My Little Economy

Once upon a time there were two sisters. The elder, who was the color of new snow, raised the money supply every day. The younger, her coat as dark as the space between stars, lowered it at night. Between them they maintained the balance between money and the economy of goods and services, the nominal and the real.

Eventually the two Alicorns took the title of Princess. Princess Celestia the elder, beloved by ponies everywhere, contented herself to watch Equestria’s economy develop. Princess Luna, however, was not happy.

When Princess Celestia raised the money supply, goods and services sold more easily. Income went up, and the ponies were slow to realize that each bit bought less than before. When Princess Luna lowered the money supply, goods sat on the shelves unsold. Ponies had fewer bits. That their bits now bought more did not impress them.

Whispers spread across the land. Ponies loved the beautiful, warm Princess Celestia. The dark, reticent Princess Luna they viewed with suspicion. Why did she need to lower the money supply? It hurt ponies.

Alicorns have good ears and long memories. Princess Luna wanted the same love that fell upon her older sister. Jealousy consumed her. Though her older sister tried to assuage her doubts, the seeds of discord took root in Princess Luna’s heart. The sisters commiserated less, fought more. Maintaining the equilibrium became a chore.

One night, Princess Luna made a mistake. The money supply dropped too much. Princess Celestia quickly restored the balance, but the recession rocked Equestria. Furious ponies showed up in Canterlot to protest.

Incensed at the ingratitude and ignorance of the ponies, Princess Luna discarded her crown. She turned her magic on the crowd, and her sister was forced to act.

The battle was terrible and brief. The earth does not easily bear Alicorn magic, nor can the economy stand against the Bank’s might unleashed. And in the end, it was the Bank that decided it. As their battle had initiated with Princess Celestia in control of the money supply, so too it ended that way. Victorious, Princess Celestia banished her sister to the moon for a thousand years.

Some might say she overreacted. Spike did once, and Twilight Sparkle gave him the silent treatment for a week.

No pony from that time is alive today except for two, and only one was ever in a position to talk about it. This is the story she tells her students.

For the first time, the other Alicorn will get her chance to speak.

The six ponies walked past the gatehouse and into the spacious library of the castle of the Knights of Economics. Crumbled stone and a thick layer of dust told them the space had long been abandoned. In the center of the room hovered five crystals, each a different color. Behind the crystals was a throne, and on the throne sat Nightmare Moon.

She watched Twilight with evident interest. “Little economist, you have found your way to me.” Her voice was the smoke from a forest fire. “As you can see, the Elements of Equilibrium are here.” She gestured at the five crystals. “But what you give up to acquire them may cost more than you expect.”

Twilight’s throat was dry. Her heart hammered in her chest. Her ribs throbbed as if in warning. In front of her was the Alicorn who had unseated Princess Celestia, who had cast all of Equestria in shadow. Behind her were the five bravest, smartest and kindest ponies she ever knew, and in every direction she could feel the rapidly shrinking economy, the intricate web of production and exchange that Nightmare Moon was suffocating to death for her own twisted revenge.

Twilight was not afraid. Before her was the problem, behind her was the solution. All her training, all her knowledge and power finally had an opponent worthy of it.

For the first time, Twilight truly felt like the econopony she was. Naturally, she did what any econopony would first do.

“How many bits to stop?”

Nightmare Moon looked up. “What?”

“How many bits to free Princess Celestia, leave the Equestrian economy alone, and return to Charles his children?”

Nightmare Moon’s laughter echoed through the chamber. “Of course! An economist to the end. I’m afraid my price is too high for you.”

“Name it.”

“All the bits in the world. Which will soon be zero, by the way.”

“I’m willing to consider non-monetary compensation.”

“Such as?”

“Me,” Twilight said.

“Don’t make me laugh. What’s an economist worth when there is no economy?”

“As long as there are ponies in want,” Twilight said, “there will be an economy. Even you cannot stop that.”

“Watch me.”

“I don’t intend to. Girls!”

The best ponies Twilight knew stood beside her.

Applejack swiped her hoof on the floor. “Sweet Apple Acres has been going for centuries. Ain’t no pony changing that.”

Pinkie Pie bared her teeth. “I won’t rest until there’s a Sugarcube Corner on every street corner in Equestria. Anypony who gets in my way is going down.”

Rarity tossed her hair. “I couldn’t have said it any better. Besides, Princess Celestia is much more fabulous than this Alicorn.”

Rainbow Dash couldn’t keep her wings still as she hovered above them. “As long as I’m rich, no pony is taking my money away.”

“You need to go down,” Fluttershy said simply.

Nightmare Moon did not smile. “Who are these? Your friends?”

“They helped me get through the forest, yes,” Twilight said.

“How you must trust them.”

Twilight didn’t answer, unsure of what Nightmare Moon meant.

The Alicorn’s eyes gleamed with the absorbed light of a black hole.

“My sister taught you economics. Did she teach you wisdom?” Nightmare Moon cackled, a laugh of bubbling green nastiness and imminent pain.

A dark streak leaped with a crack from Nightmare Moon’s horn. Twilight watched helplessly as it swallowed up her five companions, encasing them in a shadowy prison. They beat on the walls with their hoofs, their mouths opening and closing, but they were inaudible to Twilight’s ears.

Twilight held up a hoof reassuringly, trying to calm the ponies down. “What do you want?”

“I remember my sister and how she treated her students. The constant battery of tests. I would like a turn playing the teacher.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “You cheater! We already passed your five tests in the forest!”

Nightmare Moon chuckled throatily. “Such traps as the forest set you are hardly my concern. But you passed no test. You allowed your friends to brave the dangers and sacrifice for your sake.”

Twilight didn’t deny it.“That’s the division of labor.”

“So convenient for those who do half the work and reap all the reward.”

“Start the test.”

“Of course.”

Darkness flashed from Nightmare Moon’s horn. Twilight flinched away, which made the pain in her side flare up, but Nightmare Moon only laughed. Images were floating around her: Twilight’s treehouse that Princess Celestia had given her; the rolling green-and-red hills of Sweet Apple Acres; the Sugarcube Corner, a glass cube full of cake and ambition; Rarity’s white-and purple boutique that looked like it smelled like conditioner; the hyperactive yet orderly stock exchange; and Fluttershy’s animal sanctuary.

“You’re all my prisoners,” Nightmare Moon said. “I don’t suppose I need to explain the dilemma.”

Twilight’s stomach twisted. “Try anyway. I’m a fast learner.”

“It’s simple. I offer you a choice, the heart of economics. Renounce your allegiance to my sister and bow to me, and I will let you go in peace. You will be allowed to return to your home and keep your books. I would add a condition that you never challenge me, but you won’t ever be able to.”

“Great deal,” said Twilight. “What’s the downside?”

Nightmare Moon smiled. Her dark horn burst again, sounding like a foghorn, and the images changed. Fire swept over Sweet Apple Acres. The glass walls of Sugarcube Corner cracked and crumbled. The Boutique blackened and turned a nasty shade of green, decaying and dilapidated. Steel bars rose around the animal sanctuary, pressing inward until it was nothing more than a cage. The stock exchange was still there.

“I crush the economy, like I will anyway, and your friends suffer the consequences. Or reject my offer, choose to save them, and be destroyed.”

“You have no idea what we went through in that forest together,” said Twilight, “if you think I’m going to betray them for my own sake.”

“Your own sake?” Nightmare Moon showed her the image of the treehouse. It zoomed in, and she saw Spike…and she saw what Nightmare Moon was going to do to Spike….

“Stop!” said Twilight. She stumbled forward, reaching a hoof out. She wanted to kill Nightmare Moon so badly, and yet she didn’t have a fraction of the strength it would require. “Don’t do that.”

“You are choosing for me not to do this?” Nightmare Moon said, full of amusement. “Or are you making begging noises with your mouth? You are aware of the difference, I hope. I have offered you a causal path to a future unlike what you saw. What is your answer?”

Twilight hesitated.

There was an answer that had nothing to do with tragic images and loyalties formed in the forest. It was to accept the deal.

It didn’t even have anything to do with Spike. Twilight was the strongest economist in Equestria. Her own survival and freedom gave the world the best chance of eventually overthrowing Nightmare Moon. If the dark Alicorn was toying with her, maybe there would be more games in the future, and maybe one of them, somehow, she could win.

If Nightmare Moon was keeping her around for amusement.

“Why aren’t you simply killing me?” Twilight asked. Nightmare Moon had tried to push her toward an answer, but she wasn’t actually doing anything to make her hurry up. Maybe she wanted to talk.

“You were hers,” said Nightmare Moon. “I shall unmake that.”

Twilight shivered. That was a scarier answer than she had anticipated.

But it didn’t change anything. The dilemma Nightmare Moon posed was painful, but it wasn’t difficult. The right answer was to save herself. That wasn’t selfish, wasn’t cowardly. Just smart.

It was an easy choice. So why when she opened her mouth to speak did an image of Pinkie Pie’s bright, encouraging face in the maze of thorns appear? Why did she remembered the inner glow of Rarity’s assurances, how much a little sincerity had meant? Why did she recall the relief she felt when Rainbow Dash appeared out of the sky to rescue her from the sea serpent, the anguish and admiration as she watched Applejack fearlessly play the Cerberus’s game and accept the consequences to help her friends, and Fluttershy’s painful courage in the face of a sea serpent whose need wasn’t enough, why did it assault her all at once?

Twilight opened her mouth again to announce her decision to betray the other ponies and found that she couldn’t.

No. I’m being stupid. They can’t even help anymore. Only I know economics, only I can pass the tests. I’ve never relied on other ponies, and I’ve certainly never sacrificed the greater good to save a few ponies I arbitrarily met yesterday.

But they helped you.

Princess Celestia’s voice. Twilight heard it whenever she argued with herself, whenever part of herself had realized something and was trying to teach the rest of her brain.

They faced what you couldn’t. How far through the forest could you have gotten by yourself?

I could have teleported past the Cerberus, blasted through the maze, fought the parasprites somehow—if Applejack hadn’t kicked me—

Unlikely—too many trials to overcome. Since when have you been in the habit of pretending that the strength of other ponies is your own?

Since I haven’t been able to purchase it, Twilight admitted ruefully to herself. Even I’m not immune to the monetary squeeze.

Here is the truth. These good, brave ponies saved you. They risked, sacrificed, bore pain, fear and sorrow so that you could reach this place. They chose to cooperate with you, and you cannot betray that, not if you ever want anypony to cooperate with anypony ever again.

There won’t be any more cooperation if I don’t defeat Nightmare Moon!

It is amazing how often ponies find that they have no choice but to sacrifice others for the greater good when doing so is convenient to their own ends. Nothing is ever so certain. Stop, think…is there another way?

Twilight caught her breath. She hadn’t realized her own agitation. Calm, slow, she told herself. Nightmare Moon apparently intended to set her free if she chose to accept the deal, confident that none of them could do anything to stop her.

Was that true?

One the one hoof there was Nightmare Moon, the Alicorn sister as powerful as Princess Celestia, with absolute control over the Bank and powerful ancient magic that could snuff out an entire town in an instant. On the other hoof there was an econopony and five rather silly, chaotic ponies from a backwater town where the roads were made out of dirt, and they thought books were something you kept in the bathroom in lieu of toilet paper. The same five ponies, Twilight realized, who had fought their way through the Everfree Forest, something that hadn’t been done since the two Alicorns first had.

Five ponies. Five Elements. As Pinkie Pie would put it, duh.

Twilight had always imagined herself wielding the Elements of Equilibrium. But it was they who had passed the tests, not she. It was they who were worthy. And now it was time for her to face the danger so they could pass through.

Nightmare Moon did not understand the forces she had brought upon herself. Abandoned alone on the Moon for a thousand years, she had forgotten about the power of cooperation.

It sounded good in theory. Twilight didn’t know how they would actually fight Nightmare Moon. But she had to try.

“No,” she said. “I refuse.”

“Very well,” sighed Nightmare Moon. “I won’t kill you immediately because now I have to make you watch what I’m going to do to your baby dragon, or else I’d be a liar.”

“You can have me. Let them go.”

Nightmare Moon smiled thinly. “You took a long time to answer. The five pets you brought with you can see the image of your treehouse and what’s happening inside of it. What do you think they’re thinking about you right now?”

Twilight looked at her.

The grin widened. “Did you ever show them much affection?”

Twilight felt her skin crawl. She knew what they thought she was choosing. She didn’t want to turn around to see their faces.

“Turn around,” commanded Nightmare Moon. Twilight’s legs spun her around without any input from her brain. She didn’t see the others staring at her with expressions of shock and betrayal. Instead, the shadowy prison holding them had turned opaque and separated into five parts.

“You chose to betray your ward rather than your companions because they are here and he is not,” said Nightmare Moon. “Such is the shallowness of your reasoning. We shall see if they are foolish enough to make the same mistake.”

“You can’t hurt them,” Twilight said. “You’d be cheating more than a little bit if you did.”

“I’m not hurting them. You know what is happening in each of their cells, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Explain.”

That instruction had sounded so much like Princess Celestia that Twilight felt sick. Nightmare Moon really was as empty as she looked. There was less in her than the nothingness that filled most of the universe.

“You’re offering them a version of the choice you offered me. Each of them gets to choose to protect their own business and family by selling me out.”

“That’s obvious. What else?”

Twilight swallowed. Her throat was dry. “Also…if I chose to betray them, which you let them think I did, then they have to betray me to save anything. You showed Applejack and Rarity what will happen to their little sisters, and Fluttershy is seeing her animals…I don’t know as much about Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, but they have family or loved ones or fears you’re making them live or dreams you’re turning to nightmares….”

“Or they get to save you,” said Nightmare Moon. “Which comes with the amazing benefits of watching you waltz off to Canterlot to take more classes and read more books. Now finish the analysis.”

“It’s still a game,” said Twilight shakily. Her mind felt slow, and her vision was twisting in and out of focus. “So if they all choose to save me, then you will release them, we do get the cooperative outcome…but that only happens if they all choose to save me, and I have to choose to save them, and if I didn’t or even one of them doesn’t, then all of the others lose the benefits of having made that choice, and bear all of the costs of not having saved themselves. And you’ve told them that….”

“You’ve studied well,” said Nightmare Moon, still in a sardonic imitation of a teacher. “Now it’s time for your test. What are they choosing? This is pass/fail, by the way.”

Twilight felt the emptiness reach out from Nightmare Moon and take hold of her. She turned with her horn pointed simply, ready to destroy.

“I won’t hurt you if you attack me,” said Nightmare Moon, “since you won’t hurt me if you attack me. Oh, don’t look upset. I will let you keep some memories of your baby dragon, all the ones where his presence was a drag and a pain, all the times you resented him for being an inconvenience to your life and a distraction from your studies.

Twilight was just crying now.

“If you change your answer,” whispered Nightmare Moon, “I will still let you save him. Nightmare Moon is merciful to those who serve her.”

Your trap was perfect, Nightmare Moon, because I am the sort of pony who would sacrifice five traveling companions for the greater good. You understood me perfectly. As I think I’ve understood you. Because we both made the same mistake. I’m not important. They are.

“You can go to hell,” Twilight said.

She heard a sound that was like fog being sucked away. Twilight turned around to see the shadows disappearing around her friends, who blinked at each other in confusion.

“Girls!” said Twilight. “You’re okay!”

“Course we are,” said Applejack, walking over to her. “But you’re looking paler than a sugarcube, rattlesnake.”

Rarity had a slightly shell-shocked expression on her face, while Fluttershy’s eyes were hard, and Pinkie Pie’s were…pink. Rainbow Dash swooped around in the air before landing to join them, stretching her wings. “I hate being cooped up,” she complained.

“Wait,” said Twilight. “What’s going on? What did you girls…what was she saying to you?”

“Something about how my store was going to explode and my family was going to get eaten by ants,” Pinkie Pie yawned. “I kind of tuned her out after she said I could betray you, it was really boring.”

“But…Pinkie Pie, you could have chosen to save yourself if you had!”

Pinkie Pie’s eyes widened. “Oh no! I should have totally chosen to betray you!”

“She’s joking,” said Applejack. “When we realized the deal she was offering us was probably the same that we’d seen her offering you, we knew that no pony here would choose to betray the others. That’s how I figured it, anyway.” The others nodded in agreement.

“I’m not sure this is rational.” Twilight bizarrely felt like laughiness. A giddiness was rising inside her like soap bubbles. She loved her friends.

“It makes sense to me,” said Fluttershy. “We’re all here, aren’t we?”

Yes, thought Twilight. All five of you are here in the same room as the Elements of Equilibrium. You all did your part brilliantly. Now let me handle the rest. She must not see any of you until the last moment.

Twilight took a couple of steps forward. “Nightmare Moon! You failed to turn me.”

“The tests are through,” Nightmare Moon said. She sounded severely unhappy, even confused, like a child whose birthday had been canceled because the calendar had been misprinted. “You failed. Take your friends and find a hole in Equestria where you can hide for a thousand years. I will see no more of you, Twilight Sparkle.”

“Give me my money back!” Rainbow Dash said.

“Leave,” Nightmare Moon said.

“Not until you return Charles’s children,” Fluttershy said.

Nightmare Moon looked at her.

Twilight quickly spoke up. “We’re free, so we’re freely choosing to stay right here. This is only a little bit of cheating.”

CRACK.

The ponies flinched. Nightmare Moon withdrew her hoof from the hole in the stone floor.

“That was not magic, little ponies.” Nightmare Moon set the five crystals down by the throne and turned away. “I have things to do, an economy to destroy, a sister to…hm, is there a word for the act of totally eradicating every component of somepony’s utility function? No matter. Leave.”

Only one chance. Failure meant death. Failure was probable.

Twilight spoke.

“Still overshadowed by your older sister, Nightmare Moon?”

Twilight would never forget the face she saw then. For a moment Nightmare Moon’s eyes were darker than the void, her cheeks sharper than dragon teeth. If looks could kill….

…It was, said a rebellious part of Twilight that she hadn’t known existed, exactly the sort of look a pony might develop if she had spent a thousand years trapped in isolation on the Moon.

“What did you say?” Nightmare Moon’s voice was low, even soft, like a panther allowing its padded feet to fall with just enough sound for the baby bunny rabbit playing in the meadow to notice, because it wants the bunny to run.

But a baby bunny had a better chance of kicking a panther to death than she did of fighting Nightmare Moon.

“It’s been a thousand years to us, but I suppose to you things haven’t changed.” Twilight didn’t feel like smiling, but she did. No, she smirked. She smirked like Trixie, like she knew exactly where Nightmare Moon’s weaknesses were and nothing could stop her from going after them in front of everypony. “It’s still all about Princess Celestia to you.”

The dark Alicorn narrowed her eyes. “I defeated Celestia. She is gone.”

“Not from your head.” Twilight giggled, high-pitched and knowing. “You have no real goals of your own. The best you can do is the opposite of what Princess Celestia wanted. After you destroy everything, you’ll realize that even now you were obsessed with your sister the entire time.”

Was it Twilight’s imagination, or were the shadows from the walls growing, reaching toward Nightmare Moon. And was Nightmare Moon herself getting bigger, or was that just a trick of the dimming light?

“Twilight,” Applejack gulped, “maybe you shouldn’t talk that way to the Princess.”

Shut up, Applejack. I need to keep all her attention on me for this gamble to pay off. If she thinks about even one of you….

“She’s not a Princess,” Twilight said. “She abandoned her crown when she turned on the ponies of Equestria. If Princess Celestia hadn’t—”

“LIAR!”

The noise went off like an explosion inside her skull. Twilight didn’t know how long it took before she managed to reorient herself. Something wet dripped from her ears. For a panicked moment she flailed her legs in midair before realizing that a dark glow had surrounded her and lifted her off the ground.

She looked up into the terrible face of Nightmare Moon.

“I would rend you, crush you, break you in every way for that insult and never stop.” Nightmare Moon seethed with a fury magnitudes beyond any emotion Twilight had ever felt before, the difference between a millennia of pain and the short life of a young Unicorn. It set her hair on end, piled goosebumps on top of her skin, and even then her whole body still buzzed with the sheer hurt of it all. “But I know it was my sister who told you that lie, and it is she who will bear my wrath.”

Twilight struggled against Nightmare Moon’s magical grip. She couldn’t see or hear any of the other ponies. The realization hit her worse than a kick to her ribcage. If even one of them was hurt….

“It’s not a lie,” Twilight said. “Princess Celestia told me how she was loved and you weren’t, the jealousy that grew inside you, how you turned on the ponies—”

Twilight cut off, because she couldn’t breathe. An invisible, sourceless pressure weighed down on her with a uniformity and evenness over her entire body that would have been fascinating if it hadn’t been crushing her. Something in her fractured ribs gave. Twilight was almost glad she couldn’t make a sound.

“My sister lied. I will show you the truth.”

“Once upon a time,” Nightmare Moon sneered, “there were two sisters, the elder who raised the money supply and the younger who lowered it. They defeated the snow and the forest and the draconequus, and a dozen other enemies in their time, but the short-lived ponies with even shorter memories were not grateful.”

The psychic grip she had on Twilight lessened. Twilight sucked in air through brief, pained gasps even as her eyes widened at the sight Nightmare Moon showed her. She saw them as clear as a dream, the two Alicorns who founded Equestria, the two sisters as different as day and night.

“My older sister was beautiful, kind and warm,” Nightmare Moon continued. “All the ponies loved her. During the day she visited them, spoke to them, and when they begged for her magic to solve their pathetic problems, she obliged. I, however, never much cared for the company of ponies, always preferring instead a book and a quiet place to read.”

Twilight flinched. It was only superficial, it didn’t mean anything, but the very idea of having something so personal in common with Nightmare Moon shook her.

“I was a fool,” Nightmare Moon said bitterly. “I was powerful, but they did not know me as one of their own. I helped them, but they were not forced to see this, and so they chose not to. My role in keeping the equilibrium was vital, but there were those who said otherwise, and when they had repeated their lies and fallacies enough, it was a controversy, not a slander. They wanted Celestia to have my power, to have total control over the Bank.”

Twilight saw.

Celestia strode into the private study of the five hundred year-old castle, her crown dangling from her horn. “Sister!”

Luna, smaller, brighter, happier, looked up from her book. “Ah, Celly! Have you ever wondered why better goods are sold over longer distances? Canterlot makes the best fabrics, but have you noticed you have to go out of the city to actually buy the clothes they make?”

Celestia frowned. “Can’t say I have.” She didn’t sit by Luna but instead flopped in a chair a table away, a troubled expression on her face.

Luna carefully set a thread to mark her page and set the book next to her crown on the table. “What’s eating you? Not more parasprites, I hope.”

“No. Almost. Just…ponies. Foolish ponies with foolish ideas.”

Luna smiled. “You’ll find no rest here. Even in this library there are too many foolish ponies with foolish ideas. Seriously, can I help?”

“No,” Celestia said. “I will deal with them.”

But Celestia’s temperament only worsened over the months and years. Every day as the sun came down and she returned from her visits with the ponies, Celestia was moody, angry, and short-tempered.

“I am worried about you, sister,” Luna said one evening. “If the ponies distress you so, why do you speak with them?”

“One of us has to maintain confidence in the Bank,” Celestia said. “Worry about yourself.”

“You are who I care most about in this world,” Luna said. “Worrying about you is worrying about myself.”

Now they were on the edge of the Everfree Forest, wilder then, and even darker. Princess Celestia’s golden magic glowed over the three bite marks on Luna’s flank and legs.

“I was inattentive,” Luna said. "Caught unawares."

“Yes,” Celestia mumbled.

Luna glanced at her and said nothing.

In a certain chamber of the Bank, Celestia slammed her hoof against the wall. Any other wall would have shattered from the force of the blow.

“Sister, I do not know why you are so angry,” Luna said. Seeing Celestia like this scared her. “It is only the talk of ponies. They die fast and do little with their lives. Nothing will disturb the equilibrium.”

“It is not the power of the ponies that concerns me,” Celestia said, “but the meaning of it. We are their saviors, guardians and protectors from threats from without and within. When they dare belittle you….”

“It matters not,” Luna said. “Peace, sister, I need no friends as long as I have you and my books.”

“Your gratitude overflows. I am drowning in it,” Princess Celestia snapped.

Luna shrank back. “I am speaking out of concern as your sister, nothing more.”

Outside the castle in the center of Canterlot. Celestia faced the crowd of angry ponies at midday.

“Only one mistake in half a millennium is proof of the quality and value of my sister’s wholly voluntary service to Equestria,” Celestia’s magically enhanced voice boomed. “This behavior does not become you, ponies of Equestria.”

But when Luna stepped out, the crowd’s noise multiplied with curses, jeers and insults. Luna wavered, longing for the dusty solitude of the library, but Celestia was incensed.

She rose. The sky warped and distorted as if a giant magnifying glass had been placed there, and it angled on the ponies who swarmed below like so many ants….

“My dear, sweet sister loathed the way they spoke about me,” Nightmare Moon drawled. “She pointed out that we did the same work, that we were two parts of a whole, that I deserved as much adoration as Celestia. The crowd didn’t seem impressed by the facts. Crowds generally aren’t.

“They went back and forth for a while, my sister and my accusers. Eventually lovely Celestia lost her temper. She let the crown fall from her horn.”

“No,” Twilight said.

“Yes. My lovely sister and your Princess turned the sun’s blaze upon the crowd. I stopped it with my own body. It seems the only thing that angered my sister more than attacks upon my reputation was my own lack of gratitude for her ‘help.’

“We fought. I lost. What you know of what happened after may also be lies. I do not know because I was getting acquainted with my prison on the moon at the time.”

“Not true,” Twilight managed. “None of it.”

“Oh, you think she banished me for a thousand years because that was the REASONED RESPONSE?”

The dark glow surrounding Twilight vanished. She managed to land on her soft rump, but there’s not much that can make an impact feel less painful with a shattered ribcage. At least her bones were vocal in their appreciation of her futile attempts to hold her body still.

Nightmare Moon was changing. The blackness-beyond-blackness that was her coat faded into her skin, or maybe a dark purple unsettlingly close to Twilight’s own lavender shade grew over the black.

The pony who had been Princess Luna raised her head. She didn’t hold herself as tall.

But it was still Nightmare Moon. Her narrowed, hateful eyes made that abundantly clear.

Dark interlocking circles marred the right side of her body. They looked like—

“Scorch marks,” Nightmare Moon said. “Too much sun is terrible for your skin.”

The purple sank beneath the black, or maybe the void grew over her again. She turned to the window and looked out. “Ironic, isn’t it? My sister only wanted to protect me. And here I am, trying to protect the economy from inflation. A…cycle of sorts, wouldn’t you say?”

Twilight’s mind pushed her eyes away from the distant Alicorn and toward the five crystals resting by the throne.

“Twilight!” a voice whispered. “Are you—”

Twilight’s magic held Rainbow Dash’s lips together. They were okay. Her friends were okay.

She released Rainbow Dash and called the Elements to herself. Each had its own shape. One looked almost like two hoofs meeting. A second was more like a maze, though Twilight couldn’t make out any path through it, and a third looked like a cloud, or maybe a marshmallow. Another had the shape of a jagged line, almost like a lightning bolt, or a graph of price movements. Finally there was something abstract that reminded Twilight of the pony brain.

Twilight gazed at the five frightened ponies behind her who somehow believed that she could defeat Nightmare Moon.

They had all made the same mistake. Twilight was an economist. It wasn’t her job to restore the Equilibrium but to name and know its parts.

She pinned a crystal to the chest of each pony.

“Now, girls!” she cried. “Do it!”

But what she wanted them to do she never got to say, because the air shot out of her lungs and her vision went black.

Twilight awoke to pain and the weight of an Alicorn kneeling on her.

“Tell your friends to drop those crystals,” Nightmare Moon said, “or I’ll start hurting them. The white Unicorn first.”

Offering me a concrete visualization, thought the automatic, ever-vigilant analytical machine that was her brain, while the rest of her panicked. Specifics, a single image to get through abstract defenses.

Nightmare Moon was talking. “Strangely, when I threatened to hurt you more if they didn’t drop the crystals, they seemed unmoved. The margins of friendship end where the costs begin, I see.”

G-good.

Nightmare Moon pressed on her. One signal in Twilight’s brain sent her writhing for air and another countered sharply with pain.

Nightmare Moon allowed more of her weight to sink onto her. “They can’t hear you. Speak up.”

“Not a cycle,” Twilight gasped.

Nightmare Moon looked down sharply. “What?”

“You said…something about a cycle before. It’s not a cycle.” Twilight breathed. Breathing hurt. She did it anyway. “There is no business cycle, just bad monetary policy.”

“Pain is usually a better motivator than this,” Nightmare Moon sighed. “My sister brainwashed the most foolishly devoted pony I’ve seen in a thousand years.”

“You know…I’m right,” Twilight said. “That’s why…you haven’t attacked. They’re the Elements…of Equilibrium!”

Twilight’s vision went so black it turned red. She couldn’t even properly describe what she felt as pain. The instant it ended the gulf between the memory and the actual feeling was so large she wasn’t entirely sure if it had happened.

“I will keep doing this,” Nightmare Moon snarled. “Now tell your little friends to drop the crystals.”

“Twilight?” Pinkie Pie’s voice, tremulous. “What should we do?”

Twilight chuckled, and then immediately regretted it as it sent pain searing up her side. “You made two mistakes, Nightmare Moon. The first was uniting the Elements with their Bearers.”

“These little ponies couldn’t bear so much as a strenuous hike.”

“No. Applejack, who gave her hat to promise the Cerberus that she would fulfill the terms of the agreement demanding her very life, represents the spirit of…contract!

“Pinkie Pie, who guided us through risk, uncertainty, and a terrible maze of thorns, represents the spirit of…entrepreneurship!

“Rarity, who out-gossiped the parasprites and drove them away with sincerity, represents the spirit of…information!

“Rainbow Dash, who took us all from the far side of the moat past the dragon to where we needed to be faster than anypony could have, represents the spirit of…finance!

“And Fluttershy, who kept us from distraction and on the path of defeating you, represents the spirit of…rationality!

“Together they are the Elements of Equilibrium. Together they are your doom.”

Nightmare Moon watched them. “But they’re helpless as long as I have you.”

“She’s right,” Applejack said. “I feel something coming from this crystal and it’s meeting something coming from me, but I can’t do nothing while she’s got you.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Twilight said. “Get her! I’m not important anymore.”

“We’re not abandoning you!” Rainbow Dash said.

Twilight managed to lift her head. “Fluttershy, tell them.”

“No,” Fluttershy said. “None of us would have even gone to the forest without you. Each of us did our parts as individuals, but you got us here as a group. You can’t just stand to the side and watch. You’re part of the equilibrium too.”

Twilight’s eyes widened in shock, and then winced in pain. Nightmare Moon laughed.

“You ponies are so pathetic! Just like my sister, you try to protect each other but end up destroying one another instead. Isn’t the irony delightful? I think I’ll make the white one gore you all one by one.”

Part of the equilibrium…?

“You remember so much from so long ago,” Twilight gasped. “But there’s one other thing you forgot. I can teleport.”

“Wha—”

Twilight vanished in a lavender burst of magic and reappeared at the head of her five friends.

“Girls, fire!”

If you shoot a beam of white light through a prism, it separates into the seven colors of the rainbow.

If you shoot a beam of pure, undiluted friendship through an econopony…

…you get something similar.

The rainbow faded, as they do, but the promise lingered. As golden light blazed like the sun in the ancient castle, a smile spread over Twilight’s face.

"I’m part of the equilibrium too."

She collapsed into the hoofs of her friends. It was some time before she woke up.

Don’t worry. She was fine. This is a story about magical talking ponies learning together about the science of friendship—er, economics. There will always be a happy ending.