The Heart's Promise

Scootaloo realized pretty quickly that she was their only hope for survival.

The train slid to a stop at the edge of the green southern plains, where the climate finally became too hot, too arid, to support things like trees, or rivers, or even mud. While the Sandidry Desert in the east was best described as a barren sea of sand, with dunes serving as waves, the Badlands south of Equestria were stone and dust, where the only plants were barbed cacti and coarse bushes too stubborn to be cut down by the blazing-hot wind. Lizards peered at them from beneath the shadows of rocks, either mute or unwilling to expend the effort to share their thoughts.

Buffalo would use these lands as sacred grounds, burying their dead and swiftly returning to more hospitable locales. To the east lay the Central Ocean, the coast of which now lay empty after the departure of the hippogriffs. To the west lay nigh impassable rock formations, where the changeling remnant had once lay beneath Chrysalis’ iron hoof.

The six Seekers of Harmony were a good few miles from the shore, leaving them with hours of walking through scorching heat. Once they got to the sea, they would be able to convert the water from salt to fresh, and find food in the form of seaweed. Until then, the only thing keeping them going was Scootaloo’s mastery of magic.

She rubbed her hooves together, illuminating her face with the glittering Magic of the Pegasi. She had already constructed a small cloud that could shield her friends from the sun. She plucked off pieces here and there, passing them around so that everyone could suck refreshing rainwater from the cloudstuff. Her heart pumped as she poured her magic into the desert air, peeling every ounce of water she could from seemingly nothing. It was exhausting work, but they would have all died of exposure and heat stroke without her.

She pressed a cloud puff against Apple Bloom’s mouth, and the earth pony sipped. Bloom still had that same blank expression she’d had since the attack. Still hadn’t said anything. Still wouldn’t look at anything. It was almost like she didn’t even notice that Rumble was on her back, strapped down so that he couldn’t reopen his wounds accidently.

Rumble was next to receive a drink. He tried to keep his voice chipper, but Scootaloo could see his cheeks redden. “Thanks, Scoots. Wish I could help out.”

“Dummy.” Scootaloo rubbed his head with her free hoof. She hovered above the ground on her donated lavender wings to stay at eye-level with the two huge ponies. “We’d probably all be dead without you anyhow, so just focus on resting. Lemme be the hero of the hour.” She felt a smirk overtake her weariness. “And try not to think about how a girl has to carry the big strong stallion.”

“I’m secure enough in my masculinity to admit…” He glanced down at Apple Bloom’s back, and his cheeks grew even rosier. “That I see the appeal of being princess-carried.”

Button Mash peered up at them from Apple Bloom’s shadow. “I think that’s his way of saying he wants you to begin weight training.”

“Har har.” Scootaloo tugged the cloud along overhead. It floated forward a few meters at a time before she needed to reapply momentum. “If I could get that big, I’d already be there”

Sweetie Belle dabbed her tuft of cloud against her glasses to clean them of dust. “Scootloo with the physique of Bulk Biceps would be a sight to sting the eye.”

Scootaloo grimaced, electing to ignore that. She looked to the front of the procession, where Spike led the way, retracing his steps from his time on the dragon migration more than a decade ago. He squinted ahead at the jagged shoreline, where Scootaloo just then could see the peak of the Hippogriff hometown: Mount Aris. Long abandoned by the hippogriffs and seaponies, who had fled across the sea with Thorax’s changelings, little but ruins awaited them there.

She poked her head out of the top of the cloud to look behind them. Every time she checked, she feared that she would see the shadow of an airship sprinting its way towards them, full of death and fury, but no such apparition appeared. Either they had truly escaped their pursuers, or Scootaloo’s dad was waiting for them at their destination.

She slapped her own cheek to correct her thoughts. He was not her dad, just like Aria was not her mom. Those titles belonged to Davenport and Roseluck alone, no matter what sort of DNA was shared among them.

She returned to the shade and pressed a cloud against Apple Bloom’s mouth again. “Come on, drink up. You’re gonna pass out and I’m gonna have to carry both of you.”

“I’m sorry,” came the hoarse whisper.

Scootaloo frowned at her friend. “Don’t worry about it. We can rest soon.” She glanced up at the distant mountain. “Relatively.”

Button Mash looked back over his shoulder, southwestward, to the even-more-distant spires of the Badlands. “So, are we gonna check the old Changeling hives? The clues say ‘Laughter was Rescued among the changelings,’ and we might find something in the old ruins.”

“I dunno.” Spike spared the hives a glance. “Twilight combed the place pretty thoroughly after Chrysalis the Second made peace with Equestria last year. She didn’t find any magic artifacts, Elements or otherwise.” A spiny lizard made a grab for one of Spike’s toes and was quickly shaken off. “I’m operating under the assumption that we’ll find Laughter with the changelings themselves. Either Thorax’s or Chrysalis’.”

Sweetie pulled tighter at the strap on her shoulder, securing a bag that was nowhere near in danger of falling off. “If we knew more about the mare who gave us Kindness, maybe we’d know what to expect.”

“Split didn’t even see her face.” Button Mash swallowed hard, which did no favors to his parched throat. “Maybe she was a fairy, too.”

Scootaloo plopped down between them and handed them fresh cloud puffs. “It is the real article. Twilight herself said so. So I don’t think we need to worry to much about where it came from. It’s good that we have it, and that’s a fact.”

Spike gave her a lopsided grin. “And even if she was a fairy, that just means we have more on our side than we thought.”
Button bobbed his head noncommittally. “I guess so.”

“Pick your battles, dude.” Rumble pointed ahead to their next stop. “Right now, the battle is ‘survive the desert for a couple more hours.’”

Time passed slowly, with every inch a burden. With the exception of Spike, everybody collapsed at the foot of Mount Aris from heat and exhaustion. The ruined, empty houses loomed like decayed skeletons silhouetted in the gloom of a setting sun. No one had rushed to ransack the town after the hippogriffs left, and neither had anybody sought to preserve the abandoned buildings. Time and tide had done all that was necessary to return Aris to as it was before Princess Twilight visited; when the hippogriffs had all hidden beneath the waves as seaponies.

But even Seaquestria, Scootaloo knew, would be rotting like the bones of a drowned whale.

“Dang it, I’m feeling gloomy just looking at this place.” She nudged Spike’s shoulder and shoved him towards the nearest crumbling house. “We gotta make camp in a hurry before we all start blubbering.”

“Aye, aye,” Spike said with a tilted grin. He pointed to the shore. “Button, you and Sweetie find us some seaweed. Scootaloo and I’ll go looking for any sort of supplies we can find in these homes. Like, at least some shelter from the wind. Or firewood. Apple Bloom, you and Rumble bunk down somewhere and keep out of sight.” He gave them a meaningful, wary glance. “And keep watch.”

Rumble saluted when Apple Bloom said nothing. “You can count on your resident invalid to scream for mommy the instant an evil monster appears.”

The search was mostly fruitless. A few broken down pieces of furniture to burn, a couple of decayed curtains to clean wounds once they were properly washed, and a pot to cook the seaweed into something relatively edible. Everything was too far gone, too grody to be considered salvage.

While Spike carried their ill-fated gains down the mountain, Scootaloo stood at the front door of Queen Nova’s house. Less than a palace, more than a mansion, beautiful even when devastated. The walls were chipped pearl trimmed with stained gold, with spiraling pillars and shattered wooden doors. She pushed the front door and found that it swung freely on its hinges. The creak echoed in the growing darkness.

She swallowed hard. “Die by starvation, or die by being eaten. The ironic choice is yours to make.”

She glanced to and fro and stilled her breath before stepping inside. She thought she could hear something else breathing, but rationalized it as being wind blowing through gaping windows. Really, no biggie. The rumble she heard was merely the foundation of the house settling. The scratching was mice running across the floor. The faint glow just around the corner was just the last vestiges of light from the sunset. The cackled laughter was… was…

She decided to stop rationalizing and start panicking.

She heard voices, at least two, talking in hushed tones somewhere deep in the house, until the murmur was pierced by a guttural guffaw. The laugh was quickly followed by a slap and a hoarse “Can you keep quiet, idiot?”

She flapped her wings to bring herself to ceiling height. No windows from outside could see into the room, so she decided to take the slightest of peeks from around the corner, from an angle the strangers would be unlikely to notice. Magic kept her aloft, her wings held steady so that she made no noise. She inched forward, pushing against the ceiling with a hoof, until she glided close enough to poke an eye at the source of the voices.

Three dragons sat around a small fire. They were young dragons, maybe a little older than Spike. Each one was larger than a stallion, even hunched over as they were. Two looked like girls, with softer eyes but sharp-edged faces. The big brute in the back of the room was red-scaled, with a jaw built like a hammer and teeth that wouldn’t fit inside his closed mouth. The fear left Scootaloo as she realized that she knew this dragon. Sadly, the anxiety didn’t go away.

Keeping out of sight, she knocked her hoof against the wall and called out “Hello? Garble? This is Spike and his—!”

A torrent of flame struck the wall opposite her. The jet of superheated air was cut off as Garble grabbed the tail of the dragon who had attacked her. “Keep a lid on it, Gruntilda! You wanna get somebody killed?”

The dragon maiden, a green-coated, wiry-built lizard, snapped her jaws at Garble. “Uh, yeah, that’s kinda the point of the whole incineration thing!”

Scootaloo let out a shaky breath, thanking her lucky stars that she hadn’t just stepped into view. “S-Spike and h-his friends… are out here… You know, Spike and the ponies…”

Garble blew a raspberry and pushed Gruntilda’s head down. “Yeah, yeah, step into the room. We ain’t gonna hurt yah.” He gave the trigger-happy dragon a disrespectful shove against the floor. “Got it, Grunt?”

“I hear you, I hear you! No barbeques!” Grunt propped herself on her elbow and looked at her other cohort. “Can’t I get some kinda backup, Bellow?”

Bellowski, a rounded, blue-coated dragon, remained hunched over the fire, frying the remains of some kinda bird on a stick. “You’re on your own there, Grunt.”

“With friends like these…”

Scootaloo rounded the corner, wings poised to dodge another fireball should the situation call for it. She gave the three dragons a gentle wave. “Hi, I’m Scootaloo. We’ve met before, Garble.”

“Can’t recall,” Garble said. “But I believe you when you say you’re a friend of Spike. Seems like the guy’s friends with everybody.”

“Eh, more or less.” Scootaloo looked around the room and found it to be some kinda sitting room. The faint remains of portraits and banners decorated the walls, while the crumbled debris of reclining couches lay shoved in the corner. A grey stone block, two ponies tall, lay against the wall. A circle crisscrossed with lines was carved into the block; some lines were straight, some were arced. Pages and pages of writing and images were set in front of the block. They were both colorful and crude, and all seemed to be representations of the carving compared with differing maps and trinkets. “So what brings you to Mount Aris?”

“Could ask you the same thing.” Garble crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “Judging by the light show in the sky the past couple days, you ponies have other things to worry about besides random ghost towns.”

Scootaloo felt her neck hairs stand on end as she thought back to the gala and the airship crash. “You could say that. We’re on a quest. Far from home.”

“Same.” When Garble noticed she was looking at the paper scraps strewn around, he rushed over to scoop them up in his arms and store them haphazardly in a brown backpack. “Now scram. We don’t need any ponies sticking their noses in our business.”

Getting a closer look at the carved circle brought it clearer into Scootaloo’s memory. She’d seen it, about the same time as she’d met Garble. He had presented it to Spike, saying that it was the key to finding someone. “But you did ask Spike for help.”

“And Spike wasn’t available.” Garble none-too-gently scooped her up by the rear and dumped her at the door to the room. “So unless the scrawny little gemsucker somehow has the stupid puzzle figured out, we don’t need help.”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?”

Spike lumbered on his hind legs into the room. He was shorter than every dragon except Bellowski, and skinner than every dragon except for Gruntilda. He still managed to loom large when he and Garble came face-to-face, due to the way the red drake leaned back at his approach.

Garble faked a smile. “Long time no see, hatchling. Still running errands for that purple pony princess?”

“Garble.” Spike crossed his own arms. “Still running errands for Dragonlord Ember?”

Scootaloo took to the wing to hover over Spike’s leftmost shoulder. She kept a wary eye on Grunt and Bellow, only to find that the two dames had their eyes locked on Spike as though they were examining the finest of gemstones. Bellowski was even drooling a little. Scootaloo raised her eyebrows. “Honest, ain’t they?”

Spike didn’t seem to hear her, and that was fine by her. “Have you found anything new about Smolder?” he asked.

Garble sneered at Grunt and Bellow before shoving past them, hoisting the backpack with a flick of his tail. “Same old, same old. Same old empty town, same old weird-as-hell map carving, same old numbskull tagalongs.”

Grunt grinned a sniveling little snicker at Scootaloo. “He means you, featherbrain.”

Garble rolled his eyes. He slapped his palm against the stone circle. “So we’re just about to pack up and head back to the Cauldron with nothing but shattered hopes and dreams. By tomorrow morning, you’ll have the whole town to yourself.”

“Actually,” Spike said, “we’re headed for the Cauldron, too.”

“Huh?” Garble scraped to a stop, leaving clawmarks in the floor. “Why?”

Spike gave Scootaloo a look, which she returned with a shrug. If Spike thought it was okay to trust these guys, she supposed she trusted Spike.

“We’re on a quest to find the Elements of Harmony.” Spike favored Garble with one of his most charming smiles. “And we think Loyalty is in the Cauldron.”

The smile rolled off of Garble like lava off a dragon’s back. It seemed like trying to tickle a mountain with a feather. “Loyalty? Among the dragons? What kinda sick joke is that?”

“Well…” Spike opened his hands palm-up. “It makes enough sense to me. With how long-lived dragons are, you wouldn’t find someone more likely to stick with you for a long time—”

“The dragons, who hide away in caves greedily grasping their gold trinkets.” Garble’s frown deepened until it looked like cracked stone. “Dragons, who have to be forced to rally to their Lord by a magic scepter. Dragons, who leave their own dang kids to fend for themselves. Those dragons?”

Spike’s hands closed into fists. “When you put it like that…”

“Trust me, Spike, if there’s any loyalty among the dragons—” Garble fastened the backpack over his shoulders and spread his wings. “—let me know when you find it. Only you won’t, because you’d rather help your pony friends instead of your dragon friends when they need you.”

Spike reached out and caught Garble’s arm. “I promised I’d help you find Smolder, and that’s the truth.”

“The truth is she’s still missing, and the whole world is dying.” Garble bared his teeth at the smaller dragon. “You don’t have time for all that loyalty, Spike. You gotta pick a goal and stick to it, or all your loyalties will fail.”

“Hey!” Scootaloo flew in front of Garble’s face, blocking his path out of the house. “The clues say we’ll find an Element with the changelings. The changelings and the hippogriffs are together, aren’t they? Smolder and her friends disappeared with them, didn’t they? That means we’ll have to find them eventually, won’t we?”

Garble growled in the back of his throat. “That’s a lot of ifs, pony.”

“Yeah, but for now, both you guys and us guys have the same goal.” She and Spike exchanged an uncertain glance. “Mostly. At least parallel.”

Bellow whispered out of the corner of her mouth. “Isn’t that a fancy word for an umbrella?”

“No, dumb-dumb!” Grunt hissed. “It’s a kind of chocolate candy.”

“Shut up, both of you,” Garble snapped. “I’m trying to think.”

When Garble lurched forward on all fours, Spike moved backwards to keep in his sight. “She’s right, you know. This is a chance—”

“Didn’t I say to shut up?”

Spike stopped, and Garble bumped nose-first into his chest. Spike looked down at the larger, redder, angrier dragon and held his hands out to the sides. “I made a promise to you and this is my chance to keep it. I’ll help you find your sister. And I’ll show you I can be loyal to all my friends. Dragons, and ponies, and everybody.”

Garble sat down hard enough to rattle the meager wall decorations. “Why try so hard to convince me? You could just go straight to Dragonlord Ember and she’d give you anything you asked for!”

“Because…” Spike placed his hands on his hips and straightened his back. “You’re my friend, too. I made a promise.”

Garble narrowed his eyes and sat quiet for a long moment. He shook his head. “You are by far the stupidest dragon I’ve ever met.”

Spike crossed his arms. “So what if I am?”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” Garble pointed at the two dames. “Change of plans. We’re staying here tonight.”

Bellow scratched her forehead. “That’s just the old plan.”

“Well, I changed it, so it’s the new plan.” Garble jerked his thumb towards the fire. “Better bring your buddies into the palace. This is the only building left with all four walls.”

“I’ll let them know!” Scootaloo took this opportunity to zip out of the conversation. She gave the western sky a last scan to verify that there were indeed no looming enemy airships, then headed for the foot of Mount Aris. The moon peaked out from beyond the horizon and showered the world in cool silver. The dark shadow of Twilight Sparkle, hewn into the moon as it was, almost felt like a protective vigil rather than a testament to their harsh reality.

Even when a cold breeze touched her shoulders with an icy finger, Scootaloo barely considered it. It was always cold at night in the desert.

Wasn’t it?

Canter Mountain lay cold and empty in the chill air of early evening. Castletown’s ashes lay abandoned, empty even of bandits or looters. Nothing usable had survived the firestorm. The gaping maw where the castle used to be lay open to the sky, and the moon’s lesser light glittered off rows upon rows of purple crystals. The peak of the mountain had crumbled in on itself, while the slopes had ulcerated with miasmic magic and crystalline formations. The small procession of creatures that marched up the mountain slowed as they passed through the battered castle walls, into what had once been the outer courtyard.

Jeuk led the procession, wearing his ruby-tinged glasses and a wide-brimmed black hat. He smiled over his shoulder to the ponies following along behind him. “Getting tired yet? Need a rest? A moment of recuperation?”

Fluttershy said nothing. She kept her head down, not looking at the mortal fairy. Her wings were bound to her sides by shackles. A heavy rope hung around her neck, the other end of which was held by a strong-bodied thrall. Even if she could fly, he would drag her painfully back to earth.

Silver Spoon slapped her across the face. “You will show proper respect when meeting with the Lord of the Sky. Speak when you are spoken to.”

Fluttershy looked around and saw that Merry, her one so-called “ally” among the Unseelie, was nowhere to be seen. All the better for it. If Merry had allowed this to go on, the last of Fluttershy’s love for her might have dried up. As it was, Fluttershy could pretend that Merry would not approve of any of it.

“You can eat my rotten horseapple-stained—!” Rainbow Dash was promptly gagged by a cloth over the mouth. The thrall that held her rope tightened the knot until it was unbearable, then tightened it more. She might have had more ability to fight back had her wings not been pinned to her sides by the same heavy shackles that held Fluttershy.

Rarity and Pinkie Pie were likewise being harried up the mountain by massive thralls. Rarity glanced over her guard; Fluttershy could tell that she was noting several sensitive pressure points where a kick could send even that mighty stallion staggering. Unfortunately, her chains made freedom of movement a distant dream. The ring around the base of her horn would send her straight into unconsciousness if she attempted a spell.

Fluttershy’s hoof slipped on a patch of frost. The thrall jerked her upright before she could fall. The chill in their air was unnatural for a summer evening, especially after the firestorm that had eaten Canter Mountain. A faint whinny that echoed through the air reminded her of the dead of winter, when food was scarce and her animal friends’ lives were not guaranteed. Dark shadows had followed them up the slopes. Dark shadows with grasping claws and beady eyes. Her only comfort was knowing that no spirits of the dead could be found here, wailing over a life misspent.

At the top of the mountain, where there was no city, what awaited them were scores of fairies. Most of them were shadows, but the air was filled with ghastly translucent horses dusting the ground with snow and ice. A vast cloud in the shape of a snake ringed the chasm of crystal, hissing as though it had specific enmity with her. “Kindness has no place here,” it rumbled. “Let her be cast into the depths like her forebearers to feed our kindred.”

Jeuk tipped his hat back. “We have already confirmed that they can no longer wield the Elements, so their life or death have no use to us… save specifically my amusement. Do not forget this, Bête Noire.”

The grand shadow winced, a sorry sight indeed for a beast so tremendous. “My Lord, I meant no insult.”

“Of course not.” Jeuk whirled a black cape, as though revealing the chasm with a flourish. “Behold Once-Bearers! The doom of Equestria! The blight of a thousand lands! The plague you yourselves can forestall, if only you reveal to me your secrets.”

Rarity scoffed. “Never in a thousand-thousand years would we reveal anything to you, Lord of Mold and Lice! The crown of Equestria ill befits you and your ilk, and so it shall be taken from you before you can fasten it to your scraggly heads!”

“I could remove your tongue myself, and gleefully, but regrettably I have use for you unmarred.” Jeuk strode up to Rarity and cupped her face in his hooves. She spat at him, but he paid it no mind. “Please, remain blissfully silent while I explain to you just why you will beg to share everything with me. Please, just a moment of your time.”

Pinkie Pie tried to kick dirt at him, but could barely shuffle her hooves a couple inches at a time. “I wouldn’t even share the secret to Granny Pie’s Magical Rhubarb and Rutabaga Pie with you if my life depended on it.”

Jeuk shoved Rarity back and poked Pinkie in the eye. “That’s just it. Your hides are secure. Your deaths are unnecessary. I have more worth for you as bargaining chips or bait. It isn’t… your lives on the line.” He glared at her over his glasses. “It’s everyone else’s.” He raised a hoof and called at the top of his lungs. “Bean Sidhe!”

One windigo, larger than the others, as beautiful as morning frost and as deadly as an avalanche, alighted the ground beside him and bowed her head. “Master.”

“Prepare your harbingers of death!” He whirled, his cape falling to the side off of his haunches. He nearly tripped over himself before he tore the cape aside with a violent flick. “Bête Noire! Have you chosen your nightmares?”

The snakelike Fae hissed deep in the recesses of his darkness. “Aye, my Lord.”

Jeuk strode up to the very edge of the chasm, with Bête Noire’s coils fading around him, and raised a foreleg to the four prisoners. “This is your last chance, Former Bearers! Save everyone in Equestria and beyond from calamity! From true, inescapable horror! Reveal to me the location of Applejack, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Spike, Rumble, and Button Mash, and your precious world shall be spared!”

Rainbow Dash roared from behind her gag.

Rarity’s mouth fell open. “You dare think we would betray our own?”

“Do not the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?” The wind kicked up, blowing Jeuk’s hat into the gored mountainside. He gave it no notice. “Seven lives, over seven-thousand? Ten times that? Every drop of blood spilt would be on your hooves.”

“No, Jeuk.” Fluttershy blinked back tears; brought about by the wind or cry of her heart, she knew not. “They would be on your hooves. We don’t know anything. But even if we did, we could never tell you. We couldn’t break confidence even in a lie. You will kill, and kill, and kill, and it will be for nothing. But it will come back to you. It will always come back.”

Jeuk bared his teeth at her. “You stupid, selfish mortals. Disgusting! Always thinking about yourself and what you want. Always so very controlled by your frail little bodies. Your base instincts!”

“Last I heard,” Fluttershy said, “weren’t you mortal too, now?”

The bared teeth clenched. He huffed out a hot breath, tinged with steam. “Indeed. Though with the capability to rise above the preprogrammed chemical soup in my brain. Unbound by family ties, or hunger, or want.” His eyes flicked to Silver Spoon for a brief moment. “What I do indulge in is for mere scientific curiosity.”

Silver grinned. “Curiosity indeed.”

Pinkie Pie lidded her eyebrows, the corners of her mouth dragging downward with the weight of a boulder. “That’s a little too much information there, oh Lord of Darkness.”

Rarity barked a laugh. “They do say every ‘great’ stallion has a ‘great’ mare behind him.”

Silver Spoon raised her hoof to strike again, but was halted by Jeuk’s. “Easy now, Maiden. It will do us no good if they can neither speak no stand. We have to await their answer, of course.”

Rainbow Dash finally got her tongue around the gag and was able to spit it out. “I think Fluttershy gave you the best answer we could come up with. A heck of a lot nicer than most of us, too.”

Jeuk nodded slowly, letting his giggling little laugh echo around the courtyard bereft of a castle. “I hoped you would say that.”

The wind became like a typhoon, striking Fluttershy’s face with rain cold enough to be hail, flying sideways to slip beneath her torso and soak every inch of her. She shivered, bending her knees to shield herself what little she could, but the thrall yanked her upright. Windigoes howled and stampeded in midair, wailing their song of death as ghastly whinnies and harrowing wickers. Nightmares laughed and danced, flailing claws and gnashing teeth at her.

One by one they leapt into the pit, first the windigoes and then the other Fae, shrieking with a sound wholly unlike either happiness or horror. The chasm ignited with a flash of power brighter than the moonlight. The ambient magic stung like acrid smoke in Fluttershy’s eyes, but shielding herself was impossible with her bonds. Crystals formed on her coat in tiny clumps, some even collecting on her eyelashes like ice formations. Waves of plasmatic magic pressed against her, threatening to send her to the ground. A crackle and crash sounded from the center of the din, from which emerged a massive, clawed, crystalline hand.

“Rise, my Grotesques!” Jeuk crowed. “Rise and make for the southlands! Destroy all who stand in my way! Pillage and plunder and despoil! Kill the dragons! Every last drake and dame! Revenge me against the foul upstarts! Revenge yourself against those who would be immortal!”

The beast that emerged from the yawning gap was wholly unlike any one being Fluttersy had seen, but plenty alike several of them. Webbed wings of a bat or dragon. Clawed hands like a lizard’s. A beaklike muzzle arrayed with sharp, sharklike teeth. A hunched bipedal body that moved like an ape. A long, whiplike tail barbed akin to a manta ray. But all made from transparent, purple crystal.

It leaped into the sky on its glistening wings and shot southward like an arrow.

More followed behind it, climbing out of the cavern, scrambling over each other in their haste to obey Jeuk. It was an eruption of bladed limbs and snapping tails driving Fluttershy and her friends back with the cacophony. Blazing purple flame bellowed up from the Grotesque’ bellies and out the mouths.

Hundreds of them rose into the air in a whirlwind of violence. Each one was plenty large enough to carry away a loaded carriage. Not quite adult-dragon-sized, but large enough to pose a threat to anything under the sun.

Jeuk laughed in his stuttering, jittery way. He smiled at Fluttershy. “And if they just so happen to meet a pony caravan on their path… well, we know what sort of things a Grotesque gets up to.”

Black feathers sprouted from his back as his jaw warped and his body contorted. His hooves became claws which scraped the stone. His hat burned away as his entire body was enveloped in fire. Smoke billowed from his mouth and obscured all but his glowing green eyes.

Silver Spoon jerked her head to look between the southern skies and Jeuk. “You’re going with them? What about the riots in Manehattan? What about besieging the Crystal Empire?”

“Do you really want the Grotesques to deal with Manehattan?” he said with a jagged smile.

Silver Spoon took half a step back. “Well… Well, I suppose not.”

“Then let me handle things with the dragons.” He rested a clawed hand on her head, and looked ready to either caress her or squash her. “If you really want to deal with the Crystal Empire, have our people infiltrate their citizenry. Spread unhappiness and discontent until they no longer remember how to work the Hearth’s Warming Spell in the Crystal Heart. Make it impossible for Cadenza to do any good without her authority being challenged and her motives dissected. Before long, even she herself will chafe beneath her responsibilities. I’ve destroyed many kingdoms this way. I trust you can do it, too.”

His wings flapped, overwhelming Fluttershy’s senses with hot wind and dust and magic discharge. His Grotesques rallied to him and fell into formation as they soared south, towards the Cauldron and the dragons.

When the mad mob had vanished over the horizon, Fluttershy and her friends were thrown into cells in the depths of the Grove of Golden Apples. No longer was Fluttershy permitted to walk freely around the trees. With Merry busy elsewhere, Jeuk and Silver Spoon had little reason for niceties. They were all muddy and tired from the climb. They were all borderline poisoned by the caustic ambient magic, and covered with shards of flash-grown solidified magic. A quick scrub could clean them off, but such was of little comfort to those without a tub.

Fluttershy tried the lock and found it immobile. The door didn’t even jiggle on its hinges.

She didn’t want to admit it to Jeuk, nor to her best friends, nor even to herself… Fluttershy wasn’t sure she had any hope left. She could summon a bit of bluffed bravado when the situation called for it, but she was tired, worn out, directionless. All she had seen the past few days was pain and death and Jeuk at the center of it all. And now…

“Is it really true?” she whispered to the others in the cages around her. “Have we lost the ability to use the Elements?”

Rarity, Rainbow, and Pinkie all glanced at each other. None of them wanted to be the first to speak.

“It’s…” Pinkie shrugged, started again, trailed off again. “It’s probably bull…”

“When Jeuk killed Celestia…” Rarity turned her eyes to her hooves. “He had a grand speech prepared. He claimed that our varied faults, major and minor, all contributed to the death of the Tree of Harmony. Which, in turn, caused the loss of our ability to interact with the Elements.”

Rainbow Dash nodded, lying down and leaning her side against the close-knit bars of her cage. “My split loyalties. Between the Wonderbolts, Ponyville, my friends versus my fans… Scootaloo… and because I was spread so thin, it was all shallow.”

Pinkie Pie glanced around at the golden apples that were so close, but so very far out of reach. “My souring attitude with people in general. How nobody seems to appreciate what I do… and that was never important before. I just did things because I thought it was the right thing to do. Maybe that comes with growing older. Wanting to be appreciated.”

“We all want to be appreciated.” What Fluttershy really wanted was to give her friends a big hug. “And I’ve never seen you as shallow, Rainbow Dash. You both have some of the biggest hearts of anypony I’ve ever met.”

“And yet the tree is dead,” Rarity said. “Perhaps in part due to my… my jealousy of Apple Bloom. How for all my purported generosity, the one thing I cannot give up is something that was never mine to begin with.”

“And if it’s true,” Pinkie said, “that means that all of this happened because of us.”

Fluttershy’s heart sank to depths she hadn’t previously thought possible. The sting behind her eyes overwhelmed the previous sting of ambient magic. What had she done to make the Tree sick? Had she been unkind? Perhaps she had. Her growing anger with Merry. Her frustration with Discord’s illness. How she’d lashed out against Pumpkin and Pound Cake.

Would that be enough to kill the Tree of Harmony? Would all of their foibles together, over the course of more than a decade, be enough to slay something that had stood for so long? It had happened once before, when River Cicada of the Changelings had destroyed it in order to keep the power of the Elements under her own control…

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a load of balderdash and bunkum. Hooey and hogwash. Wack, colloquially.”

Fluttershy’s ears shot up at the sound of a quiet, familiar voice. She glanced around, and found nothing out of the ordinary. None of the dead could be found in this part of the grove, though their wails echoed among the branches. The Fae had all gathered on Canter Mountain to see Jeuk and his compatriots off. The thralls had left them to rot in their cells. They were truly alone in the Grove, and yet…

She looked down and there, between her front legs, was a teeny-tiny draconequus, barely as tall as a daisy.

“Wh—” Before she could say “what are you doing here?” he leaped up and covered her mouth with his tiny hands.

“Shhhhhh!” Discord glanced to and fro, his eyes wide. “If I’m found, Jeuk will rush over to eat my magic and kill me dead” He sighed and lowered his hands from Fluttershy. “It’s also why I’m not here to rescue you. If I use even an ounce of my magic… They’ll know I’m here. They’ll be on me before you can say ‘hot crossed buns’ and I’ll be none the wiser before Jeuk makes me a Draconequus Souffle.”

Fluttershy sat down hard. Without a moment to lose, she scooped Discord up in her forelegs and nuzzled him close. “It’s so good to see you!”

Discord chuckled and patted her nose. “It’s good to see you, too. I’m so glad you’re all… Well, not safe, but alive.”

“Heavens, you beastly thing,” Rarity said, hiding a small smile, “but whyever would you plunge into the very belly of the proverbial beast if you’re in such danger?”

“Because my home on the Far Side of the World is crawling with Fae.” He slithered out of Fluttershy’s grip and hid within her mane. “Bête Noire and his cronies have turned it into a literal nightmare landscape. I could fight them there, but as soon as I heard Jeuk had the Rainbow of Darkness back, I skipped town.” He tapped his claws against his talons. “I had to see that Fluttershy was alive. I figured hiding under Jeuk’s nose was no less dangerous than hiding anywhere else on this pitiful little mudball. At least he wouldn’t think to look for me here.”

“But that’s not quite right, either,” Fluttershy said with a hushed voice. “We’re being used as bait, Dis—my friend. They’ll be lying in wait for you.”

“I haven’t seen a single Fae in the area.” He tapped the side of his nose. “They have a certain kind of sense to them, which I’ve become quite familiar with thanks to our escapades with Jeuk last year.” He crossed his forearms over his chest and glared daggers at the Golden Apple trees around them. “It seems we’ve come full circle with that.”

Fluttershy shook her head. “Enough Golden Apples to keep your memory for… forever.”

“At least, for a substantial portion of eternity.” He climbed to the top of her head to address the whole group. “But that’s about me, and we’re not here for my benefit. You happy little ponies are so full of dejection and dismay you’re about to spread it to me!”

Pinkie Pie gave him a rueful expression that was more grimace than grin. “Can you blame us?”

“Pinkie Pie, have you forgotten?” He gestured strangely, as though he were about to cast one of his silly little spells, but thought against it. Instead, he tromped around on Fluttershy’s head as though he were on parade. “Do you recall what happened to you when you faced down your greatest foe?”

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Tirek ate our magic?”

“Sombra entrapped Twilight in crystal?” Rarity offered.

“I’m talking about myself, of course!” He crossed his arms and turned his head upward. “Against whom you had no chance, save for my own fatal flaw of pride! Essentially, I let you win. Because I was a moron. Shining endorsement, I know.”

“I had a neighbor named Shining Endorsement once,” Pinkie Pie said. “Kinda a contrarian, but he played a mean clarinet.”

“But think back to that day!” He snapped his talons to interrupt her. “I had you all under my special brand of chaos magic. I utterly reversed your personalities. There was no, zip, zilch, zero, nada chance you could have used the Elements of Harmony in such a state.”

Fluttershy blew a soft breath through pursed lips. “I wish I could say it was completely unlike me, but…”

“But that’s just it, I rewired your brains, but I did not overwrite them.” He pointed at each pony as he went down the line. “Rainbow Dash has always been lazy! Rarity has always been vain! Pinkie Pie has always been cynical! And you…” He bowed in what would have been a respectful manner had he not been in the middle of what was, for all intents and purposes, a roast. “Have untold amounts of anger stored up inside you.”

Fluttershy turned her face away and closed her eyes, though she couldn’t hide away from it. Discord’s tiny hand caught her chin and turned her to face him. He had leapt from her head to stand in front of her, and now looked at her with wide eyes, full of warmth. “And it never, ever stopped you from using the Elements. Not even against me.”

When he saw that all four ponies had their eyes on him, he nodded to each in turn. “It’s not your worst parts that lead you to overcome overwhelming odds. It’s your best parts. Those parts have always been with you, too. Even when they were hidden. Your kindness, loyalty, generosity, and laughter are undeniable, unkillable, and altogether far too unrestrained for your own good. Jeuk may say he never lies, but he may very well believe a lie.”

Fluttershy let out a small, weak laugh. “You know Twilight was able to break your spell so that we could use the Elements, don’t you?”

“And the spell broke because it was always you, at the heart of it.” He gave her a wide smile. “And naturally, it would have still failed had I not overlooked the broken spell and allowed you that free punch.”

“Nah, we clobbered you.” Rainbow Dash let out a small, forced chuckle. “Well, if we aren’t the reason the Tree of Harmony died, what was?”

“Who can really say? But I blame the Unseelie Court.” Discord stuck his head between the bars of Fluttershy’s cage and glanced to and fro. Content that they were still alone, he eased his way back to her and curled up like a snake at her feet. “Who else could poison a tree that powerful? Who else would desire such an unthinkable thing? And moreover… who was it who killed its sister tree?”

Fluttershy furrowed her brow and thought back to the stories about a draconequus and a golden apple tree. “The Tree of Life. The Fae destroyed the draconequus who were guarding the Tree of Life, which allowed them to then destroy the tree itself.”

“I can only imagine that Jeuk taking possession of this here Grove of Golden Apples is his way of saying he’s still the all-conquering Lord of the Sky,” Discord said, “but I know he’s just a blowhard who doesn’t realize that the whole reason the grove is here is because he’s totally failed to destroy the Tree of Life’s descendants.”

Pinkie Pie’s ears perked up. “Sooo… if he sucks so much at destroying the Tree of Life… The Tree of Harmony’s descendants are…”

“One can assume, or perhaps infer…” Discord tapped the side of his nose. “And what’s more, he wouldn’t even know what the Tree of Harmony’s descendants are.”

Rainbow Dash popped her lips as she thought. “Do we even know what the Tree of Harmony’s descendants are?”

“The one in Ponyville is fairly obvious, if you think about it.” Rarity peered carefully at the tiny draconequus as he grinned impishly. “But you say there are others?”

“Plenty.” Discord crossed his arms and rested them on his coils. “After all, the new Elements of Harmony had to come from somewhere, and that somewhere wasn’t an ailing tree under heavy assault by the Unseelie Court.”

Fluttershy’s mouth dropped open. “New Elements?”

Rarity tittered, her voice somewhere between hope and confusion. “And just how do you know all of this good news, dear Dis—er, friend?”

“The same way I learned Jeuk was abusing the power of the Rainbow of Darkness.” The mischievousness left Discord all in a rush as he stared wistfully into the middle distance between the four cages. He took on an echoey, whispery voice, barely any strength behind it, but all the weight in the world to make up for it. “And old friend named Softly… The one they call Adagio.”

Spike wandered around the ghost town, his hands full of the notes that Garble had gathered. He read by the light of the silver moon, which shone full and round overhead from a clear sky. The shadow of Twilight Sparkle’s head over its face did nothing to diminish its light.

“The Far Side of the World… could correlate to this section of the symbol…” The top of the circular etching held another, smaller circle within it. He tilted the etching onto its side, shifting the crisscrossed interior lines ninety degrees. “Which would give more weight to the theory that this is a map. But then the sections should line up more with tectonic plates than political borders, and there’s no fault line this close to Equestria.”

He overlaid the segmented circle with a map of Equestria and peered at where four lines converged. “So what is here? South of Equestria, but not far enough to be Dodge Junction. Closer to Ponyville than anything.” He followed the leftmost line a short distance and found it curved down towards the shoreline, nearby but not touching Mount Aris. He gazed southward down the beach and could just spot the place where Princess Celestia had scorched the sand with a pillar of fire, allowing the Changelings and Hippogriffs to escape the evil Tyrant Chrysalis. The patch of glass reflected the moonlight clearly, sending a beam shooting across the ocean.

He traced the moonbeam with his finger and found it matched the line on the map. Odd coincidence if there was one.

Perhaps it was less a geographical map and more of a… train route map? The changelings and hippogriffs had reportedly teleported away, but how? Was there a portal in that location?

The rumble of a distant engine touched his filmy ears. He folded the notes and stuffed them into his shoulder bag, then hid behind a half-fallen wall. There, finally, he saw the enemy airship puttering along across the desert, prowling back and forth, shining its lights down on the stone ground in search of pony-tracks that were not there. No evidence had been left by their flight across the unchanging, nigh-impassable landscape. He glanced up the hill to the Queen’s House, where his friends slept fitfully. No light could be seen from the outside, as all windows had been boarded up. The dark forces of Rhombus, Caution, and Midnight would have the entire desert to search, and nothing to find but empty fields.

Hopefully. One wrong move by Spike and co would leave them open to an attack that they might not escape from. Midnight especially could probably kill them all in an instant if she had a clean shot. He clenched his fist tighter as he thought of the small, angry unicorn mare. Midnight Sparkle, Twilight’s shattered reflection from a reality gone wrong, who wouldn’t rest until she acquired the power of an alicorn.

She had lost everything, and still thought there was no price too high to pay.

He watched the airship closely for a few minutes, then saw it glide westward towards the empty changeling hives. It would only be a matter of time before their search reached Mount Aris, but hopefully by then, Spike and his friends would be long gone.

He heaved a sigh and backed away from the wall. He’d have to let the next person on watch know how close the enemy was. He started towards the top of the mountain, but halted after just a few steps. He saw someone else looking out over the beach, silhouetted against the silver light reflecting off of the waves. The bow in her hair and the gentle shapes of her body told him exactly who it was before he even got close.

“Is it alright if I sit here?”

“Sure,” Apple Bloom muttered. Her forelegs hung over the edge of the precipice she was lying beside. “Help yourself.”

Making doubly-sure that the airship was far, far away, and that nobody was trekking on foot across the nightly cold of the desert sands, Spike sat beside Apple Bloom and put his hand close to her hoof. She didn’t close the distance. He looked over at her and saw tears staining her cheeks.

“If you wanna talk, I’ll listen.” Spike shrugged. “If you don’t wanna talk, I’ll be here anyways.”

Apple Bloom glanced towards him, then turned her eyes back to the sparkling sea. “I don’t know what to do.”

Spike reached for her hoof, and she moved it away. He let his claws rest limply by his side.

Her voice was flat, flavorless. “I’ve felt lost ever since that night. And nothin’s gone right since.”

“Since the Cloudsdale ball?”

“Since I told Applejack I wanted to move out.” Apple Bloom kicked a small stone over the edge of the cliff. “She likened it tah leavin’ the family.” Her voice hissed that last word, and the sound mingled with the waves crashing against the rocks far, far below. “The Cloudsdale ball didn’t go much better. I don’t know what to say. If we don’t turn you into a pony, I don’t know what the hell our relationship ’ll become. I know I can’t become a dragon any more than Tank the Turtle could become an alicorn. Ain’t got the magic for it.” Her breath caught in her throat, and she had to force the next words out. “Spike, I killed somebody.”

Spike clenched his fist. “You saved Rumble and Sweetie’s life. Probably Scootaloo and Button’s, too. If it hadn’t been for you—”

“Spike I killed someone” She sat up and turned to him, leaving half her face shadowed from the moonlight. If her expression changed even once, he couldn’t see it. “I don’t know of anything more evil than killin’ somebody. It ain’t somethin’ you can repay or undo. It’s forever. He’s gone forever because of me.”

Spike sat up as well, but softened his voice so that it was barely above a whisper. “He would have killed our friends, Apple Bloom, if it hadn’t been for you. Do you really think you did something evil by protecting them?”

“Even if it was to save them,” Apple Bloom said through a hoarse throat, “isn’t the act of killin’ still evil? It’s not what we mean to do, it’s what we do that’s right or wrong.”

“And what you did was protect.”

“What I did was kill.” She held his gaze as firmly as iron bars could hold a prisoner. “I keep hurtin’ the people around me.”

Spike reached out and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “You could never hurt me more than I love you.”

“Don’t you dare say that,” Apple Bloom breathed. “You don’t know what you’re wishin’ for.”

Spike felt himself frown, but he wiped the expression from his face. “You know I mean it.”

“An’ that’s just the problem, ain’t it?” Apple Bloom pulled away from him and paced along the edge of the cliff. “No matter how bad we are for each other… No matter how bad I am for you… You won’t give up on us. Well, maybe that’s wrong to put you through.”

“It’s my choice to go through with it.” Spike crossed his arms, looking up at the moon wishing he could have the wisdom of Twilight help him out. “And it’s your choice whether to accept my advances or reject them. But I’ll be your friend no matter what. That part can’t change.”

She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. Her brow was furrowed, her mouth downturned. “Then you’ll be friends with a murderer.” She carried on down the hill a ways, then sat by another section of the cliff, several meters from him. An edge entered her voice that wasn’t there before. “How could I ever live with myself? With that kinda evil?”

Staring up at the moon, at the ghostly shadow of Twilight Sparkle’s head, Spike supposed he did have a bit of her wisdom in his heart. He rubbed the scars on his chest scales, remembering the sound of the volleygun shot and the sting of red against his knuckles. “Apple Bloom… There’s something I should have told you a long time ago.”

The glint of light against Apple Bloom’s eye was all that he could see of her face, but it told him she was listening.

He held up his hands, palm forward. “It’s not going to take the pain away. It’s not gonna lessen what happened. Just… I just want you to know you’re not alone.”

She slowly turned her body around so that she was facing him. She kept her ears lowered, as though she feared a weight was about to descend on her. Maybe she was right.

Spike forced himself to lift his head and look her in the eye. He owed them both that much. “The castle was invaded by Hurricane and her ponies, just after Twilight had gotten hurt. There was a big Pegasus named Zephyr with her. He was fighting Care. He was gonna kill her, Apple Bloom. I charged in, angry at Hurricane for hurting Twilight. Angry at myself for being unable to help. Angry at Zephyr for breaking into my home and threatening my friends.” He pointed at the scars on his chest. “He shot me. I hit him.”

She flinched away, as though she had just seen his fist strike the pegasus’ head. As if she could hear the snap of bone against scale.

“I hit him with all of my anger. All of my strength.” Spike’s voice failed. He coughed a time or two, but it remained weak. Quiet. “He was dead instantly. It was why I was so afraid to be near anybody. I was afraid of hurting you. Of hurting all my friends. I saw myself as a monster, Apple Bloom. A horrible, out-of-control beast.”

She turned away, back to the ocean. She sat rooted to the spot, unmoving for several moments.

“I only told the princesses, never anyone else…” Spike rubbed his eyes until they turned bloodshot-red. “Because I was so afraid of you knowing what a monster I’d become.”

She stood up and walked a few steps closer to him, not saying a word.

Without looking up, he stretched his right hand towards her. “Please, Apple Bloom, don’t believe the lies I believed. You’re not a monster. You’re not evil. You protected your friends in a way nobody else could. You carry a burden no one should ever bear. You are loved. You are loved. You. Are. Loved.”

She hovered near his hand, just beyond his touch. She exhaled as though it were her last breath, slow and weighty, and her words were weary. “You held onto that. For five years.”

She sat down, keeping that same distance.

Spike slowly lowered his hand to his lap. He clasped his hands for lack of anything better to do with them.

“Maybe you should have told me a long time ago.” She shook her head, and her bleary eyes gazed at the nothingness of a night on the Central Ocean. “I wonder where we’d be today if you had.”

“We are… where we are.” He flopped to his stomach and stared straight down to the sharp rocks of the coast. “It took a lot for me to heal even a little bit. But you were always with me, even if you didn’t realize it. Rumble and Button. Scootaloo and Sweetie. Twilight. Care. Big Spike never even realized how much he helped me, before he passed.”

Apple Bloom’s shoulders slumped. “I miss Big Spike.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

She lowered her head until she, too, lay along the cliffside. “I don’t know… what to do. I don’t wanna feel the way I feel. I don’t wanna feel nothin’.”

He held out his hand, palm up, placing it midway between the two of them. “It can get better. It will. I promise.”

She nodded slowly. She placed her hoof limply in his palm. “I s’pose I need to believe you.”

“Sometimes you need to choose first,” he said, closing his fingers around her soft coat. “Belief can come later.”