Up Here in the Mountainsby ShaslanChaptersChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 1The mountain air was crisp and clear. Snow lay thick upon the ground, frozen solid. Those few brief, glorious summer weeks when the grass had fleetingly shown its face were long gone. Now only frost-rimed snow and the raw face of the cliffs remained. Stone and snow, snow and stone. Sweetie Belle sighed as she gazed out of her window at the plunging slope below. How she missed Ponyville! Its warm and nourishing fields, rich with hay and meadowgrass; its orchards and restaurants. A smorgasbord for all the senses, not just for the tongue. Every season bought a new and lovely aspect to the fertile countryside. But the mountains never changed. The clouds parted to reveal open sky often, but the sun was always wan and pale. It was eternally cold and bleak here, rough grey rock barren as the moon. The little garden just below her window was an oasis of green, raked clear of the snow every day by her own hooves, with foliage tended and trimmed by Rarity. But beautiful as it was, it was only one little speck, lost in a sea of grey. And the warmth of the sun was not the only thing the sisters had left behind in Ponyville. Not a day had passed since they arrived in this empty place that Sweetie Belle had not thought longingly of her friends. The isolated cabin that Rarity had chosen seemingly at random for their new home was far from where Scootaloo and Apple Bloom could ever come alone, and it was not likely that Applejack or Rainbow Dash would be able to spare the time to bring them to see her any time soon. It had been six months already. The Cutie Mark Crusaders had never been separated for so long a period before. Sweetie Belle rested her head on her hooves and sighed. She found it hard to understand Rarity’s decision. Rarity had her five friends, her own life just as busy and varied as Sweetie Belle’s own was. More than that, she had a thriving business and a chain of dress stores that was growing and growing. Why had she taken it into her head to abandon it all, and bring them here? Her reassuring words of ‘rest’ and ‘recuperation’ held little meaning for a filly as lonely as Sweetie Belle now was, and ‘sisterly bonding’ did not reassure her either. Rarity had promised over and over that she would grow to love it here, but it had been — Sweetie Belle glanced across at the tally on her wall — one hundred and eighty-two days, and she didn’t love it yet. She was rather proud of her prisoner-of-war tally, actually. She thought it lent her rustic wooden room a touch of the tragic Prench classic novel. She’d taken the idea from the Count of Monte Cris-pone, one of Rarity’s funny old-fashioned books that she’d been forced to read after her own supply ran dry. Sweetie Belle would never have thought she’d become a big reader, but living alone in the mountains with nothing to do did funny things to a pony. She had tried at first to go outside and play while Rarity worked on her sewing, but playing alone got really old really fast, and it was always so cold up here. If Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were here, she supposed she could have invented some fun games to do in the snow, but she was just too tired most of the time. Getting out of bed was hard when you didn’t have any school to go to or anypony to go and see. She sighed again, and her breath fogged up the glass. It just wasn’t fair. They’d only just gotten their cutie marks, their grand reward for everything they had worked for, and then it was all snatched away from her. And it wasn’t like she could do much crusading from up here. Rarity had insisted that a change would be good for them; that they needed to get away for a while. Just a few weeks longer. But it had nearly been half a year, and Rarity was showing no sign of relenting. Sweetie Belle turned away from that unchanging view beyond her garden and slid down from the wide windowsill with a thump. She thumped her way over to her basket of schoolwork and reluctantly levitated up today’s lessons in her magic. It said something about the lengths she was driven to, didn’t it, that she was willingly beginning her school work when nopony was here to force her? It looked like today was algebra, followed by geography. ‘The nations of Equus’, read the title, in Miss Cheerilee’s neat pink writing. The paper looked curiously crumpled and yellowed for something Missus Cheerilee could only have written a couple of weeks ago at most, but maybe the mountain postal ponies were rough with their cargo. They came once a month, delivering her lessons and post for Rarity. Sweetie Belle hoped every time that her friends would have sent a note, but one had yet to arrive. She had hoped for a long time that the letters were perhaps just getting lost along the way, but after six deliveries had come and gone her hopes were beginning to fray. She sighed and spread the geography lesson out across her desk. Griffinstone. She was reminded of Gabby, one of the toughest cutie mark problems that the Crusaders had ever faced, and had to pause to wipe at one eye. She missed everypony so much. Rarity was always attentive, of course, and never seemed to tire of helping her with lessons, but it wasn’t the same as being at school in person. It didn’t seem that the mountain air much agreed with Rarity either, from what Sweetie Belle could see. There were always bags under her eyes, and grey streaks were developing in her mane — from stress, Sweetie Belle assumed, though Rarity always insisted she was the happiest she could possibly be here, just Sweetie and her. Rarity left about once a month, to visit Canterlot for two or three days and attend to her business. Sweetie Belle had begged to accompany her the first few times, but Rarity had very firmly refused. “You’d be bored stiff, darling,” she had said sternly. “I shall be spending absolutely every minute with Sassy Saddles, going over our accounts.” “But couldn’t I go to Ponyville while you were there?” “No, Sweetie! You’re too young to take the train unaccompanied, and I can’t possibly spare the time to take you there — I want this visit to be over as quickly as possible, so I can get back here to our special sister bonding time!” It was the same every time. But after — another glance at the tally on the wall — nearly two hundred days of special sister bonding, Sweetie Belle was beginning to feel like she was reaching the end of her tether. Besides, didn’t Twilight live in Canterlot some of the time now that she had been officially coronated? Sweetie Belle was willing to bet good bits that Rarity was finding some time in between her business meetings to visit her Canterlotian friends. It wasn’t fair that she got to see her friends, while Sweetie Belle was expected to stay cooped up like Raponezel or something. Sweetie Belle huffed air through her nostrils and picked up her quill to begin scratching out an essay on Griffinstone and its architecture. She supposed that at least it wasn’t all bad up here. There were plenty of opportunities to work on her singing, and there were some lovely spots where the mountain provided brilliant acoustics and echoes. Like her own private version of Harmonising Heights. And she still hadn’t given up hope that if she explored the mountain enough she’d find some lonely foal with a cutie mark problem, or maybe a griffin or some other creature. Heck, she’d even take a mountain goat at this stage. They probably had cutie mark problems too, right? She worked at her essay for half an hour or so, the room silent but for the scratching of her quill and the occasional distant hum of Rarity’s sewing machine. Sweetie Belle reached the end of her paragraph on the pitch of the rooves on Griffinstonian homes, and let the quill fall with a snort of disgust. She glanced up at the window once more, her expression drooping a little when she saw that the sun was barely even at its noonday peak yet. She dropped her gaze to the parchment again, but then froze. Wait — hadn’t she seen something out there? Something that wasn’t a rock or an icicle? Sweetie Belle shot back to her hooves and darted back to the window seat. Her breath caught in her throat. A figure on the path! Somepony cloaked and hooded against the cold, their purple garment swathing them head to hoof and shielding them from view. Sweetie Belle pressed her hooves against the windowpane and let out a soft squeal of excitement. No mountain mailpony she had yet seen wore a cloak anything like that. They were all well accustomed to the frigid air up here. That could only mean one thing. A visitor! Somepony new! Too big to be Scootaloo or Apple Bloom, of course, but it could be somepony from home. The mailpony had bought no letters from the other Crusaders, but surely, surely, her friends would have felt able to entrust their best-friend-secret letters to someone from Ponyville. That thought was all the encouragement she needed. Sweetie Belle turned on her heel and galloped at full pelt away from her window, back through her bedroom door and into the elegantly decorated rooms beyond. The front door was in sight, her cloak caught up in her magic and ready to swing over her shoulders, her hoof on the doorknob — when a soft white foreleg blocked her way. “Sweetie Belle?” Rarity asked, ” Rarity asked, the pitch of her voice rising enough to turn the name into a question. “Where are you going?” “We’ve got our first visitor!” Sweetie Belle was almost bouncing with impatience. “They’re coming up the path now. Let me past, Rarity, I’ve got to go and say hi!” Rarity’s eyes widened but her leg did not rise. “A visitor?” There was sudden trepidation in her tone. Her tape measure still hung around her neck, a pin cushion strapped to one hoof, and a few spools of thread floated in her magic. “Yes!” Sweetie Belle confirmed. “Come on, Rarity, get out the way!” “Let me see first,” Rarity answered, still sounding anxious. She tugged the door open, and though Sweetie Belle tried to duck under her leg to get through, Rarity effortlessly blocked her. Rarity peered short-sightedly down the slope, and Sweetie Belle huffed and reached up to push her sister’s muzzle in the right direction. “Over there, silly. I keep telling you not to work by candlelight.” “Yes, darling, of course,” Rarity murmured absentmindedly, squinting into the distance at the purple-cloaked figure. Sweetie Belle was thrumming with eagerness, pressed up against Rarity’s foreleg, so she felt Rarity tense up all over. “Oh, no,” her sister whispered. Sweetie Belle froze, and she looked up into Rarity’s eyes. “What is it, Rarity?” Rarity seemed to be struggling to compose herself; she fought for calm, but her lips still trembled as she replied. “Ah, it’s — it’s no one, darling. Just somepony that I…well, that I used to know.” “Alright,” said Sweetie Belle slowly. “What is there to be worried about, then?” Rarity released Sweetie Belle at last to wring her hooves anxiously, but Sweetie made no attempt to run. “Well, when we last spoke…it didn’t end well, darling.” Rarity seemed lost in nervous thought for a moment, but finally seemed to come to a decision. “Look, Sweetie, I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to meet…this particular pony. I know you’ve been very bored lately, so I am sorry, but please, darling, will you wait in your room while I deal with this?” Sweetie Belle slumped. A visitor, after all these weeks of loneliness, and now she was to be denied that, too? “Do I have to?” Rarity was still looking at the approaching purple figure, and her face tightened almost imperceptibly. “Yes, Sweetie Belle. Now.” Sweetie Belle scowled, but she knew when she was beaten. She hunched her shoulders and let her cloak slide off her back onto the floor. “Fine.” She sloped back to her room and flopped down onto her bed. Limbs spreadeagled, she stared up at the ceiling in silence. Just like her whole life was lived, these days. Alone, and in silence. Chapter 2Sweetie Belle lay still for a long time, just listening to Rarity’s nervous steps as she paced back and forth. But then came the knock on the cabin door, the first that Sweetie Belle had ever heard in all the time she had lived here, and she sat bolt upright. She heard the door open, some quiet words spoken. She couldn’t help herself. She slid off the bed, crept to her door, and pressed her ear up against it. Eavesdropping was wrong, of course, but it had been so long since she’d heard anypony at all but Rarity. She just wanted to listen to another voice. And perhaps try to figure out the tantalising answer to the question of who exactly could make Rarity so nervous. A boyfriend, perhaps? An ex-boyfriend? Maybe that was the real reason she was always going to Canterlot. Sweetie Belle’s head was so firmly pressed against the wood of her door she thought it would probably leave imprints in her fur. But try as she might, she still couldn’t make out more than a low, indistinct hum of voices. No particular words, but enough to firmly identify the stranger as female. Hmm. Not a romantic visit, then. Sweetie Belle clenched her eyes tight shut and tried to listen harder. She imagined her ears growing and twitching, like a bat’s, but though her ears flicked in response, she couldn’t hear any more than she did before. Slowly, cautiously, she raised her hoof to the doorknob. Rarity might be annoyed, but Sweetie Belle didn’t care. She needed this. She had been starved of entertainment, any entertainment, for months. Rarity would just have to exercise her famous generosity and be forgiving. Sweetie Belle cautiously eased the door open and poked her nose outside. The short corridor from her room to the living room was empty, and she could hear the conversation more clearly already. “But darling,” Rarity was saying, her voice curiously tight with emotion, “Why are you here? After all this time? I don’t understand.” Walking on the very tips of her hooves, Sweetie Belle reached the corner of the corridor and peeped around it. The stranger was sitting on the settee with her back to Sweetie, and Rarity sat in the armchair opposite. The stranger’s hood was still covering her head, but her voice, when she spoke, was somehow familiar. “I’ve come to ask you to come home, Rarity.” The timbre of her voice was rich and melodious, and Sweetie could have sworn she’d heard it somewhere before. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, darling,” Rarity replied, her hoof tensing on the arm of her chair. “I am at home.” “Rarity,” the stranger leaned forward, her voice deepening in sympathy. Rarity’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Oh, I have missed you.” “I missed you too, Rarity.” Sweetie Belle wished she could somehow get a better angle. She was dying to see who this mare was, who seemed to know Rarity so well. Perhaps she could creep a little closer? She crouched low to the floor so that the bulk of the sofa would hide her from Rarity’s gaze, and edged her way to the left. She inched towards the back of the settee, craning her neck all the while to try and see what lay beneath that purple hood. It had to be someone from Ponyville, right? Who else would know Rarity so intimately? But it certainly wasn’t one of the other Elements, and Sweetie thought she would have been able to identify most ponies she knew immediately. Besides, they hadn’t left Ponyville on bad terms with anyone. No, it was more likely to be one of Rarity’s contacts from the fashion industry. From the tales she told, it seemed like there was plenty of bad blood there. The purple-robed figure leaned forward to reach for a teacup, and a white hoof protruded from the cape to scoop it up. Watching the hoof avidly, Sweetie Belle put her own hoof down on the floor just a little too hard, and the resulting muffled thud caused both adults to jump. Rarity leapt to her feet and her eyes widened as she saw Sweetie Belle hunched on the ground. The stranger turned too, following Rarity’s eyes, and her hood fell back from her face at last. Sweetie Belle froze. Heart pounding, she stared up at the pony before her, too stunned for a moment to even attempt to move. The newcomer gazed down at her with the same eyes that Sweetie Belle saw every time she looked into a mirror; pale green irises flecked with points of deep emerald. The stranger’s fur was the same silky white as Rarity’s and Sweetie Belle’s own, and across her forehead fell the familiar pink and purple curls. It was like looking at her reflection. Her own enormous, aged-almost-beyond-recognition reflection. The stranger gaped in horror. Sweetie Belle scrambled to understand. Who could this be? A distant relative, perhaps? Somepony with enough shared genetics to bear a passing resemblance to her — okay, more than passing — but that she’d somehow never heard mentioned. A long lost aunt, or a cousin. The stranger’s wide white eyes narrowed at last and her expression turned hard. “Rarity,” she said, and her voice was like iron, “You promised me you’d stopped all this.” As though wakened from her frozen state by the words, Rarity surged into movement once more. She darted around the sofa and bundled Sweetie Belle back towards her room. “Come on, darling, back you go! I thought I told you to wait for me while I worked this out!” Sweetie Belle’s eyes stayed locked on the stranger. “But I—” She couldn’t find the words. What was happening? She felt lost. Swimming in a sea of uncertainties. At least Rarity’s firm grip on her shoulders was something familiar, something known. “Rarity!” The stranger’s voice was strident. “I won’t hear it!” Rarity protested, still trying to herd Sweetie Belle. “It’s harmless enough!” “No, it’s not,” the stranger insisted, her brows pulling low in an expression so familiar that Sweetie Belle’s stomach twisted. This couldn’t be…it couldn’t somehow be her, could it? The stranger’s voice was rising now. “It’s sick! You’re sick! You swore last time was the end!” Rarity’s grip on Sweetie Belle tightened and she almost lifted her bodily. “It’s not like you can stop me,” she snarled. “You’re never here.” The stranger’s hoof slammed down onto the wood hard enough to make them all flinch. “Nopony is here, Rarity! You won’t let them be! You left us all to go and live in the wilderness with…” her eyes flickered to Sweetie Belle, who instinctively cringed away, “…with this thing!” “I left you?” Rarity shrieked, her voice louder now than the stranger’s. “What choice did you give me?” Tears were suddenly spilling down the stranger’s cheeks. “You didn’t have to do this,” she wept. “Come on, Sweetie Belle!” Rarity gave another savage yank to Sweetie Belle’s neck, and Sweetie finally stumbled to her hooves. “Rarity!” cried the stranger from behind them, her voice hitching in a horribly familiar way. “It’s not like I died!” Rarity shoved Sweetie Belle away from her, down the corridor towards her room, and Sweetie Belle cried out as she pitched forward onto her face. Half-sobbing, she turned back in confusion to see her sister, always so calm and full of grace and poise, advancing on this horrible funhouse mirror reflection, screaming into its face like a banshee. “You might as well have! You changed! You left me! What was I to do but try to pick up the pieces? Twilight gave me a gift!” Her voice was climbing. “It’s nothing to do with you, Sweetie Belle!” Sweetie Belle’s world splintered beneath her like ice on a frozen lake. Her sister, her own big sister Rarity, addressing this — this changeling with her own name. The stranger whirled away from Rarity, her hoof pressed to her mouth, and the movement finally disturbed her cloak enough to reveal it. Her cutie mark. A striped pink-and-purple shield with a musical note in the centre. The fragile ice Sweetie Belle stood on cracked and gaped open, and Sweetie Belle tumbled down into the void. “Rarity!” She cried out, reaching with a shaking hoof for her sister, her solace, her one companion. “I don’t understand—” “Sweetie Belle!” Rarity howled, half-screaming, and to Sweetie’s horror, Rarity still wasn’t speaking to her. “Don’t go!” Sweetie Belle, not knowing how she did it, staggered after them. “Rarity, Rarity, please—” Rarity caught at the stranger’s cloak with her teeth. “Stop!” she demanded, and the stranger did, shaking all over. “Look what you’ve done!” Rarity flung out a hoof to point at Sweetie Belle, who stood trembling, her ears flat to her head as she stared up at her big sister, the focal point of her world. “I had it all so ordered, so — so organised, and you—” But the stranger didn’t let Rarity finish her sentence. “You did it!” The stranger — Sweetie Belle — cried, whirling on Rarity once more. “You always do it! And then you just wipe her and it begins again! Ten years you’ve wasted on this insanity, Rarity!” She stopped, her shoulders heaving, and raised a foreleg to her eyes. “And the whole time, you’ve had a real sister, waiting and waiting and waiting for you to come home. Your real home, in Ponyville.” Rarity laughed mirthlessly. “Waiting for me? You never have any time for me. You ignored me and abandoned me the second you were old enough. Why do you think I asked Twilight for my little sister back?” Sweetie Belle kept moving, putting one trembling leg before the other, trying to reach the end of this suddenly endless corridor, where her sister waited, where surely everything would be alright again. If she could only get there before this storm of words ripped more of her world to shreds— The false Sweetie Belle clawed a hoof through her hair, her eyes wild. “I don’t know why she listened to you, she’s meant to be our Princess — she’s meant to make wise decisions—” “She’s my friend, she understands—” “She’s scared for you, we all are. You have so many ponies who love you, but you choose to waste your life out here in the middle of nowhere, perpetuating an illusion for the sake of an object—” They were talking about her, Sweetie realised distantly, and finally she found her voice. “I’m — I’m not an object. I’m a person. A pony.” She crept at last to Rarity’s side, and leaned against her, hoping against hope for comfort. Rarity froze, and then rushed to embrace her. “Of course you are!” The stranger looked down at her with only pity in her eyes. “You’re a mask, little one. An empty mask with nothing inside.” “N-no,” Sweetie’s voice trembled. “I’m not. I’m real. I know I am.” “You’re a facsimile of me,” the older pony whispered, walking a little closer. “Trapped here by my sister’s madness.” “I’m not—” Sweetie Belle whimpered, but Rarity shoved past her again. “Madness! How dare you? It was you that left me!” “I went to college, Rarity! Every teenager does!” “You left me and you never came back!” Rarity’s voice was a high wail of despair. Sweetie Belle clung to Rarity’s tail, still hoping for some sort of breakthrough, some way to make sense of all this. “Rarity, please, I don’t understand who she is — let’s just go home, let’s go home to Ponyville— I want to see Apple Bloom and Scootaloo —” Tears spilled down the stranger’s cheeks. “I so hoped that you’d moved beyond this, that you’d changed, Rarity.” “I want to see Apple Bloom and Scootaloo!” Sweetie Belle gasped, desperate now. The lack of letters, the unending days alone, only her and Rarity — it couldn’t be true. She remembered Ponyville. She had a home there. Ponies who loved her. If she could only see them, hold them, she would know everything the stranger had said was lies. She would be sure of herself again. She just had to see her friends. The stranger knelt down to her, and more tears crept after the others, dripping from her chin. “I see them every day. We work together, teaching at Princess Twilight’s school.” “What? No — I — no—” Sweetie Bell stuttered. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were her age, not adults. The pity in the false pony’s eyes was endless. “I’m so sorry, little one.” “No,” Sweetie Belle’s words returned to her and she spoke again, stronger now. “No. They wouldn’t have grown up without me. We— we were meant to do it together.” The stranger shook her head once more. “We did grow up together.” She looked back to Rarity, and her face twisted in pain. “I…I can see that you haven’t changed at all. I don’t…I don’t know why I even came.” The door banged shut behind her, and Rarity ripped herself away from Sweetie Belle’s clinging hooves and galloped after her. “Don’t go! Not again, Sweetie Belle, please, just stay with me. Stay the night, just a few hours! Don’t go!” “Sweetie Belle! Sweetie Belle!” Her sister’s screams echoed down the mountainside, and Sweetie Belle collapsed to the floor and wept, because the name her sister called was not her own. Chapter 3Sweetie Belle waited. She didn’t know what else she could do. She cried until she could cry no longer, and then she waited for her sister to return. The shadows lengthened. The sky darkened, and then night pressed in. The nights here in the mountains were darker than any Sweetie Belle had ever experienced. No friendly glow from other cottages broke the blackness here. Just dark as deep as pitch on every side, stretching on and on forever. A little corner of Sweetie Belle’s mind wondered if she should get a candle. She shut it down. What would be the point? Everything was gone, ruined and broken beyond repair. But what if Rarity can’t see the cabin if there are no candles, the little corner whispered, and that was enough to make her stir. She would do anything, anything, if her sister would just come home and make the world alright again. She clambered slowly upright, and with blindly groping hooves, found the candle drawer. The spell to light a flame was a simple one, within even her limited range of spells, but casting it tonight was the hardest thing she had ever done. Finally, she had one trembling candle ablaze, and used it to light the others; every single one in the drawer, and she placed them in every window of the house until she knew it must shine like a lantern. A waymarker to guide Rarity home. She was positioning the final candle in the little square bathroom window when the glint of the mirror caught her eye. Her breath hitched, but she caught up the candle again and crept closer to that cruel steely surface. It would show her what was real. It just had to. She peered into the mirror, and found the eyes of her reflection. Her soft fur, her rosy cheeks, the gentle curls of her mane. Her big green eyes, catching the candlelight. All as it should be. But all a lie. Sweetie Belle looked deeper, and willed herself to see beyond. Look closer. Show me what I am. The reflection flickered, and warped, and then finally faded out. The illusion fell away, the facade was gone, and Sweetie Belle knew that she was seeing clearly at last. An alien creature regarded her from the mirror. Its skin was furless, gleaming; shimmering white chrome that shone orange with the candleflame. Harsh black tearmarks split her face on either side of her muzzle. Her mane was mere strips of pink and purple rubber, lying flat over her neck. And her eyes. Inequine eyes, glowing green in the darkness with a light all of their own. Green circles that contracted and expanded even as she focused in on them. Cameras. Just cameras, and not eyes at all. The visual receptors of a machine. Sweetie Belle felt like she might vomit, and she saw the rubbery neck of the monster contract. She took a step forward, and another, until her nose bumped against the glass, and now she could hear the metallic clink of her ‘skin’ quite clearly. Her sides moved as she breathed and her flesh throbbed with a pulse, but she saw those movements for what they were now. Mere artifice, another part of the illusion. Stop, she commanded them, and stop they did. Sweetie Belle stood very still, her breath gone from her body, her pulse stilled forever. But still she lived. If living you could call it. She was an abomination. Hardly knowing what she was doing, she turned and left the room. She walked down the corridor, across the living room, and out of the house. She felt a curious detachment from everything she saw. She could not breathe. Without air, she could smell nothing, taste nothing. It was as though she was already dead, and was wandering the world as some sort of ghost. The stars were beautiful above her, but what was beauty? What was anything that she perceived, but a false reflection of a past pony? She wanted — oh, she so badly wanted — to believe that this was all some sort of terrible nightmare, and she would wake up in the morning to find Scootaloo and Apple Bloom laughing at her for taking their ghost stories so seriously. But she could not. She had met the real Sweetie Belle. Seen her. Heard her. And known that it was she who was the lie. She met Rarity on the path just outside the garden. Her head hung, and her careful coiffure was in tatters. Sweetie Belle thought about hiding. Letting Rarity pass her by. She could try to make her way down the mountain. Find somewhere with other ponies, ponies who might not have known the Sweetie Belle who came before. The — the real one. But…who would accept her, monster that she was? Rarity sobbed again, a low and broken sound, and Sweetie Belle was moving before she could stop herself. Though it was not her who had done it, how could she abandon her sister for a second time? Rarity held her for a long while. “You’ll never leave me, will you, Sweetie Belle?” Sweetie Belle felt the softness of her sister’s coat beneath the hard steel of her hooves. The fragility of her sister’s heart, and remembered when she had believed that she had a heart of her own. “I…no. No, Rarity, I won’t.” Rarity sniffed hard, and straightened. “Come on. Let’s go home. Just you and me, mm? And I’ll…I’ll help us forget all about it.” Sweetie Belle hesitated for a moment. “I don’t know that I want to forget, Rarity.” Rarity’s hoof tightened on hers. “It’s better this way, Sweetie Belle.” “But I don’t want—” “Enough, Sweetie. I’m your big sister, and you must listen to me, darling. That’s all there is to it.” Hoof in hoof, the two ponies made their way inside the humble little cabin, and the wooden door closed behind them. The mountainside was quiet again, with nothing but the snow and the stone to be seen.
Chapter 1The mountain air was crisp and clear. Snow lay thick upon the ground, frozen solid. Those few brief, glorious summer weeks when the grass had fleetingly shown its face were long gone. Now only frost-rimed snow and the raw face of the cliffs remained. Stone and snow, snow and stone. Sweetie Belle sighed as she gazed out of her window at the plunging slope below. How she missed Ponyville! Its warm and nourishing fields, rich with hay and meadowgrass; its orchards and restaurants. A smorgasbord for all the senses, not just for the tongue. Every season bought a new and lovely aspect to the fertile countryside. But the mountains never changed. The clouds parted to reveal open sky often, but the sun was always wan and pale. It was eternally cold and bleak here, rough grey rock barren as the moon. The little garden just below her window was an oasis of green, raked clear of the snow every day by her own hooves, with foliage tended and trimmed by Rarity. But beautiful as it was, it was only one little speck, lost in a sea of grey. And the warmth of the sun was not the only thing the sisters had left behind in Ponyville. Not a day had passed since they arrived in this empty place that Sweetie Belle had not thought longingly of her friends. The isolated cabin that Rarity had chosen seemingly at random for their new home was far from where Scootaloo and Apple Bloom could ever come alone, and it was not likely that Applejack or Rainbow Dash would be able to spare the time to bring them to see her any time soon. It had been six months already. The Cutie Mark Crusaders had never been separated for so long a period before. Sweetie Belle rested her head on her hooves and sighed. She found it hard to understand Rarity’s decision. Rarity had her five friends, her own life just as busy and varied as Sweetie Belle’s own was. More than that, she had a thriving business and a chain of dress stores that was growing and growing. Why had she taken it into her head to abandon it all, and bring them here? Her reassuring words of ‘rest’ and ‘recuperation’ held little meaning for a filly as lonely as Sweetie Belle now was, and ‘sisterly bonding’ did not reassure her either. Rarity had promised over and over that she would grow to love it here, but it had been — Sweetie Belle glanced across at the tally on her wall — one hundred and eighty-two days, and she didn’t love it yet. She was rather proud of her prisoner-of-war tally, actually. She thought it lent her rustic wooden room a touch of the tragic Prench classic novel. She’d taken the idea from the Count of Monte Cris-pone, one of Rarity’s funny old-fashioned books that she’d been forced to read after her own supply ran dry. Sweetie Belle would never have thought she’d become a big reader, but living alone in the mountains with nothing to do did funny things to a pony. She had tried at first to go outside and play while Rarity worked on her sewing, but playing alone got really old really fast, and it was always so cold up here. If Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were here, she supposed she could have invented some fun games to do in the snow, but she was just too tired most of the time. Getting out of bed was hard when you didn’t have any school to go to or anypony to go and see. She sighed again, and her breath fogged up the glass. It just wasn’t fair. They’d only just gotten their cutie marks, their grand reward for everything they had worked for, and then it was all snatched away from her. And it wasn’t like she could do much crusading from up here. Rarity had insisted that a change would be good for them; that they needed to get away for a while. Just a few weeks longer. But it had nearly been half a year, and Rarity was showing no sign of relenting. Sweetie Belle turned away from that unchanging view beyond her garden and slid down from the wide windowsill with a thump. She thumped her way over to her basket of schoolwork and reluctantly levitated up today’s lessons in her magic. It said something about the lengths she was driven to, didn’t it, that she was willingly beginning her school work when nopony was here to force her? It looked like today was algebra, followed by geography. ‘The nations of Equus’, read the title, in Miss Cheerilee’s neat pink writing. The paper looked curiously crumpled and yellowed for something Missus Cheerilee could only have written a couple of weeks ago at most, but maybe the mountain postal ponies were rough with their cargo. They came once a month, delivering her lessons and post for Rarity. Sweetie Belle hoped every time that her friends would have sent a note, but one had yet to arrive. She had hoped for a long time that the letters were perhaps just getting lost along the way, but after six deliveries had come and gone her hopes were beginning to fray. She sighed and spread the geography lesson out across her desk. Griffinstone. She was reminded of Gabby, one of the toughest cutie mark problems that the Crusaders had ever faced, and had to pause to wipe at one eye. She missed everypony so much. Rarity was always attentive, of course, and never seemed to tire of helping her with lessons, but it wasn’t the same as being at school in person. It didn’t seem that the mountain air much agreed with Rarity either, from what Sweetie Belle could see. There were always bags under her eyes, and grey streaks were developing in her mane — from stress, Sweetie Belle assumed, though Rarity always insisted she was the happiest she could possibly be here, just Sweetie and her. Rarity left about once a month, to visit Canterlot for two or three days and attend to her business. Sweetie Belle had begged to accompany her the first few times, but Rarity had very firmly refused. “You’d be bored stiff, darling,” she had said sternly. “I shall be spending absolutely every minute with Sassy Saddles, going over our accounts.” “But couldn’t I go to Ponyville while you were there?” “No, Sweetie! You’re too young to take the train unaccompanied, and I can’t possibly spare the time to take you there — I want this visit to be over as quickly as possible, so I can get back here to our special sister bonding time!” It was the same every time. But after — another glance at the tally on the wall — nearly two hundred days of special sister bonding, Sweetie Belle was beginning to feel like she was reaching the end of her tether. Besides, didn’t Twilight live in Canterlot some of the time now that she had been officially coronated? Sweetie Belle was willing to bet good bits that Rarity was finding some time in between her business meetings to visit her Canterlotian friends. It wasn’t fair that she got to see her friends, while Sweetie Belle was expected to stay cooped up like Raponezel or something. Sweetie Belle huffed air through her nostrils and picked up her quill to begin scratching out an essay on Griffinstone and its architecture. She supposed that at least it wasn’t all bad up here. There were plenty of opportunities to work on her singing, and there were some lovely spots where the mountain provided brilliant acoustics and echoes. Like her own private version of Harmonising Heights. And she still hadn’t given up hope that if she explored the mountain enough she’d find some lonely foal with a cutie mark problem, or maybe a griffin or some other creature. Heck, she’d even take a mountain goat at this stage. They probably had cutie mark problems too, right? She worked at her essay for half an hour or so, the room silent but for the scratching of her quill and the occasional distant hum of Rarity’s sewing machine. Sweetie Belle reached the end of her paragraph on the pitch of the rooves on Griffinstonian homes, and let the quill fall with a snort of disgust. She glanced up at the window once more, her expression drooping a little when she saw that the sun was barely even at its noonday peak yet. She dropped her gaze to the parchment again, but then froze. Wait — hadn’t she seen something out there? Something that wasn’t a rock or an icicle? Sweetie Belle shot back to her hooves and darted back to the window seat. Her breath caught in her throat. A figure on the path! Somepony cloaked and hooded against the cold, their purple garment swathing them head to hoof and shielding them from view. Sweetie Belle pressed her hooves against the windowpane and let out a soft squeal of excitement. No mountain mailpony she had yet seen wore a cloak anything like that. They were all well accustomed to the frigid air up here. That could only mean one thing. A visitor! Somepony new! Too big to be Scootaloo or Apple Bloom, of course, but it could be somepony from home. The mailpony had bought no letters from the other Crusaders, but surely, surely, her friends would have felt able to entrust their best-friend-secret letters to someone from Ponyville. That thought was all the encouragement she needed. Sweetie Belle turned on her heel and galloped at full pelt away from her window, back through her bedroom door and into the elegantly decorated rooms beyond. The front door was in sight, her cloak caught up in her magic and ready to swing over her shoulders, her hoof on the doorknob — when a soft white foreleg blocked her way. “Sweetie Belle?” Rarity asked, ” Rarity asked, the pitch of her voice rising enough to turn the name into a question. “Where are you going?” “We’ve got our first visitor!” Sweetie Belle was almost bouncing with impatience. “They’re coming up the path now. Let me past, Rarity, I’ve got to go and say hi!” Rarity’s eyes widened but her leg did not rise. “A visitor?” There was sudden trepidation in her tone. Her tape measure still hung around her neck, a pin cushion strapped to one hoof, and a few spools of thread floated in her magic. “Yes!” Sweetie Belle confirmed. “Come on, Rarity, get out the way!” “Let me see first,” Rarity answered, still sounding anxious. She tugged the door open, and though Sweetie Belle tried to duck under her leg to get through, Rarity effortlessly blocked her. Rarity peered short-sightedly down the slope, and Sweetie Belle huffed and reached up to push her sister’s muzzle in the right direction. “Over there, silly. I keep telling you not to work by candlelight.” “Yes, darling, of course,” Rarity murmured absentmindedly, squinting into the distance at the purple-cloaked figure. Sweetie Belle was thrumming with eagerness, pressed up against Rarity’s foreleg, so she felt Rarity tense up all over. “Oh, no,” her sister whispered. Sweetie Belle froze, and she looked up into Rarity’s eyes. “What is it, Rarity?” Rarity seemed to be struggling to compose herself; she fought for calm, but her lips still trembled as she replied. “Ah, it’s — it’s no one, darling. Just somepony that I…well, that I used to know.” “Alright,” said Sweetie Belle slowly. “What is there to be worried about, then?” Rarity released Sweetie Belle at last to wring her hooves anxiously, but Sweetie made no attempt to run. “Well, when we last spoke…it didn’t end well, darling.” Rarity seemed lost in nervous thought for a moment, but finally seemed to come to a decision. “Look, Sweetie, I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to meet…this particular pony. I know you’ve been very bored lately, so I am sorry, but please, darling, will you wait in your room while I deal with this?” Sweetie Belle slumped. A visitor, after all these weeks of loneliness, and now she was to be denied that, too? “Do I have to?” Rarity was still looking at the approaching purple figure, and her face tightened almost imperceptibly. “Yes, Sweetie Belle. Now.” Sweetie Belle scowled, but she knew when she was beaten. She hunched her shoulders and let her cloak slide off her back onto the floor. “Fine.” She sloped back to her room and flopped down onto her bed. Limbs spreadeagled, she stared up at the ceiling in silence. Just like her whole life was lived, these days. Alone, and in silence.
Chapter 2Sweetie Belle lay still for a long time, just listening to Rarity’s nervous steps as she paced back and forth. But then came the knock on the cabin door, the first that Sweetie Belle had ever heard in all the time she had lived here, and she sat bolt upright. She heard the door open, some quiet words spoken. She couldn’t help herself. She slid off the bed, crept to her door, and pressed her ear up against it. Eavesdropping was wrong, of course, but it had been so long since she’d heard anypony at all but Rarity. She just wanted to listen to another voice. And perhaps try to figure out the tantalising answer to the question of who exactly could make Rarity so nervous. A boyfriend, perhaps? An ex-boyfriend? Maybe that was the real reason she was always going to Canterlot. Sweetie Belle’s head was so firmly pressed against the wood of her door she thought it would probably leave imprints in her fur. But try as she might, she still couldn’t make out more than a low, indistinct hum of voices. No particular words, but enough to firmly identify the stranger as female. Hmm. Not a romantic visit, then. Sweetie Belle clenched her eyes tight shut and tried to listen harder. She imagined her ears growing and twitching, like a bat’s, but though her ears flicked in response, she couldn’t hear any more than she did before. Slowly, cautiously, she raised her hoof to the doorknob. Rarity might be annoyed, but Sweetie Belle didn’t care. She needed this. She had been starved of entertainment, any entertainment, for months. Rarity would just have to exercise her famous generosity and be forgiving. Sweetie Belle cautiously eased the door open and poked her nose outside. The short corridor from her room to the living room was empty, and she could hear the conversation more clearly already. “But darling,” Rarity was saying, her voice curiously tight with emotion, “Why are you here? After all this time? I don’t understand.” Walking on the very tips of her hooves, Sweetie Belle reached the corner of the corridor and peeped around it. The stranger was sitting on the settee with her back to Sweetie, and Rarity sat in the armchair opposite. The stranger’s hood was still covering her head, but her voice, when she spoke, was somehow familiar. “I’ve come to ask you to come home, Rarity.” The timbre of her voice was rich and melodious, and Sweetie could have sworn she’d heard it somewhere before. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, darling,” Rarity replied, her hoof tensing on the arm of her chair. “I am at home.” “Rarity,” the stranger leaned forward, her voice deepening in sympathy. Rarity’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Oh, I have missed you.” “I missed you too, Rarity.” Sweetie Belle wished she could somehow get a better angle. She was dying to see who this mare was, who seemed to know Rarity so well. Perhaps she could creep a little closer? She crouched low to the floor so that the bulk of the sofa would hide her from Rarity’s gaze, and edged her way to the left. She inched towards the back of the settee, craning her neck all the while to try and see what lay beneath that purple hood. It had to be someone from Ponyville, right? Who else would know Rarity so intimately? But it certainly wasn’t one of the other Elements, and Sweetie thought she would have been able to identify most ponies she knew immediately. Besides, they hadn’t left Ponyville on bad terms with anyone. No, it was more likely to be one of Rarity’s contacts from the fashion industry. From the tales she told, it seemed like there was plenty of bad blood there. The purple-robed figure leaned forward to reach for a teacup, and a white hoof protruded from the cape to scoop it up. Watching the hoof avidly, Sweetie Belle put her own hoof down on the floor just a little too hard, and the resulting muffled thud caused both adults to jump. Rarity leapt to her feet and her eyes widened as she saw Sweetie Belle hunched on the ground. The stranger turned too, following Rarity’s eyes, and her hood fell back from her face at last. Sweetie Belle froze. Heart pounding, she stared up at the pony before her, too stunned for a moment to even attempt to move. The newcomer gazed down at her with the same eyes that Sweetie Belle saw every time she looked into a mirror; pale green irises flecked with points of deep emerald. The stranger’s fur was the same silky white as Rarity’s and Sweetie Belle’s own, and across her forehead fell the familiar pink and purple curls. It was like looking at her reflection. Her own enormous, aged-almost-beyond-recognition reflection. The stranger gaped in horror. Sweetie Belle scrambled to understand. Who could this be? A distant relative, perhaps? Somepony with enough shared genetics to bear a passing resemblance to her — okay, more than passing — but that she’d somehow never heard mentioned. A long lost aunt, or a cousin. The stranger’s wide white eyes narrowed at last and her expression turned hard. “Rarity,” she said, and her voice was like iron, “You promised me you’d stopped all this.” As though wakened from her frozen state by the words, Rarity surged into movement once more. She darted around the sofa and bundled Sweetie Belle back towards her room. “Come on, darling, back you go! I thought I told you to wait for me while I worked this out!” Sweetie Belle’s eyes stayed locked on the stranger. “But I—” She couldn’t find the words. What was happening? She felt lost. Swimming in a sea of uncertainties. At least Rarity’s firm grip on her shoulders was something familiar, something known. “Rarity!” The stranger’s voice was strident. “I won’t hear it!” Rarity protested, still trying to herd Sweetie Belle. “It’s harmless enough!” “No, it’s not,” the stranger insisted, her brows pulling low in an expression so familiar that Sweetie Belle’s stomach twisted. This couldn’t be…it couldn’t somehow be her, could it? The stranger’s voice was rising now. “It’s sick! You’re sick! You swore last time was the end!” Rarity’s grip on Sweetie Belle tightened and she almost lifted her bodily. “It’s not like you can stop me,” she snarled. “You’re never here.” The stranger’s hoof slammed down onto the wood hard enough to make them all flinch. “Nopony is here, Rarity! You won’t let them be! You left us all to go and live in the wilderness with…” her eyes flickered to Sweetie Belle, who instinctively cringed away, “…with this thing!” “I left you?” Rarity shrieked, her voice louder now than the stranger’s. “What choice did you give me?” Tears were suddenly spilling down the stranger’s cheeks. “You didn’t have to do this,” she wept. “Come on, Sweetie Belle!” Rarity gave another savage yank to Sweetie Belle’s neck, and Sweetie finally stumbled to her hooves. “Rarity!” cried the stranger from behind them, her voice hitching in a horribly familiar way. “It’s not like I died!” Rarity shoved Sweetie Belle away from her, down the corridor towards her room, and Sweetie Belle cried out as she pitched forward onto her face. Half-sobbing, she turned back in confusion to see her sister, always so calm and full of grace and poise, advancing on this horrible funhouse mirror reflection, screaming into its face like a banshee. “You might as well have! You changed! You left me! What was I to do but try to pick up the pieces? Twilight gave me a gift!” Her voice was climbing. “It’s nothing to do with you, Sweetie Belle!” Sweetie Belle’s world splintered beneath her like ice on a frozen lake. Her sister, her own big sister Rarity, addressing this — this changeling with her own name. The stranger whirled away from Rarity, her hoof pressed to her mouth, and the movement finally disturbed her cloak enough to reveal it. Her cutie mark. A striped pink-and-purple shield with a musical note in the centre. The fragile ice Sweetie Belle stood on cracked and gaped open, and Sweetie Belle tumbled down into the void. “Rarity!” She cried out, reaching with a shaking hoof for her sister, her solace, her one companion. “I don’t understand—” “Sweetie Belle!” Rarity howled, half-screaming, and to Sweetie’s horror, Rarity still wasn’t speaking to her. “Don’t go!” Sweetie Belle, not knowing how she did it, staggered after them. “Rarity, Rarity, please—” Rarity caught at the stranger’s cloak with her teeth. “Stop!” she demanded, and the stranger did, shaking all over. “Look what you’ve done!” Rarity flung out a hoof to point at Sweetie Belle, who stood trembling, her ears flat to her head as she stared up at her big sister, the focal point of her world. “I had it all so ordered, so — so organised, and you—” But the stranger didn’t let Rarity finish her sentence. “You did it!” The stranger — Sweetie Belle — cried, whirling on Rarity once more. “You always do it! And then you just wipe her and it begins again! Ten years you’ve wasted on this insanity, Rarity!” She stopped, her shoulders heaving, and raised a foreleg to her eyes. “And the whole time, you’ve had a real sister, waiting and waiting and waiting for you to come home. Your real home, in Ponyville.” Rarity laughed mirthlessly. “Waiting for me? You never have any time for me. You ignored me and abandoned me the second you were old enough. Why do you think I asked Twilight for my little sister back?” Sweetie Belle kept moving, putting one trembling leg before the other, trying to reach the end of this suddenly endless corridor, where her sister waited, where surely everything would be alright again. If she could only get there before this storm of words ripped more of her world to shreds— The false Sweetie Belle clawed a hoof through her hair, her eyes wild. “I don’t know why she listened to you, she’s meant to be our Princess — she’s meant to make wise decisions—” “She’s my friend, she understands—” “She’s scared for you, we all are. You have so many ponies who love you, but you choose to waste your life out here in the middle of nowhere, perpetuating an illusion for the sake of an object—” They were talking about her, Sweetie realised distantly, and finally she found her voice. “I’m — I’m not an object. I’m a person. A pony.” She crept at last to Rarity’s side, and leaned against her, hoping against hope for comfort. Rarity froze, and then rushed to embrace her. “Of course you are!” The stranger looked down at her with only pity in her eyes. “You’re a mask, little one. An empty mask with nothing inside.” “N-no,” Sweetie’s voice trembled. “I’m not. I’m real. I know I am.” “You’re a facsimile of me,” the older pony whispered, walking a little closer. “Trapped here by my sister’s madness.” “I’m not—” Sweetie Belle whimpered, but Rarity shoved past her again. “Madness! How dare you? It was you that left me!” “I went to college, Rarity! Every teenager does!” “You left me and you never came back!” Rarity’s voice was a high wail of despair. Sweetie Belle clung to Rarity’s tail, still hoping for some sort of breakthrough, some way to make sense of all this. “Rarity, please, I don’t understand who she is — let’s just go home, let’s go home to Ponyville— I want to see Apple Bloom and Scootaloo —” Tears spilled down the stranger’s cheeks. “I so hoped that you’d moved beyond this, that you’d changed, Rarity.” “I want to see Apple Bloom and Scootaloo!” Sweetie Belle gasped, desperate now. The lack of letters, the unending days alone, only her and Rarity — it couldn’t be true. She remembered Ponyville. She had a home there. Ponies who loved her. If she could only see them, hold them, she would know everything the stranger had said was lies. She would be sure of herself again. She just had to see her friends. The stranger knelt down to her, and more tears crept after the others, dripping from her chin. “I see them every day. We work together, teaching at Princess Twilight’s school.” “What? No — I — no—” Sweetie Bell stuttered. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were her age, not adults. The pity in the false pony’s eyes was endless. “I’m so sorry, little one.” “No,” Sweetie Belle’s words returned to her and she spoke again, stronger now. “No. They wouldn’t have grown up without me. We— we were meant to do it together.” The stranger shook her head once more. “We did grow up together.” She looked back to Rarity, and her face twisted in pain. “I…I can see that you haven’t changed at all. I don’t…I don’t know why I even came.” The door banged shut behind her, and Rarity ripped herself away from Sweetie Belle’s clinging hooves and galloped after her. “Don’t go! Not again, Sweetie Belle, please, just stay with me. Stay the night, just a few hours! Don’t go!” “Sweetie Belle! Sweetie Belle!” Her sister’s screams echoed down the mountainside, and Sweetie Belle collapsed to the floor and wept, because the name her sister called was not her own.
Chapter 3Sweetie Belle waited. She didn’t know what else she could do. She cried until she could cry no longer, and then she waited for her sister to return. The shadows lengthened. The sky darkened, and then night pressed in. The nights here in the mountains were darker than any Sweetie Belle had ever experienced. No friendly glow from other cottages broke the blackness here. Just dark as deep as pitch on every side, stretching on and on forever. A little corner of Sweetie Belle’s mind wondered if she should get a candle. She shut it down. What would be the point? Everything was gone, ruined and broken beyond repair. But what if Rarity can’t see the cabin if there are no candles, the little corner whispered, and that was enough to make her stir. She would do anything, anything, if her sister would just come home and make the world alright again. She clambered slowly upright, and with blindly groping hooves, found the candle drawer. The spell to light a flame was a simple one, within even her limited range of spells, but casting it tonight was the hardest thing she had ever done. Finally, she had one trembling candle ablaze, and used it to light the others; every single one in the drawer, and she placed them in every window of the house until she knew it must shine like a lantern. A waymarker to guide Rarity home. She was positioning the final candle in the little square bathroom window when the glint of the mirror caught her eye. Her breath hitched, but she caught up the candle again and crept closer to that cruel steely surface. It would show her what was real. It just had to. She peered into the mirror, and found the eyes of her reflection. Her soft fur, her rosy cheeks, the gentle curls of her mane. Her big green eyes, catching the candlelight. All as it should be. But all a lie. Sweetie Belle looked deeper, and willed herself to see beyond. Look closer. Show me what I am. The reflection flickered, and warped, and then finally faded out. The illusion fell away, the facade was gone, and Sweetie Belle knew that she was seeing clearly at last. An alien creature regarded her from the mirror. Its skin was furless, gleaming; shimmering white chrome that shone orange with the candleflame. Harsh black tearmarks split her face on either side of her muzzle. Her mane was mere strips of pink and purple rubber, lying flat over her neck. And her eyes. Inequine eyes, glowing green in the darkness with a light all of their own. Green circles that contracted and expanded even as she focused in on them. Cameras. Just cameras, and not eyes at all. The visual receptors of a machine. Sweetie Belle felt like she might vomit, and she saw the rubbery neck of the monster contract. She took a step forward, and another, until her nose bumped against the glass, and now she could hear the metallic clink of her ‘skin’ quite clearly. Her sides moved as she breathed and her flesh throbbed with a pulse, but she saw those movements for what they were now. Mere artifice, another part of the illusion. Stop, she commanded them, and stop they did. Sweetie Belle stood very still, her breath gone from her body, her pulse stilled forever. But still she lived. If living you could call it. She was an abomination. Hardly knowing what she was doing, she turned and left the room. She walked down the corridor, across the living room, and out of the house. She felt a curious detachment from everything she saw. She could not breathe. Without air, she could smell nothing, taste nothing. It was as though she was already dead, and was wandering the world as some sort of ghost. The stars were beautiful above her, but what was beauty? What was anything that she perceived, but a false reflection of a past pony? She wanted — oh, she so badly wanted — to believe that this was all some sort of terrible nightmare, and she would wake up in the morning to find Scootaloo and Apple Bloom laughing at her for taking their ghost stories so seriously. But she could not. She had met the real Sweetie Belle. Seen her. Heard her. And known that it was she who was the lie. She met Rarity on the path just outside the garden. Her head hung, and her careful coiffure was in tatters. Sweetie Belle thought about hiding. Letting Rarity pass her by. She could try to make her way down the mountain. Find somewhere with other ponies, ponies who might not have known the Sweetie Belle who came before. The — the real one. But…who would accept her, monster that she was? Rarity sobbed again, a low and broken sound, and Sweetie Belle was moving before she could stop herself. Though it was not her who had done it, how could she abandon her sister for a second time? Rarity held her for a long while. “You’ll never leave me, will you, Sweetie Belle?” Sweetie Belle felt the softness of her sister’s coat beneath the hard steel of her hooves. The fragility of her sister’s heart, and remembered when she had believed that she had a heart of her own. “I…no. No, Rarity, I won’t.” Rarity sniffed hard, and straightened. “Come on. Let’s go home. Just you and me, mm? And I’ll…I’ll help us forget all about it.” Sweetie Belle hesitated for a moment. “I don’t know that I want to forget, Rarity.” Rarity’s hoof tightened on hers. “It’s better this way, Sweetie Belle.” “But I don’t want—” “Enough, Sweetie. I’m your big sister, and you must listen to me, darling. That’s all there is to it.” Hoof in hoof, the two ponies made their way inside the humble little cabin, and the wooden door closed behind them. The mountainside was quiet again, with nothing but the snow and the stone to be seen.
