Children of the Sun

Chapters

The Prophet
Towards the Sun
Don't Shoot the Messenger
Everypony's Got An Opinion
Sacristy Shutdown
Some Would Say She's Stunning
A Strange Sort of Sympathy
I'm Fine With Spiraling, So Long As It's With You

The Prophet

The Solarium was exactly as it should be: a quiet, bustling hub of busy ponies. It was a fairly well-lit room, with pinpricks of light dotting the ceiling. Stars, the unicorn artists had called them, pouring mana into each and every tiny speck of light. They did little to illuminate the deep grey cavern walls, slick and shined with the breath of thousands of ponies. Years of carving and chipping away had made it awe-inspiringly large; so tall and wide that six or seven pegasi could fly over each other without touching anypony.

It was a testament to the Sun’s might, the work of past generations to herald a new future. A Prophet long ago had foretold that this was to be where we’d gather when we finally beheld our Goddess’s light. The Solarium was built, the literal height of ponykind’s accomplishments, far above the depths where most ponies lived out their lives.

Only the most important were allowed up here, closest to the surface and to the Sun, and I was honored to trot among them, no matter what they thought of me when my back was turned.

I sat, as I often did, at the base of the great staircase. It was polished and worn smooth by the dull thundering hooves of the Acolytes, who forever paced up and down their steps, carrying their burdens of dust and stone. Their packages - mostly borne upon earth pony strength - held the debris of the tunnels that spiraled up towards salvation. The value of their endurance could not be overstated, and though some grew sick with a cough that never fully went away, still they tunneled up, up, up towards the heavens. Not even Dustlung could stop the Acolytes from their work.

My hooves brushed dust off the tattered blankets I sat upon. It was a place of honor, steeped in tradition, being up here, but the problem with being so near the Acolytes and their rocks was that dust got everywhere. It never seemed to brush out of clothes or fur, either, and I’d spend a good long while tonight, just as I did every night, trying to get the feeling of dust and stone and impurity out of my fur and out of my head.

At least I had a filtration spell worked into my outfit to keep my lungs from feeling the effects the Acolytes so often did, but the spells did nothing for the actual cloth they were cast upon. My robes were extremely delicate, which made the dust even more of a hassle to scrub out than if they were some Acolyte’s rags.

I did my best to push the thoughts of cleaning from my mind, and instead focused on my connection with my Goddess. I pushed the gentle rumble of hoofsteps and stone out of my mind and relaxed on my blanket. Breathe. In, then out. Focus. Maybe today I’d hear something. My Goddess wouldn’t leave me without insight yet again, surely.

Nothing. There was nothing to answer my internal peace. No calm, regal voice, no flicker of warmth or light, no comforting, pale blue eyes, no anything. Granted, that was the usual result of my meditation, but it still irked me every time it happened. Having a deep mental connection with the Goddess herself wasn’t easy, and my predecessor had even less success than I’d had so far, but it was still frustrating.

Any bit of news from the surface was always met with rejoicing. The churches would be crowded the evening it was announced, filled to the brim with devoted worshippers, each proclaiming the glories of the Sun, the Goddess, and the Elements that brought them hope. Everypony around me would be buzzing about the snippets of information I’d brought to them, and they would talk of little else for weeks.

Goddess knows they could use something else to talk about. There were rumors of food shortages, of stale air and disease. Such rumors only brought dissent, which brewed trouble. I’d heard of it before, though it’d grown more and more frequent. There would be louder and more aggressive disagreements in bars that would spill into other ponies’ jobs and recreational time. A few ponies may even hold up signs in protest of the unfairness of the world before being brought to prison and encouraged to reconsider their actions. It would be chaos, and chaos caused inefficiency, which in turn brought only more trouble for everypony.

Personally, I wished everypony would just pick a sacred Element to follow and aspire to, and be done with it. The world was far simpler with such purity in mind.

A flurry of uneven wingbeats was my warning before a pony skidded to a graceless stop in front of my blanket. A gust of dust-choked air battered at my hooves, and I fought against the urge to cough. Coughing would be undignified. I slowly opened my eyes and gazed serenely into the messenger pegasus’.

“May the Sun be with you,” I said, with a bit more of a croak than I’d intended. Ah, yes, what’s-her-face. A what’s-her-face I vaguely recognized.

“The High Priestess wants to see you,” chirped the pegasus, shaking her wings off. She straightened her slightly-askew satchel and stared at me with slightly-askew eyes. I managed a mysterious smile at the pegasus, who beamed back at me. At least she wasn’t an unkind common pony. She seemed happy to be up in the Solarium, and I could imagine part of the reason why. Pegasi didn’t seem to enjoy being cooped up in tunnels, where flying down them meant risking clocking a pony on the back of the head with a hoof or wing.

Still, I’d take a happy pegasus over a sore earth pony or an overworked unicorn any day. Perhaps, I thought, that’s why the High Priestess usually sends this one. She always seemed to understand which ponies annoyed me the most.

I stood up and shook myself off, as subtly as I could manage. I resisted the urge to frown at the thin cloud that rose from my robes. It couldn’t be helped. Dust was just meant to be, and for now, it was meant to be away from me, and I from it. I followed behind the pegasus at a brisk walk, not stopping to acknowledge the Acolyte who almost bumped into me. He made a face, but continued on his path towards the steps leading skyward.

I mentally braced myself as I stepped out of the door of the Solarium and through the gently sloped hallway. I tried to make it look effortless, as though I was gliding across the floor. Every once in a while, though, I snuck a glance at the rough floor of the hall. It wouldn’t do for a Prophet to trip and fall flat on her face.

The pegasus in front of me hummed blissfully to herself, unaware of the stares directed at me. Part of me pitied the messenger for being so ignorant of the importance of my presence, but another quieter part of me wished I could be that carefree still. Then I could sit with other ponies at the dining hall, laugh about things the communication broadcast said, gossip and relax between working shifts and sleeping shifts. What must it be like to have those I could rely on, and be relied upon in turn?

As quickly as the thought came, I pushed it from my mind. I was, after all, too unwavering in my faith to worry about such things. The Sun came first, always. Praise the Sun. Get to the surface. Meet my Goddess. Those were the only things that mattered.

We passed the newer halls and chambers and began spiraling deeper downward through the hallway, to the older parts of the tunnels.

I followed the messenger down to the Control Hub. It used to be the highest room in our civilization, but the ponies before me had gotten tired of continuously moving the furniture from room to room as their ancestors burrowed higher and higher, so here it sat, around the higher levels of where most ponies lived their lives.

The door opened with a whine as we entered. It was empty of ponies, save for the High Priestess herself. The walls were lined with blinking lights, signaling various purposes that I couldn’t fathom. Cords wound their way to nowhere. Some, I suspected, formed a powerless loop around the room, though each time I tried to follow one with my eyes, I quickly got mixed up. Charts and maps were taped and glued to the wall haphazardly, some sagging down and rotting from the weight of time and decay.

A folding chair was set up behind a table in the center of the room. If somepony in the past hadn’t taped a sign that said “High Priestess’s Desk” on it, nopony would have been able to discern it from any other table and chair. It wasn’t fancy, and it wasn’t particularly neat, but that was okay with the High Priestess. She wasn’t the sort of pony to fuss about appearing all-knowing and religious, much to my annoyance.

She also preferred the title “Big Boss” to High Priestess, and that annoyed me even more.

If I was being honest, she didn’t exactly look like High Priestess material, anyway. Her mane was frizzy and kept in an unkempt halo around her head. She had forgone the more traditional ornate robes for a bright magenta trench coat and a pale cream shirt underneath. The only thing that truly marked her as the High Priestess at all was the heavy necklace she wore. The silver and black woven cords hung with the weight of a spherical stone bauble, the traditional sign of the leader of the Church of Daylight.

“Good Day, High Priestess,” I began, steeling myself as best as I could for the peculiar sort of conversation we traditionally had. “I’ve been called to speak with y-”

“Oh, Twilight,” giggled High Priestess Pinkie Pie, waving a hoof between us. “You don’t need to be quite so formal. It’s just us. And, well, Ditzy. Thank you, Ditzy. You can go ahead and send the other message I told you to, and then take your lunch break, okay?” The pegasus messenger saluted her and trotted off up the hall.

After the door whooshed shut behind the mare, Pinkie Pie continued. “Any new revelations from our Goddess and the world above, Twilight? You know I love hearing good news.”

I shook my head, mentally kicking myself for not being able to somehow do more. Pinkie Pie’s mane deflated a bit, and her smile looked a little more forced. I swore I could hear a tinge of exhaustion in Pinkie Pie’s voice as she replied. “Well, it never really hurts to ask, does it? Ponies aren’t exactly happy these days, and every little bit of goodness can help with that! My friends down in the mechanics division said that some ponies are so sad, they don’t even want to do their work! Maybe - and this is just a rumor, but it’s what my friends are telling me - they’ll all stop working at the same time, to try to get something better to happen! Isn’t that awful?”

Pinkie Pie paused, as if waiting for me to answer, but when I didn’t supply anything immediately, she went on. “But there’s always something good, isn’t there? We’re working towards the surface, and working to see the sun again. And my High Priestess Sense told me something absolutely wonderful today! You wanna know what it told me?”

Pinkie Pie leaned forward, almost knocking the paper sign off her desk. “It said that we’re going to break through to the surface. Today.”

I couldn’t help it. Despite my years of practice at keeping my composure, my jaw dropped. Quickly, I closed it again, but I couldn’t keep a smile from growing on my face as the news sank in. “Really? That’s incredible! I wish the Goddess had said something about that, but maybe she didn’t notice! This is great news, and, and…” I trailed off. Pinkie Pie wasn’t bouncing around quite as much as she should have been. “What’s wrong? This is the best news any of us have ever heard!”

“Well,” began Pinkie Pie, tracing a circle on her desk with a hoof. “The thing is… we aren’t going to tell anypony about this. Not yet.”

“But why?” I sputtered. “This is important! Wouldn’t everypony be really excited about all of this? You wouldn’t need to worry about ponies striking, or protesting, or any other crimes against the Church!”

“Honestly, Twilight, why would they want to strike somepony?” scoffed Pinkie Pie. Before I could elaborate, she held up a hoof and gave me the sort of no-nonsense look that only a caffeine-deprived mare in charge could give somepony. “It is exciting, but I was thinking about the logistics of it all. If everypony knew that we were about to breach the surface and be able to go home, wouldn’t they all rush up to go see it? Would they hurt somepony as they raced to be the first to see the sunlight? What if somepony got trampled, or left behind? That wouldn’t be very nice at all.

“Besides, and I know this will sound a little like heresy, but what if the surface isn’t as pretty as we all hope? I don’t want everypony to be disappointed. And we’ve all got to get ready before we go up there anyways, because we don’t know what we’ll find. Then we can be Honest! We just have to wait until we have the whole story first.” Pinkie Pie beamed at me, and I could’ve sworn her mane inflated a little bit. “So, that’s why I’ve decided you get to be the first one up there!”

“What? Me?” I started pacing, trying to keep the nervous edge out of my voice. “That doesn’t make any sense! Shouldn’t it be you? Then you could give a better report to everypony. Besides, you’re in charge! And I’m not as important as you, or anything like that! I don’t know what to do or say up there. Do I just peek, or do I walk around up there and then come back down and-” Pinkie Pie’s lighthearted laugh broke me out of my panicked rambling.

“Twilight. You’ll be fine. I may be our Big Boss and High Priestess, but you’re our Prophet pony! Our All-Seer! You have a connection with the Goddess that nopony else has! If she’s up there waiting, you should be the one to see her. Besides,” Pinkie Pie shrank back at her desk and fidgeted awkwardly. “I think they’ll believe it more if it comes from you. Ponies wouldn’t believe it if it came from me, but from you? We’ll believe anything.”

I coughed and slowed my pacing before I wore hoofprints into the floor. “I guess that makes sense, but you said we’d break through to the surface today, right? When am I supposed to go up there and take a look around?” Oh, please be later tonight or something, give me a moment to wrap my head around this, I mentally pleaded.

“You can go right now, okay?” Pinkie Pie said, kicking her hooves under her desk. “I told Ditzy to tell the Acolytes to stop working and take a break, and they didn’t seem to mind that as much as when I tell them to work harder, for some reason, so you should be alone when you’re up there. And, if my High Priestess Sense is correct, you should be only a few hits from the surface. You can use your unicorn magic to do that, right? So go on!”

Pinkie Pie sagged a little and propped her head up with her hooves. I wondered when she’d last slept. Did her High Priestess Sense keep her up at night? Should I get her some coffee or something? Was it obvious that I was mentally stalling?

Pinkie Pie smiled gently, and for a moment I felt that she understood me a bit more than even I understood me, but then waved her hoof towards the hallway. “We’re so close, Twilight. Please. For all of us. I’ll be waiting here for your report, okay?”

I got the distinct sense that I was being dismissed, and turned to leave. Before I made it out the door, I could’ve sworn I heard the High Priestess whisper. “Please, Celestia, please let Equestria still be up there.”

Then the door hissed shut behind me, and I was lost again in a haze of my own thoughts.

Towards the Sun

I walked back up through the spiraling hallway in a trance. A few ponies jumped out of my way, but I paid them no mind. My mind was far more occupied than it normally had any right to be. This was… sudden. It didn’t feel like what I thought it’d feel like at all, to hear such good news. We were this close, and I’d be the first to see the surface.

The walls were decorated with murals, all in differing artistic styles, yet all telling more or less the same stories, over and over. Every foal knew them by heart, and every pony tasked with brightening their halls with color and art eventually fell back to the same story.

Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there were two regal sisters who ruled together. The eldest goddess, Celestia, raised the sun, and brought light and life to every pony. Her younger sister, Nightmare Moon, brought the moon, and the night in which to rest. The world was balanced, and all was at peace for a time.

But eventually, the younger sister grew jealous at the Sun’s power, and sought to bring about an eternal night, casting aside the sunlight and giving the world eternal darkness. Celestia - brave, merciful Celestia - used the most powerful of weapons, the Elements of Harmony, to defeat her sister, but at a grave cost. The magic she used was so powerful, so perfect in its might, it cast the ponies of Equestria deep underground to protect them from the fight, and the aftermath of what was surely a most horrific battle.

The ponies of Equestria were gifted with fresh air and plants to survive, through the pure and unyielding justice brought by the mighty Celestia and her Elements of Harmony. There was plenty for all, and at first, most ponies thought their Goddess and the Elements would bring them back, but as the years went by, they began to wonder.

Perhaps, the early scholars thought, this was a test to see if the ponies wished to be a part of Equestria as much as their beloved Goddess wanted them? Or, perhaps, they were simply meant to surface on their own, in their own time. Perhaps the land above was ruined by the epic fight, and it wasn’t suitable to live for a period of time?

Whatever the case, the founders of the Church of Daylight decided it was time to act. Nothing more would come by waiting in the cold dark of the underground life they’d built. So they began tunneling upwards, occasionally bringing news from the world above through their all-seeing prophets. The dragons were extinct, they said, and everyone rejoiced, for dragons brought fire and fire brought death. The griffons invaded above, but their Goddess was victorious. The crops were growing well in the year 417. A rare species of parasprites, whatever they were, were discovered and then exterminated. There was a terrible storm in the year 636, but their Goddess rebuilt.

With each piece of news, no matter how insignificant it seemed, everypony celebrated, for it meant we weren’t alone and our Sun hadn’t forsaken us. So when I, as a filly, had heard a direct message from their Goddess, our spirits lifted once again.

Tell everypony, the Goddess had said, regal and thundering and determined. Flashes of gold and white marble filled my vision, and I was filled with the joy and peace of a being that had lived for thousands of years. Be ready. The time is near. I relayed that message, and we all rejoiced. Nopony knew exactly what time their Goddess was talking about, but they worked all the harder at reaching the surface. Ponies spent countless hours on their work, toiling past their assigned shifts, all for hope of a brighter future.

So it was with purpose that I walked upwards. We had been waiting for almost a thousand years for this. What would the surface be like? Would it be like the stories, with a warm ball of light heating the world, grass growing underhoof, soil and earth and birdsong and trees and wind and laughter? Would it be something entirely new? Maybe there were entire colors that we’d forgotten? It sounded absurd, but anything was possible. And then there was me. The first to rediscover a world everypony dreamt about at night. It was an incredible responsibility, and I was honored to bear it.

What would it mean for me, once I met my Goddess face-to-face? Would I cease to be a Prophet, since we could just talk to the Goddess directly? Would my Goddess even recognize me? Would she be up there, waiting? I hesitated, stumbling over my hooves, ignoring the snickers from a few mares walking past. What if my Goddess didn't want to see me for some reason? What if I had been doing something wrong all this time, and disappointed my Goddess?

No, that’s ridiculous, I reassured myself as I stood in front of the Solarium door. My Goddess said that we all should be ready. Maybe this was what she’d meant. I had to be ready, even if I didn’t feel ready. For my Goddess.

I stepped into the chamber. The door shut with a soft sigh, leaving me in silence. The room was eerily quiet without the Acolytes’ hoofsteps. I glanced at the base of the stairs as I neared them. My blanket was dusty, and suddenly looked so small and unimportant. I took a deep breath as I walked slowly up the stairs, then faster, then faster still, until I was almost slipping on the smooth surface in my haste to reach the top. I’d never been up here, but it was my duty, nay, my destiny to be the one to see my Goddess’s skies first.

Panting, I staggered up the last couple of steps. A darker tunnel lay in front of me. I bit my lip and lit my horn before following it. Unlike the main hallway, this tunnel curved upward rather steeply. It wound in a tight circle, and made me almost grateful for the rough floor that poked into my hooves. Did they keep it rough for traction? I assumed that would make sense. Why else would it scrape at my hooves?

Up I went, circling around and around until I felt a little dizzy. The tunnel up ahead looked a little brighter though, so I picked up the pace. The tunnel ended with a lantern and a few discarded sacks. I recognized them as the bags the Acolytes used to carry down the dirt and rocks they mined.

I looked up at the ceiling of the tunnel where they’d stopped. It didn’t look any different than any other tunnel I’d been in all my life. A part of me was disappointed. There weren’t any roots or dirt there, just rock, but I supposed that made sense. A long time ago, geology ponies determined we must be somewhere deep underneath the mountains near Canterlot, judging by the volcanic rock that was everywhere.

So according to Pinkie, one or two hits would break a hole so I could get out onto the surface, or at least see what was up there, right? I bit my lip again. It wasn’t the time to get afraid about what could be up there, but my fear defied logic and existed in spite of it. I took a deep breath in, and slowly let it out. In, pause, then out. In, out. Okay. I can do this. The Goddess is waiting for me.

I braced myself and charged a burst of magical energy. Scrunching my eyes shut, I fired it at the ceiling. A cloud of dust and rocks rained down on my head, making me flinch and cough. I doubled over, hacking for a moment, before regaining my composure. After it settled, I blinked a few times to clear the debris from my eyelashes and looked up.

There was a dent in the ceiling above my head, but just rock behind that. I huffed at it. Pinkie had said it may take more than one blast. Still, a part of my ego hurt from not being able to break through on the first try. I sighed and squinted up at the ceiling. No light shone through the rock, and I felt a little bit disappointed, but determination surged through me. This time. This time, I’d break through to the surface. I’d get to see my Sun.

Steeling myself, I charged and let loose another tremendous blast of energy. The ceiling rumbled and more rocks fell. A sizable one hit me between the ears and I cried out in pain, rubbing my head with a hoof before looking up again. There was a hole up there, and it looked like it went all the way through, but no light was shining through. It did look kind of shimmery, like magic, so that was probably a good sign. Some more dust rained down on my face, and I couldn’t help but sneeze and shut my eyes again. Okay, from my brief glimpse, I should be able to rear up and stick my head through the hole and have a look around.

Carefully, putting a hoof against the tunnel wall to steady myself, I raised myself up until my ears brushed the ceiling. Awkwardly wobbling on my hind hooves, I adjusted myself, eventually poking my head through the hole in the roof of the tunnel, then stood up further until my whole head went through.

I braced myself for a gust of wind, full of fresh new smells of flowers and trees I’d never known existed, but it never came. The air felt the same as it always had, cool and faintly stale, which was a bit of a disappointment. I couldn’t hear anything, either. All I could hear was the pounding of my heartbeat in my head, and my own unsteady breathing. I shook my head, trying to get the worst of the dust off my face, before opening one eye, then the other.

It was night. The stars were out. That observation comforted me for a moment. The stars were real, and they were beautiful. Tiny pinpricks of light, far prettier than any picture could do justice. They shone steadily in the distance, looking down on me. I suddenly felt very small, very alone, and yet simultaneously in the company of something greater than myself. Was this what life was like in Equestria all the time? If so, I couldn’t wait to experience this sense of incredible wonder more in the future.

I turned my gaze downward, away from the stars, and frowned. There wasn’t any grass. It was all just dirt and rocks. A bit further away, maybe a few paces, the ground was a lot brighter, but it was just grey, and not colorful at all. There were no trees, or animals, or anything. Just a bunch of packed rock and dirt.

I turned my head, awkwardly craning my neck. In every direction I could see, it was just rocks and dirt, all the way to the horizon. Had… had something horrible happened? Did the great battle between Celestia and Nightmare Moon kill all life and level everything? That would be a terrible truth. I really hoped it was wrong, but I couldn’t think of any other reason why the world was so empty. If only the hole were bigger, I could step out and look around.

The air in front of my face shimmered slightly, and I studied it. Maybe this was a magic projection? That would explain some of why everything looked so desolate and empty. A part of me wanted to prod at it with a hoof, but I couldn’t quite fit any more of me through the hole. The shimmer was everywhere I looked, forward, left, right, up… Up. As I looked up, I saw something that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

The moon looked wrong. That was the only way to describe it. It wasn’t grey and comforting, like the murals had claimed. It was dark, mostly, kind of a blueish grey, with slightly lighter brown grey shapes on it. It was swirled and dotted with slightly lighter grey blurs. Parts of it were speckled, faintly, with yellow lights, almost like the stars surrounding me. On one side of the moon, a bluish whitish glow lit up the edge.

I squinted at it. It was wrong, wrong in a way that made me realize with dawning horror that the landscape was something horribly wrong too. Maybe it wasn’t the apocalypse, not quite. The light on the side of the moon grew brighter and brighter. The line of brighter land crept closer and closer to where my head popped out of its hole. Something wasn’t right, something about this just didn’t click.

The side of the moon was starting to be very hard to look at, but I did my best. It was important, I felt. I could start to make out more colors on the moon, a lighter blue, a swirl of deep blue, a patch of green…

Then it dawned on me. Both the reality of our situation, that is, and the Sun. And I, in my state of shock, stared directly at it and screamed. The space around my hole swallowed up the sound, though, and nopony was around to hear me.

My eyes burned with a brilliant, painful light. It was not the gentle glow of my visions but a harsh everythingness. It burrowed into my mind as I tugged my head out of the hole and fell to the ground, still screaming. I took a breath and screamed again. I was in the tunnel, I could feel that I hit the ground, that my robes were in a disheveled heap around me, but my vision was filled with nothing but brilliant, cold light.

I screamed until I had no breath left to scream, until I felt dizzy from lack of air, until my breath came in ragged pants and gave way to sobs. I picked myself off the ground, stumbling on the edge of my robes, and fell down the tunnel a ways. I cried there for a little bit before getting up and wobbling my way down to the stairs.

My vision was white, everything was white, and everything hurt to look at but closing my eyes didn’t help at all so I kept them open. I ran into the wall a few times as I made my way down the tunnel but I didn’t care. Report to the High Priestess. I had to tell her. The High Priestess would know what to do.

I tripped again when I reached the top of the stairs. Falling here hurt a lot more, and I winced when I moved my legs. Nothing felt broken, I didn’t think, but everything hurt a whole lot so I wasn’t positive that I would’ve been able to tell. I wobbled down the last few steps and staggered my way as best as I could to the door.

From there it was a right and then a slight descending left down the hallway. I managed to keep my mouth shut as I passed ponies who were used to jumping out of my way, but nothing could stop the tears streaking down my cheeks. Everything was white, and everything hurt. I numbly pressed on, walking blindly with as much dignity as I could muster while trying not to shriek.

I could hear the confused whispers of the ponies as I passed. Their mumbles, which usually faded to the background as I trotted by, sounded loud. They were loud. Too loud. I didn’t know if I should tell them all to be quiet. I wanted to yell at them, to scream out that they should all just shut up so I could figure out how to get to the Central Hub, but I was afraid that I’d give myself even more of a headache with my own voice.

I only stopped when I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder. I swung my head towards whatever tapped me, and heard the confused voice of Ditzy, the messenger. “You, um, you passed the Central Hub. Do you need directions? I need directions sometimes.”

“Lead me,” I choked out, clasping Ditzy’s hoof, my own hoof trembling. Ditzy gave me a quiet hum of concern before gently pulling me through a doorway that creaked at us.

“Thank you, Ditzy!” Pinkie Pie said, a little too loudly. Her voice echoed in my ears, and I winced away from it. If she was confused why I hadn’t come in alone, I couldn’t hear it in her tone. “You can go take another break, okay? Thank you so much!”

I collapsed in a heap on the floor and started crying again before the doors had even shut.

“Hey, are you… are you okay?” Pinkie Pie said. Her chair screeched against the stone floor before her hoofsteps drew closer. I didn’t react as a hoof awkwardly pet my mane. “What happened? What was out there? Did something attack you?”

I took a few heaving breaths before I found the strength to respond. “Not… no, nothing attacked me.” My voice cracked, but I didn’t care.

“Then what happened? Did you fall? You’ve got a bruise on your cheek. Did you fall off the mountain? Is Equestria still there?” Her voice grew even more desperate when I didn’t answer, and her hooves pressed into my cheeks to turn my face towards hers. “Twilight, you have to tell me. What did you see?”

I sniffled. Everything was white. “You won’t believe me,” I mumbled quietly.

“Wh-what was that? Didn’t quite catch it.” Pinkie Pie sounded terrified, as terrified as I felt.

“Nopony is going to believe me!” I cried, and curled up and sobbed in Pinkie Pie’s hooves. The cool blue and green orb of Equestria far beyond our reach engulfed my memory, and I felt, for the first time in my life, that we were truly alone.

Don't Shoot the Messenger

“Take a deep breath,” said Pinkie, sounding a lot calmer than I felt. One of her hooves gently wrapped around my shoulders. I tried to listen, but even slow, deep breathing wasn’t doing much to quell my panic.

She’d taken the news well, better than I’d expected. Or at least, she sounded like she had. All I could see was a blinding white still, and my body and sides ached from falling down the stairs in the Solarium. About halfway through my description, she’d asked me to pause and called for a doctor.

After a careful look at my body (I’d have bruises tomorrow, hidden under my purple coat), Redheart declared my loss of vision to be temporary, and would heal within a few days. From the lack of questions regarding how I’d gotten this way, I suspected she was a part of the Church of Daylight. Probably under my High Priestess’s direct orders not to ask.

I resumed telling my tale after she’d left, my eyes bandaged and some sort of cream applied over my eyelids. It took me a few tries to get the wording right, but Pinkie was patient. She only interrupted to ask a few questions, towards the end. When I’d finished she got up, and her chair creaked from behind her desk.

“So, we’ve got ourselves a problem, haven’t we?” she mused, and I heard a couple of papers shuffle. “We’re on the moon.”

I started to nod, but my head ached more when I moved it. I was just glad no one else could see me like this. “Why wouldn’t my Goddess tell us that?” Why hadn’t she told ME that? “Do-” I hiccupped. “Do you think she knows?”

Pinkie hummed thoughtfully from her desk, before the unmistakable sound of a quill scratching against parchment began, punctuating her words. “I don’t know. Maybe she thought it was safer if we didn’t know. Maybe there’s something she’s protecting us from. She’s gotta know that we’re up here, right? I bet she’s got her reasons. Or… maybe she didn’t know, but now she does because you know. You’re her Prophet, so you’re all mystically and magically connected.”

I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it, but if my High Priestess thought my Goddess wouldn’t abandon us, then who was I to question that? Actually, who was I to question my Goddess at all? Pinkie was right, she probably had her reasons, even if I didn’t fully understand them.

Still, that left another pressing question. “How in Equestria are we going to explain this? I mean, we’re on the moon, somehow. This changes everything! There’s probably no way we’re supposed to be alive, but we are, and we’ve gotta explain that too, don’t we? What are we going to tell everypony?”

The sound of the quill scratching stopped. I heard her take a deep breath, then the faint clack of her setting her pen down. “For now, Twilight, nothing.”

“What?” I struggled to my hooves. “We have to say something! We’re on a completely different planet, for Goddess’s sake! We can’t just-”

“Twilight,” Pinkie said in a quiet voice that I’d never heard from her. A few shudders ran up my spine, and it was only after a few seconds that I realized that my mouth was still hanging open. I closed it again, swallowing anxiously. “We aren’t going to tell anypony. We’re going to keep absolutely quiet about this, for now. It’s a complicated situation, and I need to figure out the best way to handle things.”

My hoof found its way to the frayed edge of my robes. “But we can’t just keep everypony in the dark!”

She sighed, like a caretaker soothing an upset foal. “Think about it, Twilight. What would happen if we told everypony right now that, whoopsie-doopsie-daisy, we’ve been on the moon this entire time. That everything we know is wrong? How do you think they’d react?”

Sniffling, I curled my robes around my shoulders. I hadn’t even thought about that. “They’d probably be pretty upset.”

“Yes, just like you were, right?” She gave me a sympathetic hum. “And what do you think they’d do when they found out that we had no explanation regarding why we’re up here?”

I wrapped the robes tighter around me, the warm felt providing a comforting pressure against my shoulders. It felt kind of like a hug. “They’d get angrier than they are already.” When she didn’t say anything, I went on. “They’d… probably strike? Or do something even worse, maybe? I don’t know. Why hasn’t the Goddess-”

Her hooves brushed against my cheeks, wiping away tears I didn’t even notice I was shedding. How long had she been standing that close, watching me cry? I pictured a concerned expression on her face. “We’ll find that out. I’ll try to piece together some more things on my end, and in the meantime, you just keep quiet, keep listening for a prophecy or anything from our Goddess, and get better.”

That… made sense, sort of. I could do that. For my Goddess. She’d know what to do. I let go of the edge of my robes and winced at the tender ache of my ribs. At least most of it didn’t show, minus the bandages around my eyes. I gave her the most confident smile I could muster. I was the Prophet, the chosen one of the Goddess, and she had to speak to me soon.

“Let your Big Boss Pinkie Pie take care of things for now. Just don’t. Tell. Anypony. Okay?” Her voice turned chipper again, as much of an end to the conversation as I guessed I could expect. “We’ve found the Sun, and we’ll find the truth, soon enough. Ah, here’s Ditzy Do! Ditzy, could you lead our dear Prophet down to her room, please? She hit her head earlier, and needs to get better. We wouldn’t want her to get lost again, now would we?”

The walk down the main corridor was quieter than usual. It made it much easier to follow close behind the messenger pegasus. She was humming something, though I couldn’t quite place the tune. It wasn’t any hymn to the Elements that I knew of. Maybe it was a Hearth’s Warming carol, or something.

I hadn’t taken the time to listen to one in years, and had stopped attending the various parties and celebrations long before that. The High Priestess never stopped sending me invitations anyway, though she’d shown remarkable restraint in the amount of glitter contained within the last few she’d left in my room.

“I hit my head once, too, a looong time ago,” Ditzy said, jolting me from my thoughts. I didn’t realize she’d stopped until I ran into her backside. She must not have seen the look I’d given in her direction, because she didn’t sound phased as she continued. “It made my eyes go funny, but nopony made fun of me for it. I kept waiting for them to laugh at me, because I looked different, but they didn’t. Ponies here can be pretty understanding. If your eyes go funny too, I’m sure they’ll be kind.”

“Is that your sacred Element, then? Kindness?” I asked, righting my robes and trying not to huff. It wouldn’t do for me to look undignified. The hallways sounded empty, judging by the lack of whispers and gossip. I was certainly above feeling relief that nopony was laughing at me, of course, but a part of me couldn’t help but feel relieved anyway.

“Oh, I haven’t really picked one, but that sounds like a wonderful choice, doesn’t it?” The faint clop of her hoofsteps was my only signal that she’d started moving again, down the gently sloped hallway. “It’d be a better world if everypony tried to be a little Kinder to each other.”

I could hear the smile in her voice, and it put me a bit at ease. Kindness it was, then. Maybe she’d been centering herself on it without realizing it. “I’ve chosen Loyalty. A Prophet must be loyal to the Goddess, and where would anypony be if I weren’t Loyal to the Church of Daylight?”

“That’s a good one, too. We’re turning right, here.” A gentle brush of her wing guided me down another corridor.

I turned and waited for her to take the lead again. “Where is everypony? I knew the High Priestess had told the Acolytes in the Solarium to take a break, but I thought we’d have run into somepony by now.”

“Oh, Pinkie’s had us host a party further down. It’s a big thank you for everypony’s hard work this past month, and we’ve been hurrying everypony there since you went into the Control Hub. Some of them were a bit confused, but nopony’s going to say no to time off and a party, right?” The sound of her hoofsteps became uneven for a moment, and I presumed she was doing a little prance.

“I guess.” I frowned as a thought struck me. “Do you know what I was doing, before I, you know, hit my head?”

Ditzy gasped and spun around to press a hoof against my forehead, under my horn. “Did you forget what you were doing before then? I remember what happened before I hit my head, but my doctor said it would’ve been bad if I’d forgotten. Do you know if you forgot anything else? Or, wait. Would you remember what you’ve forgotten if you had?”

I gently brushed her hoof away. “No, I remember. I just was curious. Did the High Priestess tell you what I was doing?”

The pegasus hummed as she thought. “Mmm, no, I don’t think so. If we needed to know, she’d tell us. She’s pretty good about saying everything we need to know. It was probably important Prophet stuff, and I’m not a Prophet, so why would she tell me?”

“I don’t know. Sorry, we can keep going, I was just thinking.” I tried to smile reassuringly, but I wasn’t sure if it had the desired effect, since I couldn’t tell if I was facing the right direction. “It doesn’t bother you that she doesn’t tell you everything?”

“Hm. You like the Elements, right?” Her voice was lilting, gentle. “I think, if it was really important, she’d be Honest about it. She cares about us enough to know when she’s giving us more information than we can handle, and I don’t even know how she keeps track of everypony like she does, but I do know that she knows us well enough to know what we need to know. Does that make sense?”

“No,” I mumbled. “But thank you for trying to answer.”

She laughed, but it wasn’t a mean laugh. “It’s okay. Sometimes, when I’m having trouble figuring something out, it helps if I sleep a little bit. When I wake up, I either realize that it wasn’t as complicated as I thought it was at first, or I forget what I was so worked up about in the first place. Either way, it’s a lot easier to deal with. We’re almost to your room, by the way. It’s just down to your left. Follow my voice, okay?”

“Alright.” I tried to figure out where we were in my mind, but everything seemed further apart than I remembered it. “Did Pinkie tell you where my room was?”

She led me to the left, shuffling her wings against her sides. “Mm-hmm. I don’t think I’d be able to guess which little space is yours. You know, some ponies say you’re lucky, getting your very own place that you don’t have to share. I’m not sure I’d like it very much. I’d be lonely, sleeping all by myself.”

“I’m the Prophet, that’s all. The High Priestess says it’s so that nopony will disturb me if the Goddess speaks to me in my dreams.” I could hear snoring from one of the rooms we passed. I still didn’t know who slept there, but I recognized that particular noise drilling into my eardrums.

Ditzy cleared her throat, and I turned towards her, slightly disoriented. “Has that ever happened to you?”

“Not yet, but if she says it could, then it’s probably happened to a Prophet in the past. I wouldn’t be surprised. The Goddess does as she wills, and it is my job to listen, even if it’s inconvenient.” She could never be inconvenient to me, though, I thought, feeling the corners of my mouth creep upwards.

“I guess that makes sense. We’re here, by the way..” Her hoof gently led me past the curtains on my doorway. “Your bed’s to your right. Do you need help getting all tucked in?”

“I’ll be okay.” My bed. That sounded divine, a gift from my Goddess herself. I tried not to stagger as a wave of exhaustion hit me. “Good night.”

“Good night,” the pegasus said gently, and I could hear her voice move towards the entryway again. “Sleep well, Twilight. I hope you feel better soon.”

“I will.” I felt vaguely like I was forgetting something. Oh, right. “Thank you.”

She didn’t respond. I cocked my head towards where she’d gone, but I didn’t hear anything, not even hoofsteps. She must’ve left before I’d said it. I sighed before reaching blindly out towards where I calculated my bed was with my magic. There, I could feel my blanket, and I stumbled blindly towards it, barely remembering to remove my robes before collapsing into the mattress.

The way my body was feeling, I’d expected to fall asleep the second my head hit the pillow, but a thought nagged at the back of my mind. Something about what Ditzy had said was still bothering me, aside from the insane revelation of being on the moon.

Ah, that’s what it was. Honesty. She’d said that she trusted Pinkie to be Honest about what was important. Wasn’t this important enough to tell everypony about? Or, at least, somepony? I was Loyal to the Church of Daylight, of course, but Honesty was an Element, too. Wasn’t it important to be Honest? At least to some ponies? Maybe not everypony, but there had to be a few that would understand.

And then there was the whole being-on-the-moon thing. I was giving myself a headache just thinking about it. I felt like I needed to think about it more, because it didn’t make sense. Even though it was what I saw, maybe it was just too much to think about all at once. Everything I thought I knew was wrong. That was an awful lot to wrap my head around.

Perhaps Ditzy was right. Perhaps it would sort itself out by the time I woke up.

Everypony's Got An Opinion

The first thing I was aware of was an all-encompassing ache, as though I’d taken a nasty spill down some stairs. The second thing I noted was that everything had not, in fact, magically fixed itself by the time I awoke.

I levered myself out of an awkward sleeping position and shook one of my hind legs awake. Pins and needles weren’t dignified. They didn’t befit a Prophet. I reached up to rub my eyes, and jerked my front hoof back when it brushed against something. A bandage. Right, I stared into the Sun. Because we were on the moon. Not under Equestria. Under the moon. We were on a whole different planet and it was entirely the wrong one. We were alone. We were floating in space without the Goddess there to help us, unable to guide us, she was so far away-

I blindly flung my magic towards my trash bin and barely got it underneath me before I threw up.

Water was good. Water would fix how I’m feeling. Or something.

I panted as I huddled over the trash bin, fumbling my magic towards the water bottle on my end table. I usually needed a drink after I woke up, anyway, but this was an even more dire circumstance than normal. I took a shaky breath as I unscrewed the cap and sipped from the bottle carefully. My mouth tasted like watered-down vomit, which was only slightly better than normal vomit, but it would suffice.

My stomach gurgled unhappily as I leaned back on my bed. Pinkie had said that my vision would be better in a few days, right? The bandages felt tight around my head. Too tight. I needed them off, off, off, if for no other reason than to make sure I hadn’t lost my sight completely. Gingerly, I tugged at the gauze strap on the back of my head and unwound the wrapping slowly. Layer by layer, the world began to glow a hazy orange.

The last strip fell away in my hooves, and I hesitantly squinted open one of my eyes. Ow. Light hurt, it hurt so much, but… I opened the other one a little bit. I could see. A little. Everything was blurred together, but I could make out the familiar, if fuzzy, shapes of my room. It wasn’t perfect, but anything was better than the agonizing white of yesterday.

Yesterday. Something was still nagging at the back of my mind about it, aside from the whole catastrophe itself. Why had Pinkie dismissed Honesty as an option so quickly? She was supposed to lead us by example, right? What was I missing?

I picked myself off the bed and lit my horn to straighten my cloak. Somepony at the Church of Daylight would be able to help me sort this all out. I didn’t know most of them by name or anything, but they’d always supported me before. Maybe some Priestess or Acolyte would be able to tell me why Pinkie felt we should keep it a secret. They might have some insight that I didn’t.

And maybe if I was able to tell them some of it, even just a little tiny bit, I’d feel better, and I’d be able to shake the feeling that something needed to be said. And maybe, I reasoned as I turned to make my bed, they’d agree with me about telling other ponies. Maybe I was right. I felt right, or at least not wrong. I didn’t know. It was all so confusing and life-changing and I felt like even just hearing that somepony else concurred that we should tell other ponies might make me feel a bit better.

First things first, though. I had to get to the nearest Church of Daylight, which was three levels down via the main spiralling walkway. I could see well enough to avoid most major obstacles, if I squinted, but I’d still need some way to not trip over anypony or uneven ground or… or magical moon-based things that didn’t make sense even though they’d existed all my life but now they didn’t make sense at all because everything changed and yet nothing had and-

Okay, deep breaths, Twilight. In, hold, then out. I was not going to work myself up again. I’d already have to ask somepony to wash out my wastebasket. I took another sip of water and concentrated on my magic. The tip of my horn sputtered to life as I reached a few wisps of magic down to the ground in front of my hooves. There. That should warn me before I tripped over anything uneven, hopefully. Nodding, I set out to try to navigate my way down to the nearest Church of Daylight.

At least the path from my room to the hallway felt a little more normal, now that I could see a little bit. My ears weren’t ringing like they were yesterday, and if I pushed down any thoughts of general panic, I could almost pretend it was an ordinary day.

That feeling of comfort faltered a bit once I made my way out of the relative silence of the dormitories. I could see the outlines of ponies in the hallway. Some of them were sitting or leaning against the wall, off to the side, relaxing in between shifts or taking a quick break during one. Groups meandered up and down the walkway, taking up as much space as they could without getting in anypony’s way.

I couldn’t clearly see their faces, but as I stepped into the hall, I could see them watching me, and I could hear their conversation topics change. Dimming my horn as low as I could, I made my way down towards the Church of Daylight. It was easy not to look at their faces when I couldn’t quite make out their expressions, but it was much trickier than normal to look regal and above it all.

My hoofsteps hesitated as a pony tried to block my path. I couldn’t make out who she was, and I don’t think I’d have known her name even if she wasn’t a blur. “Hey,” she snapped, tossing her pink and blue curls out of her face. “My friend said you went to the Solarium, and now no one’s allowed up there. Did you do something?”

I pressed my lips together and walked around her without answering. I could hear her scoff, and somepony muttered “Rude” under their breath, but I tried not to let it look like they got to me. I had a standard to maintain as the Prophet, after all. Their comments were beneath me.

I numbly walked around a few ponies sprawled out on the cool stone floor as I lost myself in thought. I’d know my way to this Church of Daylight even without paying much attention. It was right off the main hallway, unlike the others, which were deeper underground and spread out among the living and working areas.

Unlike the Solarium and the Central HUB, most rooms didn’t get relocated very quickly as ponykind built up and up towards the surface. There was too much to move to make it a reasonable task, so while some of the living areas and kitchens had been moved since I was a filly, most were still situated snugly in the deeper reaches of- well, the underground of the moon.

Naturally, the Priestesses of the Church of Daylight weren’t always that thrilled to be so far away from the Surface and the Goddess. I was fortunate enough to spend a lot of my time in between giving guidance and overseeing official ceremonies in the Solarium, but most of the rest of the Church members worshipped, contemplated, and carried out their ministries to the Elements in one of the many Church locations far, far below.

I stopped at a junction in the hallway and reverently brushed my hoof against a statue of the Goddess, the likeness of which had been crafted from one of the past Prophet's vague description of what he saw. Her mane billowed out behind her as she sat upon a regal throne. The base of the throne was worn down and smoothed by the thousands of hooves that had touched it before me. I felt a bit of awed humility send shivers up my spine before I turned and stepped into the Church’s main chamber.

The members of the Church of Daylight may have been unhappy that they couldn’t shift their location easily, but they made up for it by decorating it in honor of the Goddess.

Shards of colored glass spun up the walls in every hue, creating abstract mosaics. Each Church was different, but this one featured representations of the Elements. I couldn’t see them clearly, but I could picture them in my mind: starbursts of gold for Generosity, a lavender sea for Honesty, sprawling green trees for Kindness, blushing red swirls for Laughter, and a pair of interlocking blue hooves for Loyalty.

This particular Church focused more on the Elements than the Goddess itself, which meant less fervent worshipping and more acts of service and debate on the Elements we used as guides to become more worthy of the Goddess’s light. It wasn’t the sort of Church I preferred to be in, when I was giving my Prophetic guidance, but it was the perfect place to start looking for some answers.

Spread out across the floor were plush rugs worn down by the hooves and rears of hundreds of reverent worshippers. There weren’t any rites or ceremonies going on at the moment, so instead of orderly rows of seats, cushions lay sprawled out across the floor for general use. Against one of the walls, a table stood with pamphlets and glasses of water. Ponies sat down wherever they pleased, chatting softly to one another or with heads bowed in prayer.

Above my head, balls of mana twinkled and shone with a warm friendly light. They were supposed to represent the light of our Goddess, along with providing general illumination, but for some reason they made my stomach turn. Something about the way they were scattered against the high arched ceiling reminded me of the cold light of the stars when I... when...

No. I was not going to fall apart in public. I took a deep breath in, then let it out slowly. I needed to talk to somepony official enough to get some sort of guidance or answers. My eyes ached with the strain, but I looked around for somepony that didn’t look too busy. Being a Prophet had its perks, in that nopony really thought I was a bother if I interrupted them inside the Church, but I didn’t want to cause any more of a scene than I had to today.

Aha! There was a Priestess, sashaying between cushions and rugs with a peaceful glow on her face. I squinted, trying to make out the symbols on her robe. A Priestess of Generosity, it looked like, judging by the blurs I took to be square-ish. Perfect. I wouldn’t mind a Generous ear to confide in.

I strode up to her, doing my best to look regal and all-knowing, and not like I was afraid I’d trip over the hem of my own robe. “Sister, I have something to confess. May we talk in private?”

The Priestess smiled serenely, and gestured me over to a side room. It was small and pod-like, preferred by those who valued Honesty for a quieter, magically-muffled chat. A part of me, a most shameful part that I never let show, wondered if that’s because everypony else couldn’t stand to listen to them debate for more than a few minutes. “Of course. We value Honesty, just as we value you. Speak, Prophet, and I shall listen.”

I waited until she shut the curtain with a golden flick of her horn before I slumped against the wall. “I don’t even know where to begin. I was speaking to the Head Priestess yesterday, and, well, something happened. I don’t know, it’s like-”

One of her ears flicked as she gazed at me attentively. “Yesterday, you say?” When I hesitated, she gave me an encouraging smile.

“Yes, this was yesterday.” I relaxed against the wall, releasing some of the tension I’d been holding in my shoulders with a sigh. “She told me to go to the Solarium, and… oh, maybe I should back up. The stories we’ve been told are-”

“Did she say anything else, sister?” The Priestess interrupted, brow creasing.

I blinked and frowned. One of us was getting ahead of ourselves, and I wasn’t sure if it was me. “Huh? I didn’t get to that part yet. But specifically, the tale we know about-”

“I think you’re forgetting something,” she insisted, but gently, like a caretaker correcting a foal, leading them to think of the right answer on their own. “What did she tell you about sharing this information?”

“You-” I bit the inside of my cheek. Crap. “You know?”

My eyes watered for a moment as her horn lit up, illuminating the space with its gentle glow. She wrapped a golden thread of magic around my leg, and I could feel the soothing matrix of a comforting spell I hadn’t felt since I was a filly. It snaked up my chest and caressed my cheek, wiping the moisture away from my eyes. “We were told that you might struggle in your challenge to remain silent about something. Ah, the greatest among us face the greatest trials, indeed!”

I sputtered and shifted my weight away from where her spell warmed me. The magic fizzled out, and a part of me missed its absence. “But I just need some guidance on what to do. I know that Loyalty is important, but-”

Her hum drew me short, and she reached out again with her horn’s gentle glow, brushing a few strands of my mane out of my face, the picture of a concerned confidant. “And it is your Loyalty that inspires us. You have no idea how much your devotion to the Elements and the Goddess Herself gives us strength. Of course, if you require guidance, I’m sure the High Priestess would be happy to hear about-”

“No!” Her ears pricked at my outburst, and I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself and regain my usual sense of aloof piousness. I was the Prophet, and Prophets don’t act as though they have something to hide. “I mean, no, thank you. She’s already made up her mind about this, and I guess her reasons make a sort of sense, even if I don’t agree with them.”

“If I may, dear Prophet?” She tenderly picked up my hoof, and I barely resisted the urge not to yank it away. It had taken ages to get ponies to stop reverently touching my cloak, and I didn’t want everypony to start thinking it was okay to hold hooves with me out of the blue. Even though nopony could see us, it was still the principle of the thing. Magic was one thing, but actual hooves...

“Suuure,” I said, trying to subtly pull my hoof back. It didn’t work.

She gave me another one of her infuriatingly calm smiles. “Sometimes, Loyalty is a simple matter of trust. We must trust that the ones above us know what they are doing, and listen when they ask something of us, even if it’s hard.”

I suppressed a groan. “Of course, I apologize. I appreciate your insight. That was all I needed.” I stood and pulled open the curtain, tugging my hoof from her grasp at last. When I didn’t see her move out of the corner of my eye, I looked back. She was giving me a strange look, as though she was studying me, and trying to hide it. I managed a fairly convincing smile. “Thank you for your help,” I added, and left the room.

Okay, so the Priestesses in general would probably not be of much help. If Pinkie had told that one, she’d probably have reached them all. Still, maybe I could just ask somepony else, and be a bit subtler with how I brought it up. I gave her a wave and scanned the room as best as I could while still looking in control. Prophets didn’t squint uncertainly at the smattering of ponies wandering around. I could’ve sworn I felt the Priestess’s eyes on my back as I walked into one of the larger side chambers.

This one was slightly livelier than the other room. Pegasi were perched upon a few ledges above my head, which I couldn’t imagine was comfortable, but they seemed to like it. A small group of younger ponies - barely older than foals, it seemed - were taking turns reading from a book and laughing amongst themselves. Against the wall, a pair of earth ponies seemed to be having a slightly more reserved discussion.

I couldn’t fly, so I wasn’t about to bother the pegasi. I wasn’t likely to be able to convince them to fly down, anyway; they seemed to cherish their nooks and crannies. The foals looked too excitable to have a serious chat with, so I gave the earth ponies a friendly wave as I approached them.

“May the Sun be with you!” I said smoothly, sitting down next to them. The one on the left grinned so wide I could see the white of his teeth even with my blurring vision, while the one on the right gave me a respectful nod.

Neither of them seemed irritated that I interrupted, at least as far as I could tell, so I continued. “I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time. I have an issue that I’ve been debating upon with… a friend.”

The one on the left somehow beamed wider. “Of course, sister! What can we help you with?”

The one on the right nodded their head. “It’s an honor to assist the Prophet.”

I tried not to look too relieved. “My friend and I were talking about something important. It’s something that’s really big, and I want to tell everypony about it, but the Hi- my friend said that we shouldn’t tell everyone, because they’d get upset. But I think that it’d be worse if everypony found out we didn’t tell them, and I don’t like hiding the important thing for very long.”

“I see, I see,” murmured the pony on the right. I paused, waiting for their input, but they didn’t seem to want to say what it was they saw.

“So,” I said, after the silence stretched on a bit too long to be comfortable. “What would you do? Presuming that this big thing was something that would change how everypony looked at, well, everything!”

The other one gasped and put a hoof to his chest. “Has there been another revelation? Have you received a new vision?”

No, I wanted to say, I just lost mine. “Not quite. It’s a different sort of… thing. Not a prophecy from our Goddess. Our High Priestess said that-”

“So the High Priestess had a vision?” I opened my mouth to correct the left pony as he clapped his hooves, but he didn’t seem to notice. “You know, I’ve been wondering how she’s been doing these days. The party yesterday was really something special: a real shindig, if I do say so myself! I didn’t see you there, but then again, you don’t really go to parties, do you?”

The one on the right rolled their eyes. “I think what our dear Prophet means is that her friend is the Big Boss herself. It makes sense, of course. Pinkie is everypony’s friend. But why would you question what she says?”

“Well, I just don’t think it’s right to keep quiet about-”

“Hey!” The chipper pony perked up as though an idea had struck him square between the eyes and rattled in the empty space where his brain was supposed to be. “You can just foresee what’s gonna happen in the future, right? Can’t you look ahead and see for yourself?”

“That’s not quite how that-”

“No,” said the calmer pony, leveling their gaze to my own. “You know as well as we do that the Big Boss has her reasons, no matter how strange. It is in everypony’s best interests that we follow them, is it not?”

“Well, I guess, but-”

“You can’t just guess at these things!” The left pony slammed a hoof down in emphasis. Its fall was muffled by a cushion, though, and didn’t quite have the effect he probably wanted. “You’re the Prophet! Look into the future and ask the Goddess what to do!”

“That’s not how my connection with-”

“Just keep your head down,” advised the right pony, taking a sip of water and reclining against the wall. “Things will work out the way they are meant to. And besides, Pinkie is an Honest pony. She’d tell us if it were something we really needed to know. I trust her judgement.”

“Yeah,” chimed in the other. “What was it that you were doubting her so much with, anyway?”

I could feel the conversation slipping away from me. There was no way I was going to get any useful answer from them, and the one on the right was unnerving me. What if they told Pinkie? “It doesn’t matter,” I said, steadying my voice as best as I could. “You’ve given me much to think about, thank you.”

The one on the right nodded, a smile forming on their lips. “Anytime, sister.”

The left one gave me a quick salute with the wrong hoof. “Happy to be of help!”

Idiots, the both of them. I waved at them once more before backing back into the main chamber. A stealthy look around told me that the Priestess I’d initially talked to was nowhere in sight; at least, as far as I could tell by the blurry outlines.

I sat down on a cushion next to a sea-green pegasus. He looked dazzled by the mosaics adorning the wall. A relatively new Acolyte, then. I gave him a few seconds before I cleared my throat, and he almost fell off his seat. “Ah, sister,” he chirped when he’d regained his balance. “How can I help you today? You know, I’m quite popular in this fine Church of Sunshine, but I’m always willing to have a chat with a pony as intelligent-looking as yourself.”

Oh boy. I steeled myself for a long conversation. “It’s the Church of Daylight, actually. I was wondering if I could have your input on something I’ve been thinking about.”

“Of course, sister! What important religious topic do you have for me today? I’m all ears. Metaphorically, of course.” He beamed at me, then at the glass-speckled walls.

Mentally, I wished I’d picked a different pony to converse with; but he’d do for a start, I supposed. “What do you think is more important, Honesty or Loyalty?”

The stallion pursed his lips, rolling his eyes to the lofted ceiling as though it held all the answers he sought. “Well, it’s not quite as bad as the whole Kindness vs Honesty debate, which, let me tell you, Honesty wins every time. Honesty and Loyalty though, now that’s something we don’t talk about enough, if I do say so myself! I bet there’s plenty of disagreement on that subject! Lots of thinking going on about that, I bet. Let me tell you, sister, it sure is a tricky question.”

I tried to suppress the urge to facehoof. “And the answer is…?”

He smirked. “Patience, patience. I see that isn’t your Element.” It’s not an Element, I wanted to grumble, but I held my tongue. Sweet Goddess above, this one was so much worse than the previous two.

The pegasus curled one wing around my shoulder. I smacked the edge of it away before it could wrap all the way around me. “Now, everypony knows that Loyalty is important, sis, but Honesty? Now, that’s a real thingie we could have a long discussion about. What’d you say your name was, by the way?”

“Twilight Sparkle,” I spat through gritted teeth.

“Ah, good. Can I call you Sparks?” He leaned his head against my shoulder. I scooched back until he nearly toppled onto the floor.

“No.”

“Alright, Sparks, so it’s my Honest opinion that Loyalty is a real doozy of a good thing, you know what I mean? I am a sort of an expert on the thing. Being Loyal. Listening to orders. Not questioning anything. But also, I like Honesty. Saying what’s on your mind. Like now, for instance. You’re looking rather flustered, Sparks. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Probably not,” I said, burying my face in my hooves. Just letting him talk seemed like the smartest solution at the moment, until I could figure out who else I could talk to.

There had to be somepony I was missing. Maybe the foals would have some strange amount of insight? Everypony said that I had been quite helpful as a filly, but maybe that was just me being a Prophet that had helped.

“Well, I’m thinking we should reconvene at a later time! Perhaps a tavern, down below? You know, the Tipsy Dip is my favorite hangout, at least for this week. Next week, who knows? You can’t stop the flow on this breeze!” He tossed his pale yellow mane behind his shoulders, not seeming to care that I had nothing to add.

Maybe there was a different Priestess that I could talk to. I could always go down to one of the deeper Churches, though I wasn’t sure which one I should visit first. This was one of the more popular Element-focused one. Was this not an Element problem? Should I be asking my Goddess about what to do, instead of debating the topic with other ponies? It was worth a shot. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on her warmth and pure regality, but there was nothing. No answering vision. Just like usual.

“You know, you look really stressed. After you’re done with your friend over there, you should come check me out so we can talk about important things, like Loyalty, and Honesty, and how that bun might not be the best look on you. Don’t get me wrong, I love a mare with her mane up, but I think you’re hiding all your tension in it. Take a deep breath and let it all out, you know?”

“Mmhm,” I said, frowning and squeezing my eyes shut more. I knew that the Goddess herself wasn’t at my beck and call, but sometimes I wished that she’d just answer me when I needed it. I was her Prophet, and that had to mean something, didn’t it?

“Yeah, so come find me later, and we can have a very long and detailed conversation about Bravery and stuff, and we’ll see where the night takes us. But seriously, your friend over there seems like she’s trying to get your attention. Might wanna do something about that, you know what I mean? Don’t wanna leave a mare hanging and all.”

I opened my eyes as a bit of what he said registered. “Wait, my what?”

“Your friend, Sparks.” He pointed over my shoulder. I turned my head, and choked back a yelp.

A few inches from my face was a mare. Her stiff mane hung down around her dull stone-colored face. Wrapped around her was a robe that I’d seen a few of the High Priestess’s friends wear, though this one was a lot dingier, stained in rusty hues along a few of the hems, and one edge had frayed completely.

“Come with me,” she said monotonously, her face betraying no emotion. Something about that put me on edge far more than if she’d looked upset or angry or… anything else, really.

“Uhh,” I articulated back, fidgeting my hooves underneath my robes.

She turned and tilted an ear back towards me. “Now,” she amended, before walking towards one of the side rooms.

Sacristy Shutdown

I looked back to the pegasus who’d been chatting my ear off, but he was nowhere to be seen. Loyalty was certainly not his chosen Element, then. I huffed and got up to follow behind the unnerving mare.

She led me through a few of the interconnected chambers, far past where I’d normally go. There were fewer and fewer ponies in each subsequent space. Instead of rugs and cushions, spare ceremonial materials were stacked in neat rows, then a few older robes gathering dust, and finally a few rooms that were completely empty of anything. The smell of iron and copper filled the air, and the lights dimmed to the point where I could barely make out my guide against the rougher-hewn walls.

“So,” I said, my breath catching in my throat. “Where are we going?”

No answer.

“Did you need me for something? Because my duties as Prophet usually require me to have some sort of idea about what’s going on.”

Silence, save for her soft hoofsteps. I stumbled over a bit of uneven ground and barely caught myself before I face planted into the ground. Then, I could smell it. A sharp tang of something I couldn’t identify the source of, and that scared me more.

Fear. Somepony, or rather, someponies had been very afraid around here. And it wasn’t just me.

We rounded another corner, and the mare who led the way gestured me towards a curtained-off section of the room.

“In here,” she said, before pulling the cloth back. After trudging through a maze of dim rooms, the blinding light seared into my still-healing eyes. I bit back a whine as I threw a hoof over my eyelids and blinked a few times to adjust.

Despite the sharp scent of fear that was pervasive in this room, I couldn’t see any immediate causes for concern. There was a plush, well-loved armchair in the center of the room, with a matching hoofstool at the base of it. Some lamps buzzed dully above me, illuminating the otherwise-dull room, and the pony waiting within. Even if I hadn’t immediately recognized her sitting in the chair, as relaxed as ever, there was no way I’d mistake her voice.

“Thanks for bringing her in here, Maud,” chirped High Priestess Pinkie Pie, and her voice was loud and cheery as ever. “Wait outside so that she doesn’t get lost on her way back, okie dokie?”

Maud gave a hum of agreement and closed the curtain again, leaving me alone with the High Priestess.

“So,” she began, picking at the worn fabric of the chair with the tip of her hoof. “I hope you’re feeling a lot better. I was worried you’d wake up all confused. Redheart said that sometimes, when a pony hits their head real hard, or goes through a lot of trauma, they forget things. Do you remember what happened yesterday?”

I nodded dumbly, not quite sure if I was expected to sit down or remain standing, or if I had permission to speak.

Pinkie smiled warmly at me. “Oh good. I’d hate to find out that you got your head all busted. I bet you remember all the details, huh? Did you have bad dreams? Wake up frightened?”

I nodded again, a bit more nervously. I wasn’t completely certain about where she was taking this, and I was hoping it was just a friendly checkup. In the room that smelled like ponies wetting themselves with terror. Yeah.

“I’m so sorry you woke up scared!” She found a loose thread and pulled it out, before letting it flutter to the floor. “That’s an awful place to be, it really is. I’ve been there. I helped bandage you up!”

“You did,” I said, and she nodded as though relieved. She was smiling at me, but some part of my brain refused to let me smile back. “Thank you.”

“Do you remember what I said to you after that?” She asked. Her hoof stilled against the fabric of the cushion.

I swallowed nervously. Her smile dropped, and my heart skipped a beat. She didn’t look nearly so friendly without a smile.

“Tell me what I said,” she said casually, with an edge to her voice that I hadn’t heard before.

I could hear my heart pounding in my head, throbbing in time to a growing headache. “You told me not to tell anypony about how we’re on- er, what I saw.”

She nodded, and pursed her lips together. “Good, good. You’re good at remembering.” Suddenly, she jerked forward, and I felt my legs tense up like they were about to run, though I had no clue where I’d run to. “You’re just not very good at listening, Twilight.”

“I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to speak to anypony about anything,” I said, stalling for time as I racked my brain for something that might have helped me in this situation.

Pinkie laughed, but it wasn’t her usual lighthearted laugh. It had a sort of coldness that made me shudder despite myself. “But you didn’t say just anything, did you? You tried to tell ponies about what you saw.”

I thought back to everything I said and everypony I’d talked to. Was it the Priestess that had told her? Or maybe it was that earth pony? Either of them could have said something. Or maybe it was somepony else. Any of the Acolytes could’ve heard me talking and sent a messenger to her. Maybe she was just guessing, or… or maybe she just knew me that well.

“I have an awful lot of friends, you know,” Pinkie said, her voice suddenly sounding much more cheerful. Like we were having lunch together, instead of sitting in a creepy room far behind the Church. “They talk, as friends do, and they tell me everything I need to know. Now, I know you don’t wanna keep everything super-duperificly silent, and I know it’s hard, it’s oh so very berry hard, to keep a secret. But I told you to keep it, and I trusted you.”

Her gaze solidified into something completely foreign to the pink pony I’d come to know. She looked cruel, hardened into somepony the peacekeepers would’ve locked up regularly. Somepony that’d earned the fear that lingered in these rooms. But then she blinked, and her eyes were back to her usual light and friendly stare.

“Don’t break that trust again, okie-doke? Tell you what, why don’t you take a weensy little break in your room for a while? I’ll have somepony bring you food, and you can get back to getting better! And I’m gonna get some ponies looking into what to do about the whole moon-issue. Just let your Big Boss Pinkie take care of it all, and let me know if our Goddess says anything, alrightie?”

She flashed me a winsome smile, which would’ve been a lot more reassuring if I weren’t in the Church equivalent of a dungeon, and cleared her throat. “Maud? You can take Twilight back to the main bits of the Church. She’s gonna be quiet now. After all,” she laughed. “Friends are only friends if you can trust them, and I know Twilight wants to be my friend, too!”

I jumped slightly as I felt a hoof on my shoulder, firmly tugging my robe back towards the curtain. It felt good to turn from Pinkie’s happy visage, as though I was finally getting permission to look away. My eyes strained to see as I felt her lead me back through the chambers, towards the gentle glow of the Church and the oblivious ponies within.

“Go back to your room,” said Maud curtly, once we were at the edge of the room. “I’ll tell Ditzy Do to bring you some food.”

I turned around to say something, maybe thank her for not letting me get lost in there, I wasn’t sure, but she was already gone. I was alone with my thoughts once again, but more than that, for the first time in as long as I could remember I felt alone, truly alone, in all of what was left of ponykind.

Sweet Goddess, I thought as I watched the Acolytes chatter amongst themselves. None of them were obviously watching me, but I couldn’t be sure. What in Sunlight’s name do I do now?

Author's Note

incredible art by tired_dog_ij (DeviantArt)

Some Would Say She's Stunning

My head was swimming with thoughts as I stumbled through the chapel. The way Pinkie was acting just didn’t make any sense to me, she was always so friendly to everypony… wasn’t she? I smiled vacantly as a few pious ponies gave me a nod of recognition, and walked on past them.

I couldn’t ask anypony for advice here, even indirectly, could I? Somehow, Pinkie knew I’d been talking in this specific chapel, though I had no clue how she picked up on that. Did the Priestess tell her? Did one of the Acolytes? I couldn’t know for certain, and that made my head ache even more as I paused at the threshold of the spiralling ramp. That probably meant it was unwise to visit the other locations too. I couldn’t be sure who was listening and who wasn’t, and there were so many ponies there at the same time, it could be anypony who’d tell the High Priestess.

I looked up the ramp as best as I could, trying to push past my blurring vision. Should I just go back to my room, then? A Prophet was meant to be a model to their Acolytes, and if the High Priestess herself ordered something, was it not my duty to obey?

A deep grumbling made me gasp, and it took me a second to regain my composure. It was only when a gnawing ache in my gut accompanied it that I realized the noise had come from me. When was the last time I’d eaten? I tried to think back. Probably not since yesterday, before my shift when I’d sat on the Solarium floor and was lost in blissful unawareness.

Sun have mercy, what was I going to do about that? I had to tell somepony, but the Church… somepony had betrayed me. The pain clawing at my stomach turned cold as a burst of panic shot through me. The Acolytes themselves. Did they even trust me? I knew most ponies outside of the Goddess’s light didn’t particularly enjoy my company, but I’d tried to encourage good, faithful, Loyal thoughts from those who were wise enough to join the Church. They’d never mocked me for being one of them. And yet…

One of them thought I was suspicious. Perhaps even more than one. I chewed on the inside of my cheek as I mindlessly started wandering down the ramp, towards one of the lower cafeterias. Maybe I could catch an Acolyte among the horribly faithless crowds, and with the rabble and noise I could speak to them without fearing being overheard.

Unless, of course, that the pony I found was one of the ponies who’d tell Pinkie what I was asking, of course. Then… I had no clue what I’d do then, but something about what Pinkie said just didn’t sit quite right with me. She’d always told everypony about absolutely everything, so why would she want to keep it quiet until I was better? I was fine!

I sidestepped clumsily before my muzzle could smack into the gently curving wall. A few passing foals giggled at me, but I did my best to ignore them. Already, I could hear the murmuring chatter from the cafeteria a few floors below. It sounded like I’d reached the end of most pony’s lunchtime breaks, judging by the quieter tone. Ponies tended to talk less when they shoveled the last few bites of food into their mouths - or, at least, I hoped they did. Manners wasn’t exactly an Element, but sometimes I wished it was, since some ponies deemed it mostly an afterthought. Especially those working in Mechanics.

A few floors down from here, I’d be at the next Church location, surrounded by quietly whirring gears and dedicated to the Goddess’s glorious warmth. With the steam pipes running across the ceiling, painted in a faded gold, it was one of the spots I loved to frequent the most, though I could only spend so long in there without overheating. My robes might have been worn from years of use, but they also made for decent insulation.

The cafeteria I was approaching would’ve made for a good secondary location for meditating on the purifying warmth of the Goddess, though with the warmth of the crowds came the scent of old metal, sweat, and a few ponies who could stand to brush their teeth a little more often. I usually ate at the one near my room. It was far less crowded up there, and most of the ponies with business towards the Solarium were respectful of my desire to eat alone. A part of me wished I were back up in my room, enjoying the quiet comforts of my personal space, but the rest of me burned with a need for an Honest conversation with somepony I could trust.

As predicted, the smell was one of the first things that hit me as I peeked into the cafeteria. Food was usually a sort of free-for-all, but each eating space made its own menu. Beneath the metallic tang of copper and hardworking ponies I could smell the fresh tang of herbs and subtle sweetness of carrots. My stomach growled again as I stood in the doorway, trying to plot the best possible route to the food. I’d deal with finding somepony to talk to later on.

Life, of course, never made it easy on the Goddess’s most Loyal. My hoof had barely hit the well-swept floor when a few ponies seated against the wall leapt to their hooves. I backed away from them instinctively, slamming my shoulder against the other side of the entryway.

“Wait,” said one of them, a suspicious squint screwing up his face. “Yer that cult goon, right? What’s going on up at the top?”

Another one poked her hoof firmly against my chest. “Yeah, my brother was working on engineering the magelights in the Solarium, and suddenly he was kicked out! He said, and I quote, that there was something fishy going on, because everypony else was told to leave too.”

I took a deep calming breath and pressed forward with as much authority as I could muster. “It was Church business. Perhaps if you opened your mind to the Goddess, she’d grant you enlightenment and peace.”

The third stallion, a larger specimen than the other two, sidestepped in front of me to block my way. “Yeah, there’s so little truth in that fluff, if I tossed it down the ramp there wouldn’t even be enough to roll. What do you take us for? We’re not your brainless worshippers.” He snorted, sticking out a hoof as I tried to skirt around him, nearly tripping me as I stumbled. “Tell us the truth, cult mare. We know you’re one of the ponies in charge. You gotta know something.”

“I don’t,” I grumbled, trying to catch my balance as my vision spun around me. I couldn’t quite see the exact expressions they made, but I could tell it wasn’t one of relieved belief. “The High Priestess doesn’t tell me nearly as much as you think she does.” Trust me, she’s the one acting more suspicious, I mentally added.

“Hm…” said the mare, tapping her chin in profound sarcasm. “Nope. Not buying that. Now, are you gonna tell us the truth, or are we going to have to ask a little less nicely?”

“It’s jus’ a simple question, filly,” snarled the smaller stallion, and I winced as I felt a few drops of spit fleck my muzzle. The nerve of him! It took all the control I had remaining to keep from bolting, either out and upwards towards my room, or deep into the relative safety of the crowd.

“I’m just here for some food,” I said quietly. “I would be more than happy to discuss this with you at a later time, alright?”

The large stallion laughed, a deep booming sound just loud enough to make everypony nearby stop their conversation. A few ears twitched in our direction. “Little cultist,” he murmured with a saccharine tone of warning, once he was sure he had more than just my attention. “You wouldn’t want to cause a scene, here, would you? I know we aren’t the only ones with questions. Just answer our question and we’ll let you on your way.”

I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw started to ache. “And I know that you wouldn’t dare risk the wrath of the Church of Daylight. Don’t threaten me. I said I’ll talk about it later, but I can’t right now, okay?”

One of the large stallion’s eyebrows raised as he took a deep breath. The mare rolled her eyes and plugged her ears with her hooves while the smaller stallion gave me a vindictive smirk.

“ARE YOU SAYING YOU AREN’T GOING TO TELL US ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED UP THERE?” The larger stallion bellowed, as every head swiveled towards us. I looked around as a few muttered conversations started up beneath the baritone of his voice. “YOU KNOW WHY ALL THE WORKING PONIES WERE SUDDENLY KICKED OUT OF THE SOLARIUM, AND YOU REFUSE TO GIVE US AN ANSWER?”

It was mercifully still for a few moments as the cafeteria considered his echoing words. Then, a warbling voice from somewhere in the back tables called out. “Yeah, what did happen? My marefriend was sent home and they didn’t let her get back to work today! How’s she going to earn her credits now?”

“Calm down,” I whispered, trying to contain the note of anxiety creeping into my voice, but I didn’t think anyone could hear me as more people joined in.

“Yeah! My cousin worked as a Peacekeeper up there, and he isn’t even allowed at his post! Some weird Priestesses said that they were gonna-”

“-and it’s not like most of us are supposed to be up there anyway, but it’d be nice if we had the option to-”

“Guys, guys! Out of the way! I’m gonna be late for my second shift, and Coral’s gonna be-”

“Oh, lay off it, Parasol, we all know you’re in the cult too. Do you know anything?”

My fur prickled as ponies started to rise to their hooves, some of them struggling to make their way towards me, some towards each other, and a few towards the exits. I tried to inch myself along the wall, but some of the crowd followed me and a few tried to cut me off.

“I’m just saying, if she did know anything, do you really think she’d tell us? Those cult ponies are all about secrets and cover-ups!”

“Out of my way, Jinx, I don’t want to be in here when hooves start flying!”

“Ow! That was my hoof! Ah swear, ah don’t know nothing, ah quit those sun-drunk weirdos ages ago!”

A pegasus leapt over the crowd, wings beating furiously as he angled himself at me. On one of the downbeats, his wingtip smacked an arguing mare in the side of the head, and I watched as she slid to her seat, stunned.

“Watch where you’re going, featherbrain! You hit Daisy!”

A few hooves dragged the pegasus out of the air, and the room erupted into chaos. My mane felt as though it was standing on end as I bolted towards the food. Maybe the tables could provide some cover, I reasoned, barely ducking underneath a swung hoof. Was that aimed at me? Was that for somepony else? I heard a heavy crack and a yelp of pain deeper in the lunch crowd. It was probably best if I didn’t find out.

“Get back here, you bitch! You’ve got a lot of nerve, coming in here after you sent Saltwater home! It was her birthday!”

“Please, I just wanna go home! Let me out!”

“Didn’t I see you coming from up there last night? Spill it, Cobalt!”

A quiet crinkling noise made my head throb as I wove like a drunken mare through the yelling throng of ponies. A pegasus flew over me, barely missing my head as a few stray bolts of magic lit up the angry crowd. Somepony behind me gave a piercing whistle, and for a split second I could taste the sharp tang of ozone.

I barely managed to stifle a scream as pain lit up my left side.

It felt like somepony stabbed me behind the shoulder. My front hoof collapsed underneath me, and dimly I felt the rest of myself go with it. I wheezed as I tried to fill my lungs with air, but for a few nerve wracking heartbeats my body didn’t want to obey me. Dimly, my brain noted the distinct scent of singed fur.

“Everybody, quiet.” It was a slightly scratchy voice that spoke up, barely above normal speaking volume, but for some reason everypony around me froze. The ponies they were shoving or fighting or yelling at realized that their counterparts had stilled and grew quiet as well, until the whole room grew silent. I tried to see who’d spoken, but my vision was blurred with tears.

“Now,” the voice behind me continued after a few tense seconds, as though I hadn’t been writhing on the floor in pain. “I’m aware this mare started it, but if anypony else would like to continue it, feel free to speak up now.”

A few hooves shuffled. I could hear the telltale fizzle of spells dispersed as the mob’s unease grew penitent.

“No?” The voice, and I couldn’t tell if they were a male or female, sighed with terse irritation. “Then what are you all still doing here, huh? You got shifts! Get moving, or I’ll decide to start taking down names and reporting you officially.”

There was a flurry of movement around me, hooves trampling and wings beating around me. They seemed to give the stranger and I a large berth, and I struggled to move one of my right hooves underneath me. My side stung and I gasped in pain as I stretched my left forehoof out to right myself.

“Stay down,” hissed the voice as I heard the crowds slowly filter out the cafeteria entrance. “You want one of them to decide to take you with them for questioning?”

I paused where I’d strained my neck upright and slowly lowered my cheek back to the floor. It made sense. Finally, somepony who made some sort of sense. She’d known what to do, calming down the crowd… who…

My mind raced as it did a few fuzzy calculations, and I frowned. “You-” My voice came out strangled and weak, so I swallowed and tried again. “You stabbed me.”

The voice laughed, before a feathery wing slid deftly underneath my side and slung me across their back. “Nah, that’d be too messy. Probably hurts like hell, though. You’re coming with me, cult mare.”

I shuddered against their back as feeling crept back into the tip of my hoof. “But-”

The black-cloaked back I was draped across shifted and one of the wings, pale blue like its owner, pressed against my front legs, securing me as the pony began to walk steadily towards the door. My rope dragged on the ground as I watched the room and the few straggling ponies lurch past me.

“Do you really want to stay here? Once the next group of pony’s shift ends, you’ll just have to deal with this all over again, and while I get compensated for my time, the doctors will already have enough to deal with from all this. Besides,” the pony snorted and looked back at me. Their- her, I guessed, mane spiked in prismatic hues that had to be fake. “Unless you want to be zapped again, I suspect you’ll be more comfortable without resisting.”

I tried to focus on the edge of her mane, but the sharp edge of my headache was returning. “Resisting?”

The mare rolled her eyes and trotted out the door, turning right at the ramp and heading downwards. “Do I really have to spell it out for you? I’m taking you in for starting a fight.” My legs tensed up to struggle or protest or something but her wing clamped harder over my front limbs. “If you try to run off, I’ll take out one of your back legs, and you can explain to whatever freaky cult member you hang with why your cutie mark has a scorch mark on it.”

I scowled and attempted to relax as best as I could. We weren’t a cult. I was used to many of the unfaithful throwing that in my face as a barbed insult, but she just said it matter-of-factly, like it was a commonly-known truth. Still, it’d probably be unwise, protection of the Church and blessings of the Goddess aside, to offend the mare who’d “zapped” me.

“Trust me,” my captor added, after a few seconds of relatively quiet walking. “It’s for your own good.”

That didn’t make me feel any better. I felt her deceptively lean shoulders and hips roll underneath me as we made our way down. A part of my mind that’d walked these halls said that we’d passed the second chapel location, the one I’d usually visited, and for a second I could have sworn I heard a few ponies humming familiar hymns, but then I was lost again. I racked my brain as the swirls of color on the walls blended together into a cacophony of hues.

There were shops this far down with specialty goods, mixed in between corridors where many of the mechanics worked and lived. They had access points all throughout the colony, but much of the mechanisms that they still interacted with coincided around this level, so some of the mechanics never really left this area. Between the dormitories, the cafeteria, and here, they didn’t go out much. To be fair, I didn’t either, but I usually spent my time enlightening the various churches and providing guidance to the Acolytes and Priestesses.

I squinted at a shop sign as we walked past. I couldn’t quite make out the words, but the bobbin and needle told me that this must’ve been a mending shop. A sharp tug on the hem of my cloak made me wince against the mare as we continued onward. If she kept trodding on my robe, I’d have to get it fixed sooner rather than later. I doubted they’d have a perfect match for the ancient fabric, but perhaps somepony would be able to hem the parts that were fraying.

Not that I was vain, of course, but the tradition was sacred, and the cloak had belonged to the first Prophet, who was said to have spoken with the Goddess herself before the Goddess’s mighty gesture to keep ponykind alive. I squirmed one of my hind legs, trying to kick up the edge off the ground, but with little luck.

The shops were fairly quiet at this time of day. Most ponies were either just starting their next work shift, or quietly finishing their last one. I shivered as I breathed in the scents of freshly-mixed paints, baked clay, and the sharp fragrance of incense. A couple of ponies laughed to each other as they sorted racks of well-loved clothes. One waved at the mare carrying me, and her hoofsteps paused as she waved back before continuing her descent. Neither pony, I noted sourly, even bothered to acknowledge my presence.

A firm press of the edge of the pegasus’s wing was my only warning before we turned sharply to the right, into a tunnel so tight I felt my tail brush against the wall. A few faint lights bobbed against the ceiling at uneven intervals, reminding me painfully of the distant pinpricks of stars. A wave of nauseous fear rose within my mind as I tried to keep my breathing steady. What in the Goddess’s mercy were we going to do, we were on a separate planet, we-

“Hey, deep breaths,” said the mare calmly, startling me out of my thoughts. “I’m not gonna lock you up forever, you know. The cult would kill me, and I don’t want the whole relationship between us and you to get worse than it already is.”

She turned and a cool glow flooded the tunnel up ahead. My jaw ached, and I realized I’d been clenching it tight. “It’s just a shortcut,” she added after a few moments of uncomfortable silence. “Nothing more. You’ve visited one of the guardhouses before, right? Sibling group trip, maybe?”

I shook my head and tried to squint into the light. “If I have, I don’t remember it. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen any of the other foals I was raised with, and I don’t think they’d be particularly interested in telling me if I ask. We weren’t very close.”

My eyes watered as we stepped into the brightly-lit room. It was rectangular in shape, with a few chairs next to each small room that branched off of it. A few thin blue tendrils of electricity snaked from the ceiling of each cell’s opening to the floor. I couldn’t see what was inside, but it didn’t look like there was anypony in here at the time but us. In the center of the room stood a few tables with paperwork stacked in neat piles.

Groaning, the pegasus stretched out her wings, unclamping my hooves from her side before tilting her barrel. Getting the hint, I gingerly slid to the floor, testing my weight against my left forehoof. It barely stung anymore, compared to the immediate blinding pain of earlier.

“Alright,” began the mare, stepping towards one of the cells. With a practiced flick, her feathers held back a few of the arcs of electricity that danced from the opening. “In here.” I hesitated, and she held up one of her front hooves casually, letting me get a good look at the thin black box strapped to her foreleg. “Don’t make me zap you again.”

I took a deep breath and stumbled towards the caged room, shying away from the strands of energy that her wings didn’t somehow neutralize. Just being that close to them made my fur stand on end, and I got the feeling that they, like the little box secured to the guard’s hoof, carried a far stronger punch than I’d expect.

The pegasus casually folded her wing once I was pressed against the back wall. The room was actually a semicircle inside, and contained a thin mattress and a bucket, with little room for much else. I sat down on the edge of my robe, not trusting whatever had used the bed before I’d been in there. It smelled clean enough, but a few pale stains decorated one edge.

“Now, let’s see here.” I looked up through the electric bars as the pegasus rifled through a few of the stacks. She firmly tugged out a notebook with most of the pages torn out and a pen. “Alright, so most of those ponies were out for your blood. Did you say anything to rile them up, or was it just because you’re part of that cult?”

I felt my brow crinkle as I frowned at her. “The Church of Daylight is not a cult. It welcomes anypony who wishes to follow the Goddess’s light. And I didn’t mean to start a fight! I just wanted lunch, and to talk to somepony. That’s not a crime!”

The mare scratched out a few lines of notes on the paper before glancing up at me. “Yeah, but you’re pretty high up in that cu- Church of yours, and a whole bunch of ponies who either regularly visited the upper regions or knew somepony who did have reported something unusual going on. Your… organization caused a disruption. They want answers.”

I slumped to the ground. A few strands of my mane floated above the others with the residual static. “They were the ones who attacked me. Besides, it’s just Church business. Things should be back to normal-” I cut myself off, pressing my lips together.

It wouldn’t be back to normal, would it? How could anypony go back to normal after everything we thought we knew was wrong? There was no way the High Priestess would see fit to let ponies up there before she thought of what to tell everypony. “Uh, soon. I don’t know when, exactly,” I finished lamely.

The mare continued her notes for about a minute after I’d talked, looking up at me every so often before jotting down a few more phrases. “So you don’t know anything about what’s going on up there? I find that hard to believe. Did you know that even most Peacekeepers aren’t allowed near the Solarium right now? They’re only letting those already in the Church stand guard, and let’s just say most of the ponies they’ve got on watch wouldn’t be my first choice for a patrol.”

My stomach grumbled, and I pressed a hoof against it in an attempt to silence it. “I…” Loyalty or Honesty? Both were important, but I could barely think, and I had to say something before the guard mare started asking more questions. “I don’t,” I mumbled, looking away. “I’m sorry. The High Priestess didn’t tell me anything.”

The mare sucked in a breath slowly before letting it out and wrote a few final words on the page before closing the notebook and setting it aside. “Okay,” she said slowly, bending down slightly so she was eye-level with me. “I’ll believe you. If you think of something later on, tell me. For now, wait here while I go sort things out with the other Peacekeepers, Miss-” She cocked her head, jostling her multicolored mane. “Didn’t catch your name, and you cul- church ponies don’t usually interact with those outside your little group enough for me to know the important ones.”

Huh. I thought everypony knew what the Prophet did, but maybe this mare just didn’t get out of her guard post very much. I gave her my best serene smile, given the circumstances at least. “My name is Twilight Sparkle. I’m the Prophet for the Church of Daylight.”

“Nice to meet ya, Twilight,” she replied, giving me a measured grin as she turned towards one of the tunnels branching off of the rectangular room. “I’m Rainbow Dash. Head Peacekeeper.Try not to touch the bars when I’m gone, okay? They won’t respond to your spells, and you’ll be unconscious before you can break through them.”

It was only after she’d left that I remembered I’d forgotten to ask if she could get me some food.

Author's Note

Sorry for the delay, folks. School has been chaotic. Have some bonus commissioned art, for your patience, and also because it's pretty. :heart:

incredible art by tired_dog_ij (DeviantArt)

A Strange Sort of Sympathy

I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to meditate on my Goddess. I wondered what the High Priestess would say if she knew where I was, assuming she didn’t already somehow know. Was she planning to get me out, somehow, or would she let me sit in here? I supposed it depended on whether or not she was more worried that I’d tell a guard, or more relieved that I didn’t have any other temptation to be disloyal to her.

Loyalty… oh mercy of the Goddess, what had I done? A part of me felt betrayed by my own actions, lying to the head Peacekeeper. I had a choice between my Element and my gut and I picked my Element. Any other time, I was sure that I’d be proud of my actions, so why did I feel like I’d made a terrible mistake?

It wasn’t something I couldn’t technically take back. I could always choose Honesty, and admit that I was just nervous earlier, or that I’d remembered something, and explain… what? Tell a complete stranger, not even an Acolyte, that we were on the moon for a thousand years? Whoops, sorry pony-who-tased-and-imprisoned-me, I completely forgot that we’re not actually on Equestria! Must’ve slipped my mind! Ah well, the Goddess hasn’t graced me with good memory, but what can we do?

No, that wouldn’t work. She’d know I lied, and I’d already been shocked by her once. I rubbed the left side of my ribcage gently. The pain had mostly faded, leaving a sore ache. I was grateful that it wasn’t permanent, but she’d still hurt me. She didn’t seem all that angry at the time, either, and if she’d done that when she was calm, I was certain I didn’t want to see her truly angry.

She carried with her a strange sort of natural confidence, like she was always in control of the situation. It reminded me a bit of what I tried to project, the serene peacefulness. And yet, nopony seemed nervous or wary to approach her. Judging by the ponies that waved on our way up here, she had at least some acquaintances who thought kindly of her.

It wasn’t as though there weren’t ponies who liked me, of course. The Goddess had simply seen it fit to place me in a position of power and awareness within the Church of Daylight. It wasn’t my place to question why, and it wasn’t my place to wonder what it was like for the Peacekeeper, having ponies genuinely happy to see her without her having to put on a show for them.

I lied down on the edge of my robe, watching the halos of light around the electric bars waver hypnotically. My belly growled again, and I sighed in response. Must the Goddess put me through such trials? I’d been blinded, fallen down the stairs of the Solarium, thrown up, found out the High Priestess was… less-than-friendly when she was angry, threatened, mobbed, tased, and imprisoned, all within the last 24 hours.

And as though that wasn’t enough, I didn’t even get to figure out what the cafeteria was serving before I was dragged away! Carrots and herbs… I closed my eyes, trying to visualize what it could have been, much to the dismay of my empty stomach. Maybe they’d cut them into paper-thin wafers and baked them, garnished with fresh herbs. Or maybe they’d made thick chunks of carrots and roasted them over a fire, and tossed them in the spices first? Oh, imagining it made me feel like I could smell it all over again!

I took a deep breath in and paused, squinting at the room outside my little cell. It was exactly like I could smell it again. Sniffing in again, I stood up and got as close as I comfortably could to the bars, and tried to get a better look out. I couldn’t see anypony, but when I concentrated… yes! There were hoofsteps! Somepony was coming.

A part of me hoped it was Pinkie, but the rest of me really didn’t want to face her again. What if she thought I’d told ponies? I had planned to, but I didn’t want to see her angry again, and that creepy emotionless pony that brought me there and back didn’t seem like a pony I’d want to get acquainted with any more than I already had.

Luckily, it wasn’t the High Priestess or the Maud-mare. Rainbow Dash waved a few feathers at me as she passed in front of my cell from one of the tunnels that bordered it. Balanced on her back was a bowl that smelled heavenly.

I groaned and sat back down. Was she going to torture me with the scent of it? Would she withhold it until I told her the answers she wanted to hear? I tried to remember the stories I’d overheard other ponies tell when they thought nopony else was listening in the spiralling corridors. Was this an interrogation?

Her pace didn’t falter as she crossed in front of my cell and set down the bowl on one of the awaiting chairs, though one corner of her mouth lifted into a smirk. “No need to look so glum, Twilight. I could hear your stomach rumbling from a few levels down!”

With a deft wing, Rainbow Dash swept aside a few threads of lightning as though they were curtains, and gestured with a hoof for me to walk through. When I hesitated, she rolled her eyes, snorting at my tentativeness. “Yeah, you can come out. We both know I can take you down no problem if you cause a fuss, and you’re not exactly a dangerous troublemaker. C’mon, take the bowl and take a seat, inside or outside the cell, I don’t care.”

I walked towards the bowl, skirting around the strands of electricity, and peered inside. It looked like some kind of thick soup, sans spoon, and I lifted it in a wary burst of magic before sitting down on the chair. Up close, it smelled even better.

“Sorry,” the pegasus said, grabbing another chair and dragging it towards mine. “The spoon fell in. At least you’ve got a horn, right? I figured it’d be easier for you to fish it out than if I tried to.”

“Is this the usual Peacekeeper routine for interrogating prisoners, or am I getting special treatment?” Maybe the High Priestess had put in a good word for me, or somepony else from the Church had. Who knew?

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “I wouldn’t say there’s a standard routine, not for this situation. For riots, we usually clear them out and have a little talk with the perpetrators, but it’s your first offense, a lot of the mob was just feeding off of the whole herd mentality thing, getting each other worked up into a frenzy, and you’re not really putting up a fight, so I’m not really worried.”

I fished the spoon out of the soup and licked the handle off. Ginger carrot soup. It wasn’t as fancy as some of the meals I’d eaten from my cafeteria, but the carrots tasted fresher, somehow. It was hearty and thick, warming me on the inside from both temperature and spice.

Taking a sip, I sat down on the floor, resting my front hooves against the chair seat for lack of a table. It tasted like home, but a different pony’s home - one who’d spent their lives beneath the interlocking mosaic of pipes and gears, forsaking dreams of the Goddess for a fortress made of vents leading off into darkness and wiring carefully tied together with bits of string and ribbon. For a second, I felt nostalgia for a life I’d never gotten the choice to experience.

I took another quiet slurp and the moment faded. My stomach rumbled, begging me to toss the spoon aside and start gulping it straight from the bowl, but I held myself back. I didn’t want to overdo it, not when I wasn’t sure when I’d be given another bowl. Besides, eating it slowly gave me a chance to take my mind off of everything and concentrate on the simple flavors of the meal.

My captor seemed content to watch me eat in silence for a few minutes, but after I’d gotten through about half of the soup she cleared her throat.

“So, you’re a Prophet, huh?” Rainbow settled back in her chair, staring at the ceiling and idly fiddling with her taser. “Do you do fortunes or something? Look into a glass ball, hear dead ponies talking to ya, or do you just kind of go into a trance and chant all day? Help me out here, I’ve got no clue, but they’ve gotta be paying you for some mystic crap.”

I choked back the spoonful I’d been savoring and gave her what I only hoped was an unimpressed stare. “Not quite. I hear the Goddess’s voice in my head, sometimes, and other times I see a vision. It’s never a lot, but every little whisper reminds me that we’re not alone, and she’s waiting for us.” I neglected to add that we might as well be alone, with the sheer distance we’d have to cross somehow to ever meet.

“Sure, sure. What’s she sound like? Is it like… your own thoughts? You know when you’re thinking, and then you think to yourself in a different voice, but it’s still your voice?” She grinned, casually flicking the safety on and off of her hoofband.

“It’s an entirely different voice,” I said, setting my mostly-finished soup aside. “Her voice is regal and commanding, echoing in my head with an undeniable royalty to it, for lack of a better phrase.”

Rainbow Dash smirked, but it didn’t have any real anger behind it. “And your voice, in comparison, sounds like you’re trying to negotiate with a caved-in cavern to let you out. Honestly, you’ve heard your Goddess, like, actually heard her voice in your head like a crazy mare, and yet you act like your cutie mark’s a ‘kick me’ sign.”

“I do not! I’ve simply trained myself to think beyond the concerns of most ponies. I’ve studied the Goddess’s Elements all my life and strived to perfect them.” I squinted at Rainbow, trying to see if she was really laughing at me, or if it was just my imagination. “My Goddess chose me because I am exactly as strong as she desired. She wouldn’t have chosen wrong.”

“Alright, I guess that makes sense in your Church’s point of view. No need to take offense.” She tilted back in her chair slightly, teetering precariously. “Do they all listen to you, you being the Prophet and talking to the Goddess and all?”

I opened my mouth to say something that was most likely far too indignant to say to the head Peacekeeper who’d thrown me in jail, but something stopped me. Did they listen to me? I was the Prophet, right? Shouldn’t the High Priestess have listened more? Did… did she even trust me?

I mentally ran back through the conversations we’d had. She’d always seemed so friendly, so caring, no matter how many times I pushed her away. The pony who’d practically dragged me into a chamber somewhere behind one of the Churches wasn’t the pony I thought I knew. Did she not care? Did she ever care, or did she keep me around for some other reason?

“Bad topic?” Rainbow Dash softly said, and it was only when I looked over to see her sitting up straight that I realized my vision was blurring with tears. I couldn’t see her expression at all, but her voice sounded almost genuinely concerned. “Sorry about that. Did you want to talk about something else?”

I shook my head and after a moment of contemplative silence she stood, trotting to the desk to resume jotting things down on her notepad. If Pinkie herself didn’t trust me, then who would? The Church had always been so supportive, whether I’d had a prophecy or my connection was frustratingly silent. Was that a lie, too? The acolytes up in the first church I’d visited were friendly enough, but I couldn’t be sure they’d stay that way if the Head Priestess told them to be otherwise.

If I couldn’t trust the faithful, then who could I trust? I was alone, imprisoned in a cell that I wasn’t sure anypony cared to get me out of. Did Pinkie think I was less trouble if I was locked away? I certainly couldn’t talk to anypony about it, aside from Rainbow Dash, but nice as she’d been, I couldn’t be certain that she wouldn’t somehow leak the information to Pinkie.

I had to make a plan. Maybe if I got back to my room, I could ask one of the Acolytes to bring me food and whatever I’d need to stay in there a while. I could… try to reach out to my Goddess! I’d heard nothing yet, and hadn’t in a long while, but perhaps she’d have the answers I’d need, or some piece of information about this whole mess we’d been missing, or something.

Even if it was just some regular snippet of thought or memory, maybe the Head Priestess would see the truth, that we had to tell some others, if not everypony. She’d always found a way to interpret my prophecies in a helpful manner before! Maybe this would be what she needed to understand my point of view.

I just had to get to my room first. I wiped the dampness from my eyes and tried to smile in Rainbow’s general direction. “So,” I began as casually as I could manage. “How long am I staying in here for? I’ve never done anything like this before, just like you said, so am I free to go?”

“Huh?” Rainbow articulated, looking up from a half-scribbled note. “Oh, I dunno. I’m not officially imprisoning you or anything like that, but you probably don’t want to leave right now.”

“What? Why?” I took a hesitant step towards one of the hallways. She didn’t move to stop me, but she did set her pen down, and I remembered she’d probably be able to catch up with me before I made it out of the Peacekeeper office, even if she’d taken the time to finish her page of notes first.

The pegasus sighed and walked around the desk to face me. Up close, I could see every emotion flicker through her expression, but her eyes seemed to settle on… sympathy? “It’s like this,” she said, gently brushing a wingtip against my neck. “You remember how you’d started a bit of a riot up there? You said you didn’t start it, I know, but the ponies up there are still angry, Twilight. They’re looking for somepony to blame, so waltzing back up towards the Solarium is probably not your best bet.

“Now, normally, if something happened with a member of the cult that they didn’t handle internally, there’d be a few Acolytes waiting outside the office to explain their point of view, and offer some sort of advice on how they’d handle the situation. We usually ignore them, of course, but there’s always at least a small group of culties waiting to explain away any actual consequences we’d put in place. But now? With you?”

She hesitated, and I put two and two together. “There’s nopony trying to speak on my behalf, is there?”

Rainbow’s shoulders slumped. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense, really. I mean, you’re their fancy-schmancy Prophet, right? You’re pretty darn important to them. I’d half expected every single pony who’d ever stepped hoof in one of their Churches to be rallying outside as soon as I’d stepped onto the ramp, but… there’s nothing, Twilight. It’s scary, how there’s nothing.”

I turned away, trying to hide whatever feelings would slip past the holy mask I’d struggled to keep up. After a few seconds of a million panicked emotions culminating in some sort of hopeless dread I couldn’t even begin to describe, a wing tenderly cupped underneath my muzzle, turning me back to face her.

“There’s three explanations I can think of, Twilight. The first one’s that you lied, plain and simple. That you’re not somepony special to them, you’re not a Prophet or that sort of nonsense, and you’ve made it up for some reason or another. Of course, if that were the case, there probably wouldn’t have been such a fuss to clean up after in the first place, and I doubt we’d be talking here at all.

“The second explanation is that you’re somepony special, or even just somepony average, but they’re unable to help you right now. I know they’re in some pretty hot water at the moment, thanks to closing off the Solarium and the surrounding top levels, but they’ve never failed to have two or three ponies dramatically praying when I’ve stepped outside, so that isn’t likely. They’ve always had somepony to spare.”

I let out a slow breath, trying to center my thoughts. It made sense so far. “And the third?”

Rainbow’s mouth settled into a hard line. “The third’s that you are who you say you are, but you’ve done something so bad, they don’t want anything to do with you. Maybe it’s temporary,” she added hastily as my expression fell. “And maybe they’ll come to get you out later, but I don’t think you can expect a warm welcome from your Church friends, if you catch my meaning.”

My mind stalled like a caught gear. I managed to give her a somewhat jerky nod as I waited for my thoughts to wrap around what she’d said. What if Pinkie locked me up in one of those rooms in the back of the church? I really, really didn’t want to know what she’d do if she somehow found out that I’d tried talking to another Acolyte about it.

“What are my options, then?” I whispered, meeting her gaze after a few seconds. “I- I don’t know what to do.”

“Your Prophet powers don’t extend to this, huh?” She teased, then winced at my expression. “Kidding, sorry. Look, as I see it, you’ve got two choices here. First one, you can stay in here for a while, until things cool down. I’ll bring you food and a book or something, and we can wait for your Church friends to make up their minds about how they feel about you. Could take a while, but hey, you’ll be safe in here with me.”

I considered it for a few moments. Sure, I could probably pray to my Goddess and try to reach her, to listen for her wisdom, but without a faithful pony to hear it, what would be the use? What if it was important, and nopony believed me?

No, I had to do something. Anything. “I don’t think I want to do that. What’s my second choice?”

Rainbow flashed me a grin so wide I almost regretted asking. “The second choice is that you’re coming with me to some of the lower levels, where I can keep an eye on you. There’s not a lot of culties down there, but whatever crap you’ve got with the Church, and whatever crap the Church has with you, it won’t spread all the way down. In fact, that’s kind of the cult’s biggest problem right now, and it’s what you’re going to get to help me deal with.”

“Help you- wait, what problem?” A gnawing sensation of dread began clawing at my stomach, and I got the distinct feeling I’d chosen the wrong option.

“You’ve heard of the growing unrest down in the Agricultural Sector, right?” Her grin somehow spread even wider. “Congratulations, Twilight Sparkle, you’ll get to represent your Church to the angry ponies who keep us alive!”

I'm Fine With Spiraling, So Long As It's With You

“So, let me get this straight. Your plan to sneak me out of the guardhouse is to not sneak me out of the guardhouse?” I tried to contain my disbelief, but it crept out anyway alongside my words, both unbefitting of the Goddess’s Prophet. “I suppose it’s so outrageously dumb, nopony will expect it-”

“Of course they won’t,” interrupted Rainbow Dash, tucking a few spare charges for her stun band into one of its side pockets. “I’m a professional. They didn’t make me Head Peacekeeper for nothing.”

“-but are you sure that the Acolytes won’t stop me?” I continued doggedly before the rest of Rainbow’s words caught up to me. “Wait, a professional? You’ve done this sort of thing before?”

“Well... no, not exactly this,” the pegasus said after a moment’s pause. She tossed me a canteen of water, which I missed catching in my magic by a solid few inches. “But it’ll work, trust me. They didn’t want you to be released, right? So they aren’t gonna be waiting for you outside. Besides, I’ll make it look like we’re transferring you to a more remote guardhouse or something-”

“-without actually putting an effort into disguises or some sort of alibi or proof that you’re doing so-”

“-which they’d never ask for anyway.” Rainbow rolled her eyes and trotted over to inspect the canteen for leaks or damage. Finding none, she slipped the strap over my head, only catching it on my horn once in the process. “We’re pretty separate from the cult, so it’s not like they care about the paperwork trail, or lack thereof. They mostly police their own ponies, and unless there’s too much of a disturbance we don’t really intervene. Hasn’t been a real issue for as long as I can remember.”

I squinted in her general direction, trying to will the aching fog from my vision. She didn’t sound like she was lying, but she could very well have a few tells of her own that I wasn’t able to pick up. “We don’t police our own ponies. We have focus circles where we discuss any issues we have with others, and then we work as a community to resolve them. Honesty is one of the sacred Elements, after all!”

“Sure.” Rainbow had paused, and was giving me a stare I was somewhat thankful I couldn’t interpret. “The reports from the medical team I’ve seen say otherwise, but hey, maybe it’s just part of your rituals.”

I opened my mouth to deliver what I’m sure was going to be a scathing and belief-inspiring retort, but Rainbow cut my thoughts off with an idle flick of her wingtip. “Actually, scratch that. The ritual idea is scarier than the idea that a carefully shattered left hind leg was a punishment of sorts. I mean, what would that even accomplish? Is there a Sacredness of Withstanding Pain or something? Which one would that even fall under? My credits are not on whichever one was the Element of Fun.”

“That could’ve been anything.” I dismissed the thought automatically, like any other treasonous thought deserved. “Lots of ponies get hurt at work. Maybe the one in question just didn’t mention it until after their worship was complete.”

The Peacekeeper stuffed her notebook into a worn pair of saddlebags before nodding to herself, completely ignoring my valid point. “Whatever you gotta tell yourself to stay in denial, just know that it makes zero sense to anypony with a decent amount of sense. Let’s get going. We don’t wanna be too far up by the time the evening shift is over, or you’ll get stampeded and I’ll have to find a way to un-flatten a Prophet.”

I nodded, only half listening as I tried to mentally map how far we’d be walking. I hadn’t been down much further than the next Church location in… mercy of the Goddess, not since I was a filly! Everything felt much larger back then, but I remembered it’d taken an entire day for my easily-tired foal self to reach the Solarium from where the Caretakers had raised my siblings and I. I’d left earlier than most, sure, but as a Prophet, I was needed, and I’d already gotten my Cutie Mark, so I didn’t have any real reason to stay with the other colts and fillies in my age group.

A flurry of doubts welled up at the memory of leaving the rest of my siblings behind, but I tried to mentally push them aside as I followed Rainbow Dash through one of the tunnels branching off of the guardhouse. Had any of them been at the near-riot I’d started? Did they hate me? Did any of them even remember me? I’d never been close with them, but perhaps they missed me when I-

No. It didn’t matter. They didn’t matter, and they shouldn’t matter to me anymore. I was the Prophet, and I had bigger things to worry about than wondering if they ever noticed that I was gone. There were about twelve of us when I left, and I’d kept to myself, so if they didn’t care if I left, then I didn’t care. Any stabs of regret I felt were irrelevant, and as a Prophet, I-

“Uhh, Twilight? You coming?”

I blinked back into reality, my cheeks burning with un-Prophet-like embarrassment. Rainbow Dash was watching me out of the corner of her eye as she looked out at the main spiral ramp. We’d exited somewhat lower than where I remembered we’d arrived, but there were still shops circling the outer perimeter of the thoroughfare. They looked fairly busy with the last few stragglers from the ponies finishing their meal break, and didn’t spare either of us much more than a glance.

“Yes, sorry,” I said after a brief hesitation. “Lead the way.”

Rainbow grinned and turned right, heading down the sloped surface. “You don’t seem nearly as comfortable down here as I thought you’d be. Do you not deign to grace the Middle and Lower levels with your divine presence, or what?”

I didn’t dignify that with a response, instead choosing to mutely follow behind her, watching the shops as we passed on by. One sold scraps of colorful fabric, another sold inks of different hues and viscosities, and from the scent permeating the air I knew we were close to a bakery. For a moment, I could see myself living among the shops and ponies, happily browsing the many strange wares in between my shifts of-

That’s where the daydream fell apart, of course. If I weren’t the Prophet, what would I be? I couldn’t see myself doing the heavy-lifting physical work, but maybe I’d be able to do something intricate? My magic skills were decent enough. I could probably do something with delicate machines, or help in one of the many shops lining the ramp as we coiled downward.

Such thoughts were blasphemy, of course, since all that mattered was that I was the Prophet, and I served my Goddess with pride and joy, but…

“Did you always want to be a Peacekeeper?” I shuffled up to Rainbow, who’d managed to get a bit further ahead of me.

“Me? I mean, sort of, I guess.” Her lips curled into a goofy-looking smile. “When I was a filly, I wanted to do pegasus tricks. I thought, hey, maybe me and my friends could start out as messengers or something, and then we’d blow them away with our fancy skills. We’d draw up plans for our uniforms, with dragons on ‘em, and-”

“Dragons don’t exist,” I scoffed. “Everypony knows that. In 204, the Prophet of the time revealed that truth of the-” The words felt stranger in my mouth than they ever had before and I had to swallow before I could get them out. “The world waiting above.”

The guardsmare rolled her eyes. “Yeah, of course. Still, we thought it’d be super cool. We dreamed of practicing in The Sky, but of course we didn’t get many chances to fly around down there since they weren’t looking for any pegasi in Environmental Control. They’re never short of pegasi trying to get in, and I know that now, but the rejection really stung at the time, so eventually my friends and I chalked up our losses and decided to go a different route.”

“Huh.” I watched a few ponies race up the ramp. They were probably late for work. “Is it just pegasi that they’ve got too many of?”

Rainbow Dash idly stomped on a few discolored stone slabs on the floor. They were sunken slightly more into the ground than other ones, likely from other ponies with the exact same idea. *Stomp.* “Yeah, why? You planning to apply?” *Stomp, stomp.* “They’d take you in… well, not a heartbeat, since they’re not huge on the whole cult thing, but pretty quickly.” *Stomp!* ”Because you know what sucks?” *STOMP!* “It’s dangerous work down there, and yet they keep access to The Sky pretty much impossible to get if you don’t already work nearby, so they’re always short on earth ponies and unicorns because it’s stupidly deadly-” *Stomp STOMP!* “But they’ve pretty much guaranteed that every pegasi will jump at the chance to almost kill themselves for a chance to fly somewhere open and beautiful for a little bit.”

I blinked. “Are you, uh…” She looked up at me, hoof poised mid-air over the last darkened rock on the path. “Are you okay?”

She sighed, lightly tapping the brick and moving on. “Yeah, I’m fine, I guess. Sorry. It’s just… we all have dreams of being down there, you know?”

“I don’t.” I watched as a couple of ponies cautiously made their way out of a kitchen, carrying between them a huge tray laden with roasted potatoes. I could feel the heat of the ovens from where we walked.

“You’re right.” Rainbow nodded, first to herself and then at me. Her expression lacked judgement and condemnation, and for some reason that hurt worse than if she’d been angry. “You wouldn’t. You’ve got nothing to compare that to. You’re able to do your magic just fine in the crowded confines of the tunnels, and there’s need for you everywhere. Earth ponies can work with metals and stone just about anywhere, and the Agricultural Sector’s always happy for the extra help with growing things. But us pegasi?” She flexed her wings, stretching them out to their full length before folding them again. “We’ve just got The Sky, and that’s about it. This place wasn’t built for us.”

I had no idea how to respond to that, but Rainbow didn’t let the silence stretch on for too long. “So, you’ve never been down that low before, huh?”

“Well, not never, but I can’t really remember much about the lower levels. I was moved to the upper floors when the Church discovered I was the next Prophet.” A few ear-splitting screeches interrupted my train of thought and a few ponies covered in dark grease darted out of a nearby hallway, racing down ahead of us.

“-from one of the shafts for the pipeworks,” I heard Rainbow say once my ears stopped ringing. “It’s always pretty loud down here. The major engineering chambers are actually situated perfectly on top of each other, going up and down the center of the ramp, but since a lot of the shops and bathrooms and kitchens are outside of the ring, sometimes pretty far away from it, they’ve got access points all over. Maintenance, you know? The Peacekeeping HQ is actually one of the few rooms that-”

Whatever else she was saying was drowned out by the klaxon of an alarm. I could hear the rapid pounding of hooves before I could see the two grease-covered engineers bolt back towards the shaft. An older pony hobbled as fast as he could behind them, missing a hoof and half his wing. I froze at the sight of the determined scowls, and only had time to think they’re not stopping, they aren’t STOPPING before Rainbow wrapped a wing around my side and yanked me out of the way.

I swallowed noisily to myself as the alarm rang, cutting off what felt like ages later. “Thank you,” I croaked, before stumbling forward. “They would’ve… thanks.”

Rainbow studied me for a moment before once again taking the lead. “Yeah, you’re welcome. Geez, you’ve got the self-preservation sense of a leaping foal convinced they’ll grow wings on the way down.”

“I’m the Prophet,” I managed, shaking my head to attempt to relieve my headache. “Most ponies don’t stand in my way.”

The pegasus snorted as we made our way down, passing another dormitory. I peeked inside as we went past. There were a good amount of ponies asleep in there, even despite the alarm that’d gone off earlier. Some of them hadn’t even washed the soot and oil off before crashing. I shuddered. Were bathing opportunities so rare for them?

Notably absent were the hammock-like slung perches that pegasi favored. Were there really so few up here? They probably don’t last that long with the ability to fly up there, I thought, and immediately felt queasy. Goddess help them.

“If you were to choose an Element to focus on, what would you pick?” I asked, giving Rainbow what I hoped was a friendly smile that would put her at ease.

“What?” She frowned. “Where’d that come from?”

“I’m just curious, that’s all.” I debated smiling wider, but decided it might look creepy. “I’ve chosen Loyalty, and I could see you choosing that as well, if you-”

“I’m gonna stop you right there,” Rainbow said firmly. “I know you don’t mean any harm by it, but I’ve seen how this goes with you all.”

I felt my brow crease as my smile fell. “How what goes?”

“First, you ask which one ponies would pick, right? Sometimes you lead ‘em, but usually everypony can pick one that resonates with them well enough. The Elements are pretty generic, so at some point it’s up to everypony’s interpretation. Let’s say I picked Kindness, alright? What would you say next?”

I felt a lump forming in my throat for no reason at all, and I didn’t know why it was bothering me. “I’d say that’s a pretty good choice, since everypony could always use more Kindness.”

“Yeah, and I’d agree with you, because it’s fundamentally true that most ponies could stand to be a bit more Kind. After that, we’d talk a little bit about that. There’s nothing wrong with talking about how good it is to be Kind to other ponies, and what that means, right?”

It was getting a little hard to swallow. “If you wanted to talk about that, then yes. I don’t see how-”

Rainbow held up a hoof and I stopped next to her. “I’m not done yet. You’d then encourage me to meet other ponies who value Kindness, right? And even if I waffled about it and gave you a vague maybe, a few of your Church ponies would find me in a few days to discuss it, wouldn’t they?”

“You’d said you liked Kindness,” I clarified, sitting down next to her. “You wouldn’t have to join the Church or anything, but maybe other ponies who shared your interest would-”

“Would what?” Rainbow’s gaze was insistent but gentle, and I found I couldn’t look away. “They’d want to talk to me? Plant the seed even further in my mind? Because I’ve had friends who’ve had the same thing happen to them, Twilight. They joined into what they thought was a simple conversation, and at first it was just conversations, but as they got further and further into it, their new friends expected more and more out of them, until they found themselves wrapped up into your little Church.”

I bit my lip so hard I tasted copper. “It was their choice, though. They could’ve said no, at any time. Besides, is it so wrong to be Kind? Is it wrong to want to be Loyal?”

Rainbow closed her eyes and took a deep breath before looking at me again. “It’s not wrong to want that, Twilight. It’s not wrong to want the world to be a better place, and I know it helps an awful lot of ponies, but… how would you leave the Church, if you decided you didn’t want to be a part of it anymore?”

“Why would you want to leave?” The words were tumbling out before I’d had a chance to think them through. “You’d become Kinder, or more Loyal, or Honest or Generous or brought more Laughter to the world. To give that up would be-”

“Selfish?” Rainbow finished for me, and I could see tears in her eyes just as I could feel them in my own. “Maybe it’s okay to make a selfish decision, if it means you can leave a situation that isn’t healthy for you. I don’t have an issue with you wanting to be Loyal or following some Goddess, Twilight,” she summarized as she stood up and started back down the ramp. “My issue is the response your cult has when somepony changes their mind.”