Dusk kept his eyes closed as he used his magic to displace himself, an activity he was well used to, but as close to the edge of utter exhaustion as he was, he feared what terrors he might see in that place he traveled through.

He slammed back into existence after half a minute of flashing teleports. Sagging, he leaned on the rough wooden pole and opened his eyes.

There, in front of him, was the now-familiar castle. Not the marble and gold arches and purple roofs of Canterlot; that was miles away now, and he was thankful for it.

These were his gray bricks, the dark towers, the moss of what he now thought of as his castle, his home for the next nine-hundred and fifty-odd years.

He tried to smile at the scene, the sun now dipping towards the horizon. But he had no one else to lie to, and he knew in his heart that was exactly what the smile was supposed to be. It was him telling himself that he was happy to be back.

But he wasn't.

He sat and stared up at the broken arch, the stones that used to hover over the door in the large dome of the courtroom until the Nightmare blasted it apart.

He shivered as a loose fog began to rise from the grass and bushes growing wildly around the front, the moisture barely stirring as a breeze meandered in from the forest behind him. Still, he remained between those wooden poles that held up this side of the bridge. Then, with a heavier shiver still, he turned away and walked over the side of the cliff.

His wings opened stiffly, and he soared over the small river that had worn this massive crevice into the world until he landed heavily in front of the cave that hid the Tree of Harmony.

Crawling inside, he tucked into a corner near the entrance and laid in the dirt. Sighing, he wriggled to attempt to get comfortable.

After a long few minutes, the tears began as the sinking weight of loneliness reappeared, accompanied by the horrific thoughts of what he may have caused to happen inside the castle. Inside the fort. Across the country.

They didn't stop that night.

He woke early in the morning, still surrounded by chilling fog. Sitting up, he scraped the twin trails of mud off his cheeks and walked out of the cave, his wings trailing through the dust as he made his way to the stream.

He felt a little better after dunking his head, and he shook to get the water out of his ears at least before turning around and flapping his wings to get back on top of the canyon.

Frowning, he widened his stance and flapped harder before throwing himself into the air.

His legs buckled as he hit the ground beneath him, and he slid through the dirt for a moment before coming to a stop.

Blinking, he took a moment before hot tears of shame and loathing began slipping over his cheeks, and he buried his snout as mud once again coated his face.

Slowly standing, he limped through the stream and over to the stone stairs that lead up and to the wrong side of the canyon. As he reached the top, he looked down at the hard stone ground around the stream for a long minute, looking straight down at the gray rock and shivering slightly.

After another moment, he shook himself and started walking around to the bridge.

He made his way through the castle and into the small room he'd cleaned out for himself. Closing the door with a kick, he made his way over to his pallet of blankets before sitting on top of them and beginning the diagnosing spell on his wings.

As he flexed them, testing the full range of motion as part of the spell, he found that his magic pool was refilling particularly sluggishly. Extending the range of the spell, he wondered idly if he was so lucky at this particular moment to have picked up any of the various illnesses that existed only to feed off of magic.

His ears perked as the spell fizzled completely. Shaking his head, he tried to restart it, but his horn gave him a pang as he tried to cast, and he flinched instead.

Breathing slowly for a moment, he closed his eyes and started the most basic meditation that he knew, the one taught to little unicorns across Equestria to measure their magic pool.

He was quiet for a long few minutes before he began chuckling.

"Of course," he rasped out loud. Looking around, he found his canteen and grabbed it before taking a mechanical swig of the stale water. Corking it, he closed his eyes again and once again began the slow stretching of his magic.

His pool was a little smaller than it had been last time he cast this diagnostic before he'd been flung into this time period.

It was shrinking slowly, usually something that could be remedied by resting and allowing his magic to refill completely. The last time this had happened was when he was a young colt and had been casting so many spells to figure out his limits that he'd almost sent himself into medical-grade bed rest.

The other issue was that his magic just wasn't recouping.

Flipping mentally through an old textbook, he went over how a pony normally regathers their magic; usually, they gathered it from their surroundings, like filter feeders in water ecosystems.

But in some specific cases (four that he could think of), the pony's thaumic pools had been converted to take heavily from other sources.

Celestia, of course, took much of her magic from the sun itself. Luna, from the moon. Cadance had absorbed her magic from being around ponies deeply in love with each other before becoming tied to the crystal heart and absorbing the love freely given by her entire city-state. Flurry Heart had still been coming into her own powers when the incident had happened, so he wasn't sure where exactly she gathered her strength from, besides her parents themselves.

And then there was Dusk himself, newly minted alicorn of magic and friendship.

The purple alicorn who took his strength from the magic of his friends and their love and support.

Now here, without them around.

Alone.

***** ***** ****** ***** *****

Dusk blinked the crust from his eyes, shuddering as last night's thoughts hit him all over again in the slow, trickling way that thought worked in the morning. Reaching up, he scratched at the salty tracks that traced over his cheeks as he raised himself from his musty bed.

Reaching over with his hoof instead of his magic, he grabbed his canteen and a scrap piece of cloth. Dampening the cloth, he scrubbed at his face and took a drink of the water as he faced the window. Setting the drink aside, he stood up and braced himself against the wall as he carefully pulled the shutters open and took in the early morning sun.

After watching the forest light up for a long moment of contemplation, Dusk sighed and walked back over to his pallet and sat on it.

Crossing his legs, he braced himself on his forelegs before slowly straightening his spine, his legs going out to his sides for balance before he slowly pressed them together in front of his chest.

Closing his eyes, he cleared his mind before slowly letting some thaumic energy into his horn. Tracing it back, he tested his reservoir and sighed gently.

It was refilling, naturally, just like any other pony would. A bit quicker, honestly, he'd always been more open to the natural fields and thaums that crisscrossed the globe and fed into every creature of the world.

But he'd been opened to the magics that every creature themselves emanated when he had ascended, and compared to when he could refill (harmlessly) from his friends, his natural collection of thaums was woefully inadequate. Usable, of course, just not at his usual alicorn pace.

Testing his, well, absorption for lack of a better term, he sighed when he found it equal to his old rates ten years ago.

Before he met his friends, and began experiencing the first of his growth through the magics brought around by friendship. Before he'd even considered Celestia as more than a teacher, a confidant, a Princess, an idol to be looked up to and exalted; but not a friend, not yet.

Shuddering, he cut off that line of thought and returned his mind to his thaumic pool. Pushing in a couple of places, he found that while there had been some shrinkage, it was slowing, and he was likely to be left with enough power to rival Luna. When she'd returned from the moon, anyway. And that was if he made sure to not use any magic, for...

Doing some geometric maths, he sighed before chuckling.

He'd have to not use any power whatsoever for four months to completely fill his current capacity.

Relaxing, he let himself fall back onto the bed as he opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. Letting his mind wander blankly, he rested for a while before rolling off of the cushion and walking out of the room.

When he walked out of the door into the gardens, he paused and looked at the overgrown fields he'd left only a week or so ago. Moving through the alleys between them, he checked that everything was growing alright and pulled a couple of thorny weeds before reaching his shed in the back.

Opening the doors to check on his stocks, he found that most of them had been chewed on and a nest of wood mice gathered in a now empty bag of grains.

Sighing, he turned to leave and was walking to the door when something white caught his eye.

Looking up, he used a leg to brace himself against a closed door and used the other to grab the scroll that had been tacked above the frame.

Looking over it, he found a sheen of enchantment lingering on the page. He used a tiny trickle of his lingering magic to discern that it had been both hidden magically and protected from the elements.

Unrolling it, he shivered a bit as he recognized the writing on the page.

Dear Stallion,

Hello. I hope you can read this, as we know that there are those that have not been taught their letters. We hope to fix that soon.

If you can read this, then know that I am one of the Princess Celestia's closest friends and that we stopped by her room sealed here to pick up a few items on the way to her return to Canterlot. Imagine our surprise then, to find these wonderful fields and buildings in her old gardens. With a scrying spell, we were able to find you in nearby Haysdale and smiled upon the actions you took there with the selling caravan.

Please believe us when we say it delights us to no end to see something we considered lost to her, being put to good use by one of her subjects. We were also overjoyed to find the magics on her rooms untouched; this was a very polarizing action, and we likely would have had you arrested instead had you attempted to breach her security.

As it stands, however, know that you have the Princess's blessings to continue living here. We wish you happiness and health and continuing discretion with her Highness Luna's room.

Signed,

Raven Inkwell

Dusk sighed as he reread the letter, glad that he'd made sure to keep his disguise running the entire time he'd been out of the castle. Looking up at the shallow hole left by a borrowed nail above his shed doors, he wondered how long the scroll had been visible as he tucked it behind his ear.

He left the shed and was in the process of closing it up when he heard the sound of heavy wings beating the air.

Freezing, he panicked for a moment before casting an invisibility spell over himself, flinching as he felt his reservoir deplete rapidly. He pressed his back against the doors of the shed and watched as Lily rose over the wall and fell heavily onto the earth with all four hooves.

"Onyx!" she practically screamed into the air, whipping her head around and looking for any movement in the area. "Onyx, they tried to trap her, but she broke free! Onyx! The princess is finally back and on her throne!"

He watched her, heart pounding, as her eyes hesitated on his hiding spot before she turned and galloped into the castle, still calling his name.

You can tell her you're back, Dusk.

"No," he whispered, shivering as the tears started to fill his eyes. "It's too dangerous..."

You've already altered the timeline, Dusk. You've already meddled.

"I can take it back," he whimpered, pressing his hooves against his eyes. "If I stop now, it'll be okay—"

No, Dusk, it won't. You've changed everything, and now your future is dust. Embrace it! Go to Celestia, make yourself known, rule with her—

"No. Unacceptable." Dusk shivered, feeling his skin crawl under his fur. "I have to endure, have to hold out hope that I can see them again. If I just wait—"

If you just wait, then they'll still be gone. Start over, make new friends! Become stronger, and maybe you can forget them—

"Never," he snarled, his hooves pressing in on his temples as he started shaking in earnest.

They're gone, Dusk.

"They'll never be gone," he bit back.

How long will you suffer, then? How long until you break and decide to do something foolish again? Will you wait until you're full power and then freeze yourself, damn the suffering? Or will you just decide to kill—

"No," he pleaded, his body folding as his torso hit the ground. "No, no, no, if I do that, then I don't see them either if I do that—"

You'll be free.

He couldn't find the energy to keep replying to himself. He barely found the energy to drag himself beside the shed so that Lily wouldn't accidentally trip over him if she came back. He was so tired, so completely drained of any type of energy, and so he buried his face into the crease between the shed and the dirt it was on to muffle the sobs that worked through his body.

Half an hour later, he got himself under control, and he lifted his canteen from his hip to drain most of it.

Sitting up and listening, he sighed when he didn't hear Lily calling for him anymore. Walking over to his water pump, he pulled at the handle until there was a rush of clean water, and he refilled the wood and cloth canteen before slowly moving into the castle, still invisible.

He found Lily in his chamber, sitting on his mattress and fidgeting. He watched her for a while from the open door before moving on to another room.

He'd cautiously started it as a guest room for Lily and Clover, so it was furnished with a reclaimed wardrobe and two pallets in the same vein as his. It was a decent space away, so he didn't feel like it was too likely for her to stumble onto him. Still, he kept the invisibility up as he settled onto one of the mattresses to wait her out.

She didn't leave that night. He checked on her in the morning and found her in almost the exact same spot as last night, though she'd tossed some in her sleep and was on her back now.

He went out to his farm and used the facilities available to refill his water and food. He evacuated himself before returning to the side room.

It took two days for Clover to also pop in, and Dusk got himself close enough to overhear the conversation between the siblings.

"Lily, look, I know where you're coming from, but just waiting here isn't gonna make him show up."

"I know, I know. But what if he comes back while we're out?"

"We'll leave him something then, so he knows we came by and looked for him. He's got some paper over there; we'll leave him a note and let him know we missed him."

"Can you write all of a sudden, 'cause I still can't."

"Actually, the captain Steel Gaze assigned me to has been teaching me letters, yes. I think I've got most of them, and we can fake the rest. C'mon now, what should we write him?"

Their voices dipped below Dusk's hearing range, and he heard some rustlings from the pad of loose sheets of papyrus he kept in his room. He listened to them bicker a bit, under their breaths, before they both left. Following them, he watched them fly away before returning to his room to look over the scroll they'd left on his bed.

He couldn't help but smile at the large letters that covered the page left on his bed. Clover may be learning his letters, but spelling was an entirely different beast, and Dusk had to say them out loud to figure out what was trying to be said.

His heart sank as he tied together the words and their meaning.

"Onyx, we looked for you. We'll be back in... two, two days. Hope to see you, Clover and Lily," he read out loud once he'd pieced the parts together.

He read over the page again, something that was hardly necessary with the length of the note, before setting it gently back on the bed where it had been. He looked at it and nudged it before nodding.

Sighing, he lit his horn before a flurry of motion began swirling around the room, a storm of items filling the air in a scene he hadn't been a part of since the last time he'd visited Rarity.

The first and foremost item was the journal he kept behind a stone in the wall, quickly followed by one of the quilts he'd bought from the caravan. A bit of spare cloth and his impromptu sewing kit followed after, along with the couple of gadgets he'd bought at the same time as the quilt. Walking from the room, he started sewing a rough sack as he walked out onto the fields he'd been intending to tend to two days ago and began pulling the most grown foodstuffs and placing them into the bag.

Opening his shed, Dusk sighed when he remembered that the unicorns had taken his wagon weeks ago. Grabbing the flat stone blade he'd made and used to harvest grains, he made it a simple cloth sheath before tying it onto his barrel.

Rubbing a horn that was starting to ache with the amount of dexterous but minute channeling, Dusk let all of his stuff rest on his back while giving his magic a break.

Looking around the shed, he shook his head at the rest of the stuff in there and closed the door.

Walking back to his room, he looked over the rest of his personal items there before leaving the space behind him and walking through the castle. Pausing in the old courtroom, he let a hoof rest on Celestia's old throne before mimicking the action with Luna's.

He shivered as a gentle coldness worked up his spine, and he pulled his hoof away quickly.

The shadows have a hoofhold in you now, Dusk. You let them touch you when you borrowed the moon's power, and now they have stained you.

"I knew the possibilities when I reached out to her," he whispered before continuing to walk.

He paused for the last time at the edge of the cliff, two hooves on the wood and rope bridge, his head turned to look back over his shoulder at the castle.

After a long moment, his horn lit, and a magic field covered his entire body once again. His colors shifted from lavender and violet to a dusty pink and dark brown. Flapping his wings, he let the colors settle over the feathers in a gradient so that they ended in a faint brown covering. His horn faded into nothingness, and he was left as a large (for his time) male pegasus.

Fluffing his wings to adjust the load on his back, Dusk closed his eyes as his vision swam at the expenditure of magic. When the swirling in his head stopped, he opened his eyes and started walking across the bridge.

He stopped halfway across, a thin smile crossing his lips when he saw what was waiting in the shadows of the trees. Ramping up to a trot, he quickly crossed the planks and ran up to his wagon.

Slowing as he came up to the twin pole hitches, he looked over it to see that it had seen some action since it'd parted from him and was a bit more battered than he remembered. Standing to look into the bed of the wagon, he saw it empty except for a rock that was holding down a piece of quality paper.

Reaching in and grabbing the page, he pulled it from under the rock and read over the carefully structured letters.

Dear Onyx,

Hello. After learning of you from your two pegasus friends, and what you did for the earth pony village of Haysdale, I have decided to forgive your trespasses upon my auntie's property, especially when I saw for myself what had been done with the gardens. I have also endeavored to return your property to you, though I am sorry to say that this strangely engineered wagon was the only thing I could find worth returning.

Continue making this country one worth living in, Onyx, and come seek me out if you ever wish to serve your country more directly. I could use more hearts like yours around me.

Sincerely,

Lord General Stone Blood, Scion of Her Majesty Luna Noctis, et al.

Dusk smiled a bit and folded the page before slipping it into his journal to keep safe. Placing his gear into the bed of the wagon, he shook his head before starting to channel magic through his invisible horn.

Walking around the wagon, he grabbed a couple of saplings and used their material to extend and reshape the wheels into something that resembled the current wheel style. He used some of the leftovers to fill out the worst of the bumps and scratches before shaking the black spots from his vision. Taking a break, he looked over the wagon again and carefully shrunk the cover and the ribs to make it smaller and more modest.

Floating over his canteen, he took a drink from it and swished the water around his dry mouth, sticky from panting and over-using his shallow magic pool.

After recovering enough that he could stand up without getting light-headed, he used a tiny bit of magic to add large scrolling on both sides of the wagon before looking it over again and deciding that was enough to keep it from being recognized by anypony.

Backing between the hitching poles, he carefully tied himself in around his wings before pulling it back towards the old road that ran through the forest from the castle.

He stopped, looking towards the castle and thinking about going back now that he knew he had his wagon and grabbing some more food from the fields. But he felt his heart wavering and flickering and turned away and started walking down the road.

He tried to keep his heart from sinking as he walked away from the home he'd made for himself over the past month, trying to sing a traveling song that Pinkie Pie and Applejack had taught him, but he abandoned that when his voice lost its steadiness, and he was more warbling than singing.

And as the sun started its descent, Dusk started his journey away from the only restful place and the only friends he'd had in this time.

Author's Note

Ough, sorry for taking so long, and for having a slightly shorter chapter, but here you go!

Speaking of going, where's Dusk off to? What's he plan to do there? I don't know either, so stick around and we'll both find out