Boundary Point

The fire blazed across the darkness as Xavier heard the words, “Next.”. Taking two steps, the forest floor cried out in a snap as he stepped on a twig and he held out two plates, each with a bowl that had a long, thick straw poking out of them. The camp fire stirred behind the stallion as he laid out two biscuits using food tongs in his mouth on each and a mare served thick vegetable stew. Receiving a nod from the stallion, Xavier stepped away holding both plates as he approached Twilight staring into the forest.

“Enjoying the happy herd?” Xavier asked, glancing back and finally seeing what Twilight was looking at. Mystic was weaving magic with her horn. A light blue thread shimmering from it, grabbing pieces of debris from beyond the black veil and calling it forth, each fragment dancing in the darkness of night. Assembling before their eyes was a massive shelter. A layer of pine needles and leaves encrusted the outside as, through the light of the fire behind them, they could see the interior was nearly spic and span. Symphony rolled out a large rug used to give the occupants separation from the dirt floor. It was colored in oranges and blues despite the distance of the fire’s light.

“It’s a combination of spells,” Twilight muttered. Xavier laid her plate in front of her on a stump and dug into his own. “The spell she is using to call pieces of wood to her is a very old one. But she has to be careful not to call the wood from the wagons and other places.” Twilight looked down at her plate. Then she glanced over at Xavier who was chewing on his biscuit, “Please don’t tell me to just pop off the ring.”

“I wasn’t.” Xavier said, swallowing.

Twilight blinked three times at Xavier, then turned her vision back at the magic being worked on, “Good.”

The two sat in silence, watching the herd from afar. The human and the Pegasus were talking to each other in a teasing manner while Symphony turned to watch them after rolling out the carpet. Finishing, she trotted up to Henry. Rearing up to get as near eye level with Henry as she could, she flashed a smile. But he simply took a step away, letting her land back on the ground below with a disquieting thud.

“Tell me Element of Magic,” Xavier said, putting half of his biscuit down on his plate and turning to Twilight. “How was it like studying under Celestia?”

Twilight’s head perked for a moment. Her ears newly wobbled for a second before she turned to him. Slowly, she gazed away and stared at the forest floor as her ears folded and she answered, “A personal question? From you?”

“Surprise,” Xavier said, wiggling his nose.

“I thought our relationship was transactionary from your viewpoint.”

“Fine,” Xavier said, returning to the plate and picking up the bowl. He placed the straw in his mouth and drank the vegetable broth and its contents.

Twilight looked over at Xavier, watching as he slurped vegetable bits through the large straw. She turned away and looked at her own food. “… After what happened at my admissions exam, I was given the offer to study with her and I took it. We lived on the edge of the central district of Canterlot at the time. But with my acceptance, I was given a royal apartment along with my own study. However, something you might not know about Celestia’s castle is that there was always work going on of some kind, ether expanding the building or maintaining the structure. There was a leak above my study and Celestia fixed it by giving me a library in a secluded part of Canterlot where I could study in peace while repairs were done,” Twilight said, her voice trailing.

“I thought you weren’t -”

“I changed my mind.”

Xavier looked at Twilight and gave a slow nod. Ahead of the team, the spell the other party was making had entered a new stage, now leaves and brushes were being assembled at the top, making an ad hoc roof. Twilight finally lowered her head and grabbed the biscuit with her teeth, and took a small bite.

“So, an entire library?” Xavier raised an eye.

“Yes,” Twilight swallowed hard, then placed her lips around the straw. Sucking, she took a drink of the broth, then swallowed. “The first three years studying under her, I had a chaperon by the name of Titanite Twang. She was invaluable those first few years, the castle,” Twilight adjusted herself, crossing her left front leg over her right, “was huge you see. When you talked to someone who worked there, you soon find out the castle is kind of divided into two parts, one where you knew where you were and another where you found yourself lost.”

“Did you ever get lost?” Xavier asked, taking another drink. Nearby, the Earth Ponies who served out dinner had put their supplies away, and gathered into a circle, eating their own with double the portions the riders got.

“Three times. The first time was when I was only two months into my apprenticeship and it was well into the night. I had found a quiet spot to study because near my library, some construction ponies had done their biyearly inspection and found an issue that they were fixing. It was loud, so I looked for anywhere else to study. I was so enthralled by my book that when I left the spot to go find a lavatory, I was reflecting on its contents. Much more than paying attention to where I was,” Twilight glanced down her plate. “It takes me a bit longer than I expected, but I finally found one. I take care of my business, and then I walked out and closed the door…”

“And you had no idea where you were,” Xavier finished.

“Exactly,” Twilight nodded. “So,” Twilight gave out a quick chuckle. “I wandered the castle. At night. With my freshly learned luminescence spell. But…” Twilight’s voice hardened. “It wasn’t as strong as I expected, it didn’t illuminate the world around me like I had expected it to. It’s light only extended out a meter or so, and the hallways were so long.”

“Given your presence here,” Xavier started. “I assume you found your way back?”

A smirk grew from Twilight’s lips as she quickly straightened them out, “No actually. It was midmorning when they finally found me. I had missed morning breakfast, and they sent the Royal guards to find me. They found me in a state of…” Twilight gave a chuckle. “Panic.”

“Because you had been lost for so long?”

Twilight shook her head, “Because I missed my appointed time with Celestia. I… I fell to pieces. The first time I ever let her down. Of course, she let it pass. I was a young filly, getting lost was not me attempting to do something dangerous or acting out against authority. However, there was a more subtle punishment. Celestia’s schedule had only made time for our early sunrise lesson. That meant that the next full day, I would have to wait to see her again.”

“And you were so worried that her opinion of you had fallen that you lost that day?” Xavier asked.

Twilight nodded, “That’s right. No studying, no sleeping, just… Me. I would stare at various things, but my mind was racing. Sometimes the wall, sometimes the vista outside my apartment, sometimes the bookcase. I only snapped out of it the next morning when she saw I wasn’t well rested. She assured me that I had done nothing wrong, but…” Twilight shook her head heavily, her mane flinging left and right. “I still felt guilty as sin.”

“Can I assume that after that, you never explored the castle again?” Xavier asked.

“Very much so. But I didn’t always have the option, so one of my early projects was to make a map of the more traversed places. I’m saying that at the end, I had mapped out 20% of the castle. But that 20% is where I spent 80% of my time. Though I never got to explore the lunar wing…”

Xavier turned, raising an eye, “Lunar wing?”

Twilight paused and caught Xavier’s eyes. She motioned toward her plate, and Xavier gave a nod. Clumsily, Twilight took a bite of her biscuit and then wrapped her lips around the large, thick straw and drew up its contents.

She cleared her throat and started again, “The lunar wing is simply Luna’s part of the castle. I didn’t realize at the time, but the first iteration of the castle was much smaller than the giant gleaming gem it is today. During the lunar rebellion, Celestia already had control of Canterlot, and with it, her sister’s portion of the castle. Once she used the Elements of Harmony to exile Luna, Celestia had said that portion of the castle off limits. Only she was allowed to go in there.”

“So, was it just Luna’s living area? Or was it like, a castle within a castle?” Xavier asked, taking a bite of his biscuit.

“I don’t know about the original structure of the castle,” Twilight said, looking up and shifting her eyebrows. “If you asked me, I would say that the original castle had a shared section, shared kitchen, shared dining room, shared library. But after the lunar rebellion, I think Celestia may have just cordoned off even those areas and built a new kitchen, and new dining rooms, and new libraries.”

“Painful memories?” Xavier thumbed his chin.

“More like new beginnings,” Twilight answered, looking up. “That said, now that Luna has returned, that section of the castle has been reopened and, before I left, still undergoing renovation.”

“A root canal…”

“… That’s… Arguably close, yes,” Twilight replied. “Since the wing was untouched for a thousand years, there might be plenty of old artifacts or ancient enchantments that are still active, but in a serious state of decay. While I never heard about the details, I wouldn’t be surprised if the two had to make a sweep of the wing before bringing in other ponies to begin fixing the place up.”

“I was under the assumption that magic that had decayed didn’t really pose a threat,” Xavier asserted.

Twilight shook her head, “Even before the shift in magic, with the sole exception of a few artifacts, no unicorn spell lasts forever. Over time, depending on the spell, it will fail. Polyblended enchantments are notorious for this.”

“A spell made from several different other spells?” Xavier looked over at Twilight.

Twilight nodded, then looked over at Xavier, “Since you know a thing or two about magic, let me quiz you.”

Xavier shrugged, “Go for it.”

“How many enchantments would you need for a door that opens itself when you get within a meter of it?”

Xavier leaned back as he looked towards the night sky, “First you would need the sensor spell. Its configuration and strength are variable with how strong you’re able to cast it. The sensor spell itself would be configured to identify either by motion in a given volume, or detect any living creature, and so on until you specify that only someone of particular characteristics gets the sensor to recognize them. Then you would need to enchant both the locking mechanism and whatever mechanism you’re using to hold the door close to change their states automatically upon a trigger. After that, the enchantment that applies force to the door. Finally, after all three of those spells have been properly cast, assuming you don’t care about anything else, like the door closing itself after something has passed through, you would bind them with an impetus spell. So 4 spells at the low end, 6 at the high, depending on your choices. Though technically you could cast an infinite number of spells, as for the task at hand, they would be superfluous.”

Twilight’s jaw was slightly agape, as a tiny smile came over her, “You really do know a thing or two.”

Xavier rubbed his hands, placing his nearly empty plate on the ground next to him, “Arguably.”

“Well,” Twilight took a sip of her straw, then began. “Arguably… the point I was getting at is using your outline, if no unicorn maintains those spells, what do you think will happen?”

“Well, based on the fact that we’re having this conversation,” Xavier said. “Over time, they would start failing, but each one at different rates.”

“Impressive!” Twilight nodded. “Most unicorns going through formal training don’t realize that different spells have different rates of decay.”

“Most unicorns start formal training when they’re still foals,” Xavier gave a look of accepted exhaustion.

“True, but exceptions are known to happen,” Twilight nodded. “So to continue, in our hypothetical example, anypony that gets within some distance of the door will have the door automatically open, and once they pass through in full, the door closes. So let’s keep it simple and assume the four spell case. Of these four spells, which one do you think would fail first?”

Xavier gave off a grimace, “The sensor, I would assume that over time the activation parameters might drift on it.”

Twilight gave an excited bob of her head, “Exactly! The spells that twist the internal mechanisms using rotational force and spell that opens the door using linear force are incredibly simple and are less prone to failing over long time periods. Similarly, the impetus spell is simple since it established the order of causality. But the sensor? For example, let’s just assume that anypony of a particular range of masses, ranging from a huge earth pony to a tiny dragon, can open the door. Perhaps the lower range of masses drips over time, so that even a fly can open it. So using this example, if you were to say leave a half eaten apple next to the door that attracts flies, when you came to check on it, the door would be slamming its self open and close over and over again!”

“And if that sensor was severely decayed, and if the force spells malfunction in a specific manner, and the door opens and closes, the huge amount of force…” Xavier trailed off.

“So, using the door opening spell as our example, let’s assume that we casted it and a thousand years passes,” Twilight’s ears wiggled. “And for our example, let’s consider a poor test subject. The test subject approaches the door, and it slams open the other way, hitting her in the snout.”

“And…” Xavier’s eyes shifted left and right for a second. “If a renovation team were to encounter something like that, something they didn’t even know about, oh…”

“Getting booped on the snout is the best-case scenario,” Twilight nodded. “If the door were say, twenty times bigger…”

Xavier repeatedly bounced his head left to right, “Depending on the size of the door and the quality of the spell… If the door is decayed and it senses the explorer… It tries to open, depending on where the spell applies the force, the huge, possibly rotted door breaks, throwing splinters at the unsuspecting being… What was a bruised nose in one scenario becomes a serious injury…”

“Precisely!” Twilight said with glee. Her heart soared, her mind repeated, He can keep up! He can follow! until it was flooded with excited, tender warmth. Her lips curled into a smile, her eyes gleamed with delight.

“Does that happen often with older structures?” Xavier asked.

Twilight twisted her head left and right, composing herself, “Only with unicorn structures,” she said. “If, on the off chance, you and I find some ruins, we will probably avoid them completely. Even the entrance bridge can be dangerous, especially the portcullis.”

“What about the land surrounding such structures?”

“Nature tends to reclaim its own pretty quickly,” Twilight answered. “Just as an example, the same sensor spell we talked about earlier? Around well kept and clean stone, it will last ten times as long as the same spell atop dirt and grass.”

“Different substances decay at different rates?” Xavier tilted his head. “That would be commensurate with–” Xavier stopped himself, his eyes darting at Twilight who just looked at him.

“Go on…” Twilight said.

“It’s nothing,” Xavier said.

“I won’t bite, I promise. Whatever you have learned, it has given you enough experience to keep up with my explanations.”

Xavier shuffled for a bit. He scratched the back of his head, turning to Twilight as she looked at him before starting, “The first kind of magic that we humans understood was inscription magic. While music was more accessible, once we got a grip of inscription magic, our own understanding of electronics and discrete mathematics helped in making tremendous leaps in our mastery. Do you remember our discussion about electronics?”

Twilight nodded.

Xavier began, “Many of the principles we learned mastering electronics in various forms carried over to inscription work. The flow of magic in a circuit, how glyphs, sigil, and different symbols react with one another. The variation of ambits, concentric orbits, connecting sub-inscriptions onto a main inscription. We’ve already done much of the basics once before with the construction of electronics. Ensigns that bring multiple symbols together to return a well-understood behavior, not unlike using only AND, OR, and XOR logic gates to return a binary adder, then deriving more complex inscription work from this foundation.”

“And you figured this all out on your own?” Twilight’s ears slightly folded back.

“By myself?” Xavier asked, looking at Twilight. He shook his head, “No, I worked as a member of a team in our analysis and extrapolation. But we could not have made initial headway without Guto’s work.”

Twilight’s ears threw themselves back for a moment before returning to place. Her eyes narrowed for a second as she looked away, she lifted her front need to her chin and pouted her lips, “Guto, Guto …” Then her eyes widened, and her expression became distant as she softly whispered, “King… Guto?”

Xavier’s lips stretched and gave a single nod.

“Xavier,” Twilight closed her eyes and breathed in. Then she said with a chill resonating in her voice, “Do you know who King Guto is?”

“At the time, no,” Xavier said. “We had access to an ancient library, and we found a copy of his studies and notes on inscription work. There were gaps, of course,” Xavier teetered his head left and right, “but again, using our models of how electronics worked, we were able to complete a lot of the–”

“Xavier,” Twilight stared at Xavier with her purple eyes, her mouth slightly agape.

“Yes?”

Twilight blinked her eyes, then started to turn away from the human, giving him a hollow look before looking away completely, “Never mind.”

Twilight picked herself up and walked towards her sleeping bag several wagons over. Then she stopped and slowly turned her head back towards Xavier. The blazing silhouette of the fire from afar danced over him. He gave her a raised eye before returning back to what was left of his meal, picking up the bowl with his left hand and raising it above his head, pouring its contents like a waterfall into his mouth.

Twilight turned and found her sleeping bag rolled out. She neatly pushed herself into the bag and twisted around. But before she started to relax, the back of her mind pulled and forced her to stop and double check where Xavier was going to sleep in the night. Lifting her head, she saw his bag ten meters away, next to the wagon they had ridden in.

Twilight sighed heavily, her head battling the firm sack that served as her pillow. Twilight closed her eyes, felt the slight coarseness of the fabric, and pulled her front legs inward as she relaxed her body and let the moon take her.

She then gave a grimace, that faded into a wince, then a sullen expression. She let out an exhale that kicked up dust along the forest floor, as her eyes were almost dulled in color. Her chest tightened, her legs sore. Then new sensations. A part of her mind roused as the rest of her mental facilities retired. Despite what she just heard, she just wanted to go over to Xavier and… her thoughts shifted gears on her in mid-mental track.

Images of the demonstration at the library surged to the surface and were mixed with her primal thoughts as her memories and imagination pushed themselves to the forefront. The tip of her nose became more sensitive. She licked her lips, and they told her of nearly every tiny papillae on her tongue. She could hear her heart beating in her ear, beating faster and faster as the lower half of her form cried out. A blissful ache came from the tips of her teats as they stiffened up. The most feminine part of her form, like a fae spirit, blatantly called her out to play.

“For rut’s sake,” Twilight groaned. This wasn’t her first rodeo. She knew its ebbs and flows. And it was early, but not much so. She tried to push it aside, but like a young foal repeatedly showing their herd its first macaroni art from school, the back of her mind kept angling at her to go proposition Xavier. For moments at a time, it would completely derail her thought process and start treating the human as a problem that could be overcome. The first iteration presented a plan to go up and act friendly towards him, hoping that being sweet and kind enough would overcome his inhibitions. Twilight's higher functions ignored it. The next plan came along, one where she attempted to negotiate intimacy. She entertained that, only because it seemed more realistic than being friendly with him. She tossed this out too, only for the darker part of her to bring up the pills.

He obviously kept them for a reason. That has to be the reason.

No… Twilight replied to herself. But despite the reply, her chest tingled with anticipation. Even if we slip it to him somehow, he’ll just go take care of himself.

Okay, fine, maybe now is the time we try to pop off the ring again. If you can just get it off, I can make him understand…

Twilight shuddered, a drop of shame reverberating within her. Enough to quiet the voice that beckoned her to such an awful path. The top of her gut tensed up, and her eyes welled with tears. Memories of talking to Cadence bloomed forth. After she had become Celestia’s apprentice, she and Cadence visited. It had been years since her brother and Cadence discovered each other, and Twilight inquired to how it was like at the beginning. Cadence had alluded to how their relationship just came together in more ways than one. Even Twilight remembered the giggling and the public intimacy between them. Each had fallen into the other, and through each other’s embrace had found themselves completed.

Twilight’s attempt to follow suit failed in every way that Cadence’s Heartsong had succeeded. Where she found a willing lifelong partner, Twilight had found a cowardly opponent. Where Cadence found somepony to complete the most primal part of her life with, Twilight only found in even deeper void. And where Cadence had discovered that the complementary somepony had been underneath her nose all this time, she had found a stranger from far beyond the stars who studied from literal monsters. Then one thought silenced all the others:

It’s not fair.

Twilight thwacked her tail hard against the floor of the sleeping bag. I saw how happy they were. I saw how perfect their relationship was; I saw…

An image of her brother lying crumpled on the throne room floor with The Greatest Foal-Sitter in All the History of Foal-Sitters freed from Queen Chrysalis’s machinations. Then, before Twilight, she watched as Cadence howled in grief next to her dead brother.

Then other stories came to mind. The story of the Bakery Mare, the story of the Old Lovers, the story of the Earth Mare that fell to Equus, the story of the Dragon Stolen Stallion…

Her mind, now fully distracted from her urges, had formulated a hypothesis. A macabre, awful hypothesis. One that implied she did not do her due diligence as she thought.

Twilight’s heart raced. Thoughts of her primal duty and her obligation as a knight dissolved. Her front cannons grew clammy despite the warmth of the sleeping bag. She breathed as if she had just run 2 kilometers.

A horrible anxiety swelled up for a moment before a voice nearby shattered her focus and redirected it.

“So, what’s this I bein’ hearing?”

Twilight’s eyes popped open as she heard the voice of one of the draft mares that had pulled them sneak up behind her. Instinctually, Twilight rotated herself and discovered three Earth ponies standing, facing each other a few paces away. The brown one that had led the caravan, her gray stallion and a tan mare that had kept to herself during this leg of the trip.

“It’s about Apricot,” the tan one said. “The arbiter returned a ruling. She got the letter before we left.”

“Well?” the caravan leader said.

“Her son is to remain with his father, Apricot is barred from bringing him into our herd.”

“Oh sun and moon,” the gray stallion said. The brown mare followed suit with a shake of her head.

"The bunch that Apricot done gone and left," the caravan leader began. "We done seen what they done did to her," the caravan leader turned to her tan companion, "and they're fixin' to do somethin' worse to that colt."

“And just ignoring that for now,” the tan one said. “Apricot is just at the edge. I pulled with her, she was barely holding it together.”

The tan mare and gray stallion looked over at the caravan leader. She stared ahead with a grave look on her face, her lower lip pushed out as she turned to her gray stallion, "Pepper, I reckon you weren't too keen on lettin' her in, but I need ya to go keep her company for the rest of the evenin'."

“Brownie,” the gray stallion began. “I’m not sure I can do what you’re asking of me. Beyond helping her the last two months, she’s kept me at kicking distance.”

The tan one spoke up, “Pepper, what I am about to say cannot leave our circle, got it?”

Pepper looked over at Brownie and the tan mare and gave a solemn nod.

“The reason that she has kept her distance is that she had a hard crush on you when you both went to school.”

Pepper shook his head, “You can’t be serious Honeycomb. She did nothing but taunt me.”

“I know, I know…” Honeycomb said. “A few years ago, she and I got drunk. I asked her why she was so friendly toward us and she dropped that on me.”

“Wait, is that why you extended an invitation?” Pepper asked.

"Not just on its own," Brownie said. "The real deal is, Lime, and me got to you before Apricot did, and she was so late that she ended up losin' you too, well..."

“I see…” Pepper said, looking past the other two and into the forest.

"She's a fine mare and a diligent worker," Brownie said. "But she's got her pride, and the real deal is that it hurts her to join up with you in her current condition. She thinks we only let her in 'cause we felt sorry for her, and since it's been a while since she was lively and young, all she sees in herself is somethin' worn and scruffy. She don't want you to remember her the way she is now."

“But as the mare she was when we were in elementary school…” Pepper said.

"Sho' 'nuff. We could go keep her company, but I reckon spendin' time with you would do her a whole lot more good than spendin' time with us," Brownie said.

“But… Brownie,” Pepper began. “What about you? Depending on how long Apricot needs me, and what happens, I may be too tired to–”

"I can hold on 'til tomorrow mornin'," Brownie nodded. "You just take care of Apricot tonight, ya hear?"

Pepper gave a nod and walked away. Honeycomb changed her position, pulling up alongside Brownie.

“We’re going to have to figure out something for Apricot’s son, I’m worried that his herd mothers are purposely neglecting him,” Honeycomb said.

"We ain't got the funds to take this to court," Brownie replied. "And we gotta consider our own young'uns. We can't go throwin' everything we got at tryin' to get her colt outta that mess. We might have to wait 'til he comes of age 'fore we can offer to bring him in and give him a few years to heal from that tragedy among our herd. That bein' said, my main concern is one of them other herd mothers..."

“They wouldn’t!” Honeycomb said.

"Honestly, it wouldn't shock me none considerin' how they done treated Apricot."

“Even if they did, there’s nothing we can do to prove it.”

"Well now," Brownie said, averting her gaze from her companion, "Them tree climbers seem to have a method for figurin' out parentage, but that's overlookin' the simple matter of gettin' the permission to test any possible future foals."

“They can do that?” Honeycomb raised her voice.

"Seems like," Brownie let out a breath through her nose. "One of them papers mentioned a disagreement that got resolved through this test they got."

“But…”

"But it was them fancy folks with their family fortune and inheritances. They had the means to shell out, while we ain't got a bit to spare. And that don't even account for convincin' 'em to take the blasted test in the first place," Brownie concluded.

Honeycomb looked away into the forest, and Brownie spitting to the side.

“Look, despite everything that’s gone on, I think you’ve done a great job being lead since Lime passed away,” Honeycomb said.

"You reckon on that?" Brownie's face turned sour as she glanced at her fellow herder. "She'd have had a crafty idea or two 'bout Apricot's predicament. Or reckonin' how to deal with them bank loans for them wagons."

Honeycomb shook her head, “With Apricot, we’re helping her make the best of an unpleasant situation. And we had to buy the new wagon axles eventually. I mean, it’s either that or one would’ve busted soon and we would have been forced to leave cargo in the middle of a forest.”

Brownie hung her head low and gave out a snort.

“Go get some sleep,” Honeycomb said, giving a nudge to Brownie. “I’ll take both our watches.”

"You certain 'bout that?"

“Just make sure I can get some extra sleep tomorrow night, okay?” Honeycomb shot a smile to Brownie and winked.

The brown Earth mare nodded her head and sauntered away.

Twilight let out a deep breath and once again adjusted herself. There was only the tan pony in her sightlines now and she had already started to move and start her patrol. Once more adjusting to the bag, the sunset hue of the campfire against the pitch black in the forest faded and sleep took hold of her once more.

Then, Twilight started to dream.

Twilight walked through Celestia’s castle. It’s hallways long and stretched on forever. A sickly purple color cloaked the walls and ceiling as Twilight wandered, looking for the Throne-room. With each step, her hooves clattered throughout the corridor. She stopped at a three way crossing; she gazed down to her left, then to her right before turning around.

“Xavier?” Twilight croaked out. But there was no one there. Just the empty hallway she came from. Swiftly turning back around, the long straight passageways now curved. Shaking her head, Twilight went left, going down the curving hallway. She descended deeper and deeper, the curve becoming sharper and sharper. She stopped and again turned to her back to see no one was there. She gave a light frown, then turned to look ahead of her.

She gasped and nearly reared up.

A royal guard stood before her. The purple color bleeding over his helmet’s blue plume. His golden armor sapped of all shine while the blue star on his chest was sickly black.

Then he bellowed at Twilight in a monotone drone voice, “Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic, Prime Ministress of Logistics, Apprentice, Daughter of Twilight Velvet, Sister of Saint Shining Armor. You have left our united warmth. Celestia’s warmth. Now you are alone. You made a foolish decision when you sent that message. Now you are alone. You are now beyond our light. Feeble. Inadequate.”

“I... I am not alone.” Twilight stammered. “I can fix this. I’m trying to fix this.” Twilight turned and hurried off. Again, the curve became sharper and sharper until, seemingly out of nowhere, the royal guard stepped in front of her.

“You have lost our glow. Her glow. Her warmth and shine. Now you are alone. Once you basked in our collective light. Now you try to rectify. But you have lost favor. You will fail,” he said.

“I… am doing better,” Twilight spat out. “I will do better. I can fix this.”

“Your Ritter is a reflection of you. It was another foolish decision to sing. He will lead you to your death. You will die. Away from our light. He can’t even comprehend what he is now. Just like you can’t comprehend what you are now.”

“I am adapting as best I can. He is adapting the best he can,” Twilight took two steps back.

“He is a cruel mockery of everything you hold dear. A botched unicorn wannabe. He compensates with ink and song. He studies from the winged mutilator. The Seraph of Suffering. The Griffin who vivisected hundreds of unicorns and his own kind. The perfect Ritter for you,” the Royal Guard advanced on Twilight. Each step bellowing out at her, clattering down the hall and back.

“I… will show him,” Twilight gasped out loud. “He will understand. He just made a mistake.”

“He will not. He is human. You read the reports. How they spilled so much blood using only shrapnel. They don’t possess empathy. No sense of honor. They left mares still under Sombra’s influence, writhing in the dirt as they bled out with their legs torn off with their ‘Air burst’ while they were far away from danger. He is perfect for you. He will leave you to slowly exsanguinate, gasping your last breaths as he strips you of everything that you were,” the Royal Guard said.

“He is not an army!” Twilight shouted.

“Nor is he a stallion. Did you really expect him to just help you? It’s coming. You’ll be guzzling Thorneback again soon while he just ignores you.”

Twilight twisted her head left and right before once again facing the Royal Guard, “He needs time!”

“He can barely touch you. Barely sleep near you. Barely tolerates you. Images of human endurance linger in your head, but you’re little better than a talking horse to him. Those monstrosities that casually lift their tails and defecate out for all to see, whose males casually kill adolescence because they were simply spooked. That’s all he can see you as. And you’re asking him to put himself in you so that he can feel your loving, tender embrace. To gyrate back and forth as you feel his friction stimulate your clitoris by proxy. And so that he can spill into you, so that you can complete the cycle as nature intended. But how can he? He’s probably afraid you’ll defecate all over him. How can he get hard at that?”

“His ... his species has been solitary for millennia. He... he just needs time to warm up to the idea,” Twilight winced as her eyes shut. Her mane flung around as she took another step back.

“But a counterexample is but mere steps away. And yet you are supposed to lead him right now. To protect him. You can only get him to follow you by holding knowledge hostage. Trying to buy time to convince him not to just walk away. Just imagine how Cadence would have felt if your brother just left.”

Twilight fell to the ground, the Royal Guard standing over her.

“But he did leave, didn’t he? At least he left while still in her light. He died for something greater than himself. You, however, will die alone. Far away from her light. From her love. With a monster in shape and spirit and story as your loyal companion.”

Twilight opened her eyes and recognized the throne-room carpet. She meekly looked up at the two Thrones, only to see a light blazing from the center of it getting brighter and brighter and brighter.

“Even those sentenced to Tartarus may earn redemption. But you have been exiled,” the voice of the Royal Guard rang around her as the light grew brighter and brighter. Twilight could feel her coat growing warmer and warmer. She reactively lifted her front leg to shield her face.

“You will disincorporate. Everything that you are, everything that you were thrown into the wind,” the voice of the Royal guard continued.

“I can… I can,” Twilight let out an anguished cry.

Then another, familiar and heavenly voice from the light bellowed across the throne room, “Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic, Prime Ministress of Logistics, Apprentice, Daughter of Twilight Velvet, Sister of Saint Shining Armor… You have disobeyed the express command of your Princess. Through your arrogance and… stupidity, our kingdom and now innocent lives are now open to the chance that this war will last years, if not, decades longer than it need be.”

Twilight whimpered as she winced and curled up into a ball, her front legs protecting her face. But she could feel it, the heat. To be on fire without being on fire. Her ears, her tail blazed as her right side was fully exposed to the true power of the sun.

“Unworthy… You are unworthy of this kingdom… Unworthy as the element of magic… Unworthy of your brother’s sacrifice… And unworthy of me.”

Twilight sobbed as the words passed through her ears, burning even hotter than the maelstrom of heat she found herself in.

“I take from you, the titles I granted you. And by the name of the day, and in the name of the night, I, Princess Celestia, cast you out!”

Fire swelled up for a moment, the sight of pure orange and red ahead of her. Only to fall into darkness. Worse than the Tartarus of the mountain, even worse than the Tartarus of the fires deep below the earth. Black blanketed Twilight. And in that silence, not one thought crossed Twilight’s mind. She observed the simple absence of everything. No sun, no moon. No stars, no clouds in the sky. She simply was. Where she existed now, she could not insult Celestia by merely existing. For a flash, Twilight tried to scrunch her face and cry, only for, simply, nothing to happen.

Like a doll thrown into a storage box, she simply observed. Unmoving, unfeeling. But still Twilight lingered. A quiet part of her cried out, but no voice emanated. She could feel it, her mind was going. Each part of her stripped away. The sum that was greater than the whole was becoming lesser. Each part of her stripped away until finally only the core of her remained.

Then, a sensation.

The sensation of tapping hit her spinal column over and over until, finally, she was reincorporated. Every part of her slowly called forth. Then quickly as the tapping became faster, and faster and then her eyes opened to the sunrise hue of the campfire against the pitch black of the forest as she woke up.

The trees, the wagons, the camp, orange light illuminated the dark world. Twilight shook her head. Then she twisted herself from her side upright, belly now on the ground. Twilight blinked three times before turning to see one of the earth mares that had pulled her wagon standing over her.

“You’re on watch now,” said Honeycomb.

Twilight picked herself up and took stock, the sleeping bag she lay the top of, her saddlebag, and Xavier laying five meters away. She shook her head and gave the tan earth mare a solemn nod.

“You okay? You look like you just got out of a pitch with a Timberwolf,” Honeycomb said, giving Twilight a look of worry.

“I’m fine… I’m fine,” Twilight said, nodding.

The earth mare gave another nod and sauntered off. Twilight took stock of the caravan. She made a count of the sleepers, and a quick mental inventory of the wagons. She reared herself up to each, and had a quick look inside. A few had ponies sleeping in them, while others had nothing but cargo.

On the fourth one, she checked then lowered herself to the ground, only to hear the sounds of heaving and grunting. The wind shook the forest trees as Twilight connected the dots to where those sounds were coming from. For a split second, she simply accepted the situation as was. But her ears flattened, and she turned her head towards the direction the sounds of exertion were emanating.

Keeping is quiet as she could, she followed the outline of the caravan all the way to the magic shelter that Spectrum’s herd had set up earlier. Its outer walls were covered in a thin cotton sheet, with leaves and branches covering parts of the roof. But it glowed from the inside a blue sheen, betraying that one of the unicorns had used an illumination spell within it.

And there, Twilight watched the silhouettes of Henry servicing his herd. He was rocking back and forth from the winged figure’s rear, its head down. Another silhouette was orbiting around them, and Twilight could barely make out the words, “Don’t get too exhausted on her!”

Then Twilight caught sight of a forth figure. She merely watched the other three in motion from the corner. But then Twilight turned back her focus to the main action as she could hear the Pegasus that the human was taking care of was singing a tune of pleasure. Light gasps of ecstasy escaping her lips and carrying their way across the forest floor into Twilight’s ears. As she continued to watch, a gentle tingling emanated from herself. The nipples near her rear legs slowly embolden themselves, growing larger. Even her own breath had become slightly haggard, her thoughts drifted quickly to the medication she accidentally got at the apothecary, before she shook her head and pushed it out like so much trash.

Nevertheless, the image danced before her eyes. Both of the parties she was looking at were of the perfect height for copulation. But then the motion slowed and more sensual sounds emanated from the tent. Moments passed and everyone froze. The tall human figure took a step back from his partner. Minutes passed and there was light talk that Twilight’s ears could not discern. Then, once again, the two figures in the middle converged and started moving again.

Twilight saw the third figure, which had been encircling the pair the entire time, started to slow down, then stop. Her silhouette just looking at the two that had started up again as if they were the only ones around. Twilight frowned. “She must be in her first herd and… Oh no…” Twilight whispered to herself. The third shadow seemed as it was looking back and forth between the center of attention, and the mare in the corner.

Twilight felt her excitement slip away. The tingling fading, her nipples softening, her breathing slowing down, to where she was taking deep, long breaths now as she watched the scene unfold in front of her. Still focused on the third shadow, it slowly transformed from an excited young mare to a nag. Twilight’s ears folded at the subtle tragedy.

A thought flashed across Twilight’s mind, For everything Xavier is, for as much of an ass he has been, at least he hasn’t charged me up just to leave me out to dry like that. Then Twilight remembered their time at the inn when he touched her on her snout. A single finger stroked her from the tip of her nose to the bridge of her eyes. How soft and gentle it had been, how tender that brief moment was between them, how he had sung to her. What had been bittersweet, only became sweeter as she recalled that her explanation that she wasn’t the strong, mighty unicorn he thought she was to him. How he didn’t trade barbs or speak down on her, but rather simply touched and sang to her.

Twilight lowered her head and began to turn, leaving the herd to it. But as she was about to pivot, the forth figure that had been at the corner of the shelter picked itself up and walked outside. As her head emerged from the cotton cloth, Twilight could see that it was Symphony, her countenance disappointed, staring into the woods, then down to the ground. Then finally, Symphony turned her head towards Twilight.

And Symphony just stared at Twilight, her eyes measuring her up. Twilight reactively took a step back, before a strange sort of smile emerged on Symphony’s lips, a smile that showed the tips of her flat teeth as she finally exited the tent and disappeared into the woods.