Glimmer

When it came to the Bearers' interactions with the community, there was an argument to be made for the assault on Mane Allgood to have produced the final demises of decorum, careful discussion of the problems with the locals, and the hopes for a peaceful solution -- but when it came to somepony whom Rainbow was truly unhappy with, all of the previous had pretty much been living on borrowed time anyway.

Twilight recognized that, and was still aware that the attack had created a Huge Problem.

There was no point in trying to talk it over with Rainbow, in part because the bubble-confined weather coordinator wouldn't talk about anything else and, with the adrenaline rush from the fight no longer substituting for rest, could only keep a cohesive rationale together for up to nine syllables at a time. (There was even less of a reason to try and explain the situation to the locals, who mostly just stared after them as if they hadn't seen an active field bubble in years and with Starlight around, that made no sense.) Twilight finally managed to plant a dam in the verbal flow by crossly asking where the pegasus had stayed the previous night, then carrying her all the way back there, ducking the bubble under a lamppost as frustrated hooves slammed against milky quartz, then depositing her on the tilted doorstep and effectively ordering her to avoid the married couple from that point forward, plus they would absolutely talk about this -- after she'd gotten some sleep.

(Twilight, having to tell Rainbow to seek a bed. Truedawn had all sorts of ways to twist the world.)

She sent Rainbow inside. Then she waited across multiple breaths before trotting around the shoddy house, checking the perimeter for too-large windows which had been left hanging open and a prismatic streak heading off in the general direction of Further Payback.

It took six full circuits before she risked tapping into her pegasus aspect long enough to go aloft, and she managed to keep from touching down again until after she'd heard the first wall-dampened hints of fresh snoring.

And then she set off through Truedawn, moving at a near-gallop while doing her best to ignore anypony who seemed to be signaling for her attention, because they would just want her to work and she already had an assignment. A patch job. Trying to force that which had been forced apart by violence into contact. On the outer edges of impossibility, cooperation.

Two ponies had just entered Truedawn. A stallion and mare who might be able to come and go as they pleased,

They were both wearing saddlebags. There must have been a rod in there.

If she could get another one of the devices -- have it lead them back to sanity...

There was fear attached to that thought. She would have to bring everypony along again, and -- it hadn't exactly worked out the first time. But the bejeweled gold was a way through the shield. If she didn't have any other choice --

-- if Trixie was still willing to leave --

-- she tried to push the thought aside, at least for a little while. There was currently another priority.

Recruiters.

It wasn't just the possibility of escape. There were two ponies in Truedawn who might possess all of the answers. And Rainbow had just attacked one of them.

Twilight had to fix it.

There was another reason to chase down the couple, and it was called Precedent. Rainbow had a tendency to inflict damage. Personal and property, with the usual cause for both as Stunt Practice Gone Not Quite Right Yet. So it was typically by accident, but occasionally came in via the sort of prank which had really needed some more time in the planning stages, and... Rainbow had a temper. One which occasionally channeled itself through pegasus magic because when it came to putting a certain degree of punctuation on a mood, thunder made for a very distinct exclamation mark.

To see Rainbow leave a minor furrow in somepony's lawn and flee, officially granting responsibility for the assignment of damage repair to the nearest judge, was to instantly enter the depressingly-familiar mode known as We Need To Keep Her Out Of Court. It tended to leave the group making a lot of apologies for a mare who seldom wanted to stick around long enough to explain why Responsibility was decidedly not her middle name. (But on the somewhat dubious bright side, it was now apparently possible to verify that last part with the Herdbook Registry.)

Twilight had no idea what Truedawn's court system was like.

Starlight didn't try to have Rainbow arrested. I haven't seen any police stations or ponies wearing badges.
...they'd probably be 'trying that out' too.
Maybe Starlight's the judge. No juries. Not that juries probably matter, because every verdict is obviously going to be unanimous. They vote on cases as a team. Wouldn't want to disagree...

She had to find one or both of the Allgoods. The natural preference was for both. It cut down on the number of repetitions for each desperate attempt to explain.

And she also had to be very careful.

Recruiters. Ponies generally didn't try to bring others into a cause which they didn't personally believe in. It was possible that something like that was taking place, but it suggested a level of cynicism considerably closer to the brothers, along with what Twilight would have darkly hoped to be a decidedly high rate of compensation with some absolutely amazing benefits on the side. However, if the Allgood were bringing others into Truedawn's experimental system, then the most likely explanation was that they wanted to.

Listen to what they say. Carefully.
If I can get either one to talk at all.
If I can find them.

Mane's injuries would have been treated by Starlight. There was an option to just hang around the workshop until somepony emerged, but it wouldn't exactly make Twilight look good and the lilac unicorn might just tell her to leave. Finding the Allgood's house... she would be on their territory. Giving them control for some aspect of the talk. It might help a little.

So where are they?

She wound up accidentally verifying Spike's safety from a distance, and was sincerely thankful for having spotted him at all -- especially given the sheer number of ponies who were surrounding him. So many furry bodies had encircled the little dragon as to make her first glimpse into a familiar twinkle of light off scale-embedded silica, and that had needed to make its way between a pair of fully blank flanks in order to reach her.

Twilight slowed somewhat in her gallop, trying to get a better look. At least a dozen ponies, sitting in a circle around her sibling, tails splayed on the ground as their ears focused on the little reptile at the center. Seemingly doing nothing more than listening, as he carefully spoke.

She couldn't quite make out the words: Spike could be very soft-spoken when he was dealing with strangers, not wanting to panic them with any hint of a dragon's roar. But then she saw his right arm shift position, and the tips of those handling claws lightly tapped the matching hip.

A dozen ponies stared at imageless scales, and seemed to do so with open longing.

Speaking to someone from a species which retains its freedom...

They were speaking to Spike more readily than most strangers ever did.
Granting him acceptance?
...acknowledging commonality?

Pinkie was hauling freshly-cut wood, moving with a small group. Fluttershy's tail was glimpsed as the trailing end didn't quite whip around a corner, and it still reassured Twilight. Everypony seemed to be all right.

For now.

So where were they...?

As local residences went, the construction was just as poor as everything else -- but there were a few differences in the structure. In particular, it was possible to find plants from various parts of the northern hemisphere growing half-wild in a garden which clearly hadn't been tended for a while. It was a house which was intermittently occupied, and didn't see a lot of maintenance traffic while the occupants were away. Twilight's small hooves trod on multiple blades which had pushed their way between the approach paving stones, and then did it all over again as she carefully backed away after knocking. Three body lengths from the door, while keeping wings folded and her horn dark.

She heard heavy hoofsteps slowly moving towards the door. Held her ground, and watched the hinges.

They shifted, and the door opened.

It helped that she'd seen larger. Big Mac had more height and mass, while Snowflake possessed superior raw bulk and when it came to being around huge ponies, she was the personal student of the Princess. It didn't change the fact that Snap Shutter wasn't just on the big side for an earth pony. He very nearly was the side. She felt as if there was enough rib cage width to let two of her stand within a bone prison without bumping the ribs and his hooves, in an emergency, could be pressed into service as mineshaft covers.

He had some dark spots in his fur. Some of the ones along the jaw represented nothing more than a very rough grain. Others, crusty and flaking, had been acquired through being a little too close to fast-flying droplets from his spouse's impacted snout.

There was still some winter clothing on his body, stained with summer sweat. It was mostly like putting a very thick tarp over a recently-initiated muscle explosion.

He looked her over. Horn first, then wings, visibly had some trouble sorting out her lack of size in relation to 'alicorn', briefly came back to the horn, and finally stopped on her eyes.

"Princess." Almost languid, but -- she could hear the tension lurking underneath. The address had been acknowledge of presence and title alike: nothing more. And when dealing with somepony whom Rainbow had recently and drastically offended, it was still a better sign than Twilight's usual. He hadn't cursed her out yet, and it would clearly take at least half a second to drop into the pre-charge position.

He also wasn't happy.

There was a certain built-in awkwardness to speaking with somepony whose spouse had just been assaulted by one of her friends. (And strictly speaking, it had potentially stopped at 'assault' because Rainbow hadn't had the time to work up 'electrocute'.) Twilight did her best to ignore it.

"Mr. Shutter," she replied. "You're a hard stallion to locate." And before he could say anything, added "There's something I hear a lot, in my profession."

He blinked.

"...Princess," now seemed to represent an attempt to define her occupation.

"It's about dictionaries."

She got this stare a lot. It was the expression of a pony who, over the course of a lifetime and no direct interaction whatsoever, had decided he knew everything about how alicorns acted and spoke --

"....what?"

-- then discovered that talking about dictionaries somehow hadn't reached the checklist.

"'How am I supposed to look up a word if I don't know how to spell it?'" Twilight quoted. "And I tell them that if nopony's around, they should use phonetics to narrow it down -- but usually, you have to ask. Maybe you'll get lucky. Maybe somepony knows what the word is, and they'll be able to help. So rather than charge all over Truedawn trying to find your home? I asked." She risked a pause, and no furious stallion words used the break to try and push their way down her throat. "But it turns out that in order to effectively look up somepony's address? You have to know a word. And when I asked about where you lived -- nopony knew your name. 'Who's Snap Shutter?' I got that three times." Along with a lot of confusion about why I was alone, and a couple of attempts to put me on jobs because I obviously wasn't doing anything right now. "But when I started to describe you... well, here I am, Mr. Shutter. And..."

She dipped her head, and did so without ever fully taking her eyes off him.

"...I was hoping -- we could talk."

"I'd ask why a Princess turned up in my yard," the big stallion slowly said, and powerful shoulders pushed thick forelegs into a half-step forward, bringing dusty, spotted saddlebags into view past the edge of the door frame. "But I think there's a bigger question here. Like the one about why some new mare who was with a Princess tried to kick three levels of Tartarus out of my wife. And I'm guessing that's what you really want to talk about."

"Part of it," she admitted. "But it's mostly about the reason, Mr. Shutter. Why she was so angry. I..." her head went lower, she maintained the sight line and listened for any signs of accelerating breath "...want you to understand. Forgiving her... it's a lot to ask for."

Especially when your wife might have deserved --
-- no. Not now. Push it back...

"But it's about what you, Rainbow, and your spouse all have in common," she forced out. "You and I, too. A little."

"And what," the earth pony far too calmly said as big muscles went tense, "could somepony like me ever have in common with a Princess?"

"Somepony we both know," Twilight answered. "I'm your daughter's librarian."

The big stallion took a very slow breath. The dirty saddlebags shifted.

"Librarian," the open disbelief pushed past the lingering anger. "How is a Princess --"

He stopped. Blinked twice, and then nearly every muscle went loose at once.

"Ponyville!" And somehow, it had been half a laugh. "You're in Ponyville! And if you've really got the library, then you really must have --"

She hadn't been expecting this stop. The acceleration of words, a flood of questions piling up against the back of his throat as he tried to figure out what to ask first: that might have been the ideal. Something which demonstrated an intensity of interest. The need to know.

But he stopped. And then the left side of his mouth briefly twitched up.

"Fair guess that you wanted both of us, right?" he asked, and then watched her nod. "Can't help you there. That 'Rainbow' mare..." A slow head shake, and it felt as if there should have been so more more anger trying to force a vibration though... "Mane's gonna be with Starlight for a while. Getting checked out." A little more quickly, "There's nothing which needs surgery or worse, but -- kick to the head. She'll stay in observation until Starlight clears her."

There didn't seem to be anything Twilight could say to that.

He looked her over again.

"We can talk," he told Twilight. "Just give me a few minutes. I never did get to switch over to the local dress code. And -- we probably shouldn't talk here. I know a place. More neutral. Will you wait for me?"

She managed to strip most of the disbelief from the nod. Settled back as the door closed again, and waited.

It took a few minutes. And then the big stallion came out. All the way out, giving her a view of clean, faintly-clinking dark blue saddlebags and --

"-- you're staring," the earth pony merrily observed. "Only a little. But you're staring. You know that, right?"

You're grinning.
About an hour ago, Rainbow tried to put your spouse in a hospital. I was with her. I didn't stop her. And you're grinning at me.

"Guess that means you're getting used to things a little," he added. "If I'm suddenly coming across as unusual." His own gaze flicked back along his flanks, and came to a stop on the dual icon of map and camera. "Tells you how much of a disruption it all was, coming in like that and -- everything after. I usually try to put the burden down again as fast as I can."

A slow head shake, and his eyes briefly closed.

"Not that we turned up when we thought we would," the stallion quietly added. "I may have even to get out there again in a hurry. So there might not be much point in having it taken off just to get it back in a couple of days." Which brought out a rather abrupt snicker. "Wasn't expecting vacation time at all for a few more weeks, and now this is cutting into it. You could say I can't even unpack."

Don't react.
Stay still.
...I don't know if my wings are actually cooperating or if they're just paralyzed with shock.
How can he think any of this is funny?

"Still... here for now," he considered. "And I can wait to be Free again. So I guess we'd better talk while we can. Follow me." Stepped forward, making something within the the saddlebags clink again -- then hesitated, and chuckled. "Listen to me, will you? I just told a Princess to come with. Like instead of me getting all wrapped up with the palace, we're going off to do something normal."

"This," Twilight quietly said, "isn't about royal matters, Mr. Shutter. Think of it more as -- a parent-teacher conference. Only with a librarian."

...stay focused, Twilight.
Don't try to rush into the house past him. I know where they live now. I can check for devices later. ...and realistically, they may be with Starlight for maintenance.
Remember to stay on the right topics.
Do not bring up that he just effectively and fully verified that whatever's being done to the marks in Truedawn can be reversed.

He passed her. She watched, waited for him to get just enough ahead, and then followed.

He was so much larger than she. It made her feel like a filly being reined along. Untrusted to move on her own.

They wound up at the lakeshore, or at least close by. There was a small copse of trees relatively near the water, one with just enough of a shady hollow at the green center for a few ponies to rest in comfort. (He took up more room than the normal share, but she occupied somewhat less and so they more or less balanced each other out.) It was... almost a friendly sort of setting. You could tuck your body low into the greenery, feel the soft cushioning of the plants as Sun's light pushed through shield and canopy to dapple fur. It was even possible to nibble up a light snack from what was around them. A pleasant place to talk.

Still, the copse was a little too close to the waterfall. None of the spray was reaching them, but the air was somewhat more humid than usual, and she had trouble making out faint background sounds over the perpetual liquid crash.

Nopony had bothered her during the trot. Ponies had certainly noticed the stallion's presence and a number had called out happy greetings to him -- or rather, called out to somepony -- but the general assumption seemed to be that if she was with him, then they were Doing Something and could be safely left to do it without additional supervision.

There were ponies swimming in the lake.

...well, for the pony definition of 'swim', which mostly meant sticking to the shallows, taking care not to get too close to the shield, splashing around a lot and, for some of the pegasi, taking about twenty minutes before committing into the hoofstep which would get their wings wet. But there were still at least a dozen Truedawn residents engaged in all of it, so many of them were laughing as water saturated fur and did nothing more with twin monohue patches on the hips than make them somewhat darker.

Sometimes there was a yelp. Unexpected contact with wet scales could do that.

They're... playing.
Because they haven't been able to go swimming for days. Not with us around and the chance of seeing one of them come out of the water.
...maybe swimming is the work assignment.
Inspect lake.
Rearrange bed stones. Non-artistically.
Count fish.
It's probably a natural lake. The shoreline doesn't look like it was arranged by committee.
Such a quality terrarium...
...why does my mind keep kicking out that word?

The earth pony turned around within the green hollow, checking all sight lines in and out. Nodded to himself, and lowered the big body into the vegetation. Twilight moved until she was facing him, then settled in. Keeping one full body length between them.

The stallion awkwardly shifted his weight against the ground. Leaves brushed against the fabric of clean saddlebags, and the dark hue refused to display green stains.

"I've never talked to a royal," he finally said -- then repeated himself, raising his volume just enough to get past the water. "I'm not sure how to do this."

"By talking as you would to a librarian," Twilight told him. "Or a teacher." Not that you've ever met Cheerilee.

Somewhat tentatively, "So I guess you're -- Ms. Sparkle?" (She nodded.) "And I'm --"

He stopped. Snickered for a second, like an overgrown colt. And then the chuckle took over.

"'I'm'," he self-quoted. "I might need a minute on the rest of that."

"I was wondering what to call you," Twilight admitted. "You're an easy pony to track by description, Mr. Shutter. But when I provided your name..." And forced herself to make the shrug into a minimal specimen. "I get the feeling that a lot of the ponies who wind up here take a new name for themselves."

"Part of the process," he acknowledged. "A pretty big one."

"But that's assuming you left them any to use," the librarian added. "Since, based on whom I spoke with while I was trying to verify the directions, you seem to have at least three local names. Plus the original. So what do I call you?"

He visibly thought it over. The short snout wrinkled, and patches of sunlight moved across shifting features.

"Names are a little weird, when you think about it," the earth pony decided. "It's like being dressed all the time, only ponies talk to your clothes like they were you." His own shrug was fully casual. "Better hope the fabric doesn't itch, because you get the weirdest looks when you try to take it off." And before she could fully reconcile the statement, "If you're going to be Ms. Sparkle, then I guess I'll be Snap."

You are a little too relaxed for someone who's both facing an alicorn and recently watched one of that mare's friends actively trying to knacker his spouse.

She considered that there were a lot of Ponyville residents who would want to be in her position. Well -- almost her current position. It wasn't exactly a good starting point for launching a physical attack.

"Starlight called you Snap," Twilight noted.

"It's the name I had when we met," the explorer admitted. "I think she associates it with the mark. Or she'll use it when she thinks I'm backsliding, and she wants to get my attention. It's a little strategy she worked up." His tail lifted slightly, skimmed left to right over low leaves and dropped again. "But let's get to it. Conference, right? Because..."

He chuckled again.

"...you're her librarian. Sun's spots, I can barely wrap my head around that thought."

"Which part?" felt like a natural question.

"All of it," he clarified. "That you're a librarian. That you're here, from there, and you know her."

It was occasionally possible to catch brief snatches of speech and laughter through the masking of the waterfall. For the sound, you focused towards the lake and when it came to those who were creating it, attention had to be spread across a nation. Just about all of the base accents were present, with at least one representative from what was nearly every settled zone -- but those tones were slowly blending. Becoming fuzzy at the edges, losing the borders between coastal diphthongs. Truedawn was gradually approaching the point where the residents would have an audio signature all their own, and Twilight wasn't sure the end results would be better than anything else the community produced.

This was a place for those who told themselves they were exploring a new way of life. Forging a path without marks to blaze the trail. And to find the ponies who were willing to participate in that sort of fundamental abomination, you presumably had to search a continent. Finding those who could be recruited.

Just about all of the base accents.
Nearly every settled zone.
There were two gaps.

First, Rarity wasn't participating. It was easy to create mockery around that particular mode of speech and most of the Bearers could work up a pretty good imitation, but Twilight didn't really believe another party was capable of full duplication through completely independent creation. The designer had made some rather strange choices while weaving her most unique of styles from sonic whole cloth, and the librarian was almost sure that anypony else would have confined 'darling' within a tighter usage list.

And she couldn't hear Ponyville.

There was a Ponyville accent. Twilight knew that, because everypony else had an accent. If they hadn't been raised in her own birth settled zone, then they hadn't learned the most proper mode of speaking Equestrian and thus wound up with an accent. It was just that when it came to Ponyville, she'd become so intimately familiar with that sound as to effectively stop registering it. It took an act of will to detect those rises and falls --

-- or their complete, now-justified absence.

You can't go back.

You're a recruiter. Look for ponies anywhere and everywhere. Maybe you even left the borders a few times. Equestria isn't exactly the only nation with a pony population. And now that I'm really thinking about this, any 'community' that's experimenting with mark magic to this degree is arguably dealing with a rather odd lack of zebras.

But you can never set hoof in Ponyville.

Because in every possible second of your presence, no matter where you are within the settled zone, even if your presence is mostly being witnessed by Moon -- there's at least a theoretical chance to be spotted by your daughter.

And what could you tell her?

...anything. Just passing through. Dropping something off in the capital. Love you, good to catch up, see you in a few more years. They potentially could have said anything and Scootaloo would have accepted it.

...are you afraid...?

The silence failed to push back the laughter. Fully-exposed ponies showing themselves off to the world. The little joys of Honesty.

"So if that attack was about what we've all got in common," Snap finally said, "and it's her -- then what happened back there?"

She didn't have a good history with giving stallions personal information during private conferences, and it made her considerably more cautious with the current go-round. But unlike the fir -- unlike with Quiet, she wasn't actively trying to recruit Snap for their cause --

-- this is one of the recruiters --

-- but she still had to deal with a commonality: there was only so much which was safe to tell him.

There was certainly no need to inform Snap of what his daughter had attempted in the name of making contact. With a dragon's assistance.

I don't know if Starlight gets a mental notice when something tries to get through the lockdown and even if she does, she may not know what tried to get through. And there's no guarantee that she ever told them.

But he needed to know why Rainbow had reacted that way.
The same reason, for that matter, why Twilight kept running little mental calculations.
Strictly theoretical ones.

Stallion, Maximum Distance Flung, Historic.

...she didn't have the actual data to compare against and besides, the shield would probably get in the way.

It may be a mental effect. He could be as -- sick -- as everypony here. Rainbow might have attacked the ill...

He was a recruiter. He would have presumably been affected early.

And then he'd gone out to spread it around.

Things I can safely tell him...

Spike's abilities had to be kept secret for as long as possible -- if that truth hadn't already been exposed.

...Trixie could just --
-- focus.

Some agony had to wait.

So she told him that his daughter's living situation had been discovered -- but not the how, or some of what had taken place in the aftermath. Just that a portion of the truth had been exposed and in response to its unveiling, a prey species had done something fairly rare. Going on the hunt.

He listened, and did so in total silence. Letting her speak: he was actually better about that than a few of her friends. There were a few nods, and -- that was just about it.

He waited until she was done before saying anything and at the instant he started to talk, she wanted to kick the words into his brain.

"I don't think anypony really understands how hard this makes it for her."

Twilight turned the sentence over in her mind a few times. Broke it down, diagrammed it, isolated subject and verb, then inspected what remained for any signs of love.

"How hard," she forced herself to do nothing more than repeat, "this makes it -- for her."

Snap sighed. The tail flicked.

"I met that banker. Name stuck in my head, mostly because I was wishing he'd dump it for a new one. See if dropping the original meant the greed fell away with it. Croesus, right? He's still in charge? ...right. Figured. He's the sort of pony you can't get away from money without the full farrier kit. Gotta pry him loose. And when we were getting the house, I thought -- no way this one lets anypony slide on a late deposit. He'd foreclose in a heartbeat. Reason for the delay doesn't matter, and the filly sure won't. Not if claiming the property means the bank got a smidgen along the way." Which produced a tiny shrug. "Some of that's the mark, of course. But you have to wonder about what sort of pony somepony's gotta be in order to get a mark like that in the first place."

Don't say anything...

"And with the mail system, all the different travel speeds you get from the settled zones, then I had to figure for the chance of sending the international stuff and making sure it all got there on time, every moon..." The earth pony softly groaned. "It took Starlight to work out some of the tricks we used, and she said it would be easier to just put the postage system together again from scratch. But that voucher got there on time, Ms. Sparkle. Over and over. Keeping a roof over her head every moon."

It was the tone. Genuinely hurt.

You're talking about names.

Wounded, even. He'd just been trying to do the right thing for his daughter and nopony understood...

"I sort of remember saying something when I came out of the gatehouse," Snap added. "Mostly. I... have these reactions to teleports. Bad ones. It's not that common, but it can happen --"

"-- I'm familiar," she said, because telling him exactly how familiar Twilight happened to be wasn't going to happen on a bet.

"I said we nearly got arrested at the bank, right? ...right. Thanks for the nod there. Wasn't completely sure. So anyway, looking back -- I think the staff sent somepony out to get the police a little after we came in. And while they were doing that, they processed our order. One prepaid voucher. I already had the envelope stamped, addressed, and ready to go. So when they delivered our voucher, I loaded it in. And then the police showed up." The dark purple eyes narrowed, adding to the shadows in the copse. "The main reason it took so long for us to get out of sight and get out of there? I was looking for a mailbox. Needed an escape route which went past the post office. I jammed that thing in. Nearly got my face stuck. But the voucher went off to her and since the postal ponies have their own police who might not be told to pull it out of the system, I'm guessing it'll get all the way through. This moon." A little more softly, with the words nearly drowned in crashing water and the anger forming a cold undertow, "And how do we pay it next moon, Ms. Sparkle? Who keeps the mortgage going when there's law enforcement looking for us everywhere? Because if you want us to start mailing from places which are three moons of travel time away from Ponyville, then I'm pretty sure Croesus is gonna allow a top wait of three extra seconds. And I know you made a point of saying she's not homeless -- but that's her house. What happens if she loses it?"

It was the righteous, carefully-suppressed rage of a deeply concerned parent and in that, it remained believable up until the moment she considered the situation which had invoked it.

There was also another factor.

"She won't lose the house."

"Somepony else is gonna make the payments?" Snap challenged. "Because she's a little too young to be working full-time."

The "Yes," was instant and certain.

The palace. I could at least ask.
All of Ponyville. It's not very much when you divide it by population. A few smidgens each, every moon.
As long as it isn't you --

-- he was looking her over again. This time, his gaze almost seemed to skim over the wings.

"You mean that."

Twilight nodded.

"Then I hope you're right," the stallion's worry offered. "That one way or another... in the end, I hope you're right about that. Moon's craters, what a bucking mess -- pardon my language, Ms. Sparkle."

Don't smile. Even when he sounded just like a really big colt who just got caught cursing.
Don't.

"And that's why your Rainbow went after Mane," Snap concluded.

It's more because your wife was the first one out the door. If it wasn't for your 'rare reaction', those kicks would have been going into you.

But all she did was nod.

"...a lot of ponies in town would have gone after us on sight," the stallion considered. "Wouldn't they?"

Another nod, and Snap winced. More dried blood fell away from his face.

"I can see how it looks bad from the outside," the stallion drastically understated. "Why we wouldn't exactly be popular if we trotted across the border right now."

...I'm going to ignore that.
For now.
Because screaming at him for twenty minutes would be heard over the waterfall.
Also, that shield would really mess up my fling arc.
If this was Ponyville, I'd usually just send him through the streets and dunk him in the fountain. But I don't have a Truedawn route memorized and we're a little short on fountains.

"But we've been making sure she's okay," he continued. "That's always been the first priority."

...keep the anger down.
...just keep it down...
...what would Pinkie do?
Build a bridge.

"How much do you know about her?" Twilight asked. "What she likes, what she's been doing..."

The stallion heavily sighed. The tail thumped against the soil twice.

"Not as much as I'd like."

So you're going to keep trying to make me believe you care?

"I've been meaning to ask you a few things."

"I could allow a couple of questions," the stallion considered. "Can't promise any unexpected brilliance on the answers. What are you asking?"

Almost instantly, "Is Lofty real?"

This snicker could have been produced by a secondary-school student who'd found himself in what he thought was a position of unrestricted access to the tree's little Adult section. (Twilight maintained one. Censorship was wrong. And she carefully controlled who could check out books from it and why, because that was a librarian's job and besides, the so-called cries of orgasm always had too many vowels.) "As much as I could wish for the opposite. Mane's older sister. There's a lot of years between them. Last I heard, she and Holiday were living in Eeyorus with the donkeys. Kind of fits with Lofty. Holiday, not so much."

Foreign residence, so much harder to locate...

"It's a good place to explore and the people are decent," he wrapped up, "but I'm not sure I'd want my kid growing up there. Ever see the newspapers?"

"I run a library. We get The Daily Downer." About two moons after initial publication.

"There you go, then."

"You don't seem to mind calling your spouse 'Mane'," Twilight observed.

"It's like with Starlight and me," he promptly told her. "When you meet somepony under a name, it sticks. Even when the name change was at least some of the incentive for my wife. She's never liked her name. She thinks it's a little too -- generic? Is that the word I want here?" With a grin, "Because I figure a librarian would know."

She didn't take the bait. "And I can use 'Snap'?"

Which got her, "Sometimes the old outfit doesn't start to itch for a few hours."

Immediately, "Why hasn't Starlight changed her name?"

It was an assumption. The lilac unicorn might have just switched to something which still sounded pony-normal, which at least gave her some piece of normalcy to offer...

But she got an answer.

"It's a reminder," Snap sadly stated. "That she's not Free, and can't be. Not until the day when she's the last."

And Twilight knew.

It's all Starlight.
None of them visibly use magic. What if they can't? Really and truly can't. If it's painful to cast after the mark is removed, less efficient, or just outright impossible.
Whatever the process is -- Starlight knows how to do it.
But she's the only one.
She's the key. If they can change marks at will, then it's with a device she invented. If that doesn't exist, then she's got to do all of it.
Maybe it's raw power, and she's -- that strong.
(How much strength was required for abomination?)
(Maybe it was a simple act in the end, and it was just that nopony had thought to try it that way.)
(Maybe Starlight was stronger than Twilight.)
Or it could be refinement. Field dexterity beyond what Rarity can manage.
The key is that if she loses her mark, she gives up the ability to work the -- effect.
So unless she can teach somepony else how to do this, or creates a readily-reproducible device to manage the task... she has to be 'the last'.
It all goes through Starlight...

...unless Trixie was capable of learning how to --

-- not yet.

She had to stay where she was. Keep listening...

"You're both recruiters?"

The big body shuffled against the grass. Water spray impacted border leaves.

"Thought I heard Starlight say something about that, too," Snap finally said. "I'm not exactly used to hearing ponies say it out loud. It's weird to have it coming in from the outer ear."

"As opposed to...?"

More thought.

"Recruiter," he eventually submitted. "Yeah. Call it that. We look for ponies who are tired of having a voice in their heads. Especially when they aren't sure it's theirs."

"Voices," didn't really feel like she was making much of a contribution.

"Some ponies say the mark whispers," Snap observed. "Offers guidance now and again. Whispers are another form of talking. And if something can talk, then it can usually think." All embedded humor instantly flushed black. "I've met a few exceptions. You probably have too, in your line of work. ...either line. But the point holds, Ms. Sparkle. There's another source of thoughts in a pony's mind. And when you start to ask who's talking... then maybe you're ready to consider trying life without that voice around. To find out what you think. Mane and I, we look for those ponies. And then we ask them if they'd like to be Free."

I've noticed certain commonalities between this and previous talks.
For example, I am completely and utterly sick of stallions who seem to derive some sort of sick pleasure from saying the most warped things in the world as if they made perfect sense.

Although this one was decidedly larger than the previous example. She'd outmassed Quiet: a rare statement with any adult, especially a stallion. Snap made her feel as if she had to keep an eye on his shadow. Just in case it tried to make a move.

Sincere dark eyes were regarding her.

"Have you ever heard that voice, Ms. Sparkle?" the stallion gently asked.

She didn't answer. Instead, she briefly considered the fusion of essence and soul.

I hear a lot of voices.

Twilight wondered if he knew about her talent. It wasn't exactly a national secret, but -- with the ponies who could ID the Bearers, most stopped at 'Magic'. Still, with enough research...

She wasn't going to talk about voices. There were other questions to get through.

"Did you recruit Gez?"

Later, in privacy, she would wonder if the worst part came from having his confusion feel so sincere.

"...who?" the big stallion finally asked as his ears stopped twisting.

"You don't know?"

"Some ponies swap names more than the once," almost might have sounded reasonable under different circumstances. "And there's been a lot of them. Names and ponies."

Almost desperate, "Linchpin Keystone?"

Another twitch from his tail. Something in the saddlebags went clink.

"...yeah," Snap slowly said. "Moon's craters, that takes me back. He was years ago. We brought him in with -- Suga -- Nira? Yeah. Nira."

I know that name.

She didn't know much past the name. But the original introduction to Truedawn had been covered. Nira had been one of the ponies who'd helped to welcome Rarity's group.

"I didn't get to talk to him much after he settled in," the earth pony went on. "Didn't have to. He was happy. I bring them in. The community does the rest." Much more carefully, "And Mane and I left two ponies behind back there. Two who were just starting to realize they weren't happy. That they didn't belong where they were. Maybe they would have fit in here. We all belong somewhere, even with the ones who think that's in a palace. But with those two -- I don't know if we can ever get back there. Give them what they need."

I hope you never do.

She was still trying to work out Truedawn. It still felt as if the group had just saved two lives by sheer accident,

"And then you bring up somepony I already tried to save," the stallion continued. "Talking about him, using a dead name. How do you even know it?"

It was once again a question of doling out limited information, picking and choosing -- but she had to assume that anything Starlight had, her recruiters could be told. And so she let him know about the sudden appearance, and the death -- but nothing more. Certainly not how curious the palace had become, or that she'd been involved almost from the start. A corpse, and where it had fallen.

And she watched his face.

There was a corpse in a morgue, presumably still refusing to decay. There had also been a living pony named Linchpin, and she was resting in front of somepony who'd known him. Who claimed to have been making his life better through bring him here. Something you would do for -- a friend.

She watched to see if he would mourn.

And all he said was "It happens."

The small shake of the unruly mane, the tiny bow of the head... those could have been expressions of sorrow. But the voice...

'It happens.'

A statement of fact. It happens. In fact, it had already happened. What was he supposed to do about it?

"He's dead," Twilight testified into the record.

Don't you care...?

"I know," Snap stated. "And I can't do a Tartarus-freed thing to change that, now can I? I wish he was still around. That I was talking to him right now and you were watching from over by that tree. But I wasn't here, Ms. Sparkle. Community's supposed to find the ones who are backsliding. Give them support, prop them up until they get the balance back. Somepony didn't have a decent tooth grip on that ball. It squeezed out and shot north. And he's dead, and he probably never thought about what it would stir up here. Not when the bad thoughts were in his head and nopony helped him get them out. All the trouble..."

A slow, weary head shake, followed by three seconds of fully-closed eyes. And then he looked at her again.

"Tell me about my daughter."

Twilight's mind quickly reviewed three years of Crusades, then decided it was too much material for a single session and attempted to summarize multiple police reports.

Start with the zip line?
How about the cannon? The cannon's usually good for talking somepony out of moving into the settled zone. So if for some strange reason I want these two gone forever...
I think some of the civil cases from the cake attempts finally finished resolving --

-- it truly hit her then: the filly who had tried nearly everything in the name of gaining a mark, and -- the adults who had brought her into the world, seeking out those who desired to be rid of their own icons.

"You winced there," Snap noted.

The irony scale isn't broken, but I'm pretty sure it just took a fresh dent.

"Sore wing." (Her inner Applejack failed to glare at her.) "She's -- dedicated. Everything she does, she does one hundred percent. But at the same time, she's always looking for something new to try. Figuring out who she really is, and what she wants to do with her life."

"In other words," Snap diagnosed, "no mark yet."

...Sundammit. "You could always just ask her. You've already got mail flowing in --"

"-- not easy to get a postal address which isn't connected to a house," the stallion smoothly cut her off. "And get back to it, over and over. Something has to be permanent, somewhere. No mark, Ms. Sparkle?"

"...no." And just about any parent in the world would have considered their child's age, then started to express concern...

"I'm worried," Snap said. "I'll admit that."

She watched him. Waited.

"It's all about the kids, isn't it?" the stallion went on. "About her. She gets one choice. One. But she doesn't know who she'll be in five years, or two, or thirty. A choice for one day isn't always a choice for a lifetime. Some ponies get lucky that way. Some don't. And I..."

He lowered head and neck. All the better to look directly at Twilight.

"...I say that I want her to wind up with the best possible choice and life," Snap stated. "Even if that means making a world where she can choose a thousand times."

And then he smiled.

"Look," the big stallion decided, "you're too tense." And chuckled again, long and deep. "I mean, this can't be easy for you, right? I'm talking to the friend of a mare who just kicked my spouse -- but that mare is trying to have a conservation with the victim's husband!"

"It's not a standard situation," could definitely be acknowledged.

It wasn't normal.
Nothing about Truedawn was normal.
But Snap wasn't bad at faking a degree of normalcy.
For a little while.

"You look like a mare who could use a drink," Snap decided. "Nothing major! Just to take the edge off -- whatever that means with an alicorn. We'll have to watch you by the sip. I think I've got something in here..."

He tilted his head back towards his saddlebags. A nimble jaw got the right lid up, and his snout delved within. She heard glass clink.

And his head was mostly over the open lid, he was turned away from her and his body was twisted in such a way that with the height difference in play, she had no hope of seeing what was actually being done. But he'd changed saddlebags before bringing her to the copse, he'd packed for this and she was hearing glass moving into more glass and a faint slosh of liquid --

-- his head was mostly over the saddlebag.

Twilight's wings flared to their full span.

...she wanted to come down immediately, and she wanted to do it on top of him. She didn't have a lot of mass, but force was about kicking acceleration into the mix. There was nothing about him which she liked and he had it coming --

-- the saddlebags, this is about the saddlebags, I need to see --

His head was mostly over the one saddlebag. There was something of a gap.

She was now over him.

Twilight looked down, and Sun dappled the portable lab.

It was like looking a cross between a bar and world-class chemist shop. There were also sorts of tiny bottles in the saddlebag, carefully secured within a network of support fibers and loops which gave them near-ideal cushioning with minimal contact and just a few bits of purely clinical artistry. Some of the labels on the liquids were recognizable, mostly because Pinkie did sometimes liquor up the punch for adult parties. By contrast, when Rainbow was attempting to secretly add an ingredient, the best possible result was hot sauce.

Twilight could identify a surprising number of alcohol brands.

The compounds were even easier.

Pipettes. Skimmer tubes. Tiny twisting siphons where the upcoming pull never reached the mouth. All sort of ways for an earth pony to move things without ever touching them, within easy jaw reach. So you took this base drink here, added some bitters, maybe a little orange peel, and then you carefully applied three drops of the violet stuff because the alcohol wasn't clouding the judgment enough. By contrast, that one bright orange mix needed masking -- but if you really wanted to take the agreeable haze of the average drunk and make it into an inescapable two-hour fog of You're Right, then it was probably worth the effort.

And then there was the fine red powder. It was being kept next to what looked like ground-up roots, it was in a vial which had been reinforced by multiple enchantments, it was completely unknown to her, and the most important thing about it was that the recruiter was in the middle of using a pipette to place some into what Twilight was completely sure would have been her drink.

She was only able to hold the position for a second: simply trying to identify everything in the kit was enough to knock her out of Rainbow mode. But it also meant that she barely gave the stallion a chance to feel the wind downdraft from active wings and by the time he looked up, her full-body recoil had already reached the point where it nearly passed for the world's clumsiest landing.

Twilight felt her wings lock against her sides. It didn't matter. All she needed was her legs, and she pushed her way out of the copse, leaving the shadows for a Sun which sent a degree of light and heat through the shield. Outer warmth, but -- not inner. Not here.

"And where are you going?" a friendly voice called after her. "You ain't one of those ponies who never touches the stuff, right? Because I can mix up something that's friendly to beginners! I do it all the time! Aw, come on, Ms. Sparkle..."

Perhaps that was the last straw, or most of it. The final bit of hay from the bale, which gets stuck between teeth and gums: irritant gone mad, until the strand snaps or the pony does. Maybe he could have tried to pass it all off, if it had been somepony with less of a science background doing the listening. Even the educated might have even considered that some of the ingredients became harmless when placed into alcohol: after all, Twilight didn't really drink.

She still wanted to fix things. She needed the information, and perhaps somepony who was better at manipulation would have turned back. But it was mostly the stallion's tone which made her keep going. The sheer, purely juvenile joy of it. Like a really big kid whose idea of a good time just had getting others hurt as a incidental benefit.

And there was something else.

You've been talking about names a lot.

"Come on back, Ms. Sparkle!"

One still hadn't been said.

"I want to hear about my kid...!"