress to look, waving one foreleg to the approaching arachnid.

The spider was almost silent as it moved, despite its size, the sound of its passage like wind blowing over grassy field. It turned to face the carriage doors with the school’s entrance, finally coming to a halt and waving back to Arteria’s pet.

The carriage itself was made of a wood dark enough that it couldn’t have been entirely natural. Some unicorn had taken a look at ebony and mahogany and decided he wanted something darker than black and somehow gotten it.

Two batpony guards wearing the armor of Luna’s Night watch landed to either side of the door. One opened it, and the other offered a hoof to the pony inside.

Ibis cleared her throat and picked up the scroll she’d prepared. Not that she needed a scroll, but she had argued that it felt more natural and was a useful prop.

“Announcing the arrival of High Duchess Arteria Ulna Daikon, Lord Protector of Cranberry Canyon!” Ibis declared.

She stepped out of the shadows. She was taller and more pale than her daughter, but with the same stark white mane. Unlike the elaborate dress Carpals was wearing, Ulna was wearing a black suit and long, high-collared coat. All of it was, of course, stark black, too dark to do more than suggest at elaborate details that couldn’t be seen but only felt. A single red ruby hung at her neck, the only spot of color in her outfit.

“Welcome to Princess Twilight Sparkle’s School of Friendship,” Sunburst said. “I’m sorry she was unable to greet you herself.”

“Yes, I’ve been told about the event,” Unla said. She was the kind of pony who should have had a voice like an iron glove wrapped around velvet. She actually spoke quite quietly, though nopony had to strain to hear her because something in the weight of it silenced conversations and distractions. “I am told that several artifacts have gone missing.”

“It’s nothing to worry about,” Sunburst assured her. “I promise everything will be fine.”

“Is that so?” Ulna asked. “I will remember to hold you to that.”

Her eyes slid off him and Sunburst slumped like a pony who’d had a knife to his throat until that moment.

“Mum,” Arteria said.

“Duchess Arteria Carpals Daikon,” Ulna said, stepping up to her. She looked down at her daughter silently for a long moment.

Arteria started to sweat.

“You have made friends,” Ulna said. It wasn’t a question.

Arteria nodded anyway.

“When you left without giving warning I was concerned you would do something foalish,” Ulna said. “There are a very many foalish things one can do between here and the safety of our home.”

“I made it fine on my own,” Arteria said.

“Yes. And I won’t taint your achievement by implying I had something to do with it, or that I was helping you from afar.” She paused. “I’m sure you’re doing quite well.”

“I am.” Arteria mumbled.

Ulna very carefully didn’t say she doubted that. She didn’t make even a single sound of doubt. She just left the space open there for it and allowed others to fill it for her with the echoes.

“How about we go to the ballroom?” Sunburst suggested. “We’ve got food, a live band, and cider!”

Ulna’s gaze slid away from her daughter. “Very well. I am curious as to how you uplanders live.”

She walked off, her hooves barely seeming to touch the ground. It looked less like Sunburst was leading her to the ballroom and more like he was being slowly chased and trying to make small talk with the predator at his back.

“She’s… something,” Dawn said, once they’d gotten enough distance to start to feel safe.

Arteria sighed, her wings slumping. “Thank th’ stone, she’s in a good mood today. I was worried Sunburst’d be bleedin’ out with how uppity an’ improper he’s bein.”

“Improper?” Dawn tried to think of even one thing he’d done wrong.

“He spoke to her without being addressed first,” Dawn explained. “Mum must like him!”

“...And since it was savory I decided the best thing to do was put it in a steamed bun,” Pound explained.

The High Duchess squeezed the soft, springy bun, allowing a bit of the dark paste inside to burble out. She licked it delicately.

“A fair attempt,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting you to try and recreate any Thestralian food.”

“It was Arteria’s idea,” Pound Cake said. “She even, um, helped in the kitchen!” He smiled. Ulna didn’t.

“I am sure it was a learning experience for everyone involved,” Ulna said. She put the bun down. “I take it the others are more typical of your skill.”

Pound smiled, trying very hard to not sweat. “I like to think… I always do my best. A chef shouldn’t excuse mistakes on his ingredients.”

Ulna paused and raised an eyebrow, nodding in approval before walking away, keeping a healthy distance from the band, who were currently working their way through what might have been the Equestrian national anthem. Or they might have still been tuning their instruments, but if so they were doing a poor job of it since none of them were in the same key.

“Perhaps you could introduce me to your friends?” Unla suggested, turning her head just enough to let her daughter know she was being addressed.

Arteria looked at Dawn.

“I’m Luster Dawn,” she said, stepping forward. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“I’m sure I can hardly compare to your Princess Twilight,” Ulna said. “It must be rather exhausting, keeping your place as her personal student.”

“What do you mean?”

“There are ponies that would do anything to have such proximity to power. Access to power, to bask in it and believe you influence the course of history, is almost as intoxicating as the power itself.”

“I never really thought of it that way,” Dawn said. “I just enjoy learning things and digging up the truth.”

“You’re in a good place to do so. Just be aware of the power you have. It’s fine to decide not to use a sword, but if you hold one and you’re unaware of it, you can easily hurt another without even knowing.”

“I’ll, um… I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Let me go next!” Larrikin said, bumping their way into the group. They offered a hoof, taking Ulna’s and shaking it. The guards appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and Ulna had to wave them off before they skewered the kelpie. “I didn’t even know Arteria had a mom!”

Ulna looked at her hoof in quiet horror.

“What is she?” Ulna whispered, looking back at Arteria.

“I’m a kelpie,” Larrikin supplied. “Do you think you could ask your daughter to make more of that brown stuff? It’s amazing! I ate like whole jar before I thought about putting it on bread.”

“I’ll have some shipped from Thestralia. I’m sure my daughter would appreciate having a taste of home as well,” Ulna said. “Now, I need to go speak to…” she paused.

“The sphinx,” Arteria pointed. “Her name’s Ibis.”

“Ah yes. Excuse me.”

Ulna let go of Larrikin’s hoof and stepped away, trotting up to Ibis to speak with her.

“I think I flustered her,” Larrikin said. “Does that mean I’m gonna be your new dad?”

Arteria rubbed her snout. “I hope not. I’ve got enough of those already.”

“Huh?”

“Mom’s got six husbands.”

Larrikin rubbed their chin. “They must be really good at cuddling.”

“Yeah. She’s always doggin’ me t’ get married.” Arteria scoffed.

“Huh. Maybe she’ll tell you to marry me,” Larrikin said. “I’ve never even worn a fancy dress before.”

Dawn laughed nervously and leaned in. “I’m sure that’s not really why she’s here,” Dawn whispered.

“...I’m gonna make sure,” Arteria said, moving with some unseemly haste over to her mother. From the look on Ibis’s face, she was waiting to see if Ulna was going to be able to solve a particularly difficult riddle.

“A neolithid,” Ulna said. “The number of limbs they have changes over time.”

“...Really?” Ibis asked, looking defeated.

“It could also be a metaphor for age and growth, but I dislike metaphors.”

“Mum, can we talk?” Arteria asked, quietly.

“Of course,” Ulna said. She said it very mildly, as befitted somepony who was getting exactly what they wanted. “Why don’t we sit over there where we can have some privacy?”

She motioned to a few unused chairs off to the side, sitting in one of them with demure grace. Arteria plopped down in hers and folded her forehooves.

“Why did you even come here, mum?” Arteria asked, as blunt as a brick to the head.

Ulna sat back, raising her hoof. One of the batpony guards deposited a glass of cider in it, and she sipped at it before answering, making Arteria wait for a reply.

“You’re my daughter. I wanted to see you.”

“You never do anything just on a whim.”

“True.” Ulna held her hoof out again, and the glass was taken from her. “Some rather disturbing rumors made their way to my orbit and I needed to make sure you were safe.” She sighed and her expression softened, just a little. “I worry. But now I see that there’s no way I can simply ask you to leave.”

“Because I have a lot of good friends an’ I’m me own pony an’ need to make me own mistakes, even if they’re right blinkin stupid?” Arteria asked, her usual slang slipping back in before she could stop herself. She coughed. “Um, I mean, that is--”

“No,” Ulna said. “Because you’re a natural leader, when you choose to be one. A substitute baker. A substitute band. Improvised decor. Cider good enough to make ponies forgive a few of the rougher edges of the rest.”

“It was all Dawn’s idea,” Arteria said. “She had this big list and we just sort of went down it. I ain’t gonna steal credit from her. Mostly all I did was worry and fret.”

“Surrounding yourself with useful ponies is the most important trait a leader can have. Just try not to worry so much about putting your hoof into things, dear. That vegactite was terrible. You should have let the baker use their best judgment.”

“I’ll… remember that,” Arteria mumbled.

“Good. You’ll need to be a leader for the other bats in town.”

Arteria froze. “What other bats? This isn’t some shockin’ scheme to marry me off, is it? Because I swear--”

Ulna held up a hoof. “I met with the Equestrian nobility before I came here because I was finalizing settlement papers. We now own a section of the cave system under the town. The first settlers will be here shortly.”

“Wot?”

“Officially, as the only Thestralian nobility in city limits, you will be in charge of them. In practice, you’ll just want to welcome them and help them get around town for a few days. The Mayor will be handling the actual paperwork and duties.”

“I can’t do that!”

“Of course you can,” Ulna smiled. “Just don’t do it alone. Ask your friends for help. I like them.”

“...You do?”

“They’re not using you for your position. And they’re good enough friends that they’re not stumbling all over themselves agreeing with you.”

Ulna reached over and touched Arteria’s hoof.

“I want you to be the best pony you can be. Even if it’s not the same type of pony I am. I wouldn’t mind letters now and then, either. I’m told your friend writes to Princess Twilight. You could do the same for your mother.”

Arteria sighed. “Okay.”

“And you can always come home. Even just to visit. Bring your friends. They’re…” Ulna looked back. “I think that damp pony is eating a whole raw onion.”

“She does that, yeah,” Arteria agreed.

“Shockin’ weirdo upland horses,” Ulna muttered, her tightly controlled accent slipping.

Arteria giggled, smirking.

Chapter 7

“It’s the end of the world,” Luster Dawn whispered. All her plans had come to nothing. Equestria was going to fall into ruin, ponies would riot in the street, and she would be remembered in history as one of the architects of its ruin for her inability to prevent the disaster in front of her.

“Because you forgot to send out personalized invitations?” Phantasma asked. She didn’t sound convinced about the gravity of the situation. Given the looks everyone else in the dorm commons was giving Dawn, they weren’t impressed either.

“Exactly! How are we supposed to make sure the right ponies come to meet Princess Twilight? The Summer Sun Celebration is tonight! Even if I went to the post office now they’d never get there in time! Ponies won’t know where to go, and they won’t be ready for the celebration and the whole thing will be a flop and Princess Twilight will abandon me just like Azure Fire said she would!”

“Doesn’t everypony already know where and when the Summer Sun Celebration is?” Larrikin asked.

Dawn looked up and groaned. “It changes every year!”

“The date doesn’t change,” Ibis noted. “It hasn’t changed in over a thousand years.”

“Okay, sure, but the place changes!”

“Aw, fair crackin that it ain’t been in th’ papers fer the past week, then,” Arteria said. “It’d be devvo for your panic attack if everypony in the shockin’ country knew where Princess Twilight was gonna be.”

“The papers?” Dawn asked, confused.

Berlioz held up a newspaper. “Canterlot Times. Also in Ponyville Press but Berlioz prefers editorial content and columns in Canterlot Times. More international view, fewer stories about local disasters.”

Dawn took a deep breath. “Fine. It’s been advertised. Ponies know where and when to go. But they still didn’t get personal invitations! That’s on me! I screwed up!”

“What’s the point of the invites?” Phantasma asked.

“It’s about controlling access to Princess Twilight,” Dawn explained. “She only has so much time, and it’s important to make sure that she meets the right ponies. It’s supposed to make sure ponies who serve Equestria are rewarded. And that ponies who Princess Twilight doesn’t want to see can’t slip in.”

“I know what to do,” Larrikin said. “We can sell tickets at the door!”

“What?!” Dawn sputtered.

“Oath, now there’s a plot!” Arteria grinned. “That’s a shockin’ great idea! Can you imagine th’ kind of coin we could have blingin’ around if we skeeved a few percent off th’ top? It’d be abso brilliant!”

“You want to embezzle the money?!”

“Is that when you like, put a bunch of shiny beads on clothing and it’s super tacky but also kinda cool?”

“No, that’s bedazzling. Embezzling is when you steal money that belongs to a business.” Ibis corrected.

“Oh well, that’s fine then,” Arteria nodded. “We won’t be havin’ a business. More of a scam really.”

“Berlioz thinks it is bad idea to scam ponies in front of Princess Twilight.”

“Phantasma agrees it’s a bad idea,” Phantasma added.

“Things will work themselves out,” Ibis assured Dawn. “Princess Twilight is more than capable of managing her own time. If I might suggest a different course?”

Dawn nodded glumly.

“Just be confident,” Ibis said. “Don’t dwell on the tiny things you’ve overlooked, and instead focus attention on what you’ve achieved. You’ve made arrangements for what I’m told will be a wonderful celebration.”

“Little things can ruin big ones,” Dawn said.

“Yes. Little things like worrying too much,” Ibis said, reaching over to take Dawn’s scroll. “Even if you’d sent out the invitations you’d find something else to fret about, no? Perhaps you’d worry that some sidestreet wasn’t properly decorated, or that there was a gap in the musical schedule--”

“There’s a gap?!” Dawn gasped, trying to grab the scroll back.

“Here is what we will do,” Ibis said. “We five will go and check on the arrangements. You will go back to your room and get a nap, since I know for a fact you haven’t slept. You’ve spent the last twenty-four hours muttering to yourself and not leaving this spot.”

“But--!”

Ibis shushed her. “No buts. Sleep.”

“How am I supposed to sleep?!”

Berlioz made a sound. “Lie down. Close eyes. Stop talking. Berlioz usually finds these things helpful.”

“When I have problems sleeping what I do is I totally clear my thoughts,” Phantasma said. “The worst thing to do is worry about how you’re not sleeping and you should be sleeping and you’re running out of time to sleep and you can’t sleep because you’re worrying too much.”

“That does sound bad,” Dawn said.

“Exactly! So whatever you do, don’t worry.”

“Don’t worry,” Dawn muttered. “It’s good that it’s so nice and easy and all I have to do is think about nothing and not all that stuff that I’m worrying about now!” She groaned and rolled over on her bed.

She ended up staring at the wall. A wall covered in notes and pictures and sketches that suggested a conspiracy and went nowhere. If there was anything that symbolized her uncanny ability to overthink everything, there it was.

“Ugh. How could I have spent a month trying to figure things out and getting nowhere?” Dawn rolled out of bed, walking over to the wall and sitting in front of it. “All I’ve done is make the mystery bigger instead of finding anything out!”

She groaned.

“Is there even anything to find out?” She mumbled. “A pamphlet about Twilight not being a good enough leader. A mystery pony in a hidden chamber filled with plots and plans I didn’t get to read. Mystery ponies at the underground slave market. Missing artifacts. And as far as I can tell, none of it is connected, which makes it just so easy to figure out.”

She ran a hoof over the pinned-up papers, stopping at a newspaper article.

“New exhibit on the true history of the Pillars of Old Equestria robbed just before the official opening. Priceless artifacts stolen. Maybe it’s not even connected. Maybe it’s just a random theft. I can just feel that it’s part of the bigger picture…”

Dawn made a frustrated sound like steam escaping a tea kettle, then collapsed onto the bed.

“Why is this so hard to figure out? I can solve mystery novels before they even give all the clues! I’m like a world champion at crossword puzzles! This should be easier than any of that! Real life is messy! There should be tons of clues!”

She paused.

“...And they’re either in Canterlot, buried underground, or burned up. And with my luck the rest sank into the ocean. Maybe the real mystery is how detectives in stories ever find some of these dumb clues to begin with.”

“I hear a lot of moaning and not a lot of sleeping!” Ibis called out, from the other side of the door.

“I talk in my sleep!” Dawn snapped.

“And you answer questions in it too?”

Dawn grumbled and pulled her pillow over her face, trying to rest.

Dreaming in Equestria was complicated. Really, all dreams are complicated everywhere but they were especially complicated in a place where they had debatable reality. It would have been simple if they were just in a pony’s head, but what did it mean when dreams could be shared, and one of the retired Princesses still took time now and then to step in and visit particularly interesting dreams.

Then there was the matter of the Tantabus, which had tried to exit dreams and enter reality, like it was just a door one could pass through.

Dawn hoped none of her dreams could enter reality, because they were universally annoying or dull, sometimes in equal measure.

Tonight’s dream, for example.

“You really shouldn’t be dreaming about this,” Ibis said. “It’s just more work.”

“At least it’s not a dream about how my failures will cause all of Equestria to crumble because Princess Twilight doesn’t like modern synth-pop,” Dawn shrugged. “And I don’t think this really counts. All these papers are just gibberish.”

“That’s because you can’t read in a dream,” Phantasma said, sitting where Ibis was a moment ago, on the other side of the table, which was impossibly long, in the impossibly large room they were in. It was part of Canterlot palace, but also large enough to contain the whole palace, with narrow staircases leading up to walkways barely wide enough for a pony’s hooves, like a filigree hanging unsupported in the air overhead.

“It makes doing research really difficult,” Dawn sighed. “I mean they always say things like ‘sleep on it’ like you’ll come up with some amazing revelation in a dream.”

“Shockin’ flappity shock shock blinkin’ wackadoodle?” Arteria asked. There was something strange about the way she was speaking but there was always something strange so maybe it was just Dawn’s fault for not understanding her.

“No, I haven’t come up with anything yet,” Dawn said. “I probably won’t. I’m really not resting at all, am I? You guys are going to be so mad when I wake up. And I even know it’s a dream! Ugh!” She groaned and rubbed her face.

“Maybe you’re just as stupid as always,” Azure Fire said. “You know, I always deserved to be Princess Twilight’s student. If I was trying to solve this puzzle I’d have already come up with an answer.”

“Not you. The last thing I need is a nightmare!”

“Well you know what? I’m staying,” Azure said. “After all, your friends couldn’t help you. Half of them are even bigger idiots than you are! Is it better or worse knowing one of them is smarter than you could ever be?”

“You’re really not helping.”

“Of course not. I’m just a figment of your imagination. The real me is smarter.”

“I got better grades than Azure Fire.”

“You also had no life. It’s not much of a competition when I had to divide my time between school, the duties of nobility, having a social life, and tormenting you. All you ever had to do was sit there and learn.”

“And I was really good at it!” Dawn protested.

“Good thing that’s all the Princess cares about,” Azure said. She hopped onto the table and started pacing up and down the length of it. “She doesn’t recognize greatness. Not real greatness. She should surround herself with nobility and strength. You aren’t strong in magic, and your parents are noponies.”

“Princess Twilight doesn’t care about nobility. She knows titles are just… titles. That’s why her closest advisors are her friends!”

“And look at who they are. Hick farmers. Athletes. The only one even remotely qualified is that designer, and only because she’s proven she can run a business.” Azure scoffed. “Celestia made a mistake making her the ruler of Equestria.”

“You can’t really think that,” Dawn said. “She’s a great ruler!”

“At least part of you knows what I believe,” Azure said.

“Well, I guess that’s true,” Dawn muttered. “You tried to beat it into me often enough. You think you should be in charge of Equestria.”

“Naturally. I mean, I go on about how important my father is, but let’s be honest -- I really think I should be on top. I mean, I’m a natural ruler. I have the bloodline, the poise, the connections. A bit like your awful criminal friend, but unlike her I’m not pretending I’m nobility just because my ancestors were the worst criminals in the lot.”

Dawn snorted. “I bet a pony just like you left that pamphlet in the library.” She paused. “A pony just like you. That’s impossible. It couldn’t be…”

“Are you accusing me of something?” Azure Fire frowned.

“Yeah, I think I am,” Dawn whispered. “Why couldn’t I see it before? It had to be somepony at the school. And you’re exactly the kind of pony who would join a cult!”

“That’s a terrible accusation,” Azure grinned. “It’s too bad you don’t have proof.”

“Of course I have proof! I have…” Dawn frowned.

“Nothing. Just like you.”

“I figured it all out!” Dawn yelled. She kicked her door, intending to burst into the room dramatically, but just sort of bounced off it because she wasn’t terribly athletic. She opened the door more normally and walked out with a bit of a limp. “Ow.”

Phantasma looked up. “You figured out how to fill the gap in the live music schedule? We were thinking of just having an open mic, but if you have an idea…”

“What? No. This is much more important than-- an open mic? There really isn’t somepony who can strum a guitar for a few minutes? No, wait, this is more important.” Dawn took a deep breath. “I figured out the whole cult thing!”

“Oh. Well, I’m glad you’ve stopped worrying about the Summer Sun Celebration!”

“Phantasma, please, you’re basically my best friend, don’t give me an extra panic attack on top of the one I’m already having.”

“Do you need a hug? You need a hug.” Phantasma turned into smoke for a moment and reformed already hugging Dawn. “Shhh. Just calm down and breathe slowly.”

“This is actually kind of helping. You’re really good at hugging.”

“So what did you figure out?” Phantasma asked, finally letting go.

“Okay, so hear me out. There’s a cult that wants to establish a new ruler in Equestria, right?” She didn’t wait for Phantasma to nod. “This cult was doing something in the Castle of the Twin Sisters, proving they exist. I went back to my notes and I remembered one of their books was by Stygian and Starswirl. They must have found something in the book that made them decide to rob the Canterlot Museum of History!”

“But they wouldn’t have put anything dangerous in a museum display,” Phantasma pointed out.

“You’re right. But! Why would they be in the Castle of the Twin Sisters? It’s pretty far from civilization, especially the Canterlot book stores they used.” Dawn shook a hoof. “It’s simple, really. It had to be close to something else they cared about! At first I thought it was the castle library, but they brought their own books., and there’ve been enough ponies all over the castle that they would have taken any really valuable or interesting books already.”

“There really isn’t a lot in the Everfree Forest,” Phantasma said. “There are towns around the edges, but nopony actually lives there.”

“That’s why they used the castle instead of real civilization. But they were also cautious enough that they weren’t willing to use an open room but stayed in a secret passage in the back. It doesn’t explain why they wouldn’t use tents or build their own shelter, but it’s possible they thought that would lead to discovery, or they wanted something more permanent than a tent would allow.”

Phantasma tapped her chin. “Or they didn’t want to live in a tent. I’ve gone camping a few times and it’s not as fun as you’d think. Especially in the frozen north. Mostly you just stay near the campfire and hope the other foals don’t put rocks in the snowballs they throw at you.”

“Okay, that’s a little tragic. But I’ve narrowed it down even further. There’s one -- well, there are a few actually but I’m only thinking one fits -- site of interest other than the castle, and it was lost to history for even longer.”

“...The Tree of Harmony?”

“If it was still around I’d have it at the top of my list. But the Pillars of Old Equestria were sealed in the Everfree Forest in a ring of standing stones not far from the Castle of the Twin Sisters. Since they were using books by the Pillars and stole their artifacts, it must have something to do with those standing stones!”

“That makes sense,” Phantasma agreed.

“Right! That’s why we have to go there right now!” Dawn said.

“No, see, that’s not the right conclusion to take from that,” Phantasma sighed. “We can’t just go running out there. Princess Twilight is counting on you to make the Summer Sun Celebration work, remember?”

“Oh. Right.” Dawn frowned.

“Let’s look at this as an opportunity,” Phantasma said. “This is one of the very few times Princess Twilight will be here, and once the Celebration’s main events are over, you can talk to her about going out to the forest. She can even go with you and you can do it together like some kind of… student-teacher cult-seeking mission. There’s no good term for it.”

Dawn took a deep breath. “Yeah. Sorry. I just got really excited and ahead of myself. I still don’t know why they were trading with the derggo. I might know who one of them is but… that’s probably just personal bias talking. How long do I have before Princess Twilight arrives?”

“Plenty of time,” Phantasma assured her. “I stayed behind to wake you up if you were sleeping in late. Or if you started acting crazy and I needed to force you to stay in bed.”

“I’ve got a bad habit of doing that, don’t I?” Dawn yawned. “At least there won’t be any surprises. Princess Twilight’s scheduling is so precise you could set a clock to it.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Dawn remembered something about the other books she’d found in the hidden room of the Castle library. She’d barely even made a note of them because they seemed like dry academic texts, but they’d been about long range teleportation spells.

Dawn had never mastered teleportation herself -- she was brilliant in her own way but magical strength wasn’t her niche. Still, she knew some of the basics simply from exposure.

A chill went down her spine.

“What’s wrong?” Phantasma asked.

“Princess Twilight will be outside the castle,” she mumbled. “Away from the wards that would prevent any kind of unwanted spell from taking effect. And she’ll be traveling a known route at a known time so precisely you could… set a clock to it.”

“That’s… what she’s going to do, yes,” Phantasma agreed.

“And if she went missing, ponies wouldn’t know. Not for hours.” Dawn swallowed. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this…”

Principal Starlight folded her hooves, thinking.

“It’s possible,” she agreed, shuffling the papers around on her desk. “But you have to admit it’s pretty far-fetched. I’m more than willing to believe you found something in the castle, and it probably is connected to the thefts from the museum. But…”

“But what?” Dawn asked.

“I think you’re sort of going down a paranoid rabbit hole,” Starlight said. “Trust me, I’ve done that myself. There’s another perfectly rational explanation for all this.”

“And what is that explanation?” Dawn sat back and frowned, folding her hooves.

“Let’s just use the simplest explanation for everything, okay? Long distance teleportation spells, a heist in Canterlot, books that would have explained some of the artifacts, trading in a literal underground market. If there’s a conspiracy here, Dawn, it’s that some ponies were using the Castle of the Twin Sisters as a place to plan a heist. They figured out which artifacts were worth money, teleported ponies in and out of the museum, and probably fled to the underground to sell to these deep-dwelling diamond dogs.”

“But that doesn’t explain anything about the cult! The book had instructions leading me to that room.”

“A cult that no one would take seriously. It could be a cover. Or, even more likely, a crazy pony who wanted to start a cult found the room, and now thieves are using it as a hideout.”

“But what if I’m right?” Dawn asked.

“You have to admit it’s sort of an extreme possibility,” Starlight said. “Even if it’s true, trying to foalnap Princess Twilight is about the worst thing they could do.” She snorted. “It always ends with a crater and ponies regretting all the poor decisions they made in life.”

“Can you at least send her a message?” Dawn begged. She stood up and put her hooves on Starlight’s desk. “Please, Principal Starlight. Even if there’s only a tiny chance she needs to be warned about it. I’ll take all the blame if the warning gets her worried about nothing.”

“I’d consider it, but at this point she’s probably already on the way. Any message we sent is going to miss her in transit.”

“...Unless we sent a courier along her travel route!” Dawn said. “That’s a great idea, Starlight!”

“I didn’t suggest that at all.”

“You were getting around to it,” Dawn said. “I’ll need to expense the cost. I, um, I don’t actually have a lot of bits lying around.”

“We’re not going to hire a courier,” Starlight said. “Dawn, you’ve planned a wonderful celebration. Go and enjoy it.”

“And then she told me to go and enjoy it!” Dawn said. She glumly sipped on a glass of punch while the latest top pony of pop, Aurora Aura, sang along to music that was only live by virtue of the fact that the huge clockwork cabinets playing the unearthly tune had been dragged on stage with her.

Arteria nodded. “Shockin’ rude that. It is a nice hang-up though. Makes me glad me mum wasn’t here to be marmalade about it.”

“...Marmalade?”

“It’s like jelly but more bitter.” Arteria glanced to the side. “Oy! Berlioz! Get me a--” she paused. “I mean, ah, next time you swing by th’ punch bowl, could you grab me a glass?”

Berlioz nodded and waved as he passed Arteria.

“That’s more polite than usual,” Dawn said.

“I realized I don’t wanna be like me mum. She’s always orderin’ stallions around. Mares too, but more in a friendly way.” Arteria leaned back in her seat. “He’s a good doggo, yeah? He deserves t’ be treated like anypony else.”

“I wish Starlight treated me with respect,” Dawn muttered. “She called me paranoid.”

“You are paranoid,” Arteria pointed out. “Course by my count, you’ve… let’s see, narrowly escaped bein’ the center course at a barbie in th’ old castle, fought an awful monster in the sewers, almost bit the bad mushie in a whole city of bad things… am I missin’ anything?”

“If we’re just counting times my life was in danger, no,” Dawn muttered. “It’s been sort of a busy month.”

“Crack-on. Busy. An’ you’ve been under so much stress yer molars should turn into diamond. You are paranoid, on account of once a week or so somepony has tried t’ kill you, and you’re due for the next swing at the cave cricket.”

“I just feel like I’m the only pony in the room who’s worried,” Dawn said.

Arteria shrugged. “If it does you a solid, I’m terrified about bein’ outside. I gotta force meself to do nothin’, yeah? Because I could run over t’ the gazebo or inside or somethin’ like that, but then I’d feel like a shockin’ trog.”

“And if I start running around screaming about cults, I’ll probably cause a riot. Or get arrested for acting like a crazy pony.”

Arteria patted her on the back. “I got an idea that’ll send your mind to th’ land of no worries and no cares. You see what I’m seein’ over there?” She motioned with her chin.

Phantasma was standing across the room, looking awkward and not quite part of any of the groups around her.

“Bet that mare over there would be appreciative of a dance partner, if you catch my echo. Since I didn’t use one of them metaphors it should be loud an’ clear, yeah?”

Dawn smiled. “Guess there’s only one way to find out.”

She stood up and made her way around the dance floor, where ponies where doing their best to move with the music.

“Hey!” Dawn said, over the pounding beats. Phantasma looked up at her. “How’s it going?”

“I sort of wish there was a cat or something for me to pet to distract myself,” Phantasma replied. “I don’t go to a lot of parties!”

“I didn’t either. I did have to take classes on dancing, though.” Dawn held out her hoof. “Want to see how well I remember my lessons?”

Phantasma grabbed Dawn’s hoof with a smile, and Dawn spun her out onto the dance floor with a flourish.

“I had to take ballroom dancing as a class one semester,” Dawn explained. “It was that or buckball and I wanted something that would keep me indoors!”

“This isn’t a ballroom,” Phantasma yelled back, as the tempo and pace of the music picked up.

“It’s the same kind of thing! Just move you hooves to the beat and as long as we stick together it’ll work out!” Dawn spun her around, letting go of her hoof and bumping her flank against Phantasma’s. She used her body to gently move her into a circling motion like two sharks approaching each other.

It really wasn’t the right kind of dance for the music. They were moving in slow, measured paces, while the beats demanded a faster, wild step. It didn’t matter. Neither of them were really listening, and when the song reached its end, they were moving in something close to a waltz, holding onto each other for support.

The tangle of sound died down to silence, and they were still embracing, winding down until they were just moving their hips from side to side.

“I guess this is that gap in the schedule Ibis found,” Dawn said quietly in the sudden quiet.

“Thank you for the dance,” Phantasma said. “That was the first time another pony actually wanted to dance with me.”

“We probably looked pretty silly out there. Most of the ponies our age actually know what they’re doing.”

Phantasma smiled. “I don’t care how we looked. That was a lot of fun. I didn’t get to enjoy festivals back home, so this has been wonderful. Thank you.” Phantasma leaned forward and kissed Dawn’s cheek.

Dawn blushed and smiled.

If the universe was fair and ponies were universally good and noble, the night would have ended there. Well, not ended. It would have gone on to be pleasant, involved a lot of hoof-holding, and maybe one or two more furtive kisses from two ponies that would be doubling their sum total experience with kissing if one of them moved on to a second peck on the cheek.

It wasn’t that kind of universe. While they stared into each other's eyes looking for the right thing to say to each other, the silence was broken by panic and screaming.

“That isn’t because I kissed you, right?” Phantasma whispered, her confidence shaken to the core.

“No.” Dawn paused. “Probably not. I’m pretty sure you did it right.”

“Wait, was it your first kiss?” Phantasma asked.

Dawn blushed more. “We should find out what’s going on,” she said, not answer that at all. She looked around and spotted Berlioz and Arteria. “Hey! You feel like running directly towards the danger?!”

“Oy! I thought you’d never ask!” Arteria shouted, grabbing Berlioz.

“There you are,” Ibis said. She was hard to miss. Even with the confusion and the ponies running around, she had the advantage of being twice the size of an average pony and a giant, possibly predatory, cat monster.

“Let me guess,” Dawn said, once they were close enough to speak over the screaming. “Princess Twilight is late and somepony started worrying.”

“Somepony was already worrying,” Ibis said. “You.”

“Well, I don’t like to say I told you so,” Dawn said. “Because I also told Principal Starlight. And other ponies. I told everypony so! I was right! Because I put it all together!”

Ibis raised an eyebrow.

Phantasma coughed politely. “Sorry for not believing you.”

“Well, you girls have earned some slack. You put up with me saying all kinds of crazy stuff. This time it just happened to be right.” Dawn smirked. “I probably shouldn’t be happy about all of this since it means there’s some kind of evil plot going on right now but it just feels great to be right about things for a change.”

“What is pony plan?” Berlioz rumbled.

“...Plan?” Dawn asked.

“Plan,” Berlioz repeated. “Pony has been thinking about this, yes? So pony must have plan to keep bad things from happening.”

“Well, um, so, funny story there. I haven’t quite figured out all the little bits and bobs of the evil plot,” Dawn said. “Are we sure Princess Twilight is missing?”

“Principal Starlight made excuses for the first hour, and then Trixie said something and started a riot,” Ibis said.

“Principal Starlight got really mad at her,” Larrikin added, padding over on damp hooves. “I think she mentioned something about foalnapping and disappearing and the end of the world.”

“That sounds about right,” Dawn muttered. “Any chance we could talk to her?”

“I just tried and there are…” Larrikin paused, thinking. “A lot of ponies between us and her. It might be a few hours before she’s free.”

“Equestria can’t wait that long,” Dawn said. “We’re going to have to save everyone ourselves!”

She said it very heroically, but for some reason her friends didn’t seem excited.

“Dawn, we ain’t exactly th’ shockin’ Elements of Harmony,” Arteria pointed out. “We ain’t heroes. We’re just a bunch of students an’ some of us have grades poorly enough that we’re only barely that.”

“Right,” Dawn whispered. “Heroic speech time.” She cleared her throat. “I’ve seen all of you do heroic, brave things. Phantasma, you helped me fight off a beholder! Larrikin has gone treasure hunting!”

“In a hole!” Larrikin added, excited.

“Ibis is a brilliant scholar and also a giant predator!”

“I am those things,” Ibis admitted.

“Berlioz was willing to face down a whole city of evil derggo to help free ponies.”

The diamond dog grunted. “It was duty.”

“And Arteria, you basically left home to go to a brand new, strange world, all because you wanted to find yourself.” Dawn smiled and offered a hoof. Arteria bumped it. “You’re all amazing people, and that’s why we can do this. More importantly, we’re the only creatures who have any idea where Princess Twilight might be, and if we don’t do it, it could be the end of the world.”

“I keep all my stuff in the world!” Larrikin gasped.

“We have to do it,” Berlioz stated, as firm as stone. “Most important kind of duty is the one that will not get done if you do not do it. Even small thing like getting cup of punch.” He gave Arteria the cup she’d asked for before the confusion had started.

“Oh hey, thanks mate!” Arteria grinned and sipped at it.

“Berlioz still bothered by derggo. If ponies are connected to bad dogs, they are up to bad things.” He rubbed his nose. “Pony knows where Princess might be?”

“I’m pretty sure this is connected to the standing stones where the Pillars were imprisoned,” Dawn said.

Ibis tapped the ground with a talon, thinking. “If I recall the maps of the Everfree correctly, that should be due east of the Castle of the Twin Sisters. It was sealed off as an important archeological site years ago, though.”

“Well, that should hopefully mean there are signs posted so we’ll be able to find it,” Dawn said. “And if not, well, how hard could it be to find a whole cult in the middle of the woods?

“It turns out it’s pretty hard,” Larrikin said, an hour later.

“Huh?” Dawn asked, looking back at them.

“You asked how hard it could be to find a cult,” Larrikin said. “Now we know! It’s not easy at all because there are all these trees in the way.”

“Unfortunately, scouting from above is impossible,” Ibis said. “The Everfree’s magic makes traversing it above tree level all but impossible, even if Arteria was willing to attempt it.”

“Oy, don’t blame me fer not wantin’ to fall off into th’ blinkin’ sky!” Arteria snapped. “I bet you’d feel the same if you were supposed t’ fly across an ocean!”

Ibis rolled her eyes. “Regardless of personal preference, doing things on foot, hoof, or paw is the only way to actually navigate.”

“There’s something up ahead,” Phantasma whispered.

“Shhh!” Dawn put a hoof to her lips and made some quick signs with her hooves that were less obvious and direct.

“...What does it mean when you swoop your hoof around to the left and waggle it?” Larrikin asked, eventually.

Dawn groaned. “It means you flank left and stay low! Didn’t anypony else study traditional EUP hoofsignals for operating behind enemy lines?”

“I don’t have hooves,” Ibis pointed out.

“That’s besides the point!”

“Dawn and Phantasma ponies go first in middle,” Berlioz said. “Bat pony stay in trees and watch from above. Sphinx circles around. Larrikin stays out of way.”

“That’s… well, it’s sort of similar to my plan. But what about you?”

“Berlioz will wait for opportunity.”

“...What does that mean?” Dawn frowned.

“Trust Berlioz. Pony made good plan. Go.”

Dawn groaned and started creeping along, catching up to Phantasma. The umbra pony didn’t even break twigs when she stepped on them.

“So what did you see?” Dawn whispered.

“I saw something red,” Phantasma pointed.

“Where? I can’t even make out colors with how dark everything is.”

“It’s up ahead. Just follow me and maybe we’ll sneak up on it.”

They moved together, a little like the dance before, except now it was Dawn tripping over herself and wishing she was as graceful as Phantasma, who she was absolutely sure was cheating and using some kind of umbra pony magic to just pass through branches and brush instead of letting thorns catch her coat or spiderwebs tangle in her mane.

The brush suddenly opened up, and they were standing on a winding path through the trees, broken branches piled up at the sides and the brush torn up.

“Look!” Phantasma pointed.

A pony in robes was facing away from them, standing on the trail and looking around.

“...What do we do now?” Dawn asked. Berlioz hadn’t actually suggested what to do once they’d gotten where they were supposed to go.

The robed pony looked up, the empty eyes of their mask staring at them for a long moment.

“Get her!” Dawn yelled, charging at the pony with absolutely no plan at all. They were slow, backing up one shaking step in surprise before trying to turn and run. By then, Ibis was standing further down the path, wings half-spread and looking even more massive than usual.

The robed pony skidded to a halt, and Dawn slammed into their backside with enough force to make both of them tumble to the ground and roll all the way to Ibis. They tried to scramble up, and Ibis gently pressed them down with one massive paw.

“Don’t,” Ibis warned. “We have some questions.”

Dawn stumbled to her feet. “Just give me one sec, I think… I might be a little dizzy.” She spun a little when she tried to take a step. Phantasma caught her and steadied her.

“Oh! Are we gonna ask them questions now?” Larrikin asked, phasing out of the brush from total invisibility. It was less like she’d stepped out of a blind spot and more like the bush was suddenly her. “Can I be the bad cop? I want to do the mean growly thing!”

“What we’re going to do is unmask this mystery pony and finally solve the identity of the real mastermind behind this!” Dawn declared, grabbing the pony’s mask and pulling it free to reveal…

An older stallion with a white mane and wrinkles everywhere except the sort that would have meant he’d smiled once in a while.

“I have no idea who this is,” Dawn said, confused.

That only seemed to make the unmasked pony angry. “No idea who-- I’m one of the most important ponies in Equestria!”

“Ibis?” Dawn asked, glancing up at her and winking.

The sphinx was about to say something, then smiled. “I’m sorry. I’ve no idea. Maybe they’re a janitor in the palace? I’m told the staff there are very important ponies, but they do stay out of the public eye.”

“A janitor?!” The stallion yelled.

“An important pony wouldn’t be out in the middle of the woods,” Ibis said. “Therefore, logically, you’re someone less important with an inflated opinion of themselves.”

“I’m guarding the trail against scum like you,” he growled. “And I am important! I’m Black Gold! I’m one of the richest ponies in Equestria! I could buy your whole down and have it bulldozed!”

Ibis pressed down a little harder, and he wheezed.

“I wouldn’t do that, though,” he gasped.

“You’re going to tell us everything,” Dawn said.

“You idiots are too late. Even if you weren’t just a bunch of foals up past your bedtime, you couldn’t stop us now.” Black Gold grunted. “And besides-- HELP! SOMEPONY! WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!”

He looked up at Ibis smugly.

“There are at least two other ponies within earshot,” he finished.

“Guess I wasn’t the first one to pounce.” Arteria said. She dropped down from the trees, a pony on her back, bound and gagged with spiderwebs. Her pet star spider crawled happily over its prey, making soft chittering noises. “He might’ve nabbed a few nips on th’ way over. This little one got excited wrappin’ him to go.”

A third pony landed next to the group. His mask was badly dented, and he was groaning and barely moving.

“Needed to distract pony,” Berlioz rumbled, stepping back onto the path. “Was going to throw rock. Heard screaming. Threw rock at pony instead.”

“You just threw a rock at him?” Dawn asked.

“It was a big rock,” Berlioz said, with a shrug.

“While I am an expert in mathematics, even Larrikin could sum to three,” Ibis said. “As we aren’t going to take you with us. What you say next will determine if we-- Larrikin what are you doing?”

Larrikin looked up. Their mouth was full of hoof, which was attached to one of the unconscious ponies. “Uphing?”

“That is not nothing! You are not allowed to eat him.”

Larrikin spat out the hoof. “But we’re in the Everfree forest! Something’s gonna eat them anyway, right?”

“Not if they tell us what we want to know,” Ibis said. “I would suggest speaking quickly before I change my mind.”

“There. Just like th’ shockin dreg gabbed,” Arteria whispered, pointing. “I can hear ‘em chattin up ahead. Can’t make out th’ words from here with all th’ funny echos from the trees. Like a shockin’ mirror maze of sounds out here.”

“We need to figure out a way to get closer,” Ibis said.

“I might be able to do something,” Phantasma said. “Just… give me a second.”

Her body collapsed into knee-deep black smoke before swirling up in a cloud around them like a dark cloak.

“Is that okay?” Phantasma whispered, her voice coming from all around them. “I think I can keep you hidden as long as you move slowly.”

“This is perfect!” Dawn said. “Arteria, you lead the way.”

“Crackin,” Arteria nodded, creeping forward.

There was light up ahead, and Arteria stopped and pointed, leading them off to the side and into the brush. She picked a path to a good vantage point between two tall trees, Phantasma’s dispersed form hanging like a curtain in the space they made.

“Sweet Celestia,” Dawn whispered.

The standing stones had been decorated with red and gold cloth, and fires were burning in bronze braziers forming a circle around the site. It was almost like a second festival happening out in the middle of nowhere, complete with revelers who were working around the six largest stones, carving something into them with hammers and chisels. So maybe less like a party and more like a job site with extra decor and everypony dressed in robes and masks.

“You should get an eye exam,” Larrikin said. “That’s not Celestia. That’s Princess Twilight.”

Princess Twilight was sitting in a huge cage made of some strange metal that shifted between blue and purple depending on how the light hit it. She looked calm, but Dawn had known her long enough to see the signs that she was just holding back frustration and either a panic attack or screaming fit of anger.

“They do free eye exams at the school,” Larrikin whispered. “They made me go when I said I had trouble reading but it turns out I was just lazy, not blind.”

“Shh!” Ibis hissed. “They’re talking!”

“I don’t understand how you managed this,” Princess Twilight said. “I know for a fact that none of you are particularly powerful unicorns. Teleporting me here against my will would have required a huge amount of magic. So what is it? The alicorn amulet? A pact with some evil being from Tartarus?”

“You dismiss us so easily,” said the pony in the reddest and fanciest robe. “That’s always been the case. You think we don’t matter.”

“All of my little ponies matter,” Princess Twilight corrected. “If I’ve done something to offend you, I apologize.”

“It’s too late for that,” the obvious leader hissed. “You had your chance. You could have refused to take the throne. You could have listened to ponies who know better than you, ponies who should be ruling Equestria!”

The leader removed their mask, and Dawn gasped.

“Prince Blueblood!” she hissed.

“Oh yes, I remember reading something about him Who’s Who in Canterlot,” Ibis said. “As I recall his title is entirely hereditary and comes from Old Unicornia rather than anything from modern Equestria.”

“Some of the oldest of old money,” Dawn confirmed. “But why would he do this?”

“I jes wanna know why th’ Princess doesn’t blast her way out of that cage like a bomb-beetle in a vole’s den,” Arteria muttered. “She’s shockin’ good at blastin’ things from the gab I’ve caught full across m’ ears. Even better’n Principal Starlight.”

“Good question,” Dawn said. “But… that cage. From the way the metal is gleaming, it must have come from Tartarus! The cages they use completely block off the magic of anything locked inside them.”

“How would they even get one of those?” Phantasma whispered.

“Well, step one is going to Tartarus, and step two is finding a cage big enough for an alicorn and dumping out whatever’s already inside.”

“Whatever’s inside?” Phantasma asked. “Like… a beholder?”

Dawn sighed. “Yeah. Exactly like that. I guess we know where that came from now.”

“Fool!” Blueblood yelled, and everyone in the shadowy vantage point quieted to listen to him. “We used the cooperative magic of the old Circle to get the strength to teleport you!”

“The ponies who moved the sun and moon before Celestia and Luna took up the task,” Ibis provided quietly.

“We know,” Dawn said. “And I think we could figure it out from context even if we didn’t.”

“I just like providing perspective and exposition,” Ibis mumbled, her cheeks turning red.

“Using magic from those vile dogs feels awful, but it should be effective,” Blueblood continued. “We’re going to drain your magic and use it along with these artifacts to open a portal to Limbo.”

“Why?” Twilight asked. “There’s nothing in Limbo. It’s a space between spaces.”

“Both of us know that isn’t true,” Blueblood said. “There is power there. And a more useful prison than Tartarus.”

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Princess Twilight said. “You’re just going to cause a disaster, and then my friends and I are going to have to stop you.”

“Your friends aren’t going to do anything,” Blueblood said. He smirked. “I’m afraid they’re unavailable.”

“If you hurt them, I swear I will--”

“Oh calm yourself down, you foal,” Blueblood snorted. “They may be commoner trash, but they don’t pretend to a throne or titles. On occasion they have even done some good. I merely arranged for them to win vacations and getaways far from Ponyville. While you’re here in a cage they’re enjoying walks on the beach at night, a safari in Zebrica, and a trip to Prance, which I expect that white nag will find disappointing and shallow, just like she is.”

“Don’t you dare talk about Rarity like that!” Twilight snapped.

“That’s not much of an evil plan,” Larrikin muttered. “I want somepony to distract me with a trip to an island paradise.”

“So when are we gonna actually stop ‘em?” Arteria asked.

“When we figure out how,” Dawn said. “There’s too many for us to just rush in. We’ll just get caught. We have to be tactical about this.”

“Unlike your last plan of yelling ‘Get her’ and running right at them?” Ibis asked.

“Pony not good at tactics,” Berlioz mumbled. “Pony usually like to run up into danger and try to ask it to fill out forms.”

“That’s barely even happened more than a few times,” Dawn mumbled.

“Once is too many for Berlioz,” he said. “Berlioz has plan. Good plan.”

“Okay, so what are we doing?” Dawn asked.

“This is a terrible idea,” Dawn muttered to herself, through her mask. The robe was hot and uncomfortable and didn’t fit particularly well. Berlioz’s plan had been simple enough -- disguise herself, then just walk in and try to get Princess Twilight out of the cage.

It made sense. If there was one good thing about the whole cult thing, it was that they were totally anonymous. All she had to do was seem confident and keep moving and everything would work out.

The cultists didn’t seem to notice her careful approach, and she made her way to one of the standing stones, where they were still engraving symbols into it.

Dawn stopped to look at it. It was exactly the same kind of runes she’d seen in that deggro city. One wasn’t quite the right shape. She leaned closer to look. “Wasn’t there a triangular dot over this one?”

“At least somepony is paying attention,” A familiar voice huffed. “Yes. There’s supposed to be an accent mark there. Geode, fix that.”

Another masked cultist had been standing behind Dawn.

“It’s only the most important night of our lives,” the mare said, audibly rolling her eyes. “You’re all lucky she was here to take care of this or else it could have totally sputtered out! Now I’m going to have to inspect all of these again myself to look for more stupid mistakes.”

“We’re working in poor lighting, with a time limit--” one of the chiseling ponies complained.

“You’re a unicorn! You can make light!” The, apparently, leader -- or at least the pony snippy enough to act like she was in charge, created a ball of blue flame and let it hover next to the stone. “Don’t make excuses. That’s what those pathetic commoners would do. You’re a noblepony. That means you make things work!”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude,” Dawn said.

“No, no, you don’t have anything to apologize for,” the leader said. “Check the other stones with me. You have a good eye. Were you on guard duty?”

I nodded.

“Naturally. It’s not like anypony is going to find us. If we work quickly enough we don’t need guards, but some ponies are being paranoid,” she scoffed, leading me to the next stone.

Dawn, because she was smart but not wise, decided it would be a good idea to lean into the conversation to try and get more information.

“How long do you think until we’re finished?” Dawn asked.

“Only a few minutes more, if these foals haven’t made any mistakes,” the leader said. She ran a hoof over the stone. “This one looks fine.”

Dawn nodded. “And then we’ll get everything we deserve.” She wanted it to sound cool and like she was foreshadowing some kind of twist, but she just sort of sounded like a nervous filly.

“Exactly,” the other pony said. They moved to the next stone, close enough to Twilight’s cage that Dawn could get a look at it. There was no obvious way to open the lock, which looked distressingly like a skeletal dragon’s talon holding the door securely shut.

“What?” the leader asked.

“I was just… worried that she might escape,” Dawn said, thinking quickly.

“That’s a wizard lock. She can’t just pick it. Of course you should know that.” They turned to face Dawn square-on. “And come to think of it, aren’t you a little short to be part of the Circle?”

“It’s just a little chilly,” Dawn said, laughing a little. “It makes things… shrink.”

A blue aura wrenched the mask from her face, leaving her exposed.

“Buck,” Dawn whispered.

“You!” The other pony hissed. She removed her own mask.

Dawn gasped in surprise. “Azure Fire! My weird dream was prophetic and not just my subconscious bullying me!”

“Of course you’d be here,” Azure Fire said. “Following Princess Twilight around like some kind of pathetic puppy.” Her horn lit up with baleful blue light. “It’s time to show you why I should have been her student.”

“I think it would be great if we all calmed down and really thought about what we were doing,” Dawn said, backing up a step and scraping at the ground with her hoof. “I bet if you stopped right now, we could just walk away and nopony has to get hurt.”

“You’re outnumbered, what, thirty to one?” Azure asked. She laughed. “No, I don’t think we’re going to make any deals.”

“Well, at least I tried,” Dawn said. She threw a hoofful of sand into Azure’s face.

Azure yelled in surprise, as one does when they’re suddenly blind and their eyes are filled with grit. Dawn bolted the other way, scrambling for Twilight’s cage and trying to pry the lock off.

“Luster Dawn, what are you doing?” Twilight hissed.

“I was hoping you’d say something more like ‘I’m sorry for doubting you,’” Dawn said, throwing spells at the claw holding the bars shut. “Come on, you stupid thing!”

“Dawn!” Twilight snapped. “Just get out of here, please! There are too many of them!”

“I can do this!” Dawn shouted. “Trust me for once!”

“There’s no time!” Twilight yelled. “You have to--”

Twilight cried out, falling to her knees and shivering, her coat paling and turning ashen. Her horn pulsed with light, the shape of the corona warped and twisted like the magic was being pulled out of her.

The runes on the standing stones lit up with the same magenta light, rising from top to bottom like cisterns being filled with energy.

“Behold!” Blueblood cried out. “Our new ruler!”

The artifacts at the base of each stone hummed and sang with energy, each one providing a different note to a chorus that made the air vibrate until it started to shake apart, a tear ripping across the fabric of space.

“Everypony focus!” Blueblood yelled. “Focus on the form of our salvation! Form the darkness into its final shape!”

Dawn fiddled harder with the lock, and the first claw of the talon popped open, uncurling from the bars. Before she could even start on the second, A too-familiar blue aura surrounded her, levitating Dawn into the air and slamming her down into the ground outside the circle.

“Her trust has always been misplaced,” Azure growled. “She didn’t trust the nobility -- the real rulers of Equestria -- to make decisions. She forced us out of everything!”

“Keep them busy!” Blueblood yelled. “Members of the Circle, join hooves and magic and focus!”

The cultists, all of them save Azure Fire, closed in around the rift, circling it and forming an unbroken ring. Their magic flared out, muddling together in a multicolored, shifting mass.

Dawn shivered at the sight. “You’re literally trying to usurp her rule. Why would she ever trust you? It just proves she was right!”

A ring of blue flames surrounded Dawn, keeping her from moving.

“Why don’t you stay there and lick her hooves on your own time?” Azure said, tossing her mane dramatically. “Watch the rise of Equestria’s newest unicorn, made custom to order!”

Something tore its way out of the humming hole in space, formless and black. It was boneless and somehow wet like a tentacle, changing every moment, until it touched the ground. It was like it was thrown into a forge. White-hot flame flashed across the oil-slick, leaving pure white fur in its wake.

“Yes!” Blueblood yelled. “A new ruler! The kind Equestria really needs!”

That one hoof struggled like a pony pulling themselves out of a pit, a second joining it.

Azure Fire turned to watch with a triumphant smile, and a dark shape dropped down from above, Arteria’s hoof slamming very precisely into Azure’s cheek.

Azure’s head snapped to the side and she fell like a sack of potatoes.

“Well this is all tops and bottoms,” Arteria said. “I was sort of hangin’ my bat on clocking her turnin’ off this light show.”

“Okay, listen carefully,” Dawn said. “The ritual has already started. You need to--”

“Ibis already gave us the notes,” Arteria said. “While you were lollygaggin an’ catchin up with old friends, She was decodin’ the runes.”

“Wait, she knows how to read them?”

“Pretty sure she knows how to read everythin’,” Arteria said.

“How dare you touch me!” Azure growled, getting to her hooves. Her robe flashed with blue flame and burned into ashes. “I’m a noble! You’re a nobody!”

“Ah, funny thing that,” Arteria smirked. “I happen t’ be a Duchess meself.”

“You’re obviously not nobility. You’re not even a unicorn!”

“Oy! That’s shockin’ tribalist, ain’t it? I’m plenty fine enough nobility!”

“Arteria, stop arguing with her and do something!” Dawn shrieked.

“I am,” Arteria smirked. “I came here t’ laugh at her.”

Azure yelled and threw a bolt of fire at her, Arteria dodging it without even putting apparent effort into it.

Dawn groaned in frustration.

“Hey!” somepony whispered, very loudly. It didn’t make sense to whisper loudly but to be honest Larrikin rarely made sense to anyone but themselves. They stepped out of the grass, which wasn’t tall or full enough to actually hide her, but still somehow did. “I came to rescue you!”

Dawn looked at the ring of supernaturally hot flame surrounding her. “...I appreciate the thought, but--”

“Don’t worry, I’m extremely damp,” Larrikin assured her, stepping through the flames and sizzling, steam raising off of her. “Ow! Okay, it still stings!”

“Okay, now you’re in here, great,” Dawn mumbled. “Now there’s half as much space and just as much fire.”

“...Maybe I didn’t think this through,” Larrikin admitted. “No, wait, I know just what to do!”

“And that is?” Dawn asked.

“Stand back,” Larrikin said.

Dawn looked around. “How?”

Larrikin didn’t answer. Instead, her mane started moving like she was underwater. A moment later, a rush of murky swamp water rushed out of her, the flames dying down.

“Hurry!” Larrikin croaked. Dawn rushed over the smoldering line, and didn’t notice the kelpie wasn’t following until a moment after that. She pulled Larrikin out before the flames roared back into place.

“Are you okay?” Dawn asked.

“I always feel terrible after doing that,” Larrikin said, her voice scratchy and dry. “I could really use a drink.”

“I’ll get you the best bottled water from Prance,” Dawn promised.

“That sounds great,” Larrikin sighed. “I’m just gonna rest here a bit and… pull myself back together. I feel like a string bean without the bean.”

“Dawn, over here!” Phantasma said, waving. She was clinging to one of the stones like a dark mist.

Dawn ran over, and the veil parted to reveal Ibis.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Ibis said. She was scratching at the stone with a claw. “I need you to make a rune exactly like this one on the next monolith.” She pointed.

“Why don’t we just move the artifacts?” Dawn asked.

“Because disrupting the spell isn’t enough right now,” Ibis said. “We need to reverse the flow and send it back to Princess Twilight. If we do it correctly it should invert the spell effects precisely.”

“...I trust you,” Dawn said. She looked up at the rune.

“Berlioz is getting the one across the way,” Ibis said. “The third will be the tipping point. You know how it is, Rule of Threes and all that.”

Dawn nodded and bolted for the rock, grabbing one of the chisels at the base and hammering it into the stone.

Then she looked into the rift. The form had pulled itself almost entirely free now, the features still blurred but in the unmistakable shape of an alicorn, nearly identical to Celestia, but identical in the same way a painting or sculpture was. It reflected what was in the creator, and here Dawn could only sense anger, a hot, burning rage.

“Guess they’re not much for originality,” Dawn muttered, adjusting her magical grip and striking the rock again.

The tone in the air changed with every hit, like she was striking a tuning fork.

“I hope I’m doing this right,” Dawn muttered, hitting it one last time.

The temperature in the air flashed hot, like she was standing in front of an oven. The ponies in the circle cried out and fell back, robes turning black around the edges from heat. With their focus lost, the magic they’d been shaping fractured around the edges.

The mostly-formed face turned black, hate-fulled eyes to face Dawn. The pupils burned like fire pouring out of coal.

The alicorn was sucked through the rift and back into limbo, the portal snapping shut with a rush of flame. The cultists fell to the ground, the backlash from the collapsing spell knocking most of them out. Most of them. Unfortunately some of the more wordy members managed to stay conscious.

“No!” Blueblood screamed. “You ruined everything!”

“You ruined things for yourself,” Princess Twilight said. “Your plan would never have worked.”

“We almost had a perfect leader!” Blueblood hissed. “She would have established order!”

“Equestria grew out of your kind of order a long time ago,” Princess Twilight said, firmly. “Maybe you’ve forgotten the whole point of Hearth’s Warming if you don’t even know that.”

Blueblood growled, looking like he was going to say something else, and collapsed, finally passing out. The claw-lock on Princess Twilight’s cage spasmed like a dying spider and fell off, shuddering and jerking on the ground until it finally went still.

Princess Twilight nudged the door to her cell open and spread her wings, taking a deep breath and smiling. “That feels much better already. I think I’ve already recovered nearly all of my magic.”

“That’s good news. Some bad on top of it though.” Arteria landed next to Dawn. “Lost your old school chum in th’ trees. Too many weird echoes for me to get a shockin’ trace on her.”

“If she’s in the middle of the Everfree Forest, she’ll end up back in town and begging for a nice warm prison cell before long,” Dawn assured her. “Thanks for keeping her busy.”

“Well, that’s th’ old noblesse oblige or whatever they say in Prance,” Arteria said, elbowing Dawn gently. “Gotta oblige meself to keep jackinape noblesse like that strumped up tart from hurtin’ th’ good ponies like you.”

“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” Twilight said.

Princess Twilight was resplendent on her throne. Most ponies hadn’t known anything was wrong until long after the Summer Sun Celebration, but the almost total arrest of the nobility in Canterlot (with some notable exceptions in the case of ponies like Fancy Pants and Jet Set, who managed to be noble by birth and character) was something that couldn’t be kept out of the press. Or the courtroom, which was going to be full to bursting for at least the next year with appeals and hearings.

Today wasn’t about that, though. She’d managed to clear her schedule for something very important.

Luster Dawn and her friends were standing before her, dressed in the finest clothing Princess Twilight’s favorite designer could manage to get together in only a few days. Thankfully her schedule had been rather empty with the nobility otherwise occupied and the holiday over.

“Phantasma Gloom,” Princess Twilight said, and the umbra pony stepped forward. It was difficult to tell where her dress ended and her coat began, the silk fading smoothly from the same color as her coat to a ghostly, translucent white.

“Ibis.” The sphinx bowed her head and took one step towards the throne. Her outfit was simple, little more than a toga and jewelry, but it gave her the appearance of a scholar and philosopher.

“Berlioz.” Somehow, Rarity had managed to put the diamond dog in a suit, probably thanks to her experience with Spike. It was understated and well-fitted, and it was impossible to tell if he liked it or was merely putting up with it.

“Arteria Carpals.” The thestral strutted forward. She’d avoided a dress, and was instead in the sort of suit that had been popular a few hundred years ago, all ruffles and frills. It still fit her, somehow.

“Larrikin.” It was amazing that Rarity had managed to put up with the kelpie dripping on things long enough to make clothing for them, especially with her measurements changing every day. There was ribbon and living mistletoe woven through her mane and tail and a loose silk shirt that seemed to repel water somehow.

“And of course, Luster Dawn.” Dawn grinned from ear to ear and walked forward with a polite curtsey. The dress she wore was deliberately similar to Twilight’s first Gala dress, a clear nod from Rarity that made the Princess smile.

“All of you have done a great service for Equestria,” Princess Twilight said. “You put your own lives at risk to save us from a threat we could never have foreseen. As everypony here knows, many members of the nobility attempted to stage a coup against me during the Summer Sun Celebration, and these six brave creatures stopped their plans in their tracks.

“Facing this threat was disheartening. I thought that everypony -- that every creature in Equestria knew they could come to me with concerns and criticism. Instead, some ponies felt that I wouldn’t listen to what they had to say. They believed me listening to more ponies, having more points of view, would keep theirs from being important.

“What they wanted was to replace me with a pony who would only listen to them, no matter how good or bad their ideas were. They didn’t succeed, and their titles have been stripped and their holdings seized. While the latter will be tied up in court until guilt or innocence has been decided, I find that I am able to replace some of the vacated noble titles.”

She cleared her throat, picking up six scrolls with her magic and unfurling them all at once.

“I hearby declare all of you members of the Equestrian nobility, with the rights thereof.” She passed the scrolls down to the six waiting creatures. “As Ladies and Lords of Equestria, I expect you to continue to serve the realm and each other with the same friendship and courage you’ve already displayed.”

She paused and smiled.

“Though you might want to save any really dangerous missions for after you graduate. Now, for the first time, let us greet you as the noble ponies you are.”

The ponies watching the ceremony burst into applause. The six friends looked at each other, and it was almost perfect.

Dawn took one more step forward. “Princess, there’s just one little thing.”

“Yes, Dawn?” Princess Twilight asked.

Dawn wiggled her eyebrows.

“Now?” Twilight groaned.

Dawn nodded.

Princess Twilight sighed and got off her throne. She started shuffling from side to side, quietly singing.

“You were right and I was wrong and I’m doing my ‘Dawn Was Right’ dance…” Twilight mumbled.

Now it was perfect.