My Little Economy

by mylittleeconomy

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 37475

Twilight Sparkle is an economist. But when Nightmare Moon returns from the Moon to conquer Equestria, theories about friendship won't be enough to stop her. To save the world, Twilight will have to actually make some friends.

See here for more information.

In a world that runs on economics—

—or walks, or limps, or crawls, because water has died, and the seasons do not move without Pegasi pushing them along, and plants and animals do not reproduce without help from Earth Ponies, and the laws of physics are whatever Unicorns tell them to be—

—because economics is the only thing that still seems to work by itself, that doesn’t require magic for it to be what it already was, one Unicorn named Twilight Sparkle has decided that she’s better off without a social life. She has her job and her research and her mentor, Princess Celestia.

But when she is sent away from the great capital city of Canterlot with its massive libraries and academic conferences to the dull backwater of Ponyville in time for the summer solstice celebration, she will find herself facing a challenge more terrifying than nightmarish Alicorns, fire-breathing dragons, and the prospect of getting an A- on an exam.

She will have to make some friends.

Published 2022-03-09 05:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2022-03-09 05:20:01 UTC

Twilight Sparkle's Bad Day

Twilight Sparkle, Vice Chief Executive Economist of the One Bank of Equestria, Grand Assistant, Regal Secretary, Official Note-Taker and Student to Princess Celestia, Chief Executive Economist of the Bank of Equestria, Grand Doer, Regal Presider, Official Note-Hearer and Mentor to Twilight Sparkle, was having a bad day.

“I am going to impale the perpetrator on my horn, Spike!" we find her in the middle of screaming. "I am literally going to impale them!”

Twilight was the sort of Unicorn who, if you asked her whether she meant literally literally or figuratively, would say, “I meant the former,” with a note of barely restrained scorn in her voice. Spike was more the sort of baby dragon who would answer, “Yes,” which was perhaps the reason why he alone of all the denizens of Canterlot was able to get along with Twilight.

He was also at present little more than a wriggling dragon tail, the front half of him buried in a pile of books as deep and flammable as an Olympic swimming pool filled with oil. (Twilight had overturned a fraction of her shelves in her madness, and the resulting cascade of books had left the room looking like the dungeon of a disturbed bibliophile at the height of her killing spree.)

“It's not that big a deal, Twilight,” he said as he continued his search, his voice muffled by the twelve-volume set Canterlot, A History, textbooks on subjects ranging from abstract algebra to a thin tome on zoological economics, and, although Twilight would never admit it, a thick, dusty book on topological manifolds hollowed out and filled with pictures of stallions cut out from the Steers catalog. It was dusty because she dipped it in a bucket of dust every night before setting it back on the shelf.

“Not that big a deal?” Twilight's purple eyelid twitched. “Not that big a deal? I! Lost! A! Book! A book, Spike! A rectangular hard-covered paper-and-ink-filled knowledge-containing book. Do you even read?”

“I couldn't be your friend if I didn’t.”

“I just know somepony stole it.” Twilight paced back and forth, nodding to herself. “Somepony who has it out for me. It was probably Twinkleshine, that b—”

“Found it!”

“—eautiful baby dragon!”

Twilight hastily levitated Spike out of the mountainous pile of books with her Unicorn magic. Spike emerged holding a thick brown book. Twilight grabbed it out of his hands and rubbed the book against her cheek, cooing softly to it.

I'll put you under my pillow tonight, Twilight thought. I'll dream of a stable equilibrium where I never lose any books again.

“Uh…Twilight?”

“DON'T LOOK AT ME!”

Spike started to speak. Instead he convulsed and belched green flame. A neatly bound scroll appeared out of the dissipating smoke, which Spike unfurled.

“Princess Celestia wants to speak with you,” he said.

The book thumped against the floor.

“I guess only one thing can be the most special,” Spike said to himself as the sound of Twilight's clattering hoofs faded in the distance.

He looked at the fifty square meters of book jambalaya Twilight had unleashed upon her study when she had thought her book was missing.

“Do I have to clean this up?”

Twilight Sparkle's bright pink stripe running through her dark purple mane and tail, her prodigious magical powers, and her worrisome obsession with books were just a few of the things that made her an unusual pony. What did not make her unusual was the fact that she was a brightly colored magical sentient talking pony. There is no other kind of ponies in the land of Equestria—except for the mute ones and so on, but the paradigm is one of brightly colored magical etcetera.

In fact all the animals of Equestria can talk, though not all ponies listen. But it is ponies, horses, Unicorns, Pegasi, and of course the rare Alicorns who dominate the land. Magic proved the deciding factor over the nonmagical animals. Sheer numbers allowed them to push out the sparser magical creatures like the fearsome Cragadiles and the elusive Breezies.

Not all such battles were easily won for the largely peace-inclined ponies of Equestria. What use is Unicorn magic or a Pegasus's speed against the powerful and devious Draconequus who turns the rain into money or against the roaming hordes of Parasprites who whisper rumors wherever they go, spreading misinformation and distrust that collapse markets in their wake?

Here the Alicorns’ role in shaping the fate of Equestria cannot be ignored. Alicorns are easily recognized by their combination of Pegasus wings and Unicorn horns, as well as their unnatural height, standing two or three heads above the average pony. The Alicorns’ immense magical power and physical strength are offset only by how incredibly rare they are. There have only been three Alicorns in the history of Equestria, and one of them is currently imprisoned in the moon.

The eldest Alicorn, Princess Celestia, is the ruler and guardian of equines everywhere. White as the purest snow, her gently swaying mane of soft turquoise, blue, purple, and green the unofficial flag of Equestria, tall enough to face down a karate-kicking minotaur, and wielding enough magic to imprison her sister and fellow Alicorn, Princess Luna, in the moon for a thousand years, Princess Celestia was not only the ruler of her domain but also its scale and astrolabe.

Visitors to Canterlot, Equestria's capital and home to the Bank (for it is always called the Bank, seeing as there is only One), always ask the same three questions, the first being, “Does the Bank give out free samples, har har?” Once the tour guide is finished contemplating filling their own lungs with water, two further questions are asked: “What made Princess Celestia stronger than her sister, Princess Luna, imprisoned in the moon for a thousand years?” and “Why does Princess Celestia not crown herself Queen and rule from a grand throne of jewels with a scepter of Power and Fun, spreading her majesty over the land like a rainbow, lightning bolts crackling in encouraging messages across the sky with her every word, the very ground trembling beneath her feet in a relaxing sort of massage with each mighty step she takes?”

The answers the tour guides usually give are, respectively, “Bigger horn,” and “Thinks ‘Princess’ sounds prettier than ‘Queen.’” Most tourists leave Canterlot satisfied, fatter and poorer than they were a week ago. But the truth, though it is rarely discerned, is that the two questions have the same answer, that is, the Bank was enough….

And will there ever be any more Alicorns? It seems unlikely. In over a thousand years there have only been three. Oh, there are those who say that if three can Ascend, surely so can four, and indeed they note that the Third appeared many centuries after Princess Celestia and Princess Luna did. Yet if there was ever a secret to Ascension, it has long been lost, and what the Third may know, she isn’t telling. Princess Celestia, when asked by trembling fillies during school visits and so on, winks and hints that it has something to do with friendship.

In a thousand years there have only been the Seven Colors of the Rainbow, the Five Elements of Equilibrium, the Three Alicorns and the One Bank. Now the summer solstice of the thousand-and-first year approaches. While the idea of a spell of imprisonment lasting one thousand years is right and proper and normal, who has ever heard of a spell that lasts one thousand years and one?

The princess's spell of imprisonment weakens. The sun dips below the horizon of an era and also the actual horizon, though only in the latter case does it rise again after. In the reflective hours between dusk and midnight as the sun falls and the moon rises, something must fill the gap that stretches between the two heavenly bodies, as obvious and invisible as the rubbery expanse of space-time. And when the reflected light of the moon shines on the princess, what shape does her shadow take…?

“…and I was so upset I thought Twinkleshine had taken it because I didn't go to her party but then Spike found it and I was soooo happy," Twilight took a deep breath, "and then I got your message and ran all the way over here.”

“Twilight, you need to make some friends,” Princess Celestia said. “A little fresh air would do you wonders.”

“I get lots of fresh air exercising in the courtyard,” Twilight said. "I know I'll never be as strong as an Alicorn, but seeing as you're so powerful, I thought…I thought….”

“I was thinking more in terms of play.”

“Oh,” Twilight said. There didn't seem to be anything more to say.

“I have a very important mission that only you can accomplish,” Princess Celestia said.

Had Twilight been a cartoon character she might have jumped twelve feet in the air, or her eyes might have enlarged to the point where their gravity became a significant factor in the calculation of the motion of nearby objects, but instead she merely clapped her hoofs to her face and squealed in the way only an excited pony can.

“Really? Really really? Oh my gosh oh my gosh a mission—ahem.” Twilight composed herself. “Whom would you have me destroy, Lady?”

“I want you to manage the NGDP Targeting Festival…”

Twilight gasped. The NGDP Targeting Festival was only the biggest and most important annual event in all of Equestria. Every year, on the day of the summer solstice, ponies gathered to commemorate the day Princess Celestia defeated Princess Luna, who by then was Nightmare Moon, and brought an end to the economic chaos that had threatened to tear Equestria apart. And Twilight took to managing things in much the same sense that a drug addict takes to cocaine, and being asked to manage the NGDP Targeting Festival by Princess Celestia herself was rather like a junkie being asked by Tony Montana to look after his stash for a while.

“…in Ponyville.”

Twilight stared. “Ponyville?” Princess Celestia nodded. “Ponyville?” Twilight repeated. “Just so we're on the same page here, you want me, the second-best economist in the world, not to put too fine a point on it, to travel to Ponyville, a dumpy backwater town full of rubes? They don't even have a university!”

“It's only for a couple of days, Twilight.”

Twilight's eyes widened. “A couple of days? But the solstice is…that means I won't be here for the NGDP Targeting Festival with you.”

Her mentor sighed. “Trust me, Twilight, that is for the best.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. And I want you to try to make friends with the other ponies there.”

“You want me to study the economics of friendship? As a matter of fact, I do have some theories based on behavioral economics and time-inconsistent preferences…”

“I want you to make friends.”

Twilight frowned.

“Twilight,” Princess Celestia said, “there is more to life than economics.”

Twilight Sparkle sometimes liked to brag (to Spike, because who else?) that she could glance at the equilibrium data for n - 1 markets and recall at will the equilibrium data for n markets, but even her tightly organized and efficient brain contained a dirty and poorly maintained lavatory to where certain heretical thoughts were banished. These included evidence of the importance of friendship to a healthy and stable psychological makeup, critical remarks about the pragmatism of building a library containing literally every book ever, and bizarre impulses she felt around some of the oak-chested stallions toiling away in the apple fields all summer long, their taut skin glistening with sweat in the burning sun, sweet juice spraying over their face as their healthy cream-colored teeth bit into the soft, yielding red flesh of an apple…well, who can blame her? Now her unconscious mind created a new category, Denying the Infinite Value of Economics, labeled it for auto-delete, and promptly executed the new subroutine on all applicable files…

…and that is the story of how Twilight Sparkle's ego was saved from crumbling into pieces like a glass sculpture delicately balanced on a house of cards which themselves are held up against the wind only by the passing sound waves of an economist bellowing in triumph as she successfully used a macroeconomic model to predict only five out of the last five recessions.

“I will go to Ponyville and oversee the preparations for the NGDP Targeting Festival,” Twilight said. Her eyes were still glassy from the wipe.

She began to leave. “Wait,” Princess Celestia said. “Be careful. And good luck.”

“It's the NGDP Targeting Festival in Ponyville,” Twilight said. “I’ll have a miserable time trying to explain monetary theory to a bunch of hicks and then come home. What's the worst that could happen?”

Had Twilight spent less time with her books and more time out in the world, she would have known that such a line is never uttered if disaster is not imminent. On the other hand, never in the nearly 14 billion years the universe has existed has disaster ever had to contend with an imminent magical pony economist, so perhaps they evened out.

Ponyville

“It’s a test.” Twilight said as she packed her suitcase with books. “Princess Celestia is always testing me. I just have to figure out what I’m supposed to do.”

“Are you bringing only books, Twilight?” Spike asked.

“Is this really about seeing if I can manage the NGDP Targeting Festival?” Twilight began to pace. “But Princess Celestia already knows how good I am at managing things. Maybe the real test is to improve the level of economic literacy in Ponyville. Those rubes probably don’t even know what NGDP is.”

“Are you bringing a toothbrush? How about a comb for your mane?”

“She can’t really have meant it when she said I should make friends.” Twilight stopped. “No, it can’t be. I’m probably supposed to derive an economic theory of friendship and gather data for it. Yes, that must be it."

“I’ll pack a second toothbrush.”

There was one train—not One Train, merely one train—running through all the towns and cities of Equestria. It was built and maintained by Princess Celestia’s own funds, which were themselves donated from every adult equine. Princess Celestia collected no taxes. It just so happened that the ponies of Equestria were wise and thoughtful enough to see that Canterlot needed a certain amount of funds to provide for the defense and support of Equestria. Any pony was free not to pay.

Nevertheless, Princess Celestia worried that the ponies who chose not to donate were unaware of the good things she could do for Equestria, and so she invariably paid them a visit in order to advertise the quality of her product.

Ponies are very proud of their immaculately well-tended gardens, so Princess Celestia would strengthen and focus the sun’s rays on the grass and flowers, making the plants grow taller than the houses. Then she would summon clouds as fluffy as bunnies and heavy as flying boulders. With a burst of light from her horn a monsoon the exact size and shape of the garden would crash down. When it was over, the garden would bloom like Eden on the morning of creation. Finally, Princess Celestia would call actual flying boulders bigger than herself from the nearest location, which sometimes meant from miles away. She used them to add her own touch of feng shui to the garden.

Ponies are kinder to free riders than primates are, but they tolerate them far less.

What Princess Celestia would do after that no pony knew, for the pony in question would by that point always open the door in a trembling sort of way and politely ask the Princess what the reason was for her visit. When Princess Celestia explained that she simply wanted to advertise the spells she used to defend Equestria with her limited voluntary defense funds, the pony would always smack their forehead and exclaim that they had forgotten to send their own donation this year.

In a short time their oversight was happily corrected. Princess Celestia left with the money she needed to defend the land of Equestria, and the pony left with their bladder control intact.

Such mutually beneficial exchanges provided Princess Celestia all the money she needed to build public works like the train tracks, upkeep her university, and, it was rumored, maintain a constant supply of cakes and pastries to her kitchen.

Twilight Sparkle and Spike relaxed in the first-class cabin near the front of the train. Twilight nibbled on sugar cubes while she made notes in her heavily marked copy of The Economic Approach to Pony Behavior. Spike flipped through a book about tourist attractions in Ponyville. They spoke little. They were friends, and the difference between true friends and people you hang around with to ward off a creeping sense of nihilism is that you can enjoy the company of the former in complete, utter silence.

“Oh boy! Oh boy oh boy oh boy!”

The pink puff of pony hopped, literally hopped, around the entire room, waving her hoofs in the air like she did not care that Twilight was there.

“Okaaaay.” Twilight’s lavender magical glow surrounded a pen poised against a checklist clipped to a clipboard. Twilight liked lists, and she liked to check things off of them. “You are Pinkie Pie, the pony supplying the festivities?”

“You mean the party?”

The creature from the pink lagoon skidded to a halt and lifted her chin proudly. “Yup! I’ve got all the games and music and balloons and streamers and pins and tails for pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey which always seemed like such a cruel game to me but it’s really popular so who am I to judge HUUUUHHH,” she sucked in breath, “and popcorn and candy and more games and even bigger balloons and—”

“Okay!” Twilight scratched a check onto the list. “I believe you. Now I’ll need to inspect everything.”

“How come?” Somehow even a question sounded like an exclamation coming from Pinkie Pie.

“You do know who I am, don’t you? You were jumping around shouting ‘oh boy!’”

“Oh that’s just because I had never seen you before and if I had never seen you before that means we weren’t friends yet and if we aren’t friends yet then that means we get to become friends and I love becoming friends with ponies it’s so much fun HUUUUHHH my favorite part is when we share secrets and have sleepovers and bake silly things together and now that I think about it that’s more than one part but maybe we could combine them like a secret bakeover—”

“I am in charge of overseeing the NGDP Targeting Festival here in Ponyville,” Twilight said firmly. She used the same voice she normally reserved for when Spike was being as much of a baby as his current stage of maturation implied. “That means I need to inspect everything and ensure the festival goes well. My name is—”

“No!”

Pinkie Pie stuck out a hoof. She looked alarmed. Twilight raised an eyebrow.

“I’m sorry?”

“Don’t tell me your name! I want to guess!”

Twilight winced. She had never encountered such a concentrated barrage of exclamation marks. It was wearing down her mental defenses.

“Okay, go ahead and guess.”

“Oooh, let me think.”

Pinkie Pie set her chin on her hoof and stared off, frowning. Seconds ticked by. Just as Twilight was about to interrupt, Pinkie Pie shot up.

“Sunshine Sweetie!”

“No.”

“Lollipop Lucky!”

“No.”

“Radish Racer!”

“What? No. Do they all have to be alliterative? I’ll give you a hint.” Twilight motioned to her mane. “See the dark colors? My name starts with ‘Twi.’”

“Oooh….” Pinkie Pie concentrated. “Tweezers!”

“That isn’t logical,” Twilight said, “but I’m guessing you don’t care—”

“Twixie!”

“MY NAME IS TWILIGHT SPARKLE!” Twilight shouted.

She coughed. “Sorry, excuse me. Where were we? You were going to show me your preparations?”

Pinkie Pie narrowed her eyes. “I am going to throw you a party.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Nope! Come on, I’ll show you all the fun things I’ve got!”

An hour later Twilight emerged from Pinkie Pie’s seemingly endless storage of party games, party toys, party accessories, party soundtracks, party, party, party, it made Twilight want to scream. She could feel the exclamation marks digging into her skull.

Twilight made a big, jagged check and flipped the page. “I do not know how that pony got put in charge of anything.”

“Ponyville’s largest private corporation, Sugarcube Corner, is run by a pony named Pinkie Pie,” Spike said. “There’s supposedly one on every corner. I wonder if it’s the same pony?”

Twilight looked down the street. A large glass cube, transparent, sleek and shiny sat on the corner like an alien spaceship that had stopped for coffee. “Sugarcube Corner!” ran across the front in bright colors. Ponies milled about inside, inspecting large, vibrant cakes, all watched by the very same Pinkie Pie’s large smiling head that adorned the side like the encouraging eyes of Big Sister. “Let’s have dessert at the Sugarcube Corner!” the glittery speech bubble by her face read.

Twilight looked down the street. At the other corner was an identical glass cube except for the speech bubble, which read, “Let’s start the day the Sugarcube way!”

“I’m scared, Twilight,” Spike whispered.

“Let’s just keep moving,” Twilight said. “Next we need to check on the food.”

Applejack was an orange pony with a blonde mane, a cowgirl hat, and a hoofshake that nearly ripped Twilight’s leg off.

“How can I help you, Miss Twilight Sparkle?” There was a twang to her voice like her throat housed a tiny frog with a miniature banjo who was practicing for the county fair.

Twilight set her hoof on the ground in such a way that she didn’t have to actually put any weight on it. “It’s nice to meet you. We just need to check on the catering.”

“Right this way, Miss Twilight.”

Applejack turned and motioned for her and Spike to follow. “We here at the Apple family farm are pleased as apples to be providing all the food for this year’s NGDP Targeting Festival.”

“That’s great,” Twilight said. “Do you mind showing me a little bit about your operation? I’m very interested in agricultural economics.”

Applejack led them to the crest of a hill. “That’s just what I was fixing to do. Take a gander at Sweet Apple Acres.”

Twilight did. She had read that the Apple family owned the biggest share of land in all of Ponyville, but the number of square acres had meant so much less as a figure in a report than did the sight of the golden farmland stretching on across the grassy hills for as far as she could see.

The trees were thick with bright red apples. Even from a distance they looked juicy and plump. Twilight could almost feel her teeth sinking into one. She could hear the bright crunch, taste the sweet juice on her tongue. The apples were delicious, absolutely delicious, and she wanted nothing more than to spent her life down in those fields doing whatever it took to get another bite of that sweet fruit—

“Twilight?” Spike tugged on her tail. “You’re drooling.”

“Huh?” Twilight clamped her mouth shut. There was a puddle on the ground underneath her chin that hadn’t been there before.

“That’s a normal reaction for a first-timer,” Applejack said. “We make durn good apples here. Come inside and try some.”

The Apple family table looked long enough to seat about fifty ponies. The kitchen itself was spacious enough for a dozen ponies to sleep comfortably in. Pictures of ponies who Twilight could only assume were members of the extensive Apple family were clustered on every available space, giving the room the feel of belonging to a grandmother or perhaps a dedicated serial killer. Everything smelled of apples, even the wood.

“Of course it does,” Applejack said. “It’s cut from our very own apple trees. Apple Bloom! We got guests!”

An impossibly cute yellow filly with big eyes and an even bigger pink bow in her mane trotted into the room. “The Apple Sampler?”

Applejack nodded. “The Apple Sampler.”

The Apple Sampler turned out to be a fifty-course “bite-sized” meal featuring “the sort of regular food we Apples eat, not like the fancy stuff you city folks are used to, but it sticks to your sides and slides out when it should.” It included applesauce, apple pies, apple fritters, apple butter, poached apples, dried apples, apple cake, apple chutney, apple pancakes, apple granitas…the plates ran on. “Bite-sized” apparently meant “portions the size of your head.” Twilight and Spike were groaning and patting their bulging bellies after the second course.

“We take big bites,” Applejack said. “Good, ain’t it?”

“And it’s all apples?” Twilight asked. “You don’t eat any grass or hay or oats?”

“Just apples,” Applejack said.

“Well, what little we were able to eat was delicious,” Twilight said. Spike nodded. “I can see there will be no problems with the quantity or quality of food for the festival.”

“I’m glad you liked it,” Applejack said. “They’re secret recipes. You can read about all of them in a cookbook we sell.”

“A cookbook?” Twilight exclaimed. “But that’s no secret at all! You should patent these amazing recipes so no pony can steal them.”

Applejack stopped piling apple fricassee onto a plate. The spoon banged on the counter. She then fixed the Unicorn in her gaze.

“You reckon we ought to patent our recipes? To protect them from who? All the little imitators out there who think a nice pan and a spice rack makes you a cook? Listen here, Miss Twilight Sparkle, I don’t know what kind of food you’re used to eating, but there ain’t no pony, and I mean no pony who can make apple anything as good as we do at Sweet Apple Acres.”

“I only meant that—”

“Any fool can read out of a cookbook,” Applejack said. “And I suppose you reckon that’s all there is to cooking? Reading’s cheap. The experience, the real know-how can only be learned in one place, and that’s right here. We don’t need no patents. There ain’t no pony who can imitate us who ain’t us already.”

“I’m sorry,” Twilight said. Even Apple Bloom was glaring at her. “I didn’t mean to offend you. It was only a suggestion.”

“Let me ask you something, Twilight Sparkle. When you come up with your economic whatevers, do you patent them?”

“Of course not! My theories and data are published publicly so that anypony can verify and make use of them. The entire project of economics is a public collaboration, not something to be kept private.”

“Ain’t you worried some clever pony is going to take your ideas and use them to outshine you?”

Twilight laughed. “They’d have to take my brain, not just its paper output.”

“Feel like taking that brain of yours in here and trying your hoof at one of these secret recipes that I’ll tell you?”

“I really don’t,” said Twilight, not least because she wasn’t sure what the mechanics of standing up were going to involve with her stomach bulging out to this extent. “I can see you know your business. I shouldn’t have stuck my snout where it doesn’t belong.”

“I ain’t riled up,” Applejack said in contrast to all the evidence. “Just a bit suspicious of city folk looking for an angle on the Apple secrets we publish for twenty bits, that’s the hardcover price, you understand. And it’s nice to have an economist here for the festival. Frankly I never understood any of that nominal gross derogatory pompom hoodilly.”

“I’d be delighted to explain at the festival,” Twilight said.

A thought occurred to her. “Are you friends with Pinkie Pie?”

“Pinkie Pie? Of course I’m friends with her. She’s friends with most every pony in Ponyville. It usually doesn’t go so well for ponies who resist. She throws ‘em parties.” She noticed Twilight’s expression and laughed. “Don’t worry! She ain’t never hurt no pony.” Applejack frowned. “At least not that I ever heard.”

Twilight pushed herself away from the table. “Thanks for the meal. It was delicious. We’ll be going now. Spike and I have a lot of work left.”

“That you do, Miss Twilight Sparkle,” Applejack said. “That you do.”

A Unicorn by the name of Rarity was in charge of decorations. Twilight and Spike plodded with full stomachs toward her salon and dress store, the Carousel Boutique.

A bell rang and they walked in. A stunningly white pony with an immaculately coiffed purple mane greeted them at the top of a crystal staircase.

“Ta, darlings,” the flawless apparition said. It struck a pose. “I am Rarity. How can I help you become even more beautiful today?”

“We’re just here to check on the decorations for the NGDP Targeting Festival,” Twilight said. “We’re not interested in fashion.”

“Not interested in fashion?”

The pale pony trotted down the stairs, looking alarmed. “Darling, you sound positively depressed! What do you mean you aren’t interested in fashion?” Rarity spoke like Princess Celestia did when she was imitating Princess Celestia, putting on the regal-sounding tones visitors expected.

“I’m a manager,” Twilight said. “The whole point of my job is to be invisible.”

“Nonsense!” Rarity trilled. “You are the manager. You simply must be seen, and you must be stunning!”

Twilight had learned her lesson from Pinkie Pie and Applejack. The Ponyville ponies were smarter than they looked and not to be trifled with. She meekly submitted as Rarity dragged her upstairs and into the boutique.

“Most ponies will be attending the festival au naturel,” Rarity said, “so I assume you won’t be needing a dress for the occasion?”

“No dress,” Twilight said. “Just—yes—natural. I mean, naturel.” It was difficult to wrap her mind around the idea of Rarity and Applejack living within a short distance of each other.

Rarity sat her down in a cushy chair facing a mirror. Twilight frowned at her reflection, but Rarity spun her around.

“How do you usually wear it?” Rarity asked. “When you’re trying, I mean. Do you wear it up? Do you curl it? How do you feel about bangs?”

“Uh…normal?” Twilight guessed. “Au naturel?”

“What sort of product do you use?”

“Shampoo?”

“Oh la la. What kind of shampoo?”

Spike did most of the shopping, Twilight didn’t want to admit. She just used whatever he had and didn’t notice the label.

“Shampoo Brand Shampoo. It’s all the rage back in Canterlot.”

“Tough Scales Shampoo For Big Boy Dragons,” Spike said. Twilight threw thought-daggers at his stupid face.

“I’ll fix you up with a starter set,” Rarity assured her. “And I suppose if I were to ask about makeup…?”

“Your current expectations would be confirmed,” Twilight said.

“Of course, darling.” Rarity spun her around again so that Twilight was looking into her reflection. “Now what I’m going to do is bathe your entire mane and face in a potent chemical cocktail of dubious legality.”

“Isn’t this store licensed?” Twilight winced as Rarity dragged a comb through her mane.

“Licensed? Of course!” Rarity opened a bottle that smelled like anise. “I invite the inspectors over every year for tea and cake. They’re wonderful ponies, don’t bother me at all.”

Twilight sat paralyzed, torn between her reflection and the impending chemical warfare Rarity was about to wage on her head. Which, Twilight belatedly realized, was where she did economics.

“Enough!” Twilight shouted, pushing Rarity away. “This is shallow!”

Rarity closed the cap and set the bottle down carefully.

“Shallow?” Suddenly her Unicorn horn seemed pointed. “There is nothing shallow about beauty, mon cher économiste.”

“Yes there is!” Twilight jumped out of the chair and smoothed back her strangely untangled mane. “Caring about beauty is practically the definition of shallow!”

“You have a way of putting your hoof in your mouth,” Rarity said. “Take a look at me. Am I not beautiful?”

She tossed her hair.

Twilight tossed her hair whenever it got in her face. It seemed to get in her face a lot when she was around stallions, but Twilight had never tossed her hair like Rarity did. Rarity tossed her hair in the same way that a hurricane blows, which is to say, it is technically correct as a description but totally fails to capture the experience.

When Rarity tossed her hair, it sparkled. It shouldn’t have sparkled. There was no logical reason for it to sparkle, but it sparkled when and only when she tossed her hair. Her eyebrows poised at an elegant arch, her hips cocked at a frightening angle, and the look in her eyes was one of a bored queen idly considering dangling one of her many highly replaceable subjects over a bear pit.

Spike was giving Rarity a look like she was the unique and stable equilibrating price vector for his initial allocation. “You are beautiful.”

“I know,” Rarity sighed. Her sigh was the breeze caused by the flap of an angel’s wing. “But normally I look like this.”

A blue glow surrounded Rarity’s horn. Her hair unwound from its elegant coif, losing its shine, luster and bounce. It landed on her back in a dry clump. Paint peeled from her face, revealing blemishes and tired eyes. She looked ill compared to her made-up self.

“This is my natural appearance,” Rarity said. “But is it really me? Or is Rarity really a stunningly beautiful, precious gem in the midst of dull pebbles?” She lifted her head. “I still carry myself like a queen.”

Twilight was lost for words. This was beyond anything she had expected.

Rarity’s horn glowed again as she restored her old look. “All my customers come here looking for the same thing. Magic. They want me to find the perfect dress and hairdo to make them avoir du cheval, funny, confident, charming and beautiful to win the heart of a handsome stallion or become the must-have mare at any even.

“Of course clothes and hair products can’t do that. Underneath the illusion they are still the same pony. What I really do is draw out the pony they already are through the illusions they wear around themselves all the time so that they never have to truly see themselves. I can’t fix the game, but I can give them the best odds.

“It’s business, Twilight. Aren’t you an economist? Suppose I turn a plain pony into a, well, me. She has a wonderful time at the dance and agrees to a date with a dashing young stallion. But will she wear my clothes and my styles for as long as she lives? The illusion must come down, and the pony will come running to me with tears in her eyes and vengeance in her heart, knowing, just knowing that I lied to her, tricked her, exploited her vulnerability and her yearning to make a sale. Now she wants her money back.” Rarity looked pained. “Return money? It’s unthinkable!

“So what do I do for this pitiable creature? I use my admittedly formidable talents to bring out the inner pony, the her who isn’t a face she puts on for her friends or the kind of pony she wishes she could be but the beautiful pony who has never come out because even she didn’t know it was waiting there all along. My customers think I make them beautiful. But I don’t. I make them them, the best them they can be. It’s sad that they don’t recognize themselves in the mirror when I’m through.

“Shallow? No. What is shallow is keeping a dry, tangled mane because it fits your image of the academic pony unconcerned with looks. What is shallow is judging a pony’s livelihood according to some cliche. So tell me, Twilight Sparkle, economist extraordinaire, just who among us is shallow?”

Twilight’s mouth hung open. Her jaw creaked when she shut it. “I…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have questioned the integrity of your business. I think I was just upset and confused. It’s been a long day, I’m new here and…”

“Of course!” Rarity said. “You’re from the capital! Adjusting to Ponyville life must be incredibly taxing. Have you met Pinkie Pie? …Oh dear. …She’s like that with everypony, you must understand.”

“I think I just need to check on the decorations,” Twilight said weakly.

“Follow me. And take one…no, two makeup kits. All complementary. Never let it be said that Rarity is not generous!”

Twilight’s head spun as she exited the Carousel Boutique. Rarity had talked for ages about color theory, color wheels, different shades of color—Twilight couldn’t tell the difference between bright green and chartreuse, but Rarity insisted there was—where colors came from and how they were made, the going market rates for different pigments and how Rarity got the best deals, and then she started on the fabrics. Twilight followed her in a numb haze, the automated semi-conscious managerial aspect of herself handling the checklist while the rest of her wanted to scream, “I DON’T CARE!” but Rarity was sweet and kind even if her interests were baffling, so Twilight nodded and stretched her lips in a gruesome approximation of a smile while she prayed for the sweet embrace of death.

Finally the ordeal ended. Spike, enthralled by Rarity’s glamor, had to be levitated out of the Carousel Boutique with Twilight’s magic. Rarity bid them adieu.

Spike sighed. “She’s gorgeous.”

“You’re a dragon. You’re a baby. Nothing about her should…well, you know…”

“Beauty is universal, Twilight.”

Twilight frowned. “No it isn’t.”

There were still two ponies Twilight needed to check on. One of them was a Pegasus called Rainbow Dash who had agreed to lend the big screen in Ponyville’s stock exchange to display the numbers as Celestia brought the money supply in line with the market's forecast of its own needs. Twilight decided she needed a pick-me-up after the exhausting tour of Rarity’s boutique and trotted to the stock exchange with Spike.

She knocked on the door. “Come in!” somepony shouted.

Unlike the stock exchange in Canterlot, Ponyville’s Make Friends With Everyone Stock Exchangeaganza was compressed, run-down and badly maintained. Like the stock exchange in Canterlot, Ponyville’s Make Friends With Everyone Stock Exchangeaganza was noisy, busy, and packed to the brim with panicking ponies.

“Sell everything!” one screamed into a phone. “Everything! Sugarcube Corner, Sweet Apple Acres, everything!”

“Buy everything!” another pony shouted into the next phone. “Everything! Sugarcube Corner, Sweet Apple Acres, everything!”

The stock exchange was pandemonium, which is to say, everything was normal. Ponies raced back and forth, some laughing, others weeping, all shouting. It was the eighth-loudest thing Twilight had ever heard. The first seven had been at the Canterlot stock exchange, which was bigger, after all. But what the Ponyville stock exchange lacked in size, it more than made up for in sheer insanity.

One Pegasus in particular caught Twilight’s eye. She was zooming around the ceiling so fast she left rainbow trails in her wake.

“Ten thousand bits!” the rainbow pony whooped. “Guess who just made ten thousand bits!”

“You lost twenty thousand this morning,” another pony said to general laughter.

The rainbow Pegasus swooped down before him. “Yeah, and I’ll make thirty thousand more before I go home today.”

“Excuse me,” Twilight said. “I’m looking for a pony named Rainbow Daaah!”

The rainbow pony was in front of her before Twilight could finish her sentence. “I’m Rainbow Dash! Nice to meet you!” Twilight felt a brief pressure on her hoof. She looked down. Had she just been given a hoofshake…?

Rainbow Dash smiled. "What can I do for you?"

“I’m Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight said. “I’m the economist who was sent here to oversee the NGDP Targeting Festival.”

“Uh huh.” Rainbow Dash looked bright, eager, and really, really helpful.

“So…you have a screen you can donate for when Celestia performs the NGDP ceremony?”

“So I don’t owe you any money?” Rainbow Dash wiped her forehead. “For once I get a visitor about something other than debts or audits or insider...uh, yeah, sure, I’ll lend my screen.”

She pointed a hoof at the wall where a large monitor displayed stocks and prices, interest rates, growth rates, and a dozen other variables, all scrolling down the screen so fast Twilight could barely read it all. “Bought it to celebrate when I made fifty thousand in one day. Lost one hundred thousand the next, but hey, that’s life.”

“Uh…I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of risk aversion? Or…or hedging your bets?”

“Nope!”

“But don’t you lose a lot of money?”

“Yeah.” Rainbow Dash flew up the screen and squinted at a series of numbers. Twilight blinked, and she was at a phone, barking orders to someone. “Buy FlimFlam Fracking Funtime. Yeah. Ten thousand shares. I’ve got a good feeling about them.”

New numbers flashed on the screen. Ponies gasped.

“What’s happening?” Twilight peered at the screen, trying to understand.

“FlimFlam Industries just tanked!” Rainbow moaned. “I’m ruined! Again! Oh well, time to refinance.”

The other ponies got on with their work. Apparently Rainbow Dash losing more money than Twilight had thought existed in Ponyville was just another Tuesday.

Rainbow Dash was already at work flipping through a thick stack of papers. Twilight approached her. Rainbow Dash in action was like an extremely focused toddler and was in need of a guiding hoof. “Thank you for agreeing to lend your screen for the festival. But I feel that as an economist, it is my duty to give you some important financial advice.”

Rainbow Dash snapped up. “Got any hot tips?”

“That’s exactly my point,” Twilight said. “You see, Rainbow Dash, if anypony actually did have any private information about how a stock was likely to perform, they wouldn’t tell you. They would buy or sell the stocks themselves. Imagine if you knew something no pony else did about a company. Would you tell someone else so that they could make money? Or would you go into the exchange and make a killing?”

Rainbow Dash had the look of a physicist being handed the control panel to the computer that programmed the universe and then waking up to realize she still had to go into work today. “You…you mean, all those hot tips I paid so much for were just a…a lie?”

Twilight nodded sadly. “I’m afraid so. You can’t beat the market. At the very least, no pony is going to go out of their way to help you beat the market.”

“That does it!” Rainbow Dash started flipping through the papers so fast Twilight almost thought for a moment that Rainbow could read even faster than she could, which was simply ridiculous. “I’ll show them all!”

“By quitting the stock exchange and getting a real job?” Twilight asked hopefully.

“By making so much money they’ll be lining up to sell me their advice, and I’ll reject every! Single! One! I'll show them! I'll become friends with everypony in Equestria!"

“Okay then. Spike, I think we’re leaving. Good luck, Rainbow Dash.”

“Yup!” Rainbow Dash was already on the phone, barking orders at some hapless pony on the other end. “Thanks for the advice!”

“Sure thing!” Twilight slammed the door of the stock exchange shut behind her. She breathed a sigh of relief. Something about all the gambling that went on inside there rubbed her economist self the wrong way.

The sun setting as Twilight and Spike made their last stop at an animal sanctuary on the outskirts of Ponyville. A petting zoo was supposed to be one of the attractions for the festival.

The sounds of chattering birds and the occasional ear-shattering fart from what Twilight hoped was a cow guided them to the edge of a wooden fence. Beyond the fence was the oddest assortment of animals Twilight had ever seen, and she had toured the zoo at Canterlot more than once looking for similarities between pony and animal behavior.

Small woodland critters like squirrels, beavers and raccoons gamboled in the grass not five feet away from lizards, snakes, and hawks, not to mention the mouse sleeping nestled in the mane of what appeared to be a snoring lion. Cows—thank Celestia—stepped gingerly around slow-moving turtles on their way to the tallest grass where a goat grazed next to a seal and a bright pink flamingo. There was a wasp—Twilight couldn’t think of why anypony would want to preserve a wasp or how they would keep it within the fence, but there it was—and a white bunny that stood on its hind legs and seemed to be watching the other animals like an overseer. It was possibly the most unnatural thing Twilight had ever witnessed.

A yellow pony with a pink mane greeted them at the gate. Or rather, she took one look at them, let out an “Eep!” back flew over the fence and tried to act like just another one of the animals in the sanctuary.

“Excuse me?” Twilight said.

The yellow Pegasus pretended not to hear. She ducked behind a cow and grazed at the grass.

“Moo!” the yellow Pegasus said. She took a bite of the grass. “Moo—yuck!” She spat it out, shaking her head. “This is cud! No offense, Mr. Cow.”

“None taken,” the cow said around a mouthful of the stuff.

Twilight raised her voice. “Excuse me, but I can tell that you’re a Pegasus, not a…what are you pretending to be?”

“A…a bovine,” the Pegasus whispered. Her voice was like satin, if satin could be afraid of its own shadow.

Twilight adopted the baby voice again. “And are you a bovine?” The Pegasus might have whispered something, but it was too quiet. “Speak up, I can’t hear you.”

“Not a bovine,” the Pegasus muttered. She hung her head.

“What are you?” Twilight prompted.

“Pegasus.”

“Name?”

“Fluttershy.”

“Perfect!” Twilight said. “My name is Twilight Sparkle. I’m the economist from Canterlot. And this is Spike, a—”

“A baby dragon!”

Fluttershy soared over the fence and nearly knocked Twilight over as she made a beeline for Spike. “How old are you? Can you talk?”

“I think so,” Spike said. “I’m, uh—” He cut off. Fluttershy was inspecting his scales with a critical look in her eyes.

“The scales are wearing at the edges,” she said. She glared at Twilight. “What kind of shampoo do you buy him?”

“Uh, Big Dragon Scales?” Twilight stammered. Fluttershy was giving her the evil eye.

“Tough Scales Shampoo For Big Boy Dragons?” she screeched. “FlimFlam Hair Care? That brand is terrible! All their products are made with harmful chemicals!”

Twilight backed off, horn at the ready to shield herself. “I didn’t know, I—”

“We’ll get you a nice, natural remedy,” Fluttershy cooed to Spike. She stuck her hoofs in his mouth and pulled his lips apart. “You need to floss.”

“I boe,” Spike said.

Fluttershy started to lift Spike’s tail. Twilight had to step in. She coughed.

“Fluttershy, Spike is my assistant, and we are here to inspect the petting zoo for tomorrow.”

“Petting zoo?” Fluttershy frowned. “There’s no petting zoo here.”

Twilight gestured. “All the animals…?"

“Oh! You mean the Pony-Critter Interspecies Sharing Event,” Fluttershy said. “You’ll be providing the ponies?”

“I—uh—yes?”

“Wonderful.” Fluttershy beamed at Spike. “I’ll see you later, Mister Baby Dragon.”

Twilight held out a hoof helplessly as Fluttershy began to walk away. “I need to inspect the animals. To make sure everything is acceptable, you understand?”

Fluttershy stopped. Twilight sighed. Here we go again.

“That seems reasonable,” Fluttershy said. “Can I inspect your ponies?”

Twilight laughed. “So can we—”

“What’s funny?”

Twilight blinked. Fluttershy’s face was as innocent as a baby reaching out to take hold of her mother’s snout for the very first time and as dangerous as a baby with a really strong grip. It still wasn't very threatening, but the notion was there.

“You laughed,” Fluttershy said. “Is something funny?”

“Well,” Twilight waved a hoof as if to dismiss the whole thing, “I asked if I could inspect your animals, and you asked if you could inspect my ponies as if they’re the same….” Twilight trailed off. Her stomach sank. From her side she heard the distinct sound of Spike facehoo—facepalming.

Fluttershy frowned. “Ponies aren’t the same as other animals?”

“Of course they are!” Twilight said. “It’s just that, um, well, uh….” She noticed all the animals in the fence watching her. Not glaring, not muttering to each other, just…watching. “They’re not, uh, with regards to the NGDP Targeting Festival perhaps in exactly the same position. Um. I’m not a speciesist.”

“I never said you were.” Fluttershy paused. “Are you leaving now?”

“I still need to, uh…inspect.”

“Of course. We wouldn’t want to upset any ponies no matter the inconvenience to the equal animals, would we?”

“‘Animals’ is speciesist,” the cow said around a mouthful of cud. “We prefer ’naturally evolved organisms,’ or NEOs.”

“New Earth Order,” the other animals said in unison so rapidly that Twilight wasn’t sure if she had made the whole thing up in her head.

“I’m terribly sorry!” Fluttershy sounded truly pained. “I’ll say ‘naturally evolved organisms’ from now on.”

Twilight realized she was fighting a lost battle, but Princess Celestia herself had tasked Twilight with this job. For better or worse, she would see it through. “You run this sanctuary by yourself?”

“I do,” Fluttershy said. “Which means I’m very busy all the time. Interruptions can make my life so difficult.”

Twilight ignored the passive aggressiveness radiating from Fluttershy like a mother-in-law. “How do you fund it?”

“I saved for years,” Fluttershy sniffed. “Smart, careful investing. Mostly I just bet on the opposite of whatever Rainbow Dash was doing. Now I depend on donations.”

“You know,” Twilight said, “as the Vice Chief Executive Economist of the One Bank of Equestria, I have a number of important contacts in the non-profit sector. I’m sure I might be able to put you in touch….”

The bait was set, but Fluttershy wasn’t biting. If anything, she looked even colder. “Let me guess. Save the Animals? Missing Animals? Animal Trafficking Watch?” Fluttershy sneered. “They don’t care about helping ani—naturally evolved organisms. They just like showing off to their rich friends how much money they have to waste on showing off to their rich friends.”

“They’re very kind ponies,” Twilight protested.

“Kindness isn’t a label you can slap on an organization and consider your work done!” Fluttershy began to tremble. “Kindness takes real work, care, and dedication! It isn’t a game!” Her voice had been steadily rising in pitch and now rose so high the last sentence came out in a squeak.

“So no,” Fluttershy said, “you can’t ‘inspect’ the NEOs. They have every right to eat their dinner without being bothered by stuck-up economists and their oh-so-kind rich friends.”

Twilight knew when enough was enough. Fluttershy was an insurmountable wall when it came to her animals, but they were clearly in the best of care. She could consider this inspected. “Fine, we’re leaving. Sorry to have bothered you. Come on, Spike.”

“Bye!” Spike said.

“Bye, Mr. Baby Dragon!” Fluttershy called. “I can’t wait to see you at the festival. Remember to floss. And stop using that shampoo!”

Spike jogged to catch up with Twilight. “That social interaction went really badly, even for you. And she’s not even a stallion!”

“Not in the mood, Spike.”

“I’m surprised you aren’t more upset.”

Twilight sighed. “It’s been a long day. I just want to go home, take a bath, read a book and not think about missing the festival in Canterlot with Princess Celestia. Besides, in its own way this day has been meaningful to me.”

“What do you mean, Twilight?”

“I met five very different ponies today.” Twilight thought of Pinkie Pie and shuddered. “Very different. And Princess Celestia always taught me that the first rule of economics is that ponies are diverse. The second rule is that you’re underestimating how diverse they truly are.”

“Diverse?”

“Everypony has different wants, goals, and needs. They have different resources, abilities, constraints, knowledge and beliefs. Ponies look the same from afar, but when you get up close you realize just how different neighbors can be. That was demonstrated perhaps too clearly for me today.” She chuckled weakly. “There’s not one economy, Spike, there’s millions.”

“And you just have to accept the individual ponies for who they are?”

“Every time I asked a question like that, Princess Celestia would say that I didn’t have to do anything. But to answer what you’re trying to ask, no, you don’t. Change the world if you want. But the most important thing to remember is that the diversity of ponies is a fact. It won’t go away if you ignore it. It won’t go away even if other ponies are wrong to be the way they are. Princess Celestia always said that relative to its importance, diversity is the most under-appreciated constraint there is.”

“You care a lot about what Princess Celestia says, huh?”

“She’s the best economist in the world, Spike.”

“You’re not bad either.”

“Aww.” Twilight threw a hoof around Spike’s shoulders. “Let’s get the baby into bed. Tomorrow I’ll buy us new shampoo, one for dragons and one for Unicorns.”

“I still want one for big boy dragons.”

“I can’t believe you think I would buy you any other kind.”

General Gluts

Twilight oversaw the setup the morning of the festival. Admittedly, there was little to manage, with Twilight’s role being mostly restricted to trotting around Looking Officially At Things (for who could say that the festival was ready until it had been officially deemed so?), asking questions like “Is this exhibit registered? Have you thought of—oh, you have? Okay, well, make sure to—oh, you’ve done this before. Of course. Sorry. I’ll get out of your way.”

With the Ponyvillians capable of taking things into their own hoofs, Twilight had everything checked off her list by midmorning. She didn’t mind. There was nothing like the feeling of checking things off a list. Sometimes she made lists just so she could check things off of them.

With her time free, she checked out the food stands and the stalls selling various items like model Banks with small parts a filly or colt could glue together and NGDP-controlling magic horns (Twilight tested one and confirmed it was fake—Princess Celestia didn’t manifest with the burning fire of a thousand suns to snuff out the magic. Princess Celestia’s attitude towards interference with the One Bank was far more direct and pointed than in the case of taxation), while other ponies prepared puppet shows, songs and dances.

That left it an hour until noon, when the sun would be at its peak in the sky and Princess Celestia would, well, target the NGDP. The festival was in full swing now. Ponies thronged the field, eating candy apples, wearing pink party hats and admiring the way Rarity had lined up the stalls so their colors made a series of rainbows throughout the field. The petting zoo, despite the lack of official oversight, was overwhelmingly popular. Fluttershy introduced all the colts and fillies to the “naturally evolved organisms” and watched them closely as they fed and petted the odd assortment of creatures she had collected. All of the animals wore black bands around one of their limbs. Had it been that way yesterday too?

Applejack had deployed a small army of relatives to cook and serve all the food. She raced up and down the stands inspecting things, barking orders to her cousins and exchanging how-do’s with everypony there. Pinkie Pie was up on stage performing some kind of vaudeville show, and Twilight spotted Rainbow Dash playing cards at a table with several sunglasses-wearing Pegasi. Everything seemed to be in order. It was no NGDP Targeting Festival like they had back in Canterlot, but this one she had managed. Sort of. It mostly seemed to be managing itself.

Spike waddled over to Twilight hefting a bag of caramel popcorn almost as big as he was. “Twilight, you can relax now and have some fun. Eat something and play one of the games. Princess Celestia won’t be establishing the new money growth target for another hour.”

“I am going to go inside and read something until noon,” Twilight said.

Spike wrapped his tail around her leg and tugged. “Come on, there are water balloons.”

Twilight allowed Spike to lead her away. “I suppose it can’t hurt to have a little fun every now and then. Admittedly, I’d normally prefer to have a lot of fun by reading something, but….”

Two minutes later, Twilight discovered that prodigiously magically powered Unicorns who have been trained since a young age by Equestria’s ruler and foremost Alicorn, Princess Celestia, had something of an advantage when it comes to large-scale water balloon fights. About three seconds after that, Twilight discovered that large-scale water balloon fights were really, really fun.

“That’s what you get for dog-earing books!” she cackled as she magically fired several dozen water balloons at speeds so fast the rubber shell almost split open before impact.

Time passes fast when you're crushing ponies beneath your hoofs. Spike waved urgently to her. “Twilight, it’s 11:55!”

Twilight turned and sprinted for the stage where Rainbow Dash’s screen displayed the economic data. She pushed her way to the front of the crowd and gazed up proudly at the screen. Soon her mentor and the greatest pony in the world, Princess Celestia, would use her magic to guarantee economic order for another year. She felt a pang at the knowledge that the princess hadn’t wanted her protege at her side for the festival, but Twilight saw it as a sign of growing trust. One day, Princess Celestia had hinted, Twilight Sparkle herself would be the occasion of the festival. It was only fitting that she should manage one.

The clock ticked at a torturously normal pace. 11:56…11:57…11:58…11:59…12:00…

12:01. Twilight gasped.

12:02. The ponies began to stir.

12:04. Twilight stepped on stage and levitated a microphone to her mouth. “Excuse me, everypony,” she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. “It appears that Princess Celestia will be delaying the NGDP targeting until this afternoon, so how about that neat puppet show? Uh, Pinkie Pie, has, I believe, uh….”

12:05. Panic broke out.

“We’re all doomed!” A stallion sank to his knees, wailing. “We’re all doo-hoo-hooooomed!”

“No we aren’t!” Twilight shouted above the noise. “Please, everypony stay calm!”

“Yup, we’re doomed,” Applejack said matter-of-factly. “Apple Bloom, get your brother and gather up all the leftover food. Don’t let any go to waste.”

Fluttershy whimpered into the shoulder of one of the band-wearing cows. “There, there, Fluttershy,” the cow said. “Barter is a more natural mode of economic transaction.”

“I am livid!” Pinkie Pie screamed. “I am the CEO and proprietor of Sugarcube Corner, and I pay more than my share of voluntary defense funds! Princess Celestia owes me an explanation!”

“Sacré bleu!” Rarity swooned and fainted, her arm draped artfully across her forehead. No pony noticed, so after a minute she got up and did it again.

“Yes!” Rainbow Dash squealed. “I bet a thousand bits at sick odds that Princess Celestia wouldn’t show! I’m rich!”

“Ponies, please be calm!” Twilight struggled to be heard above the noise and pandemonium. “There is nothing to worry about!”

If you’re wondering what the ponies of Ponyville were worried about, consider an economy in general equilibrium. That’s an important term. Write it down.

An economy is a system where ponies buy and sell goods and services. Producing and selling something on the market is hard work. It’s risky and takes effort, so ponies don’t do it for fun. They only sell goods on the market so that they can buy goods on the market. Applejack, for example, makes and sells apples and apple products in exchange for clothes to wear equipment for her farm, and a hundred other things that she wants. All the ponies that make and sell clothes, equipment, and a hundred other things do so because they themselves have innumerable wants that can only be satisfied on the marketplace. Everypony convinces other ponies to do them favors by doing them favors in anticipation of their own needs.

What this means is that everything that is sold on the marketplace is sold only in the expectation of being able to purchase something else. When expectations are accurate, no good is sold on the market without its corresponding purchase-good also being sold on the market. Thus there is a balance, a harmony, an equilibrium among all production and trade, with every good accounting for and being accounted for some other good.

In short, everything bought is paid for by everything sold, and particular things bought are paid for by particular things sold.

Let’s look at an example. Say that Applejack trades apples for Orange Blossom’s oranges (if Applejack will forgive the slander). Now, ponies are not all-knowing, perfect calculators, and sometimes they make mistakes, producing a good for sale in the false expectation its corresponding purchase-good will come into existence. Sometimes, Applejack makes more apples than Orange Blossom wants to buy—Twilight would call this an excess supply of apples. But recall that all ponies produce only in the expectation that they can buy! So if Applejack produces more apples than Orange Blossom wants to buy, then Applejack cannot buy as many oranges as she intended! This shows that an excess supply in one sector must, must be balanced by an excess demand in another sector.

Neither Applejack nor Orange Blossom are pleased with this situation. In order to salvage what they can, Applejack will adjust the exchange ratio: she will offer more apples for each orange until all the apples and oranges are bought-and-sold. Recall that the apples and the oranges both are supplied in the first place only to be sold, and it, ahem, behooves neither Applejack nor Orange Blossom to hold onto any of their fruit. The exchange ratio will adjust until the market for both apples and oranges clears, that is to say, when there is no fruit left over and no excess supply and no excess demand

This harmony is called Say’s Law, named after its discoverer, the famous Unicorn Sunday Sayonara. It shows the impossibility of a general glut in the economy, as a surplus in one sector must be balanced by a shortage in another. This is a good thing. A general glut is one in which all the fruit lies spoiled and uneaten on the ground. The factories are empty. The machines are still. Nopony works the land. Everything is for sale, but nopony is buying….

This holds true until we introduce money. Money is amazing. It makes trade so much easier. Remember how Applejack sometimes sells apples so she can buy farm equipment? Imagine if she could only buy plows and tractors and so on when the plow-and-tractor makers were hungry for apples, and imagine if they could only buy apples when Applejack wanted new equipment! It would be a very rare double coincidence for any trade to occur. More often, Applejack wouldn’t get the tools she needs to run her business, and the employees of Farm Equipment Incorporated would hunger endlessly for a bite of her family’s famous apple pie.

The marvel known as money allows our dear ponies to circumvent this problem. With money, Applejack can sell her wares not just to the ponies who have something to sell to her but rather to anypony who wants them. In turn, Applejack can take the money and buy from whomever she wants, not just the ponies who are hungry for apples. For all the trenchant critiques from the radical New Earth Order movement, money is a necessity to any economy larger than a small village.

But money has a hidden downside. Recall again our beautiful general equilibrium, the marketplace where gluts are local and quickly resolved, for one good is always balanced by another. But this was achieved by the adjustment of exchange ratios. Now there are no exchange ratios between goods per se. Rather, there are exchange ratios between goods and money, which are called prices.

Let’s return to our good friend Applejack as she is trying to sell her apples for oranges on the market. This time, she and Orange Blossom trade with money. In the previous example, Applejack and Orange Blossom dealt with their excess fruit by adjusting the exchange ratio at which they traded their wares. Now they do it by adjusting the prices, measured in bits, at which they sell their goods. Usually this works even better than in the previous situation because a third and fourth and fifth and thousandth trader can enter this system without interrupting the process of exchange.

But this introduces a new possibility. Money isn’t simply a metric of exchange ratios. It is also something valuable in itself, something that allows ponies to sell without an immediate need to buy, and to buy without something available for sale. Ponies will want money. They will demand money. And so just like anything else for which there is a demand, there could be an excess demand for money. What happens then?

As ever, an excess demand in one market is balanced by excess supply in another. In the barter market where apples are used to buy oranges and oranges are used to buy apples, then an excess demand for oranges implies an excess supply of apples and vice-versa. However, in a monetary economy, where bits are used to buy all possible goods, and all possible goods can be exchanged for money, then an excess demand for money implies an excess supply of all goods.

The glut of apples in the barter economy between Applejack and Orange Blossom was resolved by the adjustment of exchange ratios. But this works because there is nothing to do with apples other than sell them or eat them. So Applejack will either eat her excess of apples, solving the problem, or she will offer more of them to Orange Blossom per orange until she has bought all of the oranges that she wants.

But the reason that Orange Blossom will allow her oranges to be sold for an increasingly high amount of apples is because there is also nothing to do with oranges other than to sell them or eat them. One way or another, the excess demand for oranges will be resolved in the exact same way as the excess supply of apples.

But money is worth holding on to. It can act as a store of value. It is worth building up a reserve of them. So if you have a supply of money that is balancing the demand for goods and services, and that supply falls, then the demand for goods and services is no longer being balanced. Ponies like Applejack and Orange Blossom will have to accept fewer bits in exchange for the same number of apples and oranges respectively. This means a single bit buys more goods and services than it used to do…which means that ponies will want to acquire more money, which can only be done by selling goods. But the ponies they are selling to will be less willing to part with their money because it is more valuable now! Prices will have to go down, incomes are reduced, and bits are more and more valuable….

Now what happens to the products on the market, sold for dirt cheap to ponies who cannot afford to spend their bits at any price?

Nothing. Nothing happens to them. They sit there unnoticed and unused. No pony buys them because they don’t have enough money.

And you have a general glut. Or, in colloquial terms, a recession.

Money! Brilliant, terrible money! A general glut, an excess supply of all the goods in a market is impossible in the absence of money. But with money, rare though it is, an excess supply of all goods can be balanced by an excess demand for money.

For a thousand years Princess Celestia has prevented general gluts by adjusting the money supply to match the market’s forecast for its own monetary needs. She uses her magic and wisdom to ensure that the supply of money is high enough that there is no excess demand for it and therefore no excess supply of goods in general on the market.

Only Alicorns can live long enough to remember the time before Princess Celestia and the Bank. To the rest of the population of Equestria, general gluts, the dreaded recessions of yore, are only a distant nightmare….

The mare is the color of the night sky. She is not black in the sense of absorbing all light but black because light does not dare touch her; she is the color of the empty, uncaring void that surrounds our small and insignificant planet. Her wings spread out behind her like the cloak of Death. Her horn is as long and sharp as a dragon’s tooth. On her flank sits the symbol of a crescent moon, and she towers over the equines assembled at the festival exactly like a goddess among ponies.

Twilight’s mind turned to fuzz at the sight of the dread apparition walking across the stage. This was completely impossible, her brain reasoned, and so, its logic went, this wasn’t happening. There. Problem solved.

The dark mare’s hoofs clicked across the stage. Twilight’s brain snapped back into reality. This was happening. The problem was, she couldn’t do a thing about it.

“Hi!” Pinkie Pie waved a hoof. “My name is Pinkie Pie! Who’re you?”

The Alicorn faced the crowd of ponies.

“I am the Mare in the Moon. I am the legend mothers whisper to their colts and fillies to scare them into bed. I am the darkness, the night, the glut to end all gluts. I am the Defeater of Discord, the Moon-Raiser, the Imprisoned Sister, the Betrayed and Forgotten, but I never forgot, for I AM NIGHTMARE MOON!” With this last declaration came a burst of power that amplified her voice a hundred fold. Ponies reared back in shock and fright.

“Neat!” Pinkie Pie said. “Want to bake cupmmph!”

Applejack withdrew her hoof from the pink pony’s mouth. “Not right now, Pinkie.”

Nightmare Moon regarded the crowd. “I seek your economist, mortal ponies.”

“I’m right here,” Twilight said as bravely as she could. This was braver than she would have expected, as reality was slow in dawning. So was, quite possibly, the dawn. “What have you done to Princess Celestia?”

“Only the same she did to me,” Nightmare Moon said. “I locked her in the sun for a thousand years. What can I say? I’ve always looked up to my big sister as a role model.”

“C-Could you let her out, please?”

“No. Oh, that reminds me. I believe your dear princess was supposed to do something about the money supply? Well, I’ve decided to tighten it.” She held a hoof to her chest. “I’m simply worried about inflation.” Her voice oozed with mocking self-righteousness.

“The economy needs more money, not less,” Twilight gasped. “If you shrink the money supply too much you’ll create a recession….”

Nightmare Moon smiled.

“What’s a recession?” one pony asked.

“It means no pony can buy anything because no pony can sell anything because no pony can buy anything,” said Applejack. Such things were written of in ancient Apple texts.

“Uh. Is that bad?”

“Eeyup.”

The ponies panicked.

“Silence,” Nightmare Moon spake.

The ponies were silent.

The dark Alicorn turned to Twilight. “Princess Celestia hid you well. It took me almost ten minutes to find you since she scrubbed your name from the magical records. Still, even I eventually stooped to simply asking a pony on the street. They were all too quick to betray you.”

“I…didn’t make many friends,” Twilight said.

“Economists don’t need them.” Nightmare Moon walked toward her and past, circling Twilight like a hawk stalking a mouse. “But where are your wings? Ha! Only a Unicorn? My sister wanted six of us, and it looks like she only managed two and a half!”

“I’m proud to be only a Unicorn,” Twilight said. “What do you want?”

“To destroy everything my sister created and rule over the vast emptiness for eternity.” Nighmare Moon walked back to the center of the stage. “And that means ending the last of the economists.”

Twilight concentrated. A magical glow surrounded her horn. “Try me.”

Nightmare Moon laughed. It was the sound of a scythe running across a whetstone. “I defeated Celestia. An Alicorn. What can you do?”

“I can teleport.”

“What—”

Twilight vanished in a flash of light and reappeared on the other side of the crowd of ponies. She sprinted away as fast as a terrified pony can, which is pretty fast, but Nightmare Moon sent only her laughter in chase.

Twilight ran and ran through the dirt roads of Ponyville. She wasn’t thinking about where she was going, and so her legs took her home. Her brain had more important things to worry about, like the imprisonment of Celestia, the return of Nightmare Moon, and the prospect of a thousand years of bad monetary policy.

She needed help. She needed somepony she could turn to for trust, guidance and aid.

That pony had always been Princess Celestia. Twilight couldn’t run as fast for some reason when she was thinking about her teacher.

New plan. What did she turn to when the princess was busy?

Books. And by some coincidence, she had ended up back at the tree-shaped house Princess Celestia had acquired for her and Spike. Good job, legs.

Twilight burst inside and summoned a hundred books to her with her horn. The answer had to be here somewhere. She flipped through page after page, looking for something that she already knew didn’t exist. She thrust wildly aside an exposition on Banking by Princess Celestia—she couldn’t stop, couldn’t think—

Stop. Think. What was the threat Nightmare Moon posed? Disharmony, disorder, an evil economic equilibrium of doom. Twilight just needed to find a way to create a better equilibrium. And how did equilibrium come about? What were the…

“The Elements of Equilibrium!” Twilight shouted. “Of course!” She summoned the entire ‘E’ section to her, hoping, praying….

“You bore me,” said the voice of Nightmare Moon. Twilight jumped, nearly losing hold of the storm of books that surrounded her as she turned to face the dark mare.

“It’s impolite to enter without knocking,” Twilight said. She needed to stall for time while her search spell found the reference.

“You were muttering, ‘Princess princess princess,’ under your breath,” Nightmare Moon said. “You’re pathetic. My sister was only ever a tyrant.”

“You’re wrong,” Twilight said. Just a little longer. “Princess Celestia used the Bank for the good of all.”

“Yes, and so will I.”

“Liar.”

“Yes. Now die.”

Twilight teleported outside and charged blindly forward, levitating the one book she needed. She ran right into Nightmare Moon’s leg and stumbled back, dazed.

“Why would I let you do that twice?” Nightmare Moon seemed bemused. “What could you possibly be thinking?”

“That I’m going to be rich!” A physical rainbow hit Twilight from the side, carrying her down the street. “I’ve got you,” Rainbow Dash said. “You’re an economist, right? Can you fix this?”

Twilight tried not to think about how fast her body was currently moving. “I-I might have an idea!”

“Good, because I’m filthy rich and I need there to be an economy so I can get paid!”

A dark glow surrounded the both of them. Nightmare Moon didn’t even seem bothered as she pulled them toward her while they struggled helplessly against her magic

Nightmare Moon set them down before her and released her spell. Twilight concentrated magic in her horn to teleport again, but Nightmare Moon spoke. “What’s this about being able to stop me?” She sounded amused.

“Twilight Sprinkle is going to kick your butt so I can be rich!” Rainbow Dash said.

“It’s Twilight Sparkle, and there’s one thing you’ve forgotten, Mare in the Moon. Princess Cadance will stop you!”

“Who? I put Celestia in the sun.” Nightmare Moon sounded like she was talking to a child. “What do you not understand about this? No, that was not your plan.” She levitated the book out of Twilight’s grasp effortlessly. The pages opened and turned before her even faster than Rainbow Dash had gone through her own stack of papers.

“Ah,” Nightmare Moon said after too short a time. “The Elements of Equilibrium. Of course. That might do it. Thank you for warning me.”

Twilight tried to smile. “Princess Celestia knew you were coming. She left us a weapon so that we could defeat you even after she was gone!”

“Actually, it says here that the elements are kept in her castle.” Nightmare Moon laughed. “My poor sister must be growing senile to have sent her best economist halfway across the land and far away from her precious Elements of Equilibrium!”

“That’s what you think,” Twilight said. All she could do was bluff. “But Princess Celestia knew this day would come, and she has a plan to save Equestria even now.”

Nightmare Moon sighed. “For an economist, you don’t seem to understand self-interest at all. Grovel before me, and I might spare your life.”

Twilight lifted her chin. “There is more to life than economics.” Internally, she winced. Had she really just said that?

“Indeed,” the horrible horse mused. “Like utterly crushing your sister’s dreams. Very well!” Her voice clapped like a thunderbolt as her power fomented. A whirlwind of darkness and cold surrounded them. It howled like a wolf gazing at the moon.

“What’s going on, Twilight?” Rainbow Dash cried, clutching at the Unicorn.

“I-I don’t know!” Twilight shouted, tactfully trying to free herself from the Pegasus’s grasp.

The power faded. “I have summoned the Elements here,” Nightmare Moon said. “As the money supply tightens like a noose around Equestria, so the rope of my mercy tightens around your neck. Five tests I offer you, one for each Element of Equilibrium! Each will destroy an aspect of your pathetic economics, each will break you as I have broken my sister. Your mind in pieces and your heart full of hope, you will crawl into the chamber of my castle, hoping for the Elements, for the return of your savior, and you will find that they do not work for you.”

“I accept,” Twilight said. It was clearly a better deal than dying and letting Equestria be forever doomed. Adding a choice to her choice set could only make her better off…right?

“It is done. Face your fate in the Everfree Forest if you dare! HA HA HA HA HA!” With a clap of thunder and a flash of darkness, Nightmare Moon vanished along with the book, leaving only her laughter behind.

“Whoa.” Rainbow Dash wiped the sweat off her brow. “Glad she’s gone.”

“Rainbow Dash! Twilight Sparkle!” Pinkie Pie, Applejack with Spike on her back, Rarity, and Fluttershy appeared around the corner, running full tilt.

“You can’t fly ahead so fast, Rainbow Dash,” Applejack panted when they got near. “Who knows what that Nightmare Moon could have done?”

“Yeah, we’ve got to beat her up together,” Pinkie Pie snarled. “No pony threatens our friendship and gets away with it.”

“She’s after the economy,” Twilight said.

“That’s what I said.”

Twilight shook her head. “I don’t have time for this. I have to stop Nightmare Moon and save Equestria!”

“And we’re going with you,” Rarity said in a regal voice that brooked no disagreement.

Fluttershy nodded. “If there’s no money left, how will I take care of all my animal friends? I mean, my NEOs.”

“No use sharing our secret apple-baking methods with all our friends if Sweet Apple Acres don’t exist,” Applejack said.

“I can’t impress my friends will the latest fashion if I can’t afford new clothes,” Rarity said.

“How will I make all my friends smile with cake and balloons if there’s no market for them?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“And I can’t make friends with the whole world if there’s no stock exchange to play with them,” Rainbow Dash said.

“See?” Pinkie Pie hopped in a circle. “It is about friendship after all!”

Twilight sighed. “Fine, you can come. I might need help anyway. Economists never turn down a division of the labor, especially when the opponent is a magically super powerful Alicorn nightmare who’s about to destroy the economy. That’s in one of my books. Well. The first part is.”

“I’ll come too.” Spike jumped off of Applejack’s back. “Nightmare Moon is actually messing with my friend.”

“No, Spike.” Twilight sank to her haunches, bringing her eyes level with his. “I need you to stay here and guard the library. If I don’t come back, you will be Equestria’s economist.”

“What about Trixie?”

“DON’T TALK TO ME ABOUT THAT MARE! She was probably the one who ratted me out to Nightmare Moon. Or it was Twinkleshine, that—”

“Let’s defeat Nightmare Moon and become filthy rich!” Rainbow Dash stuck her hoof out. One by one the other ponies placed their hoofs on top of hers. They looked at Twilight expectantly.

“Nope,” Twilight said. “Not doing that.”

Applejack's Test: Trust

The five friends and Twilight Sparkle set out toward the Everfree Forest. It didn’t take long for Twilight to suspect that Nightmare Moon’s real plan was to saddle her with five crazy ponies and slowly drive her insane.

Rainbow Dash flew alongside her. “I can’t believe we need to adventure through the Everfree Forest, gather the Five Elements of Equilibrium and defeat Nightmare Moon to save the economy!”

“Thank you for the summary,” Twilight sighed.

“And all before dinner!”

Twilight frowned. “What?”

“I promised Scootaloo I would be home for dinner,” Rainbow Dash said. She wore a smug grin. “What, did nopony else think of that?”

Twilight flushed red. “We are going on a dangerous mission!”

“And the more dangerous the mission, the cooler I look making that promise,” Rainbow Dash said. “It’s called incentives. I read about it in some lame book about investing that didn't even have any good tips. Do you even know anything about economics?”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. Rarity sauntered past them.

“Now, now, Rainbow Dash,” she said. “Our dear economist probably never had the opportunity to apply her knowledge to the real world before. I am sure this is all very educational to her.”

Twilight gritted her teeth. “Yeah, textbook models are missing the part where evil Alicorns come back from the Moon and threaten to destroy the world’s economy if you can’t gather the Elements of Equilibrium in time.”

“We all gotta learn at some point,” Applejack said. Apparently sarcasm was new to Ponyville. “You should write a better textbook when you get back, one with all the real world stuff in it.”

“I’ll help!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

“NO! I mean…no. Just no.”

Twilight kept walking and tried not to think about all of the dead weight that insisted on accompanying her. Instead, she thought about the Everfree Forest.

The Everfree Forest existed about ten miles south of Ponyville—not much distance for a pony, especially one who exercised as regularly as Twilight (Twilight did everything regularly or not at all). Although, as Twilight understood it, the Everfree Forest had once covered Ponyville and, well, everything. It had been waiting for the Alicorns after the end of the thousand-year winter, and it had been full of surprises.

A gnarled tangle of black thorns that once stretched across Equestria like Twilight’s hair across her pillow in the morning, the Everfree Forest was as magical as it was thoroughly hostile to pony life. It had been up to the Two Alicorns—for the Third had not yet ascended—to stride forth, wielding the twin magicks of the sun and the moon to drive back the murderous weeds. Grass grew and flowers bloomed where the Everfree Forest gave way. Ponies fed themselves on hay and oats and left plenty for the bunnies and mice. Hummingbirds and bees worked together to spread flowers across the fields.

The Everfree Forest fought like a cat, sharp and biting from every angle, but the Diarchs could not be overcome—not until the Draconequus at its center revealed itself, but that was temporary and hardly worth mentioning. The Sisters shrunk the forest to a fraction of its size and sealed it off outside of what became Ponyville.

Perhaps, Twilight mused, some of its latent magic seeped through the ground into Applejack’s apple trees, and that was why the ponies here were so crazy.

This had all taken place over a thousand years ago. There were few reliable texts on the subject in the Canterlot library. Twilight’s information came straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.

Twilight had never been in the Everfree Forest. That dubious privilege was reserved for Princess Celestia. Rumor had it that she sent misbehaving students at the Canterlot School for Gifted Unicorns into the forest as a detention. It struck Twilight as wildly implausible, but since she had never received a single detention, she had never had the opportunity to find out for herself.

And now she was venturing into the Everfree Forest where Nightmare Moon waited with her five traps set, the fate of Equestria riding on her shoulders, and all she could think about was that they were br—br—breaking rules.

Pinkie Pie poked her head into Twilight’s expositional narrative. "Wow, you got really sweaty all of a sudden! Like, really sweaty—”

Twilight pushed her out. Princess Celestia herself was in trouble. They were allowed to br—breeaaa—the Princess would understand. She would.

Rules were not all that barred ponies from entering the forest. After defeating the Draconequus, the Diarchs set a guardian at the entrance to the forest to scare away nosy, inquisitive, or just plain foolish ponies. Twilight tried to remember what it was.

Imagine a dog. Bigger. Bigger, about the size of a house. Give it three heads. That’s all there is to the Cerberus. As monsters go, it is rather unimaginative.

As dull and plain a guardian the Cerberus is, the few ponies nosy, inquisitive, or just plain foolish enough to have stood in front of it tended to think less about its literary merits and more about the fact that each head has a mouth wide enough to swallow a pony whole, with teeth sharp enough to puncture metal armor and paws heavy enough to mangle a pony with a single swipe. Only a collar attached to a leash made of vine empowered by the moon and sun that stretched out of the shadow of the forest kept the Cerberus from rampaging, a leash that Twilight was relieved to see still bound the monster even as she kicked herself for not thinking of it sooner. This could have been a very short adventure if not for Nightmare Moon's mercy.

The Cerberus lunged forward, straining at its collar. It snarled and swiped its paws at the six ponies just out of reach. They yelled in alarm and reared back. Twilight readied her horn, and the Cerberus began to speak.

“Who would enter the Everfree Forest must honestly answer me these questions three,” the Cerberus said in a deep, rumbling voice, “‘ere the other side you see.”

The magic around Twilight’s horn fizzled out. “What?”

“You have to answer three questions truthfully if you want to go in, or I’ll eat you.”

“No, that’s a sphinx!” Twilight said in terror. “You’ve got your mythological beasts mixed up.”

“What’s wrong with her?” the Cerberus said.

“Too many books,” Rainbow Dash answered. Twilight ran the phrase “too many books” through her mind and found that it didn’t parse.

“Shh, shh,” the Cerberus said. It put one toe of one paw over one mouth, another toe from a second paw over a second mouth, and its tail curled up over the third mouth, a strange shushing gesture. “I am the Cerberus, I’m stuck here 24/7, if you hadn’t noticed, and if I want to play a game to liven things up, I jolly well don’t want to hear any complaints. Now who is willing to face my questions?”

Applejack stepped forward. “I am if you’re willing to shake hoofs, or paws, on the deal.”

The three heads of the Cerberus all laughed. “What is a hoofshake to you?”

“It’s dealmaking,” said Applejack. “I never go back on a deal, and if you deal with me, then neither will you.”

Twilight winced. “Applejack, could you let me come up with a plan first?”

“She has chosen to play the game," the Cerberus said. "She must answer or forfeit. Forfeit or answer any questions wrong, and the vine leash that binds me here will become as flexible as it needs to.”

“I got trees too,” said Applejack quietly. “And I don’t know where their roots end.”

“I’ve never known any pony more honest than Applejack,” Rarity said. She sounded confident, but her face looked even whiter than usual. “She can answer the monster’s questions.”

“But it could be lying,” Twilight said

Applejack moved closer to the Cerberus and held up her hoof. “You gonna shake on it? If I answer your three questions honestly, you let me and my friends through. Otherwise, I’ll play my part in filling up that big belly of yours.”

The Cerberus regarded the orange pony walking toward it, then shook her hoof with a paw bigger than the pony was.

“Oh, good, well that just settles everything,” Twilight said with the sarcastic tone that her kind tended to adopt as an alternative to terrified squeaking. She leaned over to Rainbow Dash and whispered in her ear, “I’m ready with a magical blast from my horn any time. Be prepared to swoop in and grab Applejack.” Rainbow Dash nodded.

All three of the massive dog’s black heads studied Applejack. The leftmost one spoke. “What is your name?”

Applejack tipped her hat. “I’m Applejack. I’m in charge of the operations up at Sweet Apple Acres, not that that’s part of your question, but it is true, and I never miss a chance to mention our brand.”

The rightmost head spoke. “What is your quest?”

“To seek the Five Elements of Equilibrium and defeat Nightmare Moon.”

The middle head asked its question. “What is the square root of five hundred and forty-six?”

“Mistakes ain’t the same as being dishonest,” Applejack said.

“It’s a test of honesty and diligence,” the Cerberus answered quickly. “Who can say that you shouldn’t have learned math? That’s not one of the questions.”

“Applejack!” Twilight said, who knew a few heuristics for these problems. “The answer is twenty-three point three six six six four two eight nine one zero nine!”

“Is that right?” Pinkie Pie asked. "Can we ever really know what truth is, or are we all merely gazing at shadows on the walls of a deep cave?"

“Yes, yes, no.”

“I trust Twilight." Applejack smiled up at the three drooling heads of the monster. “Negligence? Listen, sugarcube, I’ve got friends. I can’t do everything, but where I am weak, they are strong.”

“We’re not friends!” Twilight felt a need to clarify that. “Anyway, it’s called the law of comparative advantage—ponies are better off specializing in a few things and cooperating with other ponies who are specialized in different things than trying to be a jack-of-all-trades.”

“Thank you, Twilight, and you too, Mr. Three Heads, for doing your duty,” Applejack said. She repeated Twilight’s answer.

“All right!” Rainbow Dash cheered. “Now we can enter the forest!”

But the Cerberus didn’t step aside. “No pony ever gets that,” it said. “I want a fourth question.”

“That’s not fair!” Twilight shouted. “You’re cheating.”

“He’s only cheating a little, Twilight,” Applejack said. “It’s all right if he only cheats a little.”

Twilight stared at the insane pony. "What?"

The three heads spoke. “What’s—”

“My—”

“Name?”

Applejack looked at the group of mortified ponies behind her. “I’m stumped. Y’all got any guesses?”

“One wrong guess and this leash of mine becomes very slack,” the Cerberus said. “Ponies run so slowly.”

“I…I don’t know!” Twilight rifled through her internal library, but nothing came up. The Cerberus didn’t have a…oh! “It’s a trick question! It doesn’t have a name!”

“You don’t have a name,” Applejack said.

The three heads smiled. “Wrong.”

It stepped forward. The leash of vine stretched. Somepony screamed—probably Rarity—and Twilight nearly burnt out her horn trying to teleport and fire a blast at the same time. Even Rainbow Dash was barely a rainbow streak in the air when Applejack held out her hoof.

“Hold your horses. You cheated a little. I want to cheat a little too.”

To Twilight’s surprise, the Cerberus stopped. Great drops of smelly drool splashed around Applejack’s hoofs. “Go on.”

“I answered three of your questions, and so my friends deserve their passage through,” Applejack said. “That’s the honest truth and you know it. Now, I reckon it’s also true I didn’t answer your fourth question, but as I see it that’s on me and not them. You can eat me if you like, but fair’s fair. Let them pass.”

“Applejack, no!” Rainbow Dash was at her friend’s side in an instant. “You’re not sacrificing yourself!”

“I agreed to answer his questions or fill up his stomach, and I always fulfill my obligations,” Applejack said. “But I reckon you ponies need me, so I don’t plan on being et just now.” She took off her hat and placed it on the ground in front of the giant dog, who sniffed at it with three sets of nostrils.

Applejack didn't lean away. "This is my hat. My grandmother wore it when she ran Sweet Apple Acres, and her grandmother wore it when she ran Sweet Apple Acres. I will come back for it, and then you can eat me if you want. Think of it as, uh…Twilight?”

Twilight started. “Huh?”

“What’s the word for a sort of thing that you give a feller so as he allows you’re probably coming back?”

“Collateral,” Twilight said automatically.

“Right, that. So take my hat, and when we’re done saving Equestria, I’ll come back so we can finish our business.” Applejack looked the middle head in the eyes. “I trusted you. Now you’ve got to trust me.”

The Cerberus growled angrily. “No! No! No! I, I, I want to eat-eat-eat now!”

Twilight flinched. Even from this far away, they were getting splattered by drool from the Cerberus’s mouth.

“Excuse me,” said the Cerberus then in a soft, female voice. “But if you don’t let her go, I’ll destroy you. Um, but I hope we can still be friends.”

Twilight blinked. What was happening?

“Fluttershy!” Rarity said. “What are you doing on the monster’s head?”

Now Twilight saw the yellow Pegasus barely visible among the thick knotted fur on the middle head’s scalp. She wondered if it was worth trying to save her. She wondered if she could.

Rainbow Dash appeared in front of Fluttershy, who let out a sad little scream at the sudden sight of her fast-moving friend.

“Fluttershy, what are you doing up here?”

“Well,” Fluttershy said, nervous at being the center of attention, “I had never seen a doggy-woggy this big before, so I just had to find out more about her. While you all were busy I was smoothing out the worst of the tangles in her fur and inspecting her skin. She has a very bad case of fleas!”

“She?”

Fluttershy nodded. “I’m sure she's really a very sweet doggy.”

“Doggy?” Rainbow Dash squeezed Fluttershy’s cheeks exasperatedly. “It’s a giant killer monster!”

Fluttershy directed her quiet voice to the nearest humongous ear. “I’m sure she didn’t mean that. But, um, I do have something to say.” She trotted over to the ear, which twitched and perked up. Twilight guessed this didn’t happen very often to the fearsome Cerberus.

“I bet you don’t eat regularly," Fluttershy said. “Poor doggy. Somepony ought to feed you a steak. In fact, if you eat my friend now, I’ll come back with a steak. A nice, big, juicy red steak.” The ear twitched again. Drool flooded out of the Cerberus’s three mouths like a stomach acid waterfall.

“But this will be a special steak,” Fluttershy continued. “It will have something funny in it. It will make you feel funny. Not in a good way. I’m telling you this now, but you won’t be able to resist, will you? A big, hungry dog like you? No, you’ll eat the steak, and the next one too, and the one after that. Each one will have something different. Each one will be worse.

“Maybe you won’t eat the next steak. But I’ll leave it there and come back with another one the day after. How long can you resist the smell of fresh, juicy steak? How long before the urge to rip into the tender, meaty flesh overwhelms you? You’ll whine, you’ll growl, you’ll tug at your collar and scratch at the ground, trying to distract yourself, to fight the desire, but you’ll lose. You’ll eat the steak. And guess what? It will be a normal, delicious steak.

“Now you don’t know what to think. Each steak hurts you, but you can’t stop eating them. When you try, you remember the one from before, the one that was just an ordinary steak, and then you give in again. Every day is torture. Soon you learn to fear the sound of my wings. You hate the smell of meat. You bite the inside of your mouth to keep from eating. You bleed, and you still eat.

“One day, I bring you a particularly special steak. I tell you this. You know, and you eat it anyway. You’re glad. You’re happy it’s over. This one doesn’t hurt you at all. It puts you to sleep, a nice, gentle sleep. And the next day, Princess Celestia has to find a new guardian for the Everfree Forest.

“Applejack made a promise, and I’m making one too. Let her through…or I come back.”

It took a full minute before Twilight noticed her open mouth was aching. Everypony else was similarly affected, even the Cerberus, whose saliva had dried up in the wake of Fluttershy’s speech.

Slowly, carefully, the Cerberus plucked Applejack’s cowpony hat from the ground gingerly with its—her claws and placed it on her middle head. “Please—go. Even you, the answerer, I trust you to return. Take the yellow one and go.”

“Oh, that look is so not you!” Rarity exclaimed.

Everypony stared at her.

“What? That was terrifying!”

“Excuse me, but I’d like to come down now,” Fluttershy said.

Rainbow Dash slapped her on the back, eliciting an “Ow” from her fellow Pegasus. “That was awesome! Remind me never to get on your bad side. Need help?” Fluttershy nodded mutely, and Rainbow Dash carried her down.

Fluttershy was a Pegasus who was scared of heights but faced down a Cerberus like it was nothing. Twilight wasn’t sure what to make of that.

When she had deposited Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash jabbed Applejack in the chest. “Never do that again. We’re not letting you sacrifice yourself no matter what!”

Applejack smiled weakly. “You’re sweeter than an apple, but I always keep my promises. We’ll be heading on through now, Ms. I-Don't-Know-Your-Name.”

The guardian beast stepped aside. Surrounding Applejack on all sides, the ponies walked through the narrow opening between the black bramble and sharp thorn and were swallowed by the darkness.

Pinkie Pie's Test: Uncertainty

Twilight cast a magical light from her horn. “Nightmare Moon said there would be five tests. I think we just passed the first one.”

In the lavender glow of Twilight’s magic, the forest felt almost warm…until the ponies looked past the fifteen feet or so of light to the dense darkness beyond. The canopy was so thick it cast the forest entirely in shadow. Twilight Sparkle’s magic was the only light the ponies had. Instinctively they bunched closer together.

After several minutes it became clear that no pony wanted to start moving through the forest. Applejack cleared her throat.

“Here’s a puzzler.” She looked younger without her hat on. “Why’s Nightmare Moon giving us the chance to beat her? Don’t make a lick of sense.”

“She wants to plunge Equestria’s economy into eternal recession,” Twilight said. “I don’t think she cares much about sense.”

“She likes playing games,” Rainbow Dash said, hovering nearby. “I know the feeling.”

“Maybe she’s just being nice,” Fluttershy whispered.

“It’s a regal gesture,” Rarity said knowingly. “She has to give us a sporting chance. It’s in the rules somewhere, I’m sure.”

“I bet ol’ Nightmare Meanie just wants to be friends deep down,” Pinkie Pie said.

“Yeah…probably not that,” Twilight said. “Can we chalk it up to evil insanity and move on? I don’t think it matters.”

“Just a minute now, y’all,” Applejack said. “We can’t go off half-cocked. Remember how Nightmare Moon kept talking about her sister, Princess Celestia?”

“Well, Princess Celestia did lock her in the moon for a thousand years the last time Nightmare Moon tried something like this,” Twilight said. “She’s probably upset.”

“And Princess Celestia kept the money supply growing with the numbered garish domicile project,” Applejack said. Twilight winced at the way she butchered nominal gross domestic product. “Now Nightmare Moon is undoing that.”

“And she reversed the same punishment Princess Celestia inflicted on her and took her throne,” Twilight said. “Clearly she has a sister complex.”

Something changed in Rarity’s expression. “But don’t you see, Twilight? What remains of Princess Celestia’s legacy is you.”

Twilight blushed. “What?”

“Nightmare Moon has her sister’s throne and her sister’s Bank,” Rarity said. “She doesn’t have her sister's protégé.”

“If that Alicorn wanted to end this, it’d be over as fast and as sure as a rattlesnake bite,” Applejack said. “So she wants you for something. Maybe she wants you to be hers the way you were Celestia’s. A…dark economist.”

There was a pause.

“Cooool,” Rainbow Dash said.

“That’s Princess Celestia,” Twilight said. “Anyway, I would never become Nightmare Moon’s ‘dark’ economist.”

“Princess Celestia probably never reckoned she’d see the inside of the sun,” Applejack countered.

Twilight didn’t have an answer to that.

She shivered. The temperature in the forest felt like it was dropping, and the light of her horn seemed dim. The thorns looked sharper, longer, and not where they were a few minutes ago. The Everfree Forest was a magical forest, and one that hated ponies….

“We should keep moving.” Twilight peered her eyes, trying to see the dark path ahead. Her magical light didn’t penetrate far, and the trees and bush narrowed before them. “We’ll have to go single file. I’ll take the lead since I’ve got the light.” But instead of walking forward, she turned to the other ponies. “Everypony okay with that?”

“I’ll go first,” Rainbow Dash said, “since I’m the fastest.”

“I’ll go first,” Applejack said, “since I’m the strongest.”

“I’ll go first,” Rarity said, “since I’m the most beautiful.”

“Rarity," Twilight sighed, "out of all the irrelevant criteria yet presented, that is the most irrelevant,”

“Nonsense.” Rarity tossed her hair, which didn’t work half as well in Twilight’s weak light. “Can you imagine any monster harming me?”

“I’ll go in the middle,” Fluttershy whispered, “since, um, no pony is listening.”

“Girls, is anypony else here trained in economics?” Twilight paused. “Didn’t think so. I’ll take the lead.”

Rainbow Dash jabbed her hoof in Twilight’s direction. “I said I’m taking the lead! Doing awesome stuff is sort of my thing.”

“I should be in front,” Applejack said. “Worst case scenario is that the Cerberus doesn’t get to eat me.”

“No!” Twilight flared her horn’s light. “I’m taking the lead, and that’s final.”

“I’m taking the lead,” Pinkie Pie said, “because I’m already going.” She trotted off into the blackness.

Twilight and the others stared as Pinkie Pie was swallowed by the shadows.

“W-Wait up!” Twilight raced after her, shining her light on Pinkie Pie once more.

Pinkie turned her head at the sound of hooves clattering to catch up. “Oh, you girls are coming too? Neat!”

“Pinkie, don’t run ahead like that,” Twilight said. “The forest isn’t safe.”

“But you were going backwards,” Pinkie Pie said. “You all kept inching toward the entrance, and then we would have to answer those silly questions again.”

“I wasn’t afraid,” Rainbow Dash protested.

“Never said you were.”

Bathed in Twilight’s magical glow, Pinkie Pie took the lead, followed in single file by Twilight, Applejack, Rarity and Fluttershy, with Rainbow Dash hovering just above and behind her fellow Pegasus. They stopped at a fork in the path.

Twilight frowned. “Which path do we take? Nightmare Moon said she would be waiting in a castle…the castle of the Knights of Economics!”

Rainbow Dash perked up. “The what?”

“The Knights of Economics,” Twilight said. “Have you ever heard of Frankie Knight, the famous economist? She and some other econoponies built a castle right in the middle of the Everfree Forest, trying to purify its corrupt magic. But I don’t know which fork leads us to it.”

“Distract me,” Pinkie Pie said.

Twilight hesitated. “What?”

“Distract me. It doesn’t work if I’m thinking.”

“What doesn’t?”

“Pinkie Sense. I’ll find our way if you just distract me.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “I should have known better than to let the party pony take the lead.”

“Somepony had to.”

“I wasn’t scared,” Rainbow Dash huffed.

“Settle down, y’all,” Applejack said. “Pinkie Pie is the best businesspony in Ponyville. If she believes in Pinkie Sense, I believe in Pinkie Sense.”

Pinkie Pie hopped agitatedly. “Hurry up and distract me!”

“I’ll handle this,” Rarity said. “No pony can keep talking about nothing like I can. Pinkie, darling, do you remember the conversation we were having about Nightmare Moon corrupting Twilight and turning her into a dark economist? You know what it’s like to destroy a competitor. How would you get back at Princess Celestia if you were Nightmare Moon?”

“Oh, I would totally turn Twilight into a dark economist,” Pinkie said. “Yeah, and I would make her read dark books full of evil spells and fill her with hate and suffering and real business cycle theory. I would make her wear all black with lots of pale makeup and she’d have to drink blood instead of water and left! and call herself Shadow Twilight and….”

Twilight and the other ponies shared a stunned silence as Pinkie trotted off down the left fork, still talking. They ran to catch up with her.

“…and give out walnuts and pennies on Nightmare Night instead of candy!” Pinkie Pie inhaled. “And—”

“I ask, Pinkie,” Rarity said loudly, “because I know you’ve been rather successful yourself competing in the bakery industry. Whatever happened to dear Mr. Landbiscuit?”

The pace slowed as they approached another split in the road. This time they faced three paths. Pinkie Pie frowned. “Um…oh, I remember!” She trotted down the middle path. “He’s living a happy and fulfilling life in a psychiatric ward. I should visit him sometime.”

“I think that would be unwise,” Rarity said delicately.

So it went. The path continued to branch, split, and meander. It hid behind thorns and under rocks, wound across narrow bridges and through groves of trees with frightening faces—Twilight wasn’t sure how literally to interpret that. Pinkie Pie, chattering aimlessly with Rarity, led them through it all. With her in charge, the forest itself stopped being frightening. The obvious thorns and cliche darkness almost seemed…funny.

“This forest isn’t so scary,” Rainbow Dash said. She stuck her tongue out at a looming tree. “Blehhh!”

Twilight trotted after the pink earth pony with the incredible sixth sense. “Pinkie, this is amazing. Just how are you doing this?”

“LA LA LA!” Pinkie Pie shouted. “LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

Twilight frowned. “What—”

The light from her horn vanished. Absolute darkness fell over the ponies.

Rainbow Dash screamed. There was the sound of two ponies colliding and falling to the ground, as if Rainbow Dash had tried to fly into the hoofs of a blind, unprepared, and nevertheless incapable Fluttershy.

“I can’t see my hoofs!” Applejack wailed. “I can’t see my hoofs!”

“No pony looks good with zero lighting!” Rarity gasped.

“Twilight!” Pinkie Pie shouted. She sounded more serious than Twilight had ever heard her be. “Turn your light back on!”

Twilight concentrated. A few brief sparks fell from her horn, but that was all. “I can’t!”

“Why not?” Pinkie demanded. “We need your light!”

“I can’t!” Twilight cried. “It’s not working!”

“Then think! I’m an Earth Pony; I don’t know anything about magic! What could have happened?”

Twilight closed her eyes—the forest looked exactly the same, but it helped—and thought. She couldn’t have run out of magic with only a basic lamp spell. “I don’t know!”

“Figure it out right now or we’re through!” Pinkie snapped. “You’re a powerful magician, right? What’s eating you?”

Twilight realized. She opened her eyes—pointless—and said, “We’re in the Everfree Forest. It hates ponies.”

“And?”

“It eats ponies and their magic. We’re in its belly…digesting.”

The temperature plummeted so fast it made Twilight’s head feel dizzy. All around them she heard the black thorns rustling, shifting, moving. Fear, real mind-stealing fear ran through her and made her legs shake.

“No!” Rarity panicked. “I can’t be eaten! Stomach acid does terrible things to my complexion!”

“I should have let that Cerberus finish me off,” Applejack moaned. “It’s a better fate than being et by a forest.”

“Angel, put that carrot down,” Fluttershy whimpered. Somepony beside her vomited noisily.

“I’m sorry,” Twilight said numbly. “I brought you all here to be eaten. I’m so sorry.”

Twilight didn’t see it, but she felt Pinkie Pie’s hoof connect with her face. She fell backwards, stunned.

“All you ponies need to get it together!” Pinkie Pie said. “You’ve all been acting weird the minute we got in this forest, standing around discussing the villain's motives rather than plunging ahead thoughtlessly like the ponies I know. I don’t think there even is such a thing as a dark economist, and if there were Twilight wouldn’t become one.”

Twilight blinked—at least she could feel the motion of her eyelids. Was Pinkie Pie seriously the voice of reason?

“Twilight wouldn’t become a dark economist,” Pinkie Pie continued. “She’d become a gray economist. Get it? Because twilight is in between the day and the night? Pretty good, huh? Been looking for an opportunity.”

Never mind.

Twilight started as hoofs lifted her from the ground. One yanked her tail. Twilight jumped in surprise, and a bright light flashed from her horn and faded.

“Got it!” Pinkie Pie pulled Twilight’s tail again, yielding another burst of light. She sped up, tugging Twilight like an obstinate gas-powered flashlight.

“Pinkie!” Twilight wailed. “What are you doing?”

“You think the forest is eating us? Twilight, you’re supposed to be smart! Nightmare Moon is here! The Knights of Whatever lived here! The forest doesn’t eat ponies. There’s a way to beat it. You knew that before we even stepped hoof in here!”

Twilight’s panicked brain couldn’t keep up with a lecture from Pinkie Pie on logic, not while her tail was being pumped and her horn emitting light like a schizophrenic light bulb. “Sto-o-op!”

Pinkie pulled. Light burst onto Applejack’s confused eyes. “All you ponies—”

FLASH. Purple light illuminated a startled Rarity’s pale face.

“Need to—”

FLASH. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy tucked their heads behind their wings.

“BUCK UP!”

And there was light. Not much of it, a weak lavender glow that only gave shape and depth to the shadows that surrounded the trembling ponies, but there was light, and it came from Twilight Sparkle’s horn.

“Finally.” Pinkie Pie released Twilight’s tail. “Can we keep going now?”

Rainbow Dash coughed. “I wasn’t scared.”

“I was,” Twilight said. “Thank you, Pinkie.”

The pink pony’s eyes were bright and friendly. “No problem, Twilight. Remind me to throw you a party when we get back.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“Duh! I never forget about a party appointment.”

Bathed in the cool glow of Twilight’s horn, the six ponies wound their way through the forest.

Pinkie Pie stopped suddenly.

“My Pinkie Sense is tingling,” she said. “We’re near something.”

Twilight gulped. “Nightmare Moon?”

“Doesn’t knarple like it.”

The narrow path of bramble in front of them split with a groaning rumble. The two forks split again, and those four multiplied, each heading off in a different direction. Even as the paths grew exponentially, others twisted, turned, closed off. Each road was lined with warped trees and bristled with thorns, and all of them were moving, changing and growing like a chameleon hydra made of spikes.

“There’s dozens of paths!” Twilight shined her horn on them, but the all looked the same, murky and foreboding.

“They’re splitting up farther ahead too,” Pinkie said. “Maybe a thousand in all.”

“I’ll scout ahead,” Rainbow Dash said.

“No,” Pinkie Pie said. “It’s playing me, and it’ll only cheat more if you try to help.”

“I’m sick of cheaters,” Twilight said. “How about I blast a hole in this forest?”

“It’s only cheating a little,” Pinkie Pie said. “Which means we keep playing.”

“Applejack said something like that too.”

“It’s the Knightian code,” Pinkie Pie said distractedly.

“It means we keep playing as long as there’s a game to play,” Rarity explained. “How else do you think a town that has the Carousel Boutique at one end and Sweet Apple Acres at the other ever survived?”

“So you have heard of Frankie Knight!”

“Who?”

“I can’t knorp anything,” Pinkie Pie said. “Let’s go.” She trotted off down the nearest path.

It took Twilight’s brain a moment to catch up with her ears. “Pinkie! Where are you going?”

“Don’t know! Keep up!”

They caught up with her. Pinkie Pie glanced back. “There’s no way to tell, but we’ve got to pick something. Don’t worry, if anything kneerps I’ll knorp it.”

The path Pinkie Pie chose was winding and hard. The ground pushed back at their hoofs with every step, the sharp prickling needles closed in from every angle. Even walking in a line, the road was so narrow the bramble scraped their sides. Only thanks to Twilight’s magical glow did they manage to avoid losing an eye to thorns that waited in ambush like mines in midair. Overhead, the forest seemed to shrink in, the branches closing over their path like the mouth of a great beast as they marched willingly into its belly.

“Pinkie,” Twilight whispered, “maybe we should go back?”

“And let Nightmare Moon win? No way!”

Twilight winced at how loud Pinkie Pie’s voice was. “I just mean maybe we picked the wrong direction.”

“I don’t think there is a right path to choose,” Pinkie Pie said. “Just a right way of walking down it.”

Twilight relented, but as the path went on with no sign of ending, she began to feel fear again. What if they were trapped in a maze with no way out? It would be an easy task for Nightmare Moon to doom them to endlessly wandering the forest. “Pinkie—”

“Just keep walking.”

The trail, if you could call it that, tapered even further. The sharp bramble constricted around them like a straightjacket made of knives, and the branches pressed down like the foot of a wooden giant timberwolf, intent on crushing them. It forced them down onto their bellies, crawling across the rough dirt and unforgiving rocks. Needles jabbed at them, thin branches whipped and drew blood.

Was this, Twilight wondered, how the forest digested ponies, flaying their skin, forcing them to wear away their own bodies to soft weakness until they were nothing but blood, bones and guts to be absorbed by the roots under the hard soil?

“Pinkie Pie,” Applejack’s voice trembled, “are you sure this is right?”

“Just keep crawling.”

“I can’t fly!” Rainbow Dash complained. “This hurts!”

“A bit of ground is good for you.”

“This is doing terrible things to my skin,” Rarity moaned.

“Calluses are in this year.”

“Meep,” Fluttershy meeped.

“Mope,” Pinkie Pie concurred.

“Pinkie!” Twilight whispered. “I could blast a hole in the wood. We could make a run for it.”

“Not if it means losing the light!”

Pinkie Pie crawled forward and disappeared into a mouth. Twilight blanched.

It ate Pinkie Pie!

Then she saw what was right in front of her eyes: an opening. She crawled forward, paying no mind to the rocks that dug at her ribs or the sharp bramble that poked holes in her side. She squeezed herself through the narrow hole and emerged into a wide-open space lit by a pale blue glow.

Pinkie Pie stood a distance away, gazing up at a statue of a tall Pegasus.

“You did it!” Twilight shrieked, running forward. “Come on, girls!”

“Yeehaw!” Applejack pulled herself through. “Feels good to be out of that.”

“Fabulous!” Rarity gasped, allowing Applejack to help her out. She was followed shortly by Fluttershy, who shot out of the opening as if she had been kicked by somepony. Rainbow Dash emerged last and took to the air, whooping as she made a circuit around the other ponies.

Twilight trotted over to Pinkie Pie, who smiled at her. “Great job, Twilight. I knew you could do it.”

“It’s all thanks to you, Pinkie Pie. I’m sorry for doubting you.”

Pinkie Pie shrugged. “We had to pick something.”

Rarity gasped. “Look!”

They looked in the direction her hoof pointed. A blue ball not even the size of an apple with bright green eyes and bug-like wings rose from the ground.

“It’s cute!” Fluttershy said.

“No,” Twilight said. “It’s a Parasprite.”

Rarity's Test: Gossip

As magical creatures go, the parasprite’s art direction might be even lazier than the Cerberus’s. It consists of one sphere, blue in this one’s case, perhaps the size of a tennis ball, and with two smaller balls superimposed on top colored green so that you know they’re eyes. Add some vaguely insectoid wings and legs, and you’re done.

Doesn’t sound very threatening, does it? Certainly Rarity and Fluttershy find something charming in its big-eyed simplicity. Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash are less taken by its cutesy-wootsy appeal. But you would be hard-pressed by reference to the parasprite’s appearance to explain why Twilight Sparkle is standing fore with her horn ready to fire or why she is shouting at the other ponies to flee.

Parasprites aren’t strong. They are fast. But what really scares Twilight is that parasprites lie…sometimes. It’s hard to tell. They confuse ponies and get them all mixed up.

One pony alone is weak. Only when they work together do ponies become capable of great things. Twilight calls it specialization and the division of labor, cooperation and exchange pushing ever-outward the extent of the market. The other ponies call it friendship.

What concentration of lies can a friendship survive? If I told you the answer was as low as ten percent…

…I’d be lying. And that would make the rest of this story rather useless as anything except entertainment, wouldn’t it?

That’s the point. And remember, all of this is

Just.

One.

Parasprite.

“Pinkie, take the girls and get out of here!” Twilight kept her glowing horn pointed level at the floating blue Parasprite. “Run!”

“Twilight, why are you so frightened?” Rarity sounded alarmed. “Look at the poor creature, it’s harmless.”

“No,” Twilight said. “It is very, very dangerous.”

“Then we’ll help you,” Rainbow Dash said.

“No! It’s more dangerous the more of us there are.”

“Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said, “I know the forest is scary, but I think you may be overreacting just the teensiest bit.”

“I’m not! I need you all to go! Now! I’m the only one who can fight it!”

“Listen very carefully, Twilight Sparkle,” Princess Celestia said. Twilight pulled her eyes away from the princess’s flowing mane and focused. “As an economist you will go on many journeys and face all kinds of dangers, and through these trials you will grow. There are, however, a few threats, a very few, which you must never try to fight but instead flee as fast as you can and find me. These are the draconequus, though I pray you never meet one, other Alicorns, and the parasprites….”

That’s not an option now, Princess Celestia, Twilight thought grimly. My, uh, my specialized cooperation partners are standing behind me. I have to…guarantee the completion of our contract.

And if I’m going to face your sister, I need to get stronger.

“Please,” a trembling voice said. Twilight started. It took her a moment to realize it was the parasprite. “I’m so hungry.”

Twilight readied a laser from her horn. “I’ve got something for you to eat.”

“No!” Fluttershy threw herself in front of the parasprite. “You can’t hurt it!”

“Fluttershy, get out of the way!”

“No! It hasn’t done anything to threaten us. You should be ashamed of yourself, Twilight Sparkle!” Fluttershy smiled and cooed softly as the parasprite’s legs touched her head. She giggled. “It likes me.”

“Fluttershy, I need to destroy it!” Twilight said.

“Oh, shut up, Twilight!” Applejack said. “You’re about the most untrusting pony I’ve ever met. Shame on you!”

Twilight turned, startled, to Applejack, who looked equally shocked. “Hold on y’all, that wasn’t me—”

“It’s gorgeous, really,” Rarity said. “We should all be so lucky as to have a parasprite of our very own, like Fluttershy.”

“What?” Rarity said. “That wasn’t me!”

“It’s the parasprite,” Twilight said. “Everything it says is a lie.”

“Was that you,” Rainbow Dash asked, “or the parasprite?”

“It was the parasprite.”

“Uh, was that you or the parasprite?”

“It was the parasprite,” Twilight said. “But before it was me!”

“Idiot,” Twilight’s voice added. “But of course you can’t keep up with an academic like me, Rainbow Dolt.”

“Hey!” Rainbow Dash said. “I may be a dropout, but I’m not stupid!”

“Actually, Rainbow, you kind of are stupid,” Applejack said. “No, I didn’t mean that! You’re really stupid.”

"Applejack! What—”

“Wait, I didn’t insult you,” Twilight said. “It was the parasprite. If I wanted to insult you, I’d point out how much of a coward you were earlier, jumping into Fluttershy’s hoofs like a frightened little baby.”

“Stop it, all of you!” Rarity said. “Am I the only one here with any class?”

“Probably!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “Since you’re the only one here who’s so snooty!”

Twilight wasn’t even sure if that was the parasprite or the real Rainbow Dash talking. It didn’t matter. She took aim at the tiny monster floating just above Fluttershy’s head. “Fluttershy, duck!”

A beam of lavender magic burst from Twilight’s horn. Fluttershy barely had time to flinch before the blast struck the parasprite and threw it backwards.

“No!” Fluttershy screamed. “What have you done?”

But the parasprite didn’t vanish or lay dead. It…no, they rose from the ground. One blue parasprite and one red. Even as Twilight readied another beam, they multiplied again. Now there were four—no, eight. Green and purple and—make that one hundred and twenty eight, brown and orange and—

“Oh, no.” Twilight felt her heart plummet through her stomach. She turned to the other ponies. “We have to run, now!”

“Run toward the parasprites!” she added.

“That was the parasprites talking! Hold still, they want you to run!”

“I’m not afraid!” Rainbow Dash swooped toward the growing swarm of parasprites and was swallowed by them. The rolling mass of multiplying parasprites poured over Fluttershy and rumbled toward the remaining four ponies. Twilight could only teleport out of the way and watch as the others were swept up by the buzzing bug-like creatures. In an instant her view of them was blocked off entirely by the parasprites surrounding them.

And the parasprites began to speak. “Fluttershy—”

“Rainbow Dash—”

“Rarity—”

“Pinkie Pie—”

“Applejack—”

“It’s me—”

“Angel—”

“Fluttershy—”

“Sweetie Belle—”

“Twilight—”

“Apple Bloom—”

“And I want you to know—”

“You’re weak—”

“Stupid—”

“A terrible sister—”

“Contemptible—”

“Gullible—”

“Don’t listen!” Twilight shouted. “They’re lying! It’s the parasprites talking!”

“If I’m a parasprite, how could I know—”

“You’re scared to fly—”

“Failed every test, and you were trying—”

“Called me ugly—”

“Lonely—”

“Losing money—”

Twilight screamed. “STOP!”

She summoned more magic than she knew she had and teleported into the mass of parasprites. Her magic flung them outward, or at least that’s what she intended. They were heavy, tens of thousands of parasprites—Twilight couldn’t imagine how densely packed they must have been—and they were still talking.

“Girls!” Twilight shouted.

The other ponies didn’t respond. They all faced different directions, all turned away from her, all shouting, arguing, crying before the parasprite horde. Only then did Twilight notice how the parasprites were organized into the likenesses of different ponies even distorted by Twilight's magical push. She saw herself and the others, and a half a dozen other faces she didn’t recognize.

“Girls!” Twilight tried again. “We have to—”

The oxygen vanished from Twilight’s lungs. Pain took its place. Her magic collapsed and the glow from her horn faded as she tumbled over the dirt. She barely had time to register Applejack’s hoof drawing back before the parasprites swooped down and surrounded them once more.

For a few panicked seconds all Twilight could think about was the fact that she couldn’t breathe, and when she finally managed to suck in a breath, all she could think about was how much it hurt. At least one rib was fractured, maybe two.

Right...too many lies breaks down economic order.

Twilight tried not to move. It hurt, but she readied her horn. The parasprites had beaten her, beaten all of them. Her magic was countered, her words drowned out amidst the torrent of lies and, even more destructively, the truths that made the lies plausible. She should have listened to Princess Celestia and fled immediately. Now the fate of Equestria hung in the balance. She wracked her mind for spells she could use.

Something tickled her forehead. She shook her head, and a parasprite floated down in front of her.

No….

It multiplied. And again. Hundreds, then thousands of them. Green, blue, purple, white, gold and orange, and they began to take shape….

“Hello, Twilight Sparkle,” said Princess Celestia.

Even though she knew it was only the parasprites, hearing the princess’s voice warmed her heart and calmed her pain. If the parasprites thought they could break her by showing her the one person she loved and trusted above all, they were as stupid as they looked.

“I’m so sorry,” Princess Celestia said. “I never meant for this to happen.”

Twilight knew it was a lie; she also knew it was the voice of her princess. “I know. It’s okay.”

Princess Celestia sighed. “Who knew that you would be so stupid as to challenge a parasprite head-on?”

“I should have run,” Twilight said. “I know that. My stupidity cost us everything.”

“Not everything,” Princess Celestia said. “Watching you die like this is amusing in its own way. As a student you were always lacking, but as a victim you’re quite delightful.”

“Talking won’t kill me.”

“No, you will. Just teleport yourself up and let your head crack open. Like a pinata, but full of brains instead of candy.”

“If you think I’ll kill myself….”

“I know you will.” Princess Celestia’s voice was soft and warm. "Since it is my last request of you as your princess."

“You are cruel,” Twilight said, “but my princess is not, and you are not her.”

“But I am cruel.” A blue pony with a silver mane formed beside Princess Celestia.

Irrational anger filled Twilight, an even more effective cure for the pain in her ribs than the loving embrace of Princess Celestia. She pushed herself to her knees. “Trixie!”

“And I thought you’d die of lovesickness,” Trixie smirked. “But dying out of sheer stupidity? You never fail to embarrass.”

“Trixie was my best and favorite student,” Princess Celestia said. “Never you.”

Twilight laughed. “I know that isn’t true.”

“Twilight!” Princess Celestia’s voice snapped exactly like it did whenever Twilight made a critical mistake. It was so familiar and real she couldn’t help but freeze and backtrack, looking for her error before she disappointed her princess even more. “You know I never thought much of your attempts at adding to economic knowledge.”

“Hard to keep up with a pony who’s been doing it for a thousand years,” Twilight whispered.

Trixie sneered. “Why do you think you lost here? We’ve been doing this forever. Making ponies kill themselves isn’t even the best part, not when you can get them to turn on each other. Want to watch your friends kill each other? Or do you want to kill them yourself?”

“Not happening.”

“Twilight, try to keep up.” Princess Celestia’s disappointment was heavy. “We can read your mind. You will break in exactly the way we want, when we want. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Show me,” Princess Celestia ordered. “Repeat the lesson in your words.”

It was an old practice between them. “You knew everything once you touched my head, all the levers to pull, every strength and weakness, and you’ve been practicing for so long you know exactly how to manipulate them. My brain is putty in your hoofs.”

“How does it end?”

“With my death.”

“Good.” Princess Celestia sounded genuinely pleased. Even paralyzed with fear and buzzing with pain and hatred, there was nothing that made Twilight happier than her princess’s approval.

“Always a suck-up,” Trixie said. “That’s why no pony likes you. That, and your hair. And face. And…actually, what is there to like about you? Maybe if you knew the answer to that question, you’d have told Shining Armor how you really felt .”

Twilight glared at Trixie. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t understand, stupid, I know everything. I know what you wanted. Do you want to know what he thinks about you? Nothing.”

“Trixie,” Twilight said, “even when you weren’t a parasprite, I never believed a word you said.”

“But you believe me,” Princess Celestia said. “My faithful student, so eager, so ready to please, so unimaginative, so limited. Why do you think I sent you away to the NGDP Targeting Festival in Ponyville? Most plausible hypothesis.”

The pain in her side throbbed. “Knew Nightmare Moon was coming,” Twilight gasped. “Wanted to protect me.”

“Be serious.”

“Don’t know.”

“It’s simple. I can’t stand the way you spend every festival following me around like a dog. ‘Princess, oh Princess,’” now Princess Celestia’s voice was a cruel mockery of Twilight's, “‘can we study more theory together? Princess, I learned a new magic spell, want to see? Princess, what is that book? How about that one? Oh, Princess, Princess, Princess!’”

“Shut up,” Twilight trembled.

Trixier smirked. “Since Princess Celestia is here, let’s tell her about what you do at night with that dust-covered topology book—”

“Shut up!”

“Twilight,” Princess Celestia said. “I already know. Every shameful, embarrassing, disgusting thing you’ve ever done, I have always known and I have always loathed you for it. It can end anytime you want. Look at me, Twilight. I love you.”

Twilight shut her eyes. A dozen pairs of legs peeled them open.

“Don’t turn away,” Princess Celestia said gently. Her voice was forgiving and kind. “I love you, Twilight Sparkle, like a mother loves her daughter. I don't want to hurt you. I want your pain to end. I want you to finally make me proud. Show me how much your teleportation spell has improved. Do it! Do it, and let the last thing you hear be your loving princess telling you how much she despises you.”

Peals of high-pitched laughter burst like audible lightning from behind the princess and Trixie’s forms. Panic seized Twilight. Nightmare Moon had come.

But it was not Nightmare Moon who swept the parasprites away with her tail. It was Rarity.

“Come now, Twilight, they’re only bugs,” she said.

Twilight couldn’t believe her eyes. “Rarity?”

“Ponies are usually stunned to see me,” Rarity said. “Admittedly, not for the reasons you are.”

Twilight lowered her head. “I don’t know what to think.”

“Nonsense!” Rarity said. “You’re an econopony! Thinking is what you do. If you don’t have that, what are you?”

“Not much.”

“Exactly,” Rarity said. Twilight looked up sharply.

Rarity shook her head. “That was not me.”

“Shut up, Rarity!” Twilight snapped. “You don’t need parasprites to say nasty things about people.”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “Boring.”

“You ugly pony,” she added. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to keep from laughing when you stepped inside my shop?”

“You are beautiful,” Rarity said. “I normally can’t resist giving makeovers to first-timers, but the true you always shines through.”

“A lying coward.”

“The bravest pony I ever met.”

“Who let Applejack sacrifice herself to the Cerberus.”

“Who was courageous enough to trust her friend, and whose knowledge let us pass through.”

“Whose light failed in the maze of thorns.”

“Who followed first after Pinkie Pie, whose light restored itself in the blackest darkness.”

The second voice, the other Rarity, was splitting apart, becoming less Rarity and more its components. It began to fade. “Lost to the parasprites….”

“No,” Rarity said simply.

“Who…disappointed…her princess….”

“Princess Celestia relied on you to manage the NGDP Targeting Festival,” Rarity said. “She hid you from Nightmare Moon and trusted you to gather the Elements of Equilibrium and protect Equestria. I have never met the princess, Twilight, but I cannot understand how you would think that she feels anything but love and pride for you.”

Twilight craned her ears. No voice answered Rarity.

“They’re gone,” Rarity said. “Twilight, you can stand now.”

Twilight wiped her eyes. “Ow!”

“Twilight!” Applejack's voice called. Twilight looked up in surprise as Applejack raced over. “I’m so sorry, something funny was going on in my head, I reckon I must’ve—”

“It’s fine.” Twilight winced as Applejack helped her up. She leaned gratefully on the strong Earth Pony.

The ponies were all free, the parasprites gone, though the memories remained, etched on Applejack’s apologetic face and Rarity’s proud one, Fluttershy with Rainbow Dash’s head tucked under her wing and Pinkie Pie frowning like she was puzzling something out.

“What happened?” Twilight asked, bewildered. “How did you defeat the parasprites?”

“It was all Rarity,” Applejack said. “She started talking like…like the parasprites except not evil. She said some real cutting stuff, and then she laughed like…like a witch except more evil.” Her face twisted. “She tossed her hair real pretty, you should have seen it.”

“I have,” Twilight smiled.

“It shut them up quicker than a hoof on a rattlesnake. Started…de-multiplying.”

“Dividing.”

“Ain’t that what they were doing before?”

Twilight frowned. “They were dividing, which caused them to multiply…uh, I’m going to have to think about this one.”

“Rarity said nice things too,” Fluttershy said. “Nicer than the parasprites could be mean.”

Twilight looked at Rarity, who beamed. “The answer to lies and deceit is sincerity, as much of it as possible.”

“But Parasprites are one of the most dangerous magical species in the world,” Twilight said. “They’ve had thousands of years to practice destroying people with falsehoods and cruelty!”

“And?” Rarity was unimpressed. “I went to high school.”

Pinkie Pie pointed a hoof. “It’s still there!”

Twilight gasped. Behind Rarity the single blue parasprite hovered.

“Hurt…ponies,” it said. Twilight strained to hear it.

“Some, yes,” Rarity said. She stepped forward. The parasprite shrunk back. “I can name them all before you can. But the difference between you and me, you rude little thing, is that I grew out of it. You never will.”

“Hunted…many ponies…how?”

“How?” Rarity laugh was as shrill as a digit circling the rim of a wine glass. “You chose the wrong ponies and paid the price. À bon cheval, non? Everything you said about my friends was utterly foolish.”

“Read…minds.”

“But it takes a true friend to read the heart,” Rarity said. “And you thought you could tear us apart? Ânerie! No offense, Fluttershy.”

“None taken.”

“You see,” Rarity said, “Fluttershy, who you said is weak, tames bears. Rainbow Dash, who you said is stupid, makes mockeries of millionaires. Pinkie Pie, who you said is lonely, is the most beloved pony in Ponyville. Applejack, who you said is irresponsible, works from sunup to sundown gathering apples and running her family’s business. Twilight Sparkle, whom you tried to destroy in a most base and cowardly fashion, is the most brilliant econopony in Equestria, and it is far too important that her head be full of facts and figures for her to listen to any of your lies!

“And me.” Rarity smiled. It was the smile of a shark. “You tried to use Sweetie Belle against me? Sweetie Belle is cute. I am not cute.

“Begone, foul creature, and trouble ponies nevermore. If you’re lucky, I won’t say anything to my friends at the spa next week about your unbelievable tackiosity.”

The blue parasprite hesitated, floating in midair, and then it turned and fled past the thorns and into the shadows.

Rarity exhaled. “Au revoir. Not.”

“Let me at it!” Rainbow Dash shoved Fluttershy away and flew toward the impenetrable hedge of wooden teeth the parasprite had disappeared into. “Let me through!” She tried to push her way through, was repelled, and flew forward again, paying no regard to the blood that dripped from her legs and head.

“Stop it!” Fluttershy cried. “You’re hurting yourself!”

Twilight concentrated. A magical glow surrounded Rainbow Dash and pulled her back.

“Let me go!” Rainbow Dash screamed. Fresh tears poured over worn tracks down her cheeks. “Don’t hold me down!”

Twilight dropped her, shocked. “I just didn’t want you to hurt yourself!”

Rainbow Dash burst into the air and vanished. A rainbow trail marked her path to the other side of the clearing and beyond.

Rainbow Dash's Test: Allocation

Twilight leaned against Applejack. Fluttershy dragged her wings alon behind Rarity as Pinkie Pie led them out of the clearing and down the path. While still dark and frightening, the forest no longer seemed to be trying to eat them. Lit by Twilight’s magic, the forest felt pleasantly indifferent to their presence. Twilight guessed it was because they were on the well-trodden path to the ancient castle of the Knights of Economics.

It had been an hour since Rainbow Dash had flown off on her own. Twilight was worried, but the other ponies seemed less concerned about their friend alone in a malevolent forest full of dangerous magical creatures and more about their flagging stamina.

“My hoofs ache,” Rarity whined.

“My wings ache,” Fluttershy sighed.

Twilight turned her neck. “Then get them off the ground!”

“My side aches,” Applejack complained.

“Then you shouldn’t have kicked me!”

“My Pinkie Sense aches,” Pinkie Pie said. “It feels really knurly.”

Twilight frowned. “A small protuberance?”

“Exactly! It’s like sitting on a ridge for a really long time but in my knapp instead of my rump.”

The stabbing pain in her ribs sucked Twilight’s patience away. “Aren’t any of you worried about Rainbow Dash? She could be—who knows what could have happened to her?”

“Rainbow Dash is faster than a rattlesnake covered in gravy,” Applejack said. “Nightmare Moon would have to get up pretty early in the morning to catch her.”

“There won’t be a morning if we don’t defeat Nightmare Moon!”

“No need to shout, sugar cube. I’m right here.”

“I shouldn’t have trusted that parasprite,” Fluttershy moaned. “I’m so sorry.”

“We were all taken in,” Twilight said.

“Except Rarity,” Applejack pointed out. “When she turned to Pinkie, whispered something, and giggled, the parasprites shut up like their own granny had snapped a stick at them.”

Pinkie stopped. She tilted her head. “I sense water. A lot of it.”

“With your Pinkie Sense?” Twilight asked.

“No, with my ears, silly.”

They came to another clearing, much larger than before, one where the space free of trees extended all the way to the sky. The ponies blinked in the sunlight and squinted their eyes at a castle and the wide moat that surrounded it. There was the distant sound of rushing water. Twilight wondered where it came from.

The castle was tall and mostly gray, though Twilight thought she could make out what might have been chipped and faded paint on the distant stone. Conical spires topped the towers, and in the back of the bailey some kind of keep or library loomed. The drawbridge was raised.

“Rainbow Dash could fly us across if she was here,” Applejack said.

Something exploded out of the water. Twilight reared back at the unexpected torrent of rain.

“NOT MORE PONIES! GO AWAY!”

The scream was like the explosion of a volcano that spat fury instead of lava, and it came from the mouth of a giant sea serpent.

Covered in glittering, damaged purple scales that looked like they had been dragged through a minefield of explosive soap, the serpent rose to a frightening height and roared. Its head was covered in odd tufts of orange hair, and it wore a fabulous mustache with utter panache.

Twilight and the others wilted at the sight and sound of the angry sea serpent, except for Fluttershy, who stepped forward.

“Wow!” she gushed. “A real sea serpent! What happened to your scales?”

“A flying pony happened,” the serpent snarled. It raised a hand tipped with four razor-sharp claws and brought it down. Twilight teleported so close to Fluttershy that they touched and teleported again before the claws closed around the space they had just occupied.

Her heart pumping, adrenaline drowning the pain in her ribs, Twilight left Fluttershy by the trees and teleported back to the other ponies, who wisely turned and fled for the forest.

The serpent’s tail whipped out of the moat with a huge burst of water and blocked their path. Rarity screamed.

Like the rest of the serpent’s body, the scales on its long, thick tail were damaged and cracked. Twilight wanted the serpent’s attention on her, so she fired a magical blast from her horn into one of the gaps. The serpent roared, nearly knocking her off her feet. Then it attacked.

The serpent slammed its hand down flat like it intended to crush her. She teleported onto the back of it. Its long arm stretched out invitingly, so she ran up it, sinking her hooves into the gaps among the scales. The serpent roared in pain and tried to shake her off, but it’s hard to unbalance a teleporting pony who’s relying on her magic more than her hoofs to stay upright.

Besides, she wanted its attention on her, and teleporting made a good show. Fluttershy couldn’t carry them across, and it took too much time to charge the magic necessary for such a far teleportation if the serpent was attacking them. As long as the bridge was up and the serpent wasn’t down, they couldn’t get to the castle.

Had Rainbow Dash made it to the serpent? What had happened to her?

The serpent’s other claw reached for her; she teleported onto the back of it instead and kept running. She teleported up the arm and into the air, biting onto the long hair of its mustache just in time. Again she vanished in a lavender flash, appearing on the top of the serpent’s snout. Her horn glowed with magical power.

She couldn’t win a fight with a sea serpent. But maybe she could force an injured and desperate animal to submit.

Twilight fired. The serpent screamed. So close to the serpent’s mouth, Twilight’s whole body shook with the incredible noise.

“S-s-stop fighting us,” Twilight chattered, “or I’ll blast you again!”

The serpent’s voice sounded distorted and odd from the top of its snout. “Instead of threatening me, little pony, you should be begging for the lives of your friends.”

Twilight looked over the edge of the serpent’s snout. Its tail coiled around Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Applejack, who bucked and struggled but to no avail.

It could crush them instantly. There was no way she could reach them in time.

Twilight hesitated. “You promise not to hurt them?”

“Twilight, don’t worry about us!” Applejack shouted. “You gotta stop Nightmare Moon!”

“Worry about us!” Rarity shrieked. “Worry about us!”

“Before I surrender,” Twilight said, “did you see a rainbow-haired Pegasus fly by?”

The serpent snarled. “So you’re friends with it. Where is it hiding?”

“Right here!”

A rainbow streaked across the sky like a hippie lightning bolt. Before Twilight could even begin to shout her relief a pair of hoofs gathered her up and sped toward the ground. The skin on Twilight’s face stretched back as the earth approached at an incomprehensible yet clearly unhealthy rate.

“Teleport!” Rainbow Dash said.

“Huh?”

“Teleport!”

Twilight realized her hoofs were touching three different flanks. She concentrated her magic and teleported.

The five ponies reappeared fifteen feet away, gasping and elated.

“You sa-a-aved u-u-us!” Rarity wailed, clutching Rainbow Dash tight.

Rainbow Dash pushed her away. “Get off, you’ll slow me down!”

“Knew you’d come back,” Applejack said.

“Sometimes a pony just needs to fly,” Rainbow Dash answered.

“Rainbow Dash!” Fluttershy appeared out of the safety of the trees, galloping toward them. “Are you all right?”

Twilight stepped in front of the others, a lavender glow surrounding her horn. “Let’s not celebrate yet. We still have a serpent to beat.”

“I can get us all past the monster and to the other side,” Rainbow Dash said, “but I need you to teleport inside and open the gate so we can get into the castle. I can’t protect ponies on both sides.”

“Got it. Take me first.”

Rainbow Dash wrapped her legs around Twilight’s belly. As the serpent glared at them, heaving with anger, Twilight regretted all the fruit pies and chocolate pastries she had ever eaten.

The serpent’s hands slammed on the bank, rocking the ground. “Hold still, you miserable ponies!”

“Ready?” Rainbow Dash asked. Twilight could hear the grin.

“Not reallAAAAHH!”

Twilight realized Rainbow Dash had taken off when her brain observed that her eyes were about to explode. The scream had died in her throat thirty feet back and a quarter of a second ago. Rainbow Dash dodged and swerved around the serpent’s swiping hands and deposited her on the other side. Twilight nearly wept for the feeling of solid, unmoving ground as Rainbow Dash saluted and, well, dashed off to the other side.

Twilight had her own job. She teleported through the wall and into the castle.

The interior was dusty and bare. Rats scurried along the floor and spiders took to the walls. Clearly no pony had lived here for a long time.

She spied the windlass. Taking hold of it with her magic, she cranked the mechanism as fast as she could. The bridge groaned like Spike in the morning, but like Spike in the morning, a liberal application of magic got it moving.

She heard wings swooshing outside. With a terrified squeak Fluttershy ducked under the grill and scampered into the gatehouse.

Twilight gestured to the windlass. “Keep cranking it!”

Twilight didn’t wait for Fluttershy’s breathless assent as she ran back out, but it was clear that Rainbow Dash didn’t need her help. She dodged around the serpent like it was moving in slow motion, and maybe to her it was. She spun and twisted, pulled off death-daring dives, and if the situation hadn’t been urgent, Twilight would have thought that Rainbow Dash was showing off. Twilight was prepared to teleport or fire a beam, but Rainbow Dash had the serpent’s attention entirely on her and was handling it masterfully.

She deposited Applejack, who looked relieved to set her hoofs on the dirt, and Pinkie Pie, who hopped inside, and finally Rarity, who only stopped screaming to breathe so she could start screaming again. Twilight suspected Rainbow Dash had deliberately saved her for last.

With the four of them safely inside, Twilight called Rainbow Dash to her and regretted it immediately as she was lifted into the sky. The serpent faced them and bellowed, swiping its terrible claws. Twilight teleported. They appeared a few feet away in front of one of the serpent’s large eyes, which widened at the sight of Twilight’s pointy horn glowing with magic so near the vulnerable organ.

“Let us be,” Twilight said, “or face the consequences.”

They began to fall. “Twilight!” Rainbow Dash grunted. “You weigh almost as much as Pinkie Pie! I can’t carry you for that long!”

Twilight teleported them up again. She wasn’t finished. “And when we come out after defeating Nightmare Moon, you’re not going to bother us.”

The serpent blinked. “Excuse me, but do you mean to say that you are not allied with that terrible Alicorn?”

Fluttershy's Test: Consistency

Safely on the ground once more, the six ponies stood back from the edge of the water and gazed up at the apologetic sea serpent.

“My name is Charles,” he said. “Please forgive me! I had no idea that you came here to vanquish that frightful creature.” He gestured at his damaged scales. “Ponies haven’t come this way in so long. When she did this to me, I thought ponies had changed and become terribly violent.”

“Nope, just Nightmare Moon and Twilight,” Applejack said. “Sometimes she threatens to put out a critter’s eye she just met. City folk move fast like that.”

Charles looked like he was about to cry. “Naturally I assumed you six were the Alicorn’s minions. I’m so sorry I tried to kill you!”

“Not at all,” Rarity beamed. “Sometimes ponies try to murder each other by mistake. These things happen.”

“It was kind of fun!” Pinkie Pie said.

“You got that right,” Rainbow Dash said. “I am definitely coming back after this for round two. I never get a chance to really fly.”

Charles sniffed. Twilight winced at the way he dragged a long claw just below his eye to wipe away a tear. “I would like that very much.”

“I’m so sorry about your scales,” Fluttershy said. She sounded more pained that Twilight had ever heard her. “I’ll have Rainbow Dash bring you a remedy I can make.”

Charles bowed his head. “I do not deserve it. You are too kind.”

Twilight was less inclined to forgive the sea serpent. Something about a monster trying to kill her put her off.

“Well, we should get going. There’s an Alicorn to fight, so we’ll be moving right along.”

“Wait.” Charles’s face looked haunted. “I have a request.”

“A request?” Hovering in the air, Rainbow Dash crossed her front legs. “You owe us, not the other way around.”

“I know,” Charles whispered in a voice louder than Twilight shouting. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t extremely urgent.”

“We’ll help,” Applejack said.

“What is it?” Fluttershy asked.

“My—my children.” The great serpent’s voice caught. “She took them. I tried to stop her from entering the castle, and after she did this to me,” he indicated his broken scales, “she took my children away. She said if I couldn’t protect the castle, I couldn’t protect them either. She took them into the forest, I don’t know where. They could be…who knows what could have happened to them?”

“But you’re enormous," Rainbow Dash said. "What’s so scary about the forest to you guys?”

“They only just hatched,” Charles said, “and the forest is home to many threats beyond the mundanely physical.”

“That it is,” Rarity said quietly. “I can only imagine how frightened they must be.”

Pinkie Pie hopped angrily. “That terrible no-good rotten stupid mean Nightmare Muck! We’ll definitely rescue your kids for you!”

Twilight agreed with the sentiment if not the phrasing. What Nightmare Moon had done sickened Twilight to her core. Stealing foals and abandoning them in the forest was…there were no words. When you were dealing with ponies like that, calling them “evil,” was a waste of breath.

“A hunt!” Rainbow Dash saluted. “We’ll find your kids in a flash!”

“Absolutely we will,” Twilight said firmly. The other ponies nodded. “Where did she send them? Did she give you any hint as to where they are?”

“No.”

Twilight blinked. “Sorry?”

“No,” Fluttershy repeated. “No, we’re not doing this, not now.” She turned to Charles. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have time.”

Rainbow Dash flew in front of her. “Fluttershy, are you nuts? We have to help him find his kids!”

“Every second matters,” Applejack said. “We should get started now.”

“No,” Fluttershy said.

“It is a matter of dignity, Fluttershy,” Rarity said. “We simply must.”

“You’re scared to go back into the forest,” Pinkie Pie said.

“No. Well, yes, but still no.”

Twilight strode angrily toward her. “Fluttershy, of all ponies I would never have expected this from you. An animal needs your help! Children are in danger! How can you turn him down?”

Fluttershy didn’t back down. She looked Twilight square in the eye. “Other animals need our help. Other children are in danger. Nightmare Moon is destroying the economy. I don’t know what that means! Only you really do.”

“Exactly! So—”

“So it should be you saying this, not me. Not me, who cares the most.” Fluttershy’s voice was hoarse. “You’re all being very selfish right now. It’s always the pony who cares the most who has to stick the knife in. No pony else is kind enough to do it.”

A dawning realization settled over Twilight. She felt nauseous.

“Right now Nightmare Moon is what we have to deal with,” Fluttershy said. “She’s threatening to tear apart all of Equestria. All the animals and their children are in danger, not just this one whose name we know. What if we can’t find his children? What if you get hurt again, Twilight? Who will face Nightmare Moon?” Fluttershy turned her head away. “Don’t make me keep talking.”

Twilight looked down in shame. “I…I don’t know what to say.”

“‘I’m sorry,’ would do.”

“I’m sorry,” Twilight said instantly. “You’re right, and I should have known it.”

Fluttershy nodded. She walked past Twilight and faced the sea serpent.

“I’m sorry, Charles,” she said, “but we need to defeat Nightmare Moon as soon as possible. We can find your children afterward when Princess Celestia is free.”

Teardrops as big as if the clouds themselves had turned to sadness and fallen all at once crashed into the moat. Fluttershy blinked off the water that sprayed onto her face and around her eyes.

“I understand,” Charles said. “I wish you the best of luck.” He turned away and sunk below the depths of the moat.

“Let’s go,” Fluttershy said, water from the spray dripping down her cheeks. “Now I’m angry.”

If You Can't Protect Your Friends Then Make More Friends

Aftermath: Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie:

It is not often that ponies get to see Princess Celestia’s magic unleashed. When they do, it is usually a rather grim time to be appreciating the spectacle. But on the rare occasions ponies do get to watch the princess work, they describe golden light and stellar rainbows, the growth of unknown plants and torrents of mist so thickly wet it wrinkles the skin of any ponies nearby.

Pinkie Pie wasn’t looking. None of the Bearers were. They were focused on Twilight. Her eyes were closed, and her breath came shallow and rapid.

They set her on the ground.

“This is all my fault,” Applejack said. “If I hadn’t kicked her….”

“Nightmare Moon wanted to hurt her, so she was hurt,” Rarity said. “Because of you Twilight was already accustomed to the pain and able to think through it.”

The click of hoofs on the stone floor distracted them. Princess Celestia regarded them.

“Well done, Bearers of the—”

Fluttershy interrupted. “The children of the sea serpent who guards the moat are lost in the forest."

Celestia vanished in a flash of golden light.

The throne room was empty of Alicorns. The stone walls were suddenly cold, as if there had always been no pony waiting within since the long-ago disbanding of the Knights of Economics. Rainbow Dash looked morose.

“She told off a sea serpent,” she said. “It was pretty awesome.”

“She’s not dead.” Fluttershy looked at Twilight with a practiced eye. “Most of the right side of her ribcage is fractured, but nothing vital was pierced. The princess will patch her up.”

They stared at her. Fluttershy shrugged.

“What? Ani…naturally evolved organisms get into all kinds of accidents. I’m a pretty good doctor.”

Celestia reappeared in another burst of light.

“Charles has been reunited with his children,” she said. The expression on her face was unreadable. “Please give me my student now.”

They looked at her.

“I believe bows are customary,” Celestia said.

“No,” Pinkie Pie said.

The blurt surprised her, but she was already the crazy pony. It was best if she voiced their thoughts.

“I pay my voluntary defense funds. You owe us an explanation.”

“Please,” Celestia said.

Was she really begging? Pinkie Pie couldn’t knorp the Alicorn’s face.

Applejack stepped forward.

“The economy slumped! Business suffered! All the ponies who depend on us—”

“Twilight is in pain,” Fluttershy said. “And she will want the attention of her princess.”

The other ponies looked at her, then stepped away from Twilight. She vanished in a blaze of white light.

“She followed me.” Pinkie Pie looked Celestia in the eye. “I said my Pinkie Sense knew the way, and she followed. Do you understand?”

“I do.”

“What happened to that ghastly Alicorn?” Rarity said.

“Gone,” Celestia said. “Resting. With Twilight Sparkle.”

Pinkie Pie willed her strength into the crystal. She could feel the other ponies doing the same.

Celestia shook her head. “The Elements require an econopony. Nor would it be wise to direct them against me, for I maintain the Bank and therefore the equilibrium.”

“You put Twilight with the one who hurt her,” Pinkie Pie said.

“They will not see each other. I am not a fool, and they are the two ponies whom I love more dearly than any others. What have I done to earn your distrust?”

“It’s what you didn’t do,” Applejack said.

“The parasprites showed her you,” Rarity said.

“We’re her friends,” Pinkie Pie said. Anypony who couldn’t understand their behavior from that one statement was…probably a lot like Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie realized.

Celestia was distracted. Her horn flashed intermittently with varying intensities, like a star remembering how to shine.

“Forgive me, Bearers,” she said. “Curing recessions is much harder than preventing them. Once the real has become intermingled with the nominal, it is not easy even for me to isolate and target the right aggregates in sufficient quantities….”

“Well, I’m still cool with you,” Rainbow Dash said. “Since I’m the only pony here who’s actually happy you didn’t show at the festival.”

“Ah.” A bright white light shined from Celestia’s horn. “That explains it. Thank you, Rainbow Dash. The economy will need much liquidity in the coming weeks and months.”

“Sure,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Go easy on debt.”

“Actually, I’m in a lot of—”

“Never mind.”

Pinkie Pie seethed.

“Do you need transport to Ponyville?” Celestia said.

They looked at Applejack.

“No,” Applejack said. “I reckon we’ll take the long way home.”

Celestia left.

The five ponies walked outside. The sunlight glinted off the crystals pinned to their chests. Charles was there, weeping profusely as he helped them across the moat.

“I cannot thank you enough,” he sobbed. “Please, let me repay you however I can.”

“Your thanks is reward enough,” Rarity said.

“Cash is good too,” Applejack added.

Charles gestured to one of his children, the smallest, only a few times the size of a regular pony. “Please, take the runt of the litter. Normally I would look forward to eating her, but for you ponies I can make an exception.”

Pinkie Pie’s jaw dropped. Fluttershy beamed.

“Thank you! I would love to have a sea serpent of my own. But, um, I’m afraid I don’t have enough water.”

“Young serpents will adjust to the element they reside in,” Charles said. “You could have an earth or a sky serpent if you wish.”

Fluttershy’s pupils swelled to saucers in her eyes. “I…I could teach her to fly?”

Confused, the young serpent climbed out of the water at the insistence of her old father. She focused her attention on her new father, a yellow four-legged thing that flapped in the air on two wings.

“I’m so excited to have a sea serpent,” he said, fluttering back and forth in the air. “I have to get the right food! And you’ll need to meet all the other naturally evolved…well, you’re not naturally evolved, but…. And…and….”

The serpent didn’t know what Daddy was talking about. But she took note of how Daddy moved, not slithering on the ground but flying free in the air.

The serpent’s brain didn’t understand the physics of flight. What it did know, what some ancient instinct understood from a thousand thousand generations of practice and testing, was how to become more like Daddy.

Daddy had wings.

Deep within the serpent’s body, at a level so small bacteria were like titans, she began to change….

With their sixth member slithering embarrassedly behind the still-squealing Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie led them to the edge of the maze of thorns.

“Last time we had Twilight giving us light,” Rainbow Dash said. Her voice trembled slightly. Pinkie Pie noticed. “How are we going to see?”

“We conga!” Pinkie Pie said. “Everypony put a hoof on the pony in front of them. Pinkie Sense will guide me.”

There was much dismissive eye-rolling as usual, and they did what she said, as usual. Cupcakes were much easier to corral, although they weren’t as much fun to talk to, not even the ones made with so much sugar and love that they had started talking back.

Even without light, the forest seemed less threatening coming back the other way. Maybe it was the absence of Nightmare Moon’s influence. Maybe the forest had given up after being beaten once before. Or maybe…

It was harder this time. Not as scary, but more difficult. The forest threw all kinds of twists at her, sending the path in such roundabout circuits intermixed with more dead ends than her own attempts to make a cupcake that functioned like an actual cup, which would have let her consolidate and monopolize the “cute bakery” market with the “cute coffee shop” market in one fell swoop.

Yet it was fun too. The forest challenged her Pinkie Sense in a way nothing since dominating Ponyville’s baking industry had.

She was almost disappointed to see the light streaming from the entrance to the cave. Rainbow Dash let out a whoop and flew past her to the entrance. For Applejack’s sake, Pinkie kept walking at a steady pace until the end.

As she began to lift her last hoof out of the forest, a tendril of vine snaked out and caught her around the leg. It pulled her high into the air and hoisted her upside-down.

“Hey, let her go!” Rainbow Dash grabbed the vine, tugging fruitlessly at it. Rarity’s horn glowed blue—what was she going to do, dress the vine in something stylish?—and Applejack tried to gnaw on it.

Pinkie Pie laughed. Maybe it was the blood flowing to her head, but it really did seem silly.

“Girls, don’t you know a friend when you see one? She just wants to play.”

Rainbow Dash nearly lost her grip. “What?”

“I think the forest never had anypony to play with,” Pinkie Pie said. “I’m her first friend.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Serious as a pinky promise.”

The ponies relented. They knew how seriously she took pinky promises.

Pinkie Pie managed to swing herself upright, clutching onto the vine with her forelegs.

“I had fun too, Evil Dark Scary Pony-Eating Forest! I’ll be sure to come back soon so we can play again. Cupcakes taste way better than ponies, you know.”

The vine’s grip on her leg loosened. Pinkie Pie smiled—she wasn’t sure how the forest was reading her behavior—and patted it on the…vine.

“Like a birthday, I’ll come back, and with cake. I always wanted a pet forest!”

The vine released her. Pinkie Pie had a moment to realize that her relationship with gravity was not so negotiable.

“Rainbow Daaaaash!”

Aftermath: Applejack:

“Your hat,” the Cerberus said. She placed it on the ground.

Applejack picked it up and placed it on her head. It felt like reattaching a limb.

“Get going, girls,” she said to the ponies. “You especially, Rainbow Dash.”

Fluttershy snapped her teeth at the Cerberus. The guardian beast of the forest flinched.

”Be sure to brush more often!"

Then they were alone.

“You did not give your hat to one of your friends,” the Cerberus said.

“Was I supposed to?”

“I thought so. It was the hat of your Sweet Apple Acres. It is the reason I trusted you to return. Now it will end up in my stomach.”

“You haven’t been eating well these last thousand years or so, have you?” Applejack said. “Reckoned not. Not much good eating on an old cowpony hat.”

Drool gathered at the edges of the Cerberus’s mouth and spilled out. A waterfall of stomach acid called forth its own rainbow, one driven by centuries of malnourishment. It couldn’t compare to Nightmare Moon’s pain, but it was more desperate, more uncertain.

“Yes,” the Cerberus said. “I am hungry.”

Her ears perked up at the distant whine of something flying very, very fast.

“I ain’t the expert Fluttershy is,” Applejack said, “but we’ve always had animals helping us out on the farm, and I’ve picked up a thing or two. Most ponies figure dogs eat nothing but meat. Truth is, they need fruits and veggies too.”

The whine grew louder.

“A pony small as me wouldn’t sate your hunger for a single hour. You need something every day.”

In the distance, a rainbow streak. At the head of it, a flying pony.

“No!”

The Cerberus backed away.

“You called her here! You cheat! You liar! I didn’t—please, no, I won’t, you can go—”

The Pegasus landed, carrying a heavy bushel of apples around her neck.

“Sup,” said Rainbow Dash.

She wrinkled her nose at the fetid scent wafting from between the Cerberus’s legs. “Urgh, did she just p—”

“Eeyup.”

“She thought I was—”

“Eeyup.”

Applejack tipped the bushel of apples over in front of the Cerberus, who seemed faintly embarrassed.

“I, uh, I thought she was—”

“You guessed wrong,” Applejack said. “Sound familiar? Anyway, I asked my friend here to bring a snack on by.”

The Cerberus sniffed nervously around the bright red fruit.

“They’re apples from my very own Sweet Apple Acres. Best apples in all of Equestria.”

“The…hat.”

“That’s right. The hat represents the Sweet Apple Acres guarantee of quality. You won’t find a more widely trusted symbol anywhere this side of the Everfree. I’d stake my life on the quality of our apples.”

The Cerberus sniffed the apples again. Her mouth opened.

It had been four hundred thirty-two years, seven months, four days, eighteen hours, nine minutes and fifty-two seconds since she had last eaten.

Two sets of eyes flickered over the pair of ponies.

All three mouths opened.

The Cerberus pounced.

Red skin burst open and flew into the air. Bright shining jewels of juice scattered and refracted the light, reflecting rainbows around the clearing. Brown seeds spurted from within the white meat, spreading across the soil that marked the ground between Ponyville and the Everfree Forest.

(In five years, maybe a field of red apples. A hoofshake between ponies and the forest. The mark of friendship, if by then Pinkie Pie wasn’t already wrapped in blankets with the forest at two in the morning telling each other ghost stories and giggling like mad ponies.)

The Cerberus’s long black tongues rolled out of its mouths and gathered half a dozen apples each, swallowing them so fast Applejack wasn’t sure she even stopped to chew until the wave of spittle and flecks of white meat that covered her and Rainbow Dash in a disgusting spray.

“Gross!” Rainbow Dash wiped at her face.

The Cerberus sniffed the ground for more apples. It pawed at the basket, sniffed it, and knocked it away with a frustrated whine.

She raised her three heads to the sky and howled at the sun and the moon for a very long time.

When it was over, Applejack and Rainbow Dash uncovered their ears.

“We grow durn good apples,” Applejack said.

An idea seemed to occur to her.

“So long as I’ve misanswered your question and you haven’t et me, that vine of yours is still stretchy, right?”

The Cerberus nodded. Juice dripped down her chins.

Applejack grinned.

“How do you feel about pulling a plow for Sweet Apple Acres? You can have ten percent of all the produce of the acreage you cover.”

“Fifty percent.”

“We’ll talk about it.”

Aftermath: Rarity:

The Invention Room of the Carousel Boutique was where Rarity designed and created her new dresses. Translucent purple curtains draped across the windows, casting the room in a meditative glow. Half-finished gowns hung on models ill-fittingly, and blueprints for new designs smothered the plain wooden table.

It was the one room in the Carousel Boutique that was not beautiful or elegant. Even Sweetie Belle was not allowed inside.

Returning to it, the interior somehow reminded her of Twilight Sparkle. What an odd pony, simultaneously graceless and possessing remarkable poise. The way she had faced up to Nightmare Moon….

Rarity shuddered. They had come so close to dying, more than once, and nearly dying once was already more brushes with death than she had ever experienced before or ever wanted to again.

Now an odd feeling suffused her perspective of everything in the room. The half-finished dresses seemed perfect. She went and fussed with one anyway, and felt better afterward, even though the dress looked almost exactly the same.

No pony had said it. That was the problem. It made her wonder if she was the only pony thinking it.

Rarity wanted to see Twilight again.

But she allowed everyone into her room, didn’t she? That was the whole point of being an economist rather than having a real job.

Or maybe she didn’t. How could Rarity know what Twilight was thinking? She wasn’t a parasprite.

The parasprites had attacked Twilight with the voice of her mentor. Nightmare Moon had done it again, tearing down Twilight’s concept of the princess.

Rarity had never asked Twilight just what her relationship with the princess was. None of them had. The very idea of having a relationship with Princess Celestia was just too weird. Princess Celestia was a character in a story, a picture in a newspaper, not a real flesh-and-blood pony….

Except to Twilight Sparkle, her most faithful student.

Now what was she thinking, resting in whatever healing-place the princess had hidden somewhere?

“Think,” a voice said.

Rarity whirled. Her horn glowed blue, and in the light it cast she almost couldn’t see the tiny round ball with two overly large green eyes, born aloft by insect wings.

“You!” she said. “You followed me from the forest? Vous êtes un grand cheval!”

“Think,” the parasprite said weakly. “Hungry….”

Rarity sniffed. “If you’re looking for an apology, you won’t find one here. I don’t regret a single mean thing I said about you.”

“No….”

“You like terrible words? Of course, I should have known. And here you are now, sniffing about for more. Pitiable creature.”

“Help….”

“No.”

“Trade.”

“What do you have that I could ever want?”

“Information….”

Rarity laughed. They had encountered the parasprite in a clearing in the Everfree Forest. As if it knew anything she wanted to know.

But then...the parasprite's advantage wasn't in the information it had but how quickly it learned. All it needed was the touch of a pony's head to know everything it needed to.

It was small, barely noticeable, easily dismissed as a bug. How many ponies could recognize a parasprite these days? It could go anywhere, over fences and under doors, gathering all the world's secrets....

Rarity laughed again for very different reasons.

But it wasn't just world domination. Rarity was vaguely aware that she was now part of some kind of group of magical girl ponies who could unite to vanquish evil.

Who knew what disgusting monsters still lurked in the Everfree Forest? Or where Nightmare Moon now was, or if there weren't other Alicorns somewhere, maybe with the dragons, who could come roaring out of their caves to set Equestria aflame....

Or other ponies, who might have their own pets and their own magic and their own intelligence. Surely there was more than one parasprite out there.

It occurred to Rarity for the first time just how dangerous a single pony with the right tools and the wrong motivations could be.

“À cheval donné on ne regarde pas les dents,” she murmured. Better to die la petit mort than la mort du petit cheval, non?

“You, parasprite, will search out information for me in every nook and cranny in all of Equestria,” Rarity said. “You will find my friends’ and my enemies so that we may destroy them. In return, I shall show you such cruel friendship as you have never experienced in a thousand years.”

She stuck out her hoof. “Deal?”

Aftermath: Rainbow Dash

Rainbow Dash didn’t need a highly impressionable giant serpent, a magical semi-intelligent forest, or a vicious pony-eating Cerberus for a pet.

She had a tank.

Well, she had Tank.

Tank was a tortoise.

Rainbow Dash had personally clocked Tank's land speed at a cool oh-point-eight miles per hour, which, though Rainbow Dash didn’t know it, made Tank the fastest tortoise in existence. She could tear apart a wedge of lettuce with her not-very-sharp teeth in well under an hour so long as the lettuce didn’t try to run away. Sometimes the lettuce did try to run away because Tank was a magical tortoise.

Tank did not have one magical power. She had seven, the first six of which had to do with lettuce. The seventh made her very, very good at accounting and law, and she was a necessary component of Rainbow Dash’s definitely legal and totally sound financial practice.

Sometimes Tank felt underappreciated.

“I could have had a cool pet!”

Rainbow Dash flew around the ceiling of their house, leaving rainbow trails in her wake.

“Everypony else comes back from the forest with an awesome magical sidekick, and I’m stuck with you!”

Rainbow Dash pointed an accusing hoof at the only tortoise that stood and occasionally walked very slowly between her and a long time behind bars.

“What can you do? You can’t even hunt lettuce properly! I have to buy it for you! What would you do without me?”

In fact, if Tank had been a wild free-roaming tortoise, or as much roaming as tortoises ever are, she would have been a queen, ruling with an iron claw over the kingdom of reptiles that recognized no Alicorn as master, though the slow talks of war were inevitably derailed by the onset of evening. Young male tortoises, green of shell and stout of tail, would have spent years carrying their village’s best lettuce from yards away just for the opportunity to deliver it at her feet in the hopes that she might finish eating it before they died.

But Tank liked Rainbow Dash, a true if occasionally ungrateful, blind, and pig-headed friend who had saved her from being eaten by a griffon years ago, and so she elected not to tell her that.

Besides, keeping up with Rainbow Dash’s finances was much more interesting than lording over a bunch of cold-blooded lizards. There were many ways to describe Rainbow Dash, but slow-paced was not one of them.

So Tank tapped her claw on the paper in front of her. She did it again until she had Rainbow Dash’s attention. Tortoises are patient creatures.

Rainbow Dash may have been a Pegasus with her head in the clouds, but she had learned that when Tank wanted her to look at something, it was worth looking at. She flew over and took a peek.

Her eyes widened. They gleamed with the unsophisticated greed of a child on Hearth’s Warming.

“I almost forgot!” Rainbow Dash said. “I’m rich!”

Aftermath: Spike

Spike swept the floor of the treehouse Princess Celestia had purchased for him and Twilight Sparkle when she sent them to Ponyville. The wood was starting to wear away, as were the bristles on the broom. The scaly calluses on his palms, however, were only growing tougher.

What else was there to do? He had already disorganized the bookshelves so Twilight could look forward to organizing them later.

So Spike flossed his teeth and appreciated the feel of the new shampoo on his strengthening scales. He went through some of Twilight’s routine correspondence, worked his way through some of the dense paperwork she had been doing for the princess, and perused a catalog from the Carousel Boutique.

No suits made for dragons—yet. Maybe he could ask for something tailor-made. She’d have to take his measurements….

Spike sat down at the table and poured himself a bowl of gemstones. He took a bite, chewed, and spat it out.

Rhodochrosite, gross! Twilight had gone shopping before the NGDP Targeting Festival. She really didn’t understand some things….

The door creaked open. Spike looked up. A lavender leg stepped into the room.

Spike kicked away from the table and shot out of the chair.

“Twilight!”

Aftermath: Twilight Sparkle

Twilight leaned nervously on her right side. It felt fine, she knew it was fine, but some part of her brain couldn’t shake the feeling that at any moment her ribcage was going to shatter under her own weight.

No sign remained of their adventure through the forest and the final confrontation with Nightmare Moon. Her hair wasn’t cut short, no scar marked her face. Her cutie mark hadn’t transformed, no crystal did she bear.

Everything was the same again. The status quo had been restored. So why did it feel like something was still missing?

“It’s strange,” Twilight said. “I know we defeated Nightmare Moon. I saw it with my own eyes. But it still feels…it still feels like when she had you sealed away. I had to do anything to get you back.”

“And you did.”

Princess Celestia allowed the tips of her mane to touch Twilight’s side.

“I truly thought I faced a thousand years inside the sun. Thanks to you, that visit was brief.”

“It doesn’t feel like you’re back. Even though I’m here with you, I’m still missing somepony….” Twilight trailed off.

Student and mentor sat beside each other on the softly waving field of grass. Twilight didn’t know where they were. A place of healing, a place of thought, which were in many ways the same thing to ponies like them.

Twilight broke the silence. “Did you know your sister was coming back?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What would you have done?”

“Gathered the Elements sooner.”

“And the Bearers?”

“We could have found them. You knew they were in Ponyville.”

“No.”

Twilight hesitated.

“What? But you sent me to Ponyville to find them, right?”

“No, I sent you to Ponyville because it is a dumpy backwater town full of rubes that doesn’t even have a university. It is the last place Nightmare Moon would think to look for an economist.”

“But…but what was your plan?”

Princess Celestia sighed.

“I didn’t have a plan. I knew I would not be able to defeat my sister, I knew the Bearers would not be revealed except in the act of their creation.”

Twilight blinked.

“So I resolved to raise an economist who could hope to be my successor in time,” Princess Celestia continued. “Someone who might maintain the Equilibrium and contest my sister’s control over the Bank while she searched for the power to defeat her.”

Twilight noted the way Princess Celestia described her as her successor. “But how could I have fought your sister? I can’t influence the Bank at all.”

“No? You didn’t notice those NGDP-controlling horns I had prepared at the festival in Ponyville? I felt you trigger one. Why do you think I was always so harsh on fakes and imitators? So that in a moment of need a seeming imitator would be a sign of my hoof.”

“Oh,” Twilight said. She felt stupid.

“But what could I have done after that?” she said. “It would still be a thousand years of misery.”

“I hoped you might go to Princess Cadance for help.”

Twilight was silent.

“Or your brother.”

Twilight didn’t answer.

Princess Celestia sighed. “Your stubbornness does you ill.”

The wind changed direction. Twilight stiffened. Sometimes the princess like to use the weather to illustrate a point, but she was not in the mood—

“I owe you an apology,” said Princess Celestia. “And my thanks.”

Twilight somehow managed to feel unsteady sitting down.

“I was mistaken to imprison my sister. I was mistaken to have no better plan than to hope one of my students could solve my own problem. But I was not mistaken to rely on you.”

It was some time before Twilight could look at her mentor and nod.

“I believe it is customary that when a brave young pony rescues the princess, she makes a request of the kingdom.”

At first Twilight thought she didn’t need anything, and truly, she didn’t. But then she remembered her friends.

“You could cut the vine binding the Cerberus to the forest,” Twilight said. “It would make her work easier, and Applejack already figured out the loophole.”

The princess nodded. “I will have to find a new guardian.“

“Maybe not. Pinkie Pie sort of made friends with the forest.”

“Ah. The pink one. I don’t think she likes me very much. Wait, she what?”

“And Fluttershy needs a flight permit, the highest level one.”

“A military grade permit? But—”

“No. Higher. A new one with no maximum speed or altitude.”

Princess Celestia digested this. “What else?”

“No more sealing ponies in astronomical objects.”

“I have already sworn this to myself a thousand times over. And what about you?”

Twilight thought.

“I don’t need anything,” she said. “Just to be with Spike again and to assist you with the Bank.”

“Then you will be pleased to hear that I am making some changes to the organization of the Bank in light of recent events,” Princess Celestia said.

She smiled at the expression on Twilight’s face. “Yes. In over a thousand years the Bank has been the one constant. Now it too must change.

“My sister was able to threaten the world with the power of the One Bank. No pony could resist her. Therefore I will create nine daughter banks centered in economically strategic locations to aid and, if necessary, oppose the Bank. The Nine Daughters will make Equestria’s economy more stable and robust than ever before.”

“With the One Bank to rule them all?” Twilight said.

“Yes,” said Princess Celestia, “and with the rainbow bind them.”

Twilight felt a stir of excitement. “Sounds like overseeing the creation of the Nine will be quite the administrative task. Lots of organizing to do, items to be checked off of lists….”

“Not to mention choosing the Chief Executive Economists of each of the Nine,” said Princess Celestia. “I was thinking perhaps Twinkleshine for Manehattan?”

“Twinkleshine? That b—”

“Bright young pony,” Princess Celestia cut in, “which is exactly what Equestria needs at this time. And yes, Trixie will be getting one too.”

“Don’t talk to me about that mare!”

“And,” said Princess Celestia, “it has come to my attention that a certain dumpy backwater town full of rubes by the name of Ponyville is quite the hub of economic activity these days. Despite not even having a university, some of Equestria’s most successful and growing businesses are based there. Furthermore, it is located by the Everfree Forest, a subject of some concern. I need one of my daughters—one of the Daughters placed in Ponyville, of importance secondary only to the One Bank.”

“Smart thinking,” Twilight said. “Somepony needs to keep their eyes on Rainbow Dash. I think she might be playing with more money than exists.”

“To manage the bank in Ponyville will require an econopony of the utmost intellectual and moral qualities. She must be brave, good, highly intelligent, with a proven history of wielding the Equilibrium for the betterment of all of Equestria, and she must be already familiar with Ponyville itself, particularly the most volatile yet successful businessponies who live there.”

“I’ll get the search started right away,” Twilight said.

Princess Celestia sighed.

“Twilight Sparkle, my dearest and most faithful student, I am offering the job to you.”

Aftermath: Ponyville

Twilight said yes, of course.

The construction of the Daughters began immediately. The flow of the bureaucracy and the stream of academic ponies to the new banks happened more gradually. Twinkleshine, that…well, you know, went to Manehattan, and Trixie to the Crystal Empire, and six other ponies to their places.

Twilight Sparkle went to Ponyville. There she survived her first party, helped to clean a Cerberus of her fleas, shook hoofs with a rather shifty tortoise, engaged in a hushed conversation about a parasprite, and barely prevented a giant serpent with growths like budding wings on its back from falling onto a house.

Then she invited her five friends to the first and last meeting of an ill-fated book club.

But even as she cringed when Applejack commented that Twilight’s library was the nicest outhouse she had ever seen, even when Rainbow Dash walked right out and it took Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie together to drag her back in, and even though Rarity seemed more interested in critiquing the library’s decor than anything Tina Malthushoof had to say about the formation of general gluts, some chamber hidden deep within her heart felt that it was almost as much fun as reading itself.

Almost. Well. Friends had their good points too. Maybe she wouldn't kick them out just yet.

(And the ponies of Ponyville hid away the stamps somepony had suggested they issue and spoke no more of the matter. The princess had her pride, and she was much beloved by all the ponies. And that too is how an equilibrium is maintained.)

The Tests of Twilight Sparkle: Theory and Practice

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.