A Town's Story

Chapters

1. A Pea Outside The Pod
2. The Last Doozy
3. Memories
4. The Last Blossom
5. Sharing
6. The Last Belle
7. Regrets
8. The Last Letters
9. Surrender
10. The Last Meal
11. Reflections
12. The Last Message
13. Hope
14. The Last Laugh
15. That We Depart, We Impact
Epilogue

1. A Pea Outside The Pod

Luster Dawn wasn’t the type of gifted unicorns who should’ve felt stuck staring at a door. But there she was. And she was miffed.

It wasn’t even the most beautiful of doors. Heck, it was, mildly put, a downright mediocre one in the old sense of the term. A laminated wooden plank, likely made from an oak supplied by the nearby farm. Once a vibrant red, it was now a few years beyond the need for a paint job.

And thus Luster stared, pestering under her breath for being sent here. Why here even? A small town lost in the Equestrian countryside with a dirt road and a once-a-day train being its only contact with the outside world.

Ponyville.

A town where ponies enjoyed the Dolce Vita, lulled to the sounds of loud cicadas and harangs of rare street vendors, and humbugged by the litany of a village smalltalk. It was not the town where she, Luster Dawn, would learn! Could learn… Or ever find a place.

This place was alien in every sense of the word!

Well…

She bit her lip and rubbed her face, applying a light smear of dust picked up by her hoof.

She was being too harsh. As always. That was a repressed shard of anger talking, not the Princess of Magic’s prized student. Ponyville wasn’t a tramp’s town. It was a town, sure, but not just a town.

The School of Friendship was stuck right outside the gate — in parlance — and the Friendship Castle stood towering over it all, a museum to Princess Twilight’s past feats.

But that was it.

Ponyville was past-tense. Once the place where Princess Twilight lived, it was now an imprint of its past. A slow moving, routine-bitten landmark. Everything important happened in Canterlot now, as it should.

And so being sent on a tour of a past life was an errand, a punishment, and Luster cursed it. Such a waste of her many talents.

“Bad thoughts, Luster,” she whispered under her breath, tapping her forehead with her hoof. “Remember what Teacher Twilight said. Breath in, breath out. There’s always more than meets the eye.”

Her magic fiddled around inside of her backpack and she produced a rolled-up letter, stamped with Princess Twilight’s regal seal. She read the address yet another time, then looked up at the door, the name on a small brass plate, its lock, and the handle — fashioned for an earth pony.

What did she have to learn from an earth p–

“Thoughts, Luster. Thoughts,” she grumbled under her breath.

“So, are you going to knock or what?”

The commanding voice snapped Luster out of her own mind. She stumbled to make way, her leg slipping off the patio’s stairs and down she went into the flowers that adorned each side of the door. Laughter soon followed.

Thankfully, it was kind.

“Sorry,” Luster sputtered, frantic to dig herself out of the plants, her elbows sunken deep into the freshly-watered mushy ground beneath.

A bordeaux mare stood by the stairs with a grocery bag slung over her shoulders. The well-manicured hoof that covered her face hid a wide smirk.

Enough was enough. Golden sparks lit Luster’s horn and she lifted herself out of the flowers. Two quick and precise airborne moves and there she was, enwrapped in a translucent yellow hue and gracefully standing two steps away from the mare. That would surely showcase her magical prowess!

But it wasn’t enough of a firework’s display to mask the heat warming her cheeks.

“I am so sorry, young lady,” the mare said, shaking her head; Luster ground her teeth. “I didn’t mean to scare you like that, but you were fairly spellbound by —” She eyed the door with furrowed brows “— I don’t really know, to be honest.”

Of course she didn’t know. She wasn’t Luster Dawn, stuck in that tiny town, standing in front of a purplish middle-aged mare with three smiley-face flower thingies for a cutie mark.

Luster closed her eyes, inhaled, lips pressed together. Bad thoughts were creeping in yet again.

She cut the tapping in one of her hindlegs then dusted the dirt and petals off herself, magicking away the compost stains that now peppered her backpack like scout badges. Done with cleaning up, she fetched Teacher Twilight’s letter off the ground.

Be amiable, be humble. Yeah, right... Luster cleared her throat.

“Name’s Luster Dawn, Mam,” Luster started, extending the letter to the Ponyville resident and fellow Equestrian. “I am Princess Twilight’s student. Just out here to deliver a letter to Miss Mayor Mare.” Biting her lower lip, she sifted air through her teeth. “Which I suppose is you since you know, you’re here, next to the door of the house where Miss Mayor Mare lives. At least, that’s what I was told And you got a grocery bag with vegetables on your back. So! You definitely must live here. Anyway... Teacher Twilight asked me to ask her, and I really mean you, a simple– single question. A really innocuous one for such a tedious trip to this place, really. I mean… Eh, what I mean to say is that, I’ll be out of your, and this town’s, mane in a jiffy once it’s done and–” Luster closed her eyes and let out a long-winded sigh. “I’m being awkward as Tartarus again, aren’t I?”

“Again?” The mare chuckled. “That I don’t know. But if it’s your self-assessment, I can definitely say it’s a trait you likely got from your teacher. Pegasi of a feather and other whatnots, am I right? You’ll grow out of it, eventually... maybe.”

Luster bashfully blew her cheeks out at the remark and the mare laughed again. That motherly, unalarmed amusement with a smidge of concern only her teacher gave her in Canterlot. Luster Dawn didn’t come here to get lectured! That, she was certain. But there she was, getting tut-tutted by a stranger.

What a punishment this trip was. Small towns couldn’t even give her the change of scenery she’d been promised but hadn’t even asked for.

“And sorry to disappoint,” the mare continued, “but I’m not Madame Mare — and, honestly, it’s just Mare these days, young lady. It’s been a couple of years since she’s retired. Name’s Cheerilee by the way.” She extended her hoof, “and I’m her wife.”

Luster’s agoraphobic horror of earth pony fashions kicked in when Cheerilee helped herself and reached for her hoof, and vigorously shook it. The greeting steadfastly wrapped up and sent on its proverbial way, Cheerilee stepped by Luster’s side, opened the door and, letting it sway open, invited her in.

“Mare!” Cheerilee called as Luster’s ears picked up at the muffled music coming from the back of the house. “It’s me! We’ve got a surprise visitor.”

The music cut out and a sturdy, albeit aged, voice rose from beyond one doorframe or another. “Come on in, I was just finishing making some tea. Is it Lady Belle? She was visiting her friend Miss Bloom at the Apple farm.”

“‘Fraid not,” Cheerilee replied, dropping the grocery bag and turning to Luster, “no offense.”

Luster munched on the inside of her cheek as she stepped into a house cluttered with books. Well… ‘cluttered.’ Relatively compared to her room or Twilight’s office.

The house smelled of paper, tea, and cake, and looked comfy, like a kindly old granny’s abode. The memory of a second-hoof bookstore hidden behind an unremarkable door in a sidestreet in cold cold Yak-Yakistan sunk in.

Luster hated nostalgia.

She squinted at the desk by the left side of the door. While it housed many horseshoes and bags underneath, its countertop was sunk below a heap of hoof-written papers, strung about and haphazard.

“You’re a teacher?” Luster asked, looking more closely at what seemed to be a flurry of hoof and claw-written essays.

“You’ve got a keen eye,” she said with a nod. “I’m Ponyville’s elementary school teacher, but I also give lectures at the School of Friendship.”

Luster raised an eyebrow at the mention of the School of Friendship, but took care not to show it to her host. She’d read about the school before, but it had always been a thought quickly cast aside. Friendship really was an elementary thing in the end, i.e. beneath her concerns.

As Cheerilee counted her vegetables, Luster dropped her bag under the desk, taking care that it didn’t touch the mess that already inhabited this space. She only kept Twilight’s letter, held tight in her magic.

“I think I can spot a yak in your cohort,” Luster noted as she looked closer at the pile of essays and picked up the shortest she’d ever read.

‘Boring,’ is what it said, with a stamp of a hoof on the bottom of the page.

“Grading, any teacher’s own homework,” Cheerilee replied without looking. “Director Glimmer had the bad idea to let students pick a topic this year. Again.” As curiosity piqued Luster, Cheerilee clicked her tongue and motioned with her hoof. “Anyway, let me introduce you to Mare. So you can deliver your letter and ask your questions. Then you’ll be on your merry way out of our little town. It sure must not seem like much to an outsider, especially to a Canterlot student.”

“Do I look that bored and impatient?” Luster asked, shoulders slumped slightly. Yet again, her bad thoughts popped at the seams. They were ready to burst like a dam of negative impressions. She could only roll her eyes at herself. Which she did.

“Kind of? I’m just very good at reading students, you know. After twenty years of teaching you get pretty good at detecting boredom.”

Luster nodded and followed the teacher into a large living room that was littered with artifacts, paintings, widgets, gadgets and items that would be more at home in a cabinet of curiosity. Or a good old fashion museum.

A zebra’s mask, a gold dagger hanging on the wall, a Saddle Arabian lance darkened at the tip next to a dead chimney.

Were these two mares using it for poking embers!?

So many things that had come from across the world and were lined up for anypony to see, now collected a thin layer of dust. Books, grimoires, legal deeds, and dusty boxes. An eclectic bric à brac only old ponies could gather and collect. And still, to Luster’s eyes, these embodied so many eye-catching stories, hinted at so many far-away and alien cultures. She suddenly wanted to know more. But she doubted the couple had their own in-house curator.

Such a waste.

Luster!

Yes, tough thoughts, bad thoughts… But wasn’t she right? Could they truly appreciate what they owned?

Thoughts, Luster. Silence.

She forced a smile on her lips, and mapped out her many questions in her head. Then, she realised she’d stopped in the middle of the doorframe leading into this oversized and overencumbered room.

“Oh my… you’ve travelled a lot,” Luster stated, her voice shaken with bemusement.

A quick laugh answered back. Mare’s. “More like the world has come to us,” she said. “For better, and especially worse.”

A beige rump back-trotted through an open door frame on the opposite side of the befuddling living room. Its owner, an old mare with a mane grey like oxidized silver, held a tray in her teeth. Steam followed after her, tracing the air from three large ceramic cups.

Luster bit her lip, her magic crumpling the letter and cracking the seal that had held it shut till then. She was going to get stuck at an old granny’s house because of Teacher Twilight. She hated it. What a punishment that was from her Teacher. Fumingly so. So many annoyances for a mere letter and silly question.

Luster’s eyes darted left and right for an exit. But there was no envisageable escape. Instead, she only had even more questions for each of the items that stared back at her, and each question led to even more down the road.

Luster was, irremediably and for the next few hours, doomed to withstand the boredom of older ponies’ talking. Earth Pony had a tendency to talk nonetheless and she hadn’t even brought a book to read.

Damn her teacher.

She must have been laughing while sipping coffee in her high tower.

Cheerilee’s chuckle rose by Luster’s side. While she’d been lost in her thoughts, the Ponyville teacher had had the time to go and drop her grocery bag somewhere else.

“Don’t worry, we’re not going to be keeping you here for supper. Unless you want to, of course,” she whispered in Luster’s ear. “And don’t worry, Mare doesn’t bite.”

Luster didn’t have to turn around, she could feel Cheerilee’s amused smile, scorching at her back like sunlight. Luster took a long breath of the tea-smelling air, and let it comb out of her half-closed mouth.

It was going to be a long, boring, annoying, and wasted afternoon.

And she was already hungry.

Admitting defeat, Luster dropped her behind like an anvil on a set of cushions, hoping the sound of crushed feathers would hide the growling of her belly.

But for naught, Mare left the tray of tea on the coffee table in the middle of the room, smiled, and evaded Luster’s stare to go into the kitchen, from where she came back with a box of dried butter crackers.

Luster bowed her head, closed her eyes, then rolled them. She could hear her Teacher laughing from Canterlot at the thought of this cruel ordeal.

What a weird test, Luster thought, looking down at the damaged letter and the red mark of where the seal had hugged the paper closed until moments ago. She shook her head, opened her eyes wide, cursed her hastiness, and finally glanced at Mare and Cheerilee who now sat next to each other on a sofa on the other side of the living room. Purple against creme white, they contrasted each other. An odd couple, but a couple nonetheless.

She took a deep breath and finally spoke.

“Thank you for inviting me in,” Luster said, breaking out a quick smile. “I’m…” She drummed her hooves against the fluffy carpet that covered a laminated parquet. “Well, to be frank, I didn’t expect this when Teacher Twilight sent me here.”

“She really is as awkward as she was,” Mare noted to Cheerilee with a smile.

Cheerilee turned to meet her wife’s eye. And shook with laughter. “She does take after her, doesn’t she?”

Luster shuffled on her haunches. She’d been quite judgemental. She still was. She deserved this, in a sense. If you judge others too harshly, others will do that to you as well. That was what Teacher Twilight had told her many times before. Luster loved being right. But she hated being right about being wrong.

She frowned. They didn’t call Teacher Twilight ‘Princess.’

“You know Teacher Twilight?” Luster asked.

“We do, actually,” Mare said with a smile. “She wrecked my town far too many times for me to count. Though I’ve forgiven her as many times as necessary, it doesn’t stop her Highness from sending flowers on the monthly.”

“Your town?” Luster remarked, more to herself than to Mare. Tapping a hoof on her lip, she turned to Cheerilee. “Didn’t you say I had to drop the Mayor title?”

Cheerilee burst out laughing, and held a hoof on Mare’s shoulder. The former mayor gave her wife a raised eyebrow, chest out, “Don’t you have some respect for your wife, Cheery, for your old scrag of local government officer?”

“I’m being blunt again.” Luster groaned. “Stupid, stupid…”

She smacked her forehead, then reached out with her magic and grabbed her steaming cup of tea. Sipping the green brew would keep her silent.

Cheerilee and Mare reached for their own cups and each took turns to grab a biscuit in the metal box that sat on the plate. Luster followed suit, picking up not one but two in her golden magic.

“So, what brought you here?” Mare asked over her cup, the steam fogging the edges of her black-rimmed glasses. She pointed at the letter by Luster’s side.

Luster gracefully flew the letter over to the two mares. Cheerilee grabbed it, snapped the remains of the seal clean off, and unfurled the paper open for her and Mare to read.

“You didn’t have to break it apart,” Mare whispered as she motioned at the bit of wax seal now lying on the carpet.

“It was already damaged.”

Mare looked over the rim of her glasses at Luster and the student bit her lips, evading the mare’s blue eyes.

They began reading.

“I see,” Cheerilee muttered after a moment, her eyes darting from left to right. She then looked at her wife.

Mare didn’t answer, or even looked at Cheerilee. She merely nodded, her eyes narrowing to slits as she rubbed her chin. After a while, she hummed to herself.

Luster hadn’t read the contents of the letter, and now she wished she had. Of course she knew better and would never break open correspondence. But shuffling on her seat while waiting for the two old mares to make up their minds was utter torture.

Luster’s horn glowed and she dragged the bit of wax evidence to her side, out of sight. Cleaning after oneself: that she’d learn from evading her teacher too many times, and failing at it.

“You mentioned a question?” Cheerilee asked, startling Luster.

Luster caught the tea cup she’d been mindlessly levitating before it crashed on the carpet. “Yes… Yes! Definitely,” she muttered. “I mean, I don’t know if it is related to the letter’s content, but…”

Luster recalled Teacher Twilight’s face when she tasked her to go to Ponyville. Uncertainty, painful memories, an unsure smile… regrets? Luster had rarely seen her teacher show these emotions. Her Highness was a talented rulemaker, but even she had done stuff in the past that she wasn’t proud of. And this, Luster guessed, was why she’d been sent here today.

“Teacher Twilight told me that you had to teach me a lesson.” As she earned two questioning stares, she clapped her forehead again. Stupid. “I mean, she didn’t tell it like that. She said you have a valuable experience to teach me, Miss Mare.” Luster motioned her hoof. “You were a mayor for years. In a sense, you’ve successfully managed a place, no matter how small, eh… I don’t mean Ponyville is small as in small. Not at all… I, uh… It is small compared to Canterlot but it’s still a place… A– I’m going to shut up now.”

While Mare and Cheerilee chuckled, Luster sank into her cushion, trying to make herself smaller in the vane hope her spine would turtle down into itself like an accordion, to disappear inside her own fleshy shell. What a terrible mental image, Luster…

“You think Twilight wants me to tell you about town shenanigans?” Mare asked, putting the letter down in her lap.

“I guess?” Luster replied with a shrug. “Why else would Teacher Twilight send me here?”

Cheerilee and Mare shared a glance, and Luster saw the lack of certainty that came with their half-smiles. For what reason would Teacher Twilight have sent her here if not for some local state-crafting stories from two aging earth pony mares? Thoughts, Luster! Thoughts. But really, Luster couldn’t understand why here. And especially why… them?

The two mares each took a singular, coordinated deep breath. And a heavy lump dropped down Luster’s throat.

Why else?

“To tell you of her biggest failure,” Mare offered along with the royal letter.

As her horn lit up to retrieve the missive, Luster was doubtful. What was she talking about? Teacher Twilight made mistakes from time to time, sure. Even princesses could be clumsy. But failures? Nah. Nyet! No. That was not possible.

“You’ve got such a look on your face, Luster,” Pinkie Pie said, peeping out from behind the sofa.

Luster jumped.

What?

“What?” Cheerilee and Mare echoed, pivoting in an instant to catch Pinkie Pie jumping over the sofa’s headrest and sliding down to sit at the rightmost side of the sofa.

What!?

“Surprise, Luster!” Pinkie burst, blasting a gerbe of confettis all over the living room. “How’ve you been?”

“How?” Luster babbled. “Aren’t you supposed to be… not here?”

“Ah, flabbergasted!” Pinkie retorted, waving her hoof. One or two candies hopped out of her mane. “I had a hunch, ya know! You were doing such a mean face back at the Castle that I had to follow you. And I was in Fillydelphia yesterday with Cheese and Lil’ Cheese. But you know, my eyelids fluttered and my tail shivered. And I knew it! You —” She pointed at Cheerilee and Mare “— were going to talk about me.”

“Filly…” Cheerilee started, and Mare finished, “delphia.”

“Wait. Wait a minute,” Luster interrupted, dragging her hooves to her temples and rubbing them vigorously. Though she knew Pinkie Pie, because she always visited Teacher Twilight, she only ‘knew’ her. “You know when somepony is talking about you?”

“Will, actually!”

Luster so wanted that power.

Pinkie burst out laughing and instantly turned to her two compatriots. “You were going to talk about the Wall, right?”

Mare didn’t say a word. She rolled her eyes, threw up her hooves in defeat and nodded.

“You didn’t even read the letter,” Cheerilee said with a smile, more of a statement than actual surprise. “Even after all these years, your doozies haven’t blunted at all. Never change, Pinkie.”

Luster growled. “What is this Wall you’re talking about?”

“It happened in Ponyville about ten years ago,” Mare said. As Pinkie and Cheerilee gave her two pairs of furrowed brows, she sighed and cleared her throat. “It was right after Twilight’s coronation, but not before Celestia and Luna handed power to her.”

“It took about two years, right?” Luster asked.

“It did, yes,” Cheerilee confirmed.

“But, and there is the question, Luster. Do you know why it took so long?” Mare asked.

Luster stayed quiet. She didn’t know. Why would she know? Teacher Twilight took things pretty slowly usually. It was her trademark: being cautious.

“Everything being equal I would say she was held back outside of Canterlot,” Luster offered through pinched lips. “But since I’m here, I guess that something happened in Ponyville, right?”

“It did,” Cheerilee said. She took a profound inspiration. “Most of the ponies in town call that… uhm, event, the Wall. It nearly destroyed Ponyville.”

Luster doubted that. She’d have heard about it if… Should have...

Or would she? Ponyville was small, remote, if not isolated. She’d pestered about it all the way there, on the train.

Ponyville was past-tense. Again. And Equestria was evolving fast, everchanging, always moving forward. Why would anypony mention an event that only concerned the here, Ponyville; and the then, a decade ago. Ponies forget, and it was a good thing they did.

Luster nodded to herself and, upon realizing something, rolled her eyes — she took her time. “Alright, I guess it’s lecture time.”

Luster was expecting a story, a retelling, but Cheerilee and Mare’s faces darkened. Pinkie Pie’s twisted slightly, though she never let her smile drop.

A low sense of unease settled in Luster’s stomach as the three adults shared quick glances. In the silence, they still talked to each other. Common understanding permeated throughout the room, pushing out the smell of green tea.

Something had happened. Something dire. Luster’s haunches tightened. What did Teacher Twilight send her here to learn?

Cheerilee and Mare turned to Pinkie Pie, and her ear-to-ear smile.

“You call dibs?” They asked.

“Sure do.” She laughed.

Luster leaned forwards. She expected a story from her teacher’s great friend.

What had happened ten years ago that had so darkened the faces of these mares? What could be the Princess of Magic’s greatest mistake?

Luster leaned even further forwards, mouth agape, a leg fluttering in anticipation at Pinkie Pie’s fluttering smile. A first. And after a few seconds of silence, that stretched on like molass, Pinkie finally spoke.

“There’s never enough sweets.”

2. The Last Doozy

There’s never enough sweets. Be you a foal, a grown-up, a grouchy donkey, or even a playful chaos god, I’m always timely to light up a party. I'll tussle and bustle and waffle around to shower everypony — and that means you! — with sugary treats. With me, It snows candy, that’s a pinkie promise.

But I’m just a silly pony and there can be tummy aches.

“I don’t feel so good, Discord,” I grumble.

A candy wrapper tumbles over its bazillion empty siblings, piled smack-dab in the middle of Fluttershy’s living room. There was a tiny coffee table somewhere under them. Or had been, at some point, lost to the avalanche of wax parchment.

I go slumping heavily into the pile — sliding, surfing — and the many wrappers flutter back on top of me. Soon, I’m buried; the way I want to be at my funeral.

So satisfying.

Anyhow! The last candy wrapper may have been empty, but the sweet it once held sure wasn’t playing along in my belly. Being a big meany to the end, it throws a roaring party in my stomach. A rollercoaster. A pirates’ ride!

Candies aren’t supposed to do that, you know, especially not to me. Unless...

“A doozy!” I cry. Oh, what a schemy, nasty little twitchy-twitch, catching me off-guard like that. You don’t have a taste but you sure have a gut feeling.

I carve my head out of the candy graveyard and eye Discord and his elongated smirk. I’m about to tall-tale about the storm soon to bear o’er Ponyville! And I’m gonna need a tricorne for that. A quick glance around; not a pirate’s hat to be found... Too bad Fluttershy never kept the pirate outfit I gifted her for Nightmare Night.

“A twitchy-twitch is a’coming!” I blast, waving my shaky legs at Discord and the glimpse of an invisible white whale peeping behind his scrunched-up face. White whales are good at hide-and-seek, just trust me on that. “Ye damned!”

I spring out of the pile, tip-hoof my way to Discord’s snaky side, and wrap my legs around his stringy neck. His eyebrows don’t even have time to furrow back.

He definitely smells like peppermint. His fur and feathers stick against my coat with candy gore. He squeaks a bit, lifts a claw, but I stick an icky candy wrap in his muzzle — no time for his sailings-of-fancy!

I look away and finally blink.

Fluttershy’s place is a confiseur’s mess; Discord made sugar snow indoors! He really needed to teach me that trick... Icing coats walls, sofas, and carpets — Angel could claim Rarity’s hide-and-seek record right there and then. Rarity’s a real hiding winner, you know, always distracting me with her ‘I’m not playing’ tricks. She can disappear for days!

You know, melted sugar is its own kind of glue; I’m kinda stuck to Discord now. He garbles a sneeze — not a laugh, not a question, not even a snarky, millefeuille-y kind of a joke. His face is a gurgled grimace instead while he wears my breathtaking leg-lock like a necklace.

Uh, oh–

“Oh, puny Pie!” Discord coughs up once he’s out of reach. “I think you had too much sugar.”

“Me! Oh, no-no-no! Not possible, Disco.” I shake my head hard, dusting off my sugar coat. As my belly growls, I curl back onto my withers. “Ooooh, it hurts real’ bad.”

“Are you two alright?” Fluttershy asks from the kitchen where a tea kettle whistles. By the smell, it’s Pearl Gray.

“Just Pinkie being Pinkie,” Discord replies, a paw tucked behind his back. My tail twitches and I glare at him. He grins. I squinch hard. He laughs back. “Truly a terrible doozy, Flutty. It’s gonna start raining chocolate. Again.”

“I can see you and your crossed claws, Discord,” Fluttershy sternly warns a wall over.

“Oh, shoo…”

Nausea. A shudder and a jiggling and a flutter brawl inside me. The room swims and wobbles. That doozy sure is a heck-a-weird teeter totter.

“It’s not a normal twitchy-twitch, Discord.” I huff, suckling air and staring without much aim at the sugary landscape around me.

The wallpaper is dancing the Zumba while I’m lying in the sugar-snow! I don’t have a song to sing along, though. I don’t even think Zumba’s got lyrics. What’s Zumba anyway, right?

Oh! Ahem. Futtershy’s cottage got a crack in its retaining wall and somepony recently cleaned spilled tea not far from my nostrils. Angel must have had a tantrum again. Cups do go flying with him around.

While I’m out of business on the floor, Discord springs airborne in a flap of paws, laughter, and wings.

“Oh no!” He whines and contorts and wriths with a grin like a snake in a tangle. “What’s it going to be this time, Pinkie? Flying bugbears? Angry geese ogling the streets? Oh, I know! World-ending foals!”

In a clap of paw and claws, a spyglass stumbles from behind his tail and somersaults to sit on his eye. Yeah, right!? With manic glee and many cackles, he starts surveying the living room.

“Let’s find Twilight," he exclaims. "I’m sure she’ll be delighted to hear I have a shipment of pianos on the fritz.”

“Discord,” Fluttershy calls, her tone snapping alongside a clatter of plates. “What did we say about wishing harm on our friends, or anypony for that matter?”

“Oh, Fluttershy,” Discord replies, all pouty and sad. A snap of a claw and the pirate’s lens splatters into a hovering brown blotch. His tail whip-cracks and the blotch, now a centipede-legged stool, glides to the ground with him sitting atop. “They’re just pianos. Not anvils. And you pastel ponies are quite resilient. What’s a prank or two, or three, if it’s in good faith and with Pinkie here to bear witness.”

Mr. Bear peeps through the cottage’s window and licks the sugar-coated wall.

“She’s... green,” Fluttershy says, her head peeking through the kitchen door. “Oh, my.”

She rushes to my side, sharing my above-space with Discord’s floating eyes. She gives him, or rather them, a look.

“What?” Discord complains from his stool, staring back with two big black holes instead of eyeballs. “That way, she’ll only give me the stink eye if she starts puking.”

Fluttershy doesn’t answer. After a while, Discord clears his throat and flies over to retrieve two floating golf balls.

“And I know of these doozies,” Discord explains, grumbling as he pushes two eggs in his sockets. “Twilight gave me the bird’s eye view.”

“Is it a shaky tail?” Fluttershy asks, a hoof over her head.

“It’s. A. Belly ache!” I blurt then inhale. “Not a funny one but an angry one. Like something real bad’s about to happen.”

Fluttershy turns to Discord and stares, legs crossed against her chest. “Do you have something to tell me? Like, something you’ve been planning?”

He raises an eyebrow, and so does she. He holds an empty paw out, and her leg-crossing tightens. Finally, Discord’s lips pucker to the side to hug his lonely canine. Fluttershy squints.

And my right hind-leg wobbles along with my belly.

“It’s not Discord!” I confess before Fluttershy can utter a word. “And I’m not sugar-rushing. I never get poisoned!”

“What is it, then?” Fluttershy asks, a scaredy-shaky trill in her voice.

Discord cracks his shoulders, a wide, toothy smile on his cheeks. “Let’s just take a quick peek, shall we?”

Leaving no time for Fluttershy or I to protest, Discord’s cloven hoof snaps its digits, and the cottage turns inside out.

“Tadaaa!” he exclaims with pride and arms spread wide.

We’re outside, scrambled atop one of Ponyville’s many hills. The sun's high and alone in the bluest of skies. Not a cloud at all — Rainbow Dash's characteristic hoof print, wherever my eyes can see. I am so sad that Ponyville is about to lose her most diligent weather-pone. Damn the appanage of the brass and stripes. So I oughta appreciate it while it lasts.

Well, while we’re scrambling atop the hill, the greens and browns of the leaves and trunks of many trees, and the purple and yellow and white of a myriad flowers welcome us.

To the horizon, Canterlot’s hazy, mountainous shape catches the sunlight.

“You see,” Discord ahahs, a paw stretched towards the good ol’ town of Ponyville. “Everything’s where it should be.”

“Ahem!” interrupts a mare.

I turn around to find a scene. And I don’t mean a scene scene as in a scene, just a scene. More like a theatre stage to spectate. Or a still life — though, a very lively, funny one. Anyway, I catch myself. Here it is:

A field of green grass. A basket of fruits toppled atop a plaid cover. Fluttershy, awkwardly sitting on a crumpled bouquet of red roses and a toast. And behind her, two hugging mares staring at us with eyes wide as saucers.

The oldest of the two pushes her scruffy silvery mane aside, and her black glasses up her muzzle. Pissed-off has gotten a face. And that face would be Mayor Mare’s.

“Are we crashing a garden party?” I ask.

“Hello, Mayor Mare. Hello, Cheerilee,” Fluttershy meeps, lifting herself off the mess she’s made. She brushes a strand of mane over her face. “I’m sorry for, uhm, the roses.”

Unsure smiles fly across Cheerilee and Mayor Mare’s faces as they part their tight embrace. The former snickers under her breath. Meanwhile, Mayor Mare stretches with the dignity and full height allowed by her sitting position — she’s a mayor after all and needs to play the role even if she’s sitting on some grass and with flower petals all over her.

Rubbing the red blush off her cheeks, Mayor Mare coughs into her hoof. “Don’t worry about them, my little ponies,” she dispels, motioning to the squashed flowers. “I’m more worried about…”

Her attention lingers over the sugar matting my coat but soon her gaze drifts to Discord, who now sits on the branch of a nearby tree, barely at a stone’s throw away. A wide grin splits his lips apart.

“You,” Mayor Mare states.

I want to cheer her and everypony up, say something, but I just crawl back into a ball, hooves pressed against my belly.

“Foo! Don’t look at me like that, you boring paper-pusher,” Discord retorts. “We’re here because of one of your townfolks, I’ll let you know.” He points at me before his paws go up to draw air quotes. “Pinkie’s got a painful doozy. And though I am for once not responsible, I still ought to clear my name.” His low chuckle follows. “Simply put, we’re just out here to prove me innocent, and de facto and thereto prove her wrong.”

“It’s not a belly ache,” I croak back.

“Oh, seeing what’s happening here, you might be right, Pinkie,” Discord muses, keeping up the toothy smile on his lips. His body stretches from the tree like a snake, his extending claw wobbling till it flicks Mayor Mare’s muzzle. Boop! “If there is one doozy going around these parts, this bureaucrat and her fair lovebird sure are it.”

“Th– There’s no shame in enjoying a routinely beautiful summer Sunday,” Mayor Mare stutters, shirking her hoof at the draconequus before she steps in front of Cheerilee.

Her glasses drooping, she scrunches her muzzle left and right to push them back up; they barely hide her blush and pointed face. Cheerilee guffaws behind her yet again.

“Come on, hun. Back me up, here!” Mayor Mare snipes.

“You’ve done this to yourself,” Cheerilee snickers, throwing her hooves up. She and I cross glances and she stands up, walking over to me. “Are you okay, Pinkie?”

“Not, really,” I moan.

“Oh, yes, the dull routine of two stray doves,” Discord peeps, pulling a bag of popcorn out of nowhere. “Anyhow, Pinkie’s been gurgling about a wild happenstance that will cast this picturesque town in total disarray. So typical. If we can’t prove her wrong, well, we can at least watch.” That earns him a few stares. “What? It’s true, don’tcha think? This town’s been boring for a while now?”

“Boring is good,” Mayor Mare quips, twirling her hoof as if to wisp away Discord’s wishes. With him, the hypogriff’s paw does curl.

“Boring’s boring,” Cheerilee says. A smirk crawls on her cheeks as her girlfriend turns back to her. “Come on, sometimes you gotta spice things up.”

Discord bursts out laughing and I crack a sheepish smile at Mayor Mare. Fluttershy latches her lips shut. And, as I struggle back to my hooves, I look down at Ponyville.

Smoke is rising from the chimneys of Ponyville’s several bakeries, and the sweet and sour smell of bread carried by the wind greets us. I’d be hungry if my belly isn’t so painfully full.

Maybe Discord’s right. Maybe I’m just poisoned. Oh, no, am I… aging? Will I soon have hair as white as Mayor Mare’s!?

Having her motherly smile wouldn’t be that bad, right?

I shake the thought away. All I can see is a normal day for a normal town, except for Twilight’s castle, of course. It’s big and garishly exquisite, at least that’s what Rarity says. To me, it’s just real’ big and shiny. If only I could convince Twilight to host more parties — crystals make wonderful disco-balls.

Something still isn’t right. I can tell. Or at least I can feel it down in my tummy.

“You see, nothing’s going to happen,” Discord says matter-of-factly, flicking popcorn at my face.

Oh no, he said the cursed words. That vile type of chatter prophecy. The Jinx! The paw’s curl.

My tail twitches, dances, and... rumbles? I snap around to catch Discord. He eyes me back with his raised eyebrow, and his frozen, barely opened mouth filled with overflowing popcorn. He knows it, he knows what he’d just done!

I return him my own flavor of a scared faceful because, when Fluttershy, Mayor Mare, and Cheerilee see my sorry face-y twisties...

We all duck.

At.

Once.

Noon turns to midnight; darkness swallows the sky and hugs the horizon black! Silence robs my ears. My eyes! I see nothing. A windy sucker punch blasts me backward and robs me of air. I’m flying, like I’m falling from my hot-air balloon. Feeling dizzy like when you’re slowly falling asleep… Only to jolt awake! Aware and angsty! Twilight told me it happens when your brain thinks it’s going to ‘go to the other side.’ I think my brain just wants to party some more.

Anyhow. Sounds and colors? gone! I’m blind. I’d be okay if I was playing Pin the Tail. But I’m not… I’m just scared. I can’t hear. I can’t see. I hit and slide against the grass and dirt, with wind rushing at my back. I land again. Bounce! What a crash.

I smell copper. I never knew rust had an odor.

Quickly, the world rushes back to my senses, a kaleidoscope whirlwind of images, flashes, colors, and noises. Noise... unlike any party I’ve thrown. A great thundering like my head’s stuck in a drum kit. My ears ring, my head hurts, my teeth stick, and all of a sudden my doozy’s gone for good.

At last!

My eyes adjust and settle first on Canterlot in the far-far distance. It’s still there, at least. No villain to deal with today. Or at least, that’s what I think.

The doozy may be gone, but it left me with a very cold hole in my chest. And I don’t like it. Oh, not at all. That sinking dreadful feeling that seeps down from head to hooves like a freezing cold, cracked egg yolk rolling through your mane and sticking to your scalp. I do not like it at all.

That’s when I get a glimpse of Ponyville.

And I shouldn’t have.

“It– It’s gone.”

Cheerilee spots it first, tells the truth first. Like the teacher she is. Matter-of-factly, only the substance of it. It hammers in that, yes, something’s missing. Oh, Celestia. Something is missing. Oh, no, oh no.

“Twilight,” Fluttershy mutters.

I struggle back up, Mayor Mare coming to my side to prop me up without even a peep. We don’t share even a glance. All eyes, even Discord’s, are riveted away. Locked and captured by the novelty, a large, missing piece in the idyllic scenery. Darkness has snatched our hearts and bodies. And so much more.

“Well, that’s new,” Discord whispered, the surprisingly intact popcorn box dropping out of his hand. He doesn’t pay it a thought.

“The castle!” Mayor heaves at last. For all of us.

There isn't a Friendship Castle anymore.

Something else stands in its place now. And I don’t like it. I don’t think anypony does, or will, or would. Even nature stands still. Not a bird tweets, not a cow moos. Not even a gust of wind drumming over the grassy hillside. Silent and observing, everypony stares at the thing, this new item in town.

“W– what is that?” Fluttershy chokes up.

Have you ever seen a jawbreaker? Now imagine it big… like, very gigantic. And black. So big it’s enveloped the castle, from the foundations to its golden weathercocks. Round, dark, smooth like that lava rock Maude likes a lot — obsidian, I think it’s called. There, it stands. A monster ball instead of the castle. A black hole of nothingness, still and cold.

On a second take, I really doubt it’s obsidian or licorice, or even a jawbreaker. To be honest, it’s not even somet–

“Not even something I’d dare you to lick,” Discord whispers in my ear. I’ve not heard him flutter off his landing spot. Now crouched next to me, his feathers shiver along his spine. Even his scales stand on end. He’s afraid, and it scares me more.

Let’s face it, as Cheerilee would say, or Applejack. A massive black sphere has gobbled up Twilight’s castle. And that does not bode well for anypony at all.

With its black so deep it’s like peering into a bottomless pit, it leaves a knot in my throat. It's got no details, no discernible jaggedness on its surface at all. A creepy smoothness. Light doesn’t even bounce off.

“N– no,” I finally reply, the words having to break through my lips.

Air fuzzes at the orb’s edge, like the haziness shooting off the asphalt on a hot Manehattan summer day.

But there’s no heat coming off that thing. It’s just hungry, and cold.

Oh, Twilight. What did you do?

Though the doozy’s gone for good, my gut’s still crawling… Doozies have always been nice to me before, often harmless. But now is something wholly different. Deeper, raw, sharper. A biting feeling like a snake’s fangs that sink into your heart — a terrible warning. One telling me we may never laugh about this ordeal once it’s over. If there ever will be an end to it.

“Twilight!” Fluttershy squeaks, taking flight.

The cold fangs turn into an icy vice, pressuring my ribs, shunting air out of me. My knees give out. Cold sweat drips off my brow. My tail and mane shudder like they never did before.

“Pinkie, are you okay?” Cheerilee shouts, rushing to my side.

I can’t say. Yes. No? I’ve never felt like that before or since. Fear. Plain and simple. Fear. I’d giggle at it. I’d crack up. Snortle... But something else rises in me in place of my generic laughter. An obligation that shoves aside everything else I’d care for: a joke, a laugh, making ponies happy. Anguish stands above it all, its urgency manifesting.

“Danger,” I hiss, unable to shout after Fluttershy.

The wrinkles on Mayor Mare’s forehead crease further against her pair of cracked glasses. A scowl paints her cheeks, she too has this nestled fear. She knows. Her eyes follow Fluttershy as she gracefully glides down the steep hill and towards the town in the distance. Mayor Mare knows.

Cheerilee’s words come hushed, defeated. “Somepony stop h–”

We know. An imaginary dragon trashes my insides. I fight not to stumble again to the ground. I’m not here to eat grass.

Neither Mayor Mare, Cheerilee, or I can fly or teleport.

That’s when I meet Discord’s anxious eyes above me. We are rarely both serious, but I can see my serious face reflected in his determined eyes. Even though I know he knows what I know, I oughta tell him. Heave it out if not scream. I breathe it out.

“Stop Fluttershy.”

3. Memories

Luster stared at nothing. It was much better than looking dumbfounded at that pink ball of nervous enthusiasm, and her painfully beaming smile. She did say she wouldn’t be laughing at that ordeal from years ago. But here she was. Very much, painfully smiling.

Because looking away didn’t hide that smile’s brightfulness enough… Luster shut her eyes, hard. And for good measure, she dropped her face into her hooves.

What was that nonsense her Teacher had had her walk into? Breathe in, breathe out, Luster. Breathe in. Breath–

Her body stung with a furious envy to run out, away, and back to Canterlot. Luster didn’t care if the cushions her withers had sunk into were comfortable. Damn Teacher Twilight, she hadn’t taught her teleportation yet.

Everything she’d heard so far from Pinkie Pie was weird — heck, it was downright incomprehensible.

So, why was she, Luster Dawn, here? She found herself asking that again. Not the first time that afternoon, and certainly not the last. She was betting on it, sadly for herself. But she prided herself in being down to heart, a realist. So, yeah, why did Luster Dawn have to listen to those earth ponies again? She couldn’t even invent a proper reason. Damn that town, damn them, damn her Teacher.

No, Luster! That’s Pinkie Pie. Just Pinkie Pie… You know Pinkie Pie. She’s Teacher Twilight’s funniest — cringiest and wall-crawling — friend. Stop. Breathe. And breathe even harder again.

A long ponderous moment passed before Luster finally opened her eyes, a drawn-out sigh on her lips.

“Can you translate?” Luster whinied at Cheerilee and Mare, trying not to cause herself an aneurism by pressing her two hooves through her temples and into her skull. “What’s even a doozy?”

If she had Teacher Twilight under her hoof, Luster would be asking her how she’d dealt with Pinkie in the past. Well… Not dealt, endured. That was, of course, if her mighty alicorn Self was there to share her survival tips. But Teacher Twilight definitely wasn’t. And so Luster only had a pair of earth ponies for help. One teacher, but not her teacher, and an old mare…

Luster wanted advice and she only got a trio of short answers: Cheerilee’s repressed chuckle, Mare’s click of her tongue, and Pinkie’s knowing look.

Let it go; Luster got the unhelpful memo.

“It’s hard to explain,” Mare finally said.

Luster looked up from her hooves, her jaw clenched tight. The old mare cleared her throat, pinched her lips, and blew air into her cheeks. Silence was a harsh mistress. Even Mare seemed to struggle making sense of the pink hurricane by her side.

Meanwhile, Luster was wishing for a desk to lean on, she would love something hard to drum her hooves against.

“Can you help me out, Pinkie?” Mayor sighed, her shoulders drooping in defeat after a wring of her legs.

“They’re hunches,” Pinkie explained, a hoof to her chin. She giggled, and glanced at the ceiling — as if the right words were printed there. “It just tingles sometimes, somewhere, you know. And when it happens, I know something’s about to happen. Well, likely happen. That’s all.”

“Likely?” Cheerilee asked, an eyebrow raised as she leaned forward to catch a better glimpse of Pinkie’s hesitant smile. “The Pinkie I know wouldn’t mess up a doozy.”

“Eh,” Pinkie replied, waving her hoof dismissively. “I’m older now; not as sharp as I once was. I got sweeter and mellowed out, in a sense.” Pinkie poked at her chub. “Case in point.”

“Speaking of old, Pinkie. I am not, uh, that old,” Mare said with a frown. Three pairs of eyes locked on her and she went to bite her lips. She threw her hooves up before turning to Cheerilee, who she jabbed with a hoof. “Come on, hun. Pinkie did say I was very much old... Can’t you help?”

Cheerilee threw her head back against the sofa’s headrest, and laughed. “You’re digging your own grave on that one.”

“Right.” Mare sighed, hanging her head low. She looked askance at Pinkie Pie, that damn erratic storyteller. “Alright, I wasn’t that old, Pinkie.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Let’s rewind a bit, please,” Luster cut, motioning for silence, which the three mares gave her. She pointed her hoof at Pinkie. “So. You’re a seer?”

“Come again?” Pinkie asked with a tilt of her head. “A what now?”

“Ahem, let’s try not to get into the details,” Cheerilee offered pleadingly with a cough in her hoof. “You don’t want to go down that route this early in the afternoon. It drove Twilight crazy once. So, let’s not do it again.”

“Oh, I can totally explain again!” Pinkie said eagerly, a hoof to her heart. “I–”

Mare’s hoof forcefully closed Pinkie’s mouth shut.

“Ah, come on,” Luster protested, huffing and blowing a strand of mane out of her face as she struggled to find a way out of here. She extirpated herself and instantly slammed her hooves against the carpet. “I’m sure there’s a rational explanation to th–”

Luster was often oblivious; she knew it. But it was hard not to get the warning when both Cheerilee and Mare frantically shook their heads in unison, eyes wide and staring. Pinkie bit on her lip to repress a laugh, her back end writhing on the sofa. She definitely wanted to speak, and was fighting the urge. So. Damn. Hard.

“Alright, anyway,” Luster acknowledged in defeat, hanging her head low and falling back in her soft pillows, “let’s focus on this weird story instead. A black ball that ate Twilight’s castle, right? What about it? I mean, it’s like a Monday, or a Tuesday in Canterlot. Accidents happen right? ... Right?”

The three mares exchanged glances. Sighs flew like bullets.

“Remember when we said it took about two years for power to be handed over to Twilight?” Mare said.

“Yeah. Duh. You said that like thirty minutes ago.”

“Well, there’s a reason…”

“Alright. Let’s hold it there,” Luster said after a long, vocal grunt. “I’m a bit disappointed, not going to lie.” She threw her legs above her head and stretched, her shoulders giving a satisfying pop. As three questioning stares answered her, she rolled her eyes. “Yeah. You know. Teacher Twilight sent me across the country to this nowhere town to listen to a story that I know already ends well.” She pointed at the heaps of items that littered the living room, forcing her eyes as wide as equinely possible, as if to prove a point. “Like… You’re all here, right? No changeling overlord, no draconic destruction, or Tartarus mayhem as far as I could see when I arrived. Not even the buildings look new. I mean, Ponyville doesn’t look young by any means, it’s an old town like you, Ma’am — eh, I mean. It’s well-aged, like fine wine.” Good catch, Luster. “Ponyville, the town, the outskirts, the valley… Everything turned out just fine. How can that be her greatest failure? Right?”

Luster offered an open hoof, as if to hand out a well-wrapped and sorted-out case, or whatever one gave their debate opponent after a well-wrought rhetorical argument.

Pinkie Pie, Cheerilee, and Mare, formerly Mayor, were indeed there. Intact, though ten years older. Nothing anypony could do would alter that latter fact, though. Not everypony could be an alicorn after all. But they were alive, and the town was fine. There was no reason to make a big deal out of this story. And so Luster went back to her first question. Why was she here? What was so important about this story? This failure that appeared, for all intent and purposes, to be inconsequential.

Her mind fluttering away, Luster pondered what she would look like with wings stapled to her back. Taller for sure. She quickly wiped the smirk off her face when Cheerilee raised an eyebrow. The reverie was over.

“I mean. Sorry to be blunt,” Luster argued, “but understand me. There’s no suspense to this story! This is going to be boring. I can tell. And Teacher Twilight likes stories with suspense, like those dusty, old Daring Do drabs–”

Cheerilee set her hoof on Mare’s shoulder, the former mayor having leaned forwards. Earning Luster’s befuddled look, she said, “Yearling is a good friend.”

“No offense. Again,” Luster muttered, biting her lip. “What I really mean is that Teacher Twilight must have had a reason for me to come here to listen to a story that’s supposedly about that big mistake of hers. I can’t believe she’d send me here to fetch a list of facts I could have gotten from the Canterlot Library.”

“Who wants tea?” Mare asked, standing and heading for the kitchen.

Luster exchanged glances with Cheerilee and Pinkie, everypony was silent except for the sound of Mare’s hooves against the parquet.

“You’re one real pain in the butt, Luster.”

That wasn’t Cheerilee who spoke. But Pinkie. And Luster’s jaw dropped. She hadn’t expected that from her mentor’s friend. But in hindsight…

Luster nodded and looked down.

“I–” Luster sighed, her face contorting, “am.”

A crash of plates and swearing burst in from the kitchen. Lips pinched and with wrinkles on her forehead, Cheerilee excused herself and trotted out of the room, leaving Luster staring at Pinkie, and Pinkie at her.

“I’m… sorry.” It hurt to say.

“You should say that to Cheerilee and Mare,” Pinkie advised. After all, they are the ponies who invited you in.”

Luster nodded; she hadn’t much to add, and still, “There’s no point in hearing a story about Teacher Twilight if it’s not from her own mouth.” Still, she had some add-ons to give.

“Who said it’s actually about her, her, right?” Pinkie asked. “Did she tell you directly it was about herself?”

Luster rubbed her muzzle and sniffled. Her confidence chipped away. “N– no. I mean, maybe… Shouldn’t it be? It’s supposedly her big mistake, right? She’s the most important pony in Equestria after all?”

“Maybe it’s about the town. Ya know, we’ve had a lot of really crazy things happen here? For Twilight, it’s all sentimental and stuff.”

“Coming here does feel like a punishment more than a lesson.”

“It’s likely both,” Pinkie giggled.

Luster’s shoulder slumped and she nodded. “It’s likely both.”

As the smell of hot green tea started to crawl into the living room, Luster and Pinkie let silence take root, which Luster wasn’t ready to break first. A story had a goal, a moral. Teacher Twilight wouldn’t have sent her here to share in just a mistake of hers. Maybe it was about a spell, or an error she did and that she shouldn’t try to reproduce or attempt. Like until after her graduation… or maybe ever? Teacher Twilight had done something to the town and she had to learn from it.

“A mistake, right?” Luster muttered, prompting Pinkie to give her a questioning look. “Teacher Twilight wants me to learn from it. She made a big mistake.”

“That, she sure did,” Cheerilee said as she trotted back in the living room, Mare behind her with a plate of tea cups in her mouth. “A big, black, round mistake that terrorized the town.”

Luster offered to help set down the plate and distribute the cups but Mare refused. Soon enough, everypony had their tea the old-fashioned way.

“So the ball?” Luster asked. “What do you mean by terrorize? Like, did monsters come out of it? What about Twilight? Was she inside? What happened?”

Cheerilee raised her hoof and Luster clasped her lips. “We called it the Wall,” she said, met with Mare and Pinkie’s nods.

“Sounds kind of stupid,” Luster commented.

“Ah-ah!” Pinkie exclaimed, pointing her hoof at Cheerilee and Mare. “Told ya it was a stupid name.”

“Even after ten years, you still hold a grudge on this one, Pinkie,” Cheerilee giggled. “I’ll give it to ya, for once.”

Mare rolled her eyes, took a sip of tea, and cleared her throat, calling everypony’s eyes on her.

“So, uh, what did it, the Wall I mean, do?” Luster asked.

“It ate the town.”

4. The Last Blossom

I opened my eyes to her side of the bed, empty and cold. With the shutters closed, the walls across the room didn't catch more than a sliver of outside light. I felt my alarm clock on the nightstand at the tip of my hoof. Its hands. It wasn’t even seven in the morning yet. Then I remembered my clock didn't work right anymore. I set it aside.

The barely visible stains sticking to the ceiling taunted me, reminding me of the rains that had plagued Ponyville during the last summer. I lingered, watching for a while until I found the fortitude to drag the bedsheets over my head.

Not even her smell remained.

And I had to start with the day.

I crawled out from under the covers and welcomed the autumn’s cold bite on my fur. We’d forgotten to turn on the heating. I switched the shutters open and the blinding morning light kicked in.

“Good morning, Mayor,” I whispered to my reflection in the nearby mirror. What a mess of gray hair my reflection had. Dissatisfaction scratched under the surface. “Let’s get ready for another marvelousday.”

I straightened up — two push-ups —, went to brush my teeth, then put the coffee pot on the kitchen fire. Once I had sipped it with a side of hay, I crawled back to the washroom, cleaned myself up, and brushed those teeth again. I smoothed out my grey mane, wiped your glasses, and avoided the mirror in the white light of the clean-tiled room. I had to be on par for the day. For everypony else.

I slung my trench coat over my shoulders and headed out.

This was all a good old routine. One Mayor Mare had always known.

Little activity buzzed in the street when I locked my door. And so, I hurried out and reached the town square in a jiffy. Only a few dead leaves welcomed me on the Town Hall’s staircase and, walking up the building’s gate, I quickly made a crisp red-and-yellow dust of them.

I fetched the hefty golden key in one of my pockets, only to pause. Before I slid it into its lock, I turned around to survey the plaza. Not a single soul to see or greet.

Looking for ponies quickly turned into a mindless wander. The many closed-up shops and dark houses snatched my attention. But I shook my head, closing myself off to this empty world. The cold morning air rushed in and out of my nostrils. Those mornings... Ponyville didn’t smell like bread anymore.

I turned the key and pushed hard against two heavy weights: the gate itself, and the one that lurked down at the back of my throat.

The sunlight dashed through the unlocked door and chased away the darkness nesting in the main hall. Three months had passed since the last town gathering and dust had coated both carpets and benches. Cleaning up would have to be done someday soon. But since there was no planned gathering before the end of the year, I hadn’t bothered draining the town’s limited coffers.

I couldn’t fancy my misplaced aesthetic pleasure.

I closed the Town Hall’s gate behind me and hurried upstairs. I knew this place like the bottom of my hoof and so didn’t need to pull back the large bordeau curtains that obscured the windows. Easily enough, I locked myself in my rickety office.

What a tidy mess it was. Paper piles and gutted reams stacked over and against each other in a haphazard display of provincial bureaucracy. Yellow and blue post-its covered everything — to-dos, key notes, and other mentions I dared not remember by rote for longer than a day. I had marked and earmarked the whole.

I’d not even sat at my desk when Ditzy was already knocking on my window. Always on time. That, she was. I waved my hoof at her and trotted to the pane’s small sliding lock.

“Hello, Miss,” I greeted as I let her in. “Hope you’re having a wonderful day.”

“Sort of, Mayor.” She stumbled in, shaking herself while a bit of sweat rolled down her brow. She was panting. “Sorry for being brusque… but I’ve got to help somepony move this morning.” She hoofed around her worn-out satchel and cleared her throat. “Quite a few letters for you today.”

“Moving in, I hope?” I asked with a half-forced grin as three letters slid my way.

Ditzy’s eyes briefly focused on me. Her smile came and went, replaced by a grim chuckle — a parody of one. “Always optimistic, Mayor. That’s why we still vote for you.”

My mouth opened slightly. I bit my lips rather than talked. Fleeing the view of her feeble smile, I stared at her satchel instead, and the trace of a removed Ponyville Postal Service patch.

“Thanks for being here, Ditzy.”

“Sure thing. Whatever I can do to help, Mayor. What would be a town without a post office, right?”

And like that, she and her short-lived smile flew past me through the window. The crack of a forehead against one of the building’s colonnades and a ‘ouch’ followed suit.

I drank in the heavy silence before I could muster the courage to settle back into my comfy reclining chair, the three letters lined on my desk waiting. I leaned forward.

The first one bore Father’s name.

The second one was serious. Official. The interlaced sun and moon of the Equestrian coat of arms adorned its front. I licked my lips and put my father’s missive to the side.

Muttering a half-assed laugh, I held the royal letter to the window’s light. The paper envelope shone with its smoothness. It was heavy, even accounting for its contents. A wise pony had once told me that a nation’s wealth could be valued by the quality of the mundanities a Crown could waste bits on. It rang true. With the splurge on such a hefty caliper, the Canterlot Post showcased the depth of its coffers.

I turned the envelope over to read the address. Written instead of printed — a rare occurrence. A well-sharpened quill had carved the paper deep, allowing the light blue ink to happily seep in. I registered the address, and stiffness settled in me.

Not an address but a name. Without preceding titles.

Celestia

I turned the letter over twice, but found no mention of urgency, no red stamping. It was just a plain, albeit very regal-looking, letter. One from Celestia herself.

And yet, I reluctantly put it away, squarely over my father’s. I hesitated, mind you, but I set it aside nonetheless. It didn’t matter how hard I wanted to open it.

The last letter bore a red wax seal imprinted with the herald of Filthy Rich’s lawyer. Strangely, the name on the letter wasn’t his. I studied it for a much longer time than the two others. I was unsure of what to do with it.

I finally swallowed and fetched Celestia’s letter again and brought it to my muzzle, smelling it. And this got a laugh. At myself mostly. Was I expecting perfumed letters? Maybe… But I just smelled the reek of my old, dusty office. Age overtook any other scent.

I let out the breath I didn’t know I had held. My decision was made.

The princess could still wait.

I retrieved a small dragon claw from my drawer. Some ponies would have raised eyebrows at such a strange letter opener, but it was a gift from a great, adventurous friend who partook in action archeology — let’s not think about that too much, it’s a can of worms all on its own.

I snatched Filthy Rich’s letter and slid the opener under the lawyer’s seal, snipping it clean off. The red wax fell on my desk without a single crack to bear on its surface. And so, it was ready to join my decades-old mayoral collection of seals. I was proud of that collection, as boring as it sounded. Each seal had a small story to it, or rather behind it.

I unfolded the letter and scoured its content, quickly reading through each paragraph’s first and last sentences. If the envelope to Celestia’s letter was heavy, the message in this one carried a weight of its own in the measure of words. I skipped the salutation bit, and sank deeper into my seat.

“It’s a marvelous day, Mayor. You just have to accept it.”

Stillness and silence quickly became unbearable. I brushed my mane back, pulled myself from the comfort of my inaction, and sprung for the door. The letter fell to the floor, and I left it there. I didn’t turn back.

I hurried out to the streets, an important visit to make in mind, and it couldn't even be past ten o’clock yet.

As I crossed half the town, I recognized that it was a wonderful morning, as it always was in Ponyville. Routinely so. Beautiful chirping birds, clouds, houses… And especially beautiful roses, all lined up, ready to be snipped by the workaholic cream pony I had to visit.

And as I predicted, Roseluck was hard at work in her garden. She sure loved cutting those roses. All of them… methodically. Maybe a bit too ardently.

“Good morning, Miss,” I uttered as I entered her garden. The gate slammed shut behind me, nearly covering the heavy clang of secateurs dropping on the tiled pathway somewhere beyond two lines of shaven vines. "Eh, sorry for startling you. Hope you’re having a great, sunny day!”

“I am not,” Roseluck gibbed a bit too late, still hidden low behind mangled rose bushes.

The moment she straightened up, her eyes went first to the sky then to me.

“How are you doing?” I asked, a stretched out smile on my lips.

Her squinting eyes were my answer. She arched down to bite at something around her hooves where I couldn’t see. Grunting through gritted teeth, likely steeling her jaw, she came back into view with her garden gloves in her mouth. Which she sent flying over my head.

I ducked out of the way, only for them to land on the workbench by the gate behind me.

“I can only guess you received my letter, Mayor?” she said, the hint of a scowl in her tone. “I mean, my lawyer’s.”

I watched the gloves fold and deflate, espousing the shape of some garden tools beneath them.

“I’ve– You mean Flithy’s? Uh, yes. I did.” I gulped, readjusting my glasses up my muzzle as I turned back to her. She didn’t look happy. “I wanted to speak with you about that. I–”

“My choice is final, Mayor,” she cut, brushing a lock of mane behind one of her two twitching ears. Her pained smile snipped in its bud the plea I was ready to make. “Just… Just know I’m angry, Mayor. I know you’re here to ask me to reconsider. But, I just... I just won’t. And if you open your mouth, whatever you’re going to say, you’re just going to make me even angrier.”

“Nothing wrong in trying, right?” I mumbled.

Her eyes locked on mine with fire raging behind them. I stepped back and crooked over a little. With eyes like hers, I felt like prey to a mother bear’s wrath. But her face lightened, her shoulders flexed, and a chuckle escaped her, followed with a shake of her head.

“I’m angry. Just… not at you,” she said with a sigh. “I’m sorry.”

Her lips pinched shut and silence settled between us. We just stared.

I wished I could have bargained right here and there, voiced a sliver of how much I understood her. I did, from the bottom of my heart. We faried in the same boat in the end. It was just proverbially called Ponyville. But my pride and hope of keeping it all together stood in the way — like a bulwark against a reality I wasn’t ready to contend with… yet.

I knew Roseluck had come to accept it at the time, and I still hadn’t. Something was over and I hadn’t quite understood what yet. Indeed, I was the captain of this ship. Let’s say the helsmare to be less arrogant. At that moment, it didn’t matter where the wind blew. The tiller was broken.

I swallowed. No matter the style, that thought was still an arrogant one. I had to admit. But I wouldn’t let my town go without a fight.

As the silence drew on for long, I took a tentative step towards the end of the range of roses and joined Roseluck by her side. She smelled of dirt, roses, and sap. And bottom of the shelf sadness.

“Are you… really sure about it?” I muttered, avoiding her deep green eyes by studying the mangled olive sprouts crushed under my hooves.

A shudder crawled along my spine as I lingered on what spectacle unfolded around me.

Roseluck had sacked her garden.

All the plants were cut down. Each root, each branch, each flower bore the scars of scissors, saws, and pruners. And past them, eating at the fence of her workplace and household stood the Wall.

I spent my days trying to avoid thinking about it, looking at it. But sometimes, it was impossible.

The Wall. The proverbial elephant in the room.

The Wall. That unfathomable darkness had grown larger yet again.

Its smooth surface, as large as a Manehattan skyscraper, had touchdowned with Roseluck’s garden. In a few days, it would eat a quarter of it. Then half. Then, finally, everything — her house included. It wouldn’t stop at her house. I knew it. And nopony could stop it.

For now. For now. I prayed.

I shook my head and cleared my throat. “I mean,” I continued, “I feel like if there is any time to address the elephant in the room, it might be now.”

I had to force those words through my teeth.

“Please,” she said before I could continue my tirade, “don’t make this harder for me, Mayor. I–”

“Good morning everypony!” Pinkie boomed.

The garden gate burst in, a pink whirlwind tearing through the air and up over a bonsai tucked in between dried cacti. Two legs found their way around Roseluck’s neck and mine. We didn’t even get the chance to breathe.

My hooves scraped against the garden tiles and I ended up head to head with Roseluck and Pinkie, who was hugging us both tightly.

“Why the grumpy face, Rosy?” Pinkie asked, punctuating her words with a giggle and a boop. “Not something I can’t do anything about, though! I’m sure we can find the right thing to stretch a proper smile on those sorry cheeks.”

“Rosy...?” Roseluck spelled slowly.

“Yes, exactly!” Pinkie chirped, with a smile and a roll of eyes. “No need to be so gloomy and formal.”

Roseluck hurked and slipped out of reach. Her hoof struck the ground in a sharp, stony clap that startled Pinkie and I. A pruner fell off her pinafore, clanking against the tiles amidst the sudden silent that had befallen us.

Roseluck swiped the garden scissors with a swift kick. The tool somersaulted to her flank, and a swing of her withers sent them flying to the workbench by the gate, where they joined her gloves.

Pinkie whistled at the feat, clapping her hooves together. But soon enough, her eyes settled on the desk, then the garden. Her joyful wonder turned into a grimace. Once any hint of a smile was gone, nothing remained but an apprehensive, careful study of her surroundings.

The more Pinkie watched, the more I felt like I was looking into a mirror. She tried to smile once again. But…

The short-lived grin became hesitant, and then vanished. Her face offered a harrowing flurry of emotions, twists and turns, wrinkles and crinkles. They settled into a rare sight: a forced smile. One that didn’t hide the darkness lurking in her eyes.

“So what can I do for you, Rosy?” Pinkie asked. Any ounce of boisterous certainty was gone. “It just hurts to see anypony sad these days and–”

“Stop. Right there.” Roseluck closed her eyes, sifting a deep breath through gritted teeth. “You, Mayor, everypony. Stop.”

“But we’re all alone h–”

“Stop!”

A vein within her neck pulsed. Her body shook from head to hoof. Her lips pursed back over her teeth. Her words faltered at the tip of her tongue. As I failed to step in, she was the first to break the silence.

“Well then, you’ll keep seeing ponies being hurt, Pinkie. Have you seen the Wall? The one, right here, that’s eating my fence?” She snarled, brushing her mane back. A few leaves fell out of it. “Come back when you have any idea of what to do. Not like anypony knows anything anyway. Even the Canterlot ponies don’t bother coming here anymore. For what they’re worth.”

The cold, black blob that had loomed over us for several months now, like a sword hung on a fraying string. Twilight’s castle had apparently not been enough of a meal. The town was here to satiate it. And because it was hungry, it had grown tremendously, consistently. More houses, more boutiques, more, more, more. Always. A quarter of Ponyville was already gone and we weren’t even that far into the Fall yet.

I hated it. Everypony did, of course, but pride told me I did more than anypony else. The Wall was a personal attack. It had already taken too much away from my town. And I wasn’t talking about the town proper only. No. it’d also taken ponies — even if figuratively. They packed up and left. Day after day.

I swallowed and nodded. There and then, in this garden, where so many flowers had bloomed to decorate my town, I knew very well who would be the next flower to be cut down. Yet another departee. She stood in front of me. With a bright red rage on her face.

Roseluck’s hoof slammed against the tiles again. She pointed past Pinkie at the section of her garden fence that had gone overnight into the darkness. It was already touching the end of a row of roses with its cold embrace.

Everything it touched browned and died, as if the winter had come under the cover of the night, caused its seasonal destruction, and left without a trace.

Well, I would be lying twice with that metaphor. The Wall wasn’t cold metaphorically. It was cold! Its round smoothness gave off a terrible chill, and the unmoving bushes that sadly fell into its radius wore a shroud of frost.

“That…” Roseluck hiccuped, her hoof still pointing, her eyes still boring into mine, “will eat everything. All I’ve worked for.”

Her rump hit the pavement, slamming dust aloft. A muffled, angry sob followed.

“Oh come on, Rosy,” Pinkie comforted as she rushed to her side. “It’s mean and big, and... hungry. But it’s just like a very dark, uh, party balloon, right?”

“A very terrifying one,” Roseluck muttered. Her hoof played with a few dead leaves that lay by her side. “It will leave nothing. Not even a trace of my work will remain. Of this town.”

A long sigh escaped her lips. Her chest fell in resounding defeat. Pain stung like a vice around my heart. Even though it would only be for a few more hours, she was still one of my constituents. I had to do something, but really… I was powerless.

So I imitated her: staring away at the hundreds of petals and buds and burgeons that littered the ground. Each rose she’d tediously grown now lay beheaded, left to rot. Even the smell of mulch and compost was missing. I saw no bags lying about. She had sold everything.

Roseluck hunched forward and held her face in her hoof. “It’s been three months.”

Three months indeed since the Wall had appeared. But it felt like its own little eternity.

“We’ll find a solution,” Pinkie whispered.

“I’ve already found mine.” She coughed, wiped her face in the back of her leg, and rasped. “It’s up to you to decide for yourselves.”

Pinkie hugged the garden mare; Roseluck didn’t balk away this time. Instead, she lay her cheek in the crook Pinkie’s neck. One last headpat from the party pony as tears matted both their coats.

“I pinkie promise,” Pinkie muttered.

“Somepony will help,” I offered after I mustered the courage to swallow down the spiny knot in my throat.

“Twilight’s gone,” Roseluck heaved, her face now buried in Pinkie’s mane. “Everypony’s going away. Even Discord fled to Canterlot. It’s just us… you know.”

I had nothing to counter back. She was right. The Princess was gone, and so was Miss Starlight Glimmer. Everypony guessed they had been inside the castle when the Wall appeared. Forked tongues had spread further rumors. Allegations her friends had worked hard to dispel.

“Any party balloon wants to be big, Rosy,” Pinkie said and she wiped away Roseluck’s tears. “We just need to find a way to pop it. Right…?”

There was no shine in Pinkie’s smile. Gone was her brightest, or sincerest. She only had a smile now.

Most of the town’s denizens were like Ponyville’s accounting books. Yeah, terrible comparison, I know. But still. I could read them, the books and the ponies, and I could point out fake entries. Seeing Pinkie then sent my heart tumbling again. I held a hoof to my chest.

“Come on, Rosy, we’ll find a solution,” Pinkie mumbled, tears carved their way down her cheeks.

“It gets bigger everyday, Pinkie. It’s never going to stop,” Roseluck stuttered, tapping against a few torn flowers lying next to her. “I’m… I’m leaving. There’s nothing left for me in Ponyville. And you can’t do anything about it.”

“It’s like a hungry hippo. It’s gonna be full at some point,” Pinkie said. “The Wall... It sounds really scary, I know. But you know the song, Rosy. Giggle at the ghosties. That’s what we do here in Po–”

“Shut up,” Roseluck breathed. “Please. Let me make my choice.”

I worked through the tension in my legs, swallowed the acrid taste in my mouth, and ignored the apprehension in my chest. I asked, “Is there no way you’ll reconsider?”

Pinkie threw me a pleading glance.

“I wouldn’t have bothered with a lawyer and some boring legalities if I weren’t,” Roseluck said. “They cost money.”

“Come on, Rosy–” Pinkie pleaded again.

“Declared bankruptcy.” Roseluck wrangled herself out of Pinkie’s embrace, her face twisted as she eyed us both. She pinched her lips then sighed. “I made my choice, okay? And Pinkie, please stop calling me that. I’m not a filly you can bribe with a lollipop.”

“But we’re friends, right? I got to try anything for my friends,” Her strained voice died in a whimper, her composure crumbling like a sand castle falling to the wave of sadness that washed over the three of us. “You have to see the bright side of things! Look, you’re cutting all your roses. You must have got a massive order from Canterlot!”

Roseluck studied the mess she’d made of her garden. She chuckled — a dark, rumbling laughter that never got past her teeth.

“I appreciate the attempt, Pinkie.” She hesitated. Long. Drawn-out hesitation. Her chest rose in a slow ascent. She looked at me with discomfort. I knew that sharp words were forming in her head. They quickly made their way down, armed and ready to stumble out of her mouth. They came out in one single take. Unhesitant, decisive… Incisive. “But we’re not friends. Acquaintances, maybe. But friends? I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.”

Pinkie faltered, the words landing with such strength her cheery expression melted away in surprise, shame, and hurt. I too felt that gut punch.

“Ros– Roseluck,” Pinkie bargained. “I don’t want another Quills and Sofas… or like what happened to Timeturner’s shop. You have to stay open, for all of us. We need you as much as you need… us?”

I hadn't heard of Timeturner in a few days. Either every single one of his clocks had broken down or he had broken them himself. They lay in a heap in front of his former shop.

“It’s not your choice to make, Pinkie.” Roseluck stepped back and towered over her. “It’s mine, and I’m leaving. With my business officially bankrupt, I’m hoping to turn a new chapter in my life.” Roseluck bit her lip and, shaking her head, sighed. “Wonderful things end, Pinkie… They always do.”

Roseluck gave me her best close-lipped smile, but it didn’t hide the tiredness and redness in her eyes. She radiated sadness, and a cold resolve. Her chest rose and fell in a staccato, her breath coming out in heaves. There would be no negotiation. I was certain of it. Pinkie would only hurt herself carrying on. Yet another collateral damage.

“You have to recognize it, Pinkie,” Roseluck continued, never looking away from me, “and, sometimes, those beautiful things going away, they happen to be whole towns. A party always ends.” She clicked her tongue and nodded, not to me it seemed, but to herself. “It always does.”

I clenched my jaw, barely nodding, and broke away from her stare to go and hug Pinkie. Her sobs, Ponyville’s saddest sound to my ears, rattled my core, left thorns in my throat, and brought my soul to a silent scream.

This was the terrible result of something Equestria couldn’t fight yet. If at all. And as a mayor, I could only reckon the burning resentment in my chest, the heated hatred for the Wall, and that dread for the future. The future of a place I’d cherished and loved that was slowly withering away to a pestilence I could not impede.

“It is final...” I told Roseluck over Pinkie’s shoulder. More a statement than a question.

Roseluck nodded with confidence and sympathy. “Yes. Thank you for the precious help all these years, Mayor. I am... sorry for Ponyville.”

“Stop her...” Pinkie muttered in my ear between two muffled hiccups. “Please.”

Roseluck and I shared a long, difficult look, both of us immobile until I granted a silent approval I knew she didn’t need.

A personal life-changing choice always impacted everypony around, but I hadn’t come to her garden to hoofcuff her to this place. Those shackles, the ones I loved to wear, were only my own to bear.

Roseluck had already cut her ties, cut everything standing in her garden, and thrown the results of her vendetta in a large wilted and withering pile somewhere, if not directly into the Wall. Scorched earth without a fire. An exit without fanfare.

“You cut everything?” I asked, motioning at her garden, shedding any ounce of accusation from my tone.

“I’ve seen what touches the Wall,” Roseluck whispered, her eyes glassy, her breath short as she glared daggers at the silent and cold culprit. “I don’t think plants feel pain but… I’m not going to risk it. No living thing deserves to be touching...” She glanced up at the summit of the eldritch mountain, “that thing.”

I finally noticed a small satchel behind an empty flower pot, its flap open. I readjusted my glasses to get a glimpse of the many small pouches tucked inside, each marked with sharpie or stamped with a sticker.

Seeds.

“Yeah,” Roseluck mumbled, catching on the object of my curiosity. “Soon, the Wall will have eaten everything. Better harvest the seeds and hope to get a clean start somewhere else.” She wiped some stray tears off her cheeks. “Snip this life in the bud, you know. Hoping to grow some new roots somewhere else, right? I… I just hope you’ll all be okay. It’s not because I leave that I don’t care.”

“I– I– I’m sorry,” Pinkie said, working her jaw against my shoulder. “I just wanted to cheer you up. And a lot of ponies need cheering up these days. With… uhm — ” She motioned at the Wall with her hoof without looking. “ — that. Nothing’s been right since it came here.”

I hugged Pinkie tighter and let her cheek rest in the bend of my neck. As Pinkie’s breathing slowed, Roseluck and I exchanged a quick smile. An earnest one.

At this time, I’d usually clear my throat. I usually did whenever I was about to address my little ponies. A kind of ritual. A way of steadying myself and being ready to face the day’s issues, to clearly enunciate the town’s charted course. But I had no path to offer that day.

I nodded instead.

“Thank you for all the roses.”

5. Sharing

Luster brought her cold tea to her lips. “That was bleak.”

“It was,” Mare said, departing a warm hug with Pinkie. Hidden scars remained, despite all the time that had passed.

“So… uhm, the town started packing up and leaving after the Wall showed up?”

“Yes,” Cheerilee said. “Parents sent their kids to other towns and cities, they usually followed soon after. Ponyville, back then, was depopulating faster than you could say ‘parasprite’.”

“Not a day passed between new departures, news of bankruptcy, or just… discovering empty houses,” Mare added, working her jaw before continuing, “Friendships took a dive following the events. And the whole town fractured.”

Luster mulled that over. Friendship was important, that’s what Teacher Twilight taught her. The lifeblood of Ponykind. But she also knew that a town ought to have inhabitants to be called a proper town, and hearing Mare mention the town’s coffer, it wasn’t a long stretch to imagine that beyond the social fabric ripping apart, the town’s financial wellbeing also plunged.

“You mentioned being alone in bed,” Luster pointed out, nodding at Cheerilee. “You broke up back then?”

Cheerilee chuckled. Somberly. “Yes, we’d broken up, then. But it’s the past.”

“She fired you?” Luster asked, prodding.

Mare coughed in her hoof. “No, I didn’t.”

“You kinda did,” Cheerilee countered, an eyebrow raised while Pinkie made herself small in between the two arguing spouses. The teacher glanced at Luster. “Clever filly.”

Luster clenched her teeth tight so she wouldn’t grin from ear to ear. She loved being right. Very much so.

Mare took a deep breath, and held it. It came out a long sigh.

“Alright, yes. Yes.” She shook her head and crooked over, like her spine had deflated. She lifted her chin and readjusted her glasses. She looked over the rims at Luster. “A lot of stuff went wrong and a lot of stuff, well, we couldn’t afford. With no money to cover the school, and since there were no kids left in town, I cut it.” She turned to Cheerilee and extended a hoof, which was received with kindness. Cheerilee held it in between both of hers. “I still hate myself for doing that.”

“I’m glad it’s behind us now,” Cheerilee confessed. “Water under the bridge, right?”

“Yes.”

“If I recall correctly,” Pinkie started, trying to dig herself out from between the two spouses, “not all the kids had left when Cheerilee left.”

“Pinkie,” Mare hushed under her breath as Cheerilee retracted her hoof, crossing her legs. “Come on, don’t–”

“No, it’s true,” Pinkie chirped, her tail wagging from left to right between her back and the sofa. “It’s when Diamond Ti–”

Cheerilee pressed her hoof against Pinkie’s muzzle. “I don’t want… We don’t want to talk about it, Pinkie,” she said with acid in her voice.

“Well, you know. It’s going to be hard, not gonna lie,” Pinkie giggled, locking her tail under her flank. “After all, she’s here.”

“Who, Diamond?” Mare sputtered.

“No, one of the gang!”

“Who’s Diamond?” Luster asked, raising a hoof as if she was back in school.

That’s when the doorbell rang.

“I’m not so rusty after all,” Pinkie said, a celebrating smile stretching upon her cheek. She sprung from her cushion and trotted off to the hall, shrilling, “I’m coming!”

Luster leaned forward to her aged hosts and asked in a hushed tone, “You were expecting somepony?”

Cheerilee and Mare shared a look. Their response came together.

“No?”

Laughter and cheers filled the hallway, followed by two sets of hooves, one imparting Pinkie’s happy staccato and another, measured and strong — a stride with heft. Luster wasn’t ready for who came through the door.

A lavender mane with pink streaks. A silver necklace with a single pearl in a plain locket. An immaculate cream coat that shone even in the subdued light of the living room. And the subtle fragrance of roses.

Luster knew that mare. A singer. An artist. A Canterlot socialite. Very much like her sister.

Sweetie Belle.

“Hi, everypony!” the young mare greeted, waving a hoof. “I was just passing by to say hello. Pinkie Pie had to drag me in.”

“Drag you in? You walked in this trap on your own,” Pinkie cackled with a wide grin. “Come on, you know you can’t escape from tea and biscuits with a bunch of old mares.”

Luster caught Mare raising her hoof at that.

“Old mares?” Sweetie Belle feigned surprise, a hoof on her lips to hold in a gasp. “I only see a group of fine ladies here.”

Then her eyes met Luster’s and her eyebrows knitted. “Isn’t it Twilight’s prized pupil, Luster Dawn?” She ran to shake her hoof. “What are you doing here so far from your ivory tower, Luster? I thought you were pretty much like Twilight in her teens. A recluse!”

Luster pinched her lips. Well, yes, but no. She wasn’t a recluse. Like, no! Maybe? She pinched her lips again; bit on them. She took a sharp breath, ready to pounce. But…

She sighed in defeat. Yes, she kinda was. She wouldn’t be doing internal monologues and pestering constantly about being in Ponyville otherwise. But still! Ponyville was boring, and that story was boring too. Couldn’t Sweetie Belle read that on her face. Apparently it was that easy to read her.

“I think Twilight punished Luster by sending her here,” Mare said with a chuckle.

Luster couldn’t agree more.

“Punished?” Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes. Her smile faded when she met Luster’s eyes, and her shrug. She looked up at her former teacher. “Come on, what is she having you ramble about?”

“The Wall,” Cheerilee replied.

A shadow fell on Sweetie Belle’s face.

“Oh.”

“Twilight asked me to come here to get some… eh.” She didn’t know what to make of Twilight’s request, “witness accounts? Testimonies? I don’t really know.”

“We were just about to talk about the incident,” Pinkie mentioned, and the shadow darkened on Sweetie Belle’s face.

“Can I have a seat at the table?”

“Sure,” Cheerilee said. She pushed both Pinkie and Mare to leave some space in the middle of the sofa.

Mare, Pinkie, Sweetie Belle, and Cheerilee settled along, their jaws worked into a thin line, gritted teeth hidden behind closed lips and somber faces. Slowly but surely, everypony locked eyes on Sweetie Belle. Her sharp olive eyes hung low.

Where Luster expected what could be called the antithesis of levity, Sweetie Belle started snickering instead. A hearty laughter that made the three other mares cork eyebrows. It definitely wasn’t a happy laugh; Luster caught Pinkie cringing at it.

“I have nothing actually,” Sweetie said with a shrug. She laughed again. “I never really dwelled on what happened in Ponyville during the incident! You,” she said, pointing at her close neighbors, “were still here.”

“And you weren’t?” Luster asked, teetering forwardas her mind raced to get the implication. What did she mean? Given the three mares’ reactions, she had assumed she’d been in Ponyville at the time. She certainly had done something. It clicked. “Wait… You went inside that thi– the Wall?”

Sweetie Belle turned to Cheerilee. “Can the teacher cover for her student one last time.”

Cheerilee’s eyes glistened and her deep breath echoed in the otherwise suddenly silent living room. She nodded.

“Okay.”

6. The Last Belle

“There is a fine line between laughing and crying, Darling.”

Rarity took a short whiff of her cigarette, snuffed it in the ashtray on her divan’s legrest, and flicked the butt away. Her magic trailed behind the discarded piece up until its first bounce on the parquet. The Carousel Boutique’s dark interior swallowed all evidence of her naughty little vice.

She growled, sunk into the sofa she dragged to the center of her boutique, and laid her head in her hoof. Her pinprick eyes remained still, starkly staring at a poor party pony who was hanging her head low in front of her.

“Who am I kidding?” Rarity lamented. “Pinkie, you ought to understand that you can’t keep a pendulum swinging forever. Keeping a hoof on its thread, to make it sway faster or to give it yet another extra push? To keep that bead dancing?” She rubbed her face. “It’s just a vain joke. One that prolonged its welcome. Ponies will grow tired of it, even you will… I hope. Really. And, you know, then what?”

“Everypony needs to be cheered up these days, Rarity, and it also means you,” Pinkie whispered, not daring towards the sofa. Rarity scoffed and rolled over to face the backrest. “Everypony’s got to laugh, Rarity, to be happy. Dontcha think?”

Pinkie tugged at Rarity’s silk gown, past the cover of emptied ice cream tubs. Rarity wiggled away and merely glanced back at her friend. Though curtains obscured most of Carousel Boutique’s windows, a single sunray managed to slither into the room, slicing the scene in half. It hit Rarity square in the snout.

Rarity held her hoof high to shade her eyes. Grey, purple, and blue stains matted her gown and snout. Normally Rarity would never let ice cream stain her — not in a right state of mind. And yet, her overall was covered in blotches, cream and brown alike. It didn’t feel right at all.

“Ponies need laughter and fun, now more than ever,” Pinkie protested again in a hushed tone. She kneeled by the sofa to dig her friend out of the caloric graveyard. “And you’re a pony, unless — unless you’re Discord or some changeling… Are you Chryssy? I mean, if you are–”

“Stop. Stop. Please,” Rarity whined. “I’m in no mood.”

Pinkie tried again and tugged a bit more forcefully at Rarity’s leg. The seamstress yelped back and snatched her limb away, tucking herself under her garbage.

“Rarity, please. You need... I need you,” Pinkie begged. “My laugh, my jokes. I’m losing it. Ponyville. With all that’s going around here, it’s too much. With Twilight and Starlight and all the others gone, I need my friends to laugh… with me. Because if– if I can’t even help my friends, who’s going to help me?”

Even the darkness couldn’t hide the defeat that painted Pinkie’s pale face.

Rarity rolled back to her. In the slit of light, the mare’s eyes gleamed with annoyance. Pinkie crooked away the moment Rarity let out a long-winded sigh. It carried more thorns and sharpened edges than a jagged knife.

“You will get hurt, Pinkie,” Rarity muttered. “You can’t bear the world on your shoulders. And I am not asking you to. What kind of friend would I be?”

“I may get hurt,” Pinkie replied, “but I gotta t–”

“Leave me alone. Please.”

“–try because otherwise ponies might get hurt even worse. That’s why I’m here. Everypony needs some buffer against the bad, right? That means you too.”

“Hush,” Rarity snapped as she pointed past Pinkie, straight towards me. “How long has this one been here?”

My ears hung low from my retreat in a darker corner of the room.

“Cheerilee?” Pinkie asked, turning back with a grimace. “Since we came in. We’re worried about you, Rara.”

“Hum, hello,” I said with a difficult smile and a wave. Rarity waved back and threw herself over, as if to wrap her body back in some ice-creamy bedsheets. “I was just… I was here to say your parents have arrived, Rarity. They’re waiting for you.”

“All of this, the Wall, the lost, the found, the… broken,” Rarity growled, ignoring my words. “How long has it been going on?”

I didn’t quite care to contemplate the situation. I stepped forwards. I wasn't going to let that mare hurt, and hurt other ponies by proxy. “How long have you been mulling here?” I asked, a sharpness in my voice I never thought I’d have.

“How long since the —” Rarity motioned her hoof and contorted over to stare at me “— the commotion happened?”

“Three weeks,” I replied hesitantly, and threw a fleeting smile at Pinkie. Silent tears rained down her cheeks.

“So… six months since this whole mess started,” Rarity mumbled to herself, before exclaiming, “Ah, wintertime, how fortunate, the shortest days and coldest nights, oh, the most dreadful of times.” She brushed her mane over her face, hiding herself from Pinkie’s sight. Meanwhile, her hoof fished for any potential surviving ice cream sludge. "How fitting for a mood."

“Come on, Rarity, today is an important day,” Pinkie pleaded between two hiccups. “You gotta come.”

“Have you ever considered some ponies like to cry, Pinkie?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Pinkie answered. “Why would anypony like to cry? It’s sad and, and, and… grouchy ponies end up alone. Nopony wants to be alone, right? It hurts, and if you hurt you get sadder, and you push ponies away, and you get aloner, and…” Pinkie’s muzzle scrunched up. “So, uhm, n– no?”

“I want to be alone right now.” Rarity clicked her tongue and the hollow note rang loud, and it cut deep. Like taking a cleaver to a chocolate cake. If Pinkie was the cake. The poor mare faltered and her knee hit the parquet floor.

“Are you angry, Rarity?” Pinkie asked. “Angry at me?”

A sigh was often more painful than silence. Rarity offered the former.

“Ahem!” I coughed in my hoof, calling for their attention.

“What!?” Rarity snapped.

“I’m sorry,” Pinkie whispered, eyes locked on her hooves.

I shook my head and exhaled. “Many ponies are expecting you, Rarity. And to be honest, you're being a terrible friend.”

“I don’t want to go,” Rarity sniffled.

“Come on, Rarity,” Pinkie pleaded. “Please.”

“Pinkie,” I said, and her ears perked up. She swallowed and hunched over, hiding the tears matting her pale, pinkish face. “Could you… give me a moment with Rarity? Alone.”

Her mouth opened, but no words came forth. Her tears fell off her chin and, catching the faint light, twinkled on their way down. I smiled as hard as I could and patted her shoulder. After a time, she sat on her withers and held onto her slick mane.

She inhaled and nodded. “I hope you’re better at cheering her than I am."

With that, she stood up and turned around. Her first hoofstep hit the parquet like an anvil, and I caught her in a surprise hug. She withheld a sob and reached out, returning the gesture.

“It’s okay, Pinkie,” I said. “Sometimes, things don’t work out. Rarity is mean because she's sad.”

Pinkie’s response came as a nod that brushed against my fur. I laid my head against her mane and let her drink in my warm embrace. Like foals, touch-starved ponies needed their time.

Soon enough, Pinkie slipped away from me and paced herself to the exit. Rarity groaned as the evening's sunlight rushed in for the brief moment as the door swung open. Pinkie’s hoof accompanied it on its way to a close; the hinges never squeaking.

Rarity and I simmered in silence. The room was thick with smoke and the smell of poor hygiene, mixed with that of chocolate chips and vanilla ice cream. I winced as I caught a better view of the poor mare from my close vantage. I put a hoof on the sofa, feeling its mushiness, and sought the occupant’s shoulder to give her a hearty pat.

“I’m not going,” Rarity mumbled before I could reach her.

I retracted my hoof. “You should.”

“Let me have one last evening alone in my boutique, my home, before it gets destroyed,” Rarity said, her voice a low whisper. Her hooves scraped against her caked up mane. “Please, leave me alone.”

“Rarity–” I said firmly. "You need to come."

“I. Am. Not. Going!”

She ruffled around on the sofa and a dirty ashtray popped from under her and fell over. It shattered into a hundred bits against the cold, hard floor. Each shard was a diamond that caught the light through the Boutique’s single half-drawn curtain.

I exhaled the breath I hadn't realized I was holding, caught by surprise at the intensity of her outburst. Though hesitant at first, I brushed the floor and sat by the legrest. Rarity was crying as I reached out and rested my hoof against the musty fabric of the sofa by her shoulder. Her hoof soon crept up to meet mine.

"I am sorry," she rasped.

“It’s not about you, you know,” I replied. “It’s about her.”

“I smell.” Rarity sobbed, “don’t I?”

I nodded slowly. “Like a skunk.”

She chuckled and turned her head at me. Her lips creased with a sadness she could hardly contain. She gulped, loud and clear. “Like a diamond dog?”

“Like a yak in a tropical forest.”

“Now you’re overselling, Dear,” she mumbled.

“You should dress,” I said, retracting my hoof from hers. "Shower first, though."

“For what occasion?”

I recoiled... "Rarity. Rarity,” I sputtered. “F– For the funeral, of course. Don’t you remember?"

"There’s no pony to bury, Cheerilee."

"Your parents are waiting. Rarity, I–"

"She is not there!" she screamed.

I stumbled back, pushed away as she rolled off of the sofa. She hit the floor face first, a loud thump that sent empty ice cream tubs tumbling and bouncing on the parquet. The mess of slurry splashed at my hooves.

She lunged at me. She lunged at me, grabbing me by the collar. Her hooves scraped against my coat and her vanilla-gooped muzzle pressed against my chest.

I stood still, waiting for a blow that never came. I looked down; she looked up. Her face was melting through emotions fast. Anger, pain, fear, anger again, her traits twisting every time she fought back the tears that rolled down her cheeks.

"She is not there. Got it?” she hissed, a hoof painfully locked around my leg. She swallowed a knot, hiccuped, and shook her head. The hiss turned into a snarl. “No, you don’t get it. Why would you? You didn't act when you could’ve… Why would you now?"

I faltered under her weight, heaving as she dragged me to my knees. She rolled into a ball by my hooves and I expected her to force her way under my barrel. For safety? But she curled into a fetal position and sobbed.

"I won't," she rasped, her face hidden under her leg, "I won't go to her funeral."

"Rarity–" I whispered, patting her dirty mane. My heart was pounding, a cold sweat running down my neck. As she took a deep breath, her lips curling up to show gritted teeth, I braced.

"You could have stopped it," she spat. We exchanged stares and she retreated back under her hoof. "That spawn of Filthy Rich. That little, sniveling devil you've put up with in your school — in your own class! You could have stopped her. But you didn’t."

I faltered again. My rump hit the cold, sticky wooden floor. As I looked aside, Rarity crooked herself back up on her withers, then up on her four hooves. Her legs popped as she stood high and towering. I dared not look into the blue fire that was surely raging in her eyes.

But the shine of the parquet reflected the icy glimmer of her horn. Rarity rarely looked down at ponies, but when she did… She had a certain talent for making you feel worthless.

I raised my head and she closed her eyes. Her chest rose. She held her breath. Only after a few seconds did air leave her lungs in a staccato. As many arrows that pinned me at her hoof. I could only wait for the unleashing of the rightful fury pulling her at the seams.

A twinkle and a spark. Her horn flashed and a whipping crack ripped my eardrums. Along with her scream.

The sofa barreled past me and crashed against the wall. It ripped off a canvas on the way down, crushed a desk and the rolls of fine, black fabrics stacked over it. Cushions and ice cream tubs rained. A mannequin toppled to the side in a clang, snapped in half. The mourning gown it wore tore with it.

Silence settled in the boutique, broken only by a spools of thread that rolled in a semicircle until it hit my hoof. Cold sweat cascaded down my spine.

"You could have stopped that brat and her little bet," Rarity seethed. “Where were you during that recess?”

Her tears clawed black old mascara down her cheeks. Like trenches through pristine lands. Loud and heavy breaths wracked her, like war drums, a rhythmic flow of untold curses. First at me I was sure, then at a world I knew she felt had wronged her.

"You didn't do anything then, and you're not doing anything now.” Her withers hit the floor in a pathetic thump and she finally looked at me at eye-level. "That bully killed my sister and you..." Her lips revealed grinding teeth. Her eyes, hesitant.

I was crying too.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," she muttered. Her hoof struck the nearest floorboard hard enough she ripped off a long shard of wood. Her pastern was bleeding, and she didn’t even utter a ouch. She stared at the gash instead. For a time. Before her eyes drifted back to me, boring into me with fire. "You know the worst thing, Cheerilee. The most enraging, blood-boiling part? It wasn't that– that foal... It was her father.” My throat choked on those words. I had a hard time breathing the rancid air of the boutique. “He never came to me. He never apologized. He never considered me — I, an arriviste in more than the nobles’ eyes.”

She stood up and walked to the nearest tub of ice cream and kicked it away. Its left-over content spurt in an arc against the flooring. The plastic package hit a sewing machine and splat to the floor where it rested, rocking from side to side.

"He never communicated. The coward. Only his lawyers did." Her lips trembled, but not from sadness. Only rage, boiling, an earthquake of emotions that stood her coat on end. "They never came to my door either, only letters came."

"I’m sorry," I said, finally breaking my mutism. "I–"

"He was ready to discuss compensation.” I had never heard her seeth like that. A snake under a pony’s coat. She repeated, not in anger this time, but in defeat, "ready to discuss compensation. As if I was here to negotiate my sister's weight in gold."

I gulped. And felt the grass cut from under me. She’d chuckled. A grim, dark laugh that felt like a blade pushing into my flank.

“Sometimes, I resent Twilight, you know,” she whispered, her head coming low as if to hide under her own legs. My heart wrenched. “It’s a passing feeling really, but a feeling nonetheless. I am glad she came storming into town all those years ago; made my life so great and bountiful.” She breathed through gritted teeth. “But it makes dealing with reality so much harder. That’s why I resent her. Once the high of being by her side wore off, seeing how the world actually works outside the Nobility’s preserve is such a torture.”

She walked to her snapped mannequin, and pulled the gown from it. She wiped her face clean with the fabric, both mascara and ice-cream. And threw the fabric on the overturned sofa. She lingered over the naked mannequin parts.

They hurled against the ceiling, the floor, the ceiling again, the brute force of Rarity’s bright blue magic rippling outwards in blueish waves. It rained nuts, bolts and stuffing. A waltz of clattering, clanking, and ripping.

Some time spent in silence passed until I found the courage to stand up again. Rarity had come to sit down, riveted by the fruit of her work. Only the gentle rocking of her back let me know she was there in the shadow of her boutique. The sun was nearly set outside. Gone was the sliver of light that had torn through the shop.

Soon this shop would be gone too. Either by its owner's choice, like what had happened to Timeturner's. Or by coercion, like with Roseluck. Cheerilee sighed. Timeturner didn't have a choice when one came to it. Fragile things broke down in the vicinity of the Wall. His clocks, any fine piece of refined mechanisms... friendships too.

Rarity’s thrumming heartbeat echoed the weight of her pain, the burden of her grief.

"I’m a terrible pony," she whispered as I sat by her side. “Broken, like my sewing machines, like everything in town. It's all broken.”

"No, you're not,” I said. Even broken clocks were right twice a day. “It's okay to be angry–"

“Am I scary?” In the light of her horn, a forced smile spread her lips apart. As I was unable to muster a word, her eyes broke away from mine and rested on her hurt hoof. A sob escaped her. "I am absolutely, thoroughly mad, dear, and– and–"

"Rarity..."

I stood up and, prodding around, found a discarded candle. I found a match and soon enough, a faint but warm orange light bathed the boutique. I could have opened the curtains, but for the little light that remained outside, I didn’t dare risk peering eyes. Rarity didn’t deserve that.

"I’m such a bad mare,” Rarity said, “I know what it would mean. If she hadn’t intervened in Diamond Tiara’s bet.” I did know too. Sweetie Belle had saved somepony from touching the wall. A bet Diamond Tiara had edged others to try. “But… I still wish Sweetie Belle was here.” She rubbed snot off her muzzle and turned to me. “She had to save Scootaloo, right? That poor pegasus had to take that bet, didn’t she?"

We sat down together, with my hoof on her shoulder. “You can’t change the past, Rarity. What Sweetie Belle did was what any good friend would do.”

“I know, it’s just…” She hiccuped. "I’m selfish. Oh, to hope that, for once, the universe would’ve been generous to me." She cried into her hooves, like I had never seen her do before. And though Rarity cried a lot, this time wasn't for dramatics, but tragedy. “I’m pathetic.”

And I had a first-row seat.

"I’m awful, rebuking," she blubbered. “A social climber.”

"Rarity!" I called out, slapping both her ears. She perked up, eyes wide and unfocused, and she gasped as I forced her into my open legs. "You are not okay, and that's, uh, okay — it is... it's alright to cry. You are a great mare, and seeing you like that..." I gestured at the destruction she wrought around her boutique. "It shows you really loved her."

“Love doesn’t matter when it’s too late to give it," she spat once a heavy sigh passed. "She isn't dead… She isn’t dead."

I pinched my lips. Holding my breath, I swallowed the chestnut shell deep down my throat, and forced myself to smile. "Can you do something for me?" I asked.

Her ears perked and she hummed back to me. "Yeah."

"Take a shower. You stink.” I said, and she laughed. As I held her tight, I wiped her tears and maquillage against my fur. Sneakily. “I didn't take Rarity, the greatest seamstress, for a filthy diamond dog."

“That’s prejudice, you know.”

“You started it with the metaphors.”

“Touchée,” she snorted and curled into my legs to smell her leg pit, and gagged. "I’m such a degenerate —" I slapped her ear again. "— Ow! What’s that for?"

"Stop commiserating,” I ordered, “and go take a shower. I herd foals all day, I don't want to deal with a marebaby this evening."

"Like you did such a good job at it in the first place."

I faltered and let go of her, her gasp nearly unheard as my chest tightened at the strength of her verbal blow. Eyes closed, I worked on steadying my breath. But I couldn’t hold the tears back.

"I’m sorry. I’m so sorry," Rarity muttered, straightening herself on her shaky legs. "I’m being so uncouth right now, and hurtful, and mean. Look at me, I’ve made you cry." She scoffed. “What an element of generosity, I am!”

“Just shut up.”

She froze and I swallowed back the stronger words tittering on the tip of my tongue. I sniffled, took a deep breath, and nodded.

"I wish I could have been more vigilant that day, Rarity,” I said, lips quivering. “I should’ve seen Diamond Tiara coming up with that nasty bet about touching the Wall. I should’ve seen Scootaloo falling for it.” I crossed my legs and dodged her eyes. “There’s not a single day that I don’t wish that I could go back and change that. I failed her. And I’m, oh, so... so sorry.” I burst into tears and fell apart like a house of cards. Crooked over, defeated, remorseful. “Nopony, especially Sweetie Belle, deserved that."

"She isn’t d–"

I snagged her into a strong hug and motioned at the chaotic state of her shop. "Hush now, just… let’s stop this exercise in self-destruction."

"Are you calling me melodramatic?"

“Kind of.”

“I know I’m a terrib–”

"No. Stop,” I said. “Clasp that cute fuzzy muzzle of yours shut, young lady.” I pressed her face against my chest as I inhaled deeply and loudly and let it all out in one single stream of air and regrets. “If you don’t get out, out there, for her, at least do it for your parents. Your mom and dad really made the trip here — you know the train doesn’t run anymore."

Rarity nodded, lips pinched to hold a sob much palpable against my coat.

"I just wish I could firebomb Filthy Rich's house some time," she said and I chortled. She huffed back, and pushed herself away from me, vexation clearly visible on her face. "Come on, laugh at me if you must.”

"No, I won’t," I said, embracing her once again. "I mean, I just doubt you know how to make a mareotov cocktail, is all."

"Why, do you?" As I didn’t answer, she pushed herself away from me again. “No way. Why?”

“I was young, okay,” I sputtered.

“Still are, to be frank.”

I rolled my eyes. “Compliments will get you nowhere.”

It would be useless anyway. The Rich house had been emptied a few days ago.

“What time is it?” Rarity asked.

“Late.”

“Late how?”

“Dunno, evening?” I said with a shrug, bringing her tight against me. “It’s not like clocks work anymore in this town. Even time forgot us.”

“Did I really start with the metaphors?” I felt her smirk against my coat.

“Shut up.”

“How are the girls?” Rarity mumbled after a while. “I’ve not talked to them since.”

“They’re taking it... okay, I guess.”

“Okay?”

“I don’t think ‘well’ is the proper term for it.”

A long and tenuous silence rushed between us. We spent it listening to the low whistle of Rarity’s runny nose, or maybe the few voices outside the boutique’s door.

Two older ponies were diligently waiting for us.

7. Regrets

“Always a drama-queen, my sister,” Sweetie said with a shake of her head.

Luster kept her mouth shut. She had seen Rarity before, when she visited Teacher Twilight. But Rarity has always shown a certain restraint. An upper class demeanor. That story… had been wholly different.

“I mean,” Cheerilee added abruptly, “we all thought you were dead.”

“True,” Sweetie Belle mumbled, nodding her head solemnly, “true.”

“It wasn’t my proudest moment either,” Pinkie mumbled. “Everything was breaking down in Ponyville. And not just figuratively, metaphorically...? Whatever. I couldn’t even cheer up my friends.”

Cheerilee leaned by her side and gave her a motherly smile. “Time has flowed under the bridge. Nothing good comes out from stirring the past up too much.”

Pinkie nodded and smiled, glancing over at the table in the middle of the living room. Tea was cooling again on a tray, untouched. Pinkie’s blue eyes crossed Luster’s for a second. Then drifted away.

Luster saw shame, something that didn’t fit the party pony whose tales Teacher Twilight had told her so many times before.

“It’s fine, Pinkie,” Luster surprised herself by saying, “Like, Sweetie Belle’s here, right? Everything ended well, in the end.”

Mare cleared her throat. “That’s relative.”

Luster deadpanned. Mare was again going against her wife. “Really? The town’s still standing and ponies live all around here. Water under the bridge, right?”

“Ponyville didn’t spring back up in a day, young lady,” Mare retorted, a tinge of annoyance in her voice. “Rebuilding a town, and even more its morale and population isn’t done in an evening of study.”

Luster pouted and hunched her head. “No, no. I get it. I was just trying to be helpful… or maybe reassuring.” She sighed. “You know, ponies are hard to deal with. I’m sure you’ve got the memo about my case a few hours ago.”

Cheerilee chuckled. “Admitting it is the first step towards redemption.”

Luster clapped her hooves together with a grin. “Eh, I’m not a villain yet!”

Mare gave Luster a look over, then turned to Cheerilee, who crossed eyes with her wife.

“I’m not betting on that.” Cheerilee grinned. “You always win.”

“Are you betting on me turning bad!?” Luster burst and earned amused smiles as an answer. Luster sunk into her pile of cushions, only to rise out of it, a sharp retort at the tip of her tongue. But a twinkle sound rose, and a blue aura gently pushed her back down.

“Don’t worry about these old loons,” Sweetie joked, a wide grin on her face as both Cheerilee and Mare gave her the stink eye. “They like gossiping more than Twilight likes to-dos.”

Luster chortled. “That’d be hard to achieve. She’s sending herself to-do lists via the mail these days.” She turned to Mare. “Anyway, what I meant is that you’ve dealt with that all your life, the Ponies. That’s quite a feat.”

Sweetie Belle squinted, and raised her hoof. “What do you mean via mail? What about Spike?”

“Oh, Spike outgrew the Canterlot library. To some extent. And–”

“Twilight doesn’t trust any other assistant?” Sweetie Belle finished.

Luster nodded. She drew her hoof to her chin and turned to Mare. “Speaking of letters. Didn’t you mention letters? Like that day in the city hall? Your father, Celestia...” As mare nodded, Luster continued, “What did they say?”

“Oh, uhm, I don’t really remember.” She audibly cleared a knot in her throat, quite embarrassed. “Not something I love to recall really. But I’m sure saying that wouldn’t satiate your curiosity... hmm?” Luster offered a guilty shrug. “I’m sure I have them somewhere in the attic. Let me try and get them.”

With a grunt, Mare lifted herself out of her sofa and walked off somewhere, Cheerilee following after. A few minutes passed, along with the sounds of a creaking staircase, and the ceiling started resonating with the clacks of horseshoes.

Luster shared a look with Pinkie, who passed it onto Sweetie Belle. Silence reigned, even if for a moment.

“How is my sister?” Sweetie asked Luster. “Since we’re on that topic.”

“You don’t talk to her?” Luster retorted, more quipping than she’d have liked.

“Yes. I. do!” That came a bit too quickly. Sweetie Belle sighed and looked askance, rubbing her shoulder. Gone was her smile and the assurance in her posture. She hunched over now and even Pinkie looked on with a sliver of a grimace. “I mean, yeah, I do. Sometimes. But… You know sisters right. We don’t always share everything in our lives.”

“She’s a single child,” Pinkie whispered.

“How did you know?” Luster asked.

“My hunches!” Pinkie beamed, a hoof barely hiding her smirk. “Also you raised your eyebrows. Either you didn’t have a sister, or you really don’t even socialize with your family.”

Luster pinched her lips. Pinkie was right. In any case, Luster was still ready to fight that truth back.

“Anyways,” Luster said, “I don’t see Rarity much — barely, I mean. Or at least, whenever she visits Teacher Twilight. She seems to... be doing fine? Though, whenever I see her she’s always talking about banquets, state visits, fashion shows, and business, business, business.” She trailed on, “Always business.”

Sweetie Belle chuckled in her hoof. “She never changes.”

“I mean, she does! Change I mean.” Luster combed her mane with her two hooves. “All the grey hair she’s gotten lately. You’d think she’d dye it, but noooo.”

Pinkie burst out laughing.

“She’d never stoop so low,” Sweetie Belle snickered, eyes closed. “She’s got pride, even in age.”

Luster hummed with approval. “I don’t have much really. On your sister, I mean. She’s a socialite, I get it. But somehow, she keeps her private life quite private. She’s quite effective at that.”

“She’s a business pony to the core,” Sweetie Belle offered. “She knows when to give, and when to withhold.”

Luster nodded. Upon seeing Sweetie Belle’s evasive glance, she asked, “So, why did you ask about your sister?”

Sweetie Belle rubbed her leg and sunk deeper into the sofa. “Rarity took it badly when I disappeared… in such a fashion. I guess grieving over, uh, me affected her a lot. It changed how we related to each other in a sense. A very strong sense” She breathed in and held it for a long time, until she released a long-winded sigh. “I think she doesn’t want me around anymore.”

“You know that’s a lie, Sweetie,” Pinkie offered, along with a kind hug.

Sweetie Belle smiled and took Pinkie in. “I mean, not in the not liking me sense,” she said. “More like, she lost me once, getting close again and risking losing me again. That’s too much of a risk to her.”

“You mean she hates adventures?” Luster asked, recalling Teacher Twilight’s stories about her own adventures and the sempiternal Rarity pestering accompanying each excursion.

“No, Rarity does hate risk. In an economic sense. It’s got to be understood, contained, accounted for. I’m not a double entry on a financial statement. That’s how she is though she likes to pretend it doesn’t affect her. She thinks like a business mare more than just in a negotiation room.” She gulped down and scratched at her horn. “If you can’t contain a risk, you avoid it. If you catch my drift. To her, I’m still a teen who can’t cook.”

“You still can’t cook, Sweetie,” Pinkie said. “Lil’ Cheese told me about those carb’ cakes from the last time you babysat him.”

Sweetie Belle crooked over, her sides painful with laughter.

“Carbohydrates?” Luster said, eyebrows furrowed.

“Carbonized.” Pinkie answered and glanced down at Sweetie Belle. She held her hoof in a motherly fashion. “Sweetie Belle is a terrible babysitter.”

Sweetie Belle laughed again, and between two bursts, managed to land a few words, “At least, I’m not Fluttershy.”

“What’s wrong with Fluttershy?” Luster interjected.

“Her eyes,” Sweetie Belle explained.

“Let’s segue a bit,” Luster told Sweetie Belle, hoping to escape the likely cryptic explanation that would revolve around Teacher Twilight’s kindest friend. How would she be an even worse babysitter? Luster couldn’t guess. “How was it?”

“How was what?”

“Well, inside the Wall. We totally drifted off-topic after Cheerilee told her story, and I’m sure you have so much to tell.”

“Oh, that will come up later,” Sweetie Belle said, a playful smirk on her lips as Cheerilee and Mare’s chatter filtered in from the hall.

“Come on, you actually have a neat paranormal story to tell, compared to outsider’s accounts.” Luster shut her mouth as Mare and Cheerilee entered the room. “So, found the letters?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, no,” Mare said, stopping when she laid eyes on Sweetie Belle. “You look like you’re about the cry. Are you okay?”

Sweetie Belle straightened herself. “Oh, I am. We were just talking about Rarity and I.”

“I’m sorry.” Luster said, and looked down. Being an adult sounded so worrisome. Having friends and family, anxiety-infused and regretful. Why would she wish for that? Then she held herself up mentally. She was being stupid again, wasn’t she?

“Oh, don’t be.” Sweetie Belle said after a cough in her hoof. She turned to Mare, who despite her words still held a small letterbox under her leg. “And that?”

As Cheerilee and Mare sat back on the sofa, Luster studied the small metal box. It looked like a rectangle biscuit tin, the kind that usually hid a sewing kit. But the lid had a quill symbol stamped onto it and, crinkled and sticking under, a laminated yellow paper torn at its top was peeping out. An envelope.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t find the specific letters,” Mare said. Cheerilee took the box from Mare and set it on the table top for Luster to parse through. “But I found these.”

Luster hunched forward and with her magic slid the box to her side of the table. She made sure not to tip over the few neighboring tea cups. She snapped the lid open, a faint plume of dust spitting at her face. She sneezed and Pinkie laughed.

The envelope stuck under the lid had hinted at a plethora of letters inside the box. But Luster was disappointed as she peered in. There were only four of them. No wax seals to find in there. Somehow, Luster was certain the juicy stuff had been kept hidden somewhere else, away from her. She swept the petty thought away and took the four envelopes out in the golden hue of her magic.

Before she opened the first one and retrieved the letter inside, Luster gave a quick glance towards Cheerilee and Mare.

“I mean, first, thank you for helping me with Teacher Twilight’s… uhm–”

“Task?” Cheerilee offered.

“Quest?” Mare echoed.

“Chore?” Sweetie Belle added with a grin.

Yes. Luster pointed at Sweetie to confirm, then kept on, “Thanks. But are you sure you want me to read these? I mean, it’s personal stuff.”

Cheerilee turned to Mare. “Told you, you should’ve looked at them before bringing them down.”

“Ah, flabbergasts,” Mare dismissed. “If I don’t remember them, I’m sure they’re fine. Also I left my reading glasses in the bedroom. And so did you.”

“Fair. Fair.”

Eyes turned to Luster, who suddenly felt small. “What?”

“Well, aren’t you gonna read them?” Sweetie Belle asked with a smirk, “aloud.”

Reading aloud wasn’t her forte. She sighed, licked her lips, and took the first letter out of its casing. Not without a slight pinch in her heart.

Luster wasn’t a good public speaker. That, she admitted.

8. The Last Letters

Dear Celly,

Today was Sugarcube Corner’s last day.

The Cakes and I partied in the kitchen one last time. It was awesome and amazing, and with many chocolate cakes and cookies! Mrs. Cake’s salted all-chocolates are totally the best. They use a lot of eggs from AJ’s farm, much more than the recipe calls for. But, you know, sometimes the fun’s in those little things, right? What would Rarity say…? “We must indulge sometimes.” I’m sure it’s a word like that. And let’s throw a Darling! in for good measure!

Well, we locked the door behind us, I planted a warning sign, then we went to the train station.

The Cake family and I gave each other tons of hugs! The twins even waved at me as the train left. Mare had managed to schedule one last ride to the town. We nearly missed it though, clocks aren't alright anymore in town.

So, yeah, I managed to keep smiling the whole time! You can be proud of me. Mr. and Mrs. Cake needed a smile more than the twins did, I think. I pinkie swear I didn’t cry.

The two sweeties are going to make looooads of friends in their new home. I helped Mr. Cake fill out some boring forms for the local daycare. There’s a huge wait list and Mrs. Cake was biting her hooves over it. But I’m sure they’re going to fit in right away.

There isn’t much business left for them in Ponyville anyways.

Leaving was the right thing to do, Celly — Does Luna call you Celly? Can I call you Celly? —, I mean… Tomorrow, I won't be able to go to Sugarcube Corner safely. And when I say I, I mean everypony.

The Wall’s going to gobble up Sugarcube Corner’s door frame tomorrow and the whole door, the day after. The Wall is a very, very hungry hippo, and a very mean one too. I don’t like it. It never stops eating. It already ate Quills’, half of the Town Hall, and the pond... and the river... and so many houses.

I tried putting on a smile when I laid the warning sign too, Celly. For the twins. But… since the Wall ate Sweetie Belle, everything’s been very scary, and hollow. I dunno how it must have felt for her. You brush a single hair against the Wall and Wooosh!, you get sucked in like, well like a vacuum cleaner! What a terrible image...

I’ve put warning signs everywhere for ponies not to go near it! It’s dangerous but not dangerous like a rollercoaster ride. It’s really real this time. I’ve seen Blossomforth go near the Wall today. She looked at it with intent. But she wasn’t defiant. We talked. She thanked me. She walked away.

I didn’t sleep well last night..

But you must already know that, of course. Everypony must be sending you letters. And you came to Ponyville eleven times since Twilight’s been missing inside the Wall. I counted!

So I’m writing letters too. I just need to tell somepony else what’s going on inside my brain. I feel like I’m getting repetitive around the town lately. Scratch that. I know I’ve become repetitive, Celly. I don’t like it.

So… Everypony has really been bummed out about the Wall. It just keeps eating and getting bigger.

My job is to get ponies to smile, and it’s a lot harder these days. Jokes get boring after a while and I’ve used pretty much everything I know — Pinkie Pie is having a joke shortage!!! Comedy comes in threes and surely doesn’t grow on trees! It’s not like farming apples, you can’t wait for a joke to get ripe when so many ponies need them. Wait, don’t tell AJ I said that!

Ponyville is in the middle of a fun famine! And that’s very sad. It’s like a cake in the middle of a kind of meh party. It’s a quarter gone, two third of the ponies already left, and most of the rest is hanging in the corners. And you can see one or two leave every minute.

Do you know when you’ll find a solution, Celly? I mean, Starlight was with Twilight inside the castle when the Wall appeared. I figure it’s kind of hard to figure things out without them. Princess, don’t be too harsh when you finally find a way to break them out and pop that big black balloon thingy. Find Sweetie Belle too! They can’t be dead! They can’t.

I’ll make every cake in the world when Twilight and Starlight return, and plenty of extras for the whole of Equestria. Every single flavor… to celebrate. Everything’s going to be rainbows. And smiles. And parties.

Dear Princess Celly… I can’t get a curl in my mane anymore. And I’m scared.

Please, help us.

Your littlest, partiest, sugariest pony, Pinkie Pie!~

Your Highness,

I like walks…

What a weird way to start a letter, but I swear I tried my hardest thinking about this first sentence. So, here I go. I hope you will excuse my cavalier approach.

I wish to report on the state of my beloved town and I couldn’t find a better way to start. I like walks, by day, by night, whether in the summer or winter. It’s one of the ways I’ve found effective at refreshing my mind, brainstorming new ideas, and maybe escaping the grind of city hall’s affairs. But there isn’t much of that anymore.

I sometimes wonder if it gets better. For you, I mean. As the scale of what one pony works on increases, are there less faces to meet and greet? Are the names listed on each and every page easier to handle? It’d be less personal, for sure...

So I love walks, yes. At the drawing of dusk when the streets of Ponyville aren’t yet lit by streetlight, when only the orange glow of nightstand lamps and a few candles pours out from the houses and chases away the evening darkness.

That’s the time when that faint orange hue reflects upon the steady waters of the river that cuts Ponyville from north to south, albeit in twists and turns. Ducks and boats and barges share the waterway then and, in the coming of the night, all head out to their homes or hurry to their next mooring.

It's a time of peace, really. Everypony has gone home to eat; nopony has yet walked out to enjoy a party, a bar patio, or the warmth of a porch’s torchlight. That’s the Ponyville I know, grew up in, and loved.

But nowadays, it is pretty much all gone. Everyday is that peacetime in the early evening. And I’ve come to hate it.

Applejack, and her family, finished shipping the last of their trees to her cousins in the south. We got most families resettled—it took a long time, but it ought to be done. The last train left yesterday and only the old bones remain. Like mine.

In a sense, we're dismantling Ponyville, piece by piece, bit by bit, chipped away and shipped to other places where they will find some renewed use. There’s nothing left to do here but wait.

And there’s nothing left to enjoy either. Most homes are now empty husks. Rot has never spread so fast.

There used to be pontoons on the river. It’s the kind of thing you’ve seen so many times that you only ‘see’ them once they’re gone. The owners pried the wooden planks off the pontoon stilts, and went away with them. Old bones are sometimes made out of steel, concrete, emptiness, and rust.

Now the river is empty and cold too. Late winter lays its ice on the embankment where water once flowed. It’s dried now. The Wall has recently swallowed a stretch of the river. Did you know, Princess? Now the water only flows in the northern part of the town. It ends its course in the darkness and whatever lies beyond. The rest of the riverbed is just dead ice, snow, and dust. This summer, it will evaporate and only shingles will remain.

And of course, the black will take it all from us by then.

It's been a long time since your last visit, Princess. We miss you. Some even resent you. I know I do sometimes. But when the anger passes, I don't hold a grudge or any blame. There isn't much to see here anymore. Your time is better spent elsewhere, searching for a solution, I’m sure. I hope…

Three fourths of the town are gone. Only the north end, the eastern edge, and the southernmost reaches remain — the parts furthest from Twilight's castle.

I really wonder where all the water from the river is going, where all the birds, and leaves, and plants and animals I’ve seen going in... where do they end up? I really don't want to know, but I’m still curious. A sort of call of the void, one could say.

I’m really getting in over myself. Anyway.

I've recommended everypony left should leave, but they're stubborn. Like everypony's supposed to be, I guess. When life throws stones at you, yielding shouldn't be the first thing you do — and yet it feels more and more like an accomplishment. There is a time when stubbornness becomes obstination, then a tragic resignation.

If I am writing, it's to ask you, Your Majesty, to intercede with the remaining five Elements of Harmony. Though Applejack sent her family and farm away, she’s still here. Though Fluttershy relocated her animals, she’s still here. Despite the loss, Rarity is still here. Withering away. It’s the same for Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. They’re still here. Not even Discord managed to convince them to leave, and retreat to Canterlot.

I think they’d be better by your side than here, waiting by the Wall, every day that you make. There is no solution here, but maybe in Canterlot they’ll find one.

It’s a lot to ask of you, but you are a voice ponies will listen to. And Ponyville longs for yours. My own words can’t reach that far anymore.

Please, Princess, I humbly request you to intercede. Have them see further than these old bones. Staying here won’t help anypony. I know you must be working with Luna on finding some kind of solution. In the meantime, the only solution here is to retreat and bide our time. Ponyville is no more and they need to come to you. To help.

This is my town. My ship. And as any good Captain should, I’ll sink with it.

At least, that’s how I see it. That’s what I’m telling myself. My rant to myself, I suppose.

Though I want to leave, I can’t. It’s my town, my responsibility. It’s not the Elements’ problem any longer.

I think I need to end this letter here and send it right away, otherwise I will burn it. Like the other drafts before.

When you finish reading this letter, please ask Ditzy not to come back to deliver mail from Canterlot again. There’s nothing in Ponyville to find. She will serve a new town well.

Yours Faithfully,

Mayor Mare

Your Majesty,

I do not know what Mayor wrote to you. But whatever she ended up writing, discard it. Please take no offense to it. I tried my damned hardest to stop Ditzy from taking that letter but she’s a pegasus and I’m an earth pony. No matter what I do, she’s still going to be faster than I will ever be. Everypony always underestimates Ditzy.

Mayor wasn’t herself when she wrote it. That damn mule headed…

Well, now I’m tabled and writing. I guess I better continue.

I don’t expect you to know me. I’m just Ponyville’s former teacher. Yeah, that Ponyville. Today, I’ve sent the last of our foals on their way somewhere else. No more “Fillies and Gentlecolts” for me. At least for now. I don’t know yet where I’m going to be heading. Being a unionized teacher kind of gives me the privilege to not have to care about paperwork. Even if I wanted to.

It does take away some of your freedom as a teacher, though, but I enjoyed the status for so long I guess it’s the other side of the coin rearing its face. I don’t know where the Rectorate will send me. Till then, I can enjoy some more days with Mayor before being sent away...

I’ve thought about resigning and staying here but… wouldn’t that be selfish? Sacrificing some foal’s education for my own romantic ventures.

Ah! That’s even more selfish — egotistical, maybe? — when you think about it. I’m not irreplaceable, just a normal teacher, in a normal town, during extraordinary times. I just wish extraordinary meant something different. Positive, you know. Alas.

We’ve not heard from the big-shots in a long while, Your Highness. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep and look out through the window at the town, what remains of it really, I can only wonder if we’ve been forgotten.

I would get it, let’s be honest. The drama, the rushing, the mess of trying to save a small town at any cost. It takes a lot of labor, money, and publicity. Especially when the looming monster threatens far more than just a few houses and ponies.

When the nation is at stake, and I’m sure it is, what’s a small town but an acceptable sacrifice?

I get it. Just...

Could you tell Mayor?

It shouldn’t come from me, or the Elements. Nopony but you can console her. Not even I can pry her hooves off the proverbial floorboard of this place. And trust me, I’ve tried. She’s served this town for so long that she can’t let go. Ponyville can be gone tomorrow, and let’s be honest it will, and she will stay within its borders. She fancy herself the captain of this ship. She means well, but… I care. I really do. I want us to enjoy our time, not anguish here waiting to die.

Can you just wave your hoof? Tell her you’re at least considering the situation?

We were used to Twilight handling everything around here. But now she’s been gone for months, eyes have turned back to you. At least Luna comes to us in our dreams. There’s a lot of nightmares to spare among the Ponyvillians, despite how few remain.

Just a touch of a Deus ex Machina would go a long way, you know. I can only go so far for Mayor, and I don’t want her to make her choose between the town and me.

Your presence would be welcomed.

I wish you the best in finding a cure to the monster eating our lands. I hope Ponyville will have been worth it. I am not being sarcastic here. Tone is hard to convey in writing.

If I get sent somewhere and you manage to remedy this whole mess. Just save a spot for me in the line to talk to Twilight. I have some flanks to spank.

Reconsidering, I have a resignation letter to write.

Yours truly,

Cheerilee

My Little Mayor,

It is with great pain that I read your words. I can only empathize, worry, and hurry.

Being a ruler isn’t an idle task and, though Ponyville is dear to my heart, my eyes cannot always be turned inland towards the grave danger that lies and eats at our counties. A grim realization I never wished to contend with, and yet have had to many times in my life.

But rest assured, your plight is not unheeded. We are arduously working on it. Everypony is. Ponies that are better at this task than I am. I am not omnipotent, or omniscient. Everything would be so dull otherwise. And so I have tasked the best of the land to the task.

Let’s drop the formalism here, Mayor Mare. I really, really ache for Ponyville, that town that my dear student has grown to love and cherish. And though I wish I could help, the best in this situation is definitely not me. Even poor Discord cannot snap this danger away. Twilight’s allies have been working so very hard, Miss Mare. Sunburst has led the charge, and though he doesn’t often pop by Ponyville, and I do actually mean ‘pop by,’ he is scouring Equestria and further beyond for any information that could be of assistance.

Twilight and Starlight may have unleashed something they were not expecting and I am pretty sure they are still in there, lost. Begone the neighsayers. They have saved Equestria so many times that it is now Equestria’s turn to save them. But help, sometimes, comes late. And I am sorry for that.

I wish I could clap my hooves and be gone with it. But the nature of power often does not come like that and I am sorry.

Were you to choose and come to Canterlot, I would gladly welcome you to stay as long as you’d needed, and if you want to witness the research undertaken by the great minds gathered by Starlight’s dear friend, a door will always be warmly opened for you.

I am sorry I do not have more to offer now, than my words, but a promise would be of ill abode, if not a lie. And I would hurt giving you false hope. It is slim, but here nonetheless.

I love you, my little pony. Be strong. Though the night may be dark, you are not alone.

Also you may call me Celestia!

Celestia~

9. Surrender

Luster pinched her lips. “That was…”

“More personal than I expected,” Mare admitted.

Sweetie Belle chuckled, a wide smile on her lips. She coughed it up and looked at her neighbors. “It was quite a ride, huh?”

Mare blew air against her cheeks. Cheerilee nodded, eyes wide.

Pinkie chortled. “I’d forgotten I gave you that letter, Mare.”

“You never sent them?” Luster asked.

“Celestia gave them back to us a couple of years after it was over,” Mare said. “She did keep them. And I? I just… I just put them in a box in the attic. I didn’t want to discuss it at the time.” She looked at Luster intently. “I don’t know if I still want to.”

Luster took a short breath. She knew it was about it, in some sense. She, Luster Dawn, had to be the pony, the angry, petty little pony who came over and stirred up those memories. Well, no time like the present. “Weren’t there any celebrations when it was all over?”

Cheerilee stretched and yawned, brushing her hoof against her muzzle before speaking. “There were, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that —” She hesitated “— it was hard celebrating in a small committee when it all went and was done. Ponyville had emptied itself. And the few parts that hadn’t been swallowed felt deader than a ghost town.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve ever been to the South?” Sweetie Belle asked, to which Luster shook her head. “There are a few ghost towns down there. The buildings are old, creaky, bleached by the sun without windows and constantly swept by dusty winds. You can see, smell, and feel the age.” With her magic, she reached for her cold cup of tea. She turned to the trio of Ponyvillians. “Ponyville was different, I guess. Ponies were leaving left and right, leaving everything behind. It wasn’t a gradual process.”

Pinkie hummed her approval, and offered to continue that trail of thoughts. Sweetie Belle nodded. “Well, ya know. Buildings were pristine, well painted, and everything. From the outskirts of the town, you’d have not believed it was nearly empty. Well, if you tuned out the monsterous black hole looming over the town like a menacing ground-bound blimp ready to burst into flames! Anyways. If you didn’t find the lack of ponies weird, the issue would have become clear at sundown. Not a single light in any window. It was dead! Like everypony had disappeared. Packed up and left.”

“Which they did,” Cheerilee confirmed.

There’d been no one to celebrate when the Wall was gone. Luster wondered how sudden the resolution had been. Quick enough to leave everypony on their flanks, she thought. “How many were left there?” she asked.

“Not many,” Cheerilee said.

“I technically wasn’t there to see it,” Sweetie Belle said.

“Not many,” Mare echoed her wife.

“Barely enough to eat a normal-sized cake!” Pinkie offered. Eyes looked at her. “Can you believe it?”

Luster sighed. It was her turn to grab what was left of her cold tea. She downed it in one gulp. “And you didn’t leave, Miss Mare, Cheerilee? Pinkie?”

Mare sputtered, offended, a hoof on her chest. “How could I? I was the Mayor. I– I couldn’t. A captain sinks with her ship. Or waits for all of the passengers to leave first.”

And some wouldn’t leave. Luster got that. Cheerilee fell silent and looked down. She’d resigned from her teacher position to stay… A heavy sigh visibly weighted on her chest. She suddenly laughed, a grim chortle flying past her teeth. She threw her head back in exasperation and gave a set of fully cocked eyebrows to her wife and grinned.

“You were such a mule. Still are.”

“Language,” Pinkie whispered.

Sweetie Belle laughed while Luster grimaced.

“How come!?” Mare protested. “You decided to stand by my side!”

“Only because I didn’t want to leave you.” Cheerilee shook her head, giving away a half growl. “If I’d been more assertive, I’d have chained you up and dragged you out of town.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Of course, I didn’t.” Cheerilee threw her hooves up. “I loved you even though we’d broken up. You… You.” She raled. “It felt like you were more attached to bloody walls than you were to me. It hurt!”

“I’m sorry,” Mare whispered, shoulders slouched.

Cheerilee held her muzzle up and hugged her wife tight. “I know you are, but you can be pretty stupid sometimes.”

“I know. I know.”

“Ahem.” Eyes reverted to Luster. “Sorry to interrupt, but when did you two get back together?”

“Oh, soon enough,” Mare answered.

“How soon enough?”

“We did so around a bottle of wine,” Cheerilee said, a quick smirk on her face as she and Mare exchanged a glance.

“More than one,” Mare corrected. “If I recall correctly.”

“Tell them I’m an alcoholic while you’re at it, sweetheart.”

“You and I both.”

“Yeah.”

They sighed at once, threw a glance at each other before turning to Pinkie Pie, lips puckered, a shadow lingering on their faces.

“I don’t,” Pinkie whispered. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“What do you mean?” Luster asked.

“Oh, I was there when Mare and Cheerilee made up,” Pinkie said. “I just… wasn’t in the right headspace, you know? It comes and goes, those dark moments.” She chuckled grimly. “We did drink a lot that night.”

Luster quirked a brow at Sweetie Belle, who shrugged back. She was clueless too, and the slight hint of a grimace told Luster enough. Sweetie Belle was wary of what had transpired while she’d been trapped inside. Had she never looked into the events? It seemed a bit contrived. But Luster didn’t really know how ponies worked. Ponies were weird, above all else, illogical, irrational, and furthermore, emotional.

She was too and Luster hated that. She had flaws, but she wasn’t ready to admit them, publicly. Actually… she was harsh and judgemental. She had even apologized to Mare. Once. Baby steps, Luster. Baby steps.

As the quatuor of mares argued on where to resume their story, Luster pondered the Wall, about what had happened inside that blob. It sounded possibly cool, eerie, even dangerous!

Sweetie Belle didn’t look like the battle-hardened mare, though. And given her sister, she likely wasn’t the adventuring type either. So, yeah, Luster wanted to get to the point where Sweetie Belle was going to talk about what she’d seen inside the Wall. But she had to deal with the rest of the story first.

Still...

The lack of scars or any distinguishing mark on Sweetie Belle’s alabaster coat sure made Luster suspicious. Scars weren’t always physical. She knew that. But she couldn’t shed the suspicion that she would be disappointed. Teacher Twilight was going to receive a strongly worded letter if even that story turned out to be boring.

She held back her sigh, a hoof to her muzzle.

“Let’s get out,” Mare offered. “I have a place in mind.”

“Oh, come on,” Luster said. “This might be boring, but I want to hear the end of it now.”

“Sunk cost and all,” Sweetie Belle remarked with a smirk.

Luster offered a shrug back, alongside a faint grimace.

“The cicadas have stopped singing. It must be cool enough to get a quick late afternoon stroll,” Mare said, smiling at Cheerilee and Pinkie as she snagged Teacher Twilight’s letter. “I’m sure getting some air will help clear our minds.”

Pinkie jumped off the sofa and chirped a ‘let’s go’ before locking her leg around Sweetie’s neck and dragging her out to the hallway.

“Follow me!” she shrilled, a gagged Belle in tow.

Luster deadpanned at her hosts. “Does she know where you want to go?”

“Pah!” Cheerilee exclaimed with a wave of her hoof. “It’s Pinkie Pie we’re talking about.”

Right.

The sun had abated, along with the cicadas as Mare had hinted, and while hues of ocres filled the sky, now covered with a few high wisps of clouds, a renewed activity filled the streets. Bars had put out open tables and a stream of ponies were going out to enjoy a drink.

Mare and Cheerilee waved and smiled while Sweetie Belle and Pinkie Pie rushed to shake hooves. Known faces abounded for sure, but none that Luster could recognize. She wasn’t expecting any Canterlot denizens.

Of course, there were the student bunches, with the agitation and excitation that Luster always avoided in Canterlot. But when in Canterlot, she would only see unicorns. In Ponyville, however, there were a flurry of species to behold. Griffons, yaks, dragons even, hippogriffs. She hadn’t seen them on the way in.

“I guess classes are out,” Luster offered to whoever would hear her.

“Yes!” Mare said. “Students are really the light of this town. As I told you, the world comes to us. After five o’clock, of course.”

A young yak tried to sit at a restaurant’s table and crushed the unsuspecting chair. Laughter flew while a waiter commandeered another for a stronger replacement.

Ponies and other creatures were happy, Luster realized. And it was genuine, without the restrained demeanour everypony had in Canterlot. She frowned, racking her brain for the right word to describe this town. She was absolutely sure that Teacher Twilight would ask her about her impressions. Ah, she had the right word.

Frivolity.

“Here we are,” Cheerilee said, earning a yes from her wife.

“Where are we?” Luster asked.

“Well, here,” Mare said, a hoof held out to show a low steep that led to the river that cut through the town.

A lonely stump rested at the foot of the steep. A beaten-path espoused it as it ran the length of the river. The stream was calm and near silent as no rocks impeded its path. The river felt very much artificial to Luster. Like it had been rerouted to that location a long, long time ago.

But she digressed and watched Pinkie Pie break rank to walk down to the stump. She poked at it, a pout on her face. She looked down at the dust that traced the path, kicked a few rocks and turned over as if to catch something. A sight. A long gone memory.

To Luster, there was nothing but calm waters that snaked between two ranges of houses, only cutting under a couple of bridges.

“Is there something important to see here?” Luster asked her hosts. “I only see houses, a stump, and the river.”

“Actually no,” Mare said, and Luster’s shoulders drooped.

“So why–”

“But that’s where it happened,” Mare cut with a smile.

Luster frowned. “What did?”

“When it all came down together.”

10. The Last Meal

“To the end of Ponyville, Mayor?”

“To its end and whatever comes after, Hun.” I hiccuped. “To the empty shops, the broken clocks, and us, broken mares — roadside witnesses.”

She looked at me, cross-eyed. "To everything."

We clinked our champagne flutes and she downed hers. I stayed still at first, studying my yellowed, distorted reflection in the glass instead — a grayed beige coat and black glasses that didn’t hide the flaccid bags under my eyes. I followed a bubble as it fizzed its way to the top, then the fruity drink was gone.

In a sense, the Wall was at least good at one thing. It was a neat trash can.

I threw the empty bottle, and poof it went, down the otherworldly gullet. Like the rest of it. The town. The ponies. My life.

At least I had Cheerilee by my side, and about five other bottles of the finest champagne we could get our hooves on. I popped another cork and refilled our glasses once more. This intimate party couldn’t stop there. The show had to go on.

“Where did you find them?” Cheerilee asked, admiring the beverage with a hint of a cross eye.

“Oh, you know, mayoral privilege,” I said, swishing the content of my flute from side to side. I only caught her pressing look after a while. “Oh, come on, you damn well know. I just opened the Town Hall's safe.”

“So, you stole them?”

I’d thrown the accounting books into the void too. So I was safe there. What a bad Mayor I’d become.

I pinched my lips together, eyes wide. I quickly cleared my throat and fixated on my drink. Anything to avoid Cheerilee’s furrowed brows. “Don’t you think it’s weird we call them glasses?”

“Stop avoiding the topic, you thief...”

She laughed and returned my stare, and silence followed. I squirmed, my withers cold against the plaid cover we’d laid out over the ice. With the Wall mere hoofsteps away, occupying a prominent place at the foot of the slope we sat upon, I could do nothing but close my eyes. To avoid hers and the nearby ghastly sight.

Only after a moment did I reopen myself to the world, the starry sky above me, and the abandoned snow-covered houses at our back. There was no escape from the feeling of her piercing eyes. They mirrored the lamplight while her ears twitched at each crackle of the small fire we’d managed to start.

I wanted to kiss her but she had to ask her questions, that sly teacher.

“What do you mean?” she finally said.

“Well, you know…” I motioned my free hoof in vague circles, “flutes are made of crystals, right? So why call them glasses?”

That earned me a guffaw and a raised eyebrow. Cheerilee wiped a smirk off her face, along with the glistening champagne moisture on her lips. “You know crystal glasses aren’t really made of actual crystal, May’? It’s just branding.” She gave me another look and pointed at my drink. “That’s lead glass.”

“There’s lead in my glassware!?” I protested, staring dubiously at my champagne. She hummed positively and I downed the glass in one gulp. “Better put the champagne in me than in there touching that thing then.”

“I think you’re drunk. And I doubt it’s your glassware either.”

“I am.” I chuckled. “But I feel good. For once. Also I am just borrowing those bottles. I'm no thief.”

"Yeah, nah. You’re just another corrupt politician now." We shared a wicked smile, toasted to our demise, and sipped some more alcohol. Only after a while spent staring at the Wall, standing massive before us did she speak again, "You stole that book too, didn’t you?"

I frowned and looked down at the large pockets of my winter coat. The deepest one weighed against my side with the heavy leather book that filled it past its brim. I pulled it out and set it front of Cheerilee to read by the lamplight.

"No," I said, quite unsure how to explain, "Ditzy, bless her heart for still being here, came by yesterday with a mare in tow. That mare gave me this book. She was from Canterlot, working with Mister Sunburst on his theories about the Wall.”

“What was her name?”

I cleared my throat and rubbed my cold muzzle. “Sunset Shimmer.”

“No way!”

I leaned back at the outburst. She quickly flicked the book cover open and revealed the inner inlay and the cursive inscription of the owner’s name. And the name of who had gifted it.

From Twilight Sparkle to Sunset Shimmer~

I scratched the bridge of my muzzle and threw Cheerilee a quizzical look. “You know her?”

“You have no idea how many times poor Sweetie Belle talked about that, and I quote, ‘weird pony from the mirror’ and her magic diary.” She sighed. " Poor Sweetie Belle…” Then her face scrunched as she glared at the strange book. “I thought that weird mirror was in Twilight's castle, though."

“Do you mean the… dimensional mirror? I don’t really know what it’s called. Wait, wasn’t it in the Friendship Castle’s basement?”

She nodded.

Questions rose in my mind. And they hurt. I worked my jaw as I fought against the champagne-induced daze. "Well, uh, I don’t know, sorry. That’s unicorn stuff. But she's Twilight's friend so… I’m sure she found another way to come over to this forsaken place."

After a brief moment of thinking, a confused look flashed over Cheerilee’s face. "Why did she give it to you?" she said only to grimace. "I mean, you know... it's not like we're important ponies in the greater scheme of things, right? Why you..." She motioned her hoof, "and not Rarity or somepony else."

"Actually, Sunset has been sharing the book with everypony in turn. I wasn’t at the top of her list." I sighed, not really knowing why. Or rather, I did — Cheerilee and I were only side characters in a story that was happening elsewhere, Canterlot for some, and inside the Wall for others in all likelihood. "She's been passing the book from pony to pony. You know… Well, I’m telling you now. Miss Shimmer’s been staying in Equestria for some time. A gap year off from her life on the other side of whatever mirror she found."

Cheerilee waved her empty glass at me and I served another round of drinks.

“You’ve ever seen yourself?” Cheerilee asked, fumbling over her next words to clear up her question. “Yourself from beyond the mirror, I mean."

“I would be lying if I wasn't skeptical of seeing another me living in another world with, uhm, claws, hands? Fingers? But… No. But I saw two Twilights, though. At once! That surely counts for something."

Cheerilee burst out laughing, "Talk about an apocalyptic scene. Twice the number of villain magnets."

I laughed along as I lazily swished my champagne, playing with the eye-catching cloudy tears of alcohol that hugged and seeped against the inside of the glass. It was a good batch.

"She, eh, I mean Miss Sunset, she told me to try it out," I said, pointing at the book. "She's cast spells on it, wrote down messages, stuff I don't much get, really. But she got nothing out of it. I guess she's waiting for somepony to stumble, make a mistake, and... have the book react?"

“Try what?”

“Well, talking to Twilight, of course.” Earning nothing but another look of confusion, I poked at the book. “Twilight’s has her own book in her castle, behind the Wall. Whatever you write in this one comes up in the other. It’s like sending letters, just more… unicorn-y.”

Cheerilee flipped her way through the book, squinting to read under the fire’s flickering light. I didn’t have to look down myself. I’d read it through and through. And what had first been a journal had turned into a swath of questions, pleas, and complaints in the final few pages. And, of course, a striking absence of any answer.

Cheerilee downed her drink, laid the flute by her side, and picked the hefty book up in her hooves. She gave it a shake, turned it upside down as if expecting something would come tumbling out. Well, besides some photos and scrapbook dried flowers of course. Her face turned doubtful at first, then deeply resigned. I just shook my head.

“It’s supposed to glow if anything happens,” I said.

Cheerilee studied on the book’s adorned cover, its red and golden sun that caught the meagre firelight. Until she dropped it back against my flank, sending my glass spilling over my coat. I was too far gone to care.

I waved the bottle next to the fire, backlighting it and seeing that it was empty, and so I threw it at the Wall. And sorely missed.

It slipped out of my hoof and thumped into the snow, dinging against the hard soil underneath. It didn’t break as it bounced its way down the snowy slope and both Cheerilee and I watched it roll till it settled at the edge of the cleared-out path that contoured the Wall, and the riverbed beneath. That was a terrible shot.

Cheerilee coughed in her hoof. “So what do you…”

Her words died behind her teeth. A frown crossed her face, her eyes locked onto something behind me. I turned around.

A lamp was swaying, its handle firmly grasped through a thick scarf in a pony’s mouth. I squinted and caught a glimpse of blue eyes and a pink coat.

Pinkie was digging her way forward through a thick layer of snow, a bit further away down the slope. I followed her hooftraces back to the long row of empty houses a stone’s throw away. She stumbled a couple of times before she finally reached the shoveled path below us that ran along the Wall.

Once she’d stepped fully on the way, she dusted the snow that hugged her legs and looked up. Her head lifted high and her body was rigid, she seized the gigantic black monster a few feet away.

She secured her lamp at her hoof to tighten the scarf around her face. She tied it once, twice, then a grunt escaped her lips and she pulled it off her head.

Her slick mane cascaded over her face, glistened with the orange tint of her light. She brushed her smooth mane back behind her ears and rolled the scarf around her neck, adding layers till only her eyes and forehead were visible.

Seeming satisfied, she bowed down to bite through the scarf on the handle of her lamp.

No matter how far away we were, we still heard the sigh that escaped her lips. She’d not seen us yet. Or care to.

She turned around and walked the length of the bent pathway till she reached the section below us and she passed by, not looking up.

Then she reached the half-buried stump of a tree. We’d cut it down before the Wall could engulf its branches. Her chest rose and fell as she stopped to study the dead wood. She only glanced away to look at the Wall.

“Hey, Pinkie!” Cheerilee called, startling the mare who stumbled back butt-first into a heap of snow.

She looked around and up the slope until her eyes settled on our little late-night apéritif. She seized us with her pinprick eyes that gleamed in the lamplight. Behind her scarf, and with her teeth locked around the handle, they never creased with the hint of a smile. Only after a while did she nod back.

“Come here!” Cheerilee boomed, motioning with her hoof. Pinkie took a step forwards but stopped. “Come on!”

Pinkie had never hesitated in joining a group before. But then, she had just done so.

Securing her lamp between her teeth, she stepped off the track and into the snow, and traced her way up towards us. Each step crunched and fell through the thin, rigid layer of frost that draped the snow. Like crushing through scum-dried sand. After a quick struggle, she was up by our side.

“Hello Mayor Mare. Hello Cheerilee. What… What are you two doing here?” she mumbled once her lamp dug into the snow perimeter of our firepit. She stood still, not setting a hoof on our wool cover. Instead, she looked us over until she locked onto the remaining champagne bottles, still stacked and full by my side, ready for consumption. “Ah.”

“Want some?” I asked. “We’re celebrating.”

“I don’t–”

“How’re you doing?” Cheerilee cut off, pushing our trash to leave a spot open on the plaid cover. She tapped the fabric, inviting Pinkie to sit.

“I’m– I’m fine,” she said, pushing away my offered glass of champagne. “Just a bit down, you know?”

She untightened her scarf and brushed her mane back as she sat up. Her rump thumped against the plaid sheet. Or rather, it dropped.

Pinkie sunk with the plaid cover through the cracked cover of ice beneath.. She slumped on her back as both Cheerilee and I stared, caught off-guard. She flayed. We gasped. And she rolled over, tearing the cover from under us. We all ate the snow.

Good Celestia, we laughed. We laughed loudly, Cheerilee and I.

Only Cheerilee and I, though.

At first.

Pinkie heaved and her eyes welled as we dragged her up and out of the hole she’d sunk herself into. But she was heavy and, with a few drinks in Cheerilee and I, she slipped out from our grasp.

Pinkie dropped back into her snug butt-cave, Cheerilee stumbled after, and I with her.

We lay atop each other. I heard giggles, laughs finally escaping Pinkie’s snow-matted face.

Her chest was cracking up and down, her pale face smiling. And though the fire’s orange light painted stark the dark bags tugging under her eyes, I saw a sliver of happiness. Still laughing, we helped each other up.

It lasted for a bit, if not a while.

After some time, and once we’d calmed down, Pinkie and I exchanged a look and a timid, closed-lipped smile. She swallowed and her attention drifted to Cheerilee, who promptly cleared her throat. My way.

“What are you doing here?” my beautiful teacher asked. “It’s not like there’s much to do around here anymore.”

“I could ask you the same thing, ya know?” Pinkie retorted, a shrill dying at the back of her throat. She held a hoof to her mouth, letting it go in a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t raise my voice. I... I just wanted to be alone for a while.”

Cheerilee and I nodded and we invited her to sit by our sides. Insistent enough, we set a glass in her hooves and she gulped its contents in a single draw.

“She gave you the journal too, eh?” Pinkie said, reaching out for the book discarded by my legs. She opened it, scurried a few pages, and snapped it shut. A frisson ran down her spine and she dropped it.

"Something's wrong, Pinkie?" I asked, a hoof on her shoulder.

"No, yes. Maybe? I don't really know. Every time I touch that book, it feels… weird. Like–"

"Like a doozie?" Cheerilee offered, maybe hopeful.

"Not really, I've not had one of those since last summer." She tapped her lips, pondering what she was about to say. "It's like a hole, if you get me?"

We both shook our heads.

"Go on," Cheerilee said with a broad smile.

Pinkie looked down at her empty glass and I offered to refill it. She gladly accepted.

"I mean, ah! It's weird. It feels like nothing is right about this book. It's not a doozie. It's like… the opposite of a doozie. Like my guts are telling me something is supposed to happen, but it just doesn't. Like it's delayed or whatever, whatever should happen is, uhm, held back in a sense — You get me?"

“Not really,” I said, picking up the book. I flicked through the last few pages again, dragging one of the lamps to my side to get a better view of the writing.

"I can't really say, Pinkie," Cheerilee mused after a short silence. "I'm just an earth pony, this whole shenanigan sure flies way above my head."

"I'm an earth pony too."

"Yeah, I know,” Cheerilee said with a giggle. “But you're Pinkie, you're different... and special. No offense."

Pinkie chortled and sipped her glass. "None taken."

"Held back, what do you mean?" I finally asked as I flipped back and forth with the last scribbled page the following blank one. "Do you mean Twilight could be calling out for us, through the book, but it doesn’t go through?"

Pinkie hummed, and tightened the scarf around her neck. "I don't know. Maybe? Maybe it's just the Wall. It takes but doesn’t give back? Or I'm just tired and sad and alone... Everypony's finally gone to Canterlot. Fluttershy, Applejack, Rarity, and... and..."

As her eyes welled up, Cheerilee took the party pony in her legs and dragged her against her chest in a tight hug.

"There, there."

"I miss Rainbow Dash's pranks.” Pinkie sniffled. “Since the accident with Sweetie Belle, she's taken Scootaloo in. And she's way serious about it, about her, about helping the filly out. And..." She wiped the snot off her face with a loose end of her scarf, and pressed her ears against the cup of Cheerilee's neck. "There's no laughter anymore,” she said between two muffled sobs. “Only ponies being serious. All because of that damned Wall. It stole everything and now the world’s just so cold."

"Today's the first day of Spring," I said, swallowing the knot in my throat. "Did you know that?"

"Y– Yeah."

Cheerilee and I shared a smile, hers motherly, mine likely unsure. I was really bad at allegories.

"Well," I continued, "Sun'll be back soon, and with it warmth."

"Winter Wrap Up will be late without Twilight," Pinkie countered.

"Maybe," I said, scratching my chin. "But it will still come."

“I’m still so… peeved at that book?” Pinkie said pensively. Her eyes darted at the discarded culprit.

Keeping Pinkie in a tight hug, away from reaching the book, Cheerilee leaned aside and picked it up instead. She glanced at it over Pinkie’s shoulder, and threw it on the ground.

“Then it’s a bad book, wouldn’t you agree?” she asked.

“Uhm, maybe?” Pinkie replied with a frown. “Wait, why would a book be bad? It’s done nothing…” Her eyes squinched harder and she glowered at it. “Yeah, it’s bad because it’s done nothing!”

Pinkie gave it a gentle kick with her hoof, Cheerilee was quick to imitate. And I… passed more champagne-filled flutes around as we drank.

And drank.

And threw bottles at the silent beast, the guest of honor of this now late night party. And though we were cold, hungry, and alone in its looming shadow, the moon long disappeared behind it, we still celebrated.

At some point we’d lit the dead tree trunk on fire — don’t ask me how. Where once an overlooked venerable tree had stood, now was a bursting orange and yellow pyre, with the acrid smoke of wet wood, the ice congealed in its cracks melting and seeping like blood through open scars. And we waltzed around it.

Was it defiance against the Wall? Earnest, yes, but we were drunk. And drunkenness was the only thing left to appreciate. There was nothing else remaining in Ponyville.

A teacher. A prankster. A mayor. All crumbling under a year of hardships, sacrifices, and protracted hopes that had amounted to absolutely nothing.

And yet we danced. Or stumbled rather. Drunk like sailors through a timid storm we shambled and rumbled and squandered the last smiles we could spare.

Fits of dizziness would send us rolling in the snow, sometimes catching each other as we were about to fall into the monster’s gullet.

I kissed Cherrilee. I mean, we kissed a lot, I think. And at some point, my head turning, I fell back against the snowy slope, pierced my way through the thin layer of ice, and dragged Cheerilee with me.

Oh, we laughed. And cried. We cried a lot.

“It’s funny.” I coughed up snow after my chest stopped hurting.

“I know,” Cheerilee said.

“No, no,” I grumbled, shaking my head as if it would have been that easy to cast away the alcoholic daze. “The book. I think I’ve got a weird idea.”

I threw a glance over at Pinkie whose laughter and joy at us embracing died instantly at the mention of the hintless item.

“What do you mean?” Cheerilee asked, pushing herself off of me and dragging me out of the snow.

I hiccuped, feeling the champagne heavy in my stomach. “The book might be glowing. No, no. I can see it on your faces. Bear with me.” I coughed up and cleared my throat. “The Wall has swallowed everything we’ve thrown into it, everything that’s touched it. And we’ve assumed that it takes but never gives back, right?”

Pinkie gave me a cross-eye, rubbed her hoof over her face and frowned back. “What do you mean?”

I glanced up at Cheerilee and gave my broadest smile. “The hypothe-uh-sis is that the book glows when something is being written in it. But it stops when nopony is, right?”

“I still don’t get it,” Pinkie said.

“Me either, hun,” Cheerilee said.

“Well, what if the Wall gave back actually, but very slowly?” I offered. “The book wouldn’t glow. I mean. We wouldn’t see it glow, but it would be, at an infinitely small level. Right?”

“I still don’t get it,” Cheerilee said, as Pinkie’s eyes grew to the size of saucers.

“Remember when Timeturner had to close up shop because all the clocks stopped working properly?” Cheerilee nodded — not just the clocks, anything refined. “What if it’s because the Wall doesn’t simply eat things… but messes with whatever time is?” She squinted. “What if time is going slowly inside the Wall and that’s why we’ve not seen any answers? What if the book is glowing right now?” I said, trying to keep myself from burping. “But we can’t see it because the message’s taking months to write?”

“That…” Cheerilee’s squint grew creases.

Pinkie ran back up the slop and screamed as she rushed back to us with the book under her legpit. "Here!"

We scoured the contents of the book, looking for any hint of a message. Cover page, middle, back page, everywhere. Until we saw it. Pinkie rammed her hoof against a random page where four tiny scribbles could have been missed.

Scribbles was the right word. A reversed four? An F? L? And a seven? Side-by-side.

Then it dawned on me that whoever was writing was writing letters at the same time. Four letters, four pens. Only a unicorn could do that.

HELP

"Help," Cheerilee echoed my thought, then gasped. "Somepony is writing this, right now!"

The hypothesis had been right. The book was shining, albeit at a glacial pace. Though the Wall was good at taking, it couldn't hold everything back. Somepony was asking for help. A unicorn.

I turned to the Wall and studied it, working the rusty and drunken gears in my head to wrap my brain around the implications. Either it merely retained information and trickled it out, or time… Time was of the utmost importance.

"Oh, no, Twily," Pinkie muttered, eyes locked on the book. "You've played with another time spell, haven’t you...?"

I gulped down, my mind struggling to assess the best course of action. I reeled, fell to the side, and emptied my stomach.

"I'm too old for this," I gurgled, looking away as Cheerilee rushed to my side and propped me up to my wobbly hooves.

"What do we do now?" she said.

"Pinkie!" I called and she snapped the book close. I looked at her tail, not shaking, her mane, not waving, her ears, unflopping. "I'm going in."

None of her physical features started doozying, and I smiled. I had a chartered course. But...

"I need somepony to stay back," I said, "to inform Celestia about this."

"I'm not leaving you," Cheerilee protested.

"I'm saving my friends too," Pinkie agreed.

"Okay, okay," I muttered, pressing my hooves into my temples. "Think, think."

Time was of the essence. If it flew slower inside the Wall we had all the time in the world outside of it, if it didn't and the Wall was just retaining information, delaying the cries for help emitted from within, it was likely already too late.

I ran. Not in the Wall's direction but towards the edge of the village. Towards one of the last houses I knew was inhabited.

Pinkie and Cheerilee rushed behind me, screaming my name, I trudged my way through the snow and the late winter sleet that had started falling.

Forward, forward, forward to that house, and its last occupant. Diligent, timely, unexpendable.

It was the early morning now, and the window curtains of the first floor let out a slit of a light. And so, I punched at the door, my pastern shooting with hot pain at the blow.

Scrambling and crashing sounds rose inside as I drummed at the wood and hooves quickly trotted to the door.

"Ditzy," I called out. "It's Mayor Mare. Open up! Please!"

I fell in as the former postmare opened the door.

It all happened quickly. Pinkie, Cheerilee and I shared our suspicions about the Wall. The book. What could be happening inside. Timeturner’s clocks. She called us crazy, but in the end nodded along to our request.

She stretched out her wings. Pinkie provided papers from her mane. Cheerilee found pens in her heavy winter coat. I wrote the letter.

"This is for Celestia and no one else," I begged, still fighting to catch my breath. "I'm sorry for being brusque, but this is urgent."

Ditzy read the missive quickly her eyes growing wide.

"You know this is crazy talk, Mayor," she told me with an early morning deadpan.

I looked to my pockets for the book, but it wasn't there. I hissed air through my teeth, ready to swear about forgetting the book back at the Wall. Until Pinkie presented it to me, with a smile.

"Look," I said, showing the last page and the half finished message. "Somepony is writing to us, for us."

"And this writing...," Cheerilee said after she gave another look to it.

We all turned to her. My love sniffled, rubbing a cheek now covered with tears. Sadness was fighting back the rushing happiness, and was losing.

"I know who’s writing it."

11. Reflections

“So you solved the case,” Luster mused, her hoof stomping the grassy knoll that extended down to the river.

Now she looked at the stump again, it had blackened traces of a long gone fire. Time had passed. And the river had returned with it.

“It wasn’t much of a case, really,” Sweetie Belle said with a laugh.

“As I said,” Mare continued, “it all came down together, right here.”

Luster rubbed her face and sighed. This was hardly the resolution she expected to this tale. “Let me get this straight,” she said. “You were drinking your asses off, during a biting cold winter, while discussing the stupidity of a message-teleporting book, when all of a sudden she —” Her hoof shot at Sweetie Belle “—wrote you, in that same book, from the other side of whatever the Wall was?”

“Sounds about right,” Sweetie said, nodding along to the absurdity of it with a wry smile on her face.

“But why then? And not...” Luster gesticulated, “not before.”

“That’s where the terrifying, fun, eh, fun-ish thing was,” Pinkie said, startlingly popping out from behind Luster. “Time!”

“Time?” Luster repeated, distancing herself from the pink swirl. “As in Teacher Twilight messed up with time?”

As Pinkie confirmed, Luster’s rump dropped with a thump and she rubbed her chin. She felt little rocks hidden under the green prick at her flanks. But that was a distraction. She was at a loss. Time… Time… Now rubbing her temples, she let out a long, drawn-out sigh. Teacher Twilight had never talked about time spells before…

Actually, she had.

“Time, right?” Luster repeated once again, a rhetorical question rather than anything else. “Teacher Twilight always told me time was a no-go zone. She never taught me anything related to that.”

“Twilight and Starlight,” Sweetie Belle said. “Those two cuckoos weren’t at their first try, I reckon.”

Luster grumbled. Hardly believing her teacher would do such a foolish thing. And yet...

“Twilight did specify in her letter to speak about her gravest mistake,” Mare said.

“No,” Luster retorted, a cutting edge to her voice. “You said ‘failure,’ I have a good memory.”

“Yes, yes, you’re right.”

“But, come on! Teacher Twilight can’t be that reckless… she couldn’t. That black thing, eh, the Wall, it could have only been an enemy, a– a monster.” Luster looked at Pinkie Pie first, seeking some kind of cheer. But the party pony looked away. She moved on to Sweetie Belle, who rubbed her leg apologetically. And so, she was left staring at Mare and Cheerilee who stood side by side a bit lower on the hill, at eye-level with Luster. “I can’t believe it.”

“Everypony makes mistakes, Luster,” Cheerilee said. “Even Twilight.”

Luster puckered her lips and growled to herself. Only after a while did she look up at the group. “This is one of the most over-engineered lessons I’ve been given.”

“This is Twilight we’re speaking about,” Pinkie chuckled. So did Sweetie Belle.

“It’s a fact,” Mare said. “Do you still have Twilight’s letter?”

“Yes.” Luster fished for it in her saddlepack. “Why?”

“I figured you hadn’t read it. Twilight left a footnote for you. Go ahead. Read it.”

Luster frowned and unfolded the letter. Swallowing, she crossed the text to the bottom — to the truth. She closed her eyes to wrinkles. A long breath in, then out, she opened them back up to the world and found the mention of her name, and the text that towed below.

And she folded the letter back, a long sigh dug its way out of her lips.

“Later, maybe,” she whispered.

Mare, Cheerilee, and Pinkie Pie had walked off down to the dirt path below, next to the stump where they exchanged a few reminiscent laughs — and a long time ago tears and cries. Only Sweetie Belle and her warm smile remained by Luster’s side.

“Afraid of reading it?” she asked, laying her hoof on Luster’s shoulder.

“Eh.” Luster hadn’t much to say. She tucked the letter out of sight. “This is just one overly engineered lesson… or a punishment.”

“Are you okay?” Sweetie Belle continued.

“Yeah. Yeah…”

Luster ran her hoof through the grass. Though green, it had the stiffness of summertime. It would turn yellow soon enough. She pouted, then held her face in her hooves, letting out a groan.

“It’s been a grim story so far,” Sweetie Belle said after she cleared her throat. “I guess.”

“It’s just… It’s one long grim story,” Luster said. looking over at Mare, Pinkie Pie, and Cheerilee, gathered around the dead stump. “All the ponies that left. All the stores that closed. And everything that crumbled down around them. I know it’s resolved now, though.” Luster pointed at the town itself, a grimace on her face. “Everything’s back up, if it really was ever gone behind the Wall. And still, when I see those mares. It’s like the scars are still there if you scratch a little. The way they look at each other, the brickwork of the town. Everything. Behind closed doors, it’s all silent walls and aged ponies.” A deep breath followed. “I really can’t imagine what they went through.” Luster turned to Sweetie Belle. “What you went through.”

Sweetie Belle waved her hoof and huffed dismissively. “Pah, it was pretty quick.”

Luster laughed. “Quick? It sounds like you were in there for months, I mean. You were in there for months, right? How did you survive?”

“You don’t get it, do you? Time of course!”

“Teacher Twilight can be cryptic when she wants to be,” Luster mumbled.

“Ah, yes.” Sweetie Belle closed her eyes as she nodded. She failed to wipe the smirk off her face.

Luster drummed her hoof over the grass. “Mare spoke of a mistake. I get it. That event was of Teacher Twilight’s own doing? And it was related to time.”

“Yes. She did snort the glue again,” Sweetie Belle said, chuckling into her hoof, and upon seeing Luster’s confused expression, followed up, “It wasn’t the first time she played around with time. But that attempt… I think it was, and will be, her last.”

Luster racked her brain for an example of her teacher waxing theory about time magic. But she had nothing. “She never taught me anything about that.”

“There’s a reason for that.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“You can get stuff like the Wall,” Sweetie Belle said, a tight expression on her face. “You know Starlight right?”

“By name. Isn’t she the director of the School of Friendship?”

“Yes. But that’s not the question,” Sweetie Belle said. “Starlight is one of Twilight’s key work-mares and a reliable confidant. But do you know how they started?”

“Let me guess. Enemies?”

Sweetie Belle laughed. “Yep. Their confrontation ended with quite the twist apparently. Neither Twilight or Starlight talked about it much. What I do know, though, is that it involved time magic too.”

“Time…” Luster lied down and sighed. Sweetie Belle followed her example. “This whole ordeal is just a lesson on time magic. It’s so... convoluted.”

Sweetie shrugged, jabbing her hoof up at the sky. “Is it? I mean, Twilight has taken a lot from Celestia. Mostly using metaphors, and whatnot, but...” She cleared her throat. Luster studied the pointed look on her face. “It’s just– She’s still a town pony deep down. I don’t know what to say... She must care so much about you, you know?”

“Yet, she sent me here, across the land, far away from Canterlot to learn a lesson I don’t quite get. So much for ‘don’t use time magic, Luster, it’s very bad’,” she mimicked using her teacher’s tone. Sweetie Belle chuckled while Luster threw her hooves up with a sharp grunt. “It’s a punishment. It’s all over that letter.”

“Twilight would never punish somepony if there wasn’t a valuable lesson tagged onto it.”

“Or a twelve-step to-do list?”

Sweetie Belle cackled. “You’re right. But still, Twilight wants you to learn from her mistakes. It nearly broke this town and that haunts her. She loves Ponyville so much.”

“If she loves it so much, why doesn’t she come here more often?” Luster growled, only then holding a hoof to her lips. “She… She can’t, right?”

“Responsibility takes what we love away,” Sweetie Belle said. She threw her head back against the crumpling grass. “Or takes us away from what we love. In a sense, it’s the same thing. It’s only when you lose something that you really learn to cherish it.”

“But she didn’t lose this town in the end.”

“But she nearly did,” Sweetie Belle retorted. “Her recklessness nearly undid the town. But, you know, you can rebuild walls. Confidence and town life not so much. Ponies can hold grudges and Twilight has always been afraid of rejection. Still... I don’t think that’s what matters here.”

“What does, then?”

Sweetie Belle stretched her hooves above her head, wrestling a satisfying pop out of her shoulders. Then she looked at Luster with a thin-lipped smile.

“You’re destined for great things, Luster.”

“Nah,” Luster cut, waving the praise away, though not without a lingering pride burning white-hot in her heart.

“No, no. I mean it. You wouldn’t be Twilight’s prized pupil if you weren’t. And in a sense, you are gifted with the fact that Twilight is your teacher. I think she’s trying to be different from Celestia.”

“What do you mean?”

“Celestia was more… hooves-off. To say the least. And sometimes, it nearly condemned a lot of us.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Celestia is… an institution more than a pony, I think. A monument? Eh, a monolith. And sometimes, I think it led to mistakes on her part, which then fell onto Twilight’s shoulders. Those quickly became crushing.”

Luster rolled onto her side and looked at her hindlegs, enclosing a small patch of grass.

“Right,” she said, “Teacher, eh, T– Twilight wants me to learn from her mistakes?”

“Yeah. And she wants to be specific.”

“Yeah.” Luster’s chest swole as she held onto another sigh. “I’ll have to think about it.”

Sweetie Belle rolled to the side as well, to face Luster. Her long, unicorn curves shone under the sun. She was beautiful and Luster was kind of jealous. Anything to look like that when she was older.

“Twilight is trying to walk in her mentor’s hoofsteps,” Sweetie Belle said, “but at the same time to resolve some of the shortcomings she had to grapple with.”

So Luster was some sort of blank canvas. She didn’t know what to think about that.

“What about you?” Luster asked, quite jarringly.

Sweetie Belle frowned, then her eyes grew wide. She smiled and chuckled. “Oh, you mean inside the Wall?”

Luster nodded. “Yes, you’re the pony that actually went in, right. How did it feel?”

“It was… weird.”

12. The Last Message

Dumb bet, dumb bet, terribly dumb bet! Stupid Tiara! And dumb Scoots too! Why did she have to fall for it?

Rarity's going to be so pissed.

Oh, Celestia this felt weird.

I tear through a cold, black goop. A gut-dropping dive into what feels like icy water. A brief pause comes. I can’t breath. I flail around, deprived of all, even a grip on anything tangible. It’s like I’m floating somewhere in empty space. Well... I’ve never been to space but that sensation matches Luna’s description of it pretty well. No visual anchors. No up or down. Just dark, a terribly dark nothingness in every direction.

Focus Sweetie Belle! Focus. The weightlessness vanishes and I fall again, bursting through yet another layer of mushy darkness. And a deafening silence welcomes me, if only for a moment.

My heart jumps in my throat. I hit yet another invisible wall and light rushes into my eyes, washing away the night around me. A blue light comes next, like nothing I’d ever seen before — except maybe on Rarity’s most regal dresses. A searing ultramarine.

The deep and hazy blue blur burns my eyes as I keep falling. Down… down into a world I can finally see. I scream again.

I land against something wooden, a branch maybe — snap! The wind gets knocked out of me — I tumble against a tree trunk, bounce off a large root, scrape my shoulder against a rock, close myself from my surroundings, the pain in my flank, the sharp twang in my ears. I splat face-first against the ground.

Thud, crash, womp!

Ouch...

I shake the dirt off my head, nausea bringing my lunch crawling back up my throat. A few seconds breathing in and out go by, I dare not open my eyes.

Am I through? I'm definitely through. Oh horny horn, I'm through the Wall...

My ears perk up at any sound around me. But there’s nothing to listen to but the roaring, distorted and gushing wind. It howls like the scream from a banshee. Those same ghosts from Rainbow Dash’s scary stories.

I spring up and a dash of dizziness rushes down my back and legs. I slowly pick myself up, my temples hurting like no other day, and stumble forward to get my footing.

The air tastes like copper. I know this because I used to lick the chocolate off the kitchenware when my sister or Pinkie Pie made brownie cakes at the Sugarcube Corner. And I’m always thorough.

I try to brush off the dirt rag-tagged to my coat and mane, but the wetness sticks to the white in patches of black, brown, and khaki. Avoiding to rub my teary eyes with the tip of my mud-crusted hooves, I swallow hard. Though I can’t hear the drumming over the wind, it’s raining. The cold water needles on my coat and muzzle, thrown at me by the invisible drain above my head.

Above my head… a sky like none other, a darkened yet bright twister which blue hue blasts at me even through closed eyelids. I can’t block that world from assaulting my senses.

My chest rises with a deep breath and I snap my eyes wide open.

A storm of lightning flummoxes out of the sky and crashes down. Stuck under an infinitely distant dome, a smooth featureless planetarium of bright blue, I feel tiny. No light source or specific point of origin, there’s only that blue hue, pouring down onto the landscape above and behind me.

Noise. The wind’s crashing like waves against the last few standing trees and tackles me to the ground. I scream, I think. No sound I could make reaches my ears.

My head reels, I stand up, I fall to my haunches.

I am inside the Wall.

I struggle, beaten down by the irresistible force of the elements. I can see the houses of Ponyville. Though cascading with water, they seem eerily intact. I can still see smoke rising with difficulty from a few chimneys. As if the storm has started mere seconds prior and its rage hasn’t yet attacked the paint job.

I get to my hooves and turn. I need out. Panting, I take a step towards the edge of the dome that circles the chaos that’s eating Ponyville. To go back to where I came from.

One step, two steps, three… and jump! But nothing happens. I can’t move back, no matter how hard I try. I’m stuck in place, my hooves trundling in the mud as if skidding on invisible ice, with somepony holding me there to block my path.

As I am stuck in place, the dome grows, its edge hurtling outwards, eating more of the town. Everything that falls in, is brown and dirty, like me, flung around if not bolted.

I spit. I damn the wind that seems to force me back. And so I take a few steps further into the town, ready to run up and jump. But whatever I do, I can never walk back to my previous position. There is a perimeter, invisible to the eye, that keeps me in. The further I walk into Ponyville, towards the castle, the farther I am from the edge of the dome, and thus trapped.

There is no way back.

Each step away is a step I can’t retrace.

I start running around, to find a hidden way to reach the Wall. A small canyon between two large boulders, a trunk as a runway, I jump again and again. And everytime there is that invisible wall that holds me back. Everytime I crash where I started, sucked back towards the center of this whole ordeal.

The Castle of Friendship.

I’m angry, unable to make my way back, I can only turn around and run to the source that seems damn insistent on keeping me trapped.

By its size, the castle stands out over the range of abandoned houses. At the centre of the dome it shines. I expect the blue tinge that covers my surrounding but instead the orangest of light covers the eerie landmark. A near-white blast of light, a lightning bolt in a round semi-sphere. All stands immobile around it. Like stuck in a photographic frame, a reddish twister of wind and black clouds has come to a stop, its whirls paused around the castle’s spire.

The wind now sounds a lot more like a high-pitched scream to my ears.

“Twilight!” I call.

I look away from the castle and back at the Wall behind me. The edges of an even greater number of houses start peeking past its threshold.

I try again. I lift my hoof and push towards the Wall’s innard. As expected, something repels me. Like forcing two unfriendly magnets towards each other, if my hoof was one of them.

There’s no other solution. I must find Twilight.

I run for the castle.

The further I run away from the Wall, the lighter I feel. And with the pressure in my chest lifting, so does the blue hue blanketing everything.

Snapped trees go from blue to midnight black to brown as if they were regaining their colors as I rush past them. The brook I jumped by. The greying walls of an empty concrete shack. Everything I near regains its natural demeanour.

The gate of the castle, from afar looking like Lapislazuli, turns gold once more, and I step inside.

The sound of the wind, that first a single monotone whail, does turn into a distinct set of screams.

Twilight, Twilight, Twilight!

Starlight, help!

My heart grips like in a vice. I press forward in the alleyways inside of the castle’s perimeter. I cross the left-open inner gate and finally reach the inside of the castle. Left, right, up a staircase, up another, down a corridor after a bend to the large room from where I hear the screams coming.

I ram through an ornate door left ajar. Inside is a lab.

A lab hosting a hurricane. Magic. Arched lightning, fire, runes written on a smooth raised slab of rock. Burning papers, torn books, shattered chemistry bottles and stuff. And hovering in the middle near the ceiling, a hole.

Black, terrifying, like looking down a bottomless pit. It's a sphere, not unlike the Wall, but smaller. Sucking everything in with a coldness that transfixes me.

Only after a moment do I catch myself from stepping further in. The trap from which Twilight is racing. Aloft, flapping her wings like mad to escape the devouring entity. And around her, an envelope of magic, that of Starlight.

The unicorn sweats bullets, all four hooves gripped to a crystal chair anchored to the ground.

I dare not step further into the room, sensing that another step forward and I’d be lifted off the ground and flung into the hole. Starlight wouldn’t have enough magic to hold me.

I could feel the attraction, an invisible force pushing against my withers and pulling at my face.

"What’s happening!?" I scream.

Starlight snaps towards me, fear bloodshot in her eyes. I stumble back in surprise.

"Go find help!" she barks, yelping as one of her hooves slips away from the chair. "I can't hold much longer."

"Much longer?" I mumble, then shout back, "But it's been three months, Starlight!"

Her eyes grow wide with realization, then dart around for something.

"I can't..." Twilight heaves, sweat tearing across her, taking off her disheveled, wet mane to race towards the hungry monster behind.

"The book!" Starlight calls out to me, managing to spark a sliver of magic that sends a book flying towards me and missing by a few feet. To get to it, I will need to walk further into the lab. "Write for help! Fast!"

“I…”

"It's magical! Write quickly!"

"Starlight!" Twilight screams, her voice shrill and distorted.

A grunt of pain escapes Starlight's lips. Another layer of magic erupts from her horn to help her friend.

"Sweetie Belle," Twilight howls between two pants, her whole body nearly glowing white, "Please, get help!"

I turn around, ready to move back up the stairs. But like the strange force outside, I cannot retrace my steps, locked in place by that invisible wall. There is only the chaotic room left for me to deal with. No retreat.

I wonder if it's the same for them. Stuck in place where they are, only able to magick themselves steady, so they wouldn't be dragged into the black pit above their head. That blob of darkness.

I hesitate, head low to dodge furniture and shards of glass. Squinting hard at the leatherbound book, my horn fires. A ray of light links my horn to it, to drag it to me, away from being closer to the terrifying hole in the ceiling. I don’t want to, can’t, step further. It’s scary. I don’t understand what’s happening.

There is only danger.

But I can't move the book. And it dawns on me. If I can't move away from the bottomless, otherworldly gullet, neither can anything else.

There is no escape from the pit. You can go round, but all paths lead back to it.

I exchange a quick glance with Starlight, then Twilight. I am crying, so are they.

An invisible claw snuggly tightened around my neck holds my breath back. I’m scared. But in spite of it all, I yell. And jump. And scream some more.

I slide across the room towards the book, feeling my coat and hide pulling at my flesh as the pit’s attraction grows stronger, closer, hungrier. I look around for a flying pen.

Here! A crayon box swiping around in the whirlwind. I snap it within my magic.

I hug the box, the book, fighting the wind to open the pages. One at random. It will do.

I'm sweating. Everything's wind, screams, and effort. And fear.

Quick, quick. I have to be quick. I bite on a crayon, snatching three others in my magic. And write down a word. All letters at one.

H E L P

13. Hope

“Time slowed down inside the Wall,” Luster whispered.

“Yes, it did,” Sweetie Belle confirmed, “and not just a little.”

Luster held her mouth shut, mulling over this revelation. The Wall had been a form of time twister. She didn’t know for sure, but what Sweetie Belle had said painted that picture. A sort of time compression the closer one got to the center of it. That lab. Months passed on the outside, while minutes did on the inside.

“Twilight and Starlight never communicated–”

“Because they didn’t have the time to.”

Luster nodded. The thought stupefied her. Something much grimmer crawled its way to the forefront of her mind. If the Wall swallowed matter like a snack over months, while inside only minutes were passing...

“Wait, wait, a minute.” Luster waved her hoof, a contrite expression on her face. “Mare mentioned that the Wall had cut over the river, that it was going inside! What about rain, or wind, or snow!? You can’t shove months worth of elements into a time-bending vortex without consequences.”

“It was wild,” Cheerilee said.

The trio of mares had walked back up the slope during Sweetie Belle’s tale. They sat down in the grass.

“Wait,” Luster repeated. “You went in too!?” Everypony but Luster laughed. “That’s not funny! Yo– You could have died or worse, been stuck there! Only reckless unicorns or… or fools would mess with time!” She pinched her lips. Was she calling Teacher Twilight a fool as well? Yes… Yes, she did. “Or dared enter such a… paradoxical abomination...”

At a loss for better words, Luster pouted, and looked in turn at each pony in her audience. They all had smiles on their faces.

“You’re crazy,” Luster breathed.

“Were!” Pinkie Pie bubbled. “And also we were very much desperate at that point, if I recall.”

“You could have asked Twi–” Luster clapped her forehead. “Stupid.”

“There wasn’t anypony available at the time,” Mare said. “We were, quite literally, the last ponies in town. We had to do something.”

“And I’m sure you realize as we did then,” Cheerilee added, “we didn’t have much time.”

“It clicked, right?” Luster asked. “The time shenanigan thing, I mean.”

“Oh, yeah,” Pinkie confirmed. “Especially when we recalled Timeturner’s shop. And really, all the clocks in town were broken somewhat.”

“How did the Wall affect clocks on the outside?” Luster asked, curious.

“I don’t really understand still,” Mare said, offering a shrug. “Back then, Twilight told us it hadn’t much to do with time, but with space. The Wall interfered a lot with its surroundings at a level our pony eyes couldn’t see, and that translated in breaking small mechanisms. Id est clocks.”

Luster sighed; she would have to ask Twilight herself. “So you went?” she said.

“We jumped!” Pinkie said.

“It was scary,” Mare added.

Cheerilee shrugged. “We had to do it.”

“You could have waited for help! Ditzy must’ve stopped en route,” Luster groaned. “Just… why?”

“For my friends!”

“For my student.”

“For my town.”

“I– I mean, with all due respect,” Luster stuttered, “none of you were unicorns. You weren’t prepared. Or aware of what to expect.”

“Would you have?” Sweetie Belle asked, a wide smirk on her cheeks as she parted a warm, thankful hug with Cheerilee.

Luster rolled her eyes. “At least, I wouldn’t have been drunk.”

Sweetie Belle erupted in laughter, reaching out to grab Pinkie who laughed along. Both threw a glance at Cheerilee and Mare. One that said Luster had a point, and the young student repressed a smirk.

“But you did go in in the end.” Luster took a deep breath. “How long did it take to make that decision?”

“Minutes, maybe?” Cheerilee said, rubbing her chin. “It’s been a long time.”

“Not much,” Mare corroborated.

Eyes turned to Pinkie, who threw her hooves up. “Don’t look at me, I was drunk as hell.”

Luster shook her head and let out a sigh. “So you went inside?”

“Yeah.” Unanimous.

“How was it?”

“Crazy,” Pinkie cackled.

“How did it feel?”

Pinkie and Cheerilee turned to Mare.

“What?”

“Well, you’re the pony who’s been telling the most of this story today.” Cheerilee grinned. “You can keep going.”

“Alright, alright.” Mare sighed and scratched her forehead, struggling for words at first, until a light shone in her eyes. “It was crazy.”

14. The Last Laugh

"This is it?" Cheerilee asked.

Pinkie and I turned to face her cross-faced as she tightened her coat.

I bit my lip and sighed. "I guess... It's not like we're walking into the belly of the beast."

"Oh, come on, it's not a beast, it's a Wall," Pinkie said, with a dark chuckle and a hiccup.

"We have proof that Sweetie Belle is in there! Alive!” Cheerilee heaved in a hurried tone. “We have to go or– or Rarity would never forgive me."

“You don’t know that,”I countered, a hoof to my throat, pushing down the spiny knot that rested there. "What if we’re wrong and there's nothing left on the other side?"

I breathed and watched the puff of steam die as it left my lips. The early morning cold stung my eyes. I avoided both Cheerilee and Pinkie's expectful eyes.

"Ponyville's at stake, Mayor,” Cheerilee said. “Heck! Equestria might be too if we don't do anything. And help is hours away."

I broke my gaze with her and went on to look up at the black behemoth. The blueing night sky barely drew its contour.

"If we’re right,” I said, “and time is broken, we have all the time in the world out here. It’s when we step in that time will be of importance."

Cheerilee joined me by my side and whispered. “It’s weird that nopony in Canterlot found out about this. Timeturner’s clocks...”

I chuckled darkly. "Did anypony ever mention it?"

Cheerilee nodded. It was a small detail. Inconsequential to the naked eye.

Pinkie walked past us, the ghost of a quiver on her lips, but with determination in her eyes. Her tail swung from side to side and frost licked at the tips of her long mane. “We gotta do it.”

I bared my teeth, sifting the cold night air between them. I had hopes about this, jumping in, but no certainty. Nothing but an intuition. I was no Twilight or Sunset, or anypony important. I was just a pony, in a town, in a dire need of help and guidance. And I had received none.

I carried my cold, slumbering, old body to Pinkie’s side and hugged her, quickly inviting Cheerilee to join in.

Feeling the warmth of their coats against my cheeks, I held back a few tears. I was betting on an instinct, and carrying them with me on this uncertain trip.

“You gotta go to the manedresser, Pinkie,” Cheerilee mumbled. “This doesn’t suit you.”

“I’ll let you pontificate me when it’s all over,” she replied with a giggle.

"You don’t have to come," I finally said. "I’m the mayor. It’s my town."

"Heck, I have to," Cheerilee burst, grabbing both my shoulders and staring right into my soul. "I am not going to let you walk in there alone."

"I don't want you to get hurt," I replied and I looked down.

She laughed, and kissed me. She always gave them unexpectedly. As we held lips together, I threw Pinkie a glare. She better not have a doozie then. Like she did when this whole mess started. At least I didn’t have a rose bouquet for Fluttershy to drop on.

"It's only right to have one last quickie before the jump, right?" Cheerilee asked into my ear after she departed my lips.

My face shot red, I muttered something incoherent back. “That’s not what that word means…” And prompted her to laugh.

"You, dummy," she mused with a half smile curling the sides of her mouth.

"You're the teacher," I said. “You should be aware of your double-entendres."

She chuckled. "Or play with them."

I shook my head disapprovingly. "You must have been the delight of your Equestrian Lit' teacher during college."

"If only."

We turned to Pinkie. I was smiling despite the crushing weight in my chest. The party pony smiled back. A playful smile.

"Should we go?" she asked.

"I don't want to be late to the party," I said.

"I think we're already late." She struck the snow with her hoof. "And I will solve this. Or my name isn't Pinkie Pie."

"Ready?" I asked Cheerilee.

She closed her eyes and chuckled once more. "I don't think so. But it's like a school test. You're never really ready even though you know it's coming." She took a deep breath, nodded to herself, exhaled, and snapped her eyes open. "Let's do this."

The three of us stood in line to face the nearby monster, the Wall, in its ominousness and sharp outline as the night sky had finally turned into ultramarine blue. Somewhere behind the Wall, dawn had begun to rise.

I wished I’d felt the cold bite of the winter’s sun on my muzzle one last time.

“What do we do once we’re inside?” Cheerilee asked. “We don’t even have a plan?”

Pinkie shrugged. “We run to the castle and listen to whatever Twilight will be yapping at us about, right?”

“Sounds about right,” Cheerilee replied.

“Yeah.” I nodded.

Another series of uneasy smiles, huffed laughters, nods, and swallows. A certain apprehension washed over me again as I peered into the blackness now within the reach of my hoof.

That was until Pinkie did what she does best.

"LET'S DO IT!" she screamed.

Cheerilee jumped, her hoof clamped on the edge of my sleeve, and I followed her.

Cold. The first sensation I felt was cold. A freezing wave of it, like stepping under an icy rain.

Second came heat. Like a burst of dry warmth over your face as one switched on a gas stove and the combustion blew hot air at the tip of one’s snout.

Then came the fall. In total darkness, Cheerilee's hoof released its hold and I was alone, tumbling, every point of my body dropping, accelerating towards an unfathomable ground.

Noise. A crashing wave that beat at my chest in shockwaves stronger than any of Vinyl's oversized speakers could ever produce. A thud-thudding that overtook the pounding blood in my ears, the beating in my chest that lifted my insides as they shifted and tumbled inside my belly.

If I screamed, I never heard myself.

And finally came colors, or rather a single color. Blue. Violent and bright. Far too strong to sustain.

I didn't pay it much mind at first to be honest. I was fixated on the agitated waters below my hooves. The one I crashed into. Water forced its way down my throat.

I didn't see Cheerilee. But I felt her. She pierced the surface above me and hit my withers. White hot pain shot through my back and eyes.

I coughed and gasped for air, my hoof finding no place to pull myself up. I swam towards the blue light, kicking and struggling until I reached oxygen once again.

I opened my eyes to a flooded world of chaos, storm, and lightning.

As I swam with difficulty, I cast my eyes up and found no real source to the bright blue glow that bathed this pandemonium. The Wall’s dome stretched far and wide above my head, encasing swirling motes of black clouds, striped with lightning that cracked like whips and rippled through the air, assaulting my ears. The wild body of water that flooded this place swallowed me again.

I hit a tree and dragged myself up its branches through the water. The waves rumbled and crashed against my face and down I went again. Back in the silence, underneath the surface, where the muffled gurgles and bubbles that escaped my gritted teeth remained unheard.

I kicked and jabbed, and hit something — somepony! I clasped my hoof on a torn cloth and swam upwards, back to the light. Back to this mess.

I gasped for air and looked upon a known face.

Pinkie.

"Cheery!" I screamed at whoever would hear. "Cheery!?"

I looked around, searching for a hint of bordeaux purple and a dash of a mauve mane. But Nothing! There was nothing!

I rammed hooves and legs at the water, biting the neck of Pinkie's coat. Kick after kick, I brought us both to the whining branches of the nearby tree and helped Pinkie lock her hooves onto the body of branches.

Searching for Cheerilee, I finally caught a wide berth of the town. I now knew where the river had gone since the Wall had overtaken its bed. Swallowed, but not vanished. It had rushed into a berserker lake that washed and swept across the streets and abandoned houses of the eaten part of Ponyville.

The water cracked windows, battered walls, upturned carts and other discarded everyday items. The cacophony of destruction was like a dagger plunged into my heart. Yet, I watched as the waves ripped through the meanders of my town.

Once I couldn't bear it anymore. I looked past the debris and torn off roofs and found, wholly visible, at the end of a long street, the sight of the castle.

I paused.

Something wasn’t right.

The bet we’d made was that time played differently between the inside and the outside of the Wall.

What I hadn’t expected was that, past the Wall itself, it would play differently as well. I crawled my way up the branch of the drowned tree, Pinkie searching for Cheerilee by my hindleg. I stared in disbelief at what I saw.

As my eyes traced their way to the Castle of Friendship, the blue tinge that shone over the water gave place to mauve, then to purple, and finally to a dark orange hue. While the color shifted, so did the water’s chaotic ride through Ponyville.

The closer to the castle one got, the slower the water would be. The strong, crashing rush that battered Pinkie and I calmed to a near standstill. Until the white crests of foam over the waves stood near umbreaking, steady, like epoxy dioramas from an art exposition gallery.

And even further, there stood a horizon made of water. A wall of water, a large rushing wave that was advancing at a snail’s pace through the town, towards the castle.

Time slowed further as one got closer to the epicentre. I couldn’t hold a madden laugh.

That oranged wall of water. It was a tsunami like those I'd read about in geography journals. In all my years, I'd never seen the ocean, and then and there, I was given a spectacle to watch unfurl at a crawl’s speed: one of nature's most devastating feats. Hydrologists and oceanographers would kill to see what I was seeing now.

Time... We still had time.

Cheerilee.

Snapping back to my dire reality, my eyes darted back to my surroundings, scouring for a hint of purple or pink in the blue haze.

Before I could cry out, a tug at my hindleg captured my attention. Pinkie Pie, a weary smile on her face, was holding Cheerilee in her arms. Bless her.

A weight lifted off my chest and I crawled my way down the tree.

“You see that thing!” I screamed over the din. “Discord would be at home here.”

Pinkie looked down the long, stretched out street that led to the Castle. And the tsunami stuck in time at its end.

“He sure would,” Pinkie said.

Cheerilee coughed up a bit, looked up at us then down at the same street. Her eyes narrowed then grew. “You know it’s going to accelerate the closer we get to the wave,” she warned wearilly.

“You once told me you wanted to go surfing,” I commented.

“I never said that.”

I feigned not listening.

We couldn’t go back anyway. Pinkie had tried swimming back towards the inside of the Wall to no avail. Beyond the current itself and violence of the elements, a force seemed to push us back.

We exchanged a nod, clasped hooves together, and battled forward towards the castle.

Houses after houses, past boutiques, gutted restaurants, flooded stores, we dodged floating wood, poles, shutters hanging about broken windows.

We swam past one of the small town squares where only the marble head of a fountain statue emerged from under the battling foam.

"Careful!" Pinkie screamed, catching me off guard.

A loose wooden beam slammed into us, shattering our hoofhold. Pinkie sunk towards the fountain while Cheerilee called out for me and lunged for my hoof, missing.

I went down. My rump brushed against a few underwater shards of wood or metal, then hit the murky gravel that once was a road. I tossed back and forth in the current and felt myself rushed in through a small enclosure — a door.

I hacked for air, trapped in a whirlwind of water roiling inside of a destroyed shop. Wooden desks flung about and I kicked in the water to avoid them slamming into me.

I punched my way to the nearest wall, aiming away from the windows where the mad water would spit me out into another flooding torrential street.

I anchored myself to a piece of furniture screwed above the water line. A clock.

And it was ticking.

A laugh escaped my lips, water rushing in to drown my impudence. Coughing, hacking, grasping at any grip I could find, I dragged myself out of the indoor maelstrom and onto the set of stairs that led to that shop’s first floor.

I shook my head, pushed my soaked mane back, and put my body into motion.

I slammed open a window that gave onto the square where I'd been sucked away from and found Cheerilee and Pinkie Pie clung to the head of the centerpiece fountain.

I called and waved, motioning to them that I was still around, and saw Cheerilee's brighten as Pinkie pointed in my direction.

We needed out. I looked up towards the roof of the house, its wet slates rushing with the battering rain. I was too old for rooftop parties, I told myself. I wasn't built for adventures either.

But there was a first time for everything.

I dragged myself out of the window and onto the roof, studying the chaos to find a glimpse of the castle.

And so I did. Past two blocks of houses at the edge of town was the Castle. The tsunami was still crawling forward, patient. It had reached the small bridge that led to the entrance gate.

I turned back to Pinkie, and with the lightning’s electric light studied the swirls and foam that raged in a circle around the town square. The fountain top had already gone under.

The water was rising swiftly.

I followed the flood’s flow, tracing a map of its winding currents in and out of the plaza. There was a way out for them.

Waving at Pinkie, I called her attention to the wooden beam that had struck us apart as it accomplished a last roundabout at the edge of a nearby house and evacuated through a side street that led closer to the Castle.

Pinkie and she exchanged a word, nodded, and let go. I followed them from my vantage point, running across the roof and skidding to a halt.

To jump or not?

My heart caught in a vice, I watched them round the plaza, carried by the current towards and past me in a circle.

Following them, I ran and jumped over to the next roof, my heart crawling up my throat. I half-way landed on the next roof over, kicking my hindlegs till I got fully onto the slippery top. I galloped, jumping from houses to houses, calling out to Pinkie and Cheerilee to guide them out of the plaza and further towards the edge of town, and the castle.

Meanwhile, the trudging tsunami shifted and grew more and more violent as we closed the distance.

The blue haze had now lifted off of the houses, the water, roofs, and us all. It only clung to Ponyville’s apocalyptic landscape behind us.

As I reached the last house of Ponyville proper, panting like mad, I closed my eyes and dove back into the water. Back to Pinkie and Cheerilee. We embraced and we front crawled onwards.

We never did reach the edge of the tsunami. We rode its back as it slammed into the castle’s gate. No riding the wave like one of those "surfers" I'd read about in the Canterlot journals Ditzy used to deliver to me. I would owe Cheerilee a trip to the sea someday.

"Brace!" she cried out.

We aimed and went into the gullet where the castle’s two large crystal doors had stood moments ago. The opening sucked us in and into the main hall. The water ripped off the canvas off the nearby walls and lifted the furniture deeper into the edifice.

We reached out and held onto a balustrade giving to the first floor as the water rushed in beneath us, its level ever rising.

Pinkie Pie, the sturdier of us, carried herself over the rail and caught us, dragging us to safety, dry ground as bits and pieces of rocks, wood, and shattered houses flooded into the Castle’s lobby.

By the distorted physical laws of this encapsulated world I was sure Ponyville had ceased to exist at least a month ago on the outside.

My thoughts didn’t dwell on the state of the rest of Equestria for long. I propped Cheerilee up and asked, "Are you okay?"

She burst out laughing. "I’m not. But it could be worse."

We deadpanned and chuckled. Only for her ears to perk up.

"Did you hear that?" Pinkie asked.

We did.

A scream.

The scream of a pony. Furthermore one I knew: a Princess.

"Twilight!" Pinkie burst, falling into a frantic run up a nearby set of stairs, slipping off the first one and slamming her jaw against the crystal floor.

While proverbial stars shot out of her eyes and over her head, I grabbed her by the shoulder and dragged her onto her hooves. We stumbled up the stairs till we reached a long corridor that had been spared the flood up until now.

"I wrote the message, Starlight! But I told you it’s been three months!" a shrill voice reached our ears from a room beyond a bend in the corridor.

Our eyes grew wide as we recognized the filly's voice. My legs fluttered under my body and my knees hit the ground.

She was still alive.

"I can't escape," Twilight screamed.

"The book! Write for help! Fast!" Starlight’s panicked and strained voice shouted.

“I already did!”

Starlight's voice rasped with exhaustion, and carried through the stonework under our hooves as the Castle quaked under the assault of water a few stories below.

Muffled screams followed as Pinkie, Cheerilee and I scrambled down past a set of closed doors where I was sure knowledge I would never understand lurked within books I would never get to read.

"Sweetie Belle," Twilight howled. "Save yourself!"

We turned that corridor's bend and there, a stone's throw away, was an open door.

We scrambled forward, fighting a sudden gust of wind that shot out of the opening, peperring us with paper shreds covered with eerie designs. A desk rammed against the door and flung it off its hinges.

We stumbled into the antechamber where the destruction of my town had been set in motion.

Chaos swirled across that lab, twisting and snapping in electric arcs, papers and all sorts of research remained. All swirling around a raised, round marble base on which a large pentagram of chalked runes glowed in all their cryptic nature and powerful light. All danced under a black orb the size of a cart that licked the ceiling and bent colors and light around its extremities in a strange hue that bled over anything that came into contact with it.

Pens, papers, chairs, all things turned into nothing at the mere brush with the sphere. A monster of black geometry. I watched a desk drawer fly by, touch the black surface and freeze. If only for an instant, the brown of its wood and the bronze of its knob twisted and stretched, reddened, then darkened. Then nothing was left.

"We're here!" We three screamed in unison, once stupor seeped away from us.

Starlight, her horn erupting with magic, didn’t even register our presence. Her four hooves locked onto a hefty crystal chair.

Twilight screamed for help. Suspended in between Starlight and the monster at her back, wrapped in the salutary prison of magic shooting from Starlight's horn. I looked at Sweetie Belle, the book at her hooves, the crayons still floating in her magic.

I fought tears.

Cheerilee beat me to the words I wanted to say. “I’m proud of you.”

A few stares were exchanged, filled with surprise, pleas, and uncertainty. A deep-seated sense of grim realization choked me and wound in my chest. We were ill-equipped to deal with such craziness.

Why us and not... Miss Sunset Shimmer, Princess Celestia? Or anypony else.

I contemplated how foolish I’d been to step into this world of unfettered magic. I was a mayor. Not an adventurer. I was no Daring Do, or Element of Harmony. I glanced at Pinkie who stared with horrified marvel at the spectacle of lightning and red colors that bled around the hole in the ceiling.

We were Earth Ponies. We had practical knowledge. Not... this deadly nonsense. Cheerilee and Pinkie were by my side and we could only watch the eldritch tug of war between the black sphere and the two mares who had created it.

“I can’t walk back,” Sweetie Belle pleaded. “It won’t allow me.”

The Wall wouldn’t let any of us go back. And as I thought about that, I heard water rush behind us.

"Look," Cheerilee said, pointing at the left side of the room by a large cracked window.

A bundle of rope was snatched under a heavy, hardwood desk. Rope...

Practical knowledge. Maybe we could achieve something after all.

"Cheerilee, you’re crazy!" I exclaimed.

I gave her back the kiss she’d given me earlier and her face burned with a red that nearly matched the orb’s. Pinkie Pie clapped her hooves together.

"Help us!" Starlight gasped, wiping the sweat off her forehead against the headrest of her bolted, life-saving chair. "Please!"

We hadn't yet entered the room when a flying bucket flung itself against the doorframe and at my hoof.

"The rope, Sweetie Belle!" I screamed over the violent bedlam that filled our ears. "I have an idea."

"What are you...?" Cheerilee started.

"The rope !" I said, pointing at it.

Sweetie Belle let go of the crayons and lit her horn, a long filament of light rushing out and towards the rope.

Then it died.

She gasped and cried, and tried again.

It died.

As it did with her and us, it seemed magic couldn’t go further than a determined perimeter. You couldn’t affect anything that was further from you around some invisible sphere.

As I processed what to do, The hardwood furniture that retained the rope ripped off its screws, its drawers opened, and its content and wood flew towards Twilight.

As the Princess raised her shield, Pinkie guffawed hard and jumped faster than I had ever seen her do before, a clattering of teeth and she snagged the rope in her mouth, and skidded to the bolted crystal desk and the chair where Starlight had nearly passed out.

Cheerilee looked at me with weary eyes as I pointed at Pinkie with a nudge of my chin.

“Now you’re the crazy one!” Cheerilee said. “What are you thinking about?”

I shrugged.

“You fool.” And her expression mellowed. We held hooves and jumped after Pinkie, skittering across the floor, feeling the hairs on my back stand on end as the attracting force of the sphere that trapped Twilight into a certain doom without Starlight’s magic made itself known.

Earth Ponies are practical creatures, I repeated to myself. A down to earth no nonsense. At least that's what I hoped I needed to be.

Starlight looked down at us from her legs locked around the crystal chair. Her eyes unfocused, panting and grunting, she tried to speak words. She hardly could breathe.

“If I wipe off the runes at the center of the room with my hooves,” I screamed at her. “Will it stop this madness?”

She didn’t answer, her head nearly lolling to the side.

“Starlight!” everypony screamed and she sprung back, having never let go of her magic.

I repeated myself. After a while spent staring at us, she shook her head. “No.”

My shoulder sagged and I hung against the crystal desk, eyes wide. All this way for nothing. All this suffering for nothing. A life spent in bureaucracy, writing down rules and laws and audits and recommendations on blackboards and official papers. Always adding, never removing. And it had to end like this.

Now that it was time to remove something, to save everything. I was useless.

We were trapped. And though the realization hung about, color seeping away from our faces, nopony screamed.

Pinkie Pie went on to tie the rope around one of the legs of the crystal desk and threw the other end towards Sweetie Belle. She managed to catch it and tie it around herself. Cheerilee trudged to my side and sat down, hugging me tight. And I gave her another kiss.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered , digging my muzzle into her mane and taking in her scent. She smelled like a wet river.

“It’s okay. We tried.”

“But…” Starlight rasped. As I looked at her, the beads of sweats on her face glinted with the white hot light of her magic. “Do you happen to have water? Like, a lot of it?”

My jaw dropped a little. Cheerilee burst out laughing, a raving mad laugh that shook some horror into Starlight and twisted her facial features. This whole ordeal was so stupid… had been such a chore. And now that we were so far into this journey riddled with sunk cost fallacies, the Celestia-damned resolution had to come to us by pure accident. Water.

Bloody water.

Pinkie Pie looked at the door and, with a smirk I could not have thought possible, called out for us all to hunker down.

First a rumbling, then a crash. A layer of broken wood, foam, and grime washed into view first, then the wave. Dark, rumbling and reeking. At the moment, it was the most beautiful thing in the universe.

It roiled into the room, carrying with it hints of Ponyville and of the Castle’s destruction. It slammed into us and Cheerilee tightened herself around me. So did I. We locked around the base of the desk and watched in terror as it nearly lifted Pinkie Pie who held onto Sweetie Belle’s lifeline with everything she had.

The water spray and splashes shot upward like a twisted, inverted rain, encountering only a screaming Twilight before it flew into the black sphere.

And finally, as we all started with hope gripping our hearts, the grey wave flung itself over the marble base and the runic inscriptions. The chalk darkened and disappeared, swallowed underwater in a matter of seconds — or maybe years.

And then it all turned to white.

15. That We Depart, We Impact

“So, that’s it? You didn’t even save the day.”

“What do you mean ‘that’s it’?” Mare asked, not without a firm but playful stomp against the grass. “I never promised we would be epic heroes in this story. Those only exist in books, dear.”

Luster squinted. She liked her epic stories. How dared this old mare drag her great heroic literature so low!? And what about the Elements of harmony?

“So,” Mare continued, “yeah, it all turned to white.”

Cheerilee snickered in her hoof. “You’re underselling it, hun.”

“Come on,” Luster groused nearly throwing her hooves in the hair in protest, “don’t make me squirm and beg for the rest of the story. Alright you were no heroes and you only survived because of some water. Speaking of, your story isn’t really water-tight, I'm afraid.”

Pinkie laughed, so did Cheerilee.

“Well,” Mare grumbled, “it’s been a long time. Details can get… fuzzy.”

Luster dragged her hoof through her mane. After a few short breaths and a tense sigh, she asked again, “So, what happened when the Wall disappeared?”

“It all went crashing down,” Cheerilee offered playfully. Luster deadpanned.

“The most surprising thing,” Mare said, “was the silence. The storm and the din inside the Wall had been shaking the Castle itself since we'd popped in. But when it all, well, disappeared in an instant — that whole mess — there was only a deep silence... I’d thought I’d gone deaf.”

“You’re exaggerating a bit,” Pinkie said.

“Me, called out by the Pinkie Pie for exaggerating?” Mare laughed. “Well, maybe.”

“How was it?” Luster pressed.

“Quite noisy,” Sweetie Belle offered.

“Like, bad noisy or–”

“Happy noisy.” Sweetie Belle smiled. “Twilight and Starlight erupted with joy the moment the spell broke and the gaping portal in the room faded. The ordeal for them was over.”

“I recall they passed out on the floor,” Pinkie countered, “and we had to drag them onto the room's crystal desk so they wouldn’t drown in the stinking muck.”

“Come on, Pinkie,” Sweetie Belle whispered disapprovingly, lips half-closed. "I’m trying to paint a good picture of her teacher."

“I thought I taught you not to lie,” Cheerilee said.

“Canterlot taught me differently.”

Cheerilee rolled her eyes.

At the same time, Luster coughed into her hoof. “With all this time shenanigans around that portal, how long did it last for them inside the Wall? And anyway, what were they trying to achieve?”

"Wormholes!" Pinkie blurted out.

"But we have teleportation..." Luster said.

“For them, it was an hour. At most,” Mare said and nodded as she caught onto Luster’s disbelieving look. “They were happy that the cavalry had come so quickly. Still when the two woke up, they told us how surprised they were that it was us and not...” She raised her eyebrows in exasperation and waved her hoof, "a better rescue party, let's say. Yeah, they weren't really mincing their words. But you know, exhaustion and all."

“Twilight quickly caught on to the fact that something was wrong when she saw our faces, though,” Sweetie Belle continued. “Then she recalled that I’d said something about ‘three months.’ Then, there was silence.”

“You could literally hear Twilight’s heart thumping in her chest, faster and faster!” Pinkie said. “I’ve never seen her turn so white. Like a sheet of paper, or a ghost! Totally scared out of her wits. When we walked down the marble stairs of the castle, down the hall, and out the bent-open gates… you should have seen her face. She was all slow and skittish. Like a puppy who knew she'd did a very bad.”

Luster could only imagine: Stepping outside, the wind blasting at their faces, rising in a twister where once a blueish dome had stood. Clouds and storm whisked away, while a few lightning bolts still flashed here and there. What the Wall had taken was now free to wander, and through the parting grey, a blue sky shone down with the light of the sun. A great clearing that laid bare the destruction that had befallen Ponyville. Twilight's town in ruins.

Luster hummed apprehensively, “what season was it?”

“Summer,” Cheerilee said. “Like for Sweetie Belle, months had passed. In our case, seven.”

“My Ponyville was completely empty,” Mare said. “Not even birdsongs.”

“It was spooky!” Sweetie Belle and Pinkie hooted together, waving their hooves in ominous unison.

“And there was a lot of mud and water. Like, a lot,” Sweetie Belle instantly added.

“With the river flowing into the Wall for months, and the…” Mare turned to Sweetie Belle who shrugged before gazing back at Luster, “I really don’t know how unicorns would call it… time or space warping? Anyway, this bedlam destroyed a lot of houses, and buried the rest under a thick layer of mud.”

“But at least,” Cheerille said with a smile, “nature and normalcy had finally come back to us.”

“What about Twilight and Starlight?” Luster asked avidly.

“We walked out in silence," Cheerilee said. "And only after a minute or two of blank staring, Twilight finally asked how long it had been.”

“She totes knew the answer, mind you,” Pinkie said with a laugh that barely covered the tinge of sadness at the back of her throat. “Cheerilee, Mare, and I still had our soaked winter coats on when we’d barged in her lab. Twilight can do a one plus two using category theory. But, you know her. Double-taking everything.”

By their own words. They had quickly emerged from the Friendship Castle, and witnessed further the destruction wrought onto the town. Luster had expected descriptions of devastation, but Mare and Cheerilee had painted an even grimmer picture. Banality.

Mud. Water. Abandonment. Dead plants peeking through a thick layer of cacking brown that already began to crack under the summer sky. The empty houses and their shattered windows showed no sign of life while they vomited liters after liters of water.

“You could make out the edge of the Wall by where plants had shifted in color,” Cheerilee said. “Maybe as far as one mile out of Ponyville’s limits. The Wall had eaten a lot while we were gone.”

“Seven months right?” Luster asked.

“Ten to eleven in total,” Mare said.

“And there was absolutely nopony,” Pinkie added, waving her hooves again. “Not a single Welcome Back party! Nothing planned. Nopony had expected the Wall to just, well, vanish.”

“They abandoned the town as a lost cause?” Luster asked, teetering forward to better hear them.

“Actually no,” Mare dispelled. “That’s the interesting part.”

Luster frowned. “What do you mean?”

“We did meet ponies,” she said. “Two guards.”

Luster’s frown creased further.

"They were totally out of it," Cheerilee commented with a playful smile.

"Flabbergasted," Pinkie added.

"Did... Did ponies volunteer to go inside the Wall in the following months? After you?" Luster deduced.

“A few Royal Guards, yes,” Sweetie Belle said with a chuckle. “And those two, the first we met, you couldn't even make out their shining gold armor under the mud.”

"They saw us before we did,” Cheerilee specified. “They ran to us like mad ponies. I recall one slid off past us in his hurry."

“Ah, yeah!” Pinkie exclaimed.

Silence settled on the hillside and Luster looked away at the green grass, gently flowing in the wind, the town, and the ponies she could see through the windows or walking through the streets. It was hard to imagine that ten years prior, this had all been different. She couldn’t hold her sigh.

“Something’s wrong?” Pinkie asked.

“I don’t know, really,” Luster said, pouting. She looked up at Mare. "And it just ended like that?"

Mare laughed dryly. "Of course not, dear. Whenever ponies like Twilight went on an adventure or caused some adventures to come crashing into our little town, they always left behind one big mess. A mess for us all to clean."

Luster looked down and nodded. “How long did it take to rebuild Ponyville?”

“Roughly a year,” Mare said with a content shrug. “Twilight helped of course. Then she went on to actively take over the throne’s responsibilities. I resigned from my mayoral position soon afterwards.”

Cheerilee chuckled and glanced at Mare, reaching for her shoulder and giving it a pat. “it kinda broke us, really.”

“It sure did. I was due for a long…” She looked at Luster with a corked eyebrow, “uneventful retirement.”

“You alone did,” Cheerilee said, chuckling. “I just went back to the school.”

“Privilege of old age, hun.”

“So now you’re glad to be old?” Cheerilee retorted, smirking.

“And so Ponyville was normal again?” Luster asked, puckering her lips. “What about the ponies that left?”

“They came back, of course,” Sweetie Belle said with a broad smile. “Ponyville is unique.”

“Wait, really?” Luster shook her head. Of course, they’d come back. She wouldn’t be here otherwise. “I mean… Why? Ho– How did you manage it?”

“It was easy,” Mare huffed. “I did nothing.”

“Trouble finds Ponyville, but Ponyvillians rise above it,” Cheerilee said.

“But Sweet Apple Acres?” Luster asked. “That’s what Applejack’s farm is called, right?”

“Replanted!”

“The School?”

“Restored and staffed.”

“And…”

“Everything was fine in the end,” Sweetie Belle interjected, a smile on her lips. “It… It just took time.”

Silence flushed back in between the group as a cool breeze flew over their heads. The evening was upon the town.

“It’s getting late,” Sweetie Belle said, standing up. “Gotta get back to Apple Bloom.”

“Sleeping at the Barn?” Pinkie asked.

Sweetie Belle stood still for a second, then magicked a quick kapow! hoof symbol with a spark of her magic. She bid her good-bye and ran off into the streets of Ponyville. And like that, she was gone.

“It’s getting late indeed,” Cheerilee said, turning to Luster. “You’re welcome to stay with us, Luster.”

“Am I?”

“Of course, you are,” Mare said with a smile. “And anyway, did you plan for an overnight stay...?”

“I didn’t plan for any stay at all.”

Mare closed her eyes and smiled, giving a near imperceptible nod. “Of course. Well, Cheerilee and I have to go grab some groceries again, so catch you at the house.” She fished out a key and gave it to Luster. “Don’t lose it.”

And so, only Luster and Pinkie remained.

“Are you okay, Luster?” Pinkie asked after a while, a sad drawl in her voice. “You don’t look very happy.”

“I’m not. Maybe… I– I don’t know.” Luster threw her hooves up and made a frustrated little noise. “I expected something else really. A story with heroes. A clear resolution. Something, well, interesting.” She motioned at everything around her. “Instead I got an unsatisfying story that sounds too much like it's trying to teach me some kind of lesson. So much for something that turned out fine and dandy in the end. This, AH, this doesn’t feel like an actual punishment. Instead, just, just like some kind of bizarre lesson.”

Pinkie guffawed. “Twilight wouldn’t do something without a good reason, trust me on that. Like we said, she does like her to-do lists.”

“She is sounding as cryptic as Celestia right now.”

Pinkie laughed. “Well, you don’t get the job without picking on some of the quirks along the way, right?”

Luster stared at Pinkie through thin-slit eyelids. “And did I pick some up from Twilight?”

“You? Nah,” Pinkie said, waving her off. “You just were born with them.”

Luster crossed her legs and her shoulders drooped.

“I’m sorry,” Pinkie said, repressing a laugh. “It’s just… You really act like her when she first arrived in town.”

“No, it’s fine,” Luster said. “I deserve it. I wasn’t really kind to Mare and Cheerilee when I met them today. I really need to apologize.”

“You’re leaaaarrrnnniiiing,” Pinkie wooed gently into Luster’s ear.

Luster swatted at her laughing mug like she was an annoying fly. She grumbled. “It’s just that, again, I feel cheated out of a punishment. Must sound weird, right?”

“Eh.” Pinkie shrugged. “It happens.” She put her hoof on Luster’s shoulder. “Sometimes you get more than you wished for, or a gift you didn’t quite expect. And you know what you can’t do with weird gifts, right?” Luster shook her head. “Refuse them.”

“How can I refuse something I don’t even really understand?”

“By keeping them close to your heart.”

Luster wished she could roll her eyes all the way back inside their sockets. She knew she couldn’t expect to always get something on the first try. She was really good at that, though. But, truly, some lessons did need a little extra work. But usually she had guidelines for those. This homework, this field trip, it was something else.

“Come on,” Pinkie said. “It’s gonna be night soon. You must be starving, and I know a nice little place. We can crash for tea at Mare and Cheery's house later.”

And then, right on command, Luster’s stomach growled loudly. She turned around and smiled back at Pinkie.

“Thanks, Pinkie,” she said. “You think we can invite Mare and Cheerilee? I really need to apologize to them.”

“Sure!”

Luster nodded, looking back at the hillside, the stump, the riverbed, and the towering castle far beyond the houses, lightly sparkling in the dusk. “Can I catch up with you, Pinkie? I need five minutes.”

“Alright-y.”

As Pinkie trotted away, Luster rummaged through her bag for Twilight's missive to Mare. After she’d retrieved the now-crumpled envelope, she opened it, and took out the letter.

She sat down on the green and for a time ran her hoof through it, feeling the rugged blades of grass against her coat. She looked about, at the town, the lights in the windows, and their reflection in the river. She listened to the sounds of distant music and laughter. It was hard to think that such an event like the Wall had happened here. No traces of it visibly remained. On any wall, any window, any house. It was all in the minds of the ponies that had the misfortune of living it.

Maybe it was about that after all. That lesson.

With yet another of her long-winded sighs, Luster unfolded the letter and went down to the post-scriptum.

“That was one terribly long lesson, Teacher Twilight.”

Epilogue

Footnote Dear Miss Mare, when it is right, please give this letter back to Luster.

Dear Luster,

I can only guess Mrs Cheerilee and Mare have welcomed you well, and that you’ve been the utmost respectful student :0. I hope you will enjoy your next few days in Ponyville. Yes, you heard that right (or well, read it). I have cleared your schedule!

You have absolutely no excuse not to stay and enjoy the apple of my eye. No pun intended. :)

Are smileys okay by the way? I don’t know if it’s hip or whatever you, students, call it these days. Anyhow, I really think this will be a great opportunity for you to discover new things, and get some great countryside air. Canterlot can be quite the drain on a pony’s mind.

If you’re reading this, I hope you’ve heard that important story from Mare, Cheerilee, and anypony who has by now swung by their home — unless you’ve opened this letter up before-hoof like you did that one time… If that’s the case then I am very disappointed. But I am quasi-certain you did follow through with my to-do list for once.

Dear Luster,

This is both a punishment, and a lesson. But I am confident you already know that. You’re used to them by now, I think. Wink, wink. What I am also quite sure of, as well, is that you must be finding it quite jarring. Strange. Out of the norm for you or I.

And, well… You’d be right.

This story I wanted you to hear, it’s about ponies and responsibilities. And I hope that with time, you’ll come not just to understand it, but appreciate it. Experience must be passed on. But it can’t be replicated, only taken into perspective.

We are not heroes of our little stories. Well… Sometimes, we are but that’s not what matters. Everypony has to rise to the fore and face their lot, the hoof they’ve been dealt with. And sometimes, that lot is dealt not by fate, or by villains, but by the very heroes of other stories. They come, perform, and fly away, leaving you to clean up the damage.

Look around you.

Stories, in the end, aren’t made of stone. They’re made of ponies. Ponies we impact, hurt, save, forget, and often pay no heed to. But they are still there, behind those stones. Stories abound. Maybe not just yours, or mine, but a myriad of stories that form a universal narrative in which we all share a common destiny.

It’s too easy to think there is only our story. And forgetting that, and the ponies around you, is a risk you will have to contend with one day. Especially when you are as gifted as you are. That’s what growing up means, I think. I don't really know yet myself.

It’s a way of looking at the world I want to impart to you. It may seem a bit vacuous or grandiose for now, I am sure, but in a sense I hope you will come to understand its ramifications, Luster.

You are a great student, a wonderful unicorn, but you are lacking something that I once lacked as well.

A sense of belonging, and friends.

I would love to see you make some friends, Luster.

This is your next assignment. And no! The punishment is not making friends. Stop pouting. Tsk-tsk.

Education also comes from how you embed yourself in ponies’ lives. A proper worldview does not just come from adventure or surmounting dragons, or just reading about them. It comes from building yourself up with others, finding an authentic way to take part in this wonderful world, not as a driving force, but one of its many puzzle pieces.

And friends are the first step.

Go make some. And have some fun along the way.

Your devoted and still learning teacher, Twilight~