Glimmer

by Estee

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Starlight Glimmer, Mystery, Spike, Suicide / Self Harm, Adventure, Violence, Death, Main 6
Length: 301505

There are those who say that marks are destiny. But there is one who believes destiny is a trap. And there is nothing she will not do to make the world free.

There are those who say that a mark is a portion of the soul made visible to the world. That the mark is destiny, and so cannot be denied. Equestria has existed under the influence of marks for all of its recorded history, allowing the ever-changing tide of icons to guide the way.

But it could also be said that every system contains the seed of its own destruction.

There is one who believes destiny is nothing more than a trap. And there is nothing she will not do to make the world free.

(Part of the Triptych Continuum, which has its own TVTropes page and FIMFiction group. New members and trope edits welcome.)

Now with author Patreon, SubscribeStar, and Ko-Fi pages.

This story is a direct sequel to Triptych. Do not read it unless you've finished the original.

Published 2020-09-30 23:20:02 UTC
Last updated 2024-11-27 02:25:33 UTC

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This was how the stallion chose to die.

He'd been thinking about the inevitability of his death, and felt as if that consideration had started at the moment when some degree of actual thought had suddenly become possible. The mere presence of truly personal cognition seemed to indicate the time available for such thoughts would be rather limited, and so he'd made sure to do as much thinking as he could get away with.

The stallion hadn't gotten away with any of it. He'd been caught. And somehow, the consequences of that had made thinking all the easier.

There were many thoughts moving through his mind as he tried to maintain the four-kneed crouch, with his body mostly held up by the branches which pushed into his flanks. The gap between the bushes was somewhat too narrow for his build, and that meant flesh had to shove wood aside in order to find space for concealment. The weaker protrusions broke off. The more solid ones shoved right back, and that made it feel like he was on the verge of being impaled. Not necessarily easy to do with blunt objects, but the wood really didn't like his being there. The plants had the strength of summer, the flow of fresh sap...

...but there were ways in which that was just about all they had.

He'd wondered about that, after thought had returned. If there was something about the process which made it that much harder for even the passive aspects of magic to be used. Something which flowed through the soul without any conscious effort by its possessor, and when the soul itself had been...

The instinct which arose at that particular thought was natural: to glance back along his left flank, past what he was hoping were properly-loaded saddlebags, at where it was. But all the reaction did was get his head poked by another branch, and he forced his lips to remain tightly pressed together. This was followed by rotating his ears anew, because the movement had cost him focus --

-- there. Still pretty much exactly where she'd been. She wasn't making any real effort to conceal herself from hearing, much less any other sense. The mare had no need to hide, because she knew she'd already won. She knew that with just as much certainty as she knew everything else, and the force of her knowledge allowed her to think on behalf of the entire lost world.

He was hiding, and... there was no real point to doing so. The stallion was sure that she knew exactly where he was. She had every intention of eventually doing something about it and when he heard her clearing her throat, he realized she was about to begin. It was just that when it came to dealing with matters, the unicorn had certain priorities.

It was just the way she thought. And she thought about everything.

"This is still a trial phase," the mare stated, and the stallion listened. It was hard not to listen to the mare, even like this: it might be the last opportunity he ever had to hear syllable emphasis being slotted into place. And then he heard something being removed: a sound which felt as if it would be so easy to hate, a series of audible shifts which were never very far away when you were in the mare's presence. Fabric rubbing against itself, just before the lid was raised away from the right saddlebag. Something a little more dense scraping slightly against the many patches as it was removed, and then a little squeak of metal on glass as the bottletop rotated.

"It remains the most advanced trial of its kind," she continued. "And I'm grateful for everypony who's chosen to participate in our great experiment. Including you. Even now, because experiments often manifest unexpected variables along the way. The only means of bringing the results to perfection is to seek out the imperfect whenever it arises. And by coming to understand the disease... we come that much closer to the cure."

The words felt unusually smooth, as if a fast-spinning lathe had been held against each letter. When it came to the mare (and this was something he'd realized a mere week ago, shortly after thinking had resumed), words were planned. Everything was. She thought about what to say, she considered the things which the other party would certainly have to voice in response, and then she sketched out her response to that. It was potentially possible to tell just how many times she'd been involved in the general topic of a conversation through measuring the relative lack of hesitation before speech began at all.

She thought about what to say. She carefully considered when to move, and he didn't doubt that some part of her was doing so at that very moment. It didn't take very much time to see that about the mare, at least if she left you in a state where you were capable of any perception which wasn't hers.

When anything new arose, she had to think about it. If the event was something which had taken place before, she had to remember.

Her words were unusually smooth. (He didn't know if he'd just realized that, or if the return of true thought had allowed him to finally assemble the memories.) It made him wonder just how many times this had happened before...

He heard the little creak of a stiffened binding being opened. The quill made a little liquid noise as it dipped into the ink.

"Now," the mare almost casually started, "when would you say the deviancy began?" Paused. "I realize this may feel somewhat redundant. But I may not have asked enough questions before issuing your brand."

He didn't answer: no matter what happened, he had no intention of giving her the satisfaction. Not of his own free will, not while he still possessed any degree of that...

...she could just... look at him. A single look while her corona flared, and then he wouldn't be thinking. Not as himself. Everything which went through his head would be something she'd intended to be there. She could do that at any time, he felt as if she must have done it with so many others, and she wasn't trying to do it with him.

He had taken a guess at the reason for his continued temporary independence. (The stallion was betting his life on that guess or, if things went as he expected them to, his death.) Thinking for himself meant he didn't have to answer.

But the words still triggered memory, and he found himself trying to look back again. Glancing along his left flank, to what she had designated as a brand. Something intended to shame.

It was shortly after you brought the new ones in.

We all gathered to witness Freedom, because that's what we're supposed to do. There has to be somepony there when Freedom begins, because some don't know how to be free. They aren't sure how to react. A few of them laugh. Most cry.

I think there might have been some screams.

But they were Free. We welcomed them. And when I was on my way home that day, after the welcoming was over and my labors were complete, I was...

...it's funny. I'm not sure I ever really looked at anything here before. You told us this place was the ideal, or as close as it could come while the experiment was still going on. We lived in a perfect society. A place of equality, and that meant everything around us had to be equal and perfect. So there was no need to really pay attention to any single detail, because how many times could you appreciate perfection?

I started looking at the buildings.

They were produced by a group effort, because just about everything is. I think every adult here tried to build at least once. We were supposed to take an interest in it, every adult, because building was something we could do for the community. Some were never any good at it, no matter how many books you gave them. They just carried supplies. Those of us who got at least part of the idea did the actual work.

Every adult...

The mare cleared her throat again.

"Gez? I asked you a question. The answers are important. You could help so many if you just told me what we all need to know."

She knew where he was. She could attack at any time. Eventually, she would do something. But as she was still considering her options...

One of those options was to repeat herself. He felt as if she hated that, and took it as the smallest of wins.

"Gez?"

She already knew where he was...

One word. When she already knew the right area to target, the only way a single word mattered was in giving him one more tiny victory.

"Linchpin," the stallion softly said. Just enough volume so as not to drown out the sound produced by the mare's tiny intake of breath.

"So it's gone that far," the unicorn quietly observed. "I need to isolate the initial symptom, Gez. When did it start?"

He didn't answer. He just looked up through the leaves and branches of the canopy, until he found Moon. The orb was just barely visible, along with a single unfamiliar star.

The thing about buildings made by committee... by those who've just been told it's one of the many ways in which they can help the community, who've been asked to take an interest...

...they nail things together according to printed patterns.
Walls are raised in the name of following a plan.
There's no personal touches. A wall is just that: a wall. It's been told to be a wall, and so a wall is the only thing it knows how to be. It can't serve as a canvas for the builder's art, when you look at the patterns woven into the brick and wonder what the creator was trying to say. Nopony's eyes become lost in trying to follow curves through crenelations. There's no point to stopping and rubbing up against stucco in order to deal with an itchy spot, because no one thinks about layering stucco at itch level.

I looked at the buildings. It felt as if it was the first time I'd ever looked at anything.

They were almost solid. Serviceable, at least in the short term. They would pass, as long as no one ever truly looked at them.

But they weren't loved.

And then I remembered that I was a true builder.
And then the headache began.
And then my soul hurt.
What was left of it.

"I can be very patient, Gez," the unicorn placidly said. "But this is starting to cut into time I need for other things. Time which the community needs. If there's anything in you which still cares about the community --"

"-- it's considered polite," the stallion deliberately interrupted (and the deep breath required nearly drew blood, the branch poking that much deeper into his flesh), "to address somepony by name."

Another small inhalation. "When dealing with any level of insanity," the mare didn't quite counter (because countering was a form of debate, and debate meant the smallest chance of recognizing that the other party might have a point), "the most crucial aspect of treatment is bringing the helpless into a state where they can identify the nature of reality. That means not entertaining delusions, even in the name of bonding. The simplest act of reinforcement is also one of cruelty. 'Gez' is a name: one given as the first gift of freedom. 'Linchpin' is the symptom of a renewed disease. There isn't much point in trying to reason with an illness. I just want to know why the sickness came back. I did everything I could to cure you, and when any part of the syndrome returns... this is still a trial phase, Gez. There are so many others who might be at risk, if I can't figure out just what went wrong with you."

Silence was, in its way, rebellion.

"You were caught twice," she eventually said.

"I was contributing to the community." And found the strength to smirk. "Making necessary adjustments."

"Deep under Moon," the unicorn observed. "When you thought none would be watching. And 'necessary adjustments'..."

There was something very old about the mare's mane. The unicorn herself was of somewhat indeterminate age, at least in the sense that it was difficult to get a true idea of her years from observation: something within the mind blurred whenever he'd tried. But her mane... he felt as if that was a style which had passed out of favor long before he'd been born. Something he only saw in paintings, because the extinction had taken place prior to the age of photography. It wasn't low-maintenance: once you got the hairs bundled, it was just about no-maintenance. The sort of thing adopted by a mare who was aware that she had a mane and technically, something probably had to be done with it because shaving the whole thing away would have drawn too much attention. A minute each morning to put everything into place, and he didn't doubt that the mare spent that minute in careful planning of other activities because otherwise, it was a minute wasted.

It was hard to tell how old the mare was. But the mane was ancient, and it felt as if the slow back-and-forth shaking of her head should have dislodged the detritus of eons.

"None of what you did qualified as repairs. It was adjustments, if that's what you feel you should call -- what you did. And if you were trying to help the community," the unicorn stated, "then you would have asked what the community wanted. You were acting on your own."

I was trying to remember how it was done.

I felt as if I must have known once. But it was just that: knowledge. Cold and dry, and when I thought about it too long, it felt as if the edges of the wound were fraying. Because that's what you do, isn't it? You tell us that this part of the wall isn't necessary, that the building was meant to exist without it, and then you kick a hole into the structure. Into us.

I've been thinking about a lot of things. Like how many of those walls must have collapsed.

"Once was bad enough," the mare announced. "I should have formally instituted the new policy after the first time. But I wanted to see if the error would repeat. A single aberration always has a chance to be just that. You had always been so free, from the first day you came in, and --"

He heard her hesitate.

"-- I suppose I just wanted to believe that you would rediscover the balance on your own."

Liar.

"But after the second event," she continued, "with the -- curves..."

He heard her shake her head, and a reborn imagination added the sound of a glacier cracking.

"...I wanted the community to bring you back. That was the intent of the brand, Gez. It was never meant to be forever. Just something which would show the others that you needed help. And when a community of equals sees that one of its own is going through difficulties, they gather around the one who's coming so close to being lost again. To remind them of what freedom is like. Because I know freedom can be terrifying, and so do you. We've all seen that at the ceremony, haven't we? Those first moments when someone isn't being influenced any more. When their only thoughts are their own."

Your own.

"Only one voice rising from within. They stumble, because they feel like they're not hearing enough. They're scared. It's when they need the voices from without. And by branding you... I told the community how much you needed their voices."

Another pause.

"I thought you were listening. I was going to remove it next week."

The stallion found the strength to smirk again.

"And then you broke into my supplies. How?"

He never would have voiced the next words, because he thought that some of his own theories had the chance to be true ones. But he was almost completely certain that the mare couldn't read minds. Influence, corrupt, supplant -- but once she'd installed her beliefs into another, she didn't seem to have any means of continually monitoring them. And at any rate, thoughts were hard to stop.

You got into the habit of thinking, if you were lucky enough to get the chance. Right up until the moment all thought stopped.

But with the unicorn... when it came to thinking...

Here's the thing.

You're the strongest caster I've ever seen. You've mastered more workings than I want to think about, while inventing endless abominations. I'm hoping those are going to die with you, because that's what this is about, in the end. Making sure you die.

You know a lot of defensive spells. Securing effects. Some of them may be unique to you. Any other caster would probably need to work out the spell from first corona spark before they could try to counter it.

But when you cast a security spell, you have to cast it on something.
Layering diamond onto cardboard.
And that's the flaw. Because the cardboard is still there.

The mare had her own way of thinking, and it was something she tried to gift onto all who were unfortunate enough to encounter her. A series of progressive steps, moving forward under the pressure of eternal inquiry. The process was something which could pass for logic, as long as you didn't bring it up in front of anyone who was sane.

Small, careful steps...

And you can't see that.

He would have given almost anything to turn his head a little more. To get at the stolen notebook (which had been surprisingly hard to acquire, as there was but one true notebook in the community and somehow, it was always the same one) and write those words down. Giving them a chance to survive beyond his death, because they might be the key to everything.

"You enjoy solving problems," he told her, and nearly got a leaf on the tongue for his trouble. "I'm sure you can work on that one."

The streaked tail swished, because the mare had decided a tail swish was appropriate at that time.

"Given what you stole," she stated, "I don't need to inquire about the why. But I still need to understand your reasoning, for whatever degree of that might exist within insanity. Once I know how you're thinking, I can try to correct it. Gez, this is all about you..."

It wasn't. It was ultimately all about the experiment. The community. The abomination.

But for the stallion, it was currently about the brand.

You kicked a hole in the wall. Over and over. The walls kept collapsing, didn't they? So eventually, you thought to add some bracing. Something which didn't replace the gap, but kept it from falling in on itself. At least for a while.

But you keep expanding the community. Fresh subjects for the experiment. More ceremonies, and taking the results away.

I was thinking, for the first time in years. Thinking meant memory. The community isn't supposed to change, because why would you ever alter perfection?

But the population isn't stable.

The numbers are -- but they come in tiers. We were at one total for a while. Then it went up to another. But when the tiers changed, it was just about all at once. Bringing in small groups in quick succession, until the population was at the new goal.

There's been stages, hasn’t there? You're keeping all of them somewhere, you're still working on expanding it, and... after you branded me, I thought about load-bearing beams. There's only so much weight any given one can support before you need to add more. Each expansion is limited by how many you can truly hold at any time. And you only find out you’re at your limit when you reach it.

Someone new is granted what you call Freedom. And somepony else... slips.

I thought. I remembered. That sometimes, a little while after the new had been brought in, someone older wouldn't -- be here any more. And I didn't think about it then, because you wouldn't have wanted me to. Besides, we all knew that some left: that was part of how we got new residents at all. We just didn't notice that some of them weren't coming back.

There was a ceremony of Freedom. And then I started to think again, just a little. Something which must have happened before, with some of the missing...

How many times have you been through this?

The same bushes probably hadn't been involved. There would have been more of a gap.

"You need to tell me what you're thinking," the unicorn didn't quite request. "A community needs to support each other. Having all hooves pushing against each other with matching force is how we ensure equality."

And he laughed.

He heard her draw back, and it made him laugh all the more. He was laughing because he had recognized that he was probably going to die, and there was some humor in that: that his death would represent just one more aspect of her failure. Some of the mirth originated from the fact that he just wanted to laugh one more time before he died. Especially when it felt as if he hadn't found anything truly funny for a very long time because as experiments went, he was one of the longer-running specimens.

But for the most part, he laughed because he'd just realized something, and done so as the result of a process she didn't understand because it wasn't truly a process at all. What he'd done within what was left of him -- that was something she was incapable of. She would never be able to do it, and no amount of magic would be capable of changing that.

He laughed because he'd just had another thought, it was funny, and he'd decided to tell her about it, just before the end. A joke that good had to be voiced, even for an audience which couldn’t understand why it was funny.

She would never understand, and that was the biggest joke of all.

"Equality?" he gasped out, and felt the first trickle of blood being absorbed by his fur: the heaving of his ribs had created the pressure required for puncture. (There was also a mild burning sensation, almost lost between mirth and pain.) "You claim to be working for equality, and you..."

He was already hurt, and so he endured the next series of scrapes. Just enough to let him see the brand.

You don't get it.

There was a wall, and you kicked a hole in it. Supports to hold off collapse. But with me... the supports weren't enough any more. They hadn't been enough for what had to have been at least a dozen of us, when each successive limit was reached. I'm just the one where you decided to advance the experiment to another stage.

You called it a brand. I'm going to call it... spackle.

A hole. Overlapping support poles holding the edges apart, always identical in pattern and placement. But with me, you did something new, because it was the first time you decided that you needed the new. And spackle isn't a wall. It can't fill a gap that big. At best, it buys you a little time before the whole thing falls apart. Another day or two, and I might have just dropped on my own.

Spackle isn't a wall. But if you paint it in the right way, blend along the edges... it just might pretend for a while. It's glue under the delusion that it's wood.

And if the glue believes...

It's madness. Maybe you're right about that, just this once. But it's a special kind of madness, because of what you told the brand to be. You didn't think about the implications...

He had laughed, and that joy wouldn't be the last. For a single instant in the final moments of his life, he'd found a way to mock the sheer banality of it all. Of her. And she didn't understand.

"I've had this talk before," the unicorn said, and the smoothness of the words confirmed it. "I'll be the last. I made that vow in front of the community. I have every intention of keeping it. But until that day --"

She stopped, because there were new sounds in the summer night. The last branches broke, and then a bleeding stallion stepped out under the scant gift of Moon's light.

"I believe you."

The unicorn stared at him. And then she remembered to smile.

"Thank you, Gez," she softly said. "I was... hoping it would end this way. Take the trot back with me, please. We'll find you some ponies to speak with. It'll all feel so much better by morning."

"I believe you'll be the last," he told her, and watched the smile slowly widen, one precise degree at a time. "I think... if it all went wrong, if you somehow realized it would never work --" and hurried his words, trying to get it all in before the collapse began "-- you'd decide to be the last, in the end. Because if you can't have your world -- then why should there be a world at all?"

He recognized the nature of the next utterance. That she had said "Gez," again because this situation was new, and she was trying to buy time in which to think, she couldn't do anything else --

"So when it comes to those who die in the name of your experiment," he spat, "one way or another -- you're going to be the last."

Spackle had visually manifested through his flanks, and it could only pretend to be a soul. Asking it to conduct that which only a soul could provide just might make it fall apart all the faster. He understood that, along with the fact that his time under Sun and Moon and a single visible unfamiliar star was just about over.

She wasn't the only one who could experiment, and so what weren't quite his final words led into the last song.

The results weren't ideal. Every note distorted as it was forced across the broken instrument, and something much less than a true lyric went into the world. He would have buried her if he could, collapsed everything under her hooves and filled in the hole from the top down. Made her fight off every moment of collapse with that Tartarus-unleashed field strength, and perhaps she would have broken the earth in her attempt to escape. Breaking was what she had been born for.

There had been a time when he never would have thought about trying it, even on the edge of death. But secrets meant little in the presence of those who believed themselves to know everything, and so he forced the remnants of his truest voice through what little was left of him.

It didn't shake the world. It never came close to breaking any portion of it, and so it was left for the unicorn to try and destroy the whole for a different reason. But there were enough of the broken notes for soil to heave beneath her hooves, she stumbled, and the earth pony ran.

You had to know the barrier was there, and the first sign of its presence came when you no longer wanted to look for it.

How many effects had been woven into the shield? He knew it was at least five. He'd had a passing interest in unicorn magic, something on the hobby level because he'd once dated a Gifted School graduate and it had seemed necessary to try speaking with her while using her own terms. Also, being able to distinguish the vocabulary let him know when she was discussing the results of her own investigations, as opposed to the scant times when she was making a particularly awkward attempt to flirt.

The relationship hadn't lasted. But he'd kept up with the reading, because once you got past the forced dryness placed into every heavily-edited article in the Thaumaturgy Review, there were some interesting things to be found. For starters, after meeting the unicorn who was trying to pursue and finding himself capable of thinking again (for a little while, as all thought and breath were close to stopping), he'd realized it was amazing just how much they'd gotten wrong.

At least five effects. One of them was incredibly complex, and needed to be so just in order to achieve a very subtle result. Somehow, the shield had been enchanted to change color -- and could do so continually, automatically matching the natural hues of the sky. There was still something of a shimmer at ground level, along with the occasional sparkle: the unicorn hadn't found any means of dealing with that. But looking up -- or, if anything were to fly overhead, looking down -- would find no dome at all. 'Down' would mean spotting an additional effect: the one which said there was nothing more than normal forest below.

If anyone could get that close, because the third working was a simple, constant radiance of resonance. The emotional aura of avoidance: something which told anyone getting close to the border that they really didn't want to be going that way, there were better places to be, anyone on the outside could just move in a different direction because there was nothing important ahead, those within turned back because the company of equals was more important than anything else in their broken lives, and they welcomed that company because they were broken. They'd just been told not to know that.

The third working was insidious. But the stallion knew more about unicorn magic than most earth ponies, had reviewed his memories until he could be certain that some of them were true, and had been expecting something of that nature. Recognizing that the emotion was being imposed from the outside was most of what he needed to initially fight it, and so he forced himself forward. Moving towards the little traces of shimmer and sparkle.

There were other bits of evidence, when you got this close. The most natural shape for a shield was a dome: it took the least effort to maintain. So there was a thin line where nothing grew: no grass, no bushes, and the wounds inflicted on the earth by the uprooting of trees had mostly healed. It took careful inspection to spot the thin curve of gap in the soil, because the unicorn had thought to secure some part of the underground.

The stallion had spent a little of his limited time wondering if the dome was actually a sphere. Completely closing off that avenue of escape. But a more limited descent still would have been enough to block him, when he could barely sing at all and could almost feel the spackle cracking from the pressure of having tried to conduct what had remained of his voice. He couldn't escape by tunneling his way out, and even if that had been possible... it would put him too far away from his goal. There would have been no means to reach his target before the inadvertent patch job collapsed, and that would have produced two results: an obedient remnant turning back, knowing any apology would be accepted because 'sanity' had returned and therefore the actions of madness had to be forgiven -- or, if the supports had been removed to make room for the spackle, death.

Death was preferable to return. To existing within the unicorn's vision of perfection.

That had been one of the first thoughts, once he could truly think again. And then it had become a choice.

He couldn't tunnel out. But he didn't have to, because he'd thought about everything he'd seen, and then he'd broken into her supplies because somepony like the unicorn was always going to have spares.

Now he had one.

It was a thin golden rod, with a few semiprecious jewels worked into the metal -- or rather, that was how it looked when he had touched it. Before that, it had resembled a bit of debris. Nothing anypony would consider important, and the fact that there was something among the supplies which didn't look crucial had been enough to let him recognize the illusion’s presence.

It had felt solid enough, when he had bitten down on the device. It probably was. There wouldn't be all that much of a hollow for placing silver wire inside: only what was required to conduct the charge. No platinum, because having this particular device potentially charge itself was putting some aspect of its operation outside of the unicorn's direct control. But it still had to be something which a pegasus or earth pony could activate on their own. And based on what he'd observed (at the time, unknowingly), he was guessing there was just enough to use the device a maximum of two times.

'Once' was also an option. So was 'none'. But it had been in the charging cradle, the gems had gleamed when he'd touched it...

He wasn't betting his life on it possessing at least one charge. Just his escape.

The resonance was... stronger, this close to the shield. He knew the desire to turn back was artificial, and he still found himself forcing every hoofstep. It felt as if his hind legs were sliding backwards in the dirt, and he wasn't even facing all of her strength. Perhaps no more than a tiny fraction had been put into whatever maintained the shield. He'd seen what might have been her true potential once, and it was one of the things he'd written down. Something which had to survive him, so that whoever followed would be warned.

How much had his distorted effort shaken her? (He found it mildly comedic to see a unicorn be so vulnerable to uprooting.) She had to be in pursuit, but that was likely on hoof. She could teleport: what he was about to try couldn't have been worked into shield and device if she hadn't mastered that working, and done so well beyond what any other unicorn knew. But there was a lot of plant life near the border, and some of it was surprisingly dense. It meant she would need to reappear in whatever degree of path existed.

Perhaps that density was something which had been deliberately created. Forcing everyone to stay on her designated path. The single carefully-arranged narrow aisle, which led directly into a dead end.

He was faster than she on hoof: physically, she sometimes came across as operating her body with reluctance and from a great distance. But he didn't trust her not to be capable of self-levitation, and the shield's ability to match the sky suggested she could change her corona's hue into something which wouldn't give her away on the approach. And of course, she would have made sure the resonance had no way to affect her.

That might have been a natural immunity. It would have been asking magic to find something in the unicorn which could be reached.

...he had the lead. But he didn't know how much of one he had, and it meant he had to keep pushing forward. He'd seen how it was done: he just hadn't understood what he was watching at the time -- other than on the dubious level of watching those who took up the burden in the name of equality once again risking life and sanity in the name of community. Hoping for both their success and, on a deeper level, that those witnessing the process would never be personally asked to bear such an honor. A horror.

The stallion felt he might understand a little more about what those ponies had been doing now, and he had to find somepony he could tell about it. But at the moment, the most important thing was that he knew how they left. They invoked the fourth effect.

His legs trembled against the force of artificial fear. An echo of earth pony strength (and he wondered if he'd been so weak for years) pushed forward, fused to what was left of his soul. Whatever could be united in one. last. effort --

"You're going to die."

It came from behind him: the words picked up by the rotation of his ears suggested she was about seven body lengths back. (He had lost the capacity for detecting the pressure of hooves against the earth.) It was also a factual statement and when it came to the mare, true specimens of that sample were hard to come by.

Perhaps it was that truth which made him hesitate. Truth, and his heart's desperate desire for a few more beats.

"You only have part of the key," the unicorn calmly said. "The other half is woven into their clothing, and you had no way of knowing that. You could activate the effect, Gez. It negates the lockdown, at least in that it'll let you through. But everything which happens to something which tries to enter or leave, without my authorization... it'll still happen."

His left forehoof raised. Lowered again, into the silent soil.

"It's not a standard lockdown spell," she evenly continued. "It's my own version. When it comes to something leaving, instead of a potential intrusion being rebounded to the starting point... anything inanimate would be shredded. Most of that becomes lost in the between. But something living... that arrives. It just won't be alive for very long. If you activate that half of the key right now, without the rest of it... all which reappears will be a maximum of three seconds away from becoming a corpse." With the certainty of knowledge, "I know. I've tested it."

He wondered what she'd tested it with.
Or whom.

"From what I've learned," the unicorn told him, "you would live exactly long enough to regret your decision. For me to wish the madness hadn't killed you."

Liar.
...why isn't she casting? She could have just pulled me back. Teleported me away...

And once again, he understood.

She's decided what I'm going to do. That means she knows what happens next, at least for the final result. Even when this may not have happened before. Not the exact scenario, nopony who got this far with half the key and decided to...

She also had at least a hundred options for dealing with him, and the actual number probably required some time to narrow down.

The mare cleared her throat. He wondered if it was possible to hear facial muscles being ordered into a sympathetic position, or if she was holding that effort back for the moment when he inevitably, meekly turned so he could return at her side.

"I don't think you want to die," the mare stated.

They were sincere words. But that sincerity was just as artificial as the resonance, and the incongruity of it all triggered the last, best laugh of his life.

Perhaps it was the shock of it which made her pull back (and it was something he heard, the last thing he would ever hear with his broken soul). The newness which kept her horn dark, and realizing that was what provided his last words. Something which would bear no consequences for those who came after.

He said them because it gave her something to think about, and the mare had to think. (It was all she was capable of, and that was so much of why she was broken.)

His words paralyzed her, kept her from casting, because they were new words and she had to think about them. It was something she did instead of reacting, and it meant that which lay below thought was forever denied her.

When it came to the riddle of her own existence, he had given her part of the answer.

"That's your problem, Starlight!" the stallion laughed as his hooves pushed against the soil, sending his body leaping towards the shield's lone visible spark. "You can only think of the things you can think of!"

But she didn't understand.
She couldn't.

He hit the shield. The gems glowed so brightly as to shine through the saddlebag --

-- and there was nothing and it was everything and everywhere and he was the only thing within it except for the saddlebags and the vacuum was rending them, everything was spilling out as the notepad came apart and drifted in front of him as a series of endless scraps, something which registered just as several vital arteries twisted and his ears roared in the last second before all hearing ended, hooves split and he bit into and through his tongue and

it didn't matter.

He'd aimed, as best he could. Activated the magic in the way he'd hoped it had to work, because the unicorn didn't understand hope either.

Broken hooves touched chill stone. Deaf ears never heard the cries which instantly resounded from the spectators as blood spilled across his fur too quickly for absorption, running into the hollows of the street. And eyes which would have normally taken in sight just long enough for their possessor to recognize closing darkness found something to regard.

My corpse will be enough.
They'll find you.
They'll end you.

He had no way of truly knowing that. But he had hope, and it served.

The stallion saw familiar walls, in the last moment before he died. Things with curves and swoops and the sort of little decorative touches which only appeared when the builder was doing what they loved.

It gave him comfort.

The sundered soul left the broken body, and the corpse fell into the center of the screams.

Assembly

She was thinking about killing her friend.

It wasn't exactly for the first time. There were certain truths associated with friendship (most of which the librarian had come to years after everypony else, with five ponies carefully leading her every hoofstep of the way), but there were also things which had always felt a little too uncertain for a scroll. She'd never written the Princess with anything about 'To know somepony is to love them' because she still wasn't really sure there was anything real backing the old saying. There were times when coming to know somepony a little more deeply was to uncover the reasons why you would have been better off not meeting them at all, because nopony could conceal the worst of themselves forever. There had been some... recent experience with that.

(Part of the little mare was still waiting for her friends to see the true worst in her. To use it as the justified reason for trotting away forever. She had been waiting for years, and she sometimes wondered if she would ever stop.)

In the case of the pegasus who was hovering over the little body which was so awkwardly spread-griffoned in the Moon-dappled snow, with the sleek cyan form buckling against itself as the raucous laughter continued to resound above the rim of the dam -- to know Rainbow was to think about killing her. There was a near-universal countdown for new arrivals in Ponyville, and it wasn't so much Time Until First Meeting With The Local Weather Coordinator as Time Until Initial Plotting Of Murder. Twilight, whose first meeting with Rainbow could be summarized as Who is this, why did they just crash into me, exactly how deep is this mud puddle I'm lying in, and where's a good place to hide the body?, had been at the low end of the range. And somehow, she still didn't hold the record, because she'd been within Ponyville's boundaries for a few hours at that point. Thistle Burr existed and he hadn't even cleared the train.

The murder fantasies were, when it came to the settled zone's population, pretty much universal: a set which very much included the weather coordinator's friends. There had been a night about a year into Twilight's town tenure when a fuming Rainbow had wound up having to leave a full gathering of Bearers in order to deal with a situation, one which could best be summarized as 'Rainbow Dash, only caught this time.' Twilight had watched her go, thought about all the times she'd personally had to replace the glass in her own balcony door, and darkly wondered whether anypony else had thought about killing Rainbow. Out loud.

She'd been expecting horrified gasps. Screams. On the deepest, most uncertain level, being turned out forever. Instead, there had been four soft sighs. And then they'd all rested in Pinkie's attic bedroom, sharing stories. Tales of times when having Rainbow in their lives had led into a shared feeling of Almost Killed Her. There had even been a little discussion of potential methodology, although Twilight still wasn't sure how Pinkie was really going to accomplish anything with black currant scones and a wistful look.

Twilight was lying on her barrel and belly in the snow, and it had her thinking about killing Rainbow. Again.

Now that she thought about it (because thinking about it was keeping her from thinking about several other things, like carefully going over every attack spell she knew), Twilight wasn't sure she was technically lying in the snow. There was only about a double hoof-height of the stuff accumulated around the dam: even with her own petite-and-currently-much-lower body, that wasn't exactly enough to conceal her. It was, however, more than sufficient for her body heat to start melting it, leaving cold water to soak into the too-thin winter garment which was covering part of her torso.

The garment was, incidentally, Rainbow's fault. Twilight's instructor in all thing flight-related had told her not to wear anything too heavy or bulky, because it really wasn't all that cold yet (and insisted on this despite the fact that the ground was covered by, and she had proof of this working deeper into her own fur, snow), she couldn't afford to sacrifice any limited degree of aerodynamics which her body might somehow possess, and as long as Twilight was listening, she was not allowed to cover her wings. At all. Coating flight feathers with cloth generally resulted in a pegasus who could move through the air in one dominant direction, although the exact rate of 'down' could be modified through a well-maintained glide. A rather new alicorn who had been told to discard thought for instinct in the name of learning how to fly at all... that pony wasn't exactly up to gliding. Or maintaining flight for more than a few minutes under so-called combat conditions, which was something that arose from the other pony. The one who had effectively pulled Twilight out of the sky, was currently snickering at ground level, and could presumably be murdered second.

The inadequate garment was Rainbow's fault. The snow could normally be blamed on the Weather Bureau, but Rainbow was responsible for implementing that schedule and therefore it was also her fault. Twilight's training hours were set by her instructors and therefore the fact that she was also under chill Moon instead of inadequate Sun was additionally the result of Rainbow's direct attack on the librarian's sanity. And whose idea had it been, having another pony present and calling out questions designed to knock Twilight out of both instinct and sky? Rainbow's.

The pegasus thought of things like that, on some of the occasions when she decided to indulge in thought at all. Most of the remainder consisted of creating hasty excuses for why that fresh trench which had just been plowed through somepony's garden couldn't possibly be her fault and the fact that she'd been found lying at the far end was just a coincidence. Oh, and that pony who just crashed through your window because a stunt went wrong? Somepony else. She'd just been following them, trying to catch the real culprit. Where was that pony now? They'd turned invisible. Because ponies could totally do that. Or maybe they teleported out -- okay, sure, once you eliminated any and all possible devices, maybe that meant the flying pony needed to also be capable of casting unicorn workings, but hey, at least that narrowed down the suspect list! So now all the pegasus who was covered in shattered glass and whatever was left of the bookcase had to do was find all four of them and shout for a while! Something along the lines of 'I know you did it! Own up!' because historically, that was effective! She'd just go get started on that right now, and in the event that you were still thinking about suing her for damages? Not her fault, so why would you ever do something like that? Plus there was sort of a line and you were going to be at the back of it.

There were those who might say that to know Rainbow was to love her. To spend any real amount of time around the pegasus was to make a rough count of Ponyville's total population, because just about everypony in it had considered killing her at least once and therefore, when you looked at it logically, there was a chance for each of those ponies to have individually come up with at least one minor aspect for committing the murder properly. The master plan for the perfect crime was potentially spread out among several thousand ponies: it was just a matter of identifying which ones had the best parts. That was research. Putting the results together hardly even counted as work. And if the librarian somehow got caught anyway, all she needed was a lawyer good enough to prevent any change of venue, keeping the trial in Ponyville. Have the jury filled with residents and there was no way Twilight wasn't trotting away free.

She raised her head just enough to glare up into the slowly-lightening night sky, and once again reviewed her plans for the post-mortem mane and tail. There were a lot of options for the body, but just about all of them required Twilight to do something about the colors. In the event that something went wrong and whatever was left of the corpse was somehow discovered, prismatics were just too distinctive. At the very least, shaving was going to be required.

"I hate you," she told her friend. "So much."

It didn't even slow the laughter. Rainbow's wings frantically beat against air and darkness, keeping the pegasus within an unusually uncertain hover. There was a lot of bobbing involved. The pony form hadn't really been meant to double over with mirth, but Rainbow was giving it a go anyway: the results were doing cruel things to altitude maintenance. It was still enough to keep the weather coordinator out of Twilight's vertical leap range, which was more of a vertical hop and wouldn't have allowed her horn to do anything more than deliver a Stop That poke to the belly anyway.

"Your face!" Rainbow gasped. "When you realized you'd switched out, just before your wings locked...!"

The ground-level snicker trotted a little closer, heavy hooffalls crunching into the snow.

"You all right there, Twi?"

"I hate you too," the librarian muttered.

"No, y'don't." It was possible to hear the farmer smirk. "Y'hate lookin' undignified. An' failing, y'ain't exactly good with that. But at least the only ponies who got t' see it are a couple of mares who've seen it before. Come on, Ah'll give you a nudge up."

Soft fur and a hard head gently pressed against Twilight's left flank. This was done just behind the wing. The wing itself was spread across the snow, and it was making Twilight consider the newest portion of her anatomy. Wings were flesh and bone. They were also part of a pony, and so they mostly had to be the same kind of flesh and bone as would be found anywhere else in her body. There might be some minor changes, but overall, the types just about had to match. So on the flesh and bone level, there was no reason for them to be acting as conductors drawing ice directly into her blood. That was clearly the fault of the feathers.

"I can get up," Twilight muttered, and began staggering to her hooves. (It wasn't as easy as it should have been. Her wings felt as if they wanted to stay at ground level, and she didn't know how to shake them in a way which got rid of snow.) "That wasn't fair. Of all the things you could have called out..."

"But now you'll be ready for it next time," Applejack offered.

"How many times," the librarian inquired through both gritted teeth and the core of heroically excessive patience, "am I going to find myself flying while somepony on the ground is --"

"-- every practice until y'get it right," cut her off. "Get in the air. Ain't much time left."

The little mare looked up at Moon. It was three-quarters full, just about completely visible through a gap in the clouds high in the chill, dark sky. A sky which wouldn't be all that dark for very much longer.

"Come on, Twilight," Rainbow's laughter dubiously encouraged. "Before we've gotta trade switching out for switching off. Get up here!" The pause was entirely deliberate. "If you can..."

Her teeth ground a little harder. She began to concentrate.

The snow was Rainbow's fault. The cold was Rainbow's fault. The season itself probably wasn't because Twilight understood how a planet's axial tilt worked, but she'd never tried to research any ultimate origin for its cause. If there had somehow been a pegasus involved in that, Rainbow might stand a chance to inherit the blame under a grandsire clause.

She was cold. There was snow in her fur and feathers, flakes stuck within wings which she still wasn't sure she was supposed to have at all. It was something which happened over and over, and it only happened because they loved her.

Twilight understood unicorn magic. Becoming an alicorn had opened two additional categories to her direct investigations -- but they were magics she had no personal familiarity with, understanding them only as part of the background rhythms of the world (and when it came to earth pony magic, it had turned out she'd never really understood anything at all). It meant she needed teachers, and the most suitable ponies were those who'd inadvertently made it possible for her to change in the first place. This had turned Rainbow into her flight instructor, because there was nopony better in all the world and besides, it was at least one-fifth Rainbow's fault that Twilight had wings at all.

The lessons had been taking place for a few moons now, with regularly-scheduled sessions plotted on the calendar starting from the week after they'd all gotten back from Trotter's Falls. Having missions intrude on Twilight's planning merely relocated those lessons across various portions of the continent. They took place because Twilight needed to learn, and her teachers continued to make the effort because they loved her. On the deepest level, the little mare understood all of that.

In more snow-covered terms, the lessons also required privacy: one set more than the other. Even with pegasus magic, Rainbow wanted Twilight's slow advancement to be kept out of sight. (There were several reasons for that, not the least of which was the number of citizens who didn't understand why an alicorn might need to learn anything.) So they met at isolated sites, frequently working under Moon and for those who truly knew Rainbow, the most incredible part of that was the pegasus continuing to show up more or less on time. For this lesson, they'd gone up to the dam because that was where the fresh snow hadn't been disturbed. It gave Twilight a softer landing on low-altitude failures, along with providing one more thing for Rainbow to laugh at.

It was that awkward hour of a winter morning when the pony mind insisted that Sun should have been raised at least ninety minutes ago, while daylight was just barely beginning to touch the furthest horizon. There was probably just enough time for one more try before the trio had to switch venues. And she was cold, with foreign limbs weighed down by snow, trying to get into the air just so her supposed friends could do their best to drop her onto the frozen ground.

Again.

It was something which was giving her some trouble with concentrating.

Her friends watched, giving her a touch of silence to work with. (Training her in assuming the necessary mental states under duress was another lesson: this particular early morning was about learning how to hold them.) She focused as best she could, mentally repeated one of the many personal mantras she'd been working on for moons, tried to delve down within herself until she caught the faintest glimpse of shadowed magenta eyes looking back.

The little alicorn's wings instinctively shook. Snow flew to the left and right, and the small body was back in the air, hovering in front of the still-laughing living patch of warmth in the sky.

"You," she glared at Rainbow. "You're not even gonna get a head start. We'll make it a real race, and when you can't go Rainboom at this hour without getting the police chief after you --"

"Oh, really?" Rainbow grinned. "That's how Twilight Sparkle wants to settle things? With a race? How were you planning on getting fifth place when there's only two ponies involved?"

"-- and you have to slow down sometime," Twilight growled. "You've said it: your mark is about speed more than endurance. Once you're tired --"

"-- hey, Twi?" casually came up from below. "Been meanin' t' ask you somethin'."

The librarian ignored it. "-- and I start to catch up, when you don't have time to nap, to get some fast sugars, to do anything but wonder what's going to happen when I reach you --"

"Jus' your first impression, of course," Applejack added. "But what's your solution for Occlugraph's Last Question?"

"-- which, just in case you wanted to start thinking about it early, is going to start with --"

Twilight blinked.

"The Last Question? Oh, come on, Applejack! Nopony's ever been able to even make a real start on that one! It would take me moons of research just to --"

The warmth before her vanished, replaced by grinning cyan. Foreign limbs locked against her sides, and she heard the farmer offhoofedly step back just in time to avoid the impact point's inevitable spray of snow.

Some of the white didn't get kicked out to the sides, of course. There had to be a portion which went into her horror-opened mouth, and naturally that was the bit which had most of the dirt in it.

She stopped spitting after a while.

"The Last Question," Twilight muttered. "Seriously, Applejack? I know I asked you to go through the Thaumaturgy Review and look for things which could distract me, but the Question? Researchers have been trying to get through the first phase of the Question for two centuries! It took half the Gifted School just to decipher enough of the initial clause to make something which could make a visual recording of a unicorn's signature, and that's half of all of the ponies who graduated since his death! Anypony who cares about magic is going to be distracted by the Question --"

"-- an' that's why it's one of the best things t' use against you," Applejack interrupted. "Gonna be fights where there's a lot of things t' think about, all at once. An' if'fin you can't stay in the sky when y'need to, one of 'em is gonna end with you losing. Y'have to learn how t' work in Rainbow mode. How t' hold it, while y'bring as much of yourself forward as y'can. That's why we're doin' this. An' we're gonna keep doin' it until you've got it right."

Because they loved her. Because they didn't want to lose her. She understood that. But she'd been falling over and over --

-- and then Rainbow was hovering so low as to nearly have her wingtips hit the snow on every downbeat, smirking all the way.

"Just not now," the pegasus said. "Because it's time to head over to the Acres for Applejack's shift. So until next time --"

Volume doubled. Proximity halved. The combination allowed the pegasus to joyously shout directly into Twilight's face, and it happened at the same moment when the right forehoof made contact with Twilight's forehead.

"-- you awake in there, little me?" The hoof mockingly rapped against Twilight's skull again. "Can you hear me? Tell her this isn't good enough! She's got two days before the next lesson, and you're all I've got until I can take over again! Tell her that I need her to be at least twenty percent more awesome at flying! If there's such a thing as a twenty percent improvement over zero!"

The hoof merrily knocked one last time, gave the unlit horn a parting tap as the pegasus moved higher --

-- the librarian didn't think. She didn't consider her next action in any way. She just flared her wings, and then she was in the air. Directly in front of Rainbow, small body blocking the most likely retreat point.

"...pretty fast," the weather coordinator shakily said. "I'm not sure I've ever seen you do it on purpose that fast. Was that on purpose --"

Answering would have been a waste of time.

The pegasus stared, and did so with her mouth hanging slightly open. More importantly, she did both of those things instead of dodging.

"WHIMF!"

Twilight blinked. Abruptly landed, touching down on the left of the farmer as light played across wide green eyes.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to -- it's so hard to keep control of my emotions when I'm trying to be you, I -- I'm sorry, Rainbow, I..."

"Twi," Applejack softly asked, "did you mean t' do that?"

"I don't know!" was almost a wail. "I just wanted -- I was just mad, and I shouldn't let myself get mad like that, I'm sorry..."

One more "Whimf...," and then Rainbow spit out the mouthful.

"You just hit me with a snowball," the pegasus said.

"I'm sorry..."

"Which you scooped off the ground," the just barely hovering pony continued. "With your field. While you were in the air."

Twilight's jaw dropped.

"You've never done that before," Rainbow mused, doing so much more softly than most ponies would have expected. "Not attacking as a unicorn while you were still flying. It's been one or the other, for moons..."

The librarian's field winked out, and did so from sheer shock.

"Ah call that progress," Applejack quietly decided. "So Ah think we've both gotta know. Did y'mean t' do it?"

"I... I was angry," Twilight half-whispered. "I was sick of falling. I just wanted Rainbow to get hit with snow for once..."

The pegasus nodded.

"She calls a surprise snowball attack progress," her friend observed. "I'm just gonna call it cool."

Applejack's solid form gently nudged Twilight's motionless body. Then did so again, until slim legs began to awkwardly shift forward.

"Payback can wait for later," Rainbow added. "Because it's still Applejack's turn, but there's gonna be payback. But now the next lesson is about seeing if we can get you to do that again!"

It was a long trot to the Acres from the dam, and it cost them a portion of the concealing night. By the time the border came into view, the sky was streaked with the chill rose tones which Twilight associated with the local winter. There was also some grey in the air, and that was because the Weather Bureau had somehow decided Ponyville needed more snow. It wouldn't be all that long before everypony had to get their plows out of the stable again, and Rainbow inevitably spent a lot of time dodging airborne flake-based messages from those ponies who felt that a pegasus who lived in a cloud house needed frequent reminders of what those on the ground had to deal with.

The weather schedule also mandated a very slow rise in temperature throughout the day, and Twilight's garments weren't all that heavy. But Rainbow didn't want the little mare to get sick. The fact that keeping Twilight healthy came with the chance to show off a little was seen as an incidental bonus.

Heat had been shifted towards Twilight, and it had allowed her to move towards the Acres in a personal zone of early spring. Moisture saturating fur and fabric had -- well, it had almost been separated out in a single fall to create fresh rain hollows in the snow, because working on that kind of fine scale wasn't one of Rainbow's strong points. The actual results had mostly left Twilight dripping her way across the majority of the trail.

"Later than Ah'd like," Applejack decided. "Ah want t' come around from the west. Make sure we avoid Mac. Unless Rainbow wants t' head for home, or --" the next part was both somewhat subtle and, when it came to the target, a rather open suggestion "-- t' take a nap..."

"I want to watch," the pegasus firmly said. She was trotting on Twilight's left, and had been for the whole trip. It was normally unusual to see Rainbow self-grounded for even a fraction of that duration, but her lesson was over and besides, it freed up her wings to do nothing except direct the ongoing gift of warmth.

Applejack softly sighed, shook her head. The hat never shifted.

"As y'like," the earth pony allowed. "Long as y'keep t' the rules. High in the trees, quiet as y'can be on a branch. Ah swish mah tail for the signal, y'clear out. Got it?"

"We go through this every time..." Rainbow groused.

"Got it?"

"...yeah," the weather coordinator groaned. "Every time. Because of Mac. I don't know why you think we've got to keep avoiding him. He's the one who said Snowflake needed training!"

"Because of everypony," Applejack firmly said, "who ain't Mac. Keepin' it concealed is the way we should be workin' in the first place, at least while Twi's bein' trained. Secret ain't broken yet."

"He won't do anything that dumb again," Rainbow repeated. "Like he did with the rest of your family. You know he won't."

"Ah know," Applejack allowed. "But Ah'm still not ready t' tell him. 'cause with Snowflake, there were two qualifiers. Ah'm the first, an' that's somethin' Ah could call in again. The relationship, even when it ain't the same. But the other one, y'ain't got, Rainbow. Y'ain't gonna have it unless the Elements go an' do it again. Ain't takin' any bets there."

"I just want to watch," Rainbow protested. "It's fun to watch. When you know nopony else ever gets to --"

"-- y'ain't got a voice," the earth pony finished. "Not one the earth can hear. An' once he realizes you know..."

Another, slower head shake.

"He's had a rough time of it," the older sister decided. "Only so much Ah want him t' deal with at once. Give me that, Rainbow. Let me take it slow."

The pegasus reluctantly nodded, and the group crossed the border onto the Acres.

A rough time of it. Twilight had only gotten the bulk of the details after the events had wrapped up. That Mac, who had been hoping for Applejack to continue the pure bloodline, had reacted to the announcement that she was intending to date Snowflake through contacting multiple relatives in the hopes that they would talk her out of it... she'd known about that, because Spike had been asked to send out those scrolls with contents unknown. But that there had been a fight between Applejack and one of those relatives, a formal duel... she'd wound up listening to that story two days after the fact, and found herself crying through the end of it.

There had been too much leading up to the actual first date between the powerful ponies, and part of it had led to Mac taking custody of a new secret. Applejack's elder sibling now knew about hybrids, because he'd heard Snowflake's voice within the earth and to have even a battered song (a dented tuba with half of the valves missing, according to Applejack) coming from a pegasus was something which needed explanation. And as Rainbow had observed, Macintosh, who would soon be heading off to college so he could study the subject he'd originally hoped for years ago, had made a rather philosophical decision: if there was a voice, then somepony had an obligation to teach it how to sing.

With Snowflake, the actual instruction was being done by a rather bemused Granny Smith, whose main comment had been that it was interesting to see something new in the world before somepony old passed out of it: the one tool which the hybrid even partially possessed was vibration control, and the elder was better with it than anypony else in the family. But Mac having accepted Snowflake -- and in more ways than just the one: the two stallions now spoke semi-regularly, which shocked those who'd mostly believed that neither could really speak at all -- that had opened the door for Twilight. Applejack had eventually told him that alicorns, who were a little bit of everything, had some earth pony in them. And Twilight, as the newest of alicorns...

She hadn't gone into any details beyond that, because Mac had been through a lot and telling him which earth pony had been involved would have raised too many questions. But her brother had accepted Twilight under the same philosophy which shielded Snowflake: a singer needed training. It just made sense to have Applejack do it, especially if that help prevented an untutored voice from trying out a full lyric in front of a rather surprised public audience.

Mac knew about hybrids. He understood a little about Twilight. What he didn't know was that the Secret of truespeech and the ultimate nature of earth pony magic had been broken for all of the Bearers and their Protector. Twilight felt that a stallion who'd already had to accept so much would be able to get through that with a little company, a lot of sibling nuzzling, and truly heroic amounts of wake-up juice. Applejack felt she'd kicked her brother with enough already, and wanted to hold back the next impact for as long as possible.

Twilight understood that. It didn't keep her from gently asking Applejack to pick a moment and use it, because keeping things from each other was what led to most of the problems. But this was family, and... that was harder.

She'd told her friends about nearly everything she'd learned from Trotter's Falls. That she now possessed a soul which had been infused with their essence, a composite soul, and that her change wouldn't have been possible if every last one of them hadn't loved her. She carried an impression of each as they had existed at the moment of her own transformation, and would for the rest of her life.

That talk (which had come just before her self-assigned deadline, shortly after the moment when she decided that every reason for stalling would be exactly that) had been the most awkward of her life. There had been dozens of reactions scattered among six sapients, all of whom were cascading between emotions at a rate of up to ten per minute. Questions had rained down on her like acid, she hadn't been able to answer so much as a quarter of them, they had stared and they had tried to force themselves to keep breathing, Fluttershy had nearly fainted and Rarity had pretty much beaten her to the best spot for a dramatic collapse, Pinkie had been crying, Spike didn't know what to do and...

...then all of them had told Twilight that they loved her.

Again. Always.

(There were days when she still had trouble believing it. They were just more infrequent now.)

She had told her friends about the shadows of their essence which were bound up in her soul. But she hadn't told her parents. And so when it came to asking Applejack to tell Macintosh about one more detail, she tried not to push.

"It's pretty out here in the winter," the librarian gently offered, because it felt like one of those times when she just needed something to say. "I don't get out here when there's snow. Not among the trees, with white on the branches. It just feels... soft."

She'd originally intended to say 'quiet.' It... wasn't a word she used very much. Not any more.

"An' y'ain't gonna get out here with a plow." But the farmer was smiling. "Ah know, Twi. The Acres are sleepin'. That's what winter is for: lettin' the world get some rest."

The powerful legs slowed. A muscular body paused, and those green eyes stared up at the silent trees.

"We could all use a rest sometimes," Applejack quietly offered. "But it ain't like we can get the missions t' understand that -- hold up, everypony. Got two comin' this way."

Twilight's hackles immediately went on high alert: Rainbow just went high, immediately picking out and clearing a thick branch as snow cascaded onto the ground, partially burying an exposed tree root --

"-- jus' hold back some of the subject matter," the farmer hastily added. "Ain't no threat." And smiled. "Two on the ground. One of 'em is towin' a little cart. They're both small an' light. Well -- one's on the ground most of the time..."

They understood, and waited until the fillies came into sight.

"Heya, AB," Applejack greeted, and a slightly-surprised front edge of hair bow bobbed with surprise under the thick fur-lined hood. "Ain't your usual route t' school."

"Stoppin' at Miss Ratchette's first," Apple Bloom said from somewhere within the depths of the garment. "Got a project Ah wanted t' drop off with her." She nodded back to the tarp-covered miniature cart. "This way saves us some time over the road, since the snow ain't that heavy yet."

The older sister nodded. "And you're jus' goin' along?" she asked the other filly.

"It's faster," the small pegasus shrugged, and a number of new flight feathers rippled with the movement. "And it's easier if we go together. So what are you two doing out here?"

There was a quickly-muffled snicker from the trees, followed by a rather desperate (and poor) attempt to pass it off as winter birdsong. Neither filly spotted it.

"Jus' takin' a trot with Twilight," Applejack casually said. "We've got someplace t' be."

"A mission?" Scootaloo quickly asked. "You said you'd tell us if you were going on a mission!" Just a little more frantically (not that the youth would have admitted to it, or was even aware), "You promised..."

"Ain't no mission," the farmer reassured her guest. "Mares out for a stroll, fillies goin' the other way." More firmly, "An' the fillies, if they stay here any longer, are gonna be late."

The smaller earth pony jumped, and whatever was in the cart rattled accordingly.

"Yeah! We've gotta move, Scootaloo!"

"No, you have to move," the little pegasus grinned. "Just try and keep up!"

The cart raced past the adults: Twilight stepped to the side just in time. A second later, Scootaloo followed, legs pushing the growing form into the highest leap they could manage, with wings flaring out into a glide formation at the apex. Time spent in the air was time not used to push through snow.

Three mares watched them go, and every gaze found itself lingering on the place where the youths no longer looked. At least, not when anypony could see them.

"Ah know what you're doin', Twi."

"Sorry --"

"-- an' you, Rainbow. An' Ah know 'cause Ah try not t' get caught." The farmer sighed. "Been moons since the Crusade broke. Jus' 'bout as many with Scootaloo stayin' here, where Ah can usually stop her from tryin' the craziest things an' Snowflake gets some of the rest. An' no marks. None of 'em manifested yet. Apple Bloom's been doin' so well at the shop, and still no mark..."

She sighed. Forehooves scraped trenches into the snow as Rainbow touched down.

"Maybe it's flight for Scootaloo," the weather coordinator suggested. "She's just waiting until she really gets in the air. That's not going to be long now. I can see that. A few more weeks --"

"-- weeks," Applejack morosely declared, "for a filly who still wants things t' be 'in a second' most of the time, an' while sayin' the second under discussion was supposed t' be years ago. Y'ain't sayin' anything that Snowflake hasn't, Rainbow. But..." The blonde mane seemed to sag under its own weight. "...he's got a theory. As to why none of 'em manifested yet."

Twilight's ears perked. A theory about marks... "What does he think?"

Applejack's, by contrast, sank against her skull.

"That they're all afraid t' go first -- okay, Ah can feel y'all starin'! It's what he said! He thinks -- it's in their heads. Psychological. That they all worked together for so long, tryin' over an' over, with all the failures, because they wanted t' do it together. Triple manifest. An' that was never gonna happen, 'cause how often are three fillies that different gonna turn up with the same talent? But now that the Crusade's broken, Apple Bloom's apprenticed at the fix-it shop, Scootaloo's got a little bit of brakes an' Sweetie is tryin' t' figure out how t' move forward..."

She sighed. More snow shifted in front of awkwardly-shuffling hooves, with a little dead grass becoming mixed in.

"...somepony's gotta be first. An' that leaves the other two behind. So he thinks they're holdin' themselves back. Or at least AB is, since she's got the clearest path. Scootaloo... maybe she jus' does need that first real flight. An' maybe Sweetie's jus' gotta open up more in public, let that voice go all the way free. But Sweetie isn't really tryin' that. Just sort of... trottin' in place, from what Rarity says. And Scootaloo..."

Another, deeper sigh.

"...she's complicated," the farmer conceded. "More than Ah thought she was, or could be. Jus' didn't figure that out until Ah had her under mah roof."

"And no word there," Twilight carefully asked. "Still."

Applejack shook her head, and the three mares silently stood in the snow. Looking at the tracks of youth, where one set of hoofprints was much more intermittent. Because things had changed over the last few moons, and one of those alterations was threatening to become permanent. A status forced by the endless echoes of a silence larger than the nation.

The whole settled zone knew now: Scootaloo had been living on her own for years. There had been a letter from her parents every moon or rather, there had been an envelope containing a prepaid voucher. A simple trip to the bank, and a filly who'd been left explicit instructions on how to live alone was managing the mortgage, buying her own food, and lying to every adult because she truly believed her parents would be back any day now. She just hadn't allowed herself to work out the grand total of days for a very long time.

The legal system had an opinion when it came to minors who had been living on their own for years, and it began with 'Stop.' There had been two major options offered, and the one which wasn't an orphanage had been the Acres.

On most days, it was a weaponized truce: Scootaloo understood that to push too far would potentially summon the police chief to the Acres as a representative of Foal Protective Services, and then she would be alone. But living by herself for so long, managing everything...

Scootaloo actually had a highly-developed sense of responsibility, because she had been responsible for keeping up home and life and lie. But she had been the only party responsible for all of it, and so could still chafe when anypony asserted authority over her -- a category which currently just about began and ended with Applejack. It meant there were clashes of personality, and the echoes never completely faded away.

That was on the bad days. On the good ones...

Scootaloo would accept some nuzzling now, allow a larger body to curl up against her and offer comfort. She'd done her part for the harvest and cider season, albeit while muttering under her breath about how a few deliberate small mistakes would at least keep her from getting a mark in anything so boring: Applejack had drawn the line when she'd spotted Scootaloo trying to work out how to mismake change. She shared a bedroom with Apple Bloom and talked to somepony who was now a cross between friend and slightly older sister deep into the night. There were times when she even turned to Applejack for advice, or at least in an attempt to make somepony else do her homework.

But there were also the worst days, and those arrived once per moon. They were delivered by a grey pegasus who miserably hovered around the upper windows of the main house while trying to subtly signal any adult within, far too aware of the pain she was about to bring and hoping for some way to escape filly notice. Something which kept failing, because while the delivery had been successfully made in secret, it had been on the second attempt. After the first failure, Scootaloo had known to look. And no matter how long the Apple family tried to hold her off, she had to become involved eventually. They didn't have a choice.

The vouchers were still coming in.

It was something which had Miranda Rights' horn sparking with frustration, and most of Ponyville was waiting for the police chief's field to start showing its first-ever public spikes of rage. There had been arrest warrants sent all over the continent, courtesy of a little dragon who had just been trying to help. Law enforcement in every settled zone stood ready to detain, imprison, and charge two adults with neglect. When it came to the police, an entire country was watching...

...and yet the vouchers were still being purchased. Mailed, with that first one delivered to the Acres because anything which arrived at Scootaloo's house was being automatically forwarded. After that, each successive envelope spent some time at the police station, being inspected for evidence. And when that came up empty once again...

It was a prepaid voucher, made out to Scootaloo alone. The funds merely had to be deposited, and there was still a mortgage on the house.

So they always had to accompany the filly to the bank. Let her make the payment. And on those worst of days, Scootaloo would once again believe that the vouchers were a sign of love. Her parents were still taking care of her: they were just doing it from widely-separated portions of the continent. They wouldn't keep sending her money if they didn't mean to come back and as soon as they arrived, they would explain everything...

"Hard t' keep a patrolpony in every post office an' bank full-time," the earth pony wearily admitted. "Some basic disguise tricks would get past the pictures which got sent in the second wave, an' they're old photos t' start with. Don't even need magic t' fool most ponies on your looks, not if you're jus' tweakin' fur an' mane colors. An' there's still no guarantee that they're the ones doin' the buyin'." The hat dipped a little more, putting half-closed eyes into shadow. "Miranda said a lot of cases reach this point. Where you're jus' waitin' for somepony t' make a mistake. An' if they don't... then it's gonna be dumb luck, or -- they just stay out there, sendin' vouchers until the mortgage is done, an' then maybe it's a new set of instructions, all 'bout how t' apply for college. Givin' her career advice, when they don't know how she's been doin' in school or what her mark is. It's been years. Right now, the only thing they could still know about her is the address, an' they've got that wrong..."

One last sigh.

For Scootaloo, the hope renewed itself every moon. The poorly-hidden tears were usually about two days behind.

"If'fin they ever do come into town, it's gonna be a race t' see who starts the kickin' first," the substitute parent stated. "Ah figure Ah can get a pretty good lead with a decent gallop. Already called the father, since that's the earth pony." She glanced at Rainbow. "Could use some help knockin' the other one out of the air."

"Just point a hoof." The pegasus' tones were dark enough to shade the hues of her tail. "I'll do the rest."

There were precious moments when the librarian didn't need a scroll to tell her when to be careful: unfortunately, they usually turned out to be the most uncertain ones.

Cautiously, "Nopony needs either of you to be in prison. Let alone both --"

"-- keepin' them from getting away," Applejack cut in. "That's all. An' the best way t' make sure they don't run is t' put 'em in a state where they can't move. Unconscious qualifies."

So does dead.

No. There would probably be at least one kick aimed to a sensitive spot during any prospective fight and somepony would need to keep Rainbow separated from any and all clouds, but... it wouldn't go that far. It never had. When it came to dealing with another sapient being, no Bearer had ever killed.

Quiet.

...that they knew of.

Eventually, all three turned back towards the heart of the Acres.

"So what are we doing today?" Twilight asked.

"Want t' work on your speed," Applejack replied as she shifted her tail away from cold bark. "Small, fast, sharp notes. Little changes, things y'can do in a hurry. An' as it turned out, you gave me a little --" the accent shifted for the duration of one word, and four syllables placed Rarity's spirit among them "-- inspiration! on the how."

There were ways in which Twilight had learned just about everything from the other Bearers. How to be a good pony. A good friend. A good mare. How to be. However, she was pretty sure she'd picked up how to be justifiably nervous on her own.

"Inspiration," she carefully repeated.

The farmer grinned.

"D'you know how earth ponies have private snowball fights?"

"...no," the librarian softly Fluttershied.

"Y'will."

Rainbow had gone home, placing a slow-fading trail of renewed snickering across the sky. Applejack was taking Twilight to the farmhouse for a late breakfast and thorough drying: the process was somewhat impeded by the fact that bits of practice-battered alicorn kept dropping off along the way.

Well... technically, it was snow falling off. It was just that when snow was covering somepony to the point where anypony who looked at them from the wrong angle might see nothing except snow, then it was reasonable to assume the pony was in fact made of snow. A snowpony. Which in terms of legends was exactly like a seapony in that neither really existed, but any so-called local sightings of the former would allow Twilight to readily explain things away. Just as soon as her jaw stopped chattering.

"We're doin' that one again tomorrow," Applejack firmly said. "Without Rainbow watchin'."

"W-w-w-why?"

"'cause we've gotta work on your tempo. An' aim. An' defense. Plus all the laughter was gettin' kind of distractin'."

"F-f-f-fine..." Twilight stammer-muttered. "Got anything you want to say to your little piece of essence?"

"Yeah. Dodge. Come on, Twi: Ah'm gonna get you in a hot bath. Assumin' two fillies left any hot water t' work with an' if they didn't, I'll get kettles goin'. After that, Ah'll make sure y'get a meal. Library ain't gonna open for a few hours yet: plenty of time t' warm y'up an' get you fed."

The windows of the farmhouse were beginning to come partially into sight.

"Thank you." It was sincere, especially since a second round of the exercise offered a faint chance for taking revenge.

"Ain't nothin' -- Twi?"

Whose head was down, all the better to let some more snow fall out of her mane before it had to be brushed away on the doormat. "What?"

Tentatively, with more than a hint of concern, "Do y'know there's somethin' goin' on in the capital?"

"Nothing anypony's told me," found what would have been natural worry slowed by the cold. "Why?"

"'cause there's Solar Guards in front of mah kitchen windows. Hitched to an air carriage. Which is carryin' two unicorns. Stallions, middle-aged. One brown, one white. An 'they look kinda familiar."

Twilight's head snapped up. Snow went backwards, with none of it landing in the blonde tail.

"I know those stallions," she breathed. "They were the ones who examined Tish..."

Both mares accelerated,

The muscular brown stallion carefully stepped off the back of the carriage, or as carefully as he could when all four knees were spontaneously trying to bend further than they should have. The windswept black tail unevenly swayed as the two Bearers approached.

"I'm sorry," wasn't the worst choice of first, shaky words. "We tried the library first. Your brother told us to wait at the farmhouse: we could intercept you here."

"What's going on?" Twilight quickly asked. "Is there a mission?"

"'cause we never got a scroll," Applejack hastily added.

Twilight didn't really think about that until much later, and then it would keep coming back to her in the days to come. There had been no scroll. No summons arriving in a burst of sunlight or flame. Just two stallions, with the smaller and thinner now shakily stepping down.

"It isn't a mission," the diagnostician of the Royal Physicians said. "The Princesses are still at the conference: they won't be back until this afternoon. They don't even know yet, and we... we don't know how to tell them."

"It's..." the surgeon began, and then words briefly fell apart. Brown eyes helplessly moved to his partner, just in time to see the bulk of the upright mane tremble.

Both stallions stopped. Breathed over and over, bringing in the chill air as if nothing their bodies did could ever warm it.

"There's a corpse," Chocolate Bear resumed, and a surgeon who'd known death's company shuddered at the same moment the mares instinctively pulled back. "It just appeared in Canterlot, outside the palace's border walls. Literally appeared. There was a confusion of jurisdiction between the Guards and the capital's police: somehow, that wound up placing it in our offices while they tried to sort things out. And..."

Another stop, and the white stallion took over.

"We can't let his body go to the morgue," he unevenly continued, all four hooves vibrating out of concert with each other. "Not when there were witnesses who saw it before it went behind the walls." Which was when his voice began to fade, doing so at the same moment his tail seemed to wring against itself. "We thought of a way to preserve it perfectly, as long as we need to. And..."

The mares' ears strained forward -- but that was where all volume had stopped. He was just looking at his partner in silence, and that state had become mutual.

"What's wrong?" More than a little desperate now, because Twilight could recognize when friends were trying to take comfort in each other, and two stallions who'd been through a generation of mutual support were coming up with nothing at all. "Is... is it somepony we know --"

The words froze her more thoroughly than the snow.

Shining.
Dad.
Quiet --

Applejack, who had so many more names to review, was beginning to shake.

"-- no," the surgeon just barely managed. "We're still trying to identify him, but we know he wasn't a Bearer relative or associate. We thought we knew who he was, but..."

The diagnostician forced himself forward. Each thin leg nearly collapsed in turn.

"You may not believe us without evidence," he forced out. "We'll try to brace you before that happens. But we need you. We need you to see this."

"You need an --" a self-description of 'Princess' was just about never going to emerge of Twilight's own free will. "-- alicorn?"

Both stallions shook their heads.

(They were acting independently of the palace.)
(They were doing the only thing they could think of.)
(They thought they were the first witnesses to horror...)

"No," Chocolate and Vanilla Bear said. "We need Magic."

Air Gap

They were taking her to see the dead.

She hadn't spent a lot of time in air carriages since the change, and that meant she hadn't really had the chance to think about them. The unicorn who'd originally been sent into Ponyville for a stated reason which, regarded through the twin perspectives of memory and forced honesty, had been mostly making her wonder if the Princess had fallen ill... that mare hadn't really thought about how air carriages had to work, because the conveyances were just part of the world's background. You had pegasi towing at the front, which meant they needed to be hitched to something they could tow. The unicorn hadn't seen any need to look more deeply at the transport, because her own kind of magic clearly wasn't any part of it and nothing else was very important.

The newest alicorn now understood every carriage to be operating under its own set of enchantments. Pegasus techniques were woven through every part of the vehicle, turning the whole thing into a wonder. There was no other way for an air carriage to function at all -- at least, not one where the passengers would be delivered more or less intact.

They were moving fast enough to create wind streaming against them, something which should have blown back through the open carriage at a speed which threatened to send ponies tumbling: distance to ground variable, results upon impact eventually becoming just about identical. Instead, there was just enough of a breeze to let the travelers recognize that movement was taking place. And the chill of winter air, something which should have been enough to mandate heavy garments, icicles forming in her fur, and a three-day huddle under blankets until the illness went away? Heat was constantly being shifted out of the flowing air, drifted towards the carriage's occupants until the exposed riding area was warmer than every other part of the season which surrounded it. Given the scant availability of anything to shift, the enchantments needed to be reaching out for a considerable distance just to have any chance of moderating the temperature at all...

Twilight found herself inspecting the frame, looking for any portions of exposed copper: the most natural conduit for such magic. Every air carriage was a wonder, and there had to be visible signs of that if she just looked closely enough.

It was something to do during the first stage of the trip. Something which wasn't thinking about the corpse which awaited her attentions at the other end.

But the corpse wasn't going anywhere. It had infinite patience and no matter what she tried to do, it would be able to wait her out.

'Dead bodies seldom get much deader.' She'd read that somewhere, and she couldn't seem to remember the exact book.

She could think about the quote for a while.
She could request that the carriage touch down in front of some portion of the Canterlot Archives. It wouldn't take long to gallop inside and find somepony who'd recognize the source. Two, three, maybe up to twelve days if she didn't initially luck into the right department.
She could also recognize when she was stalling.

A dead body, not getting any deader...

...wait.

She looked up from the seam which joined the curve of the forward carriage wall to the floor, with her gaze passing over a total of eight legs along the way. Twilight was at the back of the carriage, the Doctors were at the front and for occupants, that was it.

Applejack had offered to come along, if only to provide a reassuring presence. Winter was the farmer's slow period, something which approached a for-dictionary-breaking-lack-of-a-better-word vacation, and she had time to give. She would have made the same offer in the heart of harvest season. And Applejack was a little more used to death because the Acres were their own little ecosystem, one where small animals often ran free. It provided background music to traveling through the orchards, and it also meant that any full patrol had the chance to come across a tiny corpse. But those were animal corpses, and... it hadn't been a very large air carriage. There was enough room to add Twilight's slim form, but bringing in Applejack would have led to multiple pairs of forelegs hanging over the sides and, if the ride turned out to be a turbulent one, just as many trails of fast-falling vomit.

Her friend didn't need to go through that. Shouldn't have to deal with a pony's corpse, and... the doctors had come for Twilight. Somepony from the palace had come for her: that had been enough to get her into the carriage. They'd been looking for the aid of Magic, and even if she so seldom thought of herself that way, regarded it as the height of misplaced ego to go around declaring the title at all times -- she was the mare they believed was needed.

Bearing an Element meant a lot of things and today, it meant she had to examine a corpse.

"Sorry about the air carriage," Vanilla Bear awkwardly said. "Most of the palace escorts are with the Princesses right now. In case they have to move the entire contingent back in a hurry. The carriage is what was left. I know it's a little public, but the Guards are going to curve around and come at the palace from the southern approach. That should keep the number of potential witnesses down --"

"-- I'm not a pathologist," Twilight softly reminded them. She had a doctorate, but 'not that kind of doctor' had never been funny and she didn't really want to operate under that title either.

Both stallions managed something collectively approximating a nod, although it still required her to gather and total their efforts.

"Fluttershy's closer to that than I'll ever be," she continued. Corpses in the fringe and wild zone, veterinary cases where she can't save the patient and the companion asks for an autopsy. Applejack comes across death every so often, but Fluttershy has it trotting at her side. She understands death, in a way none of us do.

The way none of us really want to. Because it's a burden which only the strongest can carry.

"And you can't need somepony for that." It felt as if her tones were sliding into desperation, and if she could hear it... "I'm not saying she couldn't do it! Even if what she usually sees are animal corpses, I'm sure she could try to... extrapolate..."

Chocolate Bear's brown eyes briefly closed. She wasn't sure if it was the sheer weight of transferred awkwardness, or if anything was better than looking at her just then.

"When the time comes," the surgeon told her, "I'll do the autopsy. It's not my specialty, but -- in this case, the most likely cause of death was pretty obvious. Internal bleeding. But there's more to it than that. We need Magic, Miss Twilight."

"Because the best case is that there was some kind of magic at work," Vanilla softly added. "And that's still the greatest nightmare..."

They were passing over the thickest part of the Everfree. Twilight heard a distant roar, and then the faintest echo of teeth crunching through bone.

"You said you'd preserved it perfectly," she forced herself to continue.

Chocolate's hooves shuffled in place on the carriage floor, and she watched as a stallion with a shaved-away mane considered using his partner's display as a last-ditch refuge to hide some portion of his own features.

"More or less," the surgeon admitted.

"We stopped the clock," said the diagnostician. "Or had it stopped for us."

Twilight decided "How?" was a necessary question. It also kept her from having to voice the real one for at least a few more seconds, and so was entirely worthwhile.

Eight hooves were now trying to keep themselves from cantering on the spot.

"We didn't want to risk the damage from the chemical bath used to create medical cadavers," Vanilla finally began. "And..." Hesitated, pulled in the next breath between his teeth as if he was using them to filter the air. "You've seen Sizzler."

The wince was automatic. If you spent enough time in the palace, you were likely to spot the unicorn under discussion and if you didn't actually get close enough to see him, it was probably because you'd turned away from the smell. Her own closest encounter had been under different circumstances. The blood-red pony (with an oddly-liquid coat) was -- 'dim' was so charitable a description as to potentially switch out crown for necklace, he was proud of his mark, and he was --

-- it had taken Twilight years to recognize it, and the shame burned through her --

-- horribly, painfully, excruciatingly lonely.

He had pride in his mark: an image which, within Equestria's borders, manifested but once per generation. But it was something which set him apart from other ponies, placed him a little to the side from the bulk of the herd and if the distance increased, it was probably because they were edging away from him. Sizzler existed as something different, and it had made him so desperate for companionship as to happily go along with the most fur-brained of schemes and conspiracies, simply because stupidity having been assembled in a group meant somepony in the gathering was speaking to him.

Sizzler had very little in common with the majority of ponies, and it had taken the opening of a butcher shop in the heart of Canterlot to begin his associations with griffons. A species which had no issues with his skills, saw his mark as the sign of truest bravery while also treating it as an open invitation to attend any barbecue. He was always welcome in the Aviary, and rumor claimed he was on the verge of moving into the capital's near-microscopic neighborhood. The only pony resident of those upper levels, just to be that much closer to his friends.

"He's... dating now," Chocolate awkwardly mentioned. "Anyway... we saw him after we moved our offices into the palace. We found out what he does there, and... we learned about his trick."

The librarian sorted through internal files and came up with nothing more than an old note reading Did I ever really want to know?

"His trick," was all she could offer. "I don't know what that is. It..." and swallowed hard. "...probably has something to do with what he does in the kitchen..."

"That's the way he thought of it," Vanilla carefully told her. "That the master of the meat station --" the little shudder was just about automatic and in this case, triplicate "-- could keep meat from going bad. Every steak as fresh as the day he purchased it from Gristle's, as long as he gives the stock a little attention now and again."

She understood why the palace kitchens had a meat station: carnivores and omnivores attended diplomatic dinners, and at least one employee needed to be capable of getting a normal lunch. She just didn't want to think about it any more than necessary --

"Only when it comes to spellwork," Chocolate added, "that's not what it actually does."

-- and her perspective shifted, because now they were talking about magic.

"Really? But if it's keeping the meat fresh --"

"-- it's how he thinks of it," Vanilla broke in, "so that's how he was applying it. The reality is that he's arresting decay. Decomposition. And when you think about it..."

"...a corpse," and this time Chocolate swallowed, "is just... meat."

Her skin flushed beneath the fur, and she came within seconds of spinning in place to heave the fast-rising results over the carriage's back edge --

"He's in the barracks right now." Vanilla's thick tail was trying to take refuge between thin white legs: there was some difficulty with lack of available space. "The abandoned ones. We couldn't send him home, because -- because Sizzler: we needed to make sure he understood that he can't talk about it. He was willing to try, because the palace needed him. But when he saw the body, he... he tried, and it worked. He stopped the clock: all decomposition stalled out when his field touched the corpse. But it's not what he was meant for. Yapper's down there with him, for company. We would have gotten one of his friends, but none of them work in the palace. So we just asked his most frequent customer to stay for a while."

"He'd stopped crying when we left," Chocolate miserably added. "Barely. And we might have to ask him to do it again, or the hospital could wind up borrowing him. All because we looked at things a little differently."

"It's funny," Vanilla finished, and did so in a tone which stated it wasn't. "Just how many unicorns never think about what their personal spell could really do..."

Canterlot was getting closer. She could make out the main gatehouse now. A portion of the Heart and its many shops, added to some small section of the Tangle: just as many businesses, but it was best not to ask what some of them sold.

"I don't think I've ever heard about your trick," Chocolate desperately attempted to change the subject.

Which instantly focused Twilight in Any Direction Other Than That One.

"I'll have to see him," she quickly told the physicians. "Get his signature, so I can separate it from any other magic which might be present."

They both nodded, and it brought her to the question at last. The one she could no longer avoid.

"What happened?"

They told her.

Centuries had passed without a Royal Physician in the palace. Now there were two, and they needed space in which to work. It had led to the relocation of multiple departments, because their patients recognized that it was going to take more than one room and, according to palace rumor, also wanted all non-medical personnel out of hearing range when the needles came out. Or worse, went in.

It wasn't Twilight's first time within that space. She had been examined for injury there after the Bearers had returned from Trotter's Falls: they all had, and she'd been through the all-too-typical pangs of helplessness as the physicians desperately tried to figure out if Spike was hurt and if so, what anypony could do about it. But she'd just been in the main examination room, and had been hustled in too quickly for any real look at the layout along the way.

She'd also had other things on her mind at the time.

It wasn't her first visit -- but with the main door (a surprisingly plain one, with a simple grey RP worked into new wood) right in front of her, it was about to be her first real chance for inspection.

There's a corpse in there.

Trotter's Falls had seen her witness births. This was... the ultimate conclusion of the result. If she just tried to think of it that way...

"Nearly all of us trembled like that once," gently wafted in from behind her.

"You don't get through medical school without studying a cadaver," the deeper voice added.

"Ponies donate their bodies," Vanilla told her. "Some of them know they won't ever have a normal burial because of it. Just a marker. But they donate, because... they know the next generation of doctors can't exist without them."

"We give them nicknames," Chocolate quietly told her. "Because we spend so much time together. We... know them better than some of the ponies who were with them in life, in the end."

"But before our class went in," Vanilla finished, "just about all of us were shaking. Because it wasn't a corpse. It was somepony who'd lived and galloped and loved once. And anypony who wasn't shaking a little, who just wanted to see a body or didn't want to acknowledge that there had been a pony... most of them didn't finish."

"The ones who go to their first cadaver with their eyes bright," Chocolate concluded, "because it's a thing they can study... those are the ones to watch out for."

They didn't touch her, not from behind when she was stressed. But they came close enough to show that they were willing to do so if asked.

"You wouldn't be normal if you weren't shaking," they told her. "Even just a little."

Her left forehoof came up. Touched the narrow rib cage, moved outwards again. Over and over.

"Stress exercise?" the diagnostician asked.

She nodded. Finished, and then turned her head quickly to the right, teeth slightly parted --

-- winced, blushed, and twisted back to face the door.

"And that?" the surgeon inquired.

"...waiting for somepony to pass me the hat." She could hear them blink. "It's... hard to explain." Not as hard as it had once been: the doctors knew about the hybrids, and had been trying to figure out how some of those bodies operated on the medical level -- but it could still take a long time to offer any level of explanation for Pinkie. "I'm ready to go in."

They nodded.

"There's a Minder on my desk," Vanilla told her. "Empty. You're welcome to use it."

She shook her head. Twilight respected the majority of devices, and something portable which stored sound had all kinds of uses -- but each new generation of Minders was distinguished by a marginally-increased syllable storage count, and the numerical difference served as a near-exponential increase on the previous model's price. There were more practical ways to record information, and the usual one didn't have to worry about the internal spools going bad.

"Do you have a notebook you can spare?"

They both nodded.

"We're out here if you need us," the Doctors Bear told her. "Try to remember that. When it gets bad."

There was only a single office, with two well-padded benches. The desks faced each other, and the gifted notebook was on the left one. She tried not to look at the pictures of the thin mare wearing a medical garment which decorated that desk, because the images had been captured across several years and the sequence ended with an empty frame.

Move further down the artificial hallway, and there was the storage area. There were subsections within it: things which held medical devices, instruments and tools which operated without enchantments, file cabinets passively radiating the energies of a dozen security spells. There was also a large refrigerated cabinet, and multiple half-domes of light with the glow directed inwards indicated minor stasis spells at work. Three of the largest red-filled vials had been labeled with her mark.

Blood.

It was a reasonable precaution, and it was nothing more than what the Royal Physicians had been doing for the sisters. Alicorns were like nothing else in the world, and the Princesses had only allowed the resumption of highly-classified medical studies about a year and a half ago. Everything the Doctors Bear discovered in their investigations was a matter of national security and, in the case of two siblings simultaneously falling ill, would also be a matter of life and death on a global scale.

The physicians had something in common with the Bearers. They were ponies tasked with potentially saving the world, and if the need to try ever arose... an alicorn was like nothing else under Sun and Moon. Equestria understood blood transfusions and with such a limited population to draw on, the physicians were storing some alicorn blood in case it ever needed to be transfused back. The majority of Twilight's limited stockpile was here, with an emergency remainder in Ponyville's hospital. The doctors there occasionally complained about having to deal with the myriad of security spells, because it was better than having to use what was kept behind them.

She went through the main examination room after that: more devices, extra instruments, and a significant amount of soundproofing. There were two padded tables there, each larger than they would have had to be for any other pony. Three complete anatomical charts served as decoration for the walls, and space was reserved for whenever the fourth was finally shipped in from the Empire. There were also singe marks on the floor, because Luna had a very particular way of indicating when she'd reached her weekly limit on tests and generally managed to aim it away from the offending pony.

The last room had multiple untouched devices on low shelves. A few of them were experimental because if the room ever became truly active, then experimental might be all that was left.

Lights illuminated every corner of the room, and then kept going from there. It was a place without shadows, because any patch of darkness would conceal the one thing you needed to see.

There was an anatomical chart. It was a rather recent construct, occasionally went through minor revisions, and would have normally been hidden under needs of national security if anypony lacking in security clearance were to approach the room. It generally didn't get put away because nopony wanted to approach this room. To get within a body length was to start thinking about the potential need for it and shortly after that, the terror would begin.

The central table was kept sterile by the soft chartreuse glow of a spell which had recently been activated for the first time. To look closely at the surface was to spot a number of tiny tilts, because you had to funnel blood to the built-in channels somehow.

It was a huge table, because it had to be: the excess area had allowed for the placement of multiple items around the edges. But when it came to its intended purpose, the table had four possible occupants, and the eldest took up a lot of space when prone.

The last room was the surgery, and the first patient it had ever seen was beyond saving.

The little mare swallowed again. Forced her legs to shift forward into air which was just a little more chill than the rest of the palace, crossed the threshold where Sizzler had not and closed the door behind her. The cook had just projected his field through the opening until his magic had located what, to it, was nothing more than an oddly-shaped arrangement of meat...

Yapper had been stroking the fur of the tightly-curled form, down there in the junk-filled basement barracks. Bringing it back to its proper lie and grain. A Diamond Dog trying to comfort a pony.

(He was dating. There had been a moment when she'd wondered 'Who?', and then felt ashamed of herself because the word was doing a rather poor job of covering up the actual 'What?')

He'd ignited his horn for her, when she'd asked: something which had taken two attempts. It was still enough to let her learn the feel of his magic. She would be able to separate his efforts from...

...whatever had happened.

"He appeared just outside the border walls. There was some night traffic, and from what the witnesses said..." Chocolate had drawn a slow breath. "...he was alive for about three seconds. But he didn't try to move towards anypony, and he -- couldn't have said anything. He... bit through his tongue, just before he died. Speech would have been impossible."

"At the same time," Vanilla had added, "the lockdown alarm in the palace went off. The automatic response we get when somepony tries to teleport in and doesn't make it. But those ponies usually show up at their starting point. Our theory -- part of what we need you to confirm -- is that he sort of... bounced. Skidded off the edges and reappeared in the first clear space."

"If it's the last spell he cast," Twilight eventually, cautiously tried, "I can try to get some of the feel from his horn. It'll just be overlapped with everything else he did in the last few hours. But most of that is probably going to be basic manipulation --"

That would have been the usual hope. And then the surgeon had dashed it.

"He's an earth pony."

The back half of the corpse was covered with a sheet. Various portions of the front had seen some of the skin dome up, bulging partially through the fur. Mottled red discolored those distortions.

The most probable cause of death was internal bleeding. The question was how those wounds had been inflicted, and... there was a chance that it wasn't Twilight's question to answer. She couldn't perform an autopsy, and... when it came to the shadows within her, she hadn't really made any serious attempts to draw on their skills. (There had been one major, somewhat non-serious attempt, and it had ended when the expanding yeast had punched a hole through the oven door.) Calling on Fluttershy to the point where there might be any medical knowledge available... even if it was possible, it felt as if it would mean delving deep. Too deep.

There were three ponies in the world who could advise her on whether it was possible at all. One of them visited regularly to see how she was doing, and might have been amenable to inquiry. The second was out of reach. She was still trying to figure out just what the third was to her now, and feared that the eldest continued to feel the same way.

They were speaking again. But they had so much trouble finding things they could speak about...

Internal bleeding. Something severed within. Blood pooling in places where it was never meant to be, leaving waiting organs in a state of starvation.

He had lived for about three seconds -- after he had appeared. She wondered how long he'd been suffering before that. Even if there had only been three seconds, that was still more than enough time in which to contain an eternity of pain.

The palace hosted an expert on pain.

Sizzler's trick had been used on a pony who had died from internal bleeding. Could the blood coagulate? Or would the most basic contact with a hoof make liquid shift under the skin --

-- she shuddered, and forced her gaze to move. There was something she wasn't supposed to be looking at yet, and avoiding that brought her to his face.

"An earth pony," she'd carefully repeated. "Completely alone?"

"In the sense that nopony else appeared nearby," Chocolate had replied. "Some things -- partial things -- showed up with him, but nothing living."

"Did any of the unicorn witnesses sense a burst of magic in the area?"

"No," Vanilla had eventually said. "But they were shaken: it would have been easy for them to miss that. And we -- didn't necessarily find all of them."

"How much of where he appeared is untouched?"

"The police managed to cordon off the arrival point, but not everything surrounding it," Chocolate told her. "And... there's no good way to say this: he set off a stampede. That moved away from him, but it disturbed the surrounding area. Plus the police did their own investigations, and the Guards came out to see what was going on... it's not completely uncontaminated. Why?"

She'd taken a shallow breath.

"Because of the obvious," Twilight had told them. "Earth ponies can't teleport. And when a unicorn is escorting somepony, they almost always have to go with them. Whoever took him along would have appeared at the same time."

Unless they were invisible.

Or effectively so. But she only knew of one pony who could do that, and... he hadn't been capable of teleportation. There was a chance that he wasn't currently capable of breathing.

"You said almost," Vanilla had immediately indicated.

"If you're really close to somepony -- a few body lengths -- and you push, you can get them into the aether. But it isn't easy, and the maximum distance is however far you were from them in the first place," emerged as an instinctive lecture. "The weight limit is also lower than for normal escorting. A lot lower." She'd barely been able to manage Spike's body mass. "This is a full-grown earth pony?" Picturing the smallest of Ponyville's adults, and wondering if she could have moved Stile. "Normal height and build?"

They'd nodded, and the mystery developed extra layers.

It wasn't just the question of how the transport had taken place at all. Earth ponies avoided teleportation. They could brace themselves for it, try to make it look as if everything was normal -- but the process still disrupted their connection to the land. They were uprooted, and it could take precious seconds to center themselves again. For an earth pony to seek the fast route of their own will...

...but it hadn't necessarily been his decision. And even so, when she looked at his face...

Decay had been stopped, decomposition put on indefinite hold. Muscles would still be supple: Sizzler had reached the corpse that quickly.

There was blood soaked into the muzzle: the bitten-through tongue had done that. But there was no rictus. And when that tension had no way to be present...

The stallion's last smile was locked onto his features. Thin and, under the too-bright lights of the surgery, somehow vicious.

Her horn ignited at the lowest possible level. The left saddlebag opened, and the donated notebook emerged.

She wasn't good at sketching. Diagrams, that was fine. The symbology which ponies who'd been gone for generations had once used to record their thoughts about workings -- she could manage those. But drawing something... no. The best she could manage was the rough outline of a pony body, one which had no curves at all. Small spots of ink indicated where the blood pools were, just in case that became important later.

"The stampede created more problems than disrupting the area," Chocolate had told her. "He appeared with things. Rent saddlebags, scraps of paper -- everypony who investigated saved as much as they could. But even with street traffic galloping away from him, they created wind currents just from movement, and that still applies to the ones who stayed on the ground. The pegasi didn't exactly help matters. And with the jurisdictional conflict -- the Guards got there first, but the police may have their own evidence collected. It'll take time to get everything together, and even after that, we'll be missing pieces. Some of those scraps may never be found."

"Paper," she'd checked. Hoping.

"Words," Vanilla had confirmed. "And that's not all."

It was somewhere else to look. Something she could inspect before she moved on to the worst.

Most of the paper scraps were blank. There were sections of a softbound spine available for inspection, and the width told her the stallion hadn't come anywhere close to filling the majority of the book. (She made a quick note about seeing if any of the largest blank pieces had a full watermark: it would potentially provide a clue as to where the volume had been bound and sold.) Some of the smallest bits did have writing, but... individual characters. A jigsaw where the pieces had been scattered across a city, there was no picture on the box, no box, and the edges were too battered to line up.

She spotted three words during that first inspection. Two of them were on the same piece.

void, hollowed

Twilight copied it. Moved to the next scrap.

fungible

It wasn't a commonly-used word: Twilight understood the definition, but hardly ever heard the term itself brought out in public. It was a curious sort of word, and it had no reason to make her feel so cold.

Fungible...

Metal glinted under the lights, and her attention shifted.

Half of a thin gold rod -- well, no: that was a presumption on her part. It was a section of rod, because she had no way of knowing how large the missing portion had been. The diameter was no greater than the tip of a pony's tail. Part of a broken jewel was just barely attached to the sundered end, and hours spent in the Boutique noted its lack of quality.

Threads of silver wire stretched from the broken portion. Pulled like taffy.

A device. But she didn't recognize it. Not that the unfamiliarity really surprised her: Twilight's mark wasn't for devices. She kept up as best she could, and she owned a book which cataloged the ancient and forbidden, but -- things slipped past her. She didn't know this one -- but it provided something which could be studied.

She got as close as she could, tested the air around the metal with unlit horn.

It had done... something. There were enough fragmentary thaums in the rod's vicinity to definitely state that it had recently channeled magic. But it didn't allow her to gain a signature, because for a unicorn to construct a device was to send their magic through carefully-crafted inanimate distortions. Inspecting multiple devices made by the same pony would eventually allow some sense of their creator: to examine a single specimen just gathered a single impression, and that wasn't enough. Plus -- oh, yes, there it was: somepony had already made an occlugraph. An unusual one, even for a device: all jagged lines --

-- no. A closer inspection revealed it as one line, endlessly bending as it stretched across the length of the carefully-carved rectangle of glass. But when she truly looked... there were multiple breaks. It stopped in one place, resumed at the exact same angle a few tail strands away. Over and over. It only appeared whole until she allowed herself to see it as something else.

The scratches were deep blue at the bottom of the little channels, with hints of black. Not necessarily a match for the caster's natural corona hue, with a device involved.

There were other things to examine. The next stage was checking the body for magic, and she found a fairly intense signature there -- but it matched the weak one which was quickly fading from the broken device.

She took a few more notes, and then her field shifted the rod.

Twilight didn't really think about where she was moving it. The rod needed further inspection, and --

She won't do it.
She won't even talk about it.
I've been trying to talk to her for moons...

And yet she put the rod away.

"We wanted to identify him before the conflict was sorted out," Chocolate had told her. "And we thought that was going to be easy, because there was one characteristic which nopony could remember ever having seen before."

"Characteristic?" had been a natural question. Just as natural as the word choice had felt odd.

The stallions had looked at each other again. Four ears had bent down towards the skulls.

"Give us a second," Vanilla had requested. "It's..." A too-shallow breath. "We were bringing the corpse through the palace. Multiple levitation loops. Keeping it level and steady. And we passed..."

"You've met her," Chocolate had taken over. "Abjura."

Twilight had nodded. About eight years older than she was, fully passing through the Gifted School before Twilight had ever arrived. One of the palace's researchers. A professional, and a talented one.

"It was just coincidence," Vanilla told her. "But she -- she almost fainted. She nearly fell on top of the corpse. She thought she recognized him. She called out a name, on instinct. Linchpin. Surname is Keystone. A professional contractor and architect. They dated for a while, but she lost track of him after they broke up. She thought it was him, there was a second when we all thought we knew who he was, and -- then she saw the corpse's mark, and she started laughing and crying at the same time. Because it couldn't be him. It was his fur and mane colors, just about his face except for a few extra years, his height and build -- but it wasn't his mark."

"You've probably heard the line," Chocolate had decided as the palace towers sharpened. "'Separated at the hips.' For ponies who are just about twins in everything but their marks. We promised to ask the police about locating Linchpin, and brought the body to our offices. The surgery, because that was the room which offered the most privacy and the best conditions for inspection."

They'd both stopped again, and it had taken a precious minute for the shivering to stop.

"There's... a relatively new procedure," Vanilla had slowly said. "Pre-autopsy, not that we thought we'd get that far. For documentation."

"You take pictures." Chocolate's head had dipped. "Of everything. Because you're trying to capture images of how the corpse looked before anything starts. And we needed pictures to send out, as part of trying to find out who he'd been. We knew he wasn't Linchpin. We needed a name."

"We started with his face," Vanilla had recounted. "Full body, taking measurements. Tail. A close-up of the mark. It's standard."

White and brown bodies pressed against each other.

"Those pictures were developed before we reached you," the surgeon said. "It stalled us. But we put them in the surgery for you. Most of them are on the board. The last... it's the only way you can see..."

The images had been attached to a small square of corkboard, and the corpse could have almost been smiling for the camera.

They'd photographed the entire body, including that which was currently under the sheet or simply on the other side of the corpse. There was a small puncture wound between the seventh and eighth ribs. It caught her attention because it was the only external wound, the blood had been partially absorbed by the fur, and -- there was a discoloration to strands and skin. A reddening, as if the area had been lightly burned.

There was some soil on his hooves. It looked oddly dark.

Twilight took a slow breath, and moved to the central picture of the display. The mark.

"We thought it would be so easy to identify him..."

Because agencies existed to track the scarcest talents and when you'd never seen a mark before, there was the chance for it to be unique. Singular marks were recorded, and with this one...

Just about anypony who'd been through their fourth year of primary schooling had the chance to recognize it, although only mathematicians, accountants, and spell researchers continued to actively use the symbol beyond graduation. It had a prominent place in the Last Question, it had been rendered in the plainest of white, and it had the simplest of meanings.

Not equal.

Just about anypony might recognize the meaning. But Twilight had never seen anypony who had the symbol as a mark.

Still, it didn't necessary represent a unique skill. Based on the mark, the most ready guess at the talent was mathematics itself: if not a researcher, then perhaps a teacher or bookkeeper. But if looked at as something more -- abstract...

Finds a way to distinguish what would normally be identical pieces. A crafter?

More abstract.

Breaks the relationship between that which should have been together. The talent is for initiating fractures. Physical. Social. Insidious.

Even further.

'I am not equal.' No matter who he met, what their skill was, he would be lesser or greater than they were. Never matching...

...too abstract.

Not equal.

She didn't understand. She wished she had the hat. She wanted to do anything in the world, as long as it wasn't what had to be done today.

She was trying to use her field as little as possible, and it meant her teeth just barely nipped the trailing edge of the sheet.

The little alicorn shivered. Shook. Braced herself, and found nothing holding her up from within. Terrified, every fur strand twisted against the grain, corona wavering and manestyle coming apart, with nothing she could do except --

I have to do this.

-- move forward anyway.

It was terror. It was standing on the verge of horror. It was also the perfect conditions for momentarily channeling Fluttershy.

Her head whipped to the left, and the sheet fell away.

"I had the camera," Vanilla had told her at the last. "But we both looked. It's a natural reaction. You think you see something moving, and you look. I just --"

Stopped. Shook.

"We both screamed," his partner had quietly said. "Then we were huddled together in the hallway outside the cells. I don't remember how we got there. Just that we must have galloped, half the palace staff came in behind us to see what was so wrong, and we couldn't tell them. We... still don't know how to tell them. But we had to go back in there. With it. Because we knew we needed help, that you would need evidence, and..."

A brown forehoof gently rubbed the shaking white flank.

"...he screamed," Chocolate had finished. "We both did. But he brought the camera along, all the way. And he took the picture."

The image was resting a short distance away from the stallion's belly, partially tilted into one of the table's little channels by the abrupt movement.

She looked at it. Then she looked at the corpse's left hip.

Then she moved, and did so just in time.

It was a surgery, and so there was a trough available for washing up. It took multiple tries from the taps before she managed to rinse the last of her vomit away.

I should have stopped at the tree. Picked up the crown...

Which was just a way of wishing for retroactive stalling. The Elements only worked when they wished to, and never did so alone.

Twilight rinsed out her mouth again. Spit, and forced herself to stop when it felt as if she was about to cough up the lining of her throat.

The physicians had given her a full briefing, and part of that had included a very specific talk about decomposition because she had to know how things normally worked. A pony would die, and their body would decay. A mark, on the surface level, was simply fur which grew in different colors, ones which had been arranged into an exacting pattern. Fur would eventually fall away from a corpse. The natural colors of life would fade and vanish. A mark, as part of the outermost layer, would be gone long before the body was reduced to bone.

But for that part of the corpse, for its process of decomposition -- the mark went last. Everything else would have faded and as long as fur was present, the mark would still be bright. It hung on as long as possible. There had been bodies found locked in the ice with eyes glazed by cold and a mark as soft and colorful as the day of manifest.

And still... they faded, over time. It just happened more slowly. The soul had departed, the body fell apart, and the talent had been lost to history. Given enough moons of normal decomposition, the mark would be gone.

They faded and fell away.

They didn't vanish.

The stallion's hips showed no blisters of blood under the skin. No bruises from twisting injuries, or a repeat of that odd little puncture wound. They were as pristine as the day he'd been born. A state he would take with him to the grave.

Vanilla Bear's eyes had been caught by movement, and a twinned flicker of instinct and field had triggered the camera's shutter. He'd captured a portion of something which might have only taken eyeblinks to complete. Something which had never happened before, an event which should have never happened at all.

In the picture, the outer edges of the mark are already gone. In the center, there is still white on brown. But there is a zone in between and in that area, color is rising from fur as something very much like steam. Wisps are fading into the air, almost invisible. Leaving behind something pristine.

Clean.
Pure.
Blank.

And then she was vomiting again.

There had been nothing left to bring up, and all she could taste was acid on her tongue.

Before. After.

A picture of the mark. A picture of -- what had happened. Somepony would need to get a current picture of the fur...

She considered herself to be improving. Extra experience at being in the presence of what her soul insisted to be abomination had a way of doing that. She was getting exercise in having her mind trying to raise itself through the unthinkable. When she'd been in the spy loft, learning about the process which created hybrids, she had screamed. This time, she'd just repeatedly vomited. She'd already decided to see the vomiting as a step up.

Her heartbeat was too loud. It seemed to be taking place partially outside her body, at a significant distance. Her ears twitched to a steady four-beat of pounding.

I want my friends.

Twilight pushed herself away from the washing trough, used her forehooves to awkwardly splash a little water in her face before pushing the oversized taps closed. She didn't want them to be in the surgery with her, because she loved them too much to put them through any of it. But she had to tell them, and... fifthhoof horror wasn't going to be much of an improvement.

Her heartbeat seemed to be getting closer to her own body, so that was good. It also felt as if the sound was getting heavier.

Who was he?
What happened to him?
How do we make sure it never happens again --

And then the heavy sounds reached the surgery's door, just before a flare of sunlight pushed it open.

"Go home."

It was a stark sort of order, one in which she could hear both the restraint placed on its force and the power in a voice which was trying not to break as purple eyes took in all the sights of the surgery at once, doing so from the highest of perspectives. It had been spoken by the oldest mare in the world. Her liege, her mentor and, on a very real level, the reason Twilight existed at all.

She had spent moons trying to figure out how she was supposed to relate to the possessor of that voice. What they could say to each other, while counting all the things left unsaid.

She didn't know what to say now.

So she said "No."

The huge white mare stepped a little further into the surgery. Heavy hooffalls echoed on impact.

"Go home, Twilight."

"We... we need to find out what happened to him." It was nearly a whisper, and her vision blurred as she forced herself to look up. Seeing through pain, the remnants of splashed water, and fresh tears. "We have to --"

"The doctors told me everything," the ancient mare stated. "Including the fact that they went to get you. They involved you. Not me. This isn't a mission. He'll be studied, Twilight." Another step, and devices shook on their shelves as the little mare shrank into her own withers. "Identified. We can't contact his family until we find some way of solving this, but he'll be held for burial, or whatever other rite they might want to conduct. I promise. But this isn't a Bearer matter." The pastel colors of the mane twisted against their borders as the white head slowly shook. "I'm just hoping unto Sun that nopony in that stampede managed to get a picture. 'Body appears outside the palace' is enough of a headline without a photo --"

Thin legs pushed against the cold floor, and the little mare rose to what passed for her full height.

"-- how is this not a Bearer matter?"

"I call the missions," the white mare stated. "I didn't call this one."

The purple head violently shifted, once to each side. Water and salt flew away, and the direct glare which followed was clear.

"Unless Discord does," the youngest alicorn declared from the heart of sudden anger. "Or Luna, because I'm pretty sure Luna has the authority to call a mission. Once she knows what's going on --"

"-- it's going to be investigated." The librarian was no longer capable of hearing the first hints of desperation. "Just not by you --"

There were so many things they hadn't been talking about, and three unspoken words had been the loudest.

"-- I'm not him!"

They stared at each other, as the tears began to flow again. Faster this time, burning tracks down the little mare's face and through her heart.

Celestia's eyes slowly closed.

"Go home."

Twilight didn't move.

There was a flash of yellow light. The white wing touched her back, and then she was on the balcony outside her bedroom.

She turned just in time to be half-blinded by the next flash. And once the dazzle had faded, all she could see was the singular set of hoofprints which had abandoned her in fresh snow.

Token

She had wondered if their relationship was dying.

They had begun as student and teacher: something which felt as if it would be true for a lifetime because it would never be possible to learn all of what the Princess knew. But then Twilight had changed, and...

The eldest of alicorns had felt that the best place for Twilight to begin learning about her new status was from her friends, and there were ways in which the librarian could almost understand that. Others where she still felt the internal rise of emotions: frustration and terror buoying each other up in near-equal measure, making it impossible to determine which one was dominant. She hadn't been told anything about how to deal with new wings, she'd felt as if she'd been left to work it all out on her own and...

Perhaps it was understandable, when looked at from a perspective which regarded the past from a near-impossible temporal distance. The Princess had felt it was best for Twilight to learn from her friends, because that was what Celestia had done. Learned from those whose shadows were forever merged with her soul, as one of what might have been the first two to change. It was possible to comprehend the choice of the eldest, if you thought about it that way.

It was also possible that they had been student and teacher for so long that neither knew how to be anything else. Equals? One might have been subconsciously longing for it, but only had a few relationships which existed on that level and didn't know how to adjust an extant one. The other looked at such self-elevation with a fear equal to making an attempt at high-altitude flight while simultaneously attempting to duplicate somepony else's trick: she could only fail, she had been stupid just to try at all, and the fall would take so long as to give her plenty of time to review exactly why she deserved it, all the way down.

Or you could see it as avoidance. The librarian had changed, and the fact that the change had taken place at all might have made Celestia question whether there was truly a soul at the core of that new assembly which belonged to Twilight Sparkle alone. If an entity she had tried to rescue (or punish, for that was still uncertain) formed the true foundation for everything which had been built. She didn't want to face Twilight because she didn't want to confront the final echo of what she had done all those centuries ago, or hear another's voice within any desperately denying words.

They were speaking again -- but they had so much trouble finding things they could speak about. Verbal hooves tried to trot across the thinnest of glass, and the nature of that surface had been disguised through coating it with eggshells.

Luna had advised Twilight to give the eldest time, because dredging up memories through the protective layers of centuries could be an ordeal. To remember on that level had the chance to turn into something very close to reliving all of it, and the pain of past sins had never completely faded. Celestia would speak to Twilight about her own change and Bearers: Luna truly believed that. But she would do so when she was ready, and to push too hard was to drive those events ever-deeper under the stone.

(Twilight had, in a moment of instantly-regretted candor and frustration, pointed out that Luna had her own memories and could tell the youngest of alicorns all about them any time she liked. It had put her on the receiving end of an exceptionally chill dark regard, right up until the moment when Luna had said only part of the tale was hers, there was an order for such things and if a supposed librarian felt the best place to begin a story was on Chapter Two, then the tree had plenty of space for a Now Hiring sign next to the book fort. Twilight had taken the too-steady response as an indication that it might be best to temporarily drop the subject.)

She didn't know what they were to each other now.
At the moment, it felt as if Celestia saw Twilight as something to be pushed aside.
If the eldest was seeing Twilight at all.

I'm not him.

She was cold, on a level too deep to be accounted for by the chill of surgery and snow. Her balcony door had locks which were attuned to her signature, because it served as a useful teleport arrival point and if she could ever get any true degree of control over her flight, might also work as a good place to land. (Rainbow frequently used it as a place to stop, which was the most charitable description available when 'land' no longer applied.) She had to get inside...

Her horn ignited, the door creaked as it shifted, she stepped into warmth which she didn't truly feel, and the living source of love's fire on the base level instinctively turned towards the sound.

"I'm sorry!" were the first words to tumble out. "I would have sent you a scroll to tell you they were coming, but I was still waiting on Davenport! I only got the shipment about twenty minutes ago! All I could do was make sure the air carriage approached the Acres on an angle which didn't let them see anything --" and now there was something of a faint scritching sound: scales rubbing against each other as the fingers of both hands interlaced and shifted from stress "-- they didn't see anything, did they? Tell me they didn't --"

She'd forgotten. Spell notation scrolls weren't an infinite resource, and her brother's trick worked best with certain combinations of rare quills, inks and woods. It was theoretically possible for him to just grab any nearby scrap of paper

I need to see more of the scraps

and try sending it into the aether, but there were proven results among the more expensive materials. And she'd been burning through scrolls at a ridiculous rate: not from friendship lessons, but trying to maintain correspondence with the party who was trying to reach the end of the currently-discussed equation from the formula's other side.

She'd been sending them out too fast: she'd known that. But there was a problem to be solved, she'd kept going anyway, and it wasn't as if she would run out for more than an hour or two, not when a grumbling Davenport sent the unwelcome, 'not my normal intent or inventory' supplies to the tree as soon as his shop opened, all the better to get the unnatural out of the building all the sooner. Twilight being out of scrolls for a little while didn't prevent the palace from sending her a message, and so there was no worst-case scenario. They could live without them for a single morning.

It explained why there had been no warning from her little brother. It was something which was in no way his fault and at any rate, even if he'd had scrolls handy... given what she'd seen in the surgery, no true warning would have been possible.

"It's all right, Spike!" she hastily called down, forcing her hooves to shift towards the ramp as her ears began to twist, listening for the presence of patrons -- and then stopped, as she recognized that he never would have said so much if there had been a single other pony about. Spike knew something about keeping secrets, and had even mastered an aspect which Twilight was still working on: how to comfortably sleep while they remained in his custody.

He lived with so much, and nearly all of it felt as if it was her fault.

"They didn't see anything," Twilight quickly added. Applejack chose practice sites which were shielded from sky view as an automatic matter of course anyway: temporarily losing the majority of the Acres' leaf canopy to winter just narrowed the selection down.

She heard the little exhale. "Okay..." Along with the nerves which were still audibly humming along behind it, and she accelerated a little. "What did the doctors want? They looked really upset. Like the biggest thing in the world was wrong, and they didn't know what they were supposed to do. But if it was really bad, mission bad, and they called for you --"

It was warm in the tree, and that state was reinforced by his concern. Something which, on the good days (and there were more of those now), she understood to rise from the gentle fire of his love.

But he'd just seen her, and everything was banked by the sudden chill of shock.

"T-t-twilight?"

He hardly ever stuttered. Only when something was horribly wrong, when everything was wrong --

"-- you look like -- like you..." Claws squeezed at each other, trying to force out words as his crests wilted and vertical pupils (only strange when she made herself remember that they were) stared up at the top of the ramp. "...saw something bad." And now the sounds were coming faster. "The worst thing, the worst thing you could ever see, and your fur -- Twilight, your fur, your tail --"

There might have been some vomit left in the fur around her mouth: it was possible that she'd missed that much. A hard-lashing tail could certainly disrupt its natural flow.

Or she'd simply seen the worst thing she could ever see, and everything about her reflected it. Perfectly understandable. It was just that she had to explain it to Spike --

-- I don't have time.

He needed to know, and she hated herself for that because it would be one more burden to carry. But she'd thought about how much time it would take to find the words which would mitigate any degree of impact, and then she'd realized that those were minutes she didn't strictly have. There was a clock running, it had started ticking at the moment Celestia had teleported back to the palace, and she had no way of knowing when the alarm was going to go off.

The Princess didn't want her involved. But she was already part of it. You couldn't be a pony if you didn't respond to witnessing what had happened to the stallion through devoting yourself to making sure it never happened again.

When it came to the most personal level, Twilight didn't know what she and her former mentor were to each other any more. But for the most immediate and practical aspects, she had a definition. They were competitors in a race, and any headstart possessed by the small mare was fragile indeed.

"-- Spike!" The word had been jolted out by the impact of her hooves as she sped down the ramp. "I'm going to tell you what happened, I promise, I swear. But I have to go. I have to go right now. It's nothing you did, nothing you could ever do, and I swear I'll tell you what's going on as soon as I get back. But right now, I have to get out of here. Please don't worry --" and she was passing the atlases, automatically swerved a little to avoid The Ridiculously More Than Complete Guide To Mazein before she banked a fetlock into the sturdy volume "-- if you can." Because she knew that making the request would accomplish exactly the opposite. "Please, just look after the library for me until I get back. And --"

"...Twilight?" Helpless. He always sounded so young when he felt helpless, and she hated herself all the more for making him feel that way.

"-- the scrolls came in?"

"We've got a few dozen," he quickly said, because it was something he could say and there was a chance she might stop to take inventory. "Why --"

Heading for the door. "If Celestia shows up, make an excuse, get out of sight, and send me a warning immediately."

It had been necessary to tell him that. It had also been a mistake.

"The Princess is part of this, and -- I have to warn you?" His walking claws were starting to pull in on themselves now, leaving tiny scratches in the floor. "Twilight --"

"Please!"

He was her little brother. He loved her and did everything he could to watch over her, regardless of how much it had cost him over the years. It didn't matter how seldom she'd even noticed his effects within the shadows of Gifted School and Archives: he'd never stopped.

Her protector. Their Protector.

It meant he carried burdens. And every time she added another one, she waited for the small body to break.

"When you get back," he desperately tried to confirm. "You'll tell me. You swear."

Almost at the exit -- and she stopped. "Yes! Please, Spike, please --"

He swallowed.

"-- go."

And thus blessed, she was freed.

How long did she have? There was no way to tell. The Doctors Bear had taken pictures, and there was probably a written inventory somewhere because physicians were the sort of ponies who generally kept backup documentation around...

It all depended on what Celestia did. Would she order the Royal Physicians to complete their examinations and then present her with a full summary? If so, Twilight might have all the time she needed. But the Princess sometimes chafed at the restrictions which her position placed upon her: the little mare understood that now. The oldest alicorn might insist upon going back into the surgery and looking over everything personally. Drawing on centuries of experience to try and form her own conclusions.

(Had this happened before? Would the Princess know? The solution might already be locked within royal memory, and Twilight was doing nothing more than wasting time...)

If so -- if she looked over the pictures and compared them to the contents of the surgery -- she would eventually spot what was missing. She might ask the doctors about whether it had been stored somewhere else, or sent to the palace's own facilities: that would take a few seconds. After that, Twilight couldn't be sure whether the stallions would try to cover for her or, just about as much to the point, if they would be any good at it.

Assume she realizes it's missing and that I have it. What does she do next?

The irony hit her with somewhat more force than the majority of Applejack's launched snow.

...possibly exactly what I'm about to do. She could be waiting there for me. Or she would have gone herself all along, to see if it was possible. She just wouldn't want me to have the information.

For him to have it.

I'm not him.

Lumens from her corona's light scattered across the snow (or what was left after she'd scrubbed around her mouth with some of it), and all she could do with the energy was desperately smooth the visible portions of her fur, try to straighten her mane and tail without benefit of mirror. Unicorns grooming on the run tended to draw attention because the results were frequently comedic: for Twilight to do it had the few ponies she passed on the street turning to stare after her. A mare trying to groom in a hurry was a potential subject of gossip: a Bearer in that kind of rush had the potential to indicate fast-approaching disaster.

A few ponies called after her: some of that came in the form of attempts to check on her, others were trying to get ahead of the news, and her path took her past the toy store and so found its owner once again slamming a sheet over the doll display. But she didn't have time to answer. She didn't have the time to do anything except gallop.

It had to be a gallop. Her mind was spinning, she was trying to think of a thousand things at once while holding off on looking too closely at her memory of the worst thing, and being in a state where her thoughts were effectively spiraling in on each other seemed to be the perfect mindset for calling on the aspect of Twilight Sparkle. Flight was effectively impossible, and when it came to the other form of faster movement -- it was winter. Early in her stay, Twilight had memorized a number of just-about-always empty spots around Ponyville to serve as relatively safe teleport arrival points. Her first winter in Ponyville had subsequently taught her that when you had an outdoor space which was reliably empty, that was where somepony was going to pile the snow. So all she could do was gallop as ponies stared, while Roseluck went into preemptive lockdown and Twilight desperately tried to figure out what she was going to say.

Because the librarian needed the mare who worked at her destination. Needed her for what only she could do. And that would be the last thing the mare would ever want to hear.

You couldn't teleport to the interior of Ponyville's only fix-it shop. Or rather, you could -- but if trying to reach what had once been a safe point near the little building risked recoil, appearing within guaranteed it. The best-case scenario would have Twilight slamming into a wall, the worst involved several very sharp things, and the most likely finale was having most of the ceiling-hung tools raining down on her.

It was, in many ways, a rather typical example of such shops. There wasn't enough room to hang all the tools from the ceiling, so there were going to be some on the walls. Rare oils were carefully stored within enchanted vials, and those went into racks which had a few protective effects of their own. Devices would be scattered about the place, all in varying states of repair, and that would only appear to be a state of scatter until somepony looked.

Individual components would be labeled. Small numbers indicated the order of reassembly. You always got spools of silver wire, there would be platinum somewhere that wasn't spotted immediately because it had to be isolated, and if it felt like moving one excess hoofwidth in any direction was going to collapse most of the shop into the small of your back, then the owner was arguably doing their job.

But there would always be at least one clear path. It would lead directly to the door or, for this shop's owner, a very large window. You didn't teleport into that because it was where normal hoof traffic took place and if things happened to be something other than normal, then nopony would ever want to be in the way. Repairing devices for a living had multiple requirements: the list started with the possession of the appropriate mark and if you couldn't also check off 'fast reflexes', then there was no point in looking at the rest because the remainder of the scroll would already be on fire.

Ratchette possessed the mark for the job. It was something which most of her clients didn't recognize (and she had as much trouble explaining it as she did in vocally defending herself) -- but in a way, that lack of comprehension was reasonable: Twilight hardly expected the laypony to be capable of identifying an Equiportent diagram on sight, let alone tracking the flow route of thaums through the complicated icon. Regardless, the mark said that the shop's owner was capable of doing the work.

The wings said something else.

Ratchette repaired devices. Not wonders, for she had no skills for dealing with the enchanted creations of pegasus magic and referred all such requests to a specialty shop in Canterlot. Devices. And there were things she couldn't do because in all but four known cases, wings meant a lack of horn and so spells could only be fixed when adjustments to the physical aspects of their housing would suffice. She couldn't cast, would never enchant, got stared at by just about every pony who came into the shop for the first time and so many of them trotted right out again...

She repaired devices, as best she could, as a pegasus. Twilight was one of the first ponies the shy mare had met after moving to Ponyville from Cameo Cumulus, because the search for any settled zone which might accept her had led her to the strangest. And Twilight had...

...seen her mark.
Recognized it, because she was a researcher and of course she was going to know what that oh-so-rare icon meant.
Accepted it.

Yes, it was more than a little unusual for a pegasus to manifest a talent for devices, but -- the dual hip-placed proof was right in front of her, and who was Twilight to argue with a mark? It was much more pleasurable to speak with that mark's possessor, because Ratchette had the instinct for devices. Twilight had a similar soul-deep recognition of magic, and it meant they could --

-- well, based on the way it usually worked out, they could mutually send Spike to the pharmacy to refresh the library's ever-dwindling supply of headache medicine. Twilight understood magic, Ratchette devices, and there was some intersection there: enough to let them camp out on the library's warm floor for hours while anypony who made the mistake of getting close enough to get hit by the words wound up reeling away, suffering from severe wounds to the vocabulary. But there was only a little overlap to their skill sets. Twilight had the understanding of devices which came from a devoted amateur who had eventually memorized roughly half of the tinkering-triggered pre-explosion warning signs. Ratchette could study workings as much as she wished, and no amount of reading would ever tell her what it felt like to have a corona play across a horn which didn't exist. Migraines were more or less inevitable.

They spent time with each other. Not as much as Twilight had with the other Bearers, but... hours spent basking in sunlight while fast-moving theories disrupted the gentle flow of dust through the rays. There had been times when each had made an effort to help the other, sometimes without being asked, and... Twilight had come to think of the mechanic as a friend. She worried about the pegasus, because the mare had so much trouble convincing new customers to take a chance at all. And it was more than just concern about whether the business could stay open, because being a repairpony for devices was one of the highest-risk professions in Equestria and even with the mark, Ratchette still didn't have a horn. The mechanic was a notoriously poor flier: one of the very few who could make Fluttershy's anemometer reading look spectacular on comparison alone. No defensive spells, a dubious capacity for speeding towards the exit...

But Ratchette was always careful. There had been no explosions. No showers of light and sprays of randomly-moving objects created by discharged thaums. She never even cut herself on the sharp edges of exposed housings. In fact, the first time she'd ever been injured within the shop had been due to thieves.

It was something which had happened on the same night as Gentle Arrival's presentation. And so by the time the palace contacted her, as one of the few whom the false physician had named directly...

Every hybrid had their own reaction to receiving the news. Denial was common: no, the mark accounted for everything, or they just had a unique trick. It wasn't their fault that their natural magic was so weak, or... that their strongest aspect expressed itself through what might appear to be an unusual outlet. It was the mark...

Some reached acceptance with surprising speed: they'd always known they were strange, and now they had a reason. A few were openly relieved. Others started to take pride in themselves. Any youth going for a freshly-foaled superiority complex usually wound up living in Fancypants' mansion, where the other hybrid children he'd taken in would laugh at them accordingly.

More than a few were looking for a cure. For those, all the palace could do was gently tell them that trying to make somepony into something they weren't was what had led to everything in the first place, try to provide emotional support, and watch to make sure they didn't hurt themselves. Or anypony else.

Some went deeper and darker. As far as Twilight knew, every attempted suicide had been stopped.

Ratchette had been one of the first to be contacted by the palace. (Twilight had read the interview's transcript, and it was so easy to hear the quiet tones of the mechanic's voice: a mare who was almost always careful about what she said, because a single wrong word might send a prospective new client out the door forever.) She had, in exacting terms, told the staff exactly what had happened on that night, when she had been injured within her own shop for the first time. Described the full effect, followed by asking if she was free to go. And upon receiving the affirmative, she had silently trotted out of the room and...

...had never spoken about any of it again.

Twilight had tried. She'd managed to get the mechanic out of the shop all of once, when the Flim-Flam brothers had set up a new con within the Everfree and it had been understood that she'd simply wanted a mechanic's expertise. But when it came to the truest capabilities of Ratchette's talent, a power which Equestria had never previously witnessed -- the pegasus wouldn't talk. She avoided any situation in which that kind of talking might manifest, and so the stockpile of unused headache medicine in the tree was starting to approach its expiration date.

The mechanic went to her shop, took in whatever work was available, carefully trained Apple Bloom in the art of invention, and... that was all. She acted as if nothing in her life had ever changed, perhaps because that existence was strange enough and nothing in her wanted to venture one final hoofstep across the line into freak. She didn't come to the tree. And Twilight could still go to the fix-it shop, she brought in damaged items whenever she could, but one wrong word would see the pegasus vanish into the back room and it was so easy to say the wrong thing...

She needed Ratchette on that winter day, for that which only the hybrid could do.
She also missed her friend.
And so when a rustle of steel-grey feathers announced the start of the retreat, with the lank short-cut copper tail hanging limply as its owner turned away, Twilight's horn ignited. Closing the back room's door before it could ever be reached.

She'd closed it as gently as she could, and yet tools were vibrating on their ceiling hooks. The pegasus' head slowly turned to face her, and she looked at the familiar inward swoops of a Roamer snout. Ponyville generally agreed that Ratchette was pretty: small for a pegasus, without a particularly streamlined form -- but there was something graceful about her features, and more in the care she put into every movement. Looking at Twilight across the mostly-grey flank (because she had been at work for a little while, and there were always stains to be found in the shop) and the strangeness of that mark. Strange at the very beginning, but accepted -- and now stranger still.

The mechanic was seen as pretty. She'd told Twilight that it was something which only held true until ponies got to know her, and then she was just pretty weird.

There had been a tiny, sad laugh at the end of that statement, in the days when they had still talked.

"Please." 'Sorry' was the weakest word in the world. She didn't feel much better about having to rely on the occupant of second place. "Please. Just... listen. Please, Ratchette. Listen, and then if you don't want to -- I'll leave. I..." She swallowed. "...won't come back. I'll just send Spike to drop things off and pick them up again. I just..."

Her head dipped. A half-restored mane did its best to fall across her eyes and came up short.

"...I need to talk, as much as anything else. I need that..."

"You have the Bearers," were the first soft words. "Spike. The palace --"

"-- not the palace. Not today. They might be right behind me --"

The copper eyes blinked.

"...what? Twilight, what did you do?"

There was concern in that, as much as there had been in Spike's words. It gave the little mare hope.

"Let me talk, Ratchette. Please. If you don't want to do it, you don't have to. But..."

Some of the tears had been held back for moons. Others had been trying to overflow the dam for less than an hour.

"...we used to talk. At least... at least tell me we can still talk..."

The mechanic turned. Silently walked past Twilight, with just barely enough space in the narrow aisle to allow the passage of a second small body. It was still something which had their feathers intermesh, and then the the hybrid was clear and trotting for the front door.

Twilight didn't look. Made no attempt to close it, because that would have been imprisonment. Stared down at the oil-marked floor, watching as the tears failed to disperse any of the old stains.

It meant she only heard the inner locks shut.

The small pegasus was shivering where she sat, in the too-cool, nearly-as-crowded back room. Ratchette had absolutely no talent for pegasus techniques: she relied on outside services to maintain the shop's ventilation system. But words carried their own chill, and perhaps no amount of heat ever would have been enough.

She was small for a pegasus: well below the species average for height. Twilight wondered about that, just to have something else to think about for a moment. Unicorns were the smallest of the three pony races: there were some rather significant outliers, but when taken as a whole, they had the least height and bulk. Did gaining unicorn essence affect the adult size of the recipient? Was Snowflake so large in part due to the infusion of earth pony essence within the shadow of his soul?

The librarian didn't know. Just that it was something to think about other than what she'd just relived in the telling.

"Disease?" Because there were going to be questions, and naturally that was the first one. "Something which killed him, and finished the job by..." The copper eyes briefly squeezed shut, and failed to block out inner visions. "...erasing --"

And then those weak wings flared, nearly knocking several small tools off the left-side table. The familiar object on the right was too heavy for such minor jolts.

"-- Twilight, you could be a carrier! You could be spreading this right now --"

"-- no blood to blood contact," the librarian quickly said, because a growing panic on that level had to be stopped immediately. "Nothing riding on the breath when somepony -- can't breathe any more. The covering was enchanted to be sterile and I never touched the body. The doctors had already checked for pollen and particulates. That room is protected, as much as magic can protect anything."

"And if it wasn't enough?" The wings were arching now, seeking room to flap. "If it's something new --"

She was forcing herself to sound calm. She knew it, and wondered just how audible the effort was.

"-- then we can't guess at who it affects," she made herself say. "For all we know, it could only target brown earth pony stallions and if that's the case, Ratchette, there's still Time Turner and Mr. Rich and Caramel, just for starters. There's ponies who need to be protected. Helped. We have to understand what happened, so it never happens again."

"You should have quarantined yourself." Froth was starting to appear in the mechanic's coat: oils shimmered oddly on its surface. "You --"

"-- I'm sorry!" Because she hadn't thought of it, because there was a chance Ratchette was right -- and she'd just galloped through Ponyville. There was guilt to be found for days, if she cared to look, and if Ratchette was right... "But the doctors thought it had something to do with magic. They checked his blood before they came to me, as best they could. There was nothing unusual. The full autopsy is later. Not all diseases spread, Ratchette: Poison Joke requires direct contact with the flower's fresh oils. And if it was breath, then he was alive for a few seconds before he..."

The Princess went into that room.

No. She wouldn't let herself think about that. It was a scream which had to wait for the nightscape.

"...died." And then her head was down again. "You're right. I should have thought about it. I should have at least washed up before I came here." And Ratchette had touched her. If it was a disease, something new, and the spells in the room hadn't stopped it...

...what have I done?

The tears were back, and they never could have been enough.

"Something which makes marks vanish," the pegasus whispered. "And you came to me..."

The wings slowly curled in. Folded into the rest position, and twitched lightly against the mare's sides.

"Maybe I'd be better off."

Twilight's head shot up.

"...what?" Hollow enough to feel as if it was adding a new carving into the wound which the pain had been inflicting on her own soul.

"With the way ponies react to me," the mechanic quietly said. "Always having to explain myself, and never being able to explain enough. Especially now. Maybe blankness is easier. I could always just wear a lot of dresses..."

She was starting to move towards the pegasus, desperate to comfort while not knowing how to do so, when the words didn't exist and she couldn't touch. "Ratchette...!"

Just above a whisper, "...it's a joke."

Twilight froze.

"It's not a funny joke," the mechanic softly added. "It's probably the darkest thing I've ever said out loud. But I've had worse thoughts than those words, especially after -- that night. Things which make those words feel like a joke. Hearing you talk about that stallion was like going up as high as I could into the air and... locking my wings. Letting gravity bring me down, one last time. But it didn't happen then, and it won't happen now. I wish you'd thought about disease, Twilight, and I just hope the doctors are right: that it isn't one, or can't spread from a corpse. But if they're wrong... then it's like being a hybrid."

"I'm --" and the next word would have been 'sorry.' Which made it feel both as if it had been the wrong one, and that any word would have qualified for that lack of status.

The mechanic silently raised a foreleg: stop.

"It already happened," Ratchette told her. "I can't make it not have happened. I can try not to think about it. I can try to pretend everything is normal, at least as far as that's ever applied to me. But this time..."

She slowly shook her head. A small piece of metal shaving fell away from the mane.

"...this time," the mechanic finished, "maybe I shouldn't. There's a hot shower in the back for the bad days, when I need an extra rinse just to leave the shop without putting oil into the snow. You'll use it. I'll use it. We need to have enough time for that, just in case. And if nopony's come -- then I can try."

The librarian's next move forward took place on instinct.

"No nuzzling until after we're both clean."

"...sorry."

They were sitting on opposite sides of the partial rod, and simply having gotten that far didn't quite feel like a triumph. Part of Twilight's mind insisted that the palace was waiting to break in on them until the moment something interesting started to happen.

Ratchette's left forehoof was just barely touching a partial jewel. And on the visible level, that was the only thing which was happening at all.

"I don't recognize the design," the freshly-cleaned mechanic said. "And you didn't have the time to look it up?"

"It's nothing forbidden," Twilight responded. "Not even a really small piece of one, because I've got the outlines memorized. But that's all I know."

The pegasus nodded. "Okay. I..." The slender throat distorted from the pressure of another gulp. "...know we may not have a lot of time. But there's still something I have to say. This is part of a device. It's not broken in a way where I could repair the physical aspects without a diagram. I can... sort of intuit what the rest might have looked like, but I wouldn't want to try rebuilding it just from that."

"You might have to." The tones had been stark.

The mechanic's lips quirked. "Rebuilding a device I don't know anything about, on instinct, Twilight. It's probably not a good way to die."

Twilight forced the shudder back. "I don't want you getting hurt. You know that --"

"Too late," was the too-calm reply. "'Hurt' was guaranteed when I said yes."

Almost frantic again, "Ratchette --"

The pegasus sighed. "-- I'm just... scared, Twilight. I get kind of dark inside when I'm scared." And before the librarian could try to find anything which would fail to help that, "The other thing is... I haven't exactly been experimenting. But I'm still looking at part of a device. It could be like trying to question a pony with a severe head injury. There might not be enough left to answer."

Normally, the image of that kind of injury would have been too horrible to hold for long: on that day, it almost served as a welcome distraction. "I understand."

"So," the mechanic quietly offered, "we're both going to find out what happens the hard way. And if you see something going wrong, Twilight -- you have to get rid of it. Fast. Put a hole in the ceiling with your field if you have to, because that's better than losing everything. Okay?"

She nodded. The pegasus shifted position slightly, tilting her head towards the right and the familiar-yet-strange mechanism which rested there.

It was designed to be mounted on the head and snout. Multiple little dials and switches were within tongue's reach on an inner jaw-proximity surface. Several small clamps, spring-arms, and flexible joints protruded from the forward edge. It was possible to identify several tools and Twilight, who had tried to use the thing all of once, had never figured out exactly what had to be done to all of those dials and switches in order to get any result other than the abrupt removal of all personal nostril hair.

Ratchette had invented the machine: something which didn't have a single thaum anywhere. It allowed her to pick up small objects, put them down again. Twist here, adjust there. Fine manipulators, with the emphasis on fine.

It substituted for the telekinetic manipulations of a field, for weights up to two-tenths of a bale. It let her be a mechanic.

It also made her look as if she had a giant steel spider eating her face, but ponies generally stopped mentioning that after the fourth visit.

"There's a camera on that shelf behind you." Her voice wasn't muffled. The designer had left plenty of room for normal jaw movement.

"That shelf? I don't see --"

"No, the other -- right, that one. It's one of mine. I was just tinkering with it a little. Seeing if I could get the inner reel to advance a little more quickly. I want you to use it. I think the doctors had the right idea there. If anything unusual happens and you've got time, take a picture."

Twilight nodded, and her corona gathered the little machine: something else which operated without magic, as the typical camera wasn't rigged to capture sound. A little off to the side, so it's not blocking my own view, but it's capturing on something close to the same angle. Keep the forward edge of the lens outside a receded portion of the bubble, so my hue doesn't influence the shot: that's what the doctors did... "Ready."

Ratchette turned again, and a small clamp went left. A tiny bottle was carefully taken off the table, smoothly opened by miniature artificial steel limbs.

"What's --"

"-- sterilizer," the mechanic quietly said. "For the device." She poured a little of the fizzing clear liquid onto the metal: drops clung to sundered silver. "And for me."

"For --"

"-- you read the transcript. You know what happens next."

It was Twilight's turn to swallow.

The foam lasted a little longer in the grey fur before fizzing into nothing.

"Saving brown earth ponies," the mechanic said. "Like Caramel."

"Um..."

With only half a smile, "I went out with Caramel. With the usual results for anypony who's ever gone out with him. Are we sure about this?"

"Um...."

"You're right," the mechanic decided. "Mr. Rich is worth it."

A long, jointed length of thin steel moved towards Ratchette's lower left foreleg. More fluid was poured onto it, and sharpness slid forth.

She didn't want to watch, and yet there was something in her which forced Twilight to inspect that foreleg. Looking for the thin lines of scars under the fur, and so she gained a moment of relief when she didn't really see anything: not beyond the normal minor distortions which came from a natural life. As Ratchette had said, the mechanic hadn't exactly been experimenting --

-- until now.

There was a soft hiss of air, drawn between the pegasus' teeth.

Automatically, "What does that feel like?"

"I just cut myself, Twilight. It hurts."

Abashed, "I meant --"

"I know what you meant," Ratchette quietly interrupted. "This is the part you wanted to ask about."

She moved her left foreleg forward, angled the knee. Blood dripped onto the broken device. Spread across the surface like a thin sheen of oil.

Twilight had been bracing herself for the smell of that blood: something which could set off a flight reaction in the weak-willed or for ponies who were already on the edge. She thought she'd been ready for the coppery scent. But it was Ratchette's blood, it was flowing from the wound of a friend, a wound she had asked to see inflicted, and...

...there was something strange about that scent. Still copper at the base, like just about all blood. It was just... more coppery than she was used to.

It looked like normal blood. It flowed, saturated fur before reaching the hoof. But that slight strengthening for one aspect of the scent suggested the mechanic was bleeding metal.

She looked away from the wound. Focused on the broken rod, and so saw the moment when one drawn-out end of sundered silver wire sparked.

"Accessing."

Twilight's head shot up.

It had been Ratchette's voice. Exactly Ratchette's voice, except for the flat intonations and total loss of the west coast accent and --

-- the pegasus' eyes were copper, matching the natural shades of her mane and tail. For hue, Ratchette's colors bordered on the metallic: she simply lacked the reflective aspect which qualified the true.

The irises were copper: they had always been so. They were now also slightly larger.

The metal was spreading into the whites of Ratchette's eyes, and did so at the same moment glow flashed into existence at floor level.

Twilight looked, and the attempt to keep her body from pulling back was channeled into her field, setting off the camera.

Hybrids possessed the essence of two pony races. It changed their magic, and the new power found myriad ways of manifesting. Ratchette was one of the earliest hybrids, from that part of the -- 'experiment' fouled the very mind -- when Gentle Arrival hadn't been sure about what the ratios were. The mechanic was pegasus mostly in form: the essence might have been almost entirely unicorn. But she had no horn.

The device was now glowing with the copper hue of a normally-sparking field because for Ratchette, the power was in her blood.

"Inquiry: function?" Ratchette tonelessly asked the air as her eyes flushed with metal. "Charge level recognized. Authorization. Function?"

Twilight had wanted to see it. Now she just wanted it to stop.

"Inquiry: function? Channels disrupted. Flow potentially active." Almost all of the white was gone. "Charge level recognized. Inquiry --"

And then those eyes went wide.

"Abort!"

The rod flickered, and Twilight's field triggered the camera at the moment the jewels flickered turquoise, just before that color burst through the copper and the broken device vanished --

-- reappeared under the table, some six hoofwidths to the right and well ahead of the little alicorn's desperate scream.

Ratchette's head spontaneously shook, and the movement seemed to send white racing in from the edges of her eyes as the rod went dually dark.

"...we almost lost it," the hybrid whispered. "I couldn't stop it from triggering, but I managed to make sure it used the lowest possible amount of energy. We never would have seen it again..."

Desperation had become the whole of her day, and now it was the desperation of not knowing how to help a friend. "Ratchette? Ratchette, please, talk to me --"

"-- it teleports. You saw that. I think there's a secondary component outside of the missing part, something protective. It's probably supposed to work as a conjunctive unit with another device. But by itself, it still teleports, Twilight. If somepony is in physical contact, then it also teleports whoever activates it, and that could potentially be anyone. Right now..." The pegasus took a deep, shuddering breath: individual feathers vibrated out of turn. "...there's a little under one standard charge left. And it's meant as something which creates round trips: I got that much. If I triggered that thing, it would go back to its starting point, or as close as it could come. I think it would probably fall short: I can't say by how much -- but there's enough left of the charge to get most of the way. There just isn't enough left of the device to try charging it up to full capacity. You'd destroy it. Repairing, or even jury-rigging... I'm not sure that's possible without a better understanding of the construction and workings. And as it is -- one transport. Discharged, empty, and gone."

"There's no spell which tracks teleportation," emerged as both lecture and self-defense. "The best I could do was attach myself to its effect. Join my own efforts to the device and make myself come out where it went. And I'd have to learn that spell."

"Could you escort?"

Twilight quickly nodded, because it had been a normal question and just as importantly, had emerged from a normal voice. "I could bring other ponies up to my limit and since something else is making the path through, my own maximum distance wouldn't apply. But when I can't be sure where we'd wind up --"

Stopped, as her wing joints loosened and her half-restored tail twitched.

"That thing allowed a pony to teleport."

Ratchette nodded.

"Devices which enable teleportation," Twilight softly said, "are the realm of theory. You need a guiding mind to access the between. Sapience. I know somepony who's been working on something which projects and summons small objects, but she has to be close and she directs the path herself. A device would never be able to --"

"It let his mind guide it. Just now, mine."

She knew the next words would be a lie, and spoke them simply to gain what turned out to be a complete lack of comfort.

"I thought somepony had to have found some way of pushing him through while remaining behind. For a device to do it, to let him manage teleportation -- that's impossible."

Ratchette shook her head once, hard. The steel mask fell away with a clunk, and normal copper eyes focused on terrified purple.

"It's like that poor stallion's mark," the hybrid quietly, unstoppably countered, "Like me just existing, Twilight. Anything which has already happened... was possible."

Sysop

She was trying not to kill their chances.

Twilight had felt that the camera's pictures needed to be developed at the tree. She still didn't know just how much time she had before Celestia would do something, and the library had far more security spells in play than the fix-it shop.

(She'd also tried to pay Ratchette for the half-used film roll, just before she'd remembered the total lack of bits in her saddlebags. The flustering apologies had been slightly more awkward than the mechanic's insistence that she didn't need the compensation for something so minor, and... at least that was another way in which they were speaking again, at least for now. One understood workings, the other fixed devices, and it felt as if neither was entirely sure how to go about repairing a relationship.)

So she'd brought the film home, because there was a seldom-used darkroom in one corner of the basement: isolated from the rest of the lab by carefully-hung thick fabric curtains, which included a dense, dark drape over the top. The appropriate chemicals were carefully stocked, occasionally applied -- and none of that had anything to do with Twilight, because photography had never been her hobby. She only took pictures when the need or whim arose and when that happened, she had to borrow a camera from the closest available source.

The closest available source usually responded to such requests with half-muffled grumbling, a frustrated repetitive drumming of claw tips against (and partially into) the nearest surface, and a muttered request for his sister to at least pay for replacing the film this time because when it came to fair compensation for supplies used, siblings just about always wound up on the wrong end of the reins.

Twilight only understood photography as a chemical reaction, and that just barely. Spike took pictures for the fun of it, and developed his own shots at home. It meant he ran the darkroom and Twilight, who usually recognized her unwelcome tendencies towards control two seconds after it was already too late, had seen this particular roll of film as being so important that she had to go through the entire process herself.

Spike had reminded her that she didn't know how to develop pictures. She'd countered that he could stay just outside the curtain and talk her through it.

The next too-calm question had been about how she planned to manipulate everything involved. A rather huffy librarian had gestured her left forehoof in the general direction of her horn, and that had been when Spike, using the excessive politeness exclusively reserved for when an older sibling had just been proven as an idiot, had told her exactly why the area was called a darkroom.

The basement lights had been temporarily covered with a special semi-translucent paper: something which gave the minimal remaining illumination a deep amber hue, stealing color from everything it touched. The little dragon was hard at work on the other side of the thick curtain. She could hear the sounds of bottles being opened and closed, strange fluids splashing just a little as they were poured into shallow trays. There was also a rather distinctive stink of vinegar.

She could hear all of that because Spike had told her that if her lit horn poked through the curtains to see how things were going, the instant answer would be 'Badly'.

The little mare knew he was capable. On the emotional and intellectual level, she understood that the pictures were pressed between solid hooves -- in good hands. But somewhere deep within a complex she could never quite manage to extract or solve, a frustrated desire to fully manage everything within her own extremely limited domain was muttering to itself a lot.

He was developing the pictures for her and because she'd made a promise, she'd had to tell him all of the why.

"How's it going?" Which, on that muttering level, had started out as How long is this going to take?

Unfortunately, a sapient who'd literally known her all his life spoke fluent Twilight. "It's going to be a while."

Her forehooves scraped against the basement floor: instinct stopped the tail lash just before it would have gotten near one of the more important vials. "How long is 'a while'?"

"Well..." A somewhat more solid tail momentarily poked against the curtains, doing so at a visibly-greater height than usual: he was using a stool. "The fastest speed-developing process takes about eleven minutes."

Sibling instincts, instantly suspicious about the presence of the qualifier, eventually realized they had no choice but to proceed directly into the trap. "So about eleven minutes. Minus what's already gone by."

"No," declared the voice of well-earned (if poorly-timed) satisfaction. "Because these aren't the chemicals used for that. So it's going to take 'a while', Twilight."

The forehooves were now rotating against the wood. Back and forth. She had to be careful about that. She knew how easy it was to wear away a groove. "Could I go out and get the chemicals now? Start applying them --"

"-- not after I've already started the soak," her brother calmly said. "And I didn't ask you to get them in the first place because it would take something Ponyville doesn't have: a dedicated photography shop. Mr. Rich only carries the general stuff unless somepony asks him to place a special order. By the time you got back from Canterlot, if the store in the Heart even had some in stock -- it's a lot of time, Twilight. So I just went with what we had."

She tried to glare at the curtain, and found both fabric and the weight of cloying amber stopping her. "So why don't we have the speed chemicals in the first place?"

Calmly, "Because I'm the photographer. Not you."

"And?"

Numbers emerged. They represented a placid quotation of an off-the-books library assistant's salary right down to the last pitiful smidgen, and they had been waiting for their chance for a very long time.

"...oh," Twilight eventually said, some time after the final shameful decimal had stopped ringing in her now-flattened ears.

"Right."

"...I need to give you a raise."

The curtains, having already made their point, remained completely still in smug satisfaction for quite some time.

Eventually, Twilight risked a tentative "...so what do you think? You never really said anything after I filled you in." In part because she'd placed a special emphasis on the need to start developing the pictures immediately, just so they'd have that much more evidence to secure in the event of Princess. After one additional, extremely necessary source of delay had been dealt with, that need had sent them both down the ramp while turning the Temporarily Closed sign on the library doors into more of a long-term threat (although given the various hazards of Bearer life, Twilight suspected the settled zone was more surprised when she got a full workday in), and most of the light covering had taken place in relative, rather awkward silence.

That state continued for a few extra seconds.

Finally, "I know it's bad, and --" she just could hear him swallow "-- I'm scared for you, and Ratchette, and everypony who might have gotten involved. Who could get sick, if it is a disease. I'm scared for everypony, but... I don't know what to do. I don't have any ideas about what's happening. It could be a disease, and I hope it isn't. If it's magic, then it might be the sort of thing which happens just one time, and -- I already know you're going to look for it, just to make sure it's one time, and --"

This time, the tail awkwardly skidded against the fabric, even as she heard his walking claws clench against the stool.

"-- I'm afraid it's going to be twice."

"We'll be careful, Spike." There were ways in which she was still new to reassuring, and she seldom felt as if she was any good at it. "You know we will."

"It's hard to be careful when you don't know what to be careful about."

More splashing. She heard things slide in and out of trays.

"I could have done this," she muttered in self-defense. "I just needed the right tools --"

"-- it takes practice. You could send drops flying in the wrong direction, and it's not good to have the stuff that close to your mouth."

"I can hear you back there. You're doing it all with your bare hands --"

"-- scales," the little dragon stated. "Lava-proof. Also photo-chemical proof. You aren't."

And she waited.

"How long does it take to get express mail back from Canterlot?" Twilight finally asked.

"I'm not sure it's even reached the doctors yet," Spike admitted.

"It's been --"

"-- private delivery," he reminded her. "That's what you told Dulci."

She was now trying not to pace. She wasn't used to the postal system, not when it came to her own correspondence. It was fine for things like books and library supplies and the occasional piece of equipment which needed special management. But when it came to sending letters, she didn't use it. Additionally, both of her most frequent recipients had their own means of getting speedy replies back to her.

Twilight wasn't used to waiting for mail any more, and there were ways in which she wanted to blame Spike for that. There had been the option to contact the Royal Physicians via the most expedient route -- but the fastest means of communication was also an extremely visible one. There was no way to tell where the doctors would be when the scroll arrived, or who might wind up in a position to see it happen. To intercept.

It had left them with exactly one option. Something which might still be looking for a good location to hover, waiting to catch the unicorns alone. And even that might not work.

She sighed.

"At least we've got the tree's security spells," Twilight decided, because it had been one of the worst days of her life and any source of comfort was a welcome one. "If Celestia does show up..."

Silence for a moment.

"Twilight?"

"I mean, it's not as if she couldn't break a lockdown." I didn't even get to test the corpse for any potential bounce effect: did anypony else get to that...? "But she wouldn't want to make it too visible, because anypony passing by would see her outside the library and trying to break a lockdown." Not without satisfaction, "I bet she wouldn't want that much attention."

"She could always say she heard about a problem and was trying to reach you," her little brother quickly broke in. "Twilight, about the tree's spells --"

"-- and even then, we should get a few seconds. If we're just hiding things, stuff that's small..." She nodded to herself with open pride, because nopony was looking (and probably wouldn't have been able to recognize the emotion within amber anyway) and having solved the problem entitled her to a moment of pride. "Got it. The Elements' case. We'll just slip the pictures and the rod fragment under the padding. Even if she thinks of it, she'll have some trouble getting in there!"

This silence was longer.

"Twilight?" Spike repeated, and did so with something less than the joy she would have expected to arise in the wake of such brilliance.

A little too carefully, "...what?"

"There's a lot of security spells on the tree. And the case."

"I know! That's what makes it perfect --"

"-- more than you know how to cast."

A little huffily, "I couldn't learn that many workings that fast. It was better to have experts do it, especially when you consider just what we're trying to protect. And it's not as if it cost anything."

"Because," her little brother calmly said, "most of our protective workings were provided by the palace."

Her mouth opened.

"I think Princess Celestia cast a few herself," Spike patiently added. "I know it mostly looked like she was supervising the crew. But I did see her horn lit a few times, when nothing was moving. I think she was adding a few personal touches."

Twilight's tongue probed at the back of her teeth, searching for stuck words.

"Or placing backdoor exceptions for herself," considered the other sapient who'd been effectively through a full Gifted School education. "Since you have to be there when the spells are initially cast in order to do that, and she might have decided there could be some reason for her to get at the Elements --"

"-- Spike?" Twilight finally located.

He stopped. Listened.

"You're right. I love you. I'll try to think of something else. I also need to sleep tonight. So for the next two minutes, please shut up."

She couldn't sleep.

Twilight had spent the entire day waiting for the sound of approaching hooves. Very large, singularly heavy hooves. She'd never really thought about the sound of that tread before, she was convinced she could pick it out of a crowd if there was any surface available to produce sound at all and whenever she closed her eyes, she started to hear it.

There had been one bad moment during the picture developing process: a pounding at the library door. It had led Spike to stall out the whole thing (which had fortunately been at a point where it could be stalled), scrambling to find some level of security for everything while she'd raced up the ramp to find --

-- Mr. Flankington.

Because she'd passed the restaurateur during her gallop, he'd seen just how upset she was, and he'd just wanted to check on her.

...oh. That was very kind of him, but --

-- and as long as he was there, he wanted to pay his late fees. Something which also applied to the seven ponies who were in line behind him. If it would make her feel any better...

Twilight hadn't known it was possible to look that upset. It almost made her wish for a picture of her exact facial configuration from the gallop, if only to find out if it was possible to duplicate it. Given the spontaneous offering of bits (which she had collected with her field, making sure not to make any physical contact or breathe in anypony's direction), 'weaponize' also seemed to be a possibility...

The process had been interrupted. It could be resumed -- but some things needed to dry, others had gone inert, and it meant Spike couldn't try again until after some time had passed and Barnyard Bargains had opened. (When it came to getting into the store early, Twilight couldn't go claiming Bearer emergency without actually having one: for the same reason, Royal Vouchers were currently off-limits.) So she'd needed to hide the half-finished product, and...

She'd been proud of herself, initially. Just to have thought of 'burial' as an option at all, because ponies weren't natural diggers and so unicorns generally didn't think of that. And putting a sealed container deep into the ground was good practice for her meager skills: something which would certainly make Applejack happy...

Then she'd remembered that truespeech left its own signature. An echo. Something which could be detected.
Also that the Princesses had originally been earth ponies.

Twilight couldn't sleep. (Unlike Spike, whose worn-out little body had settled into a steady rhythm of breathing within minutes of reaching the basket.) Part of that was from waiting for those hoofsteps. A significant remainder kept thinking about the possibility of disease. However, some small degree of blame was due to the uneven, neck-cricking violation of support created by the box under her pillow.

She couldn't sleep, and so she immediately looked up at the sound of a normal-sized hoof rapping on the Moon-lit balcony door.

The hovering grey pegasus quietly looked at her through the glass, at least from one side of her head. The other eye was... doing something which Twilight had trained herself not to look at. Spike and Dulcinea (or Derpy, or Ditzy, or any one of the dozen other insulting nicknames which had been created by frustrated Ponyville residents) got along, and that relationship had made Twilight examine the single mother a little more closely, trying to see what her brother respected in the mare. It had taken some time to manage the feat, joined to the effort required to push aside the memory of multiple impacts -- but in time, Twilight had recognized the presence of a social mask.

She didn't fully understand why the pegasus wanted to seem clumsy. Nothing in her seemed to be capable of comprehending why anypony would ever wish to come across as stupid. But Dulci looked out for Spike, and that meant Twilight tried not to say anything about it. Not until she could find the right thing to say, and --

-- it had been a few years. There were times when words just never came.

The little mare carefully got out of bed, picked out near-silent hoofsteps until she reached the balcony door. Temporarily negated the security spells with a surge of corona -- something Spike thankfully slept through -- then opened it with an additional flicker of field. Staying a little further back than usual.

"Sorry," Dulci whispered. (The postpony's natural voice was a pleasant-sounding one, something which almost caressed the ears, and it made the choice of the public half-octave drop into the signature sound of the willful fool all the stranger.) "I wound up having to wait until they were heading home, and that was well after their normal hours. Then I had to hold on the reply. And they sterilized everything, like you asked. For whatever reason."

"So it was just about the worst-case." The apologetic tone now arose on instinct, for whatever that was worth. "I'm --"

"-- you paid for the foalsitter, in advance, just in case," Dulci cut in. "And I took the job on my day off, during my own hours, knowing that. There's nothing to apologize for."

One golden eye glanced past Twilight's left flank. Searching for a bed-hidden basket.

"How is he?"

"Tired," Twilight understated. "It was... a long day."

"Dinky's hoping he can come by next week. Tell him that?"

Twilight nodded. Dulci's head tilted back towards her saddlebags, extracted the envelope: one more flare of corona took custody.

"I've got to get to my kid," the pegasus said. "Tuck her in. Or wake her up for a second so she'll know I'm home, then tuck her in again. Good night."

Wings flared, and the postpony was gone.

Twilight quietly closed the door again, shivered a little because the tree's insulating techniques needed tending. And because she was holding the words she had feared, there was every chance that she was now in custody for a pronouncement of doom, she'd begged Dulci to do everything at a distance and hadn't been able to explain why...

Dulci, who had a daughter.

I shouldn't have sent her.
I should have gone to Canterlot myself.
I just keep making things worse...

The little mare silently made her way down the ramp, holding back the half-sob until it was truly needed. The moment when she found out just how much damage she had truly done.

She waited until she was at her desk, because it felt appropriate to be there at the last. Opened the envelope --

-- they don't think it's a disease.

They understand why I'm scared -- they realized I'm scared, I tried to keep everything neutral... but they did every test they know. If it is a disease, it's one they can't find, which is transmitted by a means they can't identify. They accept that such things could exist, but most of them would need a living carrier. The stallion had been dead for too long by the time they reached him.

And if they're wrong --

-- he was carried through the palace.

Abjura just about fell on him.

They were in the surgery with the body. They scrubbed up before they came to me, but the corpse had been carried through the palace and...

They don't think it's a disease, not one which spreads by any means they know of. Ninety-five percent sure. There are diseases which affect magic, like Rhynorn's Flu. But nothing affects the mark. At most, there's a false one for a while and if you catch that after manifest, your own talent keeps going. It's just... harder to reach, because there can be a lot in the way.

But it's possible that they're wrong, and they carried him through the palace because they had no reason to suspect disease, not when internal bleeding was such a visible cause of death.

They think we're safe. There haven't been any symptoms. There's some sort of special protective gear they can use from now on, but it's custom-fitted and it might be impossible to get one made for me. They... want me to just live normally, until they contact me again. Maybe keep a little extra distance, but... they'll let me know if they start feeling anything, and I have to do the same for them.

But if they're wrong... then they need Magic more than ever. Because ponies galloped past him as he fell in the street, and ponies breathed the air around him, and ponies lifted the body, and...

...if it's a disease, something which spreads more easily than anything which exists... then it's too late. The vectors are on the gallop and wing alike.

They carried the corpse through the palace...

She knew they had felt the fear in her words. The loathing which the physicians felt towards their own unknowing actions radiated from the paper.

Live normally.
How?

And after the tears produced by that thought had worn her out, she went back to bed.

The first lie she told herself upon waking for the fifth time was that she didn't remember any of the dreams.

Live normally...

It felt as if everything normal had been placed behind a temporal line. There was the world which had existed before the doctors had arrived at the Acres, and now there was everything which came after.

In the new world, well before Sun was due to be raised at the start of an overcast day and Twilight was still waiting for the one who performed that act to appear on the horizon... in that world, she placed some of the box's contents in the darkroom to await Spike's attentions. She made sure to eat something, and managed to keep most of it down. There was winter clothing to don before confronting the dark of the Ponyville which waited outside the door.

Because in the old world, she had agreed to a training session with Applejack.

The first shouted warning came when the farmer was still twenty body lengths away, and Twilight conducted just about the whole of the briefing from that distance. The exceptions came when the fear sent her hooves cantering in reverse, and Applejack kept trying to bring it back to twenty body lengths. Twilight had been grateful for the intervening trees of the Acres, because this was something unknown and for all anypony might eventually work out, bark could potentially absorb the effects. The earth pony had more immediate concerns regarding the wood, and just about all of them concerned what it was doing to the local acoustics.

But the farmer listened. It didn't take all that long before each new partial approach had to be preceded by getting powerful hindquarters out of the gap which the latest abrupt drop had placed in the snow, and Twilight knew the nightmares had been passed on at the instant the hat slipped.

"So I don't know what I can do," she desperately projected. "What anypony can do. I'm sorry for telling you, I wish I never had to tell anypony, but you were expecting me. You were there for the start of it. Spike's asleep, I had to tell you, and -- you're not downwind. We didn't touch. If it's any kind of disease at all, you're safe. I'm sorry..."

Applejack took a deep, slow breath. Muscles shifted under rising Sun.

"Gonna get a little closer, Twi."

Instantly, "You can't --"

"-- it's like y'said. Ain't downwind. We're not touchin'. No disease could go that far between ponies without magic an' if it's magic, it's too late anyway." The hat shifted a little more, shading green eyes. "An' before y'say anythin' 'cause Ah can see you windin' up for it, might as well call it too late when the doctors touched down. Ah was there, an' Ah went inside, to mah family, an'... wouldn't have been you, Twi. Far as Ah'm concerned, Ah'd like t' bet on their odds. Ninety-five percent's enough to spit a smidgen down. But if'fin they're wrong -- we can nuzzle, an' sit next t' each other with our fur meshing. Keep each other warm. We can touch as much as y'might need it, 'cause..."

The powerful body shuddered.

"...if'fin y'wanna take it that far -- then it's too late for me already, ain't it? So it's gonna be like when we all had the crumps at the same time, except for Pinkie 'cause she's the one who gave it t' us. We'd both be sick. Might as well be sick together. An' if it's a disease of magic, then at least Ah know who Ah trust t' find a cure."

And then the little mare could barely see through the glare of Sun off snow and through tears.

"Applejack..." Her wings didn't seem to know what to do with themselves again. They kept almost curving forward, and then pulling back. Over and over.

The smile which shifted the orange fur was forced. It was also honest.

"Stay there," her friend gently offered. "Ah'll come t' you."

And then they were trotting together.

"Ah talked t' Miranda the other day, 'bout the search for Scootaloo's parents," the farmer stated as they moved towards the well-spaced saplings for what would eventually be Eastern Red Giants. "She was talkin' about how we might have t' wait for somepony t' slip up. An' then -- she started talkin' 'bout serial killers."

Twilight blinked. "What's a --"

"-- somepony who makes murder into a cross between game an' habit," Applejack quickly said. "Ain't been many in Equestria. None this generation, an' some nations don't see any. But y'get a few in the rest of the world. Miranda does a lot of readin', as long as the subject's crime. So she was sayin' that with serial killers, y'can get in a weird position. Ain't enough evidence t' catch one. Checked all the places where they killed, an' there's no clues to follow. Y'need t' stop them. An' there's times when the best hope for that --" the earth pony's tail twitched "-- is t' wait for them t' kill again -- let me finish, Twi. Each murder is someone gone forever: Ah know that. But it's also a chance for the killer t' slip up."

She didn't want to picture it. She couldn't seem to stop.

"Maybe they stop killin' for whatever reason," the farmer added. "Maybe they jus' die themselves, an' no one ever finds out that the carpenter with the big funeral was usin' some non-standard stuff for the stains. It's better, t' have the deaths end. But when it happens that way -- the mystery ain't solved. An' the fear doesn't go away, 'cause maybe it'll happen again -- but at least there's nopony dyin'."

"But if there's one more death," Twilight slowly tried, hating the taste of the words on her tongue, feeling as if they were dirtying the snow, "there's another chance for clues. I can understand it when I look at the whole thing as research, Applejack. But there's still another corpse. And there's no guarantee that one more is going to be enough."

"Ah know," was the simple response. "But it's how Ah was thinkin' of it. That if the stallion's the only one, an' you never solve it -- then at least he's the only one. Ah'll feel horrible for him, an' maybe Ah'll be scared sometimes, when Ah think 'bout it happenin' t' me or anypony Ah love. But he'd be it. The mystery's gonna grate, the fear hangs around... but that could fade. An' if what it takes t' solve it is more ponies havin' it happen..."

There was something about a shudder, when it came off a body that strong. It felt as if the very air had been told to retreat in fear.

"Miranda said a few police departments try t' figure out who the perfect victim is, an' have one of their officers pretend t' be it. Lure the killer in." The dark chuckle made its own impact in the snow. "Really hopin' it don't get that far."

"...yeah," was all she had. "But I don't think you can create a perfect victim for a disease."

"Y'could for a spell."

"Which presumes a caster. Something deliberate. If it's similar to the effects we know -- something like --" and she hesitated before pressing on, because the first recognition was that she was about to bring back a very bad memory for her friend, and the second said the farmer wasn't going to let her get away with part of a sentence. "-- Cutie Pox..."

It was a term which had earned its own, dual shudder.

"But it ain't that," Applejack hastily put in. "We looked up that one together, after it was over. Researched a little deeper, t' make sure we knew how t' spot it again." The farmer executed a mobile shrug. "Even found a second cure."

"Which was a once in a lifetime event," Twilight countered. "Literally."

The farmer nodded. There was a second means to beat the disease, and it had two major requirements. To start with, under normal circumstances, the victim would have to be a child: late adolescence at the typical worst. But they wouldn't have their own mark: just the false ones inflicted by the disease. And if they could fight through the constant impulses to perform, if they could somehow tap into the core of themselves at just the right moment...

Manifest a real mark, and every false one would be banished. The disease would effectively be burned out of the pony's body by the power of the True Surge, and it would never return. It was a guaranteed cure and in all of recorded history, it had happened exactly twice.

"But it wasn't a pox death," Applejack considered. "Y'showed me how those go."

Reluctantly, "Exhaustion." The victim had to perform -- and they would do so until the moment they stopped moving forever. "And the false marks start to fade a little before death. When there's nothing left to draw on, I guess --"

The little mare stopped moving.

The earth pony, who'd already been holding back in order to let her friend readily match the pace, only needed a single hoofstep to notice. "Twi?"

Who was standing stock-still, but for a certain quivering in exposed feathers.

"...the hoop," the librarian softly reviewed. "The plates. The dancing. Even the lions. Whatever Apple Bloom did while she had the Cutie Pox worked, as long as the image was present..."

"Ah was there, Twi. Ah --" and the sigh was exceptionally small "-- felt so proud of her at the start, even when the talent wasn't what Ah'd expected. Ah kept hopin' she knew that..."

But the thought would not be deterred.

"Applejack -- how does a false mark create a real talent?"

And then they were staring at each other.

"It was real," the librarian carefully continued. "Every tenth-bit of it, for as long as it lasted. She balanced the plates, she kept the beat. Cutie Pox forced her to keep doing all of it, but she could do all of it. What is Cutie Pox? What kind of disease could grant real skills?"

Her wings flared.

"I've got to get back to the tree. I have to --"

"-- y'have t' stay here," the farmer firmly said.

Frantically, "-- research this! Somepony needs to --"

"-- wanna bet somepony already did? Y'cant be the first t' that thought, Twi, not as long as the Pox has been around. Even with the break between cases, somepony must've worked it out. Right now --"

"-- the thought, but not the answer! We've got new workings, devices nopony had probably even dreamed of back then! Maybe it relates --"

"-- an' maybe," Applejack stated, "y'forgot that y'owe me a lesson."

"This could be crucial --"

The right foreleg came up. Went back down.

Twilight didn't talk for a few seconds. Keeping her balance against the light rumbling which came from the very world took priority.

"An' now you're listenin'," Applejack solidly resumed. "That poor stallion's dead, Twi. Ah wish he wasn't, an' Ah hope y'make sure nopony ever dies like that again. But we're alive. Both of us feel fine. Ah want you for the full duration, 'cause you're still upset. Plenty of reasons t' feel that way, scary ones. But it means Ah want t' keep an eye on you, long as Ah can. For that matter, since we can be around each other without worry, Ah might follow you back t' the tree. 'cause it's winter, Ah'm a little more free, an'..." The green eyes closed. "...maybe Ah don't want t' face mah family right now. Not while Ah'm this scared mahself."

The ground had stopped vibrating. The rope loops which bound the thick blonde mane and tail continued to tremble.

"So stay with me a while," her friend softly asked. "Please. An' then Ah'll stay with you. 'cause maybe fear's a little easier when y'split it up. Okay?"

They were both sick, or they were both safe.

Either way, the next thing Twilight did was the right one.

"Okay." A little muffled, when spoken against the warmth of orange fur.

They continued to nuzzle for a while. And then they trotted on, because the lesson awaited.

So did the snow. Too much of it, especially after what had happened the previous morning, and wide purple eyes stared at the fresh, smooth, cold white coating with increasing dismay.

"Rainbow," Twilight muttered.

"Yep," Applejack grinned. "Asked her t' replenish the ammo. Mare can put in the work when she's got a mind to." Wryly, "Which ain't often, but Ah guess the thought of a repeat was jus' too good t' pass up. Get in position, Twi."

It was the same semi-clearing as yesterday. This was a section of the Acres well away from the standard air paths, where long branches overhead provided some protection from overhead sightings -- but needed to stretch across a fairly significant distance to do so: there were only a few trunks scattered within the center. It meant there was very little to get in the way during targeting, especially when Twilight was still trying to figure out how to sing and dodge at the same time.

"Snowball fight," the little mare dismally recalled. "Again."

"Well, snow slab," Applejack corrected. "It's a lot harder t' put spheres together, especially the way Ah want you t' try it. Again."

"Quick beats," Twilight miserably repeated. "A fast tempo. Snow in my fur. In my feathers. It's worse in the feathers. I should talk to Rainbow about that." While also talking to her about the fresh coating of snow. And by 'talking,' Twilight was vaguely aware that she actually meant 'field-slinging most of it at a very mobile target.'

"Which y'can do later. Get in position."

Slim legs picked out a dejected path to the other side of the partial gap.

"Okay," Applejack declared once Twilight was in position, and it wasn't a lie because it was okay for the earth pony. "Get into me mode, an' then Ah'll aim the first one away from you. Jus' want you t' pick up on what the chords are like. Listen close. Y'got me?"

"Yes. Just -- give me some time, Applejack." It wasn't quite a plea. "I'm... not exactly centered right now."

The farmer's features softened.

"Gotta do it at speed, Twi. In all sorts of conditions --" and just ahead of the protest "-- but today of all days, Ah understand. Take your time. I'm gonna hold a note for you, jus' so you'll know when y'get there."

She concentrated. Pushed back intrusive thoughts over and over, tried to force the steam of a false mark's evaporation away from her heart for just long enough...

It took several attempts, and she only knew she'd truly succeeded when she felt the first bars from the oboe resounding within her soul.

As much as anything else, it was the music which could push Twilight away from her earth pony aspect. It was like looking too closely at heat patterns when she was trying to invoke Rainbow: she started to think about what she was seeing, which turned into trying to analyze it -- and then she was in the snow. Or, earlier in her training, the leaves.

She'd initially thought the leaves were the worst, because they stained fur and sometimes you got bugs crawling up to see what all the fuss was about. There had been a brief attempt to find some way of banning the Running, because leaves which stayed on the trees were clearly an improvement. But then Applejack had taught her about leaf mulch, and how some degree of decay was essential for the world.

Leaves were necessary. She wasn't sure about snow.

There was snow on the ground. But just beneath that was music, and she could hear the oboe which characterized Applejack's presence within the orchestra. And there was more than that: a sort of echoing murmur. The lingering aural residue of every possible instrument invented by all of the species, plus a few which might only exist as expressions of the heart.

That was the Cornucopia Effect. A song of love sung to the land itself. Always present whenever earth ponies were about, never fully fading. The soundtrack for the beat of the civilized world.

"Ah'm --" Twilight stopped. The accent sometimes intruded when she was trying to call on Applejack's essence, and the farmer found it a little too amusing. "I'm there. I can hear you..."

"Yeah," her friend bemusedly stated. "That was the second sign. Okay. So it's like last time: Ah did some of the work for you. They're jus' under the surface. Y'don't gotta bring 'em up. Jus' have to move 'em, when y' need to. Like this --"

A single sharp note, and something beneath the snow sprang up and forward, pushed at a speed and angle which launched everything which had been covering it --

-- she trusted her friend, and did so all the more because an echo of that honesty was sounding within her. But the previous lesson had been a cold one, and it took an effort to prevent herself from twitching when the snow slammed into the trunk on her right.

"Y'heard?"

She nodded.

"Good. Aim one away from me, jus' t' show me that you've got the bar. An' then we'll go for each other --"

-- which was when they heard the flapping of wings.

It triggered the same fear in each of them: spotted, caught, shattered, and it was more than enough to kick Twilight out of the chorus as four eyes desperately searched the overcast sky --

-- no, we're safe, at least when it comes to ponies. It could be a monster, but that's too loud for a pegasus. The wings would have to be --

-- huge...

And slowly, oh so slowly, the Princess descended from the sky.

It took Twilight a moment to realize that there was no attempt at drama behind the lack of speed in that descent. The Princess was the largest pony known to exist, branches criss-crossed the clearing, and the slow approach was necessary to find any level of gap which would allow that body to slip through. It simply felt as if the encounter was being stretched out, at the start of a chase for which the world would never be large enough to allow any place to run.

She knows.
If I teleport away from her, she'll know that I know.
...she probably already knows that.
I could take Applejack with me, but that'll make her so sick...
She might have been to the tree already. She might have talked to Spike. I brought the rod with me just in case, but the pictures were still there. She could have gone to Ratchette. She could have done anything...
Wait. Just -- wait. Wait until she says something.

She didn't know why she was waiting. She couldn't avoid breaking what was already broken.

Applejack was frozen. Neither Bearer could move. And the Princess carefully descended, until the moment when she curled her wings in so that she simply dropped through the only available gap.

The world shook again, and did so as an exact match to the thundering beat of Twilight's heart.

The huge white body didn't quite form a perfect triangle with the smaller mares. About eighteen body lengths (standard ones, not that of the Princess, it would have felt so much better if the distance had been measured using the Princess...) away from Applejack, and perhaps twelve from Twilight.

"I heard you," the eldest alicorn quietly stated. "Before I saw you. Don't feel as if you did something wrong, either of you. I know a few tricks for keeping my wingbeats quiet: things just about nopony else knows. They don't work for long, but -- they occasionally work for long enough."

Applejack looks so scared.
I've never seen her look afraid. Not when it's the Princess.
If that's how she looks, then what do I --

"And to make this clear," the giant mare steadily continued, "I heard you. Snow fight, correct?"

Just enough of Applejack's neck defrosted to allow something approximating a nod.

"It's an interesting idea for a training exercise," the alicorn allowed. "Quick beats. Keeping up the pace. You've even rigged the area to make it easier for a beginner, haven't you? That's the practical approach. It's --"

The large eyes briefly closed, and did so as the flow of mane and tail slowed.

"-- just not how we used to do it. You're training her for combat conditions in stages. For us -- the whole world could change at once. We didn't have the luxury of gradual tutoring, most of the time."

They were staring at her. Both ponies were staring, and Twilight couldn't figure out how to make it stop...

"Most of the time," the Princess repeated. "Some days were calmer. There were even snow fights, if conditions were right. But when it comes to this kind of battle... I haven't been in one for a very long time."

The left corner of her mouth twitched up, and did so in the last moment before the blast of freezing white hit Twilight in the face.

She yelped. (It was something automatic, it got her more snow in the mouth for her trouble, and she heard it echoed from the other side of the clearing.) Shook her head as hard as she could, cleared most of the obstruction, and saw --

-- the Princess was calmly looking from one snow-coated Bearer to the other, back and forth. A pair of flat-topped stone slabs had erupted from the soil next to her forehooves, each precisely angled towards one recent victim. Twilight could just barely make out the supporting structure of rock and soil which had directed the speed of the rise.

The oldest mare in the world casually shrugged.

"But I still remember how it's done."

Applejack spat something out of her mouth. It was about sixty percent snowball and because leaves continued to decay for some time under the coating, the remainder wasn't worth inspecting.

There were several kinds of war being waged across the orange form, most were visible, and every last one had failed to find a way of dealing with the nature of the opponent.

"Ah --" didn't even reach the level of stammer. "This is mah -- Ah..." and words ran out, mostly while fleeing for their lives.

"Why, yes," the alicorn calmly said. "This is your land, Lady Malus. I can say that without question, because I remember personally awarding the right of first settlement to your grandmother. You've just been attacked on your own land, while your closest ally is almost directly at hoof."

The farmer yelped again, and the sound added a little extra distance to the desperate sideways jump: something which allowed the next volley to hit exactly where Applejack had previously been standing.

"When it comes to this kind of battle," the old mare stated, "I would be expecting you to do something about that."

Applejack also managed to dodge the third catapulted slab of snow, and did so by jumping exactly into the place where the alicorn had aimed the fourth.

The hat fell off.

Any number of horrible things happened when the snow slab hit, and the one which would have remained with Twilight for the rest of her life if not for the next part was that the hat had fallen off.

There was just enough time to see green eyes narrow with instinctive, unthinking anger. And then the ground erupted at Applejack's hooves.

Technically, silence didn't fall over the Acres. A number of things fell onto the Acres in that next nightmarish second. Some of that arrived as recently-impacted snow sliding away from a white snout. The heavier impact came from dislodged regalia.

The alicorn snorted. It might have been from anger, or it could have just been the effort required to get the snow out of her nostrils. (Results suggested the latter.) And two mares held their position, because there was nowhere to run and in any case, there wasn't going to be enough left to bury either.

"Really?" the Princess placidly inquired.

They weren't breathing. Twilight felt as if they should have been, and they weren't. A waste of a final opportunity --

"-- you've got a target this big which didn't go down after one hit, and you're stopping now?" (Twilight only managed to avoid half of the other part of the response, and so got another reminder of how miserable snow felt when it melted into feathers.) "And there's two of you! Work on your angles! Mutual strikes! Make me move! Because if I can just stand here taking it and believe me, I can also stand here while you take it --"

Many things became possible for those who were already dead, and so Applejack's next attack went for the Princess' neck. Or rather, it had been aimed for the mane, but there was a problem with going for something semi-solid. The neck was just how it worked out.

And then they were all moving, because there was snow flying in just about every possible direction, Twilight's shock dropped her so deep into herself as to effectively move her out of her own way and that allowed an extra angle of attack as that aspect rose to the front, eager to defend what was seen as a personal affront --

-- which was when she heard the Princess.

She'd thought about it now and again, in the moons since her lessons had truly begun. What the sisters would sound like. She suspected they muted their voices in public, so as to avoid jolting any who might be listening. But now one of them was singing, the notes were quick and sure and teasingly offered to bring her own soul into rhythm just so there would be one more participant in the little war implied by instruments which were both playing with and against each other --

-- saxophone.

A pipe organ: that had been Twilight's first expectation. Something huge, with all kinds of controls where the typical pony limb could barely reach any of it and the stops had to be operated by committee. After that, a piano, and at least part of that expectation was because she still wasn't sure what she and the Princess were to each other and Twilight hated pianos, so any truly negative outcome would at least have background music to match.

But it was a saxophone. One of the soprano types, something designed to hit higher notes and which could be played at a greater speed -- but it still had power. It was an instrument which could hold a note for a surprisingly long time, it had keys where the only ways to determine their function were practice and hope, it was lively and -- it was still a saxophone. An instrument for which abandoned notes ultimately collapsed into themselves. There were playful aspects, but there was just about nothing which could prevent any saxophone from sounding a little bit hollow, mournful, and --

-- lonely.

That thought echoed within Twilight. It stayed with her after the earth pony aspect dropped away, and there were ways in which it never truly left.

They were all soaked with chill meltwater which had worked its way through clothing, set up a permanent encampment, and then sent an invading army towards the fur. Cold, and potentially on the verge of illness.

But they were also in the presence of the Solar Princess.

An initial flare of corona signaled an end to hostilities, mostly because they'd just about run out of snow. The next emerged as inward-shifting curls of light: come here. And as they approached her, the air warmed. Spring entered the Acres, elevated itself into the first part of summer as pegasus techniques separated water out from fabric and forms, until they were warm and dry within the gentle radiance of something very much like Sun.

The oldest mare in the world looked down at her fallen regalia. A small field bubble lifted it, brushed off the dirt, and then moved it one more time.

"Trot with me," the Princess softly requested.

They were staring at her again.

"Both of you," she added. "I'd be lying if I said I hadn't initially planned this talk as being mostly for Twilight, because she was the one who was there. I'd rather not lie when I'm on your land, Applejack. But I'm sure she's already told you everything, and all I'd do by traveling with her alone is delay the next stage of the inevitable. So trot with me, if you're willing. I think we all need to talk."

Librarian and farmer looked at where the crown had been secured in the crook of a nearby branch.

"Please," asked Celestia.

And shielded by one falsehood of summer, too soon before venturing into the second, they all began to trot.

Fortran

She could only pretend that the winter was dying.

It was something which often happened in Celestia's presence. To be accompanied by the Solar alicorn was frequently to walk within a mobile micro-environment, one which was just a little warmer than the rest of the world. The Princess had full control over the effect -- although palace rumor suggested that her rare flares of temper produced a result opposite to Luna's: instead of ice creeping across the floor, there would be heat haze spreading through the air, and a truly furious Celestia had supposedly been known to make tapestry fringes send up plumes of smoke.

Full control meant she understood when not to use it. Being near Celestia during the Weather Bureau's cruelest excuse for a summer day (and Twilight wasn't sure what purpose excess heat was meant to accomplish) wouldn't put any additional sweat into a pony's coat. But when the world was cold, when chill wind seemed to blast through flesh to embed itself in bone... in those times, being near the alicorn would make you warm.

In the years before her change, Twilight had simply seen it as an inherent part of who Celestia was. Shortly after she'd finally started to study the means by which pegasus magic functioned, she'd realized that she didn't know how the alicorn's effect actually worked. Any pegasus who knew the appropriate techniques could alter the local temperature. But they would be working with what was, within their range, a finite resource. A pegasus shifted heat. You made one area warmer by taking that energy away from somewhere else. For every hot spot, there was an area of counterbalancing cold, and quite a bit of what made heat-shifting complicated was fending off the continual attempts by physics to even things out.

Luna's anger created cold and from what Twilight had been able to determine, it was creation. There was no sign that heat was being sent anywhere else: the dark mare simply radiated chill. Celestia didn't seem to be focusing warmth out of the air around her: the giant form silently generated it.

Energy couldn't be created from nothing. It was possible that in a similar fashion to the way normal ponies channeled the calories from consumed food into their magic, Celestia was directly converting some portion of her personal stores into heat. But that still didn't explain the younger of the Diarchy, because cold represented the absence of a quality. With Luna, if energy hadn't been relocated, then it was effectively being destroyed and you couldn't do that either.

So it felt as if there were two possibilities: either the sisters were effectively operating under their own rules, or their magic had found a pair of subclauses which nopony else understood. It was just that most ponies didn't think about how alicorns functioned. They accepted what should have been strangeness as something perfectly natural, because alicorns were different and so why wouldn't their magic follow suit? In Celestia's case, you simply recognized the background presence of something which had been true for the whole of your life. Questioning the magic of the Solar Princess was like asking about the color of the sky: there was a short, simple answer, and anypony who tried to understand the more complex one might find their investigations taking them down some very strange trails.

Most ponies didn't think about it at all. But Twilight had seen what happened when somepony truly began to consider not just what alicorns were, but how they might have come to exist in the first place. There were ways in which her own existence was the result of that question, and...

...there were times when she hated the way her own mind worked or rather, her failures in stopping it. The myriad ways she could obsess over a single concept: obsessively, compulsively circling the same thought as the invisible pacing groove steadily wore into her sanity. It meant there were things she didn't want to think about because she might need days to get the thought out, and when she was trotting through the Acres in the company of the Princess...

It was warm near the white fur, because that was simply the way things were. If they stayed in any one place for too long, then the snow began to melt. Steady drips fell from overhead, or clumps of snow crashed from bracing branches. The heat was real -- but in a way, it was also illusion. When the Princess left, the cold would return. There was fresh snowfall scheduled: the storm would begin slightly before Sun-lowering, and the new accumulation would easily come up to Twilight's knees.

For now, they were trotting together, with the largest pace carefully dropped so smaller forms could keep up. Twilight was on the alicorn's -- the second alicorn's right, and Applejack established a guardian border at the librarian's other flank. Caught between two larger forms, but one of those overshadowed her within the normal pony scale, and the other... had been casting a deeper shadow for years. Something which moved with Twilight wherever she went, down all the paths of her life.

The cold always came back and as three ponies quietly moved through whitebound silent, sleeping Acres, the librarian waited for it to reach her mentor's words.

"I'd like to have the device back. If you're done with it."

It had been almost casual.

"I --" She had been expecting anger. Direct orders. Enough of the Royal Voice to clear all snow from the trees in a single localized avalanche. Casual was beyond her.

"For purposes of getting all of the evidence in one place," Celestia added. "Because there's an investigation under way and we are trying to examine the evidence, so it would help to get the missing piece into the set."

The farmer glanced directly across and up: Twilight's minimal height didn't create any real barrier to be cleared. "Where are y'startin'?"

"Currently? From just about every direction at once," the white mare told them. "We're still trying to identify the stallion. However, given what's just about an exacting physical resemblance and the fact that --" the hesitation lasted just long enough to be noticed "-- a mark was erased, we also have to consider something else. Something nopony wanted to think about, but..."

Celestia's head dipped. Her eyes briefly closed, and the flow of the pastel mane slowed.

"...when you've been at this for -- a while... you learn to think differently. So we had to look at a related possibility."

The glance down at Twilight was both automatic and, for the party on the receiving end, familiar. The mentor wishing to see if her student could answer the unvoiced question.

"That..." She swallowed, and the warmth of the air did nothing for the cold which slid down her throat. "...the mark might have been... changed."

The white mare silently nodded, and two Bearers momentarily stumbled in melting snow.

"Is that possible?" Applejack barely breathed. "Ah mean, Ah know it's possible t' switch 'em. We learned that the..." and the hat shifted forward, shading that much more of her eyes. "...hard way. But that fell apart so fast, t' instant we started actin' like ourselves again. Maybe..." This time, the farmer swallowed, and needed two efforts to prevent it from becoming a choking mass. "...if he was switched, an' he died before the spell could be broken... maybe that's how it ends. Other pony's got his mark, keeps it, and the switched one jus'... jus'..."

They all stopped. Gave her a moment, until the nausea pretended to fade.

"I don't know," Celestia finally said. "The --"

Stopped. Closed her eyes again, and the huge right forehoof stomped against half-frozen ground.

"The -- first time..."

Again, harder, and white fell from nearby branches.

The giant mare breathed. Her ribs shifted as if breath was all there was, while those who were just a little more than her subjects watched.

She isn't like this, she isn't like this, she isn't...

A familiar thought for Twilight in the moons since their return from Trotter's Falls, and one which had an assigned suite of emotions to accompany it. Worry, confusion, fear --

"-- everypony has things they don't talk about," Celestia quietly told them, eyes still tightly shut. "Not in public. Secrets, personal privacies. There might be a friend or two who already knows, a confidant -- but..."

One more breath.

"I'm asking both of you to imagine something," the eldest alicorn softly requested. and they could hear the pressure in the quiet words as every syllable was forced into fast-heating air. "Imagine you had a secret. Easy enough for you, Applejack, and I think Twilight has her own acquaintance with the concept. But one of you can speak with every other earth pony, the other has her friends and family -- and for this secret, across almost the whole of your life, there is, at most, one other pony you could ever talk to. One. And that's not a constant. The identity of that single pony changes. They come, they go, they --" and the edges had been smoothed away from the pain through the grinding of the centuries, leaving only a perfect cutting blade "-- die. Time passes without having a confidant. Years. And eventually, on the most longed-for day of your life... the number goes to two. But that other pony knows the secret because she was there for almost all of it, and she doesn't necessarily want to speak about those things at all. Because it's fresher for her. It hurts that much more."

The purple eyes opened as the white head turned to regard them both, and a stilled mane failed to shift.

"If you can feel any echo of what that might be like," the oldest mare in the world asked them, "then I want you to go a little further. Imagine that the subject of that secret -- was your life. The earliest part of it, the most crucial. Something you can never return to, because there was only ever one spell which did that, a gift from a dear friend, and I've already used it. Something you still find yourself longing for, even when you know how much of it was pain. Because it was pain shared, and... the ones you shared it with are gone. Still with you and gone, Twilight. It isn't a contradiction. All you have left are..."

The half-tangible mane drooped. Collapsed. Solidified.

"...shadows."

And they were staring at her. The dipped head, so low that it seemed as if her neck could no longer bear the weight. The tears which were slowly soaking into white fur. But as much as anything else, the brown of mane and tail, multiple horrible shades of brown which had been stolen from the full palette offered by every quality of manure. It was thickly tangled around itself, displayed too many natural knots to count, laughed at brushes and forced combs to choose suicide over battle. They were the single ugliest combination of mane and tail which the mares had ever seen, and they were also busy beating up anypony stupid enough to dream of second place.

"Um," Applejack said, and Twilight instantly envied her friend's ability to come up with even that much.

A half-smile briefly crinkled one side of Celestia's mouth.

"I did say something about not wanting to lie on your land." The white head slowly shifted: left to right, then back again. "You've both taken custody of so many secrets already. So here's one of the silliest, because you already saw Luna's natural colors, on the day of the Return. It took a while before she had the full strength of her magic again: enough for the stars to come back. That's all it is, you know. Carrying a little too much magic, and so some of it expresses itself wherever it can."

(It was at that moment that Twilight became simultaneously, horribly aware of three things: that her mouth was slightly open, she didn't know how long it had been that way, and she seemed to have lost all capacity for closing it again.)

"Incidentally," the alicorn added with what Twilight perceived as purely incidental (and completely unnecessary) cruelty, "because I knew I was going to do this today, what you're seeing is post-styling." And because there didn't seem to be such a thing as too many upended nails directed at the center of their hooves, "What do you think of the look?"

Which was when the white mare tossed her head in what was clearly meant to be an attempt at assuming a glamour pose, sending the mass of the horrible mane up and into the nearest branch.

There was a cracking noise. Twilight desperately wished for it to have come from her own spine.

Eventually, the last of the dead twigs stopped raining down, with the exception of the ones which had gotten stuck.

Celestia glanced back at her own hair. Regarded the trapped debris.

"Hmm," she considered. "Distinct improvement."

There was a moment when there were only two sounds on the whole of the Acres. The first was a horrible sort of half-choke, the gasp of somepony who was trying to hold everything back and knew that to let anything more escape was death, it was everything like restrained, helpless, doomed laughter, it had come from Applejack's throat, and Twilight knew exactly what it meant because it had emerged about a half-second after her own.

The oldest mare in the world looked directly at them. Grinned.
Somepony snickered. The longest second of Twilight's life eventually let her identify the source as having been extremely local.
And then they were laughing.

They were all laughing, and she'd heard the Princess laugh before, but it was usually such a restrained thing: the sound of mirth which had to retain a level of public decorum, where laughing too loud or too hard simply made others wonder exactly how much they should be laughing along. But this time, the open laughter was permission, and Applejack nearly dropped to the ground from the force of the mirth, Twilight became aware that she was half-weeping and didn't know why, while Celestia simply laughed as the winter around them temporarily faded away.

It was a laugh which came across as something natural. A joy which hadn't been moderated through careful practice, and so Twilight wondered just how often such laughter truly emerged.

Not often.
Not in public.

It was the newest lesson from somepony who, on some level, might always be her mentor. A Princess wouldn't laugh this way, and so they were in the presence of the mare.

But eventually, the laughter stopped.

"Our laughter died first..."

"I planned on doing that," Celestia quietly told them. "I know it's a little thing, but... I'm hoping you'll both see it as a token of how much I do trust you. But it's also because of something else. When you can't talk about something with anypony, when you effectively train yourself not to talk about it, to not even think about it so much of the time..."

It was strange, watching such large forehooves scrape at what little was left of the snow.

"...then when the time comes to talk -- you can reach the point where letting a single word out has you fighting yourself. The last time I started speaking to somepony about my life was nearly three decades ago, because I have to have a confidant in every generation. My seneschal. The one pony whom I can trust to see me and not the crown."

"...who?" struck Twilight as a perfectly natural question.

With a small smile, "Who came when you asked for the pony I trusted most?"

Fancypants.

Of course it was the noble. If it was going to be anypony --

-- it wasn't me, she didn't trust me --

Nearly three decades ago. When it came to not having spoken to Twilight at that time, the white mare had a rather solid excuse.

"But it's still hard," Celestia continued, and they could both hear how the steadiness had been forced into her voice. "Even with Luna, it can be hard, because we were both there for so much of it, and that means there's things which we both don't want to talk about. Because that brings it all back. We --" and her head dipped again "-- didn't talk about Star for nearly two years..."

The librarian's next words were just below a whisper. They were barely audible, and yet something about them felt completely unstoppable.

"I'm not him."

Soft contact against her flank. The farmer's powerful form getting into position.

"In some ways," Celestia quietly said, "you do remind me of him --"

Her heart began to collapse, the lack of blood flow did something to all four knees and Applejack was the only thing keeping her up --

"-- but it's usually the ways in which all who love magic are alike. The passion. Searching for not just the answers, but to see if the questions were the right ones. I see that in you, Twilight. The usual problem in getting you out of the basement, because you'll spend weeks seeking any part of the solution to the Last Question..." The head shake came across as somewhat bemused. "...while forgetting to devote a single hour towards looking for lunch. Once Star had a laboratory again, it was an ongoing challenge to get him out of it. Luna learned to escort, and he figured out a working which blocked her. I don't think anypony else has ever cast it -- and on the good days, he would just -- forget he knew it. He hated being interrupted, and yet he would allow it, because there was a time when he understood the why. That we were trying to get him out under Sun and Moon because we still loved him, and he..."

Stopped, just long enough for one more tear to fall.

"...he loved us. I... think that was... even part of the problem, in the end. Or even at the start of it. That there was love, and... for him, it was..."

The heat vanished.

"...no," the white mare half-whispered. "Not that. Not yet. We -- stick with what we need right now. Because the longer you stay silent, the easier it is to remain that way, the harder it becomes to speak -- and I think you understand that, Twilight. Just about as well as anypony in the world. We talk about the things related to today, as much as we can. I just... I wanted to show you..."

She was so large.
She was shivering.
She was so small...

"...that I'm trying. Please... it's going to take time. It did with Fancypants. Moons, and he still doesn't know all of it. But for today... the things we need, as much as I can. Will you grant me that?"

Farmer and librarian exchanged a glance, one where it was easy for each to see the other reflected in opposing eyes. Went back to the white mare.

"I'm trying," Twilight quietly offered.

Celestia's smile was weak, and felt all the more true for that weakness.

"I'll take it."

They were trotting again. Applejack had to force herself to keep the pace. (The problem wasn't the speed: it was not stopping to make spot checks of the trees.)

"The first time that spell --" and the white mare almost spat the words "-- was used, there were no deaths. We came close, though. It was similar to what happened when you tried it, Twilight. Too many targets and a confusion of memories. It's just that on the original casting, there were more than a dozen ponies affected. Some of them nearly died because they were trying to use talents they didn't have, dangerous and rare skills. But we managed to get everypony sorted out in less than a day. And since nopony died, I can't say what it would look like if the spell wore off on a corpse. But it's something to keep in mind. We know Doctor Gentle found some of Star Swirl's research, and nopony living -- Luna and I included -- can say where every last note might be hidden. It's not impossible for somepony else to have learned how to cast it."

Twilight just barely managed the nod. "And... disease? Are the doctors sure --"

"As much as they can be, with something new," Celestia answered as she ducked under a low branch. "But they're still worried. Just trying not to show how much they're worrying, which makes it all the more visible. It's just like it was with Joyous --"

"Who?" was Twilight's automatic contribution. It was also instantly derailed by the other voice.

"Her?" Applejack asked, right on on top of Twilight's lonely syllable. "What 'bout her? What did she do?"

The friends looked at each other again.

"Y'ain't seen her?"

"Her who? Joyous? I don't know anypony named --"

"-- she's kinda hard t' miss, Twi --"

"-- there's thousand of ponies in this settled zone, more every moon and since I -- changed, they just keep coming! I can't keep up --"

The white mare audibly cleared the world's largest pony throat.

"Joyous moved here a few moons ago, on a group recommendation from Luna, myself, and her therapist." Celestia stated. "At a guess, she hasn't made it into the library because she spent nearly a year trying to get through makeup classes. The thought of reading for fun may not occur to her for a while. A metallic dark blue pegasus, Twilight: that should make her easy enough to sort out of the herd. And she was the focus of the last time we thought there was a new disease which could affect a mark."

Twilight blinked, and did so largely because most of the other options suddenly seemed to center around yelling.

"There was -- there was a new disease which affected a mark --"

"-- it might have been closer to an allergen --" didn't feel like an acceptable excuse.

"-- and you didn't tell me?"

Far too calmly, "I don't tell you everything. I can't."

Implied permission to treat somepony as an equal seemed to suggest a license to raise her voice. "You don't tell me anything! It was something which affected her mark! Why didn't you call me in? The Doctors Bear asked for me when you didn't, so this is at least twice --"

"Because," the too-even voice cut her off, "we thought it was a disease, and that Luna and I had already been exposed. And that meant the most crucial thing in the world, to potentially save the world, was protecting you."

Whatever had been wrong with Twilight's jaw control seemed to be turning into a recurring issue.

Applejack waited a moment to see if any words tumbled out, then risked a breath.

"What did the allergen do?" the farmer asked. "Joyous don't talk 'bout herself much. Mostly likes t' chat 'bout whatever's goin' on around town when she picks up her apples. Ain't hardly ever seen such a mare for small talk."

"Because she didn't really get to speak to anypony for several years," Celestia told them. "Her condition amplified mark magic. Increased the strength of her talent, to the point where she had no control over it. A passive talent, so it just went on constantly, and..." The ugly tail twitched. "Applejack, I'm presuming she hasn't told you what that talent is."

Amplifies mark magic? There was half a wonder there, matched against half a horror, added to a moment when Twilight's deepest instincts weren't sure which part was winning.

Which got them both a quick head shake. "Ah thought tail groomer. Weird mark for that, though. And it ain't somethin' passive, so --" The farmer visibly thought about it. "-- no idea. What is her talent?"

"I'd rather leave that to her --" and just ahead of both inhalations "-- because in this case, it is private. But it's about the nature of what we thought was a disease. It amplifies talents. For an active talent, it forces you to perform, much like Cutie Pox, except that for the stages we saw, the victims still got to sleep. Luna and I both have active talents, Applejack, and one of the worst cases was that we wouldn't be able to stop ourselves from using them as much as we could." The white mare's tone dropped fast enough to slam decibels into exposed soil. "Imagine if Sun and Moon just started to accelerate."

They both did. And then they both wished they hadn't.

"It was an allergen, in the end," Celestia continued. "Something which doesn't leave the body, and needs to be neutralized. Ultimately, the Doctors Bear isolated both cause and cure. And we had to keep you away from us, because if it had been a disease, you were the last pony in the world who could be exposed. We didn't involve you because we couldn't, and I didn't tell you until now because you have more than enough in your life to worry about. Some of which we're going to discuss right now."

Passing thin-trunked trees, ones with oddly striated bark. Twilight wasn't sure what those were.

"The Royal Physicians are investigating," the white mare told them. "There may even be something specific to look at. Did you notice the corpse's puncture wound?"

Twilight nodded, concentrated on the inner image. "There was red around the edges. Almost like he'd been burned."

"But without an actual burn," Celestia observed -- and a faint hint of red underlit white fur. "I'm... something of an expert on burns. The doctors feel the reddening looks like another kind of reaction. It's possible that the wound represents where something was introduced to his body. So they're trying to isolate that. With Joyous, the ultimate cause was a plant: this could be similar."

"Twi told me his hooves were dirty," Applejack recalled. "If it's a plant, that could be another clue. Anypony lookin'?"

The white mare nodded. "We've sent out soil samples. Trying to figure out where the plant might have been growing. But those just went out today. We're not expecting immediate results. And as I was about to say before -- we're working under the theory that if we're dealing with something which also changes marks, then this could be Linchpin. So that means an investigation team trying to gallop down his life. Right now, we know he left Canterlot about four years ago. We don't know why, or where he went from there."

"And the notebook pages?" Twilight asked.

"We recovered a few more scraps from between the stones. One of them was legible: that's been added to the list. Somepony's trying to reconstruct the watermark." Celestia glanced down at the little mare. "We do know what we're doing, Twilight. These are basic investigation procedures. It's something where a hat doesn't help."

It took a few seconds before she could manage so much as an "Um."

"You did write me about the hat." There was no effort required to look over Twilight's back at Applejack either, especially from that height. "The other hat."

The farmer indulged in a soft snort.

"But we're missing a piece of evidence," Celestia solidly continued, and the brown tail very visibly failed to lash. It was a little too easy to see where the lash wasn't. "Which I'm almost completely certain you have, Twilight, and possibly in your saddlebags because you weren't sure you could trust the tree's security. So. To save Spike the time and trouble of a scroll which I'm sure he really doesn't want to write -- would you mind telling me what you found?"

It took a while. By the time they finished, the device fragment had been returned, and the very top of the main barn was just starting to come into distant sight.

"Congratulations," the white mare quietly offered. "I'd thought about it. Going to Ratchette. And I might have done it, but -- from me, it probably would have been an order. You managed to find a way where you could just ask. " The huge rib cage slowly released the sigh. "I've been thinking about her every so often since I read the transcript. There are things in the armory which are isolated because we're not sure what they do. Or we're aware of their function, but not how we could get them to stop. There's dozens of devices like that. Some of them are ancient enough to be pre-Discordian, or they were made by ponies who simply didn't think of things like leaving notes any more than they were concerned about how to make that one sphere stop exploding."

"...stop exploding," Applejack eventually managed, and only after Twilight's ears had flicked into a position of visible helplessness.

"When it's solid, it's about a hip across in all directions and covered in tiny cracks," Celestia told them. "It looks like a jigsaw assembled from pieces a little wider than two tail strands. But when you turn it on, every piece it's made from moves outwards at about five gallops per hour, to a distance of ten body lengths. Fast enough, and solid enough, to go through most of what's in between. Then the pieces collapse inwards to reform the sphere. And then, depending on how much charge it has, the whole thing happens again. Possibly faster. So it explodes. Then it explodes twice. The maximum anypony ever witnessed and lived was seven. And it's very easy to set off. What we don't know is how to transport it without setting it off, which means it usually has to be moved from a fairly great distance. There's all sorts of mysteries in the armory. And when I read about Ratchette --- I thought about what it would be like to potentially solve every last one of them."

"So why haven't you?" escaped Twilight's lips one crucial second before the actual reason flashed across her mind.

Her expression collapsed into horror. It left her with just enough strength to look up at the white mare's wry, thin smile.

"It turns out I have a natural objection to asking one of my subjects to cut herself," Celestia stated. "Over and over, especially when nopony's sure if there's any long-term consequences attached to that magic. But if it was a disaster -- if the nation was at risk, or the world -- then I would have asked." With a smaller sigh, "It's just something which tends to come across as an order. But she did it for you, Twilight. And now we know. It's a teleportation conductor."

The white mare looked up. Purple eyes visibly took a sighting on the barn.

"I should be presentable," she decided as her lips quirked, and something began to shimmer at the very tips of the manure-brown mane. "But I can go back for the crown later. A teleportation conductor, Twilight. That's a huge leap forward. There have been ponies working on that theory for centuries. The escort network's tried to shut down research a few times, because they're afraid it would put them out of business. I've always tried to tell them that the cost of that device would probably be beyond what most ponies who use their services could afford, and that's even considering how much the network costs to access. But they're still afraid. And now it's here..."

"Here and broken," Twilight sighed. "And if it can't be repaired or charged, and there isn't enough left to get all the way back to the point of origin, and I could only take three ponies --"

Both of the white mare's eyebrows went up.

"Three?"

"It's all I'm licensed for. I could only afford the three-pony level of the escort test. You know how fast the cost goes up when you want to bring more ponies along! I've been saving for the six, but it's going to take --"

The oldest mare in the world was just looking at her.

"The escort test," Celestia said, "is issued, standardized, and has all fees paid directly to the government."

"I know! That's why I would be breaking the law if I --"

Gently, "-- Twilight -- given that you would have mainly been acting in government service -- did you ever think about asking the palace to waive the fee?"

There was a good chance that whatever had happened to the stallion's mark hadn't been from disease. It also seemed possible that there had been something in the surgery which had affected Twilight's facial muscle control and at the moment Applejack caught sight of that expression, it also had the side effect of sending the farmer into a hysterical bout of laughter.

The little mare froze. Looked from smiling white face to raucously-shifting blond tail, and considered that the only permanent cure for humiliation seemed to be death. She was almost completely sure that meant her own.

"That's one of the ways where you're not like him," Celestia gently told her. "He would have decided that he had the power and skill, then just tried for it. Oh, he would have tested, if he hadn't been desperate enough to reach for the number all in one go. One, then two, all the way up to six. When he was with us, trying to shift that much weight in rocks before he risked a living body. But if he was desperate enough... six."

The bright eyes clouded, and did so at the same moment the side fall of pastels crept up past her chin.

"We were six," the white mare softly stated. "Seven, because we had our own protector. But in soul and shadows... six."

I...
...I want to say something.
Something which makes it right.
I want to say anything.
That could be me. Enough time, and... it might be me. Just standing in the snow, looking so...
...lost...

"...Celestia?"

The white head tilted slightly to the right.

"They're old memories," the mare sighed. "It gives them a certain weight. Twilight, if you think you're ready for the test, I'll put the paperwork through. That's all it takes."

She knew it was possible to say the next words too carefully, that going direct was just as bad, and so mostly said them to get it over with.

"So when you're ready for us to track this down, we'll all go --"

Firmly, determination returning at the same moment the tail began to flow again, "-- I still haven't decided."

Both Bearers stared at the white mare.

"I understand why you want to go," Celestia said. "It speaks well of you --"

"-- Ah want in on this too! Ain't right, what happened t' that poor stallion! It can't happen t' anypony else, ever --"

"-- but this is deep magic," Celestia cut in. "Things which affect marks are among the deepest magic known to ponies. They're things which should only be investigated at times of great need and yes, Twilight, I see your mouth opening and I'm still not sure this is it. There's a risk in tampering with marks: there always has been. There can be a price to pay, and I never want to see any of you paying it. There are ways in which you aren't him, Twilight. You don't have his ego: it's something closer to the opposite. You know the switching spell was his. He kept going from there, and that was the road which led to the Amulet. There were a few stops along the way. The pony who put it on wasn't the pony we loved, and whoever took his place effectively died at the moment that thing went around his neck."

"I'm --" was almost all she had, and "I'm not...!" didn't feel any better.

"No," her mentor gently said as the last of the mane was restored and debris dropped through the shifting colors. "Not in that way. But if you start looking into mark magic, if something goes wrong... Twilight, I call the missions. Or Luna, because she has that authority: she just hasn't used it. Marks are a subject Discord doesn't want to be involved with, and I'm speaking from experience there. But Luna and I have talked about this. We acknowledge the possibility that the Bearers may need to be brought in. And if that doesn't happen, if we can solve it without you, I'm grateful for the information you provided. But there is a risk here, something I'm familiar with. Something I don't want any of you to face."

The white mare began to move a little faster. Crossing the last of the snow, closing in on the barn, and Twilight realized it was because the best way to end the discussion was to bring it into potential range of public hearing. The price of a secret.

"There are things I don't tell you because you shouldn't be involved --"

"-- it was his mark! It's -- it's practically his soul --"

The snow vanished.

It happened all at once. There was white here and there, near their hooves, coating portions of the trees. And then there were wisps of steam rising from bark and mud.

"-- and now it's soul magic, Twilight." It wasn't the Voice. The Voice would have been so much easier to deal with than simple statements delivered with subtle force. "There are things I don't tell you because you shouldn't be involved. Others where I want you to have some semblance of a normal life, more than a few where I think it would be nice if you could just sleep at night, and the price of tampering with a soul falls in every single category. Do you want to know what part of that price is?"

"She's jus' tryin' t' help!" Applejack desperately protested. "Y'can't be a pony if y'don't want t'--"

The white body turned, and the mare's eyes flashed flame.

They pulled back from that blaze. From the heat. From the hatred, with every last bit of that fire directed inwards --

"I know about that price, Twilight. I paid it. And I will do whatever is necessary to keep you from going through those dreams for the rest of your life."

The oldest mare in the world twisted, faced forward again, marched towards the barn at a speed which showed just how much she'd been holding back the whole time, just how much she always held back. Those who had walked with her scrambled, tried to keep up, but there was nothing which could stop the alicorn from pulling ahead, pulling away...

"I appreciate that you want to get involved. I understand, I do. I'll keep you appraised on our progress, in so far as it may help to keep you out of this if you know what the palace is trying. But for now, there is no reason for you to --"

It was the word which saw her clear the treeline. It was also the one where she stopped moving. She was trotting, then she was still, the two Bearers had to veer so as not to slam into her hind legs and then --

In the time to come, there would be talk of destiny. Predetermination. Things that were meant to happen. And if something was meant to happen, then the next question might become how that decision was made. Start to think about that and eventually...

There would be talk of destiny, and Twilight would come to loathe just about all of it. But for what happened next, she would ultimately consider it to be nothing more than a case of spectacularly bad timing.

None of them were moving. Two bearers flanked one Princess, and they all stared at an equally-frozen Spike, stopped on the cleared path between barn and farmhouse.

With the little dragon, the frozen state was very nearly literal. Twilight tried to keep him indoors as much as possible during the winter, did her best to layer him whenever he had to go out. He didn't deal well with the cold, didn't have enough inner fire to casually fight it off yet, and even a relatively mild winter day could find shivering scales rubbing against each other's edges. There was snow on the ground, grey gathering overhead to deliver more, and he had come all the way to the Acres from the tree on foot...

He was shivering, even within the thick garments which Rarity had so carefully fitted to his form. The tail had clearly been dragging through white for some time. There was a lightly claw-scored envelope in his right hand, he was looking directly at the three of them as if deciding in which direction to bolt, and he did not move.

The Princess took a breath.

"I would normally assume you were coming to warn her about me," she gently told him, "but I avoided the tree on the way in and I'm sure none of the Guards would have alerted you. So this is a delivery, and something where you couldn't risk a scroll. What is it, Spike?"

Green eyes darted from side to side. They checked the farmhouse, the barn, and every improvised path which a small body could take between the trees. Searching for an escape which could never come.

"...she knows everything, Spike." They were reluctant words, a statement delivered in the cold knowledge that they would bring her sibling no warmth at all. "We were talking about everything. If it's so important that you had to reach the Acres and say it to me, then you might as well say it in front of her. It'll just... save time --"

The envelope...?

It was too large for a scroll, along with being too flat. There were no stamps visible. All things considered, it was just about the right size to hold an enlarged --

"-- those are the pictures, aren't they? Of the device."

He looked at his sister. Stared at the mare who had been his teacher. Back and forth, until he finally nodded.

"Tell us, Spike," the Princess softly suggested. "Please."

"It's..." He swallowed. "It's the color. When the pictures came out, I saw the color of the field around the device, just before it went between for a second. It's... Twilight, it's turquoise..."

It took a few seconds before Twilight broke the silence.

"...and?"

He was staring at her.

"Spike, I saw that. I was there, remember? It's turquoise. So?"

Her little brother took a slow breath. Shivered, pursed minimal lips. It was possible to watch him resist the urge to blow flame across exposed claws.

"...I..." Another gulp of air, saliva, and stranger chemicals. "...I need you to listen, Twilight. Everypony to listen. Just for a minute. Please."

The mares looked at each other. Went back to him, just before the nod turned triple.

"I... I see color a little differently," the small dragon said. "It's sharper for me, the same way it is for Rarity. With her, it's part of her mark, and it only came when the mark did. For me, it's just biology. It's been like that my whole life. We both need to spot exact shades. It helps me figure out how good a gem is. She uses it to balance out the hues in her designs. We remember colors more clearly, exactly. We've talked about that. It's one of the reasons she asks me to help her. Because we see things the same way."

A little time passed. Just enough for Twilight to be the one who decided she had to be the one who said the shameful-seeming words.

"I don't get it."

"I see colors more sharply," Spike told her. "I remember them exactly. There's a dozen red unicorn fields in Ponyville, and I can sort out individual casters by shade. Twilight -- Scootaloo had me try to send that one scroll to her parents. The one which just asked them to come home, the one which hit a lockdown bounce and came back in pieces. When it came back, it flashed turquoise. The same turquoise in the picture. The exact shade."

Twilight simply stared, theories and implications flooding her mind to the point where the swirling mass didn't seem to leave much room for her. Applejack's tail lashed once, and the green eyes narrowed with barely-repressed, half-borrowed fury. But it was the Princess who finally breathed first.

"So," Celestia softly declared. "It seems as if there might be a reason for the Bearers to become involved..."

Unicorn

It felt as if all normal protocol had just died, although Twilight was willing to admit that emotion was something of an overreaction. There had just been nothing in her which had been prepared for the sight of the Princess resting on the floor of the farmhouse's kitchen. You didn't reasonably expect to get ruling Princesses in kitchens, especially if you'd heard any of the more dubious rumors regarding the elder's lack of cooking skills. And to have her on the floor, quietly occupying that amount of room because there hadn't been any bench big enough...

You didn't expect to get Princesses in kitchens and in part, that was because Luna usually wound up in the dining room.

The Bearers had a seasonal poker game: something they'd managed to accomplish in the face of personal schedules, missions, and casual disruptions inherent to Ponyville life -- some of which were their own fault, and Twilight had put a lot of mental effort into not working the math -- simply because it gave them four guaranteed nights per year where they were all in the same room. (Or rather, a series of rooms, as the game rotated between residences. Rainbow's hosting duties required Twilight to do some spellwork, along with relying on everypony else to bring the food.) The card game itself had initially been seen as secondary, but... Twilight had come to appreciate it. Not for the gambling aspects, because she understood how probability worked, knew she was guaranteed to lose a given number of rounds, and therefore was trying really hard to treat the next session as yet another long-overdue opportunity for the odds to finally even themselves out. For similar reasons, she wasn't really capable of treating the evening as an occasion for picking up a few bits, and made sure she only brought what she could afford to lose.

She had come to appreciate the game because it had been another way to learn about her friends.

Twilight had initially been worried about having Fluttershy involved, to the point where she'd proposed that everypony play for hay twists: the caretaker had the most fragile finances in the group, and sacrificing even a few smidgens to the evening felt as if it had the potential to be catastrophic. It just hadn't worked out that way, because a pony whose most natural instinct was for concealing herself had turned out to be exceptionally hard to read. You could stare across the table and find yourself looking at a face-down card grouping, quite a bit of feature-obscuring manefall, and a single blue-green eye which was forever reserving the option to Stare back. The best way to find out what Fluttershy had in her grouping was generally to wait for the round to end and once enough of them had, she usually wound up quietly trotting out with the majority of everypony's bits.

By contrast, Rainbow's tendency to project her personality into a room was still backfiring. Even after Rarity had gone through some pains to tell the weather coordinator about how everypony had learned to work out the strength of her grouping as each card was examined (along with how she always shifted them into exactly the same order of suits), the pegasus hadn't figured out how to eliminate her tells. She wasn't always the most capable liar, at least when she was half-embedded in her own crash groove and trying to sell Somepony Else Totally Did That, but she had her moments -- and all of them took place away from the game. Rainbow generally went broke first and then grumbled her way around the table, offering unhelpful advice on everypony else's groupings because misery loved company and ideally, that company would arrive after she'd finished raiding the snack table.

Applejack tended to be cool and silent: Honesty didn't require her to tell anypony what was in her grouping (and the jokes had stopped after the first night), but she also didn't seem to bluff that often. Rarity, however, brought a dozen personas to the game: some were flamboyant, others stoic, and every last one of them had horrible luck on the final draw. Pinkie was mostly concerned about whether the game was fun and, with minimal expenses added to very little concern about where her bits would wind up, occasionally seemed to be betting almost at random: the exceptions usually arrived when somepony walked into the teeth of a Princess Flush she'd been carefully hiding for the last three raises, all of which would have been proposed by somepony else.

The game was one more way for each to understand who the others were and one season after that crucial Nightmare Night, there had been an invitation offered. Something none of them had truly believed would be accepted, and they'd kept on believing that almost up until the moment when Luna had slowly, almost skittishly pushed up a bench up to the table.

The younger of the Diarchy had played. And in time, they'd all come to learn a few things about Luna.

There was something cold in the alicorn's dark gaze -- if she wanted it to be there. Rainbow projected her personality into a room: Luna radiated presence. To meet her eyes across the table for too long was to feel a certain weight: the force of power added to age and the ongoing palace rumor that the younger was occasionally referred to as Diplomacy's Other Option. To Luna, there was a difference between invoking fear -- something she dreaded, at least when it wasn't being done with purpose -- and the bearing held within royal presence which simply made her imposing. It was something which could make you want to look away, and that was deliberate because if you weren't looking too closely at her, then you were going to have a lot more trouble figuring out what she had. There was something in Luna, unconnected to Nightmare, which took pleasure at being able to unnerve others at will -- and could be impressed by any who held their ground.

None of them were ever entirely certain when Luna was bluffing. At the most basic level, the implication of a bluff meant the pony might not follow through and when it was Luna... you could never be sure. Not in cards, not when the younger was conducting negotiations with those in other nations who'd seen the newly-Returned as smaller, weaker, lacking in knowledge, vulnerable, and were now mere seconds away from openly begging for affairs to be brought back under Sun. But when she was caught, when she lost -- there was no flare of temper, no outward creep of chill. A nod of respect towards the victor (unless Luna decided it had been pure dumb luck, in which case, there would be some silent fuming as mane-held constellations dimmed and a few stars considered shedding their outer shells), potentially a query as to just when the determining card had appeared in the grouping, and on to the next.

She listened to the gossip, but almost never contributed and if she did, whatever was said could be proven as factual. On occasion, she would ask for a joke to be explained in some detail, because she lacked the background to understand why that was supposed to be funny in the first place. It was possible to tell when she'd been the one to make the ice cream because she would just about lurk near anypony who risked trying it, awaiting reviews.

They'd all learned something about who the younger of the Diarchy truly was, when she'd joined them at the table. They had offered her an invitation to the game and in return, they had been invited to meet the pony. She was forceful and understated at the same time, determination and power wrapped around what sometimes felt like a core of uncertainty, complex and contradictory and -- Luna.

But now there was a white mare on the floor of Applejack's kitchen. (Her brother had gone into town, the youngest were both at school, and Granny was napping on the upper level.) The mane had been restored to what Twilight still thought of as normal, but she had yet to retrieve her crown. Her tones weren't as soft as usual: no word rang with overt power, but it felt as if she no longer saw the need to minimize her voice. There were little snorts here and there, keratin scraped across wood as foreleg gestures were allowed into the world...

Twilight had thought she'd known her mentor. The most constant presence in her life from the Gifted School going forward. The Princess.

She was just starting to learn about Celestia and within the darkest thought she would allow herself, Twilight wasn't entirely sure whether she liked the mare yet.

"I'm not going to claim I'm happy about this," the oldest alicorn grumbled. "But I also know what's going to happen if I outright forbid the group to act, especially when we now have family involved. You'd be trying to operate under my snout the whole time, we'd eventually find ourselves working against each other... and as much as some of the papers might delight in my having to put the Bearers under detainment, we all know things would have fallen apart before it got that far. So let's start with the obvious: this is now a mission."

Twilight wondered if she was trying to work the nod in before Celestia changed her mind, then glanced at Spike and was gratified to see a scroll already being withdrawn from a garment pocket. "I can have the others notified in --"

"Won't take long t' pack," came in on top of it. "Ah've jus' gotta tell --"

"I don't have enough with me for everypony, but if the Princess is willing to send --"

Celestia's right forehoof shifted, moving ever so slightly up. They all stopped.

(Luna was left-hooves dominant, while Celestia was right. It had taken a while before Twilight had spotted it...)

"A mission which is enjoying a luxury we seldom have," the white mare added. "Preparation time. We don't know what we're facing and since there's no sign of immediate risk, we get to decide exactly how we're approaching this. You already went up one mountain before I was expecting it, Twilight. Which had an adult dragon waiting at the top --" Spike automatically winced "-- and given how many Archives departments your employment took you through, I thought you'd turn to the shelves -- the bookcases -- the section filled with books about negotiating with dragons before you tried anything. You didn't."

With strictly inner defensiveness, The smoke was spreading and since nearly all of those books were duplicated from various fiction genres and the remainder don't smell like brimstone and ashes while having a posthumous copyright application, I'm not sure there was anything to work with in the first place.

The vocal end of that emerged as "...oh." Applejack simply snickered again.

"And if you think about it," Celestia finished, "there's a very good magic-based reason not to rush in."

Which instantly centered her instincts. "The lockdown." She'd seen the scroll's condition after the rebound...

...her mark focused, and it took a moment before she could swallow back the nausea. The illness even had the chance to double itself, because it had to shove a lump of dark respect out of the way.

"That could be what happened to the stallion," she softly determined. "He got out through a lockdown effect, but it tore into him, the same way it shredded the scroll. We saw what happened to the inanimate objects he was carrying. Ratchette thought we were looking at one of two devices: the second might prevent the damage. Without that..."

Spike's scales were beginning to lose luster, and several crests had wilted. Applejack had a faint tide of green rising within her undercoat. The elder alicorn simply, slowly nodded.

"Which means we have to be very careful about how we send you in," Celestia told them. "You also said Ratchette felt the device would almost get you to the departure point. But even if that's the case, we don't know if that means you'd appear outside the lockdown. He could have left from the center of the effect. I'd rather not rely on using it as your only means of getting there. If at all possible, we have to figure out where he was without invoking it. That means more research into his life, and we need some time just to figure out if Linchpin is the pony we should be looking into."

"An' now we've got Scootaloo's parents t' consider." It had almost been a snarl. "Ah know Miranda talked t' her 'bout where she thought her parents were goin' when they left town for the last time. Bunch of ponies followed up on that, an' Ah had t' watch her try an' come home after each. Jus' barely movin'. If'fin we're lookin' at the exact same effect..."

The huge forehoof shifted again. "We're going forward based on that assumption, but we can't rely on it -- no, Spike: I trust you. But there's only so many corona colors possible, even when you sort it out by the finest of shades. There's probably a few unicorns who share that exact hue of turquoise and no matter what you try to plan for, coincidence is the one factor you can't see coming. It's not impossible for us to be dealing with two different casters. But because it's so unlikely, we're going to start by assuming one. We just have to be ready in case we're wrong. So..." and this time, both forelegs gestured outwards "...Miranda's investigation has been pursuing things from two approaches. The first assumed that Scootaloo's parents didn't want to be found or removed from their current location, and had themselves enclosed or enchanted accordingly."

Twilight nodded. She'd been trying to research the means by which it might have been done, because lockdowns were normally performed on an area: as with shields, the effect needed to be anchored. Still, if somepony had found a way to build it into something portable...

It was still a factor which invoked a few questions. Escorting meant taking another pony through the between in the teleporter's company: you couldn't just pull somepony to you from gallops away. Unless the lockdown managed to kill the pony making an attempt via direct contact -- and Twilight didn't think that was possible, because the radius for something portable felt as if it would almost have to be small -- they would know they had failed, they would know why, and they would go back to try something more physical. Of course, the device they knew about meant the possibility for the targets to have teleported away on their own before anypony could get back, but...

And the scroll? Celestia's ability to send messages wasn't a national secret, but it wasn't a matter of public knowledge either. Ponies who didn't work in the palace or one of the nation's embassies were generally unaware of the potential for fast (if one-way) communication. So it was unlikely that somepony would have been trying to defend themselves against the horror of receiving a letter -- although Twilight, who had to sort out unwelcome solicitations from the library's mail, had acknowledged a certain desire.

"An' the other," Applejack pointed out, "is that they're somewhere they can't leave. But Miranda had the prisons checked."

"For Equestria," Celestia clarified. "We haven't been able to get prisoner rosters from all of the other nations yet, and not all of those jails have lockdown enchantments." Another one of those little snorts. "Some places don't commission them until after they've failed to confine their first unicorn." And just a little more softly, "But there was always another question built into that one, Applejack: whether they were being held against their will."

The hat's brim seemed to dip. "...yeah. An' the worst part is, that's the one Scootaloo's been hopin' for most, since double amnesia is kinda goin' against the odds. That it ain't their fault, they didn't do anythin' wrong, they would come home if they could..." Stopped, sighed, and the thick blonde tail fell still. "The one where they're innocent, they love her, an' it could still be any day now. The one where they're heroes tryin' t' fight their way back t' their daughter."

"She may be right," the white mare quietly said. "But you're right, Applejack. We need to track them, as much as it's possible to do so. Find out if anyone, in any nation, remembers seeing them. Because wherever they were when that scroll rebounded, they might have just gotten there -- or they could have been in that location for a few years. Whatever happened to that poor stallion may be nothing more than having been so unlucky as to find the wrong wild magic at the wrong time -- or it could have been the end result of something which has been building under our snouts for --"

She stopped. Shook her head, and the pastels seemed to shift a little behind the base movement.

"-- we'll deal with it," Celestia firmly told them. "But we're not rushing in, not unless things get worse very quickly and even then, we still have to think about what we're dealing with. Just for starters, between the device and this variation on the lockdown working, we have to look at teleportation itself in ways we've never even thought of before. That may mean involving the Equestrian Magic Society, or the Gifted School --"

"-- oh!"

And then everypony was looking at the little mare.

"...Twi?"

Who wasn't looking at anything, not when just about all of her attention was now focused on possibility. "What time is it?"

"The clock," Celestia carefully said, "is on that wall --"

"-- no! I mean, what time is it on the west coast?" With words steadily accelerating and knees beginning to flex for what would only need a few seconds to become something very close to a standing pronk, "Because there's time zones. And a schedule. There's always a schedule. She tells me what times she's going to be working just in case I try to send something! We could go get her right now!"

They were still staring at her.

"Her," Spike cautiously tried. "Who's --" and it was possible to see the moment when the answer arrived for all of them, because it was also the moment when thin lips shifted into a reptilian grin.

"Oooh," Applejack breathed. "Ah don't know if that's inspired or evil. Might be a little of both..."

Celestia nodded. "I'll take you." Long legs began to unfold, push. "Just tell me the settled zone and we'll use their gatehouse. And I'll also go with you into the city to find her, because you might need me there to enforce it. So that's going to be me, Twilight, and Spike --"

"-- an' me," the farmer firmly declared.

"Applejack," the tallest mare in the world said from what was rapidly approaching her full height, "despite what the wings and horn would like to suggest, you are speaking with an earth pony. We're talking about teleporting halfway across the continent. Twice. When it comes to the resulting sickness, nopony is asking you to subject yourself --"

"-- illness ain't nothin' compared t' this!" Applejack grinned. "What y'all are headin' out t' do? Ah wouldn't miss seein' her face for a fifth of the trees in the West Fields!"

"Applejack," Twilight desperately tried to caution, "I've seen how you react. Are you sure?"

The farmer thought about it, and did so as all four knees began to bend for the pronk.

"Maybe a fourth," emerged from variable heights while dishes began to jitter within cabinets and benches jumped in rhythm each time the muscular form came down. "We're talkin' 'bout the ones with the fruit bats, mind, so it don't exactly cost me nothin' t' give 'em up. Can we leave right now? Oh, tell me we can leave right now!"

Consider the nature of magic. There are many ways to do so, although so much of the Last Question concerns whether there might be something singular awaiting within the core. In this case, the word we want is... ubiquitous. Magic permeates the world, and to be alive and truly sapient is to possess some form of it. It's a power which is everywhere, and within everyone.

Now: consider the problems inherent in a career which requires the showmare to put on a magic act.

Think about it. If you're going to be realistic about your career prospects, then you're probably going to be looking at a life outside Equestria, because at least you can show off a form of magic other than what the resident species are used to. And even then, there are nations with significant pony populations. Some of the most isolated locations still turn up the occasional expatriate, usually just in time to make a comment about how your corona shouldn't have been flickering there. If you're just working with standard effects, then you're bound to come across somepony who recognizes the effort -- and in any case, this particular showmare has been stuck in her home nation for a while now. (Under the terms of her agreement, she's allowed to cross a border, but she would have to tell the palace exactly where she's going and somepony will check.) So you're trying to perform for an Equestrian population and again, we have to look at standard effects.

Any pegasus can potentially learn any technique. Every technique. It doesn't mean they'll necessarily possess the field strength to power it or the field dexterity to keep it under control, but those who apply themselves will at least understand the principles involved. You think you've come up with a unique twist on a standing technique? Congratulations. Once you show it off in public, you're going to have, at most, three years before the knowledge spreads through the population and if you're exceptionally lucky, someone will remember to name it after you. The Rainboom could be duplicated, and there's only two factors preventing it: the number of pegasi on Rainbow's level is a rather small one, and just about all of them have heard about what seems to be a required minimum number of crashes.

Earth ponies do occasionally show off -- in private. It's accepted that some tools only appear in a few kits, and a number of those seem to be passed down through family lines. Most singers have ranges, and it's a rare pony who can work across multiple octaves. Still, there are those who find unique ways to phrase their requests and every so often, somepony becomes desperate enough to ask a question nopony's ever thought of before. But once the notes have been sung, there's going to be echoes. If anypony reaches the site before they fade, and just listens closely...

When it comes to magic, every unicorn has a limited learning capacity. (For some, those limits have yet to be reached -- but ponies feel better if they assume those rare specimens still have one.) Six to eight spells (plus minor variants, which don't count) is typical, added to the universality of telekinesis. So nopony can do everything -- but if you're in one of the larger settled zones, the odds are very good that somepony knows how to do what you just did.

Let's make our showmare a unicorn.

Most of the ground settlements are mixed ones. (One of the exceptions is currently being rather forcibly solved.) So even if somepony you're performing for can't do your kind of magic, they know somepony who can. In fact, the odds are pretty good that said pony is somewhere in the audience, and they're about to tell you they can do that. In fact, they can do it better than you can and if they don't know the trick, they're going to defy the existence of learning capacity entirely through declaring that it could be mastered in about five minutes.

(The showmare has yet to have a true conversation with the designer and yet when it comes to how some others regard the things brought into the world by those mares alone, they're going to have a lot in common.)

Those ponies are everywhere, because magic is everywhere and so what does the showmare have to offer: a collection of basic tricks being shown off in a single place? How are you supposed to impress your audience? Even displays of unusual strength or control are only good for so much and in any case, this mare mostly edges towards the latter.

You're going to need multiple selling points. So... start with the personality, because you're about to craft an artificial one. Make it big and bold, then add a heaping helping of loud. Make yourself into the center of attention. Ponies have to pay attention to you, because you won't let them look anywhere else! Dress to impress, or at least to give ponies that much more to look at (if only because you're dressed in the first place). And you're going to need some public ego, or rather, if you're going to make this work at all, you're going to need an Ego. Dramatic gestures, the tone-shifting vocal patterns of the true showmare, there's probably things you can do with your mane, and you meld it all into the Ego because you're not only the center of attention, you have to make the audience feel like nopony else deserves to be.

You need an Ego, to be a traveling showmare. You just have to learn how to leave it on the stage, because if you start believing in it...

...anyway, hecklers. You'll need to watch out for those, so have some prepared responses ready. Be continually on the lookout for chances to use them, because once you shut down a few, you can effectively stop them all. Admittedly, that's going to put you on something close to the permanent defensive. In fact, keep it up long enough and your efforts might effectively become... preemptive.

So you've got your Look. There's a Style and, if you've been careful about it, you're even managing to control the Ego. But you're still a showmare in a world of magic and no matter what kind of spin you can put on any of the standard tricks, somepony is going to be better than you. Displays of field dexterity? So you can manage a dozen disparate items now: there's a mare in the audience who can manage hundreds, and too many of them are sewing needles. Strength? You're above average, and you could have gone to the Gifted School if only your entire life had been different. But you met the winner of the blood lottery one day, and... you try not to think about what you did after that, any more than might be necessary to keep you from ever doing something that stupid again.

This is your career, because there was another option and... it hurt too much...

...this is your stage. Yours. What do you have to offer? Because Look and Style only go so far, and you made the mistake of taking your Ego off the stage. It nearly cost you everything. It...

...it wasn't you, even the Princess said it wasn't you and that if it had been just about anypony in the world other than you...
...ponies might have died...
...maybe ponies would have died if that horror had been around your neck for five more minutes...

...you need more than showmareship and patter. This is a world when everyone can do some form of magic, and some of those who share yours will always decide they can outclass you in the basics. There's only one way to do this.

You'll just have to show them something new.

Every show. Every fresh pass through the same town. Something they've never seen before. Something nopony has ever seen before. And that's how you stay alive. By never stopping, through making your life into an endless chase and even on the best days, what you're mostly chasing down is yourself. You -- can't live by trying to catch up with anypony else. Not any more.

You have to bring the new. Every day. Every time.

And even then, some idiot who reached their learning capacity on Spell Two is going to try duplicating it and take out half their living room in the process. Which won't include the bookshelves, because none of those morons ever seem to have any.

(You've been trying to open and close performances with warnings. Nopony listens. It's probably because so many of them are stupid.)

Equestria was in winter. Vanhoover, which was just about the northernmost settlement, occasionally found a need to kick in a few seasonal capital letters and optional boldface.

It was widely considered to be one of the most beautiful settled zones. The architecture wasn't quite like anything else in the nation, the nearby mountains to the east were magnificent, you had the ocean on the other three sides and in summer, there were sweet scents, water warm enough to swim in, and the feeling of being cradled by the world. It was much the same in winter, except for the parts where the local weather team considered themselves to be having a good day if bone-cracking winds were only sluicing in from one direction.

Some claimed that Vanhoover ponies had their own language: to wit, it was supposed to have eighteen words for 'snow.' In reality, there was only one. The modifying curses tended to slur.

Most of the ponies who lived in Vanhoover had been there for generations, and what should have been centuries of slowly-building cold resistance still left them traveling at speed with their heads down. (Because it was Vanhoover, any resulting collisions almost always triggered full apologies, including from whoever had been hit.) You went outside, you got to wherever you were going, you warmed up, and then you got ready to do it all over again because it was Vanhoover and winter might only be a fourth of the year, but that just made it feel like nine moons of cold had been compressed.

It took a certain amount of skill to make Vanhoover ponies stop in the street during the winter. Or... it was possible that the mare had seen it as a challenge to herself. If you could stall out a crowd for a full performance in Vanhoover while working on a fully-exposed outdoor stage, then what could the rest of Equestria ever do to you?

Believing it was even possible might have required something in the way of an Ego.

It took a little work for the smallest of the approaching parties to spot the mare: she'd managed to draw and keep a decent crowd, and lack of height added to minimal control over her wings was putting her neck at some awkward angles. But for the librarian... it was somewhat like watching a dance. The unicorn on the collapsible stage was occupying one section, and then she was flowing towards another. She had partnered with her own corona, sent it to one place, twisted it whip-like to another, had it wind its way through the audience in a gentle caress. An audience she wasn't even really looking at, because the hecklers had been silenced long before the four had arrived and this was her own part of the dance.

The ornate hat raised itself from a nearby table, seemed to twinkle as it settled over head and horn, followed by having the crowd gasp as the next burst of corona went through --

("Illusion," the little mare whispered. "That hat hasn't been real for at least ten minutes. She told me she was working on that one.")

-- and the mare basked in it, the incredulity and disbelief from the audience soaked into her as something very close to warmth...

...that was, perhaps, what she felt first. It was certainly what the crowd registered, because the mare had captivated all those who had stopped and for the rest -- they were traveling with their heads down. But there was a new arrival in Vanhoover and wherever she went...

It started at the back of the crowd, worked its way in. Fur strands separated. Hooves which had been making an effort to stay in one place relaxed, as their owners no longer felt the need to almost canter in place against cold stone. A scarf began to feel inappropriate. Degree by degree, it wafted forward until the warmth registered in the minds of those who were watching, until the concept of a wild warm breeze off the ocean shattered in a hundred minds under the pressure of disbelief. Some of the more practical began to turn, if only to find out what was on fire and how long it would take to put it out. (If nopony or property was in danger, Vanhoover residents would take any normal estimate and add five minutes.)

They turned.
They stared.
A few of them began to speak. The one they were about to try speaking with raised a huge forehoof to her lips.
More of them turned, curious to see just what everypony else was looking at...

Perhaps the showmare felt the warmth first. Or it could have been hard-won instincts recognizing that the audience was shifting focus, knowing something was happening on the outskirts, that she had to get them back before it was too late and how could she even have lost them when she'd just been starting to demonstrate the new? Whatever was going on had to be stopped, the dance went into a new beat, one which let her look across them and over them and then there was a very large white mare in the way.

The showmare's initial, rather complex expression might have still been familiar to anypony who'd ever been on parole. It was the face of a mare who knew she was innocent, but didn't know exactly what the officer who'd just shown up at her workplace had been told -- while being all too aware that her personal credibility was rather low.

Her mouth opened. This was followed by having it close again, with no words emerging in between. Just about anypony who knew the unicorn would have considered it to be a rather rare occasion.

She kept looking at the white mare. Directly at that silent, smiling face, which meant it took a few extra seconds to spot the little dragon riding on the broad back.

Purple eyes instantly focused on scales. He waved at her.

Slowly, inexorably, the gaze slid down the white body. It had to travel quite a long way towards the ground before it found the first hint of librarian, and wound up having to largely skip across a widely-grinning farmer along the way.

It was just barely possible to see the showmare's mouth moving. Those with true skill in lip reading might have been able to spot the outer framework for Buck My Life.

Her corona winked out. The hat vanished accordingly (with the real one appearing under a table), but there were only four left who even noticed, so that was more or less all right.

"Trixie Lulamoon," the Princess calmly called out, "the palace regrets and will compensate for the interruption, but Equestria has need of your services. In your own time, please."

There were forms of magic which Twilight was still trying to master, many which she had yet to understand, and the mission to come would introduce her to a number which never should have been allowed to exist. The interior of Trixie's caravan involved none of them. Instead, the space existed in open violation of topology, and to watch its owner furiously stomp inside was to listen as physics went off to find a quiet place to cry.

The stage was easy enough. She'd seen the stage fold up, had witnessed the process again just a few minutes ago, and so she understood how it was carried, balanced, and deployed. The stage was basic, even if the required thinness of the materials meant Trixie was forever recasting a number of reinforcement spells. But just about all of the equipment required for the show had to be stored within, and that narrow area -- no more than two body lengths across at the widest point, and a consistent seven in length -- also had to include living space. A place to wash up. Food supplies. Somewhere to sleep. And Trixie.

Trunks covered almost all of the floor. Most of them held stagecraft supplies. Subtle odors suggested that a few stored dried fruits and vegetables, along with twisted hay: travel hardtack.

There was a sink, and a water cistern. Some makeup was strewn around the rim. There were also dishes waiting to be cleaned, and the plural only applied because the occupant owned two. Even when you lived alone, it helped to have a backup.

The floor didn't offer enough storage, so there were stacks of narrow shelves. Smoke powder was readily available. A few potion ingredients had been carefully labeled by a mare who couldn't brew potions, but she was always traveling and you never knew if you were going to meet someone who would want to trade. One shelf held a twisted, tangled remnant of what Twilight recognized as ruined, inert platinum wire: something which almost looked as if it had found a way of exploding in reverse.

There were bookcases built into the walls, along with ropes strung in front of each: keeping the contents from being jolted out every time the wheels hit a bump. Most of the shelves were filled with notebooks, and Twilight knew every last one of them was full again because shelves, bookcases, equipment, and miscellaneous debris still somehow left parts of the walls and ceiling (because there were things hanging from the ceiling) exposed and wherever there was open space, there was writing. It was formulae and theory and conjecture and she had to stop looking at it because if she kept going, she would begin to either debate or cry. There was a chance for both.

No bed was visible. Oft-folded padding was strewn across the top of the largest trunk.

The occupant furiously trotted back towards that trunk, spun, jumped, slammed her body onto it, and yelped "What?"

Three mares pulled back, at least as much they could. Twilight was the only one small enough to get inside, which had left Applejack on the entrance ramp and Celestia awkwardly angling her head in through the doorway. Spike was tightly-pressed against her neck, the better to stay warm.

(They had privacy. A ruling Princess asking ponies to give them some privacy had cleared out the cold streets for two blocks.)

"As I said outside," the white mare began, "Equestria has need --"

"-- I haven't done anything! I've been following the terms of my parole! I check in whenever I enter a new town! I've been reporting my travels! I swear --"

"-- of your services --"

"-- I would never do anything like that again --" the light blue fur was beginning to vibrate out of its natural grain "-- nothing like it, nothing even close, I'm just trying to live --"

Twilight took half a step forward, which was all the Mystery Cabinet would allow.

"-- I told her about the exoteleports."

The showmare's mouth soundlessly opened.

"Huh," Applejack observed. "Twice in one day. Gotta be the record --"

It was just above a whisper. "-- you did what?"

"...an' that went an' ruined it," the farmer grinned. "Thanks a lot, Twi. Anyway, as the Princess was sayin' --"

Furiously, with exposed horn beginning to show corona spikes, "The Great and Powerful Trixie confided --"

-- and the kicked snow bopped her snout.

"OW!"

"Told me t' do that if'fin y'went third-person," Applejack called out. "Got some more waitin', too."

The showmare fumed. Glared. Eventually bothered to wipe off her face.

"I told you that in confidence, Twilight. Because we were trying to work out that one spell, it kept taking more and more scrolls, and I thought it would help --"

"-- and Twilight," Celestia smoothly cut in (although the motion required for doing so meant her horntip scraped against the ceiling), "couldn't remember anypony ever having done it before. She was trying to get you a potential award from the Equestrian Magic Society, Ms. Lulamoon. But she also wanted to protect your privacy until you were ready for it, so the first step in doing that was to ask somepony for help. A pony with connections to the Society, who could look into the matter without raising a disturbance. That would be me. And now that I'm here -- I'd like to see it."

This time, the unicorn managed to glare at all of them, which took quite a bit in the way of wide-angle work. Raised her left forehoof, upturned it, and then switched to glaring at one of the dishes.

It flashed. Vanished. And then it was balanced atop keratin.

"...it's stupid," the showmare muttered. "Something small, something completely unsecured. I can bring it to me, when I still can't move myself. Big deal. I've mostly been using it to collect tips. Giving the audience something new..."

"And that's why we're here," Celestia stated. "You talked about your talent with me, prior to my placing you on parole. Ms. Lulamoon, the palace can legally impress any Equestrian citizen onto its staff in an emergency: we just try not to do it too often, lest that power be challenged. It can't be overridden -- but we could lose some time to a court which is trying to figure out a polite way of agreeing with us. In your case, you are, as you noted, on parole. Seeking and using the Amulet is a crime. But you are the one pony I can name in generations of that thing resurfacing in the world who didn't kill with it. Or rather -- when it took your body --"

"-- don't." They barely heard it. "I don't want to remember --"

"-- and used your personality as a template, it found only that which wanted to impress."

"...I wanted an audience," the showmare whispered. "Dead ponies can't stomp. That's all it was..."

"Still more than anypony else," Celestia gently offered. "That's why you're on parole, Ms. Lulamoon. Because I thought you needed another chance. And now the palace needs you, because we both know what the icon on your flanks truly means. The lost channeling device. You are a means by which new magic finds its way into the world. A talent --"

The anger came back, and did so all at once. The showmare's horn was sparking, forelegs draped over the edge of the trunk went forward and slammed into the floor as Twilight just barely projected her own field in time to catch the dish. "-- for creating spells I don't have the strength to cast! For dreaming of things I can't do! I'm trying to live with my talent, I'm trying, but when I go too deep, when I push too hard and my own limits stop me --"

"-- for innovation. Who can look at things in ways nopony else can. And," the white mare calmly added, "who can 'exoteleport'. Because there's a reason we came for you, Ms. Lulamoon. Will you let us explain?"

Gray-tinged magneta winked out.

"Like I have a choice," the showmare muttered. "What's so bucking important?"

"The following information is classified," Celestia informed her. "So I suggest you listen very closely. Twilight?"

The librarian found a way to take another step forward.

They waited until the unicorn had finished rinsing out her mouth, which took most of the cistern and nearly displaced the other dish onto the floor.

"...getting rid of a mark," she finally said, directing the words at the half-mirror over the basin. Watching them all through reflection alone.

"Or changing it. Switching it, and the results vanish when you die," Twilight reluctantly repeated. "We don't know..."

"Do they take volunteers?"

Three ponies paled, and the little dragon nearly lost his grip. The showmare reacted to all of it with the thinnest of smiles.

"I don't have the best relationship with my own talent," she told the mirror. "Still." Sighed. "But that's me. For just about anypony else, this would have been an abomination. I get it, Twilight."

"You'll be compensated at a fair rate," Celestia promised. "Since we're pulling you off the road. We're not asking you to go bankrupt, Ms. Lulamoon. Just to assist your nation, when it comes to request your help. Will you?"

Starkly, "Do I have a choice?"

"There's other nations," the white mare observed. "You always have choices. You just might not like some of the options. Personally, I did have the choice of not placing you in prison."

The last of the clean water came out of the cistern, and the reared-up showmare awkwardly splashed some of it towards her face.

"Are you taking the caravan?"

"Not in a single trip," Celestia stated. "I take Applejack back to the Acres first. You, Twilight, and Spike to the tree. After that, I'll come back for your things. I can even mail the notebooks to your storage unit, since you seem to be at capacity again. But I'd recommend you use her guest bed rather than continue sleeping in --"

"-- then let's go." They watched as she dropped back down, turned, slowly walked towards them. Some withdrawal was required before she could use the ramp. "I've just got to lock up..."

Her corona ignited. Light prodded at the closing door, here and there.

Trixie glared back at Twilight. Her lips quirked.

"So the Element of Magic herself," the unicorn tried out, "needed to seek help from a simple showm --"

With an open, accepted (and almost returned) smile, "...oh, shut up."

The notebook's pages turned, because there were many notebooks in the community, and yet there were ways in which there only seemed to be one.

Eventually, she reached the pages which concerned Gez, because that was who had died. He'd done so before the teleport had taken away the remnant which had named itself after a disease to...

Her eyes moved across them, taking in a word here and there. On the whole, she often found very little need to truly read something she'd personally written. With her own work, it only took a little to serve as a reminder, and with the words of others...

She'd read a lot about how certain things were impossible. The term had mostly turned out to mean 'things we don't want anypony to try'. And then you had to start asking questions about why they didn't want you trying any of it. It was enough to make you question the intent behind so-called educational material, if you were capable of thinking at all.

So that's where he was from.

There had been so many of them. Having notes helped.

She thought about it for a while, and did so while trotting within her personal quarters. Movement kept the blood flowing.

It was, in many ways, a question of where the corpse had appeared. Would he have tried to return to his birthplace, because pegasi had certain recognized homing instincts in times of stress and just about every other pony was stuck with an unreasonable attachment to wherever their blood had first touched the ground? His last place of residence prior to joining the community? Some secret clubhouse from the days of his youth? She didn't know what he had been thinking at the last, and so she couldn't be sure where the body had turned up.

There were ways in which she could try to find out, of course. But so few of hers had the strength required to leave for a time, to take up the burden again, if only for a little while. Her best wouldn't be back for at least a few days, and would hopefully be bringing company. There was a house waiting to be occupied, after all, and as far as the structure was concerned, the residents were... fungible.

If he'd appeared in just the right place, there was a chance that the body hadn't even been found. But if it had been the wrong one...

Corpses, despite what the total cessation of active biology would suggest, had the potential to reproduce. In fact, under the wrong circumstances, having one discovered might cause the total to propagate quite rapidly. She knew that from experience.

She couldn't be sure where the body had wound up. Not just yet.

It wouldn't hurt to prepare.

Intrusive

She didn't know when their normal lives would end.

When it came to missions, the Bearers seldom got much in the way of advance notice. In the typical best case, there would be just about enough time to pack something: more frequent examples had the palace promising to have somepony fetch their personal belongings later. (This was something which always pained Rarity, both from the intrusion on her privacy and the persistent belief that nopony else would be capable of working out what her ideal situational wardrobe would be.) A few adventures had started with the group going out their respective doors with whatever they were wearing or, for six out of the seven, usually weren't. And on the rare occasion when they did have a few hours to work things out...

Twilight was aware that it was possible for a mission to suffer from overplanning, and was still trying to work out a rather complicated system for potentially dealing with that. If she was using Dragon Mountain as an example... well, there had admittedly been a number of mistakes made there, most of which she'd only recognized upon seeing what everypony else considered to be proper preparations. Twilight might not have bothered to consult what she'd expected to be fully useless advice from the Archives, but at least she'd thought to bring a map. As opposed to fur-staining dyes, a broad-brimmed hat (which had admittedly given a lightly-smirking Rarity some eye protection as they'd gone up the Sun-lit side), and the hoofball helmet which Fluttershy had pressed into service for about ten seconds. And once she considered Pinkie's idea of supplies...

You could overthink a mission or at least, you could think about it in the wrong ways. Instead of considering how to deal with the danger, it was possible to get stuck on the danger itself. The consequences of it. Knowing that lives were potentially at risk, you were surrounded by those you cared about most, every decision you made might affect them first and if that decision was the wrong one, then...

...there were a lot of disadvantages to starting a mission immediately, but Twilight had found doing so gave her that much less time for picturing the deaths.

They seldom got preparation time for missions and when they did, there was always a deadline: things begin at this hour with or without you and since it's generally essential to assemble the entire set, it had better be 'with'. But with this... Twilight didn't know when they were going to leave. The destination might be known within hours. Or there could potentially be moons of waiting, hoping somepony could find any clue as to where they were supposed to go, constantly trying to see things in new ways until even inner sight blurred and imagination produced nothing more than washed-out grey. More missions would probably intrude during that period: working for the palace while waiting to work for the palace. And even when they got home, there would be no true rest, no resumption of the self-imposed illusion: that they were normal mares in a normal world, who could freely go back to their day jobs while planning meals, drop-bys, get-togethers and parties. Perhaps they would never be called again...

It was an illusion which not even Applejack would allow herself to inspect too closely, lest she decide it was a lie. It also felt like the only way any of them could truly live. There had to be a time for normalcy: to rest, recover, go through all the little events which came with friendships. Because if they couldn't pretend they were normal, that they were in so many ways ordinary mares whose everyday lives and bonds were the most precious thing...

You couldn't chose not to save the world, because nopony could count on the world to save itself. But when you limped back in the small hours, forcing yourself to move forward under Moon towards the warm bed which had served as a soul's beacon... you could choose to be a librarian.

Twilight didn't know when the mission would begin. But there was part of her which hoped it happened fairly soon. No more than a week before they set out; not just so they could discover what had happened to the stallion and ensure it never happened to anypony else, but to cut short the time of forever-building dread. Something which never seemed to reach a peak.

She couldn't say she was used to it. (She didn't want to be.) But at least she had experience with that level of stress, and had even found (occasional) ways to channel it once the group reached their destination. Every Bearer understood that emotion, and she loathed herself for having put Spike through it over and over again. When it came to their first --

second

-- first recruit...

She glanced to her left as the group moved through Vanhoover's chill streets. The population was giving them some distance, because there was a ruling Princess among them and while having two alicorns in a small area would have normally seemed to double the pull for ponies who felt that the solution to all of their problems could be found at the intersection of wings and horn, Celestia had requested that the population give them some distance. It had created a virtual, mobile shield bubble: nopony approached -- but there was a living border about fifteen body lengths away, and it moved with them. All they were doing was heading for the city's main gatehouse, and more than a hundred ponies kept pace just so they could say they'd once seen that happen.

Celestia was accustomed to the weight of those stares. Applejack bore a traveling stance which suggested fur had hardened into armor, and gazes broke themselves against her flanks. Spike was huddled low against the old mare's neck, soaking up as much warmth as he could: he barely noticed anypony looking at all. Twilight longed for the ability to deal with all of it, and then tried to discard it because that desire would only lead into wishes which would never be fulfilled. But on Twilight's left...

The showmare's cape didn't swish as she moved: it slashed at the air. Only so much to each side, and then it came curling back in, cutting atmosphere in half along the way as a punishment for having dared to approach her.

By contrast, the tail was just about still. A flicking tail was the sign of an upset pony: lashing indicated anger. The streaked fall was being held a little higher than usual, and the only motions came from wind and a subtle, constant shifting of hips. She was a showmare, she considered herself to be an attractive one, and as long as ponies were going to be staring at her on the way out, she had very few issues in giving them something to look at. And the hat had been left in the caravan, all the better to let observers see how the posture of pride allowed an exposed horn to stand out that much more.

Trixie moved at Twilight's side, in the company of two Bearers, a dragon, and a ruling Princess, as if it was something she did every day. The route was new to her, and yet she trotted along as if she'd always known it, keeping the pace --

-- no. Keeping the lead.

It was Celestia who was guiding them back. But Trixie was never caught looking at the oldest alicorn, seemed to be matching pace and direction on hearing alone (not that her ears ever visibly moved), and she was still always at least two hoofwidths in front of the group. As if they were part of her retinue.

There were ways in which it was an amazing performance, and none of them made it any less annoying.

The hollow structure of the gatehouse offered a moment of true privacy. Celestia used it.

"I may not be able to bring the caravan before Sun-lowering," she told them, shifting to face the mares as a group. "I'll get you all into Ponyville, but after that, there are things I need to do in the palace." The little snorts were gone now, the foreleg gestures absent -- but there was still a slight touch of the mare in her voice. "And I mean beyond making a token appearance in the name of calming the Guards."

"Calming the Guards," Twilight repeated, mostly for lack of other options.

"They knew I was going to Ponyville, and that I would be in the company of Bearers. I told them that was sufficient protection." The right side of the mare's mouth quirked up. "They're not always happy about that. For some reason, they're convinced the lot of you are trouble." She glanced down at Applejack. "So I'm going to take you back first, as promised. After that, I'll bring the rest of you to the tree. But I need to check on the palace's end of the investigation: see if there's been any progress made. And there are duties beyond that. So if you don't see the caravan during the day, know I'll have it on library grounds before Sun is raised tomorrow. As for updating everypony about anything we've learned -- we need to learn something first, and then I'll get the information to you as quickly as I can." Her horn ignited, and a wreath of sunlight gently lowered Spike to the somewhat dusty floor. "I'm trusting you'll do the same."

The little dragon nodded. Celestia backed up a little, gave herself room to reorient the huge body without colliding with anypony and turned until she was standing next to Applejack.

"When are you going to brief the others?" the Princess asked, and waited.

Normal lives...

"Is there any chance we'll leave today?" Twilight checked. If nothing else, it would mean a minimal build time for the anxiety. Her pacing groove probably wouldn't have the chance to become more than two hoofheights deeper.

"Not a strong one," the Princess admitted. "It's not impossible, but I'm not expecting things to come together that quickly. We're probably looking at a day or two before we can even make a good guess at where to send you, and I'm not going to move on a guess unless there's no other choice."

The little mare managed a nod. "Then I'll call them to the tree tonight."

Let them work.
Let them play.
Let them live in a world where marks don't evaporate.

"Ah'll hold off until then," Applejack assured them. "Wasn't plannin' t' see anypony today anyway. Got a time in mind, Twi? Saves a scroll if'fin y'tell me now."

And let them have dinner, because there isn't that much in the kitchen.

"Three hours after Sun-lowering."

Applejack nodded, as did the Princess. There was a flash --

"I'll need to see your notes," Trixie told much emptier air, head still held high. "And get a look at the device fragment."

"We can do that --"

-- which was when it occurred to her that Trixie was about to be in the tree. A mare with whom all research exchange and advancement had required dragon-fueled correspondence would be within hoofwidths.

She'd seen diagrams on the caravan's ceiling which seemed worthy of discussion, especially as one of them had incorporated a few aspects of the Question: that would be a good opener, or at least a change of pace for when they'd just gone over the notes too many times and needed a refreshing change of subject. Plus Celestia had said the notebooks might be mailed to Trixie's storage unit, but she'd never said anything about sending all of them. It might just wind up as the full ones. She'd never seen the raw pages for any of Trixie's notebooks, and with a mare whose talent was for innovation --

-- she's going to be in the tree. In the tree. We can compare formulae. There was that theory she had about corona angling: that's got to be at least three hours of discussion before she leaves. And I still need to see the exoteleport in action. A few times. Maybe a few dozen. We could do so much!

"You're vibrating," the showmare observed. "Sort of -- wriggling. You're that cold?"

Because when it isn't scrolls and it's just talking, we can talk as much as we want about magic and possibilities and the dreams she has just about every night, because that's when her talent really goes to work! I could even watch her while she sleeps. Not to feel when her talent starts channeling, because that's probably too subtle to pick up. But everypony knows the best time to remember a dream is right after it finishes. So I can wake her at the instant her eyes stop moving behind the lids, we'll write everything down and then she can go back to sleep. I'm sure interrupted sleep is fine as long as we keep it to a few nights.

...I'll have to stay up in order to catch her at the right moment.

For a few nights.

Maybe after the mission ends. I can probably talk her into staying around for a few extra days, just to work on things because she's going to be in the tree instead of on the road all the time, when she never, ever comes back to --

Casually, "You're not wriggling any more."

-- comes... back...

And now there was a somewhat different note in the showmare's voice. "Something wrong with your tail?"

Naturally, her brother had already picked up on it. "Twilight, whatever you're thinking of --"

...she's going to be in the tree.
The tree is in --
-- this could be a problem...

"Trixie?" The showmare glanced in her general direction, and then finally looked down. "If the Princess brings us back outside the library?" Which was very possible, because Celestia took up a lot of space and the library didn't offer very much of it. "Get inside. Fast. I'll work the locks for you. Actually, I'm just going to ask for the balcony --"

"-- Twilight?" It was the first time her sibling had spoken in chorus with the showmare, and it would not be the last.

"-- and maybe she can do an extra-bright flash. Not just the teleport: something she lets go as soon as we're out of the between again. We'll close our eyes. Oh, Discord's paw, if we can just get lucky enough to have nopony flying by --"

"-- Twilight," the showmare carefully asked, "exactly what are you going on about --"

There was a single instant where it was possible to see grey-tinged violet widening, just before eyelids winced shut and skin began to pale under blue fur.

Spike, caught between fading warmth and chill realization, began to shiver. His sibling quickly followed suit.

"-- oh," Trixie softly said. "Oh. Right."

There were many things to be said about a normal life and when it came to Twilight, very few of them were said by Ponyville residents because nopony really expected her to have one. Just for starters, the library had posted operating hours and as far as the settled zone was concerned, the main reason they were posted was because when you had a really good running joke, somepony needed to write it down. Spike had placed a Temporarily Closed notice on the doors just before heading out for the Acres: the dubious benefit of experience. But when it came to how the town saw it... their librarian had a number of demands on her time, some of them were rather important and if any happened to be crucial, then the palace would send in a substitute who would keep to the schedule with dedication, devotion, and the occasional insistence on closing at the exact second.

Having predictable access to books was seen by the majority of settled zones as a casual privilege and if that access was offered by anypony other than Twilight, Ponyville tended to treat it as the signal to Start Worrying Now. Every scheduled trip out of town had to be accompanied by a fleet of public postings on the town's notice boards, and if she ever tried to take an actual vacation --

-- anyway, the rather dubious benefit was that just about anypony who'd been in town for over a moon tended to treat the library's posted operating hours as a frequently-ignored suggestion. Nopony really questioned why the tree was closed at odd times because the usual answer was 'Twilight,' there was the option to invoke a subset of 'Bearers' and if you looked too far beyond that, the question of 'Run?' might begin to arise, generally at high speeds.

So the library was closed when a flash of bright light brought the travelers back to Ponyville, and the fact that it had been closed for a few hours meant nopony was in range when the second flash went off. After that, getting inside was just a matter of indecently hasty corona fumbling. Spike went outside just long enough to post a sign which announced the library was closed for the rest of the day due to Not An Emergency So Please Don't Do Anything Stupid, then plopped himself down in front of a self-started fire and didn't move for a while. Twilight gave him an hour before gently asking if he was up to sending the scrolls out: one carefully-worded group for her friends, and then a single missive to the Canterlot Archives because an hour had been long enough to discover that when it came to the manifestation of real talents from false marks, the tree didn't have enough on Cutie Pox.

(Four of the scrolls had been precisely lacking in details beyond 'discussion of upcoming mission tonight', because she wanted them to have a normal day. The one for the Acres desperately asked its recipient to hold back one thing until Twilight had the chance to announce it herself.)

The mares conducted a mutual raid of the refrigerator, followed by drawing up a very long list of everything required to make sure the next attempt at conquest would find enough to justify the effort. This was sent to Barnyard Bargains, and ended with a request to drop everything off at the back door. Discussions began, along with the review of notes. After a few minutes, they moved it into better lighting. Then they further moved it away from all sources of natural light, which were fading quickly anyway as the pegasi brought the clouds in, and if you could see pegasi bringing clouds in...

Eventually, they wound up in the basement. The basement had several things to recommend it. For starters, Trixie didn't get access to that kind of equipment on the road. With no current need for photo development, the sub-level was well-lit. It was warm. Quite a few of Twilight's personal notebooks were down there.

And there weren't any windows.

There would be a mission: that was all she had told them in the summons. Beyond that, four of her friends still thought it was a normal day, which became a normal night, which included a perfectly-normal weather schedule. It just so happened that Twilight had completely forgotten about that last part, while the snow hadn't forgotten about anypony.

"Not that I blame you, dear," Rarity declared, flakes transferring from hind hoof to wood as she nudged the door closed behind her. "At any rate, I did wish to give this particular jacket a test under suitable conditions."

A brief flare of soft blue moved the plush hood back, and a thin layer of caked white immediately slumped from lining to floor.

Both mares looked at it for a few seconds.

"Cinching would seem to be required," the designer decided. "Regretfully, the actual adjustment may need to wait until I return home." With hopes so faint as to require their own couch, "Unless you have failed to use the latest emergency sewing kit in an experiment?"

"The thread was fine enough to --" was the launching point for the typical argument, and Twilight's wince cut the rest off before it could emerge. "-- sorry. I'm sorry, Rarity, and I'm sorry for everypony having to come here in the snow. You're half-covered already!"

"Perhaps not quite," said a mare who rather decidedly wasn't Honesty, and did so while her tail arced itself over a nearby bin and waited for everything coating it to slide. "The storm has yet to reach full strength. And in any case --"

"-- Applejack and Fluttershy have the longest trips, they're going to be soaked, and teleporting anypony home in the snow --"

"-- I'm sure Spike would be willing to light a lovely fire for us. And we could shelter here overnight if necessary, Twilight. I doubt such will be required, however. The schedule has dictated the first truly major storm for -- eight days off, was it not? While naturally declining to send out any weather team members to offer assistance with the subsequent plowing..." With a slight shrug, "There are actually a surprising number of ponies out and about tonight. They simply enjoy the chill, I suppose. For some reason. Now where is Spike? Tucked safely inside, one would hope, and well away from any chill emanating from the windows."

"In the lab," Twilight told her. "We're going to have the meeting there. He's already started the fire."

The designer briefly frowned. "Slightly unusual -- but it is your home. Did you clean out the lower flue?"

Rarity often served as a supervisory elder sibling to the other Bearers: the problem was that she knew it. "Last week."

"Good. And how is your current blanket supply, should we all in fact remain here for the evening?" With just a touch of haste, "Without makeovers. Or party games, no matter what Pinkie might insist: unless this mission intrudes, I have work to do in the morning. And of course, we will have to find a means of determining who gets your guest bed." The white head automatically began to tilt up, with visible intent towards checking the accommodations. "Did you happen to replace that mattress --"

-- a flare of pinkish light blazed around Twilight's horn, and her field instinctively lanced forward.

"-- Twilight?" The word was slightly muffled.

Carefully, "...yes?"

"Is there a reason for you to have just pulled down on my snout?"

"...trying to tilt some extra snow out of your mane before it melted," offered a mare who also wasn't Honesty while lacking the same level of skill at being its opposite.

Don't look up.
Don't look up.
You already looked up a little.
Please don't have seen the lump under the blankets.
The lump with a point on it.

"You don't want wet hair," Twilight tried. "And fur. Together. That would be bad."

Rarity looked at her for a few seconds. Just... looked.

"Very well," the designer eventually said. "I appreciate your concern towards my comfort. Which will hopefully include -- letting go? Ah. Yes, thank you. And since the fire awaits..."

Twilight moved with her toward the basement doors, opened them. Rarity peered down the ramp.

"I see the fire," the designer announced. "And snacks. Along with a number of cushions to rest upon. Excellent."

The librarian nodded.

Another moment passed, as blue eyes continued to stare towards the designated briefing area.

"I also see multiple empty buckets and troughs of water. Are you that concerned about your suppression system?"

The resulting silence echoed, and only ended when the little mare began to wonder if it was enough to let pony ears pick up on blanket-muffled breathing.

"No."

"Then why --"

"-- because I know what I have to tell you," Twilight sighed. "And the cushions aren't just for resting. That group is yours. The one with the blue pile off to the side."

Openly wary, as that had been earned, "Because...?"

Twilight didn't answer. She simply led the way and after a moment, Rarity followed.

Because you usually faint to the left.

By the time she finished, two of the buckets were partially full.

"I'm sorry," she told them, looking around the little semi-circle from her position on the curve: the one furthest from the fire. It gave her the best view of the group, it also permitted her to watch the ramp, and... all things considered, the basement was warm enough. The fire was blazing merrily in the lower hearth, because it had no means of comprehending the things which had just been said. Her friends brought their own warmth into the space. (Rainbow had the highest body temperature: natural for a pegasus.) But when it came to how she truly felt... she had asked them to come through snow and chill. They had more of a right to the heat than she did, and -- she had also known what she had to tell them.

There was warmth in the basement: some from pony and dragon bodies, more from the fire, with a little generated by distant lab equipment. But Twilight had spoken of the stallion (and little else, for a crucial detail had to be postponed for just a bit longer). For four of them, the true chill was settling within.

Rarity had just finished rinsing out her mouth. Fluttershy was tucked into a tight curl of shivering life. Pinkie's entire body had gone tense: form motionless, curls vibrating as if looking for a place to ground their charge. Applejack, who'd had the most time to adjust, was simply waiting. Spike was moving around the group, checking on each mare in turn. And Rainbow's posture was almost casual, nothing more than visible anticipation of the next words while wondering why the last ones had needed to take so long -- right up until Twilight noticed the movement of the prismatic tail.

It was tucked against Rainbow's right hip. Then it shifted, allowing the long hairs to coat the left. And then it shifted back, and it moved again, and it did all of it at a speed which was designed not to draw too much notice, something so unlike Rainbow -- but Twilight had seen it.

"So when do we go?" the pegasus demanded. "Because we've gotta go. If there was ever anything which meant we had to get out there, anything ever, more than Discord --" followed by, because it had been a few years, "-- sorry, Fluttershy -- and eternal night and every other bucking thing, this is the one. I can be ready to head out in --"

Her tail shifted again, and did the job which its owner had asked it to perform. But the weather coordinator lacked the sheer spread of Fluttershy's coral fall, the bound thickness of Applejack's blonde strands.

"-- five minutes! Maybe three! I'm not gonna say ten seconds because I've got to get Tank's stuff together and make sure his terrarium has a good host, but if I push it --"

And no matter what she tried, she could only cover a single mark at once.

"-- I don't know, Rainbow," Twilight wearily said. (Her field began to collect buckets, moving them towards the lab's waste disposal area. It was sometimes possible to pick up the texture of an enclosed object through a field, and she was trying her best to avoid that. Having her snout register the smell was bad enough.) "The Princess has her staff researching, trying to find some clue as to where it happened. I told you --"

"-- but you've got to have an idea!" The prismatic strands allowed themselves one lash before moving back to the guard position. "Even if there's nothing official --"

Twilight shook her head, and the fuming pegasus dropped onto her cushions.

Rarity was watching her bucket float away.

"I'm sorry --"

The designer slowly shook her head. "There was no way to prepare us for that," she softly stated. "Any of it. Any warning you could have given beyond the one you offered at the start, that it might be the worst thing we had ever heard -- worse than what we listened to during that hideous conference -- would have required details -- oh, thank you, Spike, but the water I have left is sufficient -- and any details..."

She shuddered. Scales gently touched the purple mane, adjusted a few of the curls, and the little dragon moved on.

"In the best case," the unicorn decided, "it is an allergen. We identify the trigger, and do so while utilizing protection. Transport it to the doctors, so that they might find a cure. Or simply set the infecting species ablaze --"

Which was when Fluttershy looked up, and the lone visible eye was wet.

"-- my apologies," Rarity immediately offered. "I realize that it is not your nature to consider extinction as an option --"

"...it..." The caretaker swallowed. "...this time... if it's an animal, something with a poison that... and he just... I don't know, Rarity. I don't know what depends on that animal being alive. It's the same for a plant. Sometimes, pulling out one thing leaves a whole little piece of the world crashing into the center hole. But at the very least, we have to know what it is. How it happens. And if it's a monster, or a spell, or..."

The shapely form shivered again.

"...a disease can go extinct," she whispered. "A disease doesn't have a purpose. And for monsters... there's a few which are part of the world, in their way. Others aren't. It's just..." A slow breath. "...I'm scared."

Curls slowed in their vibration, and a pink form which had only lost a little hue began to push itself up. Moving to comfort. "I know, Fluttershy," the baker offered. "I know --"

"...and -- I'm not the only one this time... am I?"

The eldest of the hybrids slowly looked around the circle, and found every other mare looking back.

"I've been scared for two days," Twilight quietly offered. "I didn't sleep all that well, and when I did..." The sigh felt as if it had just barely cleared her lungs. "We might all need Luna tonight. I'm just hoping she'll be there." The younger of the Diarchy had to know by now.

Unless I'm not the only pony who doesn't get told things --

"It's my mark," Rainbow fiercely declared, just as her tail twisted again. "I got the first mark. I got the mark which led to everypony else's marks. Nopony touches my mark. Not again."

"Rainbow --" Because some apologies were automatic, and a few felt as if they could never be said enough.

"-- you didn't know, Twilight! Same for a stupid disease or allergen, or a dumb monster with poison! They don't know!" The left forehoof slammed into a cushion, which failed to respect the effort. "But if this is something which got done on purpose, if there's a pony or anything else out there with a spell which does this because it meant to...!"

Which was when they all heard the crackle.

Rainbow stopped. Saw the stares, identified the target, then looked at flared, shifted wings, and the arcs of static jumping between feathers.

The limbs slammed back into the rest position, and the sleek body dropped onto the cushions.

It took a few seconds before the ozone faded enough for anypony else to risk speech.

"Had some time t' think 'bout it," Applejack steadily told them. "Which jus' means Ah had the worst of it before most of you. Ah get t' look like it ain't so bad 'cause Ah've been dealin' with it second-longest. It's sunk deeper." And because dark understatement technically wasn't a lie, "Surface can look like Ah'm dealing: core ain't exactly happy."

"I believe my opinion is currently being poured into a drain," Rarity dryly said. "If I had any faith that Hoovmat suits would actually work..."

Pinkie, about halfway to Fluttershy (and cutting across the circle to get there), paused. "It's not knowing," she said. "And knowing. Put together. I think that's the worst part. Knowing what happened to him, but not why. What his mark was, but not if it was the real one. Just -- knowing something's wrong, and not knowing how wrong it is. Even when it feels like it's as wrong as it ever could be already." Hopefully, "Does that make sense?"

Twilight nodded, and was no longer surprised to find that the motion had been a gentle one.

The baker finished crossing the distance, and carefully sank down next to Fluttershy. "Maybe it's worse for us," she added. "Because we went through the switch. Did you ever notice that nopony really talks about it? Nopony except us? I tried to make a joke about it once, with one of my customers. We were having problems with one of the sinks, I was leaning over it to see if I could spot a clog, and I said I could wish to be swapped with a plumber, except I knew how well that worked out the first time. And when I looked back, Dandelion just looked really really confused. And sort of sick. Her face was all scrunched up, like she was trying to remember something she didn't know..."

"The spell confused memories," Twilight reminded them. "For just about everypony in town. I'm not sure how much anypony retained after it broke." She'd had moons in which to test, and... she hadn't wanted to. She knew what the working had done. She was never going to cast it again. Nopony would ever cast it again --

-- unless that's part of what happened to him.

She sighed.

"I think we kept the most because we were the targets," Twilight reluctantly decided. "But we may need to find out what everypony else remembers, if that's anything at all. Because we can't be sure that spell wasn't involved."

Spike returned to his place, carefully sat down. His tail swayed a little, and walking claws curled inward.

The movement caught his sister's attention. "I don't want you to feel like we're leaving you out." Because that had happened too many times before. "If there's anything you want to say --"

His right hand came up, and the motion stopped her. Made all of them wait, as he covered his eyes for a moment, slowly lowered his arm again. And when the words emerged, they did so with the weight of lead.

"I don't know how much I can say."

"Spike?" From Rarity, because she'd been just a little quicker. "You should always feel as if you are free to speak --"

"-- it's marks," the little dragon quietly broke in. "I told Twilight earlier: that I'm scared for you, for everypony. It makes me sick, thinking about what could happen. But..." and now his hands were clasped, fingers wringing against each other. "...it's not me, is it? It can't be me. It's never..."

He stopped. Looked down at his hands as if seeing them for the first time, and then pried them apart. Glanced up again.

"If we find something which might be doing it," he announced, "I handle it. Nopony touches it. We don't even use fields to move it unless we have to, just in case. Because it can't hurt me."

Fluttershy moved her face away from Pinkie's dampened fur, looked up.

"...and if it does something to dragons?"

Far too evenly, "Then I'm the protector. That's my risk."

Twilight stared at her sibling.

How long do dragons live?
How quickly do they grow up?
How fast am I forcing him to --

"We've gotta be careful 'bout what we say t' ponies here," Applejack's voice stepped into the silence. "Ah'm hopin' the palace can keep the reins on, 'cause we don't need this gettin' out into the open. If anything's gonna cause a panic, it's ponies thinkin' 'bout this. Don't want word goin' any further than it has. Agreed?"

The group nodded, and the blonde tail flicked.

"One more thing," the farmer added. "Ah ain't tellin' Scootaloo. Not until Ah have to. She got enough quizzin' by law enforcement before the warrants went out. Don't want t' get her hopes up, 'cause hope without a good reason, as long as she's been waitin' -- that's its own kind of torture. She's barely settlin' in as-is, an' she don't always stay that way for long." A faint shudder rippled across the muscular form. "If'fin she knew we might be tryin' to find her parents, an' that was all she knew -- she'd try t' come with. Y'know that. Might even try t' go out on her own, get ahead. She can know we've got a mission comin' up, an' she might have t' talk some, try t' remember more than she ever has. But there's a risk, an' we've gotta keep it down." Looking around the circle, with green eyes fierce. "Keep her here, where she's safe. Y'all hear me?"

Nopony risked anything beyond a base nod, and the earth pony's hackles slowly sank back down.

"Are there any questions?" Twilight eventually asked, then ruefully added "I probably can't answer them..."

"Not at this time," Rarity replied. "At least, not that I wish to risk without a night of rest and a fresh bucket." The others agreed.

Applejack's looking at me.
I know it's time. You don't have to look at me like that.
...maybe if we all have some juice first. They might be happier after juice...

She took a breath.

They would never be that happy.

"Then there's one more thing I have to tell everypony," Twilight reluctantly announced. "We're... getting some help."

"I'm glad," Pinkie smiled. "I think we need it this time! Not that we haven't all been pretty good at this! When you take out the mistakes. And the bad decisions. And some of the stuff we shouldn't have done. But even if it usually works out, having the palace actually helping us can't be anything but good! I just don't want the Princesses coming along, because if it's their marks --"

"-- no." Because it was usually best to stop Pinkie before she got too far in and besides, the thought of having it happen to the sisters was already going to be in Twilight's nightscape. "Somepony else."

"Assigned by the palace?" Rarity inquired.

"...yes," was temporarily safe.

"Due to special circumstances, no doubt," the designer decided. "Very well. The need is obviously present, and --" it was as if a dark cloud had drifted across the white fur "-- it is rather unlikely to be worse than the last time we attempted to function as a group of eight. A Guard?"

"A..."

...alcohol?
There probably isn't enough alcohol.
...all I have is rubbing alcohol. So I can wipe down the lab equipment. I barely drink...
Perfect. She's not even down here yet and I already want to start drinking.

They were waiting for her to finish.

Twilight swallowed.

"...new perspective," she managed. "We may have to think about magic in ways we've never considered before. Just for starters, about teleportation, and how that device might operate. How much it could have been involved in -- why the stallion died."

Maybe he was trying to go for help? If the device wasn't perfected, and he didn't know how it worked...

Pinkie nodded. "Somepony from the Gifted School? One of the teachers?" With open worry, "I know it wasn't the best place for you, Twilight. If it's somepony you don't like, we could just ask for --"

"-- she didn't go."

Rarity's head tilted very slightly to the left.

"A mare."

"...yes. She's..."

Work with me, saliva glands.
If I'm going to be swallowing this much, I need liquid.
If I burp in the middle of this because I swallowed too much air, I'm going to feel really stupid.

"...in the library. Right now. I asked her to wait until we finished the first part before I brought her down."

Rarity had a pleasant sort of build: something which was carefully maintained through diet and a regimen of forced-when-necessary exercise. It made it easy to tell just how slowly the unicorn's ribs were shifting.

"Do we get a name?" the designer casually inquired.

I was going to send a corona spark up and let her follow it down.
I could just teleport her in.
...I probably shouldn't teleport her in.

"I'll just -- signal her." Twilight's horn ignited: the flare of energy rushed up the ramp, paused to open the door, and lost a little cohesion as it drifted out of sight.

"Twilight," Rarity carefully said, "it is rather obvious when you are stalling --"

One gulp's worth. Just to wet my throat.
Oh, right. The water's right over there.

"Especially now," the unicorn crossly declared. "And now. Also now. That is your third mug --"

They heard the approaching hoofsteps, tentatively picking out a path. Four mares looked up, saw the door slowly open, the foreleg crossing the line --

"No."

She'd been expecting it. That there would be a protest, followed by a talk, and then they would understand. She'd even figured on denial as the first reaction and given the gathering, never seeing the protesting pony move was a reasonable prediction. Rainbow could blur her way up the ramp before anypony had a real chance to react, and Twilight had kept her field on standby accordingly.

It was just that the burst of rage had come from Pinkie.

The baker was standing again. Then she was rearing up, forelegs pawing at the air, and Twilight saw darkening fur and a fast-straightening mane, all on a sturdy body which possessed enough raw strength to beat Applejack in a fight --

"-- no! Anypony else, Twilight, anypony who might know something about magic! And I mean anypony!" Dense hooves rammed into the ground, and glass vials tumbled from their mountings as water crashed within the troughs. "Didn't Sombra invent a bunch of spells, stuff nopony else could do? Why don't we ask him for some advice?"

You didn't expect rage from Pinkie. They all knew it was possible and somehow it came across as a shock every time, to see what felt like the core of her personality invert --

"He's dead," was all Twilight could initially manage, and she could hear Trixie starting to back up, moving away from the doors. "Pinkie, he's dead --"

"-- which means he paid for what he did to the crystals! For all the horror, for the pain, for the torture! What's her price, Twilight? What did she give up for everything she did? Tell me!"

I can hear her pulling back. Her hooves skittering on the ramp.
She's going to run.
We need her.
She's my --

"-- she's on parole! Probation! One of them, maybe both! I -- Pinkie, the Princess said it's okay!" Surely that had to be the trump card in the grouping, even after all they'd seen and done. "We need her, and the Princess said she can work with us! The Princess questioned her, I told you that! She was caught after she left Ponyville, they took her to the Princess, the Amulet escapes, Pinkie, it's escaped so many times until the last one, it's taken over pony after pony, pretending it was them, warping what was supposed to be them, and the Princess gave her a chance because Trixie was the only one who didn't kill --"

"-- it wasn't for lack of trying!"

It took some time before the echoes died away: enough for Applejack to stand, for Rainbow's wings to flare again, Fluttershy was getting up and Twilight could no longer hear the skittering of hooves.

Then the galloping took over.

The showmare raced down the ramp, head lowered, cape jostled to the left side of her body by abrupt vibrations and before Twilight could focus her field, could think of anything which might have helped at all, Trixie was less than a body length away from Pinkie. Eyes wide, nostrils flared, horn lit --

"-- say that again." It had been a hiss. "Say I tried to murder somepony again. It was the --"

"-- let's start with the cart."

And from Pinkie, it had been a whisper.

Trixie froze. The grey-tinged field winked out.

"Oh," Pinkie softly said. "You remember the cart? I do. I was there for it. I was there for the first time, too. Do you know why I never said anything, the first time you came through? Because I go to a lot of shows. I'm a party planner, you know. Sometimes I hire entertainment. I'm sure you know how some of them work. They want to prove themselves to the audience, and what's better for doing that than showing up a loudmouth? So they use partners. Temporary ones, if they're traveling. You go up to somepony before the show starts, you offer them a couple of bits, they say something nasty at the right time, and you take them down a few places in the race standings. Audience plants. It's an old trick. And Spike's young, he needs the bits --"

"-- she was unbearable!" The little dragon was coming closer. "I didn't think it was stagecraft, Pinkie! She told Twilight about that in some of her letters, how she almost always gets heckled! So she had to be loud and dare ponies, to stop it! But I just thought about the worst students at the Gifted School, how they acted, and that was all I saw --"

"-- and Applejack does a lot of things if she thinks it'll be fun! She would have just told everypony it was a joke after, and we all would have laughed," stated a voice which had abandoned its Element. "But Rainbow hates looking dumb, and Rarity -- you couldn't bribe Rarity for what happened to her mane, ever --"

"-- I barely did anything!" The horn was still dark, but Trixie's eyes were narrowed, Twilight couldn't find any words and the performer was trying to fight back, fighting Pinkie, they were less than a body length apart and it was a fight. "It was misdirection! Applejack just watched the rope --"

"Ah was waitin' for something t' happen which wasn't what any unicorn could do," the farmer muttered. "Little too patient on that."

"-- and that let me get the other end around her legs! The blue one -- the pegasus -- Rainbow, that was an illusion to warp that Sun-through-water effect, and then I spun her around!"

"And that's all you did?" the weather coordinator shouted. "A spin? With everything you said up there? Any unicorn with enough power to lift me could have tried that!"

"And with the other unicorn --" Trixie's eyes briefly flicked towards Twilight "-- the -- only unicorn -- if I didn't shut her down, some other horn would have lit up! I --"

"Applejack?"

The word had been precise. Polite, and that was what stopped them. Made them look at Rarity.

"I just thought of something," the standing designer announced, and her left forehoof scraped at the floor. "After it happened, you said my mane was gorgeous. A lie?"

"...gorgeous shade," the farmer eventually managed. "Really nice green. Two kinds. Didn't say nothin' 'bout the style..."

"Ah. Thank you. Just felt a sudden need to clear that up. Trixie, dear," and now it was both forehooves, "exactly what did you do to my mane?"

"...misdirection," the showmare just barely managed. "While I was twisting it, I dropped a few chemicals in."

The designer slowly nodded. "Chemicals. Which explains why they washed out. Eventually. For those who might be wondering about my absence from the latter part of the proceedings, 'eventually' wound up with a rather large value."

"Can you back anything up?" Rainbow was in the air now, they were all getting closer to Trixie and there were so many potential ways for Twilight to try and deal with it, words and spells stretching out endlessly before her and she couldn't choose because none of them would work. "I brag about stuff I can do! Things I've done, Miss I Vanquished An Ursa --"

"-- I did!"

It froze them again.

"...details," Fluttershy softly requested.

Twilight, who had recently been in the presence of multiple anatomy charts, distantly wondered about the muscle configurations in Trixie's face. She was almost certain that pony features weren't meant to contort in that many directions at once.

The performer's head dipped.

"There was... an Ursa," Trixie told the floor. "A small one. I thought they were all that size. It fell asleep in the road. The main one leaving Hoofington. It was blocking everything. So I... got the caravan out of sight, and then I went into the bushes. I found a stick. And I poked it, from a distance, until it sort of half woke up, and it stumbled away."

I'm staring.
She knows I'm staring.
We're all staring...

"An' that," Applejack slowly tried, "is what you call 'vanquished'?"

"Nopony could leave..."

"Hoofington isn't even close to the Everfree!" Rainbow yelled. "I checked the map after!"

Which got the performer to look up again. "Well, nopony around here would have known what I was talking about if I'd said it happened in the Sheerwood! And I had the fireworks all ready to go anyway! It's about the act! I tried to tell Twilight, I wrote her about it over and over! When you're on the road, when you get heckled all the time, if everypony in every little flyspeck settled zone is going to try and prove they're better --"

"-- then when you find the one who is better," the perfectly reasonable voice of non-Laughter asked, "you look for an artifact and try to kill them with it?"

Five seconds. Five endless seconds during which nopony breathed and Twilight couldn't think.

"...I wasn't thinking straight," Trixie finally said. "I -- my mark, I -- I told the Princess, when you're always dreaming about things you can't do and there's somepony who could, I tried to live with my mark and then --"

"-- the cart," Pinkie cut her off. "The one you field-tossed. It almost landed on Shoeshine -- oh, right, that's another name you wouldn't know --"

"She tripped." It was barely a whisper. "The Amulet... I thought -- I thought I could stay on top of it. I was screaming, I was screaming from the inside, I tried to redirect the cart and --"

"Tons of snow," the baker smoothly switched. "Tons. An avalanche can --"

"That was a teleport. I couldn't do weather magic, not even with the Amulet! It doesn't have pegasus essence! I don't even know how I got that cloud when the Ursa was -- I was trying for -- I spread out the snow! The Amulet brought it, but I tried to make it into a thinner sheet! And when I saw that it could bring things, once I recovered, I reverse-thaumgineered the process --"

White fur ruffled around snorting nostrils. "Oh, very nice," Rarity sarcastically announced. "You took a near mass-burial and found a trick in it. I applaud your priorities."

The performer's head dipped again, and the streaked tail fled between her legs.

"It... it wasn't me..."

"It was certainly you who chose to look for the Amulet," Rarity stated.

Barely breathing now. "I thought I could stay on top of it -- in control --"

"-- so who was controlling it when my snout vanished?" Pinkie asked. "You didn't kill? I didn't have a mouth! I couldn't eat, I couldn't drink, I was going to die --"

The unicorn's eyes raised for the last time. "Your snout was still there."

"Really." Toneless.

"You could still breathe. It was an invisibility effect. More towards camouflage. Added to resonance. Dismissal. Everypony ignored any signs that it was there, including you."

"She's right," Twilight quickly interjected. "That's why I was able to counter it. Once I worked it out --"

"-- it doesn't matter! If I don't believe my own mouth is there, I won't eat! Even if it's just resonance --" and with a blink "-- dismissal? Everything she was doing, and it was just --"

"It's the same effect I used before I entered town, the first time I really tested the Amulet," Trixie managed. "So the capital would dismiss anything which happened in Ponyville. That was the hardest spell, because the whole settled zone had to radiate it! Even the trains were using the emergency turnaround. I didn't do anything that big again. I guess I was just thinking about it..."

"-- you keep saying 'I'," Pinkie softly observed. "When you're saying it was the Amulet. And you don't say 'I' much, do you? I don't think I've ever heard that come out of your mouth. The one you still have. Admitting that you're -- you. The Amulet came off --"

"-- it wanted the power from the other one, it was thinking about taking it apart and incorporating it, the Amulet doesn't understand zebra magic --"

Pinkie was taller than Trixie. It was easy to see, when the words had nearly driven the unicorn into the ground.

"-- and you still attacked. You tried to hurt Rainbow. You said you were trying to put her in agony."

"...it didn't wear off all at once. It was hours before I started to feel normal, and then... all I felt was sick... I was tripping over my own hooves, I could barely trot..."

"She said 'I'. Once."

Trixie's eyes closed. The others simply looked at Twilight.

"When she was talking to me during the diplomatic event," the little mare finally said, and hoped unto Moon that the words were the right ones. "She said 'I'. That's how I knew it was her. Not the Amulet, or the stage personality. Not a performance. Her. She was sorry. She wanted to make it right --"

"And from what you have told me," Rarity quietly broke in, "it lasted for but a few sentences before she ran for her life. Aware that the Guards might be closing in, I would imagine. And she turned out to be right."

"She's sorry..." It was still one of the weakest words in the world, and it was all Twilight had.

"Maybe that's what she wants you to believe," Pinkie countered. "She's a performer. She puts on an act."

No.
No.
She's my --

"That's good enough to fool the Princess?" Please, please...

"The Princess," the corpse of Rarity's faith observed, "is but a pony with a different shape."

Please...

"...give her a chance."

And then they were looking at Fluttershy.

"...Twilight talked to me about it," the caretaker softly said. "About how the Amulet worked, when it pretended it was somepony. It was cruel and angry and it fused horns together and it hated wheels for some reason --"

"-- I didn't want to hurt them, they were the only fans I had left, and if you'd been on the road in a caravan which kept breaking down, doing all of your repairs... I lost my home when the Ursa stepped through it, all of my things, my supplies, I was homeless for moons, there's banks all over the continent and I only had so much money in each one, I lost so many of my notes, I couldn't perform any more and I lost -- I lost everything..."

She wanted to approach the shaking form. To press herself against the performer, prop her up, lead her towards food and blankets.

But she was no longer fully certain what the truth was. And her friends were in the way.

Fluttershy looked at the trembling body. A wing partially extended, curled back in.

"...it pretends," the caretaker repeated. "But it's not good at that. It takes who you are, and that's what it warps. Maybe it can only warp so far. And with her... cruel, and angry, and... it still wouldn't hurt the beavers. It just let them out. Because that's what the pony who put it on would do. So... give her a chance. Please."

She stepped back. Pinkie stepped forward. Trixie didn't move.

"You apologized to Twilight," the baker said. "Not us. Never us."

The first tear fell.

"I'm sorry..."

Rarity slowly shook her head. "I'm not sure that means anything. Not if we had to ask for it. And especially not when it comes from you. I told Twilight -- some time ago, under circumstances which are none of your concern. You didn't come to us, not on your own. On the same night you were chased out of Ponyville the first time? Twilight went to every cattle and apologized. By name, which required a considerable briefing. You never wrote me. With Pinkie, you might owe her a slumber party added to a full essay. I reject your apology, Ms. Lulamoon. I reject you."

Pinkie snorted. Spike, eyes wide, didn't seem to know which way to move, or if he should move at all. Rainbow's wings were beating faster than any hover required: she kept bobbing up, almost slamming down. Applejack was silent. And Twilight was frozen, caught between those she loved and the one she'd so wanted to believe in...

"...but," Rarity continued, "we appear to be -- stuck with you, by order." She sniffed. "Naturally, I have every intention of registering a second opinion. But until then -- please recognize that we will be watching you. Closely. And at the moment we feel you are trying to do harm -- well, there are several of us, and you did just do us the honor of explaining something about how you operate. There is no Amulet, Ms. Lulamoon."

She tilted her head slightly to the right, and offered an expression which was a smile only on technicality.

"There are still Elements," the designer stated. "And you do not strike me as being particularly adept at dodging. In the words of Princess Luna -- good night to you."

And with that, she headed for the ramp.

"...Rarity..." wafted up from below.

"This," the white mare countered, "is what I would call a chance, Fluttershy. As much of one as she deserves, if not considerably more. And if this is how Pinkie and I feel..."

She stopped, and the non-smile twisted.

"...actually," Rarity considered, "we may represent the barest tip of the iceberg. Twilight, please contact us when you have more information. Or if you feel you are being deceived in any way. Spike, should you believe she is not perceiving the truth within actions, come to us immediately. Good night to you, Ms. Lulamoon. Be very careful about going outside."

She left.

One by one, they all left. Pinkie was the next to exit, and she stepped around the small salty puddles which were soaking into the floor. Rainbow furiously blazed a path towards the surface, and then Applejack, slowly shaking her head, took solid steps all the way to the top. Fluttershy began to make her way out --

-- paused.

"...it's a chance," she told the air. "I've... given chances before. But that's all it is..."

And then she was gone.

Twilight looked at the trembling form. Saw how the little twin puddles had spread, trotted forward, helplessly stretched out her left foreleg.

"Trixie --"

"-- don't touch me."

The unicorn's legs straightened. A single flicker of field adjusted the cape, and she moved for the ramp.

"I'm going to bed," she told the siblings. "If you can still stand to have me here. If not, I'll just sleep in the caravan. If it's outside. Somepony should check."

"You shouldn't sleep outside," Spike managed. "Even in the caravan. It's cold --"

"-- it's cold everywhere."

The cape swished, and the showmare left.

The caravan was outside. It had probably been there for some time, arriving in silence, brought by a Princess who didn't want to interrupt while the Bearers talked, with all subsequent sounds stolen by the storm.

Celestia had thought ahead. It had been parked next to the tree, with a prominent sign posted nearby: one which glowed with enough light to catch attention, while producing sufficient heat for melting the snow. It said that the caravan was present on order of the palace, as was its owner. Ponies were welcome to submit their questions directly to the Solar Wing, and any attack on the owner would be treated as exactly that.

Some of the settled zone's residents had already read that sign, because there was an unusual amount of traffic for a snowy winter night. It was safe to say that some of them had been in a position to read it at least twice, and a number of those had either been earth ponies or knew the few who owned greenhouses.

The caravan awaited Trixie, at any time she might want to use it. But it was snowing, and when it came to taking shelter on a cold winter night... the first barrages of produce had already taken out most of the glass.

Conceptual Model

The dreams are where her limits die.

The bridge has been washed out and she must cross the river. How to solve that problem? How to choose among the solutions? Teleporting the caravan across is one thing, but what about using surface tension? There's very little point to freezing the river, not when heat-shifting is a pegasus domain (and she's almost sure there's a way around that): even if it happened, it just leaves her trying to maneuver over uneven ripples of ice. Imagine... thickening the water. Making it come together a little more closely, but just where it touches the air. Solidity, enough to support the caravan, and while still remaining a liquid. That's elegant, and so the dream chooses to go with that one. The caravan travels across water which still looks like a river, almost moves in the same way, she could trot on water if she wished and that dream self is content.

But there are layers to so many dreams. One showmare rides atop the caravan and her twin, the one who remains upon waking, can only watch her. Watch and tries to remember, tries to figure out exactly what's happening, there's a theory but that's all it is and she doesn't know how much raw power and control it would take to manifest in reality. Other than 'more than what she has,' because that's the most common answer.

Riding on top. In the dream, her field is strong enough that she no longer has to tow her home. She's had enchantments placed upon it to effectively lighten the load (they cost so much, she had to do it all over again when the original caravan was lost and at least she can recharge them herself, but the strength required for the initial casting is so high), but there's still so much mass, all of it has inertia, and she's a unicorn. The muscles under the blue coat are thicker than most ponies expect: she can kick with surprising force, and that's because just about every day (and sometimes night, when the insomnia is at its worst) sees her trying to pull just about everything she has in the world along spell-shielded paths while hoping the protections hold. And if they don't... if something comes out of the woods and she can't think fast enough, if she isn't strong enough...

...the dream mare atop the caravan sees a monster, and sight is all that's required. The corona surrounds it, and the creature simply doesn't want to be there any more. It flees, and the dream mare, the ideal, the self which the waking unicorn has been chasing since her mark manifested, across what feels so much like every last night of her life... that mare casually shrugs, lets the partial corona wink out, and the enchanted caravan goes on its way.

The waking mare is watching the caravan move now: something which happens in utter silence. There's no creaking of axles or little groans from wood which has been asked to bear strange pressures, because there are no wheels. The caravan has been mounted on sled runners. They glide, their lower edges warp automatically to match the road, the ride is utterly smooth and quiet and they glide because there's a glistening liquid seeping from the wood. A perfect lubricant, one which lasts just long enough to permit free movement before evaporating without a trace.

She would never have to carve out a new axle on the road after her spares run out. (Again.) Never relive the desperation of trying to repair or even replace a fractured wheel while listening to the growls which approach from all sides, because the monsters have scented somepony who's stranded and those who can manage a modicum of thought are wondering whether it's a good time to test the protections again. She's had to become a wheelwright on top of everything else, she hates the finicky process and all the ways in which it can go wrong and she just hates wheels.

Wheels are something which exist to break down. The runners are perfect.

How did the dream mare manage it? The waking unicorn, the one who watches while knowing it's a dream, it's just another dream and the dreams hurt --

-- she needs to work it out. She has to remember as much as possible. Because her talent is for innovation and she has spent half a lifetime trying to come to terms with it, working out a truce with the core of her soul because the talent is for innovation and the mare who so often wishes for destiny to have touched another flank is... just a mare.

Well, not quite 'just'. Stronger than the average, with more control! Decidedly superior in cunning: her continued existence on the road is proof enough of that! And during the day (or in the long nights after a dream has ended and sleep will not return), she tries to restrict herself to the things which might exist within her capabilities.

But in the nightscape, her limits die.

She watches herself create. Destroy. Change, twist, deconstruct and reimagine the world around her. In the dreams, she almost understands. And when she wakes... when she loses the comprehension which arose from the fluid logic of the nightscape, when most of what she remembers is what her ideal self did, all the things which a mare who failed to win the blood lottery will never accomplish...

The mare who waits to wake, who wishes for the division of selves to end so that she would never have to watch... she's looking at the runners. How was that accomplished? What kind of spell managed the feat? And is there a need for it to be a spell at all? The lubricant is clearly being produced by magic, but there's every chance that the substance itself is a natural one. Something basic. It might just be a matter of simple chemistry.

The mare has taught herself chemistry. An audience which usually has at least a third of the attendees forever trying to figure out how her magic is operating can never duplicate results that never invoked thaums at all. So many of the things she does mix magic with science, at least when they don't find ways of eliminating the magic entirely. Chemistry is fun.

...she would have been happier as a chemist.

But the mark is forever.

(Isn't it?)

She's trying to remember: she has no other choice. She sees her ideal self twist a broken road into a smooth path with a thought, and she needs to remember. She'll bring everything she sees into the waking world, and she'll record the observations in her notebooks, compare every theory against the little library in the caravan, there have been recent moons when she was able to write another and ask for an outside perspective and ultimately, she will experiment. Try to recreate all of it, using the strength and control of a mare who exists with limits.

There were only three ways to change that. One doesn't work. The second... the drugs only provide a boost based on her original field strength: even the maximum would never be high enough. And the third...

...it wasn't her.

(It wasn't.)

Some of the spells which the Amulet cast were workings she'd originally found in her dreams: she believes it to have tapped that deeply into her thoughts, and -- she doesn't know how it managed to cast them. Others seem to have been carryovers from previous victims. The Amulet can't really think: it channels desires born from fouled resonance through the helpless minds of the trapped -- but it does seem to have a sort of residual memory. It couldn't tell you about the other ponies it's pretended to be, because that would mean having enough awareness to create its own identity. It just knows what their tricks were, and merger with the field of its latest conquest allows it to use that magic again.

She knew when that was happening. The mare spent most of her time with the Amulet screaming within herself and when the dead were being channeled, the song of agony briefly turned into a chorus. Three of those allowed her momentary glimpses of features, twisted and strained and close to breaking...

...there was recognition at one point.
She thought she knew something of the Amulet's creator, simply from having read his notes.
The knowledge of the pony he became is now somewhat more intimate.
She doesn't like him.

The Amulet could cast all of it. It turned her dreams into reality. But when she tries to reproduce any of it, when a mare with limits fights to break through barriers of blood...

...and she fails.
And she fails.
And she fails.

The imperfect watches the ideal, because she must. She has no other choice.

The mare who will wake has seen more of the world than most, left the borders of her nation: something which is still done by so few. Travel exposes the mind to new horizons. She has learned, and some of the knowledge was -- unexpected. There was certainly no intent to gain an education in theology. But so many of the other species have faiths, things which influence their lives while openly manifesting in little ways: behaviors, patterns of speech...

...funerals...

Some of those species have their own manner of interpreting the shadowlands. (The mare has acknowledged that they may have the right of it, because it's not as if anypony's reported back.) And a few feel that which awaits beyond death must include a place of punishment, meant for those whose deeds in life called for retribution to come after. Something which occasionally operates according to its own sense of irony, turning the crimes of the flesh against a soul which may never find a way to fight back.

She knows what she's done.

(It was the Amulet.)
(...it was...)

And if there is a place of punishment...

She's thought about that.
(...they don't -- they don't know what it's like)
(every night)
(to hurt, to bleed, to loathe yourself every single night)

Her soul will dream. She'll watch her ideal self, the one who can remake the world with a thought, have everypony understand her via simple wish, the perfect mare with a perfect talent and blood which sings within, waiting for the next desire to fulfill. She will do so endlessly while knowing she can do nothing more than watch
that she can never be
and she will never wake up.

Twilight had discovered multiple benefits to performing her own research as a librarian, and the most recent was having her very own periodicals section.

The stallion's death had made the papers: things which set off stampedes often did. But it had been a stampede produced by fast-spreading fear. A mind which had surrendered to herd instinct wasn't going to be issuing priority to rational thought. Those who had temporarily lost themselves were usually offered a single option: run. At best, the majority might find themselves with a choice of direction -- although herd instinct also tended to suggest that the safest path was clearly the one which everypony else was using. You couldn't think, you were operating on something which lurked below thought, forever waiting for its chance -- and if you were truly lucky, it would have company.

Instinct wasn't the only thing operating on that level. That which rose from the mark, something less than a whisper -- that still had a chance to be heard. So if a potential action lay within the dominion of talent, it might remain accessible. Those whose marks suggested stealth would potentially try to hide --

better example

-- Guards primed for combat were unlikely to fall, but those who did would still be ready to fight. Blacksmiths might improvise armor, and those whose talents centered on magic -- at the very least, Twilight had been known to clear her own path. But you needed to have the action be some aspect of your mark, and when it came to those who had been wandering that portion of Canterlot's streets under Moon when the stallion had appeared -- none had been photographers.

So all the papers had was a description assembled from terror-scrambled flashes of memory, and what those had managed to assemble in bulk was 'brown earth pony stallion'. As for the mark -- they were presuming he had one, and multiple publications were trying to pressure the palace into releasing portmortem images. Those who were pro-Diarchy did so with the statement that it would help in locating his family, while the ones who weighed down the other side of the scale darkly muttered about how not doing so suggested the palace had something to do with the death. Especially given that he'd appeared outside it, must have clearly been trying to escape...

Of course, that wasn't the only theory. There had been a teleport arrival, and then there had been a death. In Twilight's rather disgruntled opinion, not enough ponies were bothering to wonder about how the first part had been accomplished, and that was because a headline about Magical Achievement was typically only good for a single edition and small audience. Newspapers could boost sales on FEAR THIS for weeks, and so a new medical condition had arisen from ink. It had a known cause, no cure, was invariably fatal (with 'invariably' based on one example), and if you weren't careful, it could happen to you.

Twilight had rapidly become sick of the articles about Spontaneous Appearance Death Syndrome, and her feeling hadn't improved after the words had begun to mutate. It had started with a simple premise: if you were teleported, then you might die. This maintained for a couple of days, and then the gears of the press had required fresh lubrication. So a new theory had advanced: if you could teleport yourself, then you might die. In fact, it was just about proven that those who could teleport were guaranteed to die because historically, nearly everypony from previous generations who could either manage the working or been brought along had died. (There were obviously two exceptions, but really, it was clearly just a matter of time.) And from there? Well, what if teleportation actually killed you? Perhaps the between (which had to be introduced to the majority of readers, and Twilight didn't have the time to find and lecture all of them) was nothing more than the mirror pool (same) of legend: you went in, you drowned, and something else came out...

This was the current phase. It had found the Equestrian Magic Society desperately sending out its first ever public newsletter in an attempt to stem the tide, which really didn't work because it had been written by EMS members, who were working under the assumption that everypony could have the vocabulary of an EMS member if they just kept a dictionary and three full buildings of the Canterlot Archives on standby. The palace knew how to dumb things down, but they hadn't done much better: after all, who wanted to read something printed by the government? And so there were panicked ponies demanding that the escort network be regulated or shut down, along with a few rather loving and very stupid parents begging the Gifted School to stop teaching the theory behind the working because advanced studies offered so many more ways for students to not die.

It was an idea which was too stupid to live. (It was also a few hours away from the start of its inevitable collapse.) And in a very-slightly-better world, dealing with that level of idiocy would have been Twilight's only problem.

A few days had passed since the briefing, along with a near-matching number of nights. The mission had yet to formally begin, which left Twilight in a state of mixed anticipation, anxiety, fear, and almost constant speculation: the last was a leading cause of the first three, and all addition was cumulative.

The speculation itself had the dubious benefit of spreading itself out among multiple ponies -- but that came with problems.

Trixie was essentially trapped within the tree. A mare with a known, apparently incurable case of wanderlust was unable to do so much as step onto the balcony without being verbally accosted, because there had been several thousand ponies living in the settled zone at the time of the Amulet and she hadn't written to any of them either.

(The attacks had been kept to the verbal, because there was a sign and, lurking out of sight from the words, an implied Princess. They had also been loud, and most of the originality had been expended on the first five ponies: just about everything after that entered repeats. Twilight wasn't sure if the population lacked imagination or whether certain kinds of rage just tended to follow the same internal scripts.)

Ponies knew where Trixie was. They also knew where the caravan was, which gave Twilight a pair of opportunities to remind herself of two facts: she wasn't Shining, and she couldn't really keep a shield going in her sleep. The third night had seen her huffily levitate the whole battered thing, followed by marching it off to what, as far as Ponyville was concerned, would be Parts Unknown and was actually just parking the whole thing in a barn which Applejack didn't use during the winter. Further security was added through a number of personally-cast spells, the citizenry not knowing where the caravan currently was, and the fact that anypony who figured it out would have to deal with Applejack.

Trixie couldn't leave the tree. When the library was open, she didn't even leave the basement. (Quite a bit of Twilight's lab equipment had been moved into a single corner. The arrangement was expertly personalized, the showmare clearly knew exactly what she was trying to assemble, and it was still taking so much of the librarian's willpower to not put it back.) Research was under way and whenever Twilight could, she went to the lower level so they could do it together. Exchanging theories from a few body lengths away, words carried by voice instead of dragonfire, finally getting the chance to see what they could truly do together...

...but Trixie was oddly quie -- restrained. There was usually a certain flair about the unicorn at all times: on stage, in daily life, and it was something which even managed to put a degree of bombast into her letters. (Words only, as Trixie knew better than to place any personal decorations into the most crucial diagrams.) The mare who moved about the basement, pacing endlessly during slow movements because she couldn't go anywhere, establishing a personal claim over Twilight's usual groove... she talked about the work they were doing, she proposed theories, she tried to advance ideas -- and but for the originality which so often surfaced in those offerings, Twilight could have been talking to another Gifted School graduate. Somepony who'd decided the best way to advance in the EMS was by keeping their head down and offering the most interesting concepts somewhere around the third level of hoofnote, because anypony who managed to reach it would presumably have their expression of purest offense overridden by the required squint.

The palace had sent the fragment back. They were studying it. (Trixie had an idea about how to manage the return transport, something which might keep them safe, and the mares were laboring accordingly.) And Twilight wanted to introduce Trixie to Ratchette. A pony who was not only perpetually at least a day behind on the gossip, but had been lost in the usual reason for it during the Amulet incident: within her workshop, focused on the repair before her, with barely any awareness that time was passing at all. Ratchette had only learned about everything on the following morning: prior to that, all she'd really picked up on was that the light through her window had changed a little, and apparently illumination which was passing through a half-phantom jar was especially good for displaying the flaws in silver wire.

Ratchette had no personal reason to hate Trixie. Establishing some level of professional working relationship didn't seem to be beyond hope --

-- but to introduce Ratchette -- to fully bring the mechanic in, making a team of three -- was to explain the existence of hybrids. Something which was still classified, and Trixie hadn't been cleared. All she'd been able to tell the showmare was that an expert had looked at the fragment and that had been accepted readily enough, but if the unicorn just knew...

She was keeping secrets from a friend --
-- she wanted to think of Trixie as a friend.
A showmare. Somepony who had a performance for every occasion. Identities lined up across the stages of forty settled zones, forever waiting to take their curtsy.
The scrolls had allowed her to exchange ideas with somepony who just about understood magic as an equal. More than that: who imagined in ways which Twilight did not.
The scrolls had been fun.

Her friends (her other friends?) didn't come by for long. They never ventured into the basement. There were requests for updates even when Twilight hadn't asked Spike to send out any scrolls, and they came for a rather transparent reason. Something Rarity had just about openly stated: they were checking on her. Making sure she wasn't doing anything strange or, given that advanced magical research was under way, anything where the strangeness didn't have an assigned direction. And even then, they asked more questions than they ever had. The answers found even Rainbow unable to pretend towards sleep.

They care about me.

She looked out the window, noted the position of Moon and stars. Glanced up from her position at the main library desk to the bedroom area, where showmare and sibling were already asleep. Checked the nearest clock, and then went back to the desk. Reread the open scroll for the fifth time.

Back to the clock.

They're trying to make sure she isn't tricking me.
They don't think I'd know.

It was worry which arose from caring. She understood that. It just didn't make things any less irritating --

-- somepony knocked. As knocks went, it was somewhat softer than the usual specimen, and decidedly controlled. It was also a knock which resounded from a portion of the wood which was noticeably higher than usual, and it came with a touch of metallic echo.

As knocks went, it was an extremely restrained one. There was a lot to restrain.

Twilight checked the bedroom area again, found that the sleepers remained so, and went to the door. Opened it, automatically looking up.

"You are prepared?" her visitor inquired. It was a casual sort of question, which left all the work of suggesting that Twilight had received two hours of advance notice and readiness was expected to the undertones.

Twilight nodded.

"Very well. And the same may hopefully be said of those at our destination." With slight irritation (and again, there was so much to potentially hold back), "Although given that the two of us are traveling together, I am expecting to be offered a tour. Some effort may be required to keep our host's thoughts on the destination."

"You could just tell me," Twilight carefully offered. "Or send over the right volume from the Archives. A picture, a name --"

"-- which gives you nothing of the scent," power calmly stated. "The sensation of the leaves brushing against fur. Books only go so far, Twilight Sparkle. There are times when it is better to learn from life. In this case, under controlled conditions. Stand on my left."

Her visitor drew back somewhat. Not retreat (because the visitor didn't always seem capable of that), but creating the necessary space for Twilight to exit. The mare took up a certain amount of room.

The librarian came out. Locked the door behind her, and rechecked the security spells before tilting her head up again. Waiting.

"A small part of the mystery has been solved," the taller mare stated. "So we will view the answer personally. Which means teleporting east."

She paused.

"Assuming," the very large mare half-muttered, "that you trust me to teleport you."

Twilight nodded.

"In the sense that you have a reasonable expectation of not dying during the trip. Or from it. Or afterwards, in a manner related to having teleported at all."

Again. Just a little quicker.

"There was a press conference shortly before I came to fetch you," the mare darkly stated. "One which contained a rather unique question. I can truly say that prior to this night, nopony had ever inquired, in the context of magic, as to how many times I had recently died."

"...what did you tell them?"

"I answered the question at some length," the mare announced. "In detail."

"...oh."

"Accordingly, we may reasonably expect to see the first active retraction of idiocy in the morning edition." A soft snort. "Which is to say, they may somehow continue to believe in their own stupidity --"

The dark wing unfolded, and the tip touched Twilight's back. Stars flared into existence around the horn.

"-- but when it comes to that portion of the whole, they will no longer be printing it. Shall we?"

Twilight had been surprised to hear that the nation's most crowded settled zone also featured its most comprehensive botanical garden, in part because she hadn't been able to picture just where anypony was going to put it. A settled zone known for overcrowding had found a few ways to compensate, mostly through shrinking living spaces to the point where the main feature of a studio apartment was offering enough space for a pony to reasonably lie down within. (Jumping, turning, deep breathing, and possessions were considered to be optional.) But it also sought out the sky: something unusual in a ground-based settlement. The tallest buildings were known to climb some twenty floors into darkness, and expected their residents to do the same. It had given Twilight, who'd never been to the city, the image of a dozen-plus sections of soil which had somehow been stacked on the vertical.

Manehattan was overcrowded. The 'suburbs' -- she'd asked Luna to go over the word twice, and still didn't understand why it seemed to taste funny -- weren't.

The city's main university technically wasn't. It existed outside Manehattan proper, which gave it the freedom to spread out exactly as much as it dared. If you could clear and secure land in a wild zone, you could keep it: something which gave the botanical gardens two hundred and fifty acres more or less to itself. It also created work for earth ponies, who had to make sure everything had the nutrients to stay alive. Just about as many pegasi labored to maintain ideal environments. And when those who lived in the city needed a reminder that nature existed, they traveled to the gardens to look at it for a few hours, which allowed many of them to live happily without thinking about it again for several years.

The university didn't charge for access to the gardens, although tips for the staff were appreciated. Manehattan's government, forever irritated by the loss of fiscal opportunity when it came to ponies seeking any means of temporary escape, had tried to set up a toll gate at the entrance. This had been shut down when the school had pointed out that they were technically outside the settled zone and had no obligation to adhere to their traffic regulations: after that, the mayor had settled for trying to put one on the road which led to the school. Students trying to come in for a new semester had found their tuition effectively boosted accordingly, considered just how much they were going to pay for going out to party every weekend, then collectively plopped their luggage down in front of the gate and announced their dorms and classes were going to be held right there.

Lawsuits had gone back and forth for a while.

Currently, you could still get into the gardens for free, and there was no toll road for the university. The mayor had responded to the loss by threatening to charge for access to the city's air paths, as there was clearly a limited amount of sky available and wings were taking up too much of it.

Nopony had found a way to both set and automatically extract a toll for those who were teleporting in, but research was presumed to be underway.

When compared to the full population, Twilight didn't have a particularly strong sense of smell. She wasn't all that bad, but she could miss small details. There were times when it worked against her, especially during research: missing the first tiny waft of I Should Run Now wasn't good for what would soon remain of her mane. But on this night, trotting through the gardens with the proud stallion in the lead, it was actually helping her.

...well, it was keeping the confusion down.

Slightly.

She had similar issues in the palace gardens. There was a section which was themed to her home, and she enjoyed going there and simply... breathing for a while. Her pulse and tail movement would slow as her body briefly accepted the illusion that the most familiar part of her life was only a short gallop away: her mind cherished the fact that the illusion contained no upcoming quiz from her mother. But if she left that section, crossed a border set by two kinds of magic -- rain forest, and something deep within would want to know how she'd gotten there. Leave that for prairie, there was an option to head into false mountains and the pegasi had thinned out the air accordingly...

There were ways in which the repeated virtual dislocation could be dizzying, if you didn't know how to brace for it. And the palace gardens, with every section as its own ecosystem, still had a single theme: the continent. If there was an environment set within, then it was a place which could generally be found in Equestria. Most ponies would never step within those places in their natural state -- the majority hardly ever left their own settled zones -- but it was possible to do so without leaving the nation of their birth.

The university gardens were trying to recreate the world.

Twilight's travels had taken her across a good portion of Equestria, and somewhat beyond. (She had yet to see the ocean, and being this close without reaching the actual shoreline was irritating her.) So she recognized the tundra which lay outside the Empire's protective effects, where most would not. And Appleloosa was in the desert, so that just created a good place to warm up -- or would have if the pegasi who'd arranged the conditions hadn't remembered that the desert was cold at night.

Tundra, desert, forest. Things she knew. But...

...flowers stretched their petals towards Moon, drinking in that light first and best. Colors, shapes, blooms -- all unfamiliar.
They took an elevated path over a place where some of the grass rippled, and other portions reached.
Vines grew around each other. A few seemed to work in a symbiosis of mutual support, which worked perfectly well until the third type decided that was all the more to be eaten.

Her body, and especially her nose, wanted to know where she was. Weary eyes were getting tired of reading assorted warning signs. Her mind was mostly trying to figure out if the knotholes of those last two thick-barked blackwood trees had just blinked at her.

"-- and it is an honor!" the university's Master Of Botany gushed as he led them towards a rather large building: one of the few enclosed structures Twilight had seen during their night tour. "To meet and guide two Princesses --"

I wish he wouldn't --

"-- one Princess," Luna evenly stated.

He turned. A mane reflective of untrimmed hummingbird vine shifted across forest-green shoulders, and confused yellow eyes blinked at them.

"And a librarian," the younger of the Diarchy finished. "But also a Bearer, which is currently more important. I appreciate the chance to see a portion of what has been found over the centuries, Mr. Dalton-Hoofer, and I do intend to return in the future. A daylight visit may also be scheduled."

A mind which was still visibly trying to process 'librarian' tossed off a second defensive blink. "You can actually go out in --"

And before that frequent mistake could start to bury another owner, "But these are my natural hours. Not hers. So I must inquire as to the proximity of our destination, in both the temporal and physical aspects."

Twilight had gained some familiarity with the way ponies tended to react around Luna. The current tail twitch wasn't exactly unique, and the twisting of ears was pretty much textbook.

"How close are we to what you wanted to show us?" she asked, and watched Dalton-Hoofer's face exit Translation Mode.

"It's the stop after that one," he told them. "I thought that the Princesse -- that a Princess and a Bearer, who's seen so much -- they would surely enjoy our Most Dangerous Plants exhibit!"

They both looked at him.

"It's right up ahead," the enthusiast continued, because the nature of those looks meant nothing in the presence of a chance to show off. "That building."

"The one with the reinforced walls," Luna checked.

"Yes!"

"And when I say 'reinforced'," the alicorn continued, "I refer to thickness. The use of metal. Enhanced by multiple spells."

"We know what we're doing," the stallion smiled. "However, when you go in --"

"-- the legal waiver," Luna went on, "printed outside the main entrance -- standard?"

Proudly, "It saves time."

"Ah. As does providing a place for signatures."

He nodded.

"However, I sign nothing without reading it in full. And to go over something the size of a sky banner might require a few hours. Especially given the small print. So given that, as I recently stated, Ms. Sparkle's hours are limited --"

There was a rather abrupt !THUD! from inside the building. The stallion didn't jump. Twilight pulled back.

"That wall just buckled," Luna neutrally observed.

"It'll spring back in a minute," offered the Voice Of Experience, and followed that up with the most natural action of any university staff member. "Let me just see if there's a student around at this hour -- oh, perfect!" Attention focused on a green mare, who was just rounding the corner of the building. "Want an extra credit?"

Thick eyebrows arced, and then the mare nodded. Several reddish tangled roots which appeared to be growing from her head shifted accordingly. The kerchief never moved.

"Get in there and sing the Throttler back to sleep," he ordered. "No soprano notes. Keep it droning."

She thought that over.

"Righteous," the earth pony mare decided, and placidly headed for the door with the kind of gait which suggested a bloodstream consisting of 1% Opiates and 30% Don't Ask.

The stallion, displaying the contented air of a pony who no longer had a problem, turned back towards his guests. "Anyway, once she's done, we'll go in. But once you finish suiting up and clear the new -- oh, what was it called, airlock -- you should still duck --"

"-- we will not be visiting that particular exhibit on this night," the younger Princess announced. "But I shall always recall that you offered the opportunity. The destination, please."

I don't know these smells.
I don't know any of these plants.
I don't know where we're supposed to be --

"There," Dalton-Hoofer announced. "Just off the path, on your left. It's safe to approach, and you can sniff it. But try to avoid touching anything except the leaves. Don't shove against the wood. And if you do make contact, make sure you wash when you get home tonight. Just in case."

Luna nodded, moved in the designated direction.

A little like a rain forest. It's moist enough. Even under Moon, everything's so green. And dense. Vines, hanging in so many places. But the bark on that tree is like armor plates, overlapping each other. There's something screeching up in the branches, something awake and moving. Fluttershy might know...

They were under Moon, and so many of the colors still felt too intense. Wings whirled above them: too small for a pegasus, angry at the intrusion. Three curious blue flowers turned, and Twilight realized they were reacting to the vibrations from their passage: their movement stopped when hers did. But what they had been told to approach was... just a bush. One about half again her own height and three of her body lengths across, but it was still a bush. One which felt somehow strange...

It took her a few seconds to register why it seemed so unusual. The leaves were extremely broad, with a shape more appropriate to what she would expect from an oak -- only at double the width. There was quite a bit of overlap, enough to initially block her view of the center. And once she managed to find the right angle --

-- the interior structure was much like the leaves in hue: reddish-brown. But it was also scant. There were relatively thin branches stretching out from the core, a few subdivisions, and then the leaves just flared out. Masking. It was possible for a pony to stand within the larger gaps -- well, it was possible for Twilight: a larger pony would have been in some trouble, and it was only the outermost branches which ended in leaves. Any deep breaths taken within might find wood poking into ribs, wood which ended in points --

"The most common name is Espinho de chama," Dalton-Hoofer told them. "In Equestrian, Flamethorn. Not that it has thorns," he quickly added. "But the branch tips are sharp enough to substitute."

"And you have verified that this is the plant which caused the wound," Luna checked.

Twilight forced herself to approach a little more. Sniffed.

It's a little cool. Almost like coating my snout in mint, but it's not mint at all.
It smells strange.
It doesn't smell like anything else in the world.

"Yes," the botanist verified. "Your doctors found a little bit of the oil on the rim of the wound, I understand? And eventually recognized it as plant-based? We're familiar with it. They're fine as long as they sit on the skin. All you'll get is some discoloration, as if you'd been lightly burned. But as I said, the branch tips are fairly sharp. If you poke them hard enough, you will get hurt. And if enough of the oils are introduced into the blood..."

This can't be what did it. They never would have let it just grow here.

"...well, you'll be itching for hours," he finished. "If you're among the ninety percent who have reactions, starting from about half an hour after exposure."

"And that is all which happens?" the younger Princess inquired.

"The other ten percent just need to clean and bandage the wound," Dalton-Hoofer told them. "You just can't discover which category you're in before it happens. And since it's not native to Equestria, most ponies will never find out." He gestured to a nearby sign. "We just post the usual notice, so they won't learn the hard way."

Twilight blinked.

Not native to --

She looked back towards the botanist, and recognized a Ready To Lecture pose. "Does anypony here grow it? For harvesting the wood, or the oils?"

He shook his head -- then quickly corrected himself. "There's another one in San Dineighgo, within their gardens. To my knowledge, those are the only two on the continent. There could be a private grower, but they would have to be working on a rather extensive personal collection. It's not good for anything other than showing that you're being comprehensive, especially when the oils break down after a few days. And the wood is strong, surprisingly springy -- but there just isn't enough of it." With growing pride, "It was quite inspired, asking us about plant-related injuries. I am honored to serve, Princess -- and Bearer. And when it come to the secrecy clause --"

"-- where does it grow?"

"Portions of the southern hemisphere," he immediately declared. "Mostly in the rain forests of Mangalarga Marchador, although you'll find a few in Criollo."

The southern hemisphere...

The other half of the planet. Somewhere she'd never been, where even the stars were different. She'd seen charts --

"Thank you, Mr. Dalton-Hoofer," Luna offered. "You have given us what I had hoped for."

...an entire half of a planet. Were those names countries? Continents? It had been years since her geography classes and if unicorn magic didn't emerge from a region, she mostly hadn't cared. Twilight could pick out Prance on a map, and generally didn't want to because it meant acknowledging that Prance existed. The southern hemisphere...

"Did you figure out the soil samples?" she hastily asked. "Did that narrow it down?"

The stallion blinked at them again.

With utter confusion, "Soil samples?"

"Princess Celestia was sending them out --"

Luna began to raise her left forehoof, and failed to do so in time to beat out the stallion's little shrug.

"Some ponies do say that it's easier to work with native soil," he said. "That it takes a little less effort. But with the number of earth ponies we have on staff, added to the tourists? So much of the Cornucopia Effect soaking into the land, day after day, compared to the cost of importing that much dirt?" And Dalton-Hoofer laughed. "Who needs to worry about soil?"

The alicorns were both silent for a time, trotting back down the paths under Moon. Drifting breezes wafted past their snouts, carried little pieces of the world with them before reaching invisible borders.

Traveling together, with only each other and a compressed planet for company.

"The soil samples went to Mazein."

Twilight looked up at the dark eyes.

"Minotaurs explore," the mare stated. "Now and again. Most are happy with their home, but -- when one chooses to travel, they can go quite a long way. Bringing back appropriate souvenirs. And as they have a necessary interest in keeping things growing without the Effect, they have found themselves in possession of the science known as agronomy." And before Twilight's lips could part, "The study of soil management and crop production. Canterlot's university has an experimental department exploring the possibilities -- one which has yet to truly explore how everyone else performs the feat. Let us say that initial results have been poor. And that their attempts to supplement the student meal plan are best avoided."

"Mazein." The word felt hollow, as if it had been weakened by the distance it needed to cross.

"The Ambassador owes the palace favors. As do we, towards him. So we inquired. And in return, he did not. One of us checks at a designated time each day, Twilight Sparkle, in person. We will have their results in time."

A few more hoofsteps, and they crossed into the plains. Normal grass swayed against Twilight's hocks.

She could have teleported us back by now.

The older alicorn stopped. Looked up at Moon, and a cool gaze regarded craters. Went back down to Twilight.

"I recognize the irony of the next term," Luna softly announced. "Especially given the subject under discussion. But magic is a tool, Twilight Sparkle. A single tool in the box. And there are ponies who act as if it was the only one."

The little mare didn't know why she'd just winced. Then she did, and had to fight back the next.

"As such," the younger of the Diarchy continued, "they use it for everything. They refuse to consider other possibilities, for who would ever need them when magic exists? So they bring out their single tool, over and over again, and will not let themselves recognize when it would be best off with company. Or... when they need to put it away. For there are times when it is inappropriate, others when it makes things worse, breaks, or -- what it is trying to construct is impossible. Or should never be built at all."

The breeze did not chill. The temperature failed to drop and Twilight, who knew a little about Luna, wondered how much effort that was taking.

"Or they create abominations," the dark mare softly said. "And tell themselves that they have made miracle, for it was magic which brought it forth..."

She was quiet for a time. Constellations twisted in her mane, and three stars flared.

"The core of the Last Question is this," the alicorn continued. "'Is all magic one?' Do all the forms express themselves as aspects of a whole? It is, in its way, a magnificent query. Something which might yet be answered. But Twilight Sparkle -- think about how much it excludes."

I don't understand --

-- no. She did. But it had been more than her mind which had heard the statement, and something within her soul longed to reject it.

"Magic which creates abominations." Luna's eyes briefly closed. "Ponies who seek abomination. And they tell themselves they have reasons, cause, that anypony who truly knew would understand..."

The half-tangible tail and mane stilled.

Five seconds. Ten. Fifteen.

"Luna --"

"-- I wish you to consider something, Twilight Sparkle," the dark mare tightly stated, and the words were forced, each dropping into the grass in a sonic shell of soulforged ice. "A thought to keep in mind, during the times to come. Consider that this stallion, still awaiting his name and past -- consider that he might have sought this of his own will. That he wished for his mark to change, or even be eliminated. For everything to have been -- purposeful, and born from his own desire."

She swallowed. And then she realized she'd just swallowed back vomit.

Wings flared as her hackles rose, ears flattening at the same moment when her tail began to lash. "Luna --"

The silver-clad left forehoof stomped. Twilight's words died.

"What is the typical jest?" the alicorn darkly wondered. "Ah, yes. 'You speak blasphemy!' Yes. Rather fluently. I am not insulted by your reaction. I would expect the same from nearly any pony in the world. But Twilight Sparkle -- can you, given all of your recent experiences, truly think of nopony whose first reaction to their own manifested mark would have been the desire to be rid of it?"

Twilight blinked. Thought, and then swallowed again.

"Tish." Barely a whisper, the most sound she could force herself to make, and nearly taken by the breeze.

Placidly, "Yes."

Green blades rustled against their fur.

She had to rally. She had to think...

"But that situation was artificial, Luna! It wasn't natural --"

"-- once in a lifetime, one would hope. Better yet to be once in history," the alicorn agreed. "And yet she is not the only one. I know that my sister has told you something of Joyous Release -- and I will not be telling you very much more, not before you speak with her yourself, without prying. For now, let us keep it to this: there are many ways in she is much like Triptych. Each has a talent which could potentially change the world -- and neither desires to do so. But at one point, their deepest desire was to shed what had been given as their destiny, with a talent beyond their control. Either would have rid themselves of their mark in an instant. I have considered introducing them, but..." A small shrug. "...circumstances oppose the meeting. And yet..."

The taller mare took a slow breath, released it with no air warmed.

"...in time, perhaps. But keep the thought, Twilight Sparkle, even when it pains you to do so. I know something about --" and the dark head dipped "-- desiring to shed what had been perceived as destiny. One pony is happenstance, an outlier. Two could be passed off as coincidence -- but three can indicate a pattern. Those for whom the pony which existed at the moment of manifest is not who they wish to be for all of their lives."

And then she was looking directly at Twilight. The dark gaze fixed upon her, and the weight of centuries bore down.

"Can you truly say that you never doubted? Never wished for anything else, not once? Not even for the briefest instant?"

I --
i don't have friends i don't have any friends i have magic and books and nopony comes near me so the magic has to be enough
forever

Her tail was sagging, ears pressing against her skull, wing joints loosened and all four knees felt as if they could no longer bear her weight --

-- the nuzzle touched her forehead, near the base of the horn.

It was a cool touch, if only slightly so: it was still Luna. And yet it was warm...

"And there it is," the dark Princess softly said. "Eyes and soul. But take no shame from it, for I understand, Twilight Sparkle. I am... intimately familiar with every moment of doubt, and there are far more than four who share it. Speak with the others, when you feel it is appropriate. I would suggest beginning with the Lady Rarity. That doubt is more common than you might ever imagine --" and her tone briefly went dry "-- if you care to continue imagining blasphemy. So grant that the stallion might have desired for his mark to change, or vanish. And if that is true... try not to think less of him for it."

She held the nuzzle for a time, and Twilight... didn't know what to do. Luna was so much taller, and the nuzzle was near the horn. Any time to return it would dislodge --

-- the alicorn stepped back, lifted her head as the mane began to flow again.

"There is a portion of the gardens which matches your birth home," she said. "As found on one of the posted trail maps -- do not feel that you erred in missing it: my night vision far surpasses yours. We are going there, Twilight Sparkle, to stay for a time. Because this mission will send you further away than you have ever been. And I wish for you to have a memory which is new. Something constant and clear."

The dark eyes closed, one last time.

"Do what you must, all of you," requested a living weight of centuries and pain. "To help, if help is required. If blasphemy was not freely chosen, to bring it to an end. But when it is done -- remember how to come home."

If/Then

Their relationship is dead.

Linchpin knows it's a dark way to put it, and there are ways in which that normally wouldn't suit him. But the scheduled tides of the seasons have always affected him somewhat more than most. When the nights lengthen, when the temperature is kicked ever-downwards... that's when he can feel shadows stretching across his thoughts. It's something which still holds true even with Canterlot's milder winters, and it has him slowly trotting down cold streets under a Moon which has been raised far too early for his personal comfort.

No living greenery anywhere in sight, not when he's this far away from a respite park or the botanical beacon of the palace gardens. No warmth. Nothing but virtually-empty travelways, where most of the traffic is passing overhead and so the wingbeats of pegasi in a hurry drive additional frozen gusts directly down into his spine.

It's a night for cold thoughts, and the stone seems to be leeching the heat from his soul.

The relationship is dead? Well, that's one way to put it. Earlier, he might have said that the tenuous connection had been looking for a stronger foundation: a touch of mutual physical attraction was fine for a start, but it probably wasn't going to be enough for a long-term build. Further on, there's the question of locating some workable support beams, and then he'd put a lot of time into figuring out which ones were supposed to be load-bearing. The answer had turned out to be 'none'.

The relationship is dead and when measured across the journey of his life, it has plenty of company. In winter, Linchpin doesn't see himself as having a social life. It's more of a dating hospice: you try to make the connection comfortable, you hope for a miracle, and you make sure the cemetery out back has room for one more marker because there's only one way out of a hospice. After a while, you might reach the point where you didn't even truly hear the words spoken across the final gap, because they'd just been said too many times before. A lead actor going through the motions on a show which has the same acts performed on slightly-different stages, only with a new mare co-star who also decides there's a better production somewhere down the road.

There are times when he wonders if it's his fault. After all, the one true commonality in all of the failures is him. If it had been a series of construction jobs where all of the foundations collapsed, then he would have quickly abandoned the suspect quarry and acquired new supplies from somewhere else. But whenever he digs down within himself in order to find something worthy of long-term love, all he ever finds is more Linchpin.

Abjura...

The name spreads through his body, and it brings no warmth. His hind legs hitch for a moment: caught by internal ice. And then he forces himself to continue onwards.

It wasn't the first death. Most of the ones which had followed the most impactful found him revisiting a certain internal headstone.

...maybe he just has to stop dating government employees. Which shouldn't be that much of a challenge: even in Canterlot, it's only about one in every twelve ponies who works for the palace in some capacity. So he just has a talent for hitting the long cumulative odds.

At the very least, there shouldn't be any more Gifted School graduates.

There are multiple stereotypes about those who emerge from the frequently-rebuilt halls. (That's how they met: he had been asked to join the centuries-crossing herd of those who were forever architecturally battling against the most natural tendencies of the students: she was visiting in order to conduct an analysis on exactly what had gone wrong that time.) One of them directly implies that the worst thing you could ever do was to have one of them inside your bedroom, because there was a good chance that they would decide to be experimental. The reasonable response to that was supposed to be terror. But if you survived it...

She had. He had. And he tried to make it work with her, harder than he's tried with anypony else. There are journals waiting in his home, things he started reading because he thought it would make it easier for them to communicate and he's still reading them because...

...because they're interesting.
Because it's a hard habit to break and there's nothing wrong with staying current.
...because if she ever came back, they would have something to talk about.
But...

...another corpse behind the hospice.

...is it him?

He's put enough structures into the city's skyline. For the last few years, he's been looking to build a connection. Find his special somepony, and start a family.

It's the same dreams, whenever it seems to be going well. The ceremony of union. The announcement of pregnancy. The first birth. Another kind of legacy, one of love, and...

...he's buried a lot of futures.

Maybe it's me.

After all, that is the commonality. What does every one of his failed relationships have in it? Him. The Keystone which keeps collapsing inwards. He wasn't exciting enough for Abjura. For anypony...

And there's a moment when he glances back at his left hip. It's where one of two images for the limb-and-track sketcher rests. Anypony who knows what the little machine is for can identify him as an architect. There are certain stereotypes which arise from that as well. Creative, but in ways which tend to be built on a given foundation. Intelligent. Reliable, always making sure the job gets done...

...and apparently when you translate all of that into a relationship, the sum total works out to 'boring'. Shortly followed by 'dead'.

He can leave an impact on the skyline. But he can't seem to find any way to create lasting love. To put down the roots of a family tree. And when he looks at his mark in that instant, he's also looking across the graveyard of his failures in a cold winter where the warmth seems to have gone out of his soul.

He loves to create. He wouldn't have that mark if he didn't want to build.
But to a mare, all he has to offer is Linchpin and... that's not good enough.
The mark implies certain things about the personality, and the personality has spent moons wondering if it will die alone. Mourned by trickles of rain running across high glass.
He wishes he was something else.
Somepony else.

And perhaps there's another pony on the street, one he's not quite looking at, who sees his face in that moment. It could be a particular, subtle scent which rises from fur and skin, something long practice has allowed the witness to distinguish within the herd. Or it's as simple as a device which was created for a function which nothing ever should have served.

The exact methodology might not matter. It's enough that it exists. There's a means by which a witness can tell that a pony is at a low point in their life, potentially within some level of personal crisis, and they've just had a thought. Something which comes with a particular emotional resonance and for the witness, it's one of opportunity.

The architect aimlessly moves through the cold winter night, knowing no loving form awaits in his home to warm him and so he has no intention of going there for a while. Wherever he winds up has to be better than that.

Behind him, unseen, the witness follows. Traveling down the chill road which leads to Linchpin's death.

"And Luna asked you to start with me," the accented voice slowly said, and blue eyes made a not-particularly-subtle survey of the library floor. Checking for witnesses and finding none, because just about all of Ponyville knew that Trixie was in the tree and it had taken only a few extra days for a significant fraction of that number to realize that Twilight stood ready to stop all sudden rushes towards the basement doors. It was something which had created a significant impact on library traffic, because those doors suddenly seemed to have too many shelves nearby and going for your desired reading material slowly and carefully somehow didn't look completely non-suspicious at all.

Nopony seemed to have come up with the obvious solution of just asking Twilight to get the books for them, but that was patrons for you.

"On the subject of doubt," the white unicorn continued. "Not just that: regret. Applied to one's own mark."

There really wasn't that much accent in the last sentence. There didn't have to be. When it came to verbal emphasis, implying that Twilight had just questioned the core of a soul more than sufficed.

The little mare reluctantly nodded. Rarity sighed.

It was something which happened fairly often with the designer: some were feigned, others heaved, and more than a few varieties existed to tell the populace that there was a mare so distressed as to sigh among them, and what were they going to do about that? But this one emerged with no artifice or extra inflections of drama. It was simply a sigh, and a rather deep one.

"No further than the two of us," the unicorn softly said. "Please, Twilight. Your confidence, unless the words are truly needed to help another. On this of all subjects... please."

The librarian nodded again. Rarity made one more check for witnesses. Twisting ears listened to the sounds of Spike moving around the little kitchen, and then blue eyes slowly closed.

"I have wondered," the designer quietly began, "if there is no mark for appreciating fashion. Certainly there are critics aplenty, more than anypony should strictly have to put up with, but... perhaps that talent is for persuasion. The art of talking another around to your personal lack of taste..."

Twilight listened, still and quiet, watching as elaborate mane and tail curls seemed to loosen.

"When my talent is at its height," Rarity softly continued, "I can simply glance at another and dream of how their ideal should appear. The colors, the cut and stitching, which will bring them to their best. A moment of vision. Which... takes some time to capture, of course." The white head was dipping. "Generally best not to try and translate dream directly into fabric, Twilight. Sketches, measurements, careful balancing of fabrics. And eventually, a dress. Something which, as far as my talent is concerned, is perfect. A talent for imagination, vision, and dreams..."

A slow head shake, just barely enough to disturb the sagging fall, and then the unicorn's lips briefly quirked.

"...but not telepathy."

Twilight blinked.

"Rarity?" Because it had been a smile, and yet it had not. Something where all the humor had been stripped away.

The white head didn't lift. "You all provided a demonstration of that once, did you not? All my talent does is tell me how another would be brought to their ideal. It doesn't tell me how they see themselves. My dream -- perhaps my own tastes and desires -- those are applied to another. I know only what I want for you, not what you might personally desire. And your own vision, applied to yourself -- that is the stronger. I cannot see your thoughts and know what you wish for, Twilight. I can't measure my dream directly against yours and try to tell you that I know best. All I can do is create and sew and, when all is complete, hope that you perceive a fraction of what I saw for you, in that moment. And so many cleave to their own dreams, stay with those visions to the last or --" a slow breath "-- to the stage. The date, the ball, the Gala, the party... which is, all too often, followed by blaming the one who failed to talk them out of it."

And then she was moving forward, angling her head for the nuzzle. "I'm -- I'm sorry --"

White ears twitched at the sound of the approach. Well-groomed legs took a half-step back. Twilight froze.

"I didn't say it was you," Rarity steadily added, even as her volume dropped ever-closer to whisper. "Not any more. You learned your lesson, and those apologies were accepted. But that is why so much of my profession is centered in the weight of reputation, Twilight. That my clients have to believe I know best. And my reputation is, even after all this time, yet uncertain... or unfounded, or unknown. And my mark... the icon itself hardly helps. More interpretative than most designers display. So many think it represents a talent for mining, and..." this time, her lips twitched "...there have been dark nights when I've wondered if that's the core of it, with the dresses as a long-running side delusion. A few believe it's for wealth, and one of them --"

Her teeth slammed together, bit off the syllables and sent them crashing into the library's floor as a lashing tail waved them to their deaths.

"-- was my mother. Who saw what she wished most to see in spite of all sketched and sewn evidence: a daughter whose station would rise above her own. Social climbing by proxy, and that cost me five years, Twilight: five years in a boarding school which only catered to her dreams. We had yet another fight about that, just a moon ago, and it was one which nearly broke any bond which existed between mother and daughter at all. Something which is still healing. Compared to that, having yet another customer reject my dreams because she's decided that her best hopes lie in taupe and taffeta... to fighting against the tides of fashion, when what I have decided is perfect happens to be what everypony else feels is on the outs... to simple survival during the worst of it and making sure the Boutique's loan payments are always made..."

Slowly, her eyes opened, and she looked at the trembling little mare.

"...Twilight?"

"...you..." The alicorn swallowed. "You -- backed up..."

There was something wistful in the blue eyes now. Wistful, weary, and somehow old.

"A personal moment," Rarity said, with just a little more volume. "The sort of thoughts I normally have in isolation, at the end of a particularly horrid day, or during hours which Luna knows best. I'm... not used to sharing it, Twilight. I apologize for your having felt rejected, and -- oh, come here: we both know the only way to resolve this..."

Eventually, the nuzzle for friends ended, and the mares separated.

"Regrets," Rarity quietly finished. "Yes. And doubts, and wishes to have found a different path. I can see why Luna advised you to start with me. I can readily imagine Fluttershy having experienced a number of such thoughts. Even Pinkie. But Applejack and Rainbow... that is harder to picture."

Two mares who often seemed to live in the heart of their talent. Or, in Rainbow's too-frequent case, the center of the debris field. "I've been having some trouble there too. But I think it's a lesson Luna wants us to learn."

"The idea that, as you said before you reached the core question," Rarity steadily reviewed (and that steadiness had been audibly forced), "who a pony is at the most crucial moment may not represent every aspect of them for a lifetime." Her fur twitched against its natural grain. "Yes. Not a concept which most ponies would welcome. Are you going to ask the others?"

"Maybe. I at least have to brief them on the idea." Twilight sighed, turned towards Periodicals and began to slowly trot, with the designer following. "We'll probably have another meeting in a day or two. But it won't be tonight."

A little too evenly, "Another late-night experiment conducted with our forced burden?"

I know what you did.

You didn't exactly hide it.

Everypony's been making sure they come to the tree. Checking on me. There's all sorts of excuses, and some of them are even partially real. Two hours ago, Fluttershy wanted me to use the library exchange program and pull books out of the Canterlot Archives. The flora and fauna for the places we might go, and I tried telling her that we need to narrow that down more. I know that. So does she. But until we get a specific destination, it makes for a really good excuse.

Everypony has their own way of preparing. In your case, you made sure I knew about it because you had Spike send the letter. You might have dictated it to him in private, but I knew you were sending something, and you knew he would tell me about it. A scroll for the palace, to ask for anypony other than Trixie and according to Spike, the tone was 'pissy'. I didn't even know Spike had that word. And then he got the reply about ten minutes after you left, caught up to you outside, and apparently that's when 'pissy' became an understatement.

You've been by a lot. Monitoring the tree. It's reaching the point where some ponies may be starting to wonder if the Boutique is open at all.

I know you feel like you're the big sister.
Please stop trying to make me feel like the little one. Who's too young to understand and has to be saved from herself.
I know what I'm doing.
I know you haven't forgiven her.
I wish you'd talk to her.
But she's my friend...

"Trixie and I will be working on things during the day," Twilight carefully replied. "Tonight is for the Princesses. They sent word a little while ago. There's some more things they want to tell me. And Applejack, this time. To save a little on repetition."

"So an air carriage pickup."

Twilight nodded. Continued walking, adjusting a few hardcovers as she went.

"Have you met Joyous?"

"Not personally," Rarity admitted. "I have seen her, though. And..." with the designer, a blush was something which often possessed an audible aspect "...I've been working on a sketch. In the event that she should ever come into the Boutique."

"Really?"

Defensively, "A dark blue metallic, Twilight. The reflective aspects of her fur alone represent something of a challenge."

They reached Periodicals, and pinkish light began to straighten up magazines which didn't strictly need it.

"I have some concerns about you overworking," the designer told her. "You're taking on a lot, Twilight. The research, getting ready for the escort test, attempting to learn the spell which allows accompanying the teleport of another, you are still taking lessons in the mornings, and you are trying to keep the library going when you should have fully turned its reins over to Spike days ago --"

"-- I'm being careful," emerged as something much less than a perfect wall.

(The lessons with Rainbow and Applejack left Trixie alone with Spike. It was... awkward.)

"You're being defensive," Rarity countered. "And controlling, which I can freely say because we are both familiar with how you tend to act regarding your territory. An alicorn is a blend of pegasus, earth pony, unicorn --" it was possible to hear the smile "-- and in your case, a touch of buffalo. At the very least, Twilight, let Spike have the library. Please."

Eventually -- a period she knew was being measured -- "...okay." Even though the little dragon had to use small ramps and ladders just to reach some of the shelves...

...the library kept her busy.
It gave her something else to think about.
There were too many thoughts in her head, and the sisters added new ones every day.

There was a briefing room.

Twilight hadn't known that use of a briefing room was even an option. Briefings for Bearer missions tended to be done on the trot, the gallop, or 'Rainbow, slow down!' There generally wasn't enough time for anything remotely like a full briefing, let alone the progressive stages of data dissemination which had been going on for the last few days. But the palace had at least one briefing room.

This version was near the core of the Lunar wing, and so all the marble was shot with silver. It was isolated, far too large for just four ponies (and that said something when two of them were the sisters), the table didn't have to be that big and the benches were ancient, somewhat too tall, and distinctly uncomfortable. Given that they were using the Lunar wing, Twilight suspected the poor padding on the benches was deliberate. Having multiple lumps of what felt like dead lichen under her barrel was probably meant to keep her awake.

She was trying not to twitch too much, maintaining a more or less constant eyeline across the table with each sister: something which still meant a lot of changing angles as her head moved. Applejack was shuffling around her own bench as if trying to pulverize the lumps through body weight alone.

The sisters seemed to be used to the benches (and Twilight was ashamed to find herself momentarily considering how that greater mass had probably turned all lumps into dust). But they both looked tired. The flow of manes and tails was slowed, and some of their fur didn't seem to be resting properly: it was worst around the eyes. She'd hardly ever seen them look tired...

"Let us move into the evening's concerns," Luna coolly began. "The first is geographic. And sociopolitical."

As a group, the Bearers had a significant amount of experience in dealing with Luna. It wasn't always enough to save them from personally entering Translation Mode.

"Socio..." Applejack awkwardly tried, with the hat slipping slightly to suit.

Celestia briefly carried the load. "It means we're sending you outside the country," the Solar Princess explained. "Regardless of which of the two possible overall destinations turns out to be the right one, you're going to be a long way from Equestria, Applejack."

"Which in turn," Luna took over, "means that you are outside the area in which we can exert direct authority. On missions which took place within the borders, we could contact any settled zone and tell them that your requests were to be treated as something closer to orders. In another nation... all we can do is ask that you be respected. And even that may wind up working against you."

Twilight distantly considered that the last few days had seen her gulping back a lot of saliva and therefore, under the rules of gaining experience with an activity through repetition, she should have been getting better at it. "I don't understand."

The sisters briefly glanced at each other. Centuries overflowed the small gap.

"There's other countries involved," Celestia resumed. "Criollo, anyway. They have an embassy in the capital, but it's barely used. Mangalarga Marchador is more towards a series of territories: most of the settlements are confined to the east coast -- and while they're familiar with us, they haven't bothered to set up formal relations. Some of this will be in your briefing book -- and we are going to give you one, once we determine the destination. But for the most part, as long as Sun and Moon keep moving through the sky, then they think we're doing our job. It's all they care about."

"To the best of our current knowledge," Luna stated, "the vast majority of both areas remains unexplored. There are places where rulership is implied more than enforced, along a number of regions where the leaders have not ventured. They have no more mapped every square hoofwidth of their land than we, and have considerably less of a concept as to what might be happening near the center."

"So unless you're going to a city," the elder informed them, "we don't have much in the way of reliable maps. We have guesses with contour lines." There was a little sigh: one which shifted quite a lot of rib cage on the way out. "We're trying to improve that, but... there may not be enough time."

"And if you are in a settled zone," the younger followed up, "then you have no true authority. We can ask that your requests be honored, but -- that is all we can do: ask." Much more slowly, "And it may be in your best interests for us to say nothing at all. For none to even know that you are there."

Both Bearers blinked.

"We're gonna be a long way from home, like y'said," Applejack urgently insisted. "Ah know recent history's kind of bad on our askin' for local help --" and there was a quick side glance in the direction of Twilight's automatic twitch, one which promised a private apology later "-- but if'fin y'all smooth the way --"

"-- we're sending you into foreign territory," Celestia cut her off as the long white neck arced over the table, "to investigate something which may change or erase a pony's mark."

"An act," Luna darkly added, with two stars in the mane choosing that moment to shed their outer shells, "which may have been deliberate."

"I know," Twilight hastily said. "You asked me to consider that he might have wanted this --"

"-- and now we're asking you to think about whether someone else wanted it," Celestia tightly stated.

"Ah don't --"

"-- what if," Luna calmly asked, doing so at the same moment when the first true supernova went off, "this is a weapon?"

Two mares briefly stopped breathing.

"To take away what has so frequently been our best advantage," the younger of the Diarchy steadily added. "To neutralize --"

"-- who would do something like that?"

Twilight didn't know why her ribs were heaving.
She had no awareness of having stood up on her bench.
The height gain didn't seem to mean much.
Whatever her wings were doing seemed to have been determined by them alone. She was hoping they had some idea what it was for.

This time, the exchanged look was much longer, and carried considerably more weight.

"Ponies," the white mare quietly said.

"BUT --"

"Ponies," the dark one stated, "have done exactly that. You are a student of magic, Twilight Sparkle. Have you somehow never heard of Kalziver's Severance?"

All four knees folded at once, and Twilight crashed back onto the bench.

"Ah haven't," the farmer shakily tried. "Ain't never --"

"-- it temporarily breaks the link between a pony and their talent," Celestia carefully informed her. "The mark is still there. The magic isn't. It was designed to use against ponies who wield their marks against the world, Applejack, and it's one of the most crucial weapons in Equestria's arsenal. We've had those who tried to take over from within. Criminals, con artists who were a little too good. Would-be conquerors, self-titled generals, and all of them were ponies whose marks aided their desires. So when the mark stops meaning anything, when all of the advantages it brings are gone... they have to adjust. Quickly. I haven't seen one do it yet. And that's when they can be taken down."

"And my sister asked for the creation of that spell," Luna softly said, "of Kalziver himself. Because there are times when the last thing standing between sanity and destruction is the invocation of blasphemy. A student of magic is among us. Would she do the group the favor of telling us how many times that spell might have saved Equestria?"

At the very least, swallowing this fast over and over had to count for speed-learning. "Three --"

"Seven," Celestia gently corrected.

Twilight's mouth opened. Nothing came out.

"But three would be the number visible through the public record, so no fault," the white mare finished. "Twilight, I asked for a weapon against pony magic because there's been more than enough times when ponies were the problem. The Severance works. But --" and her focus moved to Applejack "-- it only works when you cast at a triple corona, the usual duration is twelve seconds, and I can just barely make it hold for ninety-eight. And once it wears off, I can't cast much of anything else for hours, because the migraine is just that bad. And you got caught up in Star Swirl's spell --"

please don't say his name, not in front of her

"-- where the image moved -- but the talent stayed where it was, in dormancy. Because he never figured out how to switch what he saw as the crucial aspect, and everything fell apart once those talents were called upon again. That's the level of power and skill it usually takes to disengage mark from magic, Applejack. And nothing I know of can do it permanently."

"But neither of us," the dark mare finished, "know everything. So consider this, both of you. Allergen, potentially. Disease as something to be feared. But this could be a weapon. Something designed to be used against us." She leaned forward somewhat, coldly focused at them from across the too-large table. "And as we do not know who would be developing it, alerting those nations to your presence might serve as a critical mistake. It would let them know that Equestria has, at the very least, certain suspicions. Especially if news of that stallion's death has reached them. If they are aware, to use what may not be the accurate phrase, that a test subject had escaped..."

"You're askin' us," Applejack forced out (because a shaking Twilight could not), "t' see those places as the enemy."

"We're looking at it as a possibility," Celestia stated. "But it might not even be those nations. As we said, there's a lot of unexplored territory. Anyone could have gone into that area and set up their research, feeling they had a low chance of being discovered. Another nation could be working there, someone more hostile to Equestria. Those two countries mostly don't care."

"And if any such nation is rather more local," Luna darkly continued, "then they may have already read of recent Canterlot events. The press working against us again, if inadvertently..."

The dark mare pulled back. Took a slow breath.

"When this ends," the younger quietly considered, "we may find ourselves placing that stallion among Equestria's greatest heroes. He might have fled from an encampment which was trying to treat the ill. He also might have died in an attempt to alert us, through providing the evidence of his corpse. His name will be verified. He will be honored, even if circumstances require the final portrait to be hidden. This I vow."

She slowly shook her head, and the two smaller mares waited for the meteor streaks to leave the flow of her tail.

"There's something else," Celestia eventually added. "Until proven otherwise, we should assume there's at least one pony working with them. It's possible that the lockdown effect was generated by a device, and we need to test the age of the teleportation guide. Just in case it's something old and lost. Pre-Discordian is an option. But if it's new, then at the very least, somepony constructed it. Somepony is keeping it charged. They may not know what it's being used for -- but they're involved."

"Or we could have an effective traitor to their own species," Luna darkly offered. "Or -- somepony as desperate as Triptych and Joyous, who believes themselves to be saving those who can be helped in no other way."

(Twilight, whose thoughts seemed to be spiraling in all directions, found a rather small part of herself distantly noting that the temperature in the room seemed to be oddly stable. Perhaps the sisters cancelled each other out.)

"But no matter what," the white mare concluded, "they could know we're coming. That's one of the hazards with preparation time: it's all the more days for the news to go that far. And there's another problem wrapped up in it. If this is something deliberate, and the news reaches the source..."

"We can dispatch spies," Luna rather too casually announced. "To gain insight into the state of each area. But they cannot explore the land entire. Some of them would still be new pony arrivals at a time when a nation which is doing this deliberately might expect ponies to appear, and we have only a few non-pony citizens to send. Abruptly-arriving griffons are only slightly less suspicious."

"And when it comes to new pony arrivals," Celestia softly sighed, "there's another problem. The seven of you aren't... quite as anonymous as you used to be."

The white mare looked at Twilight. Or rather, at her flanks.

Both of Twilight's wings twitched, and did so at the same moment when a twisting plume of thought tossed off "Well, that's kind of your fault --"

-- her mouth slammed shut.

Celestia blinked. Luna snickered.

"Point established," the younger smugly determined. "It remains a problem. One I am personally attempting to solve."

"How?" Applejack quickly asked. "The rest of us can use fur dyes an' the like, but Twi --"

"-- can potentially be placed within a mobile shell of illusion," the dark mare interrupted. "Similar to the enchantments on thestral armor: something which keeps perfect pace with the movements of the wearer. The simplest solution is to hide the horn -- and there is the reaction I was expecting: sit down, Twilight Sparkle -- but you are not a natural pegasus. Not that many in those areas would be likely to have direct experience, but... just about any is sufficient for determining that somepony is unused to her wings. Far easier to pass you as a unicorn -- if you can prevent all physical contact. And the donning of cloth." With open irritation, "And if I can enchant a device which does not simply overlay a batlike shell atop feathered wings -- also, I use 'simply' with some sarcasm -- but which detects the immediate environment, and creates the illusion of what would normally be visible when looking past your flanks. And updates that illusion as you move. Instantly. Constantly."

Eventually, Twilight became aware that her mouth was open again.

"Or we may cloak the horn while issuing you a set of bandages," Luna added. "The wings are present, and they are simply too injured for flight at the moment." With a soft snort, "Without her somehow tapping your aspect at all times, Applejack Malus, I have very little confidence in her managing to continually retain a hat. There are solutions. Some of them are mundane, because that can be easiest. It is partially a matter of determining which has the chance to actually work."

"On the mundane side," Celestia told them, "we're having Hoovmat suits made for all of you. Functional ones, Twilight: I know you've seen the Flower Trio's come apart under the pressure of light breathing, but -- it's possible to get better ones." Without all that much loss of volume, "Considering that the Trio are just about his last customers, you'd think he'd stop complaining about being blackmailed... At any rate, if it is an allergen, they could give you some protection."

"But we can't use magic when we're wearing them!" Twilight instinctively protested. "A corona can't get through! Rainbow won't be able to move her wings --" Wait. "-- Applejack?"

The farmer looked thoughtful. "Never tried, Twi. Don't see why they'd stop mah voice -- but it's somethin' we'd better test before we leave."

Both sisters nodded. "We have exacting measurements for most of the group, from Rarity. We've already put them in the order."

"Most? Y'need a set for Spike?"

Celestia shook her head. Looked at Twilight again, and the librarian winced.

When compared to her state prior to the change, she was slightly taller. The difference wasn't currently at the point where most ponies could spot it, but... Rarity wasn't most ponies, and also came with a frequently-used accessory of measuring tapes which had some extremely fine gradients. And after the librarian had spent her adult life as Unicorn (Extremely) Petite, it hadn't taken all that long for the numerical evidence to reach the point where she could no longer deny it. Twilight was slightly taller -- and each moon saw her as just a little taller still. Eventually, it was going to reach a stage where all of Ponyville would pick up on it.

The adolescent, who had readily foreseen a future where she was forever rearing up on her hind legs and still had to crane her neck to see the top shelf, would have welcomed a little extra height. The mare, looking at two of the three rather oversized examples for those who had already gone through the process, mostly wanted to know when it was going to stop.

"They're precision fits," Celestia explained. "But we do have Spike's latest numbers, and we're going to have a suit made for him because if it is an allergen or anything similar, we don't want to find out what it does to a dragon."

Most of Twilight appreciated the consideration. A minor remainder was internally muttering about going back into the tapes.

"Language is a factor," Luna told them. "You will find very few who speak Equestrian in that region, and we likely lack the time to teach you all the native tongue. Fortunately, those languages are recorded, and we have speakers in the capital. Translation devices can be set accordingly, and as they do not need to decipher a newly-encountered vocabulary, they can be of the most basic type."

"We may still send you with one advanced sort, though," Celestia added. "In case whatever's going on turns out to be the creation of a new species. It'll leave you going through the wearer for all exchanges, but -- we can't leave you with no ability to communicate."

"Communication." It wasn't quite an echo. Luna had put too much restrained force into the word for that. "Yes."

And for the last time that night, the sisters looked at each other.

They're holding that for a really long time.
Really long.
I wish they would talk to us.
To me.
There's something forming between them. Some sort of mist --
-- is that fog?

And then the Diarchy was facing the Bearers.

"We already know there's a lockdown effect in play," Celestia began. "And we know Spike can't send a scroll out of one. I also can't send one in. Not without breaking the lockdown, and I'd have to be present in order to do that. We have to assume that if you track this to the source, you're going to be directly in the lockdown zone."

"And should you find a way to break it," Luna added, "there remains the fact that you will still be in the southern half of the planet. A long way from Equestria. Something which makes calling for help, or rapidly-arriving reinforcements... rather difficult."

Her stars are dimming.
She's worried. About something big.
We've almost always been out of contact. The magic isn't there for it. Without Spike...

"Scrolls sent to Spike target him," the white mare stated. "I'm not sure it's possible to follow one, even with the attachment spell. Because it's not tracking a living thing. I've been..." and the purple eyes scrunched into a wince "...trying to find out, for the last couple of days. It... hasn't been going well."

"And at some point," the dark mare softly repeated, "we must expect that scrolls will cease to become a factor. That you will have no means of contacting us."

"We also don't know if you can get another one of those transport devices," the elder added. "Or use it safely."

"There is the very real possibility," the younger quietly said, "that you will effectively be isolated, several thousand gallops away. Lost, with no means to inform us of what has gone wrong, of asking for aid, of simply telling us that the mission is complete and that you need to come home."

"Ah get it," Applejack carefully offered. "Could be a really long boat ride back." With a sigh, "I'm gonna hate bein' away from the Acres for so long. An'... if it hits spring, then Ah kinda have t' ask for some -- help. Extra crew, 'cause Ah won't be there. Plus we were gonna start on some agronomy, so any expert y'might know..."

I know you. It's more than that.
Honesty doesn't mean you have to say everything.

Something about the white mare's voice felt hollow.

"We've made arrangements," Celestia said. "Both of us."

"You will be issued devices," Luna stated, and the syllables seemed to echo inwards. "At least three, so that you may carry -- I believe 'backups' is the term. They are being created now, as their function is simple. They create... a visual effect."

"Something which can be seen," the elder quietly continued. "From a very long way off. If you use it... then anyone in the area who just glances up will know something is going on, because the radius is that significant. It may center a lot of activity on your location in a hurry."

"Twice per cycle," the younger told them, "within temporal windows ninety minutes across, centered on that region's noon and midnight... if it is necessary, you may use them. And if you do, we will know that something has happened."

Twilight took a breath.

"I can look at the enchantments." Normally the height of misplaced ego, to presume she could improve on something the sisters had created -- but Trixie was present to help her with the new. "See if the window can be extended. Maybe we can even get rid of the visual side effect. Just tell me which spells are involved in this kind of long-distance signal." The words were coming faster. "And what you're using for the carrier, and why it has to be time-dependent --"

Both sisters raised a forehoof.

(Celestia was right-side dominant. Luna was left. It could take a while to spot that...)

"You can't do anything about this," Celestia told them. "There's no improvements possible."

"This is the best which can be rendered," Luna informed the mares. "All we can offer."

The smallest alicorn looked from one to the other. They were just... gazing at her, and there was something in their eyes, something which wasn't supposed to ever be there...

They're scared for us.
That has to be it.
Please let that be it.

"Ninety minutes," Twilight found herself repeating. Any other words would have let the questions flow. "Twice per day. Forty-five minutes on each side of that region's noon and midnight."

Both siblings nodded.

"And you'll know we're in trouble."

"More than that," Luna stated.

"It's possible the devices will be confiscated or broken," Celestia recognized. "If that happens... find a way to make a signal, during that window. Something which wouldn't be natural for the area, something big, and something which can be seen from... overhead."

"It may take a moment to recognize," Luna told them, "Longer to react. The response will not be instant. But after we see it... we will come to you."

He's in a bar, because it's that kind of night and of course he was going to wind up in a bar.

It's not the kind of bar where you find mares, because he's nowhere near ready to try again. There are stallions, and none of them are interested in each other. It's the sort of bar where you pay for a private trough and spend most of the night staring into it. Waiting for the moment when the liquid starts talking back. It generally promises to keep the drinker company and as truths go, that one's rather short-term.

The bar is constructed in a way which makes it about ten percent central payment station. The remainder is isolated clusters of private shadow. It's a minor architectural miracle. Linchpin could normally puzzle out how it was done, but there's drinking to do and besides, if he holds off for a while, the attempt might add something to the hangover.

He approaches the payment area. Hopefully there's some unoccupied shadows left.

"You look like a stallion who could use a drink."

The words come from behind him. It makes him turn, and then the looking up part is a followthrough because he wasn't expecting the other pony to be quite that tall.

"Realizing that's kind of obvious," says the other stallion, and forehooves scrape at the floor. "Being that we're in a bar and all."

Linchpin almost smiles.

"Just a little," he responds. "Do I pay you?"

"Nah. I just..." All four hooves perform a brief shuffle, something so awkward as to be almost instantly endearing. "I don't work here. I just saw you go in. And I thought, that looks like a stallion who needs somepony to buy him a drink. And maybe talk about why he needed one so bad."

He came here to be alone.
No. He came here because he's tired of being alone.
The other stallion is wincing a little. Waiting for an answer, visibly unsure of whether he should have even asked the question. It's like watching a really big colt debating the wisdom of having asked somepony out, exactly three seconds too late.

"This isn't about dating, right?" Calm words, gentle. "Wrong kind of bar. And... I don't. Not with stallions." He almost wishes he was interested. If nothing else, it would seem to give him more prospects for future failures.

"It's about..." More shuffling. "...it's about passing somepony who just... really looked like he needed to talk. Who needs a friend. I'll understand if you'd rather --"

He has a drafting table. Models.
The ponies he took classes with have scattered across the continent. In some cases, the world.
He doesn't have a lot of friends.
Maybe this kind of drinking is better with company.
It's a cold winter, and the stallion's awkward expression is warm.

"-- who's buying?" And that does emerge from the center of a smile.

"I can get the first," the other stallion offers. "Maybe the second. After that, if you don't have bits on you, we can keep going. I just hope you like clearing your bill by scrubbing troughs." Helpfully, "I'm sort of an expert there. If you need hints."

It makes him laugh. And there is a shadow available, one large enough for two...

They approach it together.

When you meet somepony at a low point in your life... during a crisis, in the middle of a collapse, when everything is going wrong and now there's a new voice, somepony you can listen to...

The librarian who eventually follows his trail would understand. After all, it happened to her. She met five mares, and they showed her how to overcome her weaknesses to get through. They reinforced her strengths, shored up her life, and eventually became part of her soul. They told her the answers were waiting outside -- but they didn't have all of them. They just wanted to help her look.

But if the new pony plays on those weaknesses, looks for chances to strengthen them until it seems that the flaw is the whole, forces you to turn inward until the only thing you can see is your own pain and the new pony standing at the center of it, because they're the only one with the answers and all it takes to solve everything is to split you off from the world, leaving a single voice and it isn't your own...

The mare was offered friendship.
The stallion will be brought into a cult.

Demoscene

It felt as if her theories had been crafted to die.

Of course, that was pretty much how it was supposed to work in the first place. Twilight was fully familiar with the scientific method, and so understood that the process basically consisted of endlessly galloping an idea around a carefully-observed track until the concept broke. (There were times when it could be helpful to note where it broke, especially if subsequent trials found it consistently cracking in exactly the same place.) You were looking for anything which threatened to produce sweat, situations which brought forth intellectual froth could be somewhat desirable, and you kept going because the only way to create the rarest of transmutations was to test everything. Theories didn't become proofs on their own and as far as Twilight was concerned, some of the concepts which claimed the exalted title had just seen their creators secretly pull them up at the three-quarters pole.

Theories died all the time. Heated examination was the most frequent cause of demise. Anypony who dealt with the Thaumaturgy Review on a regular basis had to form an inner shield against the chill of dismissal. Theories died from inherent flaws, or from that one test result which nopony had seen coming. When it came to seniors at the Gifted School, the concepts could perish from a sort of dehydration, because some ideas only looked good until the birth parent sobered up.

But they died. And Twilight, who had what felt like far too much to do within the indeterminable time before the mission launched, too many things to learn under Sun -- had turned over full control of the library to Spike. The idea (or theory) was that doing so would purchase her just that many more minutes in which she could fail to master all of it.

She'd fully expected to spend all of the gained time in various forms of intellectual labor. She just hadn't anticipated having it be the sort which kept giving mental birth. Twilight had gained time in which she could think, and theories were brought into the world.

Most of them didn't last long.
Their ghosts haunted her nightscape.

There was a small flash of light within the basement, and the coin reappeared upon an upturned blue hoof.

Twilight looked at it for a moment, because the depressing opportunity to do so existed. The coin was staying exactly where it was and, in the latest demonstration of failure, so had Twilight.

"Again," Trixie said.

Twilight sighed. The small object held in her corona found its bubble sinking towards the floor.

"It's a lot," she managed to project across the cleared aisle in the laboratory. (At least the words could be projected.)

"I know," did not emerge without sympathy. "Aga --"

"It's been teleportation theory for days," the little alicorn protested, because thinking out loud was clearly helpful for personal review and any incidental stalling was just a side benefit. Besides, she knew she was speaking too quickly, and that meant the stalling was both minimal and hidden. "I've been getting ready for the six-sapient version of the escort test. Did you know that it's hardly ever given? I mean, part of that is clearly the cost. Even though it's been waived by the palace. You haven't seen the cost. The examiners are probably doing some reviewing themselves, just so they can remember how to count that high. And I mean 'up to six'."

(It was something which had to be practiced.)
(Practicing required volunteers.)
(It was another reason for her friends to come by. Another reason for fear.)
(If she got it wrong, any part of it wrong...)

The sympathy level was audibly dropping. "Twilight --"

"But at least I know how to teleport!" the librarian rushed. "...even if I'm not sure how I originally figured it out. The Nightmare did it, and then I did it. I usually can't copy spells anywhere near that fast. But I'd studied the working before that, so maybe it was just a bunch of theories coming together under stress?"

The unicorn slowly tipped the unturned hoof to one side. Waited for the fallen coin to stop clattering, then lowered the limb and began to tap keratin against the floor. "Twili --"

"And now I have to learn the tracer spell," the little alicorn frantically groused. "Something is being teleported, and I have to attach myself to it. Go with it. And that's bad enough, but I'll have to do it while I'm escorting! There's already ponies who think I can master spells just from seeing them cast once, or reading one page in a book --" thoughtfully "-- the teleport probably didn't help with that -- but it takes time, Trixie! To just learn a new working, when I don't even know how much time I have to learn at all --"

"-- and it requires practice," the performer cut her off. "Ag --"

"-- and then there's what we're trying to do! What I have to do, just to keep everypony safe!" There was the briefest of pauses: just long enough for the small mare's tail to twitch. "...as safe as we can be when we're teleporting into an unknown area. Which isn't very. And what has to be done means figuring out a new working! Just about from one go!"

She could feel her eyes going wide with fear. The tip of her tail was starting to fray, and her bangs wouldn't be far behind.

In theory, if she displayed enough terror, somepony would have to respect it.

She didn't know how much time they had before the mission would officially begin. It could make every second available for preparation feel scant: a cloth-draped hourglass for which the flow of sand could only be tracked through hearing, with no way to know when it would run out. Or, when the failures piling up in the basement level started to feel truly endless, the gallop-up to dispatch might threaten to stretch out into infinity.

Twilight didn't know how much time they had, and it was beginning to irritate her. To some degree, her inner librarian simply liked to have departure and return dates solidly placed by a checkout stamp: operating without any form of known deadline was simply unnatural. But it was more than that. Something was taking place in a distant land, it might be progressing even as they studied and experimented and failed, could have already gone past the point where it was possible to make any difference at all and the Bearers were still in Ponyville. Every chill day which passed without dispatch was starting to feel like a personal failure, especially since Twilight's own studies were an essential part of what would allow them to travel at all and -- she wasn't advancing fast enough. There were too many distractions, a true excess of failures and, when she was frantically seeking a way to recenter after having not gotten it right again --

(It all depended on her.)
(All of it.)
(If the moment came, and she failed...)

-- there were theories.
Questions.
Waking nightmares.

It felt like the best way to get a few out of her head was through confronting them and so at one point, she'd managed to send off a quick inquiry to the Medicine department of the Canterlot Archives: an express air carriage dispatched by the palace had flown scant, semi-relevant texts back. As it turned out, Applejack had been right: Twilight hadn't been the first to the 'how does a disease create a real talent?' question. Unfortunately, based on the sort of scrawls which managed to remain half-illegible even when rendered into engraving, just about everypony who'd come up with it before had been a madmare: most of the exceptions were gender-based and did little more than swap out the last four letters. Twilight had been reviewing theories which made Sudden Appearance Death Syndrome look sane.

The concept of the 'undersoul' wasn't the worst of them, mostly due to some of what she'd read after running into that one. Still, the concept that every pony who'd ever lived had existed as nothing more than a minuscule expression of a single giant soul, one which put little trotting extensions of itself into the world for -- some reason -- had a few flaws. Admittedly, it did allow the theory's creator to say that Cutie Pox simply forged a connection between one fragmentary vessel and every talent the undersoul had ever known. And obviously tapping that deeply was what eventually lead to death: the exhaustion produced by constant performance was just a side effect.

She'd still been in the recovery phase (as had the book, which was currently in Mrs. Bradel's repair shop because when you came across an idea that stupid, an instinctive kick was the least of it) when she'd come across the true lunacy. Because the talents which rose from Cutie Pox obviously came from somewhere, and a text whose print run had committed the sin of reaching positive integers wanted to offer her the answer.

They came from the dead.

Because as it turned out, the world was just filled with ghosts. The fact that nopony had ever seen one (or at least, nopony who was reliable or sober) was irrelevant. The shadowlands existed in overlap with the living world, separated only by an intangible shroud. The dead moved through a reflection of the real, unable to do anything more than watch. And how did this relate to Cutie Pox? Wasn't it obvious? A pony suffering from the disease became a soul magnet. They pulled the dead into themselves and through doing so, manifested their lost marks. And of course, all of those dead ponies just wanted to practice their talents again, so they made their host do exactly that. Over and over. But death still wasn't from exhaustion, because it was just so clear that the disease only ended when overcrowding forced the original soul out.

...there was a working known as 'securing' or rather, when it came to the pony races, there were three versions, all of which had the same goal: using magic in order to make something resistant to further magic. With unicorns, the casting usually meant that any unauthorized fields which made contact with the secured object just slid off. Twilight, who had initially been surprised to find the working present on a book, had shrugged, nosed her way along, and understood completely at the moment she added her own bite marks to the well-notched offending page.

Still, both books contained nothing more than theories. (A pair of delusional creators had still spent a few paragraphs in arguing for fact.) And when it came to what had been brought into the world, Twilight was prepared to debate the unexpected benefits of stillbirth. But when she forced herself to look deeper into the insanity, if only for a moment...

There was a shared question present: something which had also arisen within pages that had been composed from more inquisitive thoughts and lesser amounts of drool. The one which was starting to set up a base camp within her own mind.

Where do talents come from?

They rose from the soul at the moment of manifest. It was magic. Everypony knew that.

There's magical effects associated with most talents. Talents can break what ponies see as the normal rules, and that's part of why nopony suspected the hybrids. Nearly all of them are subtle, almost impossible to detect in use -- but they're present.

But a talent usually also comes with a degree of inherent skill.

Skill can imply knowledge.

How does magic know something?

...through magic.
That was the easy answer. Magic did everything by magic. And when it came to ponies, the effects were universal and reliable. You didn't have to think about them.
But now she was thinking. And it felt as if there had to be a better solution. Something which could be analyzed, explained, and understood.
And she waited for her mind to birth a theory.
But nothing came.

"There's no real trials!" Twilight desperately protested. "No slow advancement through measured stages! This is one step above 'theory to horn', and you know how that usually works out!"

The performer involuntarily glanced at the wall-mounted first-aid kit.

"I know."

"And we still have to keep everypony safe! Everypony, when they're all depending on what I do! So there has be another way, a safer --"

The blue hoof stopped tapping, and the mare's next two words emerged as something solemn, steady, and factual. "There is."

Twilight blinked. Most of the hope got tangled up in her eyelashes.

"...there is?"

Trixie silently nodded.

"...what is it?"

The hoof came up. Then it slammed back down.

"Again."

Perhaps it was intellectual overcrowding. She had so much to think about, and no concept of how much time was truly available for doing so. Some theories were probably waiting in line. It would have been reasonable to expect her mind to form an orderly queue, and so it annoyed her when certain thoughts kept cutting to the front of the line.

She often found herself wondering about the dead stallion: something which typically happened in the last minutes before she fell asleep. They knew he had been in the southern hemisphere, but -- why? An expatriate who'd settled in a distant part of the world? A trader, a merchant, an explorer... there were so many reasons for a pony to go that far, along with a few marks to spur the voyage. But his mark could have been anything at all, including that mathematical symbol. Unless -- until he was identified, there was no way to know.

...unless. There were ponies all over the world. Some regions had scant numbers, while others found the native population at zero -- but Equestria was hardly the only possible home. If he had been born outside the borders, away from any paperwork and witnesses the palace could track...

He'd been desperate enough to teleport out. What had he been fleeing from? Perhaps... a sick camp, where those who were suffering had been isolated in hopes of treatment? Because it was an illness, he'd been sick and desperate and possibly not thinking clearly, he'd run from the only ones who could have helped and he might have infected --

-- nopony who'd been in contact with him had shown symptoms.

(Well, one Guard had come down with a cold, but the cause had turned out to be 'winter'.)

It still left the possibility of an allergen. One which targeted marks. Another one. And if it was an allergen, and there was a sick camp -- then why hadn't the host nation told Equestria?

Fear.
Concern.
...experiments.
Weapon development.

Those were the kind of theories which were born while she was trying to fall asleep, twisting and turning under her blankets while Spike curled up a little more tightly in his basket and their guest tried to sneak off in the general direction of a Moon-lit window.

The kind of thoughts which stole sleep.
Which lurked within the nightscape, waiting to strike.

"I can see you concentrating," Trixie quietly observed.

Twilight forlornly stared at the coin which was balanced upon the upturned hoof. (Again.) A smidgen. The single smallest unit of Equestrian currency. Smidgens were the sort of thing ponies tried to avoid. You either spent smidgens in order to round off your purchase number into something which didn't have your change include more smidgens (and in doing so, often learned just how bad some cashiers were at basic math), or you eventually wound up pitifully carrying a very large jar into the bank, where pitying tellers would perform the pitiable task of consolidating it into a pitiful result. Or, if you happened to be Twilight Sparkle, you had to ask somepony else to carry it, because you had been banned from the bank for several years.

Parasprites ate food. Those under the influence of the last spell Twilight had sent directly from theory to horn had eaten a settled zone's history's worth of bank ledgers. Mr. Croesus was rather slow to forgive.

The desperation casting had been, in all ways, a failure. This seemed to give it a lot in common with a basement-trapped Twilight.

"I am concentrating," emerged a little too softly. "I know how important this is, Trixie. The Princess has every palace researcher and half the Gifted School looking at it." The latter were doing so under the 'interesting theory, does anypony have any idea on how to deal with it?' clause and somehow, the former were actually producing the majority of the explosions. "I've dealt with lockdowns before."

Not well, made its forlorn way through her mind. I couldn't even get us out of Qui -- out of the castle...

"Defensive ones," the performer noted.

The librarian sighed. "Because this is the first time we've had to think about somepony using one for offense. I have to follow the device, using the tracer working -- and I have to bring everypony with me. The device is supposed to get almost all the way back to its starting point. So what if that still has it hit the lockdown? What if we're right behind it, and what happened to that stallion..."

She didn't try to repress the shudder. Trembling on that level, at that speed, with a little bit of froth trying to rise within her fur -- that was something which had to be recognized. Respected.

"...happens to all of them," she forced herself to finish. "If they all..." and failed at that, as her imagination watched six bodies fall.

The hat is soaked in Applejack's blood. Fluttershy's tail is severed. So many scales are split...

"And that's why we're trying this," Trixie reminded her. "So we can create a working to allow a teleport scout. Teleportation takes time, Twilight: you know that."

"I know," the little alicorn tried to grouse. "You're just telling me what I know, and you know that's what you're doing. Review only goes so far --"

She still had the little object in her field bubble, and was trying not to look at it. She knew it was there. Therefore, there was no need to see if the borders of the field were spiking. None at all.

"-- you send something ahead of the group," the performer persisted. "Close enough to see in the between, far enough ahead that you'll have a chance to react. And if anything happens to the scout object, you bring them all out. Immediately. Abort the transport, dump the group back into the world whether there's a clear arrival space or not." Slowly, evenly, with every syllable under rigid control: "Because you told me what happened to the stallion, and dealing with just about any amount of recoil is better than that."

She put her hoof down again. The coin clattered, and the fragment of the impossible teleportation device on the table behind them vibrated with mild sympathy.

They'd had the fragment for a while. The palace had given it to them for further analysis and since neither of them had a device mark, Twilight was translating that as 'Maybe you'll think of something.' Because the staff's device experts had failed to develop theories, offer a path to repair, recharge, or do anything other than ask for migraine medicine -- Twilight had at least been able to recommend a brand -- but there was a Bearer of Magic in the vicinity and with any luck...

Twilight now had Ratchette's sketches for what the complete version might have looked like. Luck, however, appeared to be in scant supply.

The little alicorn looked at the incomplete section within its cushioning cradle, and the little bits of pulled wire which stretched beyond its borders. They were counting on it.

They were counting on her.

There was so much which could go wrong...

"It's an exit strategy," Trixie said. "Something you need in an emergency. I know about exit strategies."

It had been years since she'd been sent out of the Ancient History department of the Archives. Posted to Ponyville, with the nonsensical mission of 'making some friends'. Years and scrolls. Enough time to change, in more ways than could be expressed through the arrival of wings.

And yet, there were still times when the words just slipped out.

Teasing, with a light touch of lifting lilt in her voice, "So yours is a cloud of smoke, immediately followed by tripping before you can get out of sight?"

She had meant it as something which would make the performer smile.

Magenta eyes, tinged with grey, took their time about narrowing.

"I was still recovering from the Amulet," Trixie starkly stated.

"...I..." Twilight swallowed, and could find no other words.

"I could barely operate my own body," the unicorn continued. "It was like I didn't fit in my body. Everything I was got shoved into a corner of my skull. For hours. And then I had to find my way out."

"...I didn't mean..." wasn't much of an improvement.

"I wake up sometimes after a nightmare," the performer went on, "And I still feel that way. And nopony knows what to do. There's nothing out there about how Amulet wearers recover. Every other Amulet wearer is dead."

Words were failing.
Contact...?
Twilight took a step forward.

"Trixie --"

"-- stay there," was just above a whisper. "Right there."

More desperate, almost frantic. "Trixie, I didn't mean -- I just want --"

"-- this is a test," the unicorn said. "You have to maintain the distance. If you cross it, you teleport."

Her eyes closed. Stayed that way for two long breaths, and then slowly opened again.

"I can see you concentrating," Trixie observed. "When you try."

Let me talk.
Let me apologize.
Let me make it right.

The mare was only a few body lengths away. A gap which had to be bridged. But the words wouldn't come.

All around them, devices hummed. A few glowed. Nothing helped.

She often caught Trixie going towards the windows, or the balcony. It was something which generally took place after Moon had been raised and in the current portion of winter, that didn't require a very long wait.

No theories were required to explain that action. Trixie suffered from chronic, cyclical insomnia. (The performer claimed to have found potions which treated the condition, and some of them had held up for nearly a full week.) It was something which became worse when the mare was stressed. The stress of being trapped in Ponyville --

-- in the tree --

-- it was usually the tree...

...well, it had just made sense to put an exception into the security spells for Trixie. What was the alternative? To tell the mare that Twilight was effectively going to keep her prisoner? Because Trixie had insomnia, and that was paired with wanderlust. It was rare for the performer to spend a moon in a single location: a week was usually closer to the limit. She wanted to travel, to get on the road, to find an audience who might stomp their hooves in applause -- or clack beaks, click talons, bray and stomp...

Trixie needed to move. (She paced a lot. She occasionally seemed to be on the verge of rearranging shelves. Twilight found this to be a somewhat unfair way of dealing with the stress, mostly because it was hers and besides, she hadn't restored that one corner of the basement to the way it clearly should have been.) Movement was something which could help with the insomnia, at least if she moved enough to wear herself out. The pacing groove wasn't enough. And when the settled zone was deep under Moon, if the majority of Ponyville was well and truly asleep...

The performer had risked going out a few times, because both insomnia and wanderlust were getting worse by the day. Twilight had twice awakened to find her coming back in, looking slightly refreshed. A third occasion had found the unicorn wincing her way across the library floor, as snow slowly slipped from the impacted places in her coat.

She'd tried to get Trixie to talk about that, and... all the unicorn had said was that it was cold everywhere.

It could be taken as a theory. It was also an open lie.

"I have to concentrate --" was all Twilight had.

"That's not the problem," the performer told her.

Some of the frustration found its way into the abrupt tail lash. (With herself, with the working, with her inability to make it right.) "Then what is?"

It had only taken a dozen failures for Twilight to decide that as a student of magic, the librarian was an irredeemable idiot. Trixie's expression suggested that the performer had just caught on.

"That's all you're doing."

Ponyville was working on a few collective theories.

The settled zone knew something was up, and most of the blame for that could be placed at Trixie's still-present hooves. The fact that the performer was staying at the tree, and doing so under palace orders -- it raised any number of questions, and Twilight had overheard enough frustrated discussions to know that some of them had in fact been sent to the Solar Throne. All of the answers had come back marked 'palace orders,' a few of the more insistent inquiries had gained the unhelpful addition of 'classified' and when it came to facts, that was the sum total of what Ponyville actually knew.

Which meant everything else had to be invented.

Twilight's friends kept making excuses to drop by. Chances to talk. To look for updates. (Celestia's scrolls came in four times per day, spaced across the clock in order to give Spike a break -- but there were still a lot of them. Twilight was still trying to decide if she liked the mare.) And Ponyville's residents could be found roaming the aisles of the library, asking the little dragon whether his sister was available. Because there were theories and for the three mares who were the most paranoid, they centered on mind control and some sort of second Amulet and a desperate need to save Twilight from herself.

The Flower Trio generally found themselves ignored by long-time residents. But there was a constant influx of fresh population and when it came to newcomers, the mares had something of a shared talent for spreading stupidity. Preventing soapbox climbs meant giving them near-constant reassurance, none of which held for more than a day. And if anything truly moved through the herd...

Trixie was in Ponyville. Was still in Ponyville. So ponies kept visiting the library, all with the intent of protecting the librarian. Somepony who clearly wasn't up to helping herself.

The herd was getting nervous. Something was obviously wrong. But they didn't know what it was. So they could do was theorize, and the results spread as rumor.

Meanwhile, the update scrolls carried a few theories of their own.

In theory, the Bearers could be disguised as a traveling performer show, bringing the wonders of pony magic to those lands whose central exposure to such things was in watching Sun and Moon traverse the sky. (Trixie could rightfully claim a portion of inspiration there.) But that only gave them a reason to be within the settled areas, and it still didn't seemed to provide much of an excuse for Spike.

Her brother was the first dragon whose egg had been hatched by a pony, adopted and raised by the natives. But Equestria had possessed dragon citizens before Spike -- in very small numbers: between lone immigrants and small families, it roughly worked out to a few in every other generation. The concept of having a dragon live with ponies still brought forth shockwaves in portions of the realm. Take that idea to another continent, one where dragons were legends and sources of fear...

What was the plan for Spike? Because he had to come: the Protector had his role to play and additionally, there was no other hope for regularly communicating with Canterlot. Well, perhaps a really good traveling show could claim to incorporate a dragon. There might be a chance to sell him as a miniature breed: something safe. But if that failed? It was unrealistic to expect that he could be constantly hidden away --

(They were going to be teleporting in.)
(They could wind up arriving in full public view.)
(There were so many problems with that...)

-- and that brought up the question of disguise.

As questions went, 'disguise' mostly led into a followup of 'How?'

Illusion shells had to be rather closely fitted to the wearer's body: the other option was an increased chance of having phantom body parts pass through things. There were hardly any bipeds of Spike's size, and for those that did exist... the majority weren't intelligent, and the scant exceptions would never be found traveling with ponies.

A non-Princess portion of the palace had proposed having him move on hands and knees at all times. Surely that had to offer a few other possibilities. 'Making constant excuses for why everyone keeps hearing scales on stone' was certainly a possibility. But it still opened up a whole realm of shapes! For example, there would then be the chance to make him look like a pet. Say, just by way of example, a dog --

-- there had been a NO. It had emerged as a chorus between shout and roar, and it had echoed.

That idea had been discarded. But he was still coming along. And nopony knew what to do.

Of course she was an idiot. It was obvious. Trixie's tones had just suggested that the performer had solved everything, and the idiot librarian was the one who couldn't figure out what the words meant.

"All I'm doing," she semi-repeated. It didn't help. "I'm concentrating because I don't want to get anything wrong --"

The blue right forehoof stomped again. A split-second later, the left one joined in, and the device fragment shook.

"You don't have any flair!" Trixie told the local audience: the underground venue helpfully confined the echoes. "I've been watching you cast for days, Twilight! And all you do is concentrate --"

"-- I --" She would have felt better about the interruption if she'd had more to interrupt with. "-- I don't understand --"

"-- there's emotional resonance in every casting," the unicorn slowly said. "Something else you know. It makes some spells easier, alters others, and there's a few which have the right resonance as a requirement. Some workings are just about pure resonance. And what does Twilight Sparkle do?" The streaked mane shifted across the length of the weary head shake. "She concentrates. The corners of her eyes go tight, her snout crinkles, her legs look like they're all about to cramp at once, and those are the only things which happen because she's concentrating. No flair. No projection of confidence. No theatricality."

"What?" Because she didn't understand, just like she hadn't been able to work out anything about the device or the new spell or the tracer and at least that meant Twilight was being consistent --

The next words emerged in soft tones. Something which suggested Trixie was speaking to a very young foal. The newest student in magic kindergarten.

"Twilight... if you believe you'll succeed in a casting -- if you talk yourself up inside and project all of it into your corona -- then you're more likely to succeed."

The librarian stared at the performer. At a smile which seemed small and weary, but... real.

"I've been watching you cast for days," Trixie repeated. "You put thaums into your workings. I've barely seen you commit yourself. It's almost like watching a textbook illustration come to life, where the images have just enough animation to let you see how fake it is. Angle your corona here, round it off there. It doesn't give you the feel. Or the feelings. Twilight, you need to go for it emotionally. To turn yourself loose, to show off a little --"

The unicorn stopped. Her head dipped down, glancing to the left and whatever mysteries that portion of floor held.

"-- no," the performer wearily corrected. (The smile was still there.) "I sort of understand why you don't show off, at least a little. And part of that is... me. Because I put a connection into your head. Between showing off and having everything go wrong."

The little alicorn took a hoofstep forward. The unicorn didn't seem to notice.

"Trixie --"

"-- but it wasn't just me," the mare's half-bemused exhaustion went on. "I don't think you showed off before I turned up. Sometimes, after I look at your scrolls, when I try to see the words which weren't there, the ones hidden between what you wrote... I feel like you're afraid of your own strength."

"Well, I imagine that believing one had turned their parents into decorative plant life would leave something of a scar..."

Discord's moons-past voice left the memory of the practice ravine, echoed within Twilight's mind, and every leg locked. The wings, by contrast, simply had their joints all loosen at once, and feathers sagged towards the floor.

"You hold back because you don't want to stand out," Trixie continued. "Because you don't want to look different --"

"-- too late."

Trixie looked up, focused towards the bemused tones. Twilight recovered just enough control to wriggle her wings.

"Oh," the performer said.

Twilight sighed.

"I can't look forward to the mission," she admitted. "Not when it's this big. But I was thinking about one part. My disguise." Wistfully, "I'm about to be normal..."

Trixie's lips quirked.

"A normal pegasus," the performer noted. "Since it's easier to hide the horn."

Twilight winced. Nodded.

"Who can't fly," the mare unnecessarily added.

Defensively, "I can fly a little."

"But you're bad at it," Trixie openly teased, and nothing about the words was cruel. "So they'll probably bandage your wings and claim injury. Right?"

You haven't been this -- normal since we all left Vanhoover...

"...right," Twilight admitted.

"Maybe you concentrate too much on flying, too," the unicorn considered -- then shrugged. "I wouldn't know. Anyway --"

She sounds like she's trying to help.
Like she cares.
How much does she care about me?
Does she c --
-- I want to believe her --

"-- let your emotions come into it," Trixie told her, and the streaked tail swayed. "Psych yourself up. Twilight, if you don't believe in yourself, then the working is a lot more likely to fail. Doubt has a resonance, and it mostly gets in the way -- when it isn't just stopping you cold. So add some flair and theatricality. Make it a performance, because you're playing to an audience of one. You. And if you can't convince yourself --"

It almost made sense.
She didn't want it to.

"-- when I'm casting in public?" Twilight asked. "Just -- performing..."

The unicorn's smile became wider. And then it became shadowed, as the light from her ignited horn surged from base to tip, flared past the partial corona level into a full single, intensified --

"So what's wrong with making it a performance?" the mare half-shouted, doing so as the core of the light began to shift towards white and Twilight was staring, it was safe enough in the lab with no real chance of a sudden sharp impact to the horn, but any double corona was always going to make her think of risk and backlash and --

-- she was staring at the horn. At the way Trixie had just reared back, both forehooves parting from the floor, forelegs waving in the air as the performer balanced, mane and tail tossing about.

"Make them look at you!" Trixie called out, and the mare's voice was strong, powerful, designed to reach the back row and silence all detractors. "Make a light, make a noise! Make them think they know everything you're about to do, because it's all so big and obvious! They decide what you're up to, they know what's going on, they tell themselves that it's all so obvious and they get ready to counter -- !"

She's staying reared up too long, gesturing too much, it takes Lyra to hold that position, she's going to come down and if she overbalances --

-- something tiny bumped against the side of Twilight's head.

She blinked. Looked away from Trixie's blazing horn, just as the corona's intensity began to carefully drop and the forelegs followed suit. Saw the smidgen hovering next to her, contained within its own little field bubble.

"-- and then they lose," Trixie calmly said. "Because you made the really big noise to distract from the very small one. And sometimes, the small noise was all you really needed."

Repeated blinking seemed to be required.

"I never saw you split your focus," the librarian forced out. "I didn't even feel it --"

Trixie shrugged. "'Go look at the distraction'. A double corona usually turns into the center of attention in a hurry. Twilight, I know boasting isn't you. And any performance is going to be hard to hold for long, especially at first. But you're trying to learn something new, Believe you can. Make me believe it. And..."

The coin floated down the cleared aisle. Reached the starting position, and the corona winked out.

Trixie's right foreleg lifted. The hoof was upturned. Waiting.

"...show off."

A lot of her theorizing served as attempts to define an unknown. She tried to picture the entity who might be responsible for all of it, and... she didn't know if that party existed. Allergens remained an option.

But Twilight still kept trying to construct an internal model of a sapient being. One who would have set up a situation which made a mark evaporate.

And every time she did so, it twisted into a monster.

The test, at least when expressed as pure theory, could falsely come across as being simple. Trixie used the exoteleport and brought the coin to her hoof. When that happened, Twilight had to manage two things: the first was to magically attach herself to the coin and follow it through the between, and the second was to send something ahead of her. With such a short distance involved, the arrivals would effectively be simultaneous: something which had made it all the easier to determine when nothing had happened.

Trixie had a coin. Twilight was trying to project a rather small, hopefully-unbreakable vial as her scout. But it had turned into more than that.

"BEHOLD! Behold the matchless concentration and effort --"

Grey-tinged eyes rather theatrically rolled.

"-- brought forth by the alicorn!" Twilight declared. "Come see one of the rarest sights in the world, one of four, just four alicorns to exist, as she brings forth MAGIC!" Which was when she decided to improvise. "MAGIC brought forth by MAGIC HERSELF --"

i can do this i can do this i can

One blue foreleg was already raised and waiting for the coin. It made executing a facehoof with the other into something which had to be suggested via expression alone.

"...I write down some of my patter before I take it on stage," Trixie muttered. "I rehearse it. How can a librarian be this bad at editing...?"

I can do this

The coin flashed.

Twilight's corona surged --

-- the first thing she heard upon emerging was the vial clinking onto the table. But she'd been following the coin while trying not to arrive directly on top of it, that made her stumble slightly, and the first thing she felt was the warmth of Trixie's fur.

She tried to pull back. Hooves scrabbled at the floor, and did so to very little effect. It mostly made her snout press deeper into Trixie's neck.

The "I'm sorry!" was partially muffled accordingly. "I didn't mean -- I have to work on the spacing --"

The unicorn... laughed.

Twilight had never heard the performer laugh before. It was a sound which came across as being very light, along with possessing a degree of speed which Rainbow might have envied. It didn't stick around for long, as if it was afraid of being caught.

But it felt real.

"Again!"

Twilight typically hated feeling undignified. 'Stupid' was worse and when you combined that with mud... well, it would have been hard for Rainbow to have made a worse first impression. And there was a lot of indignity in progress, because she couldn't seem to stick the landing.

The teleports were happening. The vial went ahead. Nothing ever went too far forward, never appeared in the space which her lab partner was occupying and triggered recoil. But the pony kept stumbling and in doing so, went into the unicorn. Bumping happened. Kept happening, with some of the snout contact being closer to boops.

There was also giggling. That wasn't officially part of the magic lesson, but Twilight felt it had some chance to reach a scroll.

"Five more," Trixie smiled. "Five more and then we need to go get some food, before Spike tries to shove you up the ramp again."

"Five more," Twilight agreed. Five more successes --

It happened on the third.

Twilight was still having trouble keeping her hooves planted upon emergence. She wasn't sure why. It might have been a side effect of the tracer spell itself. All she knew was that she could follow, the projection of the scout vial was working -- but a stumble was just about assured. Trixie, larger and more solidly-built than the little alicorn, had simply braced herself accordingly. It wasn't exactly hard to take Twilight's rather minimal weight.

On the third attempt, Twilight stumbled.

Her head pitched forward. The horn came in, and Trixie did the natural, instinctive thing. She stepped back.

The unicorn's reflexes were sound. Twilight's horn didn't scrape her, and never came close to a gouge. But there was still a yelp of pain, because Trixie had just shifted backwards into a table.

The wood was jolted. Tilted up and back, crashed down again: something which triggered a second yelp.

They both heard the fall.

Something small was knocked out of the cradle, loudly bounced off the tabletop, came down over the edge --

-- Twilight's corona lunged. Surrounded the section of rod, and desperately yanked it up.

It never reached the floor. It came to a stop at a midpoint between the eye levels of the two mares, and all they could do was stare at it.

A few seconds passed before either could breathe. Longer before they mutually exhaled.

The mares automatically leaned towards each other. Given another moment, there might have been a nuzzle. Something born from sheer relief.

And then they saw the first glint of light form at the end of a broken wire. A spark of irreplaceable power coalescing, just before it parted from the metal. Faded into nothing.

And then they were out of time.

Firewall

The roots of his life were withering away, and he never noticed.

It would be years before he truly reviewed what had happened. There would be a brief period before his death when he would be possessed by a sort of madness: the insanity inherent in spackle pretending to be a soul, and... it granted him a certain degree of what could pass for rationality, along with a chance at perspective. He looked back at everything which had taken place, written nearly all of it down because there was a chance that any moment could have held something vital. Something which would end her.

Linchpin hadn't been anything close to the first brought in, but... he had been among the longer-running specimens. And just about nopony ever talked about their pre-community lives, because those had been discarded. Kicked away like refuse, flowing down the toilet trench of time. Those memories you had, of everything which had happened before arrival? They were the property of a different pony, one who had been built from layers of destiny and mark and magic and name. And the only way to achieve Freedom...

Minotaurs would understand, she had once said. That there were all sorts of ways to create slavery. And if you wanted to make a chain almost impossible to remove, all you had to do was convince the subject to forge it. Put it on their own body. Tangle everything together, wrap the metal in layer after layer until you could barely see what might have been holding it all together at the center. Just about all which could be perceived was the bindings and if that was what was out and about in public, then that was you.

If you really wanted to make it work, you then told the pony to make sure they also built a lock. After all, you didn't want anypony coming along and stealing your chains.

(The mare had...)

It was possible that the years which had passed since Canterlot had seen certain refinements in technique. A shortening of the period required before somepony new would greet their first day of Freedom. Linchpin didn't really know about what had happened to most of the others. There had been little more than occasional words, half-sentences which weren't so much cut off as crushed under a sudden weight of guilt: the emotional penalty for having (almost) spoken at all. Because if you had a truly talented overseer, the slaves would whip themselves.

Or each other --

-- he didn't know what had happened to most of the others, to bring them in. But for some of them, it would have been the stallion.

Before the departure, during those final weeks in Canterlot, Linchpin had been thinking of their connection as something very much like a... rebound relationship. (He'd told his new friend exactly that, and it had brought out what had so quickly become an expected laugh: something which was nearly as distinctive as the pony.) And there were certain commonalities. The stallion was always there. Always there for him. If he needed somepony for conversation, to keep the pace during a trot through winter air -- the stallion had to cut his pace a bit for that: longer legs -- to just spend a little time with.

More than a little time.

Just about all of his time.

But it was so easy. To talk to him, to just be in the presence of someone who truly listened and always seemed to understand. And when he was spending so many hours with the stallion (who was staying in a hotel close to Linchpin's home, who kept turning up on the stoop as Sun rose upon another chill morning), it meant he wasn't using that time for anything else.

Or for anypony else.

...and what was wrong with that?

The little trails of Linchpin's life had seen a number of friends sharing his path. It was just that... most of them had branched off. He'd lost track of just about everypony from his primary and secondary schools. There were still occasional letters from those he'd known best in college, but... he'd mostly connected with other architects, and the search for skylines to impact had spread the graduates across the continent. Only a few had remained in Canterlot, one of them was currently trying to draw up designs which could stand up to heat and sand because a new desert settlement was supposed to be opening soon, and...

...only a few had remained in Canterlot. Most of those had been anchored. The ponies they were dating were here. Their spouses. Their first foal. And it was so hard for Linchpin to be around them, to look at those who had achieved what he could not. He'd... told himself that it would all change, once he'd truly found his special somepony. Change back.

It was hard to be around them. The stallion was easy. The larger earth pony made himself accessible, but -- it was more than that. If Linchpin found himself thinking about all of the failed relationships, about everything which had gone wrong -- then the stallion just seemed to turn up. Personable, quick, he listened, and there was a warmth about him. It was like having a personal Sun to bask in, when the rest of the architect's life seemed to have grown so cold.

But it wasn't Sun. Sun wasn't reaching him. Neither was anything else, because the stallion was always there. If Linchpin briefly considered talking to a friend, then the stallion turned up. Trying to let go of his thoughts for a while in the best way he knew, sitting at the drafting table with the right instrument in his mouth, opening a channel from mark to dream and trying to figure out how it could all be rendered in stone? Then there would be a knock...

(He'd barely worked for weeks.)

At the time, it had felt so much like Sun. But it was shadow. Something which surrounded, darkened, cut him off from every other means of support. There might have others trying to reach him, but -- a big body was blocking the way. The social diet had narrowed to a single source of nutrients, and that meant he had to keep going back because there was nothing else.

But that wasn't how he thought about it at the time.

He just felt that he'd made a friend.

He needed a friend...

Perhaps Abjura would have recognized what was going on. Understood that a particular set of conditions were being carefully arranged.

Experiments have to be isolated.

They're talking about his failed relationships again. The stallion has a talent for listening: something which approaches the level of a mark. (Linchpin's thought about his friend's icon, but... there's no way the symbol is for that.) He also doesn't mind revisiting a subject. Frequently.

Linchpin sometimes claims that he's the aspect which caused every budding structure to collapse before completion, the stallion has to beware of that because the next one might come down on him, and... the stallion laughs. Tries to make it feel like the mares were the ones who'd made the mistake.

He also never really disagrees.
There are times when he talks about how Linchpin was easy to -- diagram, especially when asked how he'd managed to intercept his new companion yet again. Architect problem, right? This line has to lead into that one. Over and over.
The same patterns.
And when that subject comes up, the stallion laughs.
The sound is never unkind.
It only feels like vibration working deeper into the natural flaws of a soul.

An illusion. Linchpin can become somewhat morose when he's drinking. Morose and, when it comes to what his imagination might conjure, a little morbid. Depressed. Feeling as if he isn't good enough, that he could never be good enough because no matter how deeply he delves within himself, all he ever finds is more Linchpin.

(The stallion keeps bringing him to bars.)

But his friend accepts him...

They're at a bar. (Another bar, always the same kind, with privacy granted by shadowed booths and the presence of those too lost in their own mugs and misery to listen.) They've been drinking for a while and while they both have earth pony endurance, his friend is bigger.

(It will also be years before he realizes that any alcohol consumed in the presence of the stallion seems to come with a little extra intensity.)

"I can get the next round," the big stallion says.

"You've gotten enough of them already," Linchpin protests. There's supposed to be give-and-take in a friendship and when it comes to bar tabs, his friend gives a little too much.

It's a somewhat slurred protest. Words which have to work their way up through that much liquid lose a degree of cohesion.

"I've got the bits," the stallion genially shrugs. "They're not doing me a lot of good in too many other ways. So let 'em go for this."

He brings the hoof-looped mug up to his lips. Takes a long swallow, and carefully lowers it to the table again. Something which is just about at floor level, because constantly reaching up for a mug doesn't make a lot of sense.

"I've got bits," Linchpin tries. "That's what jobs are for --"

barely drafted anything in the last

The abrupt sensation is strange. New, foreign -- but it rises from within and in doing so, cuts through the caustic inner waves. Glancing back at the location is automatic --

-- his friend notices, and that naturally-bright smile steals lumens from the bar's dim lighting.

"Let me guess," the big stallion proposes. "Hips just twinged?"

Linchpin, momentarily lost in an odd sort of stun, just barely manages the mod.

For the first time that night, his friend's head dips. The smile fades.

"Kind of like a nagging spouse, isn't it?"

The Canterlot resident blinks.

"I don't --"

"-- telling you that there isn't enough work being done," his friend quietly states. They're very soft words, carefully pitched, and Linchpin is the only pony in the bar who can hear them at all. "It wants you to go sketch something. To do what it wants. And it doesn't care about what's going on in your life, or how much you might need some time to think things over. It just..."

And now his friend looks -- tired. Pained. The pony who's been trying to help him, who's been there for him all the time for -- well, it feels like longer than that -- is hurting, and Linchpin wants to help but doesn't know how...

"...it wants," the big stallion forces himself to finish. "And now it's trying to tell you that you're not cooperating. Marks do a lot of things, Linch -- but they ain't all that good at caring."

The air is oddly thick in this bar. It has weight. Certain thoughts seem to be pressing deeper than they should. And he can hear the ponies around them, in a rather distant way. Aural currents breaking up against the bulwark of the shadows. Unintelligible murmurs, mugs being raised and lowered.

None of them have heard anything which was just said. He knows that. Because if anypony had, there would have been a lot more than mere murmurs. He can barely believe that those words emerged from a pony's mouth.

Nopony else heard those words. He knows that, and that the stallion's next sentence reaches no ears other than his own. Because if the next statement had been heard by another, there would have been a fight. The natural reaction to hearing a near-ultimate level of blasphemy.

Darkly, with just a hint of the suppressed anger breaking through as something heavy presses upon the stallion's friend, narrows the eyes as it adds a guttural note to the too-steady voice, "You know the usual definition of something which can't care?"

And he wants to protest, to counter, to argue, to find the terms which will return the big stallion to sanity. But he's been drinking, and -- this is his friend, somepony who's so obviously hurting, Linchpin wants to help him and --

-- his hips had just twinged.

They've never done that before...

His friend abruptly sighs, and a little more weight goes into the air. Stares down at the mug, while fur slowly settles back into its natural grain. Something which is hard to see, with the shadows and the winter garment covering so much of it.

"It's okay, Linch," the big earth pony quietly offers. "I feel it too."

"...you do?" Oh, good. Two words. Those can make up a foundation. He's not sure how many more he can pile on top of them --

His friend's head turns. A purple gaze, nearly black in the shadow, slowly moves back along the left flank. Stops at the hip, and wearily regards the icon as if it was an anvil which somepony had tied to his tail.

"It wants me to leave town. Get back on the road," the big stallion tells him, and the tones are so weary. "Better yet, to go where there isn't a road at all. It's been like that for a while now. And the longer I pretend I'm ignoring it, the worse it gets. Mark wants what it wants. And it doesn't care much about what I want."

"...what do you want?" Four words. Progress.

Evenly, "To be with my friend." A large forehoof slips out of the mug's loop, solidly plants itself against the edge of the table. "You're more important."

Just for a moment, Linchpin finds himself wishing that he was attracted to stallions. He's completely certain that he's never been so complimented in his life.

"Thank you," feels fully insufficient.

The big stallion smiles -- but there's still some weight in the words. Gravity, and a light touch of sorrow. "Some ponies would probably call it a colt priority. But I think it's important to remember what it was like, being a colt. To still think that way, as much as possible."

"Colt priority," the architect tries, and can't quite get the concept to sink through the layers of alcohol. "I don't get it."

Which gets him a light, fully genial shrug. "Colts and fillies, really," his friend begins the explanation. "Youth. Because ain't nopony born with a mark." The shudder is not only openly faked, but exaggerated for comedy. "Can you imagine? Bad enough that most foals are on their hooves within two minutes. Can you imagine if your spouse popped out a newborn doctor, and the first thing the kid does is try to nip off their own cord?"

The image makes Linchpin laugh, and his friend grins --

-- but only for a moment.

"Didn't mean to bring up spouses there," the big stallion apologizes.

"It's okay." It almost is.

And that just gets him another sigh. "Been trying not to mention -- well, anyway, back to the point. When you're a kid, there's no mark. Sure, there's adults telling you what to do --" he snorts "-- too bucking many, way I remember it, and they talked all of the Tartarus-freed time. But that's the outside voices, and don't kids figure out when to ignore those in a hurry? Not what shows up inside, when the mark comes. Softer than a whisper, but -- insistent. And when you're a kid? All the voices are outside. The only one in your head is you. So you learn about the world, you make your own decisions, and kids? Prioritize for their friends. So I figure..."

This smile is small, but bright.

"...I can do a lot worse than being a really big kid."

The architect...
...it makes sense.

"I get it." Not blasphemy. Just -- a point of view. Still, it's probably a good thing that nopony else heard that. It would have been a lot harder to explain with somepony who wasn't a friend. "I really do."

The stallion nods, and that's peaceful enough. But something about his eyes feels deep.

"It's harder than it should be, though," he states. "To remember what it was like. And I think that's because there wasn't a mark. Wasn't a channel for thought. Because when you're a kid, you're sailing on a ocean. Everything's a new discovery. You can go anywhere. The whole world is just -- more possibilities to explore. Do anything, be anything, Linch. But then you get your mark, and..."

The large forehoof slips back into the mug's loop.

"...the ocean becomes a canal. And that's what you're stuck sailing, for the rest of your days."

He sighs. The mug comes up, goes down again.

"I miss being a kid," the big stallion tells him. "I miss the possibilities. Feeling like I could learn to do anything. Everything. So there's times when I want that back. A life without limits. But it's not something you can say to most ponies. They don't think about it, and... I wonder if that's because they're not always the ones thinking."

One more swallow, and then shadows ripple across the lessened liquid.

"No limits," his friend says. "As wishes go, I think that one's pretty fair." Another smile, one which comes across as being saturated with relief. "And thanks for not walking out on me just now. I was half-expecting --"

"-- I wouldn't."

The big stallion carefully regards him from across the table. Less than a body length away, and yet it's as if an oddly-timid gaze is trying to cross an ocean.

"Do you ever wish --"

To be a colt again.
To... start over.
To find a new path.
Something which leads to love.
Acceptance.
Family.

"-- yes."

And that's the last time they talk about it.

On that night.

The roots of his life wither, and he fails to notice. But a new seed has been planted. Something which sends down its own tendrils into freshly-tainted soil. Pushing at connections. Concepts. Beliefs.

In the end, it makes him that much easier to dislodge.

To pull up.

To tear apart.

There were ways in which it had become a traveling joke: something which moved from one end of the continent to the other while never quite managing to reach the coasts. Because they were about to rush in with what suddenly felt like just about no preparation, possessing very little idea of what they could actually do while wondering if it would be possible to improvise their way out of disaster...

The rod fragment was the centerpiece of what had once been a near-empty palace room and even with everything which was going on around her, happening too fast, Twilight was still having trouble keeping it from becoming the focus of her attention. Something which got a little worse every time another spark floated up, and further intensified when she internally measured the shrinking wait time for each successive loss of irreplaceable thaums.

After the jolt in the basement -- well, there hadn't been a lot of time for staring at the leaking device in horror. She'd desperately shouted for Spike, the scroll had been on its way to the palace within three minutes, and it had only taken a few extra breaths before the tree's main level found itself illuminated by twin flashes of light.

There had just barely been enough time to explain, and most of that had gone into the frantically-written scroll. A pair of grim-faced Princesses hadn't seen any need to grant Twilight and Trixie the multiple seconds required for horrified apologies.

They'd been teleported out with dragon and device, brought into a nearly-bare palace room somewhere in the Solar wing. Left there as the alicorns vanished again, and then the next flash of light had deposited a bewildered, half-dozing Rainbow just before Luna went to fetch the next...

It hadn't taken long to assemble the group. (Celestia had initially teleported Applejack into a different room, giving the earth pony a few private moments to recover.) And since then, staff ponies had been galloping and flying in and out of what was quickly becoming a much more crowded room, subtracting the space required for supplies to what had already been claimed by six Bearers, one Protector, a performer who'd mostly been taken along because she'd still been trying to account for it all when Twilight and Spike were collected and it was easier to let her keep talking in Canterlot, plus two alicorns who were trying to decide whether to call the whole thing off.

"Because we get one chance," Celestia directly told them at the moment the most recent delivery pony cleared the exit door again, looking down at a group which was mostly united in location: the Bearers had a rather crowded corner, while Trixie was off to the right.

The steadily-increasing stun and fear, however, were effectively universal.

"One," the Solar Princess repeated, "And the risk is higher than I ever want to see it."

"We attempted to stabilize the device," Luna stated as her corona lanced towards a number of boxes, opened them and sent the contents towards waiting saddlebags. "As best we could, without creating any further disruption. We failed. An attempt was made with --" she briefly glanced at Trixie, who was doing her best to effectively create a pacing groove on marble in a corner with no turning radius "-- an outside expert --"

Ratchette. Twilight distantly wondered if the mechanic was still in the palace.

"-- and that also failed," the dark mare grimly finished. "The charge level is steadily depleting. We possess a rough concept for how much power it contained at the start, and I have calculated the effective duration remaining until it will no longer be capable of opening a path into the between. It gives us very little time for arguments."

"So I'm going to summarize the situation," Celestia told them. "Right now, the device can still try to return to its origin point. Attaching yourselves to it, through Twilight, will let you follow. We originally thought it would get most of the way there. But now we can't be sure. It might fall well short and when it drops out of the between, you'll all go with it. This could put you anywhere along the general path -- including over water."

Fluttershy was paling beneath her fur. Rainbow's wings unfolded, briefly shook as if trying to shed moisture.

"Spike can signal us," the oldest alicorn reminded the group. "And we're providing you with something from the armory: an emergency-deploy raft. We can try to narrow down your location and send help."

And I didn't take the test.
I should be able to attach myself to the device and follow it, but I don't know if I can bring everypony.
If I get this wrong, any part of this wrong...

"However," Luna darkly added, "there is more than a mere ocean to deal with. I have some concerns regarding recoil. Something which likely would have been a problem regardless, at least on the level of bruising. But falling well short of the true destination may involve appearing within a mountain. The speed achieved upon reaching open space once again..."

Several ponies shuddered.

"And even if you manage the full trip," Celestia reminded them, "there's the lockdown effect. We don't know where the stallion left from, relative to it. You may still have to deal with that on the way in."

"The risk is high," Luna concluded. "Too high. And so I wish to make this clear --"

The dark gaze quickly darted across the group. Moved to Trixie, and momentarily lingered on the performer's mark.

"-- you do not have to do this." Several of the tail-bound stars dimmed. "We can continue our research. Hope that the soil samples will provide us with a place to begin, then offer a more standard means of transport. This problem must be dealt with, and we recognize that granting it extra time may simply allow things to become that much worse. But when it comes to the current means of travel, we will not order you into this level of danger."

"Because we don't want to lose you," Celestia quietly finished, and the borders of the flowing mane stilled. "We're bringing in supplies now because..." and the old mare almost smiled "...we recognize that that you might decide to go anyway and if you do, we can't lose the time to bringing them in after. But taking the chance, going now -- it's your decision."

"All of you," Luna said. "Together."

Six mares looked at each other. Made room for the dragon, as the performer twisted closer to the walls.

"Y'all said it could be a weapon," Applejack reminded the group, and her ears pressed tightly against the sides of her hat. "They've already had long enough t' work on it. Really don't want t' give someone more time for that."

"...or there could be sick ponies," Fluttershy whispered. "Who don't believe there's any hope left, and they're just waiting for everything to... fade..."

"It's attacking us," Pinkie declared. "It goes after the best part of us..."

A spark formed at the tip of a broken silver wire. Parted, floated away from the partial device, and dissipated.

Spike took a slow breath, and scales shifted against each other. "If any of you are going," he announced, "then so am I --" and before Twilight could do anything, "-- don't. There's no other way. We have to stay in contact with the palace."

Because the Protector won't abandon his charges. A very small knight, riding into what could be the battle of a lifetime.

"Rainbow, dear," and Rarity's voice was just a little too steady, "in the event of a recoil which sends us all into the air -- if you can recall that multi-pony carry which was utilized after the Best Young Flyers competition..."

"Who needs to remember it?" the pegasus almost smirked. "I do that stuff on instinct."

And then it was down to Twilight.

None of them saw the picture. What it looked like when the mark evaporated.
(She wondered what it felt like for the doctors, to have been there at the actual moment.)
(If it came back to them in their dreams.)
(If they had been sleeping at all.)
It never should have happened to anypony.
Maybe he wanted it. Maybe he wished for it, worked for it. But we still have to find out how. To keep it from being used against the world.
And if it is a weapon, a disease, anything involuntary...
...it can't hurt anypony else.
Ever again.

"I'm willing to risk the transport," she told them. "If it's a launch recoil, I can try to teleport again. Get some of us higher." It wouldn't negate the momentum, but it would give Rainbow --

-- should it be Rainbow?

-- or, with some luck, Fluttershy -- the caretaker usually had very little air speed, but hybrid strength allowed her to pressure-carry ponies with relative ease -- more time to reach the vulnerable. "But they're right. No matter what we do, this is going to be a giant risk. I can't ask any of you to go --"

"-- if one of us is going," Rainbow announced, "then we're all going. Because I can snag as many ponies as I have to." And, with a grin, "Besides, I don't trust the rest of you not to screw this up."

Twilight could feel the weight of twinned royal gazes. The Princesses silently watching, allowing them to work it out while, a short distance away, light blue hooves nearly twisted themselves.

It wasn't your fault.
I'm sorry...

"We're not all going," Twilight told them.

And then they were staring at her.

"Come again?" Applejack checked.

"I didn't take the test! This is a six-sapient escort! I'm only verified for three!" The narrow rib cage was beginning to heave. "And maybe I should be the only one who goes, because there's so much which could go wrong! And even if it's three, we have to decide --"

-- may need her magic, but this is going to the southern hemisphere. Discord sending us to Trotter's Falls had her vomiting: moving Applejack that far across the planet could be a lot worse than that. Rainbow gives us raw power, but Fluttershy can get information, and I wish I could let Spike be safe, I wish but we --

"-- y'can do it," the earth pony solidly stated. "Test don't matter. The pony does."

"We trust you, Twilight," Rarity calmly offered. "All of us."

Desperately, as the sweat began to rise in her coat, "But if I fail --"

I don't have all the workings mastered.
If I screw it up.
If I hurt any of them.
If I lose somepony in the between.
If I k --

The Solar Princess rather audibly cleared her throat.

"There's a standard working which gets used at the test sites," Celestia told them. "It's not a lockdown: it doesn't stop a full teleport. It prevents partials. Any mass you can't fully manage stays behind. We can have it cast in here before you leave, Twilight. You'll only move somepony if you have the strength for it."

And from off to the side, just barely audible, with perhaps only backwards-twisting ears registering the words at all, "You can do this, Twilight. You know you can..."

I can do this.
It didn't seem to mean much.
Twilight pulled herself up to her full height. That felt as if it meant even less.
I can do this...

Maybe if she just kept telling herself that.

I can do this...

It didn't assuage the fear. But she needed the fear. Terror of hurting anypony might help her to not get it wrong.

Please let me do this.
I can.
I have to.

They were about to rush in with what felt like just about no preparation, possessing very little idea of what they could actually do while wondering if it would be possible to improvise their way out of disaster.

So now it was a real mission.

Some part of Twilight's mind insisted that Princesses weren't supposed to be doing any packing. But there were no members of the palace staff left in the room. (Trixie, still in the same corner, apparently waiting for some level of formal dismissal, very obviously didn't count.) There was nopony else available.

Additionally, the alicorns knew what the supplies were.

"Some old books about the general region," Celestia tightly said, and a few too-thin volumes floated into Pinkie's waiting saddlebags. "They're all we could grab in time, and some of the political information is going to be out of date. But the geography should hold up. Once I have something more recent, I'll send update scrolls to Spike."

"Translators," Luna announced, and disbursed a few. "The ones which are strapped to ears and throat are the more standard models. This one -- yes, Twilight Sparkle, I recognize that expression: you may use it, and you are explicitly instructed not to take it apart in the name of investigating the means by which it functions. That black opal is meant to stay in the center of the disc. Leave it there."

The librarian winced.

I can do this...

"Is there a hat?" Pinkie quickly asked. "I know we're wearing some light clothing to cover our marks, but I think we need a hat. Because I think those sparks are coming faster now, and we really really need to have some way of not having an alicorn with us. Just Twilight. Without her being an alicorn." Even more hastily, "Not we're trying to change her back, but we don't need anyone to see --"

Dark energy moved a new item towards Twilight's head.

It looked like a mane tie: something to be worn along the back of the neck. The fabric loops seemed oddly stiff.

"This is the device," Luna announced. "I performed a portion of the enchantment myself. It will conceal the horn, and the platinum within the layers makes it self-charging. However, I do advise attempting to wear a hat. There is a style being included in your supplies. Something which ties under the jaw."

"We tested it," Celestia chimed in, carefully placing folded Hoovmat suits into Rainbow's supplies. "It obviously doesn't help with making accidental contact: we couldn't get it to cooperate with a scavenged phase shifter from a hoofball team. But there were no problems in having the spell keep up with the background environment. It can camouflage the horn -- but it has trouble with coronas, Twilight. Any attempt to use our fields over the partial level had the light shine through the illusion. So you'll have to be very careful about your casting."

And when it came to channeling power through a fully-hidden field, Twilight was horrible: the effects kept warping on her. (The runaway snowplow had been one such casting: Fluttershy's runway performance another, and the memory of either was usually sufficient to keep her from trying it again.) When in public, she would be limited to the most basic of effects.

"There's no time to apply fur dye," Celestia decided. "Or at least, to do anything other than dump it over your bodies: it would never dry before you left, and the stench would take longer than that to fade. We're still packing some in the hopes that you won't appear in front of witnesses -- something else we can't control."

"And this could easily place you at the center of an enemy camp," Luna too-calmly stated. (Two stars shed their outer shells.) "At the moment you appear, you must be prepared to fight."

Rainbow's nod was far too fast. "Ready to go," the pegasus confidently informed the world -- then looked at what Luna was placing into Fluttershy's saddlebags. "That's the medical stuff?"

"Yes."

"Why is some of it going to Twilight?"

"Because we are still lying about an injury to her wings," the dark mare irritably stated. "Wrap them after arrival. For the moment of appearance, I would prefer full mobility."

The next batch was also sent towards Twilight, and papers tucked themselves deep into fabric hollows.

"Copies of the stallion's paper fragments," Celestia told her. "Maps. That sketch of what the full device might look like..." More items were sorted. "There's plenty to eat growing wild: remember, you're coming into their summer. But this book tells you what isn't safe. These canteens purify water."

"...and what's our cover story?" Fluttershy softly asked. "We're not supposed to be ourselves..."

"You are being offered a choice of two," Luna said. "Switch between them at need. The first, as previously discussed, is to take inspiration from Ms. Lulamoon." Another glance at that corner: the mare, and then the mark. "A traveling troupe, bringing the wonders of pony magic to distant lands. Performances can be improvised. Costumes will be somewhat harder, and so this bundle will be -- not now, Rarity Belle!"

A blushing white form took half a step back, and the soft blue glow which had been surrounding three effectively-criticized stitches winked out.

"Your second option is to be explorers," Celestia quickly cut in. "Lie about your marks. I'd suggest having Pinkie for aeronautics --"

"-- I can do that! I've got the basics! Cherry showed me all kinds of --"

"-- while Applejack can be your botanist." The giant mare paused. "Somepony else can lie about her mark."

I can do this.
I have to.

More packing. Applejack and Pinkie had most of the weight.

Luna was just about finished. "-- and I will recover your caravan personally," she told the performer. "I will understand if you wish to return to the road. However, should you desire to remain for a time, I believe the palace can accommodate you. And as you are already part of this, a degree of information can be granted when the scrolls come in." A pause. "I would have some interest in discussing the manifestation of your mark. I seldom meet ponies so clearly meant to walk under Moon..."

Maybe we'll get lucky.
Maybe it's just a botanical garden in Equestria. One nopony knew about.
Maybe we'll show up half a gallop from my parents' house...
...I have to do this.
One chance.
I didn't take the test...
...I need to do this.
I can do this.

It was starting to become a litany.

I need them.
I need my friends.
All of my friends.
I have to bring everypony.
Everypony.

"...what about Spike's disguise?" Fluttershy asked.

I almost forgot!
It won't matter if we arrive in front of -- whatever's happening. He'll need his flame. But if we come in out of sight --

"Here!" Sunlight deposited a wrapped package into the caretaker's saddlebags. "It's --"

Another spark floated up. And then another --

"-- you'll see it when you get there!" the Solar Princess decided. "Twilight, are you ready?"

I'll never be ready.
If I screw this up --
-- belief.
Remember what Trixie said.
She risked a glance at the performer. Wished for a chance to say goodbye to her friend, as the only one who would say anything at all.

They don't know her.
They didn't try to know her.
If they just had a chance...

And her friend was --
-- Trixie caught Twilight looking at her, and all of the worry vanished.
The unicorn smiled.
"Go."

Part of this is belief.
Resonance.
There's no time to think about this.
No time to second-guess.
No time.
-- I can do this --

"Scout object!" Twilight requested. "It can be anything, just as long as I can see it! Brightly-colored --"

Soft blue glow offered up a large ruby. "Sufficient?"

Because Rarity almost always had a few gems around. "Yes! Everypony, cluster around me! Make sure you're touching, because it'll be easier that way -- Spike, go on somepony else's back --" She had to concentrate: scales rubbing against her fur wouldn't help. "-- the device! Who's going to activate it? I have to connect up! I shouldn't try that and triggering it at the same time --"

"I'll do that," Celestia assured her (and Twilight tried not to focus on the worry creasing white features.) "Once you're safely in, you send back a scroll. Immediately. Are you ready?"

Twilight nodded. Focused, as familiar forms pressed against her.

Her horn ignited. The partial corona formed first. Then a full single. Double, as the core of the light surged towards white.

I need them.
I need my friends.
All of my friends.
I have to bring everypony.
Everypony.

A flicker of her energies projected, touched the fragment, and she knew the attachment was in place. So did Celestia, and sunlight flowed in close behind.

I CAN DO THIS --

Resonance.

It's a formal term, something which usually gets repeatedly pulled out by Gifted School graduates until an unwilling audience tries to beat them to death with it -- but the definition is simple enough. It's the emotional intent behind a spell, along with all of the feelings bundled within thaums. And it always has an effect. Confidence can play its part in a casting, and desire matters.

That's why it all happens.

Because there was a litany. Because she believed. Because magic is a wish made to the world and when she's pushing harder on this kind of effect than she ever has before, because it has to be everypony and she needs...

Resonance.
Emotion.
Added into a spell's variant, something she hasn't fully mastered.
All coupled with desire.

That's why it all happens. The journey, and everything to come.

The moment comes, and she doesn't fail.

Technically.

Some kinds of success can be their own problem.

There is nothing, and it is everywhere. But this time, it's merely nearly everything.

Teleportation takes time. A minuscule fraction of that which would be required to cross the distance in any other way, but -- time. And she's never been within the void this long. Part of her is starting to question how she's breathing, along with what. But she can't protect herself from sensory deprivation through wrapping herself in memory. She has to stay alert.

The void threatens to close in, and two things keep it away.

The first is the presence of her friends: something which isn't currently registering as touch or warmth or sound. She has a vague sense of tethers stretching away from her own form, and some kind of living weight at the other ends. They're with her, and she knows it. They're all with her. No matter what happens, they're all together.

There seems to be more of that weight than she'd anticipated. She puts that down to the presence of the saddlebags.

The second thing keeping sensory deprivation away is having something to look at.

The device is slightly ahead of her. The ruby is much further away: a gleam of bright red within the void. It has to be at a point where she can just barely see it, know what happens to the scout with enough lead time to try and react. The device is doing its job, most likely for the last time. The gem, pressed into service, just has to arrive intact, and then they can hopefully do the same. When it comes to recoil, the gem has a lot less to worry about.

...how long have they been traveling? It's almost impossible to tell. She could try to count by heartbeats, but her own feel oddly muffled. Half a minute. At least that. It could be more.

Focus on the ruby. The ruby is everything. She has to be ready to react at the speed of thought or better yet, the speed of Rainbow.

One chance. Everything about this is one chance, and there is nothing and it is everywhere and nearly everything, they all hurtle through it together and the void tries to close in around everything which isn't device and gem, to obscure them, but she won't let it happen and

there is nothing
then there's something
light within the void, the far limits of what she can see ends in a blaze of crackling turquoise which stretches across the between for what feels like infinity in every forward direction and the ruby hits it and then there isn't a ruby any more

there are fragments of gem scattering everywhere, some pieces are coming back towards them and it's what they feared it's the lockdown they're getting too close and maybe the device will bring them out before they reach it but she can't take that chance because an effect which shattered a gem will splinter bone and she has to get them out she has to she has to if she doesn't they're all dead and it's her fault --

-- one shot
one chance
she pushes, the course alters, but this isn't supposed to be happening, you don't change your mind in mid-teleport, there usually isn't enough time and she's never done this before but it's her friends, she's doing it, the void starts to part and the first hint of real air touches her fur and

half of the tethers break.

They split away as a unit. They become lost together.

Two groups, moving away from each other, fall back into the world.

Jump Instruction

She felt part of her soul die.

Her back scraped against the bark of the tree as she fell. Her recoil had sent her into the armor-like plates, the edges carved shallow cuts around her spine before the little mare dropped into the thicket of green to harshly impact oddly dark soil and the scattered supplies which littered the forest floor, and all of that produced pain -- but she barely felt any of it, because there was a deeper agony which demanded her full attention. She didn't need to listen to anything her body was saying, because the truest torture was that which arose from her mind, an instant and endless scream which told her that it was exactly what she should have known would happen, what she deserved, that she'd gotten it wrong in a way which nopony could take back or fix or cure.

She fell into summer, into the foreign sights and sounds and scents of strangeness under a Sun which she couldn't find, and registered none of it. Because they were gone, gone, she'd felt the tethers snap and they were gone, there was a softly-moaning form picking itself out of the loam just a few body lengths away and somewhere behind her came the sound of vomiting, an expulsion of agony which just kept repeating and that was all.

Seven had left Canterlot. Three had arrived.

And she was writhing in the soil, dirt stained new clothing and a horn forced into some form of invisibility did its best to wound the bark as her head tossed and she wished for her horn to break, for her wings to vanish as the first part of the price she was willing to pay in order to have it all taken back, all of it, and the final payment would be her own life.

Hers for theirs.

But they were gone.

And this was what happened when she tried to push herself, the reason she left her true potential to rot within the shadow of abandoned theories while merrily investigating the complexity of spells which could do nothing more than force hair follicles to take root on scales. Because there had been a test which she'd had to pass in order to get into the Gifted School, she'd tried, the desperation to succeed had pushed through a barrier she hadn't known was there and then Tartarus had come surging through the breach.

The Gifted School exam supervisors, ponies who'd seen just about everything from potential students and found a way to survive all of it, had pulled back in fear. Because there was nothing they could think to try in the wake of her, perhaps nothing they could have done, the Princess was supposed to supervise the testing but Celestia had been late, had seen some of it from the outside and if she hadn't crossed the last portion of distance in something of a hurry...

There had been a moment when the filly had lost her parents.

(And Discord had said she'd just believed herself to have done it, there was some chance that she'd just projected an illusion, but they'd looked so shaken...)

Physical transformation on that level -- Tish had gone through constant agony simply from the continual changes necessary to move between the three major pony races. But to force a shift to the point where Animalia and Plantae switched... adding walls to cells which didn't have them...

She'd lost her parents.

(She would have killed them.)

And then Celestia had come, it had all gone back to normal, and... the filly, already trying to find ways of never truly thinking about it again, had dove hornfirst into the false protection offered by manifest and mark. The joy of having made it into the Gifted School was a shield, and the tarnish had been instant. The Princess taking her on as a student? Perhaps that was due to her raw potential. Or because she was too dangerous to be left outside the custody of the only pony who'd been able to stop her.

She'd had to push, in order to take them all. All of her friends, because she'd wanted to make somepony she cared about feel proud of her. Three were gone, and it was worse than that, endlessly worse because the world had simply been waiting for her to try again, longing for its chance to extract the toll and the punishment was that the most direct payment was never hers. The first time had nearly seen her parents lost, and now the tethers had snapped and sent three friends falling away into the between and they might be falling still through the endless nothing with no way to exit, falling and falling and her brother was gone

and she wept and she writhed against the soil of the strange forest and the screams collided with each other in her throat until all she could produce was a sort of low bubbling moan, choking on her own ego and hubris because the moment had come and she had failed

somepony was touching her now, low in the ground at her side, and a soft voice tried to break through the wordless agonies which kept keening from her throat as yellow feathers gently brushed against her fur. But it didn't matter. Three had arrived, three when seven had left, possibly only three alive and she would have killed her friends, killed her brother and it should have been six in the forest, the world should have taken her in trade for them

but the world was never that kind, never so just and her friend was trying to stop the writhing, that surprising strength applying careful pressure to flailing limbs and she could just barely hear a larger form trying to stagger back onto its hooves, but the little mare just twisted away until she saw the tree's alien trunk again, wondered whether she could whip her head into it in a way which cracked the skull --

-- perhaps she would have hurt herself, in her despair and grief and endless blame.
Perhaps she would have kept going from there.

She twisted, and she tried to work up momentum, and the first hints of light and vapor began to coalesce in front of her snout. Gained brightness and intensity as something began to solidify at the heart of the near-heatless flame.

Twilight stopped moving. Watched, with wide, pleading eyes, as her Protector fulfilled his role.

He saved her.

He was the first to recover, and the first to take stock for some portion of what had happened.

The recovery was relatively easy. Spike had been jolted off Rarity's back almost immediately after their arrival: the sheer density of the vegetation gave them very little truly clear space to work with, and everypony had been hit by the recoil because while leaves could be pushed aside, the heavier supporting wood could not. The majority of inflicted trajectories had been vaguely upwards and distinctively outwards, they'd finished appearing just as soon as they cleared the thick layer of green which covered almost all of the ground and then, with very little momentum built up, nearly everypony had dropped back down.

He heard ponies hit the soil. Supplies falling out of saddlebags, going everywhere. A desperate flare of wings caught his attention, and then he was hit by a downdraft -- but Rainbow had only been able to react quickly enough to save herself. And he'd dropped harshly, found something which had some thorns to it and in turn, the local vegetation discovered what dragon scales were for. Spike could take a fair amount of impact, and was also capable of reaching for the fruit at the heart of the most vicious blackberry bush without a care.

It meant he recovered first, pushed himself up until he was on his walking claws again, desperately looked around. And at the ground level, there were two ponies nearby. Rarity was less than a body length away, while Pinkie was softly moaning at the base of an unfriendly tree: she'd somehow found a way of coming down headfirst, was upside-down against the trunk, and the mane's curls had flattened against dark soil.

But he couldn't try to help her yet. He had to keep looking: something which required some frantic little jumps, because so much of the encroaching vegetation approached his height. And he found exactly where Rainbow was in the air, but...

...was there another source of sound? Another, somewhat more distant moan? He couldn't be sure, because that was when he first began to hear the animals. So many of them had scattered when the fractured group had appeared, startled by light and the sound of impact. But they hadn't gone too far, and Spike was starting to pick up on birdsong, angry chitters, and -- growls --

-- three. He could only hear and see three.

The little dragon called out names. Every name for the missing, and nopony called back.

There were only three mares around him, and all of them were starting to scream.

He dropped to his knees. Handling claws desperately began to scrabble at the soil, trying to feel for whatever might be concealed under the thickest of the leaves --

-- there. He'd just about flattened one, and -- yes, that was the bottle, the soil was thick enough to provide some level of cushioning and the glass had been enchanted to resist the impact of a short drop.

The scroll was desperately unfurled. His claws scored the paper, and then he tore off a small piece. It was just large enough to hold a single word.

He wrote.
He breathed --

-- the tiny piece of paper fell, and the little mare's horn ignited.

Later, she would wonder how it had looked. The device meant to conceal her horn was capable of hiding a partial corona, and she didn't need anything more than that for a tiny scrap. So it might have just been light springing into existence at a short distance from her head, followed by lancing towards the fragment.

(Fragments of paper, scattered through the Canterlot streets...)

She gathered it in. Brought it close enough to read.

Twilight

And then another little burst of light began to curl inwards, doing so in front of Fluttershy's snout and the weeping visible eye...

Spike stopped. Stared down at what was left of the scroll, just before closing his eyes. The first hot tear slipped its way down the endless choice of riverbeds provided by the path between scales.

"They're alive," he half-sobbed. "They're all alive..."

"How..." Pinkie's gasp came across as something which was trying to come out the wrong way, and it didn't get much better after the baker fell away from the tree: the noise made him look at her again. She was having trouble getting up, and it wasn't from just the impact. Being a hybrid seemed to give Pinkie some resistance to the disruption which earth ponies experienced upon being teleported -- but significant distances could still disorient her, and Spike was completely sure that they'd all just taken the longest journey of their lives. He just didn't know where half of it had ended.

Close, whispered the memory of what had effectively been a Gifted School education. They're close...

...geographically speaking.

"Spike?" Pinkie shakily asked, with her new posture allowing the tears to flow the right way. (Her legs didn't quite want to straighten and Rainbow was already moving in that direction, ready to nudge her up.) "How do you know?"

"Because if they weren't," he quietly told them, "that wouldn't have worked."

The Princess had tried to send scrolls into the shadowlands once, and hers simply vanished. Then she'd asked him to try, and his... had not.

"Alive," Rarity painfully repeated as she forced herself upright, "but lost." A little more softly, "That effect, just before we all parted company -- that was the lockdown spell? That is how it appears in the between? I saw it break the ruby..."

The little dragon nodded. "Twilight must have been trying to get us out before we hit it." Which meant his sister had just saved everypony's lives, and he wondered how long it would take before she realized that.

She'll be blaming herself. For the group being separated.

He knew her all too well, and so recognized every asteroid of loathing which orbited the central body. Forever waiting for its chance to strike. He never seemed to be capable of intercepting --

"So we've gotta find them," Rainbow quickly decided -- then looked around. "Which means we have to find us --"

-- and, because it was Rainbow, ultimately looked up. And in doing so, failed to find the sky.

"...yeah," the pegasus softly decided, the entire sleek body beginning to shiver with something other than cold. "That might be a problem..."

Which was when one more hard-hit fresh experience of pain, lying low and hidden among obscuring greenery, finally moaned loudly enough to hear.

They all turned towards it. They forced themselves to walk and trot, because a friend might be only a few body lengths away.

They found Trixie.

The weak "Ah..." represented an improvement in Applejack's status, and it had taken two minutes for the earth pony to get that far. Some of the delay in reacquiring speech had been produced by Fluttershy giving her a canteen: sip, swish, and, to remove a little more of the burning bile, spit. "Ah... think Ah can walk --"

"-- not yet," Twilight told her. She was back on her hooves, and Fluttershy was using a mouth-held brush to apply topical disinfectant to the freshly-cleaned wounds. The twitches produced by her body trying to escape the stinging were going off in all directions. "We shouldn't try to move until we know where we're going. And that means waiting on Spike."

He's alive.
The others...
...no. Wait. Give him a chance.

"Wait for him t' do what?" the farmer asked, and her forelegs weakly kicked at a foreign plant: a possible attempt to get ready for standing up, or it might have done her some recent offense. Twilight couldn't be sure. "An' why the scrap paper?"

"He's already conserving supplies." There was a little pride in the statement --

-- alive, but lost.
I'm his big sister...
...my brother is lost...

"He took a chance," she made herself admit, because it was something else to think about for a few seconds. "It's pretty much always been a whole scroll. But the pieces got here, and he didn't have to use three. He was verifying us. Making sure we were okay."

...or alive.
We could all be at the bottom of a gorge with twenty broken bones each, and the pieces still would have come in.

"So the next thing he'll probably do is write a status report." The dock of her tail made a single desperate attempt to get away from the foaming white liquid and, in remaining attached to her spine, utterly failed. "Ow! -- no, Fluttershy, keep going, it's just me... He'll tell us whatever he can. And then we'll have more information to work with."

And then I'll know just how bad it really is.

"But we ain't got any way t' send somethin' back," Applejack miserably noted -- then, with just a touch of hope, "Unless y'finally...?"

Twilight shook her head. She'd never been able to crack the spell which Celestia used to send scrolls, and... she was now wondering if she hadn't really wanted to. Doing so would have taken something away from Spike. Made her sibling a little less special, stealing away part of his role in the group...

A subconscious block which prevented her from mastering the working seemed to make some sense. It would have been something born from love, and that made it perfectly understandable. Unfortunately, love wasn't doing anything to keep it from currently being a major problem.

Fluttershy put the brush away. A roll of bandages was eventually located on the forest floor.

"...the only thing we can control right now," she softly told the group, "is ourselves. That means making sure we're all healthy and ready to move. If we just gallop off into the forest, calling out their names... then we may get into more trouble."

Applejack's head slowly came up. Paused about halfway along the arc, located where the hat had fallen, and then gazed at where the sky wasn't.

"Assumin'," the earth pony noted, "that we can gallop at'tall."

Because there was a forest. And they'd all been through the palace gardens, seen the little pieces of the world which were hosted within, with Twilight adding the Manehattan trip to that -- but everything in those locations had been rendered into a controlled environment. This was a wild zone.

It was also a rainforest.

Thin tree trunks clustered around them. The wood angled here and there as it moved towards the verticals: tiny bends working back and forth, staying roughly balanced as the tree fought for space on the upper levels. There was enough clearance present between trunks to allow ponies free movement between them -- in this section. To stare deeper into the forest was to find denser vegetation. And that was just for the trees, because there were plants everywhere along the ground. Natural trails seemed to be at a premium, and finding a dirt path in the immediate area cost more than what the mares had to give. They stood among plants, were constantly being brushed by leaves, and Twilight had already realized that if there were any allergens in the area, the entire group had been exposed.

The dominant color was green -- for the plants, and they were everywhere. It had reached the point where there were plants growing on other plants, and none of them seemed to be parasitic. Orchids and ferns, unable to find any space to work with at ground level, had chosen to wind their roots around branches. Getting themselves that much higher to what they all needed, and so much of that had been blocked.

On the forest floor, there was space to move -- if you pushed leaves aside, and were exceptionally careful about where you stepped. But as you went up, the branches began to spread. They went everywhere, perhaps from efforts to escape the vines which were using them for a free ride. And eventually, you reached the place where the sky wasn't. Because every forest had a canopy. (Even the Acres possessed one, but that was spread out in a way which matched the plantings: allowing each tree its own chance at Sun.) The thickest parts of the Everfree still allowed those lost within to glimpse what was above, and some of that would probably be hunting.

They had fallen into summer. Their bodies had yet to adjust, were insisting the thin layers of mark-concealing clothing were far too thick and hot. The humidity was oppressive, and every strand of fur felt as if it had already reached saturation. Just about every scent was foreign, and there was no escaping any of them. It was disorienting, their senses didn't know where they were...

...Twilight looked up, and saw something very much like a squirrel. The shape was right. The size was considerably larger: nearly triple that of the ones she knew. The colors would have normally been rather pleasant to behold on a pony, but she was almost certain that having the world host a squirrel whose fur was blue, purple, and maroon wasn't doing much for the local color balance. There was a certain hope that another of the strange animals was in Rarity's vicinity, because its mere existence might allow them to track the missing mare by scream. Or they might come across whatever the squirrel was trying to camouflage itself against, which seemed to indicate some chance of having the forest host a modern art exhibit: the main difference would be whether Rarity's screams occasionally paused to include a critique.

Look deep into the forest, and shadows clustered. Peer too far and it was almost like staring into a Moonless night. Somewhere near the edge of Twilight's vision, a deeper patch of black rested on a high, thick branch. A lazy feline paw swatted at the air, while orange-green eyes stared at the ponies from afar and tried to decide whether it was going to be worth the effort.

You could look around. 'Up' was an option. But every plant fought for its share of Sun, spread branches and leaves far and wide to seek their claims. Results wove into each other, seemed to interlock. The canopy of the rainforest had closed, and the sky was lost.

...Rainbow might be having a claustrophobia attack right now...

"Fluttershy, do you need my help?"

"...with Applejack?" The pegasus shook her head. "It's some scratches. Maybe a little bruising. And the teleport reaction, but that should fade. I think it's just this bad because we've never gone so far before."

"Ah may," Applejack weakly proposed, "be puttin' in a vote for walkin' home. Not that Ah want t' hold everypony else up, so you can jus' tell mah family that Ah'm gonna be a little late..."

Twilight managed a smile.

"I'm going to start gathering supplies," she told them. "Everything got scattered." Who had what? If they're all together and okay, what are they carrying --

-- it was something she could do. An activity for which Twilight might be able to exert a tiny amount of control.

"We're waiting on Spike," she told them. "Let's trust him."

Growing up with a sister who attended the Gifted School meant picking up an education. Spike knew more about magic than the majority of unicorns: the personal lack of horn just kept him from putting most of it to practical use. And if that sibling liked to experiment in her off-hours, then you were going to wind up learning something about first aid.

Trixie had skidded for a short distance when she'd hit. The forest floor had collected a bounty from fur and flesh alike, with part of her forehead hitting a tree trunk, just below the horn. And Fluttershy had been carrying the bulk of the medical supplies -- but it hadn't been everything, and Rarity always had clean cloth somewhere.

"...where?"

"Easy..." Spike quietly told her. "Don't move just yet."

"...I don't think this is the palace," the performer considered, with a distant-seeming voice emerging from somewhere near the heart of shock. "I know there's gardens. I'm pretty sure they don't go this far..."

"-- oh, lovely," declared a sarcasm-dripping accent. "May I inquire as to your exact intent in tagging along? Seeking glory? Attempting to overtake Twilight again in a race you lost several years ago? Or do you simply enjoy ruining --"

"-- she's hurt," Spike desperately tried to cut her off. "Let me just --"

"-- we are possibly well over a thousand gallops from home," Rarity half-spat. "And yet we still find ourselves with a forced burden. My burden now, I suppose..."

The realization almost paralyzed him. Limbs nearly became frozen within the vacuum of authority.

Who's in charge?

Strictly speaking, the Bearers didn't have a single leader. The choice for which mare would direct the miniherd was heavily dependent on the needs of the moment: Pinkie sometimes took over in social situations, Fluttershy guided the group if animals were involved, and it was theoretically possible to become desperate enough for Rainbow to somehow get the helm. But for the bulk of situations, it was going to be Twilight and if his sister was absent, then the first resort for a backup was Applejack. Neither of whom was there.

Spike had no idea who the current leader was. He was, however, completely certain that it wasn't him.

"-- hurt," he repeated. "She might have a minor concussion. Let me just take care of her. And she can't teleport --"

"-- she can teleport things other than herself," Rarity observed. "Or so Twilight told me. Perhaps she was simply lying about the rest."

"...could somepony," Trixie muttered, "please tell her to keep it down...?"

Rarity took exactly the wrong kind of breath.

"Medical attention!" Spike frantically cut in. "Let me just --"

The designer turned away.

"If you must."

It took a few minutes to get the performer cleaned up, with the wounds sterilized and protected. Time during which Rarity examined the area, Pinkie watched over Spike while he worked, and Rainbow just kept shivering.

How did she get here?

He had suspicions. But it was a question which had to be set aside for later.

"Just rest," he told her after he finished. "Don't try to get up until you're ready."

"...not a bucking problem..."

Spike straightened, looked around and took another breath. His lungs fought him all the way. Dragons were meant for hot, dry environments: calderas didn't have a lot in the way of natural moisture. The rainforest...

Pinkie took a step forward.

"The Princess asked us to send a scroll once we were safely in," the baker recalled. "And the palace knows something's wrong, because --" a hard nod towards the half-collapsed unicorn "-- she would have vanished, and that wasn't part of the plan. We can't be inside the lockdown, because Twilight got us out before we hit it and Spike already sent something. Why haven't they sent a scroll to us?"

"Because they don't know if it's safe," came from slightly overhead, and they all looked up at a half-circling Rainbow. "They don't know where we came in, or what we're trying to do. The longer it takes before they hear from us, the more they have to think we're in trouble. Sending a scroll while we're still trying to get established could make things a lot worse."

Rarity nodded. "There was a procedure for our arrival," she told them. "We need to follow it, and part of that means contacting them. But before we can tell them about our situation, we need to know where we are. And once we arrived..."

The scattered debris field of supplies eventually yielded up a map. Rainbow forced herself to come down, and then allowed Spike to climb onto her back.

Up took some work. Spike had to keep pushing aside branches in order to make room, and couldn't always hold them back long enough for Rainbow to slip through without consequence: he didn't have the height, reach, or angles to keep his grip, and he also had to make sure not to lose the map.

"Burn it," the pegasus muttered.

"Not in a forest," he told her.

"Everything's wet," she decided. "How far could it go?"

"Too far."

The next mutter was much more indistinct, and the only identifiable syllables were profane.

"The last time we got separated," Rainbow finally said as they gained a little more height, "Twilight was sending field flares up. She might do it again --"

"-- wherever we are," Spike reminded her, "it's close to where we're supposed to be. We followed the device to where it was trying to go." He was confident of that much. "Which means that whoever was responsible could be around here. Twilight won't send up flares because she'll remember that. She'll remember that we're not the only ones who might see it. We can't just tell them that there's ponies here."

"If anypony can see anything..." the pegasus grumbled. "You can't even see sky or Sun." More leaves got pushed. "If it's all like this, I could fly over the whole thing and not be seen."

"And you wouldn't see anypony," the little dragon pointed out.

"I'd still be flying." Which was followed by an always-unexpected sigh. "But I'd probably never find any of you again. Not if it all looks the same from up top, and I can't spot the stupid ground..."

He managed to make enough room for her wings, and the next flap took them just over the top.

Green.
It's like looking at a range of hills. Every tree is a peak...

There were a few birds above the canopy. Their colors stood out: hues which were much more intense than he'd ever seen on anything avian. One of them seemed to be about thirty percent beak by body weight, and showed zero interest in pony and dragon.

Rainbow's body was still vibrating. He knew she wanted to go higher. To get away from the confinement of the canopy. And if she gave in...

Find a landmark. If there is one.

He looked around. Turned his head to the left --

-- the mountain erupted from the forest, shadowed a good portion of the land. Sheer vertical cliffs of granite and gneiss shot up towards the clouds, and he was looking at two faces of the rock because they came together at an angle: something which suggested that the overall shape was triangular. There was a distant twinkle of light on quartz and, as he tried to look at where the cliffs emerged from the canopy, a hint of shimmer...

...Spike blinked, and the shimmer was gone. It was just Sun moving across a type of stone which had its own tricks to play with light, and a little hollow about halfway up between base and cliffs suggested an entire quartz cave.

Look all the way up, seeking the peak, and -- there wasn't one. The top of the mountain was flat. A plateau in the sky. Something which had at least one river cutting through it, because he could just barely make out a flow of water cascading down in tiers: splash from the top, plummet over the cliffs, hit an angled surface near the canopy, started flowing again until it reached another edge...

There hadn't been much time for a briefing on the area. There wasn't very much known about the area. But there were some things you couldn't miss.

"Mount Llanero," Spike breathed, and took comfort in the drier air. The canopy seemed to be concentrating the moisture.

He almost heard the frown. "...Mount..." tried a mare who usually turned the briefing book into a rather poor pillow.

"We're near the border between Criollo and Mangalarga Marchador," Spike told her. "And now we can send scrolls."

She thought that over.

"So we have to go back down."

"...yeah," he reluctantly admitted.

"Now?" had been intended as something other than a plea.

"No. Let me make a quick sketch first." He wasn't all that good at drawing, but this was just a basic outline. "So they'll know what our facing is. And then we'll figure out what to do next."

She really didn't need to disrupt the scroll's arrival by trying to grab it before the materialization finished, and had to keep reminding herself of that until she finally saw gravity notice its presence.

Her field lunged for the paper, caught it before it could be stained by leaves. Fluttershy and Applejack came up to her while the scroll was being unrolled, with the latter still staggering.

"Let's hear it, Twi," the farmer shakily said. "We all need this --"

But she was already reading. "-- 'Rarity and Pinkie have some minor recoil injuries. Rainbow okay' --"

They're alive.
They're all alive.
(The guilt was already starting to lift. The fear sank in, and found its old home to be comfortable.)
I didn't --
-- we can find each other, we can --

"And that's seven," Applejack grinned. "Now we've just gotta --"

Twilight's field nearly winked out.

...what?
How...
...no...

"Twi?" the earth pony checked. "You jus' stopped. Ah don't have a good view of the words --"

It was me.
What did I do?
How --

"-- 'Trixie may have a minor concussion'."

Two mares blinked.

"...Trixie?" Fluttershy whispered. "How? How can she be here?"

I was...
...six. I was going for six and...
...I was trying to bring all of my friends...

But there were more words, and she forced herself to read on. It was better than thinking about any of it.

"'I've found a landmark' -- oh, it's that weird mountain from the regional map! 'I'm going to tell the palace where we are. If Fluttershy is with you, ask her to go up and find out if she can see the mountain too.'"

The pegasus nodded, and slightly-oversized wings flared.

"...give me a minute," eventually drifted down to them. "It's really thick up here..." They heard several branches break. "...oh, hello! Yes, I'm new here! ...sorry about your branch. Really. I can... we should -- talk later. There's a lot going on right now." The slightly-exasperated twittering relocated. "...all right, I'm almost... a little more -- ow... okay... yes, Twilight, I can see it. But I can't find the waterfall from his drawing. There's a little bit of a prism bow in the air, though, way off to the left. I think that might be from Sun going through the water."

She still had to force herself to exhale.

So we didn't emerge too far from each other. Not geographically. But we don't have a scale. And in a forest this thick...

They had to be close to their objective, because the teleport had dumped out just short of the lockdown. Which meant that sending up a field beacon wasn't an option, especially since the two groups seemed to be along different faces of the mountain. And with the canopy so thick, any aerial search started out at 'doomed' and went downhill from there. To go above the trees, trying to spot a pegasus-sized object at any significant distance...

"Come back down," she told Fluttershy. "He's contacting the palace. They'll tell him what they want us to try from here, and he'll relay it to us."

"Gets better than that," Applejack told her.

"How?"

"We can't send t' him or anypony else," the earth pony reminded her. "But once he writes the palace, the Princess can get a scroll t' us. We're back in contact, Twi."

"Unless they don't risk it because they're not sure what our situation is," Twilight reluctantly pointed out.

"He already gave us two. Three ain't gonna peak the chances much."

She tried to tell herself that it could still work out. That they weren't quite as lost as they had once been. But there were still four mares and a dragon somewhere in the rainforest, and she didn't know where they were.

Four mares.

This is my fault...

The wording of Celestia's message was something less than happy.

Pinkie had been right. The palace had immediately known that something was off, based on the abrupt subtraction of one unicorn. Their only choice had been to wait on contact for as long as they could stand it. And they acknowledged the situation, understood that contact could drop out at any time if they approached the target, would have to stop if Spike's group went into the lockdown...

The wording was less than happy, and ended in a question.

Extraction?

Wait until local noon or midnight. Use the signal devices: luck of the supplies split meant each group apparently had at least one. And they could be home within a day.

Three mares discussed it with the dragon. The fourth was some distance away, with her left flank braced against one of the sturdier trees.

"A signal," Rarity pointed out, "which is designed to be extremely visible. There may not be much light coming through the canopy, but that amount would add to it. The odds of it being noticed are rather high. And if this is meant as a weapon against us, then the designers will see pony magic blazing in the sky and -- relocate, I imagine. At a minimum."

"Or attack," Pinkie considered. "Attacking when the Princesses are here..."

"Let them try," Rainbow darkly said. "Three alicorns in one fight. Let's see how long they last --"

"-- they may have a weapon which affects marks," Rarity's sudden note of horror recognized. "And we would be asking the Princesses to potentially come within range. There are... certain problems with that, Rainbow, and --" the unicorn shuddered "-- none of them would be particularly long-term. If we are going to be removed from the area, it has to be -- what is the Wonderbolts term?"

The pegasus instantly looked offended. "Touch-and-go! Come on! You really don't remember that? After all the times I've --"

"-- we should all be in the same area," Pinkie quickly cut in. "That would make it easier. Spike, you really really think they're close?"

"It's a guess," he admitted. "But distance in the between has a relationship to distance in the world. I think they're within a half-gallop, and the Princess agreed. But that could be in any direction."

If they aren't hurt...

"Too much territory to search from above with one pegasus, even if the view was clear," Rarity considered. "So let us arrange a meeting..."

The last scroll of the day fell onto Twilight's snout.

Her head had been down. She'd found all of the supplies -- well, she thought they'd all been located, because she still wasn't entirely sure about who had what. (Twilight had already determined that her trio didn't have any number of things, and was darkly waiting for all of the absences to become important.) But she hadn't spotted the device fragment. There had been no flash of sundered wires and broken jewels from the forest floor.

Maybe it's with their group.

But the tethers had broken --

-- there was a message, and her friends gathered so they could read it together.

The last scroll of the day had been sent by the Princess.

Rarity's group is going to head for the waterfall. Orient on the mountain and when you reach it, move around the perimeter until you find the flow.

I may not be able to send too many more scrolls, and having Spike do so while you're on the move is a constant risk. At some point, you may come into range of whatever's happening. It may not be possible to maintain a cover identity -- but at the same time, I don't want to disrupt your chances.

Don't call attention to your presence until you absolutely have to. You're not in a populated area. Any visible magic would have a very clear source. However, you have one additional order. Namely, you will NOT hesitate to use the signal devices if you need to get out of there. I'd rather have to restart the investigation from scratch than risk losing any of you.

The current priority is to reunite the group. We'll figure out where to go from there.

And, shortly past the point where a drop of moisture had struck the paper,

We're just hoping you're all okay.

Stay safe.

"So we have our orders," Twilight told them. "But we may be able to find them before we reach the waterfall. Fluttershy..."

It was a rather weak smile. "...I know. 'Make some friends.' And ask them to look." (The alicorn nodded.) "But it won't be that easy, Twilight. I have to establish the relationships. It's a lot of area to search, and some of them won't go that far from their homes. And they don't see things the same way we do. A lot of animals don't even see the same colors, or they focus on scent more than sight. I can probably get them to recognize ponies -- but if there's more ponies than us here..."

"Can y'ask them t' look for a dragon?" Applejack checked. "Shouldn't be more than Spike, I'd think."

"...I can describe him. But we don't have a real sample of his scent." The pegasus sighed. "...I'll try, though."

"We've still got some Sun to work with," Twilight observed. "Let's move while we can."

They began to trot.

Three of us.
Five of them.
Five.
This is my fault...

Both groups began to trek through the rainforest. Looking for other ponies.

They would find them.

Cruft

He keeps trying to tell himself that he only feels half-dead. On a percentage basis, there's clearly enough of him left alive to allow some degree of movement: that's what's allowed him to stagger all the way home. However, it's possible that the recently-deceased portion might include his head, because he has a rather fuzzy memory of the brain having recently tried to drown itself.

...the quasi-recognition of roughly contemporary events seems to indicate some degree of function. Or in other words, if he was capable of having that thought, then he's probably okay. More or less. Just as soon as he confronts the puzzle offered by his own front door, because having an operational brain means that eventually, he has to remember how the locks work.

Home. He managed to reach his home. A stallion with the sometimes dubious-seeming fortune to be Linchpin has returned to some level of foundation.

He... doesn't feel like he's been spending all that much time in his own residence. It's also possible that he hasn't been sleeping as much as usual. But when you're making the rounds with a friend -- well, clearly some activities have higher priorities. He can sleep just about any time. His friend isn't going to be in Canterlot forever.

There was definitely something said which suggested a departure date. He can't seem to remember what those sentences were, but the implication of Have To Leave Eventually was there. And there were no words about when the other stallion might be able to return.

Or... if.

He's going to lose his friend.

My only friend.

The locks open on the fourth attempt.

More staggering. Eventually, he manages to aim for the center of the blurry aperture.

When it comes to drink consumption among the Equestrian species... pegasi tend to be the lightweights, but they also have the quickest metabolisms. They go down fast and hard, then recover at relatively high speed. Unicorns serve as a sort of baseline, and Abjura --

-- he doesn't want to think about her, and he can't make himself stop --

-- told him that generations of Gifted School graduates had tried to find spells which would cut off drunkenness at a certain level, prevent it entirely, or just make sure there was no payback in the morning: the most anypony had ever been able to solve in that department was in finding ways to levitate secret bottles into their dorm rooms. And earth ponies... it takes a lot of alcohol to wipe out an earth pony. But after a long night of drinking, he's just about there.

His friend isn't. (Or wasn't when the two-stallion party finally broke up.) But there's some legitimate reasons for that. To start with, that stallion is bigger. Even for an earth pony, he's big. Extra mass, additional resistance. If Linchpin's friend was a building, there would be some questions about finding a way to keep him from steadily sinking into the soil --

-- that's an odd thought.
He's half-drunk. Or drunk enough for all evaluations of percentages to be doing some serious rounding down. Odd thoughts are going to turn up.

-- bigger. More resistant. That's natural.

Also, his friend was mixing the drinks.

Travels a lot, he'd said. You learn things when you travel. Every stop is sort of like being born again, because you can just embrace the new. If you're in a place where nopony knows you, then there's a chance to reinvent yourself. Decide what kind of face you'll present to the world.

Face. Not the mark.

...anyway, when you travel a lot, you learn things. Like how drinks are mixed in different places. But you can't just ask the bartender to turn over command of the taps. So they'd claimed a booth which offered protective shadows, ordered the base ingredients, and then some things had been extracted from saddlebags on the sly.

There was this one blend which, after his friend had finished with it, displayed a thin circle of red powder around the rim. Something which added a tinge of that hue to the liquid, at least after it had been tilted across the addition. That had a Tartarus of a kick.

It's still kicking.
He feels like it's kicking him in the hips --

-- it's cold in here.

Of course it's cold. Winter. He hardly leaves the heat on all day. Why run down the charge on the wonder when he's not there? And it doesn't feel like he's spent all that much time at home in --

-- in --

-- the wonder will get the temperature up in a hurry. That's what it's there for.

...it's not working.

He raps it with his right forehoof a few times. This doesn't make it not work any faster, but briefly does call his attention to just how rough his fetlocks look. Also the fact that he now has fetlocks. He's never let them grow out before. Those should be trimmed --

-- the wonder isn't responding. The most likely cause is that it's out of thaums, and he's barely been home. So that means he hasn't paid a pegasus to recharge it in...

...fine. When magic fails, go to the mundane. There's a fireplace. He'll just start --

-- and he's out of wood.

How did he neglect to restock --

-- fine. He has blankets. Lots of blankets. Just pile them up on the bed and then burrow under the layers. And then he'll sleep.

Maybe he's in that special place between drunk and sleepy where you start to get good ideas. There's even a chance that he'll remember them in the morning. In the best case, one of the fresh concepts might be connected to relationships.

Because that's what they were talking about again. Over and over. His friend proposed that... it might be the city. Canterlot mares: can't live with them, can't live without them, can look elsewhere. It's nice to think about. But it's probably him, because the true core element of the failed connection design remains Linchpin. The aspect which can never hold anything together.

...if it was just the capital...

...maybe if he rests.
Maybe if he sleeps.
Maybe if he adds every blanket he has, it'll feel almost like having the weight of a mare pressing against him.

He layers. He burrows.

The blankets warm up after a while. They're heavy, in this much bulk. But they don't snuggle. They don't breathe.

...he's supposed to meet his friend early in the morning. If he can close his eyes for a while, he just might open them again to find Sun was present. Which, at this time of year, might mean he was galloping late.

He's trying to sleep. Or let the singular genius of the sleepy drunk rise to a level where it can do some good, whichever comes first. But nothing is happening. He's not resting, and he's not thinking.

He seems to have a rather odd awareness of his hips.

The stallion tries to rest on his side. Ponies usually don't do that. There's a vague hope that between the pressure of the blankets on one angle and the mattress on the other, the awareness can be suffocated --

-- his mark twinges. Something which shoves the sensation of mere awareness sideways, creating a hard landing in the center of a half-searing tactile array.

And then he has a thought.

Work.

...he's... not sure it was his.

Linchpin knows what it feels like, to be in communion with his mark. There was a time when he chased that sensation a little too intently, because he'd just manifested, using his deepest magic felt good and -- well, just about everypony goes through flank-brain. But the feeling also occurs in adulthood. It arrives in a wordless flow of sensation which tells him that the design is proceeding down the right path.

A sense of... twinning, as if there's two entities working on the problem.

Something softer than a whisper.

And this was a thought.

Work.

He doesn't want to. He's sleepy and worn out and he's going to be alone again very soon and -- this part feels important -- he's at least half-drunk. This isn't a good time to work, even if he hasn't done anything real in that department for --

-- it doesn't matter. The important thing is that he's in no shape to design anything right now and if his mark is trying to think, then let it think of that. Besides, if the icon is so determined, then maybe it'll come up with something on its own.

The stallion burrows deeper under the blankets. Nothing about the fabric smells like a mare. Like company. Like love --

Work.

-- because he's just cutting directly to the part where he effectively has a nagging spouse. One which is quite literally attached to him. His sole lifelong bond and right now, he's not particularly sure he wouldn't be better off at a true zero.

He wants to sleep. He closes his eyes, tries to drift.

WORK.

...maybe... maybe he's been ignoring his talent a little too long. Maybe if he gives it just a taste of what it wants, a taste, it'll shut up and let him sleep.

(He could have thought about it more deeply. Wondered just what was wrong, and he did not. That, too, was part of the modified powder's design.)

...he's at the drafting table.

He doesn't remember having walked over to it, and that seems especially strange. Based on what happened at the door, that absence would require him to have lost at least two minutes. But he's at his drafting table, and the bench is dusty. No effort is made to clean it before he climbs on. So now it's dirty fetlocks.

Just a quick sketch. Something basic. A stable. To show his mark that he's willing to make an effort. And then he can sleep.

It takes a minute to fasten the paper down at the clamping corners, and then his teeth carefully grip the bow pencil's metal base.

A stable. He's sketched out a lot of stables. They're nothing special. Adding a personal touch to the door should be enough to satisfy the mark. To make that other voice go away.

He draws...

WORK.

...it's not original enough. That has to be it.

The interior. He's never tried to add shelving in that section before. Surely --

WORK.

-- and he's trying to design, he drops the grip long enough to go for the paper, tears it away and loads up a fresh sheet, but the lines keep coming out in what feels like the same way because there's only so much you can alter a stable and have it still be one, because every line must lead into every other in near-identical patterns or the whole thing collapses

except that it all collapses anyway every time, broken designs, he tried to design a life which would have him with another and it's broken, it's always broken when the only constants are him and the icon on his flanks, something where there can never be any true change because it all goes down the same narrow canal, but he doesn't want to sail, he wants to stop and there's a voice instead of a whisper, it's getting louder and louder and it screams WORK! and a hard head turn sends the bow pen shooting across the room, his teeth tear the paper to shreds and it's not enough to make the shouting stop and

he
takes
a
snap
at
his
mark.

He can just barely manage it. His neck twists, his torso curls, and his teeth snag a few fur strands near the core of the altered hues for that patch of fur. He tears them out, and some of the blood reaches the wood.

And even that doesn't make it end.

The monster within his soul doesn't care.

It was hard to tell exactly what they were missing.

'Who' was easy. Spike could get a mane-and-tail count on 'who' just by taking a glance around the area, and was trying not to do so too often because... he had his own education in magic. His best guess had been that Twilight's miniherd might be about half a gallop away, and it would take time to cross that much distance. If everything worked out, they would be reunited at the apex of a geographic triangle. Looking around every time he heard something rustling through the green, just in case a very small alicorn stepped out of the shadows... that wasn't doing anything except proving the existence of gravity. Because he kept looking towards every source of half-distant sound and when the source didn't turn out to be ponies, his heart sank.

They all knew who they were missing. But before they could go off in search of the others, they needed to quantify 'what'. And that was presenting some problems, because the Princesses had more or less been corona-shoving supplies into saddlebags at speed, trying to load everything up before the fragment's charge dropped too low.

The location of certain items could be guessed. There had been books about local animal and plant life: Fluttershy surely had those. A few things were universal: translator devices had been passed out more or less in bulk, and the supply on the common style included spares in case they broke down.

(The one Twilight had been granted was one of the rarest enchantments known. Most of the group would be working with devices which had been preset for the languages of the region. Hers was able to work with the concept of language, and could translate something never before heard -- in both directions. Spike was dearly hoping not to run across any previously-unknown sapients. Bipeds were scarce, and getting his point across through desperate gestures of handling claws hardly ever worked.)

But there had been corona-held items levitating in all directions. Something which had been happening too quickly to fully keep track of just what had been going where. Some of the pieces had been scattered from the impact of recoil, but others were outright missing. And they currently didn't have time to take a full inventory. The rainforest floor could be searched, trying to discover how many of the smaller offerings were taking shelter under the lower canopy of greenery -- but after that, they had to start moving. There was only so much daylight to work with, and moving through a completely unfamiliar wild zone under Sun would be risky enough. Eventually, they would need to stop and make camp.

...which partially presumed somepony had wound up with a tent.

Spike was on his handling claws and knees, moving slowly through the greenery as he patted the soil, searching for the smallest items. Most of the time, it put his head under the lesser canopy. Leaves kept trying to poke into his auditory spines.

He had to look up in order to find the others. Rainbow had initially tried an aerial survey, going to war against a second verdant blockade -- and losing: the pegasus was now muttering to herself as she forced herself through the smaller plants, one reluctant hoofstep at a time. Pinkie was checking the borders of the scatter area, herding in the most distant pieces. Trixie...

...Trixie.
We should have enough canteens to clean water for her. We'll just have to load them more often.
We need to find water.
...how are we supposed to work with...

...freshly bandaged and mostly reoriented, was hoof-poking around some of the largest tree trunks.

Rarity, who was known to have some rather extensive, comprehensive, and weight limit breaking problems with packing, had begun her personal search through the debris while at a status significantly below 'happy'. The designer hadn't hit all that hard at the end of the recoil, meaning her injuries were rather minor -- but the rupophobe had skidded some distance through chlorophyll. Along with everything which was holding it up.

"I can't find that piece of the teleportation device," Spike finally said.

"Is it so very essential?" the designer crossly inquired. "It would be fully depleted of charge now, would it not? And the fact that it could have no additional thaums added is part of why we find ourselves in this situation to begin with." She looked up from her hunt spot, and a furious blue gaze did its best to drill accusation through the performer.

Trixie visibly felt the glare. Tensed, with the streaked tail executing a half-lash. A hard hoofstep forward was required to free her from the instant wooden tangle. And then she continued to search.

"I don't know," the little dragon admitted. "But we should be close to whoever made it. Maybe it could be fixed."

"Fixed," Rarity darkly repeated.

"There's a chance they're friendly," Spike reminded her. "If it's just a treatment center for sick ponies --"

"-- then we would need to worry about falling ill ourselves," the white unicorn half-spat, and the fact that the words had even gotten to half was an especially bad sign. "And even if the condition is fully non-contagious -- something I will admit is possible, as nopony among those first exposed has yet to show any signs of sickness -- then I would still have certain questions about their treatment methods. Assuming the disease does not bring madness, and that poor stallion simply decided to make his escape. If they had a device to allow teleportation, Spike, then please consider that they might have more than one. We are rapidly approaching the point where we --" another glare at Trixie "-- will need to move on."

She looked directly at him, and her expression was less than kind.

Then she looked a little further up.

"I think," she said as her snout wrinkled, "that may be one of the local squirrels. And it clashes. With itself. Is there some reason you are staring at me? Have you simply never seen white before? ...or what is left of my natural... actually -- did Fluttershy send you? Wave a forepaw once for yes, and not at all for no. Or just... right. You clearly have no concept of what I am saying." Teeth momentarily ground against each other. "But we will have to be very careful regarding any animals who do approach, because it is very likely that Fluttershy is doing her best to dispatch scouts in an effort to locate us. Spike, we have been searching the soil for at least half an hour. If the fragment is not here, then as with the division in our supplies, anything missing wound up with them. Find our missing fellows, find the bit of device. And everything else. And everypony else. And as such, I feel it is well past time to conclude our efforts and leave."

Rarity was dirty, green-stained, lost, dealing with a limited wardrobe, and was nowhere close to welcoming an unexpected excess of showmare. Having her conduct the hunt while at a level of 'merely unhappy' was currently going to require a major emotional boost.

I'm not in charge.

He wasn't entirely sure that Rarity had taken the position of herd leader. But he also recognized that it was an exceptionally bad time to argue with her about anything --

"We can go in about five minutes," Pinkie announced.

Rarity's head turned at the speed of doom.

"...really," inquired a rather patient form of death.

"Faster if somepony helps me," the baker admitted. "I think this spread is the last of it." She squinted downwards. "Whatever 'it' is. Maybe this was supposed to be part of Twilight's supplies, and the Princesses just wanted us to carry extras. Some of it looks like the smaller pieces from her lab. And I can get it all by mouth, but it would be faster with a field."

The designer slowly nodded. Straightened her forelegs, turned, and began to trot in that direction.

Spike watched. At the left edge of his vision, Trixie tried to ignite her horn. Several sparks moved in random directions, and the performer's features twisted with pain.

"...not quite yet," she muttered. "Not quite..."

She looked around, and a purple gaze fell on Spike. The mare nodded to herself, and carefully started moving towards him.

Spike waited. There wasn't much of anywhere to go, and...

...he'd been alone with Trixie at the tree a few times, when Twilight had needed to go out. They hadn't really talked. He understood that his sister had forgiven the showmare, found her both easy and enlightening to work with, but -- that was Twilight.

He watched Trixie approach, straightening to do so. And at his height...

Her injuries had been bandaged: coverings reluctantly provided by Generosity. One of those dressings was near the base of her horn: he recognized both that it was why she was currently having trouble with casting, and that she would be capable again by morning.

All of the mares were dirty. There were varying amounts of stains. But Trixie hadn't put on any clothing before departure, because she wasn't supposed to be part of the mission. He could look directly at her sternum, and -- there was a different kind of discoloration there. Something subtle, accompanied by a little twist to the fur. A distortion which echoed to the flesh beneath, in the place where the Amulet had rested.

It wasn't her.
She kept saying that.
But she was still the one who had put it on.
The little dragon loved his sibling, and fully understood that Twilight was capable of making mistakes.

And now the unicorn was directly in front of him --

"Did you tell her," the performer quietly asked, "that it wasn't her fault?"

Spike blinked.

"I --" was as far as she let him get.

"She's powerful," Trixie steadily went on (and he saw her foreknees tremble, wondered just how much effort was going into keeping her voice even). "And she'd never tried to move six sapients before. It was her first major attempt, under less than controlled conditions. And she still made it work, because she must have believed she could. In a way, getting seven is more impressive than anything." Which was followed by a soft snort. "I could have wished for eight, actually. Eight would mean she'd gotten a Princess, and I know they're both capable of international teleports. Memorize an arrival point, then head back to Canterlot and regroup. We could have resolved the whole mess and started over."

He'd had more words planned as a followup for 'I', and seemed to have forgotten what they all were.

"Did you tell her?" she insistently asked. "When you sent out that scroll?"

The little dragon reluctantly shook his head.

"She had to know what our situation was," he forced himself to say. "That had to come first."

It got him a slow nod. "Then that's what has to come next. That it's not her fault. And that she saved us. All of us." In openly-measured syllables, words where he could watch her weighing each one, "I was -- at the back. Out of sight. I mostly had a view of everypony's tails. And I didn't mean to go into the between, and I was trying not to thrash around because I didn't know what would happen if I broke free."

She took a breath. The distorted flesh shifted.

"I -- did find out that you can't really talk in there," the showmare quietly said. "There's something to breathe. But it doesn't conduct sound. I mostly saw tails, I wasn't close enough to touch anypony -- but I did see the lockdown. There was no way to miss that. And if we'd hit it, we would all be dead. Spike -- I mostly know her through letters, and I still have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen if she starts blaming herself." The streaked tail slowly swished, left to right and back again. "If she takes all of the responsibility for the separation, or for me being here at all. I'm pretty sure it's going to get bad. Fast. So the next time you send a scroll, you have to tell her. All of it."

And he'd thought about his sister having saved them all, but he'd needed to give her the group's status first --

-- I should have --

-- he would have. The showmare had just said it first.

"The next scroll," he told the showmare. "As soon as I can." They would have to ration the supply, but -- this was important.

"Good." She paused. "...thank you."

He felt oddly unsure of how to respond --

-- a downdraft of wind blasted against his scales, and hooves touched down on the right.

"Need you for a few seconds," Rainbow roughly said, and a wing tried to curl him in: the central result was having his view obscured by feathers. "Let's go over here and talk..."

The pegasus guided him away, insofar as that description could be applied to the occasional open shove. The pushes didn't end until they were both behind one of the larger trees, which was also when he finally felt the intensity of Trixie's distant stare slide off his scales.

"Rainbow --"

"Don't trust her."

He stared up at the weather coordinator. The streamlined jaw was tight with resolution.

"Don't hurt her, either," the pegasus told him. "But keep an eye on her. See what she does. Twilight trusts her a little. Same way Fluttershy trusts Discord." Which triggered a snort. "But maybe it's just the same, right? She's safe for Twilight. As far as you can ever call either one of them safe. So don't hurt her unless she does something to deserve it. But for trust?" Loyalty snorted again. "She's gotta earn it."

"So what was that one?" Applejack asked, watching the latest recruit vanish into the undergrowth. "An' Ah mean the one which kinda looked like a cross between a really big guinea pig an' a ferret."

"...agouti," Fluttershy quietly told her. "She's willing to look. But I'm not sure how far they travel, or how fast. I can try to get more birds, but... it's the same problem I was having. When you're above the trees, all you see is treetops. And it gets dark down here." A little more softly, "And then there's the amount of land. It's more than a few cells to search, Applejack. And with the animals... there was so much to learn, and I didn't have time to memorize all of it. I'm reading as fast as I can, but..."

"Ah know," the farmer sighed. "But Ah appreciate that you're tryin'. So -- agouti?"

"...yes."

"An' the one jus' before that? The biggest rodent anypony's ever seen?"

"...capybara."

"Capybara," Applejack carefully repeated (after some adjustment for accent). "They poisonous or somethin'?"

"...no. They're... like beavers, sort of. If they bit you, it could be nasty. But that's just because their teeth and mouths are dirty. They don't have poison."

"Not what Ah meant," the earth pony clarified. "Well -- mostly. Thinkin' they might be poisonous t' eat. Cause that one was jus' sort of loungin' next to the gator --"

"-- caiman," the pegasus corrected.

"-- an' it wasn't making a move. So it had t' taste really bad. Bad enough t' stop a gat -- a... how did y'pronounce --"

"...no," Fluttershy softly said. "They aren't. It was just hanging out."

"Hangin' out," needed some time to force its way through the disbelief.

With a rather odd firmness, "...capybaras just are like that."

Applejack smiled.

"Got it. 'Shy?"

"...what?"

Sincerely, "Y'havin' fun? Gettin' t' see all of the new critters?"

With a soft sigh, "...I wish I was. But... not like this. Maybe after everything gets better. When we find everypony else, and... we know things are okay again. With us, and everypony who could ever be hurt by this. Twilight?"

The little alicorn, who'd found herself with a rather unwelcome opportunity to practice moving very light objects with a completely hidden field, rolled up the most recent sent scroll. Several pinkish sparks flew. "Did I miss something? Did one of your new friends report back? Which way should we --"

"-- not yet." Just a little more quietly, "Are you okay?"

She didn't answer immediately. Honesty and Kindness watched her, waited, and quickly nudged the smaller body away from a group of pitcher plants.

"No," Twilight finally said. "I'm not going to be okay until we find everypony. But that's why I have to keep moving. Fluttershy, please go up and take a peek above the canopy again? I want to make sure we're still on course."

Both groups fought their way forward. On the first day in a new land, something which felt so much like being on another planet without having left the current one, it was just about all they openly fought against. The lone external foe.

There were times when it was hard to move. The vegetation clustered too thickly, slowed or fully prevented passage. Each miniherd found places which they couldn't easily pass through, needed to go around. Both sent their respective pegasus up after each detour, trying to make sure they were still oriented on the mountain.

They trudged through the green for hours, and there were also times when everypony felt as if they were barely making any progress at all. And they had planned to stop at the first sign of Sun-lowering, that initial extra loss of light through the thick canopy, but -- they had fallen into summer. Hours of daylight gained, all at once. Internal clocks were reeling.

There were more strange animals. Twilight's initial first contact with a primate came through sound, and it immediately led to her looking for a good place to set up defenses because a call which sounded like an indefinitely-prolonged burping contest couldn't mean anything good. Then Fluttershy had shown her the actual howler monkeys, and the librarian quickly concluded that the entire order of species was never going to produce anything sapient or suitable for polite company. Rainbow, however, would presumably be jealous of the burping.

Foreign animals. Odd plants, and Fluttershy was the only one who had the briefing books. She guided Twilight and Applejack to a few grasses which supplemented their rations. The weather coordinator decided something smelled really good, then discovered that the plant had produced the scent as a reproductive strategy. Certain types of seeds did best in natural fertilizer. This variety had apparently decided that it could be spread further through vomit.

Streams were found. Small rivers. Twice, the rainforest reminded them of why it had earned the name, and everypony got to be that much more miserable because wet clothing clung. Several stains transferred.

Eventually, the light began to fade, and there was only one tent.

Each group had to work out shifts for who was going to be on watch. Spike, as the youngest, was exempted from the duty. Rarity refused to let Trixie take one alone, sarcastically noting that the performer was injured and clearly required rest. It marked the first thing she'd said to the other unicorn since the march towards the mountain had begun.

Two groups ate, as best they could. Set up a perimeter. Sleep was sought, and partially found.

Eventually, it was Twilight's turn on watch. And she stared out into the forest, listening to the sounds from without and words from within. Because she'd read the last scroll from Spike, the one he'd risked expending just to tell her, and...

...they were alive. All of them, and... maybe the lockdown would have gone after the group directly. It was something she'd thought about while preparing for the transport. But she'd had another choice: to try a direct counter. If she'd broken the barricade, and everypony had safely passed through, then -- they wouldn't be separated. She'd made a choice, and didn't know if it had been the right one.

And then there was Trixie. Who wasn't a Bearer, who had never volunteered for this stage. Who shouldn't be part of it, who could get hurt or -- worse. Twilight hadn't meant to bring her, and...

...she wasn't sure her intentions mattered. Not with this kind of result.

She kept trying to tell herself that it could have been worse. They could have appeared within the mountain, and it was rather unlikely that they would have lucked into the cave. (Fluttershy couldn't see it from their current angle, but Spike had indicated the hollow on the rough sketch as a marker.) The speed they would have achieved upon exiting that degree of solid...

It had been a long day. Far too long, with so much of the night having abruptly died. But the little mare had no trouble with staying awake. She had to protect her friends.

...her remaining friends.

There were four mares and a sibling somewhere in the rainforest.

Lost.
Lost.
Lost.

They were supposed to meet at a bar. Some bars open that early, if you know where to look. Or, at this hour, a few might have simply stayed open that late.

Linchpin isn't sure it currently makes much of a difference. All he knows is that he got through the door, and the stallion is in the booth. A pony who smiles upon seeing him --

-- but only for a moment.

"Whoa!" his friend declares, and the force from that note of open alarm gets the bigger pony onto his hooves. "I've never seen you look that rough! Something happen on your way home? I was thinking about it after you left, that I'd given you too much of the good stuff for a first time and I should have hitched up, led you back to make sure nothing happened -- !"

Linchpin can readily believe that he looks -- well, 'rough' is probably being polite. Almost everything about him, and nearly everywhere. But he'll have to take his friend's word for it, because the mirror was only used once before heading out. Briefly, and just to glimpse a single part.

You can cover a mark with clothing. But blending dyes evaporate. Illusions are dispelled. And when the icon is damaged... it heals. The image, and the skin underneath it. Heals faster than anything else on a pony, and the damage he inflicted on the previous night was apparently minor enough to be completely repaired by morning.

It heals perfectly. When nothing else ever does.

That almost feels unnatural.

"Bad night," Linchpin says. It's easy to hear his own words. After a while, the other voice was down to low, near-constant mutters. Something which he had a lot of time to judge, when he couldn't sleep. And then...

...maybe it's a whisper again. But he's far too aware of it. Like sensing a constant trickle of fresh blood running through his fur.

"I knew it," the other stallion groans. "My own Tartarus-freed fault." The big body forces itself to settle back down. "Get in here. I've got something else." Which is followed by a little wince. "If you'll trust me again, after what happened last night."

He trusts his friends. Friend. "What is it?"

"You had too much stick," the big earth pony sympathetically tells him. "I'll mix you up a carrot."

They have to keep it in the shadows. But it's that kind of bar. And it smells enticing, it tastes wonderful, and it calms Linchpin almost immediately. There's just a single tremendous full-body shiver after he swallows, as if every strand of fur is trying to shed something. And then he's calm, and... the awareness of that whisper is gone.

(Too calm. It's one of the first things he realizes, when he finally begins to truly think again, frantically sketching out the designs of another while he waits for spackle to buckle under pressure. Far too calm, much too quickly. But the brews were meant to suppress certain kinds of thought, and... he trusted his friend.)

"Better?"

"...yeah."

And they talk. Relationships. Flaws. Failures. Broken designs. Maybe those aren't the words which get said, but it's all Linchpin's able to hear.

"Maybe it is the city," he finally says. "Maybe it's... everything."

"Maybe," his friend sympathetically offers. "Doesn't mean things can't change. Or shouldn't." And sighs. "Ready to head out? Because we're probably gonna be asked if we're ordering more soon. Shouldn't try to get away with too much, when we could be checked on." Again. "Heading out. I don't want to think about that. But... it's like I said the other night. Getting near that time. But we could try somewhere else, while we've still got Sun to play with. Or if you need some rest, you could just head home." With a warm smile, "I won't mind. Promise."

He doesn't want to go home. Going home would mean cleaning up the last fragments of the drafting table.

"Not yet." His chin dips. "Not home." And his own next words surprise him. "Not Canterlot. I swear I'd take you to Ponyville if I thought it would make a difference."

"Not Ponyville," the big stallion rather quickly says. "I stay out of Ponyville."

"You're basically a professional traveler," Linchpin teases. "And there's somewhere you don't want to go?"

"There's one good bartender there," his friend informs him. "And she is mean. I'd rather not have you learn about that the hard way."

The larger stallion gets up. The smaller follows, and they both start towards the main bar. Getting ready to settle up.

To... finish.

He's going to lose his friend.

(The big stallion has been through a lot of friends.)

"I just want to get out of here," Linchpin abruptly says.

"Working on that --"

"-- of the city. Out of -- everything. Sun and Moon, I swear if I could right now, I'd just go somewhere else and start over." As much as he ever could, because no matter what he does, where he goes, it's always going to be Linchpin traveling with two permanent pieces of baggage: self and mark.

He briefly wonders which is the bigger drag weight --

-- the big stallion's eyes just went bright. The pure excitement of a child.

"You mean that?"

...he does.
Somehow, he really...

"Yes." And sighs. "But I don't know where I could ever really get a fresh start --"

And now his friend is openly beaming.

"Do you trust me?"

He does. More than anypony.

(There's nopony else left.)

"Yes."

"Would you take a chance? Come with me?"

There's nothing for me here.

It's a dark thought. It's also an oddly uplifting one. And since it included a 'me', he's completely certain it was his own.

"Yes."

Which brings out the brightest smile he's ever seen.

"I travel a lot," his friend says. "I know a place."

Callback

It felt somewhat impractical to murder one raindrop at a time.

Taking them out at the source made much more sense.

(It would let her solve something.)
(One thing.)
(Anything.)

The tent, when properly constructed, was mostly a rough dome. There was a small forward extension at the entrance, supported by the inner poles: roof, walls, and a bit of fabric floor creating something akin to the world's shortest hallway. The purpose was to give whoever was on watch a shielded area from which the careful survey of the night could take place, somewhat separate from those sleeping within. What little remained of the wind gusts which hadn't been completely broken by branches were doing their best to make sure Twilight didn't also have a place where she could remain dry.

It had rained off and on through the night: drizzle through short-term deluge, with the current storm existing in something of a halfway state. And when it was wild weather...

Twilight was fully aware that a number of issues had taken firm root in the depths of her psyche, and had also learned that being aware of what she hoped was every last one didn't give her any edge in actually fighting them. There were times when she effectively tried to kick her compulsive organization urges to death, and they simply insisted that she arrange all future pointless attacks by appointment. Something within her wanted the entire world to cooperate with checklists, and it found the Weather Bureau's schedule to be comfortable.

There was a welcome aspect of predictability to knowing the atmosphere would be operating almost exactly as dictated. (The 'almost' came from two sources: the wild zone which just about completely surrounded Ponyville occasionally tried to test the weather border, and you couldn't realistically expect Rainbow to follow any schedule down to the exact hour.) As with the majority of Equestrians, Twilight kept the schedule in her bathroom: close to the mirror, allowing her to check it every morning -- but there were ways in which that physical posting wasn't necessary. She had an occasionally-distressing tendency to just memorize the whole moon, because that both let her know exactly what was supposed to be coming while keeping a running clock on just how late Rainbow actually was.

She knew what the weather was supposed to be like in Ponyville at the estimated hour: clear, cold, and dry. Sun wouldn't be due for hours, because it was winter. And she was on the wrong continent, in a heart of a summer whose heat hadn't reached her heart, watching for the first faint signs of too-early dawnlight to make it through the canopy, and it just kept raining and the wind blew the water into the little vestibule, making her blink all the time as the moisture saturated exposed fur and dripped down to the cloth floor and she couldn't say a word in complaint because there were ponies sleeping behind her.

She also couldn't move too much, because she'd brought some of the palace-sent books along and they were currently safe and dry behind her tail. They were keeping company with a blank notebook, one bottle of ink, and a quill. Twilight didn't jot notes down in the margins of books. It was disrespectful.

Two ponies sleeping behind her.
Only two.

Two stallions step off an air carriage, and now we're here.
Eight of us are here.
Five are lost.

There were also animals out there in the darkness. She could hear their calls, sometimes wondered how Fluttershy slept through them or -- if it was simply like drifting past a susurrus of background conversation. Attention would focus on names or news, but otherwise... it was just sound.

Every so often, an animal would almost come up to the tent. She usually had to let that happen, because she couldn't always be sure as to whether any of them were the caretaker's scouts, trying to report back. The exception had been the jaguar, and she'd simply stared at the luminescent eyes until the great cat had decided to leave.

She was on watch. There were things to watch for, and a chance that some of them could think.

They'd been... lucky, to have the tent. It was one of the heaviest items, and those usually wound up being carried by either Applejack or Pinkie. In this case, there had been two supply pieces of exceptional mass, and the tent had wound up with them. A place to sleep within the protection of water-repellent fabric. And if three were shielded, then it meant five were exposed.

Perhaps Twilight's miniherd could have managed, if Pinkie had been carrying the tent. Previous missions had placed them in wild zones, and there hadn't always been shelter available. Applejack had eventually learned how to weave some basics together out of leaves and branches, but... that was her skill. And even if she'd been with the other group, most of the local plants were simply -- wrong. The tensile strength of certain branches had certainly changed: they'd all found that out when several pushed-aside low specimens had come springing back at them just a little too fast. And when it came to leaves...

There were a few right next to the tent, sprouting on long vertical stalks. Just one leaf per stalk, and they smelled horrible: something which deep instinct recognized as a sign of poison. They had broad, ribbed surfaces covered in thousands of tiny bumps of what felt very much like wax. It made them water-repellent in a way which the tent's fabric was having trouble matching, and Twilight knew that because the leaves kept shedding water directly onto the shelter. She supposed it wouldn't have been so bad if each of the green shoots hadn't been larger than her own body.

And the rain just kept coming, while she stared out into the dark. Looking for signs of approach. Of attack.

Of... forgiveness.

If they all found each other, and her friends forgave --

-- but it wouldn't happen at night. Not when the others were trying to shelter somewhere, anywhere, and they didn't even have the tent. Something which could easily pretend to shield six ponies and one dragon --

-- seven.
It's seven.

It just kept raining. Twilight didn't always deal well with wild weather, wanted something to be under control, and she couldn't raise a shield around the tent. It would serve as rain protection: liquids tended to get tangled up with fields, but that just meant running in strange rivulets around the outer border. But the dome would prevent any of Fluttershy's scouts from getting too close, and... she was keeping watch because they didn't know what else was in the rainforest with them.

Or who.
Somewhere.

It was possible that someone was looking for the glow of magic. Someone, when she longed for it to be somepony. The right ponies. And one sibling.

She couldn't stop the rain as a unicorn would. And when it came to being a pegasus --

-- her horn was effectively invisible, she could pass for a normal pony and the fact that said 'normal' was still for the wrong species almost felt incidental --

-- she didn't understand the techniques involved in moisture dispersal, and was just barely starting to learn about the principles. Twilight was mostly certain that going at clouds headfirst was probably wrong, in part because she was still working on density shifting. A pegasus had to choose whether an unmolded cloud would be solid or vapor to their touch and because having foals fall through the floor was a bad thing, their magic set 'solid' as the default. Flying into a solid cloud headfirst was also bad.

Fluttershy's parents were part of the International Stormbreaker Team: the traveling part of the pact between Equestria and allied nations, forever ready to save strangers from the worst that wild weather could offer. It meant their daughter understood all of the necessary techniques -- on the intellectual level. Hybrids always seemed to be weak in the magic of their birth species, and the eldest among them was nowhere close to becoming the first exception. She fully comprehended everything which had to be done: she just couldn't execute any of it. And for Twilight to try, when she didn't understand...

My friends are lost.

But she carried them with her. A portion of their essence was bound to her soul, for as long as she lived. And with Rainbow... not around at the moment...

Was it possible to tap so deeply into Rainbow's shadow as to access pegasus techniques which hadn't been formally taught? Twilight wasn't sure. And even if it could be managed -- making the attempt came with its own issues. To bring forward the aspect of a friend, trying to channel some portion of their essence through her own psyche -- that created a certain degree of... overlap.

Influence.

Twilight, when trying to operate in Rainbow mode, had noticeable problems with impulse control. She tended to operate on instinct, went with her initial decision on anything before becoming fully aware of what that choice had actually been. If a given topic was foremost on her mind, then she was probably going to try and do something about it. And to seek the sky for what had been intended as a localized stormbreaking attempt might just see her soar off into the night, in search of those whom she had --

She would also be flying in the rain. Twilight was completely sure that she wasn't good at that.

There was a new bird sheltering in a nearby tree: one with a black head, beige body, and what seemed to be gray frames around the eyes. The head turned to look at her. Then it kept turning...

I know. Owlowiscious can't fly in this much rain, so you can't either. All you can do is wait it out. And you probably don't know what I am. Maybe you've spotted the wings, and you're wondering if I'm going to make you a part of my hunt...

There's somepony who can explain all of it to you. But she's sleeping.

The spectacled owl kept staring at her.

Twilight usually didn't feel like a very good companion for her pet. Owlowiscious seemed to use the tree as a home base more than he ever did as a home. He always came back, and there were times when he stayed close to her for a while -- but she could go for half a moon without seeing him at all. She often felt like that was her fault. As if she wasn't doing enough for him. It wouldn't exactly be the first time she'd failed someone. Or somepony. Or the plural --

-- too much rain. She didn't know whether the water-repellent treatments on the tent had a limit. The current weather felt like an exceptionally poor way to find out.

Maybe Rarity would know.

But Rarity wasn't there.

The designer's shadow was within her. Twilight had seen it once, in dream. But in the waking world...

She'd initially felt that Pinkie's essence would be the most difficult to call upon, and she'd been wrong. Since becoming aware of that shadow's existence, Twilight had tapped into it a few times -- mostly by accident. (The mantra was still a work in progress.) And Fluttershy's essence had made itself known. Twice.

But she'd never been able to call upon Rarity. She'd tried, and... it just hadn't happened. Twilight didn't understand why. Her best guess was that it was because her own creativity was generally kept under tight control. Something which had to be done in order to ensure that the results would be...

...safe.

Spike had sent a scroll.

It wasn't your fault.

'Less than controlled conditions.'

I wrote her, when we were all still in Trotter's Falls. I asked her to come, as somepony who knew more about essence than I did. Just in case that was part of it, and because...

...I needed my friends.

Spike was worried. He knew Rarity and Pinkie weren't going to have a good reaction. He saw it coming before I did. And she was on the way, but -- with everything that happened, she never reached us.

I needed my friends.
I needed all of my friends...

The rain was beginning to slow down. She'd noticed that it did that occasionally, mostly as a tease --

-- no. It was stopping, at least for now. And the first hints of Sun were beginning to push their way through the canopy. Given the thickness of the cover, that probably meant light had been on the approach for quite some time.

She waited until there was just enough to see by, then moved the supplies forward. She didn't want to wake anypony just yet. Applejack kept farmer's hours and needing less sleep than most ponies was an integral part of Fluttershy's mark, but the previous day had been...

...'long' seemed to exist as both understatement and insult. Twilight wasn't entirely sure how that worked.

She kept watch on the forest. But she also brought the books forward, and made a few notes because organizing something would calm her -- as much as it could. And she worked by mouth, because now she was pretending to be a pegasus. It was almost a refreshing change from pretending to be an alicorn, especially since she was so bad at that.

Mouthwriting. She hadn't really tried it for years, not for an extended stretch. The legibility of her results needed some work. But this was practice.

I want my friends.
All of my friends.
I wanted them all to be friends...

Trixie had apparently asked Spike to send along what had potentially been meant as a joke. Asking how much the seven-pony version of the escort test cost, and whether the scale even went up that high.

It wasn't your fault.

The rain had stopped. Fresh drops of salty moisture began to fall onto the page.

How?

She had to find them. And if they forgave her, only if they were all safe and forgave her... then, perhaps, she might consider forgiving herself.

But she had to keep herself going.

She had to reach them.

Spike knew the group had a lot of problems. Finding water hadn't been one of them.

"I've been thinking," Pinkie announced as the group squelched their way through the verdant carpet, maneuvering by green-stained light.

Rarity's voice was casually dripping curiosity, mostly because there was a lot of dripping going on in the vicinity of the jaw and syllables more or less went along for the ride. "About?"

"Types of rain," the baker said. "Rainbow?"

A very damp "Huh?" sounded from somewhere up ahead.

(Spike fully understood that you could ask Rainbow to stay with the group, and she would. It was also possible to request that she stay on the ground, and that would get you a pegasus with four hooves planted against soil -- along with steadily-increasing complaints about just how sore those hooves were, how the group would do so much better in plotting out the path if somepony was just scouting a little, and then you had to figure for what was probably happening within her mind just from being under the suffocating canopy the whole time. So all things considered, it was best to let Rainbow move a little. One of the other options was a pegasus overwhelmed with claustrophobia making a desperate attempt to reach the sky.)

"What are the types of rain?" Pinkie asked.

There was a long pause. "Sorry?"

"Do they have any formal names?" the baker clarified. "From the Bureau, I mean."

"Well, yeah," eventually made its way back to them. "There's three major types. You've got convectional, orographic, and cyclonic --"

"-- oh," a rather disappointed voice cut in. "I was thinking more like 'Misting Number Five'. Which kind of means there's at least four others, and that makes sense because we've had three different mists since we got here and I'm pretty sure that's not the limit. Plus there was Driving Force Four. And Drip. Drip is sort of generic, but there's a lot of it going on. And there really should be something for 'somepony takes a whole pond up into the sky and flips it over', only a lot shorter. You know, one day, somepony is going to give this kind of place a really fitting name. Like 'rainforest'." She wetly shrugged. "But I guess that already happened."

Nopony laughed. And at the back of the line, Trixie steadily, silently plodded along.

"Rainbow, dear?" Rarity carefully inquired.

"Yeah?"

"Perhaps I should have also asked this last night. Is there a reason why you're not breaking all of this up?"

"Yeah," somehow managed to emerge without any ego at all.

"And that reason would be...?"

"There's one of me," the pegasus solidly stated. "This place doesn't have any standing techniques in the weave for me to work with. It doesn't have a weave. I'd be doing everything from first thread. I can still clear out a decent patch, though."

"Oh? So if you would please --"

"-- and unless I spend at least an hour up there reinforcing everything, the rest of the system is going to flow in right behind it. And that's just for where we are now. You're asking me to clean up the sky, Rarity. And the longer I stay up there, the more magic I use? That's all the more chance to get noticed --"

"-- I take your point," the designer sighed. "And the plural. We proceed."

There hadn't been any problems in finding water. The main issue had been in stopping.

Twilight's group (and Spike could only hope the missing three had all arrived together) apparently had the tent. There had been an early attempt to construct a temporary shelter out of local materials, but the branches had been somewhat springier than expected and nopony knew where most of the first version had actually landed. And then Trixie had tried to step forward while saying something about damage to the caravan on the road and having to improvise, which had made Rarity huffily march off in the direction of the largest, most shelter-offering tree available. In turn, the tree had provided them with plenty of non-sheltering, constantly-dripping leaves.

It had rained for a good portion of the night, generally starting again just after those who weren't on watch had finally gotten back to sleep. Those who had clothing found it soaked, fur was quickly saturated, and Spike's scales turned into a shining pattern of miniature streams and tributaries.

There had been a short break after Sun had been raised. This had lasted just long enough for Rainbow to get some of the water out of her feathers, followed by taking Spike above the canopy so he could sight on the mountain again. Another rough sketch was made, accompanied by an estimate of distance covered and the portion of a gallop which remained. The resulting scroll was successfully sent to Twilight, which at least told him that she'd made it through the night. Just... not if she was hurt.

She never learned my trick.

I should have tried harder to teach her.

(Why hadn't he made more of an effort? Because he was a dragon, and it was something which had been his?)

Food wasn't currently an issue. They'd been sent with rations -- for Spike, this included a personal gem coffer -- and those had been appropriately divided among everypony involved, so they weren't at risk of running short for a while. Rainbow's recent experience with vomit-launched seeds meant nearly everypony was holding off on trying the native offerings. The exception was the showmare, whom Spike had caught sampling a few basic grasses -- but that might have just been in an attempt to not be on the receiving end of another speech. Spike was almost certain Rarity had one prepared regarding how Our Supplies Were Not Meant For This Many Ponies, and suspected Trixie had both figured that out and was trying to delay its public debut.

They were wet. They were irritated. They'd had no trouble whatsoever in finding water and if they did somehow start to run low, Spike was carrying a reserve: the issue would be in extracting it from his lungs. (He was starting to wonder how long he could be within this environment without falling sick. The most humid portions of Ponyville's summers suggested he had a few days, but... he wasn't meant for this.) And Pinkie was trying to keep them going, because that was Laughter's job. But even if you factored out the ongoing stress created by the splitting of the herd, plus their -- temporary addition -- everypony's spirits were still more than a little waterlogged.

Too many plants, most of which seemed eager to stain fur: Rarity had almost no portions of her exposed natural hues left. The dubious luck of the split had left them with at least some of the soap, because one of the possible disguises was 'traveling performers' and such were expected to stay clean. The designer was steadfastly refusing to use it until they reached an area where her efforts wouldn't be undone within six hoofsteps, and that decision was making her eyelids twitch. A lot. And she was wearing wet clothing because she was supposed to keep her mark covered, the fabric was becoming stained, she could neither clean nor revise it, and that wasn't helping either.

The animals they didn't know were also the animals they had to let come a little too close, because Fluttershy. A giant rodent had made it all the way up to the group, ignored every bit of frantic pony questioning, and then simply hung around Spike for the better part of an hour. Apparently it just liked hanging out.

They were making progress, but -- it was slow. The distance measurement of 'gallop' had originally been based off the distance a pony could cover over level, clear terrain. They had yet to begin any degree of ascent, but 'clear' was nowhere on the local options list. Pushing through plants, going around plants -- it slowed them down, over and over. By Spike's best guess, they were two days away from the mountain: a blazed trail would have had it at less than one.

(There had been a brief argument about placing markers along their path, because there was a chance that the others were behind them and just needed something recognizable. The counter was that whatever they'd been sent to seek was also somewhere in the area, and anyone could follow a blazed trail. They were compromising on the thing they couldn't stop: prints in the dirt. Every so often, Spike would press a walking claw against the center of a hoofprint, and simply hoped that the right mares would spot the overlay.)

The pace was getting to Rainbow. It was getting to everypony, because the entire species tended to become frustrated when they couldn't travel at their normal speed. Foreign scents were a distraction. Every animal call could be a friend or a threat. There were also monsters native to the region. And if they came across a sapient...

This would be easier if we were all together.
(If he knew everypony was okay.)
If Twilight was in charge.
If anypony...

Too many questions.
Too much fear.
Too much water.

The water, perhaps feeling neglected by its place on the list, decided to step up its efforts.

They stared at the river.

It wasn't white water, at least. There weren't enough boulders and elevation changes in the flow to produce that level of turbulence. The actual hue, however, wasn't much of an improvement.

"Black," Rarity softly said, watching rain impact the fast-moving surface. "Why is it black?"

In a small way, it was something of an exaggeration. The liquid was flowing quickly against to splash against the banks, and any small portion which came free possessed the rough hue of a moderate tea blend. It only appeared black in quantity -- which was to say, it appeared black.

...well, mostly black. It had picked up a lot of leaves, because there were trees whose branches stretched all the way across the flow. The river didn't create enough of a gap in the forest to be truly seen from the sky, and Rainbow's restless wings told them that it wasn't allowing enough of the sky to be seen at all. But the leaves had to fall somewhere, and the rush of lost greenery told them just how fast the water was moving.

"It's probably just soil," Pinkie's rock farmer background informed them. "You can see how rich it is here. And the river just picks some up and carries it along."

Rarity managed a slow nod. "So not to be consumed without filtering. Although it is hardly as if we've been lacking for rainwater." Blue eyes moved from the near bank to the far one, carefully measuring. "Nopony here can jump that. Not thirty body lengths. And we must cross it to reach the mountain."

"We've got the raft!" Pinkie reminded them. "And it deploys on its own! We just have to get into it --"

"-- and then we face the same problem which we met when considering whether to upend it as our shelter," the designer crossly stated. "If you need a reminder, Pinkie, that would be our inability to bring it back to a collapsed state. We would need to abandon it, providing sure proof of ponies in the forest -- or take it with us. The whole way." She looked at the river again. "Additionally, even with enchantments to assist, none of us have experience in steering -- and that water is moving rather quickly. Not just far too quickly to attempt swimming --"

"Way too fast," Trixie abruptly spoke up. "You might go under." There was a brief pause. "There was this one river I had to deal with when the road got flooded out near Drover. But that was with the caravan. For this one, I could just --"

Rarity turned. Glared.

Trixie stopped.

"-- but at a speed," the designer resumed, facing the river again as if there had been no interruption at all, "where we might be carried downriver for a considerable distance before reaching the other bank -- and if this river has been created by the waterfall, then it will be flowing away from the mountain. Our travel time might wind up becoming considerably increased."

"...oh," Pinkie said, and temporarily left it at that.

Should I say something?

They're all in bad moods. Maybe if I just give them a minute first....

Trixie was once again silent. It was something which Spike didn't see as a natural state -- but it was an ongoing one. Pinkie had mostly been ignoring her, and it had just been reproven that there was very little point in trying to start a discussion with Rarity. The showmare had made occasional attempts at speaking with Spike, and they'd both found those moments always coincided with something Rainbow needed to say.

"I could wish for Applejack's rope," Rarity sighed. "But it is hardly long enough to reach the other side. And what would we do, if we had sufficient hemp and an anchor point? Clamp our jaws to the cord and chew our way along, while hoping the river fails to sweep the raft out from beneath our hooves?"

"If it's from the waterfall," Pinkie pointed out, "we could follow this."

"Except that this is hardly the only flow we have seen in this forest. Simply the largest. And it may twist a hundred times. Think of that one time Discord claimed he was simply attempting a stretching exercise while in public view --" the shudder was enough to shed a few drops from saturated cloth and fur "-- and then make it worse. We need to move in the straightest possible line. If we find this river again, we can consider tracking -- but for now, we must cross. And it may take too long to find a place where we can ford it on hoof without risk. However are we to --"

Wings flared.

Wings flapped.

Rainbow touched down on the opposite bank, stared across the water at all of them and, for one of the very few times in her life, almost let the silence say it all.

"...yes," Rarity finally said. "Yes, Rainbow, we know. I'm sure we would have thought of it eventually, but nopony slept particularly well last night -- all right, you hardly have to look so smug about it. Please stop looking so smug about -- very well, we likely have some degree of smugness coming. But this is still going to require a degree of -- and it is raining. Again. Another little downpour. Or not so little. Driving Force Six, I imagine. With Drip provided by the trees. And Rainbow, the next time you go over the canopy to orient us, please focus on the color of the water coming over the falls. Although it may be picking up the soil at the landing point." The unicorn sighed. "So how are we managing this?"

Supplies were taken over first. It lightened the subsequent loads.

Spike was the easiest. He climbed onto Rainbow's back, she flew across, and then he climbed back down. Most of the rain which flowed across him along the way wound up reaching the river, and the little tributaries merged with their angrier sibling.

Pinkie was... a bit of a problem. Applejack was the largest of the Bearers, but Pinkie was close behind her. The hybrid had forfeited none of an earth pony's default size -- nor had she given up that touch of extra density to flesh and bone which made the entire species a little heavier than they looked. And Rainbow could carry quite a bit of mass, something she'd demonstrated during the Best Young Flyers rescue -- but all of that weight had already been in motion, and most of what the pegasus had done was redirect the vectors. Getting something off the ground still required overcoming both weight and inertia.

Rainbow strained. Flapped her wings all the harder, scattering raindrops in all directions as the increasing torrent tried to stall everything out through grounding her. At one point, she attempted to direct a wind gust straight down in the hopes of getting a little more lift: the majority bounced off the soil and disrupted two soaked manes. Pinkie helpfully jumped, and most of what that did was nearly put her out of Rainbow's desperate pressure carry, because four inward-squeezing pegasus legs hadn't quite been ready for the drop back down. But eventually, Rainbow got the baker into the air, and then brought her across as quickly as she could.

(Spike briefly thought about some of the times when Twilight had claimed to see Pinkie pop up in strange places -- but the hybrid didn't seem to be capable of fully doing it on purpose. Such movements couldn't be predicted, they never seemed to occur when somepony was watching, and Trixie was right there.)

It was Rarity's turn and in one way, that was easier: the designer was considerably lighter. She just didn't like being carried: another legacy of the Cloudsdale trip, along with her steadfast refusal to ever consider using the wing spell again. Spike could see the tension in her legs as Rainbow initially lifted her, followed by ribs moving a little too fast against the pegasus' legs. It placed enough force on the mark-concealing dress to strain out a few drops of moisture: something which almost became lost against the increasing rain.

They were about a third of the way across when it happened.

The rain was coming down harder, to the point where Rainbow was actively fighting against it. Some of it went under the cyan body, got into Rarity's eyes. The unicorn instinctively blinked, squirmed a little in order to get away from the onslaught.

Rainbow felt the movement. Pressed her legs inwards all the tighter, on instinct alone.

When it came to personal experience, it was possible that only Spike truly understood the principles involved. A lazy summer day by the swimming hole, and handling claws placing slickened scales against a watermelon seed.

The soaked cloth shifted against two layers of saturated fur.

Slipped.

Rarity fell.

It wasn't a long plummet, for Rainbow hadn't been all that high above the river. The minimal momentum acquired wasn't enough to send Rarity fully under the water. It left her head above the surface, allowing her the freedom to scream as her legs frantically kicked against the rushing current.

Rainbow was just starting to turn, trying to react, but even she needed time in which to move and the racing waters were carrying Rarity away, she was flailing and trying to direct her course, but ponies were poor swimmers, they weren't meant for anything flowing at this kind of speed and all Spike could do was start his run as Pinkie did the same, his arms outstretched towards somepony he could never reach, he was the smallest among them and the river would take him in an instant, but Rainbow was trying to get lined up and something had to be done because Rarity was kicking and screaming and the liquid shadows seemed to be lapping up her neck --

-- the sound reached him first, just barely managing to penetrate through the wail of fear. A cross between a mass cracking and small explosion, as if something had just kicked a door in half. And then a thick glowing tree branch, about half the diameter of Rarity's barrel, slammed into the water, and the splash sent black water everywhere.

Part of the splash reached both riverbanks. Some of it coated the plants.

The branch slammed into the water, and then Rarity slammed into the branch.

Her cry of pain sluiced through Spike's soul.

He saw the glowing wood tilt down, pushing into the water. Making sure Rarity couldn't slip under it. And Trixie was on the opposite bank, her horn's corona surged to a fierce double, straining to hold the broken wood in place against the flow of the river, trying to keep everything just where it was --

-- Rainbow caught up, and she had momentum now. Her forelegs went down, got under Rarity's shoulders, did their best to scoop.

It wasn't a position which could be held for long, and the pegasus didn't have to. The white unicorn, trembling within the fragile grip, was quickly deposited on the original riverbank. Rainbow touched down next to her --

-- Rarity was shaking. Blood was beginning to stain the dress, welling up from her right shoulder.

Spike saw the glow wink out from around the broken branch. The river claimed the wood, carried it away as Trixie, corona carefully dropping back towards a full single, started to race towards the other two mares --

-- Rarity was shaking. Fear. Terror. Adrenaline with nowhere to go.
Then she stopped.
Fierce, furious blue eyes focused on the intruder.

And he knew what was about to happen, for Spike knew Rarity. There was an argument to be made that he understood her best, along with one which suggested the knowledge had been born from a sort of love. He understood her, just as a dragon instinctively recognized the quality of a gem -- and that also meant he'd spotted all of the flaws. The selfishness which served as the other side of Generosity's coin, forever being fought back. The tendency to overreact, and not always for drama's sake. She had, on some level, decided that she was the eldest sibling of the group: certainly the most worldly and insightful, the one from whom the others should clearly be seeking advice -- which meant she had a rather hard time backing away from anything she'd gotten wrong. Rarity, faced with an absolute disaster of a personal decision, would frequently respond through becoming a distorted reflection of Rainbow: repeat the flight pattern, double the energy which had been put into it, and see if that was enough to steer out of the crash.

And when she was already emotional, something which could spring from worry and stress and just about anything else in her life, when friends were lost and there was nothing she could do to stitch the tear which had divided the herd... she would be looking for a reason to let it out. Worse: an excuse.

Now she had one.

Every Bearer partially reflected every other. Distorted mirrors.

"What was that supposed to be?"

In the case of Fluttershy and Rarity, it was a tendency to take everything out on the wrong targets.

Spike stopped moving.

Everypony stopped.

Pinkie froze. Trixie's hooves pulled up well short of the other unicorn, a full four body lengths away. Rain ran down Rainbow's paralyzed feathers.

"Why didn't you simply just pick me out of the water?" And Rarity's horn had ignited, a full corona with nowhere to go and thin needles of rage coruscating around the borders. "Inferior and looking for anything which would let you pretend otherwise, but you're at least capable of lifting an adult mare --" and the pause lasted just long enough for a single sharp breath "-- you could have just lifted me across! You could have lifted all of us, even if it was one at a time --"

"-- you were a moving target!" The decibels from Trixie's shout pushed a few raindrops out of their paths, seemed to make others fall all the faster. "And I was going to make the offer before all of this started, but you made it pretty clear that you didn't want me ferrying --"

"-- a moving target?" Rarity's half-scream pushed ripples into the water, sent half-drowned leaves to their final grave. "That's your excuse?"

Pawing light blue forehooves were beginning to put trenches into the riverbank mud. "I didn't want to risk missing you! The branch was stationary! Once I had you stopped, there was time to do everything else! I just did the first thing I thought of --"

Nearly all of Rarity's volume dropped away.

"-- you are not Twilight."

And the resulting hiss failed to contain any of the rage.

Trixie blinked. Drew back, if only by a hoofwidth. The rain kept coming down.

"I know I'm not --"

"-- you do the first thing you think of." The blood was flowing down now, steadily staining its way towards the knee. "Pick a thought, call it a plan, and stick to it regardless of the consequences. Such with the Amulet. And once I was against the branch, once I was hurt, you could have lifted me then --"

"-- I was trying to hold it in place! She --" this with a too-quick horn tilt towards a still-unmoving Rainbow "-- was coming for you! I was just trying to --" stopped, and took a single sharp breath. "You're screaming at me --"

"-- I am not screaming --"

The showmare pushed on. "-- because I tried to save you! What would you have said if I'd done nothing?"

And with a total calm which was all the more impressive for being false, "After Rainbow had rescued me, without inflicting hurt? I would have said 'Thank you.' For the first and only time."

He was hoping unto Sun and Moon that it was over. That he'd just heard the worst of it.
He was wrong.

The words were too calm. Too even. Too controlled to be anything other than a cold expression of pain both new and old.

"And then I would have questioned just how much of a part you had played in the initiation."

The showmare moved another hoofwidth backwards.

"...what?"

"Wouldn't that be quite the performance?" Rarity rhetorically asked. "Plant your own hecklers, then shout them down? Quite standard, as I now understand -- and thank you for that, Pinkie. So why not arrange your own disaster? Something you can save me from, and thus work your way into the group? After all, if you can lift a grown mare, you can yank on one --"

Purple eyes went wide.

"My horn was dark --"

"-- I have some faith in your ability to hide your field --"

"-- you still would have felt the tingle on your legs, nothing hides --"

"-- Twilight," Rarity steadily interrupted, "told me a little about your supposed talent. Perhaps you figured out a way to make another kind of change -- innovator."

Trixie was breathing too hard, too fast, her ribs were heaving in and out as if she was running at full speed without moving and froth was likely seconds away. "How -- how I am supposed to prove I didn't do anything? How do I prove a negative?"

"Oh," the designer airily observed, "that should be no trouble at all. When it comes to proving something negative, we've already proven that you exist --"

"STOP IT!"

He hadn't meant to be that loud.
He hadn't meant to roar.

But they stopped. Both coronas winked out.

Pinkie slowly looked down, sought his eyes.

"I..." she whispered. "...I can feel it sometimes, when unicorns cast. I didn't..."

The little dragon took a slow breath, and felt air trying to fight its way through the water.

Who's in charge?

"We need to keep going and find the others," he said. Find Twilight. Find her so she can fix this. "So we all need to be on this side of the river. Rarity, when you're ready, we can try again."

Eventually, the designer nodded.

"Trixie --" and the name nearly stuck in his throat "-- can you levitate yourself?" She had the mass manipulation capacity, but projecting a field backwards took a special trick of thinking.

The showmare slowly shook her head.

"Then Rainbow has to carry you."

"...yeah," the pegasus finally said. "I can do that."

Who's in charge?

They waited until Rarity was fully calm, or could pretend to pass for such. She was carried across, and her wounds were tended.

I'm the youngest. I don't know enough.

The white unicorn was passing for calm. The little dragon was trying not to shake.

Who would listen?
What if I get it wrong?

Trixie's set-down came across as a little rough. Supplies were reacquired. And then they all moved on together, if only physically.

Who's in charge?

Please don't let it be me.

Worm

It felt as if he was spending most of his time in trying to keep them from killing each other.

Sun had been raised again, and the group had resumed its slow march towards the goal. (They were making progress -- physically. Spike's best guess was that they would reach Mount Llanero on the next day. In theory, it could be done under Moon for the current cycle with a collective push -- but they were dealing with a consistent slowdown factor.) This had started after they'd cleaned up what nopony could quite manage to describe as their 'camp'. It was a word which implied a certain degree of shelter and when it came to taking refuge within that portion of the dictionary, the night's rain had offered a subclause of LIE.

He'd slept in the rough vicinity of the Bearers, and done so rather poorly. The summer heat didn't bother him, but... dragons were adapted for superhot, superdry environments. You didn't get a lot of humidity in the vicinity of an active caldera. Enough time in the rain forest, and Spike would be at serious risk of illness. The discomfort was currently manifesting as a lot of tossing and turning at night, to the point where he'd put some distance between himself and the mares: he didn't want to risk scratching them by moving too quickly in proximity to fur. Plus his breathing felt odd, and he had an odd urge to find and eat cachalong opals. It probably had something to do with absorbing moisture.

(He'd risked two sunrise sendings of scroll scraps: one was for Twilight, with the other going to the Princesses. The base message had been the same: 'all intact'. Writing down 'all well' would have made for a rather awkward lie.)

Trixie had slept alone, some ten body lengths away from the others. A mare who had to deal with everything which could happen on the roads had turned out to have a degree of skill at improvising a shelter out of branches, and...

He'd caught Rarity glaring at the performer as light blue fur had emerged from relative safety. This was partially due to how dry that fur had been. The fact that most of the base hue could still be distinguished didn't exactly help, because the rupophobe's only true chance at washing up had come from an involuntary dip into black water and...

Rarity could fight the fear of contamination back for a time: multiple witnesses had seen her voluntarily suffer a coating of non-spa mud at the Social, because there was very little which the designer couldn't do for her sister. But that had been for a period of several minutes. This was verging on days. And it was too hot for ponies to be wearing any true degree of clothing in comfort, but the Bearers had to keep their marks covered and anything put on had only minutes before it became soaked with sweat, stained by plants, dirtied...

More factors which made her increasingly cross. Looking for a place to lash out.

He'd also caught Pinkie watching her. Surveying the edges of the eyes. He knew that was exactly what Pinkie was doing, because he'd been doing the same.

Rarity couldn't control the weather: something which had been repeatedly demonstrated, and she had reluctantly accepted that they were in a situation where Rainbow didn't have a lot of say either. Take out the meteorological factors and there still was nothing she could do about the environment: the stains were just going to keep coming, and she had no magic for seeking out or fleeing to civilization. The only thing she could truly hope to control was her anger. And she generally did that through letting it out.

(The Boutique's basement hosted a mostly-soundproofed room. It didn't exactly contain the venting after a design session failed to work out, but did manage to render the resulting screams into something which could pass for faulty plumbing. Once.)

There were times when the others told her that she had what was almost a regularly-scheduled tendency to go a little crazy. Rarity had crossly inquired whether they felt there was any improvement to be found in letting her save it all up for a few moons and then allowing all of the frustrations to fly --

-- at the wrong target.

Distorted mirrors. Every Bearer was a partial reflection of every other. Twilight and Pinkie could both get lost in their own heads. Rainbow and Applejack easily compared aspects of their core drives. Designer and caretaker... one would frequently blame anypony except herself, while the other's emotional attacks were typically aimed inwards. And in both cases, they almost never went after the actual source.

They were moving through the rain forest again, and there was still something of a marching order. Rainbow got to scout ahead: the only requirement was that she stay roughly in view. Rarity trailed her, Pinkie was somewhere behind that purple tail (and all of the artificial curls were gone now), and Trixie stayed at the back.

Spike roamed, doing his best to keep the peace. At times, one of the mares would offer him a ride, and... he didn't want to accept it, not when they were already carrying so many (partial) supplies and progress through the forest was already so difficult... but he was also trying to keep them from seeing how much the humidity had soaked into his body. Short rides helped.

There was a marching order. But it usually didn't stay intact for long. Individual mares would move forward, drop back. Group together. Because for the most part, ponies were a social species. In a stressful situation, they would want to talk. They almost had to.

Rarity dropped back.

Further back...

"Exactly what are you doing?"

(Spike began to move.)
(He wouldn't be in time.)
(Again.)

The performer glanced up. A small, light purple piece of fruit floated away from her mouth, and a shaft of sunlight highlighted the green which was speckled around the bitten skin.

"Eating," Trixie calmly said.

On the most technical level, they were now trotting together. Perfectly matching pace, and that maintained despite Trixie's attempts to get ahead.

"Risking the native foods," Rarity smoothly continued, "after seeing what happened to Rainbow. Hardly a sign of intellect --"

"-- it's camu-camu," the performer stated. "I've seen it at import markets in Eeyorus. You can never tell if any given fruit going to be sweet or acidic until you try it. Donkeys love that." Her eyes slowly moved across the designer. "Even if all the ones I harvested from that bush near the last river are pure acid. Just like everything else around here --"

"You took food which you knew to be safe," Rarity cut in, "for yourself. And yourself alone."

"You've given out your opinion of what it means to have me cutting into the supplies," Trixie countered. (The streaked tail was starting to lash.) "When it came to that piece of sharing, you were really generous."

"Unlike you," the designer spat.

"Sorry?" Which didn't exactly come across as fully sincere.

"You know that our supplies are limited," Rarity hissed, "you found food which you know to be safe, and you kept it to yourself --"

"-- I harvested enough for everypony. I was waiting until we all stopped --"

Formerly-white hooves slammed into dark soil. "-- as if I would trust anything you gave me! Where's the core of this particular trick? Is this one of those foodstuffs where one has to build up a resistance over time? Perhaps the more green the skin, the more spectacular the reaction --"

"-- and what's the benefit in my getting everypony sick? That just leaves me alone in this forest, in the wrong part of the planet --"

He tried to move faster.

"-- using our disabled state," emerged with false calm, "to collect a signal device. Move away from us, create a lie about why you are no longer traveling with the group, then summon the Princesses. You, and you alone, would get to go home. After alerting the potential enemy to our presence, of course --"

"-- now there's an idea!" declared a burst of what Spike truly hoped to be pure sarcasm. "I wonder what kind of mind thinks of something like that?" The pause was subtly brutal. "Other than yours --"

The little dragon lunged.

"-- can I try one?" Spike asked, and desperately stuck his raised right hand into the narrow space between the two mares.

Everypony stopped talking. The natural sounds of the forest used the opportunity to take over. Multiple howler monkeys demonstrated what Twilight probably would have called nomenclature efficiency.

Both mares were staring at him.

"I'm a little hungry," he admitted. (He'd been trying to stretch out his own rations and, up until that moment, had been putting considerable effort into not calling any attention to that.) "I'd like to try one."

"I don't know how dragons react --" Trixie started.

"It smells fine. And I eat gems," Spike pointed out. "I'll be okay."

A slow flicker of field reluctantly opened loaned saddlebags, delved within and floated a promising specimen directly to his left hand before winking out.

"Spike," Rarity immediately cut in. "I must insist that you --"

He bit into the fruit. Held the pulp and flesh on his tongue for a few seconds, waiting for a reaction -- then chewed and swallowed.

"See? I'm fine." And he was. The taste had been somewhat unusual, but it was in no way offensive -- and his body seemed to be dealing with it normally. "Rarity, did you want to try --"

"-- you," the designer rather petulantly reminded him, "eat gems. I believe I shall wait until our situation becomes somewhat more dire." With a soft snort, "Assuming that is somehow still possible..."

Both mares kept trotting along. The little dragon could feel Pinkie looking at the group. Monitoring.

"Is there anywhere else you might have to be?" Rarity inquired, looking directly into green eyes.

"Ponyville," Spike firmly said. "So let's meet up with the others so we can work on getting home."

She snorted. Accelerated her trot, pulled ahead and steadily increased the distance. Spike continued to match the slower pace, and so got to be in the perfect position to spot the moment when the chlorophyll-stained head turned back and glared at him.

He did his best not to react. Most of his limited success was registered as a snort from still-white nostrils, and the designer furiously faced forward before stomping further ahead.

...it was mostly preventing Rarity from murdering Trixie. Admittedly, just about all the weapons were verbal, which meant that any damage was applied directly to the psyche. It made something of a difference when it came to the nature of the wounds, and also meant the designer was occasionally free to keep attacking from a distance. Something which kept happening, because Rarity took out her anger on the wrong targets, this particular impact site was currently stuck traveling with them, and when it came to incentive...

"You're probably making her jealous," Trixie offered, and every word was coated in shadow. "Spending so much time with me."

There had been so many times when he'd dreamed of making Rarity jealous. Of having her want to cut in...

He knew what victory felt like. This wasn't it.

"If if helps," the performer finally said, "you can tell her that I would have just let Rainbow Dash move in to get her. If I had to do it over again." A little more softly, "Not that it matters, right? But if it shuts her up..."

"...would you?" he quietly asked.

She didn't answer.

They waked together in silence for a time. And whenever he glanced up at Trixie, the first thing he saw was that little sternum-hosted twist of distorted flesh and fur. The place where the Amulet had once been.

Spike thought he understood.

That normally would have been the worst part, but having been the direct and personal cause for why he understood usually managed to take over. On a good day, the residual embarrassment of the Noble Dragon vows would still have him unevenly shifting atop his walking claws until the little score marks produced on the standing surface threatened to accumulate into their own form of pacing groove. Because the Bearers didn't do 'life debts' or rather, they didn't do anything like that now.

The 'now' was because they openly included one little dragon among their numbers. The embarrassment, however, was just about perpetual.

He couldn't claim that nopony was keeping score of just how often they'd saved each other, because Rainbow was absolutely doing that. She kept a running tally for exactly how many times she'd rescued any given pony, then compared her stats to the rest of the group and tried to look for ways to get ahead. But all that was owed was a sincere thanks and if that gratitude was being offered to Rainbow, it helped to kick in something about how awesome she'd been. Also, it was perfectly fine to buy somepony dinner after and if that somepony just happened to be named Rainbow Dash, then she already had several suggestions regarding the food which she was absolutely not going to be paying for.

Gratitude, plus the occasional restaurant bill which ended in a weather coordinator fuming because she'd somehow once again somehow gotten stuck with paying for the tip. But that was as far as it went. Because saving a life didn't impose a debt on the rescued party. It created a reward: something which was automatically doubled, and generally went further than that. The gift of continuing to be together.

That was just how it worked -- with the Bearers. They all understood it, even if the youngest usually had to reflect on the equation with his head down and both hands behind his back.

But Trixie wasn't a Bearer.

He'd... been forcing himself to replay the memory of Rarity's fall. (The scream, the splashing, the cry of pain.) And it seemed to Spike that Rainbow might have been able to catch up in time to scoop the designer out of the water --

-- or Rarity could have vanished beneath the churning surface, trapped by current and undertow.
Drowned.

There was some chance that Trixie had saved Rarity's life, and Generosity was currently being exceptionally bad at dealing with received gifts.

"It'll be over eventually," Trixie finally said, keeping tones and volume soft. "We'll meet up with Twilight and the others. Everypony will solve this. And then we'll all go back, and she'll never have to see me again." This snort was exceptionally quiet. "Maybe she'll scream herself out before that. Or not."

"You wouldn't come back to Ponyville?" he quietly asked.

"I think the town's feelings are pretty clear," the performer softly stated. "You're having a hard enough time already. Stepping between me and an entire angry settled zone is going to wear you out in a hurry. I can keep sending Twilight letters." With a tiny sigh, "If you're willing to give us more flame for the vials. Sun only knows if the postpony would deliver anything with my name on it. And it's not as if I get back to any of my dropboxes all that often. Spike, it's not your job to keep stopping fights..."

The words slipped out.

"It usually is."

She blinked.

"...really?"

Spike's role in the group had once been described as 'Protector' and while he no longer cared to think very much about the pony who had first assigned that introduction (other than once a week or so, strictly to make sure he remembered the stallion's name), there were times when it felt like a title of honor.

He wasn't in charge. (He couldn't be in charge.) But he had to protect them. Even when he was protecting them from each other.

But the words had slipped...

He didn't know what he could say. Especially when it was Trixie --

"-- they're very different mares," she said. "You see that after a while. Personalities with edges, rubbing at sore spots. They're going to irritate each other. So there's going to be fights. And you try to stop them. Maybe they don't want to fight as much with you, or even around you. Since you're the youngest. Which means you get stuck trying to make peace most of the time."

He was staring at her.

Light blue shoulders executed a mobile shrug. "Ask me about reading an audience," the performer softly said. "Looking for that first real heckler. Seeing how cheers and jeers just about leap from one pony to another. You can't survive on the road without a little empathy, Spike. I... just started reacting to how I thought it was going to be. Instead of letting it play out, and seeing what there actually was..."

The streaked tail slowly swayed.

"Peacemaker," she said. "There's always one kid in a big family who gets stuck with that. But a lot of the time, it's the youngest."

It had almost sounded like experience...

"You're the youngest?"

Birdsong filled his ears. Remarkably calm birdsong, at least for what was coming in from a distance. He hadn't heard one major upset among the avians. You didn't need Fluttershy's mark to pick up on a frightened flock, not after spending some time in the Everfree. It was a warning signal...

"I don't know -- look, you can stop staring," she irritably said. "It's the right answer. I don't know. My dad isn't the most faithful stallion on the planet. I could have some siblings. Half-siblings. We don't exactly talk about it. Which might not matter, because he probably doesn't even know --"

-- her words stopped. The mare's body continued to push on, through humidity and shadow and steaming hate. But for ten endless seconds, there were no words at all.

"-- you're too young to hear about this," she finally said -- then, a little more quickly, "Did you understand any of --"

He shook his head. Then he kept shaking it, and only stopped when he felt the crests beginning to independently vibrate.

"...good," the performer exhaled. "Besides, listening to me isn't your job either. If you keep hanging back here, one of the other three is going to get upset. Or with that one, more upset --"

"It's easier than my usual job," Spike told her.

"Which is?" was the driest thing in the rain forest. "Assistant librarian?"

The next three words didn't slip out. This level of factual statement didn't need much in the way of lubrication. "Keeping Twilight alive."

Her head tilted very slightly to the right. The performer's eyes regarded his crests, and then moved down.

"Explain that?"

Spike sighed. "It usually means not letting her starve -- well, you've seen her. She's slender to start with. And she doesn't really cook for herself, not past the basics. She'll take some stuff from the raw bar, but... when she really gets going, when she has some research to finish or a problem that she's just got to solve -- it's like she starts trying to live on words. So I have to get her out of the lab, or away from the library. And that's kind of hard when she basically lives there. And then there's the kind of experiments when she's been awake too long because she's decided that now she doesn't need sleep either and the safety parameters start to slip, so somepony has to pull on her tail and drag her into bed..."

But there was something else which kept a pony going, and -- he hadn't been enough. All he'd been able to do was watch as she starved for social interaction to the point where she could no longer remember or care about why it had ever been important at all, as her empathy shriveled into a twisted husk --

-- and then the remnants had turned out to be a seed.

Trixie quietly nodded.

"She does too much. And thinks it's not enough. Never enough..."

Stopped again. Both ears dipped.

"Get ahead," she told him. "She's getting angry again. Angrier. Go."

He was roughly towards the middle of the line, three body lengths away from Pinkie. (Rarity, trotting at the pace of perma-huff, wasn't looking at him.) The natural sounds of the rain forest echoed around them, and...

...he thought they were the natural sounds. It was hard to be sure, because he didn't have enough experience. Birds which Fluttershy had never hosted, animals that had never been anywhere near the cottage -- but somehow, all of the too-many noises produced felt as if they had come from a normal creature. And he kept hoping for one of the sources to come closer, this time with a piece of paper tied to one leg, but...

...even if she manages to send one, it might not get here. If this was the Everfree --

If they'd spent this much time in the depths of the Everfree, well away from the relative protection of the few paths, allowing the wild zone to have its way with them --

-- we would have been attacked by now.

But nothing had happened.

There was a small, immediately-acknowledged-as-stupid part of him which almost wished for a monster. Something small and easy to stop (because you had to be really specific with that kind of idiotic wish), which could serve as a true group target. After all, the Bearers hadn't truly come together until they'd all had to face down Nightmare. Trying to save the world had turned out to be a rather effective bonding experience. If there was something which the entire miniherd could collectively take on...

He briefly considered making an excuse to get away from the group. Something which would let him get out of sight long enough to find a monster and either lure it into view or use fire to drive it along. Then he quickly realized that he'd just experienced a rather quintessential old-school Cutie Mark Crusaders sort of thought, which was immediately followed by rediscovering that dragon anatomy wasn't quite suitable for subtly kicking himself.

We would have been attacked by now --

"Monsters," Spike said out aloud, and felt every pony gaze immediately focus upon him.

"Did you hear something, Spike?" Which came from Rarity, because no mere huff was going to remain intact against the prospect of an actual fight. "See or scent?"

"Nothing from up here!" Rainbow called back -- and then the yawn drifted towards them. "Nothing at all..."

Trixie was silent. Grey-tinged eyes were surveying the shadows of the forest.

"I'm ready!" Pinkie quickly declared. "As ready as I can be. Which isn't ready-ready, not when it's monsters. But I think I can get a giggle going --"

"-- nothing," Spike hastily told them. "I was just thinking out loud."

"About monsters?" Pinkie asked, and the rounded features began to work into a frown. "Why?"

He took a careful breath. "I was thinking that in any other wild zone, we would have found a monster by now. Or it would have found us. We aren't close to anything settled, not from what the map says. I know we don't have the bestiary --" something else which was presumed to be in Fluttershy's custody, and he couldn't seem to remember any specific names from books or plays "-- but there is one. All we've had is animals."

It was almost possible to feel Rainbow's distant shrug. "Sometimes you get lucky, Spike. As far as I'm concerned, we're due for some luck." Which was followed by another yawn. "Not that I'd mind a little excitement, but..."

Rarity merely shrugged. "I can explain it rather readily, dear."

Which instantly put him on full alert. "How?"

"Reluctance to engage with the competition," the designer firmly stated. "Look beyond the pony skin, and they can see that we already travel with a monster --"

There was a moment when all he could hear was pounding hooves. The same instant which found him unable to move in time. And then Trixie stopped the charge less than a body length away from Rarity, with head lowered to bring a dark horn into an attack angle, as widened nostrils blasted air in and out --

"I made a mistake," the performer snapped. "Ponies make mistakes. I'm still paying for it, I'll always be paying for it. It doesn't made me a monster --"

"-- a matter of opinion," Rarity interrupted. "And not a popular one."

As a follow-up volley, "-- I like myself --" seemed to lack force.

He was running again.

"Oh," the designer considered. "So you adore monsters. Very well. Should we encounter any others, you may take the lead in any necessary negotiations. There is some slight chance that they might respect their own kind --"

"-- I don't have to put up with this --"

And then he was between them again, with both arms outstretched and trying to keep his own nostrils from flaring. A dragon who inhaled in a very specific way was a dragon who was planning to let more than air come back out.

"STOP IT --"

Pinkie was starting to move in, because the Bearer who was most in tune with emotional states had picked up on a potential breaking point. Rainbow was coming back into full view. But there were a few seconds when it was just him and he could feel the weight of the humid air moving into his lungs, because even the moisture could be burned off --

-- his nostrils twitched.

"-- quartz," Spike automatically said.

Everypony stopped moving.

"Quartz?" Rarity repeated, because sheer incongruity on that level had just shut everything down -- at least for a few seconds. "Is it the cave you saw? Are we that close?"

"I can go up and get a sighting," Rainbow eagerly said. "Just give me a few seconds to clear the stupid canopy --"

"No," Spike slowly answered. "There's just some quartz around here." He took another breath. "It's just... sort of weird. Quartz is the base scent, but it smells like something happened to it..."

"Many things contaminate quartz," Rarity reminded him. "Which is the reason why it comes in so many hues. This may simply be a variety which we would not encounter in our own land." Which temporarily gave her a new priority, and her horn ignited. "Let me see. Perhaps there is a souvenir of sorts about..."

Soft blue played across the length of something not quite bone, and then she nodded to herself. Trotted towards one of the largest trees, with the group eventually following her.

She stopped at the base of the trunk. (Spike came to a halt some five body lengths back: it was as close as he cared to get.) Looked down, and sniffed at the stone's exposed surface.

"Useless," Rarity judged, and then bent her foreknees so she could do it again at a shorter distance. "Milky white. Uneven facets. Stronger than some of our native specimens, and it compensates for that through having inferior hydrothermal veins. No interior sparkle at all --" and more quickly "-- my apologies, Spike. But quartz also lacks natural cleavage lines, and a poor specimen for working, even when head-sized, remains a poor specimen. I see no need to carry this along. So if you wish to consume...?"

He shook his head. He wasn't always much for base quartz, and this one didn't smell right.

"Then we leave it in place," Rarity decided, and straightened. "Onwards --"

"-- can we leave us in place?" Rainbow quickly asked. "For about an hour?"

And then she yawned again.

Rarity briefly closed her eyes. Sighed.

"Do what you must," she told Rainbow. "We will wait."

The pegasus gratefully nodded, then began to look around. Trixie, moving with exceptional lack of speed, came a little closer.

"Is anypony else --" paused, and then risked a glance at Rarity. "-- are you getting that?"

"More specific," the designer irritably said. "Getting on my last nerve, perhaps?"

The unlit horn tested the air. "I..." The performer took a breath. "...I'm not sure if something happened. It's nothing specific. It just feels almost as if there might have been something cast here once. I can't judge the amount of time. There's barely anything. I'm not --" and the word seemed to pain her "-- sure..."

"Excellent," Rarity decided. "We have the world's first unicorn barometer. Please do let us know if you detect more humidity."

"Rarity," Pinkie carefully said, "if she thinks she's found magic --"

"-- and who would be the expert on all things gem?" Another sniff. "Even when the term barely applies. I sense nothing, Pinkie. Rainbow, do you have a spot yet?"

Too hot. Too humid. Conditions which make it hard to keep going, especially as a continual effort. There was no slow climb into summer, no chance to become acclimated to the conditions -- and this is harsher than what a Bureau schedule would ever consider imposing. It's the sort of weather which drains strength as it shortens tempers. and while there's nothing which can be done for the latter...

There's a consistent slowdown factor for their travels, and she needs to rest.

On average, when looking at the three major pony races, pegasi have the fastest metabolisms. The weather coordinator's is especially quick: it's part of why she rests so often. The miniherd needs her to be strong, because there's no telling what they might encounter. Additionally, she'll need to keep watch at some point, and falling asleep in the middle of that shift would be especially bad.

Simply using magic to continually cool herself down, and making that change hold as she moved... it might have drained her more quickly than the weather. So they stop every so often. Allow her to nap, recover as best she can. It also lets the rest of the group pause for a time. (The performer has retreated to the absolute border of sight, and isn't going to come forward any time soon.)

The pegasus sleeps.

She went high into the trees for this. The theory is that humidity tends to sink, and that means it might be possible to get above some of it. She wasn't quite right about that, but -- at least she's still in the shade, spread out across supportive branches in the tallest parts of the canopy, and...

...she wanted to go higher still. Get a cloud together, sleep within the sky. But she acknowledges the risk of being spotted by the wrong parties. She just wants a little more room to move. Something which means sightings on the mountain may have been a little too frequent, because they also allow her to see more than endless green and wet and...

She checks on the mountain, and also looks for signs of the lost. She always finds the mountain. As results go, she wouldn't mind too much if those two got reversed.

It's not a very good tree. Too many bumps on the branches. Rough bark. Inferior sleeping surface. She wants to find some better trees. Also, from what everypony said, it's possible that they've been searching for a sort of hospital. A hospital is going to have beds somewhere.

As sleeping trees go, this one stinks. But she fell asleep anyway.

And as she sleeps, she dreams.

Dreams about a friend plummeting into a river.

(She's been feeling a lot of guilt about that. Something which is only free to manifest here, because there's been enough fighting already. She doesn't need to start battling herself.)

(She isn't quite sure how she feels about Trixie now. She knows the performer helped, but... there's a lot of reasons to try and get on their good side. And even if it was sincere -- well, just try telling Rarity that right now. That's going to take some very special talking to get across, and the pegasus was never the best with words...)

And within the nightscape, she immediately goes into a dive, tries to reach the unicorn, but something happens as she moves and there's a dual flash of anti-light along her flanks and her mark is gone and her speed vanishes as the white horn submerges beneath the waves...

Perhaps she would have had that dream regardless. Her reaction, when Twilight told them about what had happened to the nameless stallion (and she's hunting for his name as much as anything else, because he needs one in order to be properly remembered)... it went deep.

A moment of doubt about her mark? Twilight asked Rarity about that sort of thing first, under Luna's advice. And the pegasus has never doubted her mark. She had the first mark, the one which led to all of the others. How is that not special? Her mark is beautiful, ideal, spectacular --

-- but if Twilight had asked...
...if Loyalty could have found the strength to be honest...

The mark is for a lifetime.
The talent is not.

The primary focus of her magic is speed. Her mark boosts her potential, grants her occasional moments of insight into how she can move faster, sometimes allows her to react at the speed of impulse. It's a wondrous thing, and every last aspect of it is temporary.

She'll always be faster than she strictly should be --

-- for her age.

Because everypony slows down.
Nopony is a Wonderbolt forever.
Reflexes drop. Reaction time slips.
You're doing twice as much just to keep up. Then you're a hazard within the formation, because you can't react in time.
There's a ceremony. A nice plaque which gets mounted on a wall. Your stats go into the books, and every last one is marked as Final. And you wind up at the memorabilia shows, signing autographs for the colts and fillies of the next generation. The ones who tell themselves that they have to learn who every last former marvel was, and that's the only reason they know your name.

She's going to slow down. She's told herself that she can hold it off for a while. She's already fighting. (The naps are an important part of that strategy.) With the right training, peak can be maintained for a few extra precious years. But... not forever.

Given enough time, the Rainboom will be duplicated: she's always known that. Her uniform will be put in a display case, the trading cards won't have any new printings, and...

...she'll be in the history books. She's told herself that. She's a Bearer and in spite of what previous evidence might suggest, she's pretty sure that in a thousand years, somepony will still know who she is. In that sense, she's immortal. She won.

But while she truly lives...

...truly living requires speed.

She's... told herself that there has to be a next step. But -- what is it? She's tried exploring other options. Writing is -- coming along. Slowly. She's approaching competence, and doesn't know if she can move beyond it.

The pegasus has some experience as a teacher. It's mostly mixed. She was exactly the wrong pony to be helping Fluttershy, she's tried to learn from her mistakes as she instructs Twilight in flight, and... she's still not sure that she's the best pony for that job. Besides, even if she gets better --

-- yes, there are retired Wonderbolts who basically move into the Academy and make sure the next generation is safe. But she won't be able to demonstrate certain techniques any more. She'll just be -- a relic. Something which should have gone into the display case next to the uniform.

The mark gave her a chance to be special. The talent is going to weaken.

What does she do with the rest of her life?

(The average Wonderbolt is on the squad for less than six years. The record is nineteen.)

What's left?

Perhaps she would have had that dream anyway. She's certainly been going through the thoughts which trigger such visions.

But neither group has encountered any monsters. There are reasons for that. A number were cleared out. Others retreated. Because a monster can only care about itself, and so those with any degree of self-awareness decided to prioritize for their own survival.

Rarity had the right of it. The sarcasm simply fell upon the wrong target.

There were monsters in this forest once. But the ones which could think -- they looked at the first corpses to fall, and then decided not to engage with the competition. Running from the place where the true horror dwells.

Perhaps the pegasus would have had that dream anyway.

But it's easier to guarantee it.

At the base of the tree, the milky quartz swirls. A singular gaze looks out from the facets, regarding a silent scene, and the resonance of doubt continues to radiate into the nearest pony. The one which has now been identified as one of the intruders into her forest.

A fresh set of subjects is approaching.

Every experiment must be properly prepared.

Server

Committing suicide is remarkably cathartic.

Of course, that's not quite how the act looks from the outside. As far as his landlord is concerned, Linchpin is just moving out. But in reality, he's heading into the unknown, with his best friend at his side. Exploring a future. And if he's leaving Canterlot...

His friend had a legitimate point. He can't be sure of how long Linchpin will be away.

(This was a lie.)

Perhaps it'll be for a lifetime.

(Almost the truth.)

And if he's going to be away from the capital for what's likely to be at least -- actually, his friend hasn't really said anything about a minimum time frame either, but one thing seems fairly clear: when it comes to paying rent on an apartment he isn't using, it's going to be way too long. Especially since it doesn't seem all that likely that he'll be working during the trip. He's going with his friend so he won't have to do normal work for a while, or at least what the mark insists is it. And even if he does manage to earn something --

-- he's not completely sure how that's going to work and when he jokingly asked his friend about becoming a paid temporary assistant to a professional traveler, he got a laugh which was only slightly out of proportion to the jest --

-- in theory, he has the option to mail a prepaid voucher to his Canterlot bank and let them deposit it to his account. But he's more likely to need those funds on the spot.

His friend advised him to keep that account open. Withdraw what he thought he might need to start a new life -- but leave some bits behind. Let the original seed remain planted in old soil.

(Linchpin, who's never done this before, thinks it's advice meant to help out if he does ever return to the capital. The big stallion simply knows that landlords accept somepony moving out -- but when that same pony completely closes out everything without providing any hint of a new destination, then a good bank manager may have a few concerns. A marked one is going to ask questions, and anypony who truly cares for their customers just might pass their queries on to law enforcement.)

(The big stallion has gone through a number of friends.)

He's asked about how much money he should bring for a trip into adventure. There were a few jokes about keeping it under the number which would have meant that this was all being done just to provide a long-way-around chance at robbery. (They'd both laughed.) And then his friend had put some visible thought into it.

"As much as you think you might need. But it's not gonna be good for a lot. Not where we're going." (Which was just about the most his friend had said about where they were going.) And then there had been a shrug. "Most of what money does is just keep score."

Which strikes Linchpin as being oddly philosophical. And it also brings up a few questions about what kind of place felt money wasn't very important. All of those are watered down by drinks, and eventually wind up being diluted out of importance.

Even so -- leaving the bank account open... it means there's going to be one root which wasn't entirely severed. Or a single speaking tube hosting echoes of ancient syllables. (He's tried doing a little work with speaking tubes.)

He isn't initially sure whether that's a good idea, and perhaps that's because he's having so much fun in just outright wrecking the rest.

The joy of destruction.

Because he's not exactly going to have a giant stable sale in the middle of winter, now is he? It'll take too long to sell most of his possessions, and he's been told that he won't really need the money. So some of his things get head-pushed to the curb, attached to well-drafted signs which read FREE TO GOOD HOME and his landlord accepts that because some new rentals are furnished. But with a few of the others, where nopony of sanity would possibly have any use for them...

Drafting tables are expensive. They're also of rather limited interest, and it's unlikely that anypony who needs one is going to wander by the right curb. Which doesn't really matter because even if that happened, all they're going to find is a pile of debris. Get enough glue together, maybe a few spells, and you might have a drafting table again. It should be fine as long as nopony tries to draft anything on it.

(He remembers the night when he broke the thing. What his mark did. From that perspective, disposing of the table was just taking that factor out of the equation. Coming that much closer to having it never happen again.)

Even with earth pony strength, pushing a hardwood bed along is annoying. Especially when...

...he'd thought there would be a mare one day, somepony who would stay with him for a lifetime, and it just made sense to get something that big...

...it had been assembled in the apartment. Disassembly would take too long. Kicking it into pieces means he can divide the weight into as many trips as he likes. Which still leaves him stuck trying to move the mattress as a single unit, but few solutions are truly perfect.

Paper, bound in bulk, possesses a surprising amount of weight. The sketchbooks are anchors. But he has a fireplace, and that kind of virtual metal turns out to have a rather low melting point. Architecture magazines burn just as readily, and he refuses to let himself see shapes in the flames.

It's fun to break things. To shatter, rend, kick, and destroy. Because he's been told that there's worse things to be than a really big kid. So if he's going to kick out a tantrum, why not give it purpose?

The joy of self-destruction. The catharsis of suicide. Because as he eventually learns, long after it's too long to turn back and well after he stops actually caring... the breakdown of identity is part of the goal. And here he is, doing it to himself, out of what he believes to be his own free will. Rejoicing in childish glee as something else shatters, because he's told himself that it means he's starting over.

What else can he break? Because he's not bringing much. He still doesn't know where they're going. It's a surprise.

(He trusts his friend that much.)

And for explorers... well, in so many of the best books for youth, they found out where they were going when they got there. A stallion looking forward to acting like a kid again is perfectly willing to accept that.

But as for what to bring? He was advised to keep it down to a pair of well-packed saddlebags. And there was also something about not taking very much for cold weather.

What does he picture, when he wonders about their destination? Part of Linchpin has been repeatedly coming up with a day spa, one the size of a town. He tries to keep it from being the part which would have questions about the design challenges. But with the climate advisory, in winter... well, he knows that portions of the desert will soon host new settled zones. (This had to be negotiated with the buffalo, and the Ten Tribes made sure they received somewhat more than they were giving away.) It's certainly hot out there, although he's heard that it can get surprisingly cold at night.

(Not much point to carrying heavy blankets. But letting his teeth rend them into strips makes very little sense, because somepony always needs to be warm. Head-toss those onto the charity pile.)

First settlers in? That feels remotely possible. Linchpin knows one of his old classmates was planning to take on a few of those challenges. Solving the riddle of how to create a structure which can survive the heat. Wood forever drying out...

An old classmate. An old friend.

...how good a friend can that pony be if all he does is send a letter once in a while? A real friend would be physically there for him. Just like the big stallion is now.

(He trusts his friend.)
(There's a certain question as to whether he still trusts anypony else.)

A real friend helps you move. The big earth pony certainly fulfills that part of the definition -- part-time. He's been in and out of the apartment. Currently, with Linchpin considering exactly how to best murder a dining room family-sized table which has never truly hosted more than two, always for the short-term, and there almost has to be some way where that would be the table's fault --

-- right now, the stallion is absent. This has happened a number of times. He's said that arrangements have to be made for the journey, and Linchpin gladly opens the door so his friend can go and arrange them.

It's a pity that he won't be here for the table.

Linchpin is good at packing. (Why wouldn't he be? It's about the proper distribution of weight.) But this sort of gleeful malice towards the inanimate, killing everything which connects him to that old life... it's a lot more fun when it's being done by two.

Suicide can be a team sport. Who knew? And it's fun. Because once there was a stallion called Linchpin, who couldn't succeed at love or companionship or the true building of a future. He's standing on the verge of adventure. And anything which reminds him of those failures can just go and die.

...which can't include the mirror. He wishes it did, but -- it's not that he'd have to be so careful about shattering glass, especially if he doesn't want it taking revenge on his frogs with every ill-planted hoofstep. It came with the apartment. It's not his.

He can look at his face in the silvered glass. That doesn't bother him, especially when every feature seems to shine with a colt's excitement. But there are times when he gets a glimpse of his mark, and...

...it's like passing by a window in the dead of night, on a lonely street within a strange town. Alone, without even Moon to light the way. And you've been on your own for hours, you're trying to find your way home but you can't remember where that is, any other presence isn't going to so much reassure you as startle --

-- and when you glance at the inadvertent reflection, you see the face of another.

Somepony you don't like.

An entity who just might hate you.

And the first instinct is to run.

While they were mutually -- 'packing' is still the funny way to put it -- his friend had said something new about marks.

There's a voice which can rise from within, when you're acting within the heart of your talent. Everypony agrees on that, because just about every pony has been through it. Something which, until that night at the drafting table, had always been softer than a whisper.

So whose voice is it?

Are you talking to yourself? Nothing wrong with that, as long as it doesn't get out of control. A short self-conference can help just about anypony sort things out. You just have to acknowledge that ultimately, you're the only one speaking and if half the conversation starts to arrive with a different speech pattern and accent, you're probably in trouble.

But if it's truly a separate voice...

Why is it there?
What does it want?

His friend had made a joke of sorts. Something which, to so many, would come across as the purest of blasphemy -- but Linchpin understands. He feels like he's known the stallion for years. And the deepest thoughts can start as jokes, because that's how you get ponies thinking about them. Searching for the ultimate punchline.

"Maybe they're not really part of us." With a shrug, "Could be that ponies are how marks survive."

A disease looking for a vector.
A parasite with a host.

Blasphemy currently feels as if it has a point.

Whose voice was it? Linchpin doesn't know. He just plans on ignoring it for a while.

There's a certain amount of rather annoying paperwork attached to a death. And when it comes to a suicide which currently exists as something spiritual, Linchpin has to deal with all of it himself.

He's tried to tell the post office that he can file a forwarding address after he learns where he's actually going. Nopony seems to be listening.

Withdrawing money from the bank requires the usual number of signatures -- plus one. Excitement grounds itself in his grinning face and makes the mouthwriting somewhat illegible.

The landlord will want to inspect the apartment just before Linchpin leaves. A trotthrough, and then they'll have to both sign off on the results -- with Linchpin paying for damages. It's another reason to limit all of the devastation to his own former possessions, although he'll probably have to make sure that burning magazines didn't somehow manage to stain the interior of the chimney.

All of the items which are destined for the charity must be listed on the proper form. And he has to sign off on that, schedule a pickup...

He hasn't worked in some time, and anything he did was always on a for-hire basis. There doesn't seem to be much point in contacting his former clients to tell them he won't be available. There's always another pony. Another mark.

But he's almost done. It's down to those pieces which are meant for the saddlebags, scattered debris which must be cleaned up before the landlord arrives, and --

-- why is that bookshelf still full?

He looks at it. And for the first time in three days, truly registers the contents.

It's the journals. The ones he subscribed to when he was first dating Abjura, in the hopes of understanding her a little bit more. The Thaumaturgy Review makes up a prominent part of the shelf. It's fairly comprehensive -- for anything which happened at least four decades ago, because it takes at least that long before the managers will consider treating anything as a theory. Proof requires a significant multiplier, and Abjura claimed the submission process tripled that. And the post-editing articles are so dry as to evaporate any moisture on contact, along with all but the most dedicated interest.

The Review is good for exactly that: let's review the discoveries of the past century. Slowly. The rest of the journals tend to remember that they're not meant to cast sleep spells, and allow some degree of style accordingly.

He... got into the habit of reading them. He subscribed...

...more paperwork, because he has to stop the subscriptions. Really, what use does an earth pony have for multiple dissertations on unicorn magic? He should have kicked this part of his life away years ago --

-- he's still looking at the journals.

He hasn't bitten down on a single cover. (The majority are safe to contact by mouth, although one issue usually sees the index fight back.)

He...

...he can't kick them to the curb. It's the same problem as giving them to charity: essentially, you're nosing over free chemistry sets to unknown recipients. The good versions, because they include all of the stuff which aids in truly colorful explosions. If they reach fillies and colts, the ones who are just starting to get control over their field while still possessing no means of screening wild ideas... who knows what they might mix?

...can't burn them, either. Anything meant to survive in a researcher's lab for more than an hour is going to be fire-resistant. Some of the editions might set off their own alarms.

He can... rent a storage unit. A small one. Keep them there for a while. It won't take long to find a facility which is willing to mail locker contents to a new address. It's just keeping everypony safe from the articles. And since he's leaving the bank account open anyway... automatic rental payments. That won't be hard to set up.

It isn't. Two hours, including the time to get the journals into a cart and make the transfer. And then he's back in what will soon be the residence of another, clearing out the last pieces of his life.

He doesn't need to take much. He doesn't want to. It's a fresh start. Why should he have to haul so much of Linchpin along?

There was another joke.
His friend told him that he didn't even have to bring his name...

And now it's the day of departure.

He clears the inspection, noses over a voucher for a hundred bits: this is meant to cover one last round of cleaning. Some of the splinters went into the small corners, and it's going to take some very dedicated sweeping or a squinting unicorn to get them out again.

He meets his friend at the front of the building. Two oversized colts wriggle with excitement at the sight of each other. The contents of the larger's half-full saddlebags jostle within the fabric.

"Look at you!" the big stallion exclaims. "Just like the first day of school, ain't it?"

"After I found out I'd be learning everything," Linchpin smiles. "Before the teacher told me I was going to be graded on it..."

His friend laughs: a deep, hearty sound. And then he looks at the smaller earth pony, gaze roaming from tail to neck...

"Oh, for..." It's an exasperated sort of affection. "Still winter out here, and this one went and underdressed. Can't count on drinks to keep you warm on this trip. Here." His head tilts back towards the right saddlebag. "Put this on."

"Put what --"

The lid is flipped. A very rough form of delving ensues, which includes a touch of bucking the bags forward because a neck shouldn't be trying to bend back that way for long.

A scarf emerges. Soft purple. The fabric looks rich, but... stiff. It doesn't flow properly.

"Shet he root tis on pu," his friend says, which requires some translation from Got Something In My Mouth. And then it's carefully wrapped around Linchpin's neck.

It is stiff. There's some sort of wire at the edges, helping it hold the shape. But once it's wrapped, it stays that way.

"There," the big stallion declares with satisfaction, stepping back. "Keep you from catching your death." There's a little grin at the end of the words, as if he's taking note of a private joke.

Linchpin casually shrugs. "Thanks, Mom..." But he's grateful. It's stiff, and the wire is going to irritate his neck if it's left there too long -- but there's still some level of warmth present.

It's a gift. He can put up with the wire. Besides, new life, new outfit-of-sorts. Why not?

They trot.

The first destination turns out to be the Grand Gymkhana, because of course they're catching a train. (His friend is carrying the tickets.) And normally, Linchpin would love simply being in the building. He used to adore the lines of it. The construction, because it's been built from so many different parts. The materials for the Gymkhana were brought in from all over Equestria. This is the hub of the rail network, and so it's been made to represent a continent. Trottingham's white cliffs, Canterlot marble, Detrot steel and Drayton sandstone because somepony managed to remember that Drayton exists. It's all there and so much more, in a place which is designed to let ponies move -- while also giving them freedom to pause and reflect.

There's so many sculptures in the Gymkhana. Relief artworks. And when you're in the central rotunda, beneath the night sky dome with its captured stars and the full Barding Of The Ancients...

Ponies tend to stop and stare in the Gymkhana. A few of them nearly miss their trains, and a larger number get jolted back into movement because a commuter who was in something of a hurry didn't notice somepony had stopped.

But the two stallions pass through at speed, because the train is what's important.

They get on. The departure takes place on time, and the train begins to work its way down the switchbacks, descending the mountain. They're heading east, and Linchpin keeps wriggling on his bench. He doesn't know where they're going, there are so many ways in which he hasn't truly asked and he still wants to ask if they're there yet.

But when they reach the base of the mountain, with the rails pointing east -- when they're far out enough to have a view of more than rock, and his friend is ordering refreshments from the aisle cart -- that's when he looks back.

Back and up. A single moment at the last in which he seeks out familiar walls and buildings and a skyline which is now partially his.

Looking back one final time, to prove it doesn't matter. That he no longer cares about leaving it behind. And he doesn't.

It'll be better.

He has no true way of knowing that. But he has hope, and it serves. Hope and faith in his friend, who seems to have so many of the answers. Because the mark was described to him as forcing his life into a narrow canal and somehow, he's back in the ocean. He's sailing.

He wants to open a window. Let winter wind ripple his mane.
He's -- free.
It's joyous.
Maybe he'll even find love.

...he was expecting a decidedly longer ride.

Two settled zones to the east. That's where they get off. And his friend disembarks with a smile and a whistling song emerging from pursed lips. Linchpin follows, mostly in confusion.

"Foaledo?" he asks -- once they're clear of the station. Why here?

"Just for a little while," his friend quickly reassures him, glancing back from the lead. "We're meeting somepony." The smile widens. "Two, actually. They're coming with us."

The brief flash of jealousy almost sears him from within. This was supposed to be his journey, with his friend...

"Sorry," the big stallion adds, and the smile is decidedly sheepish: an expression which stands prepared to agree with anything said, because that's easier than a fight. Or, for that matter, thought. "About the surprise, I mean. But I always had to meet up here. And once I knew you were coming with... I was arranging this for the last few days. It's part of why I kept ducking out."

Checking for couriers, probably. "All right." Although he's not entirely sure about that, but... he's going to keep trusting.

"You'll like them," his friend offers reassurance -- and then the grin widens. "But you can't love both of them. Just one, tops."

It makes him snicker as he continues to follow, through narrow snow-dusted streets and buildings which are so very much smaller. "And why not? No miniherd marriages allowed in this town?" A thought he'd never truly entertained, because one mare would have been enough.

(If he'd just found one who would stay with him.)
(If he'd only been different enough to stay with.)

"I called dibs."

They don't stay in Foaledo, not for longer than it takes to officially cross it on hoof. The last street is left behind, the final homestead fades out some time after that, and then they're moving towards what has to be the settled zone's fringe. If they cross that border...

"I think I hear your knees knocking. All four. You've got a nice rhythm going."

"I'm a settled zone colt," Linchpin points out. "We're almost clear. And I didn't exactly pack a Hoovmat suit."

"Never been in the wild?"

"I got a ticket for the Everfree Experience once," Linchpin admits.

"That's the zeppelin ride, ain't it? How did it go?"

"I looked down at the wild zone for about three hours. It mostly looked like a bunch of trees. Two of them might have been growling." With the air of lingering irritation, "Then I got a drink, and it turned out access to the toilet trench came with a Slight Additional Charge. If we're going past the control point --"

"-- not here," his friend reassures him. "We're just meeting up. That'll be in the fringe. So calm your knees. And your tail, because it's still winter and you're not going to set any bug-whacking records. We'll be fine."

Linchpin doesn't glance back. He already knows the last house is well out of sight. And as for any road going back... there's no reason to take it.

Trust.

They trot on for a while longer. Climb a small hill, forcing their hooves to crunch through fresh snow. (He's starting to feel very grateful for the scarf, especially since the metal doesn't seem to be getting cold. However, it would have been nice if he'd been told to bring boots. His friend is wearing a jacket, and Linchpin doesn't even have that much.) Start to descend on the other side.

And there are two mares waiting in the valley.

He truly spots the pegasus first, and that's because pony vision is naturally drawn towards movement: her wings flare, put a flap at the apex of the high jump, and then she's flying towards them with joy in her eyes. It only takes a few seconds before she lands in front of his friend.

She's very tall, especially for a pegasus. Almost a match for the big stallion, although with a much lighter build -- for what he can see of it. The jacket covers a great deal of her torso, and goes back far enough to conceal the majority of the mark. It doesn't prevent him from seeing peach fur, a two-toned blonde mane and tail, attractive features, and a ready smile.

"About time!" the mare falsely complains, and does so through half a laugh. "Three minutes late, you! As if I wouldn't leave you behind!"

"He's got shorter legs, okay?" his friend jokes. "You've gotta remember that once in a while. That nearly everypony else has shorter legs. And some of us, me included, can't fly."

She merrily shrugs. Looks at Linchpin.

"So he's the special one?" she asks.

"Very," his friend confirms. "And yours?"

She glances back towards the other mare. The unicorn in the valley shivers, and a flicker of field wraps the scarf that much more tightly.

"She needs this," the pegasus quietly says. "So let's get started."

The big stallion simply nods. Linchpin just looks from one to the other, waiting...

"Oh, right," his friend quickly says. "Ain't like I told him about you." The grin widens. "In fact, I was pretty much making an effort not to bring you up. At all. Just in case it scared him off --"

"WELL!" declares a half-shout of mock offense, as wings flare and forehooves stomp into the snow. "And am I somepony who isn't worth mentioning? It's not like I hid you from her! Although maybe if I had, it would have taken half the time --"

"He just got out of a bad relationship," the big stallion hastens. "Ponies like that don't need to hear when somepony's happy."

She stops. Nods.

Linchpin takes a chill breath. The cold air burns all the way down.

"Let me guess," he offers. "Your spouse?"

"Yeah," starts off the quasi-apology. "Pretty much had to go for her, right? It's not like there's many mares I can nuzzle without neck strain. Or getting wind backblast from the pegasi." The voice of experience pauses, then adds "Jumpers are awkward, and a self-levitator just makes my snout tingle. Anyway --" and he focuses on the pegasus again "-- bad relationship. I had a reason. And you know what the cure is for one bad link."

The mare nods. "One good community. Are you ready?"

"Just about," he tells her. "Hey, partner?" Linchpin's ears shift forward. "Why don't you go say hello to hers while we prep? Helps on a trip if all of the friends can be friends."

...and as a special bonus, it gets him away from the happy couple...

Not that he resents his friend's joy in reunion. But it's just like avoiding Canterlot's couples nightlife after a breakup. He'd rather not see any nuzzling right now.

So he descends the hill, as low tones quietly talk behind his tail.

The shivering unicorn mare just barely qualifies for the second half of her description. She's an adult -- but that status hasn't applied for very long. A pink body with some rounding to the lines, and the puff of her mane almost covers the whole of the horn. Worried cerise eyes regard him all the way down.

She's rather pretty, actually. But... too young.

"Linchpin," he gently introduces himself, stopping two body lengths away to do so. The mare just looks that skittish. "Linchpin Keystone."

Silence glistens on the surface of untouched snow.

"...Sugar Belle," she finally says, and shivers a little more. It's a rather sweet voice, if an oddly-modulated one. Something about the sounds suggest the mare is trying to exert direct control over every syllable and not quite making it.

"Did she tell you I was coming?" Just to clear that up. The mare looks so nervous...

"She... said her husband was bringing a friend," the unicorn tells him. "And that I didn't have to worry about the mares being outnumbered. And... she'd look after me. She's..." Her head briefly tilts, to the left and back. Looking at the elaborate pastry on her hip. "...been looking after me. Ever since I left the bakery..."

The modulated tones are still nervous. The eyes, which have now refocused on him, are bright with hope.

"I'm a baker," she unnecessarily tells him. "...was. I was a baker. Now I'm..."

He waits. Listens.

"It's... something for fillies, isn't it?" she quietly asks. "If I can make something sweet, then they'll have to remember me. Or savory. I can do a lot with savory. And then I got a mark for baking, and..."

She looks at his hips.

"...maybe you don't understand," the unicorn decides. "She's the only one who --"

"Try me," he softly suggests. And waits again.

The unicorn looks him over again. Takes a slow breath.

"It's art," she tells him. "To me, that's what baking is. Art. Day after day, creating a gallery. The best of me. And nopony really looks at it. They don't care. It's something they can get on their way to work, and none of them really remember anything beyond the last bite. The icing is just another flavor, the colors have their teeth go straight through... even the ones who come back can't always tell me what they had yesterday. I made art every day, and... it was art for me. For them, it was five seconds and..." Her head dips. "...and a burp. Some of them don't clear the door before burping. A filly had a dream, and then she found out..."

Mane and tail seem to sag. The cerise eyes close.

"...that the adults didn't care. That she was just something in the background. A bakery stop on the way to work, where their hooves do more thinking by going inside than the brain. And that was going to be it. Forever. Nothing I did was really appreciated. It's not an art to anypony else, or even a talent. Nothing lasts --"

"-- it doesn't help to have it last," he tells her, and feels the heat of sincerity suffuse his fur.

She opens her eyes. Tilts her head slightly to the left, and waits.

"I've designed buildings," he tells her. "In Canterlot."

"It's more than I've done," she immediately counters, and a little flare of anger makes the right hoof stomp. "It's more than I'll ever do --"

"-- and nopony cares about the creation process," Linchpin softly cuts in. "They see a building. They go to work there, or live in it. But they don't look at the lines. Nopony thinks about the supports, or the materials. They can't see every decision I made, all the struggles and challenges which went into keeping them sheltered and safe. They don't see art. Or talent. As far as they're concerned... there was a construction site for a while, and then there was a building. They'll go into another one tomorrow."

She visibly thinks about that. The puffed-out tail sways.

"Do you get any credit?"

"There's a little plaque somewhere with my name on it. Usually near the boiler room." No matter what he did, it was usually near the boiler room. "Nopony reads it."

Slowly, the unicorn nods.

"I had a sign over the bakery," she says. "With my name on it. I don't think one pony in twenty could tell you what my name is."

"Sugar Belle," he instantly tells her, and she giggles.

(He has some doubts. Too young for him, but -- pretty. Many ponies would have remembered her for that alone. There's something else wrong in her life...)

His next words surprise him. "Maybe the important thing is just to do what you love."

"Maybe," she replies. "But I don't love baking. Not any more. And... that's still my mark. Forever." With a soft sigh, "Do you love designing buildings?"

A cold gust blows in from the border of the fringe. Both shiver.

"...not today," he tells her. "Maybe -- not for a long time."

"So what do you love now?"

That answer is immediate. "Doing something new with my friend."

(The big stallion has had so many friends.)

It makes her giggle. "Yeah. Me too. Did yours tell you where we're going? Because she said it was a surprise."

"Not yet," he admits. "I'm starting to wonder if we're leaving the nation --"

Two sets of hooves are crunching through the snow behind him. Descending the hill. He stops, turns to watch the couple approach.

"All set," his friend lets them know. "Let's get out of here." And Linchpin is a half-second away from asking about the where of it when the big stallion adds "The next part's gonna be a little weird."

Sugar shivers a little more. "The... wild zone? I've never --"

"No," the pegasus carefully reassures her. "We're not going any further into the snow. I promise."

"You," the big stallion tells Linchpin, "come next to me. Huddle up. And touch."

"Touch," Linchpin repeats. He has faith in his friend. The echo still feels odd.

"Get in contact somewhere, even if it's a back hoof," his friend clarifies. "It'll help."

An earth pony who has something beyond a hobby-level study in unicorn magic has a thought. Then he looks at the fur on his friend's smooth forehead, and immediately rejects it.

"Okay..." Maybe it's a trotting-in-rhythm exercise. Team building.

...maybe he's been recruited for some sort of really weird corporate retreat --

"The same," the pegasus tells the unicorn. "Touch me."

The couple is standing very close together. There's no room for two ponies to stand between them: what's left is just enough to nuzzle across. So the travelers wind up on the outer flanks. Linchpin touches a back hoof with one of his own. But the unicorn reaches her companion first, and...

...there's something about the way Sugar is standing. It's not subtle contact. The unicorn is huddling against the pegasus, like a foal seeking protection in her parent's shadow. Or... somepony trying to draw strength from their only friend in the world.

The big stallion looks down at Linchpin.

"Not gonna lie," he tells the smaller earth pony. "This next part? Is gonna suck. But you'll only have to do it once."

And before Linchpin can say anything, mare and stallion turn their heads. Lock eyes. Then their jaws move towards each other's saddlebags, extract thin golden rods.

The jewels flash --

-- and winter vanishes.

There are two trails of broken snow in the fringe, and four sets of hoofprints. The weather schedule, set for a refresher coating in Foaledo alone, will wipe out all evidence of their presence before dawn.

The ponies are gone.

It will be years before Linchpin comes back to the nation of his birth. And upon his return...

He comes home, in time. And on the most technical level, it could be said that once he does, he stays for the rest of his life.

Author's Note

For Level Dasher, and all the travelers into the undiscovered countries.

Loop

The designer is calculating the bargaining value of her own death. For she has been trying to think of something she might be able to do which could save her friends from the monster wearing the amulet, anything, and as the designer continues her endless labors at the sewing device, her assigned place within the cathedral of madness, the same inadequate answer continues to arise.

She can die.

Rainbow had needed to stop again. They were all getting used to that. It had been asking a lot of the pegasus, to continually push on. Hour after hour, with so few chances for true rest. There were times when Rainbow napped because she could, others where she slept because it was apparently the single most fun thing imaginable -- but a few came about because somepony with an exceptionally quick metabolism and limited resources for refueling it had to stop.

The humidity was draining strength from all of them. Pinkie seemed to be a little better at dealing with it, and Rarity wasn't entirely sure why. It didn't feel as if earth pony endurance was enough to serve as a full answer, and when it came to previous acclimation... she'd never pictured the rock farm as being a particularly moist environment.

Pinkie was capable of pressing on. But the natural empath understood when others needed to rest, and often signaled Rarity before Rainbow could. The group (if such a term could be applied to any miniherd which had the misfortune to host Trixie) would immediately start looking for a defensible location: something where a pony on guard could check every angle.

Such were hard to come by. Hanging vines blocked what should have been clear views, and any minimal breeze always seemed to shift a few leaves across hoped-for sight lines. However, on the rather dubious bright side, having so many tree trunks did at least mean that the majority of opponents who were trying to sneak up from behind would have to go around before launching the first strike.

(They were traveling with one monster, and had yet to find any others.)

The humidity was draining all of them, and...

...Rarity was trying to watch over Spike. Part of that was because their special guest nightmare had an odd insistence on trying to speak with him, and the unicorn imagined that spending so much time locked away in the tree (as opposed to, say, the much more sensible choice of prison) had given the performer a delusion regarding her right to do that. Especially when nopony else was really speaking with her, because the remainder of the group was composed of sane adults and therefore the monster kept going after the vulnerable child.

She didn't want to let Spike have too much time with their burden. (The ideal would have been 'none'.) So she watched him, looking for opportunities to interrupt and places to step in. Or in between. There was usually enough space between the two for an adult mare of pleasant build to occupy, especially if she was about to offer the little dragon a chance to ride.

Rarity was trying to watch over Spike. Part of that came from knowing that he was young and innocent and relatively defenseless against the machinations of an attractive unicorn mare.

(A professional designer had to gauge appearances accurately, and so Rarity was willing to admit that the performer had a certain strictly visual appeal. The natural presumption was that anypony who got close enough to the stage for spotting it would then be in range of her odious personality, and any attraction would then more or less burn itself out.)

But the rest centered around possessing a certain level of knowledge concerning dragon biology.

It was a subject where they all knew a little, and none of them knew enough.

Twilight... she'd been struggling with that problem for the whole of Spike's lifetime. That so few dragons had grown up as Equestrian citizens, they hadn't left behind multiple bound volumes of their medical knowledge, and trying to get a library exchange program set up with the Burning Lands was effectively impossible.

When Spike became sick... they all felt helpless, and the temporary growth spurt had rendered the sensation into something exponential. But for Twilight, it would quickly turn into desperation. The little mare might start to consider consulting a vet again, because there had to be one somewhere who specialized in reptiles and perhaps any part of that knowledge would carry over. Or she would start to talk about heading into dragon territory. To bring back books. Or, should tomes be scant or the prospect of translation would potentially take too long, to just start hauling back dragons. Some of them would hoard just about anything, wouldn't they? And keeping medical information away from their fellows would turn that knowledge into something precious. Really, when you looked at it that way, then it was clearly just a matter of finding the right dragon...

It took a group effort to talk her out of it. Every time. And everypony still felt as if she was simply waiting for the moment when they stopped watching her for just long enough.

They all struggled when Spike became ill, even when he tended to bounce back with the resilience of a child. But Rarity had a special role during such mini-crises: she was his pharmacist. Because an ill little dragon tended to experience very specific cravings, as inner instincts directed him to consume something which would help. Name a gem, and it very likely had a medicinal use. And Rarity, who had more of a supply than some jewelry stores and a personal trick to let her seek out anything which might be missing...

Twilight often threatened to set out for the Burning Lands when Spike became ill. Rarity tended to either wind up in Canterlot or the local warren: in either case, her stock would have been lacking and surely marching through shadowed areas would eventually have her spell locate whatever was needed.

Rarity understood a little about how to treat Spike when he became ill. (Not enough. Never enough.) But she also knew what kind of situations were likely to make a little dragon sick in the first place. Too much exposure to deep chill, and she was forever trying to construct a winter outfit which he wouldn't wriggle out of. (She was probably giving him too much free play on the joints.) Anthracite, because that produced the kind of gaseous emissions which cleared out a room and because Spike was essentially a young boy, he'd occasionally wondered if it was possible to ignore the stomach cramps and just weaponize the rest.

And... moisture. The perpetual humidity of the rain forest had to be bringing Spike ever-closer to illness.

She was letting him ride on her back. Pinkie and Rainbow were also taking turns. Trying to let him rest as much as they could. Because they would find Twilight, reunite with librarian and farmer and caretaker, and Rarity needed to deliver a healthy little brother into the custody of his sister.

We'll all meet at the waterfall.

She had to believe that.
She had to make sure that the others kept believing that.
She was effectively in charge, because somepony had to be.

Rainbow would sometimes take the lead in moments of action, when there was both very little time or need for thought: during such occasions, it could be best to let instinct rule the day. And Pinkie offered direction when empathy was required, or would unite with Rarity to mutually puzzle out a truly complex social situation. Spike... saved them from themselves.

(The performer would presumably do well if any monsters showed up, either by negotiating with her own kind or being recognized as clear competition and providing the first target.)

But this was about keeping the miniherd focused and moving forward. And that had to be Rarity.

She could keep them going. But in order to do so, she needed to recognize when Rainbow had to rest. There was only so far you could push anypony before they broke, and...

...they were stopping for an hour. Pinkie was on watch, because she seemed to be having the least trouble with the environment and in any case, Rarity wasn't going to be stupid enough to trust that their burden would keep lookout. Not for anypony other than herself.

So if they were already resting... then Rarity could just sink down next to one of the thicker tree trunks. Let her body be supported by the cushion of too-warm, too-wet soil.

(She told herself that it wasn't triggering her rupophobia. She was already filthy. She couldn't possibly be triggering something which hadn't turned itself off for days.)

Perhaps close her eyes, if only for a moment.

She... had to check on Spike first. Make sure he was breathing properly. Somepony had to keep a constant watch on that.

The performer was a good distance away from him. Good. She could stay there.

Check on Pinkie.

Pinkie was sweating. It had reached the point where the moisture had saturated darkened fur, and drops simply fell away from her coat.

...close her eyes, if only for...

...they were traveling with a forced burden and Pinkie was sweating...

What can Rarity do to save them?

Die.

Having that death be exceptionally painful may raise the effective value somewhat. She's trying to come up with suggestions to offer, and knows she'll have to be careful not to appear as if she's stepping on the monster's creativity. Those who consider themselves artists often become upset if they're overridden, and the beast may view torment as freeform sculpture.

Regardless, bringing her demise in front of the public as an object lesson -- or, depending on what the monster does to her at the end, a fragmented one -- could provide a further boost...

'Negotiations'. That is how Rarity insists on describing the process to her friends and when she considers the sheer degree of repetition involved, it's possible that she's given the terminology enough strength to let it do some insisting on its own. Regardless of how the others continue to describe the process, it is no way haggling. A lady does not haggle. She negotiates and in what's probably going to be a fast-approaching (and final) example, tries to get the best possible value from the transaction.

She'll have to be very careful about her approach. There won't be any second chances. After all, when it comes to what she can potentially bring to the bargaining table, she can only die once.

The designer is not the only pony within the cathedral. She was, however, one of the first to be 'gifted' with a task. Because the monster needed to know how everypony could best serve, and... there was an interview process, of a sort. Not that there was very much to it, at least in the sense of truly getting to know your future slaves.

How much of a future do they have left?
Twilight's outside. She must have gone for Canterlot. The Princesses will know. Any minute, any hour, they will know. And then rescue will come.
...it may come too late...

...the monster didn't ask very many questions. But it was enough to tell Rarity that the beast isn't entirely sure about who all of them are. The monster has some degree of knowledge concerning Twilight, and very little else. It recognizes that several of the residents have a degree of connection with the librarian. There was a group which tried to chase when the little unicorn was being ejected from Ponyville, just before the dome came down: it would have been hard to miss that. But as for names, talents, roles... to the monster, the designer is mostly just some mare whose mane got discolored once. And spent subsequent hours in the bathroom, trying soaps and solvents in increasingly-desperate succession because none of the cleaning spells she knew were working on the two-tone green and she had to be clean again...

What can you do? That was what the monster had needed to know. What did Rarity have to offer, which would make the monster's reign that much more comfortable?

(A death. She can offer a single death.)

I sew.

Good.

...although there is some question of why the monster wishes for her to sew at all. Not when this beast can destroy with a thought, and occasionally manages a touch of creation as well. What would it ever truly need, when magic can seemingly grant any desire?

But the designer knows the answer, for she is not the only one in the cathedral of madness. The monster has one very clear, almost self-evident need: to show off. And how can you inflict torture without victims?

Applejack is still stomping on fruit. An applesauce facial: that's the monster's excuse. Rarity has doubts. Applejack was present within the audience which originally stood before the caravan, questioned the monster's capabilities. So now Applejack gets to work. Stomping about in the wood tubs, over and over. For hours, until even earth pony endurance begins to flag. And when that happens, the farmer is tickled back to wakefulness and made to keep going. Or the muscular body is briefly lifted by the distorted hues of a warped field, just before it gets slammed into the empty tubs.

Sometimes the wood breaks.
Or Applejack cries out in pain.
Or both.
It's frequently both.

There's a lot of pain in the cathedral, and one of the victims can't cry out at all.

There has been so much pain...

There were also moments of purest bravery.

Rarity, the other Bearers... it's not as if they were the only ponies subjected to 'interviews'. The monster has been querying so many pony residents about what they can do for her.

(Which suggests that she has no magic for reading minds. And if thoughts are still private...)

Some answered immediately, because fear can make words flow freely. A few had the same opening syllable emerge six times in a row. Others hesitated, and had to be -- prodded.

And then there was Time Turner. Who was polite. Almost genial about the whole thing. He came very close to being downright chatty, as his hooves casually drifted forward throughout the course of the talk.

The Trottingham native was calm, accepting of his fate, utterly willing to cooperate with whatever the monster desired, and kept that up until the moment when he judged himself to be close enough for the lunge.

It... should have worked.

He knocked the monster off her hooves. Then he was on top of her, with his teeth going directly for the amulet. And he pulled and pulled, it should have come off, it should and it hadn't moved at all.

Then the monster's horn had ignited.

...Redheart had been allowed into the cathedral after that. The bleeding had been stopped, multiple ponies had placed Time Turner onto the medical cart, and then the nurse had towed it away.

He'd screamed, when his flung body had hit the wall.

At least he had been left with the capacity for screaming...

...the designer is... creating banners.

If anypony comes for them, before the negotiations begin... if they can all be saved... then she'll need to clear something up immediately. She didn't choose the style. The monster did. Rarity, left to her own devices (the sewing variety included), never would have gone with red and black. It's such a cliché, and the color balance on this blend is horrific. Adding the goldenrod around the edges isn't exactly helping.

The monster could have simply wished for new decorations. Perhaps those banners would have magically sung her praises. Or screamed. But she requires an audience. Those she can dominate. And so the designer is creating banners, while two friends are tasked with hanging the results, another is occasionally slammed through wood, and the last...

..dances.

The monster keeps making Pinkie dance.

Quite a bit of that takes place in an enforced, mobile, reared-up position. Hind legs only. There's only so long anypony can balance like that, at least if they aren't Lyra. Pinkie's been falling over a lot. Some of the impacts hurt. And a pony who's been robbed of her snout can't cry out at all.

The monster keeps making Pinkie dance. The baker is being forced to exert herself. Over and over. She might be made to exercise until she drops...

The designer keeps her head low over the sewing device. Tries not to watch. Does nothing more than listen for the next fall, because the monster can't tell what she's thinking and so the thoughts need to be focused. She has to think of the right words, exactly the right ones, and yet odd little weeds of concept keep sprouting up in what she wishes to be a fully organized garden. Morbid sprouts, like the one which put an odd neutrality on the note that Pinkie's always been a little overweight and if the monster keeps this up, the baker is going to slim down in a hurry.

Of course, nothing sheds the tenth-bales like decomposition.

Pinkie is being forced to dance.
Exercise.
Which makes the earth pony sweat.
Eventually, that's going to lead to dehydration.
A pony with no snout cannot drink.

Pinkie is going to die.

...Redheart was allowed in once, and she isn't the only medical professional in Ponyville. Rarity has the vague impression that hydration could be temporarily managed by IV. And... is it possible to provide nutrients by placing them directly into the blood? She thinks so, but she's not sure of the exact details. It's been years since the last time her father was hospitalized, and... she hadn't been paying all that much attention to what was being used in the name of helping a professional hoofball player recover from the hit of his life. She'd simply been waiting at his bedside, watching through tears for that first moment when he could once again speak. And then it had been moons of further observation as he'd effectively learned how to walk all over again, followed by going back into training and then returning to the game...

(Her father had lived. Stayed intact long enough to retire as a player and move into the coaching ranks. But he still tends to move as if each muscle is receiving a silent self-test before use. )

...Pinkie, with proper medical attention, might be able to survive for quite some time. But that presumes the monster might be willing to allow such care. Perhaps she considers the pain to be more entertaining.

And possibly the slow, inexorable nature of the death would actually produce a laugh.

The monster has a very distinctive laugh.

Rarity has been trying to figure out what she would give up to hear it for the last time. Perhaps because it would end by turning into a gurgle, drowned in the sudden flow of blood because the designer has been working with a sewing device for hours now and the spare needles are right there.

In theory, all she needs is a single moment of distraction, an instant in which to ignite her horn, and a clear shot at the monster's throat.

...in reality, the monster had 'interviewed' Amethyst, then given the unicorn some hastily-printed pages and a bunch of tacks. Rules to post on the town's notice boards. Amethyst had nodded agreeably, taken up the supplies, gotten about halfway to the cathedral's door, and then returned the tacks.

...so brave...

...it's possible that Time Turner only got as far as he did because it was a purely physical assault. The monster automatically sensed the magic, and...

...Redheart wasn't needed for that one.
Amethyst won't be sitting down for a while.
(At least she kept her buttocks.)

Rarity has been allowed to work with needles because the designer isn't a threat. She possesses no spells for direct offense or defense, has the merest fraction of Twilight's raw field strength...

...it's... easy to become a little jealous, when you're friends with Twilight. To see everything the librarian can do, recognize that you personally can't manage any of it, and feel... inferior. As if you'll never be able to measure up, because what little magic you can bring to bear in your everyday life is effectively pointless. Compare that scant quantity of channeled thaums to that which can be managed by the winner of the blood lottery, and...

...Rarity tries not to feel that way too often. Watches for the emotions, guards herself against them and, when they start to intrude, does her best to banish them quickly. Because thoughts which move along that path will inevitably begin to travel in a collapsing, descending circle.

Spiraling down.

The dreaming unicorn could be described as having an Ego. And if pressed to discuss it by somepony she truly trusted, she might admit that it was something meant to be used for both offense and defense. She had to convince her customers that she knew what was right for them, after all -- along with effectively telling every fashion house which rejected her at the Talent Search that their hiring agents had been wrong.

If she didn't believe in herself, then she couldn't survive.

She also had a Look. An argument could be meant for Style, even if the rain forest was currently doing its best to remove all but the vocal. And those too were meant as weapons and armor alike.

There was a quasi-joke which got passed around in Ponyville: one which had initially done its best to make its way around her on the gallop, and had utterly failed because the mare who sat at the center of one social hub could recognize when traffic was being diverted. A few careful inquiries had eventually forced a rather nervous stallion into saying it to her snout.

One enchanted sewing device accident away from becoming a supervillain.

She'd pretended to laugh.

An Ego, a Look, and a Style.
Armaments and blockade.
The things which let her exist.

...the designer has been keeping her gaze low whenever possible, tending to the banners.

But she also keeps stealing glances at the monster.

There is a beast at the center of the cathedral, making Pinkie dance herself to death. And the designer is trying to evaluate what that monster might desire. It's just about always worth the effort to figure out a potential customer, especially when all she has to sell is herself.

The monster could be seen as attractive. She's also wearing something which is, quite frankly, completely the wrong outfit for her hues and whatever Style she might have been going for. The designer has made that decision on the level of instinct, and already came up with an inner sketch which suggested something rather more suitable for a dictator.

...she tried to tell herself that it was something else she could offer. I can make this for you, if you just...

...maybe it would be accepted.

Or perhaps the monster would ignite that distorted corona again, as the intensity of reddened eyes came close to an outright glow. Create the new garment with a mere thought. And laugh.

...somepony has to help them.

Twilight must be heading for Canterlot. The Princesses will know, and then...
...they can defeat the monster.
The beast at the center of the cathedral of pain isn't stronger than the Diarchy.
She can't be.
...please don't let her be...

...but it may take time. Twilight's hardly the fastest pony on hoof, and she won't risk a teleport to Canterlot until she's sure that she's within her range: this is probably going to require standing at the base of the mountain. She might be able to signal a passing air carriage before that, gain some speed, but...

...assume that hours may be required. Possibly more than a day. It could even be two, or stretch out into a duration which requires the imprisoned to start figuring out how to best survive in the new (and temporary, it has to be temporary) land of Trixietopia.

A pony who goes without water for two days is almost guaranteed to develop colic. And that's with somepony who isn't being forced to exercise at Pinkie's current rate.

(The earth pony is being made to stand on her hind hooves again. She spins, jumps, lands, and falls.)

After that...

...the designer is trapped in the cathedral as splinters embed themselves in Applejack's skin and Pinkie dances closer to the edge of death. Rainbow and Fluttershy... they're only safe for now, because the monster will eventually become bored. Especially after there's one less victim to torment.

Rarity can come up with improvements for the hat and cape. (She seldom finds occasions to loathe her own talent, and one of the very few comes when she recognizes how to best work with any inevitable bloodstains.) And she can go up to the monster, offer to do so much, to do everything desired for a lifetime if only the beast will...

The trains can't reach the station. Surely word of that got back to the Grand Gymkhana and from there, the palace.
The Diarchy has to know.
Maybe they're already trying to get in.
...maybe they can't...

...and Rarity is in the cathedral, supposedly safe as long as she just keeps sewing, safe and helpless, weak and pointless and helpless to do anything while two friends are tormented and one is dying and she would place herself in the center of the pain, feel every bit of agony for them because having to watch and listen as they suffer is so much worse than being attacked herself, she wants the monster to come after her and not them, never them, leave them alone and

take me
hurt me
if you desire, if it'll give you a single moment of amusement but just
restore Pinkie
give her a voice, a mouth, a chance to live
kill me instead

...Luna... had said something to her, shortly after a seasonal poker game had wrapped up. The hosting duties had rotated to the Boutique, just about everypony else had headed home, and Luna had remained for a time. Coming into the kitchen, where she helped Rarity finish the cleanup. It had started out as a rather odd experience, in part because you really didn't expect to get alicorns in kitchens. (This had held true even after Twilight's change, because anypony who hoped to get a decent meal at the tree was well-advised to let Spike do just about all of the cooking.)

The dark Princess had talked about a few subjects, as they'd mutually put dishes away and Rarity had resisted the urge to correct Luna's resorting of the plate storage system on the spot. But eventually, the topic had turned to -- generosity. The virtue itself, as embodied in necklace and, on a good day, its Bearer.

To give freely, without price or thought of personal cost.

Rarity had briefly laughed. Said something about how it was an odd Element for somepony who arguably worked in retail to bear, especially as survival required the Boutique to turn a profit and -- there had already been a number of non-customers who thought that the virtue meant she had to give everything away. To whoever might ask, for nothing at all.

Luna hadn't said anything. The alicorn had just continued to rearrange the contents of Rarity's cabinets. And the designer, feeling a little desperate in the wake of a jest which had utterly failed to land, quickly added that some didn't see how the trait of generosity could possibly be a virtue at all!

That there were times when... Rarity had wondered (and her head had dipped) what made her worthy of a necklace...

A cool, dark horn had touched the tip of its white counterpart.

"You know why it is one of the virtues," Luna had said. "On the level of mark and soul, you know. Why it stands equal with the others, and..." somewhat more softly "...at the very end, at the last, when it is truly needed... rises above."

"...how can it...?"

"Because the final gift of Generosity," the alicorn had told her, "is sacrifice."

She hadn't understood. Not then.

She understands now.

And so the designer forces herself to sew, because that lets her remain close. She can listen (and hates what she hears). Watch the beast, when she can. Evaluate, and figure out the best possible approach for selling herself. And it'll have to be an expert pitch, because she only has the one demise to offer.

But she has to try.

(Another pair of crashes. Applejack's hip is sent into another plank, and then Pinkie falls.)

How many lives can she trade for a single death? The most likely result is one for one, and that would mean saving Pinkie. She may be able to up the stakes somewhat if she can propose a truly spectacular demise. All she needs to do is make the approach with dignity, grace, utter commitment, and a certain degree of speed because at some point, she's probably going to start shaking and that's not going to help anything.

(Unless the monster likes to see fear. Maybe she should tremble from the outset.)

Of course, as far as negotiating with the monster goes, there's a certain question as to just how long anypony who's talking will get to keep their mouth.

But she has to try.

She will try. Once it becomes clear that nopony will arrive to save them -- to save Pinkie -- in time. She'll offer up the last of herself, everything she has and is and could ever be, to be placed on the pyre of a monster's burning mirth.

Except that...
...she WILL try.
She has to.
But she will be negotiating with a monster.

She does not fear death, while standing so close to its edge. That surprises her. There's just a rather simple peace, and the willingness to wait for the right moment.
But there is a terror lurking within.

That she will give up the whole of her being, if doing so will save a single pony. Her mind, dreams, life, and soul.
The remnants of her corpse will collapse onto cold ground. The monster will laugh. Turn to face the saved.

And
kill
them
anyway.

After the Amulet had been removed, well after Trixie was gone and long before Rarity learned that Princesses could make mistakes because parole or probation or whatever it was had clearly been the wrong decision... she had thought about what they'd read from the book. The Amulet was a corruptive influence? Well, it wasn't as if it had needed to put in very much work on that. You took a mare who clearly lived by her Ego and gave it an excuse to go out of control.

...that was all it had been, really. An excuse.

...there had been a dream, shortly after they'd all been freed. Once things were back to normal, and some degree of recovery had begun.

Her nightscape had traveled to the capital's Fashion District, because Rarity had been wanting to say a few things to the ponies who felt they were in charge of it for a very long time. And with a certain piece of jewelry around her dream self's neck, the time was clearly opportune...

...she'd laughed, after she'd woken up.

After she'd staggered out of bed, forced herself into the shower, and scrubbed until all of the night sweats had been washed away.

There had also been the matter of finding Opal. The cat had ultimately been located in the supply room, with just a bit of tail visible past concealing fabric rolls. And nothing Rarity had said could coax her out. She'd eventually had to take her pet up within the field bubble, carry her down to the kitchen and offer the feline canned fish until the last strands of fur resumed their normal grain.

She remembered having laughed in the dream. Rather a lot, especially as burning bolts of cloth had rained down from the sky and the world became a better place. Also a much more stylish one. And she laughed once she was clean again, because it was just a silly little dream and no actual harm had been done.

No harm at all.

She'd been moving a lot in the dream. Perhaps that had startled Opal.

Perhaps she'd been laughing in her sleep...

In some ways, every Bearer was a distorted vision of every other. They recognized that now. There were occasional jokes. Trying to find Fluttershy's aspect within Rainbow, that was good for a few laughs. Seeing Applejack within Pinkie...

Rarity hated Trixie, and there were so many reasons for that. But there was a part of her which took care to only regard the performer through a mist of rage.

It did a lot to obscure the reflection.

Node

"Does anypony know a way to kill water?"

The farmer, whose powerful body had momentary settled itself against a tree within the micro-clearing while Fluttershy began the orientation-checking ascent, indulged in a blink. Then she did it again. It was an entirely honest reaction, and it also bought her some time to think of a few actual words.

"Sorry, Twi?" was eventually offered up on the Altar Of Conversational Sacrifice, and waited for sharpened syllables to descend.

The little mare grumbled to herself for a few seconds.

"Water," the librarian repeated, and the slender body went through what had probably been intended as an exacting sort of moisture-shedding shake: instead, nearly everything which came off the fur went into the cloth, some of what had been bound in fabric headed for her eyes, and the half-bandaged wings seldom had any more idea of what to do with themselves than their owner. "How can we kill it?"

Applejack managed a light chuckle. "Ain't sure that's possible, Twi. Been a while since Ah had chemistry classes, but -- it's all jus' changes of state, ain't it?"

"I want to change its state," Twilight muttered. "Change it from 'exists' to 'doesn't'."

The earth pony made a minor show of ignoring that. "Ah mean, y'can turn it into steam with enough heat, but all that's gonna do is raise the humidity --"

"-- I'm not sure that's possible. We've got to be at saturation, and you can't do supersaturation in atmosphere without a pegasus. Like what that one moron tried to arrange with the library because he thought Spike was a fire hazard --"

She stopped. Her head drooped.

Applejack verbally scrambled to cover the emotional gap before the librarian fully fell in. "-- and if'fin we could lower the temperature somehow, get ice... it ain't gonna hold for long. Not around here. So unless you've got a different kind of idea..." And waited.

They both heard several small branches break overhead. Tiny pieces of wood rained down between them: some of the leaves descended with more of a drift pattern. Slightly-oversized wings tried to push through new gaps, and birds made the sort of sounds which probably worked out to 'complaint'. They were mostly presuming about the complaining. It was possible that some of it was actually cursing, but there were usually limits on how much Fluttershy was willing to translate.

Finally, the slender purple head came up a little.

"Separate it," Twilight said. "With electricity. It's mostly a party trick, but it works. Turn it back into hydrogen and oxygen."

"An' it'll probably come back together eventually," Applejack reminded her. "Most things do."

"In a few hours," the librarian argued. "If we were lucky. And if there was some way to do a lot of water at once --"

"-- with lightnin'," the earth pony checked.

"Yes!"

"When Rainbow ain't brought you that far," Applejack noted. "An' Ah don't think that's the sort of thing y'wanna be tryin' on your own jus' yet."

"It's something to do," Twilight grumbled. "Something practical. I'd think you of all ponies would appreciate it when somepony decides to put in a little extra effort --"

Casually, "-- umbrella spell still ain't workin'?"

The little mare sighed.

"No."

They were in a rain forest, and the name hadn't been given out for the sake of irony. Even when the occluded sky was temporarily clear, moisture tended to pelt down from the taller greenery: any moment of contact was going to dislodge something. And when it came to staying dry...

Actual pony umbrellas were back-mounted affairs. The base went over the center of the spine, and a carefully-cinched strap kept it there. The fabric had a considerable radius, because it had to go beyond the head, tail, and the full span of any flared wings: ideally, any water running off the top would come down well away from the actual pony. It was like moving with a single-surface tent, one which still took up a lot of room -- and it would have been effectively impossible to push that fabric through the denser portions of the forest without destroying the whole rig. Not that it mattered, because even the Princesses had potentially proven themselves subject to a simple truth: anypony packing in a hurry without benefit of checklist was going to forget something and unless the split of supplies had sent all of them to the other group, the neglected item had been umbrellas.

And Twilight was tired of being wet. (The clothing just made it worse.)

She had the option to levitate something and carry it above her body. The problem was that anything levitated was, by definition, being held in a field. And liquids acted in strange ways when they came into contact with active fields. They flowed along the outer surface in tiny rivers and odd tributaries: twisting, dividing, coming back together, and not entirely subject to gravity -- until a sufficient quantity managed to pool on the underside. And then it would start to drip. A lot, typically while aiming for her eyes.

Shields didn't function in quite the same way. A shield would stop water entirely. (Not air. Air went through a shield, but generally lost a lot of velocity along the way. A shield had to be air-permeable, because the other option was for a caster to defend themselves into unconsciousness.) They also weren't mobile. Twilight could create a shield dome, even attempt to manipulate the shape so that only the apex remained -- but it wasn't a natural shape for the spell. It didn't hold for long. It also had to be anchored to something -- tree branches were fine -- and continued to work brilliantly for the whole of its cut-down duration after the triumphant caster had trotted out from under it.

So she'd been trying something new. A hidden field, one which wasn't holding anything. An invisible, carefully-shaped slice of energy with a depression in the center. The idea was that ideally, after a lot of study regarding just how those strange streams moved, the water would wind up there. Sure, she would have to drop it almost instantly if they came within sight of a foreign sapient because that party was inevitably going to wonder why Twilight had a small lake hovering over her back, but at least she would potentially have a little time of being dry. Or, given the humidity, soaked in a somewhat more generalized way.

It was just the first stage of the experiment, of course. But it was something to do while they moved. Something to think about which wasn't... the lost.

Hiding a field usually changed the way in which the magic worked. Having the water temporarily held had been the goal. Feeling the liquid impacts from freshly-added kinetic energy had come as something of a surprise. Some of the newly-consolidated mega-drops had hit with enough force to sting...

(Twilight was trying to file the initial results under the general category of Knowledge Acquired. It wasn't necessarily knowledge which was good for anything, but at least somepony was now in the rather soaked position to make that decision personally.)

The farmer bemusedly shook her head. "Y'need water for life, Twi. Wouldn't have this much green around here without that much wet. The more water, the more life --"

"Until you drown," Twilight cut her off.

"Well," Applejack carefully said, "then you get rivers. Lakes. The ocean, eventually. That's another kind of place t' live --"

"-- I'm drowning in life," the librarian grumbled. "Plants. Leaves. Vines. All of the ground-level stuff. And you can't just push through, because we're trying not to leave too blatant of a trail. In case we get tracked by the wrong sapients." Instead of the right ones, but Twilight's group was supposed to be closing in...

"Twi," a doubled caution tried to break in.

"And if you accidentally shove one bush, eighty birds come out," the little mare stated. "Scattering in all directions, except for the ones which wouldn't go through my mane. And then they're upset, and they don't want to talk with Fluttershy until they calm down. Which somehow means doing other things, which mostly also try to wind up in my mane. Plus I swear half of what flies around here are parrots, and I can't even say how I really feel about it or we're going to start hearing echoes."

There were some avian sounds coming from overhead now. A number had been produced by a pony throat.

"Also, do you know why there's no such thing as seaponies?"

"Can't say Ah do --"

"-- because it's the stupidest idea ever." She paused. "And they all drowned."

A little more bemused now, "Twi."

The librarian stopped. Tried another fully ineffective body shake, and then sighed.

I need another distraction.

Knowing that she was trying to distract herself didn't seem to be helping.

I could look at the notes again.

A very old thought drifted up from the bottom of a long-ignored checklist.

...I could try using my trick...?

No, that was stupid. She had copies. All she'd get would be --

-- above them, small wings scattered. The larger pair began to carefully descend.

"...I'm starting to see the edge of our side," Fluttershy softly said. "For the mountain. And I got a hint of the waterfall when I moved a little more. We're getting close to where we can turn, Twilight."

Closer to them.

The little mare managed a slow exhale. "So we just have to stay on track," she said. "Go up a few more times during the day, and make sure we stay oriented."

A shapely head nodded -- but the beautiful features (for the half which could be seen) slightly contorted as the hybrid touched down.

Fluttershy took a breath. Glanced over at Applejack, turned back to Twilight, hesitated...

"...a pair of birds came back while I was up there," she finally said. "Two of the ones I'd asked to scout. They still haven't seen any ponies. But I also asked them about what was going to be ahead of us, once we made the turn. If they knew about anything dangerous, because... " Another hesitation, and then effort was channeled into the soft voice. "...we've been -- lucky, haven't we? I keep thinking that we should have found at least one monster by now. So maybe they're -- where we're going."

Where the others already are.

She tried not to shiver. Told herself that galloping forward would do no good, and calling out names when those you cared about were too far away to hear...

It's my fault.

"An' what did they say, 'Shy?" Applejack carefully asked.

"That... they don't know about that side of the mountain," the caretaker quietly replied. "And it's not a territory issue, because I made sure to ask the ones who had a lot of travel range. They just don't go there. Not near the waterfall, or anything close to the base." A little more quickly, "And they didn't say it's because there's something there which hunts them. They didn't say anything about strange sights, sounds, or odors. It doesn't feel like they're afraid. It's more like they don't want to be there."

Both mares were now looking at Twilight.

A spell? It would be easy enough to set up the resonance for avoidance --
-- well, it's easy once you know the working.
But it's a pretty large area. Nopony could really cover it with a single casting.
Which doesn't mean there might not be different emitting points set up...
...don't gallop.
Don't cry out.
We're not close enough for anypony to hear.

There were so few spells which aided in communication and once Twilight got everypony safely back to the tree, there were going to be more.

"And that's where we're all headed," she carefully reminded them, and felt so much of her remaining strength being channeled into keeping the words steadied. "So let's keep going."

The trio began to move.

We'll see them soon.
We have to.

Spike couldn't truly know how Rainbow felt about having him on her back when she went above the canopy for an orientation check. If he had to guess, then... the pegasus probably thought that he wanted a moment of temporary escape just as badly as she. Plus the humidity wasn't quite as concentrated when you got past the trees, and breathing became a little easier. (He was trying not to think too much about his own breathing.) So to that extent, she was perfectly happy to bring him with her.

Both were valid reasons for wanting to accompany Rainbow. Spike just also happened to feel that the weather coordinator would be somewhat less likely to fully give in to the claustrophobia while he was present. Making a full-speed desperate break for truly open skies was somewhat complicated by the aerodynamics-wrecking presence of a passenger.

Which assumed that a truly freaked-out Rainbow would remember that he was even there. But that was the chance he had to take.

They both looked at the waterfall, so much closer now. Her sleek body was shivering somewhat. Energy waiting to be released.

"We're not that far out," he tried to reassure her. "Maybe a few more hours. And then we can camp."

We can wait for the others to catch up.

They had to --

Rainbow squinted.

"The air's a little weird up ahead," she said.

"How?"

Cyan eyelids continued to narrow. "The flow pattern coming towards us is sort of off. The mountain is the primary interference, but it feels like there's more than that. And..."

She hesitated.

Rainbow hardly ever --

"...are you sure we should be going that way?"

Spike blinked.

"It's where we arranged to meet," he reminded her. "That's where they'll be looking for us."

"Yeah, I know," she huffed. "It just feels like maybe we might be better off going to the side a little. Away from all of the water." With unusual caution, "I don't think you need to be around too much more water."

"Rainbow --"

Immediately, with rather more of the usual directness "-- you're on my back, Spike. It's not just hearing how you're breathing: it's feeling it. How sick are you?"

They have enough to worry about.

"It's not as bad as it sounds," he tried to tell her. "And being up here helps."

The answering nod felt like a rather reluctant specimen. "...yeah. Too bad we've gotta go back down --" and squinted again. "-- and now that's weird."

He automatically tried to spot what she was looking at, and saw nothing at all. "What is?" It was probably a factor which was only visible through pegasus sight.

"I thought I saw a couple of sparkles. Like spell sparkles. In the air. Close to the waterfall."

Twilight? If the other group had somehow found a way to get ahead...

Spike immediately leaned forward. Squinted...

...nothing.

He sighed. Why would Twilight even be projecting her field into the sky, anyway? "It's probably just sunlight going through the water spray at a weird angle."

"Best. Eyesight," Rainbow instantly shot back. "I know what prism effects look like." Her tail came up, arced and tickled his spinal crests. "I'm a prismatic. That was a sparkle."

"Reflections from the cave?"

She thought about that.

"...maybe," Rainbow decided. "If it hit the water spray in just the right way, I guess. But it looked like a spell sparkle."

He was still squinting, and he couldn't see it. No tiny motes of light, let alone any unusual surrounding hues. Just normal sky, water, and rock.

They still stayed above the canopy for an extra three minutes, searching for other signs. But it was impossible to spot anything at ground level, and the sky was simply the sky.

A few hours out. Just a few more hours, and they could stop. Wait for friends and family. For that joyous moment of reunion, when he could just rush forward and bury his face in the soft fur of Twilight's flank...

(He had to be careful not to push too tightly, because that was when it started to feel like his scales were rubbing directly against her ribs. Plus these days, he needed to stay clear of the wings. Spike didn't know what to do with the wings during hugs, and Twilight didn't either.)

Just a few hours of moving along. That was all it should have been.

The problems started within the first five minutes.

Rainbow kept arguing for Spike to choose and relay the location of another place where they could all meet. Something which would be clearly better for his health than camping out near a waterfall.

Pinkie had taken the lead, and... she was veering off to the right. Slowly, subtly, to the point where it took some time to see the true change in her course -- but they had to correct her. Over and over.

Rarity was slowing up. Each hoofstep was performed under the pressure of increasing reluctance, as stained legs just barely pushed forward.

There were more of those odd-smelling patches of milky quartz. Spike was avoiding them on instinct now, never allowing himself to get closer than five body lengths because that was where the stink got really bad. It wasn't the most promising sign for the local gem quality, and his body was still demanding opals.

And Trixie...

"I feel something," she tried to say for the third time from her position at the rear of the group. (Very nearly outside the miniherd entirely, barely a part of anything at all.) Her head kept moving back and forth, as if the horn was testing the air. "I can't pin it down, but I'm feeling --"

"-- and your education has neglected the true definition of a monster," Rarity snapped. "Which would be something that cannot care. I'm sure you are capable of feeling many things. 'Inadequate' has been proven. 'Common sense', however, would be less of a feeling and more of a forbidden condition. And I am still not prepared to believe anything which claims to come from the regret family."

Trixie shut up.

...maybe we should steer to the right.
My chest feels tight, and we're heading towards more water.
I can risk a scroll. Arrange another meeting point. They'll be able to find us.
Maybe...

...no. It was possible that Twilight's group wouldn't be in a position to change course, and the Princesses were expecting them to all try for the waterfall. They had to stick with the original plan.

We have to...

It was becoming harder to move. The vegetation was thickening, and Pinkie's larger form was having trouble scouting. Rarity, who possessed a smaller build, took the reluctant lead. More stains accrued.

...maybe we could divert, just enough to find a place to slip through --

The sounds of hooves fighting to push through the ground vegetation intensified: little slips of position leading to keratin clicking against wet pebbles. And it felt as if the air was acquiring density, they were all fighting to move forward, to move, to go off to the side would clearly be so much easier, and Spike was slipping towards the back, Rainbow passed him, then Pinkie, he had just about lost enough ground to bring him parallel with Trixie, they were all starting to enter a relative clearing, fully shaded from the sky while still being one of the largest hollows they'd found in the forest and they could barely move, there had to be another way through or around or just to leave, they could just send a scroll to Twilight, have both groups send up the evacuation signal from sight-shielded areas, reunite and start over from Canterlot and just leave --

-- it was, in many ways, the sort of noise you only truly heard at the moment when it stopped.

There was a moment when the song of avoidance within his head ceased. The instant when a Gifted School education first started to recognize that it had likely been imposed, and it was a slice of time during which too much else happened.

The song ended, and the atmosphere loosened. He took a single normal step.

Up ahead of him, there was the sound of hooves pushing through a rain forest. Ponies trotting as they should, if only for that instant.

Then his auditory spines perked. All around him, pony ears went up, strained forward. Because there were hooves in the rain forest, they'd been hearing their own hooves for days, and now there were more hooves. And it might not have been other ponies because there were so many ungulate species in the world, but the movements were regular and controlled and coming towards them, there were multiple creatures moving and if they were sapient, if they were friends and family --

-- there were hooves in the rain forest. Coming directly towards them.

Reunion would have meant three sets.

This was closer to twelve --

-- there was no time to discuss anything. They were in a relative clearing, and the vegetation density of everything around it would have given Rainbow issues in evacuating quickly. No chance to run or plan when it was all so very close and coming closer still. Spike began to spot hints of brighter colors beyond the clearing's border, hues on the approach, it was all almost right on top of them and he could see the Bearers, their gazes starting to seek each other out, trying to send thoughts through the air when nopony truly knew what to do --

-- and then Trixie did the first thing she thought of.

There was no grey-tinged light. Her horn remained dark throughout. But something invisible seized Spike's body, lifted it, scales and crests tingled as he was pulled backwards and up, walking claws parting from the ground, humid air flowing past his nostrils as the ascent angle increased --

-- the hidden field deposited him among a thick, concealing copse of branches and leaves, about three times his own height above the ground. Vegetation blocked his line of sight for a moment, and walking claws stumbled to find fresh purchase on wood. His body tilted forward, and he grabbed for the thicker extensions, felt his scales contact bark --

-- light appeared in front of him, just for a second. Trixie's corona hue. And then the patch of illumination twisted, thinned, and shaped itself into a single word.

Communication.

The light winked out.

He stared. Got ready to scramble down --

-- and then the other ponies stepped out of the treeline.

And for everything which happened next, he could only watch.

Everything would have been different if he'd moved. Dropped down. Perhaps, in the fantasies which took some time to fully arrive, aimed directly at the mare in the center and breathed.

Fire in the forest. A constant risk. But it would have been a chance...
...a chance which would have failed.
He would have had no reason to try it. None at all.
And yet, in his dreams...

There were actually thirteen of them and in reality, it only would have taken one. The other twelve were just present for appearances, and what ultimately worked out to be a much lesser show of force.

When it came to watching over the others... with Twilight so far away, Spike's most natural attunement was to initially check on Rarity. Something which meant that he saw her reaction as the bulk of the ponies came out of the treeline, because her attention was immediately drawn to their clothing.

Twelve were dressed. Even within the heat and seemingly-perpetual humidity of the rain forest, they were almost fully dressed. The mares had skirts which went all the way back to the dock before arcing over the tail, while the stallions had been caught in pants. And a little dragon who visited the Boutique just about as often as he could get away with was going to pick up rather more than the fundamentals.

The outfits were somewhat green-stained, because those ponies had been pushing through vegetation for some time. They were also... basic.

Rarity had said it once, and done so with a laugh: that in essence, all clothing was just stitched-together tubing, and a key part of her job was in making sure that nopony truly thought about that. And it was impossible to look at these designs and think about anything else.

It wasn't as bad as what had come from Applejack's creations during the mark switch, because there were ways in which it was worse. Applejack had possessed something very close to an anti-talent for design, which had regretfully been paired with a near-magnetic attraction to canvas -- but the farmer had been trying. She'd been pouring her heart into every last error. She had bled mistakes. The ability hadn't been there: the drive had. And with that which the dozen wore... stitched-together tubes. You found a pattern, you followed the pattern, and you didn't think very much about exactly what was going into it. Color balance, minor acts of flair, personal touches... all absent. There were instructions and when the last one was rattled through a running stitch, the process was clearly over.

The dozen didn't exactly wear the results. There was cloth, and there was a pony under it. The actual look was closer to moving drapery, only with mandatory buttons.

There were four pegasi, and their wings didn't seem to sit properly in the rest position. The unicorns had their heads tilted a little too far forward, as if unsure how to bear a foreign weight. All of the earth ponies came to a full stop, and every ear was just about flat against the skull.

And then the thirteenth pony emerged. Stepping through a precise gap in the line, as if she'd been waiting for the others to finish granting her the ideal corridor.

She came to an exacting stop. Everything stopped moving at the same time, and it was possible to watch the entire process because she was only wearing a pair of small, plain saddlebags.

The blue eyes were the first things to start up again. The calm intensity of her gaze switched its focus from one intruding mare to another, and it was almost as if he could spot fur rippling under all of the heavily-stained cloth --

-- she reached Trixie and, in doing so, nearly skimmed past Spike.

Handling claws almost loosened their grip. He snatched at the wood, pulled in air, tried to keep his head down...

How to describe her? He would wind up making a few attempts, while never quite feeling as if he'd managed the vehemence of it. Because he was a dragon who'd grown up among ponies, had learned their expressions and postures until everything around him became natural and his own form was the last foreign thing. He understood ponies, and so a deep instinct recognized that something was wrong.

On the most basic level... a unicorn mare. But to look any closer...

She wasn't large. For height, she was about halfway between Rarity and Rainbow. Her build was that of a pony who broke up extended periods of stillness with intermittent-but-dedicated trotting. The torso lacked visible strength, but something about the hips and shoulders suggested a mare who was ready to push forward for a very long time.

The coat was lilac, and it was entirely clean. There wasn't a single chlorophyll stain on any visible strand. (It was possible to feel Rarity's envy, and Spike almost suspected the first words in any exchange would be to ask about any dirt-repelling spell effects.) Some grooming was present, mostly to make sure that the natural grain was being rigorously followed. As for the mane... that made him think of Twilight's most natural tendencies. In both cases, it was a style which existed because the mane did, and it clearly had to be put out of the way. This one had created an elevated lump of curving bundle just behind the horn, then let the rest fall off to one side. One minute in front of a mirror to arrange it every morning and after the first few moons, you could skip the mirror.

There was a narrow teal streak within the purple, and it had been told to fend for itself.

The tail... it took some time to spot what was wrong with the tail. It didn't sway properly. There were almost no small twitches, and those which did appear were always slightly mistimed. It was a tail which received its orders on delay.

Her mark was a pair of superimposed diamonds. Two curls of something very much like stylized steam were coming off the points.

And her face...

...he couldn't figure out how old she was. Spike tried to force his attention onto her snout, then checked around the eyes for lines in the fur (while trying not to make actual eye contact), and... nothing seemed to be fixed. He would feel as if he'd spotted a small crease, and then something about it would blur. She could have been Rarity's age, or two decades older. She might have graduated secondary school a mere six moons ago. And he was sure she wasn't using cosmetics, because you couldn't hang around the Boutique and not eventually wind up holding a full assortment of powders until the owner was ready to apply them -- but something about the lilac mare's features refused to be pinned to a calendar.

It was possible to watch her think, especially since she did very little else. She looked over the group again, as the ponies who'd accompanied her stood silent. And the power of that gaze didn't so much move as flicker. It was in one place, and then it went to another. It was a gaze which existed without transitive states.

She seldom looked at anypony. Towards was more common. After that first examination, she was mostly regarding the places where mares happened to be.

But she did focus, now and again. She was looking over Rarity, and Spike belatedly realized that nopony had ever applied any fur dye: plant-staining wasn't the best substitute. Then her attention flickered to Trixie, the only one who wasn't dressed. And when she did focus...

Fluttershy had a Stare. This pony possessed a mobile knife. It was an evaluation with an edge, and he felt as if it stood ready to slice away anything it didn't like.

Everything about her was perfectly normal, and remained so for periods of up to five seconds. Or until you truly looked. Watched as she thought, because... that was what she did. She thought.

A smile arrived on the lilac mare's face.

It would take some time for Spike to fully realize that. Pinkie... she seemed to have spotted it immediately, or simply knew it on the level of instinct and mark. It was something which made the baker pull back slightly, as the curly tail was forced to freeze in mid-lash. That the smile had arrived, because the mare had decided the time was right for it to be there.

And then she spoke.

There was no accent to her words. There was also very little in the way of rhythm. There were times when it was almost possible to hear syllables being slotted into place, but... she mostly gave off the impression of somepony who'd been swapped into a play at the last minute. She didn't know what the lines were supposed to be, and it meant the sentences were being read from a prompt box somewhere behind the clearing.

"Welcome," the lilac mare said, and nothing about the word reached the rest of her body. "I'm so pleased to have you here."

The other twelve ponies -- smiled.

"Welcome!" the herd declared, and did so with a light sway of tails and near-coordinated stomp of hooves.

The group version of the expression was more sincere. It was also slightly too wide, and Spike caught a few of them looking at each other. As if they were checking to see if a given pony was smiling properly.

Pinkie pulled back a little more. Just enough to see. And the baker was... silent.

Rainbow was hovering just above the tallest ground plants, and -- she hadn't charged in. There hadn't been a single brash demand for anypony to explain what they were doing here and, while they were at it, own up. It wasn't a combat situation and for now, the pegasus was letting the others take the lead.

Trixie hadn't moved.

Rarity inhaled.

It was easy for Spike to recognize her initial expression, because he'd seen variants before. It could be described as If There Is Any Benefit To Applejack Not Being Here, It Is Because I Am About To Lie My Own Tail Curls Straight And Nopony Needs To Watch Her Pretending Not To Cringe.

"We were hardly expecting to see other ponies here," Rarity smiled. "Let alone such welcoming ones."

The lilac mare's ears took in the words. Processed them.

"And yet you have."

There had been an initial choice of two cover stories. 'Performing troupe' seemed to be out.

"We are explorers," Rarity offered. (It was possible that even Applejack might have supported that, on technicality.)

"Well..." The lilac mare hesitated, and the next words seemed to push their way through verbal undertow. "...you've certainly found something."

The rest of the herd was silent. Letting the leader do all of the work.

Rarity smiled a little more.

"My name is Faceti," the designer said. "A geologist. Seeking out rare gems in distant lands --"

The unicorn's horn ignited. Turquoise light, of a familiar and exacting shade, flowed up to the tip. Spike's handling claws gouged shallow channels in the bark.

Her corona moved backwards, opened the left saddlebag, delved within, then brought out an inkwell and quill. Two more breaths extracted a notebook.

The notebook was old. It was a very dark brown, which went a long way towards concealing most of the stains. The corners of both covers had been rounded into nothingness. The spine had been heavily reinforced, to the point where it creaked slightly upon opening. It was oddly difficult to pin down just how thick it was.

The inkwell opened itself. A fresh quill was dipped.

"Faceti," the caster repeated as she wrote it down, allowing the quill to move freely while she failed to look at the page. "Geologist. Gemologist, technically, if you've specialized that far."

"Well, yes," Rarity readily agreed. "Most ponies just don't know the term. I'm surprised when anypony does --"

"-- I study," the mare unevenly cut in.

"Clearly." The designer nodded towards Pinkie. "And this is --"

"-- there are priorities other than names," the lilac mare said, and those words had been -- smooth. "Even for -- explorers, yes? -- this is a wild zone. A foreign one. And you all look as if you would benefit from a place of safety." The blue eyes flickered across Rarity again. "I'm sure you'd like a chance to wash up, at the very least. Rest. Recover."

There was something tight about Pinkie's entire body. But Rainbow was letting Rarity lead, and Trixie -- didn't have a role. A place.

"Because you've found something better than just a few ponies in the rain forest," said the leader, and something about the next words felt as if they'd been held against a lathe.

The smile appeared again, and fixed itself into place.

"You've found a community," the lilac mare told them. Her tail unevenly swayed.

One of the male earth ponies stepped forward.

"Welcome," he sincerely declared. "We're happy to have you!"

"We're happy we found you," added a pegasus mare. "Imagine the luck!"

"We do hope you'll stay," the smallest unicorn stallion chimed in. "It's been a while since our last new friends, and -- explorers! You must have stories to tell!"

"Lots!" Rainbow finally spoke up. "You can't imagine half of them! And you might not believe the rest!"

"So..." And the hesitant tones had come from Pinkie. "...are we going with them?"

Rarity tossed off a casual lie of a shrug.

"We've certainly found something," she declared. "I would call it our job as explorers to quantify exactly what it is. To do any less would be..." And paused, searching for the proper words.

"Bad science?" the lilac mare suggested.

"Yes," the designer agreed. "And of course, a proper bath would be lovely. Along with an exchange of stories."

The unicorn leader visibly thought about that.

"More of a Pundamilia Makazi tradition," she eventually said.

"Yes..." Rarity tried. "But I'm sure there's quite the tale in why a community of ponies is here!"

The lilac mare eventually nodded.

"Yes."

And that was all. Simple, toneless agreement, while a dozen other ponies stood silent.

Rarity turned her head, glanced back. Checking on the others, making sure they were with her on this. Found extremely tentative agreement from Pinkie, a quick nod from Rainbow, just about skipped over Trixie --

-- it was possible for Spike to spot the exact moment when she realized he wasn't there.

Stained ears flicked back. Her spine tightened. Portions of her ruined clothing went out of alignment.

A little too loudly, "You are all with me on this, I trust?"

Trixie took one hoofstep forward.

"Unless you want to double back and look for that one alexandrite sample," she said. "The one which I'm still sure is in your saddlebags." Confidently, "It'll turn up."

Alexandrite.
Green and purple.

Too many expressions passed across the designer's face, in the moment when she was still looking away from the herd. Most of them registered as fear. Anger was about a hoofstep behind.

"...yes," Rarity tightly said. "I'm sure it will." And had the warm smile on her face before she turned back. "Forward, then!"

The lilac mare moved, completing her turn in stages. The herd waited until she was finished before following in near-lockstep. The Bearers started to move, collectively trailed for a while, and then Rarity managed a small surge forward. Catching up with the leader.

"May I compliment how clean you are?"

There was a pause.

"You just did."

"...yes. Rather. Is that protection the result of a spell?"

Eventually, "Yes."

"Lovely! And if we stay long enough -- might I ask for a bit of tutoring? I know I might not be able to learn it, but I would appreciate the mere opportunity."

This pause was longer.

"We'll have to see," the lilac mare finally said. "About -- everything."

"When it's time, then," Rarity pleasantly agreed. "But for now -- you have my name. Might we know yours?"

Communication.

Spike understood, as he watched them being led away. And he hated himself for it.

There was something in the group's supplies which was meant to conceal his nature. In the best case, it was currently with Fluttershy. And if there were two sure identifiers for those who knew more than the usual near-nothing about the Bearers, the one which wasn't 'newest alicorn' was 'occasionally travel with a dragon'. He had been the surest giveaway.

And it was more than that.

There were other ponies in the rain forest. It was entirely possible that somepony in this herd was responsible for the lockdown spell. He might have just seen her. And if the Bearers were being taken inside it, with Trixie in tow...

He wanted to protect them. Longed for anything he could do to keep them safe. But... Twilight's miniherd had to know. Had to be told what had happened. The same was true for the palace. And Spike couldn't send a scroll from inside the lockdown's radius. He could potentially try to trail for a time once they were far enough ahead to not hear his movements, figure out where they were going -- but he would have to stop if he saw any signs of a lockdown, shield, or any other blocking effect. He couldn't be taken within.

The best way to currently help was through relaying information. He knew that. And he wanted to jump down, to move and charge and protect.

(He was a dragon.)
(They were his family.)
(His.)

Every little muscle shivered. He felt the inner fire rising within, almost begging for release. And yet he stayed just where he was.

It could still be a medical colony. Isolating the ponies affected by the disease. There might even be ponies we know in there. Ponies we've been looking for. And if that's what's happening, then it's wrong to attack...

He strained to listen, because he needed to tell the others exactly what had taken place. Every last word.

But he only heard twelve more.

"My name is Starlight," the lilac mare calmly stated. "You should think of me as a friend."

Domain

Really, it was just a question of which possibility would perish first. And Rarity, who was currently doing her best to keep in rough hoofstep with the apparent leader of the -- 'community' -- had taken a little time to review the options.

To some degree, 'coincidence' seemed to have slipped out of the stable. To locate a self-described community of ponies, this far from Equestria -- well, yes, there was probably room for that on a probability chart, and she didn't doubt that Twilight would experience something far too close to fun in trying to pin the exact number down.

Where is Twilight?
Somewhat more to the immediate point: where is Spike?

...she had to make sure her teeth didn't grind against each other, or somepony might wonder what was wrong --

-- well, at any rate, there was certainly a chance to find a random, minor settled zone: one which would be fully unrelated to the reason for Bearer presence. In theory. But Rarity had a rather exacting memory for color and hue. She'd seen Spike's picture of the device fragment, taken at the moment before it had briefly slipped into the between. Starlight's corona matched. For that matter, it also perfectly overlapped with that which had been displayed by the crackling wall stretching across the void.

...which still left the stable door just barely open enough for coincidence to try slipping back in. There were only so many colors in the world and, presumably, enough unicorns about to create a few duplicate coronas. But the door really didn't have to be open all that much, because Rarity believed the odds to be rather thin.

A coincidental community. Why here? And Starlight's corona matched.

If she created that effect... it implies some amount of knowledge. Even if a device is responsible, it is potentially working on principles which the Gifted School does not recognize, or Twilight would have understood more about how to defeat it. And should she be the creator -- then unless this is her specific trick, it's rather safe to presume that she has strength. Perhaps in considerable quantity.

If Twilight was here...
...if I wasn't so weak...

(Average. Rarity's field strength was average. But just about anypony who was being directly compared to Twilight tended to look weak.)

Twelve ponies accompanying the clear leader, and -- they were wearing... well, as a virtue, Generosity had some overlap with charity, so if she was going to offer more of that secondary aspect in a single attempt than she'd ever channeled in her life, Rarity supposed she could temporarily refer to it as 'clothing'.

Do not criticize the 'clothing'.

...do not...

I am a gemologist. I should not possess sufficient expertise in the field to offer detailed suggestions for revisions.

'I have a sibling who works in the fashion industry --'

"Your clothing is -- interesting," Rarity said.

The lilac unicorn, steadily pushing forward through the greenery as every possible stain refused to adhere to her coat, didn't glance to the side.

"I'm not wearing clothing," she calmly said.

"That of the group," Rarity hastily clarified. "It's interesting."

"I made some of it!" came from somewhere behind her. "I was trying out clothing for a while. To see what it was like. I'm glad you think it's interesting!"

The virtue strained. Generosity reached out for extra strength, and wound up borrowing a portion from Pure Technicality.

"Yes."

And once we dismiss the blatant tubing and blindfolded color choices, the most interesting aspect would be the way it serves to fully cover twelve pairs of hips.

Part of the herd had slipped behind the Bearers and their burden. It could viewed as an attempt to cut off potential retreat. At the moment, however, it was mostly serving to allow a degree of casual conversation.

Such as it was.

"Don't your wings get tired?" one of their escorts asked: the dark green pegasus mare. "Hovering all the time?"

There was a pause.

"No," Rainbow forced out. "Because I hover a lot."

"But nopony else is hovering," the mare said.

Immediately, "They can if they want to. Look, I'm already dirty. Maybe I don't hate it as much as --" the hesitation was barely noticeable "-- Faceti does, but all of the green stuff is just getting thicker. I'd rather not pick up too many fresh stains before we reach the bath." A little more quickly, "Do you have anything for groups? Like a full bathhouse? And how's the hot water supply? Because there's a lot of water around here, but I don't know if it's hot and I've gotta tell you, I just might wind up using most of it --"

"Some ponies can't hover at all," the mare cut in. "They have to get dirtier, when you don't. I'm on the ground. Going through the same thing as everypony else, with everypony else. Because that's what friends do."

A small portion of wind backblast bounced off the soil, rippled Rarity's stained outfit. At a guess, Rainbow's hover had momentarily dipped.

"Some ponies can't lift things by wishing for it," the weather coordinator -- surveyor? Should that be their lie for Rainbow? Somepony who charted the natural patterns? -- huffed. "Others can't grow plants really fast. I'm in both of those clubs. I'm friends with ponies who can do the other stuff. I hover."

Eventually, "All right..."

We are wearing clothing in order to cover our marks, in case word of the Bearers has spread this far. Rather more detailed word than the usual, to include so much -- but as a protective measure. Something we have had to maintain in this oppressive heat and humidity, regardless of cost.

(She didn't include the performer in that. Their burden was no part of the true group and in any case, she was sure that a wandering caravan-puller, even while nude, was effectively anonymous.)

A... rather unpleasant experience, to remain clothed in these conditions. But we had no choice. We needed to conceal our marks.

They may be dressed to conceal the fact that something has happened to their marks.

A switch wasn't likely to be hidden. It could have been a distortion. Discoloration. Some sort of warp...

...absence...

...this could still be a medical colony. Trying to treat a condition. And given that we have not been warned away or given protection, it's rather unlikely to be contagious.

She had to keep telling herself that.

Gather information. Learn what we can. If it is a medical condition, then they may need help from the palace, and have simply been afraid to seek it. To let the Diarchy know that this state can even exist, from fear that simple illness would be attacked.

And if it's a weapon...

She wished for Twilight to appear. For Applejack, Fluttershy, and very much for Spike. Because Spike should have been with them, should have been with her at that very moment, and the performer had chosen to isolate --

-- Rarity had heard his breathing, she knew her dearest one was trying to be brave, but she had also been fully aware of what the climate had been doing to him --

-- the little brother she'd never had, and that created a perpetual obligation to make sure he was all right...

...there was likely an argument to be made for his not walking into danger, but it still left him alone in a wild zone while sick and that choice had apparently been made by...

...not yet...

The greenery was getting thicker, and there was no true path through it. Simply places where ponies could try to push through. It was rather obvious that nopony was coming this way very often. But perhaps the true approach path was along a different angle --

-- her ears perked. Lifted, tilted left.

Is that the waterfall?

She was definitely starting to hear something --

-- Pinkie was talking. Casually, with the usual geniality, but -- for those who truly knew Pinkie, it was easy to pick up on the caution in her words.

"This is a really pretty place to live, isn't it? If you can make enough space for a house."

"We did," a proud-sounding stallion declared. "More than one."

"And there's so many beautiful things to look at! Like the birds. So many bright colors!"

"I... guess," the stallion finally decided. "We don't really see the birds." (Rarity automatically filed that away.)

"How long have you lived here?"

It was a rather long pause.

"A while."

"A while a while, or...?"

"...a few years, I guess. I don't really keep track."

"Why not? If you don't look at a calendar, then you'll never know when somepony's birthday is! Unless you just memorize them. All of them. But that's a lot to ask for most ponies."

"Well... you know how days seem to go faster when you're having a lot of fun?"

"Yeah!"

"It's like that all the time!"

There was a rather noticeable pause.

"You smile a lot." Something which, when coming from Pinkie, qualified as an unusual statement.

"Of course I do!"

"...are you happy?" (And the hesitation before speaking had been more suited to Fluttershy.)

"Why wouldn't I be?" the stallion asked. "I'm alive. And I'm free."

Rarity presumed somepony was speaking with the performer. There were vague hints of syllables drifting forward from that area, and she reluctantly allowed that poor soul to make their mistake because there was no current means of warning them.

She couldn't truly hear anything beyond that. In particular, there were no aural indicators of a small scale-covered form trying to slip through tall plants.

Gather information...

Sun forced its way through the tiny gaps in the canopy, briefly dappled a lilac coat.

And be careful. There are monsters who wear pony skins.
There's a rather prominent example somewhere behind my tail --

-- it had to wait.

There was somepony whom Rarity could try to converse with. But Starlight was... well, Rarity had been paying close attention when the mare had first stepped forward. 'Socially awkward' would have been a rather generous description, and so of course it fit perfectly here.

Well, so was Twilight. At the start, and for a significant amount of time beyond. Still, on a bad day. There just weren't as many of those now.

Make some small talk... And there was a subject which just about everypony on the planet was always willing to discuss.

"I've never seen your mark before," Rarity admitted.

Two hoofsteps passed. A branch did its best to snag the stained dress, and Rarity had to yank herself free.

"We hadn't met," Starlight stated. "So you wouldn't have."

Unique? Quite possibly. There were a few such icons out there in the world, for every generation. Marks which appeared solely upon one pair of hips.

"It's rather stylish," Rarity noted. "Abstract, almost."

The lilac unicorn's ribs shifted a few times.

She had a rather... regulated way of breathing. Exactingly paced, with no apparent regard for the humidity.

"Abstract."

"Well, yes. In an artistic sense. I apologize if that came across as offensive --"

"-- I don't study art. So perception of the abstract doesn't matter."

Twilight hadn't been this bad.

"Is it a mark for cleaning?" Rarity asked. "As your spell is working so perfectly!" Hastily, "And again, I do not mean to offend. It is a simple inquiry."

Three hoofsteps. Five. Eight, as the lilac mare put in some visible consideration. And then a flare of turquoise opened a saddlebag lid.

"Mark iconography can be a very complicated subject," she thoughtfully said, and the quill made a note. "And you're the first pony to suggest that interpretation."

You couldn't really make small talk with Starlight: something Rarity would learn in time. But it was certainly possible to engage her interest on certain subjects. The designer had unknowingly come very close to the core --

"I may want to come back to that," Starlight calmly added. "But it'll have to wait for a time. We're almost at the border. I have to bring us inside."

"Understood," Rarity offered. "When you're ready, then."

Seventeen ponies moved forward for a while. The greenery continued to thicken, because their host was a practical mare. The shield would turn out to be the primary defense, and it had so many ways of operating -- but as long as the vegetation was present, then there was very little need not to let it grow wild outside the community. One more way of keeping everypony in.

Abruptly, without truly looking at Rarity: all of Starlight's attention was focused forward, and the corona was starting to build around the horn. "Is this all of you?"

The designer scrambled.

If all is well, then the others are on the approach. Trying to meet us at the waterfall, and that appears to be our current direction. They may stumble across us.

Spike could send a scroll off. Tell them that we were met, arrange a rendezvous, and come in with their group.

(It was the best case. But he was sick...)

I don't know how she found us in the first place. A pegasus scout, flying over the canopy and looking down at just the right time? An earth pony somehow sensing our passage across the soil at such a range, and suggesting that a patrol coincidentally move in our direction?

She wasn't exactly surprised to see us. That suggests some advance knowledge. Possibly from a spell. And a working which detected our approach would also pick up on that of the others. Unless Twilight managed to both feel and counter...

Negating a spell could potentially send a signal to the caster. It all depended on how the working had been formulated, and whether Twilight spotted that as well.

The second group might have already been detected. Could be on the way in, under separate escort.

They won't know my false name, or whether we used the fur dye.
I could claim surname. Coincidence. Hardly the only 'Rarity' in Equestria, ironic as that might be --
-- I'm taking too long to answer.
She just looked at me.

Or 'towards'. But there was something rather odd about the intensity of that gaze, and it was amplified by the corona light.

Something about her features...

How old is she?

Rarity couldn't tell, and she couldn't see any signs of cosmetics. The local mud, when not caked around individual strands of fur, clearly had the potential to be exquisite.

"There was a second team of explorers sent in at the same time we were," Rarity said. "However, they were going to start through covering a different face of the mountain's slope. We haven't had any contact with them. It's not impossible to have them potentially approach your community. But I can't predict that with any certainty."

There. We no longer have to explain the coincidence of a second group appearing. And if the community does attempt to bring them in, we'll all be together again.

And if there was an attack... the other three could take care of themselves. Possibly four.

It had to be four.

I have to trust them --
-- she's going to ask who sent us in --

"How many in that team?" Starlight placidly asked. The corona intensified.

"Three ponies." Because she didn't know what Spike's disguise was supposed to be, and now she had the option to claim that she'd just omitted whatever-he-turned-up-as under an inadvertent category exclusion.

"Understood," the lilac unicorn decided, with the glowing notebook smoothly slipping back into the saddlebag. "You should hope that they find us. Or that we find them. They'll be safer once they're here."

Rarity briefly pictured the results of an angry Twilight deciding to make things safe.

"Rather."

And that was the end of the small talk.

They're not acting as if we're being taken prisoner. They seem happy to see us.
...the rest of them seem happy to...
...go into their 'community'. Learn what we can. If this somehow is the purest of coincidence, use the opportunity to take a bath.
Let it be a bath.
At the very least, see if Starlight will demonstrate the casting of her dirt-shielding spell.
And hope for our own marks not to vanish.

There's a space between vine-draped tree trunks, just wide enough for two ponies to pass through together or, if one of them happens to be Rainbow, to grumble her way into a brief landing because for those who insist on staying off the ground as much as possible, active wingspan is going to occasionally become an issue. And if you look through that space, it's possible to see a thin, rather even gap carved into the soil. And to look above it is to see the colorlessness of rain forest air -- and faint sparkles flickering in and out, suspended without surrounding hue.

The soil gap denotes the line. Nothing crosses it. The few branches which still reach out in that direction -- some of them have long-healed wounds terminating that portion of the bark. Tiny shavings of freshly-cut grass have fallen into the tiny chasm, resting among the remnants of severed roots.

The lilac unicorn focuses her corona, and the sparkles briefly vanish. Seventeen ponies move across the line. (The designer manages to look back just before she crosses, and there are no signs that they were followed.) Twelve of the ones who claim to be part of a community... at the exact moment they cross the border, they visibly relax. Why shouldn't they? They're not out in the wild any more.

They're home. And with the temporary shield gap closed, they can stay there.

It takes a little while before the travelers begin to see the differences between wild and 'home'. This is eventually followed by the ones which separate 'home' from 'everywhere else'. And once they start, it becomes almost impossible to stop.

For the wild... in their first few minutes across the border, not much changes. Many of the plants are still clustered somewhat too tightly. A wide bush with sharp-ending branches has to be dodged. It's hard to push through. Pinkie can be overheard asking somepony about it, and is told that a certain amount of land is essentially being protected in advance. Just in case the community needs to expand.

Again.

So it's expanded before?

Well... yes. It's happened a few times...

Eventually, paths begin to appear. Hard-trampled gaps display signs of hoof passage.

The air starts to dry out. Subtly at first, and then the process accelerates. Breathing becomes easier.

And then nearly all of the trees vanish.

A community needs farmland.

When you reach the farming section, the curving partial arc of tilled soil which borders the community everywhere that mountain and water do not -- that's where It's finally possible to look up and see the sky. Rainbow immediately indulges, with her hover moving ever-higher as the claustrophobia finally gets a chance to truly lift. Her altitude quickly reaches the point where Starlight calmly calls out a warning, because a shield that can't be clearly seen is still going to protect and nopony wants to see the visitor hit it.

Rainbow descends. Somewhat, muttering to herself all the way down.

Worked land. Crops, and this is summer. Here's how pineapples grow, and did you know it was just one to a plant? They're surprisingly close to the ground, easy to harvest. Snap beans are available, along with rows of sweet corn. There's peppers everywhere, and this is what an avocado looks like. Tomatillos are pointed out to the visitors, and there's some muskmelons...

There are ponies working those fields. (They're all dressed. Overalls denote the minimum, and no hips have gone uncovered.) Only about a third of them possess the natural magic for doing so. Pegasi are among the crops, unicorns push their way through the corn stalks, and they're all so surprised to see the visitors. They call out greetings on instinct, joyous exclamations of welcome. A number leave their duties, try to get closer and offer a more personal moment --

-- but they're asked to turn back, at least for now. There's always an official chance to meet the new, Starlight reminds them. And -- her voice takes on odd pauses, so noticeable after the last words were so smooth -- this group didn't arrive via... the usual route. Give them a chance to clean up, at the very least. Starlight will let the community know when it's time for a true welcome.

The happy ponies agree. Go back to their crop tending, although not without a few glances back at the travelers. And those who are new to land and hemisphere and community look out across the farmland and see that...

...the land is being worked.

That's exactly what's happening. It's being worked.

Applejack... had she been present at that moment, she would have spotted it all the faster. She would have felt it. But when it comes to the eternal song of earth pony magic, something which should once again be sounding in civilized territory... Pinkie is effectively a deaf-mute. It can take hundreds of earth ponies doing their part in the transition to spring before she might register the faintest of echoes. And when it comes to the music... once. Exactly once, and when the changeable mare known by the nickname of 'Tish' sings a note of purest panic, the average earth pony wishes for that inner sense to briefly stop working. That improvised composition comes at a volume level which brings pain, makes singers long for temporary deafness -- and it turned out to be just loud enough for the deaf to hear.

There is nopony among the travelers who can tell just what sort of orchestra may be echoing within the soil. But when it comes to Applejack... her little sister clearly isn't on track for a farming mark. Apple Bloom is going to leave the Acres someday, Granny is in her senior years, and... two ponies, offering up the magic from their Cornucopia Effect to so much land -- they won't be enough. It's left Applejack studying the decidedly-foreign science of agronomy, because the Acres are going to need some help. Twilight's been bringing in the books, and the farmer has occasionally taken some time to tell the others about exactly what she's been learning. Illustrations have gotten involved.

So ultimately, Pinkie is the first to spot it. Because she lacks that magic -- but she's lived within its results for the whole of her life. Always present on the dance floor, while unable to recognize the music. And when you look at the farming...

Glance over to the left. Those corn stalks are clearly diseased: green gone to brown, with drooping leaves displaying rotted holes. They're being pulled up, taken away from the healthy so that the condition won't spread -- but the illness still had a chance to work its way in.

Other examples among the fruits and vegetables are healthy enough, but... they have odd shapes. Irregularities.

The soil has been tilled. Those rows are somewhat uneven: some of them have to curve around large pieces of milky quartz. Ponies can be seen dragging stinking sacks of brown about, and here's where we start to see why the air is losing moisture. It's being collected. There are tall wooden poles all over the farmland, and at the top of each is an inverted crystal cone. The top is open to the sky, and the refractive walls funnel towards the upside-down apex because that's where the flexible tube is attached. Water beads around the upper rim, then runs down to where it can irrigate the land.

(There should be copper around those rims, because dealing with humidity is a pegasus domain. Perhaps there is, and the travelers just don't have the angle to spot it.)

With earth pony magic in play... you would still need moisture, along with Sun. Appleloosa uses irrigation systems: there's no other choice. But if you can stop insects, then the results would be large and healthy and perfect. Putting the Effect into play negates most of the need for fertilizer, and there are ponies of the three major Equestrian species in these farmlands hauling sacks of...

...Rarity tries not to look. Almost manages not to gag.

The farmland is being worked. And the soil is visibly producing -- but the results are imperfect. It's as if the Effect doesn't matter here, or... it may not be present at all.

And when the group moves further in...

The oldest settled zones were based in defensible positions. (It could be argued that Ponyville's primary defense used to be the proximity of the capital.) This one has a shield dome covering the whole of the community: something which creates a number of currently-unvoiced questions, because it generally takes a mark talent to make one that large hold for any true duration -- and even then, Shining Armor's commitment to defending his nation nearly put him into a coma.

A truly permanent shield would imply a device. One more advanced than anything Canterlot knows, especially with the way the creator's natural corona hue doesn't distort the light. And it would need to be self-charging, because... how else is it going to stay intact?

Or it could be an active casting. But if that's the case, then the strength of the unicorn involved --

-- there's a shield dome, and that's clearly the primary defense. But the community has its collective back against the mountain. A moss-covered brown cliff forms the rear border. Greenery drips down the mountain, stopping about eight Celests above the ground: below that, it's bare rock.

Keep looking up, and it's possible to catch a glimpse of a different type of sparkle. Reflections from a quartz cave. There appears to be some kind of trail working up the cliff face, winding back and forth, but... it's narrow. Treacherous. It would take a very cautious pony to navigate any part of it on hoof, and a single mistake would mean returning to start at significant speed. Once. And you'd have to open the shield just to make a true attempt. Which also means that if you went high enough before slipping, you might not reach the ground.

And to the left...

It's the tallest waterfall anypony among the group has ever seen. Relatively narrow, but... it plummets in tiers, hitting little extensions of rock on the way down, and that means there's whitewater foam present well before it reaches the bottom. The near-explosive liquid impact against the resulting lake is both spectacular and inaccessible, because it's happening on the other side of the shield. This seems to be muffling the sound, and the noise produced drops to background awareness rather quickly.

The shield cuts through the little lake, doesn't touch any part of the river that flows away from the community. There's enough water within the domed section to potentially allow for swimming (not that anypony's indulging right now), but -- that's about it. And the surface of that section ripples slightly as it approaches the shore.

Mountain, lake, and shield. At first glance, the community would appear to be exceptionally well-defended. But that's a presumption. One which assumes that the usual conditions apply, and the true danger would come from without. It's wrong.

The twelve other ponies who brought them in... they're just about all talking now. Telling the travelers about their community, and how wonderful it is. The words emerge in happy gushes, and can take a very long time to reach anything resembling a comma. Rarity tries to break through the flow, directs her words to the near-silent leader, and simply says how pleasant it all looks. The response (which takes a few seconds to assemble) is to tell her that 'We've come this far'. And there's no real pride in the basic observation. This is how far they've come, and there's still a long way to go.

(It's just a community. The most advanced trial of its kind, but -- still merely a community. And the lilac unicorn is trying to save the world.)

But if you get close enough to truly see the waterfall... then you're in a position to view so much else...

There are so many friendly welcomes as the travelers are brought through the streets, and it's very much a plural in all aspects. Ponies keep trying to approach, and Starlight turns them away with a few careful sentences. The same sentences each time, and that speech is becoming rather practiced. Those who come up always understand, and provide some space.

The entire population has apparently gotten dressed up for the occasion.

They smile, when they see the travelers. Smiles which, even to Rarity and Rainbow, are starting to feel somewhat... wide. Not so much forced as unmoderated. Everypony is happy, and can occasionally be caught looking at each other to make sure the state is universal. Just about constant.

And when it comes to the streets...

How large is the community? Considerably smaller than Ponyville, because the Bearers come from a true settled zone. It started as one of the least-populated ones (although nowhere near the minimal levels of Drayton), but -- ever since the Elements were rediscovered, ponies have been steadily moving to their home. A fair estimate would be that Ponyville is approaching eight thousand residents, and the construction never stops. Given the presence of the Bearers, neither do the repairs.

It'll take some time before the travelers get to truly explore what they've found, and the buildings make the community look somewhat larger than it truly is. There's a number which are still being put together, in various stages of build -- but some are simply empty. Waiting for new residents to arrive.

(One structure was recently vacated.)

The rough majority are double-occupancy, because this is a community and everypony supports each other. Having another pair of hooves present at just about all times is the best way to press back with equal force.

Some of the residents are traveling in pairs. Different combinations of gender and species. One pony stands out: a white specimen, but -- that quality is almost too much so. As if everything else had been washed away.

There are pegasi, and none of them are flying. The unicorns aren't using their fields. So many of the earth ponies have their ears flattened. And they smile, they laugh, they chat with each other, they're happy, they range in age from very young adults to those just creeping up on their senior years...

(Trixie initially spots it, because she's used to evaluating an audience. The first to see one of the many things which are missing. To hear a crucial silence, because there are voices calling out greetings and the pitches only exist within a certain range.)

How many ponies live here? Call it... the actual count will require some time, but it's something under two hundred. Not that they're all here right now. One house is, at best, intermittently occupied. It's waiting for a pair of ponies to return. There's a garden present, but it's clearly been untended for a while. A lot of ponies are trying out gardens.

However, once you get away from the houses... the plant life is fairly controlled. These are the shade trees, and they've been spaced with precision. Narrow strips of grass along the roads instruct ponies to Snack Here.

There are some lampposts about, placed for maximum elimination of shadows. Milky quartz stones support the base.

And then there's the buildings. The homes, and the businesses -- oh, you do have a few businesses. (For what's probably obvious reasons, there are no hotels.) Ponies turn their hooves towards retail. Crafts. Cookery. Some write and self-publish. There's money being used here, but it doesn't operate with the usual range of purpose. Everypony has food, water, and a place to live. None of that ever has to be paid for, and it means that actual funds turn into a rather basic way of keeping score.

(Not that you have to pay for everything that's been created. There's an elevated tray of what appears (at least from a distance) to be poorly-worked ivory mane combs, and the rigorously-lettered sign attached to the front edge reads FREE. But the tray is relatively full. Maybe they need some more time to catch on.)

Let's look at the buildings.

Closely.

In Equestria...

If a building is being erected (and that structure isn't a barn that's essentially doomed to be replaced four times per season), then it's usually going to be put together by experts. The construction crew understands their jobs on the level of the icons, the architect knew what she was meant to do from the moment her hips shone, and the results are going to be professional.

In fact, just about everything is professional.
Expert.
Nearly all of the time.

Going to a restaurant? You're probably about to meet a true chef. If you're dining alone and decide to read a novel while you wait -- well, the odds are pretty good that it was composed by a marked author. Yes, you're mostly eating out tonight because your kitchen is being repaired, but you can take comfort in knowing the work is being done by a pony who understands water flow on the level of his soul.

Ponies indulge in hobbies. They have side interests, and the results from what those might produce aren't always perfect. The same can be said for that which comes from those who are marked for their occupations, because ponies do get distracted. Tired. They slip. Mistakes are made, but -- rarely.

There are a few exceptions, and a surprising number live in Ponyville. Take Mr. Flankington and despite the fact that he's an absolute gentlepony of both kindness and manners, quite a few residents would like to take him beyond the settled zone's borders. Preferably while towing the full contents of his mostly-homemade laboratory. He runs a restaurant. Just about nopony ever eats there more than once, because the owner's mark is for something called food chemistry and a stallion who can make anything edible still hasn't figured out how to render it tasty. And you could include Twilight Sparkle in that group, because she doesn't have the instinct for being a librarian. Just the desire, and the resulting errors tend to be entertaining -- when viewed from a distance. In the temporal sense, that's usually at least three moons.

But in Equestria, the default is professionalism. Because most professions are occupied by those with a mark for the work.

We're not in Equestria any more.

The buildings are Do-It-Yourself.

By committee.

Somepony opened a book on construction. Instructions were read out. A basic blueprint pattern went on display. And then those who had taken at least a temporary interest got to work.

There's a few different styles on display -- or rather, they tried to get in some different styles at the very start. This was probably intended to reflect Trottingham, another structure initially began as a takeoff on a Manehattan brownstone, and then the results inevitably shifted towards Box With Door And Not Quite Level Windows. Mostly in brown. And black. There's some black.

Because the builders made things according to a plan. And the plan can't do the actual thinking.

The results are just about solid. Serviceable, at least in the short term. But there's no personal touches. It's Amateur Hour everywhere. There's quite a bit of patchwork, inexpertly covered. And in the best case... a wall is a wall, because that's all it's been told to be. There's no art. Good luck finding a subtle curve, and those seeking stucco to rub up against at shoulder level should just give up right now.

The streets themselves? Some are dirt. Somepony's been experimenting with paving stones. Possibly a lot of ponies. And the alignment isn't quite right, you have to be careful not to catch a hoof in the deeper hollows, too much moisture and the dirt is going to become a mud wallow...

Ponies are trying things out, and do so everywhere you look. This mare is painting -- well, there's paint being applied to a canvas, so let's give her the benefit of the doubt. Another is working on a garden. There's a variety of manestyles on display, and just about all of them are either truly basic or waiting for the right moment to collapse. A few might explode. It could be said that the outfits vary, but they're all variants on the concept of Stitched-Together Tubing and after seeing well over a hundred ponies... 'dressed'... that way, Rarity really needs a hot bath.

The residents smile as they trot down their inexpert streets. Hum to themselves, because a work song makes home patching go all the faster. Some of them laugh, and then check to make sure that others are laughing too. They move through a world that's nailed together according to blueprints and documents and rendered without anything in the way of truest love.

They're happy. And they're perfectly content to move about an environment which, when compared to what exists in the northern hemisphere, could potentially be described as --

-- imperfect.
Incomplete.
Ill.
Diseased.

None of them seem to have noticed that last part. Only the travelers can see it, and -- none of them know how to express what they're seeing. What they can say, or whether anything should be said at all. They certainly can't truly talk until they reach privacy, and obviously there's one pony who won't play any part in that...

There's another pony coming up to the travelers now, because everypony wants to greet the new. A young adult unicorn mare with a half-deflated magenta mane and tail: the natural curls are rather subdued.

She smiles, because there are new arrivals in her community and she wants to make sure they're happy. Starlight doesn't see her approach, and that lets her get all the way to the group. Bright cerise eyes gaze upon Rarity's face.

"Welcome! Welcome to Truedawn!"

The designer doesn't reply quickly enough, and the local's smile almost falters.

"You do feel welcome," she carefully asks, and does so with open concern. "Don't you?"

Pointer

Multiple words were withering in her throat.

Do I feel welcome? Actually, if I were to describe my current emotional state in fully accurate terms, we would need to begin with 'rather unnerved'. Because there is something about your community which acts as near-invisible razorwire laced into a private garden's border bushes, and that is before we begin to deal with the shield. From a distance, matters might appear to be fairly normal. Then you come closer, and wonder why portions of the wood are reflecting light. Inspect too closely, and the resulting wounds will require treatment.

Additionally, this is a mission and as such, there is a part of me which is perpetually wondering whether I am about to die. Unfortunately, it is very nearly possible to become accustomed to that --

-- she's looking at me. This new one and Starlight. I've been quiet for too long again...

"Of course!" Rarity lightly told the younger -- younger? -- with Starlight in the area, exact comparisons of age suddenly felt rather uncertain -- unicorn mare. "There's simply a rather persistent layer of surprise present. As none of us were truly expecting to be welcomed at all. Not by ponies."

The most recent mare to approach brightly nodded.

"It is a surprise, isn't it?" she asked. "A happy one, I hope." Her ears perked up. "Especially since we're always happy whenever anypony new comes in."

Rainbow was being fairly quiet, and that worried Rarity: it was a state which seldom held for very long. Pinkie was just... watching, and for those who knew her, there were hints of visible concern in the set of her tail. The performer was just barely in view: a state which made the designer want to wrap this up so she could once again get a line of sight on the more familiar (and perhaps less 'potential') menace. But this was one of the locals, and there were certain expectations to fulfill during a meeting.

"I am Faceti," Rarity politely lied.

"That's fine for now," the local decided with a smile.

"And you are...?" the designer carefully inquired.

Brightly, with open joy, "Nira!"

Rarity felt her own head tilt slightly to the left.

Nira...? It might make more sense once she heard the rest of it.

Perhaps a little too carefully, "Do you have a surname?"

"No," Nira quizzically said. "Should I?"

"Is that from a foreign language?" Rarity evenly asked -- then, somewhat more quickly, "No fault, of course! As we all know that there are more than a few parents who decide that the best way to make their foal seem somewhat more exotic is to borrow the appellation from another tongue."

The tips of Nira's ears twisted a little. The half-deflated tail twitched.

"No..." came in the tones of a mare who hadn't quite understood the question. Or why it was being asked.

Rarity's stained tail indulged in a small twitch of its own.

I don't feel as if this is going well.
I've made small talk with any number of customers, and rather more with those who turned out to not be customers at all. Names are one of the simplest topics which exist. And this is where matters seem to be breaking down?

"I didn't feel that you were foreign," Rarity hastened. "You sound Equestrian."

Which just made Nira smile again. "We're working on that."

...they're working on...

"Forgive me," the designer carefully began, "but... I find myself at something of a loss. What does your name mean?"

Nira's head tilted. Left, right, back to center.

"It means me," the unicorn confusedly stated. "A name shouldn't mean anything else. Should it?"

Starlight took a hoofstep forward.

"They've been traveling through the jungle, Nira," the lilac mare calmly-if-unevenly stated. "As opposed to having come in through the usual route. They require a degree of rest before any true welcome can begin." There was a slightly too long pause. "Along with acclimation. It starts with recognition of safety."

Nira happily nodded.

"Pushing through the jungle for an unknown time," Starlight sedately continued, "can be wearying. And existence requires food." In what wasn't quite tones of lecture, "The environment provides water. But safe consumables can be difficult to pick out in a foreign place. So why don't you make them dinner?"

Something about the cerise eyes seemed to hesitate.

"It's -- being in a kitchen," Nira carefully said. "I don't always --"

"A roasted vegetable platter," Starlight instructed. "That will be suitable."

"-- oh!" the local unicorn happily said. "Just roasted vegetables? That should be fine! And I can grill some pineapple. They probably haven't even had that before. Hardly anypony has, when they first come to Truedawn --"

"-- it's not a vegetable," Starlight calmly interrupted.

"...oh."

"But it is something you wanted to try doing," the lilac mare continued. "And you're always free to try, Nira."

They both smiled. Starlight's came in at speed. Nira's seemed to have etched waiting arrival lines around her snout.

"Follow us," Starlight instructed. "So you can see where they're being initially housed. And then you can bring them dinner when you're ready."

Nira nodded. Smiled brightly at Rarity, politely nodded to the other new arrivals, and then dropped back. Carefully, with all four legs shifting in cautious reverse until a given amount of distance had been created. Stopped, then waited. Watching.

"She's rather charming," Rarity told Starlight. It was something to say.

"Nira has some seniority among our residents," the lilac mare evenly said. (Rarity considered the features of what had been a rather young adult.) "Her progress is significant. Do you require medical attention?"

Rarity blinked.

It was a fully reasonable question. It just happened to be one which had appeared directly after 'significant', with no chance in pacing or tone. We are changing topics now and while there would normally be something of a speed bump in the verbal road to make any conversational cart pause before advancing, this non-gallop is being done on the straightaway. Prepare for launch.

Significant progress with what?

But the topic had been changed.

"No," the designer said.

"Your dress has a bloodstain," Starlight calmly continued. "At the right shoulder."

"A result from one of the many misadventures which can occur while exploring," Rarity told her. "It's healing quite nicely." Most of the medical items were presumably with Fluttershy -- but their side of the split had contained a few first-aid supplies. Rainbow, as somepony who usually tried to make it look as if the failed stunt had inflicted no damage at all (for just as long as she stayed within public view), was fairly adept in their use. Topical disinfectants had been deployed, and the injury was showing no signs of infection.

No thanks to that one.

"If you're certain it doesn't need further treatment," Starlight went on.

"For now," Rarity qualified. Because with the way this dress was put together, I would have considerable issues in removing the front of it without discarding the whole. And since the non-you majority of your population is concealing their hips, please offer the courtesy of allowing me to continue doing the same. "But thank you." And paused. "However, in the event that it does somehow worsen -- your community has a doctor?"

The hesitation felt oddly placed. Multiple ear muscles appeared to briefly go slack.

"Some ponies have taken an interest," Starlight finally said. "But it's extremely specialized. I deal with anything complex."

They don't have a marked physician.

For a normal settled zone, it would have been an exceptionally strange and dangerous lack. A new community, trying to carve out a place in the wild and doing so without a doctor -- that felt as if it was verging on the suicidal.

Or she could be lying. An isolated community of the ill for something non-contagious, and she's afraid to tell us about its true nature. But that could be done simply by cutting down on the number of declared doctors present. To say that there are none at all -- that arouses suspicion.

And yet she said it anyway.

Or perhaps Starlight --

-- maybe. Rarity didn't know what that abstract mark was meant to indicate. And removal of disease could certainly be described as 'cleansing'.

"Should it worsen," the lilac mare went on, "come to me. Control over health is crucial."

"Yes," Rarity eventually said, because it was a word which could be offered. "Perhaps. It -- truly is amazing, Starlight."

"'It'," the mare said, "as a term, has to cover too many possibilities. Define."

"To see all of you in this place," Rarity qualified. "We truly weren't expecting there to be ponies here. Not this far from home."

Starlight thought about that.

"You're here."

With a small smile, "But we are explorers."

The lilac unicorn visibly considered that.

"So are they," Starlight finally told them, and added a tiny flicker of a nod towards the ponies who were watching them. "Exploring a better way of life."

And with those words having been offered to the air, she began to move again.

Rarity followed. The other Equestrian travelers trailed. Community members watched, offered greetings and welcomes and endless smiles. Nira waited until the group had moved a certain distance away, then followed.

At one point, they came within easy viewing distance of the lake's shoreline.

Rarity would have been expecting greenery: such had certainly been prevalent in the rain forest when you were approaching any source of water and given that the name of 'rain forest' contained no irony whatsoever, there had been plants everywhere. But the majority of the border between land and lake consisted of bare, almost flat rock. Cleared out to allow ponies a warm, somewhat more dry surface upon which to sun themselves, perhaps. Where they could simply relax, and stare out at the water.

Or... do something else.

There was a stallion sitting near the shoreline, and he was fishing.

To Rarity, it stood out immediately. You hardly ever saw ponies fishing, because... well, even in the best case, there usually wasn't much point to it.

If a pony wished to simply look at a fish... there was the option to visit a stream, Equestrian lake or, for those who possessed the proper coastal position, the ocean. Rarity imagined the same options to exist here, only with a degree of geographic removal. And in fact, if she squinted towards the lake's surface, she was able to make out brief flashes of reflective color as scales skimmed close to the surface.

Scales. Where was Spike? How was his breathing?

Not yet...

Ponies generally made for poor swimmers. Still, some indulged -- although without the presence of a decidedly specialized mark, most of that interest stopped at the casual level. That meant needing calm waters, and with the waterfall cascading down on the other side of the shield... actually, there were just a few light ripples within. Swimming was likely possible, and it would certainly allow a pony to share an environment with the water-dwellers. Briefly.

For those who wished further investigations... well, there were cage traps, but then you had to bait them and the process of dealing with something which a fish might want to eat tended to be nauseating. Hooks? Even for catch-and-release, you were going to produce a wound: hardly polite. Those who operated aquariums had much more gentle means of bringing future charges to their new homes and Rarity felt that if anypony truly wished to see those who had found a different form of flight, a ticket was the reasonable route. Except that...

...there were a few residents of Ponyville who fished. One of them was Flitter, and it was safe to say that releasing was no part of her intent. Rarity had once suspected that the acerbic pegasus simply enjoyed seeing the victims of her activities helplessly flop about on shore -- but the truth was that the town's true least favorite member of the weather team had a cat, and wished to make sure her companion received both the best and freshest nutrition available.

For the same reason, Rarity's father had been known to bait the occasional hook, and that was something she was generally reluctant to admit. Both that he indulged in the horrible act -- and that Opal, with the perversity inherent to felines everywhere, had decided that she loved the stallion. For her father to come through the doors of the Boutique was for the cat to find him within seconds. She would spend the visit rubbing against his forelegs, snuggled next to his flank or, if he'd been there for more than an hour, curled up in the small of his back. Opal utterly adored Rarity's father, and did so when, in terms of visible affection, the designer was more or less being put up with. And so her parent had taken to fishing, because he felt that when a stallion was visiting two of the girls he cared for most, it was best to bring a present.

She cared about Opal. She'd tried to go fishing. But there was something about trying to take up raw meat from the pet shop in her field which instilled an almost-instant nausea. And to have a living worm actively writhing within her corona...

It was rare to see a pony fishing. This one -- a pegasus of a rather dulled greyish-blue -- was making the attempt with a rather awkward piece of equipment. The base of the pole had been jammed into a small crack between rocks, and the hoof pedals which extended from the central gear of the massive reel were at a decidedly poor height for comfortable operation: he had to rear up somewhat to push upon them, and it put too much of his weight on the platforms. Slipping occurred. And the cast-out portion of the line was resting on the surface of the water: too light to sink, or do much of anything else. It was possible to catch quick glimpses of the hook's eye as it bobbed about, never truly surfacing.

Rarity had tried once. Failed, yes, but at least she'd tried. And her father had a rather disquieting tendency to talk about how the now-dead thing (recently deposited on her kitchen counter, and there were at least ten minutes of desperate post-visit scrubbing ahead) had been snared. It meant she was familiar with a few of the details.

He's not using a bobber or a weight. Let alone both in conjunction, trying to keep the bait at the perfect depth within the lake while fending off any degree of current.

There's no truly bright colors visible in the water. Which means he hasn't tried to construct a lure. Of course, that would generally be with feathers, and I haven't seen or heard any birds since we entered the shield.

(There weren't any. Starlight understood how pollination worked, and so a number of insects were allowed to exist in the name of community -- but any birds brought within the dome had tried to migrate out.)

He appears to be somewhat frustrated. Hardly uncommon when fishing, and especially when doing so with the wrong equipment --
-- he's looking around.
Not at us. Inspecting the area --
-- ah. He's found some pebbles. And -- yes, I think I can see a bit of thread there. Which likely fell away from a portion of 'clothing'.
And there go his head and neck. Reaching out.
Admittedly, this is going to require quite the feat of mandible dexterity. I certainly wouldn't want to attempt it with an unpracticed jaw, especially when the thread is so fine. And his expression suggests that he recognizes the level of expertise this will require. It's the sort of thing where even the skilled might ask a unicorn for assistance. But if he's extremely careful, makes every attempt necessary with utter dedication, and is willing to settle for nothing less than perfection, he just might be able to --

The stallion stopped.

His features contorted into an expression which rested at the midpoint between discomfort and pain, doing so as hip muscles twitched against the covering of the overalls. Something which would have normally suggested he'd been still for somewhat too long, and moved a little too fast -- except that he hadn't shifted that part of his body yet.

He turned back towards the pole. Returned his attention to the line, which was rippling across the surface of the water while accomplishing nothing at all. And resumed the wait.

Eventually, they reached what appeared to be one of the newer streets. There were five of the -- 'houses' still technically applied, although it was possible to use 'cabin' or 'cottage' with equal lack of belief -- and only two of them showed any signs of being in use. The others appeared to be simply waiting for occupation. Speculative residency.

Starlight, who had been leading the way, turned just enough to look over the four travelers. A blue gaze effectively teleported between bodies, making evaluations and weighing off factors. A conclusion was quickly reached.

"You two." A pair of forehoof jabs indicated Rainbow and their burden. "Stay in that one." The next pointing was towards the -- home? -- at the entrance of the street. "And the two of you --" Pinkie and Rarity "-- can have this one." A ramshackle with door and windows, fourth down the row.

"We usually stay together," Pinkie said, and it felt as if she hadn't truly spoken up for at least a half an hour. "Well, most of the time usually. Usually-usually? Anyway, it's the majority --"

"-- they're double-occupancy residences," Starlight sedately interjected. "Two ponies each. There are four of you, so it requires two residences. Take your baths. Nira --" and that blue gaze didn't bother to check anything at the proper distance back along the route "-- has seen where you're staying, and she'll come by with food. After you eat, we should be able to schedule a proper welcome."

"We'll need keys," the performer said. Rarity immediately wished she hadn't.

"They're not locked."

Rainbow was the first to move towards her indicated door, because there was now a race of sorts and she certainly wasn't going to let the performer win. Rarity put her legs into motion and, after a too-long moment, Pinkie followed.

Starlight watched. The smile appeared.

"Settle in," she smoothly told them. "Take your time. There's no rush. And... you're safe here. Safe, after so much time out there. So clean up. Rest. Eat. And I'll see you later. And for the true welcome."

"And when would that be?" Rarity asked. "Simply so we can prepare, of course."

The lilac mare thought about that.

(She thought about everything.)

"True welcomes," Starlight said, "always take place at exactly the proper time. By definition."

She turned. Trotted away, passing under two of the lampposts while stepping directly onto a pair of the surrounding quartz enplacements. Nodded once to Nira, followed by a few quick glances at anypony else who was still trailing: those ponies immediately rerouted into a departure. And then the travelers were alone.

Four mares briefly looked at each other. Rarity immediately regretted the total, and then allowed her corona to coat a door. Rainbow nosed at the other.

They went inside, because nothing was locked. You couldn't seal it from the inside, either. Why would there ever have been any need?

They were safe.

There was some initial exploration of the houses. Beds were designed for single occupancy: it was possible to push them together, but the frames were rather rough and created a significant gap between mattresses. Ramps could, with some care, be used as ramps: some of the hoof-planting divots didn't have enough support depth. The kitchen had a stove and a refrigeration unit, both roughly functional. Cooking equipment was lacking, and the utensil drawers were empty. Similarly, the pantry had yet to be stocked, and slightly-slanted bookshelves awaited their first volumes. But there were blankets on the beds, and cotton wadding had been pushed into rough pillowcases.

It was necessary to step carefully. The flooring was largely composed of wooden planks, and somepony had missed a splinter here and there. Also there, there, over there, and that was a nailhead. Pinkie indulged in some rather precise stomping.

There was a touch of artwork in both residences, at least insofar as a glass-covered poster which bore naught but words could be described as such. Each could be found in the respective bathroom. Pinkie located You are As Free As You Choose To Be. Rainbow had One Voice, which didn't seem to be anywhere near as potentially inspirational.

The toilet trenches functioned, which was about as much as anypony could ask from them. And there was plenty of water for the crude single-occupancy above-floor wooden tubs, but the temperature...

Rarity had already tied up the bathroom for an hour. Pinkie patiently waited outside the door.

"I heard you get out again," the baker said. "Are you done?"

"No," drifted into the makeshift hallway on a current of frustration. "I found another leak. I'm patching it now."

"With what?"

"The soap."

"Soap dissolves in water --"

"-- yes. That would be the usual theory. And until it actually begins to venture towards proof, I will continue to use this piece as caulk. Ten more minutes, Pinkie."

"That's what you said ten minutes ago."

A little too carefully, "Are you sure it's been ten minutes?"

"I have a very good memory," Pinkie calmly said, "and I can count."

Most of the muttering leaked out from under the poorly-fitted door. Splashing eventually resumed, and then stopped again.

"You're still moving around outside the tub," the baker eventually added. "I can hear you. Are you doing something else?"

"Dumping the fur dye," Rarity admitted. "We have no reason to be carrying it, and it's somewhat too late to be placing patterns into our coats. Very well, back into the tub..."

"Are you going to leave me any hot water?"

"There's nothing to leave you."

Openly disgruntled, "So you used it all up."

"No," declared the frustration. "There was no initial supply. The best way to describe this water's temperature, Pinkie, is 'extra-strength tepid'."

"Oxymoron," the baker commented.

"You haven't experienced the sheer amount of effort it's putting into staying that way... very well: I'm almost done. Believe me, Pinkie, I would rather have you in here to scrub my back. And then remain to take care of yours. But the size of this tub does not permit it, and the height of the rim creates some rather awkward sight lines. Did you happen to find any laundry facilities? Our clothing also needs tending."

"Sort of."

There was a long pause.

"What exactly," the too-careful words pushed through the door, "do you mean by 'sort of'?"

Pinkie hesitated.

"Did you know," asked the world's least skilled rock farmer, "that's there's a lot of things which can be done by running water across stones?"

Silence, or nearly so.

"Rarity."

No answer.

"I can hear you. I know you just tried to put your head under the water."

None at all.

"And you still can't breathe through your horn."

Eventually, the four mares came back together, and did so while Rarity's outfit was still drying. A feat which it had been asked to perform while still on her body, because it was possible that Nira might drop in, Rarity needed to be wearing something, and this was actually the best selection from the limited quantity available.

Trixie had come into Rarity and Pinkie's assigned residence in the rough company of Rainbow. Rarity reluctantly allowed that it was probably best not to leave the performer to her own devices for too long. This was foreign territory and for all they knew, there was another amulet in the area.

They gathered in what had probably been intended as the living room and in that sense, was underperforming. There was just about enough space for two ponies to spread out in relative discomfort, and the poorly-filled throw cushions which served as furniture promised that status wasn't going to change any time soon. It was somewhat easier to stand, but not by much.

The group was clean again. Three of them were dressed. Notes were quickly compared regarding their residences, and the hot water situation was no better in the other house. It was agreed that the cabins needed to be smoothed out. Also that they would benefit from a few architectural flourishes, which was to say, any architectural flourishes.

And then, with ears straining towards the unlockable entrance door as a just-in-case, they got down to it.

"It's clear that they're covering their hips," Rarity said -- and then suppressed most of what would have been a surprisingly bitter laugh. "I would normally say 'marks', but given the reason why most of us are here, we can't make too many presumptions. The marks, or something in that area. Including a potential lack of icons. Starlight may have been nude simply because she has something which can still be displayed."

"And if it's a place for sick ponies," Rainbow argued, "then nopony warned us! So either it's not contagious, or they just don't care! And if we're gonna stay here for any time at all --"

"-- we are under a shield, Rainbow," Rarity's near-instant weariness reminded her friend. "One which I am certain I lack the strength to break, and we would need to find a generating device before trying to operate it." And there was a second, stronger unicorn in the room, but that one had decided she needed the Amulet. "We may not be leaving at a time of our choosing."

"We still need to find out," the pegasus insisted. "Make sure it's not going to hit us." And perhaps not even she was aware of how much her volume had increased. "I don't want to lose my mark, Rarity!"

"In time," Rarity roughly agreed. "We can make our inquires in time."

"I can't --"

Very quickly, "-- Rainbow, I understand your fear, but there is no lock on that door and I am entirely certain that there is no soundproofing in this entire building. If anypony is approaching this street, or is too close to one of the windows on an occupied residence..."

The sleek jaw slammed shut.

"We will need to be very careful about just how blatant our questions can be," Rarity said. "If they are sick, then... it's fairly obvious that they don't want us to know. And that is likely because they fear our reactions to learning the truth." With a soft sigh, "Perhaps that poor stallion did escape, and the last stages create a need to run. Temporary insanity. But we don't know. What we can be sure of is that we are, at least for the moment, rather stuck."

"They figured out we were coming," Rainbow finally said. "And had some way of finding us. I don't think that was a random patrol."

"Agreed," Rarity immediately said. "Which implies we missed a fly-over, or -- that there was magic used to detect us." And she hadn't felt anything active, but...

...average.
Weak.

"There was magic used for one thing," the performer abruptly said.

Rarity glared at her. It didn't make a difference. The bitch kept talking.

"Resonance," their burden stated. "Avoidance. Did you feel how we all kept skidding off to the side, just before they showed up? They've got an effect which directs traffic around the shield. Away from the community. And it came in slowly, subtly. I mostly spotted the effect when it stopped."

...very well. Enlightened self-interest arguably has a place in survival, and we are all stuck here.

The performer wasn't Twilight, and couldn't be trusted too far. Or possibly at all. Additionally, there was another issue to discuss, and soon. But until then...

"A defensive measure, perhaps," Rarity allowed through gritted teeth.

"One which they shut down to bring us in," the performer pointed out. "They could have trusted it to just herd us away."

"Or it's mostly meant for animals and -- monsters." Not yet... "We would have noticed eventually, unless the effect became so strong as to override reason entirely." A little more thoughtfully, "But if we had broken, and galloped -- we eventually would have gotten out of its range, or had the effect wear off."

"And then we would have realized what had happened," the other unicorn agreed. "Recognized that some form of magic had been at work, and investigated with our own defenses up. You're right. It's not a perfect way of hiding the community."

The "Agreed," just barely managed to make its way into the world. "Pinkie? Did you happen to pick up on anything we should --"

The strongest form in the group reared up, and earth pony strength slammed forehooves into the floor.

"-- she doesn't smile right."

The words had been forced out through the tight lips of a pink-framed snarl.

"Pinkie?" Rarity carefully asked. "What do you mean --"

"-- Starlight," Pinkie half-hissed. "I was watching her --"

"She is... socially awkward, Pinkie." The sheer degree of perceived understatement almost made Rarity smile. "Rather like Twilight, at the very start --"

"No," erupted in a blast of open vehemence, punctuated by a furious stomp of the right forehoof and a lash of pink tail curls: something which almost made Rainbow pull back and put the performer into a tiny jump. "Twilight could smile, even on her first day. She'd just forgotten what to smile about, and most of the why. Starlight's smile is just lips moving. It's the sort of smile which you put on your face because it can't reach your heart. And the others..."

Her features briefly scrunched. Blue eyes closed, looked for words within, and then opened again.

"They're happy," Pinkie slowly said. "But something about that feels wrong. Like they've been happy for too long. And their smiles... it's as if they smile because... they've been smiling for a while, and everypony else is smiling, so they have to keep smiling." The stilled tail slowly drooped towards the splintered floor. "It's not joy. It's... repetition. And that's wrong. Does... does anypony understand what I'm trying to say...?"

This is our empath.

Not that Pinkie could directly tap into another pony's emotional state -- well, Rarity was relatively sure that the baker couldn't do it reliably. Certainly not on purpose: even if the chaos inside her occasionally allowed it, the effect wasn't under Pinkie's conscious control. But even without that -- when it came to how ponies were feeling, Pinkie was the most naturally in tune with the spiritual environment. If she felt something was that wrong...

"I didn't see it, Pinkie," Rarity reluctantly admitted. "I will try --"

"It's like the buildings," Rainbow abruptly declared.

They all looked at her.

"I mostly know cloud structures," the pegasus admitted. "Still. But I look at Ponyville's buildings a lot. Because they disrupt airflow and when I'm practicing, I have to work around that. Or with it."

And crashing into most of them would have provided a rather brief close-up view. But Rarity held back that smile too.

"And these buildings..." The pegasus shuffled her hooves, because there wasn't enough space to attempt a hover. "They don't look right. Like everypony's playing at making stuff, but they don't know how. They read half the book and decided that was enough. The boring half. And it's not just the buildings. I already tried out my bed."

"How was it?" Pinkie quickly asked. "I didn't get the chance --"

"I think it's straw ticking."

"Oh?"

"I'm sure about the straw."

"Oh."

"Watch out for ticks."

"...oh..."

The pegasus shuffled around a little more.

"I may sleep on the floor," she decided. "After I kill all the splinters." Paused. "I was looking at everything I could. Maybe they are sick. But they mostly looked healthy enough."

"Mostly," Rarity not-quite-asked.

"None of the pegasi have their wing rest positions right. And nopony was flying." Cyan hooves scraped at the floor. "If... this whatever-it-is means you can't fly..."

Pinkie shifted position, gently rubbed against Rainbow's left shoulder. The pegasus didn't seem to notice.

"The only unicorn I saw with an active corona was Starlight," the performer noted.

Not. Yet.
Almost there...

"So this could also affect magic," Rarity reluctantly agreed. "Any other observations?"

"No pets," Pinkie immediately said. "Not where we could see them, anyway. And I don't know what the pet animals are like in this part of the world. Maybe they're all indoor types."

"No birds," Rainbow added. "But that's the shield."

"Some of the fur and mane colors felt dulled," Rarity observed. "But those may be their natural shades."

Starkly, "No children."

And then they were all looking at Trixie.

"I have to sort out an audience in a hurry," the performer stated. "Who's where. How they're reacting. The mix of ponies in it. The youngest pony I saw today might have graduated secondary school last summer. There's no kids."

Slowly, Pinkie nodded.

"Not in sight," she said. "They might have been keeping foals away from strangers, but..."

"I saw multiple ponies traveling in pairs," Rarity considered. "Some of them could have been couples. But that hardly guarantees fillies and colts. And --" the thought felt as if it made so much sense "-- if this is a disease of marks, and we are in a sick colony -- then there is a very good reason to not have children present, everypony. Those who have yet to manifest may be incapable of becoming ill."

"It didn't protect Apple Bloom," Rainbow immediately said.

"...who?" the performer asked.

Nopony answered her.

"Cutie Pox," Rarity said. "A known condition, with its own rules. This may be different enough to protect the young. Very well. Let us use this opportunity, before Nira arrives, to agree upon our lies. I am Faceti -- and we each give one name only. That way, if the others are found and ask about us, our own can be the surname."

"That's still risky," Rainbow decided.

"Agreed," Rarity grimly stated. "But it is a chance we must take. So. Names..."

They sorted it out. The performer came up with one immediately. Unsurprisingly, really. She was used to lying about who she truly was. And 'what'.

"Occupations," Rarity finished. "Rainbow, you can manage the myriad vocabulary terms of a weather surveyor? -- good. I wish we had a profession other than aeronautics for you, Pinkie, but there are only so many ways to interpret your mark." Especially since they didn't have a balloon with them, and Rarity really didn't want anypony looking for a crash site. "Please let me know if you think of a plausible one. Well in advance. And -- you..."

Almost.

"...researcher. For magic," Rarity reluctantly concluded. "I suppose you can fake that for a time."

Trixie's eyes narrowed. But she nodded.

"Very well," the designer said. "The two of you, back to your own building. Pinkie and I stay here, and we all await Nira."

"Fine," Rainbow immediately announced. "I could use the food." With a soft mutter, "Unless you get sick by eating this stuff. Half of it didn't look right..."

Pegasus and burden both turned: something which took a little work in the cramped space. Rainbow went out first. The performer began to trot --

Now.

"Trixie?" Rarity softly said. "Dear?"

The other unicorn froze. Stopped moving, and did so without giving Rarity the basic courtesy of looking back.

"...what?" eventually drifted over a stilled tail.

"Yes," Rarity acquiesced. "That would, in fact, be the question. Based on your words and rather too casual posture before we were brought here, I have been assuming that you did something with Spike. Which created his absence. WHAT?"

Her volume hadn't changed. Only the intensity, and Pinkie pulled back as the streaked tail began to tremble.

"...I hid him," Trixie finally said. "We've got to be within the lockdown, you know that. If he'd come in with us, then there's no one --"

"NOPONY."

"-- who can tell Twilight that we were taken in. She told me about what happened towards the end, with the castle. He can't send scrolls out of the spell's radius. It was about communication --"

"-- I understand that," Rarity softly cut in.

The trembling slowed.

"You -- do?"

"I also understand," the velvet-sharpened blade announced, "that he was sick."

"He's a dragon," the performer desperately tried. "A dragon in a forest with no monsters. Even sick, he's the deadliest thing there. He'll be fine until they reach --"

"-- you did the first thing you thought of, did you not?" Rarity quietly asked. "Once again. And that was to leave an ill child alone in a wild zone." Rather casually, "Do you have faith in anything, Ms. Lulamoon?"

The mare's back, neck, and dock went rigid.

"Why are you --"

"Personally, I -- had something of a crisis in that department last year," Rarity serenely stated. "I'm adjusting. But I hope that you have faith, Ms. Lulamoon. Because I advise you to pray. Pray that they find him. Pray that he is alive when they do, that he recovers. And if he does not -- then when I learn of his fate, and I reach you, for all the good it will do -- PRAY."

She looked away from the monster. And after a time, the streaked tail did her the favor of removing itself.

Twilight's field lanced for the materializing scroll before the light finished coalescing --

"Easy, Twi," Applejack cautioned. "Ah can see that."

The little mare fought back the blush, with limited success. "I know. 'Hide my field, nothing over a partial corona.' And even then, we'd be stuck with a scroll floating in midair. I just want to see what he needed to tell us." She could distinguish Spike's sendings from Celestia's: anypony could if they'd seen both and paid attention to the process. This scroll was from her brother. And it was a whole scroll, which meant he'd clearly had a lot to say.

"...we're turning the corner now," Fluttershy softly noted. "Maybe they're at the waterfall. And since they know what some of the path is, he could be sending a map. Things to avoid, places where we go around..."

Twilight nodded. "Making sure we can get there." Her field unrolled the now-solid scroll, began to bring the bubble through canopy-created patches of dappled sunlight. Moving it within group viewing range. "So let's see what he wants to say..."

She read the first three words.

They've been taken.

Three words only.
And then the horror set in.

Lint

She tried to tell herself that the words didn't represent the death of hope.

They've been taken.

It wasn't going well.

Every magical effect was potentially susceptible to resonance. Emotion could creep into any casting. And in Twilight's case, worry, stress, and a fast-increasing fear had put a distinctive vibration into the borders of the still-visible field bubble. It was taking so much of her concentration just to merely hold her brother's desperate missive, and that was as opposed to allowing her terror to convert it into fragments.

And that wasn't the only effect.

"Twi, your field's gettin' kind of bright there," Applejack's instant concern noted. "Didn't have the best angle t' start with, an' now Ah can't exactly read anything through it --"

The little mare's left forehoof came up. Touched the narrow rib cage, moved outwards again. Over and over, until the glow dimmed.

"...stress exercise?" Fluttershy softly asked.

"Yes..." Twilight took a slow breath, held it for a count of three before release. "Cadance taught it to me."

"...does it work?"

She couldn't quite find a smile.

I mostly get stuck on how stupid it looks if I do it in public. Which means I'm thinking about that instead of whatever I was stressing about, so... technically?

And she would have said all of it aloud, but -- there were other words which had to come first. His words.

Words, which, with her field's lumens diminished and viewing angles checked, could now be seen by others.

They've been taken.

Fluttershy gasped. Applejack's right forehoof briefly came up, then slammed into too-moist soil, and it took several vital seconds before the fast-spreading vibrations died away.

"Sorry," the farmer quickly began. "When y'all know already, it's easy t' jus' let some of it out --"

"Keep reading," Twilight grimly said, because she was already five lines down the scroll and still accelerating. "Just... keep reading."

So much of the lettering was shaky, and it was rare to see his handwriting skidding close to illegibility. Part of that aspect might have come from his own fear, or... it might have been illness. (A combination of factors wasn't exactly out of the question.) Twilight knew how humid the environment was, understood that her brother's biology hadn't been meant for extended exposure to such conditions.

He'd been afraid when the scroll had been written: she was sure of that. Scared and... alone.

She felt as if he'd tried to include everything he could, and yet she knew details had slipped: lost for lack of writing space, or drowned in a swamp of agitation. There was one portion which was rendered blindingly conspicuous by its absence, and it was something she couldn't try to start dealing with just yet.

But once she had all of his words...

Details could slip, when you were afraid -- and that was hardly the worst of it. You thought about the wrong things. Over and over. Sometimes you stopped thinking entirely. Moved too early, too late, or not at all. Acted in a panic, without considering which actions had a chance to work. Just so you could feel that you'd done something, anything, when those you loved were...

...lost.

So much of her wanted to gallop into the rain forest. To scream his name until her lungs threatened to collapse, because it was something she could do. And if she was going to have any real hope of finding her sibling, the first thing she needed to do was... finish reading.

She understood that, and the knowledge didn't do anything to stop the surge of helplessness and self-hate.

Just finish...

I'm going to send a scroll to Canterlot.

It's not just their needing to know what's going on, Twilight. Their leader identified herself: 'Starlight'. And maybe that's not her real name, but I've got a description, and I got a good look at her mark.

The next section was his attempt to describe the 'leader' for her, and... he'd kept crossing things out. Unusual, but he'd clearly been shaken, might still be utterly terrified at this very moment, and he was alone...

There was a sketch of the mark. Rough, but there was enough detail to let Twilight get the general idea. The icon itself was fully unfamiliar.

I hope it's enough for the palace to start investigating. Because usually the mark would be enough, but this could be about tampering with marks. That might not be her real one, or the original. And maybe having some kind of illusion spell going would explain why she felt so blurry.

Which struck Twilight as an odd choice of word.

There's something wrong with her. I don't know what. Just that it's WRONG.

I don't know what the palace will want to do. But they can't try to extract all of us without breaking the lockdown. Even if they decide to try it, we should all be together. We need to get together, fast.

That group didn't just come across us. That was planned. It felt like a scripted scene, and Starlight still hadn't memorized her lines.

Maybe her brother liked the theater a little too much...

They knew there were ponies in the forest. At least. But I didn't hear them ask about a dragon. I didn't hear anything after they got out of sight for the first time, because I couldn't risk getting too close. I managed to get to where I could see them, but I had to hang back because if I was close enough to overhear anything, then they were probably close enough to hear me moving through all the plants.

If they knew there were ponies around, that could be from magic. They could know about you.

I'm going to make a sign. Something you can see from above. Get up to where you can try to spot it. I saw binoculars being packed, so I'm hoping you have some because we didn't. When you spot it, try to come through the canopy near it. I'll stay close for as long as I can. But if they send out patrols or the magic finds me, I'll have to move.

I'm going to back away from the shield, then scout along some of the edge until I find a place to put the sign up. The shield isn't easy to see, and I know there's illusion at work there. There's no glow. Just hints of sparkles. And I only got a glimpse of what the other side really looks like just before the hole closed. When it was gone, I couldn't see them any more. Just the rain forest.

The easiest way to spot where it starts is the shallow trench in the ground, and you can't see that through the canopy.

It's big, Twilight. Too big. If it's a normal dome, then the curve is huge. I think it might go just about all the way to the waterfall. And I can't follow it that far. There might be another river to cross.

And he could swim, but -- he was small. A strong current would easily overpower him.

Look for the sparkles. Come in high and come in from behind. I don't know what happens if you touch the shield. Some of the branches on my side don't quite touch it, and they look like they haven't healed yet.

Be careful. Please.

Find me.

We have to find them.

We have to get them back.

It took her a moment to realize that the written words had run out. Two more breaths were required before she registered an odd soreness in a foreknee, and finally told that leg to stop flexing.

And then she had to force herself to wait, because all of her friends didn't read quite that fast.

"Might need t' have a word with Ms. Lulamoon, once we're all back together," Applejack finally said, and there was something odd lurking under the tension. "Hidin' him like that..."

"I'm not exactly happy about his being alone either," Twilight drastically understated. "But if he'd been taken inside the lockdown --"

"-- then we don't know anythin' when it comes t' what happened," the farmer didn't quite snap. "Ah get that, Twi. Said Ah want t' have a word with her, an' Ah meant it. Ah'm..." and the powerful body seemed to sag from within "...just not sure what the word is gonna be." More solidly, "Ah jus' know we've gotta find Spike. An' after that, we get everypony back together. Fast as we can."

We need everypony.
Everypony.

Fluttershy, who needed to read through a lot of veterinary journals every moon, had finished and was doubling back on the text.

"...Twilight... I'm really sorry if I missed something, but..." The hesitation stretched out for a little longer than usual. "...he... didn't write down what the sign was going to be, did he?"

"No," Twilight sighed. "Maybe he hadn't thought of anything yet." Or he did, and he just forgot to write it down because he was that upset. "But he was going to create something which we could see from the air..."

And she couldn't send anything back to him. Remind him of a detail overlooked, or ask for clarification. Of course, it was possible that an update would materialize at any second --

-- all right: not that exact second, but maybe during the next --

"Which means gettin' some altitude," Applejack pointed out. "Makes it easier for us t' be spotted, unless those ponies didn't clear out any part of the canopy when they moved in -- an' that still don't stop a flyin' patrol."

"I know," Twilight softly said. "And it doesn't matter. You saw what he wrote down, Applejack. They know there were ponies in the forest, and they moved to intercept. If it's magic, then they could know we're here."

"...and we can't be sure that they don't know about him," Fluttershy pointed out. "Unless it's a spell which only detects ponies, and that's why it missed Spike..." With open worry, "Twilight, have you felt any magic? At all?"

The little mare shook her head. "It's possible that something got past me, especially if it was made to slip by passive feel. But... given -- everything -- I've been actively checking more than I usually would. Nothing, Fluttershy." Nothing at all.

Detection of ponies only... that was possible. Maybe they just hadn't gotten close enough to be picked up. But if --

when

-- they found Spike... that was when they would almost have to be in the spell's range. She would need to have every sense on full alert.

"We've got the lenses, at least," Applejack pointed out. "Saw 'em when we were sortin' out the supplies." With a soft snort, "Wasn't sure why. Can't see ten body lengths ahead in here most of the time."

"We need them," Twilight stated, "and we have them. I'll take all the luck we can get."

The farmer nodded. "So how are we doin' this?"

Think...

"They're probably somewhere near the other face of the mountain," Twilight slowly said. "That means we'd have to finish turning the corner before we could really start to look. From above. And if it isn't magic detection, then that's where we're most likely to be spotted: in the air, with a clear line of sight to the ground."

But a shield dome...
...Rainbow went into the air a few times: I know that. Unless they've got a caster whose field is the exact color of the sky...
...at every time of day, under all possible conditions...
...she would have seen a normal shield eventually.
And that means...

It was a logical conclusion. Twilight felt that she still would have regarded the conclusion as logical even if it hadn't been skirting the outer edges of possible.

She needed to get a look at the actual results. Quickly.

"...and the longer we're in the air, trying to look," Fluttershy softly pointed out, "the more of a chance they'll have to see us."

We were so close to finishing the turn.
To having a chance at being together again.
After I...
...this is my fau --

Spike was out there.

There were a number of freshly-acquired facts tumbling about the interior of her skull, with every last one trying to knock conjectures loose and send them tumbling into the morass of paranoia. Only two were currently important.

Spike was still out there, and he was alone.

"Then we won't do it from the air," Twilight quietly stated. "We'll work from the ground."

Applejack blinked.

"Twi?"

"Give me a minute." Why hadn't she practiced more? "I need to get into the right mindset."

I do what must be done because I can't do anything else.

"Twi, Ah know that pickin' up on --" and the little mare listened as Honesty swallowed back self-censored words "--somepony's place on the ground was the first tool y'ever used, but it's still got a range. Pretty sure yours don't go out that far an' even if it does, with all the stuff movin' around in here -- finding jus' one pair of walkin' claws... even with true hearing, sensory overload is still a thing..."

I move without thinking because it's the only way to get things done in time...

"They still might spot us," Twilight said. "But that could wind up giving us a faster way in, because being spotted doesn't have the same price as before. They know there's ponies here now: learning about three more might not change things all that much. So we're going to find Spike. Then we're going to figure out what we're doing next. But --"

The next words might have been a sign that the mantra was already taking effect.

"-- we can't afford to be as cautious any more."

Twilight's wings flared out to their full span.

She'd had some rather natural concerns about trying to operate with a plan while in Rainbow mode. The pegasus was perfectly capable of creating and then executing a plan -- but the latter took place over the course of several years. 'Join the Wonderbolts' was Rainbow's idea of a plan goal. Anything more immediate tended to take the form of 'Go for it and if something goes wrong, feather into a recovery from the disaster which was in no way my fault. Then try the next thing.'

A stated objective of 'Find Spike' had felt as if it had a good chance to send Twilight speeding over the trees, desperately searching for any hints of dragon body heat. Hoping the inner fire would show itself through the canopy. Instant override of her original intentions, because wouldn't doing that just be faster? And if it went wrong, she could just think of something else...

But she'd managed to hold the aspect all the way through the canopy, and she was still ascending exactly as she'd intended.

(She'd gone through a momentary bout of claustrophobia as she'd neared the woven ceiling of leaves and branches. Had that been from Rainbow? What about the surge of relief which came from having reached open sky? But she couldn't afford to think about that too much right now, and perhaps not about much of anything else.)

She was going up the cliff face, keeping close company with the rock on what had been their side of the mountain. The stone was a mere three body lengths away, and part of her longed to see just how close she could come without having a wingtip brush the hard surface --

-- keep going up, gotta do this fast...

Aspects could be hard to hold. The absence of shouted queries regarding advanced magical theory didn't matter, because the pony mind possessed what seemed to be a near-infinite capacity for self-distraction . It meant extended flights were risky, and that was one of the reasons Fluttershy was following her up. Closely: the yellow form was a mere two Celests below, and moving with forelegs outstretched and spread. If Twilight slipped back to herself, then the caretaker would catch her.

Not that Twilight was (currently) worried. Because there were certain mental hazards to calling forth Rainbow's aspect, and the librarian still hadn't quite figured out if some of them were actually benefits.

I've got this.

Ascending, and pegasus sight told her that the humidity was diminishing somewhat with altitude. So was atmospheric density. The air was already noticeably thinner. An athlete's expertise made some notes on oxygen efficiency.

Canterlot's high up enough to need some adjustments, and this thing is taller. We shouldn't stay up there too long.

Go high enough, and even pegasi would become subject to altitude sickness. Pass that point, continue to ascend, and you would eventually run out of air to push against. For this intended height, it was possible to acclimate -- over several days. They didn't have that kind of time.

...she usually didn't fly for anywhere near this long, and even a nearly-pure vertical ascent still counted as distance. Her wings were starting to become sore. That meant pushing harder --

-- and then she saw the rim. Bare rock, about three body lengths across, with a new jungle directly behind that. Thicker and greener than what rested closer to sea level, packed so densely as to give even Twilight's small body trouble with slipping between trunks.

She landed, then released the aspect. The soreness in her wings instantly tripled, and aching joints individually sounded off their presence as feathers reluctantly tucked themselves against her sides. Twilight gulped for breath, found the results to be decidedly inefficient, and did it twice more just to get the benefits of one normal inhale. Her foreknees bent, and did so at the moment Fluttershy came over the rim.

The caretaker immediately touched down next to Twilight.

"You're okay? Wings?" The one visible blue-green eye was now focused on Twilight's heaving ribs. "Lungs?"

"...we're just -- really high up," Twilight gasped. "I think we're at least eighty percent above Canterlot's height right now..."

Fluttershy nodded. "It's the altitude. Just don't try to do too much for a couple of minutes --"

Which was when a certain degree of musical racket started to sound from the greenery: natural expressions of alarm at seeing anything new this far up --

"-- oh!" the caretaker gasped, and did so as her neck moved with a practiced twist and jerk. Something which flipped the mane back, leaving both eyes exposed. It was an action which was normally only taken if the hybrid was getting ready to Stare --

"Fluttershy?"

"-- can you hear them?"

"...them?" Twilight unevenly Fluttershied.

"The birds!"

-- or if there was something she really wanted to see.

"We're on the tepui now!" Fluttershy gushed. "Right on top of it -- oh, right: you don't read the taxonomy journals. It's the name for a flat-topped mountain like this, and we're right on the top! Each one can be its own little biome, Twilight! There's species which only exist here! Golden-tufted grackles! Pebble toads! Parrotlets and tinamous! Hardly anypony ever gets to see them, and we're right here! I could just go into the forest for three minutes, only three minutes, and --"

Both eyes blinked. The beautiful features contorted into a wince.

"...no," she softly said. "No. We're trying to find Spike. No. Take two minutes to recover. Then we'll go around the corner and get the right facing. And... I'm sorry..."

The little mare almost smiled.

"Don't be," she said, and meant it. "That happens." Because for Fluttershy to be offered a chance to meet so many new species...

Which brought out a rather embarrassed "...still..."

"You've been surrounded for days now," Twilight pointed out. "You'd already held out for that long."

"...I know, but... don't talk, Twilight. Not yet. Give your body two minutes..."

They both silently counted it off, and then the mares began to move.

"...I'm still sorry..."

"I'm not offended," Twilight sincerely said.

Wing joints had gone loose. The mane had come forward again, and the one visible eye was staring down at dark, bare rock. "...it's Spike -- I had to stop myself, it's Spike and I still had to --

They rounded the corner. Twilight began to orient on the new facing.

"Fluttershy," the little mare sighed, "just about everypony's been there. Less than thirty seconds of flank-brain. And that was it."

"...I shouldn't have..."

"Don't be so hard on yourself." The last word required an extra breath: the followup decibels dropped accordingly. "Come on: we've all seen it happen, right? And just about everypony's been through it. You find yourself in a situation which calls to the heart of your talent, and of course you'll want to investigate. It's natural -- okay, this feels like a good place to start. So let me just look down and -- Discord's twisted horn!"

"...Twilight?"

"I think I just -- there it is again! The air is sparkling! Intermittently, I mean, and it's a good thing it's a clear day because I'm pretty sure we'd be above a few clouds right now, but there's just enough to pick up on the distortions in the light when you can see them in bulk from above! And I can feel --"

"...Twilight..."

"-- it's changing color! The mountain is casting a shadow over that section, and it's changing color to match! Automatic hue adjustment, Fluttershy! It has to be automatic, because you can't ask somepony to do nothing except maintain it: they'd never be able to see every necessary change at once! Do you know how hard automatic changes are? Luna could do it with an illusion, but to bind that into a shield... and it has to have the lockdown present for maximum efficiency because of course you'd want it all to share the same border and maybe run off the same devices -- how many devices would it take to do this? That's huge, and all of it just looks like normal rain forest from here! There's no sign of any buildings, and maybe they're all under the canopy, but the thaum drain rate -- and you're asking them to keep all of the effects going in the same construct! How would you make it all cooperate? Or maybe it isn't devices? This could still be individual casters, but the combination limit on Gromway's is still three and with that theoretical drain rate... dear Sun, the amount of skill involved for any of this --"

"...Twilight --"

"-- I've got to study --"

A yellow wingtip gently brushed her snout.

Twilight blinked.

"I have to find Spike," the shame eventually whispered. "I have to..."

"...maybe forty whole seconds of flank-brain," Fluttershy gently told her. "When you were looking at something which called to the heart of your talent, and you naturally wanted to investigate."

"I shouldn't have..."

"...I'll forgive me," Kindness offered. "But only if you'll forgive you."

Eventually, the little mare managed to lie up a nod. Looked around the area, getting it memorized.

"All right," she finally said. "I'm just about ready. But I need to check something first." And winced. "Which means this next part is going to look a little weird. I won't actually be going anywhere. And because of that, I may have to try a few times before I get a good look. I don't want to try slowing the middle part down." The wince was now starting to feel familiar. "Oh. Right. I'm going to --"

"...teleporting without going anywhere?"

Twilight blinked again.

"...you've been lecturing us about magical theory for a few years," the caretaker smiled. "I think it would be sort of insulting if some of it didn't stick. That's what you're trying, right?"

Slowly, the librarian nodded.

"I can sort of see the shield," she clarified. "By looking for where the light isn't quite right. But it's hard to make out the exact dimensions. And I know we're not within the lockdown right now: I can feel that -- and the effect pretty much has to be tied into the shield. So if I get into the between, I should be able to get a better idea of how far the barrier goes. That's going to be crucial if we need to steer around it."

A little more softly, "...are you scared?"

"Yes." It was oddly easy to admit that. "I've been afraid to teleport since we got here. I could have tried line-of-sight jumps to get us past some of the harder sections, because arrival pushes plants aside if they're not too dense. Not that we've had many spots like that here, and... I've been afraid to teleport." She took a deep breath, and insufficient strength flowed. "Now I'm afraid of what might happen if I don't. You might want to look away, Fluttershy. There's going to be a lot of light."

The next step was in bringing Applejack to the top of the tepui, and that wasn't a pleasant experience for anypony.

Carrying her in flight was out of the question. Fluttershy was considerably stronger than she looked, capable of moving in the air while burdened with significant mass -- but at the same time, Applejack was the largest of the Bearers, and vertical movement still counted for distance. It would have been too long of an ascent for a pressure carry. And with Twilight -- she couldn't ignite her horn while in flight. Not on purpose. And even if she somehow had managed the feat -- maintaining a field bubble for that long while Rainbow's aspect was foremost, as the penalty associated with inevitable failure increased with every flap...

Of course, Applejack had rope. The farmer just about always had rope. There was still the question of whether she had enough of it to create an effective harness. Being carried for that long would also put a lot of pressure on her body, and any effective system relied on having two ponies on the tow ends -- which was still asking Twilight to stay in the air for a fairly long time, and to do so when there was nopony available to catch her.

She'd memorized their observation post on the tepui. Then she'd teleported back to a recently-cleared patch of rain forest, apologized to the earth pony for the fifth time, and finally brought her up the fast way.

They'd given Applejack a minute to recover from the uprooting: something she'd very badly needed. When dealing with an earth pony who'd been teleported, a minute had been reasonably expected.

The other problem was new.

"...no signs of pegasi," Fluttershy softly said as she gazed through the binoculars. (Both eyes had been freshly exposed for this, but the snout clamp lens mount was creating some visible discomfort.) "...I'm seeing some birds, but -- that's just it: birds."

"No breaks in the forest," Twilight reported. "Except for where the waterfall is coming down. I think the shield is partway into the lake." Frowned. "Which is a little weird. If they're living here, they'd want to be close to water." Because as she'd recently been reminded, you needed a certain amount to maintain life -- and somewhat more than that to snuff it out. "So it's natural to be near the falls. But with the shield --"

"-- Ah think," the farmer tightly said, "Ah'm gonna vomit."

Two mares immediately turned to look at her and, courtesy of not having quite shifted their gazes away from the lenses, were treated to close-up views of green flushing beneath orange fur.

"The teleport reaction?" Fluttershy quickly asked. "Still? You usually recover in --"

"-- Ah wasn't this high up when we went t' Cloudsdale," Applejack's rising nausea announced. "Ah am higher up than Ah've ever been in mah life, when Ah can still feel good stone under mah hooves. There's what y'might call a certain level of disconnect. An' Ah have t' keep lookin' down." She sighed. "It ain't goin' well."

Automatically, "Sorry --"

"-- better this than gettin' split up any more than we already were, Twi -- an' Ah'd like to point out the part 'bout not havin' died 'cause you got us out in time. Again. Ah'll keep lookin'. Jus' don't be surprised if Ah need t' visit the bushes for a minute."

They continued the search.

"Wouldn't mind a scroll right now, though," the earth pony added. "T' tell us what kind of sign it was supposed t' be."

"It might appear too far in front of us," Twilight sighed. "Over the edge. And then I'd have to try and catch it."

"With your field?"

"Let's hope it would be my field..."

Another portion of the forest was checked.

"...all in clothing except for her," Fluttershy eventually said. "That's very suspicious. And we know ponies are involved now." Paused. "...well, we always sort of knew that. Because something which affects marks is going to target ponies. But to have what she called a 'community', all the way out here..." Paused. "And now we know why the animals don't go near the waterfall. The shield, and that avoidance spell Spike wrote about. They wouldn't even understand why they were avoiding it..."

"It could still be a sick colony," Twilight noted. "We'll have to be careful about that. For all we know, they were just trying to get the others away from whatever causes this. Before they were affected."

"...which would mean it's not contagious," the team medic considered. "And the one mare's mark was visible..."

"An' that don't mean it's the one she started with," Applejack darkly said. "If anypony in the world knows 'bout that, it's us." With a mutter, "An' Rarity's usin' a false name. Maybe Ah can jus' pretend it's a nickname or somethin'..."

Check tree. Move to next tree. Search for anything resembling a sign. Repeat.

"...a sick colony," Fluttershy thoughtfully mused. "Maybe we can help."

"It's the best case," Twilight agreed. "Non-contagious, staying isolated while they're treated." She wanted to believe it, and told the faint hope to wait for some actual evidence.

Softly, "...and the worst?"

Weapons need extra test subjects.
We already met one pony who didn't mind experimenting on others.

"Just... try to focus on finding Spike," Twilight offered.

I wish I knew how to exoteleport. I could just bring him --
-- I'd still need to know exactly where he was, with a direct line of sight. And Trixie didn't do a lot with range...

"Maybe the palace is gonna send reinforcements," Applejack suggested.

"And maybe it's a sick colony," Twilight reminded them. "We can't attack the ill."

Or they're trying to spread it.
That stallion died. The lockdown has to be there for a reason. Maybe they go insane in the last stages. Try to escape. Then you need another test subject.
One more corpse.
When there's no guarantee that one more will be enough.
And now they've potentially got four --
-- or maybe I have to remember what the Princesses said. That they might have wished for their marks to change, and come here to try. But he was still trying to reach Canterlot. For -- what?
And if it's a community of ponies who wanted to change themselves that way -- how many are there?

What had the described 'clothing' been covering? (Spike's description, added to several years of Rarity's lectures, combined to add the quotes.) A lack of marks? Altered icons, warped to the point where anypony would find the results unnatural? A community of those who bore the Not Equal sign?

There was one sure way to find out.

"We've gotta think like Spike here," Applejack announced. "Say he's makin' a sign. One we can see from above. What would he do?"

The mares paused.

"...he can climb," Fluttershy quietly considered. "Handling claws, walking claws. He's too small to wrap a truck and shimmy up like a minotaur would, so he just gouges little supports into the wood. The only limit on how high he can go is whether there's branches which will take his weight. For some trees, that's all the way up."

"Best way t' stand out," Applejack contemplated, "is t' break up the monotony. From up here, that mostly means green. Got a little variety for the leaves, but anything which ain't a plant color is gonna show up fast." Frowning, "Which means that if they've got pegasi on patrol, he's takin' a big risk."

"...we haven't seen any yet," the caretaker noted.

"Ah'd still like t' work fast. Jus' in case." Hard hooves scraped at the rock. "Find him, get there, get down... Fire? Easy t' spot orange, yellow, an' red. Not t' mention the smoke."

"It's hard to light one tree in a forest this thick," Twilight countered. Or rather, Spike could -- but the count wouldn't stay at one for long. "And he knows it. And you know he's more careful than that."

"He's young," Applejack's sibling experience offered. "An' scared, an' -- alone."

Nopony said anything for a few seconds.

"Maybe if it was one branch," Twilight finally broke the silence. "Hold it just above the canopy. Hope we'd see the smoke. But it's still a risk, and the plume would be thin." And he would also be counting on the wind to not disperse the trail before it rose high enough to be spotted. "Still... stand out against the green..."

She had a thought.

Reality, which didn't always appreciate dramatic timing, stalled them out for another eight minutes before Fluttershy spotted the result.

A tall, concealing section of thickly-tangled plants seemed to jump a little as they came through the canopy, because that portion of the descent had been somewhat too fast and the two mares had broken some branches on the way through. Twilight's attention immediately went in that direction, found vertically-slit pupils going wide with joy, and instantly lost Rainbow's aspect.

The remainder of the drop was considerably faster.

Fluttershy wasn't quite in time to catch her, and it didn't matter. Her knees didn't bend in a way which absorbed the whole of a two-Celest plummet, and that didn't matter either. She struggled to her hooves, her legs were jolted and she was going to have fresh aches within the hour and none of that mattered because he was running towards her...

...a backpack. Not saddlebags, because he didn't have flanks: a formal little backpack, something Rarity had designed for him and updated every so often as he grew and fashions changed. And of course if Rarity was going to make a backpack, she was going to create a few things to put in it. After all, one never knew what kind of conditions one would be entering, and a certain amount of comfort was always desirable. Especially when she was using a material which could be folded thin and tight, taking up so little space. And when it came to color...

When it was properly packed, it used just about no backpack capacity at all. But when fully unfurled, the rich plum blanket could cover roughly twelve small dragons. Or, if necessary, most of a treetop.

He ran towards her, and she didn't like the way he was moving. Then his body was pressed against her forelegs, and that let her feel the way his ribs were shifting -- along with giving her a very close-up sound for his breathing. There was a wet, coarse quality to it, and that set a new group of worries ablaze.

He's sick.
I have to --

-- his body was against her forelegs. His face was tucked into the fur of her sternum, and hot tears were quickly saturating the strands.

Twilight's head dipped, as Fluttershy landed next to them. It let her chin stroke his crests.

He's sick.
I always feel so helpless when he's...

She lowered her head a little more, did her best to nuzzle him. The changed angle allowed her own tears to fall away from her face, and cooler moisture ran across the dirty scales.

He was sick.
She always felt so helpless when he was sick. Because there was almost no dragon medical lore available, and she hardly ever knew what to do.
Her little brother was ill.
He was also with her.
Found.

The caretaker had landed. But she stayed back, during those first few seconds. Giving them a little time. Precious seconds for tears.

And words.

"I'm sorry --"

They had both said it.

"-- it's not your fault..."

That too.

Siblings did that sort of thing.

Hash Table

There was a certain visceral pleasure in watching water die.

Witnessing it was also somewhat surreal.

Viewing the process against the backdrop of the tepui and a fast-setting Sun wasn't exactly helping.

...all right: so the water wasn't truly perishing. Just for starters, it was rather difficult to kill something which wasn't actually alive. And when it came to a substance so basic... well, as Twilight had recently been reminded, most of what could be done was to change its state. Even separation into component elements (all two of them) left the remnants in a condition where they could reunite again -- and it had taken her a little too long to remember that even if she'd somehow managed the feat, it would have just provided her with a lot of hydrogen. All of which was now in the presence of an electric spark, and additionally had plenty of oxygen to feed the flame.

In the most basic sense, you couldn't really kill water. But you could change its state and ideally, do so while encouraging it to relocate. So once they'd found Spike...

It hadn't taken long for Twilight to realize the illness was a humidity reaction: she'd suspected something along those lines before getting her first good look. Spike had been through some prior, lesser versions, because he lived well outside his ideal environment. And there had also been that idiot bureaucrat who'd essentially been trying to chase a perceived living fire hazard out of the library, arranging for the tree's interior atmosphere to be supersaturated accordingly. The siblings had gotten it resolved just in time to prevent any damage to the books and, rather more importantly, their respiratory systems -- mutual, because it wasn't exactly a good place for ponies to occupy long-term either -- but she'd already been dreading the moment when Spike's breathing turned coarse and wet.

It was a humidity reaction. And so the first thing she'd asked him (after the apologies and tears had finally died down) was what he most wanted to eat. Because she seldom knew what to do when her younger sibling became sick -- but his body possessed certain instincts, and would often try to direct him towards a cure on its own.

Cachalong opals. And in Equestria, those were scarce: just about any specimen found within the borders would have been imported from Yakyakistan -- there were a few educational perils involved with hanging around the Boutique -- and the designer's stock suffered accordingly. There wouldn't have been any in the standard food supply coffer.

Twilight did know Rarity's trick. She didn't have the same degree of refinement with it: detecting something on the level of a chaos pearl was beyond her. But when it came to a cachalong opal, she could try to search, doing so with a fairly significant radius -- and her hasty experiment quickly proved two things: the stone didn't seem to be in the immediate part of their current continent, and the density of local trees did a lot to break up the outrushing spell.

They couldn't completely abandon the inciting conditions, they didn't have a cure, helplessness had begun to crash in...

...and then she'd started to wonder about treatment.

Her idea seemed to be helping him, and she was grateful simply for having potentially thought of the right thing.

Watching the process just happened to qualify as surreal.

The rose light of Sun's lowering glowed against the outside of the -- 'window' was probably accurate on some level, but Rarity wasn't entirely sure whether the description was fair. A window was meant to let light go through in two directions, and this specimen was having some rather visible trouble with managing the feat in either. So much of the hue simply coated the poorly-worked glass, unable to find true passage.

There was a device mounted in the kitchen's ceiling. It was present to provide light and because the 'house' (same reason) didn't appear to have been previously used, it wasn't running on much of a charge. The glowing twists of wire provided sufficient lumens to allow identification of the other pony in the room, and that wasn't really saying much when the other pony was Pinkie. A rough outline of curls generally sufficed.

Just barely enough to see by, for a given value of 'see'. There certainly wasn't enough power to allow penetration of the glass from the other direction.

Light trapped within. Light trapped without.

Something about that seemed almost to summarize their current situation. It had simply neglected the part where they were also trapped with the darkness.

...although at the moment, that was several 'houses' down the row, and presumably wouldn't be dropping by until after she finished --

-- Rarity didn't know if Truedawn offered any group exercise program for residents, but the community definitely gave quotation marks something of a workout --

-- 'dinner'.

The designer stood by the window for a few more seconds, never quite managing to gaze at what was outside. At one point, she tried to angle her attempt up and got just enough of a glimpse to note that the shield was either changing color to match the sunset or letting the rays through perfectly. Either way, it was more than what the glass had accomplished.

Twilight would be fascinated...

She thought about Twilight for a moment. It gave her a brief diversion from thinking about Spike.

Rarity tried to stare out the window, and failed. Light didn't really come in, nor could get it out.

The other occupant of the room carefully cleared her throat, and the voiced "Rarity?" felt slightly... timid.

"Yes, Pinkie?" asked the distracted unicorn.

Carefully, "The food's getting cold."

"...yes. Well... perhaps that will help."

The glass kept the light in and out. The scents, however, clearly weren't going anywhere.

Reluctantly, Rarity forced herself to breathe, and then put a good portion of her willpower into turning away from the window. This meant looking into the kitchen, and there was enough light to make out Pinkie on the other side of the rickety table. It also allowed her to acquire a further impression of the table's contents, and that really didn't matter very much because when it came to impressions, the first was generally the most important.

Some of the outlines upon the plates had shifted. Others had sagged. Two were on the verge of collapsing into themselves, and one brought up a few questions about the exact requirements for using 'mutate'.

She sighed. Came back to the table, sat down on a recently-desplintered floor, and began to eat. Pinkie, acting out of both friendship and solidarity, did the same.

A little time passed. The window's glow shifted closer to orange, and she thought about Applejack.

"Do you remember the Baked Bads?" Pinkie eventually asked.

Rarity's snout wrinkled.

"Yes." She looked down at the contents of her plate. "With surprising fondness."

The plan had always been to get him temporarily out of the area. He'd backed off from the shield's border before putting the sign up, but the cloth had still been relatively close to the -- 'community' -- and there was a chance of having an aerial patrol spot it. And they really didn't need to deal with the 'local' ponies right now. Especially when the apparent response to finding strangers was to bring them into a lockdown area, and the last of the Equestrian group was currently stranded at high altitude with no feasible means of safe descent.

So Fluttershy had collected the fabric, Twilight gathered the living in close, and a frantic flare of magic had brought them back to the tepui's giant forested stone-and-soil tabletop. Time had naturally been allotted to Applejack's expressions of relief, some of which had even been comprehensible. And after that...

There wasn't quite as much humidity at this level. Water had a tendency to sink (and Twilight received another reminder of that when she glanced over the rim and saw a small cloud drifting by below them). Removing Spike from the inflicting environment helped -- while also creating a new group of problems.

The group had already recognized just how high up they were. Above Canterlot. Above Cloudsdale. And that was an issue.

The sky settlements existed at their assigned altitude for a reason. Yes, there was something about pegasus respiration which allowed them to operate in lower atmospheric pressure -- to a degree. Go up high enough, and even pegasi would struggle for oxygen. There were diseases which could strike those who spent too much time in the thinnest air: Rainbow had been through a bout with Manière's, and three days had passed before she could take so much as a single hoofstep without risking total loss of balance.

Perhaps there were techniques which concentrated the air around the cloud cities, offered a more 'normal' pressure to residents and those scant visitors from the ground. Twilight didn't know: as with so many aspects of other-species magic, it had remained in the background of her life because there had been no need to wonder about it. Fluttershy probably had the answer -- and if those techniques did exist, then the hybrid lacked the ability to create them.

They were higher up than they'd ever been before, and there was a price for that. Move too quickly for too long, and the headaches started -- accompanied by uncertainty as to just where that last hoof had come down, because full coordination had apparently been abandoned at sea level. Spending too much time in reeling their way across the tepui allowed Applejack's nausea to find new homes, and Fluttershy quickly brought out their supply of m'changa. Measured dosages, distributed it, and told the group that the only true cure was to do as little as possible while allowing their bodies to acclimate -- something which would require more time on the tepui than they'd intended.

But they had to move, because the plants were some distance away from the rim. They needed wood. And once they'd found enough dead pieces for a start, the altitude fought them again.

Spike was kept out of the ignition phase, and everything else: he was already sick. But it turned out that fires were harder to start in the high places. They seemed to actively resist being maintained. Flames jumped in strange ways, then sunk under the wood and searched for ways to extinguish themselves. The group had to fight to get the campfire going, and then they had to keep a near-constant watch over it to make sure it wasn't about to go out. But once they felt there was enough to work with, the ponies had settled around it.

The dragon, by contrast, had been told to settle in. And had.

Spike was seated within the flames.

It wasn't hurting him. It couldn't. He routinely reached into ovens with bare claws, manually adjusted the facings of hot coals during barbecues, and incidentally happened to take a yearly health swim in lava. Twilight had still insisted that he lean forward somewhat while breathing, because dragons still needed oxygen, there wasn't a lot available at the current altitude, and the fire was trying for most of it. (Any dive which went fully under the lava required Spike to hold his breath, and keeping his mouth shut was mandatory because while the inside of his mouth was also fireproof, anything which solidified after surfacing had to be chipped free.)

The fire couldn't hurt him. But when somepony was sick... one of the most common first steps was to try warming them up. And when it came to treating a dragon, Twilight was simply trying to warm him to a level beyond what any water in his lungs could bear.

So he was sitting in the fire. All the colors of flame played across scales, danced within his eyes: the yellow had a special prominence. This was added to the hues offered up by setting Sun, which mostly offered a soft caress to his crests. He could speak normally, but sometimes had to repeat a word because the wood had crackled at a bad moment. The smoke was being ignored.

Well... he was ignoring the smoke. They'd set up the fire in close proximity to the rim: bare rock, with no worries about igniting the tepui. And Applejack was sure that their blaze was a little too small to be casually spotted from ground level, especially with the canopy in play -- but that was with casual searches. With pegasi around, any patrol could go airborne. And when it came to the canopy...

Twilight got up.

"...you shouldn't move too much," Fluttershy softly cautioned her, and did so as slightly-oversized wings carefully, deliberately flapped. An action which wasn't going to bring flight, with their owner spread out low across the rock.

"I just want to check something," the librarian said. "Sun's being lowered..." She forced herself towards the rim, with excessive care taken in the planting of each hoof. "Let me see..."

She looked down.

"What are you lookin' for, Twi?"

"Lights," the small mare readily admitted. "Even little ones. If there's a community down there, somewhere under the trees, then... this would be around the hour when they would activate their devices. Even tents would need some lighting." Spike had described a mixed group and even if there had been nothing but unicorns, you couldn't do everything by corona radiance for long. "It might be possible to spot exactly where they are."

"Makes sense," the farmer admitted. "An' what are y'seein'?"

She squinted.

"Trees," Twilight reluctantly admitted. "I'll check again later. But either they're not using a lot of light yet, they don't use it at all, or there's an illusion built into that shield." Muttering slightly, "Something which makes sure that when you're looking down, all you see is trees."

It was worthy of study. It was also a problem.

"...it's not a perfect defense," Fluttershy pointed out. "We still saw the sparkles."

"There isn't much you can do about the sparkles." She'd met one exception, for whom the quality existed within a single casting. A working which she never wanted to see again.

"There isn't much we can do about making the Sparkle get some rest, either," the youngest voice stated. "Except keep asking." More gently, "Lie down, Twilight. ...please."

She sighed. Turned, carefully planted her hooves all the way back, and lowered herself to the stone. Watched Fluttershy's wings for a while, because the careful flapping was directing the smoke to move backwards across the tepui, taking it out of ground-level sight. Hybrids had very little of their birth race's magic -- but even Fluttershy and Snowflake could manage a little wind.

Twilight wasn't sure there was much point to creating that level of concealment. But they were all doing what they could...

"I know I took a risk," her brother quietly offered. "Putting the cloth up like that. Anypony could have seen it."

Maybe we should have tried it earlier. But she didn't say it, because the factors had changed. They'd all been trying to conceal their presence from any sapients who might have been in the rain forest, and -- there wasn't as much point now.

"We saw it," Twilight gently replied. "That's the important thing." She took a deep breath: a small amount of oxygen followed it down. "It was a risk for us to use a high observation point, Spike. Especially with what I did. Popping in and out of the between like that... it was a lot of light. And there might have been a group up here, for all we knew. Everything we try is a risk. We just had the last ones work out."

He reluctantly nodded. Thin lips parted, and a wisp of steam drifted into the air.

Tea's up.

A stray thought. Unexpected and uncontrolled.

"I wasn't sure it was you at first," he said. "When you came through the canopy. I thought it might have been somepony with an illusion around their body."

"What made you decide?"

He smiled.

"You dropped."

"...oh," Twilight said, and left it at that. Watched flames play across his scales.

"You all look hungry," Spike observed.

"Kinda," Applejack admitted. "It's been a long day."

"Kick me that fruit?"

The farmer obliged. He caught the maracuya in his right hand, then lowered his arm and rotated the wrist while claws spread out their grip.

After a few seconds, he rotated the fruit. Making sure it got an even sear.

My brother is sitting in a fire.

That thought had been intentional, and was no less surreal.

It would have been fair to say that Nira's cooking wasn't quite on the level which a sleep-deprived Applejack could achieve, because that had been capable of cleaning out half of a digestive system from the wrong end. The community resident had just brought a certain degree of anti-art to her results. It was the culinary equivalent of placing a flowing toilet trench in the open floor of a museum and designating it as a display piece, only accomplished by accident.

The pineapple had clearly been flipped a few times: uneven heating periods had allowed it to achieve the remarkable feat of being simultaneously overcooked and undercooked. Which didn't really matter too much, because grill char marks made up most of the actual flavor. The remainder came from the fact that some pineapples were so acidic as to create some question as to just who was actually being eaten.

They'd been offered true yams. Rarity was aware that some specimens, upon being removed from the soil, were toxic. Thorough cooking neutralized that quality, rendering the vegetable into something perfectly edible. And because it took thorough cooking to do it, Rarity had carefully nosed the stinking tuber to the far side of her plate and was leaving it there until she figured out how to get the oven turned on.

Corn could be cooked within the husk. Once peeled free, there was the option to grill, boil, or roast. Attempting all of them on the same ears had been a choice. However, there was only so much you could do to an eggplant, and Nira had managed most of it.

The tomatillos had merely been cleaned. The results were incredibly sour, and this made them the best thing on the platter because once Rarity had tried a few in quick succession, most of the other flavors were lost.

The two mares forced themselves to eat. They had supplies and in the event of a crisis which required actual food, they were going to need them.

"She's very nice," Pinkie eventually said, once the gagging had stopped. "Nira, I mean. It feels like she cares about us being comfortable. Welcome."

"A very pleasant mare," Rarity agreed.

"Who can't really cook," the baker sighed. "I think she was just doing... the basics. 'Heat this. Flip that.' Without really looking at the temperature or the time. But she tried..."

Rarity reluctantly nodded, then made herself take another bite of the eggplant and, after some half-hearted chewing, even more reluctantly swallowed.

"You did notice the way she brought the food in," the designer observed.

Pinkie nodded. "Back-mounted tray on a balance platform. And another tray in a tooth grip."

"No ignition of corona to place anything upon the table," Rarity continued. "The mouth tray was slid into place, and then she waited for assistance with the other..."

"Rhynorn's Flu?" Pinkie tentatively proposed.

"I saw no other symptoms," Rarity noted. "But that does serve as a reminder. That there are multiple diseases which affect magic. Rhynorn's is simply the one which prevents focused casting --" paused. "Pinkie? Is there an earth pony equivalent?"

The baker was quiet for a moment.

"Yes. It's like laryngitis, except inside. One of my sisters caught it. But that goes away after a while."

She hardly ever mentions siblings. Not beyond the twins, and Pumpkin is a pegasus. We are all aware of her adoption, but...
Adopted, with siblings left behind.
Bitterly, Why only her, Gentle Arrival? Taken away from the rock farm alone, as one of yours?

"When I was a little Pinkie, I thought I had a forever case," Pinkie slowly finished. "I didn't."

Rarity quickly changed the subject, and did so before mane curls had a chance to collapse.

"I saw you speaking with Nira, before she left," the unicorn hastily said. "What was the topic?"

"Asking if she was a cook," Pinkie readily said. "Not that I really really thought she was, because I remembered what she said before. And I'd already smelled the food. But she said that she just dabbled. That let me ask her what she really did, and -- she told me that she was still figuring that out. And that there was no reason to ever do only one thing."

"At her age?" Rarity's shock inquired. "I looked up the record for oldest manifest, Pinkie -- and do not give me that look: I was thinking of Sweetie, the Crusade was still on, and I had a number of fully legitimate concerns."

The baker carefully put the half-smile away.

"Not that I know exactly how old Nira is," the designer admitted. "But she's younger than I am. I'm sure of that." And Starlight is...? "Which still puts her well over the line. When a declaration of 'Still figuring that out' could easily suggest --" and the next words had to be forced "-- no mark at all."

"Or she's trying different marks out," Pinkie proposed. "If they know how to switch whenever they want, and the talent moves..."

"Or she is ill," Rarity carefully countered. "And the talent does not work, and she searches for a replacement..."

"We don't know," the hybrid admitted. "We can't. Not yet."

"We only know," Rarity replied, "that Starlight is most likely involved. Her field hue, Pinkie. In Spike's picture, and then again in life. There is some chance for overlap, of course -- only so many shades, especially when it comes to those which have been named."

"And we've seen long odds before," Pinkie reminded her.

"Usually from the receiving end," Rarity sighed. Simply being chosen by the Elements... "However, until we find another candidate in a place where nopony else has been visibly casting, let us go with the balance of probability and location. Which state that she is mostly likely the caster responsible for the lockdown. And who, at the very least, charged the teleport device."

"Yes," Pinkie simply said. "And she opened the shield. So she's strong, and she probably knows more spells than most unicorns, and... she doesn't smile right."

Cautiously, "You said that earlier. I promised that I would try to see it --"

With somewhat more insistence, "She doesn't. And there's something else, Rarity."

It seemed to be a prompt. "What?"

"The first time Spike saw that color."

She thought about it. Glanced back at the half-glowing windowpane, and found no help there.

"It has... been a very long day, Pinkie," Rarity finally surrendered. "A long day, after poor sleep, being spent in an unknown place, with hosts of questionable quality. And I will never have your memory. Remind me?"

The topics were shifting.

"It was the same color," Spike solidly stated from his place amidst the flames. "The picture, her taking notes -- and the first time I saw it, Twilight. When I tried to send a scroll to Scootaloo's parents, and a lockdown bounced pieces back." Empty hands tightly clenched, and firelight gleamed upon tensed scales. "It's what you said in Applejack's house: maybe it was the same lockdown which killed that poor stallion. Maybe it rips everything apart. You didn't do the wrong thing by dumping us out, Twilight. You didn't. Because if you hadn't, then..." He swallowed. "...you would have had about two seconds to see if you could break her defenses. And I know you're strong, but... that's not enough time. It would have been reflex. Try to make one gap. Something we could all fit through. And..."

He couldn't bear to go on, and his sister could barely make herself finish the thought.

And I might not have had enough time.
Or it could have been almost wide enough. Maybe enough for nearly all of us to get past.
Nearly.

"I understand, Spike," she softly told him. "But... I still didn't know what had happened to everypony. When the three of us appeared without the rest of you..."

If you hadn't sent those scroll pieces...

She didn't know how to say it, and the anguish of lacking words twisted her tail.

So a watching Applejack said it for her.

"She didn't take it well," the farmer evenly stated. "Leave it at that. Y'let us know y'were okay jus' in time, Spike. She did the right thing, but -- so did you."

Fluttershy nodded. The group was quiet for a while, as Sun continued to dip.

"I've been thinking about that," Twilight finally admitted. "It's something else from Applejack's house, Spike. What she said."

"Me?" the farmer immediately asked. "What did Ah --"

"-- you said they might be in a place which they can't leave. And the Princess --" Oh, good: the title is back. "-- told us that they didn't have reports from every place beyond Equestria. So what if they're patients in a sick colony?" Her forelegs spread out, and the right hoof waved a little. "There's something wrong with their marks, and they can't leave until they're cured. You saw all of those ponies wearing clothing. They didn't want their marks to be spotted --"

"-- it's possible," her brother allowed. "Except that Starlight brought that group out."

"Trustees," the librarian proposed -- then realized she'd just used a term suited to prisons. "Or not as sick -- Applejack?"

Distractedly, "What?"

"You've just got a really strange look on your face right now," Twilight reluctantly said. "And your tail is -- sort of all over the place."

The farmer glanced back, snorted, and got the thick mass under control before facing the others again. "Jus' thinkin'. There's some irony there, Twi. The deep, dark stuff. That of all the ponies in the world who could get mark-sick somehow, it's the parents of the one who'll do anythin' if it means her hips finally glow. But... yeah. They could be somewhere inside that shield, especially since the vouchers keep --" and stopped, as green eyes went wide.

"...Applejack?" Fluttershy carefully asked. "You just thought of something --"

"-- the vouchers," Applejack declared, and a powerful right foreleg kicked a twig into the edge of the fire. "There ain't gonna be a post office in there, right? An' we know those teleport rods have range, 'cause the piece got us here. Twilight, if'fin they're patients, then somepony is goin' in an' out on the regular. At least once a moon. An' they go all over the place, because that's where those voucher are mailed from: jus' 'bout everywhere." Solidly, "An' they've gotta be paid for, every voucher. Purchased at a bank. Can't jus' have a bank here an' shove 'em out because somepony figured out how t' teleport a voucher into a mailbag by itself. Ah call this proof of one thing, Twi: if they're under that shield, even if the vouchers are bein' purchased an' sent by somepony else -- then this ain't contagious, not through breath an' probably not blood. If it's a disease, then it's from somethin' you're exposed to, or somethin' y'do. Because if'fin it wasn't --" and nodded to Twilight.

"Outbreaks," the librarian softly said. "Everywhere. It could still be a blood factor, but with breath -- we'd have seen this years ago. Breaking out everywhere a voucher had been mailed."

"An' at least one of 'em came from Canterlot," Applejack added. "Chew on that one for a while. The Princesses have been safe all along."

"...because if it's a disease," Fluttershy softly said, "then not having a cure doesn't mean they didn't isolate a cause. You're right. It can't spread from proximity or contact. And they would have to know how to keep somepony from getting it."

"Which means the others might have been brought in for their own protection," Twilight considered. Please... "Before they came across the cause. And these ponies stay out here because they feel like they know how Equestrians would react..."

"When they could go to the palace," Spike verbally jumped in, "and ask for help. To look for a cure. And you know they'd help. With this of all things, maybe with this more than just about anything --"

"-- they could be scared! Ponies don't always act rationally, no one does, and -- I know about ponies who won't ask for help! I... used to be --"

"Starlight can't be a doctor," Spike said, and steam vented from minimal nostrils. "A doctor would ask for help. There's something wrong with her. Something bad."

They kept coming back to that. And he couldn't explain why he felt that way. It was... instinct.

Everypony took a few breaths. Realized how little it was doing, and tried a few more.

"We could find her parents," Applejack finally said. "One way or another, sick colony or no. We could... bring 'em home..."

The blonde tail lashed. The hat, caught between strong ears, was half-crushed inwards.

"...Applejack," Fluttershy said, "talk to us --"

"-- 'sick' is a powerful excuse," the farmer stated. "Ah'll understand sick. No need t' forgive it. We can yell at them for not tellin' her, but -- in the end, Ah could go with 'sick' for all of it. So let's jus' hope that's what it is. Because there's options which weren't a sick colony, Twi. Pretty sure y'remember all of them, 'cause it was a list, wasn't it? One line read 'prisoner', and that's part of why we've gotta get in there. For our own, an' so many others. But there's worse than that on the list."

The tail lashed again, and the binding rope loop nearly came off.

"So let's hope they stay in the 'good' parts," Applejack concluded. "For everypony's sake."

"What do they look like?"

"I don't know," Pinkie reluctantly admitted. "Miranda has a picture somewhere. I'm pretty sure Applejack saw it. I didn't."

"So we could come across them," Rarity realized, "and never know."

They could simply ask around, of course. Or call out the filly's name, and see if anypony reacted. But it would bring them that much closer to revealing who they truly were.

But her parents have been missing for years. If they are here, then we must --

"And there's no children here," the baker quietly said. "Not unless they're hiding, or hidden. Maybe... you can't bring your filly when you come here. Maybe they were trying to protect her..."

They both forced themselves to eat a little more.

"I wish Rainbow would come in," Pinkie coughed out. "She needs to hear this too."

"Yes," Rarity agreed. "But she's likely eating." Darkly, "And there is the issue of her bringing along company."

"If they keep going like this," Spike worriedly reported, "it's going to turn into a fight. And I'm not there to try and break anything up."

And Rarity was the single dirtiest fighter among the Bearers, while Trixie would likely display a tendency to... innovate.

Twilight winced.

"I didn't mean to bring her," she quickly said. "I..."

They were looking at her. All of them, and that very much included the gaze which came from green eyes and vertically-slit pupils. The eyes she would have given so much to see again, and the ones which gave her the strength to go on.

"...but it was still me," Twilight finally told them. "Because of how I was preparing to cast. I kept telling myself that I had to bring all of my friends..."

Her head dipped, because she didn't want to see their expressions. Firelight shifted over loosely-held wings.

Fluttershy sighed.

"...don't tell Luna that part," the caretaker quietly decided. "She'd feel really bad for not having nearly hit the lockdown."

Spike choked back most of the laugh. Applejack snorted, and Twilight's tail twitched.

"...I'm not trying to be funny..."

"Ah know," Applejack half-snickered. "That's when you're best at it. Yeah, she might not take missin' out on almost dyin' very well. Outright tick her off. We'd get the cold shoulder for weeks. An' the cold everythin' else for ten minutes."

Twilight managed a nod, and then went back to picturing Spike's described rescue.

"Would Rainbow have gotten there?"

"She could have caught up," her brother decided -- followed by, with considerably more reluctance, "But it's easy to go under the water. Rainbow can't fly in water. And if that happened..."

Only a little time submerged, and the water could have been removed from Rarity's lungs.

Too much, and no doctor would have been enough.

"No marked physician," Rarity noted. "Unless that is Starlight. But if this is a sick colony, then to have but one doctor would be odd at best." Although they might have been lied to.

"Unless she discovered the disease," Pinkie proposed. "And she's trying to solve it all by herself."

"A herd would be better," the designer immediately decided. "But we don't understand the risks there, of course."

"And disease," Pinkie carefully reminded her, "isn't the only option."

Weapons research. Spell experimentation.

Either reason could be argued as exclusively existing among traitors to their own species -- but Twilight had told them about the Severance. And there could be other reasons for desiring to alter a mark.

Rarity could make herself recognize one concept: that a single moment in a pony's life might not define who they wished to be forever. But...

...exploring a better way of life...

That didn't make any sense.

They finished eating, prepared for the consequences of having their digestive systems deal with any of it, and mutually began to clean up. Nira was going to want the trays back.

"We'll wait for Rainbow," Rarity decided. "For as long as we can. But it's quite possible that she fell asleep immediately after finishing her meal." With a little sigh, "Which would hardly be the first time, but -- this environment has been nearly as hard on her as any."

Spike.
Be brave, small one.
Be safe.

"We may need to regroup under Moon," the unicorn considered. "Less chance of being spotted. So if she does not appear within an hour or so -- we... go to the other house. Check on her."

"On them --" Pinkie started to say.

"And until then," Rarity automatically cut her off, "we should try to rest."

Be safe, dearest.
And if you are not...

Sun was nearly gone. Twilight was using the last moments of daylight to examine the sky.

"Whatcha lookin' for?"

"Same as before. Pegasi on patrol. I thought I heard big wings at one point."

"...I saw the source," Fluttershy carefully cut in. "That's why I didn't say anything. It was just a Criollo condor."

The species name wasn't familiar. "A bird."

"...yes."

"Big enough for the wingspan to sound sort of like a pegasus?"

"...yes."

"And it can still get off the ground?"

"...yes," the caretaker repeated. "They're the largest flying birds in the world."

Curiously, "What do they look like?"

"...well... they're in the vulture family. So mostly like that. Only with a white ruff of feathers at the base of their neck. Or black. Some of the ruffs are black."

"You're sure it was --"

Just a little insulted, "...yes. Twilight, a pegasus isn't going to look anything like a vulture. Just for starters, there's two extra legs --" and the one visible eye abruptly blinked. "...Spike!"

Who looked up from the heart of the fire. "What?"

"...I just remembered! I have your disguise! And since we're going back down to try and get in there, we should see what it is!"

It was the little dragon's turn to blink. Then he stood up, stepped out of the fire, and -- stood very still.

"...Spike?"

"Y'okay? Ah mean, your breathin' sounds better already, but you're jus' --"

"Cooling off," he told them. (Twilight, who'd had to wait for him after the lava swims, added a nod.) "I shed heat pretty fast -- but right now, I'm a little too hot to be touching anything. Give me a minute."

Fluttershy nodded, then turned her head towards her right flank. Careful toothwork got a saddlebag open. Rummaging ensued.

"Sty wink schist tis hit," was quickly translated away from the Got Something In My Mouth. "Year..."

The wrapped package was deposited onto stone: tightly-wound brown fabric, almost two-dimensional, sealed with a black ribbon. Spike waited a little longer, then walked over and picked it up.

"Something in here," he unnecessarily reported. "It's thin..." He undid the ribbon. Fabric was dispersed --

"-- oh," the little dragon softly breathed. "Oh."

He held it out in front of his body, slowly turned to let the others see the golden chain. One which led into flared half-curls of suggested wings flanking a center alexandrite jewel, carved to look like a wisp of flame...

"...it's like ours," Fluttershy breathed.

"Oh, Spike..." Twilight smiled. "You finally have one..."

"Completes the set," Applejack grinned. "An' way past time --" The farmer squinted. "-- hang on a mite. Ours ain't got those little jewel beads goin' up the chain. Why the style switch?"

Their Magic took an expert guess. "Luna was thinking about illusion shells. Multiple beads... maybe she enchanted this herself, and included different options." With growing excitement, "So Spike could change his appearance in a hurry, and not just be stuck with one thing! Each bead triggers a different shell! Spike, are there instructions?"

The little dragon shook his head.

"Then they didn't have time to kick some in," Twilight considered. "Or it doesn't really need them. What's the most basic way to..." Moon began to come over the horizon: the little mare ignored it. "Got it! Spike, this has to be keyed to you. Just pick any bead and -- squeeze it between your claw tips! See what happens!"

"Twilight," her sibling cautiously said, "we don't know --"

In open enthusiasm, "-- it's Luna! The greatest illusion-caster of this generation, and most of the ones before! Just try it!"

His right hand came up. Slowly moved to the uppermost bead on the left side of the chain, gripped, and squeezed.

There was no flash. No burst of light or flare of corona, because Luna was better than that. There was certainly no sound associated with the spell taking hold. It all happened at once, without ritual or ceremony.

Her brother turned into a box.

Intrusion Detection

Twilight had said something about theories being crafted to die...

Rainbow personally believed herself to be a rather good listener -- when she wanted to be. It was just that if her friends expected her to pay any real attention, then they could at least talk about stuff which wasn't boring. That was just basic courtesy and since the group mostly possessed interests which didn't match her own, it was rare for anypony to truly indulge her. Given that, openly yawning in the middle of a discussion really needed to be perceived as a pretty fundamental form of feedback. And pretending to fall asleep during a lecture on Star Swirl? Basic criticism, typically presented in bulk.

(There hadn't been a Star Swirl lecture for moons.)

But those friends also had a way of saying things which stuck in her head -- whether she wanted them to or not. Because of Rarity, the pegasus was fully aware of just when every major party in the capital was due on the calendar, could occasionally dredge up some vestigial gossip, and knew exactly what her own complementary colors were. Applejack had added what Rainbow was hoping was a near-full list of fruit cultivars because oh dear Sun, please don't let there be any more than that. And when it came to Twilight...

Maybe it had stuck in her head because in a lot of ways, stunt planning was both theory and science. Admittedly, in Rainbow's case, the testing phase meant that suspect science was often considered to be still holding up after the fifth crash because there was a chance that she just needed to start feathering a little earlier. Twilight was probably going to discard a project a little earlier than that -- or, if the little mare really needed to find the answer, just keep stubbornly investigating until she came close to passing out in the basement and Spike had to nudge her up to bed.

Twilight had that core need to push. Rainbow respected that.

-- anyway, if the evidence ran counter to your theory, then you could test the evidence itself. See if that held up. And if it did, then maybe you had to let the original theory die. Anything else was either bad science or brute idiocy, because it took a really stupid pony to keep believing something after it had been proven untrue.

Rainbow knew she wasn't the most intelligent Bearer, and... there had been a few times when she'd had to face the potential consequences of being the least --

-- anyway, she wasn't dumb enough to keep believing things after they'd been proven wrong. For example, Rainbow had once believed her own writing to be just about perfect.

She'd been writing about herself! (Well, herself and the whole group, for that first year of their adventures. Everypony had done stuff, but Rainbow had taken the narrator perspective and that seemed to require a certain personal emphasis. On her own person.) An eyewitness account, written by the Bearer with the best eyesight! That had to be perfect!

And after a lot of lectures about how the international court known as the Beastriality had a list of defined war crimes, accompanied by all the means by which they potentially applied to comma abuse, Twilight had eventually proven her wrong.

She was still learning how to write. Editing was an ongoing problem. Twilight had tried to tell her something about killing her darlings, and Rainbow had outright refused. Her darlings were the best parts. Even when they were embarrassing (for the others), every last one was something which had actually happened. Maybe the resulting book couldn't be published until a few centuries had passed, but it was still meant as a recounting of history. And come on, Twilight! Wasn't editing history part of what got us into some of this stuff in the first place?

Twilight's eyes had gone wide. She'd muttered a few things, none of which had been discernible. And then she'd vanished into the basement for an hour, leaving Rainbow listening to circularly-plodding hooves as the pacing groove steadily became that much deeper.

(The termination of theories. Editing as slashing beloved paragraphs from the text.)
(There were ways in which Twilight talked about death a lot.)

And you had to be willing to let a theory go. Following the evidence, no matter where it led. Even when that was into the ground. Again.

"Don't trust her. Don't hurt her, either. But keep an eye on her. See what she does."

Currently, the performer was eating, with one barely-working window dark behind her. (Moon was up, and Rainbow didn't feel as if it was doing much of anything.)

They were sitting across the kitchen table from each other. Almost exactly across. Maximum distance.

Nira had come by with their food. Rainbow, as somepony who was still learning how to cook and couldn't escape from the ongoing lessons because Pinkie, knew the easiest way to get a decent meal was through having somepony else prepare it. And she would have said that Nira was obviously trying to disprove that theory, but Rainbow usually didn't say stuff like that and besides, she was pretty sure the unicorn hadn't been trying to do it on purpose.

Nira had looked -- happy.
...maybe a little nervous, probably because she'd been serving her results to strangers.
But mostly happy.

Rainbow had been picking at the contents of the plates, because being an athlete meant learning something about nutrition. Nira's cooking would totally keep somepony alive and after a couple of weeks on those meals, you'd really wish it hadn't. But Trixie was just... eating. Steadily, methodically. Processing calories, and nothing more.

"You like this stuff?" Or maybe wearing the Amulet permanently burned out your tongue.

The unicorn glanced up from the plate, and the flicker of surprise at having been addressed vanished before she met Rainbow's eyes. Swallowed, and then spoke.

"No. I've had worse."

Curiously, "Where?"

"Road stuff," the performer evenly stated. "I take what I can get." Paused. "And your settled zone has that pegasus -- the dark green stallion, middle-aged, mark is crossed test-tubes --"

Rainbow automatically said "Mister Flankington."

"-- right." The unicorn took a breath. "He got me on the way in. The first time. I was an hour late setting up the stage because I didn't want to move too fast yet."

The pegasus didn't really think about what she said next. She just let the words flow, because that was the best way to find out where they went.

"My first week."

The performer blinked.

"Really?"

"I was new in town," Rainbow shrugged. "And short on bits, and I was hungry. He said taste-testers didn't have to pay, and... he just looked like a really nice stallion. Who just wanted to help." Her stomach, acting on a combination of memory and recent ingestion, executed a perfect half-lurch. "He is nice. He's even helped us all out a couple of times, like with the geese --" and instantly spotted the confusion "-- right, you wouldn't know. And there was some sort of conference about magic, so Twilight wasn't in Ponyville for that one. She can't write an eyewitnesses account when she isn't there." Another shrug. "He's nice. And he can do a lot with crushed berries, as long as they aren't ever eaten. But he can't cook."

He just does something called food chemistry, and his mark tells him that means running a restaurant...

The unicorn didn't say anything. Rainbow briefly glanced at a window. (The glass still didn't know what it was supposed to be doing.) Then she went back to the performer, and the mare's head was down again. Eating through bringing her snout to plate level.

She didn't use her corona as much as most adult unicorns: Rainbow had noticed that. The performer was much more prone to working with her mouth.

Then again, the first two times they'd met, Trixie had run her mouth all the time.

Don't boast if you can't back it up.

Rainbow could.

...okay, there were times when that meant 'Eventually'. Getting into the Wonderbolts had been a very long-term 'eventually', and working out the full details had required more than a few crashes. But she'd made it. She'd gone through the practical exam while sick, and she'd made it anyway. Doing so on training and talent, when there were ponies like Frontette Falsi who'd only stayed with the squad until the captain had worked out exactly how she'd cheated.

And that was Trixie. The Amulet had been like using a field booster drug, only worse. Artificial talent.

Rainbow didn't know what had happened to Frontette after the dishonorable dismissal. It felt as if nopony did. There were ponies out there who almost compulsively tracked the whole of Wonderbolts history, and even they tended to let those who hadn't truly been part of the squad slip. Maybe she'd left Equestria. Or changed her name, applied a lot of fur dye on the regular, hoped nopony would look too closely...

"But for trust? She's gotta earn it."

Maybe she'd gone into the minor league stunt circuit and tried to start over.

You had to judge the performer by her actions, and -- the unicorn had done a lot.

"Nice rescue," Rainbow said. "With Rarity, I mean."

But maybe the theory needed to account for new evidence.

Trixie's head jerked up. A small piece of char fell from her lower lip.

I'm not ready to trust you.
Not yet.
But we can talk.

Something about the unicorn's expression felt wary. The actual words emerged as defensive.

"So you're not going to go after me for doing the first thing I thought of?"

Rainbow immediately decided that her answering shrug had been eloquent -- then realized that she probably needed to kick in a few words. "Sometimes thinking takes too long."

Trixie was silent.

So maybe some more words. "If you think too much," Rainbow added, "you can work your way down to the really bad ideas. Then you think some more, you can't come up with anything else, and you tell yourself that the worst stuff was really the best. Because when there's something you really wanted to do, you can't let yourself be out of ideas or admit it can't happen, and that means the last thing you thought of has to be what works --"

-- the unicorn was now staring at her.

Another shrug. "I went out for the Wonderbolts," Rainbow said. "And I made it. But I saw a lot of the ones who didn't. Some of them had the dream, and that was just about all they had." Feathers rustled at her sides. "The judges were nice to them, just before they got sent home. You sort of have to be."

She was almost certain that the unicorn was supposed to be saying something back by now.

"But with the ones who were closest," she kicked in, "and just thought that if they could come up with that one thing which could take them over the line --"

"-- you would have reached her," Trixie placidly interrupted. "In another couple of seconds. Tops."

"I would have reached where she was in the river," Rainbow quietly said. "Or on top of that spot, if she'd gone under. I can't fly in water. Nopony can, seaponies aren't real, and..." Just a little more softly, "...sometimes, a couple of seconds means you're too late. Two seconds can be everything."

There was no response.

You used to run your mouth all the time.

Their lives had only intersected twice. But when it came to defining 'all the time', that clearly counted.

They both ate for a while. Rainbow decided that the unicorn was going to clean the dishes. It wasn't Rainbow's kitchen and she generally waited until she was down to her very last dish before cleaning any of them. Letting somepony else do it just made more sense. Not that she was going to tell the other mare that, but she figured Trixie would work it out. When it came to kitchen tasks, noticing that Rainbow casually wasn't doing something had a way of enlisting other ponies for the duty. She was still waiting for the day when it finally applied to crash site cleanup.

The unicorn nosed the last plate to the edge of the table, and Rainbow waited for her to carry it towards the sink.

"I'm going outside," Trixie said. "Just for a couple of minutes."

"Exploring?" It was an honest question. They were under Moon, but there were streetlights around: it might be possible to see quite a bit. A full aerial survey...

"Just... going outside," the unicorn replied. "I'll probably just trot around the house a few times." She swallowed. "If you hear me getting up at night, then it's just going outside. I... have trouble staying in one place for very long."

Which made Rainbow snort and, judging by the way the other mare pulled back, it hadn't been the expected response. "Tell me about it! Everypony says that you're only listening if you stay in one place, but sound goes everywhere and maybe there's better acoustics over in that corner --"

"-- acoustics," Trixie carefully repeated.

"So you're going outside," Rainbow noted. "I'll come with."

Which got her a fairly basic, only slightly suspicious "Why?"

Because I still feel shut in. Enclosed. I can see the sky, but the shield is there and that means I can't really reach it.

Because I don't want to sleep just yet. It's not the bed. ...it's not just the bed. It's the dreams.

My dreams have been really weird.

Rainbow took a single careful breath, and went with the least personal truth.

"It's easier to think when I move. Or not think, when thinking takes too long."

Maybe you even get that.
I wish somepony did.

Slowly, the other mare nodded. Just once.

"But we probably shouldn't go too far," Rainbow decided. "Somepony might think exploring a new place on a first night was suspicious or something. Or at least, we shouldn't do that and get caught." (It almost looked as if the unicorn had started to smile.) "And at some point, we've probably gotta check in with --"

Which was when the hoof rapped on the front door.

It was a very special sort of knock. 'Politely insistent' would have been fair. Rainbow didn't get to personally hear it a lot because Twilight wasn't always available for cloudwalking spells and altitude boosts, but it didn't exactly take long to memorize. The knock was its own identifier and if you didn't have it down just yet, the voice was a backup.

"Are you still awake?" Rarity softly called out. "We thought that we should see how you were doing. Speak briefly before bed."

Rainbow didn't sigh. She didn't do that much and when it came to the designer, there usually wasn't much point. You didn't even need to worry about meeting any sort of quota. Writing down their adventures while learning about speech descriptors had proven that Rarity could sigh enough for seven.

We'll go outside later.

She got up from her bench. Started towards the hallway on hoof, because the door frame wasn't wide enough for an active wingspan --

"Thank you."

And when she glanced back, the unicorn was carrying the first plates to the sink. By mouth.

Her brother was a box.

(It seemed to bear repeating.)

Spike yelped and, based on what happened next, apparently tried to race out of the illusion. An effect which was centered on jewelry enchanted by Luna, and therefore moved with him.

"GUYS!" Which might have sounded like panic, except that panic was usually lower-pitched than that. "What happened? It's all dark! I can't --"

Fluttershy had been caught staring, with all capital letters thankfully left out of it. Applejack was beginning to snicker, and all Twilight could do was watch as the box followed up its initial forward movement through jerking backwards across the Moon-lit tepui rim rocks. It still wasn't quite managing to escape itself.

"-- I can't see! Did something go wrong? I've got to deactivate --"

Which instantly made the earth pony's laughter stop.

"There's horn holes, Spike," Applejack quickly said. "Right at your eye level, Ah imagine. Hold still an' try t' look through 'em."

"And don't move towards them," Twilight hastily added. "It's all just going to move with you."

The box froze.

"...that's better," Fluttershy finally said. "You're much more like a box now."

There was a rather long pause.

"I'm a what?"

"...because boxes usually don't move."

Technically, he was more of a crate.

You almost never saw horn holes on a cardboard box and when you did, the usual presumption was that somepony had made a mistake -- something Twilight extended to the mere concept of 'horn hole', because unicorns didn't like having their horns covered. Sure, you could place your horn into the gap, then carefully push against the wood and if you had the leverage, then the box would lift. You were now technically carrying something with your horn and in reality, that meant taking the weight on your neck. This usually didn't take very long to register as an error and if you were lucky, the recognition would take place before the box's contents began to slide. And when it came to a box which was large enough to conceal Spike...

There were horn holes on four rather nondescript wooden sides. Proper balancing meant that some errors had to be made by teams and with true solidity present, the entire miniherd would soon discover that the pony spine hadn't evolved to account for horn holes.

It was a rather generic sort of box. If it had been real, it could have potentially held just about anything and at the moment, it was full of frustrated dragon.

"A box," her rather disgruntled sibling said. (Some of the frustration was leaking.) "She thought I needed to be a box."

"Ah get it," Applejack shrugged. "A box could turn up jus' 'bout anywhere."

"Not unless somepony's got it with them," Spike muttered. "And if one of you is just hauling a box around --"

"-- I should see if it has a bottom," Twilight quickly decided. "In case we do need to carry it." Light appeared around her concealed horn, projected forward and surrounded the crate.

Nothing happened.

"It blocks your field?" Applejack hastily asked. "Ah get that for a defense, but --"

"-- and now," Spike cut in, "I'm looking through a horn hole. Which is covered by pink. Thanks."

Twilight missed the last part. "No. I just don't have him." Slightly embarrassed, "I tried to lift by the edges. It's normal. The bubble just isn't fit right. But I can try to probe inside, since it isn't solid --"

The "-- TWILIGHT!" was much more yelp than roar.

"-- okay, that's his tail -- sorry, Spike! -- and when I lift... See? It's got a bottom! Luna's just that good. Fluttershy, I'll rotate and tilt a little so you can see the details of the design--"

"Put. Me. DOWN!"

The older sibling winced.

Slowly, the box leveled in midair. Sank down to the top of the tepui, and Twilight's field winked out.

"...a box has uses," Fluttershy softly considered. "But it isn't mobile. And there are times when it shouldn't be on its own."

"Enchanted box?" Applejack proposed. "Moves itself when somepony tells it to?"

"It would usually glow," Twilight told them. "Besides, why enchant a box?"

"Too heavy t' push?"

"...you could just use a box carrier," Fluttershy proposed. Paused. "...you know. One of those low wooden empty frames with the wheels under the corners."

"Well, yeah," Applejack allowed. "But y'still gotta get the heavy stuff on top of that. So maybe a short glow lift?"

"Why do a short lift," Twilight argued, "when you could just manage the whole thing?"

"Low thaum charge? Cheap spell? Stupid caster -- oh, hi, Spike."

As it turned out,the dismissal of the illusion shell came with an equal lack of visual effect. Other than losing a box in exchange for getting a rather miffed small dragon back, but they'd been expecting that part.

"I just squeezed the bead again," Spike muttered. His hands dropped to his hips, pushed inwards as if trying to contain embarrassment. "A box..."

"More of a crate," Twilight unnecessarily corrected. "With horn holes."

Vertical pupils glared at her.

"Which was practical," she added. "A shell which you can't see out of doesn't really help -- Spike, there's more beads than that." With a gentle smile, "Why not try another one?"

"Because the first was a box," her sibling muttered. "You know, for somepony who had to be told what 'fun' was, Luna's got a really interesting sense of humor..."

"...try," Fluttershy softly encouraged. "It's the only way we'll know."

His right arm reluctantly came up. Claw tips squeezed --

"-- interestin'," Applejack immediately decided. "Ain't never seen a minotaur calf before."

Newly-rounded pupils blinked.

"A minotaur?"

"A little one," Twilight smiled. "Take a look?"

Hands were raised in front of yellowed eyes. The bovine head turned to regard a fur-tufted tail, and snub horns moved with it.

"Weird," the little bull breathed. "This is so weird..."

"...and it gives you mobility," Fluttershy added. "Keep going..."

It took a while to cycle through the complete set. The problems, however, became visible well before the halfway point.

"None of this is going to really work long-term," Twilight finally summarized. "They're fine when somepony is viewing from a distance." Openly impressed, "And they all update for movement in realtime, as far as they can. That's Luna at work. It's incredibly sophisticated! But --" Reluctantly, "-- they've got the same issue as every illusion." And because her brother had been through an especially long day, she gave him the last word.

"Contact," Spike wearily stated. "I can't be touched."

Or rather, he could be -- and if he was a minotaur at the time, anypony expecting fur would find scales. (Trying to push the box would find a pony's head going through, and the contents would presumably come as a surprise.) It took a skilled changeling to fool the tactile senses, and even Chrysalis was presumed to be incapable of maintaining a disguise indefinitely. Any magic burned thaums. A self-declared queen would still need to eventually rest, recover, and gather the strength needed for angrily denying the existence of a personal weakness.

Luna's illusions were visually effective. The ones which were supposed to move did so as they should. But they only fooled sight, and --

"...you'll need to hold your tail high as a minotaur," Fluttershy cautioned. "If the tip drags, it'll still leave a little trench in dirt."

"An' if it's mud, ponies can see claw impressions instead of hoofprints," Applejack groaned. "This is gettin' real complicated..."

-- as with changelings, they didn't do anything to trick the environment. Chrysalis could make a pony believe they were touching flesh -- but contacting soft wood still left behind chitin-produced scratches. Shining had tried to explain away multiple small personal abrasions as the results of stumbling into things while exhausted from overcasting and from all indications, it had been what he'd truly believed. All the way up until the end.

"I think we can get you in, Spike," Twilight carefully told him.

Which cuts off scrolls to and from Canterlot, but -- how would we communicate with him once we were inside? Try to reach the shield's edge and hope nopony follows? And if it's just a sick colony, or a strange -- community -- we might just be able to bring him in as himself. Even have him go in and out, so we could talk to the capital. But...

He looks better, but he's still recovering and we don't know how well the treatment worked to start with. What if it's just coincidence?
If he relapses...

They couldn't leave him outside. Not alone.

"But once you're inside," she carefully added, "you might have to stay hidden. And I don't want to start with you as a dragon. Because --"

"-- other than 'one of them is an alicorn'," and there was a touch of sadness in the words, "'sometimes travels with a dragon' is the surest way to identify the group." He sighed. "Are you guys going to put on fur dye?"

"Ah'm thinkin' it over," Applejack admitted. "But we ain't got much. Ah think y'all wound up with most of it. Could fully treat one pony, or pattern three. An' with me, you'd need t' drench. An' hope y'didn't lose track of me."

"Why?" Twilight automatically asked.

"'cause Ah looked. It's green. Jungle green. Good for fadin' into the background the way Miranda does at night, but not much else. An' Ah can't use it for patternin'."

"...why?" Fluttershy echoed.

"Y'kiddin'? Ah'd look horrible!" Forelegs were beginning to gesture. "Ah'm orange! That shade is mah contrast color --" and stopped dead, with green eyes blinking in horror.

"Applejack?" Spike finally checked.

"Thanks a lot, Rarity," the farmer muttered. "Anyway, Ah don't think we should do too much more up here. Easier t' think where we can get a little more oxygen t' do it with. So let's come up with our next move, if'fin we can. An' review it at ground level before we try anythin'."

"That one's easy," Twilight grimly stated. "We try to reach our friends."

"Ain't arguin'," Applejack told her. "But Ah think we're gonna need a 'how'."

There was a very basic, oddly ideal-feeling 'how', and it was called 'blasting our way in.'

Break the shield. Storm the grounds. Because they had her friends, and Twilight currently felt the same way about caution as she did regarding subtlety.

But that thought might not have truly been her own. Not when she was in the air.

It was easier to work around the shield at night. The colors were shifting, and did so expertly -- but nothing could be done about the telltale sparkles, and all Twilight had to do was avoid them. Something which was made all the easier by the radiating resonance, because the magic was telling her to do exactly that. To go around and then, if at all possible, to go away.

She wasn't fully trying to fight off the effect, because she was in Rainbow mode and thus convinced she could deal with it. But she wasn't letting it completely have its way with her, either. The enforced inclination was to steer away from the shield: letting it truly take over might mean needing hours to find her way back, and... she couldn't allow the group to be subdivided any further. Not for longer than it took to pick out a good teleport arrival point.

The two flyers were skirting the edges. (Fluttershy was slightly beneath her: the dome didn't give them a lot of room for a catch.) Using sparkles and inner turmoil as a guide (and there were times when she heard Fluttershy gasp as the hybrid tried to push some of the latter back). The sparkles were a little more reliable, especially since she couldn't currently feel the magic behind them.

At least the 'doctor' isn't part of this.

So that was a thought Rainbow might have.

There was an illusion built into the shield, and to look down was to behold the mirage of a normal rain forest. Twilight didn't know what it allowed those within to see when glancing up, and it gave them another reason to work around the edges.

She looked back, tried to get a sense for how far they'd come and that naturally included how fast they were going: she was fairly certain that they needed to be moving more quickly --

-- Moon touched the cliffside, reflected and refracted across the cave entrance. Twilight made note of its location, then wondered if stalactites and stalagmites could turn into a high-speed obstacle course.

Not that you'd really get those with quartz --

-- her wings faltered and she lost half a Celest of altitude, recovered just before Fluttershy finished coming up to meet her.

"You're okay?" There was never a hesitation during a potential crisis.

"I've got this!"

Because of course she did. And if she blasted her way in, she'd have that managed too. It would be easy --

-- except that it might leave her attacking a colony of the ill. Or a strange, isolated community which had dedicated itself to change...

She had to be careful, and she hated it. Her friends were in there -- but so were a lot of other ponies. Those who might be innocent.

Or Spike could be right.

Being in Rainbow mode made it easy to justify any thought which led to immediate action. Or, when emotions were at their highest, to not bother with thought at all.

In Twilight's temporary opinion, thinking could take too long.

They were back at ground level. (Applejack had eventually stopped staggering.) And now they were moving under canopy-obscured Moon, heading towards their friends.

There was some light to work with, deep in the plant-enforced dark: the Princesses had given them devices which generated glow, and those were easy enough to mount on foreheads or forelegs. But something about the forest seemed to swallow lumens, and they never seemed to see quite as far as Twilight felt they should.

But there was another sense to work with. They were feeling their way towards the shield's base, and the first clue that they were heading in the right direction came when they no longer wanted to look for it. But they'd been braced for that, with Twilight posted eight body lengths in the lead while standing ready to block -- or in this case, redirect.

"It's a passive effect," she softly told the others as the first wave was pushed around them. "But there's a chance that the caster might be notified if it's being actively countered. This is safer."

"If she knew we were countering it," Spike pointed out from his position on Applejack's back, "she might come out to see what was going on --"

"-- I know," Twilight softly said. "But there's another problem with countering, Spike."

"What?"

She didn't turn to face him: she wanted to keep her attention focused on the near-silent world ahead --

-- and it's quiet because all I can hear is branches shifting in the breeze, maybe a storm over that way, and there's no animals in this area because they can't make themselves come this close --

-- and continue to protect those who were left. Instead, she simply, briefly flared her wings.

"A pegasus can't do it," Twilight quietly told the night air. "And right now, as far as they should know, there is nopony in this group who can work a unicorn casting."

She heard him slowly inhale, tried to figure out if there was fresh moisture coming out the other way.

"...yeah," he finally admitted, then added "Twilight?"

"What is it, Spike?"

With not-quite-concealed concern, "How strong is the spell?"

Very. "It's manageable," she told him. "I can keep this up for a while." Which was the truth -- but it didn't change the fact that there was significant power being displaced. She really wanted to get a look at the devices responsible.

I wish Ratchette was here --

-- and immediately took it back. Bringing Trixie had been bad enough.

They trotted through the night. A drizzle started, ended at the exact moment when Twilight had reconciled herself to its misery. The umbrella spell still wasn't working.

"Can y'feel it?" Applejack carefully asked. "As magic?"

"Yes. We're on track." She pushed past a bush, angled her small body to avoid small, pointed, familiar branch tips. "The magic might be harder to spot with passive feel, but I'm trying to pick up on everything --"

Which was why she was the first to find the quartz.

The victory, such as it was, came by a rather narrow margin. Twilight, with every sense active and straining, detected the source of magic about two seconds before Spike's hands went up to his nostrils.

"It's another one of those stones," her little brother softly announced. "Like I told you about on the tepui. Maybe we should go around it --"

"-- it's enchanted," Twilight quietly told him.

She almost heard the group blink.

"...oh, no..." Spike breathed (She was still listening for moisture.) "Oh, no... Trixie thought something might have been cast near the first one, and Rarity just --"

"-- we can't do anything about that right now," Twilight told him, because the resonance wasn't the only thing which had to be pushed back. "Spike -- no, nopony come any closer. Just stay back. Let me." She took another hoofstep forward, and device glow streamed towards rough, milky facets. "Spike, you said they didn't smell right. Is it like chaos pearls?"

"No," he quickly answered. "Not the same. Those stink. This is just... twisted."

She stopped two body lengths away from the stone. Extended her senses, and fought a sudden urge to whistle.

"This is buried deep..."

"The stone?" Applejack asked. "Ah can tell you how far down it goes if y'give me a minute."

"The magic," Twilight told them. "It's really hard to pick up on. If I hadn't been searching..."

She looked down at the stone. A rough, warped, inferior crystal --

-- why am I thinking of the Empire?

Something about the facets...

...no. There was too much distortion. The irregularities were nearly the whole of the stone.

She risked closing her eyes for a moment, taking focus away from one sense so that it could be given to another. Let her talent rise --

-- false, twisted, ersatz --

It wasn't quite like the shield. She had a very good sense for that now, and the words to describe that casting were

clinical artistry

Twilight opened her eyes, because that was a fundamental requirement for blinking. Reexamined the internal words.

Clinical artistry. An oxymoron. Inherent contradiction. But... that was the term, and she didn't know why she felt that way.

(Not yet.)

She blocked out the world again. Focused on the stone.

"I think this is how they spotted you," she finally said. "There's something here. I'm guessing it works as proximity detection. Notifying the caster when ponies approach."

(She was right, and she was wrong. She didn't have the whole of it...)

"...and there weren't any on our side of the mountain," Fluttershy recognized, "because nopony would approach from that direction."

"Yeah," Applejack harshly agreed: something which came with an angry forehoof stomp. "But Rarity's group hit the trippin' line. Twi, you're counterin' it?"

"More or less." Directing still more energies around them.

"So what's the plan?" Spike asked. "Do we --" and the little dragon paused for just slightly too long "-- knock?"

He means break the shield.
(Could she?)
The last time we did that, it was -- everypony.

"No," she told him. "We're not breaking in."

"But --" was as far as she let him get.

"It's what you said," she softly stated. "When they knew there were ponies around, they came out to see what was going on..."

She opened her eyes. Focused on the shield, and the shield alone. Walked forward.

"There could be a lot of ways to get into a fortress," the librarian quietly observed as the others watched her advance. "But the easiest --"

Her right forehoof tapped the largest facet, and she felt the magic surge.

"-- is through being invited." Her jaw went tight. "Let them come."

Negative Class

Reality quickly put an end to any concept of dramatic timing.

Touch the quartz, and then -- well, with at least one unicorn plus the teleportation devices in play, Twilight belatedly realized that it wouldn't have been completely out of the question to have somepony simply appear. 'Unlikely' was fair, especially since the base requirement for a safe teleport site was that it be forever empty and even if somepony used resonance to keep the animals away, it was decidedly harder to prevent the rain forest from growing a thick tree branch across your arrival point.

Even so, she'd taken a risk by simply making contact with the quartz without any other preparations in play. Recognizing that after the fact had cost them several seconds, all lost to Twilight's wincing. Because she could have waited to touch the stone. She hadn't given them a chance to plan for anypony's arrival. They were going to be working too fast, trying to operate on limited time while waiting to be pushed into desperate improvisation...

...so it was definitely a real mission.

She did have a rough idea for how long it might take for anypony to conventionally arrive: Spike had followed the initial group all the way to the edge of the shield -- followed by sensibly backing up for a good distance before creating his signal. (Not that he'd had a lot in the way of choice, because the resonance had come back shortly after the gap had closed and even with a little dragon who'd been aware that the emotion was being imposed, 'back off' had very much been on his mind.) Figure that the 'community' was most likely near the base of the mountain because having a cliff at the group's collective dock created protection, add in some time for getting a group together and then factor in that none of the pegasi had been flying while remembering to not rely on that part...

Twilight figured that they would be waiting for at least an hour, and much more likely closer to two. It gave them the chance to set their scene. And so they backed off somewhat from the quartz and went to work, keeping their ears rotating the whole time. Listening for the approach, while hoping it was about two hours off.

The fur dye wound up being used. A portion of the ground was covered by dirty cloth, giving them a working area. Twilight performed the application, Applejack kept the headlamp focused on the target, Spike carefully checked for missed spots, and Fluttershy held as still as she could. She continued to hold her position until the dye completely dried, because it helped to be dripping in a single area. And once the coating had settled in, a jungle-green pegasus took a few hoofsteps away from the others and stayed there, because it took some time for the scent of the dye to fade and it was best to maintain some distance until dissipation was complete. Another chance taken, but -- everything was a gamble.

The tent was put up, because a group moving through a completely unfamiliar wild zone at night wasn't going to do so for long and so the most natural action to take was making camp. A fire was started with draconic ease, which also gave Twilight the chance to check on that aspect of her brother's breathing. They burned the dye-stained ground cover.

And then they had a decision to make. Something which was done with two mares and one dragon fully inside that tent. Just in case.

"Ah still think we've gotta bring y'in, Spike," Applejack firmly said. "Ah know it's a risk, but -- leavin' you outside is worse."

"I want to be there, but -- I'm not sure," he reluctantly admitted. "If I'm not under the lockdown, then I can still get through to the palace --"

"-- an' you're out there on your own," the farmer cut him off. "When y'ain't all the way better yet. An' even if we ain't seen monsters out here, Ah ain't ready t' trust that there aren't any. The ones they've got might jus' be really good at hidin'."

"...telling the palace what we're doing," Fluttershy softly called back from her watch position at the tent's entrance, "means one of us has to tell you. That means -- going up to the edge of the shield?"

"Possibly over and over," Twilight agreed. "Multiple chances to be followed and caught. Spike, if these are ponies who need help, then it's easier to explain you after we find out what's going on. Especially if it is a medical issue." She was still holding out some hope for that -- and felt as if the light of a 'best' possibility was steadily dimming. "If we can get them to believe nopony's going to hurt or punish them, and that we can have the Royal Physicians here within a day -- then revealing how we're going to alert the Doctors Bear would be a lot easier."

"And if it's something worse?" was asked in youthful tones. Ones which were just a little too steady.

"Then when we find out, you'll be with us," his sister grimly stated. "Which means we can all do something about it. So let's pick a disguise from the necklace. Something which isn't living, because it's going to be too suspicious if we're all constantly keeping you from being touched."

He took a slow, slightly-moist breath. "Twilight -- are you sure --"

He would stay out here.

Lighting fires every so often, sitting in them when he had the chance. Trying to self-treat. Constantly on guard for monsters and predators and worse. Sleeping with nopony to watch over him, forcing himself to stay near the shield just in case one of us got close enough to see.

He would do that for us, if we asked. Without hesitation, and while trying to keep his knees from knocking.

And that was why she couldn't ask him.

"I'm sure," she gently told him.

"It's giving up communication with the palace," he pointed out. "All of it."

"Unless I can beat the lockdown," Twilight reminded him. And do so in such a way that either the caster isn't alerted. Or -- after it might not matter any more. "Which I'll have a better gallop at from the inside, because that'll probably give me a chance to find the devices."

The reptilian expression twisted in a familiar way.

He doesn't want to doubt me. Not openly. But he's worried.

The little mare took a slow breath. "I get it, Spike," she told him. "It helps, to know we can ask them to come. Just to receive scrolls, and know we're not on our own out here. That there's somepony back home who's worried about us, and who -- cares." (She heard the farmer take a deep breath. Watched a thick blonde tail twitch.) "But we've got the signal devices."

Which presumes our possessions aren't searched after we get in. We'd have to explain everything we have, and could just lose it outright anyway.

...having our stuff searched is going to make it really awkward to explain Spike. One of those possessions has to disappear...

"And if those are taken?" Spike asked, because he was more than smart enough to think of that.

Immediately, "Then we make a light."

"Make a light," he just barely smiled. "Close to midnight or noon. Right."

If it's that easy. A shield which changed color and didn't reveal the glow of a community might do a lot to contain light.

"But we're not going in without telling them what we're doing," Twilight quickly added. "And I'm pretty sure we've still got some time before anypony shows up. So -- let's put a scroll together. Give them one more update, while we still can." With a small wince, "And tell them to only send a reply if it's going to turn up within the next forty minutes or so, minus whatever it takes to write this. We really don't need to explain an incoming scroll appearing out of whatever you are."

"...yeah," Spike eventually half-smiled. "We got kind of lucky with the timing in Trotter's Falls, but -- yeah."

Contacting the palace could be seen as the death of independence, because she was about to tell the Princesses what they intended to do and Twilight felt as if there was a very good chance of being ordered not to do that.

But they might not have any better ideas. If they do, I'll listen, but --
-- my friends are in there.

The palace could say whatever it wanted. And there might be some wisdom in those words, because the Diarchy was composed of mares who had experience -- but they weren't the ones who were here.

The Princesses could issue instructions. Orders. And unless those commands made perfect, near-immediate sense, Twilight was going in anyway.

Do they even know what it's like to be out here --

...yes. They did. Twilight was sure of that. But... she felt the Princesses hadn't personally experienced it for a very long time.

"...picking a disguise," Fluttershy mused. "The box would be hard to balance on somepony's back --"

"-- not the box," Spike immediately decided.

"We'll think 'bout the options while y'write," Applejack proposed -- then paused. "Spike, how many scrolls y'got?"

"Nine," he admitted. "But I've got ink for more than that, and we might be able to restock when we get inside."

"That's the best case," Twilight reminded him. "But if it's a research facility --" and not necessarily a medical one "-- then they might have spell notation scrolls around."

Nine. And that number was about to drop. If she did wind up having to match herself against the lockdown, any test object sent into the aether couldn't be a scroll.

"Nine," Twilight repeated. "Let's make it eight. Spike --" and she watched him grin "-- take a letter."

She dictated. He wrote. The siblings mutually accelerated their pace, made sure to squeeze all the details in.

"Did we miss anything?" Spike asked as he redipped the quill. "I've got some space left."

Twilight mentally reviewed. "Unless somepony can think of a detail, I think we've got all of it." Carefully, "Anypony?"

"...no," Fluttershy softly told them.

"Not here," Applejack added.

"Okay," Spike said. "Sen --"

"-- Spike? Could y'hold up a second?"

The dragon's minimal lips froze mid-purse.

"Ask the palace t' tell Snowflake Ah'm thinkin' 'bout him," Applejack softly required. "Since y'got space."

Twilight blinked.

Spike hesitated, and vertically-slit pupils focused on eyes of a lighter green. The farmer silently nodded.

"Okay," the little dragon said. Wrote it down, waited for any other last-second additions, finally breathed --

-- light and mist and just the faintest touch of heat. All being sent to their home, when they could not follow.

"So," Applejack said, doing so at the exact moment when the last of the sending's radiance had faded from the tent's fabric. "Disguises. We know what's waitin' in those beads. Ah think the best choice here --"

They talked it out, and then a disgruntled Spike was told to wait it out in the tent -- after a very quick visit to the shadowed side of a tree, just in case it turned out to be a long wait.

"The trees behind the tent," Twilight told him. "In case they show up before we're expecting them. We can claim we left some things back there. Fluttershy, would you follow him?"

The "Um," from her sibling was both immediate and awkward. "I really don't want anypony watching while I --"

"-- she'll just keep an eye on the direction you went," Twilight assured him. "In case something happens."

"We were never attacked," Spike quickly tried. "I'll be fine --"

"-- neither were we," Twilight admitted. "I'm just not counting on keeping that streak intact."

He grumbled, then half-stomped towards the exit. Fluttershy got up, allowed him to pass, and then followed.

"An' now we wait," Applejack grumbled. "Funny how often that turns out t' be the hardest part. Kinda hopin' that holds up here --"

"-- you've never asked Spike to send anything to your family," Twilight softly reminded her friend. "Not on missions, at least not that I've been there for. Not once, Applejack."

The farmer's head dipped, and orange ears went back.

"...yeah," Applejack softly said. "Ah -- huh. Just felt the brim there. Forgot Ah was still wearin' this. Always figured Ah'd have a chance t' take it off in a hurry if'fin somepony showed up. Can we find a good place t' hide it? In the supplies, Ah mean. Don't want t' take a chance on losin' --"

"-- you've got a lot of little tricks for when you don't want to say something," Twilight quietly cut in. "One of them is changing the subject. I'll help you hide your hat, Applejack. But I'd rather hear you tell me 'I don't want to talk about this' than listen to you talking around it."

Silence.

"...please," the little mare softly added. "I'll drop the topic if you want me to. I won't push. But it stood out --"

A powerful forehoof was raised: wait. Twilight stopped.

Green eyes slowly closed. Opened again.

"They're... jus' about always out of contact," Applejack slowly said. "Even when we've got somethin' goin' in Ponyville, Ah usually can't jus' call out 'Ah'm all right!' an' figure they'll hear me." With a tiny smile, "Except for the times we've had t' clean up after one of mah blood, obviously. An' then we usually can't slow down enough t' yell."

Twilight nodded. Applejack slowly, bemusedly shook her head.

"Cleanin' up after family," the farmer continued. "Apple Bloom's one thing. Mac... well, Mac. But Ah was there, an' Ah still can't believe Granny didn't stay off that list..." A soft sigh. "Ah don't ask Spike t' send anythin' for one reason, Twilight. Because they're already thinkin' 'bout me. Maybe too much, especially with Apple Bloom. Because for her -- for me, come t' think of it -- it's kinda strung through our heads. Stiffer than wire, an' y'should probably check that mane bow before it all starts. Make sure it ain't got any bends in the platinum --"

Stopped. Took a deep breath, and the thick blonde tail twitched.

"-- listen t' me," Applejack quietly went on. "Distractin' myself, t' keep from saying it."

"You don't have to --"

"-- Ah'm pretty sure AB and Ah both believe -- if ponies head off -- they ain't comin' back." And there was no mirth contained within the world's thinnest smile. "Call that 'learnin' from experience'."

She had to force herself to speak, could barely get the words out because some wounds never fully healed, she was watching a friend tear at a dripping scab until fresh blood surged forth and that was Twilight's fault, it had to end... "Applejack, you can stop, I'm sorry..."

The stubborn mare shook her head again. Took another breath.

"Ah don't send word back until we're clear," Applejack continued, "'cause Ah don't want them t' think 'bout it more than they already do. Could be worse if Ah prompted it, an' -- it's already enough of a burden." A little more slowly, "An' for that matter, Twi... count off the times you've asked Spike t' let your parents know how things are goin'."

The weight of realization seemed to be crushing her throat.

"...oh."

"Zero, right?"

"...yes."

"Don't worry too much," Applejack kindly told her. "Ah'm pretty sure that matches the count for everypony else. 'cause we've all got families, Twi. Every last one of us knows they worry, an' all we want them t' know is that we got home safe. An' none of us tell 'em what's going on before that happens. It's jus' more visible with me an' Rarity, 'cause there's times when our families get t' see us leave. Everypony else jus' finds out after the fact. An' we tell ourselves they're better off." With a tiny sigh, "Ah'm hopin' that ain't a lie."

They were both silent for a while. Around them, the forest growled, twittered, squawked and in a few places, listened as portions of itself died.

"It's a burden sometimes, bein' a Bearer," Applejack finally continued. "Ah know you've felt that way, now an' again. We all have. But bein' related t' one -- that ain't much better."

"And... now?" Twilight forced herself to ask. "With Snowflake?"

"It's a burden," the farmer repeated. "He's strong enough to haul it." The powerful body pushed, and four strong legs sent the earth pony upright. "Help me hide the hat? An' we've gotta get the medical stuff out. Fluttershy has t' bandage at least one wing." Her lips quirked. "Because startin' now, Twi, you're a pegasus."

"A perfectly normal pegasus," Twilight made herself say, forcing herself to stand up against the pulling undercurrents of swirling emotions. "Who can't fly."

"Who can't fly all that well," Applejack corrected. "Y'can get in the air if y'need to. It's 'bout how fast y'can get Rainbow out in front, an' holding that aspect there. Y'know that. An' -- you'll manage."

"That's your opinion," the little mare dryly observed.

"Yeah," the farmer admitted. "But it's an honest one, ain't it? So bandaged wing. With a trick knot on the wrappin', so you can get it off with one good flare t' full span. Shouldn't be too hard there. 'Shy understands knots."

"And sewing," Twilight mock-grumbled. "Somehow..." A little more softly, "Is there anything you want to tell me? While there's time?"

"Yeah." Strong shoulders slumped, and the blonde tail's bound tip brushed the tent's floor. "Ah've got a few worries 'bout losin' mah mark. An' Ah'd rather not discuss the details right now, any more than Ah want t' talk about what might be happenin' t' the others. Ah jus' figure the best way t' resolve everythin' is by solvin' this." Green eyes locked onto purple. "So... once we get in there -- think 'bout what we have t' do, Twi. Because comin' up with ways t' beat what everypony else thought was impossible -- that's when we need you most."

The librarian felt her lips quirk.

"No pressure," she said.

"Now that," the farmer announced, "is a lie." And, moving slowly and carefully, removed her hat. "Oh -- right. Once we've got a place t' put this, help me get the rope loops off mah mane an' tail? Can't overlook the secondaries."

About two hours before anypony arrived to bring them in. That had felt like a reasonable estimate, and the palace managed to squeeze in a reply scroll when there was about eight minutes to go.

They read it quickly. It didn't take long to pick up on the ill-concealed notes of deep inherent unhappiness with the situation, but -- they weren't being ordered to turn back. However, there were two rather direct reminders about the signal devices, one insistent notation about testing the lockdown from the inside felt so cold as to have potentially originated from Luna -- and a single update.

We're launching an investigation into the mare who identified herself as 'Starlight'.

And that was all. The palace was trying to learn about the unicorn. But they didn't have anything to share yet and once the entire group was under the shield, they wouldn't be able to pass anything along.

The received scroll was destroyed, along with the rest of their communications from the palace: potentially having their possessions searched was very much on everypony's mind, and they couldn't be found carrying direct missives from Canterlot. But some writings required further study, and so Twilight secured her copied notebook scraps as best she could.

She checked on the mane bow. The illusion perfectly concealed her horn from sight, and even added a normal ripple of fur to that part of her forehead: something which moved in concert with the strands around it. And the magic still concealed a partial corona, which was enough to let her do some basic manipulation and minor spell effects -- but any efforts beyond that would quite literally shine through.

It also doesn't prevent any unicorns in the area from picking up on active casting.

However, using feel to pick up on the resonance and residue of other workings... that would be safe enough. She just had to be very, very careful about everything else.

Normal pegasus.

It was almost a new mantra, and she kept an eye on it accordingly. The words couldn't be allowed to drop too deep.

Normal pegasus.

After a moment of thought, she upgraded that to 'Normal pegasus wearing a hat which ties under the chin.' (With a Fluttershy-provided slipknot, just in case.) Everypony else made sure they were fully dressed, with marks covered. Fluttershy's dry fur didn't stain her outfit, although part of that might have been for lack of clean square hoofwidths to discolor.

And they waited.

The estimated time of arrival came.
It hung around for a while, awkwardly moving about the campsite while poking the rocks which ringed the cleared fire pit.
Then it muttered to itself, shrugged, and shuffled off into the night.

The group had a few extra minutes. They used them for further review. Discussing contingencies.

When the first extra hour ran out, they began to face the necessity of sleep. The preference had been for everypony to be awake and alert, but... it was getting late, and rest was required. Watch shifts were arranged, and Fluttershy settled back into position at the tent's entrance. Waiting out the initial allotment.

Twilight wound up having a few initial issues in falling asleep. There was a certain amount of blocking irritation present, and it all came back immediately when Fluttershy woke her up.

"Nothing?"

"...no..."

And then she was posted within the watch area, staring out into the humid night and fuming about how utterly inconsiderate some ponies were regarding keeping appointments which hadn't even been truly made...

The night wore on.

...oh. Right. That was probably it. The night. Whoever had received the proximity alert in the community had probably decided that any intruders detected in movement at that hour were probably going to stop moving for the evening. And the overnight. So even in a jungle which seemed to completely lack a monster population, the safe thing to do was wait for dawn and then go intercept intruders who weren't going to be leaving until morning anyway.

It was the practical solution, really.

Practical, but completely discourteous.

She said as much to Applejack when they were changing shifts, in exacting detail. The farmer yawned through most of it.

It had been roughly an hour since Sun-raising, and three mares were packing up the area around the tent. Very slowly.

Six ears went up. Rotated. Strained towards the sounds made by approaching hooves --

Act natural.
...let's just add that to Pinkie's oxymoron list --

-- and then the ponies came out of the treeline.

Later on, when she'd had a little more of a chance to learn about what they were dealing with, Twilight would think about plays.

That was how Spike had described the lilac mare's speech: as coming from somepony who'd been swapped into a performance at the last minute, without having fully memorized the lines. (Her little brother loved the theater, and its terms had become a natural part of his vocabulary.) And there were times during that first meeting when she could see it.

The hesitations... it wasn't like Fluttershy, where the majority of sentences effectively faded in and sometimes faded out. These pauses could turn up in the middle of a sentence. Stop: consider the word which is about to be used. Think of an alternative. Weigh them against each other. Evaluate, because you only get to say this once and after that, you'll have to backtrack.

She couldn't find an accent in the mare's voice and as it ultimately turned out, there were two available. (The more recent was currently under construction, and the unicorn was mostly participating in the occasional trials because the community had decided to attempt something new.) But when it came to the lack of identifying tones -- that, too, could be said to spring from the stage. Speak neutrally, and perhaps everypony in the audience could try to hear you as one of their own. It had just gone too far.

Spike had spoken of prompt boxes. Twilight felt it was closer to note cards. The unicorn had some idea of what she wanted to provide in a speech and had recorded all of the details, but...

...the lathe which turned against the unicorn's words in the face of the new... it ground slowly. But this was a stage of sorts. Open-air theater. A performance. And they were in attendance at the second show.

Just about everypony could find some benefit in a dress rehearsal.

Twilight was the first to turn as the community's representatives emerged from the rain forest.

They're doing it the same way.

It was just as Spike had told them. A dozen fully-dressed ponies. One unicorn mare out in front, fur and form exposed to the world. And with Twilight as the first to turn...

Their eyes met.

The lilac mare didn't exactly hold the gaze, nor did she place herself within the moment and lock in. Instead, she kept looking at Twilight because... Twilight was in front of her, and that gave her something to look at.

But Twilight could look back. And more.

Her face...
...you're right, Spike. I can't tell how old she is. And it's -- hard to focus.
There's magic lingering around her. Almost as if she's in the center of a fog. Nothing feels active, but... it's like a miasma of residue, as if she was doing a lot of casting before she reached us and nothing had the chance to fully dissipate yet.

She'd been told what the unicorn looked like. The too-basic outfits worn by those behind their leader -- those registered, but not on a conscious level. Twilight had just noticed the mare's saddlebags. They were small and, at first glance, rather plain.

Focus.

...no. They were old. Repeatedly patched, and that had been done in such a way as to make the patches just about the whole of it. Repairs smoothly blended into each other, making it difficult to tell just when any given portion had been applied. It was a pair of saddlebags which was being kept alive in defiance of time.

And they weren't entirely plain. There was a faded pattern of color on what might have been the last original piece left. Orange, yellow, white --

-- the unicorn made a decision to blink.

"Welcome," the unicorn stated: her tail executed a partial swish about half a beat behind the word. "I'm so pleased to have you here."

And behind her, a dozen ponies broke into a brief dance step of "Welcome!"

A decidedly shy "...hello," emerged from the vicinity of the tent. "...we -- weren't expecting to find other ponies out here..."

"And yet," the unicorn decided, pitching her voice to aim for the theater's cheaper benches, "you have."

Is this a monster?

She didn't like the thought. There were still 'safe' possibilities, and the sick colony was high on that list. But Spike had told her everything he'd felt in the presence of this mare and in doing so, he'd passed the thought along.

She didn't like the question. But it was there.

"Are you explorers?" the unicorn abruptly asked, because the first show had provided her with a feed line and nopony had spoken it yet. "That would certainly be a reason for your presence in this area."

Twilight braced herself.

She carried her friends with her, bound to her soul, and that would be true for as long as she lived. But she still wasn't entirely sure how that worked. In particular, she didn't know if the aspects were truly aware of anything. For all she knew, they weren't even conscious of each other. But when she was placed in a situation where she had to lie...

Be careful. Rarity wouldn't have given names for us unless there was -- no other choice. Not when we don't have any way of learning what she said. So it's probably safe to introduce ourselves, but we can't know. And we know what her alias is, but the others are a problem...

She didn't know if the aspects were aware of each other. But within her imagination, a miniature Applejack glared at an equally-downscaled Rarity, and furious tails began to lash.

I don't feel like I'm a good liar.
There was just the one play, and I think ponies mostly stomped for us because it was Hearth's Warning Eve and you mostly stomp because everypony on stage survived.

She wasn't sure about her ability to lie.

But she knew how to lecture.

"We came to learn," Twilight politely said. "Because one could describe explorers as students of the world."

The unicorn's head tilted very slightly to the left.

"That is -- an interesting perspective," she concluded.

"And just now," Twilight added, "we learned that there are at least thirteen ponies in the vicinity of Mount Llanero." Only one of whom currently gets to do the talking. "Which comes as something of a surprise, but -- it's a welcome one."

"Explorers," the unicorn appeared to consider, and her gaze jumped left. Looking in the rough direction of somepony who was behind Twilight. "Something which might require specialties in the sciences --"

"-- I'm an agronomist," declared a strong Manehattan accent.

Brace for it...

There was an extended pause.

"That," the mare said, "is a very rare field of study."

"Well, you know how it is in a new region," Applejack breezily said. "You have to know what nature is doing on its own before you can really consider how the Effect might work in. So, just by way of example, around here -- I've been keeping a close eye on the aflisol. Obviously we're not going to get andisol with the way the local geography lined up, but I've seen enough native sugarcane to make plans for the baggase. You always get baggase if you process the crop properly. And in a rainforest -- the capillary fringe is just about right up to the top, isn't it? And you've got so much humus, it's forming a natural mulch. There's a lot of factors to consider before anypony just starts casually modifying for an agroecosystem!"

Twelve poorly-dressed, lightly-stunned ponies collectively managed to blink.

It's not lying.
It's how she phrases it.

"Rare," the mare finally said, "but not unknown."

Her horn ignited, and Twilight steadfastly failed to have any visible reaction to the color. The left saddlebag opened...

That notebook is...

For most ponies, 'loved' would have been the right word. Twilight believed in keeping books pristine, because that was how you displayed respect and a willingness to be careful. But books could be read in privacy and safety, while a notebook was out there in the world. Brought into all sorts of environments, while in active use. Eventually, they filled up, and...

...how thick is that?

She couldn't tell. Twilight simply registered all of the reinforcements on the spine, fighting to keep the pages together on a level which Mrs. Bradel's shop would have been hard-pressed to match and recognized that most ponies would have copied out their writings well in advance of any inevitable self-destruct -- but this mare had decided to keep going with the same notebook.

It opened. Ink came out of the saddlebag. A quill followed, was dipped into a smoothly-opened bottle, and jotted down a few words.

"We can discuss other specialties later," the unicorn decided, and the bottle resealed itself accordingly. "This is a wild zone. A foreign one. You all look as if you would benefit from a place of safety." Her attention jumped back to Twilight. "Especially you. Describe the wing injury."

"Strain, mostly," Twilight replied. "Added to a bad landing from a few days back."

"Severe enough to be bandaged," the mare observed. "Which would indicate an inability to fly."

Twilight nodded.

"Then you need a chance to rest," the lilac unicorn said. "Recover. And at the very least, wash up."

"We'd appreciate that," Applejack presumably smiled. "But we don't want to impose, either. Can you host ponies, without hurting your own resources? Just being out here, when there's so few of you -- that could be enough of a struggle without bringing in anypony else."

A smile appeared on the mare's face.

"There's more than a few of us," she pushed through the words. "We are a community."

"We'd be so happy to have you!" declared the off-white pegasus mare at the far left. "It's not imposing! It's giving us a chance to offer welcome!"

"And you could stay for a little while," was merrily contributed by a red earth pony stallion. "Enough time to heal, at the very least."

"...if you're sure..." Fluttershy timidly checked.

"I'm sure," the lilac mare stated, "that you're safer with us." Internal note cards were sorted. "And you are explorers. Who have found something new. Failure to quantify the discovery would be -- bad science."

Awkward.
Better than Spike described her, but -- not by much. Clearly not good in social situations. Not quite making eye contact properly, not moving right, with her tones sort of off...
...please tell me I wasn't this bad...

"Will, you come with us?" asked a mauve pegasus mare. "Please?"

"We can," Applejack told the group. "But you caught us at an awkward moment. Can you give us a few minutes to finish breaking down our camp?"

"It'll go faster if we help!" the red stallion decided, and did so as he began to trot forward. Eleven other equally ill-outfitted ponies were just about directly behind his dock --

"-- we appreciate the offer," Twilight told them. "But it's one of those campsites." With a rueful little shrug, "You know how it goes. If you don't do everything in exactly the right order, then you get corners jamming against your saddlebags. And then you get holes, followed by rents..."

The herd paused. Looked at the lilac mare, and did so as one.

Don't move.
Don't try to get in their way.
See what she does.

"Doing things in the proper order," the unicorn determined, "can be crucial. And those who understand that order should be the ones enforcing it."

Which, when translated into some form of Equestrian, made the herd take a collective step back.

The mares packed.

It took some time to get everything put away. The most complicated part came from a single loose thick rolled-up ground pad, as the last thing to be removed from the tent. It sat on the ground waiting for them to get around to it, and then it had to be awkwardly nosed up Applejack's flanks and carefully balanced across her back. Twilight had been dreading having anypony offer to help with that, but -- nopony stepped forward, and the lilac mare's horn remained dark.

Twilight had to nose it up on her own, as Fluttershy happened to be very busy with standing between Twilight and everypony else. Blocking as many sight lines as she could. Because Luna's illusions were expert, did their best to keep up with everything in realtime and so the pad creased as it should across Applejack's strong back -- but nopony needed to see those moments when Twilight pushed a little too hard and had her snout go through.

The ground pad did its best not to twitch.

The three mares finished, and took a collective look around. Double-checking their campsite, as thirteen ponies waited on them.

"Are we okay to go?" Applejack asked.

"I'd say so," Twilight decided. "You know the rule. Leave it as we found it, as much as we can."

"...yes," agreed the jungle-green pegasus. "We're okay."

We aren't.
We're not going to be okay until we're back together with everypony. And they're healthy.
Intact.
Unchanged.
But this is how we start.

Twilight glanced over at the lilac mare.

"You know the way," she said.

That got her a nod. "Yes."

The leader turned, with the majority of her body operating in rough synch with itself: the tail had a bit of lag. Began to move across dark soil, and the herd -- held position. Waiting for the explorers to fall in behind her.

So they did. One unicorn, followed by pegasi and an earth pony, with a herd trailing behind.

The false pegasus was the closest to the unicorn. Not quite at her side, but not allowing her to take the full lead. Being guided, and no more.

"I didn't hear your name," Twilight observed.

Several hoofsteps passed.

"I didn't say it."

...right. "May I know your name?"

"My name is Starlight," the lilac mare calmly stated. "You should think of me as a friend."

And Twilight did her best to smile.

Maybe you are.
Maybe you're the doctor. Researcher. The one looking for the answer.
Maybe you're the cause.
If you've hurt them...
If you've...
I'll --

No Bearer had ever knowingly killed.

Twilight didn't know if she had it in her to kill.

But then, she might have already done it once.

Quarantine

Sanity terminated at the border, and it would be a while before Linchpin truly understood that. The majority for what remained of a lifetime, minus a few precious days of renewed thought.

Lucidity died when you crossed the shield: the dividing line between community and world. That which guaranteed the isolation of the experiment, because its creator would evenly state -- never insisting, because there was very little need to prove she was right -- that the madness was on the outside. Therefore, the best way to assist others towards true thought was to remove them from the lunacy for a while.

The unicorn...

...she'd said something once. Not directly to him, because she seldom spoke directly to anypony. To truly speak with somepony suggested that you were willing to think about the viewpoint expressed in their replies, and that meant Starlight didn't have a lot of actual conversations. Most of what she said turned into sounds which had been projected in the general direction of where a pony happened to be.

But the words would stay with Linchpin until his death. Perhaps because they hadn't been hers.

She'd read them once. She'd admitted that fairly early in the speech. Starlight did a lot of reading, because the mare wanted to learn. It was just that the majority of what she wanted to learn consisted of information which didn't exist. ('Shouldn't' was a significant subcategory.) Still, it left her rummaging through endless reams of scholarly studies: typically, she would be looking for whatever everypony else had gotten wrong, or the place where they'd made the wise decision to stop. Those were her starting points.

Starlight read a lot. (It was impossible to tell if she enjoyed it.) But it was just about all journals and studies and thesis papers --

-- with one exception.

The mare read thaumic fiction.

She didn't have much interest in the plots, and dredging up the names of multiple characters might have required a level of effort beyond that which Starlight generally reserved for committing casual atrocities. But she had some respect for the genre as a whole. Because the storytelling in thaumic fiction centered around taking the rules which governed magic and pushing at least one. step. further. And wasn't that exactly what Starlight was trying to do?

You never knew where a good idea might arise. And anypony who wanted to find one needed to be willing to look.

So she went through novels at high speed, searching for the new. (She didn't do a lot with fantasy, because that was where the rules had typically been fully discarded -- but she did turn pages now and again, because inspiration and madness were two sprigs off the same branch.) And she did locate concepts which she found interesting. That which didn't exist in reality yet, and obviously it was going to be somepony's responsibility to fix that.

Typically, she searched for innovation. Dreams of thaumaturgical advancements. But the creation of the community had required some degree of acknowledgement for the social sciences. And with Starlight, that was very much like having somepony who'd been deaf since birth taking an interest in orchestral composition. She could measure the vibratory rate of each note as it resonated across her fur. Studying the patterns made by dancers was a simple matter. But when it came to understanding how it all felt, when the core of the information arrived via a sense which had never been hers --

-- she'd found the concept in a published tetralogy of books (out of an announced seven, and the other three weren't coming) about alien invasion. Something which happened on the environmental level, triggered by a force which was trying to remake the world in an outsider's image, and Linchpin would eventually decide she'd missed that bit of commonality. And there had been propositions for thaumic advances in those books, here and there -- but it was the social bit which had gotten her attention. Because the ponies in those books were being trained to fight the invasion. Something which required teaching them to think in new ways. And once she'd read about it...

(She'd credited the author at the start of the talk. To do otherwise was to demonstrate some rather poor standards.)

Picture a fish, she'd said. (There were always a few fish in the community's shield-sliced section of lake.) It's born in water. It will swim there for the whole of its life. Existence in a constant, fully-surrounding medium. And given that the water is always there, has been present since birth and, for many forms of ocean-based demise, will still be there at the moment of death -- does the fish even recognize that the water exists?

It's like ponies and air. The atmospheric ocean is present at all times. You breathe it in. You must, in order to exist at all. But how often do you acknowledge its weight? At sea level, it's a fifth of a bale across every strand of fur. Forever. Ponies push against that mass every day, and do so without truly experiencing the pressure.

Because some things can only be recognized after they've been taken away.

The metaphor, as described in the book, was to grasp a fish by a tailfin. Lift it above the water. Make sure it can look down.

And then, if you theorized a fish who possessed the sapience level of a pony -- that piscine would see.

(The author had proposed that if you looked closely, at exactly the right moment, you would see a very surprised fish. Starlight hadn't believed that part. A fish's skull and muscular anatomy clearly didn't have the combined capacity for facial expressions.)

Drop the fish back into the water.

And, the author had said, what you'd get would be an enlightened fish. One whom, from the perspective of the perpetual swimmers, would appear to be crazy. Going around yelling about how this was water, they were swimming in water and there was something beyond it, something different... well, clearly that fish was mad.

No. It just understood one extra fact. The only way to make anyone else understand, to teach, to bring enlightenment -- was to take them out of the water.

And that was the community. The shoreline at the edge of an ocean of madness.

Linchpin, in the scant days he had before his death, the precious hours when the spackle had filled in some portion of the hole which had borne the name of 'Gez'... had considered that Starlight might not have told them the whole of it. And during his brief time in her -- workshop -- he'd risked a glance at the actual book. It had been easy to find, and she'd labeled the page with a color-coded piece of marker tape. The mare liked to check her references.

The author had, in fact, used that metaphor -- and kept going from there. Because there was an additional point to make.

You had to drop the fish back in the water.

Removal from the dominant environment, in order to finally see what that environment was? Yes. But that environment kept those within it alive. Permanent extraction would teach the fish any number of things, but most of them were going to be centered around what it felt like to stop breathing.

It could be argued that the community lifted ponies out of society's ocean. Let them see a few things from the outside. But by the time it did so, those residents frequently existed in a condition where they weren't thinking about much of anything. Or rather, they weren't doing so while using their own brain. Starlight believed that the surest sign of a pony who was thinking for themselves was their near-mindless agreement with anything she said. Perhaps those moments were a point of pride for her, if she was capable of feeling it. Knowing that she'd won a tiny skirmish in what amounted to a global war.

Still... perhaps the community lifted them out.
And then it kept them out.

So what died?

The jewels had flashed, and then...

Linchpin had never been teleported before. A sane earth pony would spend their lives trying to avoid it, because uprooting was one of the known ways to temporarily disrupt their connection with the land. Additionally, the duration of that severance was directly proportionate to the distance traveled, as were the accompanying nausea and disorientation. And to cross hemispheres...

He'd spent his first minutes within a new land in retching, collapsed onto verdant ground while strange scents filled his snout, the too-moist summer heat soaked into his fur, and he tried to think of a reason not to wish for death. Fortunately, one was close to hoof. His friend, who was going through just about the exact same thing, over and over, only while aiming the results away from Linchpin because that was just common courtesy.

His friend was a reason not to die, because Linchpin had to survive long enough to recover from the uprooting, get back on his hooves again, and then charge the big stallion down because seriously, nopony could have warned him?

Most of that had wound up being choked out. Eventually. The actual charge was put on hold.

They'd arrived within a relative clearing within the rainforest: still plenty of plants around, but there was nothing so dense that the force of exiting from the between couldn't push it aside. There had been no risk of recoil, and Linchpin was fully familiar with that. Abjura liked to talk about any number of things and the stallion had eventually started up a number of journal subscriptions because as responses went, smiling and nodding had started to feel rather faked.

The group arrived safely, and did so after Linchpin had gained more personal experience with the between than any earth pony ever wanted to acquire. But the two stallions had emerged in front of witnesses, and...

Sugar Belle, who had desperately been trying to render what little medical assistance could be offered by desperately panic-dressaging around the clearing while trying to make sure none of the vomit was being swallowed back, readily accepted the usual explanation: that there was a percentage of the population who just had bad reactions to teleports. (Having that percentage work out to roughly one-third never came up.) It was the same old story, and it held up just as well until the retching ended.

The pegasus, who was used to seeing the reaction, just monitored her spouse until he was ready to move again.

There had been questions. About where they were, why they'd just traveled that way, and Linchpin had even managed to get one in regarding device operation. Just about nothing had been answered. Excuses had been made, and the most frequently repeated was that they had to get moving. The reason for their journey was still some distance away, and they had to cross the remaining distance. Quickly.

So they'd traveled. And the world was strange, the season was wrong, familiar animals possessed odd colors...

The herd exists for a reason. Because any given pony will possess some degree of magic and if something happens, can potentially try to fight back -- but a single pony is vulnerable. There's strength in numbers. In unity. Work as one, fight as one. Win.

Most ponies don't think about that. They're born into an environment where the herd is, at most, a constant aspect of the background environment. That which creates the conditions for survival. And they grow up within the tiny pockets of safety represented by the settled zones, places so organized as to have the weather scheduled and leaves falling by calendar appointment. The vast majority will never leave the sheltered areas, and those thrust beyond the artificial borders will almost inevitably see the new domain as unnatural.

A single pony, lost within the unknown, may turn into a trembling, fear-paralyzed future victim. A weak, terrified member of a prey species which can do nothing more than wait for the fangs to descend. But the herd is a force. And when multiple ponies find themselves disoriented, lost within a world they never knew... they will turn to each other. Four traveling together through strangeness are much more likely to survive. To hold together.

Two Equestrians who'd just been pulled away from everything they'd ever known, in the company of a couple who'd done it all before.

The miniherd instantly sorted itself out.

The newcomers turned to the tall stallion and mare. Took their cues from that couple, took their strength. Listening to them, and them alone. That last had actually been going on for some time.

And it was all part of the trap.

Linchpin, in the last days of his life, would think about that arrival. The long trot through strange shadows and scents.

(It would take time before he remembered stepping over the carved-out thin circular ditch in the dirt. After all, any safe arrival point for a teleport had to be kept relatively empty.)

The community was an experiment. (A trial phase, the most advanced of its kind.) This indicated a certain need for -- adjustments.

Not everypony will be brought in exactly the same way. But there are certain commonalities. Isolate the experiment in all aspects, large and small. When it comes to new subjects? Put them in a state where they'll be willing to isolate themselves. And then...

They could have teleported directly into the community. But the fear is part of it. This is another level of uprooting. Take away everything the new arrivals have ever known, everything. Place them in a completely strange environment. Nothing familiar at all, where colors and scents and seasons are wrong. Only two (or, perhaps for some arrivals, one) ponies to rely on. A sole beacon of light, one buoy in the churning ocean. And watch as they cling tightly, hope not to drown...

Start in a place which brings terror. Force the new arrivals to travel through it. Make sure there's nopony else they can truly trust. You've already taken them out of settled zone and nation and so much of the environment which keeps them alive. Make sure the fear stays high. A few stories along the way can do it. Here's what we had to deal with before, but don't worry: we're almost sure it won't be coming back again.

Don't worry about keeping them out there overnight. They won't be sleeping well, but... when it comes to what the experiment is trying to accomplish, a touch of sleep deprivation helps. And having the experienced pair serving carefully-prepared food doesn't exactly hurt.

(His friend took the scarf back, on that first night in the rainforest. The climate was much too warm for it.)

Still, there's company, and that keeps the whole thing moving. But the new arrivals are going to be longing for community. For the sanctuary which can only come from the presence of a true herd.

And when they approach the true shield, when they see happy, smiling ponies coming out to meet them, with so many laughing in the joy which arises from a pure welcome... when they recognize that such contentment can only come from a place of safety, and this is the only place to find that protection...

Acclimation starts with the recognition of that safety.

Followed by the removal of all other options.

It should have felt stranger, shouldn't it?

It... did feel strange. So much of it did. But it was strange at the level of 'different' or 'a little bit off', when he clearly should have recognized 'abomination' from the start. Anypony who was thinking clearly --

-- but that category didn't include him. Linchpin had been prepared. Marinated in the liquid warmth of poison words, carefully planted within him by his last friend in the world. Somepony who trusted this, who felt it was good for him. And when the last pony he trusted spoke...

And perhaps there had been a spell.

...was there?

It would have been so much easier to accept that part of his fall, if there had been a working involved. Several workings. But he can't be sure. Maybe she cast something, and maybe she didn't. It's possible that there was something in his food. Dissolved into drinks. She might have tried that with a few, discarded the tactic with others. Adjusting.

He met her early.

He'd been told that she was in charge. More or less. That... she was the reason they were there. The reason they stayed, why it all worked.

She asked him to think of her as a friend.

At one point, she'd smiled. Something which had arrived on her face as a single unit, because she'd had a lot of practice with that particular smile.

And he hadn't thought of her as a friend. He'd seen her as somepony who was -- awkward. (Perhaps an overly-generous description, but generosity was a virtue.) A mare who had visible trouble in social situations had been installed as the effective head of the community: there was more than a touch of irony in that piece of design. But she seemed to be making an effort.

...if he hadn't been so disoriented... so desperate for stability... would more have felt wrong?

What had he thought of her, on first meeting?

He'd seen her as one of the more normal residents.

...she hadn't been dressed.

She wasn't his friend. Once true thought had returned, he'd started to wonder if she'd ever been anypony's friend. Friendship suggested the capacity for connection. Equality between participants wasn't mandatory, but there seemed to be a need to have something in common. Like sanity. Or species. Think about Starlight long enough and the question of 'species' would start to arise. There was a pulling void at the center of the community. Its false gravity held everything together and if he was going to describe it, then 'unicorn-shaped' was as far as he was willing to go.

Starlight wasn't his friend.

Everypony else tried to fill in the gaps.

Constantly.

Looking back near the end, thinking about that first night...

He'd had some questions, right from the start. And because he'd been relieved to find himself among ponies, to learn that his friend had brought him to something real... he'd kept most of them to himself. Basic courtesy.

Which hadn't kept him from bringing a few up with his friend -- once they'd reached the house. Because there had been an empty house, just waiting for him.

(It looked as if it might have had a previous occupant.)

...for them. His friend was going to stay with him for a while. Make sure he settled in. There were a few jokes about how their relationship might have to advance somewhat because Linchpin was now the main factor standing between the big stallion and sex with his spouse.

That brought out a laugh. But once that was done and the straw ticking of the twin mattresses had been thoroughly inspected for ticks, it had been time for questions.

"Clothists?" was one of the first, and the laughter had renewed.

"Maybe a few," the big stallion had told him. "Trying it out, here and there. You can try out whatever you want. Dressing up included. Make an outfit and go model it in the street."

The half-finished, improperly-built streets...

It was a new settled zone. Was this how they opened? Linchpin didn't know. Ponyville had been started before his birth, the first desert settlement wasn't quite ready to go... Maybe streets just needed some time. And not just that: it was a new settled zone on a different continent. Even with the miraculous teleport devices in play, delivery of supplies was going to be an effort. A full supply of something so basic as paving stones could be a year down the road.

(The government had to know ponies were here.)

Maybe that was why they were waiting to bring in children. Even with the shield, things weren't safe enough yet. The adults had to pave the way.

"I can't sew."

"Ever try?"

Clothing could be viewed as building a drastically-weakened structure layered over an ever-flexing foundation. Linchpin didn't think he could design for that lack of stability.

"I probably couldn't do worse --" was meant as a joke.

The big stallion's expression had calcified. Instantly locked into offense.

"Don't make fun of what they make," he said. "They're trying. It's more than what most are ever going to do."

As tones went, "Trying new things," carried more than half a note of apology.

"You can try anything you want," a fast-defrosting stallion told him: the little grin came in at the end. "Anything and everything."

"Everything?"

"As long as it doesn't hurt somepony else. And you should probably try to avoid getting hurt yourself." A light shrug. "I don't recommend cliff-diving off the tepui. But if you're really in the mood..."

The next words felt as if they'd emerged on instinct.

"I could fix up some of the buildings,"

Softly, "Don't."

"I saw them," Linchpin instantly protested. "I know it's not your mark, but some of it was so blatant... I'm surprised everypony can't see it! They're holding up, but if you really want to make sure that --"

"-- who's talking right now?" his friend quietly asked. "You, or your mark?"

Linchpin, half-curled on the uneven mattress, had briefly gone silent.

"...I'm not sure."

"Which answers the question."

He'd winced. Managed half of an abashed nod.

"I know what you're seeing," the big stallion had placidly told him. "Little faults. You know what that's called? Honest effort. It says that ponies are trying.' A little more quietly, "Trying anything and everything, just like when we were kids. Seeing what fits, what's fun. Doing more than some pattern in our fur says we should do. So let them try."

He'd thought about that.

...all right: he could keep silent for a while. Unless he saw something potentially fatal. Or very directly and personally uncomfortable. There were things which could be done with the bedroom, and most of them needed to be finished in a hurry.

Try everything...

"I heard somepony call out to you earlier," Linchpin finally said.

"I'm in and out."

"Only they used two names," the smaller stallion added. "Yours, and then after you didn't turn immediately --"

"-- nickname." His friend grinned. "I did say something about not having to bring your name, remember? You'll get one eventually. Stick around long enough, and it'll be more or less inevitable."

The new arrival nodded. Carefully examined the next question, turning it over in his head a few times.

It would be a query made of an earth pony. His friend would understand...

Very softly, "I didn't hear the orchestra."

Silence briefly radiated from the neighboring bed.

"No. You wouldn't have."

"I didn't hear you. Not once we were inside the shield. I couldn't find your instrument --"

"-- I shut it down," the big stallion calmly said. "The Effect. The whole thing. I was going to wait a little while before I asked you to do the same."

Carefully, "Why? We passed the farms. The crops are coming along, but a little passive help --"

"-- did you see any pegasi flying today?"

He'd frowned. Thought about it.

"No."

"Any coronas? Did one horn ignite?"

Immediately, "Sugar tried to unpack a few things at their house before we came over here. And Starlight --"

"Sugar's new," his friend told him, "and Starlight has to manage a few things. But for the everyday stuff... we're trying to participate as equals. The pegasi here... they find out what it's like to have soil under their hooves, and the unicorns remember what their mouths are for. So when it comes to the farming? We don't show them up. We all try. Take away the magic, raise the effort. Level ground."

He was trying to picture it...

But they could fix things --
-- I could fix --
-- who had that thought?

Quietly, "What's it like? To work without it?"

With a soft chuckle, "I won't lie to you. Trying to solve some of the little problems without using magic? It's the most frustrating fun you'll ever have. Charging into a wall headfirst and when the pain starts to be too much -- you'll look around. You'll spot the community, all charging at your side. Once we all hit it together, the wall goes down. And the answers we get -- they work for everypony."

His friend fully faced him. Large forehooves pressed against each other.

"Answer me something?" the big stallion asked.

"If I can."

"Who's Linchpin?"

The tones had been so serious...

"An earth pony --"

"-- yeah, welcome to the club. What else?"

"Canterlot's least-eligible bachelor --"

"-- who ain't in Canterlot and might not have to worry about the rest of it for very long. Keep going."

"...an architect."

Silence, set off by a smile so thin as to approach a frown from the other side.

"You were just waiting for me to say that."

"To see how long you'd stall on it," his friend admitted. "So answer me this. Who's Linchpin when he doesn't have to be an architect?" The forelegs spread out to the sides, hooves shifting away from each other. Opening possibilities. "Comes down to it -- who's Linchpin, when he doesn't have to be Linchpin any more?"

And there was only one answer to that.

"I don't know."

With a sudden, huge grin, "Want to find out?"

"Yes."

Perhaps the raw enthusiasm of the answer should have surprised him.

If he'd been thinking...

But there were ways in which he hadn't truly thought for himself for some time.

"You sounded just like a colt there," his friend grinned. "You know that, right?"

"Um," was the best an abashed new arrival could offer.

"Good. That's the goal," the warm voice clarified. "Let's try to stay there for a while. So get some sleep, young colt. Dream about tomorrow. About doing anything. And when you wake up -- that's when the dream becomes real."

They both settled in to sleep. It took longer for Linchpin. The little wriggles wouldn't stop.

"And when it's time to go back?"

"Trying to sleep here..." came the soft mutter.

"What happens when it's time to go back?"

"If you don't decide to stay?" Sleepily, "You can leave whenever you want to. Tomorrow, comes down to it. Or the day after that. The one after that. But I'm hoping you'll give it a full chance. It took a lot to get you here. Don't..." The big stallion yawned. "Don't waste it..."

In time, the soft snoring began.

The new arrival didn't sleep for a while. Colts waiting for a Hearth's Warming present generally didn't.

Try it.
Try anything.
If I don't like it, I can leave tomorrow.

He'd been prepared. Carefully, because it could take a lot to bring a pony so far. But... true conversion -- full belief -- that took time. Starlight might have even recognized that. It was part of why there was a community in the first place. For support. Because she wanted ponies to think in a new way. Hers. And thought patterns, repeated over and over, formed a groove. A rut. Somepony had to pull the new arrivals out of it.

So there was always somepony around.

He had the first night with his friend. And after that... well, the big stallion stayed in the house for a while. But not too long, because he hadn't spent time with his spouse and Linchpin didn't want to get in the way of that. So there were nights away, then days, and then...

...there were other friends.

Or at least, there were always ponies around. Constantly. Checking on him, asking him to join in on some bit of community effort or another. They chatted with him, tried to find out how he was adjusting, brought him food and made sure he stayed hydrated and just looked after him. The community kept themselves so busy with looking after him that at one point, he found himself standing over a toilet trench and suddenly realized it was the first time he'd been alone in a week.

...he thought it had been a week. He hadn't been sleeping much. Because the community was trying to create something new, and all they asked of new arrivals was that they join in the work. Whenever such was asked for, regardless of who was doing the asking. And they worked hours which had no permanent allegiance to Solar or Lunar shifts. If somepony decided to check on the crops at night, then somepony else needed to carry the light. It wasn't very much to request...

...he wasn't sure he'd slept more than two hours at a time in...

...the food was -- not good. Leave it at that. But it was free, and working on the farms meant he got to nibble at the raw stuff. That was clearly the best option. Anything he was given tended to be a little too high in sugar, low on real vitamins. Food which kept ponies awake and moving until they fell over, all at once. It wasn't the sort of food which was good for thought.

His friend still made sure to mix him a few special drinks.

(There were times when Linchpin saw somepony approach the big stallion, with what felt like the familiarity of an old acquaintance. Those contacts tended to be short.)

He was kept busy. But none of his work was on buildings. And when he thought about that too deeply, his hips would twinge. He wasn't cooperating. Working, but not the right kind of work, and his mark didn't --

-- there were always ponies to speak with. Certain topics of conversation were raised more than others, and he was no longer shocked that a few were coming up at all.

They always seemed to know when the hip pains were starting.

They would approach. Slowly, almost timidly. Ask how he was doing.

If the other voice was trying to talk.
To hurt him.
They cared, when the mark did not.

He learned a number of names. Initially, every last one of them felt odd. He tried to work a few out, asked some of their bearers what they meant, and always got the same answer. A name didn't mean a thing. It meant a pony. Wasn't that better?

He began to accept that.

He seldom saw Sugar and when he did, she was with somepony from the community. Not always his friend's spouse, who was spending a decreasing amount of time in the young unicorn's vicinity. Letting the community take over. Because the community looked out for ponies. For new arrivals, and each other.

Everypony was so happy. Friendly. It wasn't the same as 'kind', but...

His friend wasn't around as much. There was a new source of external bracing. Something which was meant to be mutual, because it was a community and they all held each other up. Hooves pushing against each other with equal force.

They were... supportive.

They were happy.

They were different in some way. Something deep in him understood that. But they were happy. Whatever the difference was, it made them smile. And they tried things and they encouraged him to join them and there were always ponies around to speak with to the point where he barely had a moment for hearing an internal voice. His or any other.

They... loved being here.

They seemed to love just being.

The last thing he'd loved on that level was a blueprint.

Imperfection was everywhere. It showed that ponies were trying. Ponies. Doing whatever they felt like, instead of what the other voice wanted. Imperfection started to feel... precious. Books were self-published (and Starlight's were dry, purely academic, with no attempt at reader connection), concerts amateurish, and he didn't laugh at the results. He just wondered how he would go about doing it.

The tomorrows began to blur.

Ponies, as a prey species, can find it easy to fear the different. The unnatural, or whatever they choose to see as such. They're sapient, and anypony who can think is generally going to wind up thinking about how many problems they have and how difficult it is to actually solve them.

What does a cult do?

It gives the problems a source.

It tells you that everything wrong in your life comes from that which the community can control. That the community has the answers, and they'll be happy to tell you about them because they know you need somepony to speak with. They speak with you all the time. It's not as if you're going to hear anypony else.

They're supportive. They look out for those who might not believe yet, because there's a part of every pony which wants to believe the herd is right and if these are the only ponies around you, then this has to be your herd. It's similar to the way a dictatorship's citizens talk up the laws of their country, only with more smiles.

There's no real crime here. They police themselves. If they see anything happening, they report each other. They betray each other, for the benefit of the community.

They know their new arrivals are, on the deepest level, confused. It's a tragedy. Much of the world suffers from that confusion, and those victims don't even know how badly they've been hurt. A good portion of the planet has been taught to believe pain is normal. But everypony here was confused once, and then they learned how to think. Or how to let somepony else think for them.

A cult offers to solve all of your problems. Because everything in your life comes from something which the community can control. A cult is about fear of the other, and once they both define what that is and how to escape it...

...except that this other is lurking within. Forever waiting for a chance to strike, to think for you or worse, instead. A second voice, a potential enemy, a parasite which you have to carry with you forever, where there's only one escape...

...

...two.

How long do they wait before the overalls begin to come off? Something over a week. Time filled with talking about possibilities and explorations of self and the adventures which come from treating life as an endless opportunity to try out the new. They wait until they're sure the fresh arrivals are ready for it, and they also wait until after Linchpin and Sugar have been given some exceptionally strong drinks. And once they're sure it's time, that first sight of bare fur --

The concoctions do their work. Both ponies manage to stagger back to their respective groups after a mere ten minutes, having rinsed away most of the bile.

Neither runs. Asks to leave, because they're free to leave at any time, just as long as they never actually do. The shield closed behind them. Perhaps if they tried to head out, it would close around their necks. Or... hips. Instead, they think about the ponies they've met since their arrival. Ponies who are living -- differently. And what's happened to them -- been done -- so many would see that as a waking eternal nightmare, but --

-- they smile.

Why wouldn't they smile?

They're happy.

They're a herd.

And now it's the new arrivals who don't match.

Peer pressure. Silent, subtle, and insidious. The pony mind wants to be part of a group. That's where the safety is.

The -- love...

The stallion of the two new arrivals... when he first came here, he'd asked himself some questions. 'Why is everypony dressed?' was on the list. Now he has part of the answer, and...

...he tried to adjust another's blueprint the other day, on instinct, and the look of pity...
...hauling more weight at the farms than a unicorn would? Just gets him a unicorn at his side, trying to pull the burden. He shouldn't have to do it alone.

He's seen part of the answer. It leads to another, perfectly natural question: one which he manages to get out without gagging. How was it done?

They tell him.

And one of the first things he's told is that it's reversible. (He'll get to see that for himself, when his last friend goes into the world to meet somepony new.)

If he wants to just try it... to go back...

...any time he wants... any time...

...maybe even tomorrow...

And they talk about all of it with him, deep into a sleepless night.

Nopony asks for a decision immediately.

...on the bright side, now that the clothing is off, sex is available. Almost free for the asking. However, it's understood that the true commitment is the community. And if a stallion and mare want to be together, they need to say so. To each other, and then to Starlight. The unicorn provides the herbs. It's not time for children yet.

Also, everypony can splash around in the lake again. He apologies for having held that up. Especially in summer.

But when he's with a mare... with anypony at all, at work or out in the streets or trying something new... he doesn't match. He doesn't fit in. Easiest stallion in the community to identify: he's the one with the mark.

(His friend, with nothing currently left to hide, has put the burden down for a while.)

He's... different.

If he wants to try...

It's not stepping down to their level in the name of equality, because there are ways in which the community is starting to feel superior. It's an invitation to taste true freedom. To learn what he could be, if he had the chance to make a new decision.

The decision not to have a mark.

(For a little while.)
(The last stage of the fall starts when he tells himself it's for a little while.)

But even with all of the talks, all of the caring -- he's hesitant. Unsure --

-- Sugar is going to do it.

There's a ceremony of Freedom. Starlight acts. Sugar cries, then she laughs, the others crowd around her, and then she's Nira.

Nira is happy.
Nira is loved.

They've kept him away from working on buildings. On the architectural level, some of the structures are little chambers of horrors, and they're chambers which need better support beams. But nopony wants an overseer whipping at their work. These are hobbyists operating on a life-sized scale. He's trying things too. Farming has a certain appeal. Making outfits is still beyond him, but he's pieced out how a loom works. And...

...he's been trying to get away from himself. That's why he came here.

The mark insists. He tries to ignore it. And it feels like the urges are weaker -- but they're still present. Waiting for their chance.

He can make them go away. (For a while.)

Take a vacation from himself.

If anypony truly knew... they would understand, wouldn't they? To just see what it's like, to effectively possess the soul of a child with the experience of an adult. Exploring a new way of life.

Starting over.
No limits.
A new path.

(So much of it was built on lies.)

He wants to be different. Somepony other than himself.
They're different and they're happy.
They do what they love.
What does he love now?
...he doesn't know.
He wants to love something.
Somepony.
And if he can change that most fundamental thing...
It's a decision which might lead to love.
...may have already led to love.
The community wants to truly love him. He knows that.
If he wants to take the final hoofstep towards acceptance...
Family...

Starlight asks him the question.

He says yes.

One of his last living thoughts came to him when he was trying to push his way into concealment within the bush.

Some of them must have said no.

It takes a lot of work to bring a pony so far. It certainly did for him. And even after all of that effort, he still recoiled. Was sick for a time. But then he listened. And nopony ever blamed him for the initial reaction, because Starlight said it was how society had taught ponies to react.

He was asked to think it over. See how those who had shed the burden lived, and then... make a decision.

It was presented as a choice.

What happened to the ones who said no?

It might have been a rhetorical question. He'd already been within the workshop.

But he suspected that very few had made that decision. The herd was strong. Powerful. Insidious. And the experiment had been running for some time. Galloping down the answers to so many of Starlight's endless questions -- but he represented a query which had already been solved.

How do you shred a soul?

When it came to the actual act, the answer was built around an eldritch, unnatural core. That wasn't going to change. But when it came to the full process... Starlight had worked out a rather simple solution to Step One.

You get the victim to volunteer.

Branch-And-Cut

There were questions which needed to remain buried -- at least for now.

Twilight was fully aware that this became considerably more difficult when she was in the presence of somepony who might have custody of multiple answers. When it came to color perception, she didn't possess the degree of refinement which Spike and Rarity enjoyed. (It was possible that learning to call Rarity's aspect forward would grant her that portion of the designer's talent, but -- doing so was very much a work in progress, and she had found no means of making that voice rise from within.) But she'd seen Starlight's field at work now, noted its hue, and was willing to believe her sibling on the shade being an exact match. The unicorn was involved in this, and one of the currently-entombed questions was 'how?'

Of course, when it came to any attempts at finding answers, Twilight did currently have access to what might be described as the easy option. This began by flinging away the hat and allowing a falsely-invisible horn to be outlined within a very real, heavily-spiked double corona. The next step would clearly be to envelop Starlight in a field bubble, pushing the unicorn against a convenient tree -- there were a lot of trees around and suddenly, they were all convenient -- and start shouting directly into stunned ears. She even had an opening line of questioning available. Something along the lines of 'I know you did it! Own up!' --

-- maybe she needed to cut back on channeling Rainbow's aspect for a little while...

It was hard to keep silent, when the potential source of information was currently guiding them in. But she didn't know anything about Starlight, or why this 'community' was here.

We could be trotting into a sick colony.
I have to remember that. We don't have proof yet one way or another. They might be hiding just because their condition is so -- disturbing. Afraid of how ponies will react...

Starlight, at least in terms of basic mark presence, was clearly fine. (This didn't resolve the query as to whether the displayed icon was what the unicorn had originally started with.) But the others were all very conspicuously dressed. With a rainforest, in the summer, with a -- 'style' -- which served to conceal every last pair of hips.

"I could always just wear a lot of dresses..."

As far as Twilight was concerned, it meant everypony else in the escort party had likely been affected.

And it puts them in a position where they can't really comment on our being dressed up.

However, the group's presence also meant that if Twilight did attack, her miniherd was going to be instantly and significantly outnumbered. And while the unexpected reveal of a small dragon might do a lot to influence their chances of victory, it wouldn't change the fact that they would be targeting the ill.

And there was another consideration. When it came to their destination, four other mares had gone in first.

I can't even mention them. I don't know what kind of lie would work. Or what Rarity might have said first, in case we were found after they were. (Because when it came to the creation of a shielding lie, the first and just about only viable candidate was Rarity.) I can't check on my friends...

And directly targeting their hosts might have a detrimental effect on the first group's welfare.

...which already assumed that all four were currently okay.
That nothing had happened to their marks.
Perhaps a count of four hostages was about to become seven. Getting to drop a surprise eighth into that mix might not change very much.

If you've hurt them...

Had they been hurt? Targeted? In the case of a mark-affecting illness, infected?

...worse?

...would I know if...

She didn't have an answer to that, the only ponies she could have asked were in another hemisphere and if she somehow did find herself in front of them, there didn't seem to be any reasonable way of phrasing the question. Asking the sisters whether soul-bound aspects and the donor ponies were linked on a level which allowed an alicorn to feel the exact moment when somepony...

...she hadn't felt anything like that. No sensation of severance, much less any sort of -- pulling. Something intangible falling away, with a sort of spiritual gravity trying to draw her in after it. And with the lack of any testimony to the contrary, Twilight decided to treat the absence as a positive sign.

They have to be okay.

She still didn't know what she would do if they weren't. But she was currently in a position to take that unknown action from rather short range.

Twilight glanced behind her. Applejack was softly speaking with two of the escorts, and doing so while working hard to maintain a degree of distance: nopony could get too close to the rolled-up groundpad. Another pair of locals had tried to strike up a conversation with Fluttershy, which was going about as well as usual.

Their outfits...

Perhaps that was the surest proof of just how deeply Rarity's aspect had been buried within Twilight's soul. She couldn't hear any inner screaming.

(Which just left her worried about the true again.)

It's not a clothist colony. If you want to cross one of those borders, then you've got to put something on. And they don't take things off to make others comfortable. A live-in exception like Starlight... no. And if dressing up like this is mandatory, and they made everypony do it...

If that had been the case, it might have been possible to hear Rarity's screams from Canterlot.

Is this like what Applejack said about serial killers? That what it can take to solve and stop everything is having it happen to more ponies? Every extra victim as a fresh source of clues. And if all of the dressed ones are affected, then what we have here are more ponies.

Too many.

There were those who said that a mark was the soul made visible to the world...

Is this a disease of the soul? Or is someone -- somepony -- trying to interfere with --

-- she didn't want to think about that. She almost wished to be incapable of the mere thought. But there were sapients who would break anything if they saw the base form as being wrong. She'd met one, and the consequences of Gentle Arrival's actions had spread out to cover the world.

Or maybe they all wished for their marks to change.
Their... souls.

The redefinition didn't feel like an improvement.

Are there really that many who hated their lives? Loathed the core of their being, dreamed that they could turn away from their own destinies...

There had been a corpse in the palace surgery. The last remnants of a stallion who might have wished for his mark to change, and... for some reason, he'd made the rod bring him to Canterlot.

(Did Rarity's group have the device fragment? She'd forgotten to ask Spike.)

He might have wished for his mark to change.
Perhaps the last thing he'd done was to change his mind.

The vegetation was thickening, and that included the portion which Twilight had to keep forcing her legs through. If this was an official path, then it wasn't used much. Applejack had the benefit of earth pony physical power and Fluttershy was considerably stronger than she looked, but the librarian was the smallest pony in the group. There was an odd sort of vine which sprouted from the forest floor at irregular intervals, it was a little too woodlike at the base, and she couldn't just phase through it --

-- Starlight was looking at her.

There was an odd intensity to the unicorn's gaze. It wasn't quite like being on the receiving end of Fluttershy's Stare. Something about being under this direct regard suggested that lilac eyelids had been asked to hold back Sun.

Twilight, who'd been through worse, kept her legs moving as steadily as she could with the forest undergrowth in play, then tilted her head a few quizzical degrees to the right and waited.

It was possible to see the thought arrive on the mare's face and, like Rainbow crashing into a balcony, it pretty much all turned up at once.

"I should inspect your hat," Starlight decided.

Twilight blinked.

"My..."

"Your hat," the unicorn repeated. "May I inspect it?"

The forest seemed to be getting quieter. She couldn't hear as many birds now, and the sounds produced by animals moving through vegetation had almost completely faded out. It was just a group of ponies, advancing towards the shield.

I know the illusion is working. I've asked the others to look at the results a few times. And Luna must have done something to block out passive feel. She must have. But I don't know how she might have tried to stop or hide from an active attempt, and the horn concealment spell is running right now...

Twilight, working from a lead time of zilch, tried to think of a really good reason not to temporarily turn the hat over and came up with a matching amount of nothing.

She managed a shrug. "If you want to."

A turquoise aura ignited around the lilac horn. Fine tendrils of energy went under Twilight's jaw, carefully worked on the knot. Portions of her skin began to tingle, and she forced her gait to remain steady.

The hat came off, and did so at the exact moment when the final remnants of a broken breeze forced themselves through the forest. Air lightly brushed against Twilight's forehead, and an imaginary patch of fur rippled.

Starlight rotated her field bubble. Inspected hat, fabric, brim, and ties with utter focus, leaving her legs to mostly fend for themselves. No green stains seemed to be adhering to that fur, and perhaps that was the result of a spell -- but the left forehoof was nearly snagged by a vine.

The unicorn stumbled, just a little. Recovered quickly, and did so in the exact manner of a cat. It wasn't any special flair of physical dexterity: just a suggestion in hips and shoulders that no stumble had ever taken place. All counterevidence had been dismissed in advance.

She nodded to herself, with the bundled-up mane barely bobbing. The field bubble settled the hat back onto Twilight's head, and then the knot was retied. The extra tension around the jaw suggested it was considerably tighter.

"The waterproofing treatment on the brim is inadequate," Starlight pronounced. "As I expected. We have something suitable within the community. If you wish to apply it."

"I might," Twilight carefully allowed.

Don't let her inspect the bow.

Even with the hat back on, do not let her have the bow. She'll probably feel the wire inside just on texture. And if she figures out that it's platinum...

What was a really good reason to not let Starlight look the bow over, especially after Twilight had already let her inspect the hat?

Say it's cultural.
...maybe there is a cultural reason. I don't think I've ever seen Apple Bloom without hers. But that might only apply to earth ponies --
-- okay, Flitter, but I'm pretty sure that's her idea of fashion --

"Earlier," Starlight abruptly said, "you stated that your wing was injured due to a 'bad landing', added to strain. Does it require medical attention?"

"Just rest," Twilight quickly replied. Because any competent physician would probably be able to tell it hadn't been hurt. "Hopefully not too much more of it." With a slight smile, "Just getting into a more civilized area might do the trick."

And that's an opening...

"Are you a doctor?" Twilight asked.

The hesitation was slight. "I supervise the majority of the community's medical needs," Starlight stated. "We have a number who are skilled in first aid, but anything more complicated comes to me."

Which, if you're telling the full truth, would leave a sick colony running on one researcher. But when it came to a public reaction, she couldn't risk anything beyond a basic nod.

Twilight could easily stay on the lookout for anything resembling a medical facility. But the escorting ponies looked healthy enough.

...except for how every pegasus didn't seem to have their wings in a fully natural rest position. And the unicorns were carrying their heads too low, earth pony ears dipped, just about every last strand of fur came from that part of the color wheel which had been labeled as 'dulled'...

"Has the community been here long?" Twilight politely inquired. "It certainly doesn't appear on any of our maps."

This pause was almost suited to Fluttershy. A streaked tail failed to twitch, and ears rotated because their owner had decided it was time for that.

"The basics have been in place for some time," Starliight finally said.

I'm starting to see what Spike meant by 'scripted'. You were fine when you first trotted into camp -- or at least you were better than this. But right now, you almost feel like somepony who went out on stage without rehearsing first No improv training, and not a prompt box in sight.

"Are you one of the original settlers?" felt like a natural enough question. Something which came with a strictly binary choice of answers, and that meant the reply would have to be just about immediate.

She was wrong.

It was possible to watch the unicorn think about her response, and Twilight got to survey the process for several too-long seconds.

(Starlight thought about everything.)

"I was the first," the mare finally said. "By a small margin. If it becomes necessary, then I'll be the last."

Curiously, "So you picked the site?"

The unicorn nodded. Eventually.

"You're a very long way from home," Starlight abruptly stated.

It was the conversational equivalent of watching a pony-shaped automaton trying to take a step backwards while it had already been in the middle of a forward one. Any damage inflicted through failure to dodge fast-flying dislodged syllables was placed upon the audience, which really should have been paying more attention.

Please tell me I wasn't this bad.

"Gallops and gallops," Twilight readily agreed. Would a pegasus use 'gallops' first? Is there a measurement for the average distance covered by one day of flight? There were so many little ways to get things wrong...

"Explorers are uncommon," the mare followed up. "On a frequency chart for modern marks, they represent one of the rarest talents. So having an expedition of ponies this far away from Equestria would be unexpected."

She held back the shrug. "By definition," Twilight countered, "explorers are most likely to turn up where nopony else is looking. Because that's the job, and the talent."

Starlight thought about that.

"Arguably," the mare said. "You have an interesting way of approaching logic."

There were ways in which the words could work out to a compliment. Twilight wasn't entirely sure about the tone, mostly because there would have needed to be rather more of it.

"Thank you," seemed to be a good way of testing for intent.

Starlight didn't answer. She just kept moving.

I can feel you casting.

Your horn is dark. But you don't always have to ignite a field in order to adjust your own spells. We have to be getting close to the shield, and I know what kind of resonance it puts out. I don't think you shut that down, not for the whole thing. You're probably just telling it not to radiate in this direction.

The feel is... strange.

...clinical artistry...

Which still didn't make any sense.

And you didn't ask for my name, after I wanted to know yours. You haven't asked for anypony's names.

...please tell me I wasn't this bad...

But as far as I can tell, you're leading us in. Which means you're bringing us that much closer to the others.

...why did you want to see my hat?

If Starlight had suspected a concealed alicorn, then the simplest way to test would have been through making physical contact with the hidden horn. Perhaps it had been nothing more than a simple inspection for waterproofing treatments.

We have to keep them from going through our inventory. Spike was the primary, extremely hard to explain reason there, but... there were other factors. The modified Hoovmat suits could be explained away, especially when they were being carried by explorers. However, having possession of one-fifth of the stock for the world's most advanced translator devices -- actually, as Equestria-sanctioned explorers, they could likely explain that one away as a palace loan. It just happened to double as an extremely tempting target for any researcher, who would undoubtedly ask if they could look it over for a while. That was certainly what Twilight would have done in that situation, and there was even some chance that the device would have come back intact.

The really awkward inanimate part of their collective stock would be the signal devices. Twilight might be able to claim they'd heard rumors about something dangerous in the rainforest, for which the solution was a lot of light -- but these were the locals. They would know.

We're nearly at the border, aren't we? You can do something about the resonance, but rendering anything that big invisible to passive feel... maybe that's impossible. It's why your barrier is buzzing in my head.

We're almost in.

Soon, she would know.

If anything's happened to them...

Twilight made herself smile.

"Have you ever met explorers?" she asked. "Before us, obviously."

The mare nodded.

"Once," Starlight said. "It was an opportunity."

"An --" was as far as Twilight got.

"As one of the rarest talents," the mare went on, "it requires a perspective and mindset seldom found among the population. One seldom meets explorers, because so few ponies have led the sort of lives which would lead them to that manifestation. Accordingly, encountering a marked explorer is an opportunity for education. Any such circumstance should be exploited for reciprocal benefit."

There was something in the blue eyes just then. Not quite the mist of fond reminiscence. She just looked -- thoughtful.

(She thought about everything.)

"So we talked," Starlight added. "For quite some time. The outcome was mutually favorable."

The smile wasn't exactly beginning to ache. "So you made a friend?"

That required a little more consideration. Shade and shadow dappled a steadily-moving back.

"I think they see it that way," the unicorn decided. "Especially as they continued the association, of their own will. And the community would be lessened without them. Silence, please. We're nearly at the border. I have to let us in."

Right. You have the key to this lock.
Who else does?

Twilight waited until they reached the first hint of sparkles in the air, then glanced back at the trailing group. The radiance from Starlight's newly-lit horn illuminated multiple faces and, for seven of the locals, a single expression.

Downcast faces. Half-closed eyes. Trying not to look, as hooves scraped shallow trenches into rich soil. The collective countenance of those who had to watch somepony being sick in public, with nothing they could do to help.

They're -- sorry for her...?

And it didn't make any sense.

Twilight stepped over the gap in the soil, then made a mental note to ask Applejack just how far down it went. Tapping into her own earth pony feel would have required calling forth that aspect, and she was uncertain of her ability to do it on the trot. At the very least, Twilight suspected she would have wound up looking extremely distracted.

Shortly after that, they passed by something newly familiar. A cool scent (albeit one with no true suggestion of mint) called out to Twilight, and she did her best to inspect the specimen of espinho de chama without slowing her pace. It didn't provide her with the time she would have needed to inspect the interior, and any scent of dried blood had already faded. A botanist could have offered a legitimate reason to pause -- but Twilight hadn't claimed that as her talent.

And when they got a little further in...

So the illusion spell worked into the shield managed to hide this.

She was sincerely impressed --

-- there was something in Twilight which was fairly attuned to the movements of her friends. It had been paying particularly close attention over the last few days, because there were fewer mares to track and she really needed to know where all of the remaining ones were. It meant she heard the exact moment when the heaviest set of hooves abruptly stopped moving.

"I apologize if I'm messing up somepony's schedule," the Manehattan accent quickly said (and Twilight briefly wondered if anypony else had picked up on the slight tremor in the farmer's voice). "But if we're not in any real hurry, then -- do you mind if I look around a little before we head the rest of the way in? Professional interest."

The entire group paused along the farmland's outer border. Starlight thought it over.

"An agronomist would naturally be interested in our arrangements," the mare didn't quite concede. "Take a few minutes."

"Thanks," Applejack said. "I'll try not to take too long."

"However, I may ask for your professional opinion of our arrangements at some point," the first settler sincerely offered. "And advice. We've come this far, but the situation can always improve."

The earth pony inspected the moisture collectors. Walked carefully along the furrows, examined sprouting plants. Two tenders were signaled over, and a forehoof pointed out a fast-developing patch of clubroot among the cabbages: ponies immediately began to work on preventing the disease from spreading any further. She moved, cataloged, visibly filed everything away in her memory, and made sure nopony ever got too close to the rolled-up ground pad. Keeping the ground pad from falling off her back was the top priority.

At one point, she stopped to speak with one of the earth pony workers, doing so in tones which Twilight could barely hear.

"You're putting in a lot of labor," Applejack told the worker.

"It's what the community needs," the stallion smiled. "I'm proud to do my part."

"I can tell," the alternate accent agreed. "But I was wondering... why so quiet?"

Quiet...? Which almost made Twilight search the farmland for a small grey body. Not that it would have done any good.

"...quiet?" the confused stallion inverted.

In perfectly friendly, casual tones, "Don't you think a work song might make the whole thing go faster?"

The stallion's head tilted slightly to the left. "But -- nopony else is singing..."

And if Twilight hadn't been in possession of a single extra fact, the words might have still felt normal enough -- but when somepony had the knowledge which let them understand what was really being discussed...

She didn't hear any earth pony magic.
The Cornucopia Effect isn't being used.
The expressions at the shield, and now this.
Why?

She kept thinking about that as they moved through the agricultural section. Why not use magic? It wasn't as if the Effect had ever been part of the Secret, any more than its opposite -- and nopony had tried to use the wasteland effect to take out the infected cabbages either.

Twilight glanced around as they passed the laborers. Most of what she registered were the smiles. The little waves of forelegs, added to a few called-out greetings. Welcoming the strangers, and doing so with open enthusiasm. Starlight verbally stepped in if that last part threatened to go on for too long, saying the proper welcome hadn't been scheduled yet and everypony would get their chance. For now, it was best to let the new arrivals rest. Get cleaned up. Settle in. They were safe.

This made the majority of ponies happy. A few, just barely within her hearing range, seemed confused.

"Didn't we get new ponies the other day?"

Twilight's heart almost stopped.

"I -- think so?" With some pride, "I've been putting everything into this planting. I'm not sure I'd notice if the shield collapsed!"

"Don't worry," a coworker assured him. "We can always meet them while they've being welcomed."

A little wistfully, "It'll be like truly getting introduced for the first time, won't it? Like it was for us. Meeting the world. I wish I could feel that way again..."

"Appreciate it through somepony else," a mare smiled. "It's one true first for everypony. No exceptions. Not even the obvious ones."

Which was when one of them looked up just enough to notice her, and all of the workers stopped talking. Two waved, and every last one smiled.

A few of them briefly looked at each other. As if to see whether everypony else was smiling.

When I hadn't been in Ponyville for very long...

(When she'd just started to realize exactly how much damage had been done.)

...I kept going into the bathroom. Checking myself in the mirror. Because it felt like I couldn't remember how long it had been since I'd smiled that much, or laughed. I didn't know if I was smiling right. And then Pinkie caught me checking myself in a window. She figured it out. And she told me that natural was always best. To just let it happen, and -- they'd understand.

Also that when I really tried too hard to fake a smile, it sort of turned into a rictus.

Like a corpse.

She kept thinking about a dead stallion's final expression. Thin and vicious.

Twilight did her best to check on the others as they moved inwards. If Applejack had been shaken by the lack of magic in the farming area, she was doing a good job of concealing it. Fluttershy, however, was looking increasingly uncomfortable -- and Twilight was fairly certain that it wasn't because complete strangers kept trying to speak with the caretaker.

...well, it wasn't entirely that. But every time she saw the hybrid, Fluttershy was -- looking around. Visibly trying to listen, with dyed ears rotating in all directions. And there was nothing to hear.

No birds under the shield. She must not be picking up on other animals --

-- but then they reached the actual community.

Twilight looked around. Immediately noticed the uneven streets, added that to the slipshod paving, and decided they were collectively trying to drive her insane. Something which would be a slow process, but she liked their long-term chances.

The lake caught her attention. She wasn't sure what to think of the pony who was trying to fish, other than to wish him the joy of it while vaguely hoping that at some point, somepony would be so kind as to explain exactly what that was.

There are fish in the lake. I just saw scales near the surface. And there's ripples moving in towards the shore.

There's a shield up: the waterfall is on the other side of it. But the lake --

"...those are very interesting mane combs," Fluttershy softly said. "The free ones."

When it came to speech, the next reaction was about as close to 'immediately' as Starlight ever got. "Do you like them?" Not quite eager, but -- curious. Wanting to hear more.

"...they're -- interesting," was as far as Fluttershy would go. "I'm always interested in mane combs." Which was accompanied by a small head toss and disproportionate quantity of flouncing hair. "...you can probably guess why."

"Take a few," Starlight said. "Please. Let me know what you think. They can always be refined."

Fluttershy slowly moved closer to the elevated tray. Twilight went back to looking around.

How many ponies live here?

...do any of them know anything about construction? Not that she was an expert, but there was something in Twilight's soul which wanted balance and when it came to the local architecture, her OCD was openly under attack. She wanted to grab some sandpaper and smooth something. Also this thing, that one, most of the others and while she was at it, that one half-protruding beam could stand to be cut down by a few hoofwidths.

At least there's chimneys. We can keep the fire going for Spike if the treatment needs to be continued. (She hoped the chimneys were better built than the rest of it.) But if we're lucky, he won't relapse. The humidity is definitely lower in here. And they had to reach concealment so Spike could take the simple move of getting down from Applejack's back: he'd been riding for well over an hour, completely still and silent. He needed to move and, if this kept up much longer, was also going to need a bathroom. Badly.

Dulci said Dinky wanted to see Spike. That's not going to happen for a while.
What's going on in Ponyville?
...have I seen one filly or colt since we got here?

There were any number of questions she could have asked herself. Some of them would be passed on to the others, and a number would ultimately dredge up answers from a putrescent swamp of bubbling horror.

But then there was a voice, and it made every last query vanish.

It was a voice which Twilight could not summon from within. And she had spent days in silently offering the world anything of hers it might wish to take, if only she could once again hear it from without.

"Welcome to Truedawn!" called out an accent with a maximum native speaker pool of one. "I certainly hope you're feeling welcome, as the locals do try to make their guests comfortable." The briefest of pauses. "Although what would make me comfortable at this exact moment is being given a clear trotting line -- yes, thank you --"

Twilight's head whipped to the left, and the too-tight knot under her jaw did its part to keep the hat in place. The fact that it felt as if the tie had just partially cut off two major blood vessels was considered to be incidental.

She did not run. There was no reason to break into a full-scale gallop, at least not one which their hosts might have fully understood. Instead, she forced herself to move steadily, approaching at a normal pace as the white unicorn mare slowly moved out of what appeared to have been a mobile circle of locals, freeing herself from their company in order to have a few words with a familiar face...

Perhaps Applejack was smiling. She knew Fluttershy had reacted, because her ears had just picked up on a jolted comb tray rocking back into position. Twilight was mostly hoping that the rolled-up ground pad didn't jump down, run up, and try to hug white forelegs, because that was going to be pretty much impossible to explain. But for her own part, all she could do was... approach.

It was easy. It was also the thing she'd most wanted to do since the moment when the tethers had broken.

"Faceti!"

Did that sound natural?

...do I care?

She did. Just not about whether the greeting had come across as normal.

"Dear," Rarity smiled. "We were somewhat concerned, of course. As might be expected, given that our respective exploration teams have had no contact for some time and our weather surveyor never did manage to spot you from the air." A faint sniff. "Not with a mountain between us and that canopy in play. But there was a rather natural hope that, much as our hosts found all of us in one piece, they might find a way to locate the lot of you. And I see that they have..."

The little herd which had been surrounding Rarity was well behind her now. Nopony was too close to Twilight. They had about nine body lengths of privacy in all directions, especially since none of the native pegasi were flying.

The mares came up to each other.

There was a nuzzle. It was the one meant for friends, if rather more understated than Twilight would have liked. And it still meant everything.

It also provided the chance for Rarity to whisper at short range.

Urgently, with more than a hint of desperation, "Where is --"

"-- on her back. The bedroll."

She heard the sharp breath, followed by a slow exhale. "Ah. So your group did have it. How is --"

"-- recovering. We came up with a treatment. Did you give her any names for us?"

"No. There was no means of relaying them to you, and -- nopony has asked."

Fighting to hold back surging tears, a struggle which couldn't be explained. "I'm sorry..."

Gently, "Whatever for? You merely saved our lives. No apology is required."

Twilight backed away, very slightly.

Rarity looked -- calm. Almost too much so, to the point where it was possible for those who knew her to spot the tight control.

"I was simply out for a trot," the designer stated. "Exploring the area. And naturally, a group of locals appeared to guide me. Almost instantly. Being helpful."

There were ponies watching them. Twilight didn't care. Only two in that count truly mattered -- plus one very cooperative ground pad.

Found.
But what else did we find?

"You're hurt. I saw the way you were moving. That right shoulder -- there's no seepage, but your outfit doesn't sit properly over the bandages."

Almost proudly, "You noticed the distortion? Well, the injury itself is practically nothing. Much like yours, I would hope. A few days of recovery for both of us? Despite the world's best efforts..."

It didn't matter.
Nothing seemed to matter.
They were together again, and Rarity had told her that the others were okay. They could deal with anything as long as they were together. They always had.

...so far.

Try-Catch

It would have helped if she'd felt the self-blame beginning to die, but... Twilight knew it would take more than that. Rarity was right in front of her, found and safe and -- well, somewhat injured, but at least it wasn't any worse and...

...if we'd all been together, I could have just teleported most of us across that river, then levitated Applejack. But I would have had to explain the last part to Trixie. Probably something about knowing that Applejack has bad reactions to teleports. From experience. It's not even a lie: it's truth without full explanation of cause...

But she hadn't been there. And somepony else had.

Spike had tried to reassure his big sister, done everything he could to remind her of what could have happened during the teleport. Hit the lockdown: death. Fail to open a hole large enough for the group: death. The little dragon truly felt that dumping them out of the between had arguably been the only option. And perhaps he was right.

Except that there was another factor.

...I pulled Trixie into this. There's no way she ever would have wanted to be here, and now she's part of the mission.

Because I screwed up.

Rarity -- 'Faceti' for now -- was still standing in front of Twilight. Blue eyes carefully looked past the false pegasus, examined Applejack, rested on the back-mounted rolled-up ground pad for what felt like a little too long, and finally moved to Fluttershy --

-- the designer blinked. Looked at the jungle-green fur again, briefly arched her right eyebrow, and then rather visibly forced her mouth to remain shut.

"May I trot along for a time?" she asked -- and then immediately glanced back towards the soft mass groan which had just arisen from a few body lengths behind her tail. "My apologies, dears: I am not attempting to shed your company. But I do have some rough familiarity with Truedawn's newest guests."

"We'll just follow you," one of the earth pony stallions said, and the dulled violet face offered a smile. "Until you're ready to take up the tour again."

"Quite ready," Rarity calmly said. "However, when it comes to my fellow explorers... there is a single location which I truly need to learn." With a small head tilt and smile, both directed at Twilight: "I assume that Starlight is bringing you to local accommodations --"

"Correct," the lilac unicorn evenly stated.

"-- and in the event that you do not wind up on our street, it would help to see where you are staying." She paused. "We might even manage to encounter at least one of the others from my group along the way. And if we do not, then it is a necessity to have somepony who can tell them where you are. Perhaps we can all come to see you tonight, after you've settled in?"

Twilight nodded. It was amazing, really: just how calm a simple nod could appear. Especially when the true reaction was somewhat more turbulent.

They're okay. Everypony's okay. Rarity would have found a way to say something if they weren't. She's always been the best of us when it comes to words. Look at how much information she managed to pass along during the greeting.
Nopony's been hurt or -- worse.
Maybe this isn't so bad --

-- the thought was birthed into the world, was recognized as being severely premature, and promptly found itself sitting in the mental equivalent of a stasis dome. Waiting for the right time to come, and only if that moment had a true reason to exist.

'Truedawn'. She said that earlier. So that's the name of this -- 'settled zone' didn't seem to fit -- colony.

They had been invited into the fortress. There was a certain need to learn the layout, and Twilight was also dearly hoping to sense at least one of the devices involved in the shield and lockdown effects. Of course, the most likely location for such items was along the sparkling borders, but if there was any chance that there was a specimen being locally charged or repaired...

"We should keep moving," Twilight openly decided. "I don't want to take too much of Starlight's time, and I'm sure all of the residents have things to do."

"Meeting new arrivals is something to do!" called out a dull grey pegasus mare. "It's one of the most important things anypony can ever do for the community --"

"-- easy, Seti," somepony else said: a pale blue unicorn stallion with the single least styled tail Twilight had ever seen: a puff of utterly disorganized hair, roughly anchored to the dock and mostly prevented from falling away by the simple fact that gravity didn't want to deal with that mess either. "They were just out in the wild. You know what that's like. And there's always the true welcome."

"You're right," Seti reluctantly decided. "But that's for all of Truedawn. Maybe we could..." Decibels dropped into obscurity as the pair began to trot away, still talking.

It didn't matter. Twilight returned to her own group, Rarity fell into hoofstep next to her, and they all moved on together.

Together.
We'll all be back together by tonight.
We have to stay together...

As with the majority of goals, it would have been rather easy to say. The complexity involved in actually making it happen required considerably more effort.

And as with the majority of complex goals through history, it would fail.

Starlight's interest had been engaged.

It wasn't from showing them around Truedawn: the fully-clothed residents who'd accompanied their leader into the wild were hauling just about all of that social drag weight. The unicorn's current focus was somewhat more mobile, was trying to make a good first impression and in the event that the caretaker's resolve failed, also didn't know enough about the colony to have any escape routes memorized.

"We're moving away from the mane combs," Starlight stated. "And you didn't take any from the tray."

As conversational openers with total strangers went, the soft "...um..." represented one of Fluttershy's stronger showings.

"You did show an interest," the unicorn reminded her. "You said that you're always interested in mane combs."

"...yes," Fluttershy eventually managed. "It's just that --"

"Encountering a fellow explorer created a distraction," Starlight reasoned. "There was a brief, understandable loss of focus. Under the circumstances, I hardly consider that to be offensive."

"...oh. Thank you...?"

"Fortunately," the unicorn added, "I happen to recall the prior subject of discussion." Her horn ignited, and turquoise went directly for the contents of the tray. "You found them interesting. And the best way to tell if something truly is interesting is through personal investigation. Now when it comes to your mane, the most efficient placement locations..."

Glow moved through Fluttershy's mane. Separated a few strands, folded others, and then added a few strategic touches of off-white.

The "...ow," was exceptionally soft.

"Somewhat higher and closer to the center line," Starlight considered. "In order to deal with the sheer volume of hair." Adjustments were made. "Of course, hairstyle is an entirely personal choice. As such, there is no point in trying to argue it."

"...that's nice of you to say --"

"And in your personal choice, you've picked something rather impractical," the unicorn decided. "Especially for an explorer. To move through the wild, while carrying so much which could become tangled, caught, or targeted... well, perhaps we simply found you in morning disarray. You were getting ready to pack up your camp. The mane and tail likely would have been part of that."

"...with my tail..." Fluttershy slowly began, and Twilight recognized the tone. It was the weary verbal signature of a mare who occupied the ninety-ninth percentile of tail endowment, had heard every last one of the so-called jokes during the first year of a too-early puberty, and probably would have felt somewhat better if she'd just kicked a few juvenile amateur comedians into the middle of the next century.

"A fully natural tail," Starlight observed. "No extensions or fillers. To possess such a tail is something which arises from the blood. Rare, but recognized and understood. There is no point in blaming or faulting anypony for an appearance which arises naturally." With utter neutrality, "It would be like hating a pony for being born as a pegasus, when the one experiencing that hatred is not. It makes no sense. That is your tail. You carry it well."

It was possible to hear Fluttershy blink. "...oh. Um. Thank you --"

"-- and when moving through a wild zone," their hostess stated, "you would do well to carry it as a bundle. I'll demonstrate." More glowing combs moved into position. "If you feel the tines are improperly spaced for your weight and volume, I can modify a future batch. But that sort of recommendation requires direct experience to make. Accordingly, please maintain this style for the remainder of the day. And perhaps overnight."

Twilight was now mentally comparing the unicorn to a primary school student who'd been given something to sell for a class fundraiser and unleashed upon the world without training, basic education in tactics, or the knowledge that if their sales target tried to back into an alley, they were potentially doing something wrong.

"...um..."

"After that," Starlight continued, "I would appreciate a thorough report. Don't leave out any details. Exacting reviews of the new are required for progress."

Or a first-time writer, which was worse.

Sun had been lowered. Moon had been raised. The Nightsun was nowhere to be found.

Twilight was sitting on the rough half-porch which made up the front of Applejack's assigned house, gazing up at the night sky -- something which had to be done through the shield. And on this side of the illusion...

When she'd been staring down from the edge of the tepui, she'd seen -- trees. The natural patterns of the rainforest, with Truedawn itself fully concealed. To look out, trying to examine everything from ground level...

Nothing had been visible through the canopy of the rainforest, and they'd had other concerns on the tepui. But she was outside, waiting for her friends to arrive. Something which threatened to consume her thoughts, send everything spiraling into the abyss of an unsolved mystery. And when it came to one of those friends...

She needed a distraction. The stars provided. And she'd only gotten to study the view offered by the southern hemisphere in books: that had mostly meant illustrations, added to some early and frankly inadequate photography. This was the real thing. A view she might never gain the chance to appreciate again.

It was a clear night, and the stars were very much in evidence: a hot blue there, with a soft yellow variable nearly. White flickered, and small spots of red felt as if they were getting ready to surge. Part of her longed for a telescope: the binoculars simply weren't enough.

But she was also trying to translate drawings into reality. There were times when her astronomy studies briefly grated at what seemed to be a false reading, because the sparkles of an active field were still very much present in the color-shifting shield -- and a small, bright twinkle of light could be very easy to mistake for a distant star. The little displays kept messing up her attempts to make out constellations.

And she couldn't find the Nightsun.

She shouldn't have expected to. The brightest star in the northern sky wasn't going to be in evidence here. But when you were in Equestria... you could steer by the Nightsun. Sailors had once used it as their most reliable guide, and it was still pressed into service when instruments and devices failed. A constant, utterly reliable companion...

It was unreasonable to expect it here. But she was in a place where the stars were no longer familiar. And even with friends and family found, it made her feel more lost than ever.

It's still better than looking at the streetlights.

Truedawn was playing havoc with her OCD. She kept wanting to adjust something. Anything. Everything. Simply smoothing off edges might have provided her with busywork for a lifetime. The only thing more hazardous than trying to live in some of the buildings was attempting to move within flank-grazing distance of the walls, because there was every chance that you would trot away with somewhat less flank and considerably more bloodstains. And the streetlights didn't arc properly at the upper projections, the glow needed tweaking, and she didn't understand why there was quartz at the base. The stone in the rainforest -- that had been enchanted to tell Truedawn somepony was outside the shield dome. But within the colony...

Perhaps it was a simple attempt at decoration. And like just about every other such attempt in Truedawn, it had failed. The milky facets didn't seem to know what to do with the light. Some was absorbed. Other portions wound up being repelled. The sparkles from the shield were too minor to do much of anything.

Two fully-dressed, off-hued ponies were going down the cross-street. Both paused, waved to her. She managed to get her left foreleg shifting in their general direction, and the smiling locals moved on.

Waiting...

Starlight had ultimately led the group to a fairly small side street: three residences, one of which was occupied. (Rarity had immediately noted that it was nowhere close to her own assigned quarters, and Starlight had said they were filling in gaps.) Twilight and Fluttershy had wound up in one of the uneven residences, and Applejack had technically found herself alone in the other. This had created an immediate need to meet at the farmer's temporary lodgings, because Spike had to be part of the gathering and there was very little reason for Applejack to be carrying a rolled-up ground pad everywhere she went. Not that it was the only choice: there were other disguises on the necklace, some of which might have been of use in smuggling a small dragon around Truedawn -- but it was likely best to save them for an emergency.

Rarity had promised to tell the others exactly where they were, bringing everypony by after Sun-lowering. Reluctantly headed back to her own designated portion of the colony, because somepony had to pass the word. A miniherd had followed.

And then they'd waited.

Shortly into the durance, Twilight had remembered that it was summer and waiting until after Sun-lowering was going to require something of an effort.

She'd had to force herself not to go charging across Truedawn right then and there. (For a falsely-injured pegasus, flight wasn't an option -- and when she considered that 'pegasus' really needed some qualifying quotation marks, neither was teleporting.) So it had come down to distractions. Hours of them.

Everypony had bathed, and Twilight's first encounter with the local bathtubs had left her thoroughly jealous of Applejack's current living arrangements: rooming with Spike meant the earth pony gained access to actual hot water. Then somepony had brought them food, and the recent tepid soak had immediately begun to look a lot better. Comparison to truly miserable experiences did that, and Twilight had reluctantly predicted that the barely-consumed meal was going to improve in quality once she had to deal with anything it tried to do on the way out.

She'd straightened up the house, as best she could. (A concealed horn meant she wasn't allowed to truly straighten it, and that little two-degree eastward lean was annoying her.) Spent some time searching for places where she could hide the more suspicious portions of their supplies, done what she could to get everything secured. Looked over the copied-out fragments of notes, once again contemplated whether using her trick would do any good. And now she was outside the crooked residence, beneath shield and unfamiliar stars. Waiting for the arrival of those whom she longed to see --

-- a spray of light moved across the sky: sparks, glimmers, a crest of shimmering followed by something very much like a miniature borealis: twisting ribbons of half-rainbows laced with too much white...

...Twilight blinked. Tried to bring back everything she knew about meteor showers, realized she didn't remember what was scheduled for the southern hemisphere, then considered that no meteor ever looked like that and attempted to track the source --

-- it was coming from the cliff face.

No: from a hollow within.

That's the cave, isn't it? Something's going on up there --

-- and she was down here. Trapped beneath the shield --

-- the lights stopped, and the night slipped back into stars and sparkles.

Twilight dropped her gaze.

We don't know much of anything about this area. That could be natural wild magic. Something the local stones just do every so often. She could check with Pinkie. It might not mean anything. And even if it does, dealing with that means we need to be capable of leaving --

-- which was when light blue forelegs skirted the edge of the streetlight's radiance, stepped across the quartz and turned towards the house...

No hat.

It stood out, just as much as the lack of cape. Trixie had a signature Look: something which identified a traveling performer. A hat could be something of a detriment to a casting unicorn, which was why Trixie spent most of her shows wearing an elaborate illusion. But the hat and cape were just about always there, and this was just... Trixie.

With the exceptions of some professions which required protective gear, (scheduled) bad weather, and the fringe outliers known as 'clothists', nudity was the default for just about everypony. It was what you expected, and it made the constant coverage in Truedawn stand out all the more. But with Trixie...

Something about having the whole of the mare's fur and mane out in the open made Trixie look oddly -- unnatural. Almost exposed...

Gradiated purple eyes focused on Twilight.

"Faceti would probably say something like 'Fancy meeting you here'," Trixie wearily decided. "I don't really have a line for the occasion. I'm just... glad to see you."

"I'm --" Twilight tried, and the rest should have been glad to see you too --

-- but it was her fault.

Trixie's head tilted slightly to the left, and light blue ears cupped forward. Waiting.

"I'm glad you're okay," the false pegasus offered, because they were still out in the open and ponies occasionally passed by. There was only so much which could be said at normal volume, and...

...Rarity was the best with words. Not Twilight, not when they were being spoken. Maybe that was another part of why she was having so much trouble finding the designer's aspect within herself.

"'Okay' is relative," Trixie said. "In this job, we usually just settle for 'intact'."

"...yes," Twilight inexpertly Fluttershied.

The mares looked at each other for a few seconds.

She's here.
She shouldn't be here. She's not a Bearer. Nopony asked her to do this. She shouldn't have to --
-- they were all supposed to come together --

"Where's --" Twilight began.

"-- there's a lot of ponies moving around at night. Trotting, talking. Doing things. We passed a small outdoor concert..." The blue ears briefly flattened themselves against the skull. "...never mind about the concert. But they kept stopping us. Wanting to chat. I just got away first." A slight shrug. "The others will catch up."

She moved forward, turned again, began to trot down the uneven approach path to the house. Twilight carefully watched, waited until the mare was within a single body length. And then she spoke again, much more softly, with decibels dragged down by secrecy and pain.

"...I'm sorry."

Trixie stopped moving. Mere hoofwidths away, just short of the little ramp.

Twilight was on the porch. Something which wasn't as high off the ground as it should have been (and she couldn't do anything about that either), and she was sitting. Factor in Trixie's greater height, and it meant their gazes should have been meeting on a level plane.

Should have. A certain amount of emotional gravity kept trying to pull Twilight's attention towards the ground.

"I know," the performer softly said.

"I didn't mean to bring you," Twilight half-whispered. "I..."

"It's something of an accomplishment, when you think about it," Trixie quietly offered. "You were freaked out because you hadn't formally tested for six. And you managed seven." Paused. "I don't know if the license fees even go up to seven. Based on how much it costs to test for six, they might have cut it off just because the math was threatening to run out of digits --"

"-- I kept telling myself that I was trying to bring everypony." It felt as if she could barely hear herself. "All of my friends..."

Perhaps silence was the most painful answer possible. It had to be, because the void of words kept echoing into the southern night and Twilight couldn't imagine any response more agonizing --

"I can think of somepony who'd call that unnecessary flattery," the performer considered, with the tone somewhat distant -- but the streaked tail flicked. "Along with being a really bad judgment call. So, just to cut that off before the first kick -- don't tell her. It'll save a lot of yelling."

Almost desperate now -- no, she was desperate: she was just straining to keep it from reaching the cross-street, the budding tears had to be visible as reflections of lamplight... "I'm sorry..."

The sigh was exceptionally soft.

"It already happened," the performer said. "I'm here. That can't be taken back." Volume dropped. "If there was a way to reverse it, affect the past..." Her head slowly shook. "I don't want to think about that. If that existed, then somepony would have tried to use it. The Princess, at the very least. And... it feels like it would be worse than the Amulet."

"...I didn't mean to..." The tears were coming, there didn't seem to be any way of stopping them this time and she didn't know what to do, words were all she had and she was repeating herself because words didn't work. "...I'm --"

The taller mare took a tiny hoofstep forward. Just enough to place a rim of keratin on the ramp.

"I pushed you," Trixie told her, and the gradiated eyes were weary. "Hard and fast. You were scared, you'd never done anything on that scale before and that made it easier for resonance to get in..." Slowly, the streaked tail swayed. "It's done, Twilight. All we can do is see where it goes from here --"

"-- I'll get you home."

It had been a statement, and Twilight briefly considered hating herself for that. Stating things just because you wanted them to be true... that was somepony else --

Trixie was looking at her again. Waiting.

-- no. Not a statement. A promise.

"No matter what happens," Twilight told her. "I'll do everything I can to bring you back. I swear."

"Home," the performer thoughtfully said.

"Yes --"

"-- so you figured out where that is?" inquired a vaguely bemused voice. "Good. I always wanted to know. Maybe you could tell me sometime."

Twilight blinked. Trixie sighed.

"How is he?"

There were certain benefits to having a single male in the group. For starters, the pronoun generally sufficed.

"She didn't tell you?" Twilight had thought that Rarity would have --

"She said a few things. Like that I should consider myself lucky. And not count on that holding up. It didn't exactly provide a lot of details."

"Recovering." Twilight paused. "I know why you took the chance. And if you hadn't... we might not have figured out what happened..."

But it had still left her little brother alone in the wilderness. Isolated and ill --

"You would have come around the mountain and gotten in range of the shield eventually," Trixie quietly considered. "The most I did was speed things up. And I know it could have been a lot worse. I tried to tell her that he was the deadliest thing in the rainforest, but..."

She stopped. Looked past Twilight, towards the uneven door on its poorly-mounted hinges.

"I'm going inside," the performer told her. "If I'm going to have a chance at saying anything to him, then it has to be before she gets here."

A little too carefully, "You'll stay for the meeting?"

Wryly, "Do I have a choice?"

Rarity seemed to believe that a choice had been available and based on the way she kept glaring at Trixie, she rather visibly felt that Twilight had made the wrong one.

The reunions had come in two stages: understated awkwardness outside, followed by gentle nuzzles within the house. Pinkie had caught Twilight examining the sturdy form for injuries, pointedly asked her to stop, and then just about ordered her to stop blaming herself. Rainbow --

-- the pegasus seemed... bleary. There was a certain lack of focus in the eyes, and some of her feathers needed preening. But when it came to making comments about how Twilight could have at least done something about a better split in the supplies, she had strength to spare. Plus from now on, they had to carry two tents. Daring Do absolutely would have carried two tents. Possibly even while traveling alone, just in case she had to set up a fake campsite as a distraction.

Rarity, once inside, went directly for Spike. Nuzzled his crests while he hugged her forelegs, and then turned her head to glare at Trixie.

That had been the pre-meeting glare. There had also been the 'She's really going to stay here while we talk?' glare, followed shortly by the 'this living room is not meant to hold eight sapients' jaw clench. It wasn't a particularly large house, the ill-made furniture could accommodate four ponies at best (or five if anypony was willing to get their fur trapped by extruded springs), and even the floor space was getting crowded -- something made all the worse by the fact that as far as Truedawn was concerned, Spike wasn't supposed to be there.

"Well away from the windows," Rarity told him. "No direct sight lines. And if we hear anypony approach, or should somepony knock, use the corridor we provided to go directly into the kitchen. Hide there until they leave."

"You could spread out more if you wanted to," the little dragon pointed out. "I don't need that much room to move --"

"-- directly into the kitchen," Rarity crossly said. "No arguments. I would rather not give a certain somepony the opportunity to consider how else she might hide you." Which was followed by a slightly-adjusted flavor of glare, and Trixie silently absorbed the hit.

There had been a reunion. (They didn't really have enough space for a ponypile, and Twilight didn't know what anypony would have done about the newest presence.) Apologies had been offered, with some accepted and others refused because there was clearly no need to apologize at all. But now they needed to have a conference.

Eight forms carefully arranged themselves around the small space, with Pinkie risking a full-body drape over the back of the half-couch. And then they began to talk.

They'd just finished comparing notes: something which had taken about half an hour. The floor was effectively open.

"Thoughts?" Twilight asked from her position on that slightly-tilted floor. (She hadn't felt right about taking chair or couch.) "Anything which didn't come up." And waited.

"I don't think she was thrilled about the numbers," a maintained-for-practice Manehattan accent decided.

"Starlight?" Twilight asked, and Applejack nodded. "You mean having so many of us here? That bothered her?" If she'd missed something...

The blonde head slowly shook. "She didn't look..." Paused. "She doesn't look like a lot of things. But I don't mean she wasn't happy about getting this many arrivals, Twilight. She sort of hesitated a little just before she put me in here. And I think it's because as far as she knows, I'm alone. Everypony else got paired off."

Rarity slowly nodded. "Double-occupancy residences, double occupants," the designer observed. "She was rather insistent on that."

It got her a nod back. "Yeah. And I don't know if it means anything, but -- Spike and I were looking around. Trying to figure out what could be seen from the street through the windows, and where. This place has been used. The closets got cleaned out --" the farmer paused, softly snorted "-- and with everything we've been seeing, the locals really need their closets -- and somepony cleared the kitchen. But there's other signs. I'm sure somepony was living here before we arrived. Left a couple of weeks ago, tops."

"Maybe they just got married?" Pinkie asked. "And they moved in with their special somepony. There's a lot of couples."

"...or it's a sickness," Fluttershy softly proposed. "Everything we're seeing is an illness, and -- the last stage..."

"I wanted to check with everypony on something," an unusually-still Rainbow yawned. "I wasn't about to try it, but -- I've been thinking about it."

"Thinking about...?" Twilight cautiously checked, because the only thing more terrifying than a Rainbow who wasn't thinking was a pegasus who was.

"Going direct," Rainbow declared. "We could just ask them what's going on -- look, you can all stop staring at me, okay? It might shut them up all the way or get us kicked out: I know that! But trying to sneak around, figuring things out on our own -- that could take forever. If we just confronted --"

"-- I would expect that from our... guest," Rarity harshly stated. "Even for you, Rainbow, I feel this may be going somewhat too far. 'Are you all deathly ill, and should we be worried about ourselves?' has a certain awkwardness to it. Additionally, I can just about guarantee that unless the world provides us with a rather strong reason to ask, our cover story would be ruined." A soft snort. "I am still trying to come up with a polite means of inquiring about their rather dubious collective 'taste' in fashion."

"But if it's taking too long --"

"-- then we will still need somepony whose answers we can trust," the designer countered. "And you have your skills, dear -- but interrogation is not one of them." Which was when the accent shifted, gained altitude and took on heavy notes of pure brashness. "'I know you're doing something weird with marks: own up!' Your typical results are less than exemplary -- Rainbow?"

It wasn't easy to get a "What?" out in the middle of a yawn, but Rainbow managed the feat.

Openly concerned, "You don't look well."

"We talked about this," Rainbow irritably declared. "With the stuff about how the vouchers are being sent. If ponies are sick, then it's not from breath: I get that. I haven't touched anypony's blood, I sure haven't picked out anypony else's bed to share, and while the food around here can make you sick, I'm pretty sure --"

"-- you look tired," Twilight cut her off.

Defensively, "I'm not gonna nap while we're talking strategy, okay? Plans usually aren't that boring --"

"Rainbow," Pinkie softly said. "Talk to us. Please..."

A basic sigh, emerging from Rainbow, could have the power of an electric jolt. "I've been flying around a lot. Because... I'm the only one who's flying at all. Maybe if it's a sickness, then they can't fly. And I don't want to make anypony feel bad about that. But the way they talk..." Slowly, "It's like they don't fly because nopony else does. Not 'can't'. 'Won't'. So I thought... if I flew, if I reminded the pegasi here what it's like... then maybe I could get somepony up in the air. So I kept going around today. Offering to help with stuff, anywhere flying would make it easier. Everypony gets that? Trying to inspire."

"Helping out," Applejack carefully repeated. Most of the raw disbelief had been kept out.

"Hey, you know me! 'Assistance' is my middle name! Rainbow Assistance Dash -- Spike, I know you're snickering, you didn't get your hand in front of your mouth that fast --"

"-- you don't have a middle name," the little dragon giggled. "Hardly anypony --"

"-- Roemer."

There were now seven sapients staring at her.

"...Roemer," Fluttershy softly said. "Really? Because when Softtread introduced us at the party..."

"Rainbow Roemer Dash," the pegasus yawned. "I just didn't tell him. Twilight can ask for a copy of my birth paperwork from the Herdbook Registry if you don't believe me. Just remember that the next time anypony trots out 'Pinkamena Diane Pie', it's a tie." Wings wearily stretched to full extension, folded back to the rest position. "Anyway, I tried. But they just kept bringing out portable ramps. And they've got these platforms which sort of extend up. You turn a mouth crank, and the whole thing unfolds. Vertically. Neat stuff. Ratchette would probably love it. If we get to bring back a blueprint --"

"-- and that's why you're this tired?" Twilight asked. "Just from flying? You always catch up with naps --"

"-- she's been having bad dreams."

Twilight's stare jolted itself towards the northwest corner of the room. It had plenty of company.

The performer didn't flinch. Rainbow's eyes slowly closed.

"That is not your place to say," Rarity's soft anger declared. "It should be her choice. Not yours."

"We're sharing the same bedroom," Trixie evenly observed. "I can see the way she moves. She keeps waking up --"

"-- bad dreams?" Twilight cut in, because the situation needed to be defused and interrupting might buy time to figure out how. "What kind?"

Rainbow was silent. Quiet and -- still.

"The kind I don't want to think about while I'm awake," the pegasus finally said. "Maybe my brain is just trying to see if it can come up with something strong enough to get Luna down here." The prismatic tail twitched. "An awesomely bad nightmare..."

"...we're out of her range," Fluttershy softly said. "Twilight talked about that. If she could reach us, she would have."

"Figures..." Rainbow grumbled. "Okay, then I'll tell my subconscious to shut up. Anything else?"

"Yeah," Spike carefully said. "We've got to remember how this started."

"With an earth pony teleporting into Canterlot and dying on the spot," Twilight quietly offered. "I'm not going to forget any time soon, Spike. I keep hoping that if we hear from the palace, they'll have his name --"

"-- with Scootaloo," the little dragon firmly broke in. "That's the first time I saw that field color. When the lockdown bounced the scroll back and destroyed it. The message for her parents. And maybe they're under another shield somewhere else, one she cast --" it was almost a mutter "-- and I know somepony's probably going to say something about there only being so many colors -- but what if they're here?"

Six ponies thought about it. The light blue unicorn took a slow breath.

"Scootaloo?" Trixie asked. "Who's --"

"-- not your concern," Rarity immediately interrupted.

I think my blood pressure just surged.
Or maybe it's a normal headache coming in.
...migraine?
Say something...

Applejack shook her head. "Everything's our concern right now," the farmer said. "Here's the short version --"

"-- it is a family matter," Rarity snapped. "She is not --"

"-- she's one more pair of eyes keeping a lookout," Applejack countered. "We need as many of those as we can get."

Rarity silently fumed. Applejack looked directly at Trixie. "I'll keep the charge line fast and straight. Scootaloo's a filly, little younger than my sister. They're in the same class. And she lived alone for years. Her parents sent in prepaid vouchers so she could keep up on the mortgage and pay her own way, but nopony ever saw them."

Slowly, Trixie nodded. "And when Spike tried to contact them for her..."

"Yeah," Applejack told the unicorn. "So the theory we've got right now is that they might be around here somewhere. Best case is they're sick and didn't want to come back until the cure came in. And even that's going to take some explaining. But if we can find them, and we tell them that their daughter's living with me right now, wants to know they're okay, needs them to come home... then maybe those are the ponies we can trust." Darkly, "And if they've got a different reason for being here, they could be the first ones we kick."

"It might not stop with kicks," Rainbow immediately stated.

Nopony said anything for ten long seconds.

"Applejack," Twilight finally broke the silence, "I should have asked you this moons ago. What do they look like?"

It made the farmer's lips twitch. "Can't have a search party without knowing who you're searching for... Okay. Scootaloo had pictures. Miranda showed me a couple, and Rainbow's seen one. So... her father's an earth pony. Big stallion, close to Mac's size. Brown fur: just about Mr. Rich's shade, maybe a little lighter. Mane and tail... that's more like Scootaloo, but darker. Same for the eyes. Snout's a little short, and his cheek fur is on the rough side. Uneven grain. The mark is a camera with an unfolded map off to one side. Not that it might mean much around here, but..."

Twilight nodded. "And her mother?"

"Just about the same height," Applejack immediately said. "So she's really gonna stand out in a crowd. She's one of those ponies who's sixty percent legs and twenty percent wings."

"...pegasus," Fluttershy quietly noted. "What else?"

"Sort of a peach color on the fur," the earth pony continued. "Blonde, but lighter than me. She's got some streaks in her hair which get close to white. Long eyelashes. She looks like Rarity might if that one could get some decent fakes and binding glue which held up for more than two hours --"

"-- noted," the designer cut in, and did so with a slight smile. "Anything else?"

Applejack nodded. "She's got Scootaloo's eyes, or vice-versa. Strong chin, ears are a little big for her head. Mark is a compass, and what I'm guessing is a stylized wind gust near the tail side."

"What are their names?" Pinkie asked.

"Snap Shutter and Mane Allgood," Applejack promptly said. "Oh, and if you ever wondered: it's Scootaloo Allgood." With a soft chuckle, "Took moons before she admitted that. I saw the name on the bank account, but she'll only use it for official stuff. She loves her mother, but she hates the name."

The farmer stopped. Green eyes closed, slowly opened again.

"She... loves her mother," Applejack repeated. "Or maybe she loves the idea of her mother, because it's been years and... most of what she's got are memories and ideas. Of what her parents were, and what they should be. I'm -- really hoping she's right."

"So if we see them --" Spike began.

Applejack raised her right forehoof: wait. "-- I don't know what we do if we see them. Tell the rest of the group, let us know you found them. And maybe stop there until we can all talk again. They might be the ponies we take a chance with first, Spike, but -- it's still been years. I want to hear a reason for those years." With a long sigh, "And I don't even know if we can call out to them by name. Not with what we've heard around here. Because they might have changed those too."

Eight sapients. Three long breaths of total silence.

"The names are so strange here," Pinkie finally observed. "They don't say anything about who a pony is, or what they look like, or -- anything. They're just sounds. Sounds which mean -- the pony who makes them. And nothing else..."

"...I think," Fluttershy carefully said, "the names --" and stopped. Her head tilted forward, and the one visible eye vanished behind manefall as feathers sagged towards the floor.

"Fluttershy?" Twilight quickly checked. "What's --"

"-- this is... hard," the caretaker's pained voice declared. "It's... from him. And I still have to say it, because it might be important..."

"From Doctor Gentle," Pinkie readily guessed --

-- check on her.
Curls are still there. Tail drooped, but the shade didn't change. Eyes are normal --

"-- and that makes it hard to think about," the baker carefully continued. "Worse to say. I know, Fluttershy. But if it can help..."

"Everypony here," Rarity began -- then glared at Trixie again. "Well, nearly everypony here is aware of his nature. But as was roughly said in Trotter's Falls regarding a certain -- stone -- the fact that the source of an idea is... distasteful... does not automatically make the idea itself invalid." More gently, "We are here, Fluttershy. It's safe."

Slowly, the hybrid nodded.

"...we've talked about... the idea that this was being done on purpose," Fluttershy reminded them. "That there might be ponies who wanted to get rid of their marks, try new ones. I... sort of understand that. Because I had a mark which told me that I needed to be on the ground, and..." Her head came up, and just enough manefall slipped backwards to reveal the faint, wry smile. "...let's just say that most of Stratuston didn't approve. But the mark is destiny, and -- there's ponies who feel the same way about names. He did. It's part of why changing your name is such a big deal. That you have to be really bold, or -- really dumb, because a lot of ponies think you're tampering with destiny..."

"And the ponies of Truedawn," Rarity carefully took over, "claim to have names which mean -- themselves. Nothing else. No associations -- Pinkie? You are rather visibly thinking about something."

"One of the ponies in the herd which brought us in," Pinkie told them, and the curly tail protectively moved in to cover the right hip. "I asked him if he was happy. And he said he was alive, and -- free. Free from what? Free from his mark, free from a name..."

"Starlight," Rarity cautiously told them, "said they were exploring a better way of life..."

"No destiny," Twilight slowly breathed. "Are they trying to go that far?"

A life without guidance.

...no. Try it another way.

...no impulses rising from within.
Nothing softer than a whisper.
When we were up on the tepui. My mark wanted to work out the effects built into the shield spell, as much as I wanted to find Spike. My mark.
'Sparkle' -- that suggests magic and casting, doesn't it? Because there's always those little twinkles of light in an active field. So maybe that's the first push onto the path. And if the name is shed...
...if the mark changes, vanishes, becomes something else...

Flank-brain doesn't exist. There's nothing there which can try to think for me, even for a second.
...it would be my thoughts.
Constantly.
Every decision becomes mine, and mine alone.

...what would that be like?

She thought about it.
There was a single instant when she wanted it.

And then she hated herself again.

Interrupt

She wanted the thought to die and when it refused to immediately drop into any kind of internal void, Twilight did her best to imprison the concept. Lock it away forever. And when that didn't work, she briefly wished for a spell which could force the mind to turn away from an idea. A personal, private, possibly-temporary cure for obsession, but all she really needed was to make the thing go away for a few minutes...

The little mare didn't know of any workings which would have the desired effect. There was only one way to truly make a thought die, and it required having her follow it into the shadowlands.

Every decision becomes mine, and mine alone...

She'd been through flank-brain, more than a few times. And she was deeply, darkly also aware of just how close she'd once come to becoming one of the fallen: a pony whose mark had fully taken over their life. Brought to a state where all she would care about were spells and the acquisition of more knowledge: little side details like 'ethical research standards' could presumably go hang.

Nopony's psyche could tumble into the bottomless depths of an icon if they didn't have one.

Was seeing the benefit in that truly so wrong? Even if she'd only thought about it for an instant, wanted it for what she needed to believe had been a mere second --

-- no. She hadn't wanted it.

When I was a filly...

She'd wanted it back --

"Twilight?"

She blinked. Looked up from the rough floor until her eyes met Pinkie's worried blue gaze.

"What are you thinking?" the baker asked, and the tones had been sugar-dusted with open concern. "Because you had a really funny look just how. And you need to tell us what's in your head..."

I don't want to.

To admit, even in front of her friends, that there had been a moment when she'd wanted --
-- to be that way again, young and pristine with no way to know what the future had planned for her, a future which could have been anything --

"It's nothing, Pinkie."

Maybe she wasn't a particularly good liar, because Pinkie's eyes had just narrowed a little -- and now Twilight was forcing herself not to glance towards Applejack, because that would be the final giveaway.

"It didn't look like a 'nothing'," Pinkie carefully decided. "It looked like you were thinking about something big. And then like you didn't want to."

And now they were all waiting on her. A descriptor which very much included Trixie, while Rainbow had reached maximum alertness and Spike, who had the most experience, was starting to look worried...

Try for an Applejack? 'Ah don't want t' talk 'bout it.' Because if I admit that I thought about what it would be like to try it, even for a second, even when they know how close I came to just falling --
-- what kind of pony would admit that they wanted --
-- no. Just -- talk around it.

"Destiny." A partial admission, and the reluctance which just barely buoyed the syllables into the well-used air was all too real. "And what it would be like to not have one. It's -- a weird thought to deal with, Pinkie." She sighed. "I'm mostly hoping not to find it in my nightscape. But... we do have to remember that they may be doing this deliberately --" and there was an odd sensation of relief twinned to the sensation of feeling the nausea surge: seeing the sudden illness on everypony's faces actually came across as comfort "-- and... I won't forget about the stallion in the Doctors Bear's offices, everypony. I won't. And I haven't forgotten about Scootaloo's parents either. But we don't know why he tried to reach Canterlot, or why they might be here. We need to be careful. About assumptions as much as anything else."

But there's still a corpse...

A two-tone blue tail slowly swished across the floor.

"How long do we have?" Trixie asked.

Rarity glared. Everypony else simply looked at the performer. Twilight tried to focus on what felt like a very unusual question.

"Missions don't exactly have deadlines, Trixie." It felt as if she'd managed to get a little humor into it. "It's not as if our pay is going to be docked if we don't get this done on schedule."

"And it's hardly as if you have any better places to be," Rarity sniffed. "Not in winter. Now, if it was spring back home and you were hoping to have fresh produce kicked towards your flimsy stage --"

Which was when Applejack's left hind hoof went backwards and in doing so, effectively smoothed out part of the wall through giving the former splinters a comfortable divot in which to live.

The designer stopped talking. Several mares engaged in tiny jumps, which was rendered all the more awkward when just about everypony was starting from sitting positions. Spike's handling claws clenched.

"-- Rarity," the farmer softly said, "this isn't the time."

Rarity's response was to filter her next breath through tightly-pressed teeth.

I need to say something to Rarity.
...I don't know what to say.
I can't make anypony forgive Trixie. That can't be forced. Trying that is just going to make things worse. And I know Trixie did horrible things --
-- the Amulet?
...Trixie?
I...

The doubt felt so much like a stab.

Applejack's gaze moved to the stranger in their midst.

"Point holds on the deadline, though," the earth pony stated. "I know when I'd like to have this fixed: yesterday for preference, last week if I can get it. But there isn't a clock ticking down until the moment when we'd have to stop."

The unicorn mare shook her head. "How long do we have," Trixie carefully clarified, "before it isn't just us down here any more? Until the palace decides they haven't heard from us in too many days, and they start moving ponies into this area. Trying to find us. It won't take them long to discover where the shield starts, especially since Spike told them which mountain we're near -- and I'm guessing he probably put a rough map of the border into the last Canterlot scroll."

The little dragon winced. "Yeah."

"So at some point," the performer continued, "if the Princesses think we've been out of contact for too long --"

"-- it's never happened before," Twilight quickly said. "We've been out of contact on other missions, and nopony's tried to step in --"

"-- half the time, Spike wasn't with you," Trixie countered. "Maybe more than half: I wouldn't know. But now they know he's here, and that we're all supposed to be inside the lockdown. That's one reason for not getting scrolls: the lockdown. And they'll probably give that a few days, hoping we figure everything out."

"...we..." Rarity whispered.

"But after that," Trixie went on, tail movement subtly accelerating with each word, "they might start to wonder if it's not just the lockdown. They'll ask themselves if something happened. If there's another reason for nothing coming in. And the ponies here know we're from the palace --"

"-- how?" Because Rainbow always had to be first to something, and there were times when a question sufficed. "How would they know?"

"We're claiming to be explorers, we've got good equipment, we're this far from Equestria --"

"-- it doesn't mean anything," Twilight broke in. "Private businesses send out explorers. Looking for platinum fragments, potion ingredients, new magic, new sapients... And sometimes ponies just go off on their own, especially when they've got the right marks. Trixie, I know it can help to feel like somepony might try to save us --" and she really, really wished she could feel that way "-- but the palace has never tried to intercept or intervene. And nopony here has any reason to believe Canterlot sent us into the area. I don't think --"

-- oh no.

She stopped, and purple eyes winced shut.

"Twilight," Pinkie promptly said, "I think we really-really need to hear this one --"

"-- privately-sponsored exploration is rare," the little mare slowly began, "but it happens. Part of why it's so scarce is because the mark is so uncommon." Not that such ever stopped some of the other species, but...

"I don't think I've ever met an explorer," Pinkie considered. "Probably because they wouldn't think Ponyville has a lot to explore." (Applejack softly snorted.) "Which is kind of insulting when you think about it, but I guess they're more interested in the really new stuff instead of finding all the best shortcuts -- I'm interrupting, right?" And winced. "I'm interrupting. Keep talking, Twilight."

"Explorers go missing sometimes," the librarian forced herself to continue. "That can happen because..." The wince seemed to be spreading. "...well, because they found something. Whole expeditions get lost. And there are times when even private companies send new teams into that area, because maybe that 'something' can be dealt with. But if you lose enough groups in the same place... then sometimes it gets written off. Or the map gets written on: Do Not Approach. But that's with sponsored attempts, and with the ones who are just following their marks, doing it all on their own -- they don't always tell anypony that they're going, much less where. There are ponies who just sort of... vanish from the record. Mysteries nopony's ever solved."

Her old Canterlot Archives postings had been in Ancient History, and so some of the earliest explorer tales had been in her custody --

-- all written by the ones who'd made it back.

Twilight took a slow, deep breath. Very little of the oxygen seemed to be interested in reaching her brain.

"A private sponsor might cut their losses," she said. "With marked explorers... some of them might chase each other, just to see what the last one found. What... kept them from coming back. But the palace... they would need to know. They would send followups."

"So you're suggesting that the Princesses might dispatch ponies simply to maintain our cover?" Rarity carefully asked. "Twilight, I realize that that nature of this mission has our leadership somewhat more concerned than the usual, and the existence of the signal devices suggests that they are trying to -- monitor the area..."

How?

Twilight had been wondering about that one since the strategy meeting. She still didn't have an answer.

"...but there was still nothing said about a deadline, the move would be highly unusual, and I am not certain whether anypony has spoken words which suggest Canterlot is involved." Paused. "I... did say that the exploration teams were sent in, which certainly states that we are not doing this fully of our own accord. But I never said who sent us, and nopony has asked --"

"-- there's a deadline," Twilight stated. "Or there should be one, if anything in Truedawn is -- normal. We just don't know how much time we have before it hits."

"I fail to see --" Rarity began.

"-- it's the same deadline we had in Trotter's Falls," Twilight finished. "Everypony, think..."

Spike was the first to slowly nod.

"It's whenever they wonder why you're all still here," her little brother told them. "Explorers might take a few days to look around. Rest, recover, maybe replace some supplies. And then they'd update their map, and -- move on."

"...or try to," Fluttershy quietly added. "But... the shield..."

Twilight softly sighed. "That's part of the problem. And --" she couldn't quite bring herself to smile "-- it's also how we might find out if they're just -- exploring a different way of life." ('Better' had been stopped well short of her tongue.)

"Or if they think we don't know anything," Rainbow's limited reading experienced chimed in. "That we're safe."

"Yeah," Twilight reluctantly agreed. "It could be the same result if they think they've got us fooled. But it's less likely, because there's the chance of that followup. Mark the map, tell somepony that there's a group down here, establish regular contact... the next group might not come across as being 'safe', and the more ponies who come through, the stronger the chance of having something go wrong..."

Rarity frowned. "I fail to take your meaning --"

"-- if they're innocent," Twilight said, "or at least believe they are... they would let us leave."

Silence settled over the packed room, stretched out and took over all remaining space.

Twilight reluctantly shoved some of it out of the way. "And it's potentially very easy to link us to the palace."

"...how?" Fluttershy reasonably asked. "If we aren't recognized, and nopony says anything..."

"Because," the librarian replied, "there are devices in the world which can translate a completely new language in both directions on the first encounter. There's five of them. And we're carrying one."

Spike's tightly-clenched hands sent clawtips skidding across the scales of his palm.

"Oh, no..." her sibling breathed. "And they've got at least one pony here who can make devices, right? Maybe that's Starlight." Thin lips briefly twisted into a frown. "I mean, she could have a device mark."

"I've never seen her mark before," Twilight admitted. "Anypony?"

Eventually, the negatives came to a close.

"She didn't say what her talent was," Rarity told them. "When I just about directly asked. She was simply somewhat interested in my having potentially interpreted her icon as possibly being associated with cleaning."

"Which means it could still be a device mark," Spike somewhat huffily insisted. "Just not one that we've seen before. And if she's good enough to create whatever's keeping the shield going, then she could know about the count on true translators. And who's got each."

"And that we have one of Equestria's," Twilight indicated. "That's what just about locks us in as being agents of the palace, everypony. Just about everything we have for supplies could be explained away --" with a faint smile "-- present company excluded, since he doesn't exactly count as 'mission equipment'."

"I can be a vital resource," Spike half-giggled, and the brief bout of mirth gave her a little relief. "Close enough?"

"We can try to hide the disc. We have to. But if the wrong pony sees the translator," the little mare had to finish, "it's going to bring up a lot of questions. Things we can't necessarily explain away. And when it comes to what Trixie said..."

She thought about it for roughly half a minute, as the others watched. Giving her time.

"The Princesses are worried about all of this," Twilight finally said. "As worried as I've ever seen them. They've never tried to check in on us before, not personally -- but never having done it before doesn't mean they would never think about doing it at all. And with this mission..." Hesitantly, "This could be the one. Especially since they were ready to come here if we did signal them."

But how would they know about the signal? They couldn't have set anything up in the area in advance, not when they didn't know where we were going. And we can't be carrying any kind of secret magical beacon, or we wouldn't need to put up a signal at all. Hours wouldn't be a factor there, and they were so specific about the times when we could try.

Centered on noon and midnight...

She didn't know. (Still.) It was another mystery, one which might be centered on some new kind of magic. She had to work it out --

-- we need to finish this meeting...

"Rainbow," Twilight hesitantly admitted, "you might get your wish. We can try to -- 'stay' for a couple of days. Telling them that we're resting and healing. Learn what we can, or see if anypony's willing to talk. But if this goes for too long, we may have to start asking some really direct questions."

Before the Princesses really think about intervening. Because even if this isn't a weapon... if somepony tries to use it as one, and they get both of them...

Sun -- stops. Moon freezes in place.

The world...

She shoved the incoming shudder down, felt it land in her subconscious to await her in the nightscape.

"Just say the word," Rainbow declared. "I can get somepony to own up."

"It won't be immediate," Twilight told her. "Tomorrow, I want everypony to go out and explore. Look around the area. Maybe somepony will spot what we need, or one of the locals will let something slip." Paused. "Can we explore?"

"I was attempting a portion of that when you came in," Rarity informed the group. "The difficult is in doing it alone. Shortly after leaving our assigned quarters, I found myself with company. Happy, chattering company: pleased to see that I was out and about, perfectly content to show me around. And none of them wished for me to go through the experience of exploration on my own. They were insistent on coming along. Politely, but... I could barely get a moment to myself."

"It was the same for me," Pinkie admitted. "I'm learning lots of names, though. And they're all weird. But I could draw you a partial map now."

"Nopony could keep up with me." And somehow, Rainbow's words hadn't come across as bragging. "But they caught up. And since I was looking for ponies to inspire, I kept going to where some were."

"Personal audience," Trixie said. "The whole time."

"Living the dream," Rarity snidely announced, and Applejack silently let that one pass.

I don't know how to fix this...

"What I really need to know is where the shield-generating devices are," Twilight told them. "The closer I can get to one, the better. But if you see one, don't remove it. There's probably a spell present to detect movement or tampering, and we don't want to disrupt their defenses against the wild zone. Just tell me where it is."

"Are you sure it's a device?" Rainbow asked. "Your brother could pull this off without one --"

"-- no," Twilight immediately asserted. "He couldn't."

"Twilight, he practically covered Canterlot! This place isn't anywhere near that big --"

"-- he could maintain a basic shield over this area for a good while," Twilight admitted. "But not indefinitely. Rainbow, the only reason Shining was able to keep going during the invasion is because shields are his talent and trick. And..." Much more slowly, "...he almost didn't make it through. The palace was doing everything they could to keep him going, and..."

Exhaustion. Burning every available thaum. A booster potion could tap into the body's reserves and Shining, who hadn't been able to risk dealing with the side effects, had been trying to force the same effect through willpower alone. Stumbling through the world, increasingly bleary, sometimes incoherent, missing all the signs of the false Cadance because he was no longer capable of recognizing them...

How close had her big brother come to death?
She didn't know.
She'd never asked him.
(She was afraid to ask him.)
She'd... been on the verge of begging him to stop.
But there had been an invasion, and he'd pushed on. Driven by duty and --
-- mark.

"And this shield is more advanced," she redirected. "Especially with the illusion effects." Something Shining absolutely could not do. Personality played a part in magic, and illusion spells were easiest for those with a creative bent. A big brother who was, when at his worst, Extremely Military... that was a stallion who occasionally needed to be reminded that he didn't have to authorize his own daydreams. "The maintenance is also constant: I haven't seen a single flicker. And so far, Starlight's the only unicorn we've seen with an active field. There could be another caster around here, somepony whose -- mark is specialized for this -- but..."

She forced the breath, wondered if there was any way to do the same for the effectiveness of the air. Her lungs seemed to feel that they had all been moved to the top of the tepui.

"...that would suggest they've still got their own mark. Or -- somepony else's."

"Only our marks shifted when that spell was cast," Rarity reminded her. "Not our talents. You told us that part of what unraveled the working was attempting to tap into that part of ourselves."

Trixie, who didn't exactly have possession of every last full story, was now tilting her head slightly to the left. It was possible to see a dozen questions passing behind her eyes, and none of them made it to the performer's lips.

"They might have gone further," Twilight made herself admit. "We can't discount the possibility."

Further than...

She didn't really say Star Swirl's name all that often any more. Not in front of her friends. Nopony had pretended to fall asleep on a lecture for moons...

"It could be a caster," the librarian repeated. "But they'd have to rest eventually, and passing off a spell to somepony else, so they can put their own energy in -- that's just about as hard as the Combiner. The substitute also has to know that working, on just about the same level as the first caster. And it still won't hold for long. Plus there's usually a lapse at the moment of transfer: a visible one. That's why nopony could take over for Shining." How close did he come to...? "From what we've seen, the shield is their primary defense against the wild zone. They need it to be constant. Using devices is the simplest solution. And since the lockdown effect is tied into the shield, it's probably the same devices generating all of the effects."

"And our purpose in bringing you to such a device?" Rarity inquired.

"Breaking the lockdown. We can leave the shield intact for now." She couldn't quite summon the smile. "I'm going to be trying to figure out how to get through that if we need to get out of here in a hurry -- on hoof and wing, everypony." With a soft sigh, "I don't have a lot of safe arrival points memorized around here, I know I can't reach Equestria on a single teleport, and... I'm not exactly ready to try escorting seven sapients on purpose any time soon."

"...if you don't have a lot of safe points memorized," Fluttershy observed, "then that means you have at least one. Where is it?"

"The tepui," Twilight admitted. "It's really clear near the rim. But reaching it would still mean dealing with the lockdown. And I need to find out if it's possible to beat that without breaking the shield at the same time." Carefully, "Because that's how we get back into contact with the palace. If we can tell them what's going on, and they can get scrolls to us -- then the Princesses won't be sending anypony after us unless we ask for it."

And the sisters won't come.
They wouldn't be exposed.
The risk...

"They can also update us on the investigation," she added. "And I can try to work on getting through the lockdown without having a device to examine -- I'm going to start on that as soon as I can -- but it would be easier to get the feel from the primary source."

Everypony nodded.

"Anypony else?" Twilight asked. "Anything you've seen, whatever you want to talk about -- Fluttershy?" Whose comb-bundled tail was lightly twitching. The librarian was somewhat grateful for the restyling: Fluttershy usually took up a considerably larger section of floor.

The "...yes?" was a little on the meek side. "...um... if you're asking what I've seen... it's more like what I've heard. Or --" very reluctantly "-- haven't."

It was an easy guess. "No animals."

"...almost," the caretaker softly said. "Nopony could keep birds under here, not unless they were in a cage. They'd -- try to leave. And with the shield..." She stopped, and dyed fur shivered. "There's some insects."

"For the crops," Applejack said. "I know you need insects for some of the pollination." Paused. "Some birds do it, but... maybe the locals are filling in for that. You can pollinate a few plants by hoof, if you put in the work."

Fluttershy carefully nodded. "...yes. But I've been listening ever since we were brought in, and... I heard a few lizards near the shield border. One of the homes had a mousehole at the base of the wood, but no one was home. And I saw some fish, but they're very hard to speak with. That's it." Visibly upset now, with the one visible eye blinking far too quickly. "That's all. There isn't even a single companion, not that I've seen or heard. And it's not enough. There should be so much more..."

They all gave her a moment, waited until the little sniffs of distress had stopped.

"You took some of the mane combs out," Rainbow openly noted, and Twilight recognized an attempt to distract. "Didn't like the look?"

"...nopony's watching us," Fluttershy eventually said. "I like my normal manefall." Which gave her something portable to hide behind at all times.

"And the tail?" Rarity curiously inquired. "You've never gone with the bundled look before."

"...those are harder to remove. And no, Rarity, don't ignite your horn: it's okay to leave them there. I'm... just trying it out."

"What is the material on those?" the designer asked. "I haven't seen that shade of white before. Not for mane accouterments. Although they do appear sturdy --"

"...bone -- no, everypony, please don't pull away -- oh, Pinkie, you nearly put yourself off the back of the couch, you need to be more careful..."

"Bone?" Rarity gasped. "You are wearing pieces of a corpse --"

"...it's -- unusual," Fluttershy understated. "You almost never find ponies who'll work with it. Buffalo do, because so many of the Ten Tribes live in places where they don't have a lot of wood or metal around. And bones are just... there. So they use whatever they can find. And it's what they find, Rarity. The animals... don't need it any more." The pause went on for somewhat longer than usual. "That's probably why they were free. Starlight's having trouble getting ponies to try them."

"Starlight," Rainbow carefully repeated. "She made --"

"...she was -- sort of insistent," the caretaker said. "That makes it easy to figure out who made them. And working with bone is... interesting. That's why it stood out so much. I hardly ever see it..."

"Bone." Rainbow seemed to be stuck on the point.

"...yes."

Darkly, "Whose?"

Fluttershy blinked. "...um... I talk to animals, Rainbow. Living ones. I've never heard of anypony who could get a skeleton to tell them who it belonged to..."

"It's animal bone," Twilight checked, because that was the sort of thing she really wanted to be certain about.

"...it's -- worked bone," Fluttershy carefully told them. "Heavily worked. I can't tell you what kind of animal produced it, because there's been too much done. I'd need to see at least some of the original skeleton. It could even be monster bone, because some of them are a little more normal inside. All I can tell you right now is that it's not from a prasinohaema."

"A..." was the most Spike could manage, especially because that was easier than trying to duplicate the pronunciation.

"...it's a type of skink. So they're too small for the combs, Spike. And they don't live in this part of the world anyway. But their bones are green."

Bone...

"Unenchanted rammer," Trixie thoughtfully said.

"Huh?" Rainbow contributed.

"It's a device," the performer said. "I've seen a couple around. The working ones generate small, dense field bubbles and project them at high speed. If you're the pony being targeted by one, it's like being caught in a hailstorm."

"Ah," Rarity immediately cut in. "So who was the pony of taste that was targeting you?"

I have to stop this --
-- how...?

Trixie ignored it. "And if you want a rammer to work, then you have to build it from ivory. That's one of the reasons they're so rare. All of the base material has to be scavenged."

Twilight nodded. "Ratchette saw one once." Under the worst possible circumstances. "So some ponies work with ivory as an enchantment medium. And Starlight was trying out bone for crafts."

Could bone be enchanted?

She tried to tell herself that it was a natural question. Something anypony might have thought of, as opposed to the sort of query which could only arise from a mark.

"I don't think we have to worry about the combs," Twilight told them. "Just don't wear any if you're not comfortable with the idea. Who wants to go next?"

The topics became considerably more scattershot after that.

"At least the air is drier here," Spike told them. "I feel better just for being on this side of the shield."

"It's the moisture condensers," Applejack stated. "They're pulling out the humidity and using it for the crops. Pretty much the only option for their setup."

"The only option?" Twilight asked. "They've got the waterfall."

Which made the farmer softly groan. "I never thought I'd need all of the agronomy stuff this fast... Twilight, the waterfall's on the other side of the shield. They've got some water on the inside, but it's not enough. And they'd have to run irrigation canals or aqueducts all the way from the source. The condensers are easier. And you're the one who told me shields are air-permeable. That's why Canterlot didn't, you know, suffocate. So if air comes through, then I guess they're getting just enough humidity to go with it. And there's sort of another option, but it means dropping the shield every time it rains. Which, around here, means you're just about never going to have the shield up at all."

"How do the condensers work?" was a natural question.

Applejack frowned, and green eyes sought out magenta. "That's a pegasus domain, right? Moving humidity around? So those things are wonders."

"They... should be," was the half-yawned reply.

"Should?"

"I didn't really really feel anything from them when I went by." Rainbow shrugged. "But I wasn't trying for it either. Maybe tomorrow."

"I ask purely from curiosity," Rarity opened. "Does anypony have an idea of how old Starlight is?"

Multiple uncertain proposals arose, with a range from 'She's out of school' to 'She's somewhere under Granny, I know that...'

The designer sighed. "I can't seem to pin it down either. But if I can find the local mud, I am going to do my best to bring Lotus and Aloe a sample. The restorative properties may be exquisite."

"We should try to find out her birthday," Pinkie firmly said.

"So you can put together a party?" Rainbow asked.

"Because if we can contact the palace," the baker told them, "we can give them her birthdate. That'll help narrow the search, because we don't know how many 'Starlights' are in the Herdbook Registry. Knowing when she was born would do a lot." The pink fur on her forehead briefly rippled with concentration. "But it isn't today, and it's not coming up really soon. That's all I know."

I could look at Trixie right now.
If I do, I'm going to see a very confused mare.
Who might ask me if I ever ran any tests.

Rainbow was teasing now. "So if we stay here long enough... then you won't host a party for her?"

The baker went silent.

"Pinkie?"

The tone of the words was unusually even, and it made the tinge of vehemence stand out all the more. "She doesn't smile right."

"...I don't know about her smiling," Fluttershy sighed. "But she could blink a little more."

"And her signature is going to be wrapped up in that shield," Spike kicked in. "We can't forget that."

Exploring a better way of life...

"We need to learn why they're all here," Twilight reminded them. "Look for research facilities tomorrow. Anything medical. Listen in on ponies if you can. See if they're talking about their health. Or --" it had to be said "-- if they've lost anypony recently. Maybe somepony went missing. Just be careful about raising the topic yourself."

"Steer carefully," Rarity summarized. "But not before seeing where the verbal current flows --" and this time, the designer yawned. "My apologies. We have been at this for some time."

"We can stop for the night," Twilight suggested. "I think we'll all be fresher after we get some sleep anyway."

"If you get any decent sleep," Rainbow grumbled. "This is going to be your first night in one of those beds, Twilight. If anypony wants to get a bet down, I'm putting in for three hours before she's back in the tent."

She tried to ignore that. "There's one more thing I want to settle before we all rest," Twilight told them. "Names. Let's all figure out who we are."

"Nopony has truly asked," Rarity considered. "I've introduced myself when I could, but..."

No destiny.

"We still need to keep it consistent," Twilight pointed out. "So let's do this. Names and professions. Rarity, fill us in on what you originally told them, and we'll work out the rest from there. After that... sleep. We all need it." A little more thought. "But I want everypony back here for breakfast. We can work out where we're exploring tomorrow. And Pinkie, when you get a chance, draw up that map."

It took a little time. (Applejack eventually agreed to go by her House, as it was technically part of her full name.) And then the group slowly dispersed, heading out into the night in pairs. Rainbow left with Trixie, and Rarity's glare pushed them to a forty body length head start before she departed at Pinkie's side.

The remaining occupants of the house gave them a few minutes to clear the area, and then Fluttershy stepped out into the warm southern night. Distant notes from the outdoor concert drifted onto their street, and multiple ears briefly flattened themselves against their owners' skulls.

The caretaker began to move down the walkway. Twilight, who was still in the living room --

-- he'll be okay.
I'll see him in the morning.
Trust Applejack...

"See you tomorrow," she told her little brother.

He smiled. "Tomorrow."

Every decision becomes mine, and mine alone...

Which was when she realized that she was, in a way, wondering what it was like to be a different species. Excepting zebras, of course, because they had marks -- but...

There was a time in my life when every thought was mine.
When I was young.
As young as he is.

Spike, who could never suffer from flank-brain, who could never fall...
...no. He had fallen. Once. And they had all pulled him back.
Did the greed serve as an inner voice? Something softer than a whisper...
...she couldn't ask him.

She nuzzled her brother, and he hugged her forelegs.

Twilight trotted towards the front door, with Applejack following her out. Stepped into the night, and her attention was briefly caught by another spray of lights from the cliff face. Five heartbeats of radiance, and then the display was gone again.

The farmer had noticed. "Something's going on up there."

"It's from the cave," Twilight said. "I'm sure of it -- and I was going to ask Pinkie about natural magics..." The urge to facehoof wasn't so much dismissed as rechanneled into the sigh. "In the morning. We have breakfast, get a plan of attack together, look for Scootaloo's parents --"

She paused. Looked around at the empty street. Fluttershy's bundled tail failed to sway as the caretaker moved towards that assigned temporary residence. The neighboring house was dark, and the streetlight's lamps shone down on void and milky quartz.

"I just thought of something," Twilight told the farmer. "I should have asked earlier, just in case it matters."

"And I've got the answer?" (Twilight nodded.) "Go ahead. What's the question about?"

"Scootaloo's parents," the librarian qualified. "What are their jobs?"

"Oh, yeah," Applejack winced. "My bad on that. I should have said it before this. It's the same profession for both of them, though." The blonde tail flicked. "Sort of an ironic one, given everything we've been claiming..."

"Why? What did --" Wrong tense, wrong tense! "-- do they do?"

"Once. It was an opportunity."

"They're explorers."

Partition

The simple act of waking felt as if it had put a crack into reality, and Twilight was almost glad for that.

Part of the problem came from a sort of false temporal disorientation. While her group had been in the rainforest, there had been a constant driving goal: find the others. It had provided some needed moments of focus during the near-constant upheavals. And in terms of dealing with all of the environmental changes... she'd thought about her sibling, friends, the mission, the simple fact that they were in a rainforest, and then looped around to the start.

Now she was waking up in (or on) a bed, with a motionless clockwork fan unable to scatter any portion of summer heat. And with everypony back together in more or less the same place, and her body recognizing that they had reached some form of civilization... her weary form was starting to send up a few postponed questions. Several of them regarded time travel. For starters, it really wanted to know where winter and spring had gone and, if such a thing was possible, when it could reasonably expect to get them back.

There were also certain questions regarding exactly what she was sleeping on. The bed could absolutely be described as a prize, because there were competitions which nosed over consolation items to those who finished last. In this case, the mattress could be thought of as incentive to do better the next time around. Or to sleep less. Or, better yet, to sleep elsewhere.

On the rather dubious bright side, Twilight now felt decidedly more capable of being able to fake a wing injury. All she had to do was pretend the aches were in a slightly different place.

So much of her felt disoriented. The scents were wrong (which included a rather natural one, but she was in no way ready to take responsibility for the emissions), the temperature had changed too quickly, the season wasn't right... and yet she was glad for the myriad disruptions, because every last one was a sign that she was awake.

Her previous reality had been the nightscape. Dreams which were beyond Luna's reach, all of which had featured that alicorn in a prominent, co-starring role.

and the sisters charge towards the shield with their wings unfurled and horns ignited, right up until the instant their marks turn into steam and mist as Sun comes to a halt in the sky, and the first wisps of smoke rise from overheated trees

Trying to instinctively escape from that kind of dream had made her move across the blankets a few times, which was why so much of the cloth was rumpled up beneath her small form. The uneven surface had done a lot to wake her up during one particularly bad nightmare: Twilight filed that under small mercies.

She opened her eyes. Sun did its best to lance through the poor window glass into her pupils, and very nearly made it.

Did I oversleep? Sun shouldn't be raised anywhere near this early --

-- summer. It's summer.

She grumbled to herself. Stayed atop the bed just long enough to spot the first signs of a shift in the sunbeam's angle: the truest proof that reality had reasserted itself. And then she turned her head, glancing across the uneven aisle towards the other bed.

Fluttershy's gone --

Her heartbeat began to accelerate --

-- no. She's up. I can hear hooves moving around on the lower level. I know what her hooves sound like on wood when she's staying with somepony. She doesn't need as much sleep as most ponies and she doesn't want to wake anypony, so she moves like she's apologizing to the floor for being so much trouble.

Twilight forced her legs to straighten. Worked her way down from the mattress, postponed making the bed, stumbled towards the bathroom, went through the open doorway and instinctively glanced towards the edges of the mirror, because that was where most ponies kept the weather schedule --

-- uneven, poorly-smoothed wood.

The mirror wasn't much better. It didn't have the full-scale distortions of a funhouse variety, but possessed just enough imperfections to twist a feature or two at a time. There was a moment when it left her unsure of just who she was truly looking at, and a mare who'd been struggling with her self-image for moons didn't need the extra push. She... still hadn't truly incorporated the wings...

...look around. Make sure I didn't miss anything. I should have checked this yesterday, but I was trying to get cleaned up and...
...nothing.
Maybe nopony tacked it up because the house wasn't occupied. There wasn't any need. I could just ask one of the locals about what's been --
-- none of the pegasi are flying.
If they won't fly, then they can't --

When it came to precipitation, the shield rendered the point somewhat moot. (She was vaguely curious to see what the construct was like in the rain: tiny rivers and tributaries twisting their way down the dome.) But it was air-permeable, which meant truly high winds could have some effort. And when it came to temperature...

But there was nothing near the mirror. There wouldn't be anything in the entire residence. In any residence --

-- the disorientation flared, surged, made her stumble to the point where her left forehoof nearly wound up in the toilet trench.

A pony community without a weather schedule.

Morning in Truedawn.

The continual-flow toilet trench worked exactly as intended and in doing so, distinguished itself for meritorious service.

She tried to be careful about her other toiletries. Then Twilight belatedly remembered that she'd let Fluttershy sleep through all of the night's thinking, recovered all of the associated concepts, accelerated just a little too much, and wound up skidding her way down the inadequately-divoted ramp.

A jungle-green snout poked out of the kitchen doorway.

"...Twilight? Are you okay? It sounded like you almost went into the wall --"

"-- did you eat?" the little mare gasped. "Did you take anything for breakfast?"

"...no," the caretaker's confusion announced. "I thought we'd all have something together once we reached Applejack and Spike. There's still some food from last night which we could carry over. Why?"

"Don't," Twilight insisted as four knees tried to sort themselves out. "Don't take any more of the food. Use our supplies. Anything we brought, for as long as possible."

Rather naturally, "...why?"

Twilight explained. Fluttershy listened.

"...it's not impossible," their medic conceded. "But it would almost have to be a completely new species, Twilight. One of the reasons we were able to spot so many things to eat in the rainforest was because a few of the local seeds already made it to Equestria." With a faint smile, "Explorers, you know. And earth ponies who'll try to grow anything, just to see how it comes out. I think we'll probably be okay as long as we stay with the familiar, and... we only have so much in our supplies. If we're here long enough, we won't have a choice..."

And there was only that much left because... they'd been interspacing the Equestrian goods with the native plants.

If I could just conjure food...
...can Pinkie create party appetizers?

Possibly. But her current theory with Pinkie's conjurations was that they took energy to maintain -- and there was almost guaranteed to be a mass limit: only so much matter which could be manifested, and then some of it would have to go away. Twilight didn't want to find out what happened when the contents of a perfectly sugar-coated tanghulu skewer vanished from a pony's stomach.

"I understand. And anypony who gets near the crops again can look them over. Carefully. But let's try to stick with our stock. As much as we can. And I want to head over to the other house early, so we can warn Applejack."

And what did that mean for Rarity's group, which had been in Truedawn a little bit longer? She wasn't even sure how long it would take to reach those homes. The designer had created a small, extremely partial map for them, but --

Don't think about it...
...too late...
...explorers...

No. That part could wait until the morning meeting.

"How are you feeling?" Twilight carefully asked.

The green head turned. One eye briefly regarded a fabric-covered hip, then looked back.

"...in general?" the hybrid asked. "Or with my mark?"

Reluctantly, "Both."

It got her a slow exhale. "...generally... sore. It's the bed, mostly. And I had some bad dreams. My mark is okay, Twilight. I... looked when I was in the bathroom this morning. There's no changes. I promise..."

And all she had was "Thank you."

"...we can head over to the other house pretty soon," Fluttershy considered. "We'll need to load up some of the back-mounted trays with our own food first. And..." Two blinks. "...would you help me put the mane combs back in?"

Carefully, "You're sure?"

"...it's easier to do it in here, where you can keep your corona hidden and nopony will see them move. It's good practice for you. And we're still supposed to explore the area after the meeting, right? I might see Starlight. And I could tell her that I'm just... trying them out."

"Okay." It would be practice, and the weight of the mane combs wouldn't come anywhere close to making her field shine through the illusion. "What about your dreams?"

"...my dreams? You were the one who looked like you were having the worse night. I saw you twisting around a few times. I almost woke you up... and I should change the bandage over that wing. I can see the ripple under the nightgown: it got shifted in your sleep..."

"I was dreaming about the Princesses," Twilight made herself admit. "And... their marks -- going away. It... wasn't good." And there's a new level of understatement. "What was in yours?"

The beautiful head dipped. Two slow blinks cut off the view of the floor.

"...just dreams," Fluttershy quietly told her. "I'll go get the combs."

It was a short trot, and a careful one: Twilight wasn't really used to moving with a tray on her back. It was something which briefly made her grateful for the bandaged wing: one less thing which could move and kick the balance off.

She had to be very careful about her body. The same caution didn't seem to apply with her neck.

"...you're looking up a lot." Which emerged in something very close to a whisper, because there were a few commuters moving down the cross-street -- well, in Ponyville, they would have been commuters. For Truedawn, it was probably just the early work shift. "Up and towards the tepui's cliff."

Overalls-clad ponies glanced at them. Stopped, waved a foreleg, smiled, and moved on.

"The cave," Twilight quietly admitted. (Three years of careful practice gave her no issues in picking up on Fluttershy's voice at short range.) "I can just barely make it out, and most of that is Sun going off the quartz. But it was kicking out a light display last night. I need to ask Pinkie about the local rocks. If any of them do that naturally."

It got her a small nod. "...or if it might be unnatural. But it could just be magic we don't know, right?"

The librarian nodded. "And we can't exactly reach it right now."

A few more hoofsteps.

"...you're still moving your head."

Twilight held back the sigh, forced her decibels into the basement and locked the door behind them. "It's the lockdown. I'm trying to get a feel for it. That's the first step to breaking it."

"...can you feel it right now?"

"I know it's there." It wasn't quite the same feel as she'd picked up in Trotter's Falls, and she put that down to the fusion with the shield and -- whatever had been done to create the breaking of the ruby.

Of the stallion.

"But I think I need to get closer," Twilight admitted. "To the border, at the very least. A casting device would be better. That can wait until we all get out into Truedawn today, though. Right now, let's go check on them."

Spike's okay. Applejack's okay.
Believe that.

"...and warn them about the food," Fluttershy reminded her. "Just in case."

"I was thinking about the food!" came with an angry flare of cyan wings.

Twilight just barely managed a smile: a thin, strained, worried specimen -- but it probably counted. "You might have a point," she told Rainbow. "Has anypony noticed any effects?" This to Rarity's group. "You've been here longer..."

The designer shook her head -- then paused, and white fur creased across the wince.

"Rarity?" Instant concern, with thin folded legs starting to push against the floor --

"-- no, Twilight," the designer sighed. "Nothing related to my mark. However, in the strictest sense of 'effects', there has been a portion of -- digestive aftermath."

Every mare's face instantly did its best to match the wince. Spike, who consumed gems, briefly looked amused.

"I heard the 'aftermath'," her little brother giggled. "All night long --"

"-- and when it was you, most of Ponyville wanted to take out a restraining order," Applejack immediately grumbled. "Twenty body lengths between a dragon and any amount of anthracite, for the rest of your life. You didn't clear out a room after you tried 'coal with an attitude', Spike. You nearly cleared out the library. And most of Barnyard Bargains -- oh, good. So it's not as funny now." The blonde head slowly shook. "What is it with boys and farts?"

"Dear," Rarity immediately said as her gaze went left, "some of us were attempting to retain a portion of dignity --"

" --and I said 'boys' because I don't think there's a sapient species which doesn't have male kids who'd think it's hilarious," the farmer grumbled. "Okay, Twi: if I can get out there again, I'll take a closer look at the crops. See if there's anything completely new, or stuff which changed in a way it shouldn't. Anything else?"

Twilight looked around the room again. They were all present -- although when compared to the previous night, there had been some shuffling of the order. Applejack, who had been the last to sit down, was now firmly positioned between Rarity and Trixie.

Not that they were exactly on top of each other before. About as far apart as they could be while still staying in the same room. But that's an intercept position.

"Yes," she admitted. "There's something else I thought of last night. It might be important."

"Let's hear it," Trixie suggested.

"In her own time --" Rarity immediately began.

"-- now," Twilight forced in. "I've got to tell everypony now. It's about Scootaloo's parents..."

And after she finished, she looked around again. Checking everypony in the crowded room not just for reactions, but for thoughts and opinions and the words which might make it somehow come out right.

Applejack seemed to be cascading between emotions: anger, frustration, concern -- and the only commonality was that none of them did anything to slow the lashing of the tail. Pinkie... in just about any situation where she talked about her parents, it would be the Cakes, and it was that relationship which made the baker look so anxious. Fluttershy was, quite naturally, silent. Spike, who'd sent off the scroll which had arguably started everything, was clenching his handling claws, over and over. Rarity's lips had pulled back from her teeth, very slightly. Trixie --

-- sympathy?

-- and then it was gone. Replaced with forward-arced ears and what very much felt like forced neutrality.

Her mark doesn't make her travel. Becoming a performer was her choice.
She could have become a researcher. Just about any major project would have hired --
-- why didn't she...?
...she could settle down at any time. Find something to work on. And if she really wanted to... live-in house act for -- somewhere in Las Pegasus? She'd need a cloudwalking spell every few days, but ...

Rainbow's initial reaction had been a near-mirror of Applejack: the main difference was that the farmer had to hold back kicks, and an angry weather coordinator tended to generate the scent of ozone. But now she looked -- thoughtful.

And tired. She's not sleeping well. The fur isn't sitting right under her eyes. But she's thinking.

Rainbow thought about things more than most ponies believed. She often preferred instinct, especially in a fight -- but as with her stunts, she could come at problems from angles nopony else was even capable of imagining.

Which was why it was extremely important to find out what was going through her head. Because Twilight needed to learn if it would save them from the crash -- or create it.

"Rainbow?"

The sleek head shifted. Bleary eyes slowly focused.

"What are you thinking?" Twilight asked.

With far less volume than usual, "Thinking..." And that was all.

Carefully, "Rainbow?" As multiple mares looked at the pegasus, Spike's hands clutched at each other, and even Trixie seemed to be leaning in that direction...

"How do you stop having thoughts?" the weather coordinator asked. And waited.

Everyone stared at her.

If I could work that out, my life would be a lot easier.

Which wasn't what Twilight had wanted to think. Possibly proving the point.

"Sleep," she said.

"That just gets you dreams," Rainbow wearily noted as her wing joints loosened, with feathers drooping away from her sides. "It's not an improvement."

Very, very carefully, "Rainbow?"

"...bad night," the pegasus said. "That's all. Akhal-Tekes?"

"I pretty much just know the name," the librarian confessed. "And that it's a long way off." With a faint smile, "I was sort of worried when she came in. Because it was Scootaloo, and just about the only times she wound up in the library were when she was setting up for a big Crusade. But she just wanted to see where she was born. And you're changing the subject, Rainbow."

"Yeah." The pegasus took a slow breath, and her wings returned to the rest position. "Okay. Let's say that the stallion in Canterlot changed his mark. The one which -- went away isn't the one he got during manifest. Start there."

Everypony nodded.

"So if this place is about changing marks," Rainbow continued, "and her parents swapped theirs, or just -- got new ones from somewhere... then they still couldn't come back to Equestria, right? Not to anywhere they'd already been, if somepony would know them with the old ones."

Twilight blinked.

"...they couldn't," Fluttershy softly recognized. "Not when you can't even put makeup over a mark without having it evaporate."

Twilight instantly felt her gaze trying to burrow below the caretaker's dress --

-- with a slow head shake, "...no. I saw it happen to me a few years ago, when Photo Finish's crew was getting me ready for a session. One of the brushes spread the powder a little too close."

Please don't say 'evaporate' and 'mark' in the same sentence.

"They could try to say they were somepony's twin," Pinkie considered. "Or -- did anypony ever hear the one about ponies who were 'separated at the hips'?"

This smile felt weary. "Recently," Twilight admitted. "But -- Applejack, does either of them have a twin?"

"I don't know," the farmer admitted. "Scootaloo's never said. But I'd bet against it. She pulled out those aunts, remember? Parents with twins, one or both -- that's somepony else who could have visited her."

"Rainbow?" Because the relationship between Crusader and weather coordinator was somewhat less contentious.

"Same," Rainbow told them. "Not a word. And I know -- they could just stay dressed. Say they turned into clothists or something. But even if they just came in to get Scootaloo, then took her somewhere new... she'd know."

"It is," Rarity dryly admitted, "rather difficult to remain clothed full-time -- no, that is not heresy dropping from my lips: it is fact. Weather conditions, social pressure. Even clothists need to disrobe at some point. And in one's own household, with a child about..."

Twilight slowly nodded. "They'd have to be careful. One slip..."

"Simply exiting a shower might do the trick," the designer agreed. "There is no realistic way to expect that they could hide such a change for the rest of their lives -- Twilight?"

Who had just barely registered the sudden pained sensation of having her dock jammed into the wall, and was distantly surprised that it had gotten through at all. "What?"

"You practically jumped backwards! From a sitting start. And given that, I feel we truly need to know what is in your head."

She sighed. "I thought -- 'unless they can change their marks at will' --"

There was a pause. Several pieces of furniture were uprighted again. Applejack tried not to look at the fresh set of hoof-shaped wall dents.

"-- yeah," the librarian reluctantly continued, and followed it with the understatement of a lifetime. "It's... a really big thought. And I'm going to need proof on that one." When it came to impossible changes, Tish had been bad enough. "Pinkie?" Because with the initial shock faded, the thoughtful expression had sought out a new home.

"It's what you said about them raising her," the baker carefully informed them. "How it might have been -- hard for them to stay in one place. Couldn't they turn their talents off? Because I remember that from school, that anypony can do that. Not that most of them ever do and I haven't, but --"

Twilight shook her head. "It works for a while. But it's like not getting to practice a talent. The urges are still going to build."

"...I've done it," Fluttershy quietly admitted. "On trots through the forest. When I just want to hear birds sing, and -- not understand what they're singing about. You can't keep it up forever, Pinkie."

"How long could somepony --" was as far as Pinkie got.

"About two weeks."

Multiple sets of eyes immediately focused on Trixie.

"Maybe it's longer for somepony else," the performer steadily said. "Or shorter. For me, it's about two weeks. That's as far as I got. You'd need a new version of the Severance. Long-term, completely controlled. The mark would still be there, but it wouldn't mean anything. Not until you wanted it to. And when it comes to changing that spell, or creating a variant --"

She stopped. The streaked tail twitched. Eyelids scrunched half-shut, opened again. And that was all.

Silence. No birds could be heard chirping outside. Not in Truedawn. Ponies breathing, a little dragon waiting, and what sounded like a repetitive series of small impacts coming down the street.

What do I say?
What can I --

Applejack carefully cleared her throat. "For safety? They'd need their original marks back in order to see anypony who knew them --" and green eyes widened. "Drop the volume, everypony. Spike, kitchen."

"What?" the little dragon immediately asked. "What did I --"

"-- I hear somepony coming up to the door," the farmer hissed. "Give it a few seconds --"

-- a hoof rapped against the exterior wood.

Spike scrambled and in doing so, managed to get out of sight just before the door opened.

Nopony said --

It didn't matter. Houses in Truedawn existed without locks. You knocked to let the occupants know you were there, and then you came in.

"Pardon me," said the smiling dull red pegasus stallion as he poked his head into the room. "I hope I'm not interrupting too much of anything."

Seven mares, acting with the strongest degree of unity they might ever find, managed to repress the collective glare.

"But the community was hoping we could borrow you," he continued, and nodded at the subject of his quest. The smile widened.

Applejack blinked.

"Me?"

"You're the -- agronomist?" With open worry, "Did I pronounce that --"

"-- yeah," she reassured him. "I know it's not a word you hear a lot. Why me?"

"The crops," he promptly said. "We were all talking about it. How you were looking things over. You found that clubroot problem. It's a big help, it really is. You caught it in time, and we're grateful. But we were hoping that you could -- check some other things? While it's early, before we bring anything in for the community?"

The farmer looked around. Checking with the others.

We don't have a reason for her not to go...

Twilight subtly nodded. Applejack stood up.

"I wanted to see some more of your production chain and crops anyway," she admitted. "Keep going without me, everypony. You can catch me up on the rest of the exploring when I get back."

The stallion smiled, turned and headed out. Applejack followed. A few seconds later, they all heard the door swing shut, and Spike came back into the room.

"We're just going to allow that?" Rarity checked. "When we don't know what their true intentions might be?"

"We're trying to maintain our cover," Twilight sighed. "That's hers." A subset of the truth. "And it's like she said: we did want to look at the food. Once we all go out to explore Truedawn, we can check on her. And if anypony tries to take her on, we'll probably --"

Six sets of ears perked. Two groups of scaly side projections twitched.

The hoof knocked. Spike dove into the kitchen.

"Oh, good! So they did see you come in here!" the middle-aged washed-out green earth pony mare beamed, just before the left foreleg gestured towards Rainbow. "Miss?"

"Yeah?" the pegasus cautiously said.

"I understand you were offering to do a few things the other day?" Rather happily, "Because I can't seem to find a platform lift this morning --"

"-- a what?" Rainbow asked.

"Oh, I know you saw them! One of our crank-powered ascenders. Aren't they marvelous?"

"I was sort of wondering about the design," Rainbow admitted. "I've got a friend who likes to look at blueprints --"

"-- and as you did want to help the community," the older mare smiled. "would it be all right to ask for a little assistance now?"

Several mares exchanged glances. Rarity stopped just before hers reached Trixie.

"I... guess," Rainbow said, and forced herself upright. "This won't take too long, right?"

"Oh, you know work," the local breezily said as Rainbow followed her out. "Always expanding to fill any amount of time allotted..."

"I know, right! That's why you've got to fight back! Show work that it can't just do whatever it wants! You know what really delivers a good solid kick to work? Making some of it wait until you finish up with a nap...!"

The door closed. Spike emerged from the kitchen.

"Well, you were all going out today anyway," the youngest grumpily declared. "Maybe this is just saving time --"

Ears went up. A triangularly-pointed tail hit the left side of the door frame just before vanishing again.

"Sorry for my timing," a new stallion smiled. "But is she available?"

"I --" said the targeted mare.

"It's important," the stallion apologized. "And I'm sure an explorer would love to see the new!"

Trixie left. Rarity's features suffused with dark satisfaction.

"Small favors," the unicorn decided. "Oh, hello, Spike. Now where were --"

Another knock. Another evacuation. Another mare.

"-- well, I suppose I did say something about wanting to see --"

The purple tail lashed somewhat on the way out.

"I'm starting to feel like there's a pattern," Spike grumbled as he made his way towards a patch of what was now a much emptier floor. "Anypony want to see if I manage to sit this time? ...okay. I got my butt all the way down --"

"Language," a slightly-stunned Twilight automatically chided.

"I said 'butt'! And we keep losing ponies! It took so much to get everypony back together, and now we just keep losing ponies --"

"-- we'll check on her too, Spike," his big sister tried to reassure him. "Pinkie, there's something I wanted to ask you."

"Oh?" the baker perked. "What is it?"

"Types of quartz. Do you know of any which could magically create --"

Hoofsteps.
Knock.
Door.

"-- I'll tell you when I get back!"

Fluttershy sighed. Slowly, carefully stood up.

"Is something wrong?" Twilight asked as Spike, who was coming back the other way, completely failed to bother clearing the door frame.

"...it's a coin flip now," the caretaker said. "This probably just saves a little time..."

Dyed ears rotated.

The siblings looked at each other across the open space.

"A pattern," Twilight eventually said.

"...yeah," Spike irritably declared from his position in the doorway. "I'll be in the kitchen. Until somepony comes to get you, which is probably going to be as soon as I try to sit down. And then I'll stay in the house until somepony gets back. Or unless I decide it's been too many hours. And then Truedawn is going to be dealing with a really mobile box. Which breathes fire."

"Spike, I'm worried too and I know somepony's probably coming to fetch me for -- something -- but you need to stay out of sight unless we give up on our cover completely, or -- something happens." Reluctantly, "I know you might have to come for us --" and with a small smile " because you've done it before. But... please, try to stay calm. We're new here, and we don't know --"

Two scaly legs treated a minor I'm About To Sit Down bending as an act of pure defiance against the universe.

A hoof knocked on the door.

Well, I wanted everypony to explore, Twilight crossly considered as she moved through a new Truedawn day. And I didn't want us doing it alone. Pairs. Maybe with somepony staying behind to keep Spike company, and make sure nopony tried to go through our stuff. Or worse. Goes through our stuff, touches it, and finds out some of it has scales.

So we're getting to explore.

"So what do you think?" her guide asked.

In pairs.

"It's very --"

She looked around. The building styles did their best to inflict pain, and that was without touching them. Physical contact with a few of the surfaces would risk splinters, and she constantly had to restrain herself from just snapping the projections off. Entire structures looked as if they were waiting for their chance to snag something as their near-final act of revenge: the actual closing act would be the subsequent total collapse.

We're in the southern hemisphere.
My body thinks it's supposed to be winter. My snout doesn't know where we are.
My eyes are trying to tell me that we're in a random cross-section of at least a dozen Equestrian settled zones. All jumbled together. And waiting for demolition. Something violates the building codes and it gets knocked down. That's fair.
I could take that one huge splinter off right now --
-- no hidden corona. They'll still see the wood snap.

"-- eclectic," Twilight finished.

Magic.
I am Magic.
Not Honesty.
I carry Applejack's essence with me, but I am not Honesty.
I'm still sort of sure Honesty might get away with that.
...also that if I was Honesty...
...speed of sound, roughly estimated distance between here and Ponyville...
...I would be hearing the last echoes of the necklace exploding in about --

Her company smiled. So did the three delighted ponies who were trailing behind them.

Pairs.
On up.
Explore. Talk to ponies. Things I wanted us to do.

"We try everything," the pale blue stallion with the utterly disorganized tail told her. "Just because one style is appealing doesn't mean a different one won't look good next to it!"

We just can't do it unsupervised.

There was something about Truedawn which tilted just about every effort towards mediocrity -- or worse, just below. Still, when it came to overenthusiastic tour guides, Twilight could truthfully say that Tikr wasn't the worst she'd ever met. Braeburn existed.

"I suppose," Twilight told him. He kept smiling.

'Tikr'. She'd asked him to spell it. There had been a faint sense of relief in learning that the name still used the Equestrian alphabet.

"You're taking a lot of time out of your day to show me around," she noted. "So are your friends."

"It's like Seti said the other day," Tikr grinned. "And she was right. I thought you needed the night to recover from the wild. I know I did, when I came in. But just about nothing is as important as meeting new arrivals. So I talked it over with her. I convinced her that we all had to wait for one night. And now I'm here, meeting you. Making sure you feel welcome."

So why haven't you asked for my name?

"And giving you the tour," he proudly added. "Because you can only really show off to a new arrival once each. And I've always wanted to be the guide!" Happily, "So is there anything you really wanted to see?"

Shield-generating device, please.
If the portion I touch to turn it off isn't clearly labeled, please indicate it for me.

But it was the Tour. And she was learning a few things about Truedawn. The basic layout, where some of the residents lived, the location of a cafe -- she'd scented the cafe before seeing it, and was still regretting every breath taken in that vicinity -- and the fact that her friends were likely okay.

She was still worried about Spike, and there was nothing she would be able to do about it until she got back to that house. But she kept spotting the others. Rainbow had been the first sighting: the pegasus was found hovering next to a streetlight, examining some clouded glass prior to swapping it out for a fresh cover piece.

(Twilight had been using the tour to check for magic where she could, and found that there were lingering enchantments centered near the metal post -- but none of them were currently active. She didn't expect them to be. It was day.)

Rarity had located -- or been brought to -- the clothing store. The white unicorn had been reared up with her forehooves pressed against the front window and the locals, mistaking the too-wide eyes of horror for interest, had been eagerly asking her if she wanted to go inside and try something on. Twilight was desperately hoping that the designer would be capable of postponing the near-inevitable explosion until she returned to privacy or, at the very least, could manage to temporarily suspend Generosity and not give the audience a piece of her mind.

Pinkie was merrily chatting with her group, but... if you knew the baker, it was possible to spot the signs of discomfort. Pressed into attendance at a party she wanted to leave.

Trixie was having an easier time of it -- in several senses. Just for starters, she was the only one of the group who got to be nude. In summer. (Twilight was patiently waiting for the moment when she personally sweated all the way through her dress, and knowing that nearly all of Truedawn's residents had to deal with the overalls brought her no comfort.) And Trixie had very little trouble in speaking with anypony. Traveling constantly, needing to find ways of luring an audience to her shows -- there was a certain requirement for Trixie to establish herself quickly. Trixie's skills in making friends were something of a mystery, but she created acquaintances rather easily. For up to ten minutes, or until they truly came to know her: whichever came first --

-- and is that you in there, Rarity?
I still can't find your essence. But maybe this is what makes it rise. Insults provided for me, free. Whether I want them or not.

She'd caught one mare looking at Trixie's mark. Only for a second. And then that pegasus had immediately flinched away, doing so with an expression of --

-- pity?
Nausea?
Both?

Fluttershy and Starlight had been spotted at the same time. Based on the sheer proximity of the discussion, Twilight was assuming the subject was combs.

There had been no sign of Scootaloo's parents.

"Because I can show you just about anything," Tikr delightedly declared. "Although you shouldn't expect us to have everything. We're still advancing, of course. Making progress. And if you have any suggestions..."

"Is there a bathhouse?" Because some ponies did enjoy washing up as a communal activity -- and it was a place where you couldn't remain clothed.

The stallion shook his head: the smile failed to fade. "Oh, no... I'm sorry, but that's one we just haven't gotten around to yet." Thoughtfully, "You might be the first one to propose it, actually! I'll make sure it gets added to the list."

"Could you get the supplies for one?" Careful...

He casually shrugged. "If the community collectively agreed that it was needed? Of course! Or somepony could decide they wanted to try it themselves, and that they could make everything they needed here. We make a lot of things here."

The Poorly was automatic.

"But they'd probably still need a design. And for something the size of a bathhouse -- well, it all goes faster when we work together. The community knows that."

"You could get a design, though." And who brings that in? Who teleports the supplies?

"Naturally! But since I'm almost sure you're the first..." With a grin, "No bathhouse just yet. But maybe soon, if somepony likes the idea. Anything else?"

Well, at least he's not shoving me around with the top of his head...

She was trying to think of a subtle means to ask about a research facility, device design and creation area, anything related to why they'd come --

-- the high-pitched squeak from the overladen wheels hit her ears, and they slammed against her skull.

Tikr winced. (It almost reached the smile. Almost.) "Oh, right," he said. "It's one of those days..."

He turned his head, looked left towards the source of the sound. Twilight's gaze followed --

-- right. (She wanted to smile. She didn't. There were enough smiles around her already.) It's hard to keep Applejack from working for very long.

There were three carts moving down the nearest cross-street, being hauled by a total of nine ponies: Applejack had one of the hitches for what appeared to be the heaviest. The design was the same for all of them: flat bottoms, fence slats around the edges of the platform, and wheels. The wheels needed some work. Looking at the wheels went a long way towards explaining why Trixie hated them, while questioning why the performer hadn't upgraded to 'loathe'. They were wheels which felt that working with a basic circle indicated a lack of imagination coupled with a strange desire to actually get somewhere and as poorly-traveling travesties went, the axles outclassed them.

Each cart was laden with multiple barrels, and those stood out to Twilight as the sturdiest thing she'd seen in Truedawn. The barrels could have easily been the work of a marked cooper. None of them were bulging at the sides, there weren't any cracks, and she didn't see a single leak -- although she was close enough to hear some of the sloshing.

"Water?" she asked. Nopony in her group had spotted native apples -- Applejack had said there might be Dorset Goldens about, but none had actually appeared -- and at any rate, when you weren't racing against a poorly-constructed device, it took a fair amount of time to make cider.

"Yep!" Tikr enthused "And I see your friend is fitting right in! We do appreciate the help."

...wait...

"Why so much water?" Twilight carefully asked. "Is there some sort of special project going on? Because your plumbing seems fine."

"You noticed?" Openly pleased. "What was your favorite part?"

"...working toilet trench," had the benefit of being the absolute truth and, as a further recommendation, didn't have to cover the total failure of the water heating system, the lack of pressure in the nozzles, or go into any of Twilight's worries about the local sewer system: that last started with 'Do you have one?'

"I know," he sighed (and still continued to smile). "Surest sign of civilization, right?"

"But that's a lot of water," she cautiously pressed. "Is there a house which isn't hooked up yet?"

He shook his head. "They're bringing the barrels to Starlight's workshop."

Her workshop.

"Her plumbing broke down?"

"No. It was just a cave night."

Don't blink.
...don't blink too much. Blinking is natural. Not blinking at all is suspicious.
Just look interested...

"Sorry?" Twilight curiously asked. And did her best not to hold her breath.

"The cave went off last night," Tikr casually told her. "And if there's light, then Starlight needs water."

...let him talk.
Just let him...

She did her best to look even more curious. Politely interested. As if all she wanted in the world was to hear his next words. And he smiled.

"It's hard to make water flow up," Tikr pointed out. "And catching it directly from the waterfall, channeling it from altitude -- even that high up, there's too much force. So we get the barrels. She takes it from there."

"Can I see the workshop?"

It had felt like a natural question. And yet, he -- hesitated, as the three trailing locals went silent.

"We can look at it from the outside," he finally said. "But you shouldn't trot in."

Another pause, and Twilight forced herself to wait. To make him fill the silence with words.

"We... try to give her privacy," said the stallion who lived in a community without locks and had apparently never learned the meaning of 'Come in.' "As much as we can. Her burden..."

One deep, slow breath. A trio of ponies matched every shift of the ribs.

"It's horrible for her," Tikr told that portion of the world which rested immediately in front of his forehooves. "When all she might ever be is --"

He stopped. Raised his head.

"You'll understand," he simply said. "Just... be nice to her. Be gentle. She has it so much worse than any of us, and... all we can try to do is help."

And then he smiled.

"We can see it from the outside," he told Twilight. "Let's just follow the barrels."

He led the way. Twilight followed closely, making sure she could track him the whole way and watch his face at the same time. And he just kept smiling.

Everypony was smiling.

Everypony.

"If they're innocent, or at least believe they are... they would let us leave."

The shield kept the wild zone out. It wasn't necessarily keeping everypony in. But one stallion had left --
-- escaped?
...died...

Perhaps he had been the mad one. When they all seemed so happy...

...no.

She remembered the dead stallion's final expression. That thin, vicious smile. The frozen remnants of a dark delight. And with the residents of Truedawn...

"She doesn't smile right."

Words Pinkie had spoken regarding Starlight.

But with the others...

It was hard for her to tap into Pinkie's essence, but -- it had happened a few times. Generally by accident. It was something which didn't seem to require centering so much as a degree of tilt, and Twilight was at least somewhat tilted now. She had to be, because it was almost impossible for her to believe she was capable of accessing this much empathy on her own. But she could feel something now.

The locals looked -- happy. Constantly. But it almost felt as if there was something else present or rather, as if there wasn't.

Fall into the mark, until only the talent remains.
Fall into -- the absence?
The lack?

They all seemed so happy. They smiled all the time.

'void, hollowed'

As if the only thing which truly existed about each pony was... the smile.

Mode Noise

There had been a day when the silence died, and the pegasus had nearly followed.

...'the pegasus'. It can feel strange to think of herself that way now. Almost... alien, as if she's pinning herself to a set of clothing which she can't quite manage to wriggle out of. Or, given recent circumstances -- fur dye. Doused in a full-body costume which conformed exactly to her skin. It had just taken a couple of decades before anypony had told her the truth. Something which provided a new identity, along with an alternate way of viewing her own existence. And she's not exactly comfortable with that either.

On a typical day, it takes nearly all of her strength just to be Fluttershy. Because the name, the mark comes with duties unending, and to simply awaken before Sun is raised and start them all over again on every single day...

As self-references go, 'hybrid' -- the eldest of the hybrids -- remains fairly new. There are ways in which it's still sinking in, and -- she tries not think about anything like a cure. This is who she is. Something which led her to the others, to necklace and Element and -- even more duties --

-- no. To change who she was, and do so on such a fundamental level -- it's wrong.

(It is wrong.)
(Isn't it?)

She's seen the consequences which can arise from that kind of wish.

She is a consequence. The twisted desire for that sort of alteration is why she exists in the first place. It's the only reason she's alive.

(She tries not to think about that too much, and so has spent moons in having the concept hunt her fleeing form in the nightscape.)

But when she'd been a filly...

There had been days when the filly thought of herself as a pegasus. But when she was at the flight camp, on the verge of the moment which would define her life -- she didn't think of herself as a very good one.

Then there was a race.
A plummet.
Shortly afterwards, other terms became available.
The other students in her hometown school liked to use 'freak'.

Moving through Truedawn should have been like trotting inside a mobile cloud of silence. And perhaps it would have been, if it wasn't for all of the ponies.

She hasn't exactly had the chance to take a full count. (They're supposed to be exploring and when one of the possibilities for the colony's existence is illness, working out the population becomes very important.) But she currently believes it's well over a hundred ponies. And everywhere she goes, somepony wants to meet her. Speak with her. Chat and see if she'd be interested in helping out on this project or that one and in Truedawn, there's always something to do and a need for ponies to do it.

They've practically been forcing her to talk. Almost constantly. And nopony understands how exhausting that is.

...well, nopony in Truedawn. (She hasn't asked them to stop, because she's a guest within the community and that would just be rude.) She's tried talking about it with a few of the others, and...

Twilight sort of gets it. During those first moons in Ponyville, the librarian alternated between seeing friendship as a new wonder which had to be explored and, once the investigations began to produce a few bruises, something she was at least partially putting up with. Twilight had spent a full summer and most of an autumn in keeping a very close eye on an internal timer, because she wasn't used to being around other ponies and had no idea how to keep it up for very long. And when the invisible tines on the intangible clock face hit a virtual midnight, that was it. Twilight was done being social for the day. And they'd let her go off to recover in the tree, because the desire to interact was so very new and any degree of true strain on a fresh muscle seemed to risk permanent injury.

But with the others? Spike wants ponies to know him as a person, and that means going out into the settled zone and meeting its citizens. Almost constantly. By contrast, Rarity can easily become weary of dealing with customers: with those who only pretend to the title, she has to constantly guard against herself, trying to make sure she holds back the venting until the Boutique is closed. Sometimes she slips.

Applejack has similar issues, but benefits from being able to retreat to her family. There have been times when Rarity tries confiding in Opal first and... Fluttershy knows that Opal loves the unicorn. She's told Rarity that on multiple occasions, and it's a good day when the designer just mutters to herself about the cat having a funny way of showing it. Through not doing so. But when it's been a bad day of sales and the torn, crumpled pages from sketchbooks overflow the wastebasket in all directions -- the feline is always there.

Three mares who, on some level, understand the desire to retreat. Rainbow, however, wants attention, and 'wants' only gets into the internal sentence because 'demands', while often accurate, can feel a little too cruel. And Pinkie -- she can take pleasure in solitude. When the baker goes skating, she prefers to do so by herself: it provides that much more space on the ice, and she can practice tricks without having to worry about colliding with anything more than the trees. But Pinkie is happiest in groups. She can be alone, but -- not for long. And if she ever thought that everypony else was on the verge of leaving her...

The pega -- the hybrid can interact with her friends. She's capable of attending parties -- for a while, although it helps to have a clear line of sight on an exit and Pinkie eventually learned to leave the largest window unlocked at all times. And when a companion is brought to the cottage, she'll inevitably wind up having to deal with the pony. But it can be tiring. Distant relationships means the exhaustion builds all the faster.

Total strangers...

...everypony in Truedawn wants to meet her. Know her, and -- somehow, they're trying to do so without ever asking her name --

-- one of the stallions kept looking her over, and it was a familiar sort of examination. The hybrid doesn't exactly like it, because examination can lead to interaction and she isn't exactly good with that part. But she's used to having pony eyes roam across her form: snout to tail tip and with her, that last segment takes a while. And he'd just kept looking. The smile (and they all seem to have the same smile) had never faded, but... it had become somewhat thoughtful.

He'd trotted up to her.

And then he'd asked if she'd ever done any modeling.

She denied it immediately, of course. They're undercover and even if they weren't, she doesn't like to think about that part of her life. It tends to make her hind hooves twitch. She made the usual excuses: there are other ponies with her build (although not very many of them, and just about nopony ever goes that far on tail extensions), only so many combinations of snout and ear shapes possible...

He seemed to believe her. At least, he never displayed any frown of discontent.

She's... kind of waiting for one of them to frown. It would feel a little more normal --

-- one more pony talking to her. And then one more, and one more, followed by three more because that miniherd was recruiting as a group after she'd just wrapped up the last bit. They just kept coming, and it was all so draining.

Total strangers, expressing an interest in her. Something which comes with what the world sees as a binding social contract and the obligation to say something back. Even with her friends, there are still times when she has to stop. Retreat from pony voices. Seek the silence.

(Except that it's never truly silent.)

And then there was Starlight.

Talking to strangers is hard enough. Speaking with Starlight...

The lilac unicorn is -- 'awkward' might be fair for some, but the hybrid feels like Starlight has real trouble with social cues. It's something she's qualified to recognize, largely from personal experience -- but there's a difference. Fluttershy could generally recognize when she was in that kind of situation. She simply didn't want to deal with it for very long. Or at all. Actually, if it's with strangers and there are no animals involved, she'll just go deal with it from over there. After locking the door behind her.

Fluttershy, outside of interactions with her friends and pony clients, was still capable of spotting a myriad of social cues. It's a vital skill, because most of them serve as the hint to Get Out While The Getting's Good. But when it comes to Starlight... she isn't entirely certain that the community's apparent leader knows what they are.

Starlight had found her. And, without lead-in, ceremony, or anything in the way of a formal greeting, had started to ask about the combs.

How were they working out? Did the number of tines need to be increased or decreased? What about the space between each? Was a more favorable weight distribution required? Questions which weren't necessarily openly eager because Starlight didn't seem to do that sort of thing, but the unicorn needed to know. Immediately. In detail.

The questions had just kept coming. And when it came to the hybrid's hesitant, awkward answers... Starlight took notes. Wrote down every detail as if it was crucially important, and promised refinements for the next batch.

Size. Weight. Support. Texture.

...that had been the strange part. Or, with Starlight involved, the strangest.

Starlight had asked whether the texture felt suitable. Because while hairs couldn't really feel much of anything, there were positions which would have the combs pressing through fur to rest against skin. And most ponies didn't know what that felt like. Not with bone. They didn't have experience with touching one of the most common substances in the world. Not from the outside --

-- the unicorn hadn't quite paused. Hesitation, temporary suspension of speech, stopping for a moment to consider options... Fluttershy was familiar with all of it. Intimately. Pausing could mean taking a moment to examine words while they were still in the brain. Judging how they would react to air, not to mention the subsequent passage into listening ears. Starlight hadn't done that. She'd simply moved the motive power from one piece of conversational clockwork to the next. And then she'd kept right on going.

The texture of bone, Starlight said. In a way, it was odd that ponies weren't familiar with it. But so many of the vital nerves were on the outermost layer of skin. It was hard to feel what was taking place on the inside of a body. Imagine existing as a functional organism while having no active concept of how your own skeleton felt, much less what your liver happened to be doing. And even for those parts of the body where the bone was so close to the skin... minor muscles, insulating fat, and all of the nearest available nerve endings were facing the wrong way. This could be argued as a fundamental flaw in the design.

It could also be argued as an odd thing to discuss. A strange tangent. But Starlight hadn't seemed to recognize that. The words had emerged -- well, perhaps not 'normally', because the hybrid wasn't sure what that meant for Starlight. But they had been even. Controlled. A perfectly rational topic had arisen and it was going to be covered in its full academic gory -- glory.

Maybe Starlight was a doctor. A medical professional probably would have been capable of talking about having a permanent sense of your own skeleton, on the academic level. And there was something awkward about her, but... not like Twilight. Not even as the little unicorn had been in her first moons after getting off the air carriage. It was the difference between having some idea of how to interact and not being sure if you wanted to, versus...

In a way, the topic itself didn't really bother Fluttershy. A doctor was (unknowingly) speaking to a vet, and -- the hybrid knew exactly what bone felt like. She'd known for years, because animals got hurt. It just wasn't something she talked about with anypony else, because she knew the reactions were going to be bad. With Starlight...

...it was treating interaction as something which might not matter. Starlight talked. Anypony she was speaking to could presumably listen. And how they reacted to the words wasn't going to stop more words from coming.

It was exhausting. A new place, dozens of strangers, what felt like endless pony voices colliding within green-dyed ears, and then Starlight. It wore her out. There were only so many fresh faces she could deal with in a short time, and the fact that all but one kept smiling didn't seem to be helping at all.

She'd finished with Starlight through making a polite excuse to leave. She was good at that. The unicorn had simply nodded, then let her go.

(She spent the next ten minutes with an odd awareness of every trailing vertebrae within her dock.)

And then she'd headed for her assigned quarters, dodging Truedawn residents along the way. Got inside the house, went up the ramp, dearly wished there had been any sort of lock to seal, and curled up atop the inferior mattress as best she could.

Her endurance was considerably beyond that of the average pony: an aspect of the mark talent, coupled with the infusion of earth pony essence. A typical night would see her sleep for about four hours, and that was usually enough. But to be social, open, to interact with stranger after stranger... it made her tired. So she retreated. Take a page from Rainbow's book: nap for a while, rest and recharge. Force herself to go back out afterwards, and... it would be easier if she could find a friend, move with them --

-- she kept passing by the others, but every time she attempted to divert towards them, Truedawn residents came up to her, surrounded, redirected...

She needed to escape from pony voices, descend into silence for a time.

(It's just pony voices here. That's wrong.)

The hybrid closed her eyes. Slipped into dream.

But sleep doesn't take the voices away.

...Fluttershy...
...Fluttershy...
...Fluttershy can hardly fly...

It just makes them rise from within.

At the flight camp...

Fillies and colts have been gathered from all over Equestria for this. Listen to the laughter of youthful voices, and it's possible to hear just about every cloud-based accent -- along with a number of representatives from the ground, because there are pegasi who move to those settled zones and still wish for their offspring to receive training upon the billowing silent hills of vapor.

(She's never been to ground. She keeps wondering what it's like. If it's any better than vapor which always feels as if it's about to collapse under her, a world of grey and white and black and just about nothing else. The monotony of environment added to the unending sameness of failure. She wants to visit the lower world at least once before she dies, just to see if the disappointments are any different.)

(Something about the surface seems to call her...)

Still -- rotate yellow ears, and it's possible to hear Windicity, Cloudsdale, Las Pegasus, Mammatupolis...

The filly tries to avoid talking. There are multiple reasons for that, and one of them is the way her voice sounds. Her basic notes are pleasant, especially when singing (which she rarely does, and only when she's sure nopony will hear). The accent is not. She's from Stratuston and when it comes to the accents which are native to the cloud cities, she's arguably been saddled with the worst. And if she does try to risk a word...

The sounds of youthful laughter. Something which always sounds so pleasant. Right up until the moment you get close enough to discover what they're laughing about.

That's one reason not to talk. And she's shy, she's always been shy, her parents put that into her name and there have been long nights when she wonders if they cursed her. Her name could have been something more outgoing, open, capable of dealing with the world -- but no: she's Fluttershy.

Sometimes she thinks about changing her name, while she lies atop her bunk and listens to the other fillies in the cabin. The ones who can talk and giggle and form bonds as if it's the most natural thing in the world.

If she's awake under Moon, the thoughts become darker.

She -- stands out. She doesn't want to. But of all the fillies in the flight camp, she's the only one who's started puberty. In fact, she started it so early as to already have a few side effects in place when she arrived. Like being the tallest filly in her age group. The stretched-out, gawky look. Her tail has been growing with what feels like terrifying speed and she keeps bumping it into things.

Most of the other fillies watch her. Based on the verbal results, they're mostly looking for good opportunities to make some distinctly unoriginal jokes. At others, their expressions contort into something which simply can't be jealousy, and she continues to believe that even after some of the colts (and a few fillies) try to approach her. That just gives her something else to gallop away from.

It's... always a gallop.

Both of her parents are stormbreakers. Part of the international emergency team, the IST. Called in whenever wild weather threatens one of the other nations and only pegasus intervention can save lives. And they're strong. Being part of the IST requires a combination of field strength and fine control which makes hurricanes hope there aren't ten more similarly-talented pegasi coming in behind you. There won't be. It'll be at least two dozen.

Her parents are powerful. The strength of magic has been in the blood for generations...

...until her.

...can hardly fly...

They love their filly -- but love doesn't require them to understand her. They feel that she's not very good at taking care of herself. (Based on half-overheard discussions, her father believes that the harsh conditions of her birth might have done some damage and years later, he'll be proven right.) They trust Zephyr in a rough situation more than they trust her, and it's already starting to put the younger sibling in charge of the older one. Neither is happy about this.

She hasn't told anypony at the camp who her parents are. Not that she wants to talk about herself at all, but -- the others would expect so much more from her.

...or rather, they would add a few extra question marks to the queries on why she's so bad at doing any of it.

...can hardly fly...

The filly tries. She wants the counselors to tell her parents that she tried. But to try is to fail.

She generally goes back to the cabin after each failure. Watching the others won't teach her anything. She knows how to do it. She just can't. And there's a clock in the cabin, which allows her to count down the hours until she gets to go home.

She's already resigned herself to finishing flight camp as a failure and being hauled back to her own settled zone in -- not disgrace, but a sort of loving confusion, combined with an increasing desperation to find some way of helping her. And once she's back... well, Stratuston has children who laugh at the filly. (She's half-convinced that's what school is for: to gather most of the torment in one place.) But at least she knows every vaporous route for trying to get away in a hurry. And her bedroom door has a lock.

She doesn't want to interact. (Not being sure of the how is only part of it.)

But there's going to be a race.

It's off the books, which means that the camp's counselors can't know about it. The adults don't allow high-speed competitions among flight camp students. It's a good way to finish the season with somewhat less campers than they started with. And she wouldn't want to get involved, except...

...the race is sort of about her.

Or rather, at the very least, she triggered it. She was trying to practice in isolation, there was an incident with a flag, some of the colts started up on the usual vocal routines, and then a filly turned up. Small and brash and sleek and itching to start a fight. The act of trying to make the mockery stop somehow turned into a competition between the Cloudsdale girl and the budding bullies, and the Stratuston filly...

Nothing could have made her participate in the race. But she's the tallest filly in the camp. It'll be easy to see her waving the starting flag. And the Cloudsdale camper was trying to defend her. She wants to do something in thanks, and -- when it comes to racing, holding a flag is going to be it.

They all get away from the counselors. Some of the other campers gather: a number want to watch, while those who've come far enough to do some cloud molding work on the racecourse. The filly gets a little puff of vapor all to herself, and it feels tacky beneath her hooves.

The race starts.

Three young pesagi speed past in a tight cluster. The wind backblast --

-- she doesn't know.
She'll never know.
Somepony got too close. It doesn't matter who.
(Rainbow still blames herself.)
The gust pushes her off the cloud.
She falls.
She falls and nopony sees.
She falls and nopony saves her.
She's going to die.

She remembers screaming. All the way down.

She couldn't get her wings to work. There were six limbs flailing at the air and the two which were supposed to do something about it wouldn't.

It wasn't all that long of a fall, and it probably should have been shorter. Pegasi... their lungs are better adapted to high altitudes than the other two races, but it's not perfect. The fliers have a ceiling, and it starts well short of the point where the air would become too thin to push against. Diseases like balance-robbing Manière's await those who spend too much time in the upper atmosphere. But the flight camp is somewhat higher up than the average sky settled zone, because the counselors want students to practice in those conditions too.

Still, given the acceleration provided by gravity, it isn't going to be a particularly long fall.

It's merely going to last a lifetime.

Her own scream sounds in her ears, and it's the only thing she can truly hear. She hates that. She's going to die listening to what turned out to be her own extremely stupid accent.

At least when she hits, there will be silence.

She wanted to visit ground at least once before she died. She's getting her wish. She'll reach the surface, and then she'll die. Technically, it'll be just about simultaneous.

Her weakness, that which nothing can fix -- that'll be the true cause of death. But ground has to be credited with the assist. It's not the fall which proves fatal. It's the impact.

The world is going to kill her.

And then the world saves her.

She's wondered what might have happened if she'd never plummeted. Her parents never took her down before her mark appeared. Perhaps they never would have. And a normal filly would have manifested eventually, but -- she's not normal.

She never was.

A terrified filly, plummeting to her death.

A pegasus body, with earth pony essence lurking within.

The first experiment.

The oldest hybrid.

She doesn't know. It will be years before she learns the truth. But... perhaps there is something in the waiting world which recognizes the approach of a wayward daughter.

Did it reach out? Dispatch the nearest possible agents who could rescue her? Or did a nascent talent send out a call for aid?

Perhaps it doesn't matter. She's caught, by a mass of butterflies so thick that they're somehow able to support her weight -- at least for a little while. (In time, she'll learn that the most common group noun for such a gathering is kaleidoscope -- but other cultures use flutter.)

Her screams stop.

She comes to ground. In all of its colors and vibrancy and life.

It accepts her. It welcomes her as the vapor never could.

(Her talent will eventually focus on mammals: she can deal with reptiles, fish are complicated, and insects wind up beyond her range -- except for butterflies. Because they were first.)

Shortly after, the silence shatters.

Forever.

There were consequences. There always are.

It took some time before anypony started looking for her. The counselors searched the ground below the camp, eventually found a living, happy filly when they'd fully expected to recover a corpse: something which, if done thoroughly, probably would have required a chisel and a moderately large number of sponges and dustpans. They brought her back to the clouds, which made her rather less happy.

There were also a pair of manifests to deal with. Nopony seemed to understand hers, and she wasn't very good at explaining. But they at least pretended to listen. They nodded a lot.

And then the expulsions began.

Those who were directly involved in the race were sent home. No exceptions. (It would be years before she saw Rainbow again, and neither had expected to ever encounter the other.) Based on some of the things she heard her mother ranting about, there was at least a brief discussion of criminal charges against the racers, but -- minors, and the flight camp didn't want the publicity. Security was tightened for future groups, to the point where the only way to get any real privacy was stepping into the bathroom.

The filly didn't flunk out of flight camp. She never finished flight camp. But it did open up the opportunity to flunk out of remedial classes.

She tried to tell herself it didn't matter. Ground was waiting for her. All she had to do was get there.

But she was still bound to the clouds.

...can hardly fly...

The billows of vapor were no longer fully silent.

Stratuston, in an absolute sense, isn't all that high up. This still leaves it beyond what most birds can reach. Most -- but not all.

She understands them now. Every opportunity is taken for investigations. It takes multiple trips to the library just to start getting some of the names. Here we have a visiting lammergeier, there a bar-headed goose. A whooper swan turns up. And they listen to her. They aren't sapient, but each species seems to have at least a little language of their own and she's capable of speaking every last one of them.

If she finds a tired bird, she brings it home so it can have a place to rest.

One day, she locates a wounded one. Tries to treat it, and that takes more books.

Her parents... love her. They don't understand her, but they'll always love her. They bring home some of the texts she needs. Trips to ground become a regular event. Because they wanted her to follow in their air path, but -- the mark cannot be denied. This is who their daughter is. She has a path of her own, and it leads straight down. Perhaps Zephyr will be the one who joins them in the IST...

(He doesn't.)

Her parents don't understand. But they love. It feels like Stratuston can't manage either one. The mockery gets worse. It still focuses on her body most of the time, but now there's a special emphasis on the hips. What kind of pegasus winds up being called to ground? A freak mark and a freak talent to go with it.

School becomes a prison with part-time furloughs. Every other inmate fancies themselves a guard, and the powermongering proceeds accordingly.

There's very little point to her staying in the normal educational system. But veterinary classes -- those are expensive. She would have had a legacy discount at weather college. As it is, she has a choice. She can become a professional student for a time, and graduate with a degree and a small mountain of debt. Or -- she can become a non-professional student, because there's a loophole in the laws. Students can do vet work without degree or license, because that's how you get practical experience. Most of them attach themselves to a practice as cheap labor. Others...

All she needs is correspondence courses. And a place to live, because the animals will find her and they all have to stay somewhere.

Her parents listen. They still don't understand, and perhaps they never will. But they also take all of the money which had been put aside for weather college and turn it over to her, with no reins attached. It's enough to purchase the cottage.

She goes to ground.

The world is beautiful.

It's also loud.

It's easy for her to talk to animals.

Getting them to shut up...

The basics of animal vocabulary are as follows:

What's that?
Stay away from me.
I will attack if you get any closer.
Is that food over there?
Don't compete for my food.
RUN.
Can I entice you into making more of me?
KILL.

It never stops.

The world hears birdsong. She gets endless threats about what'll happen to anyone who approaches the nest and incidentally, this is a really good nest: who wants to move in and fertilize a few eggs?

The filly's innocence isn't lost so much as dissolved in a constant stream of verbal acid. She never acts on any of it, but... the animals talk, and the combination of limited intellect and topics means they're mostly talking about their sex lives.

She can turn off her talent for a little while. But that leaves her with the natural sounds, she keeps wondering if she's missing something crucial, and --

-- of course she's shy. It's natural that she doesn't want to speak with ponies, because all she does in her daily life is talk to everything else. If a hoof knocks on her door at two minutes past Sun-raising, she'll already be conversed out for the day. Why does she have to deal with the flow of sapient words when the less intelligent variety is constantly flowing through her ears and...

...oh, she knows what bone feels like. As sensations go, it's pressed against the opposing hoof known as Utter Helplessness. Because she's picking up veterinary skills. She doesn't have the mark for that work, but being able to ask the patient exactly where it hurts substitutes for a lot.

It just doesn't make her any better at telling them that there's nothing she can do.

Not everyone can be helped. Fixed. Saved. And the animals... they don't understand. They know that something is wrong. They're hurting, and pain is the indicator of distress. Some of them have minor instincts towards limited degrees of medicine: if you feel hot, eat this grass. But it doesn't do anything for claw wounds and bites and...

...they only understand the pain. They want it to stop. But they're incapable of truly comprehending the abyss of their own approaching death.

That burden goes to her.

They have fear without understanding or knowledge of consequences. Thought makes it worse. Her own sapience feels like a curse.

But she has a duty. She has to make the pain stop.

Over and over.

She buries the results and with each one, a tiny piece of her heart goes into the soil.

She keeps count.

...can hardly fly...

When she was still in school... before her mark appeared, and then when the shadow of the burden was just beginning to cast itself across a future of Sun-lit ground...

She used to make up other names for herself. Future occupations. Roles and, once she started trying to shed her accent, voices. The filly would play-act in front of a mirror, pretending to be somepony else. Anypony else, as long as they were accepted. Perhaps that gave her something of an edge, when the palace called upon the Bearers to take a Hearth's Warming stage. She didn't have any trouble with lines or character, although there were still some fairly significant issues with stage fright.

But it didn't change who she was, not even after she tried going to school as one of those alters and... it was a mistake. She was still herself.

All she'd done was provide everypony with something new to laugh about.

'Hybrid'.

In the end, all it gave her was an explanation.

Gentle Arrival once told her that she was exactly who and where she was supposed to be. They were words which brought her comfort. A speech she reflected upon in times of crisis, hoping to find strength when it began to feel as if the burden was too great to carry.

The words were spoken by the stallion who saved her life. He also happened to be the party who'd guaranteed she would never have a normal one. And once she knew that...

Exactly who she was supposed to be? It was a lovely thought. But -- look at who'd offered it up.

And even when she tried to believe it, keeping a jaw grip on the words became that much harder.

What's it like, to understand animals? To speak with the natural world? Ponies keep asking her that question, and she's tried to answer it. The kindest responses she can give are the ones which avoid the truth.

Imagine having hundreds of children. All of them are capable of love, and perhaps that's the worst part.

Each can get along in the world in their own way, but none of them are very bright. They'll never communicate above a given level, they don't truly understand and when compared to ponies, they'll also never fully grow up. They just age.

Then they die.

Sometimes it's natural. Disease can be natural. So are teeth and claws.

They die, when she can't save them. She isn't always able to step in, because the cycle exists. She can protect her own from a predator, make it seek food elsewhere -- but that animal isn't doing anything wrong. It just wants to eat. So she turns it away, and it just means someone she doesn't know will die. If she's lucky.

There are always deaths, and it feels like part of her goes with them. It would be so easy to spend her life in perpetual mourning.

But there's also births.

The babies are beautiful. All infants are. She laughs and plays with them and allows the kittens to practice pouncing with her tail, because at least that means it's good for something. She delights in the company of the young. Ultimate innocence, without the touch of sapience to eventually take it away.

They're going to die too.

For all intents and purposes, there are no animals in Truedawn. Perhaps there's a few burrowers who've managed to find a niche, but... she hasn't heard them.

The world has gone silent.

(Or it would if it wasn't for all of the ponies.)

Perhaps part of her should be grateful. She's getting a break. But the quiet distresses her --

-- does it?

Her mind... it's longed for time away from duty and burden. But in the silence, all she can hear are her own feelings that something is wrong and --

-- does that arise from her mind?
Or from the mark?

Exactly what's doing the thinking?

Which part of her is her?

In the dream...

He told her that she was exactly who she was supposed to be.
He lied about a lot of things. He just had a habit of making those lies into statements.

She dreams, and some of the old alters gallop across her nightscape. A number even fly. One of them has been traveling the world for years, keeping perfect pace with her parents as they all unravel a blizzard before it reaches Mazein. She's strong. Confident. They all are. Bold and a little brash and every last alter knows they're exactly who they're supposed to be.

The original is looking at the pruned branches of time. Cut-away possibilities. All of the things she could have been.

She isn't any of them.

She can't move.

She's surrounded by laughing fillies and colts, spaced out just enough to let her see those alters, the pure ones -- but she can't escape. All she can do is watch and listen, always listening to the sounds from without and within.

Some of those sounds form chants.

...can hardly fly...

The voices she can never fully escape.

Is the hybrid who she was meant to be? Harmony might feel that way. It granted her a necklace. A place.

But in the dream, she can't remember that. The hybrid who is looks at all of the pegasi who might have been, as colts and fillies laugh. And as she's forced to listen, forever listen, the mark burns against her hips. Tells her that she can never be anything else, that there is no escape from burden and duty and death, no way out...

...she's tired. Weary of helplessness and burials and a world without silence.

She wishes she had been somepony else.
Anypony else.
There was a time in her life when she would have given anything for that...

Outside the uneven house, a stone of milky quartz unevenly glints in shield-distorted sunlight.

Pairing

For Trixie, solitude tended to perish easily: the simple act of crossing the border between wild and settled zone could finish it off in a hurry. But the condition also existed in what was effectively a state of near-constant reincarnation. It died, it was reborn at the moment she reached the road again (or, if she'd had a particularly bad time in the last town, somewhat before), and then it would once again offer itself to her as a companion.

When she was hauling the caravan, solitude traveled at her side. It also did so while adding an invisible, intangible weight, and it never took up its own share of the burden.

If she sat on the roof of her rolling residence and tried to orient on the Nightsun, it searched the skies with her. It couldn't comprehend what she was searching for -- but when it came to what her endless travels might have been truly seeking, neither did she.

It was one of the few who would remain on the perpetual journey with her -- even if, just like everypony else, it never truly understood.

Nopony ever understood.

There were multiple vital skills involved in being a traveling performer. Quite a few of them centered on living long enough to reach the next settled zone. A significant leftover concerned what had to be done once she got there.

Here we have a new town, and the first show is going to start soon. Well -- how do you expect ponies to attend the performance if they don't know about it? They're going to need a location, a schedule, and that information needs to be passed on rather quickly because the act of crossing the border started a timer. There's only so long the unicorn can remain in any given settled zone before she has to leave again, and it's just about possible to work out the duration via formula. Determine the local population, figure for how many ponies might attend, recognize that most of them aren't coming back to a second show during the same stay even if she tells everypony that there's at least one new trick in every show, and learn to spot when local interest has been tapped out. Ideally, at least one day before it actually happens.

So start by learning about the place...

Ideally, she would have a few facts memorized before crossing the border. Check the results from the last census, which could be done at any library (and in order to save time, the check for the current town would have been made in the previous one). That provided population. If she was lucky, there would be a map available, and those were vital. Trixie didn't just need to memorize the layout of streets in a hurry, along with finding a good place to deploy the stage and, if at all possible, locating a chemist's shop. (This part didn't always work out.)

She had to work out regional hoof and air traffic flow patterns. Quickly. Because it paid to advertise and if she wanted to collect any income at all, then it really paid to put the one-sheet broadside posters in places where ponies would actually see them.

She would also need broadsides. And while a print shop was generally easier to find than a place which distilled fine acids on request, paying for creation of the posters was an extra expense -- while the wait time for the results could easily consume two days. Accordingly, Trixie carried a small, easily-dismantled printing press in (and under) the caravan. She also had a couple of engraved plates to carry the central images: arranging letters and numbers allowed her to customize for location and showtime. The press was somewhat finicky, required significant maintenance, and was still considerably less prone to breakdown than the average wheel.

(The creation of paper was a somewhat chemical process and while Trixie understood it in full, it was also a little too complex and time-consuming to be done on the road. Reams were one more expense added to her supply sheet. Ink, however, could be coaxed out of multiple plants. Trixie had worked out methods for extracting a vibrancy of hue which only existed in her broadsheets, and hadn't sold any of the processes because she was convinced that nopony in the printing industry wanted to repeatedly fight their way to the best stabilizer. The source of the compound-laden saliva fought back.)

Place the broadsides: something she tended to do deep under Moon when her insomnia was at its peak (and entering a new settled zone tended to set it off anyway): it gave her a reason to be moving around, a chance to learn some of the streets through direct experience, and she personally believed it wasn't a good ideas for the advertiser to be seen planting the advertising. Rest, as much as she could. And on the next day, if there was an audience waiting outside... fascinate, show off, enchant (in several senses), deal with any hecklers and there were still times when she just about had to deal with them in advance...

On a good day, there would be income. Applause was always welcome. Bits kicked towards the stage kept her alive. And after the shows were over, if she still couldn't sleep -- there would be a chance to enjoy the benefits of civilization.

Resupply. Restock. Also, go out and find the town's nightlife. Kick the party tree in a few strategic places and see what she could get to tumble down from a high branch. When it came to interpony relationships, she could easily make -- well, not friends. Acquaintances. Those curious enough about the road life to spend a night in speaking with her, although Trixie knew what most of them wanted there: enough horror stories about travel to reinforce their belief that staying in one place was always the right call to make.

Getting somepony to buy her a drink was easy.

Going beyond that --

-- Trixie tended to treat her own sex drive as an slow-building itch from an incurable bug bite. It was possible to trot around with the sensation of wanting to do something for a good long while without actually acting on it -- but eventually, you had to scratch. Only it would turn out that the bite was in a place she couldn't actually reach, so it was now a matter of finding somepony who would scratch it for her.

She was rather good at identifying those who wanted to share her bed. And then, unless there was no other choice, she would tell them that she was going to be sharing theirs. The caravan technically had enough sleeping space for two, but the cramped quarters meant sleeping was all they were going to be doing. Additionally, much like her overall lifestyle, Trixie's sexual stylings tended to be unstoppably mobile. Within the caravan, she slept on padding or, during those nights when it had been long enough to forget what the sling support tended to do with her spine, in a hammock. If she'd picked somepony up for sex, then the act was going to take place in their bed, around the bed, possibly the living room if the sofa had enough space, and if the fence around the house could block lines of sight from outside it, then the area under the awning looked good.

(The sky-exposed lawns, while they often looked soft enough, were right out. Pegasi existed.)

She could easily locate those who would make good company for an hour. 'A night' was an option and if things were going exceptionally well, she would consider pushing the total to two. But there was only so long she could stay in any given settled zone. Eventually, all of the interested ponies would have already gathered at the stage, and...

...two years. That was what she'd told herself, when she'd first decided to go on the road. In terms of allowing the desire for visiting entertainment to build up again in her audience, along with just needing time to change up so much of her act as to have what was virtually a brand-new set to premiere upon her return... she could return to any given settled zone after two years.

...almost any given settled zone. She couldn't exactly go back to Ponyville. And she never went home.

(Wherever that was.)

Trixie made acquaintances rather easily. She had to, because a life on the road was a life without friends.

It wasn't as if she didn't see a few familiar faces along the way. Merchants, messengers... her path occasionally crossed the ones followed by other travelers, including a photographer whom she didn't want to run into so much as over. But if it wasn't him, then there was nothing wrong with uniting defenses for an evening: everything she could do to secure the caravan, added to whatever her evening's meet-and-greet could add. The ponies would mutually renew their acquaintance, catch up, share hard-won knowledge of hazards to be avoided-- and then separate again once Sun was raised. Trixie didn't count them as friends. She didn't really think of anyone she met on the road as a friend, and it was 'anyone' because she'd crossed the borders a few times. You couldn't be a friend if you weren't a regular part of their life, and the most time Trixie could ever give anyone was a week. Followed by, if she managed to make it through two additional years of travel, the potential for another week.

At some point, she would always need to leave. Hopefully before she had to.

So she didn't have friends.

She'd told herself that she didn't need them.

She'd... made mistakes. Critical ones. Things nopony should have recovered from.

(She was on probation. She frequently felt that she was supposed to be in prison -- at a minimum. Going after the Amulet didn't entitle her to a second chance. The action seemed to create several suggestions regarding the best way to end the first one.)

And then the pony she'd meant to surpass had begun writing to her.

Dragon-powered correspondence. Spike's sendings could find her anywhere on the road -- although until Twilight had figured out how to seal the flames for a little while, Trixie had needed to reach a post office before sending anything back. Solely talking about magic at first, because -- what else could they talk about? What did they have in common? The winner of the blood lottery and personal student of the Princess, versus a mare who'd reacted to her loss through doing -- all of it.

But they'd just kept writing to each other.

...well, why not? Twilight was a Gifted School graduate and Trixie --

-- she could have attended. She was strong enough for that, at least.
She could.
She just hadn't --

-- each mare provided a fresh perspective on the other's research. They pushed each other and this time, did so without sending Trixie into the freefall plummet of morals and sanity which had an Amulet at the bottom. And after a while...

Your friend mostly in spite of herself,
Trixie Lulamoon

She'd signed off on a scroll that way. Without thinking about it or rather, without thinking about it until roughly one a.m.: the subsequent shockwave had carried her all the way to dawn.

...had she meant it?
Twilight thought of her as a friend.
(It was why she was here.)
Trixie didn't have friends...

...keep moving. The caravan had to be pulled to its next destination. She had real trouble staying in one place for very long and no matter what Rarity was probably longing to say, it wasn't because she had arrest warrants chasing her.

The past, under one of the other hooves, kept catching up.

When it came to news coverage... in the weeks following the Amulet, there didn't seem to have really been any. Part of that could probably be credited to the shield and spells which Trix -- which the Amulet had placed around Ponyville. The resonance of avoidance was a good way to keep outside ponies from investigating. And when it came to what had happened after it had all fallen apart... Trixie suspected that the palace had done everything possible to cover up events, largely because the Princess didn't want the population to know the Amulet existed.

So the tales hadn't traveled.

Those who'd lived through the events, however...

Relatively few ponies traveled regularly. Some would visit family in another settled zone, and there was something of a tourist industry -- but the vast majority stayed home. They were born in a given settled zone, they might consider moving to another, and -- that was it. Spending nearly all of their lives in one, perhaps two places. So traveling to the most distant corners of Equestria was a good way to try and ensure nopony you'd -- 'met' -- close to the capital would ever see you again.

Except that they had.

Twice so far. On two occasions, Trixie had gone out on stage, looked out at the audience, and a furious Ponyville accent would start to scream --

-- she... couldn't explain herself.

Even if the words existed, she couldn't explain. Who would ever believe her?

The first time had seen the traveler escorted away by the local police, because he hadn't been all that clear regarding what he was screaming about and once he'd crossed the kicked objects line from produce into rocks, that was it. The second incident had ended when Trixie abandoned the settled zone, less than a day after she'd come in.

If the tales did fully spread --

-- if they crossed borders --

-- keep moving. Stay ahead. Run faster than rumor.

But her path always led back to the road. Alone with her own thoughts.
With her memories.
Remembering the distortions of the Amulet.

She couldn't gallop away from herself.

In Truedawn...

Trixie had traveled across most of Equestria, along with going a fair distance beyond. She was familiar with just about every accent which the continent had to offer (although it would have been nice to stop hearing the designer's for a few days), and so recognized that the community was, in fact, trying to create its own.

It hadn't reached the point where she would have no longer been able to pick out the originals.

She was hearing just about the whole of a nation -- or rather, at least two nations: one earth pony still had the half-clacks of teeth which indicated a childhood spent in Protocera. But there was a rather noticeable absence in the audio map. She hadn't heard Ponyville.

Trixie didn't understand the gap. Simultaneously, she wasn't complaining: to have a Ponyville native here -- the consequences would have been immediate. It was possible that any such pony (and they might still be lurking in Truedawn, just out out of sight) would have come to the southern hemisphere well before Twilight's arrival, but...

...she also didn't understand how the Bearers could truly believe that they wouldn't be spotted. Fluttershy had the fur dye -- but if you knew what the pegasus looked like, then it was all too easy to spot everything under the green. All it took was for one native to have been in the right pre-Truedawn place to see a headline with accompanying picture, and then memory would inevitably kick down the door at exactly the wrong moment. Or to have seen them rather more directly, because the group had traveled across a good part of the continent.

For that matter, Trixie kept waiting for one of the locals to say -- well, something. She traveled more than anypony, her hues maintained their birth colors, her mark wasn't hidden...

...ponies talked to her. Casually chatted, everywhere she went. Tried to find out if she wanted to work on this project or that. None of them had addressed Trixie by her birth name.

(They barely used her assigned name at all.)

Apparently nopony in Truedawn had ever been at one of her shows. (She didn't want to believe that she'd failed to leave any degree of impression.) But with the Bearers -- it felt as if somepony had to be capable of identifying them. And all she could do was wait for it to happen.

But for now, she was learning the paths and byways of the town. It was good to know exactly where every street went, although the prospect of memorizing fast exit routes was more than slightly hampered by the existence of the shield.

And of course, she had tour guides. Whether she wanted them or not.

Her group had already been out to the farming area. Trixie had used the little harvesting session to inspect whatever she could, generally while nopony was looking. And now that they were back in town...

They kept offering her snacks. Extremely sugary stuff: ten minutes of feeling as if you'd had the kind of full meal which would let you take on the day, followed by three hours of wondering exactly how long the post-sweetness crash could keep going. She carefully, politely refused, over and over. She was going to need actual food, and it certainly wasn't going to come from that one cafe. The most likely possibility was that she'd wind up scrounging something. Trixie was good at sourcing food. She didn't really understand farming, but acquiring edibles in safety was another travel skill. In the wild zones, half of the plants would be trying to eat you first.

But at the moment, there were four ponies with her, eager to answer any trivial questions she might have about the center of town as the miniherd moved underneath a fast-darkening sky --

-- she stopped, hooves coming to a halt on uneven streets: the rest of the group paused in concert. Looked up towards the shield, and spotted the blackening clouds moving in from the west.

"You don't look startled," the nearest stallion said: a pegasus named Yliner. (She'd already noticed that his wings never managed to sit in a true rest position.) With a smile -- the standard smile -- he added, "I guess that's part of being an -- explorer, right?"

She nodded.

"Because usually when we get new arrivals," Yliner continued, "it'll be the first time they've been off the weather schedule." With a soft laugh, "I spent more than a week checking the side of my bathroom mirror. Like it was just going to appear! And some ponies, when they're dealing with wild weather for the first time..." A little more gently, "They don't take it well. We try to get them through it."

Another nod.

It would have been easy for Trixie to say something back. She was good at talking. Stage patter. Getting the audience going. She had also found herself in possession of a near mark-level talent for having her mouth write vouchers which her horn couldn't cash.

Let them talk. See what they say...

But now Yliner was just watching the clouds close in and if one Truedawn resident was doing something, then the other three in the group had to join in. Five total sets of eyes, all looking up.

Trixie brought her gaze back down. Just for variety.

"Believe it or not," the pegasus finally went on, "this is the dry season."

"Well," one of the mares giggled, "the drier one..."

It made him laugh. "Yeah. Most of the rain is mid-autumn through early spring. But it usually doesn't stay completely clear for more than a day or two." He examined the overcast sky. "I know it looks bad, but I'm pretty sure this one's just going to be a spritzer --"

-- he stopped. The smile twitched around the edges, and the left hip seemed to hitch inwards.

"Are you okay?" Trixie quickly asked.

"It's nothing," he immediately reassured her.

The clouds continued to thicken. Darkness billowed overhead, and night tried to close in without benefit of Moon.

"You must stay pretty dry under here, though," the performer cued.

"Oh, absolutely!" declared a significant amount of pride. "If we had to treat the wood on the homes to deal with this much rain..."

I know a few treatments. Along with sealing techniques. A mobile home had a significant need for weatherproofing and when you mostly lived on the road, getting pegasi to recharge fading wonders wasn't a common option. "That reminds me," Trixie carefully said. "Is there a chemist's shop?"

Yliner immediately shook his head. "Nopony's really taken an interest. I can add it to the list, though."

Please don't. Under the one hoof, it would have helped to know she could acquire certain materials -- but under one of the others, given the low-to-absent standards on just about everything in Truedawn, keeping the locals away from the more unstable compounds felt like a really good idea. Besides, if it came down to an emergency, she knew how to kick a few things together --

"Usually, if we need something for science," Yliner added, "we just ask --"

He stopped talking.

The silence instantly caught Trixie's attention. There was just about always somepony talking in the group, because giving anypony a moment for quiet thought just wasn't welcoming enough. The fact that he'd spontaneously shut up was worthy of note --

-- his wings didn't flare out to full span. They merely twitched, and dulled feathers rustled. But then he stepped back, moving away from her at the same moment when the rest of the miniherd retreated. Careful, casual hoofsteps which took them out of Trixie's immediate vicinity, creating a zone of silent privacy -- doing so in the exact instant when she heard another set of hooves moving in.

In time, it would become possible to identify the new arrival just from the sound of her hoofsteps. The four-beat of keratin was distinctly regulated.

The lilac unicorn came to a stop about half a body length away from Trixie, silently standing on the left.

Trixie briefly considered how it would have looked from the outside. The only two nude (or mostly so, as Starlight had saddlebags), visibly marked mares in a settled zone where everypony else kept their hips constantly covered. The performer had spotted how some of Truedawn's residents reacted to her own icon, and quickly wondered whether the rest of the group might have retreated simply because they didn't want to deal with that much nausea in one place.

But the thought was immediately discarded. She knew why they were being given space.

The storm began, and the sound of it made Trixie look up. She saw water hitting the shield, and once it made contact...

Shield: a solidified expression of a unicorn corona. Which meant that when it came to liquids, the reaction was just like that of an active field.

Water fell onto the shield. Then it began to twist its way along the surface, quickly forming a madmare's map of tiny rivers and tributaries. Rivulets met, merged, divided again, tried to flow left and right and made a game attempt at going up the slope before gravity got a word in. It was like watching a living, clear demonstration of flow through the thousands of tiny blood vessels which lay just beneath the skin.

Trixie watched. The new arrival gazed up, regarded the same display.

Both of them held the position for several breaths,

"It's not random," Starlight calmly said, with a raised head seeming to address the storm.

"You'll have to narrow that down," Trixie evenly replied.

"For 'it', you mean."

Trixie nodded.

"Interesting," Starlight considered. "Most ponies would have begun to guess. You want clarification."

"Yes." Still looking up.

It was easy to make acquaintances most of the time, and Truedawn provided camouflage for the most frequent opening gambit. All you had to do was smile, smile...

"The movement of liquids along a field," Starlight clarified. "There are aspects of a casting which can influence the route."

Trixie blinked. "You've isolated the control factors?"

"To a degree," the other unicorn calmly replied. "It's easier to suggest large-scale flow patterns than small ones, and enforcing every route along a casting of that size... not yet. The managed area has to be predetermined and regularly reinforced." Which was immediately followed by, "You sounded curious."

"Personally," Trixie told her, "I'm sick of shaping my corona into a crude mug, dipping it into a clean river, and watching nearly all of my drink flow along the outside..."

Starlight nodded. Both unicorn mares lowered their heads, looked at each other. And for Trixie, who'd needed to learn how to read an audience...

Starlight's body language wasn't. There were times when her reactions came in two beats behind, or simply looked at the cadance dictated by the tablature and decided they wanted no part of it. (Trixie had also needed to figure out how to rig a gramophone to get musical stings during a performance.) And when it came to eye contact, the other mare initially seemed to be regarding the place where Trixie just happened to be.

Pupils focused.

"This stage won't take very long," Starlight told her. "It can't. I need to go take care of something, and that has to be done today. But it won't become critical for some time. I felt that there was a better use for the intermediary period. Something worthwhile." From just about anypony else, there might have been a pause. "You."

Trixie was almost flattered. Somepony felt she was worth their time. For a performer in more normal circumstances, it would have worked out to a compliment.

"I'm worthwhile?" It emerged with half the lilt of a tease, along with a sudden urge to look around and make sure Rarity wasn't in a geographical position to disagree.

"Extremely."

Starlight's horn ignited. The right saddlebag opened, and the battered notebook emerged. Turned itself to a fresh page, as ink bottle and quill got into position.

"I've never met a marked innovator," the lilac unicorn evenly stated. "Given the frequency charts for talents, I could reasonably expect several decades to pass before encountering another. This is a circumstance which should not be allowed to go to waste --"

Trixie's entire body had frozen at the sixth word.

"Innovator," a surprisingly dry mouth forced out. "How did you --"

Starlight shifted position, with every limb moving as if it was being operated from a slight distance. Came to a stop in front of Trixie, about a standard tail length away, and then nodded towards the performer's exposed mark.

"The lost channeling device," the mare said. "I recognized it immediately. In mark iconography, representing the means by which new magic enters the world. Accompanied by what I currently believe to be a fairly stylized crescent Moon. I'm currently uncertain as to the influence there. Of course, when dealing with mark iconography, your own interpretations of such things become important --"

"-- you," Trixie carefully cut in, forcing her voice to remain steady, "just worked out what my talent was. From my mark."

"A rare event for you," Starlight considered. "Given the scarcity of both talent and icon. Your shock is unsurprising." Another not-pause. "I didn't intend to cause offense --"

"-- you didn't." Shock, however...

"Good." Two beats, and then a shrug. "I study. Mark iconography is a fascinating topic. One seldom finds a science which can operate under seemingly subjective rules. And with your talent..." The quill dipped itself in the ink. "I heard you introduce yourself as 'Casta'. That would be correct?"

Trixie nodded.

Writing began. "It's surprisingly sensible to have an innovator as part of an exploration team," Starlight decided. "As exploring what would have come across as a new part of the world would almost have to lead into new magic. I would propose that somepony decided you were the best-suited to comprehend whatever was found." The quill lifted, left a small gap, started on a fresh sentence. "There are some who would argue that your most natural home would be a laboratory. But in my experience, the world itself provides the place for study. Do you solely travel as part of exploration duties?"

"No," Trixie carefully admitted. "I've always tried to get out there. I spend most of my time on the road. Or going where there aren't any." Because that last part would have been expected --

"You've left Equestria before? I ask because there is certainly sufficient wild zones remaining to be explored within the borders."

"A few times. For civilized areas -- Mazein was the most recent."

"Pundamilia Makazi?" Starlight inquired. "Protocera?"

"Very briefly, and for about a moon."

The lilac unicorn nodded. and then didn't so much change topics as casually wrench a new one on top of the old. "'Casta'," she considered. "I haven't read any articles written by somepony of that name. Where do you publish?"

Immediately, as her mind scrambled past a thorn-shrouded thicket of questions about just how much Starlight delved into thaumatological research journals, "I don't."

"A marked innovator," the Truedawn resident neutrally said, "who doesn't publish."

"Because there's no point."

Starlight blinked. She had to do that occasionally. Dust got on the corneas.

"Explain."

All around the pair, pony ears tilted away from the discussion. Above them, the rain pattered. Invisible veins, filled with the clear blood of the world, flowed along the shield. Darkness moved above them, twisted and warped into fractal shapes.

The performer had been trying to come up with a plausible lie. But there were times when the truth was easier.

"You can't get feel from words," Trixie said. "Or diagrams, or even pictures showing corona layering around a horn and arrows pointing to where the angles are distorting. If I really want to show somepony a new working, then that's exactly what it has to be: showing them. Otherwise, I'm just passing along theories. And if I do that too much, then somepony might be able to follow them all the way to the end and demonstrate in public first. Then they get the credit, and I just --"

-- there were already enough falsehoods being corona-juggled. She didn't need to add any more to the mix. So she'd intended to provide a portion of truth.

She wasn't sure she'd intended to give up that much of it, and finding that her head had dipped at the very end came as a complete surprise --

-- tingling turquoise touched her chin, raised her head again.

"Something which has happened before," Starlight deduced. "And so you no longer consider submitting for publication."

The performer was silent.

"You've been to various places within the shield dome," the other mare continued. "Including our agricultural section. And you know that the rain remains on the exterior of the working. What did you think of the moisture collectors?"

"They aren't wonders," Trixie promptly said. "I got close enough to get a good look at one. There's no copper. You can't channel the thaums for pegasus magic without it."

Starlight silently nodded.

"So I thought -- solar stills," the performer added.

This time, the blink felt sincere.

"An explorer would know how to do that..." Starlight thoughtfully considered. "You've made them?"

"I've been in the desert." Dig a hole -- which was actually the hardest part, as ponies weren't naturally suited to the activity. Make it onto a conical shape, with a hollow at the very bottom. Place something smooth all around the edges, made of a substance which wouldn't absorb water. Plant a mug in the bottom hollow and wait. The long-term results would keep a solo traveler alive. "But yours are elevated. That can influence how much you get. And given what you just told me about the shield..."

Starlight's ears rotated all the way forward. Trixie thought.

"Humidity is a pegasus domain," she cautiously began.

"It's not so much crossing the border into their territory," Starlight told her, "as seeing where the lines aren't drawn. Continue, please."

She did.

"Little flickers of field," Trixie breathed. "Just enough to catch the humidity. And then the field releases, and the water trickles down..."

And Starlight nodded.

"There are persistent rumors regarding unicorns and weather magic," she said. "One of the more outlandish ones is rather recent. But there have also been those who tried to cast their way through the divisions. Attempts which failed. One of the initial considerations for our crops was, in fact, the use of solar stills. But the moisture collected was insufficient. I simply approached the issue from a different perspective. And you had additional information when contemplating the problem -- but regardless, you worked out what had been done."

A few more lines were jotted down, and then the notebook closed itself. Everything went back into the battered saddlebag --

-- Starlight looked at Trixie.

It was something which went beyond mere focus. The sudden intensity felt like spending an hour straining to hear background music and then having a tuba go off directly in both ears.

There was power in that gaze. Judgment --

-- the local turned away, because she had decided it was time to do something else. Began to move.

"We'll talk again," Starlight offered as she calmly trotted away beneath the blackened sky. "I believe we should both treat it as an opportunity."

ShopTalk

When viewed from the outside, Starlight's workshop represented the temporary death of uncertainty.

It wasn't something Twilight had really been able to say about the other buildings in Truedawn. To look at the construction quality for the typical residence raised the question of whether anypony would actually want to live there: this was shortly followed by a rather strident 'Why?' And if a structure had been intended to house a business...

The little mare didn't have any real background in retail. But she'd seen how Rarity and Applejack tended to arrange their displays (and after the mark switch, the farmer had become a little more sensitive to how she coordinated her colors). She'd also been in Barnyard Bargains more than a few times, and that was the sort of design elegance which never truly got noticed because it was the casual invisibility of an arrangement which simply worked. Items were placed within ready reach of a careful jaw, the aisles of merchandise followed the sort of natural progression which had Spices in close proximity to Cookery because as long as you were thinking about experimenting with the second, then here's the first for your neighbor's soon-to-be entertainment. Endcaps rotated their featured items with the seasons, sales were clearly marked, and you never really thought about any of it because that was how the store was supposed to work. In an environment where operating on the edges of perfection could easily turn into the default, ponies would notice what was off long before they picked up on what was right.

Which meant that in Truedawn, she never really stopped noticing... everything, and it was starting to make her head hurt.

Twilight had never really worked in retail: any principles she understood had mostly been absorbed by osmosis. But she was still fairly certain that display windows needed to have a little more glass available for -- well, displaying. And the glass could have been more smooth, because you didn't want those views to be distorted. Also, whatever the shield might (or might not) do with sunlight didn't seem to prevent Sun-bleaching, and some of the central pieces had clearly been there a little too long.

Of course, there was one type of building which Twilight told herself that she not only understood, but probably had a few suggestions to make concerning better interior planning. And for some reason, the marked custodians in any towns they visited would have an odd insistence on letting things go forward with their own systems --

-- she'd found Truedawn's library.

It hadn't been intentional. She'd spotted the fast-darkening lumen level, looked up in time to see the storm coming in, and then kept looking for just as long as she dared, watching the rainfall interact with the shield. (Tikr, who had no way to know what she was truly examining, had felt her inspection was weather-related and made a few comments about the local rainy season accordingly.) And when she'd looked down, tried to reorient on where they've been heading...

Right there. A small building, crude and half-finished and with a woodworking quality so poor that she almost looked around to see if she could spot a trio of barely-adolescent fillies who'd just failed to get a mark for that too. But even if it did so with lettering which looked as if the characters had been chewed out of the nailed-up plank, the sign above the door still read Library.

She'd needed to see.

...okay, she'd understood that she really couldn't take a full look around. Not a comprehensive one, certainly. They'd been heading towards the workshop, and perhaps Tikr would have asked a few questions if Twilight had completely changed her mind.

(It was possible that he would have asked questions. When it came to inquiries made about Twilight, they would have just about been the first ones.)

But she'd told him that she wanted to take a quick peek. He'd nodded, and of course he'd smiled because that was all he ever seemed to do. And she'd taken her quick peek -- which, in the absence of the authority which would have allowed her to start fixing things, had been nearly all she could stand.

There were a few shelves, which had mostly been unevenly nailed to the wall. No bookcases. A proper bookcase, even when well-balanced and smoothed so as to present no danger to its contents, was essentially a subdivided open-faced rectangle. Simple. Twilight found herself darkly wondering why she'd believed anypony in Truedawn was capable of managing that.

No librarian's desk was in evidence. No central station, and certainly nopony who had decided to try out being in charge. There was a card catalog of sorts or rather, you had a long box with cards in it. Blank ones. Which made it very easy to tell how the checkout system worked, because anypony who claimed a book would write down something along the lines of Home Plumbing Repairs currently with Nysi and pin it just below the now-vacant spot on the shelf. This immediately told Twilight three things: nopony had any idea as to how libraries were run, ponies were apparently much better about following shelving order than they were in Ponyville, and it gave her a quick low-bulk guide on Truedawn resident names. (Two of the three immediately combined to give her a headache.) It was take-and-go on the honor system, and the most annoying part was that it seemed to be working.

No newspapers, not even a locally-printed one-sheet -- and printing was available, because the library offered up an old, poorly-maintained small press. No periodicals. And when it came to the books...

There was very little diversity of contents. She saw one small shelf of well-nosed thaumic fiction, some of which had little bits of colored tape coming off the pages. One section was labeled as Donations, and that was a tiny scattershot group which could have been pulled from the bookcase of nearly any pony home -- if that reader had an interest in international fiction: most of the tomes had been translated. And there was also a shelf which had proudly been designated as Our Writings and while she was almost desperate for a community history -- even the tree had some donated journals and documents written by Ponyville's founders -- a quick glance at the spines of those poorly-bound books told her they were fiction. She didn't want to investigate them too closely, because it seemed likely that the sentences would possess the same degree of craftwork as the shelves.

But they stood out for being fiction. Just about everything else in the... 'library' was a how-to guide. Written advice on creation and construction. (Given how the results had turned out, she could safely presume there was nothing around for improving reading comprehension.) How to make this or, when it came to the few foal's overviews of adult career paths which had somehow wandered into the place, how to be this.

And that was it.

Perhaps she'd missed something: it had been a short survey. With the headache coming in fast, it couldn't have been much of anything else. But for what she could see... it was barely a library at all. Most personal collections would have outshone it, and one of those belonged to Rainbow.

She wanted to fix it. Reorganize. Plant herself at the desk, which had an initial requirement of finding both a decent desk and a bench which wouldn't be trying to kill her. And still... it did what a library was supposed to do. It let her learn something.

I recognize that title.

Twilight had to process new releases into the tree's catalogs once per week. It meant dealing with a lot of titles.

And that stupid edge slice of artwork. Somepony thought that if you lined up all of the books next to each other in publication order, you could get a full picture. It doesn't work as well when you've just got the one.

Books which came from everywhere.

But maybe minotaurs don't think it looks as dumb.

That book came out seven moons ago. And that one over there... I'd have to check the printing, but...

A lot of the texts looked like remaindered copies, while others had already been indicated as donations. But there were a few fairly recent publications. Editions which had been printed in various parts of the world, stored away from the public contributions.

It was another sign that somepony in Truedawn was leaving regularly. Using the teleportation rods for return to the northern hemisphere, and bringing purchases back.

Something to think about.

Something which wasn't a plan for fixing the library.

...buildings in Truedawn weren't locked. All she had to do was get up deep under Moon, go right in...

Not that she'd brought her stealth suit. (Rarity still hadn't recut it for wings.)
Not that it had ever worked.
(Twilight preferred to blame the suit.)

She'd forced herself to spend no more than two minutes in the library -- 'library'? -- because if it had been any longer, it would have turned into ten hours. They'd kept going from there, moving towards the base of the cliff. And in time...

Just about every structure in the community was poorly-made, uneven, splintery, existed with dubious intent of purpose and when you were told what that purpose had been, disbelief tried to get several words in. But even when viewed from the outside, Starlight's sanctum put a very short-term stop to that. Because if you knew anything about magical research, then the proper sentence to say upon looking at the building was 'That's a workshop, all right'.

The structure was also the first thing in Truedawn which Twilight didn't want to fix.

(How hard could it be just to smooth things out? Somepony was going to get hurt...)

She just had an odd urge to decorate.

It was absolutely a workshop. It had clearly been forbidden from even thinking about being anything else.

Starlight's workshop had been placed against the base of the cliff. It was defended at the back by rock, on all other sides by Truedawn's collective desire to give the occupant some privacy, and everything in between had been taken care of by some very solid walls.

It had been built next to the start of the narrow ascent path which switchbacked its way up the cliff. Starlight had the option to just trot up to the cave any time she liked -- if she took some care, and she would need to let herself out of the shield well before reaching her destination. Still... convenience and efficiency. The dozen full water barrels had even been set down near the point of first access, while allowing plenty of room to move onto the trail. Applejack had probably supervised the placement.

With the building itself... if compared to something in an Equestrian settled zone, it was perhaps the most normal structure in Truedawn. And simultaneously, it turned into the strangest.

It was about half the size of Applejack's residence -- the vertical half, because the workshop existed on a single above-ground level. However, there was visual evidence of a basement: walls seemed to cut a little too deep into the soil, and Twilight spotted a pair of low air vents: currently closed.

The heavy walls -- mostly dark stone, with some strategic placement of what Twilight understood to be black ironwood: the Princesses used it for conference tables -- had been smoothed. Every corner was precise. There were very few windows, and Twilight instinctively understood that the ones which were present had been placed for two reasons: some experiments needed natural sunlight, and others benefited from having a single weaker spot in the design because the pressure from an explosion would exit that way first.

There was a slowly-rotating flanged circular vent atop one of the more reinforced sections. Heat and fume dispersal. Twilight automatically assumed that was where the chemistry lab was, and possibly the forge.

A hidden horn tested the air, and found an outright miasma of lingering thaums: old castings, possibly with more recent spells lurking behind them. The majority of them were wrapped up in each other. She couldn't truly hope to sort out exactly which working was doing what without considerably more time added to Truedawn's scarcest commodity: privacy.

There could be a shield generator in there.
A teleportation rod.
...there could be anything in there and the only way I'd get to find out...

Some of the spells would be defenses. It was a workshop. Defenses were mandatory, and typically designed to prevent anypony else from trotting in at a bad moment. When a workshop was truly active, any interrupted moment had the potential to become very bad.

Thick walls. Reinforced construction. The interior would be subdivided, with buffer sections making sure no single mistake had the chance to go very far --

"You're definitely interested," Tikr noted. "Are you looking for anything in particular?"

"Foundation stone," Twilight immediately said. "A marked one."

He didn't frown. (She wasn't sure if he could.) But he did blink a little and, upon hearing the word 'marked', added a twitch.

"That's a new one on me," the stallion said. "But I'm always willing to learn!" With a slight chuckle, "Aren't we all, right? Or we wouldn't be here. So what's a foundation stone?"

I've been looking at your buildings. You might have had the same response on 'hinge'. And there's a word you didn't say...

"More of a Mazein thing than Equestrian," Twilight admitted. "It's the first above-ground stone placed in a visible spot, and it'll always be at a corner. Minotaurs like to engrave them with the date when construction began, and the names of the builders." It would have indicated how long the workshop had been there. But there was no such detail, and she decided it was inconsiderate.

"Interesting," Tikr decided with, as expected, a smile. "Maybe we can put one into the next thing we all build."

It also would have been a personal touch.

Twilight knew a magic researcher's workshop when she saw one. The tree's basement was largely improvised, and she was always trying to make improvements. But when it came to the recommended model... the Gifted School had its share, all of which existed in some degree of isolation from the main campus. (When standard classes within the school itself gave the place a tendency to detonate every few moons, those portions which dealt with advanced personal studies needed a little extra separation.) A few ponies had let her go into their sanctums, mostly with some reluctance. And she'd seen one of Star Swirl's lost facilities, in a dream which had skirted the edges of memory.

She didn't want to remember that dream. Something in her desired to push it away forever. But right now, she needed the comparison.

This was absolutely a workshop. And if Starlight was truly the community's physician, then it might have had aspects of a medical facility within -- but not without. A research workshop had to be heavy-duty construction, and such possessed deliberate elements of forbiddance: do not enter here without advance notice and permission, because a pony who arrives in one piece isn't guaranteed to leave without picking up some involuntary plurals. For a doctor's office, or a hospital... the tendency was to try for reassurance. Encouraging ponies to relax. The blatant attempts never worked. Open, sunlit, airy waiting areas stopped mattering at the moment you remembered just what you were waiting for.

There might have been a sickbay within, or even a surgery. But from the outside, the building registered at a workshop rating of one hundred percent.

And that was the problem.

The structure's mere existence confirmed the occupant as a dedicated student of magic, and a skilled one. But in style...

It's like somepony followed instructions exactly. If the diagram said 'ninety-degree bend', then that's what they did. Ninety precisely-measured degrees.

The door frame is regimented. Reinforcements are just about military, and expected to follow all marching orders. If there's a single error, you stop and fix it. Maybe you tear that section down and start over, because the repaired section wouldn't have started as perfect and that's not acceptable.

No mistakes in the construction. Errors would die in its vicinity, possibly from embarrassment.

But there's no personal touches. The colors are those of the wood and stone. He...

Star Swirl. Not her.

...wanted everypony to know it was his workshop. There were little signs. I didn't see his mark anywhere near the door, but -- maybe that's more of a modern thing. He just had curves, here and there. The hues stood out. They weren't artistic, but they were colorful. Intending to be noticed.

It was big and brash and visually loud because he wanted everypony to know it was his.

Every researcher puts their personal stamp on a building. Placement of the blast windows. Exact locations for the emergency equipment. Paint. Shading. Favorite perfume sprinkled around to hide some of the chemical smells.

This was made by somepony who followed instructions exactly. No errors, honest or otherwise. But there's also nothing here which suggests 'Starlight works here'. Or that anypony works here.

It's as if... there was a picture in a book. And now there's a building next to a cliff, which looks just like that picture.

"What do you think of it?" Tikr asked.

Clinical artistry?

"Very solid," Twilight said, and had to raise her volume to get past the approaching noise of squeaking cart wheels.

"It is, isn't it?" Tikr delightedly latched onto what just had to be a compliment. "I'll tell her you said that! -- oh, and here comes company..."

He glanced backwards. Twilight followed his gaze --

-- more water on the way. Two carts, six very big barrels, several ponies --

"We'll help you!" Tikr called out to the approaching haul teams, immediately volunteering and, to save time, also volunteering her. "They've got to be tired after bringing that here, right? A helping hoof in times of need, pressing back with equal force against the one who needs that help!"

He smiled at Twilight. The expression was strong, constant, and came with tangible pressure. Something which was starting to gather reinforcements, because the approaching ponies were also looking at her...

"You will help, won't you?" Tikr asked her, and did so just a little too late for the deed to actually mean anything. "In Truedawn, we work as a team."

She was being watched now. Observed by the herd.

Twilight looked at the barrels.

I couldn't levitate them all the way to the cave. Because the shield is in the way. Also because when somepony's standing in one place and projecting their corona straight up, there's only so high they can lift anything. Get past a certain point and the field starts to lose cohesion.

But I could unload both carts in one go. Put the barrels right next to the trailhead in just about a single move, and do so without getting near a double corona.

...I am currently a pegasus.
With an injured wing.
A very small pegasus.
And that's a lot of water weight.
If I try to unload them physically...
...oh dear.

It was water weight. You could shove at it. And then it would shove right back...

"Something wrong?" Tikr politely asked.

She got right to the point. "I can't fly right now. And even if I could... I'm not that strong, and I -- I can't get a pressure carry going. Not with the weight of a full barrel, and not with the shape of the barrel. I... don't know what I can do."

"Push," the stallion promptly answered. "With your head. While the rest of the team is doing the same. Any contribution makes the whole easier." And with a friendly tone added to what felt like a practiced speech, "If any given pony can only manage one percent of a task, then the job isn't impossible. It just means you need a hundred ponies. It all adds up, doesn't it?"

The carts came to a stop. Ponies could have unhitched themselves, moved around to the back and begun to work on untying the fasteners which were strapped across each barrel. But they didn't. They watched her. As a team.

My horn is currently hidden from sight.
Illusions don't do anything to fool the physical environment.
If I push too hard with my head, on the expected angle, then everypony is going to be wondering why the barrel has a horn-sized leak.

"Any help is still help," Tikr decided. "And we could really use the assist. It's a lot of water..."

The group continued to watch. Wait.

Working with the herd...

"Do you need a little extra energy first?" the stallion checked. "I've got some candy."

Too many sugars, and Twilight dearly needed something more solid -- but it was the only thing available. There was just the minor issue of trusting Truedawn food.

"...I..." she said, and felt the observations. A dozen amateur scientists waiting on the results of the social experiment.

It was like being underwater. Pressure from all sides, while individuality suffocated and threatened to drown.

But they were all trying to prevent questions from being raised. Attempting to fit in.

"...you roll those down an incline, right?" Twilight asked. "Maybe if I stood in front of one and braced the barrel against my back legs, so it doesn't roll too fast. You don't want them picking up speed and crashing. And my hind legs are stronger than the fore anyway."

He smiled.

"You've done this before!"

With cider barrels.
But that was with my horn.
This...

"I can try," Twilight said, because they were expecting her to try.

And then they were working.

They were all working. Together. Somepony got a barrel unstrapped, another hooked the ramp into place, and then two more began to push the first barrel while her team kept it from rolling too quickly...

It was a dance, one where she'd never learned the full steps. And yet she moved exactly on time, simply from watching the others moving. This part of the herd acted in one way, and then the next segment stepped in. Working as a team.

There was a comfort in it.

The work was going smoothly. They all watched each other. Corrected for any mistakes. She had trouble getting her back legs up at one point, because it wasn't a natural position for her and the fore were still taking most of the weight on the downslope: a Truedawn resident instantly stepped in and helped her shore the barrel up.

Fit in. Act as everypony else acts. Be part of the herd. She could be herself later.

...if she wanted to be.

Company and reinforcement and always something to do...

It's almost funny.
When I didn't think friendship was important, it was easy to just be myself.
Then I made the opposite decision.
And I got to be everypony else.

Somepony started up a shanty. She hummed along.

The earth pony wished she could have told herself that she was heading for home, but it would have been a lie.

There were ways in which Applejack could have qualified the claim, of course. In the best case, every hoofstep taken in Truedawn (including the ones she was currently directing towards her assigned quarters) was theoretically bringing them that much closer to figuring out what was going on and in that sense, yes, she could hope to treat them as moving her towards Ponyville. Except that they still didn't know what the community was up to, and it was far too easy to feel as she was moving across a quagmire of quicksand. Every attempt to push herself towards safety might just pull her in that much deeper.

Then again, the way you got out of quicksand (at least if you didn't happen to be an earth pony who could simply relocate the bottom of the pit to be directly below your hooves) was to let the body -- relax. Try to float, almost drift towards safety and once you reached the border, you could get yourself back to firm ground. It was a sensible approach. But for a mare who was fully used to directing her own actions, it also meant she was basically letting the local part of the world take over on her behalf and within the distortions of Truedawn, that could start to feel like a really bad idea. Especially when reaching the nearest 'safe' section of the planet required significant travel through a foreign wild zone and, just as much to the point, required getting on the other side of the shield.

Quicksand...

...maybe it was more of a tar pit. You could brush away quicksand, once it dried. Something about the community felt oddly... sticky.

Oh, she hadn't minded putting in some honest labor, and there was a certain fundamental joy to doing it with company -- although in full truth, it would have been a lot more pleasant if that company had been somewhat more competent. There were ponies who liked to go around saying 'Work smarter, not harder' as if it was the solution to anything life could kick at you. Applejack's response was fundamental: 'Why not go an' do both?' And Truedawn worked dumb.

It wasn't just the lack of the Cornucopia Effect in the farming areas. Applejack could accept that whatever was happening in the community could potentially have some effects on magic: the Effect just might not be available. But when it came to solving other work issues, Truedawn attacked problems with raw numbers -- and the integers available were provided by the census count. They didn't work smarter. It was cumulative force from a herd which was looking for something to do. So many of the little shortcuts just weren't there. The one time she'd seen somepony who'd seemed to be on the verge of implementing a rather overdue idea --

-- maybe it had just been bad timing, having hip muscles pain him at that exact moment. But once the spasm had passed, he'd lost all interest in setting up what would have been both necessary and overdue refinements on the postharvest sorting line. She'd had to do it.

...at least she'd gotten a look at some more of the crops. The moisture condensers were still giving her trouble and a number of the edibles were completely foreign: she'd seen illustrations of physalis in books (and you had to appreciate a fruit which came with its own wrapper), but today had marked her first encounter with black sapote: a name which had made no sense until a unicorn had cut open the green skin. The interior had the color and consistency of dark chocolate pudding: based on the scent, it potentially even shared a little of the taste. She was still considering whether it was worth trying to bring some seeds home.

There had been no unusual diseases spotted among the agriculture. Nothing had appeared to be completely unnatural. Then again, some changes were subtle.

She'd put in what she considered to be a fair amount of labor, including with the barrels (and she had to remember to tell Twilight about the association between the cave and the need for that water). Her presence had made things go more quickly: working smarter, along with just being the strongest pony there. And she'd tried to keep her ears rotating, hearing what ponies were talking about, but -- it had mostly just been old jokes. Community gossip didn't mean as much when she wasn't sure just who was who within the community. Pinkie was probably approaching a full list of names and could automatically connect them all to faces, but Applejack didn't have that gift.

Names...

Introduced mahself around, much as Ah could. 'Hi, I'm Roseceae!' Wasn't too worry 'bout anypony recognizing mah House. Barely anypony in the world who seems to know the House exists.

Ah got a lot of names back. But hardly anypony would use mine. Just that one mare towards the end. An' she cut it down t' 'Rosa'. Said it sort of suited me.

An' then she looked -- embarrassed, Ah think. Kind of worried. An' she added 'Right now, anyway'.

Like Ah'm gonna change mah name at any minute.

Memorizing names in bulk wasn't her strength. She was somewhat better with learning paths. Trot down one trail, figure out how to find and follow it again after. It was how she was making her way back to their granted street.

Something which she was doing alone. Two ponies had tried to keep her company, but she was faster on the trot than they were and anyway, they weren't any better at tracking than they were at anything else.

Get back. Check on things. Then head out again.

There was a lot to check on.

She'd seen a few of the others making the rounds. Fluttershy had gone by at one point: head down, with the small visible portion of the caretaker's features coming across as harried. Applejack figured that 'Shy had just hit her limit on strangers for the day, and was probably taking a nap. She would peek into that house and make sure everything was okay -- but there were other things to worry about first.

The security of their possessions was on that list. Friendly faces were nice to have around. When you were surrounded by ponies you didn't know, good locks were a lot more reassuring.

But for the most part --

-- an' there's the street. Thought Ah had it right.

-- she was worried about Spike.

It wasn't just the possibility of somepony going into that house and finding him. That was a near-constant concern, but -- he was bright, a certain lack of size provided a plethora of hiding places, and Luna's necklace would only aid in his concealment efforts. Most of Applejack's dragon-based anxiety was based in slightly-displaced experience.

Namely, she had a younger sibling, she knew how kids reacted to prolonged periods of extended boredom, and they'd all left a fairly youthful boy alone in a house where there was very little to do.

...all right, it was Spike. The group had been carrying books which had (obviously outdated) information on the region: there was a fair chance that Twilight's sibling might have tried to read for a while. And the little dragon had something of a domestic bent, which substituted for all of the housekeeping instincts his sister didn't have. Applejack was sure that he would have avoided any cooking which required an active chimney, but it was possible that he'd occupied his time through declaring war on dust. And in doing so, might have scored the best possible victory: four whole days before it had to be done again.

It also seemed likely that if nopony checked in on him for most of a day, their Protector would decide that they'd all been gone too long. Which clearly meant there were something he needed to go Protect them from.

As backup contingencies and potential saves went, it wasn't the worst thing to have stored in a saddlebag. But they all worried about him, and if the desperation solution were to be implemented without true cause...

She stopped at the door, raised her right forehoof to knock -- then remembered that it was technically her house and besides, nopony in Truedawn seemed to knock. A knock would probably just send Spike scurrying for the nearest concealment, just from the novelty.

Applejack went inside.

The earth pony carefully nudged the door shut behind her with a hind hoof, rotated her ears and listened. Nothing.

Staying away from windows, making as little sound as possible.
Ain't hearin' nopony else in here, though.
Which don't mean there ain't somepony bein' silent an' still.
Real... Quiet.

Speaking directly to Spike, with a hidden observer in the area, would give the game away. But she had to take the chance.

"Spike?" Applejack softly called out. "Can you hear me?"

The young voice sent relief flooding through her body.

"I'm in the bedroom," Spike carefully projected. "I... was hoping somepony would come back soon."

"I know," the farmer sighed. "We stuck you without much of anything to do and a bunch of academic stuff to read. I think I passed a library at one point. Maybe if I pick you out something?" With a faint smile, "Although most places want proof of residency before they'll lend --"

Soft. Controlled. And, lurking underneath, just barely detectable and that only because she'd known him for so long, something... frantic.

"-- come up the ramp."

"...Spike?"

"I need to show you something." A brief pause. "There's nopony with me, Applejack. No ambush. This isn't a lure --"

"-- well, somepony's been to the cinema a little too much --" emerged with a lightness she wasn't truly feeling.

"-- just come up." And now his tones were on the border of plea. "It's important."

"...okay..."

She carefully made her way up the ramp, planting her hooves for maximum bracing. Listening ahead, just in case he'd been told to say all of it. Nothing.

An' there's that stupid poster.
Who Are You Today?
What does that even mean?

"Are you okay?" she cautiously projected.

There was a long pause.

"No."

"Did something happen --"

"-- just come in," the little dragon requested, because he was at the age where you couldn't tell him he was begging. "Please..."

Applejack entered.

It took her an extra second to spot him. He'd positioned himself between the beds, which gave him the option to dive under either one. And after that... well, if a stranger had come in, then he probably would have activated the necklace. The box shell, maybe. Boxes turned up under beds all the time. And because the disguise was somewhat larger than he, it would have also concealed --

"Spike...?"

The little dragon, sitting on the floor, silently picked up one of the papers which were scattered in front of his walking claws. Held it up and spread his arms to let her see -- most of it. It was a big piece, and his armspan just wasn't that wide.

But she could see enough and, after a mere two breaths, dearly wanted to stop.

She was roughly familiar with how blueprints were laid out. She'd studied a few, because barns didn't just put themselves together. And the crude design being displayed could have been for a shoddy barn. An oversized shed, perhaps, or the sort of house where 'roof' was the most major requirement and there were no guarantees of getting that right.

The lines of the design started as uneven. Some of them twisted in on each other. There were places where the drawing began to smooth out, started to look a little more standard -- and then twisted, bent, warped in multiple directions. It was as if the artist had possessed a sore spot in their jaw, and only noticed when the movements of mouthwriting sent the bitten end of the quill directly into bleeding gums. The rerouting of pain, leading directly into mazes of agony as the pencil marks chased themselves around the rectangle, distorting in ways which no solid building could reflect. It started as amateurish, quickly degraded into a kindergarten student's first waxy concept of a house, then found a dozen ways to get worse before suddenly surging into a single stretch of straight strokes -- which made the process start all over again.

But that was what she saw second.
The designer had signed his work.
Over and over. Virtually everywhere. Around lines, in the places where lines weren't, across errors as if initialing them to show ownership. And the mouthwriting was thick here and almost splattered there, with some letters twisted to the point where they only became recognizable because she could compare them to other specimens.
In bulk.

Gez Gez Gez Gez Gez Gez Gez Gez Gez Gez Gez Gez

Virtually everywhere. On nearly everything.

The exception was along the right edge.

Steady. Perfectly legible. Large and proud. A scrawl of pure defiance.

Linchpin

Loopback

It had taken Twilight's first remaindered sale to make her realize that in one way, a librarian was very much like a medium. They both channeled the words of the dead.

...not that the little mare had any true belief in mediums, nor had she ever come even remotely close to miring her hooves in the swamp of unjustified faith. From everything Twilight had been able to learn, nopony had ever brought anything back from the shadowlands --

-- with, for those who weren't too horribly wounded and could be reached with the proper medical techniques within precious minutes, the exception of a few ponies.

If the cause was drowning and the lungs could be cleared, or a heart had stopped and the attending physician understood that a few broken ribs and a fractured sternum represented a small price to pay for time... yes, it was occasionally possible to recover the very short-term dead. But nopony brought back in that fashion ever remembered anything. If there had been even the briefest reunion among the tall grasses of that final, perfect pasture... then all impressions of it stayed behind.

...well, some had claimed to remember. And the longer they thought about the experience, over increasing hours spent simply speaking of it with purest wonder... the more chances they had for the inevitable contradictions to start piling up.

Nopony truly recalled the details of what might exist on the other side of breath. And there had never been any two-way communication with the dead. If somepony attending a spiritualist meeting happened to hear invisible hooves rapping on a table and the faint echoes of a ghostly whisper, then it meant the medium had a well-paid assistant hidden somewhere. Generally in the company of a sound-conducting surface and some syllable-distorting reeds to place in front of their mouth.

There were no ghosts, and every such story was made up. But souls were real. Even if somepony (somehow) didn't believe that a mark was a reflection of one, then soul magic existed and it was clearly affecting something. Additionally, reincarnation served as absolute proof and Twilight -- had spent a few moons in trying not to think about that one too often.

Ghosts didn't exist, and that made mediums into charlatans: shutting down such fakers was a special pleasure, especially when Twilight found those whose 'relayed messages' ultimately led into 'give the channeler all of your money'. But if you were a librarian... the dead spoke. And it was such a simple process. You simply wandered down the tree's aisles, stopped in front of an age-discolored fabric spine, took the book down, and -- opened it. Because for those who had been lucky enough to have their thoughts recorded in cold ink, the words would forever be there.

But such little resurrections were conditional.

Somepony had to take the book down.

Just about every author would fade into obscurity. Even those very few who were lucky enough to be designated as the creators of classics would mostly generate resentment in youthful readers, who typically felt that they were being told to suffer through a book because twenty generations had already done the same and why should they be the first ones to escape? And the Canterlot Archives existed, as did equivalents in other nations. Places which tried to store at least one copy of everything which had ever been published. But some things were overlooked, others became lost, and even the last remaining edition needed someone with a reason to seek it out -- or somepony to show them what they were missing.

The words could be stored. Most of them were. But some had been lost, and even for those who had a master copy and properly-filed catalog entry... the true death came when no one looked for those books any more.

The dead could speak. But only the lucky few, and solely through those who could still hear.

To be a librarian was, in no small part, to take custody for the dreams of the dead. Twilight had belatedly recognized that when Ponyville's mayor had effectively forced her into a shelf weeding prior to a long-postponed remaindered sale, and... it had hurt, to know that so much of what she was taking down represented bringing the lost that much closer to the forfeiture of their final chance. But in time, she'd accepted it as part of her responsibilities.

(Maybe a marked librarian could go through the process without pain. Twilight couldn't seem to manage that part.)

She was fully aware that most of what she dealt with were the words of the dead and in that sense, looking at the shoddy blueprints shouldn't have made any real difference. This just happened to be a long-term followup to having spent some time in the same room as the writer's corpse.

Her brother, who'd spread out the rolled paper and was trying to pin down as much as he could with short arms, was silently watching her face. Trying to figure out if there was anything he could do for her and in that, the expression came with an equine variant. The hat-free version was currently standing on her left, where the farmer's larger body was doing a strong-if-incidental job of cutting off the bedroom's primary retreat point.

Applejack had gone out to find somepony she could bring back and in doing so, had located Twilight. Quickly.

The librarian stared at the two styles of mouthwriting. The signatures.

Applejack thought somepony had been using the place before we got here...

She swallowed again. It didn't seem to be helping.

"Spike..." Her own voice felt too distant, as if she was trying to listen for the echoes of her thoughts from the top of the tepui. "How did you find it?"

Scales shifted on his face, moved against each other as the muscles underneath twisted with close-range awkwardness.

"Um," her brother carefully began. "I was... getting kind of bored waiting for everypony to come back..."

The older sister managed a smile. It was a hazard with younger siblings, and the momentary little breeze kicked up by Applejack's tail twitch told her it was a common one. Patiently, "And?"

"I just started poking around at stuff," the little dragon explained. "It was something to do. But then I got really bored, and --"

"Where was it?" Words which emerged as her ears rotated again, because there were no locks on Truedawn houses and she needed to know if any locals were on the verge of inviting themselves in.

"I can show you," Spike immediately said. "But it's awkward. I don't even know how he was getting up there..."

It turned out to be a little gap in the bathroom ceiling. Just enough to shove a pupil against.

"You investigated that." He'd even noticed that? In Truedawn, where planks which fitted evenly against each other were the exception and splinters had apparently found ways to breed when nopony was looking...

His walking claws awkwardly shuffled in place.

"...I was trying to take a bath," Spike finally said. "I was that bored. And some of my scales still feel dirty. I thought I could deal with tepid water. Only I couldn't get any water at all, because the pipes started to creak a little, and I was worried that somepony trotting by outside would hear that. When there wasn't supposed to be anypony in the house. So I was kind of frustrated, and I picked up the soap and..."

He hesitated. Shoulders sagged.

"It rebounds better than it cleans," her brother declared. "I got it to bank off two walls and the ceiling. But the impacts... they made a length of red yarn fall out of that hole." He slowly shook his head. "I think that maybe just having ponies trotting around in here would have knocked it free eventually. I just sped it up."

"And it's anchored," Applejack considered. "That's right, isn't it? One end fell out, and the rest is tied up in there..." Green eyes squinted. "And -- it's hard to tell with all of the imperfections, but I think that's another gap. Perpendicular -- Spike, is that thing hinged?"

Crests shifted across the nod. "It was when I got up there."

"And how did you --" the earth pony began.

"-- I hauled in everything I could. Benches, mostly. Whatever I could stack and climb." A little more softly, "There's space between the ceiling beams. Enough room for a lot of stuff. But it was just the blueprints, and..." He hesitated. "...a rectangle, where something was sitting for a while. It was about the right size for a book."

"Or a notebook," Twilight breathed -- then looked up again. "You tucked the yarn back?"

"I didn't know who might come in," Spike quickly explained. "Even when I was trying to get up there... I could have jumped down and used the necklace, but then there's just a bunch of benches in the bathroom for no reason. Somepony would have wondered..."

"I could just tell them that we were redecorating the bathroom," Twilight distractedly decided. "Eclectically. Give me a second..."

The bow's generated illusion easily hid the partial corona necessary for delving into the little ceiling hole. The yarn was quickly located, and then Twilight's hidden field pulled down on the access hatch. Both mares squinted up into the darkness beyond.

Applejack took a quick, sharp breath.

"Why there?" the farmer asked the world.

Twilight frowned. "There's enough space --"

"-- a pegasus might be able to hover close to the ceiling and get the kick in which knocked the yarn down. Unicorn isn't exactly going to have much trouble. But this is Truedawn." She added a soft snort. "None of the locals are flying, and the best case is that a third of the population just decided to keep their coronas to themselves, so -- at least for now, let's figure he probably didn't have anypony to help. Not which could actually give him some. Portable ramps take up a lot of space and I wouldn't want to try getting one of the mouth-crank platforms up the ramp. Spike said it. How was he even getting up there?"

Twilight thought about it. "Vertically-stacked beds?" Spike had managed with benches, but he was small. A full-grown earth pony stallion at the top of a more precarious stack...

It was easy to picture the tumbles, right down to the exact intensity of the inevitable impacts. After all, she'd met the previous resident.

Occupants come and go.
The house, mostly in spite of its construction, stays.
So from the house's point of view, residents are...
...fungible.

"Which still means getting them both in here," Applejack pointed out. "Not exactly impossible, but it's gonna take some time. And putting one on top of the other isn't exactly going to be easy. I wouldn't want to try it with high-jumping off one bed: the straw isn't solid enough to really launch from. And when you think about how poorly stuff is put together around here, all the little spaces which have to be hiding in the walls... Twi, I'm saying this as an earth pony: that is one of the stupidest places which one of mine could have picked to hide anything. He could barely reach it. Walls are right there, floors probably have room for a thousand mice underneath if 'Shy could just find the first two. Ceiling's a little closer to impossible. That is just about the least logical spot for an earth pony to use. So... why?"

Spike, who didn't have an answer, wrung his handling claws against each other. As for his sibling -- it could be oddly difficult to tell a lie in the farmer's presence. Twilight, who was already trying to puzzle out the newest aspect of the mystery, didn't try to muster the required effort. "I don't know. But it must have worked."

Unless he was running because somepony found it?

But then the storage area would have been empty.

"What do you want me to do?" the farmer asked.

Immediately, "Find the others and tell them that we're all meeting here."

"Could take a while to get everypony back," Applejack pointed out. "From what I saw, the group's pretty spread out right now. I'm pretty sure 'Shy's taking a break, but the rest --"

"-- I know," Twilight sighed. "And then we'll have to hope Truedawn gives us a few minutes before the hooves start knocking on the front door. Just start the relay, Applejack: you tell somepony, and they tell whoever they find. We all need to talk."

She was still trying to adjust for what her body insisted was a misscheduled summer, and Twilight wasn't quite ready to trust any Truedawn clock to keep accurate time. By her best estimate, the weary group wasn't reassembled in the assigned house until about an hour before local Sun-lowering. Truedawn, however, gave them the increasingly-rare courtesy of enough time for Spike to explain the details.

Tails flicked. Ears twisted, briefly went back, rotated forward again to listen. Rarity, who had apparently spent a good part of the day in very carefully not talking about the local fashion industry, rotated hard-planted forehooves against the floor.

Twilight briefly wished for the designer to take a little more care. She hadn't gotten to sand anything in this house --

"And what is our first conclusion?" the white unicorn tensely asked. Eyelids twitched.

As conclusions went, She needs sleep was accurate, but currently misplaced. Reset the stress...

"That coincidence is effectively dead," Twilight quietly told the group. "Up until now, there was a chance that we were dealing with -- twins. But without the blood connection."

"Separated at the hips," Trixie nodded.

Rarity's head immediately turned. Nearly all of the glare was ignored.

"But... now we know," the librarian softly continued. "We thought it was probably the case, but -- now we know. We've been chasing him all along. He has a name..."

"...two," Fluttershy carefully offered. "He had two names. The one his parents gave him, and..."

She stopped, and Twilight saw that her eyes were somewhat reddened. Rarity wasn't the only one who needed sleep, and Rainbow looked to be on the verge of a personal coma: the prismatic tail kept flicking against its owner's right side, delivering the whiplike little stings required to maintain focus.

"'Gez'," Twilight gently finished for her friend. "But we have his real name. Linchpin Keystone --"

-- stopped, as her ears dipped forward and a streaked tail splayed across the floor.

"Twilight?" Pinkie wasn't exactly about to miss that sort of visual notice. "What's wrong?"

"...Abjura," the little mare forced herself to say. "She works in the palace. She's the one who -- identified the body, only she didn't know she'd done it because the corpse didn't have an architect's mark. She... thought it was somepony else, Pinkie. That they just had to find out what had happened to the stallion she... used to date. And we can't contact the palace right now. We can't tell her..."

Did the stallion have living relatives? Siblings, parents, aunts and uncles and cousins? Were there friends who needed to be notified? Pull a single pony out of the world, and how much mourning would collapse into the gap?

The curls just barely bounced: Pinkie's nod had been that minimal. "I know," the baker sadly said. "It has to wait, Twilight. She gets to live in a world where he's alive, at least for a little longer. And she'll hate learning the truth, when we get to tell her. She'll hate whoever tells her, she might try to kick out, but... she has to know. When we can." Just a little more softly, "Maybe when we're home. And I can do it personally, so she'll have somepony to kick at."

Hastily, "Pinkie --"

"-- we were sort of talking about it the other day," Pinkie reminded her. "That when an idea comes from somepony you -- don't feel the same way about any more, it doesn't automatically make the idea into a bad one. I'll dodge, Twilight. But when it comes to crying, even screaming -- sometimes they need a target. Because when they finally let it all out, it has to hit something." She took a slow breath, and ribs shifted beneath their padding. "'Gez'..."

Which got Rainbow's attention, and a weary head forced itself up. "Did you hear anypony using that name? I know you'd remember --"

"-- I didn't," the baker sadly cut in. "And I was trying to think of ways to ask, even before we had the name. If there was anypony missing, or if some Truedawn ponies left to make trips. But it's hard, Rainbow. It's a lot harder than the mystery novels make it sound. Because the characters in a novel can flash a badge, or show off their hat." (Twilight managed to keep herself from jaw-reaching for it.) "That tells everypony why they want to know -- but it's also what makes the other characters stop talking. If you're too curious, then ponies start to wonder why. And if they come up with a reason they don't like, or don't believe yours... they close themselves off. I didn't know to ask about Gez, and maybe nopony here would recognize 'Linchpin' because to them, 'Gez' is all he ever was. But when it came to comings and goings, I only got one question in all day. And it didn't work out."

"What did they say?" Spike asked. "It could still be important --"

"'I guess there's times when we don't see certain ponies for a while,'" Pinkie miserably quoted. "'But they could always come back.'"

Except that Linchpin is never coming back.

"'Anyway, now you're here'," Pinkie slowly finished. "'Isn't that what's important?'"

The most important thing is getting everypony home safely. Her sibling, her friends -- possibly most to all of Truedawn, but that would require figuring out what was going on in the first place...

"It's... not exactly the most reassuring answer," Twilight understated. "But let's think about what we just learned, everypony."

"Such as?" Applejack checked. "It's been a long day all around, Twi. With bad food. I won't say no to some really leading hints."

"Your food too, huh?" Rainbow yawned. "I'm trying to stay on our own stuff, but..."

"What did they offer you?" Rarity asked. "Sugars, on my end. Small sweets, mostly boiled."

"Same," the weather coordinator readily admitted. "Anypony else?"

The group managed a rough agreement. (Rarity was still pausing to glare at Trixie if the performer chorused on anything.)

"Everypony else is eating better than what we got offered," Applejack noted. "I got a good look -- and I mean for nutrition, not taste. Oh, and Twilight? I checked the crops. There's some new stuff, but that's just the continent. I didn't see anything that was blatantly magical." With a soft snort, "They keep you working around here, don't they -- and yeah, everypony, I can see you staring. If I closed my eyes, all the attention would start denting my fur. Let me finish. They keep you working. But they don't do much with the fuel to let you stay on the job. Because if you stuck with the sweets, and nothing else -- you wouldn't be thinking too clearly."

Rainbow, whose need to get the most out of everything she did had turned her into a non-cooking sort of nutritionist, managed a tired nod.

"It's almost like visiting the Acres," the weather coordinator decided.

Green eyes instantly narrowed --

-- paused. Opened a little wider, and then the earth pony's lips quirked.

"Almost?" Applejack checked.

"You're always trying to see if you can get any work out of us," Rainbow yawned. "As long as we're there, you know? But you sure feed us after, so maybe it kind of half-works out. Or a quarter -- look, I hate the labor and I love the dumplings. So less trees, more dough. And maybe you'll get the balance right sometime."

The farmer very carefully failed to smile. "Maybe you've gotta have some seniority around here before the fruit comes out," Applejack proposed. "Because first-day, all you get is nibble patch jobs. Sugar, start to crash, more sugar... that bill comes due fast and hard."

"I'm starting to feel a little foggy myself," Twilight admitted. "But it didn't feel like they were trying to just get work out of us, Applejack." A feeling she was extremely familiar with and if she ever had any Acres-hosted doubts as to what was going on there, Applejack would just outright tell her. "It was more like... this was what they saw as being friendly. If you work with them, then you're --"

-- part of the herd.

Except that they weren't.

"-- getting to know them," she rerouted.

"They really aren't getting to know us," Trixie noted. "I gave out my name --"

"-- nopony wished to know you?" Rarity snidely cut in. "A community with taste, then."

"-- but Starlight's the only one who asked for it. And she was just verifying."

"You talked to her?" Twilight checked.

"Briefly," Trixie admitted. "She had to take care of something."

"...I did too," Fluttershy sighed. "She talked about the combs. A lot. And what skeletons feel like on the inside. Or don't feel like, because we can't sense our own bone texture."

Several mares blinked. So did the little dragon.

"Fluttershy?" Pinkie cautiously asked.

"...it was a tangent," the caretaker decided. "But I can see how she's the one with some medical knowledge. And we're getting way off the track, everypony. Twilight, you were about to tell us what we've learned?"

The little mare gratefully nodded.

"We've confirmed that his mark was changed," she told the group. "The palace asked Abjura what Linchpin had, and it was a sort of drawing tool. Something architects use."

Tampering with marks.
With souls.

And now this soul had a name.

Somehow, that made everything worse.

A different way of life.
Something without destinies.
Or... a weapons test under heavy disguise. Used on ponies, by ponies...
...his face.
The final expression.
That thin, vicious smile....

"But we don't know how it was changed," she made herself finish. "And there's still questions about the 'why'."

...the last stage of an illness, you go mad, you try to run...

"I was wondering earlier, while I was trying to fetch the group," Applejack said. "Why turn up in Canterlot? And I thought -- maybe he was just one of the ponies who goes out to get supplies, because I know they're not sourcing all of this stuff locally. Got a peek at the library. And he took a trip, something went wrong with the device..."

"It's not impossible," Twilight reluctantly admitted. "Especially if his aim went bad too. But it's a really low-probability option, Applejack. Almost zero, because any reasonable inventor would have brought it down as much as they could during trials and testing. It would be like using a key if you knew having it break off in the lock would kill the user."

"And if he went out regularly," Pinkie sadly added, "then... wouldn't somepony be worried about him not having come back?" Slightly-damp blue eyes took a slow survey of the room. "Even with what Neisee said to me -- wouldn't somepony be talking about him? Wondering where he was, and if somepony needed to follow? Wouldn't... wouldn't ponies be using his name? He must have had friends..."

They came very close to having everypony in the group looking towards everypony else, for Rarity would still not freely seek out Trixie's gaze. Each turning to the others in the hopes of an answer.

But nopony said anything.

Sun was being lowered now.

"And I will not be talking about the clothing store," Rarity tightly announced. "Because, should we officially launch that topic from the starting gate, the racecourse will have lanes available for absolutely nothing else." Her eyelids twitched again. "Does anypony else have something to add?"

"There's no --" Trixie began.

"-- somepony other than you." With a soft groan, "Dear Sun, if we're down to hangers-on, then perhaps it is time to retire into the kitchen --"

"-- Ponyville residents here," the performer pressed on. "Not that I heard. That accent never popped up, and I heard just about everywhere else. But I could have missed somepony --"

"-- much as you just barely managed to miss Shoeshine," Rarity snidely interrupted. "Seriously, dears: anypony else --"

But Twilight, who had started to go pale beneath her fur at Trixie's third word, felt her skin forfeit three vital degrees of heat.

"-- and that would have just about wrecked everything on the spot," the little alicorn exhaled. "If we were spotted by somepony from home..."

Trixie nodded. "And that fur dye isn't going to do much for somepony who knows what... Fluttershy?" Nopony corrected her, although Rarity's eyes indulged in a slow roll. "What Fluttershy usually looks like."

"Yes, yes," the designer half-snapped. "We clearly have to be careful. Certainly a friendly face from home is the last thing we need to find, especially when compared to the hostile one from which there is no apparent escape --"

"-- Rarity," was accompanied by the sound of Applejack's right forehoof slamming into the floor.

This was (somehow) ignored. "-- so can we please hear from somepony worth hearing from? Because quite frankly, given what happened this morning, it is something of a minor miracle that we've gotten this far without interruption. But perhaps Truedawn calms somewhat at night --"

Which was when they all heard the beat produced by hooves approaching the door.

Spike managed to abort the faceclaw just before the impact would have produced noise, then stalked into the kitchen.

There was a knock, and then the door opened. That was just how the community worked.

"I'm glad I caught you all in!" the pale blue unicorn stallion beamed. "Saves me some galloping around, doesn't it? Now I can just ask the entire group at once!"

"Hello, Tikr," Twilight wearily said, and just barely managed to force the smile onto the absolute end of it. "Is there a night project which needs some extra help?"

"No, no!" The head shake was quick, and the smile would have been warm if it wasn't for the fact that it was also constant. "But I was talking to a few ponies, and -- you were all doing your best to help today." Happily, "You worked with us, and that means a lot! But it can't always be work, right?"

Even Trixie, who barely knew the farmer, needed to make an effort not to look at Applejack.

"You worked with us," Tikr repeated. "And that means there's a reward after. We're having a summer outdoor concert series. Tonight's performance is going to starting up pretty soon. If we all leave in the next few minutes, we should get there in time to pick out a good listening spot. And I'm sure everypony in Truedawn would love it if you came!"

Concerts? Trixie had mentioned something about that on the previous night, and perhaps that was why the performer's ears had just gone flat against her skull. But Twilight...

"You are coming, aren't you?" Tikr eagerly asked. "It just wouldn't be the same without everypony there!"

We'd have to leave just about immediately. Which means we can only grab whatever food Applejack has in this house, and that won't be enough for everypony.

We're tired. From what everypony's said, we were all kept working.

But what we need...

"Can you give us a couple of minutes?" Twilight politely asked. "To talk it over."

"Of course!" the stallion readily agreed. Smiled, because he always did that. And then, just for variety, he kicked in 'stood there'. Which he had already been doing, but now he was making the condition persistent. Verging on perpetual, as multiple mares just looked at him...

"...oh," Tikr finally said. Followed by, with open confusion twisting his features, "Did you want me to wait outside while you did that?"

Rarity's accent clamped down on the single syllable.

"Yes."

"...okay..."

Tikr carefully stepped out. They all waited until they heard the door close.

"I am tired," Rarity softly snapped, "and I am hungry, and in the event that anypony requires a deeper glimpse into the current state of my psyche, I will discuss the dress shop. If the concerts are of the same quality as everything else here --"

"-- we're having trouble asking questions," Twilight carefully interrupted, "because nopony knows us."

"And yet I am not quite ready to offer the reality of that information to the masses," the designer firmly stated. "In case it happens to backfire. Drastically --"

If it had been somepony else who'd said the next words.
Anypony else.
With Applejack, there would have been some tension. A brief argument, but -- Rarity would have gone along with it. Pinkie? A weary nod, and then tired white legs would have forced their owner upright. Name any of the others, and perhaps something else might have happened on that night.

Because the world, as arranged by the actions of sapients, was made out of choices.

From the outside, the results could look random: it was rare to truly know anypony's full motivation regarding a given decision. Once you left thinking minds behind, you found those who didn't know enough to realize that choices were possible. But the consequences of each decision tended to bounce into each other. Moral Brownian motion.

If somepony else had said it.
Anypony else.
But that wasn't how it worked out.

Perhaps that's why it all happened. Remove a single aspect, and the rebounds change. Possibly everything would have changed.

One thing was different. One thing...

"-- I think," Trixie began at a carefully-modulated half-volume, "what Twilight means is --"

"-- and she moves to mind-reading," Rarity snorted. "Is there no end to her talents? If so, it would go nicely with 'no beginning' --"

"-- that we're not trusted enough to get real answers," the performer pushed on. "But we worked with them all day, and -- now they want us to play. Relax the way they do. It's not just hospitality: it's potentially one step closer to being accepted."

The designer was staring at the other unicorn. Unblinking. Unwavering.

"It's -- part of trying to make some friends," Trixie tried to finish.

Uncaring.

"And if we can do that..."

Twilight nodded. (Rarity's entire body twitched.)

"I was hoping to try for the shield border tonight," she admitted. "Try to figure out a way through the lockdown." And there had been tentative dreams of making an assault on the 'library', attempting to do maximum anti-damage through wielding a carefully-constructed checklist. On offense. "But we need an in with the locals, just as much as we need an out for the town. This probably isn't going to be a complete solution, to just attend the concert -- but it might be part of one. I think we should go." A little more quickly, "I'm going, at least. I could use some company --"

"I'll come," Trixie immediately said.

"-- but some of us are more tired than others, I'm sure," the librarian accelerated. "Rarity, if you just want to stay in, get some dinner and rest --"

"-- oh, no," the white unicorn pushed out between tightly-clenched teeth. "You are going to be among... foreign company, Twilight. I would much rather have your ears turned towards words you can trust." And glared around the room. "Which, in the name of making sure that the numerical odds are merely horrifically tilted against us, should clearly mean that we are all going. Correct?"

Perhaps caterwauling would have been easier to deal with. She'd asked Fluttershy about the yowling once, and the caretaker had explained why felines sometimes vocalized that way. So if it had been caterwauling, then at least Twilight would have known what the cat was trying to get out of it.

The concert, by contrast, was an absolute mystery.

It was easy to study the details. Plenty of lighting devices had been set up in the area. You had to see the travesty.

Rainbow said she had a motivational poster which read One Voice.
One voice would be an improvement.
...one voice and no instruments.
And a lot of sandpaper.
I could use some on the instruments. See how long it took to saw through the strings. Because hooves should not be plucking against those strings and if they are meant to be doing that, then maybe they shouldn't be hitting four at once.

The concert stage had been set up fairly close to the lakeshore. Some of the more cacophonous bursts of sound might have been producing ripples in the water: Twilight's assumption was that the majority had been created by fish who'd surfaced to find out what all the noise was about and, having gotten their answer, immediately submerged again in the hopes of escaping it.

Then again, water did have a way of distorting sound. Maybe the bottom of the lake was the only place from which anything could actually be enjoyed. Because when it came to Truedawn's idea of music...

Singing wasn't a universal skill for ponies. Chorusing came close: very few ponies could render a truly professional performance, but most had the capacity to recognize a note and, if their vocal capabilities allowed for the attempt, the ability to match it. Students might not always bother with memorizing lyrics, but standing at the back of the group and murmuring 'something something um something?' on key was relatively easy. Just about anypony could manage that, and it felt as if just about all of the living exceptions had decided to call themselves The Daybreakers and taken up a few instruments to go with it.

Oh... the instruments. Mastery... even with homemade pieces, that took skill. Perhaps especially for homemade pieces. Even those ponies who manifested marks for performance would mostly wind up with an enhanced instinct for how things were supposed to go: actually bringing their efforts to concert level would require practice. Dedication. But you didn't need years of careful study to finish a basic song: just knowledge of where all the notes were supposed to go and when each was triggered.

The five ponies who were currently the focus of Truedawn's attention seemed to be almost exactly as good at that as they were at construction, food preparation, and fashion design. There was some chance that they were at least slightly worse.

There had also been a few hesitant attempts at dance moves. The full-body garments weren't exactly helping.

And yet... there was an audience, at least a hundred and twenty ponies' worth. (For Trixie, it wasn't a personal one.) And they cheered the horrible performance, doing so as one. They stomped their applause as if they'd been trained to it. The band couldn't stay in sync with each other, but every hoof among the attendees was matching the welcoming beat...

The herd is the true unit. The purest expression of pony life.

Twilight had been experiencing strange thoughts during the performance. Her best guess was that her brain was trying to use words from within to block lyrics from without. It wasn't going very well.

And those within it are fungible.

Her own hooves itched. She wanted to stomp, to take up the beat. But the music was so bad...

...too many ponies. They were surrounded by the herd, and Twilight was fully aware that they weren't truly part of it. Fluttershy, because Kindness had some overlap with Generosity, was -- rocking her head back and forth. Basic politeness. But it was more than the others were managing.

Or I could at least try to smooth out the stage. Some of those splinters...
...those are practically stakes coming off the front arch.

Maybe it was a design decision.

Twilight was all too aware of her brain trying to distract itself, and the stage's many imperfections gave her an initial focus point for that. The crude arch which curved over the front of the poorly-nailed elevated platform had multiple hooks hanging off the side edges: the deliberate ones held extra instruments and stage equipment, while the accidental variety simply held Injury on reserve. Trying to stomp back at the audience on this stage was going to mean removing wood from the center of a frog.

Fluttershy was nodding along. The others...

Spike, hidden back at Applejack's -- Linchpin's assigned house, had effectively escaped. Twilight, who was the smallest mare in the group, had been graciously offered a place at the front of the audience: this gave her a perfect view for what was taking place on stage and, somewhat more to her immediate detriment, the full lack of benefit from the proximity acoustics. The others had wound up scattered among the audience -- with two exceptions.

Most of Applejack's strength was being used to keep orange ears aloft, and she kept running out. Pinkie was doing her best to look interested, but there were times when the wincing did its best to take over. The best thing which could be said about the concert for Rainbow was that it was keeping the weather coordinator awake.

Trixie...

...the first spotting had found an expression of quiet concentration on the performer's face: Twilight hadn't been sure if that was from an attempt to read the audience or simply a stoic means of surviving the concert. The second glimpse needed to push past purple curls.

Rarity had worked her way through the crowd. And once she was next to the other unicorn, she stayed there. It was possible to see her lips moving, and Twilight was doing her best to avoid guessing at too many of the words. She was sure that at least some vocalizations related to how they all could have been eating by now, or in bed, or in Rarity's ideal world, at least one of them would be back in Canterlot already. And as the subject would have been the designer's truest desires, in prison.

They're my friends.
They're both my friends and I don't know how to make them become friends with each other.
...maybe it's impossible...

Trixie kept trying to shift away. Rarity shifted right back. And the argument traveled through the crowd, which was just barely starting to notice. Perhaps some of the most sensitive had felt the chill coming off the interaction, even in summer -- but as Trixie had once said, it was cold everywhere.

Twilight risked looking up. The rain had been intermittent, but -- all that meant was that she had equally-sporadic glimpses of starlit rivulets moving across the shield. Nothing from the outside world ever fully reached the isolated bubble of Truedawn, and no sparks were coming from the cave.

I didn't get a chance to ask Pinkie about special kinds of quartz.
After the concert.

Starlight was in attendance -- sort of. The lilac unicorn wasn't in the central audience area. She stood by herself off to the right of the stage: a position which gave her a clear view while offering nothing to block the sound. And her ears were fully aloft, but -- her hooves didn't stomp. There was no cheering. It was as if she wasn't fully there and when it came to any mental ability which allowed blocking out the actual concert, Twilight was utterly jealous.

Spike keeps saying there's something wrong with her. So does Pinkie.
...well, her mark obviously isn't for conducting music. Any marked conductor would have made a break for the stage by now. And then, based on what happens in Canterlot concert halls when somepony makes a mistake on that last scale, would have started breaking everything else.

It also isn't a mark for appreciating music. Marks have limits.

Starlight didn't look tired, and Twilight was starting to wonder about that. When she considered the total weight of all the water which had been stacked up at the base of the tepui...

...if she could levitate all of that in one trip, then her field strength is way up the charts. Even multiple journeys along the trail would indicate a lot of physical endurance. And if she was capable of teleporting it up, then her mass limit...

Which, for any unicorn, would be lower for a teleport than a direct levitation -- but the theoretical feat suggested Starlight's raw power was very, very high.

What does she need the water for? Reactant? Stopping a reaction? Cooling something down...

Starlight didn't seem to be worn out, or weary, or even a little run down. Her expression didn't suggest much of anything. But to Twilight, something about the mare's posture came across as I Have Other Things To Do, But I Am Expected To Be Here And I Am Honoring Society's Obligations. Possibly because when it came to postures, Twilight knew that one by heart. From personal experience.

Back to Rarity and Trixie. The performer had tried to get away again, made it about four body lengths through the crowd. Rarity had just caught up, and now failing to look closely at the designer's lips was a last-second self-defense attempt to avoid picking up some fresh vocabulary.

She's angry.
Spike said she's been angry since she first knew Trixie had been pulled with us.
It's my fault.
I can't fix this...

Trixie tried to move. Rarity followed. Twilight wrenched her attention towards the stage, where the lead mistake-maker had just made the error of trying to turn a half-rendered cello into the fulcrum point for a dance move. Three strings twanged out the closest equivalent to a quarter-note they would ever know, and the earth pony's body twirled towards the front arch --

-- the stallion stumbled.

An imperfection in the stage: one hoof landing in just the wrong spot. Not having practiced enough, or being particularly poor at dancing. (Twilight felt fully qualified to judge lack of skill there, especially by direct comparison.) A muscle twitch, or a simple miscalculation. There were any number of reasons for the stallion to have stumbled.

All which truly mattered was the results.

His right flank hit the arch.

He might have caught an empty hook. Or one of the largest splinters, which served as a newborn stake. But whichever it was, the point went into the fabric of his overalls at exactly the place where two panels had been poorly stitched together.

Momentum kept it going. Loops of thread were sundered. Everything proceeded along the tear line, the lower freed panel sagged down, and the point pushed into fur and skin. Cut a trail of flowing red, all of which simply soaked into the exposed area.

With a normal pony, a portion of the blood would have instantly evaporated from the injured area. In terms of voluntary coverage, only clothing could freely conceal those patterned strands. Nothing else.

But there was nothing left to conceal.

The cellist stopped moving. A bleeding, bare, hue-dulled plain right hip was fully exposed to the night.

The concert stopped.

Nopony in the audience stomped. None spoke. Echoes faded, and silence failed to close in.

Twilight heard Fluttershy's gasp. The sudden choking sound which represented Applejack trying to fight back vomit, Pinkie's half-sob, Rainbow's head jerking all the way up. There was half a syllable from Rarity: an insult which had just been getting started, quickly transmuted into the very start of an instinctive, unstoppable scream.

The little mare didn't have time for her own reaction, barely noticed the tide of bile forcing itself against the back of her throat. Her friends were in distress, she had to choose which one to help first and Fluttershy was the closest, the scent of fresh blood was starting to spread and there was a chance for the entire herd to break --

-- but then somepony moved.

The light blue form rushed the stage, jumped towards her most natural home, spun in midair, shifted hoof planting to avoid every splinter and landed facing to the right. A streaked tail lashed once: the mane responded to the impact by thoroughly disorganizing itself. And the lilac unicorn, whose reaction to the exposure had been fully missed (if that had been any reaction at all)... watched the mare who was now looking directly at her. Waited.

The audience and musicians had all frozen in place. Six mares couldn't react in time. One didn't visibly respond. The last spoke.

"You're trying to get rid of marks," Trixie Lulamoon declared. "Mine is for innovation. Would you like to know how to do it better?"

Acceptance Testing

When belief died...

Perhaps 'faith' was closer to the true term. Because Twilight had wanted to believe in Trixie. Who understood the unending burden of near-impossible expectations better than the student of the Princess? And with both casters, so much of that pressure ultimately came from within.

She'd... thought there could be a chance to reconcile. Communicate, perhaps even find some level of connection. They were both students of magic, after all. And when the Princess had recommended that Twilight write to Trixie, try to get the performer's input on an experiment -- the other mare had ultimately sent a letter back. Because they could talk, about theories and proofs and trials which didn't always quite work out --

-- it had... felt like a connection. In some ways, it had been considerably more of an initial bond than Twilight had found with any of the other Bearers during her first day in Ponyville. At least she and Trixie had one thing in common.

One thing.

Include an endless half-lifetime of forever-building pressure and it was two. But they never really talked about that part. It had mostly been discussions of magic, and --

-- it had mostly been discussions of magic.

Could you build a friendship on a single open commonality? Twilight had wanted, perhaps even needed to believe it was possible.

And then, shortly before Trotter's Falls had driven a wedge into what she knew of reality, leaving Twilight to helplessly stare as spreading cracks raced forth to fracture definitions forever...

Your friend mostly in spite of herself,

Trixie Lulamoon

She'd thought Trixie was her friend.
She'd needed to believe it.

And when your desire to believe in something seemed to arise from the soul... that was faith.

Trixie was standing upon the stage.

(Her most natural home.)
(Perhaps her only home.)

She had the full attention of everypony in the audience. There wasn't a single pair of eyes which wasn't focused on her. Perhaps even Moon was watching the moment (although the cloud cover produced by the intermittent rain could have been giving it some trouble). The performer hadn't exactly arranged for the scene to come with its own potential musical backup, but undoubtedly stood ready to use the very first off-key note.

Twilight, who'd been placed closest to the stage's apron, temporarily united with the herd in silently, almost helplessly staring up at the light blue unicorn -- had two wishes. The first was for time to somehow rewind itself, take everything back. A much fainter second dimly hoped for the frozen band members to remain perfectly still. There was probably some tiny chance of having the entire thing turn into a musical number, but it couldn't have backup dancers. She'd seen their first attempts. When it came to bad dancing, Twilight felt herself to be a fully qualified judge. Mostly by direct comparison --

-- there were those who said that when faith and belief died, they shattered and for the ones who had spoken the words, it might have even been true. But for Twilight, it felt like dissolution. A slow melting, attempting to dissolve her from within.

The spreading sensation reached her knees. All four tried to buckle. And she wanted to cry out, to find the words which would make it all go away -- but Trixie's ears weren't rotated towards Twilight. The performer's focus had effectively been directed towards an audience of one --

-- and in the strange, somehow frozen silence, Twilight became aware of her heartbeat.

One frantic pounding against the interior of her rib cage. Two --

-- Truedawn's residents began to shift position. Little changes in posture, the twitching of tails and a shuffling of hooves. They were listening, paying full attention, but the herd hadn't decided what it wanted to do and the smallest push in the wrong direction --

"-- everypony, center on me!" The accent was still wrong, but the voice itself was unmistakable. "Close in! We've got to --"

Rainbow, even in her half-exhausted state, was the first to respond: wings flared to their full span, beat a frantic aerial path towards Applejack. Pinkie was getting ready to push, Fluttershy had a certain way of adjusting position which sometimes made Twilight wonder if the caretaker had been in the new location all along, Rarity was ignoring all of it and had squared shoulders and hips, lowering her horn as she prepared to make a charge directly at the stage --

-- something which would have her trying to go through dozens of ponies.

Dozens.

They were out in the open (while still confined by the shield). There was some humidity in the air, but it wasn't necessarily enough for Rainbow to really work with -- and as long as the dome was in play, air itself was in limited supply. Starlight was the only Truedawn resident who'd been seen openly using any form of magic and when it came to combat, that didn't matter. The Bearers were still outnumbered by at least twenty to one. Once any cry of alarm reached the rest of the community, those odds would only get worse.

And Twilight still didn't know what had happened in the community, to create a group of adult ponies without marks. Who, from all abruptly-coalescing indications, apparently preferred it that way.

It could still be a disease.

"DON'T FIGHT!"

Twilight wasn't the leader. (She told herself that fairly often, and was usually sure she was right.) They shifted off leadership duties based on need. She had to take the initiative on unicorn magic --

-- Trixie?
Please, please make this not be happening --

-- but Pinkie had the lead in many social situations, and there had been times when Rainbow had wound up directing them: that last was generally when there was no time to actually think.

She wasn't the leader.

But five Bearers froze.

The followup "Don't fight..." was weaker. Softer, as decibels dissolved away. "We don't know... we can't... we can't launch the first kicks..."

Too many.
If it turns into a fight -- there's too many. Even if they're not using magic, the numbers...
...some of us could get hurt, or...
...we'd have to reach Spike. First priority. Or he might hear the fighting, come out on the attack, and the flames...
They're not striking at us.
They aren't really doing anything.
It's wrong to attack the ill.

They'd all fought against Doctor Gentle's supporters. The nascent, newborn cult.

...no. That had been different. Those ponies had been going after them. And if there had been an illness there, it had been --

-- the same one?

The spreading infection of belief --

-- there were ways in which the next words couldn't really be described as 'calm'. To say that somepony was speaking calmly was to imply there were other options available, and Starlight apparently didn't see anything in the situation as being worthy of upset. In fact, up until that moment, she apparently hadn't seen it as being worthy of anything. She'd just been -- standing there. Watching Trixie. Or looking at the place where the performer happened to be.

"Calzin. Tili." Two residents looked up. "Go to your house. Remove everything which you feel could potentially be used as a weapon. After that, this group --" and it was faster for Starlight to just surround about sixty ponies with a brief trace of corona, one after the other as she continued to speak "-- will take all of our visitors who remained in the audience section to that residence. Place them within, then surround the house, watch for escape attempts, and signal the community if they try anything. Otherwise, wait for my word."

She paused. Thinking. And then she turned her attention to the stage, with regard which was almost -- languid.

"Quinz, Kicha -- bring Casta to your own residence. The following community members --" more momentary turquoise auras flashed through the crowd "-- will guard that house. Instructions are otherwise the same."

"And when we hear from you?" Tili quickly asked.

Evenly, "Bring everypony back here." Her gaze almost languidly moved between frozen Bearers. Watching. Evaluating. "I'll stay with the community until they've all been placed as directed. But after that, I'll be in my workshop for at least an hour. I need to prepare something."

Silence. Rainbow's ribs heaved over and over. Feathers twitched, and a prismatic tail twitched because it was the only action left.

"You're going to test her," Tikr placidly said.

"Yes." Something about the accompanying nod felt uneven. "But those who are tested might pass. Take them away."

It wasn't a very good house. It wasn't much of a prison cell either, and simply having everything above ground put an automatic forfeit on 'dungeon'. But having a few dozen ponies posted around the perimeter added a certain something to the potential for confinement.

Twilight could see a few of them through the uneven glass of the front window. The herd had decided to be resolute about it. Ponies came by with trays balanced on their backs, distributed mugs of wake-up juice. The streetlights reflected oddly off the empties, although not as strangely as the distortions produced by the ground quartz.

Truedawn had effectively surrounded the house. But none of its ponies had stayed inside. The occupants had removed some utensils. Everypony had herded the Bearers within, taken up their perimeter positions, and... that was it.

"Well..." Rarity carefully said, and the seemingly-false lightness made everypony in the cramped living room turn towards her. Fluttershy's comb-bundled tail just barely avoided being caught by a half-extruded couch spring.

"Well what?" Rainbow crossly demanded. Wings flared out to full span, furiously flapped twice before forcing themselves to refold into the rest position. Three rather poor pieces of flimsy woodwork were blown off a shelf, and the hint of fresh ozone lingered.

"Well," the designer restarted, "now we can talk without fear of interruption. For -- at least an hour?"

She forced a smile, allowed the lie of levity to make the rounds as she looked around at all of the others.

Nopony spoke.

"I have my own concerns, obviously," Rarity sighed. "The primary --" she glanced at the window, rotated her ears until she was sure nopony outside could overhear "-- is bipedal. And must be found at the first opportunity. If the -- 'music' was loud enough to reach him, dears, then he would have also heard it stop. And once that happened, he would have effectively been waiting for us to return. Too many hours away, and..."

Spike.
Sun and Moon, Spike.
...please be okay.
Please wait for us.
There's too many...

Five mares watched the sixth, and did so in utter silence.

"If we are very lucky," the unicorn unheedingly continued, "he simply went to sleep. That may give us until morning before he attempts to --"

Almost casually, "-- Rares?"

Blue eyes blinked. "Yes, Applejack?"

The words were far too even. "What did you say to her?"

"You mean our burden, of course." Dress-covered white shoulders expertly managed a sitting shrug. "Nothing particularly unusual."

A sharp, sudden inhale. "Rarity --"

"-- and whatever I may have said," the designer tranquilly offered, "it would appear I was right. Which also includes the many things I did not have the opportunity to voice. Still, as we are being returned to her vicinity in an hour or so --"

Powerful orange legs pushed against the floor, and the earth pony stood up in almost exactly the same manner as Sun being brought over the horizon: the central difference was the immediate proximity of heat. "-- you need to stop. I know you didn't want her here." With a snort, "I can just about guarantee everypony knows. It's not exactly like you've been keeping your feelings to yourself, is it? Generosity's been sharing her opinion the whole bucking time --"

Pinkie winced. Fluttershy's features vanished behind manefall. Rainbow's tail, for lack of other options, started to flick. But the weather coordinator's mouth opened, just for a moment, and perhaps Twilight was the only one who heard the low mutter.

"I was sort of starting to like her..."

Rarity was just -- resting in place. The white body was low on a poorly-padded, barely-raised bench, and she calmly looked up at the standing farmer. Waiting.

"-- including with the mare she's got those opinions about. Pushing her away, kicking --"

"Nothing I said," Rarity serenely decided, "made a tenth-bit of difference regarding her actions tonight." Briefly paused. "I do perceive some irony, of course."

"Irony," represented the first thing Pinkie had said since they'd been removed from the concert area.

"Of a personal nature," Rarity clarified. "I hardly expect anypony else to have spotted it, as it is my occupation: not yours. Being betrayed by our burden? Perfectly natural. We should have been expecting that since the moment we arrived, especially after she found somepony whom she could betray us to. But with the stallion who suffered the injury upon the stage? That was something only I may be able to truly appreciate: betrayal through inferior stitching."

She softly giggled, as the others stared at her.

And then the designer managed a smile.

"Irony," she decided. "Of course, it was aided and abetted by some decidedly poor carpentry, but I am certain that my own stitching would have held up against the assault --- actually, Applejack, you work with wood rather more often than the rest of us. And you are, of course, familiar with my work. When it comes to the battle of Splinter Vs. Stitch, whom do you feel would --"

"-- you don't think you did anything to influence how that all came out," said the too-steady voice of fast-building danger, and orange ears moved to stabilize a hat which wasn't there. "An' -- and how do you figure that, Rares?"

"If she was truly a good mare," Rarity told the room, "or had somehow managed to transmute herself into one since our last encounter -- then nothing I said could have possibly changed that."

"...Spike..." Twilight just barely choked out.

Every other set of eyes in the room immediately focused on her.

"Dearest, I am just as concerned as you are, but we have no current means of reaching --"
"...I'm worried too..."
"We'll get to him! I promise! I... really really wish I could Pinkie Promise right now."
"Nopony's going to stand between us and getting him back! Just give me a plan and get me out there! Or don't give me a plan, because that's faster --"
"-- Twi, I know what it's like to have a sibling out there alone, I'm scared for him too..."

"...Spike," the little mare forced herself to repeat, "said in the very first scroll, after we all got here --"

It's my fault.

"-- that Trixie might have gotten a concussion..."

"Change of heart through head injury?" Rarity pondered -- and then shrugged again. "Well, it's not as if it's possible to knock some sense into her --"

-- orange legs moved. Applejack was now standing directly in front of Rarity, towering over the resting white form. The unicorn didn't react.

"-- so you're saying there's a seventh Element?" emerged from just under the business end of the flaring nostrils. Applejack's hooves were beginning to grind against the floor, and Twilight distantly worried about splinters.

Rarity blinked. "A what?"

"Because you're basically asking for 'stand there and take it' to be its own virtue," Applejack snorted. "And on the level you were kicking out, the only way to really honor it would be a necklace. Maybe even a crown. And don't even start on saying you could do double-duty, because you can't."

The purple tail twitched.

"I have my own means of dealing with pressure," Rarity said. "None of them involve hurting my friends --"

"-- I've seen how you manage stress," Applejack shot back. "Your ideas on how to keep it all calm. I've also seen the results. So as far as I'm concerned?" The blonde tail was lashing now, picking up speed. "Everything you do for keeping yourself under some kind of control doesn't work." Green eyes shifted focus, went to the horn. "But what else would you expect when the ideas come from a pinhead?"

They barely saw Pinkie move.

There was a blur of rose, and then the baker was trying to place herself in the space between farmer and designer. Intervening, attempting to separate --

-- Applejack's left foreleg raised, went out to the side. Pinkie pulled up short just before crashing into it.

"You're trying to provoke me," Rarity evenly declared. "It won't work --"

"-- provoke," Applejack cut in.

"It's rather obvious."

"Stop." There was a plea in the baker's voice, and it was easy to hear because there was almost nothing else left. "You both have to stop --"

"-- your fishing-loving freak of a dad," the farmer offhoofedly decided, "would have said 'bait'."

And then Rarity was standing.

"You of all ponies," the unicorn hissed, "would do well to be careful about invoking parents --"

Subtle scents were building in the air. The reek of rage.

They're going to fight.

It could be argued that Applejack and Rarity had the weakest bond in the group. (On a particularly bad day, they would be tied for last.) They'd certainly started that way, and it had taken years, careful talks, and the occasional slumber party to build a connection. But there had been so many times when the mares had felt as if they were on the verge of battle, and now --

-- how do I stop this?
How can I fix --

Maybe she couldn't.

This is worse than it was after Quiet.
Maybe we can't ever be eight.
We're falling apart --

"...stop..."

And slowly, carefully, with two mares never quite taking their eyes off each other, the group turned towards the most practiced half-whisper in the room.

"...we're all upset," Fluttershy softly told them. "Stressed and scared. You can admit to the stress, but... I'm the one who has to say when there's fear. And we haven't been eating right, you don't think clearly when you're not really eating, and... please, everypony. We have to stay together. All of us, everypony who's still here. There has to be an us..."

Pinkie used the distraction, pushed herself against Applejack's hoof and lowered that leg to the floor before getting an extra hoofstep in. Green and blue eyes were now trying to glare through curls.

Slowly, Rarity lowered herself to the floor. Applejack took two hoofsteps back and held position. Still standing.

"...we... may wind up needing help," the hybrid quietly pointed out. "I don't know what's going to happen with Starlight's -- test. But I think we might need to ask for help. And I was thinking... Twilight, all of the signal devices are out of reach right now. We could try to get one, and set it off when the right hour comes." She glanced at the nearest clock, and a series of minor facial misery adjustments indicated an attempt to adjust for clockwork error. "Maybe that won't be tonight. It's getting so late that it's about to be early. But... even if we get one, I don't know if it'll do anything..."

Which finally gave Twilight a solvable problem.

"They should go off unless they've been tampered with," the little mare said. "I could try to correct for magical alterations. With the chemical ones --"

Trixie loves chemistry.

She fought to refocus. "-- I could try to remix anything which hadn't been corrupted. And if they've all been destroyed --"

They'd have to search the houses. Find where we secured everything.
They could find Spike.
Spike...

"-- I can probably improvise --"

The jungle-green head slowly shook. "...I was thinking... that when you looked down from the tepui, you didn't see Truedawn. Just rain forest, because that's what the shield wants you to see. And we know that there's lights here now." A slight head tilt indicated the direction of the nearest streetlight. "So if we set off a signal in here..."

Twilight softly groaned. "...then the shield might shift the lumen level back to normal on the way out, or completely contain the burst," she sighed. "You may be right, Fluttershy. It has to be tested, but -- we may not be able to signal the palace unless we can bring the shield down or find a way to get outside it."

"We could have just fought our way out," Rainbow huffily insisted. "We could be back together and lighting up the sky right now."

"There were too many of them," Twilight immediately countered. "Rainbow, when there's over a hundred ponies -- no, don't start! Maybe they haven't been using magic, and it's even possible that they can't. But just the sheer numbers... somepony would have gotten hurt --"

"-- I can guarantee that," Rainbow fiercely told the room. "I could have put a hurt on --"

"-- somepony here. And when it comes to hurting them... they haven't kicked out at us, they didn't do anything more than herd us in here, they've been nice, and..." She had to force her lungs into finishing the breath. "...they might be sick. We still don't know, everypony. We... have to be careful."

Applejack sighed: an act which released none of the tension in the powerful muscles. "I was ready to kick my way out for a few seconds there. I'll admit it. But -- Rainbow, that wasn't all of them. Maybe there was a Lunar shift doing the night jobs, or a few just went to bed. But I know I didn't see everypony I've met in that audience."

"I didn't," Pinkie immediately added. "There were at least forty more ponies who could have come in as reinforcements if somepony sounded an alarm. And I'm not sure I've seen everypony here yet."

Twilight nodded. "And even if we won against the first group -- somehow -- that leaves us being chased by the second. All the way to the shield, and I would have had to figure out how to break it on the spot."

"You could have done it," Rainbow quickly stated. "You're better than whoever enchanted that. Better than Starlight, if it's her. We -- look, stop shaking your head, you know you're good at this, there's a crown thingie which says you're great --"

"-- it can take time," Twilight broke in. "Countering the shield, even in a small area... you remember Tish's gallery, Rainbow. We just barely made one tiny hole."

"But you said that was three shields! All of the magic, layered together! This is just the one --"

Just barely audible, even to herself: "-- Rainbow."

Who stopped.

"I don't know how long it would have taken," Twilight said. "I wasn't going to risk any of you in trying to find out. And... I still don't feel like we should have attacked. We all know there's something going on here, something which -- probably shouldn't be happening at all."

His name was Linchpin.
His mark was changed.
And when he died, the original didn't come back.

"If we ran," the little mare finished, "then... by the time we signaled the palace, and could try to return -- maybe they would have run. It could take a long time to find them. If we can, then we need to try and solve this from the inside."

And if we ran, then Trixie might have gotten left behind.

She wasn't going to voice it. Twilight was sure Rarity had a devastating 'So?' on standby.

"You want to play nice," Rainbow's disbelief checked.

Carefully, "For as long as we can."

"And if they try to imprison us?" the pegasus shot back. "More than just the shield, Twilight: a cell. Or they say we're stuck here forever --"

"-- we get out."

"And if they hurt one of us?" Rainbow challenged. "Or worse?"

Then it's my fault.

"Then we fight."

The prismatic mane shifted across the length of the hard nod. "I'll take it." But the tail was still shifting. "Just make a decision fast, Twilight. Because I don't know if I'm gonna wait for very long. Or if they will."

She waited for somepony else to say something. Anypony else. To propose a plan, or even an idea. To come up with the words which would bring them all home.

I need to get them all home.
Everypony.
My brother and all of my friends.
...is she my friend?
Was she ever...?

But there was anger in the air, laced with undercurrents of fear. And so nopony said a word.

There was a degree of illumination within the Truedawn night, even with the clouds having completely closed in. All of it was artificial, and there was now a question as to what it would take before any portion could reach the outside. Light, as with everything else, felt -- trapped.

Most of what was locally available had now been trapped within a fairly small area.

Multiple lighting devices had been set up near the stage: far more than what had been present for the concert itself. There was a little patch of what might have been daylight there, but... no device ever truly replicated the radiance of Sun. As with Truedawn's residents, every hue was at least slightly off, and it made the world feel artificial. Part of Twilight's mind was insisting that they'd all just been herded into an inferior cinema set.

The community had gathered. Truly gathered, with -- it was hard for Twilight to get a true count, but she felt it was something under two hundred ponies present.

Combat forces.
Possible victims.
...somepony's hostages?

Just about all of them had arranged themselves in a near-circle around the stage, starting about fifteen body lengths back from the splintery wood. Watching and waiting, as six mares were herded in.

"Right here," Tili gently told them. "Sit in front."

They sat. Tails splayed across foreign ground.

We don't have very good luck with sitting in front of stages.

A portion of the crowd parted, and Starlight approached. Her saddlebags seemed to be somewhat fuller than usual.

The lilac unicorn stopped when she was ten body lengths away.

"I could restrain all of you," she evenly stated. "The standard methods, or a more advanced confinement. If a single pony here gives me a reason to do so, then I will. The current theory is that you are all intelligent enough to both recognize this and comprehend that you would be starting a battle which you cannot win."

Rainbow's lips pulled back from her teeth.

"You will listen," Starlight continued without visible notice of the pegasus' reaction, "you will let her speak, and then you will answer questions. Is that understood?"

"Fully," Twilight quietly answered.

It got her a single nod. That, at least, almost felt normal. Starlight had probably gotten a lot of practice in on public nods.

Another group approached. Six ponies, surrounding a single light blue unicorn. The center mare's gaze was mostly looking at the ground.

Starlight glanced at the new arrivals. "Stand with the community," she told the transport group. Then, to the unicorn, "Take the stage."

Hooves slowly made their way up the little ramp at the side, and their owner finally turned to face the crowd --

-- no. Facing Starlight, as if the lilac mare was the only pony present.

The performer didn't look at the Bearers, nor did she glance up at the shield to seek out concealed Moon and hidden constellations. A weary, half-lidded gaze was meant for Starlight, and nopony else.

Rarity's tail was lashing: Twilight could feel the little disruptions of the air on her left. Easy to pick up on, when no true breeze ever came through the shield.

Look at me.
I'm looking right at you. I need to see you.
...the real you.
Look at me...

But Trixie didn't.

Starlight's horn ignited. The right saddlebag opened, and two modified metal shoes floated out. Each was designed to completely encircle a hoof, and had triangular, scooping metal projections at the front. They obediently descended to the ground, and Starlight smoothly donned the hoof-mounted tools.

Garden trowels? Why does she need --

A very small cloth bundle levitated out of the open saddlebag. Unwrapped itself. And under the bright false lights of Truedawn, Twilight saw what it contained.

Small, hard ovals. Like somepony was chipping pieces off a bit. The golden color is almost right, except for that lighter segment at the narrow end.

That's where the buds push their way out.

Seeds.

She has Seeds Of Truth.

Methodically, Starlight dug a small hole. Floated the seeds down into the tiny wound, then pushed the soil back into place. Truedawn simply watched.

Turquoise dipped into the open saddlebag again. A small glass vial emerged.

The contents were grey and chartreuse, swirling about each other in thin layers without ever truly mixing. Starlight's field removed the cork, then receded enough to allow the liquid free passage.

It had a scent which felt like a chemist had tried to replicate the pleasant aroma of cherries while working from a base of ammonia. The results fizzed slightly as they soaked into the soil, and Applejack winced.

We talked about it afterwards. Long before the Secret had been broken. She tried. But she couldn't make them grow on her own. All she could do was prime them. They have just one condition where they'll sprout.

Testing.

I tried to find out how they worked. There were theories, but nopony was sure about any of it. The best guess was that a pony who's telling the truth gives off a pheromone, and that's what the seeds respond to. But it would need to be capable of working into the soil.
...I thought about harvesting some of Applejack's sweat. Distilled Honesty. Find out if the seeds could be watered. And when I told her, she just laughed...
What did Zecora do to the seeds, before she brought them out? Were they prepared in her hut? Something only a zebra with a potion mark could manage, to get them ready?
Does it take a zebra?
And if it does, then -- what did Starlight just do, to substitute?

The fizzing stopped, with the earth now visibly discolored in a small, strangely-even patch. Starlight looked at the results, then glanced up at Trixie.

"Do you know what those were?"

"I read."

Tired tones. Slightly weak. They'd all been up for too long, none of them had truly eaten...

"And you understand what they do," Starlight calmly asked.

"Yes."

The turquoise became slightly brighter. Projected forward, briefly surrounded the performer before winking out.

"They will respond to you," the lilac unicorn said. "And only to you. No interference from others is possible. Regardless, I ask that the community remain silent. This is her test. Allow her to speak."

Nearly two hundred ponies nodded, and did so as one.

Starlight didn't bother with a warning glance at the Equestrian travelers. She simply made eye contact with the performer, and Trixie didn't move.

"You have offered your skills to the community," Starlight began. "Why?"

The performer took a slow, deep breath.

"You're trying to get rid of marks," she began. "That's right, isn't it?"

"We are," Starlight calmly said, "investigating the possibilities offered by living without them."

All of Truedawn watched Trixie. Listened. The performer at the center of a perfectly attentive audience.

"However," the lilac mare added, "in my experience, the average pony does not come to recognize the benefits of having but a single internal voice without -- a community." Paused. "And before that, a... friend. Somepony to -- lead the way."

She's hesitating.
The verbal pacing, the tones -- they're turning awkward.

"Why do you wish to help us?" Starlight asked. And waited.

Grey-tinged eyes slowly closed, and it took six endless heartbeats before they opened again.

"You identified my talent," the performer began. "Immediately."

"I study," Starlight stated. "Continue."

"...you..." The next breath went to the limits of lung capacity, threatening to fracture ribs from within. "...weren't quite right."

"You confirmed my deduction during our previous discussion," Starlight said. "If you are now claiming to have misspoken, or that you have a different interpretation of your icon --"

The streaked tail sagged.

"-- I have half a talent."

The herd...
...Twilight didn't know how to classify the sound. Half of a collective inhale, half --
-- sob?

And all Starlight said was "Continue."

Slowly, with every syllable bleeding individual drops, "I dream of new magic. Sometimes I know what has to be done, to bring it into the world. I just... I can't cast most of it. My field strength is -- fairly high. I could have gotten into a lot of schools. But it's not enough. I dream of things which could change the world, and -- they're also spells which might take an alicorn to cast." Bitterness entered the audible wound. "Or maybe they're workings which start where an alicorn has to stop. There's a voice in my head, all right. It talks to me at night, almost every night, to the point where I feel like I picked up insomnia just to not hear it for a while. I'm pushed towards goals I can never reach, constantly, and -- there's no way to make it stop. Not for more than the two weeks I get from shutting my own talent down. The dreams hurt, and not using my talent hurts, and... not being able to use it in the way it was meant to be used..."

She stopped. Her eyes closed again, and the first falling teardrop was absorbed by a vertical distortion of wood.

The discolored patch of soil heaved. Became a tiny mound, as pressure pushed up from below.

Somepony's crying. I can hear --
-- there's so many ponies crying --

Twilight turned her head --

-- Truedawn was weeping.

Something under two hundred ponies were present. The Bearers... all they could do was listen. Rarity's features were twisted by the twin distortions of disbelief and fury. But to look beyond her friends was to see the community, and half of the herd was sobbing. Tears were soaking into fur. Ponies shifted their legs in place because they couldn't rush towards the stage to offer comfort, and just about every face was etched with the pain of deep empathy.

Nearly every face. Starlight simply listened.

"Sometimes I hate my talent," the mare upon the stage softly told the night. "And when that happens, I start to hate myself. And I push too hard, I pushed to do more and it was never enough, so I started looking for..."

She stopped. The left forehoof came up for a second, touched a twisted patch of fur upon her sternum.

"...I made mistakes," she finished. "I did stupid things, and part of that was because I felt so incomplete. I'm supposed to be a channel for magic. I'm not. It's a talent which manifested in a unicorn who can't really use it. I should be my talent, be in -- harmony with it, and I can't --"

The first shoot shoved through granules, and a fresh touch of green entered the night.

"-- you are not your talent," Starlight quietly said, and there was a strange calm in that voice. "You are your own mare. The talent is -- something else." Another pause, followed by a rather awkward "Casta --"

"-- Trixie."

Pinkie winced. Rarity settled for a soft hiss.

"...Trixie," Starlight repeated. "Do you wish for your talent to be removed?"

"There's..." The light blue unicorn's lungs didn't seem to be doing much. "...been so many nights... I've wished for it, there's been whole moons when the dreams wouldn't stop and I couldn't imagine a wish I'd want more. Nopony should have to live like this, nopony. To... be like me..."

Which was when stems erupted from the soil, and the flowers bloomed.

Twilight had seen those flowers before: the pinkish-purple leaves, a white center bloom, and golden stamens. But this plant didn't look exactly like the original. There was a touch of chartreuse to the stamens, and the main bulb was oddly distorted.

Starlight silently nodded. Then the slim legs went into motion, and the lilac mare carefully moved to the stage's ramp. Moved to Trixie's level, as the performer slowly turned towards approaching hooves.

The community's leader stopped less than two hoofwidths away.

There was something almost soft about Starlight's voice, and yet it didn't quite manage to get there. It was the vocal attempt of a mare who had heard such things from others and couldn't manage to cross the final gap.

"A long time ago," the lilac mare quietly said, "I told them I would be the last. But... you know you can't be next. Not if... you're going to have the chance to help so many, Trixie. But you... don't have to be alone any more."

Trixie simply wept. And Starlight leaned forward --

-- Twilight had been expecting a nuzzle. The one which was meant for friends. But the leader simply looked at Trixie's face, and then pulled back again.

"Will you work with me?" Starlight asked. "I need your dreams. And you need somepony who can make them real."

A single, half-miserable nod.

Starlight turned. Faced night and community.

"She is not Free," the lilac mare told Truedawn. "She wishes for that freedom. But like... me..."

Stopped. Took a breath, glanced back at Trixie. The performer raised her head, just a little.

"...like me," Starlight resumed, "she chooses to carry the burden for a while longer. So that others might be Free. Respect her sacrifice."

The herd nodded. Nearly two hundred heads bobbed on the beat.

"And welcome her."

The cheering broke the night. Most of the associated stomping settled for a sincere attempt to collapse eardrums.

Trixie did her best to smile at them. But it was a tired sort of expression. Burdened...

"Enough for now," Starlight stated, and the herd settled down. "There will be time for individual greetings later, of course. And perhaps -- even a name. But..."

She looked down from the stage. Focused on the Bearers, and Twilight felt Pinkie flinch. But Starlight wasn't really regarding the baker. Her attention had been pushed onto Rarity.

"I had the chance to speak with a few members of the community as they dropped off supplies at my workshop," Starlight said. "That one was fighting with you during the concert. Insults. Why?"

"She hates me."

"Because?"

Trixie shivered. It was cold everywhere. "I'm... not part of the group..."

Twilight took a single careful hoofstep forward, kept a concealed horn dark and her wings folded. Nopony tried to stop her.

"Starlight," the little mare urgently said, "I need to tell you why we're here."

The Seeds. If she has more, we can make them work for us --

"I have a theory regarding your presence," Starlight told them as her corona brightened by a single lumen. "In terms of the reason for such. However, when it comes to the how of it --"

-- the left saddlebag lid opened. Turquoise delved within, extracted a small object, and silently floated it forward and down.

It was a section of a thin gold rod, with a diameter no greater than the tip of a pony's tail. There was a piece of broken jewel just barely clinging to the sundered end, and threads of silver wire protruded past it like pulled taffy.

Six mares stopped breathing.

"-- for that," Starlight finished, "I can speak with certainty."

Her legs shifted. Coming up to the very front of the stage's apron, as the device fragment steadily floated in front of Twilight's snout.

"It didn't quite reach my workshop," the community leader stated. "But it did pass through the shield, and there was enough left to signal an arrival. I theorize that the last fractions of thaums were able to gain slightly more distance after it lost the drag weight."

She smiled. There was no process involved, no slow shifting of facial muscles. The expression simply arrived on her face all at once, as a single unit.

"I had to reference an origin point," the mare told them, and the top edge of the saddlebag-stored notebook briefly bobbed into sight. "But once I had that... I visited the recruitment site. I read the newspapers personally. And so I can finally say this: hello, Twilight Sparkle."

oh no

"I do wish to have a true conversation with you," Starlight added. "Regarding your published articles, and any conjecture which you have yet to submit to the journals. Some of your work is exemplary, and even your theories are well beyond what most could render." Paused. "However, I would suggest that you seek out a new editor. Your writing is far too emotional. But at this time, I will begin with a single query."

The smile vanished and with the mare's next words, most of Twilight's heart longed to go with it.

"Where is the dragon?"

Pairwise

Minor priorities tended to perish when a sibling was at risk: the survivors were fortunate to simply be shuffled towards the bottom of the checklist. And Twilight wanted to fully focus, concentrate to the point where every part of her being had no intent other than guarding her brother -- but her mind had a tendency to race away from her, and to do so in too many directions at once.

She had to make sure Spike was protected. Safe. And yet, even as Starlight's corona withdrew the device fragment, returned it to the saddlebag while the community's leader waited for an answer-- the little alicorn recognized something.

A name had recently been offered to Truedawn. Her name.

The results were unexpected.

I heard everypony when Starlight said all of that. Especially the part about Spike.

Fluttershy managed to swallow back most of the gasp. Pinkie's radiating tension. Applejack's forehooves are grinding against the dirt, Rainbow's going to have a dust devil spiraling around her if she doesn't get control back soon, and Rarity's stress is so high that I can scent it. She doesn't know whether to charge the stage or race off towards the right house. If I see a flare of soft blue, she's probably trying to teleport directly there, and she knows she can't. But she'll try, even after she failed that one time. And then we'll have another patch of blue glass on the ground. If we're lucky.

I can also hear the herd.

There are four alicorns in the world. The newest has existed in her current state for less than a year, and I can safely say that she's still adjusting.

Truedawn would have just found out that one of those alicorns is here. And that kind of news should be like kicking a rock into the lake from the top of the tepui, assuming it could get through the stupid shield. There's going to be a splash, and the ripples wouldn't stop for a while. If there was even any water left post-impact.

But I'm mostly just hearing -- murmurs. A few whispers. Ponies talking to each other, trying to pass on news without raising their voices to the point where it would interrupt Starlight.

I don't think most of them know who I am.

Which means that the majority of the community was here before I changed.
...before the wedding? That's when the press first pinned down who the Bearers were...
...how old is Truedawn?

She didn't know and until Spike was safe, it didn't matter.

Trixie's backed up a little. Moving more towards the left edge. Starlight is the focal point for the audience now.
Is there a word for that? Something actors would use in the theater?

Spike would know. He loved the stage...

Focus...

"The dragon," Twilight repeated. It was a way to buy time until she could think of something else.

Starlight's eyes didn't narrow. She simply continued to regard Twilight from her position at the front of the stage.

"Twilight Sparkle," the community's leader evenly stated, "lives with a dragon. He is also frequently found traveling at her side. But -- not always. You could tell me that he remained in your home, and I acknowledge the possibility. However, I would also need to verify. Directly."

If she reached Canterlot, then she can get to Ponyville. Even if she doesn't have a direct arrival point, all she has to do is use whatever site she's got for the capital and then get on the first train going west.

...is that just the device? We know the rod -- rods? -- can shift ponies to different continents, because we used it to get here. And just about anypony could try for a series of relay points, even if the cumulative exhaustion would still mean taking two days to finish the trip. Most ponies are probably going to pass out at least twice.

But when it comes to teleporting on your own... international travel, with a single effort, would require one of the Princesses.

How strong is she...?

The current theory was that the transport would be powered by the device. The alternative was exactly horrifying enough to be temporarily postponed.

"And should I not locate him there, or be able to verify that he is, for example, staying with your parents for the duration," Starlight impartially added, "then the next step would be to determine whether he is hidden within the community." A brief pause. "It should be possible to create a working which tracks dragons. It might even be innovative."

Rarity's face twisted into a full snarl. Trixie shifted a little closer to the far edge of the stage.

"I did not see him enter," the lilac unicorn admitted as she maintained visual focus on Twilight. "But then, in consideration of a sapient's truest visual appearance only, I technically did not see you enter. Something we will be dealing with after the dragon question is answered. His location?"

Think.

He's got the necklace. Luna enchanted it to avoid being picked up by passive feel: the same as the effect on my bow. He could hide for a long time --

-- visually. The enchantments wouldn't do anything to stop a spell meant to find a dragon, and when it came to creating such a working...

...Trixie...

Something else which had to be postponed -- while still being a factor. Because Trixie might have turned on them
on me
truly turned, and that meant Starlight had the option to just ask.

He could hide...

But she knew her little brother. There was no guarantee that they were going to be sent back to the same poorly-built homes: in fact, Twilight was currently anticipating adding Truedawn to her personal list of hosting places for Prison Cells I Have In No Way Enjoyed. (Rarity, who'd picked up on the group's collective tendencies rather early, had been working on a formal ratings system.) If they didn't return, and too much time passed...

...he'll come looking.
The little knight charging off to the rescue. One very small dragon against what's nearly two hundred ponies.
He can't win.
And he'd do it anyway.
Because he loves us.
He would die trying to save us.
He would die.

And Starlight would know if Twilight was telling the truth --

-- would she?
Why isn't she bringing out more Seeds to verify my answers? Was that her entire supply? Or is she saving a few for future interrogations?

It didn't matter. Until proven otherwise, she had to assume the Seeds could be brought into play.

It's my brother.
I don't have a choice...

"...promise..." And then she had to stop, forcing decibels into her voice as feathers shook and her tail did its best to twist itself apart. "Promise you won't hurt him."

The lilac mare came forward a little more. The scoops of the still-worn trowels were now jutting out over the edge of the stage.

"I have a number of perfectly understandable inquiries regarding his biology," Starlight told the night as clouds roiled overhead and Moon slipped that much deeper into vaporous shadow. "But they can wait. So the dragon is present."

I hate myself.

Twilight suspected she was about to have plenty of company.

"Yes." The word burned her throat on the way out, scalded the tongue. And she was terrified, terrified for him, it was rising from her skin in a great invisible cloud and within seconds, the entire herd would know... "But that wasn't a promise."

Starlight was still looking at her, and Twilight forced her body to hold position. The sheer intensity in that gaze...

"My wording was, in fact, insufficiently promissory," Starlight decided. "Very well. As long as he does no harm to anypony here, then no harm shall come to him. However, I would still wish to speak with him at some point. It is always instructive to interview someone from a species which retains their freedom."

Portions of the herd softly sighed.

Free. Freedom.
You mean marks.

It had been the sound of envy.

Overhead, the clouds shifted. Perhaps there was a breeze, and there was probably rain on the way. In Truedawn, it didn't matter. For nearly all intents and purposes, the climate conditions outside the terrarium didn't exist --

-- terrarium?
Why did my mind just kick out 'terrarium'...?

Twilight didn't know. But it felt important. She had to hang onto it --

-- but there was still a certain intensity trying to drill its way through her pupils. From the front.

"Where is he?" Starlight calmly asked.

Which was when Applejack stopped grinding her forehooves against the ground.

The right one lifted, then dropped hard.

After a moment, the community leader's ears twisted towards the sound. It took another heartbeat before the head turned to match.

"A signal for my attention," Starlight conjectured. "This would be a rather poor time for contradiction through denial. And a surprising choice of candidates to make the attempt."

"That's not it," Applejack's harsh tones projected into the dark. "If we tell you where he is, then what's the plan?"

They all watched Starlight breathe. One inhale. One exhale. Second inhale --

"To bring him here," Starlight said. "Reunite the full group."

Applejack nodded. "And you'll send some ponies out to fetch him."

"As would obviously be required, yes."

"Then..." The farmer stopped, then put her body through an exacting half-shake: most of the orange fur settled back into its natural grain. "...have two of us go with your group. Because if a bunch of strangers come into the house and try to tell him what's been going on, he might not take it well. Try to run, or -- worse. But if he can hear from ponies he knows, then he's a lot more likely to cooperate."

Starlight thought it over. It was easy to watch Starlight think. Opportunities for doing so in Truedawn were plentiful and when it came to how Starlight dealt with any situation, few other options were available.

"Sensible," she finally said. "Did you wish to be one of that pair?"

"Yes," Applejack immediately replied. "He'll listen to me."

"Because," Starlight proposed, "he'll know you're telling the truth."

...how much did she learn in Canterlot?
What does she know?

It took a few seconds before Applejack could force her own features out of the hard wince.

"More or less," the earth pony eventually allowed. "And to make sure it really works, Twilight should --"

"-- she will remain here for now," Starlight stated. "But I may dispatch her if additional verbal reinforcement is required. So. You and --" she briefly glanced at all six, made a decision "-- you."

The wince saw its opportunity and quickly migrated to Twilight's face.

...right.
Well, he should listen to her, all right. It just happens to be one of the worst times for Applejack and Rarity to be doing anything together...

"To accompany them..." Corona flares briefly outlined a variety of Truedawn residents. "Go do that now."

The herd began to separate itself. Several ponies, who clearly saw no need to continue sweating their way through a warm summer night, started to shuffle out of their clothing on the spot. Pinkie automatically turned to track the movement, and so Twilight got to hear the sound of fresh nausea being swallowed back. It was probably safe to assume that at least half of Rarity's partially-blocked retching was for the actual outfits.

"And," Starlight added, "search the residences. All of them."

...and there go the signal devices.
And the translator. I don't think that's going to stay concealed for long.
There are five of them in the world and I just lost one.

Twilight dearly wanted to explain that to the Princesses. As the greatest of her problems.

"The rest of us," the lilac mare announced, "shall wait here."

Rarity forced her legs into motion. Applejack waited for the designated miniherd to finish forming, then followed. Trixie faded into the background a little more.

The chosen ones trotted away. The night fell silent again, and remained so for several minutes.
Then more minutes passed.
It was probably over half an hour now.
There was a certain question as to just when Sun was due...

The herd was patient, because they'd been told to wait. Starlight was utterly still upon the stage. Trixie might as well not have existed and as soon as Rarity got back, that was going to be the best case.

It gave Twilight time for more thoughts.

I do my own editing. An act which somepony had once described as the process of 'killing your darlings', and she had to make sure to never tell Rarity that. Rarity was likely on the verge of calling at least one pony 'darling' just to see if it would let her justify the murder.
'Too emotional'...
And in the surest sign of a writer who'd just had their natural style questioned, Bitch.

Which was when Starlight spoke.

It was an act which was initiated as a single unit. The thought was ready to go. There was no need to lead into it. Anypony who wasn't ready could presumably ask her to repeat everything.

"The current theory for your presence," she began, "is that you are investigating his appearance. Clearly you used the device in an attempt to reach the origin point."

She's not using his name. Either name. And none of the Truedawn ponies are asking questions.

"Yes," was all Twilight allowed herself.

"What was your reasoning for not attempting more complex methods of identity concealment for the full group?" Starlight's head tilted, very slightly. "She has fur dye. The simplest explanation for your own current appearance is the use of a persistent illusion. The rest of you appear to have done nothing."

"...we left in a hurry." I am entitled to a sigh. "The fragment was losing the last of its charge. We didn't have time..."

We could have done more once we got here. But the supplies were split, and there was nothing more important than finding everypony else. With no one else around...

...nopony...

...why would ponies do this...?

...no. She'd heard a few of those potential answers: the list of contributors included Luna. The real question was why they were doing it as a group.

Or -- a community.

"If you have notes on the thaum leakage," Starlight calmly said, "then I would appreciate the opportunity to review them."

"I didn't get to bring that," said a decidedly miffed alicorn.

"Pity," offered up no audible sympathy. "However, as a substitute, we can discuss your own concealment method. I did not believe you were keeping an illusion going on your own. Short-term concealment from passive feel would have been possible, but you have been posing as a pegasus for some time now --"

The news was apparently still traveling through the herd: Twilight had just picked up on multiple notes of muttered confusion.

"-- without slippage or a single sign of active casting, for an effect which would require near-constant adjustments to retain the appearance of veracity," Starlight continued. "This suggests a device. Placing it in direct proximity to the head would save a few thaums over time. I verified your hat as being normal while we were entering the community."

She paused, and Twilight briefly waited for the waterproofing treatments to be offered again.

"And where the hat has not been present on multiple occasions -- such as the current one -- you have yet to remove the mane bow," formed the actual follow-up. "This more than suggests the actual source of the spell. I wish to inspect the bow. Levitate it towards me."

So constantly wearing a bow means somepony's an alicorn.
I wonder what you'd make of Flitter.
Then again, Flitter might try to lead you on for a few minutes, just for her own idea of fun. Apple Bloom would probably just decide you were insane.
...she might not be wrong...

There were multiple reasons for Twilight to be frightened. Just about as many existed to justify the anger. At least some of the irritation came from the fact that her time as a perfectly ordinary pegasus was about to end.

No more being treated as if she was normal.

For the Truedawn definition of 'normal'.

"You are not levitating the bow," Starlight noted. "To have it completely negate all use of unicorn magic would make a rather limited degree of sense for a disguise, but does create the risk of leaving you partially helpless in an emergency. Additionally, it would be an incredible advancement in restraints --"

"-- give me a few seconds," Twilight muttered.

Don't start a fight.
We need to find out what's been going on here.
Did she do something to Trixie?
Any fight hurts our chances.
...and if Spike has one scratch on a single scale, then there's going to be a lot of hurt.

"I could negate the effect for you," Starlight didn't quite offer.

Luna enchanted this. I'd like to see you try.

There would be a certain amount of dark humor in watching Starlight make the attempt. The results from potentially witnessing her succeed started at 'terror'.

"It's behind my neck," Twilight's irritation announced. "How well do you manage with fine manipulation on something you can't directly see?"

Starlight thought about it.

"Fair," the unicorn acknowledged, and waited.

Pinkie, moving more unsteadily than Twilight wanted to hear, forced an approach.

"I can try to help."

"I..." Twilight swallowed. "...I should try to do it myself."

"All right," the baker softly said. Then, so much more softly, their empath offered up "I'm sorry..." And stepped back again.

It took three tries, none of which had her field produce any light: even the weakest unicorn in the world would have only needed a partial corona for this, and the illusion was designed to hide that level of effort. However, the first two found most of Twilight's frustrations leaking into the casting, and multiple hairs were nearly yanked out.

The bow finally came free. She floated it up to Starlight --

-- the illusion broke when the bow was three hoodwidths over Twilight's head.

Truedawn saw.

I can hear them. A lot of them didn't know there was a new alicorn. There's some shock, and more than a little confusion. But it still feels muted.

How long have some of them been here...?

Somepony was at least semi-regularly making supply runs, and perhaps that was Starlight. If so, she obviously wasn't passing along much in the way of current events.

The lilac unicorn looked down at the living conjunction of magics, and simply nodded. Then her head tilted towards the floating bow. Twilight receded enough of her field to allow the start of a turquoise grip, then released.

Starlight turned the little device over in her corona a few times.

"Ingenious," she finally pronounced. And then she floated it back to Twilight.

The youngest alicorn blinked.

"You're -- giving it ba --"

"-- as I am satisfied that its sole purpose is horn concealment, I have no need to study it more extensively at this time," Starlight said. "Should that change, I will ask for it again."

Multiple ears perked up, rotated. Hooves were approaching. And there was another sound, the sort of thing you had to know how to listen for: scales sulkily shifting across stone.

Twilight immediately turned.

Her little brother didn't look at her. He simply marched up, eyes focused on the ground with arms rigidly straight at his sides and handling claws tightly clenched into fists. And then he sat down directly in front of her forelegs, folded those arms in front of his chest, and relentlessly glared at the tiny patch of night which was being hosted by innocent soil.

Applejack and Rarity, neither of whom was really looking at the other, glanced at Twilight's revealed status and then returned to their positions in front of the stage. The Truedawn ponies who'd been dispatched to fetch Spike trailed well behind, laden with full saddlebags and back-balanced trays.

Starlight nodded. Turquoise casually took up multiple burdens, and then moved each in front of her eyes for inspection.

"These?" she asked as the first of the signal devices paraded by. "What is the purpose of carrying a high-yield firework?"

Rarity took a breath.

"They are for emergencies," the designer said.

"More specific."

"We were starting at different places within the rainforest, as separate groups," Rarity stated. "In an emergency, we would have needed to be capable of telling each other where we were."

"So a visual signal," Starlight considered.

...does she know about Spike? Hardly anypony knows what he can do unless they've been on the receiving end of a scroll. I don't think it's ever been in a single article --

-- it didn't matter. Spike was trapped inside the shield with the rest of them. And when it came what her brother could do with messages... it was the same as the palace's attempts to watch for a signal, along with nearly every other secret and the reason why they'd arrived as separate groups. All Starlight had to do was ask Trixie.

Or perhaps the performer would simply volunteer the information.

Another pony stepped forward. Starlight's corona brought silver wire and a central black opal into inspection range.

"Sensible," she immediately concluded. "You obviously had concerns about whether there was a new species in play." The translator was carefully lowered to the stage, with the glow winking out once it was next to her left foreleg. "As this is the only specimen I've ever had the fortune to see, I'll be keeping it --"

Twilight felt individual fur strands go rigid.

"-- for at least two nights," the community leader finished. "It is not an opportunity which can be allowed to casually pass. Preliminary studies and sketches, at a minimum."

Which was when she decided to smile.

"No disassembly," Starlight added. "I'm not about to risk damage. Not when there's so few specimens available for study."

She looks -- happy.
And that's how you're supposed to look when you smile. But this time, it feels like she is happy.
...I would have been happy to get a chance at studying it...

More items were brought out, inspected in turn. The tent got a long look. There was some attention paid to their canteens. Two books were declared as being out of date. The bundled raft wound up being rotated several times. Every dress, every foodstuff --

-- wait.
Where's --

"Is this all of it?" Starlight asked one of the stallions.

"It's everything we found," he replied. "And we were taking everything apart." A little abashedly, "We came back here before we put it all back together again. I'm sorry about the beds --"

"-- so they didn't bring the Elements."

"The what?" asked a stallion whose lack of knowledge for Current Events had just been matched by a failing grade in History.

Starlight steadily described them. The herd listened.

"No," arose from multiple ponies, and the original stallion finished with "Nothing like that."

"Pity," Starlight very nearly sighed.

Especially for the shield. It would have been interesting, finding out what happens when we all hit it full blast --
-- hold the reins.
I didn't see --

-- Starlight was looking at her again.

"How did you bring the dragon in?" she asked. "I know when the lockdown is being tested. There was no failure in the defenses."

"Illusion," Twilight replied.

I didn't see Linchpin's blueprints.

"Which you cast."

No. I'm not very good with illusions. I can duplicate something I've seen. Mostly. It's better if I have the original right in front of me. Illusion skill is based in artistic talent, and that's why Rarity is better than me.

But you just went through nearly all of the items we brought with us.

And I also didn't see Spike's necklace.

Maybe it didn't matter. Trixie could give that game away too, and the price for lying might be horrifically high. But any information they could keep away from the community, even for a little while...

"He entered with my group," Twilight sighed. "He was the bedroll."

Starlight nodded.

"Which adequately reframes your packing process," she acknowledged. "Very well."

She looked out into the night. Cast her gaze over the herd, and then refocused on the Equestrians.

"As your assigned quarters are temporarily disrupted," Starlight announced, "each of you will spend tonight with a member of the community. No more than one visitor in any given residence. Who has a bed available? Show of hooves --"

Applejack blinked.

"-- you're -- just spitting us up?" the earth pony broke in.

"For tonight," Starlight clarified.

With open disbelief, "That's it?"

Starlight looked her over. Applejack didn't flinch.

"I would," the community leader said, "appreciate your collective, continued contributions."

The blonde tail lashed. "...say what now?"

"'Agronomist'," the unicorn quoted. "An alternative means of saying 'farmer'. But you have clearly been studying the subject, and on a level well beyond what most earth ponies would ever care to learn. I've been told that your presence has been extremely beneficial to the community's efforts. Ideally, this should persist for as long as it can."

"You are not," Rarity's disbelief openly questioned, "going to do anything to us --"

"-- you're guests," Starlight cut her off. "And not only that, your presence may, in the best case, represent a fully unique oppor --"

The designer briefly reared up, and a herd which was already well behind her pulled back that much more. White hooves crashed into the ground.

"Can guests leave?" Rarity demanded.

Starlight's head tilted very slightly to the left, and did so as a measured response. It was almost possible to see her decide where to stop the movement, how long to let the silence linger before speaking...

"You learned of something new, and you came to investigate," she finally said. "That's the logical response. If you wish to learn why the community exists? Remain within it. Be part of it. For a time. And perhaps you'll learn. Because to depart without answers, especially those gained through personal experience, would be -- bad science."

Another smile, with this one lasting for a mere two heartbeats. And then she looked around. Surveying the herd.

"Volunteers for hosting duties," she quasi-repeated. "Solely for a night, if all beds and the rest of the search disruptions can be restored by tomorrow evening. It is decidedly late and nopony who is not on the Lunar shift should be awake for too much longer -- yes, good. Normal work assignments will resume in the morning. Somewhat later than usual, as everypony requires their normal degree of sleep. And until she and I can speak with each other properly, nopony should give Twilight Sparkle any duties which bring her too close to the shield. Or, for that matter, my workshop. So we have one bed offered up. Several more are required. More volunteers, please."

It all got sorted out. Bearers were led away. A little dragon, flanked by strangers on both sides, fumed his way down the road. The herd broke up, headed off to bed. Some discarded outfits were taken along, with others left behind.

And then there were two.

Trixie, silent and still upon the stage, watched Starlight approach her.

There was something strange about how the other mare was moving. There was a hesitance to it. Hooves dragged somewhat, broke off little splinters as keratin skidded across the wood.

The lilac mare stopped, about two body lengths away. Took a breath.

"You were right," she carefully began. "About the problems which arise when you try to learn from publications."

Trixie waited. The other mare, just a little bit smaller and considerably more uncertain-seeming, gave the breathing thing another try.

"I... can't expect you to improve on a process you've never seen," Starlight continued. "Much less one you don't truly understand."

The performer nodded.

"When it comes to learning how it's done, from a direct demonstration," the lilac unicorn went on, "there will be opportunities. They regularly present themselves. I was hoping for one in no more than a few days. And when it comes to the why of it -- you understand something of that already." A brief glance at Trixie's right hip, and then Starlight went back to regarding grey-tinged eyes. "But it's not enough. Education for the whole... it's a long process, and you are too tired to begin tonight."

Trixie managed a sigh. "Yes," she admitted. "It's -- been a rough night."

"Acknowledged," Starlight said. "I also don't want you staying with those who may need some time to reconcile your choice. And any given member of the community..." It took a second for the smile to appear. "...might keep you awake until Sun was lowered again. The welcomes for the new tend to persist for some time."

"So where do I sleep?" Trixie asked. "I'm getting a new house to myself for the night?"

Starlight shook her head. "I feel it is in everypony's best interests if you stay with me."

Trixie's eyebrows went up. Then her hips and shoulders subtly shifted, and the streaked tail slowly swayed.

"Why, Miss Starlight," Trixie half-trilled. "This is so sudden..."

This time, Starlight's head tilted to the right.

"Did you feel I needed a longer period of time to render the decision?"

Something in Trixie did its best to falter. Stage experience stepped in, tried to prop the patter up.

"You haven't even bought me dinner first!"

Then she waited for the entire thing to collapse anyway. Because Starlight had just --

-- it was as if the muscles were no longer fully connected to the skin. All four legs vibrated, and the body swayed slightly over the hooves. Ears had dropped down, flattening against the skull as if trying to listen for thoughts. And the eyes were unfocused. Trixie kept waiting for them to roll back, if only so they could see what the brain was up to.

Something -- no, everything about the mare felt... disconnected. Lost.

Trixie, who wasn't sure that making physical contact in an attempt to literally bump the other mare out of it was anything close to a good idea, with no idea of what she was supposed to do -- found a creative mind sending concepts out in all directions.

Has nopony ever...

And then she found herself using the strange moment to evaluate Starlight.

Sexually.

It was rather like evaluating the artificial aid potential of a well-shaped piece of wood from a tree growing on the side of the road. If the wood, in the middle of the actual act, started talking about all of the factors which led it to grow into that exact configuration. Followed by arranging for a formal botany lecture, just in case you needed the extra background information.

Was Starlight attractive? Factor out the inexplicable difficulty in pinning down the mare's age, and there was something about the unicorn which could have been appealing -- if she had wanted it to be. But everything about her suggested that she mostly cleaned herself because dirt could contaminate experiments, mane and tail received basic care due to the world expecting such, and when it came to personality...

There was a surprising degree of sexiness built into confidence. The powerful movements produced by the conviction of truly owning one's body and looks. Even before this, Starlight had frequently moved as if she was secretly subletting her own form. It almost felt as if the brain was currently being evicted --

-- the mare's skin seemed to tighten. Limbs steadied as ears lofted, and Starlight blinked twice.

"Upon consideration," she said, "it is possible to recontextualize my offer." Paused. "Is... that what you thought I meant?"

"No," Trixie quickly responded. "I was just kidding around."

"Kidding," Starlight carefully said.

"I wasn't trying to offend you --"

"-- you didn't." A shrug, delivered through pulses of societal pressure, was effectively birthed into the world. "Some research suggests a certain amount of humor can be beneficial to a working relationship. Or... other kinds. In either case, I'm..." The pause went on for what felt like a little too long. "...somewhat out of practice. Do you need anything to help you sleep? Strictly for tonight."

"I'll be okay," Trixie tried to assure her.

"I hope so," Starlight quietly replied. "I hope for you to be many things. To be -- free." A moment of silence, and then, "Follow me. We're going to my workshop."

"Your home is nearby?"

"I live there." Starlight carefully turned, began to trot towards the stage's off-ramp as turquoise fetched the translator. "But I never have long-term guests. So I'll need to prepare a room for you. Make it more -- suitable. Accordingly, when we reach the destination, wait outside. Please."

Scalability

The language of comedy doubles as the glossary of death.

It's something Pinkie noticed fairly early. A performer who's having the night of their lives will describe themselves as killing the audience -- but the ones who couldn't get a joke to land if the Wonderbolts were guiding it in might unleash a desperate scream of "I'm dying out here!" and more than anything else, those words are going to come across as a wish. Because there are ways in which near-instaneous demise would be more merciful than having to remain upon the stage while the spectators are just staring and silence presses against damp fur with a weight which makes it feel as if the air has become slow-drying lava. (Once again, that's the better option.) And the fur is damp because it's being saturated with flop sweat. Forget about froth: flop sweat is the real perspiration of expiration, and a comedian who's truly failed might begin to rapidly trot in place. Hoping to get the breathing thing over with all the faster.

And laughter... dies.

This always struck the baker as being more than a little unfair.

Yes, if you're speaking in practical terms, the physical act of laughing has a rather strict biological limit. Even snickering is the sort of thing which was never meant to keep going for more than a few seconds and based on some of the movies she's seen, keeping it up for more than twenty is supposed to be cinematic shorthoof for 'evil'. (Also unfair, and decidedly rude.) Giggles have been known to last for a while. But laughter... it's strenuous. Muscles can heave. It's possible to pull a few, and Pinkie's needed to pick up first-aid skills for more than just dealing with the fallout from a particularly raucous party. Plus it's very easy to laugh so hard that you wind up gasping for breath and if that keeps up for too long, it'll come to a decidedly crashing conclusion. So if simply viewed as what the pony body is willing to put up with, laughter will have to stop. Pinkie acknowledges that, although she feels it says some rather nasty things about evolution's priorities.

But when she looks past the laughter itself, seeks out the base emotion...

Sorrow lingers. It clings to existence, locks the jaw and refuses to release no matter how infected the resulting wounds might become. Glance at sorrow as it lies in the bed, barely hanging on. Wonder if this is the day when it finally fades, allows the memories it uses as a mattress to become clean and bright again, something you want to relive only without the pain, you haven't been able to truly think about the good times for moons because there's just too much hurt and if this is finally the day --

-- it notices. The regard gives it strength. And the mire deepens, as sunny pastures of years past turn into swamplands of recollection. Set a single mental hoof upon what's now emotional tar and you might wind up trying to bite it off in order to escape again. But even that won't matter. Sorrow clings, and it clings to you.

Embarrassment is effectively immortal. Something humiliating happened while you were in primary school? Bring back that memory on your deathbed and feel the blush rise, still just as fierce and hot and hurtful as it was when the dropped clips were still scattering their way across the floor. Embarrassment is forever young, and doesn't even have the common courtesy to be embarrassed about it.

But nopony can be happy forever.

The other virtues -- they last. Honesty is effectively eternal. Magic is part of the world, while generosity simply goes on. The consequences from a kind act can spread out for years after the actual deed. Loyalty has been known to linger beyond that. And maybe it's even possible to create a world where every last one of those elemental states is a constant.

Laughter -- joy, pleasure, happiness -- are all... temporary.

Why?

She tries so hard. She wants to understand. But to truly comprehend laughter, in all of its facets...

Pinkie's managed to reconcile graveyard humor. Knacker jokes. In the darkest times, the brain can decide to start finding humor in the stupidest things imaginable, because the soul is that desperate for relief. Graveyard humor possesses a very real reason to exist. Giggle at the ghostly, after all -- and if that doesn't work, guffaw in its face. Then consider switching to kicks.

Insult comedy has a more dubious place, and is best used with those individuals who are both aware of their own flaws and ready to laugh at the silly things. Attacking somepony you don't really know is exactly that: an attack. And when it's directed at a group, region, or species... no.

She's studied. (Actual study, with books and everything. Taking the train into Canterlot and attending comedy clubs, then speaking to the performers after. Laughter can be a very serious subject.) And when she truly came to learn about laughter... that's when she started to see what lurked beneath.

She's heard the language of death because it didn't even bother trying to hide between syllables.

She is in an eternal war against opponents made of immortal emotions, and the only weapon she has keeps breaking.

The empath. She knows Twilight thinks of her that way now and again, and doesn't really mind. Twilight had to relearn empathy from scratch, and Pinkie -- almost wishes there was some means by which she could personally put it away for a while.

She talks to just about everypony. They come into the bakery, attend parties, stop her on the street because the entire settled zone knows that you can nearly always talk to Pinkie. And they tell her their troubles.

Who's sick.
Just how dire that financial emergency has become.
There's a relationship about to crash into the rocks, and not even Rainbow could pull out of that dive.

And she takes in their pain. Recognizes it as if those agonies were her own.

Perhaps she'll come up with something to say, or do. A funny line. The offer of a gathering, to bring other ponies close to the one who's suffering, and maybe that'll help. A quick antic: sometimes that does the trick. She's managed to temporarily kick a lot of ponies out of depressive states through pratfalls, and she's not going to call it 'a simple pratfall' because when you're a quadruped, making a stumble-and-splat look casual (and feel harmless -- okay, almost harmless) is a skill.

Maybe the other pony will laugh.

They'll feel better. For a little while.

Then they'll leave.

Eventually, their pain will come back.

And Pinkie, who took that agony in for her own... will still have it. With no means for getting rid of it.

Ever.

...it's not the worst thing. She tries to tell herself that fairly often, largely in the hopes that doing so will eventually make it true. Yes, she's carrying the pain for so many ponies (and in what's an even more unfair move, doing so somehow doesn't always take very much of it away from them). In a way, Pinkie represents the combined hurts of Ponyville, all compressed into a bouncy, curl-disorganized package --

-- she... thinks Twilight would understand that now, if they tried to talk about it. The change gave Pinkie and the librarian one more thing in common. They're both carrying others with them. For the rest of their lives.

Yes, Pinkie gets to feel everypony else's pain. Isn't that better than not being able to recognize pain at all? If you couldn't understand when somepony else was hurting, if your first instinct wasn't to make it stop -- then would you really be capable of understanding anything?

She tries to tell herself that bleeding for others is a good thing. Plus it's rare for an empath to truly be alone in their own head, and... she needs the company. It helps keep some of the older thoughts away.

But she only has so much blood.

When so few wounds ever seal over... when she feels her strength ebbing...

Laughter is temporary. Problems can be permanent. And Pinkie, chosen by Laughter to be its Bearer, is the custodian of an interim solution for perpetual issues.

She's part of her community. (Perhaps too much so.) There's been times when she's found ways to direct resources and collected ponypower towards those who need it. At just about any given moment, Pinkie will know not only who doesn't have money to deal with the latest crisis, but the names of those who both do and would be willing to spare some of it. Mr. Rich is willing to help. But even he can only do so much. Or she can bring in other forms of assistance, social and legal and everything else -- but the recipient needs to be willing to accept it, along with being capable of acknowledging there's an issue at all. When it comes to the more abusive sources of torment, some can't.

And when it comes to her own Element...

All right: so she made somepony laugh. They feel better now.

Is that going to last?

Did it actually fix anything?

Chronic pain can mean more than just the physical.

Laughter is supposed to heal.

If the pain comes back, then it didn't.

(Who heals her?)

Laughter.

She's supposed to represent -- incarnate -- the concept of Laughter for an entire nation. For, in some ways, the world.

Doing it for a single settled zone is hard enough.

Fluttershy thinks she's overburdened? (She is. Pinkie knows. They talk about it every moon. Pinkie takes in that pain, makes it part of herself, and then it never fully goes away.) In theory, even if her fellow hybrid could never manage to steel herself to the point of actually turning an animal away... the cottage only has so much space. Include the grounds and it's a lot of space -- but the fact remains that there's an absolute population limit. Reach capacity on what the land will support, and that's it.

Pinkie knows just about everypony in the settled zone. (It's 'just about'. Some ponies want to be left alone, and it took years for her to figure out how to both acknowledge and do that. Cranky wasn't that last lesson in that ongoing course, but... he was one of the harsher ones.) Their names, occupations, birthdays and, far too often, exactly what's troubling them and how little she can actually do about it.

And Ponyville has been picking up population in every moon.

Go meet that pony. See if they'll be happiest with a welcoming party, or if this is a case where Pinkie just quietly leaves a greeting basket by the front door and hopes the new arrival eventually works up the strength to open the card. Otherwise, she has to learn about the latest resident. Their favorite kind of music, any party games they might favor, the ideal snacks to set out --

-- how long ago their parents died, which is the whole reason they moved here because even though inheriting the old house technically gave them security for their rest of their lives, they just couldn't stand to hear the silence any more --

-- she can introduce them to the town. Try to make sure they're settling in, that they find friends. But she tries. She can't just giggle into the air and watch a life magically become better. And when it comes to Ponyville...

She saw what happens when nopony is trying to help. When the steam just keeps building up in the boiler, because nopony can turn Laughter's vent and bleed off enough pressure to temporarily prevent the explosion. If viewed from that perspective, the mark switch was extremely educational. Fluttershy couldn't do it. And that wasn't just a lack of skill with jokes and social situations. Fluttershy carries the pain for every animal on the grounds, and... that's enough. She shouldn't have to take in any more. Ever.

And once the spell had been countered, after nearly everything was back in place and poor Twilight was trying to reconcile a whole new set of agonies, not to mention a fresh pair of limbs -- that was when Pinkie realized. That when it came to Ponyville...

...it's just her.

...all right, so that's not how it actually is. Ponies help each other all the time. Additionally, she's not the only mare in the settled zone who can kick out a joke. There's some great comedic timing in Ponyville, although most of Twilight's is strictly accidental.

But that's how it feels.

What's a mission to Pinkie? A chance to help. To make sure her friends come through it, and to help them heal after. If she can find the words which will do it. The contact and presence.

(Who heals her?)

It's also her chance to sleep in.

That's not even a joke. In Ponyville, keeping baker's hours means getting up while Moon is still present. The bread has to rise with Celestia, after all. And then it's three ponies trying to keep Sugarcube Corner running while simultaneously looking after two very young foals and seriously, preschool classes can't come soon enough. Then there's party schedules to worry about. Birthdays, weddings, special occasions and oh dear Sun, do not talk to Pinkie about graduation season. And who needs her to drop by and check on them? How's the printing going on the one-sheet for that emergency fundraiser? (Mrs. Bradel gives her a discount. She can also use Twilight's little press at no cost, but the capacity is a lot lower and the colors are never as bright.) Also, did anyone remember to water the houseplants while Cloudchaser is away -- okay, fine, Pinkie clearly remembered that, but now she's got to do it and getting into that residence may take a little work. Preferably something which gets cleared up long before she has to be at the new arrival's place for lighting setup and to run quality control on the grass bundles.

And now it's time to go see Mr. Downs.

Yes, he has ponies in and out of his home all day. The nurses take shifts. But she likes to drop by and tell him a joke. See him smile, if only for a moment.

It would be very easy to tell him the same joke on every visit. It's not as if he would remember. But she tries to have fresh material every time. He deserves that.

It's hard enough to just keep telling him who she is.

...if she's on a mission, then she's probably fighting for her life while desperately trying to protect those she loves. Neither activity tends to come with a schedule. Missions have seen her sleep past Sun-raising. She might not touch flour for days. Her world shrinks to the ponies around her and whatever has to be done. Some of the stress could even become somewhat less immediate. If only by comparison, trying not to keep Harmony from dissolving in a pool of just-shed blood can be almost relaxing.

Except that she keeps thinking about what might be taking place in Ponyville without her there. How much the pressure is building. She's been trying to teach others how to turn the valve, along with ways to be happier on their own, but...

...laughter isn't even a temporary solution, most of the time. It's a palliative treatment. And the treatment itself...

Sometimes she finds another answer. There's been times when she wound up being that solution.

It doesn't keep new problems from arising.

How much does the offer of transient mirth truly help, when laughter itself always dies?

She wants to believe that she learned from her mistake with the mirror pool: at the very least, she's not going to do that again. But she's still overburdened, overbooked, it's just Pinkie to manage it all, she doesn't know what's happening back home without her and Ponyville could be falling apart --

-- but it's not just that.

Her mark tells her to make other ponies happy. She's spent a post-manifest life trying to deal with the fact (and fate) that it has suggestions for how to go about it, but doesn't know how to keep them that way.

To make... other ponies happy.

The lifeguard who barely swims. An echo chamber which bounces and blends the words of others until it can pretend some of what emerges was its own.

After her manifest... she made her parents happy. For the first and, as it turned out, only time.

She was happy.

And then the party ended.

If other ponies are happy... she can take that in. Empathy allows her to truly comprehend their joy, and she feels better for having been the one who brought it. More complete.

Laughter always dies. The party must end.

She laughs as part of a chorus. Smiles and giggles and chortles and recently, does her best to keep any snickering duration well under the Guaranteed Evil line.

When was the last time she laughed for herself alone?

(Who heals her?)

She's dreaming. And in her dream, she's at a party -- without being part of it. She can see those in attendance, distantly sense their joy. But it's like she isn't quite real. Ghosts don't exist, but -- what else could she be, when ponies don't hear her, can't see her, and keep walking through her?

They're happy. Their pleasure is solid and true, certainly more solid than she is. They laugh and smile and have a good time, and she can sense all of it -- but the echoes haven't started. There's a hollow place within her and it refuses to fill with jubilation's reflections.

Because there have been so many times when she's been afraid that the only way she can ever be happy is if somepony else had been brought to that state.

That deep-buried fear is at the core of this dream. The Pinkie who exists in the nightscape can do no more than call out, trying to talk and sing and joke with all those around her while her words phase through their ears and when she desperately tries to touch, her hooves do the same.

But the crowd is happy.

(Always absorbing the burdens of others. Empathy as a sponge which never gets squeezed out.)

The herd.

Pinkie's mark tells her to make others happy.

She's alone.
Alone in a crowd.
Forever.

Because that's what her mark wants.

When is it my turn?

Outside a strange window near the hosting bed, milky quartz facets fail to truly gleam under Sun.

The pain builds.

Continuous Delivery

On the somewhat dubious bright side, the perpetual 'fashion' parade had finally perished. The community no longer had any concerns regarding the concealment of their most unnatural physical aspects, and so Truedawn had taken the morning heat as its collective cue to freshly renude. There were a very few garments about -- protective items for specific tasks and the little alicorn, whose memories of the prior night were fully clear, was darkly wondering if the cloth was capable of maintaining a barrier against dust -- but for the most part, the community was going about with the bare fur of blank hips failing to sway in the breeze. The shield wasn't letting any breezes in, but the heat seemed to be having an easy time of it -- and with her most personal concealment already disrupted, Twilight hadn't bothered getting dressed.

It was hard to look at so many patches of dulled, plain fur. Nausea kept trying to rise -- although in fairness, that was at least partially aided by the scents produced by locals preparing lunch. But the removal of the outfits was somehow making matters at least slightly more bearable, and Twilight was distantly wondering if her newfound sense of relief represented a tiny display from Rarity's deep-buried aspect within her. It was either that or she'd finally managed to pick up some degree of taste.

It's probably taste.

She would still need to tell Rarity. If Twilight could just find her...

She had to find everypony. She was nowhere near ready to trust Starlight, or anypony else in Truedawn. As far as Twilight was concerned, she was personally one tiny patch of bloodstained scales and/or fur from entering Revenge Mode. Twilight wasn't exactly sure what she would do in Revenge Mode, but was taking the advance quasi-precaution of presuming it would be bad.

Some of the Truedawn ponies stared at her as she went by, slowly trotting down poorly-worked streets. She wasn't sure that was '...alicorn?' so much as it was 'Why is she by herself?' But she had what was likely to be strictly temporary privacy, and she was currently using it to try and locate the others. Any of the others -- but she really wanted to start by finding Spike. Because Starlight had effectively broken up the entire group on the prior night, and Twilight didn't know what was happening with -- or worse, to -- any of them. She'd personally made it to morning and a fair distance beyond, but she hadn't seen anypony. And she needed to verify that her little brother was okay.

Starlight probably just told everypony to put Spike to work.

She considered that. Feathers rustled with irritation, and a pinion absorbed a small drop of sweat.

That's just mean, the librarian concluded with no self-awareness whatsoever. And they'll find lots of things for him to do, I'm sure. Irritably, There may be ponies who were so bad at their International Studies classes as to forget what 'hands' are, but they sure find uses for the things once they turn up. Then again, it's not as if there's any other kids around for him to play with --

"Hey!" came from above, and hit her ears at the same moment when the little wind gust produced by the wing downbeat brushed against her back. "You don't know how happy I am just to see somepony!" Which was followed by a deep, shaky-sounding yawn.

Twilight adjusted her position, backed up a little before directing her gaze skyward. Weary, half-clouded magenta eyes looked down. Exposed cyan fur rippled as the muscles beneath kept up their effort.

"Same," the little mare told the weather coordinator. "You're the first one of us I've seen all day. And it's nearly noon."

"Tell me about it." The hover dipped, drifted right and was then visibly forced to recenter. "How did you manage to get any time to yourself? Because I know they tried putting me to work as soon as I got up -- the fifth time I got up -- and I figured they were doing the same with everypony else."

Twilight sighed. "There's still some things which are private, Rainbow."

"Something where somepony in the 'community' won't follow you?" the pegasus challenged. "Let's hear it."

"...bladder."

"...oh," Rainbow considered. "And you used that chance to sneak off?" The grin was more than a little vulpine. "You're learning!"

Another sigh, followed a glance around to see how many ponies seemed to be actively listening -- none visibly, but you never knew -- and a soft "Yeah. I asked the ponies on my -- on shift where the nearest public restroom was, because I figured there had to be some more around. I told them the one we'd been using was getting kind of... bad. And once they understood that I wasn't volunteering to clean it, I got some distance between us. After I -- took care of things, I made some more. I've been clear for about six minutes." A little bitterly, "And somepony's probably going to come looking for me after twenty. Or less. You?"

"What, you don't trust me to sideslip out of work?" Rainbow's grin announced.

Well, at least this time you're actually admitting it...

"So I put myself on search duty," the pegasus continued. "I'm mostly trying to find Spike, since it's sort of his first day. Especially when it comes to talking with anypony who isn't us. You?"

"Same," Twilight repeated. "But you've only found me, and you're the first one I've seen."

Rainbow nodded. The hover bobbed along with the motion, then drifted left.

Her eyes are starting to look bloodshot. She keeps stifling yawns, and I don't like the hang of her tail.

"You," Twilight directly stated, "look like you need sleep. A lot of it. You --" hesitated, because she was almost sure the next words weren't going to go over well "-- almost look too tired to fly..."

"I'm staying in the air," Rainbow immediately announced. "It's defiance."

"It's what?"

"Before," the pegasus declared, "I was flying because I wanted to remind all the pegasi here what it was like. Now I'm doing it because none of them will."

Or can.
It might be 'can'.

"But when it comes to the lousy sleep? I'm blaming the food," Rainbow yawned. "Or the air. It's not the heat, because I set up a personal weave last night and made sure I stayed cool. It didn't do much for the dumb dreams. I swear, Twilight, I just want to kick somepony --"

"-- do you want a sleep aid?" the little alicorn checked. "It might help." Finding something which would let everypony deal with the concept of 'Rainbow Dash is having trouble sleeping' was going to take a little more work.

Rainbow looked at her.

"Twilight?"

"...what?"

"The way I figure it," the pegasus proposed, "either Starlight is the pharmacist -- or somepony here is 'trying it out'. Which of those do you trust less?"

The librarian winced.

"...good point," she sighed. "It's not like we've seen anything from home for sale. So we can't try to get something packaged off a shelf."

Rainbow nodded. "I was sort of hoping to find a whole lot of grapes. Or cherries. But I don't even know if they grow this far south."

"Fruit?"

"Yeah. Either of those two. You didn't know? If you eat a lot of them, it can make you sleepy." She executed a hovering shrug. "I always thought 'Shy was trying to get a break by knocking Angel out for a few hours. So you didn't find anypony?"

I already said that. She is tired.

"Not yet." Which was the most optimistic answer she was capable of giving -- but locating Rainbow had already helped. "And I know you didn't --"

"-- oh, I'm finding stuff," Rainbow yawned. "Just not us-stuff. Wanna see something weird?"

A little too dryly, "In this place? You'll have to narrow that down."

"Follow me," the pegasus instructed. "It's close."

She flew ahead, far too slowly. Took repeated glances backwards to make sure Twilight was keeping up.

"How's the first day with a horn been going?" Rainbow asked.

The actual challenge was in not passing her.

"In public?" Twilight accurately guessed. "It's on time delay."

A long pause. "I don't get it."

"I'm not sure anypony knows what to do with me," Twilight admitted. "Or whether they're even supposed to acknowledge it. With my hostess, I think I finally got '...you're an alicorn' about three hours too late. And then..." She paused, took a breath, and tried to reconcile that the question had even been voiced. "...she asked if I'd ever wanted to -- stop."

Rainbow blinked. "To stop being an alicorn?"

"That's what I thought at first." And in the presence of a stranger who seemed to truly be thinking about her, she'd felt the briefest flash of gratitude. "But she was actually talking about my mark. She said it didn't have to be like this."

"Oh."

"I was irritated enough to ask if she knew a way to get rid of the wings, too," Twilight reluctantly admitted. "It just confused her. And -- Rainbow, I managed to get one thing out of Livy. Mostly by accident. She told me that she'd thought there were two alicorns."

They kept moving, and Truedawn ponies passed. None of them had tried to interrupt just yet. Maybe they only broke up groups who were meeting in houses. Or they didn't know how to step in on what appeared to be a visible pairing.

"The Princess," Rainbow's tired mind offered, "and -- Cadance?"

"Yeah," Twilight verified. "And unless her old mark talent was missing out on every major news story, that means she's been here since before the Return. That's over three years, Rainbow. How old is Truedawn?"

"No idea," the weather coordinator admitted. "But at least we can ask more questions about that sort of stuff now." Paused. "I already asked a few. About --" looked around, checked to see who might be listening, and watched ears politely rotate away "-- Gez. Or Linchpin."

None of the locals reacted.

"You did?" Open shock. "But --"

"Twilight, she knows we were following him. There's no reason to hide it any more. So I went direct. I asked a few ponies."

Carefully, "And what did they say?"

Unsteady flaps. Some of the feathers didn't look to be in a proper alignment, and the remiges needed preening.

"...they haven't said anything," Rainbow slowly answered. "None of the ponies I spoke to recognized the name. Either name. The most I got was this one mare who said it sounded familiar, but there were a lot of ponies here and she couldn't possibly keep track of everypony."

Silence.

"But he must have had friends, right?" the pegasus continued. "We'll find one if we just keep talking."

The drift path of slow flight brought her a little too close to a streetlight. She flinched away.

If the herd is the true unit... the purest expression of pony life... then does it even notice when the smallest part of itself is gone?

She didn't know.
She didn't want to think this way...

"So where's this weird thing?" And what is it?

It was a freestanding, poorly-painted brownish single-level structure just off to the side for one of the main streets. The entire thing was roughly the size of an oversized shed.

There was a door. Each wall had two windows. There was no front yard, backyard, garden, or any signs of personal touches. In fact, once she tried rearing up --

"You should fly to do that," Rainbow yawned, and then checked the street again to make sure their surprising degree of privacy was still holding. "Practice."

-- to plant her forehooves against the windows, peering inside...

"It's a gatehouse," Twilight decided. "I don't know what else they could use it for. Even a storage shed would have some shelving and bins. That's got nothing. It's completely hollow. And we already knew they had at least one pony coming and going, Rainbow. This just shows us where they left from. What's weird about that?"

"You didn't see it?" One eyebrow forced itself up against the weight of sleep. "Look closer, Twilight. And look for what isn't there."

And I just dropped back down...

She reared up again. Indulged in a few dark thoughts about the average window height placement --

"-- found her," had been, at a minimum, half-spat from the air. The liquid emphasis provided an instant verification of identity.

Trixie.

She'd been trying not to think about --

"What's she doing?" Twilight softly asked.

"Trotting down the cross-street," Rainbow said. "With company. Starlight's next to her, and nopony else. I think they're talking. Guess she gets the more personal tour." Darkly, "It's the little perks..."

"Don't try speaking with her," Twilight cautioned. "We need to wait until we can catch her alone."

"Yeah," Rainbow muttered. "Alone." Hind legs kicked at the air.

I can't fix this. She didn't even know what had broken --

-- focus on the gatehouse...

She looked through the left front window. Concentrated.

It's just a gatehouse. Hollow structure with a location which allows convenient access to the rest of an area. Teleporters use them as departure points and destinations, because they're supposed to remain empty at all times unless they're being used. Some of them have devices mounted over the door which glow if somepony's inside, and this one is using windows to let the flash shine through. It's not the most modern design, but it still works. What's so weird about a gatehouse?

...look for what isn't there...

...oh.

She dropped back down.

"You saw it, right?" Rainbow quickly checked.

"I couldn't miss where it wasn't," Twilight replied. "There's no padding."

Gatehouses were hollow because a teleporting pony never wanted to arrive in the same space as a relatively dense solid: the result was being tossed in a random non-down direction until you could safely enter -- accelerating all the way.

The walls (and when possible, floor) were supposed to be padded because if the pony was very unlucky, a gatehouse wouldn't be empty. Padding cushioned the impact. But in Truedawn...

"They didn't even fully sand the walls," the little mare breathed. "Hitting some of those spots is going to hurt. It's like somepony saw a picture of the exterior, and stopped there..."

"Do you think there's any kind of exception spells on the building?" Rainbow hastily asked. "The sort of stuff which means it's safe for us to leave from here, but nowhere else?"

Twilight immediately checked for magic.

"...no," she reluctantly reported.

"Figures," Rainbow muttered. "And that takes out the other reason I wanted you to see it, because I sure couldn't tell. Fine. Maybe we've got a couple of minutes left before anypony tries to clamp our tails and drag us apart. Let's see if we can find --"

-- light flashed within the gatehouse.

It was a relatively bright display: enough to dazzle, but not to blind. (Twilight, who barely wound up with five whole seconds in which to think, darkly noted that nopony had considered tinting the windows either.) Radiance shone through every window, leaked out around the poorly-built door frame. It was just barely possible to hear the first hint of curious hooves diverting towards the source.

Then the door swung open. Hard, because it had been knocked out of the way from the force of a pony who'd just about galloped into the wood.

A pegasus mare ran out. Froze at the instant she cleared the door, frantically glancing around.

Sweat had discolored patches of the peach fur. Saddlebags were uneven, threatening to fall off entirely. The blonde-and-white mane was in disarray, and a pegasus who was about sixty percent legs didn't seem to know what to do with any of them. Wings convulsively spread, refolded.

"Starlight!" the shaken, openly-frightened mare desperately called out into the summer day. "Has anypony seen Starlight? We need --"

She was still surveying the area, and doing so with an explorer's instincts. Looking for anything which could influence her situation, to help or harm.

She saw Twilight.

For a very rare once, the hips registered first. It was then possible to watch the mare's disbelieving gaze move to the wings, followed by the horn --

-- Twilight had just enough time to realize that Mane Allgood still had her mark.

And then the cyan missile hit.

Time, when perceived through the lens of sapience, could turn into a variable.

Applejack had spoken to Twilight about it once. That for the earth pony, there was a space which existed between seconds. The instant when she knew something was about to go horribly wrong, and the farmer would always receive just enough time to experience that realization -- but it was never enough to stop or change whatever was talking place.

Rainbow Dash both existed in and lived for the moments when there was no time left at all.

She was tired. She hadn't slept properly for days. Calories weren't exactly a guaranteed long-term resource, especially when you considered what the tongue had to go through in order to locally acquire them.

But she was also angry. The only thing which could rise faster than her body in full acceleration was her temper. Loyalty had spent the previous night in being forced to watch an act of betrayal, and the world had just given her somepony to take it out on.

Twilight barely saw her move.

There was a very tall pegasus mare standing just in front of an open doorway. And then there was a cyan blur moving around that mare, kicking out in and from all directions. Too many impacts to block, too many changes of approach vector to guess at where she might attack next. No time to spread wings and attempt an escape. No time...

Wind whipped through Twilight's mane, disrupted her tail and pushed feathers into each other. The scent of ozone flared within her snout. A furious Rainbow had a subconscious tendency to pull in extra resources.

The taller mare cried out. Rainbow didn't say anything. She just kept kicking, over and over, the impacts had now staggered her target away from the open door and there was nothing anypony could do --

-- perhaps Twilight could have done something. But she'd been caught by shock and uncertainty, didn't know if there was anything she should do and she found herself frantically glancing around, trying to see if anypony else --

-- Trixie.

Who had been caught completely off-guard -- but light blue forehooves were starting to plant themselves against the street on instinct alone, the head was coming up in a way which signaled that the horn could ignite at any second --

-- Starlight?

Who was just... there.

The lilac body was present. Her eyes were looking in the general direction of the violence. But she didn't seem to recognize what was going on. She didn't even look as if she knew where she was --

-- a decidedly large earth pony stallion staggered into sight within the doorway.

Twilight, viewing the event through the lens of retrospect, would ultimately decide to be impressed. For an earth pony to be up on his hooves that quickly after suffering the disruption from a long-distance teleport -- that was impressive. It was just that 'stagger' was very nearly at his current limit.

"...what?" the stallion forced out. "Get -- get away from my spouse! Don't touch her!"

And he tried to lunge -- but none of his strength was operating with any true direction, and he mostly wound up sagging into the door frame.

Not that it might have done much good. A unicorn with enough power could pull Rainbow out of a fight. Somepony with a clear line of sight on a fast-moving target had a chance to field-press on vital flight feathers, redirecting all momentum into the ground. And an earth pony with solid planting and a decent jump height would at least have some level of chance -- but Rainbow was going after a pegasus. One who wasn't currently able to get in the air.

For a ground-bound pegasus to take on a furious Rainbow was like watching somepony trying to battle a whirlwind with a grudge.

The mare screamed her pain. Rainbow just kept kicking, and sparks were building up on blurred wings --

-- turquoise projected into existence around the sleek body. Yanked her backwards and held.

"I feel this question is extremely necessary," Starlight coldly stated as she trotted closer. (Trixie, who had hung back, was still at the street corner.) "Did my recruiters do something to you?"

...recruiters?

"It's what they did to her!" Rainbow shouted. "Everything they didn't do for her! Let me go, she deserves it, she knows she does, let me do what somepony should have done years ago!"

She furiously pushed against the edges of the field bubble, and the borders held. More sparks jumped between feathers. Wind whipped around the interior, steadily accelerating. Twilight wasn't even sure how Rainbow was breathing in there.

Mane Allgood, whose flanks were freshly bruised, bleeding from the base of her right ear, forced herself to try and straighten to that unusual full height. Stared in all directions, trying to work out what was going on. And in the shaky tones of the recently concussed, offered up "What's the Princess doing here? She's supposed to be in..."

She stopped. Her jaw slammed shut.

"...Ponyville," her husband whispered. "They're all supposed to be in Ponyville..."

"Snap." The word was insistent and when it came from Starlight, that made it feel odd. "You're still recovering from the transport. I can give Mane treatment, but you need --"

"-- it was the voucher," the disoriented stallion forced out. "We were trying to purchase the voucher. The bank... we were nearly arrested -- had to gallop for it, we couldn't use the rod until we were out of sight -- something's happened --"

"-- stop."

He shut up. Starlight changed focus.

"Twilight Sparkle," the community leader said. "I am going to transfer custody to you. Take her. And then remove her from this area. Both immediately and quickly."

The field bubble, which was still readily containing a Rainbow who was quickly moving beyond mere fury, floated forward. Receded from the wildly-flapping left wing.

Transfer of custody between fields. Twilight had done it before, especially with Rainbow. This just happened to be one of the few times which didn't have bail involved.

"Do not let her attack another member of the community," Starlight instructed.

"...I won't."

Rainbow, recognizing what was happening, ceased her attempts to escape. But she glared at Starlight, and the Allgoods, and everypony else who caught her attention. (The last category included Twilight for holding her in the first place.)

Twilight, making sure to keep the bubble's borders strong as a just-in-case, carefully moved away, bringing Rainbow with her. But she glanced back once.

Trixie was slowly approaching the gatehouse. Snap Shutter was trying to tend to his spouse's injuries, and she had lowered herself to the ground to let him view everything from above. Her face contorted as she spread her wings, and a damaged feather threatened to drop away.

Starlight watched Twilight and Rainbow leave.

That was all. To look at her features, attempting judgment through the lack of true expression... it all produced the same verdict.

She was simply -- watching.

Worm

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...!"

While Loop

Most ponies who had the chance to observe any initial flaring of the white mare's temper would make a mistake, and that was to assume that the fast-approaching avatar of death, doom, and destruction was only a minor incarnation.

The unicorn wasn't particularly large. She had inherited approximately none of her build from her physically-imposing father: her somatotype was merely a pleasant one. In terms of direct resemblance to the male parent, it was fur and eye hues, nothing more.

It means she didn't have a lot in the way of raw mass. (Still larger than the smallest of her friends, but just about every adult pony could claim that lack of distinction.) And physically, unicorns were the weakest of the three major Equestrian species. There were individual exceptions, and the mare's father was one of them -- but even the retired hoofball linebreaker (and now coach) had needed to put in three times the work in order to achieve seventy percent of the results.

Still, he looked intimidating -- if it was his desire to do so, and he preferred to amble along: a long career as a professional athlete had put him well over the normal quote for Impacts Landed, Lifetime. Neither of his daughters had the raw physical presence to intimidate a fly, and when it came to the elder of the two...

...it usually didn't matter.

Her field strength was strictly average. (The Ponyville contingent usually didn't get very far into a fight before their opponents learned about the mare's decidedly non-average field dexterity.) She didn't really know any major offensive or defensive workings. She would never have the strength of an earth pony or access to pegasus techniques. In terms of base ability to inflict physical damage... even with the horn and a full-speed charge on her side, she was the single weakest Bearer.

And so she'd compensated through becoming the single dirtiest fighter anypony had ever seen.

The mare's field strength was fully incapable of levitating an adult mare. It was more than sufficient to momentarily seize somepony's leg and adjust the position to have the hoof raised and facing outwards. This gave her a clear view of the sensitive frog at the center, and she always had sewing needles somewhere.

She twisted joints. Bit down on ears, hard. Her enemy's eyes? The minor injuries produced by kicking sand into them would heal and several moons after the blindness wore off, so would the major ones. The mare had heard about the supposed rules of combat and in the absence of any referees, had decided to ignore everything below #1: Survive. Several of the defeated had initially used a portion of their prison time to try and turn the tables, but it hadn't taken very much research to learn there was no such thing as a Brawl Crime Trial.

The mare was out of her environment. Out of sorts. The current situation had her emotionally tangled, intellectually distressed, and sleeping on sheets with a thread count of Maybe. And now she was marching through Truedawn, hooves doing their best to slam into the streets and finding both body mass and echoes unwilling to cooperate on Drama, as her eyes narrowed their focus on the target.

She needed a target. Something she could take it all out on. And the glass of the shop window, along with every travesty falsely protected behind it, was right there.

The purple tail lashed with sufficient force to straighten curls. Nostrils began to prepare for what would be lied about as the most ladylike of snorts, and the next step brought her that much closer to the door --

-- pinkish radiance coated white fur. Lifted the mare in mid-hoofstep, just a little. Carefully rotated her body by roughly a hundred and eighty degrees, and then set her down before the full-body tingling sensation of being held within a corona could finish manifesting.

The field winked out. An increasingly-shoddy hoofticure found itself pushing off from the street in what was now precisely the wrong direction, and the white mare's next hoofstep was taken at her friend's side.

"Somepony," Rarity's poorly-repressed fury failed to truly whisper, "is enjoying having her corona back just a little too much."

"We need to talk --"

"-- I was about to launch my own discussion," the designer stated. "One which had been postponed for some time, strictly due to the necessity. Because if it was not for what turned out to be our rather comical attempt at concealing our identities, I would have been inside that inexcusable lie of a clothing store on my first day here. Providing -- constructive criticism. About styles. And fabric choices. Color selection. Not leaving unwashed white cotton exposed to Sun's light in a display window because it yellows, Twilight: steadily, unstoppably, and toward a hue most suited for the contents of a toilet trench."

The little alicorn, who'd been watching Rarity's rib cage, noted the fresh inhale and seized her chance.

"-- because I just spoke to --"

"-- of course, I undoubtedly would have needed to explain why I am in a position to offer corrections," the designer half-sighed. "I did notice a number of things last night, and one of them was that very few of the locals seem to know who you are. And as you're the one most likely to be recognized -- in fact, when outside Ponyville, you're usually the only one who is -- I anticipated that I would wind up detailing who and what a 'Rarity' was. And the Boutique. Probably not where I'm from, though. I've only seen one senior so far. So the count of those who potentially could have been here long enough to predate Ponyville is rather low."

Another breath, and the librarian tried again. "-- Snap --" Stopped. Blinked. "You saw a senior?" She'd seen young adults, middle-aged ponies, and there still hadn't been a single foal or child -- but the elderly...

"Mare. Somewhat younger than Granny Smith. Perhaps a decade, which still places her fairly well along." Another half-sigh. "She was part of my work crew this morning. Light tasks only. They are -- very careful with her. And when it comes to her lack of attendance at the concert, she simply prefers her rest. I suppose the most amazing part is that she's capable of sleeping through that. Or perhaps the local earplugs actually work. Somehow. Twilight?"

"...yes?"

"Why are you alone?"

They were still trotting together. Twilight always had to push slightly in order to keep up with longer legs.

"I'm not," the little mare said. "I'm with you." Which was followed by "I'm sort of surprised you went after the store today. It's actually been a little easier for me to look at everypony now that the overalls are gone."

"...really?"

"As long as I don't look at their hips. Or stare. Or... go near the hips at all. But not having the overalls around is a relief." Much more softly, on the border between murmur and whisper, meant for Rarity's rotated ears alone. "It's not something I expected to get from you. But it's there. Or maybe you just taught me to have taste."

Another breath. "How did you get away from your own assignments?"

Purple eyes darted, checked to see who was in listening range. "...used a restroom excuse and didn't go back. You?"

A little too evenly, "I complained."

Twilight just looked at her. A steady, unflinching gaze held across the little jolts and bumps of a normal pace.

The designer didn't take the silent bait. "Briefly. To the proper parties, until they decided it was easiest to let me go off for a while. Believe me, I could have gone on. For some time. A truly detailed grievance count would have required checklists. Plural. And possibly charts." In lower tones, "I've spotted Spike and Applejack. Yourself?"

"Rainbow, Pinkie, and Fluttershy. Plus Spike."

Rarity exhaled. "Good. Everypony worth caring about has been confirmed. So as the 'clothing' store is starting to become somewhat distant, I'd like to resume my original educational journey at this time --"

"-- can we talk?" the little mare carefully pushed out as they both passed under a streetlight. "Please?"

"Twilight, that so-called store has been getting on my nerves since arrival and I assure you, I simply wish to instruct --"

"-- we just had one really bad incident with a local," Twilight stated. "We don't need any more."

The designer blinked.

"Something happened."

"Yes."

"Is it our -- usual primary suspe --"

"-- Rainbow. Yeah."

"Is she all right --"

"-- I would have told you if she wasn't. Before anything else. And then --" She took a quick glance around, trying to see if anypony seemed to be paying attention to them. Checking the rotation angle of every visible ear. "-- that led to something else. Rarity, I need to tell you things. A lot of them. And then you have to pass them on to anypony you see. Can we please talk?"

The "Of course, Twilight!" emerged with a genuine note of surprise. "Did you really feel there was a true need to ask?"

Her own smile felt oddly weak. "Okay. We need privacy. Just follow --"

"-- but not about her."

Twilight's left foreleg hitched in midstep.

"Although I realize it may be inevitable," Rarity added. "If she was directly involved in whatever happened." Thoughtfully, "I suppose it's too much to hope that Rainbow got a direct strike in. Of the electrical variety. But if she is no true part of what you learned, Twilight -- then please leave her out of this. As much as you can."

We have to talk about Trixie --

-- but not now.

She'd just denied Rarity one chance to -- as words went, 'vent' really wasn't qualified to be the world's largest understatement, but it was more than willing to put in some major work. Bringing up too many topics which were guaranteed to make her furious, when there were other things to discuss...

I lost one friend already --

"Twilight?" Very carefully, "Your expression suggests a hoof just hit you. From the inside. I assure you, if there's no way to avoid that unpleasant subject, I'm willing to deal with the words. And the mare who necessitated them."

What would you say, if I told you that I really thought she'd been my friend?
Probably smile. That little wistful one, except it's thinner. And then you might do that sad laugh, and say how I'm still learning, the scrolls haven't exactly stopped yet, and the important thing is to avoid that level of mistake the next time.
And if you thought I was hurting... you'd nuzzle me. The one meant for friends or, if you slip, the big sister variant. Because that's the one which says you care about me, you love me, but you know best and really, if I'd just listened to you a little more...

"It's just been a long day," Twilight wearily said. "Already. Trixie was there when Rainbow -- acted. But she wasn't really part of it. And she didn't have anything to do with what happened after."

The designer nodded. "So where are we going?" she softly inquired. "One of our assigned residences?"

"No," Twilight whispered. "That's where they'll look second. Stay close to me. I'm going to make contact with your right flank right after we slip around that corner. The one with the really bad angle. As long as there's nopony on the other side to see us, then the light will be blocked."

"...the light?" Rarity managed just as they skirted past the lurking splinters.

I'm not allowed to go out to the shield border. When it comes to me, that's where they'll look first. And the longer I'm gone, the more likely it is that somepony might order a full search out that way. 'Somepony' being Starlight.

Except that she might have also set up a proximity sensor. Something to tell her if I get close.

I thought of that. So she might. But she isn't necessarily going to assume that I could spot the possibility. So they'll probably start the search along or near the border, hoping to intercept me. The houses would be next.

They'd gotten lucky: nopony was watching. She made contact --

"-- Twilight? Where are we? I don't have a good view on a window , and -- I can't see very well right now. All of the turquoise --"

"-- get down!" the little mare hissed. "Belly and barrel against the smoothest part of the floor you can find! I'll check the windows!"

"...why?"

"Because as everypony insists on reminding me pretty much every single time there's a chance to raise the subject, I'm short. And easier to overlook! But we just teleported into a gatehouse which has light coming out of windows as the first sign that it's in use, so I need to make sure nopony saw us arrive."

The awkward rearing-ups began. It didn't take long for the tactic to be abandoned.

"...Twilight?"

"...you'd think jumping would be easier than trying to hold that position," the alicorn muttered between landing jolts. "Except now I have to worry about somepony seeing a horn bouncing in and out of view."

"But we teleported --"

"-- it's like Trotter's Falls," Twilight sighed. "I still haven't gotten to completely analyze everything Starlight did to the shield. But I do know this by now, Rarity: it's all part of the shield. None of the effects radiate in. I can't get us out of here. But a lockdown stops teleportation from going in and out. We can still teleport within the lockdown zone."

Although there were going to be some side effects, most of which centered around a need to keep blinking until the spots cleared from her eyes. They'd only been within the between for a moment, and a realm which normally offered nothing more to the senses than total deprivation of input had fully surrounded them with the crackling hue of Starlight's field.

No matter where we go, there she is.

"Tactically important," Rarity acknowledged. "Do you see anypony?"

"No. I think we got away with it."

"What was the backup plan if the flash had been seen?"

You couldn't eliminate the light from a teleport. Hundreds of stealth-oriented researches had tried, and none of their suits had even been as good as Twilight's. (Which still didn't explain why the stupid thing had never worked.) "There's a copse of trees near the shoreline, with a decent hollow at the center. I was there earlier today. But there's a lot of vegetation there and some of the thicker pieces could have recoiled us. Plus there's the risk of having other ponies use it." With open frustration, "Still, at least I know he's gone. Probably. At least, I don't think he would have gone back there after I did --"

"-- Twilight?" was projected up from the floor.

"Yes?"

"Our time may be limited. Push the pronouns aside. 'He' who?"

Snap Shutter had allowed Twilight to talk without interruption, and perhaps that had been a means of manipulation. Show that he was willing to let her have some degree of say, right up until the moment where it became somepony else's turn and at that point...

Rarity had questions. And the designer was capable of truly listening -- but she also wanted to make sure her voice would be heard in any argument. Quickly-aborted bursts of inquiring half-syllables repeatedly tried to escape white lips as Twilight talked, thrusting themselves into the scant spaces between words -- just before the unicorn cut herself off, frequently with a mutter of 'Not yet..."

Twilight pushed on. Talking her way across time, until the recent past had just about been welded to the present.

"And that was the last you saw or heard of him?" Rarity checked. "After leaving the copse."

"It wasn't for lack of trying," Twilight sighed. "Because I only got about a hundred body lengths before I turned around and tried to go back."

Rarity blinked.

"Twilight -- you are certain that you made no contact with anything unusual? Perhaps one of the native plants at ground level does something upon touching skin --"

"-- what are you talking about?"

"You tried to go back," the designer stated as the curled tail began to lash. "And the very nearly directly stated reason is that you wished to deal with that stallion again. Why? Other than 'I'm sure he'll tell me all of the real things if I just pretend to take a sip'."

"Because," the scientist patiently explained, "all of the things he was going to use were in the saddlebags. He might have even had one of the teleportation devices in there!" She paused. "Probably not. I mean, it's not a guarantee that he didn't. Even if there's something which only lets it do large-scale movements, being able to teleport out when just about nopony else can is a good way to get out of a fight. So he might have been carrying one. The point is that I didn't look, Rarity. I trotted out on him. I should have tried to get at the saddlebags. And when I realized that, I just about kicked myself on the spot. So I went back. But he'd already left."

She paused.

"And," Twilight's lecturing instincts added, "some of that stuff gets absorbed through the gums. So faking a sip is really stupid."

The designer let her have that one.

"Directly confiscating his possessions," Rarity pointed out, "creates its own issues. You would need to keep him from reporting the theft, and we hardly have a secure place to keep a prisoner. And given that those two have only recently returned to the community, I would expect at least a few ponies to come looking for their -- 'friend'." The word had nearly been spat. "One would hope that if somepony knocked on their door and called out a given name, he would eventually recognize it as being his. Twilight, taking those saddlebags would have been a direct assault. I suspect that would have drawn a response." Thoughtfully, "Although possibly not a severe one. You and Rainbow left the scene without true punishment. And Rainbow attacked one of Starlight's recruiters. I feel as if that should have resulted in somewhat more retributive action than she actually took."

"She just stood there for a few seconds," Twilight reported. "When it all started. And from what I've been able to see of her field strength..."

She trailed off, because the effort required not to picture it clearly needed to draw extra calories from the larynx.

(The effort failed, and phantom splashes of pegasus blood covered Truedawn's streets.)

"Yes," Rarity slowly said. "The mare who presumably created the shield does not need our police chief's trick to break up a fight. If she wishes for a physical conflict to end and nopony is landing kicks on her as a means of breaking focus? Then the fight reaches its end."

And possibly the ponies --

-- no. The most violence they'd seen in Truedawn had been from Rainbow. They didn't know what Starlight would do. Just that... when it came to the initial stage of the assault, she'd done nothing at all.

Twilight sighed. "Rarity, I'm not sure what I was going to do if I'd found him in the copse. I'd like to think I would have spotted the problems before I went for his saddlebags." There had been a few lesson-bearing scrolls sent off along the way. "But he'd left. Right now, my big hope is that those two keep their supplies in their own house. And since I know where they live, we also know where to look."

It got her a steady nod. "It does create the issue of getting inside. And if they return everything to Starlight at some point for replenishment and recharging, we might find ourselves needing to get access to the workshop." All four legs tensed. "Currently, that particular touch of privilege is -- not ours."

"And I'm not supposed to get too close," Twilight reminded her.

Rarity's lips quirked. "Not if anypony can see you doing so, at least."

"That would be the key," the little mare noted. "But I'll need to check her place for defenses first. More than I did the first time, and that's going to mean getting close in itself."

Another nod. "We have -- several problems to be solved," Rarity sighed. "Leave it at that. 'Several', Because I need to get my own questions in and if we begin reviewing every issue which needs to be dealt with, then we may find the Allgoods needing to use the gatehouse for their way out --"

"Why did you just frown?"

"-- thinking," the designer carefully said. "We don't know how many ponies are using the rods. Starlight, obviously yes."

Unless she can cover that distance herself --

"And those two," Rarity added. "But we don't know how many ponies are trusted enough to -- just come and go. The longer we stay here, Twilight, the less this feels like a community. Criticize my reading material as much as you wish: it would hardly be the first time. But I do intersect with Rainbow in this: her adventurer, and my pirate captains, have a near-equal tendency to come across cults. And there are very few in such a system who can be allowed to depart. It's possible that they are her only means of bringing others in -- and if so, then why do three ponies need a full gatehouse? It could just be a private space in the workshop. Their own basement, for that matter."

It was a legitimate point. Twilight thought about it, and came up with nothing.

"...tradition?" was all which the I Feel So Stupid editing would allow past her lips. "They see it as a pony community, and -- a community has a gatehouse...?"

"Perhaps," was, even for Rarity, extremely generous. "On to the next bit, then." She shuffled a little against the floor -- then winced: the gatehouse was seldom used, and dust had built up on the floor. "This may be rather scattershot. Let's see how much we can get through. And if you have a strong memory of your assigned residence, try to bring us to the emptiest space you can picture." With a faint shudder, "Although recoil may be guaranteed. Searches tend to scatter debris into unexpected places."

The wince migrated across the small gap between mutually-facing mares, then doubled in intensity. "Maybe if I try to bring us in over the beds and we just drop a hoofheight or two..." But she'd never tried for a midair arrival before. "What else are you thinking about?"

The designer organized her design.

"If Starlight is the key," Rarity observed, "then there is a certain need to keep her fully intact."

Twilight nodded. "The process can be reversed. Getting that verified may be the most important thing I learned --"

"-- disagree," Rarity cut in.

"...what's more important than that?"

"On a personal and immediate level? The absolute need," Rarity stated, "to both gather and prepare all of our own food. And drink, for that matter. And we must pass that information to the others as soon as we can, while asking them if they have consumed anything unusual --" paused "-- other than in its typically-poor taste. And monitor their behavior, because it's not impossible that somepony did get a dose. But with Starlight... as long as she is the only one who can restore a mark, then she cannot be injured to the point where she would lose the ability to cast. Because I rather feel it would take some convincing before she agreed to teach you the trick, and -- the one who may be set to learn it is unlikely to use or relay that spell for our benefit."

I thought she was my friend.

"...right," Twilight said. She'd thought of the food problem earlier and had been planning to bring it up all along, but there was no need to try seizing credit for the idea.

"I imagine the Allgoods will be used for that lesson," Rarity considered. "A pair of subjects to observe. But let's focus on the so-called stallion. Did you recognize anything else in the -- kit?"

"I didn't get a very long look," Twilight reminded her. "And I think he probably worked out what I did. He's married to a pegasus: it can't be the first time somepony's tried to look over his back. I can guess at some things which he might want to use, but I didn't get the chance to see if they were there. I can describe them for everypony, though. But just how they look and smell. I've -- never exactly..."

I answered your question, Rainbow. Who do I trust less as a pharmacist than Starlight? Snap Shutter.

She currently didn't think much of him as a mixologist, either.

"I would never wish for you to experience a taste test," Rarity firmly declared. "But how do you even know what to look for?"

"The Gifted School," Twilight admitted. "Partially."

The resulting silence collected its own degree of stun and stumbled into a splintery corner to recover.

"If that makes up the vital contents of the typical chemistry course," Rarity carefully voiced, "then I am suddenly rather glad for my lack of raw power. And when it comes to whatever the other 'part' is --"

Very quickly, "No. There's some classes on monsters. Trying to figure out how to fight them, and -- how they do the things they do. The right kind of snake can make venom in its body. The orange compound... that's distilled from a spray which jonlexias generate." Darkly, "Victims are probably a lot easier to deal with when they agree to be eaten. Rarity, just based on what I saw of the kit -- and I didn't recognize the red powder or the vial next to it -- these are things which were mostly discovered from monster sourcing. Because some of what monsters can do isn't magic, and it can take chemistry to fight chemistry. Looking for antidotes, neutralizers.. it all takes having the original compounds close to hoof. But nopony is supposed to use them. Not the way the monsters do. Because it just..."

She swallowed. Compulsively checked the windows for observers. Just in case.

"...if... if somepony used that stuff, any of it, the same way the monsters do... then that just -- makes more monsters."

"Or," Rarity softly told her, "reveals what was already there. Would an explorer know about those compounds?"

Trixie loves chemistry.

"Some of them, for the known hazards in an area," Twilight considered. "But they're usually the ones who run into the new stuff first."

"And if they passed any of that on to Starlight," the designer considered, "then we can't be certain as to what she has. In addition to describing vocally, you can write up a checklist of the known hazards? Appearance and scent -- good. We simply can't risk the assumption that the familiar is the whole of it." Another shudder. "Not here."

"I don't even know what she used to prime the Seeds..." And why had the bloom's colors been off?

They were both silent for a time.

"And the rest of your familiarity?" Rarity finally asked.

"The Princess. A personal instruction session. She took the display case out of the security spells herself. She -- wanted me to know what the worst of it was. In case anypony ever -- tried to..."

The white right forehoof gently touched her trembling shoulder.

"She does care about you, Twilight," Rarity gently told the little mare. "I do feel she has a rather difficult time in finding ways to express it. But she cares."

Who does she really care about?
Me?
Or the stallion I don't want to remember?

"Something I do need to check," Rarity broke the renewed silence. "From what you said regarding the discussion, you were rather careful in what you told him."

"Too many reasons for that," Twilight sighed. "Starting with the fact that anything I say to him, I probably said to Starlight."

I wanted to give Scootaloo her parents back.

"Did you say, specifically, that Applejack currently has custody?"

"No. But it wouldn't be hard to find out."

If Trixie talks...
...when...

"Let's hope to avoid that discovery for a time," Rarity darkly considered. "He might not visibly care. Or care at all. But there is still a mother to deal with. She may not necessarily share the perspective."

Twilight nodded.

I wanted to give Scootaloo her parents back.

Snap Shutter had never spoken his daughter's name.

Maybe she's better off without them.

He'd also never said he loved her.

Sun's light shifted its angle through the nearest window.

"Luna... asked me to consider that some ponies might wish for their mark to change," the little alicorn finally said. "I guess you can include 'be removed' in that. It's a decision I'm trying to understand, and... the more I think about it, the easier it becomes to realize how somepony could feel that way."

The designer was quiet. Almost completely still. But in time, her head shifted position: once up, once down.

"Recruiting those who -- want this," Twilight forced herself to continue, "is one thing. It's a decision being made and even if we don't understand it -- even if we're repelled by it -- if the results aren't hurting anypony, then it's their decision. I can understand recruiters, Rarity. For a cause, or a cult. You're looking for the ones who agree, or can be talked around. Into making that decision. But I saw the contents of that saddlebag, and..."

The little mare's strength ran out, and a friend hitched herself to the burden.

"And now you don't know if anypony here is truly present of their own will," offered subdued tones.

"..,yes."

"Then consider," Rarity gently said, "that such a total might include the Allgoods. This all goes through Starlight, Twi --" and stopped.

"Rarity?"

"It is just oddly awkward to have both of your names within close proximity in the same sentence," the miffed unicorn decided. "It's the matching terminal sound. I may need to borrow from Applejack for a time, if I can manage to use 'Twi' without too much wincing. But back to the Allgoods. It's been years, Twilight. We don't know how they were drawn into this. Simply that it was most likely Starlight who recruited them. This may not have originated with her --" the shudder count reached three "-- and I would rather not dwell on the possibility of her being somepony's -- student just yet. Another layer to deal with. But with the Allgoods, there is a chance that they initially learned about some of those compounds through being made to drink them."

Twilight wanted to believe it.
She wanted to believe in anything which meant normal ponies were incapable of such cruelty...

"And for that matter," Rarity continued, "if Starlight is following the plans of another..."

"A community of victims," Twilight summarized. "And the actual cause could be somewhere else. Or hiding in Truedawn, watching."

"A possibility only," Rarity acknowledged. "The Allgoods could simply have been caught before most. But with Starlight... there's something so odd about her..."

This reaction was more of a shiver. White fur rippled.

"So in the best case," Twilight made herself say, "Snap is using the same thing which was used on him."

"And while I acknowledge the chance," Rarity stated, "I'm not quite ready to rely on it." And sighed. "I... do wonder if when word of this will reach Miranda. The hunt has turned up prey -- or, for a pony, borne fruit. It did work, Twilight. Those two trotted into the wrong bank, at a time when the right pony was clearly on alert. And they were nearly caught. If not for that Tartarus-chained device..."

"What do you think she'll tell Scootaloo?"

"Miranda?"

Twilight nodded. Rarity thought it over.

"I'm -- not sure," the unicorn admitted. "I mostly witnessed the Crusade from a slight distance, Twilight. One which I was constantly trying to increase. But I feel that Scootaloo is rather quick to embrace hope. The Crusade itself was a demonstration of that: every fresh attempt a guaranteed mark -- I... just thought about that. Truly thought about it. The filly, compared to her parents..."

"The irony scale can probably take a few more dents before it falls apart..."

"Your pardon?"

"...nothing."

Their most frequent liar carefully looked Twilight over before visibly deciding to let the alicorn get away with it -- for now. "In any case, Applejack has said that on the bad days, every new voucher is treated as a sign that her parents truly love her. Are trying to take care of her. To hear that they were seen..."

She sighed. The curled tail slowly swayed, then flicked off a micro-lash at the end.

"He didn't say where they tried to purchase the voucher?" Rarity asked.

"I can guarantee you it wasn't Ponyville," Twilight darkly noted. "But no. He didn't. And I might have some trouble asking him now."

"Then the news will require time to travel," Rarity considered. "The only true way for Miranda to know by now is if the voucher purchase was made in Canterlot. Twilight... I feel that the most Scootaloo might be told is that her parents are confirmed to be alive. And possibly not even that, because -- hope can be a rather reliable source of torment. Our police chief may decide to hold on more information."

"I don't understand why they haven't tried to see her," Twilight insisted. "I don't. From what Applejack's said, from what I've seen -- Scootaloo would believe anything they told her, and love them all the more. Even once a year would have been enough for her. Once a moon, out in public with her, and maybe nopony ever asks a single question about her living situation. Why stay completely out of Ponyville?"

"...I don't know," the designer confessed. "Perhaps we'll find out." Thoughtfully, "Although I can at least think of a reason not to use Ponyville's bank."

"Oh?"

"The supposed stallion," Rarity expertly pronounced, "is not exactly wrong about Mr. Croesus. I would know, because that is the bank which holds my mortgage and if it wasn't for one of my father's friends having gone into the profession after the hoofball days, under that employer? I likely would have been trying to sell the Boutique's sales plan to a Canterlot loan institution. Mr. Croesus does not speak 'understandable payment delay'. I believe he may have responded to the Summer Sun Celebration through trying to put his tellers on permanent night hours. Likely at a lower salary. I have at least three mortgage payments set aside at all times and, since our Bearer days began, three ponies on standby to drop them off." With a slow head shake, "I'm not that far away from full ownership of the Boutique, Twilight, and I have been seriously considering having the traditional document-burning party on his lawn."

Dust swirled within the gatehouse. Distant sounds of pony laughter bounced off the glass.

"We shouldn't stay here too long," the designer considered. "Even if we can maintain privacy indefinitely, we need to get into Truedawn and warn the others about the possible use of drugs. If there's nothing else for the moment, shall we try to go find them?"

"Yes." Twilight stood up. "That's crucial. And then we should..." Reluctantly, "...find a work crew. And give them a good explanation for the absence before we join in." It might make it easier to leave again.

"Oh, I may make one additional stop before that," Rarity airily declared. "Or find just the right crew to join. As I believe there's a matter I need to discuss with a certain member of the community. Nira, you said?"

Mad Girlfriend Bug

She'd been told that the tall pegasus mare's injuries merely needed treatment, weren't anywhere near life-threatening -- and yet, as she waited within the enforced solitude of her rather odd basement 'quarters', tracking it all from below... Trixie still found herself with a truly rare opportunity. And, once she had both fully recognized its nature and acknowledged that it might not come again, privately indulged.

Time of death --

-- and that was where she had to stop, because the room didn't have a clock.

(It didn't have a lot of things.)

Not that she typically relied on clocks: carrying one along in the caravan would eventually see the jolts of the road knock all of the gears out of alignment. It had forced her to master a much rougher, if decidedly more reliable system for telling time -- but that method had a fundamental requirement, and she currently lacked it.

There were no windows in the basement, and something about the slanting of the air vents allowed them to pass atmosphere through without granting the same privilege to light. She couldn't see where Sun was, and so marking even a estimated Official Time Of Death was effectively impossible. But still, a death had taken place, and somepony needed to certify that.

"...I don't understand," declared the unsteady voice of a recently-concussed mare, made all the shakier by the nature of what had likely been an unintended passage. "Why would somepony just go and... and --"

"-- the current stage of your treatment," the closest medical equivalent cut in, "requires a certain degree of vocal feedback from the patient. With absolutely no more clouding of judgment than has already been inflicted. Your injuries are beyond minor painkillers. I can't use anything stronger on you until the last stage, and then we will be unable to discuss anything for some time. Do your best to focus."

Because when it came to surgery, the first thing the lilac unicorn had done was to locate the concept of 'bedside manner' and removed it from the dictionary.

"...I don't understand," the pegasus decided for the fifth time, because the repeated kicks to the head had made it rather difficult to remember the previous four. "Why would --"

"-- this," Starlight placidly announced, "is going to hurt."

Excision of definition. With a scalpel.

"W --"

After that, it could presumed that critically-wounded syllables had been left to bleed out on their own.

The resulting choked-down scream, even after being forced through the narrow travelway, still managed to echo for a while.

Although you could also argue that it had just been a matter of some rather minor editing. Swapping out a few letters. Starlight didn't have bedside manner: she had bedside matter. Stand in the general vicinity of the bed and the rest didn't matter.

The performer looked at the closest little circular hole in the basement wall again. Rotated her left ear. Focused.

"...they saw her," the decibel-incarnated illusion of Mane Allgood murmured, somewhere above and to the rough left. "They must have. It's the same town. They saw..."

"Drink this," an equally-distant Starlight instructed.

"...why would somepony just --" Which was abruptly cut off by a burst of retching.

"The taste resists adjustment," the unicorn stated. "The effects justify use. Nausea is momentary. Healing lasts until a new injury occurs. Swallow."

And Trixie waited.

She didn't have many other options. The performer knew basic first aid -- and somewhat more, as spending a life on the road meant both an increased chance of injury and potentially not being able to reach the next hospital without doing something to help herself first. And she would have willingly assisted in the mare's treatment -- but Starlight had stated that she wished for Trixie to wait in the 'guest quarters'. (There had been no truly audible quotes, but the fresh awkward hesitation had nearly substituted.) So Trixie was doing exactly that. Waiting and listening, because somehow, listening was an actual option.

It was arguably one of the lesser bits of strangeness to be found in the room. And Trixie, who had time to kill (and couldn't jot down the moment of demise on that either), could always go back to examining the oddities of her quarters, within the scant quantity of lumens which had been offered for doing so.

It just tended to leave her doing very little else.

Starlight wanted Trixie to stay with her and in Truedawn, whatever the lilac unicorn wanted, she apparently got.

What Starlight had also wanted was for Trixie to wait outside the workshop while her room was prepared. Made more... suitable.

It had taken a while, and being outside had made it easy to measure by Moon. Trixie had spent nearly two hours in shuffling her hooves under southern starlight before Starlight had emerged again and, with nothing more than a light flicker of corona as a signal to follow, effectively invited her in. Trixie had spent the previous night sleeping within the results, and... it was possible to sleep there. You just took every last question which had been raised by the room's existence, told them to battle each other for the honor of being the first one investigated and, while the mass brawl was still getting under way, curled up and went to sleep.

She hadn't gotten the best look at the rest of the workshop on the way in. This was partially because some sections had been covered. Cloth was loosely draped over oddly-shaped mysteries: wall racks, tabled items, a few cabinets -- although all of the bookshelves were still fully exposed. But she'd managed to spot a few things. Just not anywhere close to all of it. The interior was compartmentalized, and several doors had been closed.

Trixie's guess was that one of them led to Starlight's bedroom. It was possible to judge the size of other sections by measuring them as hollows: take what you could see, then subtract what you couldn't. Most of the results left more than enough space for one mare to be comfortable working by herself -- while still creating some serious questions as to how two were supposed to manage the feat. But the largest blocked section had to be where Truedawn's leader slept.

But it looked as if many of the working areas would be cramped. And there were numerous comments which could be made about operating in that kind of environment, if you had an audience which was receptive to a little humor. How working so closely together would have to mean working -- closely. In frequent, direct, almost intimate contact...

Trixie hadn't said anything like that to Twilight. For starters, the tree's basement was decidedly roomy.

...not roomy enough to have prevented Trixie from backing into a table.

If I hadn't jolted the device fragment...

The thought wasn't so much postponed as redirected towards the nightscape to await her future arrival.

The tall pegasus was currently in the treatment area. That had been easy to identify and effectively impossible to miss: discount a small entry foyer and it was just about right on top of the door. The space took up a surprising percentage of the workshop's known floor plan: two beds of standard Truedawn 'quality', multiple medical devices and instruments which Trixie recognized, a few which she didn't, a number where the modifications were still being worked out, and a very comprehensive pharmaceutical selection in a huge glass-faced cabinet -- all of which was kept behind lock, key, and a touch of glow.

There was plenty of room to move in the medical section. All the better for Starlight to freely roam about the rough vicinity of 'bedside,' which was the only thing which truly mattered. But there were areas which would likely have them right on top of each other, and...

...Trixie was already working out the limits. She'd already failed with one joke about Starlight effectively trying to pull her aside for sex. Commenting about how her quarters somehow hadn't been set up with a bed for two was right out.

The lilac unicorn had barely managed floor padding for one.

Trixie hadn't been surprised to find that portions of the upper level were currently closed to her, and the complete lack of shock had easily carried her past the numerous locked doors on the lower one -- or at least, the lowest one she'd been permitted to enter. She suspected there might be at least one other.

There was an open room across the little hallway, and it hosted -- mushrooms. Fungi. The few plants which were normally only found in caves. Anything which flourished best in the dark, and Trixie knew that some of it was present to assist the pharmacy. And Starlight hadn't bothered with planter pots, or special lights. (Trixie wasn't entirely certain that earth pony assistance was even possible in Truedawn.) Instead, she'd taken the extremely direct step of eliminating the middlepony. The mycology fruiting room had a dirt floor, and everything had been planted directly into the ground.

It also had soil which radiated the intense residue of recently-cast magic. Cast and recast: the signature naturally tended to blend into itself, but it was possible to determine where some portions had faded more than others. And while most of it was new to her (although not so strange that she couldn't start puzzling out what it might have been meant for), she recognized quite a bit of the mesh as reinforcement spells. Things meant to add a sort of density to an area, making it that much harder to push through. Trixie's current guess was that there was an extra space somewhere under the mushrooms, which needed surprisingly heavy protections. Because based on the sheer amount of power which had been channeled into the area, it felt as if Starlight was trying to make dirt substitute for stone.

(She could try to puzzle such things out during a broad-spectrum use of her feel -- in the basement. There was so much active magic on the upper level as to force focus onto a single effect at a time, lest sensory overload create an instant migraine.)

As with so much of the workshop, Trixie's granted room was stone.

Solid.
Dark.
Heavy.

All of those could be dealt with and, in a workshop, each of those qualities could be welcome. But when it came to her sleeping area, there were at least three others words to deal with.

Total.
Decoration.
Failure.

Why would so much of a workshop be closed off? It was hardly exclusive to Truedawn, and it certainly wasn't just because of Starlight. Any researcher worth the thaums they were burning was going to have secrets, if only because they didn't want anypony else getting a look at the latest experiment and publishing first.

Additionally, in terms of intimacy implied by access, getting into a workshop was the step above entering a bedroom. A workshop could be an incredibly personal space -- even if, when viewed from the outside, the most personal signature about Starlight's workshop was the utter lack of personal touches.

But once Trixie had gotten inside...

There was an intricate cradle made of gold filigree and platinum which had been drawn into the finest of wire, and the only reason it didn't come across as a creation of art was that every bend and curve was rendered precisely as the formulae dictated. Nothing more.

That was where the notebook went.

Starlight had carefully placed it there as they'd passed, removing it from her saddlebag with care. A levitation which was likely repeated every night, to the point of automatic reflex, had been directly supervised until the book's spine was flush against metallic shine. A pair of similarly-manufactured hooks in the nearby wall took the weight of the saddlebags -- and placed them just above a second set: smaller, meant to be worn closer to the hips in conjunction with a normally-sized pair. It was the sort of thing you saw in Manehattan when shoppers claimed to be 'quadruple-wielding', and the second set was full.

One uncovered wall hosted what appeared to be multiple large samples of thin, light fabric. All sorts of colors were available. Multiple bins held narrow balsa rods and dowels. Six fully-wound reels of thick white string were arranged on a special rack.

Biology dictated the requirements for a bathroom and when it came to the things which could be placed within the one which was reached from the treatment area, Starlight had very nearly stopped there. However, divination happened to be one of the rarest magical talents known -- fake foretellers were everywhere: the real thing had a talent and mark manifest rate which just about matched innovators -- and so Starlight couldn't reasonably expect to get a recent reading experience from a sink. As such, there was a shaped, elevated personal bookshelf at one end of the toilet trench. The available reading material was stored behind glass.

Twilight would say something about trying to protect the pages from microdroplets.
Or maybe she'd say a lot of things.

The other thing you could say about the bathroom was that it was utterly clean --

"I do realize," Starlight's voice drifted in, "that this would be an exceptionally bad time to ask what you might happen to recall regarding Gez."

The pegasus didn't exactly go silent with thought. The little groans kept breaking in.

"...who?" finally emerged.

"After you recover," Starlight said. "Should the opportunity arise. But I will speak with your spouse."

-- and featured a selection of bone combs in a cylinder near the door, just in case anypony wanted to do up their mane on the way out.

In that sense, you could argue that there were some true personal touches within the workshop. Things which only Starlight might have done, because the odds were rather low on anypony else replicating any of it by accident.

...and when viewed from that perspective, Trixie's sleeping quarters were the most personal creation of all.

The walls are solid, heavy stone. They're also dark, and that's because we're going with the natural hue. Somepony extracted this from the earth, took some of the dirt off, shaped the results, and then knocked off for the day because they were late to their worship session at The Temple Of Anti-Paint. No brighter hues have been added to the walls, and any occupant could expend a lot of time in looking. Those with talents which grant enhanced senses will have the option to get lost within fifty shades of grey, but they're probably going to pass out from boredom around the time they hit two dozen. Assuming the eyestrain doesn't force them to quit first, because it's very dimly lit in here. (Starlight's promised to bring in an extra light source later.) Shapes are easy enough, but reading is going to need some help and while just about any unicorn past puberty doesn't have to worry about the dark, Trixie isn't going to ignite her horn here. There's very little she can do about the color of such shed light, and the glow of her field will always distort whatever it's coating. The performer prefers to see things as they are.

A basement space... well, you could have a small window at the very top. You don't and as mentioned earlier, the air vents aren't helping.

The walls haven't been painted. They have been altered. Small, shallow holes show signs of thread lines along the interior. These are regularly spaced, and feature most prominently along the far wall. Other gaps are somewhat larger and deeper.

Eight more such holes are in the floor: all much smaller in diameter than a hoof. Stepping into them or even catching more than a tiny edge of keratin on the gap is effectively impossible -- but they're present. There's also a drain cover. This can be removed, and the little tunnel underneath has been cleaned.

Some of the dirt was taken off the walls. Nearly all of it, actually. You'd have to deliberately rub your fur against the stone in order to create a transfer. But where the dirt remains, it tends to be in long, exceptionally shallow scratches, and the soil matches the shade of that in the mycology area to the finest degree.

Little holes, which seem to be present as anchor points. One of them goes much deeper, then takes a turn and goes straight up.

The performer is fully familiar with listening tubes. (For that matter, she's been trying to work out whether the sound conduction offered by taut string could somehow be used in her act.) Run a long hollow through stone, connecting any two points you desire. Speak at one end, and somepony will hear at the other. You get them in government buildings, if a pair of offices need to almost constantly communicate and can't have ponies perpetually galloping back and forth. Others will try to eavesdrop. Or summon servants, call guests up to dinner... there's all sorts of legitimate uses. The important thing is that this room has one and wherever the other end is, it's letting Trixie hear something of what's going on in the treatment area.

There's no bed. Thin summer blankets have been carefully (or exactingly) placed on the floor. They are, even in the dim lighting of the cell, a steady orange, off-white, and warm yellow. Two full trios have been used to build the sleeping area, and they match. Perfectly. It suggests a mare who owns at least three sets of bedding: one will be in use, the other goes onto the bed while the first is being cleaned, and the third is there for backup because sheets wear out and the buyer wanted to make sure these colors would always be available -- something which suggests a fourth set. And possibly beyond.

Storage space is currently limited to 'floor'. Not that Trixie exactly got to bring much of anything with her on this trip -- but if she had, there would be no place to put it. Another Starlight promise was to bring in some reading material before Sun-lowering, and Trixie is dearly hoping there's going to be a shelf to go with it. Possibly a desk, because it'll take more light than this to comfortably read and the lamp has to go somewhere.

The door is... rather heavy. There's some spells worked in, because there's at least a few spells on just about everything. There's also an irregularity in it. The stone has a patch of milky quartz embedded at just about eye level, and there's another one in the ceiling. It's possible to pick up on magic there, but it isn't currently active.

Naturally, there is a lock. It's of Mazein manufacture: all metal, reinforced and, thanks to Starlight, enchanted.

It's also on the outside.

This isn't a guest room. It's currently being asked to serve as one, but... it's an area made up by a mare who understands that ponies tend to sleep with blankets and therefore, if you provide the blankets, sleep is going to happen.

The space normally has another function.

Trixie is almost completely certain that she's been asked to sleep in a repurposed prison cell.

...which, from a certain point of view, made perfect sense. It was just that most of that perspective happened to be historical. Because a magic workshop was a place where experiments could be reasonably expected to go wrong, often with great force. They were designed to contain explosions and there had been times when, after a researcher permanently left their space behind (sometimes by using the front door, but rather more often through the window), somepony had asked why all of that abandoned, somewhat-charred security couldn't be used to hold prisoners. Some of the oldest jails in Equestria had begun their existence as research facilities.

Looked at that way, Starlight had simply decided to skip another step.

It made sense, if you wanted it to. Truedawn was trying to be a full community. But no place was perfect. Eventually, somepony was going to break whatever a local law happened to be. And you had to keep the offenders somewhere.

Securing them in the place where the spells were already meant to be trapping things inside was just practical.

...and it wasn't as if it was her first cell.

The Princess will speak to me soon.
The Princess will sentence me soon.
The Princess will raise a giant white hoof over my head, look at that twisted patch of fur where the Amulet was, shake her head, and then silently bring her leg down --

-- that thought was also sent off to await her in dream, working in tandem with the earlier one. Trixie distantly wondered what they would mutually come up with.

The sounds coming from the listening tube stopped.

Trixie immediately moved away from the wall and started counting her own breaths. It took seventy-four of them before the hoofsteps stopped outside her door, and then Starlight's field swung it open.

"I'm done," the lilac mare stated. "You can come up. We'll resume what we were doing before the incident."

Trixie nodded. Followed the somewhat-smaller mare down the hallway, past another door and up the ramp.

"How is she?"

"Injured," came across as a statement. "But not beyond recovery. The observed impact pattern involved in the bruising suggests the assaulting party was trying to land as many kicks as possible within a limited time frame. And because she prioritized in that direction, she effectively traded force for speed. The damage could have been considerably worse. But there is still a degree of head trauma."

"How are you treating it?" Concussions weren't something to be dealt with casually. Not that Trixie could really picture Starlight dealing with anything casually, but --

"There is a brew which, when consumed by a pony, dedicates nearly all of the body's resources to healing," Starlight stated. "Should the pony have already been hurt, that is: otherwise, it only produces illness. But if left in that state for a sufficient amount of time, she would fully recover at a greatly-accelerated rate." This slight pause represented the duration required for the lecturer to fetch the next intangible note card. "However, while the concoction is in effect, the subject sleeps. And will not wake. It is not a state I wish to leave ponies in for long, as anything more than a few hours requires constant monitoring and care. However, I can determine the time spent unconscious by dosage."

"I'm guessing you can't space out doses," Trixie reasoned. "Six hours on, six off."

Starlight didn't glance back at the trailing mare, and the head shake mostly seemed to exist in the event that a very short word got lost somewhere. "No. Once every three moons is the maximum. There's a surprising degree of strain on the body. Accordingly, I gave her enough to bring her through the first stages of recovery. The priority is to make sure her mind returns to its base state. And should the results somehow be insufficient, I will simply bring her to a hospital in Manehattan and let her finish the process there."

Trixie's mind automatically filed that detail away.

"How often do you use this?"

"Only when necessary," Starlight calmly said. "But there have been previous treatments. Of residents, out of necessity."

"Ponies try things here," Trixie lightly proposed, "and sometimes it feels like they're trying to get hurt?"

Starlight's next hoofstep briefly hitched. The streaked tail started to go limp --

"-- is this something sexual?"

Trixie blinked.

"...no..."

"I'm aware some ponies have managed to convince themselves that sexual pleasure can be directly linked to experiencing pain," Starlight didn't quite announce. "Interestingly, they're not entirely wrong. Mindset is a part of it. But nerves under high stress can misfire in all sorts of fascinating ways. So if you were making another attempt at erotic humor --"

Hastily, "-- I wasn't."

"Oh." This pause was longer. "I'm... trying to be on the lookout for that sort of thing. In... case it helps. Follow, please."

They made their way through the surface level. Some doors were closed. Others weren't. One had opened for the first time, and it was the door into --

"-- you're not moving," Starlight observed. 'I can hear that. Also, the natural prey sense of a pony, while generally annoying, can sometimes be used to determine when somepony has stopped following."

"...that's your chemistry lab."

"I didn't feel it could be mistaken for anything else."

and vials and compounds and mortars and that pestle is enchanted to always shed every last bit of powder, and that's practically a full set of elements for the ones we know about, a full set of everything and that's almost impossible to stabilize, it should be burning through the cork and it's just sitting there, I don't even know what that red powder is, but the beakers are going to be self-cleaning with perfect temperature control on the burners and dear Sun, I'll swap half my mane for that miniature crucible.

Half my mane and all of the tail.

I can stay off the road until they grow back.

"What's the thin yellow liquid? The one in the wonder vial."

Starlight still didn't glance back. "Your chemistry knowledge is well beyond the default level," was delivered to the forward portion of the hallway. "Very few ponies would recognize that pegasus techniques were woven into the glass."

"The copper wire is a clue," Trixie noted. "But it's obviously something you need to keep at high atmospheric pressure to have it as a liquid. And I don't recognize it."

The other mare offered a bare nod. "I only stabilized the compound recently. The process was a challenge."

A new creation... "What's it called?"

"I don't name failures."

Trixie blinked.

"What does it do?"

"Absorbs humidity and heat," Starlight said. "Rather efficiently. To the point where, if a pony made extended contact with the compound, they would suffer frostbite. Along with a chemical burn. And as absorbing that heat outside of the pressure environment would render the compound into a gas which would enter their lungs, they would become nauseous, dizzy, and experience some loss of alveoli function."

There was something almost -- tense about Starlight's posture. The muscles which often seemed to barely be under their owner's control were visibly tightening.

"It would have some potential use for temperature control in enclosed spaces. It also destroys ozone. A function with very little immediate utility beyond clearing the air after pegasus battles, while possessing tremendous potential for long-term harm to the environment. And my experiments suggest that truly vast quantities introduced to the atmosphere would, in time, lead to the air retaining too much of Sun's heat. I'm trying to remove the less desirable effects -- but if that proves impossible, then we currently have one planet." A few of the long tail hairs were vibrating. "As such, I'd like to retain it. So I'm mostly hanging on to that vial until I can find a way to either make the compound fully safe -- or destroy it without harm. The current theory is that overloading it with thermal energy may manage the feat. And until I'm sure there are no side effects from that, I will not be attempting to teleport the vial to Sun."

"Um," Trixie said.

"Of course," Starlight added, "there are known difficulties in teleporting to extremely hot areas. It's reasonable to expect that Sun makes that worse. And a lower temperature than Sun is likely more than sufficient for destruction of the compound. Follow, please."

They mutually resumed the trot. Another opened door was passed, and Trixie spotted the translator. It was surrounded by strange devices, and some of its own trailing wire had been placed into contact with --

"-- why did you attach it to your teleport device?"

"Spells are, in a way, their own language," Starlight calmly considered. "I wanted to see if anything would translate. But I'm not quite ready to test. A few more adjustments."

They went through the treatment area. The tall peach pegasus, with one ear heavily bandaged and poultices across much of her body, was asleep on the left bed. She was curled so tightly as to be at risk of having her head slip under a wing.

And then they left the workshop. A flicker of turquoise closed the door behind them, and Trixie felt a dozen spells engage.

"I have to monitor treated patients after a few hours," Starlight said. "But not before. We can finish the tour --" and noticed where Trixie was looking. "We won't be ascending the cliff path just yet."

"It goes somewhere important?"

"Extremely," Starlight didn't quite explain. "But it should wait until after you see the first direct demonstration."

"And that'll be with one of those two?" Trixie asked. Because the couple who'd arrived through the gatehouse had marks --

"No," Starlight stated. "One should not begin a study of the rule through starting with the exception."

The performer thought about that.

Reluctantly, "I don't get it."

"There's no fault," Starlight determined. "You lack the context."

And began to move away from the cliff: a calculated tail flick told Trixie to follow --

"-- alongside my flank, please," the lilac mare said. "There is no hallway to deal with. We have more space."

They trotted together. Heading into Truedawn.

"My recruiters," Starlight eventually continued, "do not count as normal subjects. In a sense, one could say that they've been through the process too many times. For a new arrival, even one who has been taught to think, there is a certain degree of -- resistance. Innate, most likely. The final protest from a lifetime of deliberate miseducation. It's to be expected. But those two have lost all of it. Their situation isn't the default. So in that sense, they are better suited for practice after mastery than the subjects of your first witnessed Freedom ceremony."

Open the same lock too many times, and the tumblers start to smooth out...

"I understand." And, because the phrasing had been calling for her attention, "Taught to think?"

Starlight stopped moving. (Trixie froze just before overtaking her.) And everything about her speech changed. Became... awkward. Exceptionally so.

All of the little hesitations. The micro-freezes. It was the verbal equivalent of watching a newborn foal trying to get up for the first time, knowing only that they had four (or six) dangling limbs attached to their body and the hooves were clearly meant for something. You struggled until you figured it out or results occurred.

Except that newborns could be up and trotting within a minute of birth. Because ultimately, they didn't have to reason through the process. It was all --

"I... usually have to -- teach ponies how to think," Starlight slowly managed. "Or... ask somepony who's been taught to go in my stead."

Stopped. Eyelids did their job, then went on break.

"Recruiters -- select their students and... conduct private classes," she tried to continue. "But I had to teach them, Trixie. I've -- tried to teach so many. And when it comes to passing it all on, they're -- better at it. They can both talk. But they also know how to listen. It's... so rare..."

One slow breath. All available alveloi presumably cooperated.

"I had to teach them everything," Starlight stated. "And then they had to do the same with others. Always from the start. Always needing to convince those who could... never conceive of the possibilities on their own. Because in so many ways.. we're taught not to. And you... appear to have potentially recognized some of my conclusions. Independently."

Lilac ears rotated, checking the area for stray sound. Ears did that sometimes.

"Non-imposed sanity..." the mare quietly said -- and then resumed her trot. "We'll complete the tour. But when it comes to allowing your talent to experience the process of Freedom -- we'll begin soon. The opportunity is already here."

Binary

This is how the charcoal-maker died.

There were a hundred kraals in Pundamilia Makazi: city-states with differing concepts of how zebra governments should function. This accompanied an equal variance of beliefs in things like rights, self-determination, and freedom: if you were unfortunate enough to live in one of The Three, the low end of that quantity could be measured as zero. Legally, the charcoal-maker was a citizen for one of the less restrictive kraals: it was just that she spent nearly the whole of her adult life outside the borders which had been created by curving walls of still-growing thorns. It was where she lived, it was where she worked, and it was where she would die.

Even The Three recognized that it was best to allow a charcoal-maker to enter and exit of her own will, because the other option was to have the smoldering mounds (each taller than a zebra, with a diameter at least three body lengths across) within the walls. The creation of charcoal was perceived in three ways: as a necessity, a delicate process which was best left to the professionals, and something which involved the near-constant use of fire.

It was flame which had been buried under a coating of earth, because charcoal required trapping as much of the heat as possible. When a marked creator was involved, it was often possible for zebras to trot over the surface of active mounds -- although anyone doing so was advised to move in a hurry. Because there was heat, and somewhere under that was flame, and charcoal required tending to an extent which required the mark's magic to include the ability to get by on very little sleep.

Zebras loved to cook with charcoal: it was one of the few agreements which echoed from all one hundred kraals. It was also something they recognized as a potential weakness, because being a zebra generally meant working with the flow of the world: taking what was provided and then, whenever possible, making sure it could be replaced. Charcoal required the use of great quantities of wood, and that meant there had to be vast amounts of lumber ready to be naturally taken. If demand exceeded any supply which the world might provide...

You couldn't constantly harvest from living trees, even if you planted replacements immediately after. Trees only grew so fast, especially in a non-nation which had an earth pony population consisting of a few expatriates, just about all of whom charged for their services accordingly. The zebra collective appetite for charcoal to use for warmth and the delicate tastes it added to roasting vegetables could easily reach the point where it stripped the land clean, and they knew it. That was one of the two major reasons they left its creation to the marked, because those were the ones who could work with the land's natural balance while making sure the delicate harmony was maintained.

The other major reason was because zebras who tried to shortcut past the financial demands and limited supply would decide the process looked simple enough. It wouldn't take long before they had a smoldering mound with flame boiling away underneath it and because they understood that such things required tending, they would build that mound in a place which was personally convenient. Such as, just by way of rather frequent example, close to their home. They wouldn't necessarily remember to check that they'd used the proper kind of soil, or had varied the thickness of that coating where necessary: most of them wouldn't be aware that such care was required at all. There would just be a very large fire with a rather temporary cover near their residence and eventually, inevitably, they would fall asleep.

The hundred kraals of Pundamilia Makazi agreed on very little. But one of the few universal accords was that charcoal had to be made by professionals who resided a good distance away, and so even The Three allowed those with the mark to live outside the thorn walls. The most restrictive kraals just made frequent visits to such huts, because they always worried about those who had the opportunity to run.

But even if this charcoal-maker had been a citizen for one of The Three, she never would have thought about running. It would have meant leaving the mounds, and the flame, and the core of her soul.

She had resided in her hut for years now, and did so alone. The charcoal-maker was perfectly content with her own company (which was another aspect of the mark: those with it were known to marry, but they generally got together with other charcoal-makers and then spent the honeymoon locked in a giant argument about which one had to dismantle their piles), especially when she knew there was no such thing as true loneliness. There was time spent with other zebras: the seasonal points on the calendars when she allowed the fires to dim before taking her goods to the market. Conversations could be had there and if they were mostly about the varieties of charcoal and just how this particular type was the best for your peppers, then those were the things worth talking about. If she ever felt isolated -- and why would she feel that way at all? -- then all she had to do was stand among the results of her ongoing labor and let her fur drink in the love which rose on the heat.

The charcoal-maker considered herself to be rather worldly. She would use her time in the kraal to order books from other nations: the time required for communication and delivery usually meant they were ready for pickup two seasons later, but -- charcoal-makers had to be patient. She loved her little library, even though only the vast majority of the books were about charcoal.

Studying the process, refining the magic which rose from her mark... it had occurred to her that other nations used charcoal, and so each might have its own way of making it. Zebra methods were traditional and reliable, but that didn't mean they were the best. So she had ordered books, acted on what she read, and now the typical mounds had some rather rare company: kilns which had originally been sketched out by minotaurs, with an ibex-styled köte nearby. The latter gave her a place from which she could watch some of the secondary burns, along with storing her small supply of rare woods because as long as you were ordering books of things to experiment with from the other nations, you might as well get something to experiment on. The results always sold well.

She ordered books, just about none of which were available in the common zebra tongue of barabara, the language of the roads between kraals and their laws. It had required studying linguistics, and as long as she'd both learned to read foreign symbols and was ordering books anyway...

The charcoal-maker felt herself to have a good life. Her creations were appreciated. The fires gave her company and love. There would have been far-traveled stories on cold nights, but no night spent near the mounds was truly cold and so any warmth from the printed words reached her heart as something extra. She knew she was spending her time under Sun and Moon in the way which was best for the world, and reaffirmed that belief in her soul whenever she looked at the sky.

She loved to stargaze on clear nights within the mtisu, and there were so many of those. She would stare up at Moon and the strange dark pattern which covered so much of its surface, forming a shape very much like the head of a mare. A pony mare, from the species which had the horn. She would sometimes wonder what those ponies were like. She'd never met one...

Then she did.

She died seven years before something which had begun nearly a millennium prior ended within ancient stone walls, in a place no story had ever spoken of. She would never see Moon freed of its scars, hear those tales of the Return which reached her kraal in a form which had already been distorted beyond all hope of truth.

The charcoal maker was tending the most distant of her fires, adding fresh soil to cover the places where the heat had dried it out: she wouldn't allow the flame any chance at escape. It was the location which put her closest to the road, and it was that which allowed her to hear the distant turning of cart wheels.

Her ears perked. She listened to that rare sound: something which slowed as it approached the branch path which led to her hut -- and then, in something close to ultimate miracle, began to turn.

She finished tending to the mound first, because some things were important. Then she went to greet her visitor and in doing so, met a unicorn.

She had less than two days to live.

There were very few accords among the hundred kraals, and one of them was hospitality. Some of the resources within Pundamilia Makazi were limited ones: metal was scarce just about everywhere, and wars had been fought over access to clean water. The best way to prevent the battles had turned out to be offering a few things freely. Sometimes it was just what you could spare -- but whenever possible, it would be enough to make sure the traveler could reach the next kraal.

The tradition had expanded in small ways. Shopkeepers kept small baskets of edibles for their customers: this included those who sold food. (The charcoal-maker had a garden which she used to both keep herself fed and supply shoppers with those foodstuffs which zebras knew would only be improved by grilling, and it would die shortly after she did.) Water was always available, because it had to be. And when a stranger came down the road, you welcomed them. Just for a night, most of the time: enough for the traveler to rest, refresh themselves, and tell a few stories as payment -- but you welcomed them.

(Every kraal had a tradition of hospitality. It was just that a few of them had views on letting anyone leave.)

This visitor was a unicorn, and the charcoal-maker welcomed her.

The unicorn was tired, and the charcoal-maker thought it was from excess effort. The pony didn't look very strong. It could be said that there were muscles under the lilac coat (and she'd never seen a coat so bright in her hut), but they mostly existed as a matter of anatomical necessity. The mare certainly didn't look as if she had the physical power to pull something halfway between cart and rolling home across the winding trails of a foreign land. It meant the charcoal-maker quickly decided that the mare looked tired because she'd been exercising too much in dragging all of that wood along, and immediately made sure her visitor got some water.

(She was right, and she was wrong. She'd reached the cart after the glow had winked out, and so didn't know the unicorn had been moving the mass by a different route. But the mare was tired. There was another, constant effort being made.)

The mare's strength was starting to run out. Coincidence had found that happening near the branch path, and the unicorn had turned down it in hopes of finding a safe place to rest. Halting words (because the pony spoke some barabara, although not very well) explained all of that, along with surprise that it had taken so long after the turn to actually reach a hut. The charcoal-maker carefully told the pony about having to keep her fires isolated and after that didn't quite get through, proudly escorted her guest to the mounds because the view might be more comprehensible than the words.

She felt the unicorn would be impressed. After all, ponies used charcoal.

The mare looked at the mounds. She asked for permission to inspect the kiln. Then the questions came, and they kept on coming. The unicorn seemed to be genuinely curious about everything which went into the creation of charcoal, because the unicorn was something of a scholar. She was traveling, she said, in order to learn. Knowledge could be found everywhere: that was why she'd left her own nation for a time. To see what kind of learning existed beyond the borders, and a charcoal-maker who ordered books from everywhere readily agreed.

Light opened the saddlebags which never left the unicorn's flanks, extracted a notebook and quill from the right. The unicorn walked around mounds and kiln and köte, writing everything down. It was something which the charcoal-maker watched with delight. She'd never seen that kind of magic before, and witnessing it now meant the mare wanted to learn about her. She appreciated that.

Eventually, Moon was raised. She prepared a meal for the unicorn: something which had a few interruptions as she went out to the garden for extra ingredients and the kiln for a mandatory status check. They ate together.

The unicorn... almost seemed to enjoy the meal. At least, the smile arrived after the chewing began, and the mare took care to thank her. It was just that -- the smile arrived. The mare's features didn't gradually shift over time. The normal reaction would have been the progression from a base of anticipation and somewhat-worried neutrality to acceptance and then, with any luck, delight. This smile felt as if it had just shown up, placed as a single unit upon the mare's face because the time had come around for it to be there.

The charcoal-maker thought it had something to do with the spices. Ponies just didn't have any experience of tri-kan or dried nettles.

She'd prepared her only guest bench: this mostly meant cleaning books off it, and then her own body could occupy that space. The unicorn was offered the charcoal-maker's favorite, accepted the perch. And then they settled in to talk.

Well... the zebra settled, because she was curious to hear pony stories. She'd read a few, and it was that which gave her some limited command of that language. (It was her first time trying to speak any of it, and she was rapidly learning that knowing what the words looked like when written down hadn't given her any instinct for how they were pronounced. The unicorn politely corrected her now and again, and didn't snicker once.) But stories were always better off free in the air than trapped on a page, and that was a belief from the species which claimed first invention of papercrafting.

She told her guest about that part of the hospitality tradition: the trading of stories. She received a nod. But no story came forth.

That was all right. The host could certainly begin. And as the first story was generally about oneself, so that two could come to know each other a little better -- since there was one thing which ponies and zebras, separated by distance and culture and so much else, would always have in common -- the charcoal-maker knew which tale to tell.

She smiled and, careful to keep her vocabulary within that which the unicorn understood, told her guest the story of how she'd found her mark.

The unicorn listened. Her ears were rotated forward, the purple eyes seemed to be focused -- but there was something odd about it. The same strangeness came when the unicorn spoke, and it was nothing which had arisen from the difference in cultures. There was an oddity to all of it, and it was something which the charcoal-maker didn't truly recognize until shortly before her death.

She finished her story, and waited eagerly for the other side of the equal exchange. There were only a few hundred marks known to zebras, although such often represented broader categories of talent. Ponies supposedly had thousands (with some indicating a truly narrow focus), and that had to mean an equal number of stories. She'd never seen the mare's icon before, had barely seen pony icons at all. Most of that had come from story illustrations. There had to be a tale...

But all the mare said was "Do you ever regret it?"

The charcoal-maker blinked.

"I don't understand." They were faltering words. She hadn't been expecting the question, wasn't sure what it meant, and she also wasn't sure whether she had pronounced 'understand' properly.

"You must have had dreams, when you were a foal," the unicorn eventually said: it took two verbal stumbles before she managed 'dreams'. "Learning about the world and everything in it. Things which you wanted to do. Every foal has dreams. What were yours?"

The charcoal-maker was being polite, because that was part of what hospitality required. It meant she thought about it, and the silliest memory came back first.

She blushed: something which was readily apparent beneath half of the stripes. But the unicorn didn't seem to notice. She just... waited.

"I thought about being like the Princess," the charcoal-maker said. "But I think everyone does."

There was a little twitch in the mare's features: something which started around the eyes and transitioned into a small pulling-back of the lips. The zebra spotted it, was about to wonder why -- and then the saddlebags twitched.

The fabric of the left one bulged. Pushed out from within, as if something had just shifted within the stationary balance. Then it abruptly domed, surged to one side with such force as to distort away from the lid --

-- the mare's horn ignited with light. Color flowed into the container, and the movement stopped.

The charcoal-maker said the first thing which came to mind.

"Pets?" She would need to bring in more food.

The mare needed a moment to work out the word.

"Traveling companions," the unicorn tried. "Temporary."

"Do they need anything?"

The mare shook her head. "Just magic." Her eyes scrunched a little around the corners, and did so at the same moment her lips thinned: on a zebra, it would have indicated someone who was fighting off a headache. The light winked out again.

Plants in the pony nation lived partially on magic, at least when earth ponies were involved. Perhaps some small animals did the same. "M'changa?" Offering the safest of multi-species painkillers.

After a moment, "Thank you."

The charcoal-maker recovered the mix, infused it and let the unicorn take the wooden mug. The mare pushed a slim foreleg through the hoof loop, drank, set it down again. It took about ten minutes before the features relaxed enough to allow speech.

"I don't think it's good to be the Princess," the unicorn haltingly said. "Just having to.. be. Every single day, just so there can be days at all. I think she must be tired. It's been a long time. She must want to rest."

There was something strange about those words, and the smallest part of that came because they'd emerged from a pony.

"It's what the world asks of her," the charcoal-maker carefully said. (It would be some time before she would wonder why her words had been so careful and by then, she would already be close to death.) "Her mark."

The unicorn looked directly at her.

(It was the first time that happened.)
(It was the only time.)

She felt the weight of that gaze. An intensity which almost seemed as if it had its own light, because there was something behind that focus and magic would have been the most reasonable explanation, the thing which was easiest to accept. There had to be magic in the unicorn's eyes, because there was power and she didn't want to imagine any other source.

The charcoal-maker started to pull back. An instinctive reaction, something which rose from close to her core: the need to get away from that gaze. To retreat from an uncontrolled fire.

But then the unicorn spoke again, and it was all the zebra could do not to laugh.

The mare wasn't good with barabara: the zebra's spoken Equestrian was limited. It meant their discussion wandered back and forth across the linguistic borders, and... sometimes things got confused. The next sentence emerged as three words, all delivered in the most serious of tones. As if they were the most important words which the unicorn could ever say. But it was three words in two tongues. Everything had gotten mixed up.

It was, given the context, one of the funniest-sounding sentences the charcoal-maker had ever heard.
It also turned out to be her death sentence.

"Why are marks?"

The hostess didn't laugh. She wanted to, but... this was a guest. And she didn't mean to mock with her reply, because she was having just as much trouble with the pony's language.

She wasn't entirely sure what the question was. Why did the Princess have that mark? Or -- was it more philosophical? Was the mare asking why marks existed at all?

That was something the charcoal-maker had never really thought about. You had a soul and in time, you had a mark which reflected it. That was the natural path of the world. It wasn't a question which had to be asked -- but perhaps ponies thought differently. So she answered, and did so with similar syntax. Something not meant as mockery, but to show equality of difficulty in communication. That each was doing their best, and both were allowed to fail.

Marks simply were. And when it came to things which simply were...

"Why are Sun and Moon?"

All of that focus abruptly turned inward.

The mare's flanks seemed to loosen, as if skin wasn't quite connected to muscles any more. Limbs threatened to drift, and the ears sank down against the skull as if searching for echoes from within.

The unicorn wasn't really looking at her now. The eyes were simply trained in that direction.

The charcoal-maker started to pull back again.

"Are you all right?" She thought she'd mixed the infusion properly, and it was supposed to work as well on a pony as it did for every other sapient! She could get the mare to a doctor, but it would take time -- she didn't think she'd made a mistake, it wasn't her mark but m'changa was so basic...

The answering voice came across as something... distant. A sound which had been anchored to the mare through the fast-weakening demands of technicality.

"It would be so simple," the unicorn said, "if it was the same answer..."

The mare blinked. Smiled all at once, because a smile was required.

"Did you think about anything else?" she inquired. "Which wasn't a Princess? Any other way your life might have been?"

...well, yes. Every foal did, and so the charcoal-maker told the unicorn about a few filly dreams. It was something to talk about, and it kept the mare from staring. It also seemed to keep the mare present, at least in focus. The mare was very much present in the hut, and the charcoal-maker wasn't sure --

-- hospitality. All travelers deserved hospitality.

"Those are good dreams," the unicorn said. "Do you ever wish you'd followed them?"

"I'm a charcoal-maker," the zebra replied. "I have the fires. I understand them, and they love me. I'm... happy."

"Are you?"

It was a simple question in any language, and might have still felt like blasphemy in all of them. The charcoal-maker started to react, almost did so in a way which meant hospitality would be broken --

-- but the unicorn kept talking.

"No real tracks on your road," the mare said. "No visitors?"

She swallowed back the last set of words, forced replacements to come up as something which burned her throat like vomit.

"I go to the kraal once a season, when the fires are safe," she answered. "Moons from now. Usually don't see anyone in between. You're the first in a long time. I like it out here --"

Something about the next word felt especially strange.

"Friends?"

"I like those in the kraal --" trying so hard to keep the anger out of her voice, unsure why it was even there "-- when I'm in the kraal. When I'm here, I love the flame."

"So you're alone," the pony decided, and adjusted her position on the bench. "And you don't know how to be anything else."

The adjustment turned into more of a standing-up motion.

"I'm glad I found you," the unicorn said. "I think you'll be glad too. Thank you for the place to rest. Where can I sleep?"

Words failed the charcoal-maker, and did so on a level which reached too far down. One where, just for a moment, she wished she'd been a talespinner. Someone who could express herself best in means other than fire. And there had been no tale from her visitor. No story, not even of the mark. It meant hospitality had been broken, only from the other side. She could simply tell the mare to leave --

-- no. Not at night. The charcoal-maker had protection, and some of that came from the presence of muted fires. But to send a stranger to the land onto the road at night... it would take too long to reach the kraal, especially when the unicorn was so tired: hours of pulling the cart. She seemed to have been traveling for some time, had done well to get this far -- but it didn't mean she knew all the dangers of Pundamilia Makazi, or how to best fend them off. The unicorn would stay the night, and be offered a meal before departing in the morning.

But she would depart. The charcoal-maker had been curious to meet a unicorn, and now she had. It made her wish to meet another, mostly to go through all the myriad ways in which the experience could be improved.

"This way," she said, and led her guest to the sheltered hollow within the hut. The unicorn took a few more notes, then quickly fell asleep.

The charcoal-maker stayed awake for a time, because that was part of her mark and the burns needed tending. But eventually, she laid down to rest, and her last thought before dream was a wish for skill with words. To have found the ones which could properly answer questions which didn't need to be asked at all.

Perhaps that was why it happened, once the unicorn stopped pretending to rest and approached the host's sleeping form. It might have been a moment of wanting to be something else which made it all possible, and so that might have been something the unicorn had been trying to create. Or it could have been the lack of resistance, with the charcoal-maker unable to fight back from the depths of sleep.

She never woke up, and part of that was due to the half-sphere full of mists and vapors which the unicorn carefully pressed against her snout. But something in her knew and in the deepest part of her nightscape, the charcoal-maker's scream shook the dreamworld as she watched her soul come apart.

The zebra was groggy when she woke up, unnaturally so. She nearly tripped over the short column which had been left next to her bed, and was too weary to recognize that those items weren't supposed to be there. Her first priority, even before attending to her toiletries, was her guest. She had to make sure the unicorn was all right. Let the mare sleep for a while longer, then prepare the meal which would let the pony get back on the road. The zebra wanted to see the unicorn off, and something in her also wanted to make sure it was going to be a one-way trip.

She was tired, and so there were many things she didn't notice as she stumbled towards the sheltered hollow. They would have been hard to pick up on in any case: the little spheres had seen their colors deliberately muted, and the curves of the hut offered multiple opportunities for shadowed places near the ceiling.

The hollow was empty. Blankets had been folded with precision and arranged on the far end of the cot. Her guest was gone.

She glanced through a window, verified that the half-cart was showing an equal amount of absence: the brief look failed to register any hint of what lurked well before the horizon. Another, somewhat longer survey had her inventorying the items around the area, because no story had been given in return and so it seemed possible that something might have been taken...

...nothing missing.

All right. So she'd had a guest for a night, gaining no stories from the experience. All she seemed to have acquired was a sleepiness which would not fade, along with a fast-arriving headache. But she was awake, and as soon as she got some food and mixed a little more m'changa for herself, her labors would be calling. The first thing she had to do was --

-- was...

...the mounds were outside. The kiln. The köte. Two days ago, she had done something which had originated in foreign lands, using a pyramid of wood stacked in such a way as to be a chimney within a burn. She had to look at that and...

...why was the headache getting worse?

She stumbled towards her bathroom, nearly went over the little column again. Her skull was quickly starting to reach the point where her fur felt sore, perhaps from some level of empathy. And her hips felt as if she'd recently pulled a small, crucial muscle in each. Had she been shifting in her sleep so much as to injure herself, stress over the visitor sending legs which should have been at rest into something approaching futile gallop?

There was medicine in the bathroom.

There was also a mirror, and the angle at which she entered meant she got a look at her reflection first. The full length of her left side, from the disheveled brush of her mane to her --

She didn't scream. There was no point. No amount of screaming would have ever sufficed. She could have stood there screaming until her lungs collapsed, until blood flooded them in an attempt to fill vacuum, until the last of her life turned into expelled red liquid vibrating with pain, she would have fallen into the lake of her agony and it still wouldn't have been enough.

So she ran.

It was instinct, and it was also thought. Something had happened: something which imagination never would have dared to visualize, released from a place where the darkest of night terrors did not venture

(there had been a dream)

and she didn't know how to deal with it. The most natural instinct when facing abomination was to run, even when it meant that violation was traveling with her.

That was the instinct. But there was also thought: a nightmare had erupted into the waking world, and perhaps it had not done so for the first time. There were doctors in the kraal, along with storytellers who might have been holding back the darkest of legends for a night on which even those who called themselves fearless would be made to scream. To run was instinct: to gallop in a specific direction meant seeking help. She had no cart to haul, and she could safely leave the mounds behind without supervision for a period of --

--of...

...she galloped, away from her hut and down the approach road at the best speed she'd ever known, something where even partial maintenance of the pace would have her at the krall in less than two hours. She ran and her hooves pounded against rock and soil and she let the run suffuse her body instead of thinking about what had happened to her and she didn't notice how the light had changed or the strange look of the too-close horizon until three seconds before she would have gone snout-first into the wall of light.

Her instincts recognized the danger before her mind did, and used the only move which could have saved her from broken bones: dropped her down and dumped all of the momentum into a slide, sending her skidding across the uneven road as small rocks extracted a lesser toll, putting bruises into her skin and setting blood flowing within her coat. An extra shade to carry back into the hut, when the lilac of the visitor had been the brightest living hue ever hosted within more natural walls.

The slide slowed her, and did so at a rate which saved her (if only for a little while). Her hooves ended the process through the lightest of bumps against the new barrier, and the energy which flowed across them upon contact with the turquoise made them tingle.

The zebra's frantic eyes stared up at the wall made of light, found the place where it began to sharply curve into a dome.

She forced herself to get up, one leg at a time. Turned to face away from the barrier.

Kicked it.
Again.
Again.
Again.

...it... surrounded her lands. She'd been around the full perimeter now. Her hooves were sore, because all kicking it in multiple places had done was to prove that she retained enough sensation for her hooves to become sore.

At least, that was true of her body. She kept looking at... where it should have been. And whenever she did so, a sort of numbness spread through what remained of her soul.

It was rare for her to be truly cold: this part of the continent had the capacity to experience snow, but -- it was the sort of event which a local zebra might see thrice in their lifetime, and only for the lightest of coatings. Which was assuming a traveling pegasus stunt show didn't ask the kraal's residents if they wanted to learn what true winter was like, just for a day. Her mother had told her about that. Everyone had been having fun right up until the moment when they realized just how cold they were -- which was, of course, when the pegasi had made it all go away.

She didn't know what it was like to trot through white and feel something which was a single lost degree away from becoming ice trickling through her fur. But she'd been through lesser chills, and heard storytellers speak of the warning signs which any traveler had to beware of when the true frost closed in.

At the start, it could hurt just to move. But then there might be... numbness. And if that continued for long enough, you would start to feel something worse. The sleepy inner assurance that everything was fine, in fact there was no chill at all and you were actually beginning to feel rather warm now. You were so warm and sleepy that you could just rest right here, and if you gave in to that urge, you would rest. You would rest so well as to never wake up again.

There was numbness. But there was also a sort of vacuum and whenever she thought about what had happened to her, tried to focus, it pulled at her from within. It felt as if it was hollowing her, and that made sense because... there was a gap. Why shouldn't the rest of her simply tumble into the freshly-gouged chasm within her soul?

She wondered when the warmth would start. When she would feel so weary as to let herself simply rest. But her head still hurt, and her hooves ached from kicking at the light, and...

The zebra had tried more than that. None of it had worked. It had occurred to her that it might be possible to dig her way out, but her species was meant to do little more than scrape down a short distance until they reached water. And one of the most crucial parts of making charcoal was...

...was...

...after a while, following many failed means of not thinking about it, she compared the lack of inner sensation to the games she had played as a filly. It was possible to learn anatomy from a book: how all the bones were lined up, the attachment of muscles via tendons, whatever it was which cushioned the joints -- and none of it would ever give anyone the instinct which rose when the ball was heading their way and, without any consideration of motion, angles, physics, or physiology, they would simply kick.

She had understood the flame as something which was part of her heart, on the level of her soul. The zebra had loved it, and recognized that it loved her in return, as its custodian and partner -- but also as someone who respected it, and so understood that it could never be truly tamed. And she still had knowledge -- but it was cold.

Cold and dry, like ink in a unicorn's notebook.

The unicorn. The unicorn had...

...there were certain necessities to making charcoal, and one of the most important was making sure that any mistake would have some trouble with spreading. It meant that when she got away from hut and little garden, the zebra was mostly living on rock. She currently had to bring in fresh soil from a small distance in order to -- it was for the mounds, and creating the earliest ones had also served to clear out her lands of things like dead grasses and whatever could catch.

She could barely scrape into soil. To create a gap through the solidity which was large enough for her own body, when her garden tools had been meant for just that... it might be the work of weeks. Her hooves would give out long before the stone did.

The well drew some brief consideration, but the little underground stream it tapped wasn't large enough for her own body. Even if it had been, there would have been no guarantees of air pockets along the way, and she didn't know where it came out -- or if it ever emerged from the land at all.

The zebra had tried to spot the unicorn, because it felt as if this kind of magic had to require the caster to be close by. (Or perhaps she simply hoped that, with whatever was left that could still feel hope at all.) The wall was clear enough: it simply distorted sight with its hue, the same way the unicorn had...

...'distorted' wasn't the right term for abomination.

She had desperately searched along the perimeter of the prison. But the unicorn wasn't in sight. And when it felt like the time for screaming had finally arrived, no one came.

She was trapped.

Trapped and... sundered.

Broken.

The little column near her bed turned out to be books.

She nosed through some of them, because her mind was looking for anything to do which wasn't thinking about the dome or what had happened to her and why it wouldn't stop. Every last volume was printed in her own language, and every page from the fifth on made her want to laugh without mirth: the sort of applause you gave to the worst joke in the world, in hopes that it would prevent the agonizing jest from ever being told again. The zebra had received a gift from her visitor, perhaps in exchange for the hospitality.

...or perhaps because the unicorn had seen fit to leave something behind, after the most vital part of the zebra had been stripped away.

Turn the page: here's someone making a potion. A few more, and a mtemi is presented. Does either of those appeal? Is there something about brewing which resonates within you? What about taking up the robes of an ambassador, the living voice of your kraal sent out to speak with all of the others? If that's too complicated (because trying to negotiate with ninety-nine others, sometimes simultaneously, can produce the sort of pain which m'changa can't touch), then here we have a shopkeeper. A custodian of thorns. Windwhisperer. Surveyor. Physician, all described in the most basic, friendly terms which a time-limited vocabulary could offer...

There was a chasm in her soul, and it couldn't be filled with the pages from a foal's career guides.

(There were a few pages torn out of the back third of the last volume. She suspected that was where the illustrations for charcoal-making had been.)

She laughed. There was no choice but to laugh, and it didn't make the cosmic jest go away.

She cried. She did so until there were no tears left, and nothing changed.

She kicked the books, chased them down where they had fallen and tore apart the pages with her teeth.

She vomited.

And when she finished with all of it, the wall of light was still there.

She... was supposed to check on the mounds.

It was something to do, when she couldn't do anything else. Waiting for help -- it would be moons until the next time she'd been expected at the market, she only came into the kraal for shopping and delivery pickups during those times because the fires had to be in a state where traveling away from them for a few days was possible. Under normal circumstances, it would take at least that much time before she was missed.

She would be missed: the zebra was sure of that. Fail to appear at the market and someone would, at the minimum, guess that she might be sick. A doctor would be dispatched to check on her.

Outside of that... she hardly ever had visitors: the unicorn had guessed that easily enough. Taking in those who were on the road, perhaps as often as twice per year. No lovers, because she had yet to meet someone who could ignite anything within her which matched her passion for the fire. And as for friends... she had drifted away from them, carried on smolder and smoke. She saw them when she went into the kraal, but -- they had their own lives, recognized that the existence of those who tended the burns was a solitary one, and let her be.

The dome sharply curved. Staying below the treeline. It could still be spotted from above, but... there were no expatriate pegasi or griffons in her kraal and until the necessary time had passed, who would come close enough to her home to see the wall of light? Even if someone did, how would they get in? It might be possible to send for one of the few unicorns who resided in other kraals, and if that failed... then someone would get word to the ponies' embassy. Surely there was someone who could counter the magic. Or -- somepony, was that the word she was supposed to use? Somepony who could help her. All of that felt like a certainty.

A certainty which existed in a future which was nearly three moons away.

And until then, all she could do was... check on the mounds.

It was something to do.

Something which wasn't looking at her hips over and over.

Something which wasn't hitting her head against the nearest wall. (The blood was finally beginning to dry in her fur.)

Something which wasn't biting at the skin of her forelegs because waking would not come. (Most of those wounds were still flowing.)

Something which didn't fill the chasm within.

The mound's coating soil looked... dry in that one spot.

She was supposed to do something about that. Stand close by, gauge the difference in the level of rising heat. Decide what to apply atop the dry spot, or whether she needed to...

...to...

...it was just -- hot. It felt hot everywhere against fur, skin, and exposed flesh. She had been able to determine the exact degree of heat just by wanting to do so, and now there was simply fire under soil, with wood blackening as the flame stripped away all which was unnecessary, leaving behind a form of fuel which was the most perfect --

-- the most...

...black lumps. You took away everything which wasn't necessary and eventually, you took away the fire. It left behind something cold and hard. Something which was waiting for the flame to come back, so it could burn one last time.

Something had been taken away from her. Something the unicorn had seen as unnecessary.

(It was at that moment when her mind broke. She simply did not realize it, because one of the requirements for recognizing insanity is to still be possessed by its opposite. Every thought the zebra had from that point on made perfect sense: there was nothing left which could tell her otherwise. It, too, had fallen into the void.)

Her flame was gone, and she was cold. Cold and hard. If touched, her surface might crumble. Some of the dried blood would certainly do that.

She laughed, because that image was funny.

The mound, and the dry soil...

...she listlessly shoved a little fresh earth onto the dry patch, because she felt that was what the books would have said to do. She was sure of that. Books and memory, but not instinct or magic or a soul. There was a hole in that last one: the pony had poked it with her horn.

Maybe that was what the pony's icon was for. But the image made the zebra think of smoke. Something which rose away...

Something which evaporated.

She toured the rest of her lands, or at least her legs did. Every so often, she would shift something, or there would be a little displacement in one direction or another. She couldn't gauge the heat. She understood the process as knowledge only, and...

...she had loved the flame. There had been times, looking over the endless effort of passion, when she had felt as if she was the flame. Everything around her knew that, and responded accordingly.

The fire was still there, buried under the earth. But it didn't seem to know she was there. Perhaps that was because the part it knew was gone. It didn't recognize the husk. And when there was all this work to do, when the part of her soul which knew it as something other than labor was gone and there was nothing left which understood why she was doing all of this when all it could ever produce was something cold and hard and dead...

...she was getting tired. It was too early in the day to be tired. She bit at her right foreleg, because that was a horrible way to wake up, but a good way to stay awake. The blood flowed, but didn't seem to take much of her weariness with it. That meant another bite.

She... relocated a few things, here and there. Then she went inside to eat, and she kept eating because there was a void within her and food wouldn't fill it either, but there was a chance that it might cover part of the hole. She found out she was wrong when she started to vomit again. And then she laughed.

The zebra was too tired. She had to rest. The mounds would do their work without her. It was just a chemical process, wasn't it? The only magic was that which she brought to it, such as the subtle effect which allowed her to tend things so deep under Moon. It didn't matter if she was there or not. Fire happened without her. Fire didn't know she was gone. Fire could call out, and the sound would be absorbed by the void.

There was no need to visit her bed. She could sleep right where she was.

She felt very little from the world outside as she lay down within the little kitchen. Not the aching wounds, not the flowing blood or the puddles of vomit staining her fur. Most of what she knew was the chasm.

The zebra closed her eyes, and waited for the rest of her soul to collapse.

...smoke.

There was often smolder. If she kept it at the smolder level, then she was tending to things in a manner which was...

...smoke. She smelled smoke, and the final instinct which rose from the last shred of sanity was what woke her up.

She stumbled outside, unsteadily moving on legs which would have shown the first signs of infection in a day or two. It took very little time to find the source, especially when it was so actively calling for her attention. Calling out to that which had been taken away.

The fire loved her still. But it could not find her, not when that part of her soul was gone. So it was searching. And in order to look, it needed to see. That was why it had used a dry patch as a means of escape, erupting to the surface of the largest mound, spreading as quickly as it could across the limited resources available.

The blaze was bright and huge and the reason it took the absolute devotion and magic of a mark to supervise the process, because to not tend the mounds properly, almost constantly, properly patching every fault in the soil, would result in this. Charcoal meant fire, and fire was almost impossible to control. It took a charcoal-maker to make sure the blaze slept beneath the earth, and even the best could make mistakes.

It took a charcoal-maker to truly recognize what was happening. To think of the fastest way to stop it, using tools which were never very far away. And even a charcoal-maker might have recognized this situation as something where all they could do was save the rest of the mounds, isolating the growing inferno so that no additional damage was done.

A charcoal-maker could have managed the situation, or at least moderated it.

But this was a zebra.

She looked at the fire, the reflection in her eyes didn't reach her heart, and then she understood that it was calling her. It had erupted to search for her, but fire could only see flame and there was none left within her soul. But the fire was still looking for her, trying to look into her, and she realized that it was doing so when the unicorn had not.

The unicorn had never looked at her. The unicorn had never truly spoken to her, or listened to any careful words which came in return. The unicorn had simply directed gaze, ears, and voice towards a place where a zebra happened to be.

A zebra who existed as something cold, hard, and dead, something which fire was meant to ignite, and she told herself that she heard the call, that she understood, that there was something left within her void which could yet burn, and she broke into the last gallop of her life and pushed off from the hard ground as she came as close as she ever would to flying, soaring into the blazing heart of the only thing which could still save her.

Perhaps it did.

The unicorn's shield hadn't quite dispersed at the expected speed, in part due to the constant... distraction. It meant she had to raise her legs a little more than usual in order to get past the final ridge, and that was annoying. Minor inconveniences often were.

Some time was used for inspecting the site, or what little remained of it. Under normal circumstances, fire was only able to spread across that which would burn, and the land had been deliberately arranged to minimize that. The improperly-maintained mound, left to itself, would have been likely to simply burn out.

Fire could do very little with exposed rock. Fur, however, offered a million tiny wicks.

She doubted the zebra had been thinking at the last, any more than the former occupant of the land had been thinking before the jump. A reaction below thought, flailing and running to get away from the source of pain in the final moments when there had been any life at all. The direction might have even been random. But seared muscles and snapping tendons had possessed some degree of final momentum, and it had been just enough to drop the corpse at the entrance to the hut. The door was designed to be resistant to heat, but the door had been open, and there was all of that recently-shredded paper inside...

The unicorn wasn't sure how the garden had caught. Shields were generally air-permeable, but she didn't think enough of a breeze had gotten through to start a secondary blaze. It was more likely to have been the heat itself, creating strange wind currents within the little space. No fault of the mare's at all. She'd been using just about all of the focus she could spare on keeping the smoke from getting out, not to mention moderating the flame's light in order to keep the increased glow from being spotted at a distance. If she'd had any idea of what was going on with the garden... well, she certainly would have thought to try and protect some of it, because she always needed supplies for the road. But her attention had been so split already, and she hadn't thought to plant any of her special devices around the garden...

She inspected the corpse, or what was left of it.

The unicorn recognized that zebras were the best doctors in the world: she assumed that an equal level of skill applied to their pathologists. She hadn't been able to personally witness the autopsy techniques, and while the corpse was certainly burnt to a level where no absence would have been visible anyway...

They probably wouldn't test for magic, or any lack thereof. It was likely that the test didn't even exist. But until she could find her way into one of their morgues, or located a book which possessed enough detail to tell her exactly what was being done...

It was necessary. But it was also annoying, and added its share of the emotion to every other cause. She'd lost multiple devices: that meant crafting and enchanting the new ones from scratch, plus she had to recover the remnants anyway. The unicorn knew spells which repaired books, had been planning to use them -- and now she had to purchase replacements. And as for permanently disposing of the corpse, wiping away all traces of events and turning the little patch of land into a mystery none would ever solve... she had to do it all, and she had to do it alone.

She was trying to see it as part of the learning process. In the unicorn's perspective, the simple fact was that if you were going to study marks, you shouldn't be prejudiced about it. A true scholar would recognize the need to include zebras, which incidentally meant that Equestria could claim a pitifully small number of true scholars. So by going to the kraals...

Her horn ignited, and turquoise surrounded the leftovers from a rather poor result. All things considered, it was best to begin the disposal process some distance away. That also meant hardening her field somewhat, all the better to keep falling bits from forming a trail and giving her more to clean up. She concentrated --

-- her eyes slammed shut, and did so in the instant before her forelegs gave out. It dropped her down far too close to the corpse, she caught the scent of cooked flesh, the recoil was instinctive and that cost her the last from the underlayer of her concentration.

Her left saddlebag violently domed outwards. The seams almost split, and she tried to refocus, but the scent was still in her nostrils and the pain was surging behind her temples, her head felt as if it would split before the fabric did and it was all she could manage to levitate the little sphere past the lid. Something which flashed with barely-contained energy, power which twisted and roiled and fought against her as the edges of her field began to thin, that without true form warping over and over again in its endless effort to get out...

It was possible to see many things within that power, if you were looking closely. At the last moment before the sphere broke, any witness might have imagined the rough shape of a charcoal-burner's mark.

The power flashed. And then it was gone. Evaporated into nothing.

(She wondered where the energy had gone, and how many questions that single answer might solve.)

It took a few seconds before the unicorn could make herself move, and that was mostly a little scoot backwards on her barrel. Getting a little distance between herself and the smell. The pain required considerably more time to fade.

...all right. She hadn't been able to hold it for quite as long that time, but the duration was actually quite reasonable when she thought about all of the other things she'd needed to do. What she really required was something which could hold it on her behalf, but... that was a work in progress. Everything advanced through trials, and that included the one she was about to put herself through.

Eventually, she got up. Snorted to herself when she realized that not only was all of the garden burnt beyond hope, but she had a headache and any m'changa left in the burnout was probably ruined too. And she still had to dispose of the corpse, all by herself. She was doing all of it by herself, the same way the zebra had been isolated to think about endless possibilities and -- responded rather poorly.

The unicorn didn't understand that. Her subject had been isolated due to necessity. But materials had been provided: things meant to assist with the transition back to sanity. Was the fog from a lifetime of madness truly so comfortable as to have made the zebra retreat back into its vapors?

She wasn't sure. There were times when she nearly felt that in order to properly gauge the effects of madness, she would almost need to experience some of it. And she didn't want to try that, because it had lured so many others and just might manage to keep her in its jaw grip. Even as the only truly sane pony in the world.

Sane, and -- annoyed. She had to make new devices by herself. She had to get rid of the corpse by herself. And when all were truly equal, there would be group efforts in all things, because working together would be the only way to get things done -- but even in her current best-case scenario, that would take a pony's lifetime. (She was already working on the 'lifetime' part.) Right now, she was on her own. If there was just somepony else present to assist in her efforts, somepony who could already think...

...she might as well wish for Sun and Moon while she was at it...

Assist. Group effort.

The unicorn blinked. Her horn ignited (and did so as she winced: she'd started casting again a little too soon), bringing out notebook and quill. This was important enough to write down.

Isolation may be impeding adjustment process. Use small groups?

Which meant she needed to be capable of holding onto the energies from a small group. She wasn't even sure she could manage two for more than a day. Not yet, anyway.

Addendum: run mutual-assistance adjustment trial with no more than single pair until device is ready. Scale up as required/possible. Research calming spells to smooth transition?

She nodded to herself, and began to put the notebook away.

Anyway, if you were studying marks in the manner of a proper scholar, you really had to include the zebras. To do anything else was just bigotry. And if you also had to start your studies with test subjects who could be fully isolated, you needed zebras. There were more outliers with kraals than with settled zones. Simple fact. More isolated zebras, who were somewhat less likely to be missed.

She'd get around to ponies eventually. Once her studies had advanced somewhat further. But until then, she was in Pundamilia Makazi, which really wasn't a bad place to be. After all, if something went wrong, a hundred city-states also meant a hundred subsections of law enforcement whose jurisdictions were forever running out.

The unicorn felt as if she would be staying on the continent for a while longer. She was just at the beginning of her road, after all. It would be trials, measured stages, and slow advancement until she had reached her goal.

Her field levitated the corpse, because there was a lot of work to be done and for now, she was the only one doing it. That meant getting started, because there were still more kraals on the road ahead. More study...

A second bubble went back into her right saddlebag. The notebook and quill floated forth, because she needed them out of the container in order to open the former properly. The actual writing, however, took place without so much as a glance back. She had control, and she knew what she intended to make a note of. Watching wasn't necessary.

But when it came to properly managing and evaluating her efforts, always recognizing that it was fully unreasonable to expect that she would be able to save the world after just a few experiments...

Repeat isolation conditions with #7 to check for/verify additional duplicate results.

That was the scientific method.

Parallel Processing

She couldn't sleep and, in dealing with the demise of true renewal, had told herself that she could at least try to scavenge something from the corpse.

Twilight had wanted to sleep. Longed for it, after a full day of trying to traverse a foreign jungle and feeling as if very little progress had been made. The terrain was slowing them down, the weather wasn't exactly helping, and giving Fluttershy more chances to assist in the search for the missing had meant stopping over and over.

The majority of the caretaker's natural magic had gone into her talent: give her enough time in the presence of a new animal, and she would figure out how to speak with it -- but the process wasn't always instant. And there were species within the rain forest which were, to some degree, mirrored in Equestria. But travel far enough from home, and you wouldn't know if the distortions had arisen in the reflection or what you had once assumed to be the original. Fluttershy was trying to work out fresh quirks of vocalization, posture, ear twitches and tail lashes to go along with too many open displays of fangs.

She had to approach carefully. She had to find a way to make the new arrival see her as a friend. And the whole time, the hybrid would be using magic. Something which always took a little energy, burned a few calories as her talent did its best to adapt. Except that now Fluttershy was using that talent almost constantly: not just in trying to recruit fresh scouts, but while listening to everything going on around them. Some of that came from her attempts to track the gossip, in the hopes that a few animals might be trying to pass the word about something unusual moving beneath the canopy. The majority stemmed from a continual need to locate threats, and some of those came from unusual places.

(Applejack's attention had been enthralled by the bright blue frog which had been calmly watching them from a low tree limb, and Fluttershy had managed to get in the way just before the farmer would have gotten close enough to potentially touch moist, slick, poison-secreting skin.)

There were still times when Fluttershy didn't talk much, even when among friends. Trying to communicate with strangers could require a visible act of willpower: something which drew upon one kind of surprising strength. But using magic burned calories, and existing in a location where she was effectively surrounded by several taxonomy guides of unfamiliar species meant it was now possible for the caretaker to talk herself into unconsciousness. Twilight had called a halt to the day's forced march for several reasons, and seeing the yellow body starting to sway back and forth had not been the least of them.

They'd set up the tent. Gathered some food from the area, added in a portion of their rations. And then Twilight, who had longed for sleep, had found the insomnia closing in.

She understood why it was happening. Because sleep could be viewed as a sort of little death: the state in which consciousness winked out and thought just stopped for a while. And as such, Twilight had occasionally thought of it as a place of respite: the one condition under which she could essentially force her own mind to leave her alone.

She'd wanted to sleep because she'd needed to escape from herself. And the stress had laughed at her.

She'd taken first watch.

It had allowed Twilight to briefly pretend there was a benefit to her failure. And now she was falsely sheltered beneath the front extension of their shelter, surrounded by night and duplicated notes while two dreambound mares restlessly shifted within the fabric dome and awaited their turn.

Sun had been lowered, and the shadows were clustering around the tent. The canopy was too thick for any glimpse of Moon, with sighting on the stars effectively impossible. And there was something in Twilight which wanted to test her wings, get above the greenery so she could look upon truly distant fires, a view which so few Equestrians had ever gained...

...but she was on watch. Any attempt to gain altitude meant leaving her friends. They would reach a break in the canopy eventually, and the stars would still be there.

If I went up, I could try to look for other things. A hint of glow under leaves. A plume of rising smoke...

Except that... why would the other group see any need to start a fire? It was summer here, and the heat of the day was just barely starting to fade. The previous night hadn't seen any real degree of thermal plummet: just enough of a change for the pony mind to hope that comfort might be drifting in on a soft breeze -- and then Sun had been raised again.

Cooking food?

Maybe. Rarity took her share of fruits and vegetables from any raw bar, but the designer also enjoyed a good sear on a pepper. Spike certainly had no objections to anything being served at a high temperature, and a life mostly spent on the road meant Trixie mostly ate whatever she could get --

-- she didn't ask for this.

I don't think she's ever gone this far. She's written about traveling outside Equestria, but... this is the southern hemisphere. Hardly anypony ever --

--this is my fault...

-- maybe if I called on Rainbow?

It wouldn't have just been for ease of ascent. Asking the weather coordinator's shadow to come forward allowed Twilight to temporarily gain pegasus sight. A fire could be too far below the canopy to let any light through and a smoke plume might become lost in the dark, but...

She still couldn't retain any memories for the hues of heat and cold. Twilight was certain of her ability to keep a jaw grip on direction. She didn't need light or smoke if she could just jab a forehoof towards a hot rising current.

Which is still abandoning my post. And we're moving along different facings of the mountain. Even if they had started a fire, there's a lot of rock in the way.

Being on watch also meant paying close attention to the sounds of the forest. One of those sounds was repeatedly sounding off as Weheee, weheeeya! and doing so with a rather impressive decibel production for what Fluttershy had told her was actually a fairly small bird. The source had been designated as a Screaming Piha, and that was what had allowed Twilight to learn that an entire species could exist as an understatement. And then there were the parrots. She'd managed to pick out the parrots on her own, and had just barely resisted the urge to ask the caretaker if they were that annoying everywhere.

...at least if the stupid parrots had been duplicating pony sounds, she would have known a little more about --

I wish I could sleep.

It was a desire which had to be put on hold for a few hours, and there was no guarantee that the insomnia would be willing to let her go.

Note to self: consider calling on Rainbow in order to sleep.

She didn't smile.

Sleep could allow some degree of recovery to take place -- or, rather more often for Twilight, enabled the sort of false mental reset which allowed her to pretend that matters had improved: this typically lasted until the moment she truly began to think again. But internal darkness had always allowed her some degree of escape, the chance to get away from herself --

-- until the dreams began.

She had very little control over her nightscape. Twilight had once spent half a moon in studying lucid dreaming, and most of what it had let her discover was that she was no good at it. The little mare considered herself to be having an exceptionally good night if she recognized that a dream was taking place: trying to seize reins on the results typically wound up with her being dragged along behind a caravan of runaway fears.

There was an exception, of course. Something which allowed anypony (and possibly even anyone) to recognize that they were in the nightscape. But it didn't allow control, because to simply have the condition occur meant that particular jurisdiction was currently being pressed between silver-clad hooves --

-- and Twilight had almost immediately recognized the possibilities.

She'd eagerly told Applejack and Fluttershy during the previous night, asked them to fall asleep with a single thought foremost on their minds. Three mares dreaming as deeply as they could, calling out from the heart of their nightscapes, and the one who was surely searching for them would home in on those beacons. Locate one group, then the other. And then they would have two-way communication, with the dark alicorn conveying messages between dreamers who were guaranteed to remember everything when they awoke...

Twilight had never really considered the full potential implications of Luna's magic before.
For the same reason, she'd failed to ask herself if it had a range.

There had been no longed-for presence in their nightscapes. No welcoming words from that powerful, controlled voice. No contact.

Perhaps Luna was searching for them, and simply needed more time to gallop across a dreamwalk of such length. Or... she simply couldn't come this far. Ever.

Twilight listened to the forest. Something growled. Something else died. She waited until the half-liquid sounds of eating had moved away.

Practice.

She was pretending to be a pegasus, and there was only so much magic she could use without overwhelming the illusion's ability to conceal her corona. But Twilight was capable of hiding her field, creating workings which operated without glow or sparkle. It was just that... doing so warped the magic, and that was true for just about every caster who was capable of attempting the feat. If you practiced a single spell over and over, it was possible to understand that magic's exact distortion and find a way to get around it -- but to push power through the deliberately invisible was to chance having it go out of control, and that chance was close to one hundred percent. Most of what the majority of unicorns got to do was predict the exact method of failure, along with whether it would be partial or total. 'Total' was the rough majority, while partial got most of the comedy.

Twilight had once tried to pretend that the only thing exerting force during her first Winter Wrap-Up was her own body, and the hidden magic being used on the runaway snowplow had changed so much as to render the little unicorn incapable of countering herself. And when she'd tried to move Fluttershy's body during the ill-fated modeling session...

She wasn't good with a hidden corona. Just about nopony was, and the exceptions tended to operate within extremely narrowed, hard-won parameters. So Twilight was practicing. She'd brought the palace's copies of the note fragments out of the tent, and was trying to move the pages of that thin book without relying on the concealing illusion at all. Small, careful applications of her field to fragile paper, and it still felt as if she was constantly on the verge of rending the tiny spine. It was all trying to get away from her --

-- careful.
Slowly.
Just... push.

The exposed page fluttered. One corner crinkled.

...it's just a copy. My copy and it isn't a real book. I don't have to feel bad about that --
-- careful...

The paper swayed. Flipped, and Twilight found herself staring at a new word. Something else to ruminate over, and her mind insisted on that being the correct term. Everything she tried to mentally digest did its best to make her sick.

sourced

It was like trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle when there was no picture on the box. Also no box. And ninety percent of the pieces were missing, while the majority of the remainder had picked up bloodstains. All she could do was try to find connections, sketching in whatever might have been within the vacuum, and she was all too aware that the most likely result was to get it horribly wrong.

Sourced.
The writing is a little jagged there. There's a tremble in the letters. Like he didn't have full control of his mouth. Did this upset him?
Sourced...

She turned the word over in her mind, examined it from all angles. No secrets were revealed.

Maybe if I talked it out.

Not aloud, not to herself. Twilight was far too aware of her tendency to live in her own head, because that was where it was safe.

...safer.
Relatively.
Somewhat overcrowded, but --

-- and one of the ways to get out was through offering her thoughts to somepony else. And it couldn't be an echo chamber, because trying to communicate with those who'd been told to agree with you about everything just found a lot of nauseating agreement bouncing back. Fortunately, her friends were often predisposed to debate --

-- argue --
-- 'Y'do know you're kinda the world's brightest idiot' was also an option --

-- and testing the force of the wave through sending it against intellectual breakwaters could be of benefit. But it also had a chance to wreck everything, because her friends had their own points of view and in any given situation, it was possible for none of them to know what they were talking about. Herself very much included.

Twilight was still trying to work out how leadership operated. Some of it was clearly grounded in the ability to admit when she was wrong. But far too much was tied up in figuring out which of her friends was right. (She had to hope there was at least one.) And then she had to make the choice. To proceed through the thoughts of another, rely on her own, or -- hope to discover some degree of balance.

If she made the wrong choice --

I thought I could bring us all here.

-- the last choice...

She wrenched her attention back to the page.

sourced

I don't understand.
I don't have enough to even try and understand.
What were you trying to tell us? What does any of it mean?
I wish I could ask Spike. It's easy to talk it out with Spike. Easier. Sometimes he can help me find what I missed. Or identify something really stupid -- she almost smiled -- because if my little brother can think of it and I didn't, then it just about has to be stu --

-- no.
Sometimes a child's thoughts are the most perceptive. The least distorted by what everypony gets taught to think.
Even when they come from a child who's... been through a lot.
Too much.
Some of that was me --
-- my little brother is lost and I'm the one who...

If she hadn't tried to redirect the teleport, to get them out -- then maybe the natural arrival point would have fallen short of the lockdown. It was possible that the ruby had simply been too far ahead. They could have all come in together --

-- no. I couldn't take that chance.

Part of her knew that.
She almost wondered whose part it was.

I wish I could talk to somepony.
Bring them all out. Make a circle of sorts. Let the words move across the gaps.
It would be like when we were talking about Tish, in the wild zone near the natural apple grove. Before she had a name, when she was just -- somepony we were trying to help. Before they found out I couldn't fly, and... everything else.

But they needed sleep. And the circle was brok --

Maybe if I tried to talk to...
...their aspects.
The fragments I'm carrying with me. Always. For the rest of my life.
The shadows.

She looked up at the canopy. No Moon. No stars and, for the moment, no rain.

It was a thought Twilight had considered before. Trying to fully communicate with the collection of essence bound to her soul. But... she wasn't sure whether the fragments were truly aware of anything. And for a mare who already knew that she spent too much time living in her head, the prospect of actually talking to essence felt as if it would be going far too deep.

I need them. Here and alive, intact, unhurt. So they'll be safe, and I'll know I didn't --
-- I have to find them...

The false pegasus stared out into the unforgiving night.

There were lessons which effectively occupied a series of scrolls, because simply acknowledging something as a lesson didn't mean you were going to fully take it in on the first go. And high on that retroactively-depressing list of serial sendings was talk to each other. Say what's on your mind. Get another perspective. Understand that friends (and siblings) get to tell you when you're being stupid, and they may even be right.

Twilight had been considering a theory.

She needed to find them. And in theory, all she had to do was... teleport.

Without a destination.

If you teleported without an arrival point in mind... then wouldn't you just wind up in the between? And distances there had some correlation to those in the world. So she would have to arrive in the rough vicinity of the lockdown effect, correct? She hadn't moved far enough to be away from it and she hadn't picked up on the feel of magic in the air, so she wasn't exactly on top of the real thing. In the between, the crackling blaze of death would be within sight -- but nowhere near close enough to touch.

So she would be in the between.

And then she would be searching for a magical signature. Her own, since she was the one who'd tried to abort the journey. Maybe there was even another kind of sign for where somepony had exited: something visual. A given degree of intensity might even tell her how recently that had happened. And come to think of it, if you could find departure and arrival points that way, and they came with signatures, then all she had to do was hunt for a few more and it might just tell her how many of those teleportation devices had been in local play. It might even be possible to pick up on some of that through the lockdown --

-- but that would be a secondary goal. Find her own signature, at two distinct points. One of them would obviously lead to where a trio had initially fallen back into the world. By process of elimination, the second had to place her at the arrival point for five. And once she'd done that...

Execute a teleport without a destination, under the assumption that it would be possible to leave again. Then search for signatures which might not be present (or faded in seconds, or were somehow permanent) in a place which operated under its own rules, or just hope for another kind of indicator that might not have a reason to exist.

Simple.

In theory.

As a potential research subject went, it was rather exciting. However, when viewed as a means of suicide, it struck Twilight as being a little too convoluted.

...I'm being stupid.

(She didn't always need somepony to tell her that. Not any more.)
(She carried them with her. Always.)

...and even if it worked, it would just put me at where they first arrived. Then there would have to be enough of a trail to follow, and they probably didn't blaze anything.

We can't even tell them to blaze their trail, because someone else might track it.

We can't tell them anything.

Applejack snored. She heard Fluttershy's feathers rustle. Birds screamed within the dark.

Just watch over them.

sourced

She tried to focus. The page turned on the third attempt.

fungible

Fungible: a condition under which something can be replaced by an identical, interchangeable item, with no effect on results. Possibly without the change even being noticed.

Watch over them.
Watch over the ones who are left, so I don't lose anypony else.

The unicorn was too busy to sleep.

Sleep often managed to annoy her. She only had so long in which to live (although she was working on that) and she was expected to spend a significant amount of that limited time in doing nothing more than being unconscious? Because when you took all of the lost hours and added them up into moons and years and decades during which she would have been incapable of doing anything or thinking...

Biology was a wondrous subject. It was fully worthy of study, and the mare indulged whenever she could. (It was possible that the ultimate core of the problem was biological in nature, but she couldn't allow herself to consider it as the solitary option.) However, close study revealed that the results produced from biology came with a number of inherent flaws. The unicorn was fully capable of admitting that on the biological level, sleep was necessary. She had simply decided that said necessity clearly indicated an issue which needed to be corrected.

So she'd experimented. Gone through a few trials. And as the pony who would most clearly and immediately benefit from the results...

There were spells which postponed sleep and after the unicorn had been at work for a while, there were rather more of them. She'd managed to build on earlier efforts, made them more efficient -- and had found herself unable to get rid of the core inadequacy: that if she spent six days awake, then there was going to be a followup period in which she would only be able to stagger away from her resting space for just long enough to eat and relieve herself before lapsing into the near-coma again. Something which would last for a period equal to six days' worth of lost sleep.

Botany studies had allowed her to discover a number of stimulants. They were all more effective than wake-up juice, and every last one of them would eventually wear off.

Limits. Too many of them, because magic was often no more than a means of telling physics what to do and science tried to find ways of limiting what spells could accomplish. Both states were irritating. Fortunately, the mare knew a solution. When you were forced to operate within unfair rules, you simply did your best to write new ones. But that took time, some of which she kept losing to sleep.

And it wasn't just that. There were dreams to consider or rather, to consider halting. Forever. Because the nightscape was where things happened, and they often did so without logic, consistency, or any true regard for the basics of cause and effect. They weren't controlled.

The night variety of dream annoyed the unicorn, because even lucidity studies didn't seem to offer full sovereignty. So she'd done some studying, and biology had almost immediately offered up another flaw: namely, that those who didn't dream had a distinct and unstoppable tendency to go mad. It was a risk which the only sane pony in the world clearly couldn't afford to take.

She had yet to defeat her body's need for sleep. But when it came to dreams... she'd won. That time was no longer being wasted. Her nightscape was perfectly orderly and, once she'd learned about the other one, perfectly isolated.

However, the mare's mastered dreams had several factors in common with the reasons she was too busy to sleep in the first place. For starters, there was a significant amount of preparatory work involved, and she had to do all of it alone.

This, too, was annoying. But it was also necessary, because the experiment was still in a trial phase. The most advanced trial of its kind, but...

The unicorn had found that it was considerably easier to deal with those who were somehow considered to be sapient beings after they'd learned how to think. Typically, this came about after they'd taken some of her thoughts for their own and thus learned how to think properly -- but that was usually the result of an educational process. To find somepony who would reach her conclusions independently...

...that was another kind of dream and if she hadn't been willing to indulge in those, the experiment would have never come so far. There was a way in which the mare truly believed in dreams, at least when it came to the waking variety. She just also happened to know that making them come true required a lot of work.

You could teach somepony how to think. You could also find those who would pave the path towards thought. The ones who could be trusted. But even then... it seldom felt like true sapience. More toward something -- imposed. There were ways in which it could be argued as artificial sanity, and when it failed...

Failure irritated the unicorn, especially when she couldn't track down exactly where and how thought had broken, sending a former member of the community crashing back into madness again. It could bring her to a state in which she needed time to herself.

Most of the community was sleeping. (There were scheduled hours for that, although she had wisely put in some variation for those who were trying out certain assigned professions.) She could freely move through empty streets under Moon and not encounter a single carefully-gathered traveler along her slow path towards perfection. And that was for the best, because the fact that they could at least temporarily think properly didn't always give them the capacity to act. She had to prepare, and she needed to do so alone.

The unicorn was preparing for visitors.

...possible visitors. That qualifier still needed to be added, because there was a chance that they would never actually find the community. But she knew they were probably close --

-- no. 'They' was an assumption. She didn't have a count. She also didn't have a corpse or rather, she didn't have a fresh one. Plurals were equally elusive. Both helped to indicate that nothing formerly living had breached the lockdown. And without a number of rather specialized devices reporting in, she was still lacking in true information regarding those who might have survived the travel attempt --

-- she had to be careful about plurals, because she didn't know. (The mare could usually admit when she didn't know something, and would then try to educate herself.) But she had to prepare, because it was likely that there was at least one, somewhere in the forest. Most likely a pony, although she wasn't quite ready to exclude the other possibilities. They weren't quite on her doorstep, because the devices hadn't triggered. But they might be on the way.

Or it could be no one at all. (Nopony.) But when it came to the more likely result...

She was moving through empty streets. One of the potentially vital spells was checked, and she replenished its charge level herself. It was usually just her for providing power, because you had to keep an eye on platinum. A self-charging device could be convenient, but it lacked one basic utility: she couldn't tell it when to run out.

The shield was examined. A few subtle alterations were made.

Then she went to her workshop.

(The unicorn was still trying to figure out how Gez had gotten in. None of the security spells appeared to have failed, and she hadn't found any weaknesses within the workings themselves. It was a mystery she needed to solve, because perfection wasn't supposed to fail. But until she worked it out... a few effects had been recast, while others had been layered. It was enough for now.)

It helped, to be within the workshop. Her space. Something she could truly control.

She usually didn't bring in visitors. Or rather, she did: it was just that virtually everypony who ever came into her private space wasn't capable of appreciating it. Or anything else. Because the mare was the heart of her community or, as she preferred to think of it, the mind. (The process of quantifying 'soul' was taking a while, and involved a lot of dismantling as a means of determining both form and function.) But she still needed time to herself, even when surrounded by those whom she'd taught to think.

And it could truly help her to be among those for whom all thought had stopped.

The workshop has multiple sections. This one is dedicated to biology.

Pure biology.

The community doesn't have a graveyard, because the unicorn didn't see the need. It was an obvious waste of space, along with creating an unnecessary gap in the advancement of knowledge through cutting off supplies.

Look around the workshop. This section demonstrates how the mare proved that as a non-science, phrenology doesn't deserve its terminal syllables. Skull bumps can't teach you about a pony's bloodline, personality, or potential: at most, you can learn about who suffered from a few minor bone diseases and whether anypony was abused as a foal.

Foals...

She smoothly postpones the thought.

(It's the difference between curing and prevention. The current priority is cure.)

...anyway, phrenology. It doesn't work. She has the studies which prove it. Take the bound lies which claim that certain bumps lead to a given personality trait, then look along her racks of skulls until you find the one with the right pattern and she will prove that it's a junk science. She wrote down the calculations for that stallion's personality in her notebook. 'Inquisitive' wasn't getting anywhere near the list.

Also, as long as you're getting skulls, you can study the subtle differences between the species. Earth ponies have a little more bone density, and isn't that interesting? But unicorns -- here's the horn. A lot of horns, most of which are still attached. They're supposed to be unbreakable. The mare views that as a challenge.

Of course, there's more to a skeleton than the skull. (Pegasus wing attachment joints are fascinating.) And once she was in a place where she didn't have to get rid of bodies any more...

Bone can be turned into utensils. She's managed some rather fine needles, and anypony who wants to investigate music will find an ample supply of flutes. The unicorn is confident that the mane combs will eventually catch on. Some extra rounds of polish might help.

Hooves? It turns out that if you break them up into small pieces, boil them for a long time, and then add just the right acid, you get a workable glue. Those who are no longer part of the experiment are still holding a portion of the community together.

What can be done with skin? What can't be done? It's not as if the previous owner needs it any more and as long as you're looking at the acids for the glue, you only need to move a little to the left in order to discover the assortment which gets used in tanning. The unicorn doesn't have any personal need for leatherwork, but you don't waste a resource. And to simply ignore an opportunity to study...

She's made a few advances in optics. The best which most ponies can do with a microscope is to get a decent look at an egg cell. The unicorn's figured out how to focus a little more finely than that, and suspects there's a lot of additional refinement possible if she can just work out what the lenses are supposed to look like. Maybe the secret to the cure lies in the nucleus and if not, then it's still worth a look. And she can compare the cells from different organs because she's got a lot of those. Some of them have been preserved. The place where she officially studied the opposite is quite some distance out, because air purification spells don't do well with natural odors and few things are more natural than decay.

She's learned that electricity makes dead muscles contract. This doesn't currently help anything, but it's knowledge nonetheless.

And if she dissects enough brains, there's a chance that she can find where the personality is stored. Or better yet, the exact process by which thoughts are generated. Both offer the dream of being able to teach ponies from the inside.

Everypony serves the community. Even after they leave it. (It's another reason to be irritated with Gez. She knows what a death produced by her lockdown spell looks like, and still didn't get the chance to examine him for variables. Or for biological factors which might have led to renewed madness.) A corpse is a learning opportunity. Take the liver, and she's taken a few. It's a chemical factory. So how does it function? As much to the point: how can you make something else perform those functions? And yes, studying it in a living specimen is a problem she hasn't been able to solve, especially if said specimen is supposed to keep living. (Those attempts are made on animals. The community is its own experiment, and pulling a pony out of one phase in favor of something else entirely is bad science.) Which means the next question is to find out if you can keep a liver going after the subject is dead. Another question which probably has to wait until after the cure, but... the mare can at least be content in knowing that she'll never run out of things to study.

She's working on the lifespan problem for the same reason she's trying to solve the sleep issue, only on a larger scale.

(The dissections might help there too.)

There should always be enough time to learn.

This part of the workshop was for biology. But she had properly educated herself, and that meant acquiring some grounding in multiple sciences.

For example, the unicorn considered herself to have some understanding of probability. It was a good way to recognize luck didn't actually exist, and it also made her somewhat less likely to play the long odds.

The scientific method? That had been mastered. There were experiments. Trial phases. And in order to make it all work, you needed a controlled setting. That was what allowed the exclusion of variables.

Or rather, you tried to exclude variables. And studying probability had allowed her to assess the chance that someday, those variables would come to her.

The prophets of disease...

...no. That was unlikely. Not impossible, because the unicorn considered very few things to be truly impossible when approached by a sane and determined mind -- but nearly so. But still... variables. Something she had anticipated as potentially happening someday. A possibility she would have preferred to avoid until the full solution was being implemented (which presumed she didn't find something which could cure everyone at once), but -- in a way, the potential approach of those variables could be seen as something inevitable. And once you recognized that, you could prepare.

There were ways in which the unicorn had been preparing for a very long time.

Variables. Those who hadn't been carefully screened and gifted with the beginnings of education before entering the community. They would hardly be perfect subjects.

(How many were on the way?)
(What was their nature?)
(She'd had to prepare for one specific possibility. And then two, and then three.)

But there were times when a researcher simply had to take what they could get. Or whatever was about to deliver itself.

Annoying. Inconvenient. Two words which potentially described the best case, and the unicorn had to be ready for the worst. Even the ideal would cut into time she needed for other things. For starters, she'd been working on storage. She had a decent amount of it. She also didn't have enough, and was still searching for a means by which the community could operate without a need for it. Something which might require destruction, and that was very much its own problem. The unicorn had found a means of destruction, and to enact it en masse would mean losing the community.

She didn't know what might arrive. But... the way to learn how an experiment would turn out was to run through it. Again and again.

What was coming next... there had always been the chance for this to happen, and that was why she'd planned. (Practically speaking, it wasn't as if she could have scheduled a convenient time.) Because you advanced through trials, and that word had more than a single meaning. Too many of them did, and that was another reason why it could take so much explaining before anypony knew what you'd actually meant. The unicorn had considered the creation of a new language, but -- that was also something which likely had to wait until after the world had been saved. Even so, it wouldn't take much study to come up with a result which functioned perfectly well without the abomination of semicolons.

But for now...

She would protect the experiment. The community, because for now, they were the same thing. A community which still needed her voice, so they would remember how to think. A construct made of hooves constantly pushing against each other with equal force, so that nothing would overbalance.

The possibility of multiple outside, unprepared voices, arriving all at once...

There would be fresh subjects, those who hadn't been prepared, and... perhaps they could be taught to think.

(There was a dream beyond that, and she allowed herself a single second in which to indulge it. This was one second more than a typical encounter with the insane allowed it to last.)

And if that didn't happen -- should madness persist, and she had to deal with it in a way which, ideally, would not lead to any need for abrupt relocation...

...she was a student of many things. Biology was among her favorite subjects, because there was just so much which needed fixing there. The unicorn felt herself to have learned a lot.

There were at least a hundred and one uses for a dead pony.

Static Analysis

The implications didn't shatter across her thoughts immediately.

She was tired. The stress of separation, something which had been with her during every waking hour in the rainforest while insisting upon manifesting during most of the sleeping ones... it had drained Twilight at every opportunity. Simply having everypony back together had removed that particular anxiety, but full recovery wasn't going to be instant. She needed sleep. Also, she needed to figure out what was going on with the 'community', there was a certain need to solve everything, the lockdown probably had to be broken well before that, it would be nice if she could stop feeling shaken every ten minutes, the rest of the emotional turmoil could depart at any time and frankly, as long as Twilight was creating the checklist, it really would have done at least a little to quiet her OCD if she could just find a method of stealthily tilting their assigned residence back the other way.

So the possible connection didn't kick her at the moment Applejack said the words. It sunk past her ears, made its way into her brain, then spent some productive time in rummaging through her subconscious. And while it was doing that, Twilight busied herself with some of the smaller details.

She checked their quarters, made sure none of the more suspect items from their inventory had been touched. And once that was verified, she began to look for better places to hide them.

The copied fragments of notes were easy. The mission still required them to be constantly dressed while in public and when it came to Truedawn, the only thing keeping them from fitting right in was that it was possible to distinguish the group's clothing from roughly-stitched tubes. Securing the little bits of paper within whatever she would wear on any given day... that wasn't a problem. But the intended means of signaling the palace were exponentially larger, and when it came to the translator...

Twilight wasn't exactly happy about concealing one of the rarest devices in the world within the straw ticking of a poorly-built mattress. It just felt undignified, along with being completely disrespectful to the translator's station. But under one of the other hooves, it meant anypony trying to reach it during the night quite literally had to get past her first. And it wasn't as if it could make the bedding any less comfortable.

...she still needed something more secure.

The sketch of what the partial teleportation rod might have looked like when whole... she found a site for that, and did so while making herself work by mouth. It was another kind of practice, although she still found herself annoyed when the upper edge of the paper wound up slightly damp.

Eventually, Twilight dressed for bed. (It was possible that something might happen during the night, and stalling long enough to hide her mark again was going to create issues. For similar reasons, she had to leave the mane bow in, and was starting to worry about having her hair becoming tangled in the knot.) Resolved to sleep on top of the sheets, because it was this hemisphere's summer and the house...

...it didn't feel like pegasus thermal sealing would have been all that much to ask for. Truedawn was effectively surrounded by magic. Surely somepony could have spared a little for the interior. But all they had was a basic clockwork fan, and Twilight was going to leave that unwound. Getting the blades turning seemed to be the best way of having everything fall on them.

It would have been 'them'. Twilight's efforts had taken long enough for Fluttershy's mark-gifted endurance to flag, and the caretaker was already curled up atop her own bed. The tail combs were still in place.

The librarian climbed up to the vacant surface, tried to find the least scratchy position available, and closed her eyes.

Nothing happened.

Sleep.

Just sleep.

...is there an earth pony tool which very, very slightly softens rocks? Because that would go a long way towards explaining this pillow -- no. Wait. This 'pillow' --

-- shut up, brain...

...maybe I should stay up. Keep an eye on the other houses. Except that we all have to be at our best tomorrow and from Rarity said, I can't watch their assigned places from here anyway. Too much separation.

Note to self: spell for viewing multiple locations at once. Add it to the list.

...how would that even work?

...can't create a portal into the between for longer than it takes to enter and exit. No guarantee that I could keep two or more open simultaneously, much less look across the distance between them...

...brain...

...I'll see them at breakfast tomorrow. Believe that. Besides, gathering for breakfast might save us from having the community serve it. (Her stomach twinged. The rest of her digestive system offered moral support.) But we still have to eat. So where do we get food? Could we just ask for something from the crops and prepare it ourselves? I don't think we passed a store, but there has to be something...

...restaurant?

Which would mean ponies are trying out running a restaurant. Probably with about the same degree of success as they're having at making beds.

Stupid bed.

...well, it can't be worse than Mr. Flankington's. And besides, somepony here must know how to cook.

(Spike usually cooked for both siblings. When it came to her own efforts, Twilight felt that any food which required more time to prepare than consume was keeping her away from something.)

So if we can find a restaurant...

...how do we pay?

They'd been issued some of the local currency for the regional nations: the Princesses had possessed no way of knowing where the teleport would bring the group, and had covered both major options accordingly. There were also Royal Vouchers (now hidden) for an emergency, but that was something else which identified the group as having been sent by the palace -- and besides, there was no guarantee of having them honored. And they had a few bits.

Maybe Truedawn takes bits.
Maybe they're on their own currency system.
...I wonder what the exchange rate is like --
-- oh, come on, brain. I just want to --

-- explorers.

Twilight opened her eyes. It was a prerequisite for blinking.

Slowly, she made her way down from the bed, moving as silently as she could manage: Fluttershy needed rest. The uneven floor fought her every hoofstep of the way.

The false pegasus made her way down to what, for lack of a better term, was probably meant to serve as a living room. It was a path which took her past a motivational poster and for the first time, she truly looked at the wording.

One Voice.

Then she wondered what it truly meant.

When I was a filly...
...no. Focus.
Explorers...

A quick side trip found her riffling through the cabinets, still working by mouth. The majority were empty. A very few held basic tools, likely left behind by those who'd (poorly) put the place together. And two drawers below the oversized hoof-hammer shoes...

Good.

She couldn't use the living room for pacing in a circle. There was a chance that the repetitive sounds would wake Fluttershy. Also, she'd gotten a good look at the wood and knew it would wear away far too quickly. Plus the more she moved, the better her chances of taking a splinter to one of her frogs. But she needed to give her body something to do while the mind operated and as long as Twilight was awake, she was going to smooth something.

The scavenged, underutilized sandpaper was carefully pressed between scrapcloth-shielded hoof and wood: she didn't need to rasp away any of her own keratin.

Twilight began to work.

Explorers...

There were ways in which the manifestation of the mark represented a new beginning for a pony's life. The appearance of an explorer's icon meant the end of a normal one.

How did you get that kind of mark? There were certain personality traits which came into play. Most fillies and colts had that early period of intense curiosity: how does this work, why aren't I allowed to do that --

-- where do alicorns come from --

-- and for the destined, the most important foal question on the list would be What's Over There? They would try to visit every last square hoofwidth of their settled zone. And where others would eventually stop at the edge of the fringe, because everything beyond was supposed to be unnatural -- a very few would keep going. Over and over again. No matter what happened to them during the first few attempts, because the important thing was that there was something out there which just about nopony had seen and therefore, there had to be something special about being among the very few.

Their parents would usually, desperately wish for them to stop. The young would decide that a much better way to assuage adult worries was through going into the wild zone with better equipment. Besides, as long as they survived, then they'd won.

Eventually, being among the few wouldn't be enough any more. The desire magnified, threatened to overflow into obsession. They would choose a new goal: to be the first.

And for those whose flanks blazed...

It was a life mostly spent outside the settled zones. They would come in to report, resupply, take time for wounds to heal, sell a few discoveries, write papers about others. But then they would go back out there, because that was what the mark desired. After all, the planet was hardly going to explore itself.

Sometimes they went off on their own (and when that happened, they rarely told anypony where they were headed), but -- it helped to have somepony paying the bills. Not every discovery led to profit, and being out there for the sheer joy of it created certain issues in replacing supplies.

A few dealt with the issue through mastering the art of the high-speed jaw-snatch-and-gallop, and would practice it in places where they were the first pony anyone had ever met. For the explorer, success gained immediate benefits. Anypony who followed them in would usually have to clear up some truly bad first impressions.

Others sought sponsors: coming back to civilization after a success granted the chance to find new ones. Governments hired a few, and there were always private businesses hoping to learn the location of fresh resources. It was possible for an explorer to make a good living, especially if they did come across something which could be sold. They also had a deep-seating loathing of exchange rates, and occasionally grumbled about having to periodically return just so they could use a proper bank.

They could be compared to weather surveyors, only with very little ability to work within established borders. Some surveyors could content themselves for a time in charting the patterns of a settled zone, seeing what had to be shored up and where. An explorer could enter a new city, trot down every street, check out the interesting shops, and be satisfied -- for, at best, about three days. The need to see, discover, and be the first to the new had become the focal point of their lives. And for the rest of Equestria, which largely consisted of ponies who hardly ever ventured outside their own settled zones, had a few who were reluctant to even board a train, and who generally preferred tomorrow to be very much like today... it made them strange.

Almost... alien.

Their most frequent associations were with each other -- and that was in spite of a rather significant, inherent obstacle. Explorers tended to perceive anypony else with an appropriate icon as a rival. They all shared that drive to be first and if somepony was going to be first, then whoever came after them would be no better than second. Competitions could become fierce. A touch of delay-inducing sabotage was perceived as a side sport and besides, a truly skilled explorer would have been on the lookout. Explorers didn't necessarily like one another, especially on first meeting. The most common reaction to coming across one of their fellows, if given a minor emotional muting, could be described as Frustration At First Sight. It frequently got worse from there.

They hardly ever liked one another, at least during those initial encounters. But for those who kept galloping into each other, somehow finding ways to repeatedly intersect across the non-trails of a planet -- there was the chance for the emotions to deepen. Change. Invert. And a very few would turn 'I need to be first' into 'We'.

Explorers, when they fell in love, most typically did so with other explorers. They might develop feelings for those in other professions, but -- it was understood that asking another pony to come on the endless journey with them represented an almost impossible level of commitment. And for those who had come to love the explorer, who felt they could stay behind and still make it work -- any such mate might spend a lot of time waiting for their partner to come home.

Moons.
Years.
-- Scootaloo's been waiting for years --
And some of them never came back at all.

(The first patch of floor had been smoothed. Twilight turned her attention towards a stake trap writ in miniature.)

So they tended to pair up. Who else would come on the road with them? As much to the point: how many would be willing to stay at their side once the roads vanished?

Imagine a married couple...

It was basic math. Two could face the dangers of the wild more readily than one. Guard each other's tails during the day, stay warm at night.

Enough of those nights, and the total just might move to three.

Scootaloo came into the library and asked me to help her find a place. Somewhere I'd barely heard of. It took an hour just to locate it on a map.

Akhal-Tekes.

I still don't know much of anything about it.

I asked her why she'd wanted to find it.

And she told me it was where she'd been born.

There were herbs which helped to prevent pregnancy. Potions. But nothing was completely reliable and for those who constantly traveled, supplies could run low.

Then they ran out.

Could it be said that pregnancy for an explorer was... irresponsible? Because they were still out in the wild, and now they would be risking two lives. Perhaps Mane Allgood had pushed herself into returning to civilization, and Akhal-Tekes had simply been the nearest beacon of safety. Staying there until her gravid state ended in the best possible way, and a new life was brought into the world.

Born in Akhal-Tekes. Had Gentle Arrival ever gone that far outside the borders?

Applejack said Scootaloo's created dust devils, almost by accident.

No hybrid is strong in the magic of their birth race.

Staying in a foreign land, trying to provide an unborn foal with their best chance -- that was one option. Or perhaps her parents had remained in the wild from the first day until the last, with the mysterious city as the nearest place available for washing off birth muck.

And what happened after she was born?

Because trying to push through a wild zone's undergrowth with a foal in one saddlebag and monsters close behind was, put mildly, ill-advised.

The last notes of a closing outdoor concert forced their way through the walls. Her ears didn't come up again until the final echoes departed.

I talked to Applejack.

At one point, Scootaloo was saying she had aunts. Lofty is the blood relative: Holiday is her spouse. And they supposedly live gallops and gallops away. She claimed they visited a few times. But the police are still trying to find them.

Maybe they don't exist. One more lie to keep ponies from thinking she was alone.
Maybe they don't live in Equestria.

...who raised Scootaloo in the first few years of her life?

Where?

Had the parents forced themselves to settle down for a time? A newborn foal took over all the priorities. They would have needed a place to stay. Access to regular pediatrician services. Schools.

A house...

...at some point, they managed to get that mortgage. And I don't think real estate agencies have a lot of range. Their own settled zone, or maybe one over. So they were at least in Canterlot at some point, for more than mailing a voucher. More likely in Ponyville.

But if the aunts existed, then they might have been Scootaloo's first custodians. Because you couldn't bring somepony that young out into the unknown --

-- could you?

If pregnancy itself could be seen as irresponsible for an explorer, then how did you describe the act of trying to raise a foal in the wild?

...I don't know.
I can't know.
Not yet.
Keep thinking.

(The tiny stakes were gone. She came within a split-second of igniting her horn to check under the furniture, then sighed and got her shoulders into the shove. It wasn't doing much. The base of the rough couch failed to squeal against the wood and, for the most part, also failed to shift.)

They might have tried to raise her themselves, in civilization. But in doing so...

The same views every day. The same streets. The same everything.

They could try to settle down. But the mark could not be denied.

Destiny.
Or what we tell ourselves is destiny.
When I was a filly...

To keep somepony from practicing their talent for extended periods of time... there was a price for that. Even prisons were generally reluctant to see their charges pay it -- at least for those talents which were considered safe. An incarcerated weaver would be given some weekly time with a loom, generally under the comforting knowledge that not only were the window bars far too close together for squeezing a pony body through, but it was rather hard to bite your way down an escape rope.

It's a balancing act, isn't it?
Practice your talent too much, and you could become one of the fallen.
If you're prevented from practicing it at all... the urges can build. Threaten to take over. Turn into obsession, until you need to act. Until you can barely think about anything else.
And if you somehow turn away from your own mark, force yourself off the path...

...Gentle Arrival. Whose mark had been for protecting, guiding, and loving his offspring -- and found himself unable to truly love an earth pony daughter. Not unless he could render her into something else. And even then, it could be argued that he hadn't been able to completely escape himself.

What did Pinkie say to me?

"Can you imagine how much love he should have had for her, for all of us to get some? I was his experiment, Twilight, I know that... but I still feel like he loved me."

Maybe he did.

I don't think it was pure love. More like a first-time pet owner. A pretty bad one, who doesn't understand that training is required and you can't just yell at them when they do something you don't like. You need to be patient. To teach. To forgive. And I saw what he did at the end. How he broke. If you don't do exactly what he wants, every time...

But he still looked for Pinkie after she ran away. Stayed with her for days once he found her, accompanying her through the wild zone until they reached Ponyville. Making sure she was safe. And then he brought her to the Cakes.

It could be protecting the most unique of the 'experiments'. The one he never repeated.

Or maybe... there was some kind of love.

She wanted to believe the worst of him. It was what he deserved.

But without him, Pinkie wouldn't be alive --

-- focus.
...if I tried to tap into Applejack's aspect, would I get any physical strength to come with it? Because that might help with shoving this furniture. But I haven't exactly picked up any mass during any of the other times. Maybe earth pony muscles are just constructed differently. More efficient.
...focus...

Snap Shutter and Mane Allgood, with a daughter to raise...

They could have gone into the settled zones. Forced themselves to stay for a time. But if that time had to be for the full duration of Scootaloo's youth, until she became an adult and truly took over her own life --

-- no.

They could have tried to sublimate. Hiring a foalsitter while they took a few hours in the Everfree, or the local equivalent. Maybe that would have helped for a while. But I don't think it would have held up for several years. The mark wants what it wants --

-- so what had their choices truly been?

Turn fully against themselves, with all of the horrors which could result.

Find somepony else who could take custody. Just about permanently. Visit every so often, but -- that would be it. Drop-in parents. They might see their daughter for a day, week, moon, or perhaps even a summer. But eventually, they would have to get back out there. Because a marked explorer would pay a price for staying in one place forever, and the first collection would be taken from their sanity.

Or bring a filly into the wild. Over and over. Surely their luck would hold, right up until the moment when it didn't.

-- the mark wants --

(She needed a fresh sheet of sandpaper. Then she needed another one. Some time was taken for wondering why they'd even brought in sandpaper if they were so bad about actually using it.)

I need a timeline.

Not without irony, I need Scootaloo. (It wasn't the most common of thoughts.) She could tell me when the first voucher came in. That's potentially the most crucial point, isn't it? It shows when her parents... weren't coming back. Applejack may not have the exact date.

Just about every theory began with observation and free thinking...

...Starlight said she was the first one in. Let's say she's telling the truth. It makes her into the community's founder.

According to Pinkie, Truedawn has been here for at least a few years. If I had a timeline, I could try to match that to whenever Scootaloo's parents went missing.

(How old was Starlight?)

We don't know why the place was founded. It could be as a haven. Somewhere to research and treat a disease, or -- to explore a... different way of life. And if it's the first... where are the doctors? It can't just be Starlight. Unless she's the first one who learned of it, and she's that frightened of how everypony else would respond --

-- she could be a doctor.

Her mark is so abstract. She could be anything.

Learn the talent, and maybe the mark would make sense.

As a physician, it still leaves her operating alone as the lone researcher and hope for a sick colony. And if you assume a group of ponies who found a way to truly swap marks...
...create new ones?
...take them away?
...then is she still the founder? The one who discovered the means, wanted to try it, and convinced others to do the same? Because she's the only local going around with a normal, visible mark. And maybe that's because she's the designated point of contact for new arrivals. Something familiar.
Or maybe she was just the first one here.

Let's say... that the explorers she met were Scootaloo's parents.

"The outcome was mutually favorable."

Whether it's a disease or -- community... there's one need which would have been the same.

Was that how it started? She meets them. They start talking, because -- it's an opportunity for education. And maybe more. They start to see her as a friend...

She could have hired them directly. Or asked a favor: that they keep an eye out during their normal travels, and just let her know if they come across what she needs.

And what does she need?

If she's trying to work in relative isolation, then she needs a place to work.

Think about the requirements for a settled zone. Ideally, you need a defensible position. Vanhoover has the ocean on one side and mountains on the other three. Canterlot's got sheer altitude and a hard approach path on hoof. With a faint smile, Ponyville's main defense would be 'The capital's right over there.' I don't think the Princess would have given Granny Smith the first grant of land without that. But in terms of physical defenses, we're the exception.

The tepui blocks off one approach vector. Thoughtfully, And maybe that sort-of trail up to the cave is meant as an emergency evacuation path? But there's more requirements than that. You need a clean water supply. Soil isn't much of a factor, because the Cornucopia Effect --

-- okay: this time, getting the right soil is important. But we know they've managed to make the land produce. And normally, even when you were opening a brand-new settled zone, you would need some reliable means of reaching the old ones. Because that's how you bring in supplies -- but when the teleportation rods are factored in...

Something isolated. Somewhere ponies, and the other sapient species, are unlikely to stumble across.

But there's been someone out here before. If no one had ever looked at this area, then the tepui wouldn't be on a map. This is a place where almost no one goes, and she might have been worried about having exceptions trot in.

So add the shield. That keeps the wild zone out, and the illusion factor means they can't be spotted by anything in the air.

It's not a perfect defense, especially if you get somepony who can feel or counter the magic. And someone else might recognize that their feelings were being imposed from the outside: once you've got that, it's not always impossible to will your way forward. A non-pony usually couldn't get through the shield, but they might be able to come right up to the edge. And then they'd be able to report back.

How would the local nations feel about ponies setting up a... community -- in their territory?

Starlight has a way to know when somepony gets close. A working which serves for proximity detection.

...almost out of sandpaper...

...so what would happen if a local approached? She goes out with a group to meet them? Redirects? But with ponies, she brings them in. (It hadn't exactly been an invitation.) But it's a big rainforest, and I don't know what the radius is on the detection. What happens if someone gets close without coming near one of the stones?

She didn't know.

I'm guessing on all of this. A theory can be guesswork waiting to meet the first piece of evidence which proves it wrong. But it's at least possible. She meets explorers, and... they're the ones who found this site.

"Any such circumstance should be exploited for reciprocal benefit."

Or maybe there's another factor.

Explorers find the new. Species, magic, locations, and -- disease. If it's an illness, then maybe they were the first ones to get sick. And they just happen to meet Starlight, who's willing to do everything she can to help them. So that's the reciprocal part. They gain the hope for a cure, and she can be the one who creates it.

...which really brings up the question of how this thing spreads. An explorer could stumble into something nopony's ever seen before. But if it's a disease -- then we've pretty much proven it can't spread by breath. Blood contact is possible, but -- look at how many ponies are here. If it started with Scootaloo's parents, then they'd almost have to go around bleeding on ponies intentionally.

...food? They ate something new, and...

The little mare stopped moving.

Somepony brought us dinner.

Her ribs began to heave. Wings attempted to flare, with the bandaged one testing the strength of the wrapping --

-- breathe...
...breathe...

Her right foreleg came up. Touched the sternum, gestured outwards, repeated the movement.

...most of it was recognizable. There were some unfamiliar things, but it was all fruits and vegetables which we've seen growing in the area. Variations on what we know, along with a few species which earth ponies raise for specialty stores. And some new things. Maybe there's something edible here which does it, but...

...on purpose?
Would anypony just infect --

The movement accelerated. Her right foreknee was starting to hurt --

-- breathe --
-- breathe...
...breathe...
...don't faint...
...just... be very careful about what we eat.

(Maybe it was already too late.)

...and warn the others.
Oh, Sun and Moon...
Discord's swaying tail, what if we're --

Her head automatically turned, and frantic eyes sought out her left hip --

-- the fur of the mark was placid. Steady. None of the colors were currently sending up tendrils of false steam. She was almost sure that nothing had already evaporated, but her vision seemed to be going grey at the edges while her heartbeat fluttered and she needed to see --

She curled her body, trying to get a better look, and did so while the right foreleg was still gesturing.

Three braced legs, on a quadruped, was generally enough to provide stability.

Generally.

Eventually, Twilight picked herself back up. Glanced towards the ramp, verified that the little crash hadn't woken Fluttershy, and briefly congratulated herself on having smoothed the floor in advance. Not that she'd been planning to nearly faint, but at least she hadn't picked up any splinters along the way.

...well, the librarian forced herself to think, that would almost guarantee the Princesses are safe. We just have to guard the royal kitchens. Darkly, And if they somehow wind up coming here? No snacks.

She was presuming. Choosing to believe that somepony had both found the vector and was willing to use it as a weapon -- or to create additional research subjects.

Twilight had already met one pony who'd seen no problems with experimenting on others without consent. The experience had left something of an impression.

Don't automatically assume the worst. Think of it, stay on guard against it -- but look for a little proof before believing it.

It was sensible. A fully reasonable approach. It just wasn't doing much to make her heartbeat steady itself.

If I see one sign that we were deliberately --
-- and that's how we find out what would happen if Rainbow shook off all the reins and just went after --
-- that's one way to break our cover, isn't it? 'Do you need any extra researchers?'
Or maybe we'd just --
-- smile...
...something else.
Think of something else.
Anything else --

"They continued the association, of their own will. And the community would be lessened without them."

Oh, good. Her brain was temporarily cooperating.

The little mare carefully lowered herself to the safe patch of floor. Closed her eyes, took three deep breaths before opening them again.

Keep going along the previous line.

If the explorers were Scootaloo's parents -- then they're still associating with Starlight. They see her as a friend. And they're part of the community.

Which means they're in Truedawn.

We can find them.

Her heartbeat steadied, and something deep within began to warm.

We... could give Scootaloo her parents back --

-- slow down. That's the best case. But if it's a disease, and they don't want to come back until it's cured -- then we can at least tell her what happened to them. If it isn't contagious, it might even be possible to bring her here to see them. Either way, she'd know.

Or maybe we could convince the community that we're trying to help. That the palace would send assistance. Extra researchers. They don't have to be afraid of what happens when the truth comes out.

I'm not a biologist or a doctor. But my talent -- my... mark -- is for magic. It doesn't necessarily mean I can help. Unicorn workings: that's where I can try to figure things out. Magical effects created by anything else... that's a lot harder. With some of the things some of the other species do, all I can manage is to watch. And a disease with magical effects, where all of the victims are innocent and that poor stallion... if there's a stage where the mind just says to run and he...

...maybe I could help.
Maybe I can't.
But I could try.

She could.
She wanted to.
But there was a presumption built in.

Except that I'm thinking about a disease.

There's the possibility of conjunction. An illness which does something to the mark. But while it's in effect, those who are sick -- try to live normal lives. Try to explore a new way of life. But if it's something which ponies do to themselves, or have done to them...

...then if all of the previous assumptions about Scootaloo's parents having been the ones who met Starlight held up -- they were still here.

Why?

They had a daughter. Somepony who was waiting for them to come home, who'd spent years in believing that her parents could trot through an open door at any minute. Who'd had... faith. And if they were simply here to explore the idea of life with a different mark, or -- even life without a mark at all --

-- they didn't completely abandon her.
If they'd done that, there wouldn't be vouchers.
...they love her.
They have to love her.
Somepony please tell me they...

But she was alone, and her eyelids slowly drooped. Closed, fought to open again...

...wake-up juice. I should drink some --

The little mare forced herself upright. Went into the kitchen, explored the contents --

-- stupid refrigerator.

Which was unfair. It was functioning, if more unsteadily than Twilight would have liked. It just didn't happen to contain any wake-up juice. And she was tired, worn out from turmoil and reunion and thought, plus the near-faint hadn't exactly helped. She'd planned to start working on getting through the lockdown that night, but her vision was blurred at the edges, she was starting to yawn, and magical experimentation when exhausted was a really bad idea. Especially because trying to go ahead with it in that state could make any further bad ideas feel like good ones.

In the morning.

As soon as I get up.

The little mare slowly turned. Made sure her wings were in a proper rest position, and made her way towards the imperfect ramp.

Try to sleep.

I'll talk to the others. Tell them what I thought of. We'll be careful about what we eat. And we'll try to explore. Look for research facilities. Medical areas. Workshops. Anything which could show us what they're doing here.

We're together.
We're all together again.
As long as we stay together, we'll be okay.