I look up the stairs at my mentor, and after another guest is welcomed past, Princess Celestia meets my gaze. She smiles, motioning a hoof to make sure I know I can come up.

My body is a collection of fizzing static that I can just barely force into carrying me along. Lines of thought, predictions, tangle in my head, but I focus solely on climbing those steps and keeping my breathing steady. The sooner I reach what I’m anxiously fixated on, the sooner I can get past it and start to function properly. Anticipation is, as always, my worst enemy.

I climb the last few steps delicately, and the time it takes to look from my hooves all the way up to Celestia feels like a miniature eternity.

“Twilight Sparkle, my faithful student,” She says with as warm of a smile as I’ve ever seen from her, voice full of pride, “Welcome to the Gala.”

I look at her with wide eyes, and start breathing again. “P-Princess Celestia…” Awareness of my body in space floods back in, self consciousness coming alongside it. I’m standing in front of Princess Celestia wearing a dress!

“It is so lovely to see you here tonight,” she says, and her voice is as calm and light as it always has been. It’s so hard to tell what the Princess is thinking, but she’s treating me like she always has, like this is perfectly normal. She continues, “And you look wonderful in that dress, you’ve grown into quite the young ‘Agender Mare.’”

I curl a foreleg up to my chest and lean back, blinking at her, “I…” Celestia said it like her calling me a beautiful agender mare was routine for her, even though it definitely isn’t! On the one hoof, Celestia just— Mare! On the other hoof, embarrassment heats my cheeks at Celestia calling me agender in public. It feels validating, but also vulnerable, and I hadn’t ever told Celestia I was shy about that aspect of my identity, and I really shouldn’t be embarrassed about it in the first place… “T-thank you!” I beam, and the Princess’s eyes seem to light up more at my smile. “I’m really excited to be here too, and to see you again!” I say, I’m honestly not sure if I sound any different to her, but I know it feels different talking to Celestia as Twilight Sparkle, instead of well, Dusk Shine. “I’m so glad to get the chance to talk to you, and catch up about, well, everything!”

“Likewise,” Celestia affirms, “I want you to be my right hoof mare here for the entire evening, so we'll have plenty of time together.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” I reply, keeping the giddy smile on my face small and under control.

Celestia motions with a wing, and I trot around to her side. I shuffle my hooves about, trying to figure out where I should be standing relative to Celestia. Even as I find what I believe is the appropriate spot I can’t keep myself still, fidgeting around with my outfit and how it hangs on my body. I can’t help feeling a bit self conscious trying to look pretty while next to Princess Celestia.

“You know,” Celestia begins, leaning her head over at me, “to redefine yourself in the world’s eyes takes no small amount of courage.” Her wing reaches out, draping my side in warmth and soft feathers. “To redefine yourself in your own eyes is an act of creation, a beauty of the highest order and difficulty. I can only anticipate seeing all the ways you will continue to grow and flourish,” Celestia looks at me strangely, eyes almost glistening, and pulls me into a deep hug with her wing, “I am so very proud of you, my faithful student.”

Something inside of me unwinds, stress exhaling in a huge sigh. Every nerve ending in my body starts to relax. Princess Celestia is here, and she approves of who I am, she’s proud of me. “Thank you,” I say softly, blinking a wave of tears from my eyes.

The familiar feeling of rightness settles over me, safety and belonging. Alongside a new sort of bittersweet nostalgia. This used to be the only part of me that felt like it belonged, the part that was Celestia’s student.

The ‘good student’ was the only version of me that felt correct. So I drowned myself in my role and my studies. Because my name, who I was as a pony, they were all just impairments to get to the part of me I actually liked.

The realization, the memory, hurts. But it’s a relief too. Those titles and traits and accomplishments don’t have to exist in a disembodied shell anymore, they can belong to somepony, somepony I like. They belong to me, Twilight Sparkle. And I can experience them as Twilight Sparkle, fully and without hiding, for the first time.

Celestia gingerly releases me from our hug, and I breathe in deeply, letting it sink in that I really am here. I’m me, I’m Twilight Sparkle, standing at Celestia’s side as her personal student.

“Now, let’s welcome our guests, shall we?” Celestia inclines her head down the grand staircase, and I turn to see the guard’s step back and start letting ponies through again. Realizing the guards had been holding back the queue while Celestia greeted me, I back up a little further to Celestia’s side, self consciousness tingling down my spine.

The first guest is a mare in a fine purple dress, her orange mane spun into a complicated updo. Her gaze sweeps over me in one long motion and then up to Celestia.

“Welcome to the Gala, Fine Rind.” Celestia smiles.

“Princess,”Fine Rind bows her head gracefully, “Thank you.”

“And this is my personal student, Twilight Sparkle,” she gestures towards me.

Fine Rind’s eyes turn toward me, and my heart skips a beat before I follow Celestia’s example. “Welcome to the Gala!”

“Thank you, it’s wonderful to meet you.” Her voice is perfectly polite and polished, and completely opaque to me in terms of her internal thoughts.

“Wonderful to meet you as well,” I say automatically, and then with a brief nod to me, the encounter is over and she strides past us towards the next flight of steps.

As far as I could tell, that mare reacted to me with complete normalcy. As far as I could tell. Not for the first time I wish I had the social savvy of somepony like Rarity, I could hardly read normal ponies, let alone nobles.

My eyes dart unsurely over to Celestia with a silent question, and she gives me a reassuring smile in return. So I resolve to do what I usually try to do with social subtext that goes over my head. Focus on facts and pretend it doesn’t exist.

The next guest is upon us before I have any more time to think. A middle aged earth pony stallion in a suit vest with tan fur and a graying mane.

“Welcome to the Gala, Hercules,” Celestia says. echoing the previous greeting.

A broad grin overtakes his face, belting out his words, “Of course, of course, it’s my honor Princess!” Celestia smiles benevolently at him, and he pivots immediately to me with equal enthusiasm, “And who might I have the privilege of meeting, young—“ a burst of confusion clouds his face as his eyes dart around me, his grin present but frozen for a beat, “—Lady.”

My heart thuds in my chest, as I try not to stiffen and freeze at the blatant scrutiny. “Twilight Sparkle.” I state. As my own voice assaults my ears it makes me feel like a toad in a choir, that I’m immediately confirming whatever confusions this stallion had. You can never hear your own voice as others do, sound conducting to your inner ear through bone and soft tissue instead of solely through air, phantom sound creating a chimeric impression only you can ever hear, leaving the true voice others hear stripped bare and alien and wron—

I remember to smile at the stallion.

The soft feather touch of the Princess’ wing grazes my back as she fills the quickly curdling silence. “My personal student, and star pupil.”

He smiles in return, cordially, gaze caught somewhere between me and the Princess. “Twilight Sparkle! Of course! That’s one to remember!” he says in what I think is a conspiratorially ingratiating tone.

As he passes by, I try to self report rationally. I don’t want to feel like I’m ashamed of my transness, but that moment of scrutiny, of being ‘found out’, was awful. It wasn’t catastrophic though. I don’t realistically know if he realized I was trans, but either way he wasn’t intentionally rude. I think. I have nothing against curiosity, I just wish my immediate self didn’t have to be the subject.

A few more noble guests passed by, all with similarly unremarkable interactions. The only exception may have been a couple, Jet Set and Upper Crust, who I thought might have looked at me strangely. But none were as flustered or obvious as Hercules. Mostly they just didn’t seem to care about me in general.

Honestly, I’m perfectly fine sharing mutually polite disinterest with all these random noble ponies. As much as I’ve learned about the value of Friendship, I don’t think I’ll ever be the sort to partake in the Pinkie Pie style of socialization.

Oh Pinkie. I wonder how she’s doing? I wonder how they’re all doing. Are they having good nights? Did—

My reverie is cut short by the sight of a certain cutie mark. An arrangement of brilliant-cut crystals on a mustard yellow coat. My heartbeat immediately starts to rise. Without the scratchy polo shirt or the reading glasses perpetually glued to her face, I almost hadn’t recognized her. Tonight, she’s dressed in a sharp, well pressed, but old fashioned looking suit. Her mane and eyes are an even softer purple than my own, and they watch me and the Princess with that familiar calculating astuteness.

And she’s next in line, trotting up the stairs towards us. I start to panic internally. Sure, I’d figured some ponies would recognize me, but for some Celestia forsaken reason I hadn’t internalized there might be ponies I actually know here!

What is one of my professors from Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns doing here?

Then, I think about it for half a second, and realize that of the faculty there, a great many were probably Canterlot natives, and thus potentially part of noble or otherwise elite families.

Will she recognize me? Do I want her to recognize me? I know I’m not technically her student anymore, but she still used to be my teacher!

“Crystal Clear, how wonderful to see you at the Gala this year,” Celestia says warmly as my former professor reaches the landing.

“It is great to see you, your majesty. If only the wonder were mutual,” Crystal Clear says, eyes wandering around the lavish reception hall with a disdainful air as if she were staring down a dozen flunked midterms, “Did you spy my relatives arriving through here at any time, perhaps?”

I was already used to the casual manner in which Crystal and the Princess spoke. She had been my faculty advisor, and was even one of the proctors who’d been at my entrance exam, back when I got my Cutie Mark.

Celestia chuckled and said, “I see your mother put you up to this again. You’ll be relieved to know that she and your cousin already passed through here a while ago.”

Crystal Clear stands a respectful distance from the Princess. With me standing awkwardly off to the side, I’m instantly brought back to the feeling of being the foal in the room while the adults talk.

“Very well then, that should allow me some room to maneuver…” she says, her eyes glancing over me as she speaks.

The moment is split along endless spiderweb cracks, each shard proposing a different outcome for which I’d have to account, and I find myself suspended between them. What I know is that standing in front of her like this is… embarrassing, for reasons I can’t articulate while still frozen in anticipation. Why is she looking at me like that? Does that mean she knows or—

“Dusk Shine.”

“Y-yes?” I respond to her instantly. Then I freeze, panic and shame suddenly thundering through the veins in my head. She asked with the same expectant perfunctory inquisitiveness as she always did in class, and I just answered without thinking! She recognized me! Of course she did! Stars! I answered to my dead name! What do I do now? I fumbled my opportunity to correct her, to introduce myself—

“Have you been keeping up with your magical studies?”

“I— Um—” She thinks I’m just Dusk Shine, in a dress. Not that there’s anything wrong with Stallions wearing dresses I just—

I know that I need to interrupt this, rewind it, but I don’t have a script for messing up in this way. Why do I even need a script? Why can’t I just say something without planning it out first? It’s simple, the words are simple, why can’t I do it? I can feel that static buzz of knowing I’m not responding in the correct amount of time, and instead of spurring me into action it only makes it more impossible to act before I’ve sorted myself out. Which I don’t have time to do, because I’m in the middle of the Grand Galloping Gala and my teacher is right here asking me questions! And didn’t I freeze earlier too? Is that just what I do now, malfunction at the slightest social pressure—

My searching eyes spot Princess Celestia looking at me sympathetically, moving as if she’s going to speak up and interject. The thought of the Princess having to come to my rescue like that is enough to jolt me into action, I can’t let myself look that foalish in front of her!

“Twilight Sparkle. My name, that’s what it is,” I blurt, “I changed it,” I clarify further.

Crystal Clear nods in acknowledgement without missing a beat, expression not shifting even slightly after my statement.

“Because I’m a mare,” I state after a small pause.

“Ah yes, that would explain that,” She says as if she’s just solved the world's least interesting puzzle. She reiterates in an identical tone to the first time, “Twilight Sparkle, have you been keeping up with your studies?”

My mouth gapes slightly as I recalibrate. There’s being casual about something, and then there’s complete nonreaction. It provokes a strange mix of relief and frustration. Compared to my emotional buildup, it’s very anticlimactic.

“Yes. Yes I have,” I say placidly as I reorganize my thoughts. Crystal continues looking at me expectantly, and I realize I’m actually going to get to talk about magic beyond superficial pleasantries. My voice picks up slightly, “I’ve actually made some breakthroughs in my teleportation since moving to Ponyville!”

“So you’ve solved for aetheric stabilization?” Crystal Clear queries.

I nod as I ponder the question. Aetheric stabilization is the term for the technique barrier that must be overcome to achieve stable teleportation. It can take some sorcerers months or years to break through, and just as many never do. Doomed to always be ejected early from the aether at unintended exit points, accompanied by the scent of aether burnt hair.

“Yes actually. The practical side of my studies has accelerated rapidly since, well, finally making real friends.” I find myself starting to enjoy the encounter. She seems to consider my gender as unremarkable as anypony else’s. It’s not exactly actively supportive per se, but it’s definitely affirming. And it lets me get straight to infodumping. “I can’t pinpoint the difference, but I rarely destabilize now, and it seems like my range and accuracy get better every other day. I’ve even brought passengers! Accidentally at first, but still,” I trail off, remembering to pay attention to my partner in dialogue, and not just my own stream of words.

“Mm. Ponyville has been good for you then, it sounds like you’ve found the right path for yourself,” she nods with satisfaction.

I blink, and raise a brow, “Can you really tell that, just from my teleportation?”

She favors me with a knowing look. “I believe discussion of aetheric stabilization as a matter of focus is a misnomer. It’s a matter of perspective. If you don’t understand who you are, and where you’re going, neither will your magic,” she states it with a matter of fact tone, “and those aren’t things that can be taught, everypony must figure them out in their own way. No amount of technical knowledge can compensate. Hence why so many bright young minds tend to plateau with the higher magics.”

“Well, I have been feeling much more grounded lately…” I admit.

I consider the framework presented. It does explain more than a few things. Before, the idea of magical knowledge that couldn’t be taught from a book or lecture was somewhat offensive to me, despite even the Princess’ advice. But that isn’t me anymore. Something in what my former teacher says rings true. If not correct, at least more correct. As skeptical as I still am of using my own intuition as a scholarly resource… I know that friendship is magic, even if I don’t have the precise words to explain why that’s true thaumaturgically. ‘Mindset’ is heralded as one of the core components of successful spellcasting in most curricula, and that isn’t too far off from this…

This fevered musing on the philosophy of magic reminds me of my school days, the ones that featured Crystal Clear. “I remember you telling me something similar a long time ago. I guess I’m finally starting to understand what you meant.”

“That’s the most a teacher can hope for,” Crystal says approvingly, sharing a glance with the Princess, who hums an acknowledgement, and then turning back to me. “You’re doing well! Glad to hear it,” she begins to step forward, “now time I move along. Before the busybodies in line behind me start pissing themselves.”

I snort out the beginning of a laugh before I catch myself, eyes bugging out in mortification at our behavior in front of the Princess. But Celestia only joins in with soft tinkling laughter, a sly grin on her muzzle.

My outrage softens. If the Princess laughed at it, it must be alright. Right?

“I wish you a tolerable evening, Crystal,” Celestia says with a measured pinch of irony.

“Thank you. Don’t bet on it,” Crystal Clear says pleasantly, stone faced.

“Good evening, Ms. Clear!” I say, as she moves past us.

Crystal favors me with a rare smile. “Have a good evening, Twilight Sparkle,” and with that she moves up the next flight of stairs.

Just as swiftly the cavalcade continues, leaving me not much space to muse on the conversation. The next ones in line are a couple, a mustached and well trimmed stallion, and a frankly gorgeous mare. She’s tall, closer to a Princess than the average mare, all long lines and elegance.

Her long pink mane sways as she meets my eyes, and I do my best to act incredibly normal.

“Welcome to the Gala Fleur de Lis, Fancy Pants,” Celestia says, nodding to each of them in turn. I tear my eyes away from the mare, and to the stallion accompanying her.

“A pleasure as always, your majesty!” Fancy Pants exclaims jovially.

“Quite, quite,” Fleur says with a slight prench accent and note of distraction, and I check to find her still sneaking subtle glances over at me.

My gut churns instantly with the dread of recognition, that this beautiful mare is looking at me and finding something other.

Faced with that, I fall back on the script I’ve been given, “Welcome to the Gala!” I curse myself, once again hyper aware of keeping my voice as feminine as I can.

“Why thank you Ms….?” He pauses for my reply.

“Twilight Sparkle,” I say, unable to stop my gaze from being inevitably distracted towards Fleur even as he’s addressing me.

“Yes, thank you Ms. Sparkle!” he says in the exact same tone, either oblivious or uninterested in my social and gendered oddities.

“Yes, thank you,” Fleur echoes softly, continuing to regard me with similar focus, but without any hint of her intention. Which doesn’t exactly help.

Then Celestia wishes them a good evening, drawing the mare’s attention, and the couple returns the social niceties and begins to step forward and past this little royal welcoming committee.

I’m probably just overthinking it. There are a million reasons for a pony to look at me, and at this point they are ultimately of no consequence. Or at least that’s the reasoning I try to uphold—

“Excuse-moi chérie,” Fleur says from barely a muzzle’s width apart from me. The mare apparently having aborted course following Fancy in order to close into conspiratorial distance of me, and speaking with equally conspiratorial softness, “Don’t be so nervous, you’re doing radiantly! If you ever need anything in Canterlot, call on me. Mares like us need to stick together, no?”

A baffled, “Um. Ok?” is all I can think to proffer in the split second before Fleur is off again, a graceful bounce in her step to catch up with her companion.

I blink. ‘Mares like us?’ What did that mean coming from a clearly cis mare? Was she just a huge ally, or did she not know or—

Fleur was cis… right? I crane my neck to watch her as she goes. I mean, just look at her. Trans mares could be pretty, or pass, Fluttershy was absolutely gorgeous after all. But what are the odds, this is the Grand Galloping Gala! Not every beautiful friendly mare could be trans. She surely must have meant something else.

“Welcome to the Gala, Baron Greenwick,” The Princess says, startling me into realizing I’d been oblivious to the next guest in line trotting up. I turn my head back around to look, unable to keep from being visibly caught off guard.

The guest Princess Celestia addressed is a fairly handsome stallion, wearing a suit coat of similar kind to Fancy Pants except deep green. I was a little surprised to see no green on the stallion’s body itself, despite the name. A dark brown mane, with a lighter blue coat, and blue eyes deep enough they were almost purple. Not even his cutie mark, an unlit candle in an elaborate holder, had any of the color in it.

“And this is my protégé Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia introduces me, cutting through the moment of observation.

The Baron wrinkles his nose. “I thought your student was a colt named ‘Dusk Shine?’” he speaks past me to the Princess, “Did he prove insufficient somehow?”

I’m torn between grimacing from irritation or from the discomfort of hearing my dead name once again bandied around. Instead I don’t grimace at all, or try not to. “No, I am the Princess’s only student.” I say with a hint of defensive pride.

“Right. Yes,” he says, smiling as he does. I’m trying to tell if there’s something weird about the way he’s looking at me, but I can't tell if there's something there or if it’s just my autism. Either way it tempts me to lock up in tension.

“So—”

His muzzle barely opens up to speak when Celestia smoothly intercedes. “Twilight, I believe I accidentally left the most up to date version of the guest list in Raven’s office, could you please fetch it for me?”

I blink, needing to reprocess the abrupt shift in topic, then perk up at the task. “Of course, Princess!” I say, turning back to Greenwick, “Excuse me sir, have a good night.” I want to remove myself from this interaction as efficiently as possible, surely the Princess wouldn’t have asked me if leaving right now would be rude.

I trot off toward the castle hallway, happy to get a break from the endless cavalcade of guests and focus on something actually productive. It might mean less time with Celestia, but it wasn’t like I was getting much time to actually speak with her anyway…

I’m just about to turn the corner toward the wing where Raven’s office lies when I realize I’d been so eager to help the Princess, I forgot to ask how to tell which guest list is the updated copy! I facehoof, stopping in place. How foolish could I be? Now I’ll have to go back to the Princess and interrupt all over again just to explain my own error…

My limbs move slowly as I turn to go back the way I came. I linger by the walls as I approach the doorway back into the entry hall, embarrassment naturally making me shrink in on myself. Maybe I can just look and wait until the next guest is done, so I don’t need to interrupt?

I hear talking through the opening, louder than expected, only increasing my hesitation.

The grand draperies on either side of the entryway obscure my approach. Not that I’m hiding! Of course not. Just waiting politely… Out of view.

“—You’re extremely gracious of course, Princess, for humoring him, but do you really think it’s appropriate to parade him around at an event like the Gal—

It doesn’t take more than a few words to get my stomach to drop, insides buzzing incandescently. I slip the edge of my vision around the thick fabric, aware of how exposed it makes me. My senses flee for cover, leaving my body to stand dumbly frozen and watch.

“That is three. I won’t be asking you a fourth time, Baron,” Celestia continues coldly. “Your access to the Gala is revoked for the safety of guests.”

“Safety? That’s preposterous!” He scoffs, “The only thing in danger here is good sense!”

“This is not a debate. I suggest you leave now, or else the guards will help you find your way out.”

Greenwich mouth opens, face uncomprehending. Celestia meets his stare stonily. Then he starts to sputter, louder and louder, like an apoplectic steam kettle. “M-my family line has attended every Gala since its inception! You can’t eject me so frivolously, it’s an outrage! You’d choose that disgusting spectacle of a half-stallion ove—”

His venom trails off as Celestia takes a long step closer to him, enveloping him in her shadow and forcing him to crane his head back and look straight upward at the Princess’s face. “Twilight Sparkle has more integrity and worth than you’ve approached in your empty life,” Celestia says, lowering her head ever so slightly to meet his gaze. “The only thing you’ve contributed to this Gala is the consummate cowardice that ensured you didn’t speak about Twilight so wretchedly until she was out of earshot.”

A quiet detached part of me notes the irony. Another part wishes I wasn’t hearing this, but now that I know there’s no way I could ever turn away. Pain churns away somewhere deep in my abdomen at what that stallion is saying about me, warmth at how Celestia is defending me, and the dull mortification that it was happening without my knowledge, but it’s all almost secondary to the paralyzing agony of being stuck in this moment. The fear of being stuck here, on the edge of being caught out, with nothing to do but hold my breath and endure.

His pomposity fading under the literal shadow of the Princess, Greenwich looks small and brimming with indignant spite. His voice has been cowed back down to conversational volume. “I won’t be dragged out by the guards like a common scoundrel,” he says slowly.

“Request granted,” Celestia says. Greenwick has a moment to look confused before she finishes, “I’ll remove you myself.” Celestia’s horn starts to shine.

“Wait—” Greenwick says, eyes wide.

“Save yourself the embarrassment and don’t go bothering the gate guards, they’ll know your face.”

And then Greenwick vanishes in a golden flash of teleportation.

The afterimages dancing in my eyes release me from my stasis, as I realize my window to escape undetected is closing.

I start to back up, eyes remaining fixed on Celestia as she looks into the space where Baron Greenwick used to be and let s out a heavy sigh.

Then her head starts to lift, and I can’t help but spin on the spot in a burst of adrenaline and trot away as quietly and quickly as possible. Every new moment crossing this hallway brings a new wave of pins and needles cascading over my back as I imagine Celestia’s incriminating gaze washing over me.

But no sound or voice rings out as I make it back down the hall, safely out of sight of my teacher. My legs feel like they’ve fallen half asleep, carrying me numbly.

Excuses and explanations for the slothful return from my task flit across my mind. But it isn’t too hard to find a plausible one, I truly don’t know where the updated document would be stored, so my time spent eavesdropping on the Princess could reasonably be enfolded into that delay.

And as I draw closer to my legitimate destination, the imminent fear of being caught starts to fade.

It turns out finding the up to date guest list isn’t too difficult, as there’s a stack of them right on Raven’s desk with a sticky note attached reading ‘latest revision.’ Trusting in Raven’s due diligence if nothing else, it doesn’t take me long to be walking back down the same hall I’d been sculking in not five minutes prior.

I do my best acting as if nothing at all is out of place, and I’ve been doing exactly what I was supposed to, at the time I was meant to. It’s impossible to hide my nerves, but hopefully they’ll be explained away as my usual heightened neuroticism around the Princess.

Celestia turns and smiles at me beatifically, and I have no idea how much she sees through me. I approach, holding the updated list out to her in my magic. “Here you go Princess, sorry it took me a while.”

She takes it into her own magical aura, floating it to her side. “That’s quite alright, my faithful student. I don’t believe you’ve missed altogether too much.” She looks over the updated list as I try not to watch her face too intently.

Does that mean… Celestia is intentionally hiding what happened with the baron? My stomach drops as I try and make sense of that. She probably just didn’t want to ruin my big night by bringing up something so upsetting, right? But now I’m stuck with all the anxiety of hearing what that jerk said about me, without even being able to talk to Celestia about it.

All the whirling emotions as new guests approach are muted, replaced with an increasing weight of feeling trapped.

Having to act normal for Celestia, act proper in front of all the guests, having to project ‘mare-ness,’ whatever that even means. All the selves I have to project at once compound on top of me into an increasingly claustrophobic shell, while I peer fretfully through the gaps. It’s hard to feel like I’m premiering as a mare when I barely feel like myself at the moment.

There are no other unexpected blow ups, or too much of note at all. At least not anything I’m present enough to recognize. Everpony acts fairly normal, including a few stallions whose hoofshakes were unreasonably tight, but each time I can’t help but wonder if behind their eyes they harbor the same sentiments that only Baron Greenwich was arrogant enough to speak aloud. It couldn’t be all of them. But is it any likelier that none of them do?

I try to keep in mind the thread of euphoria that had unspooled throughout the night, but it’s fogged down by the exhaustion of having to hold up a mask. This definitely isn’t the the best night ever. It’s the night of ‘I’m tired and I want to go home.’

By some grace, the line thins, then trickles, then stops, as the greeting window ends.

And I would finally get the chance to see my friends, if anything could salvage the night it would be them! Statistically, their nights had to have been better than mine.

I half turn, giving a glance between Celestia and the staircase further up, antsy to go but not quite willing to leave the Princess behind.

She smiles knowingly at me, “Let’s see how the ballroom fares, shall we?”

The air carries the smell of food and noises of countless ponies echoing out beyond. We finally ascend the steps I’d been watching guests climb all night, switching back until we approach the grand doorway.

My ear flicks, the noises I’ve been hearing starting to register as even more chaotic then I’d expect from a gathering of poni—

A tremendous series of thundering impacts shake the stone underneath my now scrambling hooves, clambering to a halting stop at the top of the stairs as my panicked eyes scan the ballroom.

Travesty. Chaos. The room is shattered. Rubble and plumes of dust frame my haggard friends throughout the crowd.

Applejack is closest, turning to look at me scuffed up and aghast. Pinkie is collapsed with all four legs splayed out. Rainbow Dash stands guiltily amongst smashed pillars of stone and gilded metal, the source of which I can’t help but infer. And finally Rarity holds herself mortified off to the side, dress streaked in… baked goods?

“Well… it can’t get any worse,” I say without thought.

Then the grounds facing door bursts outward in a flurry of squirming scampering flapping bodies. Fluttershy stands furious at their heels, like a valkyrie in the throes of madness.

“You’re. Going. To love me!” She roars, charging into the fray.

Oh. Fluttershy. How had I forgotten Fluttershy? Wonderful, sweet, demure Fluttershy.

Panicked animals meet panicking ponies, and utter disarray envelops the ruined ballroom.

My terror stricken eyes look up toward the Princess, mouth working out unintelligible sounds as my brain sputters for a response that can resolve the chaos before me.

Then Princess Celestia swoops down to my level and simply intones, “Run.”

That’s all it takes for me to clarify my course of action. I desperately let out my best whistle toward the five mares still wandering the scattering crowds. My heart soars as I see their ears pick up at the high pitched noise, Fluttershy dropping a squirrel and staring my way as if only now perceiving the room around her.

I suppose after the adventure’s we’ve been on, the girls have learned to hear me calling even in a crisis. It’d warm my heart if there weren’t now five equally panicked mares charging toward the doorway. As soon as Applejack closes the distance I turn tail and run to clear the doorway, hoping the girls will follow. With the sounds of rushing hooves behind me, and the occasional straggling guest turning to watch us pass.

The next thing I know is the cool autumn night air washing over me through the main gate, and my pace slowing to a delirious scatter of trailing steps. I let myself take a full breath without the pressure of galloping, and turn back to look. I count each one as the girls file out behind me, two, three… Wait… Before I can muster the oxygen to wonder where Rarity and Pinkie are, the two scurry at last down the steps, Rarity missing a slipper.

Looking out at my bedraggled girls, I try to get oxygen into my lungs. “That,” I say with a heaving breath and a mournful squeak, “could’ve gone better.”

Author's Note

And here we are! The end of what was originally just chapter 4! Thank you everyone for your patience, and hopefully you enjoy!