Equestrian Concepts

Chapters

Interlude: Or, what happened that night
Chapter Two: Train of Thought, part two
Chapter Three: Above and Below
Chapter Four: Dawn of Understanding (Continued)
Interlude: Shipping and Handling
Chapter Five: The Other Side of the Table
Interlude: Past and Present
Chapter Six: Be Mindful of Your Gardens
Chapter Seven, Part One: Remnants of the Past
Chapter Seven, Part Two: Forward and Back
Chapter Eight: Where The Heart Is
Chapter Nine: Irregular Logic
Interlude: Flights of Fancy
Chapter Ten, Part One: The Past Is Immutable
Chapter Ten, Part Two: Fire and Golden Eyes
Chapter Eleven: Tapestries Unwoven
Chapter One: Train of Thought
Chapter Four: Dawn of Understanding
Epilogue

Interlude: Or, what happened that night

Interlude:

Or, what happened that night

The sun had long since set by the time Rainbow Dash had arrived at Ditzy’s house. As Celestia’s blaze had dipped below the horizon, so too had a similar fire burned out in the heart of Ditzy, to be replaced by the brooding of a full moon and a sweeping swath of stars, courtesy of Luna.

Rainbow Dash made a slow, stealthy approach towards Ditzy’s house, creeping along towards a window at the back of the house. Normally, Dash would barge into a friend’s house in the least subtle way possible, but the forbidding events of the day had turned a usually brash Dash into something a little more cautious. She couldn’t exactly call Ditzy a friend, either, and that only compounded her caution. After conferring with Imaginary Fluttershy, she had realized that whatever was wrong with Ditzy required her to act reasonably respectful of Ditzy’s previously unexpressed emotions.

She crept around until she was directly underneath the windowsill. Dash perked her ears, attentive for any sign of what could be going on inside.

Fortunately for Dash, Ditzy had had a rather abrupt emotional shift during the last conversation.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Ditzy had been furious. She had let it out, or so she thought, when she let Dash have a piece of her mind about the way Dash was mishandling her job. Dash, though, had inadvertently pushed her farther. From Ditzy’s perspective at the time, things had been much clearer—and more infuriatingly insidious.

“I’m sorry, Ditzy,” Dash had sighed. “I just don’t know what went wrong.”

Almost a quarter second of disbelief reigned in Ditzy’s mind after Dash spoke. Was she mocking her? Rainbow Dash, who was so talented and gifted and fortunate enough to have friends who understood her, friends who loved her for who she was, Rainbow Dash who had fame across Equestria for her acts and loyalty, Rainbow Dash who had mercilessly tormented her, constantly laughing at her mistakes? Ditzy realized then the depths of the anger welling up inside her, demanding retribution. Rainbow Dash had mocked her for the last time. Vengeance, righteous vengeance surged into her consciousness as the sun broke over her back, rays warming her, urging her onward. She had begun to stride toward Dash, hell-bent on inspiring pain in her torturer.

All of this thought transpired in close to a second.

But Ditzy did not finish any of her dark intentions.

At first, the sight of Dash terrified had fueled her blaze of fury. Then she was reminded of that terrible day not so long ago; that day when Discord had paid her the most horrifyingly interesting of visits.

Ditzy froze for an instant, standing over Rainbow Dash, the fate of two souls resting on the top of a cloud-built mountain. It had felt like a thousand years to Ditzy, the slow, dawning realization of what she was contemplating. I can’t… not after what Discord did. I would be the same as him. I would be worse than him.

Ditzy opened the door and closed it softly. She dove off the house, trying to escape as quickly as possible. She didn’t want Dash to hear her screaming.

She didn't want Dash to hear her crying.

~~~~~~~~~

Fortunately for Ditzy, Dash did hear her crying, if only a little later than necessary to save the day.

Dash heard something muffled as she skulked outside the backyard, bottom-floor window. This was definitely something worth investigating, as this was Ditzy’s house and she was probably in it. The cold night’s air kept her awake as Luna’s moon shone down gently on the innocent and guilty alike. It was a good bit later, as Dash had taken a little time to determine that Ditzy hadn’t rampaged off somewhere else. Despite her haste, it had still taken her much longer than she would have preferred. She flew silently toward the second-story window, listening intently. It sounded like somepony was sobbing into a pillow…

Rainbow Dash’s gut twisted at the sound. Of all the emotional challenges she feared, this was the worst. It was worse than the sappiest Hearts and Hooves day romantic experience. Dash could stand that in very small doses, provided it didn’t involve her, but she just couldn’t take a crying pony. Crying was often contagious, in Dash’s experience, and she couldn’t let her guard down like that. Emotional weakness was definitely something that Dash could not express. She’s upset, obviously, but what can I do about it? I never signed up for this. Yet her guilt pulled her into action.

Steeling herself, Dash peeked over the edge of the window to see Ditzy with her head buried in a pillow. Horsefeathers. Dash cursed silently to herself as she let herself float back down to the ground, leaning against the house and feeling terrible for having played a role in the tragedy this was quickly becoming.

“How could anypony go from angry to crying so fast?” Dash wondered aloud quietly, as shame and guilt gnawed away at her conscience. This was her own fault, anyways, at least some of it. She had to do something, and fast, before it got any worse.

As if in response, she heard a filly call out: “Mommy? Are you ok?”

Celestia, no. Not her kid. Please don’t let her kid get upset too. Dash’s gut sank further as her feelings contorted into self-blaming misery, and her thoughts would not leave her be.

Dinky was home. Dinky was going to see her mom upset and then she would get upset and Rainbow Dash knew she had to do something right now, but she couldn’t move out of her own emotion-induced paralysis after seeing Ditzy crying like that so shortly after her furious display… Despite, or perhaps because of her suddenly catatonic body, Dash’s emotions continued to twist and churn inside of her.

“Mom’s just fine, Dinky. Go back downstairs.”

Ditzy sounded exhausted to Rainbow Dash, like a cloud that had been squeezed for water too many times and had dissipated into air. Her voice betrayed an emotional drain, something that would still convey sorrows to anypony listening.

Dash was lying under the windowsill of the bottom floor when she heard Dinky trot downstairs, sigh, and rest her forelegs out of that same window as she stared at the moon. A thrill of adrenaline touched Dash for a moment, and she flattened herself against the wall—if she hid just right, Dinky wouldn’t see her unless she looked straight down.

“Why is mom so sad, Luna?” Dinky said, staring helplessly at the moon.

Dash squirmed, both from the uncomfortable position she was in and the fact that she wanted desperately to barge through the window, confess that she had been terrible to Ditzy and tell her how much of a good pony she was and how Dash should never have acted so cruelly. She couldn't do that, of course; it would be terribly embarrassing afterwards and she thought she would never hear the end of such an occurrence.

“Did I do something wrong?” Dinky queried, starting to sound nervous. “I’ll do better next time! I’m sorry, mom!” Wet drops began to fall in front of Dash as Dinky began to let loose a torrent of tears. Dash felt miserable… and it only got worse when she started to cry as well. She might have been able to stave off tears of a singular pony, but a crying filly was too much sad for Rainbow Dash to handle.

I can’t take it!

She lost control.

~~~~~~~~~~

Dinky didn’t know why her mother was sad, but that didn’t change her sympathy for her as she wept at the window.

Dinky paused her emotional release momentarily when she heard a slight rustle. “Is somepony there?” she called out, and she might have heard a choked sob coming from somewhere close to her.

Suddenly, a pegasus leaped out from under her window and took to the skies, outlined by the moon as they flew away. In the darkness, Dinky couldn’t distinguish any details about the flier, but she knew—it just had to be!

It’s a servant of Princess Luna! Dinky had heard about them before, but the other fillies had scoffed at her when she mentioned them like they were an old mare’s tale or something. Dinky knew that the servants of Princess Luna kept careful eyes on downtrodden ponies and brought them luck if they were down. They were going to help her and her mom! Dinky jumped up and down with a squee on her face, looking at the receding pegasus in delight.

“Don’t forget to tell Luna she’s my favorite princess!” Dinky called out.

Foregoing her own room, Dinky slipped up the staircase and into her mother’s room, snuggling close against Ditzy’s now calm and asleep form. Her face rested in her mother’s mane and her hooves rested on Ditzy’s shoulders as she fell asleep on her mother’s back, slipping into happy dreams. Maybe mom will be happy when Princess Luna sends one of her servants to cheer her up! They had never failed, at least in the stories Dinky had heard. Everything was going to be all right—at least in Dinky’s mind.

Chapter Two: Train of Thought, part two

Chapter Two

Train of Thought, Part 2

A gentle beam of light careened along the harrowing journey, from the nuclear depths of Celestia’s domain, through the blackening miasma of space, the void between the stars, through countless asteroids and dust particles, the upper atmosphere; it broke through a cloud, finally piercing a glass window, bending and distorting as it went, to alight softly on an awakening Ditzy’s face.

Ditzy yawned and hugged Dinky tighter. Her precious daughter was still asleep, lost with a giddy smile in dreams that no doubt encompassed adventures larger than imagination itself. Ditzy had had some bewildering dreams as well, and none that she wanted to remember. Fire had figured prominently in some, mostly starting under her control—inevitably though, it had always spiraled into volcanic proportions, snatching up Ditzy and leaving only ashes in its wake. The burning shards of flame that had controlled her shone potently, maliciously bright, threatening to sear Ditzy's mind itself until her memories vaporized. They weren’t nice dreams, and Ditzy had been left with a feeling of painful helplessness. Crushed under the torment of the destruction she wreaked, at last she had felt someone take her by the shoulders and suddenly, gracefully, lift her out of the fire.

After that, the dreaming had become less turbulent and eventually subsided into the bliss of relaxation, of the absence of noise, the absence of turmoil, a healing sleep. Soft sensations overrode agony, soothing painful recollections. It had all probably meant something nice. She could go ask Twilight Sparkle if she had any books on the interpretation of dreams; actually, she hadn’t been to the library in some time. It probably had to do with knocking over the biggest shelf in the library or something—that tended to discourage further visits, despite Twilight’s kindness about it and their friendship.

Then the events of the last few days almost cast their pallor over Ditzy—her face would have darkened, but having an adorable sleeping foal snuggle you tended to dispel those feelings. Why must I always let go of you? Ditzy asked with internal resignation, thoughts wandering.

The mention of Twilight had made her think about Rainbow Dash and then everything that had happened in the unfortunate last few days. Gently disentangling herself from Dinky’s embrace, Ditzy slipped out of bed and downstairs, intent on getting some breakfast before tackling the day. Conveniently, she had disposed of all the muffin mix and some of the more muffin-centric cooking elements in her kitchen after Discord had visited. Ditzy shuddered as unpleasant memories lurked at the edge of her consciousness. The void of muffins in her kitchen served as an unconscious reminder, just enough to keep Ditzy on edge as she made breakfast for herself and Dinky. Ditzy scrawled a reminder for Dinky and left it next to her plate. It read: “Don’t be late for school, make sure to pay attention in class, and don’t forget to have fun! Love, Mom.”

Ditzy started out for the mailmare’s office slowly, rethinking in particular the events of last night. She had come to the determination that it was her fault: no matter the provocation that anypony could offer, it was never deserving of another wrong turn. She was trotting along the road, not flying—she had set out a little earlier; she needed a little time, and although it might make her late she would undoubtedly still get there much earlier than Rainbow Dash. She grimaced as she recalled her intentions of that evening. It was almost like she had turned into him, intent on spreading malice and pain. Had the recollections of Discord’s torment not shook her out of her haze of anger, she knew she would have done something regrettable. Ditzy had the most unnerving feeling that the cold-bloodedness that had possessed her was the same way that Discord felt whenever he visited his nefarious actions on others. Ditzy had felt justified, after all, right up until that turning point when Dash had reminded her… well, of her after Discord had finished with her.

Discord has to have the strangest attitude toward life to be able to do what he does. It doesn’t make any sense to just go around and cause random pain or pleasure to everyone he meets. Then again, everypony else does that too, whether they intend to or not. Every interaction, even the slightest glance in a single day, affected the lives of other ponies, and that small yet important realization let a small glimmer of chance into her thought. Maybe Discord didn’t know what he was doing.

“No,” Ditzy mused aloud, drawing no stares on the still-vacant early morning street; her reaction had been strong enough to draw a verbal answer. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Discord had to know that his actions had consequences, otherwise he would react very differently instead of his apparent uncaring for the fate of his victims. Although, not everypony got hurt, Ditzy conceded to herself. His reign of chaos had stayed true to randomness. Dinky had been out with Cheerilee and the class during a field trip at one of the Apple family orchards at the time, and by all accounts the changing of apples into marshmallows, leaves turning chocolate, a nearby stack of logs becoming graham crackers while Scootaloo’s mane burst into harmless purple fire had reportedly resulted in the most epic s’more time ever. All Ditzy knew beyond that was that it had been terribly difficult to get all the molten chocolate and marshmallows out of Dinky’s mane. Dinky had seemed happy enough, though, and it had been a welcome distraction from her own visitation. And he reserved the cruelest part for me.

It was deliberate.

Discord had to have his own problems. He never seemed to talk to anypony for long enough to discuss his own life—he usually just barged into others lives’ in an extremely unconventional manner for short periods of time before disappearing in a puff of smoke or behind the cover of an exploding chunk of chocolate milk. He might just need kindness, understanding and caring, healing. He might need a hug, too, if not for all the ways he’d twist it.

Ditzy arrived at the mailmare’s office, opening the door and almost running straight into Rainbow Dash.

What the hay? Dash was on time, in uniform… and looking at Ditzy nervously.

That was unexpected. Ditzy eventually broke out of her surprised expression and turned to close the office door. She had half-expected Dash to not show up at all after what had happened, and Ditzy wouldn’t have blamed her. She had had no plan for Dash arriving earlier than her: originally, she had intended to compose an apology before Dash arrived. Even if she had been afforded that opportunity, she probably would have lost it with dark thoughts of Discord.

“So, um…” Dash began hesitantly. “The mail doesn’t run on Sunday. What are we gonna do?”

Since Dash had forgone any mention of yesterday’s disasters, Ditzy decided to do the same for now and instead get on with her work.

“Sunday is when we sort all the mail that we didn’t get to during the week. If we didn’t, the backlog of unsorted mail would eventually overload the office. That would result in a catastrophic explosion of junk mail, magazines, love letters, packages, and other general correspondence that would bury Ponyville and the surrounding area in a very flammable coat of detritus, likely leading to a terrible fire that would undoubtedly cause millions of bits in property damage, not to mention homeless or hurt ponies.”
Dash looked mortified. “Has that ever happened before?”

“Fillydelphia, about forty years ago. Most of the mail that we don’t get to during the week goes into these bins, and after that we sort it into the different routes…”

As Ditzy continued to explain, Dash listened with rapt attention. Dash intended to give Ditzy a very sincere apology, plus that fiery mail explosion sounded pretty bad to her. Loyalty and decency demanded that Dash do a good job, and apologize for her rude behavior earlier.

Ditzy was thinking along a parallel line. Dash hadn’t been the friendliest pony in Ditzy’s past, but what Ditzy had done was inexcusable. She needed to apologize for her uncharacteristic behavior, and needed to give respect to Dash if she was going to deserve any.

Business came first, both realized; it would have to wait until after the job was done. Fortunately, the work went quickly—Dash took care not to make mistakes this time, so Ditzy didn’t have to stop and correct her work. They ended up finishing not long after noon, earlier than Ditzy had ever finished before, and the office looked almost as organized as Ditzy had ever seen it.
Work had prevented them from bringing up the awkward subject of what had happened the previous evening, in addition to the strange events of the day. Ditzy was pleasantly surprised by Dash cooperating so well, especially after the way Ditzy had confronted her, how she had been within a hair’s breadth of doing something truly malicious. Dash was doubly impressed at this point—Ditzy not only put on a surprising show of calm towards Dash, but also had one of the most unintentionally dangerous jobs in Ponyville. The early end to the last work day found them facing each other, about to leave the office and both grasping unsuccessfully for words that would not come.

Ditzy hadn’t thought of an apology—thoughts of Discord had consumed her this morning, and then Dash had arrived, leaving her no time to compose something that could really make up for her display of anger. Ironic that Discord would take that chance from her, considering the mental fortitude he had drained from her already. I’m just going to have to wing it and hope for the best.
As these thoughts played through Ditzy’s mind, Dash shifted about uncomfortably. She knew full well what she had to do; it was only a matter of gathering the courage. At last, Dash cried out “I need to apologize!”

“What!?” Ditzy was more than a little surprised; her eyes wide, she felt oddly relieved. “I should be apologizing to you after how I treated you yesterday!”

“I got what I deserved.” Dash’s quiet mood decomposed as she bowed her head in shame. “All those things you said—about how I was doing a terrible job, how I have a problem with responsibility… I don’t deserve my Element. That wasn’t loyalty. That was abandonment. I can’t change what I’ve done, but I am sorry, Ditzy.”

The about-face startled Ditzy, granting her a shock of new thoughts about the popular pegasus. For as long as Ditzy had stayed in Ponyville, her rare interactions with Dash had not been pleasant. Condescendingly, Dash had casually disrespected Ditzy, yet there was more than she had opted to remember. In that moment of clarity, Ditzy saw the clear worries that had crippled the athletic mare—and then realized her own flaws in conduct. For Ditzy was hardly blameless in her own past, even beyond the incident in the cloud-house, and she remembered now with shame that she had not always been silent against the rumors and insinuations, that she had also fueled the insidious fire with her own actions, that she had been quick to condemn and slow to forgive.

Old habits died slowly.

Why have I kept doing this? It's so easy for me to slip, but now I need to change...

To change was not easy, and the ingrained reaction of hate swelled and diminished as Ditzy battled herself. The plainly repentant Dash proved a potent catalyst, and eventually Ditzy drew up enough meager confidence to act.

Dash looked back up at Ditzy. Dash couldn’t see a whole lot through her blurred eyes, but she saw Ditzy stand next to her. A moment or two passed, and then Ditzy pulled her into a tight hug, fighting through her own inhibitions and reservations.

“What gives, Ditzy?” Dash was the slightest bit uncomfortable being caught in a tearful hug, and it showed as she squirmed. Ditzy just hugged her harder. Honestly, Dash had expected Ditzy to further condemn her atrocious acts, and certainly not be apologetic herself!

“I accept your apology,” Ditzy said, smiling despite the tears in her eyes, “Would you accept mine? You don’t have to, I was just… angry. I feel terrible because of it. I haven't been—”

“I think I deserve what I got,” Dash said, cutting her off before she could apologize for more distant wrongs and still looking for a release from the unrelenting embrace. “But I still accept your apology. And, uh, could you loosen up on the hug a little?”

“Sorry,” Ditzy said, disengaging her hug and setting Dash back on the ground. She felt uncertain in the moment, still reeling from her realization.

“Just one question. How come you never told about that mail explosion thing earlier? It sounds awesome!”

“You probably would have tried to set one off,” Ditzy replied, tone marginally accusatory, but she was beyond her turbid emotion now.

“Yeah,” Dash agreed. “It would have been cool though!”

“And that’s why you’re a weather pegasus instead of a mailmare.” Ditzy said with a slight smile, poking Dash playfully.

Rainbow Dash and Ditzy Doo laughed as they exited the mailmare’s office, only to find themselves about to part in opposite directions.

“You know what?” Dash said. “You’re not so bad. And I still think I owe you. Can we forget this and be friends?” She said hopefully, holding out her hoof.

Ditzy didn’t answer, but instead grinned, shook Dash’s hoof, and pulled her into a hug. You have no idea how glad I am that I can still forgive you.

“Alright,” Dash sighed with mock seriousness. “You got me.” Dash hugged Ditzy back this time, and then waved goodbye before flying off into the distance.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning, Ditzy arrived at the train station after dropping Dinky off to find Twilight Sparkle waiting for her. Upon seeing Ditzy, Twilight set her book down on the bench (titled The Horrendous Fillydelphian Mail Explosion) and called her over.

“Hello, Ditzy. Rainbow Dash came over last night and started babbling about mail explosions. I was wondering: was the Fillydelphian mail explosion really so bad they had to impose martial law? This book seems a little… fanciful.” She glanced dubiously back at the cover.

Ditzy shifted slightly, not so much interested in the book as the reasons for it being there. “It was probably that bad. How did you know to find me here?”

“Dash told me. Oh, that reminds me.” Twilight dug through her bag until she found a large envelope. “These are for you. Dash told me that you were going on vacation, and she suggested that we get you something to show our appreciation for all the hard work you do, especially considering you keep Ponyville from exploding on a regular basis.”

Ditzy opened the unusually large envelope with moderate amounts of curiosity and self-imposed caution. Inside it contained—No, what—her eyes had to be misaligned, tricking her.

First class train tickets, five star hotel passes, a ticket to a concert. She didn’t even get to recognize the rest of the contents before she looked up in shock. This was… unexpected, to say the least.

“I, what!?” Ditzy stuttered. “How did you afford all of this!? I didn’t want this from you. I don’t deserve any of this.”

“Apparently Rainbow Dash thinks you do,” Twilight said with a satisfied smile. “She was the one who organized it. After she calmed down from talking about horrendous mail explosions, she mentioned your vacation. We ended up rounding up the rest of the Elements and a few others by the end of the day and we all agreed that you deserved something to show how much you mean to us, although Dash was the one who came up with the idea.”

“The interesting part, though,” Twilight continued, “Is when Dash ended up trying to contribute more than Rarity. In fact, Rainbow Dash gave so much that Rarity thought that Dash was trying to show her up! We had to stop them short of selling their houses, but, ah…” Twilight said with a guilty grin. “It was pretty entertaining watching them dig through their couches for spare bits. I’ve never seen Dash as inspired as she was—but Rarity is the Element of Generosity, after all, and she does run a very successful business. She won in the end, but Dash put up an impressive fight. What happened to make her so fired up?” Twilight looked at Ditzy quizzically.

“I think that’s something that’s going to stay between good friends, at least for now.” Ditzy smiled, remembering Dash’s nervous reaction to open displays of some of her more embarrassing emotions. Although she might have gotten just a bit more comfortable with her encounter, considering how passionately she had pursued her atonement, despite Ditzy feeling at ease with Dash now.

“Alright then…” Twilight said, still curious but respectful of her friends’ privacy. “I’ll see you later—the library is still a mess after that strange mute passed through. He had the most unusual eyes…” Twilight muttered the last bit to nopony in particular, trotting off back to the library. He had gone through the entire section of books on history before Nightmare Moon’s banishment in a single day—something that Twilight would be hard-pressed to do, although admittedly that section was a little lacking. He wouldn’t talk, either—he didn’t appear used to not being able to talk, unusually enough. Twilight’s thoughts drifted back into planning the checklist of checklists she would need to clean up all the books he had left lying around.

Ditzy called out her thanks several times as Twilight trotted away. An hour later, the train arrived, and Ditzy boarded.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Silent implications of secretive intents and hope regained pervaded Ditzy's mind. The wind was blowing through her mane, but she pulled her head back inside the train car, mostly because of the approaching tunnel. It was cold in there, and Ditzy didn’t want to freeze, much less stick her head out into the dark.

Ditzy had been floored, to say the least. The last week had been degrading, terrifying, perilous, anxious, surprising, but finally, and most of all, joyous. She had done things she wasn’t proud of, but it had turned out better than her wildest dreams. She wouldn’t have it any other way: if she hadn’t done exactly what she did, or didn’t do, the end result would be different. Ditzy couldn’t imagine a better result, though. Rainbow Dash had been the last of the Elements to hold the belief that she was an emotionally bereft clutz, and in a small town like Ponyville, the Elements carried some pretty hefty weights with their opinions, whether they realized it or not.

Ditzy was certainly feeling amiable as she wandered about her car, noting again the finery and the absence of other ponies. She would have really liked to have someone to talk to in her good mood, but ironically the first-class cars were designed for ponies who would rather shut themselves up, away from everypony else, rather than socialize. Ditzy could be somewhat bubbly if she was very happy, although she hadn’t really displayed it. Some even went as far to speculate that her cutie mark was, in fact, bubbles, but she couldn’t imagine why. She didn’t do anything involving bubbles. Most thought it had to do with bubble wrap, which would explain why she was a good mailmare, despite the occasional mixup. I don’t see why they cared about it and not me. It was a moot point for them to speculate. If they had wanted to know, why didn’t they just talk to me and figure it out that way?

The door to the cabin swung open, startling Ditzy out of her reverie. The same young earth pony entered who had earlier served Ditzy breakfast, with her cinnamon coat and white mane. It almost looked like it was sculpted out of ice, but somehow still managed to flow about her form as she moved. She looked a little less haggard now, but still troubled. It was clear to Ditzy that her mind was somewhere else as she brought in the lunch cart.

“Hello!” Ditzy said, bringing the other pony back into awareness.

“Oh, hello Miss..?”

“Ditzy Doo. You can call me Ditzy.”

“Can I get anything for you, Miss Ditzy?”

“You can drop the miss, I don’t care much for formalities. How about you take a break and talk for a while? You look like you’ve been working hard.”

The white-and-cinnamon pony glanced around, saw nopony else, and then flopped out on the couch opposite the bed with much less grace than was implied by her previously respectful and dignified composure.

“They do work us pretty hard,” she admitted, “And I think I owe you my name, seeing as I know yours.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” Ditzy said, grabbing a cup of coffee off the lunch cart. It was a bit late for coffee, not to mention that she usually didn’t drink much coffee, but she wanted to be at full steam for when she arrived at Canterlot.
She shrugged as if it didn’t matter.

Ditzy took a sip of coffee, then her eyes widened.

“So, uh, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but…”

“This is really good coffee! Did you make this?”

“Yes, I did.” The earth pony seemed a little perturbed by being interrupted, but also simultaneously pleased and pained by the comment. “I was, uh, wondering…”

“Go on.”

“What happened to your eyes?”

Ditzy shrugged. She wasn’t terribly surprised that that was the question, but it wasn’t something that she was asked often. Most ponies assumed she was sensitive about it (she wasn’t) or wouldn’t ask her about them—so they ended up speculating behind her back about all kinds of crazy explanations. Ditzy hadn’t expected her to open the conversation with that kind of inquiry; most ponies with tact skirted the issue. She found that particular kind of tact to be more irritating than respectful.

“The truth is, I don’t know. They’ve been that way as long as I can remember.”

“Did you never have a doctor check them out when you were young?”

“I didn’t grow up in a situation where we had ready access to a doctor. I lived in the slums of Las Pegasus for most of my early life.”

“I’m sorry.” She looked terribly perturbed, and straightened into a more formal position.

“My eyes are actually pretty useful. I can still focus on one thing most of the time, but I can also kind-of look at look at two things at once. Like a chameleon. I stopped doing that when I realized how odd it looked.”

“I meant that I’m sorry you grew up in a slum!” The yet-unnamed earth pony shifted the rest of the way upright, until she was sitting properly facing Ditzy. “That sounds terrible… I grew up in Canterlot, and although Canterlot has its 'interesting' locales, I never faced anything like that.”

“It was bad, but I had my support.” Ditzy gave a half-smile as she remembered her mother.

“What do you do for a living?”

“I work as a mailmare.”

The white-maned pony leaned back and laughed. “A mailmare in a first-class cabin to Canterlot? What do you really do?”

“I told you, I’m a mailmare,” Ditzy protested.

“Is that what your mark is for?”

Something in the back of Ditzy’s head went off at that question. She had expected it to be an inquiry about how a lowly mailmare could afford first class tickets. That would have been a reasonable question, and Ditzy would have had a reasonable answer to it. This must be something that was touchy to this unnamed young mare—something that Ditzy seized upon. She had flinched in just the slightest way when Ditzy complemented her coffee, too.

“Why?” Ditzy said, looking straight into her eyes.

“Err….” She seemed entirely unexpected for such a line of questioning.

“I mean, why would you ask that question?” Ditzy clarified.

The younger pony squirmed in her seat slightly. “I don’t think that’s…”

“Coffee?” Ditzy inquired, noticing the cup of foaming brown liquid accented by a swirling path of white inscribed on her flank, even as she shifted to hide it.

“Oh, buck it.” She sighed, resting her head on her hooves as she frowned and stared at the floor. “I might as well tell you why I’m here. You’re getting close enough as it is.”

“You have my attention.” Ditzy said. She was now wide awake and very attentive, least of all because of the coffee. Maybe I can help her, or maybe she just needs someone to talk to.

"I mean, you don't mind if I talk about myself a little? I don't want to vent to somepony who doesn't care." She was nervous, visibly insecure, and Ditzy took full note.

"I'm not anypony important, and you don’t need to say anything you don’t want to. You can vent if you want to; I'm not going to tell anypony," Ditzy assured her.

“Just don’t interrupt me, okay?” The young white-and-cinnamon pony said, with a hint of desperation.

“This is your party.”

“Alright.” She said, with a look of “here-we-go” finality. “My name is Cappivalio. My friends just call me Cap. I grew up in Canterlot in a decently well-off family, just my parents and my older sister and me. I was pretty good at school, got my cutie mark about the same time as everypony else. My life was nice, and I never really thought about what I was going to do with the rest of it—mostly because of what happened to my sister.”

Ditzy was reaching for the pot of coffee on the cart to pour herself a second cup (it was magnificent coffee, Ditzy normally loathed the taste) when Cap stopped. She was staring at a speck on the metallic floor, seemingly absorbing all its narrow length and width.

“What happened to your sister?” Ditzy prompted.

“It just kind of all fell into her hooves.” Observing Ditzy’s expression of inquiry, Cap clarified: “When she got out of school, she had her whole career lined up for her. I don’t know if she ever did any work planning it out, but all of her opportunities just sort of lined and now she’s in the Canterlot Orchestra. I guess it makes sense, considering her special talent is music anyways. I just kind of expected something to happen to me like that and it never did.”

“The other big thing is my special talent. When I got my mark, I was so happy that I got it along with the rest of my class that I never really considered what it meant.”

“It means you can make a brilliant cup of coffee!” Ditzy interjected. “I don’t even think I liked coffee before…”

“Yeah, but what’s that gonna do?!” Cappivalio snapped, glaring at Ditzy, at last revealing the root of her insecurity. “If I make coffee for a living the most I can ever do is have a menial job! I won't be able to accomplish anything notable!” She fumed, as she jammed her head onto her hooves and resumed futilely attempting to move the metallic speck via telekinesis. If Cap had had a horn, Ditzy would have been sure that the metallic speck would have been replaced by a smoldering crater with vivid molten edges.

Dawning recognition flooded Ditzy as the train continued its path under the mountains. Cap was here, on the train, as a job she had probably gotten right out of school. She was just realizing that her life wasn’t going to spring up all neat and tidy in a way that enshrined her talent. She knew exactly the problem Cap had; it was something that everypony had speculated Ditzy had, that her talent was assumedly worthless and therefore caused a pony personal problems. She had, through a combination of being overshadowed by her sister, her parents implied expectations, and her suddenly underwhelming talent—which had been just fine until now—been stopped short of recognizing her potential.

“You know,” Ditzy said, after a minute of contemplative (or brooding, depending on the opinion) silence, “My talent is bubbles.”

Cap glanced up with disbelief. “Bubbles?” she asked. “But what…”

“It could also mean bubble wrap, for my work as a mailmare.” Ditzy shrugged. “Some ponies think it’s because I act bubbly sometimes. My daughter, Dinky, thinks it stands for happiness because popping bubbles is so much fun.”

“Why?..” said Cap, who was now thoroughly and honestly confused.

“Your special talent isn’t always what you think it is. It’s even more rarely what others think it is. You decide what your talent means and how you use it. If you want to do something that you think is worthy of your sister and your parent’s respect, you have to make it worth respecting.”

Cap thought about it for a minute. “So I could do something related to coffee… but maybe not exactly making coffee? Maybe, sell a coffee brand or something?”

“If you think so!” Ditzy said with encouraging warmth. Honestly, she had no idea what Cap had in mind or even whether it would work, but Ditzy knew that confidence and an idea were essential to success. The fact that Cap had grasped a concept so quickly out of her murky mood was very promising, though. Most ponies would have wrestled with the concept for a considerable amount of time before accepting it: Cap was either smart, clever, or both. And she’s definitely ambitious, not self-satisfied.

Cap rolled back on the couch for a couple minutes as Ditzy pulled out a copy of the Canterlot Times from the cart. Ditzy realized with a start the lunch cart was probably due around sometime soon and that Cap’s time here was starting to add up. Ditzy decided to let her think for a few more minutes—it looked like she was starting to word out something silently.

“… Cloudbucks.”

“What?” Ditzy said, engrossed in the Canterlot Times. It was an article about politicians, or the underground economy of Manehattan, or something like that. It got a little difficult reading the miniscule print with her eyes disagreeing on what to read.

“Um, nothing.” Cap sat upright and then faced Ditzy for the first time in several minutes. “Listen—I want to thank you for talking to me today, and if I ever see you again, I’d really like to take more time to get to know you better.”

Ditzy looked up to see a portrait of sincerity on Cap’s face; it was a welcome contrast to the forlorn expression that had haunted her that morning.

“On one condition,” Ditzy said, with as much seriousness as she could muster.

“Yes?” Cap said, eyes wide, leaning forward to catch every word.

“You get me another cup of this delicious coffee!”

Cap groaned, and then laughed with dual hints of tiredness and hope. A couple minutes later, Cap returned with a fresh pot of coffee and many promises to come visit Ditzy when she was on her way back.

Ditzy had figured that Cap had needed somepony to talk to. Call it intuition, or a hunch, or experience, but Ditzy had known that Cap was hurting beyond what she had shown on her face, and she wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to make a friend in her excellent mood. She hadn't really intended to become Cap's confidant at first, but what had happened was done, and Ditzy was by no means displeased with the result. As Cap continued on her job to the next cabin, the train exited the tunnel and emerged into glorious sunlight—not the sharp, narrow rays that had amplified her rage but a soft and gentle illumination of her car. Shadows swept rhythmically as it passed trees, the sun bursting through at unexpected moments. Gradually, they passed to reveal the first destination on Ditzy’s vacation, Canterlot.

The elegant city of the edge of the mountain beckoned; the tall spires cast deep shadows.

Chapter Three: Above and Below

Chapter 3

Above and Below

Canterlot is a nexus of culture and commerce: It has theaters, a renowned orchestra, a thriving fashion scene, an expansive market, and obviously the permanent residence of Equestria’s rulers and the seat of government. Even more importantly, it is centrally located in Equestria and thus a hub for all major trade routes. Inevitably, fame brings notoriety—not all the streets of Canterlot are gilded, but few would admit it. Even fewer would admit that the gild doesn’t make the city.

Ditzy wandered through the streets of upper Canterlot, the half of the city that the average outsider was familiar with. It was all very nice: wide, clean streets leading anywhere you could possibly want to go; off in the distance she could see her hotel, in the other direction a concert hall, and in between a countless menagerie of pastry shops, haberdashers, spas, fancy restaurants, and various nooks that undoubtedly served as artistic havens for the knowledgeable. Dominating the scene, the royal palace overshadowed it all. The roads were arranged in a sunburst pattern, so they all eventually led to the gates of the palace itself. Very few homes existed among the plethora of buildings; Ditzy attributed this to the cost of living in such a desirable place.

It was all beautiful, quiet. Ditzy hated it.

It wasn’t that it was repulsive, it wasn’t—it was just lifeless! There was no hustle or bustle, no random street conversations, it was dry and parched. It was stuffy, orderly. The inhabitants rushed about, intent on reaching their destinations and not much else. All the vividness and exuberance of the inhabitants had to be crammed up somewhere, begging to be unleashed. Ditzy meandered until she reached a bridge overlooking one of the several rivers that ran over the side, tumbling down as waterfalls. Idly, Ditzy stopped. Where do they go? They don’t just flow outwards from the mountain; I would have seen it coming in. Maybe I can ask somepony.

The sun began to set in the west, and Ditzy decided to retire to her hotel. Hopefully, she would have more luck in the morning—she hadn’t exactly arrived early, and everypony was probably resting or asleep, and certainly not out wandering. Her mind kept drifting back to the waterfalls: she had seen them coming into Canterlot, on the bridge, and several of the providing rivers and streams flowed through the city itself. Still, she had never figured out where they went or where they originated from. They seemingly appeared out of the thin mountain air and disappeared in a similar fashion after dropping off the edges of the city. She would have flown off to find the truth herself, but security in Canterlot remained tense after the Changeling invasion some months ago: If you tried to fly in or out, you would find yourself in a cell until the Guard could determine if you were a Changeling or not. Not being able to see the end of the falls for herself only heightened her curiosity. Ironic, that in the most affluent city in Equestria the most interesting mystery would be the terrain. It looks nice, but there’s only so much you can do with aesthetics.

Ditzy arrived at the entrance of the hotel several minutes later; the door was opened for her by an attendant and she entered the lobby. Her first impression was of vacant space. It was ridiculously large, almost a cathedral in its proportions. Whoever had designed it had feebly tried to fill the magnanimous room, but it effortlessly absorbed their efforts, leaving it a grandiose, foolish display of folly. To Ditzy, it was a monumental waste of resources. Is it really necessary to have a reception room large enough to fit my house inside? It’s a terrible waste of space… what would they ever need it for? It doesn’t need to be so large to look nice.

In the center, a lone marble desk was occupied by a single blue-green, aqua-colored pegasus colt, his mane a bluer color compared to his coat, who was scratching away with quill at some paper. He welcomed Ditzy, gave her her room key, and resumed scribbling tediously.

“And if you have any questions or requests, whoever is at the front desk will be able to direct you to somepony who can help you.”

“Sure, thanks. I hate to ask, but—is it always this quiet in the city? I haven’t been in town for long, but it seems very subdued for being so important.” Ditzy said.

“Unfortunately, yes. It was a little more vibrant before the Changelings had their raid on the castle, but it has always been, well…” His voice lowered and his expression soured. “Snobby.”

So Ditzy had gathered, or rather, guessed at. She had not met many of them so far.

“One more thing.”

“Ask away,” The colt said, going back to his quill and paper.

“Where do the waterfalls go? I know they run through the city, off the sides, and then? Come to think of it, where do they start?”

The quill stopped scratching, and the colt looked back up.

“As to where the falls originate, I haven’t a clue. The falls terminate in a rather disreputable location known as Lower Canterlot. Although honestly…” He sighed, opting not to continue. He knew he wasn’t supposed to talk about the seedy parts of town, and he needed this job, yet he also knew he hated the self-absorbed air of upper Canterlot as much as Ditzy appeared to. What’s the harm in telling her? I could probably be entertained in this drought of a day.

Ditzy leaned slightly forward, inquisitive senses triggered. “What’s so bad about it?” she queried. “It sounds interesting enough.” In truth, she was dying to escape the stuffy atmosphere, and she wanted excitement more than anything else at the moment.

He looked at her with the full knowledge that he had said nothing about the city below, a subtle bored reading of her.

Tourists…

After a moment of hesitation, the colt dropped his quill, carefully looked around to check for observers, found none, and leaned in conspiratorially. “Technically, we didn’t talk about this, and if anypony asks you if we did, you heard it somewhere else. But since the reality is nopony gives a flying buck, so I’m going to talk anyways. Add that to the fact that I’m bored out of my skull, and you have a recipe for something slightly more exciting than sitting here all day.”

Ditzy stood, silent as a stone wall and now somewhat cautious. She was going to let him talk, but she also was smart enough not to get roped into whatever the hay he was saying. The fact alone that his tone changed spoke volumes—but whether it revealed him or the lower city, she knew not. There was something subtly unusual about how he addressed her, but she could not put her hoof on the deception.

“‘Lower’ Canterlot is the real city. It’s where the moving and shaking happens. The night scene. Excitement. Business. You would think by the way some of the snobs up here cover it up that it would be terrible, but it isn’t half as bad as the seedy parts of Manehattan or Las Pegasus, believe me.”

You have no idea. Ditzy’s posture shifted slightly as she listened.

“I could tell that you didn’t like it up here by the way you walked in. How about, after I get off work, I show you around? Maybe hit up a club, get around to something afterwards?” he said, raising an eyebrow suggestively.

Ditzy leaped back, wings flaring as if to flee or fight, in something quite different than a pleasantly surprised way. He did not just…

“You can’t be serious.” Ditzy said incredulously, resuming her normal position, wings folding back into place. She didn’t know whether to be flattered, insulted or confused. She wasn’t even sure he was implying what she thought he was implying. Is he trying to pick me up?

The colt just threw his head back and laughed. Ditzy started to feel a little perturbed: she saw him in a new light now, and it wasn’t the most pleasant one. He had to be pretty cocky to just ask somepony something like that. He has to be at least… well, actually, he probably isn’t that much younger than me. A few years, at most. Still, she didn’t think she had talked to him for five minutes. I don’t even know his name! What does he think he’s doing? She continued her irritated glance as he took the moment to compose himself.

“I’ll take that as a no,” he said, still grinning. Ditzy didn’t see the humor, and was honestly irritated by his completely unforeseen advance.

“My name is Quirk, by the way.” He held out his hoof, but retracted it after Ditzy reassumed her stonewalled silence and declined to shake it with an angry glare. Pleased was not a word Ditzy would use to describe herself at the moment. I can’t believe he just tried to pick me up like some sort of irresponsible teenage jaunt! That’s just insulting…

Resolutely ignoring him, she observed the papers covering the marble desk, collecting her thoughts. It looked like he had been writing on sheet music the whole time, and not actually working. Ditzy imagined he didn’t have to put in a lot of effort into this job; she couldn’t imagine this hotel had many guests given how expensive it was.

“Can you tell me how to get to Lower Canterlot?” Ditzy asked with as much politeness as she could muster. Just get me out of here.

“Just ask a guard that looks bored. The bored ones, which are most of them, actually, would do just about anything to kill a few minutes.”

Ditzy agreed with the assumed aside that she wouldn’t trust directions from Quirk, anyways.

“One more thing,” Ditzy said regretfully. Her curiosity just overshadowed her desire to exit immediately and be away from this amazingly brash and insulting pegasus.

Quirk swept aside the sheet he had resumed marking, rested his head on his hoof and said “Yeeeeeees?” while grinning and raising his eyebrows in a gesture that was undeniably suggestive.

Ditzy glared again; Quirk resumed laughing. What’s wrong with him?

I can’t lose my temper, not—nevermind. Don’t think about it. “Why didn’t you react to my eyes?” Ditzy said, seriousness pervading her voice.

Quirk stopped, shrugged, and replied casually: “You could say I grew up around some strange eyes. Didn’t find yours to be that weird, anyways.”

Her question answered, Ditzy turned for the door and began walking out of the oversized lobby.

“I’ll be here if you change your mind!” he called out, grinning again. He had to be joking, or at least Ditzy hoped he was. She put her hoof to her forehead and sighed a little as she trotted back outside.

~~~~~~~~~~

It hadn’t taken long for Ditzy to find a guard that was bored enough to spare a few minutes to give directions and waste another few minutes with small talk. Quirk was honest about that, at least, although she shoved aside the thought that he had not lied to her yet. She was not in the mood to remember him.

He neglected to mention that Lower Canterlot is entirely underground… Ditzy thought, as she continued along the descending path that hopefully lead to Lower Canterlot. The guard had directed her to an inconspicuous door in the side of the mountain, one of several entrances to the yet-ambiguous lower city. She had a vague idea of what to expect, but nothing firm—she wasn’t even sure of the wisdom of going. The upper half of Canterlot hadn’t been vivifying, but that didn’t mean that the other half would be any better. To add to that, the night wasn’t exactly young, but it couldn’t hurt to take a look, anyways. At least, she hoped it wouldn’t.

Reluctantly, Ditzy played back her conversation with Quirk several times, failing to identify what had caused him to start making moves on her. They had had a decent conversation going, he had seemed at least somewhat interesting of a pony (not that she had been thinking along the lines he had), but it had never strayed out of business. She wouldn’t have been averse to the proposition of a drink either if it hadn’t been accompanied by that “get up to something afterwards” clause. That was just rude and demeaning, not to mention a display of horrible taste.

The tunnel wound around in what had to be a downward spiral for several hundred feet. It was lit by what appeared to be a combination of haphazard electric lighting and magical auras left by those capable and unsatisfied with the cheap illumination. So far it made sense to Ditzy. For Lower Canterlot to be at the bottom of the waterfalls, it would have to sit just under the base of the mountain. Why it wasn’t built aboveground, at the base of the mountain, remained unexplained.

At the bottom, the tunnel narrowed and leveled out until a single unmarked door blocked Ditzy’s path. This has to be it. Ditzy stood about ten feet from the door, gathering herself. She took a deep breath.

“Here goes nothing,” Ditzy said, taking bold strides to the door and charging through before she could change her mind.

It swung open and Ditzy’s eyes widened, senses suddenly primed.

Light! Noise! A cacophony of sound, a barrage of movement, even myriad smells threatened to drown Ditzy after the silence of the tunnel. She was standing slightly higher than the roofs of the nearest buildings, granting her a panoramic view of the underground metropolis. There were buildings carved out of stone, built out of rock, wood—whatever material could be scavenged was used somewhere. Houses, bars, taverns, shops, restaurants ranging from the shady to the inviting, a bazaar, even an open-air theater all lay within a few hundred feet of Ditzy. She even thought she saw a stadium in the distance. Street vendors hawked their wares, the occasional sidewalk band played smooth jazz, the odd drunken pony stumbled along in groups or alone amongst the late-night crowds and fluidity of the streets that seemed to follow no set pattern but instead wandered at a whim amongst dark stone buildings of similar material to the streets themselves. She could smell the aroma of homemade food floating over from the bazaar and the alcohol on a pony that had fallen asleep, or perhaps fallen unconscious, not far from the door she had entered. She could see quieter sections of town in the distance, what could only be suburbs—or whatever passed for suburbs in this city of the stone. Looking up, she saw that a few hundred feet separated her and the ceiling of the massive cavern—and on the walls the occasional carved-out building, accessible only by the occasional staircase, pegasi, or a Unicorn ambitious enough to fly themselves up with magic. She could hear an orator in the open-air theater, or maybe it was a soliloquy from a play. Either way it rang out, amplified by the steps and dampened by the muffling sounds of endless movement it was eternally surrounded by. What a wonderful contrast to the order of above! What a display of life in all its stages! She could see both the young and the old wandering the streets, going somewhere but enjoying the journey. This city knew how real life is. This city is alive!

And there, in the distance, were the waterfalls, cascading down into pools that radiated with refracted light. They bathed the nearby scenes in a prismatic glow, lending them surreal beauty and a measure of peace in the center of the cavern surrounded by multitudinous unceasing stories of life disguised as markets, houses, taverns, theaters and avenues of chiseled rock. Ditzy didn’t move for a long time; she thought she could stand there for a thousand years and not observe all that was happening. It was the best kind of surprise, starting with shock and subsiding into appreciation and a solid awe for the miracle she witnessed. An entire city, forgotten by nearly everypony else but still vibrant, still very much alive.

And I would never have guessed that it was here.

It took nearly fifteen minutes for Ditzy to register the fact that she hadn’t moved since opening the door. She wanted to go everywhere—see everything, but how, where, what first!?

In the end, she took to the underground skies. It was incredibly easy to fly in large caverns—thermals tended to be amplified in enclosed spaces—but it was also dangerous to fly high due to the stalactites. Most cities had a way of doing that to you, lulling you into a rhythm and then striking you down if you lowered your guard. To Ditzy, it was another reminder that though the city was truly beautiful, she had to be careful. Being a veteran of notorious areas, she knew how dangerous they could be, especially the foreboding sections lit by few lights and haunted by many characters of ill repute. She didn’t dwell on that now; now was an adventure to be had!

Not to mention food to be eaten. Ditzy had worked up a ravenous appetite, which had been stifled by upper Canterlot but reawakened by the deliciously tantalizing smell of baked goods. Landing among a small late-night crowd of shoppers, she made her way towards a cart and was abruptly accosted by the sight of muffins lying among other goods.

No! Not now, not now, it can’t happen here—I didn’t…

Ditzy froze as her unconscious took over; and she saw it, that fateful day. Everything she perceived with her eyes faded out as her recollection overtook her. Desperately, she pleaded with herself to stop, but once it had started there could only be one resolution—to suffer through it until the end. The screaming and the pain ripped through her in a matter of seconds as her body and mind fell into the trap, leaving her locked inside her own memories.

~~~~~~~~~~

Chaos struck midday in Ponyville.

Or at least, Ditzy thought it was midday. She had taken shelter in her house, not far from her route, after unexplained phenomena—chocolate rain, gravity wells, a rapidly changing color of sky—had appeared, and they were just the start. When Ditzy joined the mailmare service, she had sworn to deliver through rain, snow, sleet or hail, but it had said nothing about gravity wells, so she decided to take cover while she could. Now she was inside looking out, hoping that Cheerilee would be able to keep Dinky and her class safe on the trip that had been scheduled that day. They were far enough away that Ditzy didn’t think it wise to risk her own safety just to check on her; nevertheless, her heart ached. It would just be selfish of her to invite danger on herself to find out about Dinky.

Discord appeared with neither fanfare nor ceremony outside of her house, a veil of haze subsiding as he did. Ditzy stared at him. A Draconequus wasn’t exactly a common sight, even amidst the other chaos that he so craved—and he caught sight of Ditzy peeking out. Discord stopped by her mailbox, and, never breaking his stare with Ditzy, who was too hypnotized by his glance to look away, simultaneously pulled a plate of muffins out from behind his back with his left claw and banged the top of Ditzy’s mailbox with his lion’s paw, unfolding the sides to transform it into an impromptu table. Leaving the plate on the mailbox which was now a table, he and his sinister grin faded like smoke into the checkered background that had once been Ponyville. He had come unanticipated, and had left with no explanation save the plate of muffins.

Ever-stranger…

It took a while for Ditzy to emerge from her house. She was by no means reckless—she came out cautiously, slowly, sneaking around with her wings out, ready to fly away at the slightest sign of trouble. Gradually, she approached the table as the sun turned green and the clouds froze in the sky. Stopping a few feet from the tempting muffins, she stared with curiosity and wonder. Muffins were the thing she loved the most, besides Dinky, and she wasn’t about to turn up an apparent offer of kindness. No need to take chances, though. Nearly crawling, she approached the plate, taking her time to make sure the Draconequus had disappeared completely. A few mere feet away now, Ditzy stopped to observe them (they seemed innocuous enough) and dashed a muffin to the ground.

“Oh, come now! Such a terrible waste of delectable baked goods! I’ll have you know, I toiled many long hours making them perfect just for you, my dear Ditzy Doo.”

Ditzy panicked and leaped into the air, turning around to face the voice—but Discord reappeared behind her, scooping her up with a lion’s arm and floating upside down back to the plate. Ditzy struggled futilely to escape his grasp as blood rushed to her head and Discord began speaking again.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you anything about friendship, or sharing, or kindness? This is just my simple offer of peace between us two, a humble effort on my part to match your tradition,” he said, setting Ditzy upright on the other side of the table-mailbox as he sat on a high-backed chair that was most certainly not there a second ago.

“My mother also taught me never to accept food from strangers,” Ditzy deadpanned. How this Draconequus knew about Ditzy’s mother was more disturbing than the fact that he had seemingly complete control over the situation, but she had no time to dwell on it.

“Strangers!? Us? That simply must not be. No, I suspect that by the end of the day, we will be the best of friends,” Discord intoned, as he put paw to claw, his arms resting on the table, and started tapping his mismatched digits together.

“Now, won’t you satisfy my simple desire and just eat a muffin? Just one? In fact, I guarantee that if you eat one, eating more would be simply irresistible. It would make me terribly angry to have my honest desire for friendship refuted. They do say it’s all the rage nowadays to be friendly, and if that were proven false… well, suffice to say I might become so furious that I lose my tenuous grip on this reality and cause a portal to Tartarus to open right under Dinky and her entire class. I can assure you, it would be a less than pleasant detour.”

Discord’s grin deepened and Ditzy’s gut twisted. She couldn’t say no, not after that kind of threat. Not after he had threatened Dinky, let alone her entire class. I don’t know what he can do, but he knows about everything.

“Well, now?” Discord said, a monocle appearing over one eye as he pulled a pocket watch out of thin air and tapped it. “I haven’t got all day, you know. Chaos to rain and reign over, and all.”

Ditzy didn’t hesitate. She grabbed a muffin and, out of habit, balanced it on her nose. This was insane, moving too fast to figure out. She couldn’t hesitate: she had no way to determine if he was bluffing or not.

This is for Dinky. Ditzy steadied herself. She tossed the muffin into the air, and it eclipsed the sun as they turned a deep red. Time froze as it fell, almost to nothing, as all other vision faded into blackness until all she could see was the falling muffin silhouetted against the raging sun. The scream in the air itself started, at first an unsettling buzz at the edge of her hearing. The muffin was on the verge of Ditzy’s mouth—an instant from being consumed—

~~~~~~~~~~

Something collided with Ditzy, knocking her over and out of her recollection.

“So sorry, can’t talk, have to run!” A mare said over the noise of the market, pulling Ditzy back up onto her hooves and then resumed galloping away from the center of town and what appeared to be the beginnings of a disturbance.

If the mare hadn’t pulled Ditzy up, she wouldn’t have been able to get up. Shell-shocked, Ditzy started noticing her surroundings again. Her recollection halted, she knew not what to do or where to go, or even if she should go at all, in her traumatic state. Emotions hammered through her mind, anger and fear of Discord, love for Dinky, and the pain threatened to overwhelm her again. Discord had made sure that only one of them enjoyed their ‘friendship’. To add to her troubles, it looked like a small mob was forming from where the mare had galloped. Ditzy knew better than to stick around.

I can’t move; I can’t breathe, but I have to anyways…

Absent-minded and tormented, she took to the skies and found herself a few minutes later at a small, quiet cove at the base of the falls. The thermals had carried her there, but she didn’t realize it at the time. It was behind one of the falls and unreachable by land. She could see nothing but the luminescent falls, the pool, and smooth stone walls. She was alone, mentally and physically, in the most absolute sense of the word.

Ditzy wept, violently.

I did it all for you, and if you could know without being pained I would tell you.

Not a moment of hesitation had Ditzy had after her daughter was threatened. She didn’t know if she could bear it any longer. What Discord did next was unforgiveable in Ditzy’s mind. She would do it again to save Dinky, do it a thousand times, she knew, but—Ditzy would never have been able to foresee the depths of cruelty Discord could take in his masochistic ‘friendly’ relationship. Especially what he had done to the memories of her mother. I can’t forget.

It would take a long, long time for Ditzy to move from that spot. Long enough that her own tears formed their own pool, and that pool eventually grew tremendous, trembling with surface tension, which at last broke. Her tears had poured out on the earth from the wellspring of her heart, and the sanctity of her sacrifice could no longer be contained by either Ditzy or an indentation in stone. Her tears flowed freely, swiftly into the falls to fuse with the waters, though Ditzy saw it not. Not a single ripple disturbed the pool despite the stream of tears; they fused immediately with the waters and became indistinguishable from the rest, flowing to somewhere only Celestia would know.

Hours later, Ditzy stopped crying. It was sudden and instantaneous—the pain had just evaporated, replaced by absolution. It was gone, banished, resolved. Tentatively, she got back on her hooves. She looked around, seeking the source of her solace. The falls caught her eye—and as they did, Ditzy gained the unshakeable conviction that she had to cry no longer, because those pillars of brilliant soothing, the falls, were her tears, and they would never stop falling. It was a very strange, irrational belief for a normally rational Ditzy, but it seemed irrevocable once conceived. Logic would not stand against it; all of her emotions rallied to it. The very will of the stones themselves seemed imbedded in it.

Stranger things have happened.

Ditzy thought for a short time, and then abandoned the venture. It was too much effort in a stressful time; she wasn’t about to try to deny something that just took away her pain so utterly. At least, not yet. An explanation could wait, and she was tired.

It was very late, and Ditzy was hurting no longer, but no less exhausted despite the healing. She laid back against a moss-covered stone, which was firm and yet yielding, cool on her back, curved to where it would embrace the weary. In that smooth-crafted gesture she lay, and for a moment wondered at what was to come; the world left behind was surely rolling on and her motherly instincts would not allow her rest so soon.

Can I go back now? Can I go back and be sure that I won’t hurt them, sure that I can protect Dinky? I’ll rest for a minute… Just a minute. Then I’ll go back to the hotel. It’s been too long already—I need to be home, I need to be with her… She thought to herself many things, but eventually all worries faded.

She slept long and soundly on a moss-covered stone, born away into the dawn.

Chapter Four: Dawn of Understanding (Continued)

Ditzy walked back into the tavern, dissatisfaction and a feeling of fading innocence crushing around the edges of her consciousness. She had exited, realized the futility of chasing him down dark alleys that he undoubtedly knew better, and had regretfully retreated to the tavern. So I begin chasing again.

The table in the unremarkable booth was scattered with the mixed detritus, but she sat back down with her forehead resting on her hooves and released a frustrated sigh that later returned as a mildly angry growl. This morning she had woken up to the brilliance of peace and tranquility for the first time since Discord ravaged her mind. This afternoon she had been enveloped by a nightmare she still had little comprehension of, save that Tick and Princess Luna—Luna, a figure of royalty she had only seen once in her life!—were somehow involved. It was all so crazy, so fast, so confusing. She swept Tick’s writings into a bundle and into a saddlebag, and with them her dreams of a simpler life. Never any rest, never any rest for me.

Outside the tavern, she stared at the sky-barrier-ceiling that limited her from flying straight up into the sun. She might have done it if she could, just fly away now and take Dinky with her to somewhere they could live in peace without disturbance, without others and the confusion they provided and the pain they wrought.

Why should I care? She, of all, had certainly suffered enough to be deserving of some peace of mind. Had she not endured it all for the sake of others? Had not she suffered endlessly as a foal in a cruel world? Had not she silently endured the taunts and jeering, and then the torments of Discord? She knew it was a dangerous trap to fall into, the vanity of being the sufferer, the martyr. She had struck back, after all, and save for that miracle of forgiveness afterwards all her determination to be known as herself would have unraveled into burnt threads. She was not innocent by any means.

But oh, how the screaming did haunt her. She could hear it when the world was silent now and see the horror on Luna’s face when she closed her eyes. The black and crimson stains on the white bandages would surely taint her as well if she left Tick to his problems; abandonment of somepony in mortal danger was as surely murder by omission as it was a morally bankrupt action.

But Tick isn’t in mortal danger, her exhausted consciousness whispered to her. Although he had injuries, so did everyone else—some of his were just more apparent than others. And what if he was the morally bankrupt one? It had certainly seemed that way from how Luna had reacted to him. It was not her responsibility to find out, she thought. It was not her imperative to bear his burden, fight his fight. Why should she when she had so much to live for?

Ditzy was on the threshold of the tavern and at a crossroads as well. She could pursue Tick down his perilous narrow path or retire into a hopefully restful vacation and live her life oblivious to what could have been. She knew that was an either-or fallacy, and that a myriad of in-between options lie before her, but that only muddled her thought process. She exited and watched the streets pass by for a minute, imagining long shadows of what might be following each passerby. The exchange of thought and memory had been intensely exhausting. Enough had happened today for a month and more; Ditzy wanted to lie down and sleep until the world made a little more sense. She might just do that, too…

Ditzy wandered until she found the same unremarkable door that contained the passageway between the two halves of the city. Silently, she made her way back up the irregularly lit tunnel, passing the occasional wanderer. Not all who wandered among those tunnels was lost, but Ditzy definitely was. She didn’t have the fortitude to decide on an action, so she let her tired instincts guide her back up toward the light. She knew and hated that every step made her decision come sooner, but she had to do something, so she moved forward. Could she not just expire, leave this place, cease from the tumult? She had been serene only to lose that hallowed state once again. Is it too much to ask for peace of mind?

Exhaustion provided no answer, and she grew to resent Tick as she ascended the tunnel. In the back of her mind, she knew that she had made the decision to talk to him, but she avoided that inconvenient fact in her brooding. She didn’t even want to understand what she had seen, just forget it. Exiting the top, she opened the door into the bright setting sun. It was relentlessly bright, shining down the sunburst-shaped avenues. In a vain display of defiance, she stared into it for as long as she could. It wasn’t like it could hurt her any more than life had already.

She wandered among the once-stifling streets of Upper Canterlot, but now she considered their desolateness a blessing. She wouldn’t have to deal with anypony, could see nopony if she chose, and certainly wouldn’t have to relive their trauma. Her regret solidified; whistling evening winds sighing through the gaps of buildings only reminded her of the shattered wasteland she had left behind in Tick’s mind. And why should she even consider helping Tick, anyways? He had only run after Ditzy had offered to help him if he would just explain the madness. He owed her; he had wronged her.

On the streets of the divided city, Ditzy arrived at a theater where she knew a concert would be held. She hadn’t intended to go anywhere, but any distraction would serve better than somewhat intoxicated misadventures. Anything to get that recollection out of my mind.

Straight red curtains fell down to a polished stage that was now empty, although it had the promise of soon being filled by the indication of the occasional pony shuffling into the rows of seats before the stage. The room itself was vast and airy, although this seemed the norm for upper Canterlot. Ditzy only cared at this point because it gave her more room to be away from everypony else. She took a seat near the back with the purpose of solitude. Alone, her mood darkened dangerously as she unsuccessfully forgot the events of the tavern.

Unbeknownst to her in her vain anger, a large orchestral arrangement set up on the stage. A full complement of brass, woodwinds and stringed instruments prepared alongside some percussive instruments and a pianist. The silence reigned throughout, and she was not disturbed.

In the beginning, the conductor raised his baton and begun the eternal rhythm, and at first there was but one instrument. The lone piano started with some simple chords, a few progressions. Then it progressed, became more complex as the chords varied into major, minor, and diminished as it advanced. Its tempo quickened until it had reached the height of its own complexity, which was mighty indeed, and then it stopped at the height of its crescendo—a deafening, pregnant silence.

Then the other sections sounded, and it was as alien a noise as it was familiar. Glorious, harmonious difference shook the hall after the anticipating silence. First, the violins and cellos; then the trumpets, the other brass, myriad percussive instruments entered. They all shone in their uniqueness, but clashed not—a single harmony, then a melody to accompany it. They retained unity even in difference by means of a greater purpose. None of them could go it alone; none of them dared to break the beauty of communal song.

But such a thing could not last forever. The lead trumpeter, in a moment of rest, in his moment of impatience and brashness, struck out on his own—to create his own melody. The other instrumentalists seemed stunned. He had dared! He had deemed himself worthy to seize leadership and try to create something purely of his own devices, without the community. For a moment, they played not in awe and terror of his creation. Then, tentatively, some joined him—not knowing his mind, they echoed his melody while some attempted to resonate in harmony. He was wily though, and distanced himself from those who would follow him: whether it was from creative impulse or vainglorious emotion, none could tell—but none could follow him, either.

He played erratically, cunningly, brilliantly at times, and the others that shadowed him remained mere shadows—not participants. Not brothers and sisters in music—he defied their conventions and their unity. Eventually, he reached the height of his glory, and like all things began his painful descent from his failed attempt to emulate the grace that had been the unity of all instruments. His playing became spontaneous, almost unintentional, as all others seized against him and overpowered his aberrant melodies; his internal imperfect harmony shattered. At last he fell from the last remnant of glory he had attained, he bowed over in his chair; he was vanquished.

The song’s movement continued without him, and it became a dirge for what the community had lost: him. Never again could they attain the heights of glory, harmony, unity; High beauty had become mourning. Joy become conflict, and it had all turned into sorrow after the fall. The lone trumpeter, who had once been the greatest of his comrades, had achieved a different kind of glory—a pale shadow of unity, and at horrible cost. He had traded his faith in his community for a moment of fame, a moment of notoriety and awe, respect and fear. Had it been worth it all? Had that moment been worth destroying the eternal fellowship?

Tentatively, he picked up his instrument again. Surrounding him, the dirge still played—they mourned their losses, they mourned for him—not just the harmony they had lost. In the unity of brotherhood, a loss of one was a blow to all. When together, their joy had been amplified and their sorrows diminished. Slowly, meekly, he took back up the melody, as if he was asking for forgiveness. No longer was he brash and foolhardy; he had been humbled and was all the more repentant for it.

They took him back with open arms. What had once been a dirge now became joyous, the harmony restored, the prodigal trumpeter returned to lead his section—but not to lead them astray. He had thrown himself into the fire and had broken himself, but the heat of his trials and the temperance of his fellows had forged him anew, so that he could burn ever brighter as a disciple of unity. Restored, they proceeded as one to a new crescendo, a new dawn—a glorious progression that climaxed to the awe of all in attendance. Descending, they ended a minute later—in unison. As it should be.

In the back of the hall, Ditzy was weeping. If asked, she wouldn’t be able to clearly articulate why, but the beauty of the moment and the catharsis expressed on her face would have explained it well enough. Whether it had been planned or not, all of it an anticipated act or an artistic statement or purely spontaneous, it had been deep.

On the stage, many of the musicians began to file off, taking their instruments and equipment with them until a drummer, a lone saxophone, a pianist, a guitar, a bass, and the prodigal trumpeter remained. They waited until the stage was empty save for them, a small group of comrades compared to the universal brotherhood that had preceded them.

The drummer started taking up an odd beat, something that Ditzy hadn’t heard before. It was offbeat, the two and four, the other half—unusual and different, exciting. The pianist came in, one hoof a half-beat behind the other—ragtime. The bass played a steady background rhythm, a solid foundation that the saxophone, guitar, and trumpet played off of, following no set pattern but instead making them up as they went. It was creativity. It was individuality. It was Jazz.

And all that Jazz had all its own excitement. Individuals went off on their own tangents, but it was incomparable to what had happened earlier—among friends, even when those wild individuals did something crazy or unexpected, the rest caught on quickly and went with it. They still had a common chord progression, but the rhythm was all up to them—and it changed erratically, exciting and then torpid, slow and then vivid, switching roles and redefining the rules as they played. The only constant was change, and it was beautiful in a way all its own.

Much later, an impromptu outro began as enough of them decided that the gig was up. They exited in ways all their own, unique to their styles and flourishes. No single exit for this group, as some of them packed up and some continued to play for a while. At last, the bass strung her last note and it was over. They had not ended at the same time, but there was no mistaking the unity of spirit, musical and otherwise.

By now, Ditzy was completely floored. This was a show of a different kind. Despite all their differences and determination to remain separate, they had had the same fellowship displayed in the first orchestral piece. She sat back and drank it all in, and then relived it a few times, the tears long dried on her face. She didn’t move from that spot, determined to commit those wonderful experiences to memory. She was enraptured still by the performance and its legacy.

The few others who had witnessed the spectacle of musical life gradually shuffled out of their seats and out of the cavernous theater. The last to exit were the musicians themselves: they trickled out in small groups, chatting amongst themselves as they went. One of the last groups passed by Ditzy on their way out, a duet of mares; the closest one to Ditzy said: “Yes, I am proud of my sister. We always knew she had it in her...” She was grey with a treble-mark on her flank, and Ditzy took no conscious notice of her. The rapture of the music had never ceased to hold her; she was only beginning to comprehend it and consequently was unaware that she was quite by her lonesome in the hall. For the first time in a very long time, Ditzy was alone with her thoughts.

But it didn’t stay that way—the silence in passion only lasted a short while. Quietly, one last unintended performer had taken the stage and begun to sing a soft but steady tune.

“I hear you’re looking for a way to cope,

with all the things you’ve heard and seen,

Letting your past envelop you like smoke,

and it’s too late to let yourself breathe.

You’ve done things you never ever should’ve done,

building a wall, breaking them down,

filling your cup with the love of a mother and father so recently placed in the ground

and it hurts when you let it show, so you do your best to forget

filling your heart with sadness.”

Shaken out of her reverie, Ditzy’s mind refocused until she was once again perceiving what was laid out before her. It was Quirk—Quirk! He was the one singing to a theater devoid of its audience. He’s here!? The sheet music on his desk? Why did he come up after—She was cut off, still silent, as he began again. He didn’t appear to have noticed Ditzy yet, and he had changed his tone. It became critical, but still sympathetic.

“I never got the feeling you were one so easily cowed, but look at you now, proud,

no longer keeping it together.

And I know it can be a rock slide down,

that there’s no easy way to escape pain

but if you could change the weather, maybe you could smile

giving every piece of yourself to fight back the sky-black clouds,

covering the ground, raining down soot, blood and tears

and those flim-flam fears, you gotta share

this isn’t the time, we all need you—”

The flow shattered. She was ripped forcibly out of her voyeuristic contemplation as Quirk’s sudden reversal brought her back into reality. After a moment of wrenching silence, his composure broke and he stopped, sighed, and exited stage left at the request of nopony in particular. He hadn’t seen Ditzy the entire time. She was still sitting unnoticed in the back, trying to forge some sense out of the disparate shards that were her experiences, her life. It was all so much to realize at once—three acts that were so very different from each other but had a greater meaning for her. If I could only figure out what they are.

She felt changed. Once, a very wise pony had told her that all time is is a measurement of change, but this was momentous, meaningful, beautiful, and she had not even discovered more than the slightest implications of the musical acts. If, then, time is a measurement, a very long time must have passed—but then she realized that there was no guarantee that change and time happened at a steady rate. Strange logic often accompanies strange events. It was just another epiphany to go on her rapidly expanding list of epiphanies. The concert she almost hadn’t seen wasn’t just amazingly artistic and affecting—it was profound. It had meant things beyond its surface, things she was only gradually comprehending.

And Quirk! He had come in after it all had ostensibly ended, out of nowhere. Why did he wait until he was alone; why did he stop? What was he singing? Why am I still waiting here?

On that note, she flew over silently to the stage, hoping to catch the tail end of him on his way out. Unfortunately, her thoughts had provided Quirk a few minutes to escape, and nowhere could he be found. She wandered about backstage for a minute, intrigued by some stand-alone pieces of painted scenery. Her desire to explore his motivations had been tempered by her recollection of their last meeting, and so she instead decided to explore what had been hidden by the curtains during the concert. Perhaps she would find some solace in the details.

An array of costumes, a rack of strange hats, the occasional instrument case or sheaf of sheet music all lay scattered about the abandoned backstage. The two dimmed lights turned red curtains black, and shadows richly layered were strewn along the scene. It had to be a theater of many purposes, for the variety and unusualness of the items exceeded whatever could possibly be needed for a purely musical affair. Cloaked under a drape, a particularly tall backdrop seized Ditzy’s attention. The bottom-left corner was uncovered, revealing a weathered looking rock in turbulent waters. Curious, she pulled down the drape and stood back.

It was a painting of a furious gale over a rough ocean. The choppy blue-black waters swirled around jutting jagged rocks that seemed to flow up into a roiling dark cloud, smothering the skies. An ominously cast painting, it relied on great swaths of dark colors to portray the clouds and sea while smaller things were detailed more intimately.

On the right, a weather-beaten ship pressed on into the storm. The captain of the ship had eschewed her usual place at the helm to stand at the very tip of the prow; her erect posture challenging the wind and rain. She fiercely contested the storm as she charged forward into its murky depths. Ditzy thought she looked uncannily like her: while the captain’s mane was more windblown, it was still an uncommon blonde; and though her coat was weathered by the storm and rain, it had a distinctive blue-iron hue. The resemblance, despite its oddity, passed her by at the moment as something of little significance.

On the left, an ominous wall of darkness coalesced. The blue-black waters and rumbling storm-clouds rose and sank into each other, locked in a turning, murderous mixing. The shadow they cast was long and threatening, and it fell on the ship that now seemed so small and fragile in comparison. It was strange that it should cast a shadow, though, because there was no sun to provide it with light to compare—or so she thought.

How, Ditzy silently wondered, How can that storm-cloud cast a shadow on the ship without any light for it to be blocking? The ship is clearly darker than the space around it...

The painting granted a view around the circular pillar of water, fog, and storm, but still no source of light revealed itself. How, therefore, could a shadow exist? It was cast from the wall, the center of madness, the crash and churn, and no light was produced anywhere; it absorbed light and emanated darkness! How then could that center...

The center...

And then it dawned on her. That brave captain was heading toward the center for a very good reason. She was bound for the Eye of the Storm. Ditzy didn’t know much about sailing, but she did know quite a bit about storms, and in the center of every storm is an isle of peace, a respite from the chaos, a place to lick your wounds and wonder at the world around you that spins so madly and wonderfully. There, the sun was shining, and only there could the light be found. The intrepid captain was determined to enter into that grace and peace. And she was not running from her fears to get there—she was charging them boldly! No; no fear for her, only bravery now, only hope. Could Ditzy say the same?

She stopped looking out and started looking in. She couldn’t say the same about herself, she realized—for she was running from her fear, running from pain, and giving in to apathy. What Tick had unveiled was difficult to realize, strange to comprehend, and painful to think about, but she had to face it.

Because if she ran now, she would be just like Rainbow Dash when she had mistreated her all those times—willfully ignorant of those who needed her to be brave, not only herself but Tick and who knows how many others.

And if she ran now, she would be just like the trumpeter who had struck out on his own to the dismay of the community who had depended on him and cherished him; and if he had not repented he would have never been able to join again to either his community or his friends in the acts.

And if she ran now, she would be just like herself just a short time ago, too terrified to face her own memories of Discord, only ever digging herself into a deeper hole.

So she had to be brave, like the captain. She must ride out into her own storm and seek her own Eye, and after she had mustered her resolve could she find peace. Ultimately, peace isn’t about whether the situation around you is calm or erratic, insane or normal. It’s about being in the midst of those things and being calm and secure in your own heart and mind.

I missed it all this time!

Staggered by the weight of her realizations, it took quite a while to regain her sense of physicality. When she finally left her contemplative trance, she meandered out of the theater to see the sun setting in the west. Tomorrow, she promised herself, she would chase that sun into the Eye in her quest to find peace. Tomorrow, she would chase Tick, even if it led her unto the ends of the earth. I have been such a fool for so long… but I know what to do now.

Consumed, she started to head toward the hotel—it could wait a little while, and after all, the last time she had laid down her head it had been on a moss-covered rock. No matter how soft the moss had been, that didn’t change the fact that she had last slept outdoors on stone. She arrived at her hotel by the time that Luna’s moonlight fully blanketed the city, and noticed that neither Quirk nor anypony else was at the receptionist’s desk. She didn’t mind, though, she had had more than enough for one day.

On reaching her room, she observed that it was rather vacuous, the furniture a bit grand for her taste, but altogether the room was well furnished. The accommodating bed erased those thoughts, though, and she soon found herself buried in a mass of cool blankets and pillows. Besides, it’s not like I’m going to complain about a nice bed...

She let her imagination carry herself off into sleep as she unconsciously made plans for finding Tick, finding peace.

Interlude: Shipping and Handling

Interlude

Shipping and Handling

The mornings were always calm and gentle, the afternoons more hectic and intriguing, the evenings revealing and revelatory. If that pattern held, today would be quite the day. Maybe her morning would last forever. Maybe I’ll grow a horn, too.

It wasn’t really as much of a question of how to find him as much as which way she would choose to find him. Ditzy was absentmindedly enjoying some tea that room service had brought her, coming to terms with the path she had chosen, and still finding it hard to believe that it was only three days ago that she had been on a train to Canterlot, oblivious to the worlds contained within. When she awoke this morning, the first things she had noticed were a fuzzy taste in her mouth, a poor reaction to light, and a persistently painful headache: sure signs of a hangover, but she had expected something of that nature. Once she cleared her mind of the desire to close all the blinds, plug her ears and bury herself in her bed by means of a cold shower—and the colder implications of how her mood might swing if she gave herself too much time to wonder about the things she had seen—she began her planning. Tick didn’t appear in the brightest of lights in his recollections. But Ditzy wasn’t going to let herself think about that, anyways. At least not consciously.

So instead she thought how astounding it was that she was not broken. The severity of her extreme swings in mood and perspective over the last few days were more than unsettling; they called into question the very core of her existence. For she believed herself to be a rational, pragmatic individual, and had filled the few years of her adult life with a relatively simple existence and the singular struggle of acceptance in a small town. She had done her best to raise Dinky in a loving home—she missed her dearly now; Ditzy wondered how she was doing cohabitating with Rarity and Sweetie Belle—and had remained dedicated to her job. After Discord had worn away the supporting pillars of her mental fortitude, she had been continuously experiencing a slow collapse of the temple of her mind. With no walls to protect her, her more savage emotions had been given contested reign of her consciousness; an endless struggle against pain and apathy had ensued. The encounter with Rainbow Dash had just been a breaking point.

It was just a lapse. I have to guard myself against it; it had just been a long time and so I wasn’t prepared.

The still-unexplained event at the falls had granted her a measure of peace and fortitude, but she now knew that it wouldn’t just be that easy. She had to fight for her own mind, own righteousness, own sanity against this… maelstrom, torrent, nightmare, whatever she might call it.

Unbidden, memories of Tick’s recollections flooded her mind, but one thing in particular was recognizable this time. Although it had been reflected through many minds, Luna’s Nightmare seemed uncomfortably familiar, for that was what it was, after all—it had to be a piece of what Luna could remember from her banishment. Something in Tick’s mind had triggered Luna’s remembrance, and it had been powerful enough to dominate Tick without any apparent struggle. Was what Tick did intentional? What had happened afterwards and how did he get here? Why did it feel so familiar to me?

It was an unsettling enough thought that her troubles might be related to an ancient, unknown phenomenon that it jolted her back out of her thoughts into physical realization as she shifted on her bed. Was it even possible that a thousand years of tormented existence was relatable to someone who would live at most a tenth of that?

I can’t think about that now. I won’t get anywhere. It’s all just conjecture and I’m getting too worried over an issue that I solved a long time ago.

Silently berating herself for sliding back into untenable questions, she reviewed what evidence she had of Tick. She could brood over her problems when she had more context. Laid out before her were all of the pieces of parchment that Tick had written his answers upon. While he had not included any information about his current residence, that wasn’t a problem for Ditzy. At least, not for what she was planning. Aside from that, she knew several important things. First of all, she knew what he looked like. Second, she knew he was injured: he would then have a hospital record and therefore a paper trail could be found beyond what she already had. Third—and this was the most volatile piece of information—she knew his name, or one of his aliases. This had potential to be the most or least valuable piece of information, likely somewhere in between. ‘Tick’ could be anything: a nickname, which was likely, an alias or pseudonym, which was likelier, or his actual name, which was plausible. Any of those would help immensely. However, he could have created it in an impromptu manner and thus it would be useless. Fortunately for Ditzy, she wasn’t examining his responses for clues to his whereabouts, or hoping for some hidden inspiration about him. It didn’t matter what he looked like, nor was she planning to go through the local hospital records. She didn’t need his name, either.

She was memorizing his hoofwriting. Actually, the two most important pieces of information she had were that and the fact that he would be having a massive hangover right about now.

Every last pony had a distinct style to their writing and lettering, even if they used magic as their scribe. Ditzy knew every exact style of the inhabitants of Ponyville, to the point where she knew some only by how they wrote and not by person. She had ended up reading a lot of the improperly addressed mail, although technically she wasn’t supposed to, and ended up being able to send most of them along because of it. Occasionally she even learned the interesting thing or two about her neighbors, but she declined to talk about it, and told nopony else of her readings. It doesn't happen often, and it’s for a good enough cause. I don’t abuse that privilege.

The significant feature of the hangover was that he couldn’t be traveling and was probably hunkered down in some dark, quiet hole cursing the day alcohol was discovered, making him just that easier to find. He was hiding now, and he couldn’t run. If he does manage to run it will be slowly and painfully.

Bereft of reasons to stall any longer, she once again stored Tick’s writings and left her room. As she exited through the lobby, she noticed that Quirk still wasn’t there—she couldn’t make up her mind whether to bug him about last night’s performance or steer clear of him. It was a secondary concern, though. Probably tertiary. Not to mention, she really didn’t want to run into any situation where he could attempt any kind sort of sexual advance or talk to him in any fashion. She had more important things to do, like try to mail herself in a package by infiltrating the Canterlot post office after identifying Tick’s address only by his handwriting.

It had a reasonable chance of success, considering he would probably be at his home. He would never suspect a package to actually contain anypony, and she would be fine inside of a package as long as she took all necessary precautions, and forged a note that recommended express delivery and extreme delicacy in shipping and handling. It had a better chance of success than just showing up at wherever he lived; he would understandably be caught extremely off his guard.

The post office for the city of Canterlot was decidedly nondescript, being tucked in between a shop and a restaurant that were almost garish in comparison to its blank, grey walls. It had a single door in the front along with a couple windows, all too small to squeeze through. She watched it for a minute, and nothing came in or out. It would be a tough job to get in undetected. There were an immense number of variables surrounding any plot to creep inside.

Or I can just walk in the front door.

So she entered through the solitary door openly, without any attempt to hide her intent. Fortunately, none of that was needed, as the door opened into a small lobby with a lone clerk snoring, head on his hooves, behind a counter. His mane was lengthy for a stallion and sandy-colored, with his horn just showing through it and what looked oddly like a dark purple paint splatter on one side.
Ditzy approached and cleared her throat, failing to seize his attention. Her initial efforts thwarted, she began mercilessly poking him until he awakened. His head rolled about; he muttered something directed at an entity named Inkie about how they couldn’t leave paint buckets lying around.

“Can I help you?” he asked groggily, his eyes still half-closed from his slumber. Ditzy had more than half a mind to tell him off for sleeping on the job. She was a mailmare too, after all, and had a strong dislike for laziness, but she retained focus. She had to keep a pedestrian profile; she could do nothing that would grab attention.

“Do you mind if I go through some of the old residence records? I’m trying to find where an old friend went,” Ditzy asked casually. It was only half a fabrication, at least.

“Nope. Just, ah, sign in first.” He yawned. “And make sure you put everything back where you found it.” He laid his head back down, shifting until he found a comfortable position.

Through a door, into a cramped room, she set herself up at a small table in the remarkably stuffed but still sizeable room. On one side, a chute for all the receiving mail led into sorting bins, and those into sorted stacks, in a grander simulation of her own workspace. The other four walls were dominated by shelves stacked upon shelves, filled to the brim (and to overflowing, in some cases) with record books, sheaves of paper, and, of course, mail. Alarm bells went off in the back of Ditzy’s mind—if left uncontested, this mess could spiral out of control in less than a week and cause one of those catastrophic mail explosions that Rainbow Dash had been so intrigued by. No time to worry about that now—the records would take ages to sift through and identify. Ditzy decided to leave a notice with the dream-laden painted clerk after she had found Tick’s records. It wouldn’t take that much effort to prevent it, but I don’t have time and it’s their mess anyways.

Two hours later, she was nearly buried by stacks of hoof-written books containing all the notifications of residents changing their addresses. Ditzy had never seen as many books, except for the one time she had been delivering an unusually large shipment of books to Twilight’s library and had run into Twilight herself, who had been in the throes of a dilemma (not to mention the throes of a veritable mountain of thick-looking tomes) about how light was a wave or a particle, or both somehow, and that was supposed to be impossible and Ditzy didn’t even know what. She didn’t understand much of Twilight’s ramblings about science or literature or books in general, anyways. Few did. The point was that Ditzy was getting tired of scanning through the thousands of pages of droll, scribbled records, and she suspected that if she took too much longer the opportunity to catch Tick would slip away from her.

Flying back up to one of the higher racks, Ditzy grabbed the next couple of record books, bound with strips of thin metal instead of the usual hard backings. It was an unconventional method of binding, but it made the books flexible and harder to damage at the same time. She hadn’t seen that particular method of binding before, and she stored it away in her mind as an idea that might be useful in some unforeseen context later.

Unfortunately for Ditzy, her absorption with the strange bindings led her to crash into a parallel shelf on her way down to her appropriated desk. She must have cursed a bit louder than she should have, because a few moments later the sandy-haired clerk poked his head into the room. Great. At least I didn’t knock it over.

“Everything ok?” he asked, glancing around the room.

“Yes, yes, fine. Just fine,” Ditzy answered hurriedly.

“You’ve been looking for few hours, do you want some help?”

“No,” Ditzy answered more firmly than was needed.

“‘Kay,” he answered, sounding like he was unsure how to respond. “If you need some help, I’ll be out here.”

If you aren’t sleeping on the job again. If I worked here… “Alright, thank you.” She answered more amicably this time, and the sandy-maned mailworker removed his head from the doorway as it closed. Silently, she once again reminded herself that drawing attention to her plans would only disrupt them.

With a sigh, she returned to the scribbled letters preserved in the strangely bound tome. To ensure the accuracy of mail, whenever somepony moved or obtained a new residence they had to inform the postal service. This was also how the Equestrian Revenue Service kept track of the general population, so it was taken seriously. Taxes were enough trouble without an auditor or tax evasion fines compounding the mixture of unpleasant paperwork. She was about halfway through scanning Canterlot’s last five years of records so far. I have to be getting close.

Many enervating, incredulously boring minutes later, without fanfare or excitement, she found it. The notation looked a little odd; there were some abbreviations and figures that probably denoted some difference in the way Canterlot ran its addresses, but it was definitely Tick’s hoofwriting. She pulled out one of his responses to confirm, and she was vindicated at last. Tick was also his actual name, oddly enough, or at least the name he preferred. It reinforced an initial perception of Ditzy’s that he was not, generally, of a bad way—he had given her his real name after all. It was just a guess she had had, but its confirmation made her feel more confident.

Ditzy held the book still, pausing for a moment of introspection. It was a quiet room, filled with the dust of a thousand pages. The silence was calming, and the simple work had drained most of her anxieties and left her in a reverie. With a mild sense of satisfaction and finality, she leaned back, thinking of the one she was chasing.

So you are Tick, and now I can find you and figure out this mess that you so unexpectedly gave me, along with your other oddities. You’re wounded and I don’t know how deep; you care about things that nopony else does. I wonder about you…

But Ditzy would not linger on speculation; she preferred by far to get to the real thing. That moment would be within this very day if her scheming came to fruition. All she had to do now was mail herself to Tick’s place. And get herself in the package. And get the undoubtedly asleep clerk’s attention while in said package without arousing suspicion as to her being in the package.

Not my first option, but I can’t take the time to figure out where this is and get there myself.

She looked around the room, pieces coming together to the plan she had hazily imagined earlier.

It would be easy enough. She would prop a bookshelf onto a chair, tie some string to a leg of that same chair, and thread it through an air hole in the crate she had prepared. Packaging tape could be used while inside to seal up the top whilst inside, and she could use the string to dislodge the chair, causing the shelf to collapse and the staff to come running; they would see the crate with the forged notes of urgency and commence panicking. One-day shipping meant that if it was late, the refund came out of the responsible worker’s check, so they would inadvertently deliver Ditzy that day instead of waiting for the next to send her off.

Into the crate she went. Ditzy had to admit, in the very back of her mind she might have had a shadow of a doubt about the possibility of this not being the wisest decision, but she was driven, decided, determined. She wasn’t about to stop now, so close was she. With the slightest hint of trepidation, she took the plunge—made the irrevocable choice—all else had been thought; now it was immutable action. Funny that it should be crawling into an oversized, repurposed crate originally designed for books that should inscribe her fate.

And before she knew it, she was in a dark crate save for the miniscule circular rings of light surrounding her with a string between her teeth, pulling the chair out from under a shelf. A very loud, messy crash resounded. She heard somepony run to the door, open it, followed by a very loud groan, then a sigh and some quiet cursing.

“Inkie!” She heard him yell—it had to be the clerk. “I’m going to need some help!”

“Coming!” Ditzy heard a young mare’s voice call. It was vaguely familiar—had she run into Ditzy before? She had little time to contemplate and investigate, as the clerk had noticed the unsent crate.

“Oh, sweet Celestia no… Inkie, we missed a priority package somehow. We need to get this out immediately, we’ll be lucky enough if we can get this cleaned up before The Inspector gets here.”

“Okey dokey. Have fun with The Inspector!”

"I don't think 'fun' is the right word..." Ditzy heard the clerk mutter as the door closed, and she thought sympathetically along similar lines.

She felt a stab of guilt for the mess she had caused. She had been the object of The Inspector’s scrutiny before, and it had been about as pleasant as Tartarus must be. The Inspector had a critical, single eye on which he wore a monocle; whatever remained of the other eye was unknown, covered with an eyepatch. He had the distinct air of angry dissatisfaction with everything: he despised filth, grime, unorderlyness, and inattentiveness, and laziness. Not a single pony knew his real name, or the few who did dare not speak of it. His mane had started to grey; it was rumored he had a history in the Fillydelphian mail explosion. The last mailpony to pry into that matter had lost his job soon after. He was a force of science and nature, freezing all nearby with his dominating aura while his eye starkly and efficiently analyzed everything around him. He was one of very few who could look Ditzy in the eyes for extended periods of time and not lose focus. And now he was headed here, to pour his wrath out on those unfortunate souls, the sleepy clerk and Inkie while the records and mail-sorting room now comprised of a small disaster area. Ditzy felt terrible; being subjected to him was something she would wish on no pony. She would have to make it up to Inkie and the clerk later, somehow. Hopefully anonymously. She didn’t want to have to explain what she had done and have to insistently defend her sanity afterwards. It’s all a moot point. I’m probably not going to see them again. If I can make it up to them later I will.

Nonetheless, she felt guilty.

As those thoughts transpired in her mind, she felt her crate being loaded into whatever vehicle they were going to use to transport her. At least they put the crate the right-side up. She felt the light bumpiness of the road begin. It was nice and dark, surprisingly cozy. She had had the foresight to put some padding in the crate, and she was very glad of it. The temptation to sleep was strong, and she resisted it only for a short while. Losing so much sleep over the past few days didn’t bode well for that fight. She could take a nap, she reassured herself. It would take long enough for her to get wherever she was going, so she curled up into anticipatory dreams, dreams of lights and shadows, of nightmares and a brilliantly bright and burning radiance that was either healing or incinerating—it was hard to tell at times.

A lone cart rolled down the sunburst-styled, elegant avenues, destined for the unexplored palace.

Chapter Five: The Other Side of the Table

Chapter Five

The Other Side of the Table

A small space. An old, beaten mahogany desk, wax faded as its glory had, four walls, one of them a deception, a small shelf, a cot in the corner, countless books and papers scattered by a wandering mind, a ravaged, ponderous soul.

Tick did not remember last night. When he had regained control of his primal instinct after losing Ditzy in the streets, he had simply crawled back to his refuge and slept until morning. All that had happened was a little too much drink; that was all he knew. Ditzy was an indefinite thing to him.

His life had always been a moving struggle, though he had slowly started to settle down prior to Discord’s temporary resurgence. Discord had not touched him during his short reign, although the tendrils of his madness had reached far and wide from the cortex of chaos that had been his black throne. Indubitably, he had felt those tendrils, if only the merest edge of their presence, whisperings in the dark and then a literal unearthing of something that still intrigued and now harassed him.

Presently, he was where he had been when his unfortunate experience had begun: holed up, quite literally, in the Royal Library. He was hiding from the Princesses—Luna in particular, but she would have doubtlessly informed her sister by now. To most, it would seem suicidal to hide within a few thousand feet of your pursuers, but Tick knew that often the best hiding places are often the most recklessly obvious as well.

Not to mention that the library itself was huge. Hundreds of wings, passages, fleeting flowing flights of stairs, untold nooks and hideaways layered so numerously upon each other that visitors occasionally had to be rescued from their isolation. It was not a zealously guarded area, nor was it often explored except by those of singular dedication to knowledge. His particular room, if he could call it that, was concealed behind a bookshelf that could only uneasily be reached by those without wings. He had lived there almost a year now; he would have lived there longer still.

To stay was not his fate, however unhappy it was for him. It was as much of a quiet, happy house as he had ever had, and the longest he had ever stayed in one place. When he had woken this morning, he knew that he had to jump town, and quickly. As clever as his hiding place was, two immortal beings were probably cleverer than him.

Always more of the world to see. I should’ve known that I could not stay here forever.

Tick looked around the space again with a distant longing, but the hard severance of experience cut through that quickly, but not painlessly. At the least, when I sort out this mess I will be free again. Ah, my father would laugh if he saw me so tied down, so slow to move…

Standing by his desk in the small space he could no longer call home, Tick realized that it would be much harder than he anticipated to pack up and leave, especially with an arduous hangover making his head radiate pain. The room was lit with a single candle that blazed with the stabbing rays of ten thousand suns to the post-inebriation Tick, but at least it was quiet. The infernal magical gag-spell that Luna had placed on him to ‘motivate’ him would only make getting away more difficult. His writings would, for the most part, have to stay here. He would have to round up his brother, who would no doubt be disappointed to leave, but wouldn’t complain. Either would make the sacrifice for the other. The setbacks on his work translating the books unearthed by Discord would be enormous; it severely needed attention and caution to avoid spread of those particular… concepts.

His mood soured as he recalled how he had spread those exact concepts.

Damn Luna for letting her emotions cloud her better judgment… Tick soundlessly growled. He couldn’t believe that she had the temerity to appoint herself judge and jury to a whole host of lost knowledge. Surely there was danger, as in all things, but he had only scratched at the unyielding surface, only deciphered the slightest comprehension out of the tomes. He had intended to put the primary care and discretion of such delicate things into greater hooves than his, but Luna’s willingness to obliterate what had promised to be an entire ancient library changed his priorities drastically.

He was not normally one to be so incensed, but the severity and gravity of the situation played poorly on his analytical mind. Reluctant to relive the rest of that episode, he instead absorbed himself in creating a solution for his lack of a voice. The likelihood of me being able to get rid of a spell cast by Luna is next to nonexistent, but it’s all I have to do at the moment. I won’t get anywhere if I just simmer, and I certainly won’t get rid of this tyrannical gag. I’m going to create too much unwanted attention if I have to keep writing everything out, and it will make traveling that much harder. Where to go is almost as important a question as what I’m going to do when I get there. I can’t see an end in sight to this situation without resolving the book problem first.

And then he heard muffled voices, distinctly out and below the façade of the shelf.

“Are you sure this is the right spot?” a mare’s voice said.

“Yes, this is the correct location,” said a diminished, quiet voice. Tick recognized it as one of the few librarians who were ostensibly in charge of the sprawling library. They mostly ended up reading or wandering more than loaning books or sorting them, in his experience.

Tick, very cautiously, slid a small panel on the back of the shelf to where he could observe the conversation from far above. Down below, Inkie and the librarian were standing next to what appeared to be one of the larger book-packing crates he’d seen. The librarian looked a little worn and weathered, a bit rough around the edges: her more adventurous days had passed her and she had contented herself with fading like a wraith into the shelves of the infinite library.

Inkie was the utter opposite, the ultimate vivification in comparison. Although the color of her coat was drab, her short and straight mane flowed round her head as she unceasingly turned about, breathing in all she could perceive and exhaling energy, exuding radiant interest with the world. The poor librarian looked a little overwhelmed.

Neither of them noticed the curious whirling eyes gazing down upon them.

This can’t be a coincidence. Not in so short a time after I escaped from her mad scheme.

“Okey-dokey then, I’ll just leave it here. Kinda weird that there’s an address for the middle of a library, huh?”

“It is how the system works,” the librarian said, brittle and upbraiding (although Inkie took no notice of the tone). “We librarians do not question the systems.”

“Alrighty then. Bye!”

“Fare thee well, young and vibrant one.”

The two parted their separate ways, Inkie with an almost-bouncing step. Erratically, with no set pattern she went out towards the eventual exit. The librarian continued her slow, self-absorbed gait, her eyes misting over with memories of some past time.

In the passage of time, both of their sights and sounds subsumed to silence as Tick slid back the shelf and floated down toward the crate. He was as alone as he could be in the hall of knowledge, vacant of all others save for the towering, but silent, presence of the billions of pages of material surrounding him. It was that feeling of awe he loved. He could never reach the end of the story; there was always another; in honest comparison the practical reasons for his location of habitation were merely secondary to him. He lived for the discovery and for the learning. What else could compare?

He was wincing at the glinting light as he descended, longing for the painless darkness of night; and with not a thought that brought delight, he landed with a sharp clack next to the crate.

Well, if I am fortunate in the least, then whatever this is shouldn’t create more problems for me.

He would have checked for observers, but he knew he not be seen here; the seclusion was rarely broken. Receiving mail now struck him as unusual: he had ordered or requested nothing, he had been away after all, and his brother usually accompanied the package himself if he thought it interesting enough to send his way. This was neither of the two, and so he was clueless to the contents. He pried the top off the crate, tossed it aside with a clatter that made him wince at the sound, and peered in.

Tick did not expect a sleeping mare to greet his tired, revolving eyes. Stepping back in confusion, he glanced around apprehensively and rubbed his face. How long was I asleep? Am I still drunk? If this is his fault and he dragged me out… Is this his idea of a joke? It fits his sense of humor, but I haven’t talked to him in weeks. It couldn’t have been.

After he had groggily assured himself that he had not started drinking again that morning, he reopened his eyes. Ditzy was still there, curled up into a ball amongst foam packing peanuts, chest rising and falling softly as she breathed.

This doesn’t make any sense. There's no cause...

He sat down, perturbed and confused. Something very important had happened, something he was forgetting. The alcohol had obscured it—his weariness had disguised it—and then he remembered last night. He recoiled from Ditzy instinctively, stepping back, fear and anger flooded back to him—

It had been quite the different picture on the other side of the table.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tick wasn’t really one for socialization. That and the fact that he wanted to lie low had led him to The Last Resort, which proved true to its name. His first resort, finding silence, had failed him—he had found no peace in his mind. His list of other options had fast dwindled to what the bartender had called ‘liquid courage,’ so he made use of what he had, and plentifully. To go another day without some sort of meditation on the situation would have been rather foolish to him. Luna’s quest that she had imposed on him had angered and distraught him, to say the least. Her command was ludicrous, almost sacrilegious to him: destroying knowledge was everything he stood against. He thought it insane that she would try to defeat the darkness by obscuring the light; the illogic of it had wreaked havoc and torment on him. He had done what little he could to fight against it, but he could not, of course, engage her directly in any manner. He could run, hide and resist only, yet not a single campaign could be waged against her while the deathlike decay of what he had glimpsed crept throughout his mind. He had felt it inside himself in the same moment he had seen it in Luna, and the fact of its existence lured his thoughts into dark places. Archetypal discord was kept at bay; but how long would it be until he defeated or subverted it? He dared not entertain the chance of failure. Thinking about it would be stepping tantalizingly close to despair.

So it had played out on his mind, if only for a short while. His dissonant thoughts had been temporarily suspended by a wall-eyed mare seizing the seat next to him. She had only scratched the surface the first time his eyes betrayed him, a compromise that he didn’t like but could afford. On a whim, he had decided to talk to her, or rather, let her talk to the brick wall that he had mimicked during the first half of their conversation. He was just being courteous, using her like he had used the alcohol to lessen his pains in some vain attempt to get time to accelerate. She had been clever and insistent enough to find the cracks in his mental armor, to his now-sober chagrin, and provoked him into responding. Then she had looped him in further with the promise of somepony who could help him with his historical dilemma. She might not be familiar with his fields, but she was certainly not one to be trifled with. She had a kind of natural intelligence that would blossom if nurtured correctly. Remembering what had happened, he thought it fortunate that he hadn’t spilled his preliminary findings on the unearthed tomes—right up until he realized he had, and in the worst way possible. Not only had she seen what was the worst-looking part of his encounter with Luna, she had visited several of his memories, some reaching into his more remote past.

Sighing in silence, his wandering mind’s eye momentarily returned to the present and he looked at Ditzy. Excellent. Spectacular. She saw some of the most sensitive things I know and she found me in record time. How am I going to handle her when she wakes up?

He belayed that query and returned to figuring out all of last night’s events. Priorities, he reminded himself. Resuming his analysis, he proceeded through the still-blurred memories until he ran upon something that interested him.

“I just wanted to hear from you,” she had said. “And of you, and your struggles.”

Why did she care? It made little sense to him, he was nopony to her; she could have been following courtesy; she could have been bluffing, but why? It seemed markedly irrational. All she was doing was risking emotional involvement and investment in somepony who, as he would judge himself, had their own problems and very little interest in involving others in them. Granted, she might learn something—but the risk, the dare—how could she justify it? How could she care for a stranger from nowhere? It was hopeless endangerment at worst; he had never seen the best. It has to be something else.

Still, it remained, and his mind passed it by to examine other things.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

She was right enough about that. His eyes jabbed pain into his brain and he winced again. In pieces, it came back to him.

“Well, all of the Elements actually live in Ponyville.”

Simultaneously, he remembered his rise in wariness and felt it once again. After all, he had just been there a few days ago and he didn’t remember anything about the Elements of Harmony or their bearers. His memory hadn’t exactly been trustworthy this morning, however…

“… So I run into all of them at some time or another.”

“The librarian is actually the personal student of Celestia herself.”

“She can send letters directly to Celestia…”

He felt an all-too-familiar surge of panic hit him. He saw the structure unfold before his eyes, ending in a spot entirely too close for comfort—the mare, lying before him, below his very eyes!

Ditzy knew Twilight, who had a direct and instantaneous mode of communication with Celestia, and Twilight probably knew Celestia very well, being her prime student. If Celestia asked Twilight if she knew anything about Tick, or if Twilight mentioned Tick in one of her communications… Twilight could have told Ditzy, and even if she hadn’t, Ditzy would surely tell Twilight now if she hadn’t already by mail or otherwise—perhaps using that instantaneous communication Twilight used with Celestia. Ditzy had shown up right at his door. Ditzy was a mailmare, and could trace his records through his occasional correspondence…

No time!

All pretense of calm blown away by panic, he screamed toward his hideaway, nearly crashing as he did. Tense—flashing—quick, he seized only what he thought most important. The one book he had remaining from the unearthing, a couple of writing utensils; it was too little, it was too much; he had to fly, soar away before Ditzy woke up. Even if she wasn’t here on the command of the Princesses, she could mention this to Twilight and give away his vital location, and it would happen sooner rather than later with their speed of communication. He turned around, once, twice, looking over his living space in great haste to check for anything too important to leave behind, anything that would give him away. He wasn’t sure he got everything, but he had enough; he flew out the entrance of his room and—

Ditzy was standing, looking the other way, shaking a couple foam packing peanuts off her head. Tick floated motionless for a moment, and then began to edge away from her in.

Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around. For the love of Herodotus, don’t look over here…

And then she did, of course.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Waking up, Ditzy’s first realization was that there was entirely too much light in the box. Her second was that she had never actually formulated a plan of what she was going to do when she got to wherever Tick was. Standing up, the behemoth shelves had grabbed her attention first, then the polished marble floor, then the hall itself, stretching onwards for several hundred feet. The immeasurably soft sound of the foam packing falling off of her had only one competitor: the slightly less soft sound of wings, rhythmically slicing the air.

Only when she had turned about did she realize that somepony had to have taken the top off her crate, and that pony was probably grey pegasus she had sought, the one with the look of horrific dread on his face.

“Tick, I…” Her mouth had dried, her mind was whirling in the suddenness; the reservoir of words had emptied, or perhaps it had filled to overbearing. She wanted to ask where this was, if he was alright, assure him that she could help, demand to know more about Luna, plead with him not to run—but out of those, she probably should have pleaded. Tick wouldn’t have heard it, though, because he was busy rocketing down the hall, away from Ditzy.

Damn it! Not again—I won’t let him—

Ditzy took off after him, challenged and determined, careening out of the crate and through the hall, and the chase began.

Screaming along at speeds completely ludicrous for the indoors, it was obvious to her that Tick knew this place very well, but she had the clear advantage in speed. Still, he flew at a break-neck pace out of the hall, into an enormous cubic room, and dove between convoluted rows of shelves that reached nearly to the ceiling in an attempt to shake her off his tail—for she was almost in reach of it. He didn’t look back; he focused on his path. Ditzy craftily flew just above the shelves, wary of any traps Tick might put into play. Sure enough, within five turns he faced a dead end and instead shot straight up, assuming Ditzy’s superior speed would cause her to crash.

Tick, stopping and wiping the sweat from his brow, turned, expecting to see that Ditzy had smashed into the shelf. Instead, he saw Ditzy floating just behind him, forehooves crossed over her chest in an insulted manner.

“Come on, I thought you knew I’m not that unintelligent. Now are you going to tell me what this is all about or what?”

His answer was to turn again and dive, spiraling as he went.

So you’re going to make me work for my answers…

Cursing his stubbornness, Ditzy mimicked his dive with the intent of cutting him off, but he had enough lead to make it to one of the other four exits. The corridor they entered was starkly narrow compared to the enormous cube they had left behind; so little room to maneuver was left that she couldn’t even spin, let alone overtake Tick. She had a spare moment to wonder what this place was—whatever it was, it had to be huge. Rounding a hairpin curve, the corridor retained its narrowness. It had started to angle upwards, and Tick wasn’t about to stop, so neither would she.

He flipped into a doorway, his wings retracting just enough to avoid breaking them on the frames. Taken by surprise, Ditzy nearly overshot the door and gave Tick a significant advantage. The room was nothing but a tight spiral staircase with less than a full wingspan’s clearance in the center. Flying up was Tick, and he was executing no simple ploy: he was operating his wings independent of each other to avoid hitting the staircase.

“You’re insane!” Ditzy yelled as she imitated his movement, barely keeping up with him now. If either of their rhythms were less than perfect, they would break a wing and tumble to the bottom of the stairwell, probably breaking many more bones in the process. His head turned and he shot her a glance momentarily—as if to say, And yet you are still following me.

Mercifully, they soon reached the top of the stairs and exited into a tall, circular room. Wasting no time, Tick took to an open window and soared out. Ditzy followed—like I’m going to stop now after I chased you all this way—and hazarded a glance down as she did. It was a very long way down from the top of the tower. Accelerating, Tick was headed for the open skies above Canterlot.

There, Ditzy thought with satisfaction, she could outmaneuver him and take him down without much trouble considering he was not only slower, but also injured. She could see the white of the bandages even against his light gray coat from here. Adrenaline rushing, she started to close in. He can’t escape now!

But neither could she.

Tick slammed into an invisible object like a bug on a window, the air around him shimmering as he did. Ditzy understood what it was an instant before it could have helped her—she, too, crashed into the force field, albeit with less speed. The solidity of it surprised her; shocks ran through her body as she felt the crackle of magic painfully surging through her. Surprise, then numbness coursed through her mind.

I can’t feel my wings!

Her vision started to dull—the last thing she saw was Tick falling, seemingly paralyzed as she was, several winged black and white dots racing to intercept them. And then consciousness faded.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ditzy's mind was a very confused place.

It was surreal dreaming, it was fervent reality; it was quiet and dull, it was loud and piercing. What little sensation she knew was ethereal and wraithlike: she felt her ardor extinguish, her fire for Tick burnt out to return when next she woke as smoldering hot coals, ready to be stirred anew. Carried as she slipped between states of lucidity and blank, whispered vagueness, she could hear voices—

“She seems to be somewhat stable, no signs of any of the symptoms similar to the Changelings we caught. The other isn’t a Changeling either, but he’s no better off. Make sure he hasn’t suffered too much blood loss before you transfer him to the cell. Princess Luna has expressed interest in these two. And be careful! Preliminary testing of the spell they hit had unusual side effects.”

She continued to slide, she was floating in a cloud now; no, she was in a shallow pool; she was asphyxiating—hacking—coughing for breath, she attained some relief. An image stratified before her, a head enshrined by the sun, mane blowing, indistinguishable.

“Mother?” Ditzy whispered, completely incoherent.

The vision rippled like water into blown smoke, replaced by a pair of yellow and red eyes, feral. Maddening. Intoxicating. The solitary mind; the lone, damned soul.

I can see you… You are so close to me now, almost close enough for me to taste your anguish. What folly, trying to solve your problems. You could simply submit. It would be so easy, so gratifying, a faster escape, peace at long last—What more could you want, Ditzy?

But he was not eternal. He passed, like the rest of the incomprehensible visions, and become one among many—no less or more meaningful than the phantasmagoric phenomena that grasped and befuddled her bewildered senses.

This is a dream.

Yet her mind still wandered.

And then there was light, glorious redemption. The sun shone on Elysian fields, the soft breeze scented with honeysuckle and dew, a brook ran through, a sense—not of timelessness, but of hopefulness, and sincerity, and of beauty.

This is just a dream; why am I—

Her mind convulsed and the last of her lucidity faded; there was something in the light, a prism: distortion. It altered, a paradigm shift, and the light flared, bent, twisted. Broken up into disparate bizarre elements, the perversion of the light intensified as it reflected on the landscape, granting an ominous, menacing desire to the air itself. With mighty and terrible fulfillment, at last something arose that blocked all light.

And then there was shadow, horrendous devastation. It was like the painting of the storm again, except she had no ship—and she was drowning, struggling, failing, being ripped to shreds and tossed by the storm. She raged, thrashed, screamed against the waves and wind and whirlpool, cursed it, struck out against it, triumphed not; she was never the victor, she was her own victim.

And then there was nothing, absolute and final, immutable.

And that was the most horrifying thing of all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Waking, she was glad to be free of her hallucinations, even if her current reality was a mass of painful bodily reactions to the magical paralysis. The massive effort it took to open her eyes distraught her, yet she managed to roll into a shaky sitting position.

Strange dreams, and he was there, and she was there… but she’s gone.

She shivered and took stock of her surroundings.

Across from her, Tick was lying, apparently unconscious, on the opposite side of the cell. To the left, iron bars wrought in crossed patterns barred the only exit. To the right, a nondescript smooth stone wall was cut only by a lone shaft of sunlight, a diamond-shape spilled onto the floor, giving luminance to the room. In totality, it was spartan—but not cruel. They had been placed on mats, not the bare stone, and the cell was neither damp nor rough; in fact, it was rather precisely constructed. It was cold, though. The stone walls communicated that clearly. Shivering slightly from both the chill and the symptoms of the insidiously surreal spell, Ditzy checked herself: she was heavily bruised in several places, with a particularly nasty bump on her head, but it had been bandaged, and she suspected she had been medicated, as she was feeling less pain than she would expect from colliding with the magical equivalent of a Taser and a brick wall. She wanted to dissect her visions—but they were only visions, after all; they could mean or not mean anything, and she had many more important questions to answer.

Why am I in a cell with Tick and nopony else around? Is it not going to be explained why we’re in here or where this is or what happened to us?

Not that she was complaining about being stuck with Tick. He would likely be her only source of answers for some time. Her patience long ago evaporated, she unsteadily came over to Tick’s side and examined his painful appearance.

I wouldn’t want to be him right now. He’s not even healed completely from when Luna threw him against the wall, but I can’t do anything for him now.

The stained bandages that had long enwrapped his ribs had been replaced, no more did blood seep into them. His new injuries looked painful enough: his left wing had been immobilized; he had no shortage of bruises; his eyes were locked shut and Ditzy could not tell if he was frozen in sleep or lurid consciousness.

I wonder if I’ll find my answers now, or if the he’ll find another way to stall.

Gently and carefully, she tapped her hoof on his shoulder. His eyes snapped open sharply, revolutions begun. His gaze focused and intensified quickly, staring blankly up into Ditzy’s eyes. Deliberately closing his eyes, he concentrated, opened them again, and slowly assumed a more upright posture. Several moments passed, his eyes closed again; he focused on breathing. She could see his chest expanding and contracting slightly; what he was thinking she could only guess. The game of details and guesswork was just beyond her reach, but she needed none of that now that he was awake.

“Tick?” He gave her his attention, eyes opening.

“Where are we?”

He looked left, right, back at her. He mouthed something, but it was futile: Ditzy couldn’t read lips. She rubbed her hoof against her forehead in slight frustration. She would have to resort to charades and yes-or-no questions to get any information out of him, if he even wanted to respond to her. Hardly the most effective method of communication, but he had nothing to write on and no other channel to express himself. At least he had tried to respond; she had half-expected that he would continue his apparent aversion and hostility.

“Do you know where we are?”

He nodded.

“Alright, ah, are we still in Canterlot?”

Yes.

“Upper or lower?”

He pointed up.

“Is this some of jail?” She wouldn’t have asked, but it seemed oddly nice for somewhere to hold delinquents.

He nodded emphatically.

Great, just perfect. What are we even in here for? “Is that… thing we ran into the barrier they put around Canterlot to prevent pegasi from flying in?”

After a moment of hesitation, he shook his head no and then yes. He started drawing on the floor with his hoof, despite not leaving a mark—he was constructing a mental image. He drew what appeared to be the side of a mountain, then what had to be Canterlot, and a bubble encircling Canterlot. Then he drew a smaller semicircle covering a section of the inner city and looked back up at Ditzy.

“There’s another barrier?” she queried. “Is that what we hit?”

Yes, his head indicated.

“And we hit it from the outside?”

No.

“So we hit it from the inside?” Tick nodded. What’s important enough for a second layer of protection? She mulled it over for a few seconds, and found her answer to be one that only begged more questions.

“We can’t have been—were we inside the palace?”

He nodded.

“What in the name of Celestia were you doing inside the palace?!”

He made no motions, but let his silence speak for him. Ditzy knew he had no good way of answering that question, but his complete lack of response still created a disapproving look on her face. He left her no choice, nor was she going to be gentle now. Her trials demanded a resolution.

Her voice dropped in volume and pitch. “I don’t think Luna would have been too happy with you living in her house after what I saw between you two.”

Tick’s eyes narrowed. He leaned back, crossed his hooves over his chest and made no further motion, watching Ditzy carefully.

“You might as well tell me, we might be here for a while. Besides, I think you owe me an explanation. I’ve worked hard enough for it, and this was your fault anyways.”

His eyes closed, a silent sigh escaped him. Reopening his eyes, he held out his empty hooves as a gesture and shrugged, as if saying “How would I even tell you?”

“You could show me,” Ditzy pressed. “The same way you got me into this mess in the first place. If you can control what you can show me, then you can explain this whole confusion from the beginning.”

Shutting his eyes, Tick’s head bowed in thought. Ditzy could divine no thought process emanating from him, only confliction. After an appropriate amount of time, he nodded and opened his eyes, looking directly at Ditzy from the moment his lids opened. Adjusting his position to one more comfortable, he never ceased eye contact.

Strange as his eyes were, she could look him in the eye now indefinitely—no longer could she be shaken by his moving irises, even as they spun quicker, even as her perception wore away to be replaced by history, his story, his past, and inevitably his present.

It had begun where all ideas are conceived: the deep, dark recesses of a library, the inscribed contours of a mind…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“It is important,” Ditzy felt him think, “that you know of the two most dangerous things in this world before we begin.”

She witnessed the immense cost of him directly prescribing his present thoughts to her; it was intensely more difficult than replaying his memory. She would have been trepid if she had thought about it, but now she was not. She was brave now, concerned and yet hungry.

“The most dangerous thing in this world is writing.”

The rather blunt statement surprised Ditzy. She had expected him to elaborate in the very least, and writing surely was not the greatest danger Equestria had to offer. Even in the vast gulf between their minds, there was still a sort of union—and through that Tick could feel her skepticism, but he pressed on anyways.

“The second-most dangerous thing is reading. That in particular was the catalyst for this… mess. And now we begin again…”

She could feel him slip farther away as his effort to maintain present communication ceased and his memory took form.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chaos!

It was not so much perceiving it as it was an emotion in his past mind, although his senses gradually coalesced into a scene that was uncomfortably familiar to Ditzy, particularly, the rapidly changing color of sky and the indecision of the sun and moon to stay as ordered. Tick was watching the phenomena occur through a window in an expansive library, likely a different section of the royal library that they had impromptly left behind. As he watched, he scratched notes concerning the changes with an air of curiosity about him, not yet extremely concerned about his own welfare. Then the cracks began to show—literally.

Behind Tick, a section of the stone floor was breaking. It caved quietly at first, escaping his notice. However, when it broke cleanly free and crashed into and through the next floor, and the one below that, he took plenty of notice. He jumped into the air and twisted around with a look of complete surprise on his face, then flew over to the newly excavated hole.

Looking down at the edge of the hole, he glanced around and saw no others. The hole continued through the next lower story of the library, into a basement, and seemingly beyond that.

“Can’t get any stranger…” he muttered, and began his cautious descent.

He stopped where the debris had crashed through the floor of the basement; prudence and common sense dictated that he at least grab a candle first. It looked discouragingly dark down in what he guessed to be a sub-basement of the library. After a minute of digging around the upper basement, he found a candle and tentatively entered the sub-basement.

It was old, very old. The stones that had constructed had long since cracked seemingly into mere rocks; they had greyed to the point that it was hard to separate them at times from the greyness of Tick’s coat. Stone was the only material, down to the empty sconces on the walls. Light shown on the debris that had opened the way for Tick, but not on anything else: he would have to venture into the dark to illuminate it. Such is the cost to be a beacon in the dark—he had to go into the dark, first of all. So he wandered, tentatively at first, but then with familiarity as the small size and structure revealed itself. It was not sprawling, consisting of four rooms in total. The most unusual thing was that there appeared to be no natural entrance or exit. It should have unnerved him, but it didn’t at the time.

As he brought slight luminance to the last room in the row, he noticed a bookshelf in the corner. It, too, was constructed of stone—but it seemed more… alive. More colored, as if it had been preserved through time; although it was not lively, but foreboding. Black-metal bound were the few books that sat on it. It was very quiet; he could hear himself breathing and the blood pumping in his ears.

And it was very dark. The lone candle sputtered. The inseparable paleness of his coat and the stone were contrasted only by the black books on the shelf and the shades in his irises. His breathing hastened slightly as his pupils dilated. He was staring at the books. Strange that they had held the test of time more than anything else in this eerily quiet, dilapidated place.

He laid hoof on one, pulled it off the shelf—

Crack.

As he pulled it off, the supporting stone shelf underneath broke, and the other metal-bound books scattered to the floor with sharp metallic clangs, pealing discordantly against the silence. He winced—and then the candle went out.

Complete, absolute absence of sight. He inhaled sharply in shock; his eyes were useless! Nothing could be seen! His hearing seemed only amplified—every breath, every scuffle of hoof on stone, every pounding beat of his heart was thunderous. Panicking, he felt around him, all sense of direction lost. He was alone, lost in the dark, the unusual shadows had caught up to him.

Opening his eyes, closing his eyes, it made no difference. Sight lost, adrenaline pumping, he felt around him. Nearly crawling, his instincts screamed out warnings as he reached around for some wall, some rubble, any kind of point of vantage. It was agonizing, inching along with no retreat or relief. He had the feeling of always being about to fall into an infinite abyss—and the darkness granted no favors. Breathing heavily, mind racing, an eternity passed. He would have given anything for the tiniest point of light, anything—anything!—to break the dark. Nothing did.

After an interminable age of darkness and overbearing sound, he found the wall. With only the slightest of relief, he traced it onwards, his back against it; it hardly would have helped if something was sneaking up on him, as his vision was still black as oblivion. He slid along, using the wall as his guide, until he made it into the next room. He could go faster now; there had been nothing in the two rooms separating the hole and the room with the shelf.

As he found the entranceway to the first room, his vision was restored, rays of moonlight cut down upon the pile of debris. He thought it odd—but then he realized that the sky had decided to go insane on him as well, that or Celestia and Luna had gotten into a fight. He thought the second option less likely, as any clash of that magnitude would no doubt cause a bit more disturbance than the sun and moon swapping places every few minutes. Regaining his breath, he realized he still had the book he had grabbed off the shelf. Looking back at where he had come from, he was summarily dumbfounded: there was candlelight flickering, reflected on the wall.

Rushing over, all caution abandoned by curiosity and incredulity, he ran into the fourth room—and saw a few metallic books on the floor, some slight debris from the shelf breaking, and a lit candle where he had left it. A very much light-producing candle.

The look on his face, directed at the candle, was one of simultaneous loathing, disbelief, and confusion. A stuttered noise of annoyance and a growl later, he turned about and found himself several seconds later standing under the moonlight as he looked up out of the hole. Decided, he flew out with the promise of returning later when the world was saner.

With purpose, he travelled through the myriad rooms of the library, through the cubic room where Ditzy would chase him, and into that long hall where she had found him again. Stopping, he flew straight up until he found the movable panels and ducked inside. His room was small, somewhat cozy, consisting of the unwaxed mahogany desk, cot, and a small shelf with the occasional book or article scattered around the room. Overall, it was not a bad place for someone squatting inside of a royal palace, which no doubt had many things in place against such an occurrence. Ditzy wondered where he got his food, and many small other questions, but Tick, past and present, had other plans.

He laid the book down on his desk, sat down, and began examining the cover. The unusual blackened metal binds had been inscribed with a language that Ditzy did not recognize. It was not quite runic, but the symbols appeared very different. The cover looked almost jagged, the metal wrought into black tints and the ornate symbols, cut precisely, with a cruel suggestion in the manner of harsh strokes. Inquisitive, he laid it open without flourish and sighed when he saw similar symbols layering the pages. With a slight frown, he pulled a book from his shelf labeled and a blank journal and opened both.

“I thought it was just a book,” Ditzy felt his present think, “and it was. But the problem with books is they have words in them, and implications are not always easy to accept.”

“Weeks passed.” His vision accelerated, jumped ahead—countless runed pages flashed through her mind-vision as Tick proved his words, bringing her to the next point of her interest. Ditzy remained silent, keeping her questions at bay for the moment.

Tick was again at his desk, poring through his journal, which was now filled with dozens of inscribed pages; on the front was written “Translation of De Terra et Animi Caelorum et Tartari.” He looked haggard, his mane messed and his eyes wider than they should have been. Lack of sleep and intensive translations had proved wearing on his past appearance and on his past mind, which he now was taking care to shield from her.

He’s not letting me feel what he felt anymore. She felt him carefully monitoring her reaction, yet she had no problem letting her disappointment known.

Well, that hardly helps me. Ditzy thought with a slight sulk.

“I can hear you,” Tick’s present thought with a hint of amusement, “and it means Concerning the Earth and the souls of the skies and of Tartarus.”

Ditzy didn’t think that he could hear him, and she had meant more his deception, but she would take what she could get. What did you find?

“I had only scratched the surface of it; it is no easy venture translating something that old and archaic.”

And you found?

“You saw what was in Luna’s mind.”

You’re just saying that because you don’t want to tell me. It was a blind blow, but she had had enough of the games.

She felt a lot of confliction inside him; it could not be hidden. Now that she had found a weakness, she would exploit it ceaselessly. It was merciful instead of merciless for her to pry; her deepest motivation was ultimately concern in the moment. She would not let him suffer—her sympathy inspired by her own past was too great.

He drew his consciousness up decidedly, and communicated deliberately, precisely:

“I do not know what I have found. Whether it is related to Luna’s past or not is her jurisdiction, and I will not speak for her.”

I care, she thought, and she put as much emotional weight behind her words as possible, resisting the urge to lose her patience. And I know how you feel.

His mind was turmoil now, a mess of roiling emotions, he had exposed vulnerability and he knew it; he could not resist while his weakness was apparent and Ditzy insisted on pushing—

“No! This will not stand. I will not justify it! Leave what is mine to me. It is a problem best left contained in my mind, and you would want no part of it.”

I saw it already. It’s no use for you to hide it.

Yet he remained obstinately silent.

Frustrated, she mentally retracted from his thought, and he did not resist. It was not only his own danger if he refused her help, but also hers. I put so much hope into you, I come to you and try to help you, and you ignore me. You’re so weak right now! You wouldn’t give up your stubbornness to help me or yourself? How can you refuse this so selfishly?

She was so close to knowing, all she had to do was push while he was wounded, she could know if she only pressed on. She could bring the conflict to its climax, force the issue; all it would take was her overpowering his distraught state. He was surmountable before her mind—one shove could send him over into madness or confession. All she had to do was dominate him, and it would be done easily. His denial made her angry, progressively more furious as empty seconds passed. Her insidious wrath rose from the very darkest corners of her mind, plotted to lay him bare. She would strip his thoughts and lay this controversy into light. She would solve the mystery of her pain, release it, the consequences be damned.

Cunningly, she brought herself together, refining her mental focus into a spear-like point. She would strike while he was distracted. She would end this now, like a burning ray of light thrust into shadows—and its burning was the torment of all her past, of all her worry, of all her frustration with Tick, and it would penetrate his mind, and the fire would spread until he had either submitted and told her everything or burned away into charred nothing. The gulf of minds was before her, seemingly no longer vast. She leaped, prepared to strike—

Then Tick saw her. And through his mind, she could see herself.

And she was like the blinding sun, with all the fury it had shown down on her during Discord, with all the hate it had enshrined her with against Rainbow Dash. All the pieces of disgust and madness she had ever seen in every hateful act she could see in herself: the terrible potential of unimaginable cruelty that lay within her, the malice in the Nightmare reflected.

No! No, this isn’t me! She recoiled from herself, terrified; the scream of the recollection echoed as she fled in terror from herself; she had looked in the mirror of minds and found unthinkable things. She tried to break off the union of minds, ran as far as she could from Tick, but the gulf would get no wider, just as it hadn’t gotten any shorter—she was in his grasp until he released her, and he was too terrified to let go now.

But strangely enough, he was now looking in, still frozen, and not out.

Tick, listen; I wouldn’t—I couldn’t have— couldn’t have what? Tore through his mind without the slightest concern for his sanity until she had found answers?

And then she saw why he had been reflecting her. For in his most terrible thoughts, he was no different than her. He was capable of the worst kinds of evil, just as she. And he had been no less scarred by his realization than her.

Did he even feel me? I was… this is his nightmare.

So she reached out, across the chasm between their minds. No words this time, just feelings—an offering of her peace, of her hope, a sanctuary for him; he could lean on her if he wished. It was an open gesture.

And he seized it, but neither was prepared for what the selfless offer entailed.

For an instant, she bore his pain with him and he bore hers, and it was diminished between the two. It was only a second, but the sensation was so intense—so real, she could feel all of his mind and he hers; they drowned in each other for a moment. It was beyond comprehension, they were in complete understanding of each other, but they had not yet had time to think. They had found harmony with each other. Wondrous beyond doubt, their minds working together, they knew each beyond a shadow of a possibility—

He recoiled.

The abyssal gulf formed again between their minds, and Ditzy was left reeling. How could she even begin to describe what had passed so quickly? How could she replicate what already seemed so intimate and sanctified to her?

I…

“Not even he could…” Ditzy felt Tick think. The walls around their minds gradually rose again, leaving Ditzy feeling as though she had to make amends for her initial action, though she was still awestruck by what had happened after.

Tick, I’m sorry, I don’t know why but… what just happened?

He was mute for a moment.

“Now you know what I found in the book. I am exhausted…”

It was an act of desperation that had driven her to almost strike his mind, but now overwhelming patience and care had taken over. She could feel the mental and physical tiredness almost seeping out of his mind. He broke the communion of minds, so very suddenly, and she was looking at his tired eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

He was sleeping now, and though he did not seem as peaceful as Ditzy would wish him, he might never reach such an elevated bliss. He had collapsed very shortly afterwards, and Ditzy had thrown her blanket from her mat over him in an attempt to comfort him. His breath was still slightly ragged; his wounds looked no more healed than when he had entered the cell. She was seated next to him, rubbing his shoulder with one hoof as he slept as she watched him contemplate dreams. The way he slept reminded Ditzy of Dinky: All the time she spent caring for her, all the love they shared and the memories made. She felt terribly homesick, with not an ounce of an idea when they would be released. She had seen nopony else and was losing track of time; although the diamond-cut sliver in the wall still emitted sunlight, it was hard to examine the state of temporal affairs beyond that. She might be stuck here a long, long time. How would her friends know, how would Dinky find out? Fear struck Ditzy, but she knew of no way to relieve it. It would be crushing to her if she knew her mother was trapped in jail, let alone all the horrible implications of her getting into jail in the first place. All she knew was that she and Tick had probably been trespassing. Surely they wouldn’t keep her here long. We’re at least going to be questioned, she rationalized, yet her rationale had failed her enough recently for her to doubt all expectations.

That didn’t help the time pass as Tick slept, blissfully unaware of Ditzy’s meandering thoughts. “Now you know what I found in the book,” he had said—but she had known it all along; it had come along in pieces until Tick had woven it together for her.

What he had found in the book was a simple realization. He had seen, at some moment in time, all the truly terrible things that he was capable of. Odd, that Ditzy was so easily able to cognitize it when Tick had not understood it; she could not release the thought, for it was all that she had been thinking. She had seen glimpses of it before: certainly when she had confronted Rainbow Dash, although she knew she would not have been able to identify it then. The subject had been carefully, unconsciously avoided—the burden of a free will, the decision, however innocuous it might seem at the time, between something that is more right and something that is less right. How was she supposed to know what choice is better? Were there any choices that are unambiguous wrongs?

Gazing upwards at the shaft of light, she felt inclined to answer yes: and Discord was at the forefront of her reasons. If, then, he was an absolute wrong, was it acceptable to hate him?

The wave and particles of light provided no obvious answer, and she sighed; it was an exhalation of her issues, a retreat from questions she did not yet have answers for. ‘Time heals all wounds,’ she had heard once, and it returned to her conscious now. The problem with that, she knew, was that time usually healed wounds by letting the wounded die off, and she was far from content enough to pass away without a stir yet.

Did that mean Luna still had her wounds? Shifting somewhat, her contemplation seemed to agree: her memories of Nightmare had certainly been vivid enough. Bizarre implications conceptualized, she started to wonder. She didn’t have long to imagine what might be: something was coming down the hallway toward the cell.

She could see the silhouette—no horn, it couldn’t be Luna—then he crossed the corner; Ditzy’s mood proceeded to turn from philosophical to dour.

“You again?”

“Oh, now that’s just cruel and unusual,” said Quirk, but his grin suggested amusement. “Turn me down and then go running around with my brother, of all people. It must have been one hell of a party to get arrested in the palace!”

“Tick is your brother?” Ditzy exclaimed. Tick was intelligent and somewhat aloof, but Quirk was… Quirk. It didn’t make any sense to her how they could be related, not given the vastly different introductions she had had.

“Yup. How’d he get the bandages?”

“Shouldn’t you know that?”

“This is the first time I’ve seen him in two weeks. I was starting to wonder what he was up to until I heard of a suspiciously similar pair of pegasi crashing into the palace forcefield. Tick would be the last to know of it, of course. He was always more interested in yesterday’s news.”

She looked down at Tick; he was still sleeping, his eyes shut.

“If you’re his brother, then what’s the strangest thing about him?”

“Probably his mad obsession with books. Oh, or his eyes, too. They tend to freak ponies out at first. Where’s he been the past few days? He wasn’t holed up in the royal library, was he? I just checked a few days ago.”

“I don’t know; I ran into him at a tavern… and why should I tell you?”

“You don’t have anything else to do, except maybe seduce Tick. Normally he doesn’t go for that sort of thing, but if that is alcohol I smell he might be a little more, ah, ‘open to new experiences.’”

Ditzy glowered at Quirk, thoroughly unenthused at his response; he just laughed to himself for a moment.

“No, really—what was he doing in a tavern? Lower Canterlot, I presume?”

“Yes. Brooding… I think. I would let him tell you himself, but he lost his voice somehow.”

Quirk froze. He looked set off, like he had remembered something fearfully unpleasant. “Lost his voice?”

Ditzy shifted at his reaction; she had not seen him even with the remotest worry before. “I don’t think it happened a long time ago, did he always—”

Quirk was urgent now, almost desperate. “Open his eyes! Open his eyes, wake him up, let him see me.”

He was visibly relieved when Tick opened his eyes after some prodigious poking on Ditzy’s part. When Tick noticed Quirk, he sat up quickly and began motioning erratically as Quirk said “Don’t bother, she explained slightly, just show me.” They set themselves up sitting on opposite side of the crossed bars, Tick’s eyes whirling faster now. Ditzy took the position of the awkward bystander, not knowing what role she had to play. The tempo played without her this time, as Quirk tossed her an aside. “You might want to take a nap or something, this might take a while.” She settled back against the corner where the bars and smooth wall intercepted and watched as Quirk and Tick ascended into their trance. It was decidedly anticlimactic on the outside: a mere blurring of his eyes, Quirk staring into them, and finally the peak as Quirk’s iris showed nothing but the reflection of Tick’s glow. It irked her slightly, watching Tick commune with his brother—was she jealous of that experience? It was an uncomfortable thought; she had just shared a moment of closeness with him that she was still unraveling in meaning. He was still very much a stranger that she knew little about, still very much an oddity to her that nonetheless determined a great deal of her immediate future.

Ditzy found she had naught else to do but stare and wonder what Tick might be telling Quirk, and the reverse flow of information. She imagined Tick would tell her the story that he had reluctantly wove in her eyes, but with more detail, an endless amount of context, and much more mutual understanding. The persnickety feeling of the seed of jealousy rose to the back of her mind again; she pushed it back down. She had learned her lesson about patience for the day. It was tempting to take a nap, but she had learned a lesson about naps this very strange day, as well. She wasn’t about to miss the reactions of Quirk and Tick when they finished, especially Quirk’s. His in particular would reveal much about the real significance of Tick’s misadventures. The diamond key of light in the wall faded, vanished, and reappeared as a silver beam over the course of many long instants; the room darkened, blackened, and resolidified in shades of alabaster, silver, and black in accord with the light. The interactions of Tick and Quirk seemed not to emanate light, but reflect it between themselves, like two mirrors placed opposite each other. Her attention drifting away momentarily, she wondered how anypony could tolerate solitary confinement. It must take incredible fortitude to last in such an environment.

She turned back to them just as the embrace of minds ceased. Tick looked worried—but in comparison Quirk was absolutely pale, as if the shadow of death had swept through his complexion. Quirk glanced, his expression dread, at Ditzy, and then back at Tick. For a while he sat, staring at the floor in meditation: he shuddered at one point, his eyes blinking; he gave his attention once more to Tick.

Well that can’t be good.

“I will prepare, as we discussed. Good luck,” Quirk said, “especially with dealing with Luna.”

He turned to leave, and Ditzy angrily exclaimed, “Wait! Aren’t you going to tell me anything?”

Glancing back, Quirk said, “If Tick wants you to know, then he’ll tell you.”

But he didn’t have any chance to leave; hoofsteps echoed down the hall.

“Quirk, are you allowed to be here?” Ditzy whispered.

“Well, not technically—”

“Then hide!”

They looked up, down, sideways; their frantic glances ricocheted around the room in desperate search. At last, Quirk flew straight up, the top of the bars and the lower ceiling of the cell blocking Ditzy and Tick’s views of him as Luna herself entered, all dark blue and black and regal.

Straight forward she walked, her gaze on Tick from the moment she turned, she halted not—ceased not—right up to the bars she went, as Ditzy’s heart hammered in her chest. She went as with one singular purpose. Driven was she; her magic enveloped her as she walked through the bars as she shimmered with spell and moonlight. Into the cell to stand tall and mighty before Tick she strode, seemingly unperturbed by the racing of his eyes. Her eyes were as intense as the storms a red moon brought: unassailable, full of might, wrath promised—and yet something else, the leanest hint of shame and sorrow. Nor was glory in her eyes; although surely she was magnificent and beautiful. Something in her refused magnanimous trappings; her own accords with harmony she had wrought.

Tick stared back into her eyes, presumably unafraid, but Ditzy could see a rivulet of sweat run down the back of his head. Luna commanded his gaze: he could not break it if he had the audacity and foolhardiness to try. The silent depths of her brooding observance consumed Tick; he seemed as if his body would explode into motion with all of his tension or freeze to black ice in all of his well-disguised fear.

“Tick,” Luna said, and it was so soft compared to the screamed silence that it seemed almost ethereal. “Why have you disobeyed us?”

A silvery glow extended from Tick’s mouth down over his throat, and the same glow enshrouded her horn.

“You are able to talk now.” It was a simple statement, yet her voice was still different than what Ditzy had observed in Tick’s memory. It was missing the gravity needed to corral a room of listeners, but it still had the draw, the gentleness and dignity, the same strength but through quietude instead of implied authoritas. She had certainly lost the royal Canterlot inflection since she had visited Ponyville, but none of the mannerisms.

“You know full well I refuse to perpetuate ignorance.” Tick spoke—Tick spoke!—His voice sounded, clearly stressed by the issues at hoof, yet constrained by temperance.

So you do talk.

It was the first time Ditzy had heard it with her own ears. He sounded determined, certain, with a tinge of anger, but his anger was the cold and sharp kind; the focused and silent kind, so unlike hers, and not nearly as intense. Yet it could be just as destructive.

Luna was not amused by his response.

“There are things far beyond what you have comprehended that influence your actions. That knowledge is best left untouched, and your refusal to believe so endangers everything you come into contact with. We cannot tolerate this, no matter how distasteful the task may be.”

“Would either one of you be kind enough to tell me what’s going on?” Ditzy almost cringed interrupting, although tempted to lose her patience. Nonetheless, she could not stand being left in the dark any longer. Both Tick and Luna appeared surprised by the interruption, but Luna was the quicker to respond, cutting in smoothly.

“It would not be wise or prudent in regards to your safety or state of mind for you to know what we are talking about. We regret to keep you uninformed, but it is necessary.” Luna's attention swung back to Tick.

Ditzy was irritated, ignored, and left in the dark, and after so many long hours of suppression, her composure finally cracked.

“Forget my safety, and to hell with my peace of mind! Do you know what I’ve been through in the past year? Discord, Changelings, depressions and then Tick’s half-explained mind-vision-thing that showed me you, Luna, having some sort of weird flashback and then almost killing Tick, not to mention the incredibly unsettling familiarity of whatever Tick found in that book and what’s in your, and apparently our, minds to top it all off! I think I ought to deserve an explanation, whether it hurts me or not.”

She ended on all fours, wings flared out and a look threatening that she might charge them recklessly should she be offered any provocation to. Tick appeared as if he would fall over at the tip of a feather, even Luna had lost some of her serene grace by her widened eyes and so-well-disguised disapproval.

“We are of the opinion that this would be better explained on a fresh day, when tempers have settled. Our night is yet late, and we have many duties to attend to that are necessary.”

I had better get to know what this all is and why I’m in here! Resisting the strong urge to again demand concessions, Ditzy turned away, eyes shut yet furious emotion still apparent.

Without waiting for a reply, Luna’s body phased again with her magic and she turned and passed through the bars. Ditzy turned her burning gaze to Tick, who said nothing and wisely stepped back. Not only was this the first time he had seen Ditzy outraged; she had not so long ago nearly attacked him directly through his mind. He would take no chances.

“It is shameful that you have involved others in such a destructive work,” Luna commented from across the bars. “It may soon pay dividends.”

“It wasn’t his fault; I involved myself,” Ditzy objected, all respect forgotten in the built-up heat of the long moments. “I made my choice,” she said, defiantly and decisively, with a certainty that caused Tick to give her a curious, silent glance.

“Then I pity you,” Luna whispered, sorrow in her eyes and voice, enough of an unexpected emotion to cause Ditzy to falter in her tirade. Had her eyes blinked, hid something? Luna turned, faced the exit, and said without looking back:

“Oh, and you may inform your friend that he may dislodge himself from the ceiling. He will be joining you in your cell shortly.”

One magical bang and a yelp later, Quirk fell from out of sight, only to be grabbed whilst he grumbled by Luna, enveloped by her magic, and passed through the bars into the cell. Twenty seconds later, Luna was gone, Tick was sitting in a corner, Ditzy was still angry, although her intensity was fading as worries overtook her, and Quirk was leaning against the bars with his head in his hooves, muttering something about a jailbird.

The moonlight was still shining, the night on in full. The diamond on the wall had shortened from the long length into a something respecting a more normal polygon. It reflected now onto only the few feet around it, all else had faded to black. Ditzy’s temper was fading, but none of her thirst for explanation had been quenched. By unsaid accord, they gathered around the diamond of moonlight, each half concealed in darkness, looking at each other for some hint of guidance.

“I’d still like an explanation, and now neither of you has an excuse,” Ditzy said with impatience rapidly draining into simple exhaustion.

“I’m going to withhold the explanation of the past few days’ events for the sake of clarity when Luna explains the rest of this,” Tick announced, looking to Quirk for support. He did not appear particularly enthused about being included in the matter.

“But I already know what you found, and I understand it more thoroughly than you! It’s in your best interests to explain the rest of what happened to me.” Tick looked no happier that she made such claims, but said nothing. Ditzy, too, turned to Quirk. He wasn’t her first choice, but he was her only one.

Quirk looked thoroughly disheveled. He had just been unceremoniously dumped into jail for an indeterminate length of time, after all. Recognizing the role of peacemaker as being set squarely on his shoulders, he squirmed for a second and then suggested:

“We need to find a good compromise. I understand both of you, but I think we should wait until morning to see if Luna has anything important to say. She might’ve let you out, Ditzy, if you hadn’t admitted to knowing about everything you do, and she might let me out anyways, provided I make a good enough case of ignorance about what was going on. But we do need to throw Ditzy here a bone, so I suggest we avoid the issue altogether, preferably while still providing the rest of us with some entertainment. Like old stories about Tick and I. Sound good?”

Tick agreed; Ditzy begrudged him a nod after a short time of consideration. That was what she wanted originally, was it not? All those days and hours ago, underground in a tavern? Everything changes so quickly; it’s hard to say what I want anymore and I’m stuck in here with them now. I couldn’t have prepared for this, but what do I want, what do I do anymore?

“Alright then, I might as well start off. I figure its best to start from near the beginning, anyways.”

Quirk leaned back, the three circled around gemstone moonlight like a campfire. He stretched, yawned a little, made himself comfortable as the others declined to relax their levels of tension; Tick and Ditzy, unsettled, looked anywhere but at the other.

“The day we were born—”

“Wait,” Ditzy interrupted, “You said near the beginning. How can you go back further than that? And ‘we’? You’re twins?”

“I could go back further, but I’d rather not imagine that,” Quirk replied dryly. “And yes, we are twins. Loosen up a little! Let the story unfold!”

“Alright, sorry.” Ditzy said, settling in for the long haul and not wanting to give Quirk any more opportunities for crude humor.

“Alright then, where was I? Tick, feel free to jump in at any time. Ah, yes—the day we were born. It was one of those peculiar days, as our parents would've put it…”

Interlude: Past and Present

Interlude

Past and Present

Luna’s moonlight was no comfort to her, nor was it a burden. It was her duty, and a reminder, and it was, is, and would be without her. And yet she felt somehow suffocated by it as she knocked on the door to Celestia’s chambers.

“You may enter!” rang out from inside, and so she did.

~~~~~~

It was a large, circular top of the tower, a flawless mirror of Luna’s own chambers, albeit with a brighter color scheme. Luna observed her sister silently; Celestia’s back turned to her as she gazed through a telescope at the boundless stars. They were without number, but either of the princesses could name countless plethoras of them, draw subtle constellations out of their tribe. It was the blessing of living beyond comprehension—and as that is a blessing, it is also a curse, for from time to time they would lose a star, forget a constellation, and lose themselves.

And as their memory died, so did they. Luna referred to it as the immortal death: the decay and fall away from what they had once been, forgetfulness creeping up on them, stabbing their memory, mutilating their past and by result their present. As they had lived ten thousand lifespans, so too had they died as many times, over the centuries, no, millennia, they knew not when; they knew not themselves, lost to the vagaries of time. Like the poisoned shard of an assassin's blade the bleak white death hunted and haunted them. It was the curse of an eternal tabula rasa.

Luna sighed. We fought it, as we hath always fought it, as we always shall fight it. With discipline and unity, with love and sacrifice, headlong we charged into the bleakness…

The words were hollow. They fell apart.

The grace that unified them had shattered like the stained glass windows that towered throughout the palace, and it had been drenched anew in sorrowful shades: not a color of brilliance remained. With the wrenching apart of their unity they had lost their stability. With the obliteration of their fellowship, numbing sleeplike forgetfulness had soon followed.

All of these ashen thoughts smoldered in Luna's mind in the instant it took for Celestia to begin talking.

“If it’s one of the nobles’ councils again, tell them they can wait until morning. And tell them that means to send no delegations to Princess Luna as soon as I tell them to wait, she’s overburdened as it is.”

“We hardly think so,” Luna said, the barest hint of a smile gracing her worry-drawn face.

“Luna!” Celestia spun about, tangible blush crossing her cheeks. After so many thousands of years, Luna was still the only on able to embarrass her, if only slightly. “You could let me know it’s you, at the least.” She smiled contentedly and moved towards her sister, but stopped curiously when she noticed Luna had not moved from just inside the doorway.

“Is something the matter?”

Luna closed her eyes, refusing to turn her head away. She knew the moment was coming, it had to pass, it must pass; she had to say it. She could no longer protect her dearest sister from it. If only the moment could pass without the pain—but she knew she would only cause greater agony if she hesitated any longer.

“We have not been completely honest concerning the Nightmare.”

~~~~~~~~~

Quirk was silent for a long time, and then spoke without ceasing.

“It was a blood-red moon at dawn, a sailor’s waking nightmare. They say that a red moon at night is a sailor’s delight; red moon at morning, sailor’s warning. That doesn’t even begin to describe the terror of it.”

“Our father and mother were aboard a ship, far from the coast, our mother long since pregnant with us. Why their location would be a ship for this, I haven’t a clue. They were rovers, see; they never stayed in one place for long, and we never have either. Except for Canterlot, perhaps. We haven’t had the fortune to perpetuate our stay there as you can see, but enough about that.”

“The ship had taken terrible damage in a late-night gale: She had lost her mizzen-mast, her rudder chipped against a sand bar, the bottom fifth of the lower deck was waterlogged, there were little provisions to be had and the fresh water had been contaminated. When the crew of the ship woke that morning, they crawled out onto the decks and starkly observed that the few assigned to night duty, the captain, and the first and second mates, had all taken the lone lifeboat and abandoned ship without troubling themselves with the rest of us, like the damned cowards they were.”

“The remaining sailors lined up on the railing in the silhouette of the red morning-moon, observing it with a lack of worldly interest, resigned to their fate. They all knew it was coming. None of them wanted to give voice to what was about to happen, so none did.”

~~~~~~~~

“We wished not to concern you among all of your troubles, and so we did not tell you. It was only a suspicion that we once had, and no sure thing. But it is tangible and present in them.”

“So the Nightmare doesn’t need a trigger mechanism?” Celestia asked, seeking confirmation of the dreaded fears. She paced about as Luna stood still in her elaboration; she was clearly anxious to work on some solution.

“It does not. As inherently unstable as they are all—as both of us are—we fear they are even more so. And we fear that this knowledge they have gained will weaken their resolve against it.”

“Our troubles coalesce in an untimely fashion. Perhaps our enemies have found a mutual agreement?” Celestia stopped her pacing and looked directly at Luna, who was still and stiff. Deep thoughts had rallied grim emotion in a manner that did not comfort Celestia in the least.

“Let us hope not. If you insist on having Twilight prove herself, we may find ourselves an element short should this growing crisis erupt.”

“Twilight must do what she is able to and more to prove herself. I am confident in her abilities.”

“And if her best is not enough?”

~~~~~~~~

Quirk shifted, and his expression grew harder.

“But they were sailors, tough to the last, and they would fight till the silt and grime of the sea floor had swallowed their bones. Our father would always fall silent here—shift around a bit. His eyes would stare at the fire, his gravelly voice absent as the pop and crackle filled the void. I can still feel the cold still air on our backs, glare and heat on our faces. In the firmament stars would be shining, but no light would pass beyond our sphere. It was as if the world had faded away into his telling—and in his solitary recollection we could not tell whether he felt sorrow or pain, but we knew one thing for certain: he had lost friends on that ship. His silence spoke volumes on that matter.” For a moment, quiet reigned in their telling as well.

“Our mother,” Tick now carried the narrative, the slightest hint of reluctance remaining as he spoke, “had gone into contractions that morning. She had been taken down below-decks and was attended to by the only other mare on the ship, who was as young as she.”

“An hour and a half after that fateful morning, scarred by a moon, the ocean had so far remained a placid flatness—grim anticipation was the order of the day for the sailors, occasionally pierced by a cry from our mother below-decks. It was a bad omen, they swore; they were unsettled by her cries, but they did and could do nothing about it. What little they could do to prepare, they did: testing the integrity of the remaining masts, sealing the deck, pumping the lowest storerooms despite the compromised nature of the hull. Feebly, the wind was going. It was only about three knots, and our rudder threatened to fail even in that calm.”

“The sailors started to curse the calmness, but our father did not. He stilled his tongue lest he tempt the unknowable wrath of the sea-storms. They were so unsettled by the apparent fallacy of their predictions that they began to mutter amongst themselves at the folly of this constant preparation when they could be devising means to escape from the near-derelict vessel.”

“Soon enough, their preparations became necessary, for a great black storm arose on the horizon…”

~~~~~~~~~~

“We cannot launch ourselves into the breach on both matters. Since you insist on sending her north to join Cadance, which we would strenuously ask you to reconsider, you will likely be on watch and call should any further disaster occur. Therefore we would not be able to oversee the hunt for these artifacts, as both of us could not be absent from the palace at the same time.”

“Twilight will not fail. If you must, you could delay your expedition with… you said his name was Tick? Tick, until Twilight has assisted Cadance.”

“We do not approve of this plan. Neither of these conflicts is ignorable: although we concede that Sombra is a more direct threat, The Nightmare is more likely to imbed itself and be vastly more difficult to eradicate.”

“Would a day or two of delay consign us to an untimely fate? Considering how you have the only two cases of exposure quarantined, it seems to be under more control than the dissolute mess we made of Sombra.”

“We find us repeating ourselves, both of us. The Nightmare does not have any prerequisites, but these concepts of malice Tick has unearthed act as a catalyst towards its end. The danger is not in the pair alone, but in the countless remaining records. We cannot both be absent; we know well why. Despite Chrysalis still recovering, her spies remain adept at infiltration and Discord is as alive and virulent as ever; he will no doubt seize the opportunity to break his prison.”

“Sombra is still the more pressing threat. He must be dealt with before Cadance is consumed.”

“These crises are upon us NOW!” Luna boomed, slipping into her authoritative voice. “Neither can be defeated without the breaking of the other!”

“Luna—” Celestia was beyond concerned now; Luna was in a rage that threatened action.

Luna continued, her voice a stage whisper, almost hissing. “And if you insist on sending Twilight alone, she will not succeed. She cannot embody all of the virtues of Harmony. And if she falls into the Nightmare by means of Sombra, then the cycle of Elements will be broken and we will be utterly lost. You are playing not just with our fates now, but the fates of all we hold order over.”

Luna stopped; she saw the look of Celestia and the features gave her pause.

Blood gone completely, her eyes had fixated horribly on Luna’s. The stricken, numbed expression shocked Luna into stopping—but then she spoke. Her voice trembled, a true whisper, with sorrow and grief of the ancient ages of their eternity forced through it. There was no recourse—there could be no recourse—Luna was frozen as she spoke, the haunted misery seeping through from one mind into the other until she understood the words, understood the nuances, knew the irredeemable meaning of her phrase, but all too late, all too slow under the grim and darkening room.

“Since when did we have fates?”

Luna was hushed, and she took too long to respond. There was a shadow growing around Celestia’s eyes.

~~~~~~~~~

Quirk clearly enjoyed reciting their tale. His narration increased in energy and complexity even as Tick kept a wary eye on their enthralled audience.

“The black wind whirled and the rain screamed and the thunder rolled. The waves crashed, spars and riggings broke, sails howling ripped by the wind. Wills were broken, bodies sliced by air and water, and a mother-to-be cried out. There seemed to be no end to the maelstrom as our ship was tossed among the waves like so much wreckage, so much folly of those who thought they could challenge the ocean’s might. Black and blue and white, water and foam buried the decks as the fire of hope was extinguished. They could feel nothing, nothing, only the icy cold blows of titanic waves and the rough planks they held onto. The freezing water drenched all on deck, sapping the marrow from their bones and the life from their souls. Despair took some; the waves took others. It seemed as if all would be lost—they saw no end to the clouds that had smothered the skies, the skies that were the furnace of the waves, the waves that had enveloped the earth, the earth that had abandoned them to their torments.”

~~~~~~~~~

No, no, it was just a slip!

But the words failed to issue from Luna’s mouth as Celestia closed her eyes. Something dripped out of them—but it was neither tears nor blood, and when Luna saw it she backpedaled in horror.

There was a black fluid dripping out of her closed eyes, and it did not fall to the floor, but pooled in the air and coalesced around her white form. In the few instants that Luna was silent, the drip turned to a flood, until rivers of shadow ran out of the eyes that had once shone like the sun.

For every sun, a shadow…

“Celestia!” Luna shouted, fear overtaking her as the opaque blackness began to form a veil around her.

“These are my tears for us.” Celestia’s voice was twisted, a wave of harrowing that shot through the air into Luna’s mind. She could no longer see her behind the shell. The fluid shadow wrapped around, flowing quicker and quicker, neither a vapor nor a liquid. The warmth of the tower was abruptly lost as the vortex took shape of something greater, taller, darker. The virulent poison glimmered distinctly with corruption; like the shadow of death the void in the vision hungered.

“Our unity died a long time ago. There is only one way out. There is only one way to solve the problem.”

Luna stood against the primal urge to fight or flee from the nightmarish vision, shouting against the wind it stirred. “Celestia, withdraw from it!”

All movement ceased, and suddenly all the vortex was silent. The opaque dark liquid had formed a cocoon around the spot where Celestia had stood, but her voice was clear, unmistakable.

“There is no recovery for you.”

And then the blackness rushed at Luna.

~~~~~~~~

Quirk looked at Tick for a moment, as if expecting him to speak, and then spoke up himself when no response presented itself. “But there was a light, and not outside the storm, no…”

~~~~~~~~~

She had one chance, one hope—she leaped at Celestia through the veil—

~~~~~~~~~

“And the light was below-decks, and the light was of hope and life. It was a candle, sputtering against the darkness; shining its light on our mother:our mother, watched over by the third mate, the only commanding position left on the ship, the only other mare. And though the boat rocked and the walls shook and the waves crashed down and the water seeped, a miracle was taking place. Even in the most dreadful place to be in the world, life continued. It goes on, see, that’s the strange thing about it. No matter how hard the world tried to stop our coming, or so it seemed, we still somehow managed to enter. It would have been so easy for the sailors to give up, for our father to give up: but despite the despair, they continued. It was sad—no doubt, some did not return—but the sun kept shining outside of the storm. For eventually, it did end.”

~~~~~~~~~

The next thing Luna knew was that there was no more shadow; the room was brightly lit in contrast to the night outside. She let go of Celestia before she realized that she had been embracing her, and they both fell back. Luna was dazed, uncertain; her thoughts formed no cohesive meaning as she tried to make sense of the events that so rapidly faded from the present.

“No!”

Celestia was backing away, horror apparent on her face. The malefic shadows that had drained out of her were nowhere to be found; she appeared to be in full control of her faculties, and well enough aware of what she had almost done.

“You reminded me of that day—I tried to reach into it, but it still… it was too much—if you hadn’t stepped through, I would have…”

Luna righted herself as Celestia started and stopped, coming to her own senses in a haze.

So this… is this how we looked when we turned?

“Celestia,” Luna asked urgently, “what did you try to do?”

Celestia looked wild, harried by her own mind, and her thoughts indeed whirled about in shock at the insanity of her own actions. “I tried to reach back into the bridge, even though I knew what would happen. I was desperate—I was incensed, and it was unintentional, but I was going—I wanted to…” she looked as if she was sick, horror clearly splayed across her face.

And so our past comes back to haunt us again.

Luna stepped closer, but Celestia could not bear to look at her.

“We think there is a way: it was only a suspicion fueled out of the grimness of the situation, yet it is the only way out of this shadow that runs so deeply through all of us…”

~~~~~~~~

“And when the storm ended, the ship was by the shore—right next to it! The storm had blown us an incredible distance, nearly sixty nautical miles, something almost unheard of. The sailors were exhausted, down to the last about to collapse of exposure, dehydration, and all of those unpleasant things. When our father was about to collapse from those maladies, he heard our mother cry out, but no longer in pain. Forgetting his tiredness, he rushed below-decks to see our mother, holding both of us, the life and the light at the end of the storm.”

Chapter Six: Be Mindful of Your Gardens

Chapter Six

Be Mindful of Your Gardens

The silent palace parapets were the first to witness the rise of the new day. Stone walls, lofts, balconies, smooth and pointed and sloping splayed as shadows on the landscape. But they were just walls, brick and mortar and marble, not living as those inside did. They would never, could never, possess the range and intensity of atrociousness and beauty that life could. That was what the gardens were for: a refuge from the trappings of stone and marble solidity, from the cold desolation that reigned whenever the rooms overwhelmed their inhabitants. The walls and rules owned their inhabitants, but the inhabitants made them, constructed cages around themselves to limit the burden of choice and find comfort in routine. Sometimes the walls were thick and unforgivingly strict, such as the ones Luna and Celestia made about themselves. Others had looser rules, windows, means of greater expression but also greater danger. Celestia and Luna very purposely constructed those brutal walls, not only for their own sake but for the sake of others; they took on a stricter existence because they would inevitably exist for a great span of time, and would influence so much in the world. They agreed upon those barriers: any violation spelled a weakening of will and resolve to fight against entropy and the Nightmare, or so they had thought. As harsh and uncompromising as it was, they deemed it necessary. Thus Celestia’s reaction been swift and terrible, even though she regretted it, and would regret it for the rest of her memory. It was not only the act itself—she had not fulfilled the act—it was the motivation and reasoning for the act. Superficially, it was because Luna appeared to be separating, being consumed again by rage and anger. Destructively, her anger and misinterpretation influenced her desire, corrupted it. Her reasoning was imperfect; her actions therefore changed. Thus her walls proven too thick, too strong: they had nearly crushed her and her sister.

Yet the gardens were a place where there were no walls, no unloving constructs and machinations. There nature ruled in all its wild glory and randomness, cycles constructing out of chaos, order from nothing, life perpetuating itself. There Celestia could look at her actions from beyond a walled perspective, meditate, find the basest reasons for her actions and hopefully absolve herself from her horrendous desire, from the Nightmare. Life was not in perpetual victory, it was in perpetual struggle, and there she would take her hope.

I have always struggled with, for, her, and I have always hoped that that struggle would not be against her, but it is clear now that other options must be considered. I have been foolish and arrogant. I would give much for a day in the gardens, a few hours, time to reflect… yet many duties call us both.

Unfortunately, she was not in the gardens, and a darker recess of the palace was about the least conducive place for mental healing and reconciliation. Luna had insisted, though: she had promised Tick that she would explain the Nightmare, and when Celestia had regained some semblance of mental fortitude, she agreed. Forcing those three unfortunate souls on a journey with Luna to destroy books, of all things, would only alienate them further without a proper explanation. Considering what she had heard from Luna, Tick was not the most obeisant pony she had ever met.

It was the full morning now, the barest crack of light on the horizon, only now shining on more than the peaks of mountains and parapets. The sisters walked through silent halls, each knowing what the other was thinking and each knowing that they knew, yet still they worried. What they both knew was not a solution, but an impetus to find one. They had to save themselves before they could go about trying to fix the rest of the world. It was always a matter of how. The suffocating walls had failed them, trapped them. There would be a solution, as there always had been—or so they had to believe. If they believed, then it was much more likely to be found anyways.

Celestia did not look at Luna as they passed through the halls, but felt her presence with the wisps of magic that were as apparent to her as the occasional beams of sunlight through the windows. Her mind was a place of worry: for Luna, for herself, for the thousand things that she must attend to in the beginning of the day.

In too soon of a time, they were at the cell. Ditzy, Quirk, and Tick had fallen asleep in a circle round the beamed light from the channel in the wall, all laying round so that they seemed to flow into the next. They hadn’t even bothered to use the mats, but slept where they had sat.

“They look so peaceful,” Celestia noted, her voice strong diminished out of respect for their slumber.

“It is truly a shame that they cannot remain so,” Luna sympathized, sadness tingeing her voice.

Celestia turned to Luna for a moment, their eyes exchanging more than words could; the indecipherable silent language they had formed over the centuries remained unaltered.

Together, a myriad mix of silver and white enveloped them as they slipped like wraiths through the bars, magic indistinguishable, indivisible between the two. If only we could be so again… I can’t hear you now, but I am sure you think the same.

They made a quiet round around the unintentional trio, soft magic popped around the graceful sleeping forms. They stopped their patrol, standing with backs to bars, and watched the unaware trio wake. Groaning, yawning, with much rubbing of eyes and stretching the three sat up—although all eyes, normal, slightly unfocused, and revolving, widened when they noticed both of the heads of order and power watching them awake. Tick shifted cautiously into a sitting position, never breaking eye contact with Luna, warily. Quirk made no attempts to move further or draw any attention whatsoever to himself. Ditzy’s eyes shifted back and forth between Celestia and Luna, although it was hard to tell which she was focusing on at times—perhaps both.

“We,” Luna said, her eyes momentarily slipping to Celestia, “are here to explain the Nightmare and its significance to you. You will need a thorough understanding of our reasoning and knowledge if we are to press you into our service.”

“‘Press us into your service?’” Ditzy spoke. “What does that mean?”

“It is best that that is left until after the explanation. It will make more sense.”

“We are in complete agreement on this matter,” Celestia input, drawing all eyes save Luna’s to her for the first time. “This is not something to be taken lightly, and it is something that we agree must be done. I cannot stay for long. Duties pull on both of us, so my visit will be brief. However, Luna will remain among you for a while and answer your questions to the best of our abilities.”

Luna nodded. It was necessary that Celestia show her support; it lent a greater of authority and correctness to her words in the eyes of the three. It was plainly apparent that they were less than enamored with Luna.

“And now, unfortunately, I must depart. Many demands must be dealt with before the sun passes through noon.”

Luna glanced at her, but refrained from showing her surprise. She had not expected for Celestia to leave so soon; she had not felt it. A long void remained between them, a reminder of how far they had yet to go. She could feel Celestia tangibly and intangibly pass as she moved out of the cell, out of the room, down the halls and into more populated sections of the palace. As their connection became more tenuous, Luna became aware that she was looking off into space while Tick watched warily, Ditzy stared curiously, and Quirk attempted unsuccessfully to blend into the walls. We are only deceiving ourselves to the depth of the problem…

“We can see it in your eyes,” Luna said, directed at Quirk. “It is no use denying what you have seen, or what you have been told by these two.”

Quirk did not reply, but moved over to sit next to his brother; he appeared no happier because of it, but he was keen to avoid her focus. It was as much of an admittance he could make without drawing attention to himself.

“Now that we have that matter settled, we can engage ourselves on the Nightmare. All of you have witnessed and executed portions of it, but none of you have a complete understanding. The Nightmare is, in one sense, a single emotion: hatred. But the truth is that it consists of many things: malice, apathy, dishonesty, uncontrolled anger, overwhelming greed…” She paused momentarily, “and despair are among them.

“Some would put willful ignorance in that list as well,” Tick interjected.

Luna studiously ignored him. “Ditzy labeled yet another aspect of it in her timely outburst: the ability to commit horrific acts. Part of realizing the Nightmare is understanding what it can cause you to do, which is sometimes in itself enough to drive one to madness.”

“The Nightmare is not supernatural, nor magical in nature. It is the purest form of hatred imaginable, a sheer emotion that is far from understood, even by us. Arguably the most reviling fact of it is that it can be present in all of us as a result of free will. Every last mare, stallion, and foal can be victimized by it. The absence of hope can cause horrendous things.”

“So why are you still holding us?” Ditzy asked.

“Because you all possess intimate knowledge and experience of the Nightmare, and Tick has repeatedly shown unwillingness to destroy sources of it.”

“A book of history cannot drive somepony to murder!” Tick fumed.

“But didn’t you say that reading was the second-most dangerous thing in this world?” Ditzy asked, not objecting to his cause, yet still confused. And why are you holding me? I haven’t done anything!

“She didn’t even give the rest of the book a chance! I had shown her the terrible things because I was concerned about them. I did not anticipate that she would burn them without a second glance!” Tick was vehement.

Luna did not dispute the statement, and she stayed cold and collected.

“How do you know that this knowledge can create vulnerabilities, Luna?” Ditzy asked.

“Personal experience.”

Oh.

There was that, of course. Ditzy fought the urge to smack her forehead with her hoof; the last thing she wanted to do was bring up an emotionally trying past during a discussion that already simmered with tension.

Resuming the center of attention, Luna spoke. “Discord’s chaos is notorious for spreading the Nightmare, and we believe that to be one of his goals alongside the destruction of order. We also suspect that the Changelings may be a product of it—specifically the absence of positive emotion. If that is true, then they are an unfortunately excellent example of why we cannot allow these ideas to spread.”

“You can’t use substantive statements in a historical argument,” Tick objected.

“It is not a historical argument because we are not discussing the past. It is an explanation of our reasoning as to why we would be burning books.”

“It is an argument because it is not proven.”

Ditzy’s head swam, completely lost in the fields of unfamiliar logic as the two became more obscure and pedantic.

“There is no contention about the existence of the Nightmare or its nature,” Luna replied. “All of our intentions are honest. We will not stand for a spread of this disease.”

I don’t even know what they’re talking about anymore. There has to be a quicker way out of this.

Quirk hadn’t spoken a word that morning, and it became increasingly apparent to Ditzy as time passed. He had been successful so far in becoming one with the background, but she intended to change that. Turning, Ditzy queried him. “What do you think?”

Uncomfortable with the passionate, even, and curious gazes now leveled at him, he visibly resisted the urge to squirm and finally spoke.

“I don’t think I’m qualified to give an opinion on this…” Quirk replied weakly, uncomfortably shifting between the gazes.

“You are one of five who are intimately connected to this matter,” Luna stated. “Speak.”

Reluctantly, he began. “I don’t think either of you are completely right. Both of you are getting into semantics, too. Books can be as dangerous as anything else, but that’s the thing: they’re as dangerous as anything else, any other knowledge. You can’t say that a book is bad or good just because it might cause somepony to do something, because that depends on who’s reading it.”

Tick wasn’t completely satisfied with his brother’s reaction, but he seized on what he could. “The Nightmare was even taken out of context when I presented Luna with it. What little of the passage I had translated had to deal with the sealing of Tartarus, a topic I have never encountered in history in detail. The knowledge contained could be priceless. Unless, of course, our resident immortal rulers had something to say about it.”

I understand them a little bit, but this is all crazy... Wasn’t this supposed to be a vacation? I just want to go home now... Ditzy’s thoughts meandered as the discussion continued to deteriorate and wander into irrelevancy.

“In fact, I find it suspicious that those who have lived so long have said so little about the past. Why wouldn’t they?”

Luna and Tick verbally sparred for what seemed an aeon over whether it was a ruler’s responsibility to be the recorders of history. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Ditzy noted that Luna seemed to be winning the argument. She wasn’t thinking about them, though: her thoughts were homebound. All she wanted was to see Dinky again, pick her up and hug her and promise she wouldn’t leave. She could feel the sheets of her bed like she was reading her a bedtime story, snuggled close. Dinky would fall asleep and Ditzy would carry her off to her own bed, but only with great reluctance. Sometimes she didn’t, and she would wake up with Dinky sprawled out on top of her, wrapped closely together. Whenever that happened, she knew it would be a good day. She missed her house, untidy though it was; it was her home more than anywhere else could ever be. Even her job evoked a twinge of nostalgia… Her increasingly warm thoughts rambled about her head in no particular order, bringing back memories she didn’t know she had—cute little things about Dinky, interesting quirks of her life, and the occasional time spent with friends that she had made.

“Would you be amenable to that agreement, Ditzy?” Luna said—for probably the second or third time considering how everypony was looking at her.

Ditzy blinked, suddenly aware of the attention given to her. “What was the agreement?”

“That before we decide whether to destroy or to preserve whatever we may find, we will first fully consider the works presented and allow the discussions of them to run their full course beforehoof.”

“Sounds good enough to me,” Ditzy replied nearly automatically; her mind was not all present; she was rapidly becoming lost in memory again. I can figure out what this all means for me later. If becoming part of this strangeness lets me get back home, then it will have been worth it. I don’t think I had much of a choice, anyways.

Luna nodded, tone losing the last of the slight combative edge it had taken during the discussion. “Very well. Now we may move on to the specifics of our immediate plans.”

“Wait,” Quirk interrupted. “Will Celestia agree with this?”

Luna’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, tone remaining clean. “We have a feeling that she will have no objections.”

“Feeling isn’t good enough,” Tick added, clearly still disgruntled but resigned to his fate for now.

“We know.” Luna’s visage took on a peculiar hardened appearance, but the subtleties of her features escaped them. “She will be meeting us in the gardens after this meeting; if you have any questions about her opinion of the agreement you may ask her there. All of us should be heading there now, in truth.”

Luna stood and pivoted without pause, as glow coated the bars and she walked through them. This time, the glow stayed, and she motioned for the three to move forward. Tick and Quirk moved through with small hesitation; Ditzy stopped just before. “You’re going to let us go?”

Luna looked back, an eyebrow ever-so-slightly arched at the comment. “We reached an agreement. Attempting to break that agreement would be a poor decision.”

“You might even have somepony mail themselves to you just to find you,” Tick deadpanned, looking ahead with a flat expression.

Luna gave Tick a questioning glance, but did not inquire. Quirk let out a grin only noticed by Ditzy, yet he retained his silence: Tick must have kept him fully up to date. Ditzy was ruffled and undignified, but didn’t speak up. Reputing the prod wasn’t worth trying to explain why she had mailed herself in a crate to find Tick to Luna.

Stepping through the shimmering divide, they began walking, presumably towards the gardens, but only Luna knew their exact location. She walked in front, Tick and Quirk side-by-side behind her, and Ditzy lingered along the rear of their procession, consumed by thoughts of home with the occasional hint of the threat draped around them. She didn’t notice the dark halls, nor the frescoes painted on them; she took no heed of the library they passed through, or the monolithic panoramas of painted glass and stone. Her presence returned to her only when she nearly bumped into Quirk when they stopped, outside, round a small stone table.

Ditzy looked around with a small dose of wonder, plainly interested in the expanse.

They were in the gardens now, but only the merest edge. Hedges wild and cultivated alike rolled into the foreseeable horizon. Plants of all orders grew in subtle patterns or without, phyla scattered or condensed, with nothing but the world and themselves to guide them. There was both chaos and order in it, the vorpal edge of nature.

This is a lot better than being stuck in that cell, but when will I be able to get out of here?

The table they were gathered around was an unremarkable piece of white stone, rough and bleached by the sun and wind and cracked by the weight of time and roots. All remained in states of silence.

Without a cue, Celestia began.

“As we are all now well aware, the Nightmare is a threat that is not easy to curtail. Now that we have all agreed on a method of action,—”

When did she hear about that? Ditzy’s thoughts returned to the present, her wandering mind dispelled by the irregularity.

“—that being the collection and examination of ancient tomes that may pertain to it from wherever they might be found. For example:”

A hologram flashed above the white slab-like stone, detailing a three-dimensional architecture with several stories. It appeared to be a transparent representation of a section of the royal library, complete with the caved-in section that Tick had discovered.

Ditzy neither leaned in nor away from the sight, her caution and her desire to stay out of the situation restraining her curiosity about the apparition.

“What exactly Tick found was an abandoned and sealed section of the library from when the palace was constructed roughly a thousand years ago. Given the status of Discord at the time, he was likely the cause for the floor’s collapse; whether he intended for the books inside to be found or even if he knew about them is indeterminable.”

“I suppose you couldn’t ask him?” Tick theorized; he took close note of her response, eyes watching carefully.

“We could,” Celestia acknowledged. “Even statues, as long as they live, have their means of communication, but he is no easy opponent. Any answer we could get from him would be misleading.”

I would believe that. The tone of Ditzy’s thoughts surprised herself; she had lost all fear of him. What little emotion she had in regards to him was composed of disgust. I have suffered through him and proven myself. What he does is shameful, but I can’t do much about it. He can hurt me… but he can’t break me anymore.

Luna spoke, refocusing the explanation. “Our plan for the immediate future is to recover any ancient records that could contain definitions of the Nightmare and examine them. All of our other actions will be derived from our findings, as per the agreement. The only currently known location that is sure to harbor works of that age is the ancient castle we once inhabited, now buried deep in the Everfree forest. We will leave immediately pending Tick and Ditzy’s recovery.”

“Our recovery?” Ditzy asked.

“What are we recovering from?” Tick queried in unison, gaze slipping to Ditzy with a light hint of wariness. Ditzy did not notice.

“The spell you flew headlong into is complex and multifaceted,” Celestia explained. “If you attempted to leave the boundaries of Canterlot within a full day of encountering it, you would fall unconscious. Fortunately, that time will expire in the matter of a few hours.”

“Until then, we thought you would rather enjoy nature after being stuck in a cell,” Luna concluded.

“Be mindful of the gardens,” Celestia warned as Luna turned to exit. “While I will remain here until your time is finished, I would advise being cautious in your wanderings. I have seen many spend hours in them, only to leave with unfathomably indefinable differences in their demeanor. It is a place capable of help and harm, yet it seems to have the quality of aiding reflection.”

And for that, I am glad, Celestia noted silently.

She sat herself down with her back to the sun, taking a long, deep look at the spires of the palace. She could feel Luna slipping away from her as physical distance increased. So absorbed was she that she almost didn’t notice the three wander off in disparate direction, beyond the vorpal edge, into the compound that she could not label either order or chaos. Tick had gone north, Quirk south, but Ditzy had gone west—straight west, right towards the sun, enshrined by its falling arc...

~~~~~~~~~~~

Ditzy didn’t so much let her brain work out a path as let her instincts and emotion find a way for her. It wasn’t the usual logical thought process that she so cherished, but she understood that rationale can’t always force feelings into logic since Discord attacked her. Neither had she paid special attention to anything that had happened since the second bout of homesickness had harrowed her mind. She moved straight west—homebound—and she did not notice Quirk, to the distance in the south, sweating bullets as a column of songbirds swarmed around him; or Tick to the north, examining thoughtfully and with a concerned look a statue that appeared weathered beyond relief. Her thoughts were on home, but her eyes were on the sun.

And it was strange, and it was beautiful, and it burnt. She was not able to reach a decision on whether she quite liked it or not: she had shone in its wrath, been silhouetted by it; she had been guided by it out of storms and gloom, saved with its help. It was not of much consequence now. She let herself simply exist for a while, and let the currents of her mind tug her without consciously thinking.

Walking without her sight, it was inevitable that she would bump into something on her heartbound journey. She found it odd, though, that she should walk straight into Discord.

Literally, straight into Discord. One moment her eyes were subsumed by radiance, the next she was sitting, rubbing a bruised spot on her head and looking up at the statue she had knocked on. He was a mere statue now—frozen with an expression of incredulous fear on his face, claw and paw stretched out to deflect that which had already passed; his forked liar’s tongue stilled once more.

Pretty funny that the only way you can hurt me now is by letting me run into you. Ditzy’s quiet humor caused a small smile to cross her face, but it then returned to normality.

“Oh, can’t I?” His presence reverberated in her mind as a voice, and her mild surprise quickly dissipated. Her expression did not change; she did not make any extraneous movements besides rub her head.

“You can’t,” Ditzy stated aloud in a factual tone. “I’m in control of myself. You can’t say or do anything that can hurt me.”

“A shame! Am I to have no more fun, then? It was so delicious to twist your memory and watch you live through it over and over, writhing in agony. I am sure, at least, that I enjoyed our little game. It was so easy to unlock your hatred again, so easy to unlock your rage; and you thought you had solved those problems with a simple move and the help of a few ‘friends’…”

Ditzy stood tall against the words, and kept her head high. “I am beyond you.”

That drew his ire like no other declaration could; fury, rage and wrath barreling to the forefront of his projection. His desolate anger ripped through the air around her, harsh and screaming as it whistled. The wind whipped, throwing Ditzy’s mane into disarray, but an almost bored expression pervaded her face.

“I denied you,” she continued. “In his mind I denied the anger, and I have no issue with saying it over and over until you get the point.”

The sky trembled; it grew dark; the earth seemed to rise against her as fate menaced. The attitude of the garden changed from wild life to cruel conflict under Discord’s influence, but Ditzy could not be touched by him. She was the calm in the storm, the heart of peace; she had healed.

“The only remarkable thing about you, Discord, is that you are able to trick so many into hurting themselves.”

“And I do it very well. You will be no obstacle against my doing it again. You are nothing compared to ME, a speck in my mind and nothing else.”

She turned to leave, and the chaotic winds rained, and the trembling blackness seeped from his mind, and the cold skies overcast. Ditzy was not sure what was real and what was his mind casting malicious illusions, but she did not stop. She walked away from him, and as his presence faded she could feel him cry out in anger.

“You will run back to despair!”

As soon as Ditzy vanished, Discord’s façade of rage faded. A peal of thin laughter echoed throughout the mindscape, only to subside as his smug superiority returned.

“Believe whatever you want, my dear…”

~~~~~~~~~~

Celestia had not moved from the table. Her face had bowed low in her ruminations, worry and shame hidden.

The instant Luna’s presence had slipped away, her thoughts had turned to the solitary occupation of worry. She worried about a great many things: Luna, Twilight, Cadance, the ordinary machinations of maintaining order and equality, but last of all herself. She spared precious little care on herself; all of her effort was spent to maintain others. Never, she thought, could she do enough penance for striking out against Luna again, not compiled with her long history. After so many years, my injustices compile, from the petty… I have no way to pay them back, except with service.

Ditzy didn’t see any of that walking back. All she observed was Celestia staring past the palace’s walls into the darkening east. She walked to stand by her side, Celestia completely unaware of the wall-eyed mare looking up into her eyes.

“Your highness?”

Celestia didn’t notice. Her mind was about Luna.

“Princess Celestia?”

She blinked once, then her eyes turned to see Ditzy.

“I’m sorry, but if I could ask one question—”

“Anything.” Celestia was slightly taken aback by her own response, but retained her composure. Ditzy did not notice in her slight awkwardness before authority.

“Where are the palace kitchens?”

“There is a dining hall just inside and to the left, if you go four doors down—”

“Not a dining hall, an actual kitchen.”

Celestia was slightly perplexed, but told her without questioning. She resumed her long, searching glance as her sun cascaded along its long descent. Walls had failed her. Perhaps nature would offer a solution.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Tick had wandered until he found something that sparked his curiosity: an ancient stone block, sheared away on one end, a fragmented statue of a guard on top. What he could see of her was unsettling: she had been holding something as if striking (but what she had been holding had long since broken away), her stance and the armor suggested combat, and her eyes were twisted into a fearsome visage under her helmet. It was great and terrible, but none of that had been his initial attraction—it had been the symbols inscribed on the base.

They looked old, ancient and archaic in nature and pattern. Tick had spent quite a while examining them; they seemed infuriatingly familiar and yet he could not determine their meaning. For a great length of time, he passed over them: forwards, backwards, reciting what he could recall about that obscure dialect, although he knew his chances of deciphering them were low. What little he knew about the language he had taught himself, not having the luxury of a teacher. Occasionally, he would stand back and growl in mild frustration at the incomprehensible pattern, but he refocused on his work and dismissed the anger. It was irritating to him; how could he struggle to overcome such a small obstacle? His patience had to fade eventually.

With a final growl that simmered into an angry shout, he struck the weathered statue. His hoof split under the impact; he drew his own blood; he sat down and stared with confusion at his hoof, but he was not intrigued by the slight wound.

Why did I do that? There was no need to be frustrated! Something in this garden is wearing on me… I’ve lost my sense…

The unnatural act fired a suspicion in his mind that he could not quite identify. He looked back up at the broken statue, and he felt something burn, some primal urge left untouched. A slight trickle from his wound caused him to hold his hoof up, look at it again. He saw the blood on it, and his mind played tricks on his sight; for a moment it was superimposed on the statue. His sight vanished—blackness—and then visions of Luna’s nightmare, flashes of Ditzy’s anger, and the same visceral feelings he had felt when he had fought his brother washed over him in an instant. The strange momentary vision flashed away, and he found himself dazed, looking the armored visage in the eyes.

Then he understood both the statue and his action simultaneously.

The guard was killing something, stabbing it with spear or halberd or yet unimagined cruel instrument. He could see it now, the shaft of the instrument invisible to his eyes, but not to his mind, as he saw it terminating in space where the block had sheared away. It was all too easy for him to imagine the sweat dripping in the armor, the clanging of the plates; the jerking, harrowing motion of the weapon sickened him. He saw the blood spill into the ground and he saw her hatred on her face; he recognized it all too easily—for he had seen it in himself; he had seen it in the Nightmare he had glimpsed.

Tick stumbled back, echoes of delusions dancing before his petrified mind, horrified. The sickening visions seemed a part of him, and his reaction to them was abrupt and violent.

No! Not this! This is not what I was after, not what I wanted to find!

The price of knowledge was pain, it seemed; and the price was high. The horror that accompanied knowing was shredding his mind; knowing hatred seemed no different from experiencing it. Was Luna right? This is sickness, this is agony! His mind in the grips of fear screamed yes, and his long-built devotion crumbled in the onslaught.

I can’t live with this knowledge! I argued that what we left behind was worth saving, but now it seems to be all misery! What is even in the rest of those books? If what Luna remembers is any representation of what’s to be found… If I am wrong about whether this can help us, then I am a lie… then my life is a lie… and I’ve only damned more to that fate.

Muffled groans of pain and grief echoed through the garden.

~~~~~~~~~~

There were many things that Quirk could have told Ditzy when he suggested stories, but one of the more significant ones that he did not tell occurred directly after his and Tick’s birth. When their mother and father along with the few sailors not bound to hammocks had wandered ashore after the horrendous storm, they had noticed something unusual about the newborns as the weeks passed by: Tick would not open his eyes, and Quirk had no voice.

His thoughts turned to his shaded past as he passed through the shade, unseen songbirds occasionally calling out. He felt that they were mocking him, despite his abilities. As he reached the center of a small clearing, oak and birch and willow around, he sat and looked at the sky with a stare that passed beyond it to see whatever cosmic entity he had so misaligned him to curse him to commit wrongs from birth. At the edge of the clearing, a bird called out their distinctive tune, without response.

And then again. Quirk absent-mindedly whistled a reply, a flawless imitation of the bird’s song; not a wavelength differed in it.

Brought back by his reply, he shivered in the warm sunlight as repressed memories resurfaced.

He had had no voice… but he could steal them. Another bird, another song, another reply imitated, a second bird flocked to him as his eyes turned wide, staring at nothing at all, and memory tormented him. He could not be sure—no, not at all—of what had happened, or when it had happened, but it inevitably had happened, so he tread with a fearful, morbid curiosity in his past. Quirk had once thought he was simply skilled with voices, but know he knew he was a plagiarist. The damning thought had haunted his mind ever since he had sat down with and tried to sing something he had not once heard.

He could not, and he had hidden from the fact as much as possible.

A third bird called; a third bird joined the flying column.

He and Tick had gotten their marks with the help of the other, according to their mother. They had been young—incredibly young, it seemed almost predestined; it must have been for it to have occurred so soon. Tick’s was nearly indefinable from his color, a quiet silver symbol on his solemn ashen coat. Quirk’s was more obvious, though it had passed yet unnoticed: white sound waves on his blue-green sea. He could perfectly reproduce any sound, as long as he had heard it before. I have no voice of my own; I am a thief... His ability was his curse; the price he paid for it was his individuality.

Four and five swarmed, ringed around him.

They were still not sure how it came to pass. In some long-forgotten town they had stayed, only for a day, an instant in the horizon expanse of their lives. Everything he could recall was from his mother’s telling. She had walked into the room and Tick was staring—seeing, his eyes wide open at her, and Quirk was talking, speaking, and it had all been so joyous, and so happy for her and for their father, and it made him sick to think that they had gotten pleasure out of what he had done.

The trees emptied, the branches as bare as if they had no leaves, and the flying multitudes cast out the sun by their number.

Then he saw them, their number and measure, and he trembled and paled in guilt; he felt their wrath with a fearful certainty. I stole from them, all of them… He cowered under their cycling gazes, inner disgust and shame building. Damn it, I don’t deserve to have dignity after what I did. I’m nothing… a piece of filth. I mocked them and all they did. It was so easy for me to just take it from them, even without thinking! I’ve stolen the greatest works with no effort…

Fierce guilt coursed through Quirk’s form as he shielded himself from the birds, unwilling and unable to move out of the center of the cyclone, hating himself all the more as the endless shame flowed through him.

He could never be original, never sing a new sound. He could write the most beautiful piece of music imaginable, but he could never appraise it with his own voice unless he had first heard another do so. He was no individual. He was a hopeless conglomeration, a hideous abomination, and he could not see himself any other way.

The birds swarmed, and they flew and whistled in the air around Quirk as he trembled, but they eventually passed back into their trees and left him to shudder in his self-inflicted agony.

~~~~~~~~~~

The light was growing dim, Celestia’s face fading to black as time passed. But her mind ticked on, as it always had, and she would let no darkness nor horror of past nor passage of time keep her from her sister. She would find a solution or she would forever search for one. So absorbed was she that she did not notice Ditzy return, muffin balanced on top of her nose, and enter again into the garden.

~~~~~~~~~~

Discord knew well the reason Celestia and Luna kept him in the garden instead of locking him up under carved stones with metal and magical bindings. It was because he was right.

Or, at least, partially correct. They would all agree that far: any more, and they would strenuously deny what Discord saw as truth. Chaos was a necessity. They holed themselves up in their castles, their thick and unforgiving walls, and they had put Discord in the garden. He modulated the order of the plants and animals here as they modulated his attempts to spread chaos elsewhere, keeping a sharp contrast to the order and stability of stone cages. And they go here—here! —to reflect. Their order is too much for them. They will see the truth one day… They cannot conceive of ultimate sameness for eternity. It would destroy us all. It seemed no more than death to him, and so he espoused chaos above all.

Whether it caused fear and malice bothered him not, although he sometimes took pleasure from it. He only acted for the sole reason that he would find death if he did not. He would find change, any change, and it would be his never-end.

Then he felt Ditzy enter the garden again. Twisted pleasure arose inside Discord when Ditzy came into sight of the statue.

“Back so soon? I thought you were a greater challenge than that!”

And the one thing he thought strange was that she was carrying a muffin on her nose, eyes focused in concentrated balance. Had he not scarred her? Had he not mutilated her memory and her enjoyment? Still, his sickened pleasure increased as Ditzy returned to the statue. But why, why have you returned so soon, and with this scar you bear with such delicacy…

He tried to reach out, but her mind was untouchable to him. Discord could neither grasp nor twist her, not when he was trapped so, and he was frustratingly perplexed by her lack of communication so far.

“I was right, of course.” He projected his air of certainty, clever mind whirling, analyzing, planning behind it. “Could it be any other way?”

She did not reply, and did not open her eyes, but came right up to the statue and left the muffin there. On it was a small note, and in cursive calligraphy were inscribed three words. Three small words, a miniscule amount of text, but they wreaked as much havoc on Discord’s mind as he had inflicted torment on Ditzy's.

It read: “I pity you.”

For a minute, his disbelief interrupted all other thoughts. How was it possible; how could she resist him? Had she not been destroyed by his malice and pain?

His mind boiled in indignation and anger. How dare she subvert my chaos, deny her dark side, and above all pity me?! He could not be pitied; it was the greatest affront to his philosophy! If she can truly pity me, then I have lost.

By neither hating him nor falling into apathetic despair, she threatened to at last crack his armor, for pity was Discord’s anathema. If chaos incarnate could be denied…

“Believe me.”

She turned to leave, and her steps were like the steps of grace as she vanished from his reign, fading with the rays of the setting sun.

He could only seethe.

“You will fall away from grace, and I will be the cause…”

Discord could not deny her ascendancy, and he was dour in his prison for a moment, but that was soon smothered by discipline.

“Fair match… but the game is not over.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Tick could not find the strength within himself to move. He had laid long enough in miserable torment to lose track of time and space. His mind was neither here nor there; he was trapped in some darkening space within his conscious and in no way aware of the outside world.

Ditzy wandered her way over to him, surprise and confusion and then concern as she saw his moribund state. She was feeling peculiar after her encounter with Discord, as though she was beyond all her troubles, and the sight of the one she had so recently known lying in apparent misery pulled her strongly.

Tick?

Ditzy said nothing and walked up behind to him, worriedly watching him as she did. “Tick, are you alright?”

He did not respond verbally, but shifted around in his sitting position. She glimpsed something falling from his eyes.

Ditzy felt no words in her mind, but rather a surge of emotion and the demand of sympathy that her goodness required. She gently put her hoof on his shoulder, and as soon as she was sure he would not act aversely, pulled him into her embrace.

“It’s alright,” she whispered, but it was lost entirely in the quietness.

Tick was unsure of who was silently comforting him, but his convulsions of sorrow gradually ceased as the mutual warmth of contact passed through them. They held that pose for a long time, neither wanting to break away first. Ditzy was determined not to let him go if he needed it; Tick knew it would be better if he let the healing happen.

The gesture itself was a communication to him of solidarity, hope, and healing; Tick could think of no nobler expression of words. It was love and respect, the gentlest touch he had felt for many years. The calm peaceful release of it promised him a state of renewal.

Tick shifted slightly to see who could express a sentiment so full of grace, and he looked straight at Ditzy, eyes closed and focused.

He didn’t see anything else, and he didn’t want to see anything else at that moment. It was too perfect. He was not haunted by the Nightmare in that moment, not in this moment and not in anything he could imagine. He could not even dream of the shadow of a possibility of it. How could he have been so concerned about malevolence? It had passed from him like the dew after the dawn, simply evaporated. It was love, respect, union, understanding, there was a word and he could not quite catch it—

“Empathy! He shouted, much to their mutual surprise.

“What?” Ditzy exclaimed, disengaging as Tick stood suddenly.

“Empathy! It’s what…” Tick stopped; his mind was working too fast for words. It’s what makes Luna wrong…

“Does this mean you’re feeling better? Is there anything you need to talk about?” Ditzy asked, completely phased out of his thought process.

Grinning, Tick decided not to answer with words but to reciprocate the action with a hug that Ditzy did not expect in the least. She had not seen him act like this before, had not expected it of him, and her surprise at his return of care made her slightly wary behind her concern for him.

He looks ecstatic. I guess that’s better than how he was before.

Tick noticed the slightest hint of stiffness in her demeanor, but he was wrapped up, his good faith restored and his cognizance only of mutual joy. Ditzy quickly returned to her warm smile after she became aware of her change in composure, and motioned that they should start heading back to the stone table. Tick agreed, he was filled with blissful enlightenment and a reassumed certainty in his principles.

By coincidence or fate, or simply by reason of mutually assumed meeting times, Ditzy, Tick, and Quirk arrived back at the roughly weathered table just as Celestia turned to watch her sun set. On the scale of appearances, Ditzy and Tick by far topped the list: Ditzy with a quiet smile, Tick with a triumphant look, practically glowing in the wake of his ideology’s consecration. Celestia was next, weary from worry, but the fight shone in her eyes, and all else was well-disguised from those that saw her. Quirk slunk into the back, noticed by no pony, and there was a great amount of despair in his eyes and precious little fight.

“An hour yet remains until the spell diminishes to where you will be able to leave. At that time, you will board a train to Ponyville in preparation for the excursion to the ruins of our old castle.”

Now Ditzy’s face nearly mirrored Tick’s in happiness; she had waited far too long for her taste to see Dinky again, and the rest of home was nice as well.

“If Tick and Quirk are unable to find lodging, you should seek out Twilight Sparkle and give her this letter—” Celestia levitated a sealed scroll over “—and everything should be arranged shortly. It shouldn’t be a problem anyways, considering Tick is already acquainted with Twilight according to Luna. But you must, under no circumstances, give her any detail of your mission or provide her with any materials regarding what you find or the Nightmare, both for her own safety and for the simple fact that she has quite a large load of responsibilities as it is.”

“Princess Luna will meet you some time after you arrive. Unfortunately, we don’t know yet when she will be available, so it could be as long as several days until she arrives, but not longer. We consider this to be very important, as you’ve no doubt noticed.”

“Until then…” Celestia shrugged, the only nonchalant gesture she had made so far. “Do what you will, but do not wander far. The gardens are always open; you could go back.”

“I do not think we will.” Quirk said, unusually deciding to comment. Tick, mood marred minisculely by the sight of his brother defunct, tapped him on the shoulder and pulled him aside after Quirk declined to move willingly to a bench where they could talk, not unobserved, but unheard.

Celestia and Ditzy were left around the wind-scarred white-hewn table, the gardens undisturbed by sound or presence of others. It was very nearly a solitary existence, with the exception of Tick and Quirk far off in the distance. Celestia seemed ready enough to resume her methodical stare into the night sky in search of solutions, but Ditzy had other plans.

“Princess Celestia?”

“You can call me Celestia, if you wish.” Celestia looked straight at Ditzy, who blinked and continued in a slightly more informal tone.

“Celestia, then. I have a bit of a strange question to ask.”

“An interesting question would be a nice change, usually I have monotonous ones all day.” Celestia smiled a bit, setting Ditzy more at ease. It was not the first time she had talked to Celestia alone, but it would be the first conversation that passed beyond a few sentences.

“When I first came into Canterlot, I noticed the waterfalls and how they flowed through and out of the city. It took me a long time, but I found out where they ended. I haven’t had a lot of time to think about them since then, but I was wondering: where do they come from?”

Celestia’s face was blank for a few moments, and she turned her gaze back to the sky before she answered.

And so our pasts come back to haunt us, yet there is something different, tangibly different about this one out of all the others…

“You must be lucky. I am one of the few who know the complete story of those falls. It is a long story, and a sad story, and a story that cannot be told well here.”

Ditzy felt uncomfortable having asked, but she couldn’t change that now. “That’s alright.” She wondered how a simple geographical occurrence could bring such emotional baggage, but then she remembered what had happened to her at the base of the falls, and she stopped wondering why and started imagining what, which made her immensely curious.

“No; I am going to tell it.” Celestia said, as if she was convincing herself. “We have more than enough time.”

Her wings spread against the sky; she looked back at Ditzy, who appeared far from about the change in events.

“It is not far,” Celestia assured, “You don’t have to go if you do not want to.”

Ditzy’s face reformed into something harder, determined. “I want to go.”

Celestia’s face shed a little smile, and there was something in it—sadness? regret? —that intrigued Ditzy, but it was obvious to Celestia that she was keeping her distance and her caution.

“Off we go, then.”

They flew behind the palace, towards the sheer cliffs of the mountain.

~~~~~~~~~

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

It was that way with them, direct, to the point, no hesitation. Neither liked posturing or the politics of conversation, so they avoided them as much as possible. It was a demand of mutual concern and benefit. Very purposely, they were not gentle when they used words, although sometimes they used no words at all. Far more did Tick prefer his unusual mode of communication; it had the unique quality of imparting sensation and concept more than words at times. Words could be manipulated, twisted, euphemized—just a fading shadow of ideas, the distorted reflection of temporal realities expressed by undefinable reactions of the mind. In sensation there could be no lie.

Quirk refused to look at his brother. “Why would I bother telling you the same thing twice?”

But in words there were so many connotations, so much implied meaning that would take so long for sensation to convey. He could reference the beauty of the sun or the oddity of their birth with a few mere words, while it might take many minutes to achieve that communion of sensation.

“You are not sure!” Tick was plainly angry.

Ah, how they played into and out of each other, Tick and Quirk, feeling and verbiage. Gracefully and harshly they would conflict and compound meaning, a wondrous and terrible mystery for those left outside their scope. They could mean anything, anything at all—but most likely they meant Quirk’s uncertain past. Need and respect drove them to commune; boundaries of time drove them to words. It was no perfect union, but it was passable.

“Nevertheless, it is.”

Tick growled away in slight frustration, determined to resolve it later.

~~~~~~~~~

Sheer granite cascades towered; they were nearly the color of lead and nothing like the weathered table they had left behind. It was an eighty-degree ascent, but it did not last long: Celestia soon found what she had long known to be there.

Motioning for Ditzy to enter as she stood on the extreme edge of the cave, Celestia gathered her courage and fortitude—not for the dark, no, but for the telling—and pressed on into the half-illumined cave. They wandered not far into it, around a corner to a pool of soft shimmering silence, and there they stopped. Neither Celestia nor Ditzy could see into the dark distance, but the pool shone with the occasional hint of shaded hue. It was as if the world had faded to the smallest sphere, stone and pool and the two of them and all the wonders and terrors hidden in them. It was like Tick's gift or the brother's telling, they had become raptured together in silence.

Celestia stopped just before the pool and stared into it, the barest hint of trembling showing beneath her eternally composed demeanor. Neither rippling nor apparently moving was the pool, so Ditzy took her place next to Celestia and mimicked her gaze for a moment to see if she could gain a hint into her perspective. She could not see the bottom of the pool.

“This is where the tear first fell that became the falls that now drop forever off the sides of this city. It was not always that way. By necessity we will start from a perspective of thousands of years ago. Many of the details will be sparse or uncertain. I am…. ashamed… that I cannot remember more.”

Celestia was not speaking with a quiet voice, but the vastness of the unseen cave swallowed it into a whisper. She was very, very small compared to the pool and the cavernous room, despite the smallness of the sphere.

Ditzy broke her gaze with the pool, and instead observed Celestia’s unceasing gaze into it. Celestia’s eyes were wide open, but it appeared to Ditzy that she was looking inward—they were obscured with the visions of the past. Her mouth was poised as if she was on the brink of a speech, but her tongue caught her words for a moment.

“Our first battle against Discord was a fateful one. I can recall very little from it, except for flashes of pain and triumph. He was horrendously powerful—he is a shadow of his former self now—and those who lived under him lived in agony. At last, we confronted him with the six Elements of Harmony and turned him to the stone that now again resides in that very garden you wandered through. It was a great victory, and the blissful peace that followed was glorious and hard-fought…”

“But it came at a great price.”

“The sixth Element, Magic, had disappeared. Elated in our victory, we hardly cared. What did it matter if an Element was missing, even the Element that bound the others together in unity? Discord had been defeated, the greatest threat since the sealing of Tartarus banished and locked forever away in the solidity and order of stone. Luna and I did not know it at the time, but as users of the Elements we were intimately bound to them, and through that conduit Discord had struck at us. The dissolution of Magic had destroyed our unity, even though it would take thousands of years for us to feel the effects.”

Ditzy was completely still, but it would not mattered if she had moved. Celestia was bound fully into her memories now.

“And so we grew great and prideful. Over the centuries we drifted apart, and the crack was subtle at first, and remained subtle until the day it split us in two. I was the first to show signs of our failure, at least by my faded memory: my vanity grew tremendously, and I hoarded attention and glory. I shone like the burning rays of the sun…”

Ditzy had a vivid flash of memory of when she had confronted Rainbow Dash and the incident in Tick’s mind, but kept her sense of place and made no motions to interrupt. Celestia noticed nothing outside herself now, continuing her tale.

“And the rays did not first strike Luna, but she fell as surely as I. It was not entirely her fault for lashing out against me, far from it. We decided that we are both equally guilty in the matter, for her pride influenced her as well. However, that does not help…” She caught herself. “The point came to pass where she started to believe that I, in my arrogance, must be put down for the sake of all I ruled over. In retrospect, I quite agree with her, but she was obstinate in maintaining that it was her own pride and impatience that brought her to that point. It was no short span of time that brought either of us to our states of disgrace—it occurred over great spans of time, and it would be no easy task to trace the point that we fooled ourselves completely. But the day did come, one thousand and two years ago, that she struck out against me and my arrogant pride.”

Her composure was slipping if only the barest bit, emotion dripping back into her voice. It was enthralling and concerning; Ditzy was completely absorbed, subsumed by the narrative.

“It was my fault.”

Celestia whispered that lone line, and her whisper cut through the darkness like no shout could. It echoed all through the cave and rang in Ditzy’s ears. The story had turned confession. Ditzy had forgotten completely about the falls as soon as Celestia’s voice began to show hints of breaking. The emotion ruled her voice now—sorrowful passion and shame guided her into confessional declarations.

“I goaded her, taunted her, I deserved to be put down. That night in the Everfree, peace turned to maddening terror as we fought to destroy each other. We both believed ourselves to be the righteous one, while in truth we were as horrible as the things we had fought to imprison. It was my fault, my pride and insensitivity that pushed us past the brink.”

“Eventually, I seized control of the Elements and managed to banish her to the moon, but it was imperfect, the sixth Element still missing, our Magic missing and our unity destroyed. She would return. Then I looked up into the sky and ripped the moon out of it. It was agonizing fulfillment of my insane vanity, the ultimate declaration of supremacy, the shredding of our unity and our love into nothing but burnt cinders. And it was my doing.” Celestia ended on a note of bitter self-condemnation, but she moved not and continued the telling.

“I had never touched the moon before, never guided it peacefully or otherwise into or out of the sky. Something about it unsettled me, and as I looked down, just as I began to feel giddy evil triumph, I looked down and saw the five Elements.”

“…Five Elements.”

“All the grief and all the horror and all the regrets and sadness and maddening inability to change the past struck me at that moment. I could only look up and see the sun that represented my vanity and loss of my sister; I could only look down and see the foolish sister that had cursed both of them. There was no shock—no hesitation—only the crushing passion that could not atone for a hundredth of the wrongs I had committed against harmony, that could not forgive a thousandth of the crimes I had caused in my pride, that could not make up for a ten-thousandth of the pain I had caused and would cause to my sister.”

“I flew out of the ruined castle and out of the forest, across the plains, my sights set on the only place where I might find a remnant of my sister’s blessedly dark cool night; a place where I could be in her memory and eternally strive to lessen her pain—but not deserve her forgiveness. I never deserved her forgiveness, and I still do not deserve it.”

“It was a lone mountain on the plain, the steepest and the only one for many miles around, and in the mountain there was a cave…”

The fur on Ditzy’s neck was standing straight up, the air was charged with eclectic electric emotion, penance and sorrow and regret, distressed pain and confession and a tension that granted Ditzy a wide-eyed awareness of the cave. It can’t be…

“…This cave.”

“And in this cave I stayed for what seemed to me an age of agony, but it was never enough. I could bear no torment great enough to repent for what I had done to Luna. Outside, time was passing rapidly, without change of sun or moon. The sun stayed in the sky at noon, an eternal day, and just as the sun brings life to all things…”

It was the height; the air seemed to scream, Ditzy knew what was coming, but she didn’t dare imagine, not until she heard the words could she comprehend it—it could not be real—

Celestia’s voice was ragged with pain and self-loathing, and her deliverance was hot with condemnation.

“…So too can it burn away that life.”

“My sun, MY sun, remained in the sky while I cried away my torments in this cave. As I had committed the worst of crimes against Luna in my vanity, now I committed the most horrific crime against all of Equestria: letting what had been my blessing to them become a curse. Rivers dried away to nothing, crops withered, countless fires raged across the land, misery and drought and death…”

Celestia looked as if she would break at any moment, she was breathing quicker, it could not be long now but somehow she continued—

“Until they found me, holed up in this cave, me and my damned vanity of pain, for my sorrow was not pure. Realizing what I was doing didn’t make it any better. They begged me to end it and raise the moon, but I would not do it until I fulfilled one promise—one last promise to Luna—that my tears would never stop falling for her until the end of time. And my tears formed this pool, and the pool flowed down the mountain and into the earth, and the earth took it back up into the mountain so it could forever cascade as my tears for Luna, and they built Canterlot on the mountain and happily forgot their pain as is their wont.”

Ditzy somehow found breath in the void atmosphere, somehow found the presence of will to utter a question, and she was not sure where it had come from, but she was convinced that it had to be asked:

“What would you have done if Luna had returned as Nightmare Moon and Twilight had failed?”

Celestia bowed her head and shut her eyes, tightly clenched, and said with the most convicted, tormented voice Ditzy had ever heard:

“I would have joined her.”

Chapter Seven, Part One: Remnants of the Past

Chapter Seven, part one

Remnants of the Past

Ditzy was not surprised this time by the inability of the world to remain still, nor did she fall out of bed and wonder at the metallic floor. This time, she was already wide awake by the time the sun shattered the horizon, staring at the ceiling and imagining that selfsame sun as it must have been a thousand-and-two years ago. Her dreams had wandered down strange paths, masquerading as alternate histories and might-have-beens that befuddled her current consciousness. It had been the longest week of her life, but now she was headed home; that was the most important thing. And home wouldn’t be the same that it had been, but it would still be home to her, for home is where the heart is. It would be quite a while before she reached her resting place, though, so she busied herself not with sweet mnemonic recollections. That would only make the wait seem longer for her.

There was still much to be explored in more recent memory, and in those who were now yet closer to her than home was. She would have no shortage of things to occupy her time as long as the brothers retained their willingness to talk, and Celestia, who had caused so much strife by her…

What could it be called? Grief seemed to be the answer, yet she had insisted that it was a product of her vaingloriousness. It was the most frustrating answer. She wasn’t wrong, but partially right, and finding out how right she was the key to absolution. Ditzy was certain that Celestia needed to realize that it wasn’t completely her fault; it was an indivisible mix of true regret, a desire to fall into despair and end the pain, and self-righteous broken agony that had driven her. It was the guilt of leadership that had harrowed her. While her actions had not been intentional, they were still consequential.

It made her worry how much Celestia thought of it, and she worried about how much of her regret was split the three ways: towards herself, Luna, and all the people she had wronged. Yet Ditzy could not bear that cup, could not shoulder that burden. Her power to change Celestia was nonexistent in the present. There was only one pony who could really help Celestia now, but Ditzy didn’t know that either. Ditzy could only meditate—she couldn’t try and rush in with some solution like she had with Tick. She had tried to make some gesture after the tale had concluded, but she hadn’t been able to break through the stone-walled pose Celestia had assumed after, or even her own internal barriers of shock. Celestia wanted to hurt and thought she deserved the agony, and sometimes it was hard for Ditzy to disagree with her. Although, the last line had been the key, the crux of the knowledge that Ditzy had that Celestia’s self-sacrifice had been more pure than not. It could have meant several things, but all of them simplified to a reality that espoused one thing she was missing: unity with Luna. Means can twist desires, but no desire for harmony can be perverse.

It only gets less and less believable. Celestia herself… but what can I do about it? I can’t. This is so far beyond me that I have trouble imagining the consequences. Hopefully I can stay home for a long time; I have been absent from her and I ache because of it. Why would they ever need me? I’m not special. She’s so wounded, and she told me… she told me out of everypony, and I might as well not even exist to her; I can’t do anything to help her.

Then why am I so worried? Yes, it’s really bad, and that’s a huge understatement, but if I can’t do anything about it then me thinking about it all the time is only going to mess me up. No more of this. She’s Celestia; she has plenty of others to help her…

Ditzy held still in her thoughts, eyes unused as the sun warmed her sheets, doing her best to dismiss useless worries. The magnitude of the concern was nearly overwhelming, but by degrees she let it slip away, instead thinking of what would come next. She wrapped herself in her own logic and comforts for a short time against the stings and barbs of worrisome guilt, and succeeded to a degree that surprised her a little. It was not long until she heard knocking on her cabin’s door.

“Breakfast.” It was Tick, judging by the muffled voice.

Ditzy had avoided talking those two in the short time it had taken for them to get to and onto the train, and the shorter time before they had all retired. It had been easy enough with Tick’s attention on Quirk’s brooding and a general lack of conversation. Maybe they’ll be in more talkative moods now. I wouldn’t really like to talk about what exactly we’re going to do so soon afterwards, but it would be foolish not to do it sometime. I’d rather talk about anything else… Ditzy thought she could certainly afford some trivial distractions amongst the chaos. Whatever I get out of them, it’s bound to be interesting. What had been a single car had been divided into several smaller rooms, one of which was hers. Two of the other three were Tick and Quirks’, the fourth was unoccupied. They would arrive in Ponyville early in the afternoon, but that was still hours from now.

Tick and Quirk were gathered around a small square table, a cart in the fourth spot. Ditzy sat across from Tick with Quirk on her left; she grabbed a muffin and some orange juice. It was no extravagant meal, nor was the train as luxurious as the one she had arrived on, but she would have flown back herself if she had had to wait another day. Tick had just picked up a newspaper and was beginning to peruse its contents; the bandages on his side had been removed with only some slight discoloration left. Quirk was quiet, unconsciously nibbling on some toast while he stared out a window at the mountainous terrain. Ditzy’s mane was completely fuzzed, adhering to no singular direction or desire as she hungrily devoured a muffin, but that was all right—they were all a little worn in one way or another. It was morning; they were rested; they would go forth again, but they were not about to face the world or each other.

It was a communion of silence in that train car; the sharing of a wordless meal sealed away some troublesome pains that had lingered from Canterlot’s ill reveries. The clearing of the slate was a blessing to them all: they could keep what they wanted from the last slate and leave the rest behind. The new day was of creation. It was not a grim bleakness but a great canvas; they could always make again what they had in their minds, all by their choice, and they relived many things even if they were silent about them. Soon they were thinking of and in in each other’s presence; minds came to the forefront of other minds. Ditzy did not refrain from looking at the other two, but they shied away from acknowledging her company, instead remaining silent.

“Who brought the cart in?” Ditzy asked on sudden inspiration, thoughts flying to something past.

“Some colt,” said Tick, a perplexed look on his face; his brother remained distracted. “Any reason why?”

“Just wondering,” Ditzy said, not lying in the least. A victorious, quiet smile crossed her face without notice of others. Tick had gone back to his paper; he looked odd, as if he did not truly focus on his reading, but Ditzy’s thoughts were elsewhere and she did not notice.

“The Canterlot Times must have gone downhill to start printing tabloid stories,” Tick muttered to nopony in particular, tossing down the paper on the table. The headline read: “Crystal Empire Rediscovered in North, Threatened by Ancient Evil” and in smaller letters below “Princess Cadenza Crowned Crystal Queen, Elements of Harmony Rumored to be Involved.”

Ditzy picked it up out of interest, read a few lines, and then proceeded to rifle through the rest of the paper. Given the absurdity of some of the recent events in her life, she wasn’t prone to having an enormous amount of doubt to some of the more dubious claims the article was making. If the bearers had been involved, or if it had happened at all, she would no doubt hear about it later that day when she reached home. Anything new for the rumor mills would be endlessly picked over until all manner of conjecture, reasonable or not, had been exhausted. It would be interesting enough seeing how Tick and Quirk went over with the ponies at home—but that’s something I really would rather not imagine… it might not go as badly as it did for me, but it will definitely be strange. Maybe he’s… Celestia said he did.

“Tick?”

He moved as if to look at her, but stopped short of making eye contact, indicating that he had heard.

“How do you know Twilight?”

Tick paused for a moment, as if he did not expect the question, and then began. “When Luna sent me against my will to Ponyville, on the way to the ruined castle I stopped in her library for a night. We didn’t… ‘talk’ much. Her dragon kept spying on me.”

Quirk had wandered over to get a better view of the window, brooding, leaving them in relative duality for their conversation. Although he could easily provide commentary if he chose, he appeared to be lost in something else altogether.

Ditzy yawned and stretched in her chair, the early morning glow playing through her mussed mane. Tick blinked once or twice, it was difficult to distinguish the hair from the halo in the instant it existed. He looked dazzled, but the look subsided as soon as Ditzy noticed it.

“We never got that far the last time you showed me your story.” Ditzy was giving Tick her full attention, but Tick was half-blinded by the bright morning sun behind her.

“I’ll tell you, then. I had just woken in a private ward of the hospital following Luna’s—”

“Why not show me?”

The blunt question caused Quirk, who was fanning his wings by the window, to glance over at Tick, whose eyes skipped a beat: he seemed to freeze in place for a moment, but he did not look at Quirk and gave no indication of being aware of Quirk’s survey. Rather, he took on a concealed guise, hiding his reasoning, appearing to look through Ditzy, but not at her. Ditzy herself was put off by his reaction.

“I would prefer not to,” Tick said matter-of-factly, looking straight at her as the light hid behind mountainous terrain. It was Ditzy’s turn to blink once; his reply was concerningly vague. She was grateful that he hadn’t completely dodged the question, or lied, but that still left plenty of confusion as to why.

Ditzy did not seize on the matter. That’s odd that he would choose to be guarded about it when he was so open earlier. She had pressed him to the point of tempered defiance in the past few days and it would be foolish to push him so soon. Maybe he can’t control it? But then why wouldn’t he just say so, and he it looked like he did it at will.

“Alright then,” Ditzy replied, her voice consciously quieter yet even-toned. Deciding to leave the awkward situation behind in the hopes of him forgetting it, she started for the next cabin down. She had left abruptly, but the two did not seem phased in the least by it, or at least by what she saw as she left.

They don’t seem to like to talk much. He’s acting different than he did yesterday… I guess he was really ecstatic in that moment, and this behavior matches what they were like in jail. Still, he’s interesting—strange—and it’s boring not having anypony to talk to. I imagine they have a lot to think about too; maybe they’re not morning ponies; there are a thousand reasons. It's just boring being here and having nothing to do or talk about. I can try again later.

It was quite a different style of train than the style of the one she had come in, neither luxurious nor fanciful, but practical. Regardless, it held an elegance that sprung from efficiency. Even the heads of order and equality in Equestria could not commandeer a train without noise, and they had preferred privacy anyhow, so they had simply booked a few seats on an average commuter’s train. That didn’t dissuade Ditzy from exploring the rest of the train, though. She had never bothered to do so when she had her first chance to explore one, and so she took the opportunity. Simple observance was the method she chose, cursory glances at the empty cabins she passed, seeking something intriguing. She was headed for the front of the train in hopes of a glimpse of the pilot and engineers, curious to how they went about their days and ways. I wonder if I could talk to an engineer. I bet one would have a lot of stories to tell about the places the routes have taken them.

“Hey!”

Ditzy turned around to see a drab-coated mare with short straight hair looking at her, but it wasn’t her appearance that caused a jolt of memory in Ditzy, it was her voice. She had heard that voice somewhere, and recently, and there was the beginning of alarm in the recognition.

“I ran into you!” Inkie said, Ditzy now panicking in her mind as she recognized by voice the mare from Canterlot’s post office.

“I’m sorry; I don’t think I know you,” Ditzy said, half-turned and aiming for a quick exit, trying not to break into full flight as the alarming sensation rose.

“No, I ran into you—literally!” Inkie said, hopping up out of her seat and racing to intercept Ditzy. “In Lower Canterlot!”

Ditzy stopped, now completely flabbergasted. “What?” She was beyond certain that she hadn't run into her before.

Inkie began speaking, gesturing as she did. “You were just standing around in the middle of the baker’s market and I was running and I ran into you and knocked you over and helped you back up but I was busy so I kept running, and you just had this look on your face when I knocked you over and it stuck in my mind and I was like ‘That’s it!’ and so I went up and got my—”

“Slow down!.. Please,” Ditzy added, memory recalling the incident, but not the mare. “What were you doing?”

Inkie blushed in her excitement and embarrassment, and continued her synopsis with more control, but no less vigor.

“I ran into you in Lower Canterlot and accidentally knocked you over. When I pulled you up, you had this look of… I don’t know how to describe it… on your face, and I didn’t think about it until later. You just had this, I dunno, experience etched on your face and it was absolutely inspiring. So when I got home I started painting, and I actually made something really nice and you, well, inspired it.” She gave a weak apologetic smile, still energetic from the chance encounter. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind, but…” Ditzy had remembered something singularly important, one of many vital stepping stones. “What happened to the painting?”

“Oh, I actually ended up selling that one to a theater. I didn’t really want to sell it, but it only took me a day to finish and they made a really good offer.” Inkie’s smile was more joyful this time. “I think they really liked it, they said it would work well as a piece of scenery.”

Thunderstruck, Ditzy shook herself out of memories of black gales and heroic captains that now made so much more sense to ask an astonished question. “That only took you a day!?”

Inkie’s smile grew by a magnitude. “You saw it!? Wait, how do you know how long it took?”

Ditzy replied clearly now, the randomness of the coincidence having passed her blindsided mind. “I saw it in a theater, and I thought the captain looked something like me.”

Inkie’s eyes grew wide with a knowing look, and she released a satisfied “Ooooh.” A moment passed, and then she asked: “Can I do anything for you? I think I owe you a bit for the artistic inspiration.”

Ditzy was content in her expression now, all the pieces having fallen into place; and not in a way she would have guessed, but it worked all the same. “I’m fine, and not in a small way because of you. It meant a lot to me.” You have no idea what it means to me, and where it has gotten me, but what that means I don’t know yet.

“Awwww,” Inkie blushed unnecessarily. “You don’t have to say that.”

“So where are you headed?” Ditzy continued, and she felt that she would not mind a nice, unexpected, trivial conversation.

“Ponyville, to visit my sister Pinkie Pie.”

Pinkie has a sibling? This should be interesting.

“I know Pinkie.”

So they began. After another few moments of introduction, a short discussion of the confounding mare, Inkie recalled a story about their early days on their rock farm.

“She was acting funny—funnier than usual, obviously, she is Pinkie—but it was really strange because she wouldn’t tell any of us what she was doing. She kept taking food and paper and a couple of blankets and books, of all things, and putting them who-knows-where. I begged her to know; I thought she was planning some weird kind of new party, but if anypony can see through that poofed-mane into her head, they haven’t told me what she thinks. We had a nice place on the rock farm: a bit isolated, but we were always nice to any visitors. Pinkie usually was the one to embrace them the most. She’s a bit older than I am, but I can barely remember when she used to be all quiet and trudge-y all the time. After that, our small and happy house was never really as quiet as it was, but that was ok. Sometimes I would go out into the fields alone and wonder how many shades of rocks there were and look up at the stars and wonder what different kind of colors they had from here…”

Inkie’s mind was painted on her face; but Ditzy could not see her face. She also was with her in the fields, looking at rocks and imagining a filled canvas, looking at the stars and wondering what color there might be.

“It was always really cold at night, but I never seemed to notice. It was one of those nights when the moon was grey and the sky was purple-black and the rocks were all grey and still and solemn and wondering. I loved those nights, when I could just be in the rocks and gaze and not-really think but I was still thinking somehow it happened all natural and wonderful. I kind of needed to be out there more after Pinkie changed—it was almost like she was too colorful, but that doesn’t feel right to say. I needed…”

“Contrast,” Ditzy supplied.

“Yeah, that sounds right. It wasn’t right for Pinkie to be out there—she could never sit still, or think, or maybe it just wasn’t that she could act like that. She was a filly in motion all the time. One day, she just started and I can only think of one or two times when she stopped. I tried to take her out once or twice and try to make her see what I saw, but I couldn’t, and I don’t know whether it was my fault because I couldn’t explain or whether she just couldn’t understand. I changed a bit when she left; I was always quieter when she was around. I felt like balance was important, but she… Eh, I guess it isn’t worth worrying over. She manages.”

“It was one of those nights, I think I was at, and the sky was all purplish and lovely and the stars were like sequins in black velvet and I could see my breath through the air, and it felt like part of me was floating up into the sky. I was sitting in one of my usual spots with the rocks that I thought were unusual, although others didn’t really see what was strange in them. They were all grey, but I liked them. It was getting really late, but the stars were magnificent and the seasons were changing and the constellations’ shapes were all fluid and I loved it because I could find new ones, if only they lasted a night.”

“Then I heard something creeping along—it wasn’t strange, I thought it was just a mouse or something and I ignored it for a minute; I was in a field after all—and then I saw Pinkie sneaking around. She always was one to ambush, but she was on my field now, literally and figuratively, and I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to get her back. She was going to one of the barns and I thought it was a little weird to be going at that time of night, but I was so excited at the chance to scare her. I never get the chance to scare her; she isn’t really surprised by anything. I had to creep up on her for a long time. She was better at sneaking, of course, and that made it a little harder. She got right up to the barn doors before I decided I was close enough to give her a good scare, so I jumped out behind her and went ‘Boo!’”

Ditzy had to resist the urge to laugh lightly imagining the situation, and Inkie took notice. It wasn’t contemptuous, although Inkie mistook her pleasure. Ditzy was completely immersed and enjoying herself, having forgotten the rest of the world completely.

“I was like, ten! I couldn’t think of anything scarier,” Inkie said in defense of her ploy, but her slight defensiveness faded under her story-telling enthusiasm. “But anyways, we just got to the interesting part. Pinkie jumped around and yelled something about how she wasn’t hiding anypony in the barn…”

“I was curious, but I was having too much fun laughing at her surprise to really consider anything for a minute. What I did notice was that after I had rolled on the ground laughing at her for a good twenty seconds was that she hadn’t done anything at all. I couldn’t make out her exact expression very well in the shadow of the barn, but she was standing still and twitching—but not the normal kind of twitching from Pinkie. It was a nervous twitchy thing, suppressed, and she looked scared. I was a little scared too, because Pinkie was scared, and Pinkie isn’t really afraid of anything. So I got up, and I asked her what was wrong and she said ‘Nothing,’ but she said it really fast and wouldn’t look at me. I think she was trying to look back at the barn, but it was hard to tell because the moonlight was blocked by the barn and she was just under the outside roof of it. The doors were all closed, so I couldn’t see inside.”

This is sounding less and less like an amusing anecdote…

“I asked her what she meant when she had said that she wasn’t hiding anypony in the barn; she looked like she was going to crack under pressure, but I couldn’t see well anyways. I thought she was messing with me, and by that point I was sure that she had some surprise hidden in the barn. So I started playing like it was a game, with Pinkie trying to deflect me from getting in the door. I wasn’t scared at all anymore. I was actually a little excited. She hadn’t ever gone that far to conceal something from us, so it must be something wonderful in the barn. Eventually, I got around and knocked open one of the doors and a really bright light spilled out and blinded us. It wasn’t actually bright, just a candle or two, actually, but they were way brighter than the moon and stars. It took me a few seconds to recover, but when I could see again I saw a pair of colts, about Pinkie’s age, sleeping off in a corner! Pinkie jumped in and started talking really fast about how sorry she was and that she hadn’t meant to wake them up or something, and I think she actually woke them up that way instead of me bursting in the door. I was very confusedly standing in the doorway and failing to ask a question about what was going on. I didn’t know either of the colts, but Pinkie told me later that she had found them at dawn lying out in the rock fields—”

—And then she was overlooking a dark crag with a windmill in the distance, fields filled with nothing but boulders strewn about. Dark moonlight shone down, cutting through dystopian night as a young aqua-colored pegasus looked on apprehensively.

“Wait! What did they look like?” Ditzy interrupted. She nearly rose from her seat with energetic suspicion, but the shock of possibility held her in place. Inkie was surprised at the interruption and Ditzy’s sudden innervation, but not wary.

“Uh… One was light greyish and the other was an interesting shade of blue-green. Why?”

It has to be—what are the odds, I’ll find out and then I’ll go. “You’ll see in a minute; I promise. Did anything else happen?”

It took an enormous amount of effort for Inkie to resume her tale without querying for some answers of her own, but to her trust’s credit she did so anyways. She continued, but this time she was not gazing wondrously into space-time as she brought back what she knew. This time she was an analytic tester, cross-examining Ditzy’s every unconcealed reaction to her story.

“They had woken up and one of them was looking at me; I remember because there was something strange about his eyes. It was all confusion for a little while, at least until Pinkie introduced me to them. I didn’t interact much with them—actually, I don’t remember much at all about them, it’s been a long time—and it took a while for the three of them to get across a short story of how they had gotten there. Apparently, they were wanderers or rovers or something and they had just decided to take some rest in the fields on their way to Baltimare. I should have been really cautious, but Pinkie trusted them so my ten-year-old self figured that they were fine. They ended up not getting around to much; they wanted to move on, but they had talked to Pinkie and made the mistake of mentioning (how, I don’t know) that they had never had a birthday party. Of course, that was a tragedy of unimaginable size for Pinkie, and she delayed them as long as possible so she could stage a surprise party for them. They managed to scoot out of her grasp somehow over the next couple of days, and Pinkie was pretty sad for a while that she never got to throw them their party. I think somewhere, in the back of her mind, she never stopped planning it. It was the party she never had: it took her a while to come to terms with it, but when she did she ended up being happier somehow. Pinkie Pie logic is always the weirdest.”

Ditzy nodded. She had experienced that particular brand of ‘logic’ on more than one occasion.

Inkie pounced on Ditzy’s distraction. “So what’s this that’s got you excited about those two?”

With a subtly sneaky smile, Ditzy stood and motioned toward the exit. “Something you might be interested in.”

Inkie hesitated for an instant, then took the bait and left with Ditzy.

Chapter Seven, Part Two: Forward and Back

Chapter Seven, part two

Forward and Back

Back in the shared space between the living cabins, Quirk and Tick were buried in dual frustrations.

“Are you sure it only took her two times? It took about two hundred attempts before I was able to do anything like that. Perhaps..?” Quirk motioned at Tick’s eyes.

“No,” Tick said, ceaselessly moving, pacing around, clearly unsettled. “I don’t think I could communicate that kind of thing, and I’m not sure that I understand it either, so I am confident that I would not be able to sensualize it in a way we could study it. I’m not even sure it was the same thing.”

He stopped, and looked at Quirk as if expecting an answer. When none came forth, Tick sighed, closed his eyes, and turned away.

“Are you sure you aren’t just crushing on her?” Quirk jabbed, poking in a way with a curious crooked grin that left Tick unsure if he was serious or not.

“No,” Tick replied, with the usual tiredness he assumed when Quirk prodded around that kind of thing.

“Ah, but wouldn’t you argue that that is a syntactically ambiguous answer?” Quirk was grinning now, leaning back against the window with hooves crossed over his chest, and his semblance of seriousness vanished for a moment. “You could be saying you aren’t sure about crushing on her or you could be denying crushing on her, and either way you could be lying. Which is it?”

Tick turned back to look at Quirk with an irritated expression, then ignored him as Quirk let out a quick, sharp laugh. We have more important things to worry about than mares, you perpetual...

Quirk looked off to the side at the floor, his expression rapidly becoming dismal as he stared off into blank space, hinting at the inner mood that Tick knew lurked.

I can’t believe you. I help get you through it every time and you keep going back. Now I need your help, and you’re too locked in your own problems… When they left, they told us we had to take care of each other, because we’re the only family we have anymore. We taught each other a lot of things…

They would figure out it, as they tended to do, yet Tick doubted everything in his irritated state.

“Begin again,” Quirk said, looking no happier, but clearly making an effort to dismiss his distractions. “At the chasm.”

“It was only the second time…” Tick muttered again, shifting in his seat and in thought, whirling eyes closing, shutting his negativity away and delving into memory. “I had retreated, and I was going to shut her out, but I was exhausted...”

Tick was silent for a long time as Quirk watched him with mild impatience. Eventually, Tick started again with visible agitation

“It was the most alien welcome thing. Her empathic skills are very strong as I should have realized the first time around (alas, I was drunk) and after she had nearly struck me. It was not the attack; that was not spectacular, our fights have done much more damage… as you well know, I suppose. It was pity but it was not shame; it was empathy but not a descent; she pulled me up but did not fall to do so. I don’t even pretend to know how she was able to undertake such a thing when she had so many troubles in her mind at the time. It was plainly obvious to me that she has one worry that overrides all her other emotion. It shouldn't have been possible. I can’t comprehend it… It weighs on me. It seems strange that she was able to reach out like that when she was in no position to do so. It was like passion without suffering, without pity. Her emotions were strong, profound, deep. It was insane.”

Tick stopped, sighed, rubbed his eyes.

“I can’t figure anything out of this; I can feel the pressure of worlds on my shoulders to make sense; I am sick and tired of being forced around by Luna and these insane ideas.”

“I’m sure that the rest of us have no problems making sense of this,” Quirk retorted dryly. “Your pity, in any case, still has the passionate half, or at least the mildly poetic half. And you are very right; this doesn’t make sense, so I wouldn’t bother beating your own brains. You don’t know enough to extrapolate consciously what might be going on in her head or even if she’s aware of how unusual and familiar she was. You must give yourself a break, and you can do that by either asking her or feeling her or doing your best to forget. You know what I would recommend. Besides, you’re getting morose. You should come and get a drink with me or find some other way of getting some fire in your belly. I, for one, wouldn’t mind at all getting lubricated in preparation for our arrival in a town notorious for its mare to stallion ratio.”

Quirk’s last line passed Tick by completely, an ignorance of habit. “You do what you want to do, you know I don’t care as long as it doesn’t get in my way. And of course, the usual deal applies for new places.”

“As always. Although I doubt either of us would find something here, given the location and the fact that you’ve already gone over the one place that could be considered noteworthy.”

“I didn’t really go through her library, so there might still be something of note, just—”

“‘Going through her library?’ Do I detect an innuendo? Not to mention some filly that lives in a library sounds like a good match for you.”

Tick’s gaze narrowed; Quirk was rapidly pushing him to the point of intolerance. “The answers are no and not a snowball’s chance in Tartarus. You ought to know I haven’t ever cared about that. Although, you sound almost as starved for action as somepony who lives in a library presumably would be.”

Quirk mimed being stabbed in the chest, grinning all the while. “Ah, but you wound me so.” His smile sank into nothingness and he turned to face the window, absorbing the last of the sunlight. The train would soon again dip into that mode of singularity, the tunnels, and inevitably conversation would slow in the darkness.

Tick’s eyes and the panorama of the windows were the only movement for quite some time, until Tick slammed his hoof on small table, not an overly loud motion considering the hum and rumble of the train. He was frustrated, understandably, and not least because Quirk was holding the better set of cards in the conversation and playing them smartly. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I have to know; you must have some opinion.”

“Alright, if you have to dwell on it I might have something to say.”

Quirk then launched into something that sounded slightly more certain than his last statement. “The way I see it, it’s all a matter of perspective. There are innumerable things that you can see from your view, and she might not be able to see all of them. The opposite is also true, of course, and that can create a very strange vision on both sides…”

~~~~~~~~~

They snuck right up to the windowed door, Ditzy mercilessly teasing and hinting to Inkie’s constant hushed refrain of “Come on, just tell me!” and the occasional guess as to the seeming varied nature of Ditzy’s own surprise. They were huddled just below the window, Inkie quietly (at Ditzy’s insistence) demanding to know what she had to show her. For an instant, Ditzy was tempted to giggle out loud, tempted to claim a piece of a memory that would have fit well in a childhood that she had never had. It would have been like this, sneaking around with a friend and doing silly things, but unhappiness passed her by; she preferred the present over a morose past.

Again resisting the urge to lapse into a giggled laugh at the impatience of Inkie who was looking everywhere but up through the door’s window, Ditzy put a hoof to her mouth and shushed, then motioned to the door’s window. Ditzy and Inkie peeked through into the room. Inkie could see the table and cart that Ditzy had eaten at, and she could see the edges of the partitions that comprised their separate rooms, but most significantly she saw Tick and Quirk, engaged in fierce discussion. Both did not appear happy, but the silent intensity of their discussion caught her attention fully. Tick was gesturing with furor at Quirk, who looked increasingly ill at the direction the conversation had gone. Neither of them were close to hasty and dramatic action, but Ditzy was rapidly gaining curiosity about what they discussed.

“It’s them!” Inkie said hushed, eyes wide. Ditzy heard nothing, and she wouldn’t have heard from Inkie at all as she tried to listen in, but Inkie looked like she was about to veritably jump through the door and interrupt, shaking Ditzy out of her petrification.

“Wait,” Ditzy insisted. “Do you remember anything about them?” She was intent on getting a wider perspective on the brothers, given her unusual interactions with them anything would be of use.

“I remember them! I remember talking to them now. He was nice—” Inkie pointed at Tick “—but he was smooth.” Her eyes half-lidded for a moment, looking not quite at Quirk but through him, and she let out a quick little giggle that betrayed her memory to Ditzy. That’s not the word I would be using…

“I can’t wait to talk to them again!” Inkie announced, moving to open the door.

Ditzy grabbed Inkie by a shoulder as she spoke and turned Inkie to face her. “Wait! Again, sorry.” Ditzy was getting repetitive, even to herself. “Do you remember anything else about them?”

“Not really,” Inkie admitted. As one, they turned back to the window to see Tick and Quirk giving them the exact same befuddled expression. It was unnerving enough given Tick and Quirk’s recent clamor to render Ditzy temporarily catatonic and for Inkie to let out a little squeak as they both fell back from the door, landing in a small heap.

Tick and Quirk opened said door, both sparing a moment’s attention to the two mares lying on the floor before exchanging glances amongst themselves.

“I don’t know either,” Quirk said to Tick. He looked back to Inkie for a moment and blinked, and then frowned slightly.

“What were you two doing?” Tick asked, next looking to Inkie. “And have we met?”

“You all have. And we were just about to come in,” Ditzy claimed—but it was no use, Quirk raised an eyebrow in apparent doubt and Tick looked reasonably amicable, but had interest shaded behind that expression.

“Don’t you remember me?” Inkie said excitedly, and much to Ditzy’s relief. Anything to keep them from thinking I was, well…

Tick’s expression gained a vagueness suggesting a lack of remembrance, but Quirk nudged Tick and quietly mentioned something, provoking an intake of realization. It was a short blur, the next few moments, a general melee of commentary between Tick and Quirk and Inkie, with Ditzy absorbing all she could from their interactions. Soon enough, she was absolutely outside of the conversation. She gave no input, and no output they gave to her save for Quirk’s occasional searching-suspicious glance toward Ditzy. He had no shortage of questions as to how and why she had found Inkie, but he knew that his very suspicions were known by Ditzy, so he made no effort to air them. Likely, she would avoid them anyways.

Inkie did not mention what had brought her and Ditzy together initially, but recalled without hesitation the tale that those selfsame brothers had participated in. Like shadows in a forest, words slipped through the train, and Ditzy found it hard to grasp them. She could not discern anything important from the conversation; her thoughts wandered to other things as they delved further and further into meaningless talk.

After some time, Inkie left (Ditzy did not notice why) and Tick retreated to his partition as Quirk sat down.

It was strange, the silence, confronting it again after such a blurred conversion of thought and feeling. Ditzy was left not far from the door, and neither had she moved far after the other three had begun several minutes ago. Quirk was again at the table, looking expectantly, looking at Ditzy…

It took her a moment to snap out of her absorbing state, and just as Quirk began the motion of asking a question, she hastened her own breach of silence.

“Why wouldn’t you let Pinkie tell anypony else you were there?”

Quirk passed over his relative perturbation to Ditzy interrupting him quickly, and took care crafting his answer. It was a good deal of time before he actually answered. Silhouetting his head was the window, and the silhouetting the sun were the trees, and silhouetting Ditzy’s thoughts was the unknowability of Quirk's mind as the train prepared to enter the tunnel. It would only be moments now before they once again plunged into that untellable cavernous place, and only moments in their lives would they exist there, and before they knew it they would be somewhere they did not know, and the quietness and thoughtfulness of the tunnel would pass.

Ditzy could not see his face or discern what he was thinking; Quirk had still not yet answered. The moments ticking by, the trees vanished outside the window; the sun cast blindingly on them, and he finally spoke.

“We wanted to be left alone; we preferred it. But I do not think you want to talk to me.”

He rose, and for an instant the sun was blackened by his head and the corona of the sun shone down, enveloping him, forcing Ditzy to wince.

“I think you need to talk to Tick.”

And before Ditzy could recover, the train plunged into the tunnel and the light vanished, and her sensations evaporated, and she could feel not the metallic floor underneath her, and she could see not Quirk nor the sun or trees outside, nor the very table that they had shared at. It was in a spare instant that she stumbled, tumbling through quick reactions of fear in her mind, so much that she nearly lost her footing in the shock-sudden dark. Her mind had so very little time to process through the shift of the paragons, the blinding of light and the blinding of dark; Ditzy would have made little progression into either given multitudes of time.

The dim lights came on—the electric lights seemed to cast greyness over the room rather than the normal spectrums. It was light, yes, but it was also soft shadow, and not a pleasant kind. She could distinguish no color in it, nor black or white. They didn’t seem to exist here, and though the light might become close to white, it could not; though the darkness could be close to black, it was not.

And there was Tick, poking his head out of his partitioned room and glancing around before settling his gaze on the recoiled Ditzy. Quirk was nowhere to be found. In his moving irises, she could see the unusual usual gray and white and black, curiously undiminished.

Ditzy recovered from the swift change and found the strength of mind to ask a question.

“Tick, where were your parents when you… encountered the rock farm?”

The grey was stifling in rigidity. Neither Tick nor Ditzy moved to take a seat; neither was keen on closing the distance. Although she was hardly conscious of her actions, her focus stabilized on the only color she could see, the variance in his eyes.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking—I mean, if you—”

“I don’t mind,” Tick cut in, but he made no immediate action. His mind was somewhere else than the question, somewhere closer to Ditzy than she realized.

~~~~~~~~~

Tick, of course, could not see his eyes. When the light of the sun had cut out as the train had plunged into the tunnel, he had been startled for an instant, but not near the momentary panic that Ditzy had achieved. The light had come on as swiftly as the sun had shielded itself with the mountain. He thought the greyness a trick of the light, or perhaps it had been tampered with. In any case he did not concern himself about it, so he had stuck his head out of his room and saw Ditzy, eyes wide and wild—and he was their nexus, their focus. Odd… I can see the gold in her eyes while the white and black of them looks grey.

“My parents were rovers. We never stayed in one place for long, and we were nearly always traveling. They had a habit of telling us that one day we would have to take care of each other because they weren’t going to be around. That day came sooner than we expected…” Tick stopped, took notice of Ditzy’s changing expression. “We managed after that.”

In those few short sentences a few small ideas that served for a many great things, and it brought up many strong memories. Yet he was not there, not in the past; he was attenuated to the present and the vitality in Ditzy’s face, how it changed from curiosity to a repressed disapproval to a fiery intention and malignant opinion of his parent’s care. In her eyes something intrigued Tick, some passion he was simultaneously scared of and tickled by… And he thought it strange that he could hardly hear her words when he looked at her, even as he gave half-hearted defenses to her unabashedly inflamed comments.

“Your parents just left you? And Quirk? And they never gave any excuse for it, as if any excuse could work for that?”

“Well, they were raised that way.” Tick felt neither one way nor the other on the issue, but took on caution as she phased through attitudes.

“That is NOT an excuse!” Ditzy looked on with a furious darkening of her eyes, narrow beams not focusing on Tick, but it gave him pause regardless. He could clearly see the passion tempering her features, and it was not entirely unattractive to him, yet he still reconsidered his reasoning for letting Ditzy in on that particular piece of his family history. Ditzy was infuriated, hooves on the table as if she might leap up at any second and fly out of the train and search until she had found his parents and lectured them thoroughly about child care. She is full of depth, of anger and emotion, but it is care as well. Tick watched her closely, and found himself intrigued by the sweep of her feeling, the intensity.

Somewhere along the way color had begun to creep again into the picture, but it remained dull and stained, oddly faded: it was not more light, but more color. He had bigger imperatives, though, such as steering Ditzy towards a less volatile topic of conversation, which was nearly anything at that point.

The maligned mother had calmed her anger, if only slightly; she had closed her eyes and made visible efforts to breath easily. Mad as she might be, she would refrain from judging Tick’s parents any more than she had.

“I was wondering about something else,” Ditzy began again. “What were you two talking about when we interrupted you?”

“Nothing important, really. Just a trivial discussion.” Tick glanced down momentarily at the table, two emptied cups and some debris scattered upon it.

“It didn’t look trivial to me, not the way I saw you talking. Actually, it looked important from what Inkie and I saw of it. What were you talking about?”

She can’t know…

“We were discussing what’s better to have with breakfast, milk or orange juice.” Tick replied evenly. He gestured at the table, and sure enough there were traces of white and orange in the two glasses.

Ditzy was put off. There was no solution in her mind that involved movements of such angered discourse that she had seen involving breakfast articles, of all things. He had to be bluffing, disguising something, at the very least.

“So what was Quirk arguing?” Ditzy asked, beginning her cross-examination.

“He thought that orange juice was better,” Tick recalled, a hint of tired defensiveness in his voice. “I was arguing for milk.”

“So neither of you drink coffee in the morning?”

“Not really, no.”

“And what did you conclude?”

Tick leaned back in his chair and gave a look that clearly expressed his disapproval of being so crossed. “I am not a book that you can tear apart for answers,” Tick said, “but for the record, we agreed that it was dependent on what you were eating and what you were going to be doing that day.”

His snarkyness having gotten his point across, Ditzy retreated to advance down a different scenario. No need to waste what gains she had gotten, anyways.

“Sorry,” Ditzy apologized. “That reminds me of another thing I was wondering about. Why were you so insistent on arguing with Luna?”

“What?”

“Well, you seemed very set on arguing with her. You reached an agreement, but I guess what I was getting at was that I don’t really understand what this is all about. You got so deep into this discussion about knowledge and I tried to follow it, but you went on a lot of tangents and I’m not really sure why the discussion was so fervent, why you were so…” Ditzy stopped, having attempted to explain more than she could elaborate without reflection.

Neither of them noticed that the color had trickled back into the room until it nearly had fulfilled the radiant spectrum that once was. They had each other’s attention.

“I don’t know if I could explain it to you. It would take quite a while,” Tick admitted, his eyes slipping, blinking away from
Ditzy’s from a moment; his mind was a shock of nervousness that he could not place. “I could, but…”

“Then don’t tell me with words; show me.”

Tick slipped, his mind racing about. Something fearful in him had come to the forefront; he wanted to say no but he knew not why he would say it. He couldn’t let her see him, but she was looking right at him, and the whirling winds of his eyes turned away from her. As he did, the color again fled from the room and he saw only the grey. Tick looked away from her and thought furiously, hurriedly. I can’t let her…

“You aren’t going to show me.”

Tick looked swiftly back at where Ditzy had been, but she was already up and pointed towards one of the exiting doors. His mind was divided between asking her to stay and letting her go, but the moments fell away from him and so the decision was made. Ditzy closed the door without looking back.

~~~~~~~~

She thought it was a bit mean of herself to exit so, with a bleak declaration of his unwilling indecision, but she knew she had to play a harsher game if she wanted to get information out of him now. She had wanted to look back at him, if only to make sure he wasn’t overly distressed, but their conversation had been unlike what had happened in the bar. He wasn’t just some mystery to unravel savoringly, a curious and innocent questioning, albeit against one who wished to reveal as little as possible. He was defensive now, and he had something to hide, and it irked Ditzy terribly to let it be. If she figured out what it was, she was convinced she could help him. I don’t know why he’s so stubborn.

Ditzy sighed inwardly and continued on her journey to the front of the train. It isn’t like I’ve ever been annoyingly stubborn before or anything, she thought with self-remonstration. I probably shut him up just by asking him so many questions. I need to slow down and apologize.

Anyways, there was no reason not to go exploring as she resolved things, and if she ran into Quirk (as much as she relished the possibility of that) she could question him about his recalcitrant brother. Anything for a clue. The journey to the head of the train was long enough to lose herself in thought, and she hardly noticed what she could see through the window into the engine room before she turned and trotted again away, but those in the engine room noticed.

There were three there, quietly observing the lack of events around them. One muttered something, the only distinguishable word being ghosts, and he shifted where he sat, unsettled. The mutterer was an earth pony sitting against the grated gate of the furnace, his coat black as midnight from either natural coloring or the coal he shoveled, his mane only a shade lighter.

“I’d bet you anything that she came from the room with the lights. They always seem to set them wanderin'. I still don’t get why you messed with the wiring, Tarnish.”

“Just… observing natural reactions, my ever-inquisitive friend. They are peculiar, sometimes.” Tarnish was leaning against the wall as far away from the coal hopper as possible, a chromatically perfect silver coat that seemed unblemished by the coal dust, an oddly brimmed hat disguising his horn not at all as it poked out of a slit in the front. “Besides, I did not just adjust the wiring.”

“Well, I can assure both of you gentlecolts that I know the mare, and if that room is the seventh one down then she indeed came from there,” Quirk injected, having sat with them, mostly in bored silence, for some minutes now. “And I can’t imagine any fine gentlecolts such as yourselves traveling without some means of entertainment—”

“There’s booze is in a panel to the right and below the hopper, but you won’t want it.” The blackened colt turned to shovel more coal into the furnace.

“I assure you, I am thirsty enough for the vilest of brews. I have known quite a few,” Quirk replied dryly.

Tarnish intervened. “Unfortunately, that is not why you would not want to drink it. He brews it using the heat from the engine, and it is foul enough for my friend here (The coal-blackened shoveler seemed unperturbed by the insult to his brewery, but raised a questioning eye at the word friend), but it is not ready and would prove most disagreeable to your eyesight, sanity, and general health and welfare.”

“Too good for your ‘phisticated tastes,” The dark shadow muttered.

“Thank you, Tarnish,” Quirk said, a suspicious gleam in his eye now kept on he whose primary interest seemed to be shoveling coal. “And may you have many fine brands of less-poisonous poison in your future.”

“You are quite welcome.” Tarnish tipped his hat, and mirrored Quirk’s disapproving glance at the shoveling colt for a moment. His lingered, however; at last he cleared his throat loud enough for the colt to turn his head for a moment.

“Be mannered, and introduce yourself at least.”

“My name‘s Blue.” Blue’s back was turned, completely careless for the conversation.

“Blue?” Quirk asked.

“Blue.”

“You don’t look blue,” Quirk observed. He did observe in Blue’s glance that he did have shockingly light ice-blue eyes, however.

“And yet he is,” Tarnish replied with a measure of curious satisfaction. “Now, where was I? Ah, yes, the wiring. As I was going to say, the lighting is one of the newer experiments that I have made time for in this travesty of an assignment…”

~~~~~~~~~

It did not cross her mind that Quirk must have been hiding someplace for her to have missed him on the way to the front, but he was on Ditzy’s mind as she wandered through mind and space towards the seventh car of the train. She must have been wandering slowly, or Quirk must have been moving with a precise lack of deliberation, because Quirk had passed her with a spying eye.

“Quirk?”

He turned about the rest of the way, giving her his attention and a small amount of well-hidden surprise. He hadn’t expected her to engage him in conversation ever since he had met her, given her reaction.

“Did you and Tick have a conversation about milk and orange juice today?”

“Yes, but it was a trivial thing before you got up.” Quirk leaned backwards slightly, alternatively suspicious and befuddled gleams in his eyes. “Why?”

“It came up,” Ditzy replied simply, her thoughtful expression having melted away into a blank façade.

His glance lingered at her blank look, but Ditzy’s only hidden motive was care, although her dislike of Quirk warped it somewhat. Quirk could only divine the deliberate cover of information, although that still was of great significance to him. He was no novice at hiding reactions or spying them out, and his skills had been in use lately more than they had been.

Quirk turned without comment or hesitation and went back the way he came. Ditzy stopped, sighed, and thought.

What changed to make them so suspicious and guarded towards me?

Granted, she had known neither of them for longer than a week, but it was more than enough for them to set up expected behaviors. She had several nice conversations with Tick, learned a few interesting things, enjoyed herself—but he changed today, something had changed. Quirk, too, had ceased his normally suggestive behavior and had switched to suspicion. She could imagine a reason why.

Tick always hid information from her, whenever and however she communicated with him, but it seemed more of his habit than prejudice. She thought at least that they enjoyed their conversation in that lonely tavern before the incident, and though what had transpired in the cell had been morbid at first, she enjoyed their story and the telling.

Quirk had been strange, seemingly more relaxed, and while she guessed that his general set of reactions strayed more than Tick’s, he had never been suspect of her. She wasn’t about to complain about the recent lack of sexual advances, but he had been aside his unusual self for the entirety of the short day.

And neither of them would give the barest hint to what caused it.

Maybe it was me showing up with Inkie out of nowhere.

She knew well that she had more than a few figures in her past that she would rather not run into again, but the already-met three had seemed to get along well enough for the time that they had talked.

No, it had started before that… For Quirk, it had begun during Inkie’s unforeseen visit when he had shot her several suspicious looks, but for Tick it had come earlier. His reluctance had been there at the very dawn, when they had been at the table. He was telling her his story, right up until she had asked for a more ‘complete’ version of it, as she thought of it. Could it be that Tick was hiding something with his words that he could not while using that most unusual talent of his eyes? She had no way of knowing what resided inside him.

Ditzy could always rifle through the few who knew the brothers in vague attempts to learn more, but that list quickly narrowed to Inkie, who had only known them for a short time, Pinkie, to whom the same restrictions applied in addition to being Pinkie, and Twilight, who didn’t seem to have gotten involved with Tick. Her options led her into a dead end, and so she went with what seemed best, to bide her time and be more cautious, wait for an opportunity that would allow her to see through the haze and the strange greyness of the train-car she had occupied.

She found herself back in that same seventh car now, the lights seeming to have switched back into their normal bands and lengths of color, even though that color was still a dull yellow in the tunnel blacker than tar-covered coal. As she reentered, she noticed that Tick’s partition was closed, but Quirk’s was ajar just so… just enough for a curious mare to slip inside.

~~~~~~~~~

“Were you able to determine if the lights had any side effects?” Tarnish asked, having no more patience once Quirk had entered again into the room.

“You’d be lucky if I could get any information at all out of that mare,” Quirk replied, dissatisfied. “She is very much unusual. However, she is more thoughtful than usual, and appears to be more on-guard emotionally and self-aware in general. Unfortunately for your research, not all of that is because of the lights, but because of… prior actions.”

“A shame,” Tarnish said, staring off in thought. Time in the tunnel passed; Blue shoveled another mass of coal into the furnace and it quietly roared in appreciation. He slammed the grate shut on it; the dancing shadows cast flickered shapes on the various levers near it, and the walls surrounding it. Quirk and Blue seemed colored by it, but Tarnish’s visage could not be changed. He seemed immaculate against the coal-dust and shadows, as if he had some magic about him to never tarnish, quite contrary to his name. Perhaps he was already tarnished so heavily that he couldn’t be made dirtier or cleaner. Miscellaneous thoughts rolled through Quirk’s mind at an irregular pace, as he watched the shadows that were thrown about the room. It was weaving in and out of reality, it seemed, the light and the smoking fired shadows were much the same in this engine-housing room. He stirred himself to action as Blue stretched himself and lay against the grate, his nearly-black mane sending spiked absence-of-waves that would only be overtaken by more diffused ones that had already passed, or passed around.

“So what’s the point of having lights that function as dissonance meters?” Quirk asked, a soft clinking sound echoing before fading into the general hum of wheel on track-rail.

“A thousand reasons!” Tarnish replied, giving a wide gesture that encompassed the room in a grandiose wave. “But really only two or three, and none that I am quite willing to share at the moment.”

“A shame you won’t. We could have something to talk about.”

“Ah, but we could talk about anything.”

“Then start talkin’ about somethin’ real and entertain the rest of us,” Blue cut in, eyes closed and forehooves behind his head as he sat back against the grate.

“Fine, if all of you insist. One of the more demanded technological innovations that has yet to be invented is an accurate Changeling detector, one possible application of said lights. They pick up the miniscule electric waves that the brain uses as signals to communicate with the rest of the nervous system and interpret them by displaying varying spectra of light, from the full that would normally be seen to a grey that should not normally be possible considering the nature of light and the properties of all reflective surfaces. Unfortunately, neither the magic that reads and interprets the waves nor the ways the brain works and produces them are understood well,” he sighed. “It is a very unrefined field of study.”

“What does that have to do with Changelings?” Quirk asked, and Blue grunted an affirmation.

“Well, what little information we have on Changelings is that they are in constant search of emotional fulfillment by draining it from other intelligent beings. Therefore, an unfulfilled changeling will be a veritable black hole of all positive emotion. Whatever negative emotions are possessed will so overpower the lights that they shine until all that can be seen is a solid wall of grey: not an unusual amount of negative emotions, but the complete absence of positive ones lets those negative ones have power,” he clarified.

“At least in theory.”

“So why are you testing this on a train, of all places?”

“That, my inquisitive acquaintance, is a story for other times.”

Blue opened the gate to the fire again, and it roared with anger and a vengeance as he shoveled another heap of coal into the blazing engine, cursing with vigor as he smacked out an ember that nearly caught fire on his coat.

~~~~~~~~

It had been long enough for Ditzy to have gone through every drawer and cubby of Quirk’s space, and she had found nothing—nothing of any value to her investigation, merely a few odds and ends that told her so very little about him. She would have preferred to rifle through Tick’s things; she would have preferred not to rifle through their things at all, but this was her only chance at the moment and Ditzy had no patience left. She had ripped through a notebook and several sheaves of papers, but they were all blank; they revealed nothing but the occasional odd scratch on them. Indeed, they seemed very thoroughly scratched as if somepony had run over them again and again with a blank quill. It confounded her; what was the use of having a blank notebook? There was one set of words inscribed on it: inside the cover it read ‘You have one chance.’

Minorly frustrated with her lack of success, Ditzy stopped and had to remind herself not to make any noise. She was trying to be sneaky, of course, and being caught would only add to their growing distrust of her.

What would she make of it? It was back to the same question now, time and time again, limited information but never enough to reach a conclusion. She looked hopelessly around at the mess she had made of Quirk’s temporary residence, and began to close drawers and move the covers on his bed closer to the state of disarray that they had been when she had come in. She turned around to make sure Tick wasn’t watching her—

A very displeased Quirk was watching her through the open door.

Ditzy worked her jaw in anticipation, no adequate words coming to mind to explain what she was doing. Better to stay silent then say something stupid... She was caught with her hooves in the honey now, and she could not think of the words that would wash it away.

Quirk closed his eyes for a minute, opened his eyes and said with deliberation and a hard, straight stare.

“Explain yourself.”

“I shouldn’t have been looking at your stuff, but… what’s in the notebook?” Ditzy asked, insatiably curious. I can’t get any deeper into this mess. I might as well go on what I have.

Quirk grinned. He was happy... or perhaps not happy but relieved, and nevertheless he seemed to be laughing inside at Ditzy. She was more unnerved by that than if he had become furious, in honesty. She shifted in readiness, prepared to fight or fly at a moment’s threat. His erratic actions kept her guard toward him high; he was comfortable in the uncertainty of others.

“What, can’t you read it?” He taunted lightly, a predator with all the cards.

“No.” Ditzy answered honestly. No point in deceit now, but what does he have planned, what is he even doing... “What’s in it?”

“Everything!” Quirk said, the wide grin on his face narrowing somewhat as his bizarre amusement passed. He walked towards Ditzy, and she very cautiously moved to stay out of his way as he grabbed his notebook up from off the drawer. “Everything I know, at least.”

He moved and stopped in the doorway, and said without looking back.

“You tried to read it; you’ve had your chance. There will be no second one if you do something this invasive against me or Tick again.”

After delivering that rather opaque and ominous promise, he went over to Tick’s door, knocked, and entered. Ditzy was alone again, and she wisely and quickly moved out of Quirk’s space. She sighed silently, deciding it was time to retreat out of the grey-again communal area into her more generously lit quarter. There, at least, she could lie for a while in solitude and try to make sense of the always-maddening world she inhabited.

All that risk, and I didn’t even learn anything about them. I shouldn’t even have done or even thought about it in the first place… the fact that I thought I had to do it was a bad enough sign.

It was a tired and frustrated sentiment, and she did nothing for a time but lie on her bed and stare out the window onto the blank stone of the tunnel. After she had let the stress of the situation drain, she began to consider her recent days, and after consideration felt less morose, even amused.

It was all absolutely ridiculous! It was truly and completely crazy. Here she was, on a train, with two colts she had known for, what, a couple of days, on a mission to venture into a ruined castle in the hopes of finding some books that might or might not have something to do with a smoky ominous threat of Nightmare. She had run into Discord, of all things, again and had pushed him aside like he was a falling leaf on an autumn afternoon. She had been painted inadvertently into and out of a storm and spoken to the princesses and had spent a night in jail. She had explored an underground city and hallucinated strange things after running into an invisible forcefield meant for Changelings. She had a home, she had a happy life now and she was headed back to it now that she had healed.

No doubt, she would still seek understanding of the brothers, and especially Tick, as Ditzy had found him interesting, but she had placed so much emphasis on figuring them out quickly that she had quite overwhelmed him.

I was in such a rush! As if they were going to disappear tomorrow. How could I forget that I’m stuck with them… at least until they figure out this mad thing that Luna has sent us on. I can’t lose myself among the craziness again.

Ditzy would roll with the tides now, dodge the punches of life and let her enjoy herself. She would be home, at last. All the excess impetus had done was cause her to rush into rash and irrational actions. She would slow down and be alright. She would slow down and figure Tick out in time.

~~~~~~~~

Why didn’t I answer her question? Normally, I could have in a respectable amount of time…

“Tick, guess what Ditzy was doing,” Quirk said, having barged in on Tick’s meditation to his complete expectation. He did not prefer subtle entrances around Tick.

“What?” Tick said, one partitioned eye open.

“She was trying to read this.” Quirk tossed over the unusual notebook, and Tick looked at it for a moment before raising a questioning glance and a questioning question.

“Isn’t this what you used to construct your memory palace?”

“The very same. She was going through my stuff, or rather my absence of stuff.”

“Did you threaten her?” Tick asked, unhappily anticipating the answer.

“Just a little bit; enough to make sure she doesn’t go looking down through either of our stuff again.”

“Why did you have to threaten her? Couldn’t you have just asked her to stay out of your business?” Tick swung himself to sit upright on his bed, demanding a reasonable explanation.

“I thought you didn’t care about her.”

“This is an extenuating circumstance, as you well know…”

Quirk shrugged; Tick seethed silently at his reaction.

“It worked,” Quirk ventured, unashamed.

“I don’t know why I ever gave you a copy of The Prince.” Tick muttered, as he dropped off his bed and exited his room.

Quirk just laughed, and laughed, and was probably still grinning at Tick’s disgruntlement long after Tick swung the door on him, leaving Quirk back alone in Tick’s own room as Tick wandered the short distance to Ditzy’s door.

He hesitated for a moment before he knocked, but when he did her voice called “Come in!” and he poked his head inside.

Ditzy was sitting on her bed, looking expectant.

Tick moved inside the room, fully conscious of everything his senses could feel, from the nearly rumbling of the train under his hooves to the way Ditzy was looking at him, waiting for him to speak.

“I’m here to apologize for my brother,” Tick began.

“You shouldn’t be, really,” Ditzy interrupted. “I was going through his stuff, after all. I would be pretty unhappy if I caught anypony going through my possessions.”

Well, that was easy.

“But I was wondering about a couple of other things about Quirk. Do you want to sit down and talk a little bit? I don’t mind if you don’t want to.” She motioned to a spot next to her on the bed. There was nowhere else to sit in the room.

…This is not a good idea…

Tick did his best to let his indecision stay in his mind and not be displayed throughout his body posture, but the ever-perceptive Ditzy caught wind of it rather quickly.

“You shouldn’t feel obliged to talk to me because Quirk said something to me I found rude or offensive. If you were, you would be talking for a pretty long time.” She scooted over on the bed, still smiling and giving him plenty of room and doing her best to be amicable.

Tick knew he shouldn’t be obliged, but reverse psychology had guilt-tripped him hook, line and sinker, up out of his pool of indecision and fully into her grasp.

“Alright, then,” Tick said, as much as to convince himself as her. He sat on the end of the bed, very consciously putting as much distance between them as possible as she leaned against the wall at the other end.

“I was just wondering about one or two things,” Ditzy began. “I’m sure you know by now that I ran into your brother once, or, well, technically two times before we talked. But does he always… hit on mares the first time he meets them?”

“Mostly, yes,” Tick replied, doing his best to avoid looking at Ditzy. “He claims that he can get a good read of them based off of their reactions. I never really agreed with him, but he is as he does.” He shifted uncomfortably.

“One other thing. I was at a concert when I was in Canterlot, and after it was done and everypony else had gone he got up on stage and sung half a song to an empty theater. Do you know what that might have been about?”

Tick swung his head in surprise, gears whirling in his eyes and head, but he had looked at Ditzy in the eye. He felt trapped, he could not break her gaze, could not look away from her; her golden eyes bore into him with the calm intensity that she so casually possessed.

“I don't know," Tick said, half-lying, distracted both by her and the information that he suspected revealed something else entirely. "I think it would be better if you asked him about that.”

“Alright, thanks.” Ditzy hopped off her bed, and walked out her door as it closed behind her, and Tick inhaled, and that was that. She was gone! And so quickly, too: normally she would have dragged it on, but she had moved without hesitation now... What game is she playing…

Tick breathed quicker now; unsure why, he moved off the bed and out the door and left the car.

He was going, and he was going slowly, and his heart beat and his eyes clocked away the instants. He went faster; he headed towards the tail of the train—it was far away—he sped up, he ran now, almost flying. He wouldn’t make it in time, make it in time for what, he rushed down through the cars, passed a bemused Inkie, out—out—he went, to the very end as if only there he could breath, until finally he burst out the last door of the caboose and onto the rails and gasped air—

And the train erupted out of the tunnel into burning daylight as he hit the railing, the radiance magnified to insane intensities by the darkness of the tunnel. Tick cried out, but he did not hear it in his temporary blindness as his eyes were utterly seared, but he could not be stricken by the sun as much as her eyes—

What were the words to describe it? He could not imagine them in the radiance.

~~~~~~~~

Back in the car, Ditzy too was observing the daylight now streaming inside, harmoniously gracing the space with a fuller spectrum of light. She was nearly home now, nearly with Dinky again and a few days where she could hopefully relax. Ah, but she knew better than that. They would be full and busy and would pass quickly, but she would treasure them no less because of it; they would be full of no less beauty to her—she still had today, even. By Celestia’s sun, it was only just now past noon.

Chapter Eight: Where The Heart Is

Chapter Eight

Where The Heart Is

It was a beautiful smell, the sweet life-smell of a branch of a sapling with a little bark carved away, revealing the exuberant young growth underneath. Somehow, it is never too late in the season for that sweet smell to punctuate the air… the life is always present, even in the deadest winter, if only you search for it, if only you can carve away the thickened shell of ice.

It was the fragrance of home, and it was blended on the air with the thousand myriad scents of her sweet town. She was nearly there now; she was already there in her mind, flying away to her house on the thermal drafts so familiar to her, drifting away to her happy little house…

It was all she could do to not stuff herself out the window she had opened and fly away now. Lost in bliss, she barely took notice of Tick stumbling in, wide-eyed and staggering, doing his best and succeeding not at all to look like he hadn’t been part of some dramatic series of events. He sat down at the table facing away from Ditzy, not noticing her in the least, and his starkly open eyes ticked away in time with the ever-so-slight swaying of Ditzy at the window, eyes closed, wings spread, breathing in deeply the rushing air as it flowed about her graceful form.

Time passed gently for both, but only one was enjoying the gentleness; the other was too frazzled and distraught in his apparent solitude to appreciate it. The tumultuous Tick was trapped in some perilous thought; his wits were at the end of their logic; he was unsure of everything in his after-panic. Ditzy was lost, too, but in a joyous way, and she did not think as much as feel Tick’s presence—he still being unaware of her—and the breeze and the warmth and the sweetened smells.

Eventually, the harmonic tranquility was swept away by a darker-colored, soot-tarnished, coughing, smoky Quirk who had stumbled into the room in a vain attempt to enter quietly. Coughing again at the haze that still lingered around him, he retreated to his partition while muttering something that sounded familiar to “Never again.”

Tick took attention of the interruption that time, as did Ditzy, but he did not notice her at the window, and he jumped slightly and swerved about in his seat when Ditzy queried “What do you think happened to him?”

“Knowing him…” Tick recovered from his surprise, alienated still, but working to hide his condition. “He was probably drug into a bet or a contest. And by drug I mean rushed headlong into without having the least idea of what he was getting into.”

Ditzy nodded. That sounded about right for Quirk.

It was strange how life had barreled on for her, just like how Quirk had gone headfirst into whatever shenanigans he was now no doubt contemplating remorsefully, but hopefully he was able to laugh at himself enough to shrug it off. Time would seal it.

Oddly enough, now that home was in sight, Ditzy thought that she would have been fine if the tunnel had been a bit longer, the journey a bit more wearying. For the first stage was nearly over now, and with it came the hints of the end that must eventually come. I’d like to go back to Canterlot sometime when things have calmed down.

The memories that had been made there reverberated throughout her now, and the wonder that had accompanied their passing had been nothing short of exhilarating. It seemed a shame that it should be close to the close, even in the smallest sense. Every time she looked back inside the train, those wistful thoughts were dispelled handily by the amusing thought-image of Quirk cleaning himself up after some unimaginable contest, or the contemplative way Tick was looking back at her, or the promised entertainment of introducing those two to her friends.

The way Tick was still looking at her…

She turned an inquisitive frown at him, curious of his stare. He blinked for a tick’s time after a moment, realizing his actions and the curiosity they had aroused. He turned around from his sideways position in his seat, muttering an apology.

“What were you thinking about?” Ditzy asked, honestly curious.

Tick hardened his mind, barred whirling speculation and emotion from his guise, and said flatly:

“Nothing.”

She let a little time pass, let him flow away into the river of his thoughts, and her own was pleasantly cool and comforting. She had no way of knowing that his was threatening to flow over his banks in a flood and drown him in knowledge that he did not comprehend. She had no way of feeling his confusion, his distress, his frustration, directed all around and at himself most of all.

The train wove the last bit of the way out of the foothills, curving and carving through, and not five minutes later the train would arrive at the station. Ditzy had gone back to her partition now, and as she swept her unusual findings into her mailmare’s bag she considered a few of them.

The first thing she noticed was the envelope containing the stubs of tickets to the trains she had taken and left behind, and the concert that had proven so pivotal. There was actually a time when I thought I was going to go to a beach… to think about that now! It feels so strange of an idea. It certainly couldn’t have been as exciting as her trip had been, but it might have been a shade more restful. Ah, but she wasn’t going to complain about restfulness now. Peace of mind was the best rest, and she had plenty to keep her occupied if she tired of the calmness now.

And then there were the rolls of parchment, scraps of paper really, that Tick had scratched out his thoughts on. How innocent her own thoughts had been during that initial confrontation! Although, perhaps innocent alone did not hold the correct connotations. It was more correct to say that she had been innocent of his thoughts and fears at first, but that was an innocence she had gladly traded away, or at least she would have traded it away if she had had a choice in the first matter.

She dug around in her bag to see if there was anything else, and to her displeasure she pulled out a bit of the stained bandage that had been wrapped around Tick when he had had a broken rib or two, courtesy of an enraged Luna. Why is that in there, anyways? In disgust, she tossed the hazardous scrap into the trash and did her best to stray her thoughts from returning to the subject of the ruinous and ominous destination that she would have to travel to on Luna’s reappearance. Fortunately for her, the train would soon grind to a halt in the station, a few wild sparks flying as the brakes engaged.

She made sure everything was in order, and then excited her room. Soon Ditzy disembarked with the brothers in tow and a tour in mind.

“Here we are!” She announced as she turned about, Tick and Quirk looking around with observant eyes, trying to familiarize themselves as quickly as possible with their surroundings.

I never thought I would get back. Has it been as long as I planned to be gone? I’ve lost track. It won’t matter; I can’t have been gone longer than I planned.

“Small town,” Quirk observed. Ditzy thought him to sound distinctly dissatisfied as he glanced about with a morose air.

“I can’t wait to show you the town, but first we have to pick up Dinky on the way.”

“Who is Dinky?” Tick queried.

“My daughter,” Ditzy replied, and she set off with the brothers in formation behind her. There was a bounce in her step; vibrant animation accompanied her every word as she pointed out places she knew well, houses of ponies she knew, interesting quirks and tidbits of information with the occasional anecdotes about the time the town had been invaded by parasprites, or the time that they thought they had caught a Changeling, and other fascinating but brief reminisces. It was apparent that while Ditzy appeared to be acquainted with most of the town’s inhabitants, she only made significant note of a few.

Ditzy continued on in her lead position, continuing her diatribes and only occasionally glancing back while not really seeing Tick and Quirk. Tick was respectfully absorbing her words, keeping his eyes on the locales as she mentioned them.

Quirk sank further into his quiet, seemingly unhappy contemplation.

Now she was mentioning that while Sugarcube corner had the monopoly on sweets, she made the best muffins and would absolutely not surrender the recipe, no matter how much Pinkie Pie or the Cakes begged.

Quirk looked ill at the world. Tick was paying attention; he was somewhat dazed by the long input of information.

“That’s Rarity’s shop up ahead,” Ditzy continued. “She keeps up with all of the trends in fashion, not that I care much for it, and she is very proper, so please keep yourselves composed.”

She turned about to face Quirk as she spoke her last line, and Quirk gave a half-considerate “Perhaps.”

Ditzy narrowed her eyes threateningly at Quirk. He let out a sick-sounding laugh; it unnerved Ditzy not at all, but Tick took more notice than he had of anything else of late.

She continued glaring for a moment. “If you do something untoward...” Ditzy let it hang; turning back around she doubted her words. What would I do, even? It’s just an empty threat.

Distracted for a few moments by her thoughts, she knocked on the door to the boutique and it swung open at the behest of magic. Rarity was just inside, dispensing some fabrics on a table before she turned to the now-open door.

And the fabrics on the tables, the fabrics in the bins, the fabrics on the walls! Spectacular color and variety placed perfectly, pin-cushioned; performing in vivified shades, hues, from midnight blue to burning orange; draped and hung; half-dreamed conceptions and sashes and cloths being woven, unknown yet to any name or face save she who had made them. They lay and hung in the circular space; mannequins and wire-frames were robed, as if they had been frozen in a moment of animated pose, beautiful and striking, some in frenzy and some with dignity, yet none could hold compare to the maker. Her white-and-purple image was enough of a vestment for her, for though Rarity went without she retained a natural beauty. She stepped closer, examining Ditzy as she exclaimed her thoughts.

“Ditzy! Darling, it’s good to see you again. How was your vacation? Has it been week already?”

“Not quite what I expected, and no; there were some unexpected events.” Ditzy stepped inside. “This is Tick, and this—”

Where did Quirk go?

Ditzy glanced and nearly pirouetted spinning, befuddled with a creeping annoyance at the absence of Quirk. She looked at Tick for an explanation; he too looked behind to see only absent air and a wall. Without the source of the problem to blame, Ditzy continued to glare at Tick, who responded by scanning the area, frowning intangibly, and doing his best not to look at Ditzy as she laid hoof to forehead.

Of course. Something has to happen; how could I forget.

“Is something wrong, dear?” Rarity looked at the peculiar situation with a similarly peculiar mix of slight amusement and concern.

“No, not really,” Ditzy sighed, fooling nopony. “Is Dinky around?”

“I’m afraid not; Twilight just took her home. Or rather, she probably took her to the library and will take her home after trying to convince her that reading is the most wonderful thing in Equestria.” Rarity turned back to face the alternatively messy and orderly piles of fabric for a moment. “Darling, you should really let me make her an outfit. She would look absolutely gorgeous! In fact, why not a matching set for both of you? It would look completely adorable!”

“No, I really don’t think that’s necessary,” Ditzy replied. She’s too young, I don’t need it, I couldn’t ask it of Rarity anyways. I don’t need fluff…

“A shame, dear,” Rarity sighed in her melodramatic fashion. Eventually, her attention turned to Tick.

He had been mute for the duration of the encounter; unknown to the two, he had been keeping an eye on the exit and looked anxious yet unable to do anything about it. She, however, did not act on that out of politeness or her obvious interest, and she soon spoke, shaking him out of his unnerved contemplation.

“And to what do I owe the pleasure of meeting your unfamiliar friend, dear? I don’t think I’ve seen him around.”

“I was traveling through here,” Tick replied, unmoving, eyeing Rarity as she walked almost completely around him. Ostensibly, she was moving to a desk filled with designs, yet she also analyzed his body as if measuring him; her eyes ran over him to his clear discomfort.

“Really?” Rarity asked, rifling through some papers. “Do tell me about it, dear.”

“We really should be going,” Ditzy intervened.

“Ah, I suppose there isn’t enough time in the day. Ditzy, I expect to talk to you later. I insist upon creating something for you two…” Rarity’s voice trailed off as she lost herself in focus and the two travelers exited, the door swinging shut behind them.

As soon as it did, Ditzy turned to Tick and pinned him with electric eyes.

“Where did he go and what is he doing?”

“He will come back,” Tick said affirmatively, but something about the way his eyes tracked the skies behind Ditzy was less than comforting.

“What is he doing and why did he go off without letting us notice?” Her stare increased in intensity, and Tick found it hard to tear himself away from her eyes that seemed to glare with light itself.

“He has an irritating habit of doing this when he needs to think.” Tick shifted, uncomfortable and slightly cowed by her directness. “I wouldn’t doubt his ability to find us. He’ll come back when he wants to.”

I don’t think you’re telling me everything… Ditzy thought, yet gradually she peeled away her angered focus from him. After a silence that left Ditzy focused on the ground and Tick observing her curiously, she started to move again.

She took the lead again, and the quiet was for a peaceful time only interrupted by the soft drumming of hooves on the hardened ground and thoughts rebounding in quiet minds. They had been closer to the center of town, but now they were headed to the western edge: walking into the sun.

“Where are we going now?”

“I have to stop by work to check on a thing or two before I head home. After that, the rest of the day is open.”

Tick nodded, and his thoughts began to shift back to what they had left behind.

Quirk is not well. However, this opportunity… once in a lifetime, they say…

There is a slim chance that the library would hold something of value in this particular study. I did not look for such a thing before: I never could have thought of it, let alone conceptualized… imagined, such a thing. Slim, but it is there, and worth looking into.

Ditzy led him through a nonchalant variety of paths and streets. Towards the edge of town they went, until Ditzy stopped to open the door of a small building that was the mailmare’s office. In the moment before it opened, she wondered about something that she had completely forgotten. Time to see how Rainbow Dash did.

She did not know what to expect when she opened the door—indeed, she had not thought of it at all—and she was pleasantly surprised to find it perhaps cleaner and more organized than she had left it. I must have made an impression on her more than I realized… of course I did; she got me the tickets after all. Ditzy moved amongst the boxes of mail and sorting tables, examining her workspace. The amount of space in the room suggested it was cramped, but the well-ordered arrangements provided enough comfort to avoid any sort of claustrophobia.

Critically eyeing her workspace, Ditzy started to notice a few small things, a couple of insignificant errors that Dash had left or caused in her week’s tenure. Her heart was into it, but it’s probably for the best that she’s a weather pegasus. Dash was not the most resplendent mailmare. She had left behind a few mistakes, but it wasn’t remotely close to beyond fixing. It was only a few minutes of work, and Ditzy set herself about correcting the issue.

“Tick, can you move some of those boxes for me?”

“Sure.”

A few minutes later, Ditzy was still moving things around and rifling through cabinets, doing more than she had planned but less than she would like. Tick helped where he was asked but mostly observed, and eventually Ditzy was left with a small pile of letters that would wait until another day.

“It’s not always like this,” Ditzy mentioned as she finished. “Normally, I’m out delivering the mail, but there is enough sorting, paperwork, and packages to keep me tied up here for at least a bit of the day.” She paused, and then glanced at him. “You said you were a historian. What’s that like?”

Tick took time to think, eventually settled his stare on the paneled-glass window. The white borders and patterns of wood lattices cut the glory of the setting sun, letting the burn-light fade and the soft-light wash over them. It was a turn of the sun, a turn of the moon, a turn of the tides. It swept its way through their minds and washed them cleaner for a while; they were polished by thought until they shone in the softness of night. Ditzy nearly lost herself in the scenic quietude before Tick responded.

“I think you would say I was self-employed, or at least self-occupied. I didn’t often find myself in need of money. I was a wanderer, as I told you earlier… Quirk and I were always trying to find a place for ourselves in the world, and in that long process I discovered that I wanted desperately to be a scholar of some sort. Fortunately, I eventually found that hideaway in the library that you unfortunately knocked me out of, and so my dreams are now stalled.”

Ditzy watched quietly, unsure how to respond to the apparent blame, but he was not finished.

“I suppose it was for the better that you did run into me.”

She watched him stand by the sliver of the sun and stared at the eyes clocking around in their sockets. Had his eyes flashed, if only for a moment? There was nopony else there. What is he thinking? That was the perennial sentiment in her mind and it only grew over time; indeed it had been nurtured ceaselessly since she had first met him. She gave him peace, but her patience crumbled under the well-meant inquisitiveness and took a meditated guess into his wonderings. All she could see now was the sunset sliced by thin veins of black and his dancing eyes before it.

“Well, I was wondering more about how your days went.” But I’m certainly not going to complain about you telling me that.

“Oh, that.” Tick shook his head for a moment, clearing his mind. “Ah, the royal library was fairly exciting in its own way. Plenty of room to explore, think, get lost, read; I hadn’t even begun to scratch the surface of the place and I had been there… eight months? A year? It seems nice around here. What are your days like?”

Ditzy cocked her head for a moment, but only a moment. She had not expected the reciprocal question. “Busy, for the most part. I work every day, but I get a fair amount of off-time if I want it.”

The hour was beginning to fall, the sun still shading the horizon with night imminent.

“We should probably get to my house before it gets any darker.”

Tick nodded and Ditzy lead the way out of the ordered room, maneuvering by boxes and bins and tables until they were out the door. It was an average degree in the twilight, a dusky affair, and she was surprised that the rest of the day had decided to flee so quickly. Perhaps her tour around town had gone on for a bit too long, or perhaps she had talked a modicum more than was necessary, or perhaps she had been merely having enough fun to discard the knowledge of the passing of time. Ditzy thought the third most likely.

The path that she took to her house was the same she had taken for many days, yet it was more than solitary now; the difference in her routine brewed thoughts in her as she spared the occasional eye to see her tourist.

Apparently Tick had been brewing a thought or two as well.

“So what makes being a mailmare so complicated?”

“Didn’t you see all the things I have to sort through!? And then there’s the routes, the priority system, the packages, time constraints, quality expectations, the list is infinite. I have to do all of that myself, delivery and everything else. I have to handle feedback and paperwork and unrealistic expectations. I have to keep that building clean and make sure it doesn’t explode every time something juicy happens and everypony just has to send mail to all of their closest friends and relatives when they could take five minutes to go tell them themselves. Normally, there would be at least one more employee or the mail office wouldn’t handle packages. I could go on, but I think you get the point.”

Ditzy did not look back at Tick as she walked, and eventually he asked another question.

“What was that about something exploding?”

“It’s a bit of a story. Maybe later; I think Twilight has a book on it you could borrow.”

Left only with more questions, Tick decided to reserve them.

Ditzy turned off the path a short ways to what could only be her house. Tick paused at the doorstep.

Before he could resolve whatever bothered him, the door was open and Ditzy was inside, looking out at the hesitant pegasus.

“Waiting on something?”

“No, sorry.”

Tick moved inside, and Ditzy closed the door. Tick reminded her then of a very previous event, a past purple awkwardness who had since come closer to heart, and she thought it odd that he should be uncomfortable in her house. They knew each other, did they not? At the absolute minimum, they were acquaintances; she would venture to call him a newer friend at least, although that might be ambitious. Certainly she was comfortable around him, even if the opposite might not be true.

Dinky burst around the corner, and with an ecstatic squeal leaped at her mother, who caught her and held her with an embrace more powerful than words. The ecstasy of the daughter mirrored that of the mother: the tight embrace held them. Eyes closed, locked together, the warm feelings seemed to transcend their bodies and pass directly between them.

“Don’t go away again, mom,” Dinky pleaded.

Ditzy flushed; as she put her wide-eyed daughter down, she simultaneously spoke and looked at Dinky directly.

“Don’t you worry about it; I’m not about to leave again.” Ditzy then faced her quiet guest, and Dinky’s glance followed.

“This is Tick, a friend of mine. He’s going to stay with us for a couple of days.”

After staring at her mother a moment longer in hopes of further reassurance, Dinky bounced up to him with an unabashed look of curiosity, and he watched with a more subdued measure of that same emotion. Having captured Tick’s attention, she looked at him from a variety of angles with the same flat, analytical facial expression before she boldly declared her findings.

“You have funny eyes, like mom.”

“Dinky! You shouldn’t call people strange, you know that.”

“But it’s cool, like a clock!” Dinky protested, but Ditzy’s gentle condemnation had put an end to it.

Meanwhile, Tick finally discontinued his silence. “I don’t mind.”

Ditzy watched, trying to determine if there was any well-meaning deception, but Tick appeared passable. He’s not completely comfortable… but I don’t think he’s about to do anything drastic.

“Alright. Tick, the guest room is down the hall and to the left. Dinky, remember that if he asks you to leave him alone, you have to leave him alone.”

Dinky silently pouted for an instant, and Ditzy hugged her close as she looked at Tick. Boxing her child’s ears for a moment, she whispered: “Don’t let her start playing any games with you unless you want to be occupied for a long time.”

Tick nodded, and Ditzy surrendered the room to head upstairs to hers.

Dinky and Tick will work themselves out. She trusted him not to do anything untoward—well, at least for a few minutes—and Ditzy herself had worries now. A darker pallor had cast a shadow in her mind, and it was best that her daughter not see her worry. It would only taint her enjoyment of the new and exciting days to come.

The hall was warmly painted, the wooden floors insulated, and the warmth in both senses could not pierce the curtain draped around Ditzy’s mind. Up the stairs, at the end of the passage her room lay. It was comfortable; the sheets on the bed white and silken, the pillows immaculately embroidered; the lone window faced where the sun would rise in the morning. She had a writing desk in the corner and a rare book or two about for when she would read; the closet was mostly unused with only a spare uniform or two inside. Above the bed was a singular work of art: a painting in contrasts and shades of light, pigments unreadable in the darkness. It had been the last room she furnished. It was not a large space, but it didn’t need to be: as long as she had owned it she had been the only one living in it. The sheets and fancy pillows had been a part of a gift from somepony she had once disapproved of but now appreciated. She thought it strange how it had all worked out, but that is another story. Altogether, it was cozily enclosed.

I wonder how Luna will arrive without grabbing the attention of everypony in town. I shouldn’t dwell on this bizarre mission we’ve been tasked with. I can only worry about it, not do anything useful, can only wait.

Mercifully soft moonbeams illuminated the room, and she opened the window to let the night’s breeze in. There was a candle by the bed, but she declined to light it. Strange, how in the impassioned light everything was insurmountable, yet in the dark peace was there, albeit sometimes tainted. Still, it seemed better to her now than any sun.

She imagined Tick for a moment, imagined seeing only his eyes in the absence of light; she was so close to the communion of minds and still tantalizingly distant. Only in the night now could she remember what it had been like. It was so… ephemeral…

Ditzy began to think again of an excuse to find that experience again, if only for the sake of wonder.

~~~~~~~~~

Perhaps you can help me.

So Tick thought as Dinky poked him incessantly, trying to draw a reaction out of him. Dinky continued to poke his foreleg for a while, but at least it was silent and eventually she stopped poking him altogether.

And perhaps you will only distract me.

“Hi,” Dinky said again, as she had before she had begun her barrage of pokes. Tick had responded with a simple ‘hello’ the first time she had spoken, but his lack of continued conversation or movement of any kind had bored her into action.

“Hello,” Tick replied, as if nothing had happened. He had not yet moved since he had walked in the door and declined to do so. He had been watching Dinky and pondering how she might mirror her mother; admittedly he found the child’s efforts to test him somewhat amusing.

Dinky’s small face scrunched in thought, and Tick hid a slight grin at her failure to draw a reaction out of him. She sat back, remaining in such a pose for several short seconds. Then her expression broke into epiphany and she asked with excitement:

“Wanna play marbles?”

“Sure.”

I’ll play your game a little longer. Perhaps we will both learn something.

~~~~~~~~

“So how do I play?”

“Easy,” Dinky said, a bag of glass globes opened on the floor. “Hit the marbles out with the other marbles.”

They had moved on into another room. The furnishings were more than staid and less than extravagant: a slightly worn couch, a window with curtains of an unusual fabric, a resilient carpeted floor, walls painted in pleasant calm colors with the occasional painting. On the floor was a circle Dinky had set out with black string, and at the other end of the circle stood Tick, listening with the peculiar and pleasurable fuzzy feeling of learning as Dinky explained the game.

“You hit them from outside and you try to knock a different one out, and if you do you get to go again, but if you don’t the other pony goes…”

Dinky finished her short explanation, and with a nod from Tick she scattered the spheres and they began.

It was a cosmic contest, tiny little variables and variances of the flattened floor and curved connections of breaking, clacking, clinking worlds that somehow remained without cracking. Every last subtle detail played into consideration, and minutes in and marbles down he felt outmatched. Soon Tick felt his chances might be better if he played blind, for Dinky was beating him severely.

“How am I supposed to have fun if you win by so much?” Tick asked lightly.

Dinky grinned wily, energetic and pleased. “You should be happy because I’m happy!”

That’s an odd thing for a child to say.

There were many in the circle, and then there were two less, and it was his turn again. He chose a red sphere, crimson and flourishing, and he sent it spinning straight, but only succeeded in missing entirely. She chose an aquatic globe, a blue-green curiosity, and sent it at a light yellow earth near the edge and it knocked it to the center, quite contrary to what both had expected. Her mouth scrunched into a surprised expression. Tick, absorbed into the game, saw the opportunity and seized it.

He sent a great black marble blazing after a deep purple one; striking with great force the black knocked the purple in the opposite direction he had expected. No matter, it would still exit the circle at great velocity. At least, it would have. There was a barrier of the deepest blue, so blue it was nearly black, and it stopped the purple’s exit and cracked, jagged but whole.

The unusual sharp peal of the glass shook Tick out of his absorption. What am I doing? I’m wasting my time… and I knew you would distract me.

Oblivious of Tick’s sudden self-annoyance, Dinky continued the game.

She hurled a sun of red and orange and white clear to the edge, straight to a black marble with a chaotic white stripe through it. The sun rebounded, but the striped marble moved anyways. It went in a strange curved pattern around the centered marble, as if it had gravitated to it. It was teetering on the edge, perilously close, and neither could tell if it remained or not.

“I don’t think it’s out,” Tick announced, far from certain but doing his best to sound so.

“Yes it is!” Dinky exclaimed, standing up in objection.

“If we can’t agree, then we can’t play.” Tick looked her in the eyes, inflexible.

His matter-of-fact tone wrought a quick change in Dinky, so quick that he felt the unexpected urge to retract his words. Her face immediately sank, eyes downcast; her ears drooped as she flopped down pitifully.

Tick turned to leave, dismissing his emotion. He paused in the doorway—the tugging persisted—and he hazarded a glance back. Dinky remained in her sad state, dejectedly staring at the half-emptied circle. The trepid Tick walked back over, and in a moment’s time raised his hoof—paused in indecision—and patted her on the head awkwardly, comfortingly. Her eyes blinked, looked up, and she was on the verge of smiling when he retracted his gesture.

“Can we play later?” Dinky asked, neutral.

“Yes,” Tick replied, and then he walked out of the room. His brain felt fuzzy. He was dazed, a sensation he had not felt in a while. He had lost his sense of place; the house felt strange, alien to him.

I have no time for sympathy. I need to start working.

~~~~~~~~

In time, Ditzy escaped the ravages of the future by choosing to engage in the present. She had left them unattended longer than she had planned, and soon found the two, engaged with actions she found rather interesting as she spied around the corner.

She saw the last remnants of the game—she saw him stand, the hesitant hoof, and she was glad she had not left them unseen and alone. The sympathy had been endearing, cute, though plainly awkward for him, and she retreated a ways down the hall so as not to give the pretense that she had witnessed it.

Tick walked straight down the hall, a little lost and not noticing Ditzy at all until he nearly ran straight into her, startling himself.

“Do you need anything? Is your room alright?” Ditzy asked, surprised at her eagerness. She hadn’t had the opportunity to host another in her house before, and especially not in such an unexpected manner.

“I, ah…” Tick said, suddenly desperate for an escape and looking at Ditzy with what she could swear was caution. “No. I mean, the room is fine, and I don’t need anything,” he finally finished.

Ditzy nodded, and Tick passed her by and shut the door behind him, leaving her alone in the hall.

You are very strange, she thought, and she could hardly restrain her curiosity enough to find Dinky and put her to bed.

Despite Dinky’s usual protests, bed was a straightforward affair for the two. Ditzy found her daughter, told her that it was late, which was followed by the expected refusals to move and declarations that it wasn’t late at all. Without a second thought, Ditzy scooped her up and carried her up the stairs. Once the two had gotten over that precipice Dinky normally subsided in her protests, but tonight was proving slightly more difficult.

“But mom, I didn’t finish the game with Tick!” Dinky objected, squirming as Ditzy tried to tuck her in.

“You can do that tomorrow or another day, my love,” Ditzy reassured as she lost a tiny bit of the infinite patience she had for her child. “But you have to go to sleep first so you can rest and be ready.”

Dinky’s face was a silent pout, but eventually she surrendered and Ditzy laid a soft kiss on her forehead before exiting.

”Good night…” she whispered as the door closed.

And may I be here for all of them.

The wish-thought left a disturbing silence in her mind, and she retreated back downstairs hastily, although she knew not where she could retreat to.

When will I know what I’ve gotten myself into? What does this mean for her, and what am I going to do? I can’t leave her… not even for a few days; I would die; it was hard enough for me to decide to leave on a vacation and even then I couldn’t stand to stay away. I can’t let go of her when she needs me…

Despite her earlier promises to not hopelessly worry herself over the matter, Ditzy found herself pacing in her living room as her frantic questions remained unanswered. Eventually she stopped her spiral of worry, and her thoughts shifted. Circumstance and will conspired to distract Ditzy from useless thoughts. She ceased her incessant pacing, and forced herself to consider the other now residing in her house.

How is Tick going to occupy himself? Especially if he’s here for more than a day. I can’t imagine him wanting to stick around here. Dinky might have fun, but she would probably exhaust him quickly and I can’t be sure that he won’t do… something weird… yet. I’ll go ask him what he plans to do and give him a little more information about places he might like.

The thoughts had her wandering down the hall, and soon she interrupted his solitary space.

~~~~~~~~

… As to what she did in my mind, beyond the one point where she almost attacked me, there’s no telling. That was simply Quirk’s theory in effect, perhaps. In any case that part was unremarkable. Quirk and I, we fought so many times, physical, mental; that was not different. She has to remember; she has to know what she did!

Tick laid in the dark. Before the light had faded, he had scrounged together some writing tools from the small travel bag he had carried with him and put a few initial thoughts to paper on the insanity that was occurring. He did not know the location of his translation, or any of the books that had been uncovered now, and he was suspicious that Luna had unscrupulously disposed of them. He remembered small bits and pieces from the history and had preserved them, the only vanguard he had against Luna’s mysterious insistence on destruction.

But I can’t ask her… can’t let her know. She is unpredictable… and powerful, when she wants to be.

His thoughts had rapidly turned to Ditzy, and the hesitation in the shadowed scholar only caused more uncertainty in turn. He knew that he would enjoy talking to her, and saw potential in her questions, but thoughts of her quickly turned tremulous, nervous.

Tick could only link it to the unexplainable reaction of their minds’ meeting. That was the crux of the whole matter.

I need a mirror so I can see this again, if only vaguely. A mirror and to go back to that library. I have to look for something about this. Surely I can’t have been the only one to possess this kind of ability, or anything similar to it, although that is entirely possible…

He sighed, and the smallest light from under the door reflected in his ever-moving eyes.

Sometimes it is a burden to have nopony like you.

But Tick would not let himself rest on melancholy thoughts. There were many more important things for him to do, and despite the barriers—the late hour, the trappings of the house, and his own wearied mind—he continued his thinking. Stubbornly, his mind did not leave the past behind, and he let the echoes of that past union wash over him again. It was very nearly a guilty pleasure, although he still remained a semblance of analysis as he tried to label it. Perhaps it is the exact opposite of Quirk’s theory. It was… an interesting experience, he thought.

He did not admit to himself that he had enjoyed it. Both that thought and the thought of the thing itself scared him. The thing that had struck him was beyond comprehension, beyond his imagination, and the possibility of a similar encounter in the future terrified him as much as the academic question intrigued him.

Yet in the softness of the dark, his fears were lessened; with no sight to distract him he could focus.

Playing with the possibility tentatively, he stared at nothing as his thoughts wound their slow way towards the owner of the house. Tick was still uncomfortable looking her in the eyes: it scared him, he finally admitted. It was too close to the merging of minds, but still he was drawn to her.

She is very intense.

Even though he only thought it, it still sounded flat to him. Even if she doesn’t show it, there is a lot of emotion in her.

It would be useful to know what she thought of that encounter.

~~~~~~~~

Ditzy knocked on the door. She wasn’t sure that that was the right way to go about it, given her inexperience in all things guest-wise, but she figured it was the courteous thing to do.

“Tick?” She asked, not loudly, with hesitation. The door remained an impenetrable barrier.

There was a shifting of the bedsprings, but no acknowledgement came. Ditzy cracked opened the door, inching it open, and by degrees she saw Tick sitting up on the bed, wincing at the light. She hadn’t woken him up. He was blatantly wide awake, restless. His eyes moved to look at her, and then they both looked away. He looked down, and Ditzy off to the side, and she almost forgot the reason she had disturbed him. I feel like I’m intruding in my own house. It was yet another awkward moment before she spoke and the two found some eye contact.

“I was wondering what you were doing—”

Tick felt his insides run cold for a moment, heart pound at the irrational fear. His dread only lasted for a moment.

“—Because you might be here for a while, and I thought you would get bored. I’m not going to be around the house that often, with my work and all.”

“I wasn’t really doing anything,” Tick replied.

Ditzy did not let the silence last long. “Well, I figured the thing you would find most interesting is Twilight’s library, but if I remember correctly you’ve already been there. It’s not that far from my house; to get there—”

As she had spoken, Tick had begun staring at a spot just to her left, out into the hall. Ditzy noticed it and passed it off for a few moments, but his blank stare continued at the spot behind her. She glanced as she spoke, and then looked back again. Dinky was bouncing in place with a wide smile, looking straight back at Tick and unaffected by the now-two blank stares focused at her.

“When are we gonna finish the game?” She asked excitedly, stopping her bounce. Breaking out of her surprise, Ditzy quickly scooped up her daughter and carried her back up the stairs.

“Dear, I’ve told you that when you go to bed, you stay in bed…”

“You can have that marble!” Dinky called out, voice receding up the stairs.

The uncomfortable pegasus slid off the bed, glancing around the room. The unexpected break in the conversation let him recuperate some of his wits, and about two minutes later an aggravated and slightly ruffled Ditzy appeared again at the open door.

“I think she likes you,” Ditzy announced as she enters, her exasperation draining out into her words.

“Understandable.” Tick nodded. He was collected now, at least visibly. She could not penetrate him with a stare now, see through him plainly into his odd confliction.

“So you ended up playing a game or two with her,” Ditzy put forth. “I’m sorry about that. Her coming down, I mean, not the game. Normally, she’s well-behaved… just know that she doesn’t like to give up on her games.”

“It’s not important; she didn’t irritate me.” Curiously, Tick seemed devoid of the uncertainty of only a few moments earlier, yet hints of it still lurked in the depths of his eyes.

“Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Ditzy looked at him differently, as if she was sizing him up. He had regained his composure in her minutes of absence, and now they were on equal footing. She spared a glance back down the hall and out a window, and saw nothing. Sudden and irrevocable exhaustion struck her; the minor irritations of the day combined with the mental strain of having Tick thrust into her personal space destroyed any thought of conversation.

“Maybe it would be better if we had this conversation in the morning.”

Ditzy left before she could see Tick’s reaction, far too tired to delve as she wanted.

I’ll talk to him later. In the morning, maybe. I didn’t ask him anything, no business or pleasure, but tonight is not the night. I just want to hear of you…

She was home. Yet her adventures had barely begun, and her troubles were not about to end.

Chapter Nine: Irregular Logic

Chapter Nine

Irregular Logic

Tick was accustomed to sleeping in the gentle darkness of a starless night. Even the crack of light under the door was enough to wake him in a few minutes time. It was a blissful hour of sweet nothing, lying among the rumpled sheets; at least it had been until Ditzy knocked on his door and requested his presence at breakfast. Then he had been jolted back into present memory. It would be another couple of minutes before he rose from his stupor, but for now he was thinking over his surroundings. He had never really stayed in a house before, at least for any amount of time. While his current residence was about as precarious as possible—Luna could return at any moment—he found that it had a solidity to it, a realness. The care of mother for daughter and the other way around was so thick that it was tangible: he had heard them banter a small bit, play in the early morning hours, and from what he had seen of Dinky he guessed her to be well-nurtured.

Yet the disconsolate darkness in his mind, now ever-present, did not let him rest on the niceties close to him.

Tick had not heard them for some time now, and he guessed that one or both had gone off. In the absence of those distant stimuli, he sank into thoughts of a less pleasant variety. He remembered again Luna’s rage, and he felt the ache again where a rib had been broken. He moved to sit up as he thought, and there was a sharper ache.

It’s not completely healed.

But a comparatively small hurt wasn’t going to tear him from his course. Tick’s thoughts turned to his books, the books that had been found and lost again, the books that held an immeasurable wealth of knowledge… a very dangerous wealth of knowledge. And then Ditzy had touched that knowledge. His thoughts had circled back to his pursuer-turned-host, and the bizarre mingling of the issues only served to keep him farther off his guard.

Why did I even let her in the second time?

The answers came to his frustrated question soon enough: the after-effects of the alcohol, the desperation of the situation, the inability to communicate properly… yet none of that served to satisfy his feeling that he had allowed the curious mare an insight into the issues that now plagued him.

Still, it was reasonable that she had deserved an explanation. She had been insistent. Above all, Tick felt vulnerable before her, as if she had seen straight through him, which she had of course. His thoughts whirled for an unusual while about what she thought of him, what she thought of the melding of the minds, that first time, that first, singular moment that had stripped him bare, if only for an instant. Ditzy could have seen anything in that moment, anything at all.

Tick wanted desperately to know what she had gleaned from that moment.

Wait—why do I care what she saw? I have nothing to hide. Her being touched by the Nightmare… that is something I can hardly blame myself for. In any instance, she seems not to care about it.

Yet his reason rang discordant against the irregular logic of his emotions. He feared her in a way that he found inexplicable, irrational, yet simultaneously he was not afraid of her at all. Ditzy wanted to know more about him, that was plain, and no doubt he had reciprocal curiosity. Restrained, minimal reciprocal curiosity.

The light under the door at last drew his eyes, reflecting as they shifted in his sockets and with the odd internal movements that so fitted his name.

Tick could only move forward.

~~~~~~~~

“It’s good to see you’re up. I was about to make sure were there at all. I should have something ready for us to eat in a minute.”

Ditzy’s measured words received no immediate response as she fiddled with something behind the counter, only rarely and subtly glancing up at Tick to analyze his reaction. She didn’t need to, because Tick remained in the same position, staring blankly at the table.

Take off the mask… I want to see you again.

Ditzy did her best to restrain her desire to talk, to prod. She sat down opposite him at the small table, a couple of pieces of toast laid absentmindedly on a plate. It wasn’t a very large kitchen, but it had suited her and Dinky’s needs adequately.

Tick remained silent, but grabbed some toast and munched silently, consumed in quiet thought.

Why are you so uncertain in my house? Why are you so hesitant around me now? What is it about you and your brother that made you roam for years? Are your parents alive? Do you even know? Why did Quirk leave us behind? How did you get along with Dinky so well, despite barely knowing her? Why don’t you take the time to explain this whole mess with Luna, even if you don’t do a good job?

Why don’t you want to talk about what happened those two times with your eyes?

I barely know you.

Ditzy then realized she had been staring at him, intensely, relentlessly, for several minutes. Tick was visibly more nervous, although he was not prone to acting rashly on such things, and he continued eating. He hid it, but not well enough to escape Ditzy, who always watched other ponies closest of all things.

Tick blinked. Ditzy had only realized her stare when he had looked back at her.

“Um,” Ditzy began, wanting to immediately end the awkward situation, “I figured you’d like to know how to get to the library, since I’m going to be gone most of the day for work. Unless you wanted to go somewhere else…”

She let it trail off, and then went back to her barely-eaten breakfast in a vain attempt to return the conversation to normality. All desire to interrogate Tick drained in the quiet aftermath.

Well, I certainly can’t make better impressions on him.

“That would be best.”

Ditzy nodded curtly, abruptly standing and taking her plate with her back to the counter with the pretense of discarding it.

“I can get there without help.”

“Are you sure? It’s really no trouble at all.” Ditzy avoided looking at Tick, keeping the residual awkwardness out of her voice.

“I don’t need the help,” his voice replied, a little edgier.

Be that way, Ditzy wanted to respond in her irritation, but she remained courteously silent. She watched as she cleaned the few dishes in the sink, her face calm, her face a mask. In moments, Tick was finished and the front door shut behind him.

The clock moved on around in circles, until half a minute had gone by.

Patience.

Ditzy launched herself out the door on an alternate route to Twilight’s library.

~~~~~~~~~

It was not an uncommon occurrence for the occasional quiet pony to come and go through the outer rooms of Twilight’s library. They would peruse the books, perhaps seek out a particular one, or leave a query for Twilight if they had a certain publication. At times, her friends would visit her, but Twilight’s studious habits usually had them moving any social occurrence to another location. Most visits to the library were unintrusive, unhurried, and quiet.

Ditzy was none of those at the moment.

She strode through the door hastily; had she not thought to grab the door at the last instant it would have slammed against the wall, booming. Tense—quick she looked around the entryway, and in another moment’s time she called out. “Twilight!”

Ditzy’s eyes locked on the door to her friend’s study, and the rapid firing of her thoughts only drove her on faster. Halfway to the door, Twilight opened it.

“Ditzy! I haven’t seen you since you left; how was your vacation? Shouldn’t you be at work by now?”

“That’s not important right now. I need you to do me a favor,” Ditzy said straightaway. Twilight cocked her head curiously, and the agitated pegasus continued without a halt. “There’s a pegasus coming who has been here once before. He can’t know I was here, and I need you to tell me everything that he looks up—”

“Slow down! What’s this all about? Am I spying on him? I don’t think I understand what you want me to do,” Twilight responded carefully. The perceptive librarian examined Ditzy as she looked over her shoulder, tension’s energy clear in her. Twilight had known Ditzy for about two years now, and not all their interactions had been casual. Yet that experience did not afford Twilight a glimpse into Ditzy’s mind besides her strange behavior. Ditzy respects privacy. What’s making her act against that? And is she nervous, and not just energetic? I haven’t seen her nervous since I first met her….

“This is something that’s very important,” Ditzy pressed, eyes straight and direct, locked, unrelenting as she tended to be when she became interested or invested in something. “Tick can’t know, and there’s more to this—”

“But you must, under no circumstances, give her any detail of your mission…”

Ditzy mentally cursed, limitations compiling themselves as time’s barrier weakened.

“—more than I can tell you. He’ll be here any second, and I have to leave.”

“Ditzy, what’s gotten into you?” Twilight paused, puzzled, looking over the frantic mare that now acted so differently from what she had known.

“I’ll explain later, if I can. I need to leave now.” Without further ado, Ditzy dove back out the door and left Twilight in a mess of confusion.

What?

Twilight looked around the doorway, disoriented by the randomness of the encounter. Ditzy had left her a conundrum; not an unexpected thing to Twilight, but she had also left the orderly librarian behind a great mental muddle of hints.

If there was anything to irritate Twilight, it was disorderliness.

She closed her eyes and sighed, shaking her head slightly and closing the door.

I trust you, but you always leave me such a mess behind to sort through…

~~~~~~~~~

Twilight stood amongst the books of her library, intimately familiar with not only the physical, but also the mental landscape. Each tome was paper, bindings, ink, but it was also a vast repository, a world of its own. They were stacked and sorted around her, the comforting weight of knowledge granting her a needed pressure and focus for her to concentrate. The mysteries of the world and the mind were by far the ones she found herself enjoying the most often. Yet the most elaborate mysteries were those that came of flesh, fur, and sometimes feathers. She had learned, after all, of the mysteries of those constantly-shifting others, her friends. No doubt she enjoyed and appreciated those just as much.

Twilight had known Ditzy for almost the entirety of her life in Ponyville. By all records, Ditzy was the last one to arrive before Twilight arrived to the cacophony of the summer sun festival. Twilight had proven instrumental in turning Ditzy to her better nature. What resulted for Twilight is that she became Ditzy’s first friend in the town and her only confidante, if only in a limited capacity. She had always been a more reserved pony, in Twilight’s experience, but once she had taken an interest in something she pursued it with vigor.

And so you dive in again. I just wish I knew what you’re trying to do; I really don’t prefer to go about this without his knowledge.

Rifling through one of the many shelves of the library, Twilight’s expression furrowed for a moment at a menagerie of misplaced titles. Sighing, she rearranged a few books and then dropped the venture as her thoughts refused to stray from the one that had experienced so much and told her only small bits of it. The books flowed through her mind without effort, content unimaginable reviewed in an instant until she simply flowed, tore through them, voraciously, yet she still caught everything, every detail. Her mind wrapped up the knowledge in packages, comparing, analyzing, evaluating, and the purity of thought transcended anything Twilight had experienced. On, on to another shelf, another rack of tomes; she dove through the knowledge until her eyes passed the physical realm and she lost herself in ideas, the shape of concepts themselves apparent to her and as clear as day, and they shone with the clarity of life itself.

The manifest ideas played and danced before her eyes, and at her leisure and curiosity she constructed and manipulated them, changed them, sought ever newer thought among the ancient menageries. Knowledge for knowledge’s sake was her credo, and the moments sank away in her contemplative rapture.

It was glorious.

It was what she lived for.

But…

It was not the only thing she lived for.

Slowly, Twilight retracted herself from the phantasm of thought, and her mind returned to her curiously distraught friend. She breathed, and the breath sounded loud and sharp to her in the stillness.

Then a knock on the door ripped her fully out of the flow of the mind.

That must be Ditzy’s… interest. I had better go let him in.

Friend did not seem the right word after how Ditzy had gone about it. Twilight found herself at the door soon enough.

~~~~~~~~~

Tick did not appreciate the parallels of his current visit and the one that seemed so far in the past, but rang so close in his history. He was not free, least of all in his own mind, and so he could not rest.

The door opened wide, and Twilight’s blank face narrowed as she identified Tick.

“You left quite a mess the last time you were here,” Twilight stated.

Tick had no excuse, so he remained silent in his constrained agitation.

The moments passed while Twilight stood, a barrier in the doorway, looking out at Tick. He was on the steps slightly below her. Despite the past annoyances, Twilight found his expression a curious thing: he was anxious to come inside, displeased to have found a confrontation, yet unwilling to speak.

“I’ll let you in if you can make sure you put back in order what you get out.”

“My last visit was an irregularity,” Tick replied, flat, short.

For a few more seconds, the two scrutinized each other. Twilight was almost amused at the spectacle, still wondering what aim Ditzy had; Tick could not notice in his disturbed state, unconventional eyes still locked on Twilight yet failing to discern her retreat from sternness.

“Just make sure you keep things in order. Enjoy your visit,” Twilight said courteously, and she walked off into the recesses of the shelves, leaving the open door and a mildly surprised Tick behind.

Maybe Ditzy did something to irritate him and now she’s trying to make up for it. He doesn’t seem comfortable and he’s definitely agitated. But her own nervousness… there’s definitely a lot of things I don’t know here, a lot of things that I’m going to have to ask her about later.

Twilight glanced back, and she saw that Tick had already dived into another room, intent on finding something.

Most of the books were housed on the lower floor of the library, composed of several rooms layered thickly with shelves freestanding and carved into the walls of the great oak. Twilight had meticulously categorized, organized, and reorganized the sections in her few years there, but she was never quite satisfied with it. Her friends had somehow acquired the irksome habit of putting her in a continuous state of disarray, which she found irksome. Nonetheless, she maintained it excellently, and it was not hard at all to find particular things in the town’s library.

Yet it was not so much finding something as finding something to find that Tick struggled with.

What to even look for first?

The question hounded Tick as he passed through the shelves. Dual desires battled inside him, whether to search for another like him in the vast tomes of yesterday or to find more about his game with Luna, his debate on the nature of knowledge. Yet there was a third desire that he kept in check, that threatened to overturn easily the other two.

The mounting racks of books surrounded him, and he felt for the first time uncertain among them.

I don’t know where to start to find a debate on knowledge. And what would such a gift as mine be labeled, if it has existed before at all? It’s all a matter of terminology, and I know not the words…

Tick grimaced and shut his eyes, and reminded himself that he did not let impulses rule him.

Ever since Luna… but no, it started later than that, this pressure…

Tick heard slight movements, and he shook himself out of his ill reverie.

“Can I help you find anything?”

Caught halfway between a no and a yes, Tick instead opted for silence as he turned. Twilight stood in the archway of the round room of shelves, observing his intransigence.

“No,” Tick finally said, the word emerging from his mouth with a thick reluctance.

“Well, I know this library better than anyone else if you do decide you need to find something. Why are you here, if I may ask?”

Twilight’s casual, friendly tone accompanied her full entrance to the room. She made her away over towards Tick, scanning the shelves as she did. Tick felt an intense suspicion towards her, brought on by his now-chronic mental uncertainty. And that’s perhaps the most loaded question she could ask.

“I had nothing better to do,” Tick replied, staring at a blank spot on the shelf in front of him.

“You don’t live around here, do you? At least, I don’t think I’ve seen you around, except for that one time about a week ago. Are you new here?”

“Leave me.”

“Well, forgive me for letting you use the library after you trashed it a week ago and then asking a few polite questions,” Twilight bit back, her eyes narrowing for a moment of sarcasm.

Tick sighed and bowed his head, still not facing Twilight, sounding more irritated than penitent. “Forgive me. I… have had my share of troubles recently.”

I might as well use her; make use of my time here.

“Let’s start over then. Are you new to town?”

Why do you even care?

Tick shook off his residual annoyance. “I was just passing through town; I’m staying for… a couple days.”

Twilight nodded understandingly, despite the fact that her particular town was quite out of the way compared to the nearby hub of Canterlot. “Are you staying with anyone? Perhaps they could show you around while you’re here; Ponyville isn’t the biggest town, but it has its attractions.”

“I’m staying with Ditzy.”

Twilight’s eyes widened for a moment and rapidly returned to normal. Tick only saw a flash of it out of the corner of his eyes. He looked sideways for an instant at her, his eyes at a slightly quicker tempo than normal, and looked back away, instead skimming the spines of the well-kept tomes.

Ugh… why did I do that, can’t look them in the eye when I’m so worked up, too dangerous.

Yet even that admission of inner tension only strengthened it.

“I know Ditzy,” Twilight blurted out quickly after several quiet moments. She looked as if she might retreat for the next few instants, awkwardly glanced about, and then continued. “I actually know her pretty well. I was one of her first friends here.”

The sudden torrent of memory struck Tick, the thing he had left to escape coming back to him all at once. The melding of minds hissed through his consciousness, and after a long moment of grinding indecision he finally spoke.

“Tell me about her.”

It will be useful to know.

Or at least, that was what he told himself.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ditzy ran her usual route.

Yet her thoughts were unusually focused on other things. Despite the monotony of the route, she ran through it swiftly: not hastily, but surely her concentration was slipping on the edges. There was, after all, quite a lot for her to think about.

After some consideration, she had decided that it would be good for her to ask Twilight about the predicament she was in, despite the delicate dancing she would have to do around the subject. The clandestine expedition that she was now a part of demanded secrecy; the concerns of her home overrode any inhibitions she would have against Twilight accidentally finding out about the matter and incurring Luna’s wrath. Why she had asked Twilight to observe Tick was a multifaceted answer: her worry for her daughter exceeded any emotion she now possessed.

I have to know, I have to know what I’m doing and what I’ve gotten myself into. I can’t leave Dinky alone, if something happens… I know almost nothing about this place I’m going—what I’m actually doing—and the reason I’m stuck with it. They were talking about this Nightmare like it was some sort of threat, but what’s actually happening? I haven’t done anything crazy!

Clouds and flaring light flashed through her mind, and she winced.

I didn’t actually do anything… and that was before I met Tick, so how does this Nightmare thing even make sense? Luna said that we were tainted with knowledge of it, but how… and there was that moment in his mind, but the thing that happened afterwards—strange, so amazing of an instant, and how could either of those be related…

That’s why I need to figure this out, because it doesn’t make any sense to me. Because the sooner I can get these complications out of my life, I can devote all of my time to here, to Dinky.

There was but one neighborhood left for her to deliver to, and then quiet boughs awaited her.

~~~~~~~~~

“Ditzy isn’t one of the stranger ponies I’ve met, but she does have her quirks.”

The inadvertent play on words startled Tick, but Twilight did not notice. She was examining her handiwork of organization as she walked, trying to phrase her words carefully to avoid invoking Ditzy’s sensitivity about her past.

“She hasn’t lived here for too long; I think it’s been a little over two years. To make a long story short, she made a bad impression on a lot of ponies and had to work to reverse it. Further back, she wasn’t particularly lucky in life, but that’s not my story to tell.”

What else could I tell him? Ditzy usually is curious about other ponies and getting to know them, but she tends to be selective in who she’s interested in and what she was acting suggests that there’s something outside of him that’s important. What it could be, though, is completely unknown, and given how Ditzy has acted so far it’s probably something severe…

Twilight glanced at Tick unconsciously, who was waiting patiently.

…where was I going with that?

Having unceremoniously derailed her train of thought, Twilight stood awkwardly for a few more seconds as she regained the thread.

“Er,” Twilight faltered, “did you want to hear anything else about her?”

A strange mask of restraint faced her, holding in some unfulfilled urge. In her social stammer, Twilight didn’t notice the controlled grimace.

“No,” Tick answered. Twilight did catch the odd hardness of his tone, but made nothing of it. “I’m looking for a lexicon.”

“The reference section is down that way, on the left, organized by topic and date,” Twilight replied automatically. “Looking for anything in particular?”

“Not really,” Tick replied brusquely, and he vanished down the corridor of tomes.

But how can you go through reference books and not be looking for something specific? Twilight caught the words before they left her mouth. Do you just want to get away from me? That’s a possibility, but I don’t think I did anything to annoy him. Either way, he was quick to run. I hope Ditzy can make sense out of this, because I can’t. Although, she might be interested to know that he asked about her a little. And there’s still this thing that Ditzy said she would ‘explain later,’ the reason she’s asking for this strange favor in the first place…

Twilight sighed, and rubbed a hoof on her forehead. She would figure it out soon enough, she promised herself, but for now she had plenty of her own work. Unfortunately for Tick, he had incurred her interest; and that was something more alike than different between Ditzy and Twilight. The difference was that Twilight held a much more rigorous, scientific view on the matter, and she would not cease observing the secretive and unfavorable Tick until exasperation overcame her.

Twilight nearly let herself retreat to her room, but her eyes narrowed as she looked down the racks of books into the unseen sections of the library.

I really ought to have a right to know what you’re doing in my library.

Technically speaking, it was not ‘her’ library, but she let that minor obstacle slip away as she tread carefully through the rows. Twilight had let him wander for a few minutes in her thought, but it was no race. She knew the library better than any soul that had ever lived, could navigate it blind (as long as it was in her precious order), and could rather sneakily move through it if she wanted.

Twilight crept through the shelves punctuated by windows, the daylight accentuating her need to move without sound. The shelves of the reference section filled the walls; many were freestanding, and she took her time moving, looking behind her, checking for signs that Tick had perused some volume or left it out.

Around the corners she went, and Twilight thought she made not a noise. The silence was exceptional: she could have heard a page rasp at the opposite end of the library.

He has to be in this next row. Process of elimination; he can’t possibly be anywhere else.

Standing parallel to the freestanding shelf, she poked her head around—just enough to glance—her eyes widened; she walked into the spot she could not believe, confused.

How can he not be here? He can’t have gone anywhere else!

She pivoted around, still suspicious, eyes shooting around, and caught something on the very edge—the very top of her vision—

Twilight looked up to the top of the shelf she had been peeking around, and Tick was on top of it.

With a hoof to her face and a grimace, Twilight didn’t quite catch his expression as he spoke. Tunnel vision, argh. How could I not think of that? He’s a pegasus…

“Perhaps I should have been more definite when I said I was not looking for anything in particular. I’m not looking for anything in particular, and anything I might happen to find I’m not inclined to share.”

“It’s only because I let you in, very nicely, that you’re able to look at all,” Twilight bit back, acid in her voice.

“I thought this was a public institution.” Tick kept himself from sounding inflammatory, but it was apparent he would not shy from an argument.

“I’m sure I could find something in the rules about it,” Twilight replied, but she found herself at too much of a loss to continue.

“I could hear you from three rooms away…” Tick muttered, and he dove down the opposite side of the shelf.

Twilight paused, her pride wounded, and after a few moments of undignified silence she turned and left.

~~~~~~~~~

Smarting still, Twilight was returning to her room when she heard a soft knock on the front door, a subtle echo from the other room.

Twilight wandered back to the door, wondering if she would get anything done that strange day.

“You’re off early,” Twilight stated quizzically.

Ditzy’s eyes darted from one end of the room to the other, securing confidence that they were isolated. “I worked quickly.”

Twilight stepped aside to let her in, and they retreated toward the upstairs of the library.

Ditzy’s visits had once been a frequent fixture in Twilight’s life in Ponyville, although they had decreased in number as time went on. When Ditzy was less of an accepted name about town, she had often spent her spare time at her once-sole friend’s library. Twilight had tried to engage her in different interests even as she explored the town, and had found that Ditzy, while intelligent and clever when she wanted to be, was not an academic pony. By Twilight’s evaluation, Ditzy was neither introverted nor extroverted: rather, she was more aligned in the middle. She was not so much focused on thought as on others’ thoughts, and Twilight suspected still that she could find some match among academia for her. That was a dream put on a shelf for now, but as they ascended the stairs Twilight toyed with bringing the idea into her mind’s workshop again.

“Is he still here?”

“He’s downstairs.” Twilight had led her off into one of her studies, the room dominated by a large telescope. Ditzy paced, impatient. It was not something Twilight had seen often out of her: ever since she had become more comfortable in the town, she had not often displayed tension or stress visibly. Ditzy’s eyes wandered about the room insatiably for a few moments, and then locked on her with the familiar penetrating gaze that Twilight knew well.

“What’s he been doing?” Ditzy asked, having expunged most of her anxiousness. Motionless save for the eyes that tracked Twilight, her sudden stillness provided a sign.

She was worked up, or she’s still worked up, and she’s just subverting it for now…

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Twilight shrugged. “In fact, you could probably guess more accurately than I could. He asked a little about you, and then he asked for the reference section and left right away. He was a little rude, to be honest…”

Ditzy’s brows furrowed slightly. “What did he ask about me?” She added under her breath: “why would he ask about me at all?”

“Well, I imagine that’s because he’s staying with you.”

Ditzy, displeased that Twilight had heard her, rubbed her head and muttered something unintelligible.

“What?” Twilight asked, honestly curious. “I just asked if he was new here, and he said he was staying with you.”

“It’s nothing,” Ditzy replied, slightly relieved. “I thought… Nevermind.”

“Thought what?”

Ditzy glared for a moment, but her glower did not dissuade Twilight in the least. “I thought you had mentioned that I was asking about him.”

“Did you really think I would do that after you asked me not to?” Twilight managed to keep the sarcasm out of her voice, yet Ditzy was ruffled regardless.

“He just asked about you in general and I responded accordingly,” Twilight volunteered, letting Ditzy’s suspicions slip peaceably away. “It wasn’t much… the whole encounter wasn’t much, actually. We probably didn’t talk longer than three or four minutes.”

The stressed Ditzy, having been calmed somewhat, nonetheless kept her focus sharp. “I need to know what he’s looking for.”

“Well, that will be difficult, unless you want to look over his shoulder as he’s reading.”

“You wouldn’t do that, would you?” Ditzy muttered, in a way that left Twilight unsure if she was sarcastic or not. She thought for another second. “What exactly did he ask for when you directed him to the reference section?”

“He asked for a lexicon, but—”

“What’s a lexicon?”

“You might get to find out if you don’t interrupt me.”

“Sorry.”

Instead of continuing, Twilight paused. The mare in front of her was impatient, apologetic, insatiably curious, seemingly sarcastic, and persistent. It was altogether a mix that made her awkward in a way that would be amusing in retrospect, but she recognized another emotion. Hidden, behind and beyond it all, fueling the gold eyes.

Ditzy worried.

And Twilight knew well what happened when Ditzy let her worry overtake her, for she was nothing if not a mirror of that process. That was one unfortunate thing they shared, despite their differing interests.

“Before we go any further, I think you need to tell me why all of this is going on.”

Ditzy did not respond.

“Ditzy, I know you better than anypony else does, at least that I know of, and I know that you’re worked up. I know that there’s more to this. It wouldn’t make sense otherwise. If—”

“If I could tell you…” Ditzy hissed. She closed her eyes—looked down—walked away a few steps. Twilight, tempered by experience with the sometimes-volatile mare, wisely kept her distance.

I have to be careful. “What’s keeping you from telling me?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Can you tell me anything about it?” What’s wrong with her?

Yet Ditzy could only feel the fury building.

~~~~~~~~~

There was one object in the mind of Ditzy, and it obscured all else.

That blue-black barrier stood straight, unmovable, shutting out all light save for sinister shining slits that composed her eyes. She stood between Ditzy and Twilight. She stood between Ditzy and Tick. She stood between Ditzy and Dinky. She blocked out the sun, a cascade of shadow and frustration.

Yet the rays of the sun cut still through her regardless, and the barrier’s insistence only seemed to strengthen it. And the rays of the sun cut with vengeance, cut with hate. Ditzy felt the blood thump in her veins and the muscle tense, the emotion coalesce into something great and terrible. The rays of the sun cut straight through to her, and the blaze fueled her hate of the darkness. She was blind, blinded by the burning light.

The one object remained, but all she had to do was push it aside…

“Ditzy?”

No.

“Are you alright?”

Breathe.

Ditzy opened her eyes, the shock of the soft light of the room dizzying her. Nearly hyperventilating, she stared at the opposite wall. Twilight, unseen, continued to talk, to pull her out.

I can’t hold on to my anger anymore…

Ditzy turned, eyes barely seeing, breathing heavily, barely able to see the floor. Twilight finally walked over, put a hoof on Ditzy’s shoulder, and reassured her.

“You don’t have to tell me; I know you’re angry and stressed out, but I just want you to know that if there’s anything…”

You have no idea; you don’t know anything about it, but you’re the perfect pony for it, and they insist on keeping you out of it, on keeping me away from her…

“… just tell me and I’ll do my best to help.”

Ditzy’s teeth clenched together, yet eventually she was able to unlock her jaw.

“Thank you.”

Ditzy, stiff, walked out of the quiet library, and found herself minutes later among an avenue nearly as quiet.

Years… I thought, over the course of years, that maybe…

I should have asked what a lexicon is. I’m just missing opportunities left and right; I get a chance and fail through my own faults…

She sighed and shook her head, feeling the dregs of adrenaline drain out of her blood.

My own fault. No pony else to blame. Just have to keep going.

Home was on the distant horizon, and there she knew, at least, what was waiting for her. Respite, a rest, a peace she had earned despite her problems.

This is my home.

~~~~~~~~~

Dinky anticipated her mother’s arrival as she squinted up at a clock high above her, its perch on the wall of the kitchen an infinite distance away. She knew somehow that her mother loathed to leave her alone, and often arranged for her to have things to do in her few hours’ absence each day, but inevitably there were times that Dinky was left alone with nothing but her imagination and a few toys. That was more than enough for her, though. Still, the diminutive Dinky sensed a slight irregularity in the way the clock had ticked on for a few minutes more than the usual.

Yet somehow she knew, and not a minute later she saw her mother approaching and ran to the door. Dinky bounced quietly in place, anticipating, wound like a coiled spring.

The door opened, and the tired mother appeared. Her hair was slightly disheveled; some of her mane lay across an eye; it was plain that she was worn out. She silently watched her daughter with a small smile as she went from energetic bouncing to standing still, grinning widely. The sharp contrast between joy and the almost-sad smile passed them both by without a thought.

“Hello, my love.”

“Hi, mom!”

Ditzy stepped inside, and the warmth of the home enveloped her as she retreated to the kitchen with her daughter, mind wandering between food and her child.

“How was your day?”

“I was going to make something for you, but then I did something else,” Ditzy heard her daughter begin as she rummaged through the pantry.

“Hmm.. What were you going to make me?” There was a moment absent of sound save Ditzy shifting things around in the pantry.

“I didn’t think about that yet.”

“Maybe you should do that first, then.” It was too early for dinner, but she had foregone her lunch in the rush of the day. She wanted the time with her daughter, time with her wonder. The child’s world was perfect, and Ditzy loved her all the more for her imagination. How could she not love her child; innocent and energetic were her bywords. It was peace profound for the mare who had seen too much of the world.

I’ll think of something later or go out… it doesn’t matter.

“So what did you do instead?” Ditzy queried as she gave her daughter her full attention.

“Twilight said that I should read a book, so I tried to read the books on the bookshelf, but they were all really hard.” Slightly downcast, Dinky glanced to the stairs.

“We can go by the library…” Ditzy paused. “In a few days, to get some books for somepony your age,” Ditzy reassured her. “Those books are all books for grown-ups.”

The bookcase referenced was located at the top of the stairs, and was occupied by a small menagerie of books that Twilight had gifted her. There was not a great deal of them: just a few classics that Twilight had thought she would enjoy and a couple of subjects that she had tried to interest Ditzy on. The subjects Ditzy had not taken to, although she had enjoyed some of the classics reasonably. She had not expected her daughter to rifle through them, but Ditzy supposed that even occasional contact with Twilight was enough to inspire vicarious reading. It should have been a good thing—Ditzy heavily encouraged her daughter to do well in school—but the reminder now served to tire her.

After a few moments of silence, Ditzy nodded to herself and Dinky wandered off to play. After minutes of rest, she thought: Now, what do I want to do?

Interacting with her daughter was always her first and foremost option, but she knew well that she was tired and that keeping up with any child’s active imagination was an ambitious endeavor, and she reluctantly consigned that option for a time when she had more energy. It has been a long time since I’ve read something. Maybe there’s something going on in town… being gone a week has its detriments.

The thinking only served to make her realize how weary she was, and the idea of a nap seemed more and more attractive to her. It’s so early in the day for a nap, she objected, yet it had not been that long since her trip had concluded, and her nights then had often been filled with sleeplessness. Oh well. A few hours of getting my sleep back won’t kill me, especially when I can’t do much else.

She was only afforded half an hour of rest until knocks on the door woke her.

~~~~~~~~~

Stumbling over the building blocks her daughter had left in the living room, grumbling lightly to herself and wiping the blurriness out of her eyes; the not-yet-rested Ditzy was sure whoever was outside could have waited a few more hours.

She opened the door to find a soft sheet of rain covering an undisturbed Tick.

Ditzy blinked, and for a moment her thoughts went off on wild tangents. The rain had been coming down in light sheets rather than thunderstorms as the summer had faded into fall, and the clouds casing the sky like a shell had provided her a respite from sunlight during her nap in addition to coating the land in a quiet shadow. Tick was seemingly unaware that he was now sopping wet, and as Ditzy stood, unmoving, thinking, he grew more awkward.

Is he not bothered at all that he’s been walking or flying through the rain and I kept him waiting outside? He looks completely at ease with the fact that he’s soaked, and he must have started out after it started; why wouldn’t he wait a few minutes for it to blow over? I guess he’s used to it, because he wandered for years…

Tick shifted minutely.

Oh, crap, I haven’t let him in.

“Do you want anything to dry off?” Ditzy asked as she stood back while holding open the door.

“Yes.” He sounded tired, or perhaps aggravated. It was difficult to tell. In any case, it was not the rain that bothered him, for he wiped himself off with hardly a care for the gesture when Ditzy brought him a towel. Tick looked keen, eager to be doing something else, but what was unknown. His eyes slipped around and away from Ditzy, avoiding any sort of contact, and her attempts to remedy the quiet were met with deliberate denials.

“Did you manage to entertain yourself in the library?”

Tick looked at her warily, as if the simple question was a barbed spear. “I managed.” He handed back the towel, and Ditzy was careful not to look at him when she asked her next question.

“Were you looking for anything in particular?” Ditzy asked as she folded up the towel.

“… No.”

“Well, it would have been nice to have something to talk about with you. I enjoyed talking, even though I ended up getting wrapped up in all that mess with Luna.”

Abruptly, Ditzy left.

Tick’s gut twisted.

He stood there for a few moments more, mind subverting strange, alien sensations. Tick turned back and found the room Ditzy had assigned him, and shut the door against the light of the house and the startling clarity.

He locked himself in the room, the cell, the cage.

~~~~~~~~~

The rain had since died, but Ditzy’s desire to furnish herself with rest had not ceased. She did not find it: the world conspired to keep her busy and her mind assisted by turning over the events of the day incessantly. The second time she heard a knock outside, her attitude was much less patient and much more disgruntled.

The fact that it was Twilight who had appeared with an air of vague worry did even less to assuage her mood.

Tired and unhappy, Ditzy faced Twilight. Her friend of some years was examining Ditzy, permeating her own caution and worry. There was something wrong, clearly, both of them knew it, yet Twilight could only guess and poke at the matter.

“Ditzy, I’m worried about you. I haven’t seen you act this mad in long enough to make me fear whatever’s happening to you. I know you well enough to see that there’s more about Tick that’s bothering you, because you’re going about it so indirectly. I watched you figuratively bowl over a few ponies just by your sheer interest in them, but this…” Twilight paused, reflected, and Ditzy kept her face of stone and ice.

“I know you were depressed before you left. Everypony who cared knew, but you wouldn’t tell any of us why. Now you’ve come back, and you’re almost acting like your old self at times—your really old self, I mean; before you were friends with anyone.”

Twilight stopped again, and with slight irritation watched as Ditzy’s face changed not at all. Concern swallowed her annoyance, though. She continued, picking her words carefully.

“I could not trust you at all if I wanted to. But I do trust you, Ditzy. I trust all my friends; otherwise they wouldn’t be my friends. I just want what’s best for you, and so if there’s anything at all you can tell me about this…”

The friction of opposing thoughts heated Ditzy’s mind, yet she had already extinguished all ardor that day. Her vision was cast in grey.

Then the urge to tell everything, say it all at once wildly shook her, and Ditzy grimaced and looked away from the friend that cared so much for her, the friend she could only hurt in the moment.

She won’t believe me if I tell her nothing is wrong. She’ll just take it as denial. I can’t tell her about this insanity and the reason why is a mystery!

Twilight watched, wounded. To her, the picture was very clear, unfortunately unambiguous.

For what she saw was a friend that was disgusted at her care.

For what she saw was a friend that mocked her concern.

For what she saw was a friend that was reverting into something of hate.

Quick, all the thoughts of the things she knew about Ditzy had been like when she had first arrived, of the few times that Ditzy had told her of her miserable earlier years, of the sad and regrettable moments she had reverted and struck out against those she thought were tormenting her struck Twilight. Yet Twilight was not so weak, and did not falter at the first impression of how her volatile friend acted.

“Ditzy,” Twilight said firmly, gently, agonizingly, clear yet unsure. “I don’t know what you’re thinking at all. I still want to help you with your problems.” Twilight’s speculation ran rampant, but she had learned enough to keep a handle on her own emotions until she found irrevocable proof.

“There’s nothing in a book that can teach you how to deal with ponies,” Twilight continued, keenly aware of how clichéd she sounded, but finding no other option. “I learned all of that through experience only, and I learned it the hard way more often than not. I’m not going to let you be this way.”

And you’re thinking, but not saying, that it would be for other’s welfare as well as mine…

“I’m sorry about this,” Ditzy replied honestly, yet she found herself unable to face Twilight cleanly. “It’s all been blown out of proportion. It’s really not such an important thing…”

The lie grated her, but she managed to finish.

“… But I really need to know if there was anything in particular Tick found, or was looking for.”

Twilight was silent long enough to make Ditzy wonder if she was now as transparent as the window to the living room had been the first time she had seen into Ditzy’s life.

“I’m glad that it’s not that big of a deal,” Twilight began, measuring her words. “But my response to what Tick was looking for is the same. I really don’t know.”

She knows, Ditzy thought, and the thought was filled with joy and fear, dismay and sickness. She knows I’m a liar.

“Thank you,” Ditzy replied.

Twilight looked at her funny, but did not find words to reply with. She left in silence, and the tension in the air spilled over as Ditzy closed the door.

I can’t live like this…

She back-stepped, staring at the door, seemingly in shock.

I can’t do this to…

Ditzy turned around and the shocked flashes of gold met the fear of the monotone blur.

But her sickness overwhelmed her at that moment, and she passed Tick by entirely, fleeing up the stairs, into the bathroom, and threw up.

I can’t lie to her, after what she’s done for me.

~~~~~~~~~

Tick, though hardly a part of the proceedings, was struck by fear.

In the cage of the room, suffocation had come to possess him. Thoughts of the union haunted his mind, and the failure of his searches compounded his maddening emotions. Yet first—above all—there was what he had heard. Ditzy had been asking about him—but not quite him. It was more than he could have asked for.

It was something he would never have asked for.

The first strands of intrigue he had set when he had touched her mind now swirled around him, and the strands others cast now tangled the web, narrowing around him, threatening to strangle him. Surely it was not so macabre; yet it was, he knew, for Luna remained in the mix, and unknown forces besides. Things had slipped out of his control. His thoughts had slipped into others.

Beyond a doubt, Ditzy was playing games.

Still the fear that he could not name, the fear of her, gripped him. Tick had expelled himself from the cage. There was nothing he could do there and so he did not tolerate himself being there. His drive had barely overtaken his caution.

Tick’s searches had ended in failure, and after a while he had been forced that his efforts in the library had been for naught. While philosophy was a subject that he had some small experience in, the particular type of discussion that he had been seeking eluded him. He had found several lists of unusual and bizarre marks, but there was nothing that mirrored his, nothing that told him what he needed to hear. Yet the search he had subverted had been the most successful. The thought that she might know, that she would be able to give him the key to understanding what had happened between them was insatiable. He had attempted to squander it with the rest of his strange irrational urges of late.

So he had forced himself out of the room, desire and reason agreeing for once that nothing was going to get done alone in there. Unsteady, Tick had not yet decided on a course of action, and then he had heard them; he had heard them talking about him.

Before he could react beyond surprise, it had ended and she had flashed past him, lost in a mess of webbing. Slow seconds passed, and then one thought dominated all.

I need to get out of here.

Tick threw himself out the door, but something stopped him from going far.

Interlude: Flights of Fancy

Interlude

Flights of Fancy

Childish adventures are by no level of reasoning any less real or meaningful than the ones that ‘grown-up’ ponies have, although perhaps those who are older derive a bit more from them. Dinky had been having herself a grand adventure, as was usual for her. She had wandered back to her own house through the midday roads and fields; the friend or two that had been accompanying her had left, but it was of no consequence to any of them. Now she was occupying a niche under a tree; she stretched out and contemplated a nap as children profess not to want yet occasionally partake in.

Then there was something—a movement—the boughs of green patterns above she examined with a new intensity born of imagination and curiosity, but she found no object and her interest faded. Full-flighted and with only the slightest dulling, the leaves of the tree were weathering the summer and the summer’s heat with magnificent durability. Dinky thought she saw another difference in it this time; and with the familiarity of a short lifetime’s span spent near the branches she attentively eyed the slow-rustling limbs.

There was a flash of grey: not a moving grey, but a light color that was rather sitting quite quietly still in the branches with the leaves waving around and over and under his form that was so tightly clutching the limb he lay on. She could and would not derive much from his unusual habitation, but instead initially attempted to shimmy up the tree to see him better. After a failed attempt or two and having fallen a few inconsequential inches, she satisfied herself by grabbing his attention.

“Hi, Tick!”

He might have moved amid the tree’s extremities, but Dinky could not tell. Tick certainly did not opt to respond.

Her first maneuver thwarted, Dinky took a more critical look of the tree trunk, consisting of a scrunchy face and a soft, analytical ‘Hmm’ sound. She decided that it was surmountable after all and clung to the middling-thick tree once again. She might have fallen more than a few inconsequential inches the third and fourth time, but she recovered quickly without damages. Trials rapidly rendered triumphs as she found herself dizzyingly off the ground, clinging to the trunk-and-branch connection and just behind Tick.

He appeared to stare into a leaf not an inch from his nose. Carefully, with a wobbling determination, she walked as if on a tightrope onto the branch that he lay on. Tick had still not responded, choosing to keep his eyes and attention on the lone leaf. She waited patiently by his tail for nearly five seconds—an infinite turmoil for an impetuous young child—and then spoke.

“When are we gonna finish our game?”

Dinky received no response, and disappointed she became downcast for a moment’s time. Quickly, her face brightened with a thought, and she abandoned all sense of manners or proper composure and clambered atop his still back.

Tick seemed to have no objection to her standing on top of him while he rested on the tree branch, yet he resisted the urge to shift and allow her to tumble.

“I liked your eyes. Why won’t you look at me?”

There was a quiet, cool and peaceful breeze blowing; she loved the atmosphere and the sense of unruly danger but she would have traded it away for another game of marbles, another time to spend with him truly; although this was nice too. She flipped over onto her back on top of his, adjusted herself so she laid impromptly upside-down to his right-side-up, back to back; she stared at the green ceiling and thought of meaningful things.

“You’re not as comfortable as mom, but you’ll do,” Dinky assured him. She lay her head back so she could see the leaf he was apparently staring at, and found it not very intriguing.

“Have you ever had an adventure, Tick?”

He remained softer and quieter than the rustle of the leaves, and answered not.

“I had an adventure once. It was kind of scary, but fun at the same time. Maybe it was fun afterwards, but I don’t remember it being fun during it. We went all the way to the edge of the Everfree forest, and we even thought that we had gotten lost. That was the worst part, even worse than when we thought we heard a timber wolf a long way away. I didn’t like feeling lost; I thought I would never get home again and never see mom again. We found our way back eventually, but it seemed like a long time.”

Tick could feel her shift around a little bit on top of him, her nub of a horn poked him gently the slightest bit as she did, yet her thoughts were ever as impenetrable to Tick as her mother’s. The tree, and this its inhabitants as well, swayed gently in the breeze for a peaceful period of time. Dinky waited what she felt was an appropriate amount of time, then spoke.

“I don’t remember ever having a dad, just my mom. You seem pretty nice, will you be my dad?”

Tick yelped in a panicked manner that seemed quite unusual and convulsed suddenly, startled; the next thing Dinky knew she was falling through branches, plummeting by leaves; she saw the ground, but mercifully she had no time to process it. If she had, she would have been consumed by fear and preemptory pain, but now she was suspended—floating—

Tick had swept out of the trees and caught her before she could horrendously crash into the ground, and he swiftly—gently—set her on the ground, upright, before he disappeared back into the branches.

“You could have just said no!” Dinky called, not angry or negative in the least but still processing the frazzling event. She walked away, completely undamaged physically, yet there was a hint of sadness playing about behind her eyes and below her nose. Soon, she was out of sight but far from out of mind for the far more shell-shocked ‘participant’ in the conversation.

~~~~~~~~

It was a long flight, but it would pass swifter than what seemed reasonable. Luna was engaged in the most important expenditure of her time in her two years of return, yet all foresight had turned to hindsight, contrary to her demanding circumstances.

Luna’s relationship with her sister was of a unique nature. They had lived for the span of a hundred mortals’ memories in each other’s presence, yet change kept them on edge. No, there was no perfection in it; it was always a work in progress. Their rule of inner law had been crumbling, evaporating, and now they could only vainly attempt to reach out and touch the other’s mind.

And so, once split asunder…

Celestia was fading in her sight; even the connection when they were close had become ethereal. Yet she was still there, only Luna’s perception could be erroneous—or maybe it was Celestia’s, or maybe their powers had weakened. It was strange to them, magic being such a natural piece of their existence, that they should not understand the powers moving through and around them. They had become familiar to the touch of magic, and as it had once been familiar to them, certain things were now lost after a thousand years ripped apart.

The warm summer’s night was a star-struck one, very little of what once had been her crescent moon was left visible, but she could see all of it despite the absence of light. Behind her in her silent flight were a small number of guards, servants, attendants: their purposes were manifold. They were not a necessity, but they would be useful for what Luna had in mind. Yet Luna’s mind was not so clear a place anymore, and her thoughts wandered from a dream to the heights of a mountain to a curtain of blackness that could not be pierced…

The cold night air streamed around them, yet it was not quite as cold as her as they descended from the mountain.

Chapter Ten, Part One: The Past Is Immutable

Chapter Ten, Part One

The Past Is Immutable

It was a sign of the late summer that the moon should rise while the sun was still in the sky, and its silver cascades were for a few hours stifled. Ditzy had spent most of those few hours tormenting herself over her actions, yet the thought of a moment’s blur had gradually drawn her out of depression and into action.

Ditzy left her room a while before dusk began to ascend out of the shadows the sun cast. The rhythmical eyes, the incessant tempo piqued her interest again; she walked carefully through her house, at first cautious and curious, now confused and suspicious at the absence of her guest. As Ditzy searched with a disappearing patience, she encountered her daughter dragging a rather large amount of cushions and pillows on a blanket.

“I’m gonna make a fort!” Dinky announced at the sight of her somewhat-reserved mother.

“Just make sure you don’t take the pillows out of the guest bedroom,” Ditzy advised, not in the least surprised by the sight.

“Can you help me make it?” Dinky asked, dropping the edge of the blanket she had been carrying as she looked up excitedly at her mother.

“I’d love to, but in a little bit. Have you seen Tick?”

“Oh, he’s outside in a tree,” Dinky replied as she grabbed the blanket again and started to tug it down the hall.

Ditzy paused for a moment, hoof in the air as if about to take a step, but the curious answer stopped her. Why would he be in a tree at random? “Are you sure he’s in a tree? It might have just been your imagination…”

Dinky dropped the blanket again, gave an overblown exasperated sigh, and grabbed her mother’s hoof. “C’mon, I’ll show you,” she said as she tugged the slightly confused Ditzy down the hall.

Dinky opened the door for her mother, who had by then put aside her usually tumultuous emotions for a few moments of simple observation. Ditzy watched her daughter bounce outside with simple curiosity, and the foal wasted no time arriving at one of a few large trees sporadically planted around the small, quiet neighborhood. It was on the edge of their lawn, and as Ditzy slowed her approach she tried to spot the phantasm Dinky pointed to in the shifting leaves.

“See! He’s right there,” Dinky exclaimed, pointing at some vague spot among the shadowed branches. Ditzy squinted, but only for a second. The grey of his coat suddenly leaped out in sharp relief against the darkening green of the leaves, and she thought aloud:

“Tick?”

In the tree, eyes flashed open from sleep and then slammed shut.

“I told you he was in there,” Dinky said triumphantly. A few more instants passed without words, and then she meandered back to the house in boredom, leaving her mother to deal with the arboreal problem she had not quite solved and had likely only made worse.

More dead-end thoughts passed through Ditzy’s mind, and she called out louder: “Tick, are you alright?” Almost as an afterthought, she added: “Why are you in a tree?”

When Ditzy received silence, she had to hold back a mounting sense of irritation. Dammit, do you have to be so hard to communicate with? He’s probably asleep. I won’t disturb him if he is; but ugh, do you really need this much distance from everypony?

With quiet flaps, she ascended to a height parallel to him outside the tree. Pulling aside the veil of leaves, Ditzy watched with curious eyes the slight movements of his breathing, the tight folds of his wings, and the tense lids of his eyes.

He’s breathing quick.

She cocked her head as she thought she distinguished a change in the harried pattern, the rustle of the leaves she held back overlaying the noise.

A dream, maybe. I said I wouldn’t bother him.

Ditzy watched for a minute or two, uncertain blank thoughts rambling through her consciousness. The sun began to descend beyond the horizon, and the rays cut her a silhouette of light and shadow. She turned and let the gap of leaves shut, and fell back to the ground.

He heard the leaves rustle and settle back, and Tick clenched his teeth and gripped the branch harder. Even through his eyelids, his peculiar orbs had seen the fearful silhouette. The light flashed again in his closed eyes, an unrelenting sight. Trapped in the prison of his own mind, he fought vainly his other emotions.

Tick shuddered at himself with thick rage, and the quiet dark of the branches did nothing to soothe him.

Why can’t I run from you?

~~~~~~~~

“Now make sure you stay in bed this time, alright?”

Ditzy looked Dinky firmly in the eyes as she squirmed slightly under the covers, not giving eye contact. Dinky nodded silently. “If you don’t get enough sleep, you’re not going to be able to grow up smart and big and strong,” Ditzy added. Her daughter finally looked back at her and muttered “ok,” and Ditzy told her goodnight.

Ditzy halted at the top of the stairs.

Is this what I would call normal?

All of my life, it feels like I’ve always been in flux, like this is just another day and it doesn’t end. The only life in the ghetto was tragedy. The only life when I traveled was rejection, by me or by others. Here… I made my mistakes. I’ve worked through a lot of them. Yet I don’t want this part to end right now.

This was a very frustrating day. It’s over now, and I think that maybe I can adapt myself to it. Sure, I still have some… very old problems, but that’s not the point. I’m back home now, the best I’ve ever had. I can apologize to Twilight in some backwards way, maybe by letting her indulge in her fantasy of educating me in some random field. I can dig into Tick, and I think it might be better to do so directly. Dinky might be useful, too. As he stays here longer, he’ll get more acclimated. When he was in the bar, I just had to ask him directly… he was drunk, but he’ll get more comfortable over time here. I think that he might think that I’m playing games with him, which I guess I am in a way.

And there’s everyone else in Ponyville too. Nobody close like Twilight, but I have a lot of acquaintances and there’s a lot of opportunity. I can’t let the possibility of Luna showing up keep me on edge. It could be months…

Consumed, Ditzy meandered down the stairs, certain that the key to her problems lay in the coming days. Absolution was close; she could feel it, cautious and optimistic vibes pervaded her imagination.

She did not notice that all the lights had been turned off.

She did not notice what resided in that dark.

Ditzy stepped, steps of grace, but she fell through…

Ditzy stepped through shadow and was enveloped by it. Her soft steps were swallowed by it. They sank deeper into the silence than they normally did. She was a bundle of light surrounded. Like shades, like dreams, like a nightmare, Ditzy paused.

There were great black walls crushing in on her.

And then Luna walked out of night.

Wrecking, sudden, an infusion of blood to the veins, an infusion of adrenaline for her hate; Ditzy would have stumbled had she been moving, but instead she was still, shell-shocked. Light faded, evaporated, extinguished, fire doused to ashes and then the ashes froze. It was cold anger and cold fear and fiery rage all at once and it all melted and Ditzy drowned in it and moved not and said nothing but only stood still. The ancient eyes locked on her, the torments of a thousand years and icy determination clashed with fire frozen in golden eyes. Ditzy screamed—or maybe it was only in her mind—denial, anger, agonized fear.

Constrained rage, but only barely. Her jaws clenched shut and her eyes seemed to shine, burning. Ditzy was sick at what it meant, Ditzy was furious at what it meant, Ditzy was afraid. Light twisted, shattered, refracted, glowed with a macabre new hue. Ditzy felt bent and trembling with fury, yet somehow she stood straight. Facing Luna as the shadows faded, Ditzy shook, the pounding blood blinding her. She only felt inwards now: only felt rage.

I put everything into this—EVERYTHING! All the hope I had; all for nothing! And this is because of you, and your damn quest that was shoved on me!

Words pierced through the red walls.

“Nightfall…”

The word tempered and infuriated Ditzy, the tone a torment, the calm, certain and regal voice torture. Somehow, she swung her head away and saw through the bloody haze and blurs of splotched light to see the floor of her home.

Her home.

It’s still there… I’m still here… Ditzy thought, adding bizarre relief to the cauldron of emotion.

“It is our time, and it is now our time to act.”

Ditzy looked back at Luna, drained. Her anger had exploded all at once: it was rapidly replaced by anxiety and fear.
Luna stood tall, austere gaze silently acknowledging Ditzy’s disarray. On her sides stood two silent guards, armored, all pegasi.

Celestia help me.

“We will leave immediately pending the presence of your companions,” Luna informed Ditzy. She glanced around, blinked as if expecting the brothers to appear.

Old aggravations added to fresh wounds as Ditzy remembered the disappearance of Quirk. The last semblance of her grace cracked as she growled.

I need time… she realized, but it was a fleeting and useless thought. To calm, not to find that amorous irritation and his too-introverted brother.

“We suggest that they arrive sooner rather than later,” Luna said, but what was a suggestion and what was not was clear.

“Tonight we commit to action regardless, but there remain consequences for deserters.”

“I’ll find them,” Ditzy said through the haze of emotion.

~~~~~~~~~

Light cut through in rectangles out of the house to illuminate Ditzy’s quiet face. She was quiet, grim, fierce with anger; her eyes shouted determination, a face of painful things that must be done. Resignation, determination, frustration.

With cold and tormented shifting eyes, she glanced back at the house, but looked away before the tempest threw her into agony again. She was ice now: her hatred locked and frozen in a glacier.

Ditzy stopped, examined the tree, thought about calling out for Tick.

But she was cold now, and misery loves company.

The ounce of courtesy she would have given him in such a pressing time would have broken her, sent her into a full-flown rage or hopeless depression. To submit now would be the death of her.

Taking a second to lock her jaw in a grimace, Ditzy pivoted and bucked the tree.

~~~~~~~~

Tick dreamed, but his mind wandered away as the branch shuddered under him and he slipped out, striking the ground. He lay on his back, wings outstretched, the waking pain marring his slumber’s rest. Shifting, he stopped: frozen in sight and in seeing.

A silhouette, shrouded by the moon.

And at once he was unsure if he was dreaming or awake.

Tick lay still, unable to distinguish even her eyes, but his mind ran quick at the sound of his name, a feeling beyond his comprehension; he was at once terrified and unwilling to move the slightest inch.

What immortal hoof or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Then the shadow’s cutout shifted and spoke.

“Tick. Luna is here, now. We have to find your brother.”

Tick started to set himself upright, but Ditzy did not wait for him and turned. Moonlight caught her mane as she turned, ethereal, and the glimpse of her grim face nearly arrested her progress.

Quirk.

His mind rattling out of the last of its sleep-bound impediments, Tick stood up and stared blankly at the potent face of fear disguised as she turned to the road and began walking immediately. Jarring himself into action, he moved to catch up to Ditzy, and nearly simultaneously as memory returned to him his mind restrained and examined his actions.

Luna is here, and so it is time… but Quirk, damn! Why didn’t I go after him? He could have done anything…

And Tick knew the full extent of “anything,” knew the depths that had been plunged. It had been a long time since he had known his brother to do anything truly drastic, but they had been far apart of late and in no mood to help the other.

Ditzy, his eternal distraction, had taken to wing and looked back to him, and tugged more than necessary at the sight he ascended into the sky as they searched for Quirk. Tick wrestled to keep his thoughts focused among the three vexing problems.

The buffets of the night wind tore the thoughts out of his mind and displayed them in the stars, the patched-black clouds letting the light shine through in torrents. In and out of illumination they passed, and Tick found himself drifting back and forth between staring across the ground they passed and the wordless apparitions that were his memories. Yet one vision kept barreling back into the forefront of his mind, and it was not the specter who had haunted him of late.

Flashes of a black binding, of a grey room, of the contours of an ancient mind scarred wide open…

~~~~~~~~

Ditzy flew quickly, the cloud banks far above casting shadows on the darkened town. Tick seemed oblivious or uncaring of the pattern in which she flew; her thoughts almost as dizzying as the long, sweeping circles they flew in. For Ditzy was far too deep in her thoughts to notice, and the two were alone without the other.

There was a daughter asleep in the house far below, and every few seconds Ditzy glanced longingly back in that direction, and every few seconds she felt a spike of pain.

If.

If she wasn’t back in time for work.

If she was gone for days, sparking a commotion among those who expected her.

If they were trapped in the ruins, if Luna demanded they keep going, if it was all more than they could ever have anticipated.

If Dinky woke up and no longer had a mother.

For Ditzy knew the raging demon inside her too well to believe that she could contain herself forever. With a touch, she could set off in venomous fury. And Dinky, Celestia, what am I going to do, what am I going to do?

The now-frigid night’s air slowly drew the heat and fire out of her, and her whirling mind slowed in tandem as the freeze focused her purpose.

Quirk. I need to find Quirk. Where would Quirk be? What do I know about him?

~~~~~~~

The cold wind burned the pair as they swept through the dark streets. The racks of black clouds had soon covered the sky, and the temperature of the season’s turn reminded them of what was to come. The town’s shops had now mostly closed: Ditzy with Tick behind had finished checking what was left open. Tick had suggested in a voice taut with tension that they check the quieter, darker hideaways first. His tension went unnoticed in the cold wind; Ditzy had precious little thought to spare. Having only a few of those locales, their search had been quick. As the last door shut behind them, she felt the clang of the metal frame in her heart as another bar between her and her daughter.

She stood silent in the cold dark.

Behind her, Tick shifted, but said nothing. The moment rolled on into eternity as all thought slowed to nothing.

Yet something colder alighted on Ditzy’s forehead, and her eyes snapped into cross-eyed focus at the single drop of frigid rain.

Is it snowing? No, no, it’s months early for that… just a sprinkle. It’s starting to sprinkle.

She glanced at Tick, and as he stood undisturbed by the stray droplets he stared at the ground thoughtfully. She looked at him in his thoughtfulness; Tick after a few moments looked up and moved himself slightly—curiously—as if he had to resist the urge to jump when he saw Ditzy looking at him. He pointedly looked at something in the distance.

Did I interrupt your thinking? Ditzy thought with a peculiar sense of amusement, but she herself was interrupted by a few more shivering drops. There’s not supposed to be this much weather yet. I imagine this wasn’t planned by the local weather pegasi; this probably rolled out of the Everfree…

And then she remembered everything, and she winced.

It couldn’t have been a thunderstorm. It couldn’t have been strong enough to blow us far away from here, and take Dinky with me.

The rage had passed and the void was filled with regret, sadness, resignation. The valiant gold in her eyes had blazed, burned, and then glazed, dulled. Her strength of will that had borne her so far had petered out; her hope was slipping away again.

There’s nothing I can do now but move on.

Ditzy stood silent again in the lightless spot, but the comfort of it had left her behind.

“We need to go back. I don’t think she wants us to be gone long.”

She didn’t look back to see his confirmation; she wouldn’t anticipate any obstructions to leading him around like some alien, quiet child. He had been curiously passive since he had arrived. Tick had been moving with a purpose in Canterlot; she had seen it then, even if that purpose had been alien and obscure to her.

Spread wings were enveloped by a spread of clouds, and they flew again back to her house.

~~~~~~~~~

So it begins. What we find, and how Luna reacts to it, will determine the future of a school of thought, an era long lost to us, and whether I find out what this ‘Nightmare’ actually consists of…

Tick noticed the otherworldly mother glance at her darkened house, shiver minutely in the sprinkling, but there was naught that could diffuse his focus now. Luna watched them both steadily, austere, observing their state of mind. At her side stood two armored pegasi, except they were not both pegasi, Tick realized; one before him stood with a bat’s wings.

Then Luna’s gaze turned to lock on to him, and he could feel coils of tension rising inside him, as if he were about to fight, and the grim determination that he would not surrender what knowledge could be gained.

Those who burn books burn souls.

So he thought as her gaze snapped away, glanced around. What he had uncovered months before all destroyed; perhaps a sole book had survived, but he was far away from his old study now and unable to sort through that hopeful possibility.

“Where is the other? Quirk?” Luna’s voice broke the cold air.

“We don’t know,” Ditzy replied, flatly, yet with a strange inflection. She glanced back at the house.

“He will face consequences for his absence,” Luna said simply, and let the statement hang. With what must have been a silent sigh, she glanced up over into the west and nodded to the four encased in armor, only their eyes shifting the slightest bit, and even those locking as their commander turned her head to them.

The one with wings not of a feather was slow to shift her gaze. It lingered on Tick, but most on Ditzy.

“We cannot wait longer,” Luna said, and so it was decided. The night called them.

~~~~~~~~~

The night was dark enough for her to cloak herself and the others in a shroud of starlight, shielding them from prying eyes, and they would move into the Everfree and into a dance as old as life itself.

She glanced about at the two unwilling members of her expedition, and found one full of fire, concealed, yet determined. The other was a less inspiring case. It seemed to Luna, though, that Ditzy’s vigor had drained, leaving a thin shell of the self that had been inquisitive and demanding even in the face of overwhelming authority’s consequences.

What change was wrought in thee? The ardor of her grey companion is still strong, yet thy motivations are absent.

Finally, Luna turned her head and gave a warning to those two, words flying through the wind as they dipped in closer to hear.

“We must allay all emotions and all suspicions and, above all, furies and fears now, for we are descending into a place where the echoes of those things have long played out an old and terrible dance. This dance is hate and the death of good things, and we must be immensely careful not to step into its rhythm, for it is quick and deadly, hard to detect, and impossible to fully eradicate. Above all else, you must be careful of yourselves in such a place. Lethal traces of an older time, shunned and poorly understand, are abundant and not to be trifled with.”

The two did not reply; and while both appeared perturbed it caused Luna a great deal of silent thinking that neither of them had reacted to the statement. It was puzzling and troubling, especially given their explicit exposure. Luna would have found it awkward to talk further, so as usual she kept her thoughts to herself.

Silent contemplation was a talent well-honed when one had a thousand years to practice it.

Headlong into fear, headlong into hate they stumble; for all that was may be again, with all the love and the hate and the earth’s blood screaming that entails. In a thousand years, the scars will not have healed; in ten thousand, they may only fester, and the only hope of absolution lies in things we know not, in things we have not, in things we are not…

It would only take them a few quiet minutes to reach the edge of the ancient grey-to-black ruins.

~~~~~~~~

Ditzy thought it to be a dead place.

Great grey and black walls cascaded upwards into broken echelons of marked stone, stains streaking back down again to the bottom where creeping plants encroached on crumbled and shattered stone blocks among other debris. The night sky seemed purple, ominous, or black even, at least against the green-dark of the surrounding twisted forest. They had paused before the entrance to the ruinous place; the reverent fear that all but one of them possessed now was on full display. Like a procedure of statues they stood stock-still, and the spell was amplified immeasurably by the morbid silence around them. Tick stood, looking coldly on, beholden by none. Ditzy’s eyes were forward but her thoughts backward in the useless past. The distant trees were absent of wind; if any nocturnal animals were present then they were deathly quiet. The foreboding of the shadowed block of history gave them pause. Even the silence of the guards seemed a scared thing: beneath helmet and armor, wide eyes gradually crept around in observation. There was fear in their hearts, but they had trained themselves not to surrender to fleeting emotion. They stood as if they were before the warped gates of Tartarus; they were all still, Ditzy afraid, Tick staring straight ahead.

Then a step broke the silence; Luna had moved forward. Every step seemed a travesty and every echo a scream against the quiet rest of the ruin. The ruins were a hopeless devastation.

For Tick, this was the beginning of the long fulfillment that he had waited for ever since he seized the first book from the buried grey shelves in the Canterlot library. By degrees, his anger fell off to the side and was replaced by a hardened determination. He was closer now to all the knowledge that had been eradicated in the last thousand years than he had been since the labyrinthine library encounter; the promise of vast and immeasurable troves within the ruins dispelled any fear and inspired a measure of constrained audacity. He could fight now; the barriers were not unbreakable, and at last he could do something to work towards the end of the problem. This was his chance, and he would not easily let it slip by.

For Ditzy, this was the beginning of fear unveiled. She knew she didn’t belong here; the fact that she was bolstered her determination to avoid any conflict in the future, to flee to the relative safety of her warm home. Ditzy had doubts about all she had learned now, and questioning of the void that faced her left her with no answer. A bottomless gorge had opened between her and Luna; there was a primal fear of loss and longing hanging between them.

Luna bore on further through the broken blocks as she approached a tall pair of stone doors, the entrance to the gargantuan palace swallowed by night and creeping tendrils of shadow. Luna had stopped before the rocky gates, intent on something unseen.

Then the solid doors slammed outwards without glow of magic, rumbling with the strength of ten thousand tons of shadowed stone as they did. Solid blackness remained beyond that; there was not even the faintest starlight inside. It seemed foul, vile and dead.

Luna hesitated.

She stared with a long, searching look, as if reading the opaque wall of lightlessness. Minutes passed, and Ditzy did not see her move.

“You will never become attenuated to the darkness within. Blindly, you will search, and only when you have defeated despair will you be able to find your way through to what were once our hallowed halls of knowledge. Once one of you defeats this challenge, you will be able to bring the light to the others.”

Celestia protect us, what have I gotten into, what’s even going on…

“Will you be coming with us?” Tick asked. Ditzy hardly heard him through the tempo of her own heart.

“No.” Luna did not turn around as she replied, but continued staring into the black-inked air.

Soft clinks and quiet shifting followed the reply.

“What do you mean you’re not going with us? I thought you were supposed to be leading this! And how do you defeat despair?” Ditzy burst, desperate questions fading painfully into the night.

The vast ruins whispered concealed dangers, things more tangible and deadly than the conflict between Tick and Luna that Ditzy professed to not understand. They promised mortal danger, and Luna’s grim words worsened Ditzy’s torment at the thought that her daughter would wake without her.

“Can you not give us some other help with this insanity?” Ditzy pleaded, the strain beginning to show in her voice, drawing the attention of Tick and the bat-winged guard.

Luna turned around, and Ditzy did not have to hear her speak to know what she would say.

“What you may find in there, we are not able to foretell. Go assured that it is safer that we remain outside.”

“Is there to be no plan to cope with this insanity?” Tick objected.

“If you are able to plan for what is unpredictable, then you may do so.”

The corners of his mouth locked down, smoldering with past and present angers, but he was determined: Tick started forward. The rest followed as if caught up in their wake.

The absence of sound howled in her ears, the absence of light ahead toyed with her imagination mercilessly, and they did not stop moving toward their silent destination. The shadows seemed to be flickering like fires around the edges, as if they were reaching out of the colossal ruin to envelop all of the dim light outside.

Ditzy slipped back and forth between fire and fear as the abyss of a thousand years ago edged closer.

No! I won’t stop here—I won’t be beaten now—it’s so cold—

Too many times had she watched her dreams crumble, too many instances of fate and hate blurred her vision. And before she knew it—she stepped forward; she was gone. Ditzy was inside.

~~~~~~~~

She could feel nothing but the cold stone beneath her hooves—she could hear only her own breathing—she could see nothing at all.

Where did they all go?

As soon as Ditzy processed these sensations, she scrambled backwards, feeling for anything, the rough stone floor sounding with no echo as eyes and ears failed her.

There was no door.

There was no door!

Almost seizing up in primordial panic, Ditzy stopped moving and thought with a burst of clarity.

A wall. I need to find a wall.

She blinked, and the only difference between the two sights was the slight effort of keeping her eyes closed.

Did I fall into a labyrinth? I don’t remember falling. This place is cold to the touch… I don’t even think I can smell anything. I need, I need to find a marker, I don’t know where I am, and how did everypony else disappear?

She didn’t even want to consider why she was separated from the others, or where they might be. Her own future was dark enough.

Sounds of her own breathing filled her ears; every last minute occurrence of her body took on paramount importance, but it was all insignificant—it was all nothing. She started crawling along on the cold stone, and the infinite vulnerability of sight stolen wracked her consciousness. Feel nothing, see nothing, hear nothing, it didn’t matter; it felt like she was on the top of a mountain blindfolded, wings bound, and every time she moved an inch she would fall off or be struck by black lightning. Her flesh crawled: her presence was a desecration of the silence and every scuffling move she made only enraged the shadow further. Terror ravaged her; what could she do against the inimitable blackness? Then fire enflamed her: I’m not going to let some darkness beat me! She was a speck of noise in a great and vengeful sea of solitude. Gasping, she scrambled along against her blind inhibitions, every instant recoiling as if she would slam into a wall with every forced step. She was no captain; she was a regrettable intruder in this malevolent cave—and then she fell.

Freezing! Cold, drenched in water and submerged all at once; Ditzy locked up, and she could not tell which way was up—she was drowning. Resistance proved useless; the blessed heat of her bones surrendered to ice and water. There might have been a struggle, but the frigid animation of the water had already seeped into her; her catatonic mind could not react. Ice turned to fire inside of her as the coldness began to burn. Vile, hateful nothing stripped her of sensation, and she was sure she was about to die. Things unnamed whispered around her mind. Everything was fading…

But there was a light, rapidly approaching…

By some miracle of chance or intent, Ditzy was pulled free out of the grasping black-cold waves; she lay on the shore by her savior—but as soon as she looked at her savior, her savior shrank away in shock.

~~~~~~~

Eris had found the light.

It was a curious thing, really; it had not taken her very long to do so and it had been surprisingly easy for her. For the light was simply a globe. It was as easy as that; she had looked up on entering and had found a sphere of light lying in the middle of the strange place. With caution, but without timidity or fear, she had approached it. She picked it up rather easily; it did not seem to be solid but suspended just above her hoof. It had filled her with a sort of reverence, yet she found the last of her fear fleeing. Responsibly, Eris knew her priorities, and she started off to find the others that were worryingly absent from sight and sound.

The armored, bat-winged mare walked on, and she held in her hoof a globe of light.

In a sense, it was ridiculous, but the severe danger of the situation kept any mirth at bay. The light was not quite material and not quite ethereal, yet it seemed to respond to touch—she was holding it, after all, yet she felt no weight—and the luminance it gave only lasted for a few feet, leaving a longing feeling. Still, it was better than the desolate darkness that surrounded her. As she wandered around for a short minute afterwards, curiosity turned in slow degrees to worry for herself and the others, and the light seemed to shrink just barely. Then a distant splash resounded.

Eris whirled about, joints in her armor faintly clinking. With as much haste as possible holding the light, she ran towards the disturbance; her mind searching furiously for a reason. The possibility occurred to her that it was one of the others, for she had heard no other noise yet, and the surge of emotion caused a surge of light from the globe, lengthening the radius. The stone became rougher as she ran toward the sound, and for an instant doubt shot through her; there was a glinting movement in the foreground and the surge continued.

Straight through shadow she ran to the edge of the lucent pool, and to her horror she saw a silhouette sinking. She had a chance—an instant, but it must be now. Flinging off her armor, she tried in vain to stick the light to the ground, yet it was stuck to her; she hesitated no more and dove. Only because of her training did Eris not scream as she hit the water—it was frigid, life-stealing—but she bit her tongue and did not release precious air. Blinded by the light, she grasped Ditzy and swam back up. Heaving, gasping, too many seconds later she broke the surface; she managed to haul Ditzy onto the shore and laid for an instant, shivering uncontrollably, staring up at crystalline refracted darkness. The globe still stuck to her hoof, imperceptible in any sense except by light and some small modicum of warmth. Eventually, she gathered the strength to set herself halfway up, and she spared a glance at Ditzy. Then her eyes widened— and the light nearly went out.

Ditzy was dripping black, solid black: she herself matched the darkness, what had been lucent water in the pool had turned to a lucid nightmare on her. The living shadows had enveloped her; even her eyes had become great dark sightless orbs. Eris thought to strike or flee; that painted visage provoked primal recoil.

What are you!?

“Where did the light go?” Ditzy asked, head turning sightlessly. “Who are you?”

One of us, then, but by the caves of Tartarus what is that shadow coating you?

“The light is still here,” Eris answered, stepping back cautiously from the seeping coat. “I don’t think you can see it.”

Ditzy managed to roll upright, yet liquid shadows covered her as thick as tar. “Where is everypony else?”

“I don’t know. As soon as I entered, they all were gone.”

Is this blackness a trick of the light? Best not to tell her; she’d panic. She looked and sounded like a mess before this began.

“The same thing happened to me, but I still don’t see any light. You’re going to have to guide me.”

With heightened senses, Eris approached the painted-black mare. Holding out the ball of light as a ward, she brushed it close to Ditzy, who inhaled sharply.

“I think I can see something.”

Eris pulled back, and Ditzy shuddered again.

“Nevermind. Must have been my imagination.”

“Wait, I have an idea. Hold out your hoof.”

Ditzy complied, and Eris mirrored her action with the globe of light, and as soon as the sphere contacted her, the shadows half-faded and Ditzy’s eyes shone through. They looked at the orb between them, and Ditzy winced at the luminance, yet she didn’t notice the wisping shadows around her. Eris and her fanged gaze watched the other mare with caution, the sliding dark escaping the other’s attention.

There’s only one way to find out…

Eris pulled the orb away, expecting one or the other to plunge into sightlessness, yet her vision did not vanish. Instead, she saw Ditzy blinking, holding a nearly identical orb, and the apparitions that clung to her evaporated. Yet still she shivered, even though no sign of frigid water or insidious shadow remained on her.

“We have to find the rest of the expedition,” Eris spoke in an orderly tone, and her attention shifted away from Ditzy, back to the creeping darkness that swirled in the corner of her eyes.

“What happened to the pool?”

There was no sign of any pool left, and Eris realized that there was no a drop of water left on her.

“It doesn’t matter,” Eris said after a moment of fruitless searching. There’s more important things demanding our attention, like where the rest of the squad and your friend have disappeared to.

“Wouldn’t it be better to try and figure out where we are?”

Eris’s expression flashed irritation, and her eyes turned back to meet Ditzy’s. “If this happened to you,” she began with a low voice, “what might be happening to them? We don’t have the time to wonder at what might be. There’s too much going on now. We’ve wasted enough time talking.”

Eris ignored the quick flashes of fire in Ditzy’s eyes, and started walking into the darkness.

“What if something happens to us before we find them?”

“That’s why we keep our eyes open,” Eris said deliberately, “focused, and not crossed.”

Abruptly the color of light tingeing the shadow shifted, and Eris twisted her head to see Ditzy’s orb settling back to white from a volatile red.

“Let’s go,” Ditzy growled, “We need to find a wall.” She caught up to Eris, mildly displeased at the sudden vitriol yet satisfied by the action. “Or any sort of landmark,” the bat-winged guard added.

Still, it was Eris who settled into the lead.

Once the last words of their sharp conversation faded, neither felt it wise to continue. Revoking the silence that had been forced upon them seemed unwise. Consuming shadow still trailed them, and even Eris’s eyes that had plumbed the depth of many a night and cave failed completely. The floor was the only guide, unmarked rough stone. Steps and clinks of armor never changed timbre, as if they moved not at all, and the silence screamed louder than the sound.

I’ve never been this blind before. The pool that disappeared, the shadows that dripped like water and drifted away like dust… This is less natural than a lower Canterlot house brew.

The rhythm of the walk slowed to an inexorable crawl as time passed, and the hair-raising silence and chill of the air refused to diminish despite the distance they traveled.

The steps stopped behind her, followed by a sharp crack as a hoof struck the stone hard. Ditzy hit the ground again, the translucent orb slipping through stone without leaving a mark or diminishing.

“We have to do something else. We’re alone in the dark and this walking isn’t getting us anywhere.”

Eris watched, perplexed by the mare’s sudden burst of anger. “What are you going to do once you’ve split your hoof open, leaving a trail of blood for anything that’s out here?”

“That will get us somewhere faster than walking endlessly.” She spun around, looking everywhere for anything as the painfully loud sarcastic words faded.

Don’t you have any control over yourself? You’re going to get us killed.

“What do you suggest we try, then?” Eris muttered, already sick of Ditzy’s impetuousness.

“Fly,” Ditzy pressed with a mercifully lowered voice.

“Fly blind?”

“Fly up, at least.”

Eris looked up at the same deep opaque air that surrounded them. “Fly up until you can only barely see this light, and then come straight back down.”

Ditzy swept her wings, hovering just above the ground, the orb attached to her hoof casting bizarre shadows in what little light they had. Higher, it was as if the light was a bubble and their vision narrowed, until there was only a sliver—

“Drop!”

Ditzy slid back into full sight, questioning the sudden order.

“This isn’t right… none of this is natural…” Eris muttered.

“I could have told you that,” Ditzy replied flatly, annoyed at the interruption.

“Do you really want to go out of sight? Risk drowning in a disappearing pool? I gave you that light; who knows what might happen if you get far enough away?”

Eyes narrowed, and Ditzy began hovering again. “I have to risk something to get out of here. I don’t see an exit sign anywhere.”

The mutual light faded as she rose.

Silence.

Eris stood straight, eyeing the darkness above and around with discipline. Tempered, she waited to five—called out “You still up there?” to no reply.

She tensed—crackled with electric tension—wings unfurled quickly, about to launch—

A piercing noise like chimes of ice shattering flooded through the air. A shower of ice, a burst of wind; she felt the air displace as something flew by close and then a harsh thud.

“Drop!” Eris yelled as she spun to face the noise, no more than twenty feet away, coiling to leap and fight or flee. Seconds passed and there were no more sounds, no more explosions, no sharp elemental showers.

It might be her, if it is or it isn’t—

She went at the sound, light on her hooves despite the weight of the armor, her wings balancing as the light shot bizarre simple shadows, nothing like the thick dark. There was an iron-blue-grey body on the rough stone ground.

“What happened?” Eris hissed as she spun around to see all directions of possible threat, the body moving slowly, thick with black ice.

“Wind… freezing wind,” Ditzy gasped, clear shocks of pain on her face. “And it was like a storm, roaring, and the light went out and I lost track of everything…”

Eris shot her a dubious look. “I didn’t hear anything like that,” she muttered as she helped Ditzy back up. “Walk it off,” she said when Ditzy winced and gritted her teeth. “Whatever did that to you we can’t afford to stay near.”

The orb of light attached to Ditzy’s hoof began to recover luminance, yet it was pale and dim as Ditzy lurched. “Eye of the storm…” Ditzy said determinedly, a pronunciation whose vigor was undermined by the painful pose of her body.

“What?”

“We have to get into…”

“No.” Eris stared with strength of will at Ditzy, and the fire that shot into her eyes at the bland denial was no less. “You’re going to kill one or both of us trying to get out by tempting fate.”

Yet Ditzy’s light had recovered, and she seemed to draw life from it as she stood taller. “I’m going up,” she announced. “I know what this place—”

“Are you actually insane?” Eris said with appalled disbelief. “No. Stay here. I’m going up.”

Sweet Luna’s Moonlight, why am I doing this?

But Eris was already floating in the air, and the bizarrely determined Ditzy looked up at her with a face of anger and grit, covered with melting black ice that dripped and floated away…

Steeling herself, Eris shot up and out of Ditzy’s light, and abruptly was alone with only the sound of her leathery wings.

No ice, no storm, no sudden rush of wind that catapulted her away and battered her to shreds. There was nothing at all, nothing besides the pull of the ground to remind her that anything else existed. A lesser soul would have been touched by the loneliness of the unnatural place, but Eris did not let her thoughts wander beyond the immediate and the real. The immediate and the nothing, save the air she breathed.

When I go back down, will she still be there?

Whenever Ditzy was alone, something had happened to her. Eris rose further, hearing nothing, counting the distance from the ground by habit. Thirty, forty, fifty feet; she would drop at sixty-five; she doubted Ditzy had gone even fifty…

Would it be either because of the deadliness of this place or her childish impulsiveness?

But there was no use contemplating such questions if they had not yet been poised by necessity. She closed her eyes for a moment involuntarily, then locked them both open, scanning the nothing, shutting away the inattentiveness and holding still on the blade’s edge of focus.

Eris dropped.

And then there was a rumbling, like an ancient wall collapsing all around them.

~~~~~~~~~~

Because I know what this place is…

Light left light, and anxious shifting joined anxious thoughts as Ditzy waited.

And it’s why Luna wouldn’t go in.

Impatient, Ditzy held her hurt leg, brain whirling through possibilities of what might be next, rushing through old painful memories. Her sphere was silent except for her, and the intensity of her thought seemed to brighten the orb. It was painfully bright, almost burning, yet Ditzy was distracted.

Eris won’t find anything up there, or if she will, it won’t be anything from me, it shouldn’t be, but it might be? This place couldn’t exist, that kind of magic doesn’t exist…

It did in him.

The shock of realization caught her standing still, and then a shock of sound ripped the air, a distant crack. Rumbling shuddered through the earth, and Ditzy’s eyes shot wide open, filled with deep fear rising out of a dozen years of burial.

“No!”

Ditzy flew in full panic to the sound of the rumbling, the primal thundering pounding through her body, her mind; the adrenaline of fear and loss and agony coursed through the passageways of memory. Eris caught up behind her, shouting things loudly lost in the whistling wind as harsh dread ripped through a mind.

Ditzy lost all track of what she was saying and what she heard, and abruptly the sameness of the stone floor ended: ruins and rubble ran thick; the dust had not even begun to settle. She remembered kicking and digging, clawing through stone blocks futilely, and the light became so bright that it burned her eyes to open them—

And then she collapsed.

Chapter Ten, Part Two: Fire and Golden Eyes

Chapter Ten, Part Two

Fire and Golden Eyes

The dust had settled.

Ditzy looked up, felt the broken stone she lay against, and saw at once two armored heads, one with the usual slight curve of Eris’s frown, the other a straight black color, watching the distance aside.

“She’s up,” Eris said, and abruptly turned her attention to other things.

Far from free of her waking sensation, Ditzy saw Eris ascend to stand atop a nearby stone block as the unnamed guard watched her with reserved interest.

“You kept saying things about your mother,” Eris spoke without giving her the least bit of attention, instead keeping sharp eyes on the edges of their vision.

At once, blood shot back into her brain and brought terrifying perspective, and Ditzy flipped upright, wild, wings flared. With hard eyes the two watched her upsurge of movement, yet only one deigned to act.

“What is it?” The unnamed guard asked, tensing slightly, concern shaping his words.

“She’s crazy…” Both heard Eris muttering off to the side. His annoyed eye slipped to her, but only for a moment as he reiterated his question. Through heavy breaths, Ditzy managed to answer.

“Nothing, just an old memory…”

An old nightmare…

The dark-coated guard gave a measured, respectful nod. “Aphelion,” Eris called, and he moved away from the recovering Ditzy.

How many years now? How many years since she died; how many years have I been haunted and blessed by her memory? And here, in this place, threatened by the world to adopt her fate and I still miss her…

Ditzy stumbled although she had not stepped, gasped in the cold air and let it out in small shudders. Dust kicked up by her upsurge thickened the air around her, but it was much less than she had known. It was nothing compared to what had happened, years ago and half a continent away, a morbid ghost of memory.

She remembered the bright sunlight on the filth of the ghetto, rags hanging on strings strung inbetween high-rise apartments stricken deep by poverty. The air wretched with the smell of uncleanliness and garbage. One chose selectively to not see and hear the black dealings in the alleyways, muggings beatings, worse. The eyes were greedy and hungry: looking for any opportunity to get a release, to get ahead, but most of all to get out. There were no rules and no morals but survive. There were no consequences for actions as long as you got out. The desperation of the place pervaded the senses and the mercilessness cut you through to the bone. She remembered being small, so small among such desperation and hatred.

Ditzy gasped in the cold air, eyes focusing on the broken rocks below, focusing on anything but the past come to mind.

The tenements that composed the ghetto were enormous. Far too large to be properly maintained, far too large to hold themselves up.

Ditzy had lived in one of those tenements.

It’s gone, it’s gone, I’m out, I’m out…

One of the others kicked a rock cracking against some other rubble, and Ditzy convulsed in a repressed shudder at the sound.

But I’m still in here.

~~~~~~~~

“I don’t care,” Aphelion responded in an authoritative voice that somehow managed to be only slightly louder than his normal one. “She’s only tried to get out, even if she’s quicker to action than you are. I am going to hear what she has to say and I am going to give it the weight it deserves.”

He endured Eris’s hissing protests for another minute, and then abruptly walked off, leaving his furious subordinate to stew and hopefully get over her indignation in a timely manner.

Sometimes that was what was necessary to deal with Eris.

Aphelion sighed to himself. While judgmental, sharp, and stubborn, Eris was an especially useful part of the guard. The peculiarity of their particular predicament was only furthered by the team Luna had put together. He knew Eris through his wife (also a guard, but of another division) and she had started to make a name for herself with her stealth and perseverance, although he wished her a little less perseverance in this regard.

Stepping back toward the recovering iron-blue mare, Aphelion took note of her shocked state, but something moving on the edge of their pool of light caught his eye before he made it to her.

~~~~~~~

Tick stumbled along blindly through the cave, quiet as a mausoleum, every unexpected twist jarring his senses. There’s no pattern, no sense, no anything…

All his thought was useless here. His years of wandering frustrated him now: Tick knew he should be able to navigate a cave, yet the labyrinth defied him. Unnaturally smooth and worked sections cropped up at random, without rhyme or reason, resurgent blasts of cold wind resetting his senses. It was an endless vault. It might as well have been his tomb.

I shouldn’t be lost here. This is stupid.

Tick remembered falling instantly after stepping in, the sharp cry of surprise and his spread wings battered by the angular rock as he fell. Luckily his fall had not struck his still-stinging wounds from a few weeks ago, although it had surely added a few more. After pulling the painful mess of his body upright, Tick had pondered where the others had gone, yet he couldn’t determine the jagged shaft he had fallen through in the dark. Ill-equipped for the venture, he had crawled and chosen the passage that seemed to lead the most directly up.

There ought to be a way out of here, having been dropped in here, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this damn place doesn’t have one.

There was the thinnest and most indistinguishable of lights in the cave, or perhaps it was only his imagination. Yet the minute luminescence promised progress to his whirring eyes, and with wordless determination Tick strained to catch its path. Scrambling along the morass of shadow and rock, the light grew into a distant aura; he floated over the rocky ascent now, confident; he had adjusted as best he could to the light fainter than a distant star. Then he ascended over the lip of the grotto.

First he noticed the blade-like pillars and leaves of rock, a forest of stone, a wide grove of grey ashen trees. Wide they scraped to the ceiling: a cast of color from the earth and all the material found within, tinged forever by the shadow and the glow that pervaded the grotto. Jagged lines glistened, twinkling and sharp, metallic hues hiding in veins among rocky growth; it grew from both the ground and the ceiling and sometimes seemed a web. Like a misty forest caught before the dawn, it glistened with the promise of discovery.

Tick stopped as if he had flown headfirst into one of those living pillars, eyes wide and open.

What have I discovered?

Yet he felt eerie, the cold wind prodding him, and the still-distant aura of light far off in the shadowed repose of the grotto-grove. Tick watched for a while in the hopes that he could glimpse more of the endless phantasm of stone carved in the life of the forest, but the primal urge for light moved him before he regained coherent thought from the silent reverie of the place.

Tick floated down, silver eyes watching the cascading flashes of the veins of mineral and metal along the columns and odd branches of the place. The ground of the place was dark; he was startled to crunch against gravel as he landed. Irregular rocks complicated a straight path, and he did not trust himself to avoid all of the many protrusions above. The sheets and breaks of stone like leaves cast still more threatening dark against the nearly intangible glow from the center.

It’s almost a forest… no, Tick thought, shifting in thought as the gravel crunched underneath him. It’s what it might be like if there were trees of rock. Not quite bark and limbs, but there’s a resemblance. I’m no geologist, no archaeologist, but this place can’t be all natural… can it? There were worked sections earlier in those caves. This is…

Tearing himself away from speculative thoughts, Tick shook his head at the distraction and crept closer towards the glow, wincing at the crunch of gravel and clacks of larger stones. Sound rebounded; Tick hovered along out of ancient fear and a sourceless respect for the place.

The light is coming from over there. That looks like a clearing.

Floating through the webs of thin stone leaves, Tick caught sight of what lay before him.

A pool? A… lake?

He strained his eyes of varied shade. Whatever minute glow that allowed him to see had not strengthened.

No use. We’ll see when we get there.

Tick moved on, but the whisper of movement far above snatched his attention. The twisting spiral of something falling.

Eyes shot wide in the dark. Wings slammed into veins of the pillars and his throat caught somewhere between silence and a strangled yell as memory charged into mind. Tick felt the chill of the water and the long days that had led up to the moment, the agonizing seconds before his only companion had dived to put an end to it, the morass of death’s watery embrace that was so reluctant to let them go—

Tick yelled and thrashed as the light faded and he tried to force his way through stone, around stone; the pillars of the earth between him and the lake barred him in. He was quick—but he was blind, and there was nothing he could do as his memory screamed that he had gone under the water and he must go after him; there was nothing he could do as his fading sight shouted that Ditzy had gone under the water and there was not much time left for her.

The stone wouldn’t let him through.

~~~~~~~~

In her belated, returned grief, Ditzy could not help but wonder what nightmare might next mingle with those two of hers that had already passed. As the mind is prone to, she grabbed at anything that could distract her attention from the tragedy brought to present again. Through the blur in her eyes, noticed her two companions: the one Eris had called out to as Aphelion and Eris herself. Keenly aware of their shared visibility, cut off at once by the air as thick as smog not far beyond them, she noticed he had an orb as well. It lulled back and forth between moderate quietness and moderate brightness; he held a slow rhythm. That particular black pegasus at once struck her with an odd thought. Why four pegasi? A coincidence? Was it so we could get here faster? No, that shouldn’t be a problem for Luna, she has magic…

The name shook her with a profound sharp pain; Ditzy pulled herself up onto her hooves as more quick memories of Nightmare glimpsed and a daughter left behind passed her.

I won’t get out of here if I sit here and weep.

Webbed in a shroud of past misery, she gritted her teeth, called forth the inner will, closed her eyes—

There was a shout, the sound of scrambling—right in front of her, and she had faced away from them and into the ruined void!
Eyes whirled open and met, for out of the nothing had stepped Tick.

“I saw him fall—I saw you falling, into the lake; and I flew but there wasn’t any more light—” Tick began, running over his own words in a peculiar panic. Relief coursed like water over Ditzy as she felt the fear of a promised nightmare ebb away, and the thought at his odd phrasing passed as well in her absorption of his flabbergasted state.

“They don’t come out when they fall that way!” Tick shouted, eyes wide and desperate; he looked as if he had been touched by death with his pale visage, shaken and staring at the mare before him.

“Calm down, what are you talking about?” Ditzy asked after her surprise subsided as Aphelion behind her boomed: “Hold! Don’t make any moves!”

Ditzy glanced back for a moment as Eris and Aphelion half-skied and half-glided down the slope of debris, armored plates clinking to a stop beside her. Tick, his attention long lost on all others, tried to steady his breathing, the tempest-like whirlwind of his eyes and the steady thundering of his adrenaline-soaked heart. Over their concerned, curious, and cautious glances and questions, Tick explained first his own tale.

“As soon as I entered, I fell into a cave without light, some sections worked and some natural. Then I saw a glow, and I ran into rock trees, a forest of stone growing from the floor and the wall and the ceiling…”

~~~~~~~

Understanding will come with time, Tick assured himself, for me most of all. The three others had listened, and now they were as confused as him. He now sat alone, or as alone as they were comfortable letting him, about fifteen feet away from the others and behind a low wall.

The first was like the grey passage in the Canterlot library, Tick thought with unexpected clarity, but it was a thought bypassed in other pursuits. He had finished his short tale and heard theirs. Tick hadn’t heard anything that had helped him understand what was going on, yet found he cared little besides what lay at the end and the immediate danger outside.

Tick could still feel the panic echoing, his body scraping in the dark, his eyes so potent rendered useless.

The ball of light given to him in so simple yet curious fashion Tick held absentmindedly before him, examining it as it seemed in some distant way to be examining him. Tick, his back set against a large shard of rubble, seemed a lost artificer of some long-destroyed cathedral with the ball of light set before him and the haunting shadow arrayed all around. Tick’s eyes clicking in rhythm and the orb reflected their movement—or perhaps it was of its will.

They had agreed to a few minutes of rest and thinking on the oddities had separated and brought them back together. Tick was spending his lax moments slowly and casually observing the orb; he suspected there to be more to it, as there was to most everything.

What can you tell me, orb? What can I find out about you? What can this luminescent odd orb tell me? It might help me get out of here… but that’s likely wishful thinking…

What was this place before? This area served as part of the city before the fall. Or is this the city at all? To think of it, I can’t recall any sort of markers outside the large doors we entered. This could be the palace itself; it could be anything. We were supposed to be going after the library of this place. To discount dark possibilities, it’s likely not Luna trying to dispose of us. She did send us with guards, after all, despite all the good luck they’ve had.

Tick closed his eyes during his reflection, but then he remembered that it had been a guard that had pulled Ditzy out of the pool, and the quick suffusion of unwanted emotion provoked an image of Ditzy, standing in the ruin like a grieving valkyrie, tears shed as she stood interred in all the madness. Tick shoved that thought away, clenching his teeth with a blunt discipline marred by fervent emotion. Desperate to distract himself, he instead focused on the orb.

Quick eyes, whirling eyes, eyes that spun into a blur of grey from their usual black and white, eyes staring directly into the piercing brilliance. Tick cried out silently at the exultant flash of the orb, rays breaking straight through his eyes, taking hold of his form, taking hold of him—

For once, light pierced the solid veil, a silent explosion resounding.

~~~~~~~~~

The light of the explosion left a strange menagerie of colors imprinted on their vision like rapid blinking, haunting their eyes with what they had glimpsed in that moment. Eris saw Ditzy startle, yet she and Aphelion remained composed, and in a moment’s time she had scrambled over broken stone to check the last member of their group.

Tick, orb outstretched, held it as far away from his body as he could, his other foreleg shielding his closed eyes as the echo of a cry of pain left him.

Eris closed the few steps to him, unable to guess what had provoked the reactions; Ditzy asked him something, but she didn’t notice.

“What happened?” Eris noticed the diminishing strength of the orb, and then asked as an afterthought while Tick staggered up: “Did you get hurt?”

That flash originated from him, or around him. His eyes are going to be useless for a while.

“I know how to get out,” Aphelion announced from the other side of the low rubble wall. Behind Eris, Ditzy glanced at the sound of the voice—back at Tick—hesitated for a moment, then leaped back over to join Aphelion.

The best news I’ve heard in hours. Nearly forgetting Tick, Eris halfway turned toward the voice; then, remembering, she hit Tick on the shoulder. “Get moving. It was just a flash. You can walk it off.”

Tick scowled at the touch and the words, muttered something indistinguishable, and didn’t move.

“Hey. Move.”

Tick didn’t move. His eyes were still closed.

“We don’t have time for you to cringe like a foal.” Eris leaped onto the small divide. “Get up and stop defying rank or I’ll give you something to cringe about.”

Tick finally got up, but Eris was already off. Ditzy was listening to Aphelion as he gestured off into the emptiness and a particular vein of rubble that had fallen in a line.

Ah, progress. Finally.

“… Long ways off. Three hundred yards. But it was there, right in the direction of that line.” Aphelion finished as Eris arrived. Ditzy nodded, and then shot a nervous glance toward Tick’s hideaway.

“He’ll get here,” Eris anticipated the question as they turned their attention to her. “What are my orders?”

Aphelion said nothing for a moment. Eris thought his expression curious, and for her that usually meant danger. “Help Tick get over here first.”

Eris opened her mouth, but she knew she was wearing Aphelion’s patience thin. Without a word she turned back, her self-discipline and argumentativeness brawling. Climbing over to the divide again, she saw Tick waiting, eyes open; the cold ticking gaze gave her pause.

Weird eyes. What’s with the strange eyes out of nowhere, all at once?

Eris could not have known the golden shards in his eyes had not been there a moment before.

“Come on. They’re waiting for you.”

~~~~~~~~

This is it. It’s almost over.

Ditzy didn’t say much as they explained the simple plan. Aphelion had been fortunately positioned when the blast happened: in the one moment of light, he had seen a wall and double-doors in the distance. It had been burned into his sight for several seconds; with some quick thinking he had looked down and found a mark in the rubble that preserved the direction.

They set out, Eris in the lead.

Doubtful thoughts trailed her, but Ditzy pushed them aside. The light had been a sign, a means—it must have been. Ditzy couldn’t make herself believe otherwise. They left the rubble behind; the short walk seemed lengthened by their isolated sphere.

Maybe I should have asked him what he was doing. I just want to get out—I told myself I’d ask him later, but… he looks focused. He’s fine. The most important thing is to get out, to get this over with, to get back to her, and if something happened to me…

Tick can wait. This is his thing, after all, his and Luna’s, and no doubt he’s got a lot to think about. I just need to focus, get rid of this nervousness.

Nonetheless nervousness remained with Ditzy like a nag that refused to hush.

I should have told them. It’s something like he has. It made my memory come alive, and his. Do they even suspect? Does he? There could be anything waiting for us. It could be a trap, anything I’ve forgotten, and maybe theirs too…

A fair distance ahead, Eris stopped. “It’s here.”

Ancient wooden doors stood before them, the archway they sat in carved with finite patterns. What had once been painted and ornamented had suffered a thousand years of decay. The door itself was a mosaic of something, but far too worn away to determine what. Like the glory of the place, it had weathered the fall none too well.

“How are we going to—”

Without flair, Eris half-glanced at Ditzy, backed up a few steps, and rammed the door with her shoulder. It promptly collapsed, showering rotten wood and splinters down around them as the now-bare archway revealed the lit passage beyond.

Moonlight! Ditzy mouthed, cold relief like a gentle rain on her tense body.

Eris dislocated herself from the pile, rolling her eyes once she had passed Aphelion’s disapproving stare. The rest didn’t notice, consumed as they were by the sight of natural light and a promised way out. It was a relatively dazzling illumination, and a welcome one at that. There were small windows along the sides of the upward-sloping passage, some broken with chill vapors, some stained with old and thick colors. It was not a wide or tall passage, not more than ten feet wide or eight in height, and most elements of detail seemed sporadic or chaotic in their appearances. A mosaic there, a carving there, what might have been an ancient sconce rusting on a wall ahead. All life and activity had vanished from it. A once-red carpet lay on the floor, but it had dissipated and had decayed dark into a mostly-black color.

“Go slowly. Try not to touch things if you can help it,” Aphelion ordered, and he first stepped into the passage. Abstract patterns and carvings lined the stone walls, some clear and uninteresting, some ominous and extraordinary. But what was most unusual was the light once held close to them: it faded as soon as they stepped into the aura of moonlight.

Are we finally out? Are we really out of that place, or is this a trick?

They went in an unorganized fashion, but still stayed tight together. Aphelion might eye a feature suspiciously, while Ditzy gave it a more curious gaze, yet they walked onwards without significant pause. Eris, appearing bored, walked straight ahead. Around a corner they turned, and in the distance a set of unimposing doors lay.

“What’s that written over the door?” Ditzy asked, Aphelion wary, Eris lazily scanning. There was a barely readable inscription in heavily stylized letters: “Tolle et Lege.” She glanced at Tick, and for a moment thought there was something amiss about him. He hasn’t stopped, or looked at anything, he’s only gone straight ahead…

“This is the place!”

With that sudden exclamation, Tick flew at the door to the surprise of all others, and Eris leaped to stop him—but she was a hair late, and Tick burst the door open. All pretense of composure lost, he flew into the room beyond, the others right behind. Ditzy hesitated on the doorway, myriad doubts spilling into her mind, but as she stopped she saw the library itself.

The room was titanic, enormous, a colossus to put all others to shame; she was standing with the others on an insignificant balcony on the fifth floor of the library that arched beyond her comprehension. Grey stone and ancient tapestries lined the walls, from the neck-straining ceiling to the dizzying far-away floor. Incomparable shelves of expertly carved stone and wood filled the lower regions, some reaching up beyond even her perspective. Ditzy felt something was amiss among the city of forgotten knowledge—she strained her eyes—but then she saw Tick floating among the shelves, and heard his furious exclamations.

“Burned! Ravaged! Desecrated!”

Then she saw the blackened ancient scars of ash and ruin. Fire had taken this place long ago, and Ditzy’s hopes were as ashen as the books.

Author's Note

This was entirely finished before S4E3 aired. It appears to contradict canon: it doesn't. It will be explained later.

Chapter Eleven: Tapestries Unwoven

Chapter Eleven

Tapestries Unwoven

Tick stood, the last dregs of his anger draining, the hopeful illusion long faded. Mouth no longer agape, yet no less speechless at the destruction, the silence of the windblown ashes and the bones of defiled sanctity left him no consolation. He had reached the summit: and, finding it empty, he found he had nothing left to say.

There was only death here, the death of knowledge and hope.

Ditzy stepped around the corner behind him, staring with wide, concerned eyes.

My nightmare isn’t over.

“Tick?”

No, it’s only just begun.

Tick half-turned, gave Ditzy half a glance, and the golden-eyed mare was no less intimidating for all the horror surrounding her.

A curious expression crossed Ditzy’s face, and she made as if to step closer, but paused. “Did something happen to your eyes?” She shifted uncomfortably at his lack of response. “They’re still looking for you. At least we didn’t all get separated hopelessly again.” Softer, Ditzy whispered to herself, “We need to get out of this place.”

Turning, Ditzy called out “Found him!” and then motioned for Tick. He stood facing an empty shelf, covered in a thick layer of dust and ash, still, incalculable, unreadable.

And yet so clearly, so obviously facing great pain.

Instantly, Ditzy’s face constricted with regret, the guilt at her hopeful thought that the whole thing would be called off because of this, that there would be no more harrowing adventures, that it would end here and that she would know peace.

She remembered the rage and fury as he dove, and saw the same anger and a new desolation in his taut body and immobile eyes, the tongue held silent by a mind too smothered by agony to do anything else.

“Here.” Ditzy held out her hoof, eyes soft with respectful compassion, offering him a lifeline out of his miserable ocean.

Tick set his glare even sharper against the ancient shelf. Ditzy looked for a moment longer, heart-wrenched by his determination, then she looked away to watch the quick-flying guards cut the distance between them.

Yet of all things she did not see his fear.

I have to get out.

Eris and Aphelion landed at the end of the row, not breaking their momentum until they had reached the two.

I have to get away from her.

~~~~~~~~

Tick refused to look at any of them as they moved away to give him room. Eris imagined that it was shame at his petulant actions.

Slit eyes under armor glanced up at the holes in the ceiling, revealing a swathe of the tranquil night sky, and then hovered back to Aphelion. He had insisted they search a while longer.

“Hurry up,” Eris hissed to herself, poised at the top of a lower, crumbling balcony and watching Aphelion and Ditzy scour yet more empty shelves for signs of life. The tantalizing freedom of the night sky hung only a hundred yards away.

Below, Tick began to recover.

~~~~~~~~

After arriving, Aphelion had surveyed the two for the moment and made the decision to search further, which had conveniently separated Ditzy and Tick again. Ditzy had not gone far: the shelves were endless and empty. Fears for Tick and what might be next for her nagged at the edges of her attention, but she kept pace in the fruitless search. A glance here or there was enough to ensure the rows were absent of material. It was a little shiver of coldness every time she saw another scar of ash, and a hot shock of indignity every time she was reminded of how Tick had rejected her efforts to be considerate.

If he won’t take my kindness, then I’m not going to waste it on him.

Stopping, Ditzy resisted the desire to sink further into irritation. Staring at the depressingly empty shelves as he had done, she reminded herself that it was surely not an easy thing for him to experience.

Did he dream of this place? He was having that strange argument with Luna about all these books. Now he doesn’t have anything, I guess, unless there’s more places like this I don’t know about. All this fuss about books…

Aphelion walked around the corner, and Ditzy broke out of her contemplations, noting his advance warily. His compact armored mass stopped a respectful distance from Ditzy, and he watched her as if measuring.

“Have you found anything?” Aphelion asked, quicker than Ditzy had expected. Her mouth hung open for a moment, and then she replied with a casual shake of her head. The strength of words didn’t feel adequate for Ditzy anymore, not in this place.
Aphelion watched her for a moment longer, his eyes searching for something, enough for Ditzy to begin to assume a guarded, questioning demeanor.

“It might be better if you leave him alone for a while. He’s on edge around you.”

Now Ditzy scrutinized Aphelion: watching for any sign of motive, intent, dead-set on learning his cause. She didn’t find any duplicity in the eyes surrounded by armored helm, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. Aphelion replied to her gaze with an even expression, which had remained the same throughout the short encounter. Feeling Ditzy’s sharp stare increase ceaselessly, Aphelion sighed and reluctantly spoke again.

“It’s just a piece of advice from an old soldier. Take it or leave it.”

~~~~~~~

Ditzy had gone out of sight—Tick counted the moments necessary—then he let out all of his pent-up breath all at once, exhaling what felt like humid steam, devouring the cold air, mind running thick with cold relief and magmatic anger.

Tick knew he was close, so close to erupting as he steadied himself against the shelf… but with what, with what he did not know.

And he feared it.

Behind him, a clack of hooves landing and the repetitious rolling rattle of armored joints made him turn. Eris was watching him derisively, clear disgust coloring her face at his display.

“I’d feel ashamed too if I were you.”

Eris advanced, unsympathetic eyes solid on his ratcheting orbs.

“Really, you’re almost as bad as her, letting your feelings run all over you and endanger everyone else in the process.”

Tick stared right back, body poised like a threatened beast, the open insult and taunt irresistible.

Eris leered at his combative stance. “No—you’re worse. She wanted out. She had an end. But not you, crying over something that’s over and done, that can’t be changed, trapped in the useless past.”

Eris paused for a moment, tapping an armored hoof against her chin and rolling her eyes in mock-contemplativeness. “At least you had the sense to hold it in and wait until nopony was around to look weak and pathetic. She didn’t. It was disgusting to watch.”

Eris started to walk away from him, but then she turned to glimpse the wounds she had opened and the vampiric grin faded.

Tick held still in the flood of rage, all but his eyes, and they whirled until they were a solid blur of silver, a maelstrom of wicked deliverance.

~~~~~~~

Something else caught Ditzy’s eye before Aphelion could complete his exit.

As he sighed again and shook his head, the small glint of his burnished armor grabbed her attention—and then as Aphelion started to walk away, Ditzy saw an ever-familiar form on a distant shelf behind that glint. Not even noticing Aphelion’s wary and curious gaze as she flew quickly over him, Ditzy reached the shelf and pulled a black metal-bound book off the desolate rack.

I found a book! Ditzy thought with a bizarre elated sensation, which turned into a lurchingly uncomfortable feeling as she reminded herself of Twilight. She held it up before her as she floated just off the ground, not entirely sure what to do.

It has a metal binding, and I don’t recognize any of these words.

“Put it down.”

The grave authority in the words turned Ditzy’s head, yet Aphelion’s unnaturally calm face chilled her more. Ditzy let the tome fall to the shelf with a blunt thump, questioning the empathy of fear.

“Ask yourself… out of anything here, has any of it helped you?”

Aphelion pulled a small bag out of the kit on his back, and handed it to Ditzy.

“Don’t read it, and don’t let him see it.”

~~~~~~~~

Eris held Tick against the wall by his throat, in his rage refusing to break the stare even as he suffocated.

“You bastard, what did you to me?”

The indignant malevolence of her slit eyes mirrored the satisfied anger of his. Eris pushed harder against his windpipe, fury at the freakish incident hiding shameful fear.

Not so in control of yourself now, are you?

Obscured by black spots, Tick’s vision began to fade, but Eris pulled back and let him fall to the floor. He hardly felt himself hit the ground; the blood rushing back into the brain dizzied him.

“You’re disgusting,” Tick heard Eris whisper heavily as his vision exploded into a thousand dots and he rushed another breath, but he could still distinguish a loathing in her voice directed at more than one.

I shouldn’t have done that… any of that…why did I do that? She’s made me insane. I can’t live like this, volatile; I have no control anymore; as much as that one is a bat-winged bitch she has a fair point.

Eventually, Tick pulled himself up and sat, vision still swimming at the edges. “Come on, get up,” Eris said in a remarkably calm, casual voice, as if Tick had just tripped over something and she hadn’t been choking him moments before. Eris was bizarrely calm: no hint of the former rage or hidden fear and shame, just her usual slightly bored and impatient expression. Recovering, inexplicable confusion mixed with mental pain as his lungs burned.

You just tried to choke me to death… and then you act like nothing happened? I guess, as much as value control, you would try to stay honest to it. For a moment, a single moment, she lost control. In that state, there is no difference between thought and action, and deprived of that sole barrier, she shamed herself and her principles. All it took was an instant…

Eris looked at him for another second with her slight frown of boredom, and then started to wander off.

Or maybe I was all wrong. Either way, I hope I don’t have to deal with her again.

His quiet moment of clarity passed, Tick glanced at the forest of books’ bones and felt himself crumbling into nothing like that skeleton of ashes.

~~~~~~~~

They left.

Finding nothing more, the four exited through the gaping skyline, and the ruin threw no sudden obstacles against them. Only the whispers in the dark lasted, the memories now fading from minds to be dug up and worried over another day.

Ditzy felt home calling, the night fading. Her monomaniacal desire to return to her daughter nagged at her as the as the leading guards dived decidedly away from the town, towards the clearing where Luna had watched them go. No words, no traces of what had been followed them—like a dream, yet the wounds they sustained ached.

Luna had waited for them.

She was as calm as the night and regal as a star, and for all the world Ditzy felt the most perverse mix of pity and fear and hate seething in her veins, blinding her. For who would shout the truth to Luna’s calm eyes? For who would recall the indignity of the actions she had forced them through? For who could strip away her legitimate pains and the torment of a thousand years?

Twisted constraint clamped Ditzy’s mouth shut as Luna surveyed each and all. Decorum forbade them from speaking first, and weary bodies and minds threatened to collapse at last.

“Let us reach a more secure location, and then recount your tales.”

~~~~~~~~

Ditzy watched Tick.

The battle long behind him, Tick had reached a new plateau of silently shunning the world around him. Care rejected, Ditzy had confined herself to observing him from afar, waiting on their side of the grassy hillock as Luna and the guards spoke.

If he won’t let me help him… then let him be miserable.

Flashes of the garden in Canterlot returned to Ditzy, where he had suddenly embraced her only to become distant again, of the ecstasy of minds binding, of now-distant moments. Memories of Twilight years ago raced against the current, making Ditzy flinch at the sympathy that had been perfect in the moment, breaking her down and setting her free.

Not like he is…

Pragmatism overpowered her cooling emotions, so vehement of late.

…it would be a waste of my time.

Then the two guards appeared over the crest of the hill, and they passed word of Luna’s call for Ditzy. Ditzy looked up over the crest, ascended to the top, and hesitated.

No. There’s nothing.

Ditzy descended from the backdrop of the night sky and moon.

Shallow as a broken vessel, empty as a sieve, the last particle of painful emotion dripped out of Ditzy. There was no spark in her golden eyes; it had all drained away, and Luna’s austere mystery remained silent as she studied the empty mother.

“Tell us what hath occurred.”

Ditzy spoke, but the words were chunks of ice, a slow hail of dead words sharp-sliding off her tongue. They no longer meant anything to her. As Ditzy continued, she neared the end of her tale and the less-than-explosive discovery of the only tangible thing taken from the crypt-like place of memory. Luna’s eyes turned energetic at the mention of the tome. They hovered, searched, the azure orbs tracking Ditzy and holding still as Ditzy pulled the book from her pack.

“This is it,” Ditzy said, flat, resigned.

For a long time in the night breeze, nothing was said. Luna—thinking—plainly undecided for the first time in Ditzy’s memory instead opted to look away.

I should drop this now and let you and him handle it. I should leave and get on with my life. What did I ever do? Like a fool, I chased some stupid dream of adventure and finding an interesting stranger out. I got my adventure, and more than I ever wanted, and more than I want to believe, more than I can forget, and more than I will ever be comfortable with…

“Keep it,” Luna said with a sudden finality. Ditzy stared back at her, incredulous.

“No!”

Ignoring the reflexive utterance, Luna’s tone returned to her smooth majesty. “The book you now hold is unlikely to be of great worth, and in any case it must remain away from Tick. There is the case that it poses a danger—”

“Which is exactly why I shouldn’t have it!”

“—upon being read. We trust you that you shall not do anything untoward with it, nor read it yourself or allow any other to do so. We have seen that thy concern for thy companions and thy house’s welfare is great. It is this—”

I don’t care about him anymore, Ditzy thought, the whiplash of empathy restrained gritting her teeth.

“—care that assures us that you will not fail. We will send an agent to retrieve it for us, and be assured that Tick will be able to look over it at the proper time.”

In the painful stifling silence, Luna mulled over something untellable to Ditzy, who waited as her stomach knotted. She glanced back in the direction of her forlorn home, but Luna’s words cut off her longing.

“Of all the three that we have spoken to, you have not lied.”

Ditzy’s attention returned to find Luna studying her with a new gaze, less regal, deeper, curious.

“Yet we think there is something else you would like to say.”

The cold pretense Ditzy had assumed wavered. Her mouth dry, Ditzy found she could say nothing.

For what else could she tell Luna? Surely, she had said everything that had occurred in that hellish place. There was neither an ounce or an iota of anything important that had occurred, yet—yet Luna still watched with the gaze unfamiliar to the idea that Ditzy had held of her, something that provoked a roar of indignation and wounds hidden.

What do you want? What could I have to say to her?

“You just,” Ditzy began, the end of the words absent from her mind, the complete uncertainty agitating her into a bizarre anger that coalesced with her pragmatism; for once—for once the two agreed, her wild emotion and her sense of reason, that something must be said, and that by necessity it would be painful.

“You took me away from my home! I didn’t want any dangerous adventure—I was just gone, out for a while, to escape, and I get wrapped up in this. WHY? I don’t see how I belong in this at all! I was just chasing him, like the naïve pony I am, thinking that nothing could go wrong. You said I was tainted with the Nightmare, but what has that done to me or Tick? Nothing! Nothing that I can see! I don’t understand any of anything that’s happening. I don’t have a way out of this; back in the jail it was either agree to something that I couldn’t even imagine or rot there. There were the days waiting at home, hoping you wouldn’t come, hoping that my life would go back to whatever semblance of normal I had before this tragedy happened. Then you make us go through that place, more of a nightmare than anything that I’ve seen since I saw that reflection in his mind…”

Ditzy choked on her words, the scarred mother blinded by tears. She hadn’t said it all, she knew there were more things, but her anger was burning into misery faster than she could release it. All the while she knew she was twisting the past, twisting her own actions, not even giving herself a fair trial, yet the critical blade of hindsight was merciless to all.

“You took me away from her.”

Having gasped out the last words, Ditzy turned to leave, her shame a tangible mire that dragged at her limbs as she moved.

As Ditzy crawled up towards the blurry sky, Luna walked into her path. She heard through the growing wind and her shadowy tears:

“I’m sorry.”

I…

“It will all be explained at the end. I promise.”

~~~~~~~~~

The rain drizzled on them in quick torrents, leaving Ditzy and Tick to trod through the last quiet residues of night’s cold and humid air. Back through the town they went, and Ditzy spared not her attention for Tick.

Almost home now.

They shuddered collectively against the frigid wind and seeping wetness, Ditzy staring with glassy eyes and a trancelike step into the peaceful future. For once, she did not question Tick’s muteness and only sought to steal away a few moments of rest before the dawn rose on them in a flurry of action.

There it is.

The sight of her house rushed in on her: at once her legs desperate to collapse and a burst of final, pent-up energy, which propelled her posthaste to her door. Holding it open as an afterthought for Tick, she noticed him on edge, eyes fixed in the dark, searching for something, but declining to look at her.

Maybe I should talk to him.

Yet Ditzy remembered her recent creed, and with a long exhalation, slipped the small bag off by the door, rushed up to her room, and let exhaustion take her.

Peace.

~~~~~~~~

Tick fought the terror, but he knew it was his savior. It was the only thing that made sense. This fear that had grown into him, he knew, somehow that it was a gift, salvation, his way out. But his body shook and trembled: he knew not why, he knew what he had to do, but could not muster the last desperate strength to break away.

I know what I have to do, so why is it so hard to do it? As if to add more fuel to the insanity, now that one wants to kill me. There’s no peace here. There’s no safety here. Why can’t I leave? Why can’t I leave…

Breathing heavy, Tick ripped his eyes away from the staircase, twirling around the entryway, anger sparking but never seeming to ignite, panic wracking his mind and wide-shot eyes. It sought—he sought—an exit, a finality, an end, but he could not tear his hooves from the spot nor extend his wings to rocket out in freefall. There was something, something, something, but all it would take was the slightest push to send him out of the maddening place, into the transcendent night, into Pyrrhic victory.

Yet the panic that fueled his terrified motions nearly missed the means of his leaving. Tick’s attention fastened at last on the pack casually tossed aside, and for a few moments he stood stock-still, staring.

That’s not hers. It has a guard insignia on it.

Trembling in hopeful fear, Tick rushed to the pack, held off for an instant, opened it, and recoiled. The whirling-eyed seeker stood, frozen with suspense like a boulder hanging over him.

All lies.

The words sounded like the sick crunch of bone and flesh snapping.

They all lied to me!

His thoughts erupted in dizzying fury, and he no longer saw the world around him.

She lied to me!

As if struck by the merciless fatal blow of a spear, Tick fell back against the door, and relentless shame and deathly fear mixed as he lost all track of the world. One by one, disparate emotions drained from the wound: agony, fear, shame, anger, shock.

Tick breathed in at last the air that had escaped him, but his sight remained in the mind. He could feel the wind on his wings calling and the starry chill of isolation, a promised freedom from the living hell.

There was only one way… there’s only one way out of here…

Tick held the book against him like a shield against the madness.

Chapter One: Train of Thought

Chapter One

Train of Thought, Part 1

Ditzy yawned.

She was sprawled out in her bed, eyes closed against the still air of the morning. It was early, or it felt early as she lay back in her bed, thinking about the coming day, her mailmare route, and how she was going to spend time with Dinky, who was growing up entirely too fast in Ditzy’s opinion. She had almost completed her first year of school and had become fast friends with a few others. It was a chore at times, keeping up with Dinky’s schooling and a full-time job, but it was worth it. Dinky was the most adorable foal Ditzy had ever seen, and she was a welcome distraction from the rest of her life, yet—something didn’t feel right.

Stretching, Ditzy turned over, facing the window and opening her eyes for the first time that day, blinking rapidly and squinting to clear the morning haze from her eyes.

The world outside was moving!

With a yelp, Ditzy haphazardly rolled off of the bed and onto the floor, landing on a wing and bruising it slightly. A… metal floor?

Oh.

Then she remembered. My vacation, of course.

Ditzy was on vacation, or rather on the way to her vacation. She was on a train to Canterlot in one of the first class passenger cars. Ditzy had immediately noticed the fine upholstery, with furnishings including a dresser, wrought iron lamps, silk curtains, and a mess of other livery that she could not identify. Normally Ditzy didn’t care for anything that fancy, but how she had gotten a first class ticket is another story entirely.

Rolling upright, Ditzy realized she had landed on her back, and glanced about quickly before she let out a nervous laugh when she realized that she was in a private car, after all, and nopony had seen her clumsiness. Rubbing the sore spot on her wing, Ditzy wished that whoever had designed the car had had the foresight to include carpeted floors, or even wooden ones. Oh well, can’t have it all. Ditzy grinned as she got back in her bed, savoring the silk sheets. She had to admit to herself she could see why some ponies took vacations as often as possible. It’s nice to get away, if only for a while.

Ditzy was headed to the coast, for a week of peaceful exploration and relaxation on the beaches. Canterlot was a stopping place on the way. Ditzy had never spent any significant time there, and the train was going to stop there for a day and a night to resupply.

Ditzy hadn’t wanted to take a vacation initially, but after everything that had happened, she thought she needed it. Especially after the incident with Discord. Ditzy shuddered and pulled the sheets tighter, suppressing an urge to fall through vivid memory. Things had gotten quite interesting after the last year and a half in Ponyville, after Twilight Sparkle, the new librarian and personal protégé to Celestia had arrived. It wasn’t that she didn’t like her—Twilight alone had significantly increased the mailmare’s business in Ponyville by the sheer number of books she ordered and she was nice when she wasn’t impatiently awaiting a delivery—but she brought along quite a bit of excitement that occasionally crossed into all-out mayhem. Anything from Nightmare Moon to Parasprites.

And then, of course, there had been Discord and his special visit to her, his special malice.

Ditzy slammed her eyes shut. What Discord had done to her memories was not something she would want or try to recollect. Action replaced thought to give her a moment’s peace as she rolled back out of bed with slightly more grace. When she had gone to request a vacation, it hadn’t surprised her that nearly a month of free time had piled up. Admitting to herself that she needed a vacation was easier than she had expected. The trauma had made it necessary.

So what am I supposed to do before the train gets there?

Ditzy recalled her lone regret as the train rumbled softly under her hooves. She had opted not to take Dinky along, but school was far too important. Unbidden on the trails of that thought, the last few weeks began to press in on her surprising good mood.

Ditzy hadn’t expected to improve quickly, and had suppressed thoughts that she might not improve at all, yet the new sights and new purpose had granted her some small reprieve. It wasn’t all bad the last few weeks. I can’t forget that.

Ditzy opened a window and let the wind roll over her, through her blonde mane as she stretched her wings and felt the warm air run through her feathers.

“Aaaahhh…”

It always felt amazing to wake up to thermals under your wings; it was something only pegasi could truly appreciate. Can’t I do this every morning?

“Room service!”

Ditzy hopped slightly and let the wind carry her over to the rear of the car. “Come in!”

The waitress entered, a young earth pony with a cinnamon-brown coat and a stark white mane. Ditzy smiled as soon as she looked at the cart. Toast, bagels, orange juice, an absolutely delicious looking assortment of fruit and flowers, eggs, coffee, and a muffin.

Ditzy gave a slight shudder and closed her eyes as she struggled not to overreact to the sight. Some things are best left forgotten…

Not here, not now. This is the time to get away.

“Something wrong, miss? Would you like anything?”

Her eyes popped back open as her mouth assumed her characteristic smile so often previously absent. “I’d like some of these!” she said, conveniently avoiding pointing at the muffin. As she opened her eyes, the waitress started slightly as she noticed Ditzy’s eyes, but regained her composure, and her smile, extremely quickly. The waitress continued to smile while serving Ditzy, but it didn’t look real to Ditzy. It was a tired smile: It spoke of long hours, low pay, and a dead-end career. After many years of getting fake smiles, nervous excuses, curious glances, and downright irritated stares aimed at her eyes, Ditzy had become unusually perceptive about reading facial expression and body language. It pained her at times, to see some ponies looking at her so, but she bore on anyways. After all, Ditzy thought as the waitress continued to the next cabin, it does get better as long as you try.

Ditzy wouldn’t have dared thought something so optimistic before, but the last week had been strange. And despite the strangeness of it all, it ended well enough.

Ditzy leaned out of a window and recalled the events of that previous week, the encounters before she had set off. She found that a smile sneaked onto her face as she did, a warm indication of her bettering mood.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Ditzy had never recognized the significance of the fact that she was the only mailmare in Ponyville until she had tried to leave, if only for a week’s respite. A little known fact about the mail service in Equestria is that both the mail service and the weather pegasi are part of a larger organization—the Avian Corps. Ditzy had to request that a spare pegasus come train for the week prior to her vacation. Being a mailmare was a lot of work, and it took a thorough understanding of both routes and various mailmare know-how. Theoretically an earth pony or unicorn could do it, but due to the occasional floating house, such as Rainbow Dash’s, that position quickly became more trouble than its worth.

Speaking of Rainbow Dash…

Dash herself was not far off from Ditzy’s house, and she watched with a fair degree of caution as Dash meandered closer. Ditzy had scheduled the replacement pegasus to meet her just outside her house, and she hadn’t particularly hoped that Rainbow Dash would be the one to show up. Ditzy felt a slight disappointment—she had hoped for someone that would take the job, well, more seriously, and Dash had the unfortunate habit of lounging on clouds and more than occasionally going too fast for her own benefit. After meeting, Ditzy had planned to head over to the small office that served the mail needs for Ponyville and the surrounding area. Ditzy paused as she saw Dinky jumping up and down just inside the window, waving goodbye to her mom. Dinky was just adorable to her and—

“Hey Derpy! Has, um…” Dash glanced around conspiratorially. “Has Daring Do and the Legend of the Crystal Kingdom come in yet? Twilight was, uh, wondering about it.”

Funny that you would be ashamed of that, and not anything else.

Ditzy shook her head no and Dash looked slightly disappointed. Dash had usually gotten her books at Twilight’s library, but some light teasing at the eggheaded rate that Dash had consumed the Daring Do series had her preferring to do things more discreetly. It was obvious to Ditzy what was going on, but she spared Dash the awkwardness. Ditzy had never expected Dash to be secretive—she was usually very brash, not caring much for the consequences of her actions.

“Come on, Derpy! I’ll race you to the office!”

“No, wait—”

Dash took off without waiting for a response and Ditzy covered her face with her hoof. She had wanted to talk about the job a bit before they started, but Dash had already vanished into the cloud cover. Sighing, she did her best to keep up with the impetuous polychromatic pegasus. Being a mailmare wasn’t an easy job; Ditzy had to carry around quite a large load of letters all day and she didn’t want to tire herself out just getting to the office. To add to her usual load, she also had to supervise Rainbow Dash and hope she was paying enough attention to get through the week.

Ditzy sighed to herself as she arrived at the office to see Rainbow Dash trying to put on a mail-saddle backwards. She should do fine, it’s only a week. Despite her reassurances, Ditzy could not shake her own doubts. Rainbow Dash managed to hold a steady job as a weather worker, how hard would it be to get her to switch to something a little more mundane for a week?

Ditzy had a much, much harder time reassuring herself five days later.

“Letters misdelivered, packages unsent, some were even found in an apple tree! We simply cannot accept this level of incompetence…”

Ditzy sighed inwardly as Mayor Mare continued her tirade. She was beginning to get tired of being shouted at and yelled down when she opened her mouth. It wasn’t like she was used to it or constantly being reprimanded for her mistakes, or hearing, every day, her errors expounded upon by most ponies within sight of whatever she had somehow managed to break or anything else gone wrong.

I just hope she’ll realize whose fault this is when Dash messes this up.

Rainbow Dash had been terrible during her training, constantly staying ahead of Ditzy while only half-listening to instructions. She seemed to have neither the inclination nor the ability to move at an appropriate pace. Near the end of the last shift, Dash had actually managed to lose Ditzy, only to be found later sleeping in an apple tree. At least she hadn’t decided to take a nap on a cloud where everyone could see her slacking off. Ditzy had then returned to the office and braced herself for the coming storm of complaints and damages. She hadn’t expected it to be quite this bad, though. Dash had managed to make almost as many mistakes as the first time Ditzy had worked in the mail service, and that was a major accomplishment for someone whose eyes functioned normally. Every day it had gotten worse, with the mayor coming in to vocalize an increasing number of complaints. Ditzy didn’t even want to think about how bad it would be when she wasn’t around to manage Rainbow Dash.

Ditzy regained her presence of mind just as Mayor Mare ran out of breath.

“I was training somepony to cover for me during my vacation,” Ditzy said tentatively with a tired look.

Looking slightly mollified, Mayor Mare set back, glanced around, scolded Ditzy one last time about how she should be more careful, and left. As soon as the door to the cramped mail office slammed shut, Ditzy let her head swing forth and hit the wooden desk, too distracted by her frustrations to notice the pain. She hadn’t been insistent enough the last couple days to actually tell the mayor that, but the yelling had never been so grinding either. Growling, Ditzy set her head upon her hooves and contemplated a speck on the wall directly across from her. She was sick of being treated like a child, but perhaps once Rainbow Dash finally realized how difficult this job was and finally took it seriously Ditzy could start to change her own reputation. If only they knew how hard I tried; they get all the benefits and I get nothing.

She needed patience, just a bit of patience, just a bit of protection against the slow degradation of her mind, recession back into that state of repressive solitude that had consumed her before Twilight had come to town. She was mostly lonely, and while some other ponies were respectful, they seemed to not much care for her or for conversing with her. Others were downright mean to Ditzy, including Rainbow Dash at times. It was particularly irking that the other Elements were, at a minimum, kind to Ditzy while Dash continued to be rather rude at times. At least she had Dinky, who was a constant joy to be around. She was creative and imaginative: in the mind of a foal, anything was possible and the world was a shining place of wonder and happiness. Dinky gave her a purpose besides simple being, a new perspective on life that was fresh and innervating.

She hardly noticed the flight home or even getting into bed, stopping to give Dinky a hug and a soft kiss on the forehead before retiring to troubled sleep.

The next morning after a long and only marginally satisfactory sleep, Ditzy woke up with a grim determined feeling, knowing full well the magnitude of the task she faced.

She had to get Rainbow Dash to fly the route, not quickly, not hastily, but slowly and carefully. Not racing, not attempting to pull off a sonic rainboom backwards, and definitely not stopping to take naps on clouds or in apple trees when she thought nopony was looking. This in particular irked Ditzy, whose hard work she thought deserved recognition but went unrecognized for the most part. Ditzy stepped outside to see Dash trying to see how many clouds she could hit in a single dive. When Dash eventually noticed Ditzy waiting for her, she pirouetted and landed stylishly in front of Ditzy.

Ditzy gave her a flat expression and Dash seemed to deflate, if only slightly.

“Did ya see that? Pretty awesome, right?” Dash said, energized and ready to launch into the air again.

“Yeah, I guess.” Ditzy spoke without emotion and with a face that betrayed nothing, even, leveled, and calm.

Dash’s expression became one of slightly awkward nervousness at the hinted disapproval and change in attitude, and looked away. Before, Ditzy had been alternatively laughing, smiling, or frowning—mostly frowning at the mess Dash had made in the few seconds that Dash had actually paid attention to Ditzy. Ditzy was still strangely unenthused, so Dash then dealt with things that challenged her in the way Dash dealt with most of her problems—by ignoring them and flying much, much faster than they could.

A few hours later Ditzy found herself cleaning up the letters that Dash had carelessly stuffed into a mailbox. With a look that spoke of quiet determination, Ditzy had followed Dash around the route, repairing the almost hopeless mess that Dash had made. When Ditzy finally got back to the office, she found that Dash had already left, leaving her to face the inevitable complaints about the things she had missed. Ditzy didn’t normally get lots of complaints, even with her usual mistakes, which some ponies had accepted after realizing her disability. An attentive few, including Twilight Sparkle and most of the other elements that resided in Ponyville recognized that Ditzy was a hard worker and more than what her eyes told everypony else. Rarity had even offered to take care of Dinky during Ditzy’s vacation. Ditzy had happily accepted, knowing that Dinky would have a great time with Sweetie Belle and the other fillies that made up the notorious Crusaders, as they called themselves. It was surprising that Rarity would offer such a favor to somepony she only knew as an acquaintance. Probably why she has the Element of Generosity. It sure did take a lot to keep a small horde of rambunctious fillies under control, among her other pursuits.

Ditzy moved through the office carefully, taking note of what Dash had misplaced in her haste and lack of caution. As far as Ditzy could tell, Dash was the only element that held a degrading view of Ditzy, that Ditzy was a hopeless clutz with little to no emotional depth. A truly unfortunate number of ponies had that view of Ditzy, but she had learned to deal with these troubles as they came, as she had learned to tolerate the rantings of the usual complainers. Admittedly, she hadn’t tried her best to get to know everypony in Ponyville, but that had changed when Dinky had started her schooling and Twilight Sparkle set up shop in the library. The complainers would take longer to stop, and it was wearing on Ditzy that Dash failed to emphasize with her when all of the other Elements did. And she was going to have to deal with Dash again tomorrow, and all the trouble that she would cause while Ditzy was gone, and all the angry ponies, and the mayor, and there would be no end to the—

No. Not again!

Mentally growling, Ditzy lifted her head and looked out a small window at some passing clouds, wondering if Dash was on any of them. This time, Ditzy decided, she was going to pony up and SHOW Dash that her job was one that needed to be taken seriously, and that she deserved to be treated with respect. Ditzy knew that if she never demanded respect from Rainbow Dash, she wouldn’t get it. It wasn’t because Dash was a bad pony—she just didn’t realize sometimes the hurt she inadvertently caused. In the distance, she spotted Dash’s cloud house. Walking out of the office with her head held high, she knew that this would be a confrontation.

“To hay with the mayor,” Ditzy muttered. “She can listen to herself complain and see if she likes it.” Whatever the outcome, Ditzy would take her stand upon the clouds.

~~~~~~~~~~

Rainbow Dash was at her cloud house, looking at the newest edition of Daring Do and the Legend of the Crystal Kingdom with a grin that approached squee levels. She had found it in the incoming mail that morning. While technically bound for Twilight’s library, Dash had decided to intercept it just long enough to read it. She suddenly became aware of her look of slavish devotion and furtively looked around. She couldn’t let anyone catch her reading of all things. If she got caught doing something as lame and eggheaded as reading, well… that would be almost as bad as when she had started reading, but nopony could know that her obsession went further. She would never hear the end of it if somepony realized that she had Daring Do dolls (Dash preferred the term action figures) and a shrine to Daring Do in her closet, not to mention all that fiction and some rather questionable art. Peeking out the windows to make sure nopony was spying on her darkest secret, she noticed Derpy approaching.

“At least she couldn’t have seen me,” Dash muttered.

Then Dash heard knocking. Panicking, she looked around for somewhere to hide her precious, finally deciding that under the couch was as good a spot as any.

“Coming!” Dash yelled, sweeping the foyer of her house for anything that could betray her obsession. Luckily, her fanart was hidden away in drawers, the action figures were in their cases disguised as cabinets, and her embarrassingly large collection of Daring Do books was by her secret shrine in her room.

The knocking on the door hastened into a beating tempo before Dash finally opened the door.

“Heya, Derpy!”

“Call me Ditzy, please.” She looked straight forward at Dash, a serious and disapproving demeanor setting the tone.

Dash was slightly muffed—she had always known Derpy was Ditzy’s nickname. I didn’t think she minded! She didn’t say anything before. Why’s she so worked up now?

She hadn’t objected earlier that day or during the previous days, or ever, really. Ditzy looked almost stern—her face wasn’t the usual giddy smile or the scrunched-up face she tended to make after she had made a mistake, but a flat look that was reminiscent of the faces that schoolmasters at flight school would make at Dash after she had skipped class to go racing or hang with Fluttershy.

“So, what’s the occasion?” Dash asked with a slight nervousness as she motioned for Ditzy to come inside. She hoped it wasn’t about temporarily replacing her. Being a mailmare was such a boring job, tedious and not at all like riding the storms that Dash so enjoyed when she wasn’t on weather duty, which had its own exciting moments. Being a mailmare just seemed dull to Dash. Ditzy started to walk inside, heading in the general direction of the couch that Dash had hidden the Daring Do book in.

If she sits on the wrong cushion, she’s going to feel the book! And that would undoubtedly lead to a very awkward question-and-answer session as to why Dash had one of the books bound for Twilight’s library.

Not the middle cushion not the middle cushion not the middle NOTTHEMIDDLE— She sighed inwardly with relief as Ditzy turned to face her, at least until she noticed that Ditzy still looked stern. Ditzy had stopped to where she was framed by a large window, with a cloud blocking out the sun setting behind her. She was looking at Dash almost as if she were studying her.

“So, uh,” Dash was starting to feel the awkward uncoolness in the situation. Ditzy had never answered her original question. “What brings you here, new muffin recipe?” she was surprised to see Ditzy wince significantly but then regain her composure. What’s wrong with her today?

“No, but we have to talk about your replacing me.”

Dash would have groaned, but Ditzy was already acting weird enough and she didn’t want to irritate her anymore. She hated having to do that job, but she had to do it—Dash was obligated to have some experience in other departments if she ever wanted to move up in the weather managing ranks. Like I really want a boring desk job anyways.

“You really aren’t taking this seriously, Dash.”

Rainbow Dash knew that, but it was Ditzy’s tone that surprised her. Was Ditzy… angry? It wasn’t a huge amount of anger, not something that would cause attention if it was displayed by anypony other than Fluttershy, but Ditzy almost sounded hurt. Dash knew she was terrible at understanding other ponies’ emotional responses sometimes, so she went with her usual response to emotionally challenging situations: awkwardness and evasion.

“Well, um, ah, that’s nice, and, um, but I really have to—”

“Please just listen this once. You know you have a problem with responsibility, but being a mailmare is something that requires attention and you have shown a complete lack of care for this job so far. I really expected better understanding of duty from the Element of Loyalty! You only managed to deliver half of the letters to the right addresses, and all the others you either misdelivered or lost completely! You didn’t even—”

Not good. Dash thought to herself for a moment, mentally tuning out Ditzy. Ditzy was getting pretty mad, and while Dash wasn’t good with angry ponies, or emotionally charged ponies in general, she knew that Ditzy was completely serious and more than a bit mad.

“—And I know you’re Equestria’s Best Young Flier, but you’re going to have to slow down to get the job done right. You should be ashamed of your negligence.”

Dash sat down on the floor, almost afraid to glance up at Ditzy and the angry glare she was sending Dash’s way. Ditzy was right, of course. Rainbow Dash wasn’t usually one to let herself be lectured, but Dash had done a terrible job and she knew it. She hadn’t expected Ditzy to go on a tirade. She didn’t even know that Ditzy knew words like negligence. Ditzy had always been quiet and clumsy in all the situations Dash had seen her in. It was almost as if the old roles had been reversed and this time it was Ditzy scolding Dash for messing around with thunderclouds, Dash thought.

“I’m sorry, Ditzy,” Dash sighed. “I just don’t know what went wrong.”

Almost a full second passed before Dash realized just exactly what she had just said. “Oh, no no no no that’s not what I—” Dash intended to say, but it melted away into fear as she saw Ditzy’s face and the sinister way it was directed at her.

Ditzy looked furious. It was a kind of angry that Dash didn’t know existed, not just anger but a cold, dangerous stare. Her face spoke of torments long buried and a burning desire to inspire the same pain she felt in others, something that Dash had no concept or comprehension of. Dash started to say “I didn’t mean it like that!” but found she instead uttered a squeak. The clouds suddenly moved away from in front of the sun, creating a menacing, blindingly bright silhouette of Ditzy as she flared her wings threateningly and advanced on Rainbow Dash. Dash scrabbled back quickly until she hit the door, looking only for a way out her house and away from the burning stare and the slow, insidious advance of Ditzy. Dash looked back up and found herself hypnotized—all she could see was a black outline of Ditzy and the setting sun outlining her, robing her in a painful glow of threatening rays of light. They seemed to promise vengeance, repayment for the pain Rainbow Dash had caused her. She tensed, closing her eyes and prepared herself for whatever would happen next: a blow, an angry yell, a tormenting whisper, to reap what she had sowed unwittingly…

…But instead, she heard the door behind her open and close softly.

It took a few moments for Dash’s brain to comprehend what she had just happened. Dash slowly looked up and around to confirm that Ditzy had left. She had expected anything else, really. Angry yelling, some sort of cruelty, a physical strike against her. Fights were not common in Ponyville or Cloudsdale, as far as she knew, and it would be strange to imagine her friends engaging in a sort of wrath-filled deliverance of pain that Ditzy had seemed keen on inflicting. Acts like that were inexcusable. Violence of any kind had only been justifiable against dangerous beasts such as Hydras and Changelings, things that no doubt would hurt them given the chance. But then why would Dash imagine Ditzy doing such a terrible thing?

She’s gone. But her eyes…

Dash shuddered a moment, remembering the inferno in Ditzy’s eyes that had proceeded her unexpected exit. She didn’t have an answer to that, and she wasn’t sure that she wanted one. Dash had never acted this scared because of somepony getting angry, but this was different somehow. It seemed like a new level of madness had consumed Ditzy. Maybe she had acted so terribly against Ditzy that she would… would what? Cease to view her as a pony and instead imagine her as some tormenting animal? Pretend that Dash was a changeling and then have at her? Dash didn’t want to imagine, but she did anyways. She knew that this was at least partially her fault, and probably mostly. She had to do something, so she got up and closed the blinds to the window to distract her from the light still streaming through intensely.

Thinking back on their short and rather one-sided conversation, Rainbow Dash realized that Ditzy was right, even if she had… had… almost done whatever Dash had thought she was going to do. Dash knew she had acted shamefully during the few days that she had been trained by Ditzy. It had been more like Dash dragging Ditzy at a breakneck pace while she had desperately tried to instruct her. And then Dash had gone and made the worst possible slip possible. It was then that Dash realized the amount of abuse that Ditzy took from her and most ponies in Ponyville.

I haven't been exactly nice to her, and most ponies just ignore her when she's around... but it's not like she hasn't ever snapped at us! Maybe she deserved some of it, but I can't leave, I did the wrong thing, I slipped up, I...

Yet Dash could not deny that most ponies treated Ditzy like she was inadequate, and it had to have taken its toll. Dash, too, knew she was stained with that guilt.

Suddenly conscientious, the chromatic cloud-culler knew she had to do something. Dash was the element of loyalty, after all, as Ditzy had so painfully reminded her. Even if Ditzy wasn’t the closest of friends, Dash had a responsibility to try to fix Ditzy’s emotional storm. Fluttershy had had some advice for when other ponies went crazy: “When your friends scare you the most, it’s because they need your kindness.”

Dash sighed and let herself flop onto the floor, legs askew. She knew Fluttershy would want her to do something, she just didn’t know what. Fluttershy was too far away to go ask now—Ditzy might go do some crazy thing and Dash would be responsible. She had enough ink on her hooves as it was from messing up the mail so atrociously. Maybe I can think about her, since she’s always better with dealing with hurt things…

“Hello, Rainbow Dash!” The imaginary Fluttershy said.

“Hey, Fluttershy,” Dash said dejectedly as she blew a strand of her mane out of her face.

“What’s wrong, Rainbow? You seem a little sad… But, um, I didn’t mean that to seem—”

“It’s ok, Fluttershy. I just said something stupid and I made Derpy really mad. You know I’m bad at feelings— what should I do?”

Imaginary Fluttershy looked sorrowful for a moment and walked over to Dash, gently hugging her for a moment. “It’s good that you can admit that you messed up, Rainbow Dash. But you should go and apologize to her and make her feel better. If, um, that sounds right to you.” Imaginary Fluttershy backed up and covered her face with her mane, looking at Dash with an expression that revealed an overbearing concern for her friend and her emotions; she worried if she had just offended Dash with her mild imperatives.

“It’s ok, Fluttershy. Thanks for the help.” Dash grinned, and then realized that she had been talking to an imaginary version of one of her friends for quite a noticeable length of time. Glancing around fervently for the second time that day, Dash again sighed with relief when she realized nopony was there to witness her slight craziness. Imaginary Fluttershy was right, though. I have to go help Ditzy and I have to go now!

Charging out the door, Dash had no idea where Ditzy could be found and had absolutely no plan on how to find her. Just the way she liked it: no meticulous planning, no messing around, no wasting time. She wasted a little time wincing when the sunset shone potently into her eyes, though. That was going to take a little time to forget…

Dash dove into the blue distance, determined to do the right.

Author's Note

Old comments may no longer apply. Feel free to completely ignore anything I posted in the comments; most of it is just begging for feedback.

Chapter Four: Dawn of Understanding

Chapter Four

Dawn of Understanding

Ditzy heard the water first: pouring down as it must have always had, it had borne away her pain. Last night something extraordinary had happened. Her grief had melted away into the falls in a process that she might never understand, but would endlessly contemplate.

Ditzy was wide awake with a clear, empty mind; her eyes closed and her consciousness unburdened.

Then, she saw it. Her eyes opened to the falls that reflected the radiance of the sun so high above, refracted ten thousand times in a single droplet. It was like glory as it fell from Celestia-knows how far above to land on Ditzy’s nose. It passed in an instant.

Ditzy moved not at all, focused on insight.

Last, she understood it. In that single instant that the drop fell, it acted as a prism: All the colors of the visible spectrum became apparent to her. Her vision filled with ethereal mists of fragmented morning light, she realized why she had hung on for so long when so much had seemed hopeless. Ditzy flew silently out from behind the falls, reentering the life that had once been very simple and now, although complicated beyond belief, was definitely worth living.

Life, she now knew, is worth it. It’s a beautiful, harsh, uncompromising, incredibly difficult struggle that crushes some while lifting others up at random, often against the grain of who deserves what. It is almost never easy—and nearly everything that is worth fighting for has to be fought over time and time again. Sometimes her best efforts had been for naught, and the most meaningless things became paramount. She had been broken, and though she knew she may never reach the state of innocence she left behind, her scars made her who she is. Life goes on, and ultimately, she made a positive difference in it. And the most beautiful thing about it was that she hadn’t even realized the positive differences she had made inadvertently. She couldn’t be proud of all her decisions, but she cherished the ones she could and accepted her losses with a stoic expression and tried harder the next time.

Soaring, she felt euphoric bliss and calm, peacefulness. She had saved Rainbow Dash from ignorance and blind disgust. She had saved Dinky and countless other foals from unimaginable horrors in Tartarus through noble self-sacrifice, although she felt that taking the other choice would hardly be an option. Who knew what she could do next? Life is a beautiful struggle, a victory preceded by defeats. She must fight on.

Early morning rays of light proceeded from the falls to gently awaken the cavern, which was slowly beginning to stir. Having arrived in the night, Ditzy hadn’t really had an opportunity to observe how daylight worked in Lower Canterlot, but now she had an excellent view and the peace of mind to observe it.

It appeared that, over time, the falls had worn away holes in the ceiling that were only as big as the falls themselves—leaving no room for even the sneakiest pegasus to get in or out. Light was transmitted solely through the falls themselves, refracting into a myriad of colors and occasionally shifting focus as the falls went through natural patterns of variance. Ditzy banked as she approached a cavernous wall not far from the door she had originally entered. Everything had been so surreal that to be taken back into a city’s life seemed almost alien to her.

Am I really here now?

Landing on a ledge high above, she watched the city rebirth itself out of the shadowy cocoon of night. At first, the peace was completely undisturbed: Not a soul moved or breathed, it seemed, save for the slight intake and exhale of Ditzy’s breath.

Then the falls began to exude their shine, at first a pure white light that harmoniously shifted into its full grace of spectral color. At last the city moved; it breathed, doors were thrown open and the audacity of life in all its glory poured forth, bringing forth the hum of energetic reverberations to her ears. The city had lived, it had died, it lived again. As the city began to fulfill its myriad purposes, a peculiarly simple question found its way into Ditzy’s mind. What am I going to do next?

It seemed strange, that normal, mundane affairs should go on following the revelation at the falls. In retrospect, it was uncannily dreamlike—from the market into her deepest horror, to the falls and her purging of pain, to finally rest. But there could be no doubt: She had definitely awoken at the falls, and though her resolution was strange, it wasn’t implausible—at least chronologically. Emotions have the strangest way of defying logic, Ditzy had thought, yet she had unusual expectations of them.

So she began to explore again. At first, she intended to fly above the subterranean metropolis, but instead decided to neglect her wings and hoof it around, at least for a while. Flying high had its unique perspective of the world, but also had the drawback that she wasn’t able to share that perspective with those that couldn’t fly. Truly it was glorious to see the world from the view of riding on a storm-cloud, but only the few would ever see that. On the ground, all could come together and share in perceptions. Common experiences are the most enjoyable ones—for if she had nobody to share with, she would have nobody to amplify her joys and diminish her sorrows. She would never be able to know… but she has her own unique experiences.

Speaking of amplifying, Ditzy had now amplified her hunger so much that it was gnawing away at her thoughts. Trotting down a curved dark stone street, she noticed a tavern on her right from which aromatic smells of bread, hay, and ale were drifting. She hadn’t had a drink in a while, either. To drink in the morning was quite questionable in her mind, but she thought she was warranted a little freedom on her vacation. It wasn’t like she was going to be irresponsible and get wasted like that one time she had been engaged in a drinking contest by Berry Punch. She had been much less experienced then. Ditzy knew her limits now; she had obligations, and she had no intention of waking up on a chandelier with Dinky asking her why Berry had fallen asleep in the refrigerator with a lampshade on her head. That had taken a little cleaning, a few applications of buckets of ice water to Berry and a lot of lecturing Dinky about the evils of alcohol.

Above the door of the tavern, a worn-out sign was embellished with the words “The Last Resort” and below a picture that had probably once been magnificent but was now blurred to oblivion. It didn’t really look like a last resort, though—through the window it looked a little worn in places but still homely. Soon after she opened the door she realized that what she had looked at was no window, but rather a strategically placed picture designed to look like a window—it was much more dingy on the inside. Miffed by the misdirection, she almost left, but the aroma was even stronger inside than out. Plus, she was starving. Clever. I give them that.

Several servings of grub later, Ditzy found herself in a booth covered by dirty dishes and the occasional mug of ale. The Last Resort had remained the last resort—not many appeared to revel there; it was quite empty past midday, save for the sole quiet soul inhabiting the bar. He was wearing a traveling cloak that was almost as ashen-grey as his mane and coat, with his wings poking out as he contemplated his drink, faced away from Ditzy. His hood had slipped off in the long time he sat, but he seemed not to notice. The bartender sat back in a shadowed corner, idly rubbing a dirty glass with an even dirtier cloth that could only have made it less clean than when he had started.

Ditzy cantered up to the bar, sat down next to the absent-minded pegasus and waved at the bartender for some ale to hit the road with. Startled out of his reverie, he looked over at Ditzy, but she paid him no attention at the moment. Grumbling slightly, the bartender put his rag and glass down and moved to satisfy Ditzy’s request. Gradually she became conscious of the quiet pegasus to her left staring at her eyes. She followed her better judgment and didn’t confront him over it, grabbed her drink and turned to leave—but as she began to turn, she noticed his eyes for the first time—and abruptly stopped.

Normally, she would have at least given a sign to anypony who would stare at her eyes that they were being a little rude, or ask them to stop given some time. Her intent of asking him to stop halted—she was too busy staring at his eyes. His eyes… ticked.

Given a suitable amount of time, and in a slightly less inebriated state, she would have reacted better. She of all had no reason to be intimidated by strange sights of unusual eyes, much less stare at them—but his irises kept moving, round in circles, as if to an eerie tempo. Grey and black and white unceasingly, rhythmically hammered away in concentric circles around his pupils—his left counterclockwise, his right clockwise. The patterned, encoded segments ticked slowly in time with each other; they surrounded each pupil as the iris, cog-like. Ditzy’s peripheral vision faded and all other senses seemingly halted input as each section of each iris continued its journey, moving like clockwork. Perceived sublime sound subtly voiced as singular silence subsided; she could have sworn she had heard whispers in a desert wind proceeding from those eyes. Inexorably, the irises continued around the pupil, grey and black and white, timeless. The sound continued, slow and worn, like air drug over the crags of rocks and sand in a canyon—a harrowing, whistling sound. His eyes ticked on, slow, intentional, wracking. It was absorbing—she was falling into the abyss at a rate measured only by the deliberate ticking. His eyes were like gears in a machine that hinted of a windy void—and there were voices in the wind. Voices that spoke and whispered, whispered and hinted, hinted and dreamed, dreamed things that hadn’t been said for a long, long time.

Eye contact broke—both eyes—as Ditzy hit the floor. She had spilled her ale off the bar too, but she had noticed neither thing until now. In total, about three seconds had passed since Ditzy had noticed his eyes. Three more seconds passed. In the momentary collision between body and floor, in the snapping of contact, the wind and hypnosis and absorption had all ceased, but not the ticking. Not the movement.

She looked, now up, into his eyes. Time seemed to run again at its normal pace, and his eyes ticked on to their steady rhythm. The sensational experience faded. Pressing in on her, the silence of the tavern was overwhelming. Her mind imposed a ticking sound to match the movement; she wasn’t sure if she was imagining it or not.

The cog-eyed pony, startled out of his own revelation by Ditzy falling off her stool, held out his hoof to help her up and opened his mouth to apologize. As he pulled Ditzy back up, his lips moved but no sound issued forth, and he smacked himself lightly on the forehead and grimaced as a still stunned Ditzy attempted to issue some questioning sounds of her own.

“I… What… explain. What just happened? How did that happen?”

Hastily, the ashen-grey colt pulled a sheet of parchment and a quill from his cloak and wrote:

“I’m sorry about that. You caught me with my guard down, that normally doesn’t happen. I can’t speak.”

“What exactly just happened?” Ditzy pressed. And why can’t you speak? Figuring out was happened was more urgent and he might consider it rude to ask, so she held her silence as he wrote.

“I am able to show others things in my mind—” he motioned back to the “You caught me with my guard down” clause. “—I was distracted, so you saw a little accidentally. Sorry.”

“And what exactly did I end up seeing anyways?” This was pushing the boundary of privacy, Ditzy knew, but he had gotten her into whatever this was. It might be rude, but I have a right to know considering how you just forced it on me, intentional or not.

He just sat there and stared at Ditzy forebodingly.

Ditzy stared back, unafraid and impatient for an answer. She crossed her hooves on her chest and waited. Nopony could stand against her in a staring contest; they all eventually were unnerved enough by her eyes to break—although she might have met her match this time in this unusual iris of an eye.

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick…

“Alright, you win,” Ditzy grumbled a minute and a half later. She had no intention of giving up; she would return to it later. “Why were you staring at my eyes? You have two good reasons not to judge.”

No! Ah, why—

Ditzy regretted saying the last half of those words as soon as they left her mouth. She winced after she did, and mentally cursed at herself for a moment. It was the alcohol and the unexpected stress talking. Understandably, she was cautious and wary after what had just transpired—but if he had intended some kind of trouble, he probably would have committed it already—or it had already been done, in which case she could do little about it. I can only apologize now, so I had better get on it.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say it that way. I shouldn’t be judging you—” She stopped when she saw him scratching off a reply already with a neutral expression.

“I never saw anything quite like your eyes before, besides mine, so I was naturally curious. As you noticed, my eyes allow me to do some unusual things... Do your eyes grant you any strange abilities?”

“No, not really. Nothing like that,” Ditzy said. “My name’s Ditzy, by the way.”

“I’m Tick,” he wrote.

Well, that name doesn't fit at all...

Ditzy’s sardonic thoughts vanished as she glanced back around the tavern. They were still the only inhabitants, save the bartender who had retired back to his corner and his ever-filthier glass. She was at a crossroads, she knew. On one hoof, she could keep talking to Tick and risk getting embroiled in a mess. On the other, she could leave and risk never finding out what she had seen or anything about the only other pony she had met with eyes somehow stranger than hers.

The second option never even had a chance.

“How about we grab some drinks and talk over them?”

“I do suppose I owe you for spilling yours.”

Several minutes later, Ditzy found herself on the opposite side of a booth with Tick. He was initially reluctant to ‘talk’ in such an odd manner, not to mention he seemed reluctant to talk at all, but Ditzy eventually jostled a few bits of memory out of him concerning his conditions. Apparently, he had been born with it—or it had happened so early in his life that he had no recollection of its happening. His earliest memory was his brother describing how his eyes moved to him. He seemed mutually interested in Ditzy’s eyes—although less inclined to ask questions. Ditzy told him a little about her early life, with the intention of baiting more information out of him, but she was unsuccessful and so moved on. It was by far the most unconventional conversation Ditzy had ever had; it more resembled writing letters. She would query, then Tick would take anywhere from a few seconds to a minute drawing up a response. It gave her a lot of time to wonder about him.

“What do you do for a living?”

“Historian.”

Well, that’s not something you see every day. “You have to have a more efficient system of communication. It must get aggravating having to write everything out.”

His face tensed slightly, nearly imperceptibly. Tick probably didn’t even realize he was showing it, but Ditzy observed, silent and patient.

“I haven’t always beenIt's probably temporary Please leave it alone.”

He passed it off quickly, having written hastily in comparison to his previous responses. Ditzy decided to let silence be the topic for a minute as Tick brooded for a minute, downed his pint of ale, and motioned for another; drinking it quickly. He stared down into his new glass, the corona of his irises reflected in it. So far, Ditzy had been the one carrying the conversation, and he seemed to have no intentions of changing that—he had enough on his mind, apparently. The reflection of his eyes were staring back up at him, and it seemed as if he was drawing himself into a trance.

“Does it help you concentrate, the reflection?”

Absentmindedly, he scrawled ‘yes’ on the parchment, continuing to peer into the infinite mirror of eye and glass. She wondered how many of those mirrors he could perceive; wondered how many tiny fluctuations in the ticking he could distinguish. His face was made to look older than it was by the worry he put into that introspective glance. He’s young, Ditzy noticed—younger than her, though not by a significant margin, despite the ashen-grey coat normally associated with the aged who had seen so much of the world. It had certainly aged Ditzy, the responsibility of raising a foal by herself and, before that, being alone in the world. What did he see to bring out the ash in his mane?

“What do you focus on in history?”

Reluctantly, he tore his gaze away from the empty glass. “Recently, I’ve been focusing on trying to resolve all the conflicts in what history claims to have happened in the age before Nightmare Moon was banished, but after Discord was defeated for the first time.”

“Like?” Ditzy flinched not at all at the mention of Discord, nor did her mind rest on it. That was in the past now.

“Where to start. Countless anachronisms. Conflicting statements. A cultural play and an official story that don’t fit together in ways that make sense. So few sources, and all are disputed or contradictory. Can’t help but rant a little—it’s frustrating. Without even getting to”

He almost completely obliterated the last four words after writing them, but Ditzy could still distinguish them—being a mailmare who had to read every last address scribbled on a letter helped. Tick’s expression had started to darken, but it faded as he listened to Ditzy’s response.

“‘Cultural play and an official story that don’t fit together?’ What do you mean by that? It sounds like a conspiracy theory.”

A flash of anger crossed Tick’s face and vanished; he slashed the air with his quill to express negation. At least he was showing some passion now—Ditzy had worked hard enough to get him to talk, and she intended to get her word’s worth out of him.

“Absolutely not. Conspiracy theories are confirmation bias raised to an extreme, ignoring all other evidence that contradicts the theory. This is a situation in which all of the evidence points in different directions, with next to no possible resolution. They are completely different.”

“Back up a little,” Ditzy said. “What stories are we talking about?”

“Primarily, Discord’s defeat by Celestia and Luna and the traditional story of the founding of Equestria by the three disparate nations of ponies.”

Ditzy fuzzily recalled having been dragged to a Hearth’s warming pageant last year, along with Dinky. She had known the story before, of course—everypony knew the story—and it had certainly seemed a little more theatrical than historical. She couldn’t blame them for trying to make it more entertaining; it was the same story year after year after all.

“So what shocking and provoking secrets does your analysis reveal?” Ditzy prodded, having a little fun with his serious disposition.

Tick sighed, or he appeared to sigh, since no sound came out of his mouth. He pulled a longer scroll out of his cloak and started writing. He composed his answer with a mix of deliberation and haste, and it looked to be much more sizeable than his previous answers. As he flipped the already-sizable piece of parchment over to scribble on the back, Ditzy started to wonder how in-depth he was going. She distracted herself by surveying the bar again, but found it was nearly as empty as she had first observed it.

When he finished, he slid it over to Ditzy and motioned at himself and the bar, then back at his seat; he went over to the bar and waved at the bartender.

“Less than you expect by proof and more by omission. According to Celestia and a very few texts, Discord was defeated by Celestia and Luna, each using three of the Elements of Harmony. According to the Hearth’s Warming tradition, Equestria was founded by three uniting tribes after being pushed south by the advancing cold and climate, Wendigos, and subsequent crop failures. The problems arise when we consider how these could have both existed in the same timeline. When Discord rules, the world is an unholy mess of chaos—that fact is challenged by nopony—and such would be mentioned in any surviving account. So if Discord was ruling or existing when the three nations moved south, it would have been mentioned. He would have had to have come in later to take his throne.

The secondary problem is where Celestia and Luna were during the whole founding -of-Equestria event. Their first historical mentions are when they defeat Discord and claim ‘the’ throne.

At this point, I must digress. The only accounts we have of him before his second coming proceed from the princesses themselves, and all are very succinct with no background information. In contrast, the Hearth’s Warming story is a tradition preserved in writing for thousands of years: the very oldest story and historical record we have.

Since Discord can’t have been ruling during the founding of Equestria, or before, that brings into question how that story could take place at all. In what manner did Celestia and Luna exist then? As far as our written records go back, with the exception of Hearth’s Warming, they have been the undisputed autocratic rulers of Equestria. If Discord had ruled Equestria as we know it, undoubtedly we would have had written records.

Celestia and Luna can raise and set the sun and the moon (obviously). To add to that, as far as we can tell they are immortal, but far from undefeatable as Chrysalis demonstrated during the Changeling Invasion. Therefore, they must have been around for a very long time for life as we know it to exist in this world—or at least, somepony powerful enough to move the celestial bodies themselves would have had to have existed throughout foreseeable time.

That leaves us with a few unsettling possibilities. The first is that Discord ruled over the known world at the beginning of time, and that Celestia and Luna dethroned him. The problems that arise out of that are, simply, where did they go? If they were around during the time of separate nations, would they not try to unite them and resolve conflicts? Could they have somehow passed off their responsibilities of the celestial bodies to somepony else, which would be considered impossible by conventional magical and scientific reasoning? How, why?

The second possibility is that Discord assumed control of Equestria after its founding. The problem with this is that Celestia and Luna, or somepony with their powers, must have always existed—would they not mention being defeated by Discord in the past, for (in all indication) a significant amount of time? Not to mention what I wrote above about historical records. By their own accounts, the implication is that Discord ruled long enough to have a prolonged effect on society, whatever it was at the time. And if Celestia and Luna existed during that time and they were defeated, why was it not recorded? For all of their recorded existence, they have rule—and either they or somepony with their power has always existed. Did they come from somewhere? Did they replace or inherit some position?

There are possibilities, always, of some sort of reconciliation between these stories. But with the information we have, we can’t possibly do that—we can’t even acknowledge the existence of both of these stories without either asking questions about the origins of Discord, and the powers of Celestia and Luna, OR asking why they would hide being defeated— or even worse, willingly neglect the world to let it be scoured by Discord, not to mention neglecting the divided society of pre-Equestria.

By the time you finish reading this, I should be back with a few more drinks. I figured you might want them after reading this; it is a lot of information.”

Ditzy sat back in her booth, her mind taking its time processing the barrage of deductive analysis and speculation. That was… Well. That was something, all right. The familiar headache of struggling to comprehend a particularly difficult or unconventional idea began its dull pain just above and between Ditzy’s eyes. Looking up from the scroll, she saw Tick holding a pint with one hoof out toward her, and a second pint half-empty on his side of the booth. She hadn’t even noticed him sitting back down. Decidedly, she grabbed the pint out of Tick’s hoof and drained it without hesitation. She would trade the headache now for another later; at least she might comprehend it better tomorrow.

“That was analytical,” Ditzy leaned back and closed her eyes for a moment, digesting both food and information. He’s so wrapped up in this past…

That probably was not the response he had expected to hear. It was certainly thought-provoking, but to tell the truth Ditzy didn’t put a lot of credence in theories about ancient stories. She had too much going on in her current life to worry about the problems of older times.

“Is it not concerning?”

“I’m going to challenge you. Make it relevant for me. Honestly, I don’t care that much about ancient history. I just wanted to hear from you, and of you and your struggles. But if you can make this relevant to today, then Iwill care, and I might even know somepony who could help you.”

“Alright then. Look at it from a different perspective. The princesses are constant in our society and have been around for thousands of years, at least. If the past is as complicated and contradictory as these stories would have us believe, then why would they allow them to exist without providing a complete and factual story? Currently, some pretty nasty conclusions could be drawn from them. I don’t want to say they are hiding something—it sounds alarmist and is reminiscent of conspiracy theories—but the sheer number of possibilities arising from the idea that somepony isn’t telling the truth, or the whole truth, calls for an investigation.”

“So just because Celestia and Luna might be not telling us something, major or minor, or because they haven’t bothered to fix the historical accuracy of a folk tale they should be investigated?” Ditzy was just playing devil’s advocate at this point. “Don’t get me wrong, you made it relevant, but it was never shocking or provoking.”

“I never said it was shocking or provoking, you did. Besides, that’s not There is more, but it isn’t… relevant.” His face hardened, tautened; he bit his lip and stared tensely back into his now-empty glass. Tick had to drunk quite a few bits worth of drinks in total. He was intoxicated and it was starting to show in his writing; it was getting a little less legible and he was correcting more sections.

Ditzy held up her hooves in a sign of surrender. “Alright, you got me. Your concerns are relevant to today’s society. You win.” She wasn’t about to press into the irrelevant things, anyways. No telling what that could be until she knew Tick better. She had a feeling she would be running into him a few more times, at least.

“It was never about winning. How about that mysterious somepony that could be of help to me?”

After he wrote this, Tick waved at the bartender for another drink.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

Tick swore—or Ditzy assumed he did, but no sound left his moving mouth—and slammed his hoof on the table with an impact that made the scattered glasses rattle. He glared for an instant at Ditzy, then looked down at his quill and parchment with loathing. After a long, angry stare at those implements, he took them up and wrote:

“Leave well enough alone.”

Alright, then.

Silence once again became the topic of conversation as Ditzy resolved to try to not push any more of his buttons, at least while he was getting drunk—it was only prudent. It was obvious he had some issues that needed to be resolved, and Ditzy would help if she could—having been in dark places, and just so short a time ago, she knew the price of remaining broken. She refused to let anypony she knew suffer in such a way, even if she had just met them. Nopony deserved to be left in a horrible place in their minds, so why would she willingly neglect the care of others when others had neglected her? Obviously, some initiative was needed. And was it just her, or were Tick’s eyes ticking faster?

“Do you still want to hear about the pony who might be able to help you with your research?” Ditzy said gently.

“Yes. Sorry. I have had too much to drink.” Tick swept his quill and parchment off to the side, letting Ditzy have the metaphorical stage. It was a half-beat apology, but it was more than she expected from a pony that was very close to the going-to-have-hangover stage if not there already. She had no idea of his tolerance, after all.

“I happen to know the current bearers of the Elements of Harmony—”

Tick’s eyes widened, which only seemed to amplify the revolutions of his irises.

“—And not only might they be able to tell you more about the Hearth’s Warming play (They were actually actors in it one year), one is very educated and a librarian. She actually lives in a library, believe it or not. Personally, I think that’s taking an obsession with books a little far, but— “

Ditzy stopped as a very attentive Tick passed her the parchment again. She could have sworn she heard the tempo of his eyes again; his eyes were definitely moving faster. Maybe it varied from time to time. Ditzy knew from experience that control over a set of wandering eyes changed with mood as much as anything else.

“Did you say lives in a library? What town is this?”

“Well, all of the Elements actually live in Ponyville. It’s a nice, small town not too far from here, actually—I’m a mailmare there, so I run into all of them at some time or another.”

Tick’s irises spun round, the tempo accelerating. He had leaned back into the booth; he was nervous—but Ditzy only suspected it, she couldn’t prove it. The manner in which he wrote his response belied at least a demand for knowledge, and concern was the likely motivator for that demand.

Ditzy kept her tone calm and conversational, but kept her eyes more carefully on him. “The librarian is actually the personal student of Celestia herself. I was pretty excited when I heard about that, because I thought that I would get to take mail to Celestia all the time. Turns out she has her own special delivery system—she can send letters directly to Celestia through some weird teleportation-fire that the dragon she’s raising can do. I have to admit I was a little jealous when I realized I wouldn’t be carrying letters to the princess, but I got over it. It would have been nice to travel more often, though,” Ditzy sighed. “Can’t always get what you want. Are you ok?”

Tick appeared frozen, his irises whirling so quickly that the shades were unable to be distinguished; the little color that remained in his face had drained at the mention of Twilight’s letters to Celestia. He seemed to be looking through Ditzy rather than at her. What had once been a tempo had now become a deep humming, and Ditzy had not an iota of knowledge of what was happening to him.

“Tick?”

She was about to find out.

“Tick!”

The separation of his iris from the rest of his eyes dissipated in an instant, a grey blur enveloping them. Ditzy’s eyes aligned momentarily, just long enough to make full contact with the vortex. Just long enough to draw her in.

~~~~~~~~~~

This time, it happened quickly. No long, protracted whispering of the wind nor slowing of time nor loss of sensation. There was almost no transition: Ditzy was in a bar, and then she was in a library, looking down at a book. She could feel the pages on… his hooves and the slight currents in the air on his body. Altogether it was a completely natural and unsettling experience—she thought she could feel his mind too, but she had no time to contemplate it.

And then she was overlooking a dark crag with a windmill in the distance, looking through Tick’s eyes at fields filled with nothing but boulders strewn about. Dark moonlight shone down, cutting through dystopian night as a young aqua-colored pegasus looked on apprehensively.

And then she saw a dock and harbor, buildings cropped up along the waterside with magnificent towers in the distance. The smell of brine was invigorating, the sun in the east out on the water far away but still providing some measure of warmth.

And then she was in a grand hall, the night sky outside the window luminous. Several books lay scattered about the black marble floor; it reflected Tick’s face upwards at him. Finally Tick realized her presence—but he reacted sluggishly. Ditzy had no control over what she was seeing; she was a prisoner in his mind. Panic seized Tick, he was too drunk to have complete control over his mind-vision. He hastily made to strip layers of perception from the memory Ditzy was reliving, but only succeeded in blocking ‘her’ vision.

Absent of sight, the cold and blackness reigned, pressing in—but the pernicious recollection continued. Tick’s current consciousness faded from feeling again.

“We still do not understand the concerns you’ve raised. Perhaps you should come back another time?” It was a feminine voice, but it portrayed supreme patience, dignity, and yet a gentle suggestion. She lacked condescension; showed concern, she cared—although she had a slight tinge of impatience in her voice as well.

Ditzy could feel the icy wind blowing, the marble on his hooves, the feeling of intense frustration emanating from Tick’s mnemonic mind and memory. She was definitely stonewalling—skirting the issues that Tick brought up, delicately denying any discussion. She must be made to see reason, Tick knew. It was too critical to be left unattended. What had been unearthed must be brought to light.

“Or I could show you. This is far too severe to be ignored.” Ditzy could feel him moving, it was as if she herself was speaking. Even though you seem intent on doing just that… Ditzy heard him think.

“We warn you: you may try, but if you attempt to delve into our mind the repercussions will be severe and unpleasant.”

Anticipation broke over into grim determination for Tick. He could feel it in the back of his mind, hear it. Ditzy felt his body tense and his emotions tighten into a black spectrum. Something terrible was welling up inside of him—but it was not of him. It was conceptual.

“I tried to explain it, I'm sorry.”

Ditzy still couldn’t see a thing, but she could feel his irises accelerate. She was living his memory, being his emotions. From the recesses of his mind, she felt it well up: malice, anger, despair, apathy, and things too malignant to name. Tearing and howling, they ripped and screamed for domination—Tick was on a blade’s edge in a thundercloud. Suddenly, the dam shattered and the barriers between Tick’s minds and that of the other vanished.

But the maelstrom in Tick’s mind paled in comparison to what it had awoken in the other.

It was magnified ten thousand times, great and terrible, the grimness of a world scoured of life. Endless howling winds buffeted the void landscape, with a fury that was only matched by the rage of its sole inhabitant. An eclipsed sun’s corona perversely shone, harsh rays burned around her. It was cold and murderous, blazing and raging—bleakness and desolation were the only contrast. Tick was no longer the master of the vision—she, the other, had swept him aside as utterly and completely as a dead leaf in a blackened tornado. So intense was her parallel that Tick’s storm was completely subverted into it, a drop in a dry ocean of hate. Sinister without subtlety, her darkness fought against the piercing rays of the sun and consumed them. Black was her color and black her mind, poisonous and destructive.

She had been defeated! The arrogant one had banished her with the tools that she shouldn’t rightly be able to use!

Fury bubbled over like hellfire into a scream, long and agonizing. It ripped through the dead landscape, rending stone and whipping dust into a dark cloud. No rock could stand against it; it shattered them all. Through time and space and memory it sounded to perpetuate its brutality and harshness on all who heard it.

But that was not the only torment that ravaged through the other, Tick, and Ditzy. There was, almost imperceptibly, another scream. Buried though it was, it sounded almost sweet compared to the fire and hate. It was a scream of horror. Horror at what she had become, at what she had done, at what she would do. A scream of remorse—and in remorse is the very seed of redemption.
But that day would not come for an age. And Ditzy’s accidental journey was not yet over.

Tick’s recollection was shocked out of the union of minds between Tick and the other. Tick’s current conscious had either lost the battle to extract Ditzy from his mind or had given up the fight: She could see now.

And she saw a horrified Princess Luna standing before her in a dark marble hall, icy winds again blowing. But no matter how cold the winds, nothing would chill Ditzy more than the look of wrath that Luna directed at Tick.

“Foul servant of the Nightmare! How dare you try to force agony upon us!”

Tick flew back on the impact of a magical explosion, smashing against the wall with a sickening crack. Ditzy felt several of his ribs be replaced by jagged shards of glass, or so it felt to her. He slumped down to the floor, on the verge of unconsciousness.

Luna came over with a look of the greatest loathing on her face, her head turned up with her eyes looking down.

“Give me a reason,” she hissed, looking down into his rotating eyes. “As to why I shouldn’t end your current existence. Why I shouldn’t purge your mind of everything you know for the sake of Equestria.” She had lost all composure, but none of the authority in her voice.

“Warned… you,” he started weakly. “Wasn’t my intent—”

And then all was black.

“I won’t let you hurt them. I won’t let you hurt her,” Luna whispered.

~~~~~~~~~~~

In a booth, in a tavern, in an underground metropolis hidden under a mountain, in a very strange land called Equestria, Ditzy started to wonder if she could go a day without some sort of momentous revelation. Tick appeared to be in a state of trance, his eyes now closed. His breathing was ragged and irregular, though no noise passed his mouth. Ditzy took the time to confirm her suspicions and reached across the table to brush aside his cloak. White bandages stretched across his torso, stained a black-crimson on the right. Ditzy recoiled from the sight, the dried blood a powerful reminder that he was not well.

Tick’s eyes opened at and he startled at the touch; an audible click sounded and his irises began their rhythm as he drew in a deep breath that turned into a silent hacking cough.

“Tick, what was all that?” She wanted to draw closer to him, afraid to pat him on the back for fear of hurting his ribs or to provoke a more drastic reaction. Tick recovered slowly, eventually settling back into his haggard condition. A detritus of parchment, empty mugs, and a broken quill or two covered the table, but nothing appeared to have changed outside of the whirlwind of minds.

“Tick?” Ditzy asked, voice pleading for as much as her own sake as his. She didn’t want another set of tumultuous events stuck in her mind so soon after resolving her own problems. I don’t need another tragedy and a mystery on top of it!

Tick took a long look at Ditzy. His eyes betrayed nothing to her; a barrier thick and strong had been put up between his thoughts and hers. He was making up his mind, and a damning decision he soon made. His face grew grim and his body tense, but he released it in a slow exhalation—and then he bolted for the door. Ditzy startled, but recovered in time to interject herself between Tick and the exit.

“Tick, wait, I can help you if you just explain what that was all—”

He vaulted himself over Ditzy and slammed through the door, careening off into the dimly lit streets. Ditzy gave into temptation and followed for a moment, but the dark alleys had already swallowed him whole.

Epilogue

The Next Day

Alive.

Quirk was alive.

The thought was not hard to reconcile with the world around him, yet every view his eyes gave him was still received with deep wonder at the fact and the depth of the world. He had known peace—peace! And he was alive. It was astonishing, unbelievable, confounding. The world absolutely didn’t make any sense at all, but for once Quirk wasn’t bothered by it. The peculiar pegasus had been broken, once already dead in his own mind, and healed with the utmost care.

Quirk walked through the streets, unbothered by the morning’s quick traffic, feeling at rest despite their hurried attitude and his pervasive wounds. He was running an errand, delivering a letter to the library on behalf of his shy savior.

Peace. I always looked for it in the wrong ways, the wrong places; what a mess I made of myself. But I know what to do now.

On a quiet avenue, Quirk stopped and looked in a puddle. There was a garish white scar diagonally cut on his green backdrop between his now-quiet eyes. It would have cut a cold visage on any other, but Quirk knew what it was, and what it meant, and had accepted the pain.

So we learn our lessons.

Quirk closed his eyes and reveled in the quiet.

Then something blue-grey and furious collided with him and knocked him over; he cried out in fresh waves of pain as his assailant pinned him. Quirk looked up into the sky with the sun blazing, and Ditzy’s mane made a vengeful halo in it, nearly blotting the rays out in sharp light—

“Where is he?” Ditzy demanded, incensed, enraged. “Where is Tick!?”

END OF BOOK ONE