A carriage rolled into Ponyville. It was carved from black wood, covered with relief images of monstrous creatures from around Equestria. Hydras, chimeras, gargoyles, fiery serpents, bugbears; all carnivorous, notorious pony-eaters. Four grey stallions tramped along, black hoods pulled over their heads, leaving even their eyes shrouded in shadows. The windows were tinted black, only able to be seen through from the inside. The wheels rattled as they scoured the uneven road, which was pocked with debris from the destruction from Canterlot. Smokey beings flitted through the air, followed by a chill that was all too unnatural in the midst of summer.

The carriage halted in front of the Ponyville Castle, and Merry Mare stepped out. She hesitated at the last step, gazing at the ponies gathered in Town Square. They were asleep. To a pony. A few stirred fitfully as the Unseelie Fae grinned and cackled around them.

Silver Spoon disembarked next. She looked over her glasses with pursed lips. “What sort of creature could do this? Not an alicorn.”

“Certainly not an earth pony.” Merry tucked her glasses into her green cloak and removed the hood. She nudged a large stallion and watched him totter. He righted himself and went right on snoozing. “This sort of magic sound suspiciously like what one might read about in old fairy tales. Of Fae Creatures putting people into a deep sleep that lasts for decades… or centuries.”

Silver scoffed. “Did someone forget to invite Jeuk to a birthday party?”

“This would not be the work of Jeuk.” Merry climbed the stairs to the front door of Ponyville Castle and turned to face the crowd. “You’ve seen what sort of magic he tends to lean on. Insects and fire. Malice and pestilence. This is altogether too gentle a sleep, especially for Nightmares.” There, past the city limits, Merry could see the Equestrian Army approaching. “Come on, we have work to do.”

Silver Spoon joined Merry on the temporary pedestal. They sang together, softly at first but with a growing reach and volume, until all of Ponyville echoed with their magic. They gently, carefully coaxed the citizens out of their enchanted slumber. To do otherwise might break the spells they had already put over the people of Ponyville. It might give them too much to think about if their worldview was suddenly brought to wakefulness, if they started to question the events of the past day and a half.

“Wake the sleepers
Rise from death
Join the sunlit lands of breath

“Wake from dreaming
Seelie lies
Close your ears and guard your eyes”

The ponies came to; scattered individuals, then clumps coming to full wakefulness. An outcry arose as they realized how long they’d been asleep. Several hours at least. They surged towards the castle, crowding around Merry and Silver, prodding them with questions that the Sirens were all to happy to ignore. They waved their citizens back and explained that the city had been deserted by Applejack and all those allied with her. Before they were even finished talking, before the had even announced the orders to arrest Applejack and her family, the citizens of Ponyville were rampaging through the shops of the guilty, looting them of treasures and searching for what evidence they could find as to where they had fled.

Merry pressed the side of her hoof against her mouth as she thought. If it had indeed been Fae that got Applejack and company out of the city, there would be no trace. If anything, they would only find misdirection. She felt a tension situate itself between her shoulder blades. She had never encountered a Fae Creature not aligned with Jeuk. Having seen the Unseelie Court running wild, she couldn’t begin to imagine the horror that untethered fairies might wreak on the unsuspecting. Even the kindest fairy could turn spiteful and vindictive at the drop of a hat.

It was especially concerning if they could dupe someone as bullheaded as Applejack.

Soldiers marched into Ponyville as if on parade, with citizens lining both sides of the streets, cheering them on. Silver Spoon waved to the crowd in a genteel, soft way. Merry stood stoically, noting in her head which of the soldiers were loyal Equestrians and which had been “liberated” from Solitaire. It was fairly easy to pick the new “recruits” out, judging from the armor that didn’t quite fit and the feral grins that didn’t quite match their job title. They paraded around like poodles in a dog show, at least most of the time. Some of the former prisoners seemed to see death every time a Siren looked their way. Perhaps they were correct.

The more traditional soldiers, the ones who had volunteered for the line of duty, strutted in a manner slightly more alert than a stupor, their motivation drained over the course of the previous night’s events. Mostly; a few of the volunteer soldiers seemed more than willing to get along with their new brothers-in-arms, and jumped at a Siren’s command as readily as a princess’. A rift was growing between those who embraced the new order and those who chafed beneath it.

Polish, it seemed, only went so far. Discipline only meant so much. As she watched, she began to think that there would be more arrests at the end of the day, and they wouldn’t be of the unruly, antagonistic new recruits. It would be the soldiers with a sense of professionalism and pride who would be more likely to step out of line beneath the Sirens.

Thralls surrounded the two Sirens, keeping both soldiers and citizens away from their leaders. They’d been able to make more thralls from Solitaire escapees. The former inmates had no discernable differences between them and the ones made from Ahuizotl’s former cultists. They had all been stripped of their individuality as thoroughly as they had been stripped of their coloration. Nothing but black hoods and grey coats.

“Have you heard anything from the Crone?” Silver Spoon said. “She’s been missing since last night. Even the spies haven’t seen anything.”

“Nothing.” Merry furrowed her brow when she caught a soldier staring at her. He resumed his march as if he hadn’t been ogling her from afar. There were a few downsides to no longer looking middle aged… Not that she couldn’t overpower every single one of their soldiers if need be. “We need her. She’s the only one who can operate the mirror.”

“You need her, Mother.” Silver Spoon toyed with the blue gemstone hanging from her neck. A small hummed tune caused the nearest citizens to prick their ears up, turning their attention to her. Before long, they had brought food to the thralls, who had in turn passed the goods to her. “I’m fairly content at the moment.”

“We won’t be able to do certain things without her, Silver. We need that three-part harmony.”

“To bring down Twilight’s castle?” Silver snorted as she gestured at Ponyville Castle with a slice of cake. “Jeuk has powerful magic. We’ll be able to remove that eyesore without even lifting a finger. Breaking into the Crystal Empire? We won’t need the three-part harmony for that. We just need to get people on the inside to stir up confusion. The Crystal Heart can’t keep up its power without unity. What else? The griffons and Babalognians are both allied with Jeuk, to be discarded as he wishes. Andean and Luna have fled for the hills with nothing but a powerless Sunspear in hand. You think we’ll need the three-part harmony to kill the Cutie Mark Crusaders and their hoof-lickers?”

Merry turned away. A troop of soldiers entered the smashed-in storefront of Sugarcube Corner and began to loot anything that was still usable after the riot. Roselucks’ flower shop across the street was far less lucky, having been utterly despoiled. Another group was headed towards Sweet Apple Acres, with strict orders not to touch the orchard. An army needed food, after all, and it would do no good to destroy perfectly good fruit trees, even if they were planted by an enemy of the state.

Merry eased away from her companion and made her way towards the castle gates. “I have things to take care of. I’m sure you’ll be able to handle our adoring fans?”

“With pleasure.” Silver Spoon waited a calculated moment before speaking again, causing Merry to halt in her tracks. “And Mother…”

Merry lidded her eyes and turned back to the younger Siren.

“Adagio was always going to leave us, you must know that.” Silver smiled as she looked over her silver-rimmed glasses, cold grey eyes attempting to pierce areas of Merry’s mind she wanted no one to see. “She was always trying to get you to question yourself. She gave up on me long ago, but you… she seemed determined to bring you to deviation. As if she believed that you could never bring your son back. As if she believed that the Sirens had no business ruling Equestria.” She tapped her temple with a laugh. “Take care that you don’t take after her, Merry.”

Merry forced the lump in her throat downward. “Take care of yourself, Maiden. Lest your ambitions devour you.”

Backed by two sinister-looking thralls, Merry made a swift trip into Ponyville Castle and down the main hall. Every step moved with a spring that she hadn’t felt for twenty years at least. She was almost tempted to eat another golden apple, just to get that much stronger. She didn’t need it, probably hadn’t even needed the one she already ate, but the temptation was there. It was always there.

Behind her, before the doors shut, she could hear the beginning of Silver Spoon’s grand speech to the citizens and soldiers. “For centuries, Celestia has held claim to the throne of Equestria due to divine appointment. It has been said that she and her sister fulfill the prophesies made a thousand years ago by Starswirl the Bearded and Clover the Clever. However, it has come to light…”

The well-rehearsed speech faded into the background as Merry reached the throne room. Six crystal thrones sat equidistant from each other, with a smaller throne placed beside one. The magic map sat at the center, dark and quiet with no one to light it with the Fires of Friendship. Overhead hung the mobile, constructed from the roots of the old library, with crystals containing solidified memories from the Bearers’ time together.

Siting in the Throne of Magic was Jeuk.

Merry skidded to a halt, though she tried to hide it by clapping her hooves together as she stood at attention. “Master. What are you doing here?”

Jeuk shrugged, kicking his hind legs over one armrest while his head dangled from the other. “One cannot claim ownership of a city one has not visited. I wanted to see how the occupation was going.”

“It is not an occupation.”

“It is not?” Jeuk covered his mouth with a hoof. “It is not an occupation as you march another city’s army through the streets, hunting down its citizens while watching as your loyal sycophants loot and desecrate their abandoned homes?”

Merry peeled the edge of her lips away from her teeth. “Is there a point, Master?”

“Usually.”

When she had waited a sufficient amount of time for him to speak, and was met with silence, Merry trotted towards the elevator installed on the far side of the room. She nearly tripped over a lump of purple crystal placed in the center of the floor. It had a vaguely pony-esque shape, though one horrifically bare of skin or muscle. Its mouth was open in a frozen scream, and its body was cowering away, as though it feared it would be devoured. The crystal came to several points, like icicles on a rooftop, all pointed to the left, like it was being dragged along by thousands of tiny hooks.

“I see you’ve met what’s left of my nephew.” Jeuk frowned at the lump of solidified magic. “Merimna never quite met my standards, but we princelings of the Fae can’t be too picky. It seems that Twilight found a spell which can imprison even a being without a physical form.” He scratched his chin as he looked the sealed fairy up and down. “I am attempting to break the spell, but it’s odd. It seems as though the crystal is made from his own magic essence. Compressed him like carbon into diamond. The amount of strength it would take to manipulate such power; only an alicorn could even come close.”

Merry reached a shaky hoof out to touch the smooth right-side surface of the formation. It was warm. About as warm as a living pony. The light within the crystal pulsed regularly. “Can he hear us?”

“Who knows?” Jeuk waved a limp hoof in her direction, his eyes trained on the ceiling. “What sort of awareness does a fairy have in the first place? We do not experience, we observe. Formless unless we manufacture a façade, and only then for the benefit of mortals. A mortal’s senses lie to them, but a fairy’s are all but a fable.” He smirked, just enough for Merry to see it from the side. “I wonder, if Twilight was able to capture Merimna in such a manner, how might the Seelie Court hold a young colt’s soul for ransom?”

Merry clenched her jaw tight. “If you know something—”

“Then I would have told you already.” Another shrug, a murmur. “It’s all speculative at this point. Until we can launch an assault on the Seelie stronghold.”

Merry shut her eyes slowly, taking in a long, slow, hissing breath. “Then I suggest you make that a priority over wooing the Maiden and feasting on strawberries.”

“Even now, my people search the changeling catacombs in the Northern Wastes for more Golemium, to replace the spear which that warmongering Andean destroyed.”

He spoke the griffon king’s name with a disdain Merry usually saw displayed in ponies fighting against deadly, degenerative diseases. She could almost see Jeuk wearing a pink shirt with “Rut Ursagryph” printed on it. The image nearly made her smile, but it was neither the time nor the place. “Very well, then—”

“While I wait, I’m cleaning up a few old failures.” Jeuk took in a deep breath, held it for a moment, then blew a jet of flame upward. It struck the mobile, igniting the dry wood instantly. The room shone with the light of the flames, roots crumbling and breaking one by one, dropping the fragile memory crystals to shatter against the floor.

With each broken memory, a flash of its passing flickered in Merry’s mind’s eye. Fluttershy’s face laughed in delight as she spent days unending alongside her friends. Creatures of all shapes, sizes, colors, and species found friendship alongside these six mares from Ponyville. Lives were improved. Hearts were ignited. Hope was rediscovered.

And then it was gone, the last crystal reduced to nothing but grains of razor-sharp dust. The root system itself gave a great groan and a snap before it, too, fell. It hit the map with a resounding crunch, its weight great enough to put a crack right down the center. The table collapsed. Smoke billowed. The acrid scent of undone magic forced its way into her nose. Through the black haze, she could see Jeuk staring at her with utmost seriousness, his gaze level, watching for her reaction.

Merry tried and failed to keep the toxic fumes out of her lungs. She hacked and coughed around her words. “Please… refrain from… burning the library… until we’ve cleaned it out.”

Jeuk cocked an eyebrow. “Now what’s in there that’s got you so interested?”

“The last source of ancient texts after you turned Canterlot—”

“Celestia.” He tapped his nose. “After Celestia.”

“—into a crater!” Merry snorted steam. “What’s it to you? I thought your knowledge of magic was far deeper and more intricate than anything us poor, temporal mortals was capable of conjuring.”

“I’m mortal too, now. Don’t forget.” He sat up in Twilight’s throne and rolled his shoulders. His muscles twitched the wrong way, bending elastically over a half-hardened skeleton. “I just know that it’s been a while since you attempted to resurrect your son. With it being your main goal for so long, I was beginning to worry you’d given up.” He tilted his head. His green eyes glinted red in the light of the crackling flames. “Do you think Twilight’s meager library holds the key to resurrection? Surely she would have attempted something herself.”

“She is not so bold or wise as you may surmise. Else she may have been able to kill you outright.”

Jeuk laughed in the back of his throat and his eyebrows jumped up. “Last time I underestimated the unlikely, it got my wrinkly bum deported to the Abyss.” His smiled turned down at the corners. “Which reminds me; let me know when the Cake family has been apprehended. I’d like a word with the twins.”

Something lurched in Merry’s stomach, but she held it down. She bit back the outburst of anger that immediately jumped up her throat to her mouth. She knew exactly what he wanted to do with Pound and Pumpkin and she would have no part in it. Her forelegs trembled with the urge to wring his neck and choke the last notes of laughter out of his smug face. How dare he threaten children?

Children.

The children she had ordered a national marehunt against.

She stared at Jeuk and no longer felt anger towards him. She didn’t feel much of anything, actually. It was as if her mind had reached a cliff and simply rolled off, ungrounded. She didn’t have a word for it, or a reason, or a solution. It was simply… void. She sought back, trying to imagine Happy’s face, so that she could reclaim her rage at the unfairness of the world. So that she could reignite the passion driving her to overturn the unfairness of the system they all lived by. The system she was reinventing for the sake of justice.

It's a just cause. It’s a just cause. It’s a just cause. I’m fighting for a just cause. Brief pain turning to lasting healing. It’s a just cause.

It was her mantra. It was what kept her going when she saw lives destroyed. When she saw friends become enemies. When she saw Fluttershy look on her with the same expression she had once used to look on Sombra.

“You’ll be the first to hear about it, Master,” she said with a whoosh of breath.

“Good.” Jeuk kicked a shard of the table away from his hoof. “Don’t let me keep you.”

Twilight Sparkle’s personal library loomed before Merry. Tome upon tome of unending knowledge. First editions, personal accounts, private musings from the Princess of Magic herself. Jeuk wanted to burn it all, she knew. Down to the last page. She had to move quickly if she wanted to hoard the knowledge before that happened.

She opened the large southward-facing window and admitted a score of pegasi. They were all previously-enlisted soldiers, having been part of Canterlot’s barracks. Merry had hoof-picked each one herself, hypnotized to never speak a word of what they were doing. Without a word, they set out to collect their prizes, filling bags and packing carts.

Merry commenced her own search separately, picking her way through the shelves and volumes until she reached the rear of the library. Near the back wall, where natural light gave way to dim lanterns and the faint glow of magical crystal, sat the empty podium where Starswirl’s magic mirror once stood. The mirror itself had been stolen some five years ago, just before the destruction of Cloudsdale. The desk beside the device held a bundle of hornwritten notes. Observations from Starswirl, Clover, Celestia, and Twilight had all been compiled.

She pressed her lips together and reached beneath her cloak to a hidden pocket. Though Adagio was nowhere to be found, her knowledge had managed to stick around in the form of her own notes. Diagrams and hypotheses intermingled as five years of intense study found their way from the pocket to Merry’s hoof. Layer by layer, Adagio had studied the intricate carvings in the glass of the mirror, the gold-wire network hidden behind the reflection, and the strange crystals embedded in the frame. She had determined how the mirror worked, in every way. But without the podium, the mirror could only activate automatically, based on the phases of the moon.

Merry thought back to the tiny grave in Ponyville cemetery. If she had learned one thing from her time with the Unseelie, it was that Happy’s original body would be useless. It was nothing more than dirt by now, six feet down. Even if she could recover his soul, it would have no home to return to.

There was a solution, though. Jeuk himself had unwittingly revealed it to her when he had ripped Scuttlebutt’s soul from his body and inhabited it himself.

Once the Unseelie were strong enough to assault Dreamland, once they could free Happy from the clutches of his captors, she would have his soul safe and sound at last. He would be tender and afraid, a ghost unable to touch the world. He would look to her for solace.

She would give it in the form of a donated body, one already well equipped to hold his soul.

“Captain!” she shouted at last. “Have the men bring this podium to the Grove. I want it set up in my personal quarters.”

Applejack peered up through the canopy, past translucent green leaves and the countless insects who called the Everfree their home. The sun shone overhead, hotter than usual for this time of year. With this much humidity, she had a hard time keeping up with the spritely Adagio Dazzle. Years spent wasting her time in City Hall, forced to make her brother and sister pick up her slack, had left her feeling flabby and worn out…

Granted, she was still stronger than the average mare by a whole bunch. She could haul an apple cart all day long and only stop every few hours for a short rest. But reaching her thirties hadn’t exactly left her the beacon of health she had once been. Things took longer to heal, for one thing. She found herself going to bed earlier and waking up a few minutes later. She had headaches, though those usually had to do with Merry’s most recent policies. Fat tended to stick around along her flanks and stomach…

Now she was on the run, with no farm and no family, with her friends hauled off to who-knew-where, and she was the one everybody was turning to? It was comical, but she wasn’t laughing.

She leaned against a tree after scuffing her knee on a rock, growling under her breath. “Quitcher whinin’, Applejack. Put up or shut up. Head down and shoulders square.”

“Starting to wish I’d brought golden apples for everybody,” Adagio said, looking between the hissing Applejack and the gasping Starswirl. “They get kinda addicting, though. Get one taste of life and all of a sudden you wanna guzzle it as much as possible. Same goes for knowledge.”

Applejack swatted a mosquito from her shoulder. “That why you’re still around after a thousand years?”

“Three-thousand, Applejack.” Adagio smirked, but her voice was a grumble. “Like any addiction, it can get out of hand pretty quick if you don’t watch yourself. That’s why the Draconequii guarded Elysium, to keep people from hoarding life like they hoard money.”

Applejack waved a squadron of no-see-ums away from her mouth. “And how’d that work out for them?”

“They’re all dead, ain’t they?” Adagio raised her head to see their little band of outlaws catching up. “Come on, folks! Not much farther! Hustle, people, hustle!”

Snips lifted his head from the depths of the bush he was crawling through. Leaves and branches tangled themselves in his mane. He snorted and sent spiders scurrying. “Where in the heck are we going anyhow? The Palace of the Royal Pony Sisters is south of here.”

“You don’t think they’d look for us there?” His sister, Lily Longsocks, lifted him with one hoof and set him down on a mossy stone. “There’s only a couple landmarks in the Everfree, and you wanna go to the biggest one?”

“The palace is rubble, young ones. Princess Sparkle saw to that.” Starswirl the Bearded wiped his head with a cloth that was already soaked through with his sweat. “I share their sentiment, Miss Dazzle. There’s nothing here in the north of the Everfree. Just a range of mountains that separates the forest from the Canterlot Region. We’re altogether too close to Canter Mountain for my tastes.”

Commander Skyhook’s face appeared from the branches overhead. Just a moment before, Applejack had thought she was looking at empty trees, but they were full of batponies in full camouflage. “Agreed. We’ll be well within their perimeter sweeps if we set up camp anywhere around here.”

“Fellas, fellas.” Adagio ground her teeth behind pursed lips. She flicked an ear at them. “You’ve followed me this far, just to get cold hooves now? What’s with the wet spaghetti you use for nerves? At least Her Royal Majesty knows to keep her mouth shut and follow.”

“I only just caught my breath,” Applejack said, pressing her hat against her head. “But outta alla us, you seem to know where you’re goin’.”

“Don’t you forget it.” Adagio sent Skyhook a stink-eyed glance. “Doesn’t matter how close we get, so long as we aren’t where they’re looking. You dig?”

Skyhook’s face said he did not “dig,” but he kept his thoughts to himself, vanishing among the branches as easily as Rarity putting on a coat. Applejack lowered her gaze to the rear, where the rest of the volunteers could be seen climbing over boulders and squeezing through the undergrowth. Pipsqueak and Dinky were trying to untangle Twist’s mane from a coarse bush. Lickety and Snails were being harassed for straying too close to a bird’s nest. Featherweight wafted on the breeze like a loose piece of cotton, his eyes unfocused, his ears low against his scalp. Soldiers from the Ponyville Barracks surrounded them on all sides, carrying bags that would have made Big Mac struggle, their spears at the ready. The Everfree was unfriendly; ironically, it was that very unfriendliness that was their only hope of escaping the Sirens.

Applejack shuddered when she thought about what might happen to the young folk if they were unwary. “Featherweight, keep your hooves on the ground. Dinky, borrow some clippers from Coldstone. Yeah, them big ones. Snails, for the love of love itself, watch where you’re stompin’ those clodhoppers of yours.”

And there, at the rear of the pack, were the three Wishes, all in their mortal disguises, all seeming to struggle as much as the ponies around them. Applejack figured it was an act. A puppet show the fairies were performing with their special-grown flesh suits. Every time she closed her eyes, she struggled not to see the strange creatures as they truly were…

Or at least, see them as her puny mortal mind comprehended them. She had a feeling that beings with no real physical form didn’t exactly show up on the visible spectrum.

Little by little, they made their way through the wild forest, until the sun began to sink low. Adagio brought them to the mountain range itself, leading them over ledges and through crags that teemed with life, both flora and fauna. The Everfree didn’t so much stop at the mountains as become the mountains, lending its own brand of chaotic neutral to the stone beneath their feet, to the wind tugging at their fur and feathers. Rock slides had to be pushed aside with Starswirl’s magic. Gaps had to be closed with ropes and careful footing. The journey taxed them, step by step, until at last Adagio halted at a sheer, vertical wall.

The approximately five-hundred ponies of their company surrounded the wall, forming a semicircle around Adagio and Applejack. Snips eyed the flat stone with a scowl. “Say psych.”

“It’s all good, Snips,” Snails drawled out. “This is usually the part of the adventure when the mysterious helper opens a hidden door in the wall.”

“Reality is weirder than fiction, Snails,” Adagio said.

She tapped the floor three times. After a moment, a trap door opened up beneath her, and a Diamond Dog popped his head out. His yellow eyes darted from the Siren to Applejack, then quickly took in the party around them. His loose jowls took a moment to catch up with the rest of his face when he moved. “No soliciting.”

Adagio stuck her hoof beneath the door to keep him from retreating. “We’re here to see the reverend.”

“Reverend Fabio not here.” The droopy Diamond Dog strained against the trap door, which the siren held in place easily. “Him on… uh… mission trip.”

“Funny,” Applejack said. “I coulda sworn he was on vacation to visit relatives.”

“Yes. Vacation mission. Elsewhere.” He kicked Adagio’s hoof with a stubby hind leg. “Very holy. Please leave surface dweller problem on surface.”

Adagio’s forehead furrowed. “They aren’t surface dweller problems anymore, pup, if they ever were just that. Now come on, I have an appointment with the reverend.”

“Rowph.” The Diamond Dog growled in the back of his throat. “No visitors.”

“Rex!” A scratchy voice echoed from the depths of the hole. “Who there? Ponies?”

Applejack removed her hat and smirked at the Diamond Dog. “Well, now, I bet I can sus out the owner of that voice. Heard it pert near every Sunday morning for the last ten years or so.”

Rex shook spittle from his jowls and eyed Applejack with a knife-edged glare. “Diamond Dogs will regret helping whiny ponies. Rex knows.”

A golden-furred Diamond Dog wearing a black coat clawed his way to the surface. He had a face that looked as though it were constantly smiling, and glittering eyes that seemed to view each early morning as presenting a new lease on life. His screechy voice grated on the nerves, but his upbeat, pleasant demeanor softened the blow. Even now, in these dire circumstances, Applejack felt just a little better in his presence.

Years before, as a young pup, Fabio had been exiled from his pack due to accidently causing a cave-in. Nobody had been hurt, but their tunnel system had been practically turned inside-out. He had found himself wandering into Ponyville, where he became yet another strange face among the colorful populace. While living there, he had taken a shine to the legends and myths of Equestria’s history. Father Waddles had taken him under his wing, teaching him all he knew of the old stories until the day he retired and Fabio could take up his mantle.

“Mayor Applejack.” Father Fabio spread his front paws out. “Everypony. Welcome to G’Boy. Diamond Dogs welcome ponies…” He stuck a thumb out towards Rex. “Bear with grumpy pants.”

Rex folded his forelegs over his chest. “Nothing but trouble. Nothing but.”

“Maybe true.” Fabio sighed through his nose, but returned to his usual peppy self when he took Adagio’s hoof. “Crone Dazzle. Fabio set up shelter. Unseelie and Sirens not find you there.”

“Thanks, Rev.” Adagio’s shoulders stiffened when Fabio bowed down and gave her a formal kiss on the hoof. “Can we get underground? I feel the hair on the back of my neck prickling.”

Applejack stared in perplexity; the Diamond Dog preacher had never acted that way with anybody, as far as she knew, not even the princesses. He saved his reverence for the legends he taught and the words he read from the Canon. The way he led her by the hoof down into the tunnel, careful of her every step, looked like he was the caretaker of some divine treasure or some such nonsense.

Applejack waved her hat at the hole, calling out to the ponies gathered around the trap door. “Alright, you heard him. One at a time! No crowdin’! No pushin’! Let’s get to those shelters!”

By and large, the Diamond Dogs remained isolated from ponies, having a love for dark spaces and the crust of the earth between them and the sun. Certainly trade was essential—gemstones for magical devices, stone for construction, the best-fertilized dirt in Equestria—but other than business dealings, encounters between Ponies and Dogs were accidental. Or malicious, in the case of Rarity’s run-in with a pack of bandits. That was not to say that the Diamond Dog population was small, or that their territory wasn’t sufficiently sized for an entire nation. Their tunnel system spanned the width and length of Equestria, with large chambers acting as hubs or cities. It could be said that to really understand Equestria, one needed two maps, and one of them looked more-or-less like an ant farm.

The Diamond Dogs and ponies—as explained by Fabio as he led them through the dark caverns—had both come upon Equestria at roughly the same time, following the destruction of the Grotesques and the rebirth of the Everfree area. There was bloody conflict, as often seems to occur between two people groups the first time they meet, when both ponies and Diamond Dogs sought to claim the same territory for their own. It hadn’t helped that the militaristic leaders of the time, Commander Hurricane and the Diamond Dog tyrant Wulf, were both overflowing with ambition and stubbornness. After Wulf’s death and Hurricane’s disappearance, Princess Celestia had worked tirelessly to unite the ponies and Diamond Dogs in a peaceful relationship.

“Sometimes peace,” Fabio mused, “means going separate ways.”

Applejack blinked into the darkness. She was just starting to make out the shape of the walls as her eyes adjusted to the underground. Not that there was much to see. Bare stone both ways, judging by the dim glow of magic and lanterns. “Doesn’t sound a whole lot like friendship to me.”

“No, not friendship. Never friendship is separate.” The reverend swung his lantern towards her and just about blinded her before he caught himself. “Sorry. Friendship always goal. Always best. Not always possible.”

Adagio snickered. “Sometimes the only thing keeping you from killing each other is about ten-thousand miles distance.”

Starswirl stroked his beard. A tiny light glimmered at the tip of his horn, warm and gentle. “I wonder what metric we could use to calculate the distance between worlds?”

“Keep bringin’ it up and I’ll punt you to Pedestria myself.” Adagio Dazzle blew a breath through pursed lips. “Distance between worlds is metaphorical anyhow. And now, practically infinite.”

Fabio shook his head at her, speaking low. “No, Crone Dazzle. Roads between worlds exist before Sapients can even speak. More than able to number. You try to break them all, but you never could. Not in million lifetimes.”

Applejack’s hackles prickled at those words. Her mind went back to her last encounter with another world, when she stepped through the gate in Beefland’s barrows. “The heck you talkin’ about? I figured all mirror portals were made by creatures. Like Starswirl, or the old Minotaur Lords. I figured we knew where all of them were because of how hard they are to make.”

Father Fabio’s smile was lopsided. “Assume what not known at own peril.”

Applejack eased herself closer to Adagio and lowered her voice. “So’s that what you were gettin’ yourself up to while you were with the Unseelie? Breaking mirror portals? That why you took Twilight’s?”

“Breaking and studying.” Adagio grimaced and nudged Applejack a foreleg’s length away. “No I didn’t get to that one. It was always under close Unseelie observation.” She stretched her mouth from side to side as she mulled over her next words. A hefty sigh preceded them. “Just know that as long as that portal’s still in Merry’s and Jeuk’s oh-so-capable hands, both Sunsets and their families are in danger. As is everybody that portal could conceivably reach. Got it?”

“We reach city!” Father Fabio broke between the two of them with his lantern swinging and his tail wagging. He cleared his throat and addressed the crowd. “Please keep low profile. You first ponies to enter G’Boy since Celestia visit three-hundred years past. Most Diamond Dog never see pony before. If word get out, you no longer sheltered. And word spread fast on Twilight Bark.”

Rex grumbled under his breath in the Diamond Dog’s language.

Fabio shut his eyes and rubbed his ears. “Better shelter than they have on surface, Rex.”

The tunnel ended in an arched construction, built from bricks and carved with a script that Applejack found oddly familiar. It wasn’t that she could read it, but she coulda sworn she’d seen it recently. Maybe Twilight had Diamond Dog books lying around the library? But no, it didn’t look like the claw marks and paw prints that made up written Doggo. It was symbols. Pictograms. Hieroglyphics. “Father? Any idea what that all says?”

Fabio glanced up, shining his light on the script. “Old Changeling. Diamond Dogs make home from abandoned changeling cities. Expanding, reinforcing tunnels.”

“It’s a mile-marker, essentially,” Adagio said, walking through the archway with barely a glance. “It gives the distance between here and the original Changeling Capital City.”

“In the Northern Equestrian Wastes?” Starswirl the Bearded moved his illumination spell closer to the message to read it. “I see. For the glory of Queen Cicada indeed.”

Applejack’s eyes widened as she passed beneath the archway. It was tall enough to allow a full-grown dragon to pass through. She scrambled to catch up with Adagio. “You were there, weren’t you? At the height of the Changeling Empire. When they were enslaving ponies.”

Adagio wrinkled her nose. “Skilled workers tended to have slightly better prospects… And I was the most skilled gem carver in the world. River woulda never put me somewhere dangerous. Lucky me, lucky me.”

Fabio coughed, echoing in the awkward silence around the tunnel, and gestured to the cavern before them. “Ladies and Gentleponies, welcome to G’Boy.”

The cavern was at least large enough to swallow Downtown Ponyville, maybe with room to include Sweet Apple Acres. Pillars of stone blocked the view sporadically, but around them she could see houses and businesses hewn into the stone. Brick-built buildings were sparse, and always of that signature changeling style; with honeycombed windows and large metal doors. The two architectural styles were different as could be, and yet seemed at home together, both having been fully possessed and partially transformed by the Diamond Dog inhabitants. Rather than the yellow glow normally associated with changeling cities, the light was a soft blue. Brick roads led to dirt offshoots. Carts of both ancient machinery and simple wood passed each other on the road. A few were laden with fresh-cut ore, having been brought in from the mining tunnels to the north.

Keeping them out of sight, Fabio led them to one of the great stone pillars. A spiral staircase had been carved into it, which led to a door somewhere near the top. He said that only the leaders were to ascend, and that the others should follow Rex to the shelters.

Applejack’s knees were aching by the time they reached that door, dozens of meters in the air. She took a moment to look over the city of G’Boy, where Diamond Dogs scurried back and forth as their day neared its end. Or perhaps its beginning? With no sunlight belowground, the Diamond Dogs themselves would decide the length of their days. Did the leaders dim the bulbs during sleep time? Was there a curfew?

Whatever questions she had were swallowed up in the next moment when she looked east. Her coat stood on end as she saw what appeared to be the results of a cave-in. Diamond Dogs worked furiously to clear the debris. They all wore reinforced metal suits, their faces covered with gas masks. Large fans were placed around the site, pulling dust away from the workers and venting it upward to somewhere safe within the mountains.

Purple crystal formations jutted out from the stone rubble. They pulsed with inner light. A magic that looked alive.

“That tunnel under Canter Mountain,” Fabio said, his gravely voice hushed. “When Unseelie destroy Canterlot, it transform crystal mines into that. Not just surface problem. Never just surface problem.”

They joined Adagio, Skyhook, Starswirl, and Ribbon in the room at the center of the pillar, where three Diamond Dogs waited for them. The tallest was a black-furred, pointy-eared, sharp-nosed fellow, who looked as through someone had taken a whetstone to a wolf’s face. The others were smaller, cuter balls of white fur, identical save for the blue collar on one and the pink collar on the other.

Applejack nodded to each of them; having no idea who they were or how to greet them. “Howdy.”

“How. Dee.” The large Diamond Dog glanced at Fabio. “This new princess?”

Fabio nodded rapidly. “Yes, Doberlord.”

“Shorter than last one.” The Doberlord barked a single laugh, but his face returned to metaphorical stone in an instant. “Diamond Dogs hope to stay out of mess, but you see mess come already. Unseelie Court attack hurt both surface and world beneath. Diamond Dogs not safe from sun, even this far down.”

Adagio smirked. “‘Duck and cover’ at its finest.”

The Doberlord gave Adagio a vacant look, and his ears flopped forward. After a second, he seemed to decide that questioning her words wasn’t worth the trouble. “We give ponies shelter out of respect for Princess Celestia and Crone Adagio. But that all. We not fight Unseelie because we not have weapons to beat Fae. We not fight Sirens because they rule Equestria, and Equestria is distant ally. No war for Diamond Dogs. Only refuge in secret. Understand?”

Applejack nodded slowly. “Well, you’ve already helped out more than I woulda guessed possible, so thanks for that. Last thing I want is for more innocent people to get hurt.”

“Good.” He held out a clenched paw and Applejack met it with a hoof bump. “We understanding.”

He snapped his claws and the two puff balls bounced into action, rushing across the room to grab a long canister off the shelf. They carried it to the Doberlord and he unscrewed the cap, revealing the rolled-up paper inside. He spread it out on a stone table; it was a map of the Diamond Dog city, marking tunnels and landmarks with written Doggo. A faint outline encircled various cave systems—denoting the topography of what lay aboveground. “Here you can see where is safe for ponies to sneak around. Do not go outside marked areas. You be found there.”

The poofy Diamond Dogs—who Applejack later learned were named Fluffy and Fuzzy—barked cheerfully and bounded over to the doorway to take up guard positions.

“Huh.” Adagio Dazzle leaned close to the map and tapped a hoof over the center. “Looks like they managed to land the Grove of Golden Apples directly overhead.”

“Grove of Whatnow?” Applejack felt her stomach sink as she remembered the newly-sprouted mountain just west of Canter Mountain. “Is that their new headquarters? Are those the apples you were growin’?”

“Yep on both accounts. Got enough golden apples to keep an army immortal for centuries.”

Starswirl brushed his beard as he narrowed his eyes at the phantom-outlined Grove. “They’ve landed it right atop the highway northward. It’ll halt trade completely unless the merchants comply exactly with their orders.”

Applejack’s eyes wandered the map. Each pathway aboveground was denoted with an Equestrian-text “EXIT,” standing out to both Diamond Dogs and ponies as what essentially represented a gate between worlds. No exits lay over the city of G’Boy; instead, they were found in obscure, out-of-the-way tunnel offshoots, which someone would only find if someone was looking for them. Six exits lay kind-sorta equidistant in an ellipse around G’Boy, haphazardly surrounding The Grove of Golden Apples.

All the exits were within the stealth-friendly realm, freely accessible to Applejack’s crew. All were quite a trek from either the Grove or Canter Mountain. All were hidden away, either in woods, or among mountainous crags, or beside rivers…

Commander Skyhook met Applejack’s eyes. She and he, to her reckonin’, shared the same thoughts. A plan was forming. Or at least the initial spark of a plan. They had a twofold goal: Distract the Sirens from pursuing the Ponyville refugees, and rescue the imprisoned Bearers of the Elements. They were five-hundred against tens of thousands. What better method to manage a superior force than to divide it?

The Doberlord dismissed them with a gruff bark and allowed Fabio to take them to their hovels. They were one-room structures, and barely that, lacking a fourth wall in many cases. No need to plan around weather belowground, and all the better to vent fires lit on the cold stone. The others were already picking out where they’d be staying, laying aside space for the equipment, and counting out their rations. Applejack took in a deep breath; they were fighting a hopeless battle, in a war she didn’t want to escalate. Even if they survived the next few days, there was precious little they could do but wait for Apple Bloom and her friends to find the Elements.

If they failed, those five little ponies and one young dragon, everything would be for nothing. The Sirens would reign, controlling the hearts and minds of the people, and the Fae would destroy whatever was left.

“Whatever you’re planning,” Adagio said from Applejack’s left, “it had better happen soon. Jeuk’s already tasted blood.”

Applejack nodded and cast her sharp green eyes towards the youth-faced Crone. “Sure ’nough. I hope you remember a thing or two about the Grove, cuz you’re gonna be our guide.”

Author's Note

I'm sorry for the long, loooong wait between chapters. It has been a year. Yes, what a year it has been.