The halls of the Castle of Friendship were dark, despite the impression that had been given by the illumination seeping from under the doorframe. It was as if a pall of blackness had settled over every surface, leaving only a faint impression that there was any kind of physicality present there and not just void. The dark was only chased away by an ethereal luminescence that emanated from the doorways that stood around the perimeter at regular intervals. The illumination of her magic didn’t seem to have any apparent effect, so Twilight Sparkle let her horn dim as she walked forward.

The door directly in front of her would have led to the map chamber—she had never wanted to think of it as a throne room, even if that was ultimately what it was, something she felt obligated to no longer deny. Setting her hand upon the handle, though, led to the prompt discovery that the entrance was firmly locked. She had a hunch that her magic wouldn’t do anything if she tried to act against this, either to forcibly make passage or teleport through. She was only made all the more curious by the sound of something on the other side. It was a hum of magical power, too indistinct for her to identify. It could have been the map, but even if it was there was no way to be sure what that meant. In this liminal space, that could or could not have translated to something that was actually transpiring in reality.

What was this exactly, anyway, she had to wonder to herself as she turned her attention down the hall. The occluding dark made it impossible to truly identify the walls, but she could see from the positioning of the doors the way the passage curved away and out of sight in either direction. It was quiet aside from that hum that whispered from behind the locked door. The hall seemed far too hazy to be anything that was real. She felt as if she were walking through a dream, the air itself thick and trying to impede her progress as she began to walk, yet simultaneously beckoning her forward. She wished that she’d had more time to practice with dream magic before this—Princess Luna was supposed to give her lessons at some point before she took charge.

A roiling sensation through her, tingling and bristling, prompted her to stop abruptly in place.

It was fine. Everything was going to be fine. She would wait until she was on the throne of Canterlot before she worried about how she would handle her reign.

Breathe.

Twilight Sparkle walked along the hallway, not hesitating to put her hooves one step in front of the other even as she waded into the gloom. The next central door was also locked. On the opposite side of it, however, was a door that differed slightly from the uniform appearance of the castle doors. The angular crystalline panels were emblazoned with a pattern of blue diamonds upon their center—an extremely familiar pattern at that. She knew that the library was supposed to be the next room to the right from her bedroom, though she wasn’t certain that the position was even correct. Further down the hall, she could see that there were more markings upon the other doors she could see: colorful balloons a little further down, and butterflies on another panel that was just at the far end of the curve. This was not real, she had to remind herself. A subconscious manifestation of the connection she had to her friends.

A thought twinged in her mind as she put her hand upon the handle of the door with the diamonds. After they defeated Sombra, she had never asked her friends what they had experienced when he cast the spell that caused them to envision their greatest fears. She knew that the effects were something that could vary—what she had seen that day differed somewhat from her first time being affected by that spell, during her original visit to the Crystal Empire—but the core of the message was there. Twilight Sparkle had feared letting down her friends, her mentor, her family, everypony in Equestria. She had feared failure.

It felt as if a dampness were creeping up her mane, and her grip faltered.

“…No, it wasn’t just failure,” she muttered under her breath, “it was responsibility. I didn’t think I was ready to have so much burden on my shoulders. I…I didn’t want it.”

The shadow shrank back as she held firmly to the handle once more.

“Maybe a part of me still doesn’t want it…but I’m not going to turn it down if I’m needed.”

The door creaked as it swung open.

The old and musty smell of mildew immediately washed over her as she stepped forward. There was a dull thud as the door closed behind her, and a glance over her shoulder yielded no sign of it being there, but she felt no alarm at this. Another dark chamber awaited her, although it was a truer kind of dark.

Piles of discarded cloth and fabric littered the floor before her. Occasionally she noticed whole dresses that were familiar: the gown that she had worn for her first coronation, those that she and her friends had worn to various galas, those garish garments that they had forced Rarity to make for that one exhibition early in her career. The room was massive, like a warehouse; she could scarcely see the ceiling, where the columns that lined the walls rose up to meet with it. Figures veiled in shadow stood along the perimeter. They could not accurately be identified, but Twilight Sparkle was certain that they were ponnequins. Whether or not they were mounted on their stands was a separate matter.

But she almost didn’t notice any of that. She was far more taken with the cobwebs. The air was thick with them, tethering between the piles of cloth and rising up toward the high walls and ceiling in crisscrossing networks. Even in the dark, a faint, ghostly luminescence emanated from those gossamer strands, creating a silvery expanse. The alicorn did everything in her power not to consider what might have been scurrying along those webs.

Instead, she turned her attention upon (what seemed to be) the center of the room, where the only real light in the room was. The glow of a lamp lit up a small table with yet more cloth strewn over it. There was a pony sitting there, back facing toward her, cast in shadow by the light in front of her. It was just enough to recognize the curl of her mane.

“Rarity?” Twilight Sparkle was standing behind the pony. She couldn’t recall having crossed the distance. She almost wanted to, just to know how she had managed to avoid blundering into so many of those cobwebs.

She was close enough to see that the white mare had a flat, bored expression on her face. It was the face of somepony who was doing a job out of obligation above all else. That didn’t seem right—Twilight Sparkle knew that even when Rarity was frustrated with a job, she was still passionate; she would be intense, not merely neutral.

“What do you think of this, Twilight?” Rarity asked. There was a hint of a tremble in her voice. Uncertainty. Doubt. Doubt for herself, perhaps.

Twilight Sparkle looked at the paper which was spread out in front of Rarity. It was a design concept for a dress. The body which the dress was laid over, however, was something which she struggled to even comprehend. Too many appendages. Too big. A sprawling mass of flesh more than a creature.

“It looks good to me,” she said automatically without even knowing what she was supposed to be basing her judgment on.

Rarity gave a noncommittal and unladylike grunt in reply as she set her pencil down and leaned back in her chair. She turned toward the alicorn. She was also clad in nothing but a bra and panties, though hers were lacier. The other side of her face was cast in shadow by her mane. Inky blackness seeped around the coiffed purple curls.

“Trash.”

Her horn flashed and a sewing needle came up and gouged across the paper, before the whole thing crumpled into a wad and threw itself aside.

Twilight Sparkle cringed but said nothing. She wasn’t the expert on these matters, it wasn’t her place to try to comfort the fashionista about something that had her upset.

“Do you know why I wanted to get into designing?” Rarity muttered while her fingers idly fiddled with the pencil on the table.

“Um…” It only took a moment for her to rifle through her encyclopedic memory of the times they had spent together, handily chronicled by the letters and journals she had written over the years. “Because…you idolized the ponies of Canterlot and hoped to be among the elite one day, and you saw the value in bringing out the beauty in ponies around you just as much as yourself, that’s why you’re always so eager to do work for us and—”

“Buck that.” The pencil snapped in her grip, and she threw that away too. “It was attention-whoring, Twilight. It was always about the attention. I wanted ponies to think I was more than just a country bumpkin. I wanted everypony to think I was the crème de la crème. I wanted their approval, and I would do any damn thing to get that, be it making a show of myself or doing something for my friends. If I didn’t do that then…I wasn’t worth anything. I wouldn’t be worth any of that clout or any affection from my friends.” Makeup ran in dark streaks down her cheeks, but her expression remained sternly composed with anger.

“Why do you lot put up with me?” she asked abruptly.

Twilight Sparkle blinked dumbly. Her mouth was too dry to form words for several seconds. “What…what’re you talking about?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Rarity snapped with biting acerbity, almost snarling. “You know what I’m like. I know what I’m like. The drama queen. The snob. Nothing’s ever easy when I’m around. I just complicate everything. The only reason to keep me around is that I make things for you, and the instant I cease to produce satisfactory results you’ll all get rid of me!” And then, with her bare hands, Rarity lifted the end of the table up and flipped it over, sending it tumbling away into the shadows with a thunderous clatter. “You and I both know it, and all the others would say the same thing.” She turned away again while breathing heavily, closing her eyes, and clasped her arms across her front.

After several seconds had passed, the alicorn put her hand on the other mare’s shoulder, clasping delicately. She flinched but made no attempt to shake her off. “Rarity, none of that is what defines you. You are one of the most kind and compassionate ponies I know. Just think about all the ponies whose lives you’ve made better through your own self-sacrifice. Every time you make me a dress or help me with my make-up or give me advice on posture on whatever else, I’m not thinking about that act in itself, I’m thinking about you, how much I appreciate that you’re the kind of pony who will go to that length for others. Who cares if you don’t like going to the Hay Burger with me or…or talking about magic studies, or whatever. I…I don’t…” She felt herself trembling just as much as Rarity was when she reached with her other hand to caress the mare’s neck and cheek, gently urging her to turn, to meet their gazes again. “I don’t know…where I’d be right now if it weren’t for you. I don’t think any of us do. You don’t need to do anything to be ‘worthy’ of our love.”

Rarity’s sapphire eyes stared back with blazing intensity. There was ferocity and defiance in that look, staunchly refusing to believe what she was being told, but there was also a wavering shimmer that hinted at how she desperately wanted to believe it. In the end, she didn’t say anything, she simply leaned forward and rested her face against Twilight Sparkle’s chest, slowly furling her arms around her. The alicorn closed the embrace, resting her chin in the crux of horn and forehead, the silkiness of that carefully maintained mane welcoming her.

“Do you promise you’ll stay with me, Twilight, no matter what I do?” she asked, trembling.

“Nothing you do could ever drive me away, Rarity,” Twilight Sparkle replied with a gentle squeeze.

Quiet sobs and sniffles filled the gloomy workshop.

= = = = =

Twilight Sparkle couldn’t have said how long that moment lasted or when it ended. It was at once an eternity and an instant.

The next thing she was aware of, she was standing in the hallway again. The door with the diamonds on it was behind her, albeit now lacking any kind of handle or knob for her to open it with. The central door on the other side of the hall was still locked, though the hum emanating from within might have been louder, just a little.

The path ahead of her was clear now.

She walked again through the darkness and approached the next door in line, the one with the balloons on its surface.

She was met with the smell of loamy earth and the damp of a cavern. Despite that, the other side of the door revealed a room that appeared closest to a barn, although the circular wall that surrounded her gave an impression closer to a silo. Amid the drab greys and browns that were all around her, coupled with the ever-present shade, colorful decorations stood out like luminous beacons. There were tables with bright cloth coverings and balloons that hung suspended above them and streamers and ribbons that spanned around the walls. On closer inspection, though, it occurred to her that the lumpy tables were actually piles of rocks with cloths spread over them. The cakes that were stacked on top of the tables were also clearly just rocks that had been heaped with icing upon them.

“Careful, don’t spoil the surprise.”

The voice calling out to her prompted Twilight Sparkle to turn her attention to the pony who was still in the midst of putting up the decorations, stepping on top of another pile of rocks so she could affix more ribbons to the wall. Pinkie Pie wore constrictive overalls of the sort that a farmpony such as Applejack would likely wear and held a simple oil lamp in her free hand to keep her space illuminated. There were ribbons tied around her shoulders and waist, but that wasn’t enough to change the overall plainness of the outfit. Her mane and tail weren’t the puffy tufts of hair that they were supposed to be either, instead hanging in long flat curtains, closer to Fluttershy but lacking even the slightest hint of vibrancy or vitality. Splatters of black pooled around their ends, as if weighing them down.

Pinkie Pie turned back to look toward her. She was smiling, but one could immediately tell that it was not a happy smile—too much teeth and gums, straining at the corners—and that almost seemed worse than if she had simply been frowning. Pinkie Pie wasn’t supposed to smile like that, not ever.

“What’s the surprise for, Pinkie?” Twilight Sparkle asked warily as she took a step closer.

Her smile widened yet more, but the sadness in her eyes only seemed to grow stronger still. “Can’t you tell? It’s only the best kind of surprise!” She spoke with enthusiasm that was eggshell-thin. “It’s what I call a ‘Surprise! Your daughter is a failure!’ party!” She gave a horrible laugh that sounded like it was ready to turn into a scream at the slightest disruption. She nearly dropped the lantern onto the hay and scrubby grass that covered the floor.

Twilight Sparkle wordlessly crossed the rest of the distance between them and reached out for her. Their hands found each other and the alicorn took hold of the lantern, setting it aside before then helping the pink mare down from the pile of rocks. Pinkie Pie kept on chuckling weakly even with tears streaming over her face—again the sound was somehow worse than if she had merely been crying. They sat down together on the pile and leaned against each other for support, though Twilight Sparkle was offering far more.

“I was never good at rock farming,” Pinkie Pie muttered flatly while snuggling up to her, “I could never find the right geodes or coax a rock into revealing gemstones, not the way my sisters could. I stuck out like the sore thumb of the family. Bright pink out of all those dark greys, the only one who didn’t know her way around a rock. Papa…he never said anything about it, but I could tell he was worried.”

Twilight Sparkle gripped her tightly and rubbed the back of her neck. She didn’t have much familiarity with Pinkie Pie’s father, but she knew enough to understand that he was a stern, hardy pony. The Pies, much like the Apples, were an old family steeped in tradition. Sticking to the family roots was no doubt a priority for them.

“On that day when I got my cutie mark…” Pinkie Pie whispered, “I was so excited to try doing something that would make my family happy. I brought them in here to show them the decorations, and I felt so proud of what I’d done on such short notice. I was sure they’d be happy too. But…they were quiet for so long. I remember the way Mama and Papa stared at me like I was…a thing they had never seen before.”

Her hands squeezed painfully on Twilight Sparkle’s fur, but she didn’t dare cry out or speak against this. The alicorn felt a shift in the fabric of the dream, and she looked up to see something new that had appeared in the barn. Five ponies, mostly slate grey in color and dressed in traditional farmpony garb, stood in the barn, staring at them, but mostly at Pinkie Pie—Igneous Pie and Cloudy Quartz, and their other daughters, Maud and Limestone and Marble. Each bore an expression of utter bewilderment, eyes wide and jaws hanging slack. Even Maud Pie, stoic and stone-faced even as a filly, seemed shocked. Then Twilight Sparkle blinked, and the ponies turned to rubble, debris clattering as it fell in a heap. It also occurred to her that there were more rocks now, overflowing the tablecloths that had been trying to conceal them earlier, spilling across the floor. The cakes had fallen apart, splatters of icing across scattered chunks of stone.

“I’ve never been as scared as I was in that moment, Twilight. If they had turned me down after that…I don’t know what I would have done…”

“But they didn’t, Pinkie, did they?” she replied, and she pressed her fingers through the thick locks of her mane. “They all joined you for the party. They all still love you.”

Pinkie Pie nodded slowly. “You’re right, they did, and I’ve never been more relieved than that either. But…it still didn’t feel quite right.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was so glad that I had found something I was good at in life…but more than that I was glad that it wasn’t rock farming. I was so happy that I wouldn’t have to live on that drab old farm all my life.” She broke off the embrace and sniffed, letting her mane fall around her face. “I was relieved that I would be abandoning my family.”

“Pinkie…you didn’t abandon them,” Twilight Sparkle insisted, though she didn’t reach for her again, “you still love them, and they still love you. You go to see them all the time.”

Pinkie Pie gave a heavy sigh. “It doesn’t feel that way every time I’m baking cupcakes and I imagine stones in the molds.”

“Having your own interests doesn’t preclude having a love for your family, Pinkie,” she said quietly. “I think your parents understood that. Your father must have seen how sad you were, and I think that’s what he was really concerned about, not about how good you were at farming. Maybe they would have preferred that you stayed with them, but I think more than anything else they wanted you to be happy.”

Like Rarity, Pinkie Pie didn’t look like she believed what she was saying. She clenched her jaw as if keeping her lips shut, as if she really did want to deny it. But she must have known what that would mean: speaking ill of her family. She cried again, silently. “If you say so, Twilight,” she finally whispered with just the bare minimum amount of energy.

“You should go see them, after this is all over,” she said, placing a gentle hand on her knee, and then she offered, “I’ll go with you, if you want.”

Pinkie Pie smiled, just slightly, and this time there was genuine warmth in her expression. “Thanks, but this is something I have to do by myself.”

= = = = =

The door with the butterflies on it led to a space that seemed familiar at first.

Twilight Sparkle had stood in this very same dimly lit bedroom not too long ago. Pine air freshener did a valiant effort of covering up the not-so-pleasant smell of animals that frequented the cottage. Outside the windows were fields that led to the Everfree Forest, but there was no light from the moon or the stars in the sky. There was no mess from her last visit, either; no puddles on the floor, no discarded scraps of clothing, and the blankets on the bed were neatly made.

But there was no pony to be seen.

“Fluttershy?” she called out with just a hint of reservation at how quiet it was—not even the chirping of crickets could be heard.

There was a clatter of glass containers falling over. She whirled about; it sounded as if it had come from within the walls. Only, in place of where there should have been solid wall, there was now a door—a plain wooden door, not the angular stained-glass panel of the now-vanished entrance she had come through. A rosy gold light like that of a sunset came from the seam under the frame.

It seemed silly to do so, considering that she was already intruding upon her friend’s mind to begin with, but nonetheless Twilight Sparkle reached out and knocked her fist upon the door. “Fluttershy?” she said again.

After a pregnant pause, a mare’s voice replied, “Come in.”

The room on the other side of the door—a room which should have been projecting into open air on the second story of the cottage—was very unlike the architecture of the surrounding building. Clean white walls plastered over wooden boards and the smell of animals was replaced with perfume. One side of the room was taken up by a long mirror with lightbulbs affixed around its perimeter and a counter underneath. The other walls were lined with racks of clothes, most of which seemed at a cursory glance to be of a particularly ostentatious and flamboyant sort. It was very unlike Fluttershy, one might even say.

The mare in question sat at the mirror, and on Twilight Sparkle’s entrance she turned away from her reflection to face her. For a moment, though, it was almost like looking at a completely different pony. She looked like she’d relented to giving Rarity free rein to fuss over her appearance for an afternoon. Her bangs had been pulled away from her face and her mane hung around and over her shoulder in a braid, intermittent streaks of black running through the soft pink. Copious make-up had been applied to her face, lipstick and rouge and eyeshadow, though any alluring quality this might have had was offset by her melancholic expression. She wore a green dress that was far more revealing than anything she might have typically deigned to put on, neckline cut low over her chest, a slit along the side of the skirt revealing her slender leg all the way up to the cutie mark on her hip.

Twilight Sparkle grew aware that she was staring, and Fluttershy stared back at her with wavering uncertainty. “What do you think?” she asked.

“Uh…” Taken aback, the alicorn was unable to immediately respond. She couldn’t help feeling self-conscious considering her current lack of decent clothing. “You…you look good.”

“You hesitated,” the pegasus replied immediately, a concealed edge in her flat tone. “You aren’t sure. You’re lying.”

“Wh-what?! No!” Twilight Sparkle stammered. She wanted to move, to cross the distance between them, but Fluttershy had her leveled with a gaze that might as well have been that of a cockatrice, keeping her hooves rooted in place. It was only when she looked away, turning her seat forward but not looking into her reflection this time, that she was able to move. “Why would I lie to you, Fluttershy? I can see that you…you’ve gone to great lengths here, the fruits of your labors are readily apparent.”

“But how can you be so sure that it’s good enough?” she asked with a hint of bubbling indignation, brushing her fingers against her braided mane, in that moment so much less impressive as it hung limply in place. “There are so many good-looking ponies out there and I’m just another face in the crowd.”

The purple mare bit her lip, quiet and uncertain for several seconds before she worked up the courage to ask, “I thought…you didn’t want to stand out like that.” She gently reached over and placed her hand on Fluttershy’s arm. She tensed, and for a moment she thought she might brush her off, but that moment never came.

“It’s not always so simple, Twilight,” she muttered under her breath. Her fingers passed over the counter in front of her now, touching at the bottles of make-up that were arrayed before her. “I was never interested in showing myself around other ponies. I’d much rather spend time with my animals. But you already knew all that. You know how I was when you first came to town. Then I met…all of you.” A teal eye rotated just slightly to glance toward her. “I didn’t feel the same way around you as I did with other ponies. I felt like I could be…comfortable with you.”

“We’re your friends, Fluttershy,” Twilight Sparkle murmured, “you can always—”

“Stop.” Fluttershy tensed again, and the other mare flinched at the calm fury in her tone. “I…I know you mean well, Twilight, but…this isn’t the time for a friendship speech. I need…my own words.”

Twilight Sparkle pursed her lips, but she nodded her head and remained silent.

After a heavy sigh, Fluttershy resumed. “Being around all of you…I’ve wanted to be more open. I see that all of you are so much more capable than I am, and it’s as simple as being able to stand your ground on matters that are important to you. I’ve tried so hard to do that…it takes all of my strength just to tell a pony no. I only need to let up once to get caught in the undertow and then there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m so tired of being weak.” She looked down at herself, at her cleavage, at the carefully maintained appearance she had molded herself into. “I wish I could be like this more often. Not just…for anypony. I don’t want to parade myself in front of the whole town. I hated when I got roped into modeling for Photo Finish and I hate any time we get publicity for saving Equestria. I just…I just want all of you to…”

She held her hand over her muzzle as her shoulders heaved with a sob. Her eyes watered but no tears came forth. Twilight Sparkle hesitantly reached for her again, but first Fluttershy stood from her seat. They faced each other in silence, seemingly both at a loss for words now.

Then Fluttershy’s arms snapped out and pulled her into an embrace, and before Twilight Sparkle could react the pegasus had leaned forward and planted a kiss on her cheek.

The moment ended as quickly as it began. Fluttershy’s face was redder than ever underneath her make-up but her expression was resolute. Twilight Sparkle felt the heat rising in her cheeks as well. Both of their wings were trembling.

“Thank you,” she whispered with a slight bow of her head, “and…everypony else too. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I know I…I still struggle with it, but…I want to be a better pony.”

Twilight Sparkle wanted to reassure her that she was already a good pony, but she sensed that this was not what the situation called for, so all she did was nod again and offer a smile. Then she pulled Fluttershy into an embrace of her own, and she eagerly welcomed it.

= = = = =

The stink of sweat and steam billowed out at Twilight Sparkle as soon as she opened the door with a multicolored lightning bolt.

Her hooves clopped upon hard linoleum. Navy blues were all around her, from the floor to the walls to the benches to the lockers that stretched in front of her. A single old fluorescent lightbulb cast its sterile white glow over the row that immediately surrounded her and the hallway beyond. Turning back yielded more and more rows of lockers that faded into the shadows with no definite end in sight. She didn’t have any particular desire to go exploring, which was a tad problematic when the pony she was searching for was nowhere to be seen.

Then there came the metallic grinding of a door opening, letting in the raucous sound of boisterous, laughing voices. A group of ponies emerged, each wearing dark blue bodysuits with yellow lightning bolt streaks, covering most of their bodies. They were giving each other congratulations and lighthearted ribbing in the way that only a team of sportsponies could. Twilight Sparkle recognized a few of the Wonderbolts like Spitfire and Soarin’ from their appearance, what little was left visible with their suits on, though their voices seemed off, tinny and stilted. They still had their goggles over their eyes, lenses gleaming in the light of the locker room.

All except for one, the mare who was at the center of the group and was receiving the bulk of their attention.

“How’s it feel to set a new record on the circuit, Dash?” Spitfire asked.

“Ha, nothing special, I’ll have at least another second shaved off by the end of the month,” Rainbow Dash replied coolly with a smirk, and the other Wonderbolts laughed.

“You’d better get your rest then if you want to keep powering through like that,” Soarin’ said, or it might have been somepony else; their words were blending together.

“I dunno about rest, but I definitely gotta freshen up after a sweat like that,” she said as she broke off from the crowd and walked into the row of lockers, “I’ll catch up with you guys later.”

The Wonderbolts offered a few pithy words of reassurance and farewell before they left. The sounds of their departure, their hoofsteps and voices, vanished almost immediately once they were all out of view.

Rainbow Dash’s demeanor changed drastically once she was by herself. Her expression sagged, smile turned weary, heavy bags under her eyes. It was almost as if she had aged a decade in the span of a few seconds. Her gait was uneven and her arms hung limply at her sides with her wings behind her back. She was looking straight ahead at the only other pony left in the locker room, but her gaze was unfocused, listless. The hues of her mane and tail shifted, showing black hiding between the stripes.

“Rainbow?” Twilight Sparkle said quietly.

Then Rainbow Dash turned and reared back to bash her head into a locker.

“RAINBOW!” The alicorn practically launched herself across the floor so she could throw her arms around her friend, but that wasn’t before she had already gotten two more rounds in and the locker had started to dent. She struggled briefly, flailing erratically, before being wrestled down onto a bench. Her uniform’s goggles were smashed, and now she was even gladder that they hadn’t been over her eyes. There were thin rivulets of red trickling over her blue fur.

“Tw…Twilight?” Rainbow Dash muttered as she looked blearily up at the distraught face that was hanging over her, “Wh-what’re you doing here?”

“Never mind what I’m doing here, what were you thinking?!” Twilight Sparkle was so distressed that she didn’t realize she was still yelling.

For a moment, the pegasus seemed confused, as if she didn’t even remember the past minute. Then, as the adrenaline faded, that weariness reemerged and her gaze turned away, unwilling to meet hers. “It’s…complicated,” she said under her breath.

“Well, you’d better start explaining it, then, because I’m not leaving until I get answers.” As if there was any choice in the matter, considering that was the entire reason she was here to begin with. She wasn’t even sure if she could leave prematurely like that.

There was a grumble in Rainbow Dash’s throat, but no disagreement followed. Reasonably satisfied, Twilight Sparkle gradually let go and sat up so that she could do the same, straddling the bench and slumping forward. She held her arm out in front of herself and looked at the lightning bolt that ringed around her wrist.

“This has been everything I ever wanted for as long as I can remember, Twilight,” she said wistfully. “Ever since I first saw the Wonderbolts, I knew I wanted to be like them. I wanted to be the best, most awesome flier in Equestria. Ponies told me I couldn’t do it when I was in flight camp, but I proved them all wrong and rubbed their noses in it every time.” She grinned proudly, however briefly before it faded again. “Is this it? Is this what it was all for?”

“Do you…not like being a Wonderbolt?” Twilight Sparkle asked anxiously. It would not be the first time such doubts had crept in.

“No, buck that, it’s not about being a Wonderbolt!” Rainbow Dash snapped back, throwing up her hands. Anger flashed in her magenta eyes, but only for an instant before it was overtaken by that sorrowful tiredness once more. “It’s about everything, Twilight! Everything, my whole life! Every single day, flying this way, flying that way, over and over and over again!” She slammed a fist against her open palm for punctuation. “I’m nearly thirty, Twilight. Thirty damn years on this hunk of rock. I’ve clawed my way up every step of the way for those years to get to where I am now. And now…now what? I’m just going to have to keep doing this for the rest of my life, until I die or I can’t fly anymore? I’d might as well be dead when that happens, just put me down when my wings aren’t strong enough to keep me in the air.”

“Rainbow, don’t say that!” the alicorn insisted, and she reached for her but Rainbow Dash brushed her hand away with a huff.

“I can’t be awesome all the time, Twilight. What’s that saying? You’re only as good as your worst day? That’s me. Even the slightest buck-up can set me back. You already saw what happened when I first joined the Wonderbolts and I had that crash. I just…I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Twilight Sparkle wet her lips, tongue squirming inside her mouth, but the dryness wouldn’t go away. She felt her heart pounding in her chest. She grasped at the thoughts in her brain. “…Why do you want to be awesome, Rainbow Dash?”

Rainbow Dash was silent and still. She stared back as if the alicorn had just said the most absurd, ridiculous thing she’d ever heard, an affront to everything she’d ever known. Then her gaze faltered, her brows furrowed, as she seemed to look inward. “I don’t really remember anymore,” she muttered flatly.

“You wanted everypony to know how awesome you are,” Twilight Sparkle ventured, and she reached to tenderly place a hand on the pegasus’s leg. “And you’ve done that time and time again. You wanted their admiration, and you’ve got it. But do you know what else that means?”

She only looked up to her quizzically, confused.

“They look up to you, Rainbow.” She smiled, gentle and hopeful. “You have a fan club, Rainbow. And now you’ve got ponies watching what you do from all over the world. They all want to be awesome like you. They…I wish I could be like you, Rainbow. You always give everything your all and you don’t give a damn about the consequences. You’re an amazing flyer, what I’d give to be able to fly like you do.” She scooted closer on the bench, and now she put her hand on Rainbow Dash’s shoulder. “You might not be able to do this forever, you might not always perform your best, but you will always, always be remembered, no matter what happens from here on out.”

Again the blue mare was silent. She trembled, seeming to want to curl in on herself. But her eyes couldn’t pull away from Twilight Sparkle’s gaze. Slowly, she nodded her head and shrugged her shoulders. “Yeah…I guess that makes sense,” she eventually admitted. “I can keep going…I can be awesome for other ponies’ sakes.”

“You’ll always be awesome for me, Rainbow,” Twilight Sparkle said, and she distantly felt herself smiling even though there were still tears forming in her eyes.

Rainbow Dash snorted out a chuckle and managed to smirk. “Come on, Princess, don’t go getting too mushy on me.”

= = = = =

The door with apples marked upon it didn’t lead into another building at all, and when Twilight Sparkle turned back the way she came she only saw the shade of trees.

A red-orange glow led her through the underbrush, and it was joined by other sources of stimuli. The noxious tingling on the sinuses of smoke. The crisp sweetness of toasted treats. Crackling of fire and popping of firewood. Low chatter and the occasional ringing laugh.

At last, she stepped out into a clearing and was met with a circle of ponies sitting around a campfire. They were all young, none looking older than fourteen. None were immediately familiar, but she recognized the distinctive colors of Apple stock, reds and oranges and yellows and greens and browns, most with bright freckles on their cheeks that glittered in the light from the fire.

And off to the side there was Applejack sitting on a fallen log. She was dressed much as she usually was, long sleeves and cloying jeans despite the heat that filled the air, albeit without her distinctive hat—her father’s hat. She had a gentle smile as she looked over the gathering of fillies and colts. There were intermittent strands of black in her mane, like the grey hairs of an aging pony, almost unnoticeable amidst the golden blonde forest. But there was also a kind of emotional lethargy at the rims of her eyes that was akin to what had occupied Rainbow Dash’s thoughts. It was still there when she looked up at the mare walking toward her. “Howdy, Twi,” she said with a cheerful twang, “y’all decided to drop by?”

“Yeah,” Twilight Sparkle affirmed warily as she took a seat on the log beside her. Sitting nearly naked on rough bark wasn’t especially appealing to her, but the wood seamed strangely smooth where it touched her flesh.

She expected Applejack to continue, but it would be what seemed like several minutes of silence before she said anything else, instead taking that time to watch over the Apple ponies around the fire. The orange mare was smiling, yet it seemed that as the seconds went by she only grew sadder and sadder. Something about this was terribly wrong in a way that danced along Twilight Sparkle’s spine but couldn’t quite make its way to her brain.

“I’ve always wanted to see something like this, Twi,” Applejack muttered. “All these new young-uns brought into the world an’ havin’ a grand old time. Ma ‘n Pa would take us on campin’ trips like this all the time, me ‘n Big Mac ‘n AB an’ all the other cousins when they came into town. I always hoped I’d be able to do that too.” Her expression faltered. “It’s too bad the rest of the family can’t be here to see this.”

Twilight Sparkle was getting ready to reach over and place her hand on her friend’s, but the earth pony made the move first, clasping her in her sturdy grip, and she whispered, “Please don’t make me go.”

The alicorn’s initial objection was cut short when she looked into those leaf green eyes and saw them glistening not with sadness or anger but terror.

“I can’t face them, Twi. I jus’…I can’t.”

“It’s fine, Applejack.” She wrestled with her hand enough to return the embrace, fingers interlocking. “I’ll go with you. We can do it together.”

A part of Twilight Sparkle thought—hoped, maybe—that might have been the end, and there would be another blur before she found herself in the hall of doors again. Instead, Applejack stood and turned around, walking away from the campfire, and she followed. The presence of the campfire and the young ponies gave way to silence and stillness shortly upon their approach into the shadows that lay beneath the canopy of branches and leaves. They were soon in darkness, scarcely any illumination, only a faint shimmer along the edges of the surfaces around them. Applejack’s mane and tail gave a dull hint of sparkling, polished metal that had not quite lost its luster.

Then they came to a clearing. At the center there were two squat slabs of stone that rose up from the earth. It was too dark to read the words that were carved upon them, but Twilight Sparkle was well aware of what they said. She had seen them before, although it had been in the Ponyville cemetery instead of the middle of the woods.

Applejack held her hands together over her front, and after several tense seconds she said, “Hi Pa. Hi Ma. It’s…it’s been a little while.”

Twilight Sparkle stood by her side and watched quietly. She reached for Applejack’s hand again, and there was no resistance—almost too little resistance. The mare felt cold.

“We’ve done this so many times. We come out here to talk to them. Let them know how things are goin’. Farm’s still okay. Granny’s holdin’ up. Apple Bloom keeps on growin’.” She sniffed, her nostrils rankling as her face forced itself into a grimace, willing herself to remain steady. “I jus’…I jus’ wish one of these days they’d say somethin’ back so I knew they were listenin’. There’s so much I need to tell them an’ I…I need to hear what they think. It’s killin’ me, not bein’ able to know.”

“Applejack,” Twilight Sparkle said, a simple address to get her friend’s attention and to wet her lips while she thought of the words she needed to form. She played with their fingers together, but there continued to be no response. “I know I…never met your parents, but…from everything you’ve told me about them, I’m sure that they’d support you no matter what.”

“An’ how do you know that?” Applejack asked indignantly, whirling on her and shaking off her grip, a flurry of motion and vigor where before there had only been listlessness. There was now anger, and some sorrow, but that anxious terror was rooted deep beneath the surface in every crease along her face. The beginnings of tears were forming. “What if I’ve been doin’ wrong by them all this time an’ I never knew?” She stalked over to the gravestones. She ran her hand over the top of the one on the left—Bright Mac’s, where she would usually place his hat when she came for one of these visits—and then knelt on the grass in front of the right—Pear Butter’s—and reached her hands around it in an embrace, placing her cheek against the weathered stone. “What if I was wrong from the moment I was born?”

That tingling on the alicorn’s spine was getting closer and closer to her brainstem. Trepidation gnawed at her like a colony of termites. “A…Applejack, what do you need to tell them?”

“I’m barren, Twi.”

The words hit like a sledgehammer, a blow that was almost physical, enough to cause Twilight Sparkle to stagger backward with a hand clasped over her gaping mouth. The silence, the absence of the voices and the campfire, now seemed infinitely more palpable than it had been before.

Applejack was trembling now, shoulders heaving intermittently with hitched gasps of breath as she turned her gaze downward, head propped against her mother’s gravestone. “I wanted to have kids, Twi, more than anythin’. I wanted to have somepony I could care for like my parents cared for me. I wanted to continue the Apple family. Then I…I started gettin’ older an’…I never got my period, Twi. I never went into heat. Not once.” There were cracks as her grip on the stone tightened. “They were…they were already gone by then, I couldn’t…couldn’t ask them what was happenin’. I jus’ kept…k-kept waitin’ an’…nothin’ ev-ver came. Then…” She turned, and her hair parted just enough to show a hint of a watering eye. “At your brother’s weddin’, I…I-I got plastered an’ I…I f-found a stallion…don’t r-remember his face…an’ we…we rutted right there in the g-gardens.”

There was a break as the mare sobbed. Twilight Sparkle crept closer, but there was an intense aura of pain and misery that surrounded Applejack and made it feel like she was wading through a mire. The strands of black in her mane were thickening into stripes, spreading cancerously.

“I was…s-scared at first…b-but the-en I d-decided…to wait…an’ s-see what h-happened. An’ I waited…a-an’ w-waited…an’…nothin’ happened. N-nothin’.” Applejack’s grip on the stone slackened, arms going limp as she fell upon the grass and curled in on herself. “I-I’ll…n-nev-ver h-have k-k-kids, Twi…an’ my…my p-parents, they’ll…they’ll…”

There were no more words. There was only crying. Not the soft, quiet sobbing that came in a moment of melancholy. This was bawling from the very bottom of the lungs, harsh and guttering and terrible to hear, years and years of anguish let loose all at once. Applejack—the toughest and most dependable of their group—lay there on her mother’s grave, blubbering incoherently, occasionally mouthing fragments of apologies. Twilight Sparkle finally approached her, kneeling beside her and placing her hands upon her, pulling her into an embrace as gently as she could while she was rocking and spasming. Applejack responded by snapping her arms around her in an embrace that knocked the wind from her, holding on as if her life depended on it. In this moment, as far as the alicorn was concerned, it might as well. They remained like that for a long time, what must have been far longer than the time they spent watching the campfire. There was no indistinct passage of time; she was aware of every single second.

“Applejack…” Twilight Sparkle rubbed the back of the mare’s head and neck and shoulders, combed through her mane, once she had calmed to a quiet whimpering. “Your parents just wanted you to be happy. They wouldn’t care if you weren’t able to have kids. They just wanted you to go on living your life.”

The fingers holding onto her back squeezed painfully for a moment before Applejack muttered, “I…I kn-know, Twi. Deep down, I know.” She finally let go, and she sat in place, despondently looking down at herself. “But I’ll never really know for sure, will I? That’s gonna have to be somethin’ I carry ‘til the end of my days.” With a sniffle, there was finally a glimmer of something else in her eyes. Far from happiness. Simply acceptance. “S-sorry about that, Twi…I guess I jus’…really needed to get that off my chest.”

“It’s fine, Applejack. Thank you for telling me.” She clasped their hands together again. Applejack’s grasp was weak at first, so she gave a gentle squeeze. With a weak chuckle, she returned the gesture tenfold. Her bones felt ready to turn to dust, but it was good to feel that strength in her regardless.

= = = = =

Twilight Sparkle found herself hesitating in front of the last door.

The door that was etched with a marking that wasn’t familiar but was still distinctly evocative: a roll of parchment with green flames at the ends.

The hum of magic from the central chamber was louder than ever, a dull roar that echoed through her. The end was in sight.

Why, then, did it feel farther than ever before?

She found herself giving a silent prayer, asking for the strength to move forward. To whom, she didn’t know herself. To whomever or whatever might be listening.

She opened the door and was promptly greeted with…nostalgia.

The floor and walls and ceiling were made of rich mahogany red and peach wood—not mere wooden panels, wholly molded and carved from wood, from the body of a tree. She was inside a tree. The walls were lined with nooks hollowed into the surface that in turn housed dozens of books, a modestly expansive library for a country town. Tables and desks were home to parchment and quills and ink wells. The emblem of Celestia’s sun was emblazoned upon the ceiling. It was an old place, a miracle of earth pony architecture and engineering, to be made within the tree while keeping it alive.

It was once her home.

It was the Golden Oak Library.

Twilight Sparkle nearly felt herself grow weak at the knees. Many times she had dreamt of moments such as this. But the pretense of dreams would always make itself readily apparent, drifting through her without any lasting impact. This was almost startlingly real. She could smell the wood and the old books. She could feel the texture of the floor beneath her hooves. It was as if she had stepped not into memory but into the past itself.

Memory. The alicorn had to remind herself that she was here for a reason. For someone. That someone was conspicuously absent.

“Spike?” she called out warily.

Seconds passed by without response. Seconds in which she could mull over what she was going to say. Seconds in which no answers made themselves apparent to her.

It became a question of whether to explore the basement or the upper floor. The choice seemed made clear to her, though, when she took notice of something on the curling steps that went up into the tree trunk. A patch of something dark and ragged that she had been conditioned by now to think might have been a shadow, but on closer inspection was just a discarded scrap of cloth, motionless and forlorn. She found more on continuing up the path, and while she approached the landing of the second floor she heard the sound of fabric tearing. They were scattered all around the floor of the bedroom, and she saw more fluttering down.

The dragon sat above, in the loft where the beds were, ripping apart what she thought looked like the remains of a tuxedo.

“Spike?” Twilight Sparkle spoke with confusion and more than a little alarm.

Spike ceased his evisceration of the suit and looked at her. His expression was clouded with an indistinct frustration, eyes blazing. His frills were drooping. His chest rose and fell, and it seemed as if he might have been about to say something, but then he turned away and moved out of sight with the sound of a heavy huff. Twilight Sparkle’s brow furrowed; she easily recognized the signs of him being upset about something, and it was most likely something related to her, so that was going to make getting to the bottom of things all the more difficult.

She walked up the remaining stairs to the loft. Spike was sitting on his bed, but because it had been more than four years since they lived in the library it was rather cramped for him. The blankets and mattress showed signs of being clawed at much like the suits and clothes had been. Her own old bed was still perfectly intact, though the covers were askew, a condition she would typically never leave a bed in.

The dragon had his back turned to her, wings partially spread, as if acting as a curtain. As she came closer, she discerned specks of black among his scales. She also realized that he was naked. It made her feel self-conscious about approaching, but at least he didn’t have breasts or balls big enough to crush her. It wasn’t like this was something that could be put off, and it looked like he had torn up all of his clothes anyway.

“Hey…” she said quietly while she sat down on her own bed and faced him.

Spike remained silent. His face was angled slightly downward, listless, gaze downcast.

Twilight Sparkle wrung her hands together, fidgeting in place, wings rustling. It felt like a whole minute had passed before she managed to speak again. “You…you said we’d talk in the morning, remember? I know it’s…not quite morning yet. Well, technically speaking time might not even exist for us right now, I can’t be too sure on that yet, but, um…”

While she was trying to work toward the next point of discussion, Spike asked tersely, “Why did you and your family take me in?”

Trying to roll with the punches, Twilight Sparkle responded, “They’re your family, too, Spike. Mom and Dad love you just as much as me or Shining.”

He didn’t say anything. His stark silence spoke volumes in itself.

Conscious of the bristling, almost hot atmosphere around them, she pursed her lips and continued. “After you hatched…nopony knew who your parents might be, so it wasn’t deemed safe to take you back without any assurance that there would be someone to take care of you. Mom and Dad were still there at the palace at the time, when they saw you, they…they were taken by you, they wanted to adopt you. Celestia ultimately decided it would be better if you stayed with me while I was at school, though. Another one of her tests, I suppose.” She frowned to herself, as she often did when she looked back on those days and wondered just how far ahead the Princess’s plans for her had been made.

Spike only responded with a low grumble. His wings tightened against his back and his face turned further away from her. More spots of black manifested across his scales. Twilight Sparkle felt a prickling of wariness creep through her.

“Spike, please, I…I want to help you…we need to figure out how to get back to the way we’re supposed to—”

“How do you know what I’m supposed to be?” the dragon interjected vehemently as his neck snapped back in her direction, his eyes fixed in a venomous glare that made the prickling turn into a chill, and when she only managed to sputter in response he added, “What if I don’t want to go back to the way I was before?”

“Bu…but…h-how can you say that?!” Twilight Sparkle gasped back, “You’re…you’re not you, Spike, you’re something else! It’s controlling you, making you forget what’s important!”

“Do you know what’s bucking ‘important’ to me?” He stood now, and the alicorn felt alarm at how tall he was, the muscle tone beneath his scales fully on display, looming over her before he bent down to grab the frame at the foot of her bed. The way he glowered and snarled and looked down on her sparked a reaction from dormant prey instincts deep within her subconscious. “Actually being happy for once in my damned life, that’s what’s important to me! Why would I ever want to go back to the way I was before, when I was afraid and ashamed and always stuck in your shadow?!”

“Wh…wh-what?” she asked, mouth hanging agape. “Spike, you’re…you’re not—”

“Shut up!” Spittle flew from his toothy maw and greenish smoke from his nostrils as he bellowed. “Don’t act like you have all the answers! You can’t just study me until you’ve got everything figured out!” But it seemed as if the outburst was rapidly sapping his fortitude, his arms shivering, jaw trembling even while it stayed clenched shut, eyes quavering as they turned watery. Whole patches of his scales were turning black, a rash of corruption. “I’m not just another book, Twilight! I’m not an experiment for you to puzzle out! I’m…I’m…me.” The pain and anger remained in his expression even as the animosity diminished, leaking out along with his tears. He stood up again before turning and slumping against the foot of the bed.

It took some time for Twilight Sparkle to sort through her thoughts and feelings over what had just transpired. She understood immediately that this was nothing like how it was in the past when Spike had temper tantrums. This was something rooted deep within, something truly painful.

She should have expected it, perhaps, after meeting in the inner thoughts of her friends before this, but in none of those cases had the pain been so distinctly directed at her.

She moved to sit on the floor beside Spike. He didn’t make any vocal objection to this. “When…did this begin?” she asked in a whisper. Her fingers crept toward his hand but stopped short.

The fire of anger had burnt itself out, leaving his expression placid and neutral, stewing in melancholy. “…Ever since we moved to Ponyville,” he eventually muttered. “It didn’t bother me much at first but it immediately felt like things were different. Back in Canterlot when you were just a student, we were equals. We were…siblings. But then you suddenly had all these other friends. You six were the Elements of Harmony. I was…Spike. I was the assistant, nothing else.” His fingers twitched and brushed against hers momentarily before pulling away. “I thought I could put those feelings away if I could…do things more for myself. Make my own identity, you know. But over time it became more and more apparent that that just wasn’t going to work. I’m different, Twilight. I’m too much of a dragon to be with ponies, but I’m too much of a pony to be around other dragons either.” He turned to look at her wearily. “This is irony, isn’t it? I was always in a hurry to feel like an adult, and now I am an adult and I see that everything is just worse than it was before.” He scoffed and shook his head, frills flapping limply.

Twilight Sparkle now reached for his hand, and he didn’t try to stop her from clasping around the limp digits. “Spike…I’m sorry I haven’t done enough for you. I’ve just…there’s always so much going on with keeping the town in order, with saving the world, and all this…princess stuff. But…that’s not an excuse. I haven’t treated you fairly, and…I don’t know if I can ever apologize to you enough for that, but that isn’t going to stop me from trying.”

They were both quiet for some time. Tears still streamed silently over Spike’s cheeks, and Twilight Sparkle dimly realized that she was crying as well. When there was nothing said to weigh in, she then said, “Can I ask you something, Spike?”

He still made no verbal response, only glanced at her with a touch of leeriness, wounding her, but she took that on the chin, accepting that she deserved it and so much more.

“Do you feel comfortable with who you are?”

Spike looked away, and his expression grew distant, and then in a voice that was so quiet it was scarcely audible he said, “I don’t know, Twilight.” His shoulders heaved with gasping breaths. “I don’t…don’t…”

At last, the dragon broke down and gave himself over to sobbing, his powerful, fearsome visage crumbling entirely. Twilight Sparkle reached around his shoulder, and he promptly wrapped both of his arms around her in turn. They embraced, huddling together, hearts thumping against each other’s chests, their wings forming a protective barrier. She was aware that she was crying too, but this wasn’t the time to try to put up a strong front. He needed her, and she needed him just as much.

“I’m sorry, Twilight,” he murmured, brushing at her ear.

“You shouldn’t have to apologize for anything,” she said back.

“I’m still sorry. For making you worry.”

“You’re worth worrying about, Spike.”

The crying morphed into weak chuckles on both sides.

Twilight Sparkle didn’t feel weak anymore, though. After all of her trials and tribulations over the course of this night, she finally felt some semblance of control in the face of the disaster that was unfolding. She had helped all of her friends wrest themselves from the manipulation of the shadowy force that had held them in its clutches. Now all that was left was

“—emergency—”

She blinked. “Spike, did you hear that?”

Spike was still, too tense to be confused with what she was saying. “I…I thought I heard…something just now.”

Breaking off from the embrace, Twilight Sparkle looked around them. There was nothing else out of the ordinary to see in the room, nothing she could detect. “There’s this voice that I’ve been hearing every now and—”

“Contact.”

Spike coughed. The alicorn looked back to see him holding a hand over his mouth. When he turned his head and let go, it was to release a loud belch and a gout of green flame, and from within that eruption there emerged an object, fluttering to the ground. “A letter?” he asked incredulously.

But upon looking at it, Twilight Sparkle immediately found that it wasn’t the sort of letter she was used to seeing in this manner. It was not a piece of parchment rolled into a scroll and sealed with the official mark of the crown. It was a plain white envelope, and when she picked it up she found that there was no identifying information written on it. She didn’t know how somepony could have hijacked the line between Spike and Celestia, though she was more confused how it had found them here in a space of dubious physicality.

But the only way to find out was to open it, so she peeled open the seal and took out the folded piece of paper inside. It was written in a neat, uniform font that suggested the use of a typewriter.

If you are reading this, then my attempt to access the conduit connected to your associate was successful. I apologize for any alarm this might have caused.

There is much that you ought to be informed of for I am certain that you have many questions, and there are in turn many questions that I would like to ask you, but at the moment we are all desperately strapped for time so I shall have to keep this message as brief as possible.

I am aware of the circumstances that have befallen your world. My agents and I are on our way to render assistance at this very moment, but it will be some time yet before our arrival.

I am also aware of the efforts you have made to stave off your corruption. Understand that this is an unprecedented occurrence. I would like to have the opportunity to discuss what power you used to reach this outcome.

However, there is a pressing matter that remains. There is a particularly strong confluence of corruption which is manifesting on your world. This has the potential to be dangerous in of itself, but it can be made even more so when it occurs in the presence of individuals who are already in possession of considerable power. I fear that, if left unchecked, these afflicted persons may be at risk of creating a sort of singularity that will irreparably damage the very fabric of the world you inhabit.

While I will be able to sort out the corruption, I may not be able to arrive in time to stop this singularity from forming. It is therefore of the utmost importance that you do everything possible to prevent this from happening in the meantime. If you can use your power to awaken these corrupted subjects, that may be enough to stop disaster.

You must act immediately.

I dearly hope that we are able to meet face to face soon.

And I’m deeply sorry for putting you through all of this.

—Non

“What does it say?” Spike asked, though he could see the way her face filled with surprise and shock as she read, not giving him much reason to suspect that it was good tidings.

“…I’m not sure I understand, but it’s definitely not good,” she muttered ruefully, and then she turned to face him directly. “We’ve still got work to do.”

“Saving Equestria again, huh?” he remarked with a wry smirk. “What are we going to do while we’re still in here, though?”

“I don’t know. It’s kind of a dream, basically, so we’re just going to have to wait until we wake—”

The hum of magic filled her ears, the magic that had been building within the vision.

Light bloomed through the walls and engulfed everything, and the memory of the library vanished into the same oblivion that had claimed its real counterpart.

Author's Note

It's time to take a break from the horny and dive into liminal space.

After everything, this was what we were ultimately building up to: finding out the things that led to these characters becoming corrupted.

These were deep cuts. In some way or another, most of them are reflections of myself—my inadequacy, my uncertainty, my identity. Some of them were planned out early on, some of them I just came up with in the heat of the moment as I got to this point. None were more closer to my core though than Spike, and it was for this reason that I came to the decision that I couldn't not have Spike in this story. It is my deepest hope more than anything that someone out there will see this content and that it will help them feel seen in some small way.

I'm aware that Pinkie Pie and Applejack ended up being rather similar, both rooted in being a disappointment to their family, but for different reasons.

Rarity and Rainbow Dash's sections were somewhat lacking on the original draft, I had to beef them up a little.

The situation with Fluttershy might not be super clear right now but we'll see more for it later.

Oh and also finally getting some explanation for that right-aligned text.

You should really play Psychonauts 2 by the way.

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